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Spirit Burns
“Darkly irreverent and deeply moving, Tina Jackson captures the lives and tough times of her characters with striking clarity. A gorgeously written novel.”
- Nick Triplow
Madge didn’t mean to kill her best friend, but what happens when the only choices you get to make are bad ones?
Following the interwoven fates of three women and set in the North of England at the turn of the 20th century, Spirit Burns is a spell-binding tale that leads the reader behind the curtains of vaudeville theatre and into gin palaces, sweat-shops, séance cabinets, and the secret world of suffragette arsonists.
Meet Madge - factory hand, gang member, and good-time girl. Then there’s Ellen, who wants to burn the existing order to the ground, and Stella, sold into show-life as a young girl and forced to trade off her looks and her talent to survive.
We’re drawn into places where women are overlooked and their bodies exploited. Places where bad things happen. Places where people want revenge. Places where people – people like Madge, who only wanted to have a laugh – are haunted by what they did, and what was done to them.
Roll up! Roll up! Enter a world where the boundaries between the living and the dead are blurred, and the ones who get caught in between get to tell their stories.
Praise for Tina Jackson
“This gloriously offbeat tale has shades of Angela Carter, with its beguiling characters weaving a magical spell.” - Kitty Marlow, The Mail On Sunday
“The vivid setting and beauty of Jackson’s prose is only part of the enchantment. The author has also woven an intricate and compelling plot in which revelations come as rapidly as disappearing ace cards and rabbits from the maestro’s hat. Every fresh reveal tells us something new and unexpected about each character, so the multiple layers of connections and secrets between them all are gradually, and satisfyingly, revealed. The only disappointing thing about this whole dazzling illusion is when it finally has to come to an end. This was a world I never wanted to come out of!” - Cathi Unsworth, Crimesquad
“There is some really atmospheric storytelling and joyful language at play here, with Jackson as an entertaining mistress of ceremonies.” - Ben East, The Observer
Madge didn’t mean to kill her best friend, but what happens when the only choices you get to make are bad ones?
Following the interwoven fates of three women and set in the North of England at the turn of the 20th century, Spirit Burns is a spell-binding tale that leads the reader behind the curtains of vaudeville theatre and into gin palaces, sweat-shops, séance cabinets, and the secret world of suffragette arsonists.
Meet Madge - factory hand, gang member, and good-time girl. Then there’s Ellen, who wants to burn the existing order to the ground, and Stella, sold into show-life as a young girl and forced to trade off her looks and her talent to survive.
We’re drawn into places where women are overlooked and their bodies exploited. Places where bad things happen. Places where people want revenge. Places where people – people like Madge, who only wanted to have a laugh – are haunted by what they did, and what was done to them.
Roll up! Roll up! Enter a world where the boundaries between the living and the dead are blurred, and the ones who get caught in between get to tell their stories.
Praise for Tina Jackson
“This gloriously offbeat tale has shades of Angela Carter, with its beguiling characters weaving a magical spell.” - Kitty Marlow, The Mail On Sunday
“The vivid setting and beauty of Jackson’s prose is only part of the enchantment. The author has also woven an intricate and compelling plot in which revelations come as rapidly as disappearing ace cards and rabbits from the maestro’s hat. Every fresh reveal tells us something new and unexpected about each character, so the multiple layers of connections and secrets between them all are gradually, and satisfyingly, revealed. The only disappointing thing about this whole dazzling illusion is when it finally has to come to an end. This was a world I never wanted to come out of!” - Cathi Unsworth, Crimesquad
“There is some really atmospheric storytelling and joyful language at play here, with Jackson as an entertaining mistress of ceremonies.” - Ben East, The Observer
272 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 7, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 2, 2023
This should be handed to any woman who says she doesn't vote.
A stunning journey through the lives of women experiencing the sharp end of the patriarchy in the early 1900s. Perfectly paced and rousing to the senses. Highly recommended.
A stunning journey through the lives of women experiencing the sharp end of the patriarchy in the early 1900s. Perfectly paced and rousing to the senses. Highly recommended.
April 7, 2024
In many ways, this seemed to me to be a horror story. Not because it has ghosts in it - though it does: the dead person POV at the beginning caught me by surprise - but because of how these people came to be ghosts. The horror is in the way poverty and injustice can force people into lives and choices they would never choose, how trying to gain some measure of justice and equality can lead to even greater oppression, and how even privilege can become oppressive. The background is England and the Suffragettes struggle for women's rights, but the story could be about any oppressed group in any time and place.
The main characters are vivid and authentic, their situations, the choices they make and the consequences that come from those choices are sometimes heartbreaking, but their stories are compelling, and the mystery of how their entwined lives lead to tragedy is absorbing. The writing is well paced throughout, the plotting is precise and it is structured in a way that enhances the impact.
This was not a comfortable read, but a very challenging one. And, as with all good novels, it gives a real insight into the lives, choices and motivations of people that we could never have by looking only from the outside.
The main characters are vivid and authentic, their situations, the choices they make and the consequences that come from those choices are sometimes heartbreaking, but their stories are compelling, and the mystery of how their entwined lives lead to tragedy is absorbing. The writing is well paced throughout, the plotting is precise and it is structured in a way that enhances the impact.
This was not a comfortable read, but a very challenging one. And, as with all good novels, it gives a real insight into the lives, choices and motivations of people that we could never have by looking only from the outside.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 6, 2023
Spirit Burns tells the stories of three women in the early 1900s whose lives are inextricably linked.
First there's Madge. Naughty, fun-loving and mischievous as a child, she shows no talent for either her grandmother's herbalism or her mother's spiritualism. Deemed fit for nothing more than factory work, when she falls for the leader of a gang she winds up with more trouble than she bargained for.
Ellen is born to a life of privilege - a gilded cage she hates beyond measure. Then her suffragette cousin Olive comes to stay and her eyes are opened to possibilities she thought closed off to her forever.
Finally there is the ethereal and beautiful Stella. Sold to a travelling show as a child, to the punters she's the goddess of the moon, but to the men who use her, she's just another showgirl.
Their stories wind around each other and eventually converge in a riot of anger and revenge. They make mistakes and bad choices, they are misunderstood, overlooked, underestimated and are haunted by their pasts and their futures.
It's a compelling read with fabulous storytelling, gloriously flawed characters and a thin veil between our world and that of the spirits, all wrapped in exquisite historical detail.
First there's Madge. Naughty, fun-loving and mischievous as a child, she shows no talent for either her grandmother's herbalism or her mother's spiritualism. Deemed fit for nothing more than factory work, when she falls for the leader of a gang she winds up with more trouble than she bargained for.
Ellen is born to a life of privilege - a gilded cage she hates beyond measure. Then her suffragette cousin Olive comes to stay and her eyes are opened to possibilities she thought closed off to her forever.
Finally there is the ethereal and beautiful Stella. Sold to a travelling show as a child, to the punters she's the goddess of the moon, but to the men who use her, she's just another showgirl.
Their stories wind around each other and eventually converge in a riot of anger and revenge. They make mistakes and bad choices, they are misunderstood, overlooked, underestimated and are haunted by their pasts and their futures.
It's a compelling read with fabulous storytelling, gloriously flawed characters and a thin veil between our world and that of the spirits, all wrapped in exquisite historical detail.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews