Description
In 1860s Britain there is nothing unusual in a man beating his wife. When George Hadley’s aggression triggers his own stroke and coma, his wife discovers all she thinks of as hers is to pass to her young son Toby. Adelaide seems as powerless as her ladies’ maid, Sobriety.
Beyond the strictures of domestic and social expectation, these two women of different class remake the rules to discover what lies beneath the drapes and tassels of Victorian Britain. Life, they find, is urgent, exciting… but cheap. Even as they adventure into alleyways, a tunnel and a séance, their innocence is gone.
What Empty Things Are These is about what happens to women who look into the face of this newly industrialized and still patriarchal age. Change is everywhere, exhilarating, corrupt, terrifying. Fraud and farce abound. Spiritualists prey on the confused; women are encased in clothing that imply both modesty and sexuality; the powerful prey upon the weak. Adelaide and Sobriety, in their way, show us that every era has secrets that must be uncovered for real social progress.
But the truth of the age is encapsulated for them, in the underlying tale of the vulnerable urchin girl, the nameless victim of this pitiless society.
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“What Empty Things Are These is an exquisite story of friendship across class, the realisation of self worth, and the delicate emergence of female solidarity in the face of society’s disdain. Crozier has created a glorious Victorian London that creaks and groans and gasps in its smoky, damp darkness and stifling corsetry. A stunning debut and a triumph of imagination and historical voice.”
– Alison Goodman, NYT bestselling author of Eon, Eona and The Dark Days Club series.
“Elegant, witty and sharply insightful, What Empty Things Are These is a mid-Victorian riff on the intellectual and actual freedom of women – one that cleverly begs the question of what has, and what hasn’t, changed today.”
– Kim Kelly, author of the novels Black Diamonds, This Red Earth, The Blue Mile, Paper Daisies, Wild Chicory and Jewel Sea
Melanie Cossey –
Thoroughly enjoyed this book.
Adelaide Hadley is a subservient Victorian wife, married to a man she doesn’t love in a “business arrangement.” When her husband suffers a stroke while caning her, it releases her and her maid, Sobriety from a life of oppression. But this is not a given. It is something that Adelaide has to work at, in the face of unsupportive relatives, a self-indulgent son, and a society that isn’t quite ready to see women as creatures of autonomy.
J.L. Crozier elegantly introduces and develops her character. The writing is delicious, and Adelaide’s growth is palpable. This is a character you can really root for. The storyline unfolds with interest as Adelaide and her maid Sobriety form a friendship and try to do right by the poor unfortunates around them.
I recommend this book for anyone who loves Victorian literature. The voice of the story almost flawlessly mimics the authentic Victorian voice of the century-old language. The book transports the reader to a time of rustling skirts, curtained and draped living quarters and the Victorian city, teeming with poor unfortunates and shady goings-on.
Mandy-Suzanne Wong –
As soon as Adelaide Hadley finds herself in want of a bookmark, you will be rooting for her. Domestic crisis or no, her page of Wilkie Collins must be bookmarked! I sometimes wonder how the plucky heroines of historical fiction get to be so, well, plucky. Most of them seem cursed with pluckiness upon conception. But not Adelaide. She has to earn her pluck. She has to earn it and work at it, and let me tell you it is hard—especially in nineteenth-century London, where women of every class are expected to be virtually incapable of discerning their own priorities, let alone making decisions or (heaven forbid) reading and writing. To decide even to attempt such unfeminine faux pas requires a resolve that Adelaide must struggle to sow within herself and nurture, having been stifled all her life not just by patriarchal society, but also by violence and a loveless domestic life; belittled even by her son, imprisoned in needlework and heavy furniture, confined by hoops and veils and crinoline that barely allow her to move. In beautiful and subtle prose, J.L. Crozier weaves portraits of Victorian women of all stripes—from wealthy wives in gilded cages to servants, street urchins, and spiritualists—together in a dark tapestry as seen through Adelaide’s eyes while she herself, marginalized and powerless, dreams of independence.