HOPE AGAINST HOPE by Sheena Wilkinson. Review by Penny Dolan

This novel, HOPE AGAINST HOPE, is the third in a trilogy of YA historical novels by Sheena Wilkinson, an award-winning author and writing teacher who lives in County Down, Northern Ireland and who writes with a real sense of place.

NAME UPON NAME, her first historical novel, was set in 1916, during the Easter Rising with STAR UPON STAR, her second book, set during the General Election of 1918, when the women of Ireland could vote for the first time.

HOPE BY HOPE, published this month, is set in Belfast during 1921: the year when the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland was established.

Bright, impulsive, fifteen-year-old Polly is a girl with a love of reading and learning and a habit of speaking out when it might be better to stay quiet. 

Despite Polly’s spark, her life is not easy. She lives in fictional Mullankeen, a small rural town close to the new border and in what was a once-happier home.

Since Polly’s mother died in the Spanish flu epidemic, her widowed father has turned in on himself, giving all his attention to running his draper's shop. 

Meanwhile, Polly’s brother Leo, who had fought as a now-hated British soldier, disappears into drunken binges and bursts of violence and rage.

Then Polly hears that her cousin Catherine is going to Belfast, to study shorthand and typing at a commercial school and take up lodgings in a girl’s hostel. Polly longs to go too, but her father refuses to consider it, leaving Polly resentful of the limits put on her learning and her life. 

 

Polly stays on in Mullankeen, skivvying for her brother and father until a vicious incident provokes her into action. Polly runs to Belfast, where she feels overwhelmed by the noise and bustle. At last, Catherine arrives with Sandy, a young man who leads the girls through the troubled streets past lamposts adorned with flags and the shouts of turbulent louts. Polly’s impulsive response soon teaches her that Belfast is a more volatile place than rural Mullankeen.

Polly goes to the Helen’s Hope hostel where she in taken in, as long as she can prove her worth. The large house is a bold venture: a hostel set up for young women even when some believe females should live within their family home until they are married. More than that, the hostel has been established as firmly non-sectarian at a time when religious divisions are being exploited and strengthened.

Everyone who lives in the “Helen’s Hope” community helps to keep the hostel running, whether by working in the house, kitchen or garden, or sewing in the factory building, or by teaching or bringing in money from elsewhere. During the day the girls are busy while in the evenings they are free to entertain themselves within the house.

Despite the desperate situation, I rather felt that Polly’s stay at Hope House had some of the charm of an old-fashioned boarding school story – intense friendships, loyalty to the group, a mix of both admirable and awkward characters, a few misunderstandings and secrets, plus lone strangers, dangerous plots, night-time searches and so on, which all gave Polly's time there a welcome pace and interest.

However, at the same time, Sheena Wilkinson weaves in strong and gritty themes, revealing poverty, suspicion and the darker side of a sectarian city where the shipyards drove out Catholic labourers and poor, homeless girls had few choices.

There is anotherstrand in the storytelling that I particularly enjoyed. As Polly - and the reader - experience both clues and confusions within the story, Polly realises that she, herself, sometimes misunderstands situations and people and may need to set her own life straight again.

At a time when Irish history and the Northern Irish Border seems so relevant to the current political situation, HOPE BY HOPE – and all the books in Sheena Wilkinson’s trilogy – must be valuable additions for secondary school libraries across the UK.

Penny Dolan

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STAR BY STAR by Sheena Wilkinson. Reviewed by Adèle Geras

I hope it's not too late to wish all readers of this blog a very happy 2018. The year is significant. It's the centenary of the first ever election in which women (over thirty years old, and householders, but still) were allowed to vote. Today's young people, for all that  more and more of them are involved in politics, do not, I think, fully appreciate the work of past generations of women in the struggle  to win the right to have a say in the way that they're governed. I feel that  people of all ages and both sexes take the vote for granted and the figures of the turnout always astonish me.  I often think voting should be made compulsory, as in Australia, and I certainly think that you lose many of your moaning-about-the-government rights if you didn't even bother to turn up at the polling station.

All congratulations, then, to Sheena Wilkinson for being very fast off the mark this year with an informative, interesting and engaging novel for young people. Teachers all over the British Isles, as well as in Ireland, will be grateful to Wilkinson for providing a human and touching account of how things were in December a hundred years ago.

A disclaimer follows. This writer is a friend of mine and we each had a story in the anthology called THE GREAT WAR, which was published in 2014 by Walker Books. That book marked the beginning of the War and this novel (published in paperback by Irish publisher, Little Island) marks its end. Wilkinson has much to say about this period and this novel, even while it's very enjoyable as a story to entertain and move its readers, is also a good introduction to the history of the period in  Ireland. There's a very useful note before the story begins which explains the historical background for young readers clearly and once a reader embarks on the actual story, she already knows all the necessary facts.

And there is much to take in. The Great War, the pandemic of Spanish flu that followed it, the situation of women in Ireland, the various factions seeking the vote in the December election and above all, the fight, over decades, for women to be allowed to have a say in who governs them: all these matters are discussed here in one way or another. 

We follow Stella, whose suffragette mother has died of the flu in England, back to Ireland and we meet a whole cast of fascinating characters who over the course of the book, both teach Stella many things and also learn many things themselves. She goes to live with her aunt Nancy, who runs a guesthouse called Cliffside House, one of whose residents doesn't eat with the others. This is Captain Reid, who has served in the Great War and who ends up being important to the narrative. The other residents and the life of the small town are beautifully described. Every character springs to life and Stella herself is an engaging and amusing narrator of her own story and that of the fight for suffrage. 

Cars are just beginning to be used for getting about and poor Stella is very car sick throughout the book. This can sometimes be funny but mostly it's a metaphor for 'feeling the fear and doing it anyway.'

There are revelations and surprises throughout the novel and I'm not going to give any of those away, but I urge you to read this excellent and important book, and to give it to any teenager who's studying The Great War. This part of that conflict is not often written about. The attention of most people writing about the period is often on the men fighting the war, so all credit to Wilkinson for highlighting the struggle of women for their rights. 

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Star By Star, by Sheena Wilkinson, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart

As a teenager I loved fiction which mixed real historical interest with the gentlest sort of hint at romance.  My favourite writers were Hester Burton and KM Peyton.  So I was pretty sure that I was in for a treat with Sheena Wilkinson's latest novel, Start by Star.  And I was right.

This story is set in Ireland at the close of the First World War, with the 'Spanish' flu pandemic killing even more than that terrible war had, with physically and mentally wounded young men returning from the front, and all whilst the question of Home Rule for Ireland is very much in the air, and (some) women were able to vote for the first time.  Stella tells her story, coming to stay in Ireland with an unknown aunt after her mother dies of the flu, sharing a boarding house with a mix of characters who have different life experiences and outlooks, fighting to be recognised as more than 'just a girl', and also finding a possible worthwhile future for herself.

Stella tells her story in quite a modern voice, immediately relatable to today's child readers.  She's a determined, but vulnerable, character who we immediately care for.  She observes her time and place and self with insight and humour.  I loved it when, for example, 'Mrs Phillips's mouth went cats-bottomy', or when Stella herself felt 'large and shy'.  We know exactly what the first one looks like and the second one feels like.

It's a hundred years since women were given some voting rights in our national democracy, and that disparity of treatment, and the fight that won something coming closer to equality, must not be forgotten.  Every secondary school library should have a copy of this book to help the next generation value the say they will come to have in how their country is run.  And because its a very good story, well told.

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STILL FALLING by Sheena Wilkinson. Reviewed by Ann Turnbull.

"The rain was still falling, but the darkness had parted..."  This quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby illustrates the themes of Sheena Wilkinson's moving story of teenage love.

Troubled Luke has been in care for several years. He moves to Esther's school - a challenge for him, as standards are much higher there and he struggles to keep up. Luke is insecure and suffers from epilepsy. Esther feels like a misfit among the girls at school. But when Luke has a fit on his first day, she is the one who knows how to help him.

Esther and Luke instantly connect, and Esther falls in love. But Luke has secrets in his past that threaten their relationship, and she can't understand what it is that troubles him, and blames herself. Both young people have a fragile self-image. Can they overcome their troubles and find a way through to love?

Sheena Wilkinson's writing has a beautiful clarity and freshness, the dialogue is convincing, and the main characters have such a strong emotional presence that it's impossible for the reader not to connect with them and care deeply about what happens to them. The adults - in particular Esther's parents and the couple who become Luke's new carers - are interesting, rounded characters in their own right. The story is perfectly paced and revealed. You won't want to put it down.

Published in 2015 by Little Island Books.  ISBN: 978-1-908195-92-0


www.annturnbull.com



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Grounded by Sheena Wilkinson reviewed by Lynda Waterhouse

Grounded is a powerful YA story. It is the sequel to Sheena’s first award winning novel, ‘Taking Flight’ but can be read, as I did, as a stand alone story. It gripped me from the first sentence and carried me along through to its shocking ending. On the cover of the book, Keren David aptly describes it ‘Compelling, heartbreaking and truly shocking.’ As such it is not recommended for younger readers.

For days after I had finished reading, images from the story kept coming into my mind, troubling me. I found myself caring about the main characters, Declan and Seaneen, and how their lives would work out. I found myself deeply disturbed by what happens to Cian. This is the mark of good storytelling.

Declan Kelly lives on a tough housing estate in Belfast with his mother, who is a recovering addict. He works at a local riding stable and hopes one day to move on to a top show jumping yard and have a horse and a career of his own. At the beginning of the book he is content to ride a friend’s horse, Flight of Fancy, and to continue his relationship with Seaneen.

‘I know that I want to stay here with her nearly as much as I want to go away. But only nearly.’

 The only annoyance in his life is the ‘skanky little urban fox’, Cian.  He is a reminder of what Declan was like when he was fifteen. Cian plagues Declan and would steal his ‘future’ (life savings) if given half a chance. Cian gets into trouble with the local drugs dealer. His wraith like presence haunts the story. The scene where he talks to Declan about having had a dog once is understated but packed with poignancy.

In Chapter Two, Declan rides Flight of Fancy in a horse show and wins the championship. He has a job offer to work at a prestigious stable abroad and is on his way. Then his life begins to unravel.

Flight of Fancy is sold and Seaneen has news: she is pregnant. Declan’s life spirals out of control. In a derelict barn he finds some abandoned horses. He rescues a foal and a horse, Folly. This could be a chance for Declan to have his own horse. Will he stuff this up as well?

The story is written with a spare style and a powerful sense of place that reminds me of Meg Rossof’s writing. The story is uncompromising in its depiction of life on the social margins but has a warmth and lightness of touch that transcends an ‘issues’ book.

 It deserves to win prizes and to be widely read. I am looking forward to the next instalment!

Grounded is published by Little Island press ISBN 978-1-908195-17-3

www.littleisland.ie

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