I, Coriander

Name: I, Coriander
Rating: 3.86 (8772 reviews)

by Sally Gardner

First published 2005

Amazon

3.9(8,772)

London, 1649. Coriander Hobie grows up in a prosperous household on old London Bridge as monarchy collapses and Puritan authority reshapes public and private life. After the death of her mother, her Royalist father remarries the severe Maud, whose religious certainty becomes a means of domestic cruelty. A pair of silver shoes and Coriander’s inherited connection to another realm draw her between danger in her own home and a conflict governed by fairy promises.

The execution of Charles I gives way to the Commonwealth and Protectorate, making family loyalties, worship and outward behaviour politically dangerous. Coriander faces confinement, loss and enforced obedience while those she loves are scattered or silenced. The movement towards the Restoration provides the historical arc for a coming-of-age story in which magic counters repression without erasing it, and Coriander must claim both her human inheritance and the power she has been taught to fear.