Book Title: The Low Road

Author: Katharine Quarmby

Publication Date: UK: 22nd June 2023. US: 19^th September 2023. Australia/NZ: 2nd January 2024

Publisher: Unbound Publishing

Page Length: 400

Genre: Historical Fiction / Lesbian Fiction / Women’s Literature

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Book Title and Author Name:

The Low Road

Katharine Quarmby

Blurb:

In 1828, two young women were torn apart as they were sentenced to transportation to Botany Bay. Will they ever meet again?

Norfolk, 1813. In the quiet Waveney Valley, the body of a woman – Mary Tyrell – is staked through the heart after her death by suicide. She had been under arrest for the suspected murder of her newborn child. Mary leaves behind a young daughter, Hannah, who is later sent away to the Refuge for the Destitute in London, where she will be trained for a life of domestic service.

It is at the Refuge that Hannah meets Annie Simpkins, a fellow resident, and together they forge a friendship that deepens into passionate love. But the strength of this bond is put to the test when the girls are caught stealing from the Refuge’s laundry, and they are sentenced to transportation to Botany Bay, setting them on separate paths that may never cross again.

Drawing on real events, The Low Road is a gripping, atmospheric tale that brings to life the forgotten voices of the past – convicts, servants, the rural poor – as well as a moving evocation of love that blossomed in the face of prejudice and ill fortune.

Writing nature in The Low Road

Katharine Quarmby

One of the greatest joys of my life over the last few years has been watching small birds, trying to identify them and enjoying their birdsong, from the aggressive but tuneful robin to the liquid tones of a blackbird. What knowledge I had until recently came from my dad, who was really knowledgeable about the environment, perhaps from childhood growing up in Yorkshire, England, on a farm.

Although as a child I didn’t see the point of endless hours spent in bird hides and nature reserves, and grumbled when we went from youth hostel to youth hostel in the summer holidays, it has paid off. I’m happiest by water, gazing over green fields and gentle hills.

He died in 2017, when I was writing The Low Road, and in many ways the experience of grief and loss which is woven through the novel is an expression of the love I had for him, and other family members and friends we lost in a year when we experienced multiple bereavements.

His love of the natural world is woven into the book. Birds and the love of the Norfolk landscape is really where the book starts, as the main character, Hannah, recounts her childhood on an East Anglian farm, learning how to milk and her memories of living with her mother, before she dies, too young. “When we got to the church I would count the white and brown cattle out loud for Mama – one, two, up to thirty at times – as they grazed quiet upon the meadow lands… In the spring, violets and primroses burst out with colour in the green hedges and the birds sang their hearts out.”

After Hannah loses her mother, the people of the hometown we shared two hundred years or so apart, Harleston, in Norfolk, take up a collection for the orphan, and she is sent to the Refuge for the Destitute in London.

Hannah feels the absence of nature keenly in Hackney, and looks for it where she can – from the fields beyond the turnpike she sees on her first day, to the small nosegays that the kind housekeeper, Miss Clements, picks for the children on mother’s day, offering Hannah “daffydowndillys. I thought of how I had gathered flowers in the meadow for my mama”.

As she grows closer to another inmate at the Refuge, Annie, and even shares a hammock with her, she hears the sound of birds: “I heard the sparrows as they started yelling flying in and out of the ivy that had crept up the wall” outside the dormitory where the girls sleep.

The girls, desperate to stay together, conspire to steal from the Refuge, but are caught, stand trial and are convicted of robbery. They are to be transported, but first face the awfulness of the Female Penitentiary, prison hulks, and life on the streets. Hannah is transported separately from Annie, and sails to Australia not knowing if they will ever meet again.

In Australia, nature returns after the bleakness of London, and Hannah learns the names and calls of new birds and animals through the eyes of the man she is assigned to as servant, Frank. She is there to nurse his dying wife, and he is one of the few men she has met who abhors cruelty, whether it is to people or beasts, reminding her of her dead mother. Hannah lives on the farm with Frank and Eleanor, until she dies, and he then makes sure that she is free to leave. She chooses to stay, in a landscape she learns to love and which reminds her of the Norfolk home she lost so many years ago.

“A herd of healthy cows graze quietly in the field and then two men come walking, crying out to the cows…I close my eyes and listen to the sound of the cows going in for milking and the years roll away like a carpet up for beating and I am a child again”.

Hannah’s love of nature comes full circle, and at last she lives somewhere she can be safe. “I look overhead for the birds are circling, and then in a swift movement they swirl and come into roost. The great magpies strike out at last, one final defiant carol they give us, and then they settle and fall quite silent.”

Buy Links:

Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/u/mg5RAD

Bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-low-road-katharine-quarmby/7418138?ean=9781800182394

Author Bio:

Katharine Quarmby has written non-fiction, short stories and books for children and her debut novel, The Low Road, is published by Unbound in 2023. Her non-fiction works include Scapegoat: Why We Are Failing Disabled People (Portobello Books, 2011) and No Place to Call Home: Inside the Real Lives of Gypsies and Travellers (Oneworld, 2013). She has also written picture books and shorter e-books.

She is an investigative journalist and editor, with particular interests in disability, the environment, race and ethnicity, and the care system. Her reporting has appeared in outlets including the Guardian, The Economist, The Atlantic, The Times of London, the Telegraph, New Statesman and The Spectator. Katharine lives in London.

Katharine also works as an editor for investigative journalism outlets, including Investigative Reporting Denmark and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

Author Links:

Website: https://www.katharinequarmby.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KatharineQ

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katharinequarmbywriter/

LinkedIn: Katharine Quarmby – Writer, Journalist, Editor – Self-employed | LinkedIn

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katharinequarmby_/

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Katharine-Quarmby/author/B004GH8LS6

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2082356.Katharine_Quarmby