Customer Reviews

The Dowerless Sisters (Bridges Over Time, 6)

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"...a family history reaching back like a bridge across time, supported here and there, as a bridge is supported by its piers, by contact with great events and great names: with pestilence and civil war, with a pretender to the throne and the ventures of the East India Company. All of it linking to a Norman knight, who had been made a slave in the North Country before the Conqueror came, and a boy fleeing through the hunger and the savage cold of a Yorkshire blizzard to escape the fire and the slaughter which had over taken his home, to three ladies taking tea on a Surrey lawn, in this August of 1960."

This sixth and final book in Anand's Bridges Over Time series begins in 1885. Charlotte and Victoria Whitmead's father gambled all and lost and then managed to get himself killed before he could recoup his losses. Faced with losing their independence by accepting the *protection* of his brother Edward (and being dowerless no hopes of marriage), their mother sends the sisters to be apprentices to a distant cousin and learn a trade. Charlotte and Vicky adapt well to the draper trade and eventually strike out on their own, much to the chagrin of their overprotective uncle and brother. Over time, the sisters become successful and it being too late for them to marry and bear children of their own they must content themselves with their growing family of cousins, nieces and nephews. As the Whitmead sisters grow old they see family members come and go through two world wars, personal triumphs and immeasurable loss and finally ends in 1969 as Charlotte approaches her 100th birthday. More than that, I'm not going to tell, but a surprising and somewhat abrupt ending that leaves you guessing.

"It was as though a ceremony had taken place, a transfer of something abstract but precious-Experience? Hope? Responsibility?-from the older generation to the new. Whatever torch had been passed on to her tonight, she must cherish and keep burning, as long as she lived. It had been given to her for that purpose."

I really enjoyed this, although the focusing on family relationships makes for a slower paced book at times and might not appeal to all readers. A nice ending to the series, and Anand did a good job of bringing back the past history of the forebears of the Whitmeads and tying it all up with a nice ribbon. This book is hard to find and a tad bit expensive used (understatement), but it can be had via ILL (interlibrary loan), but be warned. The one library in the US that did have it will ask for a $15 lending fee.