A Proper Pursuit

Title: A PROPER PURSUIT
Author: Lynn Austin
Publisher: Bethany House
September 2007
ISBN: 978-0-7642-2891-9
Genre: Inspirational/historical

Violet Rose Hayes is horrified when she returns home from a woman’s finishing school to discover that her father is engaged and has divorced her mother—a woman Violet has assumed ill in a hospital all her life. Upset about the lies her father has fed her, she arranges to visit her grandmother in Chicago, under the guise of visiting the 1893 World Fair, but in reality, she wants to search for her mother, dreaming of reuniting her parents, and thus breaking up the engagement between her father and the totally unsuitable woman he decided to marry.

But searching for her mother isn’t as easy as Violet imagined. Her maiden aunt, Mattie, wants Violet involved in the Suffrage Movement, while Violet’s aunt Agatha is determined to find Violet a high-society husband. Even her grandmother, and her simplistic Aunt Bertie seem to have a different agenda for Violet. She is left more confused than ever, and wonders why in all her “finishing” schooling, was she never taught how to handle this type of situation? And now, which path—and which man—will be the right choice for her?

A PROPER PURSUIT is a fun historical. Violet is a young innocent, taught how to properly behave in public, but totally unprepared for the curveballs life throws. She is a dreamer and a romantic, her daydreams often keeping her amused while she deals with twenty-minute talks about the weather, or puts up with yet another boorish suitor.

Violet didn’t come from a Christian environment, but rather a religious one, so the faith message doesn’t really start until after she arrives at her grandmother’s house. Violet and all the secondary characters at real, and I felt like I got to know all of them. I thoroughly enjoyed A PROPER PURSUIT and highly recommend this book. 432 pages. $13.99.