The Freemason's Daughter by Shelley Sackier

Eden narrates in a tightly focused present tense how she withdraws again from nearly everyone and attempts to find comfort (or at least oblivion) through a series of nearly anonymous sexual encounters. But, bizarrely, Kevin’s younger sister goes on a smear campaign to label Eden a “totally slutty disgusting whore,” which sends Eden back toward self-destruction. She begins her sophomore year with new clothes and friendly smiles for her fellow students, which attract the romantic attentions of a kind senior athlete. But when a friend mentions that she’s “reinventing” herself, Eden embarks on a hopeful plan to do the same. For the remainder of Eden’s freshman year, she withdraws from her family and becomes increasingly full of hatred for Kevin and the world she feels failed to protect her. Not ever,” and a chillingly believable death threat. In the three years following Eden’s brutal rape by her brother’s best friend, Kevin, she descends into anger, isolation, and promiscuity.Įden’s silence about the assault is cemented by both Kevin’s confident assurance that if she tells anyone, “No one will ever believe you. The cast, unsurprisingly, is an all-white one.Īn intriguing exploration of the intersection of politics, religion, and customs of the period-historical fiction at its best. Her most prized possession is a copy of Newton’s Principia she’s been taught to speak the King’s English rather than with the broad Scottish accent of her family and she has the freedom to choose her life’s path during a time when women had very few choices. Third-person narration alternates between Jenna and Alex, but it’s Jenna’s freethinking that will pull readers in. Jenna and Alex inevitably meet and fall in love, but if Alex discovers Jenna’s secret, her life, and those of her family, will be forfeit. His father, the Duke of Keswick, has hired the masons to build a garrison to imprison and execute Jacobites-but Jenna’s family has other plans for the structure: to aid the rebellion. Alex, Lord Pembroke, has a duty to support George I’s government as inheritor of his father’s seat in the House of Lords. Jenna’s family, Scottish stonemasons, are Jacobites secretly working to return James to the throne in accordance with the divine right of kings.

James Stuart lives in exile, and George of the German House of Hannover is about to ascend the throne. It’s 1714 Great Britain, and a rebellion is brewing.

The Freemason's Daughter by Shelley Sackier