Learwife J. R THORP

LEARWIFE BY J. R THORP Paperback

published by Canongate 7th July 2022

ISBN 9781838852849

Pages 368

Word has come. King Lear is dead. His three daughters too, broken in battle. But someone has survived. Lear’s Queen.

Through her grief and rage threatens to crack the earth open, she knows she must seek answers. Why was she exiled? What has happened to Kent, her oldest friend? And what will become of her now?

MY REVIEW

Learwife, is inspired by Shakespear’s King Lear. The fabulous debut novel tells the story of the most famous woman ever written out of literary history. This novel is so wonderfully written I had many favourite lines while enjoying reading this novel.

One of my favourite lines from book one,

Forgive me, my King, but if you die, would you not like your subjects to have a word for your absence? There is no King. Not a space, or a gap in the ledger. We must acknowledge loss and account for it safety, otherwise-

One of my favourite lines in book two.

The fever has flattened the softness of her lips, it’s sweet curve. Flakes of skin, white as chalk. And they have not done her hair. It is parted as in the sickness, down the middle, and laid under its shroud-scarf. A tendril shows over her shoulder. In the light it’s darkness still looks wet, ringed with salted sweat.

I loved reading how the storm brewing was written.

Harmless! Thunder and lightning, it’s terrible. My girls would never be a immodest.

When the cook and I leave the hall the weather has changed and the sky is suddenly dark despite the time of day. She is caught in it, the coming storm, her body thrown almost to the ground by the wind.

In the night the storm cracks open. The wind is vast, it hauls against the abbey. To be caught between such forces. It pushes my tower, forces it to maintain its thickness.

I see, and do not see. The lightning is falling, like Lily-petals. Daughters, you are poor compasses, you fail the point! Give me your hands.

But, of course, they are vanished into thinness. My daughters.unless at the finish.

What has been said about LearWife

Sweeping lyrical Spectator

Rich, imaginative Sunday Times.

Fascinating and heart-wrenching Daily Mail

A stunning voice Jing Jing Lee

Learwife is a story about female power both how vast it can be, and how fragile. Catherine Prasifka

Joins the likes of Pat Barker, Natalie Haynes and Margaret Atwood in seeking to unearth hidden female stories left unexplored by literary history Observer

Such a brilliant idea and wonderfully executed Julia Stevenson.

About author J. R. Thorp

J.R. Thorp is an Australian novelist and lyricist now living in Ireland. She won a Markievicz Award from the Irish Arts Council in 2021 and was one of The Observer’s top 10 debut novelists of 2021. She was shortlisted for the BBC Opening Lines Prize, won the London Short Story Award in 2011, and has been published in the Cambridge Literary Review, Manchester Review, Wave Composition, and elsewhere. She wrote the libretto for the highly acclaimed modern opera Dear Marie Stopes and has had works commissioned by the Arts Council, the Wellcome Trust and St Paul’s Cathedral, amongst others. Learwife is her first novel.

Thank you so much Canongate books for sending me this book as part of the read along and to review