Olejar Books

The author of Girl with a Pearl Earring returns with another engrossing, realistic historical novel, this one set in the final decade of the 18th century. Burning Bright follows Thomas Kellaway and his family as they migrate from rural Dorset to London, where Thomas has found work as a circus carpenter and builder. The novel foregrounds the experiences of Kellaway's son Jem and his pretty sister Maisie as they adjust with varying degrees of success to urban life and the vicissitudes of adulthood. As in her previous novels, Chevalier mixes historical characters and her own creations; among the real people vividly portrayed here are circus pioneer Philip Astley and radical poet/engraver William Blake.