The Fair Fight
A Novel
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4.3 • 13 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY BOOKPAGE AND LIBRARY JOURNAL
The Crimson Petal and the White meets Fight Club: A page-turning novel set in the world of female pugilists and their patrons in late eighteenth-century England.
Moving from a filthy brothel to a fine manor house, from the world of street fighters to the world of champions, The Fair Fight is a vivid, propulsive historical novel announcing the arrival of a dynamic new talent.
Born in a brothel, Ruth doesn’t expect much for herself beyond abuse. While her sister’s beauty affords a certain degree of comfort, Ruth’s harsh looks set her on a path of drudgery. That is until she meets pugilist patron George Dryer and discovers her true calling—fighting bare knuckles in the prize rings of Bristol.
Manor-born Charlotte has a different cross to bear. Scarred by smallpox, stifled by her social and romantic options, and trapped in twisted power games with her wastrel brother, she is desperate for an escape.
After a disastrous, life-changing fight sidelines Ruth, the two women meet, and it alters the perspectives of both of them. When Charlotte presents Ruth with an extraordinary proposition, Ruth pushes dainty Charlotte to enter the ring herself and learn the power of her own strength.
A gripping, page-turning story about people struggling to transcend the circumstances into which they were born and fighting for their own places in society, The Fair Fight is a raucous, intoxicating tale of courage, reinvention, and fighting one’s way to the top.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this period novel, Freeman introduces readers to two diametrically opposite Englishwomen of the early 19th century. First is Ruth Downs, who is born and raised with her sister, Dora, in a brothel in Bristol called "the convent."Deemed not attractive enough to serve the brothel's clientele, Ruth accidentally stumbles upon a career as a bare-knuckle boxer fighting men for money. Her patron, Granville Dryer, is also Dora's regular client. The second woman is the well-born but pox-scarred Charlotte Sinclair, who marries Dryer to get away from her debauched brother, Perry. She finds life as a married woman boring, but one day, while attending the St. James's Fair, she is transfixed by the sight of Ruth in the ring. When Dryer decides to promote Ruth's boxer husband, Tom Webber, this brings Charlotte into contact with Ruth, who secretly teaches Charlotte how to box and becomes her sparring partner. But Tom's bad showing in London changes the game for all involved. Freeman cleverly uses Ruth and Charlotte to show how 19th-century women, no matter their circumstances, had few choices in their lives. Her evocation of the seedier aspects of Georgian England is persuasive, even for readers who don't know a cove from a cull. But the narrative fails to follow through on the promise of its premise, and the melodramatic pile-up of domestic and romantic entanglements overwhelms the more exciting story of what happens inside the prize ring.
