Blurb: At the end of her life, Catherine, the cast-off wife of Charles Dickens, gave the letters she had received from her husband to their daughter Kate, asking her to donate them to the British Museum, "so the world may know that he loved me once." The incredible vulnerability and heartache evident beneath the surface of this remark inspired Gaynor Arnold to write Girl in a Blue Dress. Arnold brings the spirit of Catherine Dickens to life in the form of Dorothea "Dodo" Gibson – a woman who is doomed to live in the shadow of her husband, Alfred, the most celebrated author in the Victorian world. This book made me very thankful of what time period I live in. To have a husband set a wife asside as Dickens did is just so unimaginable to me. Gaynor does an excellent job of bringing the overly self involved Dickens to life. I read a great deal about Dickens before reading this book so I could see how Gaynor would weave fact with fiction. I only wish she would have had Dickens and the fictional Gibson's childhoods more the same. It would have made Dickens to be more understood of some of the things he did in life, how obsessed he was with work and providing for his family, and in some ways it would have made him even more selfish for casting off his unwanted wife. Overall and excellent first author book with a story that moves right along with well written characters. Gaynor lets us view through Victorian era window to visit with a family with a full range of emotions. 5 out of 5
