Amy Snow: A Novel

This was an amusing read. Just a few hours old, infant Amy Snow is abandoned and left for dead in a snowbank on the great Vennaway’s estate. Their kind daughter and heiress, Aurelia, finds Amy and forces her parents to keep her in their household. Amy grows up hated by Aurelia’s parents, but loved by Aurelia. Tragically, Aurelia dies young, but she leaves Amy coded letters that lead her on a hunt across England to discover Aurelia’s great secret. As she goes on this quest, Amy learns much about herself and her deceased friend.

While the resulting love story got a bit sappy for my taste, and the “mystery” wasn’t hard to figure out, Amy Snow is interesting enough as a character that the transparency of the mystery can be overlooked. Meek and abused at the beginning, she gains strength and self-respect as she overcomes obstacles and discovers that the world isn't as black and white as she imagined. Some aspects of the story needed to be better developed though. I wasn’t completely satisfied with the resolution and the explanation for Amy’s poor treatment as she grew up in the Vennaway household.

Still, if you’re looking for that comfortable combination of light reading + historical fiction, you will probably be able to overlook where this story falls short. I’m guessing fans of Julianne Donaldson, author of Edenbrooke and Blackmoore, will find this novel very appealing.