Family Affairs at Orchard Cottage Hospital

 Family Affairs at Orchard Cottage Hospital

Reviewed By  Janet Mawdesley       October 30, 2024

 

Author  Lizzie Lane

Distributor:      Amazon
ISBN:                 978-1804834459
Publisher:         Boldwood Books Ltd
Release Date:   October 2024  

   Website:   https://www.amazon.com.au/Family-Affairs-Orchard-Cottage-Hospital-ebook/dp/B0CWJSNXZV

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Set in the mining town of Norton Dene, Somerset in 1931 Dr Frances Breakspeare is contemplating her latest project, that of adding Family Planning advice to the Mother and Baby clinic.

She believes that women need to have a choice in planning a family, as too many women have little if any choice in regard to family planning. As the new Registrar she had been met with mix feeling for the townspeople and this new concept of Family planning was bound to upset many of the men.

Family Affairs at Orchard Cottage Hospital tells a time old story of tradition, poverty and the hardship faced by many women with little control over their lives as Frances, strives to make a change in the town.

A woman arrives at the clinic, Mary Devonshire, but leaves before Francis can examine her. Mary Devonshire is on a mission to find a child she gave up as a very young girl in service in London.

Frances has been bought up in a very suffragette based household, having been adopted from the Workhouse by Isabel Breakspeare as a baby, growing up with the firm belief that women can do anything they set out to do, regardless of societies dictates.

As the story unfolds Frances finds that her ‘Aunt’ is determined to have the name Breakspeare removed from Frances for her own reasons. As the days pass and more information comes to light about the Breakspeare family, Frances has to face some terrible and brutal truths about the family she was associated with through adoption.

Family Affairs at Orchard Cottage Hospital is part of a series written by Lizzie Lane that carefully portrays the life and times of the 1930’s, when women had little say over their everyday lives. A slow burn to commence, the narrative gathers momentum as the layers of a time old story unfold with devastating effect.

Fiction, Historical