Thank You very much to the publisher – Canongate Books for the review copy.
ISBN13:978-1838854874
Genre: Historical Fiction
Release date: 02 02 2023
Price*: Kindle £5.99 (GBP)/ Paperback £9.19 (GBP)
Kindle $8.99 (USD)/ Paperback $12.59 (USD)
Pages: ~ 352
My rating: It was OK.
You can get this book here:
Amazon UK
Bookshop.org
What I learned from this book: That I would love to visit Winchelsea. 😀
Description of the book: The year is 1742. Goody Brown, saved from drowning and adopted when just a babe, has grown up happily in the smuggling town of Winchelsea. Then, when Goody turns sixteen, her father is murdered in the night by men he thought were friends.
To find justice in a lawless land, Goody must enter the cut-throat world of her father’s killers. With her beloved brother Francis, she joins a rival gang of smugglers. Facing high seas and desperate villains, she also discovers something else: an existence without constraints or expectations, a taste for danger that makes her blood run fast. Goody was never born to be a gentlewoman. But what will she become instead?
How this book made me feel: I absolutely loved the cover of this book, the colours are so eye-catching and I had thoughts of what to expect, but it was not what I expected it to be at all…
This book tells the story of Goody, from her childhood to her old age. It showed her transformation and many events that happened in her adventurous life. She was a very interesting character but not my favourite. I could not connect with her. I don’t think that the characters could open up fully, their stories were told in very specific ways.
The plot had its ups and downs but generally, the events kind of plodded along. I was waiting for something intriguing but never really got much out. Some scenes of this book really got me grossed out and it was hard to carry on. The topics discussed in this book were incest, identity crisis, poor relationships, poor parenting skills, and many more.
The thing that was the most likeable was the lyrical storytelling. Alex Preston told this story truly beautifully. The atmosphere of the book sounded magical and really made me want to visit Winchelsea and see if there really are all those caves that smugglers used and if is it as magical as it was in the book.
So, overall, it was a dramatic story filled with true-to-the-times characters and a plot that surprised at times with unexpected decisions and events. The storytelling is beautiful and I enjoyed the way it was written. If you are looking for an adventurous but dramatic escape, do give this book a go and I hope that you will like it.
Thank you for your time! ❤
About the author: Alex Preston is an award-winning author of three novels: This Bleeding City, The Revelations and In Love and War, as well as a book of non-fiction, As Kingfishers Catch Fire. He writes regularly for the Telegraph, the Economist and Harper’s Bazaar. He reviews books for the Observer’s New Review, Financial Times and Spectator. Alex is co-founder of the Corfu Literary Festival and Patron of Oxford Literary Festival.
Twitter/ Instagram: @ahmpreston
*-The price was taken from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com on the current date. The price might change at the time of your purchase. The links used in this post for book purchases are affiliates.
