Charles Dickens has to be one of the most celebrated novelists who ever lived, but what about his private life?  This is a novel which tells his wife’s story, in her own words, about what it was like living with such a great man.

The two words that sum this up are not easy!  Catherine Dickens (neé Hogarth) describes the complex nature of her husband and her life with him from their first meeting onwards.  Anybody familiar with many of his books will soon see how they mirrored his life and his various obsessions, ranging from his ideal of womanhood to his worries about money.  Having Catherine tell it herself brings an immediacy to the narrative that would otherwise be lacking, and her own rather stodgy character comes through, making it also easy to understand why she and Dickens were such a mismatched pair.  I’ve read books about Dickens' life and watched TV documentaries, but having his story (or an aspect of it) told by somebody else gives a different slant.  I’d recommend this to all fans of Dickens’ work.