Talented book lover Miranda Spary is filling in for Sarah-Kate for this review.
There are some days during the summer break when I just need to escape all the people I love most and hide away with a book. only for an hour or two, and then I can come back all loving and chatty again. Not so with Girl in a Blue Dress. It caught me by surprise and I just couldnt leave it alone.
A fictional novel based on the marriage of Charles Dickens, eand you can forget any dry and dusty thoughts when you see that name this book rocks. Dorothea is the wife of celebrity novelist Alfred Gibson, and just like modern-day celebrity marriages, this one is constantly under pressure from an adoring public. After having eight children, she is no longer the pretty young girl in a blue dress that her husband fell in love with, and the problems they have been having begin to escalate. once Alfred dies, Queen Victoria summons Dorothea to the palace for a private widow-to-widow chat and Dorothea starts to examine her life and the choices she made more closely.
Gaynor Arnold has done a terrific job of portraying life in Victorian London with all its complex rules and snobberies. She has made all the characters so alive I kept recognising people I know in them. Alfred is a vain, attention-seeking control freak but can charm absolutely everyone. Even Dorothea, who knows the real Alfred, still tries to find excuses for the appalling way he has treated her.
I particularly liked the snippety housekeeper, Wilson, and the greedy son-in-law trying to get his hands on some of the money. The first novel from this author, I hope there will be many more. Its a really top example of historical fiction and deservedly longlisted for the 2008 oan Booker prize, its particularly interesting in its way of showing the problems that come from courting fame.
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