ABANDONED. Historical fiction-Brit-based on true story

[Steph (loves water)]

About a woman who I think started out as a maid and maybe prostituting on the side, I think 1700s or early 1800s. She has some really hard times and ends up killing her employer and getting convicted for the murder. It's based on a true murder, where the woman was said to kill her employer over her clothes. I think I read the book about five or six years ago.

Have looked everywhere to find out the name of the book and the original case. If anyone has any input at all, it's appreciated.

[Sam~~ we cannot see the moon, and yet the waves still rise~~]

are you sure it's british? there's Alias Grace, but it takes place in canada.

[FlowerFairy]

Maybe The Dress Lodger by Sheri Holman?

[Steph (loves water)]

No, it's not the Dress Lodger, I've read that and it was excellent! This was similar. I think around the same time frame.

Have also read Alias Grace, which was outstanding, but that isn't it either.

[Steph (loves water)]

I also remember something about she got engaged near the end but the guy and his family thought she was respectable, she passed for respectable. I also remember there was a minor character, a slave. The slave, I think, had more rights than the woman did.

[Trillian]

Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue

[Natasha]

Seconding Trillian's suggestion. Slammerkin

"Born to rough cloth in Hogarth's London, but longing for silk, Mary Saunders's eye for a shiny red ribbon leads her to prostitution at a young age. A dangerous misstep sends her fleeing to Monmouth, and the position of household seamstress, the ordinary life of an ordinary girl with no expectations. But Mary has known freedom, and having never known love, it is freedom that motivates her. Mary asks herself if the prostitute who hires out her body is more or less free than the "honest woman" locked into marriage, or the servant who runs a household not her own? And is either as free as a man? Ultimately, Mary remains true only to the three rules she learned on the streets: Never give up your liberty. Clothes make the woman. Clothes are the greatest lie ever told. "

[``Laurie]

The author Jean Stubbs wrote crime novels based on true crimes that occurred in England that you might enjoy reading, although I can't remember if there was one with clothes as the focus.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Steph(loves water), can you confirm that "Slammerkin" was your book? Or are you still looking.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

No response; moving to Abandoned.