The descriptive quality and simple prose allow the story to unfold in an almost serene manner. The characters unfold and grow, not from one single point of view, but each from their own perspective. We are gently taken through the customs and traditions of everyday life in a different era. In true Chevalier style the plot is calm and the prose is easy, yet mesmerising in its simplistic beauty. ‘ Falling Angels’ is the first of these that I’ve read. It is then that the beautiful, frustrated Mrs Coleman makes a bid for greater personal freedom, with disastrous consequences, and the lives of the Colemans and the Waterhouses are changed forever.Īfter reading ‘ Girl With A Pearl Earring’, I went on a bit of a Chevalier binge and bought two more of her books. As the girls grow up and the new century finds its feet, as cars replace horses and electricity outshines gas lighting, Britain emerges from the shadows of oppressive Victorian values to a golden Edwardian summer. And worse, befriend the gravedigger’s son. To their mutual distaste, the families are inextricably linked when their daughters become friends behind the tombstones. The Waterhouses revere the late Queen and cling to Victorian traditions the Colemans look forward to a more modern society. One is decorated with a sentimental angel, the other an elaborate urn.

Synopsis: January 1901, the day after Queen Victoria’s death: two families visit neighbouring graves in a fashionable London cemetery.

Falling angels by tracy chevalier