Sally in the City of Dreams

Readers who love Judi Curtin’s contemporary stories (their subject mostly girls’ friendship) will find much to enjoy in her historical novels too, and particularly in Sally in the City of Dreams. Set in the early 20^th century, and drawing on Judi Curtin’s own family history, it stars young sisters Sally and Bridget. As the book opens, they are saying goodbye to their warm, loving family to travel across the Atlantic to start new lives in New York. They make friends with another young girl, Julia, travelling on her own, and when her brother fails to turn up to meet her, take her with them to Cousin Catherine’s where they are staying (much to Catherine’s irritation). The girls’ journey and adventures as they settle in America are full of incident and excitement. Sally narrates and we learn about her job as nanny to a rich family – and about the widespread prejudice against young Irish women – while her letters home remind readers of the distance between the sisters and their much-loved family. A subplot involves their efforts to help Julia find her brother when it turns out she hasn’t had any contact with him in ten years. Then Bridget is falsely accused of theft, in Macey’s department store no less. With no-one else to help, can Sally convince the judge of her sister’s innocence? Sally, Bridget and Julia are probably not much older than most readers themselves and Judi Curtin conveys the enormity of their change of circumstances wonderfully, as well as the excitement they feel, their love for one another, their bravery and resilience. Really good historical fiction brings the period alive through the characters, and that’s exactly the case here.