Learned by Heart

One of my favourite authors writing about one of my favourite historical figures was always going to be a win for me, but Learned By Heart was utterly gorgeous and, in my opinion, Emma Donoghue's best book to date.

Maybe you've watched the marvellous Gentleman Jack series by Sally Wainwright? Did you know the main character, Anne Lister, was a real and prolific Regency diarist? Anne is also the heroine in Emma Donoghue's fabulous new novel, Learned by Heart.

In 1805, at a York boarding school for girls, fourteen-year-old Anne met and roomed with a beautiful young orphan, an heiress from India, Eliza Raine. Closeted together, they fell in love in a riveting tale of young love and inevitable separation, the allure and yearning achingly described.

It's fascinating that fans of Anne Lister decoded many of her letters,… show more.

This book is brand new, a bright, original, engrossing, and highly amusing recreation of a girl's school in northern England where, in 1805, a key episode in the life of Anne Lister, the famous lesbian and protagonist of HBO's  Gentleman Jack, unfolded.

The characters and setting are presented with delightful, surprising, utterly convincing detail. A pair of girls, one audacious and unconventional, the other a half-caste from India, gradually succumb to an unlikely friendship that slips ever so delicately into a passionate love affair.

The suspense builds and builds until the girls' heedless pursuit of pleasure and freedom takes possession… show more.

Set in the 18th Century, Learned by Heart is the tragic love story of a teenage Anne Lister, the famous diarist, landowner, and lesbian, and Eliza Raine, the lonely orphan daughter of an Indian mother.

School friends initially, their relationship deepens, but it’s a time when such love couldn’t be spoken of, let alone engaged in. Utterly immersive, passionate, and heartbreaking, the novel wove a magical spell on me. Donoghue’s exquisite prose took me back to the 18th Century, in every minute detail, and I experienced all the joys and sorrows of growing up at a time when women were… show more.