Lauren ChaterBesprekingen

Estonia, 1941. The country is in the grip of a savage conquest and occupation by Russia. Increasingly deprived of a means of scrabbling a livelihood together, for the women of the town where young Kati lives, hanging on to their heritage tradition of shawl-weaving in delicate lacy patterns becomes a way of asserting their commitment to Estonia.
Moscow, 1941. Lydia, a privileged young woman of Kati's age discovers some unwelcome facts about her parentage and resolves to escape. After several heart-stopping adventures, she finds herself in the same refugee camp as Kati.
The two young women tell their stories in alternating chapters, with the leitmotif of the shawl being the device that threads their stories together: stories of danger, love, brutal deaths and the importance of all the women's support of one another as their men fight the Russian occupiers in under-the-radar resistance groups.
Much as I enjoyed this introduction to an aspect of Estonia's history, I found there were too many slick solutions to difficulties, too little anguish at some of the deaths that occurred. Nevertheless the story emphasised the fragility of life, the strength of the human spirit. While I read this book willingly and with some enjoyment, I'm not sure I shall seek out any other books that Chater might write.

* Copy courtesy Simon & Schuster *

It's 1665 and Emilia Lennox heads to court to seek the favour of King Charles II after losing everything when her husband's lands and title were confiscated. Seeking to have them restored, Emilia begins a dangerous liaison where the lengths to which she'll go to have her status restored by the King will be tested. Meanwhile, Henry is a talented artist and assistant to the court painter commissioned to produce a series of portraits; the beauties from the title.

The Beauties by Lauren Chater contains multiple narrators with alternating chapters from both Emilia and Henry in the 'present' time period, and chapters from years earlier told by a younger Anne Hyde from the Hague.

Assuming The Hague was in France when in fact it's in the Netherlands and not noticing the Anne Hyde chapters were 6 years earlier than the primary timeline was a mistake on my part that generated some reader confusion and slight disconnect as a result.

Perhaps if I knew my history a little better, I'd have realised sooner that young Anne Hyde went on to become the first wife of James, Duke of York, making her the Duchess of York. The chapters that slip back in time a mere six or so years earlier to capture the Duchess of York commissioning the series of portraits was an odd choice to me. The narrative between Emilia and Henry was rich with compelling characters and there was plenty going on to hold the reader's interest without that.

That said, let's enjoy some of the descriptive writing that kept me engaged throughout:

"To distract myself, I poured all my energy into my new role as a lady-in-waiting. When the season changed, I travelled with the Princess to her home at Binnenhof Palace in The Hague. There I learned to dress the Princess's fine brown hair for stately occasions, pinning the curls tightly to her scalp so only the pearled tips of the pins peeked through. I learned how to sponge sweat out of a gown by daubing a mixture of vinegar and spit to lift the offending mark." Page 49

The setting at court was richly described and my feet ached along with Emilia's as she waited hours on end for a glimpse of the King. I thoroughly enjoyed the painterly setting at the artist's studio and the production goings on at the theatre.

It's somehow reassuring - although I'm not sure why or how - to see characters written today, yet placed in a novel set more than 350 years ago having the same struggles we do. The author convincingly captures the timeless nature of the worries that often plague us:

"At night, she lies awake staring at the roofbeams while the questions twist and twine, tying her in ever tighter knots of confusion. If only she could see the outcomes of her choices, then she could safely decide." Page 132-133

Emilia was trying to decide her future and I recently found myself wishing the same were true. Speaking of worries that often plague us, those who know their history well (which isn't me obviously) will recognise the year 1665 as being smack bang in the middle of the Great Plague of London and while only occupying a small section of the novel, I did enjoy the impact the plague had on the various characters. This was very well handled and I enjoyed the realistic portrayal of events and outcomes between characters as a result.

The Beauties by Lauren Chater is highly recommended for readers who enjoy a little art with their historical fiction, and if you enjoyed Beauty In Thorns by Kate Forsyth or The Doll Factory by Elizabeth MacNeal then this is for you!

An easy book to read, enjoyed it

I enjoyed this as a summer read - engaging but not too serious. The story is told in 2 timeframes - contemporary from the perspective of a textiles conservator and historic (1651) about an impoverished young woman who becomes a companion to a lady artist in Holland. I enjoyed the historic story more than the contemporary one. That one the more engaging for me. I love that the story is set around the discovery of a silk dress that was buried under the seabed for centuries and survived.

Did not finish. Donated to Vinnies

My thanks to the Author publisher's and NetGalley for providing me with a Kindle version of this book to read and honestly review.
As a grumpy sixty five year old Yorkshireman i somewhat doubt I am the target audience for this book, however I thoroughly enjoyed it. Some of my follow readers and reviewers seem split on the Historical accuracy, whilst I consider myself somewhat of an History buff, I am ashamed to admit no knowledge of this topic whatsoever, and the Author points out in her notes it's Historical fiction and difficult to accurately research. It is well written character driven fiction atmospheric descriptive engaging from first to last page. A story of friendship hardship love and war, poignant and sad at times.
Thoroughly recommended.

Historical fiction is one of my favourite genres but I could not connect with "The Winter Dress". The synopsis sounded fascinating - a beautiful, 17th-century dress found in a chest at the bottom of the ocean and the story behind the dress. However, I found the novel slow and could not relate to either Jo, the textile historian, or Anna, the woman who actually owned the dress. I did appreciate how the author used the silk dress to tie the stories together and I loved the lavish descriptions of it.

For me, the historical story was more interesting although it didn't wow me and I was disappointed with the male/female academic competition which took place in the modern era. I thought it was totally unnecessary.

Overall, "The Winter Dress" was a passable read, just not an inspiring one.

If anything in this review raises issues for you, help is available at Beyond Blue,
or at White Ribbon Australia
or your local support service.



I made space for three books on my Australian shelf A-D when I took this one down to read during further travails with my eyes. It's a big, fat book, with a big, well-spaced font, and a coherent chronological sequence of events which made it easy to read in the brief windows of time when my eyes weren't bothering me.

I admit to being attracted by the beautiful cover design, but the blurb is enticing too.



Frontispiece illustration by Leonard Weisgard, see below

Like the best historical fiction, the story still has resonance today. The Gulliver known to those of us who read the children's version of Jonathan Swift Gulliver's Travels, told us about his gentleness and good behaviour and though his motives were mixed, he proved himself to be a friend of the Lilliputians. But the Gulliver of Gulliver's Wife is not a nice man, and the novel is a cautionary tale about the complexities and risks of marital loyalty. Which is especially problematic if there is a suspicion of mental illness, but pity and compassion compromise decisions that must be made.

Even today, a traveller who returns home with strange tales that test credibility would raise eyebrows, and in Chater's novel, it certainly did in the early 18th century. When Lemuel returns after a long absence with bizarre tales of little people, his wife Mary fears the consequences. For him, and for her.

She suspects that he is mad, and that means the end of his career as a surgeon, because reputation means everything at a time when medical services were haphazard, to say the least. Worse, unless she can conceal it, his madness, most likely, means incarceration in a primitive asylum. Mary had seen her mother in an asylum, living with what was probably the late stages of dementia, and she was haunted by it.

But she also has to protect her own reputation. Having learned long ago that Lemuel is an unreliable husband who drinks and gambles and pawns her most treasured possessions, in the three years of his absence Mary has built up her practice as a midwife to become one of the most respected in her community. They are still poor, but they are getting by. Any hint of her husband's 'malady' threatens the livelihood on which she and her family depend. Her son John is away at school, but teenage Bess, who is wilful and impulsive, is a problem. She is deeply attached to her father, and is still clinging to his careless promises to take her away to sea to become a surgeon like him.

But Mary has another reason to be disappointed by Lemuel's unwelcome return. She married the wrong bloke, and the right one, Richard, is still part of her life. While never compromising her virtue, he has loved her and supported the family through all its travails. When Lemuel was thought to be dead, there was a prospect of a happier life, and it was only Mary's determination to be independent that stood in the way. [And the seven years requirement before there can be a 'presumption of death'?]

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/12/03/gullivers-wife-by-lauren-chater/

The author was inspired to write this novel after reading an article about a dress discovered by divers in a wreck off the coast of Texel,an island in the Netherlands. The dress is remarkable as it is believed to date back to the 17th century. The author informs us at the outset that the cast of characters is totally fictional but based on the experiences of the Texel divers. Hence we have two story lines.
The contemporary one revolves around Jo Baaker, a textile historian of Dutch birth living in Australia. When she recieves a message from an old friend in Texel about the discovery she immediately plans to return to her birth country. she has not returned since the sudden death of both of her parents when she was 16 years old. She seeks the support of another colleague Liam whom she has worked with before, to try and solve the mystery of the story behind the dress.
Each alternate chapter we go back to 17th century and we learn the story of the dress. Anna Tesseltje has inherited the dress following the death of her parents and older sister. She is forced to seek employment as a ladies companion to Catharina van Shurman, an artist who lives with her twin brother.
I found the story at times a little predictable and as the reader is aware of the background of the dress, we await Jo's discovery of the same through clues from archival records and art from that period.
What I enjoyed most was looking up Texel and the actual dress on line.½

This was an interesting book.
Mary Gulliver is a renowned midwife & herbalist & when her husband is lost at sea she is forced to fend for herself & her children. But three years later when he returns sick & speaking in riddles her world is turned upside down.
Even though this was still an enjoyable read, I found it a bit hard to connect to the characters given as I didn't actually have the original story's facts since I gave up after forty pages after being literally put to sleep several times lol! It was interesting watching the relationship between Mary & her daughter play grow throughout the book, especially when we start to get the whole picture. At the end of the book, Lauren Chater mentions that Gulliver's Travel's is actually a parody of the likes of The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe etc. Which puts a whole new light on it, but oh well. Anyway, even though I felt pretty disconnected at first, it is a good read.

I love an historical fiction novel based on an element from history or a true story and we certainly have that here. In 2014, a big storm hit off the coast of Texel, clearing away layers upon layers of sand and mud from a known 17th century shipwreck. Texel is located off the coast of the Netherlands north of Amsterdam, and this natural event created an unexpected opportunity to explore the shipwreck known as the Palmwood wreck. Many items were recovered by divers, including a remarkably preserved 17th century silk dress.

Textiles are rarely recovered from shipwrecks and garments from this era rarely survive, so for this silk dress to survive on the bottom of the Wadden Sea for more than 350 years is quite extraordinary.

The news of this incredible discovery travelled around the world and inspired Lauren Chater to imagine the woman who wore the dress. As a result, the seeds for The Winter Dress were well and truly sewn. (Sorry, couldn't resist).

Our main character Jo Baaker is a textiles historian and an interesting woman in her own right. In her words:

"One of the reasons I chose to pursue dress history was because I wanted to bear witness to the creation of textiles that simply won't be around in fifty years. The garments deserve better and so do the people who wore them." Page 155

Jo is astonished when she learns about the discovery of the dress in the book and I couldn't help but cringe alongside Jo when she hears how the dress was transported and hosed down by local divers trying to get the worst of the mud off. Eeeek!!! Jo is captivated by the dress and is honoured to be part of the curating process, desperately wondering about the life of the woman who once wore it.

The Winter Dress is a dual narrative and the author takes us back in time to Amsterdam in 1651 where we meet Anna Tesseltje on the last day of her old life. Anna's family have fallen on hard times, and after starting work as a laundress, her brother secures her a position as a companion to artist Catharina van Shurman.

Meanwhile, Jo finds herself caught up in the excitement of the discovery in Texel and the lurking professional competition made me grind my teeth while my heart ached for the choices Anna faced in her timeline.

Expertly researched and beautifully told, this is a well woven and alluring story with a lustre between the pages you're not likely to forget.

A total of 100 signed boxed proofs of The Winter Dress were produced for Australia and New Zealand and as a member of this blog tour, I was lucky enough to receive one of these special editions! It's such a wonderful bookish touch that appeals to we booklovers and bibliophiles and is a pleasure to house on my bookshelves.

The Winter Dress by Lauren Chater is engaging and the author's enthusiasm to imagine and reveal the owner of the dress is contagious. This is a story about grief, love, loss and discovery and is highly recommended for fans of Kate Forsyth, Tracy Chevalier, Kayte Nunn, Philippa Gregory, Kate Morton; and of course if you enjoyed Gulliver's Wife by Lauren Chater, you'll love this!

Overwordy. A bit dull.

1700's were not a safe time to be in childbirth - story about a midwife, a rapist, and a wayward husband who came home with tales of little people but also an opium addiction.

Set in London in the early 1700s, Gulliver's Wife by Lauren Chater is the fictionalised story of Mary Burton Gulliver. Mary's husband Lemuel is the main character in Gulliver's Travels, a novel written by Jonathan Swift and published in 1726.

Instead of reading about Lemuel Gulliver's sea journeys and adventures, we read about Mary's experiences on the home front. When Mary receives word her husband's ship has sunk and he is presumed dead, she is forced to eke out a meagre living as a midwife in order to support her two children. The novel covers the time in the novel that Lemuel is shipwrecked in Lilliput and when he finally makes it home three years later, his return throws Mary's life upside down.

Lemuel is a straight up unlikeable character and I found myself constantly hoping Mary would take a stand against the actions of her husband. As a consequence, I was often frustrated and disappointed when she wasn't able to assert the rights I enjoy as a 21st century woman of privilege. The relationship between Mary and her teenage daughter Bess was just as crucial to the story.

I haven't read Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift but it certainly didn't impede my enjoyment of Gulliver's Wife in any way.

Australian author Lauren Chater does a terrific job bringing Wapping to life on the page and I learned a lot about midwifery practices in the 1700s which was an unexpected bonus. I enjoyed Mary's struggle and attempt to protect her children against the dangers of poverty, while continuing to seek purpose and validation in her work as a midwife.

Gulliver's Wife by Australian author Lauren Chater is a terrific historical fiction novel and I can highly recommend it.

* Copy courtesy of Simon & Schuster *

Gulliver’s Wife is an inventive tale that imagines the life of Mary Gulliver, the wife of Lemuel Gulliver whose fictional adventures are authored by Jonathan Swift in Gulliver’s Travels.

Lauren Chater opens her story in London during the year of 1702. With her husband lost at sea and declared deceased, Mary Gulliver has fought hard to keep body and soul together. Left with crippling debts run up by her feckless husband and two young children to raise, it has taken her three years of hard work as a midwife in Wapping to rescue her family from penury, but all that is cruelly jeopardised when her husband unexpectedly returns. Clearly ill, restless and raving about little people, Mary can only hope that when her husband recovers his health, he will be a better man than the one who left. But it soon becomes clear that Lemuel has bought nothing but trouble home with him.

“Only yesterday she was a widow of independent means. Now she is some monstrous hybrid, a creature who has tasted freedom and knows too well how things might be otherwise.”

Life three centuries ago was challenging for women, and in Gulliver’s Wife, Chater explores the myriad of ways in women‘s agency was curtailed by men. As a wife Mary is beholden to her husband and his selfish and abusive treatment, but as a widow Mary had discovered a modicum of independence. Luckier than most, her work as a midwife provides her with respectability and income, but Mary is still at the mercy of men - to permit her to ply her trade, to educate her son, even to see her home safely at night. With her husband’s return, Mary is powerless as his behaviour threatens to destroy her reputation, their tenuous financial stability, and even their daughter’s future.

Mary attempts to hide the worst of her husband’s behaviour from their daughter Bess, a headstrong, naive girl who was crushed by her adored father’s reported death, and is thrilled by his return. Bess compares her mother’s ordered life unfavourably to her father’s adventures, failing to understand the realities of a woman’s lot in the early 18th century. Chater’s exploration of the fraught relationship between mother and daughter, as Bess rebels and Mary tries to protect her without wholly disillusioning her, is relatable even now.

The risks Bess take are even more frightening for Mary as a violent, serial rapist is stalking the lanes of Wapping, illustrating yet another way in which men assert control over women, as it is the women who are forced to change their behaviour to accomodate the rapist, and his victims who are ruined in men’s eyes.

All this oppression tends to make Gulliver’s Wife a rather bleak read, though it does end with a note of hope.

Rich in historical detail, offering vivid description, and complex characterisation, Gulliver’s Wife is an engrossing, literary read.½

Lauren Chater is an Australian author who loves to read and bake and has been blogging about her love of baking and decorating cookies at The Well Read Cookie for the last three years. In her latest book, Lauren brings her love of books and cookies together in Well Read Cookies - Beautiful Biscuits Inspired by Great Literature.

This scrumptious hardback is full of Lauren's favourite reads paired with cookies iced and decorated to reflect the theme or focus of the book. There are a variety of books represented, with children's books, classics and contemporary novels included and the decorated cookies are mouth-wateringly delicious.

Lauren includes the reasons she loves each of the 60 books chosen and also talks a little about each of the cookie designs. I thoroughly enjoyed the unique pairing of literature with creative and whimsical cookie designs and it made me hungry for biscuits and books all at the same time.

You'll definitely need a cup of tea and a biscuit when devouring Well Read Cookies by Lauren Chater. If you want more, feel free to turn the oven on, whip up a batch of sugar cookies and check out an extract from the book on my blog: https://www.carpelibrum.net/2018/11/review-extract-well-read-cookies-by.html

* Copy courtesy of Simon & Schuster *