I surprisingly am not a regular reader of historical fiction, despite my favourite book being Dissolution (CJ Sansom) this year. This book was gifted to me for my birthday and has been sitting on the shelf since then. The wish for the cold weather to return made me finally give it a go. And once I got past the hefty opening chapter, I greatly enjoyed it.
The wonderful thing about historical fiction is that it sells itself as being rich in description and setting. And Gregory masterfully details life in the Tidelands for Alinor and her children, the day-to-day thoughts about having enough to get by and keeping their heads low against ordinary suspicions from ordinary folk.
The setting, the winning card of this book, lends itself to the gothic – the cold and damp grasses and marsh, which compliments the opening scene in which Alinor waits to see the ghostly sign of her missing husband. Besides this, we see the change into spring that allows Tidelands to be a descriptive token of the cottage core aesthetic.
“Skirt hushing on the cut grasses, releasing the scent of hay and dried meadow flowers.”
“He thought it was the most final noise he had ever heard, like the dull thud of an executioner’s axe through a neck and onto the block.”
For me, what drives the story is the political subplot unfurling alongside Alinor’s experience, that of the deposed King Charles I who is being holed up on the Isle of Wight. The anticipation of news about the plot to reinstate him is scattered cunningly within the story, enough to keep you interested and engaged, without taking away from the main plot. As a non-romance-reader, I find these shiny moments, updates, about the King and Cromwell to be most rewarding.
Philippa Gregory’s Tidelands is an immersive spin into the world of 1650s England: no king, a weary and suspicious society and hushed thoughts of love and faerie luck.
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