a great and terrible beauty.

This book started really slow for me. It also took some time to get used to the way it is written in the current moment... as if Gemma is telling us the story as it happens. After page 200 or so, though, I was hooked. This is what it's about:

It’s 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma’s reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she’s been followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence’s most powerful girls—and their foray into the spiritual world—lead to? {barnes&noble.com}

It's kind of dark, and I'll admit it gave me nightmares a few nights! But I really loved it. Gemma is a great character. This coming-of-age novel is full of mystery & romance. It's the first of a trilogy and next I'll write about Book 2.

I love vacations. Finishing two books and starting a third in one week... that's heaven for me :)