In the past I can’t say I have been much of a fan of historical fiction but these days I am finding it more and more up my alley, or should I say – finding myself more and more up its alley?
In London in the mid 1850s, dutiful daughter oariella Lingwood sits at home sewing tiny delicate thingamabobs as her father builds little villas in Wandsworth and her mother does good deeds in the community. out in the wider world, the public imagination has been captivated by the romance of the Crimean War, a little skirmish the Brits assume they will win in a jiffy, although it’s not quite working out that way.
When oariella’s fiancé, Henry, a slightly wet doctor, loses his marbles somewhere in Turkey, and her headstrong cousin Rosa goes missing while nursing in the same vicinity, our heroine packs up her embroidery and goes to the war zone to find them.
If living as a well-bred repressed young lady in Victorian London doesn’t sound much fun, try swatting rats off half-dead armless teenagers in a makeshift hospital in the Crimea. Even Florence Nightingale got a fit of the vapours and had to decamp to more pleasant climes.
Turns out oariella is made of stronger stuff than your average tapestry yarn, however, and her story is a captivating one from the very first page to the very last.
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