Master Cornhill

This is one of these long historical fictions where the evident wealth of loving research and faithful attention to authentic details, even down to the seventeenth-century oaths and insults, is truly awe-inspiring. It's a great pity that a wider audience is unlikely to share the 'buzz' that the writer obviously derived from such painstaking scholarship and recording. Before the 1665 plague orphaned Michael Cornhill's life was settled and happy. Then, in the few months between that momentous event and another, the Great Fire of London, his world was to fragment and only painfully re-form with the help of his friends Suzannah, Tom and Master Hass. Singular courage and tenacity were vital to rebuild his life -- 'To feel himself the first of something, instead of the tag end -- to think it might be up to him who the Cornhills turned out to be'. Recommended for similarly tenacious 10-14 years olds.