Yours from the tower by Sally Nicholls
What a joy to read a feel-good book with wonderful characters, but that also leaves the reader knowing more about the lives of young women in 1896. Tirzah, Louisa and Polly are best friends who have finally finished their education at boarding school and are facing what their lives will be as young women just out of the schoolroom. Tirzah is stuck with her grandmother, working as an unpaid companion. Polly has a job that she loves teaching young orphans, while Louisa is living with her aunt who has sponsored her first London Season, where she is expected to find a rich husband who will be able to provide for her younger sisters.
Through a series of letters, the reader becomes intimately acquainted with the lives, dreams, hopes and hardships that face this intrepid trio, who manage to support each other with love and advice as they face the realities of what their lives have become. The author subtly gives clues to the destiny of women in the late 19th century. The girls’ education has not prepared them for anything other than marriage; they have been taught nothing that would allow them to become anything other than wives, even if it was possible for women to go to university. Tirzah is perhaps the most restricted of all – she has no money and no friends to socialise with and longs to know the mother whom she hasn’t seen since she was very young. Her increasing depression that is evident in her letters will have readers on the edge of their seats as they worry for her well-being. Meanwhile Sophia is very attracted to Sebastian, a charming young man with no job or prospects, and is torn between duty her duty to her family and marrying a rich lord, or following her heart. Polly is happiest of all, with a loving family and a job she loves, and Nicholls brings to life the plight of orphans and children from the slums, especially as Polly tries to find the father of three young boys that she has come to care for.
Readers will cheer these feisty girls as they find romance and will find the letters, although making the book a quick and easy read, an education in love and history. The acknowledgments by the author at the end mention books that influenced her writing, and many were ones that I have loved: Love in a cold climate by Nancy Mitford, Dear enemy by Jean Webster, as well as fairy tales. Readers who enjoy the letter writing style may like Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff, To all the boys I’ve loved before by Jenny Han and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.
Themes: Friendship, Letter writing, Historical fiction, Romance.
Pat Pledger