The Maiden
Jun. 13th, 2025 08:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearThe Maiden by Kate Foster is set in 1670s Scotland, following Lady Christian, who is sentenced to death for killing her lover, and Violet Blythe, a young woman taken into the household by said lover after he finds her in a brothel.
I was initially reasonably engaged by the present tense narrative of Christian in prison and the flashbacks to the year before, detailing the events leading up to the murder. But I was having some issues with it, in terms of the 'status of women in the 1600s' theme and the potentially unreliable narrator. Then, we unexpectedly got a chapter from Violet's viewpoint and I just hated her narrative voice. I checked ahead and saw that she had a lot of chapters throughout the book and decided I didn't want to have to wade through those when I wasn't wholly sold on Christian's narrative either.
So, another unfinished book, unfortunately.
I was initially reasonably engaged by the present tense narrative of Christian in prison and the flashbacks to the year before, detailing the events leading up to the murder. But I was having some issues with it, in terms of the 'status of women in the 1600s' theme and the potentially unreliable narrator. Then, we unexpectedly got a chapter from Violet's viewpoint and I just hated her narrative voice. I checked ahead and saw that she had a lot of chapters throughout the book and decided I didn't want to have to wade through those when I wasn't wholly sold on Christian's narrative either.
So, another unfinished book, unfortunately.
