Title: Nightingale’s song
Author: Kate Pennington
Publisher: Hodder
ISBN: 978-034087875-0
Pages: 219
Year: 2006
Maggie Nightingale never expected that she would leave her home to travel overseas to the New World.
When the greatly feared criminal Thomas Hague forces thirteen-year-old Maggie to be an accomplice to a smuggling operation, he also condemns her fate for they are caught red-handed. The punishment for smugglery is: to be hanged. As the great criminal Hague is, he finds a way to escape jail and Maggie having nowhere to go she follows him. They have to get as far away from London as soon as possible and decide to board the first outbounding ship to the New World. Only their sentence keeps following them.
The story surrounds around Maggie, a simple inn girl who can sing better than any nightingale, trying to escape her death at the gallows. Then there is Thomas Hague the worst of the worst with no humanity or anything, but still he takes Maggie with him to the New world.
I expected so much more from this adventure novel and Maggie. I would have loved to see a brave young girl who can make her way on her own, but actually she is not that resourcefull and doesn’t have any spunk. If it wasn’t for the kindness of the people she met, she would definitely not have survived.
The story is fast-pacing, it has to be because it only has 219 pages to end well (not a lot). It is quite a nice story, but I think that if the idea (capturer and capture in the same danger) had been more developed, it would have been better. Also, Maggie has a talent for singing. I thought that she would survive by using her voice, but her singing really doesn’t even play a part in the book.
If I had to describe this book in one word, it would be nice. Just a book to read on a cold night for an hour, nothing more.
Boeklover 