Blue Hawk

BLUE HAWK follows Joan, a young girl living in 17th century Gloucestershire. Business-minded Joan begs her father for the chance to try and save her family’s failing millworking business—and succeeds. But in an era in which women are meant to be mothers and wives and no more, Joan finds herself continually underestimated and forced away from her true calling again.

This book is gritty, well researched and unique—everything I’m looking for in historical fiction! I love stories about women who don’t fit into society’s rules for them, and Joan struggles as a young woman to balance motherhood with her career and passions. Joan and her sister Alice’s complicated relationship through the years is another central part of the book, as well as the horrors of poverty, which I feel like other historical fiction authors can sometimes romanticize or glorify.

I highly recommend this for fellow literary historical fiction lovers!

A superb novel focusing on Joan's story of weaving and dyeing in 17th Century Gloucestershire.
Starting in 1663 when Joan was around 13, Blue Hawk follows Joan's life into adulthood and ultimately widowhood. It outlines the trials and tribulations of a woman who has education, talent and ambition and how gender restrictions and societal expectations make life difficult for such women. Beautifully researched, Turner acknowledges that no particular woman was the inspiration for her story but that hints and omissions in the archives allow for such a story to have possibly existed.
Left motherless at a young age, Joan and her sister Alice must navigate womanhood on their own. A drunken and saddened father does not help and Joan finds the support of Mrs Freme a local widow who has the taint of witchery about her. But the friendship with Mrs Freme proves to be a godsend for young Joan who is obsessed with colour in her otherwise grey life. Mrs Freme manages a dye garden for her absent lodger and calls on Joan's help to tend the space. This sets Joan up to try and transcend the family's poverty. Their hand to mouth existence is brilliantly portrayed by Turner's research into living conditions during this time.
Against a backdrop of religious and martial history, Joan's life and story are small. But it's also writ large against the natural landscape and huge skies which present liberty and possibility.
A wonderfully engaging story, beautifully written - a strong recommendation.

Blue Hawk by Chloe Turner blew me away. As a debut novel, it is powerful, insightful and highly polished and celebrates the tenacity and fortitude of a woman faced with extreme adversity in a time where help without a price was not an option

Joan lives in 17th century Gloucestershire, but when the actions of her drunken millworker father force the family toward poverty and destitution, Joan decides to take action to save them and their reputation. However, no woman in these times should be able to create the colours and shades in cloth that she is creating? Fingers start pointing, she must be a witch!

Exceptional research and great authenticity transports the reader to another era, where life was completely different, and women were no more than chattell. The story follows the impending demise of a family, the bitterness and jealousies, the be pettiness and strife and it is written with such eloquence and clarity that I could almost be in the room

Absolutely outstanding

Thank you to Netgalley, Deixis Press and the author Chloe Turner for this stunning ARC. My review is left voluntarily and all opinions are my own

The writing is beautiful and story about an area where i was born so I was drawn to this book. I loved her descriptions and the atmosphere and authenticity of what she brought to the book. The background of the sTroud valley and the weaving industry was extremely interesting. I struggled a little with the very detailed descriptions of her difficult relationships and would have liked the focus of the main book to linger a little longer on the positive influences in her life. Having a difficult sister myself I am not sure i believed the length of time it took Joan to realise that people don't change. but can love each other.
I will recommend it but to those feeling in a good place.

Thank you to Deixis Press and Netgalley for sharing a advance copy of this book.

5/5 ✨

Have I not given up enough, she demanded, though only inside her head

Two simpkins, faces slick with sugar dust, and not a thought for the future between them

I was completely blown over by this book. I loved the way the story was crafted, capturing the essence of the era where men had all the power and women were ridiculed whenever they had opinions. I LOVED the prose, especially the passages detailing the art of cloth-dying, which painted a mesmerizing picture and it's always wonderful to read a historical fiction that's well researched.

I loved reading Joan's journey, her struggle against her father who was unhelpful at best, and her sister who she could have done without and an husband who's sweet but not without faults of his own. Joan's love for colours leapt off the page at times for me, infusing the narrative with happiness, heartbreak, love and sorrow that only enriched the story. I can't believe it's a debut novel for this author, the storytelling and the stunning prose exuded a confidence that I don't normally find in debut novels. Loved every second of reading this book!

This can easily become a classic and it is surprising to learn that this is a debut novel.

It is set in the 17th century, Gloucestershire and is about the teen MC Joan’s life. I like stories where characters want different things from life and have different perspectives. I also like a good feminist novel where the women have internal agency, competence, skill and intelligence but the society views them differently and punishes them (is there any such authentic and truthful book where this doesn’t happen though?).

The dyes and colour serving as both a theme and a device was absolutely gorgeous.

From one perspective, this book is of an ideal length.
Yet, I was immersed in it and wanted to read more about Joan.

It's the 1600s. Joan, in her mid teens, lives with her older sister, Alice, and her father in Gloucestershire, where they barely eke out a living weaving and selling cloth. Their mother died when Joan and Alice were young and they're all struggling to cope with her absence. Joan's father decided that he wanted to strike out on his own and become a clothier instead of continuing to work for someone else, but he drinks away the profits, leaving the family on the edge of starvation and in debt. The sisters are very different. Alice wants a different kind of life, which she plans to get by becoming the wife of a wealthy man. She can be cruel in the pursuit of her goal. Joan loves nature, especially the dyes that come from plants and insects. She befriends a widow with a dye garden and wants to experiment with some of the cloth, but there is none to spare. She also has a good head for business, which is considered unacceptable for a woman. She meets resistance from people she knows and those she doesn't. The book takes us through Joan's life as she fights for her own survival and that of her family, navigating a world in which the person she is, her skills, interests, and knowledge, are considered unacceptable, Alice's goal was acceptable. Joan's goals were not.

I got stuck into this book from the start. It's a thoroughly enjoyable read with fascinating, infuriating, and pitiful characters. In an author's note in the back, we are told that Joan is based (loosely) on a couple of women who actually lived, but who are mostly lost to history, except for a couple of historical glimpses. The world in which the story takes place is fascinating to read about. The descriptions of Joan's love of the dyeing process and color are beautiful. The sections in the market where the cloth is being inspected are so vivid, I could almost feel the cloth myself. My one quibble was the ending, which seemed a tad abrupt to me--maybe that's just because I would have liked Joan's story to continue on for a little bit longer. This is an excellent book.

Blue Hawk by Chloe Turner

Thank you to Deixis Press and NetGalley for an advance reader’s copy of this book.

Gloucestershire, England, 1663, in the heart of the weaving and dyeing industry: the motherless Browning sisters live with their father whose faltering small weaving business sends him to drink and is further diminished by this. Even though both daughters spin and weave, the small family usually does not have enough to eat.

Initially, the story seems sweet, if not subtle: Joan, 15, the central character, is loving and industrious; Alice, 17 is selfish, mean and ambitious. Joan’s friendship with an older widow brings to life Joan’s many talents in creating dyes and designs, and re-building her father’s business. Descriptions of the natural world in which they work and struggle add color and depth to the narrative. As the story moves through the years, it becomes more complicated. There is love, loss, betrayal, reconciliations, fleeting triumphs, great disappointments, and more stable success.

Those interested in fabric arts as well as women’s history can enjoy this book, based on historical records of the 17th century cloth industry. Although few real women achieved positions of influence and success in it, some did, and they are engagingly represented here.

I felt genuine sadness when I came to the end of the book because I’d bonded with the characters and didn’t want to leave them. It’s the sign of a good book.
I felt engaged with the main character of Joan, through following her passion and determination to defy convention by learning cloth-dyeing. I felt for her as she negotiated the highs and lows of life and faced the challenges of being a woman in 17th century England. The book includes strong themes of female friendship and explores complex personal relationships made harder by poverty and societal expectations of a woman’s place.
This debut novel was crafted with the flair and accomplishment of a mature writer. What struck me were the rich descriptions of weaving and the cloth-dyeing process. I was impressed by the author’s thorough research into all aspects of the clothing industry which she expertly wove into the story. I loved Joan’s close affinity with nature as she gathered plant and insect material to get exactly the right colours for her cloth. I did occasionally think the sentences were too long in places which at times forced me to stop and reread them, but it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book overall.
I love discovering a new author to get excited about and I’m going to immediately read Witches Sail in Eggshells.
Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced review copy of this book.

Fascinating and well researched historical fiction which combines the best of setting and characterisation. Set in my own stomping ground too. Highly reccomend.