#BookReview ‘The Convenient Marriage’ by Georgette Heyer #Regency #Romance

Leave a reply

This is my first Georgette Heyer novel and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The Convenient Marriage is a standalone Regency romance although Heyer wrote many historical romances and detective fiction; some as one-off novels others as series. I didn’t know what to expect from The Convenient Marriage but right from the off I loved Horry Winwood. She is cheeky and clever, charming and brave. Georgette HeyerThe story starts with the three Winwood sisters. The eldest Elizabeth has agreed to receive the attentions of Lord Rule, knowing he intends to propose. But Lizzie wants to marry her impoverished soldier beau Lieutenant Edward Heron. The Winwood family is destitute due to the gambling habit of their brother Pelham and Lizzie knows the marriage will save the family. Her sister Charlotte will not consider marrying Rule and Horatia, or Horry, is too young being only seventeen. Until Horry, so named after her godfather Horace Walpole, uses her initiative and visits Rule. She proposes that she marry him so Lizzie is free to marry Edward. And so the convenient marriage takes place.
The real story is what happens next. Horry is a bit of a minx, getting into trouble, playing cards and generally doing things a wife shouldn’t do. And despite always expecting the disapproval of Rule, she cannot seem to stop getting into trouble. Motivated by gossip about Rule’s mistress, Horry takes more risks but her gallant brother Pel is on hand to help.
If you like fizzing, humorous romances tossed together with convincing Regency details, you will love this; the dresses, the hair styles, the wigs, the manners, the food. Regency London seems full of chaotic parties with dancing, music, cards and flirting. An exuberant escapist book, ideal for transporting you to another time far away from your everyday life.

If you like this, try these:-
‘Christmas Pudding’ by Nancy Mitford
‘An Appetite for Violets’ by Martine Bailey
‘The Wicked Cometh’ by Laura Carlin

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE CONVENIENT MARRIAGE by Georgette Heyer https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3zU via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘A Week in Paris’ by Rachel Hore @Rachelhore #mystery #WW2

4 Replies

I really enjoyed this book but can’t help feeling the title did it no favours. A Week in Paris by Rachel Hore is a story of hidden secrets, wartime Paris, resistance, collaboration, bravery and music. Because of the title I was expecting something more cosy and romantic; although there is a romantic strand to the story, this book is worth reading for so much more. Rachel HoreThe week in Paris in question happens in 1956 when teenager Fay goes on a school trip to Paris. Two significant things happen to her there. She meets a fanciable boy, Adam, and has a strange fainting episode triggered by the ringing of the bells at Notre Dame. Back home, she questions her mother Kitty who denies that Fay has ever been to Paris. But Fay cannot shake off the feelings of familiarity.
In 1961 Fay, now a professional violinist, has the chance to go to Paris for a series of performances. However her mother, always emotionally vulnerable, has taken an accidental overdose and is in St Edda’s Hospital. Before she leaves for Paris, Fay visits her mother who tells her to look at the bottom of a locked trunk at home. In it, Fay finds a small canvas rucksack. Attached to it is a label. On one side is written ‘Fay Knox, Southampton’, on the reverse, ‘Convent Ste-Cécile, Paris.’
‘She sat staring at the label for some time, while the faintest glimmer of a memory rose in her mind. Sunshine falling on flagstones, the blue robes of a statuette, and… but no, it was gone. It was as though a door had opened, just a chink, in her mind, before it shut again.’
The story is told in two strands, World War Two and afterwards, from the viewpoints of Kitty and Fay. Gradually the mysteries are unveiled. Fay has the unsettling feeling that her mother is keeping secrets, while Kitty knows she must some day explain everything to her daughter. For a long time, the reader keeps guessing.
In Paris, Fay sets off to find the convent mentioned on the label. There she slowly unravels the truth. How, despite denying to Fay that she has ever been to France, Kitty went to Paris in 1937 to study piano at the Conservatoire. What follows is an unveiling of a secret life during the Second World War, a time when Fay was a toddler, a time her mother told her they lived in a pretty cottage in Richmond. The real story of Kitty’s pre-war life in Paris, her meeting and love affair with Fay’s father Eugene, and what happened next, is fascinating. Again, Fay experiences feelings of déjà vu but this time she is old enough to seek the answers. She never imagined the truth she discovers.
I found myself picking up the book at every opportunity, just to read another couple of pages. It is a fascinating study of wartime secrets being kept from the next generation, not in an attempt to deny but as a way of pushing away the pain, grief and shame of what happened in an occupied city.

Click the title to read my reviews of other books by Rachel Hore:-
A BEAUTIFUL SPY
ONE MOONLIT NIGHT
THE HIDDEN YEARS
THE LOVE CHILD

If you like this, try these:-
‘The Ballroom’ by Anna Hope
‘The Book of Lies’ by Mary Horlock
‘In Another Life’ by Julie Christine Johnson

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A WEEK IN PARIS by @Rachelhore http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2RH via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 117… ‘Personal’ #amreading #FirstPara

Leave a reply

‘Eight days ago my life was an up and down affair. Some of it good. Some of it not so good. Most of it uneventful. Long slow periods of nothing much, with occasional bursts of something. Like the army itself. Which is how they found me. You can leave the army, but the army doesn’t leave you. Not always. Not completely.’
Lee ChildFrom ‘Personal’ by Lee Child

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Sea Glass’ by Anita Shreve
‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ by Mark Haddon
‘American Psycho’ by Brett Easton Ellis

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara PERSONAL by @LeeChildReacher https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3gI via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Munich’ by @Robert___Harris #spies #WW2 #thriller

4 Replies

Robert Harris is a classy thriller writer at the top of his game. Munich is his re-telling of the September 1938 meetings between British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and German Chancellor Adolf Hitler. Both had public, and private, objectives. Chamberlain was a pragmatist; though he sought peace, he was prepared to accept a delay of war to enable our woefully-equipped armed forces to prepare. Hitler wanted all of Europe for Aryans, which meant war. All of this is well-documented. But Harris takes two fictional characters and places them into this real history, splicing their personal stories into the political drama. Robert HarrisHugh Legat and Paul von Hartmann met at Oxford in the early Thirties. In 1938, Legat is a junior private secretary to Chamberlain. Hartmann holds a similar position in the German government; he is also part of the anti-Hitler movement. They two men have not spoken or seen each other since a holiday in Munich with a girlfriend. We do not know why. Everyone in this story faces a personal decision of conscience: whether to be loyal to country, self, and family, or betray them. The costs are different for each person. For some; death. For others; isolation, loss of job, loss of family, loss of self-respect.
Chamberlain and Hitler meet in Munich with Mussolini and Daladier to settle the fate of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. We are party to a fascinating game of chess as the diplomats and civil servants behind each of the leaders struggle to find a way through the opposition’s refusals and disagreements. The subtle tensions and pettiness within the teams, the one-upmanship, the jealousies, the cliques – which anyone who has worked in management will recognise – remind us that these politicians are ordinary people with an extra-ordinary job to do. If they fail, millions will die. Chamberlain is portrayed as a dedicated, workaholic who is desperate to avoid another war less than twenty years after the end of the Great War.
I read this over a weekend, the last pages flew by as Legat and Hartmann sneak around Munich, hiding secret documents and running from the Gestapo. This is a meticulously-researched literary thriller where the tension comes partly from our own knowledge of the outcome and our understanding that, whatever words the British present, Hitler’s mind is made up. Chamberlain will give his ‘peace in our time’ speech. But to find out what happens to the fictional Hugh and Paul, we must read to the end.

Read my reviews of these other thrillers, also by Robert Harris:-
AN OFFICER AND A SPY
V2

If you like this, try:-
‘The Travelers’ by Chris Pavone
‘Darktown’ by Thomas Mullen
‘The Long Drop’ by Denise Mina

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview MUNICH by @Robert___Harris https://wp.me/p5gEM4-357 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘After the Party’ by Cressida Connolly #historical #Thirties

Leave a reply

After the Party by Cressida Connolly is set in a difficult period of British history. It starts gently, lulling you into a sense that it is about three sisters, which it is, but it is also an uncomfortable story of pre-World War Two politics. From the first page, we know that Phyllis Forrester was in prison. In 1979, Phyllis looks back cryptically at what happened to her and her sisters, Patricia and Nina, in the Thirties. Why she was imprisoned is the question that made me keep reading. All we know is that someone died. Cressida ConnollyIn 1938, Phyllis and her husband Hugh return to live in England after years working abroad. They settle in West Sussex near Nina and Patricia. At a loose end, Phyllis is drawn into the peace camps organised by Nina; it is something to do over the summer, there are educational talks to attend and activities for the children. Nina is an organiser with a clipboard. Phyllis revels in their rented house at Bosham beside the sea, until Hugh buys a patch of land on which to build a house. At a dinner party thrown by Patricia, Phyllis meets a new friend, Sarita Templeton. “She said her ‘esses’ softly, so that ‘crazy’ sounded like ‘craissy’ and ‘is like ‘iss’.” Phyllis and Hugh are drawn into the circle of The Party, which the author has still not named. It is only the appearance of ‘The Leader’ or the ‘Old Man’ that tells us what we suspect, this is Oswald Mosley and The Party is the British Union of Fascists. Sarita does not appear much, but she is a key influence on Phyllis.
All is not well with the sisters, demonstrated by Connolly with concise words and a slight of hand. The three women have driven from Sussex to Buckinghamshire to visit their father who is in hospital after a fall, his future is uncertain as is that of their weak dependant mother. “Before they arrived at the hospital Patricia brought out her lipstick and compact and dabbed her nose with powder. Even from the back of her head Phyllis could tell that this small display of vanity was annoying to Nina. ‘Will I do?’ she asked Phyllis, turning her head. ‘No smudges?’ In actual fact she had applied the powder more thickly on one side of her nose, but Phyllis did not say so.”
The titular party is held by Sarita and Fergus Templeton. Sarita loves parties, Phyllis hasn’t been to one for years and Hugh, her husband, hates them. So a scene of conflict approaches, set amongst a background of Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists. Why is Phyllis in prison? Did she murder someone? One of her sisters? Her husband? Mosley?
This is not a thriller but there are obfuscations which are misleading, especially at the beginning, which affect the pace of the story and left the second half slower to read. Is the delay in mentioning Oswald Mosley intended to add tension, or because the author feared it may deter people from reading the novel? The light hand with which the British Union of Fascists is portrayed was difficult to read, partly because I never understood Phyllis’ motivation for joining The Party. She seems to drift into it, but could she really be that naïve? Much better I think to address it head-on rather than have Phyllis refer to ugly incidents in passing.
I expected to enjoy After the Party more than I did. Perhaps the time was so vile that writing about it in an entertaining way is impossible. The novel is awkward but perhaps that reflects the character of Phyllis, as she is our narrator. It does make you think ‘what would I have done if I was her?’ The ending, though is an anti-climax, given the stakes were raised so high on the second page. “Had it not been for my weakness, someone who is now dead could still be alive. This is what I believed and consequently lived with every day in prison.”
A thought-provoking novel.

If you like this, try:-
‘Wigs on the Green’ by Nancy Mitford
‘Corpus’ by Rory Clements
‘Our Friends in Berlin’ by Anthony Quinn 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview AFTER THE PARTY by Cressida Connolly https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3sU via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Shadow Sister’ by Lucinda Riley #romance

10 Replies

Star d’Aplièse, the third of the six adopted sisters in Lucinda Riley’s dual-timeline adoption mystery series is the subject of The Shadow Sister. Riley excels at combining a contemporary mystery with a related historical story and so far in the series Star has been something of an enigma. Almost twinned to CeCe, her nearest sister in age, she is the quiet unassuming one in this flamboyant family. In The Shadow Sister, she steps out of the shadows and discovers a past involving Beatrix Potter, Mrs Keppel and the King of England. Lucinda Riley When their adopted father Pa Salt dies, he leaves each girl a letter and clue about their birth. Star’s journey takes her first to Kensington, London, to an eccentric rare bookseller where, Star, grieving and feeling adrift in life, takes a job as bookshop assistant. She soon proves herself irreplaceable to shop owner Orlando who invites her to his family home in Kent. There she meets his surly brother Mouse – who Star thinks of as ‘The Sewer Rat’ – and delightful nephew Rory. As Star becomes caught up in the turmoil of the Vaughan family, distance grows between herself and CeCe. Slowly Star recognises that in order to work out who she is, she must be separate from her sister.
This novel is not just the contemporary story of Star ‘finding herself’ it is also the story of her ancestry. The historical strand takes us back to 1909 to Flora MaNichol who lives at Esthwaite Hall in the Lake District, and is a neighbour to Beatrix Potter. Flora’s family life is enigmatic, although she is the older sister it is the younger Aurelia who is given a London season and engagement to Archie, destined to be Lord Vaughan, encouraged. Flora would rather run wild on the fells, drawing animals and plants, avoiding her censorious father. Her life takes a turn when she too must live in London, at the house of Mrs Keppel, notorious mistress to the King. Star’s clue hints at a wealthy inheritance, a small onyx animal figurine named ‘Panther’. How can this be connected to Flora; why is she feted as a guest by Mrs Keppel, and what are the connections to Star a century later?
One issue I have with the series is that rather than actually being about the sisters’ mysterious parentage and how Pa Salt came to adopt them, they tell a historical story set two or three generations earlier. So far I have enjoyed all three of the historical stories; I am reading the series in order. The historical strands are linked to each relevant sister, but I am left feeling slightly short-changed about the truth of their birth. I want to know more about the birth parents and how Pa Salt came to adopt them. However in this book, more than the first two, his shadow is more evident so perhaps his story will be unveiled in the seventh book of the series.

Read my reviews of some of the other novels in Lucinda Riley’s ‘Seven Sisters’ series:-
THE SEVEN SISTERS #1SEVENSISTERS
THE STORM SISTER #2SEVENSISTERS
THE PEARL SISTER #4SEVENSISTERS
THE MOON SISTER #5SEVENSISTERS
THE SUN SISTER #6SEVENSISTERS
THE MISSING SISTER #7SEVENSISTERS

… plus my reviews of these standalone novels, also by Lucinda Riley:-
THE BUTTERFLY ROOM
THE GIRL ON THE CLIFF
THE LOVE LETTER

If you like this, try:-
‘House of Grace’ by Patricia M Osborne #1 House of Grace
‘In Another Life’ by Julie Christine Johnson
‘Fair Exchange’ by Michèle Roberts

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE SHADOW SISTER by Lucinda Riley https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3XO via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor #historical

5 Replies

Set in Newby, a small seaside town, just after the Second World War, A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor is an ensemble novel focussing on a small cast of characters. There is love and betrayal, friendship and duty, loneliness and death. Not a great deal happens, in terms of action, but the shifts in relationships in this place where everything seems to revolve around the harbour are what kept me reading. Elizabeth TaylorThere are seven key characters whose lives impact on each other in positive and negative ways. A middle-aged doctor, Robert, and his wife Beth seem to get through life without taking too much notice of each other. Their neighbour, divorcee Tory, is Beth’s best friend and Robert’s lover. A fact Beth seems unaware of, though their elder daughter Prudence knows and resents. Invalid and gossip Mrs Bracey makes hell of the lives of her two daughters, Maisie and Iris, but somehow knows everything that is happening. War widow Lily Wilson lives above the creepy, dusty Waxworks Exhibition, she used to run with her husband. Like much of Newby the museum is closed for the off-season, waiting the new life, energy and money expected by the arrival of springtime visitors.  Into this midst comes Bertram Hemingway, an out of season visitor, amateur artist, and something of a hit with the local ladies.
Each character is lonely, bereft, in a place where war is still evident; in absences, in debris washed up on the shore, in the general shabbiness of everything and everyone. Everything seems to happen slowly in Newby, like the lapping of the waves against the shore. Taylor introduces Prudence as she sits at her bedroom window looking out at her view of the harbour, “… various lights spread out over the cobblestones, the lamp above the door of this house, the doctor’s house, and the pavement shining red under the serge-draped windows of the Anchor; nearer the sea wall, lamps cast down circles of greenish light encompassed by blackness. And always there was the sound she no longer heard, since she had been hearing it from the beginning, water lapping unevenly against stone, swaying up drunkenly, baulked, broken, retreating.” Taylor uses this limited geography – plus the pub, the Braceys’ secondhand clothes shop and the museum – to show women surviving, often without men. First published in 1947, Taylor shows a community of women who get by because of, and sometimes despite, each other and in this it reminded by of Pat Barker’s Union Street, not published until 1982.
A View of the Harbour is both a bleak read and a funny one. I particularly enjoyed the letters written to Tory by her son, Edward, who is at boarding school; and the gauche awkward meetings between Prudence and her bookish beau Geoffrey.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

Read my reviews of other books by Elizabeth Taylor:-
ANGEL
A WREATH OF ROSES
AT MRS LIPPINCOTE’S
IN A SUMMER SEASON
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY

If you like this, try:-
‘Hangover Square’ by Patrick Hamilton
‘Fred’s Funeral’ by Sandy Day
‘The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde’ by Eve Chase

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A VIEW OF THE HARBOUR by Elizabeth Taylor https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3OW via @SandraDanby

A poem to read in the bath… ‘Woods etc.’ by Alice Oswald #poetry

1 Reply

The first time I read a poem by Alice Oswald I was deep in the countryside; in my imagination. She took me away from the bookshop where I stood in front of the poetry shelf, running my fingers along the slim spines, waiting to be tempted, to stand in a woodland deserted of people. It says something about my own need for nature that her words drew me in so effortlessly.

Alice Oswald

Alice Oswald [photo Pako Mera]

Because of copyright restrictions I am unable to reproduce the poem in full, but please search it out in an anthology or at your local library.

‘Footfall, which is a means so steady
And in small sections wanders through the mind
Unnoticed, because it beats constantly,
Sweeping together the loose tacks of sound

I remember walking once into increasing
Woods, my hearing like a widening wound.
First your voice and then the rustling ceasing.
The last glow of rain dead in the ground’

Alice Oswald

BUY

Read these other excerpts, and perhaps find a new poet to love:-
‘After a row’ by Tom Pickard
‘Poems’ by Ruth Stone
‘Digging’ by Seamus Heaney

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘Woods etc.’ by Alice Oswald https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3g8 via @SandraDanby

My Porridge & Cream read… Ivy Logan #books #YA #supernatural

Leave a reply

Today I’m delighted to welcome Young Adult supernatural author Ivy Logan. Her ‘Porridge & Cream’ read is Reckless by Cornelia Funke.

“The book I enjoy reading is Reckless by Cornelia Funke. It’s a part of the Reckless series but the book is pretty special to me. I first discovered Cornelia Funke because of the Inkworld series but it was Jacob Reckless who went on to become the person with the power to draw me back again and again. Ivy Logan“Jacob is a human who has found his way to a magical world called the Mirrorworld. He keeps coming back to it and moves between two worlds. Despite his nomadic life Jacob always puts family first and he is willing to do anything, sacrifice anything to save his brother who is slowly turning into stone. The characters that flow from Cornelia’s imagination are so very real and they draw you and hold your attention.”
Ivy Logan

BUY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ivy’s Bio
Ivy Logan has a lifetime of stories in her head. She has always loved reading and watching movies. And she sees stories in everything and in everyone. She was already a storyteller before she actually sat down and decided to become one. Writing is to Ivy about narrating a story, pulling the reader in and ensuring that her tale has elements of surprise that will either build shock, happiness or anger, even irritation towards her characters in the mind of the reader. She writes fantasy but based on an element of truth. To explain;Metamorphosisis set against the background of blood diamonds and a country ruled by a dictator.Brokenis based on the relationship of a mother with her children and the instinctive nature of a mother to protect the child she believes is the weaker one. Broken explores the idea, without painting the mother as a villain. All her stories cast the female MC as the heroes, even if they are less than perfect, because all young girls need someone to believe that we rescue ourselves, not a prince on a white steed. Currently in addition to the final book in her series, Redemption, Ivy also has a clean romance suspense, A Second Chance, in WIP.

Ivy’s links
Author website
Blog
Facebook
Twitter

Ivy’s latest book
Ivy Logan Amelia, Peradora’s teenage heiress is a fashionista and boasts of 6 million followers on Twitter. In reality she is a bit of an introvert, a prisoner in a golden cage and her ‘it girl’ image is nothing but a carefully crafted, elaborate P.R. plan, masterminded by  her guardian, Liam, the dictator of Peradora.   As secrets from her past dodge her at every turn, can Amelia choose between Adrian, the adventure junkie, her first love and Noah, the handsome bodyguard, and her best friend? Do they have secrets of their own they’re keeping from her?  Now Peradora, her beloved nation is in trouble, and a sorceress ancestor, grants Amelia the ability to shape shift. Will it prove to be a curse or a boon? Will the power be too much for Amelia to handle? And can it truly change who she is inside, a frightened girl, quite out of her depth?    As a stunning set of events unfold, will the truth set Amelia free or will she learn that some secrets are best buried in the past?
Check the advance reviews at Goodreads and add Metamorphosis to your To-Read list.

What is a ‘Porridge & Cream’ book? It’s the book you turn to when you need a familiar read, when you are tired, ill, or out-of-sorts, where you know the story and love it. Where reading it is like slipping on your oldest, scruffiest slippers after walking for miles. Where does the name ‘Porridge & Cream’ come from? Cat Deerborn is a character in Susan Hill’s ‘Simon Serrailler’ detective series. Cat is a hard-worked GP, a widow with two children and she struggles from day-to-day. One night, after a particularly difficult day, she needs something familiar to read. From her bookshelf she selects ‘Love in A Cold Climate’ by Nancy Mitford. Do you have a favourite read which you return to again and again? If so, please send me a message.

Discover the ‘Porridge & Cream’ books of these authors:-
Graeme Cumming’s choice is ‘Eagle in the Sky’ by Wilbur Smith
Linda Huber chooses ‘A Cry in the Night’ by Mary Higgins Clark
‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’ by Philip K Dick is chosen by Lisa Devaney

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
Why does YA supernatural writer @Ivyloganauthor re-read RECKLESS by @CorneliaFunke #books https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3Wu via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Doll Factory’ by Elizabeth Macneal @esmacneal #historical #thriller

2 Replies

What a creepy tale is The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal. It is a strange and compelling mixture of creepy taxidermy, the painting of doll’s faces and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood artists, combined with stalking and kidnapping. I finished it not sure whether I liked it or not. Some parts are beautiful, some are horrifying. Elizabeth Macneal It is London 1850. Queen Victoria is on the throne, the Great Exhibition is being built in Hyde Park and a team of men are searching for wonders to display. Iris and her sister Rose work at The Doll Factory shop, painting personalised faces onto dolls, and sleeping in the attic. They survive but can only dream of having enough money to open their own shop. Iris is desperate to be a real artist. Silas Reed’s Shop of Curiosities Antique and New is popular with Victorian ladies buying dried butterflies and artists wanting stuffed mammals and rodents that can be copied and incorporated into their art. Silas and Iris are linked by Arnie, a young boy who scratches a living by sewing dolls clothes for The Doll Factory, and sourcing recently dead animals for Silas to stuff. When Iris meets Louis Frost, PRB artist, the circle is complete and the threat becomes darker. A two-headed dog, Silas’s most prized handiwork, is selected for display at the Great Exhibition. Meanwhile Iris leaves The Doll Factory to model for Louis, receiving free art lessons from him in lieu of payment. Albie suspects Silas of unnatural interest in Iris and tries to warn her but she doesn’t take him seriously.
I could have done with more of the art, less of the taxidermy and dead animals; but’s that’s just me. It was a long build up to the attack, which made me wonder if this started life as a historical novel about Victorian artists with the distinctly modern psychological thriller narrative layered on top at a later date. But it is a thought-provoking book about the unfairness of poverty and the blithe lifestyle of the rich; about women’s rights and lack of opportunities; and about the power of love and how obsession can turn into possession. The beautiful cover does not hint at the darkness and often gruesome writing inside.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

If you like this, try these:-
‘Blackberry and Wild Rose’ by Sonia Velton
‘The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock’ by Imogen Hermes Gowar
‘The Fair Fight’ by Anna Freeman

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE DOLL FACTORY by @esmacneal https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3WM via @SandraDanby