Frances felt locked into the secret she was keeping with Elsie, and Olivia was torn between dealing with her grandfather's death or her rocky engagement. Though a century apart, Olivia and Frances were both in situations where they didn't feel fully in control of what was happening around them. I did find it a bit helpful to draw myself a family tree for Olivia so I could more clearly see how she ended up connected to the Cottingley fairies.

I also enjoyed the creative use of a found memoir as a vehicle for the flashbacks to 1917. I loved her beautiful prose, her characters, and the pace of the story. The Cottingely Secret was also my first Hazel Gaynor novel. There are pictures of the actual Cottingley fairy photographs included in the back of the book as a reference. Novels like The Cottingley Secret transport me to another place and time and I am able to learn more about that era. This is why historical fiction holds such a special place in my heart. I knew absolutely nothing about the Cottingley Fairies before reading this novel, so I loved learning about their history and the role the photographs of the fairies played in England during the first world war. As she begins to understand why a nation once believed in fairies, can Olivia find a way to believe in herself? (synopsis via Goodreads ) But it is the discovery of an old photograph that leads her to realize how the fairy girls' lives intertwine with hers, connecting past to present, and blurring her understanding of what is real and what is imagined. When Olivia Kavanagh finds and old manuscript in her late grandfather's bookshop she becomes fascinated by the story it tells of two young girls who mystified the world. But Frances longs for the truth to be told. Frances and Elsie will hide their secret for many decades.

But when one of the great novelists of the time, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, becomes convinced of the photographs' authenticity, the girls become a national sensation, their discovering offering hope to those longing for something to believe in amid a world ravaged by war.

1917.It was inexplicable, impossible, but it had to be true - didn't it? When two young cousins, Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright from Cottingley, England, claim to have photographed fairies at the bottom of the garden, their parents are astonished.

The cottingley secret