Fallen Grace -- Mary Hooper

London, 1861. Grace and Lily Parkes were orphaned years ago, and since then, Grace has cared for her easily-confused and childlike older sister as best she can. They make their living -- barely -- by selling watercress on the street.

Their situation is common enough, though that doesn't make it any less difficult. But their problems are compounded by the fact that Grace is pregnant. She knows how it happened -- a sexual assault in a supposedly-safe place -- but she doesn't know the identity of her attacker.

Tragedy after tragedy after tragedy befall the Parkes sisters, but there may be a miracle on the horizon. The trouble is, there are people out there who want to make that miracle their own, and who have no scruples about the means or the ends to which they will go.

The storyline wasn't what kept me coming back to Fallen Grace-- it's the classic Lost Heiress Triumphs Over Wealthy Wicked Family plot found in any number of stories from the Victorian Era (and later) -- it was the period details and the atmosphere. There are vivid descriptions of the ways in which the poor made their living, and because so much of the storyline centers around the funeral trade, there's a lot in there about the Brookwood Necropolis Railway and Victorian mourning traditions in general. Historical figures make cameos, too: Grace makes eye contact with Prince Albert shortly before his death; Charles Dickens visits her workplace. At the end of the book, the author included both an extensive bibliography and some Historical Notes, which I enjoyed even more than the novel itself.

As there was never any question in my mind about where the story was headed -- and, actually, because Grace wasn't even aware of the Plot Against Her until three-quarters of the way through the book -- there wasn't much in the way of suspense until the very end. And even through those few moments of suspense, I was well aware of how the book would turn out. The characters are all classic archetypes: Beautiful, Loyal, Hardworking Girl; Evil, Cigar-Chomping, Brandy-Swilling, Money-Grubbing Up-And-Coming Politician; Handsome Young Solicitor.

I don't necessarily think that those things are flaws -- I think that the author was going for a Dickensian story complete with loads of coincidental connections and chance encounters -- and for younger readers who've read fewer books, Fallen Grace may feel more fresh. At any rate, the familiarity made it a comfortable read for me, one that I enjoyed while reading, but one that I found easy to set down for days on end, that never had me itching to get back.

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Book source: ILLed through my library.

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Read for the 2011 Historical Fiction Challenge.