Author: whatcathyreadnext

Book Review: Blackberry and Wild Rose by Sonia Velton

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Blackberry & Wild RoseAbout the Book

When Esther Thorel, the wife of a Huguenot silk-weaver, rescues Sara Kemp from a brothel she thinks she is doing God’s will. Sara is not convinced being a maid is better than being a whore, but the chance to escape her grasping ‘madam’ is too good to refuse.

Inside the Thorels’ tall house in Spitalfields, where the strange cadence of the looms fills the attic, the two women forge an uneasy relationship. The physical intimacies of washing and dressing belie the reality: Sara despises her mistress’s blindness to the hypocrisy of her household, while Esther is too wrapped up in her own secrets to see Sara as anything more than another charitable cause.

It is silk that has Esther so distracted. For years she has painted her own designs, dreaming that one day her husband will weave them into reality. When he laughs at her ambition, she unwittingly sets in motion events that will change the fate of the whole Thorel household and set the scene for a devastating day of reckoning between her and Sara.

The price of a piece of silk may prove more than either is able to pay.

Format: Hardcover, ebook (416 pp.)    Publisher: Quercus Books
Published: 10th January 2019      Genre: Historical Fiction

Pre-order/Purchase Links*
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Find Blackberry and Wild Rose on Goodreads

My Review

Tricked into prostitution as an innocent newcomer to London, Sara Kemp’s rescue by Esther Thorel from the clutches of the awful Mrs. Swann offers her the possibility of gaining control over her life.  However, Sara soon finds that it seems she may have swapped one form of dependence for another, constantly at the beck and call of her new mistress.   Furthermore, the possibility that the shameful details of her previous life may be revealed is a constant fear, especially since not everyone in the Thorel household welcomes her arrival.

Esther’s desire and determination to use her artistic talent to  produce designs for silk is a search for her own form of emancipation, an escape from what she describes at one point as ‘her gilded cage’.  It also becomes an act of defiance in response to her husband Elias’s hypocrisy and deceit – ‘He was not the man I had thought he was and I no longer took his word for granted’ – and his dismissal of her role as nothing more than social status symbol, bed-mate or organiser of their household.  ‘There was no mistress of silk in this house, only a master.’

The stories of Esther and Sara are revealed to the reader in alternating points of view.  Alongside learning their stories, I also enjoyed discovering fascinating detail about the silk weaving process and its place in the Huguenot community of the time.  In an early example of the affects of globalisation, it was interesting to witness how the pressures on the industry as a result of imports from abroad and competition from cheaper material create unrest between the journeymen silk weavers and those who control the Guild system and the silk weavers’ livelihoods.

At the end of the book, Esther and Sara both find themselves facing difficult personal and moral choices that may affect others, some with tragic consequences.  Might their experiences leave both women stronger and open up the possibility of them forging different, more fulfilling paths in the future?

Blackberry and Wild Rose is an impressive, assured debut that will be a treat for fans of historical fiction that feature skilfully crafted female characters and an interesting historical setting.  I received an advance review copy courtesy of publishers, Quercus, and NetGalley.

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In three words: Well-crafted, richly textured, engaging

Try something similar…The Blue by Nancy Bilyeau or A Light of Her Own by Carrie Callaghan (follow links from titles to read my reviews)

sonia veltonAbout the Author

Sonia Velton has been a solicitor in Hong Kong, a Robert Schuman Scholar in Luxembourg and spent eight years being a full-time Mum of three in Dubai. She now lives in Kent. Her first novel, Blackberry and Wild Rose, tells the story of a fictional household of master silk weavers living in eighteenth century Spitalfields. The protagonist is loosely inspired by Anna Maria Garthwaite who was the foremost silk designer of the mid-eighteenth century and the title takes its name from an actual silk design. The novel was shortlisted as a work in progress for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize 2015 and longlisted for the Myslexia Novel Competition. (Photo credit: Goodreads author page)

Connect with Sonia

Website  ǀ  Twitter  ǀ  Goodreads

6 Degrees of Separation: From The French Lieutenant’s Woman to A Well-Behaved Woman – 5th January 2019

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It’s the first Saturday of the month (and of the New Year) so it’s 6 Degrees of Separation time!

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and BestBooks Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own six degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post.   You can also check out links to posts on Twitter using the hashtag #6Degrees

This month’s starting book is The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles. Click on the title to read the book description on Goodreads or my review.

The French Lieutenant’s Woman tells the story of the relationship between amateur naturalist, Charles Smithson, and Sarah Woodruff, a former governess, supposedly abandoned by a French ship’s officer when he returned to France and married.  Sarah spends much of her time on a stone jetty, known as The Cobb, where she stares out to sea.

The French Lieutenant’s Woman is set in Lyme Regis which is also one of the locations in Jane Austen’s novel, Persuasion.  Persuasion also concerns the relationship between a young woman (in this case, twenty-seven-year old Anne Elliot) and a naval officer, Frederick Wentworth.  Previously betrothed to Frederick, Anne broke off the engagement having been persuaded by her friend Lady Russell that the match was unworthy.  It is something she has come to regret.

Meg Wolitzer’s The Female Persuasion explores a more modern day relationship but one that is no less complex.  When shy student, Greer Kadetsky, meets Faith Frank, a woman who has been at the forefront of the women’s movement for decades, it leads Greer to question her relationship with boyfriend, Cory, and the future she’d previously imagined.

The Dark Tide by Vera Brittain also involves the turbulent relationship between two women – Daphne Lethbridge and Virginia Dennison – but this time set in an all-women college in Oxford soon after the end of World War One.

Skip forward fifty years and we’re still in Oxford but this time at the moment when the University’s male institutions are finally opening their doors to women.  In The Reading Party by Fenella Gentleman, young academic Sarah Addleshaw is asked to accompany a mixed group of students on a college trip where she finds herself attracted to a handsome and intelligent American, Tyler Winston.

Transatlantic relationships are also the focus of The Million Dollar Duchesses by Julie Ferry.  The book focuses on the events of a single year – 1895 – when a number of transatlantic marriages took place between wealthy American heiresses and not so wealthy but titled British aristocrats, negotiated by a select band of very influential society ladies, including the redoubtable Alva Vanderbilt.

Alva Vanderbilt is the subject of Therese Anne Fowler’s latest book, A Well-Behaved Woman.  Alva, previously destitute, finds herself married into the newly rich but socially scorned Vanderbilt clan.  It is a union contrived by Alva’s best friend, Consuelo, Duchess of Manchester, herself the beneficiary of an advantageous marriage to a British aristocrat.

 

This month we’ve travelled from the story of a so-called ‘fallen woman’ to socially influential woman via the progress of female emancipation in academia.

Next month’s starting book is….Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk.