Author: Naomi Miller
Genre: Historical Fiction
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 9780749026172
Rights: UK & Comm ex Can
Pub. Date: 19th November 2020
Two women. One bond that will unite them across years and social divides.
England, 1575. Mary Sidney, who will go on to claim a spot at the heart of Elizabethan court life and culture, is a fourteen-year-old navigating grief and her first awareness of love and desire. Her sharp mind is less interested in the dynastic alliances and marriages that concern her father, but will she be able to forge a place for herself and her writing in the years to come?
Rose Commin, a young country girl with a surprising talent for drawing, is desperate to shrug off the slurs of witchcraft which have tarnished life at home. The opportunity to work at Wilton House, the Earl of Pembroke’s Wiltshire residence, is her chance.
Defying the conventions of their time, these two women, mistress and maid, will find themselves facing the triumphs, revelations and struggles that lie ahead together.
A beautifully crafted book that I found impossible to put down. Naomi Miller's debut novel reflects the significance of Mary Sidney's contributions as a writer, a musician, a patron, and a scientist, but above all it captures Sidney's humanity - her losses, her loves, and her hopes and dreams. Sidney's relationship with her servant Rose becomes a deeply moving narrative arc for the story that immerses readers in the textures of women's experiences in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England.Katie