Lizzie Pook

During Victorian England, a young woman, Constance Horton, disguised herself as a boy and took to the sea on a vessel heading for the Artic looking for the lost ship of an English explorer. Her sister, Maude Horton, has received the message that Constance has died, and she searches for the reason why. A young man brings her a diary that her sister had written while on the ship pointing to a vicious man that searches for bones, etc.

The story is somewhat of a stretch as to how this young woman could remain hidden on such a ship. A this time, public hangings are extremely popular even bringing about "tours" to such events. Maude finds herself on one such tour searching for the man that killed her sister.

Story is almost all plot with very little characterization and the diary entries really do not particularly sound believable.… (más)

I finished this book yesterday, and I thought "What did I just read?" I'm not sure what I was expecting, but what I got was not really for me. The book begins with an Arctic expedition set in the 19th century. It begins with 20-year-old- Constance Horton who signs on as a ship's boy on the Makepiece, which is a vessel that was being sent to the Arctic to find out what happened to the Franklin Expedition, which had disappeared while on a voyage to find the Northwest Passage. Constance does not come back to England when the Makepiece returns, and Maude Horton, her sister, is trying to find out what happened to her. Maude has Constance's diary, and she knows from there that one particular man who was also on the Makepiece was responsible for the disappearance of her sister. Edison Stowe is that man, but Maude knows that he is also very dangerous. The book is a cat-and-mouse chase across England as Maude Horton joins Edison Stowe's popular hanging excursions which is a touring company which follows the public hangings in and around England. I found the book convoluted and hard to follow. I was listening to it on audiobook, and that might explain my lack of comprehension, and understanding of what the author was trying to portray. I did finish the book, but I did not enjoy it. Wrong genre for me, I guess.… (más)

If I hadn’t already read Lizzie Pook’s delightful first novel Moonlight and the Pearler’s Daughter I would have still jumped at the chance to read Maude Horton’s Glorious Revenge. All I had to see were the words “Victorian London” and “Northwest Passage”!

In 1845, the war hero and explorer John Franklin set off on a second expedition to search for a passage to the East through the Arctic. After they didn’t return, search parties were sent to look for them.

The Arctic explorers were the astronauts of the 1840s, sailing into the unknown frozen North with its terrors and monstrous creatures, polar bears and narwhales and walrus. They seized the public’s imagination.

The Victorians lusted for news about murders and hangings, freaks, and abnormal behavior.

Pook imagines two sisters. Constance is obsessed with the Arctic. She longs for adventure, and learning that another ship is going to search for the lost Franklin expedition, she disguises herself and signs up as a cabin boy. When the ship returns, she is reported as having died. Her sister Maude is determined to learn how her sister passed.

Constance’s story is told by the journal she kept, which Maude is given. It mentions a man who posed a threat to Constance, Edison Stowe, whose sick obsessions she had discovered. Maude tracks Stowe down and formulates a plan to get close to him and learn her sister’s fate.

This page-turner takes us into the Arctic and the bowels and masts of a sailing ship, and to the spectacles of public hangings, and even into Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors. It’s a dark story, full of suspense and violence, with poetic justice meted out at the end.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book.… (más)

Moonlight and the Pearler's Daughter is a wonderful debut that drew me in from the very beginning. Set in Australia at the end of the nineteenth century, this is one of those books that I loved not just for its characters and plot, but also for the setting and the chance to learn something new.

Eliza was a really compelling main character, with her fierce devotion to her family and the steely determination allowing her to keep rising up in the face of adversity and to continue pushing on in her quest to find her father. She is complex and flawed and ready to fight hard for her space in a world that doesn't really consider women all that much. The rest of the characters felt a bit flat by comparison, but Eliza is the centre of the show so it didn't really bother me all that much overall.

The setting and the historical period stole the spotlight a little, as they were both drawn in amazing detail. I was rather ignorant of the whole pearling business, so this was an excellent chance to be introduced to it and learn something new! I particularly appreciated how the author acknowledged native people and the harm caused to them by settlers. I felt like I also had a clear sense of social structures by the end of the book, and characters' choices and behaviours mostly made sense within those.

Eliza's search for her father pretty much takes up the whole book, and my enjoyment of it definitely came more from the setting and historical traits than from the plot itself. There were a few chapters set in the past, at the time of the Brightwell family's arrival in Bannin Bay, which I hoped would continue throughout, but they were limited and the majority of the action took place at the time of Eliza's father's disappearance. This still made for an interesting read, but as it progressed it was at times not quite as engrossing as I'd have liked. I found the resolution slightly underwhelming, but that's just personal taste! I really enjoyed seeing Eliza come into her own by the end of the book so that made up for any other minor disappointment.

Overall, this is a really great read and I'll definitely be on the lookout for more of Lizzie Pook's work in the future!


I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher as part of the blog tour organised by Random Things Tours. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.… (más)