Two women separated by centuries, the threads of their lives drawn together by one beautiful silk dress
Textiles historian Jo Baaker is drawn back to the Dutch island where she was born to investigate the provenance of a valuable seventeenth-century silk dress retrieved from a sunken shipwreck. Her research leads her to Anna Tesseltje, a poor Amsterdam laundress who served on the fringes of the Dutch court.
But how did Anna come to possess such a precious dress? Jo is determined to trace the threads and find out, all while battling with professional egos and personal demons.
My thoughts: I studied material culture as part of my MA so this really appealed to me academically as well as a reader of historical fiction. The things people leave behind them can tell us so much. The beautiful dress found in a shipwreck off Texel tells the story of Anna.
Once a merchant’s daughter, she’s reduced to doing other people’s laundry when the opportunity comes to be companion to a female artist – Catherina. And to love, a freedom she didn’t know she could have and then to tragedy. Her mother’s dress, silk with intricate embroidery outlives her and textile historian Jo carefully teases out Anna’s life story.
Both Anna and Jo are determined women in world’s dominated by men – for Anna the obnoxious Maarten, for Jo her so-called colleague Liam. But both are clever and capable and use all their resources (and in Anna’s case, a storm) to prove their worth.
I really enjoyed this book with its slip back and forth between the two narratives, hundreds of years apart, the insight into the Dutch court that Anna gets was interesting and the lives of the modern islanders was too. A fascinating and informative story of two women, ordinary but in their own way extremely remarkable too.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Congratulations to author August Hill on the release of his novel 
Publication Date: October 20th, 2022Genre: Supernatural Horror/ LycanthropesPublisher: Brother MockingbirdTW: 80’s slasher gore in chapter one.Twenty-four years old, no job, and kicked out by her parents, Randi Matheson is living at her aunt and uncle’s trying her hardest to complete a novel she can’t seem to start when a carnivorous monster interrupts her middling life on a full moon night. Attacked during an ordinary family dinner, Randi’s relatives are murdered, and she is bitten by the beast. Surviving the slaughter, Randi returns home to her distressed family only to become a monster herself under the next full moon. Nearly devouring her younger brother, she is stopped by the intervention of Division X, a company devoted to the killing and capture of paranormal threats. She awakens in a containment cell the next morning to be given an ultimatum… work for them as a new weapon in the fight against evil or be dissected. A cure to her lycanthropy is promised along the way, and with real motivation to stay alive, Randi pushes herself to the brink to return to her normal life. Small town horrors lie in wait with even smaller heroes to stand against them. Can Randi save them and herself, or will everything crumble to the wills of evil?Add to 
After receiving an education at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, August Hill started writing Division X, a supernatural horror filled with dark humor, adventure, and sinister creatures that leap off the pages.His love for all things spooky and scary was unleashed when he discovered Jurassic Park at four years old and the R. L. Stine Goosebumps collection in elementary school. He holds a huge appreciation for 80’s horror and is partial to fun, dark, and witty ensemble casting with younger heroes. Some of his favorite influences include The Lost Boys, Aliens, Gremlins, and An American Werewolf in London to name a few.Hill’s knack for writing fiction emerged at an early age when he wrote stories for his own enjoyment. He is a collector of horror films and is a board game enthusiast. When not writing, he can be found walking trails with his dog, enjoying movie nights with friends, spending time playing video games, and camping in Maine.
ramblingmads 