I liked the premise of the story but felt it moved a little slow. the ending left me a little lost and hoping that all ended well, not sure that it did. a bit disappointing

I loved fiction books that are rooted in documented history and this was a beautifully executed novel which was no doubt meticulously researched.

I did not finish this book.
I was not interested in the story or the characters; I did not like how it was written.
I think it just was not for me, it had a blend of historical fiction that did not appeal to me at all and all the main female characters were quite boring, feeble or irritating.
The plot was also quite weak and did not keep my attention, the balloon accident or the whole story in the patronage. Neither aspect of the novel actually gripped me nor did I feel interested in the fate of the characters.

Unfortunately, this didn’t really click with me! I found I had some issues with the pacing of this novel and I wasn’t really invested in the narrative or any of the characters. I still think it was enjoyable and easy to read but it did leave me wanting.

In The Warlow Experiment, Alix Nathan gave us a historical novel with a difference, one based on a premise would have been incredible, were it not based on documented facts – a scientist conducts a unique experiment in which a man volunteers to live for seven years underground “without seeing a human face”.

Nathan returns with another beautifully executed historical novel, Sea Change, set in England in the early 19th Century. This is actually a sequel to the author’s debut novel, The Flight of Sarah Battle, and features some of the earlier book’s characters.

Although Sea Change may not expect us to suspend our disbelief as much as The Warlow Experiment, Nathan still shows a penchant for the striking, the surprising, the out-of-the-ordinary, albeit grounded in documented history. The novel starts with a cinematic description of an ascent in a balloon, piloted by “Mr Garnerin, the celebrated aeronaut”. This is based on an account of an actual flight documented in an entry for 28 June in the 1802 Annual Register. As she explains in her concluding Author’s Note, Nathan borrows heavily from this report, but inserts her own characters with Mr Garnerin – Joseph Young, a talented artist prone to bouts of depression, and young and beautiful Sarah Battle, operator of Battle’s Coffee Shop and erstwhile partner of the late Tom Cranch, radical activist and publisher.

The flight ends in tragedy. Caught in a storm, the balloon is blown off-course, landing into the North Sea. Joseph and Garnerin are saved, but Sarah is lost. Her toddler daughter Eve, with her mother presumed dead, is raised as Joseph’s ward.

Meanwhile, Sarah is brought ashore close to a village off the Norfolk coast and delivered to a local clergyman, the Reverend Snead, renowned for his “fire and brimstone” sermons. Sarah, voiceless and amnesiac following her trauma, is considered a “saved suicide”, and is soon used and abused by Snead, first as an example for his flock and then as a miracle-working “pure soul”. As Snead’s religious mania intensifies, fuelled by his inner demons, local doctor Edward, a compassionate believer in humane approaches to psychiatry, provides a ray of hope both for Sarah and for Snead’s suffering wife Hester.

Alix Nathan combines the two narratives, which move parallelly, sometimes converging in the most unexpected of ways. The trials of Sarah and Hester on the one hand, and Eve on the other, make for engrossing reading. Nathan creates a cast of strong and endearing female characters, battling against patriarchal cruelty. This is balanced by the positive portrayal of male figures such as Edward, Eve’s elderly teacher Mr Pyke and the late, absent (but evidently widely admired) Thomas Cranch.

However, in my view, what takes this novel to the next level is the eye for period detail, no doubt backed by detailed researched. There are some striking set-pieces, including vivid descriptions of London in the grips of radical ideas and the scent of revolution. The novel expresses the disquiet of the age, expressed for instance through the Luddite movement. And as a Maltese reader, I could not help being struck by the descriptions of the capital Valletta, which Joseph visits in the first years of British rule.

Sea Change is a colourful novel which portrays the intimate and personal against the backdrop of the larger-scale canvas of societal upheaval.

This is the story of Sarah and her daughter Eve, told in alternating narratives. 1802 and Sarah takes part in a balloon journey that ends in disaster. Everyone believes her dead and Eve, at the age of just 6 years, is left mourning her mother. Set in the historical backdrop of the Regency, the novel deals with themes of mental health, the effects of war and the industrial revolution.
I found this book disappointingly slow and lacking in interest. The characters weren't particular engaging and although there was some development in the characters, it didn't really add much interest,
The ending, after such a pedestrian pace was suddenly sprung on the reader and then it was all over.