Helpful Score: 1
This is a re-read of a book from my childhood from one of my favorite authors. Felix Brooke, whose father was English and mother was a Spanish aristocrat, is an orphan living in his Spanish grandfather's home in Villaverde in the 1820s. Unhappy and feeling unloved by his relatives, when his friend the cook dies and gives him a letter left to him by his father, he decides to run away to find his English family. His adventures along the way are many and heart-quailing; Aiken does not shy from portraying evil villains and harsh life, even as she writes with humor, wit and warmth. Felix eventually finds his way to England; but his adventures do not stop there as this book is the first of a trilogy, and it is only now that I have found the last two books that I had always longed to read as a child.
