Literary Hop - Underrated Love

Christmas is almost here! I have my shopping done, a few presents left to wrap and a bit of reading to do, but all in all I'm ready and excited for the upcoming festivities!
To add to my excitement this week is a Literary Blog Hop week! As always, the Literary Blog Hop is hosted by the lovelies over at The Blue Bookcase, and just requires that you're blog have a certain literary quality to it (for their definition of literary, follow the link!)

This weeks questions is one of my favorites!

What literary title do you love that has been under-appreciated? We all know about the latest Dan Brown, and James Patterson isn't hurting for publicity. What quiet masterpiece do you want more readers to know.

I'm a huge Tracy Chevalier fan. I wouldn't necessarily conceder all of her work literary genius, but I feel that a few of her books definitely fall under the category of literary, especially in the terms most of us have been defining it.  For me, her third novel, Falling Angels is a work of genius. Told from multiple perspective, it offers great insight into turn of the century England. Maude and Lavinia are brilliant characters, and their cemetery antics  have created in me a fascination that has stuck with me since I first read Falling Angels eight years ago.

While most people shoot right for Chevaliers's Girl with a Pearl Earring, or her newest novel Remarkable Creatures, Falling Angels is a hidden treasure. It's crafted with love and care, and has a life to it that is sometimes hard to find in historical fiction. Really it is a strong piece, and is ascetically beautiful.

Okay, this really just turned into me gushing about one of my favorite books, but since I've been afraid to pick up my copy of Falling Angels in the past two years for fear of it disintegrating in my hands and taking all of my fantastic memories with it, I haven't really had a chance to write about it!


Happy Holidays and Happy Hopping!