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The Trial of Lotta Rae
The Trial of Lotta Rae
Siobhan MacGowan | 2022 | Fiction & Poetry
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I read this beautifully written book on The Pigeonhole, and I’m so glad that I didn’t miss the opportunity.

The Trial of Lotta Ready Siobhan MacGowan is a story about the legal trial, and subsequent tribulations of a working class girl. Raped at 15 by a wealthy man, Lotta’s Mam and Pap support her in the battle to bring him to justice. But it all goes terribly wrong and before long, Lotta finds herself alone, on the street and trying to live under everyones radar. She is, however, often recognised from the newspaper articles, where they printed all of the lies from the trial.

This is a story of love and loss, betrayal and retribution, privilege and misogyny, with a background of the Suffragette movement and the First World War.
The narrator is, without wanting to give too much away, very interesting - and much more hard hitting because of that choice.

It’s a stunning book and highly recommended.
  
A Single Thread
A Single Thread
Tracy Chevalier | 2019 | Fiction & Poetry
8
9.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
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<i>When the team from LoveReading UK contacted me regarding A Single Thread, all I knew was that I loved Girl With A Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier and would therefore read any other book she writes.</i>

A Single Thread follows the life of Violet, during the year 1932, a few years after the First World War. Violet has lost her brother and fiance in the war and is still learning to cope. She is labelled as a ”surplus woman” by the society, a woman that in unlikely to marry.

With the grief, the society label and the suffocation of her mother, Violet starts a journey that will change her life.

She is determined to find where she belongs and who she truly is, in a time where being a woman and succeeding on your own was not praised by others.

Her journey starts with a long walk in a few towns, something she used to do with her late father and brother, and it continues with her learning canvas embroidery (today knows as needlepoint), and the beautiful art of bell ringing (which pleasantly reminded me of The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo, a book I read in high school and one I should re-read).

With Tracy’s writing, it is always so easy to lose yourself in the book and teleport to the past and re-live every scene as if you’re there. It is such a pleasurable experience.

I loved Violet, and I loved how she coped with all challenges of that era. Post First World War times were extremely hard, with too many men dying and too many women not being able to ever marry. Violet’s courage and hope kept moving her forward!

<b><i>This novel yells courage. It yells freedom. It yells independence. And standing along Violet, while she finds courage when you least expect to was a moment I will cherish.</i></b>

I recommend it to you, if you love novels in the war time period, or novels that talk about courage!

Thank you to the team at LoveReading UK, for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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