A review by kali
Beauty in Thorns by Kate Forsyth

5.0

I’ve been waiting for this book for a very long time. For 26 years, in fact, ever since I received a framed print of Rossetti’s Proserpina for my 15th birthday. I’m pretty much a Pre-Raph Tragic, so when Kate Forsyth announced she was writing a book on the PR Sisterhood about 2 years ago, I was beside myself. And then I got it into my hands a few days ago and devoured it. Told from multiple points of view — Lizzie Siddal, Jane Morris, Georgiana Burne-Jones and Margot Burne-Jones, the wives and a daughter of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ned Burne-Jones and William Morris, the story weaves a richly sad tale of 19th Century morality, with the thorns of sin that bound women behind high walls at the time, and the pain that was inflicted on them and their loved ones if they should try to pursue their true loves. It is from this suffering of social stigmatisation that I feel the good fairy saved Margot Burne-Jones, as the sleeping beauty of the fairy tale. This is a true romance, in terms of evoking heartbreak and passion, the slough of despondency and obsessive love, when those you love don’t love you, and you cannot love those who do.