The Tenth Gift

March 10, 2008
In an entertaining if uneven debut novel from a U.K. publishing executive, dual story lines feature spirited English heroines—a 17th-century country girl and a modern-day craft shop owner—both with a gift for embroidery. As a farewell gift from her married lover, Julia Lovat receives a book published in 1625 and filled with a variety of sewing patterns. Inside the manual, Julia discovers the words, scribbled in pencil over the pages, of Cat Ann Tregenna, a 19-year-old British servant kidnapped by Muslim raiders and taken to Morocco to be sold into slavery. En route, the pirate leader, Al-Andalusi, is wounded in a battle, and Cat and her needlepoint skills are called on to stitch up the man’s wounds, an encounter that leads to a tangled interfaith rivalry. As Julia struggles to shake off the dregs of her affair, she finds inspiration in Cat’s makeshift diary and travels to Morocco to track down proof that Cat really existed; in the process, she discovers a new life of her own. Johnson imbues her historical story line with a captivating energy and momentum, but the humdrum contemporary quasi-romance doesn’t pull its share of the weight.

Two performers narrate a complex story that moves around in time, jaunts through various locales, and bridges the romance and mystery genres. Susan Duerden's crisp British accents portray modern-day embroiderer Julia Lovat, who is stunned by the rejection of her lover and his parting gift, a seventeenth-century book. The book reveals a partial history of a 19-year-old embroiderer named Cat, who was taken from her Penzance estate by Barbary pirates in the seventeenth century. Duerden executes a variety of roles--from Julia's manipulative ex-lover to the Muslim sea captain who captures Cat. John Lee's narration equals Duerden's as he also delivers multiple characters--from Cat's caring cousin, Robert, to a seventeenth-century Dutch servant. In the end their performances make a fine duet and strengthen the story's parallels. S.W. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine