Mutiny's Daughter

Rating:
Summary: Another great historical novel by Ann Rinaldi.
Review: In her latest historical novel, Ann Rinaldi tells a "what-if" story. She imagines what might have happened had Fletcher Christian, who led the famous mutiny on the HMS Bounty, returned to England with Mary, his daughter by his Polynesian wife. Mary Christian is fourteen when this novel opens, and ever since she was brought to England at five years old, she has been forced to live a lie. Raised by her grandmother, she must tell anyone who asks that her uncle is her true father, for her grandmother cannot bear that the good name of the family be tarnished. When she is sent off to London to be educated in a school for girls from wealthy families, the secret of her true parentage becomes even harder to keep. At the same time, she longs to see her father again, but she knows she may never, for her went into hiding after leaving Mary with her grandmother, and she has not heard from him in all those nine long years.

Ann Rinaldi has a knack for taking lesser known stories from history and shaping them into fascinating historical novels, and she has done so again in Mutiny's Daughter. I highly recommend this book to all of her fans, and to new readers who enjoy historical fiction. I had never before heard of Mary Christian, but I found her story fascinating, and after reading this book, wished I could find out what really happened to her.