A Song Twice Over - Softcover

Jagger, Brenda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0449210405 ISBN 13: 9780449210406

Publisher: Fawcett, 1987

Synopsis

Two young women in love with the same man--Cara, poor but beautiful with smooth speech and French pride, and Gemma, wealthy but plain with a rebellious spirit--struggle to escape the conventions and conformity of a nineteenth-century Yorkshire mill town

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

In the manner of George Eliot and with a comparable concern for motivation, Jagger (A Winter's Child depicts the rigid social conventions in a clannish Yorkshire mill town, where two spirited women try to surmount the limitations imposed by their class, gender and circumstances. In 1840, Cara Adeane comes to Frizingley from Ireland to join her parents; soon after, her father deserts the family, leaving Cara, her illegitimate child and her mother to endure deprivation and squalor. Cara barters her sexual favors for financial assistance from a callous, manipulative landowner. Her new dress shop soon fills with patrician members of the "millocracy," such as strong-willed Gemma Dallam, who marries a charming wastrel to escape her vacuous life and possessive parents. Though Cara and Gemma are vastly different, both love Daniel Carey, a firebrand who outspokenly champions suffrage reforms at grave personal risk. In a style reminiscent of a Victorian novel, Jagger memorably portrays this trio's fortitude set against a background of mill workers' impoverishment and their employers' disdain. 25,000 first printing; $25,000 ad/promo.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

In a 19th century Yorkshire mill town, Irish immigrant Cara Adeane struggles to support her son and mother. Gemma Gage, an industrialist's daughter, fights society's conventions, which keep women the property of their fathers and husbands. Both love Daniel Carey, a Chartist devoted to improving laborers' working conditions. Cara refuses to follow him and spends her life acquiring material wealth and repressing her emotions. Gemma uses her money to support Daniel's causes and eventually wins him. The cast of characters is rich and varied, adding layers of complication to the simplified plot above. Jagger's women are more fully realized than her male characters, and when the story wanders from Gemma or Cara, the plot sags. But these two are women worth watching, brave, passionate survivors in a society dominated by men. Kathy Piehl, English Dept., Mankato State Univ., Minn.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Fawcett
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0449210405
• ISBN 13: 9780449210406
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 544