The first book in the Cornish Echoes Dual Timeline Mysteries. Jane cable is an author whose books I have read and reviewed previously, so was eager to join her book tour. I always find her books a great read so I did hope this new series would be the same.
Two centuries apart, two lonely women seek a place to call home…
Cornwall, England, 2015
Nomadic project manager Anna Pritchard has arrived in the village of Porthnevek to oversee the construction of a trendy new glamping site. But with many members of the local community strongly opposed to the development, she quickly finds herself ostracised and isolated.
Seeking to ease her loneliness, Anna begins volunteering at a nearby National Trust house in Trelissick, once owned by the aristocratic Daniell family. In her new role, Anna soon feels her attachment to both Porthnevek and Trelissick deepening. And as she spends more and more time steeped in local history, it seems that the past and the present are beginning to collide…
Belgium, 1815
After losing her brother in the Battle of Waterloo, French army seamstress Thérèse Ruguel is taken to London by war artist Thomas Chalmers, becoming his reluctant muse. But with Thomas’s mother unhappy with the arrangement, Thérèse is soon sent to Cornwall as a lady’s maid to Elizabeth Daniell, a kindly relative of the Chalmers family.
Able to speak only a little English — and with the other servants suspicious of her — Thérèse feels lost and alienated. And when she discovers her brother may still be alive, she must decide whether to continue with her new life in England, or brave the dangerous journey back to her homeland…
What became of Thérèse? Can Anna unearth the ghosts of the past?
And has Anna finally found where she belongs…?
A synopsis that grabbed me straight away. Cornwall, Dual timeline and a historical period that is so fascinating, I knew there was no turning this intriguing book down. Both the women Anna and Thérése, born two hundred years apart are very different but the parallels of their lives are quite apparent.
Thèrése is a woman from the Regency period and Jane Cable shows her plight in a refreshing slant on this time. This story shows us the balls and social events of that period, but more from the below stairs side. The women with fewer options than the gentry above stairs. This does highlight how things have changed since that time.
The research Jane Cable must have poured into this book is plain to see. We see the effects of the Industrial Revolution in Cornwall for the workers compared to the owners. She has so deftly interwoven the history into the story with such balance that you don’t even realise it but you are having a history lesson as well as being entertained.
I connected with both women easily because of the way the author has chosen to tell their stories. I was transported to both of their worlds no matter which period I was reading about. I found it to be a very immersive story that flew by so quickly, I was finished before I knew it.
A really interesting, educational (for me anyway!) and engrossing dual timeline, historical mystery story.
Thanks to Rachel’s Random Resources and Sapere Books for the copy of the book.
Purchase Link http://getbook.at/TheForgottenMaid
Only 99p for a limited time.
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