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1912: Suffragettes, Emily Pankhurst, a mysterious hourglass factory, a female roving reporter and the world of the circus freaks…oh and a murderous plot too
The Hourglass Factory
What you need to know before your trail
1912 and London is in turmoil…the suffragette movement is alive and well and so is the strange world behind the doors of the hourglass factory.
Frankie George is trying to get by in the man dominated world of the newspapers. Fascinated by the world of the circus and the trapeze artist Ebony Diamond, she wants to know more about her and her world. One day she follows her to a corset shop known as ‘The Hourglass factory’ in Mayfair and she enters a world she would never have imagined existed. At a performance at the London Coliseum, Ebony disappears and Frankie is sucked further into this new world.
Why did Ebony disappear and why? Who is this unusual and captivating creature. And what does go on behind the door of the Hourglass factory?
Travel Guide
London 1912 seems to have been quite an intimidating and uncertain time especially if you were a woman. The suffragettes were a powerful and growing force in society and Emily Pankhurst was at the forefront.
The Suffragettes
Three and a half miles away on Shoe Lane, Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the Womens’ social and Political union – The Suffragettes walked into an ironmongers.
The author has quite clearly dived heart and soul into this and other issues as here is a lovely historical note at the back explaining about further reading. The performance of Ebony at the Albert Hall and her leap’ for example was inspired by a suffragette named Isabel Kelley who broke into Dundee’s Kinnaird Hall via a skylight where there was a political meeting taking place from which women were banned.
The conditions for women at the time and the struggle for the Suffragettes – not to mention the treatment in prison for those who were jailed for their beliefs were hard to read knowing that it was based on true diaries and Pankhurst accounts. A research trip to the national archives is on the cards!Oh and the world of the Hourglass factory and Ebony Diamond!
The rich and sumptuous yet mysterious world of The Hourglass factory. The place is secretive, down a dark alley and involves all sorts of people going in and out under the cover of darkness. Corsets draw them in in more ways than one. but what exactly is going on behind closed doors? this was a particularly creepy and intriguing place to be –
“Frankie felt the blood rising in her as she nudged past the two officers with their backs to her. What she saw stopped her dead”
Here is another world kept secret from the world outside and the veil of social respectability comes down as it does at the performances of Miss Ebony Diamond.
Ebony checked the bindings on her legs, squeezed a handful of flesh into a more comfortable position, ran a thumb over the sailor’s knots she had tied, and wedged the wooden bar of the trapeze between the hollows of her feet
Booktrailer Review
Susan @thebooktrailer:
What a wonderful world Miss Ribchester has created here. Who would have thought that a plot involving the suffragettes, and a world of circus freaks and a corset shop would work so well. but it does and it was a fascinating world to be in.
The two story lines are both different yet woven together well and I was captivated by each although I do admit to want to spend more time with Ebony and the world of the corsets as unique and mysterious as it was.
Whilst this is a fictional novel, the author is keen to point out the inspiration for it and it adds even more interest and intrigue to an already fascinating read. There is so much more further reading to do with both of these story strands and I will definitely be heading down to the national archives to read the actual diaries of Constance Lytton of the conditions in the prisons of the time.
Outrageous, flamboyant with a feather bower wrapped around the women’s necks and chains around their wrists – the struggles of society, the hidden worlds borne of such repression and squalor. And all created on these pages for your delectation.
Welcome to the hourglass factory – where appearances are everything.
Booktrail Boarding Pass Information:
Twitter: @lucyribchester
Web: lucyribchester.com
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