Islands of Mercy
Rose Tremain
(chatto & Windus, 368 PP, £18.99)
Tablet bookshop price £17.10 • Tel 020 7799 4064

There’s a clever, almost throwaway allusion near the start of Rose Tremain’s saga of love, exploration and colonialism in the Victorian era. Jane Adeane, an idealistic young medical assistant in mid-century Bath, considers the deficiencies of the female characters created by a certain celebrity author of the day, “wondering if she might write to Dickens suggesting that Lucie and Estella – to name but two – were somewhat marred by their own perfection”.

Rose Tremain is unlikely to make the same mistake in her own fiction, but the comment also forms an oblique criticism of Jane herself. Dubbed “the Angel of the Baths” and widely credited with an almost supernatural healing ability, Jane is undoubtedly a little smug. Her failings will become all too clear as the story progresses.