Books for Christian Girls: "Lost in Darkness" by Michelle Griep

About this book:

“Travel writer Amelia Balfour’s dream of touring Egypt is halted when she receives news of a revolutionary new surgery for her grotesquely disfigured brother. This could change everything, and it does. . .in the worst possible way.

Surgeon Graham Lambert has suspicions about the doctor he’s gone into practice with, but he can’t stop him from operating on Amelia’s brother. Will he be too late to prevent the man’s death? Or to reveal his true feelings for Amelia before she sails to Cairo?”

Series: As of now, no. A stand-alone novel.

Spiritual Content- Scriptures are read, quoted, & thoughts over; Bible reading; Prayers; Talks about God, Him being with us, & His plans; ‘H’s are capitalized when referring to God; When something good happens, Amelia says that she was finally good enough for God to notice (this could be stemming from her not thinking her earthly father cared for her); Amelia crosses herself when thinking of someone that passed; Amelia reads a psalter in the beginning of the book and after having more questions that solace, she stops reading for the day; Going to church (Amelia) & hearing a Scripture in a sermon; Graham says he’s not certain that God would welcome a heathen such as himself to church (Amelia replies that a true heathen would not acknowledge a God who may or may not welcome him); Mentions of God; Mentions of Bibles, devotions, & reading them both; Mentions of churches/chapels, church going, vicars, & sermons; Mentions of Heaven; Mentions of miracles & miracle workers; Mentions of saints & women being called a saint because of their personalities; A few mentions of those in the Bible; A few mentions of prayers & praying; A few mentions of blessings & seeking blessings before traveling; A few mentions of sins & sinners; A mention of Godspeed; A mention of a blessing over food; A mention of a woman’s glower that could make a saint cower behind a crucifix; A mention of Eve and the snake; A mention of a child being named Sodom by a master (and that the boy had been groomed to do as he was told and that only God knew what it was);

*Note: Graham says that it is God who numbers a man’s days and that a surgeon is not God, but when Mr. Peckwood asks if Graham if he’s a religious fellow, he says he is not, and Mr. Peckwood says religion never helped him (the conversation started with Mr. Peckwood says that a successful doctor instills confidence in the surgeon rather than allowing the patient a “tenuous hope in an invisible unknown”); Mr. Peckwood said he begged God to help someone and that He didn’t; Peckwood plays God with the patients at the asylum; ; Amelia is superstitious and carries around a lucky feather she calls a talisman (she also tosses spilled salt over her shoulder, mentions the thought that when a gathering of ravens is seen that portends death, and a couple other ones, but *Spoiler* she gives it all up at the end and asks God for forgiveness *End of Spoiler*); Colin sees phantoms after the treatments start & hopes they go back to whatever hell they came from; Mentions of ghosts, haunting tales, people saying a place is haunted, & an area with a ghoulish history; A few mentions of luck, bad luck, & folklore; A couple mentions of a man being called the devil & a contact with him; A couple mentions of people having a demon in their eyes; A mention of someone escaping their demons; A mention of roaring like a demon; A mention of an injury hurting like the devil’s fire; A mention of devilish torment; A mention of an animal being sneaky devils; A mention of a man’s devil-may-care hair length; A mention of doing something or there will be the devil to pay; A mention of Amelia saying that if houses had souls, her childhood home would be bound for Hades; A mention of if there was a portal to hell, a certain place would be it; A mention of someone running like a hound of hell; A mention of a godforsaken path; A mention of another country with veiled ladies with their turbaned sheikhs; Phrases like “God knows”, “Thank God”, and “pray God” are said by those who believe in God & others who they (and the readers) aren’t sure about their beliefs; Other phrases are exclaimed: three forms of “sweet, Blessed Saviour/sweet blessed mercy!’ and seven forms of ‘sweet mercy/sweet heavens!’; “Great God!” is exclaimed in a quote from “Frankenstein”.

Negative Content- Minor cussing including: (if you’re unfamiliar or unsure how one of these was used, most were exclamations and are noted because in today’s society, minor cussing or cursing would take its place) a ‘botheration!’, a ‘criminy’, an ‘egads!’, a ‘lawks-a-mercy’, a ‘scads!’, a form of ‘stupid’, two ‘claptrap’s (‘what a load of claptrap’), two forms of ‘hang it all/snag it all’s, two forms of ‘oh, my stars!/by the stars’, two ‘what the deuce’s, three ‘mercy!’s, four forms of ‘dashed/dash it’, four ‘thunderation!’s, five forms of ‘pish-posh’, five forms of ‘bah/pah’, seven forms of ‘blast/blast it’, and nine forms of ‘what the devil’; Other phrases such as a ‘grimmety grouse!’, ‘to the dogs with…’, ‘curse *name* and their ideas’, ‘thunder and turf!’, ‘rot and bother!’, and ‘queen and country!’; Stopping a curse from leaving your mouth (Colin, once); Mentions of curses (said, not written); A bit of eye rolling; Pain, blood/bleeding, & injuries (up to semi-detailed); Being choked, drugged, hit, & injured (up to semi-detailed); Doctor actions such as giving stitches, taking care of blood and injuries, and seeing dead bodies (up to semi-detailed); Seeing people hit & bleeding (up to semi-detailed); *Major Spoiler* Colin and Mr. Peckwood go over a cliff and die, we see this in Amelia and Graham’s point of views, up to semi-detailed *End of Spoiler*; Being shot at (when someone says they saw a monster, but it was Colin); Seeing a child hit & almost run over; Seeing a bird hit a widow & thinking it’s dead; Social drinking; Many mentions of dead bodies, blood/bleeding, infections, injuries (including ones so bad you can see the bone or the muscle), seeing people pass out, & pain (up to semi-detailed): Mentions of grave robbers & those who hire them to steal bodies for dissection; Mentions of jars filled with different colored liquids and body parts; Mentions of a fence with glass at the top & someone harming themself and bleeding (up to semi-detailed); Mentions of rifles & shooting at someone; Mentions of alcohol, taverns, drinking, & drunks; Mentions of cigars/cheroots, pipes, tobacco, & smoking; Mentions of a snuff box (an older women says it’s God she’ll have to answer for and she’s fully prepare to “explain to [her] Maker how [she] never read one verse of scripture forbidding a hefty pinch of snuff”); Mentions of lies, lying, & liars; Mentions of gossip & rumors; A few mentions of trying to find two bodies in the water (barely-above-not-detailed);A few mentions of fighting, fights, being beaten, & hitting someone; A few mentions of burns from a child pulling down a pot of boiling water; A few mentions of bloodletting; A couple mentions of being accused as a thief & being beaten for it; A couple mentions of jealousy; A couple mentions of hunting; A mention of someone being lost at sea; A mention of mutilated bodies; A mention of someone making rat poison; A mention of not being a wagering man; A mention of human waste;

*Note: Each chapter starts with a quote from the classic book, “Frankenstein”; Amelia warns her maid about her brother’s deformity (at first she wonders should he say that he’s a monster or a freak of nature, but tells the maid that he suffers from a disease that causes uncontrollable and abnormal growth along with suffering a horrible burn to his face); Some people cry and scream when they see Colin; A couple mentions of a “dog-faced maid”.

Sexual Content- Two (barely-above-not-detailed) hand kisses, a forehead kiss, an almost kiss, two barely-above-not-detailed kisses, and a very detailed kiss; Recalling a kiss (semi-detailed); Wanting to kiss & touch/embrace; Touches, Embraces, Warmth, Nearness, Jolts/Tingles, & Smelling (semi-detailed); Blushes & Winks; Noticing & Staring (including curves and a man’s chest hair and muscles, up to semi-detailed); Husky voices; Amelia tells Graham a story about two young lovers who were married in secret and according to a rumor, shared their love over in a thicket of trees (she apologizes that she got carried away in the story, but Graham thinks that he’s surprisingly honored that she would share with him an intimate reference); Graham removes his cravat, Amelia can’t look away and stares at his chest hair peeking out; Mr. Peckwood does animal magnetism (hypnotism) on a woman, but it includes him outline the shape of her body with his hand, Amelia thinks that it’s too intimate and too indecent to be doing in public, though when she believes that it worked on the woman, Graham tries to explain that it isn’t real, attempts to do it on her, and they end up kissing; Graham is a doctor and sees Amelia’s barefoot (which she didn’t want to do because of propriety, but did due to an injury); When Graham is brought up in a conversation or he does something slightly scandalous, flirty, or looks handsome, Amelia gets hot, fans herself, and wonders why it’s so hot in the room; Mentions of a woman that was brutally abused (implied sexually); Mentions of kisses & kissing; Mentions of chaperones; A few mentions of a scandalous pair living together & being unsure if they are married; A few mentions of trollops; A few mentions of flirts; A few mentions of winks; A mention of a ship’s crew going ashore for women and rum; A mention of jealousy; Love, falling in love, & the emotions;

*Note: When an unmarried woman says she’s pregnant, Amelia wonders if she should offer congratulations or condolences, but says she looks forward to meeting the little one someday; A few mentions of a women’s feminine curves; A mention of ill breeding; Graham says that “other than a passing glance at a well-curved skirt”, he didn’t dwell on females; The Historical Notes at the end of the book mentions Mary Shelley (author of “Frankenstein”), her baby’s death (born prematurely), her lover having an affair, and another baby being conceived out-of-wedlock.

-Amelia Balfour, age 27

-Graham Lambert

P.O.V. switches between them & Colin

Set in 1815 (Final chapter set in 1816)

320 pages

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Pre Teens-

New Teens-

Early High School Teens-

Older High School Teens-

My personal Rating-

{Not for those sensitive to death or have recently lost a loved one.}

After reading “The Thief of Blackfriars Lane” by this author and mostly enjoying it, I decided to look more into her other books. I read “The House at the End of the Moor” in the last few months and was so enthralled with the plotline, I gave it four stars.

So, I had decently high hopes for this book.

I think the major parts that affected my ratings were certain comments (such as Amelia noticing Graham’s chest hair when he removes his cravat and then her telling him a story about a couple being intimate together in a thicket of trees), but also that the last 40% of this book I was so Stressed. Yes, with a capital ‘S’. Very, incredibly stressed about how this book was going to end. And I have to say that I’m not a fan of how it ended. Some may like it, and while the faith content at the end made it a bit better, I’m coming away from this book sniffling and more than a bit sad. (Which apparently Frankenstein and stories inspired by that famous book are all typically sad. I did not know this and will be avoiding such topics from now on. Meanwhile my heart is ☹ )

It was heartbreaking in many regards, but mainly in Colin, Amelia’s younger brother, and how he is treated because he has a rare form of acromegalia as well as severe burns. We see his point of view and he was truly the only one I really liked in this story (more on that in a minute). He his called a monster by many and has lived secluded, not seeing anyone. It truly broke my heart to see the fear others had for him and the name-calling he was subject to. While it can be true for many in his shoes, I hate that happening so much. He is the only reason I’m giving this book two stars because I liked him as a character and found him to be the best one in it.

I had a really hard time connecting to Amelia and Graham, but mostly her. I found her to be somewhat selfish and she never endured herself to me. Graham’s faith content was interesting in this book, but again, overall, I never really liked him either. He never went with his any of the feelings in his gut on Mr. Peckwood and that bothered me a lot. Maybe I just have trust issues, but I would hope I wouldn’t be so hung up on someone’s accomplishments and avoiding the warning signs of something being wrong. (Hello, Graham, the wad of cotton?! And you’re still trusting this wack-a-doodle?!)

The book had a very melancholy and almost depressing feel, which isn’t helping my thoughts on it. I like my fiction books to end where everyone is happy and justice is served. This wouldn’t be a book for those sensitive to death or someone who recently lost a loved one. It’s pretty sad and while the faith content shown helps some, it was still a hard book for me to read.

See y’all on Friday with a new review!