Girl in a Blue Dress (Gaynor Arnold)

As I have stated before, historical fiction is above and beyond my favorite genre, especially those that take place in old Victorian England. There is something about the elegance and etiquette of this time period that is second to none. Could you imagine having to present your "card" to a friend's maid to be "announced" to her? When was the last time you wrote a "letter" to your friend instead of a text or e-mail?

Girl in a Blue Dress has fictional characters; however, Arnold states that she drew her inspiration from the family life of Mr. Charles Dickens himself. There seems to be no greater Dickens scholar than she; yet, by her own admission, she took many liberties in extending the truth and filling-in-the-blanks. The novel begins with the end - the funeral of England's most admirable author, Alfred Gibson. He has long been separated from his "widow", Dorothea, the narrator of the story. Dorothea's flashbacks to her happy beginnings with Alfred, the births of many, many children with him, and finally, their painful separation, make up the gist of the novel. However, it is the inner torture of Alfred (as it is with many creative souls) that Gaynor seems to want to make the heart of Girl in a Blue Dress.

It is interesting that I immediately made a comparison in my mind with this novel to The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher. Both authors should be highly commended for their efforts and incomparable research. However, as with Whicher, I found myself looking at the clock, wanting this to end. It is just too long and wordy, with endless meetings upon meetings between the characters. Dorothea meets with one person for twenty pages to bare her soul, then she meets with another person for twenty pages. If you like novels with great character development, then this is the book for you. However, if you want some sort of plot to go with those characters, I would advise you to look elsewhere.

MY RATING - 4 for effort, 3 for readability

Alice I Have Been (Melanie Benjamin)

Alice I Have Been is a thoroughly researched, extremely impressive, strange dichotomy of a book. This work of historical fiction tells the story of Alice...you know, Alice...not the young girl who falls down a rabbit hole into a mystical wonderland, but the young girl named Alice Liddell, of whom Charles Dodgson (AKA Lewis Carroll) wrote Alice in Wonderland for.

Alice and her highbrow family lived in Oxford in a time when girls wore corsets and carried parasols and Victoria ruled the land. Mr. Dodgson was a professor at the Deanery where Mr. Liddell was the Dean. Mr. Dodson took Alice and her sisters along on picnics and boat rides, where he told them many fantastical stories. One was the story about Alice, which she begged him to write down. Needless to say, literary history was made.

However, the story does not stop there. Alice lived a long life, and along the way, had many, many sorrows. Everyone she associated with the "Alice" time period of her life died before her...some way too soon. Benjamin's writing is absolutely breathtaking as she develops the true story of Alice, and sometimes, in her own admission in the author's note, fills in the blanks (particularly as she states with the story of Mr. Ruskin).

In the beginning, I called this book a strange dichotomy, and that is simply because I don't know how to feel about it. Mr. Dodgson's infatuation with the very young Alice makes the reader very uncomfortable. I did not much care for the "true" person of Alice Liddell, as she does and says quite a few things in Alice I Have Been which do not make her very likable. However, when she begins to go through her many, many heartbreaks, the reader can see through the Victorian shell. Benjamin's book is beautifully written and should be read by all fans of Wonderland for the inside story.

MY RATING - 5