Tag: Lucy Worsley

The Austen Girls by Lucy Worsley

the austen girlsTitle: The Austen Girls
Author: Lucy Worsley
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Bloomsbury Children’s Books
Published: 19th May 2020
Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Price: $15.99
Synopsis: Would she ever find a real-life husband? Would she even find a partner to dance with at tonight’s ball? She just didn’t know.

Anna Austen has always been told she must marry rich. Her future depends upon it. While her dear cousin Fanny has a little more choice, she too is under pressure to find a suitor.

But how can either girl know what she wants? Is finding love even an option? The only person who seems to have answers is their Aunt Jane. She has never married. In fact, she’s perfectly happy, so surely being single can’t be such a bad thing?

The time will come for each of the Austen girls to become the heroines of their own stories. Will they follow in Jane’s footsteps?

In this witty, sparkling novel of choices, popular historian LUCY WORSLEY brings alive the delightful life of Jane Austen as you’ve never seen it before.

~*~

Everyone knows Jane Austen’s books – the most famous of which are probably Emma and Pride and Prejudice, and there are many retellings, and many books both fictional and non-fiction that feature or are about Jane Austen in some way. But Lucy Worsley has taken Jane Austen’s nieces – Fanny and Anna – and told their story, which involves Jane in a new and interesting way.

Set in 1809, it is time for cousins Anna and Fanny to enter society and begin the search for a husband – as society dictates for young ladies at the time. For Anna, marrying rich is a must – there is pressure from her family to make the right match and for the right reasons. Her cousin, Fanny, has a little more choice, yet, both are under extreme pressure to marry from their parents, but Aunt Jane is always there to offer advice, help and reassurance for everything.

Lucy Worsley has a talent for taking the stories of women in history and giving them a voice, and an identity beyond being daughters and wives.

Her previous three novels have focused on royal houses – here, Lucy explores the early nineteenth century and Jane Austen’s life. It is fresh and fun – as readers, we get to see Jane as more than just an author. As an aunt, a sister and a daughter. It is an example of how historical fiction about someone’s life, where what we know is filled in with the possibilities of what could have happened, and extrapolations of events based on the names, dates and facts available. Lucy has used these basic facts to bring history to life for her readers, in a way that is informative, accessible and entertaining. Told through the eyes of the younger girls, Jane’s nieces, the novel illustrates societal expectations, and how even in one family, ideas of wealth and status can differ, and inform what is expected of a teenage girl. At the same time, it also explores what happens when the oldest girl in a family needs to take on certain responsibilities – and doesn’t shy away from the realities of the time, yet presents them in a way that isn’t overly confronting for readers, but also, in a way that can still be understood clearly.

I love Luc’s work – she includes all the relevant and interesting details and shows us a world that whilst very far in the past, at times, can explore universal themes, and she brings history to life for a wide audience. I look forward to seeing what she writes next.

Eliza Rose by Lucy Worsley

Eliza Rose.jpgTitle: Eliza Rose

Author: Lucy Worsley

Genre: Historical Fiction

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Published: 1st June 2018

Format: Paperback

Pages: 368

Price: $14.99

Synopsis:The captivating debut children’s novel from popular television historian Lucy Worsley is an exciting and charming glimpse behind the scenes of the Tudor court.

I would often wonder about my future husband. A knight? A duke? A stable boy?
Of course the last was just a wicked fancy.

Eliza Rose Camperdowne is young and headstrong, but she knows her duty well. As the only daughter of a noble family, she must one day marry a man who is very grand and very rich.

But Fate has other plans. When Eliza becomes a maid of honour, she’s drawn into the thrilling, treacherous court of Henry the Eighth …

Is her glamorous cousin Katherine Howard a friend or a rival?

And can a girl choose her own destiny in a world ruled by men?

~*~

The Tudor years were fascinating, grim and violent, and the stories that are told don’t always reveal everything that happened behind the scenes of court – but rather, what Henry VIII wanted people to see and how the court projected itself. Eliza Rose Camperdowne – a fictional character who will become caught up in the intrigue and deception of court under two queens – Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard, whose untimely fate concludes the book. Eliza’s world is changed when a marriage falls apart and she is sent away to train to be a lady in waiting, and then assigned with her cousin, Katherine Howard to become ladies in waiting to Anne of Cleves. Yet over the years of that marriage, the king, Henry, is taken with Katherine and divorces Anne to wed Eliza’s cousin.

What follows is the court and its intrigues seen through the eyes of Eliza, as she watches rules being broken, where for some, this can have harsh punishments, but for others, seems to have very few consequences until it is too late. Woven throughout is Eliza’s desire to break free of tradition as much as she can – and marry for love, not duty, as she has been trained to do her entire life.

In this sense, Lucy shows the headstrong, and feminist ideas of women throughout the ages, even though they may not have had the words to describe it, the feelings were still there for some of them. She effectively contrasts this with the demure women like Anne, and those who cling to tradition, like Katherine, but who use their wiles and some trickery it seems to reach the goals they have been aiming for: to marry King Henry VIII and become his queen. Katherine was wife five of six – the second to be beheaded for adultery, so the charges went. And after her death, fears are that Eliza could be tainted and tarred with the same brush and she must find a way to change her fate.

Filled with powerful women of all kinds and personalities, the male characters for the most part, are not heavily present in this book, but where they are, they definitely have an impact on the story and its outcomes. All the necessary characters perform their roles really well and it is a great historical read for those interested in Tudor history.