Paperback: 238 pages
Age range: Young Adult/Teen
Publisher: Prospera Publishing (30 Nov 2009)
ISBN-13: 978-0956122285
There are many people who just dream to step in a time machine and step in a time period of their choice. But not Picky, who has to watch her demented Gran. Her parents are divorced, her mum is a very busy nurse and she has a little brother, Ollie. Its Ollie's biggest daily task to draw on everything like on Picky's forehead with a permanent marker, or on her mum's bedspread with Nutella..hilarious! One day when Picky is Gran-sitting, she walks into the attic because of boredom, and then she finds a big case with Victorian looking dresses. When she tries on one of the dresses, she suddenly hears a man's voice, and he is calling her Amelia and tries to kill her, and she discovers then that she is in the same house in London, but back in the 1800's, and in the life of a girl named Amelia, who is the daughter of very wealthy parents. When she steps out of the dress, she is back in her own life as Picky. She steps secretly back in the dresses many times, to find out what happened to Amelia. She discovers too that being from the upper class during that period has its dark sides,(like being forced to marry and earl when you are thirteen..) and that there where many people living in poverty. Can she change the fate of Amelia and rescue her from being murdered, and who was trying to murder Amelia and why?
The Dresskeeper by Mary Naylus is by far one of the most surprising books of 2009. Picky is a humorous, smart, witty main character, a really cool teen you immediately can relate to and want to be friends with (even though her classmates think else). Modern meets historical in this thrilling debut novel. I can only say: read it!
