Two women trapped by society meet in prison: wealthy Dorothea Truelove, whose father disapproves of her "good works" with female prisoners and wants to marry her off, and sixteen-year-old seamstress Ruth Butterham, who is awaiting trial for murder.
Dorothy listen incredulously at Ruth's astonishing claim that she can channel her emotions into her stitches, and that she's therefore to blame for the deaths of her baby sister and her father, her mother's blindness, one of her old schoolmates' lingering disease... and most recently the illness that killed her mistress. But surely, each of these events can be rationally explained away?
Ruth is convinced that she can influence the lives of those around her through her sewing; indeed, the corsets she makes become both a source of strength for herself and a means of revenge towards others. Dorothy swears by phrenology, which asserts that it's possible to know people's true character by the bumps on their heads, and wants to conduct an experiment by measuring Ruth's skull. Both women's beliefs will be put to the test.
As she did in The Silent Companions, Laura Purcell explores female madness from an unusual perspective. I love how she provides "natural" and "supernatural" explanations, leaving the reader to vacillate between them as the novel progresses. There's an insidiousness about the narrative, constantly giving rise to doubts about who can be trusted, and there always seems to be something else going on just out of reach or sight... And oh, that conclusion!
I purchased this book online.
Rating: ***
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