“Then suddenly they stopped. In front of the Eggharts’ house a white motorised van with high windows was parked. There was a red cross painted on the side and the words ‘mission of mercy’ written above it.”

 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. In the beautiful city of Vienna in around 1908, an abandoned baby is found in a small church on a mountain. The baby was found by two servants called Sigrid and Ellie who decided to call the baby Annika. Annika grew up a servant girl who enjoyed her life spending time with her friends and the beloved company she had surrounding her in her house. She lived with three professors and Sigrid and Ellie, who became Annika’s adopted mother. However her life dramatically changes when the secret of her past begins to unfold and her life as a servant girl soon becomes almost the opposite …

 

The front of the book caught my immediate attention. A red background with a gold border made the cover seem very appealing. There is a green jewel that stood out to me even though it was placed on to quite a hectic background. In total there are around 388 pages with a full page of small print. The book is written in the third person.

 

Eva Ibbotson is a superb author. In this book there was a constant good story with new events happening in each chapter that made the novel even more intriguing. I found it very hard to put the book down and was very eager to keep on reading.

 

When I first saw the book, it struck me as being a sort of fantasy novel; however once I got into the book I soon found out that the story doesn’t exactly have that much to do with the title. The first few chapters came across as being quite dull and started to drag on. However once the story had set its scene, each chapter was more absorbing than the previous one which is a definite positive point to a book.

 

I really enjoyed this book and feel that my classmates also found it interesting. I would definitely recommend this book as it is a real classic that makes you feel that you are actually part of the story. Overall I would recommend this book: eight out of ten.