Fact and fiction intertwine in this beautifully told story about a love affair between Rupert Brooke and a housemaid called Nell. Using diary entries, letters and poems Jill Dawson crafts a story that inspires the reader to want to read more about Brooke while enjoying an absorbing and mesmerising tale.

April 2010 Guest Editor Katharine McMahon on Jill Dawson...

The Great Lover is a novel about a poet, Rupert Brooke, that pushes past the cliches of tea on the lawn at Grantchester and takes an utterly fresh look at the poet.  The writing is very clear and precise and makes for a fascinating read.  And what's more, I was inspired to go and read Brooke's poetry too.

Reviewed on Richard & Judy on Wednesday 10 June 2009.

February 2009 Good Housekeeping selection.

The Good Housekeeping view...

Dripping with deliciously sensual allusions to beekeeping, this is an elegantly entwined story of self-discovery and wild, poetic love. When 90-year-old Nellie Golightly receives a letter from a Tahitian woman asking if she can supply her with memories of her father, Rupert Brooke, Nellie is transported back to her bucolic teenage years in the Orchard Tea Garden, Granchester, where she met, and fell hotly in love, with the desperately flirtatious young poet. Fact and quite wonderful fabrication blend together in this bewitching novel.

Synopsis

In the summer of 1909, sixteen-year-old Nell Golightly is the new maid at the Orchard Tea Gardens in Cambridgeshire when Rupert Brooke moves in as a lodger. Famed for his looks and flouting of convention, the young poet captures the hearts of men and women alike, yet his own seems to stay intact. Even Nell, despite her good sense, begins to fall for him. What is his secret?

This captivating novel gives voice to Rupert Brooke himself in a tale of mutual fascination and inner turmoil, set at a time of great social unrest. Revealing a man far more complex and radical than legend suggests, it powerfully conveys the allure – and curse – of charisma.

Reviews

About the Author

Jill Dawson is the author of TRICK OF THE LIGHT, MAGPIE, FRED AND EDIE, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Orange Prize, and WILD BOY, all published by Sceptre to critical acclaim. WATCH ME DISAPPEAR, her latest novel, will be published by Sceptre in March 2006. She is also an award-winning poet and has edited several anthologies including The Virago Book of Wicked Verse, and, with Margo Daly, Wild Ways. She was the British Council Fellow at Amherst College, Massachusetts, in 1997 and is currently the Royal Literary Fund Fellow in Writing at the University of East Anglia. Born in Durham, she now lives with her family in the Fens. Photograph © Luke White   Fellow novelist Katharine McMahon on Jill Dawson... The Great Lover is a novel about a poet, Rupert Brooke, that pushes past the cliches of tea on the lawn at Grantchester and takes an utterly fresh look at the poet.  The writing is very clear and precise and makes for a fascinating read.  And what's more, I was inspired to go and read Brooke's poetry too. More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation