The Linnet Bird

May 2, 2005
A historical romance with a soft-focus cover, Holeman's first adult novel (she's written a handful of young adult books, including Search of the Moon King's Daughter) opens in Calcutta but quickly flashes back to 1823 Liverpool, England, where its heroine, Linny Gow, is turned into a prostitute by her father shortly after her 11th birthday. Surrounded by poverty and brutality, Linny clings to her dead mother's assurance that she has noble blood, a distinction that solidifies her determination to escape from her sexual slavery and break into the genteel class. Holeman excels at painting the different milieus of the time-from the clammy docks where the whores ply their trade, to the stuffy drawing rooms where the ladies gossip over tea, to India, where a "fishing fleet" of poor young well-bred women go in search of husbands. Her physical descriptions can be powerfully tactile and absorbing. But her storylines are couched in cliches, and much of Linny's character is determinedly anachronistic; she's almost proud, for example, of her sexual experience. Such flaws will likely put off those expecting a more rigorous depiction of the period, but Holeman's novel may nonetheless prove an engrossing favorite with historical romance aficionados and fans of Sarah Waters's Victorian dramas.

May 1, 2005
Liverpool in 1826 offers few options for an orphaned girl forced into prostitution by her stepfather. However, through luck and cleverness, Linny Gow eventually manages to establish a tenuous hold on middle-class respectability. A chance to accompany another young woman to India seems to offer a fresh start. Unfortunately, life in the Raj proves just as stifling and restricted as Victorian England, with Linny blackmailed into marrying a homosexual and the British matrons condemning Linny's sympathy for the poor and her contacts with the natives. Holeman, who has written historical fiction for young adults, excels at descriptions of Linny's surroundings, from the slums of Liverpool and Calcutta to the vistas of Kashmir. Numerous minor characters and subplots swirl around Linny, but her compelling story holds center stage and drives readers forward. Fans of historical romance will relish her tale. -Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State Univ. Lib., Mankato

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2005
Liverpool, England, in Victorian times was no place to be a poor girl. Linny Gow knows this firsthand. When her mother dies, her father begins prostituting her at the age of 12. Linny manages to leave prostitution, and with the help of a kindly would-be doctor, she begins to pass herself off as a middle-class woman. When Linny gets the opportunity to leave England behind, she sets off for India without looking back. In India she meets the cruel Somers Ingram. Ingram recognizes her from her days in Liverpool and blackmails her into a sexless and violent marriage. Coincidences and luck, both good and bad, abound. Linny's intelligence and pluck may be almost a cliche in historical literature, but the plot moves at a fast enough pace, and the descriptions are so vivid that the book becomes a page-turner.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)