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Advent
1904: Ellen has returned to her Gower village from the hustle and bustle of Hoboken, New Jersey. News of her father’s increasing frailty has brought her reluctantly home. Her younger twin brothers are hoping that she can talk some sense into the increasingly drink sodden subsistence farmer. As the weeks and months pass Ellen’s own history and the issues that led to her departure for the USA are revealed. She is a modern woman making her way in the new 20th century and isn’t prepared to sacrifice herself to the expectations of duty and tradition.
Advent is Ellen’s story and the story of a generation of young women who finally began to take hold of the reins of their own lives, not bowing down to their menfolk and staying tied to home and hearth in spite of their own desires and ambitions.
Advent is Ellen’s story and the story of a generation of young women who finally began to take hold of the reins of their own lives, not bowing down to their menfolk and staying tied to home and hearth in spite of their own desires and ambitions.
Mass Market Paperback
First published January 21, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
January 31, 2021
This is a wonderful story of place, of time, but most of all, of a woman who understands all too well the real cost of choices. Ellen is a memorable character, once badly treated, now back in her family home in rural Wales. This is a powerful historical novel, personal in the main but much bigger in themes, of life in the early twentieth century. Beautifully written throughout, this book contains real prose poetry in describing the kitchen, house and surrounding landscape, especially when snow changes everything. The characters live and breathe in the little expressions, movements and gestures, as well as the dialogue faithfully attributed to them - these are people who really come alive on the page. There is basic humour and details, but also an almost mystical hint of life and times in a rural setting. The characters contained in this novel, whether as part of the action or sort offstage, are cleverly delineated in a few words. The brothers, Jack and George, though twins, are very much written as separate characters, one down to earth, one more poetic, a lover of reading. The women are also varied, tied to a kitchen in the case of Eleanor, Ellen’s mother, or permanently on a settle like Elizabeth, the grandmother. All around Ellen are examples of the different stages of womanhood, such as a heavily pregnant sister, all giving Ellen views of what her life could be like. I was very pleased to have the opportunity to read this book, which I greatly enjoyed.
At the beginning of the novel Ellen is shown returning to Wales from America, an exile caused by a rejection of her as a wife for a local farmer’s son. It would seem that when she has not become pregnant she was rejected as a potential wife for Richard. Being in America has given her new friends and more importantly a new view of the possibilities of life for women. She has made the long journey back because her father is ill, and it is coming up for Christmas. The end of the journey is described in detail, with small pictures such as the effect of steam on a passenger’s nose and Ellen’s determination to be independent in carrying her own luggage. When she reaches the family home, Mount Pleasant, she realises that not a lot has changed, that she easily slips back into the routine of life, but that in a way her father is diminished. The description of the build up to Christmas, the weather and the way the family behaves is beautifully and effectively described.
This is a moving,detailed and very effective novel that I really enjoyed. The picture of the women was particularly successful, with their continual presence in the kitchen, the idea that aprons almost held a woman together, that they were always seen working as cooking, cleaning and preparing for their menfolk to return. It is the small details that make this book special for me, such as the way some of the women hold a knife, always ready to cut a slice of bread. Ellen is an imaginative and successful creation, grimly realistic, powerfully determined, resourceful and thoughtful. It is a well paced, well plotted book which I thoroughly recommend as a very fine historical novel offering real insight into women’s lives in a particular time and place. I would be very keen to read Jane Fraser’s other stories and writing.
At the beginning of the novel Ellen is shown returning to Wales from America, an exile caused by a rejection of her as a wife for a local farmer’s son. It would seem that when she has not become pregnant she was rejected as a potential wife for Richard. Being in America has given her new friends and more importantly a new view of the possibilities of life for women. She has made the long journey back because her father is ill, and it is coming up for Christmas. The end of the journey is described in detail, with small pictures such as the effect of steam on a passenger’s nose and Ellen’s determination to be independent in carrying her own luggage. When she reaches the family home, Mount Pleasant, she realises that not a lot has changed, that she easily slips back into the routine of life, but that in a way her father is diminished. The description of the build up to Christmas, the weather and the way the family behaves is beautifully and effectively described.
This is a moving,detailed and very effective novel that I really enjoyed. The picture of the women was particularly successful, with their continual presence in the kitchen, the idea that aprons almost held a woman together, that they were always seen working as cooking, cleaning and preparing for their menfolk to return. It is the small details that make this book special for me, such as the way some of the women hold a knife, always ready to cut a slice of bread. Ellen is an imaginative and successful creation, grimly realistic, powerfully determined, resourceful and thoughtful. It is a well paced, well plotted book which I thoroughly recommend as a very fine historical novel offering real insight into women’s lives in a particular time and place. I would be very keen to read Jane Fraser’s other stories and writing.
January 27, 2021
Advent by Jane Fraser tells the story of twenty-one year old Ellen, who returns to her childhood home to spend time with her ailing dad. Drawn back into an intricate web of family ties, old and painful connections, she must decide if her future lies in the traditions of the Gower or America, a land of infinite possibilities.
What Jane Fraser does in Advent is deliver a story that draws on the Celtic traditions around story telling, rooting her narrative firmly in the beauty of the Welsh landscape, celebrating how it can be drab and dreary, yet how both the weather and land have shaped the people of Wales.
Within the story she has given us a group of wonderful characters, prominent amongst them are the women of the Gower, full of strength and resilience, shaped not just by the landscape around them, but the limits society placed on their roles outside the home. The story is set around Ellen who has tasted freedom in America, but on returning home, finds that she can not ignore the troubles of her family, but yearns for the freedom from expectations life in America symbolised. Ellen is as a character, the perfect combination of that welsh longing for a home that once left you can never really return to, that intense grief for the places of your past, your homeland (hiraeth) and the American dream of opportunity and mobility. The conflicts this cause, informs both her personality and her journey through the novel and how we as readers watch the battles played out both in her heart and mind, to see which ultimately will triumph. It is a journey that both enthralled me and left me wishing that at some point, we could return to this character to find out, if her decision brought her both peace and prosperity and a true understanding of the meaning of home.
The story evokes feelings of longing within the reader and manages to be both epic in the tale it tells of a family struggling to find certainty in a time of change and intimacy from the way the writer weaves the bounds between it’s family members. Jane Fraser with an infinite understanding of the land the story is set in, weaves an intense emotional tale of the people and the lives they lived in this period. She shines a light on the role of the women who held the threads of each of their families existence within their embrace, holding disaster at bay, but at the same time often forced to deny both their own longies and desires. Ellen is shown in this wonderful story as one in a long line of women, from her grandmother, through her mother, who shaped both limits life in Wales would offer her, while shaping the desire for change and fulfilment on her own terms.
As a book it is a complex tale of family and relationships and our connections to each other. It is also a homage of women who helped shape the landscape around them. I for one, look forward to the what Jane Fraser will do next!
What Jane Fraser does in Advent is deliver a story that draws on the Celtic traditions around story telling, rooting her narrative firmly in the beauty of the Welsh landscape, celebrating how it can be drab and dreary, yet how both the weather and land have shaped the people of Wales.
Within the story she has given us a group of wonderful characters, prominent amongst them are the women of the Gower, full of strength and resilience, shaped not just by the landscape around them, but the limits society placed on their roles outside the home. The story is set around Ellen who has tasted freedom in America, but on returning home, finds that she can not ignore the troubles of her family, but yearns for the freedom from expectations life in America symbolised. Ellen is as a character, the perfect combination of that welsh longing for a home that once left you can never really return to, that intense grief for the places of your past, your homeland (hiraeth) and the American dream of opportunity and mobility. The conflicts this cause, informs both her personality and her journey through the novel and how we as readers watch the battles played out both in her heart and mind, to see which ultimately will triumph. It is a journey that both enthralled me and left me wishing that at some point, we could return to this character to find out, if her decision brought her both peace and prosperity and a true understanding of the meaning of home.
The story evokes feelings of longing within the reader and manages to be both epic in the tale it tells of a family struggling to find certainty in a time of change and intimacy from the way the writer weaves the bounds between it’s family members. Jane Fraser with an infinite understanding of the land the story is set in, weaves an intense emotional tale of the people and the lives they lived in this period. She shines a light on the role of the women who held the threads of each of their families existence within their embrace, holding disaster at bay, but at the same time often forced to deny both their own longies and desires. Ellen is shown in this wonderful story as one in a long line of women, from her grandmother, through her mother, who shaped both limits life in Wales would offer her, while shaping the desire for change and fulfilment on her own terms.
As a book it is a complex tale of family and relationships and our connections to each other. It is also a homage of women who helped shape the landscape around them. I for one, look forward to the what Jane Fraser will do next!
June 30, 2022
This was an enjoyable read for me, a vivid and engaging story set against a landscape I know well, in a time I know not so well. When reminded that this was a debut novel, I shifted from pleasantly gratified to wholly impressed.
We are immediately pulled into the story; we meet the main character, Ellen, as she disembarks off a train, returning to her home in rural Wales after two years in America. Immediately, the themes of family, personal conflict, identity and family duty are evident as the reader is introduced to Ellen and her family. Fraser has created a strong-willed character, who, while resolved to control her own life, we see internally re-examining aspects of her life, her independent thoughts on familial duty, social expectations, her past hurts, and her future choices vividly described by Fraser. Against the setting, the farm, the villages, the people, Ellen’s personal conflict was a quiet but powerful vision of life as a young woman during the time. The other characters were also engaging, though not as well fleshed out (I didn’t get a sense of her father’s character at all, which was unfortunate given that Ellen had been depicted as his favourite and so I might have expected a stronger sense of their relationship). The snippets of the religious hype at that moment in time, the workings of the mines and farm life are examples of the authentic historical context seamlessly woven into the narrative.
Whilst the pacing was a little slower than most novels I have read recently, Advent was by no means less compelling. Well written, with clear and brilliantly descriptive prose, this was a book to delve into and savour, in no haste. I will not include any spoilers, but as the ending drew closer, I began thinking (or assuming) a ‘certain thing’, and so as I read the last few lines, I was smiling. I don’t think there could have been any other conclusion.
Fraser expertly created a strong sense of place and time, and, through Ellen, an intimately engrossing tale. It was lovely to read a book based a mere few miles up the road from my home and I am glad I picked it up and look forward to more writing by Fraser.
We are immediately pulled into the story; we meet the main character, Ellen, as she disembarks off a train, returning to her home in rural Wales after two years in America. Immediately, the themes of family, personal conflict, identity and family duty are evident as the reader is introduced to Ellen and her family. Fraser has created a strong-willed character, who, while resolved to control her own life, we see internally re-examining aspects of her life, her independent thoughts on familial duty, social expectations, her past hurts, and her future choices vividly described by Fraser. Against the setting, the farm, the villages, the people, Ellen’s personal conflict was a quiet but powerful vision of life as a young woman during the time. The other characters were also engaging, though not as well fleshed out (I didn’t get a sense of her father’s character at all, which was unfortunate given that Ellen had been depicted as his favourite and so I might have expected a stronger sense of their relationship). The snippets of the religious hype at that moment in time, the workings of the mines and farm life are examples of the authentic historical context seamlessly woven into the narrative.
Whilst the pacing was a little slower than most novels I have read recently, Advent was by no means less compelling. Well written, with clear and brilliantly descriptive prose, this was a book to delve into and savour, in no haste. I will not include any spoilers, but as the ending drew closer, I began thinking (or assuming) a ‘certain thing’, and so as I read the last few lines, I was smiling. I don’t think there could have been any other conclusion.
Fraser expertly created a strong sense of place and time, and, through Ellen, an intimately engrossing tale. It was lovely to read a book based a mere few miles up the road from my home and I am glad I picked it up and look forward to more writing by Fraser.
January 18, 2021
DNF @ 40%
What this book made me see is a very competent writer, capable of clawing out the minutest atmospheric detail in a scene, rendering the whole setting alive and vivid to someone who never set foot in Wales, let alone ever lived in early 20th century Britain.
But where this book falls short, to me, was a huge problem. PLOT! This book lacked a propeller: the motive to push forward. And it's not that it's slow-burn, because I thrive on those books that don't promise me the world on the first page only to let me down midway, I'm a fan of those thin layers laid out throughout the book for me to peel page by page. I'm afraid that wasn't the case here.
I could see three women belonging to three different generations and ideals were at the core of the story. I really liked Ellen, headstrong and independent. Along with her mother and grandmother, there was room for developments and conflicts, but it all fell so flat the beautiful writing could not salvage it. I wasn't motivated to take it any further.
Thank you Netgalley and Honno Press for the opportunity to review this book.
What this book made me see is a very competent writer, capable of clawing out the minutest atmospheric detail in a scene, rendering the whole setting alive and vivid to someone who never set foot in Wales, let alone ever lived in early 20th century Britain.
But where this book falls short, to me, was a huge problem. PLOT! This book lacked a propeller: the motive to push forward. And it's not that it's slow-burn, because I thrive on those books that don't promise me the world on the first page only to let me down midway, I'm a fan of those thin layers laid out throughout the book for me to peel page by page. I'm afraid that wasn't the case here.
I could see three women belonging to three different generations and ideals were at the core of the story. I really liked Ellen, headstrong and independent. Along with her mother and grandmother, there was room for developments and conflicts, but it all fell so flat the beautiful writing could not salvage it. I wasn't motivated to take it any further.
Thank you Netgalley and Honno Press for the opportunity to review this book.
March 31, 2021
An earthy, deeply emotional journey with Ellen as she returns to Gower, to the home farm, to deal with her troubled father, to comfort her mother and grandmother, and to help her twin brothers. This is a story of regret, loss, redemption and forgiveness. Jane Fraser immerses us in Gower farm life of 100 years ago as Ellen returns home from the USA, unsure of her future and where it lies. An independent woman in a time of obeisant women, Ellen looks back on why she left Gower in the first place and tries to reconcile this with her return. The character of Elizabeth, Ellen's grandmother is beautifully developed and we are drawn to her quiet common sense from her place in the home's settle. We learn of the nightmare of mine work as George struggles with his new job while Jack holds the farm together. Visceral images of the reality of farm animal life fuse with the underlying message of hope and family that threads through this story. Brava! Jane Fraser.
January 24, 2021
Jane Fraser's evocation of the farming community in Gower in South Wales over 100 years ago is vivid and sometimes visceral, such as in her description of the state of the pregnant sheep: 'heavy in the girth, shit-splattered, worm-ridden and most limping with foot rot and oozing with mange.'
Pregnancy, whether achieved or not, is central to the story of Advent. It stands for the continuation of the community, but one in which women's choices are constrained. Here is the pivot for Ellen's dilemma, and Fraser teases out its complexities most skilfully. There is no sentimentality in this story, but the blood and dirt and sheer hard work which are part of life in that place, at that time.
Fraser is a fine writer and her debut novel is a thing of beauty, most satisfying to read. Highly recommended.
Pregnancy, whether achieved or not, is central to the story of Advent. It stands for the continuation of the community, but one in which women's choices are constrained. Here is the pivot for Ellen's dilemma, and Fraser teases out its complexities most skilfully. There is no sentimentality in this story, but the blood and dirt and sheer hard work which are part of life in that place, at that time.
Fraser is a fine writer and her debut novel is a thing of beauty, most satisfying to read. Highly recommended.
December 31, 2020
When Ellen, who is currently living in America, receives a letter from Wales calling her home she goes. She finds her father gambling the family land drinking himself into an early grave, her mother missing the husband she once had and her brothers coming of age and trying to find their own path in life.
Her Grandmother, says little and sees everything. I struggled a bit with this book, it had the potential to be more, it just didn't grab me. Ellen was fierce and independent, craved a better life and I think we could have seen much more of her character than we did. I was willing her to say more, do more but it just didn't happen.
Her Grandmother, says little and sees everything. I struggled a bit with this book, it had the potential to be more, it just didn't grab me. Ellen was fierce and independent, craved a better life and I think we could have seen much more of her character than we did. I was willing her to say more, do more but it just didn't happen.
January 29, 2021
A nice slice of life story.
Jane Fraser does an excellent job writing description and painting a vivid picture of this Welsh landscape. Each scene is easy to imagine. But the characters themselves are a little boring and there's no real conflict. This is mostly a slice of life without an over arching story line. There's no build to a climax and satisfying tie up at the end.
The lack of urgency in the writing makes this ideal for someone looking to escape into someone else's life for a few hours on a low-risk way. Overall this was well written, but I didn't like the ending as much as I could have.
Jane Fraser does an excellent job writing description and painting a vivid picture of this Welsh landscape. Each scene is easy to imagine. But the characters themselves are a little boring and there's no real conflict. This is mostly a slice of life without an over arching story line. There's no build to a climax and satisfying tie up at the end.
The lack of urgency in the writing makes this ideal for someone looking to escape into someone else's life for a few hours on a low-risk way. Overall this was well written, but I didn't like the ending as much as I could have.
March 22, 2021
2.5 rating. Ellen is forced to return home to her small family farm on the Gower after living for 2 years in America, something she wasn’t really keen to do. A wonderfully descriptive book of how people lived at the start of the 1900’s. The trouble is I didn’t like anything at all about Ellen, especially the way she spoke to others which seemed to me to be more like a woman today would speak. The three women with their very similar names was confusing until I was accustomed to it. The book is also a little slow going. A lovely change to use the beautiful Gower Peninsula as a setting though. I was given this ARC by the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
October 9, 2020
3.5 stars
Ellen is called home from America,to help with her father and his illness.
The fact she's in America,and taking the journey alone,for me ,set her as a modern female.
When circumstances change,she faces the past she ran away from,at the same time as taking charge of the family.
I enjoyed this book,it really did have a sense of family and loyalty to it,though it took me awhile to get the three generations of women straight in my head. Their names were too similar.
Interesting to read about the mines,and the old customs.
Ellen is called home from America,to help with her father and his illness.
The fact she's in America,and taking the journey alone,for me ,set her as a modern female.
When circumstances change,she faces the past she ran away from,at the same time as taking charge of the family.
I enjoyed this book,it really did have a sense of family and loyalty to it,though it took me awhile to get the three generations of women straight in my head. Their names were too similar.
Interesting to read about the mines,and the old customs.
September 8, 2022
Interesting read, a very strong sense of loyalty throughout the book. Especially to family.
I did have a little bit of a confusing time remembering the three main characters names as they are rather similar. And when you read during the night like myself, it can get a little muddled.
Now the question remains, would I buy this for myself or a friend. Honestly I don’t know. I’m a bit on the fence about this book.
I did have a little bit of a confusing time remembering the three main characters names as they are rather similar. And when you read during the night like myself, it can get a little muddled.
Now the question remains, would I buy this for myself or a friend. Honestly I don’t know. I’m a bit on the fence about this book.
January 22, 2021
An enjoyable story of family and the struggles of the ‘modern woman’ in the early 1900’s. I found the characters warm and engaging and loved the twins, but felt their stories had more potential. Ellen always seemed on the cusp of greatness but unfortunately never quite made it.
March 4, 2021
Beautiful and raw. It made me want to stay on and in the story for hours.
June 30, 2021
Interesting story about a Welsh girl in the early 1900s trying to choose between her family who needs her but suffocates her, and a life in America with more opportunities.
Want to read
December 5, 2023Mentioned on The Unhurried Reader Substack - December 3, 2023
October 16, 2025
Particularly of interest to me as it is based where I live, but I just loved it.
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