June 1, 2020
Following the fate of characters she first introduced in the LJ-starred Tidelands, the No. 1 New York Times best-selling Gregory takes us to 1670 London, where Alinor is approached by a wealthy man who abandoned her years ago because he's interested in her son--who's his son and heir. Meanwhile, Alinor's warehouse is on hard times, and a Venetian widow soon sweeps in with both bad news and a promise to save the flailing business. With a 150,000-copy first printing.
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October 15, 2020
Gregory continues her Fairmile saga, following the atmospheric Tidelands (2019), by casting a broad arc spanning the Old and New Worlds and adding a mysterious, disruptive new character. In 1670, Alinor Reekie and her daughter, Alys, reside in London, where Alinor practices herbalism and Alys runs a small wharf warehouse. Then Sir James Avery, Alinor's faithless former lover, returns hoping to marry her, and Livia, her son Rob's Italian wife, shows up with her baby, claiming that Rob drowned in Venice. Expressing disappointment in her in-laws' low social status, Livia settles into their home and insinuates herself into the family business, and Alinor doesn't trust her. In distant New England, Alinor's brother, Ned, seeks peace as tension stirs between colonists and the Indians. His tale, while evocatively illustrating English-Native relations and the English Civil War's far-reaching aftereffects, feels disconnected from the juicier story of uncovering exactly what Livia's endgame is. Resolute and proud of her working-class heritage, Alinor remains enigmatically compelling. Answers arrive via an unexpected avenue as the plot heats up, with dramatic twists aplenty.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)
November 2, 2020
A mother and daughter’s lives are disrupted by two visitors in the plodding second volume of Gregory’s Fairmile series (after Tidelands). Alinor Reekie and her daughter, Alys Stoney, live quietly as wharf owners in 1670 London. Alinor refuses to believe the news that her physician son, Rob, has died in Venice, based on what she gleans from her “sight,” which allows her to feel the truth of a given situation. Then Sir James Avery, who’d abandoned Alinor two decades earlier, shows up and declares his wish to marry her and legitimize the child he insists she bore him, which Alinor denies. After Rob’s wife, Livia, a master manipulator, arrives with their infant son, she earns sympathy from Alys, but Alinor and Alys’s daughter, Sarah, are suspicious. Desperate to save her family from heartache, Alinor sends Sarah to Venice to learn the truth about Livia and the circumstances of Rob’s alleged death. Gregory’s talent for evoking time and place is on full display, but the plot never picks up steam. Though Livia tells Alys, “I am far more interesting than honest,” Gregory fails to show it. Readers who enjoyed Tidelands will be disappointed to find Alinor relegated to a minor role and Alys reduced to a dupe. With any luck, Gregory will find her form next time out. Agent: Zahra Glibbery, Levon Publishing.
November 1, 2020
In the second of Gregory's Fairmile series--after Tidelands (2019)--Venetian intrigue meets English gullibility. When we last saw Alinor Reekie, she had been cast out of her Sussex tidelands home after being "swum" as a witch. Twenty-one years after their escape to London, Alinor and her older daughter, Alys, run a small import-export warehouse while 21-year-old twins Sarah and Johnnie are learning a trade. Now, in 1670, Sir James, Alinor's former lover, who failed to defend her against the witch-hunters, has come into his noble estate and arrives, far too belatedly, to offer to marry Alinor. He's also hoping to claim the child she was carrying at the time of her exile as his heir, but Alinor rejects him, telling him cryptically that he has no child. There is no clear protagonist here. White-haired Alinor, "not yet fifty," whose health never recovered from her near drowning, has been shunted into an advisory role. Into this modest but content household slinks Livia, a sultry Venetian, self-professed widow of Alinor's son Rob, a physician in Venice who accidentally drowned. "La Nobildonna" (title courtesy of her first late husband) seeks shelter with her infant son, Matteo. Alinor is suspicious--her clairvoyance would have warned her of Rob's death. Readers will not need second sight to distrust Livia, but it's fun to watch her swindle--involving ancient statuary--take shape. Unsurprisingly, her long game is to ensnare the ever susceptible Sir James. In what could be a separate novel, Alinor's brother Ned, a staunch "Leveler," has immigrated to New England. The d�tente between English settlers and Native tribes is beginning to fray, and Ned, in an exposition-heavy but very instructive parallel plot, is trying his best to advocate for the Natives. However, readers will be tempted to skip Ned's sections to see whether Sarah, also gifted with second sight, can rescue the family. Someone has to! An uneven but still welcome addition to the Gregory cannon.
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