Review: Poppy in the Field - Mary Hooper

When Poppy learns that the love of her life, Freddie de Vere, is to marry someone else, she knows her heart will break. Devastated, she volunteers her nursing skills overseas to take her away from the painful reminders at home. But things are about to get much worse for Poppy. The journey to the hospital in Flanders is full of horrors, and when she arrives it is to find a spiteful ward Sister and unfriendly nurses. Despite her loneliness and homesickness, the dangers of frontline warfare soon make her forget her own troubles and Poppy finds that comfort for a broken heart can be found in the most unexpected places.

Brilliantly researched and inspired by real-life events, big and small, Poppy in the Field is a story about the forgotten bravery of women on the front line, told through the eyes of a young woman determined to play her part.

Poppy Series:
Poppy
Poppy in the Field

Visit Mary Hooper's website for more information

Review:
I really loved the first book in this series, Poppy, when I read it last year so I've been desperately waiting to get my hands on this sequel. Once again Mary Hooper has written a fabulous story that gives so much insight into the lives of nurses during WWI, she is able to transport readers back in time and she includes so many little details that it feels like you're actually there.

During the previous book Poppy trained as a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) nurse and we got to see first hand the long hours and amount of dedication the nurses put in to caring for wounded soldiers. While working in London Poppy was treating soldiers weeks after they'd received their initial injuries and she was more involved in their long term care but after having her heart broken she makes the decision that she can be of more help working closer to the front line. Poppy makes the journey to France where she begins work in one of the many makeshift hospitals that was set up in an old casino. Working incredibly long hours Poppy is exhausted, lonely and missing home but she finds comfort in the friendship she makes with some of her fellow nurses and she knows what a difference she is making to the lives of the solders she is treating.

I absolutely loved this book, not only is it incredibly informative but it's also superbly written and very easy to read. Poppy in the Field is the kind of story that you find yourself thinking about days after you finish reading it and the characters definitely stick with you. There are so many stories out there about the young men who gave their lives fighting for their country during the war but we always seem to hear a lot less about the sacrifices made by women so I really loved getting to see the war through a woman's eyes. The nurses who volunteered to go to the front lines were incredibly strong, courageous and hard working women who risked their own lives to help others. Their role was just as important to the war effort and they made the lives of the injured soldiers just that tiny bit easier. I think it's incredibly important for us to read stories like this one and for girls to have such fantastic role models to look up to.

This series has been fantastic and it's definitely one I'll read again in the future. Poppy's story was completely captivating, it isn't always an easy read and at times it will break your heart but it will also show you the true meaning of human resilience and prove just how much we're capable of if we really push ourselves.

Source: Received from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

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Review: Poppy - Mary Hooper

England, December 1914.

Poppy is young, beautiful and clever - and working as a parlourmaid in the de Vere family's country house. Society, it seems, has already carved out her destiny.

But Poppy's life is about to be thrown dramatically off course. The first reason is love - with someone forbidden, who could never, ever marry a girl like her. The second reason is war.

As the lists of the dead and wounded grow longer, Poppy must do whatever she can to help the injured soldiers, knowing all the while that her own solider may never return home . . .

Poppy Series:
Poppy
Poppy in the Field

Visit Mary Hooper's website for more information

Review:
I love Mary Hooper's writing, no matter what era of history she is introducing readers to you can always tell that she has done her research and she never fails to bring that period to life with her vivid descriptions. She always includes so many tiny little extra snippets of information that it really feels like you've stepped back in time and are walking alongside her main characters. As we are in the centennial anniversary of the start of WWI I was really looking forward to seeing how she would tackle the sensitive subject of the war, especially when I found out that it would be written from the perspective of a nurse who is looking after soldiers seriously injured on the front lines.

Poppy is a great main character, she's intelligent, hard working and kind and although she doesn't come from a wealthy family she is fairly happy with her lot in life. She had dreams of going to college and had even earned a scholarship but she had to take a position as a parlourmaid instead so she could help her family financially. In spite of that she isn't bitter and she focuses on making the best of her situation. 1914 was an interesting period of time for women. They were starting to stand up for their right to be treated as equals, to be allowed to vote and more women were looking to have a career of their own that didn't involve domestic chores or staying home with the children and in a lot of ways WWI gave them new opportunities that they didn't have before. With the majority of young men off fighting the war it was up to the women to step up and support them in whatever way they could - with everything from farming the land to working in offices or munitions factories through to nursing the wounded as they returned home.

Poppy was one of thousands of young women who signed up to the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) to train as a nurse. She quickly finds herself working long hours to care for the overwhelming number of injured soldiers who were arriving every day. Mary Hooper doesn't shy away from showing what the soldiers went through and the horrific injuries that they suffered but it isn't just the physical injuries they had to cope with. This was a time before PTSD was a valid diagnosis and when doctors were only just starting to agree that Shell Shock was a medical condition and rather than just cowardice on a soldier's part. Just thinking about the things these men (or young boys in a lot of cases!) had to face on a daily basis makes my blood run cold and if they were too frightened to follow orders they faced the possibility of being put before their own firing squad for dereliction of duty. Weapons may have changed in the last century but a lot of the issues faced by the soldiers and the nurses caring for the injured is just as relevant today as it was then and I don't think it ever hurts for us to be reminded of that.

This book is a very quick read and I found that once I'd started reading it I didn't want to stop, in fact I pretty much read it in one sitting because I was completely gripped by the story. The timeline of this book runs through to the end of 1915 so it doesn't take us through to the end of the war and there will be a sequel publishing next year called Poppy in the Field but I wouldn't say this book ends on a cliffhanger. It ends at a very natural point so although I'm looking forward to continuing to follow Poppy's journey I'm not frustrated with the way this book ended. History is so often written from a man's point of view, there are countless stories told from a soldier's perspective so I really appreciated that this focuses more on women's efforts at helping the war effort. This book shows the incredibly resiliency of both men and women at the time of WWI and I think it highlights all the best qualities the war brought out in our country even while it shows the horrors that so many thousands of people experienced.

Source: Received from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

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Review: The Disgrace of Kitty Grey - Mary Hooper

Kitty is living a happy, carefree life as a dairymaid in the countryside. The grand family she is employed by looks after her well, and she loves her trade, caring for the gentle cows and working in the cool, calm dairy. And then, of course, there is Will, the river man who she thinks is very fond of her, and indeed she is of him. Surely he will ask her to marry him soon?

Then one day disaster strikes: Will disappears. Kitty is first worried and then furious. She fears that Will has only been leading her on all this time, and has now gone to London to make his fortune, forgetting about her completely. So when Kitty is asked to go to London to pick up a copy of Pride and Prejudice, the latest novel by the very fashionable Jane Austen, Kitty leaps at the chance to track down Will. But Kitty has no idea how vast London is, and how careful she must be. It is barely a moment before eagle-eyed pickpockets have spotted the country-born-and-bred Kitty and relieved her of her money and belongings. Dauntingly fast, she has lost her only means of returning home and must face the terrifying prospect of stealing in order to survive - and of being named a thief . . .

Visit Mary Hooper's website for more information

Review:
Kitty may not be rich but she is happy with her life, she works for a wealthy family as a dairymaid and although her hours are long she is well treated and has plenty of food to eat. She even has a sweetheart, local ferryman Will, who she adores and hopes to one day marry. Then Will disappears leaving Kitty to look after his four year old sister Betsy alone. Will didn't even say goodbye but Kitty knows he has family in London and wanted to go there to make his fortune so when the opportunity comes up she decides to go in search of him to reunite Betsy with her brother. What Kitty didn't realise was how big London is or just quite how harsh life can be there for a woman alone with a young child. Within minutes of their arrival all of their belongings are stolen and Kitty is forced to take desperate measures just to survive, ones that end with her arrested for stealing.

I'm a huge fan of Mary Hooper's writing, she has a way of bringing history to life and I think that's partly down to all the little details she adds to her stories - those little snippets from true stories that show how well researched her books are. I love the way she always introduces some less talked about aspects of history too, in Fallen Grace it was Victorian funeral traditions, in Velvet it was the horror of baby farms and in The Disgrace of Kitty Grey it was the treatment of female prisoners and the prison ships that were sent to colonise Australia along with some very interesting snippets about the life of a milkmaid.

Kitty is such a great character, she is quite innocent, especially when it comes to the ways of city life, but at the same time she has a great inner strength that is what pulls her through the difficult times. Nothing about London is what she was expecting it to be and it was a real struggle for her just to survive, she tries so hard to get a job and earn the money she needs to look after Betsy but circumstances keep going against her. It makes you really appreciate the justice and welfare systems we have in place now because it was practically impossible for single women to make an honest living in the past, especially one with a child because of the stigma of being an unmarried mother. The conditions in the prisons were just horrific for the poor, sentences for relatively small crimes were high and unless you had the money to bribe the guards for extra food or even a blanket then life was miserable. In contrast if you were rich then prison could have all the comforts of home right down to a four poster bed if you paid enough for the privilege!

There were a couple of coincidences in The Disgrace of Kitty Grey that were a little hard to believe but that didn't stop me thoroughly enjoying the story. Kitty was lucky enough to find some supportive friends who made life at Newgate prison a little more bearable for her and Betsy. I think anyone with even a slight interest in history is going to love any of Mary Hooper's books and this one is no exception. I can't wait to see what interesting topic she introduces next.

Source: Received from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Other reviews of this book:
If you have reviewed this book on your blog please leave a link to your review in the comments & I'll add the link here.

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Book Trailer & Cover Comparison: Velvet - Mary Hooper

Last year I read and loved Velvet by Mary Hooper. Set in Victorian England Velvet tells the story of a young orphan whose life changes dramatically when she is able to give up the back breaking job she has in the laundry to work as a lady's maid for a renowned medium. This really is a fantastic story and one that I would highly recommend - you can read my review here.

Have a look at the book trailer & let me know what you think:



Velvet was initially published by Bloomsbury as a trade paperback last September and is released again today as a normal paperback with a new cover.

Original Cover:

New Cover:

Which cover do you prefer? I really like the original cover, the candle fits well with the atmosphere of the story and makes me think of night time and creepy dark places like where Madame Savoya holds her seances. I think I actually prefer the new cover though, I love the blue colour and the way that Velvet is highlighted against the shadowy background. Velvet looks just how I pictured her as I was reading the story and I love it when the cover model actually looks like the main character.

If you're a fan of historical fiction, have even the slightest interest in seances or have any curiosity about the tricks mediums can use to make people believe them then I'd definitely recommend picking up a copy of Velvet.

Bloomsbury Velvet Launch with Mary Hooper - 21st September 2011

Emma from Bloomsbury with Mary Hooper

A couple of weeks ago I was very excited to get the chance to go to the Bloomsbury offices and meet author Mary Hooper.  I loved her books Fallen Grace and Velvet (click on the links to read my reviews) so was looking forward to talking to her.  It was great to finally meet Emma at Bloomsbury - I've been talking to her via email for ages but it is always nice to actually have a proper face to face conversation.  Of course I always love the chance to get together with other bloggers too, a lot of them have become very good friends and we always have a blast together (usually while book shopping followed by gossiping over coffee and cakes before or after an event!).  This time we got to meet a couple of new faces, I've spoken to Raimy & Laura via twitter for ages but it was lovely to chat to them both in person & I hope we get to see them both again soon.

Mary has had an amazing writing career, she started writing short stories when she was in her 30's while at home with her small children just to give her something creative to.  She started selling the stories (and a serial called Pink Ladies about 2 female DJs) to magazines like Jackie & Blue Jeans, with 14 teen magazines available it was a good market and she was able to get plenty of work.  She got inspiration for a lot of her stories by reading through the problem pages.

When she decided that she'd like to try writing a book she gathered together a collection of her short stories and sent them to a publisher.  They were looking for an English equivalent to the Sweet Valley High series so Mary started work on the Heartlines books.  She said it was much easier to get a publishing contract when she first started writing than it is today and she was lucky to start writing at the right time.  The YA market dropped in the 80's so Mary started writing books for younger children, she mentioned that it is important to adjust your writing to fit the current market but she has always preferred writing for teens.  Mary was lucky to be one of the first authors to start writing for Bloomsbury's new teenage line about 17 / 18 years ago but she also continued writing younger books that were published by Walker.  She gradually dropped writing younger children's books when the teenage books started selling well.

Mary had always been interested in history but she didn't think she would be allowed to write that kind of story herself, she always thought that you had to have a history degree to write historical novels.  She found that she had started to run out of ideas for modern books though because she didn't want to get into writing hard hitting books about drug taking.  When her friend Celia Rees wrote her historical novel Witch Eyes Mary decided that she could have a go at writing one of her own.  She started by writing about the great plague and found she really enjoyed digging up interesting historical details.  Now she doesn't think she'll write anything else, she has so many ideas for stories set in different eras that she wants to continue with.

Picture of a medium showing her manifesting "ectoplasm"

Talking about Velvet Mary told us that she searched through old court records looking for fraudulent mediums to get ideas and a lot of things included in the book are based on true stories.  After searching for pictures of ectoplasm on google (click on the link to see more pictures) she couldn't believe that people were gullible enough to believe what they were seeing.  Mary was disgusted that the mediums managed to convince so many people to give them their property and personal belongings, some people gave away practically everything they owned to these con artists.  Someone asked Mary if she has any intention of writing more about baby farms (something she touches on briefly in Velvet) but she said that the subject was just too horrific to write a whole book about them.

Mary also told us a bit about the novel she is currently working, the main character is a milkmaid because she wanted to write something in a more rural setting.  She ends up being sent to the hulks which were prison ships on the Thames.  I didn't even realise we'd had prison ships so I'm really looking forward to finding out more about them.  She told us about the ships that would take prisoners over to populate Australia which was fascinating.  Although she wasn't allowed to include this in the book she found out that the sailors were allowed to select one of the female prisoners to keep them company on the journey (which would take at least a year to complete).  The women who were selected were treated better than the other prisoners and given better food and accommodation but it meant the ships were basically like floating brothels.  With no effective form of birth control available ships actually had to have baby clothes and cots on board for all the babies that would be born before the ship reached it's destination!

Red Velvet Cupcakes

While we were talking to Mary we were also treated to some delicious nibbles thanks to Bloomsbury.  There was a selection of lovely fruit and of course you couldn't celebrate the launch of Velvet without red velvet cupcakes (from The Hummingbird Bakery), most of the cakes were gone by the time I thought to take a picture but trust me they were amazing!  We were also given a fab goodie bag including some of Bloomsbury's upcoming titles that I'm looking forward to trying and a couple of Mary's books that she very kindly signed for us.

Here are a few more pictures that I took throughout the event:

I'd like to say a massive thank you to Emma and everyone else at Bloomsbury for arranging such a great event and to Mary for spending so much time chatting to us about her stories.  I'm really looking forward to working my way through her back list of historical titles so watch out for more reviews coming soon.

Who was there:

Emma - Bloomsbury
Mary Hooper - Website
Alice - The Reader Room
Becky - The Bookette

Carly - Writing from the Tub

Casey & Hayley - Dark Readers

Dwayne - Girls Without A Bookshelf
Hannah - My Book Journey - Event Report

Karen - Teenage Fiction For All Ages
Laura - Sister Spooky - Event Report
Raimy - Readaraptor

Sammee - I Want To Read That
Stephanie (I'm sorry but I didn't catch her blog name, if anyone knows it can you let me know in the comments please and I'll add it here)

Viv - Serendipity Reviews - Event Report

Winner: Set of Mary Hooper's Historical Novels

With the help of random.org I am happy to announce the winner of a full set of Mary Hooper's historical novels: At the Sign of the Sugared Plum, Petals in the Ashes, The Remarkable Life and Times of Eliza Rose, At the House of the Magician, By Royal Command, The Betrayal, Fallen Grace & Velvet (That's an amazing 8 books!) is:

Mel Symonds (email address starting notanotherbookblog@...)

Congratulations Mel!  You should have already received an email from me asking for your addresses so please make sure you look out for it.  If I don't hear back from you within 48 hours then a new winner will be chosen.  The prizes will be sent out by my contact at Bloomsbury so you'll need to give permission for me to forward your address to them.  I'd like to say a massive thank you to Bloomsbury for allowing me to host this giveaway for them.

Mary Hooper Blog Tour - Guest Post & UK Giveaway - NOW CLOSED

* UPDATE - THIS GIVEAWAY HAS NOW ENDED - Winners announced here *

I really loved Mary Hooper's newest book Velvet so I'm very excited to be taking part in the blog tour to celebrate it's release.  If you haven't already read it you can find my review of Velvet here, it's a fantastic story set in the Victorian era about a young girl who is employed by a clairvoyant but soon finds out that not everything about her new job is what it first seemed.

Velvet is an orphan.  She struggles to make ends meet by working in a steam laundry, where the work is back-breaking and exhausting.  So when she attracts the attention of the glamorous clairvoyant Madame Savoya, she cannot believe her good fortune.

Raised to the status of Lady's maid, Velvet is given elegant clothes to wear and is brought to live in a grand house in London.  But the longer she works for Madame Savoya, the more she discovers about the mysterious world of a spiritual medium.  Velvet soon realises that her employer is not quite what she seems and that this knowledge could put her very life in danger . . .

Visit Mary Hooper's website or her fan page on Facebook for more information



I'm going to hand you over to Mary Hooper who has written a really interesting guest post for us about Baby Farms.  I had never heard of Baby Farms before reading Velvet but they are a truly horrific part of our history - I'm glad they no longer exist but it is quite frightening that this kind of thing was still happening in England just over 100 years ago!

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Mary Hooper

Baby Farms

Sadly, there were many of these in Victorian and Edwardian Britain. In 1864 a law was passed stating that illegitimate children were the sole responsibility of their mothers until the age of sixteen. However, if their mothers were unable to care for them it was difficult to find anyone who would. At this time, unwed mothers and their children were seen as an affront to morality and the majority of orphanages denied illegitimate children shelter, fearing they would contaminate the minds and morals of legitimate children. Single mothers were therefore desperate enough to use people like Mrs Dyer to baby-mind or even adopt their infants, otherwise there was little hope of their obtaining accommodation or work. Laws were in place against the mistreatment of animals, but not children, and reform moved slowly for fear of violating the Victorian ideal of the sanctity of the family. Fallen women were condemned, their children stigmatised, and there was no welfare state to look after them.

Amelia Dyer was a real person, one of a breed of baby farmers. By moving around and changing her name and her methods, for some time she escaped the notice of police and the newly formed NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children). Babies disappeared from baby farms, but their mothers were tricked into thinking that they had died of natural causes and were reluctant to take matters any further for fear of disgrace. Dyer was first arrested in 1879 after a doctor became suspicious about the number of child deaths he had been called upon to certify, but instead of being convicted of murder, she was sentenced to six months’ hard labour for neglect. She returned to baby farming and murder, and began to dispose of the bodies of the infants she minded in the nearby River Thames.

In 1896, a package containing the body of a baby girl was retrieved from the river at Reading, and Dyer’s house was placed under surveillance. When it was raided, police discovered that in the previous few months alone, at least twenty children had been placed in her care, and subsequently seven bodies were found in the Thames. In May that year she appeared at the Old Bailey, where it took the jury a mere four and a half minutes to find her guilty. She was hanged in June 1896. The Dyer case caused a national scandal, fol-lowing which, stricter adoption laws were passed giving local authorities the power to police baby farms and stamp out abuse. However, the advertising of homes for infants and their trafficking and abuse did not stop immediately.

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Giveaway Details:

Now onto the giveaway details.  Thanks to Bloomsbury I have an amazing giveaway (I really want to enter this one myself lol!) for you.  One lucky UK winner will receive a full set of Mary Hooper's historical novels: At the Sign of the Sugared Plum, Petals in the Ashes, The Remarkable Life and Times of Eliza Rose, At the House of the Magician, By Royal Command, The Betrayal, Fallen Grace & Velvet.  That's an amazing 8 books!

• Courtesy of Bloomsbury I have 1 complete set of Mary Hooper's historical novels (see titles listed above) to give away to 1 lucky UK winner.
• The winners prize will be sent out directly by my contact at Bloomsbury so winner must give me permission to pass their address on.
• The winner will be chosen at random from all entries received. 
• Only 1 entry per person please, multiple entries will be deleted.
• To enter please fill in your name and email address in the form below and confirm you are a UK resident.
• The giveaway will close on the 21st September 2011 and the winner will be contacted soon afterwards.  You will have 48 hours to reply to me with your address or a new winner will be chosen.

Review: Velvet - Mary Hooper

Velvet is an orphan.  She struggles to make ends meet by working in a steam laundry, where the work is back-breaking and exhausting.  So when she attracts the attention of the glamorous clairvoyant Madame Savoya, she cannot believe her good fortune.

Raised to the status of Lady's maid, Velvet is given elegant clothes to wear and is brought to live in a grand house in London.  But the longer she works for Madame Savoya, the more she discovers about the mysterious world of a spiritual medium.  Velvet soon realises that her employer is not quite what she seems and that this knowledge could put her very life in danger . . .

Visit Mary Hooper's website for more information

Review:
Life as an orphan isn't easy for Velvet and she has to work long gruelling hours in the laundry just to survive.  Getting the chance to work as a lady's maid for clairvoyant Madame Savoya is her chance to move up in the world.  Velvet is excited to be away from the laundry but the more she learns about her new boss the more suspicious she becomes.  Is Madame Savoya all she really seems to be and if she isn't what should Velvet do about it?

I really enjoyed Mary Hooper's book Fallen Grace so was excited to get my hands on a copy of Velvet and couldn't wait to start reading.  The stories are both set in Victorian London and although they are both about very different subject matters they both capture the era perfectly.  I love Mary Hooper's writing style which is both descriptive and very easy to read.  She is able to pull you completely into her world and has a way of writing characters that are easy to relate to and care about.

Velvet is a great heroine and an interesting mixture of streetwise (she had to be to survive her upbringing) and naive (especially when it comes to her new boss).  Although there were times I almost wanted to shake some sense into her it was easy to understand why Velvet was so keen to believe the best in her boss.  After the things she had been through she desperately wanted to believe that her new and better life was real.  When she starts to become suspicious she refuses to sit back and ignore things though - she has a good sense of right and wrong and is determined not to be a part of anything dishonest.

I have read about the Victorian spiritualist community before and find the methods that clairvoyants have used to trick people into believing they are genuine fascinating.  The tricks of the trade so to speak were truly inventive, if despicable, in the way they took advantage of grieving relatives.  What I had never heard about before were the baby farms and that added a horrific element to the story - it is awful to think that things like that really happened and it makes me glad that I'm not living in Victorian times.  Velvet is a fantastic read and one that I'm sure will be popular with fans of historical fiction - if you have any interest in the Victorian way of life or clairvoyants then this is definitely a book I would recommend picking up.  I'm also adding Mary Hooper to my must buy list of authors and am looking forward to working my way through her back list and picking up anything she writes in the future.

Source: Received from Bloomsbury in exchange for an honest review

Other reviews of this book:
Read In A Single Sitting
If you have reviewed this book on your blog please leave a link to your review in the comments & I'll add the link here.

Review: Fallen Grace - Mary Hooper

London, 1861.
Grace Parkes, a pale but determined figure, clutches a precious bundle closely to her.  Grace has a heartbreaking duty to carry out . . .

Every day Grace must find a new way of earning enough money to pay the rent for the bleak, cold room that she and her sister live in, and to buy them enough - just - to eat.

But there is another danger threatening Grace, a danger linked to an event in her past that she is desperate to forget.  Grace has caught the eye of the Unwins, an unscrupulous family whose shady business dealings are those of death and mourning.  The Unwins will stop at nothing to defraud Grace of what is rightfully hers . . .

Visit Mary Hooper's website for more information

Review:
Grace and Lily are orphans who struggle every day to earn enough money to pay their rent and buy even the smallest meal.  Life isn't easy but they have each other and Grace is determined to do whatever it takes to keep them out of the work house.  An unfortunate change in circumstance forces them to turn to the Unwin's for help, Grace may not like working for the unscrupulous family's funeral business but it is her only option and at least this way Lily will be safe.  But are the Unwins really all they seem or have Grace and Lily put themselves into their most dangerous situation yet?

I have been really enjoying historical fiction recently and Fallen Grace was definitely a book that had me hooked from the moment I picked it up.  From the opening chapter it is easy to feel sympathy for Grace, my heart bled for her throughout the difficult task she has to perform and from that moment on I was willing things to work out for her.  Although Grace is in a difficult situation she always does her best to stick to her principles and she has a strong will to survive.  She is no weak heroine who sits around waiting for someone to rescue her and is very reluctant to ask for help even when she desperately needs it. 

Lily may be the older sister but in reality she is a child trapped in a teenager's body and needs Grace to look after her.  She is such a sweet character and someone you want to look out for but I was impressed with the patience that Grace shows towards her because she ends up getting into quite frustrating situations.  Lily adores her sister and would be completely lost without her but in her own way Grace needs Lily just as much.  I loved the relationship between the two of them and I also loved the way that Lily proved that she isn't quite as stupid as some people think she is. 

The setting of the book is wonderfully described and you are transported back to Victorian London.  Before reading this story I knew practically nothing about the lavish Victorian funeral traditions and found them fascinating to read about.  I was thoroughly sickened by the Unwins and the way they took advantage of grieving relatives to earn as much money as they could from them.  It is a testament to Mary Hooper's writing that I literally wanted to climb inside the book and punch someone, I love it when an author can make me feel that strongly about the bad guys!

Fallen Grace is a beautifully written story and one that I would highly recommend to fans of historical fiction.  It is a book that shows just how difficult it was for the poor to survive in Victorian England and makes you feel relieved not to have lived in the 19th century.  Overall though Grace and Lily's tale is one of survival and hope.

Source: Received from Bloomsbury in exchange for an honest review

Other reviews of this book:
Heaven, Hell & Purgatory Book Reviews
If you have reviewed this book on your blog please leave a link to your review in the comments & I'll add the link here.