To be fair to this book, I feel like I need to mention two possible prejudices on my part. One is that I read very little realistic YA -- that is, non fantasy/dystopian. So it's obviously not my wheelhouse. The other is that while I do read a lot of historical fiction, including historical crime fiction, I really don't like novels where the protagonist is 1) a real historical figure of note and 2) solves crimes. It just seems like Queen Elizabeth or Jane Austen ... or in this case, Emily Dickinson, were interesting enough people in their own right that turning them into detectives seems a bit silly. I don't mind real historical figures showing up in historical fiction. But I'd prefer they do things that they plausibly would have done.

So this book was not really my thing. But I don't think it's a bad book and I might have liked it quite a bit when I was 12 or so. I do worry about impressionable youngsters forming their image of Emily Dickinson based on this story .... But then, I suppose I should be glad any impressionable youngsters would be exposed to Dickinson at all. And just maybe some of them would be interested enough to read more of her poetry and find out more about her real life, which is plenty interesting without the need for her to solve crimes. ( )

A great mix of historical fiction and mystery in this story featuring a teenage Emily Dickinson as the protagonist and her poetry central to the story. A clever, engaging novel. ( )

A very interesting book. I would say it was appropriate for middle school and up. I enjoyed the mystery although I would have also enjoyed a little more of the love story before the main death occurred. ( )

A loving and fascinating tribute to young Emily Dickinson, featuring lines from her poems for each chapter heading and an imaginative, but realistic plot. MacColl's novel inspired me to learn more about Dickinson. ( )

Nobody's Secret has an interesting premise: imagine Emily Dickinson turned teen detective! The fifteen-year-old incipient poet meets a mysterious and well-dressed man who makes mysteriously flirtatious small-talk and shortly afterwards dies--very mysteriously. In between household chores and social duties, Emily interviews all pertinent townsfolk, intent on getting to the bottom of three questions: Who was the man? Why was he floating in the pond, when he didn't appear to have drowned? What on earth would account for his sudden sartorial misadventures?

My impressions of Nobody's Secret are mixed, partly because I'm not sure of the audience. Marketing suggests this is a young adult novel (bolstered by my library's cataloging it as such), and it is set when Emily Dickinson was fifteen. However, for a murder mystery, the stakes feel very low, and the character interactions better suit a middle grade audience, in my opinion. Though Dickinson's poetry was sprinkled throughout, it felt like an add-on, rather than integral to the plot or even particularly well related to it.

Perhaps I had higher hopes for this story, as I do love Dickinson's poetry and I very much enjoyed MacColl's Prisoners in the Palace, but nevertheless the characters themselves are quite nicely drawn, if sometimes the minor ones feel a little archetypal. Some of the questions are resolved very obviously, but there's enough misdirection to engage the reader's attention. As a slim, single-sitting novel, it's quite engaging overall, actually, and I can't say I feel the hour or so I spent reading it was at all wasted.

All that's not to say this isn't a decent historical mystery; if the audience were comparatively youthful, it could actually be quite good. As far as recommendations go, I think this would make a good introduction to both genres (mystery and historical fiction) for a middle school English class; it could also initiate or coincide with a more in-depth study of Dickinson's poetry, perhaps even at a higher grade level.