Review: Interesting Social Commentary (and good stories, too!)
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 28, 2014
I very much enjoyed the first book in the "Victorian San Fransisco" series by M. Louisa Locke, so was pleased to see another one offered for $0.00, and hastened to download it.The author has used her doctoral thesis studies, yet again, as the basic formula for each of the 4 stories in this volume.The protagonist in each of these tales, Annie Fuller, had been married and widowed young, and had then moved around, at the mercy of her late husband's family, in order to be "of help", as was traditional for unmarried women in the 1800s.  This was not the type of life one would have wished on any young woman, and Annie, intelligent and active in her own defence, has had the courage to establish and maintain her own boarding house.  For additional funds, she takes the advice of one of her boarders (a business man whom she admires), and transforms herself into a fortuneteller or medium.The social strata are seen through Annie's wise and understanding eyes, while it is suggested, from time to time (and just in passing) that perhaps her clairvoyance is a little more substantial than even she can quite believe.Well edited, well written and an easy read.All in all, an excellent way in which to learn a little about the social mores in San Fransisco in the mid- to late-1800s