This book is based on the true life murders of Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery in Canada in the mid-1800s. Accused of these murders is Grace Marks, age 16. Unfortunately, she has no memory of the murders at all. Years later she is visited by Dr. Simon Jordan, a man very interested in psychological disorders and who someday hopes to run an asylum of his own. His task is a great one, to see if Grace has truly forgotten the events surrounding the murders, or if she is harboring a darker secret.

Atwood draws a lot of parallels between Grace's story and different patterns of quilting blocks. It was beautiful use of symbolism, and since I knew nothing about quilting, I actually picked up a few interesting pieces of trivia.

Atwood occassionally jumps from one point-of-view to another as she jumps back and forth in time to tell this tale. Most of the time it works without a hitch, but once or twice the switch didn't quite work.

I definitely wanted to read more. At the same time, I wanted to pick up something more light hearted.

I was at times happy. I was at times sad. I laughed out loud, and occassionally I wanted to step on in and tell the characters what they needed to do differently to get out of the mess they'd found themselves in.

Margaret Atwood has a wonderful way with words. For those not familiar with her work "The Edible Woman", "The Handmaid's Tale", "Cat's Eye", and "The Robber Bride" are also titles I can recommend.

First and foremost, this is a wonderful story. Secondly, it is very well written and provides wonderful examples of how to create characters (and a story line) that will keep readers interested.

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Created Nov 26, 2001 at 11:02am • Submit your own review...