Precious Things – Kelly Doust
I saw a poster for this in Boffins and it sounded so interesting I had to have it.
Here is the blurb …
In the tradition of gloriously absorbing, lush and moving women’s fiction by authors such as Kate Morton, Lucinda Riley and Joanne Harris comes PRECIOUS THINGS.
Normandy, France, 1891: a young woman painstakingly sews an intricate beaded collar to her wedding dress, the night before her marriage to someone she barely knows. Yet Aimee longs for so much more …
Shanghai, 1926: dancing sensation and wild child Zephyr spies what looks like a beaded headpiece lying carelessly discarded on a ballroom floor. She takes it with her to Malaya where she sets her sights on a prize so out of reach that, in striving for it, she will jeopardise everything she holds dear …
PRECIOUS THINGS tells the story of a collar – a wonderful, glittering beaded piece – and its journey through the decades. It’s also the story of Maggie, an auctioneer living in modern-day London, who comes across the crumpled, neglected collar in a box of old junk, and sets out on an unexpected mission to discover more about its secret and elusive past.
Maggie has a journey of her own too. Juggling a demanding job, a clingy young child and a rebellious stepdaughter, and with her once-solid marriage foundering under the pressure of a busy life, Maggie has to find out the hard way that you can’t always get what you want… but sometimes, you’re lucky enough to get precisely what you need.
This is a wonderful, absorbing and moving novel about desire, marriage and family, telling the story about how we so often reach out for the sparkly, shiny things (and people) we desire, only to realise – in the nick of time – that the most precious things are the ones we’ve had with us all along.
What is not to like about this novel? Beads, embroidery, mystery, interesting women’s lives. There was different times, different countries, a beautiful, but seemingly unlucky, beaded collar.
I loved it. It was a nice, easy read with some fantastic locations and characters – a trapeze artist, a painter’s muse…. It is also about relationships and the way women make things work – Lexi, taking risks and making all of the decisions, Maggie juggling a demanding job and a small child, but, also parent child relationships. As much as I loved this novel, this emotional side was a bit weak for me – I can see where she wanted to go a rich weaving of past and present connected by the collar, but I don’t think it quite got there. Having said that it is still an enjoyable novel and I think it would make a spectacular film – just imagine the costumes!
Another review …