Paul's Reviews > Mrs England

I have already read Halls’ account of the Pendle witches and she writes historical fiction from a female perspective. This is an undemanding novel, set I would guess in the early 1900s. It is a bit gothic and is a bit of a slow burner. The main character Ruby May is a Norland Institute nurse/nanny. After her first family emigrated she is sent to Yorkshire to the family of Mr Charles England and his wife Lilian and their four children. Each of the main characters has secrets which gradually unravel over the course of the novel. Halls also provides a pretty good description of how coercive control works. The setting is in the Hardcastle crags area of Yorkshire and there is a bleakness to it which is quite pleasing.
Of course there is no such thing as the perfect family and Ruby is alerted from the beginning that all is not well:
‘Something’s not right here.’
I was aware of Mr Booth’s eyes on me, and he seemed to hold his breath. ‘What do you mean?’
‘In the house. With the family.’
One of the shocks at the end is based on a real event.
Having said all of that there is a real twist in the last sentence which makes the reader re-evaluate the whole of the book.
As I have said, it was undemanding and read easily. Halls is good at creating atmosphere. It didn’t quite, for me, match her first novel, but has been a good summer read. It was written during the first lockdown and is dedicated to the NHS.