After reading Edith Shay, I began to look at life differently.

Katherine Lunden is addicted to newspapers, reading them at every available opportunity. Growing up in the 1860s in the woods of Wisconsin, Katherine dreams of more. She dreams of going to the place she has read about so many times in the newspapers: Chicago. But there is one small problem: her mother is dead-set against it.

You can't always follow the old traditions, sometimes you have to create new ones.

One day, Katherine is told that she is going to help her aunt and uncle with this year's harvest at their farm in Michigan. Although it isn't Chicago, Katherine is ecstatic to be traveling at all. My family wanted nothing of the outside world, and I was drawn to it as if my soul had been set adrift and I had to follow it.

Through luck and some guts, Katherine ends up in her dream town with no money and an old, worn-out suitcase with the name Edith Shay written on the tag. She is in awe of all the noise, rush, and people of the city. She takes a job mending sheets just to get a bed for the night.

After some time in Chicago, she decides to work her way to Richmond, Virginia to return the suitcase and belongings to the mysterious Edith Shay. Along the way, however, her luck and courage is challenged in many ways. She pushes on to achieve her goal of working in a newspaper office, even though she is, as her grumpy employer notes, a member of the frailer sex...with better suitability for cleaning and general housekeeping. She does make it to Richmond but what she discovers there is totally unexpected.

After reading Edith Shay, I began to look at life differently. I decided that you can't always follow the old traditions, sometimes you have to create new ones. If you like books set in the past about girls who had the courage to follow their hearts, you'll probably like this. Definitely worth reading.

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