Blog Tour and Book Excerpt for "White Feathers"
- DK Marley
- 14 hours ago
- 8 min read
Book Title: White Feathers
Series: White Feathers, Book #1
Author: Susan Lanigan
Publication Date: 21/3/2025
Publisher: Idée Fixe Press
Pages: 398
Genre: Historical Fiction
Any Triggers: Abortion (non-graphic), Death
White Feathers
by Susan Lanigan
Blurb:
"Anti-war and anti-patriarchy without ever saying so - a bravura performance of effortless elegance" - Irish Echo in AustraliaSHORTLISTED FOR THE ROMANTIC NOVEL OF THE YEAR AWARD 2015In 1913, Irish emigrée Eva Downey receives a bequest from an elderly suffragette to attend a finishing school. There she finds friendship and, eventually, love. But when war looms and he refuses to enlist, Eva is under family and social pressure to give the man she loves a white feather of cowardice. The decision she eventually makes will have lasting consequences for her and everyone around her.Journey with Eva as she battles through a hostile social order and endeavours to resist it at every turn.
Buy Link:
Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/u/4APnB0
Author Bio:
Susan Lanigan’s first novel White Feathers, a tale of passion, betrayal and war, was selected as one of the final ten in the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair 2013, and published in 2014 by Brandon Books. The book won critical acclaim and was shortlisted for the UK Romantic Novel of the Year Award in 2015. This edition is a reissue with a new cover and foreword.
Her second novel, Lucia’s War, also concerning WWI as well as race, music and motherhood, was published in June 2020 and has been named as the Coffee Pot Book Club Honourable Mention in the Modern Historical Book of the Year Award.
Susan lives by the sea near Cork, Ireland, with her family.
Author Links:
Website: https://susanlanigan.com
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/author/B00MTKLNLO
Book Excerpt:
1 September 1913. Chapter 1
Until the ticket collector arrived, the two women occupying the second compartment of the fifth carriage on the two o’clock train from London Bridge to Brighton had not said a word to each other. Mrs Michael Stewart, the older of the two by several decades and dressed in black, the excrescence of crêpe and tulle partly hiding the cracks on her gloves, had no book or newspaper or pastime to amuse her but stared straight ahead with the grim face of the chaperone on duty. Nothing stirred her, nothing interested her. Her widow’s weeds were not recently acquired, yet she had lost interest in life long before she had qualified for their use.
By contrast, the younger of the two, Miss Eva Downey, sat close by the window, so close that her breath nearly grimed the glass. She squirmed on the soft upholstery of the seats and tweaked at the velveteen curtains. Sometimes she sat back and clasped the small medallion she wore around her neck. On other occasions she consulted her Bradshaw’s Railway Guide, her other books being in the valise stowed above their heads.
Of this behaviour, Mrs Stewart indicated her disapproval though a series of tuts and sniffs, all of which Eva ignored. She was seventeen years of age, with hair the colour of straw that had not seen sun, wide-apart grey-blue eyes and a carriage that was a good half stone too heavy for the stricter kind of corset. And up until the moment the line turned towards the coast and showed the wide expanse of sea glowing in the severe autumn sun, she had never seen the English coastline, nor had she ever been on a train, apart from the Tube.
Her stepmother, Catherine, had admonished her, ‘’Twas gettin’ on the Tube that night brought it on yourself in the first place. I’m glad Mrs Michael’s keepin’ an eye on ye.’ Eva, feeling the familiar residual ache in her arm and remembering all too well what she had brought upon herself, had made no reply, merely turning away in disgust.
Mrs Stewart was a friend of Catherine’s. Or, at least, they had known each other, back in Ireland. In London, Catherine Downey paid few calls; even after eleven years of marriage, her status was too uncertain for her to risk it. So of all the women in London she could have called on for the task of escorting Eva to her destination, only Mrs Stewart was at her disposal, for Mrs Downey could not, she declared, be expected to carry out the disagreeable duty herself. Why, the … the injustice of seeing off her stepdaughter to some fancy school when her own dear Grace had to stay at home! Every time the subject was broached, she became so impassioned that she lost her senses and it became necessary to administer sal volatile to revive her. In her stead, Mrs Stewart had agreed to accompany Eva from the top step of the Downeys’ three-storey terrace in 35 Wellclose Square, East London, to the station at Eastbourne, where Eva would be handed over, like a package of goods, to Miss Caroline Hedges, headmistress of The Links School for Young Ladies.
Mrs Stewart was not a pleasant companion: she smelt of mothballs combined with something malformed and rotting deep within the gut. But, regardless, Eva felt only joy. She flourished her ticket at the collector, who stamped it with a smile. It was a single. She wasn’t going back any time soon, thank God.
‘Eastbourne, eh?’ he enquired. ‘Well, it’s nice to see a lady as happy as you are. What business brings you there?’
Mrs Stewart immediately cut in. ‘You’re not to answer him.’ To the conductor she declared, ‘This girl’s family is respectable. She doesn’t talk to strange men.’
‘He is the ticket collector,’ Eva said, her voice like a bucket of iced water. ‘It is his job to ask people where they are going.’
‘And it’s my job to make sure you behave yourself,’ Mrs Stewart responded, rather more sharply than seemed merited.
The conductor, obviously perturbed, backed away. He was nearly out the door when Eva called after him. ‘Sir, wait, please. I shan’t leave your question unanswered. There is a school near Eastbourne, called The Links. I am going to attend it for a year.’ She broke into a broad smile.
‘The Links! Isn’t that the fine school for young ladies? I’ve heard it’s very fancy indeed. You must be quite the lady yourself to be going there, miss.’ His forehead creased with the beginnings of doubt. She did not look quite right. While she was acceptably dressed, in a simple ivory habit-like dress that looked like a school uniform, she was hatless, her hair hanging limply by her sides in a thick, rather shapeless cut. She was no Lady Lavery, that was for sure. But the conductor had heard tell that the school cost north of seventy pounds a year. One had to be seriously moneyed to put that amount aside.
Eva shook her head, laughing. ‘Oh, no, not I. I’m hoi polloi, I’m afraid. No, I was very kindly bequeathed a legacy by Lady Elizabeth Jenkins for this specific purpose. I met her at a—’ But there, Eva bit her lip and stopped.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Mrs Stewart snapped. ‘Don’t be telling him of your disgraceful behaviour, or he won’t be so nice to you any more. You should have stayed home and married Mr Cronin, like you were told to.’
‘I’m sorry, miss,’ the conductor said, nodding at Eva. ‘I seem to have embarrassed your mother.’
Silence fell for a few heartbeats, a few clackety-clacks as the wheels passed over the gaps in the rails. When Eva eventually replied, it was with a quiet viciousness that was clearly audible against the rush of wind and the noise of the train on the tracks. ‘She’s not my mother, nor is the woman who sent her. My mother died when I was five years old, and there’s not a woman alive fit to take her place.’ And with that the smile left her face, she opened her Railway Guide and remained every bit as still and cold for the rest of the journey as the miserable, fossilised creature sitting opposite her.
A month ago, she would never have dreamed she would be making this journey. That day, she had been called down to the parlour and introduced to a stranger, a solicitor called Mr Phelps, who had called especially to see her. The parlour fronted onto the square, which was in a rather shabby part of town, so the curtains were often drawn to conceal the modesty of the neighbourhood; Mr Phelps seemed to be enveloped in a kind of half-gloaming.
Papa had been present, of course, as had the rest of the family, when that gentleman with the overlong trousers and florid delivery informed them that in gratitude for her work for The New Feminist, Lady Elizabeth Jenkins had bequeathed Miss Eva Downey the sum of seventy-five pounds for the express purpose of finishing her education. There had been a pause, which Mr Phelps, who looked too grand for the room, had allowed to lengthen beyond the point of embarrassment before saying, pointedly, ‘Any questions?’
Eva’s sister, Imelda, had embraced her while Catherine stood there with a face like a gate. Since the discovery of what Mrs Stewart called her ‘disgraceful behaviour’ two years ago, Eva’s relationship with her father’s wife had deteriorated from mutual distrust to open warfare. Catherine had done no more than live down to all expectations.
Grace’s reaction, however, had been somewhat different. At the time, Eva’s stepsister merely greeted her news with a shrug and the blood-red smirk that habitually animated her pale, lovely, suspicious face. But a few weeks later, in August, while reading Woman’s Weekly on the sofa in the parlour, Eva had felt two hands suddenly settle on her shoulders. She had jumped. ‘Grace! What do you want?’
‘Stand up.’
Eva was too surprised to disobey.
‘Now. I am going to stand behind you. Like this. And I want you to fall backwards so I can catch you. I need you to trust me. Just for this moment.’ No doubt Grace saw Eva’s shoulders stiffen, because she quickly added, ‘You’re leaving now, you’ve chosen your school, and we haven’t really had much of a talk, have we? About what will happen when you go?’
‘No.’ Eva clenched her fist to her chest.
‘The world is not a friendly place for people like us. We have to be careful not to let the mask slip. When we’re excited, our Irish accents can come out. We’re judged for that.’
Still Eva kept taut, lifting her chin slightly.
‘You needn’t shut me out, Eva. Just this once, let yourself be helped.’
There was something mesmerising about her voice. Eva let herself lean backwards.
‘Further. Trust me.’
Eva leaned back further – and fell, hitting the floor with a thump on the tailbone. She exclaimed with pain, looked up and saw Grace glaring down, as if Eva had caused her offence.
‘Let that be your first lesson. Never trust anybody.’
Eva gaped at her. Grace returned her astonishment with an elegant little moue. ‘All right, so I tricked you. Don’t be childish about it; those society girls aren’t going to be any nicer. At least you now know what to expect.’
Slowly Eva rose from the floor. Her lower back was screaming. She was about to tell Grace exactly what she thought of her, but Grace held up a hand.
‘The trouble with you, Eva, is that you’re too reckless. And you know what happened the last time.’ Without waiting for a reply, she exited the room with the same tight elegance with which she had entered it.
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Thank you so much for hosting Susan Lanigan today, with an intriguing excerpt from her moving novel, White Feathers.
Take care,
Cathie xo
The Coffee Pot Book Club