It’s not the only time that London has emerged as a dislocated and seedy setting in Tremain’s stories; in Restoration, it is both wanton playground and fiery hell; in The Road Home (2007), we view modern London from the perspective of eastern European immigrant Lev: its potential for renewal, and its bleak chasm between social classes. Later, released into the harsh world of Victorian London, Lily becomes a favoured employee at Belle Prettywood’s Wig Emporium, but all the while she is hiding a dreadful secret. My thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Vintage for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

Tremain's gift is to create characters whose experiences span every walk of life, but who are grounded in their author's understanding of the world ― Harper's Bazaar --This text refers to the paperback edition. We meet the fascinating cast of characters who shape Lily's life, the policeman Sam Trench, the evil hospital nurse, and Belle Prettywood - the colourful businesswoman who becomes Lily's employer and friend. This poor protagonist has no luck with love when they grow up either because she fall in love with the person who saved her and is married but is also a police so he has a duty to arrest her when she confesses to him that she killed the person who abused her (when she actually didn't need to confess). From Sunday Times bestselling novelist Rose Tremain comes a gripping novel of murder and revenge set in Victorian England. We know from the cover of the book that her story is ‘a tale of revenge’ but we don’t know until quite late in the book the reason for this act of revenge, or the identity of her victim, or how Lily carried out this murder.

It would have been much more satisfying to have Lily board a boat to say, New York, with the lesson that adversity builds character and drive. That treatment is in stark contrast to the affection Lily experiences from her foster family, Nellie and Perkin Buck and their three sons, on their farm in Suffolk. Subtitled ‘A Tale of Revenge’, t he narrative moves back and forth in time between Lily’s early years spent with a foster family, her time at the London Foundling Hospital and her subsequent employment at Belle Prettywood’s Wig Emporium. Rose Tremain’s latest novel is both a mystery set in 19th-century London and an indictment of the abuse of children. Her celebrated novel Restoration (1989) portrayed the decadent reign of Charles II – and the misadventures of her rambunctious anti-hero Robert Merivel – as a response to 1980s Western materialism.

At Books2Door, we believe that reading is a fundamental skill that every child should have to help improve their vocabulary, grammar, and critical thinking skills. Life regains a modicum of its early colour when she is apprenticed to a larger than life wigmaker - Lily finds a facsimile of family, of belonging. Thinking about it, it seems like the author decided this book was going to just be a sad story with no other point. I visited the London Foundling Hospital a few years ago (it’s now a museum) but I would undoubtedly get more out of it having read this book.Good-humoured, unpretentious and a bit eccentric, it's more like having a well-read friend than a subscription to a literary review. The plot takes many unexpected turns (on the way to a rather more predictable ending) and the cast of characters are memorable and intriguing. She dreams of Sam Trent, who seems to be watching over her, and he also seems to have special feelings for her.

Not everyone who works in such places, however, is as good-hearted as their founders, and harsh punishment and cruelty, then as now, were not uncommon. Life in the Foundling Hospital is harsh and cruel, a place where children are shown no love, indeed they’re reminded constantly of their worthlessness. I understood that you were meant to have an emotional connection to her because of her backstory but I didn’t get that from the story.Tremain turns it into something quite different: a suspenseful tale of love, cruelty, revenge and justice. Earlier this year, the Freudian psychoanalyst and literary critic published On Wanting to Change, an extended essay on how psychotherapy – and the conversations it facilitates – can create potential for genuine change. Belle is a wonderful character straight out of Dickens; tough, vulgar and shameless but with a heart of gold. We meet one of the most grotesque figures ever encountered in literature; her fate, the reader feels, is entirely deserved, however shocked we may be for thinking so - there is much here which challenges our educated, twenty-first century sensibilities.

Lily is a character you can’t help rooting for and, although bleak at times, the book has great period atmosphere and a touching ending that offers a little ray of light in the darkness.Restoration, the first of her novels to feature Robert Merivel, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.