The Waterfront Lass by AnneMarie Brear
Genre: Historical fiction, Sagas, Victorian era
Read: 2nd June 2023
Published: 6th June 2023
★★★★★ 5 stars
DESCRIPTION:
Wakefield 1870
On the banks of the River Calder, Meg Taylor struggles to care for her younger siblings and sick mother whilst her father is away working as a boatman on the canals. The slums where they live are rife with disease, and Meg longs for a different life, away from the grinding poverty, but she'll never leave her family.
But with the canals slowly dying as trade moves to the railways, and with Meg’s father stubbornly holding onto the past, Meg fears her family’s future is going to get even bleaker. If only there was a way she could save them….
Christian Henderson is tired of the greed of his wealthy family. He sees the poverty around him and wishes he could do more to help the proud working-class people he meets. People like Meg Taylor, whose courage he so admires.
From the moment he meets Meg, Christian is captivated – Meg might be poor, but she is proud and spirited!
Meg’s dreams of being with a man like Christian are fantasy. How can a lass from the waterfront be with a wealthy man such as he?
And worse, if she follows her heart to be with him, what will happen to the family she loves?
MY THOUGHTS:
Will she save her family...or follow her heart?
If you like Catherine Cookson or Dilly Court, then you will love AnneMarie Brear. Her Victorian era saga tells of a rags to riches story and though it has been done many times before, she is still able to put a unique spin on it that is all her own. THE WATERFRONT LASS has very little to do with the waterfront and more to do with the woman referred to as such, having grown up in the working class streets of Wakefield in Yorkshire, the daughter of a man who works the canals on his narrowboat.
Meg Taylor, christened Margaret May, is the eldest of eight children and as such her role is to take care of of her ailing mother and her growing siblings whilst keeping house, cooking, cleaning and working to pay the rent and put food on the table. This is not the life she saw for herself but, as a working class lass, it's the life that she was inevitably born for.
But even the challenges she faces can test her limits. Up at dawn pumping water at the end of the street on wash day as well as scrubbing the floors and trying to stretch the meagre rations she has left to feed her family, it is all she can do to keep her head when her fifteen year old sister moans constantly about having to pull her weight and help out more. When does Meg get free time to pass the time of day with anyone? She doesn't. She's always caring for their mother and siblings while her father and two brothers work the narrowboat for weeks at a time.
But even though she was born working class and poor, her mother came from middle class and was determined her children would have the same benefits she did as a child in the form of reading, writing and learning to speak well. But to what gain? The working class had no need for reading or writing in the eyes of the upper classes. And yet, their mother wanted them afforded that benefit...should the opportunity ever arise where they could better themselves.
And then her world is shaken by a tragedy only to be overshadowed by another shocking revelation that forces her to question everything she thought she knew. But not before she made the dearest of friends in Lorrie Chambers and Fliss Atkins, as well as catching the eye of Christian Henderson, a gentleman no less. What would a gentleman be wanting with the a waterfront lass? Nothing good, is what the gossips say, as there is a distinct difference between the two classes...and they cannot be crossed.
But the heart knows what the heart wants...but is it enough?
THE WATERFRONT LASS is a delightfully heartwarming tale I devoured in one sitting, despite fighting sleep I was soon lost within the pages and the Victorian era and could not put the book down until I swiped the last page. I was sad to leave Meg and Christian, and her family and I note that the Author's Note promises Lorrie and Fliss' stories are to come in which Meg will make her appearance. I must admit, I am dying to know Fliss' stories. Those bruises she is constantly sporting are not due to clumsiness as she purports. Something is amiss there and I cannot wait to find out what her story is.
The friendship between the three women was refreshing and heartfelt in such hard times. Meg needed that reprieve from the demands her family placed on her. And then when the offer of something more from Christian came, could Meg cross those class lines and better herself? Just as her mother wanted?
Oooh the hellcat has her claws out, which was to be expected, hateful duo that they are. But how to deal with them? And how would Meg's family react to the change in circumstances should it happen? So much heartbreak and yet still they find happiness in the small things. Such snobbery and rudeness means the upper echelons are never content.
I thoroughly loved THE WATERFRONT LASS and eagerly await the follow-up tales of Lorrie and Fliss and their respective stories. I have only read one other AnneMarie Brear novel "The Girl in the Peacock Shawl" and that was a five star read for me...as is this one, easily.
Perfect for fans of Catherine Cookson and Dilly Court.
I would like to thank #AnneMarieBrear, #Netgalley, #BoldwoodBooks and #RachelsRandomResources for an ARC of #TheWaterfrontLass in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Living in England during the 1980s and more recently, AnneMarie developed a love of history from visiting grand old English houses and this grew into a fascination with what may have happened behind their walls over their long existence.
Her enjoyment of visiting old country estates and castles when travelling and, her interest in genealogy and researching her family tree, has been put to good use, providing backgrounds and names for her historical novels which are mainly set in Yorkshire or Australia between Victorian times and WWII.
A long and winding road to publication led to her first novel being published in 2006. She has now published over twenty-seven historical family saga novels, becoming an Amazon UK best seller and with her novel, The Slum Angel, winning a gold medal at the USA Reader's Favourite International Awards in 2019, and a silver medal for The Market Stall Girl in 2021. Two of her books have been nominated for the Romance Writer’s Australia Ruby Award and the In’dtale Magazine Rone award.
AnneMarie now lives in the Southern Highlands of N.S.W. Australia with her husband and her family.
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