Blackberry and Wild Rose
About this audiobook
Set in eighteenth-century Spitalfields, London, Blackberry and Wild Rose is the rich and atmospheric tale of a household of Huguenot silk weavers as the pursuit of the perfect silk design leads them all into ambition, love, and betrayal.
When Esther Thorel, wife of a master silk weaver, rescues Sara Kemp from a brothel, she thinks she is doing God’s will, but her good deed is not returned. Sara quickly realizes that the Thorel household is built on hypocrisy and lies and soon tires of the drudgery of life as Esther’s new lady’s maid. As the two women’s relationship becomes increasingly fractious, Sara resolves to find out what it is that so preoccupies her mistress ...
Esther has long yearned to be a silk designer. When her early watercolors are dismissed by her husband, Elias, as the daubs of a foolish girl, she continues her attempts in secret. It may have been that none of them would ever have become actual silks, were it not for the presence of the extraordinarily talented Bisby Lambert in the Thorel household. Brought in by Elias to weave his master piece on the Thorel’s loom in the attic of their house in Spitalfields, the strange cadence of the loom as Bisby works is like a siren call to Esther. The minute she first sets foot in the garret and sees Bisby Lambert at his loom marks the beginning of Blackberry and Wild Rose, the most exquisite silk design Spitalfields has ever seen, and the end of the Thorel household’s veneer of perfection.
As unrest among the journeyman silk weavers boils over into riot and rebellion, it leads to a devastating day of reckoning between Esther and Sara.
About the author
Sonia Velton has been a solicitor in Hong Kong, a Robert Schuman Scholar in Luxembourg, and spent eight years being a full-time mom of three in Dubai. She now lives in Kent. Her first novel, Blackberry and Wild Rose, tells the story of a fictional household of master silk weavers living in eighteenth-century Spitalfields. The protagonist is loosely inspired by Anna Maria Garthwaite who was the foremost silk designer of the mid-eighteenth century and the title takes its name from an actual silk design. The novel was short-listed as a work in progress for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize 2015 and long-listed for the Myslexia Novel Competition.
Esther Wane is a British actor and voiceover artist who, after a career in finance, fulfilled her childhood dream of attending drama school in London. She has narrated audiobooks in many genres, including politics, romantic fiction, and children's literature. When not doing voiceover work or acting, she can be found browsing bookshops. She currently resides with her family and collection of books in Hertfordshire, London.
A native of London, UK, Shiromi Arserio is a stage actor and AudioFile Earphones Award-winning audiobook narrator. She holds a BA in theater from Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance. In addition to narrating over 150 audiobooks in British English, American, and Australian accents, her voice can be heard in video games such as Nancy Drew: The Shattered Medallion. A self-proclaimed geek, Shiromi currently resides in Seattle with her husband and two furbabies.
