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The Beloved by Alison Rattle





My thoughts
Alison Rattle hooked me with her first book. Her books are a perfect example of what I want Historical Fiction to do and be. This book is no exception.

The beloved is the story of Alice. Alice's mother is horrible and treats her poorly. Once her father dies her mother decides to put Alice into a lunatic asylum. Alice decides to run away and finds herself joining a religious cult led by a strange man and made up of lots of women.

The entire story about the cult is deeply unsettling when you see the situation in which the women live in under Prince's rule. The abuse they suffer both psychologically and physically is really chilling and made me distinctly uncomfortable as I read along.

For me what made this book fantastic is the rich historical detail. I love how you can see that Alison really knows her stuff and does her research. I know with complete certainty that if I give any of her books to any of my students that what they will learn from it won't teach them things that are completely incorrect unlike some other historical fiction.