The Tea Rose
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3.3 • 6 Ratings
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
This is a splendid, heartwarming novel of pain, struggle, decency, triumph – and just what we need in these times - Frank McCourt
It is 1888 and Jack the Ripper is stalking the streets of Whitechapel. For the people that live there, he is just one more adversary in their everyday battle to survive. Despite working long days at the tea factory, and the constant threat of the Ripper, Fiona Finnegan knows that life is better for her than for many others. With a father in work, a roof over her head, enough to eat and a loving family to keep her warm, she is among 'the respectable working poor.' And she also has Joe. Fiona and Joe Bristow have been sweethearts for as long as anyone can remember, and are saving up their meagre wages so that some day, they can open their very own shop.
But things take a terrible turn for Fiona when events conspire to tear her, Joe and her family apart, and she finds herself alone in the world. The East End is a dangerous place to be by oneself, and the Ripper isn't the only threat casting a dark shadow over her life. Somehow, she must escape, build a life for herself, and forget about Joe. But how can she? When Joe is the only man she has ever loved?
The first instalment of Jennifer Donnelly's acclaimed romance trilogy, The Tea Rose will leave you breathless, exhilarated, and longing for more.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Donnelly indulges in delightfully straightforward storytelling in this comfortably overstuffed novel. In 1880s London, the squalid Thames-side neighborhood of Whitechapel is home to Fiona Finnegan, spunky daughter of Paddy Finnegan. Both are employed by unscrupulous tea merchant William Burton, but Fiona is saving to start a shop with her love, Joe Bristow. Just as her future seems assured, a string of tragedies toppledher hopes. Joe is tricked into marriage to another woman, Burton has Paddy killed for supporting a labor union, Fiona's mother is murdered by Jack the Ripper and Fiona's distraught brother is found dead in the Thames. Fiona had been attempting to get compensation from Burton for her father's death, but when she overhears his boasts of killing Paddy, she must flee for her life with her sole remaining brother, five-year-old Seamie. She rushes to a seaport, but cannot get passage until the wealthy dandy Nicholas Soames offers it, pretending she is his wife. The scene switches to New York City of the Gay '90s, to the glitter of Delmonico's, the elegance of Gramercy Park and the crowded tenements of downtown. Fiona lodges with her alcoholic Uncle Michael and saves both him and his grocery on her way to making her fortune in the tea industry. But she never forgets her family's fate, and when she can, she returns to England to revenge herself on Burton. Though Donnelly's indomitable heroine steps out of period character from time to time her easy acceptance of Soames's homosexuality is particularly unlikely the novel's lively plotting, big cast of warmly drawn characters and long-deferred romantic denouement make this a ripping yarn. In the final dramatic settling of scores, Donnelly even ventures to unmask Jack the Ripper.
