the secrets of paper and ink by lindsay harrel

Lindsay Harrel is a lifelong book nerd with a B.A. Thanks to Thomas Nelson and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review. What matters is that we can find our peace in God.

It doesn’t matter where we’ve been or what mistakes we’ve made along the way. And the end message is most definitely Christian: that we are defined by Whose we are. Sin is present, but so are the consequences. At the same time, it’s true to real life and true to the Bible. The novel isn’t preachy at all-in fact, you could give this to a non-Christian friend and they probably wouldn’t even guess it’s from a Christian publisher. It’s a strong message that’s presented well.

It’s a challenge many modern women still face-finding our purpose in God rather than in man. The main theme is of three women forced to discover their identities as individuals rather than as daughter, fiance, or wife. The writing is excellent, and I loved the way the author wove the Victorian story into the contemporary. The Secrets of Paper and Ink is a powerful story of love and loss and loving again.

All are in difficult situations, partly a result of their own bad decisions but more a result of the decisions of the men they depended on. The Secrets of Paper and Ink features a therapist who’s a victim of domestic violence, a separated Christian woman, and an impoverished gentlewoman. It’s good to see Christian fiction that deals with the hard areas in life. She’s the impoverished daughter of the town’s drunken parson, now supporting herself as a governess while secretly writing a journal, a novel, and letters to her forbidden beloved. She could go back to America and back to her parents, but that would mean being back under her mother’s control.Įmily’s story comes to us through a journal Sophia discovers in the back of Ginny’s shop. But he’s currently off “finding himself” in London, leaving Ginny with a failing business and no other means of support. Owning a bookshop in a remote Cornish village isn’t Ginny’s dream-it’s her husband’s dream. This time she makes a spur-of-the-moment decision to visit Cornwall, once home to her favourite dead novelist. She lasts less than an hour before her past intrudes again and she runs away. Sophia returns to work after a three-month enforced sabbatical following a mental breakdown-the result of her conflicted feelings over the death of her fiance a year ago … her abusive fiance. The Secrets of Paper and Ink is the story of three women: Sophia Barrett, a women’s counselor from Phoenix, Arizona Ginny Rose, bookshop owner from Port Willis, Cornwall and Emily Fairfax, governess and lady’s companion in Victorian England.

The secrets of paper and ink by lindsay harrel