Daisy Goodwin - My Last Duchess

Here is another novel partially based in Dorset. This book was selected for The TV Book Club 2011. I have to say having watched the programme they were rather sniffy over this book, but my advice is ignore this media snobbery and indulge in this book. I loved it! This book is a rights of passage novel for women. It is 1894 and young wealthy American Cora Cash comes to England to marry a title, shoved by her ambitious mother. There she enters a world of duplicity and rules that she does not understand. Yes, it is fundamentally a romance but there is so much more in this. It would make an interesting book group title, the contrast between the two worlds, the aristocrats of the US have money in the UK they have breeding. Cora's maid is black. In the Us she has restrictions imposed on her, in England there is no prejudice and she can openly have a relationship with a white manservant. She has a freedom within the constraints of her class that she could only dream about in the US. This would also make an excellent holiday read, ( four days off at Easter!) easy to read and carries you along at a great pace.