With The Dream Kingdom, the Morlands have entered into the Edwardian era. Jessie and Violet are enjoying their first London season, Anne is becoming more deeply immersed in the suffragist movement, Teddy is earning a lucrative income providing linens for the White Star line, and Jack has fallen in love with aviation. Other historical developments that touch the Morlands include a budgetary and political crisis in Parliament, growing tensions between England and Germany, and the death of King Edward VII.

Some Morland Dynasty books focus on just one or two threads, and others pack in tons of characters and storylines. Although I tend to prefer the former books, this was one of the better books in the latter category. Mostly, this was because I was riveted by Lady Anne’s activities with the suffragettes. Harrod-Eagles also delves a bit into some of the tensions within the movement, but she also gives a lot of attention to the imprisonments and force-feedings of women on hunger strikes. Historical fiction can turn our stomachs in horror and fury in a way a straightforward account of the facts cannot, and these stories are an excellent example. The whole book could have been about the suffragettes, and I would have been pleased as can be.

That’s not to say, however, that the other storylines don’t have their pleasures. Many of the Morland men have taken an interest in engineering in one way or another, and this means that readers get to learn about the development of the railroads and, in this book, the dawn of aviation. I also enjoyed the contrasts between Jessie and Violet’s romantic lives. At times, I was annoyed by Jessie’s tendency to obsess over questions about what love really feels like and whether there’s one right man for her and how will she know and so on and on and on. But when I was 20, I obsessed over that too. I found Jessie’s introspection exasperating, but realistic.

Harrod-Eagles also sets the plot up nicely for the next book. I can hardly wait!

See my complete review at Shelf Love. ( )

A long, but worthy episode of the Morland Dynasty. This looks at the female vote, death of King Edward and the birth of aviation- once again, with the Morlands tangled up in everything. I found a lot out about the struggle for the female vote (no idea that it got so violent). A highly recommended series. ( )

Historical Fiction
Setting: England 1908-1910
Series: #26

First Line: In a taxi-cab rattling through London in the small hours, Jessie Compton sat up, wide awake, astonished that her two companions could be half asleep (in the case of her friend Lady Violet Winchmore) or frankly dozing (as was their chaperone Miss Miller, Violet's former governess).

Beginning this series is an investment in time and pleasure. Currently numbered at thirty volumes, it is Harrod-Eagles' ambitious task to take a fictional family in Yorkshire from the time of Richard III all the way to the present day. If you like architecture, several volumes have floorplans of the house as it changes over the years. If you like genealogy, there's an ancestral chart included in each. Although there are a lot of characters, these books attest to the author's skill as a writer because each is different, each is fully drawn, and each is memorable.

I began reading this series in the 1980s when the first five volumes were published in this country. When I could no longer find them, I assumed that there were no more. It wasn't until 2000 that I discovered that she'd been writing all along, and it's been my pleasure to get caught up. I hoard them though, and parcel them out sparingly so I don't run out before the next book is in print!

The Dream Kingdom takes place during the years 1908-1910 when England was in a period of golden summer. All things were bright and beautiful, and it seemed that everything would go on like this forever. Two girls in the family have their London Season. One of the young men realizes a dream to get into the brand-new field of aviation. One of the women is an ardent Suffragette. The current owner of Morland Place finds his business doing quite well with a new contract from the White Star Line for the soft furnishings for the Olympic and Titanic. He also brings home a new wife which throws his sister into a tailspin because she knows there can't be two mistresses of the same house.

This series has it all for me: history, wonderful characters, a vivid setting...I can't get enough! ( )