James Nicoll Reviews

B. L. Blanchard’s 2023 The Mother is an alternate history thriller. It is technically the second book in the Good Lands series, but can nevertheless be read as a stand-alone.

Marie, Duchess of Suffolk, vanishes from Grayside, the family mansion. The evidence points to suicide… But the evidence is misleading. Marie is fleeing from her husband and his family, and toward a new life.

England in 2020 is poor, perpetually at war with fellow Catholic nation France, and comprehensively socially stratified. Women in general lead miserable lives. Aristocratic women are no exception.

Young women are valued only for their reproductive capacity. Women who, like Marie’s mother, produce only girls, are despised. Women who, like Marie, produce no children at all, will be discarded. Divorce is illegal, but barren aristocratic women are notoriously prone to fatal accidents.

Believing for good reason that her mother-in-law, the Dowager Duchess of Suffolk, is plotting her death, Marie quietly stole whatever money and jewels she could and fled. She left behind evidence she hoped would convince her husband and his mother that she was dead.

She goes to London, where she hopes to find her long-estranged sister Emma, cast out from the family years for the crime of becoming pregnant by a stableboy. Finding Emma is easy enough. Convincing Emma to house her is a bit harder. Now comes the hardest part: convincing Emma that Marie is not completely mad and that their mother is still alive.

Marie and Emma’s mother had birthed only girls; she was a vast disappointment to her husband, Earl Kenfield. Her suicide was both plausible and convenient for the Earl, whose second wife produced the son he craved. Marie believes that her mother faked her suicide. Marie has seen a letter that her mother had written to a friend before she ostensibly died, a letter hinting at her destination.

Marie hopes to travel there; Emma isn’t sure that her mother is alive after all. But Marie is insistent. Marie has faked her own death. She also knows that Emma was never pregnant; she just said that she was in order to escape an arranged marriage. Why shouldn’t mom have done much the same?

Emma finally agrees and the sisters have to figure out how to escape England and travel to Flanders. They will need false documents, but false documents cost money. Marie doesn’t have enough cash on hand and must sell some of the jewels she stole.

News of the sale reaches the Dowager Duchess of Suffolk, who then knows for sure that Marie is alive and in possession of stolen property. Marie must die; the jewels must be recovered. Trusted retainer John Hart is sent after the sisters. What will happen when he catches up with them?

~oOo~

Is escaping marriage a family trait for this mom and her daughters, or is this something to which aristocratic women in general are prone?

The author never bothers to explain why this world looks as it does. Some alternate history authors have their character spontaneously discuss the branch point between theirs and ours even when that has no relevance to the characters. Blanchard is not such an author. However, there’s a map in this volume that hints at the points at which this world’s history diverged from ours.

There was no Reconquista. No Spain, no funding for Columbus (if he was even born in this world). There’s also no Portugal, which means no Henry the Navigator to kick off the Age of Discovery. There were no large European empires funnelling the planet’s wealth into Europe. The continent is poorer than richer realms to the east.

Additionally, the text makes it clear was no Reformation. It’s not clear if (or how) the absence of the Reconquista prevented a Reformation or if the two developments (or lack of developments) are unrelated¹. The author may know but it is not something about which the characters think. In any case, in this world Catholicism isn’t as liberal as, say, the Irish Catholic Church establishment circa 1960².

However, this is not one of those all Catholic and technologically deficient alt-hist Europes. Even England has mod cons such as cell phones (to which women have limited legal access, if they have access at all) and implantable tracking chips (which makes keeping track of recalcitrant wives ever so much more convenient, particularly if the wife has no idea that such a technology exists). It’s just that this future is even more unevenly distributed than ours and used for purposes even more questionable³.

It would have been easy for Blanchard to settle for an entirely linear chase plot, featuring the standard relentless pursuits, narrow escapes, and inevitable plummet by the villain from some suitably lofty perch. There is some of that and it’s just as satisfying as one might expect.

However, the novel is also an exploration of this alt-England, something greatly facilitated by the principal characters. In fact, the plot and the motivation driving the Dowager Duchess are more complex than one would expect. It’s always pleasant to be surprised by a plot development.

This Europe does not make for pleasant reading, but the novel is certainly engaging. I wonder if there will be a third novel, and if so, where and when it will be set.

The Mother is available here (Amazon US), here (Amazon Canada), here (Amazon UK), here (Barnes & Noble), here (Chapters-Indigo)

I did not find The Mother at Words Worth Books and while I did find it here (Apple Books), that’s an audiobook. I think 47 North is an Amazon imprint so maybe that’s why it is not available in paper from Apple or Words Worth? Except B&N and Chapters have it.

1: Another difference: Henry VIII’s older brother Arthur survives. Arthur seems to have been no improvement over Henry. Rather than creating his own church, he pioneered the art of finding ways to kill off inconvenient wives.

This change might well be causally linked to the other two alterations. Firstly, even a small change in timing could lead to a different sperm winning the race. Perhaps this Arthur shares a name with the historical Arthur, but not the health issues. As well, with no Reformation, there’s less reason for Arthur to hit on the idea of his own church.

2: About the only alternate history I can recall in which the Catholic Church is still unchallenged, but that’s not a bad thing, is Randall Garrett’s Lord Darcy series. Otherwise, it is a pretty safe bet that any alternate Europe without a Reformation will be worse off than the current one.

3: At least until Project 2025 gets going down in the US, at which point everything in this novel will be SOP down there.

There is no evidence that any other alt-Eurasian culture is less patriarchal than western alt-Europe.