The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare

Title: The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare

Author: Kimberly Brock

Genre: Historical Fiction, World War II,

Publisher: Harper Muse

Source: Net Galley

My Review:

The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare is an interesting story that may or may not be true.

While it is set during World War II, the main focus is the mother-daughter duo and the lost book of Eleanor Dare.

My mother taught me that a story matters, not because it's true, but because it's been told. 

The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare had a slow start, and there were times when I got lost. It was hard to see where the book was going, and at times I wished it would just get "there." There are multiple story lines, points of view, and a dual timeline to keep up with. However, I am glad that I persevered and finished the book. 

The redeeming qualities of the book were Alice and Penn building a stronger, healthier mother-daughter relationship, figuring out who they each were, and figuring out who each other was. Also, the talk on forgiving others, being brave, and seeing the character growth in all the main characters.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book. I was not required to provide a positive review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

★★★/5

Synopsis (from Goodreads): 

The fate of the world is often driven by the curiosity of a girl.

What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke remains a mystery, but the women who descended from Eleanor Dare have long known that the truth lies in what she left behind: a message carved onto a large stone and the contents of her treasured commonplace book. Brought from England on Eleanor’s fateful voyage to the New World, her book was passed down through the fifteen generations of daughters who followed as they came of age. Thirteen-year-old Alice had been next in line to receive it, but her mother’s tragic death fractured the unbroken legacy and the Dare Stone and the shadowy history recorded in the book faded into memory. Or so Alice hoped.

In the waning days of World War II, Alice is a young widow and a mother herself when she is unexpectedly presented with her birthright: the deed to Evertell, her abandoned family home and the history she thought forgotten. Determined to sell the property and step into a future free of the past, Alice returns to Savannah with her own thirteen-year-old daughter, Penn, in tow. But when Penn’s curiosity over the lineage she never knew begins to unveil secrets from beneath every stone and bone and shell of the old house and Eleanor’s book is finally found, Alice is forced to reckon with the sacrifices made for love and the realities of their true inheritance as daughters of Eleanor Dare.

In this sweeping tale from award-winning author Kimberly Brock, the answers to a real-life mystery may be found in the pages of a story that was always waiting to be written.