I walked past this book at the bookstore probably a dozen times, sometimes picking it up and having a look at it, sometimes just noticing it as I passed by. A pretty enough cover, I kept thinking, but on closer inspection, there wasn’t enough in the blurb on the back to draw me into buying it. Then, one day, while on holiday in Italy, I realised that I had finished every one of the many carefully chosen books I had brought with me. Quel horreur!
Luckily, the B&B we were staying in had a healthy book exchange going. Unluckily, most of the books were in German. Luckily, one wasn’t – The Shifting Fog. Even more luckily, despite my hesitancy when I had the choice, this turned out to be a very good book.
Grace Bradley is 98 and gently recounting her time as housemaid at Riverton oanor, a grand English country house, where she started her life in service to her “betters”. Arriving at the house as a 14-year-old, Grace is entranced by Hannah and Emmeline Hartford, the daughters of the manor, who are around Grace’s own age but born with all the benefits she is lacking. Not that Grace is at all bitter, in fact she is devoted to Hannah, truly and utterly, until one dreadful summer night in the roaring 1920s when the two sisters and the servant witness a tragedy that changes them all forever. As Grace recounts the events leading up to that night, she opens the door to a captivating time in modern history: Victorian England is dying, and from its ashes rises war and devastation, leading to the crumbling of the aristocracy as well as a growing freedom for the female of the species.
Australian author Kate oorton has done a spiffing job of bringing this slice of history to effervescent life, and I won’t be so quick to walk past her next book, which will hopefully be coming to a B&B near me very soon, and not in German.
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
