This is the first Chevalier book I've read - well, actually, I listened to it on CD - and I have mixed feelings. I enjoyed the story and Chevalier's writing style. It was easy to picture the setting and to imagine fossil-hunting with Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot. And I was very, very happy to learn that Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot actually lived, and that Mary Anning blazed the trails that Chevalier says she did.

I'm torn, though. I'm a purist where history is concerned, so this book made me squirm. Again, Mary Anning was a real person, as were all of the primary characters of Chevalier's novel. I'm uncomfortable with the dramatization of their lives. Lieutenant Birch, who also existed, did, in fact, auction his fossil collection to raise money for the Anning family. But there is no evidence that the two had an affair. In the author's note, Chevalier acknowledges this and says that this is where the fiction writer has to step in. Really? Is it necessary to fictionalize such a significant event in the life of an individual? Or, rather, could Chevalier instead have created fictional characters, modeled after people who lived? It would be, in my opinion, more responsible than dramatizing the already-fascinating life of a living, breathing person.

Okay, so you could certainly call this just a hang-up of mine, and you'd be right. That said, I'll congratulate Chevalier on having written a lovely book, and for having introduced Mary Anning to those of us who did not know her. But if this is the way in which Chevalier comes up with her novels, I don't think I can read any more of them.