I really enjoyed this. The writing was fantastic and I loved the main character —- not quite a biography, but still, it was an adventure reading this for sure! I highly recommend.

This historical novel follows Lady Mary Wortley Montague, a trailblazing feminist, poet, and the first to introduce smallpox inoculation to England. It beautifully captures her adventurous life, from her marriage and time in Constantinople to her enduring independence and influence.

Not quite a biography, this book takes the facts of Mary Montague's life, and weaves a story around them, including the highlights and lowlights, but not necessarily in an 100% truthful manner.
We learn just how great her intellect was and who she collaborated with, she was well known at Court and intimate with the Royall family, and knew the great and the good of her time.
Interestingly she experimented with smallpox vaccination as she had seen how the Turks inoculated themselves, and encouraged its use through proving its effectiveness on prisoners and orphans.
She was truly a proponent of women's rights long before the Suffragettes and is an important person to try and understand in an era when men were in control of all.

In A Woman of Opinion, Sean Lusk vividly recounts the life of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, based on her letters. Living from 1689 to 1762, Montagu was a notable English writer, poet, and medical pioneer.

The novel starts in 1712 with Mary’s elopement with Edward Wortley Montagu, avoiding an arranged marriage. As Edward takes a diplomatic post in Constantinople, Mary becomes captivated by the local practice of smallpox inoculation. Impressed by its effectiveness, she is determined to introduce this method to England, having suffered from smallpox herself.

Narrated primarily by Mary in an authentic 18th-century style, the novel also includes chapters from her sister Frances, whose gentler perspective contrasts with Mary’s assertive nature. While Frances’s chapters add little to the story, the Constantinople episodes are particularly engaging.

Lusk’s novel highlights Montagu’s contributions to medicine and her intriguing personal life, including her conflicts with poet Alexander Pope and her affair with Count Francesco Algarotti. A Woman of Opinion effectively brings attention to Montagu’s pivotal role in the early development of the smallpox vaccine.

http://thesecretbookreview.co.uk

Mary is a woman ahead of her time, living in the 18th Century she is under the control of her father and she does not want the marriage he has arranged. Eloping with Edward Wortley Montagu, Mary becomes the wife of a politician with social influence in London society. Manipulating a position for her husband in Istanbul, Mary experiences life with more freedom and where she can affect the lives of others but there are sacrifices to be made.
Mary Wortley Montagu is an early feminist whose life is not as well-heralded as it should be. She is most known for pioneering the idea of inoculation against smallpox, a process she observed in Turkey and brought back to England. However her story is so much more and here, Lusk has written a wonderful fictional biography which celebrates this idiosyncratic heroine.

A fascinating story set in the 1600s based on Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, an extraordinary woman raised by her grandmother and self educated who became a writer, poet and medical pioneer.

The author Sean Lusk has created a captivating account of her life, clearly well researched and beautifully written.

This book will take you on a journey with Lady Montagu, a clever, witty, humorous woman who had many youthful love affairs, a well respected Courtier with a knowledge of politics, well travelled and a writer to boot.

A wonderful emotional story told with charm and warmth.

An absolute delight!

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for this ARC.

3.5★s
“To learn one must have eyes to see, ears to listen and a heart that is open.”
A Woman Of Opinion is the second novel by British author, Sean Lusk. In 1712, twenty-two-year-old Mary defies her father’s instruction to marry Clotworthy Skeffington, instead marrying Edward Wortley Montagu, Whig for Huntingdon. Not for love, but because Skeffington is dull and lacking ambition, while she and Edward find each other interesting.

Mary knows her love is dangerous to others: she has already lost three people she dearly loved, rejected an earlier suitor to save his life, and is wary of declaring the depth of her feeling for those she loves, sure death will follow. But her love for her younger sister, Frances moves her to oppose Fanny’s marriage to John Erskine, the vain and shallow Earl of Mar, to no avail.

Some time after the birth of her son, Eddie, Mary falls ill with smallpox and when she survives, declares “I had cheated Death once and resolved that having survived I was destined to live an extraordinary life.”

Life in Yorkshire is boring and Edward is decent, straightforward and trustworthy, virtues that, without craftiness, guile and agility, don’t serve to get him a decent position in the parliament, so Mary intervenes via influential friends. Edward may not initially be enthusiastic about taking up a diplomatic post in Constantinople, but Mary is delighted.

After the rush east to mediate, then a delay, Mary is fascinated by everything she encounters in Turkey. With the help of her loyal ladies maid, Nell, she manages to see much more than other Western ladies.

A willing pupil of the pasha, Achmat Bey, Mary learns Arabic: “It had perfect logic, even more than Latin, for a book became a library with a curl of a letter or two, and a library an author and an author a bookshop, and so it was also with a sword and a swordsman and a sheath and an armoury and so on. If English is a wild meadow, filled with flowers in gay disorder, and French laid out in geometric rows, its hedges low and clipped, and German a tall forest with paths crossing this way and that, Arabic is a river bank, the water gurgling and tumbling over rocks, bubbling and full of cheer” and has many philosophical discussions on the differences between their cultures and customs.

She notes the absence of pock-marked locals and learns about a practice of inoculation; wanting to verify its efficacy, she experiments and observes results before inoculating her son and is possessed of a fierce desire to bring this life-saving practice back home.

It would need to be endorsed by the Royal College of Physicians, but “since I was unlikely to ever gain the approbation of such men, I resolved to say precisely what I wished” and her friendship with the King and Princess of Wales eventually results in some royal inoculations against a “disease does not discriminate between the houses of the rich and poor or choose only the virtuous or the wicked.”

Alexander Pope, whom she considers a friend, confidante and collaborator, eventually steals her work and attributes his own poorer efforts to her. By this time her husband lives elsewhere, her son is a disappointment and her daughter critical of her actions. When Fanny is afflicted with mental illness, Mary has to fight for her inheritance and her freedom.

She becomes enamoured by a young Italian, takes on the role of a spy in Italy, gets on the wrong side of the Jacobites in France, and is swindled out of her funds in Brescia.

While Lusk tries to give the reader an interesting collision of reality and imagination, interweaving fact with fiction, and does include a lot of historical detail, his cast of real people and fictional characters lacks depth, his portrayal of Mary Wortley Montagu doesn’t much engender the reader’s empathy. and if some parts of the story are fascinating, other parts drag. Not as fascinating as Zachary Cloudesley.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Random House UK/Transworld.

Unfortunately, this was a DNF for me. I was drawn in by the concept, but I struggled with the writing style. Lusk presents the heroine with a very specific tone of voice and style of speaking that I just couldn't get drawn into. I also didn't realise that this was written off the back of a true story. There's an element of realist gruesomeness about the way the book explores and Lusk has clearly put in a huge amount of research, but it didn't necessarily come together to form a hugely interesting novel.

I really enjoyed The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley in 2022 and was thrilled to have access to a digital ARC of Sean Lusk’s new novel A Woman of Opinion, based on the diaries, poems and other written accounts by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who came of age in the eighteenth century and lived quite a life.
Lusk has taken the outline of Mary’s life and made it into a fascinating novel about a woman who was clearly ahead of her time. She eloped rather than face a dull marriage Clotworthy Skeffington (surely a Dickens worthy character?), became intrigued by the method to prevent smallpox in the Ottoman Empire when posted there, which she subsequently brought back and tested in the UK and fell in love with unsuitable younger men as a more mature woman. An accomplished poet and letter writer, Wortley Montagu had a lot to say about events in government and was in the inner circle of confidants to the royal family. A strong advocate for equality in many forms, Mary was quite a woman-popular and unpopular in equal measure.
Lusk has given Mary a veritable voice. The inclusion of her sister Fanny’s voice in some chapters serve as a good contrast to show just how strong willed Mary was as Fanny was more easy going and meek. Fanny was more typical of an aristocratic woman at that time.
I particularly enjoyed the sections where Mary experienced life in Turkey, finding the culture and relative freedom the women had refreshing and empowering. Mary had an eager mind and a can do attitude. Her astute understanding of the prevention of smallpox in the communities in Turkey led to the development of a scheme in England before vaccinations were fully explored. We always associate Jenner with the development of the smallpox vaccine but it stems from Mary’s founding work.
Unfortunately a woman of opinion is always going to divide the opinions of those around her and Mary’s later life was plagued with scandal and unrest. She was determined to have her name live on in the publication of her diairies, although her daughter was equally determined that this would not be the case!
All too often women who have played a key role in history are forgotten and Mary Wortley Montagu is not a name I was familiar with until I read this book. I’m grateful that Sean Lusk has shared Mary’s story with a wider audience and I would love to read more novels about hidden women in history.
Thanks to Netgalley and Doubleday for this digital advanced copy in return for an honest review.

Historical fiction often depicts women as poor downtrodden creatures, subservient to their husbands and treated poorly. Not Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. She used her wealth and privilege to do good, write poetry and to have adventures. I really enjoyed her story.

Having read Sean Lusk's previous book, The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley, I had high hopes for this book and was not disappointed.

In his new novel, A Woman of Opinion, Sean Lusk tells the story of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, based closely on her own published letters. Montagu, whom I previously knew almost nothing about, lived from 1689 to 1762, and was an English writer, poet and medical pioneer. She led a fascinating life and I enjoyed seeing it unfold through the pages of this novel.

A Woman of Opinion begins in 1712 with Mary eloping with Edward Wortley Montagu in order to avoid being pushed into marriage to her father’s choice of husband, the Irish nobleman Clotworthy Skeffington. Edward is a Whig politician and the two settle in London for a few years until, growing impatient with her husband’s lack of ambition and desperate to see more of the world, Mary manages to engineer a job offer for him as ambassador to Constantinople.

While Edward is busy trying to negotiate an end to the Austro-Turkish War, Mary gets to know some of the local Turkish women and is intrigued when she observes them inoculating their children against smallpox, through the method of ‘engrafting’ – taking pus from an infected person and introducing it into the arm or leg of an uninfected child. Mary, who has suffered from smallpox herself and been left with scarring to the face, is so impressed by the results of this procedure that when she returns to England she becomes determined to inoculate as many children as possible.

Most of the novel is narrated by Mary herself – in a formal, eloquent style that fits the 18th century setting, with no glaringly anachronistic language – but some chapters are narrated by her sister, Frances. Unlike Mary, who is the strong, independent ‘woman of opinion’ of the title, Frances has a gentler, more trusting nature. She is easier to like than Mary but her story is much less interesting and I didn’t feel that her perspective really added anything to the book.

Although the Constantinople episode is the most engaging part of the novel, Mary’s life continued to be eventful after her return. She formed a friendship and then a rivalry with the poet Alexander Pope, travelled to Italy where she began an affair with Count Francesco Algarotti, and produced a number of poems and essays. She also left behind her collection of letters, which were published in three volumes after her death as Turkish Embassy Letters (and are still in print today). Her other lasting legacy – her role in the development of the smallpox vaccine – has been overshadowed by Edward Jenner and I’m pleased that this novel has been able to raise some awareness of her contributions.

I enjoyed A Woman of Opinion much more than Sean Lusk’s debut, The Second Sight of Zacahary Cloudesley, which I felt had an unnecessary magical realism element and lost its way halfway through. However, I discovered from Lusk’s author’s note at the end of this book that one of the characters in Zachary Cloudesley was also based on Mary Wortley Montagu. If you’ve read both books, I’ll leave you to guess which one!

This is an historical fiction book that is based on Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, written using research of her actual life, but gaps filled in with fiction from the authors imagination of how things could have happened.
I am a big fan of historical fiction and this book certainly didn’t disappoint.
I hadn’t heard of Lady Montagu but found the book compelling. A very interesting and intelligent woman, very outspoken especially for the era. I think she was what we may class as marmite these days, some loved her, others not so.
She certainly lived a different lifestyle to the women of her times, and I would suspect she would have been so frustrated at how women were treated, not recognised or thought as capable as men were. Her own ideas not taken seriously.
At the end of the book I have done a little internet research myself, as I was so taken with this book. It was good to put a face to Lady Montagu, and some of the other real life characters. The fictional characters were described very well too.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Publisher for an advanced e-book copy. Opinions about the book are entirely my own.

Sean Lusk focuses on Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, born at the end of the seventeenth century, as his ‘woman of opinion’ at a time when women are not encouraged to stray from the expected. In Mary’s case, her duty is to produce children and oversee domestic arrangements. She has other ideas.
After encouraging her husband’s move into politics, Mary accompanies him to Austria and Turkey and it is whilst she is in the latter country that she discovers how the local people protect themselves against smallpox. From then on, she fights determinedly to promote this medical practice in England, and eventually succeeds.
This section was by far the most interesting episode of the novel. Whilst ‘A Woman of Opinion’ is well written and clearly well researched, the characters failed to come alive for me, and I found myself little engaged with the depictions of Mary’s various relationships. The novel allowed me to recognise and admire all that she achieved - but at an emotional distance.
My thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for a copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.

Sean Lusk's second novel is a historical novel based on the life of a little known 18th century female poet, Mary Wortley Montagu. She was a remarkable woman, and I'd never heard of her, which I think is the whole point of the novel. The story is told in the first person, mainly from the subject's own perspective, but some of the earlier chapters are from the perspective of Wortley Montagu's sister Fanny. It opens with the young Mary discarding her father's choice of suitor and eloping with a man of her choosing, and ends with an epilogue by Mary's daughter after Mary has died. In between she travels to the Ottoman Empire during her husband's short ambassadorial career, becomes an advocate for inoculation against smallpox (decades before Edward Jenner), produces a newspaper, writes poems, befriends a queen, takes part of espionage in Venice and Avignon, and ultimately returns to England at the end of her life.

If it were fiction you could be forgiven for thinking it unbelievable, but the author's notes suggest it is very close to the true events of her life, which was well documented in letters and documents from the time. All good historical novels about real people should include a clear explanation of where the boundary lies between fact and fiction, for me to fully enjoy such a story. Lusk does a great job of this.

Yet despite the extraordinary events of Wortley Montagu's life, I found the book surprisingly hard going and slightly dull. The trouble is, real human lives, no matter how extraordinary, often aren't that exciting. There is generally no underlying plot behind a life, and as such I tend to find many of these type of 'life story' novels less enjoyable than those which focus on a specific set of events. I wouldn't say it's overwritten, but it didn't flow and engage me in the same way as it did in Lusk's first novel. It was a book I had tell myself to get on and read, rather than eagerly awaiting it. I also didn't find Mary a particularly loveable or sympathetic character, even though you will feel an inevitable sense of frustration that her life and potential were unfairly limited simply by her gender. That's good writing really, because there's nothing to say that a real person should be likeable (lots aren't). But without really rooting for Mary it's hard to get too swept up in her life story.

Wortley Montagu was certainly an extraordinary figure and one that history has neglected, so it is good that someone has found her and brought her to the light. It also makes me very glad to be a woman in the modern UK and not the 18th century. I think this story will be enjoyed by fans of William Boyd's 'life story' type novels ('Any Human Heart', 'Love is Blind', 'Sweet Caress' etc.). Also readers with a particular interest in the time period (Georgian England/Europe, the Jacobite rebellion) should enjoy it as there is plenty about the politics and events of the time. For me, I'd have preferred if it had focussed on one particular period in her life which would have allowed a tighter plotline, but that's down to individual preference.

Wow! This is such an exceptional read, a true gem when it comes to historical fiction!

I read a variety of genres but historical fiction is my favourite and I love it when an author picks up a person or an event that is little known about and brings it to life for the reader. ‘A woman of opinion’ is exactly this kind of book. Before reading this, I don’t recall hearing Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s name and whyever not?! What an incredible woman she was! But unfortunately, given the era she lived in, her thoughts and opinions weren’t given the attention they deserved, simply because she was a woman. And as such, you will find her story if you look for it but it may not come to you as readily as his male counterparts who many of us know.

The book brings Mary to life in such a wonderful way: her energy and personality leap off the pages and I loved her from the start and could not put this book down!

Mary was an intelligent woman, who is known for her poetry and Turkish letters but she was so much more than that. A headstrong person, who spoke a number of languages, understood the workings of social circles and as such diplomatic relations. She had the courage to stand up to what she considered wrong and the bravery to suggest new, radical ideas such as inoculation against smallpox, which she learnt of whilst in Turkey. This was all before Thomas Dinsdale and Edward Jenner - the people we actually associate with such work! Mary had both her children inoculated and also encouraged the royal court to follow suit and supervised trial inoculations. She wanted all children to be protected, rich or poor!

She was hungry for adventure, for knowledge and also love. Whilst married to Edward all her life, they had understanding but not love and lived much of their lives apart.

I also enjoyed reading the historical author notes at the end of the book, giving the reader some further background into Mary’s life and what in the book is truth and what is imagined.

The writing is just superb and if you are a lover of historical fiction then this is a must read. It is one of my top reads of the year and despite having the free ARC, I have actually ordered a hard copy for myself as I loved it so much.

Some of my favourite quotes from the book:

“Facts are weapons that we may use deploying only our tongues and pens, and yet they may win more territory than a thousand men and a hundred cannon.” (Talking about smallpox inoculation - to Princess Caroline)

“The female intellectual is no rarer than the male, but since men like to think it is only they who possess intellect, the woman who is acknowledged by the society of men for her brains has been obliged to earn the accolade a thousand times over.” (Voltaire to Mary)

“To be thought mad is the price we pay for thinking things anew.”

“I had known love only ever as one knows the colours of the rainbow - a pleasing but fleeting illusion.”

4.5

Sean Lusk has given us another fascinating historical novel. This time he uses a real heroine - Mary Wortley Montagu who, had she been a man, would probably have been credited with smallpox inoculation which she championed. Mary was ahead of her time- a raconteur, a champion of women's voices and attempts to change women's rights.

Sean Lusk admits that very little written evidence is still available because Mary's family (particularly her daughter) were scandalised by her notoriety and destroyed many of her papers. He has however woven together a perfectly believable history of a strident woman who, despite making several powerful enemies, also had myriad supporters. She certainly had a fascinating life and could not be considered typical of women of that era. Of course coming from money and an advantageous marriage helped to get her voice heard.

I thoroughly enjoyed this historical fiction. It was interesting, fun, believable and entertaining- as imagine was Mary. I think I enjoyed this more than The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley. It should be noted that Aunt Frances from that novel was based on Mary Wortley and led (thanks to Lusk's then editor) to this fictional account. Thankyou Eloisa Clegg say I.

Thankyou very much to Netgalley and Random House for the advance review copy. Highly recommended.

A Woman of Opinion by Sean Lusk is a historical fiction novel depicting the life of Mary Wortley Montagu in the 18th century. She is noted for being a poet and advocating for women’s rights.This book explores her life in detail and brings to life the adventures she had traveling the world with her husband, an ambassador.

I would recommend this book for readers who are interested in Montagu’s story, the most notable part for me being that she helped bring smallpox inoculation to England. The best part of the book for me was Mary’s travel adventures, I appreciated the descriptions of all the places she experienced. I found the rest of the book slow and cumbersome to read with alternating the story with Frances, her sister. Frances’ point of view did not add to the story for me.

Thank you Random House UK, Transworld Publishers and Netgalley for the advanced reader copy. All opinions are my own.

'...Mary is hungry for everything - for love, for sorrow, for adventure...Yet she also has a taste for conflict. Were she a man she would make a brave (though probably reckless) general, always ready to lead her troops into battle and never doubting the righteousness of her cause'.

Voltaire described her as a ‘woman for all the world’, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, born in the late 17th Century, was a witty, articulate, forward-thinking woman who did not suffer fools. Her logical thinking and open-mindedness led her to form opinions that 'just made sense' - in spite of societal norms or religious parameters. It was during her time in Turkey, when her husband was ambassador, that she happened upon the local practice of engrafting against smallpox. Believing that every person had a right to this rudimentary form of inoculation, she worked tirelessly to promote the practice in England - eventually gaining some success, despite some powerful opposition.

'A Woman of Opinion', is a historical fiction novel based upon her life. Utilising her letters, poetry, and other writing, Sean Lusk strives to give voice to her legacy and bridge gaps in her history. Lusk's assimilation delivers a memior-like story that spans Mary's life from marriage until her death. As you may predict, such an outspoken woman was both lauded and libelled throughout her life. That she was a woman of opinion though, is indisputable.

'...to be celebrated as I have been means condemnation comes in equal measure...'.

Readers hoping for a second helping of the magical realism that peppered Lusk's debut may be a little disappointed in this follow-up - a much more straightforward historical novel, it tells the real-life story of Mary Wortley Montagu (the woman who, incidentally, inspired the Aunt Harriet in The Second Sight of...). If not quite as compelling without that extra sparkle, it is just as beautifully written, with fully realised characters and a globe-trotting plot that's bound to draw in hardcore historical fiction fans (of which I am not). A vibrant and educating read.

I really enjoyed Sean Lusk's first book but "A Woman of Opinion" wasn't as animated. To be fair, this is historical fiction based on a true person, so you have to stick to their life events to some extent but about 50% of the time, I thought it average and a bit dull. However, all is not lost, the parts when Mary is in Turkey are really bright and this is what Lusk excels at, and the section about engrafting was really interesting. I'll still be on the look out for what Lusk writes next.