Archive - Wednesday, 19 February 2003


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The Sweetest Thing by Fiona Shaw (Virago £12.99)

YORK author Fiona Shaw uses the background of her home city in the 1880s to give us a highly-readable novel. Friends Harriet and Mary leave the Yorkshire fishing village where they had been 'flither-lasses' for York, where they hope to find a new and better life.

They do, but not in the way they expect when they find work in a chocolate factory, owned by the Ransome family, prominent members of the local Quaker community. William and Caleb aim to make the business more and more profitable by any means, even though they are against their Quaker principles.

Their brother, with his own tannery, is a philanthropist who seeks to better the lot of working girls. To this end, he is compiling a photographic record of them with the aid of Benbow.

This brings Harriet and Mary into contact with them with results they never expected when they left their village.

Fiona Shaw captures the atmosphere of the late 1880s as she imposes believable characters on a setting with a skill that brings it and them alive, leaving us looking forward to her next novel after this fine debut.

Updated: 10:06 Wednesday, February 19, 2003




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