Gulliver's Wife by Lauren Chater. I found this difficult to rate...
As a work of historical fiction I thought this was very well done, obviously well researched and detailed in its exploration of the life of women in London of the early eighteenth century. But it was also quite depressing; it was not until nearing the end that there were any hints that their life could be anything but hard ...
.
As a work of fiction with a link to Jonathan Swift's satire,
Gulliver's Travels, the result is more equivocal. Lemuel Gulliver is almost the non-entity here that his wife is in Swift's novel; not much more than a generic eighteenth century sailor to fill the role of mostly absent spouse whose return is very disruptive.
I ended up giving it a 4/5 because it impressed me enough that I will be looking for more from this author.