cover image A Song Twice Over

A Song Twice Over

Brenda Jagger. William Morrow & Company, $0 (564pp) ISBN 978-0-688-06169-2

In the manner of George Eliot and with a comparable concern for motivation, Jagger (A Winter's Child depicts the rigid social conventions in a clannish Yorkshire mill town, where two spirited women try to surmount the limitations imposed by their class, gender and circumstances. In 1840, Cara Adeane comes to Frizingley from Ireland to join her parents; soon after, her father deserts the family, leaving Cara, her illegitimate child and her mother to endure deprivation and squalor. Cara barters her sexual favors for financial assistance from a callous, manipulative landowner. Her new dress shop soon fills with patrician members of the ""millocracy,'' such as strong-willed Gemma Dallam, who marries a charming wastrel to escape her vacuous life and possessive parents. Though Cara and Gemma are vastly different, both love Daniel Carey, a firebrand who outspokenly champions suffrage reforms at grave personal risk. In a style reminiscent of a Victorian novel, Jagger memorably portrays this trio's fortitude set against a background of mill workers' impoverishment and their employers' disdain. 25,000 first printing; $25,000 ad/promo. (April 24)