The Merry Maid is a book about a young girl who ends up in England during Queen Mary's reign. She is eventually adopted by a stable, if not aristocratic, women. The story moves on when she leaves and falls in love, becoming a travelling performer with her new husband like her deceased father had originally taught her. All in all, it's an entertaining historical novel, including aspects of the change from Mary to Elizabeth's reign. Nothing too profound, nor too clichéd. More realistic than Victoria Holt, but along the same vein.

The Heart is a lonely Hunter is a very different sort of book. I've read quite a few books, and never one quite like it. One person I know compared it to the Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath because of the dark story line. The story is based upon the lives of 5 main characters, the majority of the story telling spent on the mute John Singer and the teenager Mick Kelly. Themes of alienation, isolation, intolerance, loneliness, and the fulfillment of dreams dominate the novel. The opposite of a superficial book, this story is about how people feel at their core and their dreams and aspirations. The writing is good, but just not very happy. The focus is more on how lonely each character feels and for what reasons. After reading it, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter forced me to think deeply. And I believe the title sums up what Carson McCullers was trying to say in her first novel.