Review: Velvet by Mary Hooper

Velvet by Mary Hooper (September 2011, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, ISBN: 0747599211)

Review: Velvet is the latest historical novel from Mary Hooper and is set at the beginning of the 20th century. The eponymous young lady at the heart of the novel, the independent Velvet (born Kitty) is struggling to keep herself afloat financially. She is about to lose her job at the laundry but her boss gives her one more chance in a more specialist part of the business - looking after individual clients' laundry. In this way Velvet gets to do the personal laundry of one Madame Savoya, a medium of some renown and eventually Velvet ends up as a live-in maid to Madame along with the handsome chauffeur/assistant George.

Velvet's story is inter-cut with a third-person point of view, narrating the various one-to one meetings that Madame and George have with bereaved customers who want a longer chat with their dead loved ones than the general seances can provide.

It becomes obvious to the reader how much truth lies behind Madame's skill and the tension is created by the watching and waiting for Velvet to catch up with the reader.

I thoroughly enjoyed Velvet. It tells of a fascinating time when Spiritualism was all the rage and Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle, a famous believer and debunker of fakes, makes an appearance. Velvet is a believable if naive character and you are rooting for her to do the right thing(s). I love how historical novels painlessly teach the reader something and Velvet is no exception, with for example - a visit to a baby-farm which was horrendously portrayed and yet I understand that the author has toned it down somewhat for the YA market.

Velvet is a real page-turner and I flew through it. If like me, you are a bit wary of historical fiction, I'd strongly recommend giving Velvet a go and let it put any prejudices you may have had in the dustbin!

Blog Tour: Mary Hooper - Guest Post, Extract & Giveaway

Today is the final day of Mary Hooper's Blog Tour for her stunning new book, Velvet and Mary has kindly written a guest post about her Fantasy Dinner Party Guests:

Fantasy Dinner Party
(five people, living, dead or fictional that you would invite and why)

Do people still have dinner parties? I would probably have an Indian takeaway then we can all gather around the foil dishes and I wouldn’t have to worry about all that cooking.

Elvis Presley. He was my number one crush when I was fourteen. I had 120 photographs of him on my wall and I used to kiss every one of them before I went to bed. When I saw a trailer of TWILIGHT the other day I realised why girls had gone mad over Robert Pattison: he looks just like a twenty year old Elvis. Only not quite as gorgeous.

Heathcliff. I can’t see him fitting into a dinner party, or helping the other guests to a spoonful of Bombay pickle, and he’s a bit of a bad-boy cliché, but when he was invented by Charlotte Bronte he wasn’t a cliché at all. He’d hate everyone at the party and brood a lot, and when he left early we could all talk about him.

Jo Brand. I love Jo. I love her dry wit and her deadpan delivery, I love that she doesn’t care. I think I could be best friends with her. I don’t think she’d get on with Philip Larkin as a person, however, so I’m looking forward to a lively debate over the Tikka Masala.

Paul Whitehouse. Okay, I know he’s been around a while now, but he’s still my favourite comic. So versatile – the list of “characters” he has played or invented is endless. And nothing is funnier, or more poignant, than Ted and Ralph. It’s one of those rare pieces that make you laugh and cry at the same time.

Philip Larkin. Witty, erudite and a bit of a dark horse (impassive behind his glasses, but what about all those women he had on the quiet?) his poems linger in my mind like no others. From the endlessly debated and read-at- weddings, An Arundel Tomb, to the simple truth of This be the Verse to an eight-line poem about Myxomatosis which can reduce me (an ardent lover of rabbits) to tears, Larkin has a poem to cover it. Perhaps he’d care to immortalise my dinner party in a few well-chosen words...

Thanks very much Mary and Bloomsbury for allowing Teenage Fiction For All Ages to take part in the tour.

You can find out more about Mary Hooper at her website.
You can check out the earlier stops on the tour via her Facebook page

Scroll down to read an extract from Velvet and to enter the giveaway to win 8 of Mary's books.

Synopsis
Velvet is a laundress in a Victorian steam laundry. With both her mother and father dead, she is an orphan and has to rely upon her own wits to make a living. The laundry is scalding, back-breaking work and Velvet is desperate to create a better life for herself. Then Velvet is noticed by Madame Savoya, a famed medium, who asks Velvet to come to work for her. Velvet is dazzled at first by the young yet beautifully dressed and bejewelled Madame. But soon Velvet realises that Madame Savoya is not all that she says she is, and Velvet's very life is in danger ...A romantic and thrillingly exciting new novel from an acclaimed and much loved historical writer for teens.

Trailer




Extract
Velvet by Mary Hooper - chapter one.


Giveaway

Thanks to Bloomsbury, I have one set of: At the Sign of the Sugared Plum, Petals in the Ashes, The Remarkable Life and Times of Eliza Rose, At The House of the Magician, By Royal Command, The Betrayal, Fallen Grace and Velvet to giveaway.


The giveaway is open to UK entrants only and the closing date is 20 September 2011. To enter please complete the form below.