I could almost see the picturesque forests and lakes, the simple wooden houses, hear the wind rustle through the birch trees. The setting was very vivid and there were many interesting side-stories which had me completely entangled in the book. Grace's innocent, pleading tones are filled with fear and anxiety, but also hope.Ī Gathering Light was definitely one of the most compelling books I have read in a long time.

The extracts are even more poignant and heart-breaking when you find out that Grace was real, although most of the other characters are purely fictional. I love historical fiction and I found it very interesting that Donnelly used extracts from Grace's original letters (the book is based on an actual murder that took place at Big Moose Lake at the turn of the century). While working at a nearby hotel, she discovers the letters of a young woman found drowned in a lake, Grace Brown, and uncovers the tragic story of her murder. But when Grace's drowned body is fished from Big Moose Lake, Mattie discovers that the letters could reveal the grim truth behind a murder.Set at the turn of the century, in the Great North Woods in northeastern America, this is the story of Mattie, a girl fascinated by books and words who feels weighed down by her familial responsibilities she is torn between going to university and pursuing a romance with the charismatic Royal Loomis. And the secret dreams that keep her going-visions of finishing high school, going to college in New York City, becoming a writer.Desperate for money, she takes a job at the Glenmore, where hotel guest Grace Brown entrusts her with the task of burning a secret bundle of letters. The mad welter of feelings Mattie has for handsome but dull Royal Loomis, who says he wants to marry her. The burden of raising her sisters while her father struggles over his brokeback farm. She collects words, stores them up as a way of fending off the hard truths of her life, the truths that she can't write down in stories.The fresh pain of her mother's death.

Sixteen-year-old Mattie Gokey has a word for everything, and big dreams but little hope of seeing them come true.

A northern light by jennifer donnelly