Celebrate Lit / March 3, 2025

Miss Blaire in Blackwell’s Island

About the Book Miss Blaire in Blackwell’s Island

Book: Miss Blaire in Blackwell’s Island (Heiresses of Adventure Book One)

Author: Grace Hitchcock

Genre: Historical Romance True Crime

Release date: July 31, 2024

Will Edyth prove her sanity before it is too late?

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 Blaire 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?

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My Thoughts on Miss Blaire in Blackwell’s Island

Wow. I have been loving this series and read this one as soon as it came through as an ebook through NetGalley. It’s amazing. So amazing. Okay, so maybe I should say more about the book but I’m still reeling with what a great read it was and it’s a super-fast read too. I could not put it down.

This novel was released originally under the title The Gray Chamber.

On the one hand, we have a social debutante who has this huge fortune left to her from her dying parents. But it’s still controlled by her uncle until she comes of age. Her uncle has married and she’s not so sure of the aunt but even though they’re not the best of friends she gives her the benefit of the doubt. The new aunt also has a daughter that she’s not sure she’ll get along with but she actually gets along really well with and loves.

Edyth thinks the best of people which is probably her biggest downfall.

She also is a bit eccentric and doesn’t much care what society thinks. This seems to be a theme with being declared mentally ill in the past and it’s a loophole her uncle is willing to take to get his hands on her fortune.

Poor Edyth is in love with her fencing instructor(one of those eccentric things is that she loves fencing and takes lessons). Just as they are beginning to see each other as more than friends tragedy strikes. He must race against time to find and free her while she merely tries to survive with her life intact.

Add in more fun and suspense when doctors are bribed and controversial treatments are tried.

Oh, and an undercover journalist in Nellie Bly enters the story which is a great bit of fun and suspense as well.

I really loved this book. I’ve loved all of the books in this series actually and can’t wait to read the ones that come next. I highly recommend the entire series and hope you’ll read them all.

This book held special appeal to me though as it discusses mental health and how the world both viewed mental health plus how they treated it. Women were often deemed mentally ill or unstable for things such as inheritances, men wishing to remarry, or simply being a bit peculiar. Even just having your own opinion might have you locked up. As a mental health nurse, I love learning more about what this area of medicine was like and how it’s progressed.

I have voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book which I received from Celebrate Lit. All views expressed are only my honest opinion. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC regulations.

About the Author of Miss Blaire in Blackwell’s Island

Grace Hitchcock is the award-winning author of multiple historical novels and novellas, including the American Royalty, Best Laid Plans, and Aprons & Veils series. She holds a Master’s in Creative Writing and a Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in History. Grace lives on the Northshore of New Orleans, with her husband, Dakota, sons, and daughter in a cottage that is always filled with the sounds of sweet little footsteps running at full speed. When not writing, or chasing babies, she’s baking something delightful and can usually be found with a book clutched in her fist.

More from Grace

I am thrilled to share with you my FIRST novel in the HEIRESSES OF ADVENTURE series, MISS BLAIRE IN BLACKWELL’S ISLAND, which is set in New York City in 1887. I loved writing about Edyth Blaire, our cat-rescuing, spunky heroine who spends her days painting, fencing with her dreamy instructor, and avoiding society at all costs, which as you can imagine, comes back to haunt her before the end. I’ve never written about a character who despised reading, so that was a new one for me. Edyth just doesn’t like to sit still long enough to finish a book, but you’ll find out why later.

While writing this book, I am pretty certain the librarians at my local branch were wondering what in the world my hobbies are, judging from the stacks of fencing books for beginners, histories of New York crime in the 19^th century, and Nellie Bly’s Ten Days in a Mad-House, and more.

The inspiration for this book came from Nellie Bly’s scandalous exposé for Joseph Pulitzer’s newspaper, The World. In reading Nellie’s articles, I was shocked at the grounds by which the asylum would commit women and that’s when I discovered a tiny mention about an heiress with family members who had her tucked away so they could have her fortune. . . and Edyth Blaire was born.

I hope you will enjoy reading about our eccentric leading lady and her fencing master hero, Raoul “Bane” Banebridge in this friends-to-lovers romance. If you are interested in seeing pictures of the asylum and to see what I pictured the characters looking like, check out my Pinterest board here.

Are you part of a book club? I have discussion questions here!