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A review by florapants84
The Victorian Chaise-Longue by Marghanita Laski
4.0
I cannot tell you enough how much my family and I enjoyed the PBS series The 1900 House. It's hard not to romanticize the Victorian era, so when a modern London family is given the opportunity to go back in time, and live in a remodeled home according to the customs of the era, they jump at the opportunity. Shoot, I'm sure I would have also, except that as the show went on, one realizes that modern advances in technology, science, and society have made life so much easier now.
The Victorian Chaise-Longue is a wonderful time travel novel that has quite a few horror elements. Melanie is newly married and has just given birth to a child. Due to health issues, she's been confined to bed since her pregnancy in present day (1953, the time the book was published). Upon being moved to another room in the house for a change of pace, she is laid to rest on a Victorian chaise-longue that she purchased at an antique shop. Upon waking from a nap, she soon realizes that she's trapped in another woman's body...in a bygone era. Is she just having a nightmare, or this a form of reincarnation? The scary conclusion left more questions unanswered than anything else.
I loved the way Laski wrote. Her descriptions of everything, right down to the curtain fabric and wallpaper, really painted a lovely picture of two bygone eras. I'm so glad that her work is being reprinted. The introduction by P.D. James also shed some light on Laski's other work outside of writing, including journalism. She sounded like a very interesting woman!
The Victorian Chaise-Longue is a wonderful time travel novel that has quite a few horror elements. Melanie is newly married and has just given birth to a child. Due to health issues, she's been confined to bed since her pregnancy in present day (1953, the time the book was published). Upon being moved to another room in the house for a change of pace, she is laid to rest on a Victorian chaise-longue that she purchased at an antique shop. Upon waking from a nap, she soon realizes that she's trapped in another woman's body...in a bygone era. Is she just having a nightmare, or this a form of reincarnation? The scary conclusion left more questions unanswered than anything else.
I loved the way Laski wrote. Her descriptions of everything, right down to the curtain fabric and wallpaper, really painted a lovely picture of two bygone eras. I'm so glad that her work is being reprinted. The introduction by P.D. James also shed some light on Laski's other work outside of writing, including journalism. She sounded like a very interesting woman!