The Household by Stacey Halls - Review

You know I've read and enjoyed a couple of others of Stacey's books, so when I saw this on Netgalley I requested it straight away. I am so thankful to Bonnier Books for granting access to me! This book will be published on the 11th of April, so only a couple of months away. I was provided with an electronic copy of this book for review purposes but was not otherwise compensated for this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

The book blends reality with fiction in a really brilliant way. One of the things we talk about at book club a lot is about when or where or if it is possible and ethical to write books about real people. My overarching feeling is that it's fine if it's long enough ago, if the people in question don't have heirs and relatives who are still alive. For instance, writing about Queen Victoria likely doesn't matter now, but writing about Queen Elizabeth II would have different ramifications. I know other people may have different lines here but that's where I am on it. I actually really wish I had chosen this for a book club book because I think we would have loved it. I've told everyone to read it!

So apparently in 1847 Charles Dickens and a woman called Angela Coutts put a load of money in to open up a thing called Urania Cottage. It aimed to take 'fallen women' who had been in prison or involved in prostitution or whatever, and train them up, out of the eyes of everyone else, for a life in service. The idea was to get them away from the problems and temptations of their former lives, and reform them into 'good' women. This was a real place and it really did do some of these things! Angela Coutts was a very wealthy heiress and she is one of the main characters in this book. Charles Dickens is also in it but barely appears, which I think was a good shout for the author. As Angela is much less well known it's easy to shape her into a character the reader cares about. 

Angela lives in a huge mansion near Regents Park and is accompanied by her old governess, Mrs Brown, and her husband, Dr Brown. Angela appears to live a charmed life - she is rich, she throws parties, she is fond of a duke who keeps rebuffing her offers of marriage (who, as I read later, is supposed to be the Duke of Wellington, but he's not named as such in the book). But she has a stalker, Richard Dunn. He has done many things to scare and threaten her and has spent time in prison for it, but at the beginning of the book he is released and Angela has to live under the threat of him again. She has police guarding her, but she's obviously still worried. 

She gets involved in Urania Cottage. The matron, Mrs Holdsworth, is stern but fair. Some of the first 'inmates' are Josephine and Martha. It's not exactly a prison, but there are very strict rules. The women are given a lot of luxuries, though, and lots of education and some freedoms. 

Josephine has been in prison - due to poverty - and there, has started a relationship with a woman called Annie. They are both offered the chance to go to Urania Cottage, where they will be trained to be servants, and from there, they will be deported to Australia to start lives there. It's a pretty good deal and Josephine jumps at the chance. Another woman there is Martha, who has spent time in a Magdalen Laundry, although her specific circumstances aren't spelt out. She is desperate to get back in touch with her sisters, Mary and Emily, but she can only find Mary. She enlists the help of Mrs Holdsworth's son, Frank, and also that of the home's chaplain, Mr Bryant. 

This is a really twisty and turny book and I was so intrigued to find out where it would go. I didn't guess a lot of the twists which was great and I was really pleased by them, they felt satisfying. There's a lot of characters which would be my only critcism, but the book also has a lot of scope so a lot of the characters are needed. It's a really interesting look at poverty in the middle of the 1900s, too, and I also really liked the descriptions of London and bits that are now definitely London but weren't then, like Shepherd's Bush. It felt like very really settings. 

In all I'm giving this five out of five as I really liked it. Thank you for the access, Bonnier Books! 

The Foundling by Stacey Halls - Review

 

As I had enjoyed Mrs England by Stacey Halls I decided I would get her other books to read too. I picked this up in late May; I read mostly on my tablet in May because I was away and it's just easier. I raced through this book and really enjoyed it. 

It's set in the mid 1700s in London. Bess gives birth to a daughter in 1747, in November, and we first meet her when she is at The Foundling hospital ready to give up her baby. She calls the baby Clara and would like to keep her but she just can't afford it. Bess works as a shrimp seller - her father Abe is a fishmonger down on the docks, and her brother Ned is a bit of a drunken waster. Bess' mother died a lot of years earlier. The baby's dad was a merchant who gave Bess half of a whalebone heart; she leaves this at the hospital with the baby. This is noted down so that when she comes to claim the baby (if she does), the administrators will know that the baby really is here. 

Bess spends the next six years saving up money to reclaim her daughter. She arrives at the hospital one day, excited to bring her child home, but she is told that someone has taken baby Clara - the baby's mother. But that can't be, because Bess is her mother. Bess has no idea where her child is, but one of the doctors at the hospital is willing to help her. 

Then we meet the mysterious and reclusive Alexandra, and her daughter, Charlotte. Alexandra has two servants, lives in a huge house just off Harley Street, and keeps all four of them locked up most of the time. She and Charlotte only leave the house to go to church, to the chapel attached to the Foundling hospital. Alexandra is clearly traumatised, and moreso after the death of her husband. Into her life comes Eliza... 

I really liked the look at London in this period - it was interesting to hear about all the different areas of London and which were at that time more rural, parts that you would now consider right in the middle of London! I could imagine Alexandra's house perfectly and enjoyed the parts about the tiny yard where Bess lived and the small rooms she inhabited. 

You might remember that I read another book about a girl that grew up in the Foundling hospital: Lily: A Tale of Revenge, which I read for book club back in November 2022. The hospital is a real place and you can apparently visit the museum. It was interesting to go back to it and I will recommend this book to people in my book club in case they are also interested! 

I'm giving this four out of five as I really liked it! I did think the ending was maybe a little bit unrealistic but it's a book so it's fine! 

Mrs England by Stacey Halls - Review

I saw this book in Waterstones just before Christmas but couldn't justify spending the money on it, so I didn't buy it. Then I saw it was 99p on Kindle so I bought it there between Christmas and New Year. I do try to avoid Amazon but I really wanted to read this, so there we are. This was the first book I picked up in 2023, and boy was it a great way to start the year! 

So Ruby is a Norland nanny, trained to be one of the best nannies in the world, and she is working happily for the Radletts in London, looking after baby Georgina and awaiting the arrival of Mrs Radlett's second baby. But then the Radletts announce they are moving to Chicago. They want Ruby to go, but Ruby can't make her family cope without the wages she sends home every month. She returns to Norland College and speaks to 'Sim', her trainer, who offers her a new job in Yorkshire. 

Ruby takes it, despite the misgivings both women have. She arrives and is picked up by the master himself, Mr England, and taken to his home at the bottom of a valley in wildest West Yorkshire. (I'm from West Yorkshire and could all too well imagine exactly where the house was located). Mr England is a mill owner but the house is very isolated. Ruby immediately doesn't get along with the other members of staff - partly, I feel, because she thinks herself above the domestic staff. She is a nurse, not a nursemaid, as she tells us several times. 

There are four children - Decca, Saul, Millie, and baby Charley. The girls aren't educated, something which Ruby brings up with Mr England when he is friendly towards her. Saul is tutored by Mr Booth, who arrives every day between 9 and 12. He is engaged to one of the kitchen staff. 

And then there's Mrs England. Mr England warns Ruby to lock the nursery door at night, but why exactly? Mrs England seems to get easily confused and is distant from her children, but heartbroken when Decca is sent away to school. Ruby's mail goes missing, or does it? Any what does the local blacksmith want with Mrs England? Ruby's family has secrets too - what exactly are they? The ending is ambiguous too, but brilliantly done! 

This is a really well done gothic novel, where everything gets turned upside down more than once. I haven't read anything by Stacey Halls before but I'll definitely read more by her as I absolutely devoured this. I'm giving this five out of five.