In the early nineteenth century, Eve’s mother Sarah decides to prove a point by going on a balloon flight when others said that a woman couldn’t do it. With Joseph, an artist friend, and the French balloonist, she sails away and over the sea. A storm brings down the balloon and the two men are rescued. As the young Eve grows up she continues to wonder if her mother really drowned as everyone said, and she leaves home to find out.
“Mama’s gone. Each day passes and she doesn’t come back.”
According to the Daily Mail Online the “characters are vivid and original, the entwined stories somehow never quite gel.” I also felt that the story didn’t really become absorbing enough to keep the reader engrossed.
Quotes:
“They walk through the crowd towards the enormous balloon, thirty feet in diameter, forty-five feet high, as big as a four-storey house shifting gently against its anchoring ropes despite a hot, almost breathless day.”
“I’ll be back soon, my love. Tonight, I hope.”
”They brought in a drowned woman, wrapped in sacks and tarpaulin.”
Author: Alix Nathan
BOOK SNAPS - for readers 