THE TWENTY-ONE-YEAR CONTRACT
Fiction, Historical Fiction, Women’s Fiction
5*****
Blurb: Kathleen Gray—talented, a little wild, at times rebellious, but always popular—has a fun, easy life in rural Somerset, with a doting family. Suddenly, they are gone, everything is changed, and she has only Uncle Jack. Try as he might, he cannot be father and mother to her—he has a business to run and his own life to manage. Kathleen takes a chance and becomes Kate Westfield, fending for herself in London, with a new life built on her hopes and dreams and new friends. She could hardly have imagined that one of those friends has a shoebox full of answers.
THOUGHTS: This is the perfect sequel to the author’s first book “Secrets, Shame, and a Shoebox”. Actually, it’s more a continuation of the story but from a different point of view. In this one, we’re following Kate (Katherine) instead of Harriet, though their stories are definitely intertwined in ways you can’t imagine. Adopted as a baby, Kate goes through the tragic loss of her family at age fourteen and ends up under the guardianship of her uncle Jack. Unfortunately, his job doesn’t allow him time to have a family, so he sends Kate off to boarding school. Though school isn’t awful, all she thinks is that she’s been abandoned again and she starts to plan her getaway.
Adept at designing clothes, she escapes to London, changes her name from Katherine to Kate, and gets a job at an upscale dress shop. She eventually meets Harriet and the two become fast friends. When her uncle finally finds her, they have a long talk about everything and settle their differences. But there is something strange going on–Kate discovers that young girls often go missing from the fancy club she goes to. When she tries to interfere, she is beaten and warned off.
After recovering, Kate moves on with her life, but she can’t forget what’s happening and she and Harriet come up with ideas to help the less fortunate. Their twenty-first birthdays are coming up – the same day! and both will come into inheritances, which will help with their plans, but life is never that easy for these two young women.
This is an amazing sequel to the first book and definitely worth reading if you’ve read the first–which you really should do, first. And I hope there is more coming for the people in these books.
Definitely recommended.
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