Who Knew Peppermints Could Be So Dangerous

Hello my lovely readers, I have finally dug myself out of the snow.  It has been a crazy week involving a lot of snow, a lot of station time, and not a whole lot of blog rambling, my most humble apologies.  I did however manage to squeeze in all kinds of reading time, which besides making me a very happy shut in, makes it possible for me to ramble my little brains out for a couple of posts.  I was also in a very nostalgic mood so I found a couple of books from back in my first library days to keep me company.  Peppermints in the Parlor is a middle grade book I recall rechecking out several times.  It was always a wee bit confusing to me, but it had a spunky girl and a mean old lady and that was one of my favorite story lines growing up.  Without further ado and SPOILERS AHEAD on with the rambling.

Emily Luccock has lost both her parents in a tragic boating accident and she is being sent to live with her Aunt and Uncle Twice, so called because her aunt is her mothers sister, and her uncle is her fathers brother, and when they married they became Emily's Aunt and Uncle twice over.  Though sad at her parents passing, Emily is excited to live with her aunt and uncle, recalling the wonderful times she had at Sugar Hill Hall, the parties, the beauty and splendor, the love of her aunt and uncle.  Emily arrives on a foggy evening in San Francisco and instead of being greeted by her glorious aunt and uncle, is forced to wait for hours until she is picked up.  At first Emily does now recognize her aunt, who has gone from a famous beauty, to a washed out, tired and scared woman.  Aunt Twice tells Emily that she must do exactly as she is told no matter how hard.  When they finally get to Sugar Hill Hall, Emily is horrified to see it in the hands of a snake like woman by the name of Mrs. Meeching who makes it very clear that she considers Emily no more then a common scullery maid. In the front parlor is a huge bowl of Emily's favorite treat, shiny, red and white peppermints.  She is informed under no circumstances is she to ever take one.  Aunt Twice takes Emily through the house, which has lost most of its splendor, through the industrial kitchen to the cellars where she is given a tiny
room, more like a cell really.  Aunt Twice tells Emily that she is a prisoner in her own home forced to work to keep somebody alive.  She will not give Emily any other details and begs her not to ask questions.  Emily is then handed over to Tilly, the rough young maid who is thrilled to finally have somebody beneath her.  Tilly goes back and forth between being Emily's friend, and being mean.  Emily's first task is to help Tilly with supper, which consists of a thin grey soup and moldy bread lumps.  These are given to the dozen or so old people who live in the mansion now.  Mrs. Meeching has turned Sugar Hill Hall into a old folks home.  The residents are silent and barely pick at their unappetizing food.  Emily notices that one resident is missing and is informed that the resident had stolen a peppermint and is now locked in the Room of Remembrance for punishment.  After the residents are fed Tilly and Emily go back to their own portion of soup and moldy bread, forced to watch as Aunt Twice prepares a huge feast of the most lucious foods for Mrs. Meeching and her cohort Mrs. Plumly, the grandmother like, knitting one of the pair.  Emily also meets Kipper, a fishermans son who while doing the occasional odd job for the Hall does what he can to help Emily.  Eventually Emily decides that since she can't help her self or her aunt, she will help the old people.  She starts slipping them fish oil so that they have appetites enough to eat the disgusting food, forcing Mrs.

Meeching to get them fresh food.  Emily and Kipper smuggle a kitten up to the old folks, along with some hobby supplies.  This helps to awaken the older folks, and Emily learns just how feisty they can be.  Mrs. Plumly has taken a couple opportunities to smuggle Emily to her rooms and feed her tea and cakes, she tells Emily that she too is a prisoner in the Hall, albeit a luckier one then Emily or her Aunt.  These visits continue as Emily continues to help the old people.  One horrible day Emily, Kipper and the old folks are all caught and Emily is sent to the Room of Remembrance.  Kipper finds a way to unlock her cell and they discover a trapdoor and tunnel that leads to a seedy tavern.  Their they discover that it is actually the sweet Mrs. Plumly who is in charge, slipping Emily truth serum in her tea to discover what she is up too.  They also discover that the old folks home is just a front for a smuggling operation.  Emily is summoned to Kippers house to hear the confession of an old sea captain who says he framed her Uncle Twice for a murder and used it as blackmail to get the Sugar Hill Hall.  It is all resolved, Mrs. Meeching and Mrs. Plumly are arrested after they are trapped by peppermint pelting old folk, and Aunt and Uncle Twice are reunited.  The family and the old folks, Tilly and Kipper all get their happy ending.

When I was in elementary and middle school, I had a thing for books about poor orphan girls and cruel mistresses that kept them locked up and enslaved, I am not sure why this trope appealed to me so much, but there you have it.  This book like I said was full on nostalgia for me, I remember reading it back when I was 8 or 9 and loving it.  The heroine is great because she does not start all spit and fire, and in fact has to dig pretty deep to keep herself from cracking.  I loved that when she realized that she could not immediately help herself or her aunt that she decided to help the old folks instead. Her initial reaction was always one of kindness, which seems to be lacking in some of the newer books.  I liked for the most part how the older people were portrayed, at first beaten down by the cruel Mrs. Meeching, but they themselves rallied and

became individuals again.  I liked how they reminded Emily that they too were people, with talents and lives. I love love love the character of Tilly, she is probably one of the more realistic characters in this fairly straight forward trope tale.  She is constantly torn between wanting Emily as a friend, and trying to be a good person as far as she knows how and doing her best to get ahead in the world.  She is glad to finally not be the low man on the totem pole and give Emily all the crap jobs, while enjoying the slim perks of what she considers more senior jobs.  She eventually proves herself a faithful, if somewhat rough friend and finds a place with Emily and her family.  Kipper acts at the semi-plausible way for Emily to solver her problems, that along with a gold coin gets her all the supplies she needs to make this story possible, I also love that every other sentence out of his mouth starts with "As Pa always says".  The ending is still a bit confusing for me, seeming to add characters and circumstances that appear out of nowhere to try and make sense of Uncle Twice's disappearance and the reasoning behind Aunt Twice's servitude.  Overall the book is pretty straight forward, sticking with a formula that works, while adding some great characters and just enough creepiness to keep you turning the pages. This is a quick read for most of us and is completely suitable for the 9 and up crowd. I give it 7 out of 10 peppermints.
What books do you remember rereading as a kid?  Do you find it hard to track down these books?  Are you ever disappointed when you reread your childhood favorites?  Is it funny that a grown woman is reading children's books and loving them?

Horrifically Normal

I just finished reading The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls the debut novel of Claire Legrand (who has some of the coolest Pinterest boards). It is a MG book that is equal parts, creepy, disgusting and unfortunately frustrating.  I already know that I am in the minority for my lack of complete and utter love for this book, which is good, I like it when people read and love stories, even if I don't so if you read and loved this book please, please, please take note of my post No Apologies.  That being said I did not hate, or even dislike the book, I just had some issues with it, but more on that in a little bit, first the synopsis.  As always Spoilers Ahead!

Victoria Wright (which is seriously the most perfect name for this character) likes order, her room is neat as a pin and organized to the point even Martha Stewart would be proud. Victoria has the need to be perfect in all things, appearance, grades, tone, voice, everything.  Victoria only has one friend, well actually she considers him more of a project then a friend.  His name is Lawrence Prewitt and he is something of a musical genius, he is also sloppy, loud and much more relaxed then his friend "Vicky" (He is the only one
who can get away with calling her that).  One day Victoria goes to Lawrence's house as usual so that they can walk to school together.  She is informed by his parents (who are acting odd) that he has gone to visit his grandmother.  Victoria goes to school where she notices most of the teachers and some of the students are also acting oddly, kind of super smiley and stiff.  Victoria also starts to notice that certain kids are missing, Donovan who purposely downs bags of treats in flagrant violation of the school rules, and Jacqueline who is a bit of an odd duck, creative, dreamy and not at all "normal" (lot's of air quotes in this post folks).  Some feeling leads Victoria to go visit the Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls where she is greeted by a creepy gardener by the name of Mr. Alice who appears to be puffy with moving skin.  Victoria is taken to see Mrs. Cavendish who gives her some chewy butterscotch candy and assures her that her children are all very happy.  Although she can not see the children, Victoria hears talking and laughter and gets a warm fuzzy feeling that all is well.  As she leaves a paper airplane if flown to her and she takes it with her.  When she gets home she opens it and finds the words HELP US written on the inside. She decides to investigate and goes to the library where all the adults are acting weird. She goes to the archive room and tries to find out anything about the Home and does not have a whole lot of luck.  Her favorite teacher Professor Alban comes in looking frightened and tells Victoria that he is being watched, they find an old picture that looks just like Mr. Alice and Mrs. Cavendish but that is impossible because it is over 100 years old.  As soon as they find this her teacher freaks out and tells her to hide.  The room starts oozing and a ton of shiny black pincer bugs come out of the walls and take Prof. Alban away.  Victoria heads home and realizes that her parents are starting to act strange, just like the rest of the town.  She goes to a Mr. Tibbalts house who informs her that Mrs. Cavendish takes all the children who do not fit the strict standard of normal and "fixes" them...or if she can't fix them they disappear. The townsfolk are all partly bewitched or something and partly allow it to happen because of there need for normalcy.  Victoria heads to the Home where she is promptly captured and placed in a pitch black room full of the pincer bugs.  She is eventually let out and see's that all the missing children are there.  Mrs. Cavendish and Mr. Alice then proceed to do some pretty horrible things to try and make the children "normal", like
forcing Donovan to eat sweets until he is sick and then starving him, or whipping Jacqueline every time she tries to get creative with her art work.  They also punish Victoria's friends every time she stands up to them.  This all gets pretty sick and twisted for a while.  Victoria eventually figures out that the structure of the Home itself is alive and is trying to help her.  The children are served a weird mix of eggs and stinky meat for every meal and they are served by weird deformed little creatures called gofers.  She notes that they have the exact same shape and color eyes and the chewy candies she ate before...gross.  She also discovers that the children that can't be "normalized" are cut down to the hideous gofers  and the extra parts are fed to the kids.  Victoria convinces the others that they have to escape.  She goes to the garden and discovers that the adults that defied her have been turned into trees and they are the ones who have been helping her.  She goes to a hut where Mrs. Cavendish has made puppets out of the adults (I guess this is how she is controlling them) and cuts all there strings.  Mrs Cavendish turns into a giant spider and chases Victoria until she, the Home and the gardens are all swallowed up into the earth.  The epilogue shows Lawrence going to music school and Victoria heading off to college. The End.

Let's jump right into this shall we, lets start with what worked for me.  I did like the character of Victoria a lot, she was a good girl who saw the sense in following rules (which is a nice refresher from the firebrand rule breakers that have been big in heroines lately), she was a good student and wanted things to be orderly...she also found out that she had a core of steel and could use her stubbornness and sheer determination to the benefit of her new found friends.  I also liked the potential commentary on how we overlook bad things, things that just are not quit right as a community as long as we can keep our illusion of "normalcy", we have seen examples of this in the real world, and this was a creative way to comment on that.  The book was
creepy for sure, and the imagery was beautifully written.  Now on to what did not work so much for me.  I did not feel that this was a complete story, there was absolutely no explaining who, what or why Mrs. Cavendish was.  The only real thing we got was she set up shop in this particular town because of the peoples need for order.  There was no explanation given to what she got out of transforming boys and girls into shining examples of good behavior, therefor to me the villain had no real motivation which put a huge damper on it for me.  There were also parts of the book that felt like it skipped around and I found myself flipping back and forth wondering if I missed something.  I also felt (and this is a completely personal thing here) that to much of the potential creepiness turned into out and out disgusting horror.  I don't mind when certain things are put in to illustrate just how evil the situation is, but when I get inundated with them, the horror level goes down and the ew that's just gross factor sets in. The unknown noises that go bump in the night with the occasional confirmation of grotesque horror is much more effective at maintaining the the tension. The ending was abrupt with a bit of hurried resolution that did not show hardly any of the aftermath of such a huge event, most importantly what happened to all the little gofers and trees?  Overall I got a very strong Coraline vibe, all the way down to the sweet motherly figure that goes all spidery on the heroine and the ghost children voices.  I have to admit I liked Coraline much better.  Like I said earlier, I did not hate the book, it's just that all of the aforementioned issues kept taking me out of the story which made it a not so happy read.  I do think the author has potential and I will be looking at her next books because I think she is just going to keep improving with time.  I am glad to see so many people liked it, and hope it encourages her to keep writing.  I give this book 5 out of 10 butterscotch eye candies.

What did you think of this book?  Am I way to nit picky about a children's book?  Who are some of your favorite authors that got off to a rocky start?  Does this book give a whole new meaning to the term eye candy?

Birds Of A Feather

One of the books I finished during The Best Weekend EVER! was one that had been on my TBR pile for awhile.  The Aviary by Kathleen O'Dell was one I had bought last summer and wanted to save for a literal rainy day,  I then put it on my overstuffed book shelf and promptly forgot about it until Hubbin found it and asked me what it was.  His finding it was perfect timing to start my fall reading so off I went.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

The Aviary is about Clara Dooley a 12 year old girl who has spent her life in the old Glendoveer mansion with only her mother, the cook Ruby and the old widowed Mrs. Glendoveer.  Clara has been told her whole life that she has a heart condition that makes it necessary to stay at the house and avoid any strenuous activity, this has led to Clara spending the vast majority of her life inside the walls of the Glendoveer mansion.  Besides the humans there is a huge aviary full of five different birds.  A myna bird, a cockatoo, a grackle, a kiskadee and a honey creeper .  These birds have been around longer then Clara and her mother have lived at the mansion.  One day when Clara is out tending the birds (even though they frighten her) the myna bird says "Eliott" very clearly.  Clara tells this to Mrs. Glendoveer and is told that Elliot is the name of her

youngest son who was kidnapped when he was a mere 5 months old along with his five older siblings.  Sadly Mrs. Glendoveer dies and leaves the house with a small stipend to Clara's mother and Ruby with the stipulation that they keep it in the family until the end of a set 50 year period, which will be up in a few months.  This change cause Clara's mother and Ruby to run errands outside of the house, leaving Clara completely alone for the first time in her life.  Clara starts exploring the house, discovering a long locked up nursery.  While she is up there she catches sight of a girl on her way home from school.  The next day a note is pushed through the slot of the door asking telling Clara that she had been seen at the window by the little girl the day before (who's name is Daphne) and would like to be her friend.  Clara agrees but has to sneak her friend in for visits because her mother does not want her playing with any outsiders. Daphne is curious about all the mysterious bad juju the house seems to have with the local town folk, Clara being stuck inside the estate has no idea what happened.  At some point there is a huge storm and one of the birds, the small honeycreeper is injured.  Clara takes it inside and nurses it back to health, discovering along the way that it can answer yes or no questions.  Oddly enough the bird likes to dance as well.  Clara snoops around some more and finally figures out what happened to the Glendoveer children.  The nanny had helped to kidnap the children and taken them out on a boat to take them to one of the little islands when a storm came up and sank the ship.  The bodies of the nanny and the five older children were found shortly thereafter.  Nobody knows for sure what happened, but there was nasty speculation that the children's father (a magician) had done it as a stunt to revive his show.

 Eventually Clara discovers that the birds are actually the spirits of the dead children, Mr. Glendoveer had cast a spell to bind them to the bird bodies, stuck until all six children were reunited.  The problem being that the youngest Elliot was never found.  In the almost 50 years since the incident the children have been trapped as birds waiting for there baby brother to release them.  Clara's mother finally figures out everything that she has been doing and gets very upset, Clara finally puts her foot down, asking why she is stuck at home when she feels fine, and why can't she have friends, and why is her mother afraid of her finding the truth about the Glendoveer family?!?  Clara's mother tells her that her father grew up an orphan with a cruel adoptive father.  One day he found cuff links that had belonged to Mr. Glendoveer and was convinced that he was the baby Elliot that had gone missing.  He set of to discover if this was true and dissapeared.  Clara's mother having a young baby and a missing husband went to the mansion to see if he had appeared there, he was not there, but that was when she got the position of live in caretaker.  She kept Clara hidden because she was afraid she might get mixed up with all the badness too. Clara's mother allows Daphne to come over and the girls devise a trap for a hypnotist that worked with Mr. Glendoveer for his show.  The birds have become very conversant with Clara and are able to tell her everything they are able to remember, including how the nanny had "cold eyes" which leads

Clara and Daphne to realize that she had been hypnotized. The Hypnotist (who is quit old now) and his burly bodyguard Mr. Dooley are eventually trapped in the Aviary and confess to everything.  The hypnotist did it because his family had cut him off when he went on stage, turns out he did not need the money as the family took him back eventually.  Mr. Dooley was the thug who was manning the boat during the kidnapping and managed to save baby Elliot, raising him as his own. When Elliot went back to try and find the hidden money the Hypnotist hypnotized him into staying on the island for the last 10 years.  Elliot returns to his childhood home and to his beloved wife and daughter.  The money is recovered, the spirits of the children are set free and it is assumed they all live happily ever after.

Depending on how you read this book, it is either an enduring story of friendship, family and period elegance, or it is a meh mystery with some non spooky ghost elements.  I have read several reviews of this book (after I had finished it of course, didn't want to be influenced ahead of time) and most people seemed to look at it as less a mystery/ghost story and more of a period, Gothic children's story.  I think it works best if thought of in that manner.  The character of Clara is great, the author set up a believable reason for her to be isolated, which gave credibility to her almost complete naivete when it came to the family history.  It made the process of finding things out with her exciting instead of eye-rolling.  Daphne, who may be my favorite character ever is just awesome.  She is spunky and dramatic and reminds me a bit of Anne of Green Gables getting her ideas from books (especially Boys Adventure Magazine).  She is a true friend to Clara with no stupid interruptions from boys or jealousy or any annoying stuff like that.  The relationship between Clara and her mother is also wonderful and about as realistic as a book with ghosts and spirit bird children can be.  The

birds were a pretty cool addition, kind of creepy and yet not scary.  The setting was awesome, I totally want to go visit this mansion and poke around in all the rooms now. The style was a great throwback/reminiscent of the way books used to be written before they all had to be preachy or super dark or hip, when family and friendship where the most important part of life, and telling a good story is all a book needed.  The mystery itself was not that impressive, I had it all figured out in the first couple of chapters and the biggest mysteries were solved about 2/3 of the way through the book, not leaving a whole lot of tension for a dark and stormy night which I would have preferred given that it had all the elements for a bit more of a good old fashioned ghost story.  Overall it was a great little book, suitable from anybody from the 9 year old range all the through the adult who loves a good period tale.  The story is simple, sweet, fun, and with just enough supernatural to make it a bit spooky but not scary (so no nightmares for you wussypants :-) ). Also this book has one of the coolest covers ever.  I give it 7 out of 10 peacock feathers.
What sort of YA books do you like to read?  What time period is your favorite to read?  What animal would you want your soul to be trapped in for 50 years?

Childrenawoo

Quick little book that has been on my radar for some time, The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood.  This was a fun little read that is the first book in the Incorrigible Children series about three special children and there young governess. As Always Spoilers Ahead.

Penelope Lumley a recent graduate of the Swanburne Acadamey for Poor Bright Females is on her way to her first interview as a governess.  She is only fifteen and is understandably nervous about this opportunity, the only bright spot is that the advertisement specifically mentioned a love of animals as a requirement.  Upon her arrival to Ashton Place she is taken to the new young wife of Lord Ashton who gives her a few vague details about the children, but shows her a contract with a very high salary and very desirable benefits.  Penelope decides to accept the job and signs on.  All through out this interview, Penelope hears a strange howling sound, almost as if there are hungry dogs around, Lady Ashton tries to brush it off, but the howling continues.  Penelope does learn that the children are not the natural children of Lord and Lady Ashton, but rather three orphans who were found wandering the woods on a hunting trip.  For some unknown reason Lord Ashton has taken to the idea of keeping the children, even though his young wife is overwhelmed.

Unable to stand the howling of the poor dogs any longer, Penelope goes out to the barn to see what the matter is, and lo and behold instead of dogs, she finds three children.  The children seem to be feral and are running around like animals with no clothes on and and no way to communicate. Penelope is understandably upset and goes to see Lord Ashton about moving the children into the nursery.  He says that it is to late that night, but they can move in the next day.  And so begins Penelope Lumley's humerus attempts to tame these feral wolf children.  After bathing and clothing the children who have been named according to Lord Ashton's wishes. Ten year old Alexander, eight year old Beowulf, and 5 year old Cassiopeia. The children learn English fairly quickly, only adding a woo to certain words, leading Penelope to become Ms. Lumawoo.  The children do their best to learn everything there beloved Ms. Lumawoo is teaching them and make considerable progress.  Lady Ashton informs Penelope that she is holding a party for Christmas and all of the best of society will be there. Even though he is absent at his club most of the time Lord Ashton has decided that the children should attend and it is up to Penelope to get them ready.  The party comes and the children start off behaving impeccably well, much to the disappointment of certain guests who were apparently expecting the equivalent of caged animals.  All goes well until a little play about wolves is presented, when questioned the actors produce a letter requesting that only wolf plays be
presented.  Just as the children are being calmed, a squirrel is released into the ballroom, causing the children to lose control and chase after it.  Penelope eventually catches up to the children, and brings them to their room to get some rest.  The next morning, while awaiting a summons from Lady Ashton about the children's behavior, Cassiopeia remarks on the similarity of hair color between herself and Ms. Lumawoo.  Penelope is summoned and fired by Lady Ashton as she intends to send the children away, but Lord Ashton makes an appearance (after being absent for the whole party) and insists the children, and by proxy Ms. Lumley stay.  Lady Ashton and Penelope both agree that something strange is going on, and that the children were provoked on purpose, but by who is not known.  The book ends on this little cliff hanger, giving us a reason to read the next book.

The book was a pretty quick read, I think it only took me a day or two.  The kids were my favorite part of the book, the contrast in them being perfect ladies and gentlemen and then switching to the more feral versions was fun to watch.  Penelope is a good hearted, smart girl who truly wants the best for her pupils.  Her ability to adapt and yet still expect great things is refreshing.  None of the questions or mysteries get resolved at all which is a little frustrating, and on occasion it got a bit dark for a middle grade book (think the hunting of children with guns!).  Overall it was cute, and entertaining and I will probably read more books in this series.  I give it 6 out of 10 wolf-pups

Identical Convolutedness

Finished a good little book called The Twins Daughter.  It is a gothicish, Victorian era type mystery 'cause that's not confusing at all.  I will try and warn you when I get to the spoily parts 'cause if you haven't read it yet and you have some time, you most definatly should and it would not be half as fun if you knew the ending, on the other hand it will be really hard for me to give you my impressions of this book if I didn't discuss the end...so...you have been warned.

This story is told by a 13 year old Lucy who has grown up the only child of a wealthy family.  Her father is an independantly rich author and her mother is a beautiful socialite who dotes on her only daughter.  Our story starts with Lucy giving us a quick overview of her parents and her life, which seem comfortable and normal, if not a bit boring for the lack of other young people in the area.  Life takes a bit of a dramatic turn when a knock on the door turns out to be Lucy's mothers unknown identical twin sister. Apperantly they were born to a maid and the well to do couple who employed her decided they would raise one girl as there own and sent the other to an orphanage.  Aunt Helen is a bit rough around the edges but is invited to live with Lucy and her parents.  Aliese (Lucy's mother) decides to teach her new found sister deportment, manners, style, and so forth so she can also be passed of as a lady of standing.  Eventually after all the training and dressing up it becomes almost impossible to tell the two women apart.  The family decides to hold a party for Aunt Helen and here is where Lucy meets the new neighbor boy Kit, whom she at first finds boring, but eventually becomes friends with. Time passes and we see Lucy grow from a child to a young woman, and her friendship with Kit turn into a bit of a crush on both sides.  One day after sneaking out to the park on her own Lucy comes home to find a horrific scene in the parlor.  The twins each tied to a chair, one with her throat slit and dead, the other in a daze...but who is who?
SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT

This is where if you want to really enjoy the book you should read no further 'cause this is where it gets twisty.  So obviously the big mystery here is supposed to be which twin survived and which twin was brutally murdered.  Lucy goes in and the woman who is alive claims to be her mother, and the dead woman Aunt Helen. Lucy notices that the woman is not wearing a wedding ring, but she soon spots it on the floor and gives it back. Aliese claims that a man was robbing them and tied her and Aunt Helen up and killed Helen.  As part of the investigation an autopsy reveals that Aunt Helen was pregnant, which since she was unmarried at the time is more than a bit scandoulus.  Time goes on and Lucy notices a great change in her mother, she is sharper and more outspoken then she ever was before.  She treats Lucy's father with border line contempt

and is always off to some party or another.  Lucy grows into her late teens and her relationship with Kit continues to develop, even as her fathers health starts to decline, he dies from a heart attack no more than a couple of years after Aunt Helen is murdered.  After her fathers death, Lucy notices her mother dissaperaing and staying out very late.  One night Lucy waits up for her and see's her with a man she remebers seeing with Aunt Helen before she died.  Lucy realizes that the woman is not her mother, but Aunt Helen posing as Aliese.  Lucy decides that she is only impersonating her mother as to not lose her home and be turned out into the streets so Lucy makes the descision to not tell her she knows who she is and instead covertly help her maintain her cover.  Aunt Helen/Aliese soon remarries the man Lucy saw her with, a man who is not from the same class as Lucy's family.  Lucy takes an immediate dislike to him, but has no real say in the matter.  Aunt Helen/Aliese soon becomes pregnant and relies heavly on Lucy to help her through the birth and the babies first couple of years.  Kit heads of to war after declaring his love for Lucy.  Lucy essentially becomes her little sister/cousins Emma's nurse maid and becomes very attached and bonded with her.  A couple more years pass, Kit comes back wounded, but alive from the war and proposes to Lucy who accepts.  They decide to wed quickly and as she is getting ready Aunt Helen/Aliese says something to Lucy that only her mother would know and all at once Lucy realizes that it is her mother and not Aunt Helen that survived after all, and putting all the pieces together realizes that something horrible occured in the death of her Aunt.  After the wedding she confronts her mother who confesses everything.  She met her now husband and fell in love with him around the time
Aunt Helen showed up, she also discovered that Aunt Helen and her husband were having an affair which resulted in Aunt Helen becoming pregnant.  Aliese not wanting the scandal convinced her lover to come up with a plan to get rid of Aunt Helen and stage it a botched robbery. Aliese said she also purposly acted like Aunt Helen at times to confuse people so that they would not ask to many questions and to drive away Lucy's father. Aliese's new husband sneaks up on Lucy and decides they have to kill her now that she knows there secret, she is saved by Kit and they turn the pair into the police.  The pair end up hanging for their crimes and Lucy raises her sister Emma along with her own daughter wondering how they will tell her about her real parents when she is older.

Ok so that was a long one, but the last third of the book threw out some very well written twists that I have to say I loved.  You really think you have it figured out pretty early, in fact you may even be dissapointed in how easily you figured it out, then BAM new twist thrown in.  I loved watching Lucy grow from a 13 year old girl into a 20 year old married woman.  The growth and progression seemed to make a lot of sense and her romance with Kit followed an equally reasonable progression growing in stages as she did.  The only thing I had a really hard time with, is the seeming ease that Lucy turned her beloved mother into the authorities knowing full well that she would be hung for her crimes.  I know the author established a bond between Aunt Helen and Lucy, but there was also a very tight bond between mother and daughter as well.  Even though Aliese seemed to get a bit more distant after Aunt Helen died she seemed to maintain her bond with Lucy.  To me it just seemed a little abrupt for all of that to dissapear in an instant, even with the horror of what her mother had done.  All in all I found it to be a good little book, it was a fairly quick read, the pacing stayed at a nice brisk pace and the story made sense.  Good curl up in a comfy chair during a rain storm book. I give it four out of five toasted marshmallows.
Do you like mistaken identity stories?  What is your favorite book with a twist?  What would it take for you to turn in your own mother?