HISTORICAL   | Daily Mail Online

 THE GOVERNESS

by Wendy Holden (Welbeck £12.99, 400 pp)

At 22, Marion Crawford was a progressive, Left-leaning teacher whose heartfelt vocation was to educate children in the slums of Edinburgh but, instead, she spent 17 years as governess to Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret.

This richly researched and detailed novel puts the little-known figure of ‘Crawfie’ centre stage, shining a spotlight on this vibrant, principled woman who attempted to bring normality and freedom to the childhood years of the Queen and her sister.

All while paying a high price in her personal life — ‘In trying to free them from their prison, she had incarcerated herself’.

Sadly, her career ended in ignominy.

This is a hugely entertaining, emotionally satisfying story of love and loyalty.

A ROOM MADE OF LEAVES

by Kate Grenville (Canongate £16.99, 336 pp)

John Macarthur was a notorious early settler of the New South Wales penal colony, who (very dubiously) acquired vast tracts of land and a reputation as a wool trade pioneer. History is largely silent on the role of his wife, but bestselling author Kate Grenville gives voice to this reticent woman, allowing her smart, sparky, shrewd heroine a chance ‘at last to speak’.

And what an eloquent story Elizabeth Macarthur tells, as she defiantly claims her own role in the cultivation of those successful merino sheep, even as she offers an entirely different perspective on her famous husband, who, in her eyes was ‘slant, guarded, sly, evasive’.

In short, evocative chapters Grenville unspools the story of a woman constrained by the social mores of the day and hemmed in by an unhappy marriage, but who, nevertheless, managed to forge an expansive inner life.

THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE DAY

by Eleanor Wasserberg (Fourth Estate £14.99, 416 pp)

Petulant, pretty Alicia Oderfeldt is having her portrait painted in the opulent family home by a young, poor painter, Jozef Pienta, who falls wistfully in love with quiet, studious Karolina, Alicia’s older sister.

Away from the sequestered luxury of the girls’ lives there are attacks on the Jews in Krakow, but the Oderfeldt parents naively believe their wealth will save them. The Germans invade Poland, the Jewish community is immediately targeted and their world collapses into brutal chaos.

The family flee, leaving behind Alicia’s precious picture — a poignant reminder of all that will be lost as the Oderfeldts and Jozef are wrenched apart.

Wasserberg diligently tells the harrowing stories of the main characters as they are incarcerated in labour camps, displaced, lost, murdered.

But the constant shifts in timelines and perspectives makes for a disjointed read, creating an unfortunate emotional distance from her characters.