Amazon, Price: £7.99
Jamie is a little boy who has lost his mother and his memory, but is lucky enough to find a home in the household of David, a wealthy widower whose own wife and son died in an accident. Tillie, Jamie’s mother, has been released from prison – where she was sent for stealing bread – and is searching for her boy. Will she be able to find Jamie? And will it be better for him if she does?
Looking for Jamie is cosy Victorian fantasy. Not fantasy in the sense that there are fey or dragons, nor fantasy in a Depeche Mode interpretation of master and servant, but rather a revision of history where masters are good and kind, and servants are glad to know their place. This sort of thing is, of course, terribly popular, and one of England’s more popular exports.
Unfortunately for me, when it comes to the aristocracy I’m more of a “guillotine the lot of them and let God sort it out” type. Downtown Abby, Bridgerton, The Crown – these things do nothing for me accept stimulate a mild irritation with the potential to grow into a murderous rampage.
Thankfully, if you can get over the socio-political whitewashing (and, hey, like everyone I love Austen, so I’m just as much a hypocrite as any of us other literature-loving Jacobins), this book is loaded with sweet characters that are pleasant to be around. All sorts of mishaps happen, but nothing is ever too serious and things have a way of working out. The story takes a sudden swerve into romance almost exactly 2/3rds of the way through, but once you get over the surprise it continues comfortably as a nice, kind, cosy romance.
If you’re into this sort of thing, imagine it like a warm blanket you can wrap about yourself with while drinking a nice cup of tea. This is the first of a series of 5: I keep coming back to the word cosy, and there’s plenty more cosiness to be had with Jamie.
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