📖 Featured Book of the Month ~ A Little Trickerie by Rosanna Pike

Fig Tree
Penguin
1 August 2024

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

Listen. My one-time friend Maria did tell me once: "Make your own paradise, Tibb, since this world is no sweet place for people like us."

Born a vagabond, Tibb Ingleby has never had a roof of her own. But her mother has taught her that if you're not too bound by the Big Man's rules, there are many ways a woman can find shelter in this world. Now her ma is dead in a trick gone wrong and young Tibb is orphaned and alone.

As she wends her way across the fields and forests of medieval England, Tibb will discover there are people who will care for her, as well as those who mean her harm. And there are a great many others who are prepared to believe just about anything.

And so, when the opportunity presents itself to escape the shackles society has placed on them, Tibb and her new friends conjure an audacious plan: her greatest trickerie yet. But before they know it, their hoax takes on a life of its own, drawing crowds - and vengeful enemies - to their door...

A Little Trickerie is blazingly original, disarmingly funny and deeply moving. Portraying a side of Tudor England rarely seen, it's a tale of belief and superstition, kinship and courage, with a ragtag cast of characters and an unforgettable and distinctly unangelic heroine.

📖My Review..

Tibb Ingleby is definitely a heroine who leaps from the page with as much bravado as she can muster, surviving all kinds of trouble which she does with sharp wit and an eye for opportunity. A devastating event at the beginning of the story helps to get A Little Trickerie off to a dramatic start and alongside Tibb we get to know, Ivo, her rescuer who is the calm to Tibb's storm and the light at the end of a dark tunnel. However, as the story travels through the vagaries of fifteenth century England we learn what it means to be a vagrant and to live under the shadow of being different. Being poor was not an option for Tibb but her stoic deliverance sees her survive in places where lesser people would have failed, and, undoubtedly, it is her strength of character which gives the book its humour and also its soul.

From the very start of the story I was transported to Tudor England which was depicted as a place of thieves and vagabonds, of ruses and trickery, of religious fervour and superstitious bigotry. It doesn't sugar coat life but brings to the core the power of friendship, the strength in togetherness and the ability to get back up when life knocks you down. Beautifully written, with a lyricism which I absolutely loved and an authentic style all of its own, this series of imaginative vignettes introduces us to Tibb's world. We feel her sorrow, hurt when she hurts, laugh out loud at some of her more colourful phrases and ultimately are completely charmed by this unangelic heroine who pulls off, with the help of her friends, the most audacious scam and does so with a joyful naivety, which is as refreshing, as it it cunning.

A Little Trickerie gives us a strong heroine in Tibb Ingleby. She is feisty and funny, quirky and as soft hearted as mallow and yet her core of steel makes her into a character I won't easily forget. I have no hesitation in making A Little Trickerie  my Featured Book of the Month for August.

About the Author

Rosanna Pike studied English literature at Exeter University. She is a graduate of Curtis Brown Creative and the Faber Academy. She lives in south-west London with her family.

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