Miss Emily

by Nuala O'Connor

[Lianne]

I won a complimentary copy of this book courtesy of the publishers. My full review of the novel can be found on my blog, eclectictales.com: http://www.eclectictales.com/blog/2015/12/21/review-miss-emily/

Miss Emily was an interesting novel about Emily Dickenson’s friendship with her family’s new maid, Ada Concannon, recently arrived to the United States from Ireland. It’s an interesting friendship as Ada is young, outspoken, and vivacious for life whereas Emily is older and much more introverted, contented with her thoughts and her writings and the few choice friends she had. But it’s a wonderful friendship in that Emily is very supportive of her young friend, regardless of age and class, which became especially important after Ada’s attack.

The author does a wonderful job in bringing the characters to life. I thoroughly cared for both main characters and their respective plights. Ada is so young and kind and so welcoming that it was sad to read what happened to her. I loved Emily’s chapters partly because I could relate to her quite a bit and understood some of what she was going through. I also love the reflections on her writing and how important it is to her. I did feel as though this contrast between Ada and Emily sort of fell the weyside once the conflict regarding Ada’s safety and person comes to the fore, but it does show how far Emily is willing to go to help a friend despite of her own qualms about putting herself out there for people notice.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Miss Emily. I don’t know what else to say about this novel, the setting and the characters were wonderful and brought to life by the author’s writing. Readers of historical fiction will want to check this title out :)

Rating: 3.5/5