This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Reviewed by Debs Carr
The Misbegotten follows the story of two women – Starling, taken in when she was approximately seven years old, dressed in rags and so traumatised that she was unable to speak, and Rachel Weeks, a gentlewoman who through no fault of her own has come down in the world. Having lost her entire family, Rachel is now working as a governess and has found her escape through marriage to a handsome man, Richard Weekes, an ambitious spirit and wine salesman. He promises her a better life and insists he will acquire this as his wealth and standing in the community rises along with the success of his business.
Starling, thrown aside by Richard Weekes days before his wedding to Rachel, thinks herself in love with him and immediately begins planning ways to hurt Rachel. Stunned to discover that Rachel is the mirror image of Alice, the foster sister, who took her in and loved her until her disappearance, Starling, now a servant in the Alleyn household, instigates a meeting between Rachel and Jonathan Alleyn, the mentally disturbed man who was desperately in love with Alice, only to lose her the day before his return from the horrors of war in Portugal twelve years before. Starling blames Jonathan for Alice’s death and her only joy in life, apart from stolen moments of intimacy with Richard Weekes, has been causing Jonathan Alleyn mental torture to punish him for killing Alice, a crime she is sure he is guilty of committing.
The story runs from the 1820s with Rachel trying to involve herself in her husband’s life
and Starling struggling to come to terms with losing the attentions of Richard Weekes to Rachel. It then moves back to when Starling and Alice lived on the farm together with Bridget, the woman Alice’s benefactor – and Jonathan Alleyn’s grandfather – had employed to raise the young foundling he discovered at the age of three. Their past becomes clear as the two woman gradually become friends, each having their own reasons for locating Alice. Will they discover what happened to Alice and if they do, will it change anything for them?
I read this book in two sittings and was relieved to be on holiday at the time so that I could completely lose myself in the story. From the first pages, each woman’s story pulls you in and as the tension builds it’s impossible to put the book down. From the strange, unacceptable behaviour of Jonathan Alleyn, so tortured by his memories that he can barely cope with living, to Rachel’s determination to be the supportive wife her husband expects, and also to Starling’s steely tenacity to discover what became of the woman she’d thought of as her sister. The secrets, lies and cruelty dealt by one person to another is at times shocking, as are Jonathan’s memories when he eventually reveals them.
This is a compelling, sinister story that’s impossible to put down and one that haunted me days after I’d reached the end. I loved it.
10/10
Katherine Webb’s Website