The Jewel
When Jeany Armour first meets Rab Burns in the 1780s Scottish town of Mauchline, she hears he is “a lad best avoided by a girl like her, a lass with a good reputation to maintain.” But her heavenly voice, along with the treasure-trove of old ballads she sings, soon brings Jeany to Rab’s attention. Before long, and despite all her mother’s admonitions about chancy lads who slip away, nothing can keep the two lovers apart. Robert Burns is no ordinary tenant farmer, but a poet with a book always in hand and a glint in his eye. And Jeany becomes his woodlark, his muse and inspiration, his lover, the mother of his children, and his wife. Their tumultuous relationship endures in spite of the machinations of others and the couple’s own failings.
Scottish novelist and playwright Catherine Czerkawska gives dulcet voice to the neglected story of Jean Armour. The author’s elegant prose vividly evokes 18th-century Scotland, and her narrative is firmly grounded in fact. Often overlooked or minimalized by Burns’ biographers, the true tale of Jean’s life and the many challenges of her marriage to Scotland’s acclaimed poet spring to life in this lovely novel, sweetly told. Highly recommended.
