The Foundling by Stacey Halls - #BookReview

 

All the babies were wrapped like presents ready to be given. Some of them were dressed finely - though their mothers were not - in tiny embroidered sleeves and thick shawls, for winter had arrived, and the night was biting. I'd bound Clara in an old blanket that had waited years to be darned, and now never would be. We stood clustered around the pillared entrance, thirty or so of us, like moths beneath the torches burning in their brackets, our hearts beating like papery wings. I hadn't known that a hospital for abandoned babies would be a palace, with a hundred glowing windows and a turning place for carriages. Two long and splendid buildings were pinned either side of a courtyard that was connected in the middle by a chapel. At the north end of the west wing the door stood open, throwing light onto the stone. The gate felt a long way behind. Some of us would leave with our arms empty; some would carry our children out into the cold again. For this reason we could not look at one another, and kept our eyes on the ground.

***

London, 1754. Six years after leaving her illegitimate daughter Clara at London's Foundling Hospital, Bess Bright returns to reclaim the child she has never known. Dreading the worst, that Clara has died in care, Bess is astonished to be told she has already claimed her. Her life is turned upside down as she tries to find out who has taken her little girl - and why.

Less than a mile from Bess's lodgings in the city, in a quiet, gloomy townhouse on the edge of London, a young widow has not left the house in a decade. When her close friend - an ambitious young doctor at the Foundling Hospital - persuades her to hire a nursemaid for her daughter, she is hesitant to welcome someone new into her home and her life. But her past is threatening to catch up with her and tear her carefully constructed world apart.

From the bestselling author of The Familiars comes this captivating story of mothers and daughters, class and power, and love against the greatest of odds...

***

One of my criteria for judging the worth of a book is whether it makes me want to go away and find out more about it's subject matter. I was already aware of the Foundling Hospital and it's role in the eighteenth century, but even so, it has ignited a desire in me to learn more.

This book has a dual narrative told from the perspectives of the two main characters, Bess and Alexandra. In terms of social class, their lives could not be more different but ultimately their stories will intertwine.

Mostly, this is a story about motherhood and what it means to be a mother. It questions whether financial security should come before love or vice versa.

The author has done a great job of immersing her readers into the eighteenth century and she has researched the period well. She brought Georgian England to life with a range of vivid descriptions of both the time and place.

Ms. Halls is a skilled storyteller. This is the first of her books which I have read but I would like to read more.

ISBN: 978 1838771409

Publisher:  Bonnier Books

Formats:  e-book, audio, paperback and hardback

No. of Pages:  370 (paperback)

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About the Author:

Stacey Halls was born in 1989 and grew up in Rossendale, Lancashire. She studied journalism at the University of Central Lancashire and has written for publications including the Guardian, Stylist, Psychologies, The Independent, The Sun and Fabulous.

Her first book The Familiars was the bestselling debut novel of 2019. The Foundling is her second novel.

(author photo and information from the author's website http://www.staceyhalls.com/about/)

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Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan - #BookReview

 

In October there were yellow trees. Then the clocks went back the hour and the long November winds came in and blew, and stripped the trees bare. In the town of New Ross, chimneys threw out smoke which fell away and drifted off in hairy, drawn-out strings before dispersing along the quays, and soon the River Barrow, dark as stout, swell up with rain.

The people, for the most part, unhappily endured the weather: shop-keepers and tradesmen, men and women in the post office and the dole queue, the mart, the coffee shop and supermarket, the bingo hall, the pubs and the chipper all commented, in their own ways, on the cold and what rain had fallen, asking what was in it - and could there be something in it - for who could believe that there, again, was another raw-cold day...

***

It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him - and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church.

The long-awaited new work from the author of Foster, Small Things Like These is an unforgettable story of hope, quiet heroism and tenderness.

***

Bill Furlong is one of the most delightful main characters to grace the pages of a book. He imbues this slim volume with a sensitivity and tenderness which echoes throughout.

Set in a small town in Ireland we are introduced to the main character and see life very much through his eyes. He is a man who is content with his life. He has steady work, a wife and five daughters and he lives his life with humility and integrity.

On occasion, his work takes him to the infamous Magdalene laundries. With our fore-knowledge of these homes for unmarried mothers, it is possible that as readers we understand the significance of the events playing out there more than the main character does. However, through Ms. Keegan's perfect prose, we witness the scales fall from his eyes and his big-hearted generosity come into play.

I read this as it was my book group choice for October and, as always, there were varying opinions on it. Overall, people liked it. However, I adored it. It was 128 pages of pure loveliness, and it is one of those books that I could have happily gone straight back to the first page to read it all over again.

An outstanding novella which I highly recommend.

ISBN: 978 0571368686

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Formats: e-book, audio and hardback (paperback due for release in November 2022)

No. of Pages: 128 (hardback)

About the Author:

Claire Keegan grew up on a farm in Wicklow. Her first collection of short stories, Antarctica, was completed in 1998. It announced her as an exceptionally gifted and versatile writer of contemporary fiction, and she was awarded the Rooney Prize for Literature. Her second short-story collection, Walk the Blue Fields, was published to enormous critical acclaim in 2007 and won her the 2008 Edge Hill Prize for Short Stories. Foster, a short novel, was published in 2010 and won the Davy Byrnes Award, judged by Richard Ford. Claire Keegan lives in County Wexford, Ireland.

(photo and bio info courtesy of the publisher)