When Maude's mother, Kitty, becomes obsessively involved with the emerging suffragette movement, the plot gathers momentum. Yet Chevalier again proves herself an astute observer of a social era, especially in her portrayal of the lingering sentimentality, prejudices and early stirrings of social change of the Victorian age. Other characters are gifted with insights inappropriate to their age or station in life. Far too cheeky for a boy of his age and class, Simon plays an important part in the troubles that will overtake the two families.

But the continuing presence in their lives of a young gravedigger, Simon Field, is. When Maude Coleman and Lavinia Waterhouse, both five years of age, meet at their families' adjoining cemetery plots on the day after Queen Victoria's death, the friendship that results between sensitive, serious-minded Maude and narcissistic, melodramatic Livy is not unlikely, despite the difference in social classes. While Chevalier again proves adept at evoking a historical era-this time, London at the turn of the 19th century-she has devised a plot whose contrivances stretch credibility.

The same cannot be said about her second novel. No small part of the appeal of Chevalier's excellent debut, Girl with a Pearl Earring, was its plausibility readers could readily accept the idea that Vermeer's famous painting might indeed have been created under circumstances similar to Chevalier's imaginative scenario.

Falling angels by tracy chevalier