February Book: Louisa's Secret

I came across this book in a unique way. I play Words with Friends and someone randomly picked up a game with me. We chatted a bit, and he revealed that he is a travel writer and just had his first novel published. He said it was historical faction (fiction/fact mixed) which is one of my favorite genres. He is from the UK so I was intrigued. I bought the book for my Kindle reader for $2.99. I finally had a chance to read it.

The book was engaging and very easy to read. Short chapters. Not too many characters. The story is heartbreaking. You can't imagine a family going through all the hardships that they did. It starts in the early 1860s. At least there was a somewhat happy ending.

I liked to book better after I read the epilogue and realized that Chris Gough wrote this book based upon the history of his own family. The events are factual. He just padded the story and added some characters. The devastation of poverty was unthinkable back then.