A fascinating read. The book is based on the terrible times when women were transported by ship away from their families and country for committing minor crimes. Shockingly one of the deportees is murdered and the story follows the unravelling of the crime . A gentle story despite the subject which gives insight into those dark times.

I really enjoyed Dangerous Women and have already been recommending it. From the beginning I was grabbed and equally interested in each of the different female narrative voices. Set on the Ocean voyage in the Rajah from England to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) a group of almost 200 female prisoners get used to the crampt unhygenic conditions below deck. The young matron in charge selects a team of women to help create a patchwork quilt. There is a crime commited on the trip which then needs investigating. The characterisation was good and the story well done. This historical fiction surprised and entertained me. I was excited to look at pictures online afterwards of the Real Rajah Quilt which inspired the story.

Dangerous women is set in 1841 and tells the story of 200 women being deported to Tanzania for committing petty crimes on board the Rajah. One woman is attacked, there is a murderer amongst these petty criminals, but who is it?

The blurb makes this story sound like a murder mystery. This, in my opinion, is not the focus of the book or storyline. Instead, it tells the story of women living in that time. Women who through poverty and circumstances commit small crimes, often at the behest of a man. To me, this was a feminist tale. I enjoyed this aspect of the book as the author wrote the perspectives in such a way that I felt I was reading memoirs of real women aboard the ship.

If you're looking for a whodunit then this book would only receive 2 stars. If you're looking for a historical fiction told from the perspective of women then it's a 4 star book. As the blurb is a little misleading I would give it a 3.5 stars.

(Although featuring the names of some actual members on board, the story is fiction.)

Thank you to @netgalley and @penguinuk for an eARC of this book.

This book is set in the mid 1800s and follows 20 women aboard the Rajah, a ship transporting them to the other side of the world. The women have all been convicted of petty crimes and the book explores the different women and the hunt for a culprit after one woman is stabbed. This book is based on a true story.

I found this book to be a great piece of historical fiction and liked the murder mystery element that was intertwined. The plot had me gripped from early on and I found it to be a captivating insight into this time period. The book is told from several different characters points of view, including convicts and Kezia, the matron and I liked the exploration into the different women as this showed how women were perceived during this period and also what led them to crime. At times I did find it difficult to keep track of all the different characters.

Whilst reading, I did find some parts of the book slower than others. I also found the ending a little rushed but I was definitely left wanting to know more about what happened to the women.

I would definitely recommend that people read this book as I thoroughly enjoyed it. A huge thank you to Netgalley and Penguin UK for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for my honest and unedited review.

Dangerous Women - Hope Adams - aka Adèle Geras

Thank you to Netgalley and publisher Michael Joseph for this review copy. This is my unbiased review of the author's work and style.
I approached the book as Hope Adams’s debut novel. As such it has something to recommend itself however, once you know that it is not a new novelist but an author of experience then matters change.
As a novel, I was not impressed, as a light work of historical study it isn’t all bad. The story of the Quilt would have supported a shorter book and would have been interesting specifically for all those quilters out there. ‘Dangerous Women’ falls lamentably short of being a story of interest in the author’s hands. The appendage of the ‘who-dun-it’ plot does nothing to enhance the read.
Most of what is generally known, or thought to be known by non-historians, about convict transportation to Australasia during the eighteenth and nineteenth century, comes from novels such as Dicken’s Great Expectations (1861), or more current non-fiction works such as the Floating Brothel by Sian Rees (2002). The latter can reliably be used as a guide of where to find decent reference material the period. Three stars for effort

Normally books with many different character voices and/or switching from one period of a time to another doesn't phase me. This book however, had me beat. I found it very hard to figure out who was who and when. I tried hard but couldn't engage with it. I found it dreary.

I have just finished reading the historical note at the end of this book and I am astonished that this book is loosely based on a real voyage.

This story follows the journey of the Rajah,a Ship that sailed in the 1810s carrying hundreds of English female convicts to their new life in Tasmania. A group of 18 of those convicts selected by the Matron Kezia Hayter are invited to work on a coverlet that they will present to royalty when they dock in Tasmania. However when one of the lucky 18 is stabbed, the journey takes a sickening and dark turn.

This is historical fiction at its best. It’s rooted in an actual factual voyage and some of the names of the characters are the same. But it also transcends the historical fiction genre with the who dunnit and why dunnit elements.

This novel is rich and expansive but not unnecessarily length or stilted. I felt like this book gave me a lot as a reader and made me feel like I was viscerally in the story. The claustrophobia of the cabin, the smell of the lower decks, the tempestuous weather of the storms. I would highly recommend giving this book a go if your looking to pick up more historical fiction.

Thanks to the author Hope Adams, Penguin UK and Netgalley for a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

When I requested this book I expected the crime mystery to be stronger and the women more worried by events than they appeared to be. I like that it is based upon a true event, the sailing of the Rajah from England to Tasmania in 1841. Elizabeth Fry provided a woman Kezia Hayter to accompany the female convicts who were being transported. Her role also encouraged some of the women to be involved in quilting a coverlet. This gave the women something to be proud of to pass the time and also develop a skill for the future. The story is well told as it is written in chapters that switch back and forwards in time during the voyage. The murder of a convict is actually a smaller mystery than I expected and the women less dangerous. However I enjoyed the book.

This story had me intrigued I loved the idea is was based on a real ship and a famous tapestry but sadly it didn't engage me so I had to shelve 50% in so I wont be reviewing on good read or amazon as I wont review a story I couldn't finish as I feel its unfair.

YESSS. I love a well researched historical fiction so this was a massive hit for me. I knew nothing of the Rajah quilt before this book and have been thoroughly entranced by the story of it - I cant wait to do my own research into it now!

The story itself is a great page turner, I felt that it moved at a really nice pace and the fictional aspect of the plot was exciting and a great murder mystery that kept me guessing throughout. A real joy to read. 5/5.

This is an interesting mystery / historic novel set in the time period when Britain was transporting relatively minor criminals to Australia. It charts a ship carrying over a hundred women to Hobart in Tasmania.

I enjoyed the book. The initial premise of the book is that one of the characters is stabbed (likely fatally) somewhere in the southern oceans and the remainder of the voyage is a whodunit while the reader and the cast try to work out who is the killer and why.

The narration flips backwards and forwards in time and between a number of the characters and the gradual disclosure takes you one way and then another as you get incrementally more of the motives and rationales.

This is set against the background of the main character, Kezia who is choosing to be on the ship (unlike all the other women) and is on a personal mission to improve the lot of the other through the medium of a joint needlework endeavour.

I really enjoyed this book reading it in only two or three sessions. I am hoping to visit Australia and the quilt when we are allowed, however, I will not be going by boat. I have been reading about the slave ships recently and was surprised to learn about relatively good conditions on the Rajah. I hope this really happened. The facts at the end of the book suggest this might have been true with so few deaths during the voyage.

This is an historical mystery based on fact. The characters are well drawn and develop over time. There are a few twists along the way and romance. The two time frames and different characters talking is sometimes a little confusing but it does add to the tension.. The mystery is solved and after much soul searching for some of the characters, the loose ends are tied up. I do wonder whether in the real world whether things would have ended satisfactorily for all as they do in the book, this is fiction based on limited facts and so the ending is justified. A factual book would be very different I feel.

I shall look out for other books by this author.

Really enjoyed the back and forth with each chapter, in terms of narrator and timescale. I also loved the history behind the story.

In recent years I’ve gravitated to reading more books by women authors which brings with it more female protagonists. Sometimes it feels as though the effort to highlight women’s stories from the past and create interesting female characters in historical fiction is forced and perhaps unrealistic – how many put upon and sheltered women really had the opportunity to make a living for themselves or do something daring? In Dangerous Women, however, Hope Adam’s cast is ready-made: a ship with, yes, a male crew but among the passengers 200 women sentenced to transportation to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) for relatively minor crimes such as theft, along with a representative of the British Ladies’ Society for Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners which stemmed from the work of prison reformer Elizabeth Fry.
The events in Dangerous Women and the names of the convicts may be fictional but there really was a quilt made during the journey and presented to the governors’ wife Jane Franklin, the work overseen by Kezia Hayter, relative of the royal court painters John, George and Charles.
We know from the beginning that someone will be mortally wounded, but the identity of the attacker is kept hidden until quite near the end. By switching between timelines and using different narrators, we slowly get to know each woman’s story and find out what happened on board the Rajah. It’s a clever mixture of a whodunnit and a locked-room puzzle, all set on the high seas. I thought the characters’ backstories were interesting and varied, and I didn’t figure out the culprit among the possible candidates. I recommend this if you’re interested in a historical novel with a different setting.

1841, the Rajah - a sailing ship - is transporting 180 female convicts from England to Van Diemans land, now known as Tasmania.
On board is a young woman called Kezia Hayter. Kezia is the matron charged with the care and improvement of the prisoners and is tasked with teaching the women the art of sewing in the hopes that the making of a quilt will provide a means of employment on the long journey.
As the ship sails away we see friendships blossom between the women, and one lady has a dark secret that she'll do almost anything to keep.
The story is told through the eyes of Kezia and three of the convicts, and there's a murder thrown in for good measure.
I loved this, you really feel for these women who are forced into crime to survive.
This is based on a true story and the quilt is on display in the National Gallery of Australia. The author changed the names of the convicts, as some of the descendents of the real women still live in Australia.

In 1841, the barque Rajah sets sail for what is now Tasmania with 200 female convicts on board. Unbeknownst to passengers and crew, a killer is among them. Based on a true story.

An intriguing story shipwrecked by lacklustre writing. The reliance on dialogue and internal monologue to explain the story - 'Or could someone have given her a drug, such as the one I'd used to silence the real Sarah Goodbourne?' - gives this the feel of a Scooby Doo-style unmasking of the villain..

The wooden dialogue is straight out of a mockney musical, with secondary characters chirruping one cliché after another.

I'm never fond of extensive use of italics, and this was no exception.

Fails to engage the reader.

Disappointing.

My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Michael Joseph UK.for the ARC.

My first read of 2021 and what a great start!!

I really enjoyed it! It’s slightly different to my go to reads but the description pulled me in. A bit of history, crime and thriller? And it didn’t disappoint!

I could really picture being on the ship and the characters. So much so I’d love it to be a series or movie! I could even imagine what the characters would be wearing and the sea.

There was quite a lot of characters In a small space and usually I get confused when there’s so many but Hope managed to keep it easy to understand. I liked how it flipped from different characters perspectives and past and present.

Overall fantastic read! I can’t wait to seek out more of Hope’s work :)

An enjoyable read and nice to see historical fiction focused on the lives of women. As a who-dunnit it fell a little short for me at the end, but I found the snippets of the women's' lives before their transportation really fascinating and well written. I also really enjoyed the language and turns of phrase used by the author - it felt ery authentic to me.

A good story which takes a part of history and creates a fictional story within those historical realities. We are taken back to 1841, on the ship Rajah, as close to 200 female convicts are transported from England to Tasmania where they are due to live their new lives. Whilst on board, a murder is committed and attempts are made to find out who the culprit is. There is an interesting story line, as we start to see how the women relate to each other and the ships crew. We share their concerns about leaving their lives behind and their hopes for the future. All in all this creates an enjoyable multi-faceted story that keeps you hooked until the end. Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my ARC. Recommended.

A really enjoyable story, based on the history of the Rajah carrying women convicts to what is now Tasmania. The story unfolds through the eyes of some of the convicts and the matron on the ship, showing how women of the time were unfairly treated. The story of the quilt gives a poignant insight into everyone’s lives.