Managing Editor: Bethany Skaggs Houston Cole Library Jacksonville State University 700 Pelham Road North Jacksonville, AL 36265-1602, USA <bskaggs@jsu.edu>
Book Review Editor: Sarah Johnson 6868 Knollcrest Drive Charleston, IL 61920, USA <sljohnson2@eiu.edu>
Publisher Coverage: Random House (all imprints), Penguin Putnam, Five Star, Bethany House, MacAdam/Cage, university presses, and any North American presses not mentioned below
Profiles Editor: Lucienne Boyce 69 Halsbury Road Westbury Park, Bristol BS6 7ST UK <lucboyce@blueyonder.co.uk.>
REVIEWS EDITORS (UK)
Fiona Lowe
28 Cloisters Avenue, Barrow in Furness, Cumbria LA13 0BA UK <thelowes@cloistersave.freeserve.co.uk>
Publisher Coverage: Allison & Busby, Little, Brown & Co, (inc. Abacus, Virago, Warner), Random House UK (inc. Arrow, Cape, Century, Chatto & Windus, Harvill, Heinemann, Hutchinson, Pimlico, Secker & Warburg, Vintage), Simon & Schuster (inc. Scribner)
Mary Moffat
Sherbrooke, 32 Moffat Road Dumfries, Scotland, DG1 1NY UK <sherbrooke@marysmoffat.ndo.co.uk>
Publisher Coverage: Children’s historicals - all UK publishers
Ann Oughton
11 Ramsay Garden, Edinburgh, EH1 2NA UK <annoughton@tiscali.co.uk>
Managing Editor: Claire Morris 324-2680 West 4th Avenue Vancouver, BC V6K 4S3 CANADA <claire.morris@shaw.ca>
Associate Editor, Features: vacant
Associate Editor, Profiles: Lucinda Byatt 13 Park Road Edinburgh, EH6 4LE UK <mail@lucindabyatt.com>
Associate Editor, Fiction: Richard Lee Marine Cottage, The Strand
Starcross, Devon, EX6 8NY UK
<richard@historicalnovelsociety.org>
Associate Editor, Industry: Cindy Vallar PO Box 425 Keller, TX 76244-0425, USA <cindy@cindyvallar.com>
CONFERENCES
The Society organizes annual conferences in the UK and biennial conferences in the US. Contact (UK): Richard Lee <richard@historicalnovelsociety.org> Contact (USA): Sarah Johnson <sljohnson2@eiu.edu>
MEMBERSHIP DETAILS
Membership in the Historical Novel Society is by calendar year (January to December) and entitles members to all the year’s publications: two issues of Solander, and four issues of Historical Novels Review. Back issues of society magazines are also available. For current rates, contact:
Marilyn Sherlock 38, The Fairway, Newton Ferrers Devon, PL8 1DP, UK <marilyn.sherlock@virgin.net>
Patrika Salmon 24 Glenmore Street Glenleith, Dunedin, New Zealand <pdrlindsaysalmon@xtra.co.nz>
Debra Tash 5239 North Commerce Avenue Moorpark, CA 93021, USA <timarete@earthlink.net>
EDITORIAL POLICY
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 the HNS magazines.
COPYRIGHT
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.
THE HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY was formed in 1997 to help promote historical fiction. All staff and contributors are volunteers and work unpaid. We are an open society – if you want to get involved, get in touch.
The Historical Novel Society on the Internet
WEBSITE: www.historicalnovelsociety.org
WEB SUPPORT: sljohnson2@eiu.edu
EMAIL NEWSLETTER: Read news and reviews. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HNSNewsletter DISCUSSION GROUP: Join in the discussion. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HistoricalNovelSociety
HistoricalNovelsReview
Unique Perspectives
For years, the movie Citizen Kane was on my must-see list. Touted by some as the greatest movie ever made and universally recognized as groundbreaking, I felt my understanding of cinema would be forever deficient until I had seen it. Accordingly, I finally got around to adding it to my Netflix queue, and when it arrived a few days later, I took time that same night to watch it. After all the build-up, I was slightly disappointed. Innovative, yes. The greatest movie ever made…debatable. But then I watched the commentary by Peter Bogdanovich and Roger Ebert, and I began to see that it was Orson Welles’s perspective that made the film unique. I was particularly impressed by the painstaking methods Welles employed in order to have not only the foreground of his scenes appear in sharp focus, but also the background. I began to think about Welles’s cinematography in the context of historical fiction. Unlike some other types of fiction where the narrative foreground completely eclipses the fuzzy background of the setting, well-written historical fiction brings the background — the historical tableau against which the story takes place — into sharp focus. And in the same way that Welles went to great lengths to accomplish this in his filmmaking, so superior historical novelists have developed exacting methods to bring the historical period in which they write into focus for their readers — readers who must see it clearly in order to immerse themselves in it.
Much as the commentary track on the film allowed me a better understanding of the artistry that produced Citizen Kane, so a skilled reviewer’s commentary on an exceptional historical novel can provide insight that less careful readers might sometimes miss. Reviewing is, in essence, offering a perspective, so I hope you’ll enjoy the varied perspectives proffered in this issue of HNR. We’re highlighting Regency historical romances in the reviews section, and our main feature gives the often-overlooked historical fiction industry in New Zealand the coverage it has long deserved. Also on offer are interviews with Mary Sharratt and Anne Easter Smith, and Amanda Grange
Issue 37, August 2006, ISSN 1471-7492
shares tips on writing Austen-based novels up to Janeite standards. Enjoy!
Historical Fiction Market News
In Stores Soon
Steven Saylor’s Roma, a multi-generational saga in the Michener/ Rutherfurd tradition about the first 1000 years of Rome, from its Bronze Age origins through its rise as a world capitol, will be published in March 2007 by Constable (UK) and St. Martin’s Press (US).
Gilda O’Neill’s Rough Justice, first in a new series of sagas about a group of families living in London’s East End in the 1930s, will be published by Heinemann this December.
City of Glory, Beverly Swerling’s second epic about the people of old Manhattan, will appear from Simon & Schuster next January.
In May 2007, Torsten Krol’s The Dolphin People, in which a plane carrying a German family crashes into the Amazonian jungle at the end of the Second World War, will appear from Atlantic (UK).Popular historian Giles Milton’s novel Edward Trecom’s Nose, a 17th century historical novel, will be published by Macmillan in March 2007.
The first volume in Conn Iggulden’s Genghis Khan series, Wolf of the Plain, will be published in the UK in January, and in the US in March, both from HarperCollins.
Red River, a sequel to Lalita Tademy’s Cane River, will be published by Warner in January. Red River continues her ancestors’ story in this saga about the struggles of two Louisiana families during the post-Civil War period.
Peter Ho Davies’s The Welsh Girl, a novel set in a Welsh village during World War II, will appear from Sceptre in January 2007.
Michael Chabon’s long-awaited The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, which imagines that Alaska became the Jews’ homeland after World War II, will appear next March from HarperCollins US.
November 2006 will see publication of Alice Munro’s The View from Castle Rock by Chatto & Windus (UK) and Knopf (US). A blend of history and fiction, it details the story of Munro’s great-great-great-grandfather and his family, who left Scotland for the New World in 1818. Munro has stated that it will be her last novel.
Short Books (UK) will publish a “huge novel” by Sian Busby, M’Naghten, based on the case of Daniel McNaughten, who shot the Prime Minister’s private secretary in the 1840s.
Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies, first in a trilogy set in 19th century Calcutta, will be published by John Murray in January 2008.
Allan Massie’s upcoming novel on Charlemagne, appropriately titled Charlemagne and Roland, will be published next March by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
For more forthcoming books, see the HNS website at www.historicalnovelsociety.org.
Recent Publishing Deals
Sources include Publishers Lunch, Booktrust, The Bookseller, Publishers Weekly, and others.
Sarah Bower, former UK Coordinating Editor for the Historical Novels Review, has signed a deal with Snowbooks for publication of her first novel, The Needle in the Blood, a tale of sexual obsession and the redemptive power of love set against the making of the Bayeux Tapestry. Publication will be summer 2007.
Kathy Lynn Emerson is under contract with Perseverance Press (publisher of the last two books in her “Face Down” Elizabethan mystery series) to write How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries: The Art and Adventure of Sleuthing through the Past for publication in spring 2008. It will contain input (advice, anecdotes, etc.) from many historical mystery writers, Emerson included, and from industry professionals.
Ariana Franklin (pseudonym of Diana Norman) sold The Mistress of the Art of Death and The Serpent in the Garden, called “Kathy Reichs in the 12th century,” in a 7-figure deal, to Rachel Kahan at Putnam by Helen Heller at the Helen Heller Agency. Publication of the first novel will be early Mark2007.Tavani at Ballantine bought world rights to two historical thrillers by New York Times reporter Timothy L. O’Brien, the first of which is set in Washington, DC, just after Lincoln’s assassination, via agent Andrew Blauner.
Elizabeth Sheinkman at Curtis Brown UK sold Jennifer Cody Epstein’s Iron Orchid, a historical epic based on the true story of Pan Yuliang, a controversial female painter born into poverty in China in the early 20th century, to Mary Mount at Viking UK (at auction) and Jill Bialosky at Norton (in a 6-figure deal).
Jeanne Kalogridis sold The Bloodiest Queen, a novel of Catherine de Medici, to Charles Spicer at St. Martin’s Press, in a two-book deal, by Russell Galen at Scovil Chichak Galen Literary Agency.Russell Galen also sold Jules Watson’s The Swan Maiden, historical fantasy about the Irish
“Helen of Troy” whose beauty ignited a war, to Anne Groell at Bantam Spectra.
Claire Bord’s first acquisition for Michael Joseph was newcomer Rebecca Dean’s Moon over Water, a “highly commercial” novel spanning the First and Second World Wars.
Canadian rights to Pauline Gedge’s The Last Man, v.1 & 2, about a man in ancient Egypt who returns to life after a deadly accident and becomes a seer and healer, were sold to Helen Reeves at Penguin Canada by Bella Pomer.
Yannick Murphy’s Signed, Mata Hari, a novel that “throws new light on the exotic dancer, courtesan, and alleged World War I spy,” sold to Richard Beswick at Little, Brown UK.
Alicia Gaspar de Alba’s Calligraphy of the Witch, about a Mexican woman sold as a slave in Puritan New England who becomes embroiled in the Salem witch trials, sold to Diane Reverand at St. Martin’s Press, by Regina Brooks at Serendipity Literary Agency.
Allison Samuel at Chatto & Windus bought Karl Manders’ debut novel Moths, about a Dutch businessman who lives through critical moments of European history, from the Second World War in the Netherlands to the Siberian gulags, from Ben Mason at Sheil Land Associates.
Three historical novels from Rosalind Laker sold to Allison McCabe at Three Rivers Press by Juliet Burton.
Natasha Bauman’s The Disorder of Longing, about a 19th century Bostonian woman who evades her husband’s obsession with tantric sex by fleeing to Brazil, where she hunts for orchids, sold to Molly Barton at Putnam by Lisa Grubka at the William Morris Agency.
Jill Schwartzman at HarperCollins US purchased William Dietrich’s The Rosetta Key, sequel to his upcoming novel Napoleon’s Pyramids, a historical adventure set against Napoleon’s march on the Holy Land, from Andrew Stuart at The Stuart Agency.
Manette Ansay’s The Confessions of Joseph Fremantle, about a woman who went to sea disguised as a man in the 1830s, and My Father’s House, about the Clara Schumann-Robert Schumann-Johannes Brahms love triangle, sold to Claire Wachtel at Morrow via Deborah Schneider at Gelfman Schneider.
Mary Rourke, author of Two Women of Galilee (reviewed this issue), sold Isaiah & the Prophetess, about the Hebrew prophet and his formidable wife Jael, to Allison McCabe at Crown, by agent Laura Dail.
Irene Goodman sold Amanda Elyot’s Mrs. Robinson: My So-Called Scandalous Life, the fictional memoirs of feminist writer Mary “Perdita” Robinson, mistress of the Prince of Wales, later George IV, to Claire Zion at NAL.
Marly Rusoff sold Jeffery Hantover’s The Jewel Trader of Pegu, about a jewel trader caught in a forbidden love in 16th century Burma, to Jennifer Brehl at William Morrow.
Annie Dillard’s The Maytrees, “about love, death, and family set in the wild sand dunes of Provincetown in the 1940s and 50s,” sold to Tim Duggan at HarperCollins for publication in summer 2007, by Timothy Seldes of Russell & Volkening. Seen on the Web
Guy Gavriel Kay has begun an “Ysabel Journal” on brightweavings.com, to track the editing, production and run-up to release (in early 2007) of his newest novel. Ysabel takes place in and around Aix-en-Provence, France, as “dangerous, mythic figures from the Celtic and Roman conflicts of the past erupt into the present, claiming and changing lives.”
Michael Curtis Ford reports on his website (www.michaelcurtisford.com) that he’s completed the draft to his next novel, The Fall of Rome, another historical adventure set in classical times.
Visit Elizabeth Crook’s website (www.elizabethcrookbooks.com) for her article “The Seven Rules of Historical Fiction.” The review of Crook’s latest historical novel, The Night Journal, appeared in May’s HNR.
Tracy Chevalier’s website (www.tchevalier.com) reveals that her next novel will be “about the painter/poet/all-round-radical Englishman William Blake and the effect he had on his neighbors.” Amazon indicates Burning Bright will be published by HarperCollins UK next March.
HNS members Cindy Thomson and J.M. Hochstetler have started a blog with four other historical novelists: http://favoritepastimes.blogspot.com.
Cheryl Sawyer’s next historical epic will be The Winter Prince, a novel of the English Civil War focusing on the real-life love story of Charles I’s nephew, Rupert of the Rhine, and Mary Villiers, Duchess of Richmond. US publication will be March 2007. (www.cherylsawyer. com).Novelists Jo Beverley, Loretta Chase, Sarah Gabriel (Susan King), Miranda Jarrett (Susan Holloway Scott), Edith Layton, Mary Jo Putney, and Patricia Rice have a new blog at www.wordwenches.com.
CNN (and other sources) report that Natalie Portman is set to portray Anne Boleyn in the upcoming big-screen production of Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl. Columbia Pictures will begin filming next year.
New Transatlantic Editions
The late Harry Thompson’s This Thing of Darkness, selected as an Editors’ Choice title for Nov. 2005, was published this July in the US by MacAdam/Cage (hb, $26, 800pp, 1596921900) as To the Edge of the World. Sarah Cuthbertson called this novel about the friendship and rivalry between Robert Fitzroy and Charles Darwin “by far the best historical novel I’ve read all year – an engrossing, thought-provoking page-turner.”
Human Traces by Sebastian Faulks, an epic novel on 19th century psychiatry, will be published in September by Random House ($25.95, hb, 563pp, 0375502262). In February’s issue, Doug Kemp wrote “this novel demands time and attention, but it is worth it.”
Geoffrey Robertson’s The Tyrannicide Brief, his biography of John Cooke, the lawyer who prosecuted Charles I, will be published in November by Pantheon ($30, hb, 1400044510). An interview with Robertson was the cover story of February’s HNR.
Errata from May’s Issue
The review of Broos Campbell’s No Quarter (p. 19) incorrectly indicated that the RattleSnake was a ship of the line. It was a small schooner.
In Thomas Eishen’s Courage on Little Round Top (p. 23), all of the primary and secondary characters are historical figures.
Lee’s former home, as described in the review of The Secret Trial of Robert E. Lee by Thomas Fleming (p. 48), was in Arlington, not Appomattox.
Sarah Johnson
FILM History &
ADDIE PRAY/PAPER
MOON: From Book to Film
The novel Addie Pray (1971) by Joe David Brown and its film adaptation Paper Moon (1973) illogically rank among my all-time favorites. Illogical, because I’ve been a reallife victim of the same quick-change con depicted in both works, and the realization that you were cheated by someone cleverer than you is not pleasant. Despite that, I enjoy both works enough to revisit them often. The novel’s translation into film was accomplished more successfully than many Hollywood properties, and is worth exploring for students of historical fiction.
Brown sets the novel in the Depressionera Deep South, with young Addie narrating. Long Boy (Moses) Pray,1 who may or may not be Addie’s father, turns up after her mother dies to take her to her aunt’s. He’s motivated not by altruism, but by the opportunity of using Addie’s orphaned plight for gain. Addie observes Long Boy’s various money-makingploysandsoonproveswhata help she can be, posing as his innocent little daughter to allay the marks’ suspicions. Addie successfully defends Long Boy from the predations of Trixie Delight, a dancer he picked up from a carnival sideshow act, and they get mixed up with a bootlegger and his deputy sheriff brother. Running from the law, Long Boy persuades a reluctant yokel (via a “rasslin” contest) to trade his old truck for their conspicuous fancy car. In the midst of their next swindle, he and Addie meet a fellow con, Major Lee, who enlists their help in a scheme with millions at stake.
Lee’s associate wants to gain control of his rich miser aunt’s millions, and Addie is to pose as her long-lost granddaughter. But Grandmama Sass does not fall upon Addie with open arms, declaring “it’s too late!” Amelia’s companion, Mayflower persuades her to let Addie stay so they can get to know her. One day, Addie’s carelessness provokes Amelia’s anger because it will cost money to fix the plumbing. Addie erupts herself, goaded by the millionaire’s continual tightfistedness. A shouting match ensues, a secret is revealed, and the big con takes an unexpected twist.
Reviewers liked the book, citing its authentic regional feel (Brown was Alabamaborn), and Deep South dialogue, in passages such as Long Boy’s disdain for manual labor: “I wouldn’t work with a shovel less’n I was drown’ding in manure.” Critics also mentioned its charm and tall-tale escapist qualities.
Paramount bought the successful book’s film rights and offered the project to Peter Bogdanovich, then one of Hollywood’s brightest young directors. He turned the film versiondownatfirst,becausehewassupposed to be making a Western with John Wayne, plus he disliked the novel’s title, which he thought sounded too much like a snake or - 2 -
reptile. When the Western picture didn’t materialize, he changed his mind. He came up with the idea of using Paper Moon as the title while listening to a period song by that name. He had screenwriter Alvin Sargent work a scene into the film where Addie has her picture taken at a carnival while sitting on a prop moon, so that the studio would approve the new title.
Bogdanovich and his wife, production designer Polly Platt, had been impressed with theprairielandscapewhileonacross-country driveyearsbefore,sothesettingwaschanged from the Deep South to Kansas. An added reason was that the area around Hays, Kansas had changed little since the Depression, meaning the film could be shot on location without building many period sets.
Platt suggestedTatum O’Neal for the part of Addie, and Bogdanovich agreed, because he could also cast her father Ryan O’Neal, with whom he’d worked in What’s Up, Doc? Bogdanovich chose to shoot in black and white, to give the film more of a period feel, to undercut any sentimentality, and also because it would tone down the O’Neals’ Hollywood good looks. He imitated the novel’s use of first person by shooting many of the scenes from Addie’s point of view.
Bogdanovich had a passion for historical accuracy. He and Platt made sure details such as soda bottles and road signs were correct for the period. They changed the brand of chewing gum they were going to use in one key scene, because the first manufacturer couldn’t supply the correct 1930s-era packaging. Costumes made for Depressionera films were borrowed from studio vaults: Ryan O’Neal’s suits had been made for Bing Crosby and George Raft pictures. Bogdanovich furthered the authentic feel by including no underscoring. Other than during the titles, the only time music is heard is when a character is listening to a radio.
The film is divided into three acts, each concluding with the duo driving away from the camera. Act one is Addie and Mose’s introduction to each other. One of the film’s most memorable scenes, not in the novel, is a confrontation between Mose and Addie in a cafe, where she accuses him of stealing the $200 that he swindled in her name out of her mother’s boyfriend’s family.When he claims
not to have it, steely-eyed, tight-lipped Addie, a la John Wayne, retorts, “Then, GIT IT!”which always gets a laugh from the audience.This disagreement over the money provides a useful running gag, and gives Mose’s character a motivation to keep Addie with him instead of delivering her to her aunt.
This section also contains the scene which is probably the Oscar® shot that got Tatum nominated for an Academy Award.® Ryan merely had to face forward, drive the car and argue with Tatum, while she had to do some complicated business, such as retrieving a box from the back seat, and reading a map while remembering her lines. Tatum was only 8 years old, had never acted before, and because of her unconventional upbringing could hardly even read a script. They did 25 takes the first day, without ever getting all the way through the scene. The final take, done a few days later, resulted in a very long uncut scenethatmusthaveimpressedtheAcademy voters.
Act two centers on Mose’s infatuation with Trixie Delight. Madeline Kahn as the gold-digging floozy, and P.J. Johnson as her maid Imogene are both excellent in their roles. The film is very faithful to the book in this section, including several scenes with verbatim dialogue. Addie concocts an elaborate scheme behind Mose’s back to get rid of Trixie. The act concludes as a gloomy Mose begs Addie not to grow up to be the kind of woman who goes around deceiving men.
Act three concerns the bootlegging swindle, and Mose and Addie’s attempt to escape from the law. The “rasslin’” match to exchange vehicles is retained in the film, but because the rest of the book wasn’t used, Sargent had to invent a new ending. They cross into Missouri to escape Kansas law, close to St. Joseph, and Addie fears her journey is over because her aunt lives in St. Joe. But Mose isn’t inclined to break his run of luck, and plans to use Addie’s help in a scheme to bilk a rich St. Joe resident. The plot goes awrywhenthebootlegger’sbrotherturnsup, bent on a little illegal physical revenge.When Addie finds the battered Mose, she realizes he has decided to deliver her to her aunt’s, after all. The last scene includes a payoff of the $200 gag, a reference to the film’s title, and is true to the last page of the novel, despite the changed plot and setting.
The comedy-drama was very popular with the public, but received mixed critical reaction. Some critics thought the film cold and artificial, more like a history diorama than an entertainment,andothersdecriedtheescapist story of thieves as cute heroes. Most had high praise for Tatum O’Neal and Madeline Kahn’s performances, and Tatum won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.® It’s been said that hers is the most substantial“supporting” role ever to have won, as she is onscreen in almost every scene.
Bogdanovich was asked to film a sequel, using the omitted last part of the book, with MaeWest in the grandmother role, but wisely turned it down, sayingWest couldn’t do anything for him that she hadn’t already done in the past, better.The property became a short-lived television series of the same name in 1974, starring a young Jodie Foster, and in the 1990s was turned into a stage musical, which was produced in a few regional theaters but didn’t make it to Broadway. The O’Neals’subsequent film appearances were not as successful, and Bogdanovich had a long dry spell before his next box office hit, Mask, in 1985. - 3 -
In this reviewer’s opinion, this was a case where the film captured the spirit of the book without Hollywoodization, even given some plot changes and a totally different ending. Each work enhances the same story in different ways, and both book and film deserve praise for their vivid depictions of a nostalgic past.
B.J. Sedlock reviews for HNR and is Associate Librarian for Technical Services and Associate Professor at Defiance College in Ohio. Until recently, she enjoyed frequent busman’s holidays by working part-time at Defiance Public Library.
References:
1. Editor’s note: the name was shortened to “Mose” for the film.
2.Bogdanovich,Peter.Movies:Conversationswith Peter Bogdanovich. NewYork: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974.
3. Brown, Joe David. Addie Pray. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1971.
4. Coursodon, Jean-Pierre, with Pierre Sauvage. American Directors. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983.
6.“Joe David Brown.”Contemporary Authors Online. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale Group, 2001. <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/GLD/hits ?r=d&origSearch=true&o=DataType&n=10&l= d&c=1&locID=ohlnk03&secondary=false&u=C A&t=KW&s=2&NA=joe+david+brown> 2 Jun 2006.
7. Magruder, James. “Girls like us.” American Theatre Sep. 1996. 5 June 2006. Academic Search Premier. 5 June 2006 <http://search.epnet.com.>
8. O’Neal, Tatum. A Paper Life. NewYork: Harper Entertainment, 2004.
9. Paper Moon. Dir. Peter Bogdanovich. 1973. DVD. Paramount, 2003.
10. “Paper Moon.” FilmFacts. 16 (1973): 57-61.
11. “Paper Moon.” Internet Movie Database. 2006 <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070510/> 22 Apr 2006.
12. Wilson, David. “Peter Bogdanovich.” Closeup: the Contemporary Director. Ed. Jon Tuska. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1981. 251-291.
13.Yule, Andrew. Picture Show: the Life and Films of Peter Bogdanovich. New York: Limelight Editions, 1992.
Mose (Ryan O’Neal) and Addie Pray (Tatum O’Neal)
The Oscar winning driving scene
New Zealand Historical Fiction’s
An industry profile by Loren Teague
COMING OF AGE
Historical novel writing can be measured and weighed by the age of a country. The first historical writings in New Zealand can be traced back to Captain Cook, Samuel Marsden, and Edward Gibbon Wakefield. These explorers and adventurers, among others, traveled from the Old World to the New during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, beginning with Captain James Cook in 1769, who was the first to discover New Zealand. Their writings in the form of journals, letters, narratives, and diagrams were not fiction but an interpretation of what they had witnessed—pure fact, no doubt embellished by imagination. Not so well-known compatriots, ordinary men and women of all social classes, also left their impressions in literary form. One such man is John Barnicoat, a surveyor living in Nelson, one of the earliest settlements in New Zealand. His diary is reckoned to be one of the best of his era because his writing style is so accessible, and the diary is written from the perspective of a man employed by the New Zealand Company to survey land for settlers. Out of personal interest, he also surveyed the people, both Maori and European, in great detail due to his keen technical and perceptive skills of analyzing and recording – a prerequisite of his occupation. New Zealand has been fortunate in that many historical accounts, like Barnicoat’s diary, have survived and are available to the publicthroughlibraryandmuseumarchives – a wealth of untapped material waiting to explode into the historical novel.
Whaler Captain Jacky Guard, perhaps one of our most infamous historical characters, narrowly escaped death when his ship was driven ashore near Cape Egmont, Taranaki. Hostile Maori attacked him and his crew, capturing his wife, Betty Guard, and their children. A Maori warrior clubbed Betty Guard on the head, but a tortoiseshell comb saved her from this almost fatal blow. Jacky Guard escaped and sailed all the way to Australia to raise a troop ship to rescue his wife, and once reunited, both of them carved out a life in New Zealand by setting up a whaling station. When she died many years later in her mid-fifties, Betty Guard still had pieces of the tortoiseshell
comb embedded in her scalp. Fascinating tales like these form the basis of fiction. The story of Jacky and Betty Guard has recently been portrayed in The Captive Wife by Fiona Kidman (Random House), one of New Zealand’s most treasured authors.The Captive Wife is a bestseller, rich in historical detail, and is the fascinating story of an early adventurer and his wife as they fought for survival. It is a compelling account that allows the reader to feel the ground tremble from the feet of Maori warriors and sense the fear the European captives had of their flesh being eaten.
The early immigrants who came to these shores were not prisoners forced to leave their homes for a penal colony like those of our close neighbour, Australia. The people who came to New Zealand left their homeland for various reasons. Some wanted to own their own land, others to escape the confinements of Britain, and many wished to experience excitement and adventure.
In order to understand how the New Zealand historical fiction novel has evolved into a bestselling genre in New Zealand today, we have to study New Zealand history and her people very closely. New Zealand stands out as a country that has a reputation for innovation and a pioneering spirit.There is a certain pride in what has been achieved as a young country, and this is consequently reflected in the literature; there is a desire to shout out to the world that we may be a small country of four million people, but we are rich in history – and in heart.
But out of this patriotism, one pertinent question arises. Is our historical fiction different from any other? Let’s start with the Treaty of Waitangi, a historical document signed in 1840 by both the Europeans and our native inhabitants, the Maori. It is an agreement depicting how the country should be governed, and it forms the basis of our cultural and political agreement today. And for those who can see beyond the ink and paper, this document contains a wealth of history through its sub-text.The Treaty is classed as a living and breathing document, and as this article is being written, the Treaty is being circulated around the country – a classic example of the past
reaching into the present and vice versa, much like a historical novel does.
The old Maori proverb, “He wahine, he whenua e ngaro ai te tangata,”meaning“for women and land men die”makes good material for a novel. So perhaps the first novel published in New Zealand in 1861 was very apt – Major Henry Butler Stoney’s Taranaki: A Tale of the War, a depiction of the land wars which combines fact and fiction.
For the next sixty years after theTreaty, New Zealand fiction can be classed (according to the Encylopaedia of New Zealand) into four main groups: recording pioneerexperiences,exploitinganexotic setting, preaching for good causes, and interpreting New Zealand life. After 1920 the recording novel died out, and the preaching novel also faded. The exploiting novel continued to flourish, offering popular entertainment through romances aimed at women and masculine action yarns.
Probably the most influential category was the interpretation of New Zealand life, for it is that model which could well be called the ancestor of historical fiction today.
Naturally, authors brought their own cultural perspective depending on what country they originated from. One such immigrant was Alexander Bathgate, whose Scottish flavoured novels such as Colonial Experiences (1874), became very popular. His writing is lively and refreshingly candid. For a time he was part owner of the Saturday Advertiser, a weekly journal established in 1875 to foster a national spirit in New Zealand and encourage colonial literature.
The Story of a New Zealand River by Jane Mander was published in New York early in 1920 and in London a few months later. Her novels are landmarks in the New Zealand literary landscape, for hercharactersareaveragehumanbeings depicted in a time of great social change. It is said that she made the New Zealand landscape acceptable to the world.There arestrongsimilaritiesbetweentheaward winning movie,The Piano, and Mander’s novel.Though any link between the two has been strongly denied by film producer Jane Campion, speculation still remains. Rae MacGregor, who wrote Jane Mander’s biography, The Story of a New ZealandWriter (University of Otago Press), portrayed Mander as a woman of
strong character and vigorous mind, a product of her New Zealand upbringing. Can it be any wonder that New Zealand was the first country to give women the right to vote in 1893?
Let’s fast forward to the years 1930 to 1960 when New Zealand has survived two world wars. By now, second- and third-generation New Zealanders, while still connected to mother Britain, yearn to break loose and emerge as a separate identity. A new nation is forged. In the 1960s, Bert Munro challenged the God of speed on his motorcycle –TheWorld’s Fastest Indian – and won. He lived to tell the tale, but not to see the recently released movie, starring Anthony Hopkins. Munro’s recent biography,The Legend of Burt Munro by Tim Hanna (Penguin NZ) goes some way to explain how this ordinary man achieved his life’s ambition.
Lorain Day, Commissioning Editor of HarperCollins NZ, is of the opinion that our New Zealand historical fiction is no different than any other in that we have the same elements of story, character, and retelling of our history. However, she thinks there is a perceived difference in style and tone. She says, “Our history is so much more recent – we have a shorter chronological span of years within which to tell our stories, and I think they often reflect the directness of the Kiwi character and the rawness of the experiences in a new land – something which British historical fiction doesn’t do, having a much more diverse range of periods to write within and still be historical.”
HarperCollins NZ brought out the bestselling family saga by author Deborah Challinor, Tamar, White Feathers and Blue Smoke, under their trilogy name, Children of War. Each of these titles continues to reprint and sell on four years after the first book was published in 2002. Challinor’s recent novel, Kitty, has just been released, and speculation is that it will go straight to number one just like her previous novel, Union Belle.
But in analyzing the growth of the New Zealand historical novel, we need to ask: why is this genre currently so popular?
Some say it is simply because the people of today want to learn about the people of yesterday. The public don’t want
dry factual history books; they want reading material that provides entertainment.There have been political and legal issues by the Maori and Europeans over land resources for some years now, and the general public want to understand what has brought the country to the point where we have to decipher history before legal settlements can be made. It is also widely known that the baby boomers (those born between the years 1946 and 1964) were never taught New Zealand history, and there is a real hunger for it.
Author Kaye Kelly of Cross the River to Home (Random House) says,“For too many years, we looked to the countries of our ancestral roots for our history. Nowadayswehaveaveryrealsenseofourselves as a nation which, in turn, leads to a natural curiosity about our forbears.” Cross the River to Home is set in the 1870s, and is the story of an impossible love between a half-Chinese woman, Mai, and Henry, a young immigrant from England who has come to New Zealand in search of his sister. With family ties, racial prejudice,andthelocalcommunityconspiring against any match between Henry and Mai, their futures promise to be bleak. This tale is set on the wild, west coast of New Zealand, a place where many Scottish and Irish immigrants also made their homes, a region steeped in the history of gold field lore. Kelly also adds,
“Until now, historical novels, indeed any genre with New Zealand backgrounds, werelargelyignoredbyoverseaspublishers. Thankfully, that’s becoming a thing of the past, as evidenced by two top German publishers vying for the rights for Cross the River to Home.”
Kaye Kelly’s publisher, Harriet Allan of Random House NZ, agrees. She says, “Our human history isn’t long (in comparison to many other countries), so until recently it wasn’t history so much as the familiar recent past – the time of great-grandparents,thateveryoneknew about – and so hadn’t acquired the distance for romanticism, intrigue, mystery, etc. Instead, the vast and rich histories of overseas countries seemed much more interesting. However, time has brought a different perspective and New Zealanders are now interested in their own stories and identity – no longer looking to definethemselvesthroughtheirconnection to the UK and other countries but by their own unique past.”
Naturally, since New Zealand is a nation of immigrants, each culture will have their own unique story to tell of their forebears. One in particular is Gerard Hindmarsh, freelance journalist. His novel, Angelina (Craig Potton Publishing), depicts the life of his Italian grandparents. At just 16 years of age, his grandmother, Angelina Moleta, left the tiny volcanic island of Stromboli off Sicily to travel to D’Urville in New Zealand, a remote island on the other side of the world. From the age of eight she had been betrothed to her cousin,Vincenzo Moleta, who was twice her age. Facing the fierce tides and weather of this wild island on the edge of Cook Strait and having to cope with loneliness, the incessant toil of a pioneer farm, and the bitterness of a developing family feud, Angelina found solace in an unlikely friendship with a high-born Maori woman, Wetekia Ruruku Elkington, who lived nearby.Together they sharedtheirownstruggles,theirdifferent cultures and lack of the English language – a process that awakened Angelina to her own inner strengths. It’s a tale of hardshipandlove,bothelementsthatare timeless in historical fiction. The novel, written in the first person viewpoint, has strong characterization, and the reader could easily be persuaded that the story was actually penned by Angelina and her husband, rather than the journalist author with his brilliant imagination and writing skills.
A growing number of children and young adults are also showing more interest than ever in history, and this is reflected in the increasing publication of military history and historical fiction. Ken Catran’s book Letters from the Coffin Trenches (Random House) is a historical novel aboutWorldWar I as seen through the eyes of seventeen-year-old enlistee Harry and his girlfriend Jessica. This poignant story is told in the form of letters between the two, revealing their gradual disenchantment with the war, its cause, and effects.
Although New Zealand historical fiction is very popular with New Zealand readers, according to books editor, Conor Quinn, of the monthly New Zealand Writers’ E-zine (an electronic magazine owned by the NZ Society of Authors, www.authors.org.nz), surprisingly this is not reflected in the frequency of review titles selected by New Zealand reviewers. He states that NZ historical fiction is chosen at the same rate as most other genres, while crime fiction remains the most popular. Generally, however, he has received more positive feedback on New Zealand historical fiction titles. He says,“The subject matter strikes more of a chord with the reader than the average novel. This appears logical when we consider that the most voracious readers are often of the more mature variety, but with the general popularity of historical fictionthroughoutNewZealandwemust consider other factors. I believe it’s a curiosity of our own past combined with the fact that many of the most talented contemporary writers are successfully trying their hand at historical fiction.” Conor sees only more writers aiming for the same, and hopefully, with the same on-going success.
For those aspiring historical fiction novelists hoping to break into the market, Lorain Day, Commissioning Editor for HarperCollins, advises writers to explore more than the early period of colonization. She says,“I receive hundreds of manuscripts each year of which many are historical romances and they all try and replicate what has come before – enough of the trials of the long journey out and vomiting and fever below decks as howling storms shred the sails and babies die and are tragically buried at sea – the best historicalnovelsarebythoseauthorswho have moved beyond what has become cliché and are exploring the breadth and depth of our history.”
Our stories might be widely sought after in our own country, but what about the rest of the world? The truth is that New Zealand historical fiction still has a way to go to be internationally recognized. One of our problems is that many readers in other countries just aren’t aware of what we are publishing. We need to ask, do our marketing and publicity strategies need to be overhauled? Or even reinvented? With the advent of the internet, selling books isn’t limited to a local market – there is a global readership just waiting for something refreshingly new.
On the home front, with the huge number of popular and literary fiction titles being imported into New Zealand from the UK and the USA, there has been a real threat of our own stories being swamped. Yet, still our historical fiction continues to carve out its niche and gain popularity.
We only need one New Zealand historical fiction novel or historical author to hit the overseas bestseller lists to highlight what we have to offer. Like the film industry, where the world spotlight has now swung to New Zealand after the international success of Lord of the Rings, surely it has to be only a matter of time before the same thing happens to our literature. When it does, perhaps then we can truly say that New Zealand historical fiction has come of age.
Please note: This article pertains only to works which are relevant to the New Zealand land or people. Expatriate New ZealanderswhohavemadereputationsoverseaswithworksnotfeaturingNewZealand are not included, neither is the non-New Zealand work of local authors. NZ books canbepurchaseddirectfromthepublisher’swebsite,fromonlinebookshopssuchas www.justbooks.co.nz,orthroughyourlocal bookseller. NZ books are available worldwide.
Loren Teague is a Scot who works in the New Zealand book publishing industry as a manuscript assessor. Her first historical romantic novel, Highland Rebel, was published in April by Whiskey Creek Press in the US and received an Honourable Mention in the Richard Webster Popular Fiction Award – New Zealand’s only award for popular fiction. She has been a finalist in the Romantic Novelist’s New Writers Award (UK). Her website is www.lorenteague.co.nz.
Austen without Author
Amanda Grange asks and answers five key questions...
1. Why decide to revisit Jane Austen in the first place?
The idea of writing Darcy’s Diary came to me by accident. I was re-reading Pride and Prejudice and, as always, I found myself intrigued by Darcy’s thoughts and feelings. Jane Austen reveals very little of them and, like Lizzy, I found myself wondering when he fell in love with her.
Can one revisit Austen in fiction without offending Janeite purists?
Opprobrium
Elizabeth, something which attracted me both as a Jane Austen fan and as a writer, and I liked the idea of revisiting Pride and Prejudice from a different point of view, as it would give a new slant to the story.
2. How does one keep the tone true to the original?
This was particularly important in the new scenes, where plot, character and motivations needed to match the existing novel. I knew that Georgiana had planned to elope with Wickham, but she was no Lydia Bennet, fearless and noisy; she was a shy young girl who adored her brother, and it was important that the new scenes reflected this. Although Jane Austen gave some insight into the episode, for example that Wickham knew Georgiana’s companion, and that the two of them worked on her together, I still had to think of a convincing way in which such a shy young girl could be persuaded to run away.
At the same time, I found myself wondering about the year in which the book was set. There are two specific dates in the book: the Netherfield Ball takes place on Tuesday, 26th November (Tuesday from the end of Chapter 17 and 26th November from Chapter 44), and Mr Gardiner writes to Mr Bennet on Monday, August 2nd in the following year. Unfortunately, those two dates are not compatible, so I wondered which of the two was most likely to be wrong. I drew up a calendar on which to mark the other dates in an effort to decide, but I came to the conclusion that there can’t be a definitive answer to the problem of year, because of various contradictions in the text (although, for reasons given fully on my website www.amandagrange.com, I favour the idea of Pride and Prejudice being set in 1799/80). There was an unexpected side effect to the drawing up of the calendar, because it gave me the idea of writing Darcy’s Diary. I had already done much of the groundwork by making the calendar, and the more I thought about it, the more the idea appealed to me. I knew it would give me an opportunity to explore Darcy’s thoughts and feelings throughout his relationship with
I read Pride and Prejudice several times before starting work, once because I happened to be reading it again for pleasure, once to make detailed notes on names, places, events, etc, and once so that I could ask myself, ‘How would Darcy view this scene? What would he be thinking and feeling here?’
I then started writing. To keep the tone true to the original, I looked at the kind of vocabulary Jane Austen used and I made sure I used her vocabulary in Darcy’s Diary For example, Bingley often says ‘Upon my honour’, and Lydia is fond of saying ‘Lord!’. I didn’t use contractions – it’s, he’s, etc – because Austen very rarely uses them, and I often deliberately mimicked her sentence structure in order to provide a similar flow. At the same time, I bore in mind that I was writing Darcy’s Diary, and that Darcy is not as lively as either Lizzy – whose point of view we mainly see in Pride and Prejudice – or Austen herself, so I tried to make the writing a little stiffer than in Pride and Prejudice, particularly on occasions when Darcy was feeling especially proud or arrogant.
3. How does one keep the characterization true to the original?
I spent a lot of time thinking about the characters’ personalities, and maintained each character’s preoccupations: Mrs Bennet talks about her daughters, men and marriage, no matter what topic is being discussed; Lydia is entirely self-centred, and talks about nothing but pleasure in various forms; Mary moralises; Lizzy loves to tease; Bingley is pleased with everything; and Darcy, of course, thinks he is above everyone else.
I decided that Wickham must have played on her naivete and youth, building on her fond childhood memories of him, as well as reassuring her that he and Darcy were friends again. As the scene began to take shape, it revealed new insights into Darcy’s character, and I realised how difficult it must have been for a twenty-eight year old man to tell a fifteen-year-old girl that her lover was a fortune hunter. I also realized how difficult it would be for a formal man like Darcy to comfort his sister, but because of the way he treats her when we see them together in Pride and Prejudice, I was sure he would try. I enjoyed showing a softer side to Darcy, as in this scene he is very much the loving older brother.
Again, when I wrote the new scenes in London, where Darcy follows Wickham and Lydia after their elopement, I had to keep the characters’personalities very much in mind. Jane Austen mentioned in Pride and Prejudice that Wickham and Lydia were unrepentant, and I made sure I wrote them this way when Darcy tracked them down.
In the final chapter of Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen mentions a Christmas house party atPemberley, after Lizzy and Darcy’s marriage, and I wanted to bring the party to life. As this took place after the close of Pride and Prejudice, I had to extrapolate the
characters and their preoccupations, so that I could present them convincingly.
Mrs Bennet’s preoccupation throughout Pride and Prejudice was marrying off her daughters, and, as she still had two unmarried daughters, I continued this trait. Her immediate reaction, on seeing Colonel Fitzwilliam – a fine, upstanding bachelor, and a son of an earl, no less! – was to say to him, about Mary: ‘She will make some lucky soldier an excellent wife.’
Lydia is still Lydia, completely unashamed and unabashed; Mr Bennet is still fond of the library, Mary is still fond of moralising, whilst Kitty exhibits some change as she has spent more time with her sensible sisters. As for Lizzy and Darcy, I was sure they would still be very much in love.
With regard to Anne de Bourgh, however, I gave myself a much freer rein. I had always felt sorry for Anne, and it gave me a great deal of pleasure to imagine a happy ending for her. It doesn’t contradict anything in Pride and Prejudice, but neither does it directly follow on from it. Readers who like Anne will have to read Darcy’s Diary to find out what kind of future I gave her!
4. How much Austen should one include in one’s work?
I didn’t have any set ideas on how much of the original novel to include; I took the decision scene by scene. In the new scenes, of course, it’s only the outline that comes from Austen, but in the big scenes, for example the first proposal scene, I used mainly Austen’s dialogue, because it seemed pointless to replace it with my own. I trimmed it, however, and interspersed it with Darcy’s thoughts and feelings, to keep it fresh for those who know Pride and Prejudice very well.
5. Should one revisit other Austen novels? Yes. I’ve already written Mr Knightley’s Diary, which is a retelling of Emma, and it will be out in August 2006. I hope that readers who enjoyed Darcy’s Diary will enjoy Mr Knightley’s Diary, too.
Amanda Grange has written numerous historical romances and is the author of Darcy’s Diary (published by Robert Hale, ISBN 0709078609) and Mr Knightley’s Diary (to be published by Robert Hale in August 2006). She is a member of Regency UK. To find out more about the group, pleasevisithttp://historicalromanceuk.blogspot. com and http://www.regencyauthors.co.uk. To sign up for the free monthly Regency UK newsletter (email), send a blank email to UKRegencysubscribe@yahoogroups.com.
GIVING VOICE TO THE VOICELESS
Mary Sharratt discusses her historical novel The Vanishing Point with Sarah Johnson
The Vanishing Point, Mary Sharratt’s third novel, tells the story of two independent sisters, May and Hannah Powers, in 17th century England and America. When May’s exuberant sexuality ruins her marriage prospects in her small English town, her father arranges for her to wed a distant cousin across the Atlantic. Several years later, Hannah, who had secretly been trained as a doctor by her physician father, lands on the shores of colonial Maryland in search of her sister. Here she learns from her brother-in-law, Gabriel, that May had died in childbirth, and the baby with her. In this untamed wilderness, far from the influence of English society, Hannah falls deeply in love with Gabriel. But their union is plagued by uncertainty, for rumors of May and Gabriel’s unhappy marriage cause Hannah to doubt his version of events. As she struggles to balance her love for Gabriel with her loyalty to May, Hannah grows determined to untangle the mystery of her sister’s fate. A literary, suspenseful page-turner replete with fascinating details about 17th century women’s lives, The Vanishing Point seamlessly joins history and fiction.
An American writer who has resided abroad for many years, Mary currently lives near Pendle Hill in the Lancashire countryside, where she is active in the Manchester writing community. She also serves as a reviews editor for HNR’s British review team. The Vanishing Point was published as a Mariner paperback original in June 2006 ($12.95, 384pp, 0618462333). Mary’s website is www.marysharratt.com, and her blog, Sphinx Rising, can be found at sphinxrising.blogspot.com.
SJ: Your blog is dedicated to rewriting women back into history. What inspired you to make this a goal for your own writing?
MS: Our view of women’s history tends to be sadly distorted. As Paul Doherty pointed out when I interviewed him in the May 2006 issue of HNR, we often have lazy stereotypes that women in the past were completely helpless and disempow-
ered. But if you actually do the research, you learn about movers and shakers, such as Anne Hutchinson, the religious dissenter who helped found the colony of Rhode Island. How many more women were there like Anne Hutchinson whose lives and deeds were simply never recorded?
The late, great Mary Lee Settle wrote, “Recorded history is wrong. It’s wrong because the voiceless have no voice in it.” So many people have been written out of history: not only the vast majority of women, but also people of the peasant and laboring classes, and most people of non-European ancestry. My goal, from my first novel onward, has been using fiction as a tool to give voice to the voiceless. One of the major characters in The Vanishing Point is Afro-Caribbean.
Many years ago, as a tourist in Philadelphia, I visited a tiny row house where two 18th century seamstresses once lived and plied their trade. I felt immediately drawn into their world. Even in that era, when nearly every factor of the dominant religion and economy herded women into marriage and domesticity, some women still succeeded in carving out independent, masterless lives, ruled by neither father nor husband. The idea of finding out the hidden history of these two seamstresses provided the initial inspiration for The Vanishing Point
SJ: What was it about the colonial period, especially in the Chesapeake region, that particularly attracted you?
MS: In school, I got the impression that early America was all about strait-laced New England puritans. The Chesapeake, on the other hand, represented a completely different world – one that was much more racy and decadent. Instead of the close-knit New England village, you had far-flung plantations mimicking a wilderness version of English feudalism. The gentleman landowner had nearly absolute power over his family, indentured servants, and slaves. Yet it was paradoxically a very perilous place for a landowner to be: isolated in the back country where, in some cases, blacks far outnumbered their white masters. What potential for rebellion and mutiny existed?
I became entranced by this harsh, wild world, where malaria and yellow fever killed many, leaving countless children to be raised by stepparents, in contrast to New England, where many lived to see their grandchildren. How did people in the Chesapeake lead their lives, knowing how brutal and transient their existence was? How strong would you have to be to survive in this world?
SJ: In The Vanishing Point, May and Hannah are forced to build new lives for themselves in a new land, far away from everything that’s familiar – including each other. The themes of immigration and displacement appear in your earlier novels Summit Avenue and The Real Minerva as well. Given that you’re an American living abroad, how much do these themes resonate with you personally?
MS: As the old chestnut goes, you write what you know. Being foreign is what I know. I have lived half my life abroad: in Austria, Belgium, Germany, and now England. Immersing yourself in another culture is the ultimate test of character. It forces you to question every single assumption and expectation you’ve held dear. This is why I’m so fond of putting my fictional characters through the displacement mill. Conflict and crisis are inevitable and they will emerge completely transformed. Once you’re a foreigner, you’re always a foreigner, as I discovered when I moved briefly to California in 2001 after 13 years in Germany. I felt more alien there than I had in Europe. Being an outsider forces you to look at your own country with fresh eyes. I think this explains why setting is so important in my books. I’m always asking myself: what makes this place different from every other place I’ve ever been?
SJ: One of the things I enjoyed was the effort that clearly went into re-creating the late 17th century, especially the little details of daily life: the garments the women created and wore, the meals they prepared, the furniture they used. What were your most useful and productive research sources?
MS: My most inspiring sources were living history museums. I recall visiting Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home, and seeing a demonstration on spinning. I learned that even women of the wealthy elite would spend most of their “leisure” hours spinning, just to keep their families clothed. The re-enactors at these museums are steeped in their historical world. They don’t deal only in dry facts or dates but in an entire way of life. On a visit to Colonial Williamsburg, I spent an entire day talking to various re-enactors about everything from tanning leather to the medical treatment for consumption – it was believed
that cantering around on horseback was the best cure for weak lungs.
Of course, I read many books. Stand out titles included Antonia Fraser’s The Weaker Vessel and David Hackett Fischer’s monumental Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America. The knowledge of 17th century pharmacology and herbal medicine comes from my days of studying to be a Heilpraktiker (naturopath) while I was living in Germany. Although it didn’t work for me as a career path, it gave me the opportunity to study Galen, Paracelsus, and Culpepper, among others. Many of the medicinal plants mentioned in The Vanishing Point grow in my garden.
SJ: I’d like to ask about your characters’ dialogue, because it feels very realistic for the period without sounding either artificial or archaic. How did you manage to achieve such an effect?
MS: Historical dialogue is such a huge challenge for novelists. I have read and admired John Barth’s The Sot-Weed Factor and Thomas Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon. These two authors were bold enough to use period language for the entire narrative, allowing the reader to become completely immersed. However, I feared that if I attempted such a thing, the result might seem pretentious or unreadable, so I tried to strike a middle balance. I read excerpts from Samuel Pepys’s famous diaries and also his wife Elizabeth’s more recently discovered diary. These, along with letters and other journal excerpts from that era, formed the basis for the dialogue in The Vanishing Point. I tried to use as many period idioms and as much 17th century syntax as I could without alienating the modern reader.
SJ: In the afterword, you wrote about your desire to create a late 17th-century woman, May, who commanded her own destiny and demanded the same sexual and social liberties as a man. In your research, did you discover any women of the period for whom this was true?
MS: The late 17th century certainly had its share of unconventional and adventurous women. One of my favorites is Nell Gwyn, who, although illiterate, rose from poverty to being Charles II’s celebrated mistress, and was every inch the commander of her own destiny. Although she earned her living by acting (a highly disreputable profession in that era) and high-class prostitution, she was never ashamed or coy about what she was. When her coach driver attacked a man for calling her a whore, Nell reportedly broke up the fight by saying, “I am a whore. Find something else to fight about.”
Aphra Behn is another huge idol of
mine. She earned an independent living by writing plays and novels, and reputedly traveled to Surinam and later to Antwerp, where she worked as a spy for Charles II. Although she was briefly married, her husband remains an obscure footnote in her very colorful life.
It’s also interesting to note the frequent jokes about cuckolds in Restoration comedies. Although the dearth of reliable birth control put women at a disadvantage when it came to sexual freedom, upper-class wives apparently enjoyed adulterous romps and used their marital status as a shield for any resulting pregnancies.
SJ: The Vanishing Point underwent a long gestation process, and an even longer path to publication. An earlier agent of yours even discouraged you from pursuing it because, as she said, books set in the colonial period didn’t sell. What changed? What or who do you credit for your eventual success?
MS: Historical fiction in general has undergone a Renaissance and become much more “hot” and “hip” since the days when my former agent told me to abandon the manuscript. Authors like Sarah Waters, Philippa Gregory, Emma Donoghue, and Michel Faber helped put historical novels into the mainstream and freed it from the narrow confines of genre. Also I believe that The Vanishing Point’ s success may be due in part to the fact that there doesn’t seem to be lot of quality adult fiction written about women’s lives in early America.
SJ: What do you hope readers get out of reading The Vanishing Point?
MS: I want to transport readers to a different place in time and make 17th century Maryland come alive for them. I hope they get caught up in the story of Hannah’s quest for her lost sister in the backwater wilderness. I also hope this novel gives readers insight into how multifaceted women’s lives were in this period, that they weren’t just housewives and helpmeets, but that their quest for independence and dignity helped forge a new nation.
Sarah Johnson, HNR’s book review editor, is the author of Historical Fiction: A Guide to the Genre (Libraries Unlimited, 2005). Her articles and reviews have also been published in Booklist, Bookmarks, Library Journal, and Solander, among others. She is a reference librarian at Eastern Illinois University’s Booth Library in Charleston, Illinois.
ealizing a ream
Wendy Zollo sits down with A Rose For The Crown’s Anne Easter Smith
Anne Easter Smith has traveled the world and done everything except lead a linear life. She’s a tall, trim brunette of a certain age, fashionable and witty, sharp and clever. She loves the outdoor life, which makes the seaport town of Newburyport, Massachusetts, a perfect choice for this American Idol enthusiast to have chosen to settle down. Anne has two daughters from her first marriage, and Scott, her handsome husband of 18 years, is an I.T. executive for a German company. They enjoy the skiing, rafting, and hiking New England has to offer. I had the pleasure of meeting her children at Anne’s first book reading; Joanna is a captivating, chirpy redhead presently working in television production for the cable entertainment channel E!. Anne’s other daughter, Kate, is a freelance writer who edited the second go-round of A Rose For The Crown, and she focuses on restaurant reviews in the San Francisco area. The family is supportive and excited by Anne’s achievement and success.
At the time of this writing (June 2006) A Rose For The Crown had entered into its second printing. Though Touchstone Books (a division of Simon & Schuster) would not release exact sales figures, considering the novel was published in March of this year, this is an astounding feat!
Born in England and raised globally, Anne was what Americans call an Army brat. Says Anne, “My father was a British army colonel (think Alec Guinness in Bridge
over the River Kwai with a mustache!) and he was posted to Port Said as Port Commandant for the military in 1950. Right after King Farouk was deposed, he was offered a job by a big French shipping and banking company as manager of their Suez branch, so he got out of the army and we moved there. Went to the British School Suez branch until I was 10 and then was sent to boarding school in England. My parents left Egypt during the Suez Crisis in 1956 and settled in Great Bookham, Surrey.”
Despite the fact that I feel the ensuing story loses a smidgen in the retelling without Anne’s voice, gentle quips, witticisms, and minor lack of ability to stifle her own small tittering, the tale of the boarding school and influential teacher, “Conky”, is worth telling in her own words.
“Her real name was Miss Hartless – we never thought of any of them having actual first names, poor things! She was thin as a rail, ramrod straight, always wore laceup brogues with her boring grey skirts and buttoned-up blouses. Her grey hair was long enough to braid and wind three times round her head. Most of my friends found her boring, but I hung on her every word because she made the pages of our textbook come alive. She had new anecdotes and bits of gossip about everyone. I never got less than an ‘A’ in her class for homework and exams, but I failed my history GSCE the first time, much to her (and my) shock! Guess I gave them too much information
and never got to finish all the questions in time! Passed the second time, though.”
Anne became “riveted” by “Conky”, so named by her mates after William the Conqueror, and it was this teacher who first sparked Anne’s curiousity about the past, history, and Richard III. Richard III is such an overworked subject of historical fiction, so why would an untried author even broach it? What angle that hasn’t been done to death could possibly be left to tempt readers? He’s either the fiend of the Bard or the honorable lord of Penman’s Sunne in Splendour. Anne was not particularly driven over the last eight years or so to redeem the last Plantagenet king’s reputation with her debut novel. Although, if some small praise and elucidation were to shine on this overly denigrated monarch, Anne, herself a longtime member of the Richard III Society, would be delighted. No, Anne is more attracted to the ordinary women of her preferred era. Her protagonist, Kate Haute, mistress of Richard, is a “poor relation to a well-connected family” who finds a youthful love that metamorphoses into a woman’s passion and comfort against the
milieu of political deception, war, and the peaks and despairs of life.
Anne wanted to convey “the daily routine and the strength of the medieval woman.” Though Kate is a fictional character, it is well documented that Richard had a mistress, one whom he “likely” willingly relinquished upon his marriage. “As no one has ever disputed his faithfulness to his wife and queen, which is another reason,” Anne smiles, “why I admire the man.”
nections that we come to know Richard. By far though, Kate is the more interesting of the two lovers. Anne cleverly and wisely chooses to keep Kate away from court for the most part.
“While we know Richard had a mistress and acknowledged bastards with her, we don’t know definitively who she was.” Thus, Anne set much of their story in the beauty of the English countryside, allowing her readers to watch Kate flourish at Anne’s favorite manor house, Ightham Mote (which she’s discovered has a neat and uncanny Yorkist link). She doesn’t tread on known
are as essential to both author and reader as the well-known truths. This is a crucial truth for novels of the caliber of A Rose For The Crown, where the research is textured, plush, and exhaustive. Imagination is the vital ingredient that an artistic writer allows to flow in order to enhance the beauty of her discoveries and share these discoveries with her public.
The truly admirable aspect of the novel and one of the key points of A Rose For The Crown is its proof of how self-reliant women of that era were, peasant or otherwise. They were expected to work farms, cook, and run large households. In essence, they were estate managers, doctors, bookkeepers, and field hands, yet history does not accord them their due and their accomplishments are linked to the men they are associated with — if they are even documented at all, which in the case of the lower classes is unlikely.
So, what else does Anne have on the horizon for her public, subsequent to attaining an almost unheard of two book deal on the strength of her debut novel? In scrutinizing and poring over Richard, she became quite captivated with his older sister Margaret, “whose brother King Edward IV kept her hanging on for many years, attempting to marry her to seven different people.”
It was this passion which made it important for Anne to begin Kate’s tale with her childhood, even though the pace of the novel was slowed by this approach; through all the e-list trawling research I performed, this was the only off-putting observation readers offered. Anne reasons, “It was important for the readers to get to know Kate before introducing Richard into the story, so I felt I had to start her story with her childhood.”
As Anne moves us through Kate’s life, it’s through her con-
historical events by creating improbable situations.
“I needed readers to buy into her story so that her affair with Richard would be plausible. There will be 15th century scholars who will scoff at some of the thoughts I put into my characters’ heads, and my answer to that is: go read a textbook.”
Isn’t that what scholars should be doing?
This point, in fact, acknowledges the fiction in the genre of historical fiction. The fictional elements
Margaret eventually married Charles the Bold of Burgundy, where she was quite celebrated and popular. Says Anne, “I am now working to bring her to life…” Margaret of Burgundy is a relatively ignored personality in historical fiction and I’ve a cunning notion that, given some of Anne’s trickling hints, she’s already come to some noteworthy conclusions on her new subject. The as-yet-untitled novel is due for publication in the spring of 2007.
Wendy Zollo reviews for HNR and has interviewed Elizabeth Chadwick, Brian Wainwright and others for Trivium Publishing. She’s a practicing dental hygienist and mother of two boys (12 & 10) who routinely steal her young adult review books.
Ightham Courtyard (right) and Anne Easter Smith at Ightham Mote
Reviews
ANCIENT
THE YEAR OF THE COBRA
Paul Doherty, Headline, 2006, £19.99, hb, 308pp, 0755303423
The Year of the Cobra is the third and final book in the series based on the memories of Mahu, the Egyptian chief of police. Egypt is in danger. There are rumours that the Hittites are massing their armies in readiness for an assault on the country while Pharaoh Tutankhamen lies seriously ill. Mahu is sent on a mission to uncover the Hittites’ plan. The mission, however, is merely a trap and the chief of police barely escapes with his life. On his return to Egypt Mahu finds Pharaoh Tutankhamen dead and hastily buried, and he is forced to choose sides between the new Pharaoh and Egyptian leaders Rameses and Horemheb, who seek power for themselves. Having not read either of the first two books in the series, I found myself at a disadvantage, as the depth of characterization is missing; if I had read them, I would have had a better understanding of both the characters and the era in which the book is set. As it was, I found the book predictable and almost formulaic. Disappointing.
Mike Ashworth
NEFERTITI: The Book of the Dead Nick Drake, Bantam, 2006, £12.99, hb, 348pp, 0593054016
The Queen, ‘The Perfect One’, vanishes just before the festival at their new city to celebrate the new religion worshipping Aten, the Sun God, which she and Akhenaten have founded. The balance of power between the old priests, the army and the royal family is disturbed. Rahotep, the youngest chief detective at Thebes, is summoned to investigate. He has ten days to find her but, if he fails, he and his family will die.
The writing at times is poetic, and the author powerfully invokes the heat and dust of Egypt. I was carried along despite the occasional flagging of pace and the sometimes elliptical style which deprived me of information I wanted. This is a good read which will be enjoyed by those who like both ancient and modern Egypt. I shall look forward to more of Rahotep.
Austin’s latest entry in the Chronicles of the Kings series continues the saga of Israel’s King Hezekiah and his palace administrator, Eliakim, through their sons, Manasseh and Joshua. Raised almost as brothers, Joshua is bright and courageous, while Manasseh is lazy and easily
led astray. Upon the deaths of his father and mother, young King Manasseh, believing a seer who foretold that those around him will destroy him, begins to eliminate all who were faithful to King Hezekiah. While faithful servants help the disbelieving Joshua lead his family members to safety, Joshua’s youngest sister, Dinah, is held captive and victimized by Manasseh. Influenced by the idolatrous priest Zerah that a conspiracy exists, Manasseh renounces Yahweh and commences a reign of terror in Jerusalem. As all Judah reels in shock and pain at the bloody episodes, plots and counterplots abound: the tragic Dinah plans her revenge; Joshua, aided by Prince Amariah and the servant girl, Miriam, creates a bold plan of rescue; Lord Shebna’s wastrel grandson Hadad carries out his own agenda; and Lady Jerusha waits by hearth and home for her star-crossed family to reunite. Austin capably weaves her intertwined threads and creates believable characters in conflict with themselves and with each other.
Michael I. Shoop
JAEL’S STORY
Ann Burton, Signet, 2006, $6.99/C$9.99, pb, 282pp, 0451217896
Jael, called “most blessed among women” by the Old Testament prophetess, Deborah, is given a full treatment in Burton’s third entry of her Women of the Bible series. Setting the novel firmly in the context of war-torn ancient Palestine, the author weaves a credible backstory for the famous heroine Jael: her family life, her marriage expectations, the reality of her marriage to the polygamous and abusive Heber the Kenite, and her life in general up to her momentous killing of the powerful Canaanite general, Sisera. The author’s use of authentic terms describing everyday life in a nomadic family group, information on ancient metalsmithing, and scenes of marketplaces and caravans give the reader a certain feel for the times. Jael’s conversion from paganism to Yahweh due to a captive outsider’s influence adds interest, and even though her romantic relationship with Levi of Napthali feels somewhat contrived, readers won’t mind. This is fine entertainment for those who prefer their Biblical fiction on the light side.
Michael I. Shoop
LILAH
Marek Halter (trans. Howard Curtis), Crown, 2006, $24.00/C$32.00, hb, 272pp, 1400052815 / Bantam, 2006, £11.99, hb, 288pp, 0593052811 Lilah loves Antinoes, the famous Persian warrior, but will not marry him without the consent of her brother, Ezra. Ezra, a scholar of the Laws of Moses, will not allow her to wed a non-Jew. Forced to choose between her love and her family, Lilah devotes herself to her brother’s calling to lead the Jews out of their home of Susa to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. Once rebuilding has begun, Ezra becomes more and more orthodox in his strict adherence to Jewish law and eventually decrees that any foreignborn wife of a Jewish man must leave Jerusalem. Rebelling against her brother’s fanaticism, Lilah leaves the city with the expelled wives and tells the story of what happened to them after banishment.
Halter writes deftly and passionately about Lilah’s love for Antinoes but seems to understand little of why she would ultimately choose to follow her brother to Jerusalem rather than stay with her Persian husband. I didn’t understand that choice, either, because Ezra, as Halter has portrayed him, is nothing but nasty to her for nearly the whole 300 pages. The love story, which takes up about three-fourths of the book, is well worth reading for historical romance fans, but once the Jews are on the road to Jerusalem, Halter seems too constrained by Biblical verse to inject much life into the rest of the story. The back cover blurb makes much of Lilah being the first woman in the Bible to speak out again religious extremism. Speak out she does, but no one listens, which makes for a lackluster and disappointing ending.
To save her family from being sold into slavery to pay her father’s debts, Rahab of Jericho reluctantly becomes a prostitute. But when the Hebrew leader Joshua sends two spies into Jericho, Rahab she meets and falls in love with both Ardon and his God. Rahab hides the spies from Jericho’s guards, and in return is promised that when Jericho falls, she and her family will be spared. After Jericho is destroyed, Rahab yearns to become a true follower of God, and to gain Ardon’s love. But can Ardon forgive Rahab’s sinful past?
Since I enjoyed Morris’s No Woman So Fair (about Sarah), Daughter of Deliverance was a disappointment. Historical glitches – coins in 1400 BC, for instance – aren’t as bad as the constant statement that God has given Canaan to the Hebrews, but they’ll have to conquer it themselves. (“Son, I’m giving you the neighbor’s new car, but you’ll have to steal it yourself.”) And Rahab incessantly says God is forgiving and compassionate; an odd statement considering the number of people God orders killed, some of them Hebrews. Rahab’s Story by Ann Burton and Unashamed by Francine Rivers are better versions of this tale.
The Iliad is one of the oldest works of western literature. Composed during the 8th century BC, it still maintains a powerful hold on the human imagination. Essentially, the story takes place over three days during the 10th year of the Trojan War. Achilles continues to refuse to join the Greeks fighting the Trojans because of Agamemnon’s theft of his war prize, the beautiful maid Briseis. The battle goes back and forth, with the Trojans gaining the upper hand. Patroclus, Achilles’ closest friend, convinces Achilles to lend him his armor and lead his warriors into battle. Hector, the hero of Troy, kills him. This enrages Achilles, so he joins the battle, kills Hector, and then drags his body
around the city walls to humiliate him further. Priam, Hector’s father, approaches Achilles and begs him to return Hector’s body for proper burial. Achilles is moved by Priam’s humility and emotional plea, so he concedes. The story ends with Hector’s cremation and burial.
Baricco’s interpretation is unique and insightful. He has edited out repetition, stylized the language for the modern ear, made the narrative subjective, and added some commentary, albeit minor. Overall, this is an original and inspiring rendition of a classic, well worth revisiting.
HELEN OF TROY
Memnon made public. Ariston’s story provides the prologue and an interlude to the narrative of Memnon, which is written in the third person
The author has created a compelling story of the ancient world. I found his narrative rich in drama and tension; his battle scenes are authentic in detail and exciting to read. The author realistically describes the settings and people of ancient Greece. If you enjoy Steven Pressfield’s novels, you’ll enjoy this book as well. I look forward to Scott Oden’s next novel.
Once again we have a re-telling of the Trojan War from Helen’s point of view. For those of you who came in halfway through the epic, a real quick summary: Helen of Sparta is the most beautiful woman in the world. She marries Menelaus, brother of King Agamemnon of Mycenae. When Prince Paris of Troy visits Sparta, he and Helen fall in love, and she flees with him to Troy. Her husband and brotherin-law lead an armada against Troy, starting a war that lasts ten years and results in the destruction of Troy. Helen goes back to Sparta with Menelaus.
This particular rendition of the epic events is competently done, but doesn’t do anything new with the material, and I didn’t find it anything special. This may simply be because I’ve read at least half a dozen novels about the Trojan War from Helen’s viewpoint – the most recent, by Amanda Elyot, published last fall. Goddess by Miranda Seymour, The Memoirs of Helen of Troy by Amanda Elyot, and Helen’s Passage by Diana M. Concannon are only three of the novels that let us see the Trojan War through Helen’s eyes.
Although I’d expected something more innovative from Margaret George, her Helen novel is a decent addition to this sub-genre of the epic. So, as someone once said in another context: “If you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you’ll like.” Aficionados of the Homeric epic should certainly give Helen of Troy a try.
India Edghill
MEMNON
Scott Oden, Medallion, 2006, $24.95/C$33.95, hb, 500pp, 1932815392
Memnon of the island of Rhodes lived from 375 to 333 BC. Although of Greek heritage, he supported the Persian Great King both in peace and in war. As a Greek mercenary, he was a considered a traitor to his people. But to Darius III, the king of Persia, he was a great leader of men. He would have his chance to prove his leadership skills against the advance of the Macedonian army of Alexander the Great as it marched into Asia Minor.
A mysterious rich and elderly woman, who is on her deathbed, tells the story of Memnon to Ariston of Lindos several years after the death of Alexander. She wishes to have the true story of
TRACES: Birth of Alexander the Great Faye Turner, Ki Eea Key, 2006, $14.95, pb, 416pp, 0976250039
This book is second in a series that tells the story of the events surrounding, and people involved with, the birth of Alexander of Macedonia around 356 BC. Daneion, a peddler trained in the art of healing, narrates the story. He is also the personal physician to Olympias, who eventually marries King Philip of Macedonia and gives birth to Alexander. Most of the plot deals with Daneion’s search for food for the starving people of Athens, who have been suffering through a drought. To accomplish his task, he travels the Aegean Sea region while personally attending to Olympias as she prepares for her marriage to Philip and, later, Alexander’s birth. Running throughout the story is an undercurrent of magic and mystery surrounding Alexander’s paternity, as well as premonitions of a Celtic priesthood about the future son of Olympias.
I read the first book, Before the Dawn, prior to reading Traces, and found it the better and more interesting novel of the two. Although this novel can stand alone, I would recommend reading Before the Dawn first because it provides greater explanation on the mystical Celtic prophecy about Alexander the Great. Also, Daneion’s relationship with Olympias is explained in greater detail. The author did a fine job with her research on the culture and political intrigue of the ancient Greek world, although she bases the conception and birth of Alexander on myth and conjecture.
Jeff Westerhoff
1st CENTURY
THE PASSION OF MARY MAGDALEN
Elizabeth Cunningham, Monkfish, 2006, $29.95, hb, 640pp, 0976684306
Mary Magdalen in Christian scripture is the woman freed of seven demonic spirits, a follower of Jesus Christ during his earthly ministry, and the one who finds Jesus’s empty tomb after his resurrection from the dead. But Elizabeth Cunningham has chosen in this fictional tale to present a livelier and worldlier character, no less spiritual than the one presented in the gospels. This Mary is actually Maeve Rhuard, daughter of eight warrior witches, who shares love with Eseus (Jesus) on a Druid island, is sold into Roman slavery as a whore, is then sold to the phenomenally childish but cruel Roman wife of the Emperor Claudius, then becomes a priestess of Isis, finally becoming the companion and wife of Jesus.
Given Mary’s descent into the debauchery and savagery of Roman life, one must accommodate her rather earthy and profane, to say the least, descriptions and language. After one adjusts to the 21st century “truck driver in a bar” dialogue, one is mesmerized by this riveting, empathic, god-filled, healing priestess. This Mary is capable of forgiving the most outrageous brutality but incapable of surrendering to a passive existence as someone else’s possession, including that of the Master. Indeed, she emerges as the disciple most capable of comforting and empathizing with her lover, Jesus, who is frequently confused by his evolving, dedicated ministry.
Elizabeth Cunningham presents Mary’s energetic, feisty love in untraditional, fascinating breadth and depth of personality that you, the reader, will never forget, no matter your religious perspective. Here Mary Magdalen shares the ministry of a leader and disciples who truly called men and women of all nations, religions, and races into a new way of loving. Amazing story!
Viviane Crystal
TWO WOMEN OF GALILEE
Mary Rourke, MIRA, 2006, $21.95/C$26.95, hb, 244pp, 0778332749
Rourke, a religious scholar and journalist for the LA Times, offers a new interpretation of events leading to the Crucifixion. Her heroine, Joanna, is briefly mentioned in Luke as a woman whom Jesus cured from her afflictions, and Roarke creates a full life for her as a consumptive Jewess whose father alienated his relatives by siding with Rome. Joanna knows every luxury as the wife of Herod Antipas’s chief steward, and though she has her husband’s love, her life revolves around trivial matters, like caring for her rose garden in the village of Sepphoris. A chance encounter in the marketplace reunites her with her long-estranged cousin, Mary. Their acquaintance causes concern for Joanna’s husband, Chuza, who never followed his wife’s birth religion, and it makes Antipas wonder how he can use Joanna’s connections to his advantage.
Presuming on Mary’s friendship, Joanna arranges to meet Mary’s son, whose growing reputation as a healer has spread. Jesus does cure Joanna’s lung-disease, and refreshingly, her miraculous recovery is not instantaneous. Joanna’s spiritual transformation also progresses realistically, as she grows ever more curious about the man who healed her. Still more compelling is Mary, a kind middle-aged woman of Nazareth with a home, family, and admirers, but who is also deeply concerned about her son’s fate.
Aside from the dangers Joanna faces through her association with Jesus, which are considerable, this is essentially a gentle read about one woman’s spiritual growth. The historical background is lightly sketched – there are a few anachronisms – and the language is modern and uncomplicated. Those seeking extensive detail about 1st century Palestine won’t find it here. Yet Two Women of Galilee is an enjoyable tale that provides compassionate insight into two biblical women’s personalities. Sarah Johnson
EDITORS’ CHOICE MEDICUS AND THE DISAPPEARING DANCING GIRLS
Ruth Downie, Michael Joseph, 2006, £12.99, hb, 352pp, 0718149297 / To be pub. by Bloomsbury USA, 2007, as Medicus Britannia, 117 AD. Having just joined the hospital staff at the Roman legionary fortress of Deva (Chester), world-weary surgeon Gaius Petreius Ruso examines the murdered corpse of a young woman dredged up from the river. Then a ‘barmaid’ goes missing from Merula’s establishment. If this indicates a serial killer at large, Ruso doesn’t want to know. Saddled with the debts of his dead father and home improvement-obsessed sister-inlaw in Gaul, he needs to finish writing his Concise Guide to Military First Aid and obtain a speedy promotion. All he has gained up to now is the useless, broken-armed slave girl he impulsively rescued from a passing merchant. So far, so Lindsey Davis, you might think. Perhaps, but this novel (three of whose early chapters won Solander’s first writing competition) more than holds its own in the Roman detective stakes. Grounded in solid but unobtrusively historical knowledge, it has memorable characters, a satisfying mystery and a vivid sense of place. Downie also treats us to some inspired comic dialogue and a running joke showing the Roman military medical service as an NHS-in-microcosm, complete with bean-counting bureaucrats and literal-minded clerks. An engaging debut, set fair to become a popular series.
Glevum (modern day Gloucester) in Roman Britain, 188 AD. Libertus, the pavement maker, is sick. However, his patron, Marcus Septimus, has a pressing concern. Marcus’s wife and young son have been kidnapped, and Libertus is the only one who can help them. But when Libertus is implicated in the crime, the situation threatens to have dire implications for the pavement maker. The mysterious Philades, a Greek physician, adds to the aggravation. And then Gwellia, Libertus’s wife, also goes missing.
For much of the book, the ailing Libertus is confined to bed, which means the author has to work hard to keep the narrative flowing. Once again, the more unsavoury aspects of Roman life are not spared, which lends an authentic feel. There are a few niggles, such as a couple of typos. But there are plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader amused. Overall, it’s a story well grounded in the Roman era.
This third book in the Mascen’s Treasure series tells the tale of the quest for the sword, Excalibur, the fourth piece of five ceremonial symbols used by the high kings of Britain. Marcus ap Iorwerth and his wife, Claerwen, are initially drawn into Britain’s north by an effigy with a dagger run through it, and a warning
that suggests two princes and Octa the Saxon’s warbands will threaten Uther Pendragon’s reign. Uther, meanwhile, is begetting Arthur on Igraine, while Myrddin the Enchanter is sometimes here, sometimes there. By the time it becomes apparent that the sword might be a target as well, there is an assassin stalking Marcus and Claerwen, leading to perilous adventures across the lawless lands of post-Roman Britain.
I came to this novel without having read the first two instalments in the series, but this was no handicap. The self-contained story fleshes out the time period and provides a good picture of how chaotic life must have been then. I liked the characters and thought they were believable. However, I did feel that the same story could have been told in fewer words; while there was plenty of action within each scene, I felt some scenes were superfluous – for example, two characters are exiled, and their musings while in exile could have been made evident with fewer scenes and a well-placed time lapse. And sometimes the author’s phrasing – use of complex words in places, omission of words in others – required me to re-read sentences. Nonetheless, this is a well-plotted addition to the Arthurian canon.
Claire Morris
10th CENTURY
AVALON
Anya Seton (foreword by Philippa Gregory), Chicago Review Press, 2006 (c1965), $14.95/ C$20.95, pb, 448pp, 1556526008 / To be pub. by Hodder, Feb. 2007, £6.99, pb, 384pp, 0340921226
Having thoroughly enjoyed Anya Seton’s Katherine, I was excited to delve into this reissue of her 1965 classic novel Avalon. I was not disappointed. This is a compelling tale of
the star-crossed love between Rumon, a young prince descended from Charlemagne, and Merewyn, a willful, lonely girl who stubbornly clings to her identity as a descendant of King Arthur. As Rumon and Merewyn search for the Avalon of their dreams, their journeys, at times alone and at times together, lead them through 10th-century England, Iceland, Greenland, and newly-discovered North America.
Anya Seton has vividly and colorfully portrayed life during the tumultuous Dark Ages: the Viking raids, the power and political struggles among royalty, and the spread of Christianity around the world. She has deftly blended fact (as much as research allowed at the time she wrote the novel) and fiction, and has seamlessly woven stories of well-known historical personalities, such as Eric the Red, St. Dunstan, and Queen Alfrida, into the satisfyingly unpredictable plot.
In her afterword, Seton wrote: “At any rate, I have tried to tell an accurate story and to illuminate a shadowy corner of the past.” And so she did, quite remarkably.
Andrea Connell
11th CENTURY
VIKING: King’s Man
Tim Severin, Pan, 2006, £6.99/C$12.99, pb, 318pp, 0330426753
This is the third and final novel in Tim Severin’s Viking trilogy, which tells the eventful life story of Thorgils, a Viking adventurer of the first half of the 11th century. The novel opens in Constantinople in 1035 with Thorgils, under the leadership of warrior chief Harald Sigurdsson, involved in combating Arab pirates in the Mediterranean and engaged in a campaign to recover Sicily from the Saracens. It ends in 1066 with Harald’s defeat at the Battle of Stamford Bridge and the consequent triumph of William of Normandy over Harold Godwinson’s exhausted army. Severin proposes a conspiracy between Harald and William to defeat Harold, on which William reneges at the last minute. Thorgils is warned of his treachery in a prophetic dream.
As one would expect of Severin, who is as much explorer as creative artist, this is fine boy’s own adventure, intricately plotted and actionpacked. The author’s research is impeccable, if a little too heavily laid on for this reviewer. The writing style is plain and unpretentious, designed to draw no attention to itself but to focus the mind on the scheming and fighting it narrates. Despite Severin’s meticulous and vivid recreation of Thorgils’ world, I found the book ultimately rather emotionless and unengaging. Thorgils has little inner life, but this will not be a drawback for those who enjoy adventure stories in an authentic early mediaeval setting.
Sarah Bower
12th CENTURY
THE DUCHESS OF AQUITAINE
Margaret Ball, St. Martin’s Press, 2006, $25.95/ C$34.95, 384pp, 0312205333
Ah! A novel about Eleanor that covers her days before Henry II!
The historical facts surrounding Eleanor’s
13th Century-14th Century
life with Henry II are well known. Ball’s novel, though, takes us to a time in Eleanor’s life when she is creating herself – out of grief, out of fear, out of sheer desperation. She is 15 when her father, the Duke of Aquitaine, dies suddenly. Upon the Duke’s death, Eleanor becomes one of the most coveted prizes in Christendom, the beautiful heiress to the richest province in France, and the likeliest victim of a marriage by kidnap.
How Eleanor avoids that eventuality and decides her own fate is a joy to behold in Ball’s talented hands. Eleanor hatches a plan to wed King Louis, not realizing that she is marrying a man who should have been a monk, and spends years both miserable and lonely. Yet despite that unhappiness, Eleanor becomes wise counsel to her husband, and is considered a threat by many around him because she is smart and knows her politics.
Anyone who knows me knows that I will read anything about Eleanor. For the most part, I am bored or angered or simply put off by most renditions of Eleanor’s life. I’m glad that the years I’ve been waiting for the publication of Ball’s book have been well worth the wait. Her characters are beautifully drawn, especially those of Eleanor and Louis. The plot moves along swiftly and deftly. Eleanor’s experiences on crusade with Louis are appealing, exciting and just plain marvelous. In less than 400 pages, Ball manages to personalize Eleanor so entirely to us that we forget that we’re reading about one of the greatest women in history.
Obviously, I loved this book and was sad when it ended… with Eleanor’s marriage to Henry!
In 13th century Scotland, Margaret MacDonald, the laird’s daughter, prepares to wed Lachlan, a cousin of the king. When Lachlan betrays her, she refuses to marry him. Her parents, however, remain steadfast that she go through with the wedding. Therefore, with her sister Nell in tow, they send the defiant Margaret to a convent to reconsider.
Upon Margaret’s return to her Highland village of Somerstrath, devastation, bloodshed, and death greet her. Norse invaders have laid claim to her lands and her people. Her young brother, Davey, is unaccounted for, and all believe he has been abducted by the Norsemen. Gannon MacMagnus, a half-Irish, half-Norse warrior, comes upon the scene of the ravaged town. He and his men vow to fight and save the rugged, magnificent land Margaret calls home, avenge the deaths of her people, and find her abducted brother, Davey.
This historical romance is rich with emotion, vivid in description, and accurately believable. The characters are multi-dimensional, and their actions evoke deep feelings. The violence of the times comes to life as the reader is exposed to the aftermath of a savage raid, which is typical of the period. I look forward to reading the sequel.
Mirella Patzer
THE PRINCE OF POISON
Pamela Kaufman, Three Rivers, 2006, $14.95, pb, 432pp, 1400080630
The trilogy of novels by Pamela Kaufman about Alix of Wanthwaite, a woman who disguises herself as a boy, goes on crusade with a rather lascivious Richard the Lion Heart, and becomes entangled in the Plantagenet family’s endless schemes began with the offbeat and
EDITORS’ CHOICE
Bernard Knight, Simon & Schuster, 2006, £18.99, hb, 347 pp, 0743259513
AD 1195. ‘Crowner John’ – otherwise the splendidlynamed Sir John de Wolfe, black-haired and frequently bad tempered – is confronted by an abandoned ship and the bodies of its master and crew: all murdered, but the former is his old friend, Thorgils. John has an implacably hostile wife, Matilda, and an independent-minded mistress, red-haired Nesta. Thorgils’ lovely wife Hilda was John’s childhood sweetheart. Now she will be a desirable widow, complicating the coroner’s stressful life as he proceeds with the investigation of seemingly unconnected, increasingly blasphemous and gruesome killings. The Crowner and his team are condemned to interminable journeys across Devon in foul weather, alchemy, treason, phantoms, mysterious monks and the irksome presence of his odious brother-inlaw, Richard de Revelle. The coroner must look back to the disastrous Crusade of fifty years ago before he can establish the connection linking these sadistic crimes and frustrate the threat of worse horrors.
John is described as insensitive. Female readers may not agree, although shrewish Matilda undoubtedly would. Lusty, outspoken and incorruptible, as a born leader he has patience to spare for anyone who deserves it.
A first-time reader will have no problem picking up the previous histories of the Crowner, his women, his friends and enemies. Energetic narrative, excellent pacing and a solidly convincing background combine to complete the pleasures of reading The Elixir of Death. Nancy Henshaw
delightfully satirical Shield of Three Lions. Alix’s further adventures were explored in Banners of Gold, where her duels with her Scottish love, Enoch, are spiced by madcap events leading to her becoming pregnant by none other than — Well, it would be unfair to give away the details, as the uninitiated who are interested would be wise to read the first two novels before attempting to navigate this third and final installment, The Prince of Poison.
Kaufman does not waste time filling in backstory as she plunges us into Alix’s struggle to safeguard her newborn son from the titular poisonous royal, John, and his mother, the manipulative and ubiquitous Eleanor of Aquitaine. Alix’s harrowing escape from France holds a moment of glee echoing the previous novels when she befriends two orphaned ducks. However, her return to England and to Enoch heralds tragedy and tribulation, as she faces deep personal loss and joins a rebellion in vengeance to destroy King John.
Readers who know their English medieval history are no doubt aware of how John ended up in actuality; Kaufman’s speculations offer an intriguing perspective, nevertheless. However, the conclusion of this series tends toward the somber. It lacks both the arch-humor and sheer joie de vivre of past installments, and a tendency to short-hand descriptions and overuse of exclamation points stultifies the prose at moments. Still, Alix remains at heart a heroine of spirit and independence, a medieval woman who proves to be more than a match for her enemies and her era.
In 1263 in England, Philip de Tollard, bastard of Ralph Aubernon, earns his livelihood as a groom because his father refuses to recognize him. Although Philip falls in love with Beatrice, a noblewoman, he will not marry her until he can provide for her, so he asks his father to be recognized as his son and for a small inheritance. But before Ralph can fulfill Philip’s requests, he dies mysteriously. Gareth, Philip’s legitimate half-brother, and his mother, Clarise, accuse Philip of the murder, forcing him to flee and join the Crusades. Beatrice waits years for Philip’s return, but is forced to marry the brutally abusive Gareth, who forces her to accompany him on Crusade.
In the Holy Land, a band of brigands led by Philip kidnaps her. Beatrice strikes a dreadful bargain and is forced to return to Gareth. Life with Gareth returns to its pattern of drastic physical abuse. In a nail-biting climax, Philip confronts his failings to prevent further loss of life and rescue Beatrice.
The story is rich with characters the reader will love and hate, and its soul-searching moral dilemmas are wonderfully presented. The ending leaves the reader with a sense that justice has prevailed.
Mirella Patzer
14TH CENTURY
14th Century-16th Century
BEYOND THE ABBEY GATES
Catherine MacCoun, Trumpeter, 2006, $15.95/$21.00, pb, 352pp, 1590303717. (Prev. pub. as The Age of Miracles, Atlantic Monthly, 1989)
In this 14th century historical romance, a traveling troubadour named Jack breaks his leg near Greyleigh Abbey. The nuns take him in and place him under the care of Ingrid, a young resident blessed with the ability to heal and who is hailed as a saint. Jack’s bold-as-brass panache for life’s pleasures intrigues her – a contrast to the harsh discipline within the abbey. Ingrid succumbs to his charms but soon thereafter is separated from him.
As Jack searches for Ingrid, he becomes less of a charlatan and loses his take-what-I-can attitude about life. Misfortune and calamity shakes Ingrid’s faith. Jack’s rise to morality and Ingrid’s fall from grace set the stage for a satisfying tale as they both courageously face their misadventures and overcome them.
This novel is peppered along the way with interesting characters. At times, I found that some of them changed so dramatically and so suddenly that it left me wanting more rationale for their motivations. Regardless, Catherine MacCoun has penned an intriguing tale of two people whose faith deepens through a series of mistakes and failures that lead them back to each other.
Set in 14th-century Italy, The Barefoot Girl follows the life of a poor peasant girl from the harvest fields of Ancona to the market town of San Severino, where she is taken by her future husband, the cruel, abusive and very wealthy Domenico Vasari. Sold to Vasari by her father, who sees the marriage as a boon for his struggling family, 15-year-old Margherita is torn unwillingly from her mother and sister and the farm boy she loves, bathed, dressed in a yellow damask gown and warned to act like a lady while in the company of Vasari’s friends – or else.
Lonely, surrounded by avarice and subjected to cruelty, the girl is drawn to San Severino’s starving impoverished; despite her husband’s warnings, she becomes determined to help them. Dressed in rags and shoeless in the dead of winter, she slips from Vasari’s castle to deliver food to the homeless and suffers terrible physical abuse at Vasari’s hands because of it. Encouraged by the trust she has earned from the hungry as well as her friendship with a handsome, young priest and the promise of love she feels in the baby growing inside her, Margherita continues her mission – at times, a true battle – to help San Severino’s poor, particularly the young girls and women forced into lives of prostitution to earn a crumb of bread.
The first in a series of fictional historical biographies by Paula Paul writing as Catherine Monroe, The Barefoot Girl is told by the elderly Margherita looking back on the bare bones of her life, a life marked by physical beatings, rape, greed, murder and, thankfully, love. The
author handles these themes frankly and with the abundance of grace appropriate to St. Margaret, the Barefooted One, Patroness of the Abused. Alana White
15th CENTURY
THE BOY’S TALE
Margaret Frazer, Hale, 2006 (c1995), £18.99, hb, 223pp, 0709078684
The peace of St Frideswide’s is shattered with the arrival of two small boys after their party is apparently attacked by outlaws. Dame Frevisse suspects there is more to their story, and her fears are confirmed when she discovers that young Edmund and Jasper are half-brothers to King Henry VI.
The group is granted sanctuary but their troubles are far from over when an assassin dogs their every move. Meanwhile, Domina Edith, the wise and comforting prioress, is near to death, leaving the nuns in a heightened state of anxiety. Dame Frevisse needs to keep a cool head if she is to get to the bottom of this mystery and prevent further murders from taking place.
The Dame Frevisse series is now well in its stride and offers a complete package of well-rounded characters, high mystery and a good dollop of colourful history. Once again Dame Frevisse proves to be an intelligent and resourceful protagonist, whose humanity underlines her every thought and deed. The solution to the mystery goes to prove her outlook on life – that nothing is ever completely black and white, just as no one is completely good or evil. I’m already looking forward to reading her next adventures.
Sara Wilson
THE SECRET SUPPER
Javier Sierra (trans. Alberto Manguel), Atria, 2006, $25.95, hb, 329pp, 0743287649 / Simon & Schuster, 2006, £12.99, hb, 336pp, 0743276299
Leonardo da Vinci is the patron of thrillers these days – despite the fact that he was, and indeed one might argue still is, the most accomplished artist of the Renaissance, whose versatility and achievements are nothing short of astonishing. It is therefore difficult at times to read a novel in which someone of his inimitable stature has been reduced to an agent of occult sciences, less interesting for the glory of his art than for the cryptic enigmas hidden therein. Nevertheless, Javier Sierra’s The Secret Supper does its best to give us a more fully developed portrait of the artist, even as it careens into the well-trodden territory of conspiracies and lethal opponents intent of ridding the world of those who question the Catholic Church.
Here, an officer of a secret society of inquisitors is sent to 15th century Milan at the behest of his superiors, in search of a deadly anonymous informant called the Soothsayer, whose letters are full of accusations that Leonardo – currently painting The Last Supper on the wall of a Sforza chapel – is a heretic intent on undermining the scriptural foundation of the Church. The inquisitor has very little to go on, yet he reaches Milan determined to root out the heresy and discover the identity of his malevolent
informant. Suffice to say, he gets more than he bargained for as he becomes drawn into Leonardo’s extraordinary world. Unfortunately for us, he remains at heart a narrow-minded and underdeveloped character who cannot hope to hold a candle to the extraordinary presence of the artist. The novel comes alive whenever Leonardo is present, and while the conspiracy itself is less shocking than expected, there remains an inherent fascination in the author’s underlying framework of mysterious Gnostic texts and literary puzzles of the Renaissance.
C.W. Gortner
16TH CENTURY
THE SILVER ROSE
Susan Carroll, Ballantine, 2006, $13.95, pb, 528 pp, 0345482514
Good witches, bad witches, thwarted love and dark queens: such is the romantic landscape of the third novel in Susan Carroll’s trilogy featuring the “Sisters of Faire Isle,” three wise women known for their mystical abilities. Set in 16th-century France, The Silver Rose belongs to Miri Cheney, the gentlest of the trio, whose healing skills and ability to see the future label her as a witch – not a good thing when the man who holds Miri’s heart is Simon Aristide, the notorious witch-hunter responsible for the Cheney clan’s exile from Brittany.
But it’s now 1585, and a wiser Simon returns to Brittany seeking Miri’s help: a sinister coven of witches loyal to the mysterious woman known as the Silver Rose means to destroy the queen of France, Catherine de’ Medici. A devotee of the black arts, Catherine is determined to have the so-called Book of Shadows so she might unlock its dangerous secrets.
Highly entertaining, The Silver Rose provides a captivating look at Renaissance France. Intrigued by Carroll’s portrayal of Catherine de’Medici’s interest in necromancy, I turned to the latest biography of the woman history sometimes calls the Black Queen. And yes, Catherine did earn that dark reputation.
Alana White
IN THE COMPANY OF THE COURTESAN
Sarah Dunant, Random House, 2006, $23.95, hb, 384pp, 1400063817 / Little, Brown, 2006, £12.99, hb, 416pp, 0316029688
The Birth of Venus, Sarah Dunant’s first historical novel, is one of my all-time favorite books. Dunant writes with such power and passion, you can feel the blood of the characters pulse just beneath her words on the page. Her second historical, In the Company of the Courtesan, does not disappoint in this regard. She brings to splashing, stinking life the splendors and horrors of 16th-century Venice. You can smell the putrid muck as they dredge the canals, feel glass crunch beneath your feet on the island of Murano, and hear the bloodlust in the voices of Rome’s Protestant invaders.
After using their wits to survive the sack of Rome, dwarf Bucino Teodoldo, manager, entertainer and friend of the great courtesan, Fiammetta Bianchini, leads his mistress home to Venice with only the clothes on their backs and
what few jewels they could swallow. Starving, broke, her beauty ruined, Fiammetta falls into despair, until Bucino’s cunning devotion and a mysterious blind healer named La Draga help to restore her former glory and re-establish her career. As their fortunes rise, Venice herself offers temptations as seductive as her famed courtesans. A former adversary, a young lover and a Turkish collector of exotics each test Bucino’s faith in himself and his lady’s loyalty.
Dunant’s story is well researched and fascinating in its detail. The scene in which various city courtesans advertise for new patrons at Sunday Mass is a treat. Yet the history never overwhelms the story. Where the plot of The Birth of Venus was as tight as marquetry work, In the Company of the Courtesan hangs a bit more loosely. But you will be glad of the extra time spent in the company of these characters.
Lessa J. Scherrer
PLAIN JANE: A Novel of Jane Seymour Laurien Gardner, Jove, 2006, $6.99/C$9.99, pb, 352pp, 0515141550
Young Jane Seymour is stunned when she overhears her parents discussing her future: as they consider Jane too plain to attract a husband, they will send her to a nunnery – at least when they can find one that won’t demand too high an offering. Jane vows to prove them wrong about this bleak prospect. She does so, spectacularly.
Unlike the earlier novels in this series, where ladies in waiting are major characters, Plain Jane focuses on Jane herself. Gardner’s Jane is an opportunist in the positive sense of the word, able to seize upon what life offers her and to make the best of it, whether it be an invitation to join the court or a chance to marry the king. The reader can’t blame her for pursuing the latter option, for the Anne Boleyn portrayed here is thoroughly disagreeable, sometimes to the point of caricature. Henry VIII, by contrast, is more complex: kindly to Jane most of the time, he is capable of turning viciously on her when she seems to him to be meddling in his affairs.
The writing style here is somewhat choppy. There are long stretches of one- or two-sentence paragraphs, which I found distracting. More problematic was the fact that Gardner at times carries the theme of plainness versus beauty too far. It seems simplistic, for instance, to ascribe Anne Boleyn’s downfall to her being so “deceived by her long reign of beauty” that she fails to understand Henry. On the whole, however, I found this novel to be an engaging portrait of a determined woman.
Susan Higginbotham
THE LAST QUEEN
C. W. Gortner, Two Bridges Press, 2006, $15.95/ C$22.95, pb, 289pp, 0972394788
This is the story of Juana “the Mad” of Castile, daughter to Isabel and Fernando and sister to Catherine of Aragon. Spanning the period from 1492 to 1509, The Last Queen is a gripping story of passion, intrigue, and betrayal. The novel is narrated by Juana herself, looking back at her past from a span of decades. Gortner’s choice of narrative styles was a good one, for it allows the reader to experience events as Juana experiences them, without knowing who can be
trusted. The final betrayal of Juana, shocking to her, is even more shocking to us.
Juana here is not mad, but an isolated, proud, and increasingly desperate woman who is as determined to claim her throne as others are to keep her off it. Her story, which in less skilled hands could have been a dreary, didactic tale of male oppression and female victimization, is saved from being so by Juana’s voice, one that is candid, dry, sharply observant, and totally lacking in self pity.
Gortner avoids falling into “historical novel speak,” rendering his dialogue in modern English peppered with the occasional Spanish phrase. The novel reads quickly, and although the events going on around Juana are complex, Gortner finds a happy middle ground between overwhelming readers with too much background information and bewildering them with too little.
Readers who appreciate author’s notes will find an informative one here, though I would have found it more helpful if Gortner, having told the reader that he took certain liberties with characters, time, and place, was more specific as to what these liberties were. This single quibble aside, this was an exceptionally good read about an intriguing, wronged woman.
THE LAST BOLEYN
Susan Higginbotham
Karen Harper, Three Rivers, 2006, $14.95/ C$21.00, pb, 585pp, 0307237907. (Prev. pub. as Passion’s Reign, Kensington, 1983)
Mary Boleyn, Anne’s long-eclipsed sister, has lately had her own surge of popularity (see Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl). This reprint has been repackaged to make it seem less like a romance (the cover now sports Holbein’s placid portrait of Mary), but appearances notwithstanding, a rather sedate romance is exactly what it is. Those looking for cerebral or even well-researched historical plot won’t find it here. What they will find is court intrigue and clichéd, brawny male love interests. Clothing often takes center stage; a courtier can’t walk into the room without the plot screeching to a halt in favor of informing the reader of what he’s wearing, down to the very ribbons on his codpiece. Harper’s characterization of Mary is a far cry from the “great whore, the most infamous of them all,” as François I is alleged to have remarked of the real Mary. This Mary is imminently sympathetic, an innocent pawn of her father and others. Sure, she’s a courtesan, but Harper goes to great lengths to present her as, if not exactly unwilling, at least not infamous. The romance itself is tepid, and readers would do better to skip this in favor of Gregory’s offering.
Bethany Skaggs
17th CENTURY
THE WOMEN’S WAR
Alexander Dumas (trans. Robin Buss), Penguin Classics, 2006, £9.99, pb, 546pp, 0140449779 / To be pub. in the US by Penguin Classics, Mar. 2007, $16.00, same ISBN
Less well known than The Three Musketeers or The Count of Monte Cristo, The Women’s War
has all Dumas’ hallmarks. It is full of swash and swagger, gallant heroes, full-blooded villains and ladies who are not quite as disingenuous as they would have you believe. The plot twists and turns with more guile than the serpent in Eden. The dialogue is witty, the wines plentiful and the cards are marked.
The novel is set in the early years of Louis XIV’s reign, during the regency of Anne of Austria, and gives an account of that curious aristocratic power struggle masquerading as a popular uprising known as the Fronde. The Baron de Canolles finds himself caught up in the troubles because of his love for two women on opposing sides – Nanon de Lartigues, who supports Queen Anne, and the Viscountess de Cambes, who is allied with the Princess de Conde. Although the women take centre stage, it would be a mistake to read the novel as a profeminist text. Canolles is clearly its hero, and Dumas is at pains to show how his warring women can only maintain their position by adopting decidedly masculine traits.
Robin Buss’ translation is the first in English for over 100 years. His prose is lucid yet loses none of Dumas’ panache. A comprehensive introduction and notes will help those new to the period to understand both the historical context and the many contemporary and classical references. A terrific read.
Sarah Bower
LOVERS AND ENEMIES
Anne Herries, Severn House, 2005 UK / 2006 US, £18.99/$28.95, hb, 252pp, 0727862685
Caroline Saunders always expected to marry Harry Mortimer, the ne’er-do-well son of her parents’closest friends. But when dissent between King Charles and his Parliament threatens to explode into civil war, Lord Mortimer firmly sides with the king, while the Saunders family – though not Puritans by any means – believes in justice for the people. An attractive and sensible girl, Caroline is hardly crushed at the loss of her impending betrothal. Perhaps now she can acknowledge her attraction to Harry’s dashing younger brother, Nicolas, who earns his father’s wrath by joining Cromwell’s army. Amidst all this turmoil, Caroline’s father falls ill, and while he recovers, she and her beautiful Quaker cousin, Mercy, travel to Oxford to stay with family. In this unexpected center of Royalist activity, Caroline risks much to be with Nicolas, while Mercy, hopelessly attracted to Harry against her better judgment, makes an impulsive decision fated to change all their lives. I sympathized with both pairs of lovers, especially the flawed but very human Harry and Mercy, and Herries ably conveys the heightened emotions of wartime. As appropriate to the era, this enjoyable, historically sensitive romance has an ending that’s decidedly bittersweet.
Sarah Johnson
THE TEMPLE DANCER
John Speed, St. Martin’s Press, 2006, $24.95/ C$33.95, hb, 336pp, 0312325487
In the mid-17th century Portuguese colony of Goa, beautiful, sheltered Lucinda Dasana is heir to the family fortune. But her family’s trade is threatened by the power struggle in India,
so Lucinda’s uncle/guardian decides to send a little baksheesh (i.e., bribe) to the grand vizier in Bijapur to assure the family’s trading rights. The bribe takes the form of Maya, a temple dancer and expensive slave trained in the tantric arts. Set to guard her and make sure the deal goes through is the grizzled settlement man Jeptha da Gama, for the Dasanas, and the inscrutable Captain Pathan, for the grand vizier. Lucinda’s handsome, devious cousin, Geraldo, and the shady eunuch, Slipper, round out the group. Adventure, romance, betrayal, and murder ensue on the road to Bijapur.
This story, which is intended as an introduction to a larger epic about the final years of the Mogul Empire, was pulled together from parts culled from that epic. The characters are well-drawn, though Lucinda’s naïveté stretches credibility at times. The atmosphere is lush and convincing, and there’s plenty of action and sex, with bandits attacking and love interests for almost everyone. There’s also a hardy dose of intrigue surrounding a fabulous piece of jewelry, which is coveted by the secret power behind many thrones – the Brotherhood of eunuchs. The plot speeds along at a hectic pace, but occasionally shifts into slow motion to reflect the atmosphere of certain settings, such as the peaceful, all-butforgotten palace at Belgaum, which provides a brief refuge for Lucinda and Maya.
Though this novel can be read as a standalone, its ending clearly sets up the ambitious story to be told in Speed’s next two novels. Though this is his first novel, The Temple Dancer is wellwritten and enjoyable – a favorable harbinger for Speed’s next works.
Bethany
Skaggs
LA SALLE
John Vernon, Univ. of Nebraska, 2006 (c1986), $19.95/£34.95, pb, 252pp, 0803296320
La Salle is an epistolary novel that presents a selective view of the explorations by the 17th century French explorer in search of the Mississippi (called the Messipi by the “savages” and the river Colbert by LaSalle). At the beginning we join La Salle and his comrades in the midst of the expedition, where he successfully finds and navigates the Messipi all the way to the delta that empties into the Gulf of Mexico, encountering various “savage” tribes, both friendly and hostile, along the way.
In the same way that genuine historical documents will leave gaps due to the loss of papers over the years, the second part of the book skips the return voyage and begins immediately with La Salle presenting Chuka, his Chicaza (Chickasaw) prisoner/guide at the court of Louis XIV. Once La Salle secures his funding, part three finds us back in the new world, after the explorer has overshot the delta trying to find it by water. This time the danger comes as much from the disaffection of his own men as from the inhospitable environment.
Vernon’s accomplishment in this remarkable work is nothing short of alchemy. Not only does he succeed in creating a believable voice for the Sieur de la Salle, but he ingeniously gives the reader a perfectly rounded view of the explorer’s ill-fated expeditions by creating another voice in the form of Goupil, La Salle’s
fictional cartographer. Throughout the novel, LaSalle’s often optimistic accounts are balanced by Goupil’s realistic view of the disease, deprivation, and constant danger surrounding them. The result is a constantly shifting landscape where the reader is unsure at any moment which point of view to trust.
La Salle should be required reading for anyone interested in the explorations of the new world, in the 17th century, or in the craft of writing historical fiction. Highly recommended.
The irresistibly beautiful Lady Anne Gascoigne is anxious to marry the charming, powerful Earl of Waverby and at last be rid of her irksome chastity. She expects him to protect her from King Charles II’s unwelcome advances. That is, until she overhears the earl promising to deliver her to the king’s bed after the wedding in exchange for future considerations. In desperation, she flees to her father for help, determined never to trust another man again. Her father knows of only one person capable of concealing her from king and earl – the outlaw Gentleman Johnny Gilbert. While in hiding, she and John experience a series of adventures, during which she grows from a rather spoiled and self-centered (though charmingly spirited) lass into a woman who shows consideration for others. She learns to trust and love again. Johnny is, of course, blindsided by her beauty and spunk, but is an interesting hero all the same. I found the language of the book a bit flowery, but once I settled into the read, it seemed to suit the Restoration period and flowed well. If you enjoy romance with an adventure-filled plot that keeps moving, this is a fun romp.
For those curious to know more about the characters of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Pamela Aidan has embarked upon the Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman trilogy. Volume One covers events from the assembly where Darcy meets Elizabeth Bennet until his return to London; Volume Two his adventures before he meets Elizabeth again at Rosings.
What was the relationship between the gentry and the ubiquitous but seldom mentioned servants found in Austen’s novel? How did the aristocracy entertain themselves in London and on their grand estates? How did Georgiana Darcy occupy herself during her brother’s absence? What was Colonel Fitzwilliam’s family like? The author gives her answer to these and other questions in this intriguing account told from Darcy’s point of view.
Because Aidan wishes to fill in details that Austen omitted, her novels lack the tight narrative structure of their source. Nor can she match its exquisite irony, but then, who could? What she offers instead are well researched historical novels that provide helpful insights into the social and political situation in England during the late eighteenth century, particularly the concern with rank and status.
She is faithful to Austen’s delineation of character, though it comes as something of a shock to discover just how much turmoil lurks behind the haughty demeanor that Darcy habitually adopts. Some details are extrapolated from the source: when Elizabeth gently encourages a shy young lady to show her needlework to the company, she is behaving with the same compassion that she shows a distressed Georgiana later at Pemberley. Elsewhere, Aidan gives her imagination freer rein: she sends Darcy off for a week to visit a friend who lives in an old castle so that she can not only show us more of the difficulties of finding a suitable marriage partner, but also introduce a blood-curdling adventure in the Gothic romance mode. His attendance at Lady Melbourne’s notorious ball, where her daughter Lady Caroline Lamb scandalizes high society by appearing so scantily clad and where he himself overshadows Beau Brummell with his elegant neckcloth, seems designed to provide historical verisimilitude; whereas the exchange of Christmas gifts allows the pleasant irony of Georgiana receiving, among other books, a copy of Sense and Sensibility. Some of Darcy’s adventures seem uncharacteristic of the figure found in Austen’s novel, but they are made part of the learning process that he must undergo to deserve Elizabeth. It will be a relief, however, when he meets her again in the next volume.
When two people are found murdered in post-revolutionary Paris, police agent Aristide Ravel investigates. Ravel discovers the male victim was blackmailing the other victim, a wealthy young woman named Célie. Célie’s friend, Rosalie, insists that the young woman’s fiancé had to have committed the murders in a crime of passion. Aubry had apparently uncovered Célie’s seduction and pregnancy by the blackmailer and has no alibi for the night of the murders. Ravel is attracted to the enigmatic Rosalie, but the more he delves into the crime, he thinks Rosalie knows far more than she’s telling and may be somehow involved. In the gritty, back-streets of Paris, Ravel struggles to find the truth and save Rosalie from the growing threat of the guillotine.
The Paris of 1796 comes alive in Alleyn’s fast-paced novel. Readers will be surprised by the ending, with its twisted scenario of rape and revenge.
Unsatisfied with Jane Austen’s exposition of the changes wrought in Fitzwilliam Darcy, the hero of Pride and Prejudice? Do you wonder why he is so uptight, arrogant, even (dare I say) proud early on, becoming a quite different character at the end as he graciously, even laughingly, accepts Elizabeth Bennet, her family, and her lack of status, as the path to true happiness? For those Austen fans who want to know more, here’s one answer. In one of the few formerly-self-published-books-madegood, Janet Aylmer’s tale delves into Darcy’s heart and mind to reveal some of the reasons behind his actions and his transformation. Aylmer deftly recalls the reader to Longbourn, Netherfield, Rosings, and of course Pemberley, showing what happened outside of Elizabeth Bennet’s view. The world of late-18th century British manners and manors are on display in the interactions of Darcy with the Bennet family, Bingley and his sisters, and his sister Georgiana. The latter turns out to be far more sensible, and sensitive, than Austen ever let on, and she has as much to do with the changes we see in Darcy as those caused by Elizabeth Bennet. No, this book isn’t quite like reading “real” Austen – there is an effort at wit and verbal sparring interspersed with quotes from the original book – but it makes for a delightful afternoon escape from the 21st century.
The novel opens with a confessional letter from an unusual woman to her grown daughter, Recompense, living far from home and expecting her first child. Prudence Winship, determined to shed light upon her early life, spins a remarkable tale of Brooklyn, its society and its economy, during the earliest years of the Republic.
Ten-year old Prudence Winship’s father trains her to carry on the work in his gin distillery. The “dark-minded,” fanciful child has spent her life staring across at Manhattan from the Brooklyn side, and from a young age, she envisions a bridge linking the two. The Winship household also includes a melancholic mother, Roxana, and two other daughters, the mute Pearl and the lively Temperance. Prue is burdened by her secret misdeed: out of jealousy she cursed her unborn sister Pearl while still in the womb, and guilt over this apparently successful act shadows her always. Roxana’s devoted black servant, Johanna, is the only one aware of Prue’s action. Prue grows up loving and protecting Pearl – too much, at times – and dreading exposure of her crime. Her other sister Tem, independent and overly fond of the product they manufacture, is her companion and competition in the distillery. Together they are the daughters of Winship Daughters Gin. Pearl, divided from them and from the business by her disability, is the watchful one, whose thoughts and feelings are revealed in short, perceptive sentences, quaintly spelled, inscribed on the pages of the small notebook that accompanies her everywhere.
Prue forges a rewarding relationship with Ben Horsfield, who will eventually help her build the
bridge of her dreams. But a series of tragedies convinces her that her long-ago curse has turned back upon her, to the detriment of her own life and her sister’s.
Brookland is an absorbing and appealing read, artfully rendered, with a multitude of fascinating detail.
Margaret Barr
DARCY AND
ELIZABETH: Nights and Days at Pemberley
Linda Berdoll, Sourcebooks Landmark, 2006, $16.95/C$23.96, pb, 429pp, 1402205637
Darcy and Elizabeth, sequel to Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife, Berdoll’s conception of the aftermath of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, begins immediately where its predecessor left off. Darcy has returned from Waterloo to find Elizabeth has given birth to twins; his sister has been impregnated by his best friend; his fatherin-law has died; and his sister-in-law, Lydia, believing her husband, Wickham, to have been killed at Waterloo, is enjoying widowhood with the same self-centeredness as always. This is all more like a modern soap opera than anything ever conceived by Miss Austen, who, being who she was, did not write explicit sex scenes. There are many minor characters, subplots, coincidences, twists and turns that keep the story moving at a fast pace.
Berdoll has written a strong, imaginative, often entertaining story. As in her previous novel, she tries to capture Miss Austen’s original voice with interjections of archaic phrases and convoluted sentence structure. Since most of the current editions of Miss Austen’s works are abridged to allow modern readers a smoother, more enjoyable experience, this seems more conceit than homage.
Audrey Braver
THE KING’S LIZARD: A Tale of Murder and Deception in Old Santa Fe in 1782 Pamela Christie, Lone Butte Press, 2006, $14.95, pb, 354pp, 0966686047
Nando Anguilar is the young son of a Spanish don and a Ute slave. Captured and taken as a slave himself, he becomes a member of a slave caravan until he escapes and joins up with a military patrol. He serves for a short time under his step-brother, who is an officer. Then Nando becomes unwillingly immersed in the politics of the New Mexico frontier, the slave trade, and the Indian wars with the Comanche. Eventually he befriends New Mexico Governor Anza and works as his spy to discover who is murdering soldiers in the Spanish settlements.
This novel is well researched. Christie knows the New Mexico territory of the late 1700s, and she provides colorful details about the slave trade among the Indians and the Spanish settlers, as well as the class struggles between the “halfbreeds” and the Spanish. However, the language used by the characters sounds too modern; their choice of words and phrases makes them sound too 21st century. Aside from the dialogue, this novel was a fine read.
Jeff Westerhoff
C$19.95, pb, 332pp, 0976940450
In colonial Maryland, Jack McCready travels the countryside as an untrustworthy peddler. His stolen route brings him to the Weingardt farm, where Mara Weingardt struggles to raise her two sons and follow the Moravian religion of her deceased husband. Jack ingratiates himself with the boys while becoming a messenger for the colonials who are angry at being taxed by England. Jack has no allegiance – money is his only love – so he spies and carries tales for the royalists as well. Needing one of Mara’s sons to work for him, Jack ends up rescuing the Weingardts on the day Mara spurns her betrothal to a wealthy landowner. With promises of a future, Jack takes them to Annapolis, a city rumbling with discontent. Instead of a position with a wealthy townsman, Mara finds herself an indentured servant. As Jack grows attached to Mara, she pushes him away for a chance with her refined employer. Her sons are drawn to the town’s rebels when a ship carrying taxed tea is burned in the harbor. Jack tries to protect them as dangerous events force him to take sides and rescue Mara from a terrible fate.
Laced with humor and unusual characters that crackle off the pages, Dolan’s novel will enchant you. There are a few inconsistencies and many editorial mistakes, but I found this book hard to put down.
Diane Scott Lewis
THE MANTUA MAKER’S BEAU
Anne Holman, Five Star, 2006, $26.95, 298pp, hb, 1594144524
Clementina, a delightfully resilient, resourceful and realistic orphan who has made the most of her good fortune and forswears moaning and despair when handed the bad, follows her benefactor’s nephew to the American colonies to persuade him to honor his aunt’s will and give her the shop in Bath that she has managed since her patron died. A mantua, for those who like to know these historical details, was a onepiece garment originally open at the front, worn over a petticoat that was fitted to each person with darts. At this point in history, that had been the prevailing fashion, and the mantua-maker was then, of course, our modern dressmaker. Because the setting is just before the American Revolution, the social differences between the colonies and the mother country provide a great deal of the interest in this novel. The sequences set in England are most diverting. Once on the shores of America, the romance takes center stage, with enough unpredictable twists to keep the reader guessing.
Mary K. Bird-Guilliams
ABSOLUTE HONOUR
C C Humphreys, Orion, 2006, £18.99, hb, 336pp, 0752871900
RESTITUTION
Kate Dolan, Cloonfad Press, 2006, $15.95/
If you haven’t already come across Jack Absolute, redcoat officer, lover, spy – where on earth have you been? This is Jack’s third outing and is as fresh as ever. On his way back home from his adventures in Canada (The Blooding of Jack Absolute), he makes a new friend on the high seas. When Red Hugh McClune saves his life, Jack feels he owes him everything. When he falls in love with Hugh’s niece, he is drawn even
DEATH AND THE CORNISH FIDDLER
EDITORS’ CHOICE
Deryn Lake, Allison & Busby, 2006, £18.99, hb, 298pp, 0749082968
When newly widowed John Rawlings and his daughter Rose are invited to accompany Elizabeth di Lorenzi to Helstone for the annual Floral (or Furry) Dance, they jump at the chance. A rural festival seems just the place to relax and enjoy the Countess’s company. They are sadly mistaken. First a young child disappears, and then a known courtesan is found murdered in her bed. Mystery and danger seem to lurk round every corner, and how is the enigmatic blind fiddler involved?
Rawlings decides to investigate, not realising that he might be putting his own daughter at risk – especially when he is increasingly distracted by his feelings for the beautiful Elizabeth.
I must confess I love these John Rawlings mysteries, and Death and the Cornish Fiddler is up there with the best of them. Deryn Lake goes to great pains to evoke what is a very real sense of the mid-18th century – complete with all its sounds, smells, attitudes and social mores. With all his faults, John Rawlings is an agreeable fellow. Every novel seems to add a new facet to his character, and in this his latest outing, his relationship with his young daughter is developing especially well. Here’s hoping the series long continues.
closer to him. But all is not what it seems. From Bath to Rome to Spain, Jack finds that honour and friendship is not easy to maintain. Indeed, both are severely tested, especially when Jack is engaged to spy on England’s enemies.
As always, Jack manages to be clever and naïve at the same time but we forgive him because he is young, courageous and handsome. He is no cardboard hero, however. He learns from his mistakes and matures with every book.
The author once again renders sword-play and battle fascinating to those who might usually yawn and turn the page. This un-bloodthirsty reader particularly relished the scenes set in Bath especially the first appearances of its new Georgian architecture, so familiar today that it seems it’s always been there. I also love the way he ingeniously makes use of the plot of Sheridan’s The Rivals, which is where, of course, Jack originated.
Taken with a pinch of salt and a glass or two of fine wine, young Jack Absolute is the perfect companion for beach or fireside.
Sally Zigmond
YOUNG BLOODS
Simon Scarrow, Headline Review, 2006, £12.99, hb, 504pp, 0755324331
This is the first in a quartet of novels about Wellington and Napoleon, covering the years 1769-1795. Arthur Wesley is a sickly boy from impoverished Irish aristocracy who is only good at one thing: playing the violin. Napoleon is a hot blooded, physical boy who quickly resorts to violence when provoked. Both opt for a military career as a way to further their ambitions. Despised by the French military establishment as a Corsican, Napoleon has only his ambition and his talents as a natural leader to help him, while Wesley uses his family connections to help his career until he is able to establish his reputation in Flanders.
This series represents a change of direction for Simon Scarrow, who is well known for his
Sara Wilson
Eagle series set in the Roman Empire. This is a worthy addition to the many books which have been written on both Wellington and Napoleon. It is well written, researched and a pleasure to read. Recommended.
Mike Ashworth
ANY APPROACHING ENEMY
Jay Worrall, Random House, 2006, $24.95, hb, 276pp, 9781400063062
After an American spy tells him of a French fleet amassing in the Mediterranean, Charles Edgemont, captain of His Majesty’s frigate Louisa, sails to investigate. It’s 1798, and
ABUNDANCE
England has been at war with revolutionary France for five years. Edgemont is ordered to join his admiral, Horatio Nelson, in their search for the French, but can’t locate either. He sails to Naples hoping Nelson is there, but instead he’s shocked to find his wife waiting for him. Penny, a devout Quaker, joins him on board Louisa. They enjoy a sweet reunion, but Edgemont hates to have his pacifist wife witness his encounter with an enemy vessel. With information gathered from other ships, Edgemont sails Louisa to the Egyptian coast and discovers that French vessels have landed a large army under the command of General Bonaparte near the town of Acre. He at last finds Nelson and informs him of this activity, which threatens England’s interests in India. Edgemont, with Nelson following, embarks on a dangerous attack on the French fleet in Aboukir Bay.
Worrall’s novel throws readers right into a sea storm, but I wish he’d delved into his major characters beforehand, especially for those who haven’t read the first book. Readers will wade through numerous minor characters in the first few pages. The author seems enamored with his nautical knowledge, and it is impressive. Two unbelievable coincidences weaken the novel’s impact, but fans of nautical fiction will love the shipboard action.
Diane Scott Lewis
19th CENTURY
AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF A LANDSCAPE PAINTER
Cesar Aira (trans. Chris Andrews), New Directions, 2006, $12.95, pb, 120pp, 0811216306
This entertaining novella reads like a short
EDITORS’ CHOICE
Sena Jeter Naslund, Morrow, 2006, $26.95/$34.95, hb, 525 pp, 0060825391
The author of the bestselling Ahab’s Wife, Sena Jeter Naslund takes on a true historical figure this time, in Abundance, an imaginative, well researched, and gripping novel about Marie Antoinette.
Transported naked across the French border – to symbolize the relinquishing of her Austrian ancestry – the adolescent ‘Toinette is greeted by loving and affectionate crowds. Once in Versailles, however, very little of the outside world penetrates the court, or the protective love of her husband and family. Thus cocooned, she lives a life of great splendor and excess, ignorant of cost. Gambling thrills her; she indulges. She revels in fashion. She imagines herself a simple lover of flowers and natural beauty. Her adoration for Count von Fersen is soul-deep but chaste. She chooses her ladies for their looks, and overlooks their faults. As heedless as a teenager well into her thirties, she is repeatedly astonished at the virulence of the public tirades against her.
“Après moi, le deluge,” said the former king upon his deathbed, and indeed, Sena Jeter Naslund portrays Marie Antoinette as a heedless but good-natured woman caught up in a bloody tidal wave of events well beyond her understanding. But the author’s greatest triumph is not only in painting an intimate portrait of the queen, or of life at Versailles, but in weaving a narrative so absorbing that this reader stayed up late into the night – even knowing the ending – in the hope that it all might turn out differently. Bravo to Ms. Naslund: She has penned another fabulous bestseller.
Lisa Ann Verge
story, in that it focuses on one incident and how that incident affects the story’s protagonist. John Moritz Rugendas was a German landscape painter who travelled to South America in the early 1800s after hearing of the outstanding scenery to be found there. While crossing the continent, en route to Buenos Aires, he became caught in violent weather, and suffered an accident that was to change the way he viewed life, himself, the people around him, and perhaps most vitally, his art. The story goes on to recount how Rugendas and his faithful companion, Krause, cope with the new reality this incident has engendered.
Although it contains no chapters or section breaks, and although literary in nature, An Episode proves to be an easy and diverting read. Through deft description, the author and his translator convey the beauty of the land the characters are travelling across, and provide insight into what it must have been like to travel across what the Footprints guide calls “the most exciting continent on earth.” It also offers a glimpse into lives on a South American ranch during that period, reminding readers that North America wasn’t the only continent where pioneers were sparring with natives. If you’re curious about South America, or enjoy vignettes or richly painted canvases, this one is for you.
Ten years ago, in 1857, Kathryn Jennings gave up a wealthy life in Boston to go west with her new husband, Larson. The years have been hard, and her expectations for a happy marriage unfulfilled. Larson is haunted by a secret past, rendering him unable to fully commit to the marriage. When a chance to save their struggling Colorado ranch takes Larson away, their lives take an unexpected, tragic turn.
Larson fails to return, and Kathryn must learn to live without him, believing him dead. Larson is not dead, but has been unrecognizably burned in a fire, scarred inside and out. Refusing to return to his wife before he has healed, Larson learns to overcome his past, and how to become the man Kathryn has always wanted.
As Kathryn and Larson rebuild their broken lives, they undergo drastic spiritual transformations. Chapters switch between Kathryn and Larson’s viewpoints in this compelling story of faith and hope. While focusing more on personal conflicts rather than historical detail, Alexander still portrays 19th century ranch life in a well-written and engaging story. The struggles Kathryn and Larson undergo are believable, heart-wrenching, and inspiring. A delightful debut novel, this is the first book in Alexander’s Fountain Creek Chronicles.
Rebecca Roberts
PERFIDY & PERFECTION
Kate Allan, Hale, 2006, £18.99, hb, 223pp, 100709080166
Allan has written a lively tale of a female author in Regency times, when it was supposedly not quite the thing for a lady to write a novel. Sophy has very little experience of life
but her first novel is a success. Now she has to experience something new to write about, and that something is a rather handsome gentleman in the form of Lord Hart. Clearly the gentleman isn’t going to be too pleased when he discovers that he is the subject of a novel – and when he uncovers the identity of its author. Sophy has the added problem of whether she should give up her writing to become a wife. High jinks in Middleton!
A simple tale told in a delightful manner that carries the reader to the end. I wasn’t sure the tributes to Jane Austen were necessary, because the author has her own style. However, this is well worth reading. An author to look out for in the future.
Anderson offers another chapter in the Coulter Family series. In 1889 Colorado, Rachel Hollister has barricaded herself away with a case of what would today be called agoraphobia. She has good reason to fear open spaces, since five years ago she was the only survivor of a stillunsolved sniper attack on her family. When her hired man is similarly ambushed, neighboring rancher Joseph Paxton offers to help. Rachel has no choice but to use a stranger as her only link to the outside world. Subsequent mutual attraction becomes hard to act upon when one half of the couple lives in a self-imposed prison. Joseph resolves to find the murderer of Rachel’s family and help her overcome her fears. There is a long passage of back-story towards the end, with information important to the resolution. It would have been more effective if the events had been incorporated into the plot, rather than have Joseph merely tell it all to Rachel. I was pleasantly surprised when a character who
THE LAW OF DREAMS
seemed destined for a certain fate did not turn out as expected. Rachel’s plausible fears and her means of coping are realistically portrayed. An enjoyable historical romance.
For three years, Ellen O’Brien’s husband, Dan, has been missing. Not knowing whether he has left for good or is dead, she has faithfully been maintaining their farm. Her life has been lonely and difficult until a mysterious stranger arrives on her doorstep. Jess Flint is handsome, rugged, and slightly dangerous, but makes himself invaluable to Ellen when a mishap leaves her with a broken leg. Torn between her wedding vows and the rising passion she feels for Jess, Ellen’s life is turned upside down. What Ellen doesn’t know is that her husband has turned outlaw, Jess is part of his gang, and Dan has hidden stolen gold in their backyard. When Dan suddenly returns, Ellen must face reality, and make the most difficult decision of her life: Dan, or Jess.
While this is an enjoyable story, it is easily forgettable. The romance between Jess and Ellen seems somewhat contrived. A second, lesser plot muddles the narrative, as it has no real bearing on the main story. Banning also abruptly switches character viewpoints at odd places. Ellen is too good, Dan too evil, and the storyline too predictable. Overall, this was an unremarkable story, but a pleasant escape into the Old West nevertheless.
Rebecca Roberts
THE ROGUE’S RETURN
Jo Beverley, Signet, 2006, $6.99/C$6.99, 366pp, pb, 0451217888
This Regency-era romance begins in York,
EDITORS’ CHOICE
Peter Behrens, Steerforth, 2006, $24.95/C$32.95, hb, 393pp, 1586421174
Life burns hot in The Law of Dreams, an exceptional novel about a young man’s struggle for survival during the Irish potato famine. Fergus O’Brien knows only the mountain wastes when the potato blight strikes. Threatened with eviction, the O’Briens stay put – until their death by black fever. Fergus survives and is sent to the workhouse, which he soon escapes. He is hijacked by thieves, has a last confrontation with his landlord, and then falls in with cattle drovers on their way to Dublin. There, among the starving crowds, he takes a boat to Limerick where more trouble awaits. Hungry and battered, he yearns for an existence free of regrets, and a life that is more than a battle for survival. With a little luck and the help of an Irish gypsy girl, he gathers enough coin to pay for passage on a timber ship to Canada. The “law of dreams,” he comes to learn, is always to keep moving.
It is hard to believe that this book is Peter Behrens’s first novel. With the sparest of language, the author depicts the internal struggles of a good-hearted young man in the midst of the unthinkable; a man who learns he must suppress terrible memories in order to move forward; a man who despite all his troubles, still believes in the possibility of a full and passionate life. A moving achievement, The Law of Dreams is a book for the keeper shelf.
Lisa Ann Verge
Canada, where Simon St. Bride has been investigating the disappearance of British army funds. As Simon prepares to return to London with his findings, unexpected complications suddenly change his entire life. On his deathbed, Isaiah Trewitt asks Simon to marry his niece, Jane Otterburn. Simon feels honor-bound to say yes. Jane, young and overly reserved, is hardly the right choice for a man of St. Bride’s pedigree. As for Jane, there are secrets that she holds close, and the longer she waits to tell Simon, the harder they will be to reveal. Further, Simon’s old schoolmate, Hal Beaumont, arrives with welcome news and offers to accompany them on their return voyage to London.
This story offers both mystery and romance, and the action is fast-paced and focused. The relationship between Simon and Jane develops quickly but believably. Beverley is a skilled writer, and her characters are appealing. I would recommend this to any Regency fan.
SCOUNDREL IN DISGUISE
Alice Logsdon
Annette Blair, Five Star, 2006, $26.95, hb, 286pp, 1594144834
It is 1847 in Sussex, and Lady Jade Smithfield proudly defies propriety by wearing trousers, employing only male servants, and using her home as a safe haven for downtrodden women. Obsessed by a need to keep her dead grandmother’s secret, she is determined to prevent the South Downs Railroad from laying tracks near her property.
Marcus Fitzalan wants to save his disabled brother’s railroad, and the families who will lose their livelihoods without it. Marcus gains the position of Jade’s man of affairs and secretly investigates the accidents that have been halting construction. What he finds out about the accidents, Jade, and her downtrodden women deeply astonishes him. Jade and Marcus find worthy foes in each other, sparring with words and passionate embraces, as they both fight to make their ambitions realized. Only one of them can win.
With a mix of mystery, and just a hint of humor, Blair draws the reader into a seductive novel sizzling with sensuality and infused with action. This is a well-written book, with interesting characters and a delightful story. Although Jade is just a shade too modern for her times, and the storyline a bit predictable, this is a worthy read and a charming romance.
Rebecca Roberts
In Honore Greenwood, or Plenty Man, Blakely has developed an interesting character, and he narrates the story. Through Plenty Man’s exploits, which include riding with Kit Carson in the New Mexico Volunteers in the Civil War and narrowly escaping the massacre of a Comanche Village – where Cynthia Ann Parker, a white captive, was finally found – the reader is treated to an adventurous tale based on historical events. For example, although it is fictionalized here, Cynthia Ann Parker’s life as a Comanche wife and mother of Quanah Parker, future chief of the Comanche people, is convincing and adds to what the reader may already know of the Comanche and Texas history.
Come Sundown is a very good read and will certainly be a contender for the Spur Award.
Sue Schrems
MRS. JEFFRIES APPEALS THE VERDICT
Emily Brightwell, Berkley Prime Crime, 2006, $6.99/C$9.99, pb, 211pp, 0425209695
This is the latest entry in Emily Brightwell’s long-running series set in Victorian London, in which the housekeeper Mrs. Jeffries and the other servants of Inspector Witherspoon’s household solve crimes for him without ever letting him know they are doing so. At the beginning, Blimpey Groggins, a friend of Smythe the coachman, asks the servants to help him prove that Tommy Odell, a friend of Blimpey’s, is innocent of murder. Tommy has been convicted and sentenced to hang for the murder of Caroline Muran, a factory owner and advocate for women’s right to vote. But the case was badly mishandled by the incompetent Inspector Nivens, and soon Mrs. Jeffries and the others find many gaps in the evidence against Tommy – and several people who wanted Caroline dead. Can Mrs. Jeffries find the killer before an innocent man is executed?
I had never read a book by Emily Brightwell before, even though I had known about the series and its premise for a long time. I found this to be a delightful, entertaining mystery that kept me guessing until the end. I would definitely read another book in the series.
behavior. Garnet and Oliver marry and set off for the Jubilee Trail, the grueling overland route from Independence, Missouri, to California. Some of the people Garnet meets along the way become strong characters in their own right. They are a disparate bunch, and it is only when readers are far into the book that they learn some of their stories. For the rule is that one does not inquire into the backgrounds of those who have moved west.
The conditions on the trail are vividly described: the dangers of the trail and measures taken to protect the travelers, food preparation, the emptiness of the land. The author also makes early California come alive: the ties with Mexico, the squalid conditions in the tiny settlement of Los Angeles, the rancho system.
Both Nancy E. Turner and Sandra Dallas have written forewords for this new edition. As Dallas writes, this “is a novel of the era in which it was published,” which can be seen in some euphemisms and the descriptions of the Digger Indians. However, it is a ripping good tale that deserves resurrection.
Trudi E. Jacobson
THE FUGITIVE WIFE
Peter C. Brown, Norton, 2006, $24.50/C$35.00, hb, 408pp, 0393061108
This wide-ranging novel spans territory from Minnesota to the Seward Peninsula. Leaving difficult circumstances in Minnesota, Esther “Essie” Crumney finagles a job as horse wrangler on a boat to Nome, Alaska. Her travel companions include Lena Walton, whose employer is Major Palmer, the general manager of the Cape Nome Company, one of the hundreds that seek riches in Alaska. Nate Deaton is the engineer on whose designs the whole Cape Nome Company depends. Essie’s husband, Leonard, also plays his part in this story of triumph over adversity.
Brown used family diaries and historical data to conjure the bustle of human endeavor among the frozen reaches. Because of the short window of opportunity between thaws, gold-seekers had no time to waste. This frenzy inspired exploration of new technologies and lured big Eastern money-types, in addition to diehard sourdoughs, into the prospective mix. Some became very rich, not always with a pick and shovel, while others failed or died trying.
COME SUNDOWN
Mike Blakely, Forge, 2006, $27.95, hb, 477pp, 0312867050
Come Sundown is an intriguing tale about an Englishman, Honore Greenwood, who found his way to America and to the frontier West in the 1830s. By profession, he was a trader, but he married a Comanche woman and learned the ways of the Indian people. This Englishman, known as Plenty Man by the Comanche, was good friends with Kit Carson and the Bent Brothers, who established trading forts along the Arkansas River in present-day southeastern Colorado. Most of this adventure, though, takes place at Adobe Walls in the panhandle of Texas.
This book, originally published in 1950, is just one of a number of historical novels by Bristow that were bestsellers in their day, some even being made into movies. Bristow is relatively unknown today, but I hope that the republication of this volume will remedy that.
Jubilee Trail is the story of Garnet Cameron, a young woman from New York City who has just graduated from Miss Wayne’s Select Academy for Young Ladies. It is 1844. Garnet has learned her lessons in correct behavior well at the academy, though she often finds herself yearning to break free of some of the constraints that have been drilled into her. When she meets Oliver Hale, a western trader who is doing business with her banker father, she finds someone whose life piques her imagination. He also has no interest in society’s rules of correct
Moving forward and backward in time from the year 1900, Brown peels back the layers of the story, creating and sustaining tension. He uses the landscape as a metaphor, contrasting the fertile emptiness of Minnesota with the exotic wildness of Alaska, a reflection of Essie’s journey from tradition-bound female to independent woman. There is a bluntness about much of the dialogue that began to bother me midway through the book. For example, the characters habitually drop beginning pronouns from their sentences. In Essie, this could be symbolic of her repression, but what of the others? Were they just too busy to use excess words? The prose sections, however, were eloquent and insightful. I would recommend this book to those who enjoy literary historical novels.
Alice Logsdon
THE NIGHT ANGEL
T. Davis Bunn and Isabella Bunn, Bethany House, 2006, $12.99, pb, 315pp, 0764201263
This is the fourth book in the Heirs to Acadia series, taking place in pre-Civil War America. The two main characters, John Falconer and Serafina Gavis, share a deep friendship but go their separate ways in this volume to build their lives in different destinies. In Christian fiction, prayers and Bible readings are expected; however, they got a bit repetitious for me at times. However, the redemption of the former slave shipmaster and his march through the South freeing slaves were riveting and believable. So, also, was the depiction of the divine inspiration infusing the artist’s already fine work, elevating it to mastery – who would deny that extra something in the best art? The Moravian culture of Pennsylvania is introduced as a means to freedom for newly-released slaves, and a refuge in other ways to a man seeking to lighten the burden of his past. More episodes will follow in this series, but plenty of action takes place here, and both John and Serafina have moved forward in their lives as well.
This absolutely delightful historical romance is set in 1821. Viscount Rathbourne and Bathsheba Wingate meet in the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly when her 12-year-old daughter, Olivia, who wants to be a knight, and his 13year-old nephew, Peregrine, who would like to be an archaeological explorer, get into a fight. Bathsheba belongs to the disreputable branch of the DeLucey family, and is notorious not only for her background, but for her scandalous marriage some years ago. The son was cut off, and now that Bathsheba is a widow, she is trying to earn a living by teaching drawing lessons. Rathbourne’s nephew is in dire need of such lessons, if he would like to be able to draw his finds. This, of course, throws the two adults together.
Both Bathsheba and Rathbourne have delicious attitudes towards the children: they see them for what they are and can hardly be called sentimental. Much of the action in the book involves the hunt for Olivia and Peregrine, when she sets off to find buried treasure and he follows to protect her. Bathsheba and Rathbourne get into a number of adventures of their own, some of which involve acknowledging their mutual attraction. A rather surprising ending caps this charming novel. I wonder which of Rathbourne’s relatives will star in Chase’s next novel?
Trudi E. Jacobson
THE MEANING OF NIGHT: A Confession
Michael Cox, John Murray, 2006, £18.99, hb, 608pp, 0719568358 or £10.99, pb, 0719568366 / Norton, 2006, $25.95, hb, 703pp, 0393062031
Michael Cox’s debut novel is a darkly atmospheric and very gothic tale of wrath, nemesis, and self-destruction: a 600- page journey through the claustrophobic confines of a raving man’s mind. The story opens with Edward Glyver murdering an innocent man in
Behind this novel’s nondescript title and cover art lies one of the most entertaining historical novels I’ve read in a while. The powerful opening scene captured me immediately. On a Creole plantation in 1823 Louisiana, five-year-old Josie’s father, Emile Tassin, uses his wife’s pearls to buy back his dark-skinned mistress and their daughter from slavers. To protect young Cleo from his jealous wife from that point forward, Emile makes Josie promise to take good care of her half-sister. Over the next 15 years, Josie tries to keep her vow, but she’s not always successful.
Josie and Cleo grow up together, mistress and slave, although Josie remains ignorant of their blood connection. Adolescence, personal tragedies, and financial crises etch new lines onto their personalities. Characters always carry the heart of a saga, and I became fully involved with the lives of Josie, Cleo, and their families. Despite the closed little world she inhabits, Josie remains a good person, and as she matures, she adjusts her relationships with everyone around her. These include her sharp-eyed Grand-mère, Emmeline, who struggles to teach Josie how to run a plantation; handsome Phanor, whose poor Cajun heritage makes him an unacceptable suitor; and her elegant second cousin, Bertrand, whose sensuality attracts her, but whose roving eye follows Cleo.
Though labelled as a romance, this is really a family saga in the grand old style, told by a master storyteller. The setting is vividly described, from the sugar cane crops and wild honeysuckle on the Tassins’ plantation to the nightclubs, velvet evening gowns, and deadly yellow fever in antebellum New Orleans. Racial issues, always at the forefront, are handled realistically and perceptively. I can’t say how much I enjoyed visiting with Craig’s fascinating and believable characters; while I was reading, the hours flew by. Highly recommended. Sarah Johnson
rehearsal for his long-awaited showdown with arch-enemy Phoebus Daunt, who has plagued him since both of them were schoolboys. An evil prank of Daunt’s resulted in Glyver’s being thrown out of Eton and ruined his chances of going on to Cambridge. However, a mysterious benefactress left orphaned Glyver enough money to study in Heidelberg and travel in luxury around Europe. He might have led a comfortable life were it not for his obsession with revenge.
With the help of his scheming stepmother, Daunt, though not of noble birth, insinuates himself as the heir apparent to fabulously wealthy and childless Lord Tansor. Glyver then discovers that he was adopted and that his deceased benefactress was, in fact, his true birth mother and none other than Lord Tansor’s first wife, who concealed her son’s existence from his father. This discovery drives Glyver’s bloodlust to a fever pitch. Daunt, meanwhile, will stoop to any trick to eliminate Glyver before he can gather evidence to prove that he is the rightful heir. This all builds up to a brutal end-game. Such a contrived plot could easily be forgiven in the context of a well-wrought Victorian melodrama. However, Glyver, bent on murder and selfish gain, hardly invites sympathy, yet he lacks the seductive underdog glamour of a successful anti-hero. The book is research-heavy to the point of being ponderously overwritten in places. All in all, the novel could have done with a lighter touch.
Mary Sharratt
BAD BOYS AHOY!
Sylvia Day, Brava, 2006, $14.00/C$20.00, pb,
351pp, 0758212518
In “Stolen Treasures,” nothing annoys a pirate more than stealing his bride. Married by proxy, Captain Phoenix, aka Sebastian Blake, Earl of Merrick, has done just that. Now that he has the beautiful Olivia Merrick, he has no intentions of letting her go. In “Lucien’s Gamble,” what would drive a beautiful debutante to dress as a man and frequent a gentleman’s club? Lucien Remington, who has built his fortune on society’s gambling habits, intends to gamble his own heart to find out when he captures the Lady Julienne La Coeur. And in “Her Mad Grace,” Hugh La Coeur finds himself stranded at the neglected mansion run by Charlotte Glenmoore and her menagerie of offbeat servants. Secrets and the possibility of hidden treasure seduce the fine Lord of Montrose, even as he tries to seduce Charlotte.
These three Regency-period erotic novellas, set in locales ranging from the British West Indies to London, will appeal to readers who prefer that nothing in the bedroom be left to the imagination. The characters’ lack of depth is more than made up for in their “performance,” and the prose just barely avoids the color purple. If you enjoy characters who are driven to pure lust by a mere look, and jump into bed with nary a thought to the consequences, this book is a must read.
Debra Rodensky
PAUPER’S GOLD
Margaret Dickinson, Pan, 2006, £5.99/C$9.99, pb, 500pp, 0330442104
In 1854, 12-year-old Hannah Francis is living in the Macclesfield workhouse with her mother.
EDITORS’ CHOICE
THE ADVENTURES OF JOHNNY VERMILLION
Loren D. Estleman, Forge, 2006, $24.95/C$33.95, hb, 272pp, 0765309149
“Most of what follows took place in the West. Not just any West.” So begins the tale of Johnny Vermillion’s theatre troupe, The Prairie Rose Repertory Company, and their adventures in performing – on stage, and in bank robberies – in the Wild West of 1873. When a Pinkerton agent figures out their scheme, he sets an elaborate trap to catch them. And in the course of their escapades, Johnny’s troupe unknowingly robs from an intended target of the dangerous Ace-in-the-Hole gang, who now want revenge on the Prairie Rose players as well.
Estleman is renowned for his westerns – he is a five-time Spur Award-winner – but to call The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion purely a western is unfair and limiting, for this historical romp is much more: a feast of humour, action, drama, and suspense. Johnny Vermillion’s players may be thieves, but they are likable characters who take their acting roles seriously (their playwright also struggles to produce fine, legitimate work in his adaptations as well). I found myself wanting both the Pinkerton agent and the Prairie Rose players to succeed. Estleman has written one of the rip-roaringest stories that I’ve read in a long time. Highly recommended!
The workhouse master has an agreement with Critchlow’s cotton mill to provide pauper apprentices, a cheap form of labour, and sends Hannah and three other youngsters to the mill. Separated from her mother, Hannah takes it upon herself to look after her three young travelling companions and keep up their spirits. Despite the harsh working conditions, Hannah’s cheerfulness wins her many friends. But when she comes to the attention of the mill’s evil owner, matters take a tragic turn, and even the good-natured Hannah finds herself plotting revenge. The story moves between the workhouse and silk mills of Macclesfield to the cotton mills of the Derbyshire dales, touching on the hardships of the working families when the American Civil War creates a cotton famine that threatens a whole industry.
This is a heart-warming tale. Ms Dickinson is a natural storyteller, and there are enough twists in the tale to keep the reader involved right to the end, although the final resolution does seem a little rushed.
Melinda Hammond
A RARE INTEREST IN CORPSES
Ann Granger, Headline, 2006, £19.99, hb, 310pp, 0755320425
In Victorian England many a penniless young woman of ‘good’ family found that the only form of paid employment available was as a ‘companion’ to a better-off widow. Such a young woman is Elizabeth Martin, who arrives in London from Derbyshire in 1864 after the death of her doctor father. Almost immediately she learns that her predecessor, who disappeared some weeks earlier, has been found murdered. Lizzie is soon drawn into the search for the killer, much against the wishes of her employer. She also renews acquaintance with Benjamin Ross, once a pit boy in her home village, now a rising young police inspector.
This book is clearly intended as the first in
L.K. Mason
a series featuring Lizzie and Ben as a detective partnership. At times the period detail comes near to being laid on with a trowel, and some of the characters are taken from stock; it comes as no surprise that Lizzie reads Darwin and wears her social conscience on her sleeve. But if you can get past the slow early chapters it becomes an interesting read, culminating in that staple of the Victorian crime novel, the chase through the pea soup fog.
In Scotland in 1863, 15-year-old runaway Bessy Buckley finds work as a maid for the beautiful Arabella Reid and her penny-pinching husband at their isolated farmhouse. Arabella is compiling a book of ‘observations’ but Bessy soon discovers that she is not the first maid whose thoughts and physical details are recorded. She is torn between a fierce loyalty to her mistress and jealousy of an earlier maid of whom Arabella was inordinately fond.
This book begins at breathtaking speed, in part because Bessy, the narrator, is a fasttalking Irish girl. She writes as she talks, although, thankfully, her mistress teaches her some punctuation in chapter five so at least the reader can draw the occasional breath. Bessy is an indomitable character, and her voice is clearly in evidence from the first page. Details of her harsh upbringing emerge throughout the tale, but she meets every adversity with courage and humour. Be warned, Bessy’s life has been a hard one, and there is some unedifying detail. However, her character is wonderfully real, and she almost springs out of the page with her own sharp, pithy observations.
Ms. Harris has included all the elements of a Victorian pot-boiler: ghosts, madness, dark shadows and even darker deeds, but the narration has a frankness that would have a Victorian lady reaching for her smelling salts. The plot twists and turns right up to its surprising but satisfying ending.
Gray has skilfully crafted a tale that leads from Italy under the burden of Napoleonic rule to the Italian quarter of London, where Lucchese merchants have traded their fine silk since the time of Henry III and earlier. The thread that weaves its way across borders and through the centuries is the story of Lucca’s holy relics, which safeguard the city’s prosperity and its autonomy, and it is this thread that is slowly but brilliantly unravelled by Whilbert Stroop, an engaging sleuth with an encyclopedic memory and a warm heart.
Stroop is called upon to help Mabel Flinchurst, a young girl who has been adopted by her great-aunt and brought to live in London. The shocking suicide of a stranger in the church opposite Mabel’s new home threatens her life and that of her entire family. The Lucchese community itself is aware of the treachery that has infiltrated its Inner Council, and it too joins in the race to find the only person who can save Lucca from humiliation and possible destruction. The killings are violent and cold-blooded, and the suspense is maintained right until the last few pages.
Gray has an exceptional eye for detail, and her characterisation is superb. It is a delight to discover characters like Mabel, Jack, the enigmatic Stroop and the silk merchant Castracani, and refreshing that psychological development is deemed as important as historical detail. Even the extras, like Stanley Izod or the old caretaker in St Frigidian’s Church, are described with the delicate clarity of Mabel’s embroideries. Although not for the faint-hearted, this is a fantastic first novel by a prize-winning short-story writer, and I look forward to meeting Whilbert Stroop again.
His Wicked Kiss is the seventh novel in an extraordinary family saga. It features Lord Jack Knight as the hero, a sea captain who for altruistic reasons, as well as profit, is supporting Simon Bolivar’s revolution in Venezuela by supplying him with guns. On his return trip to England in 1818, his cargo of zebrawood and other commodities also includes a stowaway, Enid Farraday. Twelve years earlier, Enid’s father, a physician and naturalist, retired to the jungle to study healing plants. All through her teenage years, Enid has had one goal, namely to return to London, have a season, and get married. She seizes an opportunity to sneak aboard Jack’s ship. This is only the beginning of a love story fraught with dangers and adversities, all of which are resolved in the end. Foley’s description of primitive life of the Indian tribe is interesting, and her grasp of time needed to accomplish certain tasks is more convenient than accurate, but there is no denying that she tells a good story.
The Secret River follows the life of William Thornhill, born into the working class of London in the late 1700s. Luckier than most, he apprentices seven years to his fatherin-law, earning the right to call himself a Waterman (skilled boatman) of the Thames. But even mastery of a trade doesn’t guarantee a living wage. Like most of his contemporaries, Thornhill augments earnings by means of lightfingered pursuits. In 1806 he is caught, tried, convicted and sentenced to death. Through the perseverance of his wife, the sentence is commuted to transportation to Australia. The couple could never have imagined the effect this untamed land would have on their lives. Once Thornhill is shown the secret areas of the Hawksbury River, he no longer wishes to return to Britain.
Kate Grenville’s understated prose doesn’t mute the power of her ironic commentary on the expectations of the British gentry on the poor, the transplantation of members of the working class unlucky enough to be caught in the act of survival, the conquest of an old people by interlopers in a new land. Powerful, thought-provoking and gritty, The Secret River is an astonishing portrait of the human nature of ownership in any age.
London, March 1813. As a member of the perfectly respectable Benevolent Widows Fund, Marianne Nesbitt has played the role of a perfectly respectable widow for two years. Yet after listening to her fellow widows discuss their plans to become “merry” widows, Marianne begins to believe that maybe it’s time for her
In 1871 a thwarted American expedition to the Arctic casts 19 survivors adrift on an ice floe off the coast of Greenland – one white and one black American, a Dane, a Swede, an Englishman, five Germans and two entire Inuit families. Their ordeal casts a shadow over the rest of their lives, as Heighton shows in this beautiful, accomplished and mesmerising novel. A man can travel from Alaska to Mexico, but wherever he goes, he takes his hunger and the ice in his soul with him.
Heighton employs a clever, intertextual approach to his story, mixing passages from George Tyson’s Arctic Experiences, published in 1874, with his own third-person narrative of events told from the viewpoints of one of the German seamen and the Inuit woman he is in love with. Most intriguingly, he adds excerpts from the notes on which Tyson based his book, illustrating the space which opens up between the actual and the recollected. Heighton’s notes at the end of the book on the way in which he has used the historical texts make a valuable contribution to the debate about truth and imagination in historical fiction, and the limits an author imposes on himself in making things up.
If this all sounds dry and intellectual, don’t be put off. Heighton is a poet, and the atmosphere he evokes with his prose is magical. The book is, perhaps, a little too long, but moving and absorbing. It stays with you long after you have closed it for the final time. Dog lovers beware: there is an account of a husky being slaughtered for food so moving I almost wish Heighton had let his characters starve to death instead! Sarah Bower
to step out of the shadows of widowhood and seek a lover for herself. But what does she know about seeking a lover?
She turns to Adam Cazenove, her husband’s best friend and her personal confidant, to help her pare down a list of possible choices. She had hoped that Adam would fulfill that role himself, but Adam has secretly gotten himself engaged to a Society girl. Adam, shocked by Marianne’s request, begins to regret his engagement. He would grant Marianne her wish for a lover, but he would want much more than just a casual fling.
The author spins these two engaging characters around in a dance that is sexy, sophisticated, funny, and delightfully romantic. Egged on by a cast of secondary characters who are just as engaging as the main couple, Adam and Marianne will have every reader cheering for them as they waltz their way closer to each other’s hearts.
In her Scottish trilogy, beginning with Thorn in My Heart, Higgs reset the biblical story of Jacob (Jamie McKie) in the late 18th century. One might expect the saga to continue with his most well-known child, Joseph, but the author has chosen instead the haunting tale of Dinah, as told in Genesis 34. It is 1808, in the south-west of Scotland. Jamie’s daughter, Davina, has been voiceless since a childhood accident caused by the reckless behavior of her twin brothers. Jamie has never been able to forgive his sons, which has caused them to burn with resentment. When Davina is raped while spending a summer
visiting cousins, the bitterness that already divides the family leads to a terrible vengeance that strips far more from Davina than either her virginity or her voice.
The author’s strength lies in her descriptive prose, which draws the beauty of the Scottish landscape and illuminates the details of period life. Her decision to make Davina mute not only adds pathos but also universalizes the silent suffering of women over the centuries. My great disappointment was that, despite the title, the characters neither repent nor change: one could see them reenacting the same tragedy the following summer. And perhaps, in the original, they did – which would be Joseph’s story.
Nicollette Caron has a problem: every time she makes love with a man, he dies in her arms –literally. The man who has just died in her bed is the son of an influential man, so when the body’s found, a police investigation begins. Detective Jackson Lang soon picks up Nicollette’s trail, and tracks her to Glastonbury. In Glastonbury she encounters the brooding and mysterious Lord Baston, who may be the only man who can love her and live. But when Lang arrests her, Nicollette’s trial for murder leads to astounding revelations, and an amazing conclusion. Although supposedly set in England in 1891, Rabbit Heart has absolutely no feel for the historical time and place. Nicollette isn’t very likable; she whines that she keeps telling the men they die if they bed her, but they just won’t believe her. The period work is really bad: no sense of fashion or class distinctions, either.
American Regencies, British Reviewers: A
Transatlantic Feature
For this issue, the HNS reviews editors undertook a small experiment. In the American market, the Regency period is the number one setting for historical romances, but how would US-published Regencies fare if covered by British reviewers? Four Regency romance experts on Mary Sharratt’s review team agreed to share their opinions on seven recent American Regencies. These reviews are below. – Sarah Johnson
There’s no doubt about it, tastes change.The late, great Georgette Heyer would turn in her grave to read some of the Regencies on the market today. That is not to say that all today’s Regencies are bad – far from it, some are excellent. Today’s audience is much more wide-ranging in its tastes, with some liking their Regencies with plenty of sexual encounters, others preferring the“comedy of manners”type.There also appears to be a trans-Atlantic gulf: the US market likes its hero to be titled, and the heroines are always beautiful (a mere gentleman with ten thousand a year marrying a secondprettiest sister would never get published). What is important for any good Regency is a good story, well told and with well-researched history - but that goes for any historical novel, after all. – Melinda Hammond
Juliana and Nicholas were orphans reluctantly taken in by relatives.They shared a schoolroom and formed a close alliance against their uncaring relatives. But Nicholas runs away and Juliana has to make her own way as a companion. When Nicholas reappears and pays her attention at a ball, her jealous employer dismisses her, and Nicholas, remorseful, offers a convenient marriage.Then a guest at the wedding is murdered.
This is the typical Regency novel, with plenty of heart searching spiced with crime, and the main focus on whether Nicholas will accept that he loves Juliana rather than just being her best friend. Neither will initially admit their love, and I therefore found the love scenes somewhat unconvincing.The search for the murderer is conducted rather sporadically, which was frustrating.The Regency details are lightly sketched in, and it will satisfy all but the most demanding fans of Regencies.
Marina Oliver
THE HAZARDS OF HUNTING A DUKE
Julia London, Pocket Star, 2006, $6.99, pb, 374pp, 978141656
This is the first of a trilogy following the lives of three young ladies left almost destitute by an absconding step-father who set out to find themselves husbands. Ava, the heroine, seeks out Jared Broderick, a rake, and marries him.The rest of the book is concerned with her determination to make him fall in love with her.
The hero is attractive and the heroine suitably feisty, but the plot totally improbable. No aristocrat would do her own housework, hire male staff from the poor house, or appoint a lady’s maid who was as ex-prostitute. Then for the newly married Duchess to be taught how to behave like a member of a harem by said prostitute is stretching credulity too far. However the book is well written and funny.You are immediately drawn into their impossible world and the page-turning quality of the book keeps you reading. If you do not mind a surfeit of very detailed and explicit sex or are expecting an accurate portrayal of Regency England, then this is a good holiday read.
Miss Sarah Hamilton arrives penniless from Philadelphia and is so exhausted she accepts the offer of a room at a local inn. She wakes to find James, Duke of Alvord, in bed with her, naked. The duke is in need of a wife, and having compromised Sarah, is determined to marry her, whatever her reservations about fitting into English society.
The plot is implausible — relying heavily on coincidences — the gentleman who offered the room turns out to be the very man she was looking for, the Earl ofWestbrook. James, a handsome 28-year-old, is supposed to be a virgin but nevertheless has no difficultly seducing Sarah.
The heroine is likable and the hero attractive, but the villain is decidedly one-dimensional. Ms. Mackenzie uses‘ye’to differentiate between the poor and their masters, and the book is liberally sprinkled with‘gotten.’There are also many explicit, but well written, sex scenes.
However, if you are not overly bothered by historical accuracy, this is a fast paced, funny, eminently readable book, ideal for the beach.
Fenella Miller
REGENCY CHRISTMAS COURTSHIP
Barbara Metzger, Edith Layton, Andrea Pickens, Nancy Butler, Gayle Buck, Signet, 2005, $6.99/C$9.99, pb, 347pp, 0451216814
This is a compilation of five Regency Christmas romances.“Wooing theWolf”(Metzger) has two little angels playing matchmaker to their maiden aunt. In “The Dogstar” (Layton) a couple are brought together when a little boy adopts a puppy that is not all it seems.“Lost and Found”(Pickens) brings an unlikely pair together in a blizzard.“Christmas with Dora Davenport”(Butler) proves too tempting for a wounded Welsh sailor.“Christmas Cheer”(Buck) demonstrates to a shy young wife that even husbands can be romantic on occasion.
This anthology of seasonal tales has incredibly attractive lords and beautiful ladies singing carols in the parlor and watching cricket in Hyde Park (at Christmas?). There is plenty of snow and evergreen boughs, gingerbread and figgy pudding, washed down with wassail cups and copious amounts of tea. It’s all as sweet and rich as plum pudding –an untaxing Christmas read.
A hot-blooded, fast-moving Regency romance. Lord Ashton, nicknamed “The Saint,” thinks he is engaged to a very proper young lady, just what he needs to live down the indiscretions of his mother and brother. However, Lady Irisa Langley has a secret: she has used it to get her own way in the past, but her love for Lord Ashton makes her wonder if it would be better not to marry him.Then comes an attempt to blackmail her into giving upThe Saint, and no self-respecting heroine can allow herself to succumb to such infamy.
The feisty (Ms. Monroe’s own word) heroine has to battle with her own feelings, Ashton’s sense of honour, and a wicked villain before she can find her happiness. This is no“sweet”romance. The plot is as energetic as the sex scenes, which are plentiful and graphically described.The historical detail may be a little suspect (wolves were extinct in England well before the 19th century), and one might wish that the characters would learn a few more expletives besides“bloody hell,”but the story gallops along at a breathless pace until the villain is finally unmasked.
Melinda Hammond
THE EDUCATION OF LADY FRANCES & MISS CRESSWELL’S LONDON TRIUMPH
This book contains two separate novels by the same author.
In The Education of Lady Frances, Lord Julian Mainwaring and Lady Francis Cresswell instantly dislike each other and then spend the remainder of the book discovering that they are ideally suited. It is packed with historical detail, most of which is accurate. However, the characters are dull and the book lacks pace. Also there is a problem with point of view — Ms. Richardson hops from head to head, even using the dog to carry the story.
Then in Miss Cresswell’s London Triumph, the sequel, Frances and Julian are married and Cassie, a younger sister to Lady Frances, has grown into an adult. She has also become,‘Miss Cresswell,’and is no longer a lady. The same irritating animals are in the book — which is a chronological impossibility. The hero, Ned, spends two thirds of the book in India — leaving the heroine to discover who she doesn’t wish to marry on her own. This book is equally slow.
Neither of these offerings will win Ms. Richardson any new fans. It would seem that they were written in 1989 and 1990, before she became acclaimed, and have been re-published.
Fenella Miller
THE BACHELOR TRAP
Elizabeth Thornton, Bantam, 2006, $6.99, pb, 386pp, 0553587544
A seemingly insolvable 20-year-old mystery takes a decided turn for the worse with the murder of an elderly spinster. One year later, in the midst of the 1816 London season, a love affair begins when Lady Marion Dane faints after stubbing her toe leaving the theatre.
An inauspicious beginning, you could be forgiven for thinking. Put your fears aside. Lady Marion is made of sterner stuff, as is her suitor, Brand Hamilton.This most likeable pair are both by turns humorous, self-effacing, proud and passionate. One question sorely tries them: where love has taken root, should marriage follow? And then there is the little problem of a painful past that will not stay forgotten. Certainly mayhem and death appear determined to stalk Lady Marion. Brand Hamilton, base-born son of a Duke and owner of a newspaper empire, is equally determined to find out why.
Nothing is quite what it appears to be in this most engaging Regency romp. Put your feet up (if you’ll pardon the pun) and enjoy the ride. Along the way you will be swept from London, to Brighton, taking in the Lake District and Stratford-on-Avon on route. A delightfully penned, agreeably entertaining read.
(My favorite oddity is Lord Baston’s inviting pretty much everyone in Glastonbury to a dinner party – including the woman who owns and runs the local inn and Nicollette’s maid.) And the explanation for Nicollette’s medical condition is beyond unbelievable. The fact that it’s also compulsively readable is beyond irritating – it’s a true guilty pleasure.
India Edghill
DANGEROUS WATERS
Jane Jackson, Hale, 2006, £18.99, hb, 222pp, 709076363
Orphaned Phoebe Dymond was brought up by an aunt and uncle after the death of her father at the Battle of Yorktown, and her mother’s death on board the ship bringing them back to England from America. From her aunt she learned the skills of herbalism and midwifery. After her aunt’s death her uncle decides to marry again, and clearly there is no place in the new home for Phoebe, who is now twenty. Marriage to a plantation owner’s son in the West Indies is arranged, and she is put aboard the packet ship Providence bound for Jamaica. Here she
meets Jowan Crossley, the ship’s surgeon and her appointed guardian during the Atlantic crossing. Inevitably there is a clash of opinion in the treating of the sick and injured between the surgeon and the herbalist, but gradually each begins to understand and appreciate the skill of the other.
Set against the background of piracy on the high seas, the slave trade, and slave revolts on the plantations, the story is lively and the characters believable, but the eventual outcome is never in doubt. I would put Dangerous Waters into the category of a light, enjoyable read to while away the hours on a long journey.
Marilyn Sherlock
THE LAST PLEASURE GARDEN
Lee Jackson, Heinemann, 2006, £12.99, hb, 315pp, 0434012491
The Last Pleasure Garden of the book’s title is Cremorne Gardens, a Victorian version of the notorious Vauxhall Gardens of Regency infamy. All sorts of things happen in the Gardens, including a madman who is cutting locks from young women’s hair and slashing dresses, using
Fiona Lowe
a frighteningly large pair of scissors. Inspector Webb has to catch the man and finds there is far more involved than a simple lunatic at large. Dead bodies, murder and baby farming, past passions and present revenge tangle together in a mix he has difficulty unravelling. For Jackson fans this will be a pleasure to read, especially as the author’s Victorian London is tangible.
However, I do have a couple of quibbles. I had been looking forward to reading this book. It is the third in a series about Decimus Webb of Scotland Yard, and I’d heard much praise for the series. The first book was short-listed for the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award, and Lee Jackson knows his Victorian London well enough to have written an excellent non-fiction book about it. But this book (and I believe the other two also) is written in the present tense by an omniscient author. Readers are never close enough to a character to form that reader’s bond which makes me willing to turn the pages and see what happens next. It makes, for me, a rather passionless book which, as the plot revolves around revenge and rekindling old passions, I
found difficult reading. And I personally found it hard to accept that Rose Perfitt, a 17-year-old, well-brought-up daughter of a gentleman, would have had so much unsupervised freedom.
The novel opens at an English Regency ball, where two young ladies are bored with the same faces and a lack of novel diversion. A highwayman called The Scottish Scourge pursues one, but I believe that’s another story, since here the Scourge is only a tangent. Amelia, our heroine, is a graduate of Mrs. Harris’ School for Young Ladies and as such, this is her book in the author’s new series “The School for Heiresses.” Amelia is soon granted adventures in plenty as she encounters a surly American major investigating an embezzler. He suspects Amelia’s stepmother, and he really doesn’t like the English, especially the military, with excellent reasons. The setting is just following the War of 1812, and the author utilizes some incidents of that conflict to enrich the story. The Major and Amelia are well matched, even after they tie the knot at Gretna Green. In fact, the scene where Amelia convinces her husband that he really doesn’t want an obedient wife is quite remarkable. Light, but it gets more absorbing as you get further into the book.
In 1898, when Brun Campbell hears Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag,” the 15-year-old piano enthusiast has just one goal: to move to Sedalia, Missouri, and learn to play ragtime from Joplin himself. On his arrival, he stumbles over the body of a murdered woman, and rather than make himself the obvious suspect, he unwittingly pockets what he finds at the scene and leaves without reporting it. Brun is one lucky young man, for not only is he befriended upon his arrival, he is directed to a job at the local music store, and Joplin agrees to take him on as a pupil.
For what may appear to be a sleepy Midwest town, Sedalia at the turn of the century was a-bustle with activity. Town politicians and merchants are angling for the state fair; an unscrupulous music publisher aims to steal Joplin’s ragtime tunes to deny him the profit; and Brun’s first benefactor in town is arrested for murder. You can almost hear the pounding of the piano and feel the heat of each day and the tension of racism. Brun is an agreeably flawed protagonist, and Joplin is portrayed as enough of an enigma to arouse curiosity rather than dismissal. All the characters are real, but this is no dry biography – rather a reminder that the Midwest at the turn of the century wasn’t so genteel.
Ellen Keith
follow God’s word by living both in the world of the 1850s and outside this world, to distance themselves from its myriad distractions and vanities. Emma Wagner has grown up following the Diamond Rule: to go beyond treating others as she would like to be treated by helping others to live even better than she does. But patience and humility do not come easily to Emma, and though she is a devout believer in her faith, she has doubts, doubts that challenge the authority of the colony’s beloved leader. After the inevitable clash, the leader sends her west with a party of scouts to find new land for the Bethelite colony. As she clears a way to the wilds of Oregon, uncovering her deepest self, she finds something she never imagined: a yearning for community.
A Clearing in the Wild is Book One of Jane Kirkpatrick’s new Cherish and Change Historical Series, and a promising beginning it is. Unlike so many authors who drop a 21st-century liberated woman into an earlier era, Kirkpatrick’s Emma shines through as a woman firmly rooted in her time and place, both belonging to her community and questioning it. Perhaps this is because Emma Wagner Giesy was a real woman who came to Oregon Territory in 1853 with a group of Bethelite scouts. But I think Emma’s poignance owes much to Jane Kirkpatrick’s meticulous research and lyrical writing style. A Clearing in the Wild is a joy to read as a comingof-age story, a story of the western frontier, or as a spiritual quest. It satisfies on every level.
Lessa J. Scherrer
DUCHESS OF FIFTH AVENUE
Ruth Ryan Langan, Berkley, 2006, $6.99/ C$9.99, pb, 302pp, 0425208893
In 1885, during a rough crossing from Ireland to the United States, Lana Dunleavy made a promise to her best friend, Siobhan Riley, upon the birth of the latter’s son. Should anything happen to Siobhan, Lana would take care of Colin, his father having already revealed his feckless nature. Both women barely scrape by in 19th-century New York City, with Siobhan working as a laundress and Lana as a barmaid, so when Siobhan is killed and her son taken to an orphanage, Lana knows she must change her fortunes to honor her promise to her friend. Enlisting the help of Jesse Jordan, a charming barfly who passes as the Duke of Umberland, she is made over as his cousin, Lady Alana.
Although ostensibly a romance and ageold tale of mistaken identity, Langan most effectively highlights the divisions between the classes, with Lana’s employment as a housemaid hanging on the whim of her employer and her inability to adopt Colin due solely to her circumstances. Granted, both the haves and have-nots are painted with broad, unsubtle strokes, the haves being cruel and superior and the have-nots being the warm, salt-of-the-earth types, but this was a lively, engaging story, and I breathed a sigh of contentment when Lana got the boy and the man (although was there any doubt she wouldn’t?).
Ellen Keith
Bastion Club series (“a last bastion against the matchmakers of the ton”) and the 20th of her novels for Avon, Laurens obviously knows what her fans expect. Deverell has recently inherited the title of Viscount Paignton along with all its responsibilities, and so he is seeking a wife. Disenchanted by the “season” and traditional routes of wife-hunting, he asks his aunt for advice. She steers him to the reclusive Phoebe Malleson, a 25-year-old beauty with every quality he needs. Unfortunately, Phoebe long ago decided she wanted no man in her life; she has a secret in her past and a clandestine cause that occupies all her attention. To woo her, Deverell must seduce her, discover her secrets, and convince her he can partner and protect her in every way. The story is rather predictable, so to say more would be to give it away. The first half of the book is taken up almost entirely by the slow seduction – Laurens’ forte. After that, the story picks up, but by then the plot, while entertaining, reads almost like an afterthought. Sue Asher
CAPTIVE OF MY DESIRES
Johanna Lindsey, Pocket, 2006, $25.00, hb, 384pp, 1416505474
After spending three years in the Caribbean treasure hunting with her pirate father, Gabrielle Brooks returns to the city of her birth, London, to find a husband. Taken in by the Malory family, Gabrielle finds herself escorted nightly to events by Drew Anderson, Georgina Malory’s brother. After failing to seduce her, Drew destroys Gabrielle’s reputation by announcing to all of Society that she is the daughter of a pirate. Not caring about the humiliation he’s caused, Drew plans to sail his ship home the next day That same night, Gabrielle discovers that her father is being held for ransom. Becoming a pirate herself, Gabrielle steals Drew’s ship. Sexual tension rises as the ship sails closer to the Caribbean. Despite all of Gabrielle’s precautions, however, Drew still manages to free himself, break into her quarters, strip her naked, and perform oral sex, all while she’s asleep. She doesn’t realize what’s happening until she loses her virginity. The fact that she’s just been raped doesn’t seem to bother her or the so-called “hero.”
Fans of the Malory family saga will no doubt rush to buy this latest installment. However, this particular story requires an extraordinary suspension of belief if you want to believe in the romance.
Debra Rodensky
LOUISA AND THE CRYSTAL GAZER
Anna Maclean, Signet, 2006, $6.99, pb, 271pp, 0451218329
A CLEARING IN THE WILD
Jane Kirkpatrick, WaterBrook, 2006, $13.99, pb, 400pp, 1578567343
It has become quite fashionable and profitable in the American writing world for an author to take a well-known person and turn him or her into a detective. Publishers love this, as they know that readers will buy the book to see what the famous person does. The problem is that this fashion has led to a quantity of whodunits rather than quality whodunits. Of greater concern to HNS readers is the poor historical research, resulting in infuriating howlers.
Louisa and the Crystal Gazer is set in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1855, and the main
character is Louisa May Alcott. It’s the third in a series and of higher quality than many of its ilk. The dialogue is overly heavy with Victorian polysyllabic words, and if you can imagine a grown-up Jo from Little Women as heroine, then you have the story. Louisa’s friend takes her to a medium, a second visit leads to a dead body, and then it’s a race to find the villain. P.T. Barnum is a minor character, and other names are dropped along the way.
This is a simple mystery, and Louisa, telling the reader what happens, is a charming character. Is she the real Louisa May Alcott, though?
Patrika Salmon
THE PRICE OF PRIDE
Donna MacQuigg, Five Star, 2006, $25.95, hb, 327pp, 1594144648
Brace yourself. MacQuigg launches The Price of Pride with a double murder and charges toward a shootout ending that makes the gunfight at the O.K. Corral look like a minor misunderstanding. In between, prideful Sarah Brighton and Marshal Ira Farrell struggle with a mutual arrogance that puts both their romance and their lives in danger. Cattle rustling, old feuds, steamy lovemaking, young gunslingers and a hooker with a heart of gold keep the pages turning. The result is an action-packed western historical romance that is fun to read if occasionally predictable.
Although it’s placed in 1892, MacQuigg adds some modern themes to her story. Sarah, her main character, is a pioneering suffragist. How often does the heroine of a Western hold meetings on women’s rights and encourage her audience to force their husbands to make their own breakfasts? Another modern touch is MacQuigg’s web site, www.donnamacquigg. com. Visit it to see photographs of the horses and Santa Fe National Forest that inspired MacQuigg to write this story of adventure and love.
History recognizes Manuela Sáenz, mistress of the 19th century revolutionary Simón Bolívar, as one of South America’s earliest feminists and greatest patriots. She earned her nickname “La Libertadora del Libertador” – the liberator of the liberator – for helping her lover escape an assassination attempt in 1828. In his bold and lyrical fourth novel, Manrique vividly portrays the passionate woman whose love affairs with one man and his vision were inseparable in the end.
“I was born a rich bastard and died a poor one,” Manuela tells us, beginning her fictional memoir of sorts with her childhood schooling at a Quito convent. The nuns’ cruel treatment of her, the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy criolla by a Spanish nobleman, turns her against Catholicism for life. In her eyes, the Spanish remain a symbol of repression and slavery, and she grows up intensely admiring Bolívar and his ideals. Although her father recognizes her at last as his daughter, he forces her to marry a wealthy Englishman; this cements her negative opinion of his countrymen. Manuela’s all-too-brief
relationship with the legendary Bolívar, the great love of her life, is the culmination of her dream to unite with the revolutionary cause.
In alternating between the viewpoints of Manuela and her African slaves, Jonotás and Natán, Manrique gives us further insight into Manuela’s character. His prose is direct yet evocative, full of the vibrant color of colonial South America – its flowering plants, its wild fauna, its horrible, bloody violence. Romantic and tragic in equal measure, Our Lives Are the Rivers is well worth reading by anyone familiar with South American history, but especially by those who aren’t.
Sarah Johnson
THE INQUEST
Jeffrey D. Marshall, Univ. Press of Vermont, 2006, $24.95, hb, 256pp, 1584655712
In 1830 Burlington, Vermont, a young woman named “Speedy” (Experience) Goodrich dies of a botched abortion. An inquest is held to determine who, among the students and professors of the budding medical school, is responsible. Archivist Jeffrey Marshall used the transcript of this inquest as the seed of his novel. He utilizes three points of view: that of the accused student Charles Daggett; the fictional scribe, a philosophy student; and Speedy’s sister Nancy. Marshall’s years of archival research have given his book an authentic tone (I questioned only three words), rife with such phrases as “Speedy learned us many games” and “domestick arts.” I appreciated the description of primitive medicine, how the grieving family is offered a guard for Speedy’s grave so her body won’t be exhumed by cadaver-hungry dissection students, and the condemnation, not so much that the abortion occurred, but that ignorant men should have been called in rather than midwives who know which end is which.
However, like archives, or even period fiction, the promised conflicts of “burned over” revivalist religion and the social rift between haves and have-nots during this period fail to materialize to full effect. No one actually goes to a revivalist meeting, for example, to give us a sense of what the fervor must have been like; we are told, not shown. And the different voices didn’t add the perspective I hope for from this device.
Notes and a guide for reading groups at the end may add the spark missing in the body of the book.
Ann Chamberlin
AGAINST A CRIMSON SKY
James Conroyd Martin, St. Martin’s Press, 2006, $24.95/C$33.95, hb, 400pp, 0312326823
In this sequel to Push Not the River, Martin continues the story of Anna Berezowska and her family as they struggle to survive the upheaval of the division of Poland and the Napoleonic Wars, plunging the reader into an era of violence, heartache and stolen moments of joy.
Early on, Anna marries Jan Stelnicki, her long-time love. Soon their happiness is shattered when he takes up arms in Napoleon’s army, leaving her at the mercy of a corrupt official who claims their son is at the centre of a Masonic plan to resurrect the Polish monarchy.
This thread is central to the rest of the story and its many subplots, including one highlighting Anna’s ambitious cousin, Zofia Grońska, and Zofia’s lover, Paweł Potecki.
Martin’s main strength lies in his characters. Each one is a real person; even the less savoury ones have at least one redeeming feature. Anna and Zofia dominate the book, as well they should. In times of war, women must find inner strength to carry on with life at home or risk losing everything, and in this the cousins succeed.
Another of the author’s strengths is his ability to recreate the past. Never once did I question his setting, so convincingly does he blend period detail into the narrative. Though the pacing in the first part is rather slow, it picks up soon afterwards and never flags. I was busy flipping pages, eager to know what happened next. This despite the sometimes awkward prose and annoying tendency of main characters to address each other by their first names (something few of us do in everyday conversation). I also deplored the stock interpretation of Empress Josephine. Those reservations aside, I believe readers will revel in this engrossing tale of courage, family loyalty, and the Polish nation.
Teresa Basinski Eckford
JACK OF CLUBS
Barbara Metzger, Signet Eclipse, 2006, $6.99/ C$9.99, pb, 343pp, 0451218051
“Cap’n Jack” Endicott is the younger brother of Alexander “Ace” Chalfont Endicott, the Earl of Carde. Back from the Peninsular Wars, Jack wishes to strike out on his own, and, ever a gambling man, opens a gaming house in London. But he didn’t bet on prudish schoolteacher Allison Silver landing on his doorstep with his young ward, Harriet, in tow. Can Allison leave Harriet in the hands of a womanizing man? Will Jack convince her that he isn’t really that kind of man, no matter what the papers say? And will Harriet succeed in bringing them together? This is the second in the House of Cards trilogy; the thread which runs through these books appears to be the search for Jack and Ace’s sister, kidnapped as a young girl. It is unfortunate that this thread is very thin indeed, and feels like an afterthought in this part of the trilogy. Characters with gruff exteriors but hearts of gold abound in this light fare, where happy endings and wedding bells for all are never in serious doubt.
Oliver Mayhew, a soldier returning from the Peninsula Wars and penniless third son of an aristocrat, finds himself in need of a rich widow to marry. How convenient then that Sarah Haverstock, wealthy widowed mother of one son, finds herself in need of a suitable tutor, someone to teach her son gentlemanly habits. Our hero and heroine accordingly meet. Oliver is hired without more ado. Then the thorny problem of a murderous plot to kill Sarah and her son Edward arises. Of course, we cry, a soldier is just the very person to cope with such a situation. Sarah certainly thinks so and readily turns to Oliver for support. Alas, their future happiness proves
much more problematic. Particularly since Sarah is not capable of keeping the same mind on any subject for more than a paragraph or two. I found myself in sympathy with Oliver’s frustration at his lady love’s frequent dithering. Moreover, a heroine who faints at the slightest mischance, regularly falling into the hands of the oh so handy hero, did begin to grate a little. Fortunately Oliver has an altogether splendidly determined character, if in very muscular fashion. A lightweight Regency, charming and insubstantial as gossamer.
Nicodemus, Kansas, was founded in 1877 as a refuge for ex-slaves from the South. Miller sets her Freedom’s Path series here, and Morning Sky is the second volume. Lilly Verdue arrives to stay with her brother-in-law, Ezekiel Harban, and his daughters, Jarena, Truth and Grace. She is fleeing an ex-lover in New Orleans, under a cloud of suspicion connected with a murder. Lilly’s big-city ways, including dabbling in voodoo and a reluctance to work, don’t fit in with the hard-working, God-fearing townspeople. Lilly’s disclosure of her true relationship to Jarena Harban brings matters to a crisis. There is a subplot in which Truth goes to New York to rescue the daughter of her white employers from a girls’ school, where pupils have become ill under suspicious circumstances.
Some of the characters’ motivations were either absent or didn’t ring true to me; it’s possible I’m missing something by not having read the first volume. Miller uses a heavy hand to ensure the reader doesn’t fail to spot the villain, endowing him with a “despicable sneer.” The story of the ex-slaves in Kansas deserves to be more widely known, and Miller gets credit for the attempt, but I didn’t enjoy it much.
B.J. Sedlock
BITTER WIND
Wayne D. Overholser, Five Star, 2006, $25.95, hb, 206pp, 1594144087
It is 1876, and people are moving west. Small towns are springing up everywhere. Bill Lang, hired as a gunman to enforce open range claims, leaves for Wyoming to avoid a range war. While stopping in Cheyenne, Lang kills a man in self-defense. Learning that the dead man belongs to the Flynn clan and that they will seek revenge, Lang decides to leave town quickly. Jake Murdock arrives on the trail in time to save Lang from being killed by the Flynns. Lang and Jake become good friends, and together they work the small ranch with the help of Jake’s live-in girlfriend, Ellie, a woman of mixed white and Sioux blood. Jake shares with Bill Lang his plans for someday owning a large ranch and asks Lang to help him achieve his goals. As predicted, Lang falls in love with the pretty halfbreed, and that’s when his troubles begin.
The author did a marvelous job of fleshing out his characters. Even though I knew that Jake was going to be the heavy, I could empathize with him. This was a fine western novel, and I will look for more books by Wayne Overholser. Jeff Westerhoff
THE POE SHADOW
Matthew Pearl, Random House, 2006, $24.95/ C32.95, hb, 370pp, 1400061032 / Harvill Secker, 2006, £12.99, hb, 384pp, 0436205459 Baltimore lawyer and Poe admirer Quentin Clark has a promising law practice and, after shaking off his cluelessness regarding women, a beautiful fiancée. Yet he risks it all with his obsession to uncover the truth about the death of Edgar Allan Poe. Pearl, author of The Dante Club, may wish to pay homage to Poe’s works with this tale, with its twists and turns and singleminded protagonist, but what works in Poe’s short stories becomes labored in a book-length work. While Pearl faithfully and diligently recreates both 19th-century Baltimore and Paris (where Clark travels to find the real-life model for C. Auguste Dupin), he’s done himself a disservice by featuring Clark as his leading man. Clark’s only characteristic is his fascination with Poe, a fascination that jeopardizes everything in his life: his career, his fiancée, and even his family home and fortune. This could be forgiven and understood if the story moved along more quickly, but Clark spends two interminable years in this pursuit, and rather dawdling years they are. There is little sense of urgency, which also undercuts Clark’s purported zeal. When the denouement came, I no longer cared.
Ellen Keith
THE LAST DAYS OF NEWGATE
Andrew Pepper, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006, £9.99, hb, 320pp, 029785237X
This is the first of a proposed series featuring Pyke, sometimes crook, sometimes Bow Street Runner. It is 1829. Peel is proposing controversial measures, the establishment of a regular Police Force, and Catholic Emancipation. The Bow Street Runners object to the first, which will sideline them. When a young Irish couple, one Catholic, one Protestant, and their newborn baby are brutally murdered, sectarian violence flares in London. Pyke tries to discover their killer, not knowing which of the powerful men around him are friends, which foes.
This is a potent mix of sectarian politics and raw violence, a richly-researched novel, (though small details have escaped the author, such as a zipped fly, which is eighty or more years too soon) with a provocative hero. Pyke has his own curious sense of morality. When his need arises he cheats, thieves, murders with brutal and merciless efficiency, and foments rebellion without much of a pang or remorse.
There were a few episodes with gaps which left me questioning, such as his escape from Newgate prison with the help of smuggled keys. How did his helpers find the right ones? And how did he escape from a pursuing mob? I was left with the impression that the author did not know and therefore slid over difficult explanations.
This gritty detective novel will appeal to those who like plenty of gore and bodies galore.
Marina Oliver
second book in the Carolina Cousins series, a black, spiritual, wounded buffalo soldier happens upon Rosewood, a cotton plantation devastated after the Civil War. The residents of Rosewood are a mixed lot comprised of former slaves, white men and women, and children of mixed blood. This loving family shares their possessions as they rebuild their lives. Racial differences do not exist on Rosewood, and this causes resentment with neighbors and town-folk. On a nearby plantation, one man plans to enter politics, but he has a skeleton in his closet that threatens to destroy him. He devises a murderous plan to rid himself of the evidence of his past indiscretions. Under the care of the unusual mixed family at Rosewood, the soldier’s wound heals. His wisdom and religious teachings affect the three women who live there, but none more than Emma and her young son William.
Phillips writes an enjoyable tale about healing, prejudice, and salvation in the aftermath of the Civil War. The tale is narrated and recalled by one of the black women of Rosewood. As it dispenses spiritual wisdom, this novel will tweak your emotions. It is the struggle of one interracial family to overcome the prejudices and segregation of the South.
When Venetia Milton agreed to photograph some items for the obscure Arcane Society, she didn’t know the powerful attraction she would feel for Gabriel Jones, her employer. She had always been, by necessity, the model of propriety; but after meeting Mr. Jones, she decides on one grand night of passion to cherish for the rest of her life. If only she can figure out how to seduce someone…
Soon after their mutually satisfactory encounter, Venetia hears of Gabriel’s death. She renames herself Mrs. Jones, a widow, in honor of their experience together and in order to gain respect as a photographer. She and her family move to London, where her photographic career blossoms. Everything is running smoothly until her faux husband, Mr. Gabriel Jones, appears in London, looking for the wife he did not know he had.
Jayne Ann Krentz, writing as Amanda Quick, has penned another satisfyingly scintillating novel of historical England, this one taking place late in the Victorian era. Her trademark combination of strong-willed inquisitive heroine and equally strong-willed, dominating hero never fails to entertain. She is a master of witty dialogue.
Nan Curnutt
THE
SOLDIER’S
LADY
Michael Phillips, Bethany House, 2006, $12.99, pb, 346pp, 0764200429
In this heartwarming Christian novel, the
THE GOLD MASTERS
Norman Russell, Hale, 2006, £18.99, hb, 224pp, 0709080204
Sir Hamo Strange and Lord Jocelyn Peto are both Victorian gentleman bankers and collectors of rare ancient books. Rivals at work and play, their enmity knows no bounds. When theft and then a murder bring them to the attention of the authorities, Detective Inspector Box and
Sergeant Knollys are put on the case. Matters come to a head when vast quantities of bullion are apparently stolen from Sir Hamo Strange’s bank vaults under the very noses of the police. But enquiries take an even more unexpected turn when Box discovers that a group of questionable mediums are mixed up in events. The solution to the case is not going to be easy to prove — especially when it looks increasingly likely that the government might be involved.
Norman Russell specialises in Victorian detective novels and The Gold Masters maintains his reputation for creating thoroughly entertaining mystery stories. Box and Knollys are a great literary pairing, managing to be both likeable and yet remaining a touch abrasive. The subplot involving the classic Victorian mediums is particularly well-handled, debunking the majority and yet retaining an elusive whiff of plausibility. A good read.
Sara Wilson
MIDNIGHT SECRETS
Jennifer St. Giles, Berkley, 2006, $6.99/C$9.99, pb, 373pp, 04250209628
Dreaming of her cousin Mary’s death, Cassie gives up writing her column on etiquette to masquerade as a housemaid at the Cornish castle where Mary worked as a governess. Cassie is determined to find out how Mary died, but as she uncovers information she becomes captivated by Sean Killdaren, master of the castle. At first Cassie resists her attraction to Sean, who hides from daylight and makes no excuses for the strange noises that emanate from his rooms at night. But the more encounters she shares with Sean, the less Cassie cares about etiquette, her previous life, or his secrets.
Although set in the 1870s, this story appears to revolve about 21st-century characters in costume. The romance is well done, with lots of tension and plausible detail. Cassie and Sean are believable characters, as is Cassie’s fellow maid, Bridget. Other aspects of the novel are less convincing. The plot surrounding Mary’s disappearance failed to grip my attention, and a number of incidents prompted me to ask “would this really have happened?” such as when Cassie, a downstairs maid, is invited for tea with Prudence, a lady of the house. But if you can accept it as a bit fantastical, you’ll likely enjoy Midnight Secrets
In her latest work, Sawyer (The Chase) charts the conflicted relationship between an aristocratic British intelligence officer and a beauty loyal to France during the Napoleonic era. Delphine Dalgleish encounters Sir Gideon Landor before and during his escape from Mauritius, in imminent danger of a British invasion. In the aftermath of Landor’s flight from the island – in a yacht stolen from Delphine’s cousin Armand – the Dalgleish plantation is given a British overseer. Delphine and her mother hasten to Paris to plead with Napoleon for its restoration. Impressed by the young
woman, the emperor sends her to London to seek information about the person attempting to crack his secret code. Gideon is engaged in that very activity. Unaware that Delphine believes him to be a double agent, and therefore highly dishonorable, he is bemused by her hostility.
The eventual revelation of their covert activities cannot break their attraction for one another. But the past, her devious cousin Armand, and the war in the Peninsula threaten to separate them forever.
While descriptions of the protagonists’ physical awareness of each other is sometimes repetitive, Sawyer redeems herself by crafting a historical romance that focuses on character growth and intrigue rather then a series of bedroom scenes.
Margaret Barr
THE TELL-TALE CORPSE
Harold Schechter, Ballantine, 2006, $24.95/ C$34.95, hb, 336pp, 0345448421
In the latter months of 1845, Edgar Allan Poe was enjoying success as a writer; however, his finances were precarious. His young wife, Virginia, was unwell, and they had been told by several doctors that nothing could be done. Poe’s good friend, P.T. Barnum, advises Poe that a doctor outside of Boston has had remarkable success with botanical cures. Poe and “Sissy” travel to Boston and stop over before going on to Concord. When a servant girl is found drowned in a bath, it looks like an accident, but Poe proves it is murder. When they move on to Concord, they discover other murders meant to look like suicides. Poe believes the murders and recent grave robberies are all connected. With his vast intelligence and tendency towards the macabre, Poe is a natural detective
Eddie, as Sissy affectionately calls him, meets up with other literary figures of the day. Fourteen-year-old Louisa May Alcott becomes a sidekick of sorts, and they also encounter Henry David Thoreau in the course of the investigation. The portrayal of the Alcott family is especially well done; the novel foreshadows Louisa’s future a writer of popular sensational stories. Schechter’s descriptions of mid-19th century Boston are engrossing. Fans of Poe should take note of this unusual and entertaining series.
Louis Daguerre, artist and inventor, is being poisoned, a victim of toxic chemicals used in the imaging process that bears his name. By 1847, after more than a decade of heavy exposure to mercury vapor (a hallucinogen in the extreme), Daguerre becomes convinced that the world will soon end. With that horror in mind, he devises a doomsday list of ten things and people whose essence he wishes to capture in Daguerreotype. The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre is a fictional look into Daguerre’s life, set partially in his early adolescence. We discover the story behind the last entry on his doomsday list, a woman called Isobel Le Fournier, whom he describes as “his first and only substantial love.”
But can he find her again? And did his loss of her shape his creativity.
This novel, Dominic Smith’s first, is a captivating story haunted by regret. Smith’s style is both visual and elegant. The characters feel as though they’ve arisen from the unease of France of the period. Smith’s Daguerre is there, yet not there – between life and death in a hazy limbo, like a Daguerreotype subject awaiting the final shutter click. Such a pleasure to read.
Janette
King
TALK OF THE TOWN
Joan Smith, Hale, 2006, £17.99, hb, 191pp, 0709079281
Daphne Ingleside’s Aunt Effie is a woman with a Past. Once the toast of the town, she is now scandalously divorced and living in reduced circumstances. So when Daphne suggests she sell her memoirs, Effie agrees. Word soon reaches her former well-to-do acquaintances and, misunderstanding, they believe that her potential revelations form part of an elaborate blackmail plot. Unaware of the rumours abounding and suddenly awash with attentive visitors, Daphne and Effie launch into Society with a flourish, only to find their way blocked by the very eligible and extremely angry Duke of St Felix. Exasperated by the young man’s insinuations, Daphne leads him a merry dance before realising she has fallen deeply in love with a man far beyond her expectations. What a delightful frothy read Talk of the Town is. Although not perhaps the most literary of novels, this Regency romance delivers just what it should – intrigue, misconceptions and plenty of romantic thrills. Perfect for idling away an afternoon sitting in the sunshine with a cool drink close at hand.
Clarissa Hartley discovers that her inheritance has been left to the illegitimate son of her late husband. This is devastating news to her as she has devoted her life to running the estate. Her godmother’s son, Luc, Lord Deverill, suspects fraud and insists on becoming involved with the matter. Clarissa disapproves of the rakish earl but catches glimpses of the real man beneath the façade. Her stubbornness endangers her and Luc is involved in a race to save the woman he loves.
This book is true to the genre and has been impeccably researched. It has a cast of interesting and believable characters, all of which are welldrawn. In places the dialogue sparkles, and the humour is evident. However the writing is far too often overburdened with unnecessary adjectives and adverbs, which spoil the flow and pace of an otherwise excellent story.
The cover design depicts a dark-haired girl when Clarissa has corn-coloured hair; it is a shame that neither publisher nor author noticed this.
Fenella Miller
A MILLION NIGHTINGALES
Susan Straight, Pantheon, 2006, $24.95/
C$34.95, hb, 333pp, 0375423648
Straight takes readers back to 19thcentury Louisiana sugar cane plantations in a heartbreaking story of a mixed-race slave and her search for freedom. The novel spans the life of Moinette, a beautiful, light skinned “mulatresse,” beginning with the events that wrench her from her beloved mother at age 14 through her final days in her forties. In a rhythmic and observant manner, Moinette describes her journey through a world of brutality, sexual violence, loss, and, finally, freedom.
Moinette begins her tale by describing her childhood, her mother, and the people she lives with. Working for Céphaline, the master’s daughter, Moinette is able to eavesdrop on lessons and learn to write. When Céphaline falls ill and dies, Moinette is suddenly sold and sent away without even a chance to find her mother and say goodbye. Heartbroken, she must endeavor to survive in the frightening world she has been thrust into. As Moinette makes her way from sugar cane fields through mysterious bayous to the streets of Opelousas, readers gain a glimpse of the horrors that slaves faced, their enduring strength, and their never-ending hope for freedom.
Rich in detail, this is a well-researched and eloquent story, perfect for book discussion groups. The picture of antebellum plantation life that emerges is one about human ownership, and an underlying theme of mothers and daughters creates a poignant tone. Moinette’s voice is terse, compelling, and spoken from the heart. The novel is brimming with unique characters and lyrical prose, sure to keep readers captivated long after finishing the book.
In 1890s London, suffragette leader Caledonia Rivers – known as “The Maid of Mayfair” for her unassailable virtue – angers a powerful man who fears her popularity may actually enable the passage of a bill granting women limited suffrage. Hadrian St. Claire, a photographer in desperate need of money, is hired to seduce Callie and get a picture of her in the most compromising position possible. With her reputation ruined, the bill’s chance of passing will collapse. But when Harry meets Callie, will she indeed be vanquished, or will love conquer all?
Vanquished is a vivid, passionate romance, and the love scenes are sizzling. But as an historical novel, it is less successful. While the main facts are well-researched, the author doesn’t seem to have a good handle on the manners and mores of the period. However, it’s one hot, if flawed, read.
India Edghill
THE HUMMINGBIRD’S DAUGHTER
EDITORS’ CHOICE
Luis Alberto Urrea, Back Bay, 2006, $14.95, pb, 500pp, 0315154520 / Little, Brown, 2006, £5.99, pb, 512pp, 0316013811
Luis Alberto Urrea had a “flying Yaqui aunt” in Tijuana, Mexico, a woman who was said to be the mystical guiding force behind Mexico’s revolution. Teresita Urrea is born in 1873 with a red triangle on her forehead, a clear sign of a “healer” to the Yaqui healer, Huila. It is Huila who becomes the predominantly powerful force for Teresa, abandoned by her mother, almost beaten to death by her aunt, and raped at the age of 16.
But this book is not about Teresa’s tragic survival. The magical realism of Latin fiction reigns supreme in this fascinating novel where the sacred and profane realities of Mexico interweave into a multicolored tapestry of delight in everyday life. Plants have energy, the dead communicate joy and sorrow, warriors sing with the coyotes, and anyone can fly into a better world.
Forced by the tyrannical rulers of the day to migrate from the Mexican state of Sinaloa to Cordoba, the Urreas and their itinerant workers begin to sense the imminent destruction of those who refuse to bow to dictators who prefer the monetary favors of North America to the betterment of their own people. So the North becomes the place ready to unite rebels under one independent, free people who come to Teresita. She takes their pain into herself, and then God cures her. He also blesses their endeavor for independence, depicted with that magical realism approach, “A festive woodpecker sounded in the trees behind us, its industrious hammering representative of Nature herself bending toward the construction of a New Mexican Republic – God Himself putting Nature on the Diaz plan!”
This exquisite novel celebrates not only the political and religious realities of Mexican life but also the sheer love of life itself, bursting with love, hate, sex, war, peace, and passion personified. Viviane Crystal
centres on the mental disturbances of a beautiful widow, Mrs. Isabel Ireland, who is incarcerated in Easton Hall in Norfolk, the substantial but run-down property of her husband’s friend, the naturalist James Dixey. There is a mystery surrounding Dixey’s unwillingness to divulge details of Isabel’s health and treatment to her family and other interested parties, the background to which involves a criminal fraternity, who also embark upon a 19th-century equivalent of the Great Train Robbery.
It is 1806, and Lieutenant Martin Jerrold R.N. desperately needs to avoid the consequences of his recent misdeeds. He accepts a risky commission to deliver a letter to an address in America. Jerrold really is an incorrigible scoundrel, but his total lack of illusion about his shortcomings is his saving grace.
KEPT
DJ Taylor, Chatto and Windus, 2006, £16.99, hb, 431pp, 0701178957
Set in 1860s England, this literary novel is very much in the style of well-known Victorian fiction, but it is more than just a ponderous rehash of the typical works of the time. The story
As with all good mysteries, though, the story only begins to be fully explained towards the end of the book. A variety of characters narrate the plot through a range of styles: correspondence, journals, the omniscient Trollopian narrator and the more modern disjointed thoughts of Isabel. This mélange works well because the plot is stitched together ably, and the story is pursued by characters (and often their names) already familiar to the reader from the Victorian canon. The historical context is sound, with many references to the customs and practices of the day, as well as detailed footnotes at the end of the novel to explain the references made to historical events and personages, often with postmodern tongue firmly in cheek, I feel. The two concerns I have with the novel are that despite the erudition, convincing historical background and excellence of style, the characters somehow do not really sufficiently engage the emotions of the reader, and there is the occasional “continuity” problem, which should have been spotted by good editing.
Doug Kemp
The recipient of the letter is involved in an incredible plot against the interests of England, America and Spain. Jerrold’s mission, while posing as a sympathiser, is to undermine the conspiracy. He is led into a string of improbable and exciting adventures in which his behaviour is less than honourable. However, his genius for extricating himself from every predicament leaves him with his image triumphantly intact.
This novel moves at a cracking pace and is a really entertaining read.
Ruth Nash
FORT PILLOW
Harry Turtledove, St. Martin’s Press, 2006, $24.95, hb, 336pp, 0312355203
It’s 1864 in Jackson, Tennessee, at a military headquarters that has changed from Confederate to Union and now back to Confederate ownership. Many of the soldiers themselves have switched sides, depending on who appears to be the apparent victor; for now, anyway. But Nathan Bedford Forrest has one goal in mind: the capture of Fort Pillow, now held by Union soldiers. More specifically, half of it is held by white soldiers, and the other half by Negro
soldiers. Forrest finds it unconscionable that such “integration” exists, and he is determined to end it immediately. The story that follows is intriguing not because of the disastrous outcome for the Union troops, but for the thoughts and conversations about the motivations, passions, determination (or lack thereof), and chances for success for America’s only Negro Army unit. How hard would one fight for victory if the alternative was slavery? Having never fought before, could these determined soldiers hold steady in the ferocity of bombardment and mounting casualties? Under the code of military conduct, how does one treat Negro prisoners of war, who in the eyes of Southerners are nothing more than escaped slaves? How far will men go to win freedom?
There are no rules for such a situation, and the enfolding story of this historical event is superbly crafted. Turtledove, who is known for his work in fantasy, writes this historical novel in a riveting and uncompromising fashion that will hold the interest of those interested in the Civil War and civil rights.
Viviane Crystal CITY FOR RANSOM
Robert W. Walker, Avon, 2006, $6.99/C$9.99, pb, 336pp, 0060739959
Inspector Alastair Ransom is faced with a diabolical and ruthless killer who is stalking the streets of Chicago during the Great Exposition of 1893. As the crimes continue, the inspector not only finds himself under great pressure to stop them, but he also uncovers disturbing personal connections to the murderer. Worse, Ransom is plagued by an enigmatic little man who, with the blessings of the Police Chief, intrudes upon his investigation. He can’t decide if this strange character is charlatan or scientist, doctor or pioneering criminologist. His investigation becomes twofold: not only must he apprehend the killer, but he is compelled to discover this man’s secret, a truth which turns out to be one that he could scarcely imagine.
Described in the manner of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Ransom is nevertheless no Sherlock. Hard-boiled, physically and emotionally scarred, the inspector has as many of his own demons to fight as criminals on the streets, and those streets are mean indeed. Fans of Erik Larson’s highly successful and in many ways similar The Devil in the White City will recognize them, and the author portrays those streets in all their grittiness. Characters are likewise drawn sharply, and provide much of the interest in this book. The plot does not fall short either. Complex and multifaceted, it challenges the reader. While some might find this story at times too outrageous, the novel succeeds both as a mystery and an interesting read. It is an intelligent and absorbing work, which, although written in the somewhat elaborate style of those times, is ultimately satisfying.
Ken Kreckel
has gathered to watch the wedding of the year. Violet Brantford is marrying the man she loves. There is only one slight problem. Adrian Winter, sixth Duke of Raeburn, England’s most eligible bachelor, thinks he is marrying Violet’s twin sister, Jeanette. Although the girls are twins, they do not share much in common beyond their looks. While Jeanette is wild and flighty, the life of the party, Violet is shy and bookish. Right before the wedding, Jeanette declares she will not marry the Duke, and talks Violet into taking her place. Violet must now prepare to live the rest of her life as someone else, but it does not take long for Adrian to suspect that something is not right with his new bride. Tracy Anne Warren has constructed a warm, entertaining novel about a young wife trying to pretend she is someone else, while her husband begins to believe he may have gotten more than he bargained for.
THE WIFE TRAP
THE HUSBAND TRAP
Tracy Anne Warren, Ballantine, 2006, $6.99/ C9.99, pb, 358pp, 0345483081
The time is July 1816. The setting is St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, where the Haut Ton
Nan Curnutt
Tracy Anne Warren, Ballantine, 2006, $6.99/ C$9.99, pb, 392pp, 034548309X
Lady Jeanette Brantford was banished from the high society she loved simply because she coerced her more docile twin into switching places with her at her wedding so she could go abroad. This hardly seems fair to her. After all, her sister and ex-fiancé are now happily married. Nevertheless, Jeanette is now in Ireland and stuck in a bog. It is no wonder she is in a terrible temper when Darragh O’Brien, a lowly architect, comes to her rescue. If only he could be a gentleman and treat her with the deference she deserves! When Jeanette finds Darragh is restoring her cousin’s house, she determines to teach him his place. Darragh has other ideas.
This, the second novel in a trilogy and set in Ireland in 1817, is a very different story from the first. While The Husband Trap told about two gentle people learning to love each other, this story is about a very spoiled and willful young lady meeting her match in determination. Although the plot drags a bit in places, it is an entertaining view of two protagonists struggling for supremacy and against their growing attraction for each other.
Nan Curnutt
TEHANO
Allen Wier, Southern Methodist Univ., 2006, $27.50, hb, 736pp, 0870745069
This is a sprawling Western epic that finishes in the Comancheria area of Texas in the years following the Civil War. Parts of the book start out in other locales in the pre-war years, such as Baltimore, Mississippi, and New Orleans, as the many characters leave their homes and make their way to Texas, willingly or not. Among them are Knobby Cotton, escaped slave, and his wife Elizabeth; Rudolph Hermann, German immigrant; twins Charles and Alexander Speer, who fought on opposite sides of the Civil War; Two Talks, Comanche leader; and Dorsey Murphy, captured by Two Talks’ band while crossing the plains. Gideon Jones, an orphanturned-undertaker, isn’t quite the main character, but as he is the focus of the first and last scenes, and extracts from his journal begin many of the chapters, he is the thread that ties the many
subplots together.
Coincidences are many, the violence graphic, the sex unromantic. Wier’s attempts at rendering non-English dialogue, inserting foreign words at odd places, aren’t very successful. I thought the book sprawled a bit too much, and I had to refer to the author’s list of 17 major characters many times in order to keep everyone straight. Some of those characters met disappointing fates, while other outcomes were more satisfying. Still, I was caught enough to want to keep reading and find out what happened to everyone. The most successful and absorbing parts are those dealing with Knobby and Elizabeth’s plight as runaway slaves, and the detailed scenes of life among the Comanche.
B.J. Sedlock
THE AMALGAMATION POLKA
Stephen Wright, Knopf, 2006, $24.95/C$34.95, hb, 323pp, 067945117X
Liberty Fish is born in 1844 to an uncommon set of parents. His father is a Northern abolitionist; his mother was born and raised on a South Carolina plantation. During the antebellum years, he discovers that his home is a station on the Underground Railroad. Raised to oppose slavery, Liberty lives a lonely childhood; other children would pick on him because they knew his parents harbored runaway slaves. When his Uncle Potter came to visit, he learns about “Bloody Kansas” and the war between the free-staters and the pro-slavery factions.
Throughout his youth, Liberty is tormented by his mother’s relationship with her parents, who disowned her for moving north and marrying an abolitionist. Shortly after the Civil War begins, he joins the Union army and participates in the march into Georgia. When he learns his unit isn’t far from his grandparents’ plantation, Liberty decides to leave the army and try to find their home. During this adventure, he learns not only about his roots but also about the terrible practice of slavery.
This book may very well be one of the top ten books I’ll read this year. The author did an outstanding job writing this story; his use of the English language in describing the era and people is exceptional. Wright puts together a great cast of characters that he cleverly weaves throughout the novel. You will become as outraged as I when you read about the peculiar institution of slavery and how people of the time dealt with it. This compelling novel should be on the bookshelf of all Civil War aficionados.
Jeff Westerhoff
PISTOLS AT DAWN
Michèle Ann Young, Five Star, 2006, $26.95, hb, 311pp, 1594144605
This Regency romance begins in Hyde Park as a duel is about to be fought. But Michael Yelverton is not defending the honor of a lady; instead, he is looking for an easy way out. Unfortunately, his opponent, the scandalous Simon, Earl of Travis, cannot bring himself to shoot the obviously drunken Michael, so he fires away from the target. Having escaped an honorable death, Yelverton takes the coward’s way out and shoots himself just as his sister, Victoria, comes racing across the field. Simon,
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blamed for the suicide, decides to take on Yelverton’s responsibilities as well as his debts and property acquired at the gaming tables. Victoria becomes Simon’s ward, and his very respectable aunt sponsors her comingout. Predictably, there is a romance between Victoria and Simon. However, both have agendas that preclude any involvement, and the rest of the novel is spent sorting them out to a happily-ever-after ending. This is Young’s first published novel, and as such, it is creditable if not outstanding. There are inconsistencies that are confusing at times, but if you like your Regencies with intrigue, it’s a good book to take to the beach.
Czernowitz, Ukraine, is the setting for Katerina. After spending forty tumultuous years away from her childhood home, Katerina, an elderly peasant woman, returns to her village to narrate her story about her escape from abusive parents and her life before World War II. When she leaves Czernowitz, the only work available in the city is in Jewish homes. Surrounded by bigotry, she assimilates to the Jewish lifestyle, taking comfort in their rituals, and discovers that Jewish employers treat her better than her own kind.
Katerina sticks to her belief that all people should be treated decently, but she pays a terrible price. As anti-Semitism prevails and her Jewish friends are killed, Katerina is imprisoned for a crime of passion. While in jail, she daily sees long freight trains with Jews going to their deaths, which “aroused a wave of joy” in her fellow inmates. After the war, Katerina is released into a world where her reputation haunts her. She returns to her family’s run-down village to live with her memories of the Jewish friends she once coveted.
The main thread of the plot concerns the relationship between Jews and Gentiles in Eastern Europe prior to the Holocaust. It portrays the fragility of life and the lack of control people had in a time when their only sin was their religion. Katerina is an eye-opening, well-constructed tale of a horrendous time in 20th-century history, but the author doesn’t write convincingly from a woman’s viewpoint. While it is a good firsthand portrayal of the historical conflicts, the characters are superficial and lack emotional depth.
Nancy Flinn Ludwin
CELLOPHANE
Marie Arana, Dial, 2006, $24.00/C$32.00, 384pp, hb, 0385336640
The boundaries between jungle and civilization, river and land, natives and interlopers are explored, broken, and reestablished in Arana’s breathtaking fiction debut. Set on the Amazon river in the early to mid-20th century, the narrative sets out the life of Don Victor Sobrevilla Paniagua: his early years in Lima, his growing skills as an engineer, and his passion to go beyond what tradition, and
the laws of nature, deem possible by building a paper factory in the jungle. He takes his young family up the Amazon River, massive paperfactory machinery in tow, and against all odds, succeeds.
Twenty years of supplying paper up and down the river have made him rich both in financial terms and in family, as another generation of Sobrevillas grows up in his luxurious hacienda in the jungle. Trouble is brewing, however, that neither organized religion nor the native shamans can avert. Just as Don Victor works out the finishing touches on producing his crowning glory – cellophane – the hacienda, and the surrounding area inhabited by his factory workers, are struck by a “plague of tongues,” in which everyone is compelled to tell the truth, withholding no secrets whatsoever. Then their inner motives become transparent as well, as the “plague of hearts” takes hold. Lust and infidelity are everywhere, breaking the bonds of decades and forging new ones. Finally, the “plague of revolution” pits everyone, native and white, against not only each other but against him or herself, as well. Out of destruction comes insight and new life, and the balance of nature is regained.
Arana provides humorous moments, evocative descriptions, and thoughtful resolution, creating a wonderful page-turning tale.
Hedwig and Berti is the saga of a mismatched upper-class German Jewish couple who escape from Nazi Germany, going first to London, then New York, and finally Kansas. The overbearing Hedwig and diminutive Berti must cope with the culture shock of a new home, a lower class way of life, as well as unwanted memories of the past. The birth of a daughter, a strange, combative, rather ugly child with a genius for music, ultimately unlocks a secret of the past, one which is perhaps better left alone.
This is a remarkable novel about failed people, loss, and above all, the effects of prejudice. Intolerance from within their own family defines them. Bigotry from without drives the direction of their lives. Both ultimately contribute to their personal tragedies.
The story is told in a lighter, more humorous tone than the subject matter would suggest. Frieda Arkin’s prose is witty and unsentimental. Her style is spare yet colorful. Characters are drawn sharply and expertly. One will recognize members of their own family in them, and perhaps even a bit of themselves. The 88-yearold author writes as freshly as a teenager, but with the touch of a master, resulting in a book that is both marvelously entertaining and memorably illuminating.
If there is a fault, it is that at times the writing is too clever. The author’s unexpected similes and creative comparisons provide much of the flavor of the book, however they can be repetitious and occasionally even jolting, like a fine recipe that is a bit overseasoned. This is a minor point, however, and I heartily recommend this fine work of fiction.
Ken Kreckel
LET THE BELLS RING
Anne Baker, Headline, 2006, £5.99, pb, 472pp, 0755324668
Let the Bells Ring is a hefty read in the tradition of the gentle, romantic saga, and the chapters are a perfect length for reading night by night. Anne Baker is a popular and prolific writer of sagas set on her home territory of Merseyside, and Let the Bells Ring is one of these.
In 1941, two days before her eighteenth birthday, Hannah Ashe and her mother, Esme, are bombed out of their home and have to take refuge with a difficult relative, Aunt Philomena. Still there are compensations for Hannah, like the family next door, lively Gina Goodwin and her interesting brothers. But Esme and Aunt Philomena object to the Goodwins; indeed there seems to be some mystery about her mother and the Goodwins. Hannah has to sort it all out as she grows up, falls in love and copes with the privations of wartime life.
This is a pleasant, easy read, a trip down memory lane for those who can remember the struggles of wartime living, and a good introduction to what life was like for those too young to remember.
Patrika Salmon
BEAUTIFUL DREAMER
Christopher Bigsby, Thomas Dunne, 2006, $21.95, hb, 184pp, 0312355831
“I were in for some nails. I were looking in the barrel, and sorting them out and in he comes, in comes your father, not going round back like he must have known, like he did know, he should have done. He comes in and lets the screen door bang closed…” Three simple sentences, depicting an action and its consequent implications, begin this story of racism spinning out of control.
A white person tries to defend the black man who violated the racial rules in Tennessee in the early twentieth century. The black man is murdered and the white man, who remains unnamed throughout the novel, is literally branded. During his recovery he meets the son of the murdered man, and both are almost propelled to a devastating revenge that will force them to flee as hunted men.
While this story is all too common in American history, what is of singular note in this novel involves the cycle of misunderstandings occurring on all sides. For who can explain the reactions of a grief-stricken African-American boy, a white person who dares to break the acceptable social code of his culture, the fierce, almost primitive stalking two white brothers tirelessly follow, as well as the empathy of an investigator who may be too late to end the path of fury bound to resolution by all concerned? Think of Faulkner, Richard Wright, and more recently, Joyce Carol Oates when you plan on reading this intense but oh so necessary story. For, the author implies, we must never forget the tragedy emanating from those who would deny any person’s “civil rights.”
Viviane Crystal
WALK PROUD, STAND TALL
Johnny D. Boggs, Five Star, 2006, $25.95, hb, 235pp, 159414348X
In 1913, legendary lawman Lin Garrett
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arrives in Flagstaff, Arizona, where he was the sheriff back in the 1880s. Seventy years old, Garrett had been riding the rails with no destination in mind. Penniless and always in physical pain, he is placed into the Coconino County Hospital for the Indigent. His former deputy, Randolph Corbett, stops by to talk about the good old days. One topic that always comes up is the outlaw named Ollie Sinclair. At one time, Sinclair and Garrett rode together – until Sinclair broke the law.
As sheriff, Garrett tracks him down and sends him to prison. Guilty of manslaughter and train robbery, Sinclair is sentenced to 25 years of hard labor at Yuma Prison, but when released, he and his gang rob a train. A posse is organized to recapture Sinclair or kill him. The old timers, Garrett and Ol’ Corb, borrow horses and try to track down Sinclair and his gang.
The author weaves a back-story throughout the novel to show how and why Lin Garrett became a legend. A fast-paced novel and a quick read, this novel will appeal to all Western lovers.
With Voices from a Time, winner of the Zerilli-Marimo Prize in Italy, Silvia Bonucci weaves a spellbinding psychological tale that follows a Jewish family from its high standing in society to its complete and utter destruction. One by one, each of the characters reveals the details of the Levi family’s complex life.
The scene is Trieste at the turn of the 20th century. Gemma, socialite wife and irresponsible mother, deeply influences each family member. Her eldest son Marcello’s need for his mother’s love and acceptance leads him into a lifethreatening addiction to opium. Sandrin, Gemma’s spurned husband, struggles to manage the declining family fortune. Dolly, the middle child, loves her opium-addicted brother and tries to discover understanding while their lives spiral out of control. The cultural squalor of Italian Fascism takes root, and Titi, the youngest, is swept into the movement. Castaldi, a recovering opium addict himself, meets and falls in love with Gemma, wreaking further pain and havoc on the family.
This novel is written in the first person, with all of the characters revealing their observations, motivations, and rationales for their actions. Bonucci carefully reveals one secret after another, cleverly unfolding this slow tale of a family’s devastation. This is a very readable family saga about a time period and setting most of us know little about.
The novel is set in Fairhope, Alabama, a small Gulf Coast town during the early years of World War II as Rove MacNee, the narrator, comes of age. He recalls fond family memories from his youth, especially the cherished times he spent with his maternal grandmother, Granny Wooten. He experiences first love with Anna
Pearl Anderson, a beautiful fellow schoolmate who wins his heart. But his father, Dominus MacNee, had taken to drinking and being abusive for reasons that are not quite clear. He is especially brutal to Rove’s mother after long trips at sea as captain of the Mary Foster. As the story unfolds, Rove escapes the emotional disorder by rehabilitating and refitting a schooner given to him by Josef Unruh, who is of German descent and a former friend of the family. As tensions continue to build, so does Dominus’s hate of Josef. Clearly there are deeper and more personal reasons for Dominus’s rage than just his mistrust of Josef’s nationality.
Sonny Brewer’s novel skillfully counterpoints the larger conflict of a world at war by reflecting the turmoil of one family. Character development, particularly the maturation of Rove, and the attention to local detail recreate this unique time and place. This compelling story is also a universal one.
In 1924 Eleanor Rose turns 21 and inherits her family estate in Louisiana, ‘Eden’s Meadow’. Left an orphan as a child and brought up in Boston by her maternal grandfather, she looks to the south as a haven in which to grieve and to concentrate on her music. Her tranquillity is soon disturbed by a growing love for an enigmatic Russian pianist and by a shocking discovery surrounding the house which threatens her sanity and her life.
The Other Eden is a novel set in the past and may disappoint those readers wishing for more historical content. The story is often confusing, with literary pretensions and unsympathetic characters, and it reads at times like a book of musicology. It is overcrafted: the mystery is imprisoned in a plethora of words struggling to free themselves yet remaining immured on an altar to indulgent refrain. Only the epilogue liberates the narrative from its cacophony of words.
Gwen Sly
OUR LADY OF PAIN
Marion Chesney, Minotaur, 2006, $22.95/ C$30.95, hb, 216pp, 0312329687
The fourth installment in this post-Edwardian mystery series finds Lady Rose Summer and Captain Harry Cathcart still pretending to be engaged to spare her from being sent to India to find a husband. Naturally, the two are actually in love, but God forbid they should reveal that to each other. When Harry, a private investigator, takes on the courtesan Dolores Duval as a client, Rose can’t suppress her jealousy. After an impetuous outburst at the opera, she threatens the other woman’s life. Rose becomes the obvious suspect in her murder when she later visits Dolores, only to find her dead, and quite foolishly picks up the pistol used to shoot her.
Although I had hoped after the third book that this one would find these two silly kids honest with themselves and legitimately engaged, my amusement outweighed my exasperation. There is momentum of a sort as Rose’s companion,
Daisy, and Harry’s manservant, Beckett, finally tie the knot. One can only hope that Harry and Rose will soon follow suit. With trips to Scotland and Paris to either evade or track down killers, there’s a madcap feel to this tale. As usual, the mystery itself pales beside the characters: stern nuns, indifferent parents, and capricious old ladies. Chesney has staked her claim on the 1920s. Bring on the fifth installment!
“Bastards, saints – can’t say I’ve ever seen one or the other. Souls are never black or white; they’re all gray in the end …” During World War I the inhabitants of a French village on the Guérlante, the slow river, lived within earshot of the front. But war is not the subject of Philippe Claudel’s first novel. Rather, the story he tells is of the very human souls of the village, “les âmes grises” – gray souls, doing the best they can in the face of inconsolable loss.
The story unfolds through a series of memoirs being written by a policeman who investigated the murder of a 10-year-old girl in Guérlante during the winter of 1917-1918. Those years have long passed, and most of the people involved are dead. Now in midlife, the police officer, who remains unnamed, lays out the pieces of the puzzle. They come together in a picture as horrifying as the war that frames it.
The child’s murder is the central piece of the puzzle. An arrogant judge and vicious military investigator are another. They will produce a murderer, but it won’t be the prime suspect, a man of wealth and power. They hamstring the investigation. But can the police officer cry foul? For he, too, has a “gray soul.” This is the final piece of the puzzle.
The novel flows as smoothly as the river it is set by, and with as steady and strong a current. The author paints his characters sympathetically, even those whose souls seem almost black. A closing twist in the story seals it in grayness, and the reader wonders if there is such a thing as justice. This is a thought-provoking story well worth the read.
Summer, 1930. At her sister’s wedding, Edyth Evans is strongly attracted to the handsome young curate, Peter Slater. Soon, they are “courting” despite her parents’ reservations. When Peter is offered the parish in Cardiff’s Tiger Bay on the condition that he has a wife, Edyth rashly defies her concerned family, leaves college and marries him. But Peter’s behaviour is strange. Within a few unhappy weeks, her safe world is turned upside down and she learns why her parents opposed the marriage.
Very slow getting started, but things pick up once the Slaters arrive at the Vicarage. If Peter’s secret is a little too predictable, the solution is handled with flair. Multi-racial Tiger Bay is colourfully drawn and almost a character in
itself. In this first novel of a series, Collier makes us care about Edyth as she painfully matures. Lynn Guest
THE TAILOR’S WIFE
Alexander Connor, Headline, 2006, £5.99, pb, 439pp, 0755323726
In 1930s Salford, Suzannah Clark is forced to raise her two siblings after her mother, the tailor’s wife of the title, walks out. Her father, Jacob, is persuaded by Girton, Suzannah’s brother, to allow her to train as a tailor when his sight fails. She learns the trade and is able to support the family. She never stops searching for her mother even when the rest of the family has given up.
She becomes involved with Edward, the son of wealthy Noel Lyle, who tries to end the relationship. Girton becomes involved with the rapacious Rina Taylor and soon tragedy and scandal engulf them all. Suzannah fights to save her family and to be with the man she loves.
The author paints a vivid picture of Salford, its slums, the poverty and the various inhabitants of Hanky Park. The main characters are well depicted, and the reader is easily able to identify with them, to feel part of their lives. This is a well written book, a good example of its genre; there is so much happening it could easily have been written as two books, thus allowing more development of some of the sub-plots and story lines.
Elaine Benson arrives at the lake house of a wealthy Canadian family to help the eldest
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sister write her memoirs. Moira Madison was, unusually for the daughter of such a rich family, a career nurse, and lived through experiences, particularly during World War II, that she feels are worth saving for others to read. Elaine finds the house and setting lovely, but things aren’t as idyllic as they might be. What happened to the biographer who was hired before Elaine? And what is it about the decrepit cottage in the woods that causes Elaine such unease?
Chapters set in the present day alternate with those narrated by Moira during the war. She was stationed primarily in England and Italy, and had a chance to meet several local people during her time there. Her experiences with them and with war conditions provide some very affecting sections of the book. Her only brother was also serving in the European theater, and some mystery surrounds this suave and rather self-centered young man.
Past and present twine together in a very successful, suspenseful story, which well captures the feel of the different periods and settings.
Reverend Hale Poser arrives in Pilotville, Louisiana, in 1927. Raised in an orphanage, he discovers a clue to his biological parents that brings him here. This small isolated town on the Mississippi Delta appears to be a haven of racial equality under the generous patriarchy of Papa Vincent DeGroot. Then something terrible happens. Hanna Lamont, a new baby girl, disappears from the Negro infirmary, where Hale has been working as a janitor. Her
EDITORS’ CHOICE
K. L. Cook, Morrow, 2006, $24.95/C$32.95, hb, 374pp, 9780060829650
It is New Year’s Eve, 1959. Almost 16-year-old Laura Tate, her father, and her three brothers have been trying to make a life for themselves since their mother left them without explanation the previous year. At midnight, Laura receives a kiss from John Letig, her father’s friend, a married man twice her age. It’s a simple New Year’s kiss just outside the Armory, where the whole community is kissing to welcome in the New Year. Then he kisses her again, slowly and passionately. Laura knew it was dangerous to kiss like this, but she finds it exciting. Mr. Letig is an attractive man, and she’s thrilled to be noticed by him. From this first night of 1960, Laura starts living a secret life apart from her friends and family, absorbed in her attraction to this older man, and his attraction to her. Cook effectively immerses his audience in the 1960s Texas Panhandle, describing the effect of historical events on his characters and using elements of the terrain to enhance his story: the female characters’ interest in all things Jackie, the frustration of Texans when the young Jack Kennedy is running for president instead of Texas’ own LBJ, and the relief of swimming in the cool waters of Lake Meredith. The book is fast-paced for an introspective novel, and the complex feelings of the characters make it hard to put down. It is difficult to avoid the natural discomfort felt when a 30-year-old man is having an affair with a minor, but this discomfort enhances the reader’s empathy for the main character. The whole is a poignant story of a young woman who must grow up too quickly. This first novel is a literary work of art. Nan Curnutt
parents, James and Rosa, are deranged with grief. A posse is quickly formed and scours the surrounding swamps and river, but it finds nothing. Unable to stop searching, James, along with Hale, continues the apparently fruitless search. At one point, Hale becomes lost in the swamp. He is delirious and ill, and feels he is certainly going to die. Then his boat bumps into what appears to be land. Hale stumbles up the side of a small knoll and falls down the other into a nightmare from history that only a flood of biblical proportions resolves.
Dickson has fashioned a fascinating mystery, exploring fundamental yet complex issues such as family, faith, and race. It is a novel that magically reveals a dark, disturbing aspect of southern history.
Gerald T. Burke
LOST AMONG THE ANGELS
Alice Duncan, Five Star, 2006, $25.95, hb, 280pp, 1594143633
In 1926, Mercy Allcutt has traded in her Boston blueblood life for life in Los Angeles with her sister and brother-in-law, where she is determined (gasp!) to find a job that will give her the experience needed for her longed-for career as a novelist. She walks into the office of Ernest Templeton, private investigator, and the world-weary former cop soon won’t know what hit him. Taking pity on a girl who comes in to report her showgirl mother missing, she embarks on her own investigation, drawing in the reluctant Templeton. Their investigation takes them into Chinatown, seedy speakeasies, and the world of mobsters, just as far from Beacon Hill as you can get.
Mercy is the proverbial fish out of water that doesn’t understand the slang, refuses to bob her hair, and can’t imagine why a man would be indifferent to taking on a case. However, she’s conscious of her own naiveté, and while it does blind her to a denouement I suspected long before she did, she has enough guts and a certain instinct that makes her hard to dismiss. Los Angeles in the 1920s was a quainter version of what it is today, for all the hard-boiled types running around, and I see the beginnings of a series: Mercy Allcutt and Ernest Templeton, Investigators.
Ellen Keith
THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT
Alan Furst, Random House, 2006, $24.95/ C$32.95 hb, 288pp, 1400060192 / Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006, £12.99, hb, 352pp, 0297848291
Carlo Weisz is an Italian émigré living in Paris and working for Reuters, covering the Spanish Civil War during the winter of 1938-39. He is also a contributor and soon to be reluctant editor of the clandestine antifascist newspaper, Liberazione. He abhors the fascist government of Mussolini and fights back the only way he knows. His “promotion” to editor comes at the expense of his predecessor’s life, courtesy of the Italian secret police, known as the OVRA. And now Carlo himself is in their crosshairs.
At the behest of his Reuters boss, Carlo travels to Berlin to witness the signing of the “Pact of Steel” treaty between Italy and Nazi Germany. While in Berlin, Carlo discovers his
mistress, Christa, the wife of a ranking German officer, is deeply involved with the anti-Nazi underground. She seeks his help in smuggling some hard-earned information out of Germany, and now Carlo is really in it up to his neck. In desperation he agrees to a deal with British agents that will send him back to Italy, where he is a very wanted man.
Furst has crafted yet another perfect piece for his jigsaw-puzzle view of the opening stages of World War II. Each piece is excellent by itself, but when viewed as a completed puzzle, the image is a panoramic view of the war as it developed in Europe. Each book neatly meshes with one or two others. His secondary characters appear in multiple books, tying them together in parallel rather than in series. As such, you can start anywhere and still end up in the same place. No one does this better than Alan Furst.
Mark F. Johnson
THE TAOS TRUTH GAME
Earl Ganz, Univ. of New Mexico, 2006, $24.95, hb, 320pp, 0826337716
Ganz, retired chairman of the MFA program at the University of Montana, resurrects the forgotten writer Myron Brinig and imagines his introduction to the artist colony of Taos in the 1930s. Many people recall Taos in the thirties as the center of avant garde art under the tutelage of Mabel Dodge Luhan. Hardly anyone remembers Brinig, even though he published 21 novels, including the critically acclaimed Singermann and Wide Open Town
The more we learn about Brinig and his books, the more we wonder why he disappeared from our literary recollection. The man portrayed in Ganz’s book is talented and fascinating, if also at times exasperating. We watch him as he falls in love with Taos and the painter Cady Wells, almost in the same moment. During his 20year tenure in Taos, Ganz imagines Brinig’s meetings with Thomas Wolfe, Frieda Lawrence, Robinson and Una Jeffers, and Frank Waters, as well as brief encounters with Gertrude Stein and Henry Roth.
Mabel Dodge Luhan created the Taos that Brinig loves. She built her famous adobe dwelling, Big House, as a rendezvous for artistic talent, starting with D. H. Lawrence. She also takes Brinig under her wing, and he in turn loves her, hates her, discovers her most damaging secret, and eventually protects her from it.
Ganz’s lyrical prose holds this complex tale together. You will often find yourself rereading a passage just to enjoy its beauty again. That alone is worth the price of admission.
Chuck Curtis
HUNT DOWN HARRY TRACY
W.R. Garwood, Five Star, 2006, $25.95, hb, 257pp, 1594143358
This is a story based on the life of Harry Severns, aka Harry Tracy, a notorious outlaw who lived at the turn of the 20th century. Harry spends most of his young life on the run from the law or hiding from other outlaws. He escapes from prison in California with the help of his girlfriend, and then he and a fellow convict lead the law on a merry chase across the Pacific Northwest.
The story plods along from one boring event
WHITE GHOST GIRLS
EDITORS’ CHOICE
Alice Greenway, Grove, 2006, $13.00/$C17.95, pb, 176pp, 0802170188 / Atlantic, 2006, £10.99, pb, 176pp, 1843544393
Some “literary” novels contain rich, descriptive language that might be enjoyable to read but has no real bearing on the story they profess to tell. In the short book White Ghost Girls, the language is rich and descriptive, and every word counts. Alice Greenway’s first novel shows a brief period in the lives of two teenage sisters, the “white ghost girls.” Kate and Frankie are living in Hong Kong with their otherworldly artist mother in 1967. Although communists march, and dead bodies float up in the harbour (all that is left of people desperate to flee Mao’s China), the girls’ summer consists of swimming and picnics, whispered secrets in a jungle hideout, and forced attendance at expatriate parties. Life is occasionally enlivened by their father’s visits (he shoots photos of the escalating war in Vietnam). Underlying all is heavy tension.
From the first page, we know something catastrophic will happen to the sisters, but when it does happen, it shocks, though it is wholly believable in the context of the setting and the personalities of the characters. The advance reading copy I received contained several endorsements of Alice Greenway’s debut novel. They write that it is about memory and love and loss and homesickness, but to me it was also about secrets and our failure to communicate effectively with those we profess to love best. I agree with the endorsements – it’s fabulous.
Claire Morris
in Harry Tracy’s life to another. I couldn’t feel anything for the protagonist or the minor characters; as a matter of fact, I hoped Tracy would get caught and just stay in jail. Although I thought the story would get interesting when Harry Tracy met up with the Hole-Inthe-Wall gang, led by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, I was disappointed by both the characterizations and the storyline.
The author’s style is better suited to nonfiction; it was similar to reading a newspaper account of Harry Tracy’s exploits with occasional dialog thrown in. If you enjoy reading westerns as I do, you may be equally let down by Garwood’s style.
Orphaned Grace is brought up by her bigoted and devious Aunt Emily. When Barry Swan falls for her she responds, becomes pregnant, is disowned by Emily, and marries Barry. He encourages her in her love of ballroom dancing, which he cannot share. Trouble arises when the handsome and wealthy Philip sweeps Grace off her feet, showing her another way of life. Feeling that something is missing in her own life, Grace is tempted.
There is a lot of warmth in this story, and the author cleverly portrays the humble homes of Barry and the various people who befriend Grace. While Barry is an admirable character full of love, I could not feel a great deal of sympathy for Grace once she becomes embroiled with Philip. And for me, Philip’s fate was not convincing, and the rest of the denouement felt contrived, but I won’t spoil the story by saying why! Readers of sagas will find this interesting, as will lovers of ballroom dancing.
Her mother is dead and her father is an abusive bully so it’s no wonder that Jane Reynolds finds it hard to trust people. Then she meets little Alice Lawrence, an unwanted child, emotionally damaged and in need of a loving friend. Tentatively the pair reach out to each other, and Jane begins to wonder whether she might be allowed to offer Alice the home she deserves. But a single woman with no experience of childcare is not considered an exactly ideal adoptive parent. Thank goodness Jane has finally made some newfound friends because she will need their support in the trying times ahead.
No One’s Girl is a touching and tender story about the damage people can inflict on each other. It is also tremendously uplifting and lifeaffirming. This is a real feel-good read that tugs at the heart strings before matters are brought to an entirely satisfactory outcome.
“‘Gritty” is the word on the cover, but “nasty,” perhaps, is nearer the mark. Jacob Jankowski knew some nasty characters back in 1931. Today, Jacob Jankowski is an angry old man in the old folks’ home, not because his wits are wandering but because he fell and broke his hip, and it is slow to heal. He is stuck among the senile, toothless and decrepit when all he wants is his home, real food he can sink his real teeth into, and his wife alive to talk to. Jacob is 90 – or is it 93? He can’t remember that, but he does remember his circus days. In between spats with residents and the medical staff, Jacob tells
20th Century
his story.
Back in 1931, just before his final examinations at Cornell University’s School of Veterinary Science, Jacob’s parents were killed. The bank then foreclosed, taking his home and all the family’s possessions. Stunned, in a daze, he just walked away and jumped onto a wagon of the first passing train. It was the Benzini Bros. Circus train, and here Jacob meets those nasty characters, the love of his life, and Rosie the elephant. He manages to grow up, too, but only just. Those characters are the circus owner and ringmaster, and Jacob falls foul of them both. How he manages to save himself, the elephant, and marry the lovely Marlena makes for an exciting read.
A lot of research went into the writing of Water for Elephants. The book is illustrated with original photographs from the circus world of the 1930s, which add to the enjoyment and reality of an incredible story. Personally, I found the ending a little pat. I can see Hollywood leaping to make a film from such a visual and unusual story, turning the ending into a real tearjerker.
Two brothers, Luke and Jack Macpherson, raised on a sheep station owned by a Scottish father who has no love for the British, volunteer to fight the Boers in South Africa. Jack leaves first and with his unit survives the siege of Mafeking. Luke follows in the fourth contingent, expecting to see much fighting. However his unit disembarks in Rhodesia and heads inland.
The story opens in World War II when Luke, who is living in the Ranfurly Home for veterans, decides to write the story of the war for his nephew, who has volunteered to join the RAF. He writes from his own memories, letters, and a diary which belonged to his brother. Luke enlists with a Maori youth, Robbie. When the recruiting officer tells Robbie they do not take Maori, he denies his ethnicity, claims to be of Italian descent, and is accepted as such. The two brothers view the war very differently. Jack becomes hardened to slaughter and has no scruples about ill-treating both the blacks and Boers. He sees the war as a way to increase Britain’s glory whilst Luke is appalled at the inequality and the hypocrisy that take place.
Every trooper took a New Zealand horse with him, and the poor animals suffered dreadfully both aboard ship and in the African heat. Their survival rate was short. If they were not killed in action they died of disease.
Jenny Haworth admits that because letters from troops in the Boer War were not censored, and most of the men who fought in it were literate, there was an amazing amount of material available. I congratulate her on the way she has used it to tell such a believable yarn.
Kath O’Sullivan
IN THE CITY OF DARK WATERS
Jane Jakeman, Berkley Prime Crime, 2006, $23.95/C$31.50, hb, 312pp, 0425209814
In 1908 Revel Callender, an English lawyer,
is living in Venice, taking time off to see all that Italy has to offer. An elderly British woman who married into an old Italian family has died, and an acquaintance from the British consulate asks Revel to review and organize her papers. Thus he becomes acquainted with the haughty and arrogant Casimiris, and with the beautiful daughter of the house, Clara.
When the Count, Clara’s father, dies, it is thought at first to be an accident. When the police call it murder, Revel’s work is abruptly halted. Afterward, Revel meets Claude Monet at a wealthy British woman’s home. Monet and his second wife, Alice, are in their older years. The artist, plagued with cataracts, continues to paint his misty, ethereal pictures in Venice. Monet had wanted to get Alice away from Paris, where a scandal had eclipsed her family; he asks Revel to make discreet inquiries into these events.
Jakeman has written a fascinating novel using her knowledge of art and history. We see the old city of Venice, decaying and yet still strangely beautiful, through her detailed descriptions. Although Monet plays a minor part, each time he is on the page we are treated to colorful interpretations of his work. The ability to see sights through the eyes of a lover of both art and the past gives this book its strength.
Caryn James’s second novel is a Jazz Age story of the art world that echoes the themes of love, loss and betrayal in the quintessential 1920s novel, The Great Gatsby. Would-be flapper Caroline Stephens chooses the safety of life as a young New York society matron, then uses her boring husband’s money to become a patron of the arts – the patron of one artist in particular, Nick Leone. On the night of his opening, Nick has hung a huge curtain-draped painting in the gallery, one Caroline has never seen before. Once most of New York society has gathered at the show, Nick reveals the painting: Caroline, nude and apparently engaged in some unseemly and definitely unladylike behavior. Caroline insists she never posed for such a portrait, then faints.
In the following days, Nick is arrested for public obscenity, the painting disappears, and eventually Caroline has her day in court to defend her honor. But that is not the end of the story.
What Caroline Knew is a gem of a book for anyone who admires a strong, confident heroine. To call Caroline Stephens a three-dimensional character is to do her a disservice. She is equally substantial across the dimension of time. Despite multiple narrators and an almost languid pace, she stands at the heart of this story, gracefully dropping her veils, transforming languid into intimate and making the many voices cohesive. James’s multi-layered story is able to show Caroline’s contradictions and complexity in a way that a more straightforward plotline could not do. Gatsby fans, art lovers and jazz babies should all put What Caroline Knew on their must-read list.
Lessa J. Scherrer
ICEBERGS
Rebecca Johns, Bloomsbury USA, 2006, $23.95, hb, 304pp, 978158234490
Johns’ prizewinning first novel is a literary story of how one coincidence can have repercussions in the lives of whole families and generations to come. Walt Dunmore and Alister Clark are the only survivors when their B-24 bomber goes down on the Labrador coast during World War II. Injured, freezing, with no way to call for help, the two must find a way to survive above the Arctic Circle, fighting both the subzero temperatures and the unlikely possibility that someone will stumble upon them in the snow
On the home front, at a small farm outside Windsor, Ontario, Walt’s new bride, Dottie, struggles with the fears of those left behind: loneliness, worry and the nagging thought that, in their haste, she may have married the wrong man. After she learns about the crash, she seeks out and befriends Alister’s young wife, Adele, and her newborn daughter, Caroline. As luck would have it, only one man returns from Labrador, but by that time, the women’s lives are tightly intertwined.
Years later, both families relocate to Chicago. Caroline Clark has grown up caring for her mother and now can’t find her own life. Sam and Charlie Dunmore, now citizens, must choose between returning to the family home in Canada or being drafted for Vietnam. The novel follows the families into old age and the third generation, where the questions of loss and loyalty replay themselves in the present day.
Johns’ novel is both as epic as the cultural turmoil of the last half of the 20th century and as intimate as a family history. When it was her turn, Caroline proved herself to be a very passive narrator, which was entirely in keeping with her character but a bit difficult for the reader. Otherwise, I recommend Icebergs to any fan of literary historical fiction.
Straight Into Darkness is a departure from Kellerman’s Lazarus/Decker mystery series, and she handles this dark historical turn into the turbulent times preceding World War II quite masterfully.
Inspektor Alex Berg, head of Munich’s Homicide Unit, is surrounded by the boding evil of a rising Hitler and his Brown Shirts, simmering racism, corrupt politics and three brutal murders. As Hitler incites the city to revolt against the Social Democrats, gays, gypsies, and above all the Jews, Berg must race in opposition to his superiors and time to hunt down the “Munich Monster” before the killer strikes again. The author uses the city as a character: its smells, actions, and different communities. She allows Berg to navigate and intermingle with it, using his prowess and anger to command results he not only seeks, but are demanded of him in dictator-like fashion. The suspense is ongoing, if a bit repetitive, but the conclusion is unforeseen and forceful.
Kellerman has created with tremendous flair an intelligent thriller with an inconsistent, realistically flawed protagonist. Her plot interprets the actions of a murder investigation as a sideways glance at intolerance, the abuse of power, and the irony of life, while still allowing the story to spill over with teeming suspense.
In this cozy inspirational novel set during World War II, Leisha Kelly has written a story full of homespun wisdom and deep faith. On the day the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, Julia Wortham realizes that the terrors of the outside world will soon change the simple life she loves. A number of young men, including her oldest son, join the army, and the whole community gathers to see them off. Over the next few years they suffer the interminable wait for letters, and grimly accept news of injuries, soldiers missing in action, and death in battle. Not everyone is stoic, however. Julia’s neighbor, a widower, suffers from alcoholism and depression. He neglects his young children and verbally abuses his crippled son, Frank. Julia’s daughter, Sarah, strives to help that family through the daily difficulties of farm life, while raising questions about the purpose of faith in time of war.
Kelly musters an enormous cast – farm families were big in those days, and the author keeps track of every last cousin – but she mitigates confusion by sticking to three main points of view: that of Julia, Sarah, and Frank. The result is a sweetly nostalgic novel full of honest, kind, hard-working people: a slice of old-fashioned Americana.
Lisa Ann Verge
THE VALLEY
J.D. Landis, Snowbooks, 2006, £7.99, pb, 345pp, 1905005105 / Pub. in the US as Artist of the Beautiful (and earlier as The Taking), Ballantine, 2005, $14.95, pb, 242pp, 0345450078
Landis’ third novel tells the story of Sarianna, a student in late 1930s Massachusetts with nihilistic leanings and a poetic attachment to the doomed. A job as tutor to the Reverend Jeremy Treat’s son in the Swift River Valley suits her perfectly, because the valley is shortly to be flooded to make way for a new dam. The Trent family centres on the flawed marriage of Jeremy and Una, still pining for her lost first love, and their son, Jimmy, a suspiciously perfect child. There are definite Gothic undertones, though these understated New Englanders lack the emotional vocabulary of the truly Gothic as seen in writings of, for example, Anne Rice or John Berendt.
Alas, if only the same restraint had been shown by the author in his use of language as is shown by his characters in their relationships with one another. Landis acknowledges a debt to Emily Dickinson, Sarianna’s favourite poet, and to Nathaniel Hawthorne. I would be surprised if either would feel flattered by the comparison. Dickinson is notoriously difficult, but she is witty, succinct and moving because her analysis of her own condition and that of women in
general is dry and funny and un-self pitying. Sarianna, by contrast, fairly wallows in self pity and vengefulness against those she perceives as having done her wrong – which make this reader, at least, think she deserved everything she got. The power of Nathaniel Hawthorne lies in the plain way he tells tragic stories. Landis, by contrast, is so entangled in the linguistic trappings of melodrama I was frankly unsure what he was trying to say for much of the time. I really would like to be able to recommend this book. The subject matter is wonderful, and it should be good, but it isn’t and I can’t.
Sarah Bower
JUNIPER BLUE
Susan Lang, Univ. of Nevada, 2006, $20.00, pb, 328pp, 0874176336
In Juniper Blue, the sequel to Small Rocks Rising, Susan Lang continues the story of Ruth Farley, a young, lovely but combatively independent woman who homesteads on the edge of the Mojave Desert during the Great Depression. Having been raped by her husband’s murderer, Ruth gives birth to twins. One, undeniably, is the son of her lover; the other, undeniably, the daughter of her rapist. Isolating herself from the gossip of the nearby town, she raises her infants and scrapes a living from the land. Yet this existence doesn’t deter her – indeed, she revels in it. Ruth prefers life as a hermit. She even refers to her pregnancy as an “occupation,” and, later, she calls her children and her lover “three intruders into her life.” Indeed, whenever she ventures beyond her homestead, disaster strikes. She drinks too much, gives over to sexual impulses, has emotionally devastating interactions with her cruel mother, and, ultimately, is gravely injured. Only at home, or at a nearby valley learning the ways of the native people, does Ruth find peace. Susan Lang has created a hard character to love. Ruth Farley is bristly, impulsive, confused, passionate and stubborn – and a perfect character for the harshness of the desert and the difficulties of the era. Ruth puzzles at the world’s changes – roads are paved, electric lines go up, a frontier movie town gets built smack in the middle of a valley – while she insists on living in the old, self-sustaining way. In fact, although Ruth has several lovers, she only has one true love: her land. Which makes Juniper Blue a very unusual, and touching, love story.
Lisa Ann Verge
THE CHINATOWN CLOUD DEATH PERIL
Paul Malmont, Simon & Schuster, 2006, $24.00/ C$29.95, hb, 371pp, 0743287851
In 1937, the United States was in the midst of the Great Depression. For entertainment there was no television, only radio, the movies and – the pulps. The newsstands were filled with magazines made of cheap paper with lurid covers. Two of the best of these were The Shadow and Doc Savage, written by Walter Gibson and Lester Dent, respectively, although the general public knew them only by their pseudonyms, Maxwell Grant and Kenneth Robeson.
What Paul Malmont proposes in this almost hoot of a novel is that Gibson, Dent, and a gent
named L. Ron Hubbard combined forces to solve the murder of a fellow writer, one H. P. Lovecraft, and to track down at the same time a fellow from China trying to give his country a step up on Japan in those desperate days before World War II. Other real names which can be spotted in the narrative are Robert Heinlein, Chester Himes, Louis L’Amour, and more than a few others. There is only one problem. No pulp novel ever took more than 150 pages to get started, as this book does.
The author seems to feel that many readers will need a long expository history of the pulp magazines before he can begin, along with the life stories of each of the primary protagonists. Those who do not require this information will be bored, I fear – unless they enjoy quibbling about the details – expecting a faster pace by far. As for the uninitiated for whom the background would be useful, I wonder how many of them will ever get past the background.
But when the book finally does take off, it’s hang-on-to-your-seatbelt time, there’s no doubt about it!
Steve Lewis
THE LOST LUGGAGE PORTER
Andrew Martin, Faber & Faber, 2006, £10.99, pb, 296pp, 0571219039
Jim Stringer is a newly commissioned Railway Detective working out of York Station for the North Eastern Railway Company in 1906. Having mislaid a number of railway magazines, he encounters Lund, the Lost Luggage Porter, a meeting which is to have more serious repercussions later.
Two brothers whom Stringer met briefly are found murdered in the goods yard, and he also witnesses pickpockets in action but is unable to catch them. Lund tells him where they might be found, and Stringer sets out after them to bring them in. The action starts to pick up.
Andrew Martin would appear to have done a great deal of research on the way in which the railways operated at the beginning of the 20th century, and it shows. Much detail is given on the names of the engines, descriptions of the layout of the stations, etc., which for me interrupted the flow of the story. I also thought that the characters were rather wooden, stereotypes and unconvincing. The dialogue grated, often appearing to be more reminiscent of American gangsters than early 20th century York. At any moment I expected to be told that they were chewing gum.
This is the third book in the Jim Stringer series and may well appeal to railway enthusiasts, but it is not for me.
Richmond native Bebe Bennett continues her love affair with New York and her dreams of a love affair with her boss, Bradley, in this second mystery, where 1960s New York City is as prominent a character as Bebe, Bradley, and her roommate Darlene, the swinging stewardess. In this outing, Bradley, a former record executive, now runs Ryan Modeling Agency and has
This novel, already and deservedly a best-seller in Canada, tells the story of Dora Rare and her struggles to maintain a holistic, woman-led approach to childbirth and women’s health in the first half of the 20th century. Dora has learned all she knows from Miss Babineau and her deeply spiritual knowledge and wisdom. When a new doctor arrives in her small Nova Scotia coastal community advocating ‘modern’ interventionist methods of childbirth, the scene is set for a battle of wills that splits the community.
The author is a fresh new voice in Canadian writing, and she stylishly re-creates the pioneer days of Nova Scotia with a fine eye for descriptive detail and history. Her characters are fully rounded people and belong to their environment. Wise, wry, witty and yet deeply serious, this novel reminds me of the novel L. M. Montgomery might have written about Anne Shirley had she been allowed, and had her heroine chosen to become a midwife and not a teacher. The small town prejudices and tittle-tattle are all there but the tone is darker, yet not oppressive. This is a novel of hope, wisdom and humanity. What more could you ask for?
kept Bebe as his executive secretary. Although clothed in the latest fashions that Darlene has brought back from London, Bebe’s miniskirts and white go-go boots aren’t enough to turn Bradley’s attention away from gorgeous but bitchy top model, Suzie Wexford. When Suzie is found dead, strangled with a Pucci scarf (a gift from Bradley), he’s the obvious suspect, and naturally, Bebe feels the police aren’t as invested as she is in clearing his name.
The world of modeling in the sixties doesn’t seem so far removed from what it is today (although there is a marked lack of discussion of models’ weight). In what also seems to be a sly nod to the present, one character is a perfectionist homemaker with her own television show. Bebe is a plucky heroine, in the best sense of that word, not letting anything deter her in clearing the name of the man of her dreams. Friedan and Steinem may not approve, but I have a feeling Bebe can hold her own.
Ellen Keith
CENTURY OF LOCUSTS
Malika Mokeddem (trans. Laura Rice and Karim Hamdy), Univ. of Nebraska, 2006, $24.95, pb, 267pp, 0803283067
Century of Locusts is a tragic tale about Bedouins in early 20th-century Algeria. Mahmoud is a stranger within his own tribe. He leaves to become an educated poet, only to be drawn back to the Tijani by his father’s deathbed command: to disinter his grandmother’s bones from the land the French colonists had stolen. While fulfilling this duty, Mahmoud becomes entangled with a madman. This madman burns down the colonist’s house, and Mahmoud is accused of the arson. Fleeing justice, he is caught in a storm with a slave, who becomes his wife. They escape and begin a life apart in the desert. Years later, Mahmoud’s wife is raped and murdered. With his daughter Yasmine, Mahmoud seeks the culprits and dares to teach his child to read and write. (“Writing is the
nomadism of the spirit taking him through the desert of his need, along the dead-end paths of his melancholy.”) As he closes in on vengeance, he leaves Yasmine with a friendly Bedouin tribe, and the young girl begins to understand the prison that is the fate of women among the nomads.
Though the story gives the Western reader a glimpse into exotic customs and culture, Century of Locusts is spoiled by overwrought prose and convoluted sentences. (“Just an illusion of verticality, an unreal blue, an ethereal chimera. No sooner does the eye touch it than it falls to perdition along a landslide of infinities.”) Indeed, this is a tale meant for readers who are more captivated by language and ideas than story.
Natasha Blake, a research genealogist, is hired to research the family history of John Hellier, the boyfriend of Charles Seagrove’s granddaughter. During a visit to Seagrove’s Cotswolds Farm, Natasha finds the old man dead, which leads to her search into the history of the Seagrove family. Her investigation uncovers connections between the two families, as well as some very disturbing family secrets. She is especially disconcerted to learn about Seagrove’s passion for Nazi philosophy and some long hidden crimes. Through her research, Natasha uncovers other interesting clues that seemingly have no connection: photographs of two young soldiers; the revelation of a terrible mistake that made two women, once friends, into bitter enemies; and fingerprints that lead to a crime previously hidden for generations. Then, as each clue is divulged, their stories begin to merge. And inadvertently, Natasha, an orphan, uncovers secrets from her own past.
Bloodline is Fiona Mountain’s second book in a series. Definitely a good read for those who like fast-paced “whodunits.”
Family of Women is set in Birmingham between the years 1926 and 1960 but spans more than half a century when returning to the childhood of big, buxom, illiterate Bessie Wiles, matriarch of the family who dominates and controls the lives of her children. She is a survivor of the harsh slum conditions of the overpopulated back-to-back houses of her day.
Annie Murray writes a moving story of three generations of women who, through adversity, discover the joys, sadness and changes that affect their lives. She is especially good at describing life in the fifties, the time of the Coronation when rationing was in its last stages and televisions were one to a street; the one readily identified by its H-shaped aerial attached to the chimney.
The author rapidly creates the atmosphere surrounding her story and demonstrates the lack of feminist sentiments expressed by the women, whose very existence revolves around the wishes and demands of their menfolk at a time when marriage was the only aim and education was sublimated to that ideal.
An easy to read novel that is quite juicy in parts.
Gwen Sly
THE WITNESS OF ST. ANSGAR’S
Francis W. Nielsen, Steerforth, 2006, $23.95/ C$31.95, hb, 238pp, 158642100X
The witness of the title is Mario, a young altar boy at St. Ansgar’s German Catholic Church on Manhattan’s Lower West Side. This collection of vignettes about the church’s community unfolds through Mario’s eyes. He is taken under the wing of Brother Benigno, a Friar of the Order of St. Francis, which maintains St. Ansgar’s. Most of the action takes place during the Depression, and despite the travails of the time, this GermanAmerican congregation thrives through its faith, spirit, determination, and belief in miracles. Actually, it is this belief in miracles that Brother Benigno frets over the most. He grew up in the neighborhood, left to study, became a monk, and returned to St. Ansgar’s as Sacristan. No carnal lover was more devoted to a mistress than Benigno was to the care and maintenance of his church and its parishioners. He listened, and his universe spoke to him. As Mario grows older, he becomes Benigno’s assistant, eventually taking over more and more of his duties as the old man grows ever more feeble.
Francis Nielsen wrote this novel over a period of years. His creation and its posthumous publication by his family are works of love. A fitting tribute.
Audrey Braver
PROSPERO’S DAUGHTER
Elizabeth Nunez, Ballantine, 2006, $24.95, hb, 313pp, 0345455355
In The Tempest, William Shakespeare
Sally Zigmond
explored how the world of social class and education strays from its defining stature, named “civilization,” using poignant dialogue and humor to create potent satire. Elizabeth Nunez has moved the setting of Shakespeare’s play to a familiar scene in pre-independence Trinidad. Prospero is Dr. Gardner, a criminal doctor turned mad scientist in exile. He claims his innocent daughter, Virginia, is the object of lust of a native Trinidadian, Carlos Codrington, who wants to impregnate her. That’s all it takes for a criminal case to open, and Inspector John Mumsford is sent to question the doctor and bring back the criminal.
Sounds simple? Not quite! For this spineless, indeed pathetic, inspector is forced to face the colonial attitudes of innocence by superior racial identity, and assumption of guilt of any woman violated sexually in word or deed. Indeed, the British authorities blatantly deny that the colonial residents may be just as equal in intelligence as any white person. As in so many other British-occupied territories, the prevailing government personnel and residents appear surprised when educated natives begin intelligently and potently rebelling.
Forced to disown their land and pride, the natives of Trinidad are depicted as strong and proud people who have reached this maturity because of suffering caused by foreign occupiers. Above and beyond all these ideas, the love between Carlos and Virginia surpasses the plotting of Dr. Gardner and the convoluted interpretations of Mumsford. The full grief caused by colonial civilization at the end of this tale will shock and grieve the reader, as well as praise this masterful writer, Elizabeth Nunez. A brilliant adaptation of a deeply moving conflict!
It is the 1950s and England is in the grip of coronation fever. In the seaside town of Kingshaven the King family are preparing to hold a grand party in their hotel, The Palace. Eldest daughter Libby is particularly looking forward to the celebrations, hoping that they will herald a new era for the family and a new lease of life for the hotel.
Young teacher Michael Quinn attends only out of a reluctant sense of duty, little knowing how a chance encounter with Claudia Dearborn will change his life. Claudia is the daughter of a refugee and feels as outcast from Kingshaven as Michael himself does. Although they immediately feel a strong connection to each other, he is newly married and she is still a schoolgirl. Problems are bound to ensue.
The Time of Our Lives is the first part of the Palace Trilogy, which will eventually follow key characters from the 1950s up until the present day. It is a strong opener, setting the groundwork and gradually introducing the reader to the large cast. The flavour of the 1950s is nicely developed, fully conveying the impression of a society emerging from the austere war years into a more colourful decade of freer lives and wider opportunities.
Inevitably, some subplots are more fully explored than others, just as some characters are more fully rounded than others. However, there is more than enough going on to keep the reader hooked from the first chapter, and I am certainly looking forward to reading the next instalment.
Sara Wilson
TOMB OF THE GOLDEN BIRD
Elizabeth Peters, Morrow, 2006, $25.95/ C$34.95, hb, 432pp, 9780060591809 / Constable and Robinson, 2006, £17.99, hb, 320pp, 1845293363
It is 1922 in Egypt, and all is quiet in the Valley of the Kings. Archaeologist Howard Carter considered closing the season early, but Professor Radcliffe Emerson’s offer to take over the firman piqued their interest, and digging continued. But life is not as simple as a disappointed dig. Emerson’s half-brother Sethos arrives, ill and possessing information that could endanger the entire extended family. Matriarch Amelia Peabody (Mrs. Emerson) is on her guard: should Sethos be trusted this time, and are there spies among the newly hired workers? Framed by the incredible find of the tomb of Tutankhamen, this installment of the Emerson family saga is interspersed with life-threatening dangers to the Emerson clan. Fans of the series will enjoy the imperious Amelia, who takes control, pulls it all together, and then prepares Christmas for her impossibly precocious grandchildren. New readers will appreciate not only Amelia’s sprinkled references to her previous near-escapes, but the copious list of characters provided in this intelligent historical journey.
Peterson begins her Alaskan Quest series with this volume, set in 1915. Leah Barringer lives with her brother, Jacob, in a remote part of the territory, running a trading post. Ten years ago she declared her love to Jayce Kincaid and was rejected. Now Jayce reappears, to see Jacob about purchasing sled dogs, and Leah has confused feelings about him. When Jayce is attacked and injured by dogs, Leah and Jacob must take him to Nome for medical treatment. There they are confronted by Helaina Beecham, a Pinkerton agent come to arrest Jayce, who is wanted for theft and murder. Leah can’t believe he is a criminal, and Jacob’s Biblical parables about showing mercy have no effect. A crime victim herself, Helaina insists Jayce must go to Seattle to face justice
The exotic, slightly post-Gold Rush Alaskan setting was interesting, as was the idea of a female Pinkerton agent. But I found the novel slow-paced, with a rather cheerless tone and a hoary old plot device as part of the denouement. Non-fans of Christian fiction will be bothered by the heavy religious content, but Peterson’s many admirers will love the book, and the cliffhanger ending will have them coming back for more.
B.J. Sedlock
SAMSARA MOON
S.H. Post, Kirk House, 2006, $17.00, pb, 364pp, 188651397
Samsara Moon is the debut novel from HNS member S.H. Post. The story follows the life of British military man Captain Stephen Hamilton during the turn of the 20th century. After he experiences a devastating personal tragedy, Hamilton embarks on a journey of recovery that spans the British Empire. He experiences the turmoil of war and the changing landscape of a new century. The story sweeps him from the windswept shores of western Ireland to the immensity of the South African Veld, to the halls of the British Raj in Calcutta, and the hills and tea gardens of Darjeeling.
The plot is atmospheric and rich in historical detail, and it’s clear that it was thoroughly and meticulously researched. The depth of military, cultural and geographical knowledge of the lands under the dominion of the British Empire is impressive.
The author’s website (www.shpost.info) claims Samsara Moon to be: “history… from the heart.” The history and the tragedy are most certainly apparent. What is lacking, however, is the emotional intensity and depth of characterization that such a plot, filled as it is with pain, grief, and self searching, demands. The character of Stephen Hamilton comes across as stiff, wooden, and one-dimensional, even arrogant at times; much of the dialogue is labored and stilted.
Overall, I learned a great deal of history from this book, but I did not find it an enjoyable read.
As the biographical note explains, Rodoreda is a Catalan writer now being rediscovered as literary force more than 20 years after her death. This novel opens as young Teresa Goday works a minor scam on her wealthy husband in order to raise funds to have her illegitimate son secretly adopted. From there the kaleidoscope of perspectives (which cannot accurately be called a “plot”) shifts between Teresa’s first and second husbands, her son Masdéu, her daughter Sofía, Sofía’s playboy husband Eladi, and their children, who are by turns vicious and pathetic. Several generations of servants also provide their perspectives on this decaying noble family.
The personal sagas are paralleled by national drama, including the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship, though I only know this from reading the back cover. Very little mention is made of the political turmoil of the times, and the war appears to last for fewer than ten pages. Readers with expectations of loose ends being tied up, mysteries solved and character paths crossing will be disappointed; Rodoreda gives us a pastiche rather than a linear narrative. The soap opera-esque beginning leads us to expect either a happy ending or a very sad one; for better or for worse, this expectation is turned on its head. The translation suffers some minor bumps and hitches from time to time, with two
or three (apparent) errors that interfere with the smooth readability of the prose.
Despite its slender appearance, this book is neither a quick read nor a light one; pick it up if you enjoy reading gorgeously experimental descriptions of love, death, adultery, incest, murder and spiritual hunger.
Val Perry
BLUE NUDE
Elizabeth Rosner, Ballantine, 2006, $22.95/ C$29.95, hb, 224pp, 0345442229
Rosner’s quiet, subtle second novel (after The Speed of Light, 2001) once again shows the effect of history on the present, in the tale of two lost souls searching for themselves. “Begin again,” commands Danzig, art teacher and closet has-been artist; he forces his students to work, re-work, re-look, and move forward with their art, which he has been unable to do for years.
A childhood in post-Holocaust Germany was difficult enough, but any sense of normalcy and progress was abruptly halted after his older sister’s suicide. He fled to the US, he painted, he succeeded – but he was alone with his painful past. Instead of confronting his inner self, which he knows he can do through his art, he avoids it at all costs, and instead indulges in smoking, drinking, and futile affairs. One day a new model for his nude figure class walks in, undresses, and he is entranced – awakened not by sexual but by artistic urges he thought were gone forever. The model is Merav, an Israeli whose grandmother survived the Holocaust; she, too, is avoiding herself, and her art, because of a painful past. Her heart broken by a violent act, her spirit missing the night sky of the Israel desert, she, too, has indulged in doomed relationships and only toys with her art.
The effect that Merav and Danzig have on each other changes them, finally moves them forward as individuals and artists, as they reconcile their separate, yet shared, pasts. The characters are well-drawn and move slowly during the course of the novel, giving the reader an evocative glimpse into a transformational experience.
Helene Williams
CANVEY ISLAND
James Runcie, Bloomsbury, 2006, £14.99, hb, 308pp, 0747581978
On 31 January 1953 Martin’s father, Len, and Auntie Vi are dancing at the local hop. Back home Martin and his mother are fighting for their lives against the sudden flood that demolishes their bungalow. They are separated by the current, and young Martin never sees his mother alive again.
The events of that night and the continuing story are related from the viewpoint of each of the characters in turn. This adds an immediacy to the drama as it unfolds, as well as an intimate insight into each individual’s personality. Against a backdrop of historical events, from the Canvey Island floods to Churchill’s funeral, the protestors at Greenham Common and the dawn of Thatcher’s England each of the characters’ lives unfold.
It is a series of interwoven stories about ordinary people coping with tragedy and loss,
growing up and growing old, love, loss and restitution. They are as real as the events that shape their lives.
Ann Oughton
THE LAST SUNRISE
Robert Ryan, Headline, 2006, £19.99, hb, 312pp, 075532188X
In 1948 Singapore, a demobilised American pilot called Lee Crane ekes out a living flying an old air transport. World-weary, he is toying with giving up on the Far East and helping out with the Berlin airlift. His decision crystallises when Elsa, an old acquaintance, turns up, bringing back some painful memories. However, someone doesn’t want him to leave. First his plane is sabotaged, and then he gets mugged in a back alley. Flashback to Burma in 1941, where a more idealistic Lee Crane is fighting the Japanese with the “Flying Tigers,” an American mercenary unit employed by the Chinese. His experiences, in love and war, begin to harden him. He then meets Laura McGill, an inexperienced British spy doing courier work for the colonial authorities – or is she?
This is a tense, tightly written drama with a great period feel. The point of view irritatingly bobs around a bit – I spotted the occasional editorial error – but more importantly the actual plot takes too long to unfold. Still, the attention to minor details is impressive and really does bring things to life.
Martin Bourne
A THOUSAND SUNS
Alex Scarrow, Orion, 2006, £9.99, hb, 432pp, 0752872540
On the 29th April 1945, the Allies secretly surrender to Hitler’s Germany. Four hours later, their surrender is withdrawn. This sensational fact remains a secret until, half a century later, photographer Chris Roland, diving off the cost of New York State, discovers the remains of an aircraft in the sea. This is the starting point for a pacy debut thriller from Alex Scarrow, which swings back and forth across the Atlantic and backwards and forwards in time from the last days of World War Two to the present.
Scarrow has done just what novelists should do: he has taken his research, considered it from all angles and asked himself the question, what if? His answer is ingenious and plausible. The novel is a little slow to start and would have benefited from some tighter editing. To begin with, the timeslips lack rhythm, leaving the reader as much at sea as the unfortunate pilots of the sunken aircraft. Once into his stride, however, Scarrow delivers a great adventure story peopled by well rounded and sympathetic characters – especially Rowland and the pilot, Max. It’s a good job he isn’t writing about the Romans, or brother Simon might have cause for concern.
Recommended beach reading, especially for optimistic snorkellers.
Sarah Bower
THE SISTERHOOD OF BLACKBERRY CORNER
Andrea Smith, Dial, 2006, $24.00, hb, 312pp, 0385336233
This novel is set in South Carolina, America’s Deep South, and is written with Southern dialogue and idioms. Bonnie Wilder narrates the story about her community of Canaan Creek while sitting on her porch in 1985 and looking back at the years of 1957 and ’58. Bonnie’s tale interested and horrified me: her community is all African American at a time when there was no integration and a great deal of racism, but it is all just part of Bonnie’s life.
The book, though, is a satisfying story about Bonnie and her friends’ lives, their friendships, and their great adventure. It begins when a letter arrives for Bonnie. ‘Dear Miss Wilder,’ it says, ‘I’m hoping to find out who my real mother is.’ What a shock for Bonnie and her closest friend, Thora Dean, to receive this note from one of the unwanted babies they found loving homes for back in ’57-’58. The Sisterhood of Blackberry Corner came into being after Bonnie’s husband, Naz, found a dead baby in the local creek, and quiet Bonnie was provoked into speech at the town meeting. She hated the vindictive attitude towards the mother and wanted to help mothers with unwanted children. ‘Bring the child to me,’ she said, and so they were brought. Each baby found a home and happiness. Members of the sisterhood, like devastated widow Ruby-Pearl, found a new meaning to life – and then it all came tumbling down.
Though written by an African-American author for an American audience, the book is worth reading by anyone who does not know what racism in the USA was like, especially as the book is not a rant against racism but simply a description of how it was. For non-Americans, it’s an eye opener as well as a fascinating story.
Patrika Salmon
MURDER ON THE MIDDLE FORK
Don Ian Smith and Naida West, Bridge House, 2005, $15.98, pb, 190pp, 0965348768
This short novel accurately depicts the hardscrabble and desperate lives of those who preyed on the fortunes of others. The story unfolds alongside the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho just before America’s involvement in the First World War. The gold mines are played out, and the miners have moved on to better fortunes, leaving their shacks and caves to be inhabited by wildlife and human scavengers. Frieda and her abusive husband, Jack, take up residence in an abandoned cabin that extends from a damp, isolated cave. They try to mine for gold, but there is little profit in it. The two are desperate, and the husband begins to covet the farm of a German neighbor. Even in this isolated area of the American West, war propaganda and the growing hatred of the German people are as prevalent as in other parts of America. Here, they become justification for murder. Frieda is used a bait to lure the German; it was his death or hers. The outcome of his true tale is shocking, but the final resolution is uplifting. Murder on the Middle Fork is a pageturner that’s well worth reading.
Sue Schrems
THE ENTRE RIOS TRILOGY
Perla Suez (trans. Rhonda Dahl Buchanan), Univ. of New Mexico, 2006, $25.95, pb, 252pp, 0826336167
The Jewish experience in Europe and the United States has been a popular subject in both fiction and nonfiction. Yet the story of each person is individual and unique, colored often by the shadow of persecution, by atrocity, deep loss and personal sacrifice. This is the message of Perla Suez’s trilogy of novellas, published here in one volume and newly translated by Rhonda Dahl Buchanan (with an introduction by Ivan Stavans). These entwined but independent tales of three different Jewish families in the Entre Ríos region of Argentina are presented in a spare and poetic style, and the evocative language, which echoes the natural rhythms of Suez’s native Spanish, conveys the poignancy of a time in history when Jews were fleeing government-sanctioned pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe, and the soul of an entire people sought a new place to call home.
In the first novella, a girl recounts the trauma of her youth and loss of her mother; the second relates the tragic journey of a rice farmer into the city and his ensnarement in the bloody strikes of 1919; the third combines a subtle web of treachery and intrigue that mimics the callous power Great Britain exerted over Argentina at this time. Each novella offers its own voice, and in doing so captures a segment of history rarely explored. Nevertheless, this is not historical fiction as many readers have come to know it. Though the novellas take place in the past, The Entre Ríos Trilogy is more a literary exploration of the heart and soul of immigrants and outcasts, a meditation on the consequences of intolerance and injustice, and a paean to the perseverance of the human spirit.
C.W. Gortner
A DEATH IN VIENNA (US) / MORTAL MISCHIEF (UK)
Frank Tallis, Grove, 2006, $22.00, hb, 459pp, 0802118151 / Arrow, 2006, £6.99, pb, 320pp, 0099471280
In Sigmund Freud’s Vienna, Dr. Max Lieberman, a Freudian acolyte, specializes in psychosomatic illnesses classified as “hysteria,” usually treated with barbaric electrotherapy. Disapproving of this technique, Max prefers the investigative/talk method to discover the cause of the aliment rather than frightening it into submission. He becomes especially intrigued by the case of Amelia Lydgate, an otherwise normal young woman whose on-and-off paralysis changes into violent outbreaks.
Max’s analytical skills are soon called upon when he learns from his best friend, Detective Oskar Rheinhardt, of a very mysterious murder. “Medium” Lottie Lowenstein is found dead in a locked parlor, obviously shot, with no trace of a bullet or gun. Her séance clients insist it’s supernatural due to her note acknowledging punishment for having “forbidden knowledge.”
As Max and Oskar begin digging among a surfeit of suspects, the murderer kills again before seeking to destroy Max, whom he views as his mortal enemy. Frank Tallis’s first mystery is an elegant tangle of events that transports the reader into the mysterious and delicious ambiance of early 20th century Vienna, where the smell of evil blends in with the fragrance of coffee and pastries.
Tess Allegra
BETTER DAYS AHEAD
Charlie Valentine, English Mill Press, 2006, $19.95, pb, 392pp, 0977218708
Better Days Ahead is a novel of hope told in four simultaneous stories. It begins in 1949 when America is on the verge of a post-war boom. Four families in different parts of the country are struggling to cope with their individual circumstances, totally unaware that their lives will eventually converge. The title refers to a song written by Sarah Robbins, a nightclub singer and single parent from Cleveland, Ohio. In Alabama, Dolores Drake takes a drastic step to keep her family safe from her drunken husband’s abuse. In Detroit, Neil Dvorak, a loving husband and father, slowly comes to realize the dangers posed by his completely self-involved wife. Eventually, these three families arrive in Santa Monica, California, where they meet and become friends with the Stratton family.
As a first-time author, Valentine deserves praise, for she has created intriguing characters. It takes real talent to keep each storyline moving without losing momentum, and she has achieved this up until the last chapter. While the end is exciting and suspenseful, it is also maudlin and suffers from too many side issues. That said, this first novel in a family saga is still worth reading.
The “Book of Secrets” represents the stolen diary of a British colonial administrator, Sir Alfred Corbin, who arrived in Mombasa in 1913. Many years later the diary is found in the dirty backroom of an old shop and shown to Pius Fernandes, a retired Goan schoolteacher living in modern Dar es Salaam, who decides to recreate the world described by the book, and to “breathe life into the many spirits captured in its pages… and tell their stories.” He unwittingly also makes discoveries that have affected his own life and hidden longings. “I would construct a history, a living tapestry to join the past to the present, to defy the blistering shimmering dusty bustle of city life outside which makes transients of us all.”
This is a haunting book, spanning generations and key moments of East African history: the outbreak of the First World War, the 1960s and Tanzanian Independence, and the late 1980s. It introduces a memorable cast of characters: Mariamu, the mysterious girl who meets a tragic end; Pipa, her husband, who never discovers whether or not Ali – a fair child with grey eyes –was his son; the love affair between Rita and Ali and their life in London after they elope from Dar. Not to mention the colonial flotsam and jetsam: the two lady missionaries, Mrs Bailey and Miss Elliott, and, in a sense, the schoolteacher himself and his colleagues. A fascinating book, offering a novel viewpoint of the influence of the “big powers” on local communities in East Africa, written with compassion and wisdom.
SUNSHINE AFTER RAIN
0755322126
It is April 1912, and sisters Connie and Jenny Dalton wave their father off on his ocean voyage to America. Shortly afterwards comes the shocking news that his ship, the unsinkable Titanic, has foundered and their father lost forever. Their wealthy life of leisure and their comfortable home are soon gone, and the girls and their mother are forced to make some hard decisions.
For one sister a new life of hard work on the trams beckons, for the other marriage to a virtual stranger seems a good option. But war is looming, and neither sister finds their choices completely fulfilling. Perhaps a nursing career will offer Jenny a new purpose, and perhaps Connie should take a chance on love. But can either sister find the courage to take the chance?
Dee Williams specialises in these warmhearted sagas, and once again her theme of triumph-over-tragedy is well imagined. Sunshine After Rain certainly captures the dogged spirit of Britain during World War One. Connie and Jenny are a feisty and likeable pair, and their turbulent lives provide an involving and actionpacked read.
Sara Wilson
CHIEFS
Stuart Woods, Norton, 2006 (c1981), $23.95/ C$33.00, hb, 427pp, 0393014614
Chiefs is a rare, not-so-distant past mystery that credibly qualifies as true historical fiction. It predominantly chronicles the small Georgia town of Delano and the three generations of police chiefs who deal with the mundane, the dull and ridiculous, and the demoralizing intimidation of everyday life in the Deep South. The story centers on a succession of disappearances of teenage boys, the first of which occurs in 1920, and how each chief attempts to solve the crime and uncover the identity of this baffling killer. It is utterly masterful how Woods seamlessly weaves the individual personalities of his three main characters, from different eras, into the unraveling of the arcane felony.
What is amazingly refreshing about Chiefs is its total and complete lack of political correctness. The dialogue is gritty and raw. The politicians are players, corrupt, yet with their own morality. There are no “pretty” words for African-Americans. Yet there is no offense here. The words ring with the truth of the tension between the races and the echo’s of the early civil rights movement.
Woods has filled his novel, republished in a 25th anniversary edition, with tense moments, an uncommon plodding wittiness, history, culture, and best of all, a great story that keeps you flicking pages so quickly a bookmark isn’t even needed… you can’t put it down!
“Everyone I have ever loved has left me behind.” One character writes these words to another in a letter, but in reality each person within this novel could have spoken the
same words. Those suffering from poverty or tuberculosis in 1913 Hawaii face not only physical but also emotional separation from family and friends.
Two children born to a Portuguese father and Japanese mother succumb to TB and have to be quarantined in a hospital-orphanage, where they eventually die. But Leah, Aki, and another boy patient, Seth, remain spirits who haunt the surviving daughter, Anah. While Anah survives TB at the orphanage, she suffers tremendously at the hands of a bitter nun, Sister Bernadine. Starvation and beatings in addition to haunting messages and even physical attacks from her dead siblings shape Anah into a strong albeit melancholic young woman. Saved from total hardening by the loving care of Seth’s brother, Ezroh, she eventually marries him and has four children of her own, who seem to bear the family’s haunted physical and emotional destiny. How Anah comes to terms with her nightmarish past speaks potently to all the characters, as well as the readers of this illuminating tale.
Yamanaka excels in the pidgin-style English spoken by these immigrant families, in lyrical descriptions of the Hawaiian setting, and in creating a mystical world filled with tortured ghosts seeking redress and peace. Anah comes to understand her mother’s loss as well as her own, as only a parent who experiences the unpredictable vicissitudes of life could possibly do. Within this patently different type of “love” story, Yamanaka has captured the essence of a little recognized group of Hawaiian residents who work this lush, beautiful land at a phenomenal cost.
Viviane Crystal
MULTI-PERIOD
SAVING THE WORLD
Julia Alvarez, Algonquin, 2006, $24.95/ C$34.95, hb, 368pp, 9781565125100
This book is composed of several layers, like a torte. In present-day America we have Alma, turning fifty, depressed and lost; we also have Helen, Alma’s elderly neighbour, making her last fight against cancer. Back in 1803 in Spain, we have Doña Isabel Sendales y Gomez, the only survivor in her family after a smallpox epidemic, and the rectoress of an orphanage. How are they connected? By the men in their lives, all of whom are trying to save the world. Alma’s husband, Richard, works for a large organization that helps the Third World. He gets the chance to have hands-on experience with a project in the Dominican Republic, Alma’s home country. Part of the project is an AIDS clinic. Doña Isabel is asked to help a doctor, Don Francisco Xavier Balmis, director of the King’s Expedition, use her orphan boys to carry the smallpox vaccine to the New World, where an epidemic is raging. Meanwhile, Helen’s son comes home to help her die and sort himself out.
The novel focuses on the decisions the three women make. Alma decides to stay at home, find herself, and finish her research about Doña Isabel and her smallpox carriers, letting Richard go by himself into a situation where he really does need her. Doña Isabel decides that her
smallpox-scarred life in Spain will never change and asks to go with her chosen boys to South America. She supports Don Francisco in order to keep the expedition going and save others from smallpox. Helen decides to die at home without further treatment. The results of these decisions make for a story that explores how personal hurt, pain, and anger can be turned into purposeful action, or not, and how saving the world can sometimes mean saving oneself.
Saving the World is written in the present tense and is a slow read, but it’s worth the effort.
Patrika Salmon
UNCERTAIN PILGRIMS
Lenore Carroll, Univ. of New Mexico, 2006, $24.95, hb, 219pp, 0826335667
This story, a contemporary novel sprinkled with rich historical detail, centers on healing, fresh perspectives and starting anew. After tragedy strikes the life of Carla Bracato, she packs up her tent and camping gear, setting off on a journey down the old Santa Fe Trail to dispel her grief by indulging in her passion for history. At Leavenworth, Kansas, Carla encounters Dale Jackson, an older man who shares her interest in historical topics, and his son, Tom. Carla befriends the pair, and they meet at various forts along the Trail. Absorbed in the rich history of the area, Carla feels her pain begin to lift. Throughout the novel, the story flashes back to 1867, to the days of George and Libby Custer and their personal love story.
Although a bond of friendship develops between Dale and Carla, she comes to care deeply for Tom. But upon reaching Santa Fe, Dale becomes very ill, and her relationship with Tom crumbles. Love, learning, and hope combine to make the reader care for all of the characters.
Carroll, an author from Kansas City, personally visited all the places Carla does along the Santa Fe Trail. She also consulted staff and historians at the various forts to provide an accurate historical account of the settings in her novel.
Mirella Patzer
THE GHOST ORCHID
Carol Goodman, Ballantine, 2006, $24.95/ C$34.95, hb, 336pp, 0345462130
This suspenseful novel is set at an artists’ colony in Saratoga in upstate New York. The action alternates between the 1890s, when a young medium was brought to Bosco to help a grieving mother, Aurora Latham, make contact with her three young children who have died of diphtheria, and the present, when Ellis Brooks has been granted a stay at Bosco to work on her novel about these very events. In fact, almost all of the present-day inhabitants of Bosco are working on projects connected with the estate: one is writing a biography of Aurora, another is investigating the extensive estate gardens with an eye to their restoration, and a third is captivated by the system of fountains and statues in the gardens, in which he finds inspiration for his poetry. But slowly the hold that Bosco and its earlier inhabitants have over those in the present becomes more menacing. What really happened
all those years ago? Did the medium kidnap the one remaining child in the family?
Goodman has successfully intertwined the two periods and their events, such that at times the reader is so immersed that they commingle. Period details are convincing, particularly those connected with mediums and séances. Elements of Indian history and lore play a critical role in the events. The local environs, from the Adirondacks, with the logging that has made the Latham family fortune, to the Sacandaga River (now Reservoir), play key roles in the plot. For this reader, who lives in upstate New York, it is hard not to identify Bosco with Yaddo, a Saratoga estate that is now an artists’ colony.
Readers who are looking to lose themselves in a novel full of puzzles and surprises need look no further. Highly recommended.
The female owners of the Diablo Springs Hotel and Saloon are haunted: for four generations, the mothers of the Beck family have been cursed to raise daughters without fathers. Long dissociated from her childhood home, Gracie Beck returns upon her grandmother’s death to find herself suddenly confronting the ghosts of her hometown past while reconciling with ancestral apparitions.
More ambitious than a simple romance, Erin Grady’s Whispers tells two linked stories set concurrently in present day and 1890, in and around the mysterious town of Diablo Springs, Arizona. Emotionally strong female characters raise the stakes of the plot’s western genre elements. But it’s the continuing supernatural connection of the future to events from the past that pushes the novel beyond the sum of its parts.
While Whispers is an entertaining and gripping story, the resolution seems somewhat at odds with the novel’s initial foundations. Even if it’s not perfect, it is a fascinating read right down to the final page.
Janette King
BONES OF THE BARBARY COAST
Daniel Hecht, Bloomsbury USA, 2006, $24.95, hb, 432pp, 1596910860
The skeleton of a victim of the 1906 earthquake is uncovered during a San Francisco historic home remodel and is dubbed the “wolfman” by forensic anthropologists due to the bones’ unusual characteristics. Paranormal psychologist and investigator Cree Black is called in by Bert Marchetti, old family friend and SFPD homicide inspector, to work on the wolfman case. Bert believes the case may be related to presentday homicides, but Bert’s involvement is more complex and dangerous than he lets on to Cree. The setting moves between 1889 and presentday San Francisco through the diary of Lydia Schweitzer, a Victorian woman whose many secrets may include the wolfman.
This is the third in the Cree Black series, but it can easily be read as a standalone. Hecht has created an eerie thriller/mystery, with perfect ambience and excellent characterization. His
writing style is certainly more literary and thought-provoking than is usual for the genre, and Hecht delves into human nature with the precision of a pathologist’s scalpel. Though the reader may not be entirely satisfied by how the tension is resolved, the tension is delicious in and of itself and makes this novel a real pageturner. Recommended.
Bethany Skaggs
THE LIBRARIANS OF ALEXANDRIA: A Tale of Two Sisters
This is the saga of the Canterno family. The story takes place in Italy and Egypt from 1870 to the end of World War II. Tomasso Canterno is from a well-to-do Italian family in the mountain village of Fumone. Rebelling against his family’s plans and renouncing his share of the family fortune, he announces his intention to pursue his studies and become a professor. He takes a teaching position in Alexandria and brings along his wife, Antonia, and newborn daughter, Marta. Another daughter, Margherita, and a son are born. Tomasso is an ardent bibliophile, and the children grow up surrounded by books. Marta and Margherita both share Tomasso’s love of learning. Marta is especially gifted in languages and music, and Tomasso encourages her in her studies; Margherita does not receive the same attention and encouragement. Eventually circumstances require the family to return to Italy without Tomasso. Marta becomes an accomplished musician, and earns a doctorate in languages, and both daughters become librarians. The story follows the women from Rome to Naples to Palermo and through romance, marriage, child-rearing, and divorce.
Despite the fact that this book won the ZerilliMarimo Prize, I recommend it with reservations. Part One of the book dragged quite a bit for me.
Part Two, which is told from Marta’s daughter’s point of view and covers the years leading up to the war, and then the war itself, was much more interesting. In this part, she tells of her mother’s work with ancient texts and 15th and 16th century incunabula at the Casanatense Library in Rome, and of her efforts to save illuminated manuscripts at the National Library of Palermo during the war. I also enjoyed the glimpse into everyday life in Italy during this time and the lovely descriptions of Rome, Naples, Palermo and Alexandria.
Set in Ontario, Jane Urquhart’s latest novel is both contemporary and historical, though the rather disturbing prologue doesn’t make it clear in which period she is starting. Then we meet Jerome McNaughton, a young photographer/ artist working on a new project on presentday Timber Island in Lake Ontario, until a grisly discovery drives him from the island. A year later he encounters Sylvia Bradley, an
EDITORS’ CHOICE
THE REBELS OF IRELAND: The Dublin Saga (US) / IRELAND: Awakening (UK)
Edward Rutherfurd, Doubleday, 2006, $28.95, hb, 863pp, 0385512899 / Century, 2006, £17.99, hb, 896pp, 1844137945
Rutherfurd’s latest bestseller concludes his sweeping look at Irish history first begun in The Princes of Ireland (Dublin in the UK). The two-book saga charts Ireland’s struggle from earliest Celtic history through to the early 20th century. Rebels opens in 1597 with the Plantation period – the final step in English domination enforcing the Catholic persecution in earnest – and takes readers through Cromwell, the Battle of the Boyne, the Potato Famine and the struggle for independence.
Well-written and captivating, this mammoth book is filled to the brim with Irish heroes. Historical figures Daniel O’Connell, Jonathan Swift, and Robert Emmet, among others, mix with fictional families such as the O’Byrnes, Doyles, Walshes, and Budges to fully bring to life the dramatic history of Ireland. Rutherfurd so expertly blends fact with fiction that readers will find themselves engrossed in the characters’ lives, finish the book, and realize that they have learned much about what can seem a confusing national history.
Rutherfurd incorporates the beauty of Dublin and the wildness of the surrounding mountains and countryside so well that, at times, it feels as though the setting is actually another character. (Such detail provides almost a minivacation!) This isn’t one of those sequels where a reader feels lost if they’ve not read earlier books; the author sums up the first book superbly before beginning this concluding work. However, the always-present danger of such sweeping sagas – trying to keep family lines straight – is almost impossible to avoid after nearly 1600 pages between the two books.
With its well-crafted plot, characters and setting, this book is brilliantly done. Overall, The Rebels of Ireland is a must for Rutherfurd fans, Irish history buffs, and those readers who appreciate compelling stories of struggle for personal freedom and independence.
unusual woman who seeks him out to ask about the corpse he found. Their meeting at first is tentative, but soon they bond in their quest to know more about the man whose life ended so hideously on the icy lake. Sylvia lends Jerome the notebooks of her late lover, Andrew, which tell the story of Timber Island and the life of his ancestors.
The reader then travels back in time to early 19th century rural Ontario and the busy timber trade. Andrew’s great-great grandfather built a booming business, but in many ways he neglected his children, and it’s their lives that touch us the most. The story then returns to the present and resumes its exploration of Sylvia and Jerome.
Urquhart’s simple yet elegant style painted vivid pictures in my mind, bringing both her characters and their settings alive. The protagonists also impress, with their unique traits and appealing personas. What gave me trouble was the feeling that this was two books crammed into one. Sylvia’s story was most interesting, yet its conclusion left me feeling cheated, especially one twist that’s never fully explained. The historical storyline also feels
rushed towards the end.
Dana Cohlmeyer
None of this is to say the book isn’t worth reading. Urquhart has fashioned engrossing tales of love, loss and memory, ones that resonate. I only wish I could have read them as separate novels.
Teresa Basinski Eckford
HISTORICAL FANTASY
THE MARRIAGE SPELL
Mary Jo Putney, Ballantine, 2006, $24.95, hb, 336pp, 0345449185
Abigail is a wizard in early 19th-century England, a healer of great talent, but wizards are feared and despised. A chance encounter gives her the opportunity to save the life of Lord Jack Frayne, whom she has admired only from afar. As they fall in love and marry, Jack overcomes his almost irrational hatred of wizards and slowly learns to accept his own powers, which were beaten out of him as a child. Together, they fight to overcome the curse that has decimated his family estate and his mother’s mind, with
Historical Fantasy-Children & YA
many passionate encounters along the way.
The plot is skillfully developed. The two main characters are extremely likable, and the novel gives a good look at Regency England. The only discordant note comes when Abigail and Frayne are attacked on a lonely London street one night. Afterwards, Abigail casually comments that she might have been raped, too, a thoroughly modern way of expressing an act that was couched in much vaguer terms during that age. Nevertheless, if you like your Regencies safe and predictable, this book should prove popular, although the novel lacks tension between its characters and in its inevitable conclusion.
Pamela Ortega
CAMELOT’S SWORD (UK) / UNDER CAMELOT’S BANNER (US)
This romantic fantasy is set around Tintagel in Arthurian Cornwall. Lynet Carnbrea finds herself trying to restore calm to her father’s castle of Cambryn after he is murdered. She seeks the help of Guinevere at Camelot, whose own security is threatened by Lynet’s brother Colan and Arthur’s half-sister, Morgaine the sorceress.
Lynet’s youthful experiences at the court of King Mark have left her with a tarnished reputation, but she finds a champion in Lancelot’s squire, Gareth, whose character has also been tainted. The battle for Cambryn Castle, Arthur’s kingdom and Lynet’s future happiness is a story braided with knots of deception
This novel is a blend of legend, myth and fantasy. It is written in a lyrical style. The author demonstrates a passion for the classic Arthurian story, which is expressed best in her characterization of the dramatic Morgaine. Myfanwy Cook
1190, Glastonbury. With the discovery of the bones of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, business is booming. Hereward and Gwyneth Mason, children of the innkeeper of The Crown, are run off their feet. One important visitor is Lord Robert Hardwyke, who seeks the monks’ help to cure his ill son, Edmund. Then Lord Robert FitzStephen, supervisor of the abbey’s building programme, arrives with his young daughter, Eleanor. When Eleanor goes missing, suspicion falls on the stonemason Bedwyn, a gentle giant of a man, but mute. Bedwyn narrowly escapes lynching by the mob, and is thrown into prison. Then a ransom note arrives, demanding that Lord Robert fill the abbey fish tank with gold and leave it in a designated place. Who has kidnapped Eleanor? Why the abbey fish tank? Can Hereward and Gwyneth find Eleanor and solve the mystery in time to save Bedwyn from the hangman’s noose?
This is the second in the ‘Abbey Mysteries’
series and the author, sensibly, gives her readers both a brief resume of the back story and a cast list. She is good at the bustle of mediaeval town life: the pilgrims, the market-place, the exotic goods on sale, such as the silks with which Marion le Fevre will embroider the new abbey vestments, and so on. There is certainly enough action to keep the reader interested and involved. She is less convincing with regard to class. Rank was extremely important to the mediaeval mind; it is inconceivable that the children of an innkeeper would claim friendship with the son of a nobleman, as Gwyneth and Hereward do. Nor would the townsfolk refer to ‘Eleanor’ when she goes missing. It would be ‘Lady Eleanor’, surely? It is a pity that Cherith Baldry spoils a lively tale by such social inaccuracies. For 9 plus.
Elizabeth Hawksley
The Silent Man has a very good and original plot. It is action packed, and, very cleverly, a different story line appears which holds the whole plot together, but you only find out about it at the very end. I learned that life around 1190 was very simple. People thought King Arthur would come back and rise again, that he was only sleeping. There were a lot of monks and people believed lots of myths and legends. I think it is aimed at 9 to 11 year olds, both boys and girls, and is a really good book.
Veronica Bennett’s vivid portrayal of Mary Shelley in Angelmonster guides readers through the inspiration that led to her masterpiece novel, Frankenstein. It is a rare treat to see the culmination of circumstances that become the impetus for an author’s work, and Angelmonster does just that: it gives us the voyeuristic pleasure of divulging the life of Mary Shelley. The child of freethinkers, surrounded by death and guilt, Mary creates a life for herself with the poet, Percy Shelley, causing her family much scandal. She proceeds to turn these events into her own creation, the novel Frankenstein, a novel about creating life from death. Bennett does a wonderful job of interweaving the period and historical facts of Shelley’s life into the novel. Her characters are rich and believable. Angelmonster is the first of Bennett’s novels to be published in the United States. She resides in England, where she saw a portrait of Mary Shelley and became inspired herself. Ages 12+
Nancy Castaldo
KITTY AND MR. KIPLING
Lenore Blegvad, Margaret K. McElderry, 2006, $16.95, hb, 128pp, 0689873638
When Mr. Kipling and his wife come to the small Vermont town of Dummerston, Vermont, the town is thrown into chaos by the famous author. Blegvad’s fictional character of Kitty becomes mesmerized by the Kiplings and Mr. Kipling’s works in progress. The sweet story nicely mixes fiction with historical facts. Readers of Little House on the Prairie and The
Courage of Sarah Noble will enjoy Lenore Blegvad’s Kitty and Mr. Kipling: Neighbors in Vermont. Like The Courage of Sarah Noble, this is a fast read and a good introduction into historical fiction for younger readers. Erik Blegvad’s pencil sketch illustrations give the book a somewhat dated, but warm, appeal. Ages 8-10.
Nancy Castaldo
GIDEON THE CUTPURSE
Linda Buckley-Archer, Simon & Schuster, 2006, $17.95, hb, 400pp, 9781416915256 / Simon & Schuster, 2006, £12.99, hb, 384pp, 1416916555
Scriptwriter Linda Buckley-Archer makes a promising debut with Gideon the Cutpurse, the first in a trilogy of young adult time-travel novels. Twelve-year-old Peter Schock, the neglected son of working parents, is packed off to the country, where he meets the Dyer family. Dr. Dyer invites Peter to his workplace for an outing. As Peter and Dr. Dyer’s daughter Kate play with a prototype for an anti-gravity machine, they disappear, sending both families into a panic.
Dazed on a hillside in 1763, the children are soon accosted by an individual known as the “Tar Man.” He steals their “curious contraption” and takes it to London. Realizing they will need the machine to return home, the children convince a kind young traveler, Gideon, to bring them to the city. After battling highwaymen, however, the children discover that Gideon has a price on his head – put there by the Tar Man himself. Unraveling the mystery of Gideon’s past and struggling to save both him and themselves, the children witness life in the 18th century – from as high as the royal palace to as low as Newgate prison.
Although marred in the first few chapters by abrupt changes in points of view, this wellpackaged historical moves along at a brisk clip. The complexity of several of the characters – particularly Gideon and the villains – suggests many promising plot developments for the next book in the series. Ages 10 and up.
Lisa Ann Verge
THE TELLING POOL
David Clement-Davies, Amulet, 2005, $19.95/ C$27.95, hb, 360pp, 0810957582
Set in the Welsh Marches during the late 12th century, The Telling Pool recounts the quest of a young Welsh teenager to break an ancient curse. Rhodri hopes to become a falconer like his father, but when the latter is summoned to serve his feudal lord on Richard the Lionheart’s crusade, Rhodri is left to help his mother run their small farm. A blind blacksmith, however, shows him a Telling Pool in which he can see images distant in both time and place, before finally he sets out on his own journey.
Raised as an only child in a loving family, Rhodri possesses modern sensibilities that are repulsed by the scenes of violence and betrayal that he witnesses in the Telling Pool, as well as by prejudice against an old Jew and his daughter, whom he helps when they are attacked by robbers. When he learns how she was mistreated in her youth, he even feels sympathy for the
witch who is using her wicked enchantments to gain control of the sword Excalibur. His learning experience serves as a salutary reminder that behind the idealization of medieval romance life was often brutal and cruel.
This novel lacks the liveliness of Kevin Crossley-Holland’s Arthur Trilogy (20003), with which it shares many ingredients: the setting on the Welsh Marches during the crusades (albeit the Third rather than the Fourth), and visions from a glorious Arthurian past as well as a Merlin figure in the present; instead he prefers a more didactic tone. But then one could argue that this is appropriate since life was much harder for the lower classes than their feudal masters.
Ray Thompson
THE SACRIFICE
Kathleen Benner Duble, Margaret K. McElderry, 2005, $15.95/C$21.95, hb, 211pp, 0689876505
Abigail Faulkner is a 10-year-old girl living in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1692. Today’s readers will recognize and empathize with her initial “trials.” She is a free spirit who chafes at the restrictions imposed by her Puritan society. Moreover, she must put up with a timid, goodygoody older sister and a sullen younger brother who complains of too many chores. Worst of all, her father suffers from occasional fits. However, when a few girls are summoned from nearby Salem to investigate whether there are witches in Andover, Abigail’s life becomes a nightmare. Not only does she fear witches, but after seeing innocent neighbors accused of witchcraft, she begins to fear her own family members could be falsely accused as well. And what then? This book is targeted to a tween readership. My own 10-year-old daughter pronounced it “good but scary.” I found it a well-written, age-appropriate introduction to a historical event that was indeed scary. Ages 9-12.
Every young reader wants to hear about the times of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Patrick Henry. In this story, Elliott provides a prelude to the Revolutionary War in Williamsburg, Virginia, and includes glimpses of our founding fathers. The story focuses on Nathaniel Dunn, an angry young man who has lost his mother, been abandoned by his father and then experienced the rigors of being an indentured servant.
He is rescued by an endearing, elderly tutor, Basil, who provides love, education, and encouragement. The tale spans two short years, 1774 to 1775, but develops enough tension with the issues surrounding American freedom and representation. Nathaniel finds himself in between the pro-liberty and pro-Tory factions. Over time, Nathaniel’s self-confidence grows as he becomes more aware of himself and the decisions that affect his life.
In this book, Elliott stays very close to the historical facts and highlights important events prior to the Revolutionary War. Ages 9-12.
Clara Massie’s 14th birthday isn’t the celebration she imagined. Farming in the Ozarks of 1919 is hard work, and her dad sees her book learning as “gettin’ above your raisin’.” Rather than face another whipping, Clara flees to St. Louis, Missouri, where cousin Opal is a waitress in a Frank Harvey restaurant that serves good meals to railroad passengers. At first reticent to help Clara become a waitress because she’s too young, Opal gives Clara hints on how to get the job. She trains as a Harvey girl in Belin, New Mexico, but a slip of the tongue eventually leads to trouble. While serving meals to the suffragettes in Las Vegas, the hotel’s china bowl is stolen. In the ensuing investigation, Clara is fired and reluctantly returns home. She has no intention of remaining on the farm; she must find a way to get her sister, who suffers from tuberculosis, to New Mexico where she has a chance to survive.
The 21st century ceases to exist once the reader opens the pages of this young adult novel. The author deftly recreates life on a poor farm, the trepidation of your first interview, and the excitement of starting your first job. Clara matures and grows, although at times her old self intrudes, just as in real life. Foard served as a docent at the Belin Harvey House museum and interviewed Harvey girls, research which adds immeasurably to the story. She takes a few liberties with her historical timeline, but the reader doesn’t notice because she seamlessly interweaves history with fiction. Photographs depicting Harvey Houses and their staff, and information about the real Harvey girls, are icing on the cake.
This novel is about a young Jewish boy growing up in the 1930s in a Catholic orphanage in the German mountains. This boy has two secrets: one is that his parents are both alive, and two is that he’s Jewish (which the other children don’t know). His parents told him when they left him that they were going to find more books, as they owned a bookshop, and they promised him that one day they would send him a message when they would collect him. The young boy, Felix, thought that he’d got the message because a whole carrot was in his soup, so he decided to leave the orphanage in search of his parents. But little did he know of the terror in the outside world, the Nazi control, and the constant danger. On his journey he meets several different people, including Zelda, who he saved from a house fire, a German soldier with toothache, and Barney the Dentist.
I thought that this book was a thoroughly enjoyable read; I’ve read some of Morris Gleitzman’s more popular books in the past such as Worry Warts and Puppy Fat. This book isn’t like the other Morris Gleitzman books I know, but I do think that it is a fantastic book for children to read and learn about the 2nd World
War and a different insight into life as a Jew in Nazi Germany.
Annemarie Simmons
GREEN JASPER
K. M. Grant, Puffin, 2005, £4.99, pb, 348pp, 014131737X / Walker, 2006, $16.95, 256pp, 0802780733
1193. The Third Crusade is over, but King Richard I is missing. Is he dead? Captured? No one knows. But plenty of unscrupulous men are ready to take advantage of his absence to secure their own power bases – especially Richard’s brother, Prince John, and his hangeron, the Constable de Scabious. Meanwhile, two of Richard’s loyal crusaders, Gavin and Will de Granville, return to Hartslove Castle and prepare for the marriage of Gavin and Eleanor de Barre. On the day of the wedding, Scabious arrives with a large force and claims Hartslove for Prince John – hoping that John will grant it to him – and Ellie for himself. In the ensuing fight, Gavin is wounded and Ellie and her nurse are abducted. Will, with his beloved horse Hosanna, sets off in pursuit. Meanwhile, the Saracen Kamil, with a message from Saladin, reaches the Austrian castle where Richard is held. Richard, mistrusting Prince John’s intentions, asks Kamil to go to England and seek out the loyal Granville brothers and gives Kamil the royal seal to prove that he’s alive. Kamil agrees to go, but has a hidden agenda. He covets Will’s horse, Hosanna. What follows is a rip-roaring adventure involving hidden tunnels, fights, and tests of love, loyalty and endurance.
This is the sequel to Blood Red Horse but, thanks to a skilful prologue and first chapter, it is not difficult to pick up the back story. The press release’s claim of ‘real contemporary resonance in the light of the continuing turmoil in the Middle East’ is perhaps over-stated, as the action takes place mainly in England. What are well-demonstrated, though, are the lawlessness of the period and the difficult position of women at a time when they had few legal rights. Recommended for both sexes. 11 plus.
Elizabeth Hawksley
The title doesn’t really fit the story until chapter 13 (out of 15) when Will gives a green jasper necklace that was once Ellie’s to Elric. The story gets a bit repetitive, using the same phrases again and again, and you’re always being reminded of things that have already happened.
I did like this book though, because the plot is really good and unpredictable. The characters’ personalities are developed very well, and they are true to themselves. My favourite part is where Ellie and Old Nurse are captured by Constable de Scabious because he wants to marry Ellie. I think this book can stand alone but it would have helped to have read Blood Red Horse which comes before it because that is all about the crusade. 1 think it is aimed at advanced 11-year-old to 13-year-old readers. It is more of a girls’ book because there are a few love lines, but boys may enjoy the action.
Rachel Beggs, aged 11
11,000 YEARS LOST
Peni R. Griffin, Amulet, 2006, $7.95, pb, 336pp, 0810992515
In this time-travel story set during the Pleistocene era, 11-year-old Esther inadvertently walks into another dimension while at an archaeological dig on her Texas playground. When she hears two oddly-dressed girls speaking gibberish, she approaches them, and they bring her into their clan. The clan receives her with suspicion at first, but slowly Esther adapts to their migrating lifestyle. She fears for her safety, as her fate lies in hands of the clan families. Although Esther attempts to return to her own time period, she initially fails. To her surprise, she discovers that personality conflicts, jealousy, and power struggles existed even in this earlier time.
The author crafts a language based on guttural sounds, which makes the book difficult to follow. Fortunately, a dictionary, site map, and family tree are included. In addition, there are too many characters and different families to keep track of, and some characters appear only briefly. However, the novel’s strong point is its accurately researched historical data. Griffin convincingly portrays the intimate day-by-day existence of a people who survive by hunting, foraging for food, and building shelters against the elements. The novel details the trials and tribulations of the clan’s existence, as well as its restrictive yet necessary gender distinctions.
The author writes vivid, imaginative scenes full of her world’s sights, sounds and smells: “The sky brightened, pink and green and yellow, above a world that still overwhelmed Esther’s senses – so many birds, flowers, animals – so few traces of people. The moans and mumbles of mammoths rolled like bass line of music across the soprano of the morning birds.”
Overall, this is a good story about a prehistoric time not often written about. Ages 9-12.
In the third part of this fascinating story Victrix, a successful gladiatrix, now runs her own school. Resolved to avenge Queen Boudicca and her native Iceni people, she plots to bring down Rome. Her loyalties are put to the test when she meets her own cousin, Cram, who is a slave to Nero. Both want to undermine the power of Rome. However, neither can trust the other.
This exciting and realistic story is packed with action, detail and strong interesting characterisation. We are taken from the brutality and cruelty of the life of a slave and gladiator/ rix to the fickle and deadly nature of the politics of Rome.
Victrix is a strong, focused and loyal heroine who rises to her quest and every challenge set before her. Her students love and respect her because of these traits and her fair leadership qualities. Her character is in stark contrast to the treachery and deceit of others. Likewise, the rich colours of opulence of the privileged life are vastly different from the humble slaves’ existence whose endless toil keeps the social elite in luxury. Life could be easily bought or
demanded, or ended quickly in a society that was both superstitious and corrupt.
The story is as much a study in the subtleties of people’s motives as it is of life in the empire itself. It is an excellently written book and very good value for money.
Val Loh
SUMMER OF DISCOVERY
Melody Herr, Univ. of Nebraska, 2006, $10.95/£8.50, pb, 111pp, 0803273622
Two teenagers living in the dustbowl that is Nebraska in 1939 meet a professional archaeologist, who takes them on as his assistants for the summer. Through the next few months, the boys help excavate site after site, discovering much of the rich history of the Great Plains in the process. From the Ice Age to modern times, they learn lessons encompassing such diverse subjects as the tragedy of the Native Americans to the poor farming techniques of the white men that helped bring on the terrible conditions of the dustbowl. In the end, they are confirmed in their ambition of becoming archaeologists themselves.
The book’s purpose is primarily instructive. The author gives her readers an insider’s look into the techniques of archaeology as practiced in 1939. She also skillfully blends the myths and legends of the past with the real history of the Great Plains. Indeed, the book’s strength lies in its sense of time and place. Her characters’ skills in interpreting clues found in the earth shed light on the past and help readers gain a better understanding of the present. However, the story could benefit from faster pacing and a more page-turning approach to plot. The author’s characters could have been drawn more sharply, allowing the work to appeal to a much wider audience. Still the book stands as an excellent introduction to the practice of archaeology, suitable for a young person who is exploring possible careers.
Ken
Kreckel
AT THE SIGN OF THE SUGARED PLUM
Mary Hooper, Bloomsbury, 2003, £5.99, pb, 169pp, 0747561249 / Bloomsbury USA, 2003, $16.95, hb, 200pp, 1582348999
London, June 1665. Country girl Hannah is thrilled to be coming to live in London with her sister Sarah, who runs a sweetmeats shop in the city. She is longing to see the fashionable ladies and gentlemen and all the sights. Sarah is horrified that Hannah did not get her message to stay away – there have been cases of plague reported. Hannah refuses to go back home; she’s always longed to see London and can’t believe the plague will be a problem.
In this lively story, Mary Hooper gives us all the sights, sounds, and smells of 17th century London life. Hannah’s first-person narrative vividly evokes her excitement, her naïve longing to be ‘fashionable’, her growing friendship with Tom, the apothecary’s apprentice, and her increasingly terrified realization that the plague is creeping ever closer and that death is no respecter of persons. By writing in the first person, Hooper skilfully enables the reader to learn, along with the youthful narrator, how the authorities dealt with the plague and its impact on ordinary people. It also enables her to exploit
the tension between Hannah’s 17th-century views – that herbal lozenges ward off the plague, say – and the reader’s realization that many of the preventative measures were either useless or, in the forced killing of all the dogs and cats, positively harmful.
I enjoyed this book. It is well-written, engaging, and historically accurate without being pedantic. The main characters are all vividly drawn and we care about what happens to them. It is a real pleasure to read a book where the characters think and act like 17th century people, rather than being 21st century characters in fancy dress as, alas, is all too often the case.
For girls aged 10 plus. Recommended.
Elizabeth Hawksley
This book was a long timeline of Hannah’s life events during her stay in London. She came to London to help her sister but found there was a plague there. It was all about the plague and was very sad because towards the middle everybody started catching the plague and dying. I learned a lot about the plague and strangely enough a lot about what people ate and what they wore.
I liked it but it could have had some more action because at some points it wasn’t very interesting – it repeated what it had already said. I think it’s aimed at 10 to 12 year olds and is definitely for girls. I don’t think boys would enjoy it at all because quite a lot of it is about love and it’s not very dramatic.
At the back there are some recipes for confectionery of the 17th century and I am going to try them out.
Kadohata, winner of the Newbery Medal, has created an inspiring story based upon the wartime misfortunes of her own family. Weedflower is the story of twelve-year-old Sumiko, a girl whose grandparents came to California from Japan. During World War II, Sumiko works hard on the family carnation farm. She longs for nothing more than to have friends among her Anglo schoolmates, but instead must watch her already circumscribed world contract as the national tide of paranoia rises. After Pearl Harbor, her family is taken from the land they’ve cultivated and loved for generations and interned in the Arizona desert. They soon discover that their camp has been built on land belonging to another “interned tribe,” the Mojave Indians. Sumiko, digging the rocky soil of the desert and carrying water to a small plot of carnations, demonstrates resilience, determination and hope as she confronts the overwhelming circumstance of loss in this hostile environment. The desert around Posten blooms today because of the pioneering efforts of those interned Japanese farmers! Weedflower is a skillful, measured recounting of an ignoble chapter in American history as experienced by a sensitive child, and highly recommended. Ages 11 and up.
Juliet Waldron
I
STAY NEAR YOU: One Story in Three M. E. Kerr, Harcourt, 2006 (c1997), $6.95, pb, 203pp, 0152055894
I Stay Near You, a reissue of a 1997 paperback, is a three-generation saga set in a small upstate New York town that begins in the 1940s with a rich boy-poor girl romance and ends in the 1980s. Its characters are bound together by an inscribed ring passed from father to son, a mansion named Cake, and a history of ill-fated love and family tragedy.
I first read M. E. Kerr’s young adult novels in the 1970s, when I was a member of that target audience, and I was pleased to find that Kerr’s ear for dialogue and eye for human foibles have grown no less sharp over the years. My only complaint was that the last third of the book, dealing with the troubled relationship between a teenage boy and his absentee rockstar father, seemed at times to tread all-toofamiliar dysfunctional family ground. It’s a minor complaint, however, about a novel that beautifully reminds us how the past continues into the present. Ages 14 and up.
Susan Higginbotham
OPHELIA
Lisa Klein, Bloomsbury USA, 2006, $16.95, hb, 336pp, 1582348014 / Bloomsbury, 2006, £5.99, pb, 336pp, 0747587337
In a perfect accompaniment to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Lisa Klein has fleshed out the story of Ophelia for those of us who craved more of this character when reading the play. In Ophelia, Klein presents us with a feisty girl of clear mind who has fallen in love with young Prince Hamlet. The prince cannot return her affections without arousing suspicion in the court of his uncle and his mother, Queen Gertrude. Klein draws important details from Shakespeare’s work to develop the characters of Hamlet’s loyal friend, Horatio, and Ophelia’s ambitious father, Polonius.
Fans of Hamlet will be pleased with Klein’s interpretation of the scene in which Hamlet’s madness turns on his beloved, Ophelia: “‘Go to a nunnery. Go!’ His face twisted in disdain as he retreated from me. Stunned, I made no move to leave. Why should he send me to a convent? This was surely some cruel joke of his.”
Readers will find that Klein has created an alternate future for our heroine in this suspenseful page-turner. The twists that ensue are true to the spirit of Shakespeare’s tale, if not to the word.
Like Julius Lester’s Othello, Ophelia is a wonderful addition to a high school Shakespeare curriculum. It’s one I can’t wait to pass on to my own teen and her book club members. Ages 12 and up.
Nancy Castaldo
THORN
Betty Levin, Front Street, 2005, $16.95, hb, 176pp, 1932425462
Thorns conjure up the thought of sharp irritations, but the Thorn of this story is different. He is a young crippled boy banished from the peoples of the High Island, who are optimistic that his exile will bring good fortune to their prehistoric community. His father returns Thorn
to the land of his ancestors, the People of the Singing Seals, who are also distrusting of Thorn. As a population facing extinction, they view Thorn as a bad omen.
Even when the People of the Singing Seals abandon Thorn, this young man has a strong resilience. In the most desperate of times, he still generates strength, determination, and solutions. Thorn does develop trust and companionship with Willow, a young girl designated as the next Keeper of Story. The story chapters toggle back and forth between narratives about Thorn and Willow.
Thorn is an excellent role model for young adults. He teaches Willow the importance of fine craft and respect for creating quality work. Levin develops a story that emphasizes the need to do and be as good as you can even in the face of disaster. This story is not an irritant, but a wonderful composition about young adults working together in search of a brighter future.
Carol Anne Germain
TUG OF WAR
Joan Lingard, Puffin, 2004 (c1989), £4.99, 186pp, pb, 0140373195
Tug of War is about twins, Astra and Hugo, during the Second World War, fleeing from their home in Latvia with their family to escape the Nazis. The twins become separated due to the chaos and confusion of the war, and both brother and sister are worried that their other half has died. Throughout the war neither twin gives up hope; no matter what horrors each face, they still believe that there is a chance that they both will survive.
I thought that this book was an excellent read, I was gripped throughout, and I felt like I was with the characters living the experiences
SPY SMUGGLER
they had. The book shows that even in the most exceptional circumstances, families will try their hardest to stick together. I would recommend this book to any one interested in World War Two.
Annemarie Simmons
THE STRATFORD BOYS
Jan Mark, Hodder Children’s Books, 2003, £5.99, pb, 204pp, 0340860987
It is the 16th century and 15-year-old William Shakespeare, a glover’s son, offers to help out a friend and write a play which will be acted out by an unlikely cast of characters. He has an idea of what to do but is soon to discover that his task is more complex and involved than he initially anticipated.
The author brings Will, the play, and the century vividly to life through her own skilful use of language. With its humour and sensitive observations, the story is a delight. The reader, whether young or old, is swept along at a pace as we follow Will’s often frustrated progress. The realities of life in the times are carefully woven in and around the main story. Will changes and develops the characters as his inclination and circumstances dictate. In the process, the reader learns how to build up characters, create effective dialogue, structure and perform a play; all valid information which would be of benefit to a KS3 student.
The play, like the book, is a success, and William enjoys the applause and approval of the crowd, leaving him contemplating the thought of writing another play.
Val Loh
A BOY NO MORE
Harry Mazer, Aladdin, 2006, $4.99/C$6.99, pb,
EDITORS’ CHOICE
Jim Eldridge, Scholastic, 2004, £5.99, pb, 187pp, 043996884
It is October 1942 and 13-year-old Paul Lelaud is hiding in a bush with his friend, Antoine, by the railway station. They are watching Paul’s best friend, Emile, being shoved into a cattle truck along with many other Jews by the German soldiers who are occupying their town of Chinon, in France. They do not know where Emile is going, but instinctively know that he will not return. Half a year later, Paul starts a fight with his pro-Nazi teacher, Monsieur Armignac, and is sent to jail because of his violence. However, he is treated well there, and released soon after.
Soon after he arrives home, he learns a secret that his uncle has been keeping –– that he is a member of the French Resistance against the Germans. Paul is invited to join, and he eagerly accepts, fuelled by his hatred of the Germans after they killed his father several years earlier. Paul embraces his new role, and even after his second mission, he feels that he has been in the Resistance for many years, and feels that he has matured a lot. Yet, he never hesitates to participate in some of the dangerous activities that they carry out, which include working against the Germans constantly and their most dangerous mission –– smuggling a surrendering German official and English spy out of the country by plane in the dead of night.
I found this book engrossing, and was gripped at the end with the risky mission that they carry out. The time line and photos of the real French Resistance at the back of the book gave me a better understanding of this period in time. I would recommend this book to 12-15 year olds.
This is another from the fictional diaries of Lady Grace Cavendish, Maid of Honour to Queen Elizabeth and secret Lady Pursuivant. Carmina, another of the Maids, is ill and no one knows what is wrong with her. Then Lady Grace accidentally finds out the cause of her mystery illness.
At the top of the Palace is a workroom where painters are constantly at work on a number of portraits of the Queen. Lady Sarah has to dress in the Queen’s robes and stand in for her. This is boring and so Lady Grace has to read to her. Grace is fascinated by the workroom and is thrilled when she is even allowed to try her hand at painting herself. When she is finished, being Grace, her hands are covered with paint. She reaches for a sweetmeat left by Lady Sarah but Mistress Teerline, who is in charge of the workroom, stops her in time and impresses on her that paints are very poisonous.
And Grace suddenly realises that someone is trying to poison Carmina. But who would want to? With the help of her secret friends Ellie the laundry maid and Masou the boy tumbler she determines to find out.
This series is notable for the fact that every book manages to throw light on a different facet of Elizabethan life. And this one mainly illuminates the court limners and the painting techniques at the time. But there is also much information about the making of sweetmeats and Tudor medical practice and beliefs. It comes with the usual note on the Tudor period, a glossary, and additional notes on the miniaturist Nicholas Hilliard and Levina Teerline, the mistress of the workroom.
Just as enjoyable and informative as the others in this series. Ages 10+
144pp, 1416914048
In this sequel to A Boy at War, author Harry Mazer picks up the story of young Adam Pelko after the attack on Pearl Harbor, where he witnessed his father’s death on the USS Arizona. Now evacuated to San Diego with his mother and sister, Adam is faced with the task of rebuilding his life. However, the effects of the new war follow him in many ways, most of all in the form of a letter from his best friend in Hawaii, Davi Mori. Davi’s father has been arrested, and he needs Adam’s help. This letter launches him on a mission to get word to Davi’s uncle in Fresno. On the subsequent journey Adam not only is forced into conflict with his mother, but learns firsthand of the nation’s new fear and hatred of the Japanese. When he finally reaches the uncle, Adam finds his friend and his entire family have been relocated to the forbidding internment camp at Manzanar.
The author does a masterful job of blending the issues of a boy becoming a young man with the larger reality of the nation’s treatment of its citizens of Japanese descent. Mr. Mazer was inspired by the tragedies of September 11, and he wished to have his readers recognize “the parallels and perils” of the prejudice and guiltby-association mentality that gripped the nation after Pearl Harbor. I believe he has succeeded in this, telling a story that is at once historical and deeply human. He also includes several pages of factual background, an excellent addition for young readers who are probably not familiar with this period of history.
Having visited an internment camp similar to Manzanar, I find the author’s descriptions to be accurate. The thoughts and actions of Adam
Mary Moffat
Pelko also ring true. This is a wonderful book, well suited to its intended audience of ages 10 to 14.
Ken Kreckel
THE LONG HUNTER
Don McNair, Medallion, 2006, $19.95, hb, 294pp, 1932815511
This story is set in the late 18th century, a trying time for Matt McLaren, who is a survivor of an Indian massacre in which most of his family members are killed or kidnapped. This young man is determined to rescue his younger sister, Mandy, even though it seems an impossible quest. He must endure hardships through his indentured servitude with a cruel barkeep named Struthers. A kindly man, Noah Dandridge, takes Matt away from these horrific circumstances and teaches him the necessary skills for frontier survival. Struthers is infuriated by this turn of events, and the situation becomes chaotic, and there are some resulting deaths. Matt becomes a fugitive and focuses on finding his sister in Indian Territory. McNair writes a suspenseful and adventurous historical novel that many young readers will appreciate. Ages 9-12.
Carol Anne Germain
FIRE IN THE HILLS
Donna Jo Napoli, Dutton, 2006, $16.99, hb, 256pp, 0525477519
Donna Jo Napoli has done it again. With each book, she proves why she is one of today’s best writers for young adults. Fire in the Hills does not disappoint. In this sequel to Stones in Water, readers find Roberto still on his journey home to
Venice during World War II.
Napoli does a wonderful job weaving in the details of her previous book to enlighten new readers, while her loyal following will welcome the reminders. Roberto’s tale begins when the Nazis take the 12-year-old from his town in Italy and force him into a labor camp in Eastern Europe. In this sequel he is now a teen making his way through the Italian countryside of Sicily and north to Venice. Roberto struggles to do what is right as he joins the resistance partigiani movement and takes on the name of Lupo. Together with a young women, Volpe Rossa –Red Fox – he smuggles guns and information on his trip home through German-occupied Italy. This little-documented tale of Italian resistance and German invasion is utterly suspenseful. Adults who have enjoyed Corelli’s Mandolin will also enjoy Fire in the Hills. It’s also a great accompaniment to a World War II curriculum. Ages 12 and up.
Set in rural Illinois in the early 1950s, Plenty Porter follows the youngest of eleven children. Twelve-year-old Plenty is an atypical bookish child: she has no trouble speaking her mind, and her outspokenness leads her to a perspective unique from that of her siblings. The Porter parents are working class but – owing to her unintentional acquaintance with their landlord’s shy son, Ed – Plenty is granted the privilege of attending private school. The two children find friendship with one another but are social outcasts.
Plenty’s discoveries, made as she tries to understand the meanings of events in her life, evoke simple truths and connections that only childish innocence could find. Grieving the death of her favorite pet, she first finds religion of little help, then – through an unrelated event – she’s able to see religion as a tremendous comfort. And only Plenty could use Pavlovian means to reunite her estranged mother and grandfather.
Author Brandon Noonan uses Plenty’s humor to great narrative advantage, and scatters gems for the future writers among his readership. Plenty Porter is a very satisfying novel, evoking this simpler era with fondness and great sympathy. Plenty Porter is an unforgettable character who truly comes to life on the page. Ages 12 and up.
Janette King
BLACK POWDER
Staton Rabin, Margaret K. McElderry, 2005, $16.95/C$23.50, hb, 245 pp, 09689868766
Rabin writes an intriguing young adult novel which addresses the pertinent issue of youth gang violence. In 2010, teenager Langston Davis witnesses the gang murder of his best friend, Neely. Langston is desperate to rectify the situation and struggles to change the course of history. Langston, a motivated and bright student, has developed a close relationship with his biology teacher, Mrs. Cetauri. She has created a time machine which will only work for a few short days and entails the creation of a fake counterpart. On his own accord, in an attempt
to bring Neely back to life, Langston goes back in time to change the course of history so that Roger Bacon does not create gunpowder.
The start of the book is warm, caring and well-written. Yet after the first few chapters there is an unevenness and much scrambling, with an almost sitcom-feel in the later scenes. The writing shifts from strong, emotionallypowered scenes to almost juvenile episodes like Langston’s counter-body playing champion basketball (the real Langston is not athletic). The author admits to stretching the historical truth, which detracts from the plot rather than adding to the story. Certainly, the real statistics in the Notes were striking (e.g., number of gun related deaths each year) and may elicit a stronger response from young readers tempted to dabble in gun use, which seemed to be the author’s original objective. Ages 10-14.
Carol Anne Germain
THE JANUS GATE: An Encounter with John Singer Sargent
Douglas Rees, Watson-Guptill, 2006, $15.95, hb, 165pp, 0823004066
The Janus Gate is part of the Art Encounters fiction series designed to introduce young adults to great painters. The book’s subject is Sargent’s early painting The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, a portrait of the four girls. Rees imagines that the haunting and unconventional composition of the painting reflects a turbulent Boit household, which repels Sargent initially. When one of the girls scratches the words “HELP US” into a piece of drawing paper, Sargent realizes he is the only one who can save them.
The story consciously evokes The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, a contemporary and friend of John Singer Sargent. Rees does an excellent job of developing an appropriately spooky atmosphere, though I did find myself a tad bit disappointed at his ultimate explanation of the strange events. The story should appeal to middle-school girls who can identify with one or more of the daughters, or to Gothic mystery, horror, or Lemony Snicket fans.
1452 Mainz, Germany. Endymion Spring, apprentice to the famous printer Gutenberg, has to flee for his life when he is entrusted with a mysterious blank book coveted by Gutenberg’s financial backer, the evil Fust. Months later, ill and exhausted, he reaches Oxford, where he hopes to hide the book in the famous library. But will it be safe, even here?
Centuries later, 12-year-old Blake, whose mother is doing research at Oxford, comes across the book with blank pages. When he opens it, words begin to appear, words which only he can see. Why him? He’s not even particularly bright, unlike his younger sister, Duck. Gradually Blake realizes that the book contains dangerous knowledge and that many so-called respectable scholars would give, and do, anything to get their hands on it. Who can he trust?
This book operates on a number of levels.
From an historical viewpoint, it gives an imaginative, knowledgeable and vivid look at both the 15th century and the dawn of printing. It conveys the excitement generated by this new technology, which could spread knowledge faster and cheaper than hand-written books. But printing was also seen as dangerous: knowledge could get into the wrong hands.
The modern sections offer a fascinating glimpse into Oxford academic life with the ancient labyrinthine passages full of books; the professional rivalries underneath the scholarly exteriors; and the decidedly unacademic greed, manipulation and envy which some scholars harbour in their pursuit of knowledge. On a more personal level, Blake and Duck struggle to cope with the fall-out from their parents’ quarrel – their father is in America – and their feelings of jealousy and resentment towards each other.
A gripping and unputdownable story. Highly recommended. Ages 10+
Elizabeth Hawksley
Endymion Spring was absolutely fantastic. It had really good strong characters and an incredibly good plot, and a very unpredictable ending. My favourite part was when they were searching for the last book among the stacks. The bad thing about this book was that compared to the modern sections the historical parts seemed quite dull and boring. It was hard to keep track of the parts about Endymion Spring, the boy, and random characters kept being introduced. I learnt about apprentices and how they had to live in the 15th century and also what Germany was like then. I did really enioy this book, especially the modern bits. I think it is aimed at both girls and boys aged around 10 to 13 and I would definitely recommend it.
Rachel Beggs, aged 11
SEARCH AND DESTROY
I am amazed that the whole Gutenberg/ printing press/Bible bit seems to have passed her by.
Rachel’s mother
THE BOYS OF SAN JOAQUIN
D. James Smith, Aladdin, 2006, $5.99, pb, 231pp, 9781416916192
Small-town California in 1951 is the setting for this young adult novel. Written with a strong eye to the “get-the-boys-reading” movement, hero Paulo is twelve and doesn’t like girls. Paulo and his deaf cousin, Billy, are treasure hunting. The church collection money has disappeared, and they’d like to find it. This is an amusing adventure story where everything ends happily ever after, and Paulo and Billy learn quite a bit on their way to finding and returning the money to Monsignor. There are very few fifties historical details, just the odd mention of a coke bottle and the names of cars. The author concentrates on setting the story in a very chauvinistic Italian-American family where boys could do anything and girls could not.
There is a notable list of characters to meet, not least Paulo’s large family, his mother’s Italian relatives and his quieter Appalachian father’s relatives. The cover comparisons to Mark Twain don’t quite hold up (all that hype never does – why do publishers insist on using it?) but it is a ripping good yarn for boys to enjoy. Ages 9-12.
Ice Drift is based on a true story of survival from the 1860s. Two Inuit brothers, Alika and Sulu, are hunting seals on an ice floe when it
EDITORS’ CHOICE
Dean Hughes, Atheneum, 2005, $16.95/C$23.50, hb, 224pp, 068987023X
Rick Ward, a confused boy from Long Beach just out of high school, drifts into the army. He may be running away from an overbearing father, a pointless existence of beach parties, or perhaps he just needs to do something meaningful. In that spirit he goes to Vietnam and volunteers for the Charlie Rangers, an elite group who infiltrate the jungle to beat the enemy at their own game. He wants to be tested, to experience life like his heroes, Ernest Hemingway and Joseph Conrad. Most of all, he longs to be a man.
He discovers that nothing about war is what he or others had thought. He finds himself in a restricted world of just him and his team, trying to survive in a jungle hell, where the highest honor is not fighting for his country, or even just surviving, but helping a buddy to stay alive, to make it back to “the world.”
This is a powerful story about how war profoundly changes a man. The ugliness of war screams off the pages: its horror, hypocrisy, and utter futility. The author does a marvelous job of blending this with the larger realities of the Vietnam era, not shrinking from the controversies but not taking a stand either. The truth is too complex, too overwhelming for any one individual to understand. In the end, it is the individual’s humanity that counts.
This skillfully written book is highly recommended for teens and adults. Ages 12 and up.
Ken Kreckel
suddenly breaks free, leaving them floating far from shore. When evening falls and they do not return, their worried parents take to the sea in kayaks, hoping to find the missing children, but their floe is one of many, and it is already drifting south. The oldest boy, Alika, is only thirteen, but he has already learned the skills he needs for survival. Sulu, however, is nine, and Alika must assume grown-up responsibilities in order to keep himself and his beloved little brother alive. They have all the equipment customarily carried on an Inuit sledge, one excellent hunting dog, and, fortunately, a rifle. They will have to kill seals and shelter against the brutal cold if they are to survive. Alika has a further burden. If the floe does not hit land again, he knows they will drown as the ice inevitably breaks up in spring. This is a tense and exciting adventure story, interwoven with Inuit lore, history, and fascinating insights into life as a nomadic hunter. For ages 8-12, and a solid addition to any curriculum.
After the sudden death of their mother, Rowan and Nina Popplewell are packed off to Maine to spend a month in a small town with two crazy aunts. There they discover a dilapidated hotel that changes daily into something fantastic. During the golden hour at sunset, and the silver hour at dawn, the hotel transforms into a portal to other times and other places. Elevenyear-old Nina, hungry to escape from guilt and grief, sneaks off to take a trip on her own. This frightens her cautious older brother into following her to Revolutionary France. As he and two new friends brave great danger, Rowan realizes how lost he truly is – not only in time, but also in heartache and mourning. Determined to save himself, his friends, his father, and his sister, he manages through courage and quick thinking to bring them all back to a better present. Nicely researched, and with well-drawn characters, The Golden Hour is a fine debut and a promising start to the series.
Twins Xavier and Xanthe Alexander travel back in time to the Egypt of Cleopatra, via the magical “alleviators” discovered in a mysterious Maine resort in The Golden Hour. Despite being cautioned by the resort’s Board of Directors not to interfere with history, Xanthe can’t resist using the alleviator to engineer a meeting with Cleopatra. She discovers her mistake when they return to Maine and find that their interference has created an alternate universe in which the alternate Xanthe has died at age 10. Revisiting Egypt to repair their error leads them to fight in a gladiator contest and raid the snake-guarded chambers of the pyramids at Giza.
Williams was disappointed as a child that the only minority characters in the books she read were in stories about racism. She wanted to create a series of fun adventure books with
heroes of different races, and succeeds in this admirably. Author’s notes list her sources and explain which historical parts were true and which not. I thought some of the plot points were improbable, even for a fantasy, and the characters not as well-developed as in the first book. Still, her series helps fill a serious need in children’s fiction. Ages 9-13.
B.J. Sedlock
COUNTING ON GRACE
Elizabeth Winthrop, Wendy Lamb, 2006, $15.95/C$22.95, hb, 240pp, 038574644
Living in a Vermont mill town in 1910, 12year-old Grace expects to join her mother and older sister at the mill soon. Her family needs the money, and any able-bodied person living in mill-owned housing is expected to be working there. She’s surprised, then, that her teacher, Miss Lesley, makes so much fuss when Arthur, also 12 and the school’s best reader, is forced to leave school for the mill. Miss Lesley believes that Arthur and Grace deserve better – and Grace comes to believe the same, especially after a man named Lewis Hine comes to town with his camera and notebook.
Counting on Grace is a story of children forced to perform hard labor and of adults forced into virtual slavery by their economic dependence on the mill owners. Winthrop, however, avoids the stereotypes that can dog novels dealing with social issues: the workers are neither saintly nor hopelessly downtrodden (Arthur, in fact, can be downright disagreeable), and though the mill owners are not seen here, their subordinates are not without their moments of humanity. Moreover, despite its bleak and sometimes tragic subject matter, this novel is not a grim or depressing one, thanks largely to Grace, who narrates it in a style that captures her natural speaking voice without ever sounding overly folksy or dialect-ridden. Imaginative, plucky, and both smart and smart-mouthed, Grace is a heroine who leaves the reader confident that she will fulfill Miss Lesley’s hopes for her – and ours.
Susan Higginbotham
THE GRAND TOUR, OR THE PURLOINED CORONATION REGALIA
This is a sequel to Sorcery and Cecelia and tells the further adventures of cousins Kate and Cecelia. The setting is England, sometime after the Napoleonic wars. The cousins are newly married to Thomas Schofield and James Tarelton and are on a wedding trip on the continent with Thomas’s mother, Lady Sylvia. Thomas and Lady Sylvia are wizards, and Cecelia is a journeyman sorcerer. From the beginning, strange incidents occur, starting with the delivery of a mysterious package. With the help of some of Lady Sylvia’s former colleagues from the League of the Pimpernel, the travelers eventually realize that there is a plot afoot to steal coronation regalia to use in the reconstruction of an ancient magic spell that would create an all-powerful emperor of Europe. They set out to foil the plot in a race against time
and across Europe. It’s an action-packed story populated with historical figures like the Duke of Wellington and Beau Brummell. Young readers should enjoy seeing the clumsy Kate develop confidence as she adjusts to married life as Lady Schofield, as well as the descriptions of travel, shopping and social outings. These books are best read in order. Ages 12 and up.
This story highlights three years in the life of a teenage Ute named Elk Girl. The three-part story begins with an innocent time in her life, when she is showered with love from her family, friends and community. Wyss provides insight into the dramatic culture of the Ute tribe during the mid-1800s. The author highlights the beauty and symbolism of the Bear Dance, a reoccurring theme of the text.
The second part of this tale occurs during the early 1860s, a transitional time in the West, with white settlers moving into Indian territories and Indians heavily fighting amongst themselves. Elk Girl is kidnapped by the Cheyenne, and she struggles in captivity. Eventually she is rescued by white soldiers, and plans of her return to the Ute tribe are implemented. Throughout the tale, Elk Girl questions her perceptions of good and evil, especially with issues concerning other Indian tribes and the pioneers’ encroachment. It would be best to read this story aloud with the young reader since there are several disturbing scenes containing violence and abuse. However, Elk Girl provides a wonderful role model for young girls, demonstrated through her strength and determination. Ages 9-12.
Carol Anne Germain
THE EARTH DRAGON AWAKES: The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906
The Earth Dragon Awakes by award-winning author Laurence Yep tells the story of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 from the alternating perspective of two young friends. Henry Travis lives with his family in the Sacramento Street area. Chin, Henry’s friend, is the son of Ah Sing, the Travises’ houseboy. The novel begins on early evening on Tuesday, April 17, 1906, in the Travis household and takes us hour by hour through the next few days.
Yep does a marvelous job interspersing facts about the earthquake with the fictional stories of the boys. The reader sees how easily the great fires began with such simple activities as cooking ham and eggs after the quake. Yep aptly describes the scenes following the actual quake: “Some of the skyscrapers are already just steel skeletons. Their collapsed walls burn at their base like a garden of red and yellow flowers. Others are ablaze. The look like giant torches.”
This is a perfect book to commemorate the anniversary of this great national disaster and to add to a classroom collection. Ages 8-12.
Nancy Castaldo
NONFICTION
CRADLE OF VIOLENCE: How Boston’s Waterfront Mobs Ignited the American Revolution
Russell Bourne, Wiley, 2006, $24.95/ C$31.99/£16.99, hb, 272pp, 0471675512
Early American history, as taught in grammar schools, has most Americans believing that the American Revolution was fomented and fought by the famous patriots whose names are synonymous with freedom: Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Hancock, etc. While these gentlemen are well deserving of their status, history has long overlooked the accomplishments of the lower, working class folks of the Boston waterfront. These forgotten heroes were the original “foot soldiers” of the Revolution. They are the ones who led the riots and “persuaded” tax collectors and other Loyalists to change their ways. Bourne traces their critical, yet unheralded, contributions from the very founding of Boston to the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Although a pure nonfiction work, this book reads as easily as fiction, albeit without the dialogue. The author effectively brings to life the misery and hardships suffered by those who eked out their meager lives along the waterfront, yet at the same time bestowing on these wretched people the dignity and respect they deserved for their crucial roles in history. In effect, he has awarded them their hard-earned, yet longdenied status as American patriots.
This book includes extensive acknowledgements and interpretations as well as a lengthy index and bibliography.
Mark F. Johnson
THE SALE OF THE LATE KING’S GOODS:
Charles I & His Art Collection
Jerry Brotton, Macmillan, 2006, £25.00, hb, 435pp, 1405041528
Charles I raised the sin of acquisitiveness to gargantuan heights. During his reign thousands of paintings, tapestries and statuary were purchased to bolster his insecure personality, and in the process helped lead to his downfall. After Charles’s execution, the new Parliament proclaimed itself a Commonwealth and drew up the Act for the Sale of the Late King’s Goods; the proceeds were intended to pay off royal debts and help finance the navy. What was to become known as ‘The Sale of the Century’ gave away or sold off nearly 2,000 works of art and for the first time allowed the hoi polloi to buy, sell, admire and evaluate artworks that were previously never intended for their eyes.
This put a price on monarchy and gave birth to a European art market. During the Restoration, Charles II determined to reclaim the treasures, and many sought to win royal favour by returning paintings and thereby restoring the bulk of the original collection. Fewer than 300 paintings were lost, but today these pictures from 17th century England can be seen in the leading collections across Europe; they led to the creation of the public art gallery.
This well researched book is lucidly written with extensive notes, bibliography
and comprehensive index. Short-listed for the Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction, it is a real treasure.
Ann Oughton
THE MIRROR OF THE GODS: Classical Mythology in Renaissance Art
This is a scholarly study but plainly written with a minimum of technical artistic terms, which makes it accessible to the lay reader. It is as informed about the European late mediaeval and Renaissance mindset as it is about the artworks the period produced, showing how the Christian world managed to assimilate the pantheon of classical gods into its culture and politics. The book is also stuffed with amusing and affectionate anecdotes, which bring to life not only the art but the men and women who made it and their patrons. Raphael, for example, as official inspector of antiquities for Rome, so frequently muddled in classical and non-classical types that later commentaries described him as ‘an ass compared with the ancients.’
An entertaining read in its own right and a useful resource for those writing fiction about the period.
This is a scholarly book with pizzazz. The author reports on marriage practices and laws from ancient Babylon to the present. The text is packed with statistics and research references, and there are 98 pages of endnotes. However, Professor Coontz’s engaging and colloquial style keeps the reader turning pages. The author’s research yields the surprising insight that marriage before the 17th century was nothing like the “traditional” marriage of the 20th century. The exclusive pairing off of a heterosexual couple to be lifelong friends, lovers, and parents was something new in the history of marriage. The research also shows that at the close of the 20th century, marriage had evolved in such a way that it ceased to be society’s principal means of organizing sexual behavior, child rearing, social life, and care of family members. Historians of the 21st century will record how well we managed this revolution. A book to read and keep.
Lucille Cormier
THE MEMOIRS OF CATHERINE THE GREAT: A New Translation
Mark Cruse & Hilde Hoogenboom, Random House, 2005, $26.95/C$37.95, hb, 352pp, 06799642994
This new edition of the Memoirs is a thorough and sympathetic introduction to Catherine’s writing. They cover the years 1745 to 1762, the period from Catherine’s marriage to Peter III to the coup that placed her on the Russian throne. The translators provide an excellent scholarly preface, appendices, an extensive bibliography, and an index.
Catherine revised her memoirs several times over the course of her life. She knew she was creating the story by which she hoped to be judged by future generations. The Memoirs are transparently self-serving, designed to justify Catherine’s usurping the throne from her husband. Even as such they are a fascinating portrait of a person thoroughly engaged in court intrigue, one who demonstrates superb political skill. Recommended to scholars of Russian history and to those contemplating careers in politics or management.
Lucille Cormier
ROYAL PANOPLY: Brief Lives of the English Monarchs
Carolly Erickson, St. Martin’s Press, 2006, $27.95/C$37.95, hb, 351pp, 0312316437
Somehow Erickson manages, in the space she permits herself, to give us vignettes about 40 English monarchs from William the Conqueror to Elizabeth II. It takes a talented writer, and one who loves her subject matter, to personalize each and every one of these monarchs and make them come alive.
We learn a bit about each monarch’s relationships with family, sometimes more “dishing the dirt” about them than your run-ofthe-mill biography would permit. Erickson tells us about their mental illnesses, their proclivities, their rages. The old adage of power corrupting and absolute power corrupting absolutely comes to mind. Most of these monarchs were clearly more concerned about enjoying the excesses that their power brought them than caring about the needs or love of their people.
Elizabeth I stands out – as usual – as she is one of the most impressive of all of England’s monarchs through the centuries. A novice to foreign affairs when she assumed the throne, Elizabeth, savvy and fearless, soon gained an expansive knowledge of politics and assured her kingdom’s place in the world. And yet Erickson, in an exercise of self-control, gives Elizabeth the same page count as most of the other monarchs in her book.
I enjoyed each little tidbit Erickson offers up.
Ilysa Magnus
THE SINKING OF THE LANCASTRIA
Jonathan Fenby, Pocket, 2006, £7.99, pb, 270pp, 0743489438
It is not widely known that after the Dunkirk evacuation 150,000 British servicemen remained in France, mainly second-line troops stationed around Nantes and cut off by the German advance further north. As the French government capitulated, an unsung evacuation from Norman and Breton ports was accomplished largely without loss, but there was one tragic exception. HM Troopship Lancastria was preparing to sail from St Nazaire on 17 June with 7,000 on board, when she was sunk by German dive bombers. The ship sunk in approximately four minutes, there were only lifebelts aboard for 2,000, and apparently many of those on board could not swim. A terrible tragedy. At least 4,000 died, making this Britain’s worst maritime disaster, yet it remains little known. Why should this be? Partly because it took place amid the chaos of
early summer 1940, but also because Winston Churchill ordered the news suppressed in order to preserve civilian morale.
Jonathan Fenby tells a good tale, but the book is marred by careless errors, notably in military nomenclature.
Ann Lyon
10 DAYS THAT UNEXPECTEDLY CHANGED AMERICA
Steven M. Gillon, Three Rivers, 2006, $13.95/ C$21.00, pb, 261pp, 0307339343
This nonfiction work does not include the obvious, such as July 4, 1776, December 7, 1941, or other dates on which world-shaking events took place. The days and events chosen are the subtle beginnings, the catalysts, that propelled America onto paths that forced decisions and choices, some good, some questionable, but all with tremendous effects on America and, in some cases, the world. For example, on September 17, 1862, the Union and Confederate armies fought the Battle of Antietam Creek. Besides being a turning point in the war, it encouraged Lincoln to issue his Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863. Included in the remaining nine days are: January 25, 1787, when Shays’ Rebellion led to the drafting of the Bill of Rights; McKinley’s assassination, on September 6, 1901; the letter Albert Einstein wrote to President Roosevelt on July 16, 1939, which influenced the creation of the atomic bomb.
Gillon has written this book as a companion to the ten-hour documentary that aired on The History Channel during April 2006. While always informative and sometimes entertaining, the narrative style is dry. It is primarily a study guide, and as such is worth reading.
Audrey Braver
CHILDREN OF WAR
Susan Goodman, John Murray, 2006, £8.99, pb, 330pp, 071956123X
During the Munich Crisis, my father, aged ten, joined his friends in digging trenches. On 3 September, 1939, he knew, on leaving the Liverpool church where he sang in the choir, that war had begun because the policemen were wearing tin hats. Next day he was evacuated to North Wales with his school. My late mother told of her family returning hurriedly from holiday so that her 15-year-old brother could join his ship as a Merchant Navy apprentice. A week later the ship was sunk with nearly half the crew.
Having parents of that generation, I found a strange familiarity about this book, but for those younger there must be much which is new and unfathomable. Perhaps most shocking to modern sensibilities is that over a million children, as young as five, could be separated from their parents and billeted on complete strangers for an indefinite period. Susan Goodman provides a clear and balanced account of what was for many children the best of times, for others the worst of times, but for all the central experience of their lives.
Ann Lyon
AMONG THE DEAD CITIES: Was the Allied Bombing of Civilians in WWII a
Necessity Or a Crime?
A. C. Grayling, Bloomsbury, 2006, £20.00, hb, 361pp, 0747576718
During the course of WWII, the air forces of Britain and the United States carried out a massive offensive against the cities of Germany and Japan, culminating in the destruction of Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Grayling poses the question: ‘Was this a crime against humanity? Or was it justified by the necessities of war?’ Area bombing targets the civilian population, the elderly, women and children, whereas targeted strikes against rail networks and military installations would surely be more effective in paralysing the enemy forces. Or, as has been suggested, is everyone, even the most vulnerable, a player when it comes to allout war? After all, look what the enemy did. But can two wrongs ever make a right?
This is a thought-provoking book on a controversial subject. The arguments are presented in an even-handed way so that ‘history is got right before it distorts into legend.’ It is immensely readable, and the illustrations bring home the awful reality of Operation Gomorrah, Hamburg 1943 and the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but most alarming – the human suffering that continues to affect so many lives today.
New Orleans’ importance to trade and control of the Mississippi made it a viable target of the British during the War of 1812. The most elite fighting force in the world and their seasoned veterans launched their invasion in December 1814. Their disregard for American ingenuity and derisive belief that an upstart nation could best them once again led to their defeat in January 1815. Andrew Jackson and his ragtag soldiers, local militia, citizens, and pirates defied the odds and won the Battle of New Orleans, thus cementing America’s place as a separate nation.
This interesting account shows the important role Jean Laffite and his pirates played in the battle, a subject often overlooked in other accounts, but Groom offers no new research. His introduction implies the book will relate his ancestor’s role in the battle, but he is rarely mentioned. Groom also relies on The Journal of Jean Lafitte, although the authenticity of this account has yet to be proven. The Pirates Laffite by William C. Davis (Harcourt, 2005) and a variety of books already published on the Battle of New Orleans would be better choices for those who wish to learn more.
Cindy Vallar
SEX WITH THE QUEEN: 900 Years of Vile Kings, Virile Lovers, and Passionate Politics
It’s not easy to be queen! Royal marriages are arranged for political advantage, not for the happiness of the bride or groom. The royal brides
were often teenagers, isolated from everyone they had ever known; who can blame them if they sought happiness and companionship elsewhere? Eleanor Herman dishes a broad and entertaining selection of famous queens, from the rumored nymphomaniac, Empress Catherine of Russia, to Henry VIII’s series of unfortunate wives, to flirty Marie Antoinette. It seems a queen could get away with adultery if all the personalities involved aligned in her favor. In addition to the kings and lovers, we also get colorful pictures of manipulative mistresses and truly terrible in-laws, any of whom could make things very difficult for the queen who strayed.
The book ends with an account of our most recent tragic royal figure, Diana, Princess of Wales, who fit this classically unhappy mold perfectly. Chosen for her youth and unimpressive education, intended to be an easily managed brood mare, wed to a reluctant prince who had been perfectly happy with his lover, her royal experiences show us how little has changed in over 900 years.
Colleen Quinn
THE WHISKEY REBELLION: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America’s Newfound Sovereignty
William Hogeland, Scribner, 2006, $26.95, hb, 302pp, 0743254902
The Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 in western Pennsylvania remains a relatively unknown and unexplored segment of the American past. This brief period of organized armed dissent was a local response to the first U.S. tax of any kind – a tax on whiskey levied in 1791, which was a critical element of Treasury Secretary’s Alexander Hamilton’s economic policy. Small Pennsylvania farmers would suffer under this tax, and their response was to attack Federal representatives and arm themselves against the expected government retaliation. President George Washington mobilized 13,000 soldiers and marched them under his direct command to the rebellious areas of Pennsylvania. There was no bloodshed, and the tax was repealed in 1802. Hogeland narrates this story in a traditional yet arresting style and provides the reader with insights into both sides of the issue. His narrative also introduces the reader to frontier life in the early Republic and to the tentative and uncertain manner in which the new government formulated policy.
John R. Vallely
CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH: Jamestown and the Birth of the American Dream
Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler, Wiley, 2006, $25.95/C$33.99/£18.99, hb, 274pp, 0471485845
Books about both John Smith and the early colonization efforts at Jamestown are numerous, and this book doesn’t cover any new ground on either topic. It is, however, an extremely readable and well-written book on the subject and has the added bonus of its approach, namely viewing John Smith as the personification of the American ideal of seizing opportunity and working one’s way up.
The book extensively utilizes primary
sources, a few of which are even newly discovered; unfortunately, when the source is Smith himself, there is arguably a great deal of exaggeration and perhaps even untruth to sort through. The authors tend to give Smith the benefit of the doubt in all cases, but whether or not this is wise is the province of historians to debate. The Smith of this book comes across as brash, confident, antagonistic, and heroic – one of the few men of intelligence, vision, and the wherewithal to get things done at Jamestown. The Hooblers’ examination of the politics and personalities of the people involved (and how Smith fit in to the larger picture) is interesting, and it enlightens one’s understanding of the story of one of America’s first colonies.
Bethany Skaggs
READ ON… HISTORICAL FICTION: Reading Lists for Every Taste
This guide is intended to serve as a resource for librarians who are asked to recommend historical fiction titles or for readers looking for additional titles to try. The author defines historical fiction as events that take place 50 years before the writing of the book, but admits that he has broken his own rule in places and included novels written during the period in which they were set. Both classics and newer novels are included within lists that the author characterizes as “unconventional and even sometimes whimsical.” The main divisions of the book are: Setting (some subdivisions are Lost Worlds of Privilege, Small Town and Village Life, Place as the Main Character); Character (Women with True Grit, Life Stories in the Arts, Rebels with a Cause); Story (Domestic Drama, Long Gone: The Journey or Quest); Language (In Journal Form, Dreamy); and Mood and Atmosphere (Nostalgic, Elegiac; Encountering Prejudice).
Novels included on the lists range from “light to literary, educational to entertaining.” Hooper’s annotations are evocative and compelling; within four pages I had seven titles on a list of “must get hold of immediately” books. The non-traditional categories and the enthusiastic descriptions are sure to lead readers to a wealth of new titles.
Trudi E. Jacobson
ELIZABETH’S SPY MASTER: Francis Walsingham and the Secret War that Saved England
Robert Hutchinson, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006, £20.00, hb, 399pp, 0297846132
This is a meticulous study of the shadowy world of espionage and its master, Francis Walsingham. As Elizabeth’s principal Secretary of State, Walsingham fought a secret and dangerous war to protect his sovereign and country from the Catholic threat. Walsingham was the first “spy master” in the modern sense, and his methods of ciphers, forgery, secret inks, bribery and torture offer terrifying resonances with modern times and other totalitarian regimes. He even had to come to terms with that perennial nightmare facing any intelligence service past or present, namely the importance
of analysing raw information and assessing the reliability of its source.
In revealing Walsingham’s religious fanaticism and also his genius for disinformation, we learn little about the underlying man, a shadowy figure who was rarely forced into the limelight, except famously at Mary Stuart’s trial. How far we believe Hutchinson’s claim that he deserves to rank with Nelson and Wellington, even Churchill, as the defender of this “fledgling Protestant nation” is for readers to judge. However, the strength of this book lies in its combination of brilliant original research with a compelling narrative.
A fascinating insight into the medieval mindset, a world in which people believed that the question of who had committed a crime could be settled by judicial combat to the death between the accuser and the accused. The book is a detailed account of one such combat and the events which led up to it. The crime was rape, and the setting, late 14th-century France.
The two protagonists, Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris, came from very different backgrounds: Carrouges of an old, noble family, Le Gris from humble origins. As young squires in the service of their lord they had been friends, but over the years, hostility had grown between them. Then Carrouges’s young wife claimed that Le Gris had raped her, hence the judicial combat – to the death.
The book is packed with illuminating facts; for instance, the decline of such judicial combats as a means of establishing the guilt or innocence of the accused, went hand in hand with an increase in the use of another means of establishing the truth, namely torture. For anyone interested in this period, especially in the thought world of medieval people, this book is a must.
Neville Firman
LEWIS
AND CLARK THROUGH INDIAN EYES
Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., Knopf, 2006, $24.00, hb, 196pp, 1400042674
This year ends the bicentennial celebration of the legendary Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-06. Over the last several years, much has been written about Lewis, Clark, and the expedition’s impact on the opening of the West. However, little has been noted about the impact that they had on Native American life and culture. Josephy, author of numerous books on Native American history, corrects the omission with this collection of nine essays by prominent Native American authors. Contributors include Debra Magpie Earling, Professor of English at the University of Montana; Bill P. Yellowtail, former Montana State Senator and EPA administrator under President Clinton; and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist N. Scott Momaday. Diverse, fascinating, and a good read, this collection is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the exploration of the West in the 19th century.
Sue Schrems
THE
COURT OF THE LAST TSAR: Pomp, Power and Pageantry in the Reign of Nicholas II
The vanished world of Russia’s last tsar, Nicholas II, comes vividly to life in Greg King’s splendid new book. After an introductory chapter on the city of St. Petersburg, King writes of the lives of the Romanovs and their extended family. This information can be found elsewhere, but after these few chapters comes the heart of the book: King writes in exquisite detail of the life of the imperial court, the aristocracy, the military, and the Russian Orthodox Church. He goes on to describe the palaces, including the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg and the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo, in such detail that I felt I had been on a tour. In the next sections, he discusses such subjects as jewelry and art objects, imperial transportation, and ceremonies, including the wedding of Nicholas and Alexandra, and Nicholas’s coronation. The book ends with a section on imperial balls, state visits, the palace at Livadia in the Crimea, and the last season in St. Petersburg. Appendices include an organizational chart of the imperial court, floor plans of several of the palaces, and maps of the imperial parks. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in imperial Russia.
Vicki Kondelik
KUBLAI KHAN: The Mongol King Who Remade China
John Mann, Bantam, 2006, £20.00, hb, 383pp, 0593054482
Kublai was not born to rule; he was pushed forward by his ambitious mother. He inherited the largest land-empire from his grandfather, Genghis Khan, and by the time of his death he had doubled its size. Believing that China was the key to empire, Kublai made Beijing his capital, and after twenty years of war he became the first barbarian to conquer all China, laying the foundations of the present day super power.
This book follows on from Man’s Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan. As with these previous accounts Kublai’s world is brought vividly to life. The author is a historian and travel writer with a special interest and intimate knowledge of Mongolia. His enthusiasm for his subject involves the reader from the very first page.
Ann Oughton
IVAN’S WAR
Catherine Merridale, Faber and Faber, £20.00/ NZ$69.99, hb, 396pp, 0571218083
The Molotov cocktail was the ironic name chosen by the Finns for their main weapon against Soviet tanks during the four months of their war in 1939-40. The Finns gave the Soviets a hiding – more than 126,000 dead compared with 48,243 Finns killed – before weight of numbers helped the Red Army to victory. The Red Army was poorly equipped and its soldiers badly trained, and the war against Finland was a disaster that clearly showed Soviet weaknesses – which may have persuaded the Germans to open an eastern front and march into Soviet territory in 1941.
The Germans met little opposition. Threequarters of the Red Army were peasants who trained with wooden guns and wrapped their feet in strips of cloth because there were no boots. The life expectancy of a Red Army soldier was three months. Many had been dispossessed by Stalin’s collectivising of farms and were resentful. Mass desertions were frequent. The Soviet Union lost eight million soldiers, compared with less than 250,000 British and American casualties.
Catherine Merridale has done a formidable amount of research, much of it from veteran soldiers, and she presents it clearly and often elegantly.
Frank Nerney
WASHINGTON’S SPIES
Alexander Rose, Bantam, 2006, $26.00/ C$35.00, hb, 361pp, 0533804219
New research has thrown light on a side of the Revolutionary War which the gentleman officers of the 18th Century found highly distasteful – but absolutely necessary. Washington’s Spies concerns the so-called Culper Ring, which was run by the General himself in order to obtain information about the British command, then directing their war effort from headquarters in New York City. (Nathan Hale’s unfortunate end appears to have been a direct result of an early, amateur effort to fetch information on troop movements out of the City.) Like all good spy stories, this one has quite a cast of characters, from farmers and innkeepers to the privateering whaleboatmen who plied Long Island Sound, and who sometimes played both ends against the middle. Braving the breakdown of law and order and vengeance killings that are features of any civil war, one of the more unlikely members of the Culper Ring was a genteel Quaker from a Loyalist family. As the war dragged on, the Americans became more sophisticated, employing not only ciphers and dead drops, but the latest in technology: invisible ink. The book is well illustrated, including maps, portraits, and original documents. An interesting section on the ciphering methods then in use is included. A fine addition to any Revolutionary War library.
Juliet Waldron
MAVERICKS OF THE SKY
Barry Rosenberg and Catherine Macaulay, HarperCollins, 2006, $25.95/C$34.95, hb, 339pp, 0060529490
Every night, dozens of FedEx planes take off from cities all over America and converge on Memphis, Tennessee, where they disgorge their cargos of envelopes and packages to be sorted and reloaded. Today we take this speedy delivery for granted; we seldom think about the pioneers whose imaginations first dreamed of such things and whose courage first brought it about.
On May 15, 1918, the world changed as the U.S. Postal Service inaugurated regular airmail service between Washington and New York. To be sure, the service did not start out with the dependability of FedEx. Often mail sent by air arrived later than if sent by train.
The story of the beginning of air mail is the story of men of vision – men like Albert Sidney Burleson, Postmaster General under President
Wilson, and like Otto Praeger, who shepherded the fledgling service. It is also the story of men like Jack Knight, who flew and flew and flew some more because his relay pilots couldn’t make it though the snow to the airport.
Mavericks of the Sky is not perfect. The authors sometimes wander off the topic with diversions, and there are some strange constructions and usages. But it is well worth the reader’s patience with those flaws, because it tells a fascinating story.
Sue Schrems
BASILICA: The Splendor and the Scandal – Building St. Peter’s
The Basilica of St. Peter’s has dominated the spiritual and physical landscape of the Catholic Church for centuries, an amalgam of the classical lines of the Renaissance and the florid dramatics of the Baroque, which can’t help but earn one’s admiration. Now, in R.A. Scotti’s vibrant account of this bastion, that admiration can be informed by the astonishing and often chaotic sequence of events that culminated in the raising of the basilica. From the moment when the 16thcentury warrior pope, Julius II, razed the ancient shrine in order to create a monument, to Urban VIII’s enlightened hiring of Bernini, the tale is full of genius, including the temperamental Michelangelo, whose painstaking designs infused the Basilica with harmony. No less interesting are the popes themselves, with their foibles and struggles to redefine the Church’s image through the Basilica. Though the cost of St. Peter’s provoked the wrath of the Protestant Reformation, its own transformation reflected the rise of a revitalized city. Scotti’s skill lies in depicting these events with insight, humor, and reverence. Though nonfiction, this book reads like a novel, full of elegance and verve, a testament to a building that has, for many, become so much more.
From the origins of gladiatorial games in Rome’s early history, to its gruesome flowering, the author meticulously details the progress of the deadly sport. With chapters on Caesar’s games, the making of a gladiator, organising the spectacle, pleasing the crowd, gladiatorial categories, attitudes to gladiators and the games, and reconstructing the spectacle, this book comprehensively covers all the crucial aspects.
The book is well illustrated and thoroughly researched. Very up-to-date information is included, although the recent work of Karl Grossschmidt on the gladiator graveyard in Ephesus is quoted but not properly referenced. The index proved a little limited when trying to find information for pugio (dagger), where the reader was referred onward to other keywords, but not to specific mentions of the weapon. However, this does not overly detract from the book.
The book’s particular strength comes with the author’s involvement in gladiatorial re-
enactment, so that she can draw on well-founded insights. This work ably seeks to put gladiators into context, whether in Roman times or more recently. A very useful research tool.
S Garside-Neville
HONOR
KILLING: Race, Rape, and Clarence Darrow’s Spectacular Last Case
David E. Stannard, Penguin, 2006, $16.00, pb, 466pp, 0143036637
Don’t let the racy title fool you; this is not a sensational rehash of the 1930s Hawaiian rape trial. It is a nonfiction account written for a general audience, and a stunning read. In September 1931, an American naval officer’s wife claimed she was gang-raped by a group of Hawaiians. Five young men were arrested and tried, despite having alibis. The jury could not reach a decision. A retrial needed new evidence against the men, but there was none. The mother of the officer’s wife planned, with the husband and two sailors, to force a confession from one of the accused. Instead they shot him and found themselves on trial for murder. Their excuse: it was an honour killing, because a white woman had been raped by a black man.
Stannard, a professor of American studies in Hawaii, knows his topic. Although there have been several other works about the case, Stannard had access to new material, which makes for a better balanced book, and his quiet presentation is a pleasure to read. I was staggered by the story: the corruption and racism among senior navy and police officers, the racist press, a careless young woman crying wolf. I was also impressed by Stannard, who makes no excuses for the horrible history of American racism.
Patrika Salmon
THE
DIVIDED
GROUND:
Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution
Alan Taylor, Knopf, 2006, $35.00/C$50.00, hb, 529pp, 0679454713
Pulitzer Prize winning-author Taylor begins his scholarly yet accessible history with the French and Indian War and concludes with the early 19th century. He sheds new light upon European/Native relations by following the parallel careers of two men: charismatic Mohawk leader Joseph Brant, and Presbyterian missionary-turned-speculator Samuel Kirkland. The focus is New York State, and the attempts of the Iroquois Nation to preserve autonomy and prosperity by asserting title to their land. Hardly the doomed traditionalists of earlier histories, the Iroquois learned European ways rapidly. They managed for generations to maintain their sovereign status by exploiting their position as a buffer between the French and British. Unfortunately, the posture became increasingly irrelevant after the French lost Canada. The American Revolution and a flood of land hungry immigrants were the coup de grace. Neither British nor Americans honored their treaties, and a weak federal government allowed states to violate these at will. Racism drew ever more votes for speculator-politicians, and Indian land illegally taken became the glue that held together the fragile American social experiment. This brilliant but melancholy social
Position Vacancies-Book Ordering HistoricalNovelsReview
history is documented with copious chapterby-chapter notes, and many maps and portraits. The Divided Ground represents a breakthrough in the historical analysis of post-Revolutionary America.
POSITION VACANCIES
Features Editor, SOLANDER SOLANDER, HNR’s sister magazine, is looking for a new Features Editor. If you are interested in learning more about this position, please contact Claire Morris at claire.morris@shaw.ca.
Reviewers, Historical Novels Review Online HNR is seeking qualified reviewers for its online annex, Historical Novels Review Online (http:// www.historicalnovelsociety.org/ hnr-online.htm). HNR Online reviews nontraditionally published novels not covered in the print HNR, including selected electronic, subsidy, and publishon-demand titles. For more information, please submit an e-mail of interest to Suzanne Sprague at suzanne.sprague@erau.edu.
OUT OF PRINT BOOKS
Issue 37, August 2006
The Historical Novel Society Book Ordering Service
UK Members:
The HNS Book Ordering Service can supply any book reviewed in Historical Novels Review, including books published abroad. Please contact Sarah Cuthbertson at sarah76cuthbert@aol.com or 01293884898 with the title(s) you want and she will give you a quote from the cheapest Internet source, to include postage and packing. Customers can benefit from discounts on many titles, and will usually pay only UK postage on overseas books. Books will be delivered directly to the customer whenever possible. Please note, this service is only available to members who do not have Internet access.
Alternatively, the US Reviews Editors will buy books for you in the US to trade for UK titles: please contact Sarah Johnson (sljohnson2@eiu.edu), Trudi Jacobson (readbks@localnet.com) or Ilysa Magnus (goodlaw2@optonline.net). Sarah Cuthbertson can contact them on your behalf if you do not have email.
Overseas Members:
The following UK members are interested in trading books with overseas members, including wishlists and secondhand books:
Rachel A. Hyde, 2 Meadow Close Budleigh Salterton, Devon EX9 6JN Tel: +44 1395 446238 email: rachelahyde@ntlworld.com (Rachel will also trade Fantasy and SF).
Sarah Cuthbertson (contact details above). Please let Sarah know if you would like to join this list.
The following deal in out of print historical fiction:
Boris Books Market Place
Surnminster Newton, Dorset DT10 1AS, UK www.borisbooks.co.uk
Diaskari Books 7 Southmoor Road, Oxford OX2 6RF, UK chris.tyzack@btinternet.com
