Sexing the Cherry

Jordan, a boy found abandoned on the Thames, is raised by the Dog-Woman, an enormous, ferocious woman living in seventeenth-century London during the Civil War and the Restoration. Jordan grows up to travel the world with the royal gardener John Tradescant, searching for exotic fruit and the secret of wonder. The novel threads in the legend of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, with their unusual marriages, and swings between historical London and modern ideas about time, perception and gender.

Readers who enjoy playful, inventive historical fantasy and Winterson's style will like it. It suits those curious about how fable and history can mix, and it does so in short, lively sections. It also works as a doorway into her other fiction, since the same concerns with storytelling, desire and the slipperiness of time recur there.

Deep, open-ended and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

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