Title: Edith Lyle
Subtitle: a novel
First published: 1876
Description: A very young widow struggles to rebuild her life and find love. Edith Lyle's Secret follows the heroine as she kicks against the pricks of her treacherous, social-climbing mother. Edith elevates her self, not through social facades, but through personal refinement and faith, even as her mother steals her newborn baby from her drugged arms and abandons the child at a hospital. In a classic Mary Jane Holmes style, (like an American Jane Austen) the story grabs the reader's attention and keeps it until the last word. 
This book exemplifies the values and goals of the Faith and Family Critical Theory.
Subjects: Faith and family critical theory, adoption, redemption, romance, widow, critical theory
Places: Mostly New England, some in London
Time periods: In the 1800s
LC classification: PS1949.H8 E3 1876, PS15