Ellen Lark is the central character in this compelling work of historical fiction. As a young child, Ellen loses her hearing after contracting a severe case of scarlet fever. The story deftly navigates the prejudice and difficulties she encounters as a deaf child and woman, torn between communicating by sign language coupled with writing and being taught to only use her voice, a voice she cannot herself hear. Alexander Graham Bell is woven into the story as he creates the telephone, using his deaf students as inspiration while also betraying them. The writing is beautiful as well as satisfying as Ellen Lark ultimately embraces her strength and independence.

A Sign of her Own is a beautiful twist on the real-life story of Ellen Lark, a prodigy of Alexander Graham Bell, who ended up – along with Bell’s deaf wife – influencing the invention of the telephone.

Ellen has been deaf since the age of four, when a bout of scarlet fever changed her life. Her sister, Mary, becomes her defender and advocate, and even helps her devise a form of sign language with which to communicate. Unfortunately, the ablelist thinking of the time forced nonhearing individuals to speak clearly, no matter the level of their hearing loss or inability to read lips. In time, Ellen becomes a student under Alexander Graham Bell, who teaches the Visible Speech technique to his students – guaranteed (as per his own publicity) to make a deaf person speak like a hearing one. Ellen comes to trust Bell, and becomes involved in his work on an experiment which will help the deaf to hear. She subsequently becomes involved in her teacher’s dream of creating the technology that he tells her will improve the lives of deaf people everywhere.

As Ellen’s life changes – to include a possible romance with a man named Frank who also happens to be deaf, Mary’s growing relationship with a man who might offer marriage looks likely to separate the sisters. At the same time, her involvement with the Bell experiment grows. But when she comes to learn that his true intent isn’t to help the deaf community at all, but to invent a telephone system for the hearing, her outrage leads to a plan to expose Graham Bell on the witness stand when he calls her in to help him defend a patent dispute in court. Will Ellen take a chance on revenge?

The writing here is so rich, and Sarah Marsh seems to wholeheartedly nail what it’s like being a deaf person who has to cope with hearing individuals. What she accomplishes with her prose is a truly startling, astonishing thing. She replicates the frustratingly mixed lack of information Ellen must cope with on a daily basis just to survive. The attitudes of others she brushes up against feel accurate to the period, and the research is excellent. Each new chapter opens up with a sign used to communicate during the period by those with hearing loss.

The character relationships are uniformly excellent. Bell and Ellen’s relationship is realistically fraught, and her romance with Frank is sweet but realistic. Especially good is the sisterly relationship between Ellen and Mary, which is handled with verve and sensitivity. Marsh’s style is beautiful as well, her prose beautifully gripping.

A Sign of her Own is easy to invest in, and Ellen is a wonderful heroine. What a fantastic book!

While I was intrigued by the concept of this historical fiction story, I was not engaged by the narrative. The details and information were interesting as I learned more about the non-hearing world but the story moved very slowly. I may not have been the right audience for this book so encourage others interested in Alexander Graham Bell to explore this one.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for the opportunity to read this ARC.

I liked this one and it’s take on being deaf and the history with Graham Bell . I did find it a little dry in parts but overall a good book
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me review the book

Ellen was born hearing. A bout of scarlet fever as a child left her deaf in a world that was not made for her anymore. Enrolled in speech lessons with Alexander Graham Bell, who’s Visible Speech aims to make deaf people able to speak perfectly, she becomes entangled in his need to create a machine that transmits voices across wires. As the hearing world around her demands she learns to speak and lip read to blend in she finds herself being drawn to the deaf community and sign language and realizing a need to be able to communicate fully.
There was something so frustrating about reading this book, and it took me forever to figure out why and realize the brilliance of it. We only get Ellen’s perspective, so when someone speaks to her and doesn’t enunciate clearly and she has to guess as to what was said, that’s all we get. If a word is unclear and she can’t figure out what the person was trying to say, we can only guess with her. But when she gets to communicate in sign language all of a sudden we get a full rich conversation. It’s an amazing use of language and communication.
Deaf people are often left out of conversations about history, but they have always been there we just don’t consider them. Accommodations and consideration for the deaf community is still lacking. And this book gives a look into the campaigns against sign language and the need to bend people into a form of communication that is unhelpful to them.
All in all I really enjoyed this book. I struggled a bit with the parts about the telegraph and the telephone and the patents and inventing but I struggle with descriptions of mechanical things.
Definitely a unique and interesting book, that had a lot of research put into it.
Thank you to Sarah Marsh for writing such a neat book. And thank you to @netgalley and @parkrowbooks for letting me review this book. Look for it Feb 6 2024
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I really wanted to like this book but like another reviewer stated it was just too dry for me in so many places. Now I happen to be a reader who prefers a lot of dialogue in books and being this is a book where the main character is deaf it's limited. The research the author invested into this book is to be commended though. Perhaps I am just the wrong audience for this story. Thanks to Netgalley, the author and publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.