Age group- 9 years old and above
Originally published: September 2006
Author: Laura Amy Schlitz
Genre: Fiction
Awards: Cybils Award for Middle-Grade Fiction
Orphaned Maud Mary Flynn is “plain, clever, and bad.” so it wasn't expected that anyone would ever adopt her. But someone did- the charming Hyacinth Hawthorn adopted Maud, she immediately fell in love with Hyacinth and promised that she would be perfectly good, and Maud did try to be perfectly good. Life was perfect- Hyacinth’s sisters, Victoria and Judith were alright, she supposed, and she loved Hyacinth more than ever. The Hawthorn sisters seemed rich, and Maud was showered with gifts, finery, books, dresses frothy with lace, almost anything she wanted! Life was absolutely perfect- and so was Maud. Maud realizes something- she is a secret child, never let outdoors, and refined to the stifling third floor of Aunt Victoria’s mansion.
But when she learns the family business of scam séances to cheat the money out of innocent people. Maud has to choose between being true, and being loved. But one woman named Mrs. Lambert, a future victim of a séance, whose eight year-old daughter drowned changes everything. Maud had barely met Mrs. Lambert during one séance, but when Maud escapes from the house, tired of being kept in the stifling house, she encounters Mrs. Lambert at the beach. Although it’s risky, Maud sneaks to the beach again and tells Mrs. Lambert everything about her- under a cover of lies. Again, Maud is again forced with the question of being true, or being loved. Until a horrific betrayal that showed exactly how much her so-called “guardians” loved her.