Historical Novels Review, Issue 67 (February 2014)

A PUBLICATION OF THE HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY

HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW Issue 67, February 2014

HISTORY...FICTION...NOW historical representation the wife’s tale? women who loved famous men a remarkable partnership under the wide and starry sky penetrating sanity a tribute to elizabeth jane howard indie roundup notable 2013 novels bookshops making history retail displays of hf meet the historians the bristol conference

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE publisher’s message | historical fiction market news | history & film | new voices

Historical Novels R eview

ISSN: 1471-7492 | © 2014 The Historical Novel Society

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pub lis h er

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Richard Lee Marine Cottage, The Strand Starcross, Devon EX6 8NY United Kingdom <richard@historicalnovelsociety.org>

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edit o r ial boa r d

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Managing Editor: Bethany Latham Houston Cole Library, Jacksonville State University 700 Pelham Road North Jacksonville, AL 36265-1602 USA <blatham@jsu.edu> Book Review Editor: Sarah Johnson 6868 Knollcrest Drive Charleston, IL 61920 USA <sljohnson2@eiu.edu>

UK Review Coordinator: Melita Sheppard <hnsreviews@gmail.com>

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review s edit o r s , u k

re v i e ws e d i tors , u s a

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Jessica Brockmole 14413 Worthington Drive Granger, IN 46530 USA <jabrockmole@hotmail.com>

Publisher Coverage: Amazon Publishing, Hachette Book Group, Hyperion, W.W. Norton

Andrea Connell 10011 Beacon Pond Lane Burke, VA 22015 USA <connell1453@verizon.net>

Publisher Coverage: Henry Holt, Other Press, Overlook, Sourcebooks, Tyndale, and other US small presses

Jane Kessler University Library 119, University at Albany, SUNY 1400 Washington Avenue Albany, NY 12222 USA <jkessler@uamail.albany.edu>

Publisher Coverage: Algonquin; FSG; Five Star; IPG; Kensington; and Trafalgar Square

Publisher Coverage: Bethany House; HarperCollins; Penguin Putnam; Random House (all imprints); Severn House; university presses; and any North American presses not mentioned below

Features Coordinator: Lucinda Byatt 13 Park Road Edinburgh, EH6 4LE UK <mail@lucindabyatt.com>

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Features Editor: Myfanwy Cook 47 Old Exeter Road Tavistock, Devon PL19 OJE UK <myfanwyc@btinternet.com>

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Ilysa Magnus 5430 Netherland Avenue #C41 Bronx, NY 10471 USA <goodlaw2@optonline.net>

Publisher Coverage: Grove/Atlantic; Minotaur Books; Picador USA; Poisoned Pen Press; Soho Press; St Martin’s Press; and Tor/Forge

Tamela McCann 5265 Village Terrace Nashville, TN 37211 USA <jjmmccann@aol.com>

Publisher Coverage: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Simon & Schuster, including children’s divisions of both

Ann Pedtke 58-69 43rd Avenue, Apt. 2A Woodside, NY 11377 USA <ann.pedtke@gmail.com>

Publisher coverage: US/Canadian children’s publishers (except S&S, HMH)

Alan Fisk Flat 25, Lancaster Court, Lancaster Avenue London SE27 9HU UK <alan.fisk@alanfisk.com>

Publisher Coverage: Creme de la Crime; Duckworth; HarperCollins UK (inc. Flamingo, Fourth Estate, Voyager); Orion Group (inc. Cassell, Gollancz, Phoenix, Weidenfeld & Nicolson); Piatkus; Picnic Publishing; Quercus; and all small independent UK publishers not handled by other editors

Elizabeth Hawksley <mail@elizabethhawksley.com>

Publisher Coverage: All UK children’s historicals

Edward James 2 Hayman Close Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL53 9FD UK <edward654@btinternet.com>

Publisher Coverage: Arcadia; Atlantic Books; Canongate; Hodder Headline (inc. Coronet, Hodder & Stoughton, NEL, Sceptre); John Murray; and Robert Hale

Doug Kemp Tulip Lodge, Harrowden Road Wellingborough, Northamptonshire NN8 5BD UK <doug.kemp@lineone.net>

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); and Transworld (inc. Bantam Press, Black Swan, Corgi, Doubleday)

Stuart MacAllister <hnsindie@yahoo.co.uk>

Publisher Coverage: all self-published, subsidy, and electronically published novels.

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confe re nce s

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The Society organizes annual conferences in the UK and biennial conferences in the US. Contact Richard Lee (UK) or Ann Chamberlin <annchamberlin@annchamberlin.com> (USA).

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m e m be rs h i p d e ta i l s

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Membership in the Historical Novel Society entitles members to all the year’s publications: four issues of Historical Novels Review, as well as exclusive membership benefits through the Society website. Back issues of Society magazines are also available. For current rates, contact: Richard Lee Marine Cottage, The Strand Starcross, Devon EX6 8NY UK <richard@historicalnovelsociety.org>

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e d i tori a l pol i cy

Georgine Olson 400 Dark Star Court Fairbanks, AK 99709 USA <georgine@mosquitonet.com>

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

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copy ri g h t

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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.

HNS WEBSITE: www.historicalnovelsociety.org EMAIL NEWSLETTER. Read news and reviews: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HNSNewsletter

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Historical Novels R eview I ssu e 6 7 , Fe br ua ry 2014 | I SSN 1471-7492

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ed itor ia l r ich a rd le e

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histor ic a l fic tion market n ews s ar a h joh nson

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n ew voic e s p r of ile s of debut his torical f iction authors el i sab e t h g iffor d , tim leach, s op hia tobin & lo u i se t u r n er | my fa nw y cook

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histor y & film t v , f ilm & the h is torical n ovel | marj orie eccl es

| features & interviews |

8 HI STORY...FI CTI ON . . . N OW histor ic a l r e pres entation | b y j erom e de gro ot 10 the wif e’ s ta l e wo m e n wh o love d famous m en | by kate b raithw a ite 12

a re m a rka ble pa rtnership

u n d e r th e wi d e and starry sky | by s arah jo hnso n

13 p en etratin g sa nit y a t r ibut e to e liz a be th j an e howard | b y lucin da bya tt 14

in die ro u ndu p n ota ble ind ie n ovels of 2013 | b y helen ho l l ick

15 b ooks hops m akin g hi sto r y r e t ail d is p la y s of h istorical f iction | by my f anw y co o k 16 meet the hist o ri ca ns h i s tor ia n s, a r c h a e olo g is ts , g en ealog is ts , lib rari a ns & a rc h iv ists unite in Bris tol | b y lucien ne bo yce | reviews |

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book r e v ie ws e d ito rs’ c h oic e & m ore

PUBLISHER’S MESSAGE n the midst of the Christmas madness this year I found time to read two books different from my usual fare – both of which I would like to recommend here. The first is Mark Forsyth’s Elements of Eloquence, a witty perambulation around the techniques for making lines memorable. The second is Pankaj Mishra’s From the Ruins of Empire, an Asian perspective on 19th century Imperialism formed from biographies of several key anti-Imperialists.

What I want from nonfiction books is not their message (you can generally get that from the blurb) nor their facts (often debatable, rarely remembered), it is the perspectiveshifts they can bring: the mind-yeast. I love it when I find myself thinking in a new way. Forsyth is the first person to explain to me in a way I can understand the sheer playfulness of literature. Several examples stay with me, and I will no doubt return to the book to try and remember more.

But the new joy has been reading mundane description, and thinking how to steal it and rewrite it (as Shakespeare did): it all seems suddenly do-able and fun! Mishra’s thesis is, of course, more sombre yeast. No Englishman likes to read of English arrogance, English greed. At root, though, From the Ruins considers cultural identity shifts. It has made me look at our last few tweed-wearing Englishmen and wonder about our change of national dress. It has made me question the nature of Empire. In an historical context, it has made me consider other cultural identities that have burned so brightly and disappeared.

STOP PRESS: it has just been announced that the 2015 North American conference will be held in Denver on June 26th to 28th – exciting! But before that, don’t forget to book your place at the 2014 UK conference in London on September 5th – 7th. Please check the Society website for information and updates on both.

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RICHARD LEE subverted a promising academic career by choosing to write a thesis about John Buchan when given a research bursary at Merton College, Oxford. Since then, he has spent many years as a bookseller, founded the HNS, and has established a successful property business near his home in Devon.

HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Columns | 1

H I STO R I C AL FICTION MAR K ET NE W S

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ould you like your latest publishing deal to appear here? Email me at sljohnson2@eiu.edu.

New publishing deals Sources include author and publisher submissions, Publishers Marketplace, Booktrade.info, Publishers Weekly, The Bookseller, and more.

Bruce Macbain’s Odin’s Child, first novel in the trilogy Odd Tangle-Hair’s Saga, set in the 11th-c Viking world (in which our hero flees Iceland and journeys through Lapland, Finland, Norway and the Baltic), sold to Blank Slate Press for publication in late 2014-early 2015. In a bid to revive the tradition of the adult illustrated novel of the 19th century, the book will be enhanced with a half dozen full color illustrations.

Author of Girl on the Golden Coin (reviewed this issue) Marci Jefferson’s Inamorata: A Novel of Enchantment at the Sun King’s Court, in which the niece of the powerful Cardinal Mazarin is believed to have bewitched the King and helps him become the world’s most powerful monarch, sold to Toni Kirkpatrick at Thomas Dunne Books by Kevan Lyon at Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

Mari Evans, publishing director at Headline, acquired world rights (except US) to David Thomas’ (writing as David Churchill) epic historical trilogy focusing on William the Conqueror and his ascent to the English throne, via agent Julian Alexander at LAW. The Conqueror’s Wives by Stephanie Thornton, the story of Roxana and the other women of Alexander the Great, sold to Ellen Edwards at NAL, for publication in 2015, by Marlene Stringer of the Stringer Literary Agency.

Sharyn McCrumb’s next Ballad Novel, focusing on the conviction of a man sentenced to hang and the lady sheriff who is obliged to perform the execution, sold to Johanna Castillo at Atria, in a two-book deal, by Irene Goodman at Irene Goodman Agency.

The Girls of Shiloh by Kathy Hepinstall and her sister Becky Hepinstall, about two sisters who join the Confederate Army disguised as men, one seeking vengeance for her husband’s death, the other hoping to keep them both alive but then finding love on the battlefield, sold to Jenna Johnson at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, for publication in Spring 2015, by Henry Dunow at Dunow, Carlson & Lerner.

Greer Macallister’s The Magician’s Lie, pitched as Water for Elephants meets The Night Circus, in which the most famous, 2 | Columns |

HNR Issue 67, February 2014

notorious female illusionist in turn-of-the-century America stands accused of her husband’s murder and has one night to convince a small-town policeman of her innocence, sold to Shana Drehs at Sourcebooks by Elisabeth Weed at Weed Literary.

Hannah Griffiths, associate publisher for fiction at Faber, and Sarah Crichton at FSG have acquired The Anchoress, a debut from Australian author Robyn Cadwallader, for publication in early 2015. The novel, set in 13th-century England, follows Sarah, who chooses to become a religious hermit, spending her life in a cell, after witnessing her sister’s death in childbirth.

Fourth Estate will publish it in Australia.

Louise Buckley at Pan Macmillan has acquired five selfpublished and two unpublished novels by bestselling e-book saga writer Mary Wood, who follows in Catherine Cookson’s classic tradition, from Judith Murdoch at the Judith Murdoch Literary Agency, for publication in 2014 and 2015.

Philip Freeman’s St. Brigid’s Bones, set in ancient Ireland, in which the nuns of Saint Brigid fight to keep their monastery alive, and in which the theft of St. Brigid’s bones threatens to destroy all they’ve worked for, sold to Maia Larson and Claiborne Hancock at Pegasus by Joelle Delbourgo at Joelle Delbourgo Associates.

25-year-old Barnard graduate Cecily Wong’s Diamond Head, a multigenerational Chinese-Hawaiian saga that unfolds the passionate and devastating history of one wildly wealthy shipping family, as told from the perspective of its secretkeeping daughters and wives, sold to Maya Ziv at Harper, at auction, by Meredith Kaffel at DeFiore and Company.

Lucy Sanna’s After He’s Gone, about a Wisconsin family during the pivotal summer of 1944 when German POWs are being held nearby, and told in the interweaving voices of mother and daughter, whose lives will be changed forever as the war overseas becomes their own private war at home, sold to Rachel Kahan at William Morrow, for publication in 2015, by Harvey Klinger.

Weidenfeld & Nicolson deputy publishing director Arzu Tahsin acquired Anna Freeman’s The Fair Fight, “a pulsating historical novel set within the world of female pugilists and their patrons in 18th-century Bristol,” from Sophie Hignett at Tibor Jones, for August 2014 publication.

Solveig Eggerz’s Seal Woman, a previous HNR Editors’ Choice selection (Nov ’08), in which a woman who lost one family in wartime Germany creates another in the Icelandic countryside, but the guilty memory of the daughter she misplaced haunts her, re-sold to Fred Ramey at Unbridled Books, by Sandra Bond at Bond Literary Agency.

Kent Carroll at Europa Editions bought North American rights to Wendy Jones’ The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price, Purveyor of Superior Funerals, about a romantic mishap in 1920s Wales that becomes a far darker story than it originally

witted cook is persuaded to leave England by her master’s untrustworthy young wife and is drawn into a murderous conspiracy, sold to Thomas Dunne Books, in a two-book deal,

by Robin Straus at Robin Straus Agency, on behalf of Andrew Nurnberg Associates.

History PhD Katy Simpson Smith’s debut The Story of Land and Sea, set on the North Carolina coast during the waning years of the Revolutionary War, following a father who stows his ten-year-old daughter away on a three-mast sloop bound for Bermuda in a desperate act to save her life, sold to Terry Karten at Harper, at auction, by Bill Clegg at William Morris Endeavor.

University of East Anglia graduate Sara Taylor’s debut The Shore, a multigenerational tale set on islands off the Virginia coast, and tracing the legacy of two families over 150 years, sold to Alexis Washam at Hogarth, in a pre-empt, by Jason Arthur and Caroline Sloan at Cornerstone. UK rights to Jason Arthur at Heinemann, by Lucy Luck.

Foreign correspondent and current book and arts critic for The Economist Alix Christie’s Gutenberg’s Apprentice, about the invention of printing in medieval Germany, told through the lives of visionary genius Johann Gutenberg; his financial backer Johann Fust; and the reluctant scribe-turned-apprentice Peter Schoeffler, sold to Terry Karten at Harper, in a pre-empt, by Dorian Karchmar at William Morris Endeavor.

Elizabeth Musser’s A Parenthesis in Time, in which a young white woman during Reconstruction fights for the rights of former slaves and falls in love with one of them, sold to Becky Philpott at Harper Christian by Chip MacGregor at MacGregor Literary.

Upcoming releases Wendy J. Dunn’s first novel for young adults, The Light in the Labyrinth, will be published by Metropolis Ink in 2014. Told through the point of view of Katherine Carey, the niece of Anne Boleyn, The Light in the Labyrinth deals with the awakening of a fourteen-year-old girl to an adult world, played out against the murder of Anne Boleyn, the tragic second wife of Henry VIII.

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For additional forthcoming titles, see http:// historicalnovelsociety.org/guides/forthcoming-historicalnovels/

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seems, via Sophie Brewer at London’s Constable & Robinson, for March 2014 US publication. In the UK, the novel has been optioned for a BBC miniseries by the producers of Downton Abbey.

Shelley Freydont’s A Gilded Grave, in which a debutante in Newport, Rhode Island’s famed Gilded Age, becomes involved in a murder linked to the Newport high society and the Caribbean sugar trade of the day, sold to Faith Black at Berkley, in a two-book deal, by Kevan Lyon at Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

The Rocks by Peter Nichols, set on the island of Mallorca and told in reverse, opening in the present with an elderly man and woman meeting by accident for the first time in years, immediately fighting and falling together off a rock into the sea, then moving back in time with each chapter, sold to Susan Watt for her new Heron imprint at Quercus, at auction, plus a second novel about an American family moving to London in the 1960s, for publication in 2014 and 2015, by Patrick Walsh at Conville & Walsh.

James Haley’s The Lion’s Mouth, set in the Age of Sail, based on the worldwide adventures of Lieutenant Bliven Putnam, USN, sold to Nita Taublib at Putnam, in a three-book deal, for publication in 2015, by Jim Hornfischer at Hornfischer Literary Management.

Jillian Cantor’s (author of Margot) The Hours Count, about a woman who befriends Ethel and Julius Rosenberg and becomes caught up in the intrigue surrounding them and their trial, sold again to Laura Perciasepe at Riverhead, by Jessica Regel at Foundry Literary + Media.

Julie Berry’s Mystique, pitched in the vein of Game of Thrones, Grave Mercy, and Graceling, in which a fugitive teen girl with mystical visions disappears into a remote town inm France, thus endangering the peasants who shield her from agents of a Church hell-bent on executing heretics, sold Kendra Levin at Viking Children’s in a significant and two-book deal, via Alyssa Eisner Henkin at Trident Media Group.

In Laura Lebow’s The Figaro Murders, set in 1786 Vienna, librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte is finishing up work on The Marriage of Figaro with Mozart when he becomes the prime suspect in a politically charged murder. It sold to Keith Kahla at Minotaur in a two-book deal, for publication in Fall 2014, by John Talbot at Talbot Fortune Agency.

John the Pupil by David Flusfeder, tracing the 13th-century pilgrimage of a young Franciscan monk, a student of Roger Bacon’s, who travels from Oxford to Italy in order to deliver his master’s opus to the Pope, sold to Michael Signorelli at Harper,

by Christina Clifford at Melanie Jackson Agency, on behalf of David Miller at Rogers, Coleridge & White. UK rights to Nicholas Pearson at Fourth Estate.

Martine Bailey’s An Appetite for Violets, inspired by an 18th-century household book of recipes and in which a sharp-

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

HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Columns | 3

NEW VOICES Elisabeth Gifford, Tim Leach, Sophia Tobin, and Louise Turner have created imaginative debut historical novels foreshadowing a year of memorable reading ahead!

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im Leach was prompted to write his debut novel, The Last King of Lydia (Atlantic), because: “I wanted to know how the story would end, and so I had to write it myself.” As he explains,“It’s always the untold stories, the unfinished stories that call to a writer from the pages of history. In my case, I found the inspiration for my first novel at the very beginning of recorded history, in the works of the ancient Greek writer Herodotus.

“This is a man known both as the ‘Father of History’ and as the ‘Father of Lies,’ which gives a fair indication of his reliability as a source text. (It’s this historical ambiguity, of course, that makes him so appealing for a novelist.) In the first pages of Herodotus, when he’s at perhaps his least reliable, he tells the story of Croesus, king of Lydia.

“Inventor of the gold coin and ruler of a great empire, Croesus famously debated the nature of happiness with the Greek philosopher and sage Solon. Croesus claimed that he was both the happiest and the richest man alive; Solon countered that one could not know if one’s life had been happy until you could judge all of it (essentially, when you were dead). Until then, you weren’t happy, just lucky. Croesus ignored the philosopher, went to war with the rising power of Persia (today better known as Iran), and lost.

Condemned to die by fire, he was reprieved at the last moment and taken into slavery by his conqueror.

“And that’s it. In the source material at least, that’s where the story ends. Herodotus moves on, leaving Croesus alive but in chains, his tale unfinished. But for me, that was where things were just beginning to get interesting – the richest and most powerful man in the world, reduced to slavery. A man who had debated on happiness with ancient philosophers, put in a situation where happiness seemed impossible.

“In its debates on happiness and money, war and empire, it seemed a surprisingly modern tale, despite being over 2000 years old. I wanted to see how Croesus would survive, and if would manage to invent a new meaning for his life.”

For Sophia Tobin, it was silver rather than gold that played an important part in the inspiration for her first novel, published by Simon & Schuster UK. She had: “a real 18th-century silversmith 4 | Columns |

HNR Issue 67, February 2014

to thank for The Silversmith’s Wife. His name is Thomas Heming, and I first held a piece of silver by him when I was working for a Bond Street antique dealer. As I researched him, my fascination with 18th-century London increased, but the questions I really wanted to ask about him – who he loved, who he hated – could not be answered by the historical sources I found on his life. So I left Thomas behind, and began to think about writing a story with his world as the backdrop. I knew it took a great deal of ambition for him to become a Bond Street silversmith, and there was a frisson of both glamour and danger to the occupation (in the days before a police force, having large amounts of gold and silver in your possession was a risky business). What if my silversmith was not an honourable man, but a very complex character indeed? What if he had many enemies, and at least one of them was prepared to kill him?

“In the winter of 2010, my route to work took me through St James’s Park every morning. As I walked, the characters began to form strongly in my mind, and their stories are steeped in the cold of deep winter. They live in London, 1792, and their drama is played out in Mayfair and the City of London. The names of the streets are familiar – Bond Street and Berkeley Square – but I also wanted to create a sense of how these places might have been two hundred years ago, so that they are both familiar and strange to the reader.

“The Silversmith’s Wife might be a murder mystery, but it’s also about human relationships, the good and the bad. My final inspiration was our emotional lives: I’m fascinated by the workings of our closest relationships, and how different the reality of a marriage can be compared to its surface appearance. So I started thinking about love, betrayal and redemption, and how they would have been experienced by my characters: a night-watchman, a lady’s maid, a silversmith, and a silversmith’s wife.”

Louise Turner, author of Fire and Sword (Hadley Rille Books), was working as an archaeologist when she first began writing. When she was looking for inspiration, she followed the old maxim, “Always write about what you know.” She says: “I started investigating the local history of the area around where I live in the west of Scotland.

“It was one line in a local historical account that hooked me. It referred to John, 1st Lord Sempill, who died at Flodden in 1513. The quote went along the lines of ‘His father died defending the King at Sauchieburn in 1488, and a year later he was made a Lord of Parliament.’ I did some background reading, and discovered that James III was murdered at Sauchieburn. In

photo credit: Julia Skupny

other words, John Sempill’s father died fighting on the losing side and, soon after, John was made a Lord of Parliament. As someone with a professional interest in the past, and as a writer, too, that contradiction really got me thinking.”

Although local history didn’t shed much light on the plot, by looking further afield she was able, she says, “to thread together the local accounts with the wider political situation, and suddenly it all started to slip into place. As a historian, I could never have justified the connections, but as a novelist, I was free to follow lines of enquiry that blossomed in unexpected and yet very fulfilling ways. It was an adventure from beginning to end – at first, I’d intended to write a biography of John 1st Lord Sempill’s life, but in the end I had a novel which focused on just 18 months of his life.”

Turner’s story of adventure began with historical research at a local level, whereas for Secrets of the Sea House (Atlantic UK / St. Martin’s, as The Sea House) by Elisabeth Gifford, the author “was inspired by a real letter to The Times newspaper in 1809, reporting a mermaid sighting by a Victorian schoolmaster. I was surprised to find that there were several such sightings. In the Hebrides and Ireland there are also persistent legends of Selkies, seal people who transform into humans on land. Certain Hebridean families even claim to be descended from seal people!

“Through Gaelic historian John MacAulay, I discovered that the legends of sea people might well be the only record we have of an ancient tribe of Sea Sami from Arctic Norway who visited

the shores of Scotland over thousands of years. They travelled down in Eskimo-style kayaks. When waterlogged, the sealskin kayaks sat just below the surface of the water so that you would see the torso of a man in the sea with a tail-shaped appendage wavering in the water beneath! Once on land the seal skin jacket would be removed. Could this be what lay behind the legends of mermaids and Selkies?

“Victorian historian MacRitchie thought so. It’s hard to prove this theory since, under intense pressure to assimilate into Norwegian culture, the Sea Sami tribe disappeared about 200 years ago. This date coincides with the last reported sightings of mermaids. Their fragile artefacts have now all but vanished; the sea people legends may be the only evidence left that the Vikings were not the only visitors to travel down the sea road from Norway.

“Secrets of the Sea House chronicles 20th-century crofting, and the brutal clearances from the Hebrides. Victorian amateur scientist Alexander Ferguson seeks to find an evolutionary explanation for the a people legends – after all Darwin began his evolutionary studies in Edinburgh, the then centre for radical science – a quest taken up by Ruth a century later, after she discovers what seems to be a mermaid skeleton.

“The narrative is specifically in the form of a traditional mystery story to better convey the power that legends and myths have to contain actual historical events that would otherwise be lost to us, and the power that story has to tell us where we come from, and where we might choose to go.”

Mystery, murder, myth and memories have all been woven into the stories of this inspiring new crop of debut novels given to us to harvest.

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MYFANWY COOK admires the creativity of debut novelists and their ability to unearth new stories to delight lovers of historical fiction. Please do email (myfanwyc@btinternet.com) or tweet (twitter.com/MyfanwyCook) about debut novelists who you have enjoyed reading.

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Left to right: Elisabeth Gifford, Louise Turner, Sophia Tobin & Tim Leach

HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Columns | 5

set in an era which saw the beginning of its end in the catastrophe of the First World War and the social changes it made to a & world which would never be the same again, Downton is less concerned with portraying historical facts than in using them as TV, FILM & THE HISTORICAL NOVEL a backdrop to the story. Yet publishers have found that bringing the Edwardian period to television, perhaps due to its relative t’s not too long ago that historical fiction was perceived to nearness to our own age (the last British ‘Tommy,’ Harry Patch, be a minority interest, or at least to be in the doldrums, a survivor from that war, died only a few years ago), has had whatever popularity it had being confined mainly to big an impact that has stimulated a much greater interest in other name authors and blockbuster movies. If ever that were true novels set during the same period. This has, in turn, resulted in in the past, today things are different. Historical fiction is very a spate of new Edwardian novels (as well as nonfiction) which much alive and well, with more and more authors choosing to fit the Downton mould, creating a sort of self-perpetuating cycle. write in the genre; it has even made the Man Booker prizewinner But the appeal of that particular period is nothing to our current list, with Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and its sequel, Bring Up the obsession with the Tudor dynasty and the impact television Bodies, winning in 2009 and 2012 respectively, both books being dramas about it have made. Here we have a ready-made, real-life, acclaimed as two of the great achievements of modern literature. ongoing royal soap opera, with all its colour, drama, sensation and This year’s winner, The intrigue, in which interest Luminaries, is likewise never seems to diminish. historical fiction.

Philippa Gregory’s books, How much of a role largely concerned with have film and television this era, have always had a played in dispersing the devoted following, but the old myth? huge success of the movie From the time they version of The Other were first published two Boleyn Girl, with Scarlett hundred years ago, Jane Johansson as Mary Austen’s novels were in Boleyn, and its subsequent steady demand, but in televising, propelled the 1940, when Pride and book on which it was Prejudice was first filmed based, and it successors, (with Laurence Olivier to the top of the bestseller playing Mr Darcy), sales lists and undoubtedly of Austen’s books rose sparked more interest in steeply, and this has been other works set during repeated with every new this same period. Books Greer Garson as Elizabeth Bennet and Laurence Olivier as Mr. Darcy in the 1940 film adaptation, either on film adaptation of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice on the Tudor period or television. Austen’s are abound: authors include not the only novels to have benefited in this way; such is the Alison Weir, C J Sansom’s excellent Shardlake series, and not power of the small screen that other successful TV adaptations least Hilary Mantel, with a television adaptation of Wolf Hall of classic novels such as The Forsyte Saga, Cranford, The Way We (with Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell) in the offing.

Live Now, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, as well as anything As a feminist as well as a historian, Philippa Gregory has

by Dickens, are guaranteed to produce a renewed interest in successfully concentrated on the role of women in history, and the novels themselves, by individual readers and reading groups especially on the ill-fated women in the life of Henry VIII – alike. ill-fated whichever way you look at it: although not all of them Such novels are, of course, not historical in the sense that they were divorced or lost their heads, being married to Henry can were contemporary with the time they were written, nor did they have been no picnic. Gregory has lately gone back in time to the feature real people who actually lived. Nevertheless, they were Plantagenets, the dynasty which preceded the Tudors. Adapted among the first books to be adapted for film and television, and for television as The White Queen, it seems likely this series might the interest they arouse in periods distant from our own is still possibly herald the arrival of a saturation point for all things considerable. These might loosely be termed costume drama, to Tudor. The original books follow the same formula as Gregory’s which we may now add the hugely popular and watchable series, Tudor offerings: the narrative and action is successfully seen Downton Abbey, despite the fact that it is written expressly for through the eyes of women who lived through and were perhaps television. Currently starting its fourth season, this family saga, influential on the events of the times. These women include

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far wider audience than just the reading public; it makes for easy watching, demanding little of the viewer except a willingness to enjoy the glamour of photogenic actors, rich and elaborate costumes and ‘scenery.’ Novels, on the other hand, whether historical or otherwise, demand an interaction between the writer and the reader; there is time for reflection and space for attempting to get into the mindset of characters who lived in an earlier age, giving a more authentic and nuanced view. The chances are that those of us who were weaned on Georgette Heyer’s Regency romances, Jean Plaidy’s (aka Victoria Holt’s) novels about the crowned heads of Europe, and Baroness Orczy’s Scarlet Pimpernel novels set during the French Revolution, owe to these books much of our continued interest in history in general.

This is not to say that an absorbing TV series or a good movie won’t do the same thing. At its best it can be a rewarding and enriching experience. At its worst, it can give an overromanticised, airbrushed and sanitised impression of the past, with the entertainment value deemed more important than inaccuracies and anachronisms. This is fair enough: we don’t necessarily want to be educated when relaxing before a film, after all. But should entertainment be achieved at the expense of historical truth, when distortion of facts presented as reality may thereafter come to be conceived as established fact?

It has to be said that this approach is less apparent now than in the early days of historical films – but then, although historical novels were with us long before historical drama on television or film, they were not always factually correct either.

Even Shakespeare put his own interpretation on events. And there has been a change in our expectations of the novel and the way we read it from the days when Sir Walter Scott, arguably the first true historical novelist, wrote Waverley. Which of us nowadays has the time or inclination to plough through longwinded descriptions and expositions? Much easier to put your feet up and watch TV! Given the insatiable appetite for new material on film, it would seem likely that historical dramas will be with us for some time to come. And there is, after all, everything to be said for it when people who would not otherwise read historical fiction are inspired to do so by having watched and enjoyed a popular television programme. More than that, if they turn to the book which inspired it, they might find they can get equal pleasure from words alone.

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Elizabeth Woodville, the commoner who became the wife of the Yorkist Edward IV; Margaret Beaufort, formidable and even perhaps slightly unhinged in pursuit of the throne of England for her son, Henry Tudor, an ambition she achieved when he eventually became Henry VII; Anne Neville, the daughter of the great Earl of Warwick (powerful enough to earn himself the name of Kingmaker) who married Richard III; and finally Elizabeth of York, whose marriage to Henry VII brought together the Red Rose of Lancaster and the White Rose of York, thus forming the house of Tudor.

Although assured of a ready-made audience, and though the books upon which it was based continue to achieve record sales, The White Queen has not garnered unqualified approval from all quarters, perhaps because it reveals the limitations of translating the written word to television. The Cousins’ War, or the Wars of the Roses as it has come to be known, the struggle between the Houses of York and Lancaster for the throne of England, lasted for over thirty confused and turbulent years. The battles were many, people changed sides, giving their allegiance first to one side and then the other, commanders and leaders died or were killed, giving place to others – all of which is a difficult and sometimes impossible series of events to convey with the conciseness, brevity and immediacy which television demands, especially to those not familiar with the historical facts. Much of the criticism The White Queen has received is due to what its detractors see as a confused storyline, historical inaccuracies and anachronistic dialogue, not to mention beautiful people with impossibly perfect teeth and a pristine wardrobe.

‘Although God cannot alter the past,’ wrote the Victorian, Samuel Butler, ‘historians can.’ He was, of course, writing as a satirist, but there has to be a certain amount of truth in the comment when applied to historical fiction. Of necessity conjecture must play a large part in creating any fictional representations based on what has been recorded or discovered, and although what actually happened in the past cannot be altered, perceptions can, by the spin put upon events, intentionally or otherwise. As writers of fiction are very much aware, the dry bones of history are rarely the stuff of compulsive reading. Both readers and viewers are much more likely to be more interested in the mindset of the characters, how they viewed life and how the events they might have lived through affected them, rather than the events themselves. In the last analysis, writing about the past deals with people but, especially if they are people who actually existed, their true personalities can only be a matter of speculation. Whether we look on this type of fiction as entertainment or education or both – and tampering with the known, recorded facts of history is dangerous – a certain amount of embellishment is inevitable, almost necessary in order to engage readers or viewers and to flesh out character and situation. Gregory herself has gone on record as saying that her books should be read as novels and not judged simply for historical accuracy.

Historical fiction, with television now in every home, reaches a

MARJORIE ECCLES lives in Hertfordshire in the UK and has written over thirty books and many short stories.

She is the author of the contemporary Gil Mayo series and is now writing twentieth century historical mysteries. Short-listed for the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Novel Award and winner of the Agatha Christie Styles Short Story, her latest book A Dangerous Deceit, was published in August 2013 by Severn House.

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upon Waverley’s bicentennial, a look at historical representation

I n 2009 I was asked to review historical novels for History Today.

What seemed then a pioneering act on the part of the magazine seems obvious now….

Of course historical novels should be looked at alongside works of mainstream scholarship.

Of course historical novels can give us insight into the key questions asked by all those who investigate the past and our relationship to it.

Of course we should be concerned about how the past is rendered in fiction and its effect on our historical imaginations.

On the bicentennial anniversary of that fabulous, foundational and wise novel, Waverley, it seems to me that historical representation is finally gaining a kind of legitimacy. Sir Walter Scott sought to create a form that would transform writing and change the way that readers might think about themselves in the present. The radical possibility of that kind of text has been central to the importance of the historical novel ever since. This is why as a form it can contain such seemingly disparate writings as Virginia Woolf ’s Orlando, James Joyce’s Ulysses and Leo Tolstoy’s War & Peace. The ways in which we think about, represent, and challenge versions of the past has serious and far-reaching consequences for the way that we think about ourselves, our society, our culture, and our identities.

In 2014 the import of historical fiction of all kinds – from novels to television series to film – for the way that we conceive, imagine, and engage with the past seems relatively obvious.

Representation of the past in fiction is incredibly important to the way that we think about the world. We are astute readers of and consumers of historical texts. We go to them for enjoyment, for education, and to be challenged. From The Luminaries (2013’s Man Booker prizewinner) to Argo (winner of the 2013

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Oscar for Best Picture), historical fictions are lauded with prizes and seen as an entertaining-serious way of thinking about how the past works, how we imagine it, and what this means for how we live now.

That is not to say that things are simple! For a scholar like me, the question is to observe and study how these iterations of the past in the present work, and why. What is at stake? What are the ethical implications of this shift, if it exists, to allowing for the importance of fictional narratives? What do these books, novels and films suggest about the way that we think about and understand history? How do they resource the historical imagination?

I am often asked why historical fiction should be so important now. One of my answers is that it never went away, really – what we are experiencing is a regular upturn in its literary fortunes and hence the legitimacy of the form. Historical fiction is something that ‘serious’ literary writers would attempt without blanching now, where in the 1980s they might have had to do this undercover or from a different angle. So we might compare the different aesthetic practice of Jeanette Winterson, Salman Rushdie, Angela Carter, Kazuo Ishiguro, Rose Tremain (all of whom wrote historical novels in the late 1980s) with that of Sarah Waters, Hilary Mantel, Eleanor Catton and Adam Foulds.

I wonder, too, whether the historical novel allows for a complex discussion to take place about nationalism, globalisation, and identity. Post9/11, post-2008, post-1989, post-Arab Spring, the institutions and organisations that give our lives structure and identity are increasingly challenged. The historical novel is a cosmopolitan, rather than a nationalist, genre. It allows the reader to imagine and to travel throughout space and time, and in that liberation enshrines a sense of openness and plurality. It allows us to imagine new identities, ways of thinking, modes of being. It enables empathy across time, and strives to translate into contemporary experience the meanings of being alive in a particular moment.

Historical fiction is also honest about its dishonesty. It tells us

by Jerome de Groot

Historical novels...

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can give us insight into the key questions asked by all those who investigate the past and our relationship to it.

HNR Issue 67, February 2014

fiction sits alongside historical textbooks as a way of allowing us to discover more about the past, and to understand it better.

Not only do we comprehend the things that happened in a more sophisticated way, but historical fiction enables the reader to see how historical narratives themselves are made, and to possibly challenge the way that things have been represented to them.

The unique quality of the historical novel – the ability to teach and delight simultaneously – means that it has great power.

In War & Peace Tolstoy used the analogy of the chaos of war as a way of thinking about the past. No one knows how it works, no one understands their own situation within it, no one can direct it. Many people strive to make it mean or to impose some kind of structure or shape upon it, but they are doing this in vain. Historical fiction allows us to see that the past is chaotic and our versions of it, whether they be fiction or factual writing, are continually striving to make meaning in a vacuum. Historical fictions might bring us comfort, then, when faced with the confusion of the contemporary world. They certainly bring us succour when faced with the implacable and incomprehensible past.

What happens now, then? Well, I look with some interest at the hybridisation of historical novels. There are now plenty of mash-up novels that bring us historical crime, historical horror, pastiche, adaptation. The great historical zombie and vampire novels are yet to be written. On the back of the success of Mantel and Catton I anticipate a whole new generation of literary authors thinking seriously about how the past might be represented, and looking carefully at how narratives from history might provide rich material for novelists.

In all these things I may be wrong. I probably am. The thing I think is magnificent about historical fiction is its ability to contain multitudes, to mean in so many different ways and to allow for so many different iterations. Every historical novelist has an opinion about what they are doing, how they are doing it, and why they are doing it. They all have a sense of their relation to ‘history’ and the evidence of the past. Yet each of their answers is different, unique, and precise. Alison Weir has a different attitude to David Peace to Philippa Gregory to Ian Mortimer.

Some are professionals, most are simply practitioners who have evolved through their own work a keen and thoughtful sense of how to represent the past in fiction.

What do you think? Why do you read historical novels, or write them? Why is this type of writing so popular now? Where do we go from here? Let me know: http://www.surveymonkey. com/s/FFJ8B7K

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that it is lying, that it is incomplete, that there are other stories out there. In doing so it earns our acceptance. As the narrator in Jeanette Winterson’s novel, The Passion, says, ‘I’m telling you stories. Trust me.’ Perhaps we are happier to read acknowledged fictions rather than have oppressive myths imposed upon us.

As a form, therefore, the historical novel seems fundamentally anti-authoritarian in spirit, always allowing for other points of view and ways of thinking. This multiplicity and diversity is central to its appeal in the contemporary world. This playful approach to the past is much more liberating than constrictive views. Historical fiction then might be seen as a place of dissent, or at least of challenge to narratives of prejudice, control, and oppression.

Another answer is to suggest that current readers are interested in revisionist versions of the past (hence possibly the success of Wolf Hall) and novels that challenge the received opinion or the stories that we are told. This ‘conspiracy’ society, brought up on WikiLeaks and The Da Vinci Code, might seek alternatives and challenges in their fiction. Certainly this would also account for the hundreds of alternative narratives that strew the Internet, as people seek to make their own stories out of the materials available.

We might also say that fiction can allow us to understand history in a more profound and complex fashion. Fiction elaborates on the details of history, gives it a more profound meaning, allows us to empathise and understand in a way that other historical writing struggles to achieve. Importantly, fiction allows the exploration of other kinds of identity, whilst also suggesting to us (as Scott was so keen to demonstrate) that our own abilities, lives, and agency are circumscribed by forces often outside of our control. This is the ‘self-conscious historicity’ that Georg Lukacs claimed Scott ushered in – the historical novel allows the reader to think about themselves in history, as connected to the past (and therefore with the possibility of a future, which therefore might be changed).

Another reason for the current popularity of the fictional past in all forms is genealogy. It is not an anomaly that we have experienced a ‘genealogy’ boom around the world over the past decade. Ordinary people want to use the materials of historical investigation (archives, libraries, research) to discover their own stories and those of their ancestors. Recent historical fiction has tended to concentrate on the ‘ordinary’ experience of the past, encouraging a sense of connection. The genealogy boom is also about a desire for roots, to render oneself part of an historical continuum, to gain traction in an increasingly fast and unmapped world. It also expresses the need, through an understanding of historical narratives, to encounter the vast archive that is the past and the Internet and to comprehend it somehow. This sense of a need to ‘understand’ the present through going to the past is key in the rise in historical fiction, too.

Education is another key reason why people are increasingly turning to historical novels. There is a sense that we can understand the past in a different way through reading about it in fiction. This kind of comprehension is not antithetical to mainstream historical work, but complementary. Historical

DR JEROME DE GROOT is senior lecturer at the University of Manchester and author of The Historical Novel (Routledge, 2009).

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through the eyes of women who loved famous men

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eaders with an eye to what is hot in historical fiction might well have observed a recent trend. Novels focusing on a famous man, told from the perspective of his wife or mistress – or wives and mistresses – are proving so popular that readers might wonder if a subgenre of fictional biography is emerging.

Fact-based stories of difficult men, geniuses even, revealed through the eyes of the women who loved and lived with them: the book club appeal is obvious. But is it as simple as that?

In 2007, Nancy Horan’s Loving Frank (Ballantine) brought Frank Lloyd Wright to life on the page through the story of Mamah Cheney, a clever, charming woman who falls in love with the architect she and her husband have chosen to build their new home. Because it is Mamah’s story, it can only take the reader into one time period in Wright’s life, but happily, the reader can turn to The Women (Viking, 2009) for more. T.C. Boyle begins with Wright’s last wife, Olga, and works backwards. Much of the novel is devoted to his second wife, Miriam Wright, then Mamah, and to a much lesser extent Katherine, his first wife of twenty-six years.

But is The Women really his wives’ tale at all?

The story is told by a fictional apprentice of Wright’s, and the third-person narrative gives voice to Frank’s thoughts and emotions as well as to his women’s. Interestingly, while Loving Frank superficially fits the criterion of a story of a great man told through the perspective of his wife or mistress, it becomes much more. Loving Frank is Mamah’s story, whereas The Women, where the point of view is more fluid, is thoroughly and unashamedly a book about one dominating, difficult and magnetic man.

It is intriguing, then, to pick up The Paris Wife (Ballantine, 2011) and consider how Paula McLain tells the story of the first Mrs Hemingway, Hadley. Although several years his elder, Hadley is always the innocent one, the constant, loving wife to Ernest as he struggles to establish himself as a writer and within the literary circles of Paris in the 1920s. Hadley tells the story of her marriage from their first meeting in Chicago to the salon of Gertrude Stein, from the bullfights of Pamplona to the

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beaches of Antibes. The portrait of Hemingway that emerges is complex, fascinating and, above all, believable. Hadley says of him: “He was such an enigma, really – fine and strong and weak and cruel. An incomparable friend and a son of a bitch. In the end there wasn’t one thing about him that was truer than the rest. It was all true.”

Hadley Hemingway is no Mamah Cheney.

As a character she remains largely unchanged through the novel. He doesn’t tell the story, but The Paris Wife truly is all about Hemingway. It is Hemingway who grows and changes, finding a new world, new friends and ultimately a new woman, the glamorous Pauline, perhaps a more suitable partner to a literary legend in the making.

Readers who enjoyed The Paris Wife can look forward in 2014 to the publication of Mrs Hemingway (Penguin) by Naomi Wood.

With intricate structuring, Wood weaves together the stories of the four Mrs Hemingways into a novel that is poignantly sympathetic to each woman in turn, as each falls for and then loses Ernest Hemingway. Each woman’s story starts with the end of their relationship, overlapping and contrasting with the story of the woman to come. But in other chapters, Wood takes the women back to the time when they first became involved with Hemingway, so that the reader re-visits the woman before, but from the next woman’s point of view. The novel that emerges is beautifully written, highly evocative of time and place, and emotionally charged.

And most strikingly, each wife is given her own distinct voice. As his third wife, Martha, on the verge of being replaced, wryly observes, Hemingway, “without a woman, would be a writer in want of a wife.”

But it is not only famous artists who have wives or mistresses with stories to tell.

The Aviator’s Wife (Delacorte, 2013) by Melanie Benjamin is the fictional biography of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the

by Kate Braithwaite

Stories of... difficult men, geniuses even, revealed through the eyes of the women who loved and lived with them: the book club appeal is obvious. But is it as simple as that?

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HNR Issue 67, February 2014

Mistress and Mrs Poe, perhaps because less is known about the two men, have a much more fictional feel than the stories based in the twentieth century.

“Wives’ tales,” then, are a more diverse group than they might appear. In some the famous man resonates as the main character, while in others the unsung wife or mistress is the person whose story predominates. This tussle most vividly comes to life in the case of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

In Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald (St Martin’s, 2013) by Therese Anne Fowler, Zelda leaps from the pages as the glamorous, inspiring flapper wife who struggles to find a space for her own creativity and live in happiness with her novelist husband. The novel opens with Scott’s pursuit of Zelda: the society belle of Montgomery Alabama, and a girl with an eye for financial security. His desire to win her becomes the driver for Fitzgerald’s ambition to be a writer, and they marry in New York just as his first novel, This Side of Paradise, is published.

Initially the story reads as a fascinating window into the world of the Lost Generation, a hedonistic mix of alcohol, the Jazz Age and the beginning of celebrity. But progressively, Zelda’s struggle to find her self and creative identity become the central story of the book. She writes, but her stories are published either under Scott’s name alone or jointly. Neglected and alone while Scott struggles to write The Great Gatsby, she falls in love with another man. And when she turns to dance to express herself and find her own success, it becomes apparent that there is only room for one genius in this partnership. As with The Aviator’s Wife, in Z, a novel that might be about the husband turns out to be, quite rightly, the story of the wife.

Fowler, in her afterword, writes about the challenge for historical novelists writing about real people: “Fiction based on real people differs from nonfiction in that the emphasis is not on factual minutiae but rather on the emotional journey of the characters. I’ve striven to create the most plausible story possible, based upon all the evidence at hand.”

This neatly sums up what these novels have in common.

Regardless of whose tale is told and how, each writer takes the facts and makes them fly off the page. For those who want the “real” people, there are plenty of avenues to explore. Whether with Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, Zelda Fitzgerald’s Save Me the Waltz and/or F. Scott’s Tender is the Night, or Anne Lindbergh’s Gift from the Sea – starting with a deceptively simple “wife’s tale” can lead to so much more.

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wife of Charles Lindbergh. This is a story of a marriage in an unprecedented glare of publicity and of the challenges of marrying an extraordinary man. But it is not a novel about Charles Lindbergh. This is firmly Anne’s story: the story of a woman married to a difficult man, a woman whose first child is kidnapped, a woman obliged to countenance her famous husband’s misplaced support for Hitler and Nazi Germany and a woman who finds her own voice and writes Gift from the Sea, her much loved thoughts on life, love and marriage. In a story told in the first person by Anne Lindbergh, the reader looking to understand Charles Lindbergh will be left disappointed, as ultimately, it seems Anne herself was, but Anne’s story is fascinating in its own right.

Also in 2013 came Above All Things (Amy Einhorn/ Putnam) by Tanis Rideout, more of a two-handed affair than a straightforward “wife’s tale.” Here, a third-person narrative of George Mallory’s attempt to conquer Mount Everest in 1924 intertwines with his wife Ruth’s first-person story as she waits at home for news from the Himalayas. Canadian author Rideout visited the Pepys Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where she studied letters between George Mallory and his wife.

Certainly the perspective of Mallory’s wife is central to the success of the novel. The intensely driven George is humanized by his wife, and the story’s tense climax relies upon the juxtaposition of his obsessive desire to climb Everest and her patient, agonized wait at home with their young children.

Ruth Mallory might have had to battle a mountain in order to keep her husband by her side, but other wives have had more human competition. In two novels set in the nineteenth century, readers meet the mistresses of two famous men: Edgar Allan Poe and Sigmund Freud.

Lynn Cullen’s Mrs Poe (Gallery, 2013) constructs a dark love story from evidence (although disputed) of a romantic relationship between Edgar Allan Poe and the poet Frances Osgood. In 1845, Edgar Allan Poe is the lauded author of “The Raven,” but he lives in poverty with his ailing young wife, Virginia, and his mother-in-law, Mrs Clemm. He meets Frances Osgood, a mother and poet who is living with friends after having been abandoned by her philandering painter husband. Through Frances Osgood’s eyes, Cullen brings us Eddie – passionate, headstrong and ambitious, but also tormented – a credible character to have produced Tales of Mystery & Imagination.

In Freud’s Mistress (Amy Einhorn/Putnam, 2013) by Karen Mack and Jennifer Kaufman, Minna Bernays is an independentthinking, unmarried young woman in a world – Vienna at the end of the nineteenth century – that was not kind to women of her stamp. Reluctantly, she moves into the home of her sister and brother-in-law, Sigmund Freud, who is not yet the renowned father of psychoanalysis. Freud, though, is someone who treats Minna as a person with a mind, and the story follows her seemingly inevitable attraction to him and the consequences that play out as a result. Minna’s choices and internal conflict provide the main drama of the novel. That her lover is a famous man adds interest for the reader, and insights into Freud’s character are there to be enjoyed, but ultimately both Freud’s

KATE BRAITHWAITE is currently writing Charlatan, a novel about another famous mistress, Athénaïs, Madame de Montespan. Recipient of the 2011 Marina Nemat Writing Award from Toronto University, she has published short fiction and a range of book reviews and interviews for the HNS. She blogs at www.aboutkatebraithwaite@ wordpress.com.

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Nancy Horan’s Under the Wide and Starry Sky

“Writing historical fiction about real people allows me to explore the ‘why’ questions that arise out of the facts of the subjects’ lives,” says Nancy Horan. “It allows me to go inside the rooms where they converse and go about their lives, and to feel the tension or warmth in those rooms, to imagine their humanity beyond the biographical facts.”

In Under the Wide and Starry Sky, her second historical novel following Loving Frank, she has accomplished this with aplomb.

This engrossing epic depicts the passionate union of Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson and his American-born wife, Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne. When they first meet at an artists’ colony south of Paris in 1875, Fanny has recently fled her philandering first husband, her children’s father. Her relationship with Louis (as he calls himself ) endures despite numerous obstacles in their path, and Horan illustrates its highs and lows as their travels take them around the world.

Many factors attracted her to their story.

“The Stevensons were two extraordinary people, made so not only by their natural gifts, but by their spirits and grit as well,” she explains. “Robert Louis Stevenson was often bedbound by a serious lung ailment, yet he was a literary athlete. Fanny, who was ten years older, was forceful in her own way.

She appeared fearless on the outside… but she was easily wounded. Time and again she saved Louis’s life. When it was determined that his health improved when he was at sea, Fanny embarked with him on a two- year voyage in the South Seas, despite the fact that she was seasick every day. Once I knew something of their lives, I knew they would be good company for the long run. How could I resist them?”

The novel does much more than reveal the woman behind a famous man, as it explores both Louis’ and Fanny’s perspectives. “I wanted to show how roles can change over time, repeatedly; how beautiful and thorny a long-term love relationship can be… and how you can lose yourself in the institution. But I wanted to explore the strengths too, of long-term commitment and devotion.

“The other part of the decision to give voice to Robert Louis Stevenson is the rich record of feelings he expressed in his letters and works. It was a wonderful opportunity to weave his thinking and some of his words into the text. I wanted the reader to discover how really wonderful he was.”

Crafting scenes from this internationally beloved writer’s viewpoint “was humbling, of course,” Horan says. “But he deserves to be known and remembered. So I dove in. I found his optimism powerful. I think it arose partly from his natural temperament, and partly from a very conscious decision to make each day count…

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A Remarkable Partnership But he had many a depressing day, and it’s a mistake to portray him as only a cheerful person. Remember, he not only wrote A Child’s Garden of Verses, he created the characters of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He didn’t back away from darkness or the complexity of the human personality.”

Although Fanny is fiery and courageous, she still adheres to traditional roles, and Horan’s nuanced portrayal reflects this: “Fanny wrote once that while she believed in women’s rights, she was more of a ‘clinging vine’ type whom activists might disapprove of because she wanted the companionship and protection of a man.

In fact, she was a very strong person who exhibited the kind of grit we associate with pioneer women.”

The novel speaks to relevant social issues such as cultural prejudice and the dangers of stereotyping, using Fanny’s nationality and olive complexion and other Europeans’ snobbery toward the native Samoans as examples. “I was aware that Fanny and Louis’s relationship involved a clash of cultures, but I did not anticipate how strongly that theme would play itself out through the rest of the book,” Horan says. “The skin color issue was something Fanny confronted as a child at the hands of her own grandmother, who found her olive skin unattractive.... That experience armed Fanny with a tolerance for differences among other people. Surely it was one of her attractions for Louis, who had suffered for being different and who hated injustice.”

Horan consulted numerous sources for her protagonists’ well-documented lives but “there was plenty of room to improvise,” she states, such as a scene in which Stevenson and his good friend Henry James discuss the subconscious. “Like a biographer, I look at the facts and draw my own conclusions. As a novelist, I am free to draw up scenes that the facts suggest could have happened.”

When asked about her favorites among Stevenson’s oeuvre: “I think Kidnapped and its sequel David Balfour are great,” Horan answers. “Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, of course, and Master of Ballantrae.” In addition to collaborating on some of her husband’s work, Fanny, too, was an author, one of many little-known aspects of her life which Horan has uncovered. Of Fanny’s writings, Horan notes in particular “the Cruise of the Janet Nichol, a non-fiction account of her travels with her husband through the central and western islands of the South Seas. It was a diary, after all, and I think the voice is closest to who she was and what she experienced during one part of her remarkable life.”

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Sarah Johnson is HNR’s book review editor.

by Sarah Johnson

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plenty of room to improvise. Like a biographer, I look at the facts and draw my own conclusions. As a novelist, I am free to draw up scenes that the facts suggest could have happened.

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HNR Issue 67, February 2014

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a tribute to Elizabeth Jane Howard and the Cazalet Chronicle

Elizabeth Jane Howard needs little introduction, at least to British

readers. Her son-in-law, the author Martin Amis, paid tribute to her “penetrating sanity” and pronounced her, with Iris Murdoch, “the most interesting woman writer of her generation.” The Light Years, the first volume of what was to become the Cazalet Chronicle, appeared in 1990 and three more followed in swift succession (Marking Time, Confusion and Casting Off). Readers were introduced to a sprawling, well-to-do (but, importantly, not an aristocratic) family, first in the years between the wars, and then as war tightened its hold on the country, and the family. In the books children were born, men were lost at war, tragedy struck with the deaths of first Sybil then the Brig (the father of the three Cazalet sons, Hugh, Edward and Rupert), and marriages rocked and finally broke under the strain. The first two books were serialised for the BBC, and in spring this year all four were abridged in a memorable radio production. This autumn saw the publication of a fifth book, All Change, bringing the family saga up to the early 60s. Tragically, this extraordinary achievement for an author who had just turned 90 has now become a poignant swansong to her literary career.

While not strictly historical fiction by some definitions, since Howard was born in 1923, the books offer a most detailed reconstruction of English life, starting with the turbulent decade spanning 1937–1947.

The Cazalets mirror any number of affluent, middle-class families whose fortunes were made in industry, in this instance timber, and this is why Howard calls them an “ordinary” family, although the word fails to do justice to the extraordinary cast of characters. Yet this is far from the world of Evelyn Waugh: the “Duchy,” the matriarchal lynchpin of the family, spends much of her time sewing clothes and curtains, and is concerned that none of the children “get above themselves.”

Much of Howard’s writing was undoubtedly autobiographical: “I did live through the war and I had a large family, so I used some of them and made up quite a lot of the others.” Readers were given an insight into how much she had used when her “searingly honest” autobiography, Slipstream, was published in 2002. Howard’s memories have been compared to the finest vintages laid to rest over the years. “You write from direct experience and also vicarious experience – anyone who reads novels should know that!” But any thought that this might be straightforward is capped by her next words: “You can’t write more than you are … that’s why it’s

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Penetrating Sanity

important to go on growing up.” She herself felt that her work improved with age: maturity gave her insight and revealed her gifts as a shrewd and accurate observer of human character.

Her writing also reflected her career as a female writer. She described herself as “a sort of seething feminist… I like the company of other women and I feel for them quite desperately.”

In the Cazalet Chronicle, it is the female characters who stand out – even the less likeable ones, like Edward’s brash second wife who treats Rachel Cazalet’s half-Jewish partner, Sid, despicably.

Howard never passed judgement, and there is no god-like narrator to dispense judgement: the fluent succession of interlacing viewpoints enable Howard to revisit such incidents and review opinions. For all the difficulties of her own life, Howard remained remarkably optimistic about human nature.

While the author’s affections did seem to dwell on the three cousins, Louise – the most autobiographical of all the characters – Polly and Clary, her portrait of their former governess, Miss Milliment, is extraordinarily poignant.

Historical accuracy is clearly an important part of Howard’s work. The domestic detail is superb: the interiors of Home Place, the family’s country house in Sussex, are described in vivid detail, down to the freezing bathrooms, much kitchen paraphernalia, tapestry cushions and faded curtains. Equally true is her analysis of the fate of many “family firms” in the postwar years of All Change: business was different, names and connections counted for less, professional management skills for more.

The certainties of the family’s middle-class life founder when the demands of a bank manager turn from veiled threat to reality and bankruptcy looms.

Howard was a novelist of extraordinary verve, and the popularity of her work will prove a fitting legacy. As Hilary Mantel wrote on the cover of Howard’s last book, “she helps us do the necessary thing – open our eyes and our hearts”.

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Footnote: Elizabeth Jane Howard died on January 2, 2014. A short interview for this article was due to be recorded in early December, but in the circumstances proved impossible. I would like to express my condolences to the author’s family and my thanks to her publicist, Jacqui Graham.

Lucinda Byatt is HNR’s features editor.

by Lucinda Byatt

You can’t... write more than you are ... that’s why it’s important to go on growing up.

HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Features | 13

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stand-out independently-published novels of 2013

R eviewing indie novels for the HNS is not always an easy task. In some cases the reviewer is the first to read the book outside of the author’s family and friends, and unlike mainstream books, the author is in charge of the presentation as well as the written content.

Unfortunately, the result is, sometimes, a bit of a disaster.

Formatting and text issues equal instant rejection for a submission. Too many typos or too much dialogue, not enough narrative (or vice versa), endless pages of description, poor plot or characterisation, headhopping, tell not show… if members of my fabulous UK review team are struggling by page 50, I advise them to give up. The HNR Indie Review for independently published historical fiction gives some constructive criticism to improve a not-bad book, but what is the point of printing a review of a work that is, let’s be frank, not well-written?

So why do we review? Self-published books are often regarded as the poor relations in the literary world, aren’t they? Short answer: no.

Quite a few are darn good reads, and some are absolute gems! It is exhilarating to discover the diamonds that have been hidden in the shadows – which is why we have our Editors’ Choice selections. Books such as those

by David Blixt (Fortune’s Fool), Anna Belfrage (The Prodigal Son), Christine Middleton (The Witch and Her Soul) and Gordon Anthony (World’s End) are all superb reads equal to any mainstream novel.

Blixt’s book, set in 14th-century Italy and the third in his Star Cross’d series, is an adventure story focusing on young Cesco, illegitimate son of Verona’s ruler, as he struggles with his education under a harsh master.

Meanwhile, Pietro Alaghieri (son of Dante) importunes the Avignon pope to lift Alaghieri’s excommunication and declare Cesco legitimate, not realizing that enemies in Verona are readying to strike. Full of intrigue, adventure, and romance, Fortune’s Fool is a sort of prequel to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and, as I said in my review, “one of the most exciting, and satisfying, reads I have immersed myself in for a long time.”

The Prodigal Son is also third in a series, and a timeslip story: Alex Lind is thrown back to 17th-century Scotland where she has become the wife of Matthew Graham. When Charles II demands conformity to Anglican doctrine, Graham’s Presbyteriansm endangers himself and his family. Reviewer Rachel Malone noted that Belfrage “has an incredible way with words that brings her characters to life,” and that she absolutely “lapped up” this “brilliantly enjoyable read.”

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Indie Roundup

Also set in the 17th century with religious persecution as a theme is The Witch and Her Soul. Through a fictional journal of the real Jane Southworth, the reader views events leading to the Lancashire Witch Trial of 1612. Reviewer Towse Harrison points out that this “wonderful novel by a debut author” gives “an understanding of how strange it would be to us to live in that world.”

World’s End is, according to reviewer Sue Ellison, a “fast-paced, exciting, and well-written” military adventure focusing on Calgacus, a young warrior during the Roman occupation of Britain in the 1st century.

Ellison liked that the story was told from the Briton, rather than Roman, point of view, and feels there is “real potential for a popular historical series” featuring Calgacus.

For my counterpart US review colleagues, the selected gems for 2013 were: The Subtlest Soul by Virginia Cox, The House on Tenafly Road by Adrienne Morris and Bow Tie: The First Manuscript of the Richards’ Trust by W.J. Cherf.

The HNR Indie review of The Subtlest Soul states that this Renaissance novel about the “social and political rivalries that boil underneath the surface of Machiavelli’s The Prince” is “densely-researched,” yet still “delightfully readable.”

The House on Tenafly Road is a tale of haunted Civil War veteran John Weldon. He finds a new start and a blossoming romance in a small New Jersey village, but the lingering effects of war create obstacles. Reviewer Steve Donoghue said that Weldon’s “slow and halting search for personal redemption makes for mesmerizing reading.”

Bow Tie centres on a team of modern-day scientists who find that genetic research leads them back in time to the pharaohs of ancient Egypt. Reviewer John Manhold said that the book’s “presentation is so well-handled that even the author’s fictional inventions sound plausible,” and that it is a work “definitely not to be missed.”

Indie writers are fully responsible for the complete process from opening line to final printed version. As the selections above attest, all this hard work can result in stand-out novels. I wonder if it would be possible to have an HNS award for the most outstanding indie novel of the year? I think indie writers would appreciate this sort of innovative support. I know I would!

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Helen Hollick is UK Indie Review Editor. She blogs at www.helenhollick.net and is also active on Twitter @ HelenHollick.

by Helen Hollick

It is exhilarating... to discover the diamonds that have been hidden in the shadows – which is why we have our Editors’ Choice selections.

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HNR Issue 67, February 2014

an international look at retail displays of historical fiction

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Bookshops Making History

here are certain bookshops that, as soon as you walk past their T windows, you are tempted to go in and browse. Once inside you

like Venice, the Italian book trade still promotes its collections, including its own writers of historical fiction along with writers will often find a feast of fiction, which results in you investing far from around the globe. The Libreria Studium, San Marco, Venice, more than you should in novels by authors you didn’t know existed. is an example of the modern Italian bookseller trying to encourage Marketing has been part of the booksellers’ remit ever since the historical fiction writers. Similarly, the Ark, Bok Handel in Tromsø, first bookshops opened their doors, and for the writers of historical Norway, displays its own home-grown talent alongside foreign fiction it is largely due to bookshops’ historical novelists in translation. determination to sell books that By their sheer elegance, certain historical fiction is now regarded by bookshops automatically lend many as its own genre. themselves to showcasing historical The inventiveness and creativity fiction. One of these is Waterstones of a significant number of both on Princes Street, Edinburgh, independent and chain stores in which has a stunning view of the highlighting the growing range of Castle, and another is in Budapest, historical fiction deserves to be praised Hungary. There the magnificent because it benefits both readers and Alexandra bookshop on Andrássy authors. Some of the earliest examples Avenue is housed in an Art Nouveau of bookshops in Europe date back to (Art Szecesziós) building with its the spread of the printing press. The Bookcafé, which is rather like a Galignani family in France printed and ballroom in the Renaissance style, distributed their own publications, decorated with romantic-style frescos including Geografia in 1597, which painted by Károly Lotz. történelmi regény (historical novel) shelf at the Alexandra became a sixteenth- and seventeenth- A However, it is Hatchard’s bookshop, bookshop in Budapest and a table display of historical fiction at century ‘bestseller.’ Descendants of Hatchard’s Bookshop, London. founded in 1797 by John Hatchard in the Galignani family still run the Piccadilly, London, which is today at bookshop that, since 1856, has graced the forefront of promoting historical the Rue de Rivoli in Paris and today fiction, in keeping with its status as the is well stocked with historical fiction. oldest bookshop still in existence in Bookshops in Europe were often England. It has a wonderful collection founded in university towns such as of historical fiction, subdivided into Oxford, where there was an audience themed shelves such as historical of academic readers wealthy enough to crime, naval fiction and military invest in books. Blackwell’s (now part fiction. It also devotes table displays to of the Blackwell Group) in Oxford was new releases in different sub-genres, founded in 1879 by Benjamin Henry often with eye-catching titles such as Blackwell. The original bookshop is ‘Dastardly Daredevil Georgians.’ still situated on Broad Street. It is an Many small independent bookshops excellent example of how to showcase also try their hardest to highlight the historical fiction writers’ novels – if work of established and new historical you look through the classics section of fiction writers. Book Stop, my own the shop you will find historical fiction writers displayed alongside local bookshop in Tavistock, regularly organises book-signing academic treatises. Similarly, bookshops housed in museums have events and, despite its hobbit-like proportions, hosts book launches now started to latch on to the idea of mixing works of historical as well. The HNS team would be delighted to hear all about your fact and fiction on their shelves. In the basement bookshop of the favourite bookshops (bookstores) anywhere in the world and why National Portrait Gallery, London, the recent exhibition Elizabeth I you love them. & Her People provided the scope to display historical novels on the Tudor queen and her reign to complement the exhibits.

Myfanwy Cook is an intrepid traveller in search of historical Towards the end of the Republic in Rome, private libraries bookshops and a member of the HNR editorial team. became popular and so taberna librarii flourished. Today, in cities

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by Myfanwy Cook

The inventiveness... and creativity of a significant number of both independent and chain stores in highlighting the growing range of historical fiction deserves to be praised because it benefits both readers and authors.

HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Features | 15

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historians, archaeologists, genealogists, librarians, and archivists unite

It grew out of a brief conversation with Richard Lee at the HNS

photo credit: Paul Bullivant, Bristol Festival of Literature

2012 UK Conference. The idea was a simple one: why not bring together local groups of historical experts and writers to explore the connections between history and fiction? So Meet the Historians was born: a programme of events in which academic historians, archaeologists, genealogists, librarians, archivists, and fiction and non-fiction writers gather to discuss making fiction out of history.

Bristol has a lively literary scene so I decided to try out the Meet the Historians format here. The first event was on 27 April 2013 in partnership with Bristol Libraries. Saga writer Lizzie Lane, myself, Local Studies Librarian Jane Bradley and Allie Dillon, Senior Archivist at the Bristol Record Office, offered writers practical advice on researching historical location.

Two more Meet the Historians events were included in the Bristol Literature Festival.

From Roman Fact to Roman Fiction on 19 October 2013 featured historical novelists Ben Kane and Manda Scott and museum curator Gail Boyle, with Festival organiser and local historian and novelist Mike Manson in the chair.

The session was part of a programme of activities accompanying the Bristol Museum’s Roman Empire: Power and People Exhibition (21 September 2013 – 12 January 2014), which was curated by Gail. She gave a fascinating talk comparing and contrasting how historical novelists and museum experts weave stories around objects.

Ben Kane is the author of novels about Spartacus, Hannibal and first-century BC Rome. He told us about his recent walk along Hadrian’s Wall, wearing full Roman military kit. This included hobnailed boots – which he brought with him! The walk raised almost £19,000 for charity.

Manda Scott’s international best-selling Boudica series explores who we were before the Romans came, while her Rome series of first-century spy thrillers dissects the early Empire and the men and women who were key to its evolution. Manda’s talk explored “how fiction writers can expand on history, and explore the places historians dare not tread.”

Bristol has a rich maritime heritage and it was appropriate that the third event – The Best Port of Trade in Britain: Bristol’s Maritime History – was held at the M Shed Museum overlooking the water.

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Meet the Historians

In a session chaired by Andy King, Senior Collections Officer for Industrial & Maritime History, novelist Julian Stockwin and I joined historians Adrian Tinniswood and Dr Steve Poole.

Adrian Tinniswood has recently published Pirates of Barbary, Corsairs, Conquests and Captivity in the 17th-Century Mediterranean ( Jonathan Cape, 2010) and The Rainborowes: Pirates, Puritans and a Family’s Quest for the Promised Land (Cape, 2013). His talk focussed on the terrifying Barbary pirates, who carried out slaving raids in Ireland, off the Devon and Dorset coasts, along the Thames, and around Bristol.

Dr Steve Poole is Associate Professor of Social and Cultural History at the University of the West of England, and editor of and contributor to A City Built Upon the Water: Maritime Bristol 1750-1900 (Redcliffe Press, 2013). He encouraged historical novelists not to rely exclusively on books when researching: “get into record offices!”

My own novel, To The Fair Land (Silverwood Books, 2012) centres on a voyage from Bristol to the South Seas in the eighteenth century. I spoke about some of the research sources I used when writing the novel, and in particular how walking around historical sites and looking at paintings and objects can enhance a writer’s research.

Julian Stockwin is the author of the Kydd novels set in the Great Age of Fighting Sail.

He described the Bristol sugar trade, which relied on slave labour in the Caribbean. Sugar meant wealth, and shipping it back to Britain was a perilous undertaking in privateerpatrolled waters. Julian enlivened his talk by producing various nautical objects, including a ship’s block, a beer tankard, a flintlock pistol and a blood-curdling cutlass!

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If you’d like to organise a HNS Meet the Historians event in your area, contact Richard Lee for more information.

Lucienne Boyce’s historical novel, To The Fair Land (2012) is an eighteenth-century thriller set in Bristol and the South Seas. This year she published The Bristol Suffragettes (non-fiction). She is currently working on a novel about a Bow Street Runner who is sent to Somerset in 1796 to investigate murder, riot and arson in the wake of a land enclosure. More at www.lucienneboyce.com

by Lucienne Boyce

The idea was a simple one... why not bring together local groups of historical experts and writers to explore the connections between history and fiction?

16 | Features |

HNR Issue 67, February 2014

Reviews |

online exclusives

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Due to an ever-increasing number of books being reviewed and space constraints within HNR, many reviews are now published as online exclusives. To view these reviews and much more, please visit http://www.historicalnovelsociety.org/ reviews/?type=online

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ancient history

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THE SERPENT AND THE STAFF Barbara Wood, Turner, 2013, $26.95, hb, 460pp, 9781620454619 It is 1450 B.C.E. in Ugarit, Syria, and past time for Leah to be betrothed. Born into a family with royal blood, she is the daughter of a wealthy winemaker who has caught the eye of Jotham, a powerful – and much older – shipbuilder. But when Leah discovers his family has the “falling sickness,” she refuses his offer. The insult to his reputation causes Jotham and his scheming sister to plot Leah’s family’s ruin. With no other offers, she sets out to find the cure for the sickness in order to save her family. While she is searching, she falls for Daveed, the handsome household scribe who seeks to restore the glory of the Brotherhood, the elite group who guard the Library of Ugarit.

Despite Daveed’s love for Leah, his vows prohibit their marriage, and a rift opens between them. As they pursue their separate goals, their paths cross again, and together they face overwhelming odds – including the Egyptian army – to save each other, their city, and Leah’s family.

With a story that’s vividly told with rich historical details, Barbara Wood brings Ugarit to life. Leah’s tale, as well as her grandmother’s, demonstrates that heroic women, no matter the time, can shape history. Wood puts her characters up against seemingly impossible odds and gives them the courage and ingenuity to overcome them. While it is essentially Leah’s story, I was particularly taken with Daveed and his devotion to and recognition of the power of writing and reading. For readers who enjoy delving into the deep past of civilization, this is a recommended read.

Kristina Blank Makansi

Ancient History — Classical

biblical

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RETURN TO ME Lynn Austin, Bethany House, 2013, $14.99, pb, 455pp, 9780764208980 The Biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah are brought to life in this epic tale of faith and courage.

After 70 years in exile, Israelites in Babylon are finally allowed to return to Jerusalem. Leading the return is Iddo, a priest who firmly believes in tradition and has always had faith that one day he will help to rebuild the holy temple. His family, on the other hand, struggles to understand his deep faith. They lack his insight, and find their new surroundings harsh, challenging, and unfamiliar.

Dinah, his wife, greatly misses the friends and family who chose to stay behind, and she struggles with the hardships of daily life. Zechariah, Iddo’s grandson, struggles to understand his family’s faith and how to fit in. And Yael, a young maiden who believes in the Babylonian Gods, must figure out how to reconcile the past with her future as a Jewish wife. By centering on just a few families, Austin recounts the trials the Jews encounter as they work to reestablish themselves in a world of mistrust and prejudice amongst the Samaritans.

Amidst the personal struggles is the largest one of all: resistance, and refusal to allow the holy temple to be rebuilt.

This is a very interesting saga that spans many years of Jewish history. However, the amount of information Austin packs into the story makes it quite dense and hard to stay engaged the entire way through. At one point, the story jumps ten years, and another six, making the reader wonder what happened in those intervening years, and creating a bit of a jarring plot. While not as charming or fun as her typical Christian stories, this was still a noteworthy read, and I am glad it is the beginning of a new series.

Rebecca Cochran ESTHER THE QUEEN H. B. Moore, Covenant Communications, 2013, $15.99, pb, 217pp, 9781621084174 Enjoying an evening walk without wearing their veils, young Esther and her friend come across an agreeable stranger having difficulty with a well.

Having assisted him, Esther is so stunned when a royal guard appears, identifying the stranger as King Xerxes, that she calls the king by his given name. Smitten, the king soon renews his search for a queen and summons Esther to his harem as one of the candidates. She and the king quickly fall in love, but Esther keeps one secret from him – the fact that she is a Jew. This is an engaging retelling of a well-known

biblical story. Esther is an appealing heroine, intelligent, attractive, and good-hearted without being irritatingly perfect, and the king, too, is three-dimensional and likeable, making for good chemistry between the pair. The king’s courtiers are well drawn, as is the humbler circle of Esther’s family and friends, and there’s an interesting subplot involving Haman, the villain of the story, that adds some motivation for his actions. Readers of both religious fiction and general historical fiction should enjoy this novel.

Susan Higginbotham

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classical

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DAUGHTERS OF THE NILE Stephanie Dray, Berkley, 2013, $16.00/C$17.00, pb, 576pp, 9780425258361 This final volume of the Cleopatra’s Daughter trilogy continues the story of the life of Selene, beginning in the year 19 BC. She is now the 19-year-old Queen of Mauretania. She and King Juba rule their client kingdom for the benefit of the Roman emperor, Augustus, and have brought much prosperity to that land. As a child, Selene had been kept virtually a prisoner in Rome. She endured much mistreatment by Augustus under the fallacy that she might rule Egypt one day. With the abundance of grain Mauretania is providing Rome, it would seem Selene would be left in peace to raise her daughter and son. She intends to rebuild her Isiac legacy. However, while on a visit to Rome, Augustus demands that Selene’s children remain there. This command leads to a confrontation that tests Selene’s magical skills. Her future and that of Mauretania is at stake.

Recently the Cairo Museum identified an overlooked statue depicting two children standing with their arms entwined as that of Cleopatra’s and Mark Antony’s twins, Selene and Helios. This discovery will surely rekindle interest in their lives.

Dray has used the ambiguities of the era skillfully by filling in unrecorded details and using “toostrange-not-to-be-true” historical elements to give believable depth and breadth to a fictionalised story. The Roman period comes alive before our eyes. One such vision is the depiction of her lost twin, Helios. He appears in reality as well as magically throughout Selene’s life. Alluding to the Pharaonic-era practice of sister-brother marriages, Dray has portrayed the intensity of the twins’ bond.

Although some readers might find their love scenes disturbing, they are dramatised artistically. While the storyline sags in parts, Dray’s strong writing carries the readers to the ending. Recommended.

Waheed Rabbani

HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Reviews | 17

RAIDERS OF THE NILE Steven Saylor, Minotaur, 2014, $26.99/C$31.00, hb, 352pp, 9781250015976 Fresh from his daring exploits in The Seven Wonders, the young Gordianus finds himself in Alexandria – “the most exciting city on earth” – with coins in his pocket and the beautiful slave girl Bethesda to keep him entertained. With not a little swagger, Gordianus sets out on his birthday to sightsee in Egypt’s glamorous capital, with Bethesda dutifully in tow. But Alexandria is seething with political discontent, as members of the Ptolemy family tussle for the throne, and the powers of Rome wait in the wings to pounce on the divided kingdom. When Bethesda is kidnapped, Gordianus is forced to put his budding mysterysolving skills to the test in a mission that will take him headlong into naval battles and tomb robberies – and might just teach him to value the things he has come to take for granted.

This prequel to Steven Saylor’s acclaimed mystery series offers a younger and brasher version of the acclaimed Roman detective, with much still to learn. While the Finder’s trademark self-importance occasionally verges on offputting arrogance in this 22-year-old guise, that is a character flaw easily forgiven as Saylor takes the reader on a spirited tour of 1st-century BC Alexandria. As usual, Saylor serves up ample doses of political intrigue along with all the trimmings of daily life in the ancient world. The result is a clean, fast-paced plot, proving irresistible from the very first line, and leaving the reader the wiser for the experience.

Ann Pedtke I AM LIVIA Phyllis T. Smith, Lake Union, 2014, $14.95, pb, 410pp, 9781477848821 Livia Drusilla is a 14-year-old girl when she overhears her father planning the assassination of Julius Caesar. Despite her young age, her father favors her with political discussion and debate, and Livia believes her life choices are for the good of Rome and not herself. Her first sacrifice is in marriage to Tiberius Nero, a man her father needs on his side in the aftermath of Julius Caesar’s assassination. She resists the marriage but finally submits for the future of Rome.

Livia never considers that a man could inspire true passion within her until she meets the adopted son of Julius Caesar, Caesar Octavianus (later Caesar Augustus), called Tavius, a family nickname. Without looking back, Livia is ruled by her heart and in so doing goes against every principle she had henceforth held dear. She finds herself united with a man she had thought to hate and fear, united not only in marriage but in a true partnership that would last 51 years.

Though Smith’s setting is the perilous time of Caesar, Mark Antony, and Cleopatra, her novel is character-driven. Smith’s Livia is such a dynamic character, so approachably human, at times fearless and forceful but also merciful and just. Smith just as masterfully creates Tavius, history’s Caesar 18 | Reviews |

HNR Issue 67, February 2014

Augustus, distinguishing the political figure from and illustrating the life of the man. The historical backdrop of Rome becomes more accessible, less academic, when seen through the lives of Smith’s characters.

I Am Livia is a wonderful journey to ancient Rome that provides amazing, thoughtful insight into one of its most influential and unconventional citizens.

Shannon Gallagher

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1st century

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VESPASIAN IV: Rome’s Fallen Eagle Robert Fabbri, Corvus, 2013, £14.99, hb, 384pp, 9780857897442 The new addition to Fabbri’s saga of Vespasian, Rome’s Fallen Eagle, begins in AD 41 with the assassination of Caligula and the immediate political implications and upheaval that this causes.

Embroiled in imperial politics, Vespasian is tasked with the mission of recovering the Eagle of the Seventeenth Legion, lost in one of Rome’s greatest military disasters: the Battle of the Teutoburg Wald, AD 9. This is seen as necessary to secure the new Emperor Claudius’s grip on power, vulnerable as it is without the support of the legions.

In Vespasian IV, Fabbri continues his expert blend of politics and military action. However, whilst the action is graphic and intense, it is now becoming rather predictable. Other than this, the only negative points are that old jokes are recycled and the novel is less addictive than previous instalments. Nonetheless, it is a thoroughly enjoyable read, and if the fights on the battlefield are predictable, then those on the political landscape are anything but, with the wily Narcissus, the Emperor’s freedman, a prominent figure.

I would recommend this book to those who have enjoyed any or all of the previous novels in the series and to those with an interest in this area of history. Moreover, with the aforementioned balance of intrigue and action, this book should find appeal to the general reader as well, although I would advise reading Vespasian I: Tribune of Rome first. Bring on Vespasian V: Masters of Rome!

Chris James

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11th century

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KNIGHTS OF THE HAWK James Aitcheson, Preface, 2013, £16.99, hb, 436pp, 9781848093225 Late 1071 finds William the Conqueror impatient to storm the English rebels out of Ely. But Ely, surrounded by treacherous marshes, seems to be inaccessible – until Tancred of Earnford devises a way. A half-Breton minor baron, Tancred has a keen mind, a sharp tongue and a fiery temper – resulting in a talent for both brilliant tactics and making enemies. When his ruse works, and he ends up leading the victorious charge on Ely, King William is not overly anxious to acknowledge

(let alone reward) his help. Embittered and eager to leave on a quest of his own – the rescue of his long-lost love – Tancred would seem to have his fair share of trouble, but worse is to come when the chance killing of a fellow knight makes our hero an outcast in the feudal system.

In Knights of the Hawk, Aitcheson provides a solid, satisfying conclusion to his really good trilogy – full of thrills, battles, adventures, turns and twists, and great characters that are true to the mindset of their period. As a rule, I’m not fond of open endings, but if this one means that we’ll see more of the headstrong Tancred and his friends, I’ll gladly make an exception.

Chiara Prezzavento

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12th century

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LIONHEART Stewart Binns, Penguin UK, 2013, £6.99, pb, 547pp, 9781405913607 Beginning in 1176, this military historical novel tells the story of Duke Richard of Aquitaine – known to history as Richard I or Richard the Lionheart – through the eyes of a knight named Ranulf. Ranulf is hard tested and hand-picked, along with a wise monk named Alun, to guide the young duke to his destiny of continuing the Plantagenet dynasty. Once Ranulf learns his mission, Richard’s story begins in earnest, chronicling his early victories securing his father’s kingdoms in Normandy and the surrounding area. Later, when Richard becomes king, the story follows Richard’s successes in the Holy Land during the Third Crusade through his famous captivity and ransom, and beyond.

Told in a highly narrative style, this book will appeal to fans of the period looking for a summary of the events of Richard’s life. Though written in first person, it is not an intimate life story; it is more of a recounting of the great deeds of a mighty king. With its focus on Richard’s military victories and charm, it can feel a bit one-sided, but if you’re a fan of the Lionheart, you’ll enjoy tracing the events that led to a self-centered duke becoming one of England’s most celebrated kings.

Nicole Evelina THE EMPRESS Meg Clothier, Arrow, 2013, £7.99, pb, 493pp, 9780099553144 This novel has an unusual setting – 12thcentury Constantinople – which is not an era many readers like me will be too familiar with, perhaps. It certainly makes a pleasant change from all the Tudor novels that have swamped the market over the past years. The main character, Agnes of France, is sent at the age of 13 to Constantinople to wed the Emperor Alexios, as was the common fate of princesses throughout history. Sadly, he is a mummy’s boy dominated by his scheming and scary mother, and the marriage is less than successful. Agnes, now renamed Empress Anna, is a survivor, and she manages to face up to and deal Classical — 12th Century

with whatever is thrown at her (which is quite a bit).

The novel is fast-paced and gripping with a focus on the brutality and cruelty of life in these times. Life is precarious no matter who you are, and sometimes the most dangerous place to be is at the top. Agnes/Anna sees one main character murdered in front of her eyes, and the reader is also witness to another being literally torn to pieces by an angry mob. The verisimilitude adds grit to the other side of the novel, which is a love story. This element of the book is not much of a surprise, it has to be said, but I find this common with novels of this ilk. Maybe sometimes characters (and people) are just destined for each other? Some of the events can be quite hard to believe, but in fact these are the historically accurate ones. Truth really can be stranger than fiction.

Clothier has written one previous novel, The Girl King, set in Georgia at a similar time period, and it is very refreshing to have novels set in such different places. Recommended.

Ann Northfield THE ARROW OF SHERWOOD Lauren Johnson, Pen & Sword, 2013, £16.99, hb, 301pp, 9781783030019 The subject and storyline of this novel will surprise no one who has been reading or watching films over the past fifty years or so, as it is the wellknown and many-times-told tale of Robin Hood and his (in this incarnation) not-so-merry men.

The usual suspects are present and correct, if in unfamiliar spellings: Friar Tok, Will Scarlette, Marion and so on, and yes, they steal from the rich and divide the spoils with the poor, and they hide in Sherwood Forest.

It is in many ways a novel about class war, however. The law favours the lords, and their word is worth much more than that of a mere peasant.

One reason that Robin is successful with his raids and redistribution of wealth is his exploitation of his position as a lord, albeit a disinherited and exiled one.

The book is set during the 12th century and is historically accurate, with interesting details about clothes, beliefs, religious and ceremonial practices and particularly weapons. It portrays a more negative view of King Richard than is seen in the films of this story. Here, he clearly dislikes being argued with and is shown as being quite a moneylover, all of which is more in accord with historical accounts than the somewhat romanticised figure seen elsewhere. Full of historical detail, this retelling of an old story puts new flesh on familiar bones. It’s written in an entertaining style and worth a nostalgic revisit if you haven’t seen the films for a while.

Ann Northfield HUNTER OF SHERWOOD 1: Knight of Shadows Toby Venables, Abaddon, 2013, £7.99, pb, 544pp, 9781781081617 / Abaddon, $7.99, pb, 9781781081624 12th Century — 14th Century

This re-imagining of the Robin Hood legends is fixed firmly in 1191 – King Richard away on crusade, Prince John plotting at home, Hood hiding out in Sherwood. The familiar legend has it all wrong, though. Hood and King Richard are not heroes, they are sociopaths and war-bringers. The only man with England’s true interests at heart is the much-maligned John – and his able henchman, Guy of Gisburne.

On one level, this is a pure adventure narrative.

It opens with a filmic, Ninja-style raid on the White Tower, continues with a quest plot offering ample action, a romance, good pace and plenty of gore. It is well-written and exciting, an Assassin’s Creed type of story in book form.

But Gisburne is not just an action hero. We also read his back story, his training to be a knight, his experience of the Holy Land, and he emerges as a likeable, rational, humanist hero, with a 21stcentury take on the morals of his time.

Knight of Shadows is very readable, and gets the political facts of its history just about right (though very slanted) – but I don’t think it makes any attempt to inhabit the history. The Knights Templar villain is particularly a creature of fantasy literature, more Calvinist than Catholic, but really pure invention.

Knight is published as fantasy, but it is an interesting hybrid of fantasy and historical fiction.

It is certainly adds to the Hood canon, and I will follow the sequels.

Richard Lee

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13th century

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NOWHERE WAS THERE PEACE David Pilling, Fireship, 2013, $18.50, pb, 260pp, 9781611792652 Nowhere Was There Peace is a fine, bloody, manmade medieval novel, which, as a tale of men at war, rivals anything recent of Cornwell’s. I liked the main character, Franklin – a hard-working stonemason – and wanted more about him, a working man, swept into survival mode when his world collapses around him. The battle scenes are stark and true, and arming details added to the realism. The structure, changing points of view chapter by chapter, is now popular, but it annoys me, George R. R. Martin to the contrary. I’d rather the story had stayed with Franklin, who is a clear and sympathetic center.

There are occasional lapses of accurate detail, but writers in this genre often find themselves between a rock and hard place when they are creating fiction. There is a subplot concerning Miriam, a Jewish victim of savage “Christian” opportunism, but this, although germane, felt like a misstep, as her story felt contrived. I’m no expert on shifting allegiances of this period, but as long as the story stays among the men – the soldiers, the royal spies and conniving, brutal war lords – Pilling is excellent. I would definitely read a followup novel about Franklin, and I was amused by the author’s gangsta’ backstory on the origins of “Robin

Hode,” another likely candidate for a sequel.

Juliet Waldron COVENANT WITH HELL Priscilla Royal, Poisoned Pen Press, 2013, $24.95, hb, 230pp, 9781464201936 The editor for this medieval series, of which this is the tenth volume, writes that “This is a series not to be missed by readers who yearn for one more medieval mystery from Ellis Peters,” and this reader agrees.

The atmosphere is thick with our expectations of medieval society and culture: wayward priests, greedy merchants, starving orphans, religiosity – often of a hypocritical bent, and politics, politics, politics. It is 1277, and Prioress Eleanor and Brother Thomas make a pilgrimage to the East Anglian shrine of Walsingham, only to discover that King Edward may also be visiting there soon.

Within the first few pages, a nun falls to her death from a tower in the cloister; soon there are other victims. Eleanor and Thomas realize that there is a plot to assassinate Edward when he arrives at the shrine and the assassin is, one by one, eliminating those who might interfere with his plans.

This is a satisfying mystery following in the footsteps of Peters, where religious people are not devout clichés but individuals with histories of their own. Historical detail is thick and accurate.

A marvelous read.

Jeanne Mackin

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14th century

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THE LOST ABBOT Susanna Gregory, Sphere/Trafalgar Square, 2013, $29.95/£19.99, hb, 406pp, 9780751549737 In this, the 19th chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew, Matt and Michael along with their usual companions are sent as the Bishop’s Commissioners to Petersborough Abbey to investigate the disappearance of Abbot Robert a month earlier. Immediately, they become embroiled in a feud between the bedeswomen of St. Thomas Hospital and the Abbey. Not the least is the Shrine the bedeswomen have in their cemetery, which is dedicated to Lawrence de Oxforde, a robber and murderer. Within hours of the Commissioners’ arrival, Joan Sylle, head of the hospital, is killed, beginning a series of murders with various motives and suspects. Gregory has kept up an exhausting pace in this chronicle. The plot twists and turns, keeping the reader confused and eager. It lives up to her usual fare. Also, Matthew’s former love, Mathilde, returns and departs again, leaving Matt even more confused as to whether he will choose Julitta or Mathilde, if and when Mathilde returns.

Audrey Braver A BURNABLE BOOK Bruce Holsinger, William Morrow, 2014, $25.99, hb, 464pp, 9780062240323 / HarperCollins, 2014, £14.99, hb, 496pp, 9780007493302 A Burnable Book pitches you headlong into HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Reviews | 19

London, 1385, during the uneasy reign of Richard II. The story bursts with historical figures, including the hero, John Gower (poet), and secondary characters Geoffrey Chaucer (the ‘father of English literature’), John Rykener (transvestite), and Sir John Hawkwood (mercenary). The drama begins with a prostitute witnessing the killing of a girl on Moorfields, following which the prostitute flees with the article for which the murder was committed – a book prophesying the death of kings, including the as-yet-alive Richard. The remainder of the story involves the hectic search for this ‘burnable book’ (primarily by Gower at the behest of his friend Chaucer) and the unravelling of the threat to the king it embodies. But make no mistake – Holsinger spins no simplistic conspiracy tale, but an intricate and multi-layered collusion of agents, each pursuing separate goals and driven by differing needs.

I am in awe of Holsinger’s utterly convincing simulation of 14th-century London. A stroll around a bishop’s palace, a hand of cards, the intricate workings of the law, the haunts of prostitutes, religious processions and much more – the tale is steeped in wonderful and telling detail, which yet never descends into info-dump. Then too, as a professor of medieval literature, Holsinger is well able to furnish the literary background, not least his own artful construction of poetic prophecy.

I am less keen on Holsinger’s character construction, particularly that of Chaucer and Gower. Information provided by narration frequently clashes with character actions. Gower is asserted to be a talented and notorious blackmailer, yet he is naively manipulated from beginning to end. Perhaps more seriously, the uneven characterisation of Chaucer – womaniser, friend to mercenaries, and insulter of Gower’s poetry – is at odds with his deeply humane and thoughtful poetic legacy.

In sum: a well-researched and plotted historical thriller.

Carol Hoggart

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15th century

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THE HOUSE OF MEDICI: Inheritance of Power Edward Charles, Pen & Sword, 2013, £15.99, hb, 214pp, 9781781593028 This is the first in a trilogy of novels about the rise and fall of the wealthy banking family whose name is practically synonymous with Renaissance Florence. Charles takes a novel angle on Cosimo’s rise to power by telling the story of his mistress, the Circassian slave Maddalena.

We meet her in 1457 as she enters the Convento di San Damiano. In a series of flashbacks we hear how Cosimo’s father, Giovanni di Bicci, founded the bank that continued to grow, thanks to his son’s acute business sense and political adroitness, and how the management of the bank and Cosimo’s status as the richest man in Italy ensured the 20 | Reviews |

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prosperity of the family and enabled him to influence the complex workings of the Florentine Republic. The key to this book, and possibly the next, is the tricky moment of transition: handing power down one generation or even two, as Cosimo tries to safeguard his grandson Lorenzo’s future.

This is a thrilling moment of Florentine history, with an incomparable cast of real-life characters.

Charles does well with the two women, the abbess and Maddalena, but much more could have been achieved given the wealth of historical research available. I was also perplexed as to why it was necessary to invent a cardinal in the family prior to Giovanni di Lorenzo de’Medici. It will be interesting to see if the second book, The Seeds of Decline, can work the Medici magic to greater effect.

Lucinda Byatt

English history. With its fast pace and some great twists and turns in the story, this debut novel from author K.E. Martin keeps the reader turning the pages, wanting to know what happens next. The historical detail of the daily life and customs of this period was fascinating, and, telling the story through the eyes of Francis Cranley proved an excellent way of engaging the reader in the action taking place.

I had only one minor complaint: I found the old-English dialect irritating. A scattering here and there would have been OK, but great lengths of it made for laborious reading, and I found myself skimming over those parts after a while. However, that aside, I would recommend The Woodville Connection to readers looking for a light medieval “whodunnit”.

Liza Perrat

THE MAPMAKER’S DAUGHTER Laurel Corona, Sourcebooks Landmark, 2014, $14.99/£9.99, pb, 368pp, 9781402286490 The Mapmaker’s Daughter begins in Spain, in that fortuitous year, 1492. Fortuitous for some.

For others, like the Jewish population, not so lucky. Amalia Riba sits waiting for Spanish soldiers to take her away. Where previously she and her family had been valued by the court for their skill at mapmaking, now she has been given a choice – either convert from Judaism to Christianity or be expelled from her home. For Amalia, this situation brings to mind days gone by. As she remembers her earlier life, she can see in her mind’s eye the secret rituals her mother shared with her, though her father did not keep the ways of her people. From her mother, she learns her true identity. She begins to search for a way to remain true to this identity.

Her search leads her to danger and forces her to make an ultimate choice: will she convert or will she accept the peril brought by living her life as a Jew? Amalia is a character readers cannot help but like and admire: she is courageous, stubborn, and smart, and she accepts responsibility for her choices. Corona explores the unfamiliar world of Renaissance Spain, painting vivid pictures of the court of Henry the Navigator and the way of life in Muslim Granada. A very good read!

Anne Clinard Barnhill

THE LION AND THE ROSE Kate Quinn, Berkley, 2014, $16.00/C$17.00, pb, 464pp, 9780425268766 In this sequel to The Serpent and the Pearl, Kate Quinn dives back into the dangerous world of 15th-century Rome and the scheming household of the Borgias. Three members of the household find themselves as pawns in Rodrigo Borgia’s quest for glory in the papacy. Giulia Farnese, the Pope’s mistress, wants to raise her daughter in a loving family where she won’t be corrupted by political intrigue. Leonello, a dwarf who serves as Giulia’s unlikely bodyguard, hides behind his caustic wit but harbors secret passions of his own. Carmelina, the cook, has escaped from a life in a nunnery and wants only to ply her trade in peace. But when a dangerous member of the Borgia family uses his powerful connections to force Giulia, Leonello, and Carmelina to his will – and even to kill – they must work together to find a way to escape without bringing the wrath of the Pope down upon their heads.

Kate Quinn’s plot twists are always a delight, driven by characters so different yet so fully believable in their passions and motivations. No protagonist in this book is entirely immune to corruption or temptation, but each has the capacity for kindness and compassion as well. Just when I thought I knew where the tale was going, not one but two unlikely love affairs blindsided me completely – unexpected, yet fitting perfectly into the fabric of the story. A truly satisfying novel is like a large-scale collage image, where the pieces look distinct when seen from up close, yet come together into a larger picture when you step back to view them all at once. The Lion and the Rose is one of those masterful books that offers this startling – and perfect – shift of perspective.

Ann Pedtke

THE WOODVILLE CONNECTION K.E. Martin, Pen & Sword, 2013, £13.50/$29.95, hb, 233pp, 9781783030026 The illegitimate Francis Cranley’s father was killed in battle fighting for the Duke of York. The Duke then took in the boy, Francis, who grew up alongside his own son, Richard of Gloucester.

Francis and Gloucester become loyal friends, and when an old soldier (who once saved the Duke’s life) arrives at the castle one wintry morning, accused of murdering a child, Gloucester turns to Cranley for help in proving the man’s innocence.

I found The Woodville Connection to be an easy-to-read medieval murder mystery, with much intrigue and drama, set against a dramatic event in

THE DREAM MAKER Jean-Christophe Rufin (trans. Alison Anderson), Europa, 2013, $26.95/£16.99, hb, 421pp, 9781609451424 The Dream Maker follows the Renaissance adventures of Jacques Coeur, the man who played 14th Century — 15th Century

the role of Argentier to King Charles VII of France (1403–61). This financial role, in Rufin’s engaging story, has less in common with a modern minister of finance than a banker and merchant extraordinaire. Rufin takes us from Coeur’s early childhood through the events that inspired him to stay true to his working-class origins by rejecting the aristocracy’s continued worship of chivalry and by bringing about a rebirth of France’s power through mercantilism and finance.

Coeur’s first travels to the Levant (i.e. the Eastern Mediterranean) in the aftermath of personal disgrace introduce him to rich and exotic materials, some of which he takes back to France.

This first of many voyages gave Coeur a vision to connect France with the rest of the world through a network of mercantile relations, allowing the country to rebuild from the depredations of the Hundred Years’ War. Like Cromwell in Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall, Coeur sees diplomacy and trade as the secret to prosperity for his country, rather than expensive wars that satisfy an aristocratic ideal of honor won through battle.

Rufin also reimagines Coeur’s relationship with Agnès Sorel, an often-painted royal mistress.

Ironically, his love for her demonstrates all the characteristics of the courtly love associated with Chivalric Romance: a noble passion devoid of love’s physical aspects. Rufin, already a renowned author in France, has written a fascinating novel with themes similar to Mantel’s Wolf Hall. In both, we see men of the working class rise to financial prominence through their mercantile activities to become close advisors to kings, only to lose it all when their kings turns on them.

Terri Baker

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THE LOST DUCHESS Jenny Barden, Ebury Press, 2013, £16.99, hb, 432pp, 9780091949235 England, 1586: Queen Elizabeth and all England prepare to meet the Spanish Armada, which is intent on invasion. Not one ship can be spared to cross the Atlantic Ocean to a fragile colony on the Virginian east coast, though Walter Raleigh is prepared to finance such an expedition. Emme, one of the Queen’s ladies, has been traumatised by rape. She eagerly accepts a task from Her Majesty’s spymaster, Walsingham: travel incognito on board the Lion and bring back her own report on the colony. Emme’s meeting with boatswain Kit Doonan changes her life forever as self-disgust wrestles with an attraction that threatens to overwhelm her. His life has been ruined time and again. This venture is another chance to show his abilities as a mariner and in his dealings with the native ‘savages’ – not a term of abuse, but one simply indicating the nature of their tribal society.

This is a deeply researched novel; as a stylist 15th Century — 16th Century

Barden is generous with the back story, although it is not altogether expertly handled. More importantly, in other ways the book rates with the best. The novel is easy to read, and the dedication is sure to make the author’s mother proud.

Nancy Henshaw

history buffs should enjoy vicariously visiting the ancient and ecologically unique Burren. There is no need to read the other books in the series to enjoy Cross of Vengeance, but it does whet the appetite for more. Recommended.

Elizabeth Knowles

ABOARD CABRILLO’S GALLEON Christine Echeverria Bender, Caxton, 2013, $16.95, pb, 332pp, 9780870045257 Tasked by Spain to explore in the Pacific and locate the mythical seven cities of gold, as well as a route to China, conquistador Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo sails his fleet from Mexico (New Spain) to California in the 16th century. A young priest accompanies the expedition, a man Cabrillo has once had whipped, and Cabrillo questions the man’s motives. The galleons sail up the savage coast, trading with the local natives, the Spanish always leery of attack. Cabrillo is magnanimous with the natives, as well as his own men, as they name the myriad islands and bays they discover. A dangerous storm threatens the fleet, and Cabrillo fears they must turn back as winter approaches.

Experiencing exotic customs, flora, and fauna, from San Diego (which Cabrillo had named San Miguel) to the modern-day Russian River above San Francisco (a large bay that eluded them), Cabrillo ventured where no European had gone before.

Overly descriptive writing, and time spent on repetitive events – trading with friendly natives – slow the story’s pace. The omniscient viewpoint keeps the characters at a distance, especially the young priest. The tension is light, the inhabitants usually accommodating, except for the final skirmish that determines Cabrillo’s fate. Bender sailed aboard a ship similar to Cabrillo’s to better experience the voyage, and her research feels authentic; the maps included are invaluable. More travelogue than novel, this will please readers interested in Cabrillo, geography, and the early exploration of California.

Diane Scott Lewis

WINTER OF THE METAL PEOPLE Dennis Herrick, Sunbury, 2013, $16.95, pb, 252pp, 9781620062371 Despite the fact that so many public buildings, parks, and monuments throughout what is today America’s Southwest bear the name “Coronado,” Francisco Vásquez de Coronado’s 1540 expedition into that area was anything but successful.

Searching for the fabled Seven Cities of Gold as far east as modern-day Kansas, Coronado’s expedition of Spanish conquistadores and their Aztec allies ran into the Puebloan tribes. Although the Spanish government had policies demanding the humane treatment of Indians throughout New Spain, Coronado’s foundering expedition treated the Puebloans ruthlessly in order to obtain food, clothing, and shelter. As a result, Coronado’s men became embroiled in a two-year-long war that eventually ended with the Spanish withdrawal back into Mexico; it would be almost fifty years before they returned.

Herrick fully enters the minds of his historical Spanish and Puebloan characters, showing the cultural and religious differences between the two cultures that would inevitably lead to the first Indian war. There is a saying that history belongs to the victors, so while much of the Spanish story is based upon historical written documents, the author had to imagine the Puebloans’ story. But his research is well founded, and what results is a balanced novel that expresses the worldviews of both sides and relates it in an exciting and interesting manner. This novel is highly recommended for those interested in the history of the American southwest and its native peoples.

John Kachuba

CROSS OF VENGEANCE Cora Harrison, Severn House, 2014, $28.95/£19.99, hb, 224pp, 9780727883209 This the tenth book in Cora Harrison’s 16thcentury Burren mysteries. Set in the west of Ireland, it begins with Mara, the Brehon of the Burren, travelling with her law students and family to attend Mass at Kilnaboy church. As Brehon, Mara is the lawgiver and judge in the district. A routine duty turns into a mystery when first a holy relic is destroyed, and then a pilgrim is murdered.

Harrison takes the reader through many twists and turns as Mara attempts to discover who killed the pilgrim, how it was managed, and why.

Mystery fans will enjoy Harrison’s tricky red herrings; this reviewer solved the mystery quite early, but was totally wrong. There were several other false trails throughout the story. Irish history lovers will like the information about medieval Brehonic law and the lifestyle of the times. Natural

THE BOLEYN BRIDE Brandy Purdy, Kensington, 2014, $15.00, pb, 272pp, 9780758273363 Just when you think all Tudor characters have been unveiled, Purdy comes up with one lady most people know very little about. Elizabeth Boleyn is Anne Boleyn’s ‘mommy dearest’, to put it mildly.

Promiscuous, adulterous, cold and unloving towards her children and her ‘traitor’ husband, this vain, goal-oriented vixen plays a prominent role in the Tudor court.

As lady-in-waiting to Queen Katharine (the only person Elizabeth ever shows an ounce of caring or devotion to), this man-eating vulture lives a life of which she would regret the tragic ending.

The beginning of the book sets the pace for an uncovering of Elizabeth’s laments and repentance, which fortunately allows room for redemption and human understanding from the reader’s point of view. And from there on, this story, written in the first person, is truly amazing!

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To capture interest, The Boleyn Bride shares more than Elizabeth’s fleshy and greedy desires. An intimate look at how Anne, George and Mary were raised brings a refreshing new understanding of who they were as children and then the adults they turned out to be. But, all in all, this is Elizabeth’s story, and the fate of her children only bring us closer to the ultimate pain she experiences and her realization of it all along with her regrets. This extremely well-written novel succeeds in rendering Elizabeth both unforgettable and undeniably real.

Lucy Bertoldi THE HAREM MIDWIFE Roberta Rich, Gallery, 2014, $16.00, pb, 352pp, 9781476712802 In this second in the series following The Midwife of Venice, Hannah and Isaac have now made their way to Constantinople after fleeing Venice. It is 1579, and Hannah has made herself indispensable as the midwife to the Valide and to Sultan Murat III’s harem. As it is, Constantinople is much more tolerant of Jews than was Venice, so she and Isaac have made a home and a business without fear of reprisals.

Hannah is called in the middle of the night to the palace, not to attend a birthing, but to talk down a young girl in tatters, a “purchase” by the Sultan who has taken a liking to her. Leah is 14 and Jewish, her family has been slaughtered by barbarians, and she was sold into slavery. Hannah has been asked to determine whether Leah is “intact” because it is the Valide’s intention of luring the Sultan away from his favorite wife and begetting male heirs via Leah.

Then, of course, there’s a side story. Isaac’s alleged sister-in-law – his brother’s widow – comes to Constantinople to collect her dowry. Religious rules require that Isaac marry this woman if he cannot repay her. Hannah and Isaac’s marriage is on the verge of collapse.

The historical detail is fascinating, and I have to admit to adoring Hannah. She is feisty, thoughtful, daring yet deeply emotional. What drove me nuts was how Rich felt compelled to tie up every single loose thread at the end by some strange deus ex machina resolutions. Some of it felt downright forced, and it ruined my enjoyment of the book.

Ilysa Magnus

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HANNAH OF SANTIAGO: The Adventures of an English Woman in a Spanish Colony Esther Barbour, Piedra Santa Editorial, 2013, $12.00, pb, 352pp, 9789929583474 In 1626, Englishwoman Hannah Fisk accompanies her father to the New World, but the voyage ends tragically. Pirates attack their vessel, Hannah’s father is slain and Hannah nearly raped.

Rescued in the nick of time by a Spanish vessel, Hannah meets two men, Sebastian Maldonado and Diego Sarmiento. Both desire Hannah, but Sebastian proposes marriage and Hannah eventually accompanies him to Santiago, the capital 22 | Reviews |

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of the Guatemala colony. There she is accepted by his family and begins a new life as Sebastian’s wife.

Eventually Diego Sarmiento becomes governor of the colony and continues to lust after Hannah, endangering her marriage and her family.

This is a sweeping novel, covering a great deal of territory. The author has carefully researched the era, the setting and period are unusual and interesting, and her love of the subject is clearly evident. The book includes reference material on the actual historical characters and locations featured in the novel. However the characters could use more development. Traumatic events occur, barely leaving a ripple; they don’t seem to affect the characters very deeply. The story is told too quickly and was not really felt by this reader; events seem glossed over. Although I enjoyed learning more about a country and an era I knew little about, I couldn’t help but feel that such a big canvas could have benefitted from a deeper, more complex layer of paint.

Susan McDuffie GIRL ON THE GOLDEN COIN: A Novel of Frances Stuart Marci Jefferson, St. Martin’s, 2014, $25.99, hb, 336pp, 9781250037220 The licentious court of the Merry Monarch is brought to life in the debut novel of Marci Jefferson.

Girl on the Golden Coin dramatizes the tumultuous relationship of Charles II and his cousin Frances Stuart, with whom he falls in love even as she resists his advances. Frances, from a penniless

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THE QUEEN’S DWARF

branch of the Stuart clan, is determined to remain a virgin until she marries, hoping to marry well for the sake of her impoverished kin. She also fears that becoming the King’s mistress might cause her family secrets to be revealed. However, Frances is under a great deal of pressure from both the Dowager Queen Henrietta Maria and Louis XIV of France to influence Charles as much as possible.

In order to protect her family, Frances must cultivate the King’s affections without succumbing to his charms, a challenge which becomes more daunting as Frances finds herself as deeply in love with Charles as he is with her.

In the meantime, Frances must deal with the jealousy of Charles’ official mistress, Barbara Villiers, and the plots of courtiers who seek to manipulate her. Although Frances is often judged to be a ninny, Jefferson portrays her as a clever woman who knows how to survive in a jungle of intrigues. As a Catholic, Frances also struggles with her conscience, and is never at peace when her virtue is compromised. This aspect adds a deeper layer to what is otherwise a tale of sexual politics. When the opportunity to become another Anne Boleyn presents itself, Frances must decide between her own happiness and what is best for England.

Written with spirit and insight, the novel reveals both the glamour and the dirt of court life while peering into the soul of a woman who is one of the unsung heroines of English history.

Elena Maria Vidal

E D I TORS’ C H OICE

Ella March Chase, St. Martin’s, 2014, $26.99/C$31.00, hb, 384pp, 9781250038534 It is 1629, three years into the reign of Charles Stuart and Henrietta-Maria, his French Catholic queen. George Villiers, Lord Buckingham, who is closest to the seat of power as Charles’ dearest friend, plots to destroy the Queen. His instrument? A teenage dwarf named Jeffrey Hudson from the shambles of Oakham.

Buckingham grooms the angelic-faced, eighteeninch-tall Jeffrey in courtly manners, as an ostensible gift to the Queen to join her “menagerie” of other “freaks” and seeming misfits who entertain the court.

But Jeffrey’s role is far darker – he must spy on the Queen he comes to adore and protect.

This is a tour de force on many levels. Though I had little background in Stuart court history – and despite Chase’s frank acknowledgment in her Historical Note that she took many liberties with Jeffrey’s story – Jeffrey became a living, breathing person to me. As the story is told in the first person, we become privy to Jeffrey’s darkest inner monologues, his deepest wishes, his personal struggles. To his peers and the King and Queen, Jeffrey’s physical size says nothing of his great humanity, his courage and his ability to love. Many of the other characters, many (but not all) of whom were historical, are fully fleshed out. We come to loathe Buckingham; feel deeply for Charles and Henrietta-Maria; respect Will Evans, the Welsh giant who became Jeffrey’s best friend.

A marvelous, engrossing and highly recommended read.

Ilysa Magnus 16th Century — 17th Century

THE HARLOT’S TALE Sam Thomas, Minotaur, 2014, $24.99/C$28.99, hb, 320pp, 9781250010780 Second in Thomas’ Midwife Mystery series, The Harlot’s Tale is set in York in 1645, a year after the city came under Puritan control. It’s a fast-paced tale that vividly depicts the hypocrisy of Puritan rule. The citizens chafe under the strictures of Puritan “godliness,” but when a fire-and-brimstone preacher comes to town with sermons that command the godly to cleanse the city of whores, misery turns to tragedy.

Lady Bridget Hodgson, midwife and gentlewoman, knows the prostitutes from delivering their bastards. When dead harlots turn up with Biblical verses in their hands, the “godly” are implicated as murderers, and Bridget’s powerful brother-in-law Edward wants only to avoid bringing shame on his faction. Bridget and Edward’s rebellious son Will work to bring justice to light. It isn’t clear whether in the process they’ll bring disaster on their loved ones and be bested anyway by the ungodly “godly.”

One of the book’s themes is how topsy-turvy social class has become in the Civil War. Even characters uninfluenced by this upheaval push the expected historical limits with close relationships – both domestic and romantic – between disparate social classes.

Judith Starkston NIGHT BOAT Alan Spence, Canongate, 2013, £14.99, hb, 444pp, 9780857868527 At the foot of Mount Fuji towards the end of the 17th century, eight year-old Iwajiro attends a lecture on the Eight Hot Hells, and develops a childish, but deeply ingrained, fear of eternal damnation. His mother encourages him to attend the local temple, hoping that he will develop a devout belief which will pave the way for a life of religious development and enlightenment.

His father, a businessman who neglects his own devotions, tries unsuccessfully to discourage him.

So begins this fictionalised biography of Hakuin, one of the greatest teachers in the history of Zen. Iwajiro leaves home and joins the temple as an apprentice, where the head monk renames him Ekaku (Wise Crane).

Dissatisfied with life at the temple, Ekaku travels from one end of Japan to the other seeking knowledge and spiritual enlightenment from a wide range of sources and experiences. He sees the aftermath of a tsunami and sits in a state of perfect concentration whilst Mount Fuji erupts, throwing molten rock into the vicinity. Eventually Ekaku becomes Sensei, teaching both monks and lay people as he slowly moves to his inevitable destiny.

The book is full of dramatic scenes – of physical and mental struggles with teachers, some of whom he discounts as worthless, others who dismiss his beliefs and describe him as a corpse. The author paints a vibrant picture of Japanese society, full of stories and poetry. I would have liked to have seen a glossary or footnotes to explain the various Japanese 17th Century — 18th Century

words and phrases which abound throughout the book, which just become meaningless to the reader without explanation. This novel will not be to everyone’s taste. It is both frustrating and challenging – very Zen. Mike Ashworth

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THE DEVIL’S TONGUE: Bresciano Accused Sam Benady and Mary Chiappe, Two Pillars Press, 2013, £9.99, pb, 230pp, 9781919663142 Set in Gibraltar in the spring of 1793, this novel has a real sense, particularly, of place. There is a plan included so the reader can follow the action exactly, and the enclosed setting makes the book somewhat reminiscent of cosy murder tales such as by Agatha Christie or the murder in different places series from M.M Kaye. Giovanni Bresciano is faced with a serious problem: the body of his arch‑enemy Percival Rogers is discovered on his property after a fire. Bresciano is filled with horror and harbours deep suspicions about his family members. Could his mother or his fiancée be responsible? And if so, what should he reveal and what should he keep back?

There are many things about the mystery that don’t add up, such as the corpse having wet hair, the fact it bleeds apparently after death and that someone takes the trouble to rescue the corpse from the fire. No one is particularly distraught by the death of such a nasty villain, but justice demands that the killer is identified. There are many satisfying red herrings and plot twists, which are all pulled together at the end. This is the fifth in the series, and its fans will be very content with the latest. Recommended.

Ann Northfield MILK FEVER Lissa M. Cowan, Demeter Press, 2013, $19.95, pb, 262pp, 9781927335208 Set in 1780s France, Milk Fever tells two stories.

The first is that of Celeste, a servant girl, educated by her employers. The second is that of her mistress, Armande. Armande’s narration is delivered through the charming 18th-century device of a diary, which Celeste reads in hopes of finding clues to her mistress’s sudden disappearance. Celeste, naturally, is a far less grammatical and artful reporter than her mistress.

During this time of unrest and intellectual ferment, Armande has been liberally educated by her eccentric father, a publisher of banned erotic and political books. Armande teaches her maidservant, who has hitherto experienced little but violence and abuse. Celeste responds to her lady’s attention; she learns and grows, and they form a friendship across the sizeable barrier of class, a line Armande has already crossed. The loss of her baby in a gruesome accident has led her to accept (and rejoice) in the “peasant class” role of wet nurse.

Meditations upon philosophy, art, and science

inform Armande’s thoughts, and her charges are not only well-fed, but seem brighter than other children. Research into the period and contemporary feminist writings (Madame Le Rebours, who wrote on breastfeeding and childcare, and Olympe de Gouges, who wrote a “Declaration of the Rights of Women”) is deftly woven into the story. Poetry and magic realism pervade the text, but, for me, the earthly portrayal of mothering and its significance to society was the heart of the book.

Juliet Waldron PFITZ Andrew Crumey, Dedalus, 2013, £8.99/$13.99, 164pp, 9781909232808 Conceived of by a prince, Rheinnstadt will be a great city, both architecturally impressive and culturally diverse; every detail will be mapped and documented. For the museums there must be artefacts, for the theatres there must be plays and for the library there must be books. So it follows, then, that there must be people, citizens of Rheinnstadt, to discover and to write, to populate the city, which is this entirely fictitious and yet allconsuming concept of a city.

When cartographer Schenk comes across a roughly written name on a map, he believes he has found a man named Pfitz and therefore a point of common ground with which to impress the beautiful Biographer. They are not the only ones interested in Pfitz, however, and all would use him for their own ends.

Pfitz is epic, not in sheer volume, but in the magnitude of the world that Crumey has created.

The transition from “reality” to fiction, to fictitious fiction was, at times, a more than a little mindboggling, but the intense weaving of fact with fiction, and even fiction within fiction, made for a thrilling read. When the lines are this closely drawn, the characters so vivid and the story so tangible, could you be sure which is the real world, the true version of events, and the real foe?

Penny Wild THE DEVIL’S BREATH Tessa Harris, Kensington, 2013, $15.00, pb, 334pp, 9780758267009 Dr. Thomas Silkstone, a Philadelphia-born anatomist, finds himself in Oxfordshire, England to help his amour search for her long-lost son.

Few but Thomas notice the subtle clues of danger approaching: an absence of birds, rats seeking higher ground, unusually high barometer readings, and a severe heat wave. The “Great Fogg of 1783” is advancing from the north, a natural disaster of epic proportions. The toxic mist destroys livestock, decimates crops, and poisons the townsfolk.

Amidst this backdrop, Thomas and Lydia hurry to locate her son before other interested parties reach him first. Meanwhile, panic grips the village and four people are found murdered. Thomas must do what he can to uncover the killer and tend the ill while the lethal cloud persists.

The author of two other Dr. Silkstone mysteries, Harris expertly weaves her tale with HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Reviews | 23

authentic medical and scientific details and has her characters interact with historically accurate events, locations, and individuals, all of which make the story even more absorbing. She also includes a glossary and author’s note, more fully explaining the historical and medical background of her narrative, but the descriptions of the “Great Fogg” and its repercussions alone make this well worth the read.

Rebecca Henderson Palmer THE DROWNING GUARD Linda Lafferty, Lake Union, 2013, $14.95, pb, 384pp, 9781477805299 When you are an officer in the Ottoman army, you do as you are told by the Sultan and his family.

If Esma Sultana, favored sister of Mahmud II, commands you to drown her Christian lover in Constantinople’s Bosphoros Strait, you do it.

However, performing this gruesome task night after night after night, then delivering the desperate man’s final words to the Sultana’s eunuch, is tearing Ivan Postivich apart.

Then Postivich is taken to the Sultana’s palace.

It seems that Esma is tormented by horrific visions and thinks that confession might ease her conscience. After all, Ivan Postivich shares her moral burden and won’t be able to judge her, but he might understand what she is going through.

Postivich would rather break the woman’s neck for her crimes, but to refuse her would be suicide. He listens to Esma’s side of the story and slowly comes to believe her. Postivich also begins to love Esma despite her appalling acts. However, Esma has also proven herself to be ruthless. Now that she has told Postivich her secrets, can he survive?

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In her historical drama, Linda Lafferty invokes Scheherazade as she introduces us to the real-life Esma Sultana, born in 1778. Elevated by birth beyond many of the strictures applied to Muslim women, Esma owned her own palaces and had her own harem of women rescued from slavery.

Lafferty does a terrific job weaving fact and fiction into a lush psychological tale which will haunt you, just as Esma and Ivan Postivich are haunted by their intertwined deeds.

Jo Ann Butler KING’S MOUNTAIN Sharyn McCrumb, St. Martin’s, 2013, $25.99, hb, 326pp, 9781250011404 In 1780 the United States is in danger of losing the Revolutionary War. After defeating George Washington’s army in Pennsylvania, British troops are sent to the Carolinas to split the fledgling country, recruiting affluent Tories to help fight the rebels. The effort begins on the coastal plain, and then troops are sent inland. When settlers beyond the Blue Ridge hear that the dreaded generals Patrick Ferguson and “Butcher” Tarleton are bringing their forces westward, they decide not to wait for Redcoats to reach their homes.

The Overmountain Men form militias and trudge across the Appalachians, intent on stopping Ferguson’s army.

Fortunate readers will already know that Sharyn McCrumb has brought this crucial battle to life in this novel. Ms. McCrumb uses ancestral legends and solid history to introduce us to John Sevier, one of the Overmountain militia leaders. Virginia Sal, seamstress and bed-warmer of General Ferguson, slips us into British army councils and

THE DEVIL IN THE MARSHALSEA E D I TORS’ C H OI C E

Antonia Hodgson, Hodder & Stoughton, 2014, £17.99, hb, 381pp, 9781444775419 / Mariner, June 2014, $15.95, pb, 9780544176676 Antonia Hodgson is no stranger to the literary world, being currently Editor-in-Chief at Little Brown UK. She has proved that she can spot a good novel and promote it; now she shows us she can write one.

The Devil in the Marshalsea is a whodunnit in the classic formula: a murder is committed in a closed setting, creating a finite list of suspects; an outsider is called in to solve the mystery; the place is awash with motives, intrigues and further crimes until the murderer is unmasked, usually the least likely suspect. In this novel the closed setting is a prison, the Marshalsea debtors’ prison at the southern end of London Bridge in the year 1727. The outside investigator is a newly committed prisoner, commissioned by the Governor.

The plot is superbly crafted, keeping the reader guessing to the end, the characters are people we care about, and the setting is so well drawn one wonders whether the author herself ever served time in the Marshalsea.

The closest parallel I know to this novel is C. J. Sansom’s Dissolution. If you liked that, and tens of thousands have, then I am sure you will enjoy this just as much. Hodgson has promised us a series, and it promises to be as successful as the Sansom series.

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lends a touch of humanity to the reviled Ferguson.

Vivid storytelling at its finest!

Jo Ann Butler REVOLUTIONARY Alex Myers, Simon & Schuster, 2014, $26.00/ C$29.99, hb, 320pp, 9781451663327 This debut novel is based on the true story of Deborah Samson, a Massachusetts servant and weaver who disguised herself as a man, joined the Continental Army under the name Robert Shurtliff, and served seventeen months in the American Revolution. She served part of the time as a combat infantryman, was wounded, dug a musket ball out of her own leg to avoid detection, and was honorably discharged in 1783.

This is a gripping story on more than one level. The well-researched history brings the setting vividly to life as Deborah/Robert learns to shoulder a firelock and fight for her country’s independence. She is also fighting for her personal independence, and watching her not only pretend to be a man, but actually try to think and feel like a man to better avoid discovery, is mesmerizing.

What deepens the novel and makes it more than just an adventure story is Deborah/Robert’s internal development. When tested, she is brave and tenacious, loyal, trustworthy, and kind. In the novel, she is capable of a close friendship with a woman as well as a loving relationship with a man.

In the end, whether male or female, Deborah/ Robert is a commendable, worthy person, and that seems more important than gender.

A historical note explaining where fact ends and fiction starts would have been helpful. Still, Revolutionary is a luminous story of love and heartbreak, of personal struggle in wartime, of betrayal, and of great courage. Recommended.

Elizabeth Knowles FAIR AND TENDER LADIES (Richard Nottingham Mysteries) Chris Nickson, Crème de la Crime, 2014, $28.95/£19.99, hb, 224pp, 9781780290553 1734. The hits just keep coming for Richard Nottingham, Constable of Leeds. Still mourning the death of his beloved wife (murdered in the last book), he finds solace in his daughter, Emily, and his work. Aided by Emily’s beau, Rob Lister, and laconic deputy John Sedgwick, Nottingham investigates when a young farmer, newly arrived to search for his lost sister, is found with his throat cut. Nottingham is quickly distracted, however, when Emily is threatened and her charity school is repeatedly vandalized.

Nickson proves adept at characterization – so much so that when, yet again, a main character is unexpectedly dispensed with, the reader feels the rug yanked out from under her, and is just as lost as the surviving characters. Nickson has a gift for illustrating the voids left when those we love are taken from us, a negative space which cannot be filled. Thus, his mysteries are, for lack of a better word, sorrowful, and character development shares equal page space with plotting. Dialogue 18th Century

has enough period/local slang to immerse without distracting, and Nickson is skillful in illustrating the varied social strata of 1730s Leeds. The procedural aspects are also well-done, with the result being an engrossing mystery – but one that may well leave readers in tears along the way.

Bethany Latham THE TRAITOR’S WIFE Allison Pataki, Howard, 2014, $14.99, pb, 496pp, 1476738602 Beautiful. Tempestuous. Cunning. Peggy Shippen is all these things. As the reigning belle of Philadelphia society during the British occupation of 1778, she is admired by men and envied by women. First the lover of the notorious British spy John Andre, and then the wife of celebrated American general-turned-traitor Benedict Arnold, Peggy and her story are brought to life through the eyes of her loyal maid, Clara Bell.

The Traitor’s Wife is a refreshing departure from the typical royal-themed historicals pervading the market today. The upheaval caused by the American Revolution makes for fascinating reading, and yet Peggy Shippen has been little written about.

Perhaps it is because she is not a sympathetic character, and this novel does nothing to disprove that notion. Nonetheless, Peggy’s magnetic ability to obtain her desires is vividly brought to life; the reader can almost imagine her melting gaze in the midst of her full-fledged assault on the brash, yet unassuming Benedict Arnold.

Unfortunately, this novel has some drawbacks.

The story’s narrator, Clara Bell, has little depth.

While generally loyal to Peggy, she floats along

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without much purpose beyond bemoaning her living conditions with the Arnolds and pining after Caleb Little, the Shippen family stable hand.

Even when given a chance to make a difference, she agonizes over what to do. Additionally, there are numerous mistakes in the details of the period. Descriptions of clothing and customs are misrepresented throughout the novel.

However, it is clear that the author has a passion for the story of Peggy Shippen; she accomplishes the re-telling of the historical narrative very well.

General historic fiction readers will enjoy the quick plotting and originality of the The Traitor’s Wife, but historical fiction purists may want to pass.

Caroline Wilson ESPINAS Fernando Pérez Valdez, Austin State Univ. Press, 2013, $18.00, pb, 239pp, 9781622880164 Author Pérez Valdez has carved out a unique niche in historical fiction by writing exclusively about Spanish missionaries of the 16th and 17th centuries. Espinas, a novel about Franciscan missionary Venerable Friar Antonio Margil de Jesús, was first published in Spanish in 2012 by the Franciscan Province of Saints Peter and Paul of Michoacán, Mexico. This edition is the first English translation.

Pérez Valdez has thoroughly researched the life of Friar Margil, who is credited with founding many missions throughout Mexico, Central and South America, and in what is today East Texas. But the book reads more like a work of nonfiction than a novel as Pérez Valdez retraces the friar’s arduous journeys in a journalistic style that lacks resonance.

E D I TORS’ C H OI C E

Eliot Pattison, Counterpoint, 2013, $26.00, hb, 358pp, 9781582437316 1760, New York Colony: Exiled Scot Duncan McCallum seeks only to avoid the fighting between the French and English and accompany his mentor, Conawago, on a journey to find the last living members of Conawago’s Nipmuc tribe. However, Duncan’s find of a murdered Scot drowned in Lake Champlain and the discovery of slaughtered Christian Indians at Bethel Church send the pair on a different and more dangerous quest, one that will take Duncan into the bowels of the earth and to an island of ghosts peopled with fierce human enemies. Their mission will lead Duncan and Conawago deep into the heart of a conspiracy that stretches far back into the past as they attempt to save five lost children and the imperiled Iroquois confederacy.

Original Death sweeps the reader along on a compelling and suspenseful hero’s journey in which the realms of the spirit world of the Iroquois mingle with the harsh world of the colonial era frontier and the military ambitions of the French and English colonial powers. Pattison’s riveting storytelling and intriguing plot kept me entranced from the first page. His understanding of the complexities of the era and the frontier make his portrayal of Duncan’s and Conawago’s quest a multi-layered and complex read, one to savor. It fascinates and comes very highly recommended.

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The facts are all there, recorded accurately, but the depth of character and sense of conflict that make for interesting fiction are absent; reading it puts one in mind of Butler’s Lives of the Saints.

The author points out in the prologue that Friar Margil is being considered for sainthood by the Catholic Church. This fact explains the overly reverential tone the author takes in writing about Friar Margil. Clearly, this book is designed to further the cause of Friar Margil’s canonization, and one should keep that intention in mind when reading it.

John Kachuba BURNT NORTON Caroline Sandon, Head of Zeus, 2013, £16.99, hb, 320pp, 9781781850671 Readers who think Downton-style drama could never happen in reality should look at Caroline Sandon’s Georgian soap opera, a tale of jealousy, passion, extravagance, and revenge based on the lives of the former residents of her husband’s family’s longtime home. Burnt Norton is a large manor house in Gloucestershire, and its unusual name didn’t come about by accident. While the English country scene on the novel’s jacket appears peaceful and coolly elegant, the chronicle within is anything but.

For the family of Sir William Keyt, MP for Warwick in the year 1731, the tragedies begin immediately and run downhill from there. After a horrible carriage accident that kills his youngest son and leaves his eldest daughter paralyzed, Sir William loses himself in drink, neglecting his wife, ignoring his heir, Thomas, and firing the governess.

When he brings Molly Johnson, an innkeeper’s pretty daughter, back to Norton House to be Lady Keyt’s maid, the scene is set for calamities on a grand scale. Over time, obsessed by having Molly for himself, Sir William builds her a brand new, lavishly decorated mansion, heedless of the cost to his finances or to his wife and children.

Although Molly loves Thomas, and he loves her, she is powerless to fight her fate. Meanwhile, Sir William’s younger daughter Dorothy, who starts out as a sympathetic figure, grows progressively more unpleasant as she plans the downfall of the woman who she believes tore her family apart.

The emphasis here is the eventful plot, which is spiced up with even more sordid shenanigans than happened in history. Aside from the easy-toroot-for Molly, the characterization can be thin and inconsistent, but the story has a can’t-look-away quality that exerts a strong pull nonetheless.

Sarah Johnson VIENNA NOCTURNE Vivien Shotwell, Ballantine, 2014, $26.00, hb, 304pp, 9780345536572 Anna Storace comes to the opera stage in Naples as “L’inglesina,” a 15-year-old prodigy overshadowed by the native Italian singers. Six years later she returns to London the most famous prima donna of Vienna and a personal favorite of the Austrian emperor. As befits an opera heroine, HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Reviews | 25

her life between those moments is filled with tragedy and dangerous love: an abusive husband, heartbreaking affairs, and even a temporary loss of voice. Through it all her talent sustains her and carries her forward.

It’s not just that she is an amazing singer; Anna captivates. Whether for a packed opera house or an audience of one man, she creates an emotional connection by giving unreservedly of herself. Ultimately she captures the heart of young, brilliant (and married) Wolfgang Mozart. He, in turn, captures hers with equal parts kindness and genius. Would that it could work out! Mozart is not just her only real friend in the book, family included, but her only equal as well. But after all this is opera, so of course it does not work out. For the happy duration of the affair Mozart steals every scene he’s in, drawn with a light and cheerful hand but not quite the over-the-top giggler of Amadeus.

Shotwell, a singer herself, makes us appreciate the training and technical discipline that goes into an opera performance without ever drifting into pedantry. My only complaints are a couple of tragic instances that seem conveniently rushed over, and do we really need a pronunciation guide for “Marchesi,” “Rauzzini,” and “Anna”? Overall, a strong debut and a nice read that made me wish “Le nozze di Figaro” was playing somewhere in the neighborhood this weekend. Recommended.

Richard Bourgeois SPIDER IN A TREE Susan Stinson, Small Beer Press, 2013, $9.95, pb, 320pp, 9781618730701 The proverb says, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” but I might extend that to “cover blurb.”

On reading the reviews for Spider in a Tree, I was tempted to send it back; it sounded like a predictable and wearisome deconstruction of faith in general and Jonathan Edwards in particular.

I suspect the reviewers have read no more of Edwards than “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” if that. Fortunately, Stinson has read much more.

The book is billed as “a novel of the First Great Awakening,” and Stinson tries to do just that, presenting us with a host of viewpoints from colonists to slaves and even insects. She gives an honest imagining of everyday people caught up in extraordinary times, where ecstatic faith, town politics and human nature make contentious bedfellows. Although the novel was slow to pull me in, by the end I felt I had an intimate glance into the disparate lives of these 18th-century residents of Northampton, Massachusetts. The least sympathetic character for me was Jonathan Edwards himself, but perhaps that’s because I teach Early American Literature and have a firm picture of ‘my’ Jonathan Edwards in my head.

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remembered, inaccurately, for ‘fire and brimstone’ sermons, he went on to be invited to be president of New Jersey College (Princeton), but died from the new smallpox inoculation which he took to encourage others to do the same.

Susan Cook FATHER JUNIPERO’S CONFESSOR Nick Taylor, Heyday, 2013, $16.00, pb, 258pp, 9781597142618 In the mid 1700s, Father Paloú, a young Franciscan friar from Mallorca, joins the exuberant and zealous Father Junípero Serra in his quest to reform the pagans of New Spain. In Baja, California, Paloú, known for his precise administration skills, is left behind to govern the established missions.

He is distraught at not being allowed to follow his hero, Serra, into Alta California. Instead, Serra takes Paloú’s rival, the melancholy diarist, Father Juan Crespí. Years later, Paloú is called north to Monterey to help in the difficult conquering of the native population in the name of Christ. He is then instructed to assist in locating the Great Bay to be named after the Franciscan’s patron saint, San Francisco. Paloú encounters drunken Spanish soldiers, recalcitrant natives, starvation, and must face his own envy over Serra’s constant favoring of Crespí. Wavering in his priestly beliefs, Paloú never fails in his duty to the emerging missions that dot the fog-shrouded California coast. But his jealousy may destroy him and those he loves the most.

As a former Californian, I learned more about the history of my birth state from this book.

Another important lesson is the cruelness of forcing religion on a populace, instead of just sharing your beliefs and education for the benefit of all. This is a beautifully written and well-paced story. These historical personages will incite sympathy but shock sensibilities as readers follow their true-life adventures in a savage land.

Diane Scott Lewis THE INFAMOUS ROSALIE Evelyne Trouillot, Univ.of Nebraska, 2013, $19.95/C$22.95, pb, 152pp, 9780803240261 Lisette, a Creole slave, works in the plantation house of owners better than some in the 1750s.

Still, they could have her killed at any moment.

That’s more likely than in previous decades, because fear is sweeping the white islanders, with rumors of poisoning and rebellion. The Rosalie is the name of the infamous boat that transported the slaves across the Atlantic from Africa. Lisette knows the stories from her grandmother, godmother, and the other women of her tribe who made the passage and who care for her. The story they won’t tell her is what happened to her aunt, and why. That only comes out at the end, and was inspired by the old legend of an African-born midwife who made a new knot in a cord she kept each time she killed a baby at birth, saving it from slavery.

There’s something dreamlike about this fine story. As nightmarish as slavery was in the French colony of St. Dominique, I never had a sense of on-the-edge-of-my-seat fear that Lisette’s dignity

or faith in the women who loved her would be damaged. It’s an uplifting homage to people loving one another and creating relationships under the most dire of circumstances. I wasn’t surprised to learn that the Haitian author has written children’s books, and I wasn’t surprised to read her quote: “to write in Haiti is to say no to ugliness, mediocrity, and sloth, for a little more happiness at the end of the road.” This book received the Prix Soroptimist de la romancière francophone, a prize that honors a novel written by a woman from a Frenchspeaking country that shows the cultural and literary diversity of the French-speaking world.

Recommended.

Kristen Hannum BECOMING JOSEPHINE Heather Webb, Plume, 2013, $15.00, pb, 320pp, 9780142180655 Before she was Napoleon Bonaparte’s empress, Rose de Beauharnais was a young bride desperately trying to exchange her Creole upbringing for the sophisticated lifestyle of a privileged Parisian lady. Her arranged marriage to Alexandre de Beauharnais was not the love story she’d craved.

Two children are born of the match, but soon after Rose finds herself struggling to live while her husband is supposedly working on his military career. Alongside her personal struggles, France is quickly descending into revolt.

Saving loved ones from the violent mobs, decaying prisons and the horrifying guillotine becomes Rose’s purpose, until she herself faces the same dreadful fate. Owing to the death of Robespierre, Rose survives the Reign of Terror and begins piecing her life back together. She fortunately befriends the newest society belle, as well as the men who were to be the backbone of the government before Napoleon steps in. Rose’s introduction to the man who has been described as her greatest love is well-detailed; however, the course of their marriage in the final pages is scant.

As a love story, this novel doesn’t offer a satisfying narrative. Rose’s first marriage was made of convenience though ended with a warm-hearted camaraderie. Her marriage to Napoleon should have been either the climax or a satiating ending; however, it falls short. We are left with a longsuffering protagonist who has little to look forward to other than a title and a mansion.

While the writing style is vivid and elegant, the timeline seems to be a problem. Three decades are squeezed into the pages, with the larger portion Rose’s early years. This would work well if this story focused on the events that transformed Rose into Josephine. A severely abridged version of her second marriage may leave readers feeling deflated by the final scenes.

Arleigh Johnson

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I MARRIED THE DUKE (The Prince Catchers, #1) Katharine Ashe, Avon, 2013, $5.99, pb, 384pp, 9780062229816 First in a new series by Katharine Ashe, I Married the Duke is an excellent comfort read for those readers wanting a novel of romance, intrigue and non-stop fun. The setting features swords, scars and ruffians set in the path of our glorious copper- haired heroine, who seeks answers to her heritage. Arabella and her sisters seek to fulfill the prophecy that one of them will marry a prince, and it’s this cherished dream that leads Arabella straight into Luc Westfall, who hides his noble identity as a duke. Given the novel’s title, one could imagine what will happen, but there are quite a few twists that will keep you guessing along the way (imagine bars on windows, thumb-less villains, a murderous uncle, unfit aristocrats, and lustful beach scenes).

There is quite an intriguing cast of characters, and the nuances of the early 1800s English setting are well portrayed. Exhibiting Ashe’s fine storytelling skills and dramatic flair, the romance is up and down for our stubborn heroine. This makes for a wonderfully passionate novel that will have me looking for the next sister’s story, especially since there are still some loose ends left to be tied up.

Marie Burton GREASY GRASS Johnny D. Boggs, Five Star, 2014, $25.95, hb, 266pp, 9781432827106 Johnny Boggs’ take on the Battle of Little Big Horn is an interesting mélange of viewpoints.

From Custer’s widow to his little brother Boston to Lakota chief Crazy Horse, we are transported from one end of the battlefield to the other, from Montana to the New York City of 1926. And the infamous debacle unfolds through each of these voices.

Boggs, a Spur Award winner for his western novels, attempts an ambitious project in a short book. It is reminiscent of Shelby Foote’s fictional portrayal of the Battle of Shiloh through multiple voices in Shiloh. The problem here is that there are well over 40 individual viewpoints in just over 250 pages. The only voice heard from twice is Libbie, Custer’s widow. Some of the narrators appear only fleetingly, in no more than a page and a half, there and then gone before we can get to know them, before we can make a connection. And as might be expected with such a large cast of narrators, individual voices can be hard to discern. They tend to meld together.

But the greater message is that Little Big Horn, like all battles from the beginning of time, was fought by more than just the commanders. Boggs gives voice to all classes of soldier and Sioux, to the desperation of Custer’s command and the determination of their foe. And in what may be the most well-drawn voice in the entire book, he captures Libbie Custer’s abiding love and deep mourning for her “Autie.”

Tony Hays 19th Century

CURSED IN THE ACT Raymond Buckland, Berkley Prime Crime, 2014, $15.00, pb, 304pp, 9780425268018 Set in the heart of London in 1881, Cursed in the Act is the first novel in Raymond Buckland’s Bram Stoker mystery series. The book opens at the famed Lyceum Theatre on the opening night of a new production of Hamlet. This event is marred by the non-fatal poisoning of the play’s star, famed actor Henry Irving. Unwell and not his usual commanding self, Irving nevertheless takes the stage. The tragic death of Irving’s understudy the following day, however, leaves the Lyceum’s business manager, Bram Stoker, suspecting foul play. These events lead Stoker immediately to assign his stage manager, Harry Rivers, to investigate further.

Told from Harry Rivers’ perspective, Cursed in the Act is fast-moving and intriguing. Each of the principal characters is engaging, and provides a unique, behind-the-scenes perspective on late 19thcentury theatre life. Buckland does a good job of bringing Bram Stoker to life and effectively conveys some of his more eccentric beliefs, such as those in the occult. The story’s mystery is compelling, taking the reader to various London theatres, and offers up a diverse group of characters, many of whom have ample motive for wanting to harm the cast and crew of the Lyceum. The only aspect of this novel that didn’t work for me was the inclusion of the practice of voodoo. Although the component of the narrative concerning voodoo was interesting in and of itself, it seemed out of place alongside the rest of the storyline.

Overall, Cursed in the Act is an enjoyable novel, and one that fans of cozy mysteries should find appealing. I look forward to reading the next installment of Harry Rivers’ and Bram Stoker’s adventures.

Melissa Morrisey MRS. LINCOLN’S RIVAL Jennifer Chiaverini, Dutton, 2014, $26.95/ C$28.95, hb, 352pp, 9780525954286.

Ambitious, well-educated, and beautiful, Kate Chase was called the “Belle of Washington” during the Civil War years. She sought to be the ultimate White House hostess by aiding her father, Ohio senator Salmon P. Chase, in his political ambitions to be President of the United States.

Therein lies the problem with this novel: the rivalry promised in the title is virtually shoved into the background, as too much space is given to the political and personal rivalries between Kate’s father and Abraham Lincoln – first for the presidency, and then throughout the administration of the Civil War. Mary Todd Lincoln, sharp-tongued and determined, makes only a few appearances in this lengthy book, mainly to bolster the premise that actual conflict existed between the two strong-minded women.

Kate’s story picks up steam when the focus is on her relationship with Lincoln’s secretary John Hay, and becomes even more intriguing with her on-off romance with the Boy Governor of Rhode Island, William Sprague, whom she eventually married in

a glamorous wartime wedding.

The author provides a realistic depiction of the nation’s capital during the war: sumptuous parties and receptions, overflowing boardinghouses and hotels, grimy streets, wounded soldiers and hordes of refugees, constant political infighting, and military blunders that extended the horrific conflict. But as a reader, I never found myself truly engaged in the story: at times it seemed unfocused and misdirected, and the characters mostly lackluster. Even Kate, who relates the events, does not fully come to life. Kate Chase Sprague led a life fascinating enough to fill several good novels; Chiaverini’s effort, disappointingly, is not one of them. While a valiant attempt to highlight a mostly forgotten historical figure, it somehow misses the mark nonetheless.

Michael I. Shoop PILGRIMAGE Diana Davidson, Brindle and Glass, 2013, $13.95/ C$19.95, pb, 288pp, 9781927366172 Set in 1891 in Lac St. Anne, Alberta, Canada, Pilgrimage is the story of four people trying to find love and happiness in a cold land troubled by violence and cultural conflict. Mahkesîs is a young Métis woman, pregnant following a rape by the Hudson Bay Company store manager. Moira is an Irish immigrant servant of his wife; Moira is also attacked by this man. Georgina, the manager’s Anglo-Irish wife, has a checkered past, but now is longing for a child. Gabriel is Mahkesîs’s brother, who works on the Athabasca River and is also a musician. He is in love with Moira, and she with him.

At the time of the story, northwestern colonial Canada was a harsh land. Women had little freedom and few options, and racism could limit the future for anyone. The four protagonists all try to build their lives during one calendar year in this difficult environment, and at the end of that year, a woman’s body is left at the bottom of a well.

This is not a happy story, although there are bright spots here and there, and at least the possibility of happiness for one character. The book will probably resonate most with readers familiar with the history and culture of the area. Lac St. Anne was named for the patron saint of childbirth, and to this day, it is a pilgrimage destination for those seeking redemption.

Elizabeth Knowles THE QUAKER AND THE REBEL Mary Ellis, Harvest House, 2014, $13.99, pb, 352pp, 9780736958508 The traditional storyline of a romance blossoming between a Confederate and a Unionist is made unique in this novel, with Emily working with the Underground Railroad movement.

Meanwhile, Alexander disguises himself as a sort of Robin Hood stealing provisions from Union soldiers to benefit Confederate soldiers, and neither knows the other’s secret as they fall in love. This Civil War story is set in Virginia as it struggles with divided views regarding slavery and HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Reviews | 27

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THE SENTINELS OF ANDERSONVILLE

Tracy Groot, Tyndale, 2014, $24.99, hb, 368pp, 9781414359489 Andersonville Prison was a death camp masquerading as a prison for captured Union soldiers during the Civil War, but did the Confederates want it that way? The author relays a story so horrifying yet utterly compelling as we follow three young soldiers whose lives will never be the same simply because they crossed paths. While transporting his prisoner to Andersonville, Emery Jones suddenly faces treasonous thoughts when he realizes the deplorable conditions of the prison in Georgia. He meets Dance Pickett and Violet Stiles, who echo his sentiments about the conditions. Their efforts to clean up Andersonville lead to sad statements about humanity and the lack of justice during wartime.

This novel is a stirring story that demands to be read in one sitting because readers won’t want to leave these unforgettable characters, and Tracy Groot could not have done a better job with this topic. Even while giving us horrifying visions of “fence-posts” of dead soldiers, we still cannot help but reach for that ultimate gift of a happily- ever-after. The Sentinels of Andersonville is a wonderfully powerful and evocative story that I would recommend to any historical fiction fan.

Marie Burton war, causing it to split into two states. Alexander plays a wonderful hero as Emily’s character becomes more likeable as pieces of her past are revealed, though her role as a governess seems a bit far-fetched due to her uncouth manners and rash actions. The author chooses to space out events with an authentic timeline and adds a bit of villainy as well. If you look hard enough, you might notice an undercurrent of spirituality, but it isn’t the focus.

Pick this one up if you are looking for an intriguing romance set during the early 1860s.

Marie Burton MUCH ADO ABOUT JACK Christy English, Sourcebooks Casablanca, 2014, $6.99/£4.99, pb, 320pp, 9781402270512 Angelique Beauchamp, ship owner and spirited widow, is the talk of the ton, dallying with whomever she pleases. Previously abandoned, Angelique vows never to be love’s fool again, but when she meets the handsome naval captain, James Montgomery, her resolve will be tested. The sparks that fly ignite a torrid, brief liaison that leave James wanting more, but can he convince Angelique to risk her heart again to find true happiness?

Christy English continues her playful take on Shakespeare’s comedies with Much Ado about Jack, next after Love on a Midsummer Night. English reprises the romance of Benedick and Beatrice in the romance of Angelique and James, but the witty repartee becomes simmering ballroom conversations of innuendo. Angelique’s friend becomes embroiled in a troubled romance, and this subplot fulfills the play’s central story of Hero and Claudio. The intimate scenes are a bit heavy with the nature similes, but English provides plenty 28 | Reviews |

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of scene changes for such dalliances. Much Ado about Jack is a quick read and a lusty romp through the countryside of Regency England, London townhouses, and the Prince Regent’s glittering palace.

Lauren Miller WISHING ON BUTTERCUPS Miralee Ferrell, David C. Cook, 2014, $14.99, pb, 416pp, 9780781408097 They say time heals all wounds, but the last 17 years have done little to ease the pain of Beth Roberts’ past. She had been found alone and disfigured on the Oregon Trail, and the injuries of her childhood have cast a shadow over the woman she’s become. Intrigued by the enigmatic young lady, writer Jeffery Tucker longs to unravel the mystery that surrounds his fellow boarder, but discovering her secrets might cost him his heart.

Written as a standalone, Miralee Ferrell’s Wishing on Buttercups takes up where Blowing on Dandelions left off, returning readers to Baker City, Oregon in the 1880s and the familiar camaraderie of Katherine Jacobs’ boardinghouse. Like its predecessor, it incorporates heavy religious themes to explore emotional conflict, but the context and premise of Beth’s quest for acceptance and her journey of self-discovery make this installment a much stronger historical.

My only real criticism of this lighthearted inspirational is that Ferrell habitually utilizes miscommunication as a means of creating romantic tension. Her characters often jump to the wrong conclusions and frequently withdraw from one another after losing the nerve to admit their true feelings. The monotony is frustrating and, at times,

makes it difficult to remain engaged in the story.

Erin Davies THE GODDESS AND THE THIEF Essie Fox, Orion, 2013, £18.99, hb, 360pp, 9781409146223 Only the other week, I came across the term “Oriental Gothic”. And that is exactly how I would describe Essie Fox’s latest novel, because Victorian Gothic is a genre she has made very much her own with her two previous novels: The Somnambulist and Elijah’s Mermaid.

In this new novel we explore the relationship between Britain and India. Alice is sent back to England, after an idyllic Indian childhood, to live with her aunt in Windsor, leaving behind all she loves: the warmth, colour and vibrancy of the country and its people, especially her beloved ayah.

Her aunt dabbles in spirituality, holding séances and deceiving those who mourn. She is aided and abetted by the mysterious Mr Tilsbury who, when he meets Alice, sees her as the conduit through which he can plan the theft of the infamous Kohi-Noor diamond which was presented (or stolen, depending on your point of view) by the British Crown and is now part of the Crown Jewels crown.

This is the author’s most ambitious novel so far.

Rich and sensuous, its scope is wide, incorporating the Victorian obsession with death, with opium and with India.

I am always impressed by the way the author takes her inspiration from classic Victorian novels without resorting to pastiche. However, there is a great deal of Hindu mysticism, myth and religion in which I found myself floundering. But my main problem with the novel is that I totally failed to see Tisbury’s charisma.

However, my lack of response to this renders The Goddess and the Thief a bit disappointing when it promises so much. Having said that, this novel is well worth reading and I look forward to many more.

Sally Zigmond THE LAST OF THE BLACKSMITHS Claire Gebben, Coffeetown Press, 2013, $16.95, pb, 336pp, 9781603811821 When 16-year-old Michael Harm leaves his home in the Palatinate in 1857 for America to take an apprenticeship under his uncle in Cleveland, he stops in New York to deliver letters from home to former neighbors – and is robbed of all his money.

To continue on his journey, he has to request funds from his uncle, a bitter, domineering, pennypinching man who seems to hate him. Nevertheless, he perseveres and becomes a journeyman, eventually becoming a carriage maker. He is skilled and careful, with an artistic eye for design and balance as well as good, solid workmanship. His main business competitor is Charles Rauch, whom Michael had met on the crossing from Europe to North America. Rauch also competes for the woman Michael loves, Elizabeth Crolly.

Michael is successful in his suit and marries Elizabeth. After a period of adjustment the couple 19th Century

settles into a more or less happy routine. Michael’s business prospers in the way typical of other hardworking German immigrants of the mid-19th century.

Claire Gebben writes with clear, concise prose. The historical material enhances her story, although it is told with many flashbacks that tend to slow the flow of the narrative. Her characters are well-developed with both virtues and foibles. This is a more or less true story that has been pieced together from a transatlantic correspondence over the generations.

Audrey Braver A UNION NOT BLESSED James Green, Accent, 2013, £7.99, pb, 396pp, 9781908262912 In 1805, ex-Vice President Aaron Burr plots treason against the United States. The American Secret Service blackmails South American revolutionary, Sebastian Francisco de Miranda Rodriguez, to help expose him. But Burr is backed by the British, who are also anxious to remain friendly with Miranda. So while some British agents are trying to kill Miranda, others are trying to save him. Throw in a part-time whore who spies for England, a lady’s maid who is a cutthroat on the side, a General of dubious loyalty and a man married to his niece and living on an island in the Ohio River, and you have a busy plot. Wandering through the whole thing is a Boston lawyer, Macleod, whose innocence is his best protection as all the players in this murderous game use him to forward their own interests.

With so many characters, it is to James Green’s credit that one seldom loses track of them. Despite this, the double crosses and multiple betrayals get increasingly difficult to follow. So complicated does it become that every so often characters have to explain what they are doing. This is well-managed, with the dialogue always credible, but that it is necessary at all is an indication that things have got out of hand. Losing a couple of sub-plots might make life easier for the reader.

The story whisks you along, and the historical background is credible. Miranda is particularly interesting. He was an important figure in the South American revolutionary movement, but not much known to the wider world nowadays.

Unfortunately, a passing reference to the slave trade includes a basic error on the routes. This creates some doubt about Green’s care with historical accuracy.

Tom Williams STILLWATER Nicole Helget, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014, $24, hb, 336pp, 9780547898209 In the vast stew of 19th-century America, Minnesota forms from the collisions and debris of the frontier, the mountain men and whores, the rich and the greedy, the Indians, the runaway slaves. Near the Saint Croix River, an unfrocked nun and an outcast Indian woman shelter and love abandoned children, running a station on the 19th Century

Underground Railroad on the side, in the outpost of Stillwater.

The fates of three of these children form the core of the novel: the twins Clement Piety and his sister Angel Hatterby, separated at birth, and Davis Christmas, son of a runaway slave. As Stillwater sprouts and teems around them, they grow up in wildly different circumstances. Yet their lives intertwine. Their thoughts drift in and out of each other’s heads. Their fathers appear and disappear in weird ways, especially Angel and Clement’s halfferal parent, Beaver Jean. Their adventures weave back and forth with humor and tragedy and the persistence of love.

All this is told in a vigorous and warmly resonant prose that captures both the ridiculous and the sublime. “Big Waters snored boisterously. She wasn’t sleeping but clearly wanted to be. Mother St John pulled the door shut and went about other business, mumbling the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary as she did so.” Sometimes the story runs a little flat – I had no use for Angel’s adoptive and murderous mother – but the telling of it is a steady pleasure.

Cecelia Holland UNDER THE WIDE AND STARRY SKY Nancy Horan, Ballantine, 2014, $26.00, hb, 496pp, 9780345516534 / Two Roads, £18.99, hb, 496pp, 9781444778410 As in Loving Frank, Horan has again reimagined life with a famous man through his love interest. American Fanny Osbourne leaves her cad of a husband for Europe, where she meets Robert Louis Stevenson; despite a ten-year age difference and disparate backgrounds, they begin an affair.

Knowing the aspiring writer cannot support her, she returns to her husband, but eventually ends her fence-straddling, divorces, and marries Stevenson.

The novel charts their time together through Stevenson’s rise as an author, his devastating health problems, and an impressive array of world travel.

Horan’s writing style is mostly “tell” rather than “show,” but the novel has a variety of strengths: it seems well-researched, looks at things from both Louis’s and Fanny’s perspective, and is proficient at portraying the petty jealousies of Stevenson’s literary coterie and the entrenched prejudice against and condescension for Americans. As a character, Stevenson shows progression, moving from an immature twenty-something to a more introspective, understanding individual. Fanny, unfortunately, is stagnant: while she’s a tireless nurse for Louis, she hates his friends, and her anger at not being considered as brilliant and creative as her husband (by him or anyone else) is unleashed in volatile outbursts. This creates an endless cycle in their relationship which makes for slow reading, especially during the middle section of the book, a chronicle of bickering. E.g.: “You treat me like your jailer!” Fanny shouted…

“Why must you always expect the worst possible outcome for everything?”

Fanny stood up and put her face close to his.

“Why must you go around chirping like a canary,

pretending everything is perfect? It is so wearisome.”

“You are wearisome! Stop trying to manage every minute of my bloody life!”

Wearisome, indeed. The beginning and final sections of the novel are much stronger, and descriptions of the couple’s time in Samoa are especially engaging. Final tally: this book is uneven, but fans of women’s fiction may find much to enjoy in this story of an indomitable woman’s relationship with an artistic man.

Bethany Latham DESTINY’S SURRENDER Beverly Jenkins, Avon, 2013, $7.99/C$9.50, pb, 370pp, 9780062231109 This second book in the Destiny series focuses on Andrew Yates in 1885 San Francisco, who sows his last oats with his favorite prostitute, Billie, before going home to seek a suitable wife. A year later, on the eve of his engagement party, Billie turns up with a child in tow, claiming that he is the father, and that an evil villain is out for revenge. The only solution seems to be for Drew to marry Billie.

Protecting his son and wife becomes quite the challenge as Drew discovers the inner strength and stubbornness of his unlikely wife. This is definitely more bodice-ripper than historical fiction, especially given the modern tone and language. But despite this and the implausible plot, the story is worth a read because of its unique characters. Billie doesn’t fall into a swoon, and isn’t always rescued by her hero; in fact, it is she in the end that thwarts the scoundrel. In addition, it is nice to see that Billie isn’t immediately changed just because her status has; in fact, even at the end of the novel, she faces social snubs due to her past. The end result is a decent romance, but not much more.

Rebecca Cochran THE OUTCASTS Kathleen Kent, Little, Brown, 2013, $26.00, hb, 336pp, 9780316206129 Set in the wild Texas of 1870, with a side trip to New Orleans, The Outcasts begins like a Larry McMurtry novel but with better women. Lucinda, an epileptic whore, is sneaking out of her bordello with a sack full of the madam’s money to go find her lover, and you’re there with her the whole way.

Lucinda’s way, though, soon becomes alarming, not to say distasteful, as she and her bad guy boyfriend go around ripping people off and murdering them. Kent’s ambitious plot, involving Texas Rangers (McMurtry again) and buried gold and people far too gullible, overwhelms her storytelling ability. She falls into summary rather than drama. That means the characters are flat, even Lucinda, whose ultimate redemption comes way too late to stir any sympathy after she betrays and lies and smirks her way around Texas. Other potentially interesting characters – a “crippled” boy who isn’t, a black riverman – never develop past the plot-device stage. This seems like a first draft, not a done book.

Kent’s research gave her a lot of detail about guns, which she uses perhaps to excess. The best HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Reviews | 29

scene in the novel concerns a long-distance shot across the rooftops of New Orleans. It’s somehow fitting that this scene has almost nothing to do with the rest of the novel.

Cecelia Holland THE INVENTION OF WINGS Sue Monk Kidd, Viking, 2014, $28.95, hb, 373pp, 9780670024780 / Tinder Press, 2014, £14.99, hb, 384pp, 9781472212757 Sue Monk Kidd’s (The Secret Life of Bees) latest novel begins in early 19th-century Charleston, South Carolina, and follows the story of two girls whose lives are intertwined. Sarah Grimké, an early abolitionist and suffragist, is the daughter of a wealthy and prominent Southern family. On Sarah’s eleventh birthday, her gift from her mother is her own handmaid, a ten-year-old slave in the Grimké household named Hetty “Handful,” a complex and intriguing character of Kidd’s invention. Sarah tries to refuse her gift but her protests are in vain.

The two girls develop an unlikely relationship that lasts over the next 35 years.

The story is told in first person, and the chapters alternate between Sarah and Handful so readers are invited into the lives of both women. We follow Sarah as she struggles to find her place in the world.

Sarah is an independent thinker who believes that slavery is morally wrong. Her attempts at breaking free from her society and family’s grasp seem to be thwarted at every turn. She longs for a career

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and an outlet for her beliefs. Handful is a spirited, unforgettable woman who rebels in her own ways against slavery.

The Invention of Wings is a moving portrait of the pre-Civil War era that shows how the abolitionist and women’s rights movements were deeply connected. It is a highly rewarding read that I enjoyed from cover to cover and recommend wholeheartedly.

Troy Reed WHO THINKS EVIL Michael Kurland, Minotaur, 2014, $25.99, hb, 304pp, 9780312365455 London, 1892, is the setting of this fifth in the well-received series of Professor Moriarty novels.

What would be enough to pull the Napoleon of Crime out of prison where he’s shackled and accused of murder, even after a hung jury? Only death and a missing Royal – Prince Albert Victor, eldest grandson of Queen Victoria. Oh, and Sherlock Holmes is out of the country.

While visiting a house of ill repute, a young woman is murdered and under the nose of bodyguards both conscious and unconscious.

The prince has disappeared without a trace. Dr. James Moriarty fits the bill for both intelligence and discretion. He’s out of jail and on the case.

Moriarty uses his formidable skills to track down the missing prince and find out who is behind his disappearance and a series of brutal murders. But

E D I TORS’ C H OI C E

Robert N. Macomber, Pineapple Press, 2013, $21.95/C$23.95, hb, 357pp, 9781561646074 In 1889, Lt. Commander Peter Wake is ordered to the Pacific island of Samoa. Trouble is brewing between the German presence in the Pacific and America’s interest in the islands. There is a fear in Washington that war between German and American naval fleets may be on the horizon. Wake is with the Office of Naval Intelligence; his mission to spy on the German facilities in Samoa and prevent a war. En route to Samoa, Wake enlists the help of John Irons, who owns a schooner and is on his own mission to free black slaves on plantations on Pacific islands; Jane Cushman, a widow who may have ties with the German navy; and Captain David Aukai, working for the Hawaiian government, who has his own reasons for eliminating the German presence in the Pacific.

Honors Rendered is the eleventh entry in the awardwinning naval historical fiction series by Robert Macomber. The series began with Wake commanding a ship during the American Civil War and has continued with Wake involved in conflicts in the Caribbean and as far away as Viet Nam. I have read all the books in the series. Each book can stand alone, but it is well worth it, from the standpoint of character development, to read them in sequence. The author and his staff have spent hours of research and visited the locations of each story. One added bonus, the book contains endnotes for each chapter that explain the actual history in more detail. The characters are well drawn out, the plots are exciting, and the story is a pageturner. It is recommended for male readers by the publisher, but I also feel female readers who enjoy stories with close relationships will find this novel attractive. Highly recommended.

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someone is trying to frame the investigator himself.

The game’s afoot!

This novel is wonderfully researched and full of the flavor of the times and Holmesworld. Plenty of humor, wit and twists will keep both Holmes and mystery lovers well entertained. And Sherlock Holmes’ Big Bad Wolf is so misunderstood!

Eileen Charbonneau THE KING’S MARAUDER Dewey Lambdin, St. Martin’s, 2014, $25.99/ C$29.99, hb, 368pp, 9781250030054 The twentieth installment of the Alan Lewrie naval adventures starts in 1807 with our intrepid hero, now a post-captain, recovering from serious wounds ashore before sailing for Gibraltar to raid along the Spanish coast on the eve of the Peninsular War. This enjoyable story follows a familiar but involving pattern: boredom and an uncomfortable domestic situation drive Lewrie back to sea where, despite the dangers of battle and frustration with obtuse superiors, he wins success through a combination of skill, opportunism, and a lot of luck. Troublesome senior officers have a convenient habit of falling to enemy action, clearing away obstacles from his path, and his successes win the support of those who appreciate his abilities.

Despite his failings, most notably as a family man, Lewrie is an attractive rogue, especially in contrast to those about him: though susceptible to a pretty face, he treats women with comparative kindness and generosity; as a captain he is firm but fair, cares for his crews, and acknowledges their contribution to his victories. In short he is a leader men gladly follow. Recommended.

Ray Thompson ROAD TO RECKONING Robert Lautner, Simon and Schuster, 2014, $24.99, hb, 256pp, 9781476731636 / The Borough Press, 2014, £14.99, hb, 240pp, 9780007511310 Twelve-year-old Thomas Walker and his father leave the city of New York in the mid-1830s to sell Samuel Colt’s new invention, a revolving gun.

They enjoy each other’s company as they travel the roads and trails of Pennsylvania. Along the way west, Thomas’ father is robbed and killed. Thomas manages to escape with the only item still left in his possession – a wooden replica of the Colt revolver.

An encounter with Henry Stands, a former Indiana ranger, leads to a complicated partnership. At first Stands doesn’t want to be bothered with the twelve-year-old boy, but because they are heading in the same direction, Stands agrees to help Walker return home to New York. Following the two are the outlaws who killed his father, hoping to finish the job before the boy reports the crime.

Advertised as a literary crime novel, the book is compared favorably by the publisher with the popular western novel True Grit. I agree. This book is a well-written literary novel told from the viewpoint of Thomas Walker years after the events transpired. The characters, dialog and the description of the locations they visit are all well written. As I read the novel, I could picture the 19th Century

events happening as if I were watching a movie – very descriptive. The author is an Englishman living in Wales, and he has shown the land and people of early 19th-century pioneer America with historical accuracy. It will probably be on my list of the top 10 books I’ve read this year.

Jeff Westerhoff WHAT THE GROOM WANTS Jade Lee, Sourcebooks Casablanca, 2014, $7.99, pb, 416p, 9781402283789 The fourth book in Lee’s Bridal Favors quartet focuses on Wendy Drew, co-owner of a women’s clothing store. Forced to work at a gambling hall to repay her brother’s debt, Wendy attracts the interest of the powerful and sadistic owner, ‘Demon’ Damon. In the meantime, her childhood friend Radley Lyncott has returned from years at sea. Unbeknownst to him, Radley has become the unlikely heir to a title and an estate.

Radley’s rough ways shock both his new household staff and Wendy, who fends off advances from Damon while trying to understand her feelings for Radley. While the plot veers into the gothic more than once, it is delightfully dramatic, and Lee’s steady hand keeps the narrative bouncing along. The lovers face the usual obstacles, but the tension is heightened rather than lessened due to the bumps, while the sexual attraction between Radley and Wendy is balanced by Wendy’s pragmatic awareness of the sudden class differences between her and her childhood friend.

Those new to Lee’s series will not be lost, but those who wish to be surprised about the fate of Wendy’s friends will not want to start with this one.

With the unique angle of focusing on the Regencyera working class, Lee’s newest is a diverting, fast read.

Audra Friend DEATH COMES TO THE VILLAGE Catherine Lloyd, Kensington, 2013, $15.00/ C$16.95, pb, 282pp, 9780758287335 England, 1816. In the charming village of Kurland St. Mary, Major Robert Kurland is bedbound, recovering from wounds suffered at Waterloo. His old friend Lucy Harrington, the duty-bound rector’s daughter, has been of great assistance to him. When Robert sees something suspicious outside his window in the moonlight, he enlists Lucy to help him discover what sinister events may be unfolding in this peaceful backwater.

Together they investigate thefts and possible murder, unaware that their own lives may be in danger. A blend of cozy mystery and Regency romance, this first book in a series has enough dark undertones to give readers the shivers. The mysteries are solved satisfactorily, but enough loose ends are left dangling to ensure readers will want to see what happens to Lucy and Robert in the next book. Recommended. Lloyd is London-born and holds a master’s degree in history from the University College of Wales.

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CAROLINA GOLD Dorothy Love, Thomas Nelson, 2013, $15.99, pb, 326pp, 9781401687618 Dorothy Love’s historically resonant novel is an instance where a book can be judged by its gorgeous cover. A woman in a lace-trimmed burgundy gown gazes at her much-loved home in the South Carolina Lowcountry, which lies in ruins after Yankee destruction and years of neglect.

However, the soft, golden sunlight conveys hope for the future.

In 1868, 23-year-old Charlotte Fraser returns to Fairhaven, her family’s rice plantation along the Waccamaw River. Aside from old friends whose fortunes have sunk equally low after the war, she is all alone following her father’s death. Charlotte intends to keep her promise to him by making Fairhaven successful again, but many struggles lie ahead. Most of the former slaves have run off; those who remain, while poor, are reluctant to perform the same grueling work. Charlotte’s growing awareness of these changed circumstances and relationships is handled with sensitivity.

Amid storms that destroy her crops, she is faced with an even more serious problem: with no deed to be found, her ownership of Fairhaven isn’t in the clear. To earn funds to get by, she agrees to teach her handsome neighbor’s two daughters, but

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the growing romance between her and Nicholas Betancourt is held back by her position as his employee and unanswered questions about their adjoining lands.

Told with an unhurried pace, Carolina Gold beautifully portrays an independent Southern woman’s coming to terms with a new way of life.

Love based her heroine on Elizabeth Allston Pringle, a Reconstruction-era rice farmer who wrote columns about her plight for a New York newspaper, just as Charlotte does in the novel.

(Regrettably, these important segments are printed in a tiny cursive font.) The pitch-perfect details immerse readers in the beautiful Lowcountry region, with its tidal creeks, abundant wild birds, and the heady scent of jessamine. A memorable book.

Sarah Johnson WORTHY BROWN’S DAUGHTER Phillip Margolin, Harper, 2014, $24.99, hb, 345pp, 9780062195340 Worthy Brown’s Daughter is a departure for Margolin, who has a successful career writing contemporary legal thrillers (Sleight of Hand, 2013). The plot has the same ingredients – a lawyer, a murder, a surprise ending – but it’s set in 1860 Oregon, when the law is only as good as those

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Phillip Margulies, Doubleday, 2014, $28.95/C$33.00, hb, 608pp, 9780385532761 Having just survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, the elderly and respectable Mrs Andersen decides it’s time to reveal her secret past in a sensational memoir.

After their parents die, Arabella Godwin and her brother Lewis are removed from their comfortable life in New York and sent to relatives on a farm. Arabella struggles as an outsider in the narrow-minded community that values hard work but practises a mean-spirited Christianity. She also clashes with her duplicitous cousin, Agnes, and her future destiny has its roots in their enduring tussle for the affections of budding preacher, Jeptha Talbot.

When Arabella trusts the wrong person, she begins her downward spiral into disgrace. Shunned, and worried about the wayward Lewis, she follows him to the Bowery, where she is forced into the double life that eventually leads her to San Francisco. There, she takes the surname of her gambler lover and becomes Belle Cora, that city’s most notorious madam during the wild 1850s. When the couple clash with the fanatical Vigilance Committee, they reap tragic consequences.

Phillip Margulies has taken the scant known facts about Belle and created a magnificent heroine. Although not always a sympathetic figure, her frankness about her failings and her justification for the artful actions she is often forced to take to guarantee self-preservation make her utterly compelling.

But this is far more than just one woman’s story. It is also an epic detailed exploration of the underbelly of 19th-century America, with all its vice, bigotry, political corruption and religious hypocrisy. The descriptions are rich, the characters well-fleshed, and the novel’s crowning achievement is that it doesn’t try to appease modern sensibilities and presents an honest reflection of this era. A memorable and outstanding work on many levels.

Marina Maxwell HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Reviews | 31

who defend it.

Matthew Penny, a young Portland lawyer still mourning the death of his wife, hesitates when Worthy Brown, a freed slave, comes to him for help.

The slave owner who promised to free Worthy’s 15-year-old daughter upon their arrival in Oregon now refuses to let her go. Worthy needs a white lawyer to take the matter to court. Enslavement is illegal in Oregon, but slavery and racism are not. Confronted by a dishonest prosecutor and an unprincipled judge, Worthy does not stand a chance.

Then Matthew takes up Worthy’s cause. The plot quickens. Matthew falls in love with the daughter of a millionaire, a man whose dissolute mistress is involved with the trial judge and an out-and-out criminal. Worthy’s suit is upstaged by a forgery and two murders, one blamed on him, which is actually Matthew’s fault. Or is it?

Matthew cannot prove his innocence without sacrificing Worthy, or vice versa.

Margolin’s prose reads like a legal brief – concise, unsubtle, fascinating – which suits the transformative years before the Civil War. Worthy Brown’s Daughter will be a nice change for Margolin fans and a pleasure for those new to his work.

Highly recommended.

Jeanne Greene THE GHOST OF THE MARY CELESTE Valerie Martin, Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2014, $25.95, hb, 320pp, 9780385533508 / Weidenfeld & Nicholson, £18.99, hb, 320pp, 9780297870326 Inspired by a 19th-century naval mystery, Valerie Martin has structured an intricate, suspenseful novel about a famous “ghost” ship. The Mary Celeste set sail in November of 1872 from New York harbor. Weeks later, the ship was discovered, derelict, off the coast of Gibraltar. No sign of Captain Benjamin Briggs, his wife and daughter, or any of the crew was ever found. Why they should abandon the ship, when it was perfectly fit to sail and still carried its original cargo, has confounded historians for over a hundred years.

Martin has blended a variety of historical sources and legends to hint at possible explanations for that ill-fated voyage. She first provides terrifying glimpses into the mayhem aboard another vessel that sinks after a collision off Cape Fear. Back ashore, time is spent with two seafaring families, the Briggs and Cobbs, and we learn about the lives, loves, and risks taken by 19th-century mariners.

The characters are believable and well developed, the historical elements well suited. Yet another section of the book skips forward in time to Arthur Conan Doyle, early in his career and in need of money, setting out for the Dark Continent. He too is fascinated by the story of the Mary Celeste and is inspired to write a story about her. Finally, we meet other characters who are either convinced of or opposed to the fad of holding séances to contact the dead.

The collection of “personal recollections” and documents are interwoven, adding substance to the puzzling tale and building suspense as the 32 | Reviews |

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author brings the reader ever closer to the climax of the Mary Celeste’s mysterious voyage. Is there a final solution offered? Not really. The action stops before a firm resolution. It is left up to readers to come up with their own solution. Frustrating to some but, for those who love seafaring adventures and a good yarn, this will be a nice addition to their library.

Kathryn Johnson I SHALL BE NEAR TO YOU Erin Lindsay McCabe, Crown, 2014, $24.00, hb, 320pp, 97808041237720 More than 250 women are known to have disguised themselves to serve as soldiers in the Civil War. Some did it for love, some for the pay and signing bonus, others for patriotism. Though many were found out when they were wounded or became pregnant, the secret identity of a few was not revealed until death. Erin Lindsay McCabe has based her historical novel on a true-life female soldier who died following the 1864 Red River campaign. Even when she was buried, the true identity of “Lyons Wakeman” was not discovered, but it was revealed by her family.

McCabe’s heroine, the newlywed Rosetta Wakefield, misses her husband terribly. She can’t bear living with his parents, who assign the young

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woman the most menial of tasks, reminding her that their son had married beneath his station.

So, Rosetta cuts her hair and binds her breasts, changes her name to Ross Stone, and follows her husband into the Union Army. Ross’ identity is kept hidden by men in her company who know her from home, though they fret about the added burden of protecting her during battle. The greatest struggle of all is between Rosetta and her husband Jeremiah, who is torn between the joy of having his beloved wife near to him and the dread of losing her.

McCabe has created a tough, realistic woman who is equally committed to being a good soldier and a good wife. I Shall Be Near to You is both a poignant love story and a gritty war experience, and is highly recommended.

Jo Ann Butler SUMMER IS FOR LOVERS Jennifer McQuiston, Avon, 2013, $5.99, pb, 349pp, 9780062231314 For readers of historical romance who like a bit more romance, this is the novel to read. It features a sexy Scottish man who is unknowingly crying out for love, and a gangly, awkward young lady determined to find a way to provide for her family, which includes being tutored in the arts of

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Leila Meacham, Grand Central, 2013, $26.00/£19.99, hb, 624pp, 9781455547388 Encompassing seventy years and four generations, this much-anticipated prequel to Roses surpasses all expectations with its exquisitely detailed and character-driven narrative. Silas Toliver, Jeremy Warwick, and Henri DuMont set the stage, traveling from Plantation Alley in the South through bustling New Orleans and finally setting in the dangerous but fertile land of East Texas.

In the 1830s, Mexico and the United States are warring – one offering free plots to settlers and the other raiding these homesteads. With the added problem of American Indian attacks and sometimes merely exposure and the threat of disease, our protagonists find that taking a wagon train out West is a dangerous business.

Somerset, a plantation named after the Tolivers’ Wars of the Roses-era ancestor, becomes everything Silas had dreamed, but seemingly at a heart-rending price. He was warned by his mother of a curse on the enterprise that would take her youngest son into a perilous and war-torn land, but scoffs at the notion – until several unfortunate events befall the family.

The heroine of the story, Silas’s indefatigable wife, is a surprising and endearing woman who chronicles decades of Toliver history and ultimately lends her courageous and heartening nature to her great-granddaughter, Mary. Through the years leading up to the Civil War, the war itself, and the aftermath, Howbutker, Texas grows into a significant city thanks to its founders – the Tolivers, Warwicks and DuMonts. The ever-intriguing industrial age, with several inventions and name-dropping projects mentioned, brings another interesting facet to the story.

As with its predecessor, this novel is filled with the ups and downs of three families and is altogether an engrossing and unforgettable tale, ending with a perfectly primed setting for those who have not read Roses. This book is highly recommended for those who love historical sagas!

Arleigh Johnson 19th Century

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Nathaniel Popkin, The Head and the Hand Press, 2013, $22, pb, 264pp, 978098312516 Multiple narrators combine to paint a picture of the Philadelphia art world around 1820, beginning with some young men who come to the city to write a book about American artists. They seek out Charles Willson Peale, an artist whose sons Raphaelle, Rembrandt, and Titian have all received the training to become painters themselves. A self-taught German immigrant named John Krimmel has offended the elder Peale by including the family’s monkey, Christopher Columbus, in one of his Election Day paintings, which capture the chaos of the emerging American democracy. A schismatic Quaker named Edward Hicks considers himself a sign painter, but he is producing a series of memorable paintings each called “The Peaceable Kingdom.” Other assorted characters include Joseph Bonaparte, an art collector whose brother had made him king of Naples and Sicily; an abolitionist female lawyer whom Krimmel loves; and a freedwoman prostitute and an artist who is her regular customer. These are only a few of the well-realized characters telling their own stories.

The elder Peale is attempting to establish a museum for American art in Philadelphia while also trying to build a cotton mill out of town. Will the United States evolve an art worthy of the vital young republic? Peale reluctantly recognizes the genius of young Krimmel, whose tragic drowning frames the story. Much of the action takes place on the streets of the city, presenting a window on the robust life of young America. Popkin is a historian of 19th-century Philadelphia, which explains the richly described setting. An even greater strength of the book lies in the characters, whose compelling stories unfold with intensity frequently relieved by sly humor.

Highly recommended.

James Hawking love. Caroline is a swimmer at heart, something very uncouth in the Victorian era, but she endears herself to David Cameron. He doesn’t want to fall in love with her, but he does just when the rest of society begrudgingly decides Caroline is someone worth having. Will Caroline pursue her heart or take the easy way out? This is a fun story that indulges the romance reader with its memorably picturesque setting of Brighton, England with an enticing cove along the beach. It’s a nice bonus for this author’s newcomers that there is no need to read the first novel that David starred in, but her readers should enjoy this one as much as they did the first.

Marie Burton UNDER A BLACKBERRY MOON Serena B. Miller, Revell, 2013, $14.99, pb, 352pp, 9780800721183 This inspirational story takes place just after the Civil War in a logging camp in Bay City, Michigan. Skypilot and Moon Song had both featured in Miller’s previous book, The Measure of Katie Calloway, after the young Chippewa woman stumbled into the camp after giving birth to her son. Skypilot has been trying to carve out a new life in the Michigan wilderness after leaving behind his ministry work out east and his unpopular opposition to the recent war. With a cradleboard in place, the young widow plans to set out on foot to return to her beloved northern Michigan to join 19th Century

her family. Skypilot is charged by his employer to escort her and her child safely by steamboat through the Great Lakes. He soon learns that she is strong willed and resourceful as they face adversity and danger together en route. What begins as a journey between friends develops into a tale of two very different people searching for a common thread that could weave the fabric of a future together.

A great deal of research is needed to give historical fiction a genuine flavor, and Serena Miller has done this Native American novel justice.

The characters’ religious and social differences are well written, and the reader can’t anticipate how they might come to a middle ground, which makes the story a very good read to reach the surprising conclusion.

Beth Turza THROUGH THE SMOKE Brenda Novak, Montlake Romance, 2013, $12.95, pb, 301pp, 9781477808764 Truman Stanhope, Earl of Druridge and owner of the colliery in Creswell, in the coal-mining region on the northeastern coast of England, readily admits that he hated his adulterous wife but insists that he was not responsible for her death in the fire that destroyed his home two years ago (1838). Rachel McTavish, whose father was a miner who died from lung disease, might be able to help Truman find the murderer, but she must first

set aside her animosity toward the man she blames for all the suffering in her community.

Although it is not remarkable, in romances, for a nobleman to fall in love with a girl from a lower class, the social distance between an earl and a miner’s daughter is so vast that it should be impossible to bridge. Novak, however, succeeds at this feat. Rachel’s passion for books grants her an air of refinement unusual for her station while the shattering experiences of Truman’s life open him to new possibilities. The danger lurking in the background, the even-handed portrayal of the tensions between the miners and the management, and the depth and charm of the lead characters make this a thoroughly enjoyable historical romance.

Nancy J. Attwell I ALWAYS LOVED YOU Robin Oliveira, Viking, 2014, $27.95, hb, 352pp, 9780670785797 “Paris is raining,” Mary Cassatt says at the beginning of Robin Oliveira’s second historical novel, revealing Cassatt’s fondness of thinking of the city as a character in her life. I Always Loved You inhabits the Paris of La Belle Époque, seen mostly through the third-person point of view of Cassatt, the American woman whose acceptance into the informal group that came to be known as the Impressionists marked a turning point in her career.

Oliveira’s premise concerns an emotional entanglement between Edgar Degas, remembered mostly for his unromantic, non-idealistic portrayals of ballet dancers, and Mary Cassatt, known for her representations of mothers and children in a similar style. Degas was a notoriously difficult and reclusive character, traits Oliveira explores in this novel. Mary Cassatt, the only American among the Impressionists, formed lifelong friendships with those artists while continuing to participate in exhibitions on both sides of the Atlantic.

Oliveira’s representation of Degas and Cassatt’s relationship with each other as artists is fascinating, but the repeated occasions when Cassatt must forgive Degas for his insults becomes frustrating. Although the setting is evocative, the love story betrays the historic Cassatt’s sensibility as a supporter of women’s suffrage. Mary’s last visit with Degas and the last act of kindness she executes for him climax this novel and render the title ironic, or, at least, complex. If you are fascinated with Paris under the great artistic influences of Baron Haussmann and the Impressionists, you will enjoy this book.

Terri Baker RUSTICATION Charles Palliser, W.W. Norton, 2013, $25.95, hb, 336pp, 9780393088724 Rustication (n): the state of having been sent down (i.e., suspended) from university; alternately, a sojourn in the country. Both are the fate of 17-year-old Richard Shenstone, kicked out of Cambridge and left with no option but to lodge with HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Reviews | 33

his recently-widowed mother and changeable sister in their new home – a crumbling mansion on the English coast. The cause of Shenstone’s rustication, his family’s increasingly suspicious behaviour, and their precipitate descent into penury is gradually revealed as even more unsettling events begin to take place: animals are horribly mutilated and poisoned pen letters circulate the neighbourhood, promising a similar fate for the town’s two-legged inhabitants.

This is a literary thriller of the first order, with Gothic atmosphere, accomplished prose, and smooth presentation easily trumping plot. Palliser’s picture of English country society reads like a pitch-black, Victorian version of Austen: social standing is all, the importance of acceptance (even by those one finds loathsome) is clearly illustrated, gossip and misinformation reign, and lives turn on events as simple as a snub in church. The firstperson narration of Shenstone’s journal sets the perfect tone; interspersed are the poisoned pen letters, which are suitably explicit and disturbing (if you tire of the F bomb, beware). Shenstone exhibits the foibles of youth: he’s hormonally obsessed with sex, perennially misjudges peoples’ characters, thinks himself more worldly than he is, and prevaricates when it suits him. For all this, he experiences moments of introspection and revises opinions to admit when he’s wrong, making him more sympathetic than this portrait would imply.

The creepy setting is adeptly crafted, and suspense

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builds steadily. The reader, with a more objective, mature perspective than Shenstone, will quickly pinpoint malefactors and watch with anxiety to see if Shenstone can puzzle things out in time.

Recommended for fans of the Victorian Gothic.

Bethany Latham THE VANISHING THIEF: A Victorian Bookshop Mystery Kate Parker, Berkley Prime Crime, 2013, $14.99, pb, 304pp, 9780425266601 Georgia Fenchurch owns and runs an antiquarian bookshop in London during the reign of Queen Victoria. Georgia, however, is more interested in the Archivist Society, of which she is an active member. The Society solves crimes that other law enforcement officers and detectives are unable to resolve. So imagine how her adrenaline flows when a woman comes into the store to tearfully beg Georgia to help her find her neighbor, Drake, whom she saw being kidnapped. The police have been notified, but there’s no evidence to back up her story.

So begins a mystery worthy of the skills of the Archivist Society. But the tales that are told by this woman, who is obviously in love with the missing Drake, begin to appear as solid lies hiding a host of secrets, for Drake was a rogue thief who had been blackmailing several families. Everyone has a skeleton in the closet that would irreparably harm their lives were those shameful acts to become

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Timothy Schaffert, Riverhead, 2014, $27.95/C$29.50, hb, 464pp, 9781594486098 / Oneworld, 2014, £16.99, hb, 464pp, 9781780744902 The World’s Fair of 1898 was the biggest thing to ever hit the Western town of Omaha. The Fair was held in conjunction with the Indian Congress and included a visit by President William McKinley and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Fair-goers flocked to Omaha from miles around, and with the promise of their purses came thieves, opportunists, prostitutes, and performers setting up shop along the fair’s Midway and the Grand Court.

When a hot air balloon stolen from the Fair crashes on the farmhouse of the Sisters Egan, they take in its injured pilot, Ferret Skerritt. Ferret, a ventriloquist and con, weaves them a tale of his grand love affair with Cecily, a beautiful actress closely guarded by a one-eyed witch. The deeper the sisters are drawn into his fable, the more the magic of the fair is unveiled, complete with spiritualists, masquerades, a Chamber of Horrors and other surprises.

The Swan Gondola is a beautiful portrayal of love and loss set against a glorious backdrop so vivid, it becomes an entire world. The Fair is described in such exquisite detail that you feel that you are walking along the colorful tents and booths of the Midway and sailing down the length of the 2000-ft. lagoon in a gondola on a moonlit night. Schaffert, a Nebraska native, takes some of his inspiration from Baum’s classic novel, The Wizard of Oz, and cheerfully admits to the allusions. Although this is not a retelling or an origin story, I enjoyed discovering the allusions for myself. Schaffert’s novel is a romantic, breathtaking work of literary fiction, and an absolute treat. Highly recommended.

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public gossip. The rest of the novel focuses on Georgia and her friend Emma’s investigation as well as the help of the Society. However, that won’t stop Georgia from being physically attacked, Emma being kidnapped for a tensely brief amount of time, a destructive fire set and so many other upper-class gentlemen and their wives being highly defensive and uncooperative with Georgia’s sharp yet blunt questions. Readers must pay careful attention to the names of many characters whose stories are changing all the time. No, readers won’t discover who “kidnapped” Drake, and yet they will be satisfied by the shocking conclusion and eagerly anticipating the follow-up to this first mystery.

Nicely done!

Viviane Crystal DEATH ON BLACKHEATH Anne Perry, Headline, 2013, £19.99, hb, 314pp, 9780755397174 / Ballantine, 2013, $27.00, hb, 320pp, 9780345548382 Those readers who are already fans of Inspector Thomas Pitt will no doubt be delighted to remake his acquaintance in this, the twenty-ninth book in the series. It can be read as a standalone, as I did, but to fully appreciate the well-drawn and realistic characters it would only enhance the experience to have been through their back stories in the previous novels.

It is 1897, and Pitt is called to the mutilated body of a young woman, discovered in a gravel pit. The likelihood that she is a maid from an important household, that of Dudley Kynaston, government minister, warrants the attention of Special Branch. The investigation twists and turns in surprising directions. Kynaston knows more than he is telling, but are these secrets harmless or not? And how can you force a man of birth, fortune and power to reveal things he wishes to keep quiet?

The period detail is beautifully done, and realistic characters and tense action are woven seamlessly together to create a vividly clear picture of London at the time. Thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining. Fans of the series will be very content.

Ann Northfield THE SUM OF ALL KISSES Julia Quinn, Avon, 2013, $7.99/C$9.50, pb, 373pp, 9780062072924 It’s early 19th-century London, and Lord Hugh Prentice may have ruined his leg, his friendship with Daniel Smythe-Smith, Earl of Winstead, and the lives of himself and his brother, Freddie, all because of a card game. Lord Hugh has undoubtedly ruined the marriage prospects of Lady Sarah Pleinsworth, and she is not about to let him forget it, even when they are thrown together at a wedding. Readers will appreciate this romance novel for moving beyond the standard love-hate relationship between hero and heroine into true character development, not to mention laughout-loud funny moments between Lady Sarah and Lord Hugh, but particularly amongst Lady Sarah’s sisters. Lord Hugh and Lady Sarah prove themselves more than just rescuer and damsel 19th Century

when they come face to face with Lord Hugh’s surprisingly vicious father. Quinn’s characters are not merely fulfilling roles prescribed by the genre; they are vibrant and flawed, endearing and infuriating by turns.

Amy Watkin THE KEPT James Scott, Harper, 2014, $25.99, hb, 368pp, 9780062236739 / Hutchinson, 2014, £14.99, hb, 368pp, 978-0091944506 James Scott’s debut novel is far from the work of a novice. After earning a fistful of honors for his short fiction at esteemed writers’ conferences, he has now turned his talents to the longer form. His haunting novel follows two eccentric characters – a mother and son. Midwife Elspeth Howell travels vast distances through the countryside to perform her services. She is often away from her family for months at a time. When she returns home, she often brings with her a baby, and thus their family grows. After this happens repeatedly, and the babies develop distinctly different features, husband Jorah confronts her: “Whose children are these?” The question of whether Elspeth is rescuing unwanted babies or has become a nursery kleptomaniac is just one of the enticing mysteries woven through an intricate plot.

And then there’s her son, Caleb, a strange boy who is most at ease bunking in the barn with the animals. That’s where he happens to be one night when Elspeth is away and three strangers appear, enter the house, and slaughter Caleb’s father, brothers, and sisters. Terrified by the gunfire, he cowers in the barn, but when he later hears sounds again in the house he thinks that the killers have returned. Twelve-year-old Caleb takes up his gun and shoots the intruder. His mother, terribly injured in the incident and near death, has only Caleb, the least capable of her children, to nurse her back to health. When the two of them set off together on a mission of vengeance into the isolated wilderness of 1897 upstate New York, they make a sorry pair. But it’s their determination and the secrets they carry with them that make this brutally realistic novel utterly impossible to put down. Highly recommended as an introduction to a gifted new novelist.

Kathryn Johnson THE CELESTIALS Karen Shepard, Tin House, 2013, $15.95, pb, 361pp, 9781935639558 In 1870, 75 young Chinese men board a train from California to North Adams, Massachusetts, to take jobs in Calvin Sampson’s shoe factory. He’s hired them to replace workers who went on strike, but they’re ignorant of this important fact. Taking its title from a period term for Chinese immigrants, The Celestials offers compassionate observations of how their presence transforms a small New England industrial town.

The novel’s premise is historically based, and on the surface, it may seem to recount an intriguing but rather obscure incident. However, Shepard takes 19th Century

care to demonstrate its importance without getting into lecture-mode. The triumph of Sampson’s “Chinese experiment” drew national attention to North Adams, affecting U.S. labor relations and immigration policy from that time forward.

Shepard interweaves the perspectives of many locals, from Sampson and his wife, Julia, to one of the young strikers and his sister, a recovering rape victim. The Celestials’ viewpoint focuses mainly on Charlie Sing, their English-speaking foreman, who simultaneously benefits and suffers from his role as a cultural bridge. The plot hums along with nervous tension: in this unusual situation, what will happen next? Many North Adams women organize a Sunday school for the Chinese men to encourage their assimilation into society, but when Julia Sampson gives birth to a half-Chinese baby, questions are raised about whether they’ve assimilated too well.

“How little we know of the hidden lives of those about us,” thinks Julia at one point. This theme is explored in many different ways, from Sampson’s insistence on photographing his new employees – a baffling concept to the Chinese, which they delightfully make their own later on – to the opposing reactions to one Chinese laborer’s Christian burial. Through the novel’s insightful characterizations, readers will get to know each of its unique individuals very well, in some instances even better than they know themselves.

Sarah Johnson SORREL MOON Cotton Smith, Five Star, 2014, $25.95, hb, 314pp, 9781432828110 This is a story of the Kerry brothers, Ethan, Luther and Cole. Together they own the Bar K ranch outside of Uvalde, Texas in the late 19th century. Cole Kerry is a gunfighter of note, and after the town marshal is killed, he is hired on to be the interim town marshal. Ethan Cole is the head of the family, even though blinded by an accident several years earlier. As the story unfolds, he slowly begins to regain his sight. A notorious outlaw named Glory Van Camp is posing as a local minister, while his brother appears locally as the town bum. Joined by their stepfather, who owns a local ranch, and their stepsister Jinette Six, they plan to remove the Kerry family from the Bar K and take it over. I found this western novel to be a page-turner. The dialog was crisp and the settings were described as if the writer knows western history and locale. The author is a Spur Award winner, and it shows in his writing. This was my first Cotton Smith western and I will be looking to read his future novels. Highly recommended.

Jeff Westerhoff NEVER KISS A RAKE Anne Stuart, Montlake Romance, 2013, $12.95, pb, 265pp, 9781477807323 Twenty-eight-year-old Bryony Russell does not believe the accusations of embezzlement against her recently deceased father. Determined to find proof of his innocence, she seeks a job as

housekeeper at the London home of her prime suspect, her father’s business partner, Adrian Bruton, Earl of Kilmartyn. There could scarcely be a more dysfunctional household than that of Adrian and his beautiful wife, Cecily. Bryony quickly brings order to the chaos amongst the staff, but the passionate advances of the married earl are a little more difficult to control.

Set in 1869, this first book of Stuart’s series about the three Russell sisters is a full-fledged Victorian gothic complete with murder, mayhem, and a roguish hero. Stuart’s writing style is entertaining, and her legion of fans will enjoy the romantic escapades of Adrian and Bryony. The moral ambiguities in the story will bother some, but not all, readers. More disappointing is the acceleration of the story as the book nears its end, jumping over plot connections and racing to the finish. Although this heightened frenzy of activity is frustrating, it does not diminish my anticipation for the continuation of the story in the next book.

Nancy J. Attwell THE MOUNTAIN OF LIGHT Indu Sundaresan, Washington Square, 2013, $16/ C$18.99, pb, 314pp, 9781451643510 The Mountain of Light is the story of a diamond – the famous Kohinoor now on display in the Tower of London – spanning over forty years and moving between the various rulers who possessed it. It begins in 1817 with Shah Shuja, the deposed ruler of Afghanistan, who is now a prisoner of Ranjit Singh, the Maharajah of the Punjab. The Shah’s only leverage is the Kohinoor, but his powerlessness is symbolized by his loss of the diamond before he is handed over to the British as the puppet head of their ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan. While Ranjit Singh is the Lion of the Punjab and builds a large empire, the British Empire and its corporate representative, the East India Company, already loom as threats on the Indian continent.

We watch the diamond as love affairs blossom and wilt within both Indian conventions and Victorian British mores, as empires rise and fall, as men of great power and wealth become shadows.

The book is perhaps most emotionally engaging on the subject of British prejudice against the Indian people, even those British who try to support and love the Indians placed in their charge. The relationship is always patronizing and off-balance.

India’s glory and grace remain invisible to all but the most sensitive of British citizens, and even they fail tragically in their stewardship – because they are stewards of a foreign land.

Sundaresan has told a complicated sweep of history with clarity and warmth. The reader gains a clear sense of the final days of Indian control of the Punjab and the gradual spread of the British Empire into India. Sundaresan dips into individual stories with compelling detail as she tracks the journey of the world’s most valuable jewel.

Judith Starkston

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LOCAL CUSTOMS Audrey Thomas, Dundurn, 2014, $16.99/ C$19.99, pb, 208 pp, 9781459707986 In 1838, successful English writer L.E.L. (Letitia Landon) makes a surprise marriage to George Maclean, chief administrator of Cape Coast, and travels with him to West Africa.

Right at the outset Letitia tells the reader that within two months of her arrival she will be dead, and thus her voice is written as from beyond the grave. But this is not a supernatural tale as such. It is constructed more like a play, with the intersecting dialogue enhanced with the thought processes of Letitia, George, the Methodist missionary Thomas Freeman, housekeeper Mrs Bailey, and Letitia’s friend and admirer, Brodie Cruikshank. Letitia gives them all the impression of thriving in her new environment with her writing to occupy her, but she misses her intellectual life in London and is becoming increasingly susceptible to a malign presence lurking in the shadows.

The unusual writing style works well for the most part, but Letitia is a difficult character to grasp, as she vacillates between intense love and disdain for her husband. She has secrets in her past that may account for some of her erratic behavior, plus she suffers from some “medical problem” that can only be guessed at. George is typically stoic and gruff. Freeman is a conflicted man who disturbs Letitia’s equilibrium on religion and slavery and Brodie’s true feelings are ambivalent.

The dramatic death of L.E.L in an exotic and remote place – seemingly by her own hand with prussic acid – became a cause célèbre in its day, and various theories have been expounded on it ever since. The novel’s ending is not overt but gives enough clues as to who, or what, might have been responsible, and it may inspire readers to research the real story for themselves. Recommended for its mystery and fascinating historical setting.

Marina Maxwell UNRAVELED BY THE REBEL Michelle Willingham, Montlake Romance, 2013, $12.95, pb, 326pp, 9781477807712 Juliette Andrews has a secret child born out of wedlock, the result of a rape by the Earl of Strathland. Paul Fraser, her childhood friend and physician, also has a secret: he is heir to his uncle’s viscountship. They meet again after several years’ separation, but the romance does not progress as Paul had hoped. Juliette believes she can never have more children after her bad childbirth experience, and she thinks that her soiled reputation means no man would want her. But whether Juliette will wed him or no, Paul vows revenge against Lord Strathland.

This is the second volume of the Regency-era Secrets in Silk series, in which Juliette and her sisters run a secret undergarment manufacturing business. The business is discussed at various times, but it doesn’t interfere much with the romance plot. Juliette’s past gives a believable reason to keep the lovers apart during the course of the story. While Lord Strathland is a bit of a 36 | Reviews |

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cardboard villain, the central couple’s relationship is enjoyable. Willingham gives hints at the story lines to come for Juliette’s younger sisters in the subsequent volumes of the series.

B.J. Sedlock MOON CUTTERS Janet Woods, Severn House, 2014, $28.95/£19.99, hb, 224pp, 9780727883353 Janet Woods’ latest novel, Moon Cutters, is set along the English coast in the mid-19th century.

Homeless and hungry after the deaths of her parents, young Miranda Jarvis is forced to steal a loaf of bread to feed her sick sister, Lucy. She is soon caught by Sir James Fenmore, a well-respected ship owner from whose home she stole the bread.

Rather than turn her over to the law, however, Sir James takes Miranda and Lucy into his home.

Miranda is grateful for the kindness shown by Sir James, but it soon becomes apparent that there is much more to Sir James than suggested by his courteous demeanor. This becomes especially apparent after Miranda falls for Fletcher Taunt, Sir James’ estranged nephew, which pits the two men further against one another and catches Miranda in the middle.

There is much to enjoy about Moon Cutters, the most significant of which is that the novel is full of dark secrets and deceit, the truths of which are slowly revealed as the plot unfolds. Set on the English coast, smuggling, while not front and centre, is an important and interesting component of the storyline. Detracting from the novel is the somewhat choppy flow of the narrative and that the characters, with the exception of Sir James, have little depth. At only 224 pages in length, Moon Cutters is a quick read. Despite its short length, I feel more could have been done to flesh out the characters and further develop certain aspects of the story without bogging the novel down. Despite these concerns, Moon Cutters is an entertaining novel that should appeal to a variety of readers.

Melissa Morrisey THE POACHER’S DAUGHTER Michael Zimmer, Five Star, 2014, $25.95, hb, 500pp, 9781432827632 In 1885, Rose Edwards becomes a widow.

Montana vigilantes hang her husband at her farm for an alleged theft, then proceed to burn her cabin to the ground. Destitute, she joins up with Wiley Collins and Shorty Tibbs in a horse-stealing venture. She then enters a two-year odyssey of hiding from the law, battling a land-grabbing neighbor who wants her land, while trying to discover a new life as a widow. She earns the nickname “Rose of Yellowstone” because she has killed men to survive, and soon becomes a wanted woman.

Michael Zimmer has written twelve previous novels and is one of my favorite western writers.

He is not afraid to take subject matter that may be unusual for a western, such as this book where the protagonist is a strong woman, rather than the romantic interest of the protagonist. The Poacher’s

Daughter shows how life-changing events help the main character develop. Her on-again, off-again relationship with her fellow outlaws and her father are well-developed and tell how a young woman could become a reluctant hero. The storyline is exceptional and well-thought-out, providing readers with a fun novel that will have them hoping the main character, Rose Edwards, will succeed against difficult and life-threatening obstacles in a land controlled by men. Highly recommended.

Jeff Westerhoff SAVAGE GIRL Jean Zimmerman, Viking, 2014, $27.95/C$32.95, hb, 416pp, 9780670014859, 0670014850 Wealthy New Yorker Hugo Delegate is discovered next to the mutilated body of his friend, Bev Willets. With his history of nervous disorders and memory loss, Hugo fails to protest when he is arrested and taken to the Tombs for questioning.

He slowly reveals the extraordinary story of his foster sister, Bronwyn, who was found by Hugo’s father in Virginia City. There she was forced to perform in a freak show as the mute Savage Girl, allegedly raised by wolves. Hugo’s parents had a hobby of collecting lost souls or misfits, and they took the girl back home, where they embarked on a Pygmalion-like experiment to educate and fashion her into a society debutante.

Hugo is both bewitched and alarmed by her.

He drops his Harvard medical studies and starts investigating her possible link to the gruesome killings of men who may have been her lovers.

But if she is guilty, she is artful enough to always keep one step ahead of discovery and, in his mental anguish, Hugo speculates if it is in fact he himself and not the Savage Girl who might be responsible.

This is part psychological crime thriller, part exposé of a mannered and glittering society. The dialogue has a delightful witty and luxuriant quality that complements the descriptions of New York in the 1870s, this world of the frivolous ultrarich who ignore the base humanity that underpins their lifestyle. Hugo is a most charming narrator with his vulnerabilities, but Bronwyn in all her various embodiments remains inscrutable, a willo’-the-wisp.

The final denouement ties things up a bit too neatly and doesn’t quite match the earlier dynamism of the novel. Perhaps a more enigmatic conclusion would have fitted with its semi-gothic style a little better, but it is still a most enjoyable read and highly recommended.

Marina Maxwell

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THE HULL HOME FIRE Linda Abbott, Flanker, 2013, $19.95/C$19.95, pb, 232pp, 9781771172622 The title of this book gave me the impression that the story would focus on the tragic fire that swept through Hull Home, a private hospital for the aged in St. John’s, Newfoundland, on February 19th Century — 20th Century

10, 1948. While it is true that the fire affects most of the characters in one way or another, it is not pivotal to the plot, nor is there much of an emotional reaction to the horror, even amongst the staff and residents who are trapped by the flames.

Setting aside that difficulty, the novel portrays an interesting piece of Canadian history. The fire occurred approximately one year before Newfoundland gave up its status as an independent country and joined Canada as a province. The populace is strongly divided between those who favor confederation and those who are opposed, and the public meetings are rather raucous.

The Gibbs family is also divided, but over a different issue: Henry, who is twenty-one, has been accepted into medical school in Toronto, and his father, Tom, threatens to cut him off from the family if he goes. Despite the tensions, the scenes within the Gibbs family home are quite enjoyable, and it is a pleasure to catch a glimpse of the homey lifestyle of this part of the country in the 1940s.

Abbott’s comfortable writing style has both a reserve and openness, perhaps reflecting the culture about which she is writing. Anyone interested in Canadian history, especially the history of the Atlantic Provinces, will enjoy this novel.

Nancy J. Attwell THREE BROTHERS Peter Ackroyd, Chatto & Windus, 2013, £14.99, hb, 256pp, 9780701186937 / Nan A. Talese, 2014, $26.95, hb, 256pp, 9780385538619 Separated by exactly one year from each other in birth date, Harry, Daniel and Sam are no ordinary brothers. As different in personality and outlook, they go their separate ways as they reach adulthood, becoming distanced along the way from their parents, as they moved apart during their childhoods. These three young adults face challenges in the setting of London during the 1960s and the corruption of the underworld during this period of history. However, their lives continue to be linked in surprising and unexpected ways.

Having not read any other work by Peter Ackroyd, I found this novel a surprising story.

Combining an undercurrent element of the supernatural within the intertwining aspects of some of the characters, with references to some of the political figures of the time and the illegal sexual aspects pertaining to society in the 1960s, it left me with a sense of being somehow undersold on the believability of the plot.

Cathy Kemp TUSCAN ROSE Belinda Alexandra, Gallery, 2013, $16.00, pb, 592pp, 9781451679076 / Simon & Schuster UK, 2012, £6.99, pb, 656pp, 9780857208781 Bright, musically talented with both flute and piano, and extraordinarily sensitive toward animals and people, Rosa Bellocchi has been raised by the nuns in the Convent of Santo Spirito in Florence, Italy. There she was left in 1914 by a man known only as “The Wolf,” with a key wrapped in her 20th Century

clothes the only secret indicating her secret identity.

When the other children taunt her for having “no name,” Rosa has her first lesson in learning to survive different levels of cruelty. But Rosa also has an extrasensory gift of being able to see the origin of things, seeing the food before her as a terrified animal being killed or looking and touching a table (or any object) and being able to see where it was made and how it was used by its specific owner.

Rosa then becomes a governess in the Scarfiotti mansion, a haunted place owned by the kind but sad Marchese and the cruel-beyond-words Marchesa, also a fanatical supporter of Mussolini with a disastrous result for Rosa. Her years as a partisan resistance fighter against Mussolini and Hitler’s henchmen are finely depicted when she proves to truly be the indomitable “Raven,” respected by all.

The ever-changing plot and superb character development of Rosa and a former lover are truly phenomenal. One grows to love this female character who evolves from a naive girl into a compassionate, strong and wise mother and eventually a tough partisan resistor capable of cruelty where necessary. The reader receives a full depiction of what it was like to be a patriotic yet fear-filled Italian under the tyrannical Mussolini and later Hitler’s brutal soldiers. Tuscan Rose

C

is a must read for anyone who truly loves great historical fiction.

Viviane Crystal MISS DIMPLE PICKS A PECK OF TROUBLE Mignon F. Ballard, Minotaur, 2014, $24.99, hb, 272pp, 9781250035622 Elderberry, Georgia is far away from the war in Europe during the summer of 1944, but the residents in this small town are pulled together by the common bonds of having loved ones fighting over in Europe. Another common bond is the town sleuth, Miss Dimple, and her teacher friends, who love to put their heads together and solve mysteries.

This latest mystery hits very close to home as an 18-year-old girl is abducted and later found murdered. Prentice had recently broken up with her boyfriend, so he is suspected. The girl had also been nervous following her aunt’s death, so perhaps she saw something that might have cast a more sinister light on whether it was an accident.

A quirky woman in the community may have witnessed something relating to the deaths, and when she is found murdered as well, Miss Dimple and her friends work even harder to find the killer.

Although I like a good mystery, I found there to be too many related characters introduced with

E D I TORS’ CH OICE

THE ALL-GIRL FILLING STATION’S LAST REUNION

Fannie Flagg, Random House, 2013, $27/C$32, hb, 363pp, 9781400065943 / Chatto & Windus, 2014, £12.99, hb, 368pp, 9780701188931 Beloved author Fannie Flagg has written another delightful saga spanning decades and focusing on the Southern theme of family. Mrs. Sarah “Sookie” Poole, a caring, exhausted mother, has just married off the last of three daughters. Craving downtime, she plans to unwind, actually reading a whole book for a change. Before she can take her second deep breath, she is summoned by her eccentric, widowed 88-year-old mother, Lenore, who has ruled Sookie’s life, pushing her into activities that will “honor the Simmons name.” All because they survived the Civil War by going hungry and hid the family silver from those Yankee thieves so their descendants could carry on the heritage.

Lenore’s outspoken and flamboyant ways cause social friction, but her loyal daughter comes wearily to the rescue. One day a certified letter arrives, which Sookie signs for. It is from a strange address in Texas and contains medical records revealing a secret Lenore has been keeping from her daughter. Reluctantly scanning the contents, and not believing her eyes, Sookie faints from the shock. As she discovers the secret of her birth, her horizons are broadened immensely, opening her comfortable world to the vastly different person she really is.

Fannie Flagg’s novel is storytelling at its best, with wonderfully diverse characters and historical events such as immigration at the dawn of the 20th century, the rapid expansion of America due to car travel, and proliferation of the ubiquitous filling stations. Then World War II opened up a unique job for brave women in the military service, which was suddenly brought to a halt and kept secret for decades. Flagg’s people touch our hearts, poke our funny bones, and remain in our minds for some time after the final page.

Tess Heckel HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Reviews | 37

only vague connections to the case or to a growing suspect list. Perhaps all of these characters were important in the other Miss Dimple books, and are more familiar to readers of the series, but I found it confusing.

Beth Turza MY HOPE IS FOUND Joanne Bischof, Multnomah, 2013, $14.99, pb, 352pp, 9781601424259 Gideon O’Riley has never been more certain of anything – he wants to return to Lonnie Sawyer.

Lonnie was once his wife, but graciously stepped aside when Gideon became infatuated with another woman. Now he wants nothing more than to have that second, unconsummated marriage annulled, and to be reunited with Lonnie and their young son. Gideon walks over the Appalachians to sort out the formidable legal tangle, but it can’t be done quickly, and Gideon becomes aware that time is not on his side. He has been parted from Lonnie for many months, and though she still loves Gideon, Lonnie thought he would never return.

She has agreed to marry Reverend Toby McKee, who shares her faith.

My Hope is Found is the concluding volume in the Cadence of Grace Christian historical series, set in Virginia in 1902. Much of Gideon and Lonnie’s complex past escaped me because I haven’t read the first two books, but My Hope is Found is smoothly written and enjoyable, and fans of inspirational stories should have a look at Bischof ’s series.

Jo Ann Butler HALL OF SECRETS Cate Campbell, Kensington, 2014, $15.00/ C$16.95, pb, 362pp, 9780758292285 The second in Campbell’s Benedict Hall series, Hall of Secrets picks up a few months after the dramatic closing events of the first volume (Benedict Hall), in 1920s Seattle. Dr. Margot Preston is rebuilding her medical practice after her brother Preston burned down the building; at the same time, she’s building her relationship with Frank Parrish, who, thanks to his new prosthetic arm, is now a successful engineer at Boeing. The Benedict family is still recovering from Preston’s death in the fire, and the response of Margot’s mother, Edith, indicates some mental health issues lay behind her vacant stare and her insistence that his room remain untouched. Margot is trying to move forward, though there are many bumps in the road, both professional and personal, for a female physician with progressive ideas about issues such as birth control, segregation, and racial and economic discrimination.

While the main focus is on Margot, other members of the Benedict family have their own story lines in this volume, as well. From Hattie, the not-very-good cook, to cousin Allison, the 19-yearold debutante who disgraced her family during her Grand Tour of Europe, readers begin to see the depths of the Benedict family dynamic. Campbell deftly uses the counterpoint characters to approach both the topical as well as the more emotional 38 | Reviews |

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sticky issues that affected families in the postWorld War I era. From birth to death to rebirth, there is an abundance of life in this family, and it is clear that Campbell has plans for the members of this family to grow and discover their strengths in future volumes.

Helene Williams NECESSARY LIES Diane Chamberlain, St. Martin’s, 2013, $26.99, hb, 343pp, 9781250010698 / Pan, 2013, £7.99, pb, 400pp, 9781447211259 Set in the rural American South of 1960, Necessary Lies tells the parallel stories of Ivy Hart, a fifteen-year-old tenant on a tobacco farm in North Carolina, and Jane Forrester, her young social worker, newly married to a doctor and surrounded by a society that doesn’t understand her desire to do good in this small corner of the world bristling with injustice.

Ivy and the farm owner’s son are in love and meeting secretly. She is also epileptic, has an older sister who is an unwed mother of a two-year-old, and an aging and diabetic grandmother whose family’s needs are way beyond what she can provide.

Against all advice, Jane bonds with the family, especially Ivy, and is horrified to learn that her sister has already been a victim of state-mandated sterilization without her knowledge or consent.

Ivy is scheduled for the same, once the pregnancy that’s resulted with her boyfriend ends with birth and adoption. With everyone telling her what she’s doing is wrong, Jane uncovers the lies and secrets of this community and intervenes, changing the lives and futures of both her client and herself.

Diane Chamberlain proves once again that she is the master of the American Southern Gothic.

Full of telling detail and never afraid of tenderness, this fearless novel makes the heart break, but also soar. Highly recommended.

Eileen Charbonneau A SKY WITHOUT STARS Linda S. Clare, Abingdon, 2014, $13.99, pb, 257pp, 9781426752797 I felt that a much bigger novel was struggling to get out of the pages of this inspirational romance from the Quilts of Love series. It’s 1951, and Frankie Chasing Bear is a Lakota widow with a young son, Harold, trying to forge a new life near Phoenix, Arizona. The odds are stacked against them: poverty, prejudice, an Indian School system designed to stamp out tradition, and the heavy hand of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. When chance brings a meeting with Nick Parker, Frankie is wary; he is a half-breed, a BIA agent, and a Christian, all reasons for Frankie and Harold not to trust him.

With all these threads and elements in the novel, there is much to interest the reader beside the romance and the quilting theme, which centers around the Lakota Star quilt Frankie is making for her son. The main subplot wraps up a little too quickly, and the spiritual thread is perhaps insufficiently explored, but overall this is an interesting and unusual variation on the themes of

love and spiritual growth.

Jane Steen THURSDAY’S STORM Darrell Duke, Flanker Press, 2013, $19.95/ C$19.95, pb, 248pp, 9781771172745 Canada suffered its worst hurricane to date on August 27, 1927. Newfoundland was caught unaware, and the fishermen of tiny Fox Harbor were hard at work pursuing dwindling schools of cod. The wooden sloops might have survived in deep, sheltered water, but the crews were fishing the rocky banks and shoals near Placentia Bay. The unnamed hurricane, remembered as Thursday’s Storm, devastated both Newfoundland’s southern coast and the cod fleet.

When the Annie Healy sank with all hands, everyone in the tightly-knit fishing village lost a father, husband, brother, or friend. Sixty-six years later, children of those men shared family memories of the tragedy with Darrell Duke, a Placentia Bay author. Duke transformed those interviews into a song, a play, and now Thursday’s Storm.

This historical novel movingly depicts the loss of the Annie Healy, as well as the hardscrabble lives of Fox Harbor’s inhabitants, much of it in the villagers’ own words. I wish that Thursday’s Storm had included a map and a list of characters, but this entertaining book will take you back a century and immerse you in a vanishing world, and also in the cold Atlantic water along with the crew of the Annie Healy.

Jo Ann Butler BITTER WATER Gordon Ferris, Corvus/Trafalgar Square, 2013, $12.95/£7.99, pb, 360pp, 9780857896070 July heat rises in post WWII Glasgow. A city councilor dies an agonizing death, his head buried in a bucket of cement. New victims surface, horrifically punished by anonymous vigilantes.

The victims of these attacks had previously been acquitted of a variety of unsavory charges, but their self-appointed punishers dispense rough justice indeed. Douglas Brodie, ex-policeman, veteran, and now a Glasgow Gazette reporter, investigates, while Brodie’s mentor at the paper, Wullie McAllister, tracks a scoop of his own. How do these crimes tie in with projected plans for urban renewal of Glasgow’s city center? As the violence increases, Brodie, McAllister, and their families and friends find themselves in the line of fire.

Gordon Ferris writes an absorbing and fastpaced story. Brodie is a likeable and very human sleuth, while the off-again, on-again romance between Brodie and advocate Samantha Campbell adds interest. The second in a series, it loses nothing read as a standalone, but the engaging characters, interesting setting and compelling writing make me eager to read Brodie’s other adventures.

Susan McDuffie THE LOVE OF A LIFETIME Mary Fitzgerald, Arrow, 2013, £5.99, pb, 528pp, 9780099585435 20th Century

It would be a very cynical individual who could not empathise with Richard Wilde, the narrator in this tale. Throughout a rich and varied lifetime he has met many obstacles which thwart his attempts to a fulfilled relationship with a lifetime lover. Added to this are the secrets lingering unaired within his own family and violence barely contained emanating from Richard’s older brother, Billy, whom he has idolized from an early age.

Richard’s lifetime spans the 20th century, covering two world wars and active service leading right up to Independence for India. The distance he allows to build both romantically and geographically between himself and his lover, Elizabeth, looks unlikely to be breached. Mary Fitzgerald depicts the historical changes aligned with the social constrictions within this period quite accurately throughout, leaving the reader feeling enriched and provoking an emotional response.

Cathy Kemp JACOB’S OATH Martin Fletcher, St. Martin’s, 2013, $25.99/£18.99, hb, 323pp, 9781250027610 The dichotomy between love and hate, between a desire for life and a desire for vengeance, is the theme of Martin Fletcher’s compelling postHolocaust novel.

World War II has just ended when the book opens. Sarah remained hidden in Germany, and Jacob survived Bergen-Belsen. However, just days before liberation, his brother, Maxie, was killed by a Nazi officer known as “The Rat.” As Maxie lies dying, Jacob swears he will avenge his brother’s death. While most of the surviving German Jews were leaving Germany as quickly as possible, Jacob makes his way to his hometown of Heidelberg, knowing that “The Rat,” also from that town, will come home eventually. Improbably, Jacob and Sarah meet and fall in love.

Sarah is grappling with her own demons, dealing with tragic losses as well as surviving an act of violence after she is discovered hiding in a German home. The silver lining is her meeting with a Russian-Jewish soldier, Isak, whose friendship becomes her saving grace.

Jacob discovers that deep love and deep hatred are emotional cousins as his need for revenge becomes all-consuming, while simultaneously his love for Sarah is growing. Meanwhile, Sarah, who knows what they have to lose if Jacob goes through with his plan, continually tries to persuade Jacob to let it be.

The book is highly readable with insightful and fluid prose and a build-up of suspense. Fletcher, an international news correspondent, was a 2010 recipient of the National Jewish Book Award and has won several Emmys. Despite the serious subject matter, the author reminds the reader that even in the direst of circumstances, love can blossom, wounds can heal and life can begin anew.

Hilary Daninhirsch BACK TO BACK Julia Franck (trans. Anthea Bell), Harvill Secker, 20th Century

2013, £16.99, hb, 338pp, 9781846556296 / Grove, 2013, $24.00, hb, 320pp, 9780802121677 The German Democratic Republic (East Germany) in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and brother and sister Thomas and Ella are growing up near Berlin under the oppressive communist regime. But it is not the only difficulty they face, for their mother Käthe, a Jewish sculptor, who survived the war by escaping to Italy, is a neglectful and cruel single parent. Ella is sexually abused by Käthe’s lodger, a Communist Party official which seems to be the part of the price for Käthe receiving official commissions. Ella retreats into mental illness, while Thomas, an intelligent and sensitive pacifist vegetarian (not exactly the type to thrive in the harsh GDR regime) writes poetry to create an inner space to escape the suffocating communist society, which is made worse when the wall is built in August 1961. When Thomas starts work in a hospital and falls in love with an unhappily married nurse, Marie, who is also a mother, then the novel comes to its rather gloomy conclusion.

This is indeed a rather bleak literary novel.

There is close, poetic observation that shows the dull, plodding and nasty life under Soviet communist control in post-Nazi- defeated East Germany. It absorbs and engages, with the unpleasant figure of Käthe seemingly based on Julia Franck’s grandmother, the sculptor Ingeborg Hunzinger, who died in 2009. I have to say though that once again, and to repeat an observation I made of Franck’s The Blind Side of the Heart which I reviewed for HNR in 2009, the lack of punctuation to denote speech often makes reading challenging just to distinguish between a character speaking and the author. I just do not understand why this fashion is currently acceptable in good writing.

Doug Kemp THE FUNERAL DRESS Susan Gregg Gilmore, Broadway, 2013, $16.00/£12.99, pb, 340pp, 9780307886217 Spanning three decades in the mid-20th century, this story follows two women from a small mountain town in Tennessee who work side-byside in a sewing factory. Leona Lane, middle-aged and childless, grudgingly helps the newly hired teenager, Emmalee Bullard, with the fast-paced and competitive environment of the quota-based production business.

Soon after, Emmalee gives birth to a fragile baby girl and carries the stigma of an unmarried, single mother. Raised by an abusive father, she accepts an offer from Leona of a place in her home, but tragedy strikes on the eve of her flight, and instead of traveling to Leona’s house for sanctuary, Emmalee finds herself searching for a funeral dress for her beloved friend. With nothing suitable in Leona’s closet, Emmalee decides to make her dress, though very few people in the community support the endeavor of the outcast young mother.

Told in a raw, poignant voice, this is a moving story of compassion in unexpected places. Life in a small, Southern town, where your worth is determined by your family name, isn’t kind to the

extremely poor and motherless Emmalee. When faced with threats of having her daughter taken away, Emmalee discovers the loyalty and friendship of the factory workers may be her saving grace. As Leona’s story unravels gradually through flashback chapters, an understanding is brought to light that will determine the very future of Emmalee and her daughter.

This novel depicts the bleak reality of poverty and its victims, detailing the life of an unfortunate girl left to sift for herself without even basic necessities. Religion, social status and domestic disputes mesh together to create the remarkable journey of two women thrown together commonly enough, but who find themselves through one another.

Arleigh Johnson THE CANARY Michael Loyd Gray, Bottom Dog Press, 2013, $18, pb, 187pp, 9781933964737 Amelia Earhart was born to take to the air. She grew up a tomboy, learned to fly at the age of 23, set her first flying record two years later, was the first woman to fly solo over the Atlantic, one year after Lindbergh. A vivid, courageous, selfless woman, she captured the love of the public imagination, and when she disappeared, flying across the Pacific in 1937, she became legendary.

It’s hard to believe somebody could take this material and make it boring, but Michael Loyd Gray achieved this in The Canary. The book begins just after Earhart’s plane crash lands, leaving her alive but without hope on a deserted island. In between fighting off crabs, Earhart remembers her youth, when she met the young Ernest Hemingway, who also lived in Chicago at the time.

None of this works. The dialog is endless, and flat.

“Come watch a game, Meelie.”

“Where do you play again?”

“Phipps Field. It’s at Chicago Avenue and Harlem.”

“I have no idea where that is.”

“I bet you can find it, though. You’re practically a Chicagoan now.”

“Am I?” “Sure you are. Oak Park isn’t so far from here. A matter of a few miles.”

“I don’t know, Hem. Will I have to watch players spitting?”

The characters are just as dull. Even Hemingway, who clearly interests Gray a lot more than Amelia, comes across as a very ordinary man. But the real crime is taking this woman, this pioneering, vigorous, lively, amazing woman, and making her sound timid and slow.

Cecelia Holland OPERATION KINGFISHER Hilary Green, Robert Hale, 2013, £19.99, hb, 224pp, 9780719810510 Operation Kingfisher was an escape line organised by the French Resistance in WW2 to smuggle downed Allied airmen to Spain via the French canal network. In this book the teenage HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Reviews | 39

brother and sister of an Anglo-French family who have been stranded in France by the war use it in the opposite direction (i.e. S-N) to try to reach Switzerland and so join their father in England.

The attempt is soon blocked, and the pair spend most of the book with the maquis in the highlands of the Morvan, ambushing Germans and collecting intelligence. Eventually they meet up with their father who, unknown to them, is an SOE agent, and he gets them back to England.

I am not sure whether this is meant to be a young adult book. Not only are the hero and heroine both teenagers, but they are so wholesome, the violence is sanitised, there is little moral ambiguity, and the maquis usually win with minor casualties. There is no hint of the tragedy to come when the maquis over-reach themselves and try to set up a liberated area in the Morvan.

Edward James BROTHERHOOD OF FEAR: A Willi Krauss Novel Paul Grossman, St. Martin’s, 2014, $25.99/£17.99, hb, 312pp, 9781250011596 It is 1933, and famous Jewish Berlin detective Willi Krauss has escaped Nazi Germany for the refuge of Paris. Without immigration documents or work papers, Willi walks the streets, performing odd jobs to make ends meet when he gets caught between competing interests, namely France’s most illustrious financier and the Paris police. Working for both sides against the other, Willi follows the trail, hoping to avoid deportation and find information to exonerate his wealthy friend. What he stumbles upon is much larger, an underground plot involving drugs, gambling, murder, and prostitution, schemes his various employers have reason to keep under wraps.

This is the third Willi Krauss book, which follows The Sleepwalkers and its prequel Children of Wrath. This story is fast-paced with high stakes and shifting loyalties. The author’s highly detailed descriptions of the streets and political landscape of 1930s Paris makes this a solid read. Like many detectives, Willi has his lucky guesses, and the resolution is rather drawn out and convoluted.

Yet Willi is a more flawed, more human detective than most you will find, which makes him a worthy hero. This book is recommended for those looking for something beyond the run-of-the-mill detective narrative.

Rebecca Henderson Palmer THE ARNIFOUR AFFAIR Gregory Harris, Kensington, 2014, $15.00/ C$16.95, pb, 277pp, 9780958292674 It’s the beginning of the 20th century in London, and the arrogant sleuth Colin Pendragon has taken on two new cases: Who killed Lady Arnifour’s husband and niece, and where is street urchin Michael’s twelve-year-old sister, Angelyne?

Pendragon’s sidekick and lover, Ethan Pruitt, narrates the tale as we discover dark details hidden by the fog of opium dens. Harris’s mystery novel, the first in a planned series, takes us from the 40 | Reviews |

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run-down upper-class estate of the complicated Arnifour family to the streets and shipyards of London, where we root for Pendragon to solve the mysteries even as we (and he) negotiate the trauma these cases may cause our dear Mr. Pruitt.

Pendragon’s confidence and Pruitt’s intellectual tagalong nature lead to obvious comparisons with Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. Fans of Sherlock will be pleased to see some reflection of those characters here. The introduction of their homosexual relationship, along with hints of complicated pasts for both men, however, provides additional interest in this book as well as those to come.

Amy Watkin AN OFFICER AND A SPY Robert Harris, Hutchinson, 2013, £18.99, hb, 483pp, 9780091944551 / Knopf, 2014, $27.95, hb, 448pp, 9780385349581 The Dreyfus Affair is an infamous episode in French history sufficiently well known not to need reiteration here. Familiarity with the facts, however, does nothing to diminish the power of Robert Harris’ novel, partly because the tragedy of Alfred Dreyfus remains as shocking today as it ever was, but also because the combination of racial prejudice, popular hysteria, corruption in high places and press intrusion on privacy rings uncomfortably true today. Harris draws the comparisons with skill and subtlety.

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The novel may have polemical elements but, as you would expect from this writer, it is also a gripping spy thriller and courtroom drama. It is narrated by Georges Picquart, who is rewarded for his role in bringing Dreyfus to ‘justice’ by being made head of the army’s secret intelligence service, the Statistical Section. It is not long before he begins to realise that Dreyfus is innocent and the evidence against him has been falsified. His pursuit of the truth sees him exiled, estranged from his family and his long-time mistress, and eventually cashiered from the army and imprisoned. His life has begun to resemble that of Dreyfus himself.

Narrated in Picquart’s meticulous, laconic voice, the novel’s tone is cool and measured, which makes the fates of Dreyfus and Picquart seem even more appalling. Most appalling, however, is the epilogue, whose profound and unapologetic cynicism says more about politics then and now than any amount of high-flown moralising. This is a terrific novel, gripping yet serious, written with great elegance and giving an astute and unsparing picture of the fin de siècle world that ended with the First World War but whose end began with the Dreyfus Affair.

Sarah Bower BRAVE HEARTS Carolyn Hart, Seventh Street, 2013, $13.95, pb, 265pp, 9781616147976 London, 1941. In a loveless marriage and haunted by the death of her only child, Catherine

E D I TORS’ CH OICE

THE MUSEUM OF EXTRAORDINARY THINGS

Alice Hoffman, Scribner, 2014, $27.99, hb, 384 pp, 9781451693560 / Simon & Schuster, 2014, £16.99, hb, 512pp, 9781471112133 The occasion of a new Alice Hoffman novel is always cause for celebration. In her latest, the pivotal setting of New York City in 1911 illuminates a compelling romance between immigrant photographer Eddie Cohen and the mysterious Coralie Sardie, the mermaid in a Coney Island museum.

In a story that both begins and ends in flames, both protagonists are influenced by and resist the pull of their fathers and the tragedies of their past – a Russian pogrom for Eddie and the birth abnormality that makes the confined Coralie her father’s treasure.

Eddie practices the art of photography as half science and half magic. His camera captures the beauty of both the Hudson River and the freaks of the museum at a tranquil breakfast. And the visceral roar of grief following the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. After the tragedy tears the city apart, both Eddie and Coralie become embroiled in the mystery behind a young woman’s disappearance before the fire.

In Hoffman’s portrait of its great and tormented beauty, New York shines as a wonder of the world in its savage grace. The story’s tensions are learned straight from Master Dickens: make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait.

Mysteries and magical realism are matched by characters (of two- and four-legged and winged variety) that leap off the page. The darkness of The Museum of Extraordinary Things is pierced by ineffable moments of grace. Art saves lives, but only love (always an achievement) redeems them. Alice Hoffman is a national treasure. Highly recommended.

Eileen Charbonneau 20th Century

Cavanaugh has neither hope nor joy in her life until she meets Jack Maguire. Within weeks they are lovers.

But war is unpredictable. Spencer Cavanaugh is sent on a career-enhancing mission to the Philippines with only one condition: Catherine has to go with him. Refusing to lose the woman he loves, Jack also makes his way to Manila.

Not long after they arrive, the Japanese attack forcing Catherine, Jack, Spencer and others into a harrowing adventure to escape the marauding Japanese army.

Brave Hearts is a very enjoyable read. The early part of this story is a little overwrought with emotion, and the instantaneous attraction between Catherine and Jack was too much for this reader; however, once in Manila the story gathers momentum, and tension builds with the threat of Japanese invasion.

Through Catherine and Spencer, Carolyn Hart offers amazing details about the invasion of the Philippines and the defense of Corregidor, the island fortress American soldiers defended for months. In parallel, we experience the fall of Bataan through Jack’s journalistic exploits. Beyond these famous battles another story unfolds: that of the effort to keep the Philippine treasury, in particular its gold and silver, out of the hands of the enemy. Spencer Cavanaugh was sent to Manila for precisely this purpose. Hart tells this part of the story and Spencer’s obsession for his duty to great effect.

A final note: according to Corregidor.org, “overseeing the last of the night time loading of the large metal boxes of gold bullion was Admiral Hart of the US Navy”. A coincidence? Who knows.

Mary Tod MAÑANA MEANS HEAVEN Tim Hernandez, Univ. of Arizona, 2013, $24.95, hb, 240pp, 9780816530359 In Mañana Means Heaven, award-winning writer Tim Hernandez explores the story behind Jack Kerouac’s famous tale, “The Mexican Girl,” which was first published as a short story in The Paris Review, thus paving the way for publication of what is now an American icon, On the Road.

Hernandez established a relationship with Bea Franco (“Terry” in Kerouac’s story) fifty-some years after the publication of On the Road. After reading her letters and listening to her reminiscence, Hernandez blended fact and fiction to shine a light on what life was like for Mexican women in the 1940s.

Bea Franco is a woman on the run when she meets Jack Kerouac, the “college boy” who spends the next two weeks with her. She is running from her abusive husband, hoping to start a new life in L.A. Instead, she met up with the “college boy” and entered into the archives of American literature.

Not a bad end for a 15-day, tequila-soaked love affair.

Hernandez’s writing is lush and true, though at certain moments, the book feels almost overwritten. Hernandez is also a poet and the language 20th Century

in this novel certainly reflects his poetic side. This is an important novel for many reasons. I find it particularly pleasing to see how Hernandez weaves together what he’s learned in research with the story of one woman, a woman who is more than “The Mexican Girl.”

Anne Clinard Barnhill THE DEVIL’S PACT James Holland, Bantam Press, 2013, £16.99, hb, 333pp, 9780593061787 Set mainly in Sicily, during the Allied invasion of July 1943, this novel certainly does not lack for action. The battle scenes are vividly depicted and seem highly technically accurate. The author is a well-known historian, so he has clearly used his expertise to create well-imagined, clearly described and believable fighting. There are even ‘real’ characters appearing, such as General Patton from the American forces and Hedley Verity, a famous cricketer who volunteered to fight the Nazi scourge, which adds to the feeling of authenticity.

The atmosphere throughout is one of adventure and derring-do.

The main character, Jack Tanner, is brave, highly decorated, gallant, morally upright and almost too good to be true; the novel is one of escapist enjoyment, certainly. The reader is anxious for Tanner to defeat the Nazis and outwit his evil bully commander, who does everything he can to get Jack killed. The main crux of the story is the private deal done by the Allies with the Mafia in order to overcome the Nazis, the devil’s pact of the title. The romantic element is perhaps the least convincing but is only really tacked onto the end. This is the fifth in the series following the adventures of Jack Tanner, the first being The Odin Mission. It is fine as a stand-alone, however, and is perfect for anyone who enjoys old-fashioned war novels.

Ann Northfield WAKE Anna Hope, Random House, 2014, $26.00, hb, 304pp, 9780812995138 / Doubleday, 2014, £12.99, hb, 336pp, 9780857521941 Wake is a potentially poignant and gripping novel that follows three families whose loved ones served in the Great War. The 1920s London setting is presented in an eloquent and intoxicating way as it evokes the invisible shroud that the war had left behind.

The writing is fast paced as readers get into the heads of the three main characters, who wonder if there is life after war. Likewise, getting into the minds of the veterans is both devastating and haunting. Ada sees her dead son in all those who have returned. Hettie’s only purpose in life is to dance professionally to provide for her mother and brother, whom she avoids. Finally, Evelyn wonders who the man is behind the face of her brother, who is alive but broken, while pondering if there is life after losing her betrothed.

It’s hard to tell the difference between the two younger women since their characters seem to morph into one another, but the thread involving

Ada, the older mother, helps break this up a bit.

The manner of her son’s death in the war is a tragic mystery that connects some of the characters and provides an intriguing angle.

Instead of focusing on survival and resilience, the plot circles around the characters with an ominous sense of continual loss. For readers who allow themselves to be drawn into the emotional hues, this could be a very enjoyable reading experience. The kicker is that the story moves along at a great pace, one full of life, death, love and grief, when it abruptly concludes, thus making this novel catapult to the top of my worst- endings-ever list.

Marie Burton HEAVEN MADE SaraLynn Hoyt, Montlake Romance, 2013, $12.95, pb, 264pp, 9781477849071 After the death of her husband, Sabrina Tremaine flees from her lascivious brother-in-law, taking a position through a Ladies’ Employment Agency. The work is familiar enough, having managed her own household for years; however she must keep her daughter out of sight from her new employer, Ford Northcliffe – at least until she makes herself indispensable.

When Ford begins thinking the child darting through the halls is his deceased little sister’s ghost, his resolute scientific ideals are questioned, and further tested when he attends a séance and his mother attempts to contact him to cancel her deathbed wish. Meanwhile Sabrina is concerned for her daughter, who insists she is speaking with her father, and other spirits. Her sudden illness brings Sabrina and Ford together, who find they have more in common than mutual desire.

Misunderstandings and unfortunate events ensue, but with the help of the spirits, fortune tellers and friends, there is promise of a happily ever after.

There are bedroom scenes, so those adverse to detail in that respect may want to skip over parts. Though the Edwardian setting is topically well-detailed, the storyline has an unrealistic paranormal theme. Overall, recommended only for romance enthusiasts who enjoy a supernatural mix.

Arleigh Johnson WINGSPAN Jeremy Hughes, Cillian, 2013, £9.99/$15.95, pb, 171pp, 9780957315587 Hughes studied for the Master’s in Creative Writing at Oxford University, has published poetry, and this story is all the things the publisher claims in the blurb. Plus it is beautifully written, presented in good clear font and reading the words is easy. It isn’t even terribly long at 171 pages.

But I am a trifle perplexed. Now I’m finished, I don’t quite know what I’ve read. It is two entwined stories, but I don’t mind that, even though they are fifty years apart in time and the stories are told in scraps and patches, as are so many of the products of creative writing schools.

But I do mind not being immediately able to tell which protagonist I am following. I also mind that the central question, which persuaded me to HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Reviews | 41

pick up the book, was never answered. What did happen to the missing airman? Was he ever there?

Did he live on? Was he the odd figure on the skyline at the end of the book? What did the police reports convey?

Perhaps it is all just too clever for me. I kept thinking I would get the hang of what it was all about if I read on, but apart from seeing that the protagonist’s quest for his father finally opened the doors he had kept so firmly closed all his life, I did not. Maybe one day I shall read it again and then all will become clear.

Jen Black THE SECRET OF MAGIC Deborah Johnson, Putnam/Amy Einhorn, 2014, $26.95, hb, 416pp, 9780399157721 Brave Joe Howard Wilson is returning home to Mississippi from WWII in 1946. On the way he has a fatal confrontation with soldiers transporting German prisoners of war. His demise fuels a search for answers by Regina Robichard, a young AfricanAmerican lawyer who works in Harlem for the famous Thurgood Marshall. Regina’s father was killed in different circumstances but with a parallel motive. A grand jury was called after Joe Wilson’s death but immediately closed, and a questionable coroner’s report ultimately showed “nothing.”

Every step Regina takes is monitored and controlled by Mary Pickett, a constant reminder that racial prejudice and Jim Crow laws still prevail in 1940s Mississippi. Mary Pickett is also M. P. Calhoun, who wrote the novel The Secret of Magic years ago, a tale about the Mottley sisters, the mysterious disappearance of their AfricanAmerican brother, and the search to find him by three young children. The victims of both accounts are strong, confident men unable to conform to the unspoken but virulently enforced rules of a powerful white world. Clues and threats in both cases arise against those who search for definitive answers.

The reader is never quite sure whether Ms. Pickett is helping or thwarting Regina’s search. A local African-American lawyer is able to slowly effect change but still serves at the pleasure of white politicians who monitor his every move. One admires and fears for the careful but determined Regina, who refuses to be intimated. Ultimately, there is hope for justice, albeit at a snail’s pace. This is a well-written, literary account of a historical time replete with notable characters who bravely confronted “the system” that denied freedom to so many for so long. Highly recommended!

Viviane Crystal THE BONES OF PARIS Laurie R. King, Bantam, 2014, $26.00/C$30.00, hb, 412pp, hb, 9780345531766 / Allison & Busby, 2013, £19.99, hb, 384pp, 9780749015350 Oh, to have been a private dick in 1929 Paris!

American expatriate and ex-Federal investigator Harris Stuyvesant is on the rapidly cooling trail of a pert young lady from Boston, missing now for several weeks. Odds are nothing bad has happened; 42 | Reviews |

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she’s probably just serving as some painter’s muse and has lost track of the calendar. As Stuyvesant searches, living on a generous expense account, he runs across every important artist or writer living in Paris. But when he isn’t trading verbal jabs with Man Ray in a Montparnasse café or real ones with Hemingway in the boxing ring, Stuyvesant works his way ever more deeply into the circle of a fiendish serial killer. Was Philippa Crosby murdered as a work of art – a cathartic shock, a Luis Buñuel film taken to the height of macabre absurdity? And can Stuyvesant solve the puzzle in time to save the next victim?

King skillfully weaves her fictional artists in among the real ones – I truly believed that any of them could have been involved in Philippa’s disappearance, and I will never look at certain paintings the same way again. The author goes too far with historical shout-outs just once in my opinion, throwing in a composer who wasn’t actually there and didn’t turn out to be important.

One must assume she is a big Cole Porter fan and couldn’t help herself. And who can blame her? In all, an exciting hardboiled homage to one of the great eras in art. Highly recommended.

Richard Bourgeois THE MEMORY OF LOST SENSES Judith Kinghorn, NAL, 2014, $16.00, pb, 448pp, 9780451466129 / Headline, 2013, £7.99/ C$15.99, pb, 400pp, 9780755386031 Judith Kinghorn’s latest release, The Memory of Lost Senses, is an evocative tale about the power of memory. The year is 1911, and mysterious Countess Cora has returned to England from the continent in order to spend time with her grandson, Jack.

With Cora is her longtime friend Sylvia, a novelist who plans to write Cora’s memoirs. Intrigued by what she’s heard of the Countess’ life, villager Cecily Chadwick, an aspiring novelist herself and friend of Jack’s, gets to know Cora, becoming increasingly fascinated by her remarkable tales. As Cecily’s relationship with Jack deepens, so does her interest in Cora’s life. But the Countess’ past is not necessarily as it seems, and Cecily comes to realize that there is much more to the Countess’ life than Cora is willing to impart.

One of the things I like best about this novel is the way in which the story is told. Rather than unfolding in chronological order, the narrative moves back and forth in time and is told from multiple viewpoints. The truth of Cora’s life is revealed only in bits and pieces, and the reader is never sure which of her memories are facts and which are fiction, thus ensuring the reader remains fully engaged in the story until the very end. Kinghorn’s prose is lovely, lavishly describing both the characters and the setting, which leaves the reader with a strong sense of time and place.

The characters themselves are engaging and welldeveloped. Fans of the Kinghorn’s remarkable debut novel, The Last Summer, will surely be pleased with this second effort. For readers yet to discover Kinghorn’s novels, this book is sure to create a whole new legion of fans.

Melissa Morrisey

THE FLOWER BOOK Catherine Law, Allison & Busby, 2013, £19.99, hb, 282pp, 9780749011161 This is one of the first in the inevitable tsunami of novels soon to hit the bookshops on the centenary of the First World War. At heart it is a fairy story with a wicked villain, a handsome prince, a fairy godmother and a baby – if not swapped at birth, at least with doubtful parentage. In terms of mood it begins as a light Edwardian romance with the most genteel rape you’ll ever read, and then it darkens with the nightmare of World War One, and concludes with a post-war denouement when the truth at last emerges. Violet, protagonist in the early part, keeps a record of her life in the form of a book of pressed flowers and this, when it is eventually handed on to her daughter, Aster, is the key to what took place years previously.

The author plays on the ambiguity of the visual – photographs, paintings, the flower book itself, and how images frozen in time do not necessarily show the truth. An intriguing scene is one that takes place when an old photograph gives up its secret and the daughter then discovers something about her parentage but, more importantly, a certain pressed flower turns out to have greater than decorative significance for everyone. You might feel that this plot device is so drawn out you long to shout out the secret ages before the characters tumble to it, but, plot aside, flower lovers will enjoy the many detailed descriptions and the pretty chapter headings which refer to different flowers, some directly relevant to the story. It has a flowery cover too. Publishers are waking up to the fact that compared to ebooks, a delightful asset of a real book is the way it looks and feels.

Cassandra Clark THE PRISONER OF THE RIVIERA Janice Law, Mysterious Press.com/Open Road, 2014, $14.99, pb, 232pp, 9781480436008 The second outing for 20th-century painter Francis Bacon as an accidental sleuth opens with a bang: “The war was over: Herr Hitler was dead Hirohito was mortal. We had flags and bunting, and I got marvelously drunk and committed a public indecency in Hyde Park—my little contribution to Britannia’s celebration.” In Janice Law’s capable hands, Bacon’s voice is a tad raunchy and refreshing, and his willing embrace of both the good things in life and the seedier side of town makes for entertaining reading.

Post-war life in London is dreary, and Bacon convinces Arnold, his respectable lover, and his childhood nanny to head south to Monte Carlo.

But before they are to depart, he witnesses a man getting shot outside a club. The club owner asks him to deliver the man’s belongings to his widow, who just happens to live on the Riviera, in exchange for forgiving Bacon’s gambling debts. Naturally, it turns out to be much more complicated than a simple visit to a grieving widow, and Bacon quickly finds himself suspected of murder, stranded without papers, and with no idea who to trust. Despite his desperate situation, he is a sarcastic and delightful 20th Century

narrator always seeking a bit of fun even in the face of danger. The choice of Bacon as a gay protagonist definitely works. Highly recommended.

Kristina Blank Makansi THE WIFE, THE MAID, AND THE MISTRESS Ariel Lawhon, Doubleday, 2014, $25.95/C$28.95, hb, 320pp, 9780385537629 The Jazz Age. Bootleggers. Gangsters.

Corruption. Crime. Tammany Hall. All these ingredients have been used in novels many times, but Ariel Lawhon takes a fresh approach and presents them from primarily female points of view. Her novel is based on the famous true-life disappearance in 1930 of Judge Joseph Crater, who left behind his wife, mistress, and maid. Each woman has her own secrets, and it is through their individual relationships with Crater, his associates, enemies, and the police, that we learn what might have happened to him.

In 1969, retired cop Jude Simon hopes to finally crack the mystery when he meets dying Stella Crater in a run-down bar, where she has gone on every anniversary of her husband’s disappearance.

We are then transported back to various events that took place in 1930 and 1931, both before and after the Judge went missing.

Sally Lou Ritz is the beautiful mistress, a country girl seduced by the glamour of show business and powerful men, and Maria Simon is the Spanish-American part-time maid who also works as a tailor and sews suits for gangsters.

The atmosphere is excellent, and the author’s endnotes are a special bonus for anyone unfamiliar with this particular history. However, covert dealings with brown envelopes, coincidences (Maria is the wife of the investigating cop) and accidental encounters between the women in powder rooms can make it feel a bit too contrived in places. The rapidity of the pre- and postdisappearance flashbacks may frustrate some readers, and they may need to backtrack through certain episodes to get their bearings. This style of storytelling often works better in screenplays, and there is every possibility that this will become a great movie vehicle for an ensemble of female actors.

Marina Maxwell THEN WE TAKE BERLIN John Lawton, Grove Press, 2013, £17.99, hb, 421pp, 9781611856125 / Atlantic Monthly, 2013, $26.00, hb, 400pp, 9780802121967 This is really two stories, both centring on Berlin.

The first begins in 1941 when John Holderness, commonly known as Wilderness, finds himself living with his grandfather in Stepney, East London, learning how to break into people’s houses. At the end of the war he is called up and enlisted into the RAF. To his surprise he finds himself transferred to an Intelligence unit (actually MI6) and is posted to Berlin. Although engaged in interrogating exNazis, he is also used for his special burgling skills.

At the same time he becomes involved in the Black 20th Century

Market in partnership with Frank (US army), Yuri (NKVD), and Eddie (British army). Together they take smuggling to new heights.

The second story begins in 1963 when Frank contacts Wilderness and persuades him to take up one last venture – only this time it is smuggling a person from the Russian Zone.

This is a gripping and meticulously researched book. A historical thriller, it is also a realistic portrayal story of people and life in postwar Berlin.

Although a little slow to start, once the action moves to Berlin the story takes off and moves to a fast paced climax. Does he succeed? Read the book – I don’t want to spoil the ending. Recommended.

Mike Ashworth THE NERO DECREE Gregory Lee, Thomas and Mercer, 2013, $14.95, pb, 406pp, 9781477808719 This story, set in Germany, begins in 1934 with the arrest of an anti-Nazi intellectual. He leaves a son, Thomas and a stepson, Dieter, who is a fledgling Nazi. Dieter fights with Thomas over a key to a safe deposit box containing the family fortune, but Thomas disappears. The story then picks up in the last days of World War II when Dieter, now a Gestapo officer, is wounded and taken to a field hospital. He is not expected to live, but an army doctor, Johann Schultz, saves him.

While waiting to move Dieter to an army hospital, Schultz learns that he is carrying Hitler’s top secret plan for Berlin in the final days of the war, known as the Nero Decree. Schultz decides to impersonate Dieter in order to turn this information over to the Allies. Dieter recovers enough to pursue Schultz whom he recognizes is his half-brother, Thomas. A suspenseful and thrilling chase ensues through an almost destroyed Berlin.

Lee has written a suspenseful, exciting mystery.

He describes the chaos at the end of the war with compassion and frightening detail. This is a cannotput-down book with plot twists and devastating revelations.

Audrey Braver THE ENGLISH GIRL Margaret Leroy, Sphere, 2013, £12.99, pb, 432pp, 9780751551761 / Hachette Australia, 2013, A$29.99, pb, 432pp, 0751551767 In 1937, pianist Stella Whittaker is accepted as a student at the prestigious Academy of Music in Vienna. Her mother arranges for her to stay with old family friends, Rainer and Marthe Krause, and under the spell of the city’s musical romanticism Stella falls passionately in love when she meets Harri Reznik, a young Jewish psychiatrist. But dark clouds are sweeping across Austria from Hitler’s Germany, and Stella finds herself caught between the increasing persecutions suffered by Harri and his family and the obligation she is under to Rainer, Marthe and their lonely son, Lukas. Adding to her anxiety is an unwelcome approach by a British agent who wants her to become a spy.

Stella is not always an appealing heroine. Given that she is only seventeen, politically naïve and

therefore unaware of what is really going on in Germany at the time, she can be forgiven for the way in which she dithers and denies the truth even in the face of growing violence. But it is her immature whiny displays of petulance and jealousy that are more irritating, and they often overshadow her positive points in her concern for the welfare of others.

The secondary characters are all far more interesting than Stella, and they ultimately rescue this story, including her callous friend Anneliese, the British spy Reece, the enigmatic Rainer, the compulsively obsessive Marthe, the superstitious maid, Janika.

For the most part the narrative is stylish and flows smoothly, but it has unfortunate stumbles in its banal and coarse sexual descriptions that cheapen the overall effect. By way of contrast, the sense of time and place has been finely crafted and is most effective in the way the light enchantment of Vienna noticeably fades into sombre tones as the novel reaches its dramatic conclusion.

Marina Maxwell WAR DOG: The No-Man’s-Land Puppy Who Took to the Skies...

Damien Lewis, Hachette Australia, 2013, Au$29.99, pb, 287pp, 9780751553475 / Sphere, 2013, £12.99, pb, 304pp, 9780751552751 Technically this book is creative non-fiction rather than a novel, as it features real events and people who were all connected to a dog that became famous, but the dialogue and certain scenarios have been invented by the author to complement an original unpublished manuscript by the dog’s owner, Czech flier, Robert Bozdech.

When Robert is shot down over the German front line in the early stages of World War II, neither he nor his co-pilot expect to survive, and while hiding out in an abandoned farmhouse they come across a starving orphaned puppy. Against all practical considerations Robert rescues the animal and keeps it tucked up in his jacket as the men struggle to escape into safety.

This is just the beginning of a lifelong bond that will see the German Shepherd, later named Antis, become a unique feature in Britain’s fight against Germany. Antis saves untold lives with his remarkable facility in detecting the approaching Luftwaffe long before the early warning systems, and he also locates people buried under rubble. In spite of numerous close shaves with pettiness and official regulations, he accompanies Robert in the gun turret of Wellington bomber C for Cecilia in RAF sorties over Germany, and he becomes the official mascot of 311 (Czech) Squadron.

Dodging death many times both in the air and on the ground, Antis is rightly awarded the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross, the Dickin Medal.

Naturally this story will appeal to dog lovers and has its sentimental side, but it is also a fine and deeply moving acknowledgement of the contribution and sacrifices made by the courageous Czech fliers in Britain’s war effort and thus deserves a wide audience. Even those who don’t normally HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Reviews | 43

read either war or dog stories will find this one hard to resist.

Marina Maxwell TRIPTYCH: A Mystery Margit Liesche, Poisoned Pen Press, 2013, $14.95/ C$16.95, pb, 320pp, 9781464201806 Triptych tells the story of the consequences of the Hungarian Uprising of 1956, which extend into the second generation. In 1956 Budapest, Évike is a child whose parents are revolutionaries.

She is summoned to the school director’s office, and during an interrogation by the Communist authorities, does her best to redirect suspicion from her parents. Ildikó’s story takes place in 1986.

Her parents lived in America at the time of the Uprising, but her aunt in Budapest disappeared, and no one knew her fate. Ildikó’s mother had visited Hungary to see her family in the 1960s, but after returning to Chicago, had died under an El train in a mysterious accident. Were the visit and the death connected? She left Ildikó a triptych needlework depicting the fairy tale “The Twelve Dancing Princesses,” but Ildikó begins to suspect her mother incorporated a message in the work.

Ildikó is drawn to visit her relatives in Hungary to find out the truth about her mother’s death and her aunt’s disappearance. She is unaware that Évike’s actions in 1956 will have an effect on her own fate in 1986.

I did not know much detail about the Uprising and was glad to learn about it while reading this enjoyable novel. There are several whodunits to be solved: What happened to Évike? Was Ildikó’s mother’s death an accident or suicide? What happened to Aunt Kati after she disappeared?

I was a bit skeptical about the fate of the culprit in the denouement, but other elements of the story were satisfying enough to make up for that.

Ildikó’s quest for her roots will strike a chord in the children and grandchildren of Eastern European immigrants who left the region in order to seek a better life elsewhere.

B.J. Sedlock UNMENTIONABLES Laurie Loewenstein, Akashic/Kaylie Jones Books, 2014, $15.95, pb, 307pp, 9781617751943 In August 1917, the traveling Chautauqua assembly is filling tents all over the Midwest with programs designed to edify and entertain smalltown audiences. Marian Elliott Adams, a handsome 30-ish spinster, lectures on the insalubrious effects of corsets on women’s freedom while wearing a free-flowing gown – which always raises a few eyebrows. Marian speaks her mind.

A sprained ankle delays Marian in Emporia, Illinois, where her candor has unforeseen results.

Newspaper editor Deuce Garland, his restless teenage daughter, their gravely ill neighbor, and others are exposed to Marian’s progressive thinking, which each interprets to suit his or her own needs. When a misinterpretation precedes a tragedy, Marian is blamed. When she befriends a black man, Marian is censured. When she falls in 44 | Reviews |

HNR Issue 67, February 2014

love with Deuce, Marian leaves Emporia, deterred by the local insularity.

The scene changes drastically with the U.S. at war. Deuce begins a long-overdue fight against censorship in Emporia. Marian, a volunteer in war-torn France, loses some of her self-assurance but none of her courage. Their letters describe a maturing relationship – and a growing gulf. Is it possible for Marian to settle down in a place like Emporia? Here Loewenstein accomplishes what novelists seldom do: she keeps the reader guessing until the end.

The little town of Emporia is a microcosm of American towns struggling with 20th-century social changes, the outlines of which were visible in 1917. Unmentionables is a love story and a journey of self-discovery, less frivolous than the title might suggest. Recommended for readers interested in the World War I years.

Jeanne Greene IN FALLING SNOW Mary-Rose MacColl, Penguin, 2013, $16.00, pb, 454pp, 9780143123927 / Allison & Busby, 2013, £7.99, pb, 464pp, 9780749013332 Readers are spoiled for choice with new historical novels set during WWI. Most offer similar themes: navigating the era’s shifting social patterns, how its pointless loss affected generations, and how valor springs from impossible circumstances. Fortunately, each one that I’ve read offers a unique perspective. What distinguishes Mary-Rose MacColl’s international bestseller In Falling Snow are its realistic portrayal of human relationships and focus on women in medicine, in particular its inspiring depiction of the selfsacrificing wartime heroism of the women of France’s Royaumont Abbey.

The narrative has a three-part structure, with two sections flowing effortlessly into one another as Iris Crane’s mind drifts from present to past in old age. In 1914, having failed to stop her 15-year-old brother Tom from enlisting, Iris leaves Australia for Europe to bring him home to their worried father. She gets distracted from her mission after discovering her nurse’s skills are needed at Royaumont, a run-down Cistercian abbey north of Paris that’s being established as a field hospital.

Working alongside its industrious chief physician Frances Ivens and hard-edged ambulance driver Violet Heron, Iris finds her calling. For her and its wounded soldiers, the capable medical sisterhood there makes Royaumont a secluded haven in the midst of horror.

Much later, in 1970s Brisbane, an invitation to a reunion reminds Iris of the leaden sense of guilt she’s carried since the war, the full reasons for which are carefully, if somewhat predictably, revealed. In a separate thread, Iris’ granddaughter Grace, an obstetrician in a nearly all-male field, struggles to reconcile her ambitions with her perfectionism and her family’s needs. Although I’m not normally drawn to modern medical dramas, I found Grace’s story gripping. The Royaumont segments are more leisurely paced, but they are immersive nonetheless.

Just like Iris, I found myself drawn in and reluctant to leave.

Sarah Johnson FIVE DEAD CANARIES Edward Marston, Allison & Busby, 2013, £19.99, hb, 352pp, 9780749013325 1916. In the third of Marston’s Home Front Detective series, six young female ‘canaries’ from a munitions factory supplying the Western Front are attending the birthday party of one of them, the lively Florrie, in the Golden Goose. The girls’ work is dangerous, not only because of frequent explosions in the factory, but also because the toxic TNT and sulphur turns their skin yellow, hence their nickname, ‘canaries’. At the height of the party, a hidden bomb explodes, killing five of the girls.

Only Maureen, who left early, escapes.

Inspector Harvey Marmion and Sergeant Joe Keddy are put on the case. There is no shortage of suspects; plenty of men in the munitions factory know how to make a bomb. Or is a murderous Serbian spy or an Irish Nationalist the culprit?

Or does someone have a personal grudge against one of the girls? The girls were all well-liked, hard-working girls from respectable families. As Marmion and Keedy begin to interview the girls’ families, cracks begin to appear…

I enjoyed this. Marston, as always, has a good historical understanding and plainly knows his stuff. We believe in the dangerous conditions in the factory, for example. And he’s spot on about the zeitgeist of the time, where what the man of the family says, goes; and the ambivalence of the Golden Goose’s male clientele about the canaries’ factory work. I particularly liked the detail of the Hayes Girls’ Football Club. This is also a world where detectives are often reliant on public transport to get them about and the privations of the war are wearing everyone down. This is very much a traditional whodunit, with the slow building-up of clues, the red herrings, and the unexpected twists and turns of the plot. It all makes for a most enjoyable read.

Elizabeth Hawksley TYRINGHAM PARK Rosemary McLoughlin, Atria, 2014, $16.00, pb, 480pp, 978147633104 / Penguin UK, 2013, £7.99, pb, 528pp, 9781405910521 Even before her baby sister Victoria disappeared from Tyringham Park in 1917, young Charlotte’s life was not pleasant. Unloved by her overbearing mother, ignored by her father, and bullied by the ultimate nightmare of a nanny, Charlotte grows up in a disturbed atmosphere wherein her mother sees her as competition and nasty secrets threaten almost everyone. Even her burgeoning talent as an artist comes under fire as she grows; her relationship with tutor Cormac, the only positive in her life, is cut off, and Charlotte finds herself clinging to anyone and anything who might offer her comfort. When she attaches herself to her brother’s friend, she is “exiled” to Australia to start a new life and to “find” Victoria, whom her mother 20th Century

believes was kidnapped all those years ago. If Charlotte’s life can become more complicated and dismal, it would be astonishing.

Though the time period and general setting of Tyringham Park are roughly akin to that of Downton Abbey, the similarities end there. There is not a single character for whom I felt any affection, including the downtrodden Charlotte; while she is not to blame for her circumstances, she allows herself to wallow in them and refuse to pull herself above them. The mystery of Victoria’s disappearance permeates the story and yet the ultimate solution is a letdown. While the writing is engaging enough that I felt compelled to read through to the end, I was sorely disappointed in both the lack of redemption and depth of feeling in the story. There is a lot of potential in this book but it suffers from a cast of characters for whom I felt no attraction or empathy whatsoever.

Tamela McCann AN ENGLISHMAN IN MADRID Eduardo Mendoza (trans. Nick Caistor), MacLehose, 2013, £16.99, hb, 380pp, 9780857051899 In the spring of 1936, art historian Anthony Whitelands is sent to Madrid to advise the Duke of La Igualada on the value of paintings he wishes to sell abroad in order to support his family in the event of their having to go into exile as a consequence of the political upheavals in Spain.

The paintings turn out to be worthless, the Duke’s family more involved in politics than they appear to be, and the hapless Anthony finds himself drawn into intrigues both political and romantic for which he is completely unprepared. And that is before the small matter of the missing Velasquez in the Duke’s basement.

From a leisurely beginning, Mendoza’s Planeta Prize-winning novel unfolds into a black comic adventure of an Englishman abroad in the tradition of Evelyn Waugh. While delivering an astute, erudite and damning indictment of the Spanish establishment, blundering into civil war out of idleness, irresponsibility and apathy, it is a quietly hilarious farce, stuffed with double agents, enigmatic diplomats, charlatans, girls hidden in wardrobes and a convoluted sleight of hand surrounding the missing Velasquez so impossible to explain there is no danger of plot spoilers from this reviewer.

An Englishman in Madrid is not a light or easy read, although Caistor’s translation is fluent and elegant. It requires some concentration to keep abreast of the complexities of the political situation as well as the many misadventures which befall Anthony. The different plot strands sometimes seem a little awkward in their meshing, yet I was sorry to finish the book and was left with the sense of having experienced something both erudite and delightful when I closed it for the last time.

Sarah Bower THE BRIDGES OF CONSTANTINE Ahlem Mosteghanemi (trans.

Raphael 20th Century

Cohen), Bloomsbury, 2013, £16.99, hb, 305pp, 9781408846407 This book is the first of a best-selling, awardwinning trilogy, originally published in Arabic in 1993 and in English in 1999. This re-release of the novel in a new translation by Raphael Cohen is a dual-stranded piece of literature. It is both a stunning tale of Algeria between the 1930s and 1980s, and a heartfelt and painful tale of love and fate felt from within by an artist for a woman who enables him to finally come to terms with his history and his country.

Having served years before as a revolutionary in the Algerian war of liberation, where he became responsible for the child of his mentor, the wounded artist Kahled is self-exiled in Paris. Here fate draws together the tangled strands of his previous life in Algeria through the re-introduction into his life of the child he knew, now a grown woman with whom he falls passionately in love. Fate is determined to have the last laugh, drawing Kahled into an emotional turmoil from which he cannot escape, even years later, even after he believes he has lost his love to another.

The seductive nature of the female protagonist, and the city of Constantine to which Kahled is ultimately pulled, is matched by the interesting prose style of the author. The entire novel is written in the second person, which can be difficult to sustain without irritating the reader. However, the author, I feel, achieves a book in which the narrator talks to his love while never isolating the reader and the ‘I’ becomes the reader’s ally. The female author has told this man’s story adeptly and with believability. It is a beautiful, sad, powerful narrative and is highly recommended to those who like their reading to have a literary, rather than a mainstream, bent.

Claire Cowling THE MYSTERY OF RIO Alberto Mussa (trans. Alex Ladd), Europa, 2013, $16.00, pb, 192pp, 9781609451363 What defines a city, the narrator tells us, is “the history of its crimes,” and, with that introduction, he proceeds to tell the story of one particular perfect murder that defines Rio de Janeiro. But the narrator, the reader discovers, is hardly reliable as both he and his wife were intimately involved in the circumstances surrounding the crime, a murder committed in 1913 in which the secretary to the president of Brazil was found strangled and tied to a bed at the House of Swaps, a secret brothel run by a doctor who runs a gynecological practice during the day and is obsessed by the mystery of female sexual desire.

In setting the crime in context, the narrator interjects information about other notable crimes and stories of pirates and priests and their hidden treasures in underground tunnels, witches and magical grave-robbing spirits, and, of course, the sexual liaisons that occur at the brothel. The story is ultimately about the awakening of forbidden appetites, jealousy, and the destructive machismo of two men competing to seduce each other’s previous

conquests. Men and their attitudes toward women center the novel, and I found the female characters in the story were treated more as sexualized objects rather than interesting and well-developed people in their own right.

The metafiction elements of the book gave it a surreal sensibility that I enjoyed, but ultimately I found myself skimming over many of the contextual tales that had little to do with the crime in question. The book has won awards in Brazil, so perhaps readers more familiar with the country will find them fascinating rather than distracting.

Kristina Blank Makansi THE WIVES OF LOS ALAMOS TaraShea Nesbit, Bloomsbury USA, 2014, $25.00/$26.50, hb, 240pp, 9781620405031 / Bloomsbury Circus, 2014, £12.99, hb, 240pp, 9781408845998 In March 1943, doorbells ring at the comfortable homes of academics in some American university towns. Their wives admit “a young man in a porkpie hat” who confers with their husbands privately. At the end of the meetings, their husbands announce: “We are going to the desert,” or “How’d you like to live in the Southwest?” When the wives ask for more details, their husbands mutter “I don’t know.”

Thus begins the extraordinary journey of a group of young women whose stories are presented, collectively, in this historical novel spanning 1943 to 1945. Despite coming from different cities, they share the common bond of being married to a renowned scientist. They arrive at Los Alamos full of excitement, which soon fades upon discovering their new environment, which is no better than an unsightly military camp. It isn’t just the unfinished barrack houses surrounded by a barbed wire fence that annoys them, but many other aspects, such as a PO Box address, mail censorship, the confiscation of their cameras, limited family visits, and most of all not knowing what their husbands are doing.

Most of them were originally from Europe, and the Anglicization of their names takes some getting used to as well.

As the story unfolds, the novel explores the sacrifices these women make, overcoming mental and physical hardships simply for the love of their husbands and children. How they band together to resolve their problems, do their household duties, and have babies is presented vividly. Their husbands’ monumental project may not have succeeded without the cooperative effort of these dedicated wives. While some readers may find Nesbit’s first-person-plural viewpoint impersonal, it feels appropriate in unfolding this multi-cast story. The novel’s ending also deals with the characters’ wrestling with the bigger challenge posed by the use of their husbands’ project and its aftermath.

Waheed Rabbani ON WINGS OF DEATH David J. Oldman, Claymore Press, 2013, £16.99, hb, 241pp, 9781781593011 This book is set in in the First World War, where HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Reviews | 45

Sergeant Miller is a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps.

He is sent to an airfield near Ypres to confirm that the death of a pilot was indeed a suicide. Miller was brought up in America but is English and is sick of being mistaken for an American. He is an excellent pilot, and his credentials for this investigation come solely from a brief spell as a Pinkerton detective.

This book depicts the horrors of the First World War in graphic and authentic detail; Miller not only has to try and investigate the suicide but also fly on daily missions over the enemy lines. When another man is found dead, supposedly shot by his own pistol, Miller understands there is more to this case than he realised.

David Oldman is an excellent writer; the historical detail is accurate and the reader is drawn into the dangerous world of a First World War pilot. As events escalate the pace increases until the book ends with a satisfying and unexpected conclusion. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and can highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the Royal Flying Corps who also likes a tense, wellwritten thriller.

Fenella J Miller CRITICAL MASS Sara Paretsky, Hodder & Stoughton, 2013, £17.99, hb, 483pp, 9781444758672 / Putnam, 2013, $26.95, hb, 480pp, 9780399160561 Critical Mass presents an interesting genre mix: political thriller, detective story and time-slip novel.

Although mostly set in the 21st century, it contains scenes from Vienna and elsewhere in 1913, 1938, 1942 and 1953 which reveal a story of persecution, illegitimacy, theft, paranoia and the dawning of the nuclear age. It is an historical novel that takes as its subject issues that affect our lives today, nuclear fission and computers.

Victoria Warshawski, well-known private eye, takes on a missing person search as a favour to a friend. She discovers a man hideously murdered in a cornfield, which draws her into a tangle of scientific secrets and the mysteries of physics – of 1930s Nobel prizes and the extraordinary women scientists of pre-war Austria. It soon becomes apparent that the killers and the forces behind them are determined to prevent truth from surfacing. The book is utterly thrilling in both its present and past sections.

V. I. Warshawski is a fully realised personality.

The heroine of sixteen novels, one never tires of her. She is courageous, sharp, and yet can make mistakes. Though foolhardy, she is always determined to discover truth. Her coterie contains equally likeable characters. Lottie, her confidante, has an interesting past. Mr Conteras, the comforting and elderly neighbour, is always ready to help when the going gets tough. They become the reader’s friends too, one of the secrets of this writer’s success, in addition to her succinct prose, deft plotting and sustained tension.

Paretsky has read extensively around Operation Paperclip, in which the U.S. government brought into America many Nazi weapons and rocket researchers, and was inspired by a real person, the Austrian physicist, Marietta Blau. I found this novel important, gripping, and exceptionally well written. I recommend it without reservation.

Carol McGrath 46 | Reviews |

HNR Issue 67, February 2014

C

SHAKEN IN THE WATER

E D I TORS’ CH OICE

Jessica Penner, Foxhead, 2013, $15.00, pb, 377pp, 9780984748686 This multigenerational story is set in early 20th-century rural Kansas, in a German-speaking, Ukrainian Mennonite community rooted in tradition yet marching inexorably into the modern world. The tensions of belief, tradition, and change pull against an interleaved narrative of human experiences – love, loss, despair, lust – that darts back and forth over a period of around a hundred years.

Penner’s writing style is lyrical and precise, a pleasure to read. The absence of quotation marks in dialogue and the use of both High and Low German – sometimes translated, sometimes not – help to build a sense of otherness, of a community that understands its own rules even as it chafes against them. The sense of place is very strong; I could feel the blinding sun and smell the wheat and dust of harvest.

The cast of characters is vivid, each of their stories quickly sketched and yet memorable. They center loosely around Agnes, her husband Peter, and his sister Nora, whose story forms the core of the novel. It is Nora’s presence – as a memory, as a white tiger, as a disembodied Voice – that provides the dissonant note to lift the narrative further out of ordinariness and reinforce the feeling of tension I found to be present throughout the text.

Altogether I found Shaken in the Water an enjoyable, compelling literary read that gave me a sense of how the Mennonite community is evolving.

Jane Steen THE LATE SCHOLAR Jill Paton Walsh, Hodder and Stoughton, 2013, £19.99, hb, 356pp, 9781444760866 / Minotaur, June 2014, $25.99, hb, 352pp, 9781250032799 Peter Wimsey, now Duke of Denver, learns that one of the responsibilities that goes with his title is to adjudicate, as Visitor, over disputes among the fellows of St. Severin’s College, Oxford.

When trouble breaks out over the possible sale of a valuable manuscript to finance a purchase of land, Peter and his duchess, the crime writer Harriet Vane, find themselves caught up in a catalogue of murders which seem to be inspired by Harriet’s novels.

This is Paton Walsh’s fourth novel featuring Dorothy L. Sayers’ gentleman detective and, although Peter and Harriet are now middle-aged, long married and the parents of two teenage sons, in some ways at sea in the post-war world, it is an unfaltering and delightful hommage to Sayers’ books. As one who came to Lord Peter via his TV incarnation, the spirit of Edward Petherbridge was never far from my reading. Age notwithstanding, Paton Walsh’s Peter remains dashing, intellectual and prone to driving too fast. His passion for his bluestocking wife is undimmed.

The novel’s plot is, if not predictable, comfortable in its linearity and charming in its unwordliness.

Only the detectives of the Golden Age could find themselves investigating murders motivated by hostile reviews in the Times Literary Supplement and arcane arguments about the glossing of a 9th-century Boethius. While Paton Walsh allows herself a modicum of gore, the violence here is decorous, ingenious and unlikely to frighten the

horses. As Peter, Harriet and the indispensable Bunter track down the murderer, quoting poetry, punting and drinking pints with C. S. Lewis as they go, the reader cannot help but be entranced by a world of courteous murder and elegant solutions just about as real as Narnia.

Sarah Bower THE WIND IS NOT A RIVER Brian Payton, Ecco, 2014, $26.99, hb, 320pp, 9780062279972 / Mantle, 2014, £16.99, hb, 256pp, 9781447242215 After his brother’s death in World War II and an argument with his wife, journalist John Easley heads north to Alaska’s Aleutian Islands to cover the untold story of the Japanese invasion and occupation of American soil. He sneaks aboard an American plane on a bombing run when it is subsequently shot down, leaving only John and one young soldier left alive. Finding shelter in a cave, the two must battle the harsh elements – and their own demons – to stay sane and to stay alive.

Back home, John’s wife, Helen, decides to leave her ailing father, adopt a new persona, and embark on a journey to find John. Their separate journeys, and those of the people they meet along the way, reveal the determination of the human spirit, the power of love, and the heartbreaking toll of war.

The Wind Is Not a River is one of those quiet novels that stays with you because of the cadence and perceptive simplicity of the language. Deep in the night in his isolated cave, Easley remembers Helen only as a “series of sensations” and yet still feels the healing power of her kiss. In describing soldiers’ photo collages near their bunks, Payton 20th Century

writes, “There are the standard-issue Betty Grables and Rita Hayworths, but also snapshots of mothers and girlfriends representing a remarkable range of sizes and orthodontic predicaments. One boy has a picture of his horse.”

After the first couple of chapters, I had already guessed the outcome of the story and was a bit disappointed that it turned out to be so predictable.

But that didn’t detract from my overall enjoyment.

Recommended.

Kristina Blank Makansi PALMERINO Melissa Pritchard, Bellevue Literary Press, 2013, $14.95, pb, 192pp, 9781934137680 Most readers will not be familiar with either the name or the writings of Vernon Lee, the nom de plume of Violet Paget, a late 19th- to early 20thcentury author. A prodigious writer, she wrote scholarly and aesthetic criticism, as well as novels and short stories. Palmerino is the name of the 14thcentury Italian villa located near Florence where Lee lived in the 1920s and 30s, until her death.

She was well known to many of the leading artistic lights of the day, from Henry James to Virginia Woolf, Oscar Wilde to John Singer Sargent (they were best friends from childhood), the aging PreRaphaelites to the budding Expressionists.

This short novel is an interesting and strange story of Sylvia, a novelist “of a certain age,” recently divorced, who rents a room at Palmerino Villa to help her re-ignite her literary fires, write a “different” kind of novel to please her agent, and come to terms with her life. Vernon Lee is both the subject of her novel and a growing ethereal presence as Sylvia becomes absorbed into the lush, moist, enclosed, and overgrown garden that is Palmerino.

As the narrative sways back and forth from the present-day Sylvia to the latter-day Vernon Lee, more and more of it is taken over by the insistent “presence” and story of the Edwardian writer.

Those parts of the novel are well done, vibrant, passionate and absorbing. The parts where Sylvia takes center stage are, by contrast, listless and somewhat shallow. Sylvia is less a character than a vehicle for expression by the overwhelming intellect and character she is writing about. While the author may have intended this, it leaves those passages rather flat and lacking in urgency.

Fortunately, these less engaging sections are short, leaving much more time to spend with Vernon Lee. Recommended.

Mary Burns SHADOWED BY GRACE: A Story of Monuments Men Cara C. Putman, B&H, 2014, $14.99, pb, 352pp, 9781433681790 Rachel Justice’s mother is dying of tuberculosis, but she can be saved by special treatments if Rachel can find her father in Italy and ask him for the money to save her mother’s life. Her mother once had artistic dreams, which were shattered when she became pregnant with Rachel and fled Italy and her former lover. So Rachel signs up as a photojournalist with the American army, which is in the last stages of pushing the Germans out of Italy at the end of WWII. As adventurous as she is, Rachel is determined not to fall in love for her own logical reasons, but 20th Century

she obviously didn’t plan on meeting another soldier also from Philadelphia, Lieutenant Scott Lindstrom. Scott’s a monument man, a soldier who has fully embraced the job of saving Italian art that the Germans haven’t stolen or totally destroyed.

Scott’s got his own reasons for being cautious with women. Yet Rachel and Scott are gradually drawn together and yet still fulfill their mission as the German soldiers are destroying Italy before they escape.

At first the reader suspects that Rachel is misguided in searching for someone whose name she doesn’t even know, but the face of war at every turn is riveting reading and moves the reader to respect her for the ways she copes with intolerable conditions within Italy. The end is romantically lovely, spiritually significant but not without surprising sacrifices that remind us that war is indeed hell! It’s obvious this is a well-researched novel that makes its blend of mystery, war, blossoming respect and love, and artistic passion all the more endearing to the reader. Shadowed by Grace is spiritual historical fiction that is sweet and inspiring but also a very realistic read.

Viviane Crystal DRY BONES Peter Quinn, Overlook, 2013, $25.95, hb, 351pp, 9781468307368 Dry Bones is the third novel and the conclusion of Peter Quinn’s trilogy featuring Fintan Dunne, a detective, OSS agent and WWI soldier. From the opening few paragraphs, the author situates us clearly and effectively in post-WWII Europe. We get an immediate sense of Dunne as a tough, smart, street-wise man who is weary of “the ‘dark arts’ of psychological warfare, clandestine operations, and counterintelligence.”

The plot moves from an unexpected plane landing in 1946 Nuremberg to a rescue mission in Slovakia, which was set in motion in the early weeks of 1945. From the very beginning, the mission suffers twists and turns as it is threatened by desperate Nazis attempting to inflict whatever remaining damage they can and the advancing Russian army, which is determined to lay claim to as much territory as possible before the war ends.

But WWII isn’t the end of war; instead, Dunne and others are thrust into “a guerre froide that prevents further expansion of the Soviet empire and awaits its collapse from the weight of its own contradictions.” Even in 1958 New York, Dunne cannot escape the consequences of the secret he and fellow OSS agent Dick Van Hull uncovered during their mission to Slovakia. To make matters worse, former friends have become foes, former Nazis have been welcomed into the West, and enemies who died might not be dead after all.

The strengths of Peter Quinn’s writing are his superb voice, complicated characters, complex plot, scenes full of tension, and a terrific blend of fact and fiction. Unfortunately, I occasionally got lost amongst the plot twists and lengthy flashbacks, although this may have been due to reading the third episode of the trilogy without reading the other two.

Mary Tod THE WAY YOU DIE TONIGHT Robert J. Randisi, Severn House, 2013, $27.95, hb,

208pp, 9780727883346 The awesome Eddie G is back in this ninth installment in the Rat Pack mysteries, and he’s once again at the beck and call of the rich and famous in 1960s Las Vegas. This time, his boss, Jack Entratter, has asked him to show Edward G. Robinson a good time as the “other Eddie” comes to town to research his role for a new movie.

What should be nothing but a good time becomes another act to juggle when Jack’s secretary is found dead in the Sands’ restroom, and Eddie determines to get to the bottom of the story. Throw a secret meeting with Howard Hughes into the mix, and you’ve got the setup for yet another light mystery filled with the ambiance of Vegas’ heyday.

The murder mystery itself is almost a secondary story to everything else Eddie G manages to find himself entangled in; the story begins with him taking out a couple of thieves and sidetracks into Hughes’s factual attempt to obtain property in the area. Randisi does a fabulous job of incorporating both real events and people around the fictional Eddie G; the appearances of the Rat Pack are seamlessly written into the story so that I can almost believe it’s all based on truth. With plenty of ′60s atmosphere and attitude, Randisi is superb at describing the era and placing the reader in the middle of the action. But it’s the characters that truly make this series come alive. I admit it; I’m hooked and already looking forward to the next entry. Light and enjoyable fun!

Tamela McCann SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE Jennifer Robson, William Morrow, 2014, $14.99, pb, 400pp, 9780062273451 Lady Elizabeth “Lilly” Neville-Ashford, the daughter of the Earl and Countess of Cumberland, is thoroughly stifled by her place in the hierarchy of British society. Her domineering mother wants to see her marry a socially acceptable man and start a family, but with the onset of World War I, Lilly has other ideas that include volunteering for the newly-created Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.

Sent to France to serve as an ambulance driver, she comes into contact with Robbie Fraser, her oldest brother’s dearest friend. Their love is illicit, and as the war escalates around them, they are forced to confront the eventuality that they may never see each other again.

Somewhere in France is a well-researched and riveting first novel. Robson is the daughter of the celebrated World War I historian, Stuart Robson, and her novel is accurate to its last heartbreaking detail without being bogged down with unnecessary information. Lilly is a woman caught between the shifting sands of the old aristocracy and her desire to be a thoroughly modern 20thcentury woman. Robbie, though misguided at times, is all a hero should be: upstanding yet flawed enough to be relatable.

Being that the novel is set during the Edwardian period, it will inevitably call to mind Downton Abbey. Fortunately the characters and plot stand alone without harkening to that much in vogue series. Lovers of the period spanning the “War to End All Wars” will find much to enjoy in this novel, as will romance enthusiasts and general historical fiction readers. Recommended.

Caroline Wilson HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Reviews | 47

FALLEN BEAUTY Erika Robuck, Penguin, 2014, $16.00, pb, 352pp, 9780451418906 This novel, set in the 1930s in upstate New York, tells the story of the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Laura Kelly, a young woman whose youthful indiscretion has left her unmarried with a small daughter, a difficult position in her small town, where she is largely spurned. Millay, although a celebrated poet by this time, is also considered a fallen woman by the townspeople, who hear tales of wild parties at Steepletop, Millay’s estate. Laura chafes at the townspeople’s treatment of her and her daughter and yearns for a freer life. Millay needs new costumes for her upcoming poetry tour and wants Laura, a talented seamstress who dreams of designing for the theater, to make them for her. Laura is fascinated by the poet and her bohemian lifestyle, but also repulsed and conflicted about taking work from her, sensing that the poet is attracted to her. Laura wonders, “Was there a way to live freely without being wild, to live a balanced and satisfied life?”

Laura is an admirable character, but this is a warts-and-all portrayal of Millay, who is shown as emotionally fragile after the death of her mother and the poet Elinor Wylie, and her affair with the poet George Dillon. We see her creative genius and her social conscience, as well as her lasciviousness, her arrogance and her cruelty. Although this is not a novel about historical events but rather people’s emotional and creative lives, the period is still wonderfully evoked through descriptions of the economy and politics, and the homes, clothes and attitudes of the townspeople. Having recently visited Steepletop, I found the depiction of Millay’s life there particularly interesting. Erika Robuck has written two other historical novels featuring American authors, Hemingway’s Girl and Call Me Zelda, which are now on my reading list.

Jane Kessler A LOVE LIKE BLOOD Marcus Sedgwick, Mulholland, 2014, £17.99, hb, 311pp, 97814447511932 Marcus Sedgwick has already published 12 YA novels, and this is his first novel for adults. His YA experience shows in his precise, simple prose, the straightforward story line (essentially a chase) and the fast pace with plenty of physical action. YA fiction is less noted for character development, but this what this novel is all about. In the course of 24 years (1944 to 1968), the narrator’s professional and social life disintegrates, and he moves from being a sedate, career minded hospital doctor to becoming a rootless, homicidal outlaw, driven by an obsession to avenge his girlfriend’s murder.

As the title warns, there is a lot of blood in this book and all of it red, warm and messy. The villain likes to drink his victims’ blood, the narrator is a haematologist (there is quite a lot about his work) and he escapes from his adversary by amputating his own thumb and cauterising the wound, so as to slip his hand from the ring holding him to his prison wall. If you do not like blood, this is definitely not the book for you. If it does not disturb you, then I think you will find this a suspenseful, fast-moving thriller with some interesting settings.

Edward James 48 | Reviews |

HNR Issue 67, February 2014

A WELL-TEMPERED HEART Jan-Philipp Sendker (trans. Kevin Wiliarty), Other, 2014, $15.95, pb, 400pp, 9781590516409 Jan-Philipp Sendker’s sequel to The Art of Hearing Heartbeats is as powerful as the first novel. With elements of fantasy, the author crafts a beautiful tale of love and loss in the mid-to-late 20th century. Julia, a thirty-something New York lawyer, begins to hear a voice in her head. The voice is insistent that Julia question her life choices. Julia, who lives alone, has very few close relationships and doesn’t even realize that she is lonely. Thinking she is going crazy, she tries to silence the voice using Western medicine to no avail.

Ultimately, Julia feels compelled to return to Burma, where her half-brother, U Ba, lives. U Ba’s life is as different from Julia’s as can be. Living simply and not caring for money, U Ba is content, while Julia is unsettled and is continuing to be tortured by the voice. U Ba convinces her that the voice is a spirit of a woman named Nu Nu who lost her child; the brother and sister embark upon a journey to learn the details of the dead woman’s life. What follows is a captivating story-withina-story that pays homage to both maternal and romantic love, and that illustrates the horrors of war. As the story unfolds, Julia’s life is transformed in more ways than she can imagine.

The book, which was translated from German, is truly an original, the author’s prose flawless and evocative. To fully understand and enjoy the book in its full context, I suggest that the reader begin with the first book.

Hilary Daninhirsch STELLA BAIN (US) / THE LIVES OF STELLA BAIN (UK) Anita Shreve, Little, Brown, 2013, $28/C$31, hb,

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DOLLFACE

288pp, 9780316098861 / Little Brown, 2014, 16.99, hb, 272pp, 9781408702963 Amid the rage of World War I, an American nurse is found wounded in France – and she has no idea who she is. When questioned, she calls herself Stella Bain, though she’s unsure if that’s correct, even months later when she’s resumed her nursing duties. When the opportunity to visit England presents itself, Stella knows she must go; she knows deep within her bones that the answer to her identity lies with someone or something in the Admiralty. Along the journey, Stella falls ill and is taken in by a young woman whose husband is a cranial surgeon. Intrigued by her case, Dr. Bridge begins gently trying to draw memories out of Stella and help her find out her past.

Stella Bain actually is two distinct stories; the first half deals with her memory loss, and the second half examines both who she was and who she will become. There’s plenty of mystery as to what happened to place Stella in France; it’s very obvious that not only is she cultured, she’s running from something. As the memories begin to surface, fascinating discoveries are made, many of which pose Stella in conflicting lights, and force her to face unpleasantries in which she may have had a hand.

The storyline is unique, and Shreve keeps Stella walking the fine line between sympathetic and frustrating. It’s very obvious that she’s done her research; the nursing situations are vivid and the language is used quite well to transport the reader into the First World War. I was intrigued early on and remained so throughout the reading. This novel is well written and thought-provoking.

Tamela McCann THE ABOMINABLE

E D I TORS’ CH OICE

Renee Rosen, NAL, 2013, $15/$16, pb, 396pp, 9780451419200 Dollface is set amid the gangsters of Chicago in the Roaring ´20s, when Prohibition was raging and a good time was the sure cure for anything that ailed you. Eighteen-year-old Vera leaves home the first moment she can, determined to make her own way and find that good time. It doesn’t take long before the beauty attracts the attention of not one but two gangsters on opposite sides of the bootlegging business; once she falls pregnant, Vera chooses Shep Greene, whose relative stability and wealth bring her a sense of maturity. But underneath the façade, Vera still carries a torch for the hapless Tony, and when Shep finds himself jailed, she risks everything to enter the illegal trade herself. In a period of a few short years, life moves from dull and predictable to dangerous to just plain scary, and Vera has no idea how she reclaim any normalcy.

This book is riveting almost from the first few pages, and the flighty, often irritating Vera is still endearing as she tries to protect herself and her child in a world of guns and danger. Rosen’s use of fictional characters incorporated into the bootlegging world of Chicago brings the era perfectly to life; filled with violence, sex, betrayal and risk, this book is an excellent example of an historical New Adult story. Definitely a keeper.

Tamela McCann

20th Century

Dan Simmons, Sphere, 2013, £18.99, hb, 663pp, 9780751545568 / Little Brown, 2013, $29.00, hb, 672pp, 9780316198837 In a sense, this book cheated me, for the blurb raised expectations of discovering yeti on Everest.

Instead it is an account of a secret expedition to climb the mountain under the guise of recovering the body of Lord Bromley, who disappeared there.

Two of the five who make up the expedition know Bromley had a secret of his own but fail to share that knowledge with their companions, in spite of attacks which leave thirty Sherpas dead in a crevasse.

The story is set in 1925, when climbing gear consisted of layers of wool and sturdy hobnailed boots. If you are interested in the techniques of mountaineering, then this is the book for you. If you need to know that each pack mule can carry 160 pounds, ditto. By page 259 the party was still forty miles from Everest, and I confess my impatience increased with every following page. I wanted the real story to begin.

It is a credit to the author that I read from cover to cover and now know more about climbing than I’m ever likely to need. The five characters are all the superhuman Indiana Jones-type who can sleep on sloping ledges above 8,000-foot drops without turning a hair. Regina strips on the summit of Everest when facing the vile villain and doesn’t get frostbite. Descriptions of tinkering with breathing equipment don’t do it for me, but I understand male readers like this sort of thing. The blend of fact – finding Mallory – and fiction – finding Irvine – gives a gravitas to the book, but for me the basic premise took off into the realms of fantasy, and I’m not talking about yeti. This was an interesting read, but will not make my list of favourite books of the year. Neither will I forget it.

Jen Black BREWSTER Mark Slouka, Norton, 2013, $25.95, hb, 288pp, 9780393239751 / Portobello, 2013, £12.99, pb, 272pp, 9781846274992 Jon, Ray and Frank are high school buddies coming of age in the late 1960s in a small town in upstate New York. The weather is as frozen as America’s heart, wasting away from trauma after trauma. John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King are assassinated. The Vietnam War is in full gear, and our three main characters are wondering if they’re going to be drafted.

What saves the day is the music, avidly heard and robustly sung by anyone and everyone.

The ability to carry a tune is not a prerequisite for those who love these tunes, with their antiestablishment, shocking but honest lyrics. These young teens serve as the harbinger of truth, a Greek chorus questioning how real these tragic events are and lamenting how powerless ordinary citizens feel to change anything. Where hope is absent on a national level, family dysfunction seems to increase in parallel fashion.

The unique quality of this novel concerns the different reactions of the three main characters to each horrifying event, symbolic of what’s going on in the larger national and international arena.

Numbness and pain become subsumed into a new wave of folk and rock music. While Slouka does not provide easy or maudlin responses, the strengths of 20th Century

these characters emerges as the pivotal means of coping and healing. Brewster is an amazing work of historical fiction and highly recommended. You won’t be able to forget this searing story!

Viviane Crystal A STAR FOR MRS. BLAKE April Smith, Knopf, 2014, $25.95/C$28.95, hb, 334pp, 9780307958846 Though it’s been thirteen years since her son Sammy died at Verdun, Cora Blake still feels the sting of the decision to bury him in faraway France rather than bring him home to Maine. When the U.S. Government offers to send Cora to France to visit her son’s grave, she jumps at the chance, not only to find some closure but also to see something of the world that Sammy saw during the war. She joins the Gold Star Mothers traveling to France, finding comfort in friendships with four of the women, all from different backgrounds, but all united in their grief.

In France, Cora meets Griffin, an American journalist who lost part of his face while covering the war too close to the front line. He no longer writes, but wallows in self-pity, wearing a tin mask that is slowly taking his life. In Cora, Griffin sees a courage that he wishes he could find for himself. In Griffin, she sees a way to touch a life beyond her little corner of Maine.

This is a novel about a little-known slice of World War One history, that of the 6,693 Gold Star Mothers who traveled from America to their sons’ graves in France. Smith writes with great depth of detail and of emotion, giving voice to these women. At times her effort to share so many stories threatens to work against her. She introduces so many characters and narrators as to leave the reader feeling occasionally disconnected.

The moment the reader is deep into one character’s story, the narrator has changed. Still, the reader who can keep up with these many shifts in character, will find an interesting cast to narrate this forgotten history.

Jessica Brockmole AT BREAK OF DAY (UK) / THE FIRST OF JULY (US) Elizabeth Speller, Virago, 2013, £16.99, hb, 406pp, 9781844087792 / Pegasus, 2013, $25.95, hb, 352pp, 9781605984971 Ho-hum, thinks the reader – yet another novel about the Great War. Misgivings increase when the story, starting on the morning of 1st July 1916 at the Somme, describes the huge explosion of Hawthorn Ridge, the anxious faces of the waiting soldiers and then the sound of birdsong with the silencing of the artillery. But as you would expect from Elizabeth Speller, who wrote the excellent The Return of Captain John Emmett, this is certainly no lazily derivative tale. It is beautifully observed story of the experiences of four men who are enlisted to fight in this most terrible of conflicts. Three Englishmen and one Frenchman, the narrative switches between their separate stories, culminating in that fateful day in July 1916 in northern France. There are a number of pasts to escape from and secrets underlying these men’s backgrounds, two of whom are privileged and wealthy and two from a poorer upbringing.

There are number of fairly massive coincidences

which link threads of the four narratives together.

Coincidences occur in life and are statistically certain to happen, but it can appear a little contrived when they pop up with high frequency in a novel.

Nevertheless, the characters and the environment have that essential sense of authenticity sense that enwraps the reader fully in the plot.

Doug Kemp THE ENGAGEMENTS J. Courtney Sullivan, Virago, 2013, £14.99, hb, 379pp, 9781844089369 / Knopf, 2013, $26.95, hb, 400pp, 9780307958716 While perhaps no one remembers Mary Frances Gerety’s name, we all know that “A diamond is forever”. Frances created the inspired ad line for De Beers in the late Forties – and yet, a woman in the male-dominated world of upscale advertising, she had to fight at every step of her career, without ever seeming to get the acknowledgment she deserved. It is unfortunate that the tale of this extraordinary lady who created the engagement diamond tradition comes interspersed with the loosely related stories of a small host of other characters: they may all have to do with diamonds in some way, but one grows impatient with the meandering and the overwhelming quantity of detail. As a result, The Engagements is a slow, slow read – admirably written in places, but at constant risk of being bogged down by large chunks of what reads like non-fiction. In the end, its interest lies more in the depiction of the various time-periods than in either characters or story.

Chiara Prezzavento THE VALLEY OF AMAZEMENT Amy Tan, Ecco, 2013, $29.99, hb, 608pp, 9780062107312 / Fourth Estate, 2013, £18.99, hb, 608pp, 9780007456277 If you are interested in immersing yourself in the elaborate culture of the Chinese courtesan’s life of the early 20th century, then this novel might be for you. The opulent, intriguing details provide a means for the reader to meet the two central characters, Lulu (a white American turned madam of the most popular courtesan house in Shanghai) and her Chinese-American daughter, Violet. We learn about the beautiful raiment of seduction, the sisterhood of the women who work there and their house rules. And then there are the grim realities of a culture dominated by men seeking pleasure – a courtesan whose career suddenly ends when a customer “knocked out her front teeth and broke half the bones in her face.” The reaction of the other women is less than sympathetic; after all, surely she must have done something to anger him. We are told all of this information through Tan’s luminous writing. Unfortunately, things move slowly through this introductory portion of the novel, and there’s little actual drama for over 100 pages of this long saga.

After that, Tan delves deeper into her customary themes of mother-daughter love, deception, emotional tension and search for redemption.

Three generations of women – Lulu, Violet, and granddaughter Flora – care for and then desert one another. Settings include China during a tumultuous era that forces Lulu to leave the country and flee with her lover, back to California from whence she came. Violet is left to fend for herself HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Reviews | 49

as a virgin courtesan, and later has a child of her own. Traumatic mother-daughter relationships, a staple in Tan’s other popular novels, will be heartbreakingly familiar to her fans. But events in later portions of the novel sometimes confuse more than enlighten. Perhaps not Tan’s best work, but her fans won’t pass up a chance at her newest book.

Kathryn Johnson THE WILY O’REILLY IRISH COUNTRY STORIES Patrick Taylor, Forge, 2014, $25.99, hb, 320pp, 9780765338389 Between writing seven popular novels of Irish life, Patrick Taylor – Ireland-born physician, sailor and medical researcher – has been weaving brief humorous tales about the cantankerous Irish country doctor, Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly. They began showing up as short stories in Stitches: The Journal of Medical Humour. Now, many have been gathered into this single volume, no doubt to the delight of fans of Taylor’s wry humor and his cozy settings in the Ulster village of Ballybucklebo of the early 1960s.

The narrator of each tale is the younger, less experienced Dr. Laverty, who is being initiated into the creative “cures” employed by O’Reilly while carrying on his practice. Resolutions of all physical (and often times otherwise) problems in the village are carried out with tongue-incheek aplomb by the good pipe-puffing doctor.

He tackles every complaint from a cleric’s sexual confusion to a mysterious ailment that‘s alleviated

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by the loosening of corset stays. He even reveals to his young associate the secret to getting 100 miles to the gallon of petrol. (Hint: It involves a goat.) These are deliciously fun and heart-warming stories, many as brief as 3-5 pages. Only the final, more recently written entry, “Home is the Sailor,” approaches the length of a novella. Prepare to be charmed by the Wily O’Reilly.

Kathryn Johnson HUNTING SHADOWS Charles Todd, William Morrow, 2014, $25.99, hb, 336pp, 9780062237187 A great mystery is indeed a pleasure to read.

Charles Todd doesn’t let the reader down with Hunting Shadows, a book that takes place in and around Ely in England in 1920, just following WWI. Inspector Rutledge is called in after a murder is brazenly committed outside a village church as wedding guests were assembling. The murderer went unnoticed, as he was able to blend in with other pedestrians after shooting accurately from a distance; perhaps he is a veteran sharpshooter? The next murder victim does not seem to be related, but the murderer may be the same. We follow Rutledge’s investigations as he talks to uncooperative members of both communities and picks up clues that others offer to him without knowing that the puzzle pieces are falling together. This story keeps the reader wondering right up to the end as the list of motives and suspects begins to grow. Rutledge is clever in his examination, and he uncovers unhappy and

THE SECRET OF RAVEN POINT

E D I TORS’ C H OI C E

Jennifer Vanderbes, Scribner, 2014, $26/C$29.99/£18.99, hb, 320pp, 9781439167007 After losing their mother as children, Juliet DuFresne has always been close to her older brother, Tuck. When he decides to enlist after Pearl Harbor, she’s devastated but knows she must finish her schooling back home in South Carolina. When word arrives that Tuck has gone missing in Italy, Juliet becomes determined to search for him. She takes a crash course in nursing after graduating high school and finagles her way into a posting at a MASH unit near where Tuck was last seen. The work is grueling, and Juliet has little time to pursue leads, but she forges friendships with fellow nurses and one doctor in particular. When a patient comes in accused of cowardice and desertion, it becomes easy to see he is both physically and psychologically damaged… and may hold a key to what happened to Tuck. It becomes Juliet’s mission to communicate with the soldier, both to help him and learn as much as she can about her brother. Along the way, she develops a strong attraction to the doctor also working on the troubling case.

The Secret of Raven Point at first seems to be the mystery of a young man gone missing in World War II, but as the pages begin to fly by, the layers become deeper, and the characters’ emotions and actions become fraught with the desire to not only survive, but to live. As a young woman facing death on a daily basis, Juliet takes solace in the presence of the young physician with whom she works, and the two develop a deep relationship bred of a mutual desire to see the deserter exonerated of the charges. This novel had me wrapped in the lives of the couple, who endure much personal loss and yet manage to find humanity in the darkest of times. Definitely one of my favorite reads of the year.

Tamela McCann 50 | Reviews |

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vengeful histories surrounding a number of people.

Well written and highly recommended to all lovers of history and mystery.

Beth Turza SAINT MONKEY Jacinda Townsend, Norton, 2014, $24.95, hb, 288pp, 9780393080049 Two best friends, Audrey Martin and Caroline Wallace, are the best of friends in Mt. Sterling, a small Kentucky town riddled by Jim Crow rules of segregation where one gets accustomed to thinking small. Our two heroines initially believe that they will rise to greatness – at least they will once they get out of this finicky little town still stuck in Confederate, segregationist thinking. Audrey’s father, determined to build a better life, was killed in WWII. It’s now the 1950s, and the Jazz Age of America is blossoming. Audrey and Caroline begin to drift apart after Caroline’s father commits a horrific crime and is sent off to serve a long prison term.

The years pass, and Audrey meets an agent who talks her into traveling to Harlem, where a whole new world for black people is growing, a fantasy of music and dance thrilling the spirits of players, singers and audience.

This novel focuses more on character studies of Audrey and Caroline than it does on the Jazz Age. Readers will be shocked by the cold, callous yet realistic negativity of Caroline. At the same time, they may also be puzzled by the tunnel vision Audrey exhibits, believing that the intellect and music can and will redeem all wrongs done to persons of color. The remarkable quality that makes this novel stand out is these feisty characters, who always respond in an extraordinary fashion, in an age when ordinary was the mandate for persons of color. Saint Monkey is a dynamic, tense, and exciting read, a critique and celebration of a powerful historical period. Very nicely done!

Viviane Crystal THE WOMAN IN BLACK: Angel of Death Martyn Waites, Hammer, 2013, £9.99, hb, 336pp, 9780099588498 It is 1940, and schoolteacher Eve Perkins accompanies her class on their evacuation from the London Blitz. But they fetch up at Eel Marsh House. It is isolated, damp and unloved, but initially seems to be a haven from the dangerous city. Readers who recall a previous adventure at Eel Marsh House will be expecting a ghost story.

And they will get one, as this is the sequel to Susan Hill’s Woman in Black. Most specifically, it is the tie-in to the next film. Short chapters, each headed with a title, often read like a scene-by-scene script.

It is competently written, skilfully showing who is viewing the action and what is happening. But somehow it is just not very scary. Perhaps this is because to some extent it reads as familiar territory, not because of its predecessor, but because it seems to follow ghost story ‘rules.’

It is a short book, which could be devoured in one sitting, and would be a good read on a long journey, perhaps. It does not really add to the original great ghost story, unfortunately. Those who are fans, however, may happily spy the opportunity for another film or novel near the end of the book.

S Garside-Neville 20th Century

LET HIM GO Larry Watson, Milkweed Editions, 2013, $24.00/ C$28.95, hb, 274pp, 9781571311023 Watson’s latest tale of longing and desperation returns readers to the familiar surroundings of the mid-20th century American West. Margaret Blackledge mourns the loss of her son, James, who died from being thrown from a horse. His widow, Lorna, and son, Jimmy, lived with Margaret and her husband George, until Lorna caught the eye of a handsome traveler who promised to take her away from the small, nowhere town of Dalton, North Dakota. Margaret saw Donnie Weboy, Jimmy’s stepdad, being abusive, and is willing to go to any lengths to retrieve her beloved grandson from her daughter-in-law’s new family. In a road trip that tests love and loyalty, George accompanies Margaret across the Badlands and into Montana.

Watson’s chilling, spare prose neatly paints a picture of fear and suspicion, between Margaret and George as well as between the locals and outsiders in the little towns they pass through on the way to Gladstone, Montana, where Margaret thinks Lorna has landed. The main cause of this fear is exactly what stands between Margaret and access to Jimmy: the notorious Weboy clan, an entire family of ne’er-do-wells, known for being violent, manipulative, and dangerously unpredictable.

Margaret’s determination to take Jimmy back to Dalton creates several tense scenes between the characters, making for gripping reading, and, indeed, late-night page-turning to see how the situation is resolved. Even the minor characters are well-drawn in this heart-wrenching story, where love may mean having to take drastic action, or heroically letting go of what’s most precious.

In Watson’s world, “belonging” is never going to happen, and trying to change one’s circumstances is just asking for trouble.

Helene Williams THE NEW COUNTESS Fay Weldon, St Martin’s, 2013, $25.99, hb, 336pp, 9781250028020 / Head of Zeus, 2013, £14.99, hb, 320pp, 9781781851630 In The New Countess, Fay Weldon completes her trilogy (Habits of the House in the U.S., Love and Inheritance in the U.K.) of an upper-class Edwardian family and their servants.

The Earl of Dilberne’s great friend King Edward VII decides to spend a weekend shooting at the Earl’s estate, throwing Lady Isobel into a flurry of major renovations and redecoration. Their daughter Rosina returns from Australia but not to the family home. Minnie and Arthur, meanwhile, have become parents: but American Minnie’s ideas of childcare do not sit well with Lady Isobel or Nanny, and Arthur’s preoccupation with his fledgling automobile business leaves Minnie isolated and unhappy. This is a humorous story, but there is also a strong sense of the changing generations. The younger characters want to live and love differently and more freely than their parents, and for Lady Isobel, in particular, there is a struggle to let go.

Fay Weldon wrote the pilot episode of Upstairs Downstairs and has returned to the period with much wit and aplomb. The trilogy comes to a satisfying and dramatic climax in The New Countess.

The twists and turns of the lives and loves of the 20th Century

Dilbernes should appeal to Downton Abbey fans, but readers of Fay Weldon may be assured that although this is a lighthearted tale, serious themes around women’s roles and sex within marriage are as much part of these novels as one might hope for and expect.

Kate Braithwaite TO DREAM AGAIN Jeanne Whitmee, Robert Hale, 2013, £19.99, hb, 222pp, 9780719810367 With a bright, noisy start on Liverpool Street station in London at the start of WW2, we see the bustling crowds as Judy and her two small evacuee girls leave for safety. At first sight this appears to be a light, family, wartime story of little consequence. But the writer cleverly interweaves Judy’s background of a brutal marriage with the events of the war and the setting of a charming seaside community.

The story moves between tension and relief. The poor wartime marriage gives way to a new life in a theatre office for Judy, and we read about concerts, children’s ballet lessons and party dresses; even the family’s involvement in a puppet theatre. With no money coming from Sid, his war injury and his army desertion, Judy has problems. There’s a scene in a London Underground shelter as Judy makes her way to Southampton to see injured Sid. This good story of wartime, love, and family moves quickly through scenes of despair and joy, but maintains hope. Unusual problems face Judy in bringing to justice the AWOL Sid. She meets another man, an airman relative of the puppet theatre owners, but she cannot trace Sid to divorce him. Eventually the bad marriage is resolved and the girls are happy. The timescale moves through victory in North Africa to the invasion and collapse of Italy. Then Judy’s airman crashes and disappears.

But lo! We now have another twist or two which could appear as improbable conveniences until we realise this is the essence of fiction. There is a surprising and terrible turn of events with lots of, ‘I’ll never let that happen to you again…’

Geoffrey Harfield WHAT SHE LEFT BEHIND Ellen Marie Wiseman, Kensington, 2013, $15.00, 336pp, 9780758278454 What She Left Behind chronicles the lives of two young women living approximately 60 years apart. Izzy Stone has been in and out of foster homes since her mother fatally shot her father and was sent to prison. Convinced that her mother is insane, Izzy is particularly sensitive when her latest set of foster parents ask her to help them catalog the personal effects of the former patients of a shuttered mental institution. She is shocked to discover the contents of the large steamer trunk belonging to Clara Cartwright, an 18-year-old girl committed to the asylum in 1930. Through the reading of Clara’s diary, Izzy embarks on a mission to discover the girl’s fate.

There is certainly a shock factor to What She Left Behind. Clara is committed to Willard Asylum after she defies her father by taking an Italian immigrant as her lover. The harsh conditions and backward treatments of the asylum are painful to read; indeed, they are the stuff of nightmares. The idea that women were committed for disobeying

their husbands or fathers, or for engaging in behaviors deemed unsuitable in polite society, is frightening. As Clara wonders throughout her captivity, how many sane women are committed, only to lose their minds after the fact?

Wiseman does an excellent job of conveying the horrifying methods employed to cure the mentally ill. The lack of compassion and sometimes outright brutality of the nurses and doctors are astounding.

Though Clara is extremely naïve, and sometimes one- dimensional, her narrative is much more compelling than Izzy’s, whose story reads like a young adult novel at times. Despite this, What She Left Behind is a real page turner and will appeal to all readers of fiction, though the subject matter is not for the faint of heart.

Caroline Wilson THE MAID’S VERSION Daniel Woodrell, Little, Brown, 2013, $25.00/ C$28.00, hb, 164pp, 9780316205856 / Scrptre, 2013, £17.99, hb, 176pp, 9781444732832 Lovers of well-crafted prose will appreciate this new work by the author of Winter’s Bone.

Daniel Woodrell gracefully achieves the difficult task of combining taut storytelling (164 pages) with a laconic style of narration that captures the ramblings of oral narrative. The setting is a small town in the Missouri Ozarks during Prohibition, a microcosm of jealousies, suspicions, old grudges, and prejudices, interspersed with moments of great generosity, heroism, and love.

Switching between first person for the protagonist, and third person for the rest, The Maid’s Version recounts how a young man, Alek, comes to spend the summer with Alma, his grandmother, in a town where tragedy had struck years before, when a dance hall explosion and fire killed 42 people, including Alma’s promiscuous sister, Ruby. What happened that night is the locus around which the story circles, bringing in the present-day realities of a town divided between those who have moved on and those who can’t, as the reader is gradually let into the larger tale surrounding the night Ruby died. Interspersed are short chapters recounting the stories of other townspeople who were drawn to the dancehall by personal whims and circumstances. Alma’s hold on sanity is tenuous, but as the reader learns about the generations of hardscrabble life in this little town, it is easy to see how and why it destroys people as surely as the fire had.

Those looking for a more traditionally plotted mystery may be disappointed, but suspense isn’t really the point here. As the title suggests, what happened that night will be revealed as Alma finally manages to tell Alek what she knows. In Woodrell’s work, reminiscent at once of Faulkner and Wilder, the plot is less the point than the gorgeous and skilled writing.

Laurel Corona MOTHER OF RAIN Karen Spears Zacharias, Mercer Univ. Press, 2013, $17.00, pb, 238pp, 9780881464481 Mother of Rain tells the story of Maizee Hurd, a young woman beset by many problems: she loses her mother when she’s a mere ten years old and is sent to live with her aunt and uncle; she begins to hear voices in her head, voices that call to her as HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Reviews | 51

seductively and dangerously as a siren’s song; she falls in love with young Zeb but their son, Rain, becomes ill and loses his hearing in the first few months of his life; Zeb goes to fight in WWII and never comes home.

Though Maizee faces difficulties, she does not face them alone. Her aunt, Leela Mae, and Leela Mae’s husband, Doc, offer Maizee a stable and loving home. Burdy Luttrell becomes Maizee’s friend, and Zeb gives Maizee a sweet and tender love. But none of this is enough because Maizee continues to hear the voices in her head, voices that will not leave her alone.

Zacharias does a wonderful job of capturing the speech of the Appalachian mountain people and their ways. Every word rings true – as a daughter of Appalachia myself, I recognize the authentic ring of the words and the tragedy that often hides in the folds of the mountains. This is Zacharias’ first novel and a fine debut it is, indeed.

Anne Clinard Barnhill

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THE UNAMERICANS Molly Antopol, Norton, 2014, $24.95, hb, 272pp, 9780393241136 Families are really quite an enigma. The wife or husband one meets and perceives in one way either changes dramatically or becomes frozen for the rest of his or her life. Relationships are complex, and Molly Antopol has crafted very clear but unpredictable short stories in this collection.

You will meet a gentleman who wants nothing but to live as an American but who meets a Ukrainian woman, whom he marries. Out of love he will follow her to her hometown in Europe, only to get the surprise of his life at her transformation upon arrival. Then there’s the Israeli soldier who is the recipient of several medals for his noble bravery. Arriving home, he suffers a fluke accident and seems to check out on life, but then has one moment of violent reconnection that leaves one unsure of his future or of his brother’s future as well. Or what about the man who was a political rebel in Russia who refused to give away secrets and is well-respected for his role in history. When he discovers his daughter is writing a play in which he is one of the characters, he has several very different reactions when he meets her, and they finally get around to discussing her play.

These are just a few tidbits of the literate tales of the 20th century to be enjoyed herein. At the end of each story in this unique collection is a stunning end that both makes one stop reading from the impact and forces one to reflect on what has just transpired. Justifiably compared to Nicole Krauss, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, Molly Antopol is a remarkably talented writer whose historical short stories are distinctly enjoyable and highly recommended!

Viviane Crystal THE MEDICI MIRROR Melissa Bailey, Arrow, 2013, £7.99, pb, 376pp, 9780099580720 Sixteenth-century France, and the King’s unloved bride, Catherine de Medici, nourishes hatred, focusing on her husband’s mistress, Diane de 52 | Reviews |

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THE LOST SISTERHOOD

E D I TORS’ CH OICE

Anne Fortier, Ballantine, 2014, $27.00, hb, 575pp, 9780345536228 Told in dual time periods, The Lost Sisterhood is the story of two very different women who have the courage to defy convention in order to fight for what they believe in. One is Diana Morgan, an Oxford philologist driven by family lore to prove that the legendary Amazons actually existed. When she’s approached by a stranger who offers her just the opportunity she needs, Diana embarks upon an adventure that takes her around the world in search of the last vestiges of this ancient civilization. But there are those who believe some secrets are meant to be kept, and Diana soon finds herself in grave danger.

Her ancient counterpart is a North African hunter named Myrina. She and her sister, Lilli, are the lone survivors of their village. Taken in by a group of priestesses, they see their idyllic life quickly become one of terror as hostile invaders desecrate all they hold dear. Myrina and the other survivors vow to never be victims again, a resolve tested many times, in many ways throughout the remainder of their lives.

As the narrative flips between the two tales, Fortier interweaves the storylines masterfully, giving just enough hint of what’s to come to keep the pages turning. Initially drawn in by the contemporary adventure, I quickly found myself absorbed by the historical tale, which puts a clever spin on Greek history and myth, making them come to life in fresh, compelling ways. By the end, both storylines had me racing to learn the final outcome, one which artfully marries the two stories in a series of twists that leaves you wondering just who to trust and who will prevail.

Fortier’s first novel, Juliet, is one of my favorite books, so this story had large shoes to fill. It did so well. Very highly recommended.

Nicole Evelina Poitiers, using the blackest of magic in the creation of a deadly artefact. Florence in 1898, and James Brimley intends to increase the productivity of his shoe factory by studying Italian methods. Instead he returns to London with an antique mirror that gives a strange and sinister reflection. Conscious of its baleful influence, too late, he conceals it in the cellar of his factory. London today, and architect Johnny Carter is to reconstruct the shoe factory as a luxurious residence. He loves the work, and it gives him a chance to recover from a humiliating divorce. The factory had been abandoned intact – machinery, materials and footwear, especially ladies’ extravagant handmade shoes. The ambience of this haunted place is already troubling Johnny and his new love, Ophelia, when colleague Tara discovers the long-disused cellar and Hell is literally let loose.

Allured and repelled, the lovers strive to overcome the accumulated centuries of hatred in the Medici Mirror.

This clever variation of a time-slip novel may cause strong and contradictory reactions from readers. Initially the detailed descriptions seem overloaded, for instance the fashionable perfection of Ophelia’s apartment and, repeatedly, her own ravishing personal attributes. But much must be forgiven Johnny, a man in love and increasingly crazy. The surprise ending may be anticipated by attentive readers. This first novel by an author who takes risks is recommended.

Nancy Henshaw

ARCHANGEL Andrea Barrett, Norton, 2013, $24.95/£18.99, hb, 256pp, 9780393240009 The short stories in Archangel, set between the late 19th century and the start of World War II, illuminate human connections in scientific discovery. In “The Investigators” (1908), twelveyear-old Constantine Boyd is sent to his uncle’s farm in upstate New York to protect him from his abusive father. The uncle and his odd household are scientific farmers, and Constantine becomes involved in their experiments and community, eventually experiencing the freedom and promise of a first ever flight. A young teacher from Canada journeys to “The Island” (1873) to attend a natural history course. Arriving early, Henrietta is taken notice of by the famous professor, promising to be a favorite student, until she’s paired with a brilliant young woman who challenges the professor’s creationism. Henrietta matures from ‘a kind of worship’ of the professor to the realization that if Darwin is right “It changes everything,” about the world and her beliefs.

Professional contention is also evident in “The Particles” (1939). Sam, a geneticist, is rescued from a torpedoed ship along with colleagues after a scientific conference where his work had been disparaged. Questioning of established order and beliefs underlies the touching story “The Ether of Space” (1920) when a grieving woman tries to write about and make sense of Einstein’s new theories. Her perceptive son, after attending a lecture by Sir Oliver Lodge refuting Einstein, Multi-period

writes; “the questions we ask about the world and the experiments we design to answer them are connected to our feelings.” In the final story, a pioneering x-ray technician suppresses her feelings for the soldiers she attends, until she meets Constantine Boyd in “Archangel” (1919), during the chaotic termination of World War I. Andrea Barrett’s five stories at once evoke past times and are timeless in their depiction of human reactions to a changing universe.

Eva Ulett THE SILENT TIDE Rachel Hore, Simon & Schuster UK, 2013, £7.99, pb, 514pp, 9781849832908 Two career-driven women in London’s competitive publishing industry over sixty years apart feature in Rachel Hore’s comfortably overstuffed saga, which has light touches of romance and a haunting mystery linking the eras.

In the dramatic prologue, Isabel awakens alone to a flooded house in East Suffolk of 1953 and, with no rescue source nearby, is soon swept away into the waters of the cold North Sea. The story of how this sad situation came about unfolds in the remaining pages.

Escaping an unhappy home life, 19-year-old Isabel Barber arrives in London in 1948 and lands a job as a clerk at a small publisher. She loves her work and her first big project, editing the debut novel of talented newcomer Hugh Morton. This draws her into close company with its much older author, whose charm she finds hard to resist.

Her modern counterpart is Emily Gordon, an up-and-coming editor at London-based Parchment Press. In the course of acquiring the first authorized biography of Morton, a distinguished literary figure, Emily becomes intrigued by the shadowy Isabel, whose name is found inscribed in one of Morton’s early books. Maybe it was Isabel, not his widow Jacqueline, who inspired the heroine in The Silent Tide, the bestselling epic that made him famous?

Ambitious women in similar occupations, Emily and Isabel don’t feel distinct enough in the early chapters. However, as Hugh and Isabel’s relationship develops, and mysterious packages containing Isabel’s writings begin turning up at Emily’s office, their personalities solidify, and their stories become hard to set aside. The novel is particularly affecting in its portrayal of the difficulties working women faced in the postwar era, and of the hidden secrets that can lie, seemingly dormant, within families and marriages.

The last hundred pages had me on the edge of my seat and more than made up for the slowish start.

Sarah Johnson TRANSATLANTIC Colum McCann, Random House, 2013, $27.00, hb, 300pp, 9781400069590 / Bloomsbury, 2013, £18.99, hb, 320pp, 9781408829370 TransAtlantic is a sweeping tour-de-force of words, wit, and historical wonderment. The first half is comprised of three novellas: The first transatlantic non-stop flight of Alcock and Brown in 1919, back in time to Frederick Douglass’ 1845 trip to Ireland, and forward to Sen. George Mitchell’s mediation of the Good Friday Agreement. The only thing these three pieces Multi-period

seem to have in common is McCann’s Ireland.

A deeper thread emerges. A fictional history of four generations of women – Lily Duggan, Emily Ehrlich, Lottie Tuttle, Hannah Carson – whose lives are intertwined in the history told. In this, TransAtlantic becomes a tale of two nations – Ireland and America – and the relationship between these nations and the characters that inhabit them. TransAtlantic becomes a metaphor for loss, freedom, and hope. From Lily’s encounter with Douglass, to Lottie’s meeting George Mitchell, TransAtlantic is a history lover’s fascination: What little things happened during the memorable?

What little changes in history occurred during world-altering events?

McCann’s writing is both rhythmic and haunting. (“The hedges were long and green and manicured. They seemed to coax the car along.”) He is blessed with a joy for words, and he assembles them with abandon in taut, verbless fragments. Often to the detriment of the entirety. (“Circles within Circles. Patterns on a cross.”)

McCann describes the construct of his novel succinctly in a section where Douglass meets the daughter of a wealthy Irishman (“There was a shyness about her, but whenever she entered the conversation she seemed to do so on the tip of a knife blade”). There seems to be a shyness to the novel – his themes live in a rarified air and can get lost in the metaphor – and McCann instead embellishes his prose with the tip of the blade.

For all these little transgressions, TransAtlantic tells a wonderful history, and McCann’s greatest accomplishment is weaving the fictional life of Lily and her descendants into that history.

Bryan Dumas

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IMAGINING VIETNAM Elizabeth McLean, Impress, 2012, £6.99, pb, 245pp, 9781907605338 McLean gives us a pocket history of Vietnam in the form of eight short stories, each set in a period of the country’s transition from a 10thcentury agrarian society, progressing through the Empire to the French invasion and finally the war and the resulting Westernisation, which is diluting the ancient culture. All the stories, with exception of the arrival of the Portuguese missionaries, are seen through the eyes of women: daughters, wives, concubines, a French colonial and office workers.

McLean does not describe the major historical events but instead the effect these convulsions have on everyday life. Customs, food, marriage, politics and morals are woven into the stories, giving a three-dimensional picture of a changing country.

The hardships of scraping an existence, natural disasters or surviving the casual whims of a distant husband or a bored Emperor are endured by the women McLean makes us care about.

Curiously, it is the stories in which foreigners predominate that seem the least successful. The bewilderment of the Portuguese priest and the repellent disdain of the French woman for the ‘indigènes’ (Vietnamese} are set against Vietnamese cyphers. In the last story, the Americans, too, are shadows whether dropping a bomb or slumped in a Saigon bar.

McLean writes very well, with a graceful style that captures the landscape and women going about the business of living, whether in a palace or in a reed hut on stilts or a shellfish processing factory. She won the Impress Prize for New

E D I TORS’ C H OICE

THE SECRETS OF THE SEA HOUSE (UK) / THE SEA HOUSE (US)

Elisabeth Gifford, Corvus, 2013, £12.99, pb, 308pp, 9781782391111 / St. Martin’s, 2014, $25.99, hb, 320pp, 9781250043344 A young couple moves into an old house and uncovers a dreadful secret. This sounds like the beginning of a Victorian melodrama, and in one way it is.

The uncovered secret is the body of a newborn, malformed baby under the floorboards, the child of a union between the lord of the manor and his stepdaughter 150 years earlier, in the 1860s. But this is only one of the stories in the old house. The hero of the main strand of the plot is the young, naive minister of the local church, who has a slow-burning love affair with his housekeeper.

This is also a story of the ‘island clearances’, of the Hebredian peasantry driven into miserable exile to make way for the landlord’s sheep, and an exploration of the Gaelic myths of the sea people, semi-aquatic humans who come in from the sea (probably kayakborn visitors from the Arctic).

Finally it is the story of the 21st-century narrator who disentangles the inter-locking mysteries while coming to terms with her own troubled past. All this is played out in the desolate beauty of Harris, in the Outer Hebrides, giving the book its intense sense of place. A magnificent debut novel.

Edward James HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Reviews | 53

Writers in 2011. It was well-deserved.

Lynn Guest

THE SECRETS OF ARMSTRONG HOUSE Andrew O’Connor, Poolbeg, 2013, €13.99, pb, 488pp, 9781842235911 The Secrets of Armstrong House is about, in the main, Charles Armstrong, a flighty, difficult, unreliable sort of fellow – the heir to the Armstrong estate, gambler and ladies’ man – and the havoc he leaves in his wake. It is also about his descendants, who are trying to solve a mystery regarding a terrible crime involving Charles, so the novel is set in 1888, 1899 and the present day. The book is wonderfully well written, with a superb cast of characters. The tension is added to, set as it is at a time of social upheaval in Ireland between the landed gentry and their tenants. The Secrets of Armstrong House is a page-turner, one that kept me up until I had reached the end. An extremely satisfying book, with a neat twist to finish, it is a thoroughly enjoyable tale, one that leaves you wanting to read more about the Armstrongs, their loves, lives and secrets.

Katy O’Dowd NEW STARS FOR OLD Marc Read, Candy Jar Books, 2013, £18.00, hb, 250pp, 9780957154865 Being an astronomy buff, I was fascinated by this collection of fictional scenes and letters, giving glimpses of the history of astronomy through appearances by astronomers of every era from Aristotle to Sir Isaac Newton (who is, disappointingly, offstage). Each sketch is followed by an author’s note explaining what and who is real and what is invented. It shouldn’t work, but it does.

Each sketch is given a short title that sums up its theme: for example, “Evidence-Ptolemy”, “Doubt-Nicholas Copernicus”, and “ArroganceGalileo Galilei”. All of these brief stories are instructive. The Galileo one, in particular, is one of several recent publications to challenge the popular perception that Galileo was persecuted by the Inquisition for saying that the earth goes round the sun. (He wasn’t.)

It may not work so well for those who have no interest in astronomy (I am told that such strange people do exist), but it made a colourful, educational, and enjoyable read for me.

Alan Fisk THE DIG: In Search of Coronado’s Treasure Sheldon Russell, Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 2013, $16.95, pb, 246pp, 9780806143606 Jim Hunt is desperate for a change. After losing his archeology scholarship, his girlfriend walks out on him and their infant daughter. Without a job and desperate to continue on with his dream of becoming an archeologist, Jim volunteers at a small-town museum in Lyons, Kansas, hoping to get some field experience in an archeological dig that the museum is sponsoring. Jim initially finds life in Lyons achingly boring and is dismayed to find out that the dig may be called off. He soon discovers that there is a lot more going on in the little town than he first imagined. A mysterious artifact surfaces along with a dead body.

Entwined with Jim’s story is one that took place 500 years earlier. Spanish conquistador Coronado 54 | Reviews |

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is desperately trying to find the fabled city of gold, Quivira. His Indian guide, Turk, promises he knows the location of the city and can take Coronado to it. Does the city really exist or is Turk leading Coronado on a wild goose chase?

The two stories connect but rather loosely.

Coronado’s story ends up being the more engaging of the two as Jim’s story, while full of colorful characters, is a bit weak on character development.

A quick and easy read but not very satisfying.

Janice Derr MY GHOSTS Mary Swan, Knopf Canada, 2013, C$29.95, hb, 281pp, 9780345807830 It might be said that Canadian author Mary Swan’s latest novel, My Ghosts, isn’t for everyone.

Readers, for example, who like their fiction ‘clean’ with a conventional layout, clearly defined plot twists and tidy character development might abandon Swan’s book as too difficult, too confusing or too slow, but these readers would be denying themselves an opportunity to experience beautiful, clever, artful writing which makes the extra effort worthwhile.

The book opens 1879 with Clare, a 16-year-old Scottish orphan living with her five adult siblings in a small house in Toronto. The book ends with another Clare, this one the great-great-grandniece of the first (if my calculations are correct), whose narration brings us through the 1980s and into the present. In between these familial bookends is an array of ‘ghosts,’ family voices which travel down the years, haunting the generations that come after with the seemingly insignificant decisions they have taken. To get off or stay on a train, to fight or give in to a raging fever, to speak out or endure the loneliness of a growing up in a silent house.

Swan’s writing, to be fair, is complex and sometimes fragmented just like the people she writes about. Her voices speak in whispers more often than shouts, and the reader must listen intently to get the most from them. But Swan’s work is also witty and poignant and shows that in a world where people are beginning to feel more and more invisible, someone is still watching and recording the frailties, randomness and joys of everyday life and letting them loose to haunt future generations.

Janice Parker

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historical fantasy

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GIDEON SMITH AND THE MECHANICAL GIRL David Barnett, Tor, 2013, $14.99/ £7.99, pb, 352pp, 0765334240 Fiction meets history, meets steampunk, meets gothic horror in David Barnett’s page-turning romp though a Victorian world where the British are poised to send a dirigible to the moon and blood-sucking monsters are landing at Whitby pursued by Elizabeth Bathory, the vampire widow of Count Dracula.

The reluctant hero of this madcap tale is Gideon Smith, son of a fisherman and a dreamer at heart, who reads and believes in the hero of his favorite

comic strip hero, Captain Trigger from the penny dreadful, Worlds, Marvels and Wonders. When his father dies in mysterious circumstances, Gideon travels to London to enlist Captain Trigger to his cause. During his adventures Gideon meets up with Bram Stoker, runs away with a beautiful automaton and finds that his own hero is not the man he hoped he was. To save the empire, Gideon must become the hero of his own story as the various plot strands culminate in a battle in the skies over London.

With plot twists galore and a vast array of humorous and intriguing minor characters, Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl has something for everyone. Part adventure, part romance, part thriller and horror tale, on entertainment grounds alone this novel is worth a read, and the ending holds out a strong possibility of a sequel or even a series in development.

Kate Braithwaite WHILE BEAUTY SLEPT Elizabeth Blackwell, Putnam/Amy Einhorn, 2014, $25.95/C$28.95, hb, 432pp, 9780399166235 This engrossing historical fantasy imagines the story of Sleeping Beauty as told by a young woman of humble birth who plays a key part in the creation of the legend.

Young Elise is barely a teenager when she finds herself among the few survivors of the pox in her village. She flees her hard life on her family’s farm in search of her aunt, a merchant’s wife who helps her find placement in the royal household. Elise’s quick wits, observant nature, loyalty, and modesty help propel her in rank until she is maidservant to the queen. When the queen, long thought barren, gives birth to a daughter, the joy is shattered by the vindictive curses of the king’s aunt, a woman whispered to be a sorceress.

Elise is an appealing narrator, and Blackwell’s narrative style invites the reader to sink into the story and listen to Elise’s tale. The reader follows Elise from her tender teen years through her turbulent adulthood as she suffers not just the anxieties of court but romantic intrigue as well.

Devoted to the young princess and ever aware of the curses, Elise tries to defend her from death while the reader waits for the seemingly inevitable conclusion.

Fans of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale will enjoy seeing the familiar elements of the story recast and reimagined, with a clever twist to the end that allows for a richer happily-ever-after.

Audra Friend THE WITCH’S DAUGHTER (Alt title: BOOK OF SHADOWS) Paula Brackston, Corsair, 2013 (c2009), £7.99, pb, 453pp, 9781472103680 / St. Martin’s, 2013, $14.99, pb, 416pp, 9781250004086 ‘My name is Elizabeth Anne Hawksmith and my age is three hundred and eighty-four years. If you will listen, I will tell you a tale of witches.’ As an introduction to a character, this is hard to resist. Elizabeth (Bess) saw her mother hanged for witchcraft in 1628. Only the warlock and practitioner of dark magic, Gideon Masters, could save her from the same fate. He trains her in magic but wants her for his own. Bess escapes him but he continues to search for her through time. The Multi-period — Historical Fantasy

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THREE SOULS

E D I TORS’ C H OI C E

Janie Chang, William Morrow, 2014, $16.00, pb, 496pp, 9780062293190 / HarperCollins Canada, 2013, C$19.99, pb, 352pp, 9781443423908 Song Leiyin is dead. She senses a bright light drawing her into the afterlife but also a weight holding her back. She has three souls with her – yin, yang and hun – who comment on her past behavior much as a Greek chorus would in a play. Yet there was a tradition in Chinese drama that actually influenced the development of the chorus in Greek theater.

The three souls, representing traditional Confucian thought, romantic modern thought, and individual ideals, tell Leiyin that she must repent and make restitution for her terrible wrongdoings before she can progress to the afterlife and reincarnation. Therefore, Leiyin agrees to relive her memories in the period of Chinese history when Nationalism and Communism were warring for power over all of China.

Leiyin’s father is a traditionalist businessman who tries to prevent Communist ideas from infiltrating his home. But when Leiyin falls in love with a leftist poet, Hanchin, and determines to get a scholarship for a college education, her plans are thwarted at every turn. Hanchin remains the antagonist who brings disaster to the lives of every person he mesmerizes with his poetic but political spirit. Ideals are like hypnosis at historical moments like this; the remainder of the story tells of mourning lost love, lamenting the false illusions of political rhetoric, betraying one’s family and friends inadvertently, and so much more.

The plot and characters are complex and intriguing, with new developments and intricacies.

The Song family, including Leiyin’s naïve brother, is a microcosm of what every Chinese family was wrestling with during this extremely turbulent time in history, with the addition of Japanese invasion complicating the confusion. A remarkable, exquisite work of historical fiction, Three Souls is highly recommended as a wonderful read and an experience of creative, brilliant writing.

Viviane Crystal present-day Elizabeth Hardwick lives in a small English village, keeping herself to herself, until she befriends a lonely teenager Tegan and reveals the story of her life. But Gideon is still pursuing her.

Brackston draws believable characters, and Elizabeth is a heroine you just have to root for, fighting to protect Tegan as well as herself from the forces of evil. The plot is faced paced and enthralling. We visit the 17th, the 19th, the early 20th, and the 21st centuries, with each one convincingly and vividly drawn. A great mix of historical fiction and fantasy.

E.M. Powell SHIREWODE J. Tullos Hennig, Dreamspinner Press, 2013, $17.99, pb, 358pp, 9781623806637 In this gay romantic fantasy, the old tales of “Robyn” Hood are reworked in a way I’ve longed for for years. The conflict is not just over oppressive, illegitimate government and taxes, but between Christian and the Old Religion, between the “Greenwode” that shivers and shelters with sentient life and numbing civilization, between magic and the mundane. This segment of the tale focuses on the archery contest and the rescue of Marion from Nottingham’s oubliette. But very interesting is the twist on Guy of Gisbourne, sent on Crusade as a Templar with Richard Lionheart for past sins, no doubt chronicled in volume one The Greenwode, now returned with a soldier’s skills – and demons.

Historical Fantasy

Readers should be warned 1) of graphic, even brutal, bonded sex, 2) to read the first book first, which might help with pagan images that are sometimes mystical, demanding and unexplained, 3) of the Yorkshire dialect, well-rendered and adding to the atmosphere but probably anachronistic, and 4) some poor editorial choices.

I also thought the Templars and the Holy Land got short shrift, but maybe that has come or is coming. Nonetheless, if none of these present hurdles to you, I can’t recommend this book highly enough. The prose is poetic, powerful, insightful.

Hennig has a masterful command of weaponry and battle-speak, as well of wode magic. This is a soul-plumbing, life-changing experience.

Ann Chamberlin FIENDISH SCHEMES K. W. Jeter, Tor, 2013, $14.99/C$16.99, pb, 352pp, 9780765330949 In 1987, K.W. Jeter coined the term “steampunks” to refer to the cyberpunk variant of literature that he, and others, had begun to write, novels set in an alternate Victorian England with advanced steam technology. Considered one of the founding fathers of steampunk, it is only now that Jeter has returned to the genre, picking up the threads from Infernal Devices.

London is a world much-changed since we left George Dower, son of a mad inventor of all things gadgetry. The advent of steam has created a craze for the application of its technology

and the aesthetic, a commentary on the vibrant counterculture which has emerged in the twentyfirst century. Dower’s financial woes may be solved if he can help a man from his past find and fix one of his father’s technologies, the Vox Universalis.

When Dower agrees to help, we are swept into the bizarreness of Jeter’s invention, a world where a lighthouse can uproot itself, specialized brothels cater to London’s steam-obsessed haut monde and sentient Cetaceans are proselytized.

Fiendish Schemes is a darkly humored portrayal of Victorian London written in the style of the period and is not for the faint of heart.

Lauren Miller GLAMOUR IN GLASS Mary Robinette Kowal, Corsair, 2013, £7.99, pb, 279pp, 9781472102522 / Tor, 2013, $14.99, pb, 336pp, 9780765325617 Newly married glamourists Jane and David Vincent have just completed their most prestigious commission yet for the Prince Regent. But Jane is hurt that she seems to be the last person to be told about her husband’s plans for them to visit a colleague in Belgium, in order to develop new methods of working glamour. But after all, with Napoleon exiled to Elba, what possible danger can there be?

I enjoyed the second of Kowal’s alternate, magic-permeated Regencies more than her first.

The tensions as Vincent, a natural loner, and Jane negotiate their new roles as spouses and collaborators gives it a stronger focus, and having two well-develped characters centre-stage disguises the fact that the peripheral characters lack depth.

I’m not sure why Jane should be surprised by her husband’s familiarity with firearms, considering that he comes from a class where hunting and shooting were principal leisure activities. Similarly she has a distinctly modern sensibility towards corporal punishment, given that she lives in an era when flogging was widespread.

Other niggles include: Eton is a public school, not a university, and in any case the only place to study law in England at that time was at the Inns of Court. I can’t visualise Kowal’s hybrid ‘phaeton dogcart’, given that the former is an expensive, four-wheeled carriage and the latter a cheaper two-wheeled one. And would a lowly lieutenant have quite as much power as one minor character?

Some of the translations struck me as too literal: My French-educated mother confirmed that no native speaker would say ‘Vous devez etre Jane.’

And Kowal’s blurb-writer does her a disservice by betraying too many plot twists.

On the other hand, it’s nice to find a depiction of the Prince Regent that doesn’t simply turn him into a buffoon. Overall, a vast improvement.

Jasmina Svenne SWORDS OF GOOD MEN Snorri Kristjansson, Quercus, 2014, $24.95, hb, 304pp, 9781623650742 / Jo Fletcher, 2013, £20.00, hb, 352pp, 9781782063322 Stenvik, the final stop on Ulfar’s journey back home, is under threat. Unbeknownst to its citizens, themselves Norse raiders, two armies are descending upon its walls. King Olav brings his soldiers and the White Christ to save the town from its heathen ways – or perish. Meanwhile, HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Reviews | 55

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E D I TORS’ C H OI C E

STAY WHERE YOU ARE AND THEN LEAVE

John Boyne, Doubleday, 2013, £10.99, hb, 247pp, 9780857832930 / Henry Holt, 2014, $16.99, hb, 256pp, 9781627790314 London, 1914. It is Alfie Summerfield’s fifth birthday, and news has just broken that fighting has started in France. World War I is about to begin, and Alfie’s world will change forever. His father joins up; his mother struggles to make ends meet; his best friend, Kalena Janáček, and her father, who runs the corner shop, are interned as possible spies – they are Jews from Prague; and Joe Patience, the conscientious objector from over the road, is flung into prison.

Four years later, something awful happens to Alfie’s father, but nobody will tell him what. The story is that he’s on a secret mission, but Alfie doesn’t believe it. By chance, whilst shining shoes at King’s Cross station, he discovers that his father is in hospital near Ipswich. What is the matter with him? What Alfie discovers is both frightening and heartbreaking. But how can he rescue his father away from this terrible place?

This moving and uplifting story is also about the devastating effect of blindly following old rigid ways of thinking, where ‘shell shock’ is another word for cowardice; where people with foreign names suddenly become hated German spies – even if they’ve been neighbours for years; and where conscientious objectors deserve to be beaten up. In 1914, most men in Alfie’s road joined up with patriotic fervour. Four years later, many of them were dead, maimed, or suffering from traumatic stress disorder. When the Janáčeks return to their trashed house, they can’t wait to leave Britain. In Prague, they think, they’ll be safe. But they are Jewish, and we know what fate probably awaits them.

This is an emotionally complex book, and young readers need to have the maturity to understand how ordinary people could hate those who were different in some way. Recommended for thoughtful children of twelve plus.

Elizabeth Hawksley champions of the old gods, led by a bewitching woman, want the town for their own purposes.

Ulfar finds himself not only helping in defending the town, but also embroiled in vicious power plays among the citizens themselves. What follows is an epic battle, with the armies mere pawns of greater powers.

Swords of Good Men is Snorri Kristjansson’s debut novel, book one of what promises to be a powerful epic fantasy series. It’s crammed full with Vikings. Vikings fighting Vikings. Vikings galore.

Yet he is able to tease out of this violent setting a rich cast of characters. Ulfar is young and daring, but eager to get home. Audun is a blacksmith with darkness in his past. Lilia is beautiful and tragic.

Harald is a brutal sea captain visited by the gods.

Sven and Sigurd are old hands who do all they can to lead Stenvik’s defenses. Add in a Skagrim, Jorn, Ragnar, Valgard and so many more, and you’re steeped in the Viking world, complete with dreaded berserkers, witches with power over death, and beaches laden with longships.

Kristjansson takes the reader along at a breakneck speed, and it doesn’t let up until the final very end. And the ending, though satisfying, leaves the door open for yet more mayhem. I gladly recommend this book. It’s very bloody, as the cover and title promise. But I’m a prude when it comes to other mature content, and Swords of Good Men did not offend (well, too much). I eagerly await the 56 | Reviews |

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next installment.

Justin M. Lindsay

THE WICKED Douglas Nicholas, Atria/Emily Bestler Books, 2014, $16.00, pb, 368pp, 9781451660243 In this sequel to the well-received Something Red, travelling entertainers Molly, Jack, Nemain, and Hob are in 13th-century northern England at Castle Blanchefontaine. Molly is actually a mystical Irish battle queen, Nemain is her powerful granddaughter, and Jack, a former Crusader, is helping Hob learn warrior skills. They have defeated a great evil, but are asked to fight a bigger and even more dangerous supernatural enemy.

The quartet must deal with many dangers, such as a nefarious noble couple, fearsome, glowingeyed familiars, weirdly spell-bound knights, and grotesque corpses of murdered unfortunates. The fate of the world is at stake, and they may not be victorious.

This book is harsher and more violent than Something Red. While it has elements of history, mystery, and romance, they are overshadowed by the horror theme. The faint-hearted may want to sleep with the lights on after finishing this book.

Still, by the end of the story Nicholas is writing evocative, poetic scenes for Nemain and Hob that are a joyful contrast to all the terror and violence that went before. Recommended with reservations.

Elizabeth Knowles

SILVER BULLET Melissa Scott and Jo Graham, Crossroad, 2014, $14.99, pb, 300pp, 9781937530303 Silver Bullet is the third in the Order of the Air Series, following on from Lost Things and Steel Blues. Melissa Scott and Jo Graham tell yet another gripping story, and with their intense detail and snappy dialogue it is an adventure on the page.

Readers will not be disappointed.

Although Silver Bullet is part of a series, it is also a great standalone novel. Lewis and Mitch are pilots from Gilchrist Aviation who are undertaking flying tests on the next generation of Terriers. It is Armistice Day, and they are just completing a lucrative one- week contract. Returning home, there is a missing plane to find, Thanksgiving to celebrate and adventures to be had.

The sense of location the authors create quickly transports the reader to Canada. With a great sense of time and place the story is pure escapism.

The feel of life in the 1930s is pictured well, and the pace keeps the story flowing.

All the characters, main and minor, are very well drawn; they become friends very quickly. The authors create individual, believable personalities for all their characters, Alma being my particular favourite in this book. It is a quick and easy read that really romps along with detailed descriptions.

For lovers of aviation and adventure stories, this book has new and missing aeroplanes. For lovers of mystery there are tarot cards, artefacts and a few surprises along the way. An excellent read I can truly recommend.

Barbara Goldie

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COLOSSUS Alexander Cole, Corvus, 2014, £14.99, pb, 393pp, 9780857891150 This is an alternative history story that assumes Alexander the Great did not die in Babylon in 323 BC but instead attacks the city-state of Carthage and subsequently undertakes a campaign in Sicily against a rebellious general.

Mara, daughter of the Carthaginian general Hanno, is one of the numerous refugees from these military operations. Disguising herself as a boy, and escorted by her highly dangerous bodyguard, she ends up mucking out the war elephants in Alexander’s army. Here she meets Gajendra, a very competent Indian mahout (elephant handler), who controls a particularly large and ferocious elephant called Colossus. Mara is listlessly depressed because of the death of her husband and children.

Gajendra is trying to overcome past helplessness by emulating and pleasing Alexander. Basically this is a love story between two damaged people who cannot accept that what they really need is each other, until they have stopped clinging to the false ambitions and concepts that they think they need.

This is not a long tale, but it is tightly written with great economy. Details of geography and movement are muted. The emphasis is very much on the characters. The other colossus, Alexander, is particularly well drawn, attracting and repelling in equal measure. Some of the interactions do stretch Historical Fantasy — Alternate History

out a bit, but it’s all genuinely moving.

Martin Bourne IF KENNEDY HAD LIVED: The First and Second Terms of President John F. Kennedy: An Alternate History Jeff Greenfield, Putnam, 2013, $26.95, hb, 272pp, 9780399166969 Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination, journalist, speechwriter and political savant Greenfield has decided to write an alternate history – a “what if ” had Kennedy not been killed on that fateful day.

Greenfield’s premise is fairly pedestrian. If it had continued to rain on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, the limousine top would have been on the car.

Greenfield’s philosophy of alternate history is that the alteration has to be plausible, even probable. As someone who lived through that tragedy and recall every minute of it, I found it painful.

So, in Greenfield’s alternate universe, Kennedy is shot – grievously but not mortally – and survives to live out not one term but a second. Knowing his history (and his Kennedy), Greenfield’s research and extensive interviews, highlighted in an afterword worth the read, show us what life might have been like had the President survived.

Fascinatingly, the image of Camelot comes away more humanized, more tarnished. Kennedy has flaws. There are drugs and there is adultery. Because of the power of the Southern Democrats, Kennedy is wishy-washy on civil rights. There are scandals.

But perhaps Vietnam would not have been what Vietnam became.

Ultimately, America would have been different, and I think that is Greenfield’s point. Likely, America would have had another set of problems.

But no one will ever know.

Ilysa Magnus THE SECRET DAUGHTER OF THE TSAR Jennifer Laam, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2013, $14.99, pb, 342pp, 9781250040916 Laam’s book is a compelling speculative novel revolving around the doomed Romanov family.

One of the more popular “wishful thinking” subjects of historical fiction is that one of the Tsar’s children escaped the awful fate encountered in the basement of Ipatiev House in Siberia. But Laam introduces a completely different concept: what if Tsarina Alexandra had a fifth daughter? It seems a rather unlikely concept, but the author uses welldocumented facts to make this premise work. The novel is told through the eyes of three different women, living years apart: Lena, a maid turned friend to the empress; Charlotte, a former ballet dancer trying to survive Nazi occupied France with her young son; and Veronica, a down-on-her-luck Russian history professor who stumbles upon the whole shocking truth.

While some authors are unable to carry off three different perspectives, Laam excels at this by differentiating each of the women’s narratives. All the women are quietly fierce and tenacious, but in different ways that lend a special quality to each character. Each of their voices is distinct, which is a hard feat to accomplish. The reader will become enthralled by each story, eagerly turning the page to find out the fate of each woman.

By the last half of the novel, the seeds of the Alternate History — Children & YA

resolution have been sewn, so the rather drawn-out conclusion could have been reached much more quickly. Nonetheless, this novel shines overall and will appeal to everyone from general fiction readers to lovers of Russian history and the Romanov dynasty. Highly recommended.

Caroline Wilson

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WORLD WAR I TALES: The Pigeon Spy Terry Deary, A & C Black, 2013, £4.99, pb, 63pp, 9781408191712 1918, France. The Germans are in retreat but, somehow, in the chaos of war, the American 77th battalion of 200 men finds itself with Germans to left, right and in front of them. Food is running out, they are in a bad way physically and German snipers pick off any man who risks fetching water from the nearby stream.

Things get worse. The advancing Americans don’t know they are there, so when they try to retreat, they get shot at by their own side.

One of the soldiers, 16-year-old Joe Clay, a farm boy from Kansas, is hopeless at everything; he can’t march or shoot. But he knows about homing pigeons, and he has three of them. Can one of his precious pigeons fly back to base with a note tied to its leg to alert the Americans to their whereabouts without being shot down?

I enjoyed this lively story which is based in fact and engagingly illustrated by James de la Rue. There really was a pigeon hero called Cher Ami who managed, in spite of severe wounds, to get back to base with his message and thus saved the battalion from annihilation. Usually, we hear stories of the British experience in World War I, but The Pigeon Spy gives us a different take with this little episode giving an American perspective on the war’s final months. An interesting epilogue gives us the background on Cher Ami’s life.

The Pigeon Spy is obviously written with the forthcoming 1914 centenary of the war in mind.

Recommended for children of nine plus.

Elizabeth Hawksley I thought this book was really good and exciting.

The story is fascinating because I never knew that you could train pigeons to take messages and come back home, and I also didn’t know that anyone in the war could be so desperate as to want to eat pigeons. Apart from this, I thought this book was very lifelike. I could imagine myself being Joe and working on a farm and then being sent off to the army. It just seemed so real to me in many ways.

I reckon that this book should be for age 9-11. I will remember it for a long while and I think my friends would enjoy it. It teaches me something about history I wouldn’t know otherwise.

Louis McNulty, age 10 SEEING RED Kathryn Erskine, Scholastic, 2013, $17.99, hb, 357pp, 9780545464406 Twelve-year-old Red Porter lives in Stony Gap, Virginia, in 1972, where he works with his father in the family automotive shop. When his

father dies, Red can’t fathom his life without the man he idolized. He knows life will change, but he refuses to accept his mother’s decision to sell their multi-generational home, and begins to brainstorm solutions.

The motto of his father’s shop is “Porter’s: We Fix It Right!” Red knows he must fix his situation too, but he garners help from all the wrong people, and assistance comes at a high price. Red becomes a witness to racial hatred and heinous incidents that target his lifelong friend. Even so, Red is determined to sabotage the sale of his mother’s home – even if it means uncovering an ugly family secret.

Erskine reaches back into her own childhood to frame this novel of friendship, race relations, and family secrets. Her own experiences with segregation in the American South as well as South Africa lend richness to the story. Red learns the truth that, as segregation continues, it is up to him as it is up to all of us to “Fix It Right.” Though Red often exhibits the epitome of recalcitrant adolescent behavior, he is so genuine that his stubbornness can be forgiven. Rich with lessons and inspiration, Seeing Red promises to be a classroom favorite as a window to the segregation that endured into the 1970s.

Wisteria Leigh STORMCLOUDS Brian Gallagher, O’Brien Press, 2013, £6.99, pb, 220pp, 9781847175793 It is not easy to make the Northern Irish conflict seem comprehensible and immediate to people who did not grow up in the province. This story of the friendship of four children in Belfast in 1969, as the troubles start, does an excellent job. Maeve is Catholic, Sammy is Protestant, and they are brought together by a Jewish brother and sister, Dylan and Emma, who are in Belfast with their reporter father and artist mother. Maeve and Sammy should not, by the lights of their respective communities, even know each other, let alone become friends. The presence of the ‘outsiders’ – Dylan and Emma and English journalist father – not only makes this possible, but also allows the author, Brian Gallagher, to drop in much of the background historical detail – the fight for ‘one man one vote’, the resignation of Terence O’Neill as Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, the marching season – without clogging up the plot.

I was struck by how well Gallagher captures the visceral hatred of the sectarian divide, which is (rightly) very difficult to convey to those who have not seen it. Equally, the reality of violence and its aftermath is well done. The book also shows both the working-class Protestant and working-class Catholic standpoints, which is not always what happens when the troubles are discussed.

The book would make a very good introduction to the history of the Northern Ireland conflict for children in their early teens. My one quibble with it would be that, though it references the poverty that was common in the late Sixties, and which fired much of the civil rights struggle, the children enjoy treats and a level of parental oversight that would have been unusual then. It is a minor complaint, however.

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NOOR INAYAT KHAN Gaby Halberstam, Bloomsbury, 2013, £5.99, pb, 105pp, 9781472900135 This is a WW2 true story for children twelve to seventeen. Brave, unselfish and resourceful Noor, a Muslim pacifist aged 29, and a trained radio operator, is dropped into occupied France to help the resistance. This is an exceptionally dangerous job; the radio operators’ lives are counted in months, if not weeks. The book is a gem of simple writing with consequential plotting, short sentences, chapters and dialogue. Descriptions are usually excellent, and her nail-biting escapes are very well described. There are few technical errors, but to hide a 1940s radio set in a damp, steamy greenhouse is one.

Unfortunately, there are occasional clichés and some sloppy writing. For example, Nazis are greasy with beady little eyes she wants to scratch out. Later, we have a ‘barrage’ of conversation, a ‘sneaky breeze’, ‘lined-up sheds’ (not rows of ) and a single person being ‘herded’. This is a pity because Noor’s story is inspirational and deserves better.

This book is one of Bloomsbury’s Real Lives ‘narrative biographies’ aimed at young people of 12 plus and designed to tell the inspiring stories of some of Britain’s unsung heroes – Noor posthumously won the George Cross and the Croix de Guerre – and to get children interested in an important time in our nation’s history.

Geoffrey Harfield THE EXECUTIONER’S DAUGHTER Jane Hardstaff, Egmont, 2014, £6.99, pb, 368pps, 9781405268288 The Executioner’s Daughter follows the watery adventures of Moss and her rascally sidekick, Salter, as they face scary situations while evading a child snatcher and a Riverwitch. Ultimately, they find friendship and purpose to their lives beside the Thames in the reign of Henry VIII. Pitched as a sort of gothic horror for children with a dash of witchiness, the story is essentially a newly rendered fairy tale, based on real folkloric myths of river spirits, like Peg Powler or Jenny Greenteeth, who were said to snatch children who wandered too close to the water’s edge. This folkloric premise is nicely set up by the fireside telling of the story of the Riverwitch by old Nell. However, apart from this short taste, the first half of the book is relatively ponderous and grim, labouring the role of executioner and his assistant to establish Moss and her father as social outcasts and to give her a reason to run away. Necessarily, as Moss is to be reconciled with her father, he cuts a rather unconvincing ogre figure and as such, in spite of the title, the executioner trope is something of a distraction from the main thrust of the narrative. Rather than catching the imagination with spine-tingling scene-setting, the effect of over-egging this bit of the pudding is a very slow lead-in via grisly, but rather ponderous, horror before turning out to be a deft and exciting fairy tale adventure on another theme altogether.

Details like a frost fair on the frozen river or a Tudor banquet are well drawn. A toilet collapsing off London Bridge and Salter’s fruity oaths are great fun: “Great Harry’s pussin ulcers!” The baddies are scary in their own right. So it is to be hoped that readers of 8 to 12 will persevere.

Charlie Farrow

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WAITING FOR THE QUEEN Joanna Higgins, Milkweed, 2013, $16.95, hb, 249pp, 9781571317001 Eugenie de la Roque is fifteen when she and her parents leave France, the revolutionaries having burned their grand maison and killed some of their servants. With several other French aristocrats, Eugenie’s family tries to create a new Versailles in the American wilderness, believing that Marie Antoinette will soon join them. Spoiled Eugenie throws a tantrum when she sees the rustic log houses where they will live. She is offended when a servant girl dares to speak to her. Thirteen-yearold Hannah Kimbrell is one of the Americans hired to work for the French. Hannah is assigned to two families, including the de la Roques. She cooks and cleans and learns some French, but, as a Quaker, will not bow down to the French nobility.

The story covers the end of 1793 and the beginning of 1794, a cold and difficult winter. The first-person narrative alternates between Eugenie and Hannah; in the beginning their voices couldn’t be more different, but by the end, one sees how close they have become, as friends and as people.

Eugenie’s transformation from arrogant and helpless noble to selfless and caring human being is the heart of the story. Hannah grows as well, understanding that her father’s strict Quaker ways do not always accomplish good. Although the reader understands the thoughts, actions and beliefs of the two girls, the motivations of other characters are sometimes confusing. The resolution at the end of the story had elements that were unclear to me. Still, I enjoyed this story, which is based on the French nobles and American workers who built Azilum in northeastern Pennsylvania. Higgins’ descriptive writing is delicious: “Cold penetrates wool and velvet and settles upon my shoulders like stones.” A thoughtful coming-of-age story.

Elizabeth Caulfield Felt NAMESAKE Sue MacLeod, Pajama Press, 2013, $14.95/ C$14.95, pb, 230pp, 9781927485293 When Canadian teenager Jane Grey is asked to choose a subject for her history assignment on the Tudors, she picks her namesake: Lady Jane Grey, the 15-year-old who reluctantly ruled England for nine days, before being executed. Among her research books, Jane finds a tiny Booke of Prayre that pulls her back in time to 1553, where Lady Jane is imprisoned in the Tower of London. The two lonely girls become unlikely friends.

Jane feels adrift in her own time. Since the death of her father years before, her mother has sunk deeper into alcoholism, and Jane, at a loss of how to explain her mother’s increasingly erratic behavior to her friends, quietly hides it. High school is also pulling her childhood friends away from her, making her wonder whom she can trust. She finds herself traveling back in time more often, where the problems of the ill-fated Lady Jane overshadow her own. Rescuing a 16th-century girl sounds easy compared to navigating high school and an unstable home life. But, as the date of Lady Jane’s execution looms, Jane wonders what she’s equipped to solve.

Some time-slip novels can feel more like character-wields-modern-knowledge-to-savedoomed-world, but MacLeod uses the device more subtly. Hers is a story of two teenagers, uncertain in their own lives, who find comfort and strength in

one another. The fact that they come from different times heightens this, allowing for both to recognize the universality of the human condition. This is a YA novel, with all of the high school problems of boys and changing friendships, but MacLeod doesn’t shy away from deeper topics, like loss, alcoholism, and their effects on a family.

Jessica Brockmole Namesake is a book of time-travel and the lengths one girl took to save her namesake’s life. Jane Grey has to do a report on a historical figure for her history class. Of course, she picks her namesake, Lady Jane Grey. One day, Lady Jane’s prayer book falls into Jane’s hands. When it does, Jane travels through time and into Lady Jane Grey’s era. Jane is determined to help her lady escape from the Tower and redeem her rightful throne.

In Jane’s present time, she has a lot of problems with society. Her mom has three modes: Single Mother as Hero, where she’s nice, hasn’t been drunk, and isn’t in a bad mood; the Nothing Mode, where they don’t usually pay much attention to each other; and days when Hell Broke Loose, when she is drunk or mad. Jane doesn’t know what mode she’ll be talking to or how she should communicate with her mother. She goes back a lot and even skips school one day because she’s determined to help Lady Jane survive. She fears that they will both share a doomed fate.

I think Namesake is a phenomenal book. I think so because I like books about adventure and Namesake is one of those books. It’s well-written.

There are a lot of describing words and that’s what makes a story interesting. There were some times where it wasn’t clear on who the narrator was and who the narrator was referring to, but overall it was a great book.

Ellen Brockmole, age 10 DIAMONDS AND DECEIT Leila Rasheed, Hot Key Press, 2014, £6.99, pb, 396pp, 9781471402135 / Disney-Hyperion, 2014, $17.99, hb, 432pp, 9781423171188 London, 1913. In this, the second of the Somerton novels, we follow the fortunes of Lady Rose, once a housemaid, and now the acknowledged illegitimate daughter of the Earl of Westlake; her half sister, Lady Ada; and their step-sister, Charlotte Templeton. The London Season is in full swing, and all three girls are expected to find husbands.

But things don’t always go to plan, especially where love is concerned. Rose feels out of place; she is aware that her social position is precarious. She longs to return to her beloved music, but the Season is too all-consuming. Then she meets the dangerous Alexander, Duke of Huntleigh, who is surprisingly sympathetic.

Ada has parted from her beloved Ravi, who has returned to India. She knows that marriage to Ravi is out of the question, and that Laurence, Lord Fintan, is a far more eligible parti¸ but, somehow, her heart doesn’t agree.

Neither Rose nor Ada knows that Charlotte is absolutely determined on finding a wealthy husband. The man she loves is Laurence, who is about to become betrothed to Ada, but the Duke of Huntleigh is also a matrimonial prize. Charlotte is fully aware of her own charms and determined to use them to get what she wants, no matter which step-sister gets hurt.

Children & YA

I enjoyed this sparkling romp. There’s plenty to engage the reader’s interest, and the social whirl of the Edwardian Season, teetering on the edge of a volcano as war draws ever nearer, is very well-drawn.

Unfortunately, Leila Rasheed hasn’t researched the state of Edwardian roads. A day trip to Cornwall from London, a distance of well over 200 miles, is impossible. In 1913, few Cornish roads had proper tarmac surfaces, and there was no motorway. Still, teenage girls will love this book for its glamour and excitement.

Elizabeth Hawksley RACHEL’S PROMISE Shelly Sanders, Second Story Press, 2013, $12.95, pb, 273pp, 9781927583142 This is a wrenching story of a Russian-Jewish family fleeing the pogroms of the early 20th century, the second novel in a planned trilogy. Rachel’s father has been killed, and in this novel she and her mother and sister travel across Russia on the TransSiberian Railway, and on to Shanghai. Sarah leaves behind a young friend, Sergei, who despite being a Christian seems sympathetic to Sarah and her people. Sergei runs away from home, away from his father, a policeman, who takes part in the pogroms.

The novel follows both young people in alternating chapters, fostering the impression that these two will somehow, in the third novel of the trilogy, find each other again. The reader looks forward to the next novel to continue the story, yet knowing that the story is only broken, not completed, somewhat weakens this as a stand-alone novel. Sanders combines her own family history with larger known historical events – the Russo-Japanese War, the organized strikes of pre-revolutionary Russia and the Jewish community that settled in Shanghai. The style, with its simple declarative sentences, makes this a fine choice for younger readers.

Jeanne Mackin THAT BURNING SUMMER Lydia Syson, Hot Key Press, 2013, £7.99, pb, 320pp, 9781471400537 In the summer of 1940, a young Polish airman serving with an RAF squadron crash lands on Romney Marsh. Broken by his experiences as a pilot and the loss of his family and homeland, he decides to go AWOL. Sixteen-year-old Peggy finds Henryk and takes pity on him. She hides him in a remote church and brings him food and clothes, and a hesitant romance develops between them.

Peggy’s twelve-year-old brother Ernest, anxious and obsessed with the Government’s wartime warnings and instructions, discovers his sister’s secret and believes Henryk is a spy. His need to prove his courage sets in motion a series of potentially tragic events.

This is a coming-of-age story as well as a love story. It is told from the viewpoints of Peggy, Henryk and Ernest, which works very well. Syson focuses on Peggy’s home, the nearby village and the marsh and keeps the war largely in the background. The details of daily life give a rich flavour of the period. Syson’s research is thorough but she blends it perfectly into the story. Her characters live and breathe on the page as they struggle to understand the complexities of cowardice and courage, loyalty and love.

My only criticism would be that the ending is very abrupt. There is an epilogue, which gives Peggy and Henryk’s story the necessary closure, but I felt it Children & YA — Nonfiction

was an unsatisfactory way to end an otherwise very enjoyable book. This book could be read by younger teens, but would appeal to anyone with an interest in the period. Highly Recommended.

Pat Walsh THE GREAT FIRE: A City in Flames Ann Turnbull, A&C Black, 2013, £5.99, pb, 92pp, 9781408186862 London, September 2nd, 1666. Ten-year-old Sam loves his dog, Budge, and enjoys working for the jeweller, Mr Giraud, but the eleven-year-old André Giraud makes his life a misery. It’s Sam’s own fault.

Before he lived with the Girauds, Sam used to taunt André for being French and lame. Now the tables are turned.

It’s been a hot, dry summer. When Sam is woken by the church bells signalling fire, he’s not surprised.

There are often fires in London’s old timber houses.

They are usually soon extinguished; but this fire is far more dangerous.

Rumours spread that it’s the work of foreigners, and the Girauds are French. André and Sam are sent to deliver a valuable necklace to a wealthy merchant in the city, and told to return home immediately (Mr Giraud’s house is threatened by a mob) but Andre can’t resist seeing what’s going on and orders Sam and Budge to come with him.

It’s one thing to watch a dangerous fire from a safe distance, and quite another to escape when it gets out of control. The fire raged for four days, and Ann Turnbull dextrously follows each twist and turn of events as the danger escalates and new disasters befall. We feel the Girauds’ panic and desperation as their home and workshop is lost. I liked the scene where they are camping in the fields outside the city wall, their belongings piled up around them.

The author is very good at getting across the terrifying actuality of the Great Fire: the effects of smoke and the dangers of falling timber as Sam and André struggle to escape from a burning house, for example. And it’s good that Sam and André are finally able to put aside their mutual hostility, and work together. Children of seven plus should enjoy this book.

Elizabeth Hawksley THE SEWING BASKET Susan White, Acorn, 2013, $12.95, pb, 122 pp, 9781894838993 In this young adult novel, it is 1967 and Ruth Iverson is twelve years old, struggling to adapt to her mother’s recent diagnosis of Huntington’s Disease and the ways it is changing her whole family. If Ruth could spend all day, every day, watching the Toronto Maple Leafs and eating popcorn with her dad in the living room, she would. Sure, she wishes her mom was gloating over a Montreal Canadiens win rather than lying nearly incapacitated in her bedroom, but Ruth’s dad makes that absence more bearable.

Suddenly Ruth is forced to learn that even this new normal can’t last forever, and she must once again adjust as the adults in her life make decisions that may or may not be in her best interests. Some of the historical background in the book feels like it’s added on rather than integral to the story, but aside from that, readers will feel for Ruth and perhaps connect with her awkwardness and frustration.

Amy Watkin

DIAMOND Jacqueline Wilson, Doubleday, 2013, £12.99, hb, 295pp, 9780857851070 1890s, England. Eight-year-old Ellen-Jane Potts’ family is very poor. It’s a struggle to make ends meet, particularly as her father drinks. Her mother is dead, her older brothers are horrible to her, and she’s too small to help her older sister. The only thing she can do is acrobatics.

Then, one awful day, her father sells her for five guineas to Beppo, the clown from Tanglefield’s travelling circus – and things get a whole lot worse.

Beppo renames her Diamond and forces her to do ever more difficult and dangerous acrobatic tricks, and beats her when she tries to run away. How can Diamond survive in such a cruel world?

What Jacqueline Wilson is very good at is depicting children who find love and support even in the most desperate circumstances. She shows that an unhappy child like Diamond can create her own family, knitted together from all sorts of people.

The aging equestrienne, Madame Adelaide, takes Diamond under her wing, just like a real Granny would. The kindly Mr Marvel helps her overcome her fear of forward somersaults, and she especially loves Mavis, his littlest monkey. And, best of all, she makes friends with the wonderful and brave Hetty Feather, aka Emerald Star, who takes over as ringmaster and shows Diamond how to stand up to bullying.

And Emerald Star teaches her that, if you are proactive, courageous, and willing to work hard, you can escape from a difficult situation with the help of true friends.

I enjoyed this book. Though Diamond’s early life is horribly tough, and life in the circus is not much better, it probably echoes how many poor Victorian children had to live. And I loved the glimpse into circus life with the lions, the elephants, sea-lions and acrobatic monkeys. Girls of eight plus should love it.

Elizabeth Hawksley

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THE FISHING FLEET Anne de Courcy, Phoenix, 2013, £7.99, pb, 336pp, 9780753828960 / Harper, 2014, $26.99, hb, 352pp, 9780062290076 From the 19th to the mid-20th century, upper middle-class British families had a problem: there weren’t enough suitable men for their daughters to marry. Meanwhile, India was awash with single young men in the service of the Raj. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the East India Company had been relaxed about liaisons and marriages between its men and Indian women, but the stuffier 19th century put a stop to that. Solution: put your daughter on a ship to Bombay with instructions to find a husband in India.

For those who had never seen India before, many shocks were in store. If they married a man who held a solitary post far up‑country, the dangers to life and limb were accompanied by boredom and loneliness. Wherever they fetched up, the women of the Fishing Fleet had to conform to the rules of a rigidly stratified and rule-bound society.

Nearly all these women met their daily challenges heroically. I have not seen any historical novels about them, but I am sure that it has been done.

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Recommended as an absorbing read.

Alan Fisk

MERCHANT ADVENTURERS: The Voyage of Discovery that Transformed Tudor England James Evans, Orion, 2013, £25.00, hb, 383pp, 9780297866886 This is the extraordinary tale of a voyage of discovery every bit as epoch-making as those of Spain and Portugal. Maritime skills in early Tudor England were deficient compared to Continental achievements. Indeed, the only serious early English ‘discoverer’, Sebastian Cabot, spent many years in Seville. By the time Cabot returned to Bristol in 1548, however, a transition was under way and new skills in mathematics, astronomy (Copernicus’ findings were backed by Cabot) and cartography led to the founding of the Muscovy Company of merchant adventurers, a joint stock enterprise backed by private shareholders and supported by the young King Edward VI. Richard Chancellor, who commanded one of the three ships, was a close collaborator of John Dee, and together they contributed to advances in navigation. Mercator’s globe was probably present on at least one of the ships. There had been no contact between Russia and England before this expedition when Chancellor found himself at the court of Ivan IV. Although the fate of the other two ships is harrowing, and Evans’s hypothesis as to the cause of their death very probable, Chancellor’s contribution to future trade with Russia and to England’s organised mercantile explorations was truly “incomparable”. A richly detailed account that is a pleasure to read.

Lucinda Byatt THE MYSTERY OF PRINCESS LOUISE, QUEEN VICTORIA’S REBELLIOUS DAUGHTER Lucinda Hawksley, Chatto & Windus, 2013, £25, hb, 374 pp, 9780701183493 Princess Louise (1848-1939) was Victoria and Albert’s sixth child and, arguably, the most popular of the royal progeny. Beautiful, intelligent and artistic, she enjoyed the friendship of Whistler, Rossetti and Arthur Sullivan, amongst others, and was herself a successful sculptor. This lively biography charts Louise’s eventful life and her championship for various progressive campaigns for women’s rights.

She knew and supported Josephine Butler and Elizabeth Garrett, for example, and was actively involved with a staggering number of charitable institutions helping the poor and disadvantaged. In 1878, her husband, the Marquess of Lorne, became Governor General of Canada, and Louise supported progressive initiatives there, too.

Her private life, however, is more difficult to chart. Rumours have abounded since the 1860s about a hidden illegitimate child, and her possible sexual relationship with the sculptor Joseph Boehm.

Mysteriously, the Royal Archives’ ‘Princess Louise’s files are closed’, as are those in her husband’s castle of Inveraray. As Lucinda Hawksley puts it, ‘The decision to hide away (Louise’s) files indicates very strongly that there is something in them that the archivists, even in the twenty-first century, feel the need to conceal.’ The author gives us the information and leaves us to decide for ourselves.

Elizabeth Hawksley 60 | Reviews |

HNR Issue 67, February 2014

HIGH MINDS: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain Simon Heffer, Random House, 2013, £30, hb, 878pp, 9781847946775 This brilliant book charts the transformation of Britain from a country bound by privilege, laissez faire and gross inequalities, into a modern state fit for Britain’s emerging Empire. Everything, including Parliamentary suffrage; the position of women; the army, where promotion was largely bought not earned; the appalling factory conditions; access to education and university etc, had to be modernized in the teeth of entrenched opposition.

The revolution was brought about slowly and painfully, over four or more decades, by a number of high-minded Victorian individuals such as Peel, Gladstone, Matthew Arnold, Carlyle, Florence Nightingale, and many more. In so doing, they altered public perception of the poor; the role of the state; the position of the Church of England in public life; the revolution in scientific thinking, and much more.

I enjoyed the way Heffer uses novels of the period, e.g. Charles Kingsley’s Alton Locke, Dickens’ Hard Times, Mrs Gaskell’s North and South, as well as relevant poems, to illuminate contemporary thinking. Reading this book is like watching a caterpillar pupate; we are given an internal view of its organs dissolving and re-forming into a different creature. It’s a real tour de force, and I cannot recommend it too highly.

Elizabeth Hawksley DAUGHTER OF EMPIRE: My Life as a Mountbatten Lady Pamela Hicks, Simon and Schuster, 2013, $26.00, hb, 256pp, 9781476733814 / Phoenix, 2013, £8.99, pb, 416pp, 9781780222844 Lady Pamela Hicks is a well-known British aristocrat with a bloodline stemming from Queen Victoria, who was her great-great-grandmother.

Prince Philip (married to Elisabeth II) is her first cousin, and what could be more fascinating than having had the Tsarina Alexandra as her great-aunt?

In her memoir, she sheds light on events and notable historical figures of the 20th century and earlier in recounting the first 30 years of her life as Pamela Mountbatten (her maiden name). Royalty lovers will relish getting a close look at what it was like taking part in Queen Elizabeth II’s (“Lisbeth”) life as her lady-in-waiting.

Despite family dysfunction (both her parents openly took lovers – especially her mother), Pamela seems well-rounded, unpretentious and appreciative of her good fortune. Traveling and relocating continuously due to imminent war or charitable works, the Mountbattens saw the world and mingled within the highest ranks, opening Pamela’s mind to the diversity and acceptance of other cultures.

Refreshingly, Daughter of Empire presents no stale, boring factual details. Instead, we read about a life filled with celebrity-like happenings delivered with impeccable taste. Revealing, yet properly reserved.

Lucy Bertoldi THE WOODVILLES: The Wars of the Roses and England’s Most Infamous Family Susan Higginbotham, The History Press, 2013, $29.95/C$32.95/£17.99, hb, 232pp, 9780752488127

In 1464, Edward IV announced he had wed Elizabeth Woodville, an event that, for better or worse, would impact English history. The Woodvilles, often described as rapaciously ambitious, have long fascinated historical novelists, and it was time for an engaging nonfiction book about the family. Susan Higginbotham has written just that. This account begins with the love match of the parents of the future queen – Richard Woodville, a mere knight, and his social superior, Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford. We watch the family go through hair-raising changes of fortune during the Wars of the Roses, and meet fascinating characters who figure in the story, some well-known – such as Richard III, Henry VII, and Elizabeth of York – and others rescued from obscurity. The book concludes with Elizabeth Woodville’s death, a year after the birth of her grandson Henry VIII. Vivid details, quotes from primary sources, and flashes of the author’s dry wit bring the Woodville saga to life. The author is careful to distinguish between verifiable fact and conjecture and takes a clear-eyed, balanced look at historical controversies.

Combining meticulous scholarship with deft storytelling, The Woodvilles will be relished by both history buffs and historical fiction fans.

Phyllis T. Smith THE ASSASSINATION OF THE ARCHDUKE: Sarajevo 1914 and the Romance that Changed the World Greg King and Sue Woolmans, St. Martin’s, 2013, $27.99/C$31.99, hb, 384pp, 978125000163 / Macmillan, 2013, £20.00, hb, 424pp, 9780230759572 In June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, accompanied by his wife, Sophie, reluctantly paid a visit to Bosnia, having tried his best to avoid the obligation imposed upon him by his uncle, Franz Josef, Emperor of Austria. His misgivings were proved well-founded on June 28, when Gavrilo Princip, a revolutionary, shot the couple dead as they rode through the streets of Sarajevo.

To many readers, Franz Ferdinand is known only as the man whose assassination triggered the First World War. Royal historians King and Woolmans show us the man behind the history, especially in his startling marriage to Countess Sophie Chotek, whose impressive pedigree was nonetheless not impressive enough to qualify her as a bride for the archduke. Even though romance carried the day, the couple’s children would be barred from the succession, and Sophie made to endure official snubs.

King and Woolmans do a good job of explaining the complex political situation behind the tragic denouement to the couple’s love story. Relying heavily on archival and family sources, they look at the evidence with clear, compassionate eyes and clear away some myths, resulting in a moving and compelling read.

Susan Higginbotham THE KING’S GRAVE: The Discovery of Richard III’s Lost Burial Place and the Clues It Holds Philippa Langley and Michael Jones, St. Martin’s, 2013, $27.99, hb, 288pp, 9781250044105 / John Murray, 2013, £20.00, hb, 320pp, 9781848548909 The King’s Grave is a history-making book which Nonfiction

I had trouble putting down. The final hours of Richard III, England’s last Plantagenet king and her last king to die on the battlefield, are carefully reconstructed by historian Michael Jones. Richard’s life before his fateful meeting with Henry Tudor on Bosworth Field on August 22, 1485 is analyzed as well, accompanied by intense scrutiny of his personality and motives.

In addition to the historical narrative is Philippa Langley’s moving account of how she found King Richard buried under the car park in Leicester.

Langley’s love for the King and her conviction of his innocence of the crimes of which he is so often accused add pathos to the story of the obstacles surmounted in her search for Richard. I was struck by the details about the past which literally surface in an archaeological dig, requiring a combined knowledge of history with forensic science in order to interpret them. Langley and Jones build a portrait of a man who was highly religious but shrewd in political matters; who loved justice but could be ruthless when the occasion demanded it; who put duty before personal feelings. Most of all, as a soldier his courage was praised even by his enemies, especially in his heroic stand on Bosworth Field.

Elena Maria Vidal SHAKESPEARE’S RESTLESS WORLD Neil MacGregor, Viking, 2013, $36.00, hb, 320 pp, 9780670026340 / Allen Lane, 2013, £12.99, hb, 336pp, 9781846148309 William Shakespeare’s world was in flux, and he embraced those rapid changes in his works. We can use contemporary histories or art to explore Elizabethan England, but Neil MacGregor offers readers a fresh approach. Shakespeare’s Restless World presents us with twenty objects which capture the essence of Shakespeare’s day, and explains not only why they were created and what they were used for, but also their significance to Shakespeare and his audience. MacGregor ranges these twenty artifacts alongside Shakespeare’s plays to show readers how Elizabethans viewed vital topics. English anxiety over who would succeed their Virgin Queen was explored by proxy in Richard III and Henry V, and also in allegorical paintings. A sword and rapier found by the Thames River, the sort used in Romeo and Juliet, introduce us to an Italian fad becoming popular in England. Intelligent and entertaining, I recommend Shakespeare’s Restless World to anyone wishing to learn more about the Bard, his plays, and the English society he sought to entertain.

Jo Ann Butler WHO DISCOVERED AMERICA? The Untold History of the Peopling of the Americas Gavin Menzies and Ian Hudson, William Morrow, 2013, $28.99, hb, 308pp, 9780062236753 Menzies is well known for his books 1421: The Year China Discovered America and 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance. In his latest book, he continues his study of Chinese sea travel and builds on his earlier argument that the Chinese discovered the Americas long before Columbus. His research focuses on proving two points: one, that there is physical proof that the Chinese were in America prior to European explorers, and two, that the Chinese arrived by ships and not by crossing a land bridge as others have theorized. He supports these theories by examining Nonfiction

maps, archeological evidence, and DNA. About half of Menzies’ book is written as a personal travel narrative describing his journey as he attempts to retrace the routes of early explorers.

His observations may be interesting but do not add anything toward proving his theory. More noteworthy is his presentation of scientific data that traces how plants and animals indigenous to Asia ended up in the Americas. Recommended to those interested in the Columbus debate.

Janice Derr THE STORY OF THE JEWS: Finding the Words, 1000 BCE-1492 CE Simon Schama, Bodley Head, 2013, £25.00, hb, 496pp, 9781847921321 / Ecco, 2014, $39.99, hb, 512pp, 9780060539184 This elegant history is, in the author’s words, ‘one of the heroism of everyday life as much as that of the grand tragedies…little revelations that add up to a culture, the prosaic along with the poetic’. He draws us in from the start with a letter from Jewish parents worrying about their soldier son in Egypt in 475 BC, and ends with the story of Rabbi Zacuto, who fled Spain with Ferdinand’s expulsion of the Jews in 1492, leaving behind an accurate astronomical work used by Columbus. Between these stories are dozens of others, adding up to an absorbing account of the heartbreaking, turbulent but always inspiring history of a resilient, creative people determined to survive.

Simon Schama has used the latest discoveries which have transformed and enriched our understanding.

There are well-chosen illustrations, clear maps, and a comprehensive bibliography. Part Two, When Words Fail: 1492-present day, follows in 2014.

Sarah Cuthbertson OLD MAN RIVER: The Mississippi River in American History Paul Schneider, Henry Holt, 2013, $35/C$40, hb, 416pp, 9780805091366 This book begins with a fascinating tour through the prehistory of the Mississippi River Basin – about a third of the continental United States – from geologic prehistory through the amazingly complex Native American cultures that built cities and the great ceremonial complexes in present-day Illinois, Ohio, and elsewhere. Schneider then tells the stories of the insanely brave Jesuits and other French who explored the area, and “the war that made America”; that is, the French and Indian War of the mid1700s. Only in the last fifth or so of the book does he devote chapters to what most Americans think of as “Old Man River,” the Mississippi of the Civil War and Mark Twain. He then finishes up with what 20th-century engineers, industry, and agriculture have done to the river.

I wanted to read this book for the history, and I was absolutely satisfied with those chapters.

Schneider has a fine voice, and he’s a good storyteller.

I was distracted, however, by the chapters in which he shared personal stories of traveling with his son on the river and finding Indian artifacts and such – a kind of Tony Horowitzian travelogue interspersed with the history. They felt like a diversion, like wellcrafted advertisements delaying the progress of the show. I’d still recommend Old Man River, with the advice that you can safely skip the current-day chapters.

Kristen Hannum

WHO’S BIGGER: Where Historical Figures Really Rank Steven Skiena and Charles Ward, Cambridge Univ.

Press, 2014, $27.99/C$28.95/£18.99, hb, 408pp, hb, 9781107041370 Who’s more significant, Elvis or Beethoven?

Napoleon or Abraham Lincoln? How do we decide who’s more important, or bigger, among historical figures? The factors that Skiena, a computer science professor, and Ward, a Google engineer, consider are all based on quantitative analysis; math, it appears, does matter when it comes to who retains historical significance and whose reputation fades away over time. The authors begin by discussing the subjectivity of historical judgment, traditional ranking methods, and the issues caused by the massive amount of data produced on contemporary people who dominate the media (Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber) vs. the much longer half-life of those we consider more traditionally significant historical figures (Aristotle, Shakespeare). Skiena and Ward then demonstrate their data-driven method of determining who’s bigger, taking into consideration temporal influences, both positive and negative. The book’s second section tackles historical figures in the context of their peers, from politicians and sports figures to artists and scientists. Charts (how we love lists!) are provided throughout, for easy skimming, as well as an approachable narrative that will lure in even the most math-resistant reader.

Helene Williams THE VAMPYRE FAMILY: Passion, Envy and the Curse of Byron Andrew McConnell Stott, Canongate, 2013, £25, hb, 434pp, 9781847678713 In the spring of 1816, Lord Byron’s refuge from notoriety in Geneva, together with a young doctor, John Polidori, coincided with that of the poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, his lover Mary and Mary’s step-sister, Claire Clairmont. This visit to Geneva, and the months that followed, was integral to the production of a number of important literary works, and has been the subject of much speculation, rumour and even a horror film.

This is a very reader-friendly book, suitable for those who wish to transcend the myth of Byron and his cohort and become acquainted with, not just the respective stories of Byron and the Shelleys, but of the tragic course of events for the ‘lesser players’ in their lives – John Polidori and Claire Clairmont.

What is particularly appealing here is the manner in which the author relays certain biographical ‘given’ details, only to trump the evidence by a scathing logicality which serves to disrupt our belief in the accepted evidence. After all, we know that words can be manipulated for a variety of reasons, and none least than to veil truth, which the author reveals adroitly. It is highly recommended.

Claire Cowling

HNR Issue 67, February 2014 | Reviews | 61

© 2014, The Historical Novel Society ISSN: 1471-7492 | Issue 67, February 2014