Historical Novels Review, Issue 86 (November 2018)

H I S T O R IC A L

NOV EL S REVIEW

ISSUE 86

November 2018

PITCH PERFECT

FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE ...

More on page 8

Young Adult War Fiction Fixture or Trend?

William Boyd’s ode to the rollercoaster of life and love, Love Is Blind

Page 10

A World of Blue Simone van der Vlugt and Nancy Bilyeau Page 12

The Moral Benefit of Pain Ambrose Parry’s The Way of All Flesh Page 13

Permanently Marked Heather Morris on The Tattooist of Auschwitz Page 14

Precious & Fragile Places Sarah Maine’s Women of the Dunes Page 15

Historical Fiction Market News Page 1

New Voices Page 4

History & Film Page 6

A publication of the Historical Novel Society | www.historicalnovelsociety.org

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H I S T O R IC A L

NOV EL S REVIEW ISSN 1471-7492

Issue 86, November 2018 | © 2018 The Historical Novel Society

PUBLISHER Richard Lee

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

EDITORIAL BOARD

Managing Editor: Bethany Latham

Houston Cole Library, Jacksonville State University 700 Pelham Road North, Jacksonville, AL 36265-1602 USA <blatham@jsu.edu> Publisher Coverage: Simon & Schuster US (all imprints)

Book Review Editor: Sarah Johnson

6868 Knollcrest Drive, Charleston, IL 61920 USA <sljohnson2@eiu.edu> Publisher Coverage: Bethany House; Five Star; HarperCollins; Henry Holt; IPG; Penguin Random House (all imprints); Severn House; Australian presses; university presses

Features Editor: Lucinda Byatt 13 Park Road, Edinburgh, EH6 4LE UK <textline13@gmail.com>

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

REVIEWS EDITORS, UK Alan Fisk

<alan.fisk@alanfisk.com> Publisher Coverage: Aardvark Bureau, Black and White, Bonnier Zaffre, Crooked Cat, Freight, Gallic, Honno, Impress, Karnac, Legend, Pushkin, Oldcastle, Quartet, Sandstone, Saraband, Seren, Serpent’s Tail

Edward James

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

Doug Kemp

<douglaskemp62@gmail.com> Publisher Coverage: Allison & Busby; Little, Brown; Orion; Penguin Random House UK (Cornerstone, Ebury, Transworld, Vintage, and their imprints); Quercus

Linda Sever

<LSever@uclan.ac.uk> Publisher Coverage: All UK children’s historicals

Karen Warren

<worldwidewriteruk@gmail.com> Publisher Coverage: Accent; Birlinn/Polygon; Bloomsbury; Duckworth Overlook; Faber & Faber; Granta; HarperCollins UK; Hamish Hamilton; Pan Macmillan; Penguin Random House UK (Michael Joseph, Penguin General, Penguin Press, and their imprints); Short Books; Simon & Schuster UK

REVIEWS EDITORS, USA Rebecca Cochran

<CochranR95@gmail.com> Publisher Coverage: Amazon Publishing; Hachette; Hyperion; Pegasus; and WW Norton

Bryan Dumas

<bryanpgdumas@gmail.com> Publisher Coverage: Algonquin; Kensington; Other Press; Overlook; Sourcebooks; Tyndale; and other US/Canadian small presses

Ilysa Magnus

<goodlaw2@optonline.net> Publisher Coverage: Bloomsbury, FSG; Grove/Atlantic; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Minotaur Books; Picador USA; Poisoned Pen Press; Soho Press; St Martin’s Press; and Tor/Forge

Arleigh Ordoyne

<arleigh.johnson@att.net> Publisher Coverage: US/Canadian children’s publishers

REVIEWS EDITOR, INDIE Richard Lee

<richard@historicalnovelsociety.org> Publisher Coverage: all self- and subsidy-published novels

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

In all cases, the copyright remains with the authors of the articles.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the authors concerned.

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

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

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Interested in receiving copies of new historical novels and sharing your thoughts with other historical novel enthusiasts? We’re looking for reviewers for all eras and subgenres of historical fiction. Please email me at sljohnson2@eiu.edu for the guidelines. Especially sought are UK, European, and Australian reviewers and those who can read from e-format. New writers are welcome.

ISSUE 86 NOVEMBER 2018 COLUMNS 1

Historical Fiction Market News

Sarah Johnson

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New Voices Profiles of debut historical fiction authors Louise Allan, Carrie Callaghan, Ruqaya Izzidien, and Glenn Skwerer | Myfanwy Cook

6

History & Film Lady Macbeth | Bethany Latham

FEATURES AND INTERVIEWS 8

Pitch Perfect William Boyd’s New Novel, Love Is Blind

by Lucinda Byatt

10 Young Adult War Fiction

Fixture or Trend?

by Arleigh Ordoyne 12 A World of Blue

Espionage, Artistry, and Early Modern Women: The

Novels of Nancy Bilyeau and Simone van der Vlugt

by Bethany Latham 12 The Moral Benefit of Pain

Ambrose Parry’s The Way of All Flesh

by Marilyn Pemberton 14 Permanently Marked

Heather Morris on The Tattooist of Auschwitz

by Hilary Daninhirsch 15 Precious and Fragile Places

Sarah Maine’s Women of the Dunes

by Sally Zigmond

REVIEWS 16 Book Reviews

Editors’ choice and more

HISTORICAL FICTION MARKET NEWS NEW BOOKS BY HNS MEMBERS Congrats to the following authors on their new releases! If you’ve written a historical novel or nonfiction work published (or to be published) in August 2018 or after, please send the following details to me at sljohnson2@eiu.edu or @readingthepast by Jan. 7, 2019: author, title, publisher, release date, and a blurb of one sentence or less. Details will appear in November’s magazine. Submissions may be edited for space.

Celtic Knot by Ann Shortell (FriesenPress, Mar. 22), rated five stars

by Clarion Foreword Reviews, has been praised by Kirkus Reviews as a novel which “dramatizes the murder of a prominent Irish politician in late 19th-century Canada… conjures a memorable heroine… a thrilling and historically edifying period tale.”

Imperial Passions – The Porta Aurea by Eileen Stephenson (Blachernae Books, Apr. 24) is a story of love, power and betrayal at the height of the Byzantine Empire.

Linda Kay Dahlen’s debut novel, The Viking Priest (Beaver’s Pond Press, May) is a saga of fate, faith, adventure, and love set around AD 1000; it follows a new Christian priest as he sails to far lands which test his spiritual, emotional and physical life.

In Georgie Belmont’s Emerald Noose (Amazon Kindle, May 9), a Victorian adventure set in northern England, 15-year-old Lizzie Greenwood becomes entangled in a criminal plot while trying to save her family’s mill.

S. R. Strickland’s The Awakening of La Muse (Amazon, May 15), set in Paris in 1855, tells the story of a 16-year-old American slave who orchestrates her escape and battles to retain her freedom.

In the sequel to The Big Inch, Kimberly Fish returns with Harmon General (CreateSpace, May 15), a WWII spy thriller set in a U.S. Army Hospital in Texas bedeviled by intellectual property theft regarding malaria developments, a rogue spy, and two female OSS agents that have overstepped their boundaries.

In Canticle (Turas Press, May), Liz McSkeane’s prize-winning historical detective novel based on the life and turbulent times of the 16th-century Spanish poet and mystic, St. John of the Cross, investigator Fray Martín de Sepúlveda is charged with finding the lost manuscripts of St. John’s most famous poem, the Spiritual Canticle, and soon finds himself under the shadow of the Inquisition, embroiled in the power struggles, political manoeuvring and misinformation of the day.

A publication of the Historical Novel Society | www.historicalnovelsociety.org

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In John Mallon’s The Invincible Fortress (CreateSpace, May), set in 1745, militiaman Daniel Bailey and fellow New Englanders, supported by the Royal Navy, attack and capture the French fortress at Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.

Tazia and Gemma by Ann S. Epstein (Vine Leaves Press, May) tells the tale of a young, unwed, pregnant Italian immigrant who survives the tragic 1911 New York City Triangle Waist Company fire and flees cross-country, and her daughter who, 50 years later, reverses her mother’s steps to discover the identity of her father.

The Retreat to Avalon by Sean Poage (MadeGlobal, Jun. 8) is the first in a new series exploring the historical roots of the Arthurian legends.

Set in Depression-era Virginia, Karen D. McIntyre’s Ruby (CreateSpace, Jul. 28) tells the story of what happens to Ruby and how she rebuilds her life after she loses her job, and boards a bus to go home, but doesn’t make it.

Romance is the last thing Regency gentleman Richard Lacey expects when he inherits a title, a dilapidated estate, and the attentions of a killer; but that is what he gets when Jamie Smythe, the true heir, and his beguiling sister Emma turn up, compelling unlikely hero Richard to join forces with headstrong Emma to unmask the killer before he strikes again; this is the premise of A Gentleman’s Promise by Penny Hampson (Troubador, Jul.) In Wayne Ng’s Finding the Way: A Novel of Lao Tzu (Earnshaw, Jul. 1), renowned scholars Lao Tzu and Confucius are drawn into a deadly struggle between twin princes who vie for their ailing fathers fragmenting empire in 6th-century B.C. China.

Let Slip the Dogs (Anna Castle, Aug. 7), the fifth in Anna Castle’s Francis Bacon mystery series, is set at Richmond Palace in 1591, where love is in the air and murder lurks behind the orchard wall.

Travel through medieval settings, meet complex characters, delve into the realm of mysticism, and fall under the spell of forbidden romance when you join the adventure of Madelyn’s struggle for survival by reading the first book in Cris Harding’s Saint Michael’s Sword series, Tip of the Blade (All Things That Matter Press, Aug. 27), set in 9th-century France.

In Karen Maitland’s A Gathering of Ghosts (Headline, Sep. 6), set on Dartmoor in 1316, the Sisters of the Knights of St John fight for survival against the ghosts of the moor as the waters of their holy well run with blood.

A novel in short stories, Through the Fire: An Alternate Life of Prince Konstantin of Russia by Tamar Anolic (CreateSpace, Sep. 15), examines the life that Konstantin, a decorated war hero and the third son of Grand Duke Konstantin, the Russian imperial family’s famous poet, might have had if the Russian Revolution had never happened.

Zenobia Neil’s historical fantasy, The Jinni’s Last Wish (Amazon, Sept.

15), takes place in the 17th-century Ottoman Empire.

The story may have begun with sweet, gentle Violet, but it continues in Tanya E. Williams’ Stealing Mr. Smith (Rippling Effects, Sep. 25) with Bernice, a determined yet misguided girl who will do whatever she must to get what she wants; the novel spans from 1942-50 in South Dakota and Tacoma, Washington.

M J Porter’s The King’s Mother (Amazon, Sept. 28) tells the story of a woman who has been reviled by history as a whore and a murderer,

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but was neither.

Set in the height of Classic Maya times (600-700 CE), Leonide Martin’s The Prophetic Mayan Queen: K’inuuw Mat of Palenque (Made for Success, Oct.) is the story of a strong and gifted woman whose life entwines with famous rulers of Palenque, as she influences their brilliant archeo-astronomical creations and foresees ways to preserve Maya wisdom and cultural achievements as the collapse of their civilization looms.

Hillary Tiefer’s historical novel Lily’s Home Front (Moonshine Cove, Oct. 7) takes place during World War II and is about a young woman welder on Liberty Ships in Portland, Oregon who faces prejudice on the home front.

Set in the 12th century, The Way of Glory by Patricia J. Boomsma (Edeleboom, Oct. 13) follows an English family as they join a crusade to battle the Moors in Hispania, where they find their closeness fractured by the terror and contradictions of holy war.

Suanne Schafer’s debut A Different Kind of Fire (Waldorf, Nov. 1) chronicles the life of a female artist during the American Gilded Age: Ruby Schmidt, a headstrong woman who throws off the shackles of feminine convention at a time when women were striving to change their place in the world.

In Beyond the Fall by Diane Scott Lewis (The Wild Rose Press, Nov. 5), in a neglected cemetery, a sassy modern woman slips back to the year 1796: can she learn to love again, or desert the handsome Cornishman and find her way back home?

A highwaywoman in 18th-century England gets caught up in a time traveler’s war to change history in Kate Heartfield’s Alice Payne Arrives (Tor, Nov. 6).

John Broughton’s Saints and Sinners (Endeavour Media, Nov. 19) relates the early life, exile and persecution of the young warriornoblemen Aethelbald and Guthlac – one destined to kingship the other to canonisation. The sequel, dealing with Aethelbald’s great reign, will be titled Mixed Blessings (Endeavour Media, Jan. 2019).

Clarissa Harwood’s Bear No Malice (Pegasus Books, Jan. 1, 2019), a companion novel to her debut Impossible Saints, follows the parallel struggles of clergyman Tom Cross and artist Miranda Thorne to overcome the lies and secrets from their pasts in Edwardian England.

In Eileen Charbonneau’s Seven Aprils (BWL Publishing, April 2019), a young woman with a rifle and a sure-shot eye appears turns herself into Tom Boyde, a physician’s comrade throughout America’s Civil War; the seven Aprils from 1860 to 1866 tell their tale of love and war, sex and friendship, and the price of crossing gender lines.

Patricia O’Reilly’s The First Rose of Tralee (Ward River Press/Poolbeg Books, summer 2019) tells the love story between the nursery maid and the master, set in 1840s Ireland and India against the backdrop of political upheaval; this story is the inspiration for the Annual Rose of Tralee International Festival.

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

Leanna Renee Hieber’s 3-book Spectral City series, part of Kensington’s new Rebel Base Sci-Fi/Fantasy line, a Gaslamp Fantasy saga following a group of young mediums and their loyal ghosts who help the NYPD with obscure cases in 1899 NYC, was sold to Elizabeth May at Kensington by agent Paul Stevens of the Donald Maass Agency, for publication beginning in Nov. 2018.

The Rose Code by The Alice Network bestselling author Kate Quinn, centering on three women codebreakers at Bletchley Park, and “pitched as The Imitation Game meets The Crown meets The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society,” sold to Tessa Woodward at William Morrow in a two-book deal, for publication in winter 2021,

by Kevan Lyon at Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

Entertaining Mr Pepys by Deborah Swift, third in the trilogy about the women in Samuel Pepys’ famous diary, features Mary Knepp, aspiring actress and singer, and takes place during the Great Fire of London in 1666. It was acquired by Accent Press for publication on 4th September, 2019.

C. J. Sansom’s newest Matthew Shardlake mystery, Tombland, set during the English peasant rebellions of 1549, sold to Josh Kendall and Emily Giglierano at Mulholland Books (US), for publication in April 2019, by Jennifer Weltz at the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency on behalf of Antony Topping at Greene & Heaton. In the UK, the publisher is Mantle (Oct. 2018).

Kate Thompson’s Secrets of the Homefront Girls and Secrets of the Lavender Girls, focusing on the women in the Yardley factory in East London during WWII, sold to Kimberley Atkins at Hodder & Stoughton in a two-book deal, for publication in August 2019 and 2020, by Kate Burke at Northbank Talent Management.

Ellen Gleeson, Publishing Executive at Bookouture, acquired two standalone historical novels by Angela Petch, both set in the Tuscan countryside during WWII, for publication in summer 2019 and spring 2020.

Four new WWII-era historical novels by bestselling author Lynn Austin, along with one contemporary novel, sold to Stephanie Broene at Tyndale in a five-book deal, for publication beginning in 2019, by Natasha Kern at her own agency.

Once More Unto the Breach, a debut WWII novel by Meghan Holloway featuring a Welsh soldier in wartime France, sold to Jason Pinter at Polis, in a two-book deal, for publication in May 2019.

Two additional novels in Ambrose Parry’s historical crime series set in Victorian Edinburgh (following The Way of All Flesh; review and author interview in this issue) were acquired by Canongate publishing director Francis Bickmore via Sophie Scard at United Agents.

Song of Songs by Marc Graham, revealing the untold story of Makeda, the Queen of Sheba, and her half-sister, wife of the first King of Israel, sold to Kristina Blank Makansi at Blank Slate Press for publication in spring 2019.

The Wicked and the Just author J. Anderson Coats’ YA historical epic Lies and Miracles, about a young woman, Elen, captured by raiders in 12th-century Wales, sold to Miriam Newman at Candlewick via Ammi-Joan Paquette at the Erin Murphy Literary Agency, for spring 2020 publication.

Jane and suggesting the reason why Cassandra burned Jane’s letters to her, sold to Selina Walker, publisher at Century, via Caroline Wood at Felicity Bryan Associates, for publication in 2020.

Moving to the WWII period, Tessa Arlen sold Poppy Redfern and the Midnight Murders, first in a new series with an English village setting, with an aspiring writer and novice air raid warden as protagonist, sold to Michelle Vega at Berkley in a two-book deal, by Kevan Lyon at Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

Amber Lough’s young adult novel Summer of War, focusing on a teenager who joins the Russian army’s controversial women’s battalion during WWI, sold to Amy Fitzgerald at Carolrhoda, for spring 2020 publication, by Laura Rennert and Jennifer March Soloway at the Andrea Brown Literary Agency.

Eat Pray Love and The Signature of All Things author Elizabeth Gilbert sold City of Girls, a “colorful and glittering” coming-of-age novel set in the theatre world of 1940s New York, to Alexandra Pringle at Bloomsbury UK via Sarah Chalfant at the Wylie Agency, for publication in June 2019. Riverhead will be the US publisher.

The Light After the War, Anita Abriel’s novel inspired by her mother’s experiences, and focusing on two friends escaping from a train to Auschwitz and beginning a new life in Naples, sold to Tara Parsons at Touchstone (with Kaitlin Olsen editing) via Johanna Castillo of Writers House.

OTHER NEW & FORTHCOMING TITLES Anna Freeman’s Five Days of Fog (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, Nov) focuses on women making tough choices during the “Great Smog” in London in 1952. Her earlier novel The Fair Fight, a “tale of morality and female empowerment” set in 18th-c Bristol (per HNR reviewer Martin Bourne) was an HNR Editors’ Choice selection in 2014.

The Witches of St. Petersburg by Imogen Edwards-Jones (Head of Zeus, Oct. / Harper Paperbacks, Jan. 2019) taps into current interest in the Russian Revolution by revealing the stories of two princesses from Montenegro who introduced Rasputin to the imperial court.

Lisa See’s next novel, The Island of Sea Women (Scribner, Mar. 2019) takes place on the Korean island of Jeju, focusing on its tradition of female divers starting in the 1930s.

For forthcoming novels through early 2019, please see: https:// historicalnovelsociety.org/guides/forthcoming-historical-novels/

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

Gill Hornby’s Miss Austen, centering on Cassandra Austen as she reminisces in 1840 about her close relationship with her late sister

A publication of the Historical Novel Society | www.historicalnovelsociety.org

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NEW VOICES Louise Allan, Carrie Callaghan, Ruqaya Izzidien, and Glenn Skwerer share insights into the challenges confronting their protagonists and the impact of living in different historical periods and places

Ruqaya Izzidien

Carrie Callaghan

Glenn Skwerer

Photo credit: © Erica-Derrickson-

Louise Allan

“When my soul needs some balm,” Carrie Callaghan explains, she goes to “the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. There’s nothing like wandering those halls to reassure me that humans can do marvelous things. In 2009, I came across a small exhibit about a painter born four hundred years earlier. Her name was Judith Leyster.

“When I first saw Judith’s self-portrait, I stopped and stared. She’s wearing a stiff lace collar as wide as her shoulders, and her lips are parted, as if in conversation. How had I never heard that there had been a woman who attained master status in a painters’ guild in the time of Rembrandt? And more importantly, who was she?”

As a consequence of Callaghan’s discovery, “Judith latched onto my heart and didn’t let go.” Her debut novel A Light of Her Own (Amberjack, 2018) is the result. She points out, “The historical record on Judith’s life is sparse, but we have reason to suspect she studied with Frans de Grebber. Frans had a daughter, Maria, who was a few years older than Judith, and Maria also painted. They were friends, I thought. But Maria never joined the Haarlem painters’ guild. Her goals must have differed from Judith’s ambitious ones.

What did that mean for their friendship?

“At the same time, I imagined that no matter how progressive the 17th century United Provinces (as the Netherlands were then called) were about gender roles, there must have been opposition to Judith’s ascent.”

This led Callaghan to want to “explore how much we owe one another, and how we know what to sacrifice, and how far to go”

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COLUMNS | ISSUE 86, November 2018

when faced with a situation similar to the one Judith faced.

Ruqaya Izzidien is an Iraqi-Welsh writer, living in Morocco, who lived and worked in Gaza and Egypt. In her novel The Watermelon Boys (Hoopoe, 2018), set in Baghdad during WW1, she focuses on the challenges faced by her characters in a setting that many readers may have preconceived ideas about. As she says, “When you think about Iraq, or Baghdad, it probably conjures up images of war, conflict and political catastrophes, but it wasn’t always like that.

Long before, Baghdad was associated with the arts and sciences, with trade and literature. So, when I wrote The Watermelon Boys, I hoped that it might strip back the one-dimensional narrative of the last couple of decades and focus on how Iraq once was.”

Izzidien continues, “I also wanted to ensure that my novel was centred on local protagonists. There are scores of books that already exist––usually set during the 2003 invasion or colonial Baghdad–– but, overwhelmingly, they focus on British or American protagonists and their experience of Iraq, neglecting local voices, perspectives and history. Although The Watermelon Boys features a major Welsh character and takes place during, and after, the British conquest of Mesopotamia, it is, deliberately, a story about a local family, and explores universally identifiable struggles through an Arab lens.”

Her novel is “set during a period of history that is largely neglected or misrepresented,” she says. “In Britain, we tend to view our history with a nostalgia that allows us to distort or neglect the very brutal price paid for Britain’s empire. Few people are aware of Britain’s role in conquering, subjugating, and shaping Iraq, and, while The Watermelon Boys is at heart a tender novel about a family that has difficult choices thrust upon them, it takes place during a fascinating period of history that, as Brits, we should know more about. Primarily, I would love my readers to think it is an interesting, touching and accessible story, but I would also like it if they felt they learnt something about Iraq’s history that helped them to see the country as more than its headlines.”

Glenn Skwerer’s The Tristan Chord (Unbound, 2018) explores the nuances of an unusual relationship in a period turmoil in Europe.

Skwerer, who is a psychiatrist living and practising in the Boston area, and who has been interested in European history since his undergraduate days at Yale, drew the inspiration for his novel from “two aspects of August Kubizek’s memoir The Young Hitler I Knew.”

This, he says, made him “want to turn it into fiction.”

“The first, and more obvious, was the depiction of the adolescent Hitler. I knew the Hitler of the better biographies and of Speer’s Inside the Third Reich, which may be the best glimpse one can get of the adult Hitler. But Kubizek’s Hitler was a real surprise. Both fifteen, the two met at the opera in their hometown of Linz, Austria, and saw each other almost daily for four years; at nineteen, they shared a tiny room for six months in Vienna, where Kubizek was a firstyear Conservatory student and Hitler was ‘studying’ art. You see Hitler’s character before it rigidified into the fanatic and ideologue of history––the grandiosity, egoism, intolerance of criticism, etc., are all there, but at a time when Hitler was still recognizably human; he is also lonesome, grief-stricken, deeply isolated and rather pathetic at times. I wanted to take Kubizek’s depiction one step further and dramatize it.”

Skwerer explains: “The second aspect of the story which interested

me was the situation of the narrator. Kubizek was a talented musician but had a rather thwarted life. He graduated from the Vienna Conservatory, but the First World War destroyed him professionally––he lost his job, he had no real opportunities to play and conduct, and he ended up a municipal clerk in a small Austrian city; he channeled his artistic energies into organizing the town’s musical programs. His entire life was shadowed by his early friendship with Hitler. The two met again on the day of the annexation of Austria in 1938; Hitler took Kubizek with him to the Wagner festival in Bayreuth in 1938 and 1939, and Kubizek became a minor celebrity, ‘The Friend of the Führer’s Youth’. Then he landed in an American de-Nazification camp for sixteen months after the war. Kubizek was enamored of music, and pointedly apolitical; being ‘the Friend of the Fuhrer’s Youth’ was a strange and morally equivocal role. And of course Hitler must have been a constant reminder of Kubizek’s own time in Vienna and his defeated ambitions.”

In Skwerer’s story, “Hitler and Kubizek became Hitler and Rezcek.

This gave me license to explore the friendship and its potential conflicts––Hitler, for example, was rigid, uncompromising, moralistic about sex, a misogynist; Kubizek was a Conservatory student, a more “normal” adolescent male, a provincial exposed for the first time to the sensuality and high art of Vienna. In Linz, Hitler was the dominant of the two, with his monologues and opinions on everything under the sun; in Vienna, Hitler becomes an art school reject as Reczek enters the glittering world of the Conservatory and its patrons. This reverses once more as Rezcek’s loss of his career coincides with Hitler’s political rise. Eventually, Reczek ends up in an American internment camp, where he is forced to confront his friend’s astonishing criminality. There was a lot to work with.”

The Sisters’ Song (Allan & Unwin, 2018) by Louise Allan is set against the backdrop of rural Tasmania. It is “about two sisters,” the author says, “one of whom dearly wants a family, while the other dreams of being an opera singer. However, neither sister’s dream is realised, and the rest of the story is about how each deals with their loss and grief.”

Allen relates: “I drew inspiration for this tale from my family history and stories I’d heard growing up. I based the character of Ida on my paternal grandmother, who came to our house each weekday, from eight o’clock in the morning until about six o’clock in the evening.

She was there when we came home from school, with afternoon tea already set out on the kitchen bench. She was never angry with us, even when we were misbehaving, and was a gentle influence over my childhood.

Allan now lives in Perth in Western Australia, but while growing up in Tasmania, she says, “I heard about her three stillbirths before she gave birth to my uncle and father by caesarean. As a child, I accepted such things without thinking about them, but when I became a mother, I imagined how hard it must have been for her to feel her babies alive inside her for nine months, only for each one to be crushed on the way out. A couple of years ago while searching online, I found the cemetery record of one those stillborn babies from 22 March, 1937, and it felt particularly poignant.”

As a result, Allan made a decision: “to put all of this into my story to pay homage to ordinary women like my grandmother, who bore the heartbreak with such courage.”

The other sister in Allan’s story, she says, “is based on my maternal grandmother, who felt the opposite about children—she had eight of them but resented each pregnancy. She was an intelligent and creative lady who, these days, would have been able to go on to university. However, things were different back in the 1920s and she really didn’t have much choice other than to leave school early, marry and have children.”

Debut novelists Allan, Callaghan, Izzidien and Skwerer have all painted word pictures depicting the intricacies of human relationships and how living in different historical periods and countries can have powerful consequences for both ordinary and famous people.

WRITTEN BY MYFANWY COOK Myfanwy Cook is an Associate Fellow at two British Universities and a creative writing workshop designer. Please do email (myfanwyc@btinternet.com) if you discover any debut novels you would like to see showcased.

A publication of the Historical Novel Society | www.historicalnovelsociety.org

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HISTORY & FILM A Still & Quiet Horror: Lady Macbeth

intangible barriers. Clocks tick, Katherine tries desperately not to nod off. The camera lingers to drive home what is going on here: Katherine is isolated, restless, and increasingly bored. Teenagers get into trouble when they’re bored.

This is how Katherine’s relationship with the unkempt, womanizing Sebastian feels: the kind of reckless abandon in which teenagers often engage, heedless of consequence. As soon as her husband and father-in-law depart, she’s on the sofa again, but now sprawled asleep, barefoot; she heads outdoors into the howling wind, hair unbound. She takes no care to hide her affair from the servants, including her maid, Anna (Naomi Ackie), who she knows has been tasked with watching her by the men of the house. When her fatherin-law returns, Katherine is immediately laced back into her corset, the slight breath of freedom curtailed. Referred to by the uncouth, abusive Boris as property, Katherine’s rebellion surfaces, setting her up as a stereotypical feminist heroine – her jaw-dropping actions in sticking it to the man are to be viewed sympathetically from, as one reviewer assumed every viewer would possess, “our modern, liberal perspective.”3 But this is where things get confusing.

As I write this, it’s nearing Halloween, so my first thought was to pick something rather monstrous – perhaps the various incarnations of Dracula on film, or even Sean Bean’s turn in that odd mashup, The Frankenstein Chronicles. But then I had a thought: why not something that’s horrific in a novel way? Thus, I give you Lady Macbeth.

Before you make an understandable mistake – assuming this is in some way adapted from or related to Shakespeare – allow me to disabuse you. The storyline originates with an 1865 novella, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, by Russian author Nikolai Leskov, which was first published in Epoch magazine, demesne of that feelgood cheer factory, Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The original novella was so far removed from anything Shakespearean that it’s difficult to justify the title, and this film adaptation heads even further afield.

It’s 1865 in Northampton, England. Katherine (Florence Pugh) is a teenaged bride, wed to wealthy, middle-aged Alexander Leicester (read: purchased by Leicester’s overbearing father, Boris, along with a tract of land). When Alexander (Paul Hilton) leaves to tend to an explosion at one of the family’s collieries and Boris (Christopher Fairbank) heads off to London, Katherine begins a torrid affair with one of the workers on her husband’s estate, Sebastian (Cosmo Jarvis). So far, so Lady Chatterley.

This film fits squarely within the costume noir genre, however, not the racy flock flick. Its stylistic elements are arresting and minutely structured. Katherine is confined, in every sense of the word, from being forbidden to enjoy the outdoors to the stays of her corset and the cage of her crinoline. She is advised of the virtues of “solitude and reflection.” She often engages in that trope of the trapped female: gazing out a window. One critic noted the “coldly rustic, half-finished puritanism”1 of the interiors; they are expensive, solid, but Spartan.

Color is used sparingly: there is a mustard-hued sofa upon which Katherine often sits, prim, stylized and motionless, staring straight ahead, the vibrant blue of her dress and her pale face “like a doll that no one plays with.”2 Katherine is never shown doing anything; she doesn’t read, she doesn’t sew. She doesn’t even attend to the duties of running a household. She simply sits, staring. All of these shots are framed with a fearful symmetry. When Katherine interacts with her husband or father-in-law, there is always something between to separate them – a bed, a table, a chair – physical manifestations of

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I’m debating on how much I can reveal without spoilers. We could start with Katherine’s first meeting Sebastian. Hearing a commotion, Katherine stumbles on a scene initially bewildering to the viewer and then, as understanding dawns, disgusting. There is riotous laughter as several estate workers poke and prod at something hanging from the ceiling – it turns out to be Anna, naked. They have put her in the sling used to weigh livestock. When Katherine furiously demands to know what’s going on, Sebastian smirks, “Weighing a sow.” Just as she has been ordered by her own husband during intimate (for lack of a better word, since there is no intimacy here) moments, Katherine demands of the workers that they “Face the wall. And stop smiling.”

As Anna, crying, gathers her clothes and runs away, Katherine could be viewed as her protector, gender solidarity shown to a fellow beleaguered woman. But instead, she is only angry that the estate workers waste her husband’s time, and suggestively asks Sebastian, who eyes her slantwise, “How much would I weigh?” He responds by picking her up, they tussle and he ends up on the floor, Katherine inflamed with anger…and something else. The entire incident, the humiliation and possible sexual assault of her maid, is only used as a foil for a twisted meet cute. There is no inquiry, no kindness, no solace directed at Anna. When the still sniffling maid later attempts to speak to her mistress about the incident, Katherine cuts her off – “The one who called you a pig, what was his name?” – absorbed only in her new, inexplicable love interest.

I said this is confusing, and it only becomes more so with the addition of a layer completely absent from the original storyline: race. Anna (who doesn’t exist in the novella) is black, Sebastian is made to appear biracial (in actuality, the actor is of Armenian descent), and Anna’s husband has also had a liaison that produces a mixedrace child, who enters late in the story with his black grandmother.

None of this is addressed explicitly, but as one reviewer noted, the movie’s racial undertones are “thunderous.”4 The characterization is somewhat out of place for the time period and location (especially the story’s original, Russia, but also this film’s isolated estate in Victorian northern England). Katherine is abused; she is denigrated and mistreated. But to be an acceptable #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter heroine, sympathy must exist with the even more oppressed Anna: if Katherine is sticking it to the (rich, white, privileged) man, hers must be a victory on behalf of all those marginalized. Yet Katherine is an

extremely problematic social justice warrior. As is quickly evident, Katherine experiences sympathy with no one, even the individual she purports to obsessively love. Everyone with any power here abuses it: Boris torments all, including his son, Alexander takes his father’s abuse out on Katherine, who in turn mistreats Anna. The result is a spate of denigration and eventually murder, and while “modern, liberal” reviewers were near gleeful at the first killings given who the victims are, they blanched at those that came after, it being quite another thing for a woman to “shoot her husband’s horse, which whinnies in agony…Movies are games of moral relativism, and Lady Macbeth quickly turns its feminist heroine into something far more disturbing.”5 Be disturbed not because she’s a multiple murderess, mind, but because one of her victims happens to be an innocent equine. It’s perfectly acceptable, laudable even, to slaughter people...as long as they represent something one finds distasteful.

Katherine doesn’t stop there, and there is one murder (human) in particular which more than qualifies this movie for the adjective horrific. There is no blood, no gore. Instead, the scene in which it occurs is shot from a single angle in real time, excrutiatingly so, and is so manifestly disturbing that shaking one’s head in shocked disbelief isn’t an inappropriate reaction (it’s the one I had, anyway).

One of this movie’s most effective aspects is its use of stillness, quiet, and yes, order, to heighten the horror of what happens onscreen. The first murder, for instance, is in no way presaged, occuring off-stage, the camera focused (as it almost always is) on Katherine’s expression as she calmly sips her tea while banging is heard in another room.

Her only action is to nonchalantly place a chair underneath the door handle. It is so low-key that when she offhandedly tells Anna to run fetch the doctor, the viewer is left thinking: what just happened here?

The film doesn’t really have what could be called a score; only in two instances is music (of a sort) heard – an ethereal, haunting few seconds of sound over an otherwise deafening silence. Hands sliding down bannisters, laces drawn through eyelets, doors and shutters closing, ungentle brushstrokes applied to hair; one can almost hear the dust motes thud against the hardwood in the stillness of these rooms. The camera often focuses on a room for long seconds before a character enters it. It’s the filmic equivalent of being able to hear a pin drop. The silence, the stillness, is audible.

Within all this order and stillness is Katherine, and Pugh is a wonder in the role. Without an actress of her caliber, there is little chance the movie would work as well as it does to provoke both shock and depth of consideration. There isn’t a great deal of dialogue, and given the structure of the film, what needs to be conveyed is done primarily through Pugh’s facial expressions and the subtlety of her performance, leaving the viewer watching intently, wondering what lies beneath. Some commenting on the film, in order to fit with their wished-for themes, wanted to believe it a case of a soul twisted by mistreatment, unwarranted stricture, marginalization – one who turns into an oppressor because she was herself oppressed. Yet this is not what the filmmaker, William Oldroyd, seems to offer onscreen through these stellar performances. For my part, based on Pugh’s portrayal, I’m inclined to think the sociopathy inherent. The film is careful to stress the newness of Katherine’s situation: it begins with her wedding, and other aspects delineating the timeline make it unlikely to occur over much more than a few months from start to finish, perhaps even a few weeks. It would be difficult to successfully argue that a few weeks of boredom and stricture could fundamentally change one’s innate character. This is a departure from the novella, in which Katerina had been married (oppressed) for at least five years.

Pugh manages to convey that, yes, here is a woman who has slipped the tether of her subjugation, violently. But the overall impression is that she has always been sociopathic; she’d simply not had a target

for expression. She is not turned into what she becomes – she was born that way, and when her true nature breaches those seemingly still waters, abruptly surfacing, it is terrifying.

Her counterpart, Sebastian, is likewise undone by ennui; he’s terribly bored, as he tells Katherine on the first night he strongarms himself into her bedroom, oblivious as to what he’s getting into. While Sebastian is taken aback by some of Katherine’s actions, he initially seems to be suffering almost a folie à deux. By the time his lover makes statements such as “I’d rather stop you breathing than have you doubt how I feel,” he’s already far too entangled to escape. As in the best of noir, he now knows the femme fatale for what she is, but it’s too late. He may want escape, but he’s powerless to effect it. Jarvis does well with the role he’s given, alternately cocksure and lost, but the other standout here is undeniably Naomi Ackie. She also has very little dialogue; at one point terror literally renders her mute.

But from the widening of her frightened eyes to vicious kneading of bread dough to the way her scrubbing threatens to strip skin from spine as she bathes her mistress, the viewer is always aware of the emotions that predominate: fear and anger. Anna has good reason to be angry...and terrified.

So if you’re looking to be disturbed by something a bit out of the ordinary, with a brilliant lead and supporting actress as well as a strong secondary cast and a visually arresting aesthetic, look no further than Lady Macbeth. Reserved, Victorian, chilling.

REFERENCES 1. Guy Lodge

“Film Review: Lady Macbeth.” 9 September 2016. Variety (https://variety.com/2016/film/reviews/lady-macbethreview-1201853847/). Accessed 15 October 2018.

2. Manohla Dargis

“‘Lady Macbeth’ in Hoop Skirts.” 13 July 2017. The New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/13/movies/lady-macbethreview.html?referrer=google_kp). Accessed 13 October 2018.

3. David Edelstein

“In the Torrid Lady Macbeth, Oppression Flows in All Directions.” 12 July 2017. Vulture (http://www.vulture.com/2017/07/lady-macbethmovie-review.html). Accessed 15 October 2018.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

WRITTEN BY BETHANY LATHAM Bethany Latham is the Managing Editor of Historical Novels Review. She has authored various nonfiction books, numerous journal and magazine articles, and is a regular reviewer for HNR and Booklist.

A publication of the Historical Novel Society | www.historicalnovelsociety.org

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PITCH PERFECT William Boyd’s ode to the rollercoaster of life and love

intertwines with the heroics and follies of twentieth-century life – with appearances by Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Ian Fleming, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, to name just some of the book’s real-life characters. Boyd’s self-avowed ambition is “to make fiction seem so real you forget it’s fiction.” This is certainly the case with his 1998 novel, illustrated with purported photographs of an artist called Nat Tate and his works. On publication in New York, the novel caused consternation as the art establishment scrambled to identify the unknown artist, before it transpired that Boyd had invented a “forgotten” American artist, sourced the anonymous photographs from second-hand shops, and painted the “pictures” himself. He’s no mean artist, since one of “Nat’s” paintings actually sold at Sotheby’s in 2011, an event that Boyd describes as rather surreal.

Photographs from Boyd’s personal collection are also a key element of Sweet Caress. As the author comments, “The most banal photograph can be gravid with emotion and, similarly, something in a novel can reveal an aspect of our human lives that historians or journalists or reporters can’t.” Sweet Caress recounts the life of professional photographer Amory Clay, who moves from 1920s London to fashion shoots in New York, and then war reportage in Normandy and, later, Vietnam. When asked if he is a photographer, Boyd says: “I’m technically inept. That’s the novelist’s sleight of hand. If you acquire an issue of Amateur Photographer from 1925 you’ve got a mass of information.” Sleight of hand is one way of describing it, but Boyd’s skill lies in prolonged and meticulous planning which allows him to weave the right details into his narrative, usually working backwards from the end.

“The whole-life novel is a small genre with very eclectic exemplars.”

William Boyd, a multi-genre, multi-award-winning author, has made it something of a trademark, having now written five. They include: The New Confessions (Hamish Hamilton UK, 1987 / William Morrow US, 1988), Nat Tate: An American Artist, 1928-1960 (Bloomsbury, 1998), Any Human Heart (Penguin Random House UK, 2002 / Knopf US, 2003), Sweet Caress (Bloomsbury, 2015), and most recently, Love is Blind: The Rapture of Brodie Moncur (Viking UK / Alfred A. Knopf US, 2018). “It’s the haphazard rollercoaster of a life that is key in the whole-life novel rather than a particular plot, theme or central relationship.”1 Almost inevitably, though, the lives are also coloured and influenced by the historical events they witness. The events and the places are true, but clearly, the fact that the protagonists are purely imaginary sets them apart from another genre, much in vogue, the biographical novel.

Place is essential to all of Boyd’s work. In Any Human Heart, Boyd uses Logan Mountstuart’s journals to trace the arc of his peripatetic life – from his youth in Montevideo, Uruguay, to Oxford, Paris, the Spanish Civil War, and ultimately New York, until he moves to West Africa, then London and finally to his old age in France. Exhausting, you might think, but the pace of this fictional autobiography is so carefully gauged that the result is a page-turner, and its hero’s life

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As well as introducing real people and real historical events to give the fictional life more authenticity – and interest – Boyd’s novels are also all love stories. In answer to my question regarding the patterns of his protagonists’ lives, Boyd continues, “I happen to think that every human being on the planet is searching for love. It gives our lifeadventure a meaning, a significance – if we can find it. It’s a profound universal need. But life is all about good luck and bad luck, as well.

The roll of the fatidic dice determines everything.” This chimes with Logan Mountstuart’s thoughts in Any Human Heart, where he contemplates his good luck in meeting Freya Deverell, whom he marries: “That’s all your life amounts to in the end: the aggregate of all the good luck and the bad luck you experience… We must quietly suffer the laws of man’s condition, as Montaigne says” (p.458).

In Boyd’s latest novel, Love is Blind, it was Brodie Moncur’s good luck to meet the one woman he loves, the Russian singer Lika Blum – his bad luck to contract tuberculosis. There are no doubt resonances between Brodie Moncur, Logan Mountstuart and – in female form – Amory Clay, protagonists whose lives are constantly being hijacked by chance encounters and events. Returning to the “whole-life” genre preferred by Boyd, it is, he tells me, “particularly suited in trying to come to grips with the complexities of human condition. Everyone seems to be able to relate to it.”

Brodie Moncur, the protagonist of Love is Blind, is a son of the manse, and his first job is with a renowned piano manufacturer in Edinburgh.

When I ask him whether the name is significant, Boyd replies, “I simply wanted a good Scottish-sounding name. The same applies to the family. I knew that Brodie would come from a big family and that

IT WAS A CHALLENGE — but a good one — to time-travel and imagine these places a hundred years before I had visited them.

his father would be a monster. It’s pure imagination at work.” And a monster he is, of the most bigoted type: a full-blown egotist whose weekly performances from the pulpit of his kirk draw visitors from far beyond this tiny village in the Scottish Borders.

Brodie Moncur escapes his father’s tyranny because the gift of perfect pitch opens the doors to a highly specialized career as a piano tuner.

I asked Boyd whether he played the piano himself: “I tried to learn to play the piano when I was at school – and failed miserably. I knew I wanted to write about a piano virtuoso – the nineteenth century being the great century of these prodigies – but it’s very hard to write about music in a novel. I need a portal to that world and I was suddenly struck by the idea that my protagonist could be a piano tuner – someone who dealt with the mechanics, the nuts and bolts, of the art form. It was fascinating researching that world – a real education.”

Setting is again central to the novel, including the far-flung Andaman Islands – the only place that Brodie visits which Boyd did not personally know. Boyd was born in Ghana, and went to an English boarding school before attending university in Nice, Glasgow and Oxford. “Edinburgh, the Borders, Paris, Biarritz and Nice are very familiar. I knew the novel would take Brodie on a journey and so decided to journey to familiar cities. It was a challenge – but a good one – to time-travel and imagine these places a hundred years before I had visited them. It’s funny how certain places take root in your imagination. The Borders of Scotland was where I spent childhood summers home on leave from Africa. Nice was where I spent my gap-year. I’ve visited Biarritz a dozen times over the last 20 years. My novels are solidly realistic novels, therefore the places they deal with have to seem alive, vivid. As authentic as possible.” As for the Andaman and Nicobar islands, that choice was serendipitous, according to the author. “One of the literary ghosts haunting Love is Blind is Robert Louis Stevenson – another peripatetic Scot. RLS ended up living in Samoa. Brodie Moncur, it seems to me, is a very Stevensonian hero so I decided to take him as far away from Scotland as possible. It just so happened that I had in my library a very early work of anthropology (published in 1909) set in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. So I chose that remote archipelago as the place Brodie would end up.” In the same way that photography was a career open to Boyd’s earlier heroine Amory Clay, so the woman whom Brodie meets in this last exotic destination is loosely based on the famous American anthropologist Margaret Mead. “It was a very egalitarian profession that admitted women early in the twentieth century.” Page Arbogast’s words frame the novel and she remains with the reader as the book ends.

To date, Boyd has chosen late nineteenth- or twentieth-century settings for his historical novels – including Restless, a dual narrative told by Eva Delectorskaya, recruited as a spy before and during the Second World War, and her daughter, Ruth, living in late 1970s Oxford. When I ask whether Boyd would ever write about an earlier period, he replies: “It’s possible. Never say never. I am pondering a novel set in the early nineteenth century. But I don’t see the last hundred or so years as ‘history’ per se. My grandmother, whom I knew well, was born in the 1880s, my great uncle was wounded at the Battle of the Somme. My aunt was born ten years after the Wright Brothers first achieved powered flight at Kitty Hawk. When you’ve known people who lived in the nineteenth century, it doesn’t

seem so far away or alien. I feel that’s my natural range – say three generations back from my own life and time – it’s not ‘strange.’”

The fact that he feels at home in the past century or more clearly throws up questions regarding the definition of the “historical novel,” and Boyd has, in the past, distanced himself from the genre.

I wanted to ask him to say more on this point. “I think if you write novels exclusively set in the past – like Patrick O’Brien, say, or Mary Renault – then you can be fairly described as a ‘historical’ novelist,” he replies. “Is Hilary Mantel a ‘historical novelist’? Not really. I’ve written novels that take place at the beginning of the twentieth century – and now have crept into the nineteenth. To me it’s simply another novel – its time and its setting is something I determine will work well for the story I want to tell. I think of myself simply as a novelist – all other adjectives are, in a way, redundant.”

REFERENCES 1. William Boyd

“The Whole Story: William Boyd on why we love novels that span a lifetime,” The Gaurdian, 1 October 2018.

WRITTEN BY LUCINDA BYATT Lucinda Byatt is Features Editor of HNR and a literary translator from Italian into English. She teaches history and translation at the University of Edinburgh.

A publication of the Historical Novel Society | www.historicalnovelsociety.org

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YOUNG ADULT WAR FICTION Fixture or trend?

A short perusal of Historical Novels Review’s Children’s & Young Adult book reviews over the past year reveals an interesting statistic: roughly half are “war fiction,” and yet more are sandwiched in eras between wars, which generally results in characters immersed in war-affected circumstances. While reading a young adult novel about the Beatles, She Loves You: Yeah, Yeah, Yeah by Ann Hood (Penguin Workshop, 2018), the question emerged — how far-reaching is the war theme in current young adult historical fiction? At first glance, Hood’s novel did not seem to fit the category of war fiction, yet it covered a wide range of cultural events of the Sixties, along with the undercurrents of the Vietnam War. Similarly, Sandra Gulland’s latest, The Game of Hope (Viking Books for Young Readers, 2018), focuses on a period in the life of Hortense de Beauharnais (step-daughter of Napoleon), and touches upon the French campaign in Egypt that is taking place.

Sometimes war details simply aren’t important to the narrative, but the setting is vital — and thus a war fiction categorization is still relevant, if not focused. There are, however, many middle grade and young adult novels written expressly with a war theme in mind — in fact, some were requested by publishers to fill the market demand, which is the case for several of the authors mentioned in this article.

Amazon’s “Children’s Military Fiction” category houses pages of recent and popular titles, and shows no signs of slowing down. Are

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authors consciously writing this genre, or are there simply more war titles accepted from publishers? When asked if, in writing her book, Courageous (Scholastic Press, 2018), she was aware that it would be categorized as “war fiction,” Yona Zeldis McDonough replied, “Yes, and I was completely fine with that. I’m not so concerned about genre; I just want to write the best book I can. I let the booksellers deal with categorizing it.” Chris Lynch, author of Special Forces: Unconventional Warfare (Scholastic Press, 2018), added, “Not that I ever made a serious study of it, but just paying attention, it’s rather inescapable. Particularly in Britain, where I spend most of my time, there are certain magazines and television stations that absolutely thrive on war stories.” Anyone scrolling through Netflix will attest to that statement, but what truly interests kids? Laurie Calkhoven, author of Sergeant Stubby, Hero Pup of World War I (Scholastic, 2018), has the perfect answer to that question. “Historical fiction is a great way to get young readers interested in history. We can tell the stories that the textbooks leave out.” Indeed, historical fiction fills that gap exceedingly well.

One of the things that sets young adult fiction apart is the narrating voice, which is nearly always a young boy or girl — often a comingof-age tale — but one increasingly popular POV is that of a dog.

Calkhoven explains, “We decided to tell the stories from the dogs’ point-of-view. Although both books in the series so far focus on real dogs and mirror the real events in their lives, telling the stories from the dog’s point-of-view allows me to take some creative license. I don’t speak dog — as much as I would like to — and that’s primarily why these books are fiction and not nonfiction.” Calkhoven’s G. I. Dogs, Kate Messner’s Ranger in Time, and C. Alexander London’s Dog Tags series are a few that feature man’s best friend coupled with a wartime setting. Steve Watkins, author of On Blood Road (Scholastic, 2018), relates his idea of war fiction: “I’d include in this definition of war fiction the experiences of those who have served in combat, and who, along with their families, are facing the challenges of returning to ‘normal’ life after war.” Similarly, Marsha Forchuck Skrypuch, author of The War Below (Scholastic, 2018), says, “My passion is writing about young people who are caught up in extraordinary circumstances, and war is the ultimate extraordinary circumstance.”

A commonly mentioned quality in HNR’s Children’s & Young Adult reviews is multi-age readership. Most of the authors interviewed expressed joy and contentment with writing for a younger audience, but are thrilled with appealing to older readers as well. On this, Forchuck Skrypuch says, “I have a significant adult readership. When I write a novel, I don’t think in terms of audience, but rather try to show what it was actually like for the person living through the event.

The designation of age level is made by my publisher, so some have been designated YA/adult while most have been designated middle grade/YA. One thing that I like about writing for a younger audience is that there is a great responsibility placed onto the author to be historically accurate. Since I am a stickler for accuracy, it’s a natural fit.” Watkins is of a similar opinion: “I think what we’re seeing lately is a lot of adults drawn to MG and YA literature of all genres, and especially war fiction.” Perhaps war fiction in particular because, for many, a simplification of vastly detail-laden (and also sometimes gruesome) topics makes a more enjoyable reading experience.

Calkhoven is among the authors happily ensconced in their genre.

She says, “I don’t have any plans to write for adults. Kids are in some ways harder to write for, but they’re also a lot more fun!”

BOOKS ABOUT WORLD WAR II will always find a place on the shelf, but I do think they’re

having ‘a moment’ right now.

To open the main topic of discussion — is war fiction a fixture in juvenile literature, or just another passing fad? — several authors have chimed in. One interesting perspective on this comes from Forchuck Skrypuch, who offers this insightful observation: “I’ve been writing war fiction since my very first book, which was published in 1996. When I first started out, contemporary fiction was more popular, but the 9/11 tragedy changed that. Up until that time I had found it hard to interest publishers in war fiction, so my early novels were a contemporary/war blend. 9/11 plunged our continent into a vast introspection and this meant looking at past conflicts for ideas about how to anticipate the future. Suddenly my war novels were the ones that publishers wanted. I think this is also due to the fact that my war fiction focuses on the lesser-known experiences of civilians living in the war zone. I haven’t seen the interest lag, and in fact, there’s probably been an uptick in the last two years. I think war fiction is popular because in an anxious world, people can read how others in the past dealt with extraordinary experiences, and perhaps give them insight as to how they might handle parallel circumstances.”

Specifically on WWII fiction, Alan Gratz, author of Refugee (Scholastic Press, 2017), explains, “Books about World War II will always find a place on the shelf, but I do think they’re having ‘a moment’ right now.

Why? That’s hard to know. I do think that young readers respond to the injustice of World War II; they become just as indignant about the Nazis, for example, as they do bullies at school. The villains in World War II are pretty easy to identify, too, and the reasons we fought are good, noble, and logical — things that can’t be said about many other wars. It’s modern enough to be easily relatable, in a way that even World War I, just twenty years prior, is not.” WWII is certainly having a moment — in Children’s and Adult fiction. It seems to offer writers all the necessary elements of an intriguing story — a hero or heroine in a risky situation, acts of bravery, and the battle between good and bad. There is also the humanity component, as Lynch states: “I do not think war fiction is at all a passing fad. There is a reason — lots of reasons, actually — why it is so consistently on the shelves. The stories are so human when you get right down to it. You get to deal with huge war-changing events, and play them out through the lives of real folk on the ground. There is built-in love and fear and danger and humor, heroism and treachery. It contains all humanity itself in extremis. What could be more compelling than that?” Further touching on the subject, he says, “It is remarkable to note the way we keep looping back on ourselves and revisiting the same conflicts in the same places, and if kids can pick up my book and get a slightly clearer understanding of today’s running conflicts in the Eastern Hemisphere, I will feel I have accomplished something worthwhile.”

Ultimately, what do authors hope that readers will take away from their experience? War is not a glamorous topic, yet we, as readers and writers, are collectively drawn to it. Zeldis McDonough describes her thoughts on this and ends on a hauntingly poignant note.

“I’m not a fan of war and tend to see it as a necessary evil rather than a grand or heroic opportunity. I did my best to convey this in Courageous, especially through the character of George, who is a soldier and comes to the realization that ‘the enemy’ is not some faceless, nameless automaton, but comprised of all-too-human boys and men, just like himself. The German soldier who is killed in the story is someone’s son/brother/friend/cousin/sweetheart, and his death will rip a ragged and painful hole in all those lives. I wanted

George — and my readers — to understand that; to me, it is one of the most important aspects of the book. There was a WWI-era song that says it all: I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier I brought him up to be my pride and joy Now they’ll put a musket on his shoulder To kill some other mother’s darling boy.”

WRITTEN

BY ARLEIGH ORDOYNE Arleigh Ordoyne has worked in the book industry for more than a decade and is an active member of the book blogging community with her website Historical-Fiction.com. She has been reviewing books online for 12 years and with Historical Novel Society since 2011.

A publication of the Historical Novel Society | www.historicalnovelsociety.org

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A WORLD OF BLUE

BY BETHANY LATHAM Espionage, artistry and early modern women Simone van der Vlugt’s Midnight Blue (HarperCollins UK, 2017 / William Morrow US, 2018) is set in mid-17th-century Netherlands, while Nancy Bilyeau’s The Blue (Endeavour Quill UK, 2018) occurs a century later, in England and France. What do they have in common?

The titles say it all: an obsession with the color blue, specifically as it relates to porcelain, and two less than conventional heroines.

In Midnight Blue, 25-year-old Catrin, recently widowed, leaves her village in search of work. Her true talent is painting, but she finds employment as housekeeper for the wealthy van Nulandt family in Amsterdam. When dangers from her past emerge, a new position as a painter of pottery in Delft offers the appearance of safety. Catrin’s innovative designs transform her master’s business, but dire threats lie in wait.

The historical atmosphere is well-realized, and Van der Vlugt explains, “I have been busy for over twenty years with 17th-century Netherlands. It’s the little things that interest me, the details that give a story colour. It’s not too difficult to imagine; a lot of the Dutch landscape has changed little since that time.”

What has changed are the roles women are permitted to assume, especially in industry. Van der Vlugt notes, “In contrast to many other countries, in the Netherlands women were allowed to become members of a guild, though it didn’t happen often. Women were not permitted to run their own businesses – they were under the watchful eye of their father, brother, or husband.”

Bilyeau makes it clear that a century later, ambitious women still had few options. In The Blue, Huguenot refugee Genevieve Planché, almost of an age with Catrin, relies upon her artist grandfather. His attempts to find a painter to tutor his talented granddaughter are fruitless, since no one in England will take a woman as protégée.

The last thing Genevieve wants is the work found for her: painting designs at the Derby Porcelain Works. Her dreams seem within reach when a mysterious aristocrat offers all she’s ever wanted – in exchange for a little industrial espionage. There are those who are willing to stop at nothing to obtain the formula for a stunning new blue used to decorate Derby porcelain, and Genevieve finds herself in grave danger.

Unlike Catrin, who is thrilled at the prospect of painting pottery, being a porcelain decorator, for Genevieve, is something akin to “a living death.” The work environments for the women are different: Catrin’s is a small workshop, while Genevieve finds herself in a large manufactory. Bilyeau notes that, due to fierce competition, porcelain was at the forefront of the nascent Georgian Industrial Revolution.

“The only sort of people who would have thrown themselves into making porcelain would have had to be obsessive and perfectionist, and risk-taking, too,” she says. “In England, they jumped into it with a vengeance, and workshops turned into manufactories.” This mania for the product created a unique atmosphere that, Bilyeau explains, “brought out the worst in people at times — the core of my story is about spying, which was there from the beginning.” By contrast,

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while there is competition for Delft Blue in Golden Age Holland, it manifests with more civility in a less cutthroat environment. One of Catrin’s fellow artisans splits off to start his own workshop, but is open about the undertaking.

Catrin is a complicated character, but one of her defining traits is pragmatism, and she feels very true to her time. Van der Vlugt explains how she avoided the pitfall so many historical novelists sprawl headlong into – giving their female characters an anachronistically modern feminist viewpoint. “The biggest problem in writing a historical novel,” she says, “is that you have to let go of 21st century thinking. That is only possible if you know how 17th-century people saw the world and lived in it.” Genevieve is likewise complicated, and goes through a difficult process in order to know herself. As she thinks in the novel: “What a curious experience, to learn the truth of one’s own character.” Genevieve is ambitious, smart, creative but, Bilyeau notes, “also impulsive and a bit arrogant, which is not a recipe for the ideal woman of the mid-18th century. I studied the lives of Huguenots, porcelain decorators, and spies in the 18th century to craft Genevieve. I also researched women who struggled to be serious artists.” The connection for Bilyeau is personal: her father is a watercolor landscape artist. Bilyeau was struck by her father’s “drive to create,” despite intense opposition from his parents.

Both authors explore the artistic drive not only through their protagonists, but also via marquee names that inhabit the periphery of their stories. In Midnight Blue, Catrin meets two of the great painters of the age. Van der Vlugt explains, “I always like to put historical figures in my books. Catrin gets to know Rembrandt and Vermeer.

That is plausible. In Amsterdam, via her employer, she enters the painters’ milieu, and then it is just a small step to Rembrandt. For Vermeer, it’s the same. Delft was a small town where everyone knew each other. It would have been strange if Catrin had not got to know Vermeer. But, of course, it is also fun to weave famous names into the story.” Bilyeau shares this sentiment: “As much as I love history and strive to write the best work of fiction I can, at the end of the day, it’s fun. I really enjoy populating my novels with people who lived.”

Genevieve meets not only Hogarth, but even more exalted company – Madame de Pompadour and Louis XV. When taken together, the two novels provide a sort of artisanal progression. Van der Vlugt describes how, by the first half of the 17th century, voyages of discovery had already made Chinese porcelain extremely popular. “Every rich citizen had it in the house,” she says, “but in 1647, a civil war in China put an end to trade, and Dutch cities, with Delft as the first, decided to make Chinese porcelain themselves.

Although they could not match the Chinese, it was very popular; that of Delft became the most famous, and gave it the name it still has: Delft Blue.” Bilyeau notes, “The color blue was already made use of in porcelain making in Europe and China when my novel begins. Dutch Delftware was gorgeous, and a peak example of how the Europeans were able to imitate the Chinese.” Bilyeau focuses on the rarity of blue pigments, and a new source and process to create an entirely new, breathtaking blue – one so valuable that men would kill for it.

As Catrin says when asked about the fascination porcelain holds: “The colors. That deep blue on gleaming white. And the designs… when I looked at them I felt like I’d stepped into another world. A world so far away from here…A world I’ll never see.” Through these two novels set a century apart, Van der Vlugt and Bilyeau offer a glimpse for modern readers: artistry, industry, beauty, and danger in a world obsessed with blue.

Bethany Latham is HNR’s Managing Editor.

THE MORAL BENEFIT OF PAIN

BY MARILYN PEMBERTON

How the discovery of chloroform led to murder We take pain relief for granted, especially the mothers amongst us, whose childbirth was made bearable by some form of anaesthetic.

In the early 1800s, despite being considered weak and unsound, women were believed to benefit morally from unmoderated pain during labour. This belief, fortunately, was not held by all doctors.

James Young Simpson (1811-1870), a successful Scottish obstetrician, was not content to bring babies into the world whilst their mothers screamed in pain and often died as a result of the trauma. Instead, he sought the Holy Grail of medicine: to put the patient safely to sleep for a short period whilst having no harmful after effects. In 1847, he succeeded with chloroform, initially testing it on himself and others during a dinner party. The resultant almost farcical scene of the seemingly lifeless bodies of men sprawled under the table is described in The Way of All Flesh (Canongate, 2018).

This debut novel is written by Ambrose Parry, the pseudonym for a collaboration between award-winning author Chris Brookmyre and medical historian Dr Marisa Haetzman. During research for her master’s degree, Marisa learned of Simpson, who had been a consulting physician at the Royal Maternity Hospital in Edinburgh.

The doctor was not just a medic, but also a man who ministered to those at both ends of the social scale, often refusing the fee from those who could not afford it. This research sowed the seed of the idea for the novel, with Simpson’s work, social and familial ethics forming the backdrop.

Whilst Brookmyre continued with writing two more books, Haetzman documented her research in what ended up being a 70,000-word document that was, as the writers explain, “part outline, part narrative non-fiction, part dramatization of real historical events and part sketchpad. It was like a very early study for a painting, in that it bore scant resemblance to the finished work and yet the finished work could not have been envisaged without it.” Primary

sources are gifts from heaven, and fortuitously, Simpson’s and others’ casebooks provide details of obstetric practises, along with medical journals that were also “mined.”

A historical novel needs to be more than facts. Readers want to know of the lives of the people who lived at that time, their relationships, their hopes and fears – all of which requires imagination. Rather than tell the story about Simpson directly or have him as the main narrator, Brookmyre and Haetzman introduced two fictional characters: Will Raven, a young apprentice to Simpson, and Sarah Fisher, a feisty but repressed maid at Simpson’s house. Brookmyre and Haetzman decided to write a character each, Brookmyre taking Raven and Haetzman Sarah, and writing the chapters from each protagonist’s point of view. Brookmyre made good use of Haetzman’s in-depth research so that his main focus was on pushing the plot forward.

Haetzman was an expert at academic theses and medical articles but a complete novice at writing fiction. She had to write from the point of view of a young working class housemaid with minimal education and no voice that anyone listened to, in a style that would draw readers into Sarah’s world, chafing at the societal constraints enforced on young women, sharing her frustrations at Raven’s patriarchal assumptions and intolerances, biting her tongue in order to retain her job.

One of the problems of writing collaboratively is that the different styles of each writer can be too evident. In order to counter this, the authors swapped their chapters and revised each others’ work.

Brookmyre would use his literary skills to refine Haetzman’s writing and darken the tone, whilst Haetzman could return to her comfort zone and check the medical and historical accuracy. The two compared notes on how they thought the characters would behave in certain circumstances. This to-ing and fro-ing allowed them, they say, “to create a consistency in writing, so that it is hard to see the join where one left off and another picked up.” Whilst Brookmyre was doubtless learning more than he probably wanted to know about childbirth, Haetzman had to learn that it is alright, in fact

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necessary, to forgo the facts and make things up.

Brookmyre and Haetzman have chosen the popular genre of crime, not only to tell the exciting history of chloroform, but also to provide, as the writers say, “the means of exploring the class and gender divisions in the city.” The horrible deaths of a number of women bring Will and Sarah together when, under normal circumstances, they would not have had other than passing contact.

These two protagonists may be fictional but, due to Haetzman’s intensive research, by the end of the book we have experienced the financial, physical and emotional hardships and joys of both a young medical student and a young housemaid. For those hoping o follow them further, good news — Brookmyre and Haetzman have signed with Canongate to write two further books, easily done with their store of untapped material.

Marilyn Pemberton’s ambition is to bring Mary De Morgan, Victorian writer of fairy tales, out of the shadows. Marilyn has fictionalised her life in The Jewel Garden (reviewed in HNR 85, August 2018).

PERMANENTLY MARKED

BY HILARY DANINHIRSCH

Lale Sokolov waited for six decades to tell the story of his time in Auschwitz, when he was put to work as a tattooist, indelibly inking identification numbers into the arms of new arrivals.

Until he was introduced to author Heather Morris in his 87th year, he rarely spoke of the atrocities he witnessed, the regular brushes with death, the survival skills he learned, the bargains he made, the love he found, lost, then found again. Lale led a quiet life, happily married to Gita, the woman he fell in love with in Auschwitz. The two were married for many happy years while raising their son, Gary, settling in Australia.

Morris’s friend told her about Lale — his wife had recently passed away and he was looking for someone to record his story. Until that point, his story had been a closed chapter; it was the pact the couple had made to live their best lives as a means to honor all of those who did not survive the Holocaust.

But now, he was ready to tell his story, and not just to any writer.

He had to find someone to trust, someone who could peel back the layers of suppressed memories and emotions and exhume the story that had been lying dormant for decades. It was his dog that convinced Lale that Morris was the one to tell his story.

Morris explains, “Three to four months into our friendship, one of his dogs brought a tennis ball to Lale but growled when he went to take it from its mouth. The dog put her head on my lap and I took the tennis ball, threw it over my shoulder, sending her and her other fourlegged companion scampering after it. Lale turned to me and said, ‘My doggies like you, I like you, you can tell my story.’”

Lale knew that Morris was not Jewish; in his mind, that further qualified her. He wanted “someone with no baggage, no family history of the Holocaust or even Judaism, to hear his story as an

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unbiased recorder,” says Morris.

Not being Jewish enabled Morris to write in an objective style. “I couldn’t include Jewish culture or phrases that might have been foreign to a non-Jewish reader. It enabled me to tell the story simply, not complicate it with a history I knew nothing of,” she says.

She did consult with outside sources, including a Jewish friend who read an early draft to make sure that her interpretation of Lale’s story was accurate and authentic. “I found I wanted to know more about Lale’s culture and religion to help me understand him, not simply to write his story, and I relished this education,” she explains.

Still, it wasn’t until 2018, a few months after the book was released, that Morris visited Auschwitz. She notes, “Many survivors have told me how well I portrayed the camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau and are surprised to learn I hadn’t been there prior to writing. This proves how well Lale knew the place and could describe it to me.”

Morris and Lale met two to three times a week initially; at first, he was anxious to tell his story so that he could join Gita. “My first impression was of a terribly grieving man who just wanted to join his deceased wife,” Morris says. “I knew straight away I was spending time with living history, and if he would allow me to keep visiting him, eventually I hoped to get his story. I took him to my home and he met my husband and three adult children. Everyone fell in love with him.

The trust and friendship grew.” The ‘real’ Lale eventually emerged.

“That our friendship grew to the level he could share intimate details of his and Gita’s life together reinforced in me the need to tell his story honestly, without embellishment, honoring all those who didn’t survive,” Morris continues. “It was of paramount importance that I not attempt to tell the Story of the Holocaust. I would tell A Holocaust Story. The story of Lale and Gita.”

Morris originally wrote Lale’s story as a screenplay; the two hoped it would be optioned for a film. Ultimately, that did not come to pass.

She transformed it into a novel, freeing her to include Gita’s story as well as that of the other girls in the women’s camp.

Their conversations were cathartic for Lale, and he began to shed his six-decades-old survivor’s guilt. “I watched a physical and emotional change come over him. He stopped talking about joining Gita. He would skip and dance around his living room. We went out for coffee; we went to movies. He reconnected with the Jewish Community he had withdrawn from following Gita’s death, often taking me with him and cheekily introducing me as his ‘girlfriend,’” Morris says.

A true friendship developed, lasting until the day Lale died, three years after their first meeting. “I spent time with him on that last day, kissing him good-bye and telling him I would never stop trying to tell his story. Twelve years later, the day the book was released in Australia, I found time to visit him and Gita. I got to tell him ‘I kept my promise, Lale, I kept my promise.’”

Morris is currently working on a book about Cilka, one of the real-life characters in The Tattooist of Auschwitz, who became the Commandant’s concubine and was sent to a Siberian Gulag.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Harper US / Zaffre UK, 2018.

Hilary Daninhirsch is a freelance writer and regular contributor to Historical Novels Review. She lives in Pittsburgh with her husband, two redheaded teenage daughters, and a dog of undetermined breed. https://hilarydaninhirsch.journoportfolio.com

MY FIRST IMPRESSION was of a terribly grieving man who just wanted to join his deceased wife. I knew straight away I was spending time with living history.

PRECIOUS AND FRAGILE PLACES

BY SALLY ZIGMOND Sally Zigmond digs into Sarah Maine’s multi-layered novel, Women of the Dunes Sarah Maine’s historical novels cover a variety of periods, with Scotland at the forefront as setting, although other countries known for their wild and rugged tradition feature as well, notably Canada, where Maine grew up.

Maine’s first novel, The House Between Tides (Freight UK / Atria US, 2016), deals with the discovery of a body in an abandoned house on a remote Scottish island. This event becomes the pivot for understanding what took place in 1910 and 1911 between the former owner and his young wife. The novel features dual timelines; a distant relative of the couple comes to the island with plans to build a luxury hotel and is confronted with hostility from the islanders – as was the earlier owner’s wife.

Beyond the Wild River (Hodder & Stoughton UK / Atria US and Canada, 2017) opens with the murder of a poacher on a Borders estate. The action then moves, five years later, to northern Ontario.

The novel uses the fertile ground of Victorian hypocrisy to explore themes of justice and bigotry. The family that owns the estate visits the 1893 Columbian Exhibition in Chicago – a World’s Fair which coincided with the Great Panic of that year when the US economy almost collapsed. The ethereal ‘white city’ is made of straw, whitewash and gold paint, illustrating that what is portrayed is sometimes a parody of the truth.

Which brings me to the central theme of Maine’s latest novel, Women of the Dunes (Hodder & Stoughton UK and Commonwealth / Atria US and Canada, 2018). What is historical truth? How much is forgotten, manipulated and muddled? How do facts blur into rumour, lies and legend over time?

Women of the Dunes focuses on three women on the wild and rugged Atlantic coastline of Scotland. The novel opens in the ninth century AD, with monk Odrahn standing alone on a rugged headland as the sun rises. He watches in trepidation as a sail emerges from the dawn mist. To his horror, it bears all the hallmarks of a Viking vessel. It turns out to be not an invading ship, but a small craft.

So we meet Ulla, a pagan, fleeing her husband together with her adulterous lover, who is close to death. Does this heathen woman accept God’s power to save her lover or does the Christian monk defy his religion and heal the man regardless? When the lover dies, who is the murderer? Did Ulla bear a child and, if so, which of three men is the father? History is lost but still lingers as present-day folklore.

The second timeline occurs in the late nineteenth century and concerns the wealthy Sturrock family, who acquired the estate following the Highland Clearances, the baron’s two adult sons, the local priest, Oliver Drummond, and Ellen, a housemaid.

The third timeline, that of the present day, is the key to understanding both the mediaeval tale and the Victorian events (which include the murder of an unidentified man) when Canadian-born Libby, an archaeologist, arrives in Scotland to oversee an excavation on the headland. She has her own private reasons to be involved.

As readers become engrossed in the present-day story of love and hatred, Women of the Dunes also unpicks the truth of the history and myth of Ulla, as well as the nineteenth-century events and how they relate to the present day.

I ask Maine how she knitted these threads together into a fast-moving novel. She says that she came from a family with “restless genes – for generations they have been moving around Canada, Australia and New Zealand – and I love to write about the Scottish diaspora. I enjoy writing novels set, at least partly, in the past as I enjoy the research, and heading down the highways and byways which open up.”

Maine adroitly conveys the atmospheric setting. The Hebrides and the West Coast of Scotland are both places she returns to, she says, “every year to write and recharge the batteries, and they are precious and fragile places. Because they are rural, coastal and relatively sparsely populated, the past, in terms of monuments and features in the landscape, is still very visible, whether as burial sites, stone circles, duns, brochs, castles or Victorian baronial houses. Because of this, the past feels very present in the consciousness, and the lapse of centuries seems to shrink. Legends, myths and the oral tradition survive but, as described in Women of the Dunes, these are not always reliable sources but fulfil the agendas of the storytellers. In this case, the legend has been romanticised by the Scottish Romantic movement and appropriated by the Church in order to carry a Christian message. Women of the Dunes aims to show how stories (or legends) might have been manipulated over time and how the truth is sometimes very different.”

Maine confesses that constructing three timelines was a challenge: “Just giving short fragments of the legend, enough to tell the true account and sketch the characters, really meant I was only dealing with two, which was more manageable for me – and for the readers.

I preferred doing it this way to having someone tell or read an account of the legend – and this also allowed me to give the reader a glimpse of the rather grittier ‘real’ events of the ninth century. It also allowed me to reprise the rather subversive personalities of the Men of the Dunes and play with their names (Odrhan, Oliver Drummond, Rodri).”

Maine finishes by wondering whether her last statement is a spoiler.

Should she instead leave readers to work it out for themselves? “What do you think?” she concludes.

What do I think? I think she has slipped in yet another intriguing layer I had failed to notice: another reason to start re-reading Women of the Dunes to unearth yet more.

Sally Zigmond writes, edits and reviews both short and long fiction.

Her Victorian saga, Hope Against Hope, was published in 2011.

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THE SILENCE OF THE GIRLS

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

ANCIENT HISTORY THE WALRUS MUTTERER Mandy

Haggith,

Saraband, 2018, £8.99, pb, 282pp, 9781912235087

Set in 320 BC, The Walrus Mutterer is a gripping, haunting and, at times, visceral novel. Rian, a young apprentice healer, is wrenched from her home in northern Scotland and enslaved by Ussa, a ruthless and vindictive trader. Forced to sail the treacherous northern seas, Rian faces hardship and cruelty, not only from Ussa but also from her fellow passenger, Pytheas the Greek.

The Iron Age people of Scotland have left us a few tantalising clues about their history and culture, but much is still open for debate.

Filling in those gaps with her lyrical and poetic prose, the author has created a convincing and entirely believable world. She vividly portrays everyday life in coastal ‘brochs’, the rituals and folklore of a pre-Christian society, and Ussa’s cut-throat trading deals, where human lives are bartered for walrus ivory.

It is a world very different from ours. It feels alien, dangerous and unsettling, but the characters are finely drawn and intensely human. Ussa is cruel, but she is also vulnerable to jealousy and fear. Rian suffers appalling adversity, but her kindness and indomitable spirit survive, and the mysterious Walrus Mutterer of the title is deliciously charismatic and intriguing.

Perhaps the stand-out ‘character’ is Nature itself – in the Iron Age, it was a force to be feared and worshipped and appeased. The brooding, all-powerful presence of the sea dominates the 16

first half of the novel as the small boat ventures further into the cold vastness of the Arctic.

It would have been helpful to have a map at the start of the novel so I could follow Rian’s journey, but this is a small quibble. The Walrus Mutterer is one of the best books I have read so far this year. Highly recommended.

Penny Ingham

BIBLICAL

JUDGING NOA Michal Strutin, Bedazzled Ink, 2018, $15.95/ C$20.95, pb, 265pp, 9781945805745

Judging Noa fictionalizes the incident from the Book of Numbers and Joshua in the Bible where five daughters of Zelophechad petition to be allowed property in the Promised Land since their deceased father had no male heir. The author’s website states: “These biblical verses may be the oldest written example of women pursuing their rights.”

The story starts as the twelve tribes leave the boundaries of Egypt. Early in the journey, Zelophechad is stoned to death by zealous Guardians of Truth for breaking the Sabbath. Noa brings the sisters’ case for female land inheritance to the Judges of Tens, but the judges deny their case. One judge takes Noa aside and gives her advice on how to proceed. After Noa marries Hur, she uses an uncle’s influence to bring the case to the Judges of Fifties, but again their case is heard and put off.

In the meantime, life and years goes on; Hur and Noa have children, Noa’s sisters marry, and the tribes continue wandering. Rumors circulate that Noa is a witch, Hur takes a second wife, and shocking deaths occur. The people grumble against Moses because they are dying of hunger and thirst. Noa wonders whether the predictable evils they endured in Egypt were better than the random ones they are now experiencing. When the Israelites are finally poised to enter the Promised Land, Moses agrees to hear Noa’s case.

Strutin authored a nonfiction book on the flora and fauna of Israel and succeeds very well in depicting both the Biblical landscape and women’s lives in this novel. Noa, her sisters, and even minor figures are well-rounded characters. I enjoyed experiencing the Bible stories about the Exodus from a different, female point of view. Fans of Biblical-themed fiction and those interested in women’s history will enjoy this book.

B.J. Sedlock

CLASSICAL

REVIEWS | ISSUE 86, November 2018

Pat Barker, Doubleday, 2018, $27.95, hb, 304pp, 9780385544214 / Hamish Hamilton, 2018, £18.99, hb, 336pp, 9780241338070

In the ninth year of the siege of Troy, the Greek hero Achilles raids the town of Lyrnessus, and in one day Queen Briseis loses her husband, her entire family, her status, her home, and her freedom. Slave to Achilles, his prize of war, Briseis becomes a pawn in the quarrel between Achilles and the Greek commander, Agamemnon, an episode central to the Iliad.

Barker reframes the classic epic to study the parts of the conflict such songs leave out: the filth and discomfort of camp; the endless, mindless grind of war; the decay and seepage of injured bodies; and the mute horrors endured by the women, who must weave, serve, clean, tend, and submit to rape in return for their survival.

Though narrated for the most part by Briseis, who has a front-row seat to Helen’s perfidy, the gutting violence of battle, and the silent suffering of the Trojan women, the story’s real cynosure is Achilles, the relentless demigod whose tortured past and unrepentant brutality fascinate his captive, and despite her professed revulsion she prefers him to what she endures with Agamemnon. Barker’s blunt, bruising prose comes near crooning as she leaves Briseis behind to focus on Achilles’s anguish over the death of his companion Patroclus, his defeat of the Greek hero Hector, and the final confrontation with Priam, King of Troy.

Barker’s insight into the underbelly of war, the world of slaves and captors, of the wounded and tortured and dying, laced with occasional residue of the mythic heroic age to which the epic belongs, brings this old story of Achilles and his rage to modern readers with fresh tenderness for the power of human endurance and resilience: an ancient legend not simply reanimated, but made vigorously alive.

Misty Urban

PRAETORIAN III: Eagles of Dacia

S.J.A. Turney, Mulcahy, 2017, $16.99/£8.99, pb, 412pp, 9780993555251

This is the third book in a series, but it’s not necessary to have read the first two to enjoy this delightful romp through the late Roman Empire. In this exciting installment, the evil imperial chamberlain, Cleander, orders our hero, Rufinus, east to Dacia (a province about as far from Rome as Cleander can get him), allegedly to investigate certain commanders

who may be plotting treason. Unenthusiastic but choiceless, Rufinus heads east with his feisty lover and former slave, Senova, and his faithful war hound, Acheron (who saves the day several times). They travel through lands of breathtaking yet hideously difficult terrain, at last reaching their destination and the potential perpetrators. Who’s committing treason? When will Rufinus realize that he’s really there to be killed? The villain’s plots mean Rufinus must flee to lands beyond the empire – lands beautiful and almost as deadly as Rome.

This makes it sound rather like a travelogue, but it’s really a mystery – Rufinus has to answer the all-too-common question of qui bono? And even when he learns the answer, how is he supposed to get the information (not to mention Senova, himself, and the faithful Acheron) back to Rome? The detail work is wonderful, and the characters fun to accompany on an ancient Roman road trip.

I’ll certainly read more in this series!

India Edghill

1ST CENTURY

THE SPLENDOR BEFORE THE DARK

Margaret George, Berkley, 2018, $28.00/ C$37.00, hb, 571pp, 9780399584619

Margaret George’s epic novel, the second of two about the emperor Nero (after The Confessions of Young Nero), begins with Rome on fire. George’s Nero is not the cruel tyrant of legend, and he does not start the Great Fire of Rome. In fact, George’s Nero is elsewhere when the fire starts and rushes back to help with the relief efforts. He resolves to rebuild Rome on a grander scale than ever before, and his plans include the splendid Golden House, which he intends to be open to the public. But rumors quickly arise that he had set the fire in order to rebuild the city. Soon Nero discovers a plot to assassinate him, led by people he thought were his friends.

Nero often performs music in public and races chariots. The aristocrats think he is demeaning himself, but the common people love him for it. At the beginning of the novel, he is happy in his private life, married to the beautiful, ambitious Poppaea, even though the lack of an heir is a source of worry. But Poppaea’s death devastates him. In George’s version, her death is an accident rather than the murder that later historians have depicted.

He finds comfort in several other women and a boy who bears an uncanny resemblance to Poppaea. Nero’s love of athletics and Greek culture lead him to Greece to compete in the major athletic contests, including the Olympic Games, but his absence from Rome leads to the final crisis of his reign.

George’s novel is meticulously researched, and, as she explains in her afterword, much of what we think we know about Nero was written by his enemies. She goes a long way toward setting the record straight. Her writing brings imperial Rome brilliantly to life. This

novel, along with its predecessor, is highly recommended.

Vicki Kondelik

THE DEADLIEST FEVER

June Trop, Black Opal Books, 2018, $12.99, pb, 248pp, 9781626948754

After the Torah mantle in Alexandria’s Great Synagogue is vandalized and blood is found on the bemah, Miriam is tasked with the repair of the mantle. Enlisting the assistance of Judah, a renowned jeweler and the man whom she has secretly loved since childhood, Miriam wonders why the mantle would be damaged, yet the precious jewels embedded in it remain untouched. Her suspicions grow when an anonymous note is found warning that the security of the synagogue needs to be increased. Miriam’s investigation leads her from the Great Synagogue to the agora to seedy dockside hostels and back to the Great Synagogue, hunting a thief and murderer all the while wondering if the villain is among those closest to her.

A Miriam bat Isaac Mystery, The Deadliest Fever is the fourth in a series set in Alexandria during the first century CE. Miriam is smart and bold, an easy character with whom to go on an adventure. This is a light mystery and will be enjoyed by fans of the series. Trop provides details to place the reader in the ancient time and place of Alexandria, but on occasion the descriptions become slow. I found myself reading them with great detail expecting a clue but, alas, was disappointed.

The mystery was not predictable, nor was it surprising. The fever, which gives the book its title, felt like an add-on, having nothing to do with the mystery at all.

Meg Wiviott

2ND CENTURY

ARRIUS Volume 2: Legacy Preston Holtry, Moonshine Cove, $14.99, pb, 288pp, 9781945181344

2018,

This second volume of the Arrius saga follows the pattern of Volume 1. Arrius is now military commander of an outpost of Rome in the year 136 CE. He faces problems requiring complex solutions on a daily basis.

At the highest level, there are the politics of Rome and the need to become invisible as the emperor falls into insanity.

More immediate issues are the jealousies of other commanders, the incompetence and squabbling of some soldiers, not to mention the hostile tribes on both sides of Hadrian’s Wall in northern England. Arrius is in a remote area, the terrain difficult, the weather cold and wet, local tribes seeking every opportunity to attack. The only positive is Arrius’s slowly developing relationship with the local woman Ilya.

While there are moments of well-written emotion and feeling in this novel, it is principally concerned with military tactics.

Holtry has had a distinguished military and intelligence-related career. He applies much

of his knowledge and understanding of this to Arrius’s task of safely maintaining the outposts within the military structure and traditions of Rome.

This novel is a blend of historical research and Holtry’s own practical experience.

He writes with an intensity that makes the military detail compelling. His detail of the punishment meted out to guards caught sleeping on duty is both personally evocative and closely relevant to the plot. The military strategies of the nearby tribes are also probed.

They are shown not merely as ignorant locals but as people with strengths and knowledge in outwitting the invaders while struggling with their own difficulties, rivalries, and priorities.

Recent military realities are reflected in this book and contribute to its intensity. It is a gripping read. I am looking forward to the third book in the series.

Valerie Adolph

5TH CENTURY

THE SAXON PLAGUE

Penny Ingham, Nerthus, 2018, $4.25, ebook, 450pp, 9780995503410

Book Two of the Saxon Wolves series continues the story of Anya, daughter of a Saxon king and British mother. Though herself a priestess, she was exiled to Britannia for speaking out against human sacrifice by the high priest. This novel opens with her fleeing from her husband Vortigern, High King of Britain, and what follows is a harrowing tale of hardship: bitter weather conditions, the mistrust of outsiders, hunger, sickness, plague, treachery, warfare, enslavement, brutality, revenge, rape, the death of loved ones. 455 AD was not a good time for the people of Britain, and Anya, as a healer, shares their anguish.

Moments of happiness are fleeting, undercut by awareness of the dark tide of savagery that threatens survival. This is the strife-torn world that awaits the rise of a champion to restore order and justice. By the conclusion, Hengist and his Saxons have been defeated at Mount Badon, a champion has been given an ancient sword of kingship, a precarious alliance established. Hope lies ahead, however uncertain, but here there is violence and suffering. This is a picture of post-Roman Britain that will interest Arthurians and those who like their Dark Ages authentically dark… and perhaps wonder about civil wars in the Middle East? Sobering.

Ray Thompson

THE RETREAT TO AVALON

Sean Poage, MadeGlobal, 2018, $19.99/£14.99, pb, 492pp, 9788494729898

Sean Poage tells the tale of King Arthur in a realistic historical light. The prologue sets the stage, when in 469 AD the Roman Emperor Anthemius attempts to save what remains of the Western Empire by seeking the aid of King Arthur, known as Rigotamos, “Highest

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King.” The story centers on Gawain, a horse trainer who lives in the shadow of his warrior brother and longs for glory in battle. At a feast, he learns that King Arthur is seeking aid from local kings to join the Roman war against the Vesi, who are threatening to invade Gaul and Britannia. Gawain’s father unexpectedly asks him to lead the contingent from his family and to join King Arthur’s forces in an unknown land from which he might not return. The story realistically depicts the training of Briton forces into a singular unit and their epic battles in Gaul. Renowned as a cunning and courageous warrior, Gawain ultimately joins King Arthur’s inner circle as they defend the Western Empire in the midst of betrayal and political intrigue.

The author admirably describes the location in each scene and portrays the everyday life of the Britons and the battles they fought, based on historical events and archaeological findings. The illustrations at the beginning of each chapter, the maps, and the list of characters are added bonuses.

The story is told from an omniscient point of view, often jumping back and forth between multiple characters. The mythic storytelling and character development are sometimes lost in the day-to-day details.

The Retreat to Avalon is recommended for readers who would enjoy a more historicallybased story of King Arthur with vivid descriptions of everyday life of Britons and epic battles.

Linnea Tanner

6TH CENTURY

THE LOST QUEEN

Signe Pike, Touchstone, 2018, $27.99/C$36.99, hb, 544pp, 9781501191411

Set in the south of Scotland in the 6th century, this tells the story of Languoreth, twin sister of Lailoken, whom many researchers identify as the historical figure on which Merlin is based. They present a strong argument that the Arthurian story was carried from the north

by Britons seeking refuge among kinfolk to the southwest, and that events were relocated there in later accounts.

The daughter of a minor king, Languoreth must make a dynastic marriage with Prince Rhydderch of Strathclyde, even though she has fallen in love with another. Such, however, was often the fate of high-born women throughout history, and the author reveals the personal sacrifice entailed. An adherent to the Old Religion, she must navigate a court where an aggressive and intolerant Christianity is on the ascendant; and as civil strife threatens, she finds herself torn between loyalty to the family in which she was raised and that into which she was married. Since she is, by nature, impetuous, her actions lead her into trouble in a harsh and unforgiving world where power is wielded ruthlessly.

This is a plausible recreation of Dark Age Britain in a time of political and religious upheaval, and the author uses vivid imagery to bring the setting to life. Elements from 18

Arthurian legend are woven into the narrative, which concludes on the eve of the Battle of Arfderydd in 573 AD. Since Languoreth is not only a young woman with very limited power in a warrior society, but a healer, she must deal with the human consequences of war and acts of violence. She strives bravely, but the odds are overwhelming and moments of happiness fleeting. Without the balance of heroic achievement on the battlefield, the perspective is dark, the suffering palpable.

Strongly recommended.

Ray Thompson

7TH CENTURY BLOODMOON

Peter Tremayne, Severn House, 2018, $28.99/£20.99, hb, 240pp, 9781635571882

Sister Fidelma and her husband, Brother Eadulf, are once again on the track of a murderer in 671 AD Ireland. Or, rather, Brother Eadulf has insisted on coming along on Fidelma’s mission to the abbey of Finnbarr, despite her refusal to reveal to him the reason for the trip. She has sworn a blood oath of secrecy. But before she can meet with her kinsman, the abbot, the old monk is murdered, and the two most likely suspects have fled out into the foggy winter marshes.

This was my first Sister Fidelma novel (there are 27 others). The author, Peter Tremayne, aka the historian Peter Berresford Ellis, has written close to 100 books. Bloodmoon is told with a master storyteller’s straightforward ease, and it brims over with Irish words and facts from 7th-century Ireland. Brother Eadulf is chagrined at being excluded from his wife’s confidence and loyally trying to accept being kept in the dark, and Fidelma is irritated with him for pushing and yet regretful about not being able to tell him. Their mixed emotions are entertaining and give a sense of their differing backgrounds. Sister Fidelma has royal Irish roots while Eadulf has Angle roots, a point he has to make with a number of Sister Fidelma’s people. “The trouble was that in Fidelma’s language the same word, Sagsanach, was applied to both Angles and Saxons,” he thinks with annoyance.

I enjoyed Bloodmoon and am pleased that there are so many other books in which I can read more about these characters.

Kristen Hannum

THE SONG OF HILD

Vibeke Vasbo (trans. Gaye Kynoch), Sacristy Press, 2018, £12.99, pb, 456pp, 9781910519868

Originally published in Denmark in 1991, this is the life of the Deiran princess Hild and her many changes of fortune until she becomes the august Abbess of Whitby, as we now call what she knew as Streonæshalch.

We begin in 633 AD. with a harrowing episode of multiple births and deaths. It is not disparaging to say that births, marriages, and

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deaths form the framework on which the story is hung.

The picture of life in 7th-century Britain is thoroughly convincing, and full of details of life and its rigours, even for royalty. The complex interactions among the British and English peoples are shown by the ways in which they affect the multitude of historical and fictitious characters in the story.

The English kingdoms are in the early stages of conversion to Christianity, not without resistance and backsliding, but Hild is always working to ensure that the new faith firmly beds in. She eventually plays a major role at what history remembers as the Synod of Whitby in 664 AD, which established uniform observance of the date for celebrating Easter.

There are a couple of places where the author’s modern political positions cause Hild to evince attitudes that are most implausible in a 7th-century abbess, and the number of characters, often with similar of identical names, can make the story difficult to follow.

The passage of time is also not very clearly marked; I kept wondering when (not where) we were.

Highly recommended, although an accompanying “Student’s Notes” might have been helpful!

Alan Fisk

8TH CENTURY

QUEEN OF THE DARKEST HOUR

Kim Rendfeld, Kim Rendfeld, 2018, $14.99, pb, 264pp, 9780997569575

Francia, 783. Fastrada, fourth wife of King Charles, quickly realizes that not all of the royal children are happy to see her wed their father.

The oldest son, Pepin, takes every chance to publicly undermine her. Bitter that he will not inherit the crown, Pepin is secretly plotting with his mother’s brother to usurp the throne. He blames his father’s sins as the cause of his spine deformity, a curvature that becomes more pronounced each passing year. Only Fastrada notices the increasingly alarming signs in her stepson. But can she convince her husband that Pepin is planning something sinister before it’s too late? Told with an alternating point of view between Fastrada and Pepin, Rendfeld’s novel is full of political intrigue, religious fervor, and a heartfelt romance.

As happens often to strong-willed women, Fastrada is not remembered kindly by historians. Rendfeld’s research brushes away some of the rough edges and uncovers a queen just as formidable and pious as her husband, Charlemagne. Rendfeld uses meticulous research to put together a plausible story that’s richly atmospheric. I most enjoyed the fact that Fastrada thought and acted appropriately for her time. This isn’t a feminist retelling or a modern mindset imprinted over a historical woman, and I’m glad for it. The suspense comes from the ever-increasing political tension outside the courts as well as inside the royal family. Rendfeld does a commendable

job bringing to life this time period and its peoples. Recommended.

J. Lynn Else

10TH CENTURY

WAR OF THE WOLF

Bernard Cornwell, Harper, 2018, $28.99, hb, 352pp, 9780062563170 / HarperCollins, 2018, £20.00, hb, 352pp, 9780008183837

In the early 920s, Edward, King of Mercia, wishes to fulfill the dream of his father, King Alfred, and unite all the kingdoms of England.

Uhtred of Bebbanburg, who lives in the kingdom of Northumbria, and territories in the west under control of the Danes, remains independent of Edward’s control. There is also a scramble within Mercia as to who will succeed Edward. Uhtred, a legendary warrior of both Dane and Saxon heritage, remains a pagan rather than convert to the growing Christian church.

Uhtred learns that his daughter, the Queen of Northumbria, has been killed in a battle with a Norse army of “wolf warriors” led by Sköll, who wants to become the King of Northumbria, a position held by Uhtred’s son-in-law.

This is the 11th book in the Saxon Tales series, and I can never get enough of Bernard Cornwell. In my opinion, he is the master of adventure novels. His writing is exceptional because of his use of dialog and his ability to bring tenth-century England alive, packing his narrative with a wealth of well-researched detail. His writing is a wide ambitious sweep that follows Uhtred and his supporting cast of characters through turbulent years in English history. The battle scenes are exciting, authentic, and suitably gruesome. Prepare to be immersed in this novel.

Jeff Westerhoff

12TH CENTURY

PRITHVIRAJ CHAUHAN: The Emperor of Hearts

Anuja Chandramouli, Penguin Books India, 2017, $16.00, pb, 288pp, 9780143441199

In 1166, a son named Prithviraj Chauhan is born to Karpuradevi and Someshvara.

Soon after, Someshvara accedes to rule a powerful aryavarta kingdom from the city of Ajmer. The jyotishis who reads Prithviraj’s horoscope proclaims him to have god-like powers and that as a great king, he is destined to drive the mlecchas [foreigners] out of India.

But additional predictions about Prithviraj suffering defeat and loss aggravate his family.

Prithviraj has a happy childhood; he receives outstanding tutelage and martial arts training. He grows into a skilled warrior and longs to go into battle in the frequent wars with neighboring kingdoms. He rescues a young maiden in distress and becomes smitten with her, to his parents’ displeasure.

But when another of King Someshvara’s wives gets pregnant, Prithviraj’s succession is put

into jeopardy. Prithviraj must use his skills to deal with mysterious attacks on his life, and wage wars not only to expand his kingdom but also to protect it from the invading Turks, led by Shihabuddin of Ghur.

Prithviraj III is fondly called “the last Hindu Emperor of India.” Although there were several who followed him, the end of Prithviraj’s reign permitted the establishment of Muslim monarchies in India. Chandramouli has brought to life that critical period in India’s history, both accurately and fictionally. While readers will find themselves transported to this era, the novel is often told to readers, and the lack of dialogue, likely to control the novel’s length, can be arduous to read in places. The known characteristics about Prithviraj – as an unyielding ruler, combatant, and lover, and some obscure facts like his kindness towards minorities (he meets the Sufi, Moinuddin Chisti) – are aptly presented.

The reasons for Prithviraj’s failure to impede the Turkish incursions, his family squabbles, and the hostilities between the neighboring Hindu kingdoms are explored in depth. The vivid battle scenes and historical details make this an informative novel.

Waheed Rabbani

SHERIFF AND PRIEST

Nicky Moxey, Dodnash Books, 2017, £9.99, pb, 362pp, 9781999783204

This story of Wimer, a little known 12thcentury churchman, is inspired by field archaeology. Nicky Moxey is the proud discoverer of the Priory that Wimer built, and her novel grows from the surviving records about an unusual man, who finds (and loses) his place in the turbulent world of Henry II’s reign.

It is primarily a biographical novel. Wimer is engaging from the start, drawn as a poor but gifted Saxon whose intelligence and application enable him to rise in the primarily Norman church. As the title suggests, Wimer’s ability sees him become sheriff, but the politics of church and State eventually prove an impossible tightrope for him to walk.

What is great about this novel is the easy amiability of Wimer’s character, the close and accurate scene-setting, the way the author can suggest religious questions without them seeming alien, and the sense of reality in the day-to-day world of Wimer’s Suffolk.

The language is quite modern, but I found it effective and easy to engage with. Perhaps there is not a strong enough story arc to appeal to a general reader, nor is it ‘literary’ in aspiration. But for those of us already fascinated by the period, wanting a light shone on areas other than the court, this is interesting and enjoyable—something to read before a visit to an Anglo-Norman church or a ruined Abbey.

Richard Lee

THE MONASTERY MURDERS

E.M. Powell, Thomas and Mercer, 2018, £8.99/$15.95, pb, 270pp, 9781503903241

The Monastery Murders is the second of E.M. Powell’s mysteries set in the late 12th century and featuring the crime-fighting duo Stanton and Barling. Aelred Barling is a straitlaced, grumpy king’s clerk, sent out under sufferance from his beloved court to investigate crimes when the local authorities are at a loss. His assistant Hugo Stanton is an intelligent, pleasure-loving and seemingly light-hearted ex-royal messenger.

The novel opens with the horrific discovery that a quiet, devoted monk in a remote Cistercian monastery has been brutally murdered. Barling is asked by the Abbot to investigate. Initially there seems no motive for the crime, but while the monastery is cut off by a huge snowstorm, more deaths, each with a grisly new motif, occur. Barling and Stanton begin to realise that they are dealing with a murderer obsessed by sin and damnation. It becomes clear that there is a master plan – which may include their own deaths.

The author skilfully builds tension and excitement as the crimes escalate and the pool of suspects narrows. The main characters fit into a familiar pattern, but in Powell’s hands, the trope of ‘grumpy older detective with younger, happy-go-lucky sidekick’ retains its charm. A very enjoyable read.

Charlotte Wightwick

SONG CASTLE

Luke Waterson, Urbane, 2018, £8.99, pb, 400pp, 9781911129882

Wales, 1176. The great lord of a newly-built castle is throwing a party, a contest of song, poetry and music, which he opens to all comers – and many are coming. The festival attracts a strange mix of colourful characters from all the known world, some of them talented wordsmiths and musicians, others with very little talent, the very wealthy and those in abject poverty. In the midst of this, Avery, a young bard, dreams of success. But he first has to make the journey, along with the other aspirants, through the treacherous roads of Wales – and anything could happen along the way. The book tells of those journeys, the incidents along the way and the resulting experience for those who make it.

Song Castle is based on the true story of the first Eisteddfod, the world’s oldest cultural festival, which took place at Cardigan Castle during the winter of 1176-77. This was a time when Wales was in its early stages of development and was known mainly for brutal warfare with growing tension between the Norman invaders and the native Welsh.

Waterson, author of a number of Lonely Planet books, uses his vast experience of travel writing to convey the characters’ perilous journeys through the bleak and often dangerous landscape of medieval Wales. The descriptions are vivid and intense, the prose and dialogue bringing to life a little-known

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period of history. The author drew on a vast amount of Welsh history books, as well as the scant existing contemporaneous material, to evoke a time when the country was in the throes of forging a separate national identity from England and the Eisteddford certainly made a big contribution towards the establishment of this.

Interesting read. Recommended.

Linda Sever

13TH CENTURY

ALL THE WINDING WORLD

Kate Innes, Mindforest Press, 2018, £8.99, pb, 328pp, 9780993483745

Innes brings her poetic sensibilities to bear in this lovely sequel to The Errant Hours, set ten years later. Illesa is married to Sir Richard Brunel, has borne three children and lost one, and is happily settled at their small manor farm in Shropshire when King Edward’s call for war to regain the lost Duchy of Aquitaine summons Richard, despite his maimed leg and missing eye, back to the battlefield. French treachery lands Richard in a Bordeaux prison, and Illesa launches a dangerous scheme to trade a priceless clerical garment for her beloved’s life. Helping her are Gaspar, a witty traveling player carrying a fatal secret, and Azalais of Dax, a skilled trobairitz (female troubadour) trained in the songs of courtly love.

Innes’s accurate details and descriptions of the furnishings and landscape of life in late 13th-century England and France are a pleasure to revel in. She conveys the richly textured sense of a world bloody with war and other hazards, clocked by the rhythms of the natural seasons and Church time, and saturated with that strain of medieval Christian piety peculiar to Western Europe. Though the plot is satisfyingly suspenseful as Illesa drags herself and her friends into the arms of their enemies, the most vivid character is the setting, the buildings and cities that come alive with all their strange accoutrements: priests and Templars, precious books and costly clothing, pet weasels and cunning tax collectors. Innes’s poetry makes an appearance in the songs sung by Azalais, an enigmatic character who deserves her own book. This skillful crafting of and immersion in a brutal, beautiful, breathing world rife with treachery, disease, and dangers unseen will enchant readers new to the period and delight those who know it well.

Misty Urban

14TH CENTURY

THE COLD LIGHT OF DAWN

Anna Belfrage, Matador, 2018, £11.99, pb, 442pp, 9781789010015

This is the fourth book in the King’s Greatest Enemy series. Set in turbulent 14thcentury England, it follows the lives of lowly knight Adam de Guirande and his wife, Kit, as they negotiate a dangerous path through the backstabbing politics of the royal court.

Edward II’s disastrous reign has ended with 20

his deposition and exile, and his young son, Edward III, is now on the throne. Edward is closely controlled by his mother Queen Isabella and her lover, Roger Mortimer, but the adolescent king is beginning to chafe against their influence. The tense undercurrent running through this novel is not if Edward will act, but when.

Adam Guirande is the foster son of Mortimer and loves him like a father. At the same time, he has sworn allegiance to the young king, and Adam’s internal struggles with bitter disappointment, betrayal and divided loyalties are convincingly portrayed. So too is his relationship with his wife; their banter and their deep love for each other give the novel its romantic heart.

Queen Isabella is often portrayed as a shewolf, and Mortimer a power-hungry despot, but in this novel the couple are more rounded.

Mortimer is shown to be voraciously ambitious but also exhausted from the long hours required to run a kingdom, whilst the young king spends his days hunting and jousting.

For my taste, the novel was rather heavy on dialogue as opposed to narrative. Not having read the first three novels, I also found myself playing catch-up at times, and a list of characters would have been a helpful addition to the brief resume at the start of the book. But an enjoyable, enlightening read nonetheless!

Penny Ingham

SWORD OF JUSTICE

Christian Cameron, Orion, 2018, £19.99, hb, 464pp, 9781409172819

In Sword of Justice, the fourth in his Chivalry series focusing on a 14th-century mercenary knight, Sir William Gold, and his demanding military, political, and personal lives, Christian Cameron has produced a slow-burning but ultimately satisfying read.

This instalment is set in 1367 when Europe is a powder keg waiting to explode. Sir William will try to cut a safe path through a minefield of ever-shifting political alliances to benefit from an unceasing need for mercenary soldiers from the Holy Roman Empire, the Byzantines, Milan, and Venice.

Sir William will attempt to remain true to his knightly instincts while keeping his men alive and finishing up on the winning side.

Coming new to the Chivalry series, it wasn’t straightforward to settle into the detail-packed story or to warm to this particular band of brothers. While Cameron’s storytelling in the novel is terrific, overlong descriptions of weaponry and military technique do slow the narrative down, on occasion. Conversely,

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that detail underpins the impressively handled battle scenes, which Sword of Justice delivers.

In addition, the political infighting and the bewildering number of Sir William’s enemies are very deftly handled by Cameron, and there is also a great authenticity to the locales that the reader and Sir William travel through. The intriguing character of Sir William Gold is, however, the true strength of Sword of Justice: a mercenary with a fierce code of honour; a ferocious warrior but a subtle diplomat when required; a brutal killer and a devoted husband and father. His struggle to live up to his own personal code while fighting against those who have no moral scruples is the engine that drives this very enjoyable read.

Gordon O’Sullivan

THOSE WHO GO BY NIGHT

Andrew Gaddes, Crooked Lane, 2018, $26.99/ C$40.50, hb, 304pp, 9781683318408

1324. When news of a man found murdered in a church reaches the Bishop of Lincoln’s ears, he sends his emissary, Thomas Lester, to investigate with the hopes of warding off an inquisition. But with the body positioned across the church altar in a sacrilegious manner, the archbishop also sends someone, a Dominican friar named Justus. Justus means to smoke out heretics no matter the cost, including by methods of torture and blackmail, in his quest for “the truth.” Thomas’s father is a disgraced Templar Knight who suffered under men like Justus, and Thomas struggles to keep the pain of his past at bay. As the murders continue, Justus’s harsh inquiries and manipulations of the townsfolk rapidly increase. If the friar has his way and Thomas isn’t able to unmask the culprit in time, a fierce inquisition will soon arrive on England’s shores.

The setting is immersive in all aspects. The sights and sounds are so vividly portrayed that it felt like stepping into a 14th-century English village. The characters are multilayered with unique personalities, making it easier to keep straight the various church fathers, monks, and friars. I enjoyed the dialogue, except for a few times when the message about a woman’s role in society became a bit preachy (being stated by various female characters in similar ways but with a slightly modern outlook).

However, this is but a minor gripe. The pacing of the mystery is great, and the ending packs a couple of surprises. There are many secrets to uncover, and Gaddes does a nice job slowly revealing just enough to keep readers turning the pages. The door’s left open for more, thus I look forward to seeing what’s coming for Thomas Lester and his companions. A wellcrafted historical mystery.

J. Lynn Else

15TH CENTURY

THE TUDOR CROWN

Joanna Hickson, Harper Collins, 2018, £7.99/$14.99, pb, 531pp, 9780008139735

Set in the turbulent years of the 1470s and 1480s, The Tudor Crown tells of the fight for the

crown which led to Bosworth Field in 1485. It focuses not on Richard III or the Princes in the Tower, but on the early life of the man who eventually became king, Henry Tudor.

Split between H e n r y ’ s perspective and that of his mother, Margaret Beaufort, the novel moves from the court of England under Edward IV and Richard III, to Brittany and France where Henry is exiled. Margaret plots and schemes – initially to keep her son safe and have his lands returned to him – but as time goes on and Richard III reveals his true colours, her ambitions grow. When the novel opens, Henry is a teenager literally thrown onto a foreign shore, all but alone and friendless. During the course of the book he grows to manhood, developing the friendships and alliances which will stand him in good stead when the time comes to claim a kingdom.

Hickson paints a fascinating portrait of her two main characters. Margaret has often been depicted as an overly pious, sour woman consumed by ambition for her son, but here she is a more rounded and sympathetic character. Henry, too, is presented in a new light, with the focus on his struggle for survival during years where assassination or forced repatriation were a constant threat, and how, away from his own country, he nevertheless learns the skills he will need to rule. The Tudor Crown is an enjoyable and entertaining read which successfully illuminates parts of a familiar story in a new way.

Charlotte Wightwick

THE INQUISITOR

David Penny, Rivertree Print, 2018, $13.99, pb, 420pp, 9780993076183

Brilliant doctor Thomas Berrington comes to Seville as personal physician to Spanish Queen Isabel during her pregnancy, in the years before the kingdom finally destroyed the last Moorish stronghold on the Peninsula.

But Seville is under a different kind of siege.

The Inquisition holds Spain in its grip, but another terror also permeates the royal city.

A mysterious killer known as The Ghost has claimed multiple victims, and Berrington finds himself drawn into the mystery as the only investigator capable of unmasking the murderer.

Berrington, born in England but now a man without a country, is on loan from the Moorish city of Granada, where he serves the Muslim court as physician, solving murders on the side. His natural scientific bent serves him well in either vocation. As he throws himself into care for the queen, he faces difficulties of his own. He has left his pregnant Muslim fiancée,

Lubna, virtually at the altar in response to the royal summons, and he manages to bring her and other Muslim members of his household to Seville under an uneasy truce granted by King Fernando. But as Berrington relentlessly tracks The Ghost through the city’s alleys and palaces, he places everyone he holds dear within the killer’s reach.

The novel is more complex than simply a whodunit wrapped in 15th-century garb. It makes an interesting study of the multipolar world of Spain in the days of Columbus.

Berrington is quite the Renaissance overachiever, being an expert swordsman and great lover as well as a brilliant doctor and unsurpassed crime solver, and thus not a particularly sympathetic character—the smartest guy in the room seldom is. Overall, though, it’s a satisfying tale.

Loyd Uglow

A MURDERED PEACE

Candace Robb, Pegasus, 2018, $25.95/C$34.95, hb, 304pp, 9781681778624

In Robb’s third Kate Clifford mystery, dark times abound. It’s midwinter, 1400, and Henry IV has ascended to the throne after deposing his cousin, Richard II. Paranoia and posturing reign, as those loyal to Richard scramble to rescue him or to form new alliances, and there is much distrust among the new king’s forces.

At her home in York, Kate has problems of her own: her cook, Berend, has disappeared, and a friend, Lady Margery Kirkby, has sought protection after her husband was murdered by a mob in Cirencester. Adding in Kate’s mother, Eleanor, and her household of lay sisters, and her suitor, Sir Elric, as well as several more murders, makes for plenty of plot action. Along the way, Kate has to learn to trust, whether that’s in forming a relationship with Sir Elric or exchanging information with Bess Merchet, owner of the local tavern.

Robb deftly weaves in historical background and details, ranging from political context to facets of daily life. Fans of medieval history will enjoy the details of running a household and cooking, the history behind women’s jewelry, and the intrigues between different factions in York and beyond. Mystery fans will appreciate how Robb manages the many characters and plot twists, tying up seemingly loose ends into a creative and rational outcome. Kate Clifford is an intriguing character in Robb’s oeuvre, privileged enough to mix with the upper classes, yet streetwise and welcoming to the poor. Through her, readers are afforded a well-rounded view of 15th-century life, as well as a page-turner of a tale.

Helene Williams

COURT OF WOLVES

Robyn Young, Hodder & Stoughton, 2018, £17.99, hb, 402pp, 9781444777765

Henry Tudor has vanquished Richard III and sits on the throne of England. Lorenzo de Medici is engaged in a deadly game of power politics with the Vatican. Jack Wynter, whose life and hope of overcoming the status of

illegitimacy have been wrecked by his father’s execution by Richard III, seeks out Lorenzo de Medici hoping for answers and help to restore his fortunes. He finds himself involved with the shady Court of Wolves. His hated half-brother, Harry Vaughan, is sent by Henry Tudor on a covert mission to the Spanish court to thwart Queen Isabella’s interest in developing a new trade route west. The two brothers become involved in the convoluted and dangerous politics of the time, each trying in their own way to survive, in order to destroy the other.

With a strong plot and characters, the story races along, with the two plot lines complementary and yet separate from each other. The author brings alive the culture and deadly politics of the time. This is the second part of the excellent New World Rising trilogy.

The book can be read as a standalone, but readers will enjoy it more if you have read the first in the series, Sons of the Blood. A first-class read from an author at the top of her game.

Highly recommended.

Mike Ashworth

16TH CENTURY

THE PASHA OF CUISINE

Saygin Ersin (trans. Mark David Wyers), Arcade, 2018, hb, 281pp, 9781628729610

Ottoman Empire, 16th century: a sumptuous feast is held in a rich merchant’s home for two of the most powerful servants of the Sultan: the Chief Sword Bearer and the Chief Treasurer.

Savory rice with black pepper is the first dish, followed by chicken and lemon makiyan soup, and the sweet me’muniye, enchanting the guests. And then, as the grand finale, a dish of stewed leeks and lamb is served. The Chief Sword Bearer despises leeks.

The next day the green-eyed cook of this remarkable banquet is summoned to the palace; he is to become the Chief Sword Bearer’s personal chef.

Thus begins this exotic tale, a fantasy worthy of Scheherazade. The book tells the story of this mysterious cook and his quest to regain his lost sweetheart and to fulfill his destiny. For he is the Pasha of Cuisine, the master of all the myriad secrets of foods, spices, aromas, and flavors which combine to heal, and to torment, our souls. These give food the power to make each of us remember, and to forget. Only a few such masters are born in each era.

The reader accompanies the cook on his odyssey to fulfill his true destiny and reunite with his love, the dancing girl Kamar. Along the way we are treated to glimpses of the

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splendor of the Ottoman Empire, the intrigues and politics of the royal palace, an array of mouthwatering dishes, and a vast cast of remarkable characters. The Pasha of Cuisine learns his art and implements his plans, and our own hearts and appetites grow as we follow him on his journey. I devoured this jewel of a novel and loved every bite! Highly recommended.

Susan McDuffie

A MISSED MURDER

Michael Jecks, Severn House, 2018, $28.99/£20.99, hb, 224pp, 9781780291086

Jack Blackjack is an assassin working for the historic John Blount, although Jack is squeamish around blood. He became an assassin because he wants the relatively high salary, and he’s rightfully concerned that Blount will kill him if he says no. However, Jack is a screw-up, accidentally killing a man whose murder was previously countermanded. He also hired his lover’s father to do the actual killing for him. See above re: squeamish around blood. Now Jack has to get out of his self-inflicted mess alive. The plot thickens as he manipulates events, trying not to become his own next victim.

This was the first book I’ve read by Michael Jecks, and unfortunately it will likely be the last.

It’s disappointing because the blurb sounded excellent. I thought Jack was not merely an unlikeable character but also a revolting one: an arrogant braggart who views women as sub-human objects. Within just the first few pages, Jack makes multiple comments about how well-endowed women with vacant eyes are a turn-on. Additionally, there are many juvenile euphemisms for sex in the text, like “hide the sausage,” “pounding the mattress,” and “mattress galloping,” that might appeal to immature audiences, but not, I think, to most adults. Even allowing for 16th-century social mores, this is hard to stomach. Although women were not seen as equal to men, there are many historical examples of men who valued strong, intelligent women. The ubiquitous sexism detracts from an already tepid plot that is lacking any meaningful historical detail.

I know Jecks has popular books in another series, so perhaps this novel is an aberration from his usual writing style. However, based on the lack of historical detail, stilted dialogue, unnecessarily puerile sexism, and uninspired plot, I recommend giving this one a pass.

Kristen McQuinn

A MURDER BY ANY NAME

Suzanne M. Wolfe, Crooked Lane, 2018, $26.99, hb, 336pp, 9781683317142

In this series debut, younger noble son Nicholas Holt, soldier and spy for William Cecil, is assigned to investigate the brutal murder of Queen Elizabeth’s youngest, most innocent lady-in-waiting. When a second ladyin-waiting is murdered shortly after the first, the stakes get even higher for Nick, whose loyalty as a member of a recusant family (those who might secretly be Catholics) might be in 22

question if he cannot discover the murderer.

He relies on the help of his friends, Spanish Jewish doctors Eli and Rivkah, his childhood friend John, and his faithful and well-trained wolfhound Hector, to home in on a coldblooded killer who won’t stop until forced by the Queen’s executioner.

A Murder by Any Name is a fast-paced read that held my attention strongly throughout.

While the plot itself isn’t too surprising—I’ve read too many mysteries to be taken in by much—the historical details and character development are extremely well done and more than made up for any lack of surprise for me. Wolfe’s attention to detail was such that I could practically smell the stench of the Thames—or Elizabeth’s breath! The atmosphere she created also encompassed the feelings of fear and paranoia surrounding the Jewish communities, who were so often the scapegoats for anything that went wrong.

Skillfully, Wolfe crafts a protagonist who is sympathetic as well as empathetic while retaining historical accuracy, a tremendous balancing act in itself. Nick Holt is a product of his time, but he is not hardened or indifferent to the suffering of those beneath him on the social scale. He is a wonderful, sensitive, believable character, and I wish there were more period pieces with men like him in them. I am looking forward to reading more books in this series and definitely recommend this one.

Kristen McQuinn

17TH CENTURY

THE GOLDEN SHORE

Jo Ann Butler, Neverest, 2018, $14.99 pb, 291pp, 9780982978047

In this third book of the Scandalous Life series, set in 1662 Rhode Island, Herodias (Herod) Long has been cohabitating with George Gardner for nineteen years. She refuses to marry him after her first abusive marriage ended with her husband stealing her inheritance. Rhode Island seethes with contention between Quakers and Puritans, plus the Native Americans who swear the white men have tricked them out of their land. Herod catches George in a compromising position so she leaves him to dwell on the property promised her deep in the wilderness. Helped

by Mr. Porter, a man she has an affinity for, she struggles to feed her children, farm, and raise livestock. But George wants revenge. He claims her land under the assumption he’s her common-law husband and accuses her of an adulterous affair with Porter. Herod must fight prejudicial men of authority to keep her home.

Butler brings early Rhode Island to life through the religious beliefs and cultural restrictions against women in the 17th century.

Her descriptions of the landscape make you feel you’ve walked through it. However, there are dozens of characters and difficult Indian names to keep track of. The lengthy descriptions of terrain and daily life slow the novel’s pace, and I started to skim through them. Herod and others were actual people in this era, and the author is a descendant of the

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heroine. The Author’s Notes and reproduction of documents at the end of the book back up Butler’s careful research. I recommend reading the first two books, The Reputed Wife and Rebel Puritan, in Herod’s story to find out more about this brave, nonconformist woman.

Diane Scott Lewis

THE ANGEL IN THE GLASS

Alys Clare, Severn House, 2018, $28.99/£20.99, hb, 240pp, 9781780109848

Gabriel Taverner, an early 17th-century physician, looks after more than just the physical well-being of his small West Country village. When a homeless man is found dead, a family closes ranks, and the parish rector becomes unwell, Gabriel must again turn to sleuthing to uncover the mysteries looming over Tavy St. Luke’s. Aided by the coroner and local midwife, Gabriel’s digging sheds new light on each mystery—and on the unexpected connections between them all. While making his rounds and discovering clues, Gabriel weaves readers into his daily life and social norms.

Clare’s The Angel in the Glass is the second in her Taverner series, although the book is well-written and can function as a standalone for those intrigued without access to its predecessor, A Rustle of Silk. Set in 1604, the novel is decade-appropriate without bringing readers too deeply into the historical setting.

Rather, Clare focuses her story on the mysteries and elusive clues that Taverner strings together to gain the full picture. Readers will enjoy treading the path as Gabriel does, joining him on the classic search: whodunit?!

Anna Bennett

INTRIGUE IN COVENT GARDEN

Susanna Gregory, Sphere, 2018, £19.99/$26.99, hb, 450pp, 9780751562699

We are in the year 1665. Plague is still haunting London, and King Charles I, with all his court, plus anyone else rich enough to be able to do so, has left London for the safer countryside. England is at war with the Dutch, and spies are spying on spies. As the year turns to 1666 and the plague at last begins to disappear, plans are afoot for the King to return to Whitehall after Christmas, involving great expense at a time when it was claimed that the country was virtually bankrupt, and men could not be paid the wages owed to them. Thomas Chaloner, employed by the Earl of Clarendon, is called in to investigate several mysteries including mysterious deaths, the sinking of one of the British ships, and the growing unrest towards the King for paying more attention to pleasure at court than the needs of his subjects.

This book, the 13th in the popular Thomas Chaloner series, lives up to its reputation. It focuses on several events that took place in 1666, including the war with Holland (or The United Provinces as they were then known).

This was an event in the 17th century that

I didn’t know too much about but learned much in following Thomas’ career. The plot twists and turns, the fictitious characters indistinguishably merge with the real people of the time, and the various threads of the story cross and re-cross – deliberately confusing! Susanna Gregory always knows her subject and does her research thoroughly, and it was a pleasure to read of events of this time other than the Plague and the Great Fire which, obviously, has yet to happen. I have met Thomas Chaloner before and so looked forward to reading this latest adventure. I was not disappointed.

Marilyn Sherlock

OPEN SEA

María Gudín (trans. Cynthia Steele), AmazonCrossing, 2018, $14.95, pb, 406pp, 9781503903173

Captured by pirates, Catalina “Len” and her mother are taken to England, a move that forces her mother into prostitution when no ransom is paid. An English priest rescues Len and takes her to live with the Leighs, a family with secrets. Her life becomes deeply enmeshed in theirs, especially that of their younger son, Piers. Growing political and religious unrest endanger the Leighs, and Len makes a fatal mistake. When only she emerges from the unfathomable nightmare, guilt strikes her mute and despondent until a wounded Spaniard sends her the medallion she gave to Piers, whom she believes dead.

Piers Leigh confides his deepest thoughts and dreams to Len and, even when afraid, she shares his adventures. His dream of becoming a sailor is destroyed when the Parliamentarians come to power, but their vindictiveness and a betrayal from within the family eventually allow him to join the Royalist navy. Parting from Len is bittersweet, but he vows to return to her one day. The war is not the grand adventure he expects, and his sins and news of Len’s death spiral his life downward into piracy, from which there can be no redemption.

This memorable tale pulls no punches. It occurs during the 1650s, with earlier years recounted in flashbacks. Gudín artfully draws readers into Len’s story until it is impossible to put down the book. After nearly 200 pages of first-person viewpoint, the sudden switch to Piers’s story, also told in first person, is jarring and less compelling, although the need for events to unfold from his perspective is vital.

The epilogue relates their final chapter but is revealed by a third character in first person.

The translation is seamless and the tale rich in historical detail, vividly recreating 17thcentury life in two very different worlds.

Cindy Vallar

THE DRIVER’S WIFE

S.K. Keogh, Leighlin House, 2018, $12.99, pb, 350pp, 9780990677482

In 1693, former sailor Edward Ketch works for his former captain, a onetime pirate,

Jack Mallory, and his wife, Maria, on a rice plantation in the Carolinas. He becomes attracted to a young mulatto slave named Isabelle. Separated from her mother at the trading block in Charles Town, Isabelle is withdrawn, and soon her marriage to a fellow slave becomes an abusive situation. Ketch, who is an outcast from other white people because of his rough mannerisms, rescues her from her difficult marriage by killing her husband. Ketch now risks his relationship with his master, and with the other drivers who may learn of his involvement in the murder.

This is a fascinating novel about slavery in the Deep South in the 17th century. The author has previously written a trilogy, The Jack Mallory Chronicles, and this story is a spinoff with Ketch as the protagonist. Ms. Keogh examines the everyday life of slaves enduring the daily grind and provides interesting and troubled main characters with secret pasts.

This is also a love story with a twist: the forbidden relationship and marriage of a white man and a slave and its repercussions among the residents of Leighlin Plantation.

The author examines how the relationships between blacks and whites can differ, and she shows a masterful command of the customs of the era. The novel is well-written, with wellformed and credible characters. I enjoyed reading this novel, although some readers might be made uneasy by the subject matter and how it deals with slavery.

Jeff Westerhoff

SACRED MUSIC

Felicity Luckman, Endeavour, 2017, £6.99/$7.99, pb, 248pp, 9781973192800

At a time of huge divisions and distrust between Protestantism and Catholicism, Francis Trenowith, heir to an earldom, falls in love with the wrong girl. He is loyal to the king, Charles II, but also anxious to prove his anti-Popish sentiments as he participates in a pope-burning procession while a student at Oxford. 1680 is a particularly volatile time as the question of Exclusion – removing Charles’s Catholic brother James from the succession – is hotly debated across the land. Conspiracies, treason, secrets and lies abound and Francis, the unwitting pawn, becomes embroiled in a plot that may well bring him to the gallows.

One of the more powerful parts of the novel is that which deals with Francis’s inner turmoil and attempts to remain stoic in the face of terrible loss and suffering. The musical reference in the title comes from Francis’s deep love of music, and Purcell, the famous English composer, becomes a good friend of his. The two central strands of music and treason do not, however, seem to fully blend together, apart from music being a comfort to Francis in his times of trouble. Because the music seems to be a side issue, one wonders regarding the choice of title. All in all, this is a pleasant read which offers an interesting view of some of the key issues of the day.

Ann Northfield

DESTROYING ANGEL

S.G. MacLean, Quercus, 2018, £14.99, hb, 404pp, 9781786484161

In this, the third Seeker mystery, Damien Seeker is sent to Yorkshire, his native county, to prepare for the rule of the newly established Major-Generals, appointed to support Cromwell’s rule. Ordered to the small village of Faithly, he finds grudges and simmering resentment aplenty. The lord of the manor is Royalist, the constable is a vicious petty tyrant, and a young girl is poisoned by the deadly pure white mushroom, the destroying angel. The advent of the Trier to enforce Puritan practice, especially against the Vicar, is resented. On the second day Seeker meets him and recognises an old enemy. Can he trust anyone? Problems, including a deeply personal one, multiply, in York, on the moors, and in the village itself.

The alleyways of York, the desolate moors, and the simmering village emotions are vividly described, and there is a grim picture of the oppressive, vindictive regime, aimed at finding and punishing Royalists, being imposed on a frightened, subdued populace.

Seeker, a tough old soldier, is portrayed as a sympathetic character who will twist the rules when he finds it necessary for justice.

The background, whether village politics, the desolate moorland or the alleys of York are all vividly described.

Marina Oliver

THE COUNCIL OF TWELVE

Oliver Pötzsch (trans. Lisa Reinhardt), AmazonCrossing, 2018, $18.00, pb, 512pp, 9781503956919

Oliver Pötzsch weaves a riveting, historical thriller against the backdrop of 1672 Bavaria.

Hangman Jakob Kuisl’s family is swept into political intrigue, murder, and superstitious fervor when they arrive in Munich. Each family member—the married daughter and her husband and two sons; the pregnant, unwed daughter; and executioner son—brings a dream or dark secret which will ultimately spin into the web of a serial killer lurking in the city’s shadows. Though Jakob considers it an honor to become a member of the Council of Twelve, Munich’s inhabitants consider the gathering of the members in the supreme body of the Bavarian executioners’ guild as a bad omen.

Their fears are reinforced as bodies of women, wearing the amulet of the haloed Mother Mary, are discovered. Each of them has been executed in the prescribed punishment for a child murderess. Unrelated events associated with each of Jakob’s family members interweave into a complex lattice, twisting the reader’s mind until the shocking, unexpected conclusion. Pötzsch has masterfully created a story, from the omniscient point of view, that is not only full of suspense but is also characterdriven and rich in description. Each of the characters’ subplots skillfully interweaves into the rich tapestry of the tale. Ultimately, this is the story of the plight of desperate women who find themselves trapped in unwanted

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pregnancies with limited options. The Council of Twelve is an exceptional suspense novel addressing the social stigma of unwed mothers that is still relevant today. This novel will appeal to a cross-genre of readers who enjoy suspense and character-driven novels. Highly recommended.

Linnea Tanner

A PLAGUE ON MR. PEPYS

Deborah Swift, Accent, 2018, $11.89/£8.99, pb, 400pp, 9781786154972

Bess Bagwell is headstrong and determined to make the most of her life and put the past— poverty, abuse, and hunger—behind her in this notable look at one of many dalliances mentioned in the diaries of Samuel Pepys.

Where Bess is driven, her husband, Will, a carpenter with talent, is the opposite, and it takes Bess’s ambitions for their family for Will to get anywhere. Bess has convinced Will to take a loan for a house where Will can work, and she can rise above the servant class.

Quickly, they find that it is difficult to maintain a master lifestyle. Will’s cousin, Jack, often greases money out of Will for various failing schemes, and Bess, trying to join the ranks of the wealthy, learns that generosity is expensive, and the Bagwells find themselves going deeper into debt. This debt forces Bess into the arms of Samuel Pepys, who she enlists early on to help Will find work. Lingering as an undercurrent early on is the Plague raging through Europe.

Eventually, it finds its way into London, and everything changes for everyone.

Swift’s re-imagining of the life of Bess Bagwell and what drove her to become one of Samuel Pepys’ most enduring trysts is remarkable. Her characters are so alive that you either want to reach out and lovingly save them from themselves or angrily shake them until they realize the messes they are creating.

Even the secondary characters of Jack, Owen Bagwell—Will’s father—and Agatha—Bess’s mother—are deftly drawn. When the plague strikes London, it does so in graphic detail with little left to the imagination. This may be a turn-off for some, but it adds yet another layer of depth to this story. An immersive and rich imagining of a mysterious woman from Pepys’ life that will hold readers until the very end.

Bryan Dumas

PLEASING MR PEPYS

Deborah Swift, Accent, 2017, £8.99/$14.99, pb, 471pp, 9781786154187

Deb Willett is employed in the household of the diarist Samuel Pepys as a companion for his wife. She is there to help her with the pets and ladylike tasks, such as sewing and dressing hair, and thus to earn enough money to keep her sister in education and away from the perils of life on the streets, only a short step away in this society. As readers are aware from the famous diaries, Mr Pepys is possessed of wandering hands and a fondness for the ladies, and this causes difficulties for Deb and pain for his wife. At times the theme of pleasing becomes vital: how much should you please others, how 24

far should you go to ensure your survival and where can a good-natured gesture lead you?

Deb becomes embroiled in secrets, lies and deceptions of all kinds when she agrees to help Abigail Williams, mistress of an important sea lord, with copying documents. As Deb herself observes, “one thing dragged another in its wake”, and so she becomes more and more tightly enmeshed in corruption and deceit.

The historical details are woven into the fabric of the novel seamlessly, and the characters really live off the page in the mind of the reader and, towards the end, matters become almost unbearably tense as danger threatens those Deb cares about.

This is well-written, thoughtful and very much recommended. There are historical notes at the end as well as questions for reading groups.

It would make a fine choice for such a group as there is plenty to discuss, above and beyond the finely drawn historical setting.

Ann Northfield

THE GREAT LEVEL

Stella Tillyard, Chatto & Windus, 2018, £16.99, hb, 240pp, 9780701183196

England during the interregnum in the 17th century. Jan Brunt, a Dutch engineer, is employed to assist in drawing up plans for the draining and embanking of the inundated waterways, known as the Great Level, that surround the Isle of Ely in the east of England. It is 1649, with society still shocked by the execution of Charles I, and the rule of General Cromwell’s Puritans making for dour and impoverished times. Jan Brunt is a solitary man, happiest working alone surveying the waterways and overseeing the work of digging and embanking, which used resentful Irish prisoners as slave labour. But his perspective and subsequent life changes when he meets a female fenland dweller, Eliza, with whom he quickly becomes besotted. Part of the novel is narrated by Brunt years later in 1664, when he is living in semi-retirement across the Atlantic in Nieuwe Amsterdam, which was on the point of being taken over by acquisitive English settlers and changed to the more familiar New York. Brunt’s days of peace and solitary predictability in the new settlement are disrupted, with the latter part of the book narrated by Eliza, telling of her own life after the passionate affair with Jan Brunt.

It is intelligent and gentle prose – Tillyard describes the beauties of the soon-to-be eradicated eastern wetlands with a poet’s eye.

There has been a lot of research into both life in the fens and in the American colonies in the

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mid-17th century, but it is never obvious or unwieldy. A pleasure to read.

Douglas Kemp

CITY OF CROWS

Chris Womersley, Europa, 2018, C$22.00, pb, 340pp, 9781609454708

$17.00/

It is 1673. Charlotte Picot is urged by her dying husband, Michel, to take their son and flee their fever-ridden village of Saint-Gilles for Lyon. A plague has descended from the northeast, believed to be carried by soldiers returning from war. Along the way, Charlotte is injured, and the young boy is abducted by a group of slavers destined for Paris—the City of Crows.

Nursed back to health by Marie Rolland—the Forest Queen—Charlotte agrees to take the elderly woman’s black book, hoping its simple magic will assist her in finding her son.

After years of imprisonment, spending winters in a port prison and summers rowing in the galleys, Adam du Coeuret is surprised when his sentence is inexplicably remitted. He gives himself a new name—Adam Lesage—and is free to pursue hidden treasure in the city with a map given to him by a fellow prisoner.

Fate—or was it Charlotte’s magic?—brings the two together on the road to Paris. Charlotte believes she has summoned Lesage and the charlatan believes he has been ‘witched’ by her. They soon realize that they cannot succeed without one another. So begins their peculiar association.

Basing his novel on actual characters, Womersley weaves an intriguing tale, blending coincidence with the question of magical intervention. The motivations and decisions of Charlotte and Lesage can be explained either way. An insecure Charlotte becomes more confident and increasingly treacherous during the course of the story, while the selfserving and deceitful Lesage becomes a more compassionate person. By the end (which leaves room for lively debate), Charlotte is convinced of the power of her magic, and this reader is convinced of the magic of Womersley.

Mary Lawrence

18TH CENTURY LITTLE

Edward Carey, Riverhead, 2018, $27.00/ C$36.00, hb, 448pp, 9780525534327 / Aardvark Bureau, 2018, £14.99, hb, 380pp, 9781910709399

This dreamlike novel imagines the origins of Marie Tussaud, creator of the famous waxworks, and also captures the insanity and chaos of Revolutionary Paris. Marie Grosholtz, nicknamed “Little” by her guardian, is orphaned very young and taken as an assistant by a kind but distant medical artist, Dr. Curtius. Marie eagerly masters the art of sculpting human body parts for medical study, and helps the doctor create a new art form casting the busts of citizens who wish to be immortalized in the eerily lifelike medium of painted wax. Aided by a coldly ambitious tailor’s widow, Madame Picot, Curtius attracts the patronage of the

rich and vain in the waning days of the Bourbon monarchy and develops the first public collection of famous and infamous personages sculpted in wax.

Little, however, despised by the widow, toils in obscurity until their workshop is visited by the Princess Elisabeth, sister of Louis XVI, who whisks Little to Versailles to be her sculpting tutor.

The novel is crammed with incident and emotional highs and lows, but the focus is on the voice of Little, a keen observer who attempts to understand people the way she understands her art, focusing on minute details of physiognomy and personality. The novel is enhanced by eerie, graceful pencil sketches, which progress in complexity along with Little’s voice as she matures. Carey has made the wise decision to render her reminiscences in modern colloquial English; the result is a vivid, unforgettable narrative, full of feeling and suspense in spite of our familiarity with the facts of Tussaud’s life and of the Revolution.

Kristen McDermott

THE DEVIL’S WIND

Steve Goble, Seventh Street, 2018, $15.95/ C$17.00, pb, 250pp, 9781633884847

Set on the seas during the latter days of pirate glory, The Devil’s Wind weaves a mystery for protagonist Spider John to unravel. Trying to hide from his pirate past and get to Boston to live once again with his wife and son, Spider John cannot help but ask the question: who killed the ship’s captain shortly after setting sail? While it’s initially suspected a suicide, the recovering pirate discovers many potential killers on board. He gets help from his sidekicks, Hob and Odin, and they must sneak around, ask questions, and save themselves and others from the worst pirates of the seas with help from unexpected places.

Pulling in colorful historical characters such as Ned Low and Anne Bonny, as well as many others created by the author, The Devil’s Wind certainly spins a mystery that leaves the reader itching to figure it out, too, as the crime seems impossible and no one seems sure of what is going on half the time, the protagonist included. The beauty of the story is the wide cast of characters, each uniquely portrayed and many with their own cadences of speech.

Spider John is an aloof protagonist, though, and leaves the reader wondering why exactly one should care about him. Some of the action and conversation suspend reality; what could be a swashbuckling tale comes across stiff in places. It is not an epic tale by any means, but

for lovers of a bit of pirate history and a solid murder mystery, this one’s for you.

Sara Dahmen

THE SPELLBOOK OF KATRINA VAN TASSEL

Alyssa Palombo, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2018, $29.99, hb, 432pp, 97812502026666

1790. Wealthy heiress Katrina Van Tassel falls in love with not-to-wealthy schoolmaster Ichabod Crane. With a shared love of music and stories, Katrina tells Ichabod all the folklore surrounding the town of Sleepy Hollow. Unfortunately, social constraints and a jealous, overbearing suitor force the young lovers to meet in secret. After Ichabod disappears mysteriously on All Hallows’ Eve, Katrina wonders if the stories from her childhood could be true. Delving into the realm of witchcraft, Katrina begins to investigate why the Headless Horseman is stalking her dreams while also attempting to uncover what really happened that fateful night.

Early on, the main characters felt like templates from Beauty and the Beast. Katrina and her would-be suitor, Brom, were almost identical to Belle and Gaston, and they weren’t too interesting until the second half of the book. Once the elements of folklore and witchcraft took hold of the plot, character development flourished. This made the novel hard to put down. I only wished there had been more character development for Brom.

Palombo’s prose was so enchanting, she could have easily added many more pages.

In her Author’s Note, Palombo explains her adjustments to history so that the book aligns with audience expectations.

While typically these choices to modernize history frustrate me, it worked for this novel.

Palombo deftly fleshes out this well-known story in an enchanting way. The romance was a bit steamier than I expected. However, the emotional exploration was well done, and the setting was immersive. A spooky female-driven storyline, with not completely unexpected twists, but many spine-tingling and captivating turns. A must for fall reading lists.

J. Lynn Else

LUCÍA ZÁRATE

Cecilia Velástegui, Libros Publishing, 2017, $16.99, hb, 278pp, 9780990671381

This is a gem of a book, exquisitely produced and poetically written. No surprise that the author is an award-winner. It tells the poignant story of Mexican-born Lucía Zárate, who at 20 inches tall and just four pounds in weight remains the world’s smallest woman.

Lucía made her debut at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876. For a few short years, when performing midgets were a popular entertainment, she was the toast of America and England for her coquettish singing and dancing performances.

We are led through the story by the voice

of Zoila, Lucía’s madrina (godmother) and self-appointed protector, who educates and cares for the tiny 13-year-old as though she were her own. Zoila is a wonderful figment of Velástegui’s imagination – she is from Paplanta, the vanilla-growing region of Mexico, rich with tales of the wrath of the chaneque (evil spirit). Recognising that Lucía was clever, Zoila teaches her English and educates her in current affairs, but mostly she cares for her. Her charge has a feisty temper, a sense of her own worth and a love of beautiful clothes and jewellery.

The narrative tells of the exploitation of the vulnerable with the connivance of povertystricken parents, ruthless managers and agents taking advantage of their charges and currying favour with the press. It is full of period details and locations, a seedy backstage look at the front-of-house glamour The text is sprinkled with real people of the time, such as Tom Thumb, the tiny man who became a millionaire and committed suicide.

Reading, you hope against hope that the outcome will be happy – that Zoila will realise her dream of spiriting Lucía back to Mexico…

A pleasure as the book is to read, in my opinion it would be improved with tighter editing.

Patricia O’Reilly

THE BLACK RING

William Westbrook, McBooks, 2018, $22.95/ C$29.95, hb, 320pp, 9781590137680

The Caribbean in 1798 is rich in sugar, salt and coffee while Great Britain, France and Spain vie for control of the trade. Captain Nicholas Fallon, aboard his schooner Rascal, sets sail from Bermuda for Cuba to drop off a senior British intelligence officer to determine if a slave rebellion would be possible on the island, where slavery is widespread. Upon secretly landing in Cuba, Captain Fallon soon learns about the cruelty of this institution.

Captain Fallon must also face the pirate known as “The Holy One” who deals in the slave trade while attacking ships in the Caribbean, searching for slaves to trade on the islands.

The background to this exciting nautical tale, the second in a series, consists primarily of the slave trade, slave rebellions, and its effect on the economy of the Caribbean. I enjoyed the first book, The Bermuda Privateer, and found this novel continued to provide a thorough and worthwhile read. The author’s novels are character-driven and don’t use many nautical terms that are understood only by those who sail. He brings the characters and their interactions to life with realistic dialogue. The action is solidly paced and engaging throughout. The period detail blends together the historical facts with the fictional characters.

Jeff Westerhoff

19TH CENTURY

A publication of the Historical Novel Society | www.historicalnovelsociety.org

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SCANDAL ABOVE STAIRS

Jennifer Ashley, Berkley Prime Crime, 2018, $15.00, pb, 309pp, 978039958553

The second in Jennifer Ashley’s Below Stairs Mystery series, Scandal Above Stairs opens in 1881 as our sleuth, experienced cook Kat Holloway, works in the bustling servants’ quarters of the posh London home of Lady Cynthia, Kat’s employer. She learns that a recent spate of thefts of paintings and priceless artifacts has plagued the upper-class homes of London aristocrats. Kat’s romantic attachment with the elusive Daniel McAdam takes a turn she learns that stolen goods are being sold at the pawnshop where he works. After a man is found murdered at that very shop, she and Daniel set out to solve the crime spree before more lives and antiquities are taken. Their quest leads them not only into the underworld of unsavory characters inhabiting London’s streets, but also into the upper-class world above stairs where a poisoner lies in wait.

This novel reads well and fast, its detailed Downton Abbey-like settings and likeable characters filling the pages. In addition, there are many mouthwatering details about Victorian cooking that enliven the cook’s kitchen below stairs. Various sweet treats are mentioned, “a raspberry tart with chocolate film on its crust, a lemon and blueberry custard, ices…and a syllabub…full of sherry and brandy.” The author’s well-crafted metaphors and tight sequences make for an absorbing read. Though set in the late Victorian era, Kat Holloway’s voice is strong and genuine. Lady Cynthia, who wears trousers and dresses like a man, provides a modern update. The romantic attachment between Kat and Daniel does not overpower their quest to find the culprit, and their back-and-forth dialogue adds humor and warmth to the novel. Now I want to read the first novel in the series!

Gini Grossenbacher

DAUGHTER OF A DAUGHTER OF A QUEEN

Sarah Bird, St. Martin’s, 2018, $27.99, hb, 400pp, 9781250193162

Based on a little-known piece of history, this book tells the story of Cathy Williams, the only woman to ever serve with the Buffalo Soldiers, a group of black cavalrymen who fought in the Indian Wars in post-Civil War America. When Cathy, the strong, outspoken, and proud granddaughter of an African queen, is shuffled from bondage in the South into service with General Philip Henry Sheridan toward the end of the war, she learns just how hard being off the plantation 26

can be, especially for a black woman. But luckily for her, she is rather androgynous in appearance and is often mistaken for a boy which, combined with the General’s favor, helps her survive where other women have not.

At the end of the war, she faces an uncertain future and makes the bold choice of disguising herself as a man and enlisting with the Buffalo Soldiers. What follows is an unlikely two-year adventure with a mysterious twist that has been lost to the pages of history. Until now.

Even when you are an avid reader, there are only rare occasions when a book lives up to being called an epic, immersive adventure.

Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen is one of only five books I can think of that deserve that accolade, especially given that the author had so little actual history around which to build her sweeping tale. This book is a feat of imagination and novel craft that sweeps you away into another world from the first page. It is meticulously researched and detailed, even down to dialect. The author brings to life a side of the Civil War and Indian Wars rarely touched upon in fiction. Very highly recommended.

Nicole Evelina

SONS OF BLACKBIRD MOUNTAIN

Joanne Bischof, Thomas Nelson, 2018, $15.99, pb, 352pp, 9780718099107

Aven Norgaard, the young Irish widow of a Norwegian shipwright who had plucked her from a workhouse years ago, arrives in 1890 Virginia to help care for her husband’s cousins, only to find the children she expected are actually a household of grown men. The brothers make their living brewing and selling hard cider. The two younger brothers, Thor and Haaken, very different in temperament, are both drawn to Aven.

The interesting twist in the story is that Thor is deaf. What’s more, he has assuaged his isolation by drinking too much of the cider that earns the family’s income. The former causes some misunderstandings as Aven settles in, and the latter raises red flags for her because it turns out her husband had also been too fond of drink.

A central theme is the idea of rivalry between the brothers for Aven’s affection, but the reader is not really left in suspense. Thor is clearly a sensitive soul and thoughtful person, and the narrative just has to get through the dramatic but quick (in time at least) process of his drying out. The three brothers seem to have good working relationships with each other and communicate effectively through sign language and other means. Absent a true conflict, the author makes Haaken do something horrible which seems out of character with what we had seen up to then.

Finally, there is a chapter that basically seems like the first section of a planned next book.

Other than that awkwardness, and the occasional use of quaint words and phrasing, the love story plays out nicely, and the novel provides an interesting glimpse of the time period and some complex social issues among

REVIEWS | ISSUE 86, November 2018

neighbors in an area still recovering from the Civil War. Martha Hoffman

LOVE IS BLIND

William Boyd, Knopf, 2018, $26.95, hb, 384pp, 9780525655268 / Viking, 2018, £18.99, hb, 384pp, 9780241295939

Love is Blind is a love story that criss-crosses the globe in the last years of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th. Brodie Moncur is a talented Scottish piano tuner who has escaped from his oppressive Scottish father and is building the business of the Channon piano company in Paris. There he meets and subsequently works for the “Irish Liszt,” pianist John Kilbarron; his brother, Malachi; and his mistress, Lika Blum. Brodie is immediately drawn to Lika, but the illicit relationship they pursue may have dangerous, even lifethreatening consequences.

This is a novel full of colourful characters and marvellous description. Every location – and there are many, from St Petersburg to Biarritz, Edinburgh and the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal – is vividly realized. Brodie is an unusual romantic hero: a gentle man, short-sighted and suffering from tuberculosis, but capable of great passion and loyalty. The Kilbarron brothers, on the other hand, are menacing from the outset. John, a drunken genius, depends on Brodie’s skills with his pianos to suffer through the pain that playing causes him. In search of financial reward as his playing days seem to be coming to a close, he takes his entourage, including Brodie and Lika, to Russia, where the two lovers go to extraordinary lengths to hide their affair, particularly from Malachi, whose concern for his brother’s interests is all-consuming. Lika, however, remains a mystery, both to Brodie and the reader. The story is told from Brodie’s point of view, and as the title tells us, love is blind.

This epic love story becomes a page-turning chase for the truth about Lika and a search for a happy ending in the face of unexpected trials and tribulations.

Kate Braithwaite

MASTER OF HIS FATE

Barbara Taylor Bradford, St. Martin’s, 2018, $28.99, hb, 448pp, 9781250187390 / HarperCollins, 2018, £16.99, hb, 384pp, 9780008242404

With Master of His Fate, Barbara Taylor Bradford begins her new House of the Falconer series, which takes place in late 19th- century Victorian England. The series centers around two characters: James Falconer and Alexis Malvern. James comes from a working-class family; his grandparents are in service and his father works at a market. James dreams of creating a luxury chain of department stores and he is eager to start working his way up the ladder. Alexis Malvern is the daughter of the owner of one of the most successful companies in London and seeks freedom and independence at a time when this was difficult

for a woman to do. Along the way, the reader is introduced to a plethora of characters, from James’s lively family to Alexis’s great love, wealthy banker Sebastian Trevalian.

Unfortunately, fans of Bradford’s iconic A Woman of Substance will probably not like her latest book, which meanders and has no plot other than to tell the early parts of Alexis’s and James’s stories. In this book, these two storylines rarely even connect. Essentially Master of His Fate is a long introduction to the rest of the series that is to come. In addition, while Alexis and James are the protagonists, Bradford frequently includes chapters on minor characters; this does not help to propel the book forward. Finally, Bradford does a lot of telling instead of showing, especially when it comes to historical details. For example, several characters recount Jack the Ripper’s killing spree. Likewise, Sigmund Freud’s talk therapy is discussed many times. One wishes Bradford could more seamlessly work these historical details into her novel.

Julia C. Fischer

THE TWISTED CROWN

Anita Bunkley, Rinard Publishing, 2018, $14.95, pb, 336pp, 9780962401244

In 1846, an enslaved mother cowers by South Carolina’s Copper River with her four-year-old daughter, Eva. The mother’s hair is braided in the “twisted crown” of her African homeland. She’ll hand over her child to a stranger who’ll bring Eva north, saving her from a life of slavery on a notoriously brutal plantation. Based on events in the life of Bunkley’s great-grandfather, The Twisted Crown follows Eva to Boston, her training as a mapmaker, and marriage to Chester, a freedman who enlists in the Union army’s first African-American regiment.

When the war ends, Eva undertakes a dangerous venture: returning to battleravaged South Carolina to find her mother and Chester’s grave at Fort Wagner. In Charleston, Union troops and the Freedman’s Bureau struggle to enforce voting rights for former slaves and relieve their desperate conditions. Eva finds comfort and support in unexpected places, including a white lawyer from Chicago. But widespread violence and corruption, vicious racism, and deep fury at the Northern “occupation” create almost insurmountable obstacles to Eva’s search.

With courage and resolution, she persists, ultimately earning security and happiness.

While the narrative is sometimes overweighted with exposition and the dialogue unnaturally stiff, The Twisted Crown brings to life that brief time of hope that Reconstruction could fulfill Abraham Lincoln’s dream of an America “with malice toward none, with charity for all.”

Pamela Schoenewaldt

LADY OF A THOUSAND TREASURES

Sandra Byrd, Tyndale, 2018, $24.00/C$34.99, hb, 464pp, 9781496426826 / $15.99/C$21.99, pb, 464pp, 9781496426833

In Victorian London, Eleanor Sheffield tries to singlehandedly save her family’s antiques business while nursing a broken heart.

When Lord Lydney, one of her father’s most prominent clients, dies, he leaves Eleanor with a dilemma: Eleanor must decide whether the baron’s extensive personal collection should be donated to a museum or left to his wayward son, Harry, the man who broke Eleanor’s heart. Donating the treasures might win Eleanor’s family firm much-needed business, and yet Eleanor isn’t sure Harry is guilty of the charges the baron laid at his door. Eleanor wishes to uncover information to definitively prove whether or not Harry is deserving of the inheritance, but her recent experience complicates things, especially when Harry returns with a young Italian woman in tow.

This is an agreeable but predictable narrative about a young woman whose determination and faith propel her towards a worthy ending, somewhat reminiscent of Jane Austen. Providing Eleanor with the ability to disinherit her former paramour is an intriguing conflict, so it’s disappointing to see that question answered abruptly, without much struggle and with nearly 200 pages remaining. This one is sweet but lacks the satisfying struggle every heroine deserves to overcome.

Rebecca Henderson Palmer

THE REBEL KILLER Paul Fraser Collard, £20.99/$26.99/C$34.99, 9781472239075

Headline, 2018, hb, 432pp,

Virginia, 1861. Jack Lark is fighting for the Union in the Civil War. The book opens with the aftermath of battle. Following the defeat at the Battle of Bull Run, Jack is lost in the woods in the company of a black former slave girl called Rose. While trying to protect her, he is shot and left for dead. Before he passes out, Jack believes that some renegade confederate soldiers had shot him and were going to hang Rose. Waking in a military hospital broken, both mentally and physically, Jack vows to avenge the death of Rose. Jack escapes and sets out on a journey across the Southern states, dressed as a Confederate, looking for revenge against the man who has destroyed his life.

This is the seventh of the very successful Jack Lark series and follows immediately on from The True Soldier. The author’s many fans will know what to expect – a strong plot and characters and vivid, without being overly graphic, action scenes. A thoroughly enjoyable action- packed read, which brings alive the horror and futility of war. Recommended.

Mike Ashworth

THE ACCIDENTAL GUARDIAN

Mary Connealy, Bethany House, 2018, $14.99/ C$18.49, pb, 304pp, 9780764219290

Deb and Gwen Harkness, and the two children they have been caring for, are the sole survivors of a wagon train massacre, but without wilderness survival skills, they risk appealing for help from a strange rider.

Fortunately, their prayers are answered, for Trace Riley is a good and caring man who escorts them to his ranch. He and his two ranch hands are grateful for having their clothes mended and the tasty cooking, and he soon falls in love with Deb. She, however, plans to move on and establish a newspaper in San Francisco. Can he change her mind?

It is no accident that the two books mentioned most often are Robinson Crusoe and the Bible. The former reflects the struggle to survive and build a comfortable home in the wilderness; the latter provides a moral compass.

Since this is inspirational fiction, the main characters are idealized, but readers looking for an involving story that features strong heroines who endure danger and harsh conditions with fortitude, noble heroes who protect and care for their womenfolk, and black-hearted villains who are brought to justice will find much to enjoy in this tale set in the American frontier of the 1860s.

Recommended.

Ray Thompson

THE SOUND OF DISTANT THUNDER

Jan Drexler, Revell, 2019, $15.99, pb, 352pp, 9780800729318

The title reference is to the American Civil War. Being members of a peace church, most Amish do not believe in fighting wars. Yet Ohio needs soldiers and begins sending out draft notices. When his older brother receives a notice, Jonas Weaver decides to be Samuel’s substitute; since Jonas has not yet officially joined the Church, his ethical dilemma will be less complicated.

But it’s not easy for Jonas to leave behind a half-finished house and his sweetheart, Katie Stuckey. Katie doesn’t want him to go, but she also has doubts about what kind of a wife she would make. She is harboring a secret about an attempted sexual assault in her past. When a government letter about Jonas’s fate arrives, Katie’s future is doubly uncertain.

Drexler has Amish ancestors, so her family stories contribute to the authenticity of the setting. Readers will learn about the Amish way of life, yet the story’s emphasis is more on the romance between Jonas and Katie rather than their religion. The denouement is a bit rushed after the book’s long buildup to Jonas’s going to war, but fans of Christian fiction and especially of the Amish subgenre will enjoy it.

B. J. Sedlock

A publication of the Historical Novel Society | www.historicalnovelsociety.org

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WASHINGTON BLACK

Esi Edugyan, Knopf, 2018, $26.95, hb, 352pp, 9780525521426 / Serpent’s Tail, 2018, £14.99, hb, 432pp, 9781846689598

The future looks bleak for Wa s h i n g t o n Black, for what does an 11-yearold slave on a Barbados sugar plantation have to look forward to but a shortened lifetime of toil and abuse at the hands of his sadistic master?

Wash is terrified when he is called to serve dinner to the master’s brother, but the summons is a miracle in disguise, for Christopher “Titch” Wilde chooses the lad to serve as his own manservant. Even better, Titch is an inventor and naturalist, and Wash proves to be a talented illustrator of Wilde’s studies. When Wash is accused of a man’s death, Titch takes him on a storm-blown ride on an experimental hot air balloon, and they escape above the raging Caribbean waves.

Wash’s adventures have only begun in Esi Edugyan’s historical novel, Washington Black.

Ms. Edugyan takes readers on a wild ride from Virginia’s Underground Railroad to the Arctic ice cap, to London’s fledgling aquariums, and onward, and she proves as inventive as Titch Wilde, and as talented as young Wash.

Washington Black is a clever and inventive tale of personal growth, and a quest for freedom and fulfillment.

I thoroughly enjoyed Washington Black, especially Ms. Edugyan’s luminous scenes. If this novel is typical of her handiwork, it’s easy to understand why her previous two novels have been award-winners. I recommend Washington Black to all.

Jo Ann Butler

THE GASLIGHT STALKER

David Field, Sapere, 2018, $13.50/£6.50, pb, 208pp, 9781912546022

It’s Whitechapel. Yes, that Whitechapel.

1888. Yes, that year. Jack the Ripper. Yes, those stabbings.

The Gaslight Stalker recalls the murders that terrified the residents of Whitechapel and Spitalfields at the time and still fascinate readers of Victorian-era fact and fiction. This rendering of the events is lively, illuminating, and informative.

The book introduces Esther Jacobs, seamstress and neighbor of the first of the Ripper’s victims, and constable Jack Enright— an extremely likable pair who develop a love relationship while following the Ripper’s trail on the backstreets of London. It explores the infighting between the local police Crime Investigation Department and Scotland Yard, as well as the heads of the two criminal 28

divisions—Detective Inspector Reid and Jack’s Uncle Percy—and it gives voice to some of the nastier pieces of work on the streets and in the pubs.

Author David Field was a criminal law professor and practitioner in England before retiring to Australia. His expertise shows. The testimony during the inquests following each death is authoritative and crackles with realistic dialogue. The tension between Reid and Percy Enright is palpable, and their differing viewpoints of the nature and perpetrator of the crimes are understandable and persuasive.

As book one of what the author calls The Esther and Jack Enright mysteries, The Gaslight Stalker is a brisk and entertaining debut. It takes an often-told tale and adds a fresh face.

It also provides an answer to those who wonder why the killings stopped yet the murderer was never named.

K. M. Sandrick

THE CARDS DON’T LIE

Sue Ingalls Finan, She Writes, 2018, $16.95, pb, 355pp, 9781631524516

This novel covers the run-up to and the Battle of New Orleans between British redcoats and the rag-tag forces of General Andrew Jackson.

The story unfolds mostly through the lives of Catherine, a well-known healer; Millie, a feisty prostitute; and Marguerite, a plantation mistress.

The everyday clothes, food, interactions of people, gruesome details of childbirth, and defense of New Orleans all ring true. At the end, a brief summary of the lives of actual historical characters in the story makes for a nice wrap up. Finan’s historical research is evident and impressive, though sometimes delivered in information dumps or through unlikely dialogue. The prose is clear and, at its best, emotionally powerful.

The novel is organized into over 100 unnumbered parts. A Tarot card name (The Four of Swords, The Six of Cups, etc.) heads each part. These segments range in length from less than a page to eleven pages. Each begins with a new or different character point of view but often quickly changes to the viewpoint of other characters or the author. Readers move from the viewpoint of one of the main women to that of one of her servants, friends or family members, or to General Jackson, the President, or other secondary players. This hectic, choppy structure, the many people, and the changes in points of view, all in a relatively short novel for the subject, make it hard to invest in one or several characters and interrupt interesting storylines.

G. J. Berger

THE LIGHT BEFORE DAY

Suzanne Woods Fisher, Revell, 2018, $15.99, pb, 348pp, 9780800721640

Following the death of their grandmother, Hitty and Henry find themselves inheritors of a very large fortune. However, there are extreme strings attached, the most troublesome being the need for them to marry fellow Quakers of

REVIEWS | ISSUE 86, November 2018

good standing within six years. If they don’t, the inheritance will go to their father’s archnemesis, a wicked man who has harmed the family before. Unfortunately for the twins, neither of their love interests meet their grandmother’s requirements. Henry pines after his childhood sweetheart, a teacher too absorbed in her mission against segregation to tend to her Quaker responsibilities, and Hitty longs for a distant widower who is a Baptist.

Does the fortune mean so much to them that they will forsake these youthful crushes? Will their grandmother continue to govern their lives from beyond the grave? Facing challenges within themselves, their love lives, and against the community at large, Hitty and Henry dive into their new lives determined to serve others and best their grandmother at her own game.

Set in the 1800s on Nantucket, The Light Before Day claims a pivotal grand finale, and disparaging consequences. The book concludes with several loose ends, but hopefully there will be a sequel to tie things together.

After finishing this book, many readers, including myself, will be ready for more. Overall The Light Before Day is a cute, feel-good book whose pages turn easily. Anyone looking for a light novel will find satisfaction here.

Alice Cochran

AHAB’S RETURN

Jeffrey Ford, William Morrow, 2018, $26.99/ C$33.50, hb, 272pp, 9780062679000

This story meshes various characters from Herman Melville’s collected works into an adventurous, fast-paced Moby Dick continuation. Stunningly, Ahab has survived the disastrous final voyage of the Pequod and, after some delays, makes his way home. Dismayed to find his wife and son had moved to Manhattan after they heard of his “death” through Ishmael’s written account, he scrambles to find them. Enlisting the help of George Harrow, a serial writer for the penny press newspaper, The Gorgon’s Mirror, Ahab begins a new ill-fated journey that will bring him to battle yet another pale foe.

Melville fans will enjoy the inclusion of the short story character of Bartleby, the Scrivener—among other mentions from his works. Perhaps most curious is a manticore, which may have derived from a passage in Typee. Because of the plethora of literary nods, Melville readers will appreciate the tidbits the most; however, anyone interested in mid-19th century Manhattan will enjoy the historical references and detail. Ethnicity and race issues are a focal point, as well as the upcoming opium epidemic.

The character of Harrow is, without a doubt, the greatest asset of the writing—he is smart, self-deprecating, and wholly honest.

Other characters are less believable, but as the story slips into a more mythological tale, all of the pieces fit together. One issue is the pace—there is non-stop action, and it can be dizzying for readers unaccustomed to thrillers.

Overall, this is a fine tribute to Melville, given the canon-driven detail of the narrative and

the care taken to respectfully further Ahab’s adventures.

Arleigh Ordoyne

A WELL-BEHAVED WOMAN Therese Anne Fowler, St. Martin’s, 2018, $27.99/C$36.50, hb, 400pp, 9781250095473

Alva has one duty: to secure a marriage that will save her family. Though her bloodline traces back to French royalty, her father’s business interests have been left in ruins by the Civil War. As debts mount, a strategic alliance is the only hope for the family’s salvation.

Wooing William K. Vanderbilt is almost too easy – Alva’s family desperately needs cash and security; William’s family, flush with the new wealth of a railroad empire, needs an alliance with a good name to gain entry into society. But once she is married and her family’s future is secure, Alva finds that her life is one ceaseless performance. She must be the doting wife, the dutiful daughter-in-law, the unimpeachable society matron. She is a Vanderbilt – and the society families of New York (and the public) are watching her every move for a misstep.

A la Austen, the narrative’s tension hinges on the next ball, the next afternoon call… until one day, a secret comes to light that forces Alva to look up from her pursuit of approval and dare to pursue a piece of happiness for herself.

Fowler paints Alva Vanderbilt Belmont as a believable and complex character – at times ruthless, at times petty, but always admirable in her single-minded determination to achieve her goals. The woman who would become an object of scandal and a leader of the women’s suffrage movement is first a caring daughter, wife, mother, and friend who maneuvers relentlessly on behalf of those she loves. This is a story about forgiving when forgiveness seems impossible – about risking security to preserve self-respect – and about realizing that however many people you try to please, the only person you can truly please is yourself.

Ann Pedtke

THE WITCH OF WILLOW HALL

Hester Fox, Graydon House, 2018, $15.99, pb, 368pp, 9781525833014 / HQ, 2018, £7.99, pb, 384pp, 9781848457478

Tapping into recent interests in Gothic fiction, Fox’s uneven debut focuses on the middle daughter of a wealthy New England family who doesn’t realize she inherited a talent for witchcraft. As a child in 1812 Boston, Lydia Montrose unsuspectingly calls upon her latent powers to take revenge against a cruel neighbor boy. Nine years later, she and her family are forced to leave the city following rumors of her older sister Catherine’s shocking conduct.

They take up residence in Willow Hall, a large mansion in the distant town of New Oldbury, where her father, investor in a local

mill, hopes to make a fresh start. Lydia is close to her eight-year-old sister Emeline, and while they enjoy wandering the countryside, spiteful Catherine chafes at her forced isolation. As Lydia develops an interest in John Barrett, her father’s handsome business partner, Catherine’s jealousy asserts itself while she simultaneously flirts with John’s friend. Meanwhile, supernatural happenings at Willow Hall, which only Lydia can see, hint at its tragic past.

The story’s premise – a young woman coming to terms with abilities passed down from an accused Salem witch – is a clever one.

Because the scenes focusing on this aspect are particularly strong, they should have been given greater prominence over the romance and toxic family drama. Fox is particularly skilled at conveying the creepy atmosphere when the dead emerge into the world of the living. The secondary characters, including Lydia’s mother and father, feel rather thin, and the early industrial New England setting could have been more sharply evoked through the characters’ actions and dialogue. The Montrose daughters’ attention to social proprieties comes and goes; maybe their odd conduct could be chalked up to lax parenting.

Fans of historical horror may want to read the novel regardless, especially if they enjoyed Louisa Morgan’s A Secret History of Witches.

Sarah Johnson

MURDER IN THE OVAL LIBRARY

C. M. Gleason, Kensington, 2018, $26.00/ C$28.95, hb, 304pp, 9781496710215

Eight hundred feet is all that separates the White House from Confederate troops two days after the firing on Fort Sumter.

With President Lincoln’s safety in jeopardy, Adam Speed Quinn, nephew of the President’s friend Joshua Speed, and Senator Jim Lane bring a contingent of former Jayhawkers from Kansas into the White House to protect him. But the first night this “Frontier Guard” is on watch, there is a brutal murder in the library just outside the President’s bedchamber. As the days tick by and the threat of a Confederate invasion increases, Quinn, with the assistance of would-be journalist Sophie Gates and AfricanAmerican physician George Hilton, must find the murderer among them.

It would have been easy for Gleason to focus only on the murder, but she goes further by providing rich detail about this brief yet fascinating period of the capital’s history. Along the way, readers learn about

the hardships the city’s inhabitants faced as the Rebels cut off supply lines, President Lincoln’s frustration over the failure of Union troops to arrive, the struggles of the free black community, and the inconveniences of navigating life in a corset. Gleason masterfully raises the tension surrounding the murder in tandem with the desperation and fear of the city’s inhabitants, keeping me turning pages well past my bedtime.

Apart from one silly Southern belle who could have been removed without significantly affecting the plot, Murder in the Oval Library clips along without a hitch. This is the second book in Gleason’s Lincoln’s White House Mystery series, but it reads well as a standalone. I have not read the first book in the series, but this novel was such a good time that I intend to track it down. Highly recommended.

Sarah Hendess

UP FROM FREEDOM

Wayne Grady, Doubleday Canada, 2018, $16.95/C$23.00, pb, 368pp, 9780385685115

Drawing on research into his mixedrace family history, which he unexpectedly discovered as an adult, Grady evokes the complicated psychological terrain of antebellum America. He shows how simply living in this time and place forces everyone into a culture built around slavery’s existence, and how denying people agency causes harm regardless of intentions. Opening in 1848, the story follows farmer Virgil Moody as he tries to right a dreadful wrong and awakens to the mindset that prompted his original choice.

Born the son of a Georgia plantation owner, Moody had fled westward with a young enslaved woman, Annie, to save her from a cruel overseer. Along with the child Annie was carrying, they settled first in New Orleans and then along the Rio Brazos in Texas, where slavery had expanded following the recent war with Mexico. Moody abhors slavery, thinking of Annie and her son Lucas as his family, and is shocked to realize they feel differently. When Lucas falls in love with a young woman owned by a neighbor, devastating events occur, spurring Moody across the South and Midwest in search of Lucas.

Across these diverse landscapes and waterways, he encounters many well-realized characters, like a Quaker widow named Rachel and a sympathetic German-born storeowner, Solomon Kästchen, who works with the Underground Railroad. “Indiana is, generally speaking, antislavery, but it is also antislave,” Kästchen tells him, succinctly illustrating people’s complicity in a system they are supposedly against.

Along the way, Moody grows increasingly fond of Tamsey Lewis, a freedwoman he meets along with her family. Their story, both heartrending and inspirational, culminates in a riveting courtroom scene. This is a timely novel about the deep roots of America’s racial divide, strong in the eloquent truth expressed

A publication of the Historical Novel Society | www.historicalnovelsociety.org

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in individual sentences and in its overall storytelling power.

Sarah Johnson

A KNIFE IN THE FOG

Bradley Harper, Seventh Street, 2018, $15.95, pb, 288pp, 9781633884861

Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle is invited to London

by Jonathan Wilkins, an emissary of former British Prime Minister William Gladstone.

Based on Doyle’s recently published Sherlock Holmes short story, “A Study in Scarlet,” Wilkins believes Doyle can be an effective consulting detective and determine the identity of what was then known as the Leather Apron murderer.

After Holmes acknowledges that his inspiration for Holmes is Joseph Bell, Wilkins agrees to include the Edinburgh surgeon and professor in the commission. The two are soon joined by Margaret Harkness, a journalist and novelist who is writing a series of novels about East End poverty under the name John Law. The novel recalls the murders of five women by the perpetrator who takes the name Jack the Ripper, adding keen insights on police work, forensic investigation, and the art of observation in detection. It also describes the murders’ effects on the community, revealing undercurrents of suspicion cast upon Jewish tradesmen who often wore leather aprons, as well as changing attitudes about women and their place in the world.

Unlike historical crime novels that make only passing reference to the period in which they are set, A Knife in the Fog clearly resides in 1888 England. Written as a journal by Doyle, language and cadence are reminiscent of those used by Dr. John Watson in the Holmes’ chronicles. Mannerisms, behavior, and beliefs are true to the times. This is the way Arthur Conan Doyle would write, think, and act.

An incongruous turn toward the end of the book gives one pause, but it is a quibble. A Knife in the Fog breathes Doyle and his era. It is a cut above standard crime fare.

K. M. Sandrick

Misty Urban

A WORLD ON FIRE

James Heneage, Quercus, 2018, £20.99, hb, 369pp, 9781786480187

Did you, as a child, watch scary TV from behind the sofa? This is the lasting reaction I had to this book. It’s not for the squeamish! Set in Greece in 1894, it tells the story of the Greek revolution, emerging from Ottoman rule – a horrifically bloody conflict. The protagonists are feisty Hara, whose character is far too large to be contained in her small corner of the Mani, and who unwillingly becomes the symbol of Greece; and Tzanis, the Prince whom she rescues from a shipwreck and eventually falls in love with – a relationship which can never be realized whilst the conflict plays itself out. The heroism of these two, and supporting characters, against the tragedy that unfolds makes the story strongly action-packed. You see the whole of the European stage, with the great super-powers initially unwilling to stop the conflagration happening in Greece; Hara forms the fulcrum that is used to make them intervene, with tragic consequences for both her and Tzanis, and many around her.

James Heneage’s historical credentials are sound – he’s written about this part of the world a lot. I’m confident that the conflict was just as brutal as he’s portrayed it here. If this were a non-fiction book, the blood dripping from every page could be justified – but I prefer historical fiction that doesn’t give me such a visceral reaction. I think the story would have been better served with less gore; but perhaps if your tolerance for violence is better than mine, you would enjoy it more than I did.

Nicky Moxey

WHEN A DUKE LOVES A WOMAN

ROSARY WITHOUT BEADS

After Gillian Trewlove chases away attackers robbing a man in the alley outside her tavern in Whitechapel and takes the handsome but bleeding stranger upstairs to her flat, she discovers she has saved the life of the Duke of Thornley. Thorne enlists Gillie’s help in finding the bride who left him at the altar, but as the two roam London’s most notorious rookery, they are more drawn to one another than to the mission. Thorne falls for Gillie’s intelligence, generosity, and resourcefulness, but she is the orphan of unknown parents, and he is expected to enlarge the dukedom. It helps in connecting their worlds that Thorne is willing to pitch in behind the bar, and Gillie looks great in a ball gown. With the help of Mick Trewlove and Lady Aslyn—stars of the previous book in the

With no rosary beads, young Ambrosia Salazar must pray with empty fingers.

Ambrosia is a young Catholic girl of Mexican descent living in the turbulent 1870s, where powerful men in Lincoln County, New Mexico, are facing off against each other for land and power. Promised to eventually marry a neighbor, Ambrosia must care for her mentally challenged younger sister because her older sister has run away to a brothel. Ambrosia falls for young William Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, after he arrives at her family’s sheep farm and helps her father with farm chores.

Upon learning he is one of the hired guns in the Lincoln County War, she tries to become involved in Billy’s life and protect him from being killed.

This novel is an interesting concept

Lorraine Heath, Avon, 2018, $7.99/C$9.99, pb, 400pp, 9780062676023

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Sins for All Seasons series—Thorne and Gillie discover they share ideas about class, birth, women’s work, and personal merit that are far more progressive than those generally held in 1871. This sweet and sigh-worthy courtship has charm, a savvy heroine, and a soulful hero that readers will cheer for. Finn Trewlove’s story follows in installment three.

Diana Holguin-Balogh, Five Star, 2018, $25.95, hb, 317pp, 9781432844745

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regarding the life of Billy the Kid. The story centers around young Ambrosia and her family and paints a rather tame picture of the outlaw. Although it’s a fictional account of Billy the Kid while embroiled in the Lincoln County War, the historical references appear accurate.

The author has a masterful command of the era’s social customs: the sheep farming and the conflicts between the Mexicans and Americans living in New Mexico during this time period.

Jeff Westerhoff

BORN TO BE WILDE

Eloisa James, Avon, 2018, $7.99/C$9.99, pb, 384pp, 9780062692474 / Piatkus, 2018, £8.99, pb, 384pp, 9780349417721

Set in the late 1800s, Eloisa James’ new series, The Wildes of Lindow Castle, is addictive. Born to be Wilde features Parth Sterling and Lavinia Gray, who were introduced in earlier books. Despite his connection to the ducal Wildes, Parth is no idle aristocrat. He’s an extraordinarily successful businessman.

Serious and blunt, he has a habit of insulting the “shallow” Miss Gray, who responds in kind, until Lavinia learns that her mother has squandered her dowry, stolen jewels, and is addicted to laudanum. Desperate, Lavinia proposes to Parth. He flatly refuses, then offers to find a wealthy husband for her. Humiliated but undaunted, Lavinia takes a different tack.

Possessing a genius for fashion, she becomes an intermediary between fabric sellers, dressmakers, and ladies of the ton, earning enough to pay back everyone her mother has deceived. Her charm, beauty, and wit captivate Parth, but fashion? Can she make him respect her enterprise, or will he forever see her as a frivolous spendthrift? The relationship develops with refreshing level-headedness as well as a large dose of passion. Eloisa James spins yet another entertaining romance with intelligent protagonists and a wonderful supporting cast.

Sue Asher

RUNAWAY HEIRESS

Syrie James, Avon Impulse, 2018, $6.99/ C$8.50, pb, 400pp, 9780062849670

1888. Alexandra Atherton is a Vassareducated American heiress whose mother is determined she marry an English lord. Since the man chosen is repulsive, she runs away disguised in her maid’s old clothes, but when she is robbed, she finds herself lost in a strange city without identification. Fortunately, she is rescued by an artist, who offers her a position as governess to his two sisters. He turns out to be not plain Mr. Thomas Carlyle, but no less than the Earl of Longford, albeit with a heavily debt-ridden and rundown estate in Cornwall.

Since they are strongly attracted to each other, both physically and intellectually, and since she proves a great success with his sisters and staff, the relationship seems destined to succeed. Longford, however, is outraged when her deception is revealed, and he orders her to leave. Luckily, the silly man realizes his stupidity, dashes after her, and manages to

apologize just as she is setting out to return home.

This is, actually, a charming tale in which both protagonists learn valuable lessons, she about challenges faced by the lower classes and her own resourcefulness, he about thoughtless pride and prejudice. (Yes, they all love the novel.) Warmly recommended.

Ray Thompson

THE IMPOSSIBLE GIRL

Lydia Kang, Lake Union, 2018, $15.99, pb, 364pp, 9781503903388

1850. Jacob has many secrets. For one, Jacob is really a girl named Cora. The other secret was discovered at birth when the doctor discovered a strange anomaly in Cora’s chest—a second heartbeat. Years afterward, moving and changing names, Cora works as a resurrectionist, aka a body snatcher. Unfortunately for her, a new museum is opening. Wanting to compete with P. T. Barnum, the curator seeks grotesque specimens, in particular a girl with two hearts.

The price for bringing in this legendary girl makes Cora the most sought-after person in the state. However, the medical community also seeks unique human specimens for the university. Then, when people with odd maladies begin to die under suspicious circumstances, despite all her years of hiding, Cora fears that a killer may be heading straight for her doorstep.

Setting-wise, it’s easy to see that Kang has done her research. From the medical knowledge of the time to the dirty New York streets and its colorful characters, to the “flash” speak Cora/Jacob employs while working, the book is immersive. Body snatching as Jacob is a dirty business, but Cora lives in more genteel realms. Thus, the places Cora/Jacob comes across are quite varied and captivatingly described. While character movement is largely contained to Manhattan, the setting seems larger than it is. The mystery surrounding the murders is gripping and kept me guessing until the very end. Character-wise, I felt our main characters’ emotional reactions to situations were either underwhelming or over the top, making them a bit hard to connect with.

However, while the characters could use a bit more emotional stability, The Impossible Girl is a well-done macabre historical novel with rich setting details and expressive prose.

J. Lynn Else

EVERYTHING SHE DIDN’T SAY

Jane Kirkpatrick, Revell, 2018, $15.99, pb, 353pp, 9780800727017

Everything She Didn’t Say is unique in that it reads like a memoir within a memoir. The novel is a fictionalization of the life of Carrie Adell Strahorn, a willing wife to a man who became a promoter and developer of the train industry carving through the American West, and a writer/adventurer in her own right. Snippets from Carrie Strahorn’s actual

memoir are endnotes in each chapter. Where the author delves into creativity is in recreating what Carrie’s life could have looked like in a Victorian culture while exploring the untamed West. Carrie’s love for her husband, and her endurance of his visionary gambles, gained her the actual title “Mother of the West,” but the author shows us what that life was like outside of the careful lines written in her published memoir (lauded to acclaim in the early 1900s) and plays up what she might have written, had she had the liberty, in the handwritten notes at the front of each chapter. Told with pluck and realism, this novel gives us a Carrie Strahorn who could defy most modern women’s abilities and reminds readers what bravery looks like when bound by the conventions of environment and culture.

Though I was thrown off a bit by the imagined and real memoirs as a storytelling vehicle, I quickly fell into the story about a woman finding her way in a world where few accommodated her needs or situation. The narrative sometimes reads like a travelogue, but it doesn’t detract from the rich interior life of a heroine whose best accomplishment might have been in thwarting pre-conceived expectations about women in the late 1800s.

Highly recommended.

Kimberly Fish

A SUGGESTION OF SCANDAL

Catherine Kullmann, Willow Books, 2018, £12.99, pb, 392pp, 9781788460552 / also $4.99, ebook, 392pp, 9781788460569

Devonshire in the early 19th century is a quiet place, the peace only broken by a rowdy group of gentlemen racing through the countryside in pursuit of a weekend of pleasure. Sir Julian Loring, leader of the party and heir to Loring Place, is looking forward to a weekend spent in the company of his sister, even if it means tolerating his stepmother. Miss Rosa Fancourt, governess and companion to Miss Loring, is also enthusiastic about a weekend of company to enliven the quiet Loring Place. Amongst charades, cricket, and pleasant company, the two find moments of unexpected companionship. When Miss Fancourt and her charge stumble on a shocking secret, everything changes. Can Sir Julian find the vanished Miss Fancourt, and right the wrongs?

A Suggestion of Scandal is a smooth read; providing laughs and gasps in turns. Readers will enjoy the cool-headed Miss Fancourt, while hoping that Sir Julian puts the pieces of the puzzle together quickly! A host of other loveable and detestable characters keep the entertainment moving through the trials, tribulations, and victories of love.

Anna Bennett

HERESY

Melissa Lenhardt, Redhook, 2018, $15.99, pb, 449pp, 9780316435352

In 1877, Margaret “Garet” Parker, is dying of

cancer, determined to take care of her family, and she’s also done with men underestimating her. Unlike most western women, Garet is an outlaw, robbing banks and stagecoaches, a feat of which men will never believe her capable. This is why she never gets caught.

Together with her crew composed of battered women, they exact revenge on the man who wronged them and stole their livelihood in the first place. When an aspiring novelist is picked up by the gang, the Heresy ranch crew is rife with suspicion: is she really just a writer? In addition to this plot, a rival gang challenges the ladies to a bet; the winner gets the Heresy Ranch.

This novel is certainly about female empowerment; even after the first couple chapters the reader will be convinced that these women can do anything. While the grit and fortitude of these women never come into question, the validity of their background often does. Was it really necessary for each and every one of them to have a traumatic, scarring past? These women may be tough, but it seemed excessive for all of their backgrounds to be inexplicably awful.

This story is written at a gallop, with so many plots overlapping, that the reader will be fully engaged. More than one enemy needs to be conquered in Heresy, and readers will anticipate every solution. Overall, Heresy is a Wild West epic, with heroes that have largely been written out of history. For readers that want to see minorities, of both the west and today, represented with personality, I recommend this book to you.

Alice Cochran

BOUND FOR SIN

Tess LeSue, Berkley Jove, 2018, $7.99/C$10.99, pb, 432pp, 9780451492593

Georgiana Bee Blunt is a widow with four young children, and she needs to reach California to ransom her fifth and oldest.

But when she advertises for a husband, the candidates lack the rugged qualities required to travel two thousand miles over a wagon trail. She needs a man like Matt Slater, who captains wagon trains, but he has no intention of marrying. He does, however, reluctantly agree to pretend to be her fiancé.

She is obviously in trouble, and he has a kindly, protective streak. And she’s beautiful.

Given their mutual attraction, it is no surprise they fall in love, but both have issues, there are hardships and dangers on the trail, and some unpleasant surprises await at the end. The long, slow journey to happiness is not easy.

The author devotes considerable space to details of setting and the thoughts of her characters, and while this does draw the reader into the story, it slows down the plot, at times frustratingly. This will appeal to those looking for not just a happy-ever-after romance for two deserving characters, but a credible account of challenging conditions

A publication of the Historical Novel Society | www.historicalnovelsociety.org

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during the settlement of the American West in 1849.

Ray Thompson

GAMBLING ON FOREVER

Becky Lower, Prairie Rose, 2018, $12.99, pb, 200pp, 9781985633858

Elise Lafontaine is a young woman to be reckoned with—the whip worn around her waist testifies to that. When, in the fall of 1865, she sees two men boarding the Delta Queen riverboat in St. Louis carrying her father’s stolen saddlebag, she immediately boards the boat behind them. Almost turned away because she is an unaccompanied woman, she is brought aboard by a gambler who insists she is his fiancée. Elise and the gambler, James Garnett, travel down river on the Delta Queen for a couple of days then swim ashore before heading to New Orleans to try to intercept the thieves. On the way, they encounter Elise’s four older and highly protective brothers, who take a very dim view of the gambler’s relationship with their sister.

This is a light, easily-read romance with a beautifully detailed historical background.

The Delta Queen is vividly pictured and Elise and James are satisfyingly conflicted as they struggle to develop a relationship while fighting their way through the forest towards New Orleans and confrontation with the thieves. The writer has a light touch and offers the reader humour and plenty of surprises as well as, of course, the romance.

Valerie Adolph

HOW DID I GET HERE?

Jane Marlow, River Grove, 2018, $14.95, pb, 294pp, 9781632991645

In 1854 Russia, young medical student Andrey Rozhdestvensky is struggling with hunger and in great need of clothing and shoes. The government makes medical students an offer: anyone who serves a year on the Crimean front providing medical care will have his final year of medical school waived and become a fully qualified doctor. This is the answer out of Andrey’s poverty-stricken life, but he is in for a rude awakening.

After a grueling trip from Moscow to the Crimea, he is faced with horrible filth and overcrowding. Diseased and wounded soldiers share beds soaked in blood, vomit, and urine.

Many men are lying in filth on the floors. A group of women have been sent to assist, and against all expectation of the doctors, they prove to be very helpful in improving conditions.

Among these women is Maria. She is a plain, large woman who is hard-working and kind, and with a good sense of humor. Andrey sets his sights on one of the attractive nurses and is repulsed by Maria. He reluctantly comes to respect Maria, and they develop a bond and camaraderie. This relationship and the way it unfolds are a delightful part of this book.

This is the second in Marlow’s series of Petrovo books, but it completely stands alone.

The connection between the books is the 32

village of Petrovo. In the first one, Who Is To Blame?, Marlow writes about the dichotomy between the lives of a noble family and the peasants of Petrovo during the time of the serf emancipation. In How Did I Get Here?, Andrey grows up in Petrovo, goes to university in Moscow, and eventually returns to Petrovo after his military service. This is a great addition to the stories around Petrovo, and I am looking forward to another one in Jane Marlow’s series.

Janice Ottersberg

THE NIGHT CROSSING

Robert Masello, 47North, 2018, $24.95, hb, 448pp, 9781503904118

Vampires have been done (forgive me) to death. Which is why Masello’s suspenseful new novel about Bram Stoker is such a welcome offering. In The Night Crossing, we meet Stoker in 1895 as a frustrated writer, desperate for a good story idea. To pay the bills, he works— not unhappily—as the manager of the Lyceum Theater in London. But in rescuing a poor match girl who has thrown herself into the Thames, he finds himself tangled up in the nefarious scheme of the founders of an East End mission house.

Meanwhile, in the Carpathian Mountains, an explorer discovers an ancient golden box.

She brings it home to London, not knowing it contains dangerous powers that the mission house founders will wield to murder thousands.

She, Stoker, and the match girl try to stop the evil spreading through the city before more lives are lost—and in the process, Stoker finds the story inspiration he needs.

Told in short, punchy chapters with nary a vampire in sight, The Night Crossing vividly describes the Victorian London in which Egyptomania reigned, where the wealthy elite entertained their dinner guests by unwrapping a mummy after dessert. The novel has a few faults. Either third-person omniscient viewpoint or third-person limited would have worked for this story if Masello had but picked one. Additionally, the book calls for a good sweeping up of its liberal passive voice, and the storylines of a couple minor characters go unresolved. But Masello has woven such an enjoyable, at times downright scary, tale that most readers should be able to forgive these small shortcomings. I recommend curling up with this book on a crisp fall night, preferably with the wind howling outside.

Sarah Hendess

MARILLA OF GREEN GABLES

Sarah McCoy, William Morrow, 2018, $26.99/ C$33.50, hb, 320pp, 9780062697714

The story opens with an aging Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert deciding to adopt an orphan boy to help around the farm—and fans of Anne Shirley all know what happens next. McCoy makes these beloved characters distinctly her own in this charming return to the world of Avonlea, creating a deep and touching history for the practical, no-nonsense

REVIEWS | ISSUE 86, November 2018

spinster of L.M. Montgomery’s famed series.

Beginning as a sensible girl of 13 who is slowly won over by her independent, unmarried Aunt Izzy, Marilla matures quickly when new responsibilities are thrust on her with the death of her mother. While Marilla learns to follow her conscience as she encounters the world outside her treasured Prince Edward Island, McCoy also creates a compelling history for her companions, among them Rachel White (later Lynde); John Blythe, the farmer’s son, full of impudent charm and wisdom; and sweet, steady Matthew Cuthbert, Marilla’s loyal and devoted brother. By the concluding chapters, in 1860, Marilla is set in her ways, but those ways have made her a woman of integrity and kindness who will risk her own safety for love and justice.

McCoy imagines her Marilla as quietly aware of the deeper political currents surrounding her, but bound to her time and place by heartbreak, courage, duty, and choice. The details of rural life are vividly portrayed, and descriptions of settings are luscious enough to melt in the mouth. Moreover, McCoy’s Marilla is more in tune with modern sentiments about race, class, and social equality than the Anne books now are. This loving homage and poignant reinvention should be welcomed into the canon by long-time fans and powerful enough to draw new readers into the timeless and cherished stories of Anne and Avonlea.

Misty Urban

GYPSY ROCK

Robert D. McKee, Five Star, 2018, $25.95, hb, 290pp, 978143284083

In 1892, a small group of Gypsies settles near the central Wyoming town of Casper.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Hugo Dorling and his sidekick, young rancher Billy Young, are investigating the murder of an elderly Gypsy woman who is shot on her way from Casper to Gypsy Rock, where the community is camped.

The two men capture Ben O’Dell, identified by a local woman as the killer. After a trial where the witness fails to appear, O’Dell is released.

The citizens of Casper meet and decide to attack the Gypsy camp, to try and force them to move on. The leaders resolve to hold their ground and defend themselves.

In this western with a twist, McKee writes about a group other than African Americans or Native Americans about whom prejudice continues to exist in the 19th century. Tension builds throughout the story between the people of Casper and the Gypsies, until the final chapters when the townspeople must choose between the marshal’s investigation of the murder and following those who wish to destroy the camp. The steady unraveling of the plot is genuinely exciting.

Jeff Westerhoff

SHE WOULD BE KING

Wayétu Moore, Graywolf, 2018, $26.00, hb, 312pp, 9781555978174

Though her mother delayed as much as

she could, Gbessa is born on the day that Ol’ Ma Nyanpoo’s house collapses upon and kills her because she had beaten to death a cat, considered sacred by the residents of the West African village of Lai. Gbessa consequently is cursed by town elders.

June Dey stands against the master and others from the Emerson plantation in Virginia after his mother is killed, his body withstanding fusillades of rifle fire. But he is not dead; he is just born. Eighteen-year-old Callum Aragon inherits from his mother, a Maroon slave from Jamaica, the ability to vanish from sight at will.

He hides in the forest, often blending with the earth, after his mother dies and his British father’s house is burned to the ground.

The three travel to and meet in Monrovia, before the nation of Liberia is founded.

Together, they make use of their abilities as former slaves and other African Americans work with and sometimes against indigenous tribes to create a homeland.

She Would Be King combines history and magical realism to confront and untangle reality and find the mystical that lies beneath.

The language is lyrical, allowing readers to hear snippets of music as they read. The narrative is sometimes jarring, especially to a reader like me. A long-time journalist, I seek and relish facts, their logical progression, and their consequences. But I was reminded recently of a review by Chicago Sun-Times movie critic Roger Ebert. “With so much beauty and action,” he wrote of one movie, “who needs logic?” Indeed.

K. M. Sandrick

THE MEREST LOSS

Steven Neil, Matador, 2017, £8.99, pb, 369pp, 9781788039710

The Merest Loss is a novel set in Victorian England about Harriet Howard, mistress of the Emperor Louis Napoleon III. What a cracking subject: the Cinderella tale of a girl who climbs the ladder socially and is used by the intelligence services of the day to snare an emperor, with devastating consequences for herself and her family. And yet she rises above it all, in a way, to triumph.

Woven into this tale is the story of a jockey and the life of the Turf, all of it researched and so engaging.

This novel is clearly well-researched and the story about Harriet is highly unusual, so worth a look. There is a large cast of characters and much to learn about Louis, who had such an impact on France.

This is well-written, but the construction and pace, and above all, the shift from point of view, and so many points of view, makes it hard to engage as the story unfolds. The list of characters at the start gives you a clue as to how complex the book might be—and it is. A great subject, a good command of language, but the reader may get lost at times.

Jeffrey Manton

THE HEIRESS HE’S BEEN WAITING FOR

Kaitlin O’Riley, Zebra, 2018, $7.99, pb, 311pp, 9781420144635

In 1894 New York, Sara Fleming has fallen in love—with a man her wealthy parents believe to be an unworthy fortune-hunter. So they drag Sara to visit their family in England to forget him. Although furious with her parents, she is delighted to meet all her aunts and cousins—actually, anyone would be, as the extended Hamilton clan is charming. All the sisters have married into the nobility and run a chain of very successful bookstores.

Despite herself, Sara’s having a fine time during the London Season, especially when she decides to pretend her father has lost all his money and she’s not an heiress anymore.

This is unfortunate, as the Earl of Bridgeton falls madly in love with Sara, but he can’t afford to marry anything but an heiress, no matter how much he loves the American NotHeiress… and then Sara’s New York flame, who is a fortune hunter, and his avaricious mistress show up in London, and the real fireworks start. (Balls, elopements, delicious teas, an adorable small dog….)

As a historical novel, it’s rather silly. But as a historical romance, it’s excellent, with a tight plot, likable characters, and just enough twists in the tale to keep it very enjoyable.

India Edghill

THE WAY OF ALL FLESH

Ambrose Parry, HarperCollins Canada, 2018, C$22.99, pb, 407pp, 9781443457200 / Canongate, 2018, £14.99/$26.00, hb, 416pp, 9781786893789

Edinburgh, 1847. Will Raven, a young obstetrician, cannot believe his good luck.

He has beat out the competition and joined the practice of Dr. James Simpson, surgeon to royalty and m e d i c a l experimenter extraordinaire.

Soon, Raven accompanies the famous man on his rounds, but his happiness does not remain undimmed. His mistress is murdered, and before he can uncover the circumstances of her death, other women—their faces twisted and their bodies contorted—are found dead in the poorer parts of the Scottish capital.

Raven is aware that medically speaking, he is living through great times; the discovery of chloroform is about to make ether obsolete, and childbirth less dangerous and agonizing. However, the shadow of a cruel serial killer threatens to extinguish the light of medical progress, and Raven must discover

who is murdering the women he strives to save. Luckily, Sarah Fisher, Dr. Simpson’s housemaid and a self-taught healer, supports his endeavor. Together, they hunt the villain who seeks to revert the course of modern medical science.

An atmospheric mystery set in the heart of Victorian Scotland, The Way of All Flesh will please the discerning reader. The period detail is beautifully fleshed out and 19th-century Edinburgh vividly described. The descriptions of taverns and brothels, mansions and hovels, physicians’ practices and apothecaries, are compelling; since the doctor’s home forms the center of the story, this novel might be considered to stand in the tradition of gothic fiction. The good protagonists are as loveable, the rogues as hateful as they should be in a work of nostalgic detective fiction. Highly recommended.

Elisabeth Lenckos

CAPTAIN SWING AND THE BLACKSMITH

Beatrice Parvin, Troubador, 2018, £9.99, pb, 364 pp, 9781788035293

Since 1830, threatening letters signed Captain Swing have incited agricultural workers to rebel against landowners for implementing work-saving inventions, particularly the threshers that have put so many out of work and sent thousands to the spike: dark, crowded workhouses that serve as repositories for the poor.

In Captain Swing and the Blacksmith, Parvin takes the reader into the dingy, exhausting world of working-class 1840s England, where seamstress and laundress Susan Trindall dreams of one day owning a market stall and selling the buttons she finds on the street. But when she falls for the handsome blacksmith Jack Straker and makes an ill-advised (if understandable) decision, she is disgraced.

Her father, who signs his letters Captain Swing, banishes her into a life of poverty and homelessness. Fueled by desperation, unrequited love, and a stubborn (if, again, understandable) quest for revenge, she begins her years-long struggle to survive.

From the workers’ uprising to the perilous world of a seventeen-year-old social outcast, to the Andover Workhouse, Parvin characterizes Salisbury Plain with harsh, sometimes gruesome, detail. Her depiction of the spike, whose deplorable conditions smack of starvation and torture, sent me to the library. In investigating the Swing Riots of 1830 and reading George Orwell’s account of a night he spent in a workhouse (“The Spike”), I realized that Parvin’s description was on point.

Her debut novel, though driven by an obsessive love, is no romance; and while a character finds redemption, it is no parable.

Rather, it is a portrait of a time. Evocative of a mean age, Captain Swing and the Blacksmith is both riveting and relevant. Recommended.

Rebecca Kightlinger

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DARK TIDE RISING

Anne Perry, Ballantine, 2018, $28.00/C$37.00, hb, 304pp, 9780399179914 / Headline, 2018, £8.99, pb, 352pp, 9781472234209

Dark Tide Rising is Anne Perry’s 24th title in her William Monk series set in Victorian London. This time around, Commander Monk of the Thames River police accompanies wealthy real estate developer Harry Exeter to Jacob’s Island, the watery site of London’s worst slum, where Harry’s wife, Kate, is being held for ransom. When the secret exchange of money for Kate turns deadly, Monk fears one of the five subordinates who accompanied him to the island alerted the kidnappers to his carefully laid, but dangerous, plans. Haunted by the possibility of betrayal by one of his own men, Monk investigates their backgrounds while hunting a cold-blooded killer.

A feeling of loneliness lies at the heart of this story, personified by Monk’s right-hand man, John Hooper, who, unbeknownst to Monk, is hiding a secret that could see him hanged, even as he tentatively questions Kate’s cousin, Celia Darwin, the solitary woman who adored Kate—or did she? Perry’s descriptions of Jacob’s Island, an abandoned, filthy slum, are chilling and lovely, echoing her themes of melancholy and loss. Fans of the series will enjoy appearances by Monk’s wife, Hester, and his friend and attorney, Sir Oliver Rathbone, among others.

In addition to the Monk series, Perry is the author of the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels (with a new series featuring their son, Daniel), five WWI novels, sixteen holiday novels, and a historical novel set in the Ottoman Empire.

Alana White

THE CORSET(UK) / THE POISON THREAD (US)

Laura Purcell, Raven Books, 2018, £12.99, hb, 304pp, 9781408889619 / Penguin, 2019, $16.00, pb, 320pp, 9780143134053

This Victorian gothic tale, about two very different women whose lives intertwine, narrates the story of seamstress, Ruth, imprisoned for horrific murders, and respectable Dorothea, a prison visitor and phrenologist who, the more she listens to Ruth’s story, starts to question aspects of her own life. Since childhood Ruth has been bullied.

Her once wealthy mother has to deal with a different life after marrying a penniless painter.

Still she sends Ruth to a good school, where she is bullied relentlessly, attacked, kicked and beaten, one time breaking her corset.

The only gift Ruth has is the ability to do incredibly detailed, delicate needlework. To her this is a special power that she can use to exact revenge on those who have wronged her, stitching something into clothing that transfers to those who wear it. Meanwhile, Dorothea dreams of marrying her handsome policeman, against her father’s wishes. She sees herself as an academic and scientist, and Ruth is one of her case studies. Slowly, the tables turn.

The book drips with scenes of gothic horror 34

and quiet menace. There are moments that are truly creepy and intense, heightened by the ambiguity of the two sides to the story.

The chapters alternate between Dorothea’s scientific, rational approach and Ruth’s suggestion of something more supernatural.

The language used is beautiful throughout.

The different voices of the two women draw you deeply into both their worlds and the shifts in the prose depict the changes in their thoughts and behaviour patterns, as their stories shift and change.

The Corset combines class envy with sexual repression and social history. Purcell writes beautifully, drawing the reader into the dark, gothic landscape of Victorian England. A highly recommended read.

Linda Sever

ONCE A SCOUNDREL

Mary Jo Putney, Zebra, 2018, $7.99/C$8.99, pb, 315pp, 9781420140965

1814. Lady Aurora Octavia Lawrence, aka Roaring Rory, a dismayingly independent adventurer, is captured by Barbary pirates, with the promise of a lifetime as a harem slave unless her parents ransom her, and her cousin Constance, at the cost of fifty thousand pounds.

Disgraced and disowned former British Navy officer, Gabriel Hawkins, has made a name for himself as a captain willing to do things that are less than legal. His captured ship Zephyr has brought him wealth and standing as a capable, yet dangerous man. A British spymaster offers Gabriel the mission to rescue Rory; on seeing her portrait, he knows he cannot abandon her. Arriving in Algiers, Gabriel realizes the pirate holding Rory, is the man who held Gabriel as a slave.

With a plot that is tense and comedic by turns, Putney’s backstory of the Barbary pirates is given a fresh look here. Her deft touch had me believe the love-at-first-sight subplot. In all, Once a Scoundrel is a rousing tale of courage bringing success to both the good guys and the not-so-good-guys-who-were-forced-tobe-bad-guys-for-a-reason. Fun. Monica E. Spence

A GENTLEMAN NEVER KEEPS SCORE

Cat Sebastian, Avon Impulse, 2018, $5.99, pb, 320pp, 9780062821584

An interracial gay Regency romance (fun to say at parties), A Gentleman Never Keeps Score is the second in the Seducing the Sedgwicks series but stands on its own. Hartley Sedgwick spent his late teens as the life of the libertine society party. While it cost him dignity and selfrespect, it gained his brothers the advantages that only money can buy. Now his patron is dead, and he has inherited the fashionable mansion, but he has been exposed as a sodomite. Sam Fox, a black ex-boxer turned pub owner, doesn’t exist in the same sphere as Hartley. When his brother’s lover confesses she

REVIEWS | ISSUE 86, November 2018

had posed nude for money, Sam vows to help.

His search takes him to the mansion, where he finds Hartley. The paintings were gone when he inherited the place, but he teams up with Fox to recover them. Along the way, despite the differences of race and class, these two men, one exposed and one deeply hidden, find a tender, full love. The challenges for these two men may sound insurmountable, but Sebastian leads the reader down a path where no obstacle—bigotry from the outside or selfloathing from the inside—can stand in the way of real love.

Katie Stine

THE COURT DANCER

Kyung-Sook Shin (trans. Anton Hur), Pegasus, 2018, $25.95/C$34.95, hb, 364pp, 9781681777870

In 1891 a young French diplomat, on his first trip to the Korean imperial palace, sees a beautiful court lady as he makes his way to his audience with the king. Forgetting protocol, entranced by her loveliness, Victor greets the woman in his native French.

She, surprisingly, replies “bonjour,” and Victor falls in love. The woman, one of the Queen’s attendants, is also a renowned court dancer. When Victor sees her next at an official banquet, she performs the Dance of the Spring Oriole, and Victor again forgets himself. All ladies of the Korean court belong to the king but, due to a series of extraordinary circumstances, Jin becomes Victor’s lover and accompanies him to Paris.

Jin’s childhood, her life at the court and later life with Victor in Paris, and her eventual return to Korea play out against the tale of the Korean Joseon dynasty as it struggles to maintain power and independence amidst squabbling international powers. Kyung-Sook Shin weaves an entrancing and emotional story as Yi Jin moves among these different worlds. She is first known as Baby, then later the Lady Attendant Suh. The King gives her the personal name Yi Jin only when she leaves for France with Victor. But who is Yi Jin, really? A dancer? A translator? A Korean court lady? A woman of Paris?

This book, based on a true and little-known incident in Korean history, is a fascinating and lyrical portrayal of a woman and a country at the crossroads of history. Beautifully and evocatively written, the moving and ultimately tragic story of Yi Jin’s life resonates like the melodic sound of the Korean flute and lingers hauntingly in your mind. Highly recommended.

Susan McDuffie

WHAT’S LEFT OF THE NIGHT

Ersi Sotiropoulos (trans. Karen Emmerich), New Vessel, 2018, $16.95/C$24.50, pb, 253pp, 9781939931610

This biographical novel takes place during a trip to Paris in the young life of Constantine Cavafy, the Greek poet credited as C. P. Cavafy. We follow the young man as he suffers through conversations with Mardaras, a Parisian society know-it-all, and mulls over poetry with his brother John, his travel companion.

While set against the controversy of the Dreyfus Affair, the narrative drops in other realworld people, such as Emile Zola and Marcel Proust, to give a concrete historical reference.

The reader gets the sense of the languishing days for ambitious, new writers: afternoons spent at cafés, evenings spent trying to be noticed, nights spent scribbling. It is the nights in which we experience the lyrical portions of this novel. Some scenes are hallucinatory, blending reality and dreamscapes, often revolving around an object of desire. As a gay man, Cavafy still has to be careful with his “assignations,” and he keeps his desires to himself. They instead become the fuel of his dreams, these obsessive, solipsistic lyric episodes.

Biographical fiction is a challenge, as lives do not follow a narrative arc. Using lyricism, especially while describing the life of a poet, is a clever way to structure a coming-of-artist story. The café scenes are quite vivid, and there is an excellent feeling of being in the historical moment. Unfortunately, this reader had a hard time engaging with the close point of view of a narcissistic young man. The book is well written, and as it nears the end, the narrative becomes increasingly strange, which is interesting, but not precisely gripping.

Overall, What’s Left of the Night feels like a tip of the hat to writers like Proust, while illuminating the beginnings of the poet Cavafy.

Katie Stine

DANGEROUS

Minerva Spencer, Zebra, 2018, C$8.99, pb, 360pp, 9781420147193

encounters to love. But will their precarious relationship survive when secrets are revealed?

Since this is a Regency romance, the answer is a resounding yes, and the uncertain progress of their attachment makes entertaining reading. Mia is a particularly endearing heroine, and Adam more caring than he likes others to suspect. The last section of the novel shifts to high adventure as they set off on an expedition to rescue her son, who has been imprisoned by the new sultan. Recommended, despite the implausibility.

Ray Thompson

LADY HELENA INVESTIGATES

Jane Steen, Aspidistra Press, 2018, $2.49, ebook, 402pp, B079SMGC7S

The sleepy town of Littleberry, Sussex at the end of the 19th century is as expected: suspicious of the mysterious and handsome French physician Armand Fortier, with lower classes struggling to move up through tenant farming and self-education, and brothers determined to manage their wealthy, widowed sisters’ estates. Working to keep such a brother at bay, Lady Helena is still reeling from the unexpected loss of her husband, Sir Justin, when she receives Dr. Fortier’s startling insistence that Sir Justin did not perish accidentally. Although she denies it initially, Lady Helena soon becomes embroiled in a tangled skein of mourning, motives, and misinformation.

In a seeming domino effect, mysteries come out of the woodwork under the gentle hands of Lady Helena as she attempts to find truth amidst a suicide, local gossip, the ravings of a fevered and fallen tenant, and her own family secrets. All the while, Steen artfully weaves in contemporary social and political issues, including the development and eventual passage of the Married Women’s Property Act of 1882, the infantilization of women in Victorian England, and the role of disabilities in their male counterparts. Lady Helena Investigates is a well-rounded story that readers from all backgrounds can appreciate.

Anna Bennett

$7.99/

The first book of this new Outcasts series throws together two outcasts from polite society. Both have secrets: Lady Euphemia Marlington (Mia) was captured by corsairs, sold into a harem, and has a son by the sultan; Adam de Courtney, Marquess of Exley, is blamed for the death of his first two wives, hides his three daughters away from society, and worries that madness runs in the family. But since Mia’s father insists she marry immediately, Adam wants a male heir, and other prospects are unappealing, they agree on a marriage of convenience.

She is sensual and emotional, he haughty and distant, but despite the unpromising circumstances, their initial physical attraction rapidly progresses from frequent lustful

DRACUL

Dacre Stoker and J. D. Barker, Putnam, 2018, $27.00/C$36.00, hb, 493pp, 9780735219342

Bram Stoker, original author of the classic horror story, Dracula, submitted his manuscript to a London publisher in 1897 claiming everything in the book was true.

Because fear of Jack the Ripper was still rampant at the time, the publisher omitted Stoker’s claim, and the first 100 pages of the submission, in the printed final book. In Dracul, Stoker’s great-grandnephew, Dacre Stoker, with apparent access to the original notes, presents the missing story and prequel to the original vampire classic. How cool and enticing is that to draw readers’ interest?

Bram is a sickly boy growing up in a northern suburb of Dublin, Ireland, the vaunted

medieval battle site, Clontarf.

Amidst a middle class family, his young nanny, Ellen, seems his only solace and savior.

After a near-death experience, Ellen rescues Bram from medical quackery and then disappears.

Suddenly, high strangeness, grisly murders and seemingly supernatural events occur. Bram and two siblings, a brother and sister, along with a carefully selected and sagacious gentleman ally, trek across Ireland, Britain, and the continent to find Ellen. A mysterious and monstrous figure seems to be masterminding all of the events, which are eventually revealed in the action-filled and exciting climax.

I’m not a big horror fan, but this superbly crafted and well researched book drew me in completely. Though relatively long, there are no slow parts as the suspenseful terror builds over time. As with all books of the genre, there are graphic and hideous scenes, but they are presented here with none of the gratuitous “slasher” type violence of more recent vampire books and movies. And, surprisingly, there is an unlikely but entrancing love story in the mix. Dracul is authentic and classic gothic horror which is guaranteed to be a publishing and film success. Vampire fans will love it.

Thomas J. Howley

BLOOD IS BLOOD

Will Thomas, Minotaur, 2018, $27.99/C$36.50, hb, 320pp, 9781250170385

Private Enquiry Agent Thomas Llewelyn is on the trail of someone who has bombed his office and injured his associate and boss, Cyrus Barker. Bedridden, Cyrus instructs Llewelyn to make a list of possible suspects, thereby creating an “enemies list.” To complicate matters, Cyrus’s brother, who Cyrus has not seen in years, arrives in London.

Since his brother has experience in crimesolving techniques with the Pinkerton Agency in the United States, Cyrus orders Llewelyn to work with him in finding the potential killer or killers. An important event is on the horizon for Llewelyn: he plans to marry soon, and his bride-to-be does not like his work because of the danger involved. She soon learns how dangerous his work is and how it can affect those he loves.

I’ve read other Barker & Llewelyn mysteries, and this novel met my fondest expectations.

This detective duo remains among my favorite crime-solvers, primarily because of the interesting characters the author creates.

He puts his leading characters into harm’s way throughout his novels and manages to provide an exciting but unexpected conclusion. His supporting characters are three-dimensional, and he writes in a fast-paced and gripping style

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that is genuinely exciting. I highly recommend this Victorian mystery novel.

Jeff Westerhoff

BRITANNIA’S GAMBLE

Antoine Vanner, Old Salt Press, 2017, $11.99/£7.49, pb, 319pp, 9781943404186

Some authors have so researched their period that they seem to live the events, the surroundings, the details they describe.

Antoine Vanner is one of these. He breathes such life into his narrative that you could think him a correspondent in 1880s Sudan writing what he sees, rather than a man of today looking back.

Britannia’s Gamble is the 6th book in Vanner’s series featuring Nicholas Dawlish. Dawlish is captain of Leonidas, a Royal Navy vessel ordered to the Sudan to support the British army in suppressing a rebellion. The opening chapter is a tour de force, leaving this reader emotionally exhausted after surviving nailbiting action as wave after wave of insurgents attacks the British formations. After such an opening, an author has a lot to live up to, but Vanner does so with aplomb, guiding the reader through the political complexities of the time while generously lacing his narrative with period detail.

Captain Dawlish finds himself spending far too much time in the Sudan, commanding a desperate rescue operation that more than explains the title of the book. It is tense, gripping action at its best, enhanced by the sympathetic and introspective Nicholas Dawlish. Vanner does not shy from the brutalities of war: some descriptions are so harrowing I had to take the odd moment before I could go on. But go on I found I must, desperate to know how this fantastic adventure would end.

Anna Belfrage

BORN TO THE BADGE

Mark Warren, Five Star, 2018, $25.95, hb, 258pp, 978142848842

The Kansas years forged Wyatt Earp’s career as a lawman, though it took a while for the idea to overcome his daydreams of riches. He and his horse traveled nearly 3000 miles through the heartland of America as he tried his hand as a railroad detective, gold field entrepreneur, and his fall-back position of faro game dealer and gambler. Yet his fearless nature and strict moral code as a deputy, marshal, or sheriff endeared him to (most of) the townsfolk of Ellsworth, Wichita, and Dodge City. When he meets Doc Holliday during one of those side trips, the unlikely friendship turns both their lives around.

Book Two of Mark Warren’s trilogy continues his look at an Old West legend. Thus the success of this biographical western novel leans heavily on how Warren weaves dialogue and action into the tale. My review of Book One (Adobe Moon, HNR 82) called it “lyrical and philosophical,” and Book Two retains 36

that; my only criticism is that the lyricism relies so heavily on metaphors and similes as to lead readers into sometimes feeling like they are slogging along a muddy trail. Still, fans will look forward to the conclusion in Tombstone.

Tom Vallar

ESCAPEMENT

Kristen Wolf, Pixeltry, 2018, $14.95, pb, 533pp, 9780999610305

Henri Worth admits to being “a fool for Beauty. A ferocious connoisseur.” She is a cross-dressing housekeeper to composer Cristofer Vaughn in 19th-century Europe, during the period when two schools of music clashed: followers of Bach and Handel versus the adherents of Wagner and Liszt. Henri is a composer herself, but one handicapped by an era when women composers are not socially acceptable; she sometimes lets Cristofer incorporate her work into his.

One day she accompanies Cristofer to a diplomat’s house so that he can play on a piano which had belonged to Beethoven.

Henri is instantly smitten by gorgeous Ava, the diplomat’s wife, who overhears Henri playing her own compositions, and asks Henri to be her music teacher. The two begin a clandestine affair. Henri becomes torn between her love for Ava, wanting to support Cristofer (to whom she owes her life), and an offer by a mysterious count to be Henri’s “front man,” an arrangement which would let her compositions be heard while staying out of the public eye.

Don’t let the novel’s length deter you; the print version is double-spaced. The book contains some beautiful language: “There are those, Henri, who are born possessing a lantern inside their soul. Whose capacity for light is receptive to Creation itself. And it is Creation that compels such souls to give body to what they feel and see and hear…” And yet there are a few passages that come across as stilted: “Nowhere did I catch sight of her proud silhouette.”

The reader will feel for a woman in Henri’s position, suppressing both her musical abilities and her love for another female. Some may be disappointed at the partially ambiguous ending, but I found it an interesting exploration of the world of classical music, forbidden love, and repressed emotion.

B.J. Sedlock

NEMESIS: A Novel of Old California

Joe Yogerst, Blank Slate, 2018, $16.95, pb, 396pp, 9781943075508

San Diego in 1888 was a boom town with businessmen scrambling to snatch up cheap land and profit off the city’s expansion. And Nicholas Pinder, an overly ambitious reporter for the San Diego Times, wants to make his mark. When a mysterious killer begins murdering some of San Diego’s richest and most powerful men in unusual ways, the big

REVIEWS | ISSUE 86, November 2018

story Nick’s been waiting for has arrived. But in order to snag the interview of a lifetime, he’ll have to find the killer before his former best friend Marshal Cradoc Bradshaw does.

In Nemesis, prolific travel writer Joe Yogerst turns to historical fiction—a move all readers should celebrate. Nemesis is a delightful romp, set in one of the Old West’s less-famous boom towns. It’s a gritty Western with a hefty dash of thriller as the story speeds toward an explosive climax without a single dragging scene. He deftly weaves in nuances of the period through his characters’ experiences, particularly their amazement at the new telephones being installed around town. Adding to the sense of the period, he incorporates real figures from old San Diego, such as developer Alonzo Horton and Wyatt Earp.

My criticisms of this book are minor. While Yogerst skillfully set me in the time period, he less effectively set me in the place. He left me wanting to know what San Diego in 1888 looked, sounded, and smelled like. Also, his use of omniscient viewpoint is distracting.

His tendency to jump into a minor character’s head in the middle of a main character’s scene pulled me back and reminded me that I was reading a book rather than living the story.

But these small faults are overshadowed by everything Yogerst gets right. This book should have wide appeal even to readers who aren’t fans of historical fiction.

Sarah Hendess

HARD RIDE ACROSS TEXAS

Michael Zimmer, Five Star, 2018, $25.95, hb, 346pp, 9781432847074

Gage Pardell, at nineteen, is out looking for revenge for Henry Kalb’s attempt to molest his sister at a local dance in Shelburn, Texas. He seeks the justice that wasn’t received in court.

Accidently shooting Kalb in self-defense, Gage is now on the run from bounty hunters. He decides to ride into West Texas to find and stay with his Uncle Abran. After locating his uncle, Gage is hired as a mule team wagoner, carrying buffalo hides further west to Jollytown. While on the buffalo range, Gage must still defend himself against bounty hunters. He realizes he must return home to East Texas sometime and support his self-defense plea rather than spend his life on the run.

The author has written several awardwinning western novels, and this story will certainly not disappoint Michael Zimmer fans.

His knowledge of western lore has captivated readers for several years. His characters come to life on the page, and the action is fastpaced. He has an excellent way of setting the scenes that provides a broad description of each locale. I always look forward to Mr. Zimmer’s next novel.

Jeff Westerhoff

20TH CENTURY

FRIEDA: A Novel of the Real Lady Chatterley

Annabel Abbs, Hachette Australia, 2018, A$32.99, pb, 371pp, 9780733640117 / Two Roads, 2018, £12.99, pb, 384pp, 9781473691209

In her first novel, The Joyce Girl, Annabel Abbs explored life in the shadows of literary fame. In her second, we are again in the sphere of early 20th-century literature, but with a very different protagonist who left her echoes in the often controversial works of D. H. Lawrence.

She is Baroness Frieda von Richthofen who, for reasons that seem baffling in the light of what transpires, marries the dull Englishman, Ernest Weekley. For thirteen years Frieda is content with the duties of respectable wife and mother in humdrum Nottingham. Then, while on a visit to her sister Elizabeth, her eyes are opened by the social revolution erupting in Germany. Frieda takes a lover, Otto Gross, a creative psychoanalyst whose radical ideas change her completely. She returns to England and horrifies Ernest with her “distinct disdain for decent behaviour.” She abandons her corsets, refuses to go to church and even allows herself to be seen about with single men. When Frieda meets the struggling young author, D. H. Lawrence, there is an immediate connection between them of both mind and body, but the price she will pay for her desire and liberation is forced separation from her children and years of heartbreak.

Frieda is an extraordinary woman who incites remarkable passions in the men who love her. One has some sympathy for Ernest as he teeters on the edge of insanity, and Lawrence’s ambivalent behaviour and questionable sexual orientation add layers of complexity. And then there are her children, who inevitably suffer from their parents’ fractured relationship.

For anyone dubious as to whether the text will mirror Lady Chatterley’s Lover, while there are some frank passages, there is nothing tawdry or salacious here, and the narrative is both skilful and restrained throughout.

Another absolutely superb novel from Annabel Abbs.

Marina Maxwell

TRANSCRIPTION

Kate Atkinson, Doubleday, 2018, £20.00, hb, 358pp, 9780857525888 / Little, Brown, 2018, $28.00, hb, 352pp, 9780316176637

Another entertaining historical novel from Kate Atkinson, set mostly in London in the early years of the Second World War. The main protagonist is Juliet Armstrong,

an orphan employed by MI5, the Security Service. She transcribes recordings of the meetings of German sympathisers that are setup and run by MI5 in London, typing up the mostly banal conversations of these lowlevel traitors. Her intelligence and capabilities are soon acknowledged, however, and she is given additional responsibilities, including infiltrating one of the pro-German networks as a somewhat ingenuous fascist supporter.

Despite the subject matter, the tone is one of humour and farce. Juliet is well-read and has a sense of the absurd and ludicrous, which she constantly meets both in MI5 and amongst the fifth columnists; she abhors the use of lazy metaphors. At times, however, she is curiously naïve, and in some respects the reader seems to be a little ahead of her in understanding what is going on around her. But then, and without giving it away, at the close of events the reader is made to feel rather obtuse by a surprising dénouement, which, in retrospect, does rather make sense of some of the oddities one encounters along the way. But I’m not greatly enamoured of this kind of authorial dexterity, which pulls the rug out from under one’s feet and compels you to re-examine all that has gone on before in the narrative.

The story is told with the author’s familiar zest, with the signature humorous bracketed modifiers that comment on the action – almost like a contemporary Anthony Trollope.

The story is an amalgam of historical fact and fiction, which Kate Atkinson freely admits to having concocted in an afterword, “I’m only stating this to prevent people claiming that I got something wrong…I did get a little obsessed – unhealthily – about the nature of historical fiction”.

Douglas Kemp

A RESPECTABLE WOMAN

Susanna Bavin, Allison & Busby, 2018, £19.99, hb, 448pp, 9780749021290

Lancashire in the early 1920s, and Nell struggles to make a living for herself after losing her family in the Great War. When she meets and marries Stan Hibbert, believing herself to be fortunate to find a single, eligible man, amongst the ocean of spinsters looking for one of the few surviving members of the species, it seems that her worries are behind her. But she is quickly disillusioned by the drab and impoverished life she leads. Discovering Stan’s infidelity is the final straw, and she takes the opportunity to leave him, taking their children with her. In Manchester she claims to be a widow and finds a measure of stability and happiness in work, even though it is a constant struggle as a single mother to make ends meet. But then the past catches up with her, making life very difficult, but Nell is very much up for the battle.

Nell’s world seems to be filled with either saintly heroes or vicious villains – there doesn’t seem to be much room for the more typical average sort of human. A Respectable Woman is an entertaining story, with good plotting

and pace, set firmly in the relentlessly grim English northern industrial heartland.

Douglas Kemp

THE SECOND RIDER

Alex Beer (trans. Tim Mohr), Europa, 2018, $17.00/C$22.00, pb, 336pp, 9781609454722

In 1919, postWorld War One Vienna is a shell of a former gilded and rich dynastic city. With the Hapsburg Empire gone, the new Vienna faces grim realities such as disease, food shortages, corruption, and death. A murderer walks amongst the residents, staging his victims to appear as suicides, and Inspector August Emmerich is convinced otherwise. He focuses on solving the crimes and proving a murderer walks among them, instead of staying to his assigned task of dismantling the black market in Vienna.

This is a procedural thriller filled with gritty historic detail. Widows, veterans, and blackmarket swindlers fill the cast of characters helping—or impeding—Inspector Emmerich from solving the case. Beer impressively weaves a wide array of characters from different economic backgrounds in Vienna to illustrate the sweeping effects of the war.

These hardships ring true, yet she manages to balance the darkness of a serial killer amidst such a depressing landscape with some lightness. The relationship between the Inspector and his assistant shines, and levity and humor hide behind dialogue and the physical choices of the characters. The effect is a dark and engaging mystery that pushes you forward rather than weighing you down. The resolution is unexpected and satisfying, with glimpses of more to come.

Highly recommended.

Ellen Jaquette

THE FALLEN ARCHITECT

Charles Belfoure, Sourcebooks Landmark, 2018, $25.99, hb, 336pp, 9781492662716

England, c. 1900. When a section of the Britannia Empire Theater’s balcony collapses, killing fourteen theatergoers, architect Douglas Layton is convicted of murder. After serving five years, the reviled Layton, now called The Butcher of the West End, begins a new life with only the tweed suit on his back and the fifty-eight pound notes in his pocket.

He creates a new identity and takes a job as a set painter for a variety theater. While exploring the edifice, he discovers a skeleton hidden within a wall. On conveniently finding a second skeleton wearing a ring that identifies the victim as one of Layton’s former

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associates, Layton immediately knows that these two men were responsible for sabotaging that balcony segment. The only question is Who put them up to it?

Author Charles Belfoure is an architect by profession, and his book is replete with details about theater architecture, including backstage structure and details of the variety shows and artistes of the time. The prologue reveals that the architect is innocent; and throughout the book, the author further helps the reader along by providing summary narrative that interprets, explains, or blurts out elements of story or character development that readers might otherwise have to come to by seeing characters interact in scenes.

Long on architectural detail but short on literary crafting and editing, The Fallen Architect is riddled with stereotypical characters including poofs, a happy Pygmy, and a sourpuss Scot; redundancies including “whole entire,” “strong stentorian,” “clomped loudly”; and clichés including grinning from ear to ear, pea-soup fog, dressed to the nines, so the manuscript retains that fresh, first-draft feel.

Readers interested in being spoon-fed might find this novel a treat, but those seeking polished work worthy of a “New York Times bestselling author” might want to keep looking.

Rebecca Kightlinger

NOVEMBER ROAD

Lou Berney, William Morrow, 2018, $26.99/ C$33.50, hb, 320pp, 9780062663849 / HarperCollins, 2019, £8.99, pb, 400pp, 9780008309336

November Road is a gripping drama steeped in the aftermath of the JFK assassination in 1963. Charlotte Roy has made the uncertain decision to leave her alcoholic husband and oppressive life in small-town Oklahoma to seek a better future in California for herself and her two young daughters. On the road west, she meets Frank Guidry, a handsome, charming man who is himself on the run from something much more sinister. He is not the insurance salesman he claims to be, but in fact an associate of Carlos Marcello, and the last loose end linking the infamous mob boss to the presidential assassination in Dallas.

Frank Guidry is one step ahead of coldblooded hitman Paul Barone with a mandate to erase him at any cost. Charlotte and Frank are initially united by sheer expediency: Charlotte and her daughters need a ride, and Frank needs the cover of traveling with a family to mask his identity. But the desperate alliance spawns an even more desperate romance as the characters find themselves pushed beyond the boundaries of normal times, much like the country itself.

The book is marked by a gritty realism which tilts heavily toward the male perspective, at times even bordering on a Mickey Spillane quality. While this energizes the narrative, it often leaves the female characters a bit flat.

The cultural backdrop and historical timeline more than compensate for this, however, and 38

burgeoning issues of civil rights and social equality play out in intimate emotional detail.

One of the richer portrayals is Theodore, an African-American teenager enlisted by Barone as a driver, who gives poignant and nuanced voice to the racial tensions and injustices of the era.

The style is direct and well-paced, making skillful use of dialog to propel the narrative.

The pages are kept turning by thoughtful portrayals punctuated with jarring action. A worthy read.

Jackie Drohan

MISS ROYAL’S MULES

Irene Bennett Brown, Five Star, 2018, $25.95, hb, 236pp, 9781432838560

Book one in Ms. Brown’s Nickel Hill Series sets the stage for an exciting and interesting series set in Kansas in the early 1900s. We meet Miss Jocelyn Royal when she wakes up from a night spent in a livery stable, determined to raise the funds necessary to buy back her family’s farm without turning to the seedier occupations available to a woman at the time.

Her independent and spunky character gets her a job driving mules to the Nickel Hill Ranch, and her truth-telling, strong, and stubborn disposition help her survive when she is abandoned by her boss, keeping things afloat until he returns so she can collect her muchneeded pay. Despite these somewhat clichéd qualities for a historical heroine, Miss Royal is an engaging character, and the narrator of her story has a voice with an authentic, early 20thcentury western feel.

Miss Royal’s Mules is an exciting, action-filled story with elements of mystery and romance that kept me reading enthusiastically. And, refreshingly, it doesn’t have the typical boymeets-girl, girl-hates-boy-but-can’t-resist-him setup of formula romance novels. Based on the fact that it’s the first in a series titled Nickel Hill, it’s no mystery as to how the story will end; the mystery is how Miss Royal goes from being a homeless, destitute woman hiding in a livery stable to owning mules and living at Nickel Hill. The ending sets up the second installment well and provides the reader with plenty of motivation to want to read it; and just because it’s 1900s Kansas, we know the end of the first book won’t be happily ever after.

Jodie Toohey

AMBULANCE GIRLS UNDER FIRE

Deborah Burrows, Ebury, 2018, £5.99, pb, 330pp, 9781785034633

This novel tells the tale of Celia Ashwin, an ambulance driver who has worked throughout the Blitz. Based in 1940, her past life of a societal debutante threatens her newfound independence as her Nazi-supporting husband, Cedric, is released from prison.

Determined to assert herself against her overbearing husband who is refusing to give her permission to divorce him, Celia continues to work both at the depot and for a charity that

REVIEWS | ISSUE 86, November 2018

supports Jewish orphans, where another side of her is revealed.

Throughout the novel, ideas of patriotism, family and love are enmeshed together to create a powerful effect as it becomes clear that there were members of society who resented Churchill and anticipated a German invasion. Burrows successfully demonstrates how class barriers became blurry during the war, for Celia, who was once part of high society, develops a relationship with a young Jewish doctor while they help a Jewish orphan.

Similarly, Burrows captures 1940s London in subtle ways. For example, she writes about how Londoners attempted to carry on as normal – even going dancing – despite the bombings that were happening regularly.

There is plenty of suspense and action in this story, particularly seen during air raids and their consequences. It is against this backdrop of death and destruction that love becomes even more important in the lives of these characters.

Clare Lehovsky

BECOMING MRS. LEWIS

Patti Callahan, Thomas Nelson, 2018, $25.99, hb, 432pp, 9780785224501

Many readers will know C.S. Lewis, beloved author of nonfiction Christian books and the Narnia children’s series.

Lewis’s A Grief Observed, a deeply moving meditation on his grieving process after the death of his wife, Joy Davidman, is my favorite of his works. The story of the unlikely romance between the Oxford English professor and the American divorcée is well known to Lewis fans, but Patti Callahan gives it a new spin, telling it brilliantly from Joy’s point of view.

I knew instantly from the pellucid prose and vivid physical details that I was in the hands of a master storyteller. I entered into Joy’s deepest feelings as she struggles in her unhappy first marriage, cares for two young sons, and begins a correspondence with Lewis (known to his friends as Jack). Joy and Jack experience a true meeting of the minds, understanding each other on an intellectual level (“your words help to clarify my own,” he writes) long before they meet in person. I was delighted to discover Joy’s poetry, snippets of which are quoted at the beginning of chapters, and to read the lively debates between her and Jack about everything from literature to the meaning of life.

The post-WWII years were not kind to women, especially women with the intellectual power of Joy Davidman. Early in the novel, Joy expresses the dilemma of all women of her era:

“We were taught to dim our light so that men might shine, or at the very least look good…

I want to find out who I am beyond all these expectations that fold us into a neat box.”

Patti Callahan has inhabited her subject so convincingly that Joy’s light can finally shine brightly. Highly, highly recommended!

Clarissa Harwood

A DARING VENTURE

Elizabeth Camden, Bethany House, 2018, $15.99, pb, 336pp, 9780764218828

Dr. Rosalind Werner is a dedicated biologist in New York City in 1908, determined to bring clean drinking water to the city and the nation.

At the forefront of technology, she and her team are determined to treat the water with chlorine. But, the city government officials are not convinced that this is safe and give them a timeline to prove the safety of this chemical before using it on the city water system. Nick Drake, Commissioner of Water, likes the spunky Dr. Werner and even begins to fall for her despite their differing opinions on the best sanitation methods. But, soon, controversy begins to mar their relationship, and they find themselves at an impasse, especially when Nick discovers a secret experiment going on right under the city’s nose.

Based on real events, Camden does a marvelous job interweaving fact with fiction. Like most of her heroines, Rosalind is passionate about her cause and will do anything to prove herself, even breaking the law and sacrificing the chance at love and marriage. Her determination and bravery resonate throughout the plot, engaging readers from the start. Overall, this is an interesting story with a good mix of science, history, love, and drama. Fans of Camden’s other novels will not be disappointed.

Rebecca Cochran

NAUGHTY ON ICE

Maia Chance, Minotaur, 2018, C$34.99, hb, 288pp, 9781250109071

$26.99/

On December 19th, 1923, Lola Woodby and her Swedish cook, Berta, arrive in the village of Maple Hill, Vermont, summoned by an anonymous rhyme delivered to their detective agency. It’s an unusual opening to a murder mystery. Lola and Berta have been invited to a dinner at Goddard Farm via this mysterious poem, the writer asking them to retrieve a ruby ring. The first murder happens as they are trying to force the ring off Aunt Daphne’s finger. More murders follow.

This is a novel in the rich-people-in-ruralNew-England-setting genre. The wealthy family of Goddard Farm (actually a mansion) are immoral in various different ways, and the rural folk appear to be salt of the earth characters with whom we might relate.

The writer has researched the slang of this Prohibition period along with appropriate clothing for a New England winter. Her characters are clearly drawn, but her addiction to similes is distracting and the plot

is inconsistent. It was difficult to connect with the main characters and their adventures.

Valerie Adolph

THE SILVER GUN

L.A. Chandlar, Kensington, 2017, $15.00/ C$16.95, pb, 330pp, 9781496713414

In 1936, Lane Sanders is the new personal aide to the larger-than-life 99th mayor of New York, Fiorello La Guardia. When she is suddenly thrust into danger, it’s a multilayered mystery at once. Who is threatening her and why? Does it have to do with her position as the mayor’s right hand? Is it the gangsters of the dirty thirties or someone with a connection to her past? And who can she really trust? Thrust into one escapade to another, Lane is buffeted by her artistic Aunt Evelyn, her aunt’s steady butler, friends from work, Fiorello himself, as well as an unlookedfor love interest. Still, it’s a hard case to crack, even with all of the help, and Lane ends up staring at her parents’ past in order to figure out her destiny.

Pulling on the music, nightlife, and clothing of the ´30s to create atmosphere, the book takes a close look at the glamorous pieces of the era without spending much time on the destitution of the Depression. While the action flows relatively quickly so there is little breathing between excitement, I found the first-person point of view to be unreliable.

Lane is shot at, shoved in front of oncoming trains, and attacked, among many other harrowing ordeals, and yet has very little reaction or personal response to these intense moments. Other characters lack depth, too: Aunt Evelyn is randomly connected to any and all influential people of the time, but no one seems to have much to say to such big news, nor is it ever used. There are great bones to this mystery, and it’s a really fun romp overall, so lovers of Art Deco and the 1930s will definitely enjoy The Silver Gun. Sara Dahmen

BURY WHAT WE CANNOT TAKE

Kirstin Chen, Little A, 2018, $14.95, pb, 300pp, 9781542049719

1957: Drum Wave Islet in Xiamen, central China is a place where Communism has been fully incorporated into every facet of politics, the economy, and culture. All is not well in every Communist home.

A son, Ah Liam, reports to the Party that his grandmother took a hammer to the revered photo of Chairman Mao Tse Tung. He’s trying

to prove he is totally dedicated and ready to join the Young People’s Party. As a result, his family is basically ruined. There are only two options: submit to public correction or flee to Hong Kong, where their father lives and carries on his business. The remainder of the novel is deeply intense, as the family attempts to obtain exit visas to Hong Kong by lying about their “dying” father. This is followed by the agonizing command that only three may leave: the grandmother, Bee Kim; the mother, Seok Koon; and the son, Ah Liam. The daughter, San San, is forced to stay behind with the cook and maid.

The momentous impact of this choice to leave behind a daughter and sister is almost beyond words. The strength of this memorable novel lies in the author’s depiction of the contrast among their dreams of a better future, the stark reality of events that belie faith in political promises, and the unraveling of personal and political visions. The evolving conflict about “choices” is heartrending.

Questions about the meaning of life in the face of betrayal will haunt readers for a long time.

This is a vital contribution to historical fiction about Chinese families, choices, loyalty, corruption, and abiding love that surpasses politics. A highly recommended, memorable fictional account!

Viviane Crystal

SO MUCH LIFE LEFT OVER

Louis de Bernières, Pantheon, 2018, $26.95, hb, 288pp, 9781524747893 / Harvill Secker, 2018, £16.99, hb, 288pp, 9781911215639

Towards the end of this novel, which evokes the classics of Great War literature, an old lady reminisces with her cook about the days of Edward VII, when her daughters met the neighborhood boys in her garden and they played like ‘savages.’ But times have changed; the children have grown into adults, and the British nation is about to enter another world war. In the meantime, Rosie has married Daniel, who has taken her to Ceylon, a place she can’t abide. Sophie has espoused a clergyman troubled by his faith, while Ottilie has settled for a childhood sweetheart, and Christabel has ventured into Bloomsbury, where she has fallen in love with a female flying ace.

Not that the women are the central consciousness of the novel; that lot falls to Daniel, who is beloved by everyone except his wife and becomes embroiled in a bitter tugof-war over the possession of their children.

Spending much of his energy raging against Rosie’s denial of his son and daughter, Daniel is unprepared for the blow that fate, or rather, the war deals him. Trying to cope with the devastating sense of loss that assails him after the catastrophe, a priest reminds him that doing his duty might provide muchneeded succor, and that there is still ‘so much life left over.’ Spanning decades of history, several continents, and juggling a large cast of central characters, this narrative is a stupendous achievement. However, the work

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lets itself down when its male protagonists wax a little too nostalgic about the glory days of the empire.

Elisabeth Lenckos

AS THE SUN BREAKS THROUGH

Ellie Dean, Arrow, 2018, £6.99, pb, 480pp, 9781784758127

This novel is the 15th in the World War Two saga set in Cliffehaven, a small town on the south coast of England. The central character is Peggy Reilly whose husband, Jim, is away in Burma fighting the Japanese. It is June 1944, and the war is in its final stages, but Britain still has to contend with V1 bombers, which cause devastation when they are dropped on the town, especially for Peggy’s own sister.

As this is the second book in the series that I have read, some of the minor characters have become more familiar, but the reader only gets glimpses into some of their lives, which may have featured more prominently in previous books, resulting in some amount of puzzlement. A family tree helps to place most of the main characters, though many of them do not actually feature in this particular story. Descriptions of the hardships suffered by families in Britain and of the fighting in Burma are very vivid and take the reader back to those times. Some ongoing mysteries are solved, such as the disappearance of the pub landlady, Rosie. The next book, Homecoming, will be the final book in the series.

Julie Parker

LALA

Jacek Dehnel (trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones), Oneworld, 2018, $24.99/£14.99, hb, 394pp, 9781786073570

Born in 1919 in southern Poland to an accomplished family, Helena “Lala” Bieniecka lived nearly 90 eventful years, and her ancestral lore goes back even further. Her grandfather fought against the Soviets in the January Uprising of 1863, and Lala’s entire family endured Nazi and Soviet occupations of Poland (but don’t look for gripping battlefield accounts, for Lala’s family was treated gently).

Later in life, as her memory begins to slip and blur, Lala relates her history to her grandson, Jacek Dehnel.

Dehnel, an award-winning poet and novelist, records a fictionalized account of Lala’s life in his first novel, Lala. Printed in Polish in 2006 and now translated into English, Lala is an intricate story spanning a tumultuous century in European history. It is also a moving depiction of the warm relationship between Jacek and Lala. He becomes his grandmother’s caregiver in her waning years, and the keeper of her fading memories.

Lala is a beautifully written tale which should appeal to readers with a deep sense of family, those who love to sit at reunions listening to the aunts and uncles and great-grandmothers recounting stories of the old days. That said, I thought I would enjoy Lala more because I’m a genealogist and sought such tales from my 40

own elders. Unfortunately for me, Lala, like many elderly people, has trouble remembering what she said. Her stories are repetitious and contradictory, and I found it difficult to keep track of the plot. Even with a family tree, it was hard to keep characters straight. However, Mr. Dehnel’s descriptions are lush, and readers interested in eastern European culture and intertwined family stories should not be discouraged from trying Lala’s very personal saga.

Jo Ann Butler

NEWS OF OUR LOVED ONES Abigail DeWitt, $25.99/$31.99/£20.00, 9780062834720

Harper, hb,

2018, 240pp,

Geneviève Delasalle, then 19, was in Paris in 1944, away from her family in Normandy when her home was the stage for the Allied invasion that would be the beginning of the end of World War II. This lovely book, a lyrical distillation of a French family’s loves and secrets over generations, touches three eras: the small-town piety and repressions before the war, the appalling deprivations and injustices of the war, and the excesses and voids afterwards. The author, Abigail DeWitt, puts them all together like puzzle pieces clicking into place. Attitudes change over the decades about infidelity, which plays a major part in the family’s history. Each episode is told without judgment or prurience, although often with a sweet humor.

The story skips effortlessly through the decades, a little like poetry. I had a hard time putting it down and got little sleep on the night I finished the book. I also wanted to read it again—immediately—a little like I sometimes want to read a good poem two or three times, one after another.

This is a classic, like Irène Némirovsky’s Suite Française, and the mystery to me was how a North Carolinian author could make it so real.

Then I read that DeWitt spent her childhood summers in the Alps, and that her mother was French. So she experienced that displacement herself, from prosperous America to still-poor France, and could see her own French family with both love and perspective.

DeWitt managed to put me in the longing and regret of the moments in this novel. She did it in a way that made me feel as though I was glimpsing a shimmering truth—not witnessing wrenching tragedy. I’ve recommended this novel to several friends, both French and American.

REVIEWS | ISSUE 86, November 2018

Kristen Hannum

HOTEL SACHER

Rodica Doehnert (trans. Alison Layland), AmazonCrossing, 2018, $24.95, hb, 288pp, 9781503904040

Hotel Sacher in Vienna, still known today for its famous Sachertorte dessert, was once the stomping ground for Austrian aristocracy and international diplomats in the decades leading up to World War I. This novel follows the rise of Anna Sacher, the widowed proprietress who works to manage the hotel herself, as well as the individuals shaped by their time at the hotel. There is Marie, a young kitchen maid abducted as a child, the married German publishers Martha and Maximilian Aderhold, and the Austrian Prince Georg von Traunstein and his Princess Konstanze.

Amongst this cast two others, Love and Death, are anthropomorphized and touch on the lives of all the characters as they build their lives before and after WWI. The timeframe of this novel, beginning in the late 19th century and ending after the First World War, ensures a healthy dose of personal and political drama. It delivers.

While the married couples grapple with their relationships with one another, we also follow the political, business, and artistic growth of all the characters. Only the metamorphosis of Marie, rising up and finding her voice after escaping captivity, feels incomplete. Secondary characters shine a light on working-class concerns from the time, but overall could have played a larger role to provide more contrast between the relatively unique experiences of Austrian aristocracy and wealthy Germans.

The sweeping drama and change, however, make for a captivating read. It is not hard to see how this Austrian novel, translated from German by Alison Layland, inspired an Austrian television drama by the same name.

Ellen Jaquette

THE FOURTEENTH OF SEPTEMBER

Rita Dragonette, She Writes, 2018, $16.95, pb, 360pp, 978163152453

Judy Talton is a sophomore at Central Illinois University in 1969. She’s from a small town in Illinois, from a family that had has no money for girls to go to college, so she’s got to get a scholarship. She got one, courtesy of the Army, so she has to commit to her second two years at Walter Reed and seven years as an Army nurse.

Her mother, a nurse in World War II, heartily approves. But Judy, on her nineteenth birthday on September 14, makes overtures to the antiVietnam group on campus. She’s welcomed, finds a purpose, and wrestles with telling her new friends about her commitment to the Army, trying to maintain a low profile in the movement while showing a gift for organizing.

Dragonette has written a moving book on this time in history from a rarely heard point of view. It’s unclear if Judy’s Army service will entail going overseas, but she’s close to male students who find themselves with alarmingly low draft numbers, and the realities of the war in Vietnam hit very close to home. Her mother

is cold and critical, having been proud of her service in the Second World War, so there is no sympathy from that quarter for Judy’s increasing pacifism.

The details are just right: the clothes, campus life, when time with friends is more important than classes: those years when choices may be wrong, but they are yours to make. Dragonette is also unsparing of the personalities in the anti-war movement, capturing the charismatic blowhard, the one who quietly despairs, and the women who love them. I don’t think this is intended to be a series, but I would love to see what Judy does next.

Ellen Keith

MERCURY FALLING

Robert Edric, Doubleday, 2018, £16.99, hb, 336pp, 9780857522917

The east of England in the summer of 1954.

Jimmy Devlin, aged 30, lives off his wits in a peripatetic hand-to-mouth existence, finding work and money wherever it comes. Following the disastrous floods of 1953, he gets work building up sea defences and improving drainage along the coast, and meets a variety of unsavoury characters that, like him, live at the very margins of society, most often falling into criminality and deception. Devlin is not as sharp as he thinks he is and descends into a vortex of crime and personal danger in the local criminal community. “Honour among thieves” is a code that does not seem to apply to 1950s Lincolnshire, and as Devlin looks to exact revenge on those who have wronged him, he gets even more entrapped in the web of illegality. Each time he feels that he is beginning to settle in a place and occupation, then events serve to turf him out and he becomes unwanted.

Robert Edric’s historical fiction novels are usually staffed by unsavoury, marginal characters, and the tone is not terribly uplifting. This story is no exception, and it shows an almost Hobbesian dog-eat-dog battle for survival. But it is well written and superbly researched. The language and feel of the desolate eastern edge of rural England in the still austere times following the end of the Second World War are wonderfully rendered.

Douglas Kemp

MURDER FLIES THE COOP

Jessica Ellicott, Kensington, 2018, $26.00/ C$28.95, hb, 298pp, 9781496710529

In this second cozy mystery, Beryl, the brash American, and her old school chum, the primmer Edwina, are short on funds. It’s the lean days after the Great War in the quaint English village of Walmsley Parva. When Edwina’s gardener tells them since they solved a previous mystery, he understands the vicar needs help with a missing person and suggests the two women set up their own inquiry service.

The missing man, the bookkeeper at the local mine, was involved in pigeon racing, but much more as it turns out. The intrepid sleuths

uncover blackmail, sabotage at the mine, and a murder.

Edwina and Beryl are flawed but determined women whose quirks and differences make them sympathetic. The village is full of suspects and odd characters, as every village should be. Edwina and Beryl are believable, their interactions often humorous, as women of their time period, dealing with restrictions on females and class divisions. My main issue is the writing is old-fashioned, which normally I enjoy, but it’s quite drawn out and wordy in places, thus slowing the novel’s pace. The mystery is a tad contrived but still interesting enough to keep me reading. I’m sure we’ll see more of the clever Beryl and Edwina.

Recommended for cozy mystery fans.

Diane Scott Lewis

TAZIA AND GEMMA

Ann S. Epstein, Vine Leaves Press, 2018, $14.99, pb, 274pp, 9781925417722

Tazia (Italian for born again) Gatti (Italian for cat) is a seventeen-year-old Italian immigrant in New York City in 1911. She has found herself pregnant, unwed, and working at the Triangle Waist Company, which is soon to be destroyed in a traumatic fire. Tazia survives the fire but leaves NYC to protect her unborn child from its father, who is married to another woman. The story bounces around in space and time, as Tazia moves from city to city to make it impossible for Gemma’s father ever to be able to find them. Tazia’s story through the early 20th-century is interspersed with her daughter Gemma’s story in 1961. Gemma is on a mission to find out the story of her real father, tracing back the few clues Tazia has ever shared with her and conducting a series of interviews with the different people in Tazia’s life. Her own son is about to get married, and her gift to him is to provide to him the name of his grandfather.

While this is an easy and often interesting read, Tazia is at times an insufferable character as she embodies the qualities of other “white saviors” in literature. Everyone that Gemma interviews comments ardently on how non-prejudicial Tazia was, which puts her on too high a pedestal much too long after their encounters with her to be convincing.

This doesn’t make it a bad story, though the jumping around in time did get cumbersome after a while, and the interview sessions became tedious. The details about the Triangle Waist Company fire were well-researched and fascinating. I would have liked to have read a book about Tazia in 1911, rather than bouncing around in time since readers know from the beginning who Gemma’s father was. Slightly disappointing.

Elicia Parkinson

THE FISHERMAN’S GIRL

Maggie Ford, Ebury, 2018, £5.99, pb, 484pp, 9780091956677

After the Wall Street crash of 1929, the ripples of the Depression were felt far and wide across the globe, including the little port of

Leigh-on-Sea in Essex. The Bowmaker family were longstanding fishing folk, carving out a living on the mudflats of the Thames estuary as they raked in the cockles for sale to the holidaymakers in nearby Southend-on-Sea and Billingsgate Fish Market in London’s East End. A family feud does not prevent second daughter Pamela from falling in love with the only son of the man her father blames for all the hardship they’ve endured since his beloved boat was set alight over 20 years before. The rest of the family remain in ignorance of this liaison until the young couple plan to create a new life, in the expectation of a grandchild bringing closure. Pam’s siblings have issues of their own in their lives, and their mother does her utmost to maintain good relationships with all, despite their father’s fierce attitudes towards the Bryants.

This historical tale was based on similar stories from many family closets, thereby making it accessible to the reader. Ford establishes her characters with realistic qualities, and the accuracy of the difficulties faced by people from this era are sound.

Among the topics featured, it does raise some question regarding the sexual liberation of young people from that time, as most of the young appear to have pre-marital sex.

Cathy Kemp

THE OCEAN LINER

Marius Gabriel, Lake Union, 2018, £8.99/$14.95, pb, 373pp, 9781477805145

When American liner SS Manhattan sets sail for New York from war-torn Europe in 1939, it is crammed with refugees and returning Americans. Jewish cousins Masha and Rachel Morgenstern are fleeing the persecution that may have already overtaken their loved ones.

Composer Igor Stravinsky, worn out by illness and bereavement, is not sure he wants to go at all, while philandering conductor Toscanini has defied the Fascist regime once too often, but feels lost without his long-suffering wife Carla. Meanwhile Rose Kennedy, wife of the US Ambassador to the UK, is striving to manage her large brood, while her husband’s career threatens to fall apart. This is partly due to his anti-war, pro-Hitler stance and partly because of the uninhibited behaviour of oldest daughter Rosemary, whose beauty and vivacity mask a secret. Then there is Thomas, teenage member of the Hitler Youth, heading for the World’s Fair and hiding a secret that could imperil his life. What none of them knows is that German U-boat U-113 is lurking in the Atlantic and that its fanatical captain will stop at nothing…

This is one of those rare things – an ensemble novel that actually works. Usually having so many protagonists (I haven’t listed them all) means that there are some flat characters or dull plotlines. Here the characters are all well delineated and it is possible to sympathise even with their flaws – Rachel’s spikiness, Toscanini’s philandering – which in less skilled hands could have reduced them to stereotypes.

The one thing I question is the positioning

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of the dramatic climax. Although the “what happened next” chapters are well written and moving, some of the narrative drive is lost once the peril is past. Nonetheless, this is a novel worth reading as a microcosm of many of the issues connected with World War II. Jasmina Svenne

THE INNOCENT

Lynne Golding, Blue Moon, 2018, C$19.99, pb, 300pp, 9781988279671

In Lynne Golding’s debut novel, Jessie Stephens tells her story of growing up in Brampton, Ontario in the early years of the 20th century. When a new Carnegie Library is dedicated in the town, but her family avoids the religious ceremony that follows at the local Presbyterian Church, Jessie sets out to uncover family secrets as she shares stories of their everyday life. As Jessie grows, so does Brampton, from a small, tightly knit Methodist community to a city with emerging industries, one of which gives the location its lasting nickname: “flower city.” The death of a childhood friend, an adulterous affair, the hometown lacrosse team’s path to the Mann Cup, and a scarlet fever epidemic shape the lives of Jessie, her brother Jim, and her sister Ina. This book is a collection of loosely connected anecdotes which the author’s note reveals are based on the childhood memories of the reallife Jessie, a cousin of the author. Much more of a literary novel than plot-driven historical fiction, this is a rich but overly lengthy account of early 20th-century life from a young girl’s perspective. The writing is lovely but so heavy with details that it’s hard to maintain momentum to get you through its many pages.

Jessie is sweet and precocious, but the book feels more like a memoir than a novel.

Rebecca Henderson Palmer

ANOTHER OCEAN TO CROSS

conflicts, and her epic journey moves to and ends in unexpected places.

There are minor issues that took me out of the experience, such as a trick for creating a sense of location by inserting German words and phrases in dialogue taking place between Germans, but they shouldn’t interfere too much with the enjoyment of a rather unusual story.

Christoph Fischer

THE CONTRACT

J M Gulvin, Faber & Faber, 2018, $22.00, hb, 327pp, 9780571346478 / also 2018, £7.99, pb, 336pp, 9780571323821

The Contract is the second in the John Quarrie (John Q) series of 1960s crime novels by author J M Gulvin, who splits his time between Wales and the Western US. This time, a shootout and murder in Wichita Falls, Texas, leave scraps of evidence John Q follows to New Orleans, where he uncovers a wide-ranging murder-forhire conspiracy.

Widower Quarrie is a likable character: a no-nonsense Texas Ranger who has a warm relationship with his ten-year-old son and a strong friendship with fellow Korean War vet Pious. In New Orleans he meets other, nuanced supporting characters: black jazz singer Gigi Matisse and her Nana.

Descriptions of settings are sparse; the reliance on action and dialogue make for a quick, but sometimes confusing, pace when it’s not entirely clear where to place characters in context. While John Q is a newcomer in the city of New Orleans and soon falls under the watchful eyes of conspirators and local police, he travels easily throughout the city. A significant plot twist near the end is less than satisfactory; it does not produce an “a-ha” moment but a where-did-that-come-from?

I nonetheless enjoyed The Contract and look forward to another John Q adventure.

I just wish this Contract had more definitive narrative clauses along the way.

K. M. Sandrick

THEY COME IN ALL This is the remarkable story of Renata, COLORS

Ann Griffiths, Georgic Publishing, 2018, $14.99, pb, 334pp, 9780999768808

a Jewish woman who manages to escape Germany in 1938. It follows her journey via Italy and Greece to Egypt and beyond.

It seems one of the lesser known side-stories of the WW2 era that many people escaped to Syria and Egypt after Palestine was closed to refugees, and this novel tells one of these stories in well-researched detail. The pivot of the novel is in Alexandria, where Renata courts a Canadian sailor and marries him shortly before he is deployed on active service.

Their subsequent relationship, and the tough decisions that Renata is required to confront and resolve, form the novel’s emotional heart.

While the description of the prosecution of Jews in the book adds little that will not be familiar to readers of Holocaust stories, Renata is a fascinating character with many 42

Malcolm Hansen, Atria, 2018, $26.00/C$35.00, hb, 336pp, 9781501172328

Fourteen-year-old Huey Fairchild is having a hard time adjusting to his new life in 1968 New York City. Sitting in his “wrinkly buttondown shirt and wrong-color tie” at a table in the dining hall of upscale Claremont Prep, he’s watched his only friend, Zuk, collapse after taking a bite of a tuna fish-laced peanut butter sandwich. This comes after Huey’s locked a naked Zuk out of gym class, stuffed his textbooks down the john, and punched him in the mouth at a pep rally.

Huey’s angry—at his mother for taking him away from his hometown of Akersburg, Georgia, only to spend most of her time working long hours to pay Claremont’s tuition; at his father for never calling or responding to his letters; at his girlfriend, Suzie, who sat

REVIEWS | ISSUE 86, November 2018

speechless when she learned that Huey’s not white.

They Come in All Colors recalls the summer in Akersburg that changed everything. A breakin at the Camelot Terrace pool and reports that colored kids took a swim. Mr. Abrams’ unsuccessful, by some townsfolk’s standards, attempts to clean the pool afterward. A demonstration and lunch counter sit-in by members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Huey’s realization that his father’s white skin does not make him white or suitable to continue attending his school or horsing around with his friend Derrick.

They Come in All Colors is written in Huey’s smart-mouth voice. He describes things as he sees them, allowing the reader to find deeper meaning and understand how his sharp words mask pain, confusion, and the ramifications of racism. Malcolm Hansen’s debut novel is a brilliant exploration of identity: how it shapes us and how others’ attitudes can shatter it.

K.M. Sandrick

THE THIRTY-ONE KINGS

Robert Harris, Pegasus Crime, 2018, $25.95, hb, 224pp, 9781681778549 / Polygon, 2018, £12.99, hb, 256pp, 9781846973918

Robert Harris pays homage to the great John Buchan’s hero from The Thirty-Nine Steps, Richard Hannay. In this continuation, it is now 1940 and Richard Hannay is happily married.

As Germany invades France, Hannay is called back to duty. A missing agent, Roland, needs to be found. He is the only one who knows a secret that can win the war. Hannay is the only one who can find him. Hannay travels across France uncovering many secrets, mysteries, and the truth behind the Thirty-One Kings.

Nonstop action keeps the plot flowing, and the short 224 pages go by as quickly as the bombs falling from the sky.

Harris does a fine job integrating characters from Buchan’s works, imagining the way they might have aged and grown. The plotline is as one would imagine the next Hannay story might have been, had Buchan written it. Harris is well-known for his military action and spy thrillers such as Fatherland and Enigma. Fans of his works will enjoy this story, too. He knows his history, and he knows his Buchan. This is a fine, fast, exciting read. Recommended.

Rebecca Cochran

A DAY LIKE ANY OTHER

Genie Chipps Henderson, Pushcart Press, 2018, $25.00, hb, 332pp, 9781888889918

On September 21, 1938, a large hurricane devastated the seaside villages that make up the Hamptons on Long Island. The hurricane shocked the locals and remaining summer visitors, who had no warning of its arrival, and left a large mark on the individuals and communities that survived it. This is their story.

Pulling from interviews with survivors and research into the time, Henderson weaves a fictional tale that explores the lives of many residents from before, during, and after

the storm. Through this large selection of intertwined stories, we learn about the lives of artists, fisherman, local children, wealthy New Yorkers with summer homes, and the individuals that worked for them. Concise and seemingly abrupt language manages to pack entire, detailed lives into just a few pages, allowing the reader to travel along and meet this diverse cast of characters. The ride is swift, and by the climax there is an entire community you’re rooting for to survive – just as the storm comes crashing in.

Ellen Jaquette

FYLGIA

Birgitta Hjalmarson, Bedazzled Ink, 2018, $14.95/C$19.95, pb, 240pp, 9781945805707

Anna is a proud, intelligent older woman recounting her life in the dark, serious atmosphere of Sweden. Her story begins in the time just preceding World War I. In Hult, the residents rigidly follow the Lutheran religion and fiercely reject any modern ways that would water down what they consider sacred tradition. Indeed, the village minister serves more as a local cop, conveying words of fire and brimstone damnation on anyone who veers in even the slightest direction from the Bible and the laws that flow from it. Now, however, socialism is becoming attractive to a few of the town residents. Anna is deeply in love with Fredrik Otter, a wise man who advocates modern farming techniques but is rejected. He loves two women, ergo the dilemma between Anna and the “other woman.” The outcome is intense and the cost to Anna is high. Reality is not to be denied, not even by the fantastic suggestions Anna receives.

Something intriguing and gripping flows through every page of this unique work of fiction. The atmosphere is rather hard and almost melancholic, but Anna is the bright, feisty character whose strength and determination overrule the morose rules and regulations of her community, in attitude if not in actual application. She is unafraid to confront the minister and even the leader of the community, Rammen (aka Grim Larsson, her father). We move with the people of Hult through WWI, the Spanish Flu, the Great Recession, WWII and modern times, a world where matchmaking still exists but love finds a way beyond public restrictions. This is classic historical fiction spanning several decades and revealing the characters behind the veil of Swedish law. Beautifully crafted.

Viviane Crystal

TREACHEROUS IS THE NIGHT

Anna Lee Huber, Kensington, 2018, $15.95/ C$17.95, pb, 322pp, 9781496713179

Life in 1919 after the Great War is a hard adjustment, and séances are all the range as grief-stricken widows attempt to find solace and understanding. Verity Kent is no exception, although in her case, she is struggling to adjust to the fact that she is not a

war widow at all. Sidney, her husband, is back, having only faked his death to reveal a traitor.

Then, to support a friend, Verity reluctantly attends a séance. Things turn suspicious when the medium channels a woman Verity knew from her Secret Service days, revealing information that only Verity would recognize.

When the medium is murdered, Verity becomes even more determined to solve the mystery, and possibly, reveal another traitor.

The investigation takes the Kents to war-torn Belgium where they meet more Secret Service agents, danger, and more mysteries.

Huber is an excellent historical mystery writer, and Verity is her best heroine. Sidney and Verity are a formidable couple when they work together, but they are also very real.

They don’t leap straight back into life before the war but instead face many obstacles and struggles as they readjust to married life and post-war life. Nonetheless, the love between Sidney and Verity is real and true, and the way that Huber creates their re-blossoming love is genuine. Topped off with a gripping mystery, this will not disappoint. Treacherous is the Night is the second novel in the Verity Kent series, which should be read in order.

Although Huber does a fine job summarizing events from the first book, This Side of Murder, readers will miss much if they start here.

Rebecca Cochran

THE GIRL IN THE PINK RAINCOAT

Alrene Hughes, Head of Zeus, 2018, £18.99/$27.95, hb, 357pp, 9781788543965

As with many romantic novels set in wartime, the special circumstances of England in 1939 are not only a background but central to the outcome of this love story. At the local raincoat factory, Gracie and her friends have earned their living and enjoyed the company of their Manchester workmates. Now this cheerful milieu is changing as developments in the outside world worry the community: plans are made to evacuate children, and anti-aircraft guns appear in Heaton Park.

Still the work goes on at the factory, and Gracie falls not for one of her fellow workers, but for the nephew of the factory owner, Jacob Rosenberg. We can predict well before she understands it that this will pose real difficulties: he is Jewish, classified as German and war is imminent. Her naivety does not equip her for what is to follow. ‘All I care about is that we like each other’ she declares, but the developing suspicion of others and hostility to all things foreign pose major challenges. Nor does her innocence allow her to understand that his Jewish family may not favour their friendship either.

This story is the education of a sheltered, well-intentioned and spirited girl in the ways of a tough wartime world. On the way she accepts the comfort of seeming friends who do not have her best interests at heart. Her mother, with whom she lives, has her own romantic meeting, which creates further

tensions between mother and daughter.

Surprising revelations ensue.

Finally, Gracie finds an environment much more suited to her liking and talents: the theatre. In the end aspects of her early experiences come to play a part on the stage, and with bombs falling on Manchester, a very theatrical ending is inevitable.

Imogen Varney

WATERMELON BOYS

Ruqaya Izzidien, Hoopoe Press, 2018, $17.95, pb, 354pp, 9789774168802

This extraordinary debut novel travels from 1915 to 1920 as World War I rages not only in Europe but also in the Middle East. On the banks of the Tigris outside Baghdad, Ahmad is a devout family man who is also a warrior.

The British have promised to liberate his countrymen from Ottoman rule. He joins the revolt. The battle is triumphant, and Ahmad returns to his wife, daughter and two boatmen sons (the watermelon boys of the title). But soon he realizes that the trials of their separations, flooding, and starving times pale as their allies become conquerors.

A young coal mining Welshman named Carwyn escapes an abusive home life and finds himself also engaged in the Mesopotamia campaign. Because “a conquered man always knows conquest when he sees it,” he teaches himself Arabic and soon he is not under the illusions being fostered on his fellow soldiers by their British commanders.

Carwyn’s and Ahmad’s fates intertwine.

Neither good man can escape larger forces that bring misunderstanding, loss and bloodshed born of discrimination and betrayal.

This is the history and point of view of British intervention in Iraq that is seldom seen.

Beautifully rendered in rich and evocative prose, Carwyn, Ahmad and his rich-in-loveand-humor family and friends come alive in a way that lifts the soul and sears the heart.

Highly recommended.

Eileen Charbonneau

THE POISONED CHALICE MURDER

Diane Janes, Severn House, 2018, $28.99/£20.99, hb, 208pp, 9780727888198

It’s 1929, and Fran Black and Tom Dod are asked by Tom’s Aunt Hetty to investigate three suspicious deaths in the sleepy village of Durley Dean in Nottinghamshire. The new vicar of Saint Agnes preaches a severe

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approach in church, and this has upset and alienated most of the parishioners. But the three people who died took open stands against him. Fran and Tom are amateur sleuths and as they investigate, they only come across more questions and theories but never find any facts to lead them to any conclusive proof of foul play.

Second in a series, The Poisoned Chalice Murder is a fun, old-fashioned whodunit. I felt I was sitting in the same room with Tom and Fran while they went back and forth, discussing their findings, suspicions, and theories, and always being stumped. I guessed along, too, and was surprised to learn who did it. I was also surprised at the relationship between Fran and Tom and their situations. Fran’s husband ran off with another woman, who is now pregnant, and Tom married his deceased brother’s girlfriend to give her unborn child a name and a father. Fran and Tom are in love but up against the demands of their time: being honourable and proper in the face of the dishonourable and the improper.

Francesca Pelaccia

THAT GIRL

Kate Kerrigan, Head of Zeus, 2018, $28.95/ C$38.95/£20.00, hb, 388pp, 9781786694157

In this captivating story three young Irish women seek to reinvent themselves in swinging 1960s London. After being abruptly jilted, Lara sets out to achieve her dream of designing trendy fashions. Annie is fleeing a tragic, soul-crushing past and hiding a terrible secret. Noreen, rebelling against the narrow conventional life everyone back home envisions for her, craves adventure.

Although the hip culture of the time offers some breakthrough opportunities for Lara and Annie, Noreen soon becomes disappointed.

Events do not turn out quite as any of them had expected. These nice Irish Catholic girls are living and working in immediate proximity to gangsters, and the mob boss’s greedy machinations jeopardize Lara’s future. A perfect storm of surprises and trouble hits when people the young women left behind in Ireland come to find them.

An expertly crafted plot makes it difficult to stop reading this novel. All three protagonists grow and arc as a result of their experiences and the memorable secondary characters also wrestle with challenges. The tragic narrative involving Annie plays out authentically, but within the larger frame of a romantic comedy that highlights the resiliency of friendship, the unpredictability of falling in love, and the healing power of both. A very appealing book.

Cynthia Slocum

THE KINSHIP OF SECRETS

Eugenia Kim, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018, $26.00, hb, 304pp, 9781328987822.

What would make a Korean couple, needing to travel to America for safer and better opportunities, leave behind their natural 44

daughter and take an adopted daughter to the United States in the 1950s? These two sisters, the same age but for a few months, grow up in different countries: Inja in Korea, with n u m e r o u s questions about her mother and father across the world, and Miran in America, wondering about the girl her mother, Najin, mourns for daily.

Meanwhile, gifts are exchanged overseas with benign letters, especially difficult with the onset and ending of the Korean War. What makes this story extraordinary are the reflections of all family members, including some surrealistic dreams that add to Inja’s sense of deep love for her grandparents and heightened with one haunting scene about her grandfather’s grave. When the sisters are finally united, the reader has an inside look not only at Inja’s adjustment to American life but also how her family in Korea adjusts to life without her. Secrets are gradually revealed that are shocking in one sense but add to the story’s historical importance.

Beautiful descriptions of the Korean mountains, temples and cemeteries add to Inja’s reflections and later forge a deeper connection between Inja and Miran, who remembers nothing about her Korean childhood. The character depictions are heightened by variety and complexity, drawing the reader into their lives and story in a dramatic fashion.

Eugenia Kim is a talented writer who has crafted a strikingly tender, tough, and intelligent story that includes a totally different aspect of the Korean War and politics. Highly recommended historical fiction!

Viviane Crystal

ALL THE ANSWERS

Michael Kupperman, Simon & Schuster, 2018, $25.00/C$34.00, hb, 224pp, 9781501166433

Graphic novelist Michael Kupperman’s memoir explores his relationship with his distant, secretive father. Never one to discuss the past, when his father is diagnosed with dementia, the author realizes time is limited to ask the questions he has never had answered.

A math prodigy, Joel Kupperman literally had all of the answers as a child. His mother wrote to the producers of the radio game show, Quiz Kids, about her five-year-old, and he quickly became a regular on the program.

He was so popular that he went on a war bond tour during WWII, starred in a movie, and was photographed with countless celebrities. The attention was overwhelming and confusing to young Joel, who came to resent his fierce stage mom. Forced to stay on the show even after he graduated high school, he became socially

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awkward. He eventually stepped out of the public eye forever, married, had a family, and became a philosophy professor. He refused to speak about his time on Quiz Kids, but the ramifications of his unconventional childhood remained, and he became physically and emotionally distant to his wife and son.

Not just an examination of the father-son relationship, the novel’s scrutiny of celebrity culture in the pre-television age is fascinating.

Kupperman also probes how Quiz Kids was used as propaganda during the war. It capitalized on the popularity of its cute, precocious, Jewish contestant to encourage Americans’ sympathy for the plight of Jews in Europe. While wellintentioned, this was quite a heavy burden for a young boy to carry.

The illustrations are dark and moody, which aids in creating the tension the author feels. I was left wanting to know more and was pleased to see a list of sources for further reading included. This is definitely a book I won’t soon forget.

Janice Derr

WHEN THE MEN WERE GONE

Marjorie Herrera Lewis, William Morrow, 2018, $16.99/C$19.99/£10.99, pb, 214pp, 9780062836052

It’s the start of the 1944 high school football season in Brownwood, Texas, and those great Friday nights when the whole town forgets its troubles. But most of the men are gone— fighting on two fronts, laid up in hospitals, or their bodies brought home. The coach was wounded and can’t yet walk. School administrator Tylene Wilson sets out to find a new coach and save the season. Hardly anyone knows she learned the game from childhood, studies every game, and catches and throws a football better than most men. One week before the opener, there’s no coach in sight except Tylene herself. She plunges in.

Everything breaks badly. Last year’s team members doubt her, grown men ridicule her, and her husband’s best friend walks away.

The assigned referees refuse to show, and the opposing coach threatens to forfeit the game rather than play a team coached by a woman.

Two days before kickoff, the school board sets up a meeting intending to officially cancel the season.

Tylene indeed knows football; the author was a beat writer for the Dallas Cowboys and is coaching at the college level. But When the Men Were Gone tells readers more about good old Southern pigeon-holing of women and the heartrending effects of WWII than about football. At only 200-some pages, the novel feels a bit rushed, jumps from present to past too often and too quickly, and might have further developed some of its many interesting characters. Nonetheless, this story nicely explores timeless prejudice against those of the “wrong” gender and is set against a compelling backdrop—small-town Texas high school football.

G. J. Berger

GIRLS OF THE GREAT WAR

Freda Lightfoot, Lake Union, 2018, $14.95, pb, 322pp, 9781612187198

At the end of this book I was reminded of Thelma Ritter’s classic line in All About Eve: “What a story! Everything but the bloodhounds snappin’ at her rear end.” This book has it all. The prologue introduces teen Martha, giving birth to an illegitimate child in 1894. When we next meet her in 1916, she’s Queenie, a singer whose fame is waning due to her love of alcohol. Her eldest daughter, Cecily, is pressed to take her mother’s place on the stage, but Queenie resents the competition. Her younger daughter, Merryn, is more dutiful. When Cecily’s secret fiancé is killed in the war, she’s filled with a desire to help the troops, so she puts together an entertainment troupe consisting of herself, Merryn, smooth-talking Johnny, a drummer, and unfortunately Queenie. The four of them entertain the Tommies with songs and scenes, while Merryn succumbs to Johnny’s dubious charms, Queenie looks for alcohol, and Cecily is pressed into transporting escaped soldiers to safety as a condition of their employment.

That sounds like something the British army would ask of a singer, doesn’t it?

Armistice brings more drama, not less, as Merryn and Johnny must wed as she’s pregnant, and surprise, he’s not that great a guy. Queenie grows ever more demanding, and Cecily can only find work as a singer on a cruise ship. There’s an outrageous denouement at the end, which I won’t spoil.

Cecily is very fond of exposition, so she explains to her sister and lover why the amazing news they’d just learned accounted for her mother’s behavior throughout the book.

Told from Cecily’s and Merryn’s perspectives, the book reflects the lack of options for women at this time. Given opportunities during wartime, women are relegated to the sidelines when the war is over. Historically accurate, yes, but the details in this particular story make me roll my eyes as much as Thelma Ritter’s Birdie did.

Ellen Keith

A GIRL DIVIDED

Ellen Lindseth, Lake Union, 2018, $14.95, pb, 444pp, 9781503903876

In 1942, Eugenia Baker is a 22-year-old woman who lives with her missionary father in rural China. Genie has always lived in China, and she spends her days translating the Bible into Chinese. Her tranquil existence is shattered not only by the civil war between the Communists and the Nationalists, but also with the arrival of World War II. When an American pilot fighter, Ted Younan, crashes and is rescued by Genie’s father, Mr. Baker convinces Ted to escort his daughter out of China, away from the danger of war. Ted, Genie, and Nathan, Mr. Baker’s assistant, embark on a perilous journey and along the way, Ted challenges Genie’s thinking and perceptions of herself. Throughout Genie’s journey, she will grapple with her identity,

as she is a girl divided between China and America.

Unfortunately, this book was not exactly as described in the synopsis on the book jacket.

One assumes that the book focuses on the journey out of China, with Ted and Nathan vying for Genie’s affections. However, the part in China only encompasses the first eighty pages or so, while the rest of the novel takes place on the boat from India to the United States, and then Los Angeles, where Genie tries to become a modern woman, getting a job and learning how to fly. Therefore, if you are looking for a WWII historical novel set in China, this is not the book to read. Genie is, unfortunately, an insipid, incredibly naive young woman whose character development, when it does eventually happen, is not entirely believable. She is also so sanctimonious and God-fearing that this should be classified as Christian fiction.

Julia C. Fischer

DEATH OF A RAINMAKER

Laurie Loewenstein, Kaylie Jones Books, 2018, $16.95, pb, 320pp, 9781617756658

Roland Coombs promises residents of Jackson County, Oklahoma, that the TNTpacked rockets he sends screaming into the night air will bring rain to the farms that have not seen a drop of it in 242 days. The next afternoon he is found dead, bludgeoned to death and hidden below a pile of dirt blown by an hour-long dust storm that shook the walls and scoured the bricks of the Jewel Movie House before depositing mounds of sand and soil near the exit door.

Death of a Rainmaker chronicles the investigation of Coombs’ death by sheriff Temple Jennings and his deputy Ed McCance, fresh from a tour in the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the challenges it imposes on the lawmen: Jennings’ run for re-election against a formidable foe and McCance’s refusal to believe a fellow CCCer could have committed the crime.

Death of a Rainmaker is far more than a murder mystery set in the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. It is a poignant recollection of the desperation of farmers whose land, livestock, and household are in foreclosure, a stunning description of a dust storm that leaves imaginary specks of dirt on the reader’s neck, a sensitive rendering of tough times and their toll on the psyche.

Some books have such fine character detail—McCance’s choice of a Common Sense Traveler’s Notebook, suitable for a

professional lawman, not a “CCC pity case,” for example—and complex, nuanced storyline that the reader naturally slows down to savor the experience. This is one of them.

K. M. Sandrick

THE SHEER NERVE

Rob Lofthouse, Endeavour Quill, 2018, $8.55, pb, 254pp, 9781911445555

In the spring of 1943, monstrous concrete bunkers on the French west coast protect a key supply and repair area for U-boats.

Captain Hook leads a ragged group of British commandos and submariners on a mission to destroy that base.

He and his men shoot their way onto and seize a German submarine, U-911, holed up in the Azores a thousand miles out in the Atlantic. Then, with little training and no shake-down cruises, the Brits hurry to take U-911 east. Soon they encounter other German subs slaughtering an allied convoy.

They are chased by an allied destroyer and later, when running on the surface, an RAF war plane bent on sinking them. At last U-911, with its specialized fighters, deck guns and torpedoes, becomes the Trojan Horse in the German U-boat base.

Not fooled for long by this sneak attack, the Germans in and around the sub base vastly outnumber the Brits. Captain Hook must find a way to not only destroy the docks and the U-boats in them, but also lead his men through the adjacent town and into the countryside, where they might connect with the French resistance and perhaps find their way home.

Lofthouse captures military jargon, the close quarters of submarine life, and the chaos of war at sea and on land. He ladles out graphic descriptions of men hit by bullets, concussed by explosions, and savaged in hand-to-hand combat. Lofthouse is at his best when portraying interesting characters (a young Brit who deciphers German secret codes, an old German general not fully enthralled by a younger Nazi general). More of that character development and less of the near-constant gory war details would have made this a better read.

G.J. Berger

THE RED RIBBON

H B Lyle, Hodder & Stoughton, 2018, £20.99, hb, 345pp, 9781473655485

The Red Ribbon is the sequel to The Irregular, which saw Capt. Vernon Kell setting up Britain’s miniscule Secret Service in 1908. By 1910 its future is still by no means secure, and Kell needs to pull off another coup. He still has only one effective agent, Wiggins, code name OO. Vernon Kell was the real-life founder of the British Secret Service (MI5) but, as with The Irregular, this book is a mix of historical fact, the author’s imagination and creatures from other authors’ imaginations. So we have Winston Churchill alongside Agent OO and Sherlock Holmes. The pivotal events of the

A publication of the Historical Novel Society | www.historicalnovelsociety.org

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story, the Siege of Sydney Street and the great suffragette demonstration in Westminster Square, are actual historical events, but the rest of the story is far-fetched by any standards.

But then this is an espionage fantasy with an Edwardian lower-class James Bond. Like Bond, Wiggins is presented as a loveable rogue, although he gets more high-minded at times.

A good espionage adventure which reminds us that Edwardian England was not a golden age of peace and harmony.

Edward James

THE KENNEDY DEBUTANTE

Kerri Maher, Berkley, 2018, $26.00/C$35.00, hb, 384pp, 9780451492043

In her debut historical novel, Kerri Maher explores a forgotten member of the Kennedy family: Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy, the middle of the nine siblings and favorite sister of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The novel begins in 1938, when Kick is a young woman preparing for her debut in London; her father, Joseph Kennedy, is the American ambassador to Britain. Kick quickly becomes an Anglophile and has her coming-out season, where she falls in love with an English boy, Billy Hartington, the future Duke of Devonshire. But World War II begins in 1939 and shatters Kick’s world, forcing the Kennedys to return to the United States and leaving an ocean between Kick and Billy. Back home in the US, Kick begins working for a newspaper, desperate to find a way to return to London and Billy.

Maher offers a unique glimpse into the life of one of the forgotten members of the Kennedy clan. She vividly captures Kick’s spunk and tenacity, and readers will not soon forget Kick and her desire to be her own person, separate from her famous family, even if that means losing her family for love. While some of the book drags on, in particular the emphasis on Kick’s unwavering Catholicism and Billy’s staunch Anglicanism, the rest of the novel is a delight to read, including the parts on Kick’s time as a debutante in England, her return to the US with her goal of being independent from her famous family, and her relationships with her parents and siblings, especially the doomed Rosemary. Maher captures the chaotic love, loyalty, and devotion of the huge Kennedy clan, and hopefully she will write a sequel, exploring other women of America’s most famous family.

Julia C. Fischer

THE WINTER SOLDIER

Daniel Mason, Little, Brown, 2018, $28/ C$36.50, hb, 336pp, 9780316477604

In 1915, war sends Lucius Krzelewski, a thirdyear Polish medical student, to a regimental hospital somewhere on the Polish front. He’s the only doctor, aided by a single nurse and three orderlies, and they toil inside a dark, dank, freezing church whose roof has a large hole in it. But his interior inadequacies matter 46

more, for his training consisted entirely of rote memorization, and now he must amputate limbs.

However, Sister Margarete, the nurse, is there to teach him, and he proves a quick study, though not always quick enough to escape her sardonic commentary. She belongs to the Order of Saint Catherine of Siena, speaks about lice in biblical phrases, and has been known to withhold painkillers from patients who trespass certain boundaries. Nevertheless, the socially inept Lucius manages to talk to her; therein hangs a tale.

Mason, who teaches psychiatry, portrays psychological trauma with a stripped-down authenticity I’ve never read anywhere else.

Likewise, his depictions of incompetence, class-consciousness, bitter ethnic rivalry, and utter disarray within the Austro-Hungarian Army ring absolutely true. The hospital scenes, though gory (be warned) are exceptionally gripping, for only through the intense cruelty, pain, and heartache can Lucius see his shortcomings and capacities.

My only quibbles concern the beautifully written though overly long section about Lucius’s background, as if Mason feels he must prove why his protagonist can’t talk about anything except medicine, and a seemingly implausible occurrence toward the end. But The Winter Soldier offers an unusual tale of romance and coming of age, set against an equally unusual portrayal of war. Readers looking for history rendered vividly will be transported, as will those of literary bent. The Winter Soldier is magnificent.

Larry Zuckerman

PRAGUE SPRING

Simon Mawer, Little Brown, 2018, £18.99, hb, 400pp, 9781408711149 / Other, 2018, $17.95, pb, 400pp, 9781590519660

The summer of 1968, and Europe is in political ferment.

Sam Wareham is a British diplomat based in Czechoslovakia, who starts a rather ill-advised affair with a minor Czech dissident, Lenka Konecková, when his girlfriend is posted back to the UK. As the Czechs feel their way to a new non-authoritarian socialist freedom (“socialism with a human face”), the writing

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is clearly on the wall for them as the Soviet Union and the rest of their fraternal allies in the Warsaw Pact express their concerns about the loss of Communist Party authority in the country. In a parallel story, James Borthwick and Ellie Pike, undergraduates at Oxford, decide to go hitchhiking around Europe in the summer vacation of ‘68. The besotted James can hardly believe his fortune that the attractive Ellie wishes to spend so much time with him; while he is a more prosaic Yorkshireman, studying science and from a modest background, Ellie is reading English, has wealthy parents and is a feisty personality.

Their peregrinations take them through west Europe towards Prague and, as the reader soon understands, a meeting of the ways with the other main protagonists in the novel as James and Ellie arrive in Czechoslovakia.

A theme of the novel is the role of chance in life – Ellie and James resort to making some of their decisions about their route by simply tossing a coin, and following the direction dictated by the random fall of heads or tails.

Life can just be a question of being in the right, or indeed wrong, place at a certain time.

This is a very well written and captivating story, immersed in the late 1960s when so much seemed possible, yet when hopes could be crushed by the seemingly invincible and irresistible Soviet behemoth, which was only to last for another two decades.

Douglas Kemp

FOUR SOLDIERS

Hubert Mingarelli (trans. Sam Taylor), New Press, 2018, $19.99, hb, 160pp, 9781620974407 / Portobello, 2018, £12.99, hb, 160pp, 9781846276507

In 1919, the Russian civil war grinds to a temporary halt as the opposing factions hunker down in the face of a more powerful adversary, the brutal winter. The respite comes as a relief for four young comrades in the Red Army who pass the time scratching together what food and comforts they can find, while smoking, talking, and playing pranks on each other. But mostly, they are waiting. They know that in the spring their battalion will move on, and they will once again be thrown into the hell of war.

Their story is a timeless one and tenderly recounts the story of young, male friendship as the soldiers try to make the most of the few idyllic moments that bring happiness in the darkness of war, such as discovering a small pond where they can bathe and catch fish.

When a fifth soldier is forcibly assigned to their tent—a soldier who keeps a journal—the four friends know they will soon be traveling to the front lines. They rush to tell their stories to the new recruit before that day arrives.

Hubert Mingarelli is the award-winning author of numerous novels and short story collections. Originally published in French, the novel has been translated into English by Sam Taylor. Four Soldiers is a moving and insightful look at how young men can find serenity—if

only temporarily—while facing the horrors of war. The book is highly recommended.

John Kachuba

ASK ME NO QUESTIONS

Shelley Noble, Forge, 2018, $25.99, hb, 349pp, 978076539871

Lady Philomena Dunbridge arrives in 1907 New York City after the death of her husband, with whom she had a loveless marriage, and her exile from England by her father for what he considers her scandalous behavior in solving a murder investigation.

On disembarkation, Lady Phil is thrust into another murder mystery: the shooting of her friend Bev Reynolds’s husband in the backseat of the Reynolds limousine at dockside – and hours later, the death of an unidentified man in the library of Bev’s brownstone.

It’s not clear what skills 26-year-old Phil brings to sleuthing, except for an ear for gossip and a practiced eye. While she is willing to learn about forensics, evidenced by her purchase of a handbook on fingerprints and criminal investigations which she purchased during a shopping trip, actual investigative techniques, such as lock-picking, belong to her newly acquired ladies’ maid, Lily.

Evidence also tends to fall in Phil’s lap, as her butler Preswick just happens to know that the Reynolds’ library desk has a secret compartment and how to access it.

High society is hardly a whirl. More than once a character describes a gathering as boring or desultory. Crime thus makes for an interesting diversion. But while Phil centers herself in its solving, she adds little herself to the resolution. More a witness than a sleuth, Phil is on hand for revelatory statements by major players. One yearns for more direct involvement from her little gray cells.

K. M. Sandrick

SHELL

Kristina Olsson, Atria, 2018, $26.00/C$17.99, pb, 272pp, 9781501193132 / Scribner, 2018, £12.99, hb, 384pp, 9781471172625

The mid-1960s saw a string of changes for countries around the world, and many had their eyes on the United States. By 1965, however, the antiwar efforts against the Vietnam War had made their way across the world to Australia. In this novel by Kristina Olsson, hard-headed journalist Pearl Keough puts everything at risk when she joins the antiwar movement. As the military draft comes into fruition in Australia, she searches for her young brothers before their number is called, in hopes of quelling the lifetime of guilt she has experienced by leaving them after their mother died. At the same time, Axel Lindquist, a Swede, is in Australia to assist in the sculpture of the Sydney Opera House which, when complete, will have a shell-like structure, hence the title. Their lives, not surprisingly, become intertwined.

War, architecture, guilt, salvation, politics – this book has a little bit of it all. Each of the characters has a past they are trying to

reconcile, their lives and emotions in as much upheaval as what is going on around them as the war draws closer than they ever expected.

This is an interesting novel with an unusual technique of writing dialogue, with italics and no quotation marks. The style made it difficult for me to fully connect with the characters as I felt emotionally removed from their experiences. Still, it’s a fascinating look at Australia during the Vietnam War, the creation of the Sydney Opera House, and the ever-present battle between the violence of war and the beauty of art. Recommended.

Elicia Parkinson

IN YOUR HANDS

Inês Pedrosa (trans. Andrea Rosenberg), AmazonCrossing, 2018, $14.95, pb, 224pp, 9781503901933 / also $24.95, hb, 224pp, 978150390325

Three generations of Portuguese women narrate their stories, beginning in 1935 during Salazar’s authoritarian regime. Jenny, the grandmother, writes in her journals of her marriage to Antonio. His lover, Pedro, lives with them, and Jenny is the outcast, remaining a virgin. In private Jenny listens to the sounds of lovemaking in the next room night after night.

Her sad and bitter life is lonely and isolated.

In public, they host political and cultural salons with their friends and maintain a respectable front. When Pedro has an outside fling, Camila is conceived. After her mother abandons her, Pedro turns Camila over to Jenny to raise. Camila grows up surrounded by the love of her father, “mother,” and “uncle.”

In part two, Camila narrates her story through her photographs. Photography is her attempt to capture the truth within her family and the political times in Portugal. She is caught up in revolutionary activities and later becomes a photojournalist. Natália is born and comes of age. In the final part, Natália tells her story through letters to her grandmother, Jenny, which speak of her relationships and contain many musings on art and relationships.

Each woman reflects the struggles of her generation. Jenny is obligated to live within a marriage that must maintain a façade of normalcy. Camila, in the 1960s and 70s, indulges in free love while pursuing political idealism and rejecting the feminine ideal of beauty. Natália, in the 1990s, wants a career and a relationship while social responsibility comes into play and materialism surrounds her. This novel is full of philosophical contemplations by the characters. The writing is rich and complex, which requires slow, thoughtful reading. It could also become too deep and the meaning too elusive.

Janice Ottersberg

THE STORY OF H

Marina Perezagua (trans. Valerie Miles), Ecco, 2018, $26.99, hb, 304pp, 9780062660718

August 6, 1945: the day spawning the nightmare of H. A young girl sits in a classroom when the atomic bomb is dropped from the Enola Gay on Hiroshima. The young

girl is never named; she is both boy and girl, although she is raised and recognized as a boy. Now she is the only survivor in her class, massively burned and having years of surgeries ahead of her to survive her known and unknown wounds. She is now one of many “hibakusha,” those victims who are shunned by other Japanese; it’s a nightmare everyone seeks to escape at any cost.

Years later she meets Jim, a former POW in Burma, another survivor of WWII atrocities.

He and H relentlessly search for a young girl, Yoro, whom Jim was assigned to take care of but lost as Japan began its recovery.

Both H and Jim are psychically scarred from their horrors, with nightmares and physical changes, and attempt to form a meaningful identity with what they are left.

Stunned by each minutely revealed detail, the reader feels pinned to the novel with a voyeuristic paralysis but keeps flipping the pages as if magnetically drawn to each horrendous detail. One’s heart is lost to these characters, who show the reader how much phrases like “the bomb was dropped” or “POWs in Burma should not have lived,” can never convey one iota of the hell that H and Jim experience, paralleling that of so many other Japanese and American “lost souls.” Told alternatively in linear and surrealistic details, The Story of H is a piece of history every reader will never forget, told by an incredibly talented writer.

Viviane Crystal

THE LOST PAGES

Marija Pericic, Allen and Unwin, 2018, $15.95/ A$29.99, pb, 259pp, 9781760633356

Famous for his disregard of Kafka’s last request to burn his papers, Max Brod published The Trial, The Castle and Amerika— works that have come to define our modern mind and turning the dead author, as well as his literary executor, into cultural icons. As readers in a Kafkaesque universe, we can’t imagine another turn of events, but what kind of man was this Brod, whose decision to betray his dead friend changed the course of 20th-century literature?

In The Lost Pages, Marija Pericic draws a psychological portrait of Max Brod, who was already a famous writer when Kafka sparred with him over Nietzsche and Schopenhauer.

Spurred on by a romantic as well as a professional rivalry with his new friend, Brod becomes obsessed with him and is eventually plunged into an existentialist crisis from which he might never recover. After a mental and emotional breakdown, he questions every certainty he has ever known, including his own identity. In its final moments, the novel becomes a metaphysical reflection upon the self, the understanding of which is forever changed—by meeting, reading, and immersing oneself in Kafka.

Kafka’s biographers have long debated whether Brod was a selfless visionary or a philistine exploiter. In 1939, he took the writer’s papers to Palestine, where he willed

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them to his secretary, Esther Hoffe. She, in turn, bequeathed them to her daughters, who fought the State of Israel over their possession.

In an interview, Pericic revealed that this trial provided the initial inspiration for The Lost Pages, although she eventually came to focus on the more fascinating relationship between Brod and Kafka. The conclusion of her novel contains an ingenious twist when it turns literary history on its head; beware the reader who fails to appreciate Pericic’s Kafkaesque leap of the imagination. A literary escapade that comes highly recommended.

Elisabeth Lenckos

OUR FRIENDS IN BERLIN

Anthony Quinn, Jonathan Cape, 2018, £12.99, pb, 288pp, 9781787330986

London, March 1941, at the height of the Blitz, when the threat from Nazi Germany was severe, and invasion and defeat faced Britain.

Jack Hoste, a British national, is a German agent looking to recruit Nazi sympathisers in the south-east of England. He encourages these disloyalists/traitors to provide reports on local conditions and military intelligence if possible. Hoste is looking for one particularly elusive target, a Marita Pardoe who he has been told by his masters to locate and recruit.

He establishes contact through a former friend of hers – Amy Strallen, who is a partner in a thriving marriage bureau in Brook Street. They become friendly, and Amy becomes intrigued

by Hoste and then suspects that he is involved in nefarious activities.

All well and good, until the story takes a sudden lurch, and the reader is forced to look at matters from an entirely new perspective. It is a clever trick and works well. We then also go back six years to the blossoming of the friendship between Amy and Marita Florian (as she was before her marriage) to understand a little more that underlies their rather unlikely friendship. Back to the War and matters hot up as the Allies hone their closely guarded secret plans for the Normandy invasions of France in June 1944.

This is a well-plotted and engaging novel, with characters that capture and inflame the interest of the reader. As with most thrillers, there is suspension of disbelief required on some occasions, but this does not detract from an excellent narrative and a fine story. One matter of nagging and repetitive historical inaccuracy in the tale, throughout the novel, is that Anthony Quinn refers to the Ministry of Defence, but the MoD was not named as such until 1964 – before then it was the War Office.

Douglas Kemp

COUNTDOWN

Frederick Ramsay, Poisoned Pen Press, 2018, $15.95, pb, 186pp, 9781464210594

It’s 1928, and Jesse Sutherlin, a survivor of the Great War, and his wife are living in Floyd, Virginia. Formerly of the Buffalo Mountain clan, Jesse works for JG Edwards’ sawmill. A body is discovered in a local ice house and, 48

based upon identification, the corpse is determined to be Jesse’s father. In 1918, Jesse was notified by a stranger that his father had died of the Spanish flu while working in Norfolk, Virginia. The mystery of his father’s death causes Jesse to search for the truth, but the local police refuse to reopen the case because it left no clues. His investigation forces him to talk with men who travel by rail (hobos), the local citizens of Floyd, and the folks living on Buffalo Mountain.

This novel is a sequel to Ramsey’s mystery Copper Kettle and occurs eight years later. The country is now booming, but according to experts, the economy is heading for a crash.

I was impressed how the author described the different culture between the “backwoods” folk and the people living in the town of Floyd.

He brings his characters to life while providing a rich and thorough picture of the preDepression years and a masterful command of the social customs and history of the era. This well-researched novel is lavished in historical detail. The mystery of Jesse’s father’s death is not disclosed until this novel’s climax, which made the book a page-turner until the end.

Jeff Westerhoff

ALL THE LIVES WE NEVER LIVED

Anuradha Roy, MacLehose, 2018, £16.99, hb, 330pp, 9780857058171 / Atria, 2018, $28.00, hb, 288pp, 9781982100513

Anuradha Roy is rated as one of India’s greatest living writers, and if this book is any guide I can see why. It is a beautifully constructed and written story of what happens to Myshkin, brought up in a normal life of family and school, when at the age of nine his mother walks out to go in search of an artistic life with Walter Spies. Myshkin’s father also leaves him for long periods, and the story is told when he is an adult of 60, looking back on his life and how he dealt with all the problems it brought.

Set largely in the early part of the 20th century, this is a moving and compelling story. The reader is drawn into it and relates closely to the characters, some of whom are real people of the age and others purely fictitious, but the seam line is indistinguishable. It is set against the politics of the day, the rise of Germany towards the 1930s, the Second World War and the growing fight in India for freedom from British rule.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will look out for Anuradha Roy’s other titles. Her works were long listed for the Man Asian Booker Prize in 2011 and the Man Booker Prize in 2016.

Marilyn Sherlock

THE COLLECTOR’S APPRENTICE

B.A. Shapiro, Algonquin, 2018, $27.95/C$39.95, hb, 339pp, 9781616203580

This compelling novel encompasses romance, betrayal, fraud, and manipulation in the world of fine art during the early 20th

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century. The novel’s primary character, Paulien Mertens, was raised by a wealthy loving family in Brussels but becomes the victim of a con artist known to her as George Everard. Her family is ruined, and their art collection, the pride of her father, taken and sold. Believed an accomplice, Paulien is sent away to Paris with 200 francs in her pocket. With the benefit of her education and love of fine art, she takes on a new identity as Vivienne Gregsby, and struggles to re-invent herself in the Parisian art industry and to destroy George, her family’s antagonist.

Vivienne soon becomes the apprentice of an American art lover, Dr. Edwin Bradley, an older married man wealthy enough to purchase the finest art for display in the United States. He has powerful enemies and a wife with a hatred for Vivienne. Edwin falls in love with Vivienne, unaware of her past.

Her relationship with Edwin brings Vivienne wider exposure, including a brief fascinating affair with Henri Matisse, a final encounter with George and an unexpected accusation of murder. The plot is full of twists without ever seeming convoluted and shifts time and perspective effortlessly. The characters are multi-dimensional and highly relatable. The style is crisp and readable, and in all, the book is difficult to put down. Recommended reading.

Jackie Drohan

STARTING OVER

Jack Sheffield, Bantam, 2018, £12.99, pb, 334pp, 9780593078624

At the start of the academic year 195253, Ragley village school has an intake of pupils sufficient to warrant a second full-time teacher. The new incumbent, Lily Briggs, will be responsible for the younger children, as Headmaster John Pruett will continue the education for eight- to eleven-yearolds. The children become attached to Miss Briggs, are relieved that she doesn’t favour physical punishment, and respond well to her enthusiasm for sharing her knowledge with them. But Lily has a deep secret that threatens her new life in Yorkshire, and as her relationship with local bobby, Tom Feather, develops she worries that her security will be at risk.

Sheffield’s descriptive passages follow the changing seasons as the school year progresses, immersing us in a bygone era where fast food was fish and chips from a mobile van once a week, and entertainment was a trip to the cinema to catch up with the weekly Pathé news and a film. He gently introduces some of the technological advances from this period, especially the huge increase in the number of televisions hired or bought for the home in expectation of watching the coronation of Queen Elizabeth on a screen of eight square inches. The characters are easily identifiable by their traits, and the eccentricities of individuals are celebrated, sharing the feeling of a close community with the reader.

Sheffield is an accomplished author, and each book he completes is perfectly readable

independently, though more satisfying when read chronologically.

Cathy Kemp

COURTNEY’S WAR

Wilbur Smith with David Churchill, Zaffre, 2018, $28.99/£20.00, hb, 447pp, 9781785768590

It’s springtime in 1939 Paris, and the modellike Saffron and athletic Gerhard are strolling arm-in-arm through the Tuileries Gardens.

Both are rich and well connected—Saffron in South Africa, and aristocratic Gerhard in Germany. They’d met in St. Moritz and fallen instantly in love. But the lovers’ sojourn soon ends when Saffron, a student, returns to Oxford, and Gerhard, an architect, to Berlin.

Earlier Gerhard, having helped his Jewish lawyer escape to Switzerland, had run afoul of the Nazis. But with the help of his SS officer brother, Konrad, Gerhard was emancipated, provided he became a Luftwaffe reservist. By 1942, after enduring the Battle of Stalingrad and with WWII raging, Gerhard is caught participating in an anti-Hitler conspiracy and thrown into Dachau by Konrad. Meanwhile, Saffron enlists in the British Army, and following service in North Africa, is seconded by the SOE. She is trained for undercover operations, particularly in Belgium, and subsequently for a mission to rescue POWs— which might include Gerhard.

Although this is the 17th novel in Smith’s acclaimed Courtney Series, there’s enough background material included to make it virtually a stand-alone. Both major and some minor events of WWII, such as the infiltration of the SOE agents (with help from South African nationalists) into the Belgian network of Nazi sympathizers, are interwoven into the plot expertly. The extensive research and Smith’s knowledge of the locations (which he normally visits) make this novel an interesting and informative read. There is some aggrandizement of the main characters and occasional use of dialogue that seems written for readers’ benefit (such as Gerhard saying, “Is it really only three months since we met?”). However, the distinctive fast-paced action results in a page-turner that’s perfect for a long train or plane journey.

Waheed Rabbani

A BREATH OF HOPE

Lauraine Snelling, Bethany House, 2018, $15.99, pb, 336pp, 9780764218972

Set in the early 20th century, this inspirational tale follows Nilda, a young Norwegian woman making her way to the United States, and her sister-in-law, Signe, who is already managing her own complicated life in the north woods of Minnesota. When the families reunite, both women come together to find inspiration and support in their local church, their friendship, and the new opportunities presented in their adopted country. Domestic details abound, filling the pages with historic flavor, and the happy and inspirational content make for a soothing

read. However, life is not always easy: Nilda must overcome obstacles in her home country before she sets sail for her new home, and after her arrival a miserly relative in Minnesota prevents both women from fully connecting with their new neighbors. These conflicts are quickly resolved, and not persuasively so. The main villain, their Uncle Einar, has no redemptive arc, which feels at odds with the otherwise inspirational narrative. Such opportunities are perhaps intentionally swept aside to provide a narrative lighter on tension but abundant with warm images of family and the immigrant experience in rural Minnesota.

A comforting read.

Ellen Jaquette

MISS KOPP JUST WON’T QUIT

Amy Stewart, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018, $26.00, hb, 320pp, 9781328736512

Miss Constance Kopp is a deputy sheriff in Hackensack, New Jersey, and rather a novelty in 1916. She chases down male and female criminals, sometimes sleeps in jail and finds satisfaction in understanding the lives of so-called criminal women. She is angered when she arrives to take a female lunatic, Mrs. Kayser, to the asylum – only to find her a pleasant housewife, clearly not insane. But her husband and a doctor have committed her. The law says she must be delivered to Morris Plains asylum. The reason? She has ‘a case of nerves’.

Constance Kopp asks a lawyer to fight for Mrs. Kayser’s release. Meanwhile elections are taking place, and it looks as if Miss Kopp will be losing her supportive sheriff and getting a highly unsympathetic new boss who hates the idea of a woman deputy sheriff.

This is a well-told tale that keeps the reader enthralled. The bonus is its basis on very thorough research and much historical truth.

The difficult life of women back then is laid bare. And there is no info dump. It’s all story.

Delicious story.

Valerie Adolph

THE GIRL FROM THE DOCKLANDS CAFÉ

June Tate, Allison & Busby, 2018, £19.99, hb, 344pp, 9780749023478

The Girl from the Docklands Café follows the story of Jessie, a headstrong Irish woman determined to make her own way in Southampton. June Tate successfully manages to create a balance between the harsh world of working gangs and corrupt bosses and the small acts of kindness that comes from being a good neighbour. Although simply written, the novel is action packed and will keep you going until the last page, and Tate ensures that you are cheering Jessie on until the last moment. Throughout the novel, the gender stereotype is challenged while Jessie becomes a successful career woman during the outbreak of World War One. There is a strong sense of community in the story, which

is ingrained in each character’s perspective on life. Jessie’s husband Conor, for example, is very aware of the loyalty of the working gangs of Southampton and uses it for his own purposes. Jessie, meanwhile, is touched by the solidarity of her friends through tough times when everything seems to be slipping away. Tate, in creating Jessie as a character and placing her in a momentous historical moment, is questioning the everyday aspects of the past and bringing the people of the Southampton Docks to life.

Clare Lehovsky

CITY OF SECRETS

Victoria Thompson, Berkley, 2018, $26.00, hb, 320pp, 9780451491619

In a New York church in the 1920s, Elizabeth Miles, a reformed grifter, lingers after the service to meet some of society’s leading suffragettes. While she’s pleased to see the way Gideon, a prominent lawyer, is looking at her, she’s delighted when his mother walks over and greets her. Elizabeth then meets the wealthy, twice-widowed Priscilla Knight, a woman grieving for her husband, Endicott, who died under mysterious circumstances.

Elizabeth learns that it was the crooked pastor and his wife who’d encouraged Priscilla to marry Endicott. But Elizabeth is alarmed when Priscilla tells her that she’s destitute, along with her two children, since all her money has mysteriously disappeared from the bank. While rummaging through Endicott’s papers, the two women discover a shocking photograph of Endicott in déshabillé with another woman, and payments made to someone who is obviously a blackmailer.

While Gideon conscientiously advises a legal route to recover Priscilla’s money, Elizabeth devises a scheme to con the blackmailers, despite the risk of exposing her past.

Victoria Thompson has concocted a delightful romantic mystery based on the morals and behavior of pre-WWII New York’s high society, somewhat like the novels of Edith Wharton or Henry James. This story includes details on the 1920s, such as the suffragist movement and rules of etiquette, which Elizabeth frequently refers to from Edith Ordway’s The Etiquette of Today. There is also some interesting background on the origins of safety deposit boxes in banks. The sophisticated dialogue between the ladies, and particularly the discussions between Elizabeth and Gideon on legal and ethical matters, are a delight to read. Although it seems Elizabeth is well ahead of her time, when women had few rights, her fight for her and others’ entitlements (even resorting to grifting) is well presented.

Waheed Rabbani

A FORGOTTEN PLACE

Charles Todd, William Morrow, 2018, $27.99/ C$34.99, hb, 368pp, 9780062678829

A Forgotten Place, book ten in the Bess Crawford mystery series, unfolds in 1918

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as soldiers are recovering from World War I wounds in a hospital in France, and Nurse (Sister) Bess Crawford is assigned to a clinic assisting amputees. Drawn to a unit of Welsh patients, many suffering from depression, she worries how they’ll adapt to life in mining communities that offer few jobs for men without limbs. On leave, Bess tracks them to a remote coast in Wales and finds Captain Williams, the unit’s leader. She is immediately involved in a series of calamities, bizarre discoveries, and sudden death among the villagers that build pressure until Bess can no longer ignore the compulsion to discover a truth that needs to be freed. Dark characters, a hangover from war losses, and an unquenchable fascination with a shipwreck create significant tension.

This being my first encounter with the series, I didn’t read much that explained Bess’s backstory, though I wish it had, or explained the fantastic character of Simon Brandon, but the plot drives its own force, and enough is gathered along the way to fill any potholes. The pace moves briskly at first, almost bulldozing scenes that could be meatier, then settles into the crevices of the Welsh coastline and is decelerated by the unforgiving landscape and the characters who scheme to keep their secrets hidden. The second two-thirds of the book are the most satisfying and well-earn the mystery designation. Highly recommended.

Kimberly Fish

SWEDEN

Matthew Turner, The Mantle, 2018, $14.95, pb, 327pp, 9780998642314

In Sweden, Matthew Turner reveals a different side of the Vietnam War, specifically the fate of deserters in Japan. In 1968, the Vietnam War rages in Southeast Asia, and soldiers have realized the senselessness of the war. Some soldiers, taking advantage of medical leave while in Japan, go AWOL. With help from JATEC (the Japan Technical Committee for Assistance to U.S. Anti-War Deserters), a clandestine group within the Beheiren organization, some American deserters escape to Sweden, a neutral country and a metaphor for freedom.

Sweden follows the stories of three people: Harper, an African American Marine from Alabama, injured in battle and transported to a Japanese hospital to recuperate. When he discovers that he is being sent back to Vietnam, JATEC agrees to help him escape.

Flynn, an Irish American from a potato farm in Idaho, is in the Navy. Grappling with addiction, he is given medical leave in Japan, where like Harper, he decides to flee; JATEC will also help him. Finally, Masuda is a member of JATEC. A jazz-loving, trumpet playing antiwar advocate, Masuda cares deeply about helping the American soldiers.

In the stories of Harper, Flynn, and Masuda, Turner opens the readers’ eyes to an entirely different side of the Vietnam War and the secret network of people who tried to help deserters. Turner is clearly fluent with Japanese culture, history, and cities. This knowledge, though, is often distracting and detracts 50

from the narrative since the characters often descend into tangential lectures about history and culture. As a result, there is a lot of filler within Sweden, and better editing would have improved this book’s narrative and character development. Nevertheless, the content is historically fascinating, and Turner knows his stuff.

Julia C. Fischer

THE SHAPE OF THE RUINS

Juan Gabriel Vásquez (trans. Anne McLean), MacLehose, 2018, £20.00, hb, 506pp, 9780857056580 / Riverhead, 2018, $27.00, hb, 528pp, 9780735211148

While in a Bogota hospital awaiting the premature birth of twin daughters, the narrator Julian Vasquez encounters a friendly doctor, Doctor Benavides, whom he quickly befriends.

Through the doctor, Vasquez meets Carlos Carballo, a man consumed by a conspiracy theory regarding the assassination, in 1948, of Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, politician and JFK-like character. Reluctantly, Vasquez is persuaded to write a novel about the murder. Vasquez draws together a collection of evidence varying from anecdotes, hearsay, forensic evidence, witness statements and even faded photographs.

He finds himself drawn into the conspiracy, likening it to the assassination of Rafael Uribe in 1914. Is there a link between them, or is this just a classic conspiracy theory?

Vasquez presents himself as the central character of the book. We learn about his career as a novelist, the state of his marriage, the birth of his daughters. The other main characters, Benavides and Carballo are revealed as the book progresses. This is simultaneously a criminal investigation, historical narrative and auto-fiction. Brilliantly translated from Spanish, it is a descriptive and revealing story of Colombian life and culture, wrapped up in an enigmatic search for the truth.

Mike Ashworth

THE GIRL THEY LEFT BEHIND

Roxanne Veletzos, Atria, 2018, $26.99/C$35.99, hb, 355pp, 9781501187681

Bucharest, Romania, 1941.

King Carol II has abdicated, and General A n t o n e s c u ’s Legionnaires are massacring Jews or disappearing them in the night.

So when the knock comes on Iosef’s door and an officer tells him to come in for questioning—and to bring his wife and daughter—Iosef knows they’ll never return. Into the night they run, knowing they’re doomed: if they don’t freeze to death, the Iron

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Guard will find and kill them. Their only hope is to flee to the home of a friend who will hide them; but Stefan could never take them in with a child, Iosef tells Zora. If they are to save their daughter, they must abandon her to the mercy of strangers.

And so, Roxanne Veletzos’s debut novel opens with a three-year-old sitting alone on the steps of an unfamiliar apartment building on a frigid January night, wondering when her parents are coming back for her. They aren’t.

But she finds mercy in the concierge who rescues her, and in Stefan’s wife, Maria, who arranges for her own cousin to adopt her.

Excellent crafting complements superb storytelling as Veletzos depicts the war’s atrocities and years of degradation and blight through the eyes of a child who knows nothing else. Veletzos relates Romania’s complex role in WWII succinctly and with such good timing that readers can understand what is happening in the war while remaining immersed in the lives of the many people who risk what they most cherish in order to give a child a shot at life.

Based on the life of Veletzos’s mother, The Girl They Left Behind is a gripping story of endurance; of a childhood lived under a state of relentless war; and of goodness, courage, sheer will, and the fierce, selfless love that binds parent to child. Highly recommended.

Rebecca Kightlinger

A QUESTION OF TRUST

Penny Vincenzi, Overlook, 2018, $28.95, hb, 608pp, 9781468316148 / Headline, 2017, C$34.99/£20.00, hb, 608pp, 9780755377626

Penny Vincenzi has written another drama of numerous interlinked characters in her final novel, which takes place in London between 1936 and 1955. We follow the main characters through love, marriage, class division, ambition, divorce, death, heartache, secrets, scandal, and affairs. In other words, everything that makes a juicy read. Tom rises from a working-class family to be a solicitor with aspirations to a political life, married but drawn to Diana; Diana is beautiful, rich, and self-centered and learns some hard lessons; Ned will lose his career as a prominent pediatrician if his secret is revealed; Jillie breaks with tradition as she studies to be a doctor and plans for a life with Ned; Julius is engaged to Nell, but falls in love with Jillie. Josh is a journalist who crosses paths with many of the characters. We see the characters through the war years with most of the novel covering the post-war years. It tackles the political issues within the Labour party and the development of the NHS (National Health Service) through the character of Tom. We see how the criminal laws against homosexuality affect the secret gay community and the efforts to change those laws when Josh bravely writes a series of articles on London gay life. The medical establishment goes through changes as Ned challenges old ideas and hospital practices.

This is a wonderful epic which moves quickly from chapter to chapter without confusing the

reader. There is a list of characters and their relation to each other at the beginning that is helpful in getting to know them. The joy in reading this book is watching these realistic characters live their lives while making good and bad choices. This is a perfect book to settle in with for a lengthy, immersive read.

Janice Ottersberg

NEVERTHELESS SHE PERSISTED

Jon Walter, David Fickling, 2018, £14.99, hb, 327pp, 9781788450256

Clara and Nancy have managed to escape their violent and abusive father, but not before Nancy has faced an unwanted pregnancy, a painful birth and the wrench of giving her child away. She and Clara now have steady jobs as prison wardens at Holloway Prison.

It’s a new start for both of them. But it’s 1913, many of the prisoners are suffragettes on a hunger strike, and it’s the wardens who have to force-feed them. Nancy can’t help feeling sorry for the women and the indignity they are put through. Lonely and hurt after the loss of her child and feeling out of place in the new environment, Nancy is drawn to one of the prisoners, The Duchess, a well-known stage actress, and they strike up a friendship.

Nancy feels sympathy for the suffragettes and their cause, while Clara has worries of her own. She is spending all her free time with Ted and growing increasingly fond of him but is also enjoying the freedom that a job and her own money have given her. Her superiors are pleased with her work, and she knows that she may have a future there, but marrying Ted would mean giving up her work and her independence, so she faces a dilemma. As the treatment of the women becomes more violent, Clara becomes more conflicted, especially as Nancy’s activities become more militant.

This is a wonderfully written story of two sisters coming of age in a time of upheaval and social change; a story about protest and politics, class wars and gender wars.

Nancy and Clara are fabulously well-drawn characters, and this book will appeal to readers who like strong female leads.

Lisa Redmond

DAZZLE PATTERNS

Alison Watt, Broadview Press, 2017, $21.95/ C$21.95, pb, 350pp, 9781988298184

When a warship explodes in Halifax Harbor, Nova Scotia, in 1917, destroying a swath of the town and killing hundreds, Clare Holmes loses an eye. Her controlling mother, who never wanted Clare to leave the family farm, swoops her up and practically imprisons her there. But Clare’s independence isn’t the only loss, for she fears that her soldier fiancé, Leo, won’t want her anymore, and it’s doubtful that her employer at the glassworks will either.

Worst, the post-traumatic stress cripples her so badly she can barely get out of bed.

How Clare deals with her disability, much

of which is psychological, makes a compelling tale, and Watt slowly reveals how the young woman gains in perspective, literally and metaphorically. Claire’s job was to check the glass for flaws, and now she’s damaged too. Just as she has to learn to see the world differently, she must look into herself, my favorite part of the novel. Her newfound interest in art brings unexpected possibilities (and extends the metaphor of sight and perspective). When she considers that life might offer more than marrying Leo—if he returns alive—Watt handles the implied feminism with grace and subtlety.

Leo’s a well-drawn character too, but the war scenes seem less credible than those of the home front. Watt brings Halifax to life more vividly, with its fear-mongering, aspirations, and jealousies. A German-born glassblower whom Clare befriends seems too good to be true—he’s the weak link—but Dazzle Patterns succeeds anyway. Readers of historical fiction will likely focus on the Halifax narrative, which feels lived in, and disregard the shortcomings of the war sequences, which don’t. Lovers of literary fiction will have a fine time, regardless.

Larry Zuckerman

MISSING STAR Don Westenhaver, Publishing, 2017, 9781506903668

First Edition $15.95, pb,

Design 259pp,

After graduation, Danny Parker ended his relationship with Joyce Villareal to become a priest. Now, having witnessed so much death and destruction in the Great War, he questions his faith and God’s existence. Thoughts of Joyce and renewing their relationship sustain him, but meanwhile she has pursued her own dreams and is a rising Hollywood star.

On his return to Long Beach, California, Danny finds work in the oil fields and visits Joyce’s father, only to hear that Joyce has gone missing. Joyce’s father pleads with Danny to investigate, and Danny enlists the help of his brother, a Long Beach police officer. When a high school friend’s girl is kidnapped off the beach, Danny begins to wonder if the same might have happened to Joyce. But who took her and why?

The coercion of someone close to the investigation is the weak thread in what is otherwise an intricately woven web of intrigue. The reason for the blackmail is plausible, but the resolution is a bit pat and the character’s guilt isn’t deeply explored.

Even so, this historical mystery combines the inspirational themes of redemption and second chances with greed, corruption, jurisdictional disputes, and political clout in a way that vividly transports readers back to 1919. Glamour and glitz, as well as black gold, provide the camouflage that hides the seamier side of a Hollywood where exploiting innocence and pleasure take precedence over human decency.

Cindy Vallar

A SORROWFUL SANCTUARY

Iona Whishaw, Touchwood Editions, 2018, $14.95/C$16.95, pb, 355pp, 9781771512893

This fifth Lane Winslow mystery finds Lane back in King’s Cove, British Columbia, enjoying the lazy summer of 1947. An idyllic outing with her friend Angela and Angela’s two young sons abruptly shatters when they find a drifting rowboat. Inside is a severely wounded young man, his abdomen pierced by a gunshot wound. Meanwhile, a distraught mother in a nearby town reports that her son is missing. But the man in the rowboat is not her son. One of Angela’s boys finds a pin with Nazi insignia near the site, but the rowboat itself mysteriously disappears. A rash of robberies in the area target precious antiques, and in the nearby town of Kaslo, the fascist National Unity Party courts desperate and disaffected workers.

Iona Whishaw weaves these disparate threads together into an enthralling mystery.

The plot intrigues and resonates, sadly, with current events, while the deepening relationships and evolving characters of all the main players add to the appeal of this book. The romance between Lane and the scrumptious Inspector Darling progresses, while Darling’s intrepid assistant, Constable Ames, also shoulders his share of romantic burdens. The little settlement of King’s Cove and its inhabitants grow more real with each volume I read. I’m seriously considering moving there and can’t wait for the next in this series! Recommended.

Susan McDuffie

THE EMPIRE GIRLS

Sue Wilsher, Sphere, 2018, £7.99, pb, 375pp, 9780751564631

1950s south Essex. This is the dramatic story of Doris, brought up in The Empire, a boarding house in Tilbury by her mother, Vi. Doris’s world is claustrophobic as Vi struggles to hide her own past and keep her daughter respectable and by her side. Vi owns the pub and her brother-in-law, Archie and her sister, Win, help her run it. When the young, unwed Doris gives birth, which is as much a shock to her as it is to her family, she is sent to The Salvation Army’s home in Grays and told not to bring ‘It’ back. Doris’s life has just changed inexplicably, from cosseted to outcast. The ignorance shown to the Windrush Generation, Commonwealth citizens from Jamaica, is revealed. These loyal subjects were rejected by the locals, as Doris is by her family for keeping her illegitimate child. Doris helps one immigrant. She is an innocent; she is in denial and shock and has much to learn. Despite the predators who would bring her lower, Doris is a survivor who makes friends. She finds her cause, her destiny and her passion for life and her daughter.

The blinkered outlook of a closed community resounds, but eyes are opened and there is change, which takes time. From oppression, abuse and hatred, coupled with

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appalling inverted snobbery, there is a strong message of hope and understanding. Even if it is impossible to forget rejection, in time it is possible to forgive. This is a very emotional read that shows how people and viewpoints can change if only that change is welcomed and embraced.

Valerie Loh

THE SOLACE OF WATER

Elizabeth Byler Younts, Thomas Nelson, 2018, $15.99, pb, 357pp, 9780718075668

No parent should have to bury a child, but this death hits Delilah Evans especially hard.

Carver was her joy, though she still has four other children to love. She blames her eldest, Sparrow, for Carver’s death because she was kissing a boy while caring for the little ones.

To start over, they move from Alabama to her preacher husband’s former hometown in Pennsylvania. The new start doesn’t help Sparrow, who knows her negligence caused her baby brother to drown and now wants to punish herself. Only the relationship with the white boy next door gives her hope.

Emma Mullet still mourns the unborn baby she lost 13 years ago. Her church family would sustain her if she didn’t shut them out because of sins she commits to protect her drunken husband, the Amish community’s head deacon. Instead, she is drawn to the new black family on the other side of the pond.

Small-town life in central Pennsylvania in the mid-1950s was not as racially charged as in the South, but blacks still were expected to stay away from whites. Emma treats Sparrow like the daughter she lost, and Emma and Delilah ignore those prejudices as they strengthen and comfort each other in their heartache.

Younts, who is Amish, does a masterful job of telling this tale from three points of view, two of which are black. Both the dialect and dialogue are spot-on. The secrets portrayed are more grievous than in many inspirationals, and we feel the ache in these women’s souls as they carry their burdens. Multiple allusions to water as both life-giving and life-taking pepper the book but never overwhelm the resolution of both acceptance and forgiveness.

Tom Vallar

ACROSS THE GREAT LAKE

Lee Zacharias, Univ. of Wisconsin, 2018, $23.95, hb, 240pp, 9780299320904

Lake Michigan is the star in the tale that 85-year-old Fern Halvorson tells about the journey she and her father took during the winter of 1936, when she was just five years old. Her mother lies on her deathbed while her family sails across the great lake on a ferry called the Manitou.

Some novels evoke a bygone era more vividly than others, and this is definitely one of these. The narrator proceeds with careful, haunting precision as she learns her way around the ship, with its young deckhands and hidden cats. The crisp winter air grows colder 52

and more lethal when a ghost ship crosses their path and signals danger for all.

The narrator, recalling from great age, gives voice to details and background quite outside the ability of a five-year-old to notice, but somehow by interspersing her later doubts and thoughts, it is not of detriment to the narrative.

The author excels at period-appropriate details and at bringing to life the stern attitudes of her immigrant parents and the other characters featured. The novel is perfect for a cold, rainy night, wrapped in a warm blanket and sipping tea. It’s one to be reread and savored for years to come.

Xina Marie Uhl

THE LABYRINTH OF THE SPIRITS

Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Harper, 2018, $37.50, hb, 848pp, 9780062668691 / HarperCollins, 2018, C$34.99, hb, 848pp, 9781443453998 / W&N, 2018, £14.99, hb, 832pp, 9781474606189

The Labyrinth of the Spirits spans the years from 1938—when the Nacionales bombed Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War—to 1992. The driving force of the novel is Alicia Gris, who lost her parents during the bombing and still carries the emotional and physical scars twenty years later. But these scars make her fearless. As a secret service investigator, Alicia is tasked with the disappearance of the high-powered Minister of Culture, Mauricio Valls. Her only clue is a rare book found in his office that leads her back to Barcelona and to the Montjuïc prison that Valls ran. As she investigates, she begins to peel back layers of crimes, conspiracies and atrocities committed by Valls and other officials during the Franco regime.

The Labyrinth of the Spirits is a compelling, multi-faceted, and haunting work of art told by a master storyteller. To say that the writing is brilliant is an understatement. Carlos Ruiz Zafón respects every word, taking his time to develop and do justice to major, minor and irrelevant characters, places, things, or situations in order to recreate a dark time in Spain’s history and ensure that the reader not only bears witness to it but is immersed in it and feels it. It is also a complex novel. Alicia’s investigation is the thread that holds the novel together, but there are multiple story lines and characters, including those from previous volumes of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, all of which feed into Valls.

The Labyrinth of the Spirits is an epic novel of a brutal period in Spain’s history, but it is also an ode to writing and to the undying thirst for knowledge through reading. It is therefore

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fitting that the novel concludes in 1992, when the story lines are brought to a head and the atrocities are brought to light in newspapers.

Francesca Pelaccia

MULTI-PERIOD

THE GIRL FROM BERLIN

Ronald Balson, St. Martin’s, 2018, $27.99, hb, 384pp, 9781250195241

If you have not yet been introduced to the husband-and-wife investigator/lawyer team of Liam Taggart and Catherine Lockhart, The Girl from Berlin could be a great first choice, even though it is the fifth Taggart/Lockhart book in the series.

A friend, an Italian restaurant owner, approaches the couple about a letter his aunt Gabi received, ordering her to vacate the property in which she has lived for most of her life, as she has been informed she does not have the title to the land. He hands Liam and Catherine a manuscript, written in German, which will supply clues that will help the investigators unlock the puzzle. The couple flies to Tuscany to help solve the case, which is more sinister than it appears.

A concurrent plot line follows the life of Ada Baumgarten, a Jewish violinist who wrote her memoir about her life in Germany while Hitler was ascending to power. Because of her status in society, she is protected, for a while, from the many restrictions against Jews. However, when she inadvertently embarrasses a SS soldier, the consequences will follow her for years.

A cast of colorful characters rounds out the story in the present day, as Liam and Catherine work with Italian officials to solve the title dispute on Gabi’s property as they sift through an unfamiliar legal system. But Ada owns the more enthralling storyline, with vivid scenes and authentic descriptions that the reader is propelled into Nazi Germany. When the two stories finally converge, it makes for a rewarding reading experience.

Hilary Daninhirsch

THE LOST CAROUSEL OF PROVENCE Juliet Blackwell, Berkley, 2018, C$20.00, pb, 384pp, 9780451490636

$15.00/

In The Lost Carousel of Provence, Juliet Blackwell unravels the mystery of a forgotten carousel from Belle Époque-era France in three interweaving storylines. The main protagonist is Cady Drake, an Oaklandbased photographer who is grappling with her past as a foster child and the death of her close friend, Maxine. Cady wants to solve the mystery of Gus, a wooden carousel rabbit given to her by Maxine, which she believes is a lost Gustav Bayol masterpiece. Cady travels to Paris and then the dilapidated Château Clement in Paris to prove Gus’s provenance.

In Belle Époque Provence, Maëlle Tanguy, a talented sculptress, works in Bayol’s carousel workshop, where she helps her master create a merry-go-round for the Château Clement.

The third part of the story is in World War II Paris. Here, Fabrice Clement is a member of the French Resistance and after the war he returns to his family home, the Château Clement, where decades later, his and Cady’s paths will cross.

The Lost Carousel of Provence is a treat for Francophiles, especially those interested in turn-of-the-century France. Blackwell vividly captures the intricate workings of a carousel workshop in France, from the carving, sanding, and painting of the individual carousel animals to the technology involved in the creation of a merry-go-round. In fact, Maëlle’s story is so fascinating that this reader wished she was the main protagonist or even the sole focus of this book. Nevertheless, within the framework of the lost carousel, in both the past and the present-day, Blackwell tells a gripping story about love, acceptance, and human connection.

Julia C. Fischer

CALL OF THE CURLEW (UK) / THE ORPHAN OF SALT WINDS (US)

Elizabeth Brooks, Constable, 2018, £12.99, hb, 318pp, 9780857525574 / Tin House, 2019, $16.95, pb, 300pp, 9781947793224

December 1939, and Virginia, an orphan aged 10, is adopted by Clem & Lorna Wrathmell. She is taken to their large house, Salt Winds, on the margins of Tollbury Marsh in the east of England. Clem is a nature writer, while Lorna is a book illustrator and frustrated artist. From her very first night in her new home, it is clear to Virginia that there are tensions between her new parents – these seem to be primarily caused by the attentions of a sleek local businessman Max Deering, who is clearly attracted to Lorna and is a widower. He is portrayed as a sort of pantomime villain, though his behaviour towards Virginia is much more sinister than the conventional stuff of essentially harmless moustache-twirling melodrama. When the war finally comes to the isolated marshlands around Salt Winds, Virginia’s new life is turned upside down and she is forced to confront some terrible challenges to her young life.

Interspersed with the sorry tale is the narrative of an aged and infirm Virginia living alone in her mid-eighties in Salt Winds at the end of 2015, looking back at those events of over seventy years ago. An unexpected arrival of a female teenager, Sophie, upsets her plans, but learning who Sophie is links neatly with the past.

There is a mood of L.P. Hartley’s The

Go-Between in this delightful tale, a gently elegiac narrative of times long past. It is a gripping and moving story, with superbly delineated characters, excellent dialogue and descriptions. In some areas, the events of the story stretch credibility, but after all this is a novel (the author’s first) and it should be given the wider plaudits this beautiful tale deserves.

Douglas Kemp

THREE SIDES WATER

Peter Donahue, Ooligan Press, 2018, $17.00, pb, 328pp, 9781932010985

Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula is what the short novels in the collection Three Sides Water have in common. It travels from a 1925-set harrowing, suspenseful tale of a woman’s assault and its lifelong aftermath, to a 1970 coming-of-age tale set in the waning days of a juvenile detention center, to a present-day wry, comic look at one man’s obsession with… wait for it: Bing Crosby.

In On Rialto Beach, Marguerite is half of an identical twin set who has entered show business via the flim-flam performances of her mystic act boss. While on vacation in his remote luxury camp, Marguerite experiences the delight of drawing in a treehouse and the company of visiting silent screen idol Harold Lloyd. But she is also brutally attacked by a hired man. The summer and its secrets haunt her.

In At Fort Worden, readers meet chronic delinquent Avery, who spends his last year as a ward of the state. He runs away from his detention center, experiences his first love with fellow inmate Brenda and friendship with a transgender teen. Through them he awakens to the tumultuous world at large.

Finally, Out of Shelton follows Chris, who has been brought up by his grandmother in the image of the singing star Bing Crosby, and finds his own identity submerging into Der Bingle’s, warts and all. It proves promising for his entertainment career but wreaks havoc on his love and family life. The pull of place comes to his rescue, along with some dosing with Anafranil.

Though widely different in tone and genre, these three short novels unite in their compelling setting. Each shares the pull of place: this spectacular corner of the continent. A delightful tour de force. Highly recommended.

Eileen Charbonneau

DRESSING THE DEARLOVES

Kelly Doust, HarperCollins Australia, 2018, A$32.99, pb, 410pp, 9781460751015 Dressing the Dearloves is Australian writer, Kelly Doust’s second novel. Author of a number of craft books on vintage clothing and a multi-period novel, Precious Things, featuring a glittering beaded collar, Doust’s passion for the history of costume is also front and centre in this latest novel.

An ambitious multi-period narrative

spanning five generations from the 1920s to the modern day, Dressing the Dearloves is mostly set in an English ancestral home (think Downton Abbey with no maintenance budget). Most of the action takes place in the current day with only occasional glimpses of earlier periods, via short character scenes or news extracts, making it at times seem more like a contemporary novel than historical fiction. As the novel progresses, Doust does slightly increase the length of past flashbacks, subtly giving the illusion of delving deeper into the past.

At the beginning of the novel the main protagonist, Sylvie Dearlove, returns home to her decaying family estate after failing spectacularly as a fashion designer in New York. She’s a hard-drinking, smoking, pillpopping mess with zero self-esteem or purpose. Expecting condemnation from her high-achieving family, she finds them distracted by their own problems.

With four generations of Dearloves under the same roof, hiding from past issues and secrets, Sylvie finds herself spending more and more time in the attic sorting the family’s collection of period clothes and accessories.

Through this she rediscovers what’s important, as she uncovers truths about herself and her very complicated family.

Dressing the Dearloves is recommended as pure escapism for lovers of fashion and contemporary and historical romance.

Christine Childs

THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER’S DAUGHTER

Hazel Gaynor, William Morrow, 2018, $16.99/C$21.00, pb, 416pp, 9780062859761 / HarperCollins, 2019, £7.99, pb, 416pp, 9780008255220

Grace Darling loves life on Longstone Island, in Northumberland, England, where she helps her father with lighthouse duties at night and collects specimens of sea life during the day, when she’s not helping with household chores. In 1838, lighthouses are invaluable to mariners, and Grace is serious about her commitment, rather than dreaming about becoming someone’s wife on the mainland.

Early on the morning of September 7, 1838, Grace spots figures huddled at the base of a neighboring island after a wicked storm; she and her father battle wind and waves to row out and rescue these shipwreck survivors.

Grace’s bravery changes life at the lighthouse, as she becomes a sought-after celebrity.

One hundred years later, pregnant nineteen-year-old Matilda Emmerson leaves Ireland for Newport, Rhode Island, to live with a distant relative, Harriet, who is a lighthouse keeper. One of Matilda’s few possessions is a locket, with Victorian-era portraits of unknown relatives standing in front of a lighthouse. The stories of Grace and Matilda slowly unfold and come together in successive chapters as these young women discover sometimes-painful truths about themselves and confront the mores of their

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times, especially in terms of relationships, both familial and sensual.

Gaynor’s narrative seamlessly flows between the eras and the women, chronicling their longing, their pain, and their quiet triumphs. Historical details of northern England and Rhode Island are spot-on, from clothes to house construction. Secondary characters are drawn with equal attention to detail, allowing readers to see into the lives of everyone from Grace’s sister, to the Duchess of Northumberland, to Mrs. O’Driscoll, Matilda’s escort across the Atlantic. The weather itself is a character and narrative catalyst. Based on the real life of Grace Darling and two fierce storms, Gaynor’s tale is both heartbreaking and captivating.

Helene Williams

THE LOVE LETTER

Rachel Hauck, Thomas Nelson, 2018, $15.99/ C$19.00, pb, 335pp, 9780310351009

What do a colonial soldier afraid to declare his love and a Hollywood actress stymied by typecasting have in common? Can Chloe get the challenging part she wants—and interest Jess, the screenwriter—when everybody knows her history of failures? If Hamilton declares his love to Esther, can she get the approval of her father, who is still loyal to the King of England?

Do they have the courage to take a chance on achieving their dreams?

The McGuffin, that which runs the plot, is a letter from Hamilton to Esther that, when handed down to Jess and read by Chloe, puts a different spin on both romances. But neither the letter nor the revelations surrounding it— designed to tie up or explain loose ends—makes Chloe’s search for a meaningful life comparable to Hamilton’s longing for a peaceful life during the Revolution. That said, Hauck writes well, her characters are interesting if not introspective, and she handles the alternating narration smoothly. The Love Letter will appeal to romance and time-slip fans, if not to readers who prefer literary fiction.

Jeanne Greene

UNSHELTERED

Barbara Kingsolver, Harper, 2018, $29.99, hb, 480pp, 9780062684561

“‘Without shelter, we stand in daylight.’

‘Without shelter, we feel ourselves likely to die.”

Two brilliant narrators, separated by more than a century but residing in the same imperfect house, grapple with the challenges of keeping their families intact when the world seems to be coming apart around them.

Willa (presentday) and her husband, an

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underemployed academic, have inherited a crumbling house in Vineland, New Jersey which also shelters two adult children, an infant grandson, an ailing father, and a mountain of debt. Caught “between Scylla and Charybdis,” Willa applies to the local historical society for funds to literally keep the roof over their heads. In the process, she uncovers the story of an earlier owner of the house, Thatcher Greenwood, an idealistic science teacher caught between his young, socially ambitious wife and a growing friendship with his neighbor, the brilliant (reallife) naturalist, Mary Treat. Both characters face domestic disasters that would overwhelm most people with frustration, anxiety, and grief, but they keep themselves going with a dry wit and unquenchable curiosity about just how bad things can possibly get.

It sounds grim, but the novel is hilarious and heart-wrenching at the same time. In spite of the shared themes and setting, the two voices are distinct and very much of their time period.

If the parallels between Vineland’s venal 19thcentury developer, Charles Landis, and the 2015 Presidential candidate Willa refers to as The Bullhorn are absurdly on-the-nose, that’s not Kingsolver’s fault: it’s history. She surprises the reader not with easy plot twists, but with the ways in which the beleaguered characters find reserves of joy in the midst of disaster. This much-needed novel reminds us that America’s deep ideological divisions are nothing new, and that hope lies in the older generation’s willingness to trust in the ingenuity and idealism of the young.

Kristen McDermott

WITHOUT A COUNTRY

Ayse Kulin (trans.

Kenneth Dakan), AmazonCrossing, 2018, $14.95/£8.99, pb, 316pp, 9781503900974

Ayse Kulin has several successful novels to her credit, and she has picked another interesting topic for this one. Its basis is an obscure fact that educated German Jews—doctors, scientists and others—were invited to Turkey to assist in building that nation just before WWII. Despite political roadblocks imposed by Hitler, many managed to settle there. Kulin covers, in depth, the chronicle of one such family well into their fourth generation.

In 1933, Dr. Gerhard Schliemann, his wife Elsa, and their young children, Susy and Peter, are living comfortably in Frankfurt, Germany. Gerhard unexpectedly learns about an impending roundup of Jews, and the family flees to Switzerland. From there, Gerhard, using an ingenious scheme, manages to secure a position at a Turkish university, relocating with his family and a maid to Istanbul. The majority of Turks welcome Gerhard and other Jewish scientists, who are there not only to escape Hitler’s wrath, but also to help in the modernization of Turkey. However, there are still undercurrents of prejudice. Nevertheless, the Schliemanns continue to prosper with Gerhard at work, the children at school, and Elsa managing their home and making friends.

Susy assimilates readily. She learns Turkish,

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goes out with the locals, and even calls herself an “Ataturk’s daughter.” Before long, the family faces a crisis that threatens their tranquil life.

However, this family saga continues to thrive all the way into 2016.

While Elsa’s and Gerhard’s and Susy’s accounts are captivating, the reading of the narrative of their descendants is much like a concise biography and is somewhat arduous.

The plot relies mostly on family relationships and their squabbles. Although the characters individually exhibit tenacity to achieve their destinies, more interaction between them would have made for a better theme. Overall, the novel offers valuable insight into the development of Turkey into a modern nation.

Waheed Rabbani

THE PARIS SEAMSTRESS

Natasha Lester, Forever, 2018, $14.99/C$19.49, pb, 464pp, 9781538714775 / Sphere, 2018, £7.99, pb, 448pp, 9780751573077

Romance and mystery intertwine in this multi-period novel that begins in Paris during 1940. As Nazi forces prepare to occupy the city, a chance encounter with a British spy changes Estella’s life forever. At her mother’s insistence, she leaves for New York immediately, but not before learning that her father was an American. The revelation upends Estella’s sense of identity. Once in New York, she evades the question by immersing herself in work, with the ambitious goal of starting a fashion design business. Another unexpected meeting with a handsome MI6 agent leads to a disconcerting discovery. Not wanting to know more, Estella resists probing the mystery of her birth until circumstances make the dark truth unavoidable. By then, wrong assumptions and tragedy have caused heartache, and Estella’s time with the love of her life is fleeting.

Alternating with Estella’s narrative is the storyline of her granddaughter Fabienne, who visits New York in 2015 with questions for her elderly grandmother about the parents listed on the birth certificate of her recently deceased father. Fabienne’s romance with a man she meets in New York is fraught with a series of obstacles, and she must make some major choices. The story brims with specifics of the fashion industry and ably expresses the creative design inspiration that Estella and Fabienne both experience. In a few other instances, however, the prose style tends to over-explain the characters’ actions.

Surprisingly, the author links the fictional plot of Estella’s birth to real-life scandals from the early 1900s involving well-known celebrities. The mystery loses tension because most of its secrets are divulged well before the story’s conclusion, but the emphasis on romantic tension remains strong to the end.

Cynthia Slocum

THE LOST VINTAGE

Ann Mah, William Morrow, 2018, $26.99/ C$33.50, hb, 384pp, 9780062823311

This novel follows a familiar model—a young American woman travels to Europe and

discovers truths about herself by exploring the life of a woman in the past—but this elegantly written tale is much more. It’s a meditation on what Americans have given up in their quest for self-definition: a sense of rootedness in a piece of land; a sense of home. Kate, the aspiring wine expert who narrates the story, calls what she’s missing a sense of “chez moi”— and envies the security and pride in their craft that she sees in the relatives she visits in the vineyards of Burgundy. When she encounters the story of Hélène (her great-great-aunt), who endured and apparently died during the Nazi occupation of France, she begins to realize that the French devotion to tradition comes at a terrible cost.

Just as she has tried to forget her romantic history with the handsome owner of the neighboring estate, her family has buried the memories of its forebears’ collaboration under Vichy. A discovery of a long-buried wine cellar, however, sends Kate on a quest to discover the truth about Hélène and to locate a hidden cache of the family’s precious Gouttes d’Or (Drops of Gold) wine. The novel switches between the present-day narrative, rich with descriptions of delicious food, wine, and the gorgeous Meursault countryside, and Hélène’s journal, in which we begin to discover the widening gap between the family’s perception of their disgraced ancestor and her reality. Both stories come to a satisfying (if a little too tidy) conclusion, leaving the reader satisfied but probably longing for just one more glass of white Burgundy.

Kristen McDermott

THE CLOCKMAKER’S DAUGHTER

Kate Morton, Mantle, 2018, £18.99, hb, 604pp, 9780230759282 / Atria, 2018, $28.00, hb, 512pp, 9781451649390

It is difficult to categorise the new novel

by Kate Morton, author of The House at Riverton and The Distant Hours. There is a ghost haunting Birchwood Manor, but this is not a haunted house story as such. There is a missing diamond, but this is not a crime novel. Indeed, the solutions to all of the mysteries around secret identities, unknown or missing parents and stolen jewels are fairly predictable. In the present day there is a young woman who is about to get married, but her story is background to the stories of the past, all relating or leading in some way to Birchwood Manor. The most interesting story revolves around one summer in the life of the Victorian painter Edward Radcliffe, resulting in the tragic death of his fiancée. The blurb describes the novel as “a story of art, love and loss”.

The large number of stories makes the book a little fragmented. It is hard to get emotionally connected to any of the characters, especially the present-day heroine, Elodie. This book is best read as a gentle saga, flowing in and out of various lives. Towards the end of the novel the pace picks up for the enthralling reveal of the titular clockmaker’s daughter’s fate, but

this is an exception to the more moderate tempo of the rest of the novel. I wished that the author had omitted some stories to allow more focus on others, but it is possible that other readers, particularly fans of Morton’s other novels revolving around country houses, will prefer the more extensive approach.

A minor quibble, but the “clockmaker’s daughter” of the title is the pickpocket and artist’s model “Lily Millington”. Her father’s occupation is the least-interesting aspect about her, and an odd choice for the title of this book.

Laura Shepperson

MELMOTH

Sarah Perry, Custom House, 2018, $27.99, hb, 245pp, 9780062863225 / Serpent’s Tail, 2018, £16.99, hb, 288pp, 9781788160650

Beware the reader delving into the wondrous world of Sarah Perry’s Melmoth without the time to finish this breathtaking novel in one sitting. I suggest an idle weekend to savor this masterpiece, which surpasses even its predecessor, The Essex Serpent, in its lyrical beauty and historical ambition.

A paean to Charles Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer, Perry’s book emulates the gothic thriller’s structure of a matryoshka, with diverse storylines traversing different eras, regions, and genres—letters, memoirs, and confessions—nestled into one another. The individual elements combine into a sophisticated reflection on the nature of human faith and culpability.

What do an Englishwoman hiding from the consequences of her actions in modernday Prague, a Czech man trying to atone for his collusion with the Nazis, and an Ottoman official signing a movement order for the Armenian population of Trezibond have in common? Could it be the belief that their betrayals have been observed by an elusive ‘recording angel,’ who at times seems human, but more often appears as a supernatural phenomenon, blighting creation, diverting the course of history, causing terrible illness and suffering? Or is she an illusion—the expression of an innate evil?

“All my life, I’d wanted to write a great monster…but I wanted mine to be a woman,” Perry said in an interview with The Independent.

Melmoth centers on Helen Franklin, a British expatriate, who understands the truth about her ‘follower’ during a visit to the opera; as she watches the mermaid Rusalka exchanging immortality for love, Helen comes to accept that her only hope of redemption is the defense she erects against despair. The question

remains—is this insight enough to save her, or to save any of us? Highly intriguing and recommended.

Elisabeth Lenckos

THE FALL OF A SPARROW

Dan Scannell, Black Rose Writing, 2018, $15.95, pb, 178pp, 9781684330799

Numerous theories exist regarding the authorship of William Shakespeare’s plays and poems. Contemporary historian Michael Devon finds a journal written by Henry Howard, the son of the Earl of Surrey, perhaps the real Shakespeare. The novel begins with Henry as a child, cowering behind a curtain as his father is arrested and taken to the Tower, where he will be beheaded on the command of King Henry. The story continues with the second narrative of Michael Devon and “Hank,” or Henrietta Claudia Wells, two scholar friends who love verbal sparring and looking for treasure troves in books or articles about the 16th century, Shakespeare, his peers and the prevailing politicians of the time. The theory? “Maybe, just maybe, Edward de Vere DID introduce the world to what we call the works of Shakespeare, but what if the plays and poems were actually written by someone else, someone Edward de Vere knew personally and who was somehow indebted to him?” They discover the journal written by Henry, which the remainder of the novel covers.

It’s a wonderful depiction of life in Paris with the playful conversations of friends, the mysteriously dark prophetic utterings of the famous Nostradamus, the Catholic career of a friend quickly spurned for love of a beautiful woman, jousting, literary discussions, brief selections of verse, and some verses of the time that show literary skill. The work of the master? “No, you have that which suffering will not quell/And passion strong that tempests cannot drown,/Your love for untold ages men will tell/Your names inscribed in tales of great renown…” Readers, decide! Most of all, enjoy this work of meandering through historical and contemporary reflections about Henry Howard.

Viviane Crystal

SUMMER OF SECRETS

Nikola Scott, Headline Review, 2018, £7.99, pb, 334pp, 9781472241184

Given the opportunity, I’ll choose a book with the word ‘secret’ in the title. We all love secrets. We try to keep them to ourselves and yet, we’re desperately curious about other people’s secrets. Nikola Scott’s Summer of Secrets doesn’t disappoint. On the eve of the Second World War, orphaned teenager Maddy spends her days sketching on a rambling Cornwall estate. Her beloved sister returns from a trip abroad with glamourous friends and a handsome but increasingly sinister boyfriend. On the same day, a RAF plane crashes during a training flight over the coast. A pilot goes missing, presumed dead.

The story is then brought forward to

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the present to introduce Chloe, a talented photographer with a secret, who finds herself married to a man who isn’t all that he seems.

Chloe meets Maddy, an old woman now, for a photography shoot. Their individual stories are developed in a beautifully written dual narrative, culminating in a dramatic climax.

Maddy’s storyline from her life in 1939 comes alive with detail, perhaps more so than Chloe’s contemporary one. However, the parallel storylines work well to entice the reader to turn the page, eager to unravel the threads of each secret.

Scott deftly leads the reader through emotionally charged scenes, never becoming melodramatic. She addresses the issue of domestic abuse, specifically coercive control, with skill and sensitivity. At its heart, though, the story is one of love. Love between siblings, love between parents and children, love between men and women that endures through difficult times.

The secret’s out – this novel is a good read.

Sallie Anderson

EDITH’S WAR Andrew Smith, LeCouteur Publishing, 2018, $12.95, pb, 329pp, 9780986496202

This novel tells the story of England’s internment of Italian civilians during WWII and weaves a love story into the plot. In 1940, Edith Maguire is pregnant and living with her mother-in-law and teenage brother-in-law while her husband is away fighting in the war.

Their neighbors, Carlo Baccanello and his wife, live with his parents and brothers. When Carlo first meets Edith, the two are attracted to each other, and this later develops into an affair. The Baccanello family are Italians who have lived in England for many years, their children British born and raised. The newspapers begin spewing hatred toward anyone of Italian descent living in the country, labeling all of them as Black Fascists.

When Mussolini declares war on England, the order goes out that all men of Italian descent are to be arrested. The Baccanello men, along with Carlo, are taken away and imprisoned.

Each chapter alternates between the stories of Edith and Carlo in the 1940s and Edith’s two sons in 2002. In the contemporary storyline, Edith has summoned her two adult sons to meet her in Venice. While they wait for her to arrive, they try to figure out the purpose of the meeting while reminiscing about their childhood in England.

This is an interesting, little-known piece of WWII history, but the storyline is lackluster. There is much repetition and insignificant detail that adds nothing to the story, while the historical facts are not well integrated into the plot. Edith’s sons, who converse while walking around Venice, feel like just a fill-in device. Why Venice is the chosen meeting spot is never revealed, but it does bring about unlikely coincidences and a convenient ending. This was a disappointing read.

Janice Ottersberg

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A CLOUD IN THE SHAPE OF A GIRL

Jean Thompson, Simon & Schuster, 2018, $26.00/C$35.00, hb, 336pp, 9781501194368

A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl is a multigenerational story set in a small Midwestern town where three women try to cope with lives they find unsatisfying and unhappy. Right after World War II, Evelyn, matriarch of the Wise family, sets aside an intellectually satisfying career to marry a man she doesn’t love for the sake of security.

Instead of the career she craves, she becomes a housewife and mother. These roles don’t suit her, and she passes that unhappiness down to her daughter, Laura. Laura feels her mother’s discontent acutely and becomes the “pleaser” in her family. Laura’s daughter, Grace, fights her mother’s way of life and struggles to break free of the family pattern, without much success.

Overall, A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl is the story of the women’s attempt to escape dysfunction.

Each woman fails to free herself, and the story is steeped in hopelessness. It is not an inspiring read, but those who like stories full of angst and drama—including unwanted pregnancies, extramarital affairs, alcoholism, drug addiction, and cancer—will appreciate this novel.

One problem I found was that although Evelyn’s story, a minor part of the plot, was set in a historical era, the rest of the book is contemporary. Laura and Grace’s lives revolve around present-day issues. Readers looking for historical fiction in this book will be disappointed.

Another issue is the pace of the plot; it is very slow-moving. It took me much longer to make my way through the book than it should have.

Readers who are interested in a story about women’s attempts to escape suffocating lives— and I’m sure there are many who can empathize with their situations—will want to read this book.

Andrea Connell

THE GLASS OCEAN

Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig & Karen White, William Morrow, 2018, $26.99/C$33.50, hb, 416pp, 9780062642455

In 2013, author Sarah Blake has writer’s block.

Her first book was a big hit, but now she has no ideas. Seeking inspiration, she opens an old chest that belonged to her great-grandfather and discovers something that could change history.

She rushes to England to discover more about her great-grandfather and his death aboard the RMS Lusitania in 1915.

In 1915, Caroline Telfair Hochstetter finds herself aboard the Lusitania as her emotionally distant husband, Gilbert, has business in England. Caroline hopes the trip will help them reconnect, but Gilbert remains elusive, disappearing at all hours without explanation to conduct business he won’t discuss. Tessa Fairweather is also aboard, traveling secondclass on her way home to Devon. She, however, is really Tennessee Schaff, a thief with a partner, who promises that this is their last heist. As Caroline and Tessa’s storylines collide, more and

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more is revealed about the Lusitania, the people aboard, and the secrets they keep.

The story switches between present-time Sarah and the women aboard the ship. Sarah’s blossoming romance is fun to read, as well as her discoveries of the past, but I found myself more immersed in the storyline aboard the Lusitania, which had better intrigue and suspense. The authors do a fine job with historical detail, interweaving facts with the fictional story.

Although this is a joint effort between these three well-known authors, the writing is seamless and the storyline weaves together quite well.

Rebecca Cochran

TIMESLIP

DAUGHTERS OF THE LAKE

Wendy Webb, Lake Union, 2018, $24.95, hb, 345pp, 9781503900820 / £8.99, pb, 345pp, 9781503901339

Wendy Webb’s newest Gothic novel is partly a paranormal time-slip with occasional ghosts and spooky happenings. It’s also a multi-period saga about doomed lovers and a long-unsolved mystery full of atmospheric Great Lakes folklore.

If any of these elements appeal, dive right in!

Present day: the body of an auburn-haired young woman wearing a vintage nightgown is released by Lake Superior, a baby clutched in her cold arms. Kate Granger reacts badly to the discovery, since she’s been having dreams from the woman’s viewpoint. After traveling to the tourist town of Wharton, where her cousin Simon has transformed their wealthy great-grandfather’s mansion into a B&B, Kate learns the mystery has followed her there. As Kate recovers from a broken marriage, Simon’s caring attitude helps ground her; so does Nick Adams, a handsome African-American cop. An alternating thread follows Addie Cassatt, the young woman from the lake, from her unusual birth circumstances in 1889 to her loving marriage and tragic last days.

Addie’s ancestors had close ties with the lake, which somehow protected them. A similar thread of destiny links Addie to Jess Stewart, a boy who saves her life.

I rarely read novels straight through in a day, but – pardon the watery descriptions – the fluid writing swept me into its wake, keeping me reading even when thought I knew where the story led.

The plot moves from present to past and back, sometimes popping unexpectedly into minor characters’ viewpoints, but the transitions are smooth. Highlights include the realistic dialogue, warmhearted characters (especially Simon), and depictions of early 20th-century Midwestern architecture, social happenings, and attitudes.

How many old mysteries arise from the fact that our 19th-century forebears were reluctant to air their personal woes? That historical sentiment rings absolutely true. The story isn’t out-and-out terrifying like Webb’s earlier Gothics, but it’s still an engrossing supernatural tale.

Sarah Johnson

HISTORICAL FANTASY

MANDODARI: Queen of Lanka

Manini J. Anandani, Penguin Random House India, 2018, $15.44, pb, 274pp, 9780143442684

In mythological times in India, an apsara is enamored with the god Shiva, who seduces her. Although it enrages his consort, Parvati, who transforms the apsara into a frog destined to live in a well, Shiva’s decree reincarnates her into a beauty. Later an asura king rescues and adopts her, naming her Mandodari.

Subsequently, Ravana, the king of Lanka, falls in love and marries her. Ravana is a benevolent king who possesses ten heads that give him extraordinary powers, such as knowledge and warfare skills, which he uses to destroy evil and enlarge his empire. But he is lustful and becomes egotistical. To Queen Mandodari’s dismay, he marries more women and takes on many concubines. In her loving way, Mandodari tries to offer advice and guide him toward a righteous path. Nevertheless, Ravana takes revenge for an impropriety committed by Lord Rama. A war between Ravana and Rama ensues that has dire consequences for Mandodari, Ravana, and Lanka.

Manini Anandani has brought to life Mandodari’s story in this retelling of the Hindu epic, the Ramayana, which was based mostly on Ravana’s lifetime. While the original Ramayana is a classic poem of nearly 24,000 verses that require careful reading, this novel written in Mandodari’s first-person voice can be enjoyed in a few sittings. A helpful glossary of the numerous Hindi/Sanskrit words is included. Although the novel has a contemporary quality and style, the timeless themes of the original masterpiece are well maintained. The lessons of Mandodani’s depiction as a perfect wife standing firmly by her imperfect and conceited husband and his downfall, mainly due to his indiscretions and the actions of tricksters, are as relevant today as they were in those times. The novel does transport us to the mythical world of the Hindu gods, goddesses, and customs still practiced today.

Waheed Rabbani

TIME’S CONVERT

Deborah Harkness, Viking, 2018, $29.00/ C$37.00, hb, 409pp, 9780399564512

Phoebe Taylor and Marcus Whitmore (aka Marcus MacNeil) wish to be married. But first, Phoebe needs to be reborn—she’s to become a vampire like her fiancé. In keeping with tradition, after her rebirth she is kept from her family, her friends, and Marcus for a period of 90 days. In that time, Phoebe must learn to be a vampire, growing again through the terrible twos and into her teen years. While Phoebe adjusts to her new life, Marcus tries to come to amends with his past with the help of Diana Bishop, witch and wife to his vampire father. As a historian, Diana has a keen interest in the past, and after watching Marcus’ time threads darken she set out to help him come to terms with his past.

All the while, Diana is trying to wrangle her own twins and their newfound magical powers.

Flashing back to the American Revolution, we

follow Marcus as he joins the Army at Breed’s Hill, moves south to Trenton and becomes a field doctor, and eventually meets Matthew de Clermont—his eventual vampire father—who is serving as Lafayette’s assistant.

Harkness’ prose is often long and meandering with much introspection. As a history professor, her careful attention to historical detail is what truly sets this book apart. The Revolutionary era field hospitals come to life in their gruesome and horrifying nature. Bouncing back and forth between present-day Paris and the American Revolution, Harkness’ fully developed characters keep this book from losing pace and interest.

This is not a book for readers unfamiliar with her All Souls Trilogy, as there are many references to events from those books with no clarifying information and the large cast of characters can become overwhelming. A wonderful addition to this vampire series that Harkness fans will savor and enjoy.

Bryan Dumas

IN THE HOUSE IN THE DARK OF THE WOODS

Laird Hunt, Little Brown, 2018, $25.00/ C$32.50, hb, 224pp, 9780316411059

In colonial New England, a young goodwife sets off into the woods to pick berries for her husband and child. She dawdles, she daydreams, she dozes. She becomes lost. The sun-dappled forest grows darker, begins to feel sinister. Others she encounters offer assistance, and she ends up in the home of a mysterious young woman, Eliza – the house in the dark of the woods.

There are few clues that this is colonial New England. It feels as if it could easily be almost any pre-industrial setting; the time period is not integral to understanding, though whiffs of witchcraft cense the atmosphere, which is skillfully crafted. Billed as a literary horror story, this is very much a dark fairytale (no happy endings here) whose darkness is alleviated by the luminous way in which the tale is told. Vivid imagery abounds: a wolfskin cloak, menacing boughs of elder and box and ash, a flying ship made of human skin and bone, a scream given tangible form. The unsettling ambiance never progresses into cheap, gory horror: instead, the dread comes in the form of slowly revealed knowledge about who the characters are (sometimes who they were). Their lives, their inmost thoughts, their secret deeds – these are frightening, and how they are made to pay for them is even more so. A satisfying ending finishes off this sylvan folk tale that explores themes of repressed anger, choice, human wickedness, retribution, and a cycle of penance.

Bethany Latham

KEEPER OF THE WAY

Patricia Leslie, Odyssey, 2018, A$26.95/$19.95, pb, 388pp, 9781925652192

Australian, Patricia Leslie, describes herself as an urban fantasy author. Like her previous novels, Keeper of the Way combines real landscapes and events with fantasy. Her latest novel is set in Sydney in 1882, following the first

Southern Hemisphere World’s Fair. Witchcraft and magic find their way from16th-century Scotland to this 19th-century colonial outpost, with dramatic results.

The children of Sydney hotel proprietor, Rosalie Ponsonby, discover that there is more to their mother than meets the eye. Decades earlier, Rosalie had fled the Isle of Skye as a young woman, to protect an ancient family relic from falling into the hand of evil forces. Now those forces have arrived in Sydney, courtesy of Lord Algernon Benedict and his wastrel son, Clement. The Ponsonby family arm themselves for the fight of their lives.

Whilst much of the action centers on family matriarch, Rosalie, the true protagonist could be said to be her daughter, Florentine. As such, this is partially a coming-of-age love story set against a backdrop of high drama: good versus evil.

The ending contains a slightly unexpected twist that paves the way for a second novel. If you enjoy novels about magic and witchcraft, it is worth discovering Keeper of the Way for yourself.

Likewise if you enjoy 19th-century historical settings, Leslie’s new novel won’t disappoint.

Christine Childs

SPINNING SILVER

Naomi Novik, Del Rey, 2018, $28.00, hb, 480pp, 9780399180989 / Macmillan, 2018, £14.99, hb, 480pp, 9781509899012

Miryem is a moneylender’s daughter. Her father is a kind man, and the townsfolk take advantage of him. When her mother becomes gravely ill, Miryem takes over her father’s business to get back the money owed them.

Miryem’s hard work pays off, and her family’s fortune turns. But ill-timed words lead to an encounter with the mythical Staryk people, fairy-like winter beings, who expect Miryem to turn their silver into gold. The enchanting Staryk silver is made into jewelry, which a duke uses for his daughter, Irina. The jewelry catches the eye of the tsar, and Irina and the tsar are quickly married. But the tsar has another master he’s serving—a demon who hungers for Irina and the Staryk kingdom. In this Eastern Europeanesque tale of magic, family, and controlling one’s fate, three young women must work together to save their world from a mythical monster and an endless winter.

While Spinning Silver rests comfortably within some common fairytale tropes, it’s also a fresh and unpredictable storyline. Whispers of other fairytales can be heard; however, Novik weaves in many diverse characters and subplots which contribute to her rich narrative. Many themes run throughout the novel, most particularly a “rule of 3.” There are three main female voices with three economic backgrounds, three mothers who play important roles, three main settings, and most importantly: “A power claimed and challenged and thrice carried out is true.” Meticulous details such as these are what make Novik’s novels so great. The worldbuilding is compelling, and Jewish culture is represented lovingly throughout. Additionally, I delighted in the varied perceptions of magic as seen through different characters’ eyes. I believe

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this spellbinding book will be one of the most beloved releases of 2018. The way Novik uses words is melodic and beguiling. Escapism at its finest!

J. Lynn Else

SUMMERLAND

Hannu Rajaniemi, Gollancz, 2018, £14.99, pb, 322pp, 9781473203280

Joe and Rachel White have a loving but troubled marriage. He is an officer in the British Army, after twenty years still haunted by the horrors of the Great War. She is an experienced Secret Service spy catcher now demoted to desk work. It is England in 1938, General Franco rules in Spain and in the chaos of post-Revolutionary Russia Josef Stalin’s name begins to be heard. But this not the England of the history books. The roads are dominated by electric cars and the skies by huge but vulnerable air ships. The deceased human inhabitants in Summerland may return to the world through the medium of a living host and this is where Rachel White now working alone must look for a traitor. What has a spy to fear if already dead? She is sure Peter Bloom, a brilliant student, who died young, is leader in a group of privileged living spies and she must make herself accepted as one of them. Whether Rachel succeeds or not, a monstrous climax reveals a threat of horrors terrifying beyond all her fears.

This brilliant book is a scientific fantasy which readers unfamiliar with the genre may need to read twice to receive the full impact. It is a parable of England as it might have been but thankfully never was. It is well-written, easy reading, although it is somewhat overloaded with adverbs.

Nancy Henshaw

THE SISTERS OF THE WINTER WOOD

Rena Rossner, Redhook, 2018, $27.00, hb, 429pp, 9780316483254

Two sisters are raised in a cottage near a remote Ukrainian village.

Liba is husky and dark-skinned, like her father. Laya’s features are more graceful, with coloring so fair it could be mistaken for white, just like her mother. Pogroms against the Jews have just started in the early 19th century when Tati, the father, announces that he and Mami need to travel back to his ancestral village to visit his dying father. The parents tell the girls they are old enough to take of themselves while the parents are gone. Then Mami takes Liba aside and explains to her the most unbelievable story of their heritage, one of magic combined with folklore and fairy tales. She cautions Liba to take care of Laya, and not to stray in the woods.

The parents are gone only a day when a group

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of mysterious brothers comes to the village and offers their luscious summer fruits for sale. The townspeople do not question how the brothers have obtained cherries, apricots, and melons in winter. It is not until a few villagers go missing, and Laya falls for the charms of one of the brothers, that Liba realizes she will have to call upon powers she has never tapped to save her sister and the village.

I am not usually a fan of historical fantasy, but this novel drew me in from the very first page, complemented by the exquisite art of the front cover. It’s a compelling narrative in a magical setting that felt completely real, and the complex characters and plot twists enticed me to keep turning the pages. Sisters of the Winter Wood is a superb novel I predict will go on to win awards.

Heartily recommended.

Linda Harris Sittig

CHILDREN & YOUNG ADULT I WAS CLEOPATRA

Dennis Abrams, Groundwood, 2018, $16.95/ C$18.95, hb, 195pp, 9781773060224

Abrams, author of numerous biographies and nonfiction books for young readers, has created a detailed guide to Shakespeare’s world and theater in the form of a fictional first-person memoir by one of the boy actors in The King’s Men. John Rice, who played the roles of Shakespeare’s greatest tragic heroines, is thirteen when his story begins in the year 1603, and he narrates his coming-of-age at the Globe in the voice of a modern-day Shakespeare teacher hoping to enliven the facts and events of 17thcentury London for his students. This would be very helpful to young readers who have no prior knowledge of Shakespeare’s plays or history, but those who pick up this book hoping for a more personal reflection on his times and art will be disappointed. The boy actors were amazingly talented artists who themselves occupied a complex identity, neither fully female nor male, both onstage and off. As a piece of LGBTQ history, there’s rich material available, but Abrams doesn’t create a character vivid enough to convey the doubts and elation of a young person searching for his own place in a hostile world. John’s brief liaison with King James I, for example, is the only incident in which the narrator’s conflicted emotions are given attention—but this happens in the final pages of the novel. Instead, Abrams relies on descriptive passages paraphrased from the historical sources, along with lengthy verses from the plays, and even has Shakespeare deliver a classroom lecture on Macbeth to poor John. It’s a real shame, because Abrams’ knowledge of the setting and the plays is clearly deep and rich. As fiction, however, there’s little here to attract even the most devoted young fan of the Bard—but one half-penny-worth of story to a vast deal of history.

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Kristen McDermott

SWEEP: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster

Jonathan Auxier, Abrams, 2018, $18.99, hb, 368pp, 9781419731402.

Set during the Victorian age in London, when the vast majority of chimney sweeps were children, Nan Sparrow pulls the reader along in her daily life as a sweep. What propels the plot is the fact that Nan, an orphan, was cared for by a loving older sweep who left her a lump of warm soot, ostensibly to keep her warm in a cold, cruel world.

However, when Nan’s life is seriously threatened, the lump of soot comes to life and saves her. Only later in the story does Nan learn that the lump she has named Charlie is a golem, a Jewish creature of folklore whose noble goal in life is to save someone else. The caveat, though, is once the golem has completely accomplished his goal, he must forfeit his own life in return.

The story is masterfully told, with colorful language reminiscent of Victorian England, and realistic details of the wretched lives of young chimney sweeps. The reader will cheer for Nan and her fellow sweeps like Toby, Newt, Whittles, and Shilling Tom. They will also recoil from the evil sweep-master, Wilkie Crudd, trying to destroy her.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story and found that I cringed when reading the facts about Victorian chimney sweeps. Aside from the idea that golems are not real (or are they?), the pace of the story, the complexity of the characters, and the glimpse into Victorian London, both historical and fantastical, will keep middle-grade readers turning the pages.

Linda Harris Sittig

WILLA OF THE WOOD

Robert Beatty, Disney Hyperion, 2018, $16.99/ C$17.99, hb, 384pp, 9781368005845

A spotted, green-skinned night-spirit, Willa, is a forest girl ordered to steal from the day-folk for the good of her clan. When she takes a risk to enter an isolated cabin, she meets a human man and soon finds herself gravely wounded and on the run. Aided by the forest creatures, she returns home only to uncover secrets and greater dangers waiting for her, for her clan is crumbling from within and the forest itself is threatened by relentless human loggers. Willa is exiled from all that she knows and sent on a quest for belonging that demands sacrifice and courage—and, Willa fears, her very life.

Set in the Great Smoky Mountains around 1900, the novel sings with the beauty and wonder of the forest. The birds, big cats, and stalking wolves are as much a part of it as the living trees and gushing mountain streams. Humans are the interlopers, and their loud, frightful machines and the sharp axes of the loggers fill Willa with terror.

Adventure comes at a ratcheting pace, pitting Willa against her fellow thieves and the leader of her clan as her world changes. She responds with courage and heart to the dangers she faces. Told in a beautiful, addictive style, this novel is a joy to read from beginning to end. Magic and mystery dominate the tale, which includes just a touch of

history. Though it is geared toward readers aged 8-12, those of all ages will enjoy this delightful read.

Xina Marie Uhl

his story with sympathy, even for the Japanese soldiers. I couldn’t put the book down once I began it, and plan to pass it along to an 11-yearold. Recommended.

Kristen Hannum

THE SILVER HAND

Terry Deary, Bloomsbury Education, 2018, £6.99, pb, 279pp, 9781472961440

It is the final year of the First World War, and desperation and treachery abound in France.

The German army is starting to retreat and is becoming desperate. Aimee is pulled into the world of spies when she discovers her mother is an agent working with the British to defeat the Germans. She finds herself exposing a traitor, a sinister man with a silver hand. When she meets Marius, a German boy who has been left behind, they develop a hesitant friendship.

They begin to realise that they are more similar than they imagined, and their friendship grows.

Aimee agrees to help Marius to get back behind German lines, but to do this she will have to evade the man with the silver hand, who is looking to exact his revenge on her.

Terry Deary has delivered a fact-packed story which keeps the reader pulled along throughout the book. Aimee’s and Marius’s characters are well developed and believable. The historical details hang on a quick-paced and exciting plot. We have spies, a chilling antagonist and a dangerous journey towards enemy territory, which all deliver excitement. We have making friends with the ‘enemy’ and realising our similarities. This is a great read written by a writer renowned for making history entertaining and accessible. His Horrible Histories series is testament to this, and The Silver Hand lives up to his reputation.

Lindsay Mulholland

GRENADE

Alan Gratz, Scholastic, 2018, $17.99/C$23.99, hb, 288pp, 9781338245691

It’s April 1, 1945. Hideki, 14, stayed in Okinawa when his mother and younger brother evacuated to mainland Japan. He was 13 then, but near enough to 14 to feel he should stay and fight.

The time has come—and it’s even worse than he had feared. The Japanese officer in charge of the middle school boy-soldiers has given them each two grenades. One is to kill as many American soldiers as possible, and the other is to be used to commit suicide.

Meanwhile, 18-year-old Ray Majors is a freckle-faced Marine from Nebraska. His father beat him when he tried to sign up before he turned 18, but after that birthday, his father knew he couldn’t stop him. Now Ray is among the waves of men storming Okinawa’s beaches.

Alan Gratz has told a marvelous story that the publisher says is for 9- to 12-year-old readers but is actually a fine tale for anyone with an interest in Okinawa or what war is really like.

Spoiler alert: Grenade isn’t going to encourage anyone to sign up.

Gratz’s story is believable and, although there are no descriptions of blood and guts, I think it pushes the edges for the youngest readers; 9 may be too young for this one. Gratz writes

THE LADY’S GUIDE TO PETTICOATS AND PIRACY

Mackenzi Lee, Katherine Tegen Books, 2018, $18.99, pb, 464pp, 9780062795328

“You deserve to be here. You deserve to exist.

You deserve to take up space in the world of men.” Felicity Montague is not the first plucky 18th-century heroine to try to make her way in a man’s profession—medicine, in this case—but she’s one of the most appealing and witty.

This volume is a sequel to Lee’s Stonewall Award-winning “queer YA historical romance,” The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, which was set in the 1720s but narrated by a snarky, narcissistic teen who sounded like a blend of Oscar Wilde and Bertie Wooster. She shifts the point of view to the adventurous sister of the previous book’s hero, passionate, awkward, impetuous Felicity, who is anything but a romantic ingenue. Her voice is anachronistic but entertaining, like an appealingly sarcastic (but less lovestruck) Disney-princess teen. Obsessed with making her mark as a scientific genius, she has little patience for social niceties or displays of affection, and it’s quite refreshing to have a heroine who views human love purely as an object of clinical interest, saving her emotional enthusiasm for her relentless quest to force men to recognize her brilliance. Only as the intricately plotted caper unfolds, taking us from Edinburgh to Stuttgart to Algiers to London, and we are introduced to some sympathetic friends, does Felicity begin to learn the value of human connection, and also become “woke”’ to the chauvinism and racism of her own culture.

Lee breaks many of the unwritten rules of YA historicals, but does so with such wit and brio that few readers, whatever their age, will mind.

The plot and the historical detail are pretty slapdash, but there’s fun to be had and a deep core of humanity to this fast-paced series.

Kristen McDermott

SPECIAL FORCES: Unconventional Warfare

Chris Lynch, Scholastic, 2018, $17.99/C$23.99, hb, 176pp, 9780545861625

Danny Manion is a tough older brother with a polio-stricken, widower father. Danny feels the need to periodically beat up his two younger brothers to force them to grow up as tough as he thinks they should be. Ironically, he truly loves his father and siblings, but can’t bring himself to show that in a normal way. A gifted student, Danny also has a regrettable wild streak.

When he is caught “borrowing” a classmate’s motorcycle, Danny must appear in court. He is accompanied by his wrestling coach—the wise, rugged and immensely well-respected, Mr. Macias. Since his past includes having absconded with a motorbike, a boat and a small twin-engine aircraft, the judge orders him to be

jailed or else join the U.S. Marines.

Mr. Macias asks to speak, and Danny believes he may get off yet again.

All too soon, Danny is astride an Asian elephant, nine feet off the ground crossing the Laotian border into the central highlands of Vietnam. He’s now a ranger-trained member of the U.S. Army’s Special Operation Group (SOG). Along with his new best friend, Gustavo Lopez, Danny and a small close-knit band of troops are under the command of Colonel Macias performing dangerous, secret and supposedly illegal operations in Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.

Danny finds himself experiencing lightningquick helicopter insertions into enemy territory, hellacious combat, and the loss of some of his comrades as he fights and also takes archival photographs.

Special Forces is an all-too-rare and wonderful coming-of-age tale, especially valuable for high school age boys. Danny becomes genuinely closer to his family, comes to love his teammates and even learns to respect and ironically admire his formidable enemies. And Col. Macias is the epitome of American manhood. Highly recommended!

Thomas J. Howley

MY REAL NAME IS HANNA

Tara Lynn Masih, Mandel Vilar, 2018, $16.95, pb, 208pp, 9781942134510

Teenaged Hanna Slivka narrates an unforgettable tale of loss and survival in this young adult story of the Holocaust set in Ukraine.

Hanna’s parents and her younger siblings make a stable living in their small community— conforming to the current government regulations as they sway from Polish Republic to Soviet. As the war escalates, the Slivka family suffers through reduced rations and abuse to the threat of labor camps and death. At first hiding in the woods, they find they must further retreat to underground caves, which are inhospitable, yet offer sanctuary. There they suffer for many months without comforts, proper food, or news from the outside world, waiting for the day they can ascend from the darkness of the caves—and into humanity.

Although Hanna and her family are fictional characters, their plight is based on a true story. A 2012 documentary titled No Place on Earth recounts the experiences of three Jewish families who survived the Holocaust by living in the Verteba and Priest’s Grotto caves southwest of Kiev. Ukrainian Jews had a slim chance of survival, and no Jewish families went untouched—except those in the Priest’s Grotto caves.

Masih’s telling manages to bring together a gripping, coming-of-age narrative with an

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impeccably researched setting. The precarious political and social issues of Ukraine and its surrounding areas are interwoven, as are historical events such as Stalin’s Red Famine and Ukrainian Nazi collaboration. With the continuing surfeit of WWII fiction, it is refreshing to find an original voice that delivers such a harrowing, yet inspiring message for young readers. Hanna’s veracity and indelible spirit honor the subject and the people exhibited by the author in this highly readable, affecting novel.

Arleigh Ordoyne

TOMI

Eithne Massey, O’Brien, 2018, £8.99, pb, 176pp, ISBN 9781847179753

Tomi is a thoughtful re-telling of Tomi Reichental’s real-life story of how he survived the horrors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, to which he and his Jewish family were sent in 1944, when he was nine years old.

Eithne Massey tells the story from the point of view of a nine-year-old child, and the matterof-fact tone is just right. Tomi, a fidgety, cheeky boy, who loves everything about the farm in Slovakia where he lives, cannot understand why things are changing so suddenly. Family members go missing, and his school-mates no longer include him in their playground games.

New rules come in, and he has to wear a yellow star to mark him out as Jewish. And things get worse.

Soon the family is living in hiding to avoid the Nazi guards who are arresting Jews and taking them away, who knows where. Eventually, their luck runs out and the family is arrested.

Tomi, his mother, his brother Miki, his aunt and cousin, are sent to the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen. How can he and his family survive the cold, starvation and the brutality?

Eithne Massey’s moving and unsensational child’s-eye account allows the reader to see clearly how the everyday system worked. The winter of 1944-5 was icy, and Tomi had to endure freezing showers, standing still in lines for the rollcall, which a vindictive guard could make last two hours; the stale black bread, and the endless hunt for head lice to avoid the threat of disease. As he said, ‘By the time I was ten I had seen all there was to be seen.’

Nowadays, Tomi talks about his childhood war experiences to schoolchildren all over the world. He says: ‘I feel that as one of the last witnesses, I must speak out.’ Recommended for children of 10 plus.

Elizabeth Hawksley

her grandmother, but Chaya never makes it.

Instead, she joins a small band of resistance fighters and is soon working as a “courier” smuggling food, supplies, information, and hope into the ghettos of Poland.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the largest and most important Jewish uprising in German-occupied Europe. Against all odds, a small band of Jewish fighters challenged the Nazi army. Nielsen’s impeccable research allows her to place her characters in the middle of the war-torn ghetto, encountering many historical heroes. She gives an honest and brutal account of the horrors endured inside the ghetto as well as the strength, bravery, and dignity with which they fought.

Readers may not identify with Chaya’s commitment to her cause, but they will understand her motivations. The story is fast-paced and, though I wondered if Chaya could really do all that she does, I was willing to suspend my belief—because who among us knows how they will truly act in the face of death? Written for ages 8 to 12, but given the subject matter, it’s suitable for older readers as well.

THE BOOK OF BOY

Daniel José Older, Arthur A. Levine, 2018, $16.99/C$21.99, hb, 272pp, 9781338268812

Elizabeth Caulfield Felt

Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Chicken House, 2018, £6.99, 308pp, 9781911490579

1350. Boy is a hunchback. It is the only name he has ever known, apart from Monster. He tends a flock of goats in a small field on the outskirts of the village where he lives, bullied by children and adults alike. His world changes for ever when a Pilgrim called Segundus arrives in the village. He is on a quest for seven priceless relics, and he takes Boy with him on his journey.

They plunge into a deadly treasure hunt, scouring tombs, dingy taverns, a golden castle and even the Cathedrals of Rome. However, neither Pilgrim nor Boy are what they seem.as they search for the secret which could set them both free.

This is a fascinating tale which brings a quest, scuffles, dastardly thieves, and twists galore together in a story which brings alive the culture and people of the time. Short chapters, each ending with a hook, keep the reader wanting to turn the pages to see what happens. With a strong story line and central characters, plus plenty of action, there is a great deal to enjoy. Recommended.

Mike Ashworth

COURAGEOUS

RESISTANCE

While listening to the radio, twelve-yearold Aiden and his friend, Sally, hear the British government ask civilians to bring their boats to Dunkirk to ferry Allied soldiers to safety.

Aiden’s father is a fisherman with a boat, but his parents refuse to help. So, Sally and Aiden take the small fishing boat out on their own. Meanwhile, Aiden’s brother, George, is part of the British army being driven to the

Chaya Lindner says she’s lived three lives in her sixteen years. Her first life, a happy childhood in Krakow, Poland, with her parents and younger brother and sister, ends on her thirteenth birthday, when Germany invades Poland and confines Jews to the ghetto. Then her second life ends, and the third begins, when she must flee as her name appears on a Nazi list for transport. She is sent to live with

Yona Zeldis McDonough, Scholastic, 2018, $17.99/C$23.99, hb, 192pp, 9781338226850

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French coast by German troops. The narrative switches between Aiden’s attempts to rescue soldiers and George’s struggle to be rescued.

Although an exciting topic, this story falls flat, in part because of the lack of detail and description. How much time is passing? Is it day or night? What does the boat look like? I was surprised when Aiden opened the door to the cabin, as I pictured something much smaller— they can only take on three or four soldiers at a time. Parts of this story did not make sense, perhaps due to the lack of detailed explanation and description. The boat is able to stay afloat after being hit by a missile; Sally plugs the hole with life jackets and a tarp. Where did the German soldier that George fights come from? If they are on a barge, why is the barge not being used to carry soldiers to sea?

I assume the author wanted to keep the story simple, as it is for children, but she kept it too simple. More explanation and description are necessary to make sense of the action and bring the setting to life. The book includes a glossary, more information about World War II, and a timeline, but these appendices are too short, with the choice of information disjointed and seemingly random. This is not the best book on this topic.

Jennifer A. Nielsen, Scholastic, 2018, $17.99/ C$22.99, hb, 400pp, 9781338148473

REVIEWS | ISSUE 86, November 2018

Meg Wiviott

DACTYL HILL SQUAD

Dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes fly the skies and wander the streets of New York City in 1863. The Civil War rages off stage, but the kids of the Colored Orphan Asylum have enough trouble of their own when the Draft Riots put their lives in danger. The squad, including our protagonist, Magdalys, finds haven in the Brooklyn neighborhood called Dactyl Hill. From there they zoom around on the backs of dinos and gather allies in order to take down the menacing founder of the Kidnapping Club, which chases down people of color and sells them into slavery. Magdalys also investigates her past and the fate of her parents when she isn’t dashing about escaping danger and causing mayhem.

Written in a crisp, vivid style, author Older has crafted a fast-paced, action-packed tale that is both inventive and imbued with plenty of mystery. The historical setting is there as a framing device, but the characters’ actions and attitudes are modern. The dialogue completely yanked me out of the historical setting with frequent uses of words like duh, bro, okay, and guys. A sample sentence is: “Wow,” Magdalys said. “You guys had a real-deal slumber party.”

I found dinosaurs easier to accept than such anachronisms, but your mileage may vary.

The frenetic pace of the action was balanced nicely with the well-developed cast of characters. This story is bound to satisfy young readers yearning for adventure and provides fact-based notes at the back of the book covering the historical inspiration for characters, places, and events. Also clarified are the different types of dinosaurs featured as well as the capabilities on the era’s weapons.

After such a rousing tale, these notes may serve to interest reluctant students of history

in learning more about real history—and real dinosaurs, too.

Xina Marie Uhl

THE BURIED CROWN Ally Sherrick, Chicken House, 2018, £6.99, pb, 309pp, 9781910655320

1940: Londoner, Charlie, has placed his young brother in the care of a farmer near the airbase where he is training to become a pilot.

The threat of an imminent Nazi invasion is as real as the death of their parents. The farmer is a bully, both to his dog and to George; the friendship between boy and beast grows.

Nearby a German Jewish girl, Kitty, rescued on the Kindertransport, lives peacefully with her archaeologist grandfather not far from an ancient burial ground that hides a treasure Hitler craves. When George and the dog, Spud, finally escape from the farm, a fastpaced and often traumatic adventure begins.

The line between the historic detail of the period, from the Nazi threat and hatred of the Jews, to the fictional existence of a magical and mythical crown that can change the outcome of the war, is an interesting one. It should serve to encourage questions from young minds. A section ‘About the Book’ provides many answers.

Friendship and loyalty feature strongly throughout this story as well as the need to stand up to bullies: personal or political. The heartache of loss, the importance of grieving, and the value placed on family shines through both George’s and Kitty’s horrendous young experiences of life. Racial stereotyping and hatred are also revealed, as the harsh life of a refugee is laid bare, when Kitty and her grandfather are still perceived by some to be Germans/Nazis rather than victims of a vicious dictator.

History, runes, ravens, and lost treasures abound as this skilfully woven tale of reality and fiction ultimately delivers a very satisfying conclusion. A highly recommended read. Age 9+ Valerie Loh

THE STORY COLLECTOR Kristin O’Donnell Tubb, Henry Holt, 2018, $16.99/C$22.50, hb, 256pp, 9781250143808

Viviani Fedeler is a story collector. She was born in the New York Public Library and resides there still in 1928 with her family, her father being the library’s superintendent. But when Merit, a new girl in school, calls Viviani’s stories about the library lies, Viviani decides to prove to Merit it’s just as important to believe in things with your heart as it is with your eyes. With her brothers, Viviani plans a way to “show” Merit the library’s ghost. But when their prank goes awry on the night a priceless stamp collection goes missing, Viviani will

need all her courage to discover who the culprit is.

O’Donnell Tubb’s masterfully constructed prose perfectly balances youthfulness and sophistication. Her whimsical word play had me hooked by paragraph one! Readers can relax comfortably in the historical setting as she weaves into her plot elements of “vulgar” jazz music, late-1920s fashion, old-timey dialogue, and the devices Mr. Fedeler keeps in good working order for the library. Also adding to the atmosphere, each chapter has a Dewey Decimal classification associated with its title. The characters are charming, particularly Viviani and her immersive imagination. Through Viviani, the NYPL building is described with an emphasis on enchantment.

The mystery of the missing stamps really doesn’t take long to solve, but I wasn’t disappointed by this. At its heart, this story is about Viviani discovering her self-worth—an impactful message for readers young and old. Based on an actual family who lived in the NYPL, O’Donnell Tubb weaves together a charming middle-grade tale of friendship, self-confidence, and a love of words. Who says you need a “once upon a time” to find magic in your life? A compulsive read for any age.

J. Lynn Else

ON BLOOD ROAD Steve Watkins, Scholastic, 2018, C$25.99, hb, 288pp, 9781338197013

$17.99/

Taylor Sorenson thinks he’s a cool teenager, albeit with a huge sense of animosity toward his father, who is stationed in the U. S. Embassy in Vietnam during the 1960s. When his mom decides they should surprise Dad with a birthday celebration by joining him in Vietnam, Taylor is against the trip and the so-called celebration. His Dad tries to explain to Taylor why it’s important he be present in Vietnam, but Taylor dismisses everything his father says. Being a typical teenager, he doesn’t have a clue about the origins, steps and consequences of this long Vietnamese conflict.

Taylor’s life, however, is about to undergo a dramatic change, more outrageous than any teen or adult could imagine. He decides to skip an embassy party and join the Tet celebrations in Saigon, and therein his hell begins. All of a sudden, shooting and dead bodies with mindnumbing chaos reign supreme, and Taylor is kidnapped by North Vietnamese soldiers disguised as South Vietnamese Army troops.

He is then forced to begin a journey on the Ho Chi Min Trail, from South Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia, to North Vietnam.

The NKA (North Korean Army) now realize

Taylor’s importance because of his father’s status. A female NKA treats Taylor more nicely than the other prisoners and yet manifests a cold, hard exterior that is obviously both the result of propaganda and watching or hearing of her people’s ignominy by many nations for generations. Taylor matures from historical reality. Readers will have to decide whether he does or doesn’t later understand his father or this “crazy” war about which so many have such strong opinions on opposing sides. Remarkable historical fiction—highly recommended!

Viviane Crystal

THE RAVEN’S CHILDREN Yulia Yakovleva (trans. Ruth Ahmedzi Kemp), Penguin, 2018, £6.99, pb, 239pp, 9780241330777

Leningrad, 1938. Stalin’s Great Terror has engulfed Russia. In this frightening world, Stalin and his henchmen have absolute power.

Like Orwell’s Newspeak, words now mean whatever Stalin wants them to mean. The official line is that the benevolent Raven will help true patriots and look after all children.

We follow seven-year-old Shura and his family who live in a one room flat where they struggle to keep going amid shortages and fear of accusations of treason. Shura’s parents try to hide what’s going on from their children.

Then people living in Shura’s concrete block of flats begin to disappear, accused of being ‘enemies of the people’. Nobody knows where they are, or why; and the only safe thing to do is to take care not to ask questions.

But one day, Shura’s father disappears, shortly followed by his mother and little brother. A frightened neighbour tells Shura and his sister Tanya to get to his Auntie Vera’s but Shura isn’t so sure that this is a good idea, so he decides to find the benevolent Raven instead…..

What is brilliant about The Raven’s Children is the way that Shura’s inner world gradually fragments. At seven, he’s unsure about how adults view the world; but, as his problems multiply, he discovers a parallel world where he can speak to birds who have different things to say and where he becomes a sort of ghost in the ‘real’ world. He must learn keep the different strands separate until he can fathom out which is to be trusted.

The book also asks the difficult question: how was a whole generation taken in by Stalin’s propaganda, to the extent that their sense of reality was seriously compromised?

Their passivity left their children dangerously vulnerable. I highly recommend this very readable and deeply thoughtful book. 10+ Elizabeth Hawksley

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CONFERENCES

The Society organizes biennial conferences in the UK, North America, and Australasia.

Contact Richard Lee <richard@historicalnovelsociety.org> (UK), Vanitha Sankaran <info@vanithasankaran.com> (North America), or Elisabeth Storrs <contact@hnsa.org.au> (Australasia).

Š 2018, the Historical Novel Society, ISSN: 1471-7492 | ISSUE 86, November 2018

A publication of the Historical Novel Society | www.historicalnovelsociety.org

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