One can walk the streets and listen to the people chat in the company of Jennifer Donnelly, who has done her historical homework!She delivers.' - Washington Post 'The Tea Rose is the kind of book that calls for a rainy day, a cozy chair and a good, steaming cup of tea. Once in New York, we trip from the tenements of the Lower East Side to elegant dining at Delmonico's, with hardly a paragraph to catch our breath!The atmosphere of both starring cities is created in satisfying detail. This is a splendid, heartwarming novel of pain, struggle, decency, triumph - and just what we need in these times.' - Frank McCourt 'I loved this vividly researched and wonderfully rumbustious yarn - brilliantly told, great fun to read.' - Simon Winchester 'Bold, brisk and beguiling, The Tea Rose is a splendid brew of a book.' - Sam Twining 'It's so much fun! This is London in the 1880s, the London of Charles Dickens and Edward Rutherford, a teeming, messy place full of business, dirt and poverty. It's the kind of novel where the writing is so fluid you feel the author simply loves telling her story.

Despite her suffering - a lost love, a tragic family - there are moments you will want to cheer. You'll be charmed by the novels heroine - her intelligence, her courage, her great heart. But how can she? When Joe is the only man she has ever loved? The first instalment of Jennifer Donnelly's acclaimed romance trilogy, The Tea Rose will leave you breathless, exhilarated, and longing for more. Somehow, she must escape, build a life for herself, and forget about Joe. The East End is a dangerous place to be alone, and the Ripper isn't the only one casting a dark shadow over her life. But things take a terrible turn for Fiona when events conspire to tear her, Joe and her family apart, and she finds herself alone in the world. Fiona and Joe Bristow have been sweethearts for as long as anyone can remember, and are saving up their meagre wages so that some day, they can open their very own shop. With a father in work, a roof over her head, enough to eat and a loving family to keep her warm, she is among 'the respectable working poor.' And she also has Joe. Despite working long days at the tea factory, and the constant threat of the Ripper, Fiona Finnegan knows that her life is better than some. For the people that live there, he is just one more adversary in their everyday battle to survive. It is 1888 and Jack The Ripper is stalking the streets of Whitechapel.

The tea rose book