This book is a wonderfully balanced story of two timelines. The mesmerising way of writing and different POVs generate such a good reading

This book focuses on women who are descendants of Eleanor Dare and the Lost Colony. Alternating between the different timelines, one focusing around World War Two, makes the book a good historical fiction with a little bit of fairy tale and mystery.

Although a slow burn and sometimes a bit too crowded because of several characters, the book takes some time to get the attention of the reader. But when hooked, it’s another walk through history and is a wonderful plot to the lovers of Kate Morton.


All thanks to Netgalley for this eARC for preview. Loved reading it.

This book touches on all the intricacies of mother/daughter relationships. I loved the way Kimberly Brock was able to weave the modern day lives of Alice and Penn seemlessly with the lives of their ancestors in this timeless tale. I was previously unaware of the Dare Stones and all of the mystery surrounding them. Whether they are "real" or not, they are the perfect basis for this story.

I loved this book so much. I have long since been fascinated with the mystery of the Lost Colony of Roanoke, so I jumped at the chance to receive this eARC. This was a beautifully written book that uses a dual timeline and multiple POV’s to weave a lovely tale of love, longing and loss. The book is quite an undertaking though at almost 500 pages, so be ready to dig in.

I am not typically a reader of Historical Fiction so I tried to go out of my comfort zone with The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare, about the lost colony of Roanoke. I mean who isn't intrigued by a whole community vanishing into thin air?! This book was very different than what I anticipated, jumping between dual timelines of WWII and the 1500s. Acknowledging that I am not the prime audience for this book, I had a hard time engaging with the story. The focus was a lot less mystery than it was family history, grief and loss. The mythos of Roanoke was also debunked in a very reasonable (and less exciting and sensational) way, which aligns with the actual history and discovery of the Dare stones. It was also quite long at over 400 pages and didn't touch on Eleanor Dare until more than halfway through.

That being said, fans of historical fiction may very well enjoy this one. Usually I am all for going into books blind but I recommend doing a little research in advance about the Dare family (if you don't already know). It will enhance your reading experience 100%.I did a deep dive and found the history very interesting.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Muse for a chance to review this ARC. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. Eleanor Dare drops April 12, 2022.

This was an ARC copy that I won and a first from this author for me. While the story got off to a slow start, once I got into it I could not put it down. I became invested in the lives of the Dare girls. Alice struggles to raise a teenage daughter during WWII after her husband was killed. She goes back to her family home that was left to her through her mother after her father passes away. She has many things to work through that is left over from a childhood incident and the tragic loss of her mother. This affects the decisions she makes once back at Evertell, but as she spends more time there and learns more about her mother, herself, and her daughter they all grow in various ways. Woven through the story is the tale of Eleanor Dare and what happened to the fated lost colony of Roanoke. How her father's decisions set everything in motion. It is a moving tale and gives us a glimpse of what could have possibly happened so long ago and how that story still lives on in the Evertell heirs of Eleanor Dare.

I wasn’t sure what to expect as I started to read this book and came away pleasantly surprised and very happy that I read it. To me this was a coming of age story not only for a daughter but a mother too. To the female descendants of Eleanor Dare the history all the women through the ages shared and what happened in Jamestown. Their connection to the land, Belle Isle and the wonders there made for a beautifully intriguing story.

It was easy to get caught up with the characters and stay engaged with the rich descriptions. You could picture yourself there.

Thank you to #netgalley and #harpermuse for allowing me to read this wonderful story.

Even though I’m not a fan of the who historical what ifs mainly because I hate it when fiction writer’s try to chance history. I enjoyed this one. And I am pretty sure it is because the author did it with a point in history that we really don’t know what happened. The Lost Colony of Roanoke and I loved this author’s take on.

A story written, using a mystery that captures people's imagination, was beautifully written. The characters, dealing with loss, looking for answers and a future. Told in dual time the common thread between the historical story an d the more present day story is one of loss and dealing with those losses and the heartache that comes with it while trying to forage a future. It's also about embracing one's past, while not getting lostt in it and the perseved expectations that cone with it, but also about using it to create a future that's entirely your own. Nothing is entirely straightforward and there's always a degree of truth to even the things that seem to be lies. Beautifully written story.
I received an ARC copy from NetGalley for review but all opinions are my own.

This is a new to me author and I'm happy to say that I was swept away in this delightful novel of awesome characters and real life historical events!
I didn't want to put it down so I finished it in one day!
How amazing it is to have a rich history like that! I would happily claim that!
My favorite thing about this book was the intriguing mystery/secrets that took place. I love things like that!
I will miss these characters.
I really wish more was written about this Lost Colony because it is so fascinating!

After her father’s death Alice inherits Evertell her family home located in Savannah. Alice thought the house had been sold many years ago after her mother died. Alice and her daughter travel back to the home Alice lived in as a child. Alice hopes to sell the house but first she wants to find a book that should have been given to her when she turned thirteen. The commonplace Book had been handed down through many generations of her family.
Alice hopes the book will give her answers to her family history. Alice’s daughter Penn is thirteen and is excited about seeing her families abandoned home and is curious about the secrets that have long been hidden.
This is about the history of Alice’s family over fifteen generations back to Eleanor Dare. Set mostly in Savannah in 1945 and earlier times. The family stories are told through clippings and notes and people living near Evertell and Alice’s memories.
I loved the way the family history was told and the way the character’s interacted. This is about families, history, buildings and secrets.

The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare is a captivating historical southern novel during the WWII era. Alice and her daughter Penn have returned to Evertell to claim their inheritance. Alice left Evertell at age 13 with her father after the death of her mother. After arriving, they find the Commomplace Book and learn how their ancestors are connected to the Lost Colony of Roanoke and the Dare Stones. The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare is an enjoyable book full of family lies and secrets. Thanks to author Kimberly Brock, publisher Harper Muse, and to NetGalley for providing a copy of this book for an honest opinion.

If you have traveled to Raleigh, North Carolina, you may have visited the Museum of History, the exhibit dedicated to Virginia Dare, believed to be the daughter of Eleanor Dare and the first English child born in the New World. This powerful legend and its haunting story of female strength inspired Kimberly Brock’s second novel, THE LOST BOOK OF ELEANOR DARE. 

In the 1500s in England, Eleanor White, like others of her sex, inherited her mother’s whispered stories and cherished words that encouraged Eleanor to be more than her mother could be. Though women could do only women's work, they learned to find ways to break rules, their ideas and truths hidden in what came to be known as The Commonplace Book. Even its title masked its contents, for within her deceased mother's jottings, Eleanor White found hidden messages, secret charms and cures that she could pass on to others of her sex. This was not unlike the anatomy of a women, her necessary and important role in human creation always to be hidden under long skirts, cloaks and her silence.

But a spark in Eleanor White made her refuse to hide one talent. She became her artist father’s apprentice, creating inspired and artful engravings, though only her father’s name could be added to her completed work--Eleanor, a woman, an artist, forced to be invisible. She accepted this, wearing her deceased mother’s red boots, long grey cloak, and clinging to The Commonplace Book. There she copied parables and recipes that helped her accept such a life, all while creating her own vision of how that life might change, what that life might become. 

Then in the late 1500’s, Eleanor's father was made Governor of a new colony in North America, Sir Walter Raleigh’s Roanoke colony. Eleanor had to marry and go with him. But it was her father who chose Eleanor’s husband, Ananias Dare. He would accompany Eleanor and the newly appointed governor to the New World. At their departure, Eleanor, already pregnant, clasped The Commonplace Book to her breast while drinking her mother's dark tea recipe, already fighting to become her own woman, the one she was meant to be--the progenitor of the line of women who appear in Kimberly Brock's seductive and beautiful novel. In the words of Penn, the daughter of Alice Young who currently guards The Commonplace Book: We grow and change, we claim our very own world. 

FICTION AND HISTORY

Readers of Brock's novel are in capable hands. This is a tale of mothers who all had daughters; mothers who passed The Commonplace Book from one generation to another, relating the myth of a stone whose engraved words connected all the generations to the historical figure of Eleanor Dare and her female descendants. Brock names them Alice, Bernadette, Claire and yes, Eleanor. And of course there was Virginia. 

The novel begins with life in the midst of WW II. Alice Young and her teenage daughter Penn have lost husband and father to the war. They are driving back to Evertell, the home of Alice's grandmother and mother, supposed descendants of Eleanor Dare. 

Alice has inherited the gentile house on spreading grounds near rivers that feed the Atlantic Ocean. Evertell is expansive, with outbuildings, acres of vegetation, wandering peacocks, even a small island. Though it is a place of lost grandeur and disrepair, Penn finds it alluring with its hidden stories that can reveal the lives of people who have lived and are still living there. She finds she is craving adventure, eager to learn the stories and fables of Evertell and all its inhabitants. Her once detailed plan to attend a secondary school gradually fades away. Evertell is in her blood. Penn could be an actual descendant of Eleanor Dare. The pull of Evertell and its history, slowly opens her eyes to past worlds, the history of this lineage of strong women. But even before Penn fully understands where and why Evertell is changing her, she impulsively starts the process by inviting the aging lawyer, Oscar Lewallen, to have dinner with them in the rambling house, so in need of repair. Lewallen concurs that Evertell has been passed to Alice. And yes, the 236 acres, the mill, the cemetery on Bel Isle—all of it.   

Maybe it is the very ground Penn now walks upon that excites her, or it’s the people who have lived here for years, or the mystery of a bell, crafted by Paul Revere, that no longer rings. So many mysteries to solve. So much better to fall in love with the history of the females in her family, with their stories that connect them to Evertell and The Commonplace Book that her mother Alice finds in the dusty and neglected house.  

There is Bernadette Reece Telfair, possibly the heir of Eleanor Dare, who completed Evertell in 1799, but also found a hand-drawn map (so like the previous Eleanor) in the Commonplace Book, with the initials EWD. She sent men to find the source, the beginnings of the lives of Eleanor and her descendants, believing in the stone, one inscribed with the story of the fate of those first adventurers. Verbal history claims the stone was found and brought to Evertell to protect it from robbers or the possibility of defacement. But when a later descendent, Bernadette, finds that her daughter has disappeared, the stone is blamed, Bernadette believing she had brought a curse on the family. So now, where is the stone? 

Kimberly Brock has written a novel of strong women, of the struggles of Penn and Alice, now thrust into a world of memory, but also the real world of sorrows and lies, bickering and feuds. And decisions. Though her husband is dead, Alice has a future. She must decide what that future will be and if she will claim her inheritance, the memories it bears.  Penn succumbs to the enchantment, not only of the physical house and surrounding land, but also the history--the missing stone, the damaged bell, that Penn believes must ring again. 

CHANGE IS ETERNAL 

The hearts and souls of women are beautifully wrought in this novel. We don't need to believe in the myth of Eleanor Dare to become enchanted with them, their losses and struggles, the history of Evertell: an explosion that kills a son, causes the death of an innocent man. The friendships that have fallen away because of the darkness of war, the loss of commination, the fever of lies. Though it provides an historical context, the novel is a story of gain and loss, sorrow and joy, of people connected to the land and the buildings that are Evertell, a place that might heal the sorrows and worries of past and present: Penn’s future choices, Alice’s pull to Sonder, the boy she once loved, but now a changed man, in body and soul.

"I could see the girl I'd been when I'd believed in my own magic,” Alice says. And though eager to explore and understand the history that surrounds her, she’s not planning to stay in this expansive place of memories—not all of them welcome. Instead, she focuses on Penn, will make this a short sojourn, a reevaluation, a time to check things out.

But there are always memories that Evertell must reveal. They pull at Alice who says: "I'd gone dark too long ago." Watching Penn embrace this legacy fraught with sorrow and joy, Alice must make a choice—to walk away or open her heart to her inheritance, the strength of her ancestors, the love of man who will help her decide what her personal legacy should be.   

From the novel: Now people live and die in a place, and when you walk the streets, the lawn and orchards, you are walking over lives, over bones—you are tramping on history

This book tells the story of Alice and Penn, mother and daughter in rural Georgia who travel to an old family home by the name of Evertell. Alice lost her husband (and Penn's father) in World War II, and after the passing of her father, Evertell became hers. The home is known for its lores and legends, including the existence of a book which has been passed down through generations of women in Alice's family. Eleanor Dare is a woman who supposedly survived the Lost Colony of Roanoke.

The title and concept really appealed to me, but I honestly had trouble getting into this book. I didn't particularly grow fond of any of the characters, and there was no compelling action propelling me through the book. There was nothing original about going-back-to-an-old-house-filled-with-legends concept. I was hoping there would be more about the Lost Colony of Roanoke.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher of this book!

The premise for The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare is intriguing but I didn’t feel the story lived up to the promise. Several points in the book are painted with much tension and anticipation but when they are resolved it seemed anticlimactic. I like the 13-year-old main character Penn (and love her name) but other characters felt a little flat to me. There is a lot going on and it feels complicated. I was waiting for the historical timeline to begin but didn’t get that until half way through, and then it was limited. The book did one thing that I love about historical fiction and that is make me curious, I’m going to look for other books either fiction or not about the lost colony of Roanoake. Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Muse for an early copy to read and review. This book is expected to release in April 2022.

This is a beautiful story - I feel I lived the journey with the characters, from grief to happiness, from shame to self-confidence.
Hard not to write spoilers, but the discovery at the end was perfect. Brock's prose is poetic, and she weaves a touch of magic and mystery into the fabric of the story, I'm going to miss Penn and Alice today.. Highly recommend!

I am very interested in the Lost Colony and Eleanor Dare, but this was a difficult book to keep interest in reading. It's very complex, a lot of storylines merging and different characters take the lead in different chapters.

There is a lot going on - mystery, a bit of fairytale, the Lost Colony and Eleanor's story, Alice's story, Penn's viewpoint, WWII. Alice, a young mother and new widow, inherits Evertell the family lands, after her father passes away. She takes her daughter, Penn, and goes back to the house to get it ready to sell. There is a lot of mystery over why her and her father left, her mother's death, and the family curse.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for a temporary, digital ARC in return for my review.

The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare, though it was a little slow at times, was interesting and complex enough to hold my attention throughout. The main characters, a mother and her child, are well developed and robust with complicated feelings about love, loss, and coming into her own. Add in a little mystery, a light love story, and some historical throwbacks and you've got it!

Although I found initially that the book was slow to advance and difficult to get into, once the story was established I found it a great read with compelling characters. I am glad that I stuck with it and would recommend this book to lovers of historical fiction.

I appreciate the publisher allowing me to read this book. This is a fascinating read about the Roanoke colony. Highly recommend

Alice Young lost her mother at 13, her husband to the War, and her Father to natural causes at an older age. When her father dies, she finds that her family home, that they left behind when her mother died, in Savannah is now hers. Alice sees this as a way to give her daughter her heart’s desire, but first they must go to the homestead and find a buyer.

Upon arriving at Evertell, Penn is mesmerized by the family homestead and Alice is haunted by the past. How much of herself, and her family stories, can she share with Penn without having to share her own past? This is the story of the Dare women, but most of all the story of Alice and Penn.

A great setting and storyline. It drags a little, especially at the start, but once you get going, you’re hooked and want to find out exerting. I recommend this book for the Historical Fiction lover, especially if you have a love of the South.