The basic story idea is solid, and sometimes the execution is strong. I was struck at one point by a description of an old photograph; I thought Ferguson laid out the truth behind the contented children in the picture very effectively. At another point a character reflects on trinkets that poor mothers leave for the babies they are giving up. Lettie's personality was interestingly slippery, and both she and Norah seemed like fine characters to spend 400-odd pages with. Lettie's work providing birth control in 1920s Britain sounded fascinating to me. I thought it might be a sort of watered down Sarah Waters read, and began to speculate on whether Norah and Lettie were lesbians. Alas, my hopes were dashed. More, far less intriguing viewpoint characters were introduced. Characterization and world-building took a back seat as plot developments piled on top of each other. I kept forgetting what year it was, and Ferguson's scene setting did very little to remind me.

I am awarding one bonus star for references to Dickens and Katherine Mansfield. ( )

The basic story idea is solid, and sometimes the execution is strong. I was struck at one point by a description of an old photograph; I thought Ferguson laid out the truth behind the contented children in the picture very effectively. At another point a character reflects on trinkets that poor mothers leave for the babies they are giving up. Lettie's personality was interestingly slippery, and both she and Norah seemed like fine characters to spend 400-odd pages with. Lettie's work providing birth control in 1920s Britain sounded fascinating to me. I thought it might be a sort of watered down Sarah Waters read, and began to speculate on whether Norah and Lettie were lesbians. Alas, my hopes were dashed. More, far less intriguing viewpoint characters were introduced. Characterization and world-building took a back seat as plot developments piled on top of each other. I kept forgetting what year it was, and Ferguson's scene setting did very little to remind me.

I am awarding one bonus star for references to Dickens and Katherine Mansfield. ( )

The novel "Aren't We Sisters?" takes place in 1930's Britain, in the small Cornish town of Silkhampton.

The narrative moves among three women, Norah Thornby , Lettie Quick and Rae Grainger. The overarching theme of the story is the ignorance that women of that era had about reproduction. Many, if not most women did not know how they became pregnant, nor how to prevent pregnancy and oftentimes, very little about the process of giving birth. A quote from the book as Rae ponders on how a woman might give birth is very telling of the time. " Had Mrs Dorrit protected her bedding? Had Jane Eyre had a big gush? Perhaps Mr. Rochester had stood her a new mattress." ( p.286)

Lettie Quick , inspired by the real life Marie Stopes, tries to educate women about contraception,pregnancy, and childbirth to help women become " sovereign over their bodies." Initially she spreads the word via a mobile clinic, but goes to Silkhampton to establish a women's clinic in the seedy part of town.

Norah is an upper class " spinster" , in her early 30's, who is having financial difficulties maintaining her grand family home . Her parents have passed away, and she knows nothing about sex other than what her mother taught her ;" purity is valuable in itself."

Rae is a beautiful, young British film star who has found herself with a " little problem." She has contacted less then respectable people who will assist her with her "little problem." She has hidden out in an old , crumbling and isolated cottage far from the town of Silkhampton. There, the slightly eccentric Bea Givens, an older lady, looks after her.

As I read the first few pages, I was concerned that I had stumbled upon a novel that very graphically was going to lecture me on the contraceptive methods of the 1930's. Fortunately I was very wrong. Don't be put off by the first few pages.

All of these lives intersect in the most interesting ways to create a very readable novel, one which includes suspense and even murder. The novel is written in ordinary prose, neither spare, nor the sort where one would wax eloquent about the beautiful language. It is simply an engaging, unusual novel that is a wonderful read .

Aren't We Sisters? is long listed for the 2015 Bailey's Prize and given it's overall theme of empowerment and education for women in the 1930's, I can see why.

An engaging , interesting and even suspenseful novel, it is one that I think should find a wide audience. 4.25 stars ( )