Out of the ruins

I don't know if Tracy Chevalier has ever been described as a literary novelist, yet her historical novels, especially Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Last Runaway, certainly approach that standard of excellence. And so does her 2019 novel, A Single Thread.

Violet Speedwell lost both her fiancé and her brother in the Great War. Now in her late thirties, with single men her age scarce in England, she reluctantly settles into a spinster's life. She moves to Winchester to escape her oppressive mother, takes a job as a typist and joins a group of women embroidering kneeling cushions for Winchester Cathedral. It is far from the life she had imagined for herself, yet gradually she begins to make it her own  — if only her mother's declining health doesn't force her to return home.

Then one of her new friends turns out to be a lesbian, compelling Violet to get involved protecting her and her lover and placing her reputation at risk. And she begins a relationship — more than friendship, less than a love affair — with Arthur, a married man 22 years her senior who is one of the bell ringers at the cathedral.

These various factors, including her mother's declining health, could easily ruin a life that already seems in ruins. How Violet manages to turn her trials into triumph will satisfy most readers, except perhaps for those looking for something a bit more literary.