Thank you so much to St. Martins Press for inviting me to participate in this blog tour for such an amazing book!  Make sure you read to the end of this post for something special!

Synopsis:

Emmeline lives an enchanted childhood on a remote island with her father, who teaches her about the natural world through her senses. What he won’t explain are the mysterious scents stored in the drawers that line the walls of their cabin, or the origin of the machine that creates them.  As Emmeline grows, however, so too does her curiosity, until one day the unforeseen happens, and Emmeline is vaulted out into the real world–a place of love, betrayal, ambition, and revenge. To understand her past, Emmeline must unlock the clues to her identity, a quest that challenges the limits of her heart and imagination.

My Review:

4 STARS

Thank you so much to St. Martins Press for providing me with a free copy of this book and inviting me to participate in the blog tour!

I’m honestly not even sure where I should start with this book, my mind and body are still trying to process this amazing piece of work.  This book has definitely left me with a book hangover and I’m not regretting it.

Emmaline lives on an island with her other and it’s the only home she’s ever known.  Her dad tells her amazing stories about Jack the scent keeper and has a machine that captures smells and puts them on pieces of paper that go into little bottles.  As Emmaline gets older her curiosity about the thousands of bottles grows and after a tragedy happens, she finds herself thrown into the real world.  As she tries to learn more about the new world around her Emmaline also must learn about her true identity and where she came from.

When I first started reading this book I was a little put off.  The way Emmaline and her father lived was very odd to me and once the scent machine came into the picture I really started getting weirded out.  But the author’s writing style kept drawing me back in and I honestly couldn’t put it down.  This book gripped me so hard and to be honest left me a little emotional.  Everything Emmaline went through and had to learn was so hard and I felt so bad for her.

The characters were all so well developed and the relationship between each of them was so different.  I loved Fisher and Emmaline’s relationship and I also loved Emmaline’s relationship with her stand in parents.  They were all so complex in their own ways but such a joy to read about.

This is a book that is going to stay with me for a long time and I’m so glad that I got the opportunity to read such an heart wrenching novel.  Getting to follow along with Emmaline’s journey through self-discovery and learning all of these new things brought tears to my eyes at times but also made me ridiculously happy at others.  I haven’t had a book touch me this way and I felt so many different emotions while reading it.

Thank you so much to Erica Bauermesiter for writing such an incredible book!

Purchase Links: