The Unreliable Death of Lady Grange by Sue Lawrence

I loved the sound of this novel and couldn't wait to dive in. I was intrigued by the title The Unreliable Death of Lady Grange with the immediate enigma as to how a death can be 'unreliable'? I was even more excited when I discovered that The Unreliable Death of Lady Grange was based upon a real person as it elicits a burst of sympathy for her before I'd even met Lady Rachel Grange. 

I have to tell you that I wasn't disappointed, Lawrence has a real flair for both spinning a great yarn and for amazing character depiction too. The narrative is told in the first person from many character's viewpoints and this allows all of the main players to be multi-faceted as opposed to the binary good or bad. There were times when I felt some sympathy for Lord Grange and could fully understand why he wanted out of the marriage but obviously not the lengths he went to ascertain this. The thought of his second wife does make me smile 

 Lawrence portrays Rachel Grange as a woman who knows her own mind in a time when women, especially high born ladies, were not supposed to. She behaves in a way that would be perfectly acceptable nowadays and this made me connect and sympathise with her plight even more. Rachel may feel the deprivations more as she's had no experience of them but everything else she suffers as every other woman does and has throughout time. The poignancy of this is highlighted with regards to Rachel's separation from her children which made me want to cry for her. It is the women in the novel who no matter what their social backgrounds have similar experiences and as such have sympathy if not empathy for each other. This, to me, is where the true heart of the novel resides as it provides a warmth and a ray of hope in the most harrowing of times.

This is a superb novel which I highly recommend.