Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson
Call me Isobel. (It’s my name.)
God’s Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England by Jessie Childs
Four months after the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, Anne Vaux awoke in a prison cell.
The Daughters of Ironbridge by Mollie Walton
Fire and smoke, suffocating and infernal, reached up into the sky, staining it red and black for miles around.
Catherine Meyrick 
How was Daughters of Ironbridge? I’ve been there a few times, so I was interested, but the cover put me off.
“Call me Isobel” is a daring opening.
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I hate saying this but I was a bit underwhelmed by Daughters Of Ironbridge. I enjoyed Rebecca Mascull’s other books particularly The Wild Air. Daughters Of Ironbridge was quite a page turner in parts but there were at least eight points of view and most didn’t have any story arc of their own. The working class characters speak in a form of local dialect that is understandable but I found a bit jarring at times. And the daughter of the owner of the ironworks was, for me, just plain irritating all the way through. It is the first in a series so no doubt the stories of the two young women will develop further. The cover is a bit generic, not something I’d think of picking up. I read it on the basis of the author’s previous work. All the reviews are very positive so it might just be me.
I was interested in the setting, too, as our family is suppose to be originally from Broseley (no records to prove that other than a mention in a 19th century journal). We seemed to have moved following work every generation (I’m stretching it and including transportation to Van Diemen’s Land as moving for work) since the 1780s so who knows whether Broseley was just another stopping point.
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I have family in Shropshire quite near Ironbridge and Broseley, which was why I contemplated reading it. Since the title was very specific about where it was all taking place, I thought the cover should have reflected that location a bit more.
It must be fascinating to have such a varied family history. All of my ancestors, with a couple of exceptions came from a small area of Hampshire.
I
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I agree about the cover – you would expect to see the iron bridge in the background, not a generic mill. Such a pity as it looks impressive.
Having ancestors from all over the place is a bit of a challenge at times but I imagine having them mostly from the same area would give you a strong sense of place. Both my parents came from towns where they had lots of cousins and I think as they got older they missed being with people who had so much in common with them.
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At one point a set of maternal great-great grandparents and a set of paternal great-great grandparents were living in the same street at the same time. It makes researching the family tree interesting.
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