The Dress Lodger [Import] [Paperback]

SHERI HOLMAN (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: London: Sceptre/Hodder and Stoughton, 1999.; First Edition edition (1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0340717831
• ISBN-13: 978-0340717837
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (189 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,658,171 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Would Scare The Dickens Out Of Charles D.!, January 26, 2000

By 

taking a rest - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Dress Lodger (Paperback)

Dickensian, or so and so meets Dickens, is probably a publicist at work. This authoress writes in a style that is her own, so if a label is to be attached how about "Holmanian". That this books take place in the 19th century does not require a comparison to Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, or Anthony Trollope. If her next book takes place in the 21st century will she be compared to Isimov?

This book is well written; an interesting tale, some history, and I would happily have read it were it twice as long. This Authoress's very harsh, foul, and all 5 sense offending England, makes many descriptions that others have written, descriptive of a city that while not perfect, is tolerable, and tolerated.

This book rubs the reader raw, nothing is embellished, think of something that you fear, and then imagine it has been brought to the page with a beautiful turn of phrase. This Authoress writes what other authors, and other readers may have been thinking. Many have mentioned topics in the book in their reviews, if they make you shift a bit in your seat, Sheri Holman will keep you there as going to bed and dreaming of her characters would be exponentially more frightening.

I enjoyed the book enough to go and pursue her first, and subsequent works will be added to my reading as well.

Good read, you would not be disappointed, just a bit unnerved.

44 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars historical fiction at its best, March 21, 2000

By 

Karen Kirsch "blazerlib" (Novi, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Dress Lodger (Paperback)

Such a strange coincidence that the 2 books I bought at Border's included Ambrose Bierce...the quotation by him to begin "The Dress Lodger" and the title of the other..."Ambrose Bierce and the Queen of Spades." Caleb Carr's "The Alienist" got me intrigued with life during the 19th century. I have since looked for books that dealt with this period of time. I read a review of "The Dress Lodger" in the Detroit Free Press and knew that I would be fascinated by it. I was not disappointed. Gustine and Dr. Chiver led me on a historical jaunt through an England that was beset by cholorus morbus...the deadly cholora. Holman gripped me in the first chapter. Her way of telling this story seemed quite unique to me. While the book is quite morbid in its content, her characters are well drawn-out. I could empathize with Fos, Pink, and especially Gustine. I've passed this on to a friend and purchased Holman's first, looking forward to another great story. At 54 years old, I'm learning about the history that I didn't learn in school. I have purchased non-fiction books on Teddy Roosevelt, WWI (about the flu that killed millions of people that I never heard about), and now cholera. Maybe I can share with my students the facts that I wasn't aware of.

44 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Strong Stuff!, December 20, 1999

By 

Beverley Strong (Australia) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Dress Lodger (Paperback)

The story of a pretty,young prostitute who hires a glamourous blue ball gown from a pimp,to attract customers.She is the mother of a baby who was born with his heart outside his chest cavity,and attracts the attention of a young doctor who was involved in the infamous Burke and Hare scandal of body snatching and the murder of indigents to supply cadavers for medical schools. The prose is wonderful and the stench of filth,poverty and death remains in ones nostrils.This is life at its most degrading and the thought that people really lived like this is unbelievable!You'll need a hot bath a a good hair scrub after reading this!