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Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
A historical romance with a soft-focus cover, Holeman's first adult novel (she's written a handful of young adult books, including Search of the Moon King's Daughter) opens in Calcutta but quickly flashes back to 1823 Liverpool, England, where its heroine, Linny Gow, is turned into a prostitute by her father shortly after her 11th birthday. Surrounded by poverty and brutality, Linny clings to her dead mother's assurance that she has noble blood, a distinction that solidifies her determination to escape from her sexual slavery and break into the genteel class. Holeman excels at painting the different milieus of the time-from the clammy docks where the whores ply their trade, to the stuffy drawing rooms where the ladies gossip over tea, to India, where a "fishing fleet" of poor young well-bred women go in search of husbands. Her physical descriptions can be powerfully tactile and absorbing. But her storylines are couched in clichés, and much of Linny's character is determinedly anachronistic; she's almost proud, for example, of her sexual experience. Such flaws will likely put off those expecting a more rigorous depiction of the period, but Holeman's novel may nonetheless prove an engrossing favorite with historical romance aficionados and fans of Sarah Waters's Victorian dramas.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
Liverpool, England, in Victorian times was no place to be a poor girl. Linny Gow knows this firsthand. When her mother dies, her father begins prostituting her at the age of 12. Linny manages to leave prostitution, and with the help of a kindly would-be doctor, she begins to pass herself off as a middle-class woman. When Linny gets the opportunity to leave England behind, she sets off for India without looking back. In India she meets the cruel Somers Ingram. Ingram recognizes her from her days in Liverpool and blackmails her into a sexless and violent marriage. Coincidences and luck, both good and bad, abound. Linny's intelligence and pluck may be almost a cliche in historical literature, but the plot moves at a fast enough pace, and the descriptions are so vivid that the book becomes a page-turner. Marta Segal
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful Read !,
By
This review is from: The Linnet Bird (Paperback)
I have just finished The Linnet Bird and was quite sad to read the last page and have the story end.What a wonderfully written book.Her discriptions of the surroundings of each place she is at really takes you there.I look forward to Linda Holemans next novel.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
I can't stop thinking about this book,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Linnet Bird (Paperback)
This book is wonderfully rich with description and understanding of life in England and India in the 1800s as seen through the eyes of a woman who has a desperate and ultimately rewarding life. I loved Linney Gow's life story--what a wild ride. I could smell the food and the heat and spices in every scene. It was like a great epic movie with a fascinating and dimensional heroine and colorfully drawn, often unexpected characters that bring love or brutality, friendship or rivalry to her story. Once I started the book I couldn't put it down--the story just moves along. And it touched such a range of emotions for me. And it made me think how people still live like Linney Gow in the world. Stuck in a horrific life because they are not born to a life of entitlement. Forced to find a way around the cruel rules of their environment to make their life better. She's inventive and a survivor. Which is why I loved her character. And her story was so real because of the lush historical detail. It made me want to read more of Linda Holeman's work and travel to India!
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Leaves me wanting more,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Linnet Bird (Paperback)
Now this is a dramatic and engaging read! I was immediately drawn in by the author's narrative style - a perfect blend of 'story' along with description so lush and rich one can't help but wonder how long it took to research England and India in the 1800s. Beyond that, Linny Gow's life is fascinating in its brutality and in the horrific twists that life throws her way. Often, I try to read Canadian literary work, but rarely do I get past the reflective, and at times, dull and flat narrative styles used by so many of these writers. Unarguably, the writing is beautiful, but where's the story?! In this book, however, Linny Gow's story is impossible to forget; it haunts you. Ms. Holeman's move into the fiction genre is a pleasant surprise. I can't wait to read her next piece of work.
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