A True and Faithful Narrative

by Katherine Sturtevant

Overview

In Restoration London, sixteen-year-old Meg Moore is something of an anomaly. Unlike other girls her age, Meg pores over books. She spends long hours conversing with the famous authors and poets who visit her father's bookstore, and even writes her own stories, laboring over every word until her hand is black with ink. Without warning, however, Meg comes to learn exactly how powerful words can be. The day her best friend's brother Edward sets sail for Italy, Meg scoffs at his attempts at romance by answering him with a thoughtless jest.

Soon news travels to London that Edward's ship has been captured and he has been sold as a slave in North Africa – and

Meg cannot shake the thought that her cruel words are the cause. Now Meg must use her fiery language to bring Edward home, imploring her fellow Londoners to give all that they can to buy Edward's freedom. But once Meg learns to direct the power behind her words, will she be able to undo the damage she has caused, and write freely the stories that she longs to put to paper?

This inspired sequel to At the Sign of the Star continues Meg's story with elegance and élan.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374300722
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	04/18/2006
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)
Lexile:	880L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

KATHERINE STURTEVANT's At the Sign of the Star was a

Booklist Editors' Choice, and in a starred review they said,

"Readers will end the book hoping for a sequel." The author lives in Berkeley, California.

Editorial Reviews

In a starred review of Katherine Sturtevant's At the Sign of the Star, PW wrote, "Admirers of historical fiction will relish Sturtevant's detailed depiction of life in 1677 London." A now 16-year-old Meg returns in A True and Faithful Narrative; here she assesses whether to marry either of two suitors, weighing both love and her passion for writing. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Gr 7 Up-It's four years since At the Sign of the Star (Farrar, 2000) ended, and Meg Moore, now 16, still loves bookselling, reading, and, most of all, penning her own stories. Although she no longer dreams about inheriting her father's bookstore, due to his remarriage and the birth of his son, she still hopes to overcome 17th-century English society's disapproval of writing as a pastime for respectable women and see her work in print. She thinks that marrying a bookseller may be her strongest hope for the unconventional future she desires. When her friend Anne's brother announces his departure for Italy and hints about declaring his love, Meg pretends not to understand his intentions and jokes that perhaps he will be seized by pirates. She regrets these words when news comes that Edward's homeward-bound ship has indeed been captured and that he has been sold into slavery in Algiers. Meg's guilt inspires her to raise funds to pay his ransom, but it doesn't stop her from privately writing a lurid account of the horrors she imagines he is suffering. A potential romance with her father's apprentice, her worries over Anne's unhappy marriage, and Meg's reactions to a much-changed, returned Edward flesh out this intriguing, believable glimpse into Restoration London. Although Meg is frustrated by her society's restrictions, Sturtevant does not attempt to solve her heroine's problems by imposing 21st-century solutions-there is no doubt that the teen lives within the limitations of her own time. This solid work of historical fiction stands easily on its own.-Ginny Gustin, Sonoma County Library System, Santa Rosa, CA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Set in the early 1680s in London, this beautifully detailed, authentically voiced, first-person narrative centers on 16-year-old Meg, a girl who longs to do something outrageous for a woman in her time period-write. But her proper bookstore-proprietor father is dead set against it, sure that she will become a laughing stock if she tries. That thread of the story plays out when Meg's friend Edward is kidnapped by pirates at sea. First, Meg uses the power of the pen to help secure his ransom, then meets with him secretly to write his tale of misadventure, all while flirting with her father's apprentice, a more traditionally minded but still attractive suitor. What will strike contemporary readers of this engrossing historical drama is not only how hard girls, even fairly affluent ones, worked, but how different and constrained their life choices were. Yet the desire to find meaningful work, to love and be loved and to balance autonomy and attachment have remained constant, and readers will root for the lively heroine to find her way. (Fiction. 12-15)

Kirkus Reviews