The Trial of Lotta Rae: The unputdownable historical novel of 2022

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Steeped in history, the author has set the story against a backdrop of the suffragettes’ struggle, transporting you back to a time when doctors believed that only with consent could you conceive, and any woman who just walks with a man is seen as leading him on. The devastation that follows one horrific night for Lotta is truly haunting and I feel like this book will be one I remember for a long time.

The Trial of Lotta Rae - Siobhan MacGowan - Google Books

I quickly devoured this haunting debut, the air of menace and foreboding that lingers over every page holding me captive. It follows the downfall, rise and final downfall of Charlotte Rae, known as Lotta, a young woman who suffers at the hands of a wealthy man and turns to a lowly barrister, William Linden, for help when her father reports her rape to the police. She is from a family of great storytellers, the most prominent of which is her brother, Shane MacGowan of The Pogues. The castle was the largest neo-Gothic house in Ireland, representing landlord power at its apogee in the early 19th century.Sis Cotter, a widow facing the repossession of her house following her husband’s death is spiky and stubborn. For some reason, I seem to resist a lot of historical fiction, even though when it is written as well as The Trial Of Lotta Rae, it can be completely consuming and compelling. Both have decisions to make that will change the course of their lives and the lives of everyone around them for generations to come.

The Trial of Lotta Rae by Siobhan MacGowan | Goodreads

Lotta is a happy 19 year old living with her Ma and Pa in Peabody house, Spitalfields she works as a typist at Whitbreads Brewery. Essentially, this book was about men and women, men's power over women in the era before and during suffrage and ultimately a personal tale of that experience. It also depicts Lotta’s political awakening as she becomes involved in the London suffragette movement. He racked with guilt, desperately clinging on to flawed and out dated values, accompanied by an abiding contempt for women and the "weak" men who support them. Had I known from the beginning that there was a supernatural element to it, I would have understood it better.Twelve years later as the suffragettes rise and the ghost of WW1 looms large over London, William and Lotta meet again. I see that period like the lighted and glowing Titanic sailing with pride and confidence towards its iceberg. The brewery where respectable working-class Lotta (Charlotte) Rae and her beloved father earn their living always holds a party on Halloween night.