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ClareR (5879 KP) rated A Net for Small Fishes in Books

Feb 17, 2021

A Net for Small Fishes

Lucy Jago | 2021 | Fiction & Poetry, History & Politics, LGBTQ+

10.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

I could end this review quickly and just say “I loved this book”, because I did. I loved it. I love well written, historical fiction with a foot firmly set in reality, and A Net for Small Fishes certainly fulfils that requirement for me. The attention to detail shows just how much research must have gone in to this - even down to the fastenings on the dresses, the makeup the women wore and the ‘simples’ they made up to ease ailments.
This is a story that I already knew a little about: I read The Poison Bed by E. C. Fremantle on The Pigeonhole about 3 years ago, where the story was told from Frances Howards point of view, and A Net for Small Fishes does nothing to contradict that story. They both illustrate really well how women were expected to conform and be perfect, docile, brood mares for their influential husbands, and in Frankie’s case, how political marriages weren’t always happy ones. It also illustrated how desperation to escape a loveless marriage made two women take desperate action. As so often happens throughout history, the women in this story are punished for the barefaced cheek they had to want better lives for themselves. It’s a frustrating conclusion - but I could see that it was inevitable. It showed that it didn’t matter if you were a woman in one of the most influential families in the country or a doctors widow, you toed the line or suffered the consequences. But what a journey they had!
This is such a good story, as real life often is, and it’s a book that’s going on the Keeper shelf (yes, I bought a copy after I read it on The Pigeonhole - that’s how much I liked it).
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole for serialising this, and to Lucy Jago for contributing to the conversation.