What We’re Reading

Murkmere | Patricia Elliott

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Aggie Cotter has mixed feelings about her new job at Murkmere. Though she was loathing the idea of wasting her life in the village as a spinner, upon her arrival at Murkmere’s imposing gates, her future there seems somewhat less exotic and a little more frightening.

Even though the handsome Silas Seed is the one to open said gates for here, she finds herself unable to enter, for fear of the rooks nesting on the grounds. Silas reminds her that rooks nesting near a place are an omen of good luck, and while pondering the contradictions within the Table of Significance, Aggie enters the estate and follows him to the house.

Immediately, she sense that life here will not be overly pleasant. The housekeeper seems to have taken an immediate dislike to her, and most of the rest of the household staff have the same air about them. All but the little girl Scuff.

As for Miss Leah, whom she has been employed to be companion to, their first encounter involved Leah telling Aggie to pack her things and get out.

The Master of course disagrees, setting Leah into even more of a huff, but she manages to tolerate Aggie, and eventually they even form a friendship. Sadly, when Aggie takes drastic measures to protect Leah from dangers she can’t see, she loses her hard-won friendship. Life at Murkmere then becomes desolate indeed.

Aggie continues to try to watch over Leah as best she can, even though the girl wants little to do with her. With the Master’s health failing and Leah’s birthday ball upcoming, there is much to be done around the manner. With her hard work, Aggie seems to work her way slowly back into Leah’s good graces. Still, for all their hard work an planning, the big day ends in disaster. And not only for Aggie and Leah–much ill also befalls those who had been plotting against them.

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The Murkmere | Patricia Elliott by Jaemi, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 18th, 2007 at 8:51 am by Jaemi and is filed under Book Review, Series. Find similar posts by selecting and of the following tags: fantasy, friendship, ya fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.