Customer Reviews

Cultured Handmaiden

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This story of Jinny Brownlow takes place in England's industrial Tyneside town of Fellburn. The time is during the 1970s and Jinny works in a secretarial pool for an engineering company. She is offered the position of secretary for the company's head, Bob Henderson. Henderson is a difficult man who is known to cause female employees to flee his office, often in tears.
What could be a cog in the life of the twenty-one-year-old Jinny turns out to be a blessing. Self assured and mature beyond her years, she isn't shy about responding to her boss's sometimes-rough remarks in kind. Low and behold, Jinny is just the challenge and breath of fresh air Henderson wants in his life. Welcomed almost as a daughter by Henderson's wife, Alicia, Jinny's future looks bright and she is enjoying all the blessings her new position brings to her life.
Her love life unfortunately is another story. Greatly disappointed several times in this area, Jinny concentrates on her new work-related responsibilities and life flows along smoothly until tragedy strikes the Henderson family. Thrown into turmoil and saddened by the tragedy, Jinny tries to find her footing - again. It isn't easy and one sad experience follows another.
The Cultured Handmaiden is Author Catherine Cookson's first novel to come to the United States. It will take American readers a little time to become accustomed to the King's English and some terms used in the story, but the language only makes the novel more interesting and authentic.
The story seems mild and gentle compared to today's fictional novels, which are often filled with overt sexuality and questionable language, but that is a refreshing change of pace. I found the story to be intriguing and a very good study of a woman (Jinny Brownlow) making her way in the world at the beginning of the growing movement of feminism.
A pleasant read.

Her fiancé Ray Collard dumps twenty-one years old Jinny Brownlow insisting her roommate registered nurse Emily Houselea is much warmer. At work Jinny is part of the typing pool at Henderson & Garbrook Engineering when the senior partner Bob Henderson needs office assistant help with his long time aid in the hospital. After several girls are run off by the demanding Bob, Jinny is kicked upstairs and calmly handles the curmudgeon refusing to bow to his nastiness.

Jinny becomes indispensable at work but eventually in her boss' personal life too especially when Henderson's wife dies. Concerned over her growing influence on their father and how much he likes Jinny's company, Bob's four daughters worry that their dad will marry his young assistant. However, though she likes her boss, who obviously finds Jinny helping him to overcome his loneliness and grief, she finds herself quite attracted to his son John. Her feelings are awkward because he acts strange towards her as one moment he seems in love with her and the next he acts like she is beneath him.

Though the tale takes place in the 1970s, class distinctions still remain a part of English society as this reprint by the late great Catherine Cookson portrays. The story line focuses on the relationships between Jinny and the Collard family including the wife before she dies. Fans will appreciate this fine English relationship drama while wondering who the lead female will choose, if anyone.

Harriet Klausner

Both the seller and the book purchased are fantastic. Book in new condition. Seller gave wonderful service, fast delivery. Highly recommended.

Although I've always known of Catherine Cookson, for whatever reason I've never read any of her books. So I recently decided to give her a try, and picked up The Cultured Handmaiden. I did not finish the book, but quite about one-fourth of the way through. While I didn't hate this book, I definitely didn't love it, either, and since a Catherine Cookson fan has since told me that her historicals are much better, I've decided to wait and try one of those, instead. I've found that authors tend to be good at either historicals or contemporaries, but almost never is an author good at both.

I'm giving it one star not because it was so absolutely terrible, but because if a book is DNF it automatically gets one star from me.

I suspect that only the most diehard Catherine Cookson fans would enjoy this book. It definitely has a different "feel" to it that I think most American readers would probably find "foreign."