.ahmpreston’s ingenious and entertaining yarn unfolds in the 1740s around Winchelsea in Sussex—now a picturesque village, then a decayed port, honeycombed beneath with contraband-friendly caves
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskUntil its final acts, his ingenious and entertaining yarn unfolds in the 1740s around Winchelsea in Sussex—now a picturesque village, then a decayed port, honeycombed beneath with contraband-friendly caves. Mr Preston bows to his literary ancestors, such as J. Meade Falkner and Robert Louis Stevenson, but pulls the smugglers’ tale up to date.
When her father is murdered by his fellow brigands after a suspected betrayal, Goody and her brother Francis opt to join an even more formidable local power, the Hawkhurst Gang—drawn from history, as is its bloody downfall. Adopted, like his sister, Francis has been rescued by a lucky shipwreck from a life of slavery. In smuggling exploits on land and sea, the siblings press thrillingly close to “the dangerous edge of things” .
The tale is told with exhilarating colour, flair and pace. If Goody’s “mongrel record of a hybrid life” edges close to realism—in episodes of pregnancy and childbirth, or its unblinking eye on the cruelty of smuggling clans—it soon sets sail again on the high seas of romance. On one level “Winchelsea” is a pastiche of a pastiche: a tribute to century-old revivals of Georgian prose.