On tour with The Coffee Pot Book Club, Discerning Grace (Book One of The White Sails Series) by Emma Lombard #BookReview #HistoricalFiction @LombardEmma @maryanneyarde

 

 I am once again working with The Coffee Pot Book Club to introduce you to your next favourite read. Discerning Grace (Book One of The White Sails Series) the debut novel by Emma Lombard and it is fabulous. Before you check out my thoughts on the book, take a look at the blurb.

As the first full-length novel in The White Sails Series, DISCERNING GRACE captures the spirit of an independent woman whose feminine lens blows the ordered patriarchal decks of a 19th century tall ship to smithereens.

Wilful Grace Baxter, will not marry old Lord Silverton with his salivary incontinence and dead-mouse stink. Discovering she is a pawn in an arrangement between slobbery Silverton and her calculating father, Grace is devastated when Silverton reveals his true callous nature.

Refusing this fate, Grace resolves to stow away. Heading to the docks, disguised as a lad to ease her escape, she encounters smooth-talking naval recruiter, Gilly, who lures her aboard HMS Discerning with promises of freedom and exploration in South America.

When Grace's big mouth lands her bare-bottomed over a cannon for insubordination, her identity is exposed. The captain wants her back in London but his orders, to chart the icy archipelago of Tierra del Fuego, forbid it. Lieutenant Seamus Fitzwilliam gallantly offers to take Grace off the fretting captain's hands by placing her under his protection.

Grace must now win over the crew she betrayed with her secret, while managing her feelings towards her taciturn protector, whose obstinate chivalry stifles her new-found independence. But when Grace disregards Lieutenant Fitzwilliam's warnings about the dangers of the unexplored archipelago, it costs a friend his life and she realises she is not as free as she believes.

My Review

This was a novel that I was really looking forward to reading because the blurb really intrigued me. I am glad to report that this novel certainly did not disappoint. Discerning Grace is about a young woman who is so desperate to flee from an arranged marriage to a truly deplorable older man, that she cuts her hair and jumps ship - or jumps onto a ship to be more precise! Disguised as a boy, Grace must do everything she can to ensure that her secret is never found out, because if it is discovered that she is a young woman and not a fifteen-year-old boy, there would be hell to pay, for everyone knows it is bad luck to have a woman on board!

I thought the author portrayed what life was like as a sailor during this era wonderfully. Being a sailor was a dangerous job and therefore demanded every ounce of concentration, not to mention the willingness to rub along with everyone else—how else would everything run shipshape and Bristol fashion?! Life on board the HMS Discerning really did open Grace’s eyes to a life that she could never have imagined. There is a hierarchy to the ship, and she is at the very bottom, which is something she surprisingly takes in her stride. However, Grace, who now goes by the name of Billy, is incredibly feminine (unsurprisingly) and it surprised me how Grace disguised the truth of her sex from the crew for as long as she did.

This novel isn’t so much a romance, as one might think, but it is more about a woman who is desperate to flee from a man who mentally physically and sexually assaults her, so there are some scenes in this novel which some readers may find very upsetting. And despite there being a true-love tender romance in this novel, this story is really about how Grace saves herself.

I thought this novel was very compelling read, and the author did a remarkable job bringing this era to life. Bring on book 2!

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Emma Lombard

Emma Lombard was born in Pontefract in the UK. She grew up in Africa—calling Zimbabwe and South Africa home for a few years—before finally settling in Brisbane Australia, and raising four boys. Before she started writing historical fiction, she was a freelance editor in the corporate world, which was definitely not half as exciting as writing rollicking romantic adventures. Her characters are fearless seafarers, even though in real life Emma gets disastrously sea sick. Discerning Grace, is the first book in The White Sails Series.

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