Review: The Amber Keeper, by Freda Lightfoot

This story is an epic family saga that spans generations and vastly different eras that in reality are just decades apart.

In the 1960s, a young woman called Abbie returns home to the Lake District with her six year old daughter, Aimee. Abbie has left her partner and intends to stay in England. However, the main reason she has returned is a lot more tragic. Her mother has committed suicide and the family blame Abbie for it, having run away with her lover seven years earlier.

Upon beginning to talk to her grandmother Millie, however, Abbie realises there must be far more to the story. She persuades Millie to tell her about her life story, including how Kate (Abbie's mother) came to be adopted by Millie.

Millie has an extraordinary tale to tell. Beginning in service in a great house in England, she is offered a position by a Russian Countess called Olga, to take care of her two children when they return to Russia. Eager for the adventure, Millie immediately accepts. What she doesn't reckon with, however, is the Countess' cruelty, pettiness, and jealousy. Despite this, Millie makes friends and allies enough to still enjoy her life in Russia.

It gets more difficult, though. War breaks out and, as the war drags on, revolution fills the air. The Countess gives birth to an illegitimate child and forces Millie to pass it off as her own. Millie is stuck in a country not her own, in the midst of a revolution, with no way to get home. All seems hopeless until friends bribe the right people to help Millie get home.

This novel is richly imagined and carried off well between the two timelines. Millie is an extraordinary woman, whose experience is based on the story of a real life English governess who spent six years in the service of a Russian aristocrat. There are plot twists aplenty, a dash of romance, family feuds and reconciliations, and endearing characters. I would definitely recommend it as a lockdown read.