Our Lizzie

By Anna Jacobs

Book Overview

Lizzie Kershaw is an independent spirit. At twelve, she loses her father and her happy family life ends as her mother grows to resent her. Then circumstances push Lizzie into an early marriage, where she finds her mother's petty cruelties replaced by her husband's frequent beatings. But she is a survivor. When World War I breaks out, Lizzie's husband is forced to join up and she seizes the opportunity to run away. She finds independence and friendship in a munitions factory - plus the promise of a new love. But as war ends, the shadow of her husband looms again. Can she break free of him and find happiness? This is a vivid and engrossing tale of endurance, set in Lancashire from 1909-1914. Anna Jacobs has once again created characters so real you laugh and weep with them and you will never forget "Our Lizzie."

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312311435
• ISBN13: 9780312311438
• Release Date: July 2003
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.6" x 1.3" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

A strong historical character study

In 1908 when she was twelve, Lizzie Kershaw sees her pleasant world end with the accidental death of her father at the brewery he worked at. The family finds different ways to bring in income including two borders, the Harper sisters, who have shared a similar loss of income due to a death. Though young, Lizzie accepts a job as her part to make money. Sam Thoxby takes advantage of the grieving Kershaw and Harper families though he pretends to be a Good Samaritan providing help, but he has hidden agendas. In the case of the Kershaws, he plans to one day marry Lizzie when she is of an age because he likes her spirit.Over the next few years, Lizzie's mother is mean and viscous towards Lizzie culminating with her forcing her to marry Sam. He is physically abusive so she learns when it is worth the beatings to challenge him. When he goes off to war, she takes employment at a munitions factory where she begins to fall in love with someone else. However, Sam still looms on the horizon and divorce is unacceptable.This is a strong historical character study that includes a finely developed ensemble. The story line enables the audience to observe life in the first quarter of the twentieth century as Anna Jacobs provides a powerful spotlight. Sam is too sly and devious so that some of the tension between he and a rival upon his return from the war is abated. Still OUR LIZZIE is a tremendous historical fiction that escorts the audience into an up front and close view of life in England almost a century ago.Harriet Klausner