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?
Continue reading Book Review: ‘The Bookbinder of Jericho’ by Pip Williams