YA: A Nothern Light by Jennifer Donnelly

[Divia]

This is a YA book, but don't let that hinder you from reading it. The subject material is very adult and sometimes shocking.

Mattie is a young woman during the 1900s who is very smart and has some unconventional ideas. However, her father wants her to stay at home and help raise her sisters. He also wants her to marry a neighboring farmer(who is interested in Mattie), but she has reservations about him, although he is quite handsome. Mattie has dreams of college and maybe becoming a writer. She struggles with what society and her father wants for her and what she truly desires. Mattie cannot help but wonder if marrying would destroy her life and kill her inner sprit. Is she willing to take that risk?

The story is broken down into Mattie's life when she is on the farm and also when she is working at a hotel at Big Moose Lake. It is when she is working she meets a young woman named Grace Brown. Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy is loosely based off the Grace Brown murder. It is interesting how Donnelly weaves Grave Brown into the book, but for whose who are expecting a book about Grace Brown will be disappointed. This is about Mattie and Grace is nothing more than a backdrop.

Donnelly does an wonderful job of catching the ideas, prejudices, heartache and sprit of the time. She also handles Mattie's struggle beautifully.

To date this is one of the BEST YA novels I have read. For some people who dislike books that jump around from one time to another they may not like this novel's approach, but I strongly encourage you to give it a go anyway. This book will haunt you.

Strongly Recommended. A MUST read.

[diamondlil]

I enjoyed this book when I read it and I am glad to read anything new from her. What I am really waiting for though is the third book in the Rose trilogy!

By the way, it's probably worth mentioning that in some places this book was published under the title A Gathering Light.

[Kailana]

This is the only book I have read by her so far. I keep starting The Tea Rose and not getting very far with it...

[Divia]

I didnt like the Tea Rose. Everyone raves about it but its just not my thing. I'm not too impressed with her latest book either. Its another YA about time travel, and I hate time travel books. I don tnkow why she doesnt stick to writing HF like A Nothern Light.

[Kailana]

Yeah, I saw something about her new book. I don't know if I will bother with it or not... See if I can make it through her other trilogy first, I guess

[EC2]

At the turn of the 20th century, young Mattie is a farmer's daughter in the Adirondacks. Her mother has died; her big brother has run off, and it's left to Mattie and her younger sisters to help their beleagured father run his farm. Life is a struggle, but Mattie dreams of a scholarship and studying literature in New York. This is frowned on by the menfolk in her family but encouraged by her forward thinking schoolteacher Miss Wilcox, who has problems of her own. Mattie is being courted too by handsome farmer's son Royal Loomis - but they have little in common, although Mattie is highly attracted by his animal magnetism. She has more in common with poor young black boy Weaver, who is hoping to go to the city and study law, and they spend time playing fast riposte mind games.
While working as a servant in a local hotel, one of the guests dies in a tragic boating accident, but before she does, she gives Mattie a bundle of her letters to burn. But Mattie doesn't do that - she reads them, and begins to realise that all is not as it seems.
This is a well written, absorbing, coming of age story with no easy get outs for the characters. It's a page turner, but it's profound at the same time and totally immerses the reader in the life and times that it portrays. Every character is skillfully drawn and becomes vivid in the mind's eye. It's a Carnegie Medal winner and deservedly so. Recommended to both adult and young adult readers. There is some mention of sex but it's mostly off page and there are no graphic descriptions. 5 stars

[Misfit]

Thanks EC, I've been wanting to read this for a while now. Just been a low priority. I think Divia's read it also.

[Divia]

I have. It rocks. I meet with the author way back when. She was a great speaker. I'm waiting for her to write another YA book.

I also visited Grace Brown's grave because I used to teach in Otselic Valley.

[Anna Elliott]

Has anyone read Jennifer Donnelly's The Tea Rose? It caught my eye on the new book shelf of my library, but I haven't tried it yet. She's such a talented writer, though!

[Divia]

Has anyone read Jennifer Donnelly's The Tea Rose? It caught my eye on the new book shelf of my library, but I haven't tried it yet. She's such a talented writer, though!

I hated it, but everyone else seems to like it. Too long, too soap opera like and so not my thing.

[Misfit]

Has anyone read Jennifer Donnelly's The Tea Rose? It caught my eye on the new book shelf of my library, but I haven't tried it yet. She's such a talented writer, though!

I loved it, but it's definitely more towards romance and star-crossed lovers than historical. But I like romance on occasion.

[Anna Elliott]

Oh, thanks, that's very interesting--not at all what I would have expected from reading the jacket cover!

[EC2]

I loved it, but it's definitely more towards romance and star-crossed lovers than historical. But I like romance on occasion.

Did you think so Misfit? I found it very much akin to some of our meatier UK sagas - written for the romance industry but not the category romance industry. I'd call it a romantic historical in the style of Barbara Taylord Bradford's Woman of Substance - i.e. if you liked that, then you should enjoy The Tea Rose. I think I gave it 4 stars when I read it. One of those curl up with the characters and lose yourself type of books.

[Misfit]

Did you think so Misfit? I found it very much akin to some of our meatier UK sagas - written for the romance industry but not the category romance industry. I'd call it a romantic historical in the style of Barbara Taylord Bradford's Woman of Substance - i.e. if you liked that, then you should enjoy The Tea Rose. I think I gave it 4 stars when I read it. One of those curl up with the characters and lose yourself type of books.

I put The Tea Rose in my genre bending category - too much romance for some historical readers and too much history for some romance readers (no offense intended by this remark**) - and when I'm looking for a romance that's the kind of book I reach for.

**Lol, I had joined a historical romance group at Goodreads and when someone asked for new book ideas I suggested some from my Amazon List Books too good to be classified as straight romance and I got a couple of snarky comments about "straight romance" like I was putting them down. How many romance readers have you seen complain about Gellis because she's got so much history they're bored to death. I promptly unjoined that group.

[EC2]

I put The Tea Rose in my genre bending category - too much romance for some historical readers and too much history for some romance readers (no offense intended by this remark**) - and when I'm looking for a romance that's the kind of book I reach for.

**Lol, I had joined a historical romance group at Goodreads and when someone asked for new book ideas I suggested some from my Amazon List Books too good to be classified as straight romance and I got a couple of snarky comments about "straight romance" like I was putting them down. How many romance readers have you seen complain about Gellis because she's got so much history they're bored to death. I promptly unjoined that group.

Oh it's such a poisoned chalice isn't it because everyone's definitions are so different. Some of my best writer friends are romance writers and I do know how difficult it is to walk the line re making any sort of comment and not get shot off it by someone!

[diamondlil]

I would agree that The Tea Rose and The Winter Rose are more sagas than straight romance! There is a review of The Tea Rose here (http://www.historicalfictiononline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=307)

[Divia]

Saga romance? ;)

Its interesting that I loved A Northern light but despised Tea Rose. As I said before I'll be glad when she's done with the saga so she can move onto something I might actually enjoy.:p

[diamondlil]

Whereas I will be sorry to see it end, and will be hoping that she writes more! :p;)

[Misfit]

I would agree that The Tea Rose and The Winter Rose are more sagas than straight romance! There is a review of The Tea Rose here (http://www.historicalfictiononline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=307)

I actually agree, but I know there are some who wouldn't see it that way, which is why I like to point out the romance aspect. Just like with some of EC's earlier books, most of us love them just as much as the later ones but there is more of a romance "feel" (for lack of a better word) and don't appeal as much to all her fans. Mind you I'm only picking on EC 'cause she knows I love all her books ;):)

[diamondlil]

The RITA awards (Romance awards) have a category called Best Novel with Strong Romantic Elements and I think that that really fits!

[EC2]

The RITA awards (Romance awards) have a category called Best Novel with Strong Romantic Elements and I think that that really fits!

In the UK we have 2 prizes for Romantic fiction. There's the Romantic Novelists Association Major Award. The Tea Rose would fit into this category - mainstream fiction with a romantic element. Former winners include Philippa Gregory for The Other Boleyn Girl (although she now says she doesn't write romantic fiction), Rosamund Pilcher, Jo Jo Moyes. I've been on the shortlist 4 times. Dorothy Dunnett's been shortlisted before, so has Joanne Harris. Then you get the category romance award on which you'll find such authors as Nicola Cornick, Liz Fielding and the general field of Mills & Boon category romance which is almost purely hero and heroine relationship stuff without sidelines.

[Misfit]

I like that - all romance (or any genre) should not be lumped in one category. Same as with HF - one person's idea of it isn't the same as the next. i.e. Pillars of the Earth or worse yet That-Tudor-Vampire-Book that is being labled as HF.

[Madeleine]

I enjoyed A Gathering Light. I have heard vague rumours of a sequel. I wouldn't really call it HF in the true sense of the term, in fact it feels as if the events could have happened any time in the last 100 years or so. I'd like to have known a bit more about the background to Grace's death, although there were a few author notes in my copy. I think there was a film based on the case too.

Also waiting for the 3rd in the "Rose" trilogy!

[Divia]

I dunno, I think Donnelly did a good job capturing rural America in the 1900s. She also did a good job with racial and gender inequality.

Grace Brown was from a small farming NY State(Otselic Valley). She took a job in cortland(not too far away) and fell in love with Chester Gillette. She made poor choices, he knocked her up and she went back home where she wrote a bunch of letters begging him to take her back. He fell in love with a rich girl though. He said he would take her back. They went up to Big Moose Lake where he killed her. He hit her I think, but I dont remember with what and she drowned. I dont think she could swimm.

There is a book that has her letters in it. Also An American Tragedy is the book. The Movie is A Place in the Sun(??)

That was probably way too much information. :D :o

[Madeleine]

There is a book that has her letters in it. Also An American Tragedy is the book. The Movie is A Place in the Sun(??)



That's the one!:)