The lacquer lady (Tennyson Jesse) 12

The lacquer lady was included among the wonderful pile of VMCs that FleurFisher kindly sent me back in February. I had heard a lot of good things about this one, but put off reading it - I had LOVED A pin to see the peepshow, but had been extremely disappointed by Moonraker, and the blurb on the back of this one didn't really sell it to me. How glad I am that I am doing this challenge, because I really enjoyed The lacquer lady in the end and would probably have passed over it.

Written following a prolonged trip to Burma that Jesse made in the 1920s, where she experienced court life, The lacquer lady is the story of schoolgirl Fanny; half Burmese she has been educated in a school in Brighton and returns to Manderley at the start of the book to be reunited with her parents. Fanny immediately emerges as somewhat of a character, not terribly truthful and constantly attempting to better her position. She wasn't hugely likeable, and this characteristic continues throughout the book (but sometimes it is interesting to have a less likeable heroine?). Once in Manderley she becomes friends with one of the princesses at the court of the Konbaung Dynasty and frequently is a guest at the palace; Fanny spends more and more time in the company of court, becoming immersed in Burmese culture and life.

The book goes on to relate two parallel strands; firstly Fanny's ageing and need to come to terms with this, but secondly, the political changes in Burma in the 1880s. Fanny is so caught up in the luxuries of courtly life that this almost passes her by... I didn't know anything about this place/time so it was absolutely fascinating from a historical perspective.

It's a very early VMC, but like Tennyson Jesse's other works, it's only been published once with an original green cover.

Moonraker (Tennyson Jesse) 55

Having loved A pin to see the peepshow, I had high hopes for Moonraker, but ultimately I was disappointed as although it was a good book in itself it was a very different book indeed.

This is a book of pirates and their ship, The Moonraker. Jacky Jacka has signed on with a Plymouth ship, The Piskie, and is heading for the West Indies when they are captured. It's an adventure story in the grain of Stevenson or Kipling, but it was just not what I was anticipating from Jesse!

I'm interested to see what the third Tennyson Jesse VMC, The lacquer lady, is like. Luckily I have a copy on the way from a blogging friend and I'm sure I'll be reading it as soon as it arrives!

Pinhole to see the peepshow (Tennyson Jesse) 11

There is only one Virago edition of this amazing book, although Penguin seem to also have published it with a green cover. I'm at a bit of a loss to know how to write about this book; the blurb on the back gives nothing away, and if I ever read the reviews on Amazon which explain the real-life story that it is based on then I had forgotten it. This meant that the conclusion of the book came absolutely out of the blue for me, and I could not have predicted it from the first chapters. So, I'm not going to tell you the events that it is based on, but I am going to plead with you to bump this book up your wishlist and avoid looking at Amazon reviews, because it enabled me to get through 2 evenings at Cambridge without feeling homesick at all.

I can briefly outline the story without giving too much away, and explain the meaning of the title. It is about a girl called Julia, who we meet as she is in her final years of school. She then goes on to work in a dress shop, and is swiftly promoted. Unfortunately, her home circumstances change when her father dies and her uncle and his family move in, making things uncomfortable and tense. She marries Herbert to escape, but never falls in love with him; things are bearable at first while he is away at war, but she becomes unhappy on his return. She begins an affair with Leonard, setting in motion the train of events that leads the book to its startling conclusion.

The title comes from an episode in an early part of the book; a young boy at Julia's school has a "peep-show" in a box - you can peer through a hole and see another world for the price of a pin. Throughout the book Julia is aspiring to find another world beyond her own life, but is forced to realise that she can't live in her imagination.