This is a book I should have read and reviewed before now – apologies to the publisher and NetGalley for my lateness, but thank you for the review copy.
This is a beautiful piece of historical fiction set in Oxford during the First World War. Peggy and Maude are twin sisters who work in the bookbindery at Oxford University Press, very much part of the ‘town’. Despite this, Peggy is an avid reader, living with her sister on a barge stuffed with the bindery’s rejected books, and dreams of becoming part of the ‘gown’ side of Oxford – a scholar at the prestigious university where woman aren’t even given the degrees they earn. When war breaks out, the sisters’ lives change forever as the men of the town join the military and Oxford fills with refugees from Belgium and those injured in the fighting. Peggy might finally get her chance at her dream, but at what cost?
Being an unashamed bookworm, I loved the fact that books and bookbinding underpin this whole story, Peggy and Maude’s deceased mother passed the joy of books and learning on to Peggy and the descriptions of their floating home insulated with books and fragments of books was a joy. I could imagine being like Peggy, reading all the bits of the books she was meant to be binding and it feeding her curiosity. The university library also becomes important to the plot as somewhere gradually opened to Peggy; along with the fabulous librarian, this was another pleasure of the book. These lovely settings balance the more traumatic ones in the novel, notably the military hospitals packed with their sick and dying patients.
The contrast between the two sisters is also an interesting element. Peggy – our heroine and main focus – is determined, clever and spirited but held back initially by her duty to look after Maude. Her twin sister has no aspiration beyond her bindery job, paper-folding hobby and the confines of their cosy home; she also has limited language, only repeating phrases she has heard from others. However, the dynamic between the two sisters shifts as Maude’s strengths become more evident – and Peggy starts to feel her own limitations.
This is – in many ways – an uplifting story, but one set against the hardships of the First World War. We aren’t spared the realities of war – the horrific injuries incurred by soldiers, the traumatised refugees, the men of the bindery who never return – and it feels authentic. It isn’t cosy and Peggy faces some tough choices and setbacks on her path, not least the sexism of the age.
I’d recommend this to anyone who enjoys immersive historical fiction, especially that which focuses on women’s experiences of war – fans of Lissa Evans’ brilliant Second World War novels would love this, I think.
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