The Other Life of Mary English by G D Harper

The Other Life Of Mary English

by GD Harper

The Other life of Mary English by G D Harper is published by Ginger Cat.

My thanks to Glynn and the publisher for sending me a copy to review and to 

Rachel's Random Resources for inviting me onto the book tour.

Synopsis

Two Different Women. One Shared Destiny.

Mary English, a dockworker’s daughter from Faversham, England, travels to South America to escape a scandal from her past. She ends up running a cacao plantation in Colombia, at a time when women were not legally allowed to own businesses there.

Manuela Sáenz, tempestuous lover of Venezuelan revolutionary Simón Bolívar, serves as a colonel in his army. She joins him in battle to fight the Spanish and twice saves his life from assassination attempts.

This is the story of two real-life remarkable women, both fighting oppression, hardship and danger in 1820s Colombia, who come together to change the course of a nation’s history.

My Thoughts

This is a fascinating book about two remarkable women which had me hooked from the outset. I have always been interested in finding out about “Forgotten Women” who changed history in some way and yet , generally, we never hear about them either during our education or afterwards .

On the face of it Mary and Manuela are two completely different women who go about what they want to achieve in completely contrasting ways .

I am not always a fan of historical biographies/ fiction but G D Harper’s writing does not fall into that category for me as the writing is absorbing and captivates you as you find out more about these two determined women who, despite what life throws at them are determined to succeed , even if they have to change their path on the way. We could all do with even a fraction of their mindset at times in order to achieve our goals and this is certainly a book that should be widely read by the general populace.

Whenever I have a Cadbury’s chocolate bar moving forwards I will always think of Mary and her determination to succeed no matter what life threw at her. However, it is a historical novel so there is also some speculation in it  about what may , or may not have happened in regard to Mary and Manuela. This does not detract from the book at all though and I really like the fact that GD Harper includes an Author’s note which gives you details on where to find out more information about the two women moving forwards along with a historical time line on his website.

I am now going to read The Maids of Biddenden by G D Harper which is inspired by the real life story of conjoined twins Mary and Eliza Chulkhurst.

About G D Harper

GD Harper became a full-time author in 2016. He has written three psychological thrillers, Love’s Long Road, A Friend in Deed and Silent Money, and two historical novels, The Maids of Biddenden and Arden.

The Maids of Biddenden was the winner in the historical fiction category of the 2024 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, the largest international awards program for indie authors and independent publishers, and was shortlisted for the 2023 Selfies Award at the London Book Fair. Arden was placed third in the 2024 Yeovil International Literary Prize. The Other Life of Mary English was a finalist in the Eyelands Book Awards. He has also been longlisted or shortlisted for fourteen other awards.

His books have had over one million page reads on Kindle Unlimited, been number one most downloaded e-book on Amazon UK, number three on Amazon worldwide, and garnered over two thousand reviews and ratings on Amazon and Goodreads, with an average rating score of 4.4.

He lives in East Sussex and, when not writing, can be found wild camping in the Scottish mountains or in the mosh pit at live music events.

Social Media Links – www.gdharper.com Instagram: gdharperauthor