She is happy that her friend is happy, but it will be a poignant outcome for her since her father was killed in a Vestergaard mine and she remains bitter at the callous way she and her sister were treated Helene Vestergaard’s late husband was the owner of the family mining dynasty and Marit blames him for her father’s death. Marit adores Eve, loves her friend like a sister, even as a mother might, and has mixed feelings about the likely adoption. Her closest friend is Eve, a younger fellow orphan with a precocious talent for ballet, who is about to be adopted by the famed former ballerina Mrs Vertergaard. The central character is Marit Olsen, an orphan seamstress. The novel is set in Copenhagen in 1866-67, initially in an orphanage and then in the home of a wealthy mining widow Helene Verstergaard. Don’t get me wrong, it is good, but my expectations were perhaps a bit too high. I fear, however, that Emily Bain Murphy has not quite pulled off the ‘difficult second novel’. Every music fan will be familiar with the concept of the ‘difficult second album’, and the same may be said of books, except that books are produced and marketed somewhat differently, and first-time authors rarely achieve huge first-time success in the same way that certain pop performers do. My elder daughter who I insisted read the book, rates it as one of her favourite novels of all time and has re-read it several times. I read The Disappearances as part of this very reading challenge in January 2018 and absolutely loved it. Her first, The Disappearances, was a huge success, both critically and commercially, and so her follow-up was hugely anticipated. Splinters of Scarlet is Emily Bain Murphy’s second novel. It has unfortunately been some time since I read a children’s book, however, so I was keen to get started on this one. I was delighted to have this as a theme regular readers of this blog will know that I am a huge fan of children’s literature and regularly post reviews of books for young readers. I chose this novel for my Facebook Reading Challenge in April, the theme of which was a children’s book.

Burning Lies by Helene Young