Book Review: The Gray Chamber by Grace Hitchcock

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Series: True Colors
Publisher: Barbour Publishing
Release Date: January 1, 20202
Genre: True Crime Fiction

On Blackwell’s Island, New York, a hospital was built to keep its patients from ever leaving.

With her late parents’ fortune under her uncle’s care until her twenty-fifth birthday in the year 1887, Edyth Foster does not feel pressured to marry or to bow to society’s demands. She freely indulges in eccentric hobbies like fencing and riding her velocipede in her cycling costume about the city for all to see. Finding a loophole in the will, though, her uncle whisks Edyth off to the women’s lunatic asylum just weeks before her birthday. And Edyth fears she will never be found.

At the asylum she meets another inmate, who upon discovering Edyth’s plight, confesses that she is Nellie Bly, an undercover journalist for The World. Will either woman find a way to leave the terrifying island and reclaim her true self?

My Review ♥️


Mental health is a sensitive subject in our culture today.  Great care is taken as we realize just how powerful the mind is, and what we need to do to care for it.  I have heard of asylums and the horrors that abounded in many in the past, but nothing has really gave me pause like The Gray Chamber did.  How do you prove yourself sane and falsely accused in a place that is trying to provoke and prove the opposite?

While Edyth's character was rather eccentric for a woman at that time, she was by no means crazy, and I loved seeing her strength when faced with such adversity and hopelessness.  The relationship between her and Bane, so playful and yet so passionate, was a breath of fresh air.

The fight in this story is strong but the injustice had me audibly growling in frustration, craving justice on every page.  The horrors that many endured at the hands of people who are supposed to be caretakers is unfathomable, the purest form of evil, and I am so thankful that Nellie Bly had the courage to do what she did, going in the trenches, exposing Blackwell's Island for what it really was, and helping to bring about real change.

I cannot say enough about this incredible series and am already reading another volume as I write this review.  How the authors are able to mix historical fact and fiction so seamlessly is truly breathtaking, and I am glad that these stories are once again being brought to light.
My Rating: ★★★★★
Other Books in the True Colors Series
     
★ Be sure to also check out MY REVIEWS of The Pink Bonnet and The Yellow Lantern
About the Author

Grace Hitchcock is the author of The White City and The Gray Chamber from Barbour Publishing. She has written multiple novellas in The Second Chance Brides, The Southern Belle Brides, and the Thimbles and Threads collections with Barbour Publishing. She holds a Masters in Creative Writing and a Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in History. Grace lives in southern Louisiana with her husband, Dakota, and son.

*I have voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book which I received from the Barbour Publishing through NetGalley. All views and opinions expressed are completely honest, and my own.
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