The International Writers Magazine: Review

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Women of Iron by Catherine King. Sphere - Paperback ISBN-10: 0751539074 - ISBN-13: 978-0751539073 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group ISBN-10: 0316029769 ISBN-13: 978-0316029766 • Claire Holland review Set in the Yorkshire South Riding during the Industrial Revolution, the story takes place amongst the canals of Humberside and the barges that keep the lifeblood (the iron trade) flowing. Life is hard and brutal and people are tough, especially the women who seem to have everything stacked against them: poverty, little education, no choices and sexually predatory men on all sides.

I must state at the outset that I have avoided romantic sagas for years, after having Catherine Cooksons thrust at me by my grandmother, who knew I liked to read. But, I chided myself, I should approach this with an open mind; I could be surprised, after all, as the writer’s biog declared, Catherine King is an academic and lecturer working in colleges and universities. Maybe this would be an intelligent Romantic Saga

Lissie is the illegitimate child of an aristocratic teenager and an unnamed but we are assured, high-ranking, young gentleman. When her mother dies in childbirth and her family want nothing to do with her, she is sold to a childless couple, Luther and Edie Dearne. He is a corrupt bargeman, whose livelihood is gradually being eroded by the encroaching railways: before too long the waterways will be obsolete and he will be struggling to make a living.
Her foster mother, who believes her husband has brought her his own illegitimate child, resents Lissie, using her as a domestic drudge while she drinks gin and, we are led to believe, indulges in a lesbian affair with her neighbour. Luther is frequently away from home, plying his fraudulent trade and so Lissie is miserable when he is not there. While dishonest, unscrupulous and thoroughly unpleasant, Luther does appear to have one redeeming feature: his love for his "daughter". And Lissie grows up hero-worshipping the man she believes to be her father.

At thirteen, Lissie meets Blake, the son of an honest Swedish merchant, Erik Svenson, who is cheated and, when he challenges him, murdered by Lissie’s father. Blake swears revenge but has to wait until he is old enough to exact it. He does not know that he is in love with the daughter of his father’s murderer. Lissie does not know that her father has killed Blake’s father. When the two men do finally meet and it appears Blake has avenged himself, Lissie’s life collapses, with terrible consequences.

As a Romantic Saga the story follows a very familiar path and I suppose it does exactly what is expected of it, in that it provides a very long read, but there is no real spark and it is not too difficult to work out what is going to happen: there were no surprises.

The book is too long: 450 pages to tell a story that could easily be told in half the time. As writers, we are advised to "Show not Tell": the reader should be able to see what the character is feeling and thinking but Catherine King not only spends a long time telling the reader what is happening she also goes on to repeat it, often explaining again what she has just described. Perhaps she has forgotten that readers often want to work things out for themselves. Unfortunately, this leaves her readers with a time consuming exercise and I found myself frequently checking to see how many pages were left.

Peopled by two-dimensional characters who never really come alive, it is very difficult to care what happens to them. Even when something appalling does happen to Lissie, I couldn’t summon any genuine concern for her welfare.

While not a bad book, "Women of Iron" just isn’t very good. I feel that a writer of Catherine King’s undoubted academic experience and qualities could produce something much better. Admittedly, it is well researched and could have been a fascinating account of a now extinct way of life.

© Claire Holland March 2008
familyholland at talktalk.net

Claire is studying for her Masters at the University of Portsmouth


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