This is no surprise when you realise that page 48 is where the PRB is introduced – the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. I made it past page 43 and found that it really started to take off at this point. However, I was asked to go back to the book for a monthly book club read so I started with a more determined and focused mind set. We all have days like that and I drifted away. No, but seriously, this book didn’t engage me from the outset. Second confession – should this be a blog entitled Confessions of an Academic Turned Book Reviewer?! But don’t worry, I won’t be writing an academic essay today!

The problem with this approach though is that we get too tied up in how true to the period the narrative is. As an academic who researches Victorian newspapers and comedy, this book falls into the genre we like to call Neo-Victorian. The blurb firmly establishes the context as London 1850. I must confess that I fell in love with this book for its cover! I was intrigued with the snow globe effect, London as a microcosm with St Pauls and the Crystal Palace at the centre. And it is only a matter of time before they meet again. After seeing Iris at the site of the Great Exhibition he finds he cannot forget her.Īs Iris’s world expands, Silas’s obsession grows. Silas Reed is a curiosity collector, enchanted by the strange and beautiful. Iris agrees, on the condition that he teaches her to paint.ĭreaming of freedom, Iris throws herself into a new life of art and love, unaware that she has caught the eye of a second man. Louis is a painter who yearns to have his work displayed in the Royal Academy, and he is desperate for Iris to be his model. On a crowded street, the dollmaker Iris Whittle meets the artist Louis Frost. Why not give Dr Horrocks a warm welcome in the comments below. Today is Dr Horrocks, first review for us and it is for The Doll Factory.

Today we have anew addition to the family. We have a lovely wee team of reviewers now with Kim, J.A. It is a very special day here on Love Books Group.

The doll house elizabeth macneal