The Cut of the Moon
This ambitious dual-timeline novel opens in 1925 with the story of Ruby, the youngest daughter of the wealthy Thornhill family, living in a mansion called Wind Thorne in rural upstate New York. During an engagement party for Ruby’s sister, a maid falls down the staircase and dies. Ruby suspects murder but does not know the identity of the killer. Unhappy with her life, fearing her lecherous uncle, and aware of her family’s illegal whiskey business, Ruby steals her sister’s diamond engagement ring and runs off to New York City with a young man from a nearby farm. They talk their way into employment in a large brownstone for four years, until the start of the Great Depression. Hard times force them to return to Wind Thorne, where they find illegal activities have expanded. Ellingsen’s second story, which is contemporary, centers on Lindsey McKenna, a data analyst and would-be jewelry designer whose aunt now owns Wind Thorne. Lindsey obsesses over the legend of the missing ring and the disturbing fate of the Thorne family and enlists a handsome gemologist to help with her sleuthing.
Ellingsen excels at weaving together the timelines, creating connected plots and suspense about the resolution of both tales, and clarifying how Ruby and Lindsey change over the arcs of their stories. But the plot is complex and predictively dependent on diaries, and the motivations of the characters are not always plausible. Also, although Ellingsen adds descriptions about settings, both stories seem suspended in time, not anchored in historical or political detail about the twenties, World War I, or the Depression. Nonetheless, I raced to the end, eager to learn the fates of the feisty women and their love interests.
