The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare

 

I received a copy of this release from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Title: The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare
Author: Kimberly Brock
Publisher: Harper Muse
Release Date: 4.12.22


Publisher’s Summary

The fate of the world is often driven by the curiosity of a girl.

What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke remains a mystery, but the women who descended from Eleanor Dare have long known that the truth lies in what she left behind: a message carved onto a large stone and the contents of her treasured commonplace book. Brought from England on Eleanor’s fateful voyage to the New World, her book was passed down through the fifteen generations of daughters who followed as they came of age. Thirteen-year-old Alice had been next in line to receive it, but her mother’s tragic death fractured the unbroken legacy and the Dare Stone and the shadowy history recorded in the book faded into memory. Or so Alice hoped.

In the waning days of World War II, Alice is a young widow and a mother herself when she is unexpectedly presented with her birthright: the deed to Evertell, her abandoned family home and the history she thought forgotten. Determined to sell the property and step into a future free of the past, Alice returns to Savannah with her own thirteen-year-old daughter, Penn, in tow. But when Penn’s curiosity over the lineage she never knew begins to unveil secrets from beneath every stone and bone and shell of the old house and Eleanor’s book is finally found, Alice is forced to reckon with the sacrifices made for love and the realities of their true inheritance as daughters of Eleanor Dare.

In this sweeping tale from award-winning author Kimberly Brock, the answers to a real-life mystery may be found in the pages of a story that was always waiting to be written.




My Review
This is one of those books that I have to give you a backstory on before I get to my review. In 2012, I desperately wanted to leave my retail management job when a friend put me in contact with an Atlanta magazine editor to whom I pitched the idea of a book review for the magazine. I couldn't believe my luck that she said "yes" and my first published book review was Kimberly Brock's The River Witch. 

Now, 10 years later, Brock's continued commitment to her craft is apparent with a much more detailed story (at 464 pages TLBoED is almost twice as long as TRW). She has not strayed from her magical storytelling style as this wonderfully atmospheric imagining of a historic mystery is written in the same prose that entranced readers of The River Witch. I wrote that The River Witch was a perfect example of modern Southern gothic, full of "family, faith and resentment mix[ed] with love and loss, broken bodies and souls, and a stranger in a strange place." The same characteristics can also be applied to The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare with a strong emphasis on heritage and familial lines.

Another personal note: I am so happy to be able to support the wonderful author who helped to launch my book reviewing career. Upon meeting me in 2012, Kim insisted that I start a book blog ASAP. I took her advice and the rest is history!