By Sally Nicholls (author)
"Set in the late nineteenth-century, this magnificent epistolary novel explores female friendship and social context with uplifting, thought-provoking verve."
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September 2023 Book of the Month
Set in 1896, Yours From the Tower is a clever, compelling epistolary novel that dances with the magic of female friendship, romance, and thought-provoking presentations of its historic context. Told, in the main, through letters between three young women, this splendid story invites “then and now” comparisons as it reveals how restrictive life was for women in the late nineteenth-century, along with the era’s huge social divides.
After leaving boarding school, best friends Tirzah, Sophia and Polly are on the brink of leading disparate adult lives. This comes as a result of their very different backgrounds, and from them having very different personalities and dreams.
Sophia, whose ambitions of being a journalist have been quashed by dint of her being female, has been ushered into the London Season to find a rich husband — preferably a titled gentleman. Meanwhile, Polly is loving life teaching in an orphanage, finding fulfilment in making a difference to poor children who’ve been dealt terribly difficult starts in life.
Then there’s flighty Tirzah. Tortuously frustrated by being forced to act as her strict grandmother’s unpaid companion, she makes a succession of rash decisions and harbours family secrets.
With Sophia, in particular, voicing thought-provoking statements on injustices of the age (“It is unfair, isn’t it? If we were men, there wouldn’t be any of this bother about marrying well. We could go off to university and become lawyers or clergymen or go into business… But what are my options if I do not find a husband?”), Yours From the Tower also tingles with romance while being underpinned by the nourishing power of female friendship.
It’s also peppered with wit, such as this whip-smart quip from Sophia when addressing one of her suitors, bohemian aristocrat Sebastian: “I think you and Helena are absurd to call a policemen capitalist scum, when he earns an honest living and you and she are the grandchildren of an earl.”
1896. Tirzah, Sophia and Polly are best friends who’ve left boarding school and gone back to very different lives. Polly is teaching in an orphanage.
Read the full description
Sophia is looking for a rich husband at the London Season. And Tirzah is stuck acting as an unpaid companion to her grandmother. In a series of letters, they share their hopes, their frustrations, their dramas ... and their romances.
Can these three very different young women find happiness? '
'I loved this book. An unputdownable friendship story told in letters so vivid and immersive that I felt like joining in with the correspondence' - Hilary McKay
'The perfect novel for our anxiety-ridden times, with its thrilling plot, brave heroines and empowering message... This is simply a heavenly book that anyone 10+ will want to lose themselves in on cold, autumnal nights' - The Bookseller, Book of the Month
Sally Nicholls is a highly acclaimed writer for children, best known for her sensitive portrayal of difficult subjects for a younger age group. Her books have been translated into over 20 languages and her YA novel about the suffrage movement, Things a Bright Girl Can Do was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal.
Sally grew up in Stockton-on-Tees, and after school, travelled the world, working for a period at a Red Cross hospital in Japan. Sally's first novel, Ways to Live Forever , won the Waterstones Children's Book Prize and she has been shortlisted for the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, the Costa Children's Book Award, and the Carnegie Medal, twice.
She lives in Liverpool with her husband and two sons.
Photo credit Joe Ratzer
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1896. Tirzah, Sophia and Polly are best friends who’ve left boarding school and gone back to very different lives.
The LoveReading4Kids Editorial Team have read and reviewed Yours From the Tower and determined it is suitable for children aged 11-14 years old
Yours From the Tower features in the following genres: Books of the Month, Recommendations, Featured Books for 11+ readers, Historical Fiction, Children's and Young Adult Fiction, Children’s, Teenage and Educational, Romance / Relationship Stories, Star Books, Featured Books for 13+ readers
Paperback, Hardback. £8.99, down from the £9.99 cover price. In Stock.
Yours From the Tower was written by Sally Nicholls and published by Andersen Press Ltd
Yours From the Tower has 359 pages
£8.99, reduced from £9.99. In Stock.
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