Nikolaos Patronas Patronas itibaren Dondo, Angola
Wonderful book by a first-time author. Historical fiction and love story about an unwed mother in 19th Century England. Charlotte is from a respected family and is disowned by her father, a vicar, and older sister when she found pregnant out of wedlock. Her father forbids other family from also helping her. Her only choice is to go to a home for unwed mothers to have her baby. There is a lot of historical facts about how unwed mothers were ostracized, the way some physicians treated them, wet nursing, women secretly giving up their babies, postpartum depression, and using goats to feed infants no one would nurse. Charlotte remains a lady through and through and is admired for her helpfulness, poise and character. She makes many hard/heartbreaking decisions that show much love and maturity. She does get some help that many other women in her situation wouldn't have gotten partly due to again meeting an earlier acquaintance but also because of her character. If Charlotte wasn't such a strong character I probably would have only given 3 stars since this is not the genre I enjoy. Some plot points were predictable but there were also some hunches I had that didn't go the way I expected. Such is life and made it more realistic. I found myself rooting for her over and over and hoping something really good would happen in her life. The ending made me tear up even though it was not what I thought would happen. The other thing I really appreciated about the book is that a sensitive subject was handled with tact and without judgement. Klassen could have easily added "R" rated material but she kept it clean. Kudos for that.