Lily is not the easiest book to read. It deals with the harsher side of life for many Victorian women. This was a time when women and children had virtually no rights. Lily is a foundling who spends the first 6 years of her life on a farm being cared for and loved, Then she is returned to the Foundling hospital where she is cruelly treated. The story follows her life and we see her at the farm, in the foundling hospital and when she is a an adult working at a wig factory. The time line moves around without warning between the different periods of Lily’s life. I didn’t find this a problem but I was a bit put off by the lack of chapters. It made the book very hard to put down as there were no natural break points
We know right from the start that Lily has committed a murder but how and why remains a mystery for a great deal of the book. When things are revealed, everything makes perfect sense and you realise how events have led Lily up to this point.
Rose Tremain’s writing is always gorgeous and there are some brilliantly described moments. She also captures the horror of parts of Lily’s life and the characters in the book are vividly portrayed.
This is definitely on the darker side of historical fiction but one I would recommend.
Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Such an emotional read. It was heartbreaking hearing the story of Lily and her experiences in the Foundling Hospital. An interesting start lets us know that Lily has murdered someone but has not as yet been apprehended. We are then whisked to the origins of her life as an abandoned baby, taken in by the Hospital, fostered out until she turns six by a kind loving family, only to be compulsory returned to the Hospital for the nest ten years. No love or kindness is shown in this institution, but hard work and severe punishments are the norm. Throughout this engaging story we the reader is always hopeful for a happy ending.

A riveting and engaging read from start to finish. A historical setting is not my usual first choice of book but I’m pleased I made an exception with this one. Lily Mortimer was abandoned as a baby and entrusted to the care of a London orphanage. Her first six years are spent with a Suffolk foster family who are then forced to return her to the care of the orphanage, where she endures unspeakable cruelty and neglect. As a young teen, Lily finds work as a wig maker for theatrical productions but struggles to come to terms with who she is and a criminal act she has committed in her past that she is fearful of being exposed. I was particularly struck by the description of stone picking from ploughed fields in Suffolk (echoes of George Ewart Evans’ book “Ask the fellows who cut the hay”) and the colourful portrayal of Belle Prettywood’s Wig Emporium. Lily’s origin story remains a mystery and the ending, whilst not unexpected, avoids cliche and sentimentality. Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this compelling story.

Set in 1800's, Lilly has committed the most terrible of crimes and is now certain that she will hang for she has done, the reasons for this crime aren't revealed until you hear her story and although the storyline flits between Lily's past and present, it's not a confusing read.
I absolutely loved reading about Lily's journey and her character is a very believable one.
There are some topics that aren't the easiest of reads, and I did wonder where Tremain was going with it, but it all works out as the curtain falls, and what an ending it was. Pure genius!

If you like gothic, historical fiction, then you're sure to enjoy 'Lily'.

A fantastic, immersive novel set in 1850s London and Suffolk. Well-written characters coupled with a dark and gothic theme made this a great read! As some other reviewers have mentioned, the ending was a bit predictable - but fulfilling nonetheless!

Thanks so much to Vintage for letting me read Lily by Rose Tremain in advance. I wasn't sure what to expect from this one, but it's more heartfelt and sorrowful than I had anticipated – and by the end, I did really feel for Lily.

Lily is born in 1850, discovered by a policeman at the edge of Victoria Park in London. She's delivered to the Foundling Hospital and from there she has a pretty terrible life – she's torn away from her loving foster family in Suffolk, she is forced to grow up in the grim and abusive Foundling Hospital, and she ends up working in a wig emporium without any real friends.

For a lot of this book, I wasn't convinced about the way the narrative unfolded; it covers Lily's life from birth until she turns seventeen, and I'm not much of a fan of those biography-esque fictional narratives, and an idyllic six years in Suffolk wasn't the most interesting thing to read about. I think this style of narrative does start to make more sense towards the end, but I did still prefer the 'present-day' timeline, which focuses on Lily working in the wig emporium and trying to survive a crime she feels terrible about.

The writing is great, as you'd expect from Rose Tremain, and the characters are all vividly drawn – I especially liked Lily's childhood friend Bridget. The historical period, too, feels researched and convincing. By the end I was so immersed in Lily's life and wellbeing in a way that reminded me of reading Kirsty Capes's Careless – I really understood her journey and felt for her and was glad of the outcome – but it's a shame it took a bit of a meander to get there. 3.5 🌟

Despite being recommended the author on a number of occasions. I had never got around to reading Rose Tremain before. I’m now wondering why because this was excellent: Historical fiction at its best. I knew a fair bit about the foundling hospitals but this held a mirror up to the practice that was even more unforgiving. Utterly gripping, historically rich and a thrilling page turner all in one.

A child is left abandoned in the snow and is found by a young police officer. Raised as part of the Coram Foundation Lily Mortimer is now employed as a successful wigmaker but her experiences have left her embittered. As a baby Lily was fostered by a Suffolk farming family but at 6 years old she was returned to London. At the foundation Lily suffered and nursed a deep hatred of one person. When she encounters her policeman saviour years later she realises her revenge may be her downfall.
This is a really powerful, emotional book. At first Lily's tale seems odd, descriptions of a happy childhood at odds with fact that Lily has committed murder. It is only late in the book that the reader realises just what young Lily was subjected to, who she killed and why. I loved the way the writing drew me in to the tale and the enigmatic manner that jigsaw was put together. A great piece of storytelling

I was sent a copy of Lily by Rose Tremain to read and review by NetGalley. Rose Tremain is one of my favourite authors and this novel does not disappoint. While I was frustrated with the fact that there were very few obvious chapters and sometimes you stumbled from one timeline straight into another with no warning – I don’t know if this was because I was reading a kindle version or not – the writing is classic Rose Tremain. She writes so beautifully and so sensitively you can get really inside the characters and feel everything along with them. I would not call this a happy book, it is set in a time when children had no rights or choices and the episodes concerning the foundling hospital are, quite frankly, brutal. All in all, a great historical novel that engenders feelings of empathy and horror in equal measure and is always quite believable.

One cold evening in Victorian London a young constable Sam Trench discovers a young abandoned baby at the gates of a London park. He takes her to the London Foundling Hospital. There she is named Lily Mortimer. Initially, she is fostered out to a friendly family in Suffolk. However, as per the rules she has to return to the hospital when she turns six. Taken from the family and the only mother she has known.
As a spirited child Lily was often in trouble and suffered brutal punishments back at the hospital
On her release from the hospital she takes a job at Belle Prettywood's Wig Emporium. It is whilst here she commits a terrible crime.

Throughout her life Sam Trench has risen the police ranks. He has also watched over her. His feelings have also changed. If he discovers her secret will she swing from the gallows

A thought provoking book set in Victorian England. We know Lily is guilty of a crime from the outset but as you read you can't help but be on Lily's side.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the opportunity to see an ARC

I read Rose Tremain’s Islands of Mercy earlier this year and loved the writing style so when this came up on my NetGalley I had to request it. The writing was exactly what I expected, lyrical prose and wonderfully created characters that bring the story to life.

Lily is a tortured young woman who has spent her life trying to look up to the sky but the world keeps pressing her down into the dirt. She is also harbouring a terrible secret of a life she has taken and cannot escape the guilt she feels. You really feel for Lily as the story goes on and Tremain keeps you guessing for a while about the history of her secret until it all falls into place which I enjoyed. The storyline was a little frustrating for me though as it jumped around in the timeline and that made it hard to keep track of where we were in Lily’s life.

Solid story and wonderful writing, a lovely example of how good Tremain is at capturing the imagination with her characters. Would recommend.

Subtitled ‘A Tale of Revenge’, the narrative moves back and forth in time between Lily’s early years spent with a foster family, her time at the London Foundling Hospital and her subsequent employment at Belle Prettywood’s Wig Emporium. Throughout the book Lily is convinced that the crime she has committed will one day be discovered and that she will be condemned to death as a result. The circumstances of the crime are only revealed towards the end of the book, posing the question whether a crime of this nature can ever be justified even if its motivation is to save others.

The book has echoes of the novels of Charles Dickens in the way it describes the experiences of those unfortunate enough to find themselves orphans. However, the cruel treatment experienced by the children taken in by the London Foundling Hospital is of a more extreme, and perverted, nature than anything found within the pages of Oliver Twist. That treatment is in stark contrast to the affection Lily experiences from her foster family, Nellie and Perkin Buck and their three sons, on their farm in Suffolk. That idyllic existence comes to a sudden end when, at the age of six, Lily is removed from the family and returned to the Foundling Hospital. There, along with the other foundlings, she is ordered to ‘forget absolutely’ those who cared for her during the first years of her life; indeed she is told her foster family looked after her only because they were paid. The foundlings’ position is compared to slaves whose masters care nothing for them, but recognise only their monetary value. ‘You are like them… You are like those slaves. For did you not work for the people paid to care for you?’ In fact, Lily is cruelly beaten when, in an early expression of defiance, she attempts to write a letter to Nellie Buck.

A further cruel feature of the system is the way the foundlings are regarded as being the ‘carriers’ of the sins of their mothers – not their fathers, note. They are told they possess an innate wickedness, ‘a blood-wickedness which could lead then into deep thickets of sin and transgression’. Only through obedience and hard work can they pay for the supposed degeneracy of their mothers. As it transpires, wickedness and degeneracy is the province of others, particularly one especially monstrous character.

I found the absence of chapter breaks and the sudden unannounced changes in timeline (at least in my ARC) rather distracting and left me confused at times. However, whatever reservations I may have had about the book’s structure, there’s no doubt about the author’s ability to create beautiful prose. For example, when Lily and her friend, Bridget, travel through the countryside as evening falls in search of a place of refuge. ‘The air they breathed had a taste to it of things burned and gone. And it was not still. It moved in strange patterns, like a wispy black scarf threatening to touch their faces, then suddenly disappearing to reveal the way ahead..’

A side plot involves Lily search for the mother who abandoned her. The book also depicts Lily’s growing friendship with her employer, the irrepressible and flamboyant Belle, and Lily’s confused feelings towards Sam who is both her guardian angel but also the person who might bring her to justice.

Lily is a character you can’t help rooting for and, although bleak at times, the book has great period atmosphere and a touching ending that offers a little ray of light in the darkness.

I’ve not read any of Rose Tremain’s books before Lily so was not sure what to expect but I will definitely look out for more of her books.

The story leaps back from past present with no indication or chapters which took me a while to get accustomed to but thankfully Lily’s sorry tale had me hooked!

There were bits that were very sad and I kept reading hoping for a happy ending. I have to say I really liked the characters of Bridget and Belle too.

Thank you to #NetGalley for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review. #Lily

The eponymous, Lily Mortimer is abandoned as a baby and left in a London park from where she is rescued by Sam Trench, young police constable, who delivers baby Lily into the ordered world of the London Foundling Hospital. This harsh environment which shows its young inhabitants no affection comes alive in the description of what life was like for those children who had, quite simply, been abandoned to their fate.

Lily's early fostering with the kind hearted Puck family in rural Suffolk is the only bright spot on what seems like a very dark journey for Lily, a journey which takes a decidedly darker turn when she is forced to leave behind a loving family only to return to the Foundling Hospital as a bewildered six year old. Lily's life unfolds before us in this intriguing Victorian melodrama which has both pathos and poverty.

Well written, and cleverly researched, there is a real sense of the darker side of life which brings Victorian London alive in such an authentic way so that you practically feel the grime and sense the squalor. I found Lily's employment at Belle Prettywood's Wig Emporium absolutely fascinating especially as Lily's nimble fingers make this complicated process seem all the more realistic.

Amidst a life of incredible harshness there are moments when the story becomes unbelievably sad, but what shines throughout is Lily's strength of spirit despite the deadly secret she carries with her. Moving between timescales Lily is a melancholic story of a Victorian orphan who is determined to make her way despite her poverty and with the fickle nature of fate stacked against her.

Full disclosure I haven’t read all of Rose Tremain’s novels but one of my favourites isn’t a historical novel at all - it’s ‘Trepass’ which I loved. So my expectations for her latest ‘Lily’ were high and I have to say I wasn’t disappointed. The story opens on a stormy night when a young London policeman finds an abandoned baby at the gates of a park. She’s taken to the Corams Foundling hospital and named Lily Mortimer. Soon she’s fostered by a lovely family and taken to live a bucolic life on their Suffolk farm. Surrounded by love it’s a wrench when aged six she’s returned to the hospital to learn a trade. She goes onto make a deep, short lived friendship and suffers abuse and cruelty which ultimately leads her to commit an avenging crime years later. Sam the policeman who found her as a baby comes back into her life but his reappearance causes further confusion for the young vulnerable Lily. I have to say that some of the depictions of harsh Victorian life and the cruelty Lily endures moved me to tears. This book is extremely bleak and dark in places with some moments of love and light especially when Lily starts working as a wig maker for the ageing glamour puss and vaguely scandalous Belle Prettywood. There are some huge complex themes explored here: rejection, poverty, guilt and redemption as well as what it actually means to be charitable. You can decide for yourself whether Lily deserves to be punished for her crime or whether her life up til then was one long, harsh prison sentence. I found her to be an engaging ‘heroine’ and at every turn I was praying her life would change for the better. This is not a long novel and I pretty much read it in two sittings as I was gripped by this Dickensian tale. Another wonderful novel from Rose Tremain.
Huge thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and author for the opportunity to read an advance copy in return for an honest review.

What a tragic tale! I really enjoyed this and was soon hooked with Lily’s story, though you do have to go with the time switches and try to keep up.
Lily has a terrible secret, and you need to walk in her shoes before you judge her: life has not always been fair to her. Lily is a foundling, saved from certain death by a policeman in some sort of fantastical London when wolves still exist. After this rather unusual fact, the rest of the book seems quite true to a Victorian London that I recognised, and I am mystified as to why wolves were needed to add plausibility to Lily’s situation.
As a Coram child, Lily is fostered out for the first 6 years of her life and lives an idyllic life. I loved this part of her tale and was heartbroken at her abrupt end to this situation. Her life in Coram is unbelievably cruel and shocking; I don’t know how realistic a picture this would have been for foundlings, but I am sure it is not what Thomas Coram intended. Lily is brave and tenacious, in spite of her difficult existence. Her experiences at the home certainly make her the woman that she becomes.
‘Adult’ Lily commits murder: she has good reason – but does that make her action right? Her relationships with all adults felt difficult and stunted. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of Belle Prettywood, Lily’s relentless quest to find her mother, or the advances of her saviour, Sam Trench.
I was absorbed by Lily’s world and felt totally immersed in the squalor and darkness of Victorian London. The ending seemed a little forced and perhaps too good to be true – though I was left satisfied with Lily’s final fate.
I was reading on a Kindle and had a formatting issue where different time-hops merged into each other making it a little difficult to unpick at times.
This book contains references to murder, suicide, abandonment and sexual abuse.

Lily Mortimer was abandoned as a baby. Found, and saved, by a police officer, she is fostered out to a family where she spends 6 happy years. However, she is then taken back to the Foundling Hospital where she will be ‘trained’ for a future life of servitude. Unsurprisingly, she is ill-treated, neglected and abused whilst in the hospital.

I don’t know if it was because I was reading an ARC on my Kindle, but there were a number of random and confusing jumps in time, between Lily’s adult and childhood stories.

It’s difficult to voice some of my frustrations without giving the plot away. However, I found the main storyline unbelievable (that she got away with it) and I found the romance a bit unnecessary (and a little bit icky on his side).

Despite this, the book was beautifully written.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book.

From the opening pages of Rose Tremain’s new novel, we know that Lily Mortimer is a murderer and that she expects to hang for what she has done. What we don’t know is who the victim was and what drove a young woman like Lily to commit such a terrible crime. To find the answers we have to go back in time, to a cold winter’s night in 1850 when policeman Sam Trench finds a baby abandoned by the gates of a London park. Sam takes her to the London Foundling Hospital where she is given the name Lily and sent to live with a foster family in the countryside. This is only a temporary arrangement – children are expected to return to the Hospital once they reach the age of six – but Lily’s foster parents, Nellie and Perkin Buck, grow to love the little girl and they are all heartbroken when the time comes for them to separate.

Back at the Foundling Hospital, Lily feels trapped and unhappy; she and the other children are badly treated by the women who are employed to take care of them and Lily herself seems to be singled out for the worst punishments. As the years go by, Lily becomes an adult and starts work as a wigmaker at Belle Prettywood’s Wig Emporium – but even though she has left the orphanage behind, she is still haunted by the events of her childhood.

After being disappointed by Rose Tremain’s last book, Islands of Mercy, I found this a much more compelling read. It took me a while to get into it as the timeline jumped around so much at the beginning, constantly moving from Lily’s present to her past and back again, which felt disjointed and confusing – and the absence of chapter breaks didn’t help – but eventually things settled down and I was drawn into the story. There are shades of Jane Eyre, particularly in the parts of the book that deal with Lily’s relationship with another orphan, Bridget, and I was also reminded of Stacey Halls’ The Foundling, another novel set partly in the London Foundling Hospital (although this book has a very different plot).

The Hospital – also known as Coram, after its founder Thomas Coram – is vividly described and comes to life as a grim, forbidding place where the abandoned children are made to pay for the ‘sins of their mothers’. Although Lily is occasionally shown some kindness by people such as her benefactress Lady Elizabeth Mortimer, most of the treatment she receives at Coram is harsh and cruel. It seemed such a shame to me that the children weren’t allowed to stay with foster families who loved and wanted them, although I understood that the idea of returning them to the Hospital was so that they could learn the skills that would equip them for life in Victorian society.

This is a bleak novel, but also quite a moving one and despite knowing that Lily considered herself a criminal, I had a lot of sympathy for her from the beginning and hoped that her story would have a happier ending than the one she was expecting. I would recommend Lily not just to Rose Tremain’s existing fans, but also to anyone looking for a dark Victorian tale to immerse themselves in this winter.

This is Lily's story. Found abandoned as a newborn in a London Park by a Policeman. Taken to the foundling hospital. Fostered out by a lovely family for the first six years, it all starts to go wrong when she is returned to the hospital as is the way things are done by law when the child hits six years old. But she does her best and eventually gains employment at a Wig Emporium. But when we first meet her she is bogged down by the guilt of some heinous crime she has committed, one that is really weighing her down.
Told in the present and flashback we slowly start to uncover the truth of what is really making Lily suffer...
Oh my days. This book tugged at my heartstrings pretty much all the way through. I really connected to Lily from the off and rooted for her all the way through. I laughed with her at her early days, filled with the love of her foster-family. Was devastated when she was "returned". Shocked at the way she was made to "make up for the money spent on her already". And then, the rest of what happens to and around her on her journey to where she eventually ends up.
I'd say less is more going into this book. It's definitely an emotional read that will tug at your heartstrings all the way through. But it's not all doom and gloom. That'd make for too dark a book. There is enough of the lighter side of life contained herein to keep the book on an even keel and also, dare I say, there's some humour to be found here too.
The time in which the book is set is faithfully reproduced herein, warts and all. And the language the author uses really brings it all to life. For me, it's a tad wordy but I can forgive that if the story is engaging and this most definitely was.
All in all, a good solid read that, by the end, made me sad to have to say goodbye to Lily. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Gosh where to start with this heartfelt and heartbreaking journey into Lily's life.
When Lily is found at just a few hours old abandoned at Bethnal Grern park by young policemen Sam Trench on a cold winters night Sam walks through the night to take Lily to safety at the London Foundling Hospital in the hope to save her life and his own.
After being fostered by Nellie and her family and taken to the idyllic Suffolk countryside Lily's life is wonderful but little did she know that at the age of six she will have to be returned to the hospital as the law suggests.
On returning to the Foundling Lily's life is unbearable with constant beatings and cruel punishments.
Until such time when she is released to seek employment at Belle Prettywood's Wig Emporium where she is in much demand for her sewing skills and in time becomes friends with Belle.
But Lily is holding on to a deep dark secret that may one day take her to the gallows.
This is such a wonderfully written novel of heartache love and loss.