The Silver Thread
The Silver Thread is a dual-timeline novel. The main storyline follows Isobel (Bel) Bright between 1875 and 1923. It opens in London. Eighteen-year-old Bel’s father has recently died, with large debts, leaving Bel destitute. She manages to get a job working at the newly opened Liberty store in London. Whilst there, she meets Hiro Kurosaki who is calm, centred and wise, and is drawn to him. But she falls in love with the handsome, ambitious architect, Tom Ferris. This storyline follows Bel’s journey to becoming a designer, and her relationships along the way.
The secondary timeline is set in Paris in 1985. Mira Hutchinson, an art history graduate, gets a job clearing Isobel Bright’s immaculate apartment as her heir has just died. She meets Ned, an auctioneer based in Japan, sent to value the items by the Kurosaki family. This timeline focuses on solving the mystery of what happened to Isobel Bright after 1923.
Isobel’s timeline is the more interesting of the two and is sprinkled with references to famous people of the time, such as Arthur Liberty, the pre-Raphaelites, Oscar Wilde, Claude Monet and Coco Chanel. It gives the reader an insight into the influence of Japonism, the workings of Liberty & Co in the later 19th century, and the fashion houses of Paris, before and just after the First World War. This book is not fast-paced. Bel’s storyline meanders, covering most of her adult life, and the 1985 strand generally lacks narrative drive, adding little to Bel’s story until near the end.
Overall, The Silver Thread is a readable novel, and will appeal to those interested in this period.
