A Ghostly Request

Tiny rewarding steps of reconciliation of abused family members among historical details galore

So often abused children, instead of protecting and consoling each other from abuse, lash out at each other like the wounded, unsocialised animals they are.

Elizabeth, returning home with a secret asset worth a small fortune, and a secret friend, is no longer in such dire danger if she speaks back just a little. Again, it’s up to the reader to tease out what is straightforward legal and social subjugation of girls and adult women, and what is the Coercive Control, including Financial abuse amongst the nasty Emotional abuse, Medical Neglect and other vagaries of Elizabeth’s father and sister in particular.

This book is like the first spring thaw after a dreadful winter. Elizabeth, actually not free from clawing her sisters like a wounded wolf herself on occasion, starts to catalyse positive change amongst the relationships of most all her family. Her London friends are a source of cheering correspondence. In the background occult studies continue in failure and success, and the seeds of a wider movement of supportive scholarship are sown.

I’m a fan of slow-burn, character driven stories. I’m a fan of historical accuracy, and a quietly courageous woman full of accurate religiosity, obedience and dutifulness is a delight to me after having my suspension of disbelief jolted out of me by books that slap historical clothes on modern people and call that historical fiction. Elizabeth must move like a crocodile or tiger, wholly hidden in subservience until she can spring traps made of the social rules of the day.

In one way, the plot is all about the communal preparation of a modest coming-out wardrobe for Thea Knight. In another way, the plot is all about everything else, too much to describe in a review. In amongst a true wealth of detail of historical clothing, is a true wealth of detail of human health and relationships, the ill and the good. No person posses only one, but exists in a moving flux between states.

This book is not for someone looking for a romantic or sexual fix, but I can recommend it as a dose of hope and growing warmth.

And may we all pause for a brief, secret wish with Elizabeth, that her father may drop dead.

*Three thousand pounds.*