I loved this book.The main character is wonderful-brave and funny with a wonderful turn of phrase.It reads like a Restoration novel with playscripts added in.The story moves along at a fast pace and holds the reader's attention throughout.
The period detail is meticulously researched,with great descriptions of location and characters,especially the theatres and clothes.
It would make a wonderful film or TV series, and I just hope we hear more of Ursula Flight!

Set in 17th - Century Britain, this is a lush, vivid story of the life of Ursula Flight. Written as a story but also in diary and script form, it is wonderful.
I loved watching Ursula grow with every chapter and would highly recommend it to everyone.

This is the debut novel from Anne-Marie Crowhurst and tells the story ( written in an unusual diary format) of Ursula Flight, born into a moderately wealthy family, on the night of a comet believed to bring ill fortune, in the year 1664.
As Ursula grows up, her father who she adores, decides to give her a proper education in maths, reading and astronomy, which is highly unusual in the 17th century when girls are expected to get married, look pretty, raise children and not much else.
Instead Ursula has dreams of becoming a playwright and living a life in the theatre. Her dreams are soon shattered when her parents decide that she is to become betrothed to the boorish and much older Lord Tyringham. After marriage she goes to live at his country seat ,Turvey Hall in Wiltshire. Will she escape and follow her dreams or stay and live a life of comfortable decline and readers will find out what happens to our heroine as the story progresses.
I love the eye catching title and cover illustration which drew me to this book and each chapter kept me wanting to read more and find out Ursula's fate. The author Anne-Marie Crowhurst gives a descriptive, vibrant feel to the 17th century period and has put great research into the fashion, foods and particularly life for women in that day.
I would have liked to have seen the character of Samuel, Ursula's childhood sweetheart given a bit more depth and description at the beginning of the story when we first meet him and thought his character was slightly rushed and put aside, but Ursula herself is a lovable character who has many hardships to overcome throughout the story.
I would recommend this book to anyone who loves historical novels with a sense of history and detail of that era.
Thanks to the publishers Atlantic Books, the author and NetGalley for allowing me to preview and rate this novel. #UrsulaTakesFlight #NetGalley

Thank you to Netgalley, Anna Marie Crowhurst and Atlantic Books for my ARC of The Illumination of Ursula Flight.

Title: The Illumination of Ursula Flight

Author: Anna-Marie Crowhurst

Publication Date: 3rd May 2018

Rating: 5*

Quote: 'One thing I do know, is that there is no pleasure on this earth better than reading. I have been transported to realms beyond my wildest imagining, to places I shall never see, for they are at the other side of the world, or do not exist at all. And I have been made to cry and laugh and to think and be peaceful, and all of this I have got from books.'

Summary

Ursula Flight is an unusual young woman. At least for the 17th Century she is. Her father has brought her up with book learning, she can read, write and do mathematics as well as speak various languages. This is the story of Ursula's coming of age, through heartbreak, scoundrels and the terrors that befell a 'wench' of the day, Ursula is determined to live her dream of becoming a playwright against all odds.

Review

The Illumination of Ursula Flight is one of those unusual novels which not only endears you to the heroine throughout but leaves you feeling like you've been touched by a ray of sunshine by the time it comes to a close.

I loved the character of Ursula she was so strong willed, and passionate but feminine and girly as well one minute worrying about fashion and the next covering herself in ink blotches and terrorising the neighbourhood. I felt her joy and her happiness but I also felt her sorrow and pain.

Not only were the characters great however and I could wax lyrical about them all, it was a great story with beautiful writing and a great amount of comedy to boot. Ursula does not only illuminate herself but the readers as well.

The Illumination of Ursula Flight,  Anna-Marie Crowhurst


Review from Jeannie Zelos book reviews

Genre: Historical Fiction , Literary Fiction

I really wanted to like this book, wonderful cover, beautifully written but somehow it was just an OK read for me. Its kind of whimsical, almost fantastical the way its told, but in effect its a story of one poor child married off unhappily, easily taken in by the stories of others.
She's determined though, and doesn't stay down but bounces back, full of optimism. Her story is one very familiar to the time where girls and women were almost a sub-class, seen as delicate when it came to learning and education, and the property of the nearest male relative.

I didn't really like Ursula, even when we first meet her as a toddler, and my feelings didn't change even as she aged. I did admire her determination though, the way she picked herself up again and again. Sadly hers was the lot that befell many women of the time, where men weren't expected to be faithful, where silver tongued rakes whispered sweet nothings in ears that were too ready to believe them. As always its the woman that pays the price.

I do like a dip back in history from time to time, and I enjoyed that side of it, but I almost abandoned the book to begin with, as it just didn't seem to be going anywhere, and I never really came to love the story. I'm glad I read it, the writing style is interesting and kept pulling me back even as I was mulling over whether to stop as the actual story wasn't working for me.
That's how it goes sometimes, a beautifully written tale, loved by other readers but which just doesn't do it for me. Its not the book, its me, a matter where my taste in reading and the story within the novel just don't meet.

Stars: Three, interesting setting, beautifully told, but the story wasn't a great one for me.

ARC supplied for review purposes by Netgalley and Publishers