3.5 rating - When Julia is given a book as a parting gift from her married lover she has no idea of the journey she’s about to embark on. No ordinary book this, but a genuine artefact from the 1600’s about embroidery plus the written words of its original owner, Catherine. The reader will also be taken on a magic carpet ride too with its mix of history, travelogue, embroidery, politics, romance and a touch of the supernatural. Loved the cover which just begs to be opened. Three points of view - two from “then” and one from “now”. Sadly the characters themselves let the book down, all of them being entirely self seeking. Not that keen on Robert’s input so skimmed it all until his last few pages. Also it was a bit too predictable for my tastes. A good read though for a long journey.

The Tenth Gift is a duel time novel set in the modern day and the 17th Century. In the current time, Julia is given a gift by her married lover as he ends their affair. The book of embroidery patterns belonged to Cat in 1625 who has made copious notes in the margins. As Julia becomes invested in Cat’s story we learn how she was captured by pirates along with many other people from her Cornish village. The Moroccan corsairs take the villagers on a perilous voyage and sell them as slaves in their home country.
I found this novel quite difficult to start with, mainly due to my troubles with the individual characters. It is well researched and would be probably be enjoyed by fans of historical fiction.

This rich and well researched novel links Cornwall and Morocco in the seventeenth century and the present day through the medium of embroidery. Julia, an embroiderer, is given an old embroidery instruction book and soon realises that an early owner of the book has used it as a journal and recorded a raid by Barbary Corsairs on Cornwall in 1625, and the subsequent experience of being transported as a slave to Morocco and life in that very different culture. Julia follows the trail to explore and try to find trace of Cat Tregenna, the author of the journal It is a satisfyingly plotted tale, if slightly over long, and a fascinating insight into this period of North African history.

When we think about slavery it’s not usually the capture and sale of white Europeans that comes to mind, but that is the topic at the heart of Jane Johnson’s The Tenth Gift. In August 1625, a church in Mount’s Bay, Cornwall was raided by Barbary pirates who took sixty men, women and children into captivity to be sold at the slave markets of Morocco. In The Tenth Gift, Johnson imagines the story of one of these captives – a young woman called Catherine Anne Tregenna.

When we first meet Catherine, or Cat as she is known, she is working as a lady’s maid at a large manor house in Cornwall. A marriage has been arranged for her with her cousin, Robert Bolitho, but Cat wants more out of life. Her skills with a needle have won her a commission from the Countess of Salisbury and she dreams of joining a guild and becoming a master embroiderer, even if she has to leave Cornwall to do it. However, she is soon to travel further from Cornwall than she could ever have imagined. Abducted from church by Barbary corsairs along with her friends, family and neighbours, Cat finds herself on a ship heading towards North Africa, her fate to be decided by the corsair captain.

But Cat’s is not the only story to be told in this novel. In the present day, we meet Julia Lovat, a woman who has been having an affair with Michael, her best friend’s husband, a seven-year relationship which has just come to an end. As a parting gift, Michael gives her an old book of embroidery patterns, but when Julia opens the book she is confronted by something unusual – a series of diary entries written in the margins by someone called Cat who lived in the seventeenth century. Julia is soon engrossed in reading about Cat’s ordeal, but it is only when she visits Morocco herself that she is able to put together all the pieces of Cat’s story.

I found a lot to enjoy in The Tenth Gift, which isn’t surprising as I’ve previously enjoyed two of Jane Johnson’s other Moroccan novels, The Sultan’s Wife and Court of Lions. She writes so vividly about Morocco, describing all of the sounds, sights and smells with a vibrancy that really brings the setting to life. Her depiction of seventeenth century Cornwall is equally well done and it’s obvious that she knows both places very well. The two storylines – past and present – fit together perfectly and the links between them don’t feel too contrived, although there are some supernatural undertones, particularly towards the end, that I thought seemed unnecessary.

I liked Cat and found her story fascinating but, as happens so often with these dual timeframe novels, I thought the present day one was much weaker. I never really managed to warm to Julia and didn’t have much sympathy for her relationship problems; I did become more invested in her story once she arrived in Morocco, but I think the book would have worked better as a straight historical novel without the modern day sections. Cat’s adventures are so interesting and I appreciated the way Jane Johnson tries to give an explanation for why the corsairs behaved the way they did and explores both the similarities and differences between Christian and Islamic cultures.

Jane Johnson's novel is a vastly entertaining fete of storytelling. It's full of delicious sentences to sit back and savour. It is a magnificent, deeply moving story that illuminates the many differences of faith and culture that shape our lives.
For many years my favourite novel was Daphne du Maurier's classic The House On The Strand with its clever structure of a modern day man looking into a dark mystery that happened in Cornwall hundreds of years ago.
Today, I can say that The Tenth Gift has replaced it in my affections. This is a dazzling work blending fact and fiction, taking one from Mousehole in Cornwall to the Barbery Coast in the time of the corsairs.
Jane writes with a rich honesty, at times brutal, at times tender, as she explores the paradoxes of whom we come to love.

With thanks for an early copy in return for an honest review having read this author's previous works it was a delight to read her new one
Rather a charismatic read read the characters play there parts exceptionally welcome which makes for a good read.

I loved this book. The novel concerns Cat, who comes to her modern counterpart, possibly her reincarnation's attention, through an embroidery book from the seventeenth Century. In it Car has written details, in a cribbed hand, through being short on space. Julia reads the book, and feels a strange kinship with Cat, even going to Morocco to investigate further what happened to Cat after she was captured by pirates, or rather corsair. I found it difficult to put the book down, and would recommend it to anyone who wants a good page turning read.