Vanessa Tait

There was less depth than I expected to this enjoyable historical novel, despite the dark subject matter. Although a feeling of menace was established early on, as it became clear Rebecca had been chosen by her husband because of her seemingly friendless state, this sense of jeopardy was never fully realised. Even the tragic elements in the story failed to move me very deeply, though the arrogance of some of the men did make me angry.
Rebecca turned out to be more resourceful than her husband would have imagined, with the ability to embrace attitudes that seemed rather ahead of her time. Both the development of her character and the rather neat ending were appealing, though not convincingly realistic.… (mehr)

The story of Alice, but not really, it was the story of Alice's governess, and in turn about Alice.

Mary is from a poor family, but finds herself lucky to become a governess to the Lidell children. Maybe she even can find a match for herself.

Fiction and history is mixed since we can't know everything for sure. Mary is pretty blind at times, but she was a woman of her time. She fell for Hodgson, and thought he liked her back. She also disliked Alice a lot since Alice stole the attention she wanted. Of course she never questioned why a grown man wants to spend so much time for a kid. So she was jealous, blind, but still yes I got that she wanted more from her life.

Alice then. We only see Alice through Mary's eyes, and Alice is a spoiled child who gets way too much attention and revels in it. I can't say I liked Alice, but then, would she have been liked that if she had not been told how special she was? Oh and sidenote, I found it so interesting to see what happened to Alice when she grow up. There is another story there!

Right, the elephant in the room. We can't know, but really, he took those pics, he wrote creepy letters. Yeah. And little by little he gets creepier and creepier. Just by things he says when you think about it.

I thought it was interesting, and so creepy, about the historical explanation why he could spend time with kids. He would not have spent time with a young woman, that would have been wrong. But little girls that was ok in those times. Cos yes, who would do anything wrong? No one is that weird..right.

It was an fascinating look at the family. And I totally think there should be a book about Alice as a woman.… (mehr)