The Tenth Gift by Jane Johnson

 

"I put the book aside, astonished. I don't know what I had been expecting other than notes on the patterns that the book contained, thoughts about the colours of thread and the type of stitch one might use to execute the design, but this sudden window into the past was like a glimpse of treasure".

How many times in the past years did I say that when we travel to Cornwall, I take a couple of paperbacks with me, set in Cornwall?! I lost count. But I've continued with this tradition this summer as well. I was over-optimistic, thinking I'd have time to read two books. As it happened, I only started reading one of them, but managed to take some in-situ photos with the second book.

This holiday was so eventful, we managed to do a lot of activities, as there were six of us, and I just didn't have much opportunity to read. By the time my head hit the pillow, I could only manage a few pages.

The Tenth Gift by Jane Johnson was one of the lucky finds in The Works. I didn't even need to read the blurb to buy it. Seeing St Michael's Mount on the cover was enough to make me want to read it.

It is a historical romance, told in a dualtime setting.

We encounter Julia Lovat due to meet her lover in a fancy London restaurant. Michael arrives late and drops a bombshell into their conversation. His wife and he are going to give their marriage another go, a fresh start, and he cannot see Julia any more. 

As a parting gift, he gives Julia an antique book. "It was a book. An antique book, with a cover of buttery-brown calfskin, simple decorative blind lines on the boards and four raised, rounded ridges at even intervals along the spine... Inside, the title page was foxed and faded. The Needle-Woman's Glorie, it read in bold characters..."

Julia is devastated to be dumped. But don't hurry to pity her. Julia knows perfectly well about Michael's wife Anna, in fact, she has been one of her best friends for many years.

"I was angry with him; furious in fact, before admitting to myself that I had to take at least as much of the blame for the situation. Anna was, after all, my friend. I had felt ashamed of the affair, my betrayal of our friendship, from the start. But shame is an uncomfortable emotion, one we don't much like to confront". Feeling ashamed doesn't stop Julia from conducting an affair for seven (!!) years, finding excuses for her own abysmal behaviour. Michael is a total cad, and has no redeeming qualities. 

Not only he's an incorrigible cheat, Michael is quite unpleasant overall, and when he realises he gave his ex-lover a wrong gift, he pursues her mercilessly to obtain it back. There were two copies of the Jacobean embroidery in his possession, one of them turns out to be a diary of a young Cornish girl. 

Julia begins to transcribe the writings from the 17C and unravels the mystery behind the antique book, at the same time trying to sort out her love life.

The story of Cat Tregenna is fascinating. A servant in the affluent Cornish manor house, she is a talented and ambitious embroiderer. Her duties are non-taxing, and the lady of the house favours her. She dreams of creating her own patterns and designs and becoming a master embroiderer (only men could aspire to achieve that in the 17C). 

Julia is engrossed in Cat's story. "...for all the difference between our times, I felt a strong connection with Catherine Anne Tregenna; and not just for our shared love of embroidery. I too had grown up in Cornwall and, like her, had dreamed of escape".

Having being found in a compromising situation, Cat is ordered by her masters to marry her cousin Robert Bolitho. Robert is quite  a catch, according to the local maids. He's handsome and loyal, and loves Cat, but she finds him boring and dreads her future, trapped forever at Kenegy and wed to her dull cousin, "living in a hovel behind the cow-sheds, large with childe year after year, rasyng a pack of brattes & dying in obscuritee".

Then one fateful Sunday, Cat happens to be at the church service, when the Barbary pirates raid Mount's Bay and capture 60 men, women and children, and take them into slavery. The trip and treatment of prisoners is horrific. The conditions on board the ship are atrocious. When Cat's called up to be separated from her fellow captives, her skills as a needlewoman get tested in the most stressful circumstances.

On arrival to Salé, Cat is sold into slavery, without knowing the identity of her master.

When Cat's story stops abruptly, Julia is intent to travel to Mororcco to try to trace her fate. There she meets a mysterious tour guide Idriss who helps her unravel the story and discover herself.

Quite often with the dual timeline stories, the modern-day plotline is just a vessel designed to introduce and enhance the historical part of the book. This is the interweaving tale of two women from different historical periods and backgrounds.

Utterly absorbing and deeply researched, The Tenth Gift captures the horrors of human trafficking and slavery. "According to various sources over a million Europeans had been abducted and enslaved by North African pirates between the early sixteenth and late eighteenth centuries. A fraction of the estimated twelve million Africans taken and sold into slavery in the Americas, but still a hugely significant number." 

[Slavery is an abomination, whatever race or nationality loses freedom. Not many people wish to know of the Istanbul's slave imports from the Black sea region, which may have totalled around two and a half million from mid-15C to 18C. But even as late as 1908 female slaves were sold in the Ottoman Empire. But I digress...]

There is a big East meets West element in the storylines of both women: a cultural misundertsanding, shock, slow immersion and acception.

I didn't warm up to the main protagonist of the modern-day plot. Julia is self-centered and self-absorbed. She also appears uneducated. Going abroad with her own pre-conceptions and ideas is super arrogant (when, for example, she is offended that she cannot visit the mosque, or when she compares her guide to the guard dog, totally disregarding the cultural sensitivities). 

The Tenth Gift is an original, sizzling and page-turning story, which had me hooked from the start.

I was reading this book, staying in a small village outside Penzance. On our regular walks along the coast we looked upon St Michael's Mount from different angles. 

I loved the descriptions of this place through the book. "Through the trees she had a clear view of St Michael's Mount, rising like a legendary Avalon out of the still sea, the close waters of the bay gleaming turquoise as the sun struck through to the pale sands beneath". The Cornish setting is very atmospheric, with its misty and rugged coastline.

Of course, I couldn't resist having a photo taken - when the view matches the book cover.

SPOLER ALERT!!!

If you haven't read the book and plan to, please skip this bit. If you have read it, I would like to know if you agree with me.

The controversial character of the corsair as a romantic lead didn't work for me. 

As much as I admire Cat's stamina and her assimilation within the Muslim culture, I don't quite comprehend how she could forgive everything that's been done to her and her fellow captives, knowing how tragic their lives were in slavery. She seems happy to forgive and forget, not interested in what's happened to her mother etc. Her obsession with the ruthless pirate Al-Andalusi could be only explained as Stockholm syndrome.

Going back to Julia. While I can see how Anna decides to forgive her cheating husband and make a fresh start (many women do, for different reasons), her exonerating Julia's behaviour is stretching the credulity. You just don't excuse your best friend's seven-years-old affair with your husband. Well, unless you're a saint.