The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy Review

The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy:

A year after an accidentally whirlwind grand tour with her brother Monty, Felicity Montague has returned to England with two goals in mind-avoid the marriage proposal of a lovestruck suitor from Edinburgh and enroll in medical school. However, her intellect and passion will never be enough in the eyes of the administrators, who see men as the sole guardians of science.

But then a window of opportunity opens-a doctor she idolizes is marrying an old friend of hers in Germany. Felicity believes if she could meet this man he could change her future, but she has no money of her own to make the trip. Luckily, a mysterious young woman is willing to pay Felicity’s way, so long as she’s allowed to travel with Felicity disguised as her maid.

In spite of her suspicions, Felicity agrees, but once the girl’s true motives are revealed, Felicity becomes part of a perilous quest that leads them from the German countryside to the promenades of Zurich to secrets lurking beneath the Atlantic.

Mackenzi Lee’s book ‘The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue’ is one of my all time favourite books. I loved how casually queer it is, it’s treats Percy and Monty’s relationship like any other, treating their struggles like normal struggles and I loved that. It felt like the story was being told from Monty’s naive perspective, barely aware of the prejudices.

The difference between that book and the Lady’s Guide is the Felicity is fully aware of her struggles, and gets super frustrated that she has to deal with them.

The books starts in Scotland, and in typical Felicity fashion she turns down a proposal and spontaneously decides to travel to London.

One of my favourite things about this book is the asexual representation, although it is never explicitly said, Mackenzi Lee has confirmed it and Felicity talks about how she isn’t interested in men or women, and just wants to focus on studying medicine.

The three main characters are completely loveable, they are all strong, independent women. Felicity uses her brains and knowledge of medicine, Johanna uses her beauty and her knowledge of animal life and Sim uses her strength and knowledge of the sea. They work so well together, the way Lee writes them makes their chemistry feel so real it truly makes you feel invested in their friendship and their story.

The story has quite a few little twists, that follow along with the changes in Felicity’s journey, and it just keep you hanging on to every word!! I absolutely adore this book and Mackenzi Lee’s writing!

I rate this book 5/5 starts, and I can’t wait to read the novella she is releasing later this year!!!

See you again soon!!

Elizabeth

Accused: British Witches Throughout History Review

Hello!

I have been lucky enough to receive a copy of this book from Pen and Sword to read and review!

I absolutely love learning about the witches of history, not only because it is fascinating but because it feels like a piece of my history! I am a witch myself, not in the same way that some of these women are accused, I only light candles and read tarot, but I’m a witch and the women in this book helped pave the way for modern witches like me!

The main reason I was so excited for this book was because of the chapter on Mary Lakeland, also known as ‘The Ipswich Witch’. Ipswich is where I live, so learning about a witch that lived here, and being able to picture all the places mentioned in her story because I have actually been to them, was so amazing!

One of my favourite parts of this book was learning about all the things the women were accused of doing, and how people somehow managed to logically explain that it was witchcraft! Reading about the supposed familiars these women had was also interesting, because it wasn’t just the typical cat, but dogs toads and rats too!

Reading this book has really made me want to try and visit some of the places mentioned, as I just love to visit the places I read about in books! Especially when there is a lot o history connected to it!

The only thing that I found to be a shame (I do with all history books, and it’s obviously no fault of the author!!) is that records aren’t kept for all the details! I find it such a shame that people in history didn’t feel the need to note down small happenings as well as big ones! For instance, in one of the women’s stories we don’t actually know what caused one of the first arguments! It makes me want to start writing everything down just in case it becomes important one day!

I definitely recommend this book if you love witches, history or both!!! I rate this book 4/5 stars!!

See you next time!

Elizabeth

Lady of the House

Hello!

I’m back with another book review! And again, it’s a book that the lovely Pen and Swords have sent me!

Lady of the House by Charlotte Furness:

This book tells the true stories of three genteel women who were born, raised, lived and died within the world of England’s Country Houses. This is not the story of ‘seen and not heard’ women, these are incredible women who endured tremendous tragedy and worked alongside their husbands to create a legacy that we are still benefitting from today.

Harriet Leveson-Gower, Countess Granville was the second born child of the infamous Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire who married her aunt’s lover, raised his illegitimate children and reigned supreme as Ambassadress over the Parisian elite.

Lady Mary Isham lived at Lamport Hall in Northamptonshire with her family where, despite great tragedy, she was responsible for developing a house and estate whilst her husband remained ‘the silent Baronet’.

Elizabeth Manners, Duchess of Rutland hailed from Castle Howard and used her upbringing to design and build a Castle and gardens at Belvoir suitable for a Duke and Duchess that inspired a generation of country house interiors.

These women were expected simply to produce children, to be active members of society, to give handsomely to charity and to look the part. What these three remarkable women did instead is develop vast estates, oversee architectural changes, succeed in business, take a keen role in politics as well as successfully managing all the expectations of an aristocratic lady.

I have read a few books published by Pen and Sword, and this is definitely my favourite so far! I read it all in two days, which I never do with any book!

This book tells the story of three women, and their journey from daughter, to mother, wife and lady of the house. For anyone that though victorian women sat on their backsides all day, this book would be really eye opening! It covers every detail of what these women got up to, including the control they had in their households! They did not work under their husbands, but instead a lot of the time they made all the executive decisions and one of the amazing women even worked with her husband and Ambassadress in France!

I did also find it fascinating reading about these women’s attitudes to their husbands illegitimate children! A lot of the time they took them in and raised them as their own! Which is the opposite of what a lot of people assume the victorian attitude was, and I’m pretty sure that kind of open mindedness/acceptance wouldn’t even occur today!

One of my favourite sections of this book was the part where Charlotte talked about how much time people spent on London. It was very common for people to have a second house in London and to spend the ‘season’ there, taking part in social events and when daughters came of age, looking for a husband!

I completely recommend this book if you are at all interested in the time period, women’s history or the lives of the lives of less famous people! I rate this book 5/5 stars!

See you again soon!

Elizabeth

A Victorian Lady’s Guide to Fashion and Beauty Review

I have been eyeing this book up for so long, and I was so grateful when Pen and Sword Books sent me a copy of it to review!

The Victorian Era is one of my all time favourite periods for fashion! Every decade is so different, and this book takes you through each one, explaining what changed and why! It covers everything in so much detail, from undergarments to the most fashionable way to style your hair to the increasing popularity of jewellery!!

I absolutely loved learning all the little tips and tricks from the era, it that I will be using a lot of them in my routine as they are a tad impractical in modern life, but it was fascinating to imagine what life must’ve been like!

This is definitely a book I will keep returning to, and referencing from on my historical fashion journey, as although I know a fair amount, I feel like I will never know as much as in this book!

If you are at all interested in victorian fashion, I definitely recommend this book! It does require a little bit of previous knowledge as some of the words used they assume you already know! But as long as you either know them, or are fine with looking it up, then this is the perfect book!!

I rate this book 4.5/5, only due to the nature of the advanced vocabulary used!!

See you soon!

Elizabeth

Christchurch Mansion

Hello!

I wanted to break up my book reviews a bit with a slightly different post! So I decided to keep it really simple and just do a bit of a ‘photo dump’! These photos are of one of my favourite places in the world, Christchurch Mansion! It is such a pretty historical building, I just adore looking at all the rooms and imagining what it must’ve been like to live in!

I hope you enjoy looking through these photographs! Tell me about any historical places you like to visit!

The Corset Review

Hello!

If you have come over here from my Instagram, you will probably know how obsessed I am with Laura Purcell’s books! I read the Silent Companions last summer and loved it so so much! And last week, Bloomsbury were kind enough to send me a copy of ‘The Corset’!

I will try to avoid posting any spoilers, as Laura Purcell’s books are definitely ones you need to read knowing as little about what happens as possible! However, if anything is mentioned, I will make it extremely obvious so you can choose to stop reading!

Anyway, without further ado, my first proper book review!

‘The Corset’ by Laura Purcell

Is prisoner Ruth Butterham mad or a murderer? Victim or villain?Dorothea Truelove is young, wealthy and beautiful. Ruth Butterham is young, poor and awaiting trial for murder. When Dorothea’s charitable work leads her to Oakgate Prison, she finds herself drawn to Ruth, a teenage seamstress – and self-confessed murderess – who nurses a dark and uncanny secret. A secret that is leading her straight to the gallows. As Ruth reveals her disturbing past to Dorothea, the fates of these two women entwine, and with every revelation, a new layer of doubt is cast… Can Ruth be trusted? Is she mad, or a murderer?

From the very first pages, I was completely drawn into Ruth and Dorothea’s respective worlds! Both young women lead very distant, yet strangely interwoven lives. Ruth is a prisoner in a newly built penitentiary, locked up for a weirdly mysterious crime, and Dorothea is a frequent visitor who is fascinated with reading people’s skulls.

Over the course of the book, we are told Ruth’s story from her perspective, as though we are Dorothea, listening to her tell it whilst visiting her in her cell. We are also told Dorothea’s story, about her personal life and struggles. I really enjoyed seeing the two different women’s perspective, reading about Dorothea’s struggle to believe Ruth’s story whilst also dealing with her own problems and how they begun to become intertwined throughout the book!

Up until the ‘big reveal’ at the end, I literally had no idea how the book was going to end! Without spoiling too much, the people that turned out to be the bad guys didn’t give anything away! The way the story was written really made me trust these people, and made me feel almost as foolish as Ruth did when she found out!!

There really wasn’t anything I didn’t like about this book, however I will warn you that there a quite a few scenes that are pretty gory! So if you aren’t a fan of reading about scenes like that, this may not be the book for you!!

The Corset is definitely a book I would recommend if you like Laura Purcell’s other book ‘The Silent Companions’ or anything with a little bit of mystery!! I rate it 5/5 stars!!

Thank you to Bloomsbury for sending me a copy of this amazing book!!

Elizabeth