Historical Novels Review | Issue 104 (May 2023)

HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

IT TAKES A VILLAGE...

May 2023

FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE ...

Everyday Subversive Acts

Researching Fact, Writing Fiction

Page 10

A Sense of Belonging

An Actor's Self-discovery via the 18th Century

Page 12

Natural Magic

The Weather Woman

Page 13

Not All Haybales & Gingham

Kate Worsley's Foxash

Page 14

Public Morals, Private Truth

Exploring the Process of Literary Creation

Page 15

Historical Fiction Market News

Page 1

New Voices

Page 4

History & Film

Page 6

HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

ISSN 1471-7492

Issue 104, May 2023 | © 2023 The Historical Novel Society

PUBLISHER

Richard Lee

Marine Cottage, The Strand, Starcross, Devon EX6 8NY UK <richard@historicalnovelsociety.org>

EDITORIAL BOARD

Managing Editor: Bethany Latham

Houston Cole Library, Jacksonville State University 700 Pelham Road North, Jacksonville, AL 36265-1602 USA <blatham@jsu.edu>

Book Review Editor: Sarah Johnson

Booth Library, Eastern Illinois University, 600 Lincoln Avenue, Charleston, IL 61920 USA <sljohnson2@eiu.edu>

Publisher Coverage: Bethany House; Five Star; HarperCollins; IPG; Penguin Random House (all imprints); Severn House; Australian presses; and university presses

Features Editor: Lucinda Byatt

13 Park Road, Edinburgh, EH6 4LE UK <textline13@gmail.com>

New Voices Column Editor: Myfanwy Cook

47 Old Exeter Road, Tavistock, Devon PL19 OJE UK <myfanwyc@btinternet.com>

REVIEWS EDITORS, UK

Ben Bergonzi

<bergonziben@gmail.com>

Publisher Coverage: Birlinn/Polygon; Duckworth Overlook; Faber & Faber; Granta; HarperCollins UK; Little Brown, Orion, Pan Macmillan; Simon & Schuster UK

Alan Fisk

<alan.fisk@alanfisk.com>

Publisher Coverage: Aardvark Bureau, Black and White, Bonnier Zaffre, Crooked Cat, Freight, Gallic, Honno, Karnac, Legend, Pushkin, Oldcastle, Quartet, Sandstone, Saraband, Seren, Serpent’s Tail

Edward James

<busywords_ed@yahoo.com>

Publisher Coverage: Arcadia; Atlantic Books; Bloomsbury; Canongate; Head of Zeus; Glagoslav; Hodder Headline (inc. Coronet, Hodder & Stoughton, NEL, Sceptre); John Murray; Pen & Sword; Robert Hale; Alma; The History Press

Douglas Kemp

<douglaskemp62@gmail.com>

Publisher Coverage: Allison & Busby; Canelo; Penguin Random House UK; Quercus

Ann Lazim

<annlazim@googlemail.com>

Publisher Coverage: All UK children’s historicals

REVIEWS EDITORS, USA

Kate Braithwaite

<kate.braithwaite@gmail.com>

Publisher Coverage: Poisoned Pen Press; Skyhorse; Sourcebooks; and Soho

Sarah Hendess

<clark1103@yahoo.com>

Publisher Coverage: US/Canadian children’s publishers

Janice Ottersberg

<jkottersberg@gmail.com>

Publisher Coverage: Amazon Publishing; Europa; Hachette; Kensington; Pegasus; and W.W. Norton

Larry Zuckerman

<boyonaraft64@gmail.com>

Publisher Coverage: Bloomsbury; Macmillan (all imprints); Grove/ Atlantic; and Simon & Schuster (all imprints)

Misty Urban

<misty@historicalnovelsociety.org.>

Publisher Coverage: North American small presses

REVIEWS EDITOR, INDIE

J. Lynn Else

<jlynn@historicalnovelsociety.org>

Publisher Coverage: all self- and subsidy-published novels

EDITORIAL POLICY & COPYRIGHT

Reviews, articles, and letters may be edited for reasons of space, clarity, and grammatical correctness. We will endeavour to reflect the authors’ intent as closely as possible, and will contact the authors for approval of any major change. We welcome ideas for articles, but have specific requirements to consider. Before submitting material, please contact the editor to discuss whether the proposed article is appropriate for Historical Novels Review

In all cases, the copyright remains with the authors of the articles. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the authors concerned.

MEMBERSHIP DETAILS

THE HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY was formed in 1997 to help promote historical fiction. We are an open society — if you want to get involved, get in touch.

MEMBERSHIP in the Historical Novel Society entitles members to all the year’s publications: four issues of Historical Novels Review, as well as exclusive membership benefits through the Society website. Back issues of Society magazines are also available. For current rates, please see: https://historicalnovelsociety.org/members/join/

HISTORICAL FICTION MARKET NEWS

NEW BOOKS BY HNS MEMBERS

Congrats to our author members on these new releases! If you’ve written a historical novel or nonfiction work published (or to be published) in May or after, please send the following details to me at sljohnson2@eiu.edu or @readingthepast by July 7: author, title, publisher, release date, and a blurb of one sentence or less. Space is limited, so concise blurbs are appreciated. Details will appear in August’s magazine. Submissions may be edited.

Why did Julius Caesar build a bridge over the Rhine River in only 10 days – could a woman have been involved? Learn more in Caesar Obsessed: Passion, Conquest and Tragedy in Gaul by Anthony R. Licata (G. Anton Publishing, July 2022).

In G. M. Baker’s St. Agnes and the Selkie, book two of Cuthbert’s People (independently published, Nov 2022), when Mother Wynflaed finds a beautiful but terrified young woman on her doorstep, she begins to see her as a daughter, but the girl she names Agnes attracts the eye of kings and Vikings alike.

Autumn, 1811: Lady Rosamund’s plan for a quiet return to London society goes awry when her brother is accused of murder in Lady Rosamund and the Plague of Suitors by Barbara Monajem (Level Best Books, Nov. 29, 2022).

In Our Man in Mbabane: A Novel Based on a True Story by K. E. Karl (Independently published, Dec. 5, 2022), Frank George, an idealistic young American, travels to Swaziland in 1977, gets a job, experiences adventures, romances, and self-doubts, all while hiding his real mission: to smuggle weapons into South Africa for Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress.

In Yvon Delville’s A Land of Hope and Spirits (Independently published, Dec. 30, 2022), in the early 1700s, Elise Crowley must disregard her own safety to promote peace and protect her family as she and her spymaster husband settle on the Connecticut River Valley, facing hostile Abenakis, intolerant Puritans, and murderous enemies of Great Britain.

Pat Wahler’s The Rose of Washington Square: A Novel of Rose O’Neill, Creator of the Kewpie Doll (Evergreen Tree Press, LLC, Jan. 21) follows a young self-taught artist who travels to New York in 1893, determined to break into the male-dominated field of illustration: a path destined to transform her from an unknown impoverished girl into one of the most famous women of her era.

In The Needle of Avocation by G. M. Baker, book three of Cuthbert’s People (independently published, Jan 2023), Hilda is the second sister, the plain one, the put upon; in her kidnapped sister’s place, she must go where she is not wanted, marry a man she does not know, and stand before the rage of a king.

When their opposing beliefs collide, Kate and Peter witness a true test of faith in the ability of mankind to shed the past in order to preserve the future… and perhaps learn that the “greatest of these” truly is

love, as told in Marguerite Martin Gray’s Promise of Purity, Book Two in the Gardens in Time Series (Celebrate Lit Publishing, Feb. 14).

The Deadliest Deceptions by June Trop (Level Best Books/Historia, Feb. 14), featuring Miriam bat Isaac, amateur sleuth extraordinaire, takes you to first-century CE Roman Alexandria to assist her in nine baffling cases ranging from cozy to noir.

Sandy Frykholm’s The Islands Call (Parenti Publishing, Feb. 22), a time-slip adventure, takes Gino, a phony astrology writer in Seattle, and Sara, a closet clairvoyant, on a wild ride when Gino disappears while swimming in Italy, and Sara is the only person who knows he’s still alive.

With Fire and Sword (Independently published, Feb. 25) is Book 4 in the Thunder on the Moor historical time-travel romance series by Andrea Matthews

In Lara Byrne’s The Road to Canossa (Independently published, Mar.), the characters of her debut Lotharingia return for another early medieval drama, inspired by the tumultuous events that led a king of Germany to seek the intercession of Comitissa Matilde, the most powerful woman in Europe.

Poe Street by Michael Raleigh (Level Best Books/Historia, Mar. 1), taking place in the summer of 1946, shows how the murder of a Gatsbyesque millionaire and theft of a valuable statue sets off a string of related killings, and Ray Foley, just back from WWII, finds himself involved.

Within If I Had a Hammer by Teresa Trent (Level Best Books/Historia, Mar. 14), set in 1963, Dot Morgan feels Camelot has ended as she works a frustrating job as a secretary and then sees a friend murdered.

As WWI draws to a close, an idealistic soldier in the Czechoslovak Legion embarks on a perilous journey across war-torn Russia in a bid for Czechoslovak independence, becoming entangled in the Russian civil war and a sham marriage with a former Russian aristocrat in A Waltz with Traitors by A. L. Sowards (Covenant Communications, Mar. 14).

In The Truth We Hide by Liz Milliron (Level Best Books/Historia, Mar. 14), Betty Ahern investigates murder against the backdrop of war activities and homophobia in 1943 Buffalo.

A deeply researched work of historical fiction, Mark Warren’s A Last Serenade for Billy Bonney (Five Star, Mar. 17) follows the life of Billy the Kid from age fourteen, when he becomes an orphan, to his violent death at twenty-one years old, when he steps into a dark room to encounter his nemesis, Pat Garrett.

The Lady of the Lighthouse by Terri Greening (World Castle Publishing, Mar. 20) reveals the story of a pirate, a Great Lakes shipping captain, a dashing Italian spy, and the lonely, pregnant young mother who loved them all.

In Murder on the Pneumatic Railway by Lisa M. Lane (Grousable Books, Mar. 22), the body of an ordinary postal clerk is found inside a pneumatic railway car in 1870 London; Tommy Jones and his friends must solve the mystery to exonerate his former tutor.

In 1898 St. Louis, Nellie Bly wannabe Jemmy McBustle goes undercover in a ladies’ insane asylum where she finds corruption and finds herself a corset squeeze away from long term commitment in See President McKinley or Die Trying by Fedora Amis (Mardon

Moore Books, Mar. 23).

Larry Zuckerman’s debut novel, Lonely Are the Brave (Cynren Press, Apr.) centers on a working-class war hero who returns to his Washington logging town in 1919, where he becomes a fulltime father, causing a scandal, while the timber baron’s daughter struggles for equality in her marriage—and when the two overcome mutual distrust to trade secrets, their lives change forever.

A haunted painter’s past life visions are not the creative inspiration they seemed: they’re a harbinger of her ancient revenge vow, and her FBI husband won’t find the serial killer until she fulfills it… but it may already be too late. Read more in Through the Veneer of Time by Vera Bell (Champagne Book Group, Apr. 3).

Kansas 1905: Two ex-dancehall girls take to the road to find an old enemy and kill him before he gets to them first in this novel of mishaps, blunders, con men, the price of friendship and the circling noose of the law in K.T. Blakemore’s The Good Time Girls (Sycamore Creek Press, April 4).

In Laura Langdon’s Nobody’s Bride (Bayer’s Den, Apr. 10), set in Washington Territory, 1878: a farmer’s life is shattered after his young wife of only 6 months runs off with the traveling photographer from their wedding; desperate for a helpmate, he takes pity on an unknown spinster whose days pass in servitude.

Trouble lurks in the Lowcountry of South Carolina in the guise of a family feud, forbidden love, and a journalist hell-bent on uncovering corruption in Homespun by Sophia Alexander (Onalex Books, Apr 16), the final installment of The Silk Trilogy.

As told in The Movie Queen by Emily W. Skinner (Independently published, Apr. 30), Everly Knight never caught on to the New Math or other subjects during her family’s frequent moves in the 1960s, but she was up to date on Elizabeth Taylor’s romances thanks to her mother’s obsession with Hollywood gossip magazines; it was nothing short of a miracle that her Catholic mom could afford a weekly box office fix for a cab full of kids.

The Drowned Court (Meanda Books, Apr. 24), Book II in Tracey Warr’s Conquest trilogy on Nest ferch Rhys and King Henry I, is set in the 12th century and involves a dramatic kidnap and a devastating shipwreck.

Featuring a young Frenchwoman who navigates a deadly game of cat and mouse in the treacherous medieval court of Cyprus, Amy Maroney’s new novel, The Queen’s Scribe (Artelan Press, Apr. 25), is a stand-alone tale in the Sea and Stone Chronicles.

In MiJa by Mark Atkinson (Bookmark Publications, May 1), opening in Mun-gyeong, South Korea, in 1935, the Choi family are wealthy landowners and have been for nineteen generations, but all that is about to change as burgeoning love is put on hold and the family must endure the hardship of the Japanese Occupation, the Second World War, and the Korean War.

Tracey Warr’s The Anarchy (Meanda Books, May 1), Book III in her Conquest trilogy, is set in the 12th century: Sheriff Haith is on the trail of a mass murderer, while his sister is in grave danger as a runaway nun, and his lover Nest ferch Rhys is also at risk as she becomes increasingly embroiled in the Welsh resistance to the Norman occupation.

Catherine McCullagh’s latest novel, Resistance and Revenge (Big

Sky Publishing, May), fits neatly into the World War II alternate history genre with a gritty story of a rural English village in the grip of occupation and the ragtag resistance group that pits its meagre forces against the might of the brutal invader who hunts them day and night, paying informers in blood money as the thirst for revenge increases inexorably.

Described as ‘a fully realised Gothic world’ by David Punter, author of the seminal The Literature of Terror, leading Bram Stoker and Gothic scholar Matthew Gibson debuts in fiction with a fast-moving mystery-thriller, set in Victorian London - Mr Stoker and the Vampires of the Lyceum (The Book Guild, May 28).

Tucson, Arizona Territory, 1871: abducted amid the massacre of 150 Apache women at Camp Grant, a young Apache grieves for her lost heritage; misled by others, a Mexicana woman in Tucson seeks out the truth about her husband’s involvement in Venetia Hobson Lewis’s Changing Woman, a Novel of the Camp Grant Massacre (Univ. of Nebraska Press, June 1), based on a true event.

Botanist Linnea Wren journeys across the world to the magical island of Chiloé; will she realize her dreams of botanical discovery, or will romance and her murder investigation draw her closer to becoming the next victim? Read more in Voyage of the Pleiades by Amy Marie Turner (Fauve Press, June 6).

The House of Atreus: Clytemnestra’s Bind by Susan C. Wilson (Neem Tree Press, June 15) centers on one of Greek mythology’s most reviled characters—a woman who challenged the absolute power of men—in a fiery tale of power, family rivalry and a mother’s burning love.

Linda Ulleseit’s The River Remembers (She Writes Press, June 27) is a story of the cultural convergence of three women, White, Native American, and Black, at Fort Snelling in 1835 Minnesota.

Yesteryear by Stephen G. Eoannou (SFWP, Oct.) takes readers on a magical journey leading to The Lone Ranger’s radio debut, a show that provided hope to Americans during the early days of the Great Depression.

NEW PUBLISHING DEALS

Sources include authors and publishers, Publishers Weekly, Publishers Marketplace, The Bookseller, and more. Email me at sljohnson2@eiu. edu or tweet @readingthepast to have your publishing deal included.

Hope C. Tarr’s Irish Eyes, her historical fiction debut and the launch to her American Songbook series, in which an Irish barmaid emigrates to turn-of-the-century New York in search of the Yank soldier who swore to marry her, only to discover that neither he nor the city are what they first seemed, sold to Lume Books, in a two-book deal, with Irish Eyes releasing Dec. 2023.

All Manner of Things, book two of Wendy J. Dunn’s Falling Pomegranate Seeds duology, will be published in Spanish by Libros De Seda (www.librosdeseda.com) on September 18, 2023. The Spanish title will be Mi Hermana, Mi Reina

The Blackbirds of St Giles by Lila Cain (pseudonym for Kate Griffin and Marcia Hutchinson), following a brother and sister who flee enslavement in Jamaica and later arrive in 18th-century London, where they fight to overcome the dangers of the St. Giles rookery, sold to Simon & Schuster (UK) publishing director Clare Hey via Eugenie Furniss at 42.

Centering on the stories of the women of early 20th-century New York City who fought for reproductive freedom, In the Hands of Women by Jane Loeb Rubin was acquired by Level Best’s Harriette Sackler, in a two-book deal, for May 2023 publication.

Cara Reilly at Doubleday acquired Timothy Schaffert’s The Titanic Survivors’ Book Club, in which the steward from the Titanic establishes a book society with other ticket-holders who didn’t board the doomed ship, set in a Paris bookshop in 1913, from Alice Tasman at Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency.

Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon, a debut about brotherhood, stories, and art set in ancient Sicily at the time of the Peloponnesian War and following two unemployed potters who plan to stage a full production of Euripides’ Medea in an abandoned rock quarry, with Athenian prisoners as the cast, sold to Caroline Zancan at Holt, for Feb. 2024 publication, by Chris Clemans at Janklow & Nesbit, on behalf of Rebecca Carter while at Janklow & Nesbit UK; UK rights sold to Helen Garnons-Williams at Fig Tree.

Women of the Post by Joshunda Sanders, about the Black women of the Six Triple Eight Battalion who sorted mail for the U.S. Army overseas during WWII, told in three alternating voices, sold to Park Row’s Laura Brown via Elisabeth Weed at The Book Group. Publication is July 2023.

The Henna Artist author Alka Joshi’s The Painter, described as inspired by the “Frida Kahlo of India,” sold to Mira’s April Osborn via Margaret Sutherland Brown at Folio Literary Management, for publication in 2025.

CORRECTION

In the review of Kip Wilson’s One Last Shot (HNR 103, Feb. 2023), the historical figure Man Ray was mentioned in error; the correct name is Robert Capa.

OTHER NEW AND FORTHCOMING TITLES

For forthcoming novels through early 2024, please see our guides, compiled by Fiona Sheppard:

https://historicalnovelsociety.org/guides/forthcoming-historicalnovels/

COMPILED BY SARAH JOHNSON

Sarah Johnson is Book Review

Editor of HNR, a librarian, readers’ advisor, and author of reference books. She reviews for Booklist and CHOICE and blogs about historical novels at readingthepast.com. Her latest book is Historical Fiction II: A Guide to the Genre

NEW VOICES

Julie Gerstenblatt, Buzzy Jackson, Brianna Labuskes, and Constance Hays Matsumoto and Kent Matsumoto’s debut novels provide a gateway for readers to access key historical events and intriguing lives.

away on whaling expeditions. So I thought, why not create several women in town who are all linked and have their personal dramas come to a climax just as the fire hits?”

The idea of sharing some important and “largely unknown history,” as Gerstenblatt describes it, “and doing so in a way that would keep upping the stakes and keep the reader wanting to turn pages” appealed to her because as an author, her number one goal “is to entertain, and secondly to inform.” So for her, “this story has the perfect overlapping of those two aims.”

Of White Ashes (Apprentice House/Loyola University of Maryland, 2023), by co-authors Connie and Kent Matsumoto, was inspired by the true stories their family told them. It also explores how the bombing of Pearl Harbor led America into WWII and created turmoil for two Japanese Americans. The authors feel that their novel has been able to “honor their parents’ legacy in the richest possible way: through words that will reach and hopefully inspire many to live with dignity and grace, even when faced with injustice.”

As the two authors relate, “the journey began on [Connie's] first date with Kent when they attended a Dale Chihuly exhibit.” She was stirred by “Dorothea Lange’s provocative photographs of destitution and hardship. While she quietly absorbed Lange’s photograph of Japanese American children waiting for transport to incarceration following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Kent whispered: ‘That photograph captures my mother’s story.’ He then told her the story of his father surviving the bombing of Hiroshima.”

For Connie Matsumoto “the enormity and vibrancy of the Chihuly exhibit contrasted sharply with Lange’s small, black and white photograph. In a heartbeat, her life changed. Her heart opened, and she soon fell in love with Kent and later his remarkable parents.”

Julie Gerstenblatt, author of Daughters of Nantucket (MIRA, 2023), feels that she is incredibly lucky to know Nantucket, “having vacationed there since the late 1970s,” she says. “I can tell you where to stay for a long weekend and where to get the best lobster roll. I can regale you with funny stories about the summer I spent on the island during college, drinking Rolling Rocks on the roofwalk of a haunted house on Union Street.” However, until recently, she could not have told you “anything about Nantucket’s Great Fire of 1846.”

In 2018, she continues, “I came across a mention of the fire in Nathaniel Philbrick’s wonderful history of the island called Away Off Shore: Nantucket Island and its People, 1602-1890.” It was all that she needed to “spark my imagination,” she says, “to wonder what might it have been like to witness such a great and terrible thing. To see my favorite place on earth suffer so.”

Gerstenblatt assumed that she would write about a captain’s wife “because that’s primarily who I knew about from history. But through research, I learned that there was actually an entire other population of islanders: a thriving Black community living a parallel (and sometimes overlapping) life on Nantucket. These were wealthy, well respected, and well-educated people who were (sort of almost kind of but also not) seen as equal, thanks to their Quaker neighbors.”

She explains: “The time period speaks to what is happening now in America, which also gives the story a sense of immediacy. The 1840s on Nantucket are fascinating, once you know about the social, political, and racial issues that were happening. Plus, women on Nantucket had great autonomy then, because so many men were

Kent Matsumoto “learned that sometimes it takes an outsider to see the uniqueness of a family history,” they continue, and “Connie was that outsider.” She felt that his parents’ past “was a story waiting to be written; not to exploit the lives of his parents for commercial success, but to honor them, their remarkable stories, and the many Japanese Americans whose lives were decidedly shaped by the events of WWII.” Soon afterwards, and while his parents were still living, they both tried several paths to capture these stories and, surprisingly, encountered resistance.

Initially, the Matsumotos “engaged an accomplished non-fiction writer to write a book.” However, Kent Matsumoto’s “parents offered the man nothing but a cold shoulder.” Then they arranged to introduce his parents to a documentary filmmaker to record their stories, a plan which his parents soundly rejected, and so he promised them that he would write their story. This is a promise which he has now been able to fulfil with the help of his wife.

Brianna Labuskes, author of The Librarian of Burned Books (William Morrow, 2023), says: “I always wanted to write a love letter to books, and I’m a huge history nerd, so when I heard about the Armed Services Editions—lightweight paperback books sent to soldiers overseas to boost morale—I knew I had found my inspiration. The ASEs provided hope and relief and entertainment for bored yet terrified soldiers. They were a symbol of everything Americans were fighting and sacrificing to protect. They were a light in the dark, a physical representation of the power of books.”

Julie Gerstenblatt

Brianna Labuskes Kent & Connie Matsumoto

Buzzy Jackson photo credit: Andrea Scher

She then learned that “the ASE project was embroiled in a censorship fight with a powerful senator,” she continues. “One of my favorite parts about writing historical fiction is drawing parallels to show that people have always been people, for better or worse. And I couldn’t help but see the same patterns from that era repeating in our current struggles with book banning in schools. The story felt even more important to tell.” And she knew the story “wouldn’t be complete without including the book burnings in Berlin on May 10, 1933.

“The months leading up to that night have always fascinated me. In such a short amount of time, Germany went from a thriving, if fledgling, democracy to its lawmakers voluntarily voting to hand over total power to Hitler. If you look closely, you can see books were at the heart of that shift.

“The one missing component in the story, then, was librarians. They have always struck me as guardians, and I wanted to show them as such. In researching historical libraries, I found two, one in Paris and one in Brooklyn, that existed solely to protect the books that the Nazis wanted banned and burned. The one in Paris was particularly important, because the mission was to try to stop the rolling tide of fascism sweeping through France. People forget that Germany wasn’t the only country with Nazi sympathizers.”

As Labuskes relates, the result was that “the threads came together to weave a story of hope, even in these times of uncertainty when history doesn’t feel all that far away.”

In the winter of 2016, Buzzy Jackson “traveled to Amsterdam, with absolutely no intention of starting on a new book project,” she says. “A Dutch friend suggested we visit the Verzetsmuseum (Museum of the Resistance). ‘There’s a young woman you should write a book about,’” her friend said, but Jackson “was skeptical.”

The woman was Hannie Schaft, and she became the central character of Jackson’s novel To Die Beautiful (Dutton, 2023). “[Hannie] quit college to fight fascism and became the Most Wanted Woman in the Netherlands during World War II. I was intrigued. In a small glass display case, I saw a pair of round, wire-rimmed glasses, a battered pistol, and a photograph of a young woman with a defiant look on her face. This was Hannie Schaft. I wanted to read Hannie’s biography immediately but was surprised to discover that no such book in English existed… so I resolved to take my friend’s advice and write it myself.

“I soon became convinced Hannie was one of the forgotten heroes of the Second World War. As a young woman from a small, politically neutral country, her sacrifices and achievements were perhaps less

obvious to the rest of the world. But in fact, since the Germans invaded the Netherlands in May 1940 and remained there for the duration of the conflict, she was in effect fighting on the front lines every day.”

She was also astonished by Hannie’s “journey from shy college student to armed resister. When the Nazi occupiers began to take away the basic civil rights of people Hannie knew personally—her Jewish friends Sonja Frenk and Philine Polak—Hannie acted as very few people do: she put aside her personal dreams and sacrificed her own security in order to help them.”

For Jackson, “Hannie’s story illustrates some of the most fundamental themes of human existence: how to live with integrity, how to love others unconditionally, and poses the eternal moral quandary—how far would you go to do the right thing? These are questions we’re still facing in the 21st century.”

Writing her book changed Jackson. “As I learned their stories, their examples challenged me to be better, too. I vowed not to shut my eyes to injustice when I saw it, and I realized that no effort made on behalf of a fellow human in need is ever wasted. My own Russian Jewish ancestors fled anti-Semitic pogroms that foreshadowed other ‘ethnic cleansings’ later in the 20th century. Writing Hannie’s story also helped me understand how brave and terrified they must have been.”

As Jackson points out, “The human rights Hannie fought for are once again endangered today. As Hannie’s story demonstrates, however, the actions of even a single determined individual can make all the difference.”

WRITTEN BY MYFANWY COOK

Myfanwy Cook is an Associate University Fellow and ‘creative enabler’. She is a writer of prose, who facilitates creative writing workshops. Please do contact (myfanwyc@btinternet.com) if you have been captivated by the writing of any debut novelists.

Giving India Back to the Indians: Viceroy's House

up meetings with the leaders of the major Indian political parties, particularly Mr. Nehru (Tanveer Ghani), leader of the Hindu Congress Party, and Mr. Jinnah. Mountbatten is dismayed to learn of their disagreement. Jinnah steadfastly demands a separate homeland, comprising the provinces with a Muslim majority. Mr. Nehru wants a single nation. On this issue, rioting and violence between the communities have already broken out, particularly in the provinces where the population of Muslims is nearly equal to that of Hindus or Sikhs, notably the Punjab and Bengal. Attempting to play the peacemaker, Mountbatten seeks guidance from Mahatma Gandhi (Neeraj Kabi), inviting him for tea on the House’s lawn. Mr. Gandhi typically brings his tiffin and graciously offers the Mountbattens some food. However, his suggestion to appoint Mr. Jinnah as the first PM of an undivided India falls on deaf ears.

“If we don’t transfer power soon, there may be nothing left to transfer,” says an exasperated Viceroy Lord Louis “Dickie” Mountbatten (Hugh Bonneville) to his wife Lady Edwina (Gillian Anderson) at a pivotal moment in the film, Viceroy’s House.

This 2017 movie directed by Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham) is a bit unusual. Unlike other films of India’s Partition, such as Gandhi, most of its scenes are set in and around the Viceroy’s palatial 340-room mansion in Delhi. It was a brilliant choice, for it allows displaying, in a somewhat “Upstairs, Downstairs” fashion, the tiers of India’s class divisions, such as the British, the commoners, and the servants. Also, the political intrigue and rumor-mongering fit seamlessly into the storyline. Good use of old news reel footage provides an excellent backdrop to illustrate the unfolding events.

In March 1947, Lord Mountbatten arrives in India by air, accompanied by his wife and daughter, Pamela (Lily Travers), empowered by the British government with the specific task of “Giving a nation back to its people,” he says. Although Mr. Churchill called it “The worst job in the world,” Mountbatten naively believes otherwise, saying, “How bad can it be?”

At the grand red-carpeted steps to the House, the Mountbattens are welcomed by the officials, including the Chief-of-Staff, Lord “Pug” Ismay (Michael Gambon). To their bewilderment, the Mountbattens are provided an astronomical complement of servants (usual for Indian royalty), comprising over fifty just for indoor work. Mountbatten is assigned two valets. One of them, Jeet (Manish Dayal), is an eager young Hindu. Mountbatten drills them, wanting them to dress him in under two minutes, although they take thirteen!

Edwina and Pamela are provided a young secretary/translator, a Muslim girl, Aalia (Huma Qureshi). It was a reunion for Aalia and Jeet, as they’d known each other during childhood. Being of different religions, Jeet’s love for Aalia is unrequited; he desires her, but she is engaged to another Muslim, Asif (Arunoday Singh). He is a former soldier who’d served in WWII and is presently the chauffeur of Mr. Jinnah (Denzil Smith), the leader of the Muslim League.

Mountbatten gets going on his objective of a peaceful transfer of power and establishing an independent Indian nation by setting

With communal violence increasing daily (including resentments between the House’s servants), both Mountbattens, dressed in green and khaki uniforms, attempt to appease the rioters. But they and the insufficient police and the scant remaining British army are unable to control the mobs. Mountbatten starts to believe that a HinduMuslim partition might be a better option. In May 1947, he flies to London, with his staff, for consultations with the British government. Upon his return, it is Lord Ismay who responds to Edwina’s questions, informing her that they have received cabinet approval for the Plan for Partition, “in the blink of an eye,” he says, and also, “the green light to speed up independence.” When she inquires about Mr. Churchill’s reaction, Mountbatten responds, “He was quite sanguine, accepted the plan.” Ismay interjects, “He pointed out that Dickie has, in a matter of weeks, achieved what Wavell and the previous viceroys failed to achieve in years.” This is a subtle clue to viewers that Pug knows more than he is letting on.

Nevertheless, there is much political resistance to what is being called the “Mountbatten Plan.” Following several round table meetings and heated discussions, Mountbatten consents to some of the demands and modifies his Plan. Despite Mr. Jinnah’s complaint of being handed “a moth-eaten Pakistan,” and Mr. Nehru’s reluctance, Dickie obtains agreement from the leaders. Anxious to curtail the bloodletting, he sets midnight of 14 August 1947 as the Independence date, in only about ten weeks hence, and months earlier than the initially planned transfer date. However, the thorny issue of setting up the boundary line between the two nations remains. A boundary commission is formed, and an English lawyer, Cyril Radcliff (Simon Callow), arrives to chair it. Radcliff is bewildered, not only by his first time in India, but also at the enormity of the task he's been given. He eventually tells Ismay that the boundary commission is in a deadlock and the job cannot be done in the required short period. Pug hands him a secret file saying, “This might be everything you need.” The dossier includes a map of India with the boundary line already drawn. He alleges that the document was prepared two years ago by the thenPM, Mr. Churchill. Mountbatten is livid when he sees the document that had hitherto been kept secret from him.

As if preordained, Partition happened, leading to the displacement of some 14 million people. Contrary to Mountbatten’s and other political leaders’ beliefs, the bloodshed and carnage did not cease, continuing between the ethnic groups even during their relocation. An estimated one million died. These scenes of violence, thankfully, are not shown vividly, unlike in a typical thriller movie. The deplorable conditions of the migrants in the refugee camps are skillfully illustrated. In the production notes1, Chadha mentions that she didn’t wish to recreate the full extent of the horror, as it would

have alienated some of the audience, for it was like “opening old wounds,” which wasn’t the point of her story.

This film is an important retelling of India’s Partition, for it attempts to set the record straight by presenting some important albeit obscure information that has remained veiled from the public eyes. In a way, Chadha attempts to disprove that “history is written by the victors.”

Chadha, born in Nairobi of Punjabi heritage and raised in London, had initially started working on a script to tell her family’s story during the Partition. She referenced her father’s favorite book, Freedom at Midnight, by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre (Simon & Schuster, 1975). Then one day, while attending a charity reception in London, she met the Patron (then) Prince Charles. Upon hearing that Chadha was making a film on India’s Independence, he mentioned that she should also look at the book, The Shadow of the Great Game, by Narendra Singh (HarperCollins India, 2006).

Chadha met Singh, an Indian diplomat and a former ADC to Mountbatten in 1947. He told her of having written his book after coming across, in the British Library, some declassified “Top Secret” documents prepared between 1945-1947. These revealed Britain’s concern over handing India back to Indians and presented political and military arguments for annexing some parts of the Northern region. A map drawn in 1946 showing the partition boundary was included. Singh inferred that Britain clandestinely supported Mr. Jinnah’s efforts to create a homeland for Indian Muslims. Thus, the new country would help protect Britain’s oil interests in the Persian Gulf and block the Soviet Union’s access to the warm water port at Karachi, a strategic scheme should left-leaning India gravitate towards the Russians.

While Chadha, except for a few simplifications, has based the movie closely on Singh’s book, there are some omissions. One is the issue of granting freedom to the Indian princely states, including Kashmir—which hasn’t been resolved yet. The other significant exclusion is the US trying to influence the British government to grant India independence. Singh mentions Roosevelt’s several attempts to persuade Churchill to give self-governance to India. Hence, the US pressure on Britain led Churchill to play the "Muslim" or the "Pakistan" card. This development enabled Mr. Jinnah to put forward his proposal for a two-nation division of India. Singh believes that Britain’s "Pakistan Strategy" worked well, for Pakistan and several other Muslim nations joined the Baghdad Pact and later CENTO. This consortium provided a restraint to any Soviet aims on the Middle East. Although some scenes seem to imply the wellknown closeness that had developed between Lady Edwina and Mr. Nehru, Chadha doesn’t dwell on it, considering the association as not relevant to the plot.2

Some reviewers3 have criticized Chadha’s movie for the unsympathetic depiction of Muslims. However, Chadha has portrayed the communal hostility even-handedly. Chadha mentions that in some scenes of mob violence, she had the actors dressed in generic costumes, so it wasn’t clear who was attacking whom. She aimed to show that violence was erupting on all sides.

Some4 are critical of both Singh’s book and Chadha’s film for shifting the blame for Partition from the Indian people themselves and Mountbatten, to others. It is conceivable that towards the end of WWII, the Churchill government did consider various options for granting freedom to India. Having partitioned Ireland in 1921, a similar proposal for India was likely drafted. Nevertheless, the steadfastness of Mr. Jinnah in continuing to press for a separate Muslim state is more attributable to his astuteness (he was a successful lawyer) rather than having made a deal with Mr. Churchill. Moreover, he wouldn’t have offered Pakistan as a buffer state between India and

the Soviets.

Mountbatten was expected to act impartially and hence wasn’t apprised by the then-PM Attlee’s Labor Government of the previous Churchill’s Tory Government’s secret document. The movie implies that there might have been a peaceful transfer of power if Mountbatten had announced the plans for Partition from the get-go. In reality, it may not have occurred, for as world events would indicate, the Partition of countries did not happen without bloodshed. It’s usually the result of the divide-and-rule policies that implant unassailable hatred between the religious communities.

There was also some criticism5 of Chadha introducing a “passionless Romeo-and-Juliet romance” subplot into a serious subject. Yet the reviewer has missed the point of the movie’s depiction of the Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu communities’ differences as the heart of the partition issue. While the societies tolerated each other, their lovers were forbidden to inter-marry.

The selection of the large cast is appropriate, and each actor fits in and plays their roles admirably. Gillian Anderson and Hugh Bonneville play believably Lady Edwina and Lord Mountbatten, as do most of the other actors, particularly Neeraj Kabi as Mahatma Gandhi.

The movie’s ending, showing the present-day conditions of some of the Partition’s survivors, is heartwarming. It seems there is still hope for peaceful relations between the “midnight’s children.”

References:

1. Viceroy’s House, Production Notes, Transmission Films

2. https://www.transmissionfilms.com.au/uploads/media/Viceroys_ House_-_Transmission_Press_Kit.pdf

3. Vanessa Thorpe, Interview. A British film with a Punjabi heart: director’s personal take on Partition. The Observer, 16 January 2017.

4. Fatima Bhutto, Fatima Bhutto on Indian Partition film Viceroy’s House. The Guardian, 3 May 2017.

5. Ian Jack, The Viceroy’s House version of India’s Partition brings fake history to screen. The Guardian, 18 March 2017.

6. Berlin Film Review: Viceroy’s House, Guy Lodge, Variety.com, 12 February 2017

WRITTEN BY WAHEED RABBANI

Waheed Rabbani was born in India and currently resides in Ontario, Canada. He is a retired engineer, historical fiction author, and a regular reviewer for HNR

IT TAKES A VILLAGE...

A

The author of seven successful historical novels and an acclaimed young adult novel, Renée Rosen believes it takes a village to write a book. The idea for her most recent novel, Fifth Avenue Glamour Girl (Berkley, 2023), came from a conversation she had with a friend, a filmmaker who had recently completed a documentary about the son of cosmetic icon Estée Lauder. Her friend suggested that Estée Lauder would make a fascinating subject for a novel.

“I took one look at Estée Lauder’s Wikipedia page and realized she was right,” Rosen said in a Zoom interview. Estée Lauder has all the characteristics of a Rosen heroine. At the end of her life, she had amassed a fortune of more than 200 million dollars, but she started out as an underdog who struggled against enormous odds to achieve success.

“I gravitate towards women who are dynamic, whether historical or people I meet in my own life,” Rosen said. “I’m inspired by the way they overcome adversity using their wits, strength, and determination.”

In telling Lauder’s story, Rosen created a fictional character to be the lens through which we see the future cosmetic mogul climb the ladder

of success. “Estée’s story was already out there,” Rosen explained. “A lot has been written about her, including an autobiography and an unauthorized biography. Bringing in a fictional character allows me to make it fresh and to explore different themes.”

The fictional character Rosen created for Fifth Avenue Glamour Girl is Gloria Downing, a young woman who grew up wealthy only to find herself broke and abandoned by her family after her father’s Ponzi scheme is exposed. Gloria’s story drives the book forward as she tries to find herself in a society that has turned against her. “She’s like a mirror for Estée,” Rosen said. “And she was a blast to write. She came to the page fully formed, a gift from the writing gods. When her father falls from grace, this helpless little rich girl has to make peace with that and find a way to survive.”

Estée has the drive to succeed, and Gloria brings a sense of style, developed over the course of her life. Together the two women navigate the shoals of a society that shuns Jews and daughters of disgraced tycoons. But writing about historical figures entails challenges – especially when that person has living descendants. Rosen noted that when writing a historical figure, you should portray the person as accurately as possible. “As a writer your intent has to be your compass,” she said. “Dealing with someone like Estée Lauder, who has such a legacy, you better make sure what you’re writing is documented.”

“I wanted to portray the full woman, warts and all. Estée wasn’t perfect, but she was inspirational,” Rosen said. “You just really have to do your research and stay as close as can to the real figure.”

However, fiction writers also have a duty to their readers, she said. “We’re not writing narrative nonfiction, we’re writing fiction. Our job is to entertain and to tell a compelling story, and we can’t lose sight of that. We may need to take creative license here and there.” Rosen said that an author’s note is crucial to let readers know where you have embellished the story.

While Rosen had some obvious sources for her research on Estée Lauder, creating her fictional character’s arc entailed a different level of research. The scenes, especially in Saks Fifth Avenue, come across as so authentic, I wondered if Rosen had actually worked in a department store.

She hadn’t, but because she had written a novel about department store tycoon Marshall Field in one of her earlier books, What the Lady Wants (Berkley, 2014), she already knew certain things about that world, such as “that counterspace was priceless real estate.”

“I also talked to people who worked in the cosmetic industry and learned how cutthroat it is with the salesgirls. Talking to people gave me some real insight into how that industry works. I also did a lot of research on the early days of Saks, how their buying department worked, what it meant to be a cosmetic buyer for Saks Fifth Avenue,” she said.

Rosen noted that, unlike some historical fiction authors, she does all her own research. Sometimes a small piece of information can illuminate the world she is building. “Those little nuggets that you find doing your research – it could just be a line or a reference – can send you down a rabbit hole. Eventually you start to piece it all together,”

...To Write a Book:

Conversation with Renée Rosen

she said. Some research, of course, she simply draws from life.

“When I’m writing in the zone, I’m Gloria, I’m Estée,” she said. “I hear the piped-in music, the clacking of heels on the marble floors. Department stores are so different now, but I have great memories of going shopping with my mother, sister, girlfriends. There’s an art of shopping, of bonding that is lost.”

To create momentum and an entry for the story, Rosen incorporated the race to publication of Lee Israel’s unauthorized biography and Estée Lauder’s autobiography. The book begins with Israel contacting Gloria to get dirt on Gloria’s old friend. “It was a good way to get into the story because what was going to trigger Gloria to go back in time?” Rosen said. “You always have to find your jumping-off point. You find that right corner and then you’re off.”

Rosen believes there’s a lesson in Estée’s story for all of us. “I wanted to celebrate all she accomplished. She was such a trailblazer. She was determined, and she wasn’t going to let anybody or anything stand in her way,” she said. “She was tough and she was driven. I want the reader to walk away feeling inspired. She made it with her own gumption and determination.”

Rosen’s own journey as an author of historical fiction has also had its obstacles. She said she always knew she wanted to be a writer, but success didn’t immediately land in her lap. As a child, she was always “working on a short story or a play or a poem,” and she wrote her first novel in high school, but she admits she wasn’t a big reader until her late teens.

“I was not a strong reader. I was a terrible speller. I knew nothing about grammar, but I believed in the power of storytelling,” she said. (These days she’s always got one physical book, one digital, and one audio book going.)

Her belief in storytelling fueled her desire to be a writer. Her first book, a coming-of-age YA novel, Every Crooked Pot (St. Martin’s Griffin), came out in 2007. After that book was published, Rosen said she couldn’t sell another book, and she took a six-year hiatus to figure out her next move. She always had a love for “older things,” and she was fascinated by flappers. So she wrote her first historical novel, titled Dollface (Berkley, 2013) about a flapper in 1920s Chicago. “I don’t think I even realized at the time that historical fiction was a genre,” she said.

After the success of Dollface, her editor at Berkley suggested she write another historical fiction set in Chicago, which led to her book about Marshall Field’s. One of her most popular books, The Social Graces (Berkley, 2021), deals with the rivalry between Alva Vanderbilt and Caroline Astor.

“That was one of the most difficult books to write. We had just come off Park Avenue Summer, and I was talking with my agent and my editor about what to write next. The next day I got two emails, one suggesting I write about Consuelo Vanderbilt, and the other saying, what about the Gilded Age,” she said. “In doing my research, Caroline and Alva just leapt out at me, both vying for control.”

Rosen found the material so rich, she thought the book would write itself. Instead, she said, she struggled and ended up writing it top to

bottom three times before the characters came alive.

Readers are drawn to her books, Rosen believes, because of the subjects she chooses. “I try to find a subject matter that immediately has some recognition — Vanderbilts, Astors, Helen Gurley Brown, Estée Lauder,” she said. “It’s so much better if I have that big hook. Hopefully, when readers get there, they appreciate the writing style.” Her current work in progress is a book about Ruth Handler, the woman who invented Barbie.

“In terms of craft, it’s almost a mystical process. I know I’ve connected with the characters when they take over,” she said. Rosen doesn’t outline. She said she has no idea where she’s going from one page to the next. “The first draft is me getting to know the characters,” she said. Once the characters “click,” then the novel begins to take shape.

Rosen loves the process of revision, saying that’s where “the magic” happens. It’s also where the village, or the writer’s team, comes in. “I tell my agent, my editor and my critique partners to give it to me straight. Let’s make it the best book we can,” she said. Rosen said that as writers, we need a network of support both personally and professionally.

“I’m lucky I get to have the characters talking in my ear, but after that, it’s everyone’s baby.” She wants writers to know the struggle is worth it. “Our business is not easy. I was rejected over 300 times by agents before I was able to get my team together,” she said. “I didn’t think I would be in my 40s before I would see a book published. If you love the craft, you stick with it and eventually you’ll get there.”

WRITTEN BY TRISH MACENULTY

Trish MacEnulty is the author of the Delafield & Malloy Investigation Series, set in Manhattan in the 1910s. Her historical YA novel,  Cinnamon Girl, is forthcoming in the Summer of 2023 from Livingston Press.

DEPARTMENT STORES are so different now, but I have great memories of going shopping with my mother, sister, girlfriends. There’s an art of shopping, of bonding that is lost.

EVERYDAY SUBVERSIVE ACTS

Researching Fact, Writing Fiction

Germanic name suffered dismissal for having avowed sympathy for wartime conscientious objectors; he had, the school board alleged, failed to display proper Americanism. By contrast, Washington’s regiments received torrents of praise for modest victories in combat.

Now, I knew my disgruntled veteran a little better. I pictured Rollie Birch as a much-decorated hero who hates “slackers,” yet resents civilians who want to bask in his glory and talk as though the US of A saved the world. But I needed specifics. My historian self wanted to know which regiment Rollie served in, to pinpoint his back story accurately; my novelist self wanted to know when he comes home, which would tell me when the story might begin, and how old his daughter is. Luck handed me the answers. In late April, Seattle welcomed four companies of the 361st Infantry, 91st Division (nicknamed Wild West) and gave them a parade, which the Times described in detail.

The celebration included four white horses that pulled a gold star to honor the fallen, and young women in white dresses who strewed white flower petals from the running boards of motor cars. Leavening this sober display was a “stunt,” the contemporary word for a party game or entertainment, in this case themed to the Wild West. Elk Lodge brothers wore Native American feather headdresses and war paint; police officers dressed as cowboys fired blank charges from their pistols.

I tried opening the novel with this extravaganza until a dear friend told me it didn’t work, and I had to agree. But though I excised the parade scene, I let Rollie keep his opinion that it was a tasteless mockery of his dead friends. A subversive viewpoint, but nothing compared to the scheme he latches onto half by accident: he quits his father’s construction company and stays home to raise his baby daughter. Scandal! After all, real men don’t do “women’s work”; and if combat-hero Rollie isn’t a real man, who is? Besides, gossips snicker that the child isn’t even his, another swipe at his manhood— and now, he has to find out the truth.

I love writing historical novels about characters considered radical because of how they live. They’d never dream of preaching revolution from the barricades, yet everybody, or almost everybody, shuns them or tries to shut them down. Whether real or merely perceived, subversion simmers with conflict, and the stakes—life as we know it— couldn’t be higher.

I live in Seattle, and since I wanted to write about the aftermath of World War I, I imagined a veteran who returns to Washington feeling dislocated because his wife has died in his absence, leaving behind an infant daughter. But I also supposed he feels disconnected from the country he once knew, and I wanted to know what that might look like.

So, starting with January 1919, I dug into the Seattle Times, which called itself “An American Paper for Real Americans,” and found an atmosphere seething with fear and resentment. Bolshevists, reads a front-page warning, planned to end private property, social distinctions, and the workday, which they would reduce to three or four hours! The threat felt closer to home than Russia or Central Europe because the International Workers of the World, which tried to unionize mining and logging camps and led a five-day general strike in Seattle in February, were viewed as Bolshevists and anarchists. But suspicion fell elsewhere too. A Swiss-born high school teacher with a

However, I was venturing into unmapped territory. To my knowledge, only one other novel published in the last ninety-nine years revolves around an at-home father: Tom Perrotta’s Little Children (2004), a contemporary story and a different, darker take from what I intended. But I did find inspiration in two historical novels portraying Rollie’s flip side, female protagonists who break gender convention by seeking power.

Lauren Groff’s Matrix (2021) reimagines Marie de France, a twelfthcentury poet appointed as a teenager to run an abbey that has ceased to produce revenue. Marie, nothing if not practical, turns the place around—and tosses the medieval gendered world on its head. Vera, by Carol Edgarian (2021), depicts an unloved, shy fifteen-yearold running a motley household following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, surprising herself and others with new-found authority.

But such stories would have scared Seattleites in 1919, for when the city fathers organized their parade, they chose to evoke popular wartime myths that turned women into fragile vessels and men into saviors. The profusion of white, the color of purity, and the young women wearing it reflected the common belief that the war was fought to protect womanhood from the barbarian Hun. Today, that sounds utterly bizarre, but, as I confirmed in the Times, people

spoke as though it were established truth. That’s because once Congress declared war, propagandists instructed Americans to view the conflict in gendered terms, an approach that titillated while pretending rectitude. Claiming a legal or moral case was all very well, but to ask—to require—a man to risk his life when the nation had not been invaded demanded a more visceral response.

Recruiting posters hammered home the message, with varying degrees of explicitness. Perhaps the most lurid, evocative example appeared in 1917, illustrated by H. R. Hopps and titled, “Destroy This Mad Brute.” The poster depicts a gorilla that has burned American shores to cinders and abducted a half-naked, fair-haired woman, whom he carries in one arm. Advancing menacingly on the viewer, he wields a club labeled “Kultur” (often translated as “civilization”); on his head, he wears a spiked helmet reading “Militarism.” The admonition: Enlist.

Rollie believes he fought in a just cause, only not the one commonly ascribed, which to him is a manipulative lie. Another subversive opinion, yes; but, more importantly, I reasoned that this perspective grants him the flexibility to ask whether full-time fathering might be manly.

Further, to figure out what kind of father Rollie might be, I consulted a popular parenting manual, written for women (no surprise). The author, a famous pediatrician, offered advice that paralleled the striving toward conformity and regimentation notable elsewhere. He cautioned against picking up a crying infant; no healthy child would cry for more than twenty minutes, he averred. Kissing a baby, he wrote, even on the cheek or forehead, could transmit diphtheria, tuberculosis, syphilis, or other diseases, so mothers mustn’t do that, either. Nor should they play with children younger than one year, because that would make the little ones nervous and irritable. Rollie reads this and laughs.

But he’s not laughing when the town he loves ostracizes him. I imagined his neighbors viewing him as having betrayed his manhood and what he’d fought for, which, maybe, strips him of his heroism. They would wonder what kind of man refuses to get a job, and with conformity and Americanism regular topics of public discourse, Rollie’s failings would make him a target. Politics aside, men would feel threatened by his willingness to cross a gender line, whereas women would hate him for being good at what men and women typically do.

Still, that leaves Rollie in a vacuum. His story needs contrast, so there’s Kay Sorensen, the local timber baron’s daughter, who seeks political and economic power like the protagonists of Matrix and Vera. Kay spent her war helping to organize the town’s patriotic efforts while working in her father’s office, a job that inspires dreams of a business career. But Kay knows better than to say so, and, like many women of her time, wonders why she must give up the wider horizons she enjoyed while the menfolk were gone.

Sure enough, her husband has barely arrived home before he attacks her for opening her own bank account and demands to know what man “let” her. (Nearly every state required a male cosignature in such cases; the laws didn’t change until the 1960s.) So Kay guesses that he’ll make her quit her job and return to her housewifely cubbyhole, particularly because he’s planning to run for the state legislature and wishes to present a certain image.

Kay wants freedom to act and think—and to strive and achieve, not be reduced to deriving satisfaction from a man’s career and success. Born to a conservative, moneyed family whose values she believes she espouses, she doesn’t yet know how subversive her urge for independence is. Still, she knows that most people, not just her husband, will accuse her of betraying her feminine identity if she earns wages outside her home. More subversive yet, she believes the war changed him—and hopes Rollie, who served with him, can tell her.

Since I was an at-home father to my two boys, I worried I’d superimposed my own experience on 1919, until I ran across The Home-Maker, by Dorothy Canfield. Published in 1924, this remarkable novel supposes that a man who works at a Midwestern department store suffers a crippling accident, which prompts his wife to take his place while he stays home with the kids. Since he hates his job, at which he’s incompetent, and she has no patience for or skill at keeping house, the switch allows each to discover that they excel at the other’s culturally appointed role.

Canfield’s novel boosted my confidence to write Rollie and Kay as true subversives, capable of undermining the social order simply by staying home with a child or taking a paying job. That’s the crux of my novel, Lonely Are the Brave, and maybe there’s a lesson in that. When everyday actions have such power, you don’t need to drag in conflict from somewhere else or invent it. You’ve got plenty already.

References:

1 Seattle Times, 15 Jan, 1919, p. 1; 26 Feb, p. 7, and 8 Mar, p. 8; 25 Apr, p 14.

2. Ibid., 26 Apr, 1919, pp. 1, 5.

3. Ibid., 25 Apr, 1919, p. 17.

4. “Destroy This Mad Brute,” Library of Congress, print 457a: https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppmsca.55871/

5. Emmett L. Holt, M.D., The Care and Feeding of Children: A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children’s Nurses, 5th ed. (New York, 1910).

6. Dorothy Canfield, The Home-Maker (New York, 1924). Reprint 2007.

WRITTEN BY LARRY ZUCKERMAN

Larry Zuckerman’s debut novel,  Lonely Are the Brave (Cynren Press, 2023), appeared last month. An award-winning historian whose specialty is WWI, he’s also an editor at  HNR and reviews historical fiction on his blog, novelhistorian.

WHETHER REAL or merely perceived, subversion simmers with conflict, and the stakes — life as we know it — couldn’t be higher.

A SENSE OF BELONGING

BY BEN BERGONZI

An Actor’s Self-discovery via the 18th Century

The biographical novel The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho (Dialogue Books, 2022; Henry Holt, 2023) is a picaresque adventure with jeopardy and narrow escapes, all told in a very engaging voice, poignant and funny by turns. During the first half of the book it seems hard to believe Sancho will ever achieve the success for which he is known. But, leaving far behind his birth on a slave ship, Sancho (1729–80) becomes a composer, and meets George Frederick Handel, Dr Johnson and King George himself; is painted by Gainsborough; plays Othello in David Garrick’s theatre; and becomes the first Black man to vote in England.

This is the first novel by Paterson Joseph, an actor well-known on British television. Joseph takes up the story: “I first came across the story of Charles Ignatius Sancho after picking up Gretchen HolbrookGerzina’s book Black England 1 His story from slavery to scholarship was an inspiration because it mirrored a grand aspiration in me. More powerfully, there was also his very domestic survival story, as a father and husband, committed to his family. His journey to the royal household, via the Duke of Montagu, was so dramatic that it was not difficult for me to see how it could be turned into a stageplay, initially. This play was the monodrama Sancho – An Act of Remembrance which I toured in Britain and the U.S.”

Knowing that in the 18th century a Black footman could be a fashionable accessory for the wealthy, I asked how Sancho came to achieve so many more opportunities. “Sancho’s status as pet cannot be denied. His first guardians, the mysterious ‘sisters three’, kept him ignorant but decorative. His facility with language gave him the means. His exceptional good fortune was that he encountered enlightened white people as his advocates and had a natural intelligence alongside an artistic talent. Without these skills and a mighty dose of luck, Sancho might have made a life for himself, anyway, but he would never have achieved the level of fame that he did.”

I queried a comment about Sancho’s very unusual position – at one point he says he has few Black friends. Joseph replied: “Sancho’s superior self-education would have separated him from most of the populace be they white or Black. There were Black men who could read and write as well as any, but they were not in positions of influence as close to the royal family as Charles Ignatius would have been. His patrons, the Montagu family, were governors of Windsor Castle and had ready access to the world of the British monarchy. Sancho’s unique position as butler then valet, therefore, would have kept him a little distant from the ‘staff’ he had charge over. It was surely to his great relief that he met and married a Black woman of equal mental and physical freedom as himself, in Anne Clarke Osborne.”

Sancho’s music still exists and is performed today, and there is a superb description of a dance in the book, where the young Sancho is shown gleefully mesmerised by the power of music. Joseph commented: “What I describe in the Black Tar Tavern was mentioned by many visitors to London from the European continent. Frustratingly, the music of these ‘Black Hops’ is never described. Sancho’s musical

works are legion. His works could be described as popular dance pieces. They are sometimes accompanied by instructions, linedancing style, to the participants. Whenever I have seen these performed, they always get the crowd smiling and bubbling. His quieter pieces are never melancholy but are suffused with a romantic lyricism. He refuses to write melancholy music despite the conditions his people were enduring. He let his words do the political talking and his music express his artistic freedom.” I then asked about how many Black actors and musicians there were in the theatre in David Garrick’s day. “The accounts of Black performers in the theatre are rare. When a taste of ‘exoticism’ was called for, particularly for the so-called ‘sock and buskin’ entertainments at Samuel Foote’s New Theatre on the Haymarket, Black performers did appear. As far back as the Tudor court we had Black musicians and performers.”

Sancho’s voice has come down to us in his published letters. I wondered to what extent these inform Joseph’s style in the novel –there is one chapter which is purely epistolary. But Joseph told me he had chosen to avoid any direct quotation, explaining, “Sancho’s public voice is very clear in his published correspondence with friends and with the newspapers. One had to couch one’s letters in a public tone, since the head of the household would often read them aloud to family and friends.” He went on to say that when including private letters between Sancho and Anne, he had imagined the voice Sancho would have used.

I asked Joseph about his literary influences. “Apart from writers like Henry Fielding, Jonathan Swift and Laurence Sterne, I mainly contented myself with reading non-fictional accounts of the times, such as Sancho’s Letters, James Boswell’s Samuel Johnson and his London Journal and Samuel Johnson himself. Sterne’s work was very influential: Tristram Shandy, and most importantly A Sentimental Journey were massively influential in their humour, speed of thought and twists of grammar and syntax.”

Finally I asked Joseph about his own personal journey in writing this book: “Seeking a more permanent sense of belonging in the land of my birth came about through my desire to play characters from history. I was often told, and presumed myself, that these characters simply didn’t exist. There is a myth that Black people played little or no part in British history on British soil until the mid-20th century –this myth is especially prevalent in the USA. Finding a real person I could depict would allow me to exercise my classical theatre muscles, without being shut out due to the issues surrounding casting a Black person in ‘costume dramas’. I found much more than that rather shallow opportunity, of course, and I’m still finding the field of Black British History rich with hidden gems. That has probably been the greatest change in my attitude, the idea that I now have every reason to know myself as a Briton with a long history of my ancestors, my forerunners, on the soil where I was born and raised.”

Ben Bergonzi is one of HNR's UK Reviews Editors.

References:

1. Gretchen Gerzina, Black England. A Forgotten Georgian History, London: John Murray (2022) is the updated edition of her 1995 book Black London: Life Before Emancipation

NATURAL MAGIC

BY LOUISE TREE

Songs of Rain and Breaking Ice in The Weather Woman

Sally Gardner’s The Weather Woman (Head of Zeus, 2022) buys us a ticket into the popular culture of the 18th century, where science and entertainment came together in an interest in automata. These were machines into which technology had breathed the suggestion of life, fascinating spectators with displays of inanimate logic. But they were often a fraud, powered by a real person secreted within the bodywork. The novel opens with the frost fair of January 1789, when the Thames froze at London Bridge, around which sprawled booths and tents exhibiting wild animals and street entertainers. Neva, a three-yearold child of Russian fair folk, listens to the song of the ice beneath everyone’s feet, while her mother, an unbeatable chess player, is sewn into the belly of a chess-playing bear. A fraudulent automaton, it takes on challengers who confidently gamble that they can’t lose.

The ‘Weather Woman’ of the title is an automaton created by Neva’s adoptive clockmaker father to enable her, as an adult, to publicly yet secretly predict the weather. It is a machine of cogs and weights, but the spirit within is Neva and her gift for listening to the songs the weather sings. Gardner explains: “The Weather Woman is a fantastical notion, but it plays into what was soon to come in the history of science and the development of weather forecasting.” She says that the description of the Weather Woman machine took weeks of writing to achieve the right balance between realistic mechanism and the reader’s imagination. Gardner is adept at conjuring magical and theatrical settings in which the reader can believe all things are possible, such as Neva’s home, built from the skeleton of a galleon, and the Weather Woman’s carefully staged performances. Gardner’s background in theatrical design is influential. She says: “Theatre has played a great part in my life, and I feel it is vital to conjure up magical spaces. I like scene setting. And I know if I can’t return to the same place the next day then the writing is no good.”

In the 18th century, women’s voices are becoming more discernible. In seeking them, Gardner says that she tried as much as possible “to read original sources, letters and memoirs”. She also found the work of Georgette Heyer useful, as she regards Heyer’s research as “second

to none”. In the afterword to the novel, Gardner acknowledges the extraordinary wealth of books for the period in the London Library, in particular on gambling and the London frost fairs, all smelling of “a time long gone”. What she found most fascinating in her reading of women’s memoirs of that time is “how modern the women sound. They are concerned with all the things that worry us but are devoid of electricity and technology. And they have a different relationship with time. We worry at it endlessly while they have a great understanding of its passing and of the shortness of life.”

The novel has the complexity of a Shakespeare or Mozart comedy with characters whose stories, past and present, interconnect. There is a motif of shipwreck, and several sets of separated lovers move back toward each other as in a Jane Austen romance, Gardner’s “favourite writer of that age”. The 18th century is bookended by Shakespeare and Dickens, two writers whom Gardner happily admits to being influenced by; and there is a delicious Dickensian mood to Gardner’s London and such characters as Mr. Ratchett with his dog, Old Bones. Indeed, Gardner believes Dickensian characters still haunted London’s Gray’s Inn when she was growing up there.

Gardner uses the device of cross-dressing in the way Shakespeare did, “to give a female character agency in a time when History was not Herstory”. Neva’s story is one of exceptional female insight into natural phenomena and her quest for true self-expression; but to have freedom and authority, she must shape shift. She creates a male persona, Eugene Jonas, so she can attend scientific lectures, go to Brooks’s men’s club, and get drunk with the man she loves. Women’s self-expression necessitated some form of ventriloquism to ensure anonymity: Neva’s voice is thrown from male clothing or mechanised by the wood and iron of the Weather Woman. The body of the automaton acts as a metaphor for her silenced social body, and she must release herself from the machine in order to fully inhabit her nature and publicly express her predictive gift.

The richness of the 18th century might lead a writer in all directions, and Gardner does admit to getting into a ”muddle” when she began writing the novel. She explains that this was in part due to her method of not planning a story in advance, but of letting the characters lead the way. The thread which led her out of this labyrinth was the weather: “I found a fabulous collection of meteorological observations, the Vox Stellarum, from 1791 through to 1814, a wonderful book that became my bible and helped me make sense of the timespan and the weather of the novel. There were no proper records, and this almanack was a great help.” The period’s interest in natural phenomena such as the formation of clouds was subject to rational investigative methods, yet the weather remained

either the province of God or a case study for scientific men, with nothing in between – it was certainly not the province of women or instinctive knowledge. “We seem to see the arrogance that stripped instinctual voices of the time of any power,” Gardner explains. “Native American and many other tribal communities had a completely different relationship to the skies. In aboriginal culture, the weather was a book to be read.” This way of seeing is shown to be a vulnerability, putting Neva in danger of incarceration for madness. The risks we run from denying instinctive voices is suggested here. As a child, Neva can prevent a tragedy, but she is not to be believed: at the frost fair, as watermen and visitors merrily improvise on the frozen Thames, only Neva can hear the ”unearthly sound” of the ice singing that it will break.

Louise Tree writes reviews for HNR, has research interests in the writing of history in the eighteenth century, and is at work on a novel set in Occupied France.

NOT ALL HAYBALES & GINGHAM

BY SARAH BOWER

Sarah Bower Talks to Kate Worsley about Foxash

Kate Worsley’s second novel, Foxash (Headline, 2023), set in 1930s Essex, is a spellbinding evocation of the rural uncanny. In deceptively sensual prose she eviscerates the idyll of the smallholding and lays bare the desperation of characters pitted against the elements and themselves. Outside the pool of lamplight at the kitchen table, beyond the protective fug of the greenhouse, ancient superstitions prowl with the foxes.

Kate’s first novel, She Rises, won the HWA Debut Crown for Historical Fiction and was shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Prize in the US. Foxash is set in the Essex countryside where Kate lives and tells the story of Tommy and Lettie Radley, who move during the Depression of the 1930s from a mining community in the North East to take up a smallholding under the Land Settlement Association programme. The LSA was set up in 1934 to take the long-term unemployed from so-called Special Areas, where unemployment was high, and retrain them in horticulture and livestock rearing before settling them in co-operative farming colonies. Tommy and Lettie quickly become dependent on their neighbours, the Dells, more experienced growers. Little do they know to what extent the Dells are depending on them and where this entanglement will lead.

Kate “practically tripped over” the LSA, and this particular settlement, Foxash, was on her doorstep. “The look of the place is so distinctive – dozens of these neat little semi-detached brick cottages fronting huge glasshouses with orchards behind – I had to find out more. I was originally wanting to write something connected with the Witchfinder General history of this area and combine it with the story of a contemporary couple who move into an isolated cottage. But at that point it seemed everyone and their dog were writing about witches. So I looked further into the LSA.”

“I was interested in the idealistic, paternalistic and social engineering aspect of this scheme: what the human consequences might be for

the individuals involved. I was also feeling very dubious generally about the renewed interest in, and nostalgia for, traditional rural life and customs, ‘English’ values, by those who enjoy the benefits of modern urban life. At times I have felt the allure of the simple life as much as anyone, but it seems to me that in reality rural life has always been extremely restrictive, and hard work, especially for women. As my research proved.”

Lettie, who narrates Foxash, has an individual and idiosyncratic voice, which skilfully contributes to the development of her character as well as the world she has come from and her unease in her new home. I asked Kate how she developed Lettie’s voice.

“I did love writing in her voice. As soon as it came to me it felt very strong and familiar, and I just went with it. There is something of my grandmother in there – who was also small and bright-eyed, lively, flirtatious, and had a terribly sweet tooth which she could indulge because she and my granddad had both got false teeth fitted when they married. But I read a lot of contemporary interviews with working-class women of the period, all carefully concealing their desperation in order to keep their dignity, but it was impossible not to read between the lines and see a darker side. So Lettie’s sharpness is also bright hard refusal to acknowledge defeat, self-pity or any sort of implied inferiority.”

The darkness of the earth, both physical and metaphorical, is a recurring theme in the novel. Tommy has been a coal miner before moving to Foxash. The fecundity of the soil and those who work it is a hard-won bargain with the forces of folk magic as well as physical exertion. I wondered how the underlying sense of the uncanny informed Kate’s work and what attracted her to it. “It’s interesting you pick up on the uncanny, because actually that’s something I’m still really interested in for my current novel. I think as far as Foxash is concerned, as I said before, that I’ve always felt that country life, as well as nature, is not all haybales and gingham, it too can be red in tooth and claw. Living off the land takes you closer to life and death, and hard choices, for better or for worse. I remember the stink, watching my dad skin and gut a rabbit he had bought off the school caretaker and slit the guts by mistake. I remember him driving me home from school down a country lane, past the abattoir through runnels of bloody run off. I think I wanted to take my characters to a place where that was just life, it wasn’t extraordinary, didn’t hold any Gothic, or morbid fascination, and see what that did to them.”

I was keen to find out what Kate would be working on next: “Foxash is actually the second in a projected, very loose trilogy of the elements, which are also those that surround me here in East Anglia: water, earth and air, i.e. liquids, solids and gases. She Rises, the first, an 18th-century seafaring adventure set in Harwich, explored how liquid identity can be: how people, like water, can morph and flow according to the vessel or channels that contains them. Foxash focuses on the potentially explosive energy of people forced into close proximity, like densely packed molecules. And in the next, air, I’m trying to explore the nebulous nature of personality and relationships: how, as when walking into a cloud, the closer you get to another person the more unknowable they can remain.”

Foxash is a wonderful novel, both literary and readable, with a complex and gripping plot. Its four principal characters are strongly delineated, but I reserve a special affection for Lettie and Jean, women constrained by the conventions of their time yet all the stronger for their different modes of resistance.

Sarah Bower has authored two historical novels, The Needle in the Blood and The Book of Love, and writing as S. A. Hemmings, a contemporary psychological thriller, Erosion. Her novella, Lines and Shadows, set in the early 1960s, will be published this summer.

PUBLIC MORALS, PRIVATE TRUTH

BY LUCINDA BYATT

Exploring the Process of Literary Creation

Tan Twan Eng will be known to many for his earlier novel, The Garden of Evening Mists (2012), which won the Man Asian Literary Prize and Walter Scott Prize. Eleven years later The House of Doors (Canongate, 2023) is another masterly exploration of storytelling, exposing the gulf between society’s demands and truth, above all where love and duty clash. The book spans the early decades of the last century, moving from the British colony of Penang, in the Straits Settlements, to Doornfontein in South Africa.

Robert Hamlyn, a successful English lawyer in Penang, is visited by an old friend, the renowned author Willie Somerset Maugham, whose arrival at Cassowary House in 1921 is a salutary boost to Robert’s failing health. Lesley, his wife, is unusual in that she speaks both Hokkien and Malay and is both fascinated and initially distrustful of their house guest, who does little to hide his intimacy with his secretary, Gerald. Thousands of miles away, in London, Willie’s own marriage is on the rocks, and his financial affairs have suffered a severe setback. As a writer, Somerset Maugham garnered inspiration from the places he visited and the lives of the expats he met: one of his best-known stories, The Casuarina Tree, reflects the case of an Englishwoman, Ethel Proudlock, on trial for murder in Kuala Lumpur. Tan Twan Eng unravels this process so that when Lesley decides to tell the visiting author about her friendship with Ethel, and about the events that rocked her own marriage at the time, her dilemma and choices are also presented – perhaps intentionally –as literary inspiration.

Themes of trust and love are coupled with their opposites, betrayal and hypocrisy. The narrative structure intertwines two separate voices: like doors that swing and turn, composing and then fragmenting truth. “It’s much easier for a writer using the first-person narrative device to create an immediate connection and a powerful intimacy with the reader. But the reader’s view is limited to only what Lesley could have seen or heard or known herself. And there’s the also the question of how truthful she is.” Sometimes, Tan Twan Eng adds, experimenting is essential: “I normally know the narrative viewpoints I want to use before I start writing. With The House of Doors I experimented with the first-person device via Maugham, but ultimately, I found it too restrictive – I needed him to have a broader, more worldly and detached viewpoint for the story to work. The contrast between Lesley’s first-person viewpoint and Maugham’s third person viewpoint reveals the differing versions of what the characters purported to be the truth.”

Among the characters in The House of Doors is the revolutionary Sun Yat Sen who led to the downfall of the Qing dynasty: “My father grew up in a house in Armenian Street in Penang in the 1950s and ‘60s. He used to tell me and my sister that just a few doors away was the house in which Dr Sun Yat Sen had once lived. It was only when I was in my teens that I learned who he was, but that scrap of trivia has always nagged at the edge of my mind. Not many people seem to think it remarkable that Penang had been a cog in the revolution that brought down the ancient monarchy of China. My father died in 2013, and I’m grateful that I could pay tribute to him in my book, via this small fragment he had told me, once upon a long ago.”

I was struck by the profound sense of place in the novel, based on Tan Twan Eng’s evocative descriptions of the local customs, language and, particularly, the architecture: “One of my favourite things to do when I go to Penang,” Tan Twan Eng tells me, “is to walk for hours with no destination in mind. The narrow, colourful and noisy streets of George Town are full of old shophouses and clanhouses and temples with these gorgeous doors, but we’re losing so many of these irreplaceable buildings to development and so-called progress.” The natural environment, too, lingers in the mind long after reading the final page: whether it is the fiery blue phosphorescence, or the “cloud caravels” and the stars of the Karoo. “As a reader I’m attracted to novels with a powerful sense of place and time and atmosphere,” Tan Twan Eng states. “The setting must be almost character by itself. In my writing I wanted to create these sensations for the reader.” Plants and trees are named throughout, some familiar others less so: raintrees, angsana trees, bromeliads and frangipani. Local folklore is also added, as in the case of the casuarina tree, whose leaves are reminiscent of the cassowary’s feathers. “The stories about the trees I unearthed from my reading and research”, Tan Twan Eng tells me. “The anecdote about the casuarina tree, how it whispers secrets to the listener, I found it in Maugham’s preface to The Casuarina Tree. When I first read it, I wondered, ‘Where did he hear that from?’ I decided to have some fun by letting Lesley tell it to him. I enjoy the idea of how stories travel around in loops. We’re all echoes of other echoes.”

Recalling a phrase in the book when Willie tells Lesley that he writes best as the conduit for a story that demands to be told, I ask Tan Twan Eng about his writing process. “There were numerous moments during the writing of The House of Doors when I came very close to giving up. The book just wasn’t working, it wasn’t cohering, it was all muddled. But I kept chipping away at it, rewriting it endlessly, because the story – the many stories in the novel – demanded and clamoured to be told. I couldn’t drop it, couldn’t abandon it and move on to write another novel. It wouldn’t allow me to.” This is confirmed when Tan Twan Eng tells me that even one of the most intriguing plot devices, the glyph or hamsa used by Somerset Maugham, came to him as he was rewriting one day: “That’s what I love most about the writing process – how totally disparate, unconnected elements can merge and create something original. At its heart, The House of Doors is really about the act and process of literary creation.”

Lucinda Byatt is Features Editor for HNR, and also a translator and historian. She blogs occasionally at A World of Words [https://textline.wordpress.com/]

ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS to do when I go to Penang is to walk for hours with no destination in mind.

REVIEWS

ONLINE EXCLUSIVES

Due to an ever-increasing number of books for review and space constraints within HNR, some selected fiction reviews and all nonfiction reviews are now published as online exclusives. To view these reviews and much more, please visit www.historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews

ANCIENT EGYPT DEATH OF A POET

Keith Moray, Sapere, 2022, $11.99/£9.99, pb, 334pp, 9781800557192

This first mystery in a new series takes us on an immersive visit to third-century BCE Egypt, a place the author shows us to be far removed from our times and customs. The Greek Ptolemys are trying to consolidate power by adopting Egyptian customs—specifically, the king marrying his sister! Resistance and resentment to this change are at the heart of this mystery. In fact, the eponymous poet has composed particularly offensive (to the ruling couple) satirical verses that result in his death in the opening pages.

Events are described mainly through the perspective of Hanufer, the newly arrived and newly appointed Egyptian Superintendent of Police. We experience places such as the Library of Alexandria vicariously as three successive murders occur, involving scholars related to the library. The poet’s verses are found at the murder site in each case, suggesting his revenge (in person or as a ghost) as a motive.

Hanufer doesn’t show much of his hand as events progress, which is both good, as there is so much of Ptolemaic Egypt to absorb, and bad, because the ultimate resolution came out of the blue for this reader. Is the author playing fair? A little more character development (especially for the women) would be good in subsequent novels in the series. Well worth reading on a Sunday afternoon!

Kishore Krishna

CLASSICAL MEMOIRS OF SPURIUS

D. László Conhaim, Broken Arrow Press, 2023, $16.99, pb, 322pp, 9780984317547

The author takes the considerable narrative skills he’s developed in his tales of the American West and shines them on the Roman Republic of the 2nd century BCE. The story is told as a first-person remembrance of Spurius, a consul of Rome, an historical figure who is known for his struggle against Hannibal’s famous invasion force. Here, in this fictional tale, Spurius turns detective. He brings his

talent, ideals, and honor to investigate the cult of the wine god Bacchus. There is an easy tolerance of Bacchanalians and their good-time orgies celebrating excess. But they are far from harmless. It starts through personal involvement as a favor for a family friend who thinks his mother’s been victimized. Soon Spurius uncovers plots to amass wealth through blackmail and usurping of land and property of new cult members. Finally, he’s convinced the existence of the republic itself is at stake. Sound familiar?

Spurius’ Rome is in danger from without and within, and from its own apathy. The edge of seat drama combines with worthy scholarship and an upright, thoughtful hero, to make this novel an appealing reading experience for historical fiction fans.

Eileen Charbonneau

ATALANTA

Jennifer Saint, Wildfire, 2023, £16.99, hb, 368pp, 9781472292155 / Flatiron, 2023, $28.99, hb, 304pp, 9781250855572

Atalanta sets out the tale of the only female Argonaut, starting with the abandoned baby raised by bears, and growing up in the company of Artemis, the Goddess of the Hunt. At the behest of Artemis, Atalanta joins Jason in his quest for the Golden Fleece on the Argo. On their return from the voyage, she joins the hunt for the boar in Calydon, is reunited with her father, and asserts her independence once more.

The book describes the development of Atalanta as a supreme hunter and relates the events of the voyage and subsequent adventures. Around this narrative, Jennifer Saint weaves in the additional burdens of Atalanta having to prove herself to the crew of (male) heroes, balance her promises to Artemis, and struggle to preserve her place in the folklore of the Argonauts. These perspectives bring the story to life, adding depth and colour to the narrative. A thoroughly enjoyable read.

Sean Churchfield

CLYTEMNESTRA’S BIND

Susan C. Wilson, Neem Tree Press, 2023, £14.99, hb, 272pp, 9781911107590

Clytemnestra’s Bind is, we are told, the first in a projected trilogy featuring the famous dispute between the Mycenaeans and the Trojans. It unfolds here in a bitter first-person narrative, by the wounded and wounding wife of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra herself.

This relentlessly savage novel is powerfully written. Brutality is unflinchingly and convincingly described. The actions and reactions of the characters are, in their own contexts, both logical and plausible. Punishment is violent, bloody, and often undeserved. The evocation of Mycenae and its surroundings is memorably well done, as are

the domestic arrangements within the citadel itself, with vivid descriptions of banquets, rituals and ceremonial vestments, all dimly lit by hearth fires and flickering torches.

Provoked by the “abduction” of Helen, Agamemnon prepares to embark for Troy, still persisting in his brutality to Clytemnestra, whose ambition for revenge for past events, has, until now, prevented her from encouraging the support of the worthy Aegisthus, whose allegiance to her she finally accepts—foreshadowing a resolution which will presumably be explored in the forthcoming two novels, to which I, for one, look forward.

Clytemnestra, fearing for the survival of her three children, continues desperately to impose her will on events over which she has very little control. She attempts to discipline Electra, who resents her mother’s authority, resulting in an uneasy truce between them. This is possibly the least effective section of the novel, but even here the unique mood is well sustained.

The death of Iphigenia, a pawn in the hands of her unscrupulous father’s military game, devastates Clytemnestra and strengthens her determination to punish him for his monstrous crimes.

And here we leave them. Being part of a trilogy, there is no resolution at the close of this novel but, cleverly, enough has been explored and established to make us want more.

Julia Stoneham

1ST CENTURY ACCORDING TO HER

Maciej Hen (trans. Anna Blasiak), Holland House, 2022, £9.99, pb, 240pp, 9781910688663

If you could interview the mother of Yehoshua (Jesus), what might you ask? Maciej Hen envisions this in his novel, as 100-year-old Mariamne bustles about offering food and wine to her guest. At times she is emotional and humble, at times humorous, inquisitive and scathing. She is always filled with pride for her Jewish ancestry and its broader historical context, about which she is knowledgeable and vocal. Hers are the deeply moving recollections of a bereaved mother whose child’s life was severed mid-stream and they spoke to me with an ancient yet modern wisdom.

Yehoshua saw himself primarily as a doctor, a natural healer. When he spoke, he reasoned aloud rather than pontificating. He was kind and humble, he enjoyed people, and communal meals were contributed to by everyone. The change followed the beheading of Yochanan Immerser (John the Baptist), as he became more authoritative and demanding, worrying those who loved him. Mariamne’s son is not the Son of God, but she recalls that problems arose when his followers named him King of Israel, an affectation Yehoshua never used for himself. Mariamne speaks fondly of Yehoshua’s abiding friendship with Yehuda Yissakhari (Judas Iscariot), whom she looked upon as a confidant.

Set in Galilee, around 73/74 CE, the book’s

huge cast of characters is daunting, with multiple names and nicknames, with more than one sometimes used for the same person within a couple of sentences. But this gives authenticity to Mariamne’s conversational banter. Perhaps it took me longer than others to translate the Jewish names and terminology, but the history is all there, just presented with a different slant. Written as a novel-length interview with questions implied in the answers, it requires focus to absorb the massive amount of researched detail contained within its pages. It’s a slow and measured read, a literary work which I found extremely rewarding. A glossary and map would have been helpful.

Fiona Alison

EMPIRE’S EDGE

Damion Hunter, Canelo, 2023, £9.99, pb, 384pp, 9781800326699

85 CE: following a successful campaign backing Tuathal Techtmar’s rightful claim as Hibernia’s High King, Centurion Faustus Valerianus returns to Isca Silurum. From there he is reassigned to the bleak and unforgiving fortress of Castra Borea, in the far north of Caledones lands, his reward for not having complied with certain people’s hopes he would get himself killed in Hibernia. Britain stirs rebelliously as the peacekeepers are siphoned off for far-distant Empire defenses, and Faustus is tasked with quelling Cornovii uprisings in the wake of Agricola’s departure from Northern Britain. Faustus’ widowed sister, Silvia, arrives with her six-year-old son in tow. His reluctant new role as paterfamilias leaves Faustus in a quandary, complicated further by his deep yearning for his Orcades lover, Einian. Do the women have the fortitude to endure army life?

Empire’s Edge is a thrilling four-year adventure of warfare, family, and love on Britain’s frontiers. Hunter’s narrative supports a large cast of diverse characters. Faustus is a multifaceted individual who straddles two worlds: ancient Britain through his Silurian mother and Rome through his deceased father, whose shade persistently haunts him as a reminder of his father’s disappointment in him. Faustus is a fine soldier, a skilled negotiator, and a leader men will willingly follow into battle, but Hunter does not limit him there, instead, defining a man struggling with his conscience of family, duty, loyalty, and responsibility.

The second in the Borderlands series is everything it promises to be. Battle scenes are well-drawn without being overly graphic. This vivid tale ventures into legend drawn from the mythology of ancient Britain, and an element of the supernatural, weaving a skilled narrative around the scant facts available. The novel stands alone, although I would have liked to better understand Faustus’ connection with his friend, Constantia. Richly painted, this will appeal to readers of M. C. Scott, Adrian Goldsworthy, and Conn Iggulden.

Fiona Alison

4TH CENTURY SPARROW

James Hynes, Picador, 2023, £16.99, hb, 464pp, 9781529092394

Somewhere in Britannia, in the dying days of the Roman Empire, an equally decaying man recalls his youth. He names himself Jacob, but it is only one of many names, because the name of a slave, like everything else, belongs to his master.

In his earliest memory in Carthagena Nova (Cartagena, Spain), he has no name. Cowering in the shadows of a kitchen, as an angry woman wields a knife, he answers to the name Pusus: boy. It’s all anyone can tell him. He was bought with no name, his parentage unknown. Jacob takes time to describe his memories. The cluttered kitchen, its doorway ever open to a garden scented with herbs and the latrine. The tavern, also opening onto the garden, where noisy, frightening men drink, sing, argue and fight. And upstairs, ‘wolves’ –enslaved prostitutes– labour in their cells. One of them, Euterpe, emerges into the garden to tell the boy stories. The kitchen, tavern and garden are the boundaries of the boy’s whole life. On the day he is sent into the street to fetch water, he is terrified. But he gets his first job working as a water carrier. As Jacob explores further, the city is revealed in dazzling colours, rank smells, and swarming crowds. A city of violence and luxury: of power and repression. Of emerging Christianity, and casual murder. Like the lives of the slaves, this book is filled with pain. Jacob’s story explores what it is to be a slave: the property of another. A slave has nothing. He feels nothing: he can have no friends. Even his own body is not his own: not even the most intimate, private parts. Except that, as a living, breathing human, Jacob shows us what made Rome wealthy. This book is powerfully told and deeply felt, but not for prudish readers.

Helen Johnson

9TH CENTURY THE QUEEN OF HEL

Johanna Wittenberg, Shellback Studio, 2023, $13.99, pb, 300pp, 9781734566444

The Nordic saga The Queen of Hel (Book 5 of The Norsewomen) continues the mythological adventures of historical figures and legends from Norway and Ireland in 824 CE. The epic tale begins when Ragnhild, a female warrior, travels to Tromøy to retrieve the queen’s necklace that she secretly stole from her husband’s cousin, a king in Ireland. To avoid a rift in her husband’s family, she must return the pendant before it is discovered missing. Ragnhild learns Åsa has beheaded and buried the former evil queen with the gold chain clutched in her hand. As a result of Ragnhild digging up the corpse to recover the powerful necklace, a deadly disease unleashes over the land. Desperate to find a cure, Åsa must travel to Hel and find the queen from the

mound to lift the curse. But no mortal has ever returned from the dark, underground world.

Author Johanna Wittenberg’s narrative prose is reminiscent of the rich tradition of oral storytelling during the Nordic heroic age. Mythical elements are woven into Åsa’s odyssey as she rides on horseback through Niflheim—the land of freezing mist—to reach Hel. Vivid sensory descriptions of the Otherworld and the travails Åsa must overcome are cinematic and epic in scope. The saga not only sweeps you into the mystical realms of the afterlife, it historically depicts Nordic culture, oral traditions, and seafaring adventures to Ireland, where Celtic religion and Christianity clash. Glossaries of characters, terms, and gods and heroes help readers navigate through the tale.

The Queen of Hel seamlessly weaves elements of Norse and Celtic mythology into an epic Viking adventure that will enthrall readers with its evocative and imaginative storytelling.

Linnea Tanner

11TH CENTURY

THE KING’S JEWEL

Elizabeth Chadwick, Sphere, 2023, £20.00, hb, 465pp, 9780751577600

Bestselling and award-winning author Elizabeth Chadwick is a mistress of the pen, known for her meticulously researched novels focusing on royalty and nobles in the Middle Ages. Her latest featuring Nesta, an 11thcentury princess of Wales, is another example of her superb writing, a book I couldn’t put down.

Nesta’s comfortable life changes in a moment in 1093 when her father, Prince Rhys of Deheubarth, is killed in a raid against the hated Normans and she is held hostage in the Earl of Shrewsbury’s household. There, she comes to the attention of ruthless and lascivious English Prince Henry and is forced to become one of his many mistresses. Henry becomes King and Nesta bears him a son. She is relieved when Henry tires of her and thrilled when he says she can return to her childhood home of Carew. However, this comes with a condition: she must marry Gerald FitzWalter, an ambitious Norman knight.

Their marriage is one of compromise, but then Welsh prince Owain ap Cadwgn appears. Headstrong and handsome Owain wants Nesta and hatches a plan for them to rule together. Nesta wants Owain too – he represents Welshness and passion, but will she agree to overthrow Gerald, who has shown

her nothing but respect? And what of Gerald himself: has he anticipated the plot, and will he act first?

The novel traces complex English and Welsh politics and what men and women will do to survive. Chadwick’s characters and story leap off the page, bringing alive a fascinating period of history.

Kate Pettigrew

12TH CENTURY

THE GUILD OF SALT AND THE KING’S MESSENGER

Robin Isard, Anywhere But Here Publications, 2022, $9.99, pb, 263pp, 9780994816481

Set in 1173, our story begins with Ralph as he agrees to accompany Father Geoffrey and deliver a message about the Earl of Leicester’s secret invasion. The king’s army must be informed, but they’re in the north countering the Scots. With many unfamiliar eyes and ears on the road, they must tread carefully. Along the way, they encounter Esme and her maid Muriel, who are running from an abusive soon-to-be husband. Esme hopes to reclaim her inheritance kept at the Stewart’s House in Lynn—the same place Father Geoffrey’s band is traveling. Unfortunately, Esme’s deed has been indentured, one piece with the bishop and one with her cruel betrothed who happens to be closer on her heels than anyone realizes.

Stated metaphorically nowadays, “don’t shoot/kill the messenger” was first expressed as far back as 442 BCE by Sophocles in Antigone. In Plutarch’s Lives, a messenger delivering painful news has his head cut off. The tension is built up early as a wounded messenger arrives where Ralph and Father Geoffrey reside. The author does a splendid job setting the historical scenery throughout the journey. The characters and their relationships are the heart of this novel. The women can be slightly catty at times, but overall, each character’s own path to self-discovery drives the plot. From hearing a choir sing in a church for the first time to improvising an escape from a high-seas pirate attack, the way the characters experience new things is gorgeously realized. The historical details are delightful and immersive. I look forward to more by this author. Recommended!

J. Lynn Else

SACRIFICE

Christine Jordan, Bloodhound, 2022, £8.99, pb, 386pp, 9781504082907

Gloucester, 1168: Zev is in love with Arlette, but she is promised to a man of higher status in the city’s close-knit Jewish community. Then the futures of all of them are upended by the discovery of the murdered nine-year-old Harold. The child’s body is nailed to a cross and bears the marks of torture, elements that mimic not the factual details of the murder of the child William of Norwich in 1144, but of the highly coloured account of William’s death by the Benedictine Thomas of Monmouth – proof,

if any were needed, that fake news is not a new thing, nor is its power to deliberately incite violence. In both these historical cases the local Jewish community was blamed, in early instances of the “blood libel” that persisted even to the case of Mendel Beilis of Kyiv in 1913.

Jordan’s depiction of a mediaeval Jewish community in England in the years prior to expulsion in 1290 is masterly, and the orchestrated repercussions of the murder on its innocent members are terrifying. Occasionally Jordan lapses into the sensational. Thus a rape is regrettably described from the perpetrator’s point of view, thus bordering on the voyeuristic; the victim wouldn’t have been thinking about her breasts being “pert” or about being the possessor of a “tender virginal opening”.

In this thriller, there are interests at work more powerful than this Jewish community, no matter how prosperous some of its members. Who stands to gain from the persecution of the family of Moses le Riche? Those who owe him money, or those astute enough to want to exploit the wealth that comes to the shrine of a martyr, especially when poor Harold turns out to be the illegitimate child of someone very important indeed?

Katherine Mezzacappa

14TH CENTURY THE ALEWIVES

Elizabeth R. Andersen, Haeddre Press, 2023, $14.99, pb, 264pp, 9781737454434

It took but a page or two for me to be fully invested in Gritta, one of the protagonists, in this entertaining read. It’s 1353, and Gritta is a survivor of the Great Pestilence. Miraculously (or not; there are moments when Gritta is not so sure), so are all her twelve children. But the town of Colmar has been badly hit by the Black Death, the substantially reduced number of inhabitants plagued by memories of this very dark time.

Gritta’s best friend, Appel, has lost husband, children, grandson—well, everyone, including her servant boy. As the widow of a tanner, Appel is reasonably well off—surprisingly so, thinks Gritta, who has her own suspicions as to how Appel makes ends meet. Then there’s Efi: young and pretty and with the brains of a newt, Efi becomes the third in Gitta’s and Appel’s venture to improve their finances. Together, the three ladies start brewing ale.

Colmar is not only recovering from the plague; it is also afflicted by a thief who is stealing valuables from the Dominican abbey. Plus, there are all those women who end up murdered. What began as a business venture soon becomes something of a sleuthing exercise as Gritta, Appel, Efi and the endearing Franciscan Friar Wikerius start unravelling just who the criminal is.

All this action and intrigue is set against a vividly described historical setting (cabbage leaves as coolers is a new one) painting a picture of a harsh life, but nonetheless a life. Gritta and her companions have learned the hard way just how ephemeral life is, which may

be why they are so determined to build better future for themselves. Bravo to the alewives, I say. And bravo to Ms. Andersen for delivering such an enjoyable read!

Anna Belfrage

JUSTICE DELAYED, JUSTICE DENIED

P. A. De Voe, Drum Tower Press, 2022, $14.99, pb, 201pp, 9781942667230

Late 14th-century Ming China is a rigidly stratified society where even the marginalised are organised and subsumed into the greater whole. Family loyalty, connections and influence can cross boundaries, and rights and obligations often conflict with personal honour and prudent self-interest.

Xiang-hua is a women’s doctor whose vocation brings her into contact with people from all walks of life. When a body is discovered at a newly opened inn, she is called upon to act as coroner while her friend and distant cousin, the scholar Shu-chang, is appointed to lead the investigation into the death. The trail leads from the powerful beggars’ guild to local gang leaders and influential families who have the ear of the visiting magistrate, a person with immense authority and power. As they pursue their investigations, the cousins become mired in a swamp of intrigue and corruption where they are finally faced with a crisis of conscience. Xiang-hua and Shu-chang, who are not always in agreement, must decide what personal price they are willing to pay for justice to be done.

In this insightful depiction of China under the Ming Dynasty, the personal struggles of the two protagonists are as gripping as the original mystery. The somewhat inconclusive resolution leaves the reader wondering where this admirable series will take us next.

Catherine Kullmann

THE FLAMES OF HERESY

Jonathan Lunn, Canelo, 2023, £12.99, pb, 320pp, 9781804363386

When he arrives in Bordeaux in the summer of 1356, intent on taking back the captaincy of the freebooting Company of the Dragon, English archer Martin Kemp promptly finds himself in trouble, and in the hands of Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince. It could be worse, though, because the prince is an old acquaintance, and has a perfect mission for Kemp: escort the arrogant Sir Maurice Berkeley into (mostly French) Gascony, find the Company of the Dragon, and persuade it to join Edward’s army. The really good news? Should Kemp find his way back to the captaincy in the process, he is welcome to it. On the other hand, however, Berkeley is pursuing an agenda, and the Company is, of all places, in Cazoulat, where Kemp’s friend Nompar de Savignac has plenty of trouble of his own. A hunted fugitive, after his father was burnt at the stake on false charges of heresy at the hands of the evil Count of Targères, Nompar is still keen on helping Kemp. Can the friends recover Martin’s

captaincy and Nompar’s lands – while still doing the Prince’s bidding?

This is another colourful and highly entertaining adventure in a very enjoyable series, full of derring-do, and peopled with engaging heroes, truly villainous villains, and a few nicely plucky women. The historical note at the end also deserves a special mention.

Chiara Prezzavento

15TH CENTURY

OMENS OF DEATH

Richard Kurti, Sapere, 2023, $11.99/C$13.99, pb, 327pp, 9781800558939

Kurti has chosen 1497 Rome in which to base the first of his Basilica Diaries Medieval Mysteries, which incorporate major historical events. In the late 15th century, the church is stewed in the corruption of the Borgia pope, Alexander VI (Sextus), who is a well-drawn rogue. Cristina, a brilliant scholar, and her brother Domenico, in charge of Vatican security, are a well-matched sleuthing duo, although Cristina’s intellect is far superior and easier to admire. She has what we might call a form of autism today, and an antisocial propensity for closeting herself away in her library. Momentum picks up quickly as the perpetrator of a grisly reverse-crucifixion of a known debauchee, mimicking the death of St. Peter, must be quickly apprehended. Two unusual crimes follow, both faith-related. Alexander is sure he is out of favour with God for his proposed rebuilding of St. Peter’s Basilica. The cardinals think God is punishing them for electing Rodrigo Borgia in the first place.

Renaissance Italy is a riveting period, resplendent with painters, sculptors, writers, and poets burning with a thirst for knowledge and enlightenment. Part two of the novel stalls, with events and dialogue out of sync with part one. Inconvenient interruptions in Cristina’s and her servant Isra’s journey to the Benedictine monastery feels like an infodump, and the narrative might benefit from being just that―a journey to a monastery for the purpose of information-gathering. The latter part of the book returns to breakneck speed as Cristina seeks out new angles. One concern: it isn’t clear what Cristina’s credentials are in allowing her to question the cardinals and enter the morgue to perform dissections and autopsies seemingly without sanction. That said, the series has intriguing potential, and I hope will reveal more about Cristina as it progresses.

Fiona Alison

RELUCTANT PILGRIM

ffiona Perigrinor, Anglepoise books, 2022, $3.99, ebook, 317pp, 9781916309951

Margery Kempe is credited with having written the first English autobiography. Not that she wrote it herself—she did not know how to. Instead, she dictated the exciting events of her life to her confessor. Margery

is the protagonist of Reluctant Pilgrim—or, rather, she’s the sun around which the real protagonist, the anonymous narrator, orbits. In fact, everyone in Margery’s life orbits around her, which is as it should be according to this exceedingly self-centred woman.

The narrator is Margery’s maidservant. She is more to Margery than that, but this is not something Margery is willing to acknowledge. In difference to Margery, her maidservant can read and write, skills she conceals, as in these intolerant times writing and reading can potentially lead to you being accused of heresy.

Margery Kempe is deliciously dislikeable and complicated: she is totally uninterested in her immediate family, expects all the limelight to fall on her but is undeniably devout. So devout she takes vows of chastity and departs on holy pilgrimage, leaving behind her distraught husband—but not her maidservant.

Ms Perigrinor takes the reader along on quite the road trip through 15th-century Europe and beyond, presenting us with package tour trips (I kid you not!) to the Holy Land, pilgrims of all sorts (including some who feature in a contemporary book about pilgrims), a brief appearance of a certain ploughman named Piers, and a parade of commoners from all walks of life.

Reluctant Pilgrim is packed with details about medieval life, elegantly inserted in the vivid and beautifully written first-person narrative. Yes, the first few pages were hard to get through, but I urge would-be readers to press on and discover just what an absolute gem this book is. Brava, Ms. Perigrinor, brava!

Anna Belfrage

16TH CENTURY

THE KING’S INQUISITOR

Tonya Ulynn Brown, Late November Literary, 2022, $15.95, pb, 369pp, 9781737556145

After a dangerous and eventful journey to bring his new bride to Scotland, James VI is convinced there are witches at work in his kingdom. He appoints young William Broune as his Inquisitor and also finds him a beautiful and wealthy prospective wife in the Lady Ruthven. But William soon realises the role of Inquisitor is both dangerous and a constant tussle with his conscience. He meets Ailsa when she’s trying to help the imprisoned witches. She challenges William to follow his heart and do the right thing, and soon he’s drawn to her rather than Lady Ruthven. This angers the king and places William in further difficulties because he’s also resisting the king’s orders to find the witches guilty. And Ailsa has her own troubles, for the nasty Baillie Seton is determined to make her his bride.

This is a second in series (after The Queen’s Almoner) related in the first person, with chapters alternating between William and Ailsa. The voices are each distinctive enough that it was surprisingly easy to move from one character to the other. I also hadn’t read

the first in series, but any references to what happened before are done with a light touch, and there was no difficulty in following the story. The author brilliantly draws us into Edinburgh of the 1590s, and I could see, hear, smell, and sense its dark streets. She is to be particularly commended for resisting slipping into a 21st-century perspective: William and Ailsa, for all that they don’t want the poor witches tortured and burned, never doubt there are witches in their world. All in all, an excellent read and highly recommended.

V. E. H. Masters

KEEPER OF THE QUEEN’S JEWELS

Adrienne Dillard, GreyLondon Press, 2022, $14.99, pb, 332pp, 9781958725009

Henry VIII of England married Jane Seymour nine days after beheading Anne Boleyn. Not much is known of Jane except that she bore the king his only legitimate son and died almost immediately afterwards. This novel recreates Jane’s story; it begins with her questionable marriage and includes a few poignant flashbacks to the time when she served Henry’s two previous wives. Dillard has a genius for developing character. Jane is a complex heroine who is wary of her position and sometimes conflicting responsibilities to the king, the Seymour clan, her courtiers, and her co-religionists. She walks a fine line, especially since Henry reminds her frequently of her responsibility to provide him with an heir, and she is ever mindful of what happened to the queens who failed him. This tension animates the plot action beautifully.

Equally well developed is Jane’s maid, her keeper of the jewels, Margery Horsman Lyster, who has her own ties to Henry’s first two wives, which she must weigh against her growing affection and sympathy for Jane. Margery also has a secret mission—another intriguing source of plot tension.

Dillard has done her historical research well. The novel also includes expertly-crafted cameo appearances of the young Princesses Mary and Elizabeth and the lurking spymaster courtier Thomas Cromwell. Fans of Philippa Gregory will love this vibrant novel!

Joanne Vickers

OF JUDGEMENT FALLEN

Steven Veerapen, Birlinn, 2023, $14.95/£9.99, pb, 384pp, 9781846976292

This is the second of the Tudor Mysteries featuring Anthony Blanke, a young trumpeter and groom employed by Cardinal Wolsey, King Henry VIII’s chief minister. London, spring 1523. As the King readies for war with France and Wolsey prepares to open Parliament, a series of assassinations threatens to destabilize their plans. Blanke is commissioned to solve the murders, but he can’t trust anyone. He spends the novel trying to avoid being caught in the machinations of the great men of the era until he finds himself accused. Can he prove his innocence and discover the

real killer? From the very beginning, we are immersed in a richly detailed world. This kind of disorientation can make for a pleasurable reading experience, but I was glad to refer to the ‘dramatis personae’ helpfully provided by the author. We are thrown into the action through Anthony’s first-person account.

The opening chapter is a bravura set piece as we journey with him through Richmond Palace, whilst he spies on Lord Henry Percy for Wolsey. This convincingly introduces us to a bleakly dark Tudor London, and we know we are in safe hands. It’s reminiscent of the long single take opening of Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. The world building continues to be richly detailed and mainly serves the dictates of the plot. The first half is a little too slow in getting to the main jeopardy for our hero, but the story is worth sticking with, as the bodies pile up, the mystery deepens, and we speed to the surprising denouement. If you enjoy an historical mystery that demonstrates a deep understanding of its period, then this is for you.

Michael Lynes

HENRY VIII: The Heart and the Crown (UK) / THE KING’S PLEASURE (US)

Alison Weir, Headline Review, 2023, £25.00, hb, 640pp, 9781472278098 / Ballantine, 2023, $30.00, hb, 608pp, 9780593355060

Alison Weir has already told this famous story from the viewpoint of each of the six wives of Henry VIII. Now here is the story of Henry told from Henry’s perspective. It is an entirely conventional rendition, going over all the events of Henry’s life and using known quotes as much as possible. This is not a criticism; the background research is formidable. The dramatis personae alone is twelve pages long, and some characters have been left out. Of course, Henry Tudor is the very epitome of the unreliable protagonist, but the author uses the view of events through his prism of passion and self-justification to cleverly illustrate Henry’s motivations and character. He comes over as proud, vain, avaricious, intelligent but impulsive, devout but dutiful, and, in the true sense of the words, a hopeless romantic. He loves chivalry. He loves the idea of love. Tragically he loves, or at least cares for, all of his wives but never actually falls in love with any of them.

This is an impressive piece of work and very subtly done. The steady alteration of his attitude to illness and death, from terrified

dislike in his early years to grudging acceptance in his winter days is particularly noteworthy.

Martin Bourne

17TH CENTURY THE DISENCHANTMENT

Celia Bell, Pantheon, 2023, $28.00, hb, 368pp, 9780593317174 / Serpent’s Tail, 2023, £16.99, hb, 368pp, 9781788169929

During l’Affaire des Poisons in 1680 Paris, random circumstance draws five people into a web of murder and deception: Baronne Marie Catherine de Cardonnoy; her maid, Jeanne; Victoire Rose de Bourbon, the baronne’s lover; Alain Lavoie, a portrait painter; and Nicolas de la Reynie, lieutenant general of Paris. The novel’s slow beginning, with its seemingly disparate events, is cleverly deceptive. The murder of a high-ranking Versailles courtier draws La Reynie into the baronne’s orbit, whereby Jeanne and Lavoie also fall under suspicion. Innocence is elusive in a world where everyone is guilty of something.

The investigation is central to the novel. The search for one murderer broadens into La Reynie’s ongoing hunt for the many poisoners, fortune-tellers, abortionists and magicians who thrive in the seedy Paris underworld. His determination to cleanse Paris and Versailles of the festering corruption beneath the opulent façade is terrifying. Before long, everyone is sucked into the vortex and lying and pointing fingers, hoping to divert La Reynie’s gaze. Jeanne is not what she seems, keeps her secrets well, and lies with ease. She is the most intriguing and wily character in the novel, aside from La Reynie, and she even manages to outwit him.

Ghosts and shadows infuse Bell’s enigmatic tale with elements of the supernatural, while Marie Catherine’s allegorical fairy tales tell of feminist self-determination. Some events hinge on Marie Catherine and Victoire’s illicit desire, but I didn’t experience the anticipated chemistry. This is a tightly plotted, atmospheric and moody read, full of dark malevolence and a tangled web of complex relationships, but the daring, cross-dressing Victoire’s affectionate overtures seem mild and become lost in the wider events as Marie Catherine seeks help in unexpected places. Readers in search of a steamy romance may be disappointed. However, once the pace picks up, this is a riveting debut.

Fiona Alison

THE WITCHES OF VARDØ

Anya Bergman, Manilla Press, 2023, £14.99, hb, 400pp, 9781786581914

In 1662, Anna Rhodius, former mistress of the King of Denmark, is exiled to Vardøhus prison on Vardø island in northeastern Norway. Shortly after her arrival, Zigri Sigvaldsdatter is thrown into the witches’ hole in the prison courtyard, along with two others, including Zigri’s cousin. Anna is ordered by the governor to obtain their confessions, thereby allowing a trial and execution. Ingeborg, the eldest

of Zigri’s two daughters, is determined to rescue her mother, accused of ‘fornicating with the devil’. Traveling with her wilful cousin, Maren, herself a feared witch’s daughter, they cross the dangerous strait to Vardø. The women fight a system heavily weighted against them, and Maren urges Ingeborg to trust that men’s fear and ignorance of them is the power they must harness.

Anna fills her time with mournful regret, speaking to ‘my king’ in a series of letters through which we share her life. She has been historically blamed for the events of 1662-1663, but her moral conflict is drawn sympathetically here. Points of view alternate between Anna and Ingeborg. Zigri and the other women are accused of consorting with the Dark Lord, but with no shortage of personal vendettas and high-handed moral agendas, the reader wonders: who is the devil in this menacing charade?

The tale is unrelentingly dark, born of ice and restless seas, wind and storm. Colours are muted and grey, tinged with the eerie blue of bone-chilling cold. A work of occult symbolism, ancient myth and allegory, the novel sheds light on society’s manipulation of those who do not fit the mold. It was researched and written with the intention of returning agency to the twenty women who were unjustly accused and murdered in this real-life witch-hunt, and Bergman has more than achieved her goal. Vividly told in graphic detail and steeped in atmosphere, The Witches of Vardø is heartwrenching, with an explosive ending, all of which will resonate long after the pages are closed.

Fiona Alison

THE EAST INDIAN

Brinda Charry, Scribner, 2023, $28.00, hb, 272pp, 9781668004524 / Scribe UK, 2023, £14.99, hb, 272pp, 9781914484575

The author, a Renaissance scholar, fills an important gap in colonial American history by allowing us to see 1630s Virginia through the eyes of an émigré from what was then called “East India.” Inspired by a single brief mention of an indentured servant named Toby in the “headright” rolls of a Jamestown

landowner, and also by the brief appearance of the “little Indian Boy” in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Charry creates a memorable narrator. Her Toby, a Tamil boy, journeys from the Coromandel eastern coast of India through London and on to Virginia as an orphaned child, surviving thanks to his wits, his fluency in English, and the fact that no one in the black-and-white world of AngloAmerica quite knows what to make of him.

Through Toby’s eyes, the reader experiences the idyllic beauty of the Southern Indian coast just before it succumbs to the control of English colonialism. His fascination with English language and culture leads him to seek his fortune in the land of his barely known English father. His stay in England is ironically brief, however, as he’s impressed into a form of indentured servitude indistinguishable from slavery and transported to the fledgling colony of Jamestown.

His adventures follow a predictable pattern of loss and resilience, but Toby is original thanks to his insatiable curiosity and his unquenchable kindness of heart. This is a coming-of-age story whose narrator loses any sense of naïveté early on, but whose essential humanity is inspiring.

Readers will appreciate the gorgeous prose with which the humans and the natural setting of Virginia are described, and will keep reading eagerly to see whether Toby’s dreams of freedom and of becoming a healer will be realized.

Kristen McDermott

THE MAIDEN

Kate Foster, Mantle, 2023, £14.99, hb, 384pp, 9781529091755

In 1679, Lady Christian Nimmo stabbed her lover, Lord James Forrester, to death and was sentenced to ‘kiss the Maiden’, the guillotine which rose against the Edinburgh skyline. Setting the book over the year leading up to her trial, Kate Foster examines what might have led a well-to-do, married lady to risk everything, and then rid herself of her lover in such bloody fashion.

During her neighbourly visits to James’s invalid wife, the naïve young Christian falls under his spell, never fully understanding why he chooses her over her prettier sister. James is outwardly respectable gentry, but wallows in lewdness, frequents brothels, debauches his maid, Oriana, and keeps a whore, Violet, as his mistress, locked within the castle tower, where he hoards his collection of sexually explicit art. As Christian falls desperately in lust, driven by James’s passion, his lies and his flattery, she realises it is the long chase which enthrals him. Once the prey succumbs, his interest wanes. Violet and Christian never meet but become inextricably entangled in their mutual jealousy.

Christian, Violet and Oriana share a tacit understanding, known only to women ill-used by ruthless men, as society turns its back at a time when public shaming—the branks,

the repentant stool—was common. All three are given voice, and all are sympathetically drawn. The story moves between Christian’s and Violet’s lives, Christian’s imprisonment, and the trial. Chapters conclude with heavily-biased broadside editorials, visiting scandalous revelations upon the populace, which enhance what is already a wellgrounded historical narrative. This is a thrilling revenge tragedy, atmospheric, compelling and delivering everything a good historical novel should.

Fiona Alison

THE DEAD MEN

J. C. Harvey, Allen & Unwin, 2023, £18.99, hb, 586pp, 9781838953447

The Dead Men follows directly from the author’s excellent first novel, The Silver Wolf, which introduced Jack Fiskardo. The novel opens in the summer of 1630. The Thirty Years War is in full swing. Captain Jack Fiskardo and his company of scouts (discoverers) has landed on the Pomeranian coast with the Swedish army ready to move into the heart of Germany. The story moves from Germany to London, Paris, and Prague through to the river Elbe, while Jack seizes every opportunity presented by his scouting role to pursue his sworn enemy, Carlo Fantom, acquire a fortune, make new friends and enemies and generally cause havoc. But just who are the Dead Men?

With a taut plot and strong believable characters, the story races along. A big novel in every sense, this is a totally enjoyable read. It can be read as a standalone, but, if you get the chance, read The Silver Wolf as it fills in the gaps in Jack’s background. Otherwise sit in your favourite chair, put your feet up and enjoy! I can’t wait for the next in this excellent series. Recommended.

Mike Ashworth

THE TAWNY SASH

A. J. Lyndon, Independently published, 2023, $21.99, pb, 356pp, 9780987626127

In December 1643, Sir Henry Lucie, Assistant Secretary to King Charles I’s Council of War, is beside himself. Capt. Gabriel Vaughan has been released from Oxford Castle prison by a written order that bears his seal. But he did not write the order—his son, Lt. Will Lucie, did.

This second book in Lyndon’s English Civil War trilogy, subtitled “War Without an Enemy,” reacquaints readers with the Lucie and Vaughan families and the series of battles between the Parliamentarians, or Roundheads, and Royalists that began in 1642 and ended in 1646 with full British Commonwealth rule of England, Ireland, and Scotland and the elimination of the Protestant Church of England’s monopoly on religious observance.

Lyndon has built her work on a longstanding interest in the English Civil War of the 17th century. Her careful research shows.

The narrative recalls the significant battles of 1643-1644, adding fine details such as the sights and sounds of the battlefield, as well as the houses and castles where they were fought. The narrative is not a smooth one, however. The reader is easily sidetracked by scenes that don’t move the overarching story along, characters that seem to pop up out of nowhere, and passages that seem to be slapped down almost as afterthoughts. This reader, at least, needs a slower unfurling of the tawny sash and what it means.

K. M. Sandrick

RIVERS OF TREASON

K. J. Maitland, Headline Review, 2023, £22.00, hb, 423pp, 9781035407521

Rivers of Treason is the sequel to Traitor in the Ice, following the adventures of Daniel Pursglove, an ‘intelligencer’ commissioned to track down Catholic conspirators in the wake of the Gunpowder Plot. The year is 1607, and conspirators are still active hoping to destroy the King and his government. Not that Daniel is a very reliable intelligencer despite his previous successes, for he has his own agenda which does not always fit with that of his spymasters.

I must admit that had I not read Traitor in the Ice I would have found it difficult to follow who was who and whose side they were on, and even so it wasn’t easy, but I suppose that is in the nature of conspiracies. Traitor in the Ice is a much more compact story set in a single location, but Rivers of Treason flows all over England (Yorkshire, Bristol and several locations in and around London) with new characters at every turn. Yet I kept reading. Maitland knows 17th-century England so well, and every scene is so atmospheric, whether in Greenwich Palace or a Somerset hovel. The action is fast, a plot is foiled at the crucial moment, but there is more than one conspiracy, leaving us breathless for the next book.

Edward James

THE SHADOWS OF LONDON

Andrew Taylor, HarperCollins, 2023, £20.00/$30.00, hb, 464pp, 9780008494117

The Shadows of London is the latest in Andrew Taylor’s enjoyable series of novels set in Restoration London. It is 1671, and Cat Hakesby is potentially facing ruin as her architectural firm is forced to stop work on an old almshouse, where a grotesquely disfigured corpse has been discovered. Meanwhile James Marwood, a Whitehall clerk, starts to investigate the disappearance of a government scribe, and is soon drawn into danger himself. And King Charles II is on the verge of taking a new mistress, who is young, beguiling – and French.

The different strands of the story start to become entangled in mysterious ways. But, as always when Cat and Marwood find their paths crossing, things are not necessarily

what they seem. And the truth may not always prevail.

The novel is based on a true episode: the attempt by powerful English ministers and the French government to install a Frenchwoman in the monarch’s bed. The author speaks of the ‘unhealthy connection between sex and power’, and he explores this at all levels of society, from the aristocratic but mostly helpless Louise de Keroualle to Grace Hadgraft, the beautiful merchant’s daughter who ultimately has little choice in who she marries.

The book is full of evocative descriptions of 17th-century London, with colour added by extra details such as the peculiar legal status of the Bishop of Ely’s liberty in Holborn. More than others in the series it also exposes the corruption at the heart of government – the private agendas and the covering up of unfortunate facts. A lesson for our times perhaps? Thoroughly recommended.

Karen Warren

THE WONDERFUL DISCOVERY OF ELIZABETH SAWYER

Jonathan Vischer, The Book Guild, 2022, £8.99, pb, 272pp, 9781915352019

London, 1621. Condemned to death for witchcraft, Elizabeth Sawyer recounts her life to a prison chaplain (historical fact is that Elizabeth did exist, and Henry Goodcole did write his account of her).

In Vischer’s remarkable novel, Sawyer emerges as more than a match for the clergyman, not through occult powers but for her intelligence and theological perceptiveness – which is not to say she is above manipulation and subterfuge. It is clear from the story she tells that her end was inevitable, as a woman feared and disliked by her neighbours. In any case, being female, she is automatically considered unclean in the eyes of Goodcole’s church (the female felons in Newgate even merit a shorter religious service than their male counterparts in this ‘conduit to draw off the waste of a nation’).

This is a world in which ‘old’ practices persist: a Marian shrine guarding the bones of the unbaptized, a rosary quietly told, but where an anachronistic note in post-dissolution London is sounded by a group of singing nuns – even as a recusant is carted to Tyburn’s tree. Ultimately, Sawyer brings about an epiphany in Goodcole, forcing him to examine his own motives and find some kind of redemption.

One can never, of course, know how accurate he is, but Vischer convinced this reader that he is able even to think in a 17th-century way.

Partly this is to do with the sense of place he creates, in days when Barking was ‘a small fishing town some nine miles east of London’ and Tottenham, Edmonton, Winchmore were farmed or wooded. His is an extraordinary achievement.

Katherine Mezzacappa

18TH CENTURY A NOBLE CUNNING

Patricia Bernstein, History Through Fiction, 2023, $17.95/£14.99, pb, 266pp, 9781736499054

When Jacobite leaders Mar, Winton, and Derwentwater arrive at the Glentaggart home, Bethan knows immediately that her husband, Gavin, a staunch Catholic, will rally to the cause.

As evidenced by an early scene of violence by Covenanters, Bernstein not only pulls us into the Glentaggarts’ world, but makes sure we are fully on board with Gavin’s decision to fight. When he is arrested during the aftermath of the 1715 Uprising, and sent to the Tower, Bethan travels to London through perilous winter storms, determined to beg for clemency and free her husband.

When Queen Anne died in 1714, many eligible heirs to the English throne were passed over for the Protestant Hanoverian, George. England and Scotland became hotbeds of dissent and religious oppression. This is a fictionalised story of one Catholic family whose loyalty to James II and his progeny leads to persecution and vengefulness. The story is based on a complex plan, conjured in real life by Winifred Maxwell, Countess of Nithsdale, to free her Jacobite husband from the Tower, using a group of women enacting an elaborate charade.

Everything Culloden intrigues me, and there is little fiction about the trouble which gave rise to that epic tragedy. But nothing happens in a vacuum. Bernstein’s novel is packed with period detail about the Jacobites, religious controversy, the Hanoverian court, and bizarre, eyebrow-raising etiquette and costume. A Noble Cunning is a riveting read using daring, bravery, commitment, honor, and a generous portion of faith and ingenuity. In short, it’s got everything a historical adventure needs. And romance? I wonder what could be more romantic than riding hell-bent for London to save your husband from the jaws of death. A gripping story, all the more so because someone once loved enough to attempt it! Hard to put this one down.

Fiona Alison

THE UNASSUMING CURATOR

Sian Ann Bessey, Covenant, 2023, $16.99, pb, 224pp, 9781524423131

1790. This Georgian romance pairs Henry Buckland, a naturalist at the British Museum, with Emily Norton, sister of Lord Dunsbourne, who would rather commune with nature than make her impeding London debut among hordes of people. They meet as Henry digs up a plant specimen from a hedgerow and renews their acquaintance at a dinner party in town. Henry is handicapped by being colorblind, when a curator must be able to describe colors. And jealous colleagues believe Henry is being favored by their superiors. Emily directs Henry to a scientist studying colorblindness and gives advice on how he might handle one colleague. As their romance progresses, Emily has a chance to help when Henry is assaulted by another curator determined to prevent Henry being promoted.

I question a few word choices: using “gentile” instead of “genteel” and giving a London townhouse a patio, but those are minor quibbles. I enjoyed the engaging characters and humorous elements, such as Emily repelling an unwanted suitor by dirtying her hands in a plant pot and speaking of worms in the drawing room. I liked that Emily has an active role as problem-solver, rather than the hero rescuing her from trouble. Recommended.

B. J. Sedlock

HER OWN LEGACY

Debra Borchert, Le Vin Press, 2022, $19.99, pb, 557pp, 9780989454551

Joliette de Verzat, a young noblewoman just before the French Revolution, loves her family’s vineyard and wants to continue her late grandmother’s legacy of winemaking. Her parents have no interest in the winery and insist that Joliette go to Versailles and become a lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette. At Versailles, she hates the strict etiquette and the court intrigues. She meets a young baron who shares her love of winemaking but cannot marry him because he is beneath her station. A parallel story follows Joliette’s half-brother, Henri, who was brought up by a laundress in a poor neighborhood in Paris. When he learns of his noble birth, he has to decide whether to accept his new status or live as a commoner and help the people of his district. Then revolution breaks out and turns the two siblings’ world upside down. Their noble birth endangers their lives. Will they have to flee the country and put the vineyard at risk from peasants who are burning the nobles’ estates?

This is a beautifully written novel. Borchert draws you into the center of some of the most famous events of the French Revolution, including the storming of the Bastille, the Women’s March to Versailles, and the attack on the Tuileries Palace and the fall of the monarchy. Joliette and Henri are both strong, sympathetic characters. Joliette is an unconventional woman of her time, preferring running a winery to marrying a nobleman

of her parents’ choice. She is willing to fight when the people she loves are in danger. Henri has a great sympathy for the poor, but hates the violence of the revolutionaries and feels a strong bond with his aristocratic half-sister. The ending leaves you hanging, but this is the first in a series, and Borchert makes you want to read the next book.

Vicki Kondelik

THUNDER OF GUNS

Jason Born, Independently published, 2021, $13.99, pb, 325pp, 9798778531239

This is book seven in The Long Fuse series. In 1758, Pennsylvanian Ephraim Weber, 22, is an ensign in the British colonial army during the French and Indian War. Weber has only recently been made an officer, so part of the story is about his having to make the adjustment from common soldier to one who must command other men. His superior, Colonel Bradstreet, is worried about the safety of French members of his family in the Fortress of Louisbourg, in what today is Nova Scotia. Weber is sent to join the British forces besieging the fort held by the French with a secret mission to try to rescue Bradstreet’s relatives, including the young and beautiful Fraise Jolie, so named for her strawberry red hair.

This is a refreshing period and setting, one that has not been overdone, and Weber is a likeable character. Real historical figures besides Bradstreet interact with Weber; he discusses battle tactics with General James Wolfe (of Plains of Abraham fame), about how tactics used in the old world do not work in the new; fights the French officer Boishébert hand-to-hand, and runs afoul of Abbé Le Loutre, champion of the Acadians living in the area, whom Weber views as evil. Readers who dislike gore be warned: Born’s battle segments do not shy away from vivid descriptions. Four maps and a “historical remarks” section help to place events in context for readers who know little about the era or location. For maximum enjoyment, read the other volumes in the series first. Recommended to war story enthusiasts and those interested in the North American colonial era.

B. J. Sedlock

MADDALENA AND THE DARK

Julia Fine, Flatiron, 2023, $28.99/£24.99, hb, 304pp, 9781250867872

In 1717 Venice, two girls, Maddalena and Luisa, secretly share a bed at the Ospedale della Pietà, home for foundlings and music school for girls studying under Italy’s famous composer, Antonio Vivaldi. The temperamentally opposite girls are presented in alternating- chapter points of view. Music as historical subject is the descant in this fantasytragedy of sexuality, sensuality, and secrets; initially, musical details create setting, style, and content. Music acts as a force, water as

magic, but when water turns to blood, the reader knows we’ve strayed.

“What would you prefer? To be a nun? To go immediately to a nunnery?” Maddalena’s brother asks before she’s sent to the Pietà, though she is not an orphan. Rather, she is a nobleman’s daughter dispatched to the Pietà to acquire talents and make amends for her mother’s illicit scandal and escape from her father’s home. Maddalena experiences a vision along the Lido before meeting Luisa, the docile virgin, then makes a bargain and soon asks Luisa, “What do you want? What will you pay?” – a refrain underscoring her clandestine mystery. What Luisa wants is to play her violin, first for Vivaldi, then, once she is married, in public. Maddalena wants only Luisa for herself.

Evocative, erotic, at times exasperatingly repetitive, the prose suspends delayed dissonances, yet there are turns of phrases as quick and clever as Vivaldi’s music. The Italianate and musical language develops motives while the plot remains murky like the dark water over which a gondolier and a pact with the Devil reign. To read this story is to peer at an opaque glass until the pair of girls leave the cloister and live among the nobility and taboos of Venice. Then Carnival season begins, masks are everywhere, and love, jealousy, treachery, and revenge as evil as Iago are unleashed.

Christina Nellas Acosta

THE THREE DEATHS OF GIOVANNI FUMIANI

Jeffrey Hantover, Cuidono, 2023, $17.00, pb, 210pp, 9781944453220

After an awkward start, this investigation of a 1706 “accidental” death develops into a true page-turner. Stefano Bigio, through no fault of his own, has lost access to his family’s wealth and prestige. But he is still by birth a nobleman, which cushions his impoverished lifestyle a little. More significantly, he retains access to the whispers and gossip of Venice. So when the parish priest asks him to uncover the truth about the death of artist Giovanni Fumiani, who fell to his death while painting an extraordinary angelic ceiling within the church of San Pantalon, a delicate quid pro quo lures Bigio into the hunt. Even his small amours with an aging courtesan can be softly maneuvered toward more information.

The novel’s short chapters and quickly shifting settings encourage a sense of intricate formal dance among the characters and the mystique of the city, where nobility is still defined by both birth and attire. It’s quickly clear that Fumiani’s recorded death was more feint than fact, but the reason behind this sleight of hand leads Bigio and his friends into deadly danger. “Priests, painters, and poets celebrated the miracles of God,” he knows— but for ordinary people to attempt decent upstanding lives means avoiding the menace of the corrupt Republic of Venice.

Hantover’s skills in portraying a complicated time period, very different from

later definitions of republics and liberty, are well-honed. He layers the details of society and culture with grace, skill, and tenderness, and allows Bigio’s honorable character to gradually take over this unusual detective tale.

Beth Kanell

A GIRL CALLED SAMSON

Amy Harmon, Lake Union, 2023, $16.99/£8.99, pb, 411pp, 9781542039741

In 1770, 10-year-old Deborah Samson is bound out to a Puritan family in Middleborough, Massachusetts. The kindly Reverend Conant, charged with delivering her to the Thomases, permits the unschooled, headstrong girl to improve her writing skills by corresponding with his married niece, Elizabeth. Written over many years, these letters are insightful and an informative exposition of the onset of the Revolutionary War and the ragged, footsore soldiers Samson later lives with, fighting and dying for their country’s independence, her Thomas siblings among them.

Denied schooling in a house with the ten Thomas boys, Deborah squeezes them for every drop of knowledge. She competes against them—running, shooting, and fighting—often besting them at their own games, but family dynamics change with the onset of adolescence. In April 1781, at 21, Samson enlists as 16-year-old Robert Shurtliff. Posted to West Point, she comes face to face with her past and a truth she cannot deny. Samson’s difficult transformation, and the logistics of a woman posing as a man in an exclusively male world, is one of the most engaging aspects of the novel. Unable to disguise her boyish looks and clear complexion, she deflects attention by making herself indispensable—writing letters for illiterate fellow soldiers, leading in drills, and handling weapons with speed and accuracy. Fear of being discovered surpasses her fear of suffering and death.

Shurtliff grapples with questions unlikely to be asked today—was she barred entry to a man’s world because a woman is deemed inferior or because men seek to protect their greatest treasure from the battlefield? This is a thought-provoking, deeply moving read in which a patriotic woman, forbidden from serving her country due to her sex, defies all odds to do it anyway. Harmon’s riveting narrative allows Samson’s bravery, both on and off the battlefield, to soar from the pages of long-forgotten history. Warmly recommended.

Fiona Alison

GALLOWS WAKE

Helen Hollick, Taw River Press, 2022, $10.99/£8.50, pb, 334pp, 9781739937140

In this 6th book in Hollick’s 18th-century pirate series, Jesamiah is forced to dock at Gibraltar to repair the mast of his ship, the Sea Witch. Also in Gibraltar are men from his past who want to do him and his wife Tiola harm. To protect her, Jesamiah reluctantly

agrees to send his pregnant wife on alone to England where he assumes she’ll be safe with her brother but accompanying her is a man neither of them trust—with good reason. Tiola’s Cornish past haunts her with renewed force. Her mother was hanged as a witch accused of murdering her husband. With Tiola, Hollick introduced captivating supernatural elements into her series, making her a white witch with healing magic and at least one intriguing non-human friend. Usually, Tiola’s magic is a good match for any villain, but she cannot use it while she’s pregnant. Jesamiah also faces troubles from his past when a British spy sends him to Spain where he has family connections and bad history.

Part of what drives Hollick’s plot so successfully is the separation of Tiola and Jesamiah and the question of whether they will be reunited in time to stop the fatal consequences that have been put into play. Hollick is known for her highly entertaining pirate tales that combine spellbinding storytelling with finely researched nautical history. Gallows Wake delivers abundantly on that promise. Readers will discover delightful fun amid vividly portrayed life during the golden age of piracy.

Judith Starkston

A NOVEL DISGUISE

Samantha Larsen, Crooked Lane, 2023, $18.99, pb, 304pp, 9781639103461

A clever play on Regency-style novels, this book is a murder mystery including, as the title suggests, gender disguise— in a complicated version. The appealing heroine Tiffany Woodall, a spinster at age 40 in 1784, faces poverty. She looks to her own ingenuity to find a way to support herself without seeking a man, noble or otherwise, to save her and whose property she would then become. Her father and brother imposed enough limitations on her to last a lifetime. The novel circles around a stately manor, Astwell Palace, and plot twists involve an upstairsdownstairs element, the nearby village, and many surprises.

Larsen’s writing is lively and entertaining, with a varied cast of characters including those of color. As the subtitle, “A Lady Librarian Mystery,” indicates, books are important throughout. That could be a contradiction in terms, as women were not educated to read the sorts of books usually found in the libraries of fine homes. Instead they’re drawn to Gothic and other popular novels, published in three and four volumes. The difficulties facing socalled spinsters and the absoluteness of laws

in that era loom large. At the end Larsen includes a note about hanging offenses in England in the 18th century, the law, and policing. She’s also researched the presence and roles of people of color, which will interest fans of Bridgerton. Bibliography and discussion questions are included. Highly recommended.

Jinny Webber

THE EMPRESS’ GIFT

Ellen Laubhan, Rowe Publishing, 2022, $16.99, pb, 422pp, 9781644460153

In 1763, Catherine the Great of Russia invited peasants and tradesmen of Europe to settle the Volga Frontier, offering to pay for transport, food, seed, lumber, and nearly everything they would need to establish villages and farms, as well as a promise that the land they settled would belong to them. When young German noblewoman Amila learns of the offer, she sees it as a way to escape a repulsive marriage organized by her evil stepfather. Amila convinces some of her serfs to escape her stepfather’s cruelty and emigrate with her, to Russia or elsewhere. Her maid, Eve, and Eve’s handsome brother Rein are two of those who join her. The journey to reach the lands offered to them is long, difficult, and dangerous. The frontier itself has many hazards: the tribes of Kirghiz who believe the land to be theirs, bands of thieves, wolves, and winter. In addition to these dangers is the corruption of Russian officials and Amila’s stepfather’s desire for revenge.

The pacing of this story is strong, with conflict never taking a break. A prologue, showing where Amila and Rein are and what they are doing near the end of their story, removes suspense from many of the dangers; I wish I hadn’t read it. Amila is an independent and enjoyable heroine, more nuanced than the other characters. Rein’s belligerent attitude toward his former mistress seems unrealistic and unnecessary for their love story. The evil stepfather’s motivation is greed, and he has no redeeming qualities; although onedimensional, he is easy to hate. The historical details of the German emigration to the Volga frontier are interesting. An epilogue and author notes expand on the information and show the author’s connection to the story.

Elizabeth Caulfield Felt

SO CLOSE TO HEAVEN

Annette Oppenlander, Independently published, 2023, $13.99/£11.99, pb, 208pp, 9783948100391

This powerful novel tells the little-known story of Sister Magdalena, the cellarin of Sabiona Abbey, in the Austrian Tyrol. It is a place of peace and isolation, the only home for most of the Benedictine nuns. Now this lonely outcrop stands in the path of Napoleon’s voracious rampage across Europe, and soon becomes a fortress occupied first by the Tirolian Army in 1796, then the French. The men desecrate everything in their path, contaminate grounds and buildings alike with their filth, trample the gardens, and infect

sacred land. Soon the whole place stinks like a cesspool, and the nuns are forced to retreat into a small area to survive. Magdalena is one of the few nuns who refuse to leave when commanded to do so, risking life and limb to save her Abbey which has, in turn, saved her. Tested beyond all human endurance, I sometimes found myself begging her to seek safety as Sabiona is dragged through war and political turmoil.

This is an extraordinary novel which I raced through in one sitting. I simply couldn’t put it down. Magdalena replants and rebuilds time and time again, despite the desecration, standing firm against various commanders who put overwhelming obstacles in her path. The emotional impact of the story shifts between the daunting tasks she sets for herself, and the sisterhood of the nuns, particularly Gertrud, who is much younger, beautiful and a temptation for the men. Over many years their friendship is a heartening and precious experience. We can take inspiration from Magdalena’s story, but this is a novel of faith, not piety or sanctimonious pretention. Magdalena is truly humble and modest, passionate in her conviction, sometimes questioning God’s hand in her trials. There’s much to commend this compelling tale of one woman’s determination and willingness to sacrifice everything for her sisters, her abbey and her God.

Fiona Alison

THE LAST WITCH OF SCOTLAND

Philip Paris, Black & White, 2023, £14.99, hb, 352pp, 9781785304507

Dornoch, Sutherland, 1727: Janet Horne, a widow showing early signs of dementia, and her daughter Aila, her feet and hands deformed, are accused of witchcraft and sentenced to death. Janet’s daughter escapes, but Janet is executed, after a trial that may not have been wholly legal.

Paris has taken the scant historical facts available (it is possible that even Janet’s name was a generic one for a witch) and has woven a compelling story of suspicion, misplaced zeal, and jealousy in a rural community. The crimes the two women are accused of are essentially those of being intelligent and outspoken, and without a male protector.

The trial scene, even though the reader knows from history what the outcome will be, is a tense one; for as long as Aila Horne is able to speak in her own defence, it looks as though the women might be acquitted. It is when she is silenced that their doom seems inevitable. Paris tells the story through Aila’s voice, starting with the terrible accident that mutilates her, and alternates it with the third-person narrative of a fictional troupe of travelling players, whose lives come to overlap with hers. One of them has a terrible secret that parallels Janet’s fate. Paris is at his best in setting the scene of a crofting community, not so close-knit that their fears cannot be exploited by an obsessive Presbyterian minister with his own demons to contend with. He has

a gift, too, for the vignette, as in “Murdo, the precentor… also the gravedigger, session clerk and part-time schoolmaster… chosen mainly for this role because he had a loud voice. [He] reminded me of the occasion when I watched a cow give birth…”

Katherine Mezzacappa

WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND

Siôn Scott-Wilson, Deixis Press, 2023, £15.99, hb, 248pp, 9781739708146

Grave robbers Sammy and Facey dig for their living amid the squalor of 18th-century London. Carrying contraband liquor into Portsmouth Harbour, Sammy and Facey manage to evade the Tide Surveyor. Sammy’s young adopted son, ship’s boy Pure John, has been taken to London, and Sammy’s wife Rosamund is anxious. They need to find the lad before he is hanged as a deserter.

They are pulled into the search for a fabled gemstone. The rare Eye of Brahma black diamond, a ferronière (to be worn on the forehead), was worn into the grave by a Mrs Edith Belmont, making its retrieval within the skill set of the two grave robbers. The mission is all the riskier in that the deceased died of the infectious Asiatic Cholera. And yet the blue tinge of the corpse’s skin wipes off with vinegar, and the stone is a fake.

They are drawn into not just a thieving escapade but a mystery involving the young heir, William Belmont. Local jewellers come under suspicion, as do members of the Belmont staff, Jenkins, Nellie, Mrs Stride and Mrs Parkes. Rosamund enters the Belmont household, where a poisoner may lurk, as governess, and Sammy and Facey enter as plasterers. Saving the boy means making a sacrifice. The clock-ticking rescue, involving use of a Dandy Horse (early bicycle) and crowbar, is quite exciting.

The voice, mostly that of Sammy, sounds quite authentically 18th century, down to the flowery formality of everyday speech, which is occasionally almost humorous. Even street criminals address each other as ‘Mr’ and ‘Mrs’, and the dissectors of human cadavers discourse courteously. It dips into the mysterious (and morbid and seedy) world of grave robbing, and we even learn some street gang slang. A beautiful book, which follows on from Some Rise by Sin

Susie Helme

A THIEF’S JUSTICE

Douglas Skelton, Canelo, 2023, £16.99, hb, 304pp, 9781804360897

This swashbuckling novel takes us to a bitterly cold London in 1716. The city is in the grip of a savage winter, with the Thames frozen over. It is against this chilly backdrop that we meet our protagonist Jonas Flynt, an unlikely hero whose investigative skills will soon be called upon to save a young male sex worker from the noose. Sam Yates has been accused of the murder of Justice Geoffrey Dumont, whose lifeless body has been found

at St Paul’s Cathedral. In custody, the young man proclaims his innocence, saying he had received a message to meet the victim at the time the judge was murdered. It is up to Flynt – a thief, gambler and killer but with a conscience and a troubled past to boot – and courtesan Belle St Clair to seek out the truth before time runs out.

Skelton takes us on a twisting and turning route towards the novel’s inevitable conclusion, giving the reader an insight into the unromantic and deprived side of England’s capital in the 18th century, including the horrors of Newgate prison. The skilful way the author handles his subject means we care about poor Sam’s fate and that of the murdered judge, who we know as a man of honour. We have seen the villainous types Flynt comes up against, time and time again, which makes us root for our flawed hero in his fight against injustice and quest to right a wrong. Skelton presents us with a compelling plot, rounded characters and some wonderful descriptions that can only have come from meticulous research of the period. London’s underbelly, with its gambling dens, brothels and inns, is vividly brought to life, adding to the sense of menace that lurks on every street corner.

Margery Hookings GRANGER’S CROSSING

Mark W. Tiedemann, Blank Slate Press, 2023, $17.95, pb, 350pp, 9781943075751

The 1780 war service of Continental lieutenant Ulysses Granger proves costly—his sergeant and childhood best friend Ham is killed while on a mission of mercy in the local Spanish-held community. All baffling signs point to murder, not death in battle. Granger is seduced and falls hard for a gunsmith’s French wife before he is called away to pursue British and Native American forces.

At war’s end Granger returns as a civilian merchant to St. Louis and resumes his investigation, seeking justice for Ham’s family. He continues to pursue the lovely now-widow, too. It will take all his courage and Connecticut Yankee ingenuity to uncover a plot rife with buried treasure, duplicity and contradictions.

Well-drawn characters of the 18th-century milieu of Native American, Spanish, free and enslaved African Americans, French and immigrant New Englanders and fast-paced action sequences make up for somewhat slow plot development and a middle that might have been more tightly edited. Granger’s emotional development is a refreshing bonus amid the action-adventure. A welcome addition to historical novels of the early Federal period.

Eileen Charbonneau

NOTHING LEFT TO FEAR FROM HELL

Alan Warner, Polygon, 2023, £10.00, hb, 145pp, 9781846975691

Warner is known for his literary and comic

novels, all in modern settings. His contribution to Polygon’s Darkland Tales series is a sardonic account of the escape of Charles Edward Stuart (‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’) after his army’s defeat at Culloden. Although we know that this madcap flight across the Highlands and islands will, strange to say, have a successful outcome, the poetry of the descriptions and the believability of the dialogue amply grip the reader’s attention. The story follows the Prince and a few loyal followers, eventually including the famous Flora Macdonald, as they seek shelter in ruined houses, struggle to keep out of sight, to dodge the Highland midges, and to get enough food (luckily they always seem to have plenty of brandy and whisky). Although Warner pulls no punches in depicting how the inhabitants suffered sadly from the Government army that ‘pacified’ the Highlands, he also draws maximum humour from the situation.

The prince is self-deprecating but vain, courageous but vague – forgetting to share his limited food supplies. He cheerfully agrees to dress up as a maid, transgressing both gender and class barriers, yet attempts to hide two pistols under his skirt. The conversations are perfectly true to the period, and the characters are all generously realised. At times the language seems a little stilted, but that just lends to the authenticity, because many of these people would not have had English as their first language. Coupled with strong characterisations are descriptions –of ruins, boats, tobacco pipes – which are both precise and expressed with elegance and economy.

There is an illuminating afterword, in which Warner suggests that perhaps all fiction is essentially historical. It is all a great pleasure. My only reservation is the title, which would seem more appropriate for fantasy or horror than such a work of biographical fiction.

Ben Bergonzi

19TH CENTURY RIVER SPIRIT

Leila Aboulela, Saqi Books, 2023, £16.99, hb, 320pp, 9780863569173 / Grove, 2023, $27.00, hb, 400pp, 9780802160669

The Nuba Mountains, Sudan, in 1881, and a village woman slips from her husband’s bed, evades soldiers on guard, and runs through the night, seeking The Mahdi. So opens an ambitious book that explores Sudan’s wars of the 1880s and 1890s. It’s a complex story, told from multiple points of view. There’s a village girl, orphaned and sold into slavery. There’s an Islamic scholar, a Scottish artist, a slacker who is transformed after meeting The Mahdi. Wives, mothers, daughters, military commanders – on both sides – all tell ‘their truth’. Who are the ‘good guys’? Well, that depends on your point of view. Mahdi is a religious title for one who will appear to rid the world of evil and injustice. Was Muhammad Ahmed, the man who declared himself The Mahdi in Sudan in 1881, the ‘true’ Mahdi?

Leaving aside the religious debate, ‘The Mahdi’ led a popular campaign to overthrow colonial rule. This rule was a complex triumvirate of Egypt and its masters the Ottoman Empire and later, the British Empire.

The multiple perspectives meant that I did not bond with a single character to carry me through the book. But they were successful in bringing alive a complex political situation in a country populated by multiple ethnicities, religions and genders. Through her characters’ eyes, Aboulela brings to life the people and places of 19th-century Sudan. People eat, dance, love, and hate, while the river throngs with water carriers, washer women, steamers, egrets, and hippos. I knew nothing about Sudan before reading this book. Through her painstaking research and skilled writing, Aboulela has taught me something, in a book that was easy to read, and I am glad to have read it.

Helen Johnson

THE SHINNERY

Kate Anger, Bison Books, 2022, $21.95, pb, 256pp, 9781496231383

Teenaged Jessa Campbell is content on her family’s Texas homestead, the Shinnery, farming alongside her father and sharing secrets with her closest sister, Nellie. When Jessa’s father unexpectedly sends her to work for the Martin family, keeping house and caring for his children, she longs for the day she can return to her home, her family, and her planned future on the Shinnery. Chafing under unwelcome domestic tasks and bearing up under constant criticism from the Martins, Jessa finds comfort in the attentions of the children’s handsome piano teacher, Will, so unlike the staid and settled men of the town. But Will leaves her with broken promises, an unintended pregnancy, and traumatic secrets. Jessa finds refuge at the Shinnery, but, as her secrets come out, her whole family must grapple with the fallout.

Kate Anger writes vividly of small-town life on the Texas plains in the 1890s, capturing the unforgiving landscape and the unforgiving attitudes of those scraping out an existence on that land. She creates her characters with authenticity and with sympathy, allowing them to grow through Jessa’s eyes, from the simple and happy family she sees when she first leaves the Shinnery to the complex people she returns to, angry and grieving in different ways. Jessa is heartbreakingly naïve, following a path that the reader knows can only bring her unhappiness. Though difficult to read, her trauma is sensitively portrayed. A quiet and emotional novel.

Jessica Brockmole

JAGUARS AND OTHER GAME

Brynn Barineau, Orange Blossom Publishing, 2022, $14.99, pb, 368pp, 9781949935479

In 1808, the royal family of Portugal fled the threat of Napoleon and established a

royal household in Rio de Janeiro. In 1809, while trying to sell diamonds brought out of the jungle, Mateo, a member of muleteer Maria’s team, is arrested for a murder he didn’t commit. His execution is delayed by the royal family’s week-long celebration of their one-year anniversary of coming to Rio. Maria hopes that will give her and her sister Isabel enough time to discover the true murderer and thus free their friend.

Meanwhile, Victoria, nurse/tonic-girl to mad Queen Maria, tries to juggle keeping the queen from having fits and obeying the orders of the Prince Regent and his nasty wife, Carlotta. Seeking some peace and a cool breeze, Victoria takes an ill-judged evening walk and is harassed by five men. Whipwielding Maria and dagger-throwing Isabel rescue the royal servant and become friends, eventually helping each other in ways they never would have guessed.

This story is great fun. Maria, Isabel, and Victoria are well-developed characters with strengths, weaknesses, interesting backstories, and marvelous fighting abilities—which is good, because there are dangers around every corner. Although the solution to the mystery isn’t too complicated, it is still difficult to see how our heroines will be able to catch the murderer and free Mateo. Amid all the fast-paced excitement and these dazzling characters lies the setting: unveiled in blazing heat, stink, dust, sweet oranges, and dropping boa constrictors, with information about race and culture and slavery and smuggling so well woven in the story, readers practically become an expert in 19th-century Rio. Barineau brings to life a time and place I knew little about. A rousing good tale, highly recommended.

Elizabeth Caulfield Felt

THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE

Rachel Beanland, Simon & Schuster, 2023, $27.99, hb, 384pp, 9781982186142

On December 26, 1811, Richmond, Virginia’s theater burst into flames during a crowded performance, killing nearly a hundred in the audience. In The House Is on Fire, her second novel, Rachel Beanland follows four people who will find their lives transformed by the tragedy: Sally, a young widow who does not suffer fools gladly; enslaved blacksmith Gilbert, who dreams of buying his freedom and that of his wife; enslaved housemaid Cecily, anticipating a miserable future at the hands of a sexual predator; and the orphaned Jack, a stagehand who hopes that his job might lead to onstage glory. All are based on historical figures.

I loved Beanland’s first novel, Florence Adler

Swims Forever, featuring a Jewish family in 1930s Atlantic City, and this one, with its very different cast and setting, did not disappoint. Not only are the four protagonists captivating and well-drawn, but those who surround them are memorable as well, especially Mary Cowley, an outsider who ministers to the survivors; the actors of the Placide & Green Company, desperate to avoid blame for the catastrophe; the decaying Price family, who appear to have stepped out of a Tennessee Williams play; and newspaper editor Thomas Ritchie, determined to get at the truth—to a point.

Beanland’s writing is sharp and clever (“He tried to follow along, but all those white girl names sounded the same, and they were each as mean as the next”), with lively dialogue. And although this is a character-driven novel, the plot kept me in suspense until the very end; only having to get off my train made me stop reading. I wouldn’t have minded staying on board.

Susan Higginbotham

KILLINGLY

Katharine Beutner, Soho Crime, 2023, $27.95, hb, 360pp, 9781641294379

Bertha Mellish, a junior at Mount Holyoke College, disappears in 1897. Her classmates know her as smart and strange, but not someone likely to run off or to kill herself. Bertha’s roommate, Agnes Sullivan, perhaps even smarter and stranger, knows more than she admits. As Agnes wrestles with how much to say and to whom, she goes about her daily life, hoping to go to medical school and become a surgeon.

In the memorably named town of Killingly, Bertha’s sister Florence and the family doctor—a widower who had his eye on Bertha— hunt for the missing woman. The doctor hires a detective to lead the hunt. Florence, the doctor, and the detective examine every lead and clue—including mysterious letters—but find no trace of Bertha. Little by little they learn her secrets.

The real Bertha Mellish did indeed vanish, though Katharine Beutner has imagined both the circumstances surrounding Bertha’s disappearance and many of the novel’s characters. Beutner excels at revealing conflicts, hidden and unhidden, in the seemingly peaceful setting of a women’s college at the end of the 19th century. She paces the novel well, slowly narrating Bertha’s tale through the eyes and thoughts of Agnes, Florence, and the doctor. Almost all the characters guard secrets of their own, secrets that Beutner exposes one by one as she skillfully stretches out the tension. Although readers may guess at aspects of the plot, not until the end of the book will they be certain of all the details and motivations.

Fans of historical fiction will appreciate Beutner’s well-researched focus on the difficulties faced by women who wished to enter the medical profession and on the state of medical specialties and procedures. Highly recommended.

Marlie Wasserman

HOTEL OF SECRETS

Diana Biller, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2023, $17.99, pb, 416pp, 9781250809452

Hotel of Secrets introduces the reader to the decadent society of late 19th-century Vienna, where Maria Wallner is struggling to resurrect her family’s hotel after years of mismanagement and neglect. Maria hails from a long line of resilient, enterprising women, and is the fourth Wallner woman to take the reins of the hotel. As Vienna’s social season kicks off, she reopens the doors to a maelstrom of chaos, mystery, and Eli Whittaker, a handsome but priggish American spy who only wants a return to his life in Washington, DC.

Diana Biller is a competent writer who excels at creating interesting characters; in many ways, she has reversed the typical hero-heroine character tropes so prevalent in historical romances. For instance, Eli Whittaker is a sexy, smoldering hunk of a man but is uninitiated in the ways of the bedroom, whereas Maria routinely has one-night stands and can curse like a sailor when the need arises. She is also nearly thirty and has no interest in marrying.

On the surface, this characterization makes sense, as she is the illegitimate daughter of a Viennese nobleman. However, these details are so casually thrown into the narrative that the effect is jarring. The author has clearly researched the period and mentions important historical episodes throughout the narrative but manages to set things askew with a too-modern heroine.

Despite this, Hotel of Secrets is a fun read that will appeal to those interested in fastpaced plots and who are not easily distracted by anachronisms.

Caroline D. Wilson

AFTER THE SHADOWS

Amanda Cabot, Revell, 2023, $16.99, pb, 352pp, 9780800740641

After the Shadows is a captivating historical romance set in 1882 in the Hill Country of Texas. Emily Leland, a widow, returns to her hometown, Sweetwater Crossing, to start a new life in her family’s homestead after the death of her abusive husband. Still, she soon discovers her hometown is not a haven but presents challenges. Yet, with the help of her new friends and a supportive community, she starts a boardinghouse and hosts a newly widowed father, headmaster Craig Ferguson. His idea of accepting all students, regardless of their abilities, contradicts the town’s beliefs in “spare the rod, spoil the child.”

Through the characters’ relationships, the author paints a vivid picture of rural Texas town life during the late 1800s. The social prejudices of the townspeople, particularly toward Beulah, a girl with special learning needs, reflect the Victorians’ common attitudes. The chemistry between Emily and Craig is palpable, and the slow, unfolding romance between them is sweet and tender. There is plenty of drama and excitement, but

ultimately the hopeful message displays the courage it takes to overcome grief and love again.

Gini Grossenbacher

ALL THE PRETTY PLACES

Joy Callaway, Harper Muse, 2023, $17.99, pb, 406pp, 9781400234400

The enormous gaps in wealth we notice today have long been present in America’s culture. In 1893, in the Westchester region outside urban New York City, Sadie Fremd’s family can prosper due to her immigrant father’s skilled effort: raising plants for landscape architects of the East Coast. Sadie herself feels most joyful when “elbow deep” in potting soil, cultivating seedlings and even artfully pollinating them.

But the culture of rising class around her insists that her destiny is as a wife. And what suitable man would want his lovely young bride to keep vanishing into a network of greenhouses and gardens? Sadie’s father intends his daughter to have every advantage of a respected man and a release from the labor she prizes so highly.

When her brother is recruited to help develop the beauty of Florida’s resorts and cities, Sadie’s hope flames: Perhaps if she’s the last sibling at home among the roses, larkspur, phlox, and hyacinth, her father will yield? Alas, that’s not the case, and as pressures on the family build, it appears Sadie will yield to reluctant engagement. But her heart already belongs to a man her father considers far too humble. A localized tornado that rips apart her family’s greenhouses and rows of plants ends any hope of escaping such a destiny— until a social rebellion as deeply embedded in the time as the class system gives Sadie the chance she’s longed for.

Slow, rich with revelation, and packed with historical insight, Callaway’s novel offers a Gilded Age that forsakes ballrooms to elevate working-class life and new values. Particularly striking are Sadie’s strength and sense of honor, such that she finds purposeful flirtation to be both distasteful and deceitful. Her secret gift of gardens to humble districts nearby is life-giving, and Callaway offers twists for an ultimate rescue resulting from Sadie’s own integrity.

Beth Kanell

THE SECRET LIVES OF COUNTRY GENTLEMEN

K. J. Charles, Sourcebooks Casablanca, 2023, $16.99, pb, 352pp, 9781728255859

Two men have an anonymous sexual encounter in London and do not expect to meet again. But when Gareth Inglis unexpectedly inherits a baronetcy and a house on Romney Marsh, he discovers that his recent lover is actually Joss Doomsday, boss of the local smuggling gang. What began as sexual attraction blossoms into love amid the wilds of the marsh and its secretive inhabitants, inhibited by Revenue officers, rival smugglers,

and Gareth’s own relatives with secrets of their own.

Funny and serious by turns, and with a nailbiting climax, The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen has everything that a historical romance should have: Gareth and Joss are engaging, distinctive characters, and the secondary cast shines, from the formidable Ma Doomsday and Joss’s Granda, to Gareth’s dead father whose self-absorption and disregard for anyone but himself have set most of their troubles in motion.

K. J. Charles has a fine sense of the manners and customs of 1810, and of the marsh itself, a setting so distinctive and well-realized that it becomes a character in its own right, drawing a well-defined line between the Marshmen and “outmarsh.” The dialog is pitch perfect, never stilted and with a fine ear for the differing speech of London, the marsh gentry, and the Doomsday clan. The author has achieved that most difficult of tricks, meticulous research embedded in a narrative that never develops expository lumps of period information. It is just there, skillfully woven throughout, from the effects that the blockade of French goods during a war had on trade and ordinary people’s income, to the ways in which men who loved men found ways to meet in a repressive society. Highly recommended.

Amanda Cockrell

PUPPET FLOWER

Yao-chang Chen (trans. by Pao-fang Hsu, Ian Maxwell, and Tung-jung Chen), Columbia Univ. Press, 2023, $26.00, pb, 328pp, 9780231208512

In 1867, fourteen American shipwreck survivors reached the shores of southern Taiwan only to be slaughtered by indigenous people. The tale of the U.S.’s retaliatory military operation to Taiwan (Formosa) is the historical framework of author Yao-chang Chen’s ode to a pivotal moment of Taiwanese identity. Translated for the first time into English, Chen’s meticulously researched story elevates the historical events he says had “successive repercussions in Taiwan.”

Chen introduces the central players in this drama: French-born American diplomat, Charles W. Le Gendre; Tauketok, chief of the Tuillassock tribe; and Butterfly, a woman of mixed race who straddles two drastically different worlds. The Americans stage two attempts to find the perpetrators of the earlier massacre, but they fail miserably in the face of the united and collaborative defense of several indigenous tribes. Chen charts how Le Gendre and Tauketok brokered their way toward peace in a complex multilingual and

multiethnic milieu. The result would be the South Cape Agreement, signed by Le Gendre and Tauketok on February 28, 1869, which effectively safeguarded sailors navigating the Taiwan Strait.

Chen’s account is not necessarily pulsepounding, unspooling the story rather mechanically (but perhaps this is the translation). However, its ultimate value lies in its unique reimagining of an obscure event in “a turning point” year in Taiwanese history. Told from a multitude of perspectives, particularly of indigenous peoples, Chen’s story does not sacrifice history and complicated colonial relations for cute dramatic contrivances. This is historical fiction with an emphasis on the former.

Peggy Kurkowski

THE SHINING MOUNTAINS

Alix Christie, High Road Books, 2023, $27.95, hb, 344pp, 9780826364654

Angus

McDonald flees Scotland circa 1838 to escape a poaching charge. He travels to his great-uncle’s fur trading post on the Columbia River, in an area claimed by both Great Britain and the United States.

Working for the Hudson’s Bay Company, he enjoys the wild and beautiful country. He is comfortable with both the French trappers and the indigenous people he meets. Soon he marries Catherine Baptiste (Kitalah), a Nez Perce-French-Iroquois girl with high connections among the tribes. They spend the rest of their lives together and have many children.

The old, free life starts fading away as the beaver are over-trapped and the buffalo herds shrink. A border is established between Canada and the U.S. at the forty-ninth parallel. Eventually it becomes impossible for a Hudson’s Bay Company trader to operate in the United States. Westward expansion changes things forever for the McDonalds and for the native people. The story offers much sadness, but some of the resolution leaves hope for the future.

Alix Christie is Angus McDonald’s greatgreat-great niece. A journalist for thirty years and the author of Gutenberg’s Apprentice, Christie currently reviews books and arts for The Economist.

I loved this book not only because it’s an action-packed historical family saga based on the truth, but also because it says important things about multiculturalism, family ties, family continuity, and the evils of prejudice and avarice. It is well-researched. The ten pages of acknowledgments and source notes

are almost as interesting as the story itself. I’ve been combing the internet to learn more about the real-life characters portrayed so colorfully in the book, and to learn more about the Native American languages and way of life so richly portrayed by the author. Highly recommended.

Elizabeth Knowles

THE NEW LIFE

Tom Crewe, Chatto & Windus, 2023, £16.99, hb, 384pp, 9781784744694 / Scribner, 2023, $28.00, hb, 400pp, 9781668000830

London in the final decade of the 19th century. In his debut novel, Tom Crewe focuses on the restrictions and judgments of late Victorian society, where men and women were faced with strict moral codes that could not be easily, or legally, transgressed without penalty. John Addington, based on John Addington Symonds, the gay poet and intellectual, struggles to resist indulging in his sexuality, despite the risk and severe punishment for “inversion,” as it was then termed. He is married and has children but is only attracted to men. Henry Ellis is a supporter of the New Life movement, an organisation dedicated to adopting more enlightened, rational ways of living and arranging society to suit all of the population, not just a few fortunate. He and Edith Vells, a writer, decide to marry but maintain their independence and live apart, again against all the customs of conventional, staid society. Ellis is based loosely on the writer and intellectual Havelock Ellis, who achieved fame later for his writings on social reform and human sexuality. Addington and Ellis agree to collaborate on a book that examines the history of male homosexuality and the hypocrisy of society’s attitudes to the activities. But when Oscar Wilde is tried and found guilty of such offences, the project becomes even more sensitive and dangerous and threatens both men’s prospects

The author deploys delightful poetic descriptions and observation, especially in the play of light on quotidian objects and activities, and the narrative is expertly planned and executed. The author cheerfully admits that he has played fast and loose with the historical record, arguing “truths needn’t always depend on facts for their expression”. This is a great achievement, the work of an admirable literary talent, if not historically accurate or reliable.

Douglas Kemp

LEEWARD

Katie Daysh, Canelo, 2023, £18.99, hb, 305pp, 9781804364048

At the decisive moment in the ferocious Battle of Aboukir Bay in 1798, Captain Hiram Nightingale is on the burning deck of his ship. His eyes are full of shrapnel, his beloved lieutenant is dead, and Nightingale’s ship has been near-destroyed by his action against the French flagship, L’Orient. Two years later, in a crisis of confidence, he sets sail to take up a post in the newly British Trinidad; but before he

gets there, he is unexpectedly commissioned with HMS Scylla and tasked to track down the Ulysses, stolen by mutineers. When he discovers that this ship had been secretly laden with gold intended for the independent slave state of Haiti, Nightingale worries what else his superiors are not telling him. The captain must navigate his emotional life – old feelings triggered by an uneasy yet magnetic relationship with his new Lieutenant – as well as the hidden traps being laid by others for their own gain. Nightingale ultimately must decide the fate of the gold and of the mutineers.

In many ways, this is an enjoyable seafaring tale, alive with scenes of the running up of royals and t’gallants sails, of tar and paint and canvas. But in Part One, we are in a dead calm caused by Nightingale’s fretting; tensions feel forced, and it is hard to marry the warship commander with his interior monologue. His anxieties are rather too mysterious, and the reader’s enlightenment is provided at a cost to the narrative drive. Characters drag too many stage directions around. The mutineer Jane promises much, but too soon fades into a sketch. Daysh does write brilliantly of sea battles, fogs, and storms, which is the most accomplished aspect of this debut queer novel, and much more persuasive than the gentle romance of Nightingale’s journey to self-acceptance.

Louise Tree

ANA MARÍA AND THE FOX

Liana De la Rosa, Berkley, 2023, $17.00, pb, 352pp, 9780593440889

Mexican heiress Ana María and her two sisters, Isabel and Gabriela, flee the second French occupation of Mexico by sailing to London. Their uncle, an ambassador in London, wants them to impress society while keeping their connection to the Mexican government a secret. Elated to be granted some freedom to appear in public without their domineering father dictating their every move, the sisters find that not all of London is welcoming of foreigners.

Gideon Fox often feels like a foreigner in London society, though he is a prominent member of Parliament. His humble beginnings and the love of his grandmother, a former slave, have shaped his entire life. He has one aim in life and that is to end the slave trade by passing a measure through Parliament with the support of a small circle of friends.

Gideon and Ana María find they have much in common, but their goals seem at odds with their hearts. When Ana María finds herself in an impossible situation, Gideon can’t help but offer his support despite the risks. As the full implication of their situation becomes clear, they will have to decide what matters most.

The romance between Ana María and Gideon has a slow start as it trickles through each of their own personal causes. Some romance readers may find the pacing of the love story uneven, while others will enjoy the space made for a stronger emphasis on political intrigue and social issues. The novel is

the first in a series featuring the Luna sisters and includes a steady trickle of breadcrumbs for the subsequent books.

De la Rosa has filled the book with sparkling and witty banter from a diverse cast of characters that has me looking forward to the next one in the series.

Shauna McIntyre

EIGHT STRINGS

Margaret DeRosia, Simon & Schuster Canada, 2023, $24.99/C$24.99, pb, 352pp, 9781982174071

Like the puppet plays that form the center of this novel, DeRosia imbues a melodramatic plot with layer upon layer of social and emotional complexity. Her invented protagonist, Franco Colareggio, transforms himself from a frightened girl escaping an arranged marriage into a charismatic, talented marionette performer. He headlines the celebrated Teatro Minerva and becomes a darling of Venetian society in the 1890s while championing the art forms beloved of working-class audiences.

Franco’s choice to create a male identity for himself – and the emotional realism of the way he grows into it – will appeal to modern readers on the lookout for LGBTQ+ perspectives in earlier historical time periods. Franco creates a “chosen family” for himself among his theatrical colleagues (with the historical maestro Pietro Radillo as a kindly father-figure) and has a queer romance with a childhood friend whose own identity as a Jewish lesbian puts her in frequent peril. Those actions, and his dedication to the populist art form of puppetry, allow DeRosia to imagine Franco as a symbol of the modern age on the cusp of the 20th century.

His artistry, open-heartedness, and quick wit make him many friends but also embroil him in the plots of a cartoonish villainess who wants to use the Minerva as a cover for her activities in human trafficking. (A couple of explicit sex scenes keep the narrative out of the YA category, but no sexual violence is depicted.) Although the plot is contrived and mechanical at times, the characters are complex and full of good humor. Readers will feel themselves part of the vibrant street life of fin-de-siècle Venice and will learn a great deal about the art of puppetry and the lived experience of queer artists.

Kristen McDermott

A GIFT OF POISON

Bella Ellis, Hodder & Stoughton, 2023, £16.99, hb, 339pp, 9781529363425

The latest book in the acclaimed series by Bella Ellis which features the Brontë sisters as amateur detectives is just as fun, thrilling, and page-turning as the three books that precede it.

The disgraced former workhouse master has asked the sisters to help clear his name. Mr Lowood was accused of murdering his wife and had his name cleared in court, but

suspicion and judgement from the people of the area hangs over him. He believes the real killer is after him too, while the young woman he seduced fears that she is being haunted by the dead woman. The sisters, meanwhile, have their brother’s drinking and debts to contend with as well as visits from Charlotte’s close friend Ellen Nussey and the esteemed writer Catherine Crowe. There is a strained feeling about the house as the sisters try to keep their investigations secret from their father, and also because while Anne and Emily have had their books accepted for publication, Charlotte’s novel has been rejected.

A Gift of Poison offers us the Brontë sisters just as their lives are about to be changed forever, before their books are published and before tragedy strikes. This is a wonderful novel in a beloved series and a must for all Brontë fans.

Lisa Redmond

ÉMILIENNE

Pamela Binnings Ewen, Blackstone, 2023, $27.99, hb, 304pp, 9781665095815

Émilienne revives the story of the late19th century Parisian courtesan Émilienne D’Alençon. Desperate to escape her life of poverty in Paris’s Montmartre, eighteenyear-old Émilienne embarks on a courageous journey to join the glittering demimonde. The scrappy girl will do anything to find love and success, but as she rises to stardom, she is confronted with the reality of a life built on beauty and desire.

Émilienne D’Alençon was one of the most famous entertainers in Paris during the Belle Époque (1871-1914). At the height of her fame, her image was found on posters and postcards throughout the city. She first came to fame via a successful act at the Cirque d’Été before moving on to the Folies Bergères and other popular theatres. Like others in her position, she subsidized her lifestyle by becoming a courtesan, which allowed for more freedom than a mistress. Courtesans were prized for their beauty and fame and were openly paraded in public by their wealthy benefactors.

Ewen creates an accurate and gorgeous picture of Belle Époque Paris without exhausting the reader with myriad details. If anything, it is a bit too sanitized. Émilienne is a likeable character with a true sense of joie de vivre. It is easy to root for her as she struggles to ascend the ladder to fame. Along the way, the story is populated with well-known historical characters such as artist Henri ToulouseLautrec and Coco Chanel, who was a lifelong friend to Émilienne. Readers who enjoy lively renderings of the past, combined with a wellpaced plot and true historical characters will thoroughly enjoy Émilienne.

Caroline D. Wilson

A MOST INTRIGUING LADY

Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, with Marguerite Kaye, Mills & Boon, 2023, £14.99, hb, 344pp, 9780008512972 / Avon, 2023, $30.00, hb, 368pp, 9780063216822

We first meet our heroine, Lady Mary Montagu Douglas Scott— the ‘intriguing lady’ of the title, and daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch— risking her neck by dancing along a stone parapet on the roof of Drumlanrig Castle in the Scottish Borders. It’s 1872, and this is not quite the behaviour that onlooker Colonel Walter Trefusis is expecting. It’s an arresting opening to this historical romance and paves the way for an unlikely crime fighting partnership, with the resourceful Lady Mary and the war-battered Colonel joining forces to uncover society crimes.

Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, is no stranger to high society and daring escapades. There is something of her own character in Lady Mary, albeit the latter is a wallflower who largely goes unnoticed, which could never be said for the Duchess of York. This is Ferguson’s second foray into adult fiction, with her first, Her Heart for a Compass, in the Sunday Times bestseller list. It’s the second time she has worked with Marguerite Kaye, who has written almost sixty historical romances for Mills & Boon.

The novel’s two protagonists really did exist, as did other characters in the book. The reader knows exactly where their relationship is headed, and it’s hardly a spoiler alert to say the couple end up as more than just partners in solving crime. The reader senses that Ferguson and Kaye had great fun filling in the gaps by inventing stories and details to add flesh to the bones. The book has been carefully researched, with some evocative locations such as Cliveden and Newburgh Priory making an appearance. With the haves and have-nots cast, and the stately home settings alongside grubby Victorian London, this lively book would lend itself very well to adaptation for the small screen.

Margery Hookings

THE RED BIRD SINGS

Aoife Fitzpatrick, Virago, 2023, £16.99, hb, 336pp, 9780349016641

1896, Greenbrier County, West Virginia, USA, and Zona Heaster writes to the child she gave up for adoption. The letter is typed by Zona’s friend, wannabe journalist and daring bicyclist Lucy. It’s clear that Zona

would never have parted with baby Elizabeth, had it not been for the ‘sin’ of being unmarried. Meanwhile, Mary Jane, her mother, frustrated by a daydreaming, failed-inventor husband, decides to become a spirit medium. To do so, she eschews her corsets: a move that embarrasses her family in a way that might be comparable to today’s reaction to a grandmother deciding to go shopping topless.

Less than a year later, Zona is married, and dead. Her husband, a respected man, arranges a swift burial. But Zona’s mother, and Lucy, have doubts. Despite considerable difficulties, they succeed in securing an inquest. The body is exhumed, and, through her mother, the spirit of Zona rejoins her community.

The novel has an unusual construction, weaving in letters, reports and conventional chapters focussing on different points of view. I found this a little confusing at first, but it piqued my curiosity. Gradually, a portrait of smalltown America emerges, patriarchal, Biblical, and gossipy. While men rule the roost, women, hidden away at home, emerge to offer comfort in adversity. And yet, these same women chastise each other with the whip of gossip. Although at heart, this is an issue-led book, it’s based on true events, and the characters are unique enough to drive the story. Mary Jane, in particular, is an ambivalent, idiosyncratic personage, for whom my sympathy grew as I learned more about her. Recommended.

Helen Johnson

IN THE SHADOW OF THE RIVER

Ann H. Gabhart, Revell, 2023, $16.99, pb, 332pp, 9780800741723

Set on a showboat in the 1880s, in this novel we embrace bygone times when these floating theatres plied the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, bringing drama and musical entertainment to towns. The vessels were large, elaboratelydecked-out rafts pushed downriver by small steamboats. Actors signed on at the start of the season, the family forming the nucleus of the show. Here it is almost a character, and a great place to hide away and disappear, as our heroine, Jacci (Jacinth) Reed, does.

At five, Jacinth (meaning rare jewel) experienced trauma which continues to haunt her adult life. A man attempted to kidnap her; she shot him, but not before he fatally wounded her mother, Irena. Before she died, they escaped to the Kingston Floating Palace, where the grown-up Jacci, billed as Princess, later sings and acts alongside her grandfather, Duke. We soon learn that her birth mother, Lisbeth, gave her up before being forced to marry Griffith Giles, whose political ambitions could not tolerate the scandal of an out-ofwedlock child. The reader fears for Jacci on the night the now-Senator Giles and his beautiful, dark-haired wife attend the show: “… the woman looked enough like Jacci to be her sister. Or her mother.”

Gabhart takes time to build Jacci’s backstory, who discovers her origins as the

story plods along. Things get suspenseful when Jacci, pushed overboard, nearly drowns. After her romantic rescue, the question remains: who on the boat had pushed her? There are poignant scenes between mother and child, a sweet love story, and eclectic characters from arrogant, overly amorous Cameron to jealous acrobat/understudy Winnie; Perry, the strange ventriloquist; and Kelly, the dashing riverboat gambler.

Gail M. Murray

DAUGHTERS OF NANTUCKET

Julie Gerstenblatt, MIRA, 2023, $19.99, pb, 448pp, 9780778333425 Nantucket’s Great Fire of 1846, a turning point in the life of the island and its residents, was a historical catastrophe that’s relatively little-known today. In her debut, Gerstenblatt tells an emotionally gripping tale from the viewpoints of three determined Nantucket women whose personal stories resonate as strongly as that of the terrible event they live through.

Meg Wright and her husband, Benjamin, a free Black couple, anxiously await the birth of their next child while aspiring to move their cobbler shop to a prominent spot on Main Street. Standing in their way is Eliza Macy, a whaling captain’s wife anxious about her family’s finances; her husband Henry’s yearslong voyage was extended, the bank won’t approve another loan, and her son-in-law’s business competes with the Wrights’ store. Eliza’s stance kindles a conflict with friend and neighbor Maria Mitchell, an astronomer and librarian at the Nantucket Atheneum who hides her attraction to another scientificallyminded young woman. Tensions emerging from racial prejudice and clandestine desires are already heating up when the fire breaks out, forcing everyone to choose what’s most valuable to them.

Nantucket stands apart for many reasons: thirty miles from the Massachusetts mainland, it’s grown prosperous through the production of whale oil (“sleeping liquid gold”), and with many husbands absent, the women are selfsufficient by necessity. The island’s widespread Quaker beliefs also grant women equal standing. The social milieu and geographical environment, from the bustling downtown to the Wrights’ multiethnic New Guinea neighborhood, integrate well into the plotline. Wisely, Gerstenblatt doesn’t force the women into a contrived sisterhood but allows their individual personalities and principles to shine. Seeing the women through each other’s eyes— particularly Eliza, whose self-image contrasts with outsiders’ views—adds new facets to the character portraits. Engaging to the finale (which leaves one plot thread tantalizingly open), this novel would be a great book club choice.

Sarah Johnson

THE BENEVOLENT SOCIETY OF ILL-MANNERED LADIES

Alison Goodman, Berkley Prime Crime, 2023, $16.99, pb, 464pp, 9780593440827

Twin sisters Julia and Augusta (Gus) Colebrook are as different as they could be, physically and temperamentally, and yet they are best friends and co-adventurers through life. At 42 years old in 1812, petite, quiet Julia is mourning her fiancé, who died two years previously, and tall, determined Gus is uninterested in being told what to do by any man.

The book begins with Julia and Gus risking their reputations and possibly their lives to save a friend from a disastrous marriage, but the sisters are quickly embroiled in even more intrigue as they meet Lord Evan Belford, an escaped convict traveling under the name Jonathan Hargate. Why is he back in England? Will he be caught and imprisoned again? What really happened to his sister years ago? And why can’t Gus stop thinking about him? The women must face their irritating, selfish brother, a friend who’s been trapped by her own husband, and an asylum full of women being held against their will. But as Gus reflects, “For all the danger we were in, I was enjoying myself.”

Alison Goodman maintains a lighthearted tone despite the women’s sometimes dark adventures. The book is well-paced, excellently researched (with several fun historical characters like Fanny Burney), funny, romantic, and action-packed.

Amy Watkin

FYNESHADE

Kate Griffin, Viper, 2023, £16.99, hb, 363pp, 9781788168731

I greatly enjoyed Griffin’s series of historical crime novels, Kitty Peck and The Music Hall Murders and its successors. Here the scale is far smaller, the few characters shown almost exclusively within the titular mansion, its gardens, and secret locked wings. We are in the Derbyshire Peak District in an unspecified year, and our story is narrated in the voice of Marta, glamorous but uncanny. As the book starts she has just procured her own abortion through charms and witchcraft. She then arrives at Fyneshade as the new governess assigned to Grace –

a child with learning difficulties who scarcely speaks and is looked after solely by servants, her mother being dead and father mysteriously absent. A dashing son of the family appears, but due to some past misdemeanour he is not allowed inside the house, though this does not stop him from seducing the willing Marta.

After a slow-burning first half, we realise that despite her supernatural powers, Marta has allowed an infatuation to get the better of her judgement. There is tight suspense in the later chapters as we anticipate the comeuppance to be met by our leading lady, but are led up blind alleys. Grace’s character turns out to be unexpectedly manipulative. As I expect from Griffin, there are evocative descriptions of

behaviours and settings, and even smells, but personally I did find this narrator’s calculating self-belief a little less interesting than Kitty’s wit and self-doubt. Marta ultimately comes unstuck, but she lives to be a governess again. One question distracted me – we are told that she has French heritage, so I do not understand why she uses the Italian or Polish name Marta rather than the French Marthe. Clever and allusive, Fyneshade remains a very cool take on the Gothic, deserving to do well.

Ben Bergonzi

A BITTER REMEDY

Alis Hawkins, Canelo, 2023, £16.99, hb, 368pp, 9781800328570

In 1881 Oxford, women are forbidden admission to university, but they can attend lectures, if suitably chaperoned. At one such lecture, Welsh scholar Rhiannon (Non) Vaughan overhears news of an undergraduate’s untimely death. Barred from viewing the body, Non suggests bringing in Teifi Valley’s eminent Dr. Reckitt, a surgeon and proponent of mandatory autopsies, but the university Principal firmly slams that door, effectively closing patriarchal university ranks. Sidney Parker’s body is extremely emaciated, and his landlady confirms his debilitating stomach complaints. Furthermore, his bedside drawer, full of empty bottles, makes his paregoric and laudanum habit clear. Personal belongings of any kind are absent from the scene, leading Non to believe he had something to hide. As she sets about her investigation, she confers with Professor Basil Rice, who is assigned to protect the university’s fragile reputation, and fend off Parker’s guardian, who threatens to sue them all for neglecting their ‘in loco parentis’ duties.

This is an atmospheric murder mystery packed with detail of late 19th-century historic Oxford. Capped and gowned professors and undergrads pepper the streets, and it’s easy to picture the feisty Non, with her cleverly adapted walking dress, standing hard on the cranks of her rear-steering tandem, to achieve extra speed as she races about the city. Hawkins presents a challenging, complex conundrum, illuminating the overuse of patent remedies, not unlike today’s opioid crisis, university protocol, and attendant male prerogative. The restrictions placed upon the Association for Promoting the Higher Education of Women are explored, giving the plot an extra burst of tension as Non battles conformity. Oxford is familiar stomping ground for books and TV mysteries, the setting of Jesus College (Welsh College) a perfect way to incorporate Hawkins’ vivid writing into her evident love of her home country. She excels at crafting an intriguing, offbeat mystery, as evidenced by her splendidly outré Teifi Valley Coroner series.

Fiona Alison

LITTLE WRITER

Marina Hill, Evergreen Books, 2022, $16.99, pb, 236pp, 9798986290805

In Little Writer, a retelling of Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 classic Little Women from Jo March’s first-person vantage, author Marina Hill reimagines the March family as Black; she also depicts their wealthy friend Laurie Laurence as Asian and Laurie’s tutor, John Brooke, as Native American. Other than these racial alterations, the author follows the general plot of Little Women, down to Alcott’s cranky insistence on refusing to allow Jo to marry Laurie. (Those who weren’t convinced by Alcott likely won’t be convinced by Hill either.)

While Hill’s concept is an interesting one and Hill writes well, I didn’t really warm to this book. For one thing, Jo’s traits that are so endearing in the third person become somewhat less so in the first person. For another, while the colorblind society imagined here is a pleasant thing, it robs the novel of its historical context and makes the reader wonder exactly why the nation is at war (presumably, the South did not progress as far as the North). Indeed, everyone is so enlightened in Hill’s version—the Black Marches are accepted and indeed beloved at every level of society, and a major character admits to a same-sex attraction without eliciting so much as a raised eyebrow—that one wonders why all but a comparative few appear to have missed the memo on gender equality.

When Jo describes her clothing at several points in the novel—newsboy hats, vests, and skirts—it brings to mind her character’s eclectic costumes in the 2019 film adaptation of Little Women by Greta Gerwig. I suspect that it is fans of that movie, along with those who find the Victorian mindset of Alcott off-putting, who will probably be the most enthusiastic readers of Little Writer. Others may question whether Little Women really needs improving upon.

Susan Higginbotham

THE ODYSSEY OF EFFIE FROST

K. S. Hollenbeck, Five Star, 2023, $25.95, hb, 245pp, 9781432895853

This coming-of-age tale tells of 18-and 16-year-old sisters, Effie and Phoebe Frost, and their cousin Beatrice, who embark on an arduous journey from Boston to California, following Beatrice’s Argonaut husband, who left to make his fortune. But good news and safety do not await them in San Francisco. Aaron has died of typhoid fever, and what little gold he found is invested in a Sierra Nevada claim, with five other men. Effie demands they take up Aaron’s share and accompany the group as cook, laundress and housekeeper.

This is the mid-1800s, but even amidst the early gold rush, the rot has set in, and hordes of drunken men, addled by gold-fever and the prospect of wealth, eagerly offer marriage proposals. Effie’s self-determination is what

unites both family and storyline: a girl, eager to prove her worth, unwilling to surrender her autonomy in a male-dominated world. Whilst Beatrice and Phoebe engage in more womanly pursuits, Effie works the claim alongside the men, the physical strain increasing her strength of body, spirit and purpose. Beatrice and Phoebe’s ill-considered choices don’t affect her determined resolve to take them all home. But as the novel progresses, the idea of home becomes increasingly elusive.

Hollenbeck’s evocative writing makes this a stand-out read. The girls’ individuality, forged anew by the unfamiliar rules they live by, their relationship to each other, and their choices are what makes the novel so compelling. Effie’s character is particularly strong, but the author allows all three girls to grow and mature. The male characters are written with equal thoughtfulness and are not the desperate, delusional people Effie originally supposes. Aptly titled an “odyssey,” this quite short but truly epic tale is packed with detail and richly drawn characters. You don’t have to be a Western fan to appreciate this novel.

Fiona Alison

CAMPBELL’S BOY

Mary Kendall, Moonshine Cove, 2022, $17.50, pb, 238pp, 9781952439452

Emmet Campbell reaches the town of Colusa in northern California with his father during the 1850s Gold Rush, but his mother has died on the journey. Emmet’s father works hard and acquires ranch land under the inspiring visage of the Sutter Buttes, which make Emmet “forget about whatever was gnawing on his mind.” With father always busy, Emmet has time to explore Colusa’s Chinatown, the landscape, and various local establishments, including the dry-goods store, the saloon, and the brothel.

Emmet isn’t afraid of work and demonstrates admirable qualities, but finding his place in the hardscrabble frontier town proves difficult. He can’t strike a chord with the local boys, and often retreats to Chinatown and a comfortable relationship with a wise Chinese elder. Emmet’s troubles compound when his father takes on a mail-order bride with her own baby to become his new mother. Emmet must find his place in the freshly made family and, more than that, must learn who he is. But when his father and his stepmother have their own son, Emmet’s situation becomes all the more precarious.

The prose conveys a heartfelt sincerity to Emmet’s story, which is inspired by a newspaper obituary and real-life court case. His yearnings for a place in the world and for love are given a sense of poignancy that is quite touching. Emmet’s journey in life is drawn with mountainous challenges and heartbreaks, and the author clearly has a passion to tell the tale of his battle against injustice as she impressively imagines the human costs of an actual court ruling that had been long lost to

history. Campbell’s Boy is author Mary Kendall’s second historical novel.

Brodie Curtis

WHAT DREAMS MAY COME

Dana LeCheminant, Covenant, 2023, $16.99, pb, 272pp, 9781524423087

Lucy Hayes is a governess fleeing the unwanted attentions of her employer’s brother, Mr. Granger, when foul weather stops the coach at an inn. Granger follows and is about to discover her among the passengers, but a stranger, William Calloway, notices Lucy’s distress and offers his room as a hideaway. When William succumbs to a fever, Lucy pretends to be his fiancée and accompanies the unconscious man home to escape Granger. But her lie becomes complicated with guilt when the Calloways welcome her kindly, and William’s brother Simon, the baron, begins to have feelings for Lucy, and she for him. When Granger tracks Lucy down, matters come to a head.

The plot has false-fiancée elements in common with the 1995 film While You Were Sleeping. It’s a pleasant Regency, “clean” in style. The author handles the couple’s heartburnings for each other well, creating tension. Two minor quibbles: Lucy takes a very long time to decide to tell the truth, which stretches the plot a bit more than needed, and she takes an action to bring about the climax that seemed inexplicable to this reader. Yet the pluses outweigh those small minuses, and I recommend this one to Regency fans.

B.J. Sedlock

THE BIG SUGAR

Mary Logue, Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2023, $22.95, hb, 200pp, 9781517913694

What is a “big sugar”? In Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1881, it’s a cattle baron—someone with enormous power and money, and control of a chunk of the community, human and economic. Despite her best intentions to just locate her runaway brother and settle down, even if that means living in a dirt-floored “soddy” house within view of the Rocky Mountains, Irish immigrant Brigid Reardon can’t help fighting for what’s right. On a recent ride out on the range, she’s found a young woman murdered, lynched: her friend Ella. Frontier justice? Or a warning to those who push back?

Brigid’s efforts to find out what happened to Ella alternate with applying her father’s horse-whisperer techniques to a wild mustang, gaining a riding horse in the process. She’s also struggling to sort out her feelings for her traveling companion, Padraic—scraps recalled from the earlier book in this series, The Streel, suggest she and Padraic have been forming a bond for a while, and only the uncertainties around her brother have slowed the couple from firming up their engagement.

But figuring out how a cattle baron can ignore the social and legal restraints and seize what he wants may also upend Brigid’s plans

for a good life among other Irish immigrants. A final author’s note explains the roots of this brief novel in real records of lynchings out West, so that Logue’s story shines fact-based light on a messy area of settler history. Strong character interactions in The Big Sugar add to its interest; sadly, it seems to end far too soon.

Beth Kanell

THE GENTLEMAN IN THE ASH TREE

Roseanne E. Lortz, Madison Street Publishing, 2023, $2.99, ebook, 140pp, B0BQFN6KKN

When Eloise Blackburn discovers a stranger hiding in an ash tree, she is unconvinced that he really is the nephew of the neighboring landowner. But Crispin Allen turns out to be whom he claims to be, just returned from Barbados to claim a trunk left by his grandfather to his recently deceased father. The trouble is it has gone missing, and his uncle is not being very helpful. What can it contain? And why did Crispin’s grandfather disinherit his older son? The mystery adds suspense, especially when Crispin goes missing, but this is primarily a romance in which two young people fall in love as they get to know each other better and the virtues of loyalty and determination triumph over the vices of jealousy and greed. This Regency will satisfy readers looking for a reassuring story, in which the admirable characters are rewarded, those who regret their misbehavior are forgiven, and the unrepentant nasty ones are punished (especially Crispin’s mean-spirited aunt). First in the Allen Abbey Romances.

Ray Thompson

THE SECRETS OF HARTWOOD HALL

Katie Lumsden, Michael Joseph, 2023, £16.99, hb, 398pp, 9780241556078 / Dutton, 2023, $27.00, hb, 352pp, 9780593186923

Margaret Lennox, newly widowed although only in her late twenties, goes to Hartwood Hall in Somerset to take up the post as governess to Louis Eversham, a lonely ten-year-old boy. The house is isolated, the staff numbers are small, and Margaret Lennox’s employer is herself a widow and a novelist, often absent from the Hall with the demands of her profession. The locals in the adjacent village of Hartbridge are suspicious of the Hall and its inhabitants with bucolic mutterings of dark secrets, and indeed she soon is aware of some unusual and unaccounted presences around the neglected property. The new governess also has some arcane mysteries in her background, which are intimated at the outset and subsequently unfolded. We thus have all the classic ingredients for a gothic and romantic mystery, set in the latter half of the 19th century and which also compasses seemingly unaccounted apparitions and the evil of blackmail.

competently illustrates the difficulties facing Margaret Lennox as a penniless widow, dependent upon her position for survival whilst retaining an element of genteel dignity in Victorian Britain. Full marks for the narrative drive and absorbing plot, but perhaps not such a terribly original subject. The historical context is mostly well researched, particularly how an outbreak of measles was medically responded to in Victorian Britain. There are a few oddities in the story – a Sunday Church of England church service in the afternoon rather than the morning seems strange, and other issues which, to be fair, are resolved as the plot unfolds. In all, a very capable and entertaining debut.

Douglas Kemp

HOW TO BEST A MARQUESS

Janna MacGregor, St. Martin’s, 2023, $9.99/ C$12.99, pb, 384pp, 9781250761637

After the disaster of an illegal marriage to Meri, a ‘trigamist,’ Beth Howell vows never to marry again. Thus when her irresponsible brother demands she now marry an aged peer, she determines to recover her dowry and live in independence. But what did Meri do with it?

To track it down, she enlists the help of Julian Raleah, Marquess of Grayson, the only man with whom she has ever fallen in love. Since he needs the money which she promises to share with him, Julian reluctantly agrees, but it does not take long for the embers of their feelings for each other to burst in flame.

The plot rambles and coincidences abound as they travel across the country, retracing the path of her errant not-husband, but this story will satisfy readers looking for a sentimental (and steamy) Regency romance, where the villains are suitably punished, the truly repentant win forgiveness for their mistakes, and the devoted lovers find happiness after a period of suffering. Book 3 of The Widow Rules series.

Ray Thompson

SHADOW OF THE MOON

Edward McSweegan, The Wild Rose Press, 2023, $18.99, pb, 304pp, 9781509248322

Nolan leaves Chicago seeking adventure in Colorado but quickly discovers that the Wild West can be just as fierce and dangerous as described in dime novels. Disillusioned with cowboy life and mourning the loss of a friend killed in an ambush, he takes a job hauling freight across the desert. The work isn’t particularly exciting until one day, he meets four unusual women getting off a train.

The governess held an unusual and ambiguous position in households in England – definitely not part of the family, but also more than a mere servant. Katie

Lumsden

Among them is an astronomer and professor at Vassar College, her artist sister, and two students studying astronomy. The four women are headed to meet with scientists and spectators to watch the July 1878 total solar eclipse. Due to railroad disputes, they can’t take their original train to their destination. They hire Nolan’s company to get their telescopes and two of the women to Denver while the other two find passage on another

train. It sounds like a simple enough job, but multiple mishaps threaten to spoil their plans and potentially endanger their lives.

McSweegan’s story is packed full of adventure, though sometimes is a bit cliché. Using Mexican vaqueros and Native Americans as the “bad guys” who attack without provocation and are easily defeated is disappointing, especially considering the character development given to the African American and female characters. The four women from Boston are especially refreshing, depicted as well-respected by all in the book, particularly Cora, who garners Nolan’s attention, and later affection, with her intelligence and bravery rather than just her looks. But, despite some flaws, the novel will satisfy Western and non-Western fans alike with plenty of high-stakes action and a women-centered focus.

Janice Derr

LADY ROSAMUND AND THE PLAGUE OF SUITORS

Barbara Monajem, Level Best/Historia, 2022, $5.99, ebook, 271pp, B0BMGRR74Y

Widowed Lady Rosamund solves another murder with the help of Gilroy McBrae, a friend with an attraction she prefers to be in denial about. The Bow Street Runners are after her brother, Julius. His mistress, Esme, was abducted by an acquaintance, and Julius stabbed the abductor to death and then went missing. Rosamund knows her brother is innocent, but can she prove it?

To avoid unwanted intimacy, Rosamund happily agreed that her husband not touch her, but continue his relationship with his mistress, whom Rosamund considers a good friend. Her OCD, and her propensity to shock and amuse the ton, adds flavor to Rosamund’s character, but makes her mother want to confine her in an asylum. Much to her delight as they search for Julius, Rosamund discovers Esme is well-bred, intelligent, and kind, not at all what the gossips claim. And the suitors? Well, she spends much of the book fending them off.

The relationship between Rosamund, McBrae, and his alter ego needs some explaining, so I recommend reading the previous books in the series. Rosamund’s witty asides and frequent solecisms make for a fun, fast read.

Fiona Alison

IN THE SHADOW OF A QUEEN

Heather B. Moore, Shadow Mountain, 2023, $26.99, hb, 370pp, 9781639930500

From her thirteenth birthday in 1861 to her marriage in 1871, Moore’s biographical novel traces the coming of age of Princess Louise, sixth child to Queen Victoria and her beloved Albert, whose death fractures Louise’s innocence. Though the novel glances at the

19th century political world and causes like women’s education and suffrage, the lens is firmly domestic, preoccupied with how Louise deals with her mother’s deep mourning, her own artistic ambitions, and her growing desire to marry.

Moore draws a caring portrait of family life, showing siblings who are close despite their independent and occasionally clashing wills. The dominant figure is the queen, portrayed here as a woman who, though conscious of her position, is first and foremost a mother, her ruling concern the health and welfare of her children. Louise feels frustrated by her mother’s demands that she stifle her own curiosity in order not to take political sides, but, out of affection, she finds a way to accommodate her mother’s restrictions. Along with the tedious protocols that attend being royal, and the consciousness of always being watched, Louise feels the tug of divided loyalties that result when family relationships are also international alliances.

These concerns take a back seat to the love story when the queen consents that Louise might marry and the search for a proper suitor begins. I confess that falling in love with Lord Lorne, along with Louise, was my favorite part of the book. Moore portrays them as two mature, considerate individuals who find their way to harmony and a partnership that gives Louise room to breathe as she is at last freed from her mother’s shadow. In prose sweet, stately, soothing, and smooth, Moore offers a compassionate portrait of this famous family and shapes a tender fate for Princess Louise.

Misty Urban

THE LOST WIFE

Susanna Moore, Knopf, 2023, $27.00/C$37.00, hb, 172pp, 9780385351430

Sarah, a luckless woman in mid-19th century America, flees her abusive husband, leaving her daughter behind. She ends up in Minnesota, where an uneasy peace has been carved between the encroaching white population and the Sioux. Based on a captivity narrative published in 1864, this is about a woman caught between two worlds during the Sioux Uprising of 1862. The uprising, stemming from widespread starvation as a result of the American government’s failure to honor the terms of its treaty with the Sioux people, comes to Sarah’s doorstep, and she and her children are captured.

The style of this novel is understated, matter-of-fact, with moments of tentative beauty—perhaps suitable for its narrator, who

has been repeatedly traumatized throughout her life and seems to experience events through a tough stoicism. Sarah is a survivor, but she’s also sensitive and observant. Because her independent character allows her to see things differently than the white settlers around her, she adapts to her captivity and finds herself occupying a liminal cultural space.

The novel brings to light an important, and tragic, part of American history. Sarah’s experience is an interesting lens through which to view the events, but because the narrative style is so detached, it can be difficult to identify with her feelings. Some readers may wish for a more emotionally expressive narrator; others will appreciate the lack of sentimentality, as the author allows the horror of the events to speak for itself.

Elizabeth Crachiolo

THE TIFFANY GIRLS

Shelley Noble, William Morrow, 2023, $19.99/£10.99, pb, 416pp, 9780063252448

At the end of the 19th century, Emilie Pascal is desperate to escape Paris because she fears the police are after her. Her father, a once-famous painter, has been discovered to be an art forger, and Emilie is guilty by association. In a daring move, she manages to board a steamer with her art portfolio and travel to New York City, where she hopes to become employed at the renowned Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company. Once in Manhattan, she makes her way to Tiffany’s and lands a position on a trial basis.

Emilie is a gifted artist. She had spent the entire transatlantic journey studying the art of glassmaking. With her eye for color and her innate sense of how light and color can bring art to life, she soon gains professional admiration from Mr. Louis Tiffany.

Everyone wants her to succeed. It isn’t until Mr. Tiffany asks her to come to Paris and help him install his major art project at the 1899 World’s Fair that Emilie’s past quickly creeps up to ruin her new success. But she has made friends with the other Tiffany girls at the boardinghouse and has caught the eye of a notable art dealer whom she respects.

The author does a fantastic job with all the historical and art details of how Tiffany’s produced the stunning glass panels and lamps they are still known for. In addition, the characters are well-drawn and believable, and the plot moves along quickly. I honestly cannot think of anything the author could have done to improve this novel. Highly recommended.

Linda Harris Sittig

THE LONDON SÉANCE SOCIETY

Sarah Penner, Park Row, 2023, $28.99, hb, 352pp, 9780778387114 / Legend Press, 2023, £14.99, hb, 288pp, 9781915054142

In 1873, the London Séance Society is a gentlemen’s-only club whose president’s murder during an All Hallows Eve soiree has been unsolved for months. Society vicepresident Mr. Morley (told in first-person narration) is pressured to produce answers. There’s only one person he can think to call on: renowned medium Vaudeline D’Allaire. Meanwhile in Paris, since her sister’s murder, Lenna (told in third-person narration) has taken an apprenticeship with Vaudeline, who specializes in helping people connect with unsolved murder victims. Lenna struggles with her grief and trusting in that which she can’t see, including a growing affection towards her teacher. Despite having fled London a year earlier for her safety, when Mr. Morley requests Vaudeline’s services, she agrees. Lenna hopes when in London Vaudeline can shed light on her sister’s murder too.

The story is about connections. From the living to the dead, to the characters and their inner circles, the complex web of these connections slowly unravels until the truth is at last unveiled. Penner flips back and forth through time, mostly through character recollections. As past tense verbs aren’t often employed, it’s easy to mix up the past versus present narratives. While Lenna and Morley interact within the same time and place, the changing of narratives from first and third person within the same scenes feels disruptive to the story’s flow. Character-wise, Lenna is frustratingly inept and often hinders her own plans with rash decisions. Plus, it takes her a bit too long to figure things out. A small historical note: the women are referred to and sign off as “Ms.,” a term not in use until the 1950s.

During the seances, a lush gothic atmosphere permeates the narrative in entrancing and spine-tingling ways. Readers will also enjoy the multiple twists and turns of the plot in this supernatural murder mystery.

J. Lynn Else

PONY BOYS

Richard Prosch, Five Star, 2022, $25.95, hb, 243pp, 9781432899103

An alias can be a criminal’s best friend. At least that’s the thinking of teenaged John Augustus (Gus) and his testosterone-pumped compatriots in 1870s Nebraska. “Kid” Wade, “Boots” Harper, and other assorted young horse thieves are all part of a loose network masterminded by middle-aged Doc Middleton, an elusive, charismatic character loved and feared in the Niobrara River country.

Young Gus, refugee from an unpleasant home life, and a cut above his ne’er-dowell peers in conscience and character, faces coming of age in one of the wildest environments in North America. That frontier is steadily being replaced by an ordered society

that will no longer tolerate these juvenile criminals. Gus finds himself torn between the familiar camaraderie of his lawless pals and the possibility of a rewarding, settled life with young Trudy, who’s made mistakes of her own.

Pony Boys is about juveniles without being a young adult novel. It confronts the problems of growing up in an unforgiving world while retaining one’s humanity and reaching for a less exciting, but more fulfilling, life in the process.

Loyd Uglow

THE END OF DRUM-TIME

Hanna Pylväinen, Henry Holt, 2023, $28.99, hb, 368pp, 9781250822918

In the austere reaches of mid-19th-century northern Scandinavia, two ways of life collide. The native Sámi, or Lapps, as the Swedish and Finnish settlers call them, have herded reindeer on long-established routes over the fragile ecosystem of the tundra for millennia. The settlers are claiming land to farm, plowing away the reindeer’s main food source, a thick layer of lichen that takes decades to grow. When reindeer trample the fields and devour the crop of hay, a distant crown ordains that the herders follow impossibly restrictive migration routes, threatening their way of life.

Religious repression, alcoholism, culture clashes, and political ends tangle into the territorial strife. Exemplifying and dramatizing the conflict are two lovers: a Sami herdsman and shaman’s son, and the daughter of a charismatic Lutheran preacher.

Passion and jealousy, greed and kindness, piety and power, tradition and change, a longing for freedom and a longing for stability, and lust and love, pull and push not only the lovers, but the other characters of The End of Drum-Time. Hanna Pylväinen’s many-threaded story weaves a fascinating and gorgeous tapestry of a world ruled by cold, the arctic extremes of dark and light, impersonal political forces, and, above all, the timeless forces of human nature.

Jean Huets

THE LOW ROAD

Katharine Quarmby, Unbound, 2023, $22.95, hb, 400pp, 9781800182394

Norfolk, 1813: Hannah, a small child, witnesses her mother’s burial, staked through the heart as a suicide, following arrest for the apparent infanticide of a second illegitimate child. Quarmby evokes the hard-scrabble of agricultural life at the time of the Peninsular War; Hannah was milking at age five. There are some kindnesses, as of the gentle clergyman who ran the parish school, replaced however by the bigoted cruelty of a holier-than-thou cleric with a particular animus towards “baseborn” children.

Quarmby gives a lyrical description of the Norfolk landscape, stained though by the suffering of destitute families sent to the workhouse, maimed men returning from Spain and the lingering fear of witches. Threshing

machines are destroyed by men fearful of losing their livelihood; protesters are hanged.

The Low Road is a tough read, paradoxically, because of the empathy with which Quarmby tells her story; tougher, too, because it is based on true events. Hannah’s trajectory in life is almost inevitable. She accelerates it by pilfering, but the reasons for her thefts are pitifully human. Sent to a refuge in London, she meets Annie, who is to be the love of her life, but both of them end up in a nightmarish Newgate prison, leavened only by the presence of Elizabeth Fry. The ultimate destination for the two women, though separately, is transportation, to an Australia as lush in colour and birdsong as London was bleak.

Quarmby’s imagery is vivid: “…another uniform. It felt damp to the touch, as if everything on board oozed a kind of despair”. Occasionally Hannah tells her story in a dreamlike, almost hallucinatory fugue, as happens with extremes of cold or hunger. The novel is almost a “progress” but closer to Hogarth than Smollett or Cleland; the otherwise voiceless Hannah is granted her place in history at last.

Katherine Mezzacappa

THE TAPESTRY OF GRACE

Kim Vogel Sawyer, Waterbrook, 2023, $17.00, pb, 320pp, 9780593194386

This is a heartwarming Christian novel set in Alexandertol, Kansas, in 1895. Augusta Dyck, a widow and mother who is also the town’s teacher, becomes a part of a new Frauenverien, a group of women in the Mennonite church who band together to help provide for widows and orphans. Augusta immediately begins petitioning the group to help Konrad Rempel, a widower with twin boys. She can tell he needs someone to care for the boys while he is working as a blacksmith. Konrad, however, is reluctant to receive help. The group’s overbearing leader, Martina Krahn, suggests an apprenticeship for one of the twins with her husband, a wainwright. But she has ulterior motives, hoping a child will save her marriage and give her husband something that she cannot.

The town of Alexandertol is based on the German Mennonite communities that relocated to America after suffering religious persecution in Russia. The town’s cast of characters is well written, and it is fun to follow their daily lives and see what life was like for them in 1895. There are many Christian messages in this book, including dealing with guilt, the rewards of helping others, having faith, and asking God for help. However, the greatest message is that God can take something bad and turn it into something wonderful. The reader is introduced to the history of the Frauenverien, which was an actual organization set up by German communities at that time to help those in need. With likable characters and a heartfelt message, this is a book that readers of Christian fiction will enjoy.

Bonnie DeMoss

LOYALTY

Lisa Scottoline, Putnam, 2023, $28.00, hb, 432pp, 9780525539803

This is an action-packed, technicolor novel about the origins of the Mafia in Sicily. Lisa Scottoline has done extensive research to present a history both of Sicily in the 1800s as well as the crime organization, which developed in the lemon groves around Palermo. Her characters, however, are entirely fictional. And what a cast of actors they are! Most dramatic are dyed-in-the-wool villains, like the Fiorvanti twins, Roberto and Franco, who crave power over the barons who have ruled Sicily for generations, and start their empire with kidnapping, murder, and arson. A few individuals are unbelievable saints, like the lawyer Gaetano, who gives up his practice and his family to find the perpetrators who kidnapped a young boy, and Alfredo, the kindly wizard with his family of goats, who is a secret Jew in a land that has banished his race.

A few are much-maligned victims like Dante, the kidnapped child who grows up in a madhouse, and Lucia, an albino child who grows up in the wild. It should come as no surprise that Dante and Lucia fall in love, become a couple, and have a child by novel’s end. Truth, justice, and kindness prevail!

Scottoline paints a rich tapestry of the Sicilian landscape with its luxuriant lemon groves, delicious cuisine, and frightening sulfur mines. The reader shouldn’t look for any sophistication in either character or plot, but should expect to enjoy this passionate narrative thoroughly!

Joanne Vickers

THE TRUE PURPOSE OF VINES

Giovanna Siniscalchi, CBL, 2022, $13.85, pb, 436pp, 9786599741067

Portugal, 1870. Widowed and running a vineyard on her own as a woman, Julia is trying to pay back her late husband’s loan. Griffin is the Englishman sent to learn the winemaking trade while also checking on Julia’s production for the man who controls her loan contract. The two meet and there’s an instant attraction. But Julia is hiding something—a secret valley that may help her keep their home but risks the terms of her contract and possibly losing everything. When a plague begins infecting the vineyards, Julia and Griffin will find themselves on a journey to save the Douro Valley’s wine production. Despite their growing affection, can their love overcome the pressures of society?

Based on real events and people, The True Purpose of Vines is a historical romance about forbidden love and cultural clashes set within the vineyards of Portugal. The craft of winemaking permeates the narrative in fascinating ways. Julia’s expertise brings to life the practice of growing, harvesting, and fermenting wine alongside the beautiful setting. I felt the allure of the craft through Siniscalchi’s elegant prose. The setting and characters are well-developed and lush. Julia

is engagingly strong-willed and spirited. Griffin is slightly overbearing but softens as the narrative progresses. Both characters find themselves restricted by the pressures of their respective societies as well as by their own prejudices. Siniscalchi deftly weaves a narrative of mounting obstacles, overcoming gender and social inequalities, and steamy romance.

J. Lynn Else

NEVER SLEEP

Fred Van Lente, Blackstone, 2023, $27.99/£22.99, hb, 307pp, 9798200813490

Never Sleep is a solid historical fiction offering by well-known graphic novelist and fiction writer Van Lente. Opening in 1861, it follows Kate Warn, the first female criminal detective hired by Allan Pinkerton, founder of the National Police Agency. Kate and her young protégé, Hattie MacLaughlin, are tasked to root out assassination plots in the South during an era in which federal enforcement and public service protection for Presidents was all but nonexistent. In this rich character study, Pinkerton himself is one of the most vibrant characters, bringing his Scottish empiricism and skepticism to a profession sorely in need of it.

The tenacious, often unscrupulous Kate is tasked to infiltrate the secessionist circles of the Baltimore female gentry, posing as a displaced Southern wife whose husband has been wrongly imprisoned by the Northern legal system. Hattie is given a similar assignment among working-class political organizations. The women’s unchallenged social access and keen detective instincts serve them well and glean far more timely intelligence than do their male counterparts. Colorful actors with often obscure motives populate the narrative, such as the blind but terrifyingly violent “Prophet—,” a pro-slavery answer to the North’s John Brown; and Lieutenant Hill, a Union officer seemingly willing to compromise his allegiance for monetary gain, and one of Kate’s love interests.

The story’s principal conflicts, beyond the obvious North/South divide, include the disparate motives of the Southern gentry versus the lower classes, both opposing Lincoln and supporting the slave system for their own reasons. There is also conflict between Kate and Hattie, fueled by Kate’s rightful fear of being supplanted by the greater talents and youthful beauty of her mentee. Lincoln is difficult to render without cliché, but the novel manages it with grace. The style is breezy and accessible, with some engaging plot twists despite the outcome’s historic predictability. Recommended.

Jackie Drohan

THE TUMBLING GIRL

Bridget Walsh, Gallic, 2023, £12.99, pb, 288pp, 9781913547639 / Gallic, 2023, $17.95, pb, 296pp, 9781913547516

London, 1876: in the first of Walsh’s Variety Palace mysteries, Minnie Ward, a

plainspoken magician’s assistant turned music hall scriptwriter, vows to solve the squalid murder of her best friend Rose, enlisting the help of the private detective and former boxer Albert Easterbrook. London is stalked by the notorious Hairpin Killer, whose modus operandi perplexingly resembles religious iconography. However, a different body count rises, and the existential threat to Minnie grows with it. Her world reeks of greasepaint, stale tobacco and oysters, and is populated by characters J. B. Priestley would have been proud of: the Mexican Boneless wonder is ‘as drunk as a boiled owl’, a plate spinner smashes more than she spins and a soprano sounds like ‘a cat pissing in a can.’ One could imagine the theatrical impresario ‘Tansie’ Tansford being played by the late Bob Hoskins. Walsh’s research has been thorough; not least, she knows an impressive amount about prize-fighting.

Stanhope lens rings are an integral part of the plot. A reference to another kind of ring – a pollution ring – is eye-watering. A sumptuous, decadent interior recalls Leighton House, down to the stuffed peacock, and one character’s predilection for taking photographs of muscular female servants echoes Arthur Munby. Actual historical figures, like Nelly Power, are referenced, but invented ones were so convincing I found myself googling them. Dialogue is sprightly and funny, as in ‘That bleedin’ monkey. I can’t tell you what I caught him doing with Dandy Bob’s ventriloquist dummy.’ There is a deliciously unexpected twist at the end – but of course the clues were there all along - and a promise of a case yet to be solved, in Ward and Easterbrook’s next outing.

Katherine Mezzacappa

A LAST SERENADE FOR BILLY BONNEY

Mark Warren, Five Star, 2023, $25.95, hb, 384pp, 9781432899837

Before every novel or film about Billy the Kid, a decision of good or evil, hero or villain, must be settled. For Western historian and wilderness teacher Mark Warren, a lens of love colors the complicated tale of the deadly outlaw from a well of compassion and tenderness. Diverging dramatically from the usual boy-meets-girl romantic salvation approach, Warren offers us instead a Santa Fe journalist struggling to make his career through dramatic reporting on the celebrated and deadly outlaw. Reporter John Blessing locates “William H. Bonney” in jail, draws out his version of a life of drastic choices and scant resources, and, chapter by chapter, reveals his own “serenade” through lines that begin, “This country shows no mercy to a young boy on his own, With no one to light a candle in the window of a home.”

Though Blessing sees Billy the Kid as a child, then a teen, stumbling between starvation and violence in an effort to find his place, this narrator also becomes a witness to the outlaw’s persecution and inevitable death.

Blessing persistently interviews Billy’s fellow outlaws and girlfriends, but also his gradeschool teacher, and his political enemies— those who are grabbing far more than their share of the opened ranch lands, through wealth and corruption and, when called for, murder.

With this narrative, it’s impossible not to take Billy’s side. The book is compelling, strongly paced, and compassionate, a dramatic ode to a human symbol of the West. After the entertainment of the story ends, its best use can be as a starting line for exploring the forces in play in the new nation, among both rugged settlers and determined seekers of American wealth and power.

Beth Kanell

1887 THE DAY THEY TURNED OFF THE WATER

A. E. Wasserman, Archway, 2022, $13.99, pb, 170pp, 9781665726429

In the early days of settlement, farmers in the Central Valley of California relied on irrigation from the Kings River for all their water needs. The Settlers Ditch, dug years ago by the farmers, brought water to many, including to Jake and Sally Sanders’ small Double Bar ranch.

But in June 1887, this water from the High Sierra snows ceases to flow to the ranch: a disaster. With no water for the household, the livestock, or for crop irrigation, Jake and his Yokut friend, Kasha, ride out to discover the cause of the blockage. They are shocked to find a stranger with a rifle has blocked the headwater gate. The man shoots Kasha’s horse dead and tells them that someone called Boss Carr now owns riparian rights to the water. Jake rides his horse into the man to prevent him shooting again and opens the gate, then turns to find the man dead. Kasha and Jake are jailed, charged with murder. Kasha, as an Indigenous person, will have no trial, and Jake’s trial is not expected to be a fair one. His wife, Sally, must use her wits to try to gain a fair trial for both men. The author vividly portrays Sally’s struggles as, aided by a local newspaperman, she faces up to a prominent state politician.

This is an important story, clearly and simply told. The characters, from Kasha’s savagely raped grandmother to the self-important Boss Carr, are deftly established and come close to unforgettable. Sally’s emotions as well as her strategies are understandable to today’s reader as well as true to the ethos of the time. This is a story important to our understanding of a state in a time of growth and transition, where gunslingers and prejudice too often prevailed.

Valerie Adolph

TO SWOON AND TO SPAR

Martha Waters, Atria, 2023, $17.99, pb, 336pp, 9781668007907

Jane Spencer is tired of having her life controlled by men, so when she falls in love with

an estate on the coast of Cornwall, she takes matters into her own hands. She contrives to haunt the estate until her guardian decides he has had enough and plans to rid himself of both the estate and Jane.

Viscount Penvale has spent his entire adult life working toward one thing: buying back the estate that was lost when his father died. When his uncle finally agrees to sell it, he jumps at the chance, even though it comes with the condition that he marry a woman he has never met before.

Neither Jane nor Penvale intend for their marriage to have much of an impact on their lives, as they settle into the estate they both love. Jane, shy and still reluctant to let a man have control of her life, employs the same strategy that worked so well on her uncle. But as her attempts prove less successful with her husband, she wonders if her end goal is still the same. Penvale is not the sort of man who believes in ghosts, but as unsettling events continue to plague him, he realizes his wife is not at all who he expected.

Waters puts a fun spin on the marriageof-convenience trope with a hilarious nod at the popular gothic novels of the Regency era. This is a witty, breezy read with well-developed characters and a satisfying ending. This is the fourth book in the Regency Vows series, and my favourite, but can easily be read as a standalone novel.

Shauna McIntyre

A RIGHT WORTHY WOMAN

Ruth P. Watson, Atria, 2023, $27.99, hb, 304pp, 9781668003022

Written as a memoir, this novel tells the story of Maggie Lena Walker, a biracial woman who was the result of a brief tryst between a formerly enslaved woman and a Confederate soldier. After standing up to prejudice from both sides of the color line, she became the first Black woman in the United States to serve as a bank president.

In a narrative that spans from Reconstruction to the Depression, Maggie remains ambitious and courageous. Her childhood trauma revolves around the suspicious death of the beloved man who raised her as his own. But her intrepid mother has trust in white allies, born from a long memory of growing up within the household of Union spy Elizabeth Van Lew. Maggie finds her own allies as she fights naysayers, Black and white, to help achieve economic justice for herself and her community.

Maggie becomes a teacher until her marriage to a builder, after which she pours her considerable energy and talent into the Independent Order of St. Luke, a benevolent organization. While raising a family with her mother’s and adopted daughter’s help, Maggie rises to become founder of a newspaper, a bank, and a department store. Her life has danger and tragedies, but she triumphs over all.

This novel could have used another edit to weed out clichés, modern vernacular, and

anachronisms like electric pull lights and jazz trios. Such missed details pulled this reader out of a compelling narrative of an unsung life. Nevertheless, A Right Worthy Woman takes its place alongside novels such as Rebecca Dwight Bruff’s Trouble the Water, illuminating African-American heroes born in strife who find the strength, fortitude, and love to lead lives touched by grace.

Eileen Charbonneau

OUT OF IRELAND

Marian O’Shea Wernicke, She Writes Press, 2023, $17.95/£12.99, pb, 328pp, 9781647423995

1935 St. Louis is the setting for a brief prologue in which family matriarch Eileen lies dying, but the story turns quickly to 1867 Cork, Ireland, and to Eileen as a girl. Dreaming of becoming a teacher, sixteen-year-old Eileen loves the books she borrows from her employer’s library at the manor house. Her mother and older brother Martin have other ideas, however, and Eileen is sold in marriage to a middle-aged alcoholic farmer, John Sullivan. She is miserable with her life until she delivers a beautiful son; the child lifts her spirits and improves her husband’s behavior, although he remains unloved by Eileen. Meanwhile, her favorite brother Michael, member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood fighting for Irish independence, falls afoul of dangerous local leader John MacDonogh. Michael flees to London and then America, where he falls in with a St. Louis gangster and IRB sympathizer, one who promises to fund the cause. After a threatening visit from MacDonogh looking for Michael, Eileen persuades Sullivan to follow Michael and emigrate to America.

The section of the novel describing their ocean passage in steerage and a heartbreaking event is well-researched and written with great skill. Eventually settling in St. Louis, Eileen’s and Michael’s stories conclude with soft focus on fairytale love matches (including one sex scene that should have been edited for cliche). Many secondary characters are introduced and discarded, but a focus on the inner lives and struggles of the core characters up to the conclusion would have produced a richer novel. Irish language-speaking is indicated only rarely, but Cork was Irish-speaking in the 19th century, English the exception, its use reserved for authorities. Unfortunately, the dialogue sometimes falls into a stage version of Irish English. Still, many readers, especially Americans of Irish descent, will enjoy this often-rewarding novel.

Constance Emmett

THE LIGHT ON FARALLON ISLAND

Jen Wheeler, Lake Union, 2023, $16.99/£8.99, pb, 363pp, 9781662508981

This debut novel is set in the 1850s, on a remote lighthouse outpost off the coast of San Francisco. Amelia Osborne is hired as the mysterious new teacher to most of the scant population of the island’s children. One family

keeps its distance and its children almost out of sight.

Amelia’s recently deceased dear one is Lucy Riley, and Amelia has taken on both her name and her job. Except, one on the island knows the real person who went by the name Lucy Riley (which wasn’t her name either). That is the handsome, solitary Will Sisson, who lets Amelia know that he knows, without telling her his relationship to the dead woman. Not right away, anyway. Another mystery. Confused yet? Getting over her mistrust of Will, a passionate love affair ignites, to the distress of some of the island inhabitants and the delight of others.

To readers who like gothic mysteries inside of mysteries and a story revolving around the concept of the American West as a place of reinvention, this may hold appeal. Its bleak and foreboding tone is relieved by an engaging love story and the courageous scrappiness of its heroine. But most of the supporting characters are not sufficiently illuminated to as full a life as the landscape. Like the first Mrs. de Winter of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, the most compelling person remains the mysterious Cathy/Kitty/Lucy, who is D.O.A. at the book’s onset.

Eileen Charbonneau

TWO WARS AND A WEDDING

Lauren Willig, William Morrow, 2023, $32.00/£21.99, hb, 448pp, 9780062986184

Set during the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 and the Spanish-American War of 1898, Two Wars and a Wedding is the story of Betsy Hayes, a young woman who sets out to break the glass ceiling in archeology but becomes known as the “Angel of the Seneca” for her nursing endeavors aboard a ship carrying wounded soldiers from Cuba to New York.

Willig tells Betsy’s story in a dual timeline, alternating between her time in Greece and Cuba, and so we meet two very different Betsys along the way. The younger Betsy is clever but flighty; when we see her a year later, she’s much more sober, determined, and full of regrets. Readers who enjoy seeing a main character change as dramatic events unfold will be well-satisfied with Betsy’s evolution, and eagerly turn the pages to find out just what happened in Greece, and why a year later she’s on a boat to Cuba with Clara Barton and the American Red Cross.

There’s a delicate balance expertly struck here between the emotional, character-driven aspects of Betsy’s life, and many excellent descriptions of front-line nursing, historical

events, and people. An engaging historical afterword explains the decisions Willig made to blend two real-life heroines into Betsy’s character and provides avenues for further reading. Anyone seeking to have their eyes opened to a lesser-known period of history while enjoying a solid, character-driven pageturner shouldn’t hesitate to grab a copy of this one. I can’t say enough good things about it.

Kate Braithwaite

MURDER IN POSTSCRIPT

Mary Winters, Berkley, 2023, $17.00, pb, 320pp, 9780593548769

This Victorian mystery is the first book in the A Lady of Letters mystery series. In London in 1860, Amelia Amesbury is a countess and widow, having lost her husband to illness after a short marriage. She also has a secret. She writes an advice column for a London paper under the name Lady Agony, doling out clever answers to readers’ questions about romance, family, fashion, and more. When she receives a note from a lady’s maid who believes her mistress has been murdered, it does not end there. Amelia soon finds out the maid has been killed as well. With the help of her best friend, and assisted by a handsome marquis with secrets of his own, Amelia begins to investigate both murders. All the while, she is still trying to keep her scandalous alter ego of Lady Agony a secret.

This is a fascinating, well-thought-out mystery that will keep you guessing. The fact that a countess is writing an advice column, which would open her up to scandal if it became public knowledge, is intriguing. Each chapter heading starts with a question to and answer from Lady Agony, which is a great touch and adds a bit of humor. The main characters are engaging and well written, especially the fun-loving favorite of high society, Kitty Hamsted, who is Amelia’s best friend and sometimes partner in investigating crime. During Amelia’s investigation, we get to see both sides of London society, from Kitty’s popular parties to a peek inside the life of a servant. This is a fun take on the cozy mystery genre, and it provides a unique premise that will delight readers. Highly recommended.

Bonnie DeMoss

20TH CENTURY

THE LIFE SHE WANTED

Anita Abriel, Lake Union, 2023, $16.99/£8.99, pb, 287pp, 9781662509827

The Life She Wanted transports readers to glittering Jazz Age New York as Pandora Carmichael seeks to have it all—a wealthy husband, children, and a career as a fashion designer. It is 1926, and Pandora is simmering with dreams of her future. Despite being raised alongside the wealthy Van Luyen siblings, Pandora is the daughter of the family’s tennis instructor. She may go to glamorous house parties, but her lack of fortune could spell an end to her aspirations. When Pandora makes

the acquaintance of Harley Enright, her hopes are renewed. But marriage to the wealthy scion comes with strings attached, and Pandora soon finds herself in a gilded cage.

The premise of the novel promises an indomitable heroine prepared to do anything to achieve her dreams. Pandora is plucky and determined, but often misguided. She is eighteen when the novel opens but has the emotional intelligence of a child. She stumbles through the story, making nonsensical decisions, rarely learning anything from the situations facing her. Somehow, Pandora manages to achieve her goals by the novel’s end.

There are other problems with the novel, specifically a fundamental misunderstanding of historical social norms. Early in the narrative, Pandora withdraws funds from a bank account when most banks did not allow women this privilege in the 1920s. Later, a major character is arrested for indecency (being homosexual); while the character is imprisoned, a protester sets the jail on fire. This is a highly unlikely scenario, as the backlash against the flourishing gay culture of this period did not begin until the 1930s.

Ultimately, The Life She Wanted fails to deliver on its exciting premise, but may appeal to those looking for a frothy read by the poolside this summer.

Caroline D. Wilson

THE TIMBER GIRLS

Rosie Archer, Quercus, 2023, £7.99, pb, 400pp, 9781529419306

1942. Trixie Smith is fed up with working in a greengrocer’s and playing the piano in a pub in Gosport at night. She wonders how this is helping to win the war. So, she is on her way to Scotland to join the Women’s Timber Corps. On the ferry she meets Cy, a U.S. soldier from New Orleans on leave. Training to be a lumberjill is hard work, and Trixie finds that each of her new friends has something they’re running away from. Hen has left a privileged life for the promise of excitement. There must be some story behind Jo’s mercurial moods. And what caused the bruising on Vi’s arms? Doing a job that’s vital for the war effort makes women of these girls, while the boys at the front are facing hardship, danger, and death.

The dialogue with Cy is a bit stilted, meaning that we don’t really feel the ‘falling in love’ bit, but the conversation among the ‘girls’ is more natural. It’s page 258 before we discover something important about Cy, which I think should have been revealed earlier. The novel captures the period and the wartime spirit— that everything was changing, the eagerness to seize opportunities for love and fun because death could be around the corner. Though a lot of the detail is fairly banal stuff, it depicts the living and working lives of women workers, the camaraderie of the shared war effort, the newfound self-satisfaction in doing ‘a man’s job’, sexism and even threats from men. It is interesting to learn about ‘brashing’,

‘snedding’, cross-cut saws and spokeshaves and fretsaws, how to measure a tree’s height, fire and accident prevention, the infernal midges—all the business of forestry and felling trees. This is a ‘girls at war’ saga, a wellwritten, easy read.

Susie Helme

THE MIDNIGHT NEWS

Jo Baker, Phoenix Books, 2023, £16.99, hb, 432pp, 9781399602242 / Knopf, 2023, $29.99, hb, 336pp, 9780593534977

The author of the internationally bestselling Longbourn returns with a new novel that is so much more than the love and war story its cover promises. This is an enthralling book that leads with the beautifully drawn and beguiling Charlotte, a typist in the Ministry of Information, whose fierce heart and fragile mind we follow through evocative scenes of London in the Blitz.

Charlotte’s journey is, by turns, humorous, sad and harrowing – she is grieving a brother who has been killed – and brings to the fore the uncertain life experiences of many 20thcentury women. Yet Baker deals with the topics sensitively and never sacrifices pace. A vividly depicted cast of characters, like Charlotte’s friend Elena, add a welcome lighter touch to darker themes.

Here we have a beautiful love story – both of loving friends and of romantic love – but also there is a fascinating, darker subplot which creates page-turning tension until the very last chapter. The reader questions Charlotte as much as she herself does. This creates a totally immersive experience. This is a novel about finding and fighting for your identity, love, loyalty and belonging. The ending is tied up a little too quickly, but there are subtle hints of a possible sequel.

Katharine Riordan

THE GOOD TIME GIRLS

K. T. Blakemore, Sycamore Creek, 2023, $18.95, pb, 256pp, 9780990584384

Blakemore’s madcap novel sparkles with scintillating wit, heartfelt warmth, and snappy repartee. First in the Wild-Willed Women of the West series, featuring women who “succeed through sheer grit, determination, and a parcel of luck,” according to the author’s note, this is an unashamedly feminist take on the Old West.

Ruby Calhoun, occasional outlaw and ex-dancehall girl, is enjoying a hard-won, quiet life in Kansas City, 1905, when in walks the one person she most assuredly does not want to see. Her very best friend—the one she ran out on when the going got tough— cheroot smoking, pearl-handled Colt-toting, horseback rider extraordinaire, Pip Quinn. Past is resurrected into present as Pip drags Ruby from her comfortable nest to hunt and kill the man who ruined their lives, Pip’s nasty one-time lover, Cullen Wilder. As they set off on their mission, Ruby’s knack of de-stressing by running train-timetables through her head

comes in handy, chased on and off trains as they are by Cullen’s henchman and the law.

Blakemore’s novel inhabits a vivid world of saloons, hurdy-gurdy girls, spittoons, fedoras, and parasols. Alternating chapters are set in Kansas, 1905 and Orinda, Arizona, in 1898, where Ruby first met Pip at The Paradise, a house of ill- but well-known repute. Rather than turn tricks, Ruby signs on to do a nightly dance routine with Pip. Ruby’s luck with men is sadly thin. There are only four types: good (almost none), weak, mean, or dastardly bad, and we meet all of them.

The novel is, by turns, spirited, whimsical, quirky, mischievous, irreverent, and full of dry wit. It matters not that these girls’ faces are plastered on Wanted posters all over Kansas. They are easy to know, easy to like, and I was rooting for them all the way through their bullin-a-china-shop ventures. The new member tagging along with the Calhoun Gang by the end ensures a wonderful sequel.

Fiona Alison

THE PROXY BRIDE

Zoë Boccabella, HQ Fiction, 2022, A$32.99, pb, 432pp, 9781867247562

In the mid-20th century, thousands of proxy brides travelled from Italy to Australia to marry men who had emigrated but found there were no suitable wives for them. Often, these young women didn’t even know their husbands but were willing to risk all and take up the offer of a life free from the poverty and lack of suitable partners in their homeland, knowing they might never see their families again. Inspired by the author’s own family history, this is the story of Gia and Taddeo, who had a fruit farm on the Queensland tablelands.

In 1984, teenager Sofie is sent by her mother, Elena, to stay with her widowed Nonna Gia during the summer holidays. Initially, the pair are prickly towards one another, but while cooking together (using copious amounts of chili peppers) and listening to songs by Dean Martin, their relationship matures. Gia slowly reveals her life as a proxy bride after she left Italy in 1939. Many Australians did not welcome the Italians, and it was a struggle for the women, especially when their husbands were interned during World War II, and they suffered outright hostility as they tried to keep their farms going. Gia also tells of a forbidden love affair that could have cost her dearly. Sofie has her own secrets and hopes to learn from Gia the truth about her own mysterious father, who died before she was born.

This is a delightful and thoroughly absorbing novel on all levels. The characters are vivid and believable. The 1980s settings are as authentic and impeccably handled as those of the earlier years. Although there are tragedies, these are balanced out with resilience, forgiveness and love of family. An added bonus is the inclusion of all the mentioned delicious Calabrian recipes.

Marina Maxwell

THE LONG MARCH HOME

Marcus Brotherton & Tosca Lee, Revell, 2023, $26.99/£22.99, hb, 400pp, 9780800742751

Jimmy “Prop” Propfield, Hank Wright, and Billy Crockett are three teenage friends growing up around Mobile, Alabama at the end of the 1930s. They are all as close as brothers, connected through school and faith. Both Jimmy and Hank also have a hankering for Billy’s older sister, Claire. The three of them share all the teenaged hijinks of Southern high school boys growing up in that time period—almost all of it charmingly innocent.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brings a sudden end to all their near-term plans. They are soon in the U.S. Army and stationed in the Philippines, which Jimmy initially considers a paradise on earth. He loves the people, the cities, and the countryside. That too ends when they are captured by the invading Japanese and forced to take part in the notorious Bataan Death March where the motto of the three becomes “all home alive.”

Narrated in the first person from Jimmy’s perspective, this is an unforgettable comingof-age novel inspired by true and almost unbearably harrowing events in one of the darkest episodes of World War II. The contrast between the well-crafted fun and joy of their final high school years and the abominable horrors of what they will later experience is glaringly impactful for the reader. It is no wonder both authors have written other bestsellers. They capture the charm and delight of school dances and fast cars equally as well as tactical infantry combat in the jungle and the inhuman torture the boys undergo as prisoners. The many supporting characters are also interesting, especially the female guerrilla group leader, Felipa Culala. This is an important and masterful book of quality historical fiction and comes with my highest recommendation.

Thomas J. Howley

MASTERING THE ART OF FRENCH MURDER

Colleen Cambridge, Kensington, 2023, $26.00/ C$37.00/£24.00, hb, 272pp, 9781496739599

This first book in a mystery series by Colleen Cambridge features Tabitha Knight, the fictional best friend of Julia Child in 1949 Paris. Tabitha, raised in a Detroit suburb, was a Rosie the Riveter during World War II and has come to Paris to live with her French grandfather and his partner, Rafe, Tabitha’s honorary

uncle. She gives French lessons to Americans in Paris and learns to cook from her neighbor, Julia Child. After a party given by Julia’s sister, who works in a theater, the dead body of one of the guests is found in the cellar of Julia’s building. The inspector assigned to the case discovers that the murder weapon was Julia’s chef’s knife and that the victim had a note with Tabitha’s name and address in her pocket. Tabitha knows Julia wouldn’t have killed the woman, and she herself had only talked to her briefly. She sets out to solve the case to clear herself and Julia from suspicion.

This book is an absolute delight from beginning to end. Tabitha is a great character, intelligent and strong, whose natural curiosity leads her into dangerous situations. She is a big fan of classic mysteries, especially Agatha Christie’s, and the plot is definitely a tribute to Christie, but with a hint of Cold War intrigue. The scenes featuring Julia Child’s cooking are a highlight of the book, and made me hungry as I was reading them. Her gregarious personality and genius in the kitchen are conveyed very well. The book gives you a wonderful sense of Paris just after World War II and the German occupation as rationing is coming to an end, and the city is coming back to life. Tabitha finds it an exciting time to be in Paris. I look forward to more of her adventures.

Vicki Kondelik

THE CUBAN HEIRESS

Chanel Cleeton, Berkley, 2023, $17.00/£12.99, pb, 304pp, 9780593440483

In 1934 the luxurious ocean liner, the Morro Castle, begins a voyage from New York to Havana and back again. American heiress Catherine Donan is on board with her fiancé, widower Raymond Warner, to celebrate their engagement. Finding herself in danger, Catherine seeks help from a handsome stranger, later realizing he is a jewel thief. Cuban-born Elena Palacio is also on board, in a less posh cabin. In a chance meeting, Elena befriends Julio, a good-hearted Cuban smuggler. Over the course of the voyage, the paths of Catherine and Elena intersect in unexpected ways as they seek vengeance for past events.

The Morro Castle sets sail against the backdrop of the Great Depression, with its international ripple effects, and political unrest in Cuba after Fulgencio Batista takes power. Many readers will be familiar with the history of the period and the story of the ship, which caught fire, ran aground in a nor’easter, and never reached New York. Over 100 passengers and crew died. Those details will not take away from the suspense Cleeton builds. Readers do not learn which characters, if any, survive the disaster until the end of the novel, and they do not learn the full backstories of the two women, backstories that explain motivations, until close to the end.

Although the plot occasionally pushes the limits of credulity, and the rationale for Cleeton’s use of both first and third person

remains unclear, readers will focus instead on the riveting action on board, somewhere between a cat-and-mouse game and what we expect from a locked room mystery. Cleeton excels at building tension and slowly revealing secrets. The Cuban Heiress is a great read for fans of 20th-century historical fiction.

Marlie Wasserman

COYOTE WEATHER

Amanda Cockrell, Northampton House Press, 2023, $19.95, pb, 371pp, 9781950668168

It’s 1967, and young people in the quiet fictional town of Ayala, modeled after Ojai, California, must cope with a harsh new world. The U.S. thrusts Ayala’s young men into the ugly and unpopular Vietnam War. Some flee to Canada or hide in communes where everything is free, everyone is equal, but nothing works. Many women realize they no longer must do whatever men command. Drug addiction and alcoholism take their toll. The lucky ones who find their way back often come home destroyed in body or mind. Older folks are confounded by the changing times, if not crushed by the sudden loss of a young relative. Ever observant and opportunistic, coyotes hover in the scrub lands of Southern California.

We follow main characters Jerry and Ellen through these challenging circumstances. They date and fall in love, but she returns to her all-girls’ college far away. He drops out of junior college and loses his draft deferment so scrambles to stay hidden. Jerry’s curiosity to learn and use handyman skills allows him to make enough money to get by. Ellen holds onto the sensible plan of education, marriage, job, and children while beginning to understand that she, not the men around her, controls her choices and destiny.

Spanning roughly five years, Cockrell’s novel takes on many related themes and sub-plots. They all resolve sensibly and leave the reader with a deep understanding about that hard time for a nation and people forced to grow up. We relive the Robert Kennedy and MLK assassinations, the anti-war riots and harsh crackdowns, the many ways (most unsuccessful) of draft-dodging. With compassion and humor, Cockrell describes the people and their sometimes-heartbreaking efforts to work through the tumult.

G. J. Berger

THE HIDDEN LETTERS

Lorna Cook, Avon, 2023, £8.99, pb, 376pp, 9780008527594

Summer 1914. A dramatic encounter by a moonlit lake brings together debutante Cordelia and Isaac, the handsome landscape gardener hired by her father to redesign his Cornish estate. Despite class differences, love blossoms as Cordelia begins to take an interest in gardening – but will the looming war tear them apart? I really enjoyed the first half of this book, with its well-developed

characters and evocative descriptions of the garden.

Unfortunately once the war began, I was unable to suspend my disbelief because of the number of historical inaccuracies. The bibliography suggests Cook has done some research, but she seems to have misinterpreted much of what she has read to fit preconceived myths. There isn’t room here to list all the mistakes, but key among them is the dating. A two-minute internet search confirmed what I suspected: that the two battalions of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry sent to France in 1914 were pre-war Regulars. The first of the New Army ‘Service’ battalions raised by the DCLI only arrived in France in May 1915, due to the time it took to provide uniforms, equipment, and training.

The author also seems confused about which duties were carried out by privates and which by officers. Officers would not stand on sentry duty, but they were expected to censor the letters of their men. Their own letters, however, were left uncensored because they were trusted not to betray anything that might aid the enemy if the letters fell into the wrong hands. But here we are shown officers undergoing both sentry duty and censorship.

For me, the novel never recovered fully after this, and I found the twist ending too predictable. However, I’m sure the many readers of this author’s previous books, set in the present day, will enjoy this novel.

Jasmina Svenne

THE BOY IN THE RAIN

Stephanie Cowell, Regal House, 2023, $19.95 pb, 312pp, 9781646033492

Set in England between 1901 and 1910, The Boy in the Rain portrays the illicit passion between two men. Robbie Stillman is seventeen when the story opens, desperately lonely and unloved. In a Nottingham village, he meets 29-year-old Anton Harrington, sophisticated, wealthy, yet drawn to socialist beliefs, in part because of the poverty surrounding them. Each in his own way is consumed by the fervor of their relationship through the years. Queen Victoria has died, but the hoped-for freedom of the Edwardian age doesn’t extend to men like them. The Gross Indecency Act of 1885 is in full force, criminalizing homosexual acts with the same punishment Oscar Wilde endured: three months solitary confinement and two years hard labor. We’re reminded of the world described by E. M. Forster, though Cowell quotes Howard’s End, not his posthumously published Maurice

Despite the dangers, Robbie and Anton are compulsively drawn to each other, and away from prying eyes they pursue their conflicted love. Anton is tormented by regrets, gradually revealed to the sensitive Robbie. Aware that everyone experiences loneliness and longing, Robbie’s gift as an emerging portrait artist is his skill at conveying sitters’ inner selves. His sketches of the poor evoke the reality of their lives emotionally and tie into Anton’s compassionate politics. The cruelties of the era toward laborers and the impoverished

and toward those engaged in forbidden love are background for the intense, fluctuating passions between the two men. They, and many of their friends, suffer from painful isolation and their often-doomed attempts to escape it. What will it take for Robbie and Anton to sustain their love? That question, and Stephanie Cowell’s richly textured depiction of a complex era, keep our interest to the end.

Jinny Webber

VITA AND THE BIRDS

Polly Crosby, HQ, 2023, £16.99, hb, 374pp, 9780008550646

Vita and the Birds shifts between 1938 and 1997 and follows two women – Lady Vita Goldsborough and Eve Blakeney – as they each attempt to cope with life on the East Anglian coast after suffering traumatic losses. In the past, Vita is recovering from a debilitating illness whilst also battling the behaviour of her abusive brother, Aubrey. It is only when a chance encounter acquaints her with the eccentric artist, Dodie Blakeney, that Vita finds the courage to face the horrors of her past and present.

Over sixty years later, Dodie’s granddaughter, Eve – a struggling painter – is suffering tragedies of her own: the death of her beloved mother and her failed art career. She hopes returning to her grandmother’s studio on the coast will help alleviate her grief and, after agreeing to paint a portrait for a strange old woman, it seems as though Eve is finally beginning to look to the future. But when a revelation from Dodie’s past reveals the truth of Eve’s lineage and leads her back to the Cathedral of the Marshes – an ominous glass building which harbours further mysteries –history once again threatens to resurface and reclaim the women who fought so hard to escape it.

In only 374 pages, Crosby succeeds in delivering a bittersweet tale of love, loss, and lies that stretches across the 20th century. Through the eyes of the two young protagonists, sixty years apart, readers bear witness to the shared struggles of women who inhabit the outskirts of society, regardless of the period in which they lived. In this story of sapphic romance and the search for lost family, Crosby provides a moving narrative about learning to accept love and source strength from the people around you, to embrace your history whilst refusing to allow it to consume you.

Athena Heavey

WHERE COYOTES HOWL

Sandra Dallas, St. Martin’s, 2023, 27.99, hb, 320pp, 9781250277909

Ellen Webster is a wide-eyed, naive young woman who comes to the town of Wallace, Wyoming, in the early 20th century to be the schoolteacher because she likes the name of the town. Soon after she arrives, Ellen meets Charlie Bacon, whom his friends call “Fatback” because of his last name. They fall in love and marry.

Ellen and Charlie begin ranching life on the

outskirts of Wallace. Life is hard on the prairie, and they struggle to gain a foothold. The only thing keeping them together is their love for one another, as they endure one hardship after another—drought, death, and cattle rustling, to name just a few.

The story is good, and Dallas captures the essence of how hard life was in the high plains, especially for women. But the novel is also full of social stereotypes. Mr. McGinty and Mr. Brownell are the most obvious, as slovenly, poor, hard-drinking wife-beaters. On the other hand, the Gurleys are well-off, kind, giving people, as are Charlie and Ellen.

I found myself thinking of the old Western TV shows with characters distinguished in their goodness or evil by what color hat they wore, white or black. In this story, if you are poor or having a hard time of it, you are a black hat who beats your wife and drinks too much. I would have liked to see a couple that was not well-off but loved each other and were also good people. The most intriguing character is Miss Ferguson, a friend of Ellen’s. I would have liked to know her better.

Angela Moody

INDEPENDENCE

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, William Morrow, 2022, $28.99/£20.00, hb, 288pp, 9780063142381

Priya and her sisters, Jamini and Deepa, have come of age as India is on the verge of its independence. Secure in her family’s West Bengal village as the “smart” sister, as Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Independence opens, Priya is dreaming of following in her father Nabakumar’s footsteps as a doctor. She nurtures this plan even as her mother wishes to see her married and her friendship with the son of a dear family friend deepens into love.

Yet independence brings intercommunal violence and eventual partition. One night in Calcutta, riots trap Nabakumar’s Muslim colleagues Dr. Abdullah and Raza at the clinic the three share. Nabakumar goes to join them and meets a tragic fate. The family’s fortunes drop. Priya, no less than her sisters, must make wrenching choices about loyalty, aspirations, and love in the aftermath.

As the chapters alternate between the sisters, Divakaruni deepens both their insecurities and their connections to each other, even as their lives seem to move apart. The action in Independence shifts from the small West Bengal town of Ranipur to Calcutta to Philadelphia and back, over the course of the mid-to-late 1940s and early 1950s. The depth

of characterization and empathy Divakaruni generates for not only each of the three sisters but the secondary characters as well is astounding. The novel’s writing style is deeply lyrical and transportive.

Independence shows the subcontinent newly returned to its people and then divided in conflict through the striving of these sisters and their rivalrous bond. For anyone who wants to know more about that moment, this novel is highly recommended.

Irené Colthurst

THE COURTESAN’S DAUGHTER

Susanne Dunlap, Atmosphere Press, 2023, $18.99, pb, 340pp, 9781639886524

1910, New York. After fleeing from a troubled past, Justine, an impoverished French immigrant, struggles to provide a better future for Sylvie, her young daughter. They endure the hardships of Lower East Side life as Justine toils as a seamstress to pay for Sylvie’s education, expecting her dutiful daughter to become a teacher. To escape the monotony of Catholic high school classes and long hours spent helping her mother with piecework, Sylvie goes to the nickelodeon, where she discovers the magic of cinema. All she wants to do is become an actress like the popular Vitagraph Girl, a dream Sylvie must hide from her ambitious maman. But Justine, too, has secrets. When suddenly confronted by Alfonse d’Antigny, a wealthy former lover, Justine lies to shield Sylvie from learning of her sordid past. Intrigue and deceit intensify when Sylvie meets Paolo Bonnano, a charismatic Italian boy who offers the naïve seventeen-year-old the chance to pursue her movie career. Sylvie follows him blindly, becoming dangerously entangled in Paolo’s corrupt world. In a series of dramatic twists and turns, secrets harbored by mother and daughter unravel in startling parallels when Justine and Sylvie are forced to make difficult choices and face the consequences of their actions. As Sylvie questions in the novel, “Were truth and lies so seamlessly interwoven as to be indistinguishable from one another?”

Threaded with lively, descriptive city scenarios, Susanne Dunlap’s well-constructed plot, enhanced by skillfully crafted dual narration and vibrant dialogue, provides perceptive insights into the complexities of mother-daughter relationships, creating a powerful and poignant coming-of-age story. Justine and Sylvie learn more than they bargained for about each other in this story of love, friendship, and truth.

Marcy McNally

VIVIANA VALENTINE GOES UP THE RIVER

Emily J. Edwards, Crooked Lane, 2023, $26.99/£25.99, hb, 288pp, 9781639102686

1950, New York: Viviana Valentine, partner to Tommy Fortuna, New York’s top private investigator, heads north to Tarrytown when wealthy scientist Buster Beacon asks the

private eyes to investigate strange noises at his family mansion. Viviana arrives to find several people weekending at the mansion: elderly financial backers, a wealthy woman looking for love, several scientists, and a mysterious neighbor. During the first evening’s festivities, the neighbor becomes ill. As Viviana and her partner investigate, they find scientific laboratories, secret passages, a poisoned FBI agent, and the possibility of espionage and treason, as well as the aforementioned unearthly noises. No one is exactly who they seem. When the group becomes snowed in, who will be the next to die?

This lively mystery drew me in, despite a couple of glaring anachronisms early on; zip codes, as well as the title “Ms.,” were not around in 1950. However, the spritely pace and engaging characters overcame that initial bump in the road, and I wound up enjoying the book. The setting, a sort of country-house mystery with an overlay of mid-century science, proved intriguing. Viviana and Tommy are fully fleshed, likable investigators, and the other characters are well drawn. The solution to the mystery proved a bit unexpected. A fun read!

Susan McDuffie

THE SWISS NURSE

Mario Escobar, Harper Muse, 2023, $17.99/ C$21.99/£10.99, pb, 334pp, 9781400236053

This novel is based on the real-life story of Elisabeth Eidenbenz, who ministered to the orphaned children and expectant mothers displaced by the Spanish Civil War in 1937. This valiant Swiss nurse and her assistants established a maternity hospital over the border in France that saved hundreds of lives. Mario Escobar has done extensive research to provide a factual history of the events portrayed, and Eidenbenz’s heroism deserves to be recognized.

Sadly, however, this novel is seriously overwhelmed by the many tragedies it attempts to portray. It includes the story of Peter, an idealistic American who fights for the Spanish Republic, and his Spanish wife, Isabel, as they try to flee from Franco’s troops to find safety in France. The pair are separated several times and suffer many hardships and losses. Peter is arrested by various forces more than a few times. Isabel joins with Elisabeth but loses many friends in her flight to France. The novel also portrays diverse, displaced victims who are likewise trapped by the war; most do not survive.

The telling of the individual refugee stories is weakened by exaggerated description, hackneyed dialogue, and occasional trite moralizing. The characters have no depth, which makes it hard to identify with their plight. Violence overwhelms the plot action. In recounting this painful time in modern history, Escobar would have done well to remember that less is more.

Joanne Vickers

THE TRAITOR BESIDE HER

Mary Anna Evans, Poisoned Pen Press, 2023, $16.99, pb, 368pp, 9781464215582

It’s December 14, 1944. A traitor lurks among the cryptographers in Arlington Hall, who are working to break Axis codes and help win World War II in Europe, still unsettled even after D-Day. Justine Byrne’s assignment is to go undercover among the cryptographers and find the spy who’s passing information to the enemy.

This is a captivating, well-researched novel of World War II espionage, built around a brainy and attractive protagonist. Justine and her fellow-agent and roommate, Georgette, must race against time as well as against the wiles of brilliant minds recruited to decipher the encrypted messages coming in from Europe. And practically everyone is a suspect. Justine and Georgette are novice secret agents. Luckily (if a bit unconvincingly) they manage to fool the enemy, and their handsome trainers have armed them with an array of protective gadgets that would delight James Bond if he’d been invented yet.

Evans, trained as a scientist and engineer, wields her historical and technical information with skill. It’s great fun to learn that the eight most common letters in English can be arranged into a handy anagram: ETON AIRS. Evans is also a polished and prolific mystery writer, so the pace is breakneck (the last German offensive of the war, the Battle of the Bulge, began on December 16, 1944), the plot is satisfyingly twisty, and the gadgets get to play their parts. She is the author of a previous series, the Faye Longchamp Archaeological Mysteries, so when this novel ends with a tantalizing reference to Los Alamos—where there really were traitors among the atomic scientists—there’s reason to hope the intrepid Justine and Georgette will soon reappear in New Mexico.

Susan Lowell

A ROSE AND A PROMISE

Katie Flynn, Penguin, 2023, £8.99, pb, 400pp, 9781804940082

Following the main character, Cadi, as the Second World War continues through the spring of 1944, initially there are many threads simmering just outside the reader’s vision. Cadi has been working in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, usually known as the WAAF, constantly moving from base to base with the remit of preparing bases to accommodate other young women supporting their RAF colleagues across the country. She has been separated from her true love Jez, and the young couple snatch whatever together-time they can when leave permits it. The ever-present threat from enemy attack ensures that every person, whether military or civilian, is on high alert when the air raid warnings sound. Tragically, Cadi’s beloved is in the wrong place when an enemy aircraft strafes the runway. His greatest friend, Aled, dashes to find him while Cadi, who has coincidentally arrived at their base in the immediate aftermath of events, desperately

searches for her husband. In those early days and months after Jez’s death, Cadi is a lost soul. As the weeks go by, she feels physically sick, loses her appetite and with her weight plummeting, her friends become increasingly concerned about her, but Cadi refuses to slow down in her efforts to escape the raw emotions that are burdening her. Aled, the only person who knew Jez as well as Cadi did, and who had been with her when they found his damaged body, is the one she turns to most often, despite her friends unstintingly trying to support and comfort her.

As the hidden story strands gradually unfold, Cadi strives to rebuild her own health, all the while doing her utmost to protect others, even when they don’t want to listen to her wellmeant warnings. It is a gripping, if sometimes confusing tale that brings some heart-warming moments. It is an easy-to-read novel that trips along pleasantly in an undemanding fashion.

Cathy Kemp

THE LAST HEIR TO BLACKWOOD LIBRARY

Hester Fox, Graydon House, 2023, $17.99/ C$22.99, pb, 336pp, 9781525804786

Jane Austen’s title Northanger Abbey is dropped early in The Last Heir to Blackwood Library, but Hester Fox’s latest novel is no satire. Filled to the brim with Gothic contrasts, some derivative of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights (heaven/hell, wild freedom, solitude) complete with the moors and mists and the heather and rain of Yorkshire, this paranormal romance is a strange fantasy of bibliophilia. Ivy Radcliffe, daughter of a deceased Cambridge University professor, is in love with books, precisely what she inherits with the great library at Blackwood Abbey. It harbors secrets and horrors no sane human can fathom.

An intriguing prologue paints an eerie atmosphere as a 14th-century nun illuminates the abbey’s unique manuscript. The 1927 storyline opens in the hard realism of postWWI London and Ivy’s life in poverty. She is quickly dispatched to Blackwood Abbey by an offer to take up the unexpected inheritance and title of Lady Hayworth. The abbey’s secretive caretakers know well her journey of discovery is destined by the malevolent spirit housed within its enormous and valuable library. Books that are themselves haunting and destructive.

Many motifs fill these pages—aristocrats, a secret society, British social class structure, wealth vs. servitude, protofeminism, and the romantic hero trope in a silent brooding young man, in this case a broken WWI soldier like so many men limping out their lives in 1920s England. Even rain is a recurring motif. Loss of memory, however, is the difficult thread that tangles its way through the fabric of this novel, until a seemingly unending chain of penultimate climaxes and clichés finally unites the heroine and hero. For the practiced reader of suspended disbelief, the page-turning may be swift and satisfying.

Christina Nellas Acosta

THE TRACKERS

Charles Frazier, Ecco, 2023, $29.99, pb, 336pp, 9780062948083 / Fourth Estate, 2023, £16.99, hb, 336pp, 9780008636593

Directionless young artist Val finds deliverance from the ravages of the Great Depression in an assignment to paint a New Deal mural in a remote Wyoming post office building. He is lodged by John Long, a wealthy, politically ambitious rancher and his beautiful younger wife, Eve. Long’s sage ranch hand, who has an Old West gunfighter’s reputation, casts a heavy shadow over the three. Suspense builds when Eve vanishes with one of Long’s valuable paintings, presumably to return to the Depression-era hobo lifestyle she lived before marrying Long. Long enlists Val to track down Eve, and an odyssey search ensues, ranging from coast to coast.

Val’s first-person impressions construct a flowing narrative that moves effortlessly from scene to scene, conveying vivid and memorable images of the mountains, prairie, Pacific Ocean, Florida swamplands and Hoovervilles. Characters’ activities like the craft of painting, mural creation and art appreciation, as well as the workings of a large cattle ranch, are grounded in convincing period detail. Dialogue is devoid of speech marks, which seems to promote an evenness in the prose, rather than emotional highs and lows. Depression-era times are tough, and social commentary is sometimes unsparing, against the “old reptilian Supreme Court justices” and other elites responsible for “the brutal, ugly undertow of reality” that thwarts millions of downtrodden who dream of a better life. Perhaps the story’s most compelling character is Eve, who has enjoyed the freedom of the road to live as she wished and express her songbird talents, as well as the comforts of a kept woman who plays a supporting role to her rich and driven husband. Bestselling author Charles Frazier’s fifth historical novel brings a welcome addition to Depression-era literature.

Brodie Curtis

AGENT IN THE SHADOWS

Alex Gerlis, Canelo, 2023, £9.99, pb, 352pp, 9781804363423

Lyon, June 1943. A secret meeting is held in the capital city of the French resistance to Nazi occupation. The objective is to unify all the resistance factions in order to be mobilized as a second front for the impending Allied landings on the continent. However, this meeting is raided by the new head of Gestapo, Klaus Barbie – the Butcher of Lyon. The plan is in tatters, the resistance leaders are captured – and everything points to a high-level traitor. Jack Miller and Sophia von Naundorf are sent to uncover the informer and rally the resistance… if they can achieve this in time. With the most notorious Gestapo head pressuring the already-determined Nazis, can this mission succeed?

Third in a series, this is a tense wartime thriller of note. Incredibly well researched,

it throws some light and detail on a period of French history, especially for readers who couldn’t imagine conditions under German occupation. Very atmospheric, very involving. My only gripe? It is slow to start, to give colour to secondary characters. But it soon recovers.

Alan Cassady-Bishop

AN ORPHAN’S WISH

Elizabeth Gill, Quercus, 2022, £21.99, hb, 378pp, 9781529421064

Set in the north east of England, the novel begins at Christmas 1900, with Flo and Joshua Butler preparing for their usual solitary festive period. But their plans are thrown into confusion when they receive a letter telling them that their estranged son Michael and his wife Rosa have died far away in Japan. Michael and Rosa had four children, who were arriving in England with the intention of making their home with their grandparents, Flo and Joshua. But the problem is that the grandparents were unable to forgive the orphans’ mother, Rosa, for capturing their beloved son in what they thought an inappropriate emotional relationship and rather capriciously are reluctant to have anything to do with these unfortunate young people. Connie and Dom are the senior siblings, and it is Connie as the de facto head of the group for whom the wish in the title of the novel refers. Their grandparents’ cruel attitude is shaken when Grandmother Flo becomes seriously ill, and they have little option but to accept assistance from Connie and her siblings.

It is a simple novel, written in easy and not terribly elegant prose – very much in line with the historical saga genre. The research about conditions and challenges in the north east of England at the beginning of the 20th century is accomplished; this is where Elizabeth Gill hails from, and she understands her locality and historical background well. The reader just knows there will be a happy outcome, for this is the way with these stories.

Douglas Kemp

KANTIKA

Elizabeth Graver, Metropolitan Books, 2023, $27.99, hb, 304pp, 9781250869845

Kantika means “song” in Ladino, the language spoken by the richly drawn characters of this sweeping novel. Ladino is to Spanish as Yiddish is to German. And Ladino (or “Latin”) is a Judaeo-Old Spanish language dating from the expulsion of Sephardic Jews from Spain, over 500 years ago. From Spain they traveled mainly to eastern Mediterranean

countries like Turkey, where this family-centered story begins in 1907, set in Constantinople (as it was then). In the 20th century, more travel awaits them. Unmoored by poverty and threatening world events, the Cohen family takes refuge first in Barcelona, then Cuba, and finally the United States.

Wherever they go, they carry faith, culture, music, survival skills, and love along with them—especially Rebecca, the engaging main character, whose life we follow through the first half of the 20th century, from her privileged girlhood in Turkey to poverty and discrimination in Spain, followed by a brief romantic interlude in Cuba, and finally ending in middle-class America. Along the way she acquires two husbands and six children.

Graver based Kantika on her own family history, including actual names and photographs that work surprisingly well paired with meticulous research and lyrical prose. She has created fiction that’s satisfyingly anchored in reality. Occasionally we move from Rebecca’s consciousness to that of other family members, including memorable portraits of Rebecca’s father, her oldest son, and her physically challenged and emotionally challenging stepdaughter, Luna. Settings, all beautifully evoked, range from exotic Constantinople and Havana to a modest candy store in Astoria.

Ladino music threads its way through the text and provides a constant, unifying metaphor for the novel: whether sad or joyous, sacred or secular, personal history or fiction, Kantika sings.

Susan Lowell

THE METROPOLITAN AFFAIR

Jocelyn Green, Bethany House, 2023, $16.99, pb, 400pp, 9780764239632

Thirty-two-year-old Lauren Westlake has advanced far in a man’s world. She has risen to expert curator of Egyptian antiquities at NYC’s massive and prestigious Metropolitan Museum of Art. In normal times, collecting, identifying, sorting, and exhibiting ancient pieces is arduous and exacting work. Now, in the winter of 1925, Lauren’s load gets heavier. An old boyfriend from her teen years, now Manhattan Detective Joe Caravello, asks for her help. He must track down crooks who sell forged antiques to New York’s upper crust.

Lauren’s relationship with her father, 70-year-old Dr. Lawrence Westlake, and her mother, who died too young, add a hearttugging layer to the widening crime mystery. Lawrence, for decades an explorer of Egyptian ruins and world-renowned expert, had paid scant attention to Lauren and her sickly mother while Lauren was growing up. Now, rather suddenly, Lawrence wants to promote his daughter and solicits her assistance in creating a new museum of Egyptian rarities at an old estate in Rhode Island.

Green expertly guides readers through the precious antiques and the culture and mores of the civilization that made them. Readers can visualize the real treasures, the forgeries, and

the subtle or tiny characteristics that separate the genuine from the fake. The family and crime sagas intertwine in surprising but sensible ways. Lauren’s and Joe’s rekindled roller-coaster relationship feels natural. Secondary characters—workers at the Met, other police dealing with the mob and Prohibition, New York’s wealthy families— blend well. Highly recommended for anyone interested in ancient Egyptian artifacts and a high-society crime set a century ago.

G. J. Berger

THE LAST HOUSE BEFORE THE MOUNTAIN

Monika Helfer (trans. Gillian Davidson), Bloomsbury, 2023, $26.00, hb, 192pp, 9781635579871 / Bloomsbury, 2023, £14.99, hb, 192pp, 9781526657138

In 1914, Maria and Josef live with their children at the end of a valley in westernmost Austria. Their forefathers, poor itinerant laborers, arrived there later than others; villagers called them die baggage (undesirables). Upon the outbreak of WWI, Josef is drafted. Before leaving for the front, mindful of his wife’s beauty, he asks the mayor to “watch out for Maria,” left alone to provide for the children. Having meager means and receiving very little money from Joseph’s wages, they are driven to near starvation. The affluent mayor helps a bit and brings provisions but expects favors from Maria in return.

A German stranger arrives in the village. He is attracted to Maria, who is happy to meet him. Joseph also returns home on leave a couple of times. However, the consequences of Maria’s encounter with the stranger affect the family’s future. Later, Maria’s granddaughter traces her ancestry.

Monika Helfer has penned this novel partially from her own family’s history, giving it authenticity. Also, narrating it from the point of view of Maria’s granddaughter adds an intimate appeal. However, using a nonlinear chapterless structure, with frequent diversions from the main storyline and flashbacks, requires careful reading. The novel does transport us to witness the harsh living conditions, and work practices, during WWI in a remote village in the Austrian mountains.

This is not a novel about war but rather the conflicts and hardships faced by those left behind at home. While based on real events, the story is also an allegory of the influence on innocent citizens of political decisions made by national governments to go to war. Generations can feel the consequences of such actions.

Waheed Rabbani

STAFF PUBLICATION: SECOND CHANCES IN HOLLYWOOD

Sarah Hendess, The Wild Rose Press, 2023, $19.99, pb, 414pp, 9781509247400

In Sarah Hendess’s debut novel, Second Chances in Hollywood, Josie is a 23-year-old nurse and divorcee. She moves to Hollywood, where her marital status is not unusual. When she checks on a patient who happens to be a TV producer, he seems impressed with her ability to sweetly sidestep his sass—an attitude the man has been looking for in his show, Gunslingers

“I grew up watching the mid-century Westerns in syndication,” says author Hendess, “and I always thought it would be fun to write a story that takes place on a Western set during the genre’s heyday.”

Josie is suddenly swept up in acting classes and costuming, flying to Yosemite to film onlocation with her three male co-stars: Charlie Lyon, who plays her father; Beau Fraser, the blue-eyed heartthrob who plays her love interest; and Robert Coolidge, the brooding grump who plays a deputy.

“I absolutely had Lorne Greene, who played Ben Cartwright on Bonanza, in mind when I wrote Charlie Lyon,” says Hendess. “I envisioned Beau Fraser as a rival of sorts to the real-life Michael Landon, whom Beau namedrops in the book.”

But the character of Robert Coolidge, who we see more of due to the love affair with Josie, has more complexity. “Pernell Roberts, who played Adam Cartwright on Bonanza and left the show after season six, was pretty vocal about his dislike for the role, and Robert Coolidge’s complaint in the book about his character is similar.”

Robert is also divorced. His high school sweetheart hated Hollywood and moved back to their tiny South Carolina hometown with their son. Robert doesn’t blame her, but Hell Hole is called that for a reason. Utterly lost without his son, Robert is too melancholy for friends. But the moment he lays eyes on his new co-star, Josie, he knows he has to stay away. He would only get hurt all over again.

Josie gets along swimmingly with everyone but Robert, who barely interacts with anyone among the cast and crew. Josie makes it her mission to bring Robert into the fold of their on-set family.

It’s a love story fit for black-and-white television. From the characters debating the need for a color TV, to gaping at an automatic dishwasher, this book feels like Southern California of a different era, right down to the brand-new theme park, Disneyland. “[Disneyland] opened a huge expansion in June 1959,” Hendess says. “So I got to put Robert and Josie on all sorts of brand-new rides.”

Katie Stine

THE GREAT RECLAMATION

Rachel Heng, Riverhead, 2023, $28.00, hb, 448pp, 9780593420133

1941, Singapore: As British imperialism declines and WWII looms, seven-year-old Ah Boon and the Lee family struggle to survive in their southeastern coastal fishing village (kampong). Gifted with an unusual talent, Ah Boon discovers “disappearing” islands teeming with fish, but no one believes the fantastic story until he leads them to the mysterious isles. The kampong prospers, and Ah Boon becomes a favorite son. The Japanese occupy the island and execute Ah Boon’s father within the year. At his mother’s insistence, Ah Boon attends a local school where he meets Siok Mei, a spirited young girl abandoned by her parents, loyalists who joined Chinese Mainland rebels. Ah Boon and Siok Mei become inseparable, and their childhood friendship blossoms.

During their teens, Ah Boon’s love for Siok Mei deepens, but Siok Mei remains committed to her parents’ patriotic ideals. She convinces Ah Boon to study with her at the city’s middle school. They leave the village to further their education, becoming aligned with student activists. Their paths diverge as Siok Mei relentlessly pursues leftist reform. Ah Boon, disillusioned with politics and love, returns to the kampong. He accepts employment with a government agency, soon assigned to the Great Reclamation, a massive ten-year program designed to modernize the country. As the dramatic transformations unfold, evidencing the powerful, often devastating impact on human life and ecology, Ah Boon and Siok Mei, intrinsically bonded by their past, are forced to make heart-wrenching choices that forever change their lives.

Rachel Heng’s five-part saga vividly portrays 20th-century Singapore’s tumultuous transition into a modern, industrialized nation. Masterfully juxtaposing beauty and brutality, Heng weaves vibrant, lyrical prose into a sensuous, detailed tapestry of Asian rural and urban life. Her superbly crafted, nuanced reveal of complex human relationships and the power of place create a mesmerizing tale of love, loss, and sacrifice.

Marcy McNally

THE SECRET BOOK OF FLORA LEA

Patti Callahan Henry, Atria, 2023, $28.99, hb, 368pp, 9781668011836

At the start of WWII, Hazel and Flora lose

their father to the war and are sent to Oxford from London as part of Operation Pied Piper, in which children were evacuated from areas expected to be heavily bombed. The two girls are lucky to be placed with free-spirited yet practical Bridie and her teenaged son, Henry, in a cottage near the Thames River. At fourteen, Hazel feels responsible for five-yearold Flora. To distract her sister from the grief of losing their father and being separated from their mother, Hazel makes up a magical tale of a land that belongs only to them. But what started as an innocent story eventually grows to a never-ending nightmare.

In 1960, Hazel is working at a rare book shop in London when she opens a package containing a picture book and original illustrations by an author in the U.S. She is shocked to realize it is the story she had told her sister as a young girl—a story she had told no one else and never repeated, once her sister went missing twenty years before. The realization of what the book might mean sets her on a course that will tear apart the life she has built for herself, though it just might bring to light what her heart truly desires.

This is a haunting tale of the bonds of family and love and how they can persevere through exceptional circumstances. This book will appeal to readers who enjoy lush descriptions and a slower, more internal exploration of a mystery. The evocative and immersive writing was enough to distract me from several circumstances that I would otherwise have dismissed as implausible.

Shauna McIntyre

THE ASCENT

Stefan Hertmans (trans. David McKay), Harvill Secker, 2022, £16.99, hb, 384pp, 9781787303065

This novel is part of the more recent trend towards what is called autofiction, in which writers incorporate elements of their own lives into literary works. While there is usually an underlying foundation of truth, the publication is classified as fiction and a work of imagination. The most renowned exponent is perhaps Karl Ove Knausgaard, and the technique can be particularly applicable to historical fiction as it mostly involves dredging up elements of a writer’s past existence, very often delving into distant years before the writer was born. The trouble with autofiction is that the reader often spends time while reading the narrative wondering just what is true and what has been invented by the writer. “Did this person really exist and do this?” they mentally quiz themselves, which can detract a little from the immediate pleasure of the reading process.

In this case Hertmans tells of buying a dilapidated house in Ghent in Belgium many years ago and only subsequently finding out in 2000 that the house once belonged to Willem Verhulst, a Flemish S.S. officer in wartime Belgium. Born in 1898 and growing up in Antwerp, Verhulst’s childhood and development into an extreme right-wing collaborator with the German occupying forces are described via documentary sources.

The recreation of early 20th-century Belgium and Ghent is perfect. The narrative of Verhulst’s wartime shift to the Germans and subsequent fallout is captured with precision, and the real heroes in the story are his longsuffering wife, Mientje, and their children. The acts of revenge and desperate violence that came to these elegant towns and cities in northern Europe, with the changing tide in the war and Germany’s defeat, have still not been widely acknowledged, and Hertmans defines the brutality and harsh reality for the population of this cultured part of Europe while also delivering a novel of the highest literary imagination.

Douglas Kemp

THE BOOK SPY

Alan Hlad, John Scognamiglio/Kensington, 2023, $16.95/C$22.95/£15.99, pb, 384pp, 9781496738547

Based on the true stories of librarians who worked as spies during WWII, The Book Spy details the mission of Maria Alves to help preserve cultural print artifacts. An expert in microfilm through her work at the New York Public Library, she is sent by the OSS to Portugal to record Axis publications before they are destroyed by the Nazis. But her plans take a more important and dangerous turn when she meets a bookseller, Tiago, who is secretly involved in forging passports for Jewish refugees.

Maria Alves uses her money to help Tiago, and ultimately becomes a double agent; sending planted and false information to Hitler’s inner circle in an effort to mask the true location of the Allied invasion of France. Meanwhile, Tiago’s forgery of passports is discovered, and he is captured by the secret police. After the liberation of France, Maria decides to risk her safety once more, and devises a final plan to try to rescue Tiago. Her success demonstrates the power of one individual in the fight against fascism.

This is Hlad’s fourth book, and there is a wonderful mix of deep historical research and writing craft woven through this story. Maria Alves was, in fact, based upon a real person with slight adaptations to fit the fictional narrative of the story. With no awkward leaps or pauses, The Book Spy is an approachable read that will appeal to middle-school readers and above. This important tale exposes a side of espionage that is often overlooked— the recruitment of ordinary citizens—and it reminds us to never underestimate librarians, guardians of democracy in more ways than one.

Steve Shaw

NO COMFORT FOR THE UNDERTAKER

Chris Keefer, Level Best/Historia, 2022, $16.99, pb, 246pp, 9781685121884

A combination of fine historical detail, an appealing protagonist, and perceptive writing

make Keefer’s turn-of-the-century debut mystery a real page-turner. Carrie Lisbon, recently widowed, relocates to the village of Hope Bridge to find solace with her Uncle Sav and his friend Thomas Bale, an African, offered sanctuary by Sav after his home was burned down by vigilantes. In Hope Bridge, Carrie encounters lawlessness and prejudice and a bevy of supercilious white residents. In a brief early interlude, she lays out the body of a young girl and takes issue with church bias against burying the poor.

Working with the dead has been Carrie’s whole life, with her father, then her husband. She is used to rejection by doubting men. Wide-eyed indignation is her go-to reaction when men talk over her and undermine her professional ability. Under Sav’s calming influence, she is reminded if she is going to start afresh, she must convince Mr. Worley, the town’s only undertaker, that she is a consummate professional. That she has prematurely shed her widow’s black is cause for mostly female criticism, but Carrie refuses to accept society’s limitations on her sex.

When an abused young wife falls from a carriage, undertaker Worley requests her assistance. Contrary to his assessment, the evidence indicates something other than an accident. Initially, Carrie’s observations are ignored, but when the thuggish husband is shot dead, the county sheriff, who happens to be the dead man’s brother, surprises her with his neutral investigative stance.

Fascinating period detail is scattered liberally throughout the novel, never overwhelming a brisk and lively story. The part of the novel taking place in an intense rainstorm is exceedingly well written, its rivers of miserable cold flooding the narrative with tension. The novel leaves some avenues open to conjecture, so for this reader, there is no question the spirited Mrs. Lisbon deserves a sequel.

Fiona Alison

THE DUTCH ORPHAN

Ellen Keith, Park Row, 2023, $28.99, hb, 400pp, 9780778334309

This gripping World War II story is set mostly in Amsterdam. Singer Johanna Vos is horrified by the Nazi cruelties, and works with the Resistance to shelter as many Jews as possible. She even adopts a Jewish infant and passes it off as her own. Her sister, Liesbeth, is married to a Nazi sympathizer and having an affair with another. She and Johanna had always been close, but now will she betray her sister? And if she does, can it ever be forgiven?

I found this serious historical novel difficult to read—and impossible to put down. Full of tension, danger, privation, pain, and treachery, it records the miserable war years in Germanoccupied Holland. It was far worse for Jews, of course, and scenes of jails and concentration camps are especially harrowing. Sometimes characters rationalize collaboration by saying they did it to help their families survive, but

Johanna fights against the Nazis no matter what. No price is too high for her to pay.

The author lived in Amsterdam, did research there, and clearly knows her subject. This is a page-turner, but be warned: This is a dark and disturbing book.

Elizabeth Knowles

THE ANTIQUITY AFFAIR

Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne, Harper Muse, 2023, $17.99, pb, 400pp, 9781400240630

Though sisters Lila and Tess Ford were inseparable as girls, lurking in the back of their archeologist father’s lecture halls, making up adventure stories, and creating their own secret language, they grew into different women in the early years of the 20th century. Unconventional and spontaneous Tess hopes to follow their father to the Valley of the Kings, digging for Egypt’s tombs and relics as a rare female archeologist. Intellectual Lila, dismayed at the idea of relics being taken from their people and their native lands, wishes her father would stop his pilfering and return to a quiet academic life, one that would fit more with her plan to become a respected society wife. On the eve of Lila’s debutante ball, Tess is abducted, setting in motion an unexpected adventure that takes the Ford family across the sea to Egypt in a race against a mysterious cabal to find a legendary artifact called the Serpent’s Crown.

Authors Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne have written a rollicking tale replete with adventure, romance, mystery, and a sprinkle of the supernatural. The Antiquity Affair has been likened to Indiana Jones, and it’s an apt comparison, as both are rousing adventure stories complete with ancient mysteries, hidden tombs, harrowing mantraps and pitfalls, villains bent on world domination, and fabled relics of power. Unlike their onscreen counterpart, however, Lila and Tess wrestle more with the ethics of archeology in an era of colonialism. The Egypt they know is one of myth and legend; the modern Egypt they encounter, simmering with nationalist ideologies and intellectualism, challenges that expectation. The authors neatly subvert the trope of swashbuckling men and their archeological treasure. A fast-paced and entertaining read that I hope is not the last from Kelly and Thorne.

Jessica Brockmole

A BOTANIST’S GUIDE TO FLOWERS AND FATALITY

Kate Khavari, Crooked Lane, 2023, $27.99, hb, 352pp, 9781639102785

Partnered with Dr. Michael Lee, a most obnoxious combination of golden-haired attractiveness and infuriation, Saffron Everleigh is a researcher at the University College London examining the effects of local botanical toxins. When Inspector Green shows up at her office to ask about a series of deaths in which the victims received a bouquet of flowers, Saffron’s own investigation turns

up a hidden, nefarious message behind each bouquet. However, to find the connection between the victims, Saffron will need to dive back into the upper-class scene from which her family cut her off when she accepted a research position.

Dr. Lee and Saffron have an amusing rapport with each other. Both of the feisty and determined characters are easy to root for. Character mindsets feel appropriate for the 1920s, which helps immerse readers in the historical setting. It was easy to read this as a standalone as the author deftly weaves important past events into the narrative. The pacing slows a bit midway in both the murder mystery and the character development. Overall, though, there are many captivating twists to the plot and suspicious characters. From decadent parties to notorious nightclubs, university offices and police stations, readers get a tantalizing glimpse of Jazz Age London. I’d definitely read more of this series.

J. Lynn Else

THE LIBRARIAN OF BURNED BOOKS

Brianna Labuskes, William Morrow, 2023, $19.99/£10.99, pb, 416pp, 9780063259256

This absorbing novel, set before and during World War II, follows three points of view: Althea, an American novelist visiting Berlin on a cultural exchange in 1933; Hannah, a German Jewish resistance fighter living in Paris in 1936; and Vivian, a Manhattan socialite fighting in 1944 to defend the Armed Service Editions program (which produced small, portable editions of American bestsellers for soldiers to carry with them into combat) from censorship by conservative Congressmen. The overarching theme is the importance of protecting books – and the free flow of information they represent – from the control of authoritarian governments.

The lives of the three women are intertwined, as each grapples with the Nazi regime’s obsession with purging German culture of “impure” writings. Sheltered Althea is an awestruck beneficiary of Goebbels’ propaganda campaign; her part of the narrative follows her frustratingly slow realization that she has been chosen not because of her bestselling novel, but because the party sees her as a pawn who can convince her own government to remain neutral in the coming war. We join expatriate Hannah four years later, after her passionate friendship with Althea has ended disastrously and she has been forced to flee Berlin for the dubious safety of Paris, where antisemitism is more covert but no less vicious than in Germany. Vivian’s role in the story comes later, but it will be clear to readers early on how their experiences will become important to her campaign to fight authoritarian bigotry on her own home turf.

All three women are linked by the conviction that books are worth fighting, and even dying for. Labuskes’ deft interweaving of the three women’s narratives makes this novel both

entertaining and thought-provoking. The political wrangling over which novels are “appropriate” for patriotic soldiers to read overseas is a little-known historical controversy that seems equally vital and urgent today.

Kristen McDermott

THE ANARCHIST’S WIFE

Margo Laurie, Calleia Press, 2022, $6.99, pb, 182pp, 9781739898151

In the summer of 1927, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts committed one of the most nefarious of legal injustices in the history of the United States. The arrest, conviction and execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti titillated and provoked a xenophobic nation much divided by the war in Europe and the Russian Revolution, the rising tide of organizing labor, and the increasing violence of socialism’s most ardent wing: the anarchists.

Margo Laurie’s novella explores this moment in time through the eyes of Sacco’s young wife, Rosa. She is an immigrant herself, a teenager when she marries Nicola. Their relationship seems to be one made in heaven. Rosa is bright and effusive; Nicola, totally devoted, is a man of limited education but with an inherent intelligence and drive to make the life of his family the best it can be.

In The Anarchist’s Wife, Rosa is telling her daughter Ines the story of her love affair with Nicola and of the double life he led as a family man and as a passionate believer in the rights of the working man. In 1920, a bank is robbed in Massachusetts, and two guards are shot to death. Nicola and Bartolomeo are arrested. Are they innocent of this crime? Scapegoats for the revenge-hungry elitist mob? Or are they guilty? Even Rosa isn’t one-hundred percent certain. Is there anything she and Nicola’s ardent fellow insurrectionists can do to prevent the inevitable?

Author Laurie’s thorough research is evident on every page as Rosa tries to live her life and raise her two children while Nicola is imprisoned. The tale isn’t over-sold or melodramatic but laid out simply and believably. A novella, The Anarchist’s Wife will make you want to delve into the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti even more.

Peter Clenott

CAN’T I GO INSTEAD

Lee Geum-yi (trans. An Seonjae), Forge, 2023, $28.99, hb, 384pp, 9781250859556

In the near-feudal Korea of the 1920s, Chaeryeong, a nobleman’s daughter, is to be given a peasant girl as a “birthday present.” Sunam begs to go in her sister’s place, becoming Chaeryeong’s maid and ultimately her replacement, inspiration, and savior.

When Chaeryeong’s lover is arrested in Japan for involvement in the Korean independence movement, she’s forced into marriage and sent off to California. In her place, Sunam will be a “comfort woman,” one of the untold thousands of women and

girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army. Meanwhile, caught up in the anti-Asian fever of World War II America, Chearyeong endures a Japanese internment camp. Reunited in postwar Korea, both women are swept into the cataclysmic upheavals of the Korean War, taking a crushing toll on the already traumatized Sunam.

The novel is plot-driven and sometimes reliant on coincidence. Some plot turns feel unlikely, like Sunam’s relatively easy escape from a slave camp in northern China. Spanning four decades, with multiple characters and considerable—although useful—historical context, the novel is heavy in summary narration, leaving little time for indepth character development or a richer sense of place. However, readers will experience the courage of two women facing a toxic onslaught of race, class, and sexism in another time and culture.

Pamela Schoenewaldt

THE THREE LIVES OF ALIX ST. PIERRE

Natasha Lester, Forever, 2023, $28.00/ C$35.00, hb, 432pp, 9781538706930

The Three Lives of Alix St. Pierre immerses the reader in the world of post-World War II France as the titular character seeks to build a future after a series of devastating events experienced during her tenure as a wartime spy.

The novel opens in 1946 with Alix’s arrival in Paris, which is still reeling from the effects of the war. As the new head of public relations for fashion designer Christian Dior, Alix’s professional life looks promising. However, she is still haunted by the loss of her fiancé, who perished during a military mission gone wrong. When Alix’s career is jeopardized by a saboteur bent on revenge, she discovers this mysterious enemy may be someone from her past. Alix is plunged back to 1943 and the time she spent as an American spy in Switzerland. Forced to reassess the events leading to the death of her fiancé, Alix becomes hell bent on finding the traitorous Nazi agent whose betrayal led to so many lost lives.

Lester has created a powerful character in Alix St. Pierre. Orphaned at an early age, Alix is raised in the family of a wealthy Hollywood producer, yet she is forced to make her own way as an adult. Lester shines a light on the difficulties of being a working woman during the first decades of the 20th century. Alix experiences prejudice, sexual harassment, and other setbacks, yet is determined to survive even in the face of tragedy. In some ways, Alix’s wartime transformation from career girl to spy detracts from the more important aspects of her backstory. Nonetheless, readers craving well-drawn characters and atmospheric renderings of the past will thoroughly enjoy The Three Lives of Alix St. Pierre

Caroline D. Wilson

OF WHITE ASHES

Constance Hays Matsumoto and Kent Matsumoto, Apprentice House Press, 2023, $21.99, pb, 378pp, 9781627204194

Inspired by true events in the authors’ family, Of White Ashes tells the story of Ruby, a 4th grader in Hawaii, and Koji, a ten-year-old in Hiroshima, Japan, in 1939. The children’s innocence is quickly lost when Ruby’s mother dies and Koji learns that he was actually born in the United States. We follow both young characters as children and teens growing, learning, raging, and experimenting on both sides of the Pacific as World War II begins to take over their lives.

Ruby’s family is rounded up into internment camps and must figure out how to not only survive, but decide what they can tolerate from each other and what it means to be a family. Koji is conscripted to fight for the empire of Japan but struggles with lessons he’s been taught throughout his life that conflict with the empire’s messages.

Full of the spirit of gaman, a Japanese virtue of enduring with patience and dignity, this book shows characters’ resilience and hope among devastation, and asks what our true destinies as humans are. Written from two characters’ perspectives while also including diary entries and letters, Of White Ashes shows multiple points of view and includes helpful additional material like a glossary of Japanese words in the back.

Amy Watkin

THE HOUSE OF WHISPERS

Anna Mazzola, Orion, 2023, £14.99, hb, 273pp, 9781398703834

Rome 1938. From the first time she meets Dante Cavallera, piano teacher Eva Valenti is fascinated by the good-looking widower, father of her newest pupil, Chiara. But inexplicable events take place in the Cavallera house, and both Chiara and her younger brother seem troubled. As Fascism spreads in Italy, Eva, like her friends, Jewish Mirella and gay Ettore, finds herself in danger because of her Slovene parentage. While Mirella chooses to flee and Ettore to fight, Eva hopes her growing closeness to the Cavallera family might save her – but will it?

This is an atmospheric, Gothic tale which captures well the increasingly fraught situation, both politically and in the possibly haunted Cavallera house. There are elements of Du Maurier’s Rebecca in Eva’s sense of inadequacy when compared to Dante’s dead wife, the glamorous and capable Adelina. Eva herself is a convincing portrait of a woman damaged both by losing her identity and by her parents’ abusive marriage. Her teenage troubles give her insight into what might be bothering Chiara, but also raise the possibility that the strange events she experiences may be the product of her imagination.

The pace of the novel flags ever so slightly towards the middle, while the political situation deteriorates and Eva dithers, but after that it gathers pace again. The blurb does the reader

no favours by completely ignoring the first half of the book, and the epilogue seems to overlook the fact that Mirella would have been in just as much danger in Vichy France as in any other part of German-occupied Europe. But aside from these minor niggles, this is an accomplished novel that should appeal to lovers of darkly Gothic stories.

Jasmina Svenne

MOLASSES MURDER IN A NUTSHELL

Frances McNamara, Level Best/Historia, 2023, $16.95, pb, 252pp, 9781685122508

Minutes after Theresa Ryan finds her sister Maggie dead in her bathtub, the floor beneath her rumbles and caves, and waves of thick, muddy sludge rise up. The liquid is molasses, which had been stored in a nearby industrial tank before being shipped out and used for manufacturing ammunition. It is Boston, January 15, 1919, the time of the Great Molasses Flood.

Theresa’s employer, Frances “Fanny” Glessner Lee, comes to her aid and is drawn into the investigation of Maggie’s death, along with Dr. George Burgess “Jake” Magrath, medical examiner of Suffolk County. To help Theresa remember and Jake reconstruct the scene of Maggie’s death, Fanny creates a miniature diorama of the bathroom, the first in a series of Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Deaths.

Molasses Murder in a Nutshell is the first in a new series of historical mysteries by McNamara, who is known for the Emily Cabot mysteries set in early 1900s Chicago. The plot is built on historical facts and figures. The flood released two million gallons of molasses in Boston’s North End, caused extensive damage, injured 150 people, and killed 21. Dr. Magrath performed autopsies on disaster victims and later testified about his findings. Lee is considered to be the mother of forensic science. She created 18 dioramas for Magrath’s lectures on forensic science at Harvard. (McNamara acknowledges taking liberties with the history. Lee constructed her dioramas in the 1940s.)

A few lengthy back-and-forth dialogues border on tiresome, and a couple of scenes are a little clumsy. But overall, Molasses is a real treat. Settings and back stories about the time period run smoothly. Particularly delicious is the unexpected denouement. This reader, for one, looks forward to the next Nutshell mystery.

K. M. Sandrick

ONLY THE BEAUTIFUL

Susan Meissner, Berkley, 2023, $28.00, hb, 400pp, 9780593332832

Meissner is riveting in this striking novel that brings together WWII Austria and lateDepression-era California wine country.

In the late 1930s, Rosie Maras is orphaned when she loses her entire family in a tragic accident. Taken in by the owners of the vineyard where she and her family lived and worked,

Rosie has to keep her ability to see colors when she hears sound a secret, lest society deem her “mad.”

Lonely and grief-stricken, she not only reveals her secret but winds up pregnant. When her guardians kick her out, she thinks she’s headed to a home for unwed mothers, only to discover that the place the state sends her is far worse than anything she could have imagined.

In WWII Austria, Helen Calvert, sister of Rosie’s former guardian, nannies for a family whose daughter Brigitta is disabled. Devastated by the loss of Brigitta to the Nazis’ T4 euthanasia program, Helen returns to California after the war and is horrified to learn of the fate of her brother’s ward nine years earlier. After what she witnessed in Austria, Helen is determined to find Rosie and hopes that she hasn’t fallen prey to America’s abominable eugenics program.

Only the Beautiful is an emotional journey of grief, hope, and second chances, written as only Meissner can. Through Rosie’s eyes, readers see firsthand the fear people with different abilities lived with during the era of eugenics in America and will recognize the alltoo-modern refrain of a young woman being blamed for a man’s bad behavior. Meissner pulls no punches in comparing America’s treatment of people with disabilities with the Nazis’ actions a few years later, leaving the reader with the emphatic message that everyone has a moral obligation to speak out against governments doing horrible things. This one resonates.

Sarah Hendess

SULEIMAN’S RING

Sherif Meleka (trans. Raymond Stock), Hoopoe/ Am. Univ. in Cairo Press, 2023, $18.95, pb, 303pp, 9781649032041

“Epic” describes this novel that begins in 1951 and carries us through wars and crises to the aftermath of the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981. The book is primarily set in Alexandria, Egypt, which begins as an idyllic seaside retreat but wears the scars of international turmoil by our conclusion. Epic here doesn’t mean heroic or necessarily long, but covering many episodes that seem unjointed in purpose or cause.

We begin with the attractive character of Khawaga Daoud, a name that indicates that he is a foreigner, even though his ancestors have been in Egypt, probably since Alexander founded the city. Daoud is content with his life as a simple oud player, Jewish, but who has converted to Christianity in order to marry his Coptic third wife. He has friends in the violent Muslim Brotherhood who end

up in prison, however. He knows Gamal Abdel-Nasser as well as folks who decide it’s time to immigrate to Israel, bequeathing our hero profitable factories and villas and their own kind of headaches as nationalization descends. There are Coptic apparitions of the Virgin Mary, and a lot of people who get so depressed they never leave their homes.

The title’s ring seems to be an attempt to infuse magical realism into the narrative and some unity, passing from person to person to bring ill luck or good. The trope never really works. The verses of singer Umm Khulthum are something to cling to instead, and a lovely evocation of the period.

Some of the translation seems rough, and the novelistic mores I am used to want more unity and more showing, less telling. Writers such as Isabel Allende, Gabriel García Márquez or Salman Rushdie show us the way when it comes to epic magical realism we want to believe in.

Ann Chamberlin

THE DARK THAT DOESN’T SLEEP

Simon Mockler, Pegasus Crime, 2023, $26.00/ C$35.00, hb, 320pp, 9781639364251

The Dark That Doesn’t Sleep is a taut, psychological military and spy thriller set in 1967. Jack Miller, a psychoanalyst with a New York practice, vets applicants for the CIA along with other professional work. He is called to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington to interview the sole survivor of a fire at an abandoned top-secret underground military base in Greenland. A seven-day arctic storm trapped the last three servicemen at the base. Two are dead, and the badly injured survivor, Connor, says he can’t remember anything. Professional instinct tells Jack that Connor is lying, withholding what he knows, although he doesn’t know why. Gradually a story emerges which, upon further investigation, doesn’t add up. What follows is a web of lies, cover-ups, and psychological mind games which almost cost Jack his life. To find the truth, will he be forced to go to the abandoned facility before the lethal ice caves in upon itself?

Rather than switching viewpoints, the author follows Jack during the whole investigation, giving the reader both a compelling and unbroken chain of evidence, and the intimate process of Jack’s logic. The plot is complex, twisting and turning back upon itself as conflicting details emerge. Although most of the action takes place in Washington, the far-edge-of-the-world

location of the base, the lethally frigid conditions, and “The fear that comes over you. The gradual inability to distinguish your dreams and nightmares from reality” invade the reader’s thoughts constantly. The Inuit have a saying for it—’the dark that doesn’t sleep’. The novel sinks its teeth in on page one and doesn’t let go. Reading in one sitting will dramatically increase the emotional impact. This is Mockler’s U.S. adult debut—a talented author to watch. One of the best historical thrillers I have read.

Fiona Alison

THE SEEING GARDEN

Ginny Kubitz Moyer, She Writes, 2023, $17.95, pb, 358pp, 9781647424268

For a person born with the feel and “seeing” of art, the expectations of a determined, upwardly mobile family in 1910 crush the spirit. And for a young woman obliged to her aunt and uncle, her generous guardians after her parents’ deaths, a sense of obligation and social “must” are closing even more tightly around her future. So 19-year-old Catherine Ogden struggles to accept an excellent match, one in which she hopes she’ll someday love the wealthy, handsome, and powerful William Brandt. Brandt is determined to have her for his wife, and Catherine has no acceptable reason to refuse, has she?

Brandt’s magnificent home outside San Francisco offers a stunning counterpoint to the gritty New York world Catherine’s grown up in. Even more than the house that shows off the railroading fortune of its owner, the gardens and grounds speak to her: lush, colorful even in the dry season, and ever-changing, they form a living palette. With the deferential but skilled assistance of a Hispanic gardener, Catherine begins to explore her own inherited delight in color and form.

Her struggles to fashion a compromise among her confused feelings and her aunt and uncle’s pressing desires are beautifully evoked among the slow revelations of Moyer’s wellcrafted novel of society and American cultural shifts. Hints at the steely determination of her husband-to-be don’t deter Catherine from responding to her obligations. In subtly evoked growth, however, Moyer suggests there could be another garden gateway to slide open—one that will offer Catherine the chance to develop a deep and abiding love for people who value her vision.

Beth Kanell

MURDER UNDER A RED MOON

Harini Nagendra, Pegasus Crime, 2023, $26.95, hb, 300pp, 9781639363704 / Constable, 2023, £9.99, pb, 304pp, 9781408715239

Even with a devoted husband and a police captain ally, establishing yourself as an amateur detective in 1921 South India isn’t easy when your socially conservative, grumpy mother-in-law—who resides in your home— disapproves. Fresh from her crime-solving

success in the series opener, The Bangalore Detectives Club, Kaveri Murthy has been finding new clients and increased name recognition in Bangalore. To say she’s surprised when her athe (mother-in-law), Bhargavi, requests her help is an understatement, but Kaveri welcomes the opportunity for them to develop a stronger relationship. But this new case is complicated. Bhargavi’s cousin, Mrs. Shanthi Sharma, and her husband, who own a large mill, are losing money and suspect embezzlement, potentially by their future son-in-law. Kaveri finds herself trapped in a giant family mess, and one terrible night, tensions escalate into murder.

Despite the seemingly limited list of potential killers, the plotting is even stronger in this second book. Besides her obligations to Bhargavi and the increasing danger for her personally, Kaveri has members of the Sharma household pointing fingers at each other while worrying that Bhargavi is being taken in by a charismatic swami. The presence of a particularly ugly stray dog lightens the mood, although Bhargavi thinks canines are dirty, so there’s stress there too. Kaveri has an analytical mind (and studies math in secret) but misses one clue that readers should catch onto more quickly.

The story offers abundant color, literally so, like Kaveri’s beautiful saris and the rangoli peacock design she creates on her doorstep from different hues of rice flour. Full of details on customs, tempting recipes, and social expectations for women, which Kaveri works around in her own shrewdly gentle way, this series is recommended for fans of Sujata Massey and historical mysteries in general.

Sarah Johnson

THE WOMAN ON THE BRIDGE

Sheila O’Flanagan, Headline, 2023, £20.00/$28.00, hb, 384pp, 9781035402779

Dublin, Ireland, 1920: a stone crashes through the window of the shop where Winnie O’Leary works. Terror grips the poor girl as she shelters under the counter and listens to battle running in the street outside. Cue romance when an attractive young freedom fighter enters to apologise for the damage – and Winnie gives him an ear-bashing.

Despite her misgivings, the alluring young man, Joseph Burke, draws Winnie into politics that she’d rather avoid. Not because she doesn’t want freedom: she does. But even more, she wants to keep her family safe – and her father has already been shot. But there is no safety for anyone. Her father had been an innocent bystander, and Winnie’s troubles escalate as she becomes drawn into Joseph’s family and their struggle for a republic.

The book is primarily a romance, but there is a lot of complicated politics to be explained. The author deserves credit for making explanations as clear and concise as possible, but there is still quite a lot of it. The politics comes to life as Winnie, her family and friends, simply through trying to survive, find their

actions lead to fractured families and broken friendships.

Winnie’s story is a typical historical saga, with trouble after trouble piling upon her. It’s not only wars: they also suffer disease, drunken fights, and childbirth. It’s all eminently believable, and an author’s note confirms the inspiration of her grandmother’s oral history. Winnie soldiers on, as she must, earning the label ‘strong woman’. But, despite all her sorrows, the book retains the warmth of hope and of love.

Recommended for lovers of sagas and romances – and an easy reading introduction to Ireland’s fight for independence.

Helen Johnson

THE FOURTH ENEMY

Anne Perry, Ballantine, 2023, $28.00, hb, 352pp, 9780593359129 / Headline, 2023, £9.99, pb, 384pp, 9781472294395

Following up Perry’s longer-running Pitt series, this sixth in the Daniel Pitt series opens on a cozy domestic scene of father-daughter and husband-wife. Barrister Daniel Pitt (a suggestive name from British history) is married to a pathologist, Miriam, who is also the daughter of his employer, Marcus fford Croft, now the retiring head of a prestigious chambers at the Old Bailey. The subsequent choice of a new lead “silk,” Gideon Hunter KC, sets off a series of events in the lives of Miriam and her younger husband, Daniel. They have been married three months, and it shows in their tenderness, fervent glances, and sweet smiles. They have a lot to lose, in more ways than one. Miriam works at the city morgue as assistant to her mentor, another woman. Women unafraid to contribute to and take charge in this changing society is a heady, underscoring theme.

Gideon Hunter, known for his brilliance, has flamboyantly chosen to prosecute a splashy first case, potentially risking the chamber’s reputation, with Daniel as junior counsel. It’s 1912, anarchy is shaking Europe geopolitically, and England is at risk. The accused is a wealthy newspaper mogul, a well-known and celebrated Londoner with political ambitions. He also happens to support many charities and the suffrage movement. The novel’s first half progresses along the pretrial evidence gathering of fraud charges: a pyramid scheme that bilks the poor and middle classes.

Once the courtroom drama begins, the plot’s twisting and turning hardly subsides: the murder of an important witness complicates the trial, followed by another brutal attack and wild kidnapping, a change of scenery to an isolated northern coastline in a daring rescue. Meanwhile the reader dashes across pages to a satisfactory conclusion. Only an expert writer creates the interrelationships and psychology of so many characters.

Christina Nellas Acosta

A DISAPPEARANCE IN FIJI

Nilima Rao, Soho Crime, 2023, $25.95, hb, 288pp, 9781641294294

Akal Singh is a Punjabi Sikh, demoted to work in Fiji, in 1914, for having made a fatal error in judgement in Hong Kong, where he worked as a police inspector. His first real case on the island takes him to a sugar plantation where an indentured servant has disappeared. Despite the dismissal of his talents and authority by the plantation owner, who says the woman just ran off, Akal doesn’t believe it’s that simple. No one would walk away from a three-year investment in a five-year indenture. The woman’s extraordinary beauty and a missing overseer have something to do with it. He just doesn’t yet know what.

The novel focuses on some wide societal issues—white colonialism, systemic racism, indentured servitude, and corporate greed— in the context of an excellent story. Akal’s investigation is frustratingly hampered by people with their own agendas, and those, including the police chief, who want the story wrapped up quickly with no negative fall-out. Rao’s attention to detail makes for a vivid read as we can’t help but compare Fiji’s natural beauty to the debilitating poverty, the filth of the servants’ housing, and the wretchedness of these human lives. Rao mirrors some of her self-admitted ‘cultural confusion’ in her chief protagonist. Akal’s charm is heightened by his misplaced appearance on Fiji, amongst white Europeans who respect only other white Europeans, ignore native Fijians, and extend outright hostility to everybody else. His Sikh status affords Akal an inner confidence, but his colour makes him indistinguishable to whites from the native labourers. His calm ability to rise above situations where he is disregarded, ignored, and spoken over as though he isn’t in the room, is what makes him such an endearing and iconic hero. Rao has created a respectful and determined protagonist with whom to venture into the prickly world of racism and cultural identity. More please.

Fiona Alison

A SHADOW IN MOSCOW

Katherine Reay, Harper Muse, 2023, $17.99/£12.99, pb, 384pp, 9781400243037

In late 1944 in Nazi-occupied Vienna, Ingrid loses her Austrian father and English mother to the occupiers when they determine the couple isn’t loyal to the cause. With forged papers, she is recruited into British intelligence and stays in

Vienna. As the war comes to a close, she forges a relationship with a softspoken Soviet embassy worker and later moves with him to Moscow, where she continues her espionage work, now against the communists.

In 1980 in Washington, DC, young Anya, originally from Moscow, is finishing her degree as part of the Soviet Foreign Studies Initiative at Georgetown University. It is an honor to be awarded such an appointment, though she is constantly watched by the KGB. Despite this, she comes to love the liberating freedom she sees in America and is quite willing to be recruited into the CIA.

This book is a consummately rendered and captivating espionage account of the Cold War, told from the perspective of two sympathetic and admirable women. It is also a resonating love story of freedom, family, and friendship. The author chillingly captures the horrors of the aftermath of the Soviet Socialist revolution where young students are “ideologically trained,” not simply educated. Historical western spy-traitors Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames make brief appearances as characters, and President Reagan and Pope John Paul II are portrayed as nightmares for the Soviets.

The constant danger and stress for the two heroic women, who are unaware of each other’s activities in Moscow, comes off as real and palpable. Working for freedom in a one-party dominated surveillance state with thoroughly co-opted institutions and media presents a constant nerve-wracking challenge for Ingrid and Anya. Filled with surprise twists and turns, and ultimately uplifting and inspiring, I found this superlative novel an enduring gem. Five stars!

Thomas J. Howley

THE WAR PIANIST

Mandy Robotham, Avon, 2023, £8.99, pb, 384pp, 9780008453442 / Avon, 2023, $16.99, pb, 384pp, 9780008564308

A gently-paced, thoroughly researched and informative novel which tells the story of a little-known group of World War II resistance fighters in occupied Amsterdam. Marnie Fern, a production assistant for the BBC in London, is thrust into the clandestine world of resistance fighters and wartime communications when her much-loved grandfather is killed in his tailor’s shop during a night-time Luftwaffe raid. Amongst the rubble and damaged stock, Marnie discovers a radio set. An enigmatic stranger informs her that her grandfather had been helping the Dutch Resistance movement by receiving and transmitting messages to

and from a fellow ‘pianist’, codenamed Daisy, living under constant threat of betrayal or discovery in Amsterdam.

Marnie is recruited into the British secret service Special Operations Executive (SOE) and undergoes training and a residential stay at a secret location where her skills are tested and honed. Proving herself to be a very adept radio operative or ‘pianist’, she takes the place of her grandfather and begins swapping transmissions with Daisy. As the story unfolds, Marnie’s life becomes inextricably linked with her Dutch counterpart and her family and she joins a dangerous mission into the heart of Holland and Amsterdam.

Mandy Robotham is justifiably a popular novelist and cleverly chooses her very strong and capable female wartime characters from unusual places, creating a fascinating view of World War II from a refreshingly different viewpoint. Marnie Fern is no exception. All of the characters are well-formed and authentic. The War Pianist ends somewhat abruptly, and the author has decided to complete Marnie’s story by an 11-page transcript of an imaginary interview 10 years after the war has ended. This feels like an imposed limitation and detracts from what is otherwise a fine novel.

Aidan K. Morrissey

FIFTH AVENUE GLAMOUR GIRL

Renée Rosen, Berkley, 2023, $16.99, pb, 432pp, 9780593335666

New York City and its fashionable department store Saks Fifth Avenue is the setting for Fifth Avenue Glamour Girl. A chance encounter at a local beauty parlor turns into a complete makeover for Estée Lauder, Gloria Downing, and the cosmetic industry of the 1930s and 1940s. Rosen’s novel is written from the fictional Gloria’s perspective as she is interviewed for an unauthorized biography of lifelong friend Estée Lauder. Rosen’s unique hook in the prologue is a question of whether Gloria will tell the truth or lie. Because Gloria knows everything

Readers will be familiar with the major names in the early cosmetic industry: Elizabeth Arden, Helena Rubinstein, and Revlon. Estée’s goal is to become a household name. She mixes skin care products in her tiny kitchen and Gloria, due to a family scandal, is reinventing herself and looking for a job. Estée’s natural beauty and charisma, paired with Gloria’s fashion sense, make for a dynamite team, and over the decades an explosive relationship develops.

Rosen’s well-researched anecdotes highlight how the unlikely friends complement each other’s weaknesses with support and encouragement. Rosen accurately depicts Estée’s brash, tenacious personality, which adds humor to unlikely, sometimes awkward situations on the beaches of Florida or the executive offices in NYC. The choices and expectations of women during the Depression are perfectly blended with each young woman’s dreams, giving readers insight into

how they each become independent and selfsufficient. Gloria goes out of her way to avoid men, and Estée runs toward them, providing readers with situations for personal analysis and discussion.

Estée Lauder’s pioneering spirit and ingenuity have certainly had a lasting impact on the cosmetic industry. In Fifth Avenue Glamour Girl Renée Rosen’s themes of friendship, reinvention and family relationships are explored like the layers of a fine perfume.

Dorothy Schwab

LISTEN

Sheldon Russell, Cynren Press, 2023, $28.00, hb, 216pp, 9781947976375

Atlas, Oklahoma, 1930s. During the Great Depression, with no other jobs in sight, Liam begins working for the Federal Writers’ Project. He will receive a very humble paycheck in return for collecting stories of rural life in small-town Oklahoma. He begins interviewing the townspeople while hoping for better times and more lucrative jobs in bigger cities. When he meets Eden Sawyer, the daughter of a poor farmer as well as a talented artist, he finds a friendship he wasn’t expecting. And as his interviews of the town residents continue, he begins to learn more about the inner thoughts, ambitions, and dignity of the people that he’s met in Atlas.

The writing is absolutely stellar, as the reader immediately feels thrown into this Dust Bowl town, just like Liam. The backstories of the people he meets are fascinating glimpses of 1930s America. There is Rabbit, the garbage man, who describes his job thus: “No matter who you are, how high up on the stack you figure to be, you’re still leaving behind your own trash every day you live. Without me, you’d soon enough be swimming in it.” And Dub, the proud farmer who represents the attitude towards public assistance at that time: “Thing is, we don’t ask nothing of nobody, that includes Roosevelt. What we got, we earned, and without no handouts.”

As more interviews reveal the proud, the talented, and the unseen among the townspeople, the readers see their true value, and the ugly side of the town is also revealed: those who want to keep others from succeeding. This story paints a vivid picture, both visually and emotionally, not just of a small town during the Depression, but also of the dynamics between the rich and the poor at that time. Highly recommended.

Bonnie DeMoss

DAUGHTERS OF VICTORY

Gabriella Saab, William Morrow, 2023, $17.99/ C$21.99, pb, 479pp, 9780063246492

Russia, 1917, and the USSR, 1940s: Svetlana Vasilyevna Petrova defies her aristocratic family and joins the Russian Revolution, becoming a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. This decision leads her to passion, ten years’ imprisonment, an abandoned daughter, and

a burning desire for revenge on the brutal Bolshevik assassin Orlova. Twenty-five years later, during the Nazi invasion of the USSR, Svetlana’s granddaughter, Mila, arrives at Svetlana’s isolated farm, sent there for safety as the war advances. Mila yearns to fight the invaders and joins the resistance, while her grandmother struggles with long held family secrets. Secrets that may destroy them both.

This dual-timeline story of two women, both struggling for liberation and for family, paints a vast yet personal picture of the choices and sacrifices made during times of conflict. Both women are stubborn, idealistic—grandmother and granddaughter indeed. Mistakes are made and trust is shattered as the complex story plays out.

I confess I would have liked more depth in Svetlana’s early story. Although the author explains why Svetlana abandoned her aristocratic roots to fight for the Revolution, I remained curious. I craved more emotional grit and nuance to flesh out that life-changing decision. However, Svetlana’s later life and the sacrifices she makes for her daughter and granddaughter ring true. I found Mila’s characterization more believable—an idealistic teenager, wanting to battle the invaders, using any weapon she can.

Gabriella Saab has based both women upon historical figures, and a thorough author’s note provides more information and background. She has created a sweeping novel of revolution, revenge, and passion: a tale of strong and amazing women, and their desire for freedom and family, that proves well worth the reader’s time.

Susan McDuffie

THE LODGER

Helen Scarlett, Quercus, 2023, £18.99, hb, 378pp, 9781529407594

London in the hot summer of 1919. Grace Armstrong is still struggling in the depths of bereavement following the death of her fiancé, Robert Hammond, who had been killed at the Somme in 1916, as well as her brother Edward’s demise in the war. To make matters worse, her only real good friend Elizabeth Smith, who was a lodger in her family’s north London property in Tufnell Park, has suddenly given notice and subsequently disappeared without trace. When Elizabeth’s body is found in the Thames, drowned, Grace wonders how much more she is to be tormented by death in her still-young life. Grace, who wants to be a journalist, works in a lowly position at Nursing World magazine. She begins to see Robert in his uniform on London’s streets, and it appears that her grief is inflicting similar mental health problems to what her mother suffers from, though Grace believes that Robert has somehow survived. Grace begins to look into the circumstances surrounding the death of the former lodger Elizabeth and uncovers some startling secrets and mysteries.

This is a capably plotted and narrated story, enjoyable to read. The thick miasmic soup of grief and loss that afflicted society in the years

after The Great War is sensitively portrayed. But there is an essential lack of credibility throughout the story; it is difficult to pinpoint the precise issue, just that the overall story does give the impression of just that – a tale. Characters sometimes behave and speak in ways that seem improbable. There are a few solecisms: would a senior partner in a legal firm refer to his secretary on the telephone by her first name? And it seems doubtful that an American not long in London would wish to discuss the cricket scores.

Douglas Kemp

THE OLD LION

Jeff Shaara, St. Martin’s, 2023, $30.00, hb, 480pp, 9781250279941

Even those lovers of history who have read the many wonderful biographies of Theodore Roosevelt will enjoy Jeff Shaara’s novel, written from the point of view of Roosevelt himself. Shaara has focused on key moments and events in TR’s life, including the personal tragedies he faced, his time as a cattleman, his adventures in the Spanish-American War, and his dangerous trip to Brazil. Shaara divides the book into five parts, beginning each with a scene in the winter of 1918/1919 as TR lies on his deathbed in great pain, remembering both his victories and his limitations. Those limitations include his attitudes toward race, his ineptness with finances, and his tendency to prioritize his enthusiasms over the people around him.

Although Shaara often includes letters and documents from the historical record, he uses dialog and internal meditations—skillfully imagined—to drive the book forward, adding excellent and needed emotional texture to a well-known story. Although a few times Shaara adds more information in the dialog than is likely in daily speech—necessary to fill in the background for readers—on the whole the novel can serve as a case study for the power of dialog.

Readers will find no surprises in the plot of the novel, but they will come away with a greater understanding of Roosevelt and his place in history. Highly recommended for fans of historical fiction and those interested in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

Marlie Wasserman

THE HIDDEN LIFE OF ASTER KELLY

Katherine A. Sherbrooke, Pegasus, 2023, $25.95/ C$34.95/£20.00, hb, 336pp, 9781639363537

Model and aspiring fashion designer Aster Kelly takes on an enviable job—being Lauren Bacall’s stand-in for designer-to-the-stars Fernando Tivoli. While learning from one of the West Coast’s most celebrated designers and enjoying the social benefits of being his prize model, Aster also gains an unexpected friend in Fernando, one with whom she shares dreams, heartbreaks, and secrets that could get them cast out of 1940s Hollywood society. When the Hollywood gossip machine threatens to destroy everything both have worked for, Aster makes

a rash decision to protect their reputations and their privacy. Nearly thirty years later, Aster’s daughter Lissy is on the verge of getting her big break on Broadway. She knows little about her mother’s glamorous Hollywood past and even less about her brief marriage to a studio star. The mother she grew up with was an artist on a quiet corner of Martha’s Vineyard. But when Lissy begins delving into her own past, looking for something to salve her imposter syndrome, she digs up more history about the father she never knew.

Inspired by Sherbrooke’s own mother’s brief and secret history as a Hollywood model, The Hidden Life of Aster Kelly is an engrossing and emotional novel, rich with detail on two fascinating times and places—Hollywood in the fraught and exciting studio era and Broadway in a decade tense and exciting with social change. While I thoroughly enjoyed Aster’s story of postwar Hollywood and the world of fashion, I was especially drawn to Lissy’s glimpse of backstage Broadway in the 1970s. Both women were written with sensitivity and deftness, but Lissy shone as a character, with a convincing blend of bravado and uncertainty, skill and hard work, happiness and wistfulness. An enjoyable novel.

Jessica Brockmole

A WALTZ WITH TRAITORS

A.L. Sowards, Covenant, 2023, $17.99, pb, 328pp, 9781524421120

Due to their loyalty to Tsar Nicholas II, Nadia’s father, mother, and aunt are executed by the Russian secret police, the Cheka. Nadia barely escapes, but without family or money, she has few options. By chance, she meets Czech soldier Filip, who informs her that his train is leaving Ukraine, but they are only authorized to take military men and their families. He offers her a solution: marry him so she can board the train, and they can have the marriage annulled when they reach their destination.

Desperate, she takes him up on his proposal. But life on the train is hard. As a former aristocrat, Nadia is used to a life of privilege and doesn’t know how to do the tasks expected of her, like cooking or washing clothes. However, she is willing to learn and offers her skills as a nurse, something she picked up as a volunteer at the Petrograd hospital for wounded officers. Nadia’s and Filip’s days are filled with struggle and chaos, yet the more they get to know each other, the more feelings develop. If they can make it to safety, they must decide: will their marriage remain a sham, or will it become real?

Sowards’ well-researched novel is filled with historical details about the Czechoslovakian Legion, a group supporting the Allies in their battle against Germany. The hardships these men faced, fighting to win independence for Czechoslovakia, are brought to life with realistic descriptions. The author also doesn’t shy away from the difficulties confronting single or unprotected women during the war, heightening the stakes for the novel’s female characters. Nadia and Filip’s romance creates

a bright spot and sense of hope, keeping the reader truly invested until the end.

Janice Derr

BEYOND THAT, THE SEA

Laura Spence-Ash, Celadon, 2023, $28.00, hb, 348pp, 9781250854377

In 1940, as German bombs destroy London, Beatrix Thompson’s parents send her, at age eleven, to live out the war with a family near Boston. With the Gregory family, Bea, an only child, now lives with two boys whose ages bracket hers, their withdrawn, controlling father, and a mother who’s always wanted a daughter. For once in her life, Bea feels cared for, has no material wants, and begins, haltingly, to learn to enjoy herself.

I like this premise, which offers plenty of chances for conflict, not least in how Bea’s parents presume the worst of the Gregorys— enacting their guilt for having sent her away— and how the girl views her eventual return to London. I also like the prose, spare and understated, creating mood and feeling in few words.

However, that economy, which extends to the storytelling style, proves a mixed blessing. The novel, which spans decades, consists of chapters two or three pages long, each through a different narrator’s eyes. The terse vignettes have a transitory feel, revealing single moments and surfaces rather than inner lives. Many chapters dodge conflict rather than show it, telling after the fact how the characters react to what has happened. Nobody in this book seems to have the stomach for confrontation, a restraint that would work better if the reader glimpsed what they wanted but couldn’t ask for.

As for historical background, that too feels distant. Even in the London scenes, the war fails to seep into minds or souls; and after America joins the fight, the atmosphere around Boston changes very little. Beyond That, the Sea, though poignant in moments, never builds for me. It’s an interesting story, but I’m not compelled.

Larry Zuckerman

CODE NAME ELODIE

Anna Stuart, Bookouture, 2023, £9.99/$11.99, pb, 386pp, 9781837901432

Blending fiction with historical figures, Code Name Elodie follows directly from its prequel The Bletchley Girls, documenting the latter half of the war, including the Italian Armistice and its dreadful repercussions, and the Normandy D-Day landings. In 1943, Fran, Ailsa and Steffie are living together in a caravan, overseen by a delightful surrogate mum who looks after their off-hours welfare. Fran, originally sent to the naval department as a typist, turns out to have a flair for file organization. Against air force rules, Ailsa, a telegrapher, is able to join her husband in Ceylon, where she decodes Japanese morse. Once again, the war has stepped between Steffie and her fiancé, preventing their

marriage, as he is sent into Italy and she joins Double-Cross or XX. Fran’s partner, Valérie, complains unceasingly about the boring work at Bletchley Park and longs to return to ‘La France’ to walk in the footsteps of her grandmother, Elodie, a resistant in WWI. This is a well-told tale of love, friendship and sacrifice amidst the turmoil and uncertainty of war. Characters are well-drawn, and relationships between the girls are realistically solid as they lend support to each other through difficult times. I was half-expecting a story about the resistance but, it turns out, it is not what this is. However, it is an interesting read, packed with information about the laborious work done behind the scenes to win a war, including fake radio signalling, mockedup planes and tanks, double agents, and misinformation. The section about postcards is particularly intriguing. Valérie seems to be the fish out of water. She is erratic, highly strung, and given to outbursts, which does not seem conducive to the temperament one imagines Bletchley Park officials looked for in their personnel. Readers who like romance blended into their war stories will enjoy this.

Fiona Alison

THE RADCLIFFE LADIES’ READING CLUB

Julia Bryan Thomas, Sourcebooks Landmark, 2023, $16.99, pb, 384pp, 9781728248578

This novel is set in 1955 Cambridge. Alice Campbell, dislocated divorcée, has opened a small bookstore and initiated a reading club with four interested Radcliffe College freshmen: Tess, Caroline, Merritt, and Evie. Each of the girls comes from different social backgrounds and has different personalities. It is Alice’s hope that she and the young women will find comfort, challenge, and feminine comradery in reading books such as Jane Eyre, The Age of Innocence, and Anna Karenina

The first two-thirds of this novel largely read like synopses of the reading club meetings. The students’ characters do not have much depth; the reader does not even get a real sense of their lives as Radcliffe students—or even of Radcliffe College itself. An end-of-year dance looms, and the girls are excited about attending with Harvard men. Unfortunately, Caroline is brutally raped, painfully assaulted, and dumped on a country road by a Harvard man who is not even her date. The rest of the novel largely focuses on Caroline’s distressing pregnancy, alienation from her wealthy socialite parents, miscarriage, and financial recovery thanks to a grandmother’s trust fund. All of this reads like a string of clichés. Alice Campbell, who started as the novel’s interesting protagonist, gets lost in the melodrama. If the author’s intent is to illuminate the women in academia during the 1950s, she paints a poor picture.

Joanne Vickers

THE CLIFF’S EDGE

Charles Todd, William Morrow, 2023, $30.00, hb, 320pp, 9780063039940

Thirteenth in the well-loved Bess Crawford series, The Cliff’s Edge is set in 1919 postwar England. WWI overshadows the lives of these characters, especially Bess, a battlefield nurse, as England attempts to return to a forever-lost normalcy. While staying at her parents’ home, Bess’s cousin asks her to go to Yorkshire to nurse a family friend after surgery. Bess’s chance encounter with a recovering soldier on the train to Yorkshire demonstrates Todd’s skillful interweaving of the lasting effects of the war and his new characters: “I couldn’t see his eyes, for bandages covered them, only the lower part of his face, high cheekbones and a strong jaw, and he had a walking stick by his side to help him find his way. Shrapnel in the eyes? I’d seen it often.” At news of a serious accident involving her patient’s godson, Bess decamps to another household only to find accusations of murder. Is this a case of unfortunate accident or old jealousies turning deadly? The primary suspect is now in Bess’s care, and she’d like to believe he’s innocent. Old hatreds from the past are at work, both from before the war and during. Then the body count rises, and Bess finds her own life in danger.

For long-time series readers, The Cliff’s Edge delivers another expert mystery. Todd develops the character of each suspect and victim with a depth and intrigue that glues readers to the page, and layers in the plot with a delightful richness. The portrayal of life in an isolated village and its simmering tensions is a particular strength of this mystery. The ongoing romantic elements of Bess’s life entwine here just enough to keep the series’ issues cooking.

Judith Starkston

GOOD NIGHT, IRENE

Luis Alberto Urrea, Little, Brown, 2023, $29.00/C$37.00, hb, 416pp, 9780316265850

Women traipsing through war-torn Europe dispensing coffee and donuts out of repurposed buses? The reader is creatively immersed in a little-known aspect of the work of the American Red Cross during World War II.

Irene Woodward is bored. Her sheltered New York life seems vacuous when compared to the realities unfolding around her. In a fit of pique, she rashly joins (and is accepted into) a compact Red Cross unit specifically designed to bring some miniscule comfort to soldiers in England and later in France. These volunteers were aptly nicknamed “Donut Dollies.” Irene’s silent departure and subsequent European activities would shock her family, who wouldn’t be able to comprehend her decision to eagerly engage in perilous activities.

These women come from all segments of American life, and the adventures and dangers they face are real, especially when following the advancing troops after D-Day. Dealing with equipment breakdowns of their

“Clubmobiles,” loss of direction, run-ins with retreating German soldiers, as well as the general tension of being so personally exposed in a theater of war, provide stressful situations. Further, the interpersonal relations amongst the women offer insights into the state of contemporary society in these trying times.

This is a powerfully written novel. Through the experiences of Irene and her small group of women comrades, the larger historical picture is brought to light.

Jon G. Bradley

THE COVENANT OF WATER

Abraham Verghese, Grove Press, 2023, $32.00/ C$42.50/£20.00, hb, 736pp, 9780802162175

Fourteen years after Verghese’s success with his first novel, Cutting for Stone, he brings readers another impressive family saga. From 1900 to 1977 in southern India, we follow a girl known only as “moloy” (daughter). At the age of 12 she must leave her home to marry a 40-year-old widower and became mother to his son. This begins her life as Big (for her tiny size) Ammachi (mother) and matriarch to her Malayali family.

Big Ammachi’s courage and resilience is the backbone of her family. Her husband has carved out a large plantation from untamed land. He is a quiet, gentle man, and their arranged marriage, consummated years later, grows into a beautiful, touching love story. Through heartbreak and happiness, we follow her children, grandchild, extended family, and their faithful pulayan (lower caste) Shemuel and his family – all live on the sprawling plantation in Parambil. Life is difficult, and Big Ammachi and her husband ceaselessly labor to build a life. But for generations, the family has been overshadowed by a mysterious phenomenon: many have died from drowning.

In another storyline, we meet Digby Kilgour, a Scottish physician traveling to India after joining the Indian Medical Service to gain surgical experience denied him in Scotland. Digby is a dedicated, compassionate doctor. He is also a compelling character, who loves deeply and meets tragedy. He is devoted to the people of India and takes on the challenges of treating leprosy patients.

Verghese, also a medical doctor, adds texture into his characters and novels with fascinating medical storylines. How does Digby’s life relate to Big Ammachi’s family? Verghese eventually ties both together in surprising ways. What causes these inexplicable drownings that have plagued Big Ammachi’s family? Whether

coincidental, a curse, or scientific, Verghese does not disappoint. Words fail to encapsulate this grand, sweeping, emotional novel; it must be experienced.

Janice Ottersberg

HANG THE MOON

Jeannette Walls, Scribner, 2023, $28.00/ C$37.00, hb, 349pp, 9781501117299 / Scribner UK, 2023, £16.99, hb, 368pp, 9781471154973

The plot of this Prohibition-era tale borrows heavily from the real-life history of the Tudor court. The Elizabeth I figure is the spunky heroine Sallie Kincaid, who rises to power in a small Virginia town. Her father, the Duke, is a charismatic Godfather-type who controls a number of the town’s businesses, including bootlegging. This is a refreshingly unique re-envisioning of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and the other major figures from a part of history that has been imagined and reimagined for centuries.

Sallie and the Duke are alike, and they understand each other. That doesn’t stop him from sending her away to please his third wife, Jane, who wants to protect her fragile son from Sallie’s rowdiness. From then on, Sallie is an underdog who must prove her worth. Once the reader grasps the Tudor parallels, it becomes obvious that Sallie will eventually take over the bootlegging business. The question is: how will she carve her own path in the shadow of her larger-than-life father?

Readers of the author’s memoir will recognize some of these family dynamics: the father who looms large, the daughter’s idolization of him, and her eventual struggle to come to terms with his destructive legacy. This is a deceptively light novel that operates movingly on a number of levels as it explores power, misogyny, and the bonds of family.

Elizabeth Crachiolo

PLAYING IT SAFE

Ashley Weaver, Minotaur, 2023, $28.00, hb, 272pp, 9781250885876

Electra “Ellie” McDonnell, a former safecracker who is now working for the British government during World War II, is sent off on a mission by Intelligence to the port city of Sunderland. She is given an assumed identity and few instructions from her boss, Major Ramsey, and soon finds herself investigating a murder on her own. When she is finally joined by Major Ramsey, new concerns arise. Are the Germans counterfeiting IDs right under their noses?

This is the third book in the Electra McDonnell series which just keeps getting better. I love that Ellie is from a family of former safecrackers, and her relatives show up or are alluded to throughout the book. Her Uncle Mick is head of the family, and Ellie often recalls his lessons as she is breaking into a safe, a building, or a residence. Ellie uses her skills quite effectively, and it remains clear that criminals and spies have a lot in common. For example, Ellie says the following: “We hadn’t pulled a job of our own since getting involved

with Major Ramsey, and I found that these dalliances with espionage were providing me with more than enough danger and excitement to quell my less legal impulses.”

There are plenty of twists and turns in this compelling mystery/thriller, and the plot is so clever that it will keep readers on their toes. The characters Ellie meets in Sunderland are well written and quite intriguing. As Ellie turns her charms on friend and foe trying to find a killer, the reader is drawn in too. This series is both fun and thrilling, with just a touch of romance. Highly recommended.

Bonnie DeMoss

LOST IN PARIS

Betty Webb, Poisoned Pen Press, 2023, $16.99, pb, 334pp, 9781728269900

In this first in a series set in the early 1920s, Zoe Barlow’s wealthy Alabama family casts her out, viewing her forbidden love affair as a disgrace. Zoe starts fresh in Paris as a painter, embraced by a community of artists, intellectuals, and activists of the Lost Generation. Among her close friends is Hadley Hemingway, who calls upon Zoe for help when she loses a valise filled with her husband Ernest’s first attempts at fiction. Zoe’s search for the lost luggage leads her to a village outside of Paris and the dead bodies of two Russian émigrés, one of whom might be Grand Duchess Anastasia of the Romanov dynasty. It also puts her in close contact with Detective Inspector Henri Chaillot, whose charms she can’t resist, even though he’s a married man. As the body count adds up, all the clues suggest the murderer is part of Zoe’s inner circle.

Lost in Paris brings postwar Paris to vivid life as Zoe frequents cafes, salons, clubs, and ateliers, brushing elbows with Lost Generation luminaries. Her snide ruminations on the quality of Hemingway’s early writing—which his wife really did lose—will tickle those who aren’t fans of the iconic writer. Overall, though, the plot is sluggish, and even the romance between Zoe and Henri never zings. The insertion of a subplot about Henri’s wife feels like an unnecessary distraction, serving mostly to pave the way for a second volume. There are some unfortunate anachronisms when it comes to language, like the use of “easy peasy” and “all that jazz” decades before their time.

Paula Martinac

THE RED BALCONY

Jonathan Wilson, Schocken, 2023, $27.00, hb, 272pp, 9780805243697

In March 1933, a Jewish resident of Palestine is murdered for political motives. Ivor Castle, a British Jew who has come to Palestine against his better judgment, is assigned to help defend two suspects. Accordingly, he must interview Tsiona Kerem, an artist who frequents a café where the accused claim they were drinking when the murder took place. But she flatly refuses to tell Ivor anything, and when they begin an affair, declares straight out that he’ll never get what he wants from her. Does that

refer to love, the legal evidence he’s seeking, or both?

The Red Balcony often reads like a thriller, and though worlds aren’t at stake, the pages turn rapidly, as reversals come thick and fast. I like the wry humor, as Ivor repeatedly gets himself in hot water, a Jewish innocent abroad who can’t figure out his identity, even in the one place in the world where he might feel whole. The narrative offers a pitch-perfect portrayal of colonial attitudes, British antiSemitism, and fractiousness within the Jewish community.

However, Ivor’s bumbling and inability to speak up for himself eventually wear thin. The Yiddish word nebbish fits; he’s practically spineless, helpless to meet demands. I got tired of how he hides his feelings when anyone asks, then apologizes for having failed to provide what’s wanted. I also wish the narrative didn’t resort to archness so often, which, after a while, feels like a pose. Similarly, Wilson sometimes favors arcane words when a familiar one will do—a shame, because he’s an excellent prose stylist who needs no tricks.

Overall, though, The Red Balcony offers a marvelously evocative and seemingly authentic portrait of Palestine during the British Mandate, from an author who clearly knows the era, the place, and the people.

Larry Zuckerman

IN MEMORIAM

Alice Winn, Knopf, 2023, $28.00, hb, 400pp, 9780593534564 / Viking, 2023, £14.99, hb, 400pp, 9780241567821

When war begins in 1914, Ellwood and Gaunt are seventeen, in their last year at their British boarding school. Almost immediately, their school newspaper begins to list the deaths of its alumni.

Pressured by family, patriotism, girls handing out white feathers, and his own internal demons, Gaunt enlists, and Ellwood follows him. The enlistment age is nineteen, but they and boys even younger are commissioned as lieutenants and sent to the front in France, to command men older than they are in an endless battle with the German troops across No Man’s Land, where bones protrude from the ground and a particular decaying body is a landmark.

In Memoriam is both a war novel and a love story of men who are not allowed to love each other; marriage to “nice women” is what society demands, a path as clearly laid out as the one to the front. But the war demolishes all assumptions, and the lives of everyone in

it, including the survivors who come home reeling from shell shock that would now be called PTSD.

In Memoriam is a shattering novel written with an assurance even more impressive because it is the author’s debut book. The narrative moves between the time when Ellwood and Gaunt were boys in school rather than boys mangled by war, and the grisly realities of the front, where buried bodies surface through the endless mud and the average British officer lasts three months before he’s killed or wounded. There are flashes of dark humor and deeply thoughtout characterization to keep the love story at the heart of the novel and ground us amid the bleak horror of the war. Highly recommended.

Amanda Cockrell

THE WHITE LADY

Jacqueline Winspear, Harper, 2023, $30.00/ C$35.99, hb, 336pp, 9780062867988 / Allison & Busby, 2023, £19.99, hb, 384pp, 9780749029135

Winspear has stepped away from her popular Maisie Dobbs historical mystery series to give readers a standalone novel, The White Lady. In 1947, Rose and Jim Mackie and their three-year-old daughter, Susie, have left a London still recovering from WWII for a home in the country, away from Jim’s controlling crime family, to start a new, independent life in Kent – living a law-abiding life with honest work.

Elinor White, the White Lady, is the Mackies’ elusive and aloof neighbor. Greetings from all the villagers are unwelcome, but Elinor is inexplicably affectionate with little Susie. Although Elinor’s strong feelings toward Susie do not match up with the explanation later in the book. We learn that that Elinor’s house is a ‘grace-and-favor’ house – a lifelong home provided for special service to the Crown. A mystery surrounds her: what did she do in the past to earn this special favor? Chronological flashbacks to Elinor’s life as a young girl during WWI and then as a woman in WWII reveal her brave service to the Crown. Now post-war, Elinor’s clandestine activities and her interactions with the local DCI, Stephen Warren, who she knew during the war, keep the plot moving and slowly unravel another mystery.

Her involvement in both wars is the most engaging narrative of the book, whereas the Rose and Jim storyline feels forced and contrived. Jim’s criminal family is trying to force him back to London to assist in a big heist. Elinor comes to Rose’s aid when the Mackie brothers show up to intimidate the family. Elinor inserts herself in this conflict, and now her life is supposedly in grave danger from the Mackies. This conflict, with its abrupt resolution, does not ring true. Unconvincing character motivations and some plot points make this book a disappointment.

Janice Ottersberg

FOXASH

Kate Worsley, Tinder Press, 2023, £14.99, hb, 357pp, 9781472294876

1934. Worn down by poverty, Lettie Radley arrives in Foxash, Essex, to join her out-of-work miner husband, Tommy. Their new smallholding may well be the ‘fairy-tale home’ the (Land Settlement) Association promised, but she has trouble accepting the new neighbours, Jean and Adam Dell. A farmer’s life is hard to adapt to, for city folks. Lettie relies on Jean for advice yet resents it and feels humiliated.

The characters have distinct personalities right from page one. The friendship between Lettie and Jean is multi-layered and interesting, and there’s more to it than meets the eye. Lettie has secrets, but so does Jean. The two women collide over what they each want more than anything.

It is narrated from Lettie’s point of view, in first-person present tense. The initial backstory is told in past-perfect tense, which I find awkward, with some cryptic references to ‘our own rottenness’ and ‘what I’d done’ (we find out what on p.125). We finally get a hint as to why Lettie is shy of the Association taking photos of them. Strangers come knocking at the gate, threatening the delicate balance of the two couples’ lives.

The details of Lettie’s farmer’s-wife lifestyle are often tedious, but they speak to her hardships, her determination to thrive amid diversity, and her diligence and hard work. So much detail is given about the everyday things, but the unordinary things are left unsaid. Eventually, enough is said that we do guess. The outcome of this quadrangle relationship Lettie/Tommy/Jean/Adam will amaze you.

I loved the metaphors comparing Lettie’s pregnancy with the growing of vegetables. The descriptions of pregnancy and childbirth are the best and most heart-breaking I’ve ever read.

Susie Helme

THE HIGHLAND GIRLS AT WAR

Helen Yendall, HQ, 2022, £9.99, pb, 352pp, 9780008523138

Just when you think every possible aspect of UK life in WWII has been described in fiction, Helen Yendall introduces us to the Women’s Timber Corps, a little-known offshoot of the Women’s Land Army (Land Girls). The lumberjills, as they were called, worked in forestry, felling trees and cutting the wood into the sizes required.

The Highland girls of the title are a disparate group who are sent to work in the Scottish Highlands. They include Lady Persephone (Seffy), the spoilt daughter of an English earl; sturdy Grace, the crofter’s daughter; Irene, seeking distraction while her husband is at sea; and teenage Hazel, who lost her husband in an air raid. As the women settle into their primitive camp, they learn that a detachment of the Canadian Forestry Corps

is based only a couple of miles away. (Unlikely as this may seem, in a note the author confirms the presence of the Canadians alongside the lumberjills.) The stage is set.

Against this background of hard physical work, abysmal living conditions and intriguing Canadians, we follow the adventures of the women, and see how their experiences change them. With so many protagonists, character development is outlined rather than detailed, and the endings of some of the story arcs ring more of ‘for now’ than ‘ever after’, suggesting that this may be the first of a series. Many readers will want to find out what happens next.

Catherine Kullmann

MULTI-PERIOD THE REFUSAL CAMP

James R. Benn, Soho Crime, 2023, $26.95, hb, 264pp, 9781641294515

This collection of nine stories from the award-winning author of the Billy Boyle World War II mysteries is an action-packed mix of new and previously published stories. In the capable hands of an author who gets the historical details right, these stories are gritty, horrific portrayals of what war is like. Seen from the perspectives of those who are forced to dodge the bullets, bury the dead, and sometimes commit unspeakable acts they could never have imagined doing, the stories simultaneously praise courage and condemn war’s brutality.

Benn is at his best when writing about World War II; “Vengeance Weapon” and the eponymous “The Refusal Camp,” show how even in Nazi concentration camps, defiance, bravery, and revenge endure. During the Korean War, American POWs find their loyalty to each other tested to the breaking point in “Red Christmas.” A Revolutionary War-era murder mystery titled “The Horse Chestnut Tree,” and “The Secret of Hemlock Hill,” a gentle ghost story, seem thematically out of place in this anthology, as does the scifi “Glass,” but they are nonetheless interesting stories. “Irish Tommy,” a police procedural featuring Boston cops pitted against German spies in 1944, is a great introduction to the Billy Boyle stories and will certainly hook readers into reading them.

John Kachuba

ABOVE DISCOVERY: Stories

Jennifer Falkner, Invisible Publishing, 2023, $15.95, pb, 109pp, 9781778430206

The stories in this collection vary considerably. A few are contemporary; most are historical, taking place in ancient Greece, Victorian England, Shakespeare’s London, and other periods.

My favorite stories in the collection end less with resolution than with a point where some decision or turning point has been reached, and readers can use their imaginations to ponder what will happen next. That’s the case

with the title story, “Above Discovery,” which takes the reader to Gold Rush-era Alaska, where a desperate brother and sister struggle to strike it rich. It’s also true of “A Word to Describe the Sky,” in which a Greek craftsman finds himself captured on a slave ship and must trust his despised former boss if he is to have any hope of escape.

The book’s blurb describes Falkner’s prose as “spare” and “elegant.” It is certainly elegant and atmospheric. Falkner’s beautiful writing puts her readers right in her characters’ worlds and heads. But, in a few of the stories, I felt that the writing was spare to a fault. Some have only the barest wisp of a plot, and others provide so little background that they are confusing. In my experience, variation is normal for a story collection. I always like some stories and not others. The good ones in this collection are real gems.

I recommend treating this collection like a box of chocolates: read just one per day and savor it.

Kathryn Bashaar

THE BLEEDING

Johana Gustawsson (trans. David Warriner), Orenda Books, 2022, £16.99/$26.00, hb, 261pp, 9781914585265

Quebec detective Maxine Grant, exhausted with both a new baby and a defiant teenager in the house, is called from maternity leave to the scene of a grisly murder. Pauline Caron, a beloved former schoolteacher, stands accused of brutally murdering her husband, a charismatic professor of medieval history. As the silent Pauline is taken from the scene, Maxine makes an even more gruesome discovery in the house, one that raises more questions about who these two pillars of the community were. Answers lie in the past, in the stories of a bullied teenage girl in postwar Quebec and a grieving mother in Belle Epoque Paris, offering clues into Pauline, her husband’s murder, and the sinister secrets that their quiet home hid.

The Bleeding begins as a mystery, but unfurls as something deeper, less a novel about solving a murder and more a novel about how decades of secrets can lead to murder. The solution to the mystery of who Pauline is and what she hides is hinted at early in the book, making the reveal at the end of the case unsurprising but still engrossing in how it unfolds through the book’s three timelines. This is a novel of women, power, and the lengths that they go to keep that power. Gustawsson offers a few shocking and unexpected twists at the end, ones that might prompt a reader to page back through earlier chapters looking for clues. A word of warning: these twists may be disturbing to some readers, especially coming, as they do, in a contemporary story line. A dark and unabashedly creepy Gothic mystery.

Jessica Brockmole

WEYWARD

Emilia Hart, St. Martin’s, 2023, $27.99, hb, 336pp, 9781250280800 / The Borough Press, 2023, £14.99, hb, 384pp, 9780008499082

Weyward is a compelling intergenerational novel of female empowerment and of how far modernity has strayed from our inherent connections to the natural world. In 1619, Altha Weyward, a healer like her mother, is tried as a witch. At Orton Hall in 1942, Violet Ayres spends her time outdoors befriending spiders and flies and climbing trees, rather than behaving like a lady—until one fateful day. In 2019, Kate Ayres escapes an abusive relationship, moving north to a small cottage, central to the novel, which her great aunt left to her in her will.

Hart develops the women’s stories separately, occasionally revealing tenuous connections—a locket, a character trait, a gravestone. Historical records of the Weywards disappeared in 1619, only reappearing in 1925, but a powerful legacy survives nonetheless, handed down through the female line. The need to escape the influence of cruel men is a strong theme, developed through incidents of sexual abuse, rape, and witch-hunting, the retaliatory actions unleashing quite violent supernatural occurrences. The author delves into male apprehension of female assertiveness and fear of those who are different. Grief and loss pervade all three lives. All have an affinity to nature; all must break free of their past and harness their power with strength drawn from their lineage.

This is not a novel easily picked up and put down, partly because the stories, particularly Altha’s, are compelling. Cliffhanger chapter endings can be frustrating when a reader is juggling three independent storylines, and they aren’t necessary here. The plot drives itself, but the urge to jump ahead sometimes took me out of the story. When the three narratives unite, they illuminate an unspoken sisterhood which survives centuries. Readers of Paula Brackston, Katherine Howe and Deborah Harkness will enjoy this.

Fiona Alison

THE DEVIL’S OWN

Maria McDonald, Bloodhound, 2022, £8.99/$15.99, pb, 328pp, 9781504082914

Waterford, 2022: Brian retires after a lifetime’s service in the Irish Defence Forces and, in clearing out his married quarters, discovers an old British Army issue cabinet, and in it journals from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, written by Arthur, an English member of the Connaught Rangers and his wife, Edith, a colonel’s daughter who suffered ostracisation on her marriage.

Alongside these, inexplicably, is another diary, written by Arthur’s drinking companion, the mysterious Henry, boasting of his record as a pitiless serial killer. Brian’s story and Arthur’s are told in parallel. Even at the remove of a century their experiences often collide, not least in the role that drink played in army life. In fact, Arthur writes his journals, wherever he is

posted in the world, from the safe space of the Sandes Homes, to teetotal clubs founded by the evangelical Elise Sandes; some still exist.

McDonald’s writing is particularly convincing around the servicing of British Army soldiers in India, with wallahs dedicated to every need, including the cutting of corns, contrasted with the culture shock of removing to Ireland where Edith has to learn the most basic tasks of keeping house. The book would have benefitted from a closer copy-edit, as in “she placed my son back in my arms, then hugged me so tightly I thought I would break” (so, presumably, would the baby) and inconsistencies such as Edith’s diary stating on the same page “I miss England” and “England holds no appeal to me”. In 1908, no-one would have referred to ‘Ms Elise Sandes’; she would definitely have been Miss.

Those quibbles apart, McDonald has shone a light on an often-ignored aspect of Irish history – including the 1920 mutiny of the Rangers in India – and the unveiling of Henry’s identity delivers a real punch.

Katherine Mezzacappa

HOMECOMING

Kate Morton, Mariner, 2023, $32.00, hb, 560pp, 9780063020894 / Mantle, 2023, £20.00, hb, 656pp, 9781529094046

Large old houses, families haunted by history, and suspenseful multi-stranded plots that reveal shocking truths: these are Kate Morton hallmarks, and nobody writes them better. What’s notable here is how she blends these familiar ingredients into an epic pageturner that offers surprises even for longtime fans.

In 2018, London-based journalist Jess Turner-Bridges flies back to Sydney after learning that her sharp-witted grandmother Nora, who raised her after her mother left, fell from her attic stairs. Nora’s half-conscious mutterings, combined with her own distant childhood memories, prompt Jess to revisit the past. She’s stunned to uncover accounts of a terrible crime from 1959 in a small town in South Australia’s Adelaide Hills, when Isabel Turner and her three oldest children went out for a picnic on Christmas Eve on their idyllic Georgian-style estate and were found dead hours later by a deliveryman. Baby Thea, Isabel’s youngest, had vanished from the scene. The unsolved mystery was explored in a bestselling true-crime account published in America, but Nora had never breathed a word about it or her own connection to it.

The breathtakingly intricate narrative,

which intercuts two eras, unfolds from a multiplicity of viewpoints. Throughout this lengthy tale, Morton maintains a tension that has readers weighing potential clues in every line, but she’s always one step ahead with new twists and possibilities. The book-withina-book device, which circles through Isabel’s eventful final day and the subsequent police inquiry, is masterfully structured and raises even more questions for Jess. Settings are firmly anchored and contrasted: the promise of postwar new beginnings, the pressures of family life, and the beautiful, wild landscape of rural South Australia, overlaid by ancient secrets and dark tragedy. Along the way, Morton probes mother-child relationships from various angles and examines the power of story itself. This novel is utterly transporting.

Sarah Johnson

IN THE BELLY OF THE CONGO

Blaise Ndala (trans. Amy B. Reid), Other Press, 2023, $18.99, pb, 432pp, 9781635422580

This novel tells the story of Tshala Moelo, who was born in the Belgian Congo, daughter of King Kena Kwete III, and sent to Brussels in 1958 to be part of a display at the Brussels World’s Fair. It continues as her niece Nyota arrives in Brussels in August 2003 to try to discover the cause of Tshala’s death in 1958.

The author was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC); he connects Tshala with generations of her ancestors and their myths, their worldview and beliefs. He also follows her tale through some of the turbulent years of colonization by the Belgians when young people in the cities tried hard to survive astride two cultures, the ancient and the modern. When Tshala is shipped to Brussels in 1958 her two worlds, native and “civilized,” collide.

The novel takes many wandering paths to emerge at a conclusion. This may be the style of storytelling traditional in the author’s native Congo and should be respected as such. It leads one to consider the difficulties of translation from such a different worldview, with all its complexities of concept and context, into English.

Nyota’s quest to find the truth about Tshala’s death is the narrative used to convey the author’s ideas about colonialism, specifically as it existed in one African country during the 20th century. Despite this focus, the reader is led to examine more closely colonialism and its effects worldwide. We, in North America, are slowly awakening to the effects of colonialism on our native populations.

While not an easy read, I found this thoroughly satisfying, leading me to new areas of thought and consideration. One seldom reads fiction about Belgium and what is now the DRC. That, in itself, makes this novel unique.

Valerie Adolph

DUST CHILD

Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, Algonquin, 2023, $28.00, hb, 352pp, 9781643752754 / Oneworld, 2023, £16.99, hb, 352pp, 9780861545407

Released in March 2023, Dust Child marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Americans pulling out of Viet Nam. Part of the novel is set in 1969, during the war, and part in 2016, when we see its consequences in alternating chapters from several third-person points of view Phong, the dust (street) child of the title, son of a Black American soldier; Trang, elder of two sisters who leave their family farm in the rice fields to become bar girls in Saigon; and Dan, an American veteran who, with his wife, is visiting the Viet Nam he knew when young. Phong, abandoned at an orphanage, has long sought his father. Dan, who is white and not Phong’s father, did father a child with his Vietnamese lover. The war not only dramatically affected each of them—and Viet Nam itself— but left a deeply painful emotional legacy. Phong’s difficulties illustrate the plight of Amerasians growing up there, be they Black or white. Trang loved to read, and her parents saved to provide her and her sister higher education, but the war destroyed their dreams. And Dan suffers from PTSD, which has long affected his marriage to the girlfriend he returned to, though she has remained with him all these years. Suspense builds between these three protagonists as their stories begin to intertwine.

Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s award-winning first novel has been translated worldwide, and it is easy to see why her work is so popular. Not only does she write well, but she reminds us through her characters’ struggles of the personal cost of that disastrous, unnecessary war, as author Tim O’Brien does from the soldiers’ point of view. Growing up in Viet Nam herself, she draws the reader into her country as it was and how it is in the 21st century. Highly recommended.

Jinny Webber

ADA’S REALM (UK) / ADA’S ROOM (US)

Sharon Dodua Otoo (trans. Jon Cho-Polizzi), MacLehose Press, 2023, hb, £16.99, 318pp, 9781529419016 / Riverhead, 2023, $28.00, hb, 352pp, 9780593539798

This is one of those novels which may be termed experimental, in that the non-linear plot is challenging to describe in a pithy but easily understood way. But as there have been, and are, many such works of fiction published, which are generally given the term ‘literary’ to indicate that the reader can expect a bit more of a mental workout; then, maybe experimental is not the best descriptive term to use. On reading the book, I was reminded very much of Kate Atkinson’s 2013 novel Life after Life. Just like Atkinson’s wonderful Ursula Todd, Ada is a female who is born time and time again, the difference being Ada is incarnated throughout the ages and over the world’s continents in various times and guises. From poverty in Ghana in the 16th century, to

being the computer genius Ada Lovelace in 19th-century London and then as a woman forced into state-authorized prostitution in a German concentration camp in the Second World War – Ada represents all womankind, as a victim and heroine, who struggles against the controlling patriarchal society, and sometimes wins and others suffers the harsh reality of human existence.

While Otoo lacks the literary elan of Kate Atkinson, which is not terribly surprising as this is her first published full-length work of fiction, this remains an engaging read, one which is well written and intelligent. The compartmentalized nature of the narrative makes the book seem like a vaguely connected series of short stories rather than a coherent novel, but it is sound historical fiction that delivers both a political, historical and genderfocused account.

Douglas Kemp

UNLOCKED

Paper Lantern Writers, Paper Lantern Writers, 2022, $15.00, pb, 216pp, 9798987122211

The eight stories in this anthology are linked by a wooden chest with a heart-shaped lock. The most recent story is presented first, and each story takes the reader further back in history. When we first encounter the chest, it is in the possession of an aging hippie tarot reader in Berkeley in the summer of 1972. In the last story, we meet a princess in medieval Ireland, who is about to participate in a Solstice ritual that mixes Christianity with ancient Celtic rites. The stories vary in style, as well as in place and time. The Ireland story employs both bawdy humor and a touch of mysticism. But, at its heart, it is a family story – albeit a very violent and earthy family. The collection also includes a thriller, a story of lost love, a mystery, and a couple of stories of women’s liberation. The stories are definitely aimed at a female audience. All of the authors are women, and all of the main characters are women. Many of the themes involve the specific problems of women in their eras.

The approach of moving backward in time is effective. I was very interested in following the chest backward to its origin. As with most short story collections, I liked some stories more than others. But I think any woman would find at least a few stories to like in this anthology.

Kathryn Bashaar

SWAN LIGHT

Phoebe Rowe, Lake Union, 2023, $16.99/£8.99, pb, 280pp, 9781662507434

Silvestre Swan has been the keeper of the lighthouse at Norman Cliffs, Newfoundland, since it was erected in 1849. In 1913, at age 83, he is trying to relocate the light, as it stands precariously close to the eroding cliff edge. In 2014, centenarian Evangeline Devon hires marine archaeologist Mari Adams to find out about the lighthouse, its last days, and keeper Swan. Swan Light is author Rowe’s debut novel. It builds on research about diving, shipwreck conservation and salvage, marine exploration, and lighthouse construction and operation to give readers a depth of understanding about times and places, including a side story about the S.S. Californian and its links to the sinking of the Titanic Characters are indelible. Readers grieve

with Silvy as he passes cliff landmarks and recalls events such as the wreck of the Hazel and the death of his brother; run alongside Stay as the dog carries Silvy’s hand-written messages under his collar; and 101 years later, worry with Mari that she may not be able to pull together all the pieces of the lighthouse’s history.

Most memorable is Swan Light. In this phenomenal first novel, the lighthouse at Norman Cliffs is not only a beacon to guide foundering vessels to safety, it is a comforting light in the darkness. It speaks to those who listen. While it stands, it lives.

K. M. Sandrick

THE CASTLE KEEPERS

Aimie K. Runyan, J’Nell Ciesielski, and Rachel McMillan, Harper Muse, 2023, $17.99, pb, 379pp, 9780785265320

The castle: Leedswick Castle in Northbridge, England, a fortress with crumbling stones and overgrown gardens in 1870, paint-chipped walls and dusty windows in 1917, and a haunting battlefield painting in 1945.

The keepers: Beatrice Holbrook, new wife of Charles Alnwick; artist Elena Hamilton commissioned to create a lifelike face mask to hide Tobias Alnwick’s WWI wounds; psychoanalyst Brigitta Mayr working with Alec Alnwick to transform the castle into a rehabilitation center for WWII veterans.

Three time periods. Three sets of characters. Three separate writers.

Yet The Castle Keepers weaves a unifying tale of love and war, the lingering aftereffects of murder and scandal on a family’s legacy, the pressures of maintaining a sprawling estate, and the determination to remove a curse that was wrongly cast upon the castle and its keepers.

The story features strong female characters in relationships beset by external conflict as well as intimate emotional struggles. It shifts smoothly across time, depicting the confining culture and class-consciousness women faced in the late 1800s, the lingering and uncomfortable attitudes toward women pursuing a profession in the early 1900s, and a growing appreciation of women as professional as well as personal partners in the 1940s.

K. M. Sandrick

THE WEEDS

Katy Simpson Smith, FSG, 2023, $27.00, hb, 320pp, 9780374605476

Two women, one in 2018 and one in 1854, pursue the same task—cataloging the plants that grow in the ruins of the Colosseum in Rome—both working for men who will take the credit. One is hiding from grief and angling for a recommendation from her mentor for a research grant that she suspects he won’t give; the other is being punished—and kept busy until a proper husband can be found—for loving another woman. On their hands and knees amid tourists or roaming goats, each has to decide what she will do to take back some power.

A Flora Colisea has been charted six times since 1643, each list building on the previous ones, to see what is new, what is gone, and why. With the third list in 1854 and the seventh list in progress, Smith paints a stark picture of

climate change’s effects on even the smallest of living things. Her narrators’ musings about the plants are entwined with reflections on their own lives, braided together like climbing vine and briar. They are plants themselves, growing rebelliously in the rocky male-dominated ground of science.

Laced with existential musing and dark humor, the first-person narratives build a link between the two women, told in short alternating sections, each connected directly or metaphorically to a plant on their lists. The botanical descriptions, including uses both medicinal and murderous, give framework to the story, a structure that runs counter to the image of crumbling stone and broken walls. We begin to understand why these two women are here, in an ancient place where there is blood still deep in the sand, and, more importantly, what they are going to do about it.

Amanda Cockrell

HER LOST WORDS

Stephanie Marie Thornton, Berkley, 2023, $16.99, pb, 448pp, 9780593198421

While Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley each stand alone for their contributions to feminism and fiction respectively, there’s something about their being mother and daughter that makes each woman’s story just that little bit more captivating. Add the fact that Wollstonecraft died eleven days after giving birth to her daughter, and you have a story crying out for a novelist to take it on. In Her Lost Words, Thornton does so with aplomb. Mary Wollstonecraft’s views on equality, marriage and independence are formed by the violence she witnessed her father show her mother. She’s free-thinking, clever, and fiercely independent, determined to witness the French Revolution firsthand. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman sets the thinking world on fire, but her unconventional personal life makes for a gripping story. Her daughter Mary will grow up never knowing the famous, exceptional woman who was her mother, and has a tumultuous story of her own when, aged sixteen, she runs off to the continent with a married man.

Alternating between the two women’s storylines, Thornton takes us through their love affairs, their mistakes, and their failings, along with their moments of great creative genius and success. Both women are revealed as warm, loving and, above all, human. Both stories come with the added bonus of who they knew and what they saw: from Mary Wollstonecraft’s close-up and personal experience of the French Revolution to Mary Shelley’s relationship with Percy Shelley and her stepsister’s affair with Lord Byron.

Kate Braithwaite

PURSUING A MASTERPIECE

Sandra Vasoli, GreyLondon Press, 2022, $15.99, pb, 420pp, 9781958725023

Zara Rossi, a graduate student in paleography at La Sapienza Università di Roma, is researching her doctoral thesis on Pope Clement VII’s reactions in 1534 when King Henry VIII challenges the papacy and

sets the Reformation in motion. In a leatherbound volume containing letters that have not been viewed in 200 years and require special approval to access in the Archivo Segreto of the Vatican Library, Zara finds two thin sheets of parchment fused together. Between them is velum bearing the signature of the Grand Master of the Order of St. John and referring to a sacrilegio—a ritratto (portrait) of Henry and Anne Boleyn as false gods. Well-aware this is the first indication that such a painting ever existed, Zara sets out on her own to find out what happened to it.

Pursuing a Masterpiece follows Zara as she finds and tracks down leads in 2016/17 and slips back in time to follow the path of the painting as it passes from the artist through a series of individuals who hide it over the course of hundreds of years. Vasoli is uniquely positioned to write such a novel. She is the author of the nonfiction Anne Boleyn’s Letter from the Tower (2015), which unraveled the convoluted 500-year past of the 1536 letter. Pursuing a Masterpiece is authoritative and weighty, highlighting small details such as the provenance and composition of portrait pigments as well as overarching political and societal themes. Most satisfying for this reader is the journey of the historical researcher as she authenticates small items of information, overcoming the frustrations of side-tracks and dead ends on her way to il brivido della scoperta (the thrill of discovery).

K. M. Sandrick

TIMESLIP THE POISONER’S RING

Kelley Armstrong, Minotaur, 2023, $28.00/ C$37.00, hb, 352pp, 9781250820037

While on a visit to Edinburgh to be with her dying grandmother, Canadian homicide detective Mallory Atkinson is attacked. She wakens in the body of housemaid Catriona Mitchell, who was strangled 150 years earlier in the same spot. In this sequel to A Rip Through Time, Mallory is still adjusting to conditions for women in service during the Victorian age. But she has been accepted as an assistant by her employer, Dr. Duncan Gray, who is a medical examiner and undertaker. In this novel, men are being poisoned, and the prime suspects are their wives, one of whom is Duncan’s older sister.

This is an involving novel for several reasons. The mystery is satisfying, and though the protagonists display impressive stamina, their urgency is explained by the need to save the innocent wives, which moves the plot along at a brisk pace. The characters are well drawn, and though the attitudes of Mallory’s close friends may seem conveniently helpful and progressive, that like-minded people should find one another is unsurprising. Mallory herself is the narrator, and she provides a lively, and at times rueful, commentary on the action in general and her own problems in particular.

The historical setting of Edinburgh in 1869 is

convincing. Armstrong has done her research, and sending a modern character into the past allows her to draw attention to the changes that have taken place. The absence of modern conveniences like cell phones is frustrating; lighting, whether by candle, oil lamp, or gas, is dim; women’s clothing is restrictive, as Mallory discovers when her pursuit of a suspect is hindered by her copious petticoats and a tight corset. And, of course, class distinctions and condescending attitudes towards women raise further obstacles. An absorbing read. Highly recommended.

Ray Thompson

IN THIS MOMENT

Gabrielle Meyer, Bethany House, 2023, $17.99, pb, 400pp, 9780764239755

Maggie’s life is unique. As a time-traveler, she inhabits three different time periods. In 1861, she is Miss Margaret Wakefield, daughter of a well-to-do senator wary of spies during the beginning of the Civil War. In 1941, she is Lieutenant Maggie Hollingsworth, a Navy nurse just before the start of World War II. In 2001, she is Meg Clarke, a promising medical student working at Georgetown University Hospital. If she wakes up in 1861, the next day she will wake up in 1941, and the day after she will wake up in 2001. When she reaches 21, she must choose a time period, and until then, she is careful to maintain her distance from the three men she encounters in each. Which era will she choose?

This second installment in the Timeless series is perhaps one of the strangest books I have ever read. At first it was a bit difficult to get into the story because I had trouble keeping up with the three time periods and Maggie’s three names. About a quarter of the way in, when I had enough information to figure out who was who, I became hooked. Maggie herself is a fairly strong and interesting character who takes a fascinating journey. I really resonated with Maggie and her adventures throughout. The novel’s most impressive aspect is the level of historical detail suffused through Meyer’s writing. She must have done substantial research, and it shows. I particularly enjoyed the historical note. All in all, a delightful read.

Elizabeth K. Corbett

HISTORICAL FANTASY

SHIELD MAIDEN

Sharon Emmerichs, Head of Zeus, 2023, £20.00, hb, 394pp, 9781804545553

Set in the late 10th century, Shield Maiden is loosely based on the Old English poem Beowulf. Although the poem was not written down until the end of the Viking era, it is believed to have much earlier origins through the oral tradition. Emmerichs has cleverly explored the idea of stories evolving over time by adding new characters, including the heroine of the novel, Fryda. She is the daughter of Lord Weohstan of the Geats, and niece of the now-elderly King Beowulf.

A serious injury sustained as a child has left Fryda with a deformed hand and now, aged 20, she has accepted her dreams of becoming a shield maiden will never come true.

In this coming-of-age tale, Fryda starts out as a young naïve girl, controlled by her foolish father and wicked twin brother. As the story progresses, we watch her fall in love with one of her father’s slaves and contend with political corruption, war, bereavement and a shocking betrayal.

Any re-imagining of Beowulf would be sorely lacking without a dragon, and Emmerichs does not disappoint. Her dragon is cursed to sleep for eternity deep beneath the earth, surrounded by glittering treasure. But as the dragon starts to rouse, something stirs within Fryda, too, for they are linked by powerful magic.

By and large, the novel is well-written and immaculately researched, apart from the locusts chirruping in the fields of early medieval Scandinavia. I was also bemused by the ‘foyer’ of a long-house: surely more appropriate for a modern hotel? These small quibbles aside, this is an enjoyable and engaging read which encourages us to question the veracity of ancient stories about extraordinary heroes.

Penny Ingham

HOUSE OF HUNGER

Alexis Henderson, Bantam, 2022, £16.99, pb, 320pp, 9781787632509 / Ace, 2022, $27.00, hb, 304pp, 9780593438466

This follow-up to The Year of the Witching sees the author continue to explore dark historical fantasy worlds and women’s place within them. While the vampire-themed House of Hunger is inspired by the story of the infamous vampire countess Elizabeth Báthory, the world she has created in the novel feels more 18th or 19th century with its dark city rife with poverty and the bloodthirsty, countryside aristocracy. Marion has survived the slums and the abuses meted out by her brother but, seeing an advertisement in the newspaper for a ‘bloodmaid’, she is determined to find a better future for herself. When she meets her new mistress, Countess Lisavet, she is intrigued and soon finds herself falling in love, but she cannot help being curious about the bloodmaids who have served before her, and when the other bloodmaids start to go missing Marion wonders if her new mistress is really as charming as she seems. This is a dark gothic chiller with echoes of Dracula and other dark fantasy tales, such as those of Anne Rice, S. T. Gibson, Erin Morgenstern and Laura Purcell.

Lisa Redmond

HEIR OF UNCERTAIN MAGIC

Charlie N. Holmberg, 47North, 2023, $16.99/£8.99, pb, 304pp, 9781662508691

This second book in Holmberg’s Whimbrel House series after Keeper of Enchanted Rooms, set in Victorian Boston and a nearby island, continues both the romance between Merritt and Hulda and the development of an intriguing magical system. The story picks up directly from the first book and is probably best read in sequence.

The types of magic passed on in family

lineages are growing less common and weaker. So, Merritt’s discovery in the first book of his latent magic should be a cause for celebration, but he only wants the voices of the animals and plants he can hear at all hours to shut up and leave him in peace. He seeks Hulda’s help with these incomprehensible “communion spells,” as well as his other, even less understood burgeoning powers. They’ve admitted their affection for each other, but this romance remains as uncertain as the magic Merritt inherited from his previously unknown biological father. Merritt will have to face the hatreds and secrets that scar his relationship to his family, both to learn control of his magic and to allow himself to love Hulda.

Hulda, also, has personal demons to face. Her boss and mentor at the Boston Institute for the Keeping of Enchanted Rooms has disappeared. The men who arrived to take charge, in the meantime, raise Hulda’s suspicions. Will her life’s work be wiped away? Then there are the hints of connection to the evil Silas Hogwood who nearly killed Merritt and Hulda in the first book.

Holmberg charmingly keeps the reader engaged with another twisty plot and characters who are both funny and endearing. The dangers are frighteningly realistic despite the magic, including types of mind control and a Victorian prison for people with magical powers. Recommended.

Judith Starkston

A RESTLESS TRUTH

Freya Marske, Pan Macmillan, 2022, £18.99, hb, 400pp, 9781529080933 / Tordotcom, 2022, $27.99, hb, 400pp, 9781250788917

This second book in The Last Binding trilogy is set on an ocean liner between New York and Southampton. The story is told with great gusto. The Edwardian details of clothes and manners establish a sparkling and brittle setting. Young Maud Blyth must solve a murder and track down a stolen artefact. The stolen item is one of three objects that make up The Last Contract, which is crucial to the security of the magical community that exists in the midst of the ‘unbusheled’ (those who are unaware of magic). There will be devastating consequences if The Last Contract falls into the wrong hands. Maud accumulates a band of fellow sleuths to assist in tracking down the murderer, in a ship full of suspects. The team includes the haughty Baron Hawthorn who has eschewed magic, the scandalous Violet Debenham, and Ross, a jewel thief. Violet ran away from a conventional marriage through being ‘ruined’ by Hawthorn and performing her magic on the stage in New York. She is travelling back to England to inherit a great estate.

As the four work to hunt down the murderer, a love affair blossoms between the worldlywise Violet and the ingenue Maud. As in the first book of the trilogy (A Marvellous Light), Marske includes a number of well-written sex scenes. The novel has a menagerie of zoo animals in the cargo hold, a set of loathsome relatives (Violet’s), a bad-tempered parrot, an outraged ghost, magical runes, a spellbound tongue, and a pair of villainous and violent magicians. Marske successfully works a lot of exposition and backstory into this multilayered story, while writing in deliciously hyperbolic, exuberant prose. I’m looking forward to the

denouement in the third and final book. Highly recommended to all who enjoy their historical fiction feminist, queer, and magical.

Tracey Warr

TANGLED SPIRITS

Kate Shanahan, ROAV Press, 2022, $16.99, pb, 380pp, 9798985629101

During her study abroad, college student Mina is meditating in a remote area of the Tsukuba mountains when her spirit is pulled back in time. Instead of 2019, now she’s in 999 CE, where wandering spirits and demons are all a part of the belief system. She’s pulled into the body of Masako, a woman Mina’s age who hopes to become a shaman. The only way to send Mina back is to journey to the capital and visit the Royal Astrologer. However, traveling there will take months. Mina and Masako will need to trust each other if they hope to untangle their souls, particularly when the astrologer asks them to spy on the Empress before he will help. Will Mina’s knowledge change the past? The longer the two spend together, the harder it will be for Mina to return home.

Tangled Spirits is a timeslip fantasy grounded in enticing historical facts, including social customs and court intrigue. While our narrator is Mina, she doesn’t have control of her surroundings and must rely entirely on Masako. Thus, her influence on the plot is mostly observational in nature, and this creates interesting emotional tension along with the tension of being pulled in the political power struggles. Though the author does use titles and names for the multiple characters, I sometimes felt lost in the many similarly-spelled historical names. However, the varied roles of women during this time period (poets and creators of new forms of literature, craftspeople, mediums, etc.) and how the author brings them to life kept me turning the pages. The story is a heartwarming glimpse into the Heian period of Japan and its mythology. Recommended.

J. Lynn Else

ALTERNATE HISTORY

SOLOMON’S CROWN

Natasha Siegel, Dell, 2023, $17.00/C$23.00, pb, 346pp, 9780593597842

Twelfth-century Europe. King Henry II of England faces insurrection on all sides from his three sons: Richard, Geoffrey, and John. The King of France, Philippe Auguste, is waiting in the wings for an opportunity to reclaim any land that will increase the power of France. For the three sons, at stake are Brittany and most importantly, the large and rich Aquitaine. While Richard stands to inherit the English crown, his desire is to rule Aquitaine with its legendary court and prosperous land.

He is fighting for his birthright as Duke of Aquitaine. Philippe, who is reluctant to take sides, waits and watches for the chance to align himself with the victor. As a result, Geoffrey and Richard both play court to Philippe. It is a dangerous game of chess, with the victor to be lord of Brittany and Aquitaine.

Richard is the first to acknowledge the love he feels for Philippe. Their love story becomes the focus of the book. Siegel

paints a compelling portrait of two men on the cusp of their respective fame in history. The real point of the story is the tale of two powerful men willing to forget their crowns and responsibilities in favor of their love. The reader is caught up in the drama, as well as the pathos, of this gut-wrenching choice. When an unexpected tragedy suddenly makes Richard king of England, he must choose between the love of Philippe, and the sweetness of life in the Aquitaine versus the cold, wet barbarity of England.

Natasha Siegel is a relative newcomer to the world of historical fiction. But she is a welcome gift to lovers of the genre. Solomon’s Crown is a book that should be in everyone’s library.

Anne Leighton

CHILDREN & YOUNG ADULT ALL ABOARD THE SCHOOLTRAIN

Glenda Armand, illus. Keisha Morris, Scholastic, 2023, $19.99, hb, 48pp, 9781338766899

Third-grader

Thelma grows up by the railroad tracks in the small town of Vacherie, Mississippi, in the 1930s. She loves watching the Sunset Limited train pass by on its way to California. Every school morning, Thelma and other African American children form a single-file walking train to their school. White kids pass them in a yellow school bus and jeer. From her father and in the classroom, Thelma learns hard lessons about a man called Jim Crow, about their shabby school, about doors, stores, and jobs closed to her. Thelma’s father gets fired, and the family decides to join relatives in California and thereby becomes part of the Great Migration out of the South.

Thelma’s happy disposition and the cheerful illustrations mask deep sadness and injustice. Author end notes and photographs lay out Armand’s similar family history that inspired this story. Targeted for grades 2-5, this book informs readers of any age about the quiet dignity and great courage of African Americans as they sought a better life far from home.

G. J. Berger

MAGICBORN

Peter Bunzl, illus. Maxine Lee-Mackie, Usborne, 2022, £7.99, pb, 364pp, 9781474964395 1726: Young Thomas and Tempest have no memory of their past, or of each other, as they are hunted by King George l of England’s Royal Sorcerer. Lord Hawthorn tricks and captures ‘Magicborn’ to harness their power and make them serve as his apprentices. When

the bemused twins are taken separately from Fairyland to England’s Kensington Palace, they meet the misnamed Kwesi, an apprentice slave.

History and fantasy combine to deliver a fast-paced, enthralling, action-packed, adventure that sweeps along at a totally absorbing pace. The imagery used is effortless and fantastically detailed. The hard truths of history are not avoided and would certainly open the topic of slavery in a group for discussion. However, the theme of the past being unchangeable, but action taken in the present can lead to a hopefully better future for all, is very strong.

Tempest – Storm Girl is accompanied by her little robin, Coriel, who she can communicate with in her Fairy tongue. Coriel’s turn (or should I say tern!) of phrase is a joy to read. Thomas – Wild Boy is a shapeshifter who can take the form of a wolf and other creatures. Neither knows of their powers until they are kidnapped, and their past is slowly revealed. This is a dark tale, which highlights the power and importance of love and compassion that drives the clever and unpredictable plot to a neat and satisfying ending, despite it being the first of a new series.

I would certainly look forward to reading the next book and continuing with this brilliant historical-fantasy adventure. Suitable for 8+ years and highly recommended.

Valerie Loh

AN IMPROBABLE SEASON

Rosalyn Eves, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023, $19.99/C$26.99, hb, 352pp, 9780374390181 1817, and three young women travel to London for their first season with very mixed feelings. Thalia Aubrey is not looking for a husband but for ‘salons with the brightest ideas’ and for a publisher for her poems, though she does hope to be ‘a little reckless for once.’ Her vivacious younger sister Kalliope looks forward eagerly to parties, social gatherings, and admirers. Uncomfortably aware of her social ineptitude, their cousin Charis is much more interested in science than in social events. How their aspirations are fulfilled or frustrated is presented with both considerable irony and keen insights into the challenges that await the inexperienced. Nor does it take long for disaster to strike, for they are confronted with a highly judgmental society that places a higher value upon appearances than upon reality.

The adverse consequences of their early missteps and subsequent errors in judgement create a rather sobering mood throughout much of the book, but the sympathy and support they receive from friends, parents, and, most importantly, each other help the trio weather the storm. And to recognize that modifying one’s expectations may lead to surprisingly satisfying opportunities.

This coming-of-age Regency romance is marketed for a teenage audience, and the tone does verge on the didactic at times. The lessons, however, remain applicable for a modern audience, especially the need to be honest about one’s feelings, to be ready to make apologies, and to offer forgiveness to others. Recommended.

Ray Thompson

WILD SONG

Candy Gourlay, David Fickling Books, 2023, £12.99, hb, 336pp, 9781788452076

Candy Gourlay returns to the history of the Bontok, an Igorot people in the Philippines, whose lives she previously wrote about in her 2018 novel Bone Talk. This is a companion novel rather than a sequel and describes how some Igorot people were taken to America in 1904 to be put on display at the World’s Fair in St Louis.

The story is seen through the eyes of Luki, a fiercely independent young woman who desires to see and learn more of the world outside her own community. She tells her tale as though she is relating it to her recently deceased mother. It begins in the Philippines and shows how American colonialists entice Luki and some of her friends to voyage to St Louis. Her travelling companions are introduced, including Samkad, with whom she has a fraught and shifting relationship.

Following a description of their long journey by ship and train, the Igorots’ experiences at the World’s Fair form the centrepiece of the story. Unsurprisingly, the circumstances in which they find themselves are not what they anticipated, and they face racism and exploitation, particularly from the man responsible for taking them there. Will they survive and return to the Philippines or remain in America?

Intrigued by a photograph taken at the Fair of a young Igorot boy dancing the ‘cakewalk’ with a white woman, Candy Gourlay thoroughly researched the culture and history of people from a different part of the Philippines than that from which she comes herself and provides further information and a bibliography at the end of the book. This is an involving story about a tough subject not previously explored in fiction for young people and, while some of the events are distressing, Luki’s optimism and agency shine through in a compelling narrative voice.

Ann Lazim

WHERE DAVID THREW STONES

Elyse Hoffman, Project 613 Publishing, 2022, $15.99, pb, 429pp, 9781952742095

If the dead who can’t ascend to heaven roam the earth as ghosts, then post-war Germany, blanketed in sin, must be one vast paranormal cemetery. If curses be imposed from beyond on those who merit it, then the world 10-year-old David Saidel finds himself inhabiting in post-war Germany must be endlessly accursed.

David’s parents have died tragically. He blames himself, now cursed in his own right, to live with his mysterious grandfather Ernst in the German town of Brennenbach. The

mystery unfolds as Ernst warns his grandson not to venture out of his room at night, and never out of the house between midnight and sunrise. Each night, the town is jolted out of the present and thrust into a time of war. AntiSemitism is rampant. It is Judenfrei, free of all of its Jewish occupants, except one boy named David Kogan.

Of course, David disobeys, sneaks out of his grandfather’s house only to find himself stuck in the past at peril of his own existence. He must find a way to break the curse before he, the town, and everyone he loves is lost forever. Where David Threw Stones is, I think, a young adult novel, seen through the eyes of David and several of his newfound friends. The paranormal element allows for sometimes terrifying, sometimes poignant moments between the living and the dead, though I found some elements of the curse confusing. Who actually started the curse? Why and how can it be ended? How do David and those of his time mingle with the ghosts of the past without bumping into their doppelgängers? In the end, there is a dark side to David’s existence that even he didn’t anticipate. As we have all come to learn, it is one thing to lift a curse, another to end hatred.

Peter Clenott

A MILLION TO ONE

Adiba Jaigirdar, Hodder Children’s Books, 2023, £7.99, pb, 368pp, 9781444968903

1912, Cork, Ireland. The White Star Line’s luxury ship, the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic, the biggest in the world, is making her maiden voyage. Four intrepid teenage girls of colour smuggle themselves on board. They want to pull off the ultimate heist – the theft of the bejewelled ‘Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam’, a book worth millions.

Their leader is Josefa, who readily admits to enjoying theft. With her is Hinnah, a fearless acrobat and contortionist; Violet, a brilliant actress; and Emilie, who can forge any document. All are displaced victims of the Balkan Wars. But security is tight: can they even get on board…?

The author, Adiba Jaigirdar, identifies herself as a Muslim woman of colour who is queer, and I can understand that, for female teenage readers of colour, a terrific adventure on board the Titanic with characters like themselves getting the plum parts, is a big plus. It’s a lively story but, for me, it doesn’t qualify as an historical novel: the girls’ mindsets are too 21st century. The Titanic’s tragic maiden voyage is well-documented. It is known that the ship had a white, all male crew and only one passenger of colour on board – I doubt that four lively teenage girls of colour could remain invisible.

I also disliked the book’s adulation of theft. In reality, stealing can ruin lives and plunge innocent people into serious trouble; it worries me that the author apparently finds this acceptable. But after reading the enthusiastic critiques of this book by teenage girls of colour, I can see that, for them, my moral concerns are irrelevant. I am obviously too old to ‘get it’.

However, it crossed my mind that the book would make a tremendous comic strip story; I can just see the contortionist Hinnah emerging from an air-vent with a bubble reading, ‘EEK!’

Elizabeth Hawksley

BLACKBEARD’S TREASURE

Iszi Lawrence (illus. Elisa Paganelli), Bloomsbury, 2023, £7.99, pb, 280pp, 9781801990967

In 1718, eleven-year-old Abigail lives a cosseted, if rather lonely, life as a plantation owner’s daughter in the Caribbean. Secretly, her best friend is her father’s slave, Boubacar, who teaches her the languages of Africa and of slaves. She believes that slavery is a natural way of life, but when vengeful pirates seek out her father, she hears unsettling accusations about his past crimes. To escape the pirates, Abigail liberates herself from constricting girls’ clothes and pretends to be a boy. Boubacar and Abigail begin an adventure on board a pirate ship run by maroons, escaped slaves, under Captain Black Caesar.

Abigail and Boubacar learn to swim, climb ropes, and avoid revolting smells, as they sail off in search of the infamous pirate, Blackbeard, with whom Caesar has a longstanding feud. When they finally encounter Blackbeard, Abigail must control her desire to take revenge for his raids on her father’s plantations and try to find the hidden treasure of this fearsome Admiral of the Black. Abigail’s natural sense of justice quickly becomes conflicted. Her friendships with runaway slaves undermine the ideas of right and wrong which she had always been taught. She learns how the first rule of piracy constantly changes, dependent on a pirate’s circumstances, and she sees how the morality of this pirate world – where the enslaved are forced to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea – mirrors the contradictory values of white, mercantile culture. This story celebrates friendship and family; the languages of Africa; girls and exslaves seeking their best lives; the quest for freedom through self-determination. At the emotional heart of Abigail and Boubacar’s adventure is the discovery of family, which they both believed they had lost. This swashbuckler is fun, immersive and illuminating. Highly recommended.

Louise Tree

THE DAVENPORTS

Krystal Marquis, Dial, 2023, $19.99/C$26.99, hb, 384pp, 9780593463338

Marquis dazzles in this debut of glitz, glamour, and Jim Crow.

In Chicago in 1910, 19-year-old Olivia Davenport is expected to find a husband, and soon. The elder daughter of the formerly enslaved owner of the Davenport Carriage Company, Olivia is hard-pressed to find a suitor who, like her, is wealthy, educated, and Black. Her parents push her toward a Black Englishman who’s visiting Chicago, but Olivia’s eye catches on a young civil rights leader from Alabama. Meanwhile, her younger sister, Helen, is far more interested in repairing cars than she is

in courting, until she meets Olivia’s English suitor. Olivia’s best friend, Ruby, is also under pressure to marry well, preferably to Olivia’s brother, John, but she hates the games she has to play to get his attention. And his attention is increasingly taken up by Amy-Rose, the Davenport sisters’ maid who dreams of owning a salon and crafting her own hair-care products à la Madam C.J. Walker.

Masterfully juggling the four young ladies’ points of view, Marquis highlights the oftenuntold history of wealthy Blacks in the early 1900s, while also touching on themes of intersectionality, biracialism, and privilege. Readers watch as Olivia’s eyes are opened to the plight of poor Blacks nationwide, and she realizes that her family’s wealth will not fully shield her from the Jim Crow laws spreading northward. Strict historians will note the use of modern terms such as “Black” (capitalized) and “enslaved” rather than the period-accurate “colored” and “slave,” but this modernization is understandable—and, indeed, desirable—in a young-adult novel.

The first in a series, The Davenports is an important story skillfully told by a new author worth watching. While the novel is technically a young-adult romance, readers of all ages would do well to give it a look. Highly recommended.

Sarah Hendess

THE LOST YEAR

Katherine Marsh, Roaring Brook Press, 2023, $17.99, hb, 368pp, 9781250313607

This dual-timeline narrative begins in 2020 with 12-year-old Matthew, homebound because of Covid lockdowns and separated from his journalist father posted to Europe. Because his 100-year-old great-grandmother, known as GG, lives with him, he can’t even see his friends for fear of endangering her. After a bit of destructive horseplay, Matthew’s mother orders him to go through GG’s storage boxes, where he finds letters and photos that contain a shocking secret. Matthew’s chapters are interspersed with Mila’s in Ukraine and Helen’s in Brooklyn in 1932-33. Both girls— GG’s cousins, she says—are 12 years old at the time of the Holodomor, the famine that Soviet leaders imposed on the Ukrainian countryside that led to the starvation of millions. GG, whose name is Nadiya, survived the Holodomor that killed the rest of her family in the countryside. When Nadiya walks to Kyiv, Mila hides her from her father, a Soviet apparatchik who helped to steal farmers’ grain and execute resisters. Helen, safe in Brooklyn with her immigrant family, tries to reconcile news of the famine with the sunny views of the Soviet Union in the mainstream press. She wants to collect evidence to convince Walter Duranty, the notorious Moscow-based New York Times reporter who denied the existence of this genocide.

Marsh, a journalist, explores both the Holodomor and journalistic ethics through the experiences of her three point-of-view characters. While Matthew adds a connection to today’s readers, the stories of Mila and Helen will keep them turning the pages. All the young characters confront a world based on lies, and how each of them recognizes the truth and acts on that knowledge can spark reflection and discussion.

Lyn Miller-Lachmann

A DIFFERENT KIND OF FREEDOM

Richard O’Neill, Scholastic, 2023, £6.99, pb, 208pp, 9781407199580

The latest book in the Voices series, introducing diverse viewpoints into children’s publishing, tells the story of a Romani boy with a passion for football, set in the early 20th century.

Lijah is a Romani child of a travelling family temporarily camped in Sheffield. His Mam insists times are changing and he should attend school and study ‘Gorja learning’ –reading, writing and arithmetic, but Lijah hates being indoors all day and is bullied by the other boys. One thing he is fascinated by is football – a ‘dinlos [fools’] game’, his father calls it. Romani don’t play football. But Lijah has skills and finds acceptance easier once he is scoring goals. Soon football is the only thing he cares about. Lijah and his father are set on a collision course. The advent of a reallife, though controversial, sporting hero, Rab Howell, who has played for both Sheffield United and England, complicates things. Can Lijah remain fully Romani whilst struggling to win through to play football professionally? And will the Gorja footballing community ever fully welcome him in?

This is an easy-to-read story with a reflective pace and an inclusive and optimistic message. Its charm lies in its vivid depiction of a travelling family’s life, history and feelings. It is realistic and beautifully detailed, and the reader can feel they too are at home tatting door-todoor, listening to stories around a camp-fire and taking care of the animals: horses, dogs, goats and bantam chickens, ‘smaller and more colourful than most hens, and bred to travel’.

The text is scattered with Romani words, used in a context that makes them easy to understand, though a helpful glossary is included. A warm and convincing read for children of 10 - 14, especially any boy or girl interested in football.

Jane Burke

THE DIARY OF SARAH FORBES BONETTA

Victoria Princewill, Scholastic, 2023, £8.99, pb, 260pp, 9780702311482

1860, Kent, England, and Sarah Forbes Bonetta, African, orphan, protégé of Queen Victoria, and seventeen years old, begins writing a diary. At the opening, Sarah awaits a carriage to take her to tea with the queen. Tea at the palace, it seems, is a regular occurrence, despite Sarah living in a clergyman’s household.

Sarah occupies a strange space. She is an African princess but cannot remember her birth family. They, and their kingdom, were destroyed by a rival king when she was an infant. She’d have been killed herself, had she not been rescued by Captain Forbes, who baptised her Sarah and presented her, as a gift, to his Queen, Victoria. A gift of a person.

Herein lies Sarah’s predicament. Given as a gift. Likened to a precious jewel – but still, an object, not a person, with autonomy of her own. What is the queen to do with a gift of a child? Boarded with families, sent away to school, poor Sarah has nowhere to call home or family. And so begins a teen diary filled with longing, subtle and not so subtle slights, and

lengthy ruminating on what she wished she had said.

Because, of course, Sarah may actually say very little. Served with the double whammy – nay, triple – of being female, African, and orphaned, Victorian England expects her to be submissive, and grateful. No matter how painful the insults. While Sarah broods – at great length – on the desire for her own agency, she assumes that those around her have that autonomy. After attracting two suitors, she begins to realise that, in Victorian England, she is not the only one denied her own choices. Author’s notes review the facts of Sarah’s life and the Britain-Africa slave trade.

Helen Johnson

A SPOONFUL OF SPYING

Sarah Todd Taylor, illus. Beatriz Castro, Nosy Crow, 2023, £7.99, pb, 220pp, 9781839940972

This exuberant romp of a spy thriller is set against the backdrop of a fictionalised grand exhibition like the one which took place in Paris in the 1930s. Alice Éclair is a girl who makes patisseries in her mother’s shop and who also leads a double life as a spy. In this, the second book in the series, Alice’s mission is to solve the disappearance of France’s top aeroplane engineer.

In the pursuit of this, she inveigles her way into the Fashion pavilion and befriends young Sophie, a talented aero-engineer, and Eva – a motorbike-riding model. All three girls excel in their different professional worlds of fashion, aeronautics, and high-end baking. Taylor makes fascinating use of intricate details in all three areas in ways that always serve the plot. So, the beading on the gorgeously described gowns is being snipped away to make messages in code. Sophie’s newly invented glider, due to be launched from the Aviation pavilion, is flown by Alice at one point in a hair-raising chase, during which she has to follow shouted instructions on how to loop the loop. And we stand at Alice’s shoulder as, under pressure, she messes up a batch of delicate spun-sugar confectionary that is her passport as a spy into the fashion show.

This pacy, action-packed read is historical fiction with the lightest touch. It contains many fun elements (such as a wilful cat!). Not least, it features three strong female characters who absolutely make the action happen. It can be read as a stand-alone novel and is suitable for readers of 9+.

Marion Rose

STATELESS

Elizabeth Wein, Little, Brown, 2023, $18.99, hb, 400pp, 9780316591249

1937. Stella North has been chosen to represent Britain in Europe’s first youth air race. As the only female, she wants to do well for her gender and for her adopted country. Having been born in Russia before the Communist takeover and raised in England, Stella is “stateless” and travels with a Nansen passport. On the first leg of the race, Stella witnesses one airplane fly close to another, harassing the pilot until the harassed plane crashes into the sea. Not knowing whom to trust, Stella tells of the crash but doesn’t mention the murderous pilot. Hazards abound on each leg of the journey, and slowly, Stella

learns whom she can trust, creating a small band of youth pilots hunting for a murderer.

This is an exciting, fast-paced story with many plot holes. Why do the young pilots tell nobody there is a murderer in their midst? The “reason” isn’t believable, nor is the character of Stella’s chaperone, a groundbreaking female pilot who seems to have no understanding of anything and who refuses to listen to Stella. When the murderer is finally discovered, and even the police know who it is, why is that person neither arrested nor watched? To be able to create the exciting havoc that ends the story, I guess. I liked the young characters, and Stella’s and another pilot’s struggle with identity and allegiance to country on the brink of WWII is interesting. The story’s setting is brilliantly brought to life, as are the details and excitement of early flight. However, my frustrations with aspects of the story make it difficult for me to wholeheartedly recommend. Young Adult.

Elizabeth Caulfield Felt

THAT SELF-SAME METAL

Brittany N. Williams, Amulet, 2023, $19.99/ C$24.99, hb, 352pp, 9781419758645

Set in 1605 London, sixteen-year-old Joan Sands is one of the King’s Men: a group of actors under the patronage of King James I. As a woman, Joan cannot act. Instead, she is master of the prop swords and fight training for the company. Orisha-blessed, Joan has the magical ability to control metal and to spot the faint glow of the Fae who populate London. When an unusual increase in brutal Fae attacks occur, Joan and her twin brother, James, are drawn into the conflict between Fae, Orisha, and mortals. After wounding a powerful Fae on stage at the Globe, the stakes are raised. Only Joan has the power to end the violence and make peace.

Magic and Shakespeare abound in this first installment in Williams’s The Forge & Fracture Saga fantasy series. Cover copy promises the story is “swashbuckling (and) romantic,” which it truly is, though some of the fight scenes might need to be read twice to follow the action. The magical world is unique and draws a reader in. Williams uses Shakespeare’s work for inspiration, twisting and melding it with fantasy in a completely enjoyable way. Though well researched and grounded in history, there are a few instances where history is altered by magic, which might have some readers gritting their teeth. All around, it is a fun, quick read with diverse and queer characters a reader will happily follow into battle.

Meg Wiviott

THE AGENCY FOR SCANDAL

Laura Wood, Scholastic, 2023, £8.99, pb, 528pp, 9780702303241

If you fancy a rip-roaring YA adventure, look no further than this novel which features feisty Victorian heroine Isobel Stanhope. She’s leading a double life – secret spy by night and demure young society woman by day.

Her story starts when her father dies, and she must fight to keep her family out of poverty. Her mother is a bed-ridden hypochondriac and her brother’s school fees need to be paid. Fortunately, Izzy is no ordinary young society

woman who goes to balls and buys dresses – although she enjoys that. Her father had a fascination with locks and worked secretly helping companies with their security. He passed on his lock-picking skills to Izzy, who has another secret – she dresses and passes as a boy, giving her a freedom that Victorian women normally don’t get.

These talents are spotted, and she’s recruited to a secret women’s spy agency called the Aviary. They protect exploited women and seek justice by blackmailing their male abusers.

Izzy falls into her role with aplomb, but matters get complicated. She’s falling in love with Max Vane, the handsome and mysterious Duke of Roxton. However, he might be involved in her latest case – a jewel heist – so can she trust him?

The novel is a fun, escapist read with lots of lively characters, including beggars and thieves, Izzy’s society friends and a Machiavellian figure who is gaslighting his wife and has scary political ambitions. A treat for 12 to 18-year-olds and, even better, looks like it might be the first in a series.

Kate Pettigrew

WILD BIRD

Diane Zahler, Roaring Brook, 2023, $18.99/ C$24.99, hb, 320pp, 9781250833402

In the late 1300s, the plague spreads through Europe to Norway. A girl is the only survivor of her fishing village and is found by a ship of English merchant sailors. She doesn’t remember what happened or even her name. They call her “Rype” because she looks a bit like the bird of the same name, especially when she stands on one leg, which she does to calm herself. Soon, sailors become ill and die, and the healthy sailors blame Rype. She is protected by the captain, until he, too, sickens and dies. The sailors want to throw her overboard, but the captain’s son, Owen, rows her to shore and stays with her. They are in plague-ridden Frisia. The cities are closed, and the two cannot find a ship that will take passengers. Owen wants to return to his mother and sister in England and invites Rype to live as a sister there with him. The two befriend and travel with a group of troubadours, who assure them that they can get a ship in Marseilles. They travel and sing and have many adventures across the continent. But will Rype be happy in England? Will the group of good friends all survive the plague?

This is an excellent story of the plague and the Middle Ages. The descriptions of sickness and death are realistic without being grotesque. Historical details such as the nature of religion, the class system, the clothing, food, medicine, transportation, etc., are explained to the reader without being didactic. Rype, Owen, and the troubadours are engaging characters. My only criticism is that I was unsure of Rype’s age (around 12) until the end of the book. I wish I had known earlier. An excellent story. Ages 8-12.

Elizabeth Caulfield Felt

CONFERENCES

The Society organizes biennial conferences in the UK, North America, and Australasia. Contact Richard Lee <richard@historicalnovelsociety.org> (UK), Jenny Quinlan <jennyq@historicaleditorial.com> (North America), or Elisabeth Storrs <contact@hnsa.org.au> (Australasia).

© 2023, the Historical Novel Society, ISSN: 1471-7492 | Issue 104, May 2023