Hidden hues!
Fair as a Star (Victorian Romantics #1) by Mimi Matthews
A gentle regency romance with a slightly different set of circumstances, sensitively portraying the issue of mental well being. One could be lulled into thinking this is just a pleasing romance. But there's so much more happening here I think.
A young woman, Beryl Burnham is promised to one brother whilst having feelings for another. The so called Rivenhall Triplets, describe the three brothers born quickly in succession. Now only two are left. "Henry, now a baronet ... [and] Mark, curate to the current vicar of Shepton Worthy."
Beryl became engaged to Sir Henry Rivenhall. Her reasons are complex. Having secretly suffered from melancholy for years she agrees to marry him, more to appease her mother, to hide her secret, and to allay her fears about proposed draconian treatments. Fearing Beryl's melancholy might become public, her aunt whisked her off to Paris for three months with the hope that she'd be distracted enough by that city and trousseau shopping, that she'd recover her equilibrium.
That doesn't work. If anything Beryl becomes more stoic about her upcoming marriage and more worried about her mental health.
Upon her return to the village Beryl becomes even more aware of how much she's missed Mark, her fiancé's brother, her vicar and her best friend.
Still she has a wedding to plan for and a dress from Worth and Bobergh to wear.
When I say gentle, Beryl knows the path she's treading is not what she really wants, but her illness seems to have left her without the will to do anything else. She's a dutiful daughter, although the talk of brutal treatments has given rise to fears that she might be pushed towards these if she's not careful. Indeed she fixates on the doctor's reports. It seems like she's drifting through life, carried along by the will of others, letting life happen to her. Beryl is not proactive.
Then there's her needlepoint. Beryl's skill and focus on the hidden. White embroidery! (The more I think about this idea the more enamoured I've become. I'm now looking at my Grandmothers table cloths and napkins and thorough a much more informed filter.)
“Hiding in plain sight," Mark says of Beryl's whitework.
"...the beauty of whitework. It’s never ostentatious.” It was her favorite form of embroidery, white thread on matching white fabric. She liked to place small figures on the corner of a linen handkerchief or the hemmed cuff of a cambric undersleeve. Secret stitches that hid in plain sight, just as Mark had said. The sort that were discovered unexpectedly, and that gave the finder an instant of surprised delight."
And this is the metaphor of Beryl, unostentatious, hiding in plain sight.
Although their conversation about a semi precious stone--beryl, turns these thoughts upside down. Nicely juxtaposed when one considers the properties of white work and the beryl stone side by side. Like Beryl, one secretive and hidden, the other wonderfully hued. I found these clever, insightful interpretations of the person Beryl is.
Sure there's drama here but that thoughtfulness that imbues the novel is catching.
A Victory Editing ARC via NetGalley
****
A young woman, Beryl Burnham is promised to one brother whilst having feelings for another. The so called Rivenhall Triplets, describe the three brothers born quickly in succession. Now only two are left. "Henry, now a baronet ... [and] Mark, curate to the current vicar of Shepton Worthy."
Beryl became engaged to Sir Henry Rivenhall. Her reasons are complex. Having secretly suffered from melancholy for years she agrees to marry him, more to appease her mother, to hide her secret, and to allay her fears about proposed draconian treatments. Fearing Beryl's melancholy might become public, her aunt whisked her off to Paris for three months with the hope that she'd be distracted enough by that city and trousseau shopping, that she'd recover her equilibrium.
That doesn't work. If anything Beryl becomes more stoic about her upcoming marriage and more worried about her mental health.
Upon her return to the village Beryl becomes even more aware of how much she's missed Mark, her fiancé's brother, her vicar and her best friend.
Still she has a wedding to plan for and a dress from Worth and Bobergh to wear.
When I say gentle, Beryl knows the path she's treading is not what she really wants, but her illness seems to have left her without the will to do anything else. She's a dutiful daughter, although the talk of brutal treatments has given rise to fears that she might be pushed towards these if she's not careful. Indeed she fixates on the doctor's reports. It seems like she's drifting through life, carried along by the will of others, letting life happen to her. Beryl is not proactive.
Then there's her needlepoint. Beryl's skill and focus on the hidden. White embroidery! (The more I think about this idea the more enamoured I've become. I'm now looking at my Grandmothers table cloths and napkins and thorough a much more informed filter.)
“Hiding in plain sight," Mark says of Beryl's whitework.
"...the beauty of whitework. It’s never ostentatious.” It was her favorite form of embroidery, white thread on matching white fabric. She liked to place small figures on the corner of a linen handkerchief or the hemmed cuff of a cambric undersleeve. Secret stitches that hid in plain sight, just as Mark had said. The sort that were discovered unexpectedly, and that gave the finder an instant of surprised delight."
And this is the metaphor of Beryl, unostentatious, hiding in plain sight.
Although their conversation about a semi precious stone--beryl, turns these thoughts upside down. Nicely juxtaposed when one considers the properties of white work and the beryl stone side by side. Like Beryl, one secretive and hidden, the other wonderfully hued. I found these clever, insightful interpretations of the person Beryl is.
Sure there's drama here but that thoughtfulness that imbues the novel is catching.
A Victory Editing ARC via NetGalley
****
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