Book Awards Reading Challenge

Lynn Austin
432 pages

Violet Hayes has always thought that her mother, who left when she was nine years old, was in a hospital somewhere struggling to recover and return to her family. However, upon announcing his intention to remarry her father tells her that her mother didn’t want to be tied down and that she left and divorced him. Violet discovers that her mother is in Chicago and since the World’s Fair(the year is 1893)is in town, Violet convinces her father to let her go there, stay with her grandmother, and see the Fair. She has intentions of searching for her mother and finding a little adventure. She also hopes to find love. Everyone seems to have their own agenda for Violet but she must do some soul-searching and discover what she truly wants as well as God’s will for her life before she is ready to fall in love.

Lynn Austin is one of my favorite authors. I have read several of her books and loved them all. Since A Proper Pursuit is a Christy award winner, I decided to read it for the Book Awards Challenge. As I mentioned this book was set at the turn of the century. In the past, this hasn’t been one of my favorite time periods to read about but since I have loved everything else written by Lynn Austin, I didn’t let that deter me. Violet is headstrong and beautiful as you would expect from our heroine. She is proposed to no less than three times in one week. However, each gentleman that has proposed has done so for his own selfish reasons and has not mentioned love to Violet. It takes her a while but Violet sorts out her life and reaches a satisfactory conclusion. It seemed to take her a bit too long, in my opinion, but she gets there eventually.

Overall,I enjoyed reading A Proper Pursuit. I found it a bit predictable and not my favorite Austin book but still very sweet. (3/5)