That Bonesetter Woman

Author/Guide: Frances Quinn

Why a Booktrail?

1657: Endurance Proudfoot – the woman who dared to be different

ISBN: 978-1471193446
Genre: Historical, Inspired by true events

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What you need to know before your trail

Meet Endurance Proudfoot, the bonesetter’s daughter: clumsy as a carthorse, with a tactless tongue and a face she’s sure only a mother could love. Durie only wants one thing in life – to follow her father and grandfather into the family business of bonesetting. It’s a physically demanding job, requiring strength, nerves of steel and discretion – and not the job for a woman.

But Durie isn’t like other women. She’s strong and stubborn and determined to get her own way. And she finds that she has a talent at bonesetting – her big hands and lack of grace have finally found their natural calling.

So, when she is banished to London with her sister, who is pretty, delicate and exactly the opposite to Durie in every way, Durie will not let it stop her realising her dreams. And while her sister will become one of the first ever Georgian celebrities, Durie will become England’s first and most celebrated female bonesetter. But what goes up must come down, and Durie’s elevated status may well become her undoing…

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Travel Guide

The London of the Bonesetter

Drurie who wants to be a bonsetter has to work with her father and when that becomes impossible, she likes to visit the lions at the tower of london where she studies how they move and their bone structure. It’s also where she meets George. This is a central part of the setting and Drurie is here a lot as she learns about anatomy.

The other major setting is the Foundling Hospital where a sad thread of the novel unravels. This was a real place where women would leave their babies if they could not look after them . There is now a musuem to show what happened here.

London overall is well evoked and the streets, squalor and richness are well described. Drurie goes across town to get work and she works with clients across town. The one place she spends most time when she is looking for clients is the coffee house around the Cornhill area where the doctors who suspect her methods also hang out and try to distract and discourage her from what she believes in.