Meanwhile, Louisa’s head is filled with question after question. Someway, somehow, the two girls are determined to find answers and, with any luck, a way out of the oppressive walls of Wildthorn. Good natured Eliza, a chambermaid who believes Louisa’s story, is determined to help her figure out the mystery surrounding her imprisonment at the asylum. Her situation is beginning to look very fraught indeed until help comes from an unlikely source. The more she insists upon her true identity, though, the more resistance she is given by the matrons and doctors who run Wildthorn and the more abuse and mistreatment she is forced to endure. Louisa knows deep in her heart, though, that she is who she says she is and that she is perfectly sane. Even worse-she is told upon arrival to Wildthorn Hall that her true name is actually Lucy Childs and that all of her memories are but the delusions of an overactive brain. Following the death of her beloved father, the sole family member to encourage her intellectual pursuits, Louisa is sent away to a home for the mentally disturbed. Bright, curious Louisa Cosgrove, who has very unladlylike aspirations to become a doctor, never thought that her studies could hurt her, yet she finds herself suddenly institutionalized at an asylum all the same. Jane was born in Essex and now lives in Lancashire, in a house with a view of the fells.Can too much education drive a girl to the brink of insanity? Residents of Victorian England believed the answer to be yes. Wildthornis her first novel, inspired by true stories of women who were incarcerated in asylums in the nineteenth century. After doing an MA in creative writing, she now divides her time between writing and tutoring. 'Fans of historical fiction or GLBTQ fiction will likely enjoy this unique story of mystery and romance.' VOYA Jane Eagland taught English in secondary schools for many years. Teens will identify with her.' School Library Journal 'Eagland does a beautiful job of depicting the 'real' Louisa in the end, with an unusual twist on the conventional romantic denouement. The surprisingly happy endingin which Louisa escapes and confronts her accusersis a welcome relief after all of her angst and despair.' Publishers Weekly

'Louisa and Eliza provide a window into a shameful history of mental health care and women's incarceration that only ended in living memory.' Kirkus Reviews 'The author tenderly and expertly builds a romance between Louisa and an attendant, Eliza. This well-paced, provocative romance pushes boundariesboth literal and figurative. But, she is still seventeenstill Louisa Cosgrove, isn't she? Who has done this unthinkable deed? Louisa must free herself, in more ways than one, and muster up the courage to be her true self, all the while solving her own twisted mystery and falling into an unconventional love. Locked away in Wildthorn Halla madhousethey take her identity.

Wildthorn book