A Madness So Discreet

by Mindy McGinnis

Summary from GoodReads

Grace Mae knows madness.

She keeps it locked away, along with her voice, trapped deep inside a brilliant mind that cannot forget horrific family secrets. Those secrets, along with the bulge in her belly, land her in a Boston insane asylum.

When her voice returns in a burst of violence, Grace is banished to the dark cellars, where her mind is discovered by a visiting doctor who dabbles in the new study of criminal psychology. With her keen eyes and sharp memory, Grace will make the perfect assistant at crime scenes. Escaping from Boston to the safety of an ethical Ohio asylum, Grace finds friendship and hope, hints of a life she should have had. But gruesome nights bring Grace and the doctor into the circle of a killer who stalks young women. Grace, continuing to operate under the cloak of madness, must hunt a murderer while she confronts the demons in her own past.

In this beautifully twisted historical thriller, Mindy McGinnis, acclaimed author of Not a Drop to Drink and In a Handful of Dust, explores the fine line between sanity and insanity, good and evil—and the madness that exists in all of us. 

Thoughts on the Book

This one appeared in a Waiting on Wednesday.  Needless to say I was super excited to receive it in my Owl Crate.

My Review

This book is about a girl, Grace, who is in an insane asylum because she is pregnant, unmarried, and a daughter from an affluent family.  She refuses to talk because of the injustices of life.  

All the characters in this book were great.  Grace was such an amazing protagonist.  She was so strong and put up with so much, how she stayed sane throughout everything she had to deal with is an incredible testament to her strength.  Thornhollow was another awesome character.  I was fully expecting not to like him, he started off as being described as a psychopath, and at the beginning it seemed like he might be one.  The more you get to know him you realize that he's actually not, he just doesn't show his emotions in typical ways and he has reasons for behaving like he does.  His actions at the end of the novel made him my favorite character!

The supporting characters were great as well, Lizzie was a lot of fun to read about, and I really want to know more about String!  Nell was a lot of fun too, it made her illness that much worse, especially when you find out about her past.  Even the 'bad guys' were great characters as well.  I love how this book played with the brain and why people act they way they do.  The murderer and main antagonist were not inherently evil, it was events that made them that way, and the evil wasn't so much as knowingly doing horrible stuff, but more of not understanding how to do it any other way.

I really enjoyed the story line as well, I always love it when there's a duel plot going on, especially when it's well done.  There was the serial killer Grace and Thornhollow were hunting down as well as Grace's backstory catching up to her.  It was masterfully done and wonderful to read.

I give this one a 10/10.  I loved every second of it!  I highly recommend it, but be warned it's not really a horror book, there's nothing super scary about it.