The Lord I Left by Scarlett PeckhamMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
In the third book in her Secrets of Charlotte Street series, Scarlett Peckham tells the story of a minister who preaches to prostitutes and a woman who aspires to be a whipping governess - a most unlikely duo, but somehow Peckham weaves a tale that is both believable and full of emotion.
The most striking thing about this novel was how real the characters felt while you were reading. Lord Lieutenant Henry Evesham, a Methodist evangelical, who had appeared as an antagonist in the previous book in the series (The Earl I Ruined), is in this novel humanized as a man who is constantly struggling between faith and earthly desires. Both from his point of view (full of parenthetical asides that add needed levity to an otherwise heavy book) and from snippets of his journal, we see him grappling with himself and his faith in a way that feels fully authentic. The heroine, Alice Hull, who is a housekeeper at the highly secretive Charlotte Street whipping club, also deals with her own issues of lost faith and balancing one’s own desires with doing what one believes to be the right thing.
Overall this is another excellent book by Scarlett Peckham. As in the previous two books in the series, this novel is especially angst-ridden, and it is a hard-won battle for the protagonists to get to their happy-ever-after. In the end, though, the struggle (and the read) is worth it! Can’t wait to see what this author does next!
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