A wonderful slice-of-life story that combines the day to day life on a farm at the turn of the 19th to 20th century in upstate New York with a real life murder mystery that took place at the time.

The descriptions of life at that time combined with the mystery and a young girl’s hopes for a different life is excellent. Jennifer Donnelly’s prose is beautiful and she uses vocabulary and vernacular of the time and area.

Loved it.

Pretty, but a little too self-consciously crafted for my taste. A compellingly set story, though.

Donnelly is an incredible craftswoman. The story, the characters, the themes… everything was so perfectly pieced. There wasn’t a single awkward phrase. This book still flutters around in my ribcage a week after completion.