![\"riverfleet\"](\"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/riverfleet.jpg\")
The opening of Susanna Calkins’ new book is a real knockout \u2013 her central character, Lucy Campion, stumbles across what she thinks is a ghost rising out of London\u2019s stinky, scary River Fleet as she makes her way home. The year is 1667 and Lucy is relieved to find the apparition is a woman, not a ghost, but the woman is weak, confused, and covered in welts and cuts. She takes her to the the nearest doctor.<\/p>\n
As Lucy and the doctor\u2019s irritated maid take the woman\u2019s clothes off and give her something clean to put on, they notice the clothing is high quality and that the woman\u2019s hands are soft, making her a probable member of the upper classes. For this reason the doctor decides to take her in, and his wife decides to lend the woman some of her old clothes.<\/p>\n
The doctor also asks if Lucy can leave her job for a week and nurse the woman, with pay. She works as a printer\u2019s apprentice and bookseller and only gets her boss to agree to the time away when she says she\u2019ll write up the incident as a text for a new broadside to sell. So Lucy is off to her odd duty, where the woman she\u2019s tending to has no memory of who she is or where she came from, and she also has frequent \u201cfits\u201d \u2013 she has what was called the \u201cFalling Sickness,\u201d and what we know now to be epilepsy.<\/p>\n
The doctor\u2019s snobby and snarky assistant, however, seems to recognize the woman and on the strength of that her family is found and summoned to her bedside. As Lucy\u2019s time with the woman wears on it becomes clear she has some memory and that she definitely knows what her station in life is.<\/p>\n
Lucy herself is also dealing with a dilemma \u2013 she has two suitors: a highborn son of a Magistrate, and a constable. She is very attracted to the Magistrate\u2019s son but is troubled by the disparity in their social class. Calkins doesn\u2019t give her any easy answers. The world of 1667 London was in flux, and so is Lucy Campion, as she struggles to figure out the right path for her life. It\u2019s as interesting as the mystery part of the book.<\/p>\n
When the woman\u2019s family arrives it\u2019s clear there is plenty wrong with their family dynamics, and it turns out the woman\u2019s brother is missing. The search for her brother consumes much of the rest of the book and another dead body just confuses everyone. Calkins is excellent at creating the feel and sensory experience of living in 1667, and she\u2019s also excellent with the novelist\u2019s skills of character and plot. This was a fast paced, excellent read and I enjoyed every minute I spent in Lucy\u2019s company. This continues to be a wonderful and beautifully written new series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The opening of Susanna Calkins’ new book is a real knockout \u2013 her central character, Lucy Campion, stumbles across what she thinks is a ghost rising out of London\u2019s stinky, scary River Fleet as she makes her way home. The year is 1667 and Lucy is relieved to find the apparition is a woman, not … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[10],"class_list":["post-1907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-historical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1909,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1907\/revisions\/1909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}