In Victorian England, estranged sisters, Annie and Mary Ellen Underwood, fight for the love of one man, Edwin West. Their rivalry ignites passions, jealousies, family feuds, and deep hatreds already sparked by religious intolerance. Edwin loves them both, but both are forbidden fruit. Who will be the winners in this three-sided game, and what will be the price of a second chance at love for the … the losers? For lovers of Catherine Cookson.
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I knew before I even opened this book, I was going to enjoy it. Rebecca Bryn is one of my favourite authors and her tales are both easy and delightful to read. I should have guessed this was a historical book, but it’s set at the end of the 19th century in rural England during the reign of Queen Victoria. As I have come to expect in her writing it’s the product of meticulous research which brings the story to life and while the end might be predictable, there is an interesting twist in the law which upsets the smooth sailing to a happy conclusion. Of particular interest, the book is based on research into the author’s own family tree, piecing a few facts together to complete a fascinating story which may be closer to fact than fiction. Highly recommended and worth all of the five stars.
What a fascinating story, especially since it’s loosely based off of facts about the author’s ancestry. Anyone who comes from a large family, with children born close to each other, will likely understand the family dynamics that this story relates so well. I know I do. The anger and sense of betrayal when one sister wins the love of a man the other one cares about. The resentment feeling another sibling is more loved than you are. This book has that and so much more.
Stories from two families unfold as you make your way through the book. I was curious as to their ultimate connection, and was surprised by the outcome. I had set up a different scenario in my mind.
Definitely a well-researched and written story with characters who are alive and oh so human.
Rebecca Bryn has produced yet another family history inspired tale. Her World War I saga “The Dandelion Clock” was based on her grandfather’s service in that war, in both the Dardanelles and Egypt. When Bryn discovered that another ancestor had married his dead wife’s sister, against the teachings of his Church, she felt she had to re-imagine the story. In doing so she has presented her many fans with another encounter with the gritty realities of life for ordinary folk grappling with moral dilemmas against a background of poverty and disease.
So many of the writers of historical fiction set their books in the “big houses” of the Regency and Victorian periods. Such “ordinary folk” as feature in those novels are often depicted as stereotypes — the down-trodden tenant who gets his revenge on the Lord, the hard working artisan who wins the heart of the errant daughter.
Few writers take the trouble to explore the struggles of working men and women. Fewer still can convey both the pain and the joy that accompanies true love and the acts of forgiveness that lasting love entails. Such acts are the beating heart of all of Bryn’s work.
From the evils of Auschwitz in “Touching the Wire” to the redemption of the torturer in the dystopian “Where Hope Dares” and now, with “Kindred and Affinity”, Bryn mines the lives of hard working people and their relationships to provide us with stories that go beyond entertainment and information to make us think about what really matters in our own lives.
History should be about much more than those who died in the effort to make our lives better, or their leaders. It is also about those who survived, not only to tell the tale but to do all those mundane tasks that are at the root of the gradual improvements in our health, housing, working conditions and education. Who knows what emotional turmoil framed their lives? Rebecca Bryn knows. Thanks to her, we can too.
If you have never read any of her books I urge you to do so. You could begin with Kindred and Affinity, her latest. In my humble opinion it is her best yet.