An emotional look at poverty, privilege and what it means to be a mother
London, 1748: Hawker, Bess Bright, finds herself a single mother with no way to support a child. Taking the heart-rending decision to place her daughter, Clara, at London's Foundling Hospital, she leaves her there on the day of her birth - vowing that one day she will return to claim her.
Six years later, Bess heads to the hospital to collect the child she has never known, hoping that she is still alive and waiting for her. But when she gets there, she is told that someone giving her name and address collected Clara the day after Bess left her there. Who can have taken her daughter, and why?
Only a short distance from where Bess lives, a young widow has become a recluse and has not left her home in more than a decade, except to attend church. Her friend, who is a young doctor at the same foundling hospital where Bess left her child, has persuaded her to hire a nursemaid to care for her daughter, but she is reluctant to let anyone new into her home. The past haunts her and the time has come for a reckoning.
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If you have read Stacey Halls' mesmerising debut The Familiars then you will know exactly how her writing can completely transport you to another time and place. If you have not read it and love beautifully crafted historical fiction - in this case about the infamous Pendle Witch Trials - then you really should.
This time, with The Foundling, takes us to Eighteenth Century London and a young woman forced to leave her child in the care of The Foundling Hospital. Her heartbreaking decision based on the hard facts of a life on the breadline, not to mention the difficulties surrounding being an unmarried mother at this time in history. But this is not just a story of heartbreak and loss, we also have the mystery of a missing child, when our young mother returns full of hope to reclaim her babe. Where can she be?
The Foundling also takes us to the other side of London life - the life of the wealthy in Bloomsbury and a woman with a haunting past - a young widow scared to let the outside world in and determined that her daughter should have no part of it either.
This is a tale of what it means to be a mother. Is it the giving birth to a baby? Is it the care of a child? what does your heart tell you?
But enough of all that...no spoilers....it's wonderful, evocative, and deeply emotional. It will churn you up in side and make you cry your eyes out and boil over with rage.
Buy it. Read it. You will be glad you did.
Six years later, Bess heads to the hospital to collect the child she has never known, hoping that she is still alive and waiting for her. But when she gets there, she is told that someone giving her name and address collected Clara the day after Bess left her there. Who can have taken her daughter, and why?
Only a short distance from where Bess lives, a young widow has become a recluse and has not left her home in more than a decade, except to attend church. Her friend, who is a young doctor at the same foundling hospital where Bess left her child, has persuaded her to hire a nursemaid to care for her daughter, but she is reluctant to let anyone new into her home. The past haunts her and the time has come for a reckoning.
****************************************************************
If you have read Stacey Halls' mesmerising debut The Familiars then you will know exactly how her writing can completely transport you to another time and place. If you have not read it and love beautifully crafted historical fiction - in this case about the infamous Pendle Witch Trials - then you really should.
This time, with The Foundling, takes us to Eighteenth Century London and a young woman forced to leave her child in the care of The Foundling Hospital. Her heartbreaking decision based on the hard facts of a life on the breadline, not to mention the difficulties surrounding being an unmarried mother at this time in history. But this is not just a story of heartbreak and loss, we also have the mystery of a missing child, when our young mother returns full of hope to reclaim her babe. Where can she be?
The Foundling also takes us to the other side of London life - the life of the wealthy in Bloomsbury and a woman with a haunting past - a young widow scared to let the outside world in and determined that her daughter should have no part of it either.
This is a tale of what it means to be a mother. Is it the giving birth to a baby? Is it the care of a child? what does your heart tell you?
But enough of all that...no spoilers....it's wonderful, evocative, and deeply emotional. It will churn you up in side and make you cry your eyes out and boil over with rage.
Buy it. Read it. You will be glad you did.