The Trial of Lotta Rae: The unputdownable historical novel of 2022

Product Information

We are always delighted to hear from authors. We are currently open for review requests and we are happy to review a wide variety of genres. Please submit your information below and we will be in touch asap. This book was recommended to me by a friend from my online Book Group. When she told me it was one of the best books she had read last year (in advance of its January 2023 publication), I knew it would be good. However, I didn’t realise it would be so good! Some colleagues found her crying and at her request took her home to her Ma. When her Pa returned home he was stunned to hear she had been raped by Griffith and went to the Police Station to report the rape. It seems we imagine there will be a harbinger of those days that come to shatter our lives. Will herald their arrival not with duplicitous blue sky, but a clutch of foreboding clouds. That we will be granted a sign. But the day it happened dawned comforting in its simplicity: sunny, fresh and bright. “ Siobhan MacGowan is a journalist and musician who lived and worked in London for much of her life before returning to Ireland several years ago. She is from a family of great storytellers, the most prominent of which is her brother, Shane MacGowan, of The Pogues.

The Trial of Lotta Rae by Siobhan MacGowan | Waterstones

If you enjoyed The Familiarsand The Binding, you’ll love this sweeping and empowering historical novel, set in Suffragette England. This book was fascinating from start to finish. I loved the emotions it evoked in me, everything from heartbreak to anger. What surprised me the most about the book was that the trial itself wasn't the book's main focus but rather the aftermath. I really liked that about the story as it was a refreshingly new take on a woman scorned and out for revenge after being taken advantage of by men, especially a man who was supposed to be on her side to help her get justice. The Trial Of Lotta Rae is one of those books where everything just seems to work.The storyline, setting, and characters, all come together to create a twisted, fabulous, masterpiece. Lotta Rae faces many trials throughout the novel and her sentence is genuinely one without end. Harsh, brutal and extremely sad you find yourself wishing for a world of peace and fairness. Lotta is a happy 19 year old living with her Ma and Pa in Peabody house, Spitalfields she works as a typist at Whitbreads Brewery. Her life was shattered when she attended a works Halloween party with her Pa. During the evening Lotta had a tiff with her colleague and boyfriend Albert and upset she decided to get some fresh air. As she walked outside an older gentleman, Henry Alan Griffiths, who had an interest in Whitbreads Brewery and had previously made lewd remarks to her in the office, followed her outside and walked up to her expressing concern that she was upset, he roughly took her arm and suddenly pushed her against a wall and raped her.It is a monumental work, not always easy to read, often harrowing in its descriptions of the brutal treatment meted out to hunger striking women and the horrors of trench warfare. But there are lighter moments, too, not least in the delightful episodes featuring Lotta's child. There is a lot more of what she tells Lotta which tore at my heart. She was so right. But so difficult to believe in and follow the advice.

The Trial of Lotta Rae | Fox Lane Books The Trial of Lotta Rae | Fox Lane Books

The crime perpetrated against Lotta, a humble clerk in a brewery office, on the night of Halloween 1906, has repercussions, for her and her legal representative, that echo through the next twelve years until her death. Revealing that she is dead by the end of the book is not a spoiler because it soon becomes apparent that her presence beside William Linden on an important journey, during which her story is told, is as a ghost haunting and tormenting him. A clever device which enables the author to reveal both his and her versions of the story side by side, as the two voices alternate. It is not a book to read if you are feeling at all dispirited or prone to melancholia, for it accurately portrays a society where the rich and powerful can evade punishment, treat others without any respect or compassion, denying women a voice and believing that sending men to certain death during wartime an honorable deed. There is something so very haunting and so very beautiful about this novel. Perhaps it comes from how fantastically it's written, maybe it's in how raw it feels, whatever it may be, it's there. What follows is nothing short of a travesty of justice, Griffiths is totally cleared of the rape and Lotta is branded a slut. Her devious lawyer Nicholas Linden deliberately mislead the jury so that Griffith was cleared of all charges. Lotta and her circle express the optimism of the late Edwardian period, a sense that the new century would bring social change, equality and freedom. We know the devastating tragedy which was to unfold in the First World War and this makes the earlier optimism more poignant.

Advance Praise

The plot is nice but I found it quite weakly supported by historical facts except for the Suffregette movement with some historical figures that appear in the storyline. For the rest, it is pure fiction. I was curious in the end to see if the author would have explained it was loosely inspired by real facts but apparently is not. From my knowledge of the the history of crimes related to gender based violence and related trial, it sounds improbable that a woman from the working class in those years would have ever press charges against a rich man for rape. It would be nice to imagine it could have happened but, as a lawyer who has read and studied the first of such trials, the way dialogues are developed and Lotta's standing in the trial is how a much more modern woman would have approaches it. It sounds really unrealistic. This was quite disappointing for me. Charlotte Ray affectionately known as Lotta is raped by a despicable, wealthy male, Henry Allen Griffiths. Supported by her mam and pap, she makes the decision to press charges against him, believing that her lawyer William Lindon will fight the good fight and do her justice.