Thursday 1 September 2016

Read in 2016 - 28: The Black Thread

"The Black Thread" was the last book in the trilogy "Yorkshire Grit" by Margaret Muir. I liked both the first ("Sea Dust") and second ("Through Glass Eyes") a lot, and was very much looking forward to the third book.
I was not disappointed! Again, the author's writing about real places and people who seem real and have real problems, with enough detail to set the inner cinema in motion but not so much as to make the story too lengthy, enough emotion to make you feel for the characters but not so much as to be cheesy, a stringent story line and a pace just fast enough to make things happen but not too fast for a tired reader to lose track - all this makes "The Black Thread" a good read.

As I read on my kindle usually only on my way to and from work, I found myself looking forward to those train trips, so that I could read on and find out what happened next.

The story takes place mainly within a few months in the year 1898. Amy Dodd is a girl raised by her mother in a poor working-class neighbourhood in Leeds, never knowing her father or why he is not with them, until the day he reappears in their lives.

Things take a turn for the worse - much worse -, and after her mother's death, Amy is forced to flee the only place she knew as home for all her life.
Chased by her father and with the clothes she is wearing as her only possession, she faces an uncertain and dangerous future.
The canal with its many boats, transporting goods through the country and all the way to the big sea harbours, appears to be her best bet to get away from the town as far away as possible.

Will she succeed in escaping the dreadful life her father seems to have destined her to, and survive long enough to make a better future for herself?

Once again, as with the first two books, a lot of what happens in this story I did not foresee. Amy's desperation, her actions and thoughts, ring true; so do the other characters. How Amy's greatest enemy is dealt with in the end is, in a way, similar to what happens to the Bad Guy in "Through Glass Eyes". But it is still plausible and fits the story well.
I also liked a lot how things were wrapped up in the end.

Another recommendation for you! And if you want to read more about the book on the author's blog, the link is here.

18 comments:

  1. So happy you liked these books but even happier that the author replied to your review of her book! If I ever read fiction again, I think I would like these books. :-)

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    1. You probably would like them, Kay, as there is almost as much to learn from them as from non-fiction. The author has done her homework very thoroughly, and many facts about how people lived and worked in mills, in big houses, on canal boats etc. has gone into them.

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    2. I very much know that good fiction writers do their homework and have a lot of history behind their stories, but many do not! And that is the trouble! When they combine history with something that they have imagined, you cannot tell people the facts of the story, they don't believe you even though it is so easy to check it out!
      James Michener, have you read any of his books? They are long but they are very well researched. When we used to book Hawaii trips, the Hawaiian tour company would send the customer his "Hawaii" book along with their travel documents.

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    3. What a nice gesture to send people the Hawaii book so that they could prepare for their trip in such a pleasant way!
      I've not yet read any of James Michener's works, but have come across them all the years that I worked at the library. They were popular but somehow I never "tried" one :-)

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    4. Dear Librarian, Thank you again for posting a review on "The Black Thread" and i am pleased that you enjoyed all three of my "Yorkshire Grit" stories.
      Having escaped England (as the heroine does in Sea Dust) I now live in Australia and my links with the sea and its magic have resulted in my love of nautical fiction. My last 5 books have all been set at sea during the Napoleonic era, and unlike the protagonist in Sea Dust who was female, my current books have a male protagonist and are in line with the the Horatio Hornblower series. Very best regards. Margaret Muir (now writing as M.C. Muir)

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    5. Dear Margaret, Thank YOU for taking the time to read another one of my reviews and commenting on it - this really means a lot to me!
      I have read about your other books on your website. They all sound as good and fascinating for their glimpse into a differrent time and different way of life as the ones I have read so far.

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  2. I agree - I often find that fiction - well-written fiction - teaches me as much about times and places as non-fiction.

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    1. Some authors are great at that. For instance, after I read Ken Follet's "Pillars of the Earth", I felt as if I could build a cathedral, it was so informative about how such a great building came about and the work was organized.

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  3. I don't think the link is working... "Not Found error 404" comes up.

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    1. Strange that the link does not work. It should be http://margaretmuirauthor.blogspot.de/search?q=the+black+thread

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  4. I have all three on my kindle now....This link should work:
    http://www.margaretmuirauthor.com/index.php

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    1. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did, Kristi!
      Actually, I was trying to link to the author's blog, not to her page. The link I used was this:
      http://margaretmuirauthor.blogspot.de/search?q=the+black+thread

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  5. I've just returned from a holiday in the Dales and am so pleased to have found your blog - I've had a good look through all your lovely holiday postings. You might enjoy looking at my post about the Wensleydale Show. Your journey to Ripon sounds quite convoluted, perhaps it is possible to fly directly to the Leeds/Bradford airport? Although I now live in the South-West of England I was born in the West Riding of Yorkshire and I'm going to order the trilogy on kindle today!

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    1. Hello Share my Garden, and welcome to my blog!
      Thank you for taking the time to go through my holiday posts (not yet finished!) and to comment. I am glad you have downloaded "Yorkshire Grit", and hope you'll enjoy the books as much as I did.
      I am definitely going to have a look at your blog now.

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    2. PS: As far as I know, there are no direct flights from Stuttgart to Leeds-Bradford.

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  6. I decided that I really had to have this series as paperbacks rather than on my Kindle and explore some of Margaret Muir's other works which look very interesting but was disappointed to discover that the Yorkshire Grit series is only available on Kindle (unless you buy from the USA). Anyway I shall not be giving up on her as an author that's for sure.

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    1. I am glad my reviews triggered several of my readers, including you, to buy the books - I just very much hope nobody will be disappointed, because not everybody has exactly the same taste in reading, do they.

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    2. That's just a risk one takes Meike but these do look like ones I would enjoy.

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