REVIEW: Harriet Wolf’s Seventh Book of Wonders

A novel by Julianna Baggott 

Harriet Wolf’s Seventh Book of Wonders is a sweeping family saga that spans four generations of Wolf women and their countless family secrets. Harriet Wolf is the famously reclusive author of a wildly successful series that chronicles the love and life of Daisy and Weldon. However, at the time of Harriet’s death, the seventh and final book has not been published and speculations abound— did Harriet Wolf write the seventh book at all? If so, where it is? If the book does exist, it could be worth millions.

The novel is told through the voices of four women in the dysfunctional Wolf Family: Harriet, her daughter, Eleanor, and her granddaughters, Ruth and Tilton. Each chapter is narrated alternately by one of the four women and each woman struggles to tell her own story underneath the weight of the past until their narrations collide and dark family secrets are revealed.

Baggott weaves history into the novel and bases a key setting for one of the characters on 20^th century psychiatric hospitals known for the inhumane treatment of their patients. As Harriett’s story unfolds, her past at the Maryland School for Feeble Minded Children explains her present, including her reclusive tendencies. Baggott breathes life into the book with memorable characters and a unique plot structure that carriers the reader across the span of a century and through moments of heartbreak and tragedy. Readers will be drawn to the intricate mother-daughter relationships and the final chapters will leave you gasping as you discover the heart wrenching truth behind the final Daisy and Weldon book.

— Lauren Callihan, Main Library, Charleston, S.C

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