The Painted Bridge - Wendy Wallace

The Painted Bridge was one of those books that spoke to me as soon as I saw it on the shelf - a gorgeous evocative cover, a setting in Victorian England (one of my favourite reading/historical periods) and a topic area covering women's mental health and the treatment of women in asylums.
The book starts by introducing the reader to Lake House - "a private asylum for genteel women of a delicate nature" as the back cover blurb tells us. A resident of the asylum is having her photograph taken as a method of diagnosing and treating her particular  "illness" by a young and experimental doctor, Lucas St Clair. The reader is taken from this scene to one where the main character, Anna Palmer is first bought to the asylum - without her knowledge or consent - by her husband.
The book follows Anna's journey through the various treatment models used by the asylum and it's staff and her determination to prove her sanity and be released. Along the way many other characters are introduced, some in quite a lot of detail, and I felt this was one of the down falls of the book. There were so many different characters and back stories to take into consideration it was hard to know where your focus as a reader should lie.
Anna interacts with the other residents of the asylum and comes to know their stories for being there and she also begins a tentative friendship with the young daughter of the owner of the asylum which leads to one of the main adventure scenes of the book. We are also taken into Anna's childhood (much as a psychiatrist or therapist might take a client) and learn of the important events of her life including the death of her father and her marriage to a man who is not what he first seems.
The book is definitely a page turner - there is plenty to keep a reader interested and occupied but, as I have said above, Anna's story probably could have been a lot tighter without the distractions of so many others competing for the reader's attention.

Affinity - Sarah Waters

See - I promised I was reading books by authors other than Alexander McCall Smith! And Affinity by Sarah Waters is probably as far as I could have got from McCall Smith in many ways!

I first read about this book over at A Work In Progress - Danielle's review made the book sound very enticing so I collected it soon after reading her review from my local library. I have read The Night Watch by the same author when it was first released some time ago and I absolutely loved it so I had no hesitation in going back to her work - even though Affinity sounded like a very different novel.

Affinity is set during the 1870's in London - the book alternates between scenes in upper class houses of the time and the Millbank prison for women.

Margaret Prior, an upper middle class unmarried lady begins to visit the female inmates of the prison after a suicide attempt following the death of her beloved father. Margaret struggles with the confronting nature of the visits at first but soon begins to see some similarities between herself and the prisoners - even though they would first appear to come from worlds away from one another. Margaret begins to develop a close relationship with one of the prisoners, Selina Dawes, a young spiritualist who has been imprisoned for assault and fraud after a seance sitting she was facilitating ended in the death of one woman and the "deep disturbance" of another.

The book alternates between the voices of Margaret and Selina where they give accounts of the events currently taking place as well as the events leading up to Selina being arrested, tried and sent to prison.

While the book focuses on Margaret and Selina I also felt it was saying a lot about the lives of women in general in the time in which it was set. At one stage Margaret makes the comment; "Why do gentlemen's voices carry so clearly, when women's are so easily stifled?".

The writing is evocative and enticing - I felt like I was walking through Victorian London, particularly the scenes set in the prison which felt disturbingly real at times. The story was teased out with just the right pacing I felt - I didn't want to put the book down but at the same time I didn't want it to end.

The ending of the book was fantastic - I did not see it coming at all!

I am looking out for other books by Sarah Waters now and am keen to pick up another book like Affinity so if anyone has any suggestions please let me know.