My Thoughts: Perdita by Hilary Scharper

Will love let her go?

After a love affair that ends in tragedy, Garth Hellyer throws himself into his work for the Longevity Project, interviewing the oldest living people on the planet. But nothing has prepared him for Marged Brice, who claims to be a stunningly youthful 134. Marged says she wants to die, but can’t, held back by the presence of someone she calls Perdita.

Garth, despite his skepticism, is intrigued by Marged’s story, and agrees to read “her” journals of life in the late 1890s. Soon he’s enthralled by Marged’s story of love, loss, and myth in the tempestuous wilderness of the Bruce Peninsula. He enlists the help of his childhood friend Clare to help him make sense of the mystery.

As Garth and Clare unravel the truth of Marged and Perdita, they discover together just what love can mean when it never dies.

**ARC received from Simon and Schuster Canada**

How to review a book you are not sure you liked. I mean, I didn't not like Perdita By Hilary Scharper,  but at the same time I can't decide how I feel about the book. It was odd. And in all honesty left me wanting more. Even though the book itself was rather lengthy at over 400 pages. I was fascinated by the premise of this book when I first looked into it. It sounded like gothic romance with a ghost story thrown in for fun. I initially thought it would sort of be like The Taker trilogy by Alma Katsu.

For the majority of the book I found that I was waiting for something to happen. I was essentially waiting for Perdita. You would think that because the book was called Perdita, that the character would be pretty influential to the story. She wasn't. I think this impacted my reading experience. Perdita was presented at the beginning of the story and she made a few short appearances (I mean very short) throughout the rest of the book and again at the end. That was it. I was a bit disappointed by this.  I was also confused by Perdita herself. What was she? Who was she? Was she a ghost? Was she a figment of imagination? As I kept reading Perdita with the assumption that these questions would be answered, and they were to some degree, but not completely.

While some may think that I did not enjoy reading Perdita, this is not true. The story was interesting and would switch back from past to present. This can sometimes be annoying in a novel, for the most part I enjoyed it. I was curious about this woman who claimed to be over 125 years old and I was curious about her life. I also enjoyed the Canadian setting during the early twentieth century. I really liked all the characters in Perdita, they were well developed and for me, they did not fall flat.

I also enjoyed the mystery and suspense of the story. That part was entertaining. And for the most part it was well written. There was a couple of times where I sometimes felt like Scharper was trying to hard to be poetic and/or lyrical, which would complicate what she was trying to say and cause some confusion. This was not a  frequent occurrence but enough to have me notice it.

Overall, there were a few things missing to make Perdita a fantastic read, but it wasn't a bad one. I'll let you decide for yourself.  

~Happy Reading Everyone!