In Julie Beaufort-Stuart Elizabeth Wein has created a charming, original character, with a distinctive and irresistible voice. We meet her here as a teenager returned from boarding school to spend a last summer on her grandfather’s Scottish estate. The old man has died and the estate is being sold to cover his debts. Things quickly take a dark turn when Julie is knocked unconscious while out alone, and it’s also revealed that a scholar cataloguing the estate valuables has vanished. The blame falls on a family of Travellers. Set in 1938, the story is one of prejudice and class division as well as a coming-of-age story, and mystery. Wein is a very good writer, deftly weaving all the different strands together and creating a vivid portrait of the time and the setting as well as of her central character.
Julie also appears in the equally riveting Code Name Verity, and The Pearl Thief is a kind of prequel.
Don't miss Elizabeth Wein's stunning new novel, Stateless
Before Verity . . . there was Julie.
When fifteen-year-old Julia Beaufort-Stuart wakes up in the hospital, she knows the lazy summer break she'd imagined won't be exactly what she anticipated. And once she returns to her grandfather's estate, a bit banged up but alive, she begins to realize that her injury might not have been an accident. One of her family's employees is missing, and he disappeared on the very same day she landed in the hospital.
Desperate to figure out what happened, she befriends Euan McEwen, the Scottish Traveler boy who found her when she was injured, and his standoffish sister, Ellen. As Julie grows closer to this family, she witnesses firsthand some of the prejudices they've grown used to-a stark contrast to her own upbringing-and finds herself exploring thrilling new experiences that have nothing to do with a missing-person investigation.
Her memory of that day returns to her in pieces, and when a body is discovered, her new friends are caught in the crosshairs of long-held biases about Travelers. Julie must get to the bottom of the mystery in order to keep them from being framed for the crime.
This exhilarating coming-of-age story, a prequel to the Printz Honor Book Code Name Verity, returns to a beloved character just before she first takes flight.
Elizabeth Wein was born in New York, and grew up in England, Jamaica and Pennsylvania. She is married with two children and now lives in Perth, Scotland. Elizabeth is a member of the Ninety-Nines, the International Organization of Women Pilots.
She was awarded the Scottish Aero Club's Watson Cup for best student pilot in 2003 and it was her love of flying that partly inspired the idea for Code Name Verity.
