I loved Jennifer Donnelly’s ‘Tea Rose’ series, so I was really excited about my first foray into her YA fiction. I was not disappointed; this novel is satisfying and it’s exactly the kind of thing I would have read in my teen years.

As the daughter of a wealthy New York family, Josephine Montfort is expected to go to a particular school, marry a particular type of man and engage only in polite discussion with those she knows. She harbours a class-inappropriate desire to be an investigative journalist, but she successfully presents a facade to all around her. This all goes awry, however, when her father dies and Jo overhears a reporter stating that his death had perhaps not been as accidental as the police made it out to be.

That reporter is Eddie Gallagher, a former street kid trying to make a name for himself through an exclusive story. He and Jo fall, quite inconveniently for both of them, into a love affair that is inextricably linked with the search for the truth behind her father’s death.

Donnelly’s writing travels at a cracking pace and the 1890s New York she creates is fascinating. The characters are wonderfully complicated, and more than one mystery is uncovered. Jo is very likeable and, despite her life of privileged ease, I found myself rooting for her to find a way to escape and find her true self.

Reviewed by Julia Lloyd Bruin

Age Guide 13+