I raced to the end of Poor Miss Finch this afternoon, galloping to the finish.

If you read my earlier post you’ll know this is a book about a young blind woman named Lucilla Finch. She’s engaged to a man, Oscar Dubourg, who’s turned blue from the chemical silver nitrate, a remedy he’s taking to cure his epilepsy. Lucilla has always expressed a horror of “dark people,” and doesn’t know her fiance is BLUE. He, in turn, is torn as to whether or not he should even tell her, relying instead on dumb luck she won’t find out while he’s thinking over the matter.

Her fiance’s twin brother, Nugent, arrives on the scene. He falls in love with Lucilla basically on first sight, then recommends a German eye specialist who can cure her. From there on things get really, truly wild. The battle is joined between the two twins, one turning on the other, until the eventual climax…

OH, no, I’m not telling you that! Suffice to say it was a book that left me breathless, and this is a genuine RIPPING YARN of a book.

So, that’s Book # 2 for me this year, Poor Miss Finch by Wilkie Collins.  I’ll give it four of five BLUE STARS.