Katherine Howey, "In Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens"

 

Katherine Howey lives in Leicester. She has a special interest in the social history of the late Georgian period, and realistic portrayals of neurodiverse and disabled people. Her historical fiction focuses on themes of outsidership and disability, and the struggle to break free of stereotypes to achieve a fulfilling and authentic life. In Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens is her debut novel and book one in the Lucinda series. Book two, Reeve’s Emporium, is also out now. She has published academic work in the fields of assistive technology and has a certificate in Creative Writing from the University of Leicester. She previously taught neurodiverse students in both further and higher education.

About In Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, by Katherine Howey

In her debut novel, In Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, Katherine Howey weaves a compelling tale of heartbreak, courage and love set against a background of revolutionary politics and social unrest in late eighteenth-century England.

Lucinda arrives in London, bright, pretty, but impoverished. Her efforts to support herself through respectable work as a seamstress are thwarted when she becomes ill with rheumatic fever and is unable to continue in her trade. She encounters the handsome but troubled physician, William, whose path mirrors her own, but her hopes of love collapse at the whims and tyrannies of the upper classes.

In desperation, she goes to Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, a notorious meeting ground for all levels of society. Can she find a path out of destitution, and claim her independence?

You can see more information about In Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens here. Below, you can read an excerpt from the novel.

From In Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens

Chapter 17

Drowsy in the heat, Lucinda could hear the small waves slapping against the sides of the boat as it made its way upstream to Vauxhall. She had not been to the Pleasure Gardens before, their being considered less salubrious than the Gardens at Ranelagh which she had visited with Richard Meadows just a few years before, her heart full with such soaring hopes, but she knew of them through reputation. The small craft glided through the water. She looked curiously at the riverbank. They had left the looming white mass of the Tower and its sinister, moss grown Watergate entrance far behind them, and she could see the vast edifice of St Paul's jutting on the skyline beyond the mudflats of the shore and she fancied that the grand cathedral held her in its protective gaze.

Her palms were sticky, and she began to feel apprehensive at what could lie ahead. Reluctantly, she turned her thoughts to how she might carry out her intention. She had heard many times of how the courtesans and street-walkers came to the gardens. She wondered if she had the courage to take a step that would take her beyond the pail, and yet how else, no matter how hard she worked, could she save enough money to leave London? At least in Vauxhall, away from her locality on the fringes of Southwark, she could conceal her actions. She dreaded the thought of her landlady, Daphne, and her girls finding her out, and had no wish to become known in Southwark as a streetwalker. At least she could keep her reputation and her respectability as a teacher to the trades people of Southwark who send their children to her to be educated. 

The current was swift and soon the power of the river had carried them swirling through the arches of Westminster Bridge. Alert now from the reviving splash of the water, Lucinda felt the prickle of dread crawl up her spine as she observed the huddled forms lying precariously atop the starlings, surrounded by the lapping waters, drowsing in the filth. Her heart wrenched as they swept by and a woman lent towards them from her perch with outstretched hand clamouring for alms. Her face was swathed against the heat, and Lucinda thought she saw the pale orb of a babe’s head at her shoulder. Uncomfortably, she faced towards Vauxhall, her resolve strengthened.