Brenda Jagger (1936–1986)
Author of The Clouded Hills = Verity
About the Author
Series
Works by Brenda Jagger
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Jagger, Brenda
- Legal name
- Jagger, Brenda
- Birthdate
- 1936
- Date of death
- 1986
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- Yorkshire, England, UK
- Occupations
- Writer
- Short biography
- Brenda Jagger was born on 1936 in Yorkshire, England, UK, which was the setting for many of her books including her famous ‘Barforth’ family saga. The recurring central themes of her work are marriage, womanhood, class, identity, and money in the Victorian Era. Her work has been praised for its compelling plots and moving storylines as well as its exacting emotional descriptions. Her later novel A Song Twice Over won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award in 1986.
Married, she had three daughters. Worked in Paris and as a probation officer in the north of England. She passed away in 1986.
Members
Reviews
In a 19th century Yorkshire mill town, Irish immigrant Cara Adeane struggles to support her son and mother. Gemma Gage, an industrialist's daughter, fights society's conventions, which keep women the property of their fathers and husbands. Both love Daniel Carey, a Chartist devoted to improving laborers' working conditions. Cara refuses to follow him and spends her life acquiring material wealth and repressing her emotions. Gemma uses her money to support Daniel's causes and eventually wins him. The cast of characters is rich and varied, adding layers of complication to the simplified plot above. Jagger's women are more fully realized than her male characters, and when the story wanders from Gemma or Cara, the plot sags. But these two are women worth watching, brave, passionate survivors in a society dominated by men.… (more)
If it hadn't been for the CollegeStudent's 2009 Challenge, I probably would not have read this book for another 10+ years, when I might have chanced upon it in a small used bookstore in a no-name town and bought it because of the title. Having the same obscure name as the main character was a little disconcerting at first, though finally nice to know the feeling of reading one's own name as a character, and more so when it seemed as though our personalities were the same.
Thankfully, that is where the similarities end. Shelved under fiction, since I wouldn't call it literature and wasn't light in subject enough to be diverting, it is a story that seems to slowly drag you under it's spell of middle-class families in northern England's industrial towns at the turn of the Victorian era, while at the same time never really saying or doing anything (much like this review). An easy read that leaves you nearly as distempered as Joel Barforth: needing to know what will happen to them.
Up to the last 10 pages, I thought I would be left wondering about the characters that I would need to read the other two books in the series to find out...much to my pocketbook's delight, I am contempt to let them remain as they ended.… (more)
Thankfully, that is where the similarities end. Shelved under fiction, since I wouldn't call it literature and wasn't light in subject enough to be diverting, it is a story that seems to slowly drag you under it's spell of middle-class families in northern England's industrial towns at the turn of the Victorian era, while at the same time never really saying or doing anything (much like this review). An easy read that leaves you nearly as distempered as Joel Barforth: needing to know what will happen to them.
Up to the last 10 pages, I thought I would be left wondering about the characters that I would need to read the other two books in the series to find out...much to my pocketbook's delight, I am contempt to let them remain as they ended.… (more)
Awards
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Statistics
- Works
- 19
- Members
- 238
- Popularity
- #95,270
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 3
- ISBNs
- 103
- Languages
- 6
- Favorited
- 2
From the bland title and ambiguous description, I didn't know what to expect. All I did know, this is a favorite historical period of mine. I did enjoy the novel, although it was too melodramatic in parts. Antonia herself was a strong heroine, who knew her own mind and tried to make her own life, despite familial pressures. A major stereotype of the romance novel appeared--mainly in the form of Antonia's lover, the historical Fabius Valens, a general of Emperor Vitellius and her feelings about him. I did like the author's writing style and I got a good sense of that tumultuous time in history.… (more)