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apechild 's review for:
Mrs England
by Stacey Halls
Really enjoyed this book. Set in the early 1900s, and yet at times it feels like we're being taken back to an earlier time, maybe 100 years earlier or something, to the heyday of the northern mills, of a time when kids didn't go to school, women were dominated by men and there were gothic mysteries at every corner. The story takes place in an undisclosed town in Yorkshire, and Mrs England is the granddaughter of a guy who sounds like Titus Salt - made his money in the fabric industry from using alpaca wool, built a town for his workers to live in.
But it's not actually Mrs England who is the main character. The narrator is Ruby May, a trained children's nurse who is hired by the Englands to come and look after their four children. None of whom go to school (not entirely sure how they got away with that but anyway...) Ruby is originally from Birmingham, but trained at a prestige children's nurse college in London. Some of the staff are immediately antagonistic towards her, suspecting an uppitdy snob, so besides from the children, Ruby finds herself isolated in her new home at the edge of a mill town, and of course, naturally at the edge of the moors. Mrs England seems to be self-absorbed and utterly disinterested in the children. Mr England weighed down by keeping it all together. And yet there is something not quite right with all that is going on at the family home.
But it's not actually Mrs England who is the main character. The narrator is Ruby May, a trained children's nurse who is hired by the Englands to come and look after their four children. None of whom go to school (not entirely sure how they got away with that but anyway...) Ruby is originally from Birmingham, but trained at a prestige children's nurse college in London. Some of the staff are immediately antagonistic towards her, suspecting an uppitdy snob, so besides from the children, Ruby finds herself isolated in her new home at the edge of a mill town, and of course, naturally at the edge of the moors. Mrs England seems to be self-absorbed and utterly disinterested in the children. Mr England weighed down by keeping it all together. And yet there is something not quite right with all that is going on at the family home.