A Song Twice Over

by Brenda Jagger

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0688061699
• ISBN13: 9780688061692
• Release Date: January 1986
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 564 Pages
• Weight: 2.15 lbs.

Customer Reviews

So-So for Jagger; Very good for most authors

This is not one of my favorites. While Jagger adequately explores the familiar territory of women struggling to survive and thrive in the rapidly changing culture of the Industrial revolution, I do not find the same romantic connection as I do in the Barforth novels. The two heroines, Cara and Emma are intriguing, but the men in the book are flat and lifeless. I found it hard to fall in love with any of them. The change and growth in the main villain was too little too late and one other died offstage it seems just to make room for the supposed hero. I frankly was more interested in exploring a deepening relationship between Tristan and Emma than between Emma and Daniel.

an under-rated author

One of the last of Brenda Jagger's excellent novels of Victorian England. The story follows several characters over some years as their lives weave together: Cara, an Irish sewing girl; Gemma, a millowner's indulged daughter; and Daniel, an Irish idealist and sometime revolutionary. Daniel is a bit thin as a hero, but the women are fascinating, with Gemma struggling to find meaning and fulfillment in her restricted life, and Cara simply hoping to survive in a world that is ruthless towards the poor and unempowered. Gemma makes a rich marriage, Cara struggles to establish herself as a fashionable dressmaker, and both will at various points fall in love with Daniel as he tries to bring equal rights to the mill-workers of their sullen Yorkshire town. A strong and compelling read with strong and compelling characters. Cara - a Scarlett O'Hara if she had been born poor - is especially likeable, and another male character who presents initially as a villain will surprise you with unexpected humanity. This book and this author are neither of them as well known as they should be.