The Sealed Letter

Sophie Gee

Donoghue has written two other successful historical novels—the critically acclaimed Life Mask and Slammerkin—and it shows. She knows her way around a period drama. A ride on London's new underground railway, a visit to Fido's printing presses, descriptions of Victorian interiors, shops and streetscapes, all these details are absorbed into the narrative, and you barely notice they're there, except that mid-Victorian London feels so real you can almost taste it…Donoghue is masterful in handling the theme of Fido's possible erotic desire for Helen and Helen's manipulation of same. She depicts female sexual attraction as a complex threat, both enthralling and taboo.
—The Washington Post

Susann Cokal

As with Donoghue's previous novels Slammerkin and Life Mask, the plot is psychologically informed, fast paced and eminently readable…And in the end, The Sealed Letter provides both the titillating entertainment readers like Helen and Fido crave and the more sober exploration of truth, commitment and betrayal Harry might appreciate. Donoghue's sympathy for all three of her central characters emerges through intimate narration and lifts the novel out of the tabloid muck, despite the public shaming Harry, Helen and Fido experience. There is, as Fido puts it, "so much to say, and little of it speakable."
—The New York Times

Publishers Weekly

In 1864 London, after a separation of seven years, Helen, now the wife of Vice-Admiral Codrington, bumps into her old friend Emily Faithful, now a well-known feminist and independent printer. As Donoghue (Slammerkin) deliciously unspools the twisted roots of their intimacy, Emily soon finds herself party to Helen's clandestine affair and snared in the sensational divorce proceedings that ensue (and which are based on an actual case from the period). Donoghue's elegantly styled, richly woven tale absorbs the everyday lives of Victorian women (rich, poor, working, home-bound, feminist, adulteress) and men (officer, lawyer, minister, adulterer, even an amateur detective) in a colorful tapestry of spiraling intrigue, innuendo, speculation and mystery. Characters indulge in pleasures at which Victorian novels could only hint, and which Donoghue renders with aplomb. Period details-etiquette, typesetting, dress, medical treatments, public amusements, shipping and jurisprudence-are rendered with a spare exactitude organic to the story. Donoghue's latest has style and scandal to burn. (Sept.)

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Library Journal

In Victorian England, spinster Emily "Fido" Faithfull is earnestly engaged in the emerging women's movement. But her orderly life is disrupted when she becomes reacquainted with Helen, a former friend just returning from Malta, where her admiral husband has been posted for seven years. Though Helen is Fido's polar opposite in temperament and approach to life, they quickly reestablish a close friendship. Helen-selfish, manipulative, and thoroughly disenchanted with her husband-engages in risky behavior that results in a scandalous divorce trial, and Fido is caught in the middle of a struggle between the friend she so blindly believes in and the admiral, whom she respects. Donoghue's (Slammerkin) new historical novel brings alive events unfamiliar to most American readers. Though many of the legal details of the actual 1864 divorce case on which this story is based are on record, this more personal account results from the author's "connecting the dots" of her research with her own interpretation of likely events. It's an engrossing tale, and Donoghue's ability to steep the reader in the realities of the time makes her story ring true. Recommended for all public libraries as well as academic libraries serving women's studies programs. [See Prepub Alert, LJ5/1/08.]
—Caroline Mann

Kirkus Reviews

In her third historical novel, Donoghue (Landing, 2007, etc.) portrays a sordid Victorian divorce that roiled the women's suffrage movement. Emily Faithfull, known to her friends as "Fido," thinks she's comfortably settled as the proprietor of the Victoria Press, which trains women as typesetters and printers, and as a respected member of England's nascent feminist leadership. But back into her life in the stifling London summer of 1864 comes the disruptive Helen Codrington, once Fido's most intimate friend, but absent for seven years in Malta, where Helen's husband was posted with the Royal Navy. The faltering Codrington marriage created an awkward breach in their friendship, and Helen claims never to have received the letters Fido sent her in Malta. Readers, however, will know this is a crock long before embittered Vice-Admiral Harry Codrington tells her that Helen mockingly tossed aside the missives with a wisecrack about lonely spinsters. The fact that Fido is oblivious to her beloved friend's manipulative, scheming ways is only the most obvious problem with a sluggish tale possessing little of the deeply imagined period atmosphere of Life Mask (2004) and Slammerkin (2001), let alone the author's usual sharp observations. The carefully drawn characters are dreary, as is the narrative, despite Helen's adulterous trysts and Fido's unjust ostracism by her feminist comrades. Even the climactic trial, complete with sleazy lawyers making insinuations about lesbian amour, is curiously flat. We would feel sorrier for Fido if she weren't so clearly self-deluded, and the adulterous Helen is a particularly uninteresting villain. A last-minute revelation, apparently meant to be a bombshell, willcome as no surprise to anyone who's been reading carefully, and the sealed letter of the title proves to be an irritating red herring. Taking off from real-life characters and actual historical events has energized the author in the past, but Donoghue is just going through the motions here. Uncharacteristically dull work from one of contemporary literature's most interesting and entertaining writers. Agent: Caroline Davidson/Caroline Davidson Literary Agency

Curled Up with a Good Book.com

A fascinating tour de force, a brilliant unraveling of closely held secrets and brutal betrayals...A case of Dangerous Liaisons with yet another layer of Victorian outrage.

The Seattle Times - Mary Brennan

"...A deliciously wicked little romp, complete with a clever twist at the end."

The Seattle Times

"...A deliciously wicked little romp, complete with a clever twist at the end."

— Mary Brennan

The International Herald Tribune

[A] cozily lurid new novel.

The New York Times Book Review

Good lines there are in abundance. And in the end, "The Sealed Letter" provides both the titillating entertainment readers like Helen and Fido crave and the more sober exploration of truth, commitment and betrayal Harry might appreciate. Donoghue’s sympathy for all three of her central characters emerges through intimate narration and lifts the novel out of the tabloid muck, despite the public shaming Harry, Helen and Fido experience. There is, as Fido puts it, "so much to say, and little of it speakable."

The Oregonian

Donoghue blends a true case and period detail into an intriguing tale of mystery and passion.