What May endures is horrific and this is the part of the book where I’d put a content warning regarding visceral descriptions of maltreatment, neglect, and physical abuse. The author takes the opportunity, through the characters of May and her maternal aunt Florence, to examine the institutionalized treatment of women in the early twentieth century who found themselves inconveniences to their male family members. The first half of the book gets a little tedious with the descriptions of social events May attends with her cousin, Goldie (I know a lot of readers enjoyed this but it’s not really my cup of tea), and the many statements of foreboding to alert the reader that All Is Not Well (it gets a little angsty), but at around the halfway point there’s a major plot twist. May has doubts about everything happening to her but she’s starved for care and willing to ignore her instincts if it means staying in her newly-found family’s good graces. Upon her mother’s sudden death, May finds herself taking a whirlwind trip across the United States to San Francisco to live with her mother’s wealthy sister and family, the Sullivans, also complete strangers.

May Kimble, who tells her own story, is a young white woman living in New York City at the very beginning of the 1900s having been raised in near-poverty by her single mother and knowing nothing about her father - except that he was extraordinarily rich. This is the first novel I’ve read by Chance and it left a positive impression. I discovered A Splendid Ruin in December 2020 as part of Amazon’s First Reads program and chose it as my free ebook for the month. Genre: Adult gothic/historical fiction (content warnings for physical abuse and neglect mild sexual content, more suggestive than explicit constructively addressed racist attitudes/statements)

Photo by Mary Beth, originally posted at TinyBookFort on Instagram

Megan chance a splendid ruin