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A review by portybelle
The Conviction of Cora Burns by Carolyn Kirby
4.0
Ex-convict Cora is a right bad ‘un as some might say. But what chance in life did she have? She was born in a Birmingham jail in the late 1800s to a mother she never knew, brought up in a workhouse and worked in an asylum. While growing up she was friends with Alice Salt and they were a terrible influence on each other. Despite Cora seeming to always behave in the worst possible ways, somehow the author makes you have some sympathy for her. She is prone to violence, cruelty and sheer nastiness. But there is a sense of some vulnerability within her, although I’ll admit it’s very well hidden. The need to know who she is and where she’s from is a strong driving force within her.
Doctors’ reports and articles from scientific and medical journals added throughout the book add sense of authenticity, making it seem as if reading about a real case. These and the storyline raised interesting questions about whether a person’s character is formed through nature or nurture. In Cora’s case you could ask these questions based on her experiences for real but in another character’s case it was a cruelly contrived experiment. Despite the appalling life Cora lived, this is a book which offers her some hope of a happier time ahead.
This is a very well researched novel and that comes across so clearly in the detailed storyline. You get a real sense of the hard life experienced by many, the grinding poverty, the dreadful living conditions, the squalor. The Conviction of Cora Burns is an assured debut and I look forward to travelling into the murky past again with this author.
Doctors’ reports and articles from scientific and medical journals added throughout the book add sense of authenticity, making it seem as if reading about a real case. These and the storyline raised interesting questions about whether a person’s character is formed through nature or nurture. In Cora’s case you could ask these questions based on her experiences for real but in another character’s case it was a cruelly contrived experiment. Despite the appalling life Cora lived, this is a book which offers her some hope of a happier time ahead.
This is a very well researched novel and that comes across so clearly in the detailed storyline. You get a real sense of the hard life experienced by many, the grinding poverty, the dreadful living conditions, the squalor. The Conviction of Cora Burns is an assured debut and I look forward to travelling into the murky past again with this author.