The Cobbler's Apprentice - Lynette Rees - ★★★
AUTHOR: Lynette Rees
GENRE: Historical Fiction
PUBLICATION DATE: February 19, 2025
RATING: 3 stars.
In a Nutshell: A historical saga about a kind-hearted teenaged boy and his struggles. I wish I had known that this was part of an ongoing series. It has its positives, but on the whole, I struggled to connect with the characters as I had no familiarity with them. Some of the writing choices also weren’t for me. But I feel this might be a decent option for historical saga readers, as long as you know that it is part of a larger series.
Plot Preview:
1886. Merthyr Tydfil, Wales. Sixteen-year-old Jimmy Corcoran knows that someday, he will marry Enid Hardcastle. To that end, he even takes up a job at Mr. Baxter’s workshop making and repairing shoes. However, one day, Enid suddenly disappears from Jimmy’s life and no one, not even Mags, the woman who takes care of him as a mother, knows what happened. Devastated, Jimmy puts all his focus on his job, in the hopes that he might learn the skills to open his own business someday and maybe reunite with Enid. Little does he know that there are several other challenges awaiting him.
The story comes to us mostly in Jimmy’s third person perspective.
I picked this book on the assumption that it was a standalone novel. Nothing on the Goodreads or NetGalley pages of this book indicated that it was part of a series. However, when I started reading the book, I felt like I was losing control of the narrative. Everything felt so rushed – loads of characters, no backgrounds at all. The story assumed a certain familiarity on the part of the reader with the characters as well as their relationships. As I continued to struggle to get a hang of who’s who, I went online to search for clues. Doing a lot of digging revealed this on the author’s Facebook page:
“Although there are 3 books in the series, I’ve written them in such a way that they can be read as a standalone story. The Winter Waif is Betsan’s story, The Workhouse Girl is Enid’s and the next book, The Cobbler’s Apprentice, will be Jimmy’s.”
Mystery solved!
As far as possible, I don’t (or rather, I can’t) read series books out of order. Very rarely do I jump in between a series and still enjoy the book independently. So do take this review with a pinch of salt because a part of the problem comes from my being a series freak.
However, I must also make clear my annoyance at being misled this way. It's the second time in the last six months where a book by this publisher (who is actually one of my favourites) hasn't been marked as part of a series even when it is clearly so. It's not fair to the reader if series books are marked as standalone works. Not all of us can jump into any random book of a series and be comfortable! Apologies for this rant, but I had to get it off my chest.
Back to the book now.
I had been eagerly looking forward to this novel. Rarely does a historical fiction or a saga have a young male character as the protagonist. While I mistakenly assumed the titular apprentice to be a younger boy (I thought the cover pic made him appear like a tween; entirely my fault), Jimmy at sixteen is an interesting character. He is kind and generous but also a bit insensitive and impatient at times. In other words, he’s a good lead character for a saga. Sometimes though, it was difficult to remember that Jimmy was just a teen; his behaviour felt too adult. This could be attributed to the era and his poor background, which might have made him mature beyond his years.
Through Jimmy’s work as Mr. Baxter’s apprentice and also through Mags’ work as a seamstress, we also get a good look at old-world work ethics and practices during an era where human skill was valued above everything else. I wonder if the upcoming AI generation will even know such days.
Enid, Jimmy’s intended sweetheart, is an outstanding character. I sure would have liked to learn more about her. Apparently, ‘The Workhouse Girl’ is Enid’s story. However, reading its blurb makes me feel like the story runs too parallelly to this plot rather than sequentially. As such, I am not too motivated at present to pick it up and know Enid’s narrative better. Maybe in future…
Many of the supporting characters also are quite good. I especially loved Mags. She seemed to be the only character with common sense in this entire novel. Of course, there are some annoying (Baxter Jr.) and frustrating (Polly) characters as well, but that’s typical of a saga. Without the baddies, the good ones don’t get to shine!
The story of this novel can be considered complete, as it begins with Jimmy’s dreams about his profession and about Enid, and both those dreams reach fulfilment by the end of the book. In that sense, there’s no incomplete cliffhanger-kind ending.
On the other hand…
I was disappointed to see that the only Welsh-sounding content in the entire story was the name of the place, ‘Merthyr Tydfil’. There is no description of the location and not even atmospheric descriptions like a feel of the day or the weather or the season – all of which help us immerse ourselves into the narrative. Even the detailing of the characters’ appearance is somewhat vague. As a visual reader, I like to picture everything in my head, but it was quite tough in this book.
Further, the story jumps into the action right from the start without taking the time to introduce the characters and their relationships to us. It was like watching a family drama movie from the midway mark; we know what they are saying but no idea who they are! The plot sometimes referred to past events, which didn’t affect the present plot but made me feel like I had missed out on a juicy anecdote from that character’s earlier life. Even for something as basic as why Jimmy was staying with the unrelated Mags and her family, there are no clear answers. All this might not have been a problem had I read the other two books.
Also, there are no elucidations for some of the plot content that would have been helpful to readers like myself who aren’t from the UK area. There are many mentions of ‘workhouse’, but not having any idea of what this meant, it took me half the book to understand its exact role. The book also kept mentioning “China” and poor me, wondering why the characters kept referring to the Oriental country, needed most of the book to figure out that ‘China’ was the name of the locality the characters lived in!
The plot itself felt like a soap opera to some extent, but without going into melodrama; this, I appreciated. But the story gets a bit episodic with many time jumps of weeks and even a couple of months. At times, I even lost track of how old Jimmy was at that point until his age was brought up again. (He had aged a year by then!)
Basically, this is a story that is high on plot and low on descriptive prose and background detailing. As most readers are plot lovers, this book ought to work better for them. I too might have liked it somewhat better had I had more familiarity with the key characters. But given my almost-compulsive habit of reading in series order and my fussiness over writing styles, this was a mixed experience for me, though not a bad one.
Recommended to those who have read and enjoyed the other two books. If I am not wrong, ‘The Winter Waif’ needs to be read first, and the remaining two books can be read in either order.
My thanks to Rachel's Random Resources, Boldwood Books, and author Lynette Rees for a complimentary copy of 'The Cobbler's Apprentice' via NetGalley, and for allowing me to be a part of this blog tour. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.
The digital version of this book is currently available on Kindle Unlimited.
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Blurb:
The BRAND NEW historical novel from Lynette Rees - a boy down on his luck finding his way in a cruel Victorian world... He made a vow, but will he be able to keep it?
Ever since Jimmy was a boy, he’s known two the rough streets of Merthyr Tydfil and that one day he would marry Enid Hardcastle. But when Enid disappears without a word, his life takes a different turn.
Determined to make something of himself, Jimmy pours his heart into his job at Mr Baxter's workshop, dreaming of the future he and Enid might one day share. Yet, just as his hard work begins to pay off, a man arrives claiming to be Mr Baxter’s illegitimate son, threatening Jimmy’s chance of inheriting the business he was promised.
With Enid gone and his future uncertain, Jimmy must rely on his wits and instincts honed from his childhood on the streets. But can he trust this newcomer? And will his dream of reuniting with Enid ever come true?
A heartwarming and gripping historical saga, perfect for fans of Katie Flynn and AnneMarie Brear.
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Author Lynette Rees:
The Winter Waif, the story of one young girl's struggle to overcome adversity following the death of her mother, was published by Boldwood Books in January 2024. This is to be followed by two other titles focusing on the lives of another two children growing up in the bustling Welsh town of Merthyr Tydifl where the ironworks and coalpits are the main industries and a life of hardship is the norm. The second in the series, The Workhouse Girl, was published in May 2024. This book tells the tale of a fourteen year old girl whose family hits hard times when her father loses his job at the ironworks and they’ve little choice other than to enter the workhouse.
Lynette enjoys the freedom of writing in a variety of genres including: crime fiction and contemporary romance, though her first love is historical fiction which complements her interest in local history and genealogy. When she's not writing, or even when she is writing, Lynette enjoys a glass of wine and the odd piece of chocolate as she creates stories where the characters guide her hand. She honestly has no idea how a story will turn out until the characters tell their own tales in their own unique ways.
The most important thing to Lynette is her family and her stories illustrate this with their warm characters who often show a great deal of compassion for others and the plight they find themselves in.
Connect with her on:
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Check out this book:
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/214047049-the-cobbler-s-apprenticePurchase from: https://mybook.to/CobblersApprentice
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This has been a stop on the #TheCobblersApprentice blog tour conducted by Rachel's Random Resources. (@rararesources) Thanks for stopping by!
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