The Tenth Gift

Excellent...I love any book that deals with other books. :) The character has a book that her "lover" mistakenly gave to her when they broke off their affair...he tries to get the book back, but the main character won't return it and she finds the story and mystery of the book and other things in little handwritten excerpts in the margins of the book. Great storyline...goes back and forth from present day to the past.

A slow starter, and difficult to be empathetic to someone sleeping with their best friends spouse, however an interesting story around an old problem in the UK that is overlooked,- the Venetians were the worst slavers - to a location often now overlooked. Great Book Group discussion book, lots to love and hate! Personally I recommend it.

The two intertwining stories of both Julia in modern day Cornwall, and of Catherine in 17th century Cornwall mix together for an engaging and enthralling story within a story. The characters of both Julia and Catherine are very well developed, they are both captivating and interesting woman you will like. Both of their lives bring intrigue, passion, and endurance as well as heartache, love and pain. I was totally riveted to this novel, and could not put it down. The author's detailed and evocative descriptions of the actualities of the Barbary Pirate slave trade, and the luscious and exotic environment of Morocco then and now, leap off the page allowing the reader to feel as if they were there in that spiced and alluring foreign land. In a small way this reads like an old fashioned historical romance but it has much more substance and is written in a more literary style. The added attraction of weaving in the art of embroidery to both sides of the story was also very unusual. I eagerly await another masterpiece like this from the author, and think she deserves many claps and a standing ovation!

"There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they have never happened before, like larks that have been singing the same five notes for thousands of years." These well-chosen lines from Willa Cather mark the start of the gripping and entwined tale of two women --- one an affluent modern-day woman, the other a servant girl from the 17th century. Thirty-something Londoner Julia Lovat is enmeshed in an affair with the husband of her erstwhile best friend. Her married lover ends the affair abruptly, giving Julia an uncharacteristically generous gift in parting: an antique book of embroidery patterns. Julia finds original diary entries from the early 1600s written in the margins of the book in tiny, nearly indecipherable print. As Julia transcribes these entries, she becomes engrossed in the life of the book's original owner and diarist --- 19-year-old lady's maid Catherine (Cat), who yearns for a more adventurous life than the one that appears to be in store for her. Cat is a gifted embroiderer who hopes --- somewhat optimistically, considering her era and circumstances --- to be recognized as a master artist. She is being pressured into marrying her upstanding, if uninteresting, young cousin. Cat hopes for some great adventure that will avert this dull fate, allow her to see the world beyond Cornwall's borders, and in turn show the world what she herself is capable of achieving. Her idle ruminations on the future come to an abrupt halt one day as Cat, along with 60 others, is captured by Barbary pirates (or Corsairs, as they called themselves) during a daring slave raid on the Cornish coast. Julia, who has become invested in Cat's fate and wishes to escape her own past, decides to travel to Morocco to pick up the thread of Cat's narrative after she is sold as a slave. In doing so, she embarks on a life-altering journey of her own, finding much in common with Cat, who may in fact have been a distant relative of hers. The storyline moves seamlessly from Julia to Cat and back, capturing each woman's life with great verisimilitude. This incredible story was inspired by first-time author Jane Johnson's own life. She wanted to write a novel based on the life of a family member who was rumored to have been captured during a slave raid by the Sallee Rovers (Corsairs from Salé, now Rabat) and taken to North Africa. During her research into her ancestor's life, she discovered that between the 16th and 19th centuries, over a million Britons, many from Cornwall and other coastal regions, had been captured and enslaved by the Corsairs. Johnson's research led her to Morocco, where she met a man whose striking appearance impressed her so much that she cast him as the pirate chief in her novel, never suspecting that she herself would eventually marry the man in a Berber ceremony and move to a remote village at the foot of the Atlas Mountains to be with him. Johnson's writing is infused with her own understan

This is truly a wonderful book. It's extremely well written and hard to put down. The author really knows how to tell a story. I can't wait for her next book. I recommend this book without reservation.