The Dowerless Sisters

Bridges Over Time #6

by Valerie Anand

When in 1885 their businessman father dies suddenly, leaving his family in dire financial straights, it seems that sisters Charlotte and Victoria have little choice but to accept the support offered by their authoritarian Uncle Edward. But their mother has other ideas and defying convention, she chooses to provide her daughters with careers.

But the girls have a price to pay for their independence, they have severely compromised their marriageability. Vicky's reckless attempts at romance end in disaster whilst Charlotte, outwardly more content with her lot, suffers behind the walls of her self-control, silently repressing her need for a man's love and enduring the fact that although she would have loved to have a child, she never will.

The the twentieth century brings change and, by an ironic twist of fate, a kind of fulfilment...

Genres: Historical Fiction

529 pages, Paperback

First published March 24, 2017

About the author

Born in London, Valerie Anand knew at the age of six that she wanted to be an author. At the age of fifteen, she saw MGM’s film Ivanhoe. She walked into the cinema knowing that she wanted to be a novelist and walked out of it knowing that historical novels were the kind she most wanted to write.

Over the course of her long and distinguished writing career, Valerie has written many works of historical fiction and is well known for the Ursula Blanchard series of Elizabethan mysteries written under the pen name of Fiona Buckley.

Still living in London, Valerie Anand is a frequent visitor to Exmoor, the setting featured in The House of Lanyon.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Actually...not finished but put down after having read 80 %. Paula and her flying lessons were of no interest to me...in fact, nothing of Paula was of interest. I should have stoped reading the series with the last book.

[Misfit]

...a family history reaching back like a bridge across time, supported here and there, as a bridge is supported by its piers, by contact with great events and great names: with pestilence and civil war, with a pretender to the throne and the ventures of the East India Company. All of it linking to a Norman knight, who had been made a slave in the North Country before the Conqueror came, and a boy fleeing through the hunger and the savage cold of a Yorkshire blizzard to escape the fire and the slaughter which had over taken his home, to three ladies taking tea on a Surrey lawn, in this August of 1960."

This sixth and final book in Anand's Bridges Over Time series begins in 1885. Charlotte and Victoria Whitmead's father gambled all and lost and then managed to get himself killed before he could recoup his losses. Faced with losing their independence by accepting the *protection* of his brother Edward (and being dowerless no hopes of marriage), their mother sends the sisters to be apprentices to a distant cousin and learn a trade. Charlotte and Vicky adapt well to the draper trade and eventually strike out on their own, much to the chagrin of their overprotective uncle and brother. Over time, the sisters become successful and it being too late for them to marry and bear children of their own they must content themselves with their growing family of cousins, nieces and nephews. As the Whitmead sisters grow old they see family members come and go through two world wars, personal triumphs and immeasurable loss and finally ends in 1969 as Charlotte approaches her 100th birthday in 1969. More than that, I'm not going to tell, but a surprising and somewhat abrupt ending that leaves you guessing.

"It was as though a ceremony had taken place, a transfer of something abstract but precious-Experience? Hope? Responsibility?-from the older generation to the new. Whatever torch had been passed on to her tonight, she must cherish and keep burning, as long as she lived. It had been given to her for that purpose."

I really enjoyed this, although the focusing on family relationships makes for a slower paced book at times and might not appeal to all readers. A nice ending to the series, and Anand did a good job of bringing back the past history of the forebears of the Whitmeads and tying it all up with a nice ribbon. This book is hard to find and a tad bit expensive used (understatement), but it can be had via ILL (interlibrary loan), but be warned. The one library in the US that did have it will ask for a $15 lending fee.

[CLM · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Charlotte and Victoria Whitmead's father dies in 1885, there is not enough money for their mother to support the family in the manner to which it is accustomed. Rather than move in with their controlling and humorless Uncle Edward, Charlotte persuades her mother to let her and Vicky be apprenticed to drapers, preferring commerce - and possible ostracism - to charity and restrictions.

"It is a misfortune to be a dowerless girl, I'm sorry to say, " says Mamma to Charlotte.

[Lynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I truly enjoyed the first 5 books in this series, but the last two seems to lose the attachment to the ancestral theme. It was all a bit abrupt how they suddenly, magically, got their story to go back to 1066. Also, it would have been nice if Mike had a baby blanket with the bridge over water design to tie it all together.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

and so I finally finished the series. A brilliant, gripping bunch of books, although it feels like I've been reading them forever! loved the final instalment, although the ending really annoyed me!