I muchly like and admire Agnes Resolute, the main character of this novel, and my review is based on this emotional connection to her, as there are very real flaws within the novel and I will speak about them later. But, Agnes has won my heart by her dogged, hard-headed resolution to FIND her mother, to the hell with the costs and losts, come hell or high water - or how far away the said mother might be. And because the long lost mother is a flighty character, Agnes must cross more than one ocean to get into the touch with her. Mind you, it is 1874 and Agnes was raised as an orphan in the orphanage, without any education, money or connections. Instead of these things she has another fuel, the one what drives all of her being - to meet her mother.
And as she is courageous and very kind person, she meets - or win - friends on her way, me including. Sometimes I wish for this kind of inner strength and (blind) courage, sometimes I long for stability and safety instead. But I admire the quality when I see it!

And yes, the plot is quite simple. The dangers are mostly abstract, the conditions are in reality quite safe, the unpleasantries are simply washed away in this story. And, honestly, the story IS prolonged. I suspect the authoress to fall in love with her character Agnes, too, to dedicate pages and pages to her everyday activities (maybe more than to her search).
And the men are kind, but one-dimensional here.

But yes, Agnes is admirable and she singlehandedly delivered this quest from A to Z, with my respect and 3 stars for her quality of character. Best of luck, Agnes.

3.5 stars. A compelling historical fiction novel with strong characters.

This was my first experience reading a Kimberley Freeman novel and it definitely won’t be my last. I loved Freeman’s writing and the idea behind the storyline. Freeman does a fantastic job pulling the reader into the lives of her characters – each character is well developed with a personal history that is intriguing and enticing.

Unfortunately, some parts of this story seemed a little far-fetched to me which took away from my overall enjoyment. The writing itself was great, but the believability of the story wasn’t fully there for me. I also found the three storylines slightly confusing at times. I had to break after starting a new chapter a few times to remind myself which storyline I was reading about and which characters belonged to which storyline.

Overall, I was impressed with Freeman’s writing and will definitely look into reading more of her novels. A big thank you to NetGalley, Hachette and Kimberley Freeman for a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review!