Review of Nicola Cornick's The Secrets of the Rose, set during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715

Nicola Cornick writes dual-period novels about unjustly forgotten women where both narrative strands compel equally, which doesn’t happen often. Fans of Mary Stewart (Touch Not the Cat in particular), Anya Seton’s Devil Water, and Susanna Kearsley’s 18th-century epics will relish her latest, which tells the parallel stories of purported Jacobite heroine Dorothy Forster and a modern biographer who grew up in Dorothy’s family home.

Hannah Armstrong returns to Bamburgh Hall in Northumberland with plans to research local heroine Grace Darling but gets more intrigued by Dorothy, especially after finding Dorothy’s enigmatic portrait at the Hall, surrounded by Jacobite motifs. Hannah’s stepmother, Diana, initially encourages her interest in Dorothy but oddly changes her mind later. According to legend, Dorothy took a late-night ride to London to liberate her Jacobite brother from prison and held a fake funeral for him, abetting his escape, and Hannah wonders if this daring adventure was true.

In 1715, Dorothy, who oversees her ill father’s household, gets fed up with male power games after learning about a planned Jacobite rebellion that has her eldest brother, Tom, among the plotters. She foresees only disaster and fears retribution. A touch of mysticism enhances the rich atmosphere. In her youth, Dorothy shared a telepathic bond with a boy whose identity she never knew. Possibly it was the Earl of Derwentwater, her charming near-betrothed, or maybe it was blacksmith John Armstrong.

Various layers of Bamburgh’s thrilling history reveal themselves here, dating from periods before Uhtred’s Bebbanburgh through the present. Among other sites, we get to visit the imposing castle and rocky coastline, with gorgeous views of the Farne Islands in the distance. Both protagonists have haunting, slow-burning love stories, but the 1715 Rising itself is not romanticized. Rather, Cornick demonstrates the courage of women forced to confront turmoil caused by foolish men.

The Secrets of the Rose was published by Boldwood Books in February; I reviewed it from NetGalley for May's Historical Novels Review. Among the other novels by Nicola Cornick I've reviewed here are The Phantom Tree and The Other Gwyn Girl, and I'd interviewed the author about her House of Shadows in 2015.  I'm eager to see what she'll be writing about next.

Photos of Bamburgh Castle (2014), by Mark Johnson

It was a treat to read more about the history surrounding Bamburgh in Northumberland after having visited there in 2014. The photos just above were taken by my husband, and there are some more in his Flickr album. One day I hope to go back!