Sixteen-year-old Ivy is pregnant and alone. Cast out by her family, she runs away and finds safety in the arms of Joel Davis. He offers a simpler life than the one she had in Boston, a quiet, rural life of rules, peace, and community. Little does she realise, Joel is the charismatic leader of a cult known as the Community, and all is not quite as it seems.
Daughter Mia has only known the claustrophobic life of the Community. While out serving the Community one weekend, she secretly commits a transgression - reading. Discovering a world beyond the edges of the Community's property is intoxicating. But breaking rules carries serious consequences and sends Mia on a path she could never have imagined.
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I began my life for the second time on a June night in the year I turned fifteen.
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(@ScribnerBooks, 17 August 2023, e-book, 240 pages, ARC from the publisher via @edelweiss_squad)
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I loved The Invisible Hour. The book starts off seemingly quite innocent, with Mia, unhappy living in her quaker-like, oppressive community discovering a light in her darkness when she stumbles into the world of reading and everything is transformed. The book becomes something quite remarkable when Mia is rescued by two women who know how to hold their own and finds salvation and an obsession with the book The Scarlet Letter. The book touches on time travel which I wasn't expecting and so blew me away. I didn't want to stop reading because the characters and story were so engaging. I loved this.
