Book Review: A Writer's Opinion

 Mrs England by Stacey Halls

I think I came across Mrs England on Goodreads. It was a Sunday Times Bestseller. Stacey Halls' debut novel, The Familiars, based on the Pendle Witch Trials, was the biggest selling debut novel of 2019, and I had heard of it, if not of her. Her second novel, The Foundling, was also a bestseller, but I hadn't read either of these earlier novels when I started reading Mrs England, and the name Stacey Halls was unfamiliar to me.

    

                                                          

The novel is set in Edwardian England and its heroine, Ruby, is a young working-class woman who has recently trained to be a Norland nanny. The details about the training of such nannies is fascinating, and Halls maintains an intriguing mystery about Ruby herself that is not uncovered for the reader until late in the story. Ruby's personal story was one of the elements I found most compelling and, though Halls releases hints throughout, it is still a suitably dramatic and poignant narrative device, adding an extra layer of reader-understanding of Ruby's character and an extra layer of mystery to the central plot which concerns the Yorkshire mill-owning family for whom Ruby goes to work.

The Mrs England of the novel's title is the lady of the house, an apparently neurotic, secretive, peculiarly distant character who seems strangely lacking in interest in her children. Halls makes full use of the 'northern gothic' aspects of the Yorkshire setting, and is clearly indebted to iconic novels such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, The Turn Of The Screw, and to other versions of the archetypal governess story such as The Sound Of Music (there are even hints of Kipps and Hobson's Choice here and there), though her novel has a much more modern sensibility. She has been described as the successor to Hilary Mantel, but, based on this novel, I consider that a stretch. Nevertheless, the book is a well-written, well-plotted historical narrative which refuses to dissolve into cliche and sentimentality. It is frequently surprising in its twists and turns, and the melodrama, though present, is carefully controlled.

I found the novel enjoyable but it didn't make me want to read Halls' other work - I might well do so at some stage, but I can't imagine Mrs England becoming a novel I return to any time soon. I am not a particular lover of historical fiction, except when it is given a shot of energy by being exceptionally atmospheric or being played for laughs or being in a specific subgenre of fantasy such as steampunk. Mrs England is firmly in the realist tradition, though the plot is moderately far-fetched, and Halls is clearly an advocate for women's rights. Her work highlights the way that toxic masculinity constrained women in the past, but also presents us with a couple of women who overcome these constraints. This is uplifting but ultimately unconvincing in a story which presents itself as a realistic tale. When I compare it to the other novel I know well, set in the Edwardian period and focusing on a wealthy family - The Go-Between by L.P.Hartley - Halls' novel falls very short.

Nevertheless, I would recommend this novel to readers who enjoy historical fiction and who are looking for something competently-written and engaging.

RATING: Mrs England **** 

Key:
*****      highly recommended - a 'must-read'
****         good -  worth taking the time to read
***           ok - will help to pass the time in a boring situation
**            not very good -  just about readable but flawed
*             not recommended - boring, offensive, badly-written or deeply flawed in some other way