THE BLURB: When fifteen-year-old Julia Beaufort-Stuart wakes up in the hospital, she knows the lazy summer break she’d imagined won’t be exactly like she anticipated. And once she returns to her grandfather’s estate, a bit banged up but alive, she begins to realize that her injury might not have been an accident. One of her family’s employees is missing, and he disappeared on the very same day she landed in the hospital.
Desperate to figure out what happened, she befriends Euan McEwen, the Scottish Traveller boy who found her when she was injured, and his standoffish sister, Ellen. As Julie grows closer to this family, she experiences some of the prejudices they’ve grown used to firsthand, a stark contrast to her own upbringing, and finds herself exploring thrilling new experiences that have nothing to do with a missing-person investigation.
Her memory of that day returns to her in pieces, and when a body is discovered, her new friends are caught in the crosshairs of long-held biases about Travellers. Julie must get to the bottom of the mystery in order to keep them from being framed for the crime.
THE SCOOP: Prequels hardly ever work for me, but I loved this one SO. MUCH. It's a mystery set in 1938 Scotland oozing with historical and antiquarian significance. The tone is much lighter than Code Name Verity, but, honestly, it was so refreshing to see Julie's life and character before the tragedy of the next book. The research was impeccable, the world brimming with life, the characters endearing. The mystery played on some fun mystery tropes, including amnesia.
THE VERDICT: I loved everything about this. And now I want a necklace of Scottish river pearls.
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