The Poplar Penny Whistlers
Sheila Newberry

Robert Hale
April 2011/ ISBN 0709092063
Historical Romance / 1890 London
Amazon US || UK

Reviewed by Rachel A Hyde

Young Hester Stainsby works as a laundry maid in the Poplar Hospital, down in London’s docklands. Her mother is dead, and her father Fred works as a docker, but when he is injured and loses a leg things quickly get worse. Hester now has to keep herself, her younger siblings, disabled father and old Granny Garter – all on a laundry maid’s wages. But she gets a lucky break when a family friend helps her to start training as a nurse, and as well as this, her family (and the dog), become the Poplar Penny Whistlers to raise money.

Sheila Newberry has written a number of family sagas, and this is a good example. She has a good storyteller style and, as the resume above indicates, this is a story packed with incident. Even I enjoyed it, and I am not normally into “clog and shawl”. Perhaps it is because this one is more original, with its mixed setting of docklands, hospital and the world of popular theater. Ms. Newberry is a good hand at description too, and as I read it I was there, curiosity satisfied as to what it would have all been like. Too often these books can be harrowing and poor entertainment but this one manages to stay on the lively side and show that things are not always downbeat. If you have the same ideas as I usually do about books of this type try this one – you will be pleasantly surprised.