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A review by edressa
The Revenge of Bridget Cleary by Mathilda Zeller
5.0
I was provided with an eARC by the author in exchange for an honest review. A special thanks to her!
It's always a toughie to write a story based on true crime or real tragic events. There's always a risk of veering into misery porn and all the lurid details, at the detriment of giving victims the respect and compassion they're due. And all in all, it's risky to *actually* include fairies in a retelling of Bridget Cleary's story, because you might very well find yourself with a Philippa Gregory situation where you decide to make Jacquetta of Luxemburg and Elizabeth Woodville actual witches, while that was precisely an accusation that plagued them in real life based on jealousy and wanting to tear them down from a privileged position, and that could have very well led to their death like with many other women - ya know, just a wee bit insensitive.
In this story, while this Bridget was actually involved with fairies (and that's all I'm willing to say without going into spoilers territory), it is careful to portray as a woman who was brave, hard-working, but caring and fearless, who accompanies her daughter as a guardian angel of sorts through her impossible quest to appease the Fairy Queen, and whose said involvement with fairies stops nothing short of heroic. I very, VERY rarely cry reading books, but the reveals about the Cleary family were touching enough it pulled out a few tears from me. Okay. I was bawling. And drinking a beer.
The story plays like your typical Victorian period melodrama pastiche (in a good way), with a plucky heroine, Brigid, and her fairy sisterhood of Adelaide and Florence, sisterhood, as they are pitted (among other things) against a fictional member of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood all too reminiscent of their tendency to idealize their models perhaps a bit too much (*cough* #justiceforlizziesiddal *cough*). They are much more central to Brigid's story than her love interest is, a young nobleman by the name of Edmund who's somewhere between a himbo and a male ingenue. The story plays with themes of class, oppression, Victorian gender norms, but while the revenge is brought to a satisfactory but unexpected resolution, it manages to bring on themes of forgiveness and redemption that could easily be trite and tacked on, but are well-integrated to the story and meaningful.
All in all, this is a lovely debut that I recommend checking out if you're looking for Victorian-set stories with a dash of fantasy - and I promise that the history nerd that I am didn't have any eye-twitches. You're in good hands.
It's always a toughie to write a story based on true crime or real tragic events. There's always a risk of veering into misery porn and all the lurid details, at the detriment of giving victims the respect and compassion they're due. And all in all, it's risky to *actually* include fairies in a retelling of Bridget Cleary's story, because you might very well find yourself with a Philippa Gregory situation where you decide to make Jacquetta of Luxemburg and Elizabeth Woodville actual witches, while that was precisely an accusation that plagued them in real life based on jealousy and wanting to tear them down from a privileged position, and that could have very well led to their death like with many other women - ya know, just a wee bit insensitive.
In this story, while this Bridget was actually involved with fairies (and that's all I'm willing to say without going into spoilers territory), it is careful to portray as a woman who was brave, hard-working, but caring and fearless, who accompanies her daughter as a guardian angel of sorts through her impossible quest to appease the Fairy Queen, and whose said involvement with fairies stops nothing short of heroic. I very, VERY rarely cry reading books, but the reveals about the Cleary family were touching enough it pulled out a few tears from me. Okay. I was bawling. And drinking a beer.
The story plays like your typical Victorian period melodrama pastiche (in a good way), with a plucky heroine, Brigid, and her fairy sisterhood of Adelaide and Florence, sisterhood, as they are pitted (among other things) against a fictional member of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood all too reminiscent of their tendency to idealize their models perhaps a bit too much (*cough* #justiceforlizziesiddal *cough*). They are much more central to Brigid's story than her love interest is, a young nobleman by the name of Edmund who's somewhere between a himbo and a male ingenue. The story plays with themes of class, oppression, Victorian gender norms, but while the revenge is brought to a satisfactory but unexpected resolution, it manages to bring on themes of forgiveness and redemption that could easily be trite and tacked on, but are well-integrated to the story and meaningful.
All in all, this is a lovely debut that I recommend checking out if you're looking for Victorian-set stories with a dash of fantasy - and I promise that the history nerd that I am didn't have any eye-twitches. You're in good hands.