Molly

We already know that women change everything: from laws to attitudes and even the style of underwear. Much-loved author Rosalie Ham is back with the story of Molly Dunnage, a corset designer and mother-to-be of Myrtle, the star of the international bestseller, The Dressmaker. We all fell in love with Myrtle’s attitude in that book, and this story explains exactly how the saying, ‘Like mother, like daughter’ came to be.

Ham has clearly researched this novel so that she can gift you the opportunity to be fully swept up in the detail of life in an early 1910s Australian country town and Melbourne, before the First World War changed the direction of the inhabitants’ lives. This is when the struggles of the suffragettes reached new and supposedly dangerous heights, and the poverty of working-class families – and the laws that bound them to factories, homes and the streets – gave people few choices. By reading this novel, you too can overhear the covert conversations held on street corners, in sewing circles and staff rooms among women who wanted more, and those who were scared. Ham brings to life the disappointments and the furore that facilitated societal transformation, but not quickly enough for everyone, nor soon enough for those embroiled within the system. There is a love story at the centre of this novel, but read it because tales of tenacious women are inspiring and glorious.

If you loved Ham’s previous works, you will not be disappointed here. If you love to read historical fiction with a twist of feminism, this one is for you.