At this point, I will pick up a Stacey Halls book without having to know what it's about. I know it'll be written with compassion for her characters, sensitivity, and outstanding research. This one is no exception.

Angela Burdett-Coutts was a philanthropist in the Victorian era with a passion for education for all. This fictional story involves her, alongside the more well-known Charles Dickens. Stacey Halls weaves a compelling narrative which entwines real places and people with fictional characters and situations, to create a book which both enthralls and encourages compassion for those in different circumstances.

I admit I wasn't a fan of The Familiars but Stacey Hall's narrative in The Household is captivating and I had difficulty putting it down. I'm also now further intrigued by Angela Burdett-Coutts and will be seeking out more about her.

In 19th century London, Urania House, a home for reformed female prisoners, is founded by Charles Dickens and other supporters.

These “fallen women” are impoverished women driven to theft and prostitution, fleeing from abuse or carrying the guilty secret of a past illegitimate child.

The hidden cottage is a strict and restricted life, too quiet for some despite the warm beds and regular food.

Meanwhile, rich benefactor Angela Burdett-Coutts discovers that her stalker of ten years has escaped, forcing her to look around every corner again.

Initially neglectful of her pet project, Angela begins to find she has more in common with these women than any of them could ever have suspected.

Told through the eyes of a wonderfully varied range of characters – Martha, Angela, and Josephine – Stacey Halls treats us to another heart-wrenching and compelling historical novel with the hard reality of women’s lives at its very core.

This book was fabulous. I really enjoy the timeline and how the book centred on a few different characters who ultimately had a link somehow. Stacey Halls is at her best when she’s writing about strong female characters.

When I hear Stacey Halls is publishing something new, I do a wee jump for joy. She is one of those authors whose latest releases I eagerly anticipate, and I’m so thrilled to have this chance to review an early copy of her most recent work.

True to her niche, and living up to my expectations, Halls delivers another plush Historical novel of the Victorian era, and with ‘The Household’, Halls masters what A. K. Blakemore, in a comparable ilk, achieved beautifully last year with ‘The Glutton’ (comparable mostly in that I’m an avid advocate of both!). That is, specifically, blending actual historical figures with fictional narratives, as Halls did with the Pendle Hill witch trials in ‘The Familiars’ in 2019. But the difference here is that with the inclusion of Dickens, Halls calls upon a readymade backdrop of Dickensian London and announces ‘The Household’ as a palimpsest of that vast ouevre, fashioning this latest novel as expansive in a way that her previous novels haven’t been – employing a subtle metafictional self-consciousness.

Even though ‘The Household’ did evoke scenes from ‘The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep’ (H. G. Parry) for me now and again, Dickens, in fact, plays a purely figurative role in this novel.

Other reviewers, no doubt, will give succinct synopses of Halls’s plot, so what I’d like to spotlight is the author’s superlative writing style. There is such self-possession in her craft: ‘[now] it is November, the infirmary is full, and the morgue waits below like a baby bird with its beak open.’

Numerous times in a chapter, I’d catch my breath at Stacey Halls’s poised similes and imagery, the way she conjures life in such fine detail, her writing so overfull with vitality:
‘The day after Josephine left, Martha and two others did the laundry. She washed Josephine’s raspberry dress, plunging it again and again into the hot water, watching its sleeves struggle to the surface like a woman drowning.’

The characterisation in ‘The Household’ is magnificent; though all of the characters engender emotion. I cared deeply for Josephine, Martha, and the sympathetic main characters:
‘Her mother she misses dearly, but there was something about being the youngest and a girl that made her feel like a Christmas present to her father.’

Pacing is different than I remember from any of the author's previous novels: when things speed up, they really do speed up, and it feels like we are truly hurtling toward the end, when the story reaches its last few movements. I can see, though, how it might dishearten some readers. Nevertheless, I felt myself enormously invested in the tension between protagonist and antagonist. In fact, 'The Household' reminded me, to a slight extent, of Laura Purcell’s ‘The Silent Companions’. If you love Purcell, you’ll love this!

Many thanks to Stacey Halls, Bonnier Books UK, and NetGalley, for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my review. Hopefully, publisher and author will pardon me for citing from a pre-publication copy:

‘[Urania Cottage] reminds Martha of a doll’s house, of a staged domestic life where, upon closer inspection, the fire is a pile of ribbons and the windows are pasted shut.’

As an avid fan of Stacey's other works I was so excited to get an ARC of this!

The premise was very intriguing. Following the lives of 'fallen woman' set up by Charles Dickens and Angela Coutts. The idea was to educate them and give them a second chance at life.

There were certainly very dramatic elements. But overall the pace was a little too slow for me. Very day to day living without much progression.

With lots of main characters and sub plots branching off from them, the story got a little muddled.

But overall I enjoyed the book. And I'm definitely going to be doing some research on the real life Urania Cottage!

Stacey Halls can so wrong.

I would read her shopping list. What a writer! The way she writes draws you in from the second you pick up one of her books. The Household is equally as brilliant as everything else she has wrote.

I enjoyed this. It took me a little while to get all the characters sorted out in my head at the beginning - there are a lot, and some aren’t evoked in detail. Before reading, I didn’t know anything about the historical basis for it, or about Angela Burdett-Coutts (who is a great character), and doing some quick googling enhanced my enjoyment, but it definitely wasn’t necessary to follow the story. Really glad that Stacey Halls kept Charles Dickens on the edges and chose to focus on the lives of the women. I think if she’d brought him more central, he would have overpowered the whole thing.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC.

This is the first book that I have read by Stacey Halls.
This story is based on fact which I believe makes it even more interesting.
It follows the journey of a group of young women on leaving prison to a house (Urania Cottage) in the countryside which is at a secret location. This house offers refuge for the fallen women,giving them a second chance at life.
It also follows millionairess Angela Burnett-Coutts ( a benefactor of Urania Cottage) who has been stalked for 10yrs and he is now being released from prison. Angela is very worried as she knows that this man is extremely dangerous and will be out for revenge.
I would thoroughly recommend this book especially if you enjoy reading books in the dickensian era.
An exceptionally well written book and it shows that Stacey has done a thorough research of the subject.

The Household by Stacey Halls. I have a very love hate relationship with Stacey, I love the concept of her books but they have been a bit wishy washy, this is the best she’s written though. A little house is set up to reform women who need reforming, Charles Dickens is a patron, he doesn’t turn up though. The girls who end up in there are lost souls and you can’t help but feel for them and want them to do well. Angela is a very rich woman who turns up to help them and she has a stalker and it’s said stalker where I feel like Stacey did her wishy wash thing. Give me a bit more background on this please. It was a good book, I really enjoyed it but I just needed a smidge more back story. My take away from this is men are weird.

Historical fiction at its very best! In the 1840s a group of women who have done what they must to survive are offered the opportunity to transform their lives at Urania Cottage, a home set up by philanthropists including Charles Dickens. The aim of the home is to train the young women in the niceties of society and to send them to Australia to begin new lives where their pasts will not follow them. The girls have committed various crimes, but must not tell each other about their pasts. They are confined to their new home, but inevitably they begin to drift away, often back to the streets of London, where their unsavoury pasts catch up with them in various ways. This is a very fine story indeed, with convincing characters and settings and plenty of twists and turns as the young women find the places where they belong, and those who support them have their own views challenged beyond endurance.

A thoroughly enjoyable read about a a period of English history that I knew little about. It feels very well researched. The main characters were very well drawn and I was engrossed in the plot to the end.

Charles Dickens famous writer , in tandem with an acquaintance a rich benefactor keen to be involved in charity work begin a social experiment to house fallen women into a safe house and attempt to introduce a life changing set of skills to change their circumstances before offering the opportunity to emigrate to Australia. The waifs and strays and fallen women of London are housed with a responsible housekeeper in a prepared cottage and educated in preparation for a better life. The rich benefactor has serious problems of her own in the form of a besotted stalker with evil intentions. One house,, a mix of frightened girls, vulnerable to outside influences and naivety with each hiding secrets weighing them down and struggling in an alien environment .A storyline based in the sewers and higher echelons of Victorian London leading to corruption, violence and degradation. A well drawn picture drawing on the precarious position of women in a society dependent on marriage, wealth or the largesse of a patron to provide protection from the ever present dangers and corruption.Many thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

This is the first novel of Stacey Halls' that I've read and I must say I very much enjoyed it. I knew nothing about the charitable endeavour of Dickens and the immensely wealthy Angela Burdett Coutts in starting Urania Cottage and providing a future for 'fallen women'. Indeed I read the book not knowing it was based on fact and only looked up the details when I had finished the text. It is a testament to the writing that it all feels very authentic and genuine.
This is the story of a group of girls/young women, who have ended up in jail, yet are chosen by a committee of well minded people as being redeemable. When they have finished their sentences they are taken to Urania Cottage where they are taught how to be a servant and cook, and how to read and write and even how to play. musical instruments. The thought is that they will then leave England and take up a new life in the colonies away from the temptations that put them in jail in the first place.
The stories of these girls are intricately tied up in the novel with the life of the benefactress, Angela Burdett Coutts. There are some good twists in the plot so their stories blend together, with a satisfying ending.
It was good to follow the different characters's journeys through the story and the sense of place and the rather varied Victorian morals come through very well. I did find the pacing a little slow in places and I wasn't entirely blown away by the character of Richard Dunn but I was happy to suspend judgement and read to the end.
With thanks to Netgalley and Bonnier Books UK for an early copy in return for an honest review.

Anyone who knows me will know that queen of historical fiction, Stacey Halls, is one of my favourite authors ever - so I'm very grateful/excited to have been approved for an advanced copy of her newest novel, The Household! (Huge thank you to NetGalley and Manilla Press!)

The Household is set at Urania Cottage, a real-life house for 'fallen women' founded by Charles Dickens and Angela Burdett-Coutts (who feature as characters in the book!) back in the 1800s. We follow a group of young women who are sent to the institution following release from prison - and in true Stacey Halls style, there's some dark twists and turns along the way.

Did I love this one as much as Stacey Halls' other books? Maybe not. My attention started to waver a little bit, hence the 4 stars, but I did still love it nevertheless. If you've got this one on pre-order or are planning to buy it in April, then you're in for a treat!

Having loved all of Stacey Halls previous books, I was very excited to get reading this one. The story really intrigued me, but unfortunately, I really struggled to get into it and feel anything for the characters, of which it felt like there were too many.
Stacey Halls has such wonderful writing and unique stories. This one just wasn't for me, but I will still look forward to future releases from her.

Having read all of this author’s previous books & really enjoyed them, I was excited to get stuck into The Household as my first read of the New Year. I knew absolutely nothing about Urania Cottage & found the whole idea of it intriguing & inspiring. The characters in this story are well written & the girls from the Cottage stayed with me for a few days after I’d finished the book. However, I feel that the Richard Dunn storyline just didn’t add anything to the story. I still enjoyed the book, it’s just that he felt almost like a pantomime baddy to me at times & with everything going on as it was, the story didn’t need any more drama. With many thanks to NetGalley for an early copy.

I loved this book, absolutely filled with mystery and intrigue that is so decadent. The characters - individuals woven and their stories told so beautifully.

Thank you to NetGalley and Manilla Press for sending me this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

The Household by Stacey Halls is based on real historical figures and some real life events, although it is historical fiction. The book had me hooked from the start.

The story explores how women were treated during the Victorian era, as well as how easy it was for ordinary women to fall into the seamier side of society. Plus there is a twist in the tale that I did not see coming, one that made the book almost impossible to put down.

Angela Burdett-Coutts, heiress to the Coutts fortune, funded the establishment of a halfway house, Urania Cottage, for a few young women near the end of their jail terms in the mid 1800’s. Following their stay at the cottage, the idea was that the women would emigrate to Australia.

While Urania Cottage was not exactly freedom, there were clean linens, hot food and the promise of an education, a paradise compared to the prisons and the lifestyle the young women had left. The Household explores how powerless women were in the Victorian era, and how many were forced into lives of crimes.

Despite her wealth and position, even Angela Burdett-Coutts had to rely on the help of more powerful men. Angela also had issues of her own, including a stalker and extortionist, Richard Dunn, who plagued her for years.

As the story evolves, Angela’s life becomes terrifyingly entwined with the lives of the young women at Urania Cottage in ways she and they cannot possibly have imagined.

From Martha, the first inhabitant of Urania Cottage to Mrs Holdsworth and Angela Burdett-Coutts herself, Stacey Halls has built on historic events to create rich, complex characters I felt real empathy for. Her portrayal of Richard Dunn shows him as the villain he was, and in the story, he threatens not only Angela, but also the whole future of the household. I was on tenterhooks as the story played out.

The Household is fascinating, a real page turner, and I highly recommend it.

3.5 stars. Loved the era this book was set in, the evocative descriptions of both high and low class life in London and the Dickens references. Some great writing as expected from Stacey Halls, one of my favourite historical fiction writers. However... none of the characters enamoured me. I was not fighting their corner, and indeed I did not even grasp who the 'main' characters actually were until a long way in. Some characters came and went and I wasn't bothered, because I had no idea who they were anyway!! Perhaps too many of them? Some storylines just vanished and others appeared for no apparent reason. I literally lost the plot half way through! Maybe I was just not in the mood for what is a relatively complex book. It picked up towards the end, and some loose ends were tied up, although the end itself was 'meh'. Worth a read, but not for me I'm afraid.