This is a book review for the book, Aunt Crete’s Emancipation, by Grace Livingston Hill. It’s about
a sweet older lady named Lucretia, nicknamed Crete. She lived as the unpaid and unappreciated
servant of her sister and niece who made her do everything: all the cooking, all the canning, everything.
They saved up money to go on a vacation and decided to go early because their backwoods cousin was
coming to visit, and they thought that he was poor and uncivilized. The sister and niece left quickly,
leaving Aunt Crete at home to take care of this cousin.
Aunt Crete determined to love the cousin no matter what, whether he was rich or poor and no matter
how he looked. He turned out to be a very handsome young man who had unexpectedly come upon
great wealth. When he found Aunt Crete at home, he decided to spend some of his money on her and
buy her some nice clothes and things.
Because Aunt Crete was sleeping and he picked up the phone, the nephew accidentally overheard
the niece’s tirade about how they left early and didn’t want to be known by this backwoods cousin, and
on and on. He decided to spring a surprise on them, so he took Aunt Crete to the same hotel and got a
very nice room.
The niece and aunt were very mystified about who Aunt Crete was because she looked so different
being nicely dressed, but they finally learned who she was. The nephew ended up convincing Aunt
Crete to go with him and be his mother and take care of him.
I hope you find this book as interesting as I did. It’s a sweet little story, and I hope that you’ll take
the time to read it!
written by Bethany Griggs and post prepared by Crystal Lucas