Will I love Fayne?

Ann-Marie MacDonald is one of North America's finest authors. Her remarkable research into the lives of a family living on the Fayne estate, straddling the border of Scotland and England in the late 1800s, will leave you in awe. This novel is a masterful blend of Victorian history, medicine, social barriers, and humor that will make you laugh out loud while keeping you captivated through 850 pages of unexpected twists and turns.

This one was recommended to me by a friend (who is also one of our local library’s staff) whose opinion I trust.

But I didn’t get around to picking it up (not an easy task, since it runs to over 700 pages) until I went to the laundromat and discovered Fayne lurking on the shelves of giveaway books (okay, it’s too hefty to actually lurk). We ignore such signs at our peril.

It proved, for a change, to be exactly the sort of book I tend to like: one that draws you inexorably into another world—in this case, Victorian England/Scotland—one… show more.