I've put details of why this isn't for me in spoiler tags below and reveal the plot - read at your peril! The guidelines Rose is to follow in her “correction” of the stories is that “no female protagonist should be overly intelligent, dominant or subversive, no woman should be rewarded for challenging a man, and no narrative should undermine in any way the Protector’s views of the natural relationship between the sexes. Widowland is an alternate history speculative novel which, while it has some beautiful writing, turned out to be fairly derivative of many other such books, a kind of Fatherland/Handmaids Tale hybrid where the alternate history aspects weren't quite spot on in feel.

While I never worry about forgetting what he looked or sounded like because there are numerous videos of him on YouTube, I still haven’t brought myself to watch them. This is very much dystopian fiction for book-lovers however as Rose analyses the heroines of literature and works to bring them into line with the Protectorate.Rose is smart, well-educated, and high-ranking in the chaste system, she is indoctrinated into the government's position by working for them. Writing was good, worldbuilding, pacing was a little wobbly, especially towards the end it felt inconsistent to the rest of the book. More than two decades later, this simple act has inspired a wise and witty memoir – although Ellis eschews such a description – about how such an apparently mundane object is transformed into a near-holy relic, as it comes to affect the lives of those who come into contact with it. I feel like it moved at lightening speed from telling us how the Alliance works to all of a sudden a rebellion…. The status of females is of particular interest to the Protector, who has constructed a complex caste system.

Imagine a mingling of Fatherland, Vox, Handmaid's Tale, and other novels that change the story we grew up learning. Even in their arranged "perfect" world citizens of every class were under scrutiny and threat of punishment. I will warn readers that this book has a giant cliffhanger, which oddly enough didn’t disturb me, probably because there is another Widowland book coming out in the UK on October 13th, entitled Queen High.

A very stylish and exciting counterfactual set around the coronation of Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson. There is a protector from Germany, or the mainland, who oversees the British government and the rules and regulations implemented with the joining of the Alliance. But rather than the new young Queen Elizabeth approaching the throne, instead Westminster Abbey is preparing to crown King Edward VIII and Queen Wallis.

Yet only doctors make the life-or-death decisions that Harrison recounts grippingly and affectingly here. She sits in the best seats at the movie theater, she receives more rations, she’s allowed access to cafes and restaurants, and has an apartment in a building with its amenities still intact.The subject matter would provide opportunities for book clubs to discuss content as well as the underlying societal implications. She must “correct” anything that is degenerate, subversive or doesn’t align with the Protectorate’s ideals.

George VI and his family have ‘disappeared,’ Edward VIII and Queen Wallis are on the throne but in practice, all power is vested in Alfred Rosenberg, Britain’s Protector. Only approved movies with approved actors and actresses can be shown at the movie theater, and there is always a newsreel from the Alliance before the movie with propagandized news.Having spent years defending Austen from charges of being 'just' a romance novelist or - worse - that her heroines were gold-diggers, it was gratifying to see Austen's quiet radicalism recognised. At first there was open resistance to the Alliance by many British citizens, but that was put down quickly and violently, and now the resistance has gone underground. BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.