Review: Sixpenny Octavo by Annick Trent

Title: Sixpenny Octavo

Series: The Old Bridge Inn: Book Two

Author: Annick Trent

Length: 282 Pages

Category: Historical Romance

Rating: 4 Stars

At a Glance: Found family and friendships make this installment of the Old Bridge Inn series a warm and inviting addition to the collection. Annick Trent offers up another beautiful love story deeply entrenched in, and heavily influenced by, the politics of its time.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: Clockmender Hannah Croft’s friend Molly has been arrested for her connections to a Jacobin club. In the tumultuous political climate of 1790s Britain, being in the wrong place at the wrong time is enough to land Molly in gaol. Hannah’s one hope to free her lies in the testimony of housemaid Lucy Boone.

Lucy has spent her entire life moving from one household to another, never forming a true connection with her fellow servants—nor with her occasional lovers. She prefers it that way. When you can rely on yourself, why would you need anyone else? But when Hannah Croft asks for help, she cannot say no.

Working together to free Molly, the two women don’t try to ignore their growing attraction. For Hannah, Lucy is a beacon of hope at a difficult time. And Lucy finds herself loving her new life, made welcome by Hannah and her friends.

But their situation is fraught with danger. Rumours abound of an informant in their midst, and a sinister man from the magistrate’s office dogs Lucy’s steps. One wrong move could land them in gaol—or splinter their new relationship from within.

Review: Annick Trent offers up another beautiful love story deeply entrenched in, and heavily influenced by, the politics of its time. My appreciation for Trent’s storytelling remains solid in her commitment to lead readers through censorship in the Georgian era, and the suspicion of social uprising, whether real or imagined, through informers, spies, and guilt by association.

The setting both influences and inhibits Lucy and Hannah’s budding relationship. In fact, I would say Sixpenny Octavo is Historical Fiction with a romantic subplot rather than the romance itself taking center stage. Both women are affected by the strict laws and mores of the time, including those standards aimed specifically at women. The punishment, rightful or otherwise, of people Lucy and Hannah each depended on for their livelihoods—most especially, Hannah’s best friend Molly—provokes changes that neither of them would have made without these catalysts. Those changes do, however, alter the two women’s lives in ultimately fortuitous ways.

The most heartful part of the story is Lucy’s desire to learn to read and write as she embraces more independence than she’s ever known. The support she finds in this endeavor is foreign to her, after a lifetime of having no one or nothing she’s felt connected to. Her pursuit of literacy becomes a pivotal—I’d say the most pivotal—part of the story as it ushers in and then helps bring a definitive end to the third act conflict.

Found family and friendships make this installment of the Old Bridge Inn series a warm and inviting addition to the collection. Lucy and Hannah discover love through uncertain circumstances, and Lucy herself was gifted the warmth and closeness of friendship with Molly as well as other members of the reading group. Something Lucy thought she’d never have.