Blog tour: Maid of Steel

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Welcome to the blog tour for Maid of Steel by Kate Baker!

More about the book…

It’s 1911 and, against her mother’s wishes, quiet New Yorker Emma dreams of winning the right to vote. She is sent away by her parents in the hope distance will curb her desire to be involved with the growing suffrage movement and told to spend time learning about where her grandparents came from.

Across the Atlantic – Queenstown, southern Ireland – hotelier Thomas dreams of being loved, even noticed, by his actress wife, Alice. On their wedding day, Alice’s father had assured him that adoration comes with time. It’s been eight years. But Alice has plans of her own and they certainly don’t include the fight for equality or her dull husband.

Emma’s arrival in Ireland leads her to discover family secrets and become involved in the Irish Women’s Suffrage Society in Cork. However, Emma’s path to suffrage was never meant to lead to a forbidden love affair…

More about the author…

Kate Baker wrote terrible holiday diaries as a child, which her husband regularly asks her to read out loud for their entertainment. She has since improved and has written with intent since 2018. Maid of Steel is her second novel; the first is lining drawers in the vegetable rack at their farmhouse.

My impressions…

For me, it was love at first sight with this book! The cover is visually stunning, and the title immediately impressed me with its play on words. These positive first impressions were then confirmed as soon as I started reading. Emma is a character I enjoyed getting to know and follow as she navigates the world as a woman who wants to fight for what she thinks is right. And how refreshing it was to read about the suffrage movement in the US and Ireland other than in a much-loved but more common London setting. Plus, a little dash of romance added another layer to the story. A lovely debut!

Three words to describe it. Intriguing. Engaging. Entertaining.

Do I like the cover? Yes, it is perfectly suited to the era that the story takes place in.

Have I read any other books by the same author? No, this is the author’s first full-length novel.

 

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