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ClareR (6144 KP) rated The Confessions of Frannie Langton in Books

May 3, 2019 (Updated May 3, 2019)

The Confessions of Frannie Langton

Sara Collins | 2019 | Fiction & Poetry, History & Politics, Mystery

9.0

(2 Ratings)

Book Rating

Frannie has grown up on a Jamaican sugar plantation as a house girl. She is a mulatto slave, and when her master, Mr Langton, is forced to return to England, she accompanies him. Although she is considered free as soon as she enters England in the 1820s, Mr Langton ‘gives’ her to a colleague and friend, Mr Benham. She becomes Mrs Benham’s abigail (companion), friend and lover. However, we first meet Frannie as she sits in Newgate prison, writing the story of her life for her solicitor, and how she came to murder Mr and Mrs Benham. Something that she can’t at all remember doing. She has a lot going against her: she’s working class, a woman, and most importantly, she’s black.
This was a captivating story. I learnt a lot about how black Jamaicans were regarded by Londoners (it’s not good), how laudanum was the ‘mother’s little helper’ of its time (although I think it was pretty much taken by anyone, male or female, who could afford it), and how black people were regarded as little more than animals.
The whodunnit element was really puzzling for me, I honestly couldn’t figure it out. I couldn’t think of Frannie as being a murderer and killing the woman she loved.
This is a really good read, and I would highly recommend it.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this wonderful book.

Kudos

Deborah (162 KP) rated A Lady Never Tells (Willowmere, #1) in Books

Dec 21, 2018

I've really enjoyed some of Camp's previous books and I often think that in this genre books work best where they are in a series with some continuing characters, so I was looking forward to getting my teeth into the Willowmere series.

This is the first book in said series and although I didn't actively dislike it, I did find it a bit mediocre. A lot of plot elements seemed very reused and I always find the 'American girls coming over to England and catching eligible aristocratic batchelor' a bit too Mary-Sue-ish.

I didn't find it easy to like the heroine in this book all that much and it was difficult to see quite why the hero (who was likeable) would fall in love with her. Mary (or Marigold!) brings her sister to England to find their English family after their mother dies and they want to escape a somewhat unpleasant stepfather, but after this they all, but Mary in particular, do some pretty silly things. OK, they may not be up on British aristocratic ettiquette, but they seem to loose all common sense sometimes! Mary deliberately decides to conceal some important information and they go off on a jaunt whenever they feel like it, despite being attacked and suffering attempted abductions, and they seem to think it is unreasonable that the gentlemen taking responsibility for them want to try and stop them exposing themselves to danger!

Hopefully the next two books will be better.