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Title details for The Linnet Bird by Linda Holeman - Wait list

The Linnet Bird

A Novel

by Linda Holeman
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“For you, I will write of it all—part truth, part memory, part nightmare—my life, the one that started so long ago, in a place so far from here . . .”
India, 1839: Linny Ingram, the respectable young wife of a British colonial officer, settles down to write her life story. In the claustrophobic, mannered world of British India, Linny seems the perfect society wife: pretty, gracious, subservient. But appearances can be deceptive. Linny Ingram was born Linny Gow, an orphan raised in the cold, gray slums of Liverpool. Sold into prostitution by her stepfather when she was only eleven, Linny is a born survivor and an accomplished chameleon and manipulator. Through a stroke of luck and considerable scheming, she manages to re-create herself as a proper Victorian young lady, middle-class and seemingly respectable. By befriending a merchant’s daughter, Linny secures a place with her new companion on a ship bound for India, where they will join “the fishing fleet”—young women of good birth but no fortune who sail to India in search of a husband.
India, with its exotic colors, sights, and smells, is a world away from the cold back alleys of Linny’s childhood. But even there, she is haunted by her past, and by the constant threat of discovery. To secure her place in society, she marries Somers Ingram, a wealthy British officer with secrets of his own. Soon Linny discovers that respectability and marriage bring a new kind of imprisonment, as well as the same menace and violence that she thought she had escaped. But Linny is not about to surrender easily. In the lush tropics of India she finds not only the means for rebellion but also the love and freedom she never had in England.
We had been at sea almost four months. Swallows swooped near the railings, indicating land nearby. Mrs. Cavendish likened these busy, twittering creatures to the dove with its olive branch. She was right, and within another day villages were spotted along the coast. The water became noisy with dozens of tiny rocking boatloads of Indians. Bumboat men, Mrs. Cavendish called them, shouting to be heard over the cries of the villagers as they boasted of their merchandise, hoping to sell coconuts, bananas, or tamarinds. I hung over the railing, watching as the natives threw ropes with baskets attached over the ship’s side. Some of the crew called down to them in a strange tongue that I couldn’t identify, putting coins into the baskets. The baskets were lowered, and then came up again, filled with whatever the sailors had requested. I longed to try the strange-looking fruit, but Mrs. Cavendish, with a slight shake of her head, indicated that it would be beneath us to purchase anything in this way.
During the last few days, as we grew ever closer to our destination, excitement grew in me. At first I attributed it to the beauty of the water and sun, the flying fish sending little droplets of water onto the smooth sea, but then realized it was something else. I detected a difference in the atmosphere, and whether it was the air itself or the degree of heat I couldn’t say. Perhaps the smells carried in the wind contributed to the unexplained breathlessness I experienced. My nose filled with the strange smells of an unfamiliar populace, the scents of unknown vegetation. I felt as heady as I had when twirled in my first quadrille. —from The Linnet Bird

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 17, 2005

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780307238481

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780307238481
      • File size: 540 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 2, 2005
      A historical romance with a soft-focus cover, Holeman's first adult novel (she's written a handful of young adult books, including Search of the Moon King's Daughter) opens in Calcutta but quickly flashes back to 1823 Liverpool, England, where its heroine, Linny Gow, is turned into a prostitute by her father shortly after her 11th birthday. Surrounded by poverty and brutality, Linny clings to her dead mother's assurance that she has noble blood, a distinction that solidifies her determination to escape from her sexual slavery and break into the genteel class. Holeman excels at painting the different milieus of the time-from the clammy docks where the whores ply their trade, to the stuffy drawing rooms where the ladies gossip over tea, to India, where a "fishing fleet" of poor young well-bred women go in search of husbands. Her physical descriptions can be powerfully tactile and absorbing. But her storylines are couched in cliches, and much of Linny's character is determinedly anachronistic; she's almost proud, for example, of her sexual experience. Such flaws will likely put off those expecting a more rigorous depiction of the period, but Holeman's novel may nonetheless prove an engrossing favorite with historical romance aficionados and fans of Sarah Waters's Victorian dramas.

    • Library Journal

      May 1, 2005
      Liverpool in 1826 offers few options for an orphaned girl forced into prostitution by her stepfather. However, through luck and cleverness, Linny Gow eventually manages to establish a tenuous hold on middle-class respectability. A chance to accompany another young woman to India seems to offer a fresh start. Unfortunately, life in the Raj proves just as stifling and restricted as Victorian England, with Linny blackmailed into marrying a homosexual and the British matrons condemning Linny's sympathy for the poor and her contacts with the natives. Holeman, who has written historical fiction for young adults, excels at descriptions of Linny's surroundings, from the slums of Liverpool and Calcutta to the vistas of Kashmir. Numerous minor characters and subplots swirl around Linny, but her compelling story holds center stage and drives readers forward. Fans of historical romance will relish her tale. -Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State Univ. Lib., Mankato

      Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Booklist

      April 1, 2005
      Liverpool, England, in Victorian times was no place to be a poor girl. Linny Gow knows this firsthand. When her mother dies, her father begins prostituting her at the age of 12. Linny manages to leave prostitution, and with the help of a kindly would-be doctor, she begins to pass herself off as a middle-class woman. When Linny gets the opportunity to leave England behind, she sets off for India without looking back. In India she meets the cruel Somers Ingram. Ingram recognizes her from her days in Liverpool and blackmails her into a sexless and violent marriage. Coincidences and luck, both good and bad, abound. Linny's intelligence and pluck may be almost a cliche in historical literature, but the plot moves at a fast enough pace, and the descriptions are so vivid that the book becomes a page-turner.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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