Nobody knows yet that she is a murderer…

Abandoned at the gates of a London park one winter’s night in 1850, baby Lily Mortimer is saved by a young police constable and taken to the London Foundling Hospital. Lily is fostered by an affectionate farming family in rural Suffolk, enjoying a brief childhood idyll before she is returned to the Hospital, where she is punished for her rebellious spirit. Released into the harsh world of Victorian London, Lily becomes a favoured employee at Belle Prettywood’s Wig Emporium, but all the while she is hiding a dreadful secret…

Across the years, policeman Sam Trench keeps watch over the young woman he once saved. When Sam meets Lily again, there is an instant attraction between them and Lily is convinced that Sam holds the key to her happiness – but might he also be the one to uncover her crime and so condemn her to death?

Set in 1850s and 1860s Victorian London, Rose Tremain’s 16th novel Lily is a revenge tale exploring rejection, poverty, guilt and redemption.

As a baby, Lily Mortimer is abandoned on a cold London evening at the gates of a park. Discovered by a patrolling police constable, she is taken to the London Foundling Hospital. Despite spending the first six years of her life in a loving foster home, she is returned to the hospital for the remainder of her childhood and is subjected to years of abuse that charts her path towards murder.

“She dreams of her death. It comes as a cold October dawn is breaking in the London sky. A sack is put over her head. Through the weave of the burlap, she can take her last look at the world, which is a cluster of tiny squares of grey light, and she thinks whyever did I struggle so long and so hard to make my way in a place which was bent on my destruction ever since I came into it?”

Lily is a relatively short novel, written in third person and moving between past and present seamlessly. I rather enjoyed reading about Lily’s upbringing in the foster home, and then again when she’s older and attempting to come to terms with her recent murderous act. Despite being offered shelter and family, Lily does venture out on her own to make her own way, highlighting how independent she’s grown since the time she was a terrified six-year-old attempting to run away from the hospital.

Despite being a rather bleak tale, there are bright moments. It may be short-lived, but Lily’s friendship with Bridget in the foundling hospital is really wholesome, and so is her relationship with her foster mother. When she’s older, Lily’s friendship with her employer Belle is supportive and it offers Lily opportunities she never would’ve had available to her.

“She thought of the downward threads as soldiers standing in a perfect line and the taut loops joining them along the edge of the fabric as their arms reaching out and reaching out to one another, to give themselves courage, until the line was ended.”

Admittedly, the build-up to the murder feels a bit slim, as is the confession and subsequent conclusion of the novel. The abuse that Lily suffered isn’t overly present in the novel, so it feels like an afterthought at times. As such, this novel felt more like an exploration into her life, rather than her murderous act, because we spend so much time just setting up Lily’s story.

Whilst I genuinely did enjoy reading this novel, it did feel a little muddled at times — like even the author wasn’t sure what kind of book she wanted to write. Is she exploring the story of a poor orphan in Victorian London? Is she exploring the story of how someone becomes a murderer? Or perhaps tries to get away with it? Or is this also a story of a young orphan girl trying to find her mother, because that was a momentary thread in this novel that wasn’t really fleshed out or resolved.

“A ‘good’ life. How can you live a good life if you have been precious to nobody and made to feel burdened by shame? How can your heart not be vengeful?”

An atmospheric setting with rich, compelling characters, Lily is recommended for readers of historical fiction and period fiction. Readership skews female, 25+

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Lily: A Tale of Revenge
Rose Tremain
November 2021
Penguin Random House Publishers

Remi Victoire is the golden child among all the theatre orphans; he dreams of a life on a Paris stage. But when this future is stolen from him, Remi and his faithful friend Pascal turn their backs on Paris forever.

With Saskia, a runaway orphan girl, Remi and Pascal form a performing troupe, travelling through the fairytale lands that are home to the Brothers Grimm, before finding a safe haven in Venice.

As Napoleon’s vast Empire crumbles, the French storytellers discover that Paris itself is now at risk of invasion and they fear for the loved ones they have left behind.

From picturesque villages to Italian theatres and on to the battlefields outside of Paris, this is a beautifully told story about the bonds of love and friendship, the importance of stories, and finding a place to belong.

Set in Europe in the early 1800s, Stephanie Parkyn’s The Freedom of Birds is historical fiction centring around a trio of orphan children who band together to form a performing troupe. From France to Italy, and the battlefields in between, Saskia, Remi and Pascal must learn to survive on their own.

The Freedom of Birds brings disadvantaged and marginalised characters to the forefront. There’s an element of fairytales and folklore running as an undercurrent to the novel, which makes it feel oddly comforting and reassuring at a time like this.

I’ve since realised there is some connection between this book and Stephanie’s previous two works — luckily, you don’t need to read her first two books to follow this one, although I’m sure it’d help provide additional context to the historical setting.

“Did they wonder, the townsfolk, how Father had come to possess her? Had they questioned her sudden arrival to that desolate church? No doubt he had spun a convincing story. Perhaps he told them he had rescued her from wickedness and vice and delivered her into the lap of God.”

Strengths lie in the research and political turmoil captured in the book. Whilst a lot of the events happening in that time period — particularly those related to war — went straight over my head and waned my interest, I appreciate how much work has gone into writing this book and I acknowledge there’ll be a loyal readership who will find themselves in love with the time period and the setting of the book.

From the battlefields to the tension, to the hatred for their unjust treatment, The Freedom of Birds transports you to another time and allows you to feel completely enveloped in the early 1800s. Each of the core characters are unique in their journey and their role within the story — each are fighting battles both in their minds and their environments. Their journeys in the book reflect their pursuit for the truth, and for the family they’ve never known.

“The smell of hay, manure, piss — I woke with it filling my nose and mouth, face down and chewing on the stable scrapings. I rolled over slowly, not wanting to move my head, feeling the hammers strike anvils behind my eyes. I prised an eyelid open.”

There were a couple of things that I didn’t love about the book, and the main one was the perspective shift. We move between Saskia, Remi and Pascal, but two of these voices are in third person and one is in first person. I found this incredibly jolting and sometimes I got confused about which perspective we were now in. I wonder why the author wrote it like this, instead of writing all three of them in third person and perhaps including a header at the beginning of each chapter with their name, so we immediately knew who we were following.

And secondly, I struggled with the pacing of the novel. It’s very slow. Too slow. Events didn’t seem to hold the magnitude they needed for historical fiction. So, whilst plotting was present and things did happen, they never seemed to be building towards enough of a climax to keep a reader hooked.

“Hunger gripped Pascal’s stomach like a dog that would not relinquish a stick. It gnawed at him. He felt each bite like a sudden cramp. Hunger hurt. He was tired of the ache.”

Recommended for historical fiction readers. Readership skews female, 35+

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Freedom of Birds
Stephanie Parkyn
December 2021
Allen & Unwin Book Publishers

France, 1942. At the end of the day, the schoolteacher releases her pupils. She checks they have their identity passes, and warns them not to stop until the German guards have let them through the barrier that separates occupied France from Free France. As the little ones fly across the border and into their mothers’ arms, she breathes a sigh of relief. No one is safe now. Not even the children.

Berkshire, present day. A letter left to her by her beloved late grandmother Gigi takes Hannah Stone on a journey deep into the heart of the Dordogne landscape. As she begins to unravel a forgotten history of wartime bravery and sacrifice, she discovers the heartrending secret that binds her grandmother to a village schoolteacher, the remarkable Lucie Laval . . .

Sarah Steele’s The Schoolteacher of Saint-Michel is dual-timeline historical fiction. In present day, we meet the passionate but emotionally detached Hannah Stone, still grieving the loss of her grandmother and mother as she tries to take care of her ailing father. She is also still reeling from the breakdown of her relationship the year prior, something she’d prefer to forget about than confront. When she discovers a letter from her late grandmother that raises questions about her past, she heads to France to hunt down the secrets from her youth that she worked so hard to keep.

The Schoolteacher of Saint-Michel is both emotional and raw, set within a high stakes environment. At a time when a revealed secret could mean instant death, Sarah Steele paints a vivid, emotive journey for all readers.

“Why hadn’t she talked to him when she felt the dark cloud forming around her again after Lorna’s death? She had pushed him away, refused to see his help for what it was…she picked up her phone, toyed again with sending him a message. But what would she say?”

As with most historical fiction, I feel the strength lies in the storyline of the past — Gigi’s years during World War II felt like a part of history that is largely untold, so it was quite interesting to follow her portion of the novel. It was apparent how much research had gone into the novel to bring this story to life, both in factual elements and also the emotional turmoil that people would’ve suffered back then.

In the present storyline, Hannah is torn between the safety of her home and her job, and the possibility of expanding her horizons and finding new passions. She feels like she needs to take care of her ailing father, but she’s merely putting up walls to protect herself. Travelling to Europe to explore her grandmother’s story allows her to grow as a character and let others in.

The Schoolteacher of Saint-Michel allows us to glimpse into an element of our history that is largely unacknowledged. Sarah will find many devoted readers in this latest novel.

“One of the soldiers, not much older than Suzette, blocked their way, and Lucie felt Nicole’s tiny fingers tightening in her grip and the held breaths of the children behind her. She tried not to look at the weapon strapped across the man’s back, the ugly insignia on his black labels, the scars from his teenage acne.”

The long lost relationship between Hannah and her ex-boyfriend didn’t quite feel like it fit in the story. The reasons for their breakdown seemed to receive no resolution throughout the novel, so the ending felt a little unrealistic. It felt like Sarah put their resolution in the novel to suit the genre — which usually features a romance — than allowing the story to conclude in a natural fit.

The only other element of the book I struggled with was the large cast of characters in the 1942 storyline — gradual time spent in the book didn’t ease the confusion in some scenes, trying to remember how certain characters were connected to others.

“Hannah unlatched the gate to her childhood home and looked at the house with a critical eye. Its problems ran far deeper than a runaway rose bed and an invasion of ground elder…there would come a time, she knew, when they had to accept that a high-maintenance antique full of memories was no longer suitable for a solitary widower.”

Recommended for readers of historical fiction and family sagas. Readership skews female, 30+

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Schoolteacher of Saint-Michel
Sarah Steele
December 2021
Hachette Book Publishers