ABOUT THE BOOK

Will Edyth prove her sanity before it is too late?
Step into True Colors—a new series of Historical Stories of Romance and American Crime

On Blackwell’s Island, New York, a hospital was built to keep its patients from ever leaving.

With her late parents’ fortune under her uncle’s care until her twenty-fifth birthday in the year 1887, Edyth Foster does not feel pressured to marry or to bow to society’s demands. She freely indulges in eccentric hobbies like fencing and riding her velocipede in her cycling costume about the city for all to see. Finding a loophole in the will, though, her uncle whisks Edyth off to the women’s lunatic asylum just weeks before her birthday. And Edyth fears she will never be found.

At the asylum she meets another inmate, who upon discovering Edyth’s plight, confesses that she is Nellie Bly, an undercover journalist for The World. Will either woman find a way to leave the terrifying island and reclaim her true self?

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Book: The Gray Chamber

Author: Grace Hitchcock

Genre: Christian Historical / Suspense

Release Date: January 2020

MY BOOK REVIEW

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After her parents died she became under the guardianship of her uncle (Boris) who wants her large inheritance before she turns 25 years old. She may not get the inheritance if Boris could apply a clause discovered in the family will ".if Edyth dies, unmarried and childless, or is declared mad and committed to an asylum, the fortune revers to Uncle Boris and his heir." Keep in mind in the late 1800s women might be committed to an asylum on the word of her husband or family for insanity caused by childbirth, overwork, infidelity, and many more other reasons. We are taken into his journey of putting her in the asylum. As the story moves forward we see Banebridge doing everything in his power to rescue the woman he loved. While in the asylum she befriends Polly. Edyth turns to her faith while in there. Another secondary character in the book is Lavinia. She seems to be like a brat but was only looking for a friendship that genuinely cared for others.

Grace Hitchcock did a great job of making me disturbed by how bad people especially women were treated people in these types of mental institutes during the 1800s and the corruption of the system. At that time all you needed to do was to give doctors a large amount of money to put anyone you would like in a mental institute. This actually happened. Once women were put into the mental institute they most likely never got out. Throughout the book, there are many suspenseful scenes. Hitchcock did her research and included first-hand accounts of Nellie Bly who went undercover to write about and expose these injustices.

I highly recommend this book to readers who enjoy historical romantic suspense that is based on real events in history than this is for you. If you read "The White City" I believe you would like this book as well.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Grace Hitchcock is the author of three novellas in The Second Chance Brides, The Southern Belle Brides, and the Thimbles and Threads collections with Barbour Publishing. The White City is her debut novel and releases March 2019 with Barbour Publishing. She holds a Masters in Creative Writing and a Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in History. Grace lives in southern Louisiana with her husband, Dakota, and son. Visit Grace online at GraceHitchcock.com.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/grace_hitchcock @grace_hitchcock

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More from Grace

I am thrilled to share with you my second novel in the True Colors series, The Gray Chamber, which is set in New York City in 1887. I loved writing about Edyth Foster, our cat-rescuing, spunky heroine who spends her days painting, fencing with her dreamy instructor, and avoiding society at all costs, which as you can imagine, comes back to haunt her before the end. I’ve never written about a character who despised reading, so that was a new one for me. Edyth just doesn’t like to sit still long enough to finish a book, but you’ll find out why later.

I am pretty certain the librarians at my local branch are wondering what in the world my hobbies are, judging from the stacks of fencing books for beginners, histories of New York crime in the 19th century, and Nellie Bly’s Ten Days in a Mad-House, and more that I have continuously checked out since moving back to Louisiana.

The inspiration for this book came from Nellie Bly’s scandalous exposé for Joseph Pulitzer’s newspaper, The World. In reading Nellie’s articles, I was shocked at the grounds by which the asylum would commit women and that’s when I discovered a tiny mention about an heiress with family members who had her tucked away so they could have her fortune. . .and Edyth Foster was born.

I hope you will enjoy reading about our eccentric leading lady and her fencing master hero, Raoul “Bane” Banebridge. If you are interested in seeing pictures of the asylum and to see what I pictured the characters looking like, check out my Pinterest board here.

Thank you for joining the fun for the Celebrate Lit tour! Join my author newsletter for more bookish news and to find out what is coming next! Just enter your e-mail address and name here. Happy Reading!

“With beautiful description and shiver-worthy scenes, Grace Hitchcock has penned an incredible fiction story based on true history. The Gray Chamber was a fascinating and chilling read. Edyth’s story had me glued to the pages. But as I journeyed with the heiress and her eccentricities, the greed of her family which saw her locked up in an asylum against her will made me grateful for the freedoms I have today. And made me pray that my voice would never be silenced. The nightmare was brought to life so vividly that I found myself holding my breath and then cheering on Bane as he never gave up on Edyth. This is a story that will stick with me for a long time…”

~Kimberley Woodhouse – Carol-Award winning and Best-Selling Author of more than twenty books, including MissTaken Identity, The Express Bride, The Golden Bride, The Patriot Bride, and The Mayflower Bride.

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