A compelling tale of good and evil for fans of Josephine Cox.Emma Price is only a pit bank wench, but her corn-coloured hair and blue eyes win the love of Paul Felton, younger brother of the colliery owner. Carver Felton has no intention of seeing his brother throw away his future on such a humble girl and savagely rapes Emma, leaving her isolated and pregnant with his bastard child.It looks as though she is destined for the workhouse, but there are kindly folk in Emma is taken in by butcher Samuel Hollington and his wife and gives birth to her son, Paul, under their care.But Carver Felton has not forgotten the girl he wronged. Once he has ruthlessly achieved his business ambitions, he turns his attentions to finding an heir to the Felton fortune - and he determines to track down Emma and her child.
I'm giving two stars to this book for bringing to vivid life the wall of obstacles that faced women in the olden days (year?). Rich, poor, gay or straight, no woman gets ahead in this novel about the dystopian good old days except on a man's arm.
But after those two stars, I can't in all seriousness give anything more for this book. It is as if the author made a list of all the bad things that could befall women and turned it into a narrative. Among other things, the protagonist is raped and gets pregnant. Her parents' house burns to the ground and they don't make it out. She is forced out of her mining community to wander alone on the road. A kindly butcher and his wife take her in and life looks good again, but then ... he accidentally hacks off his hand with his meat cleaver. Oh, and he doesn't just lose his hand, he dies. And she, her baby, and the butcher's wife are out on the street.
Page after page, chapter after chapter, the tragedy never ends. Until the rapist sees the light and rescues her.
Seriously?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.