Set in Canada in the 1800’s, in a (fictional) town called Dunmore, a place at the end of the Underground Railroad where freed or escaped slaves have made a home and give safe harbour. Lensinda is a journalist for the local paper who is tasked with interviewing a woman who refused to flee after shooting …
Since her parent's deaths, Lavender has made money selling flowers grown in the garden that supplied their apothecary shop, along with the orphan boy they took in. It's hard work with little chance of reward, and it looks like she may lose the house and garden, when a chance encounter with a famous medium who …
In 1860's England, Nell, whose body is patterned with birth marks, is sold by her father to Jasper Jupiter's Circus of Wonders. Jasper initially buys her without seeing her, because he notices his younger brother Toby's romantic interest in her and he always has to one up his brother. But Nell has a real talent …
Edinburgh, 1850's. Dr Raven returns from his European travels and takes up work as Dr Simpson's assistant. He hopes to rekindle a relationship with Sarah, but he finds that she's married someone else in his absence. But the two have to work together to clear Dr Simpson's name after a patient of his dies under …
Pheby lives on a plantation in Virginia where her mother has worked hard to teach her daughter to have pride in herself and not see herself as a slave. She's the favorite of the plantation owner and has been promised her freedom at 18, living a fairly sheltered existence (comparatively). But her life is changed …
There's a ghost in the White house... Based on historical people and events, this book tells the story of Franklin and Jane Pierce, whose son Bennie died in a train accident just before Franklin took office. There have been various stories of ghost sightings in the White House (the ghost has been called "The Thing") …
Isn't the cover pretty on this book? Well, don't be fooled, it's really Dickensian and dark. Iris dreams of learning how to paint, but spends her days with her twin sister Rose making dolls. Not just any dolls, but dolls that often look like people's dead children in a store in Victorian London that is …
This book is really beautifully bound if you get the hard cover edition. It's soft blue, with embossed gold flowers on the cover, and a swathed Victorian lady pictured in the centre. Perhaps it's slightly beside the point, but I do love a the pleasure of reading a beautifully bound volume. Kate Summerscale once again …
Continue reading Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace: The Private Diary Of A Victorian Lady by Kate Summerscale
Penned by the author of the bestselling The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, this book is the story of another Victorian crime which was notorious in it's time, The Plaistow Tragedy of 1895. Two boys, 12 and 13 years old, told neighbors and friends that their mother had gone to Liverpool and proceeded to attend cricket …
Continue reading The Wicked Boy: An Infamous Murder in Victorian London by Kate Summerscale
This book is kind of unusual. Purporting to be the culmination of the research of the author into one of his own ancestors, it's a collection of documents relating to a brutal murder that takes place in the Scottish Highlands during the 1800's. It's a time when crofters worked rented land owned by the laird, …
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