Set in the early 1680s in London, this beautifully detailed, authentically voiced, first-person narrative centers on 16-year-old Meg, a girl who longs to do something outrageous for a woman in her time period—write. But her proper bookstore-proprietor father is dead set against it, sure that she will become a laughing stock if she tries. That thread of the story plays out when Meg’s friend Edward is kidnapped by pirates at sea. First, Meg uses the power of the pen to help secure his ransom, then meets with him secretly to write his tale of misadventure, all while flirting with her father’s apprentice, a more traditionally minded but still attractive suitor. What will strike contemporary readers of this engrossing historical drama is not only how hard girls, even fairly affluent ones, worked, but how different and constrained their life choices were. Yet the desire to find meaningful work, to love and be loved and to balance autonomy and attachment have remained constant, and readers will root for the lively heroine to find her way. (Fiction. 12-15)
