Fallam's Secret: A Novel
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3.7 • 9 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A master storyteller delivers an historical novel with a twist-what will become of a modern American woman in Cromwell's England?
Returning home to West Virginia after her beloved Uncle John's death, Lydde finds that he has left her an odd legacy: a note with instructions that lead her to a remote mountain cave. When she falls into a crevasse, she finds she has followed her uncle farther than she thought-to Norchester, England, in 1657. Times are dark: the ruling Puritans have beheaded the king and prohibited song, dance, and even Christmas. Though she passes as a boy with her short hair and pants, local official Noah Fallam is still suspicious of her strange clothing and outspokenness. Luckily, she soon finds her uncle, and another man: the Raven, a bandit who provides for the poor through smuggling and robbery. The unlikely couple fall in love, and Lydde must decide where-and when-she belongs. This captivating story brings us close to Denise Giardina's signature concerns of faith and the way we treat the earth.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Giardina (Storming Heaven) constructs an intriguing time-travel narrative steeped in the history of West Virginia. After her family died in a fire in 1948, two-year-old Lydde Falcone was taken in by her Uncle John and Aunt Lavinia and grew up with them in West Virginia. Now a middle-aged actress living in Norchester, England, Lydde returns to West Virginia to take care of her aunt after John's death. There, she learns that John, a physicist, believed he had discovered a hole in the time/space continuum. She follows his map to some caves near her aunt's house, pokes around and suddenly finds herself back in England England of 1657, that is, where she finds her uncle alive and well. Passing as a man thanks to her outlandish clothes and forward manner, Lydde attracts the suspicion of Noah Fallam, a local Puritan official who upholds Oliver Cromwell's ban on music and art and turns out to be an ancestor of hers (his brother becomes one of the first Englishmen to come to Appalachia in 1671). She also falls for the Raven, a sort of Robin Hood who steals from rich Puritans to give to the poor. Lydde's rapid adjustment to her 17th-century surroundings is hard to swallow, as is her instant love for the Raven. Yet Giardina is an accomplished storyteller, and the narrative is rich in detail. The despoliation of West Virginia's mountains by mining companies, a familiar theme of Giardina's, adds complexity to the plot. While this book doesn't carry the literary weight of some of her previous work, it's a captivating read. 6-city author tour.
