A Woman of Courage by Rita Bradshaw - #bookreview #blogtour

 

'Now remember what I said and be careful, hinny, all right? Keep to the streets where the gas lamps are and no taking shortcuts through then dark alleys.'

Josie Gray smiled at her mother, nodding her head. 'Don't worry, Mam, I never do. Toby said he'd meet me out tonight and walk me home, by the way.'

Maggie patted her daughter's arm. 'Did he? That's good,' she said but the worried expression didn't lift...

***

Survival means fighting back.

It's 1890, and Josie Gray is an innocent and beautiful fifteen-year old when Adam McGuigan, the youngest son of a dangerous and influential crime family spots her singing in a Sunderland public house. Adam is handsome and charismatic, sweeping Josie off her feet with his beguiling lies and promises. He charms her into marrying him on her sixteenth birthday, but on her wedding night the fairy tale ends.

Josie finds herself trapped in a living nightmare and there's no one to help her. Events spiral out of control, and when her life is put in danger she escapes with her baby son. Fleeing to a different country, Josie fights to make a good life for her child and then love beckons again.

But the McGuigan family's power is far reaching. When the day of reckoning comes, can Josie survive it?

***

Rita Bradshaw is a prolific author who I have not read before but having read this one I am determined to seek out others. 

Set in Sunderland during the latter part of the nineteenth century, the author brings alive the area and time period extremely well.  It is an easy and captivating read and I was engrossed in Josie's story. 

What we learn from Josie is how to survive under horrendous circumstances. When home should be our place of warmth and safety and it is anything but and how we can be resilient and courageous when we have to be.

The book was inspiring and I found it very hard to put down. It was a dramatic and emotional read, and I was completely caught up in Josie and her story. The setting of the North East of England gave it an edgy feel and kept me captivated from the first page to the last.

It was well written and easy to read and I felt very involved with the story. I felt more like a participant than a reader and felt I knew Josie as a personal friend by the end of the book. This demonstrates how well the author inhabits her characters and involves the reader in her story.

I recommend this book as well worth reading and anyone who likes historical fiction, sagas or books about women will enjoy reading this.

ISBN: 978 1035000326

Publisher:  Pan

Formats:  e-book, audio and paperback

No. of Pages:  496 (paperback)

About the Author:

Rita Bradshaw was born in Northamptonshire, where she still lives today. At the age of sixteen she met her husband – whom she considers her soulmate – and they have two daughters and a son and three young grandchildren. Much to her delight, Rita’s first attempt at a novel was accepted for publication, and she went on to write many more successful novels under a pseudonym before writing for Headline using her own name. As a committed Christian and passionate animal-lover Rita has a full and busy life, but her writing continues to be a consuming pleasure that she never tires of. In any spare moments she loves reading, walking, eating out and visiting the cinema and theatre, as well as being involved in her local church and animal welfare​.

(book and media courtesy of the publisher)

(all opinions are my own)

10 Year Blogversary - My Favourite Book from 2020 - The Five by Hallie Rubenhold - #BookReview

 

"There are two versions of the events of 1888. One is very well known; the other is not. The first one is the one printed in most history books......... Then there is the other version..... which most choose to forget."

***

Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from Fleet Street, Knightsbridge, Wolverhampton, Sweden and Wales. They wrote ballads, ran coffee houses, lived on country estates, they breathed ink-dust from printing presses and escaped people-traffickers.

What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888.

Their murderer was never identified, but the name created for him by the press has become more famous than any of these women.

In this devastating narrative of five lives, historian Hallie Rubenhold finally gives these women back their stories.

***

Continuing with my ten year blog anniversary celebrations, here is another of my favourites of the decade. Today I am publishing my favourite read from 2020 and it was originally posted on 27th May of that year.  This nonfiction title made a huge impact on me has stayed with me ever since.

I originally read this during the pandemic and my review reflects that. I have updated the review a little so there is more information about the book and the author but essentially the review is as it appeared that day.

I have a library copy of this book which I had borrowed before all the libraries were closed. However, half way through this book I knew I would want a copy of my own so bought one online. It is a fantastic book and one that I know I shall return to.

I suppose it resonates with me as my own ancestors were in the same area at the time of the murders. Flower and Dean Street is well known for it's Victorian doss houses and the 1881 census places my own great-great grandparents as being resident in Flower and Dean Street at the time the census was taken. It is a strange thought that they were rubbing shoulders with the Ripper victims and possibly even the Ripper himself.

The author has clearly done extensive research in preparation for writing this book and it contains a bibliography that runs to twenty-one pages. She has taken all of these resources and written an accessible and engaging book.

At no point does she deal with the brutality with which these women lost their lives. Instead, she focuses on the women who were murdered; their childhoods, adolescence and  adult lives which were cut tragically short. She challenges the belief that they were 'merely prostitutes,' as was contemporaneously believed and reported and presents us five women who were trying to live and survive during difficult times and in straightened circumstances.

Ms. Rubenhold has humanised and given these women a voice. Certainly, they were women who were down on their luck, homeless and alcoholic but with the exception of two of them there is no evidence to suggest that they were sex workers.

I wholeheartedly applaud the author for this book. She presents us with five women who were not merely victims of the Ripper but were victims of the time in which they lived. They were victims of their gender, time and world into which they were born - a time in which women did not have a voice. Well done Ms. Rubenhold for giving us the means by which we can see these women for who they really were and not merely as the Ripper's victims. I highly recommend this book.

ISBN: 978 1784162344

Publisher: Black Swan

Formats:  e-book, audio and paperback

No. of Pages:  432 (paperback)

About the Author:

Hallie Rubenhold is a bestselling author, social historian, broadcaster and historical consultant for TV and film.

She published The Five; The Untold Lives of The Women Killed by Jack the Ripper in 2019 and was the winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-fiction. It is the first full length biography of the Ripper’s victims. 

In 2005, Hallie published The Covent Garden Ladies, and was the subject of three television programmes, including the hit drama series, Harlots (ITV Encore, Amazon and Hulu). In 2006, BBC4 broadcast The Harlots Handbook, a documentary based on Hallie’s book which she presented.

Her equally celebrated second book, Lady Worsley’s Whim (entitled The Lady in Red in the US) about the 18th century’s most infamous adultery trial became BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week in November 2008. In August 2015, it appeared as a 90 minute drama for BBC2 entitled The Scandalous Lady W, starring Natalie Dormer and Shaun Evans.

Hallie is also the author of a series of novels set during the period of the French Revolution. The first of these, Mistress of My Fate was published in 2011 (2013 in the US). The second, The French Lesson was published in the UK in April, 2016.

In addition to writing books, articles and reviews, Hallie regularly appears on TV as an expert contributor to documentaries. 

Hallie has a passion for telling a great historical tale and has a nose for unearthing previously unknown stories from little-known sources. She loves challenging our preconceived notions about our ancestors lives and revels in history’s surprising, unpleasant and gritty truths. Her extensive academic experience extends to research, teaching, lecturing and curatorial work. In the past she has been employed as a curator for the National Portrait Gallery, a university lecturer and a commercial art dealer. In 2014 she curated an exhibition on women’s reputations in the Georgian era for No.1 Royal Crescent in Bath and has been involved with several projects at the Foundling Museum in London.

Hallie received her B.A. in History from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and an M.A. in British History and History of Art from the University of Leeds. Remaining at Leeds, she embarked on her studies for a PhD and later completed her thesis on the subject of marriage and child-rearing in the eighteenth century.

She lives with her husband in London.

(author media courtesy of her website https://www.hallierubenhold.com/ / Sarah Blackie)

(all opinions are my own)

The Ninth Child by Sally Magnusson - #BookReview

Alexander should have warned her. Explosions, Issy, he might have said. Puddles, he could have mentioned. Grass of a less manicured variety than the Botanic Gardens, pronounced absence of paths wider than your dress - a hint would have been helpful.

Had he warned her? This morning's compliment on the strawberry bonnet had been, on reflection, a shade less than sincere, but no, nothing had been said. She would have paid attention to that much.

 

Loch Katrine waterworks, 1856. A Highland wilderness fast becoming an industrial wasteland. No place for a lady.

Isabel Aird is aghast when her husband is appointed doctor to an extraordinary waterworks being built miles from the city. But Isabel, denied the motherhood role that is expected of her by a succession of miscarriages, finds unexpected consolations in a place where she can feel the presence of her unborn children and begin to work out what her life in Victorian society is for.

The hills echo with the gunpowder blasts of hundreds of navvies tunnelling day and night to bring clean water to diseased Glasgow thirty miles away - digging so deep that there are those who worry they are disturbing the land of faery itself. Here, just inside the Highland line, the membrane between the modern world and the ancient unseen places is very thin.

With new life quickening within her again, Isabel can only wait. But a darker presence has also emerged from the gunpowder smoke. And he is waiting too.

Inspired by the mysterious death of the seventeenth-century minister Robert Kirke and set in a pivotal era two centuries later when engineering innovation flourished but women did not, The Ninth Child blends folklore with historical realism in a spellbinding narrative.

***

I was introduced to Sally Magnusson as a fiction writer when her book, The Sealwoman's Gift was chosen to be read by one of the members of my book group in 2019. We all really enjoyed the book, and you can read my review by clicking here.

Fast forward to this year and the same member requested that we read Ms Magnusson's second adult novel, The Ninth Child, which was enjoyed every bit as much.

The story is told from three different perspectives. We have Isabel, a doctor's wife who has suffered a succession of miscarriages. Kirsty, the wife of one of the labourers working on the building of the Glasgow Corporation Water Works, and, Robert Kirke, a man who wanders the hills in search of something for reasons known only to him.

The three voices are very distinct, and it quickly becomes apparent which one of the characters is speaking. I particularly enjoyed the parts of the narrative told by Kirsty as she is addressing the reader directly and it felt as though we were sat together and she was telling the story for my ears alone.

The character of Robert Kirke is based on the actual historical figure who was an Episcopalian minister during the 17th century. The author has done a marvellous job of taking what is known about him and weaving a story around him that is quite believable whilst being fantastical simultaneously.

The real themes in this book are that of the role of women and class and both are explored through the characters of Isabel and Kirsty; one a woman well down in the economic strata and, Isabel, the upper middle-class wife of a respected doctor. The book also has scenes which include Queen Victoria, whose place in society is at the complete other end of the class system. I think the author does a great job in demonstrating these two extremes.

However, it is in their roles as women in nineteenth century Britain that really brings this novel into sharp focus.The different lives that Isabel and Kirsty led were fascinating to consider. In reality, it is doubtful that these two women would ever have become friends, but the author skilfully creates a set of circumstances in which this becomes possible.

An underlying current throughout is the loss of Isabelle's eight children through miscarriage at varying stages. What could have been uncomfortable to read in the hands of a lesser author was dealt with thoughtfully and sensitively.

I enjoyed this book very much, and I highly recommend it.

ISBN: 978 1473696624

Publisher: Two Roads

About the Author:

Sally Magnusson is the eldest daughter of the Icelandic journalist and broadcaster Magnus Magnusson and the Scottish newspaper journalist Mamie Baird. She grew up in and around Glasgow in houses that were always filled with stories: Closeup author 1the journalistic variety in which both parents were continually engaged; those hilariously told by her mother about her early life in working class Rutherglen; and those told by Magnus straight from the medieval Icelandic sagas which he spent much of her childhood translating from Old Norse into English.

Her first adult novel, The Sealwoman’s Gift (published 2018), is set in Iceland in the seventeenth century.  In her memoir Dreaming of Iceland: The Lure of a Family Legend she traces – by way of several generations of her own family –  the country’s development from an impoverished, isolated colony of Denmark to the self-assured independent nation it is now.

Her second novel, The Ninth Child (published 2020), is set in nineteenth century Scotland, weaving together folklore and Victorian social history.

(photo and bio information courtesy of the authors own website - https://sallymagnusson.com/about/ )

The Five (The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper) by Hallie Rubenhold - #BookReview

"There are two versions of the events of 1888. One is very well known; the other is not. The first one is the one printed in most history books......... Then there is the other version..... which most choose to forget."

Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from Fleet Street, Knightsbridge, Wolverhampton, Sweden and Wales. They wrote ballads, ran coffee houses, lived on country estates, they breathed ink-dust from printing presses and escaped people-traffickers.

What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888.

Their murderer was never identified, but the name created for him by the press has become more famous than any of these women.

In this devastating narrative of five lives, historian Hallie Rubenhold finally gives these women back their stories.

***

I have a library copy of this book which I had borrowed before all the libraries were closed. However, half way through this book I knew I would want a copy of my own so bought one online. It is a fantastic book and one that I know I shall return to.

I suppose it resonates with me as my own ancestors were in the same area at the time of the murders. Flower and Dean Street is well known for it's Victorian doss houses and the 1881 census places my own great-great grandparents as being resident in Flower and Dean Street at the time the census was taken. It is a strange thought that they were rubbing shoulders with the Ripper victims and possibly even the Ripper himself.

The author has clearly done extensive research in preparation for writing this book and it contains a bibliography that runs to twenty-one pages. She has taken all of these resources and written an accessible and engaging book.

At no point does she deal with the brutality with which these women lost their lives. Instead, she focuses on the women who were murdered; their childhoods, adolescence and  adult lives which were cut tragically short. She challenges the belief that they were 'merely prostitutes,' as was contemporaneously believed and reported and presents us five women who were trying to live and survive during difficult times and in straightened circumstances.

Ms. Rubenhold has humanised and given these women a voice. Certainly, they were women who were down on their luck, homeless and alcoholic but with the exception of two of them there is no evidence to suggest that they were sex workers.

I wholeheartedly applaud the author for this book. She presents us with five women who were not merely victims of the Ripper but were victims of the time in which they lived. They were victims of their gender, time and world into which they were born - a time in which women did not have a voice. Well done Ms. Rubenhold for giving us the means by which we can see these women for who they really were and not merely as the Ripper's victims. I highly recommend this book.

ISBN: 978 1784162344

Publisher: Black Swan

About the Author:

Hallie Rubenhold is a best-selling author, social historian, broadcaster and historical consultant for film and television. She is the author of two novels, Mistress of My Fate and The French Lesson. 

She has also written non-fiction titles The Lady in Red, The Covent Garden Ladies, The Scandalous Lady W and Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies.

She lives in London with her husband.

Beloved Poison by E. S. Thomson

"The object I drew out was dusty and mildewed, and blotched with dark rust-coloured stains. It smelt of time and decay, sour, like old books and parchments.. The light from the chapel's stained-glass window blushed red upon it, and upon my hands, as if the thing itself radiated a bloody glow."

Ramshakle and crumbling, trapped in the past and resisting the future, St Saviour's Infirmary awaits demolition. Within its stinking wards and cramped corridors, the doctors bicker and fight. Ambition, jealousy and hatred seethe beneath the veneer of professional courtesy. Always an outsider, and with a secret of her own to hide, apothecary Jem Flockhart observes everything, but says nothing.

And then six tiny coffins are uncovered, inside each a handful of dried flowers and a bundle of mouldering rags. When Jem comes actross these strange relics hidden inside the infirmary's old chapel, her quest to understand their meaning prises open a long-forgotten past - with fatal consequences.

Whilst this has clearly been written for a twenty-first century audience there are some definite echoes of Charles Dickens in this delightful historical crime novel. For instance, there is Mrs Roseplucker, the brothel keeper and Joe Silks, the handkerchief thief; all names worthy of the great man himself.

The first in a series of  three books (and I am hoping there will be more) featuring Jem Flockhart, these books ooze with the sights, sounds and smell of nineteenth century London. The author's descriptive prose has the ability to transport the reader to the time and place in which the book is set.

Ms Thomson skillfully builds the tension in her plot with indicatory sentences being woven throughout the text. This created a tension and excitement and made this book a real page turner. I read this while I was on holiday and there was more than one night that I sat up reading well past the time when the rest of my holidaying companions were asleep in their beds.

I am very much looking forward to reading Dark Asylum which is the next book in the series and I hope you will join me.

ISBN: 978 1472122292

Publisher: Constable

About the Author:

E. S. Thomson was born in Ormskirk, Lancashire. She has a PhD in the history of medicine and works as a university lecturer in Edinburgh. She was shortlisted for the Saltire First Book Award and the Scottish Arts Council First Book Award. Elaine lives in Edinburgh with her two sons.