It’s a pleasure today to be joining the blog tour and sharing my review of Maid of Steel by Kate Baker – published by The Book Guild on 23rd February, it’s now available (with that quite glorious cover) for kindle and in paperback via Amazon in the UK and US (and, should you prefer reading in paperback, via the publishers, from Waterstones, or any of your favourite high street or online booksellers). Many thanks to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for the invitation and support, and to everyone involved in providing my advance reading e-copy.
Kate might well not remember, but we once met – quite a few years ago now, at an RNA York afternoon tea, when we found ourselves on the same table and were introduced by blogger friend Julie Morris. Over the intervening years, I wondered when I might be able to read and review a book from her – so I was really rather delighted when Rachel’s invitation landed in my in-box. And not only did I (kind of…!) know the author, but the book looked right up my street too…
It’s 1911 and, against her mother’s wishes, quiet New Yorker Emma dreams of winning the right to vote. She is sent away by her parents in the hope distance will curb her desire to be involved with the growing suffrage movement and told to spend time learning about where her grandparents came from.
Across the Atlantic – Queenstown, southern Ireland – hotelier Thomas dreams of being loved, even noticed, by his actress wife, Alice. On their wedding day, Alice’s father had assured him that adoration comes with time. It’s been eight years. But Alice has plans of her own and they certainly don’t include the fight for equality or her dull husband.
Emma’s arrival in Ireland leads her to discover family secrets and become involved in the Irish Women’s Suffrage Society in Cork. However, Emma’s path to suffrage was never meant to lead to a forbidden love affair…
Already mourning the death of her twin brother under particularly tragic circumstances, Emma herself becomes involved in an escape from a life-threatening situation at her workplace in New York’s garment district – a dramatic start, and a strong introduction to our heroine and her friendships, and their shared interest in the Women’s Suffrage Movement. To help her recovery, she travels to Queenstown in southern Ireland – her grandmother’s former home, and an opportunity to explore her own roots and the dark history of workhouses and female oppression. Her passion for universal suffrage certainly hasn’t dimmed as her parents might have hoped, as she becomes involved with the Women’s Suffrage Society in Cork, rallying the women of Queenstown to join the fight. But this is her more personal story too – her new friendships, and a sense of purpose and belonging. It’s also the story of her developing close relationship with Thomas who runs the hotel where she’s staying, his wife Alice largely absent while pursuing her career on the stage – and that forbidden relationship certainly has its consequences.
I won’t tell more of the story – the author does it far better, and its many twists and turns are for the reader to discover. The romance at its centre was entirely convincing, heart-wrenching and particularly poignant – the book’s characters are really well-drawn, and I felt deeply for them through their trials and tribulations and desperately wanted them to have their unlikely happy ending. The historical aspects are excellent too – the depth of the author’s research very evident, and particularly well utilised to breathe life into the story. And then there’s the drama – and there’s considerably more to come as the story unfolds, along with a few real surprises, and I found the pages turning ever faster.
The author’s acknowledgements are almost as compelling a read as the story itself – her long struggle to bring this book into being, and a testament to both her own tenacity and the support of the wider writing community. And this is a book of which she should be justifiably proud – I’ll be very much looking forward to seeing where her journey takes her next.
About the author
Kate Baker wrote terrible holiday diaries as a child, which her husband regularly asks her to read out loud for their entertainment. She has since improved and has written with intent since 2018. Maid of Steel is her second novel; the first is lining drawers in the vegetable rack at their farmhouse.
