Reviews for The Rose of Sebastopol
‘This is everything a good historical romance should be.’
‘I was fully immersed in my reading and bitterly disappointed when it ended.’
I loved everything about this book. With a cracking plot, wide in scope and yet exquisitely detailed, it conveys the world of England in the 1850s—domestic life, medicine, industry and charity—with a confident brush. McMahon also cleverly evokes the gulf between middle-class life in England and its perception of the situation which is at total odds with the reality. She also subtly draws out the similarities between the Crimean War and what is happening in Iraq now without any sense of the didactic. Her portrayal of Rosa and Mariella is particularly fine, as is they way they, and our perceptions of them, deepen and evolve as the novel progresses. I have enjoyed reading all Katherine McMahon’s historical novels but this, to me, is her best so far. I thoroughly recommend it.
McMahon is developing into a perceptive writer with a mind and imagination well attuned to the vagaries and complexities of lives lived in extraordinary times and under intense duress. Using Elizbeth Garrett Anderson, the first woman doctor,and John Keat's letters to his fiancee Fanny Brawne as her inspiration, this is a captivating and soul-searching novel in a class far above the norm in romantic fiction.
...and Katherine McMahon, whose The Rose of Sebastopol combines high romance with the horrors of the Crimean war; a heady mix bound to appeal to readers who enjoy the Club's traditional focus on historical fiction.
LANCASHIRE EVENING POST
THE BOOK BAG
THE GOOD BOOK GUIDE
GUARDIAN UNLIMITED
SALLY ZIGMOND
An unusual and vivid historical novel tracks a feverish love triangle/mystery across the battlefields of the Crimean War.
Freshness and energy drive McMahon’s latest (The Alchemist’s Daughter, 2006, etc.), which offers a socially alert tableau of mid-10th century England as the background to an emotional drama, launched when Mariella Lingwood learns that her fiancé, Dr Henry Thwell, recently serving in the war against Russia, has fallen gravely ill. Mariella rushes to his side in Italy only to find him raving about her cousin Rosa, who had daringly joined the ranks of female nursing volunteers led by Florence Nightingale, tending the English soldiers fighting in Turkey as they suffered terribly from disease and fearful avowals of commitment as Henry’s, but as her cousin betrayed her after all? Mariella sets off for Constantinople to find Rosa and uncover the truth. McMahon depicts the battlefields as another shifting social panorama, this one shot with horror and corpses as well as issues of class and acceptable behaviour. Here the story’s momentum moves less dynamically, but over time Mariella, an unheroic heroine, learns to be of service, first to her sick servant, later to wounded soldiers. Still searching for her cousin, she falls in love with dashing Captain Max Stukeley and comes intuitively to understand Rosa’a disappearance, while in the process awakening to a different sense of self. Marked by its passion and social commentary, this is a pleasingly unformulaic read, although its twin time frames and ending may not satisfy all readers.
Freshness and energy drive McMahon’s latest (The Alchemist’s Daughter, 2006, etc.), which offers a socially alert tableau of mid-10th century England as the background to an emotional drama, launched when Mariella Lingwood learns that her fiancé, Dr Henry Thwell, recently serving in the war against Russia, has fallen gravely ill. Mariella rushes to his side in Italy only to find him raving about her cousin Rosa, who had daringly joined the ranks of female nursing volunteers led by Florence Nightingale, tending the English soldiers fighting in Turkey as they suffered terribly from disease and fearful avowals of commitment as Henry’s, but as her cousin betrayed her after all? Mariella sets off for Constantinople to find Rosa and uncover the truth. McMahon depicts the battlefields as another shifting social panorama, this one shot with horror and corpses as well as issues of class and acceptable behaviour. Here the story’s momentum moves less dynamically, but over time Mariella, an unheroic heroine, learns to be of service, first to her sick servant, later to wounded soldiers. Still searching for her cousin, she falls in love with dashing Captain Max Stukeley and comes intuitively to understand Rosa’a disappearance, while in the process awakening to a different sense of self. Marked by its passion and social commentary, this is a pleasingly unformulaic read, although its twin time frames and ending may not satisfy all readers.
KIRKUS REVIEWS
<TITLE>Katharine McMahon, national bestselling and award-winning author of The Rose of Sebastopol, The Crimson Rooms and Season of Light</TITLE>
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