Historical Novels Review | Issue 93 (August 2020)

H I S T O R IC A L

NOV EL S REVIEW

ISSUE 93

AUGUST 2020

TRUTH CAST INTO SYMBOL & METAPHOR

FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE ...

Hilary Mantel's The Mirror & the Light |

What's in a Name?

Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet

More on page 8

Page 10

Negotiating History & Imagination Sue Monk Kidd's The Book of Longings Page 12

God & Mammon Ben Hopkins on his novel, Cathedral Page 13

Capturing Senses The sound of the Middle Ages Page 14

Towards Beauty Stephanie Storey's Raphael, A Painter in Rome 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 93, August 2020 | © 2020 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

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

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

Sarah Hendess

Book Review Editor: Sarah Johnson

Xina Uhl

Booth Library, Eastern Illinois University, 600 Lincoln Avenue, Charleston, IL 61920 USA <sljohnson2@eiu.edu> Publisher Coverage: Bethany House; Five Star; HarperCollins; IPG; Penguin Random House (all imprints); Severn House; Australian presses; 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

Douglas Kemp

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

<clark1103@yahoo.com> Publisher Coverage: US/Canadian children’s publishers <xuwriter@gmail.com> Publisher Coverage: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Simon & Schuster (all imprints); Soho; and Poisoned Pen Press

Larry Zuckerman

<lzuckerman@earthlink.net> Publisher Coverage: Bloomsbury; Macmillan (all imprints); and Grove/Atlantic

REVIEWS EDITOR, INDIE Misty Urban

<misty@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

NEW BOOKS BY HNS MEMBERS

ISSUE 93 AUGUST 2020 COLUMNS 1

Historical Fiction Market News

Sarah Johnson

4

New Voices Profiles of debut authors Molly Aitken, Finola Austin, Gretchen Berg & Katie Hutton | Myfanwy Cook

6

History & Film The films of Ray Harryhausen |

Bethany Latham

FEATURES AND INTERVIEWS 8

Truth Cast into Symbol & Metaphor Richard Lee on Hilary Mantel's Latest

by Richard Lee

10 What's in a Name?

Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet

by Lucinda Byatt 12 Negotiating History & Imagination

Sue Monk Kidd’s The Book of Longings

by John Kachuba 13 God & Mammon

Ben Hopkins on his novel, Cathedral

by Sarah Bower 14 Capturing Senses

Tracey Warr explores the sounds of the Middle Ages

by Tracey Warr 15 Towards Beauty

Stephanie Storey's Raphael, A Painter in Rome

by Lucinda Byatt

REVIEWS 16 Book Reviews

Editors’ choice and more

HISTORICAL FICTION MARKET NEWS The HNS congratulates all of our author members on their new releases! If you’ve written a historical novel or nonfiction work published (or to be published) in May 2020 or after, please send the following details to me at sljohnson2@eiu.edu or @readingthepast

by October 7: 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.

Awarded two silver medals for Best First Book, Fiction and Best Cover, Fiction by the Independent Book Publishers Association (2020), J. A. Nelson’s A Man of Honor, or Horatio’s Confessions tells how a lonely commoner’s oath to tell his friend’s true story launches his journey through war, love, and dishonor to create the legend of Hamlet (Quill Point Press, Dec. 9, 2019).

In ninth-century Norway, when a king’s daughter spurns a powerful warlord, he rains hellfire on her family, and to take vengeance, she must become his queen; Johanna Wittenberg’s The Norse Queen, Book 1 in The Norsewomen series (Shellback Studio, Feb. 11) is based on the life of the semi-legendary Queen Asa, who ruled her kingdom for twenty years.

In The Enemy We Don’t Know: A Homefront Mystery, Book 1 by Liz Milliron (Level Best Books/Historia Imprint, Feb. 11), Betty Ahern wants to be a P.I. just like Sam Spade.

Summer of the Three Pagodas by Jean Moran (Head of Zeus, Feb.) is an exotic saga set in post WW2 Hong Kong and the eruption of a new war in Korea.

Downton Abbey meets Agatha Christie in Betrayal at Ravenwick, Book 1 in the Fiona Figg Mystery series (Level Best Books, Historia Imprint, Mar. 10) by Kelly Oliver.

August 1914: the Cheshire Regiment is ordered to resist at all costs as the German Army advances, in Luke Under Fire: Caught Behind Enemy Lines by D. C. Reep and E. A. Allen (Amazon, Mar. 16).

Vienna’s tumultuous years from its 1934 civil war to independence from post-war occupation are brought to life through the three main characters of Irene Wittig’s All That Lingers (KindleDirect, Mar. 22).

Tom Roberts’s Lost Scrolls of Archimedes (Raven Cliffs Publishing, Mar. 18) is the adventure tale of a young scholar, armed with hidden knowledge and power, who attempts to stop Rome’s march to empire.

L. Spencer Busch and Valentine L. Spawr’s Not Till Then Can the World Know: Replacement Companies of the Fourteenth Iowa Infantry in the Trans-Mississippi (self-published, Mar. 28) centers on Spawr’s 1863 camp diary and the battles his regiment fought in 1864.

Frances Lyda Whitaker, born in 1900, and her seven sisters grew up desperately poor in the blight of industrial Bradford, Yorkshire, the daughters of a blind piano tuner and their Mormon convert mother;

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

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in the 1980s, Ann Chamberlin interviewed her grandmother and the six surviving sisters for Clogs and Shawls: Mormons, Moorlands, and the Search for Zion (Univ. of Utah Press, Apr. 1), weaving first-person narratives with lively family history.

A Home on Wilder Shores (Page Publishing, Apr.) by Susan Posey follows the fascinating adventures of two Welsh sisters in 1750s Wales and the wilds of the American frontier, as they overcome the dangers and prejudices of the era to become women of substance and purpose.

An anonymous caricaturist inflames the London gossips in Barbara Monajem’s Lady Rosamund and the Poison Pen: A Rosie and McBrae Regency Mystery, Book 1 (Level Best Books, Historia Imprint, Apr. 21).

Wayward Son: Lineage Series, Book Four by Michael Paul Hurd (Lineage Independent Publishing/Barnes & Noble Press, Apr. 23) covers a slave-owning family’s migration from Virginia to Missouri during the mid-1800s and the troubles brought on the family by its patriarch and his bad business and personal decisions. Book Three, Iniquity and Retribution (2nd ed., Apr. 20) tells the story of a young man whose mental health suffered from his involvement in the untimely death of his father and the effects of that death on his adult life in the early 20th century.

In The Unicorn in the Mirror – The Third Sargent/Paget Mystery by Mary F. Burns (Word by Word Publishing, Apr. 27), it’s Paris in the spring of 1881, where amateur sleuths John Singer Sargent and Violet Paget take on their third mystery when a friend is murdered at the Musee de Cluny, and they trace the history of a medieval tapestry that may hold a clue to the crime.

The Crocodile Makes No Sound by N.L. Holmes (WayBack Press, May) is the second in a series of mysteries/political thrillers set in Akhenaten’s Egypt. In The Singer and Her Song by the same author (WayBack Press, May), a famous Mitannian singer finds herself a refugee and must sacrifice to preserve her family.

In Of Darkness and Light (Amazon, May 12), the first book in Heidi Eljarbo’s new historical mystery series, about a young art historian facing a tough choice in German-occupied Norway, once Soli finds her courage, there’s no turning back: her personal life is turned upside-down with danger, lies, spying, and an incredible discovery.

Reading Mrs. Dalloway by Mary F. Burns (Word by Word Publishing, May 13) is literary and personal commentary on Woolf’s justly famous novel; this extended essay journeys with Clarissa Dalloway hour by hour through her day, illuminating and enlarging the text for new and veteran readers.

In Iva: The True Story Of Tokyo Rose by Mike Weedall (Luminare Press, May 17), trapped in Japan after Pearl Harbor, Japanese American Iva Toguri is forced to participate in Radio Tokyo broadcasts; despite refusing to broadcast propaganda, after the war Iva is falsely identified as Tokyo Rose and prosecuted for treason in a trial that rivets America.

Rowman & Littlefield’s imprint McBooks Press has re-released Robert N. Macomber’s first novel in his Honor Series, At the Edge of Honor (May); read how the adventures of Peter Wake began. Onward & Upward!

As a colossal statue takes shape in Renaissance Florence, the lives of a master sculptor and a struggling painter become stunningly intertwined in Laura Morelli’s The Giant: A Novel of Michelangelo’s David (The Scriptorium, May 31).

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COLUMNS | Issue 93, August 2020

Without Warning: The Saga of Gettysburg, A Reluctant Union Hero, and the Men He Inspired, by Terry C. Pierce (Heart Ally Books, Jun. 1) is a compelling, historically accurate novel that weaves together the stories of Union General George Meade and his key subordinates and forever changes our vision of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Tim Walker’s Arthur Rex Brittonum (TimWalkerWrites, Jun. 1), the latest in the A Light in the Dark Ages series, is the story of a real, historical Arthur, a 6th-century Briton leader, freed from the polish and romance of the Camelot legend.

In At Love’s Command by Karen Witemeyer (Bethany House, Jun. 2), Hanger’s Horsemen defend the innocent and obtain justice for the oppressed, but when a rustler’s bullet leaves one of them at death’s door, they’re the ones in need of saving.

Suzanne Linfoot joins an ENSA swing band and finds herself in wartorn Malta singing to the troops who adore her, but her heart belongs to a naval officer serving at sea, and she wonders whether they will ever meet again, in Molly Green’s A Sister’s Song (Avon, Jun. 25).

In Garrett Pearson’s The Brood at Trasimene, Book III of the Lions and the Wolf series (Morepork Publishing, Jul.), set in 217 BC as the second Punic war between Carthage and Rome continues with the bloody battle at Lake Trasimene, Baldor Targa, captain of a Carthaginian cavalry unit, faces his would-be Roman nemesis Cornelius Scipio in battle, whilst contending with robbery and murder within his own ranks.

In Mark E. Fisher’s The Slaves of Autumn (Extraordinary Tales Publishing, Jul. 1), set in A.D. 408, an Irish clan leader steals Anwyn from her Welsh home to barbarian Ireland in a raid intended to save the clan, but her betrothed, a Roman patrician’s son, vows to bring her back.

In book two of the Norsewomen series by Johanna Wittenberg, The Falcon Queen (Shellback Studio, Jul. 10), Asa has won her father’s kingdom, but can she defend it against the powerful warlords who want to claim it?

Fair as a Star by Mimi Matthews (Perfectly Proper Press, Jul. 14) is a Victorian tale of love and longing set in a quaint English village.

The Copper Road (Ocoee Publishing, Jul. 26), second in Richard Buxton’s Shire’s Union series set during the American Civil War, follows on from Whirligig, which was shortlisted for the 2017 Rubery International Book Awards.

The Hanged Man by Andrée Rushton (The Book Guild, Aug. 28) is set in southwest France both in the present day and during the 20th century, and explores a beautiful holiday home with a devastating secret.

The Night Portrait: A Novel of WWII and Da Vinci’s Italy by Laura Morelli (William Morrow, Sept. 8) is an exciting, dual-timeline historical novel about the creation of one of Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous paintings, Portrait of a Lady with an Ermine, and the woman who fought to save it from Nazi destruction during World War II. In A Most English Princess by Clare McHugh (William Morrow, Sept.

22), Victoria, Princess Royal, the eldest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who married the Crown Prince of Prussia and was the mother of the Kaiser, battles with Bismarck for the soul of the newly unified German nation.

The Boy King by Janet Wertman (Amazon, Sept. 30), the final

installment in her Seymour Saga trilogy, reveals the tragic story of Edward VI – who ascends to the throne of England at the age of nine, and quickly learns that he cannot trust anyone, even himself.

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.

Stephanie Kelly at Dutton acquired, at auction, Daughters of Sparta

by Claire Heywood, which revisits the Siege of Troy from the viewpoints of Helen and Clytemnestra, from Rebecca Folland at Hodder & Stoughton. Publication will be summer 2021. UK rights sold to Thorne Ryan at Hodder & Stoughton via Sara Keane at Keane Kataria literary agency.

The Library of Legends author Janie Chang’s as-yet-untitled novel, revealing the history of the 180,000 Chinese immigrants recruited by the Allies as non-combatant labor in WWI France, seen from two different women’s perspectives, sold to Jennifer Brehl at William Morrow and Iris Tupholme at Harper Canada, by Kevan Lyon at Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

Set during the Dutch Golden Age, The Company Daughters

by Samantha Rajaram, about a servant in Amsterdam who accompanies the daughter of her master’s family as she sails to colonial Batavia as a mail-order bride, sold to Kathryn Taussig at Bookouture, for publication in October 2020, by Carrie Pestritto at Laura Dail Literary Agency.

You Belong Here Now by Dianna Rostad, following a spinster rancher who takes in three mysterious orphans in 1925 Yellowstone County, Montana, sold to Lucia Macro at William Morrow by Marly Rusoff at Marly Rusoff & Associates.

The Glorious Guinness Girls by Emily Hourican, about Guinness founder Ernest Guinness’s three daughters (Aileen, Maureen, and Oonagh), focusing on their lives of society glamour and social involvement in 1920s London and Ireland, sold to Ciara Doorley at Hachette Ireland and Sherise Hobbs at Headline via Ivan Mulcahy at MMB Creative. Publication will be September 2020.

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong, a young adult novel described as “a Romeo and Juliet retelling by way of The Godfather” set in 1920s Shanghai, sold to Molly Powell at Hodder & Stoughton via Brent Taylor and Laura Crockett at TriadaUS Literary Agency. Simon Pulse will publish it in the US. Tammye Huf’s A More Perfect Union, a debut based on the epic love story of her great-great-grandparents, an enslaved woman and an Irishman, set in 1840s Ireland, New York, and Virginia, sold to Myriad Editions publishing director Candida Lacey for spring 2021 publication.

The Restoration of All Things by Libbie Grant, centering on themes of female empowerment in its story about Emma Smith, wife of Joseph Smith, American religious leader and founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sold to Tessa Woodward at William Morrow for publication in fall 2021, by Carolyn Forde at Transatlantic Literary Agency.

Ballantine by Lacy Lynch at Dupree Miller & Associates.

Leah Angstman’s debut novel Out Front the Following Sea, a literary historical novel about a young woman accused of witchcraft in the Connecticut Colony amid King William’s War between French and English settlers in the late 17th century, sold to Jaynie Royal at Regal Books, for publication in spring 2022.

An Unlikely Spy by Rebecca Starford, about a female spy who infiltrates a secret pro-Nazi group before WWII, sold to Helen Atsma at Ecco via Daniel Lazar at Writers House, via Pippa Masson at Curtis Brown Australia. Australian rights went to Jane Palfreyman at Allen & Unwin, also via Pippa Masson.

Jocelyn Bailey at Thomas Nelson acquired J’nell Ciesielski’s Ice Swan, set in early 20th-century Russia, France, and Scotland and following a Russian princess fleeing the imperial court, via Linda Glaz at Hartline Literary Agency.

The Clergyman’s Wife author Molly Greeley’s new Austenesque saga The Heiress: The Revelations of Anne de Bourgh, a tale of Gothic intrigue and women’s liberation, sold to Rachel Kahan at William Morrow via Jennifer Weltz at the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency.

When Stars Rain Down by Angela Jackson-Brown, following a young woman in a segregated town in Depression-era Georgia when the Klan rides through her neighborhood and she is attacked the following day, sold to Becky Monds at Thomas Nelson, in a two-book deal, for publication in spring 2021, by Alice Speilburg at Speilburg Literary Agency.

Sophie Haydock’s debut novel The Flames, about four women who became the muses to artist Egon Schiele, set in glamorous turn-ofthe-20th-century Vienna, sold to Kirsty Dunseath at Doubleday UK via Juliet Mushens at Mushens Entertainment, for publication in 2022.

Mary Karras’s The Making of Mrs Petrakis, a debut novel about two generations of women in 1960s-70s Cyprus, sold to Lisa Highton, publisher at Two Roads/Hachette, in a two-book deal, via Eleanor Birne at PEW Literary.

OTHER NEW AND FORTHCOMING TITLES For forthcoming novels through early 2021, please see our guides, compiled by Fiona Sheppard: 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.

Allison Pataki’s newest historical novel I Am Mrs. Post, retelling the story of American heiress, businesswoman, socialite, and philanthropist Marjorie Merriweather Post, sold to Kara Cesare at A publication of the Historical Novel Society | www.historicalnovelsociety.org

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NEW VOICES

Finola Austin

“What a salacious piece of gossip from literary history! I was convinced that somebody must have rejected Gaskell’s interpretation and told Lydia’s side of the story. I googled frantically. But nobody had.

“I just knew that this was a story I had to tell,” she says. “I did a full year of research before I actually put pen to digital paper, but once I started writing, I wrote in a fever. The novel is the result of a lifetime of passion for Victorian literature and that exhilarating moment of inspiration, which felt like love at first sight.”

© Nina Subin

Molly Aitken

© Jed Leicester

The ‘undercroft’ of history and its events, people, & places are revealed through the writing of novelists Molly Aitken, Finola Austin, Gretchen Berg and Katie Hutton.

The Island Child (Canongate, 2020) by Molly Aitken grew out of the Irish landscape and also, like Brontë’s Mistress, from a passion for literature. Aitken studied Literature and Classics at Galway University and has an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa. She chose to focus, through her central character, Oona, on motherhood and the healing power of stories to bring her characters to life.

Aitken explains: “There’s an idea of old Ireland that’s woven into every tale we tell about our country’s past. It’s a story of peat fires and poets at their spinning wheels, rain-soaked hills and wild seas.

Gretchen Berg

Katie Hutton

The foundations for Finola Austin’s novel Brontë’s Mistress (Atria, 2020) were laid, she says, when she “fell in love with Victorian literature early. As a child, I started with the works of Charles Dickens and Charlotte Brontë. By my teens, I was devouring novels by Wilkie Collins, Thomas Hardy, and those other Brontës—Emily and Anne.”

When Austin was eighteen, she continues, “I went to Oxford University to study Classics and English. There I found other pockets of literature I admired—Greek, Latin and English epics, early modern drama, Roman love elegies. But there was never any doubt that the nineteenth century was my favorite. I did a Master’s focused on the Victorian period, working on Wilkie Collins and Charlotte Brontë again, and now Mary Elizabeth Braddon too.

"When I started to write my own fiction seriously, I knew the nineteenth century would be my setting. But it wasn’t until a few years later that I’d find my characters and story.”

Austin had, she says, “just shipped my books across the Atlantic to New York City, where I was working in digital advertising. I’d promised myself that I’d now read all the books I owned but hadn’t got to at Oxford. Amongst these was Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Life of Charlotte Brontë, the first great Brontë biography.

“I was reading alone in my Brooklyn apartment when I came to Gaskell’s description of the rumored affair between the Brontë sisters’ troubled brother, Branwell, and his employer’s wife, Lydia Robinson. Mrs Gaskell called Lydia a ‘profligate woman, who had tempted [Branwell] into the deep disgrace of deadly crime.’ She said that in this case, ‘the man became the victim,’ and suggested that Lydia was responsible, not only for Branwell’s demise, but for all the Brontë siblings’ premature deaths.

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COLUMNS | Issue 93, August 2020

“While studying at Galway university, I read three works that lit my imagination. JM Synge’s Riders to the Sea is a play set on one of the Aran Islands. It’s a romantic, heartbreaking vision of rustic life, undercut by the tragedy of the sea. Old World Ireland has the essence of a myth. It lives almost out of time in our imaginations.

With the arrival of technology, old Ireland has been all but lost, but the landscape hasn’t changed that much on the islands. I walked the fields and rocky shores and listened there for the voices of my characters and the voice of the island.”

The same week that she read Synge, she says, “I dipped into Book 7 of The Odyssey, where the hero is found by a princess washed up on the shore of her island. A shipwreck was one of the first scenes I ever wrote for The Island Child, but I became fascinated by the girl who found the outsider and her relationship with her mother.

“I spent my teens on the south coast of Ireland in a tiny village where we were what’s known as ‘blow-ins’. Some people called my mother a witch. She was after all not only an outsider but divorced. Later, a similar woman, Aislinn, appeared in The Island Child.”

It is a ritual for her, every year, “to reread Eavan Boland’s poem The Pomegranate, an Irish retelling of the Greek myth of the mother and daughter, Demeter and Persephone. In one poem Boland seamlessly blends modern Ireland with ancient myth, and this is what I longed to achieve with my writing and The Island Child.”

As Aitken points out, “No novel appears fully formed. It’s a patchwork of many ideas and voices, sewn together over time. The voices of the authors I’ve read; the voices of the people closest to me; the voice of history; and perhaps sometimes, the voice of the land and sea.”

Katie Hutton and Aitken have both shown their love of rural settings in their novels. Hutton’s The Gypsy Bride (Zaffre, 2020) is set in rural Oxfordshire. Her central character Ellen’s life and plans are changed dramatically by the First World War, which brings her into contact with a local Gypsy community.

The original seeds of inspiration for The Gypsy Bride came, for Hutton, “from browsing in an Oxfam bookshop. I intended to write

something rural, a love story, set between the two world wars, and culture-clash is part of my DNA (I am from County Antrim). The spark was W.H. Hudson’s A Shepherd’s Life (1910), charting the farming year in Wiltshire; the chapter entitled ‘The Dark Men of the Village’ describes Romani Gypsies, part of the warp and weft of the agricultural year, seasonal workers for whom their employers didn’t have to find accommodation because they came with their own.

“I went on to read George Borrow and others, starting to glimpse the character of Sampson Loveridge through the trees. However, early literary images of Gypsies were not usually written by Gypsies themselves, and so were sometimes highly-coloured, romanticising, or derisory. I owe a huge debt to the Brazil family of the South-East Romany Museum in Marden, Kent, who clarified many issues and also referred me to Thomas Acton, Emeritus Professor of Romani Studies at the University of Greenwich, who fact-checked my manuscript.”

The idea for her heroine, Ellen Quainton, came from a different source. “I looked to English ancestors; my great-great grandfather was a Primitive Methodist preacher in a village in the Chilterns. The ‘Prims’ united with other Methodist groups in 1932, thus disappearing as a discrete entity, but the impact they had on working-class life should not be underestimated. Their Sunday schools provided education for children and adults – not all Prims by any means – prior to the 1870 Education Act. Involvement in early trade unionism they saw as God’s work, standing up for the oppressed. My main source for my portrait of the Prims is the Englesea Brook Museum and Archive of Primitive Methodism, near Alsager – a fascinating microcosm of a vanished world.”

The Gypsy Bride by Hutton and The Operator by Gretchen Berg (William Morrow, 2020) have both drawn on research into their own families’ pasts to delve beneath the surface of the periods that they have written about.

The Operator, Berg explains, “began as genealogy research. My mom gave me a small brown notebook that had belonged to her mother. ‘Your grandma was the family historian,’ she’d said. My wide-eyed, confused page-turning of those little notebook pages became the character Charlotte’s wide-eyed, confused page-turning of those little notebook pages. My grandma’s little brown notebook became Vivian Dalton’s little brown notebook, and some of the notebook pages made their way into the novel; their contents woven into the plot.

to eavesdrop on all the calls she connected. Plot-wise, I thought it would be interesting if she’d happened to overhear something about her own family. That part was fictional, although the secret she overheard was not.”

There was a story in Berg’s family about her grandmother. “My mom had always said, ‘Your grandma doesn’t trust people who read books,’ which made me laugh, because it seemed absurd. But the little brown notebook illuminated a lack of trust in other areas.”

Berg has set her novel in the 1950s, when “propriety and appearances were extremely important, and in a small community rumors expanded and escalated quickly. Having a secret leaked could seem disastrous, whether or not it really mattered that much.”

It was only later in her life, she says, that “during the few visits we had, I could see my grandma’s profound insecurities, which I think stemmed from the fact that she was undereducated and that she wasn’t wealthy, like the fancy ‘four-flushers’ she was always complaining about, and eavesdropping on. Her world, delineated

by Wooster, Ohio, was very insular and small, and heavily influenced by how she perceived other people viewed her. In a way, I wanted my grandma to have a different, better story. I wanted her to learn and grow and triumph, as Vivian Dalton eventually does in The Operator.”

Since medieval times and before, ‘undercrofts’ have been used for storage purposes. Aitken, Austin, Berg and Hutton have searched through the rich treasure house of history to recall concealed aspects of times past and built their characters into its fabric.

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 brought to the attention of other lovers of historical fiction.

“I never knew that my grandma had worked as a telephone switchboard operator until after she died. My mom said she used A publication of the Historical Novel Society | www.historicalnovelsociety.org

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HISTORY & FILM Creature Feature: The Historical Fantasy of Ray Harryhausen

I share with Ray Harryhausen a fascination with creatures, especially dinosaurs, and a birthday – 29 June 2020 would have been his 100th (no, we don’t share a birth year). Harryhausen passed away in 2013, but the legacy he left, including the modern filmmakers he inspired and influenced, continues. For those unfamiliar, Harryhausen was best known as a visual effects artist, a master of stop-motion animation.

He wasn’t the first to pioneer this art form; he was a successor to Willis O’Brien, the animator behind 1925’s The Lost World and the iconic 1933 King Kong. O’Brien acted as mentor to Harryhausen when they worked together on Mighty Joe Young (1949), another ape picture which won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.

Stop-motion animation is a simple technique that requires few resources – with the exception of obsessive attention to detail and a boatload of patience. Given that the method has been around for over a century and digital animation has exploded into a billiondollar industry since the 1990s, one might think that stop motion is a relic of the past. A 2019 article opined, “Let’s face it, stop motion should be dead. It’s a crude, time-consuming, labour-intensive form of animation that has been trumped by the jaw-dropping, smooth, and lifelike qualities of CGI.”1 I take exception to the word “crude”; just because something is simple doesn’t mean it’s crude, and CGI is so commonplace that jaw-dropping has long ceased to describe it. I could also write an entire piece on the uncanny valley of CGI's “lifelike qualities.” Yet the interesting thing is that this article and others of similar ilk are forced into statements against interest, admitting that stop motion thrives as they try to figure out exactly why it’s still around. I think creativity and charm go a long way (eg, my hands-down favorite, Aardman features such as Wallace & Gromit). I would posit that stop motion affects viewers in a way that soulless, homogenous CGI extravaganzas do not and perhaps never will. Massive moneymakers such as the LEGO movie franchise have even gone to great lengths to use digital methods in attempts to emulate the look of stop motion.

Perhaps I'm overly harsh to CGI. I simply love stop-motion animation.

There is something tangible about it that modern computer generated imagery, no matter how technically impressive, lacks. A rare, 3-D depth in a field dominated by 2-D computer images that employ all kinds of technical wizardry to give the illusion that they aren’t what they are: artificial and intangible. Perhaps, as the article above theorizes, stop motion’s appeal lies in the desire for a return of the artisanal, a feeling of craftsmanship, a counter-reaction to the modern mass-production that results in so much facile, formulaic 6

COLUMNS | Issue 93, August 2020

rubbish. In a world where almost every product is mass-produced in the fastest way to appeal to the widest possible audience, stop motion is handmade, slowly and carefully. It is unique. And a great deal of labor goes into it.

It is also nostalgic in that it hearkens back to a time when it was the only way to create certain effects. Which returns us to Harryhausen. His models consisted of a metal armature (usually made by his father, an engineer) covered in latex rubber and handpainted by Harryhausen. Costumes to dress the models were sewn

by Harryhausen’s mother. With simple stop motion, one places the model on a scaled set, shoots a single frame, makes a tiny adjustment to the model, shoots another frame, repeat ad infinitum.

When the film is screened at 24 frames per second, the model has the illusion of motion, much like the flipbooks we drew as children.

For movies where the models needed to appear to interact with real actors, Harryhausen would shoot live-action backgrounds, animate the models in front of the rear-projected background while matted for the foreground, and with the perspective controlled, the models appear to be living, breathing, and having their being (and usually rampaging) in a real-world environment. The final step is to have the foreground footage with the actors added, so all appear to be existing in the same space. He called his technique Dynamation (sometimes later called SuperDynamation or Dynarama).

Harryhausen is best known for films that are categorized as science fiction (essentially, monster movies) in his early career, and historical fantasy adventure in his later career. Since history is our wheelhouse, we’ll focus on the latter. Harryhausen’s first foray and a turning point in his work came in the form of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958). Captain Sinbad (Kerwyn Mathews) is blown off course at sea, and ends up on the island of Colossa, where Harryhausen’s creatures are front and center. The first encountered is a cloven-hoofed, enormous cyclops; later there’s a half-woman/half-snake dancer, a sword-wielding skeleton, a giant two-headed Roc bird, and a fire-breathing dragon which engages in a battle royale with the cyclops. This full-color, swashbuckling historical adventure had an enormous impact on a number of future filmmakers; Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, George Lucas, Tim Burton and more have cited it as inspiration for their work.

Harryhausen usually worked by himself, and that led the film’s producer, Charles Schneer, to insure Harryhausen’s hands for a million dollars. Schneer considered Harryhausen a genius, and they would work together over the next 25 years to create a number of films. Harryhausen was much more than an animator; he has been called an auteur by many. For 7th Voyage, Harryhausen began with a simple desire: he wanted to animate a skeleton. His skeleton needed an adversary to fight, so Harryhausen chose Sinbad as “the personification of adventure,” but also because he thought audiences would accept this historical fantasy environment if it incorporated elements from the Arabian Nights. He wanted to show “just how exciting legends could become if the audience could actually see the fantasy creatures.”2 This melding of a fantastical, historical setting with stop-motion creatures is a mainstay of Harryhausen’s later works, as is its exploration of (and riffing on) mythology. He was not above mixing his idioms, as is readily apparent by the fact that a character from Arabian Nights does battle with a cyclops lifted directly from Greek mythology. The cyclops in 7th Voyage is an exemplar of what made Harryhausen such a great animator: the cyclops doesn’t simply attack people and roar. He clearly emotes, from evincing pain and

anger to delight at the thought of munching on Sinbad and his men (he licks his lips in anticipation). Harryhausen was able to use his abilities to make his creatures relatable – he never called them “monsters” and preferred others didn’t either.

7th Voyage was the first of a trilogy of Sinbad movies that Harryhausen and Schneer would partner to create, with The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger following in 1973 and 1977, respectively. The 7th Voyage was so influential that in 2008 the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry – films that are deemed culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. The later two films were not as well received, yet The Golden Voyage especially contains some astounding creations, most notably a ship’s figurehead that comes to life, and a living, swordwielding statue of Kali, the many-armed Hindu goddess. These creations showcase another penchant of Harryhausen’s – bringing statues to life – that he would fully indulge in his Greek mythology movies.

Harryhausen admitted that, in school, Greek mythology wasn’t his favorite: “But as I grew older I began to appreciate the legends and to realise that they contained a vivid world of adventure with wonderful heroes, villains and, most importantly, lots of fantastic creatures.”3 His last film, Clash of the Titans (1981), would be in this genre, and in addition to its creatures, it featured some legendary personalities of the silver screen, Sir Laurence Olivier and Dame Maggie Smith amongst them. While its creatures are impressive (Medusa, scorpions, a Kraken, a mechanical owl), it’s not among my favorite Harryhausen films, especially in the mythology genre. It’s almost as if the weightiness of the actors overwhelms it. The majority of Harryhausen movies feature less than prominent actors; it allowed Harryhausen a measure of creative control and direction that seem lacking in Clash of the Titans which, frankly, I find ponderous rather than adventurous. Thus, I’d rather examine his first foray into Greek mythology, rather than his last.

In the early 1960s, Harryhausen and Schneer took a look at many sources when they first began considering a mythic Greek adventure movie, and finally settled on Jason’s search for the Golden Fleece. The resulting film, Jason and the Argonauts, would become Harryhausen’s favorite. “Of all the films that I have been connected with, it continues to please me most.”4 I first saw it as a child, and to say it pleased me, too, would be an understatement.

The film has multiple iconic scenes. Most remember it for the fighting skeletons (more on that in a moment), which I also loved, but my personal favorite is a Harryhausen statue classic, the Dynamation sequence featuring Talos. Jason (Todd Armstrong) has set out in search of the Golden Fleece on his ship the Argo, accompanied by a contingent of the bravest men, Hercules (Nigel Green) among them.

On the Isle of Bronze, there are various vaults with enormous statues atop them; one of these statues is Talos, guardian of the island. Jason has been warned to remove nothing but food and water. But Hercules has a mind of his own, ignores the warnings, and helps himself to a brooch pin from Talos's vault, which is large enough for him to use as a javelin. The first time I saw this film, I sat there, jaw agape, as the bronze statue of Talos slowly turned its head, sightless eyeholes staring at the thief, then raising itself to its full 100-foot height before pursuing the Argonauts with murderous intent, the creaking of metal on metal accompanying its every step. Harryhausen noted that Talos presented an ironic challenge: “For most of my career, I have been trying to perfect smooth and lifelike animation action, but for Talos it was necessary to create a deliberately stiff and mechanical movement in keeping with a bronze statue sprung to life.”5 Harryhausen consulted images from period Greek vases as the basis for his design. The result is both terrifying and fascinating.

Jason and the Argonauts also features flying Harpies, a seven-headed Hydra (another transposition; Harryhausen borrowed it from the Hercules legend), and the famous “children of the Hydra’s teeth” – the fighting skeletons. For those who’ve seen 7th Voyage, one of the skeletons may look familiar; it’s the same model used in that film.

The seven models were approximately 8 inches high, each with five appendages that would have to be moved in every frame of a battle which was synchronized with three actors in the live-action film.

That’s 35 animation movements in each frame of film. Harryhausen often worked all day to accomplish less than a second of screen time.

The entire sequence would take almost five months of constant labor from the man who took a fencing course in order to make sure his animated swordplay would be correct.

And that is, perhaps, the takeaway – the painstaking labor and attention to detail that went into every aspect of Harryhausen’s craftsmanship in his attempts at realism. He did this because he loved the work, and in his million-dollar hands, it became an art form. Watching Dynamation on the screen, there is no sense of the cold, impersonal and mass-produced artificiality of many current special effects. Harryhausen sequences present creatures that one understands are tangible. As Dennis Murren, creative director of special effects giant Industrial Light & Magic points out, “You can look at them, and you may not know how they are moving, but you know that you could touch them.”6

REFERENCES 1. Kim Taylor-Foster. “Breaking the Mold: Why Stop Motion Is Thriving in a CGI World.” Fandom. 8 February 2019. https://www.fandom.com/ articles/breaking-the-mold-stop-motionl 2. David Weiner. "The Wonder and Dynamation of Ray Harryhausen's The 7th Voyage of Sinbad." It Came From... Blog. 24 December 2018. https://itcamefromblog.com/2018/12/24/the-wonder-anddynamation-of-ray-harryhausens-the-7th-voyage-of-sinbad/ 3. Ray Harryhausen and Tony Dalton. Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life. Billboard Books, 2004.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Geoff Boucher. "'We Lost a Legend': Abrams, del Toro, Rodriguez Remember Harryhausen." Entertainment Weekly. 7 May 2013. https:// ew.com/article/2013/05/07/jj-abrams-damon-lindelof-guillermo-deltoro-ray-harryhausen/

WRITTEN BY BETHANY LATHAM Bethany Latham is a professor, librarian, and HNR's Managing Editor. She is a regular contributor to NoveList and a regular reviewer for Booklist.

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

7

TRUTH CAST INTO SYMBOL & METAPHOR

Richard Lee on Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light

Esher (in Wolf Hall) that Cromwell has cried; the last time, indeed, that he will cry.3 The question is, why is Dorothea so important to Cromwell? On the face of it, it is only because she carries Wolsey’s blood: they have scarcely met before. But Mantel is continually playful with the idea of blood, with Cromwell’s attitudes to it. The aristocracy scorn him for his ‘vile blood’ – it is their one argument against his high office.

Cromwell, meanwhile, tells us he no more cares for an aristocrat’s blood than he cares for their turds. Even when Cromwell sees King Henry’s blood – in a white basin in his bedchamber – he appears indifferent; he has no more squeamishness than a butcher. But the King’s blood is indubitably important – it here represents the King’s illness, his vulnerability, his mortality; if the King dies, what becomes of Cromwell? Civil war is an entirely pragmatic threat should there be no heir of the King’s blood. And this is not to mention the theological entanglements of Holy Blood and the blood of martyrs. When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, is it a sacrament or is it not?

Mantel is equally playful with Cromwell for his attitude to ghosts.

Cromwell does not believe in ghosts, but they haunt him nonetheless.

The scene in Wolf Hall which this passage specifically references is ‘that day at Esher, the ashes cold in the grates, the wind howling through every crack – then the dead souls came out of purgatory blowing around the courtyards and rattling at the shutters to be let in. That was what we believed in those days. What many believed. ‘“I still,” Christophe says.’

There are three main criticisms of Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell novels. The first, that her style is confusing; people puzzle about who ‘he’ is. The second is that the prose is dense, overladen; sections might need rereading to unpick their full meaning. The third, more academic charge, is against ‘faction’; however good the research, we cannot know what Thomas Cromwell thought, so what is the point?

Historian Niall Fergusson suggested that this kind of presumption contaminates ‘historical understanding’.1 The confusion of ‘he’ is only a brief problem of acclimatisation.

Mantel uses ‘he’ to reaffirm to the reader that the viewpoint is not ‘I’; though we have ‘notional access to the inside of [Cromwell’s] head… there is always a sense that something may be held back.’2 The other criticisms are more cogent, and yet I absolutely love Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell. This is best explained, I think, by examining a scene that has no point unless I ‘believe’ in the way her Thomas thinks.

In The Mirror and the Light (Fourth Estate UK/Henry Holt US, 2020), Cromwell visits Shaftesbury Abbey as a ‘private gentleman’ to see the nun Dorothea, Cardinal Wolsey’s daughter. They meet in a narrow room with a view of a wall; nothing is seen of the Abbey’s opulence. Cromwell offers gifts, which are rejected, then he leaves: in plot terms, nothing has happened. But in terms of character, a tectonic shift has occurred. This is the first time since All Hallows’ in

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What becomes of the souls of the dead is the hinge of the trilogy; the hinge, perhaps, of the Reformation itself. If we say that purgatory does not exist, that prayers, and chantries, and intercessions have no efficacy then what can we do for the dead? Nothing? That is a hard choice for Cromwell, a man who believes in actions above words.

Swirling around him at Esher were the souls of Liz, Anne, Grace. At Shaftesbury Abbey it is the Cardinal. Eliza Barton, the Prophetess, ‘searched Heaven and Hell, she said, and never found Wolsey, till she found him at last in a place that was no place, seated among the unborn.’

But Dorothea’s response effectively cuts Cromwell from the ghost of his surrogate father, Wolsey, and leaves him no comfort even in prayer, because he believes the dead beyond prayer.

So it turns out that the way in which Dorothea is most important to Cromwell is not by her lineage or even by the memory of her father, it is by the mirror that she holds up to Cromwell himself. Mirrors – as the book’s title suggest – are another important symbol for Mantel.

Henry is ‘the mirror and the light of other kings’, but Cromwell is also the mirror to Henry’s light – with the light gone, the mirror reflects nothing. Holbein paints the King’s portrait and this is another kind of mirror. The King’s courtships progress by the exchange of images – but how true are images? ‘Henry owns more than a hundred lookingglasses. If they had a memory, we could send one that reflected the prince as he was ... tumbling curls, broad shoulders, damask skin.’

Historical record tells us that Henry felt misled by the portrait of Anne of Cleves, that the deception of the image doomed his marriage. In the novel, though – and surely more likely to be true – the doom is wrought when Henry, disguised, sees and cannot afterwards unsee himself unflatteringly reflected in Anne’s eyes when she does not

WHAT EMOTIONS WOULD SURFACE, and what foreshadowings of fall and betrayal would be revealed? know his rank.

Is this the truest mirror, the novel seems to ask, or only the most bitter? This moment with the King is foreshadowed when Cromwell meets Dorothea. Cromwell offers to welcome Dorothea into his household, but she finds the idea repellent. ‘“Live with you?” The chill in her tone pushes him backwards even in the cramped space.’

He thinks she is hostile at first because his person is ‘defective’, next because he proceeds against her religious house, next, because she perceives him to be irreligious in his own faith. She shakes with anger.

All these things she hates, of course, but there is worse: his ‘nature’, his ‘deeds’. To Dorothea, via the witness of her father Wolsey, he is a ‘spy’, a forger, a ‘perjurer’: ‘“There is no faith or trust in Cromwell.”’

And this nature, these deeds, of course, are what the reader has seen, condoned, and walked with through the novels. We have allowed them. Even those of us who feel that there is some good in Cromwell are hard-pressed to deny the bad.

This depth of interaction with the characters, with the symbolism and the metaphysics of the novels makes their density inevitable.

With Hilary Mantel, rereading becomes a pleasure.

‘Trust your reader, stop patronising your reader, give your reader credit for being smart as you at least,’ she writes, ‘Concentrate on sharpening your memory and peeling your sensibility.‘4 But in what sense, you might still ask, is any of this true? Why should we believe it? We see Cromwell’s tears – very affecting – but are they not a simple untruth; a literary kind of forgery and perjury?

In 2011 I wrote to Hilary asking about the scene in Wolf Hall that this scene revisits.5 I admired the complexity of the imagery, the grief that comes in waves, and the many foreshadowings – seepings, she might say – of the scene.

She replied referencing an ‘equivalent passage in George Cavendish’s memoir of Wolsey (a near contemporary account). All I have really done is switch the viewpoint. The passage is written from Cavendish’s point of view; he sees Cromwell crying and reading a prayer book (‘which would since have been a very strange sight.’) George asks him what’s the matter. Cromwell tells him that he is lamenting the likely end of his career and fortune. It seemed to me that he might have multiple reasons for tears, and he might not have been willing to talk about them to Cavendish; he only told him the obvious ones, the ones that made immediate sense. And it seems to me that in life, when someone says, ‘why are you crying?’ it is a difficult question to answer, because the release of feeling is like a series of waves, and what you end up crying about may not be what you began crying about.

‘It seems to me a good example of the way a historical novelist might operate; a prayer book becomes a particular prayer book, the significance of the date is noticed, and then you think through it, as if it were happening to you.’6

surface, and what foreshadowings of fall and betrayal would be revealed?

I think it incontrovertible that Hilary Mantel’s novels have changed our perception of Thomas Cromwell, altered our understanding of the English Reformation – if not forever, then certainly for now. But this is an enrichment of the great Tudor myth, not a contamination.

It has brought finance, legal process, diplomacy and realpolitik more to the fore, relegated romance and theology. While it retains its arch-villains, Henry and Cromwell, it has lost its martyrs as heroes.

‘Myth is not a falsehood,’ as Hilary Mantel says in her Reith Lecture, ‘It is a truth cast into symbol and metaphor.’ 7

REFERENCES

1. Niall Fergusson

"Down with Junk History." Hay Festival (May 2010).

2. Hilary Mantel

Walter Scott Prize Masterclass series (2013), HNS website, available from https://historicalnovelsociety.org/wsp-masterclassseries-2013-4-hilary-mantel-like-some-inky-clerk-with-a-quillscratching-to-keep-up/

3. Ibid.

The Mirror and the Light, (Fourth Estate, 2020), pp. 282-290.

4. Ibid.

Giving Up the Ghost, (Picador, 2003), p.4.

5. Ibid.

Wolf Hall (Fourth Estate, 2009), "Make or Mar," pp. 154-157.

6. Ibid.

Letter to Richard Lee (November 2011).

7. Ibid.

"The Iron Maiden." Reigh Lectures (2017), available from https:// www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08v08m5

WRITTEN BY RICHARD LEE

Richard Lee is founder and chairman of the Historical Novel Society. He is currently writing a novel about the Crusades.

In The Mirror and the Light she follows a similar process. Cromwell knows where Dorothea is because he later grants her a pension.

If they had met earlier, how would each of them have approached the meeting, how would it have worked out? What emotions would

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

9

WHAT'S IN A NAME? Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet Will Make You Think Again about Hamlet

be to write about the sixteenth century. I felt that I had to relearn everything I knew about constructing a sentence, a paragraph, a line of dialogue. There were whole swathes of metaphors and images suddenly unavailable to me; I could no longer reach for similes that came easily to me. I could not say ‘her scream was like a fire alarm’ because, of course, such things didn’t exist in Elizabethan Warwickshire.” Like various others, she found herself writing with the Oxford English Dictionary at hand. “The experience of writing Hamnet reminded me most of my first forays and attempts into fiction, back in my early 20s: that sensation of feeling your way in the dark, not knowing how to proceed. It was invigorating; it made me work hard.”

Her research was certainly not confined to books, but rather, for Hamnet, “I did a lot of practical research: I flew kestrels in woods, I planted a medicinal herb garden, I went mudlarking along the Thames, I walked around Stratford and the Globe, I learnt how to make Elizabethan cures from plants and flowers. That was all a lot more fun than sitting at my desk.”

Maggie O’Farrell’s latest novel was launched on Twitter during the lockdown. However, when the Hay Festival (normally held each May in Hay-on-Wye, Wales) was transferred online, over 12,500 listeners logged on to hear her talk about Hamnet to the festival director Peter Florence. He predicted that in a year’s time “the book will be garlanded with prizes”. No surprise therefore that it’s already shortlisted for the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Hamnet is O’Farrell’s eighth novel (not counting her memoir, I Am, I Am, I Am), and the one set furthest back in history. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox starts against the background of the British Empire in India and Edwardian Edinburgh, before moving to more recent times as it spans Esme’s lifetime from the 1930s to the 90s. O’Farrell’s 2010 Costa award winner, The Hand That First Held Mine, similarly stretches over an arc of around sixty years from the Soho art scene in postwar London to the present day. O’Farrell says she first heard about William Shakespeare’s son Hamnet from her English teacher at secondary school in Scotland. But it was only after her own son had passed his eleventh birthday that, she says, “I gave myself a talking to, after I finished my memoir, and said, it’s now or never.”

Even though it’s the novel she’s “been wanting to write for over thirty years”, nothing prepared her “for how disorientating it would

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FEATURES | Issue 93, August 2020

The strategy certainly paid off because the setting – for the most part, Stratford-upon-Avon – and the moment – around 1596 – have been completely absorbed and then cast aside. What is left is pared down to the human story, the intimate world seen through the eyes of the characters she portrays. When asked more about her writing, she replies: “I wanted to write the kind of historical novel that I like to read. The books I admire most are the ones which wear their history lightly.” Indeed, none of the key events of the period are mentioned: no queen, no court, no politics. “I was writing about people living in a small, rural market-town,” O’Farrell says, “and I’m not sure how much larger historical events would have impinged on their consciousness. They were probably too caught up in their day-to-day lives, the rituals of work and family.” Even religion, that fundamental glue – and divider – of society, is peripheral. When I asked O’Farrell about this, she replied: “Religion was such a fraught and freighted issue in Elizabethan society. You could be fined, for example, for not attending church – Shakespeare’s father, John, was. Some of the only evidence we have of Shakespeare being in a particular time and place are the records of his attendance at a church in the parish of Bishopsgate, London. Catholicism was outlawed, its priests forced into hiding, and recusants punished. I can’t believe, however, that these systemic and enforced worship could have forced people into certain spiritual beliefs. There must have existed, beneath this sequestered system, rebellious forms of worship and also non-belief.

My character of Agnes loses her belief with the early death of her mother in childbirth, and this atheism is a theme that runs beside her throughout the book.”

Although titled Hamnet, the book’s pivotal character is Agnes. When O’Farrell first conceived the idea, she intended to write about Hamnet and his link to the play Hamlet: “I envisaged it as a book about fathers and sons”, she writes. However, “There is often a point, in the process of writing a novel, when it begins to veer off in a direction you may not have originally planned. This was the case with Hamnet. Hathaway hijacked the book.”

“I really enjoyed creating the character of Hamnet’s mother,” she tells me. “We are so accustomed to calling her ‘Anne Hathaway’ but her father’s will clearly names her as ‘Agnes’. That was an electrifying, defining moment in the writing of the book. In giving her what is

I'M TRYING to prove and amplify the significance of his death, as well as his life. I feel that he has been overlooked for too long, and that without his early death we wouldn’t have Hamlet. presumably her birth name, I’m asking readers to discard what we think we know about her and see her anew.” In fact, so little is known about Agnes/Anne Hathaway that O’Farrell’s portrayal has opened up entirely new possibilities, most fascinatingly how Agnes’s knowledge of plants and herbal medicine – usually credited to Shakespeare’s own learning – seeped into her husband’s plays.

Certainly, this Agnes is far removed from some of the more traditional views: “If you ask someone what they know about Shakespeare’s wife, you’ll probably receive one of two answers. Either: he hated her. Or: she tricked him into marriage. Historians and biographers and critics have for a long time inexplicably vilified and criticised her, creating a very misogynistic version of her. And their evidence?

Hathaway sceptics all fall back on the same overhandled facts: that Shakespeare only left her his ‘second-best bed’ in his will, that he was eighteen to her twenty-six when they married, that their first child was born only six months after the wedding. I wanted to persuade people to think again, to not rush to conclusions.”

another, about hoodwinking others and switching identities, was on what would have been Judith and Hamnet’s birthday.” By fashioning his story, Hamnet is no longer “relegated to a literary footnote”. “He gets very little mention in any of his father’s biographies; his mother has too often been inexplicably maligned and misrepresented. With this book, I wanted to give voice to Hamnet and his mother and sisters, to imagine what life had been like in the glover’s house in Henley Street, and how the tragic events of August 1596 might have played out.”

On a closing note O’Farrell tells me, “I would certainly write another historical novel. And in fact I have just started one – but in a very different setting.” To judge by the adroitness with which she takes us into this Elizabethan world, it is safe to say that she could make any period come alive, and more to the point, any people.

The vivid poignancy of the novel lies in the death of a child, the boy Hamnet, and the way his family tries – or fails – to come to terms with that overpowering grief. She was prompted to explore this agony because “I felt there was a terrible assumption, in certain biographies, that they might not have grieved him simply because mortality was so high for children in the sixteenth century. He was eleven, I wanted to shout, how could they not have grieved?”

O’Farrell is no stranger to such agonising moments. The subtitle of her 2017 memoir is Seventeen Brushes With Death. Hamnet, too, tries to “hoodwink” death: he partially succeeds and his twin sister survives. The two figures Agnes knew would be beside her own deathbed are in fact her daughters, Susanna and Judith. The tragedy that O’Farrell cannot explain is why none of Shakespeare’s contemporaries ever thought to ask them for their views of their own father. O’Farrell’s reimagining of Agnes in the days after Hamnet’s death are supercharged with emotion and insight. Grief for his son affected “the father” – Shakespeare is never named in the book – quite differently. “I was immediately struck by the sad confluence of these names,” O’Farrell says. “What did it mean for a father to call a play after his dead son? And how might Hamnet’s mother have felt about it? I remember looking down at the cover of the play and covering the ‘L’ of the title with a finger. How easy it was to make Hamlet read ‘Hamnet’.”

One of the most extraordinary chapters in the book describes how, in the summer of 1596, the plague travels from Venice, via other ports in the Mediterranean, before arriving in England and then Stratford, where Hamnet’s sister Judith is infected as she opens a box of precious Venetian glass beads packed in flea-infested rags.

O’Farrell could never have known how prescient this would seem on publication in March 2020. “All the maps and graphs I have on my walls, showing sixteenth-century trade routes and plague spread, now look oddly contemporary.”

O’Farrell has certainly changed the way I will watch Hamlet in the future. “In a sense,” she writes, “I’m trying to prove and amplify the significance of his death, as well as his life. I feel that he has been overlooked for too long, and that without his early death we wouldn’t have Hamlet.” As she said at Hay Festival, “the whole play is underpinned by a chasm of grief. And surely it is no coincidence that the opening night of Twelfth Night, a play about twins who lose one

WRITTEN

BY LUCINDA BYATT Lucinda Byatt is a historian and translator. She is also HNR Features Editor and blogs occasionally at “A World of Words,” https://textline. wordpress.com/

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

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NEGOTIATING HISTORY & IMAGINATION

BY JOHN KACHUBA Sue Monk Kidd's The Book of Longings Sue Monk Kidd is the author of the best-selling The Secret Life of Bees (2001) and several other notable works. Her latest novel, The Book of Longings (Tinder Press UK/Viking US, 2020), continues her exploration of feminine empowerment and theology, this time going back to biblical times. The novel is set in first-century Judea where Ana, the daughter of an official in King Herod’s court, lives a privileged, sheltered life. Unusual for women of that time and place, Ana is literate and spends much of her time writing stories about the people in her environment, especially the women.

When Ana rebuffs Herod’s offer to be his concubine, she realizes her life is in danger and flees the palace. She meets a young, charismatic Nazarene carpenter and mason named Jesus, they fall in love, and marry. Their life together does not last long, however, as Jesus realizes his destiny is to be a wandering preacher and Herod’s forces close in on Ana, forcing her to flee to Egypt, where she discovers a society far more tolerant of women’s rights. There her writing and intellectual life flourishes.

It’s difficult for novelists to write about larger than life historical figures for whom we already have many preconceptions. But that task is far more daunting when one of those figures is not only a major historical personage but is held by millions to be God. Kidd explains her thought process in how she developed the character of Jesus: “I can’t deny that when I first conceived of the idea for this novel, I experienced some moments of trepidation. Even though I was writing mostly about the period before Jesus’ public ministry — a time when his life is unrecorded — I knew I was climbing way, way out on the literary limb. And out on the religious limb, too. I grew up attending a Baptist church in a small town in Georgia. I understood all too well that some readers would resist the idea of a married Jesus. Nevertheless, I felt compelled. I kept a quote on my desk by Virginia Woolf: ‘Everything is the proper stuff of fiction.’ That was my personal permission slip. It was, of course, a matter of me giving myself permission.

“My intent was to create a reverential picture of Jesus as fully human.

His divine nature looms so large in our minds and religious experience that his full humanity is often eclipsed. When that happens, we lose touch with what an extraordinary human being he was, and it becomes easy to forget what we as humans are capable of. Many readers have commented that The Book of Longings caused them to have a new appreciation for Jesus.”

As important as the character of Jesus is to the novel, this is Ana’s story and it centers around fulfilling her destiny. Kidd says, “I do realize that Jesus is a figure larger than life and that some readers might be reluctant to depart from his well-known storyline, but The Book of Longings is Ana’s story. It’s her passion, her struggle, her becoming, and her resolution, none of which are secondary to Jesus’s. In my 12

FEATURES | Issue 93, August 2020

mind it came down to this: Would Ana follow Jesus and be a witness to and a participant in the realization of her husband’s largeness, or would she follow her longings to find her own largeness? She would not, I felt, find the fullness of herself in his shadow.”

The characters and events depicted in The Book of Longings are so freighted with theological influences that it becomes difficult to accurately research them and sort the history from the theology.

Kidd admits as much and says, “Usually, the main task when writing historical fiction is to negotiate between history and imagination, and this was true in writing The Book of Longings, but I quickly realized I also had the dilemma of trying to separate the history of Jesus from vast amounts of theology. For a while I was in a quandary about how to portray his character. I mean, millions of people are devoted to him, and his impact on history is incomparable. But I knew that my aim was to write this story from a historical perspective as much as possible, to write as a novelist and not as a religious person. I concentrated much of my research on a study of the historical Jesus, which peels back theological interpretations in order to find the actual Jesus, what he really said and what he really did. I read the works of as many prominent scholars in this field as I could.”

Kidd’s research was also a deep dive into Egyptian culture in the first century, particularly the role of women in that society. In the first century, there had already been a strong Hellenic influence in Egypt, begun three centuries earlier under the reign of Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian, and exemplified by his descendant, Cleopatra, who died in 30 BC. That influence was more liberating for women in Egypt than in Judean society of the time.

Kidd says, “I found far more historical citations of rebellious women, including Jewish women, in first century Egypt: dozens of primary sources in which women defy and divorce husbands, expose men’s abuse publicly, agitate for rights and better treatment, own land and businesses, and my favorite, petition to give themselves away in marriage rather than their fathers doing it.

“But in Galilee, records of such women outside of a few scriptural accounts were non-existent. This did not indicate to me that women with longings and audacity and feminist-like awareness similar to Ana’s didn’t exist, only that history didn’t record them. Many women at this time must have wished for the freedom and opportunities their brothers had — one only has to know the unenculturated female heart to know this. Women’s stories were rarely recorded and when they were, the women usually went unnamed. Forbidden to read and write, it would’ve been rare for them to record and preserve their stories. I was up against their invisibility within history during this time and place.”

Luckily for modern readers, The Book of Longings gives voice not only to Ana, but to those countless numbers of strong, intelligent women from ages past whose stories had been buried under the sands of time.

John Kachuba is the author of twelve books, his most recent being Shapeshifters: A History (Reaktion, 2019). John also teaches creative writing through Ohio University and the Gotham Writers Workshop.

GOD & MAMMON

BY SARAH BOWER

Sarah Bower talks to Ben Hopkins about Cathedral There is money in Ben Hopkins’ family, academically speaking at least. His grandfather was an economic historian and his brother is a professor of economics. Just as William Golding’s fictionalised account of the building of the spire of Salisbury Cathedral in his novel, The Spire, betrays his background as an engineer, Hopkins’ new novel, Cathedral, reveals the economist in the author’s blood.

The big question at the heart of the novel is not so much the how or why of cathedral building per se, but how and why is such a colossal undertaking financed and paid for?

This may suggest a dry tome on the subject of medieval economics rather than the well-paced, eminently readable novel which is Cathedral, until one thinks about the place of economics in society.

As I write, the gist of all our news is the effects on the global economy of Covid-19. Reporters frame this in terms of individual human narratives – shortages of protective equipment for care workers, giveaways of beer before unused stocks go bad – but underlying all these stories is economics. In Cathedral, Ben Hopkins successfully taps into this intimate relationship between people and economics to tell the story of the building of a cathedral in the fictional Alsatian city of Hagenburg and, through the lives of the people who help or hinder its progress over a fifty-year period, of the foundation of mercantile capitalism in Europe. It is a novel of big ideas seen through the alluring prism of small lives.

There is an argument which posits the Black Death as creating the conditions for the rise of capitalism by sweeping away the feudal system, but Hopkins’ novel begins a good hundred years before this, in 1229, with the arrival in Hagenburg of a boy with a talent for carving and an ambition to purchase his family’s freedom, a combination which leads him into a complex set of relationships and obligations that are the novel’s foundations. When I ask Hopkins about this decision, he replies, “It seems to me that the roots of mercantile capitalism in the Rhineland had been well placed before the plague. The plague then – by killing so many working people – created a new set of conditions for mercantilism to develop in new and unexpected ways… In short, the plague was some kind of ‘reset’ button that changed some aspects of economic relations, but not their basics.” Hagenburg, he explains, is modelled on Strasbourg because the history of Strasbourg Cathedral afforded the “best” building narrative for his purposes.

From this sturdy root, the novel grows and spreads to encompass the foundation of merchant guilds, the Cathar heresy, the wrangling of Guelph and Ghibelline, the rise of the Hapsburgs and the beginnings

of Jewish settlement in Eastern Europe. Using multiple narrative voices and a rich cast of characters from visionary rabbis to venal bishops, aristocratic bandits to crooked accountants and wheelerdealing widows, Hopkins weaves his story around the seemingly interminable building of the cathedral with immense skill and verve.

One of the novel’s greatest strengths lies in its multiple voices, which are clearly and surely differentiated, enrich the characterisation and carry a complex set of plots and sub-plots in a way which ensures the novel is never confusing. Hopkins is bold with his chronology, alternately picking his way minute by minute or leaping ahead by decades, building almost unbearable tension only to release it when you least expect it. There is nothing predictable in this novel except death and taxes.

This is at least partly a consequence of the fact that there are no clear-cut heroes and villains in this story. Everyone has their fair share of good luck and ill luck, everyone behaves well sometimes and unspeakably at others. At no point, however, are we left wondering about their motives. Everyone, from prince bishop to shepherd, is trying to get on. Their aspirations may make them wise or foolish, shrewd, reckless, romantic or cruel, but their aspirations are not much different to our own. Some we love, some we’d give a wide berth, but all we understand and, understanding, usually forgive.

I asked Hopkins how he thinks his work as a filmmaker influenced his writing: “I love ensemble films with intertwined narratives – often these take place in cities, where one character in one strand passes another in another strand and the ‘narrative baton’ is then passed from one character or strand to another… So when I started planning Cathedral I immediately thought of this structure…In the writing of it, the structure became less ‘structuralist’ and less rigid, more flowing.”

As I read, I thought I could also see the influence of the filmmaker in another significant aspect of the novel, and that is in Hopkins’ commendably light touch with description. He spares us the freight of scene-setting which can weigh down historical novels and offers sketches, often almost in note form with a sparing use of pronouns, verbs or prepositions. This is a style which respects the reader’s imagination and cuts to the chase when what we want to know is not so much how the pub smells at the end of a long hot night but what’s going to happen when the drunk leaving the pub encounters the cutpurse in the shadows. It redeems long novels by ensuring that no words, however many of them there may be, are wasted.

Hopkins admits to having enjoyed writing Cathedral immensely, and

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this is evident in the compassion, humour, pathos and sheer vivacity of a novel which signals the arrival of a bright new talent on the historical fiction stage.

Cathedral was scheduled for publication by Europa Editions in August 2020 but is now postponed to January 2021 due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Sarah Bower edited HNR from 2005-2006. The Needle in the Blood won the Susan Hill Award 2007 and The Book of Love was a Toronto Globe and Mail bestseller. Having taught creative writing widely, she starts a creative and critical writing PhD in October 2020.

CAPTURING SENSES

BY TRACEY WARR

The Sound of the Middle Ages Historical novelists draw on a wide range of research to help them touch the past and create credible fictional worlds. They employ the findings of documentary, archival, cartographic, literary and genealogical research; evidence from material culture in archaeology, artefacts and images; the results of contemporary technological research including radiocarbon dating, X-rays, dendrochronology and subsurface radar. Novelists have joined re-enactment and roleplay societies to gain lived experience. Some writers have turned to more unusual means of research, such as Elizabeth Chadwick’s work with Alison King, tuning in to the Akashic Record of persisting historical energies.

Archaeoacoustics is a branch of archaeology studying the sonic nature of sites and artefacts. It has mainly focused on prehistoric eras, examining cave sites, Stonehenge and Mayan temples. Since my own writing is focused on the early Middle Ages, I wondered what might be recovered of medieval soundscapes. David Hendy’s series of BBC Radio 4 programmes and his book, Noise: A Human History of Sound and Listening, focus on the social history of noise, including medieval sounds.

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a puitan’ (you son of a prostitute) (Mohr, 2013). On feast days and at pilgrimage sites, there would have been a hubbub of crowding visitors. The city sounded to the noises of games, plays, drummers, singers and street musicians. At Henry I’s twelfth-century palace at Woodstock, the morning chorus of local birds would have contended with the dawn bellows, howls and growls of the king’s menagerie.

I live in southern France and the weekly markets held in the cathedral squares in surrounding villages and small market towns are not dissimilar to the bustle of a medieval market. Market vendors still hawk their wares with witty and melodic cries that have become incomprehensibly slurred over time.

The French village where I live has three churches, which all (asynchronously) ring the quarter-hour, half-hour, chime the hour, and the bells launch into cheerful peals to call the workers to breakfast at 8am, to lunch at midday, and then to dinner and down tools at 7pm. Medieval London had hundreds of churches. Imagine the cacophony of those pealing bells. Most medieval settlements were within earshot of an abbey or monastery, and both day and night was punctuated with bells for the frequent prayer services.

Sound culture in monasteries and nunneries also comprised silence.

You only have to go to Venice or recall the recent coronavirus lockdown to know what an extreme difference is made to the soundscape by the absence of cars. The Middle Ages were less populated, landscapes were more forested, and there may have been some different species of birds and perhaps more of them, but still the birdsong you hear now gives you some approximation.

Some things have not changed much or at all: the sounds of the river in its seasons and at its different legs along its way from shallows, to rapids, to waterfall, and estuary. In ‘A Description of London’, written towards the end of the 12th century, William Fitz Stephen describes the ‘running waters, which turn revolving mill-wheels with merry din’ (p. 50). Medieval people heard the wind in the trees, rain beating down, the crack and rumble of thunder, and the sounds of the sea. They experienced the ominous bellying and slap of a ship’s sail in a storm and the cheerful jangle of rigging when they made safe harbour. Crickets chirped, frogs croaked in the mating season, the bells of sheep and goats sounded in mountain pastures, bee hives buzzed, and the neighbour’s cockerel woke you up too early. In May villagers beat the bounds, perambulating in a procession, banging boughs on the boundary markers.

It is not that difficult to imagine or even (to some extent) hear medieval sounds today. Walk into one of the cathedrals from the period and listen to the choir; visit one of the surviving great halls and imagine bards tuning their instruments, the crackle of the fire in the hearth. We might soon start to populate the stagnant volume of air with the clink of cutlery at a feast, the buzz of conversation.

Most medieval domestic interiors did not offer much privacy and eavesdropping had a significant role to play in this society. In the medieval castle or manor we might hear the hiss of steaming cooking pots or hooves on the courtyard cobbles.

I look at the now deserted and stagnant lavoirs, the communal washing places, in the Lot Valley in France and can almost hear women singing, gossiping about mistresses and neighbours, and slapping wet laundry against the stone papillon slabs. Bruce R. Smith coined the term ‘historical phenomenology’ (2000) to describe the study of sense experience during a specific historical past. Despite some contemporary parallels, different contexts mean that sensory experiences vary: ‘feeling and sensing have a history. The way we feel sad is different from the way Shakespeare felt sad; the way we smell perfume is different from the way Queen Elizabeth smelled perfume’ (Curran & Kearney, 354). Increasing scholarly exploration of historical aural cultures (along with the visual, tactile, olfactory and emotional) gives historical novelists a wealth of material to draw on and adds another valuable resource to their research toolbox.

A medieval port and city, such as London, would have been a babel of languages heard in the street with the voices of Fleming, Norwegian and Danish traders. The medieval urban soundscape included the splash of urine thrown into the street, barking dogs, crying babies, squawking chickens, the chatter of throngs of students and apprentices, and the toll of the curfew bell. Citizens might hurl good- or ill-humoured abuse at one another in the alleyways – ‘fils

References 1. Curran, Kevin & Kearney, James, ‘Introduction’, Criticism, 54:3 (Summer 2012): 353-364.

2. Fitz Stephen, William, Norman London (New York: Italica Press, 1990).

3. Hendy, David, Noise: A Human History of Sound and Listening (London: Profile Books, 2013).

FEATURES | Issue 93, August 2020

MANY AUTHORS SAY that until they "find" a character's voice, the story doesn't start...the conclusions she draws highlight the undoubted advantages of a novelist compared to an academic.

4. Mohr, Melissa, Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

5. Smith, Bruce R., ‘Premodern Sexualities,’ PMLA 115 (2000): 318–29.

Tracey Warr teaches on MA Poetics of Imagination at Dartington Arts School. Her fifth early medieval novel, The Anarchy, has just been published by Impress Books. traceywarrwriting.com

TOWARDS BEAUTY

BY LUCINDA BYATT

Stephanie Storey’s Raphael, A Painter in Rome Raffaello Santi of Urbino died in Rome, 500 years ago, aged just 37.

His artistic genius is being celebrated there in a major exhibition that shut just three days after Italy’s lockdown and only reopened in June.

Raphael’s brilliance was lauded in his lifetime, and contemporaries were immediately struck by the perfection of his works: the Stanze in the Vatican, the loggia at the Farnesina, and above all The Transfiguration. Stephanie Storey’s portrayal of him moves beyond the factual record, while being steeped in it. But she acknowledges, “Putting Raphael on the page has been a terrifying process.”

The novel is written in the first person, as he tells his life’s story in March 1520, just weeks before his death. Storey writes: “I had a hard time choosing to tell this story in first person because I know how difficult it is to write first person well. But the longer I spent with the story, the more convinced I was that the only way to see these Sistine Ceiling years differently was to hand the story to Raphael.

We’ve heard the story from Michelangelo’s point of view over and over again; it was time for a new perspective. Plus, Raphael wouldn’t stop talking while I was writing, so I didn’t feel like I had a choice but to let him tell it in his own words. In general, first person scares me because it’s so easy to do poorly, but when it’s executed well, it’s my favourite point-of-view to read.

“The ‘talking to you, the reader, a friend’ took time to find. The conversational tone was always there, but I originally conceived the novel as if Raphael were talking to a very particular person from history. The decision to shift it was made with help from my agent. It was difficult to find the right balance for this, but once I did, I knew it was the right decision for this particular story. It just felt right.”

Many authors say that until they “find” a character’s voice, the story doesn’t start. Storey’s fictional reimagining of this brilliant artist whom she describes as “my constant companion and friend”, reveals more of the private man. Some of the conclusions she draws highlight the undoubted advantages of a novelist compared to an academic when it comes to psychological analysis. Storey explains: “His obsessive behaviours – what we today might diagnose as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder – come from his paintings, which are obsessively refined: perfect perspective, perfect colour, perfect harmony, perfect brushstrokes… No one can be that perfect in their work without some of that desperate perfection bleeding over into

their regular lives.

“Plus, since Raphael was orphaned so young – at age 11 – I imagined him like so many orphans: overcome with abandonment issues and desperate to control life so it didn’t happen to him again.

“In the Renaissance there is plenty of historical evidence that people suffered from obsessive behaviours – often called “melancholy” at the time. These behaviours were often religious rituals designed to assuage the sufferer’s guilt or fear of their own sin. So, I picked up some of those rituals and gave them to Raphael as a way for him to ease his own fears and feelings of powerlessness.”

Raphael’s portraits of women are the highlights of his work because he so openly adored the real women who became Psyche, Venus or the Madonna in paint. In Storey’s opinion, Felice della Rovere – Pope Julius II’s daughter and a political powerhouse in her own right – is “one of the most fascinating and dramatic people in the entire Italian Renaissance. I have no idea why there isn’t more historical fiction written about her.”

Raphael’s time in Rome coincided with some of the most famous courtesans of the Renaissance, in particular Imperia, whom Storey portrays with “pure, joyous imagination: I’ve always wondered about the kind of woman who would be a prostitute to the rich and famous – artists and cardinals and bankers– in Renaissance Rome, so I had the great pleasure of getting to create her!”

Lastly, there is Margherita Luti, whose anonymity is belied by the fame she acquired as the artist’s muse. As Storey writes, “we don’t have many written historical documents about Margherita, but we have more images of Margherita Luti than almost any historical figure from this time period. And Raphael’s portraits are so detailed and expressive, it always seems as if he has captured part of his sitter’s soul.” By studying Raphael’s portraits of Luti – La Fornarina, La Velata, the Sistine Madonna, and others – Storey was able to absorb her expressions, her gestures, and her personality. In addition, Storey “incorporated some of the legends around some presumed portraits of her – like the woman in his Madonna della Seggiola who supposedly saved a monk from a pack of wolves – to find her. And I considered what kind of a woman might’ve attracted Raphael. It no doubt would’ve taken a strong woman to become his life-long muse.”

Many of Storey’s decisions are explained in her rich author’s notes.

I asked whether the notes are a constraint or a positive addition to many historical novels. Her answer was categorically affirmative.

“As a novelist, I feel it gives me the freedom to take even more artistic license because I know I can explain my decisions in the Author’s Note.

Plus, I always try to base all of my decisions in some sort of historical research, so I appreciate the opportunity to explain that historical context for readers who care. As a reader, I love them because I’m a genuine history junkie so I get to learn more about what is ‘fact’ and what is imagined, and that helps me decide whether the historical subject is something about which I want to read more in non-fiction accounts.”

This is a joyous feast of a novel for those who enjoy Italian Renaissance art, but it reminds us to think of alternative versions: What if another artist had been ordered to cut down the Sistine ceiling?

Lucinda Byatt is HNR's Features Editor.

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THE RETURN

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

BIBLICAL

LIKE FLAMES IN THE NIGHT

Connilyn Cossette, Bethany House, $15.99, pb, 384pp, 9780764235542

2020,

1367 BCE. Widowed and childless, Tirzah has a fire inside her to help the Hebrew people.

She secretly trains with her brother and is tasked with infiltrating an Aramean commander’s kitchen and gathering information.

Meanwhile, Liyam is returning home from a victory against the Arameans only to learn his daughter was killed in an accident. Seeking vengeance, Liyam travels across the country in search of the man responsible. When the spies Tirzah’s been passing secrets to are discovered, can Liyam put aside his vengeance when he’s called to retrieve a woman with information that could help the Hebrews reclaim the Promised Land?

Starting with her Out of Egypt series, Cossette’s characters have passed the torch from one book to the next, following a different person each time. Each story builds upon the previous, though this is not to say readers can’t pick up Like Flames in the Night without knowing the entire series, only that Cossette builds layer upon rich layer to create a deeply rooted, inspirational journey. I enjoyed this final dive into the landscape and familiar characters of the Cities of Refuge series. Cossette teases out little-known facts of the Bible and brings them to life with finesse.

Tirzah places herself in danger and must learn to overcome her personal fears while trusting God in the midst of dire circumstances.

Liyam’s struggles in coping with his daughter’s death are relatable and heart-wrenching.

Character development and relationships build slowly as tensions escalate between the Hebrews and the Arameans. The plot is swift moving as Tirzah’s safety changes from one chapter to the next. Like Flames in the Night is another engrossing adventure enriched by a splendid historical narrative and deep spirituality. For fans of Biblical fiction, Cossette’s novels are not to be missed!

CLASSICAL

THE LAST GREEK

Christian Cameron, Orion, 2020, £20.99, hb, 384pp, 9781409176596

210 BCE. The Achaean League, an alliance of Greek City States originally founded for mutual protection against encircling Spartans, Macedons and Romans, is fragmenting.

Our hero, Philopoemen, is determined to create a fighting force capable of taking on the League’s enemies. This is a richly detailed book, and I soon lost the thread of what, exactly, was happening, and became confused about who was who – though I liked the disdainful aristocrat turned traitor, who came good; nevertheless, Cameron’s skill held me enthralled throughout the long-extended battle scenes, forced marches, ambushes, treachery and stupendous bravery, and I was quite unable to put the book down. What gripped me was Philopoemen’s behind the scenes’ work, his attention to detail: the planning, timing, and training for the various campaigns was hugely important in ensuring victory. Success depended on the prosaic necessity of having enough horses, mules, oxen even, and keeping them healthy, fed and watered; arms, armour and weapons, too, were essential; casualties would need proper attention, and men had to be paid as well as fed and billeted.

I found the details of how inexperienced men and horses were trained for war, fascinating – especially as many of the men were initially reluctant soldiers. Greece is a mountainous country, and coaxing one’s horse along a precipitous path over rocky terrain was not for the faint-hearted. And, if the battle went against them, the troops had to know how to retreat in good order. Philopoemen is helped by his friend, the priest and healer, Alexanor, whose medical experience with complicated war wounds was obviously carefully researched and I found that most interesting, too. I also particularly enjoyed seeing women actively taking part in the campaigns and their skills being valued, rather than just being decorative and/or victimized. It made a pleasant change.

Good, gripping stuff.

J. Lynn Else

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Harry Sidebottom, Zaffre, 2020, £12.99, hb, 320pp, 9781785769634

REVIEWS | Issue 93, August 2020

Elizabeth Hawksley

You might suppose that a man who has earned the garlands of a Corona Civica for saving the life of a fellow Roman citizen could look forward to an easier life when he returns home to his family farm. In The Return, the new novel from Harry Sidebottom, however, Gaius Furius Paullus has to face not only his own war trauma but a spiralling number of gruesome murders for which he soon becomes the leading suspect.

Refreshingly set not in Rome but in Calabria in 145 BCE, this pacy thriller has the macabre elements of a Scandi noir with all the rich historical detail of the Roman world that you might expect from someone who teaches Ancient History at Oxford University. While Paullus tries to stay alive long enough to solve this absorbing murder mystery and unmask the rapacious killers, Sidebottom also deftly explores the surprisingly poor economic conditions for returning veterans and the even tougher lives of the Bruttian farmers that they have dispossessed.

While gripping as a crime novel, the author uses his research to portray the attitudes and values of provincial Romans of the time and to add real texture to the overall narrative. The fascinating character of Paullus, and this is very much his book, is unveiled through periodic flashbacks of his disturbing experiences fighting in the Greek wars. His struggle to settle back into family life while battling his own psyche is truly affecting. The conclusion and the unmasking of the true villains is as satisfying as you could want, while the ending of The Return leaves open the possibility of further adventures with Gaius Furius Paullus.

Yes, please.

Gordon O’Sullivan

1ST CENTURY

HIDING FROM THE PAST

Albert A. Bell, Jr., Perseverance, 2020, $15.95, pb, 224pp, 9781564746108

A murder from the past and an ambush on a hurried trip by Pliny the Younger in 87 CE to join his best friend, Tacitus, intersect in the historical mystery Hiding from the Past. During the assault, Pliny’s slave mistress, Aurora, kills the son of a chieftain who swears vengeance.

The journey is further complicated when the friends meet and are stranded in a remote Alpine village, where Pliny and Aurora had visited ten years earlier as teenagers. At the time, they had investigated a mysterious death in the town but were unable to solve it. Beset by an avalanche that may have been deliberately set, Pliny and his companions confront unknown specters, potentially from their past or the present, bent on murdering them.

Author Bell skillfully weaves the back story of a brutal murder into the danger that Pliny and his entourage face. The tale is told from the first-person perspectives of both Pliny and Aurora. Their flashbacks intertwine smoothly

into their perilous predicament, culminating in an unexpected, riveting ending. The author sweeps you into the world of Roman-occupied Gaul with engaging characters, natural dialogue, and realistic depictions of ancient lifestyles and scenery. One scene of note takes place at a public latrina (Roman toilets) that was also used as a gathering spot for townspeople to gossip and for nearby vendors to sell their wares. The glossary at the back is an additional bonus providing fascinating details about unfamiliar Latin words and places.

Hiding from the Past is a must read for readers who love historical fiction with elements of mystery, intrigue, and adventure.

Highly recommended.

Linnea Tanner

THE GROVE OF THE CAESARS

Lindsey Davis, Minotaur, 2020, $27.99, hb, 336pp, 9781250241566 / Hodder & Stoughton, 2020, £20.00, hb, 416pp, 9781529374247

This is the eighth book in Lindsey Davis’s mystery series featuring Flavia Albia, daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, an investigator in ancient Rome during the reign of the paranoid emperor Domitian. Flavia’s husband, Tiberius, goes to visit his dying sister and leaves Flavia in charge of his latest building project, a grotto in the Grove of the Caesars. Flavia is warned not to go into the grove, which is part of the public gardens that Julius Caesar left to the people of Rome. Women have been murdered in the grove for two decades, and the vigiles, the ancient Roman police, have not made an effort to investigate, because most of the victims were prostitutes. But Flavia is not to be deterred. She goes into the grove and finds buried scrolls by obscure Greek philosophers.

Then the dead body of a wealthy man’s wife turns up, and the widower asks Flavia to find the killer. But will Flavia be the next victim?

Davis knows the customs of ancient Rome extremely well, and she brings the daily life of the city alive for the reader. She describes the building industry, auction houses, and the scroll trade in great detail here, and I found what she says about scroll-sellers especially fascinating. Many of them were crooked, making forged scrolls and selling them. The mystery of the scrolls Flavia finds is just as compelling as her search for the killer. Flavia is a strong protagonist, with her father’s dry wit and sarcasm. She is basically a solitary person and is getting used to married life, even though her husband is largely absent in this book. I missed the way they bounce ideas off

each other, but fans of Falco will be glad that their hero makes an appearance here.

Vicki Kondelik

DAUGHTER OF CANA

Angela Hunt, Bethany House, 2020, $15.99, pb, 381pp, 9780764233845

This novel opens at a rather famous wedding in Cana in 27 CE: far more people arrive than originally invited, and halfway through the seven-day feast, the wine runs out. Tasmin who, with her twin Thomas, is providing food and drink to the wedding feast, is frantic. Then Yeshua, a guest from Nazareth, tells her to fill the wine jars from the rain-water cistern – and the jars become full of wine. (Tasmin is sure it’s a trick, but can’t figure out how it was worked.)

Thomas drops his responsibilities to his sister to listen to Yeshua. Also at the feast is Jude, one of Yeshua’s younger brothers, who helps Tasmin with the work, and tells her Yeshua’s always been strange. Strange or not, Thomas falls under Yeshua’s spell, and when Yeshua leaves, Thomas follows. Tasmin sets out to find her twin and bring him home to help their father in his date grove; she’s escorted by Jude, who wants Yeshua to come home to the family carpentry business. Tasmin and Jude always seem to be one step behind Yeshua, but they encounter those who witnessed apparent miracles – or are they tricks? – and learn about Yeshua’s mission through his works. At last they find Yeshua, but is he a prophet, or the long-promised messiah?

Any reader of biblical fiction knows the name Angela Hunt; she’s one of the stars of the genre, and you don’t have to be a Christian to enjoy her books. She writes with conviction, believability, and a strong sense of time and place, as well as a good understanding of human nature. Daughter of Cana is another excellent novel from her, and I particularly appreciated the wry humor woven through the narrative. While the ending seems a bit rushed, this is a satisfying story of love, guilt, and redemption.

India Edghill

6TH CENTURY

ARTHUR, REX BRITTONUM: Book 5: A Light in the Dark Ages

Tim Walker, independently published, 2020, £6.99, pb, 273pp, 9798639921193

In his Light in the Dark Ages series, Walker puts his own cast on the myths of 5th- and 6th-century Britain and its blend of Roman influence, lingering Celtic customs, and emerging Anglo-Saxons kingdoms. Book 5 covers the last two of Arthur’s legendary battles: his victory at Mount Badon in 515 and his final defeat at Camlann in 525.

The first half of the book, building to Badon, portrays Arthur as a rough-hewn warrior who relishes the battle to protect the land he’s been made king of, though his

real enemies are not the invaders crossing the seas but his treacherous half-sister and her son Mordred, a rival claimant. The book then skips a decade to show a besotted and ineffectual ruler betrayed and brought down by his own weaknesses.

Walker’s attempt to synthesize the many strands of Arthurian myth leads to an occasionally confusing duplication of characters: there’s a Cadog and Caradog, a Peredur and a Percival, wives Gunamara and Guinevere, and sisters named Anne and Morgana. Though familiar characters like Bedwyr, Morgaise, Gareth, and Nimue are given a unique stamp, the large cast becomes unwieldy when filled out with invented characters like Arthur’s Jute bodyguard and Beowulf, borrowed from the Old English epic poem.

Scenes of war and strategy keep the plot lively, and Walker’s blend of myth and material culture is quite believable, but the essential lack of character development eventually makes it hard to care about the established outcome. Devoted fans of the Arthurian myths, like this reader, may notice the book skirts the thematic elements— heroism, tragedy, destiny, thwarted love—that make these stories so enduring. Still, for those for whom there can never be too many Arthur stories, Walker’s hero can hold his own in a crowded field.

Misty Urban

8TH CENTURY

THE SARACEN STORM

J.M. Nunez, Jacques Gauvin, 2019, pb, $16.49, 516pp, 9781999219703

Any Spanish schoolchild over the age of nine will have heard of the battle of Covadonga and how one man led his Christian countrymen to victory over the advancing Moors. In the early 8th century, the former Visigoth kingdoms of Spain were disintegrating under the advancing Saracen armies, and Christian resistance was being pushed further and further north.

At Covadonga, the Saracen expansion was halted when the Christians won, thereby kicking off the Spanish Reconquista—a struggle to reconquer the former Christian Spain from the Moors that would not end until 1492, when the last Moorish Kingdom, Granada, fell to Fernando and Isabel.

The hero of Covadonga is Pelayo, a man shrouded in mist. Nunez does an excellent job bringing this shadowy person to life, presenting the reader with a man of integrity and honor who somehow manages to rise to the occasion despite all those who do their best to see him tumble to the ground. This Pelayo is a forceful man, a man of action and brains. Born the bastard son of the Duke of Asturias, Pelayo overcomes the stigma of his birth, the hatred of his half-brother, and the loss of the love of his life and emerges harder and sharper, like a tempered blade of steel.

Other than Pelayo, the author presents several well-wrought characters, all displayed

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against the complex historical landscape that is Spain in the 8th century. I found this an interesting and well-researched read that helped shed light on a period that is rarely represented in historical fiction.

Anna Belfrage

9TH CENTURY

THE NUN’S BETROTHAL

Ida Curtis, She Writes, 2020, $16.95, pb, 296pp, 9781631526855

The nun referred to in the title is young, beautiful Gilda, who has not yet taken her vows. It’s a good thing, too, because once King Louis’s counselor, Lord Justin, has a look at her he’s inspired to plant a passionate kiss on her. Gilda considers the kiss a passing fancy, and Justin does not seem to have any further interest in her either, but then the king decides that the two of them should work together to find grounds for an annulment of a marriage between two nobles. As Gilda and Justin work together, and in between rounds of bickering, they must fight against a growing attraction.

The novel is set in 9th-century France, and while the names seem appropriate to the period, the doings at court, in church, and on the road harken more to a later, more chivalrous era.

In truth, during this time period a Carolingian divorce consisted of a man sending his wife down to the cellar where her throat would be slit by a slave butcher. The husband would then satisfy the woman’s family through a payment for the murder, and he would be free, with the church’s blessing, to marry again.

Such dour doings do not appear in The Nun’s Betrothal. Instead, the lively prose centers around two characters that jest with one another in a light and playful manner whether they are finding ladies drugged in a shed or dealing with the twists and turns of medieval court proceedings.

Xina Marie Uhl

PLACE OF REPOSE

Katharine Tiernan, Sacristy Press, £12.99, pb, 196pp, 9781789590784

Place of Repose is Katharine Tiernan’s second novel in a trilogy focused on the period in the history of Anglo-Saxon Northumbria which was, by 875 AD, being relentlessly ravished by the Danes.

Forced by necessity to flee from the monastery of Lindisfarne and bearing with them the precious relics of St Cuthbert and the Lindisfarne Gospels, the monks set out to find a place of sanctuary for their treasures.

What follows is an astonishing account of determination, bravery and single-minded devotion to their cause, in which a fascinating political evolution is also taking place.

Katharine Tiernan’s prose is as clear-minded and unpretentious as it is beguiling. She is intensely immersed in her story and its location and captures a sense of time and place in an unpretentious and engaging style. The vision of that wet, damp mizzle and the sensation 18

of chill winds contrasting with the rare bliss of roaring fires, makes blanched skin tingle.

During the course of this epic undertaking, we explore the characteristics of those most closely involved in it and whose lives evolve within its complications and are inevitably changed by them.

I found it hard to retain the names and the “who is who” of such a plethora of people whom the reader needs to keep in focus. I also felt this work may narrow its readership appeal by overstating the history at the expense of the drama. It would be a pity if this prevented some readers from draining it to its dregs, as it is a delightful and attractively produced publication.

Julia Stoneham

12TH CENTURY THE SARACEN

Lynna Banning, Amazon, 2019, $8.99, pb, 366pp, 9781710298161

The Reconquista in 12th-century Spain comes alive in this tale of conflict and love between Christians and Saracens, also called Moors. Young Christian novice Malenda runs afoul of a Christian sect called the Cathars when she dares to save a newborn child.

Luckily for her, dashing Saracen horseman Barik gallops to her rescue, and spirits her back to her abbey. Cultured and chivalrous, Barik demonstrates that Malenda made an impression on him when he delivers a beautiful horse to her as a gift, one which proves very useful when her abbey catches on fire and she has to flee for her life. Now homeless, Malenda ends up staying at Barik’s embattled estate in Aragon.

At Barik’s estate Malenda transcribes Arabic texts while Barik rides about being gallant and gorgeous. The clash of Christian and Moorish cultures is highlighted, as is the endemic warfare between them. Alas, the Christians tend to come off as ignorant and crude while the Moors seem ever-cultured and gracious, when the reality was undoubtedly more nuanced.

The romance between Malenda and Barik proceeds at a quiet pace. The question of whether or not this couple can overcome their considerable differences keeps the reader guessing until the end. The reader can expect a lovingly crafted tale throughout.

Xina Marie Uhl

FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH

Sarah Hawkswood, Allison & Busby, 2019, £6.99, pb, 288pp, 9780749024147

This is the sixth, and most recent, of the Bradecote and Catchpoll murder mystery series, and both our heroes (and their trusty apprentice, Wakelin) are on the trail of another body found in mysterious circumstances in the wrong Hundred. (To prevent the off-hand murder of any Norman stupid enough to walk alone shortly after the Conquest, the whole population of a Hundred bears a burden for

REVIEWS | Issue 93, August 2020

the murder of a foreigner; unless the body can be named, and isn’t Norman, the whole Hundred will be fined.)

I think this is my favourite of the series so far, as the story twists and turns through the politics of both England and Wales, and the varied depths of loyalty owed, and paid, between servant and Lord, man and wife, mother and sons. This feels more nuanced than other books I’ve read in this series – and I have thoroughly enjoyed those; here, Hawkswood has explored how the dynamics of a whole manor’s-worth of people could play out in unexpected ways, leading to onion layers of clues, and a surprising but satisfying ending.

I particularly enjoyed the glimpses given into the differences between Welsh and English law at the time, and the relationship between the two peoples. Hawkswood uses that tension cleverly as a plot mechanism. She also explores the difference between the law and justice, and how one can sometimes seem to be served at the expense of the other. All in all, an excellent read; good as a standalone, but fitting nicely into the series. Recommended.

Nicky Moxey

14TH CENTURY

THE HOUR OF THE FOX

Cassandra Clark, Severn House, 2020, $28.99/£20.99, hb, 256pp, 9780727889584

This medieval mystery is the first in the Brother Chandler series by the author who also wrote the Abbess Hildegard of Meaux books.

The year is 1399, the setting mostly London.

King Richard II is on the throne, but his cousin Henry Bolingbroke is trying to depose him and take the crown for himself. Politics are complicated and dangerous, with cruelty and violence characterizing the times.

Brother Rodric Chandler, half-Castilian and half-Plantagenet, is a Friar of the Order of Mercedarians. When a young novice nun from the royal abbey is found murdered, he and coroner/alchemist Sir Arnold Archer investigate. The story is also related by a young servant girl, Mattie. Chandler’s third-person and Mattie’s first-person alternating points of view from chapter to chapter are distracting but come together to make sense later in the book. This 256-page book has 109 chapters, and I found the choppiness irritating.

The thin mystery seems tacked on to what is really a character study of Chandler and a richly textured history of the times. The story includes Geoffrey Chaucer as a fairly minor but interesting character. The story of Richard II ends very abruptly in a cliffhanger that will leave readers dangling until the next book comes out. Fans who don’t want to wait that long can check Wikipedia for the ultimate fates of Richard and Bolingbroke.

Rodric Chandler has been set up as an intriguing character with depth and complexity.

Readers of dark medieval mysteries will most likely enjoy this one and look forward to following Rodric to the next.

Elizabeth Knowles

THE BLACK AND THE WHITE

Alis Hawkins, Sapere, 2020, $10.99/£9.50, pb, 393pp, 9781913518370

In 1349 the Black Death is sweeping across England. We meet Martin as he recovers from the brink of death to find his father dead and the small crude figure of Saint Cynryth, his father’s patron saint, nearby. Martin is convinced that the saint has cured him of the plague. When a larger, more beautiful statue of Saint Cynryth appears at the well, he sees this as a sign. He must return her to her shrine in Salster out of gratitude to her, and, with no priest available, he must seek prayers for his father’s unshriven soul. He buries his father, packs up the statue of Saint Cynryth, and sets out on a pilgrimage across England.

This book is that journey: the villains, peasants, clergy, and lords that he meets, the devastation of the plague he witnesses, and the dangerous conflicts he encounters.

This is also a mystery. A naïve and vulnerable Martin joins up with Hob early in the journey.

Hob has the physical strength and fighting skill to be Martin’s protector, but can he be trusted? Is he a murderer or a con man? We are left guessing as to who Hob is and what his intentions are. So many deaths along the way may not always be plague deaths. Martin begins to question his own sanity. Could he be unintentionally responsible for some of the murders and strange happenings, or is Hob messing with his mind?

Hawkins has done her research, and this medieval story is rich in authentic detail.

Religious relics and superstition rule the people’s lives and provide solace in a menacing world. The book drags in places with plot repetition and Martin’s circular thoughts, and the ending falters with some unresolved plot points. This remains a worthwhile read for the engrossing account of medieval life during the plague.

Janice Ottersberg

PEOPLE OF THE CANYONS

Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear, Forge, 2020, $27.99, hb, 310pp, 9781250176202

This tale focuses on the native peoples of the Fremont, an area that was centered along the Fremont River in Utah and extended through much of the West. An aging tyrant ruler, Blessed Sun, sends his daughter Blue Dove to hire a famous witch hunter, Maicoh, to retrieve a “soul pot” that Blessed Sun believes is the magic required to release his evil soul to join his ancestors in the afterlife. A young girl, Tsilu, is caught up in the mission, and suspense builds as the soul pot travels to Blessed Sun. What power will be unleashed when the soul pot is delivered, and what are the true identities of Tsilu and her mysterious protectors?

In this richly imagined world set a century or so before European settlers arrived, characters are acutely sensitive to the natural world and connect with the spiritual and mystical, rather than the material. Red walls, shadows,

flickering flames, and the cracks and crevices of the canyons seem a perfect backdrop for the dangers and sometime beauties of Blue Dove’s, Maicoh’s, and Tsilu’s journey to Blessed Sun. Impressionistic descriptions like “cracks in the light” and how “night seeps through the air like cold gray mist” give us a sense that their world was very unlike ours is today.

People of the Canyons is the twenty-third novel in the North America’s Forgotten Past series, which recreates a world of native peoples before recorded history, from 13,000 BCE to 1400 CE. The wife-husband bestselling author team’s tales are rooted in archaeology and their expertise, and cast with the cloak of the spirit world that might have dominated the Americas before cities and railroads and roads pushed from coast to coast.

Brodie Curtis

NOBLE TRAITOR

J. R. Tomlin, independently published, 2019, $12.99/£9.88, pb, 268pp, 9781674132273

Before the Act of Union in 1717, Scotland and England were frequently at war. Noble Traitor, the first in a series, introduces Thomas Randolph, squire to Lord Gordon and nephew of Robert the Bruce. Historical documents tell us very little about Randolph, not even his date of birth, which leaves the door open for historical novelists. Tomlin paints Thomas as a brash young man eager to be a knight. Like most young men of noble birth, much of his education is on horseback and in how to use a sword.

Thomas fights valiantly for The Bruce, King of the Scots, but after the Battle of Methven in 1306, he is taken prisoner. To save his life, Gordon gives Thomas into the keeping of the Earl of Lincoln. After watching his comrades cruelly put to death, Thomas swears fealty to King Edward in order to save Gordon’s family from vengeance; whether this is a noble act or the expediency of war isn’t quite clear. As English forces search for The Bruce, Thomas gets caught up in the battles from the other side and finds his allegiance tested.

The novel’s driving question is presumably who Thomas will eventually choose to fight with, and fight for; his loyalties become more and more questionable when King Edward dies and Thomas swears fealty to Edward II, even though the new king’s clear favouritism of Piers Gaveston shows questionable judgment. But character development isn’t the strength here; this novel is for readers who want derring-do, sword fights, and clashing knights in armour. Fans who know the First Scottish War of Independence from Mel Gibson’s Braveheart will love Noble Traitor.

Sally Zigmond

15TH CENTURY DIVINE HERETIC

Jaime Lee Moyer, Jo Fletcher Books, 2020, £9.99, ebook, 400pp, B07YFGSXGN

I have a confession to make; I’ve always

hated the mealy-mouthed Joan of Arc of legend, the Maid of Orleans who was driven by angelic voices to lead armies with the aim of putting Charles Vll on the throne of France. I have even secretly thought that she might have deserved being burnt at the stake for being too saintly… This Jeanne, however, is wonderful, a richly drawn woman who is capable of fierce love, of deep friendships, of railing against her fate for as long as possible, until it threatens the lives of those she loves. And her voices! Oh wow – no longer saints, but something akin to the Celtic fae, old and strong and unstoppable, with an unknowable but guaranteed unholy purpose.

We follow Jeanne in her struggle against these terrible and terrifying companions from early childhood, each small rebellion bringing punishment, forcing her to take the next step along that preordained path, but building a greater resolve to rebel each time.

This story follows the history as I learned it at school, but with a deep dark undercurrent of evil. It brilliantly takes us along Jeanne’s journey and her fight for the good, to keep those she loves safe, at a terrible personal cost. It goes beyond Charles’s coronation to a new, unguessed-at, but tremendously satisfying ending to the story. I keep wanting to describe it as historical fantasy rather than historical fiction, but the fantasy element is all in Jeanne’s head, and is just as good an explanation for Joan’s actions as the angelic one. I think this is the best book I’ve read all year; the Kindle version comes out in 2020, the paperback in 2021, and I thoroughly recommend it.

Nicky Moxey

16TH CENTURY THE PERIL

Virginia Cox, Kindle Direct, 2019, $15.99, pb, 455pp, 9781695667884

Called “Fra Giovanni” in his guise as an ascetic friar, young spy Matteo da Fermo continues his adventures in the second installment of Virginia Cox’s The Merchant of Secrets series. Coerced into the service of the decadent Renaissance pope Julius by a dark secret, Matteo must report on the leader of a strict monastic order while managing an accidental reputation as a miracle worker and hiding from the enemy he calls “Valentino.”

Even when he returns to his own country, Matteo’s dark secret continues to separate him from his love. With a mildly comic sidekick in his childhood friend Nello, Matteo works to defeat his now bloated enemy as a kind of sober, sophisticated anti-Don Quixote.

Ranging between France, Spain, and Italy, The Peril moves between cynicism and piety almost effortlessly. Cox carries Matteo’s voice in a deliberately detached and slightly archaic narrative phrasing, full of demonstrative pronouns. It mostly works, but can occasionally be tedious. The Peril should not be read as a stand-alone novel: a reader would miss too much of Matteo’s backstory

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from the first book in the series, The Subtlest Soul.

But this novel is, by itself, an intense look at the moral compromises of a world where the sacred and the profane were stacked on each other like a Jenga puzzle. Readers should be warned there is somewhat graphic violence.

Highly recommended.

Irene Colthurst

A BOOK OF SECRETS

Kate Morrison, Jacaranda Books, 2019, £19.99, hb, 386pp, 9781909762695

The central character of Susan Charlewood looms large in this impressive debut by a former journalist and press officer. The book was longlisted for the Mslexia Unpublished Novel Award in 2015, and it is obvious why the story grabbed the judges’ attention.

Susan is a resourceful and well-educated young black woman looking for her lost brother in Elizabethan London. Spies, plots and hidden Catholic printing presses become part and parcel of her extraordinary life. Taken as a baby from 16th-century Ghana, the highborn Susan arrives with her mother in rural Sussex, where she serves as a companion to the daughter of a wealthy Catholic household.

These were turbulent times when people risked imprisonment or death for their faith.

Susan is an extraordinary woman whose quick wit, thirst for knowledge and determination equip her well for the perils ahead. When her mistress dies, she is married off to a London printer, whose secret work for the Catholic resistance places the whole household in danger. The sense of intrigue and secrecy is amplified by Susan’s feelings for the man who becomes her lover and then her enemy.

Morrison describes a living and breathing Elizabethan London as seen through the eyes of a unique character. Seldom does the reader come across a historical black character like Susan or experience a London like this: a stinking, crowded city in stark contrast to the rural idyll of her childhood. A Book of Secrets gives an urgent and exciting voice to a black woman in Elizabethan England at a time when slavery in England was not legally enforceable.

Susan Charlewood is the kind of interesting and powerful character that merits another outing in a sequel, maybe, especially in these troubled times when racial divisions and modern slavery are a scourge on our society.

Margery Hookings

EXECUTION

S. J. Parris, Pegasus Crime, 2020, $25.95, hb, 496pp, 9781643134543 / HarperCollins UK, 2020, £14.99, hb, 496pp, 9780007481293

In early summer 1586, Mary Stuart of Scotland has been imprisoned for 20 years amid continued rumors that her Catholic supporters in England will find aid from Spain to help her gain the throne from Queen Elizabeth. The latest plot, led by a young nobleman named Anthony Babington, envisions assassinating Elizabeth before transporting Mary to her coronation. Sir 20

Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth’s spymaster, cannot allow that, so he enlists Giordano Bruno, an excommunicated Italian priest, to go undercover with the conspirators – posing as the Spanish priest sent to fund the plot and represent the promised aid.

Bruno is also charged with finding out who murdered the last spy who attempted to infiltrate the conspirators. His search takes him through London’s seedier districts, where he meets a Moorish healer, several lantern boys, and a Jesuit priest who knows the Spaniard that Bruno is impersonating. The key in the spy game is held by Walsingham’s cryptographer, the inscrutable Thomas Phelippes, whose fantastic memory and logical mind make his cyphers the envy of all the world. However, in solving the murder and uncovering the next step in the plot, it takes a child’s mind to see through the cunning.

Parris paints Elizabethan London in all its glorious and putrid details and portrays Bruno as the philosophical enigma and supreme problem-solver. Yet this sixth book in the Bruno series is true to history in keying on Phelippes, while still depicting Bruno’s genius in using all his wits and resources in the nick of time to save lives and prevent an execution. This is a fine period mystery that can stand alone as well as please fans of the series.

Tom Vallar

THE KING AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

Arthur Phillips, Random House, 2020, $27.00, hb, 265pp, 9780812995480

In 1591, by order of the Sultan, chief physician Dr Ezzedine travels to the Elizabethan court, regretfully leaving behind wife, son and contentment. Confident of a speedy return, he is perplexed when Sultan Murad gifts him to the English queen. Subsequently he is given by the queen to her advisor Baron Moresby,

by Moresby to James VI, and by James back to Elizabeth. Naturally the reasons for these generous gifts represent considerably more than their philanthropic packaging might imply.

By 1601 the religious strife of the 1530s to ‘60s has been largely quelled, but the unstable succession threatens the peace. Twisting allegiances and deadly intrigues play out, as England is preyed upon by northern families, Spanish, pope, and French Catholics alike, all bent on its destruction. Should James exhibit even the slightest symptom of the Catholic disease, the streets will run red once again.

Geoff Belloc, experienced game-player in the theatrical and spy arena, is charged by Elizabeth’s spymaster to manifest a certainty that James’s every sinew is Protestant. Dr Ezzedine, now a theoretical Christian (?), is recruited to infiltrate the Scottish court and return the certainty to Belloc. No easy task!

Pushed like a pawn around a chessboard, ironically the promise of a chess game finally propels Ezzedine into the royal presence, where he meets a young king plagued by uncertainty.

This is an absorbing, plot-filled read.

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Acceptance of the One True God provides thoughtful comparison to the decades of blooddrenched Catholic/Protestant argument.

Allusions to Constantinople’s sun-baked, azure sea/sky and intellectual supremacy soar over England’s cold, wet fog and weak, primitive people, providing metaphoric colour.

Even the satirist, John Wilmot might find a wry smile for the book’s cover image. Ezzedine is masterfully portrayed as he philosophises his way to banishing his memories, and puzzles the impossible. Recommended.

Fiona Alison

THE WHEELWRIGHT’S DAUGHTER

Eleanor Porter, Boldwood Books, 2020, £8.99, pb, 292pp, 9781838895235

When a landslip opens up a huge chasm in the centre of a Herefordshire village in Elizabethan England, the feisty Martha Dynely is immediately blamed for the catastrophe.

She is an articulate young woman and viewed with suspicion in her local community, which is split by religious bigotry and poverty. At a time when many around her are illiterate, Martha can read. She is also is well-versed in herbal remedies, which lead villagers to the inevitable conclusion that Martha is a witch.

It doesn’t help that her wheelwright father is a drunkard and that the circumstances of her mother’s death are surrounded by intrigue.

Add to this potent brew the love of a young stable hand, a sinister priest and a natural disaster seen by ordinary people as the devil’s work, and you have a magical concoction for a first novel. As a character, Martha is complex and not instantly likeable, her pride and naivety getting her into ever-deeper water. Her firstperson account is complemented by Porter’s descriptions of the local landscape, authentic dialogue and detailed research. But can she overcome the small-mindedness of her local community and save herself from a witch’s fate? A tale of love, betrayal, superstition and fear.

Margery Hookings

THE SECRET MUSIC AT TORDESILLAS

Marjorie Sandor, Hidden River Press, 2020, $17.95, pb, 245pp, 9780999491539

It’s the snow, says musician Juan de Granada, that prevented him from leaving the grounds of Tordesillas, attending Mass, and mourning the death of Queen Juana I of Castile in 1555—not a nefarious reason, like secreting away items of royal treasure or harboring a heretic Jew. He is open, therefore, to telling commissioners all he knows about his time with the “mad queen” and the elusive Inés de Castro. Thus begins Juan’s recollections of his separation from his Jewish family, his mastery of Spanish music, his selection as a musician in the royal court, and his interactions with the queen before and after she is forced into seclusion at Tordesillas.

The Secret Music at Tordesillas is the first novel by Marjorie Sandor and winner of the

inaugural Tuscarora Award, which is given by Hidden River Press for an unpublished work of historical fiction. Sandor won the National Jewish Book Award in 2004 for two essay collections and is a member of the Oregon State University MFA faculty.

The novel chronicles the major events in Queen Juana’s life as well as the actions that forbade the practice and traditions of Judaism and dispelled “heretical” Jews and Moors from Spain through Juan’s eyes. Though some aspects of the plot are confusing, these drawbacks are overcome by the beauty of the language. This is a moving lamentation not only for the loss of culture but the replacement of the stringed Arabic oud with the Spanish vihuela as Catholic King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella worked to remove any reminders of other religions and cultures. The lyricism makes the reader long to hear the oud and the songs instrumentalists like Juan de Granada could play.

K. M. Sandrick

CHAOS

A.D. Swanston, Bantam Press, 2020, £18.99, hb, 400pp, 9781787633544

A freezing February in 1574 sees London brewing with paranoia, superstition and violence. Trouble is brewing and it feels like a keg of powder waiting for a spark… As chief intelligencer to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Doctor Christopher Radcliff has a web of informants and ‘amateur spies’ who feed back information which can be assessed and used to the advantage of Dudley and the Queen. However, this web of spies becomes vital as coins bearing the Dudley emblem start circulating. Not only these treasonous counterfeits, harking back to the Dudley family’s past troubles, must be stopped but also graffiti hinting at treachery from advisors to the Queen. Both endanger the relationship between the Dudley family and the crown.

Both may cause uprising and mayhem – chaos!

Swanston balances historical detail with an entertaining story. His imagery is excellent and manages to make even the most minor character a three-dimensional personality.

While getting caught up in the plot – fast paced and involving – we grow to like the people involved. An excellent second outing for Doctor Christopher Radcliff.

Alan Cassady-Bishop

17TH CENTURY DEATH IN DELFT

Graham Brack, Sapere, 2020, $7.99/£6.99, pb, 243pp, 9781913518479

Master Mercurius, a young lecturer at the University of Leiden, has joined the ranks of clerical sleuths worth following in historical mysteries. In 1671, his Rector asks him to fulfill a request from the Mayor of Delft to investigate a certain matter on that city’s behalf. They need a man with “a quick wit, a knowledge of

God’s law, and abundant energy,” which fits Master Mercurius very well. He is our narrator, and his understated dry humor, combined with practical sensibilities and sincere religious devotion, make his tale infectiously readable.

Following a brief shipboard voyage along the Vliet to Delft, he arrives at the Town Hall and learns about the situation. Three girls, all about eight years old, were abducted from their families. The body of one of them, the unfortunate Gertruyd Lievens, was found buried in a field, a hand-carved cross atop the grave. The two others, a fishwife’s bastard daughter and a rich merchant’s child, remain missing, and with the harsh winter weather, one fears the worst. Mercurius goes about interviewing relevant parties while determining whether the girls, who didn’t know each other, had anything in common aside from their age.

The work gets him interacting with some of Delft’s leading citizens, including logical scientist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, future father of microbiology, and artist Johannes Vermeer, head of a large, boisterous family. Mercurius makes the rounds of local households for dinner, and visiting Vermeer happily returns us to Girl with a Pearl Earring territory. Mercurius has his own intriguing secret: he’s a Catholic priest disguised as a Protestant clergyman (both careers were so nice, he was ordained twice), which the painter guesses and appreciates. Concisely plotted with well-placed period details, this mystery is just the right length and a promising start to this new series.

Sarah Johnson

THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF H

Sarah Burton, Legend Press, 2020, £8.99, pb, 386pp, 9781789551266

This book is told in three parts, the first by H, the second by Doll and the third by Halcyon; all are the same person, but the latter two are masks behind which H hides whilst she tries to survive.

H, so called because she was the seventh child to parents who could not agree on a name, was born in 1650 and orphaned at 13.

She and her sister go to live with an aunt in London, where all goes well until she is raped, loses her sister to the plague and is finally thrown out of the house to live as best she can in a plague-ridden London. The horrors of that time are well described, and the reader cannot but sympathise with H and her unhappy lot.

The second part is told by Doll, H’s persona whilst she survives in the only way she can, by prostitution. The story continues as Doll is recruited by Mother Creswell and leads a not unhappy life servicing her gentlemen, a role she finds she actually enjoys, whilst earning an ever-increasing purse.

The third and final part is told by Halcyon, who is by now a Miss with her own house and a small but select number of lovers. The other threads that have been interwoven into the

tale are now all tied off, and H finally gains what she has been striving for.

This book is well written and the narrator, in whichever guise, is engaging and her faults are easily forgiven. The language, particularly in conversation, is of the period and often amusing. H does indeed have many adventures, although I would not call them strange. This is a very readable, interesting and actually quite exciting book, which I am happy to recommend.

Marilyn Pemberton

THE HOUSE OF LAMENTATIONS

S. G. MacLean, Quercus, 2020, £20.00, hb, 410pp, 9781787473621

By the summer of 1658, it is clear that the reports of Damian Seeker’s death were greatly exaggerated…

In truth, this most cunning of Cromwell’s spies lives in Bruges, masquerading as a carpenter to better keep an eye on the town’s Royalist refugees. Among them are the handful of destitute Cavaliers still haunting the once Royal residence of the Bouchoute House, and Sister Janet, the elderly, sharp busybody managing the local English convent. It is a nearly boring life, and Seeker would much rather go back to England – until a noblewoman from Sister Janet’s past arrives with a large sum of money meant for the King’s meagre coffers, just as a young Englishman seeking his sister is found dead, and news come of a Royalist she-intelligencer sent to smoke out Seeker’s double agent at the Bouchoute house. Can Seeker make sense of all these threads and a few more, all somehow tied to the upscale brothel known as the House of Lamentations, before his cover is busted?

Fifth (and the final volume) in a series, this gripping whodunit-cum-spy-story is filled with interesting characters trying to outsmart each other (and being occasionally naïve) against a vividly atmospheric setting.

Chiara Prezzavento

TALES OF MING COURTESANS

Alice Poon, Earnshaw, 2020, $23.99, pb, 354pp, 9789888552672

In this extremely well-researched novel of three courtesans of 17th-century Nanjing, China, Poon tells the life stories and friendships of three real-life women who were all sold as “thin horses,” the term for pretty slave girls. The three women attempt to work as musicians and scholars, poets, and dancers.

But they are both subjugated and humiliated

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by the class structure and the men who benefit from it. Their friendship is ultimately what sees them through a life of hardship.

The story is told to a young girl, Jingjing, whose mother has just committed suicide as a form of protest. The mother has written a memoir for her daughter so that she might understand. The other sections are oral storytelling sessions from the auntie Jingjing goes to stay with, as well as the auntie’s surrogate mother, who is Jingjing’s surrogate grandmother. They fill in the gaps, answering questions that Jingjing didn’t know she had.

Because real lives are not straight lines, biographical fiction can be a tricky medium, and this novel covers a great deal of ground.

There are long stretches of summarizing, as the women move from adventure to adventure, which gives the book an episodic atmosphere rather than the building of conflict that can resolve. The brutality experienced by the women does not happen on the page, so sensitive readers don’t have to worry. I found all of the information interesting, even if I did not find it emotionally engaging. It makes sense to discover that this author has also written nonfiction, as so much information was packed in; I felt like I missed many nuances because I am not well-versed in this particular era and culture. Overall, this is a worthwhile read if 17th-century Chinese art, culture, and politics are your catnip.

Katie Stine

THE LAST PROTECTOR

Andrew Taylor, HarperCollins, 2020, £14.99, hb, 432pp, 9780008325510

The Last Protector is the fourth book in a series featuring James Marwood, a clerk at the centre of government, and Cat Hakesby, assistant to her husband Simon in his architects’ practice. The year is 1688 and, as his ministers jockey for power and favour, the recently restored monarch, King Charles II, is uncomfortably aware that his power is not absolute and that no-one is to be trusted.

At the same time, Richard Cromwell, son of Oliver and the “Last Protector” of the title, has secretly returned from exile in France, and is in danger of being used as a political pawn. Cat and Marwood encounter one another again and find themselves dragged into intrigues against their will.

This is a fast-moving book, full of tension and uncertainty. It shows a world where everyday survival is a battle, where other people are as much of a threat as disease or poverty. The story is told from multiple points of view, primarily those of Cat, Marwood and Ferrus, the mazer scourer (one of the lowly and unseen workers who spent their lives in the sewers, attempting to scrub them clean). I particularly liked the portrayal of 17th-century London: the narrow streets, the filth and the poverty, the sounds and the smells.

I found myself engaging with the main characters, particularly Cat, who struggles 22

with her obstinate husband and her own thwarted ambitions. I look forward to reading the further adventures of Cat and Marwood.

Karen Warren

REBELLION

Philip Yorke, independently published, 2019, $15.50/£8.99, pb, 389pp, 9781698530734

At forty-two, too young to die, Francis Hacker knows what awaits him when Prince Charles returns to London. Vengefulness and treason exact high retribution. It matters not that he was just a soldier, following orders. His faith, his belief in the rights of the common man, and his friendship with Oliver Cromwell led him down a path that ends with the hangman’s noose, while his beloved family must bear the stigma and hardships to come. From his prison in London in 1660, Hacker tells the story of how he lived and fought for his cause.

The narrative then returns to 1643, when ten months of civil war have torn asunder England, her people, even Hacker’s own family. The Royalists – including his two brothers – win each engagement. New tactics are needed to boost morale. Parliamentarian leaders negotiate with the Scots, and Francis undertakes a secret mission not fully comprehending the perils it will bring to his family and friends. Then he learns of a spy in their midst, and two murders, most foul, occur. Francis must unravel the mysteries. But knowledge, like betrayal, comes at a high cost.

This first book in The Hacker Chronicles takes place early in the war. The first-person, present-tense account is a quiet, simple narrative rich with emotion. Little is known about the real Hacker, yet Yorke breathes life into him. Like us all, he has frailties, but dearly loves his family and God. The secret mission, spy, and murder episodes may seem like separate interludes in the book; in actuality, they are as intricately and artfully interwoven as a spider’s web and no one is left untouched.

Cindy Vallar

CHARIS IN THE WORLD OF WONDERS

Marly Youmans, Ignatius Press, 2020, $17.95/ C$23.95, pb, 331pp, 9781621643043

As an Indian raid threatens young Charis’ household in Falmouth, Massachusetts (now Maine), her mother sends Charis and her young sister Mary to hid in a secret place.

Injured on the way, Mary dies in the night, and Charis soon learns that she’s the sole survivor of the attack, save the family horse, Hortus. Together, Charis and Hortus make a slow, dangerous trek south toward Boston. In Haverhill, she finds shelter with the Saltonstall family who take her in as one of their own.

Determined to forge her own way, Charis takes a job sewing for Goody Holt, a bitter widow, and her two daughters—Lizzie and Bel—in the village of Andover. Soon, Charis falls in love

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with Jotham, the village silversmith, for whom Lizzie has desires, and a friendship with Bel blossoms. Jotham and Charis marry, but soon she is caught in a snare of witchcraft hysteria and friendships dissolve.

Youmans writes in a very poetic style, and at times it interferes with the narrative.

However, she has created a clever Cinderella story (“When she surveyed me, she said aloud, ‘You have cinders in your hair!’”) set during the Puritan witch hunts. Charis is a Puritan Job, and Charis in the World of Wonders is a story of grace and forgiveness in the face of animosity and fear. Though heavy doses of inspirational messages are peppered throughout this firstperson narrative, this is still a charming literary work that envelops the reader in the chaotic frontier life of Puritan Massachusetts.

Bryan Dumas

18TH CENTURY BECOMING LADY WASHINGTON

Betty Bolté, Mystic Owl Publishing, 2020, $16.99, pb, 416pp, 9781733973670

Despite its title, Becoming Lady Washington focuses on nearly the entirety of Martha Washington’s life, from her courtship by her first husband to her death at Mount Vernon.

Martha is an attractive character whose determined nature manifests itself early on and whose strength bears her through war and a series of heartbreaking losses. Refreshingly, Bolté does not sugarcoat Martha’s less endearing traits, such as her unenlightened attitude toward her many slaves.

Unfortunately, I had some difficulties with this novel. Founding Fathers, Founding Mothers, relations, friends, retainers, and slaves parade through Martha’s firstperson narrative, most of them largely indistinguishable from each other except for their different stations in life. Martha tells us whom she likes and whom she doesn’t like, and there’s little basis for us to agree or disagree.

On several occasions, Bolté teases us with the promise of upcoming drama only to fall short. Much is made, for instance, of Martha’s forthcoming meeting with Sally Fairfax, supposedly a rival for George Washington’s affections, but after a sentence or two, Sally and Martha are the best of friends, and remain so. More irritatingly, the opening scene of the novel hints at some dastardly behavior of Thomas Jefferson toward the Washingtons, but Jefferson makes only a few appearances, none of them memorable or malevolent.

Becoming Lady Washington appears to have been well researched, and it does have its strong points, especially its account of Martha’s early life and of her love for George, which grows deeper as the spouses age. Those wanting to learn more about Martha could do far worse than to read this novel.

Susan Higginbotham

BEYOND THE GHETTO GATES

Michelle Cameron, She Writes, 2020, $16.95, pb, 440pp, 9781631528507

Shortly after being appointed Commanderin-chief in 1796, Napoleon invades Italy and forces the withdrawal of Austria. When he reaches the city of Ancona, he orders his men to destroy the gates to the Jewish ghetto, which keep the inhabitants from freely coming and going into the city. Mirelle, a young Jewish woman, balances the books at her father’s ketubah workshop in the ghetto until she is forbidden by the rabbi, who insists she must marry. Equally devoted to her religion and her work, Mirelle reluctantly complies, but when her father is injured in a riot, she returns to support the artists and keep the accounts tallied. Invited to visit Venice by her best friend, Dolce, she meets two of Napoleon’s young soldiers, one a Jewish cousin and the other a Catholic who falls in love with her. Despite Mirelle’s proposed betrothal to Dolce’s widowed father, Dolce is not prepared to share her father’s affection and wealth with anyone, not even her best friend, and does her best to thwart the marriage plans and push the naïve Mirelle into the soldier’s arms.

Cameron’s novel dwells on religious fervour, fanaticism, prejudice and that elusive disparity between religions. Ancona is besieged by violence, incited by zealots who believe the Jews are hiding weapons to support Napoleon’s army. Mirelle suffers losses during the riots and argues with her conscience daily as she becomes more attracted to the poor Catholic soldier, when she is expected to agree to Dolce’s father’s offer of marriage.

Cameron has done thorough research into Napoleon’s Italian campaign, blending history with fiction in a credible way. The descriptions of the ketubot – exquisitely detailed Jewish marriage certificates – are fascinating, and Cameron’s evocation of the workshop and its artists is intriguing. The novel ends with an unexpected outcome and speaks of hopeful new beginnings for Mirelle.

Fiona Alison

THE CABINETS OF BARNABY MAYNE

Elsa Hart, Minotaur, 2020, $26.99, hb, 352pp, 9781250142818

It’s 1703, and Sir Barnaby Mayne is the proud owner of the most extensive and envied collection of curiosities. Cecily Kay arrives in London to consult Sir Barnaby’s plant collection. Later that day, other men arrive at the house for a tour. By tour’s end, Sir Barnaby is discovered stabbed to death. His curator proclaims to the group that he did it and runs off, but the pieces don’t quite add up. As Cecily dives deeper into the events of that fateful night, she finds herself a target of shady figures and life-threatening attacks.

Cecily is aided by a childhood friend, Meacan.

Can the duo uncover Sir Barnaby’s killer

before they wind up part of his collection of dead specimens?

Cecily and Meacan share a dynamic, complementary relationship. It’s been a long time since they last saw each other, so there’s an element of trust that readers and characters need to develop. This adds an enjoyable layer of suspense to the plot. The trail of clues before and after the murder is woven expertly into the narrative, treating readers to multiple unexpected twists and turns. I couldn’t wait to find out what Cecily and Meacan uncovered next. The world of obsessive collectors and their elaborate collections is intriguingly brought to life through the men and their unusual objects—the serious and whimsical aspects deftly crafted.

Elsa Hart’s novels are not just on my mustread list but my must-buy list, as her historical mysteries always keep me hooked from engaging start to satisfying finish. Engrossing characters and lush setting, enshrouded within a murder mystery brimming with compelling curiosities, make this a stunning read. Highly recommended.

J. Lynn Else

THE UNRELIABLE DEATH OF LADY GRANGE Sue Lawrence, Contraband, 2020, £8.99, pb, 278pp, 9781912235667

The life of Lady Grange (born Rachel Chiesley in 1679), whose husband was James Erskine, Lord Grange and Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland, was both shocking, fascinating and full of mystery. After she had borne Lord Grange nine children, the couple became estranged and when Rachel threatened to expose James as a Jacobite in 1732, he had her abducted and removed to the Outer Hebrides and kept there as a prisoner.

Lawrence’s novel reconstructs these events and their aftermath in a compelling narrative that attempts to “imagine the plight of a woman who had no say whatsoever over her destiny”, as stated in an afterword. It is a worthy effort, fitting current trends in historical fiction, where women’s history is centralised and new light shed on their position in the past. Rachel is not a submissive wife; she does not comply with ideas on how women should behave and is unwilling to accept her husband’s infidelities. For this she is made to pay a heavy price. Lawrence also provides insight into life in the Outer Hebrides, initially alien and barbaric in Rachel’s eyes.

This is in most respects an enjoyable read, but the novel would be strengthened by having fewer and more distinctly formed narrative voices; the romance plot at the centre of the Monach island chapters also adds little to the story.

Ingibjörg Ágústsdóttir

MARI’S WAY

Gilbert and Valerie Lewthwaite, independently published, 2020, $18.99/£15.02, pb, 312pp, 9780244864262

England, 1768. Mari Westin is the eldest daughter of a rich widower. He spends most of his time in his London mansion with his flamboyant mistress, Tamsin, leaving his son and two daughters back in Ravenhill, his country home. At an age when other girls wear pretty gowns, tight corsets, and dainty shoes, Mari wears boys’ clothes to climb trees, vault gates, and race in the meadows with her brother. When she is introduced to Bryce, a young handsome American, she is immediately infatuated. To accompany him back to Virginia, Mari disguises herself as a cabin boy and stows away on the Integrity. But Bryce is not on board, and Mari must work for her passage, and then, once they reach port, find work and accommodation as a bonded household servant.

Once settled, she begins to learn of the discontent the colonists feel toward the British king and government. Rebellion is fomenting.

When she falls in love with Stewart Dean, a young American sailor, Mari sails back to England with him, but life is not simple for this adventurous miss. Her father marries her to an aging governor of a Caribbean island, where Mari, soon widowed, has to deal with an attack by some renegade Americans led by none other than her beloved American sailor, now Captain Dean.

Like all romances, Mari’s story has a happy ending, but the story, without a strong narrative arc, reads more like a picaresque.

Mari roves to and fro, different characters command the spotlight and then recede, and the tone is light and pleasant despite the prominence of slavery and war. Still, as an English reader, I learned much about the American Revolutionary War. A highly recommended read.

Sally Zigmond

ABOUT A ROGUE

Caroline Linden, Avon, 2020, $7.99/C$10.88, pb, 384pp, 9780062913623

1787. Bianca Tate has no interest in marriage. She is a talented glazer at the successful pottery owned by her father, but when he arranges a marriage between her sister and a Mr. St James, she flies into a rage, aware that Catherine is in love with the local curate. Since her father remains obdurate, she helps her sister elope, only to find that she must wed in her stead to avoid breach of contract.

Max, however, is not the elegant rake she assumes. Though related to a wealthy duke, his life has been a struggle, and he possesses the acumen to contribute to the growth of the business, especially expanding sales. Despite the unexpected switch, moreover, he treats his new wife with patience and respect; but will the fiery Bianca give him a chance to prove his worth?

They are a likeable couple, and their

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progress towards true love is involving, not least because of the lessons learned and the touches of ironic humor provided. Valuable insights are gained into the pottery industry, the vulnerability of women in a patriarchal society, and, in the novella in the Kindle edition, how servants are affected by their employers’ actions.

Highly recommended Ray Thompson

ANGELICA: Paintress of Minds

Miranda Miller, Barbican Press, 2020, £12.99, pb, 294pp, 9781909954410

This fictionalised account of the life of Angelica Kauffmann (1741-1807), Swiss-born portraitist, history painter and one of the two female founders of the Royal Academy, was to have accompanied an exhibition of her work in that institution, halted

by Covid19. The novel nevertheless stands in its own right as the extraordinary life story of a woman painter in an almost wholly male profession.

Told in Angelica’s voice, it charts her artistic development from youthful prodigy to being the sought-after confidante of queens. Her friendships with Joshua Reynolds, Antonio Canova, Nelson’s Emma Hamilton and Queen Charlotte, among others, are described, along with her unflinching account of her disastrous first marriage, her hopeless attachment to an unsympathetic Goethe and her enduring happiness with Antonio Zucchi.

The arc of Kauffmann’s life was extraordinary: she and Zucchi left London in the wake of the Gordon Riots; she lived through the French occupation of Rome and the looming spectre of Napoleonic domination of Europe, which in its plundering of art treasures, too, was a precursor in some ways of Hitler’s.

The novel is beautifully written, with phrases like the young Angelica thinking “titles make a special shape in the air when people speak them, high and arched”. Kauffmann is presented as hard-working, loyal, kind, sometimes susceptible but more determined than she thinks she is. She had to be, for hers was a man’s world. Her artistic talent was only permitted to grow in the first place because her father eventually enabled it. A groundbreaker, yes, but after Kauffman’s death and that of Mary Moser in 1819, more than a century passed before another woman (Dame Laura Knight) was elected to full membership of the Royal Academy. A rich and engrossing read.

Katherine Mezzacappa

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THE RAKESS

Scarlett Peckham, Avon, 2020, $7.99, pb, 380pp, 9780062935618

For those who don’t read Regency, The Rakess is a gender-flipped invention, a feminine form of rakehell, a person who drinks hard, gambles, and sleeps around.

In this Georgian r o m a n c e , The Rakess is Seraphina Arden, a woman who won’t accept ruination, and instead embraces her scandalous past and present, using it to propel forward the idea of women’s equal education.

The romance is with a Scottish architect, Adam Anderson, a serious man who is trying to prove his worth, both in the workplace and in his own home, raising two children after his wife died in childbirth.

This book is a breath of fresh air for Georgian/Regency romances. An Alpha heroine, prickly and intelligent, must melt a little in order to survive the vitriol she has inspired. So many tropes are turned on their heads, and it is lovely. Seraphina has other “fallen women” friends, together forming The Society of Sirens, which promises a series that must be read in order. In this book alone there is kidnapping, public shaming, insane asylums, lascivious paintings, educational ideals, Cornish pasties, and Scottish brogue.

Romance readers will recognize the witty turns of common tropes. If you’ve never read romance, read this one.

Katie Stine

THE BASTILLE SPY

C. S. Quinn, Corvus, 2020, £8.99, pb, 431pp, 9781786498434

1789. Attica Morgan, illegitimate daughter of an English lord and an African princess, erstwhile slave, and now British spy, killer, and a woman with a definite attitude problem, is sent to Paris to fan the flames of revolution. Dressed initially as an aristocrat and aided by privateer captain Jemmy Avery, how will she avoid the attentions of Robespierre and the Paris mob as well as a murderous ex-Musketeer, while gaining entrance into the formidable prison cum fortress called the Bastille? Well (spoiler alert!), it is July 14th.

With strong characters and detail, the plot is fast-paced and gripping. Attica Morgan is a strong, independent, bloody-minded, ruthless woman with a background which is tantalisingly hinted at as the plot progresses.

The villains are well drawn, without being over the top, and the author’s research shines through in an unobtrusive way adding to the storyline. This is a departure for the author

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from her very successful Thief Taker series, and is the first in a new series. I predict a long and happy – if at times perilous – future for Attica Morgan. Recommended Mike Ashworth

19TH CENTURY

THE EARL’S MARRIAGE BARGAIN

Louise Allen, Harlequin, 2020, $6.50/C$7.50, pb, 288pp, 9781335505521

1814. When she rescues a man being beaten by a band of ruffians, little does Miss Jane Newnham expect that it will lead, eventually, to the altar. She is, after all, planning a career as a portrait artist, not a wedded woman.

Through an entertaining series of mishaps, however, the man she rescues ends up offering marriage to preserve her reputation. Despite reservations, she eventually accepts: Ivo Merton, ex-army officer, Earl of Kendall, and heir to a marquessate, is, after all, an attractive man and surprisingly open-minded for an aristocrat. Nor is it long before the feelings of both become increasingly engaged. But will progress towards a love match survive the revelation that Ivo had been, and may still be, in love with another, particularly when the teary-eyed (but lovely) widow seeks his help (and more besides) after her husband’s death?

There is much to enjoy in this Regency romance. The plot is lively and liberally sprinkled with amusing incidents, and the protagonists are very likeable: her combination of optimism and practicality provides a delightfully ironic point of view; though honorable and protective, he does learn from experience; and both are willing to make personal sacrifices for others.

Highly recommended.

Ray Thompson

A SHADOWED FATE

Marty Ambrose, Severn House, 2020, $28.99/£20.99, hb, 192pp, 9780727889928

This sequel to Claire’s Last Secret continues the life of Mary Shelley’s stepsister, Claire Clairmont. Both novels refer to the halcyon summer of 1816 on Lake Geneva when Mary penned Frankenstein and Claire’s brief affair with Lord Byron produced an illegitimate daughter, Allegra.

Shadow images sprinkled throughout the novel refer to a shadowy rider pursuing Claire on her quest to the Convent of San Giovanni in Ravenna, Italy, searching out the truth about her daughter’s death from typhus, and to Claire and Mary’s lives with their share of shadows, both having lost children to death. The most touching scene is when Claire touches the initials Allegra carved into her convent cell.

With minimal plot and action, the slowmoving scenes unfold like a foreign film. The real journey is a psychological one as Claire reflects on Byron the brilliant poet, rakish legend, and most infamous literati of his time.

As she reads his memoir, given to her by his

friend Trelawny, the lonely man and kindly father emerges. The final chapters culminate in a sudden climax. Claire finally feels at peace until a surprising revelation. Ambrose teases the reader, leaving the door open for her final book in the Lord Byron mystery series.

Rather than spread this story over multiple padded, somewhat repetitive novels, why not write a tight, satisfying single piece?

Gail M. Murray

THE COTTON SPINNER

Libby Ashworth, Arrow, 2020, £5.99, pb, 379pp, 9781787463578

Lancashire, 1826. When mechanisation comes to the cotton industry, like so many others, Titus and Jennet Eastwood and their little daughter, Peggy, are forced to abandon their country cottage where he weaves and she spins cotton, in exchange for the cramped, dark and smoky terraces of Blackburn. Titus gets poorly-paid work in the local mill but very soon, like so many others, he is laid-off as supply outstrips demand. What with the restrictive Corn Laws that make bread too expensive, the poor are starving; discontent soon rumbles throughout Lancashire. Titus, is encouraged by George, his persuasive friend and neighbor, to attend a peaceful gathering to protest about this and against the total lack of parliamentary representation for the northern mill towns. The two men are separated in the crush, and although Titus believes in what was said, he soon wants to return home to his wife and child but is swept up in the downward rush of men determined to destroy the mill close by. Although totally innocent of the ensuing violence, he is arrested and committed to a long term of imprisonment.

Left alone, Jennet is comforted and supported by George and inevitably, one thing leads to another, which she bitterly regrets. When Titus is released and realises she is pregnant with another man’s child, he consoles himself in drink, so their marriage descends even further into misery and hardship, with Jennet working even harder to better life for herself and her daughters.

What makes this novel stand out from other enjoyable historical sagas is Libby Ashworth’s extensive knowledge of Lancashire, its geography, history, especially the cotton industry, and its people of which she is proud to belong. Her evocation of the sights and sounds of Lancashire is so evocative, I could even taste it. I have already ordered the second novel in the series and look forward to reading it.

Sally Zigmond

CONJURE WOMEN

Afia Atakora, Random House, 2020, $27.00/ C$36.00, hb, 416pp, 97805255114879 / Fourth Estate, 2020, £14.99, hb, 416pp, 9780008293918

Afia Atakora’s haunting, lyrical prose draws you in from the first sentence like

one of the spells conjured by the plantation midwives: “The black baby’s crying wormed and bloomed.” So the storytelling does, as well—and isn’t it a form of conjure?

Rue is a midwife, healer, and conjurer of ancient magic in Freedomtime, 1867, two years after the Civil War and slavery have ended. She learned her trade from her mother, Miss May Belle, who served the other slaves on their Southern plantation during Slaverytime.

The novel alternates between these eras, contrasting life during enslavement and afterward, when the newly freed stay put out of fear of the unknown, or because they have nowhere to go. Are they truly free? Holding them in thrall is the itinerant preacher, “Bruh Abel,” who gives them a new religion to believe in but who is only a man, himself, with a man’s appetites.

The baby is Black-Eyed Bean, born in a caul and murmured against when the plantation children begin dying of a plague. Rue, they begin to say, is a witch. And so the people she and her mother have served turn against her and toward the new religion, Christianity, which binds them to white culture in different ways.

Meanwhile, the plantation owner’s daughter, Varina, Rue’s childhood playmate, hides in the chapel from Northern soldiers, unaware that the war has ended. When Rue finally tells her the truth, she walks away—free in a way that Rue can never be.

Conjure Women is a lovely, mystical book— at times, too mystical. Why characters do what they do doesn’t always make sense, or seems contrived. These aren’t “plot holes,” but “motivation holes.” Still, it’s a fabulous debut from a promising author, and well worth the read.

Sherry Jones

BRONTË’S MISTRESS

Finola Austin, Atria, 2020, $27.00/£20.00, hb, 309pp, 9781982137236

Critics have long argued that the iconic novels of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë are best understood against the descent into alcoholism and opium addiction of their adored brother Branwell, who remained desperately in love with the wife of his former employer even after he was dismissed from his post as her son’s tutor in 1845. While his sisters rose to fame, Branwell drank and drugged himself to death while publicly mourning the loss of his lover, likely providing the inspiration for the troubled heroes in his siblings’ stories.

Who was the woman that drove Branwell to such depths of despair? Brontë’s Mistress

takes a closer look at the woman he hoped to make his wife. Lydia Robinson was fifteen years older than Branwell and surprised and shocked him when she refused to marry him after her husband’s death. Austin portrays Lydia as a clever, fiercely desiring, and modern-thinking woman, who suffers from the stifling moral thinking of her age, which condemned passionate women as whores, and for whom Branwell is her only chance of an intellectual and sexual escape.

As I read Lydia’s story—rendered in elegant, sensuous language by Austin—it occurred to me that she might be a kind of female Rochester, an intelligent and deeply feeling person forced to endure a marriage to a highly incompatible partner. But while salvation awaits Rochester in the person of Jane Eyre, Branwell is hardly the man to liberate and sustain Lydia. Will she find a better person to love, or will she emulate Branwell’s sisters, stay chaste, and turn to writing? The novel offers some intriguing answers to these interesting questions, but not in the way the reader might have expected. A surprise waits for us at the end. Highly recommended.

Elisabeth Lenckos

THE MOSS HOUSE

Clara Barley, Bluemoose, 2019, £8.99, pb, 210pp, 9781910422496

In 1832 Yorkshire, Miss Lister, partowner of Shibden Hall, and Miss Walker, a neighbour and wealthy heiress, strike up a particular friendship, although it seems doubtful Miss Walker knows the extent of Miss Lister’s previous lesbian relationships.

Travelling extensively after the love of her life “succumbs” to marriage, Miss Lister has returned to Shibden Hall, commissioning upgrades to the estate to display the family’s importance. She is educated and intelligent with an entrepreneurial and scientific mind.

Self-described Miss Walker is pretty, ladylike, shallow, boring, and an expert at melancholy.

She has everything to be happy about, except the power to enjoy it. This causes much friction as the friendship wavers between genuine tenderness and frustrated spitefulness.

Miss Lister takes active part in her inheritance, dresses in black, is manly in aspect and seemingly isn’t affected by emotion, even when Halifax society speculates on the illicit goings-on within the Moss House walls and humiliates the women publicly. Miss Walker moves into Shibden Hall, is welcomed by the family, and the two women share their inheritances in a quasi-marital state, extending the house, renewing furnishings and traveling. Readers can hardly miss the similarities to heterosexual marriage.

The bones of this novel come from Anne Lister’s diaries, the explicit parts of which she wrote in code. Neither protagonist is particularly appealing, but they are both very well drawn and arc convincingly through personal growth. Women were forbidden to be alone with a man without a chaperone in the 19th century, but were not hampered

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by such restrictions amongst themselves, and often indulged in very close friendships and experimentation. The story is bathed in pathos, and there is a poetic slant to the diarylike dual-narrative. The sexual language is explicit, extremely anti-male, and might not suit all readers, but the writing is clear and insightful. A fascinating exploration of 19thcentury feminism, lesbianism, and women’s independence.

Fiona Alison

A THOUSAND MOONS

Sebastian Barry, Faber, 2020, £18.99, hb, 251pp, 9780571333370 / Viking, 2020, $27.00, hb, 256pp, 9780735223103

Set around Paris, Tennessee, in the aftermath of the Civil War, this stand-alone sequel to Barry’s Days without End (2016), is compellingly and unflinchingly narrated by Winona, a Lakota orphan. She is brought up on Lige Mangan’s oasis of a farm by Thomas McNulty; his lover and former comrade-inarms, John Cole; their black housekeeper; and her talented, near-mute brother. Beyond the farm lies a world in which the Indian has no rights whatsoever, in which an outlaw can become a judge, a just man can have his house burned down without redress, and where lynch law prevails (though it is not centre-stage: one lynching is described very much like the Waco murder of Jesse Washington). Winona is raped, but is unable to remember the attack, though her stumblings after the truth of what happened to her drive the plot forward; in this, as in the murders of her family, her mind has learned to blank out trauma.

However, the novel is far from being an unremitting catalogue of violence. It is lyrical, loving, and finds human kindness and tolerance in the most unpromising circumstances. And it is, of course, beautifully written. I was hooked by page two with the phrase “It is bad enough being an Indian without talking like a raven,” in which Winona describes her determination to speak English as well as anyone else, despite (or because of) the fact that she can never be considered their equal by anyone beyond Lige Mangan’s land or lawyer Briscoe’s house.

The dénouement is all the more a nail-biter because it is handled so deftly, quietly and unexpectedly.

Katherine Mezzacappa

LOST SAINTS

Elizabeth Bell, Claire-Voie Books, 2020, $14.99, pb, 408pp, 9781733167611

Charleston, South Carolina, 1840s. This second book in the Lazare Family Saga picks up right where the first in the series left off, so it is advisable to read the first book, Necessary Sins, beforehand. While soulmates Joseph Lazare and Tessa Stratford negotiate the dangers of beginning an increasingly unchaste affair – namely his priesthood and her husband – other members of the family struggle with their own secrets of identity and guilt. Young David is haunted by the memory of a decision that may well be his undoing, while a distant Cheyenne 26

relative struggles with the discrepancy between his appearance and cultural heritage.

At some point, all secrets come into the light, and they can only hope that the family ties that bind them will provide protection and salvation.

Elizabeth Bell is quickly becoming one of my favorite historical fiction authors. To be able to paint the past with such depth and color is a rare skill that few, even some of the most acclaimed authors, possess to this level. Her outstanding research enables her to evoke both the sacred and mundane in ways that add layers to her story and richness to her characters. Her writing is truly more vivid than any movie, and in these times of quarantine and uncertainty is exactly what fans of historical fiction need to escape. However, she does not romanticize the past; its violent and ugly parts are all part of the tale she weaves. It seems strange to call an author with only two published books a master, but she is well on her way to claiming that title. I can’t recommend this book or the rest of the series enough and eagerly await the third book.

Nicole Evelina

THE LIGHT WITHIN US

Charlotte Betts, Piatkus, 2020, £9.99, pb, 400pp, 9780349422985

Cornwall in the early 1890s. The story centres on a small group of young, and bohemian art students. Edith and Benedict Fairchild are newlyweds. Benedict inherits the substantial property, Spindrift House, from his Aunt Hester. Located near Port Isaac on the Cornish coast, the house was bequeathed to his widowed aunt, who had conducted a long-running secret affair with her married landlord, Jago Penrose. When Penrose died, Hester was shocked to learn that she had inherited the house. After being violently confronted by Jago’s son, who had expected to receive the house himself, Hester dies of heart failure, but only after saying that she did not want to keep the house. Perhaps somewhat unwisely, Benedict, his aunt’s main beneficiary, retains the house and decides to move there with his new wife and their artistic circle. The unconventional coterie meets hostility from the resentful Penrose family. Edith faces an increasing number of challenges as she adjusts to the realities of married life, her initial ecstasy at married domestic bliss with Benedict quickly changing with motherhood.

An underlying theme is the powerlessness and precarity that women experienced in British Victorian society, when their families could threaten to send wayward daughters to an asylum and married females were

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essentially owned by their husbands. This is an engaging novel, easy to read with the plot rather plodding along, and with characters that are interesting, if perhaps sometimes acting a little unrealistically and overly melodramatically – the novel is peppered with moustache-twirling villains and evil harridans that the reader wants to boo and hiss at from the sidelines. The conversational content and tone, and interpersonal dynamics are not always what one would expect in 19th-century English society – somehow present-day modes, social codes and milieu seem to keep butting in. The novel ends a little suddenly, and indeed Charlotte Betts reveals in her afterword that this is the first volume in a trilogy.

Douglas Kemp

A LADY’S REVENGE

Edie Cay, ScarabSkin Books, 2020, $10.99, pb, 356pp, 9781734439717

To all appearances, Lady Lydia Somerset is one of the many young women at Regency balls and soirees looking for a husband.

However, Lady Lydia has discovered the art of pugilism and has taken up the sport. Her goal is to take revenge on three men who raped her as a child in the belief that virgin blood would cure syphilis.

Lydia’s new neighbor, John Arthur, is a gutter kid who has gotten rich on the London Stock Exchange. He is also a star prizefighter. When Bess, Lydia’s female trainer, is lured away by one of the men on Lydia’s revenge list, she reluctantly takes on John as her new trainer.

At first Lydia and John keep their emotional distance. Lydia wants to hide her past experience, and John believes a relationship with an aristocrat is unthinkable. But boxing is a contact sport, and the attraction between the two cannot be denied.

There are many side characters in this story, which might be distracting for some. I loved the character of Bess and can’t wait to read her story. I recommend this book for readers who enjoy romances with a strong female protagonist.

Susie Pruett

MRS LINCOLN’S SISTERS

Jennifer Chiaverini, Ballantine, 2020, $28.99, hb, 384pp, 9780062975973

As the fourth child of seven from her parents’ marriage, and with an additional nine half-siblings born from her father’s second marriage, Mary Lincoln was blessed with many close relations. In Mrs. Lincoln’s Sisters, Jennifer Chiaverini tells Mary’s story through the eyes of four of them: her two elder sisters Elizabeth and Frances, her younger sister Ann, and another much younger half-sister, Emilie. The novel focuses on a particularly challenging time in Mary’s life: the period in 1875 when her sanity was questioned, and she was institutionalized by her only surviving son, Robert.

Different sisters narrate different chapters of Mary’s troubles from their own perspectives, as well as revisiting the family’s story from 1825

when Elizabeth, Frances, Mary and Ann’s mother died. It’s a complex but successful structure as the family’s ties and rifts are explored through the personal lens of sibling rivalry and emotion, as well as a wider historical perspective as the Civil War sees members of the family on opposing sides of the conflict.

Each sister has a different way of dealing with Mary: sometimes mothering, sometimes managing, supporting or challenging. All have sympathy for her troubles, ranging from the assassination of her husband, the loss of two sons and the rift with her eldest son over her insanity trial, but their very human exasperation and frustrations make this a vivid and engrossing account. Mary’s excessive spending and her willful and at times dangerous behaviour are a cause of mutual concern for her sisters, and they are not always in accord in how to respond to her.

Mrs. Lincoln’s Sisters is a stand-alone novel which complements her previous examination of Mary’s life, Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker, told from the point of view of her erstwhile confidante Elizabeth Keckley. Readers can enjoy both books in whatever order they choose.

Kate Braithwaite

A MOSAIC OF WINGS

Kimberly Duffy, Bethany House, 2020, $15.99, pb, 368pp, 9780764236259

“You are who you are for a reason.”

1885. Nora Shipley is infuriated by what her stepfather has done to her father’s journal.

Before his death, Nora shared a love of entomology with her father. Now, she’s a top contender to earn a scholarship in pursuit of her master’s degree. To increase her chances, Nora embarks on a research expedition to India. However, fellow top contender Owen Epps will also be on the expedition. He turns out to be an unexpected ally when the expedition leader confines Nora to illustrations instead of field work. There’s no room for error, because if she loses the scholarship, she also loses the chance of taking over her father’s journal and living an independent life. However, Nora’s involvement in a cultural faux pas, as she intervenes to save a young girl from temple prostitution, could irrevocably jeopardize her future.

As Nora pursues what she loves, she embodies a relatable sense of duty to her father’s legacy and over her fragile mother’s care. She has few allies in the academic world while stepping outside of society’s expected role for her life. The excursions through the Indian landscape and late 1800s Ithaca, New York, are well detailed and enchanting. Nora does investigate other arthropod species (I’m looking at you, arachnids—while also staying at a safe distance), but the narrative focuses on her fascination and appreciation of said creatures, thus limiting my usual reaction to creepy crawlers. Nora’s and Owen’s budding romance adds depth to Nora’s struggles while

also providing an ally so the narrative doesn’t become too one-sided (i.e., too womenversus-men focused). The stakes are high, and so are the emotions surrounding the choices Nora makes. The book had its hooks in me early on with its trailblazing female lead and her captivating uphill climb. Recommended.

J. Lynn Else

THE GRAVES OF WHITECHAPEL

Claire Evans, Sphere, 2020, £8.99, pb, 360pp, 9780751575309

Whitechapel, London in the winter of 1882. Cage (Micajah) Lackmann is a youngish barrister, charming, handsome and a poet to boot, who ostensibly makes his living and reputation defending the innocent in the criminal courts of London. While he may appear to be a 19thcentury younger Rumpole, he is controlled and paid by a thuggish local criminal boss, one Obediah Pincott, a Ukrainian despite his name, who uses Cage to get his criminal, and necessarily guilty, employees off various charges. Cage is therefore very much disliked by the local police. Matters become difficult when there is a murder of a youth, Baxter Spring, dressed in female clothing and garishly made up, using precisely the same modus operandi of a similar murder five years ago. Moses Pickering, whom Cage successfully defended five years ago on that charge of murder, has disappeared after this second murder. Cage becomes the focus of local attention, but as he makes progress in the case, he becomes aware that there is someone looking to implicate him in the crime and threats encircle him. There is a shocking denouement, which certainly throws both the reader and Cage Lackmann.

This is an excellent story, with a meandering and engaging plot set firmly in the filth and horrors of social Darwinian Victorian London. Despite his faults, of which he is himself quite well aware, Cage Lackmann seems to be a decent enough cove who has been thrust by circumstances into a difficult position. The reader wants him to do well, but he is up against a network of wealth, power, crime and corruption. The historical context is admirable and convincing. The novel had the feel of a sequel as it continually referred to events that occurred before the narrative and I had to check that this was not, in fact, part of a series.

Douglas Kemp

THE WOMAN IN RED

Diana Giovinazzo, Grand Central, 2020, $28.00, hb, 371pp, 9781538717417

Historical fiction often allows writers and readers the opportunity to explore the lives of people whose names may be missing from history textbooks, yet whose contributions may be no less important than those names enshrined in history.

Fre q u e n t l y, these forgotten, historical figures are women.

In this debut novel, Giovinazzo shines a light on the life and accomplishments of Anita Garibaldi, the wife of the man who unified Italy. When they meet in Brazil in 1839, where Garibaldi is a leader in trying to liberate southern Brazil, Anita is instantly attracted to his adventurous and idealistic ways. She finds meaning and purpose in linking her life with his and becoming not only the wife of a revolutionary, but a revolutionary in her own right.

Anita discovers her bravery and develops talents she didn’t know she had as she helps her husband’s efforts by establishing field hospitals, procuring much-needed supplies, organizing women volunteers to serve as nurses, and even taking up arms beside him.

The couple’s revolutionary zeal takes them from Brazil to Uruguay, and eventually to Italy, Garibaldi’s homeland.

Giovinazzo gives the reader a fascinating look at 19th-century South America and its culture, where machismo prohibited women from any meaningful role or status in society. It’s Anita Garibaldi’s fight against those prohibitions that make her such an inspirational character.

The Woman in Red is a finely crafted, exciting page-turner and is highly recommended for readers interested in learning about strong and empowered women.

John Kachuba

NAKED TRUTH: Or Equality, The Forbidden Fruit

Carrie Hayes, HTPH Press, 2020, $14.99, pb, 322pp, 9780578229102

Hayes’ debut novel couldn’t have more captivating or exciting protagonists. Victoria Woodhull and her sister, Tennessee Claflin, led careers as spiritualists, aspiring politicians, and some of the first female brokers on Wall Street. Hayes recreates the sisters between 1868 and 1877, when their brokerage firm rose and fell, their weekly magazine got them sued for obscenity and libel, and Victoria ran for President of the United States in addition

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to headlining suffrage events.

Tennessee, no less gifted or ambitious, has more private torments, like her love affairs with Cornelius Vanderbilt and newspaperman James Gordon Bennett, which she hides alongside more painful secrets, among them a brief failed marriage, an illness she fears is syphilis, and an illegitimate pregnancy. Around them, powerful New York titans strive to either aid or topple these determined women, while their family circle seethes with lies, blackmail, betrayal, and earnest devotion.

Hayes’ short, pithy scenes leap swiftly from event to event; readers who like narrative continuity, exposition, and deep character studies won’t find that here, though eventually, like a pointillism painting, the small dabs together create a portrait of a fascinating pair of women paying a steep price for their independence. Some aspects of the leading ladies’ lives are skimmed to make room for an at-times crowded cast of point-of-view characters, including P.B. Randolph, Reverend Beecher and his formidable sister Mrs. Stowe, and suffragette leaders Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The style may feel breathless, but the integration of excerpts from news articles, speeches, and presumed memoirs shows the breadth of the sisters’ activism: in addition to equality for women, they advocated Marxist socialism, free love, and justice for the oppressed. Hayes offers glimmers of fresh insights into these oftdiscussed, oft-challenged women, providing an excellent, entertaining, and provocative read.

Misty Urban

REDEEMING THE RECLUSIVE EARL

Virginia Heath, Harlequin, 2020, $6.49/C$7.50, pb, 288pp, 9781335505392

His face and body marred by burns during naval action, and embittered by people’s revulsion at the sight of his wounds—including his betrothed—Max releases her from their engagement and withdraws to the estate he has recently inherited as Earl of Rivenhall; only to find someone digging on the property where he seeks refuge. Anger turns to outrage when he discovers the interloper is not a he, but a she. Also, uncommonly pretty.

Euphemia Nithercott is the daughter of a Cambridge professor, but her remarkable intelligence, photographic memory, and outspoken comments have frightened off potential suitors. Resigned to spinsterhood, Effie has taken up archeology with her customary enthusiasm and is unwilling to be 28

dissuaded by an unreasonable landowner when her discoveries are so important. Even if he has an impressive physique despite his scars. They turn out to be well suited, but can they overcome their own feelings of insecurity and risk commitment?

Heath has created two delightful and admirable characters, whose struggles against social prejudice and their own insecurities win our sympathies. Effie’s wry sense of humor and self-honesty are a particular joy. A Regency romance to relish. Highly recommended.

Ray Thompson

THE PATRON SAINT OF PREGNANT GIRLS

Ursula Hegi, Flatiron, 2020, $26.99/£20.99, hb, 288pp, 9781250156822

The Ludwig Zirkus comes to Germany’s Nordstrand Island every summer, thrilling the town with trained animals in painted wagons, acrobats, and clowns. Even the “unfortunates” from St. Margaret’s Home for Pregnant Girls watch the circus with their guardian nuns.

However, in 1878 the town’s joy is smashed when a freak wave, far bigger than any the island’s Oldest Person has ever seen, surges in from the North Sea. Lotte Jansen, wading at the tide’s edge with her young children, has three torn from her hands forever. In despair, she casts baby Wilhelm into the murky waves, begging God to take him in return for the others.

Eleven-year old Tilli cradles her belly during the search until overcome by cramps and goes into labor on the beach. She is not allowed to keep her child, and her parents cast her away because the baby was fathered by her twin brother. Instead, the Sisters take Tilli to the Jansens’ home to suckle Lotte’s baby. A third mother is on the beach that fateful day; Sabine, the circus’s seamstress, and her adult daughter, Heike, join the search. Sabine keeps a close eye on Heike, for the simple-minded woman will need protection for the rest of her life.

Best-selling author Ursula Hegi presents fortunate readers with a new tour de force in The Patron Saint of Pregnant Girls. Her earthy and ethereal story unites an unlikely female trio who support each other across the flow of seasons, the circus’s meandering travels, and the inconstancy of their men. I loved Ms. Hegi’s vivid portrayals; and her women, whether conniving, tender, or briskly competent, will draw you into their welcoming arms.

Thoroughly recommended.

Jo Ann Butler

THE STRAITS OF TREACHERY

Richard Hopton, Allison & Busby, 2020, £19.99, hb, 382pp, 9780749025434

There is a style of military historical fiction which emphasises the minutiae of warfare – details of uniforms, the weapons carried, the precise way in which pistols are loaded, etc.

Novels in this style often include a great deal of

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detail of locales, the latest operas and so on.

There is clearly a market for books like this, and Straits of Treachery will appeal to people who are interested in the stand-off between the French armies in Italy and the British in Sicily in September 1810. There is a lot of incident in this story – duels, French raids, various sexual passions, both requited and unrequited – but the storyline serves mainly as a vehicle for lots of information about the place and the period.

The action scenes are exciting and carry the reader along, but (as in real-life) these are interspersed with long periods when nothing particular happens. There is a plot about a spy, but fairly early on we learn who it is and then we have only to wait for a captured French officer to betray him. The next we see he is in irons. We are told, “He’ll face trial for treason, of course, and may hang.” I’d have thought there was no “may” about it, but we will never find out, as at this point the book somewhat abruptly ends. Perhaps a sequel is planned to pick up some of the loose ends. Like this, it will undoubtedly appeal to its target market.

Tom Williams

A DAUGHTER’S PRICE

Emma Hornby, Corgi, 2020, £5.99, pb, 368pp, 9780552175760

Set in Northern England in the late 1800s, this is a novel about murder, innocence, retribution and hope. Laura Cannock flees the consequences of her husband’s death when she reaches Manchester and the supposedly safe house of her welcoming uncle. While her father thinks his brother will help them in the long run, Laura is uncertain of any future in a house where both morality and decency are forgotten. She seeks refuge from the kind and forgiving residents of Ebenezer Court – but when her past catches up with her there, can she salvage a life for herself free of her dead husband? And even then, there are decisions to be made.

Hornby captures the historical settings of Bolton and Manchester accurately with her use of the vernacular language in the novel. Once the reader tunes into the different language a whole other world comes to life. She leaves nothing of the era out and also uses it in her plot to achieve twists that come as a surprise.

Throughout the novel, the author portrays her characters so vividly that you are wishing the heroes to win and the villains to receive their justice.

Clare Lehovsky

THE BRIDESHIP WIFE

Leslie Howard, Simon & Schuster Canada, $17.99/C$24.99, pb, 400pp, 9781508259350

Charlotte is an unmarried woman with few options in 1862 England. Her brother-in-law supports her financially but wishes her to marry; her indifferent cousin offers her a position with a sneer. With no dowry or prospects, she finds herself subject to the whims and decisions of the men in her life. A traumatic encounter with a suitor leaves her with no options, except one:

to leave England for British Columbia as a passenger on the Tynemouth, a ship filled with unmarried women intended to populate the new territory with English brides.

It is easy to immediately cheer for Charlotte, an intelligent woman bucking the traditional system, as she finds her agency in this new territory. While the goal of the voyage is to deliver brides to Canada, she instead spends her time discovering her talents, interests, and a life that will make her happy. She befriends a clergyman who gives her an alternative perspective to the stolen land they reside on, and forms lifelong friends with other women seeking freedom and opportunity away from England. While this is an optimistic comingof-age story set in wild British Columbia, Howard does not shy away from highlighting the complicated history fictional Charlotte finds herself in. The plight of Native nations, and the racist attitudes of those in power are examined and part of the challenging landscape Charlotte and her friend Sarah, a daughter of a former slave, navigate. While these larger themes fill out the historical background, Howard’s peek into this untold story in Canadian history looks at this time at a micro level, having the reader see both the opportunity that awaits a woman who otherwise would have none, and the complex land and political reality that was the early history of the English settlement of British Columbia.

Ellen Jaquette

GOLDEN POPPIES

Laila Ibrahim, Lake Union, 2020, $14.95, pb, 309pp, 9781542006446

The Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1870, guarantees the right to vote despite race, color, or previous servitude. In Golden Poppies, author Laila Ibrahim explores the story of continuing racial prejudice in 1890s America. The plot revolves around two families, both headed by strong matriarchal women who had lived together on a Virginia plantation. One was the plantation owner’s white daughter, and the other was a slave.

When the women meet up again in later life, Mattie, the black woman, is dying, and Lisbeth, the white woman, journeys with her daughter Sadie to Mattie’s bedside in Chicago. During this reunion, both Mattie’s daughter, Jordan, and Lisbeth’s daughter, Sadie, begin a friendship that parallels the trust their mothers had for each other. That trust comes to a powerful climax when Sadie runs to escape her abusive husband and turns to Jordan for sanctuary.

Told alongside the quest for American women to gain the right to vote, is the undercurrent of black women not being included in that struggle, due to the fear that black women would jeopardize the suffrage movement. This awakening realization emerges in the story.

At first, I had a bit of trouble remembering to which family the various characters belonged.

As I became more immersed in the narrative, that problem faded. A compelling read and valued insight into the Gilded Age in America.

Linda Harris Sittig

OPIUM AND ABSINTHE

Lydia Kang, Lake Union, 2020, $14.99, pb, 396pp, 9781542017794

It’s 1899, the turn of the 20th century, in New York City. Young and pampered Tillie Pembroke, who never seems quite able to do anything easily, not to mention gracefully, is off on a horseback-riding excursion. Of course, she is thrown from her mount in front of the other riders and breaks her collar bone severely. As she groggily awakes in bed, having been administered opium to ease the pain, she learns that her sister Lucy has gone missing. Not long after, police find Lucy’s body, exsanguinated with two small puncture marks in the throat.

Thus begins Tillie’s quest to find her sister’s killer, whether man or vampire. Though Tillie may be socially and physically awkward, she has a keen analytic mind and knack for diligent research. She finds unlikely allies among young newspaper sellers – “newsies,” morgue attendants, and the hired help. Meanwhile, some in her closest circles seem happy to keep her docile and safe in her affluent home under the influence of laudanum and heroin pills.

However, she perseveres in her investigation, putting her life in jeopardy to find her sister’s killer.

I liked this book more than I originally expected. The story is interesting and complex, no doubt enhanced by the author’s medical expertise. Yet still it succeeds as a traditional tale of an improbable sleuth operating under the handicap of her constant drug stupor. There are several minor quibbles, such as the inexplicably elegant vocabulary of Tillie’s newsie friend, Ian, an orphaned NYC street kid, and a few modernisms in dialogue.

This is more than made up for by the many fascinating and believable characters who come from different ethnic groups and social classes. The surprise ending satisfactorily concludes this interesting novel with aplomb.

Recommended.

Thomas J. Howley

DREAD TRIBUNAL OF LAST RESORT

Brian Kaufman, Five Star, 2020, $25.95, hb, 359pp, 9781432869649

In 1861, Decker Brown returns home to Richmond, Virginia after having spent two years studying rocketry and illumination science in Boston. Decker has big dreams to open his own fireworks business and marry his sweetheart. The outbreak of the Civil War puts a damper on those plans, though.

Strongly opposed to slavery, and defying his father, Decker decides to head west. He would rather join up with the Yankees, betraying his

fellow Virginians, than fight for a cause he can’t support.

This is the story of the consequences of Decker’s decision. It details the horrors of the war, his travels, plights, and heroic endeavors.

Kaufman weaves in a lot about illumination and fireworks, adding a bit of sparkle to a rather dark plot. This is also the story of Paula, on the home front, torn between two men she loves, and her attempts to find some semblance of a normal life amidst a worn torn city.

Kaufman does an impressive job detailing the inner conflict of each character. Paula loves Decker, but she cannot understand why he would choose to turn against his fellow Virginians and fight for the enemy. Decker struggles with this choice as well but remains stolid and determined to fight for liberty and freedom for all men. The pace is quick and speedy; the story spans the full length of the war and even into post-war life despite its mere 300-odd pages. With a lot of lively secondary characters, there’s a lot here for readers to enjoy. Recommended.

Rebecca Cochran

THE HIGHLANDER’S ENGLISH BRIDE

Vanessa Kelly, Zebra, 2020, $7.99/C$10.99, pb, 440pp, 9781420147056

London, 1822. Graeme Kendrick has a job to do—one that requires concentration, stealth, and no small amount of footwork. When Lady Sabrina Bell comes into the picture, however, all three of those are disrupted. Headstrong and unused to being denied, Lady Sabrina has her own agenda, but when danger looms she finds Graeme’s next assignment is by her side. As the two navigate from London’s thieves to Edinburgh’s pickpockets and on into the Highlands, they’ll find more in common than they expected—including a penchant for trouble. Will the stubborn pair be able to set aside their opposing plans and work together?

Will Graeme or his family prove more irascible in the fight for his heart?

The Highlander’s English Bride is the third in Kelly’s Clan Kendrick series, and while it gives a nod to the earlier stories, the story has been well-crafted to stand either in line or independently. The book reads at times as a modern twist on a Regency Romance, but it is enjoyable nonetheless, and this reader will be circling back to start the series at the top.

Anna Bennett

THE POTENTIAL FOR LOVE

Catherine Kullmann, Willow, 2020, $15.73/ C$21.55/£11.99, pb, 413pp, 9798623380326

Just returned from service on the continent, Major Thomas Ferraunt finds himself attracted to Arabella Malvin. But she is the daughter of a viscount, while he is the son of their rector, and despite friendship between the families, the social gap is daunting.

Events, however, unfold favorably. He rescues her from drowning in a swollen stream, learns

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that his financial situation is better than he thought, and is delighted when she accepts his tentative proposal. Then he unexpectedly becomes heir to an earldom.

For her part, Arabella is attracted to her rescuer, but she is constrained by strict conventions: he must take the initiative and secure the approval of her family. Moreover, she wants, if not a love match, one with at least ‘the potential for love’ marked by mutual respect and genuine consideration for each other’s views. Thomas meets this standard; the controlling Lord Henry Danlow does not.

He does not take rejection well, however, and he proves increasingly vindictive as well as arrogant.

Social context is more fully developed than in most Regencies, and the author adds to the sense of authenticity by skilfully integrating traditional customs of the era into her story.

This focuses upon the problems facing young women in their search for a suitable life partner: how to resolve the conflict between personal needs and social obligations, while reaching a decision based on limited information. The villain’s later conduct is more appropriate to stage melodrama than the novel form, but the heroine is brave and resourceful, the hero gallant and willing to learn, and the insights are perceptive. Very satisfying. And, one might add, the sinister figure of the male who abuses his position of wealth and power to mistreat and control women remains far too common today. Strongly recommended.

Ray Thompson

FOOTPRINTS IN THE SAND

Pam Lecky, independently published, 2019, $11.20/£8.00, pb, 300pp, 9798612377009

Cairo, 1887. This Victorian murder mystery capitalizes on the early years of Egyptology’s atmosphere of intrepid exploration. The English heroine, Lucy Lawrence, met in a prior book, has money and independence, and plans to use them both. She meets a handsome French archaeologist, who she decides not only to aid financially, but she also follows him to Egypt in order to take part in the digs. When he winds up murdered, she has no one to trust and everyone to suspect.

This book doesn’t get to the dead body soon enough. The build is slow, perhaps to get the reader attached to the victim, but the first third of the book feels aimless. Once we have a corpse, things pick up. The settings of opulent hotels are fun to indulge in, both in France and in Cairo, but the author also makes it seem enchanting to be out in the desert in a tent. The details of the artefacts are lovely, and those who have the same love for Egyptology will likely enjoy the book.

There is brief discussion of the looting of the artefacts—something that modern readers might have strong feelings about. It is mentioned that the French plundered a great deal under Napoleon, and that during this period, the British also were conducting digs in order to take those pieces back to England.

There is sympathy of the main character 30

towards the country of Egypt maintaining its own cultural integrity; however, no overt discussion. While historic frames of mind felt differently, this modern reader appreciated the nod to the cultural damage colonial empires perpetrated. Overall, a fun read if you can stick with it.

Katie Stine

AMERICAN FOLLIES

Norman Lock, Bellevue Literary Press, 2020, $16.99/£12.99, pb, 288pp, 9781942658481

In 1883, stenographer Ellen Finch must lie about having an infant son to obtain an audience with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Formerly a stenographer for writer Henry James, Sarah wishes to provide a similar service to the two women. She soon begins to enjoy the banter between Anthony and Canton as they stump for women’s suffrage and the use of alcohol.

They befriend a midget who performs with Barnum’s Circus. When Ellen Finch’s son is kidnapped by the Klan, the three women use the circus train as it travels east from New York to Memphis. Because Ellen’s son was of a “dark complexion,” it is the Klan’s desire to punish Elizabeth Stanton for “championing miscegenation and free love”; therefore, the child is to be sacrificed at the foot of a fiery cross.

American Follies is the seventh book in the American Novels series, and a standalone work. The author brings to life the two suffragists, Anthony and Stanton, with a kind of comic opera dialog between the two. The story is fiction, but it describes the women’s early voting rights movement along with the racial prejudice that existed at the time. The historical characters, especially Ellen Finch, the protagonist, blend nicely with the fictional ones. I found this book to be a thoroughly worthwhile read.

Jeff Westerhoff

FOUNDING SHERIFF

Edward Massey, Five Star, 2020, $25.95, hb, 336pp, 9781432876432

In 1865, Luke Simms is the sheriff in Coalville, located in Summit County of Utah Territory.

At a nearby ranch, Fisk Scales murders his wife while she is in bed asleep. He then leaves the ranch in her grandmother’s buggy. Sheriff Simms eventually captures him. He wants to bring the man to trial, knowing that justice in the small town of Coalville is difficult. He is threatened with vigilantes led by the town marshal who want to hang Scales. There is also the threat of a possible Indian attack led

by Black Hawk. Along with these issues, a hellon-wheels has settled nearby, which introduces a new set of problems for the sheriff.

This novel is a prequel to Fugitive Sheriff which occurs in 1883. Luke Simms is a likable character as he attempts to keep a promise to the murdered woman’s mother. Unfortunately, the execution of Scales will take several years to accomplish. This character-driven story

REVIEWS | Issue 93, August 2020

provides drama but little action. I did find it a pleasure to read, though, especially the interactions between the sheriff and his constituents as he tries to find closure for the mother of the murdered ranch woman.

Jeff Westerhoff

THE WINTER COMPANION

Mimi Matthews, Perfectly Proper, 2020, $16.99/ C$22.49, pb, 316pp, 9781733056953

1860. Unlike his three childhood companions, Neville Cross, the fourth of the Parish Orphans in this series, has little expectation of finding love and marriage.

The head injury he suffered in childhood has impacted his ability to put thoughts into words, with the result that many deride him as mentally defective. Understandably, he is more comfortable with animals, but when Clara Hartwright, a lady’s companion, intrudes into his refuge in the stables to ask his help to care for her aged dog during her employer’s visit, he finds himself irresistibly drawn to her. Clara is attracted to him too, and the relationship progresses steadily, but she must balance her personal feelings against obligations to her employer on the one hand and to her family on the other. She also hopes one day to find a more intellectually fulfilling career as her brother’s secretary. For his part, Neville believes he is in no position to marry. Dare they risk security, however unsatisfying, for a chance at love?

As usual, Matthews has done excellent research: the rigid class and economic divisions, the double standards in the treatment of men and women, Clara’s experience ‘shadowattending’ Cambridge through her brother, and the plight of Dartmoor ponies, all offer keen insights into life in the Victorian era.

And the author’s description of the symptoms of Neville’s brain injury gains intensity from personal experience. The issues explored, moreover, remain as pressing as ever, especially prejudice against those who are marked as different and the casual assumption of privilege, regardless of its consequences.

A worthy conclusion to a fine series. Highly recommended.

Ray Thompson

TO COOK A BEAR

Mikael Niemi (trans. Deborah Bragan-Turner), MacLehose Press, 2020, £16.99, hb, 442p, 9780857058928

1852: A young girl disappears from the remote community of Pajala in northern Sweden, near the border with Finland. When her body is found, it bears what appear to be the marks of a bear’s claws, and the hunt is on.

The revivalist pastor and botanist, Lars Levi Laestadius, the possessor of a scientific eye and a forensic sense of smell, has a different theory and the evidence to prove it. However, as far as the drunken and boorish Sheriff Brahe is concerned, when a bear is caught and killed, the case is closed. Then another young woman disappears.

The novel is narrated by Jussi, the young Sami boy Laestadius rescued from starvation

and abuse, and whom he teaches to read and write. The pastor’s uncompromising fervour and stand against the drunkenness that blights his parishioners’ lives have already gained him enemies, but when it becomes clear just how much Laestadius has discovered about the evil stalking the community, his becomes an existential struggle with the powers of darkness, in which Jussi is a vulnerable target for the pastor’s enemies. Also of Sami descent, Laestadius (1800-1861), his wife Brita Kajsa, and the Sami woman Milla Clementsdottir, whose influence led to the pastor’s conversion, are all historical figures, but in the novel Laestadius’s powers of observation as a botanist also translate seamlessly and convincingly into those of a detective.

This is far more than an exquisitely plotted crime novel with a shattering conclusion, though as that alone it succeeds completely.

It is also a portrait of a landscape, a vanished way of life and in the lengths Jussi goes to tell his own story, a testament to the enduring power of the written word.

Katherine Mezzacappa

NEVER LET GO

Pamela Nowak, Five Star, 2020, $25.95, hb, 478pp, 9781432872434

Between 1848 and 1856, five women from different backgrounds marry and begin learning how to deal with the hardships of becoming frontier wives. Laura Duley marries a man who is more interested in politics, but has few friends; Lavinia Eastwick marries a farmer whose goal is to acquire farmland; Almena Hurd becomes an expert buttermaker; Christina Koch and her husband are German immigrants; and Julia Wright regrets her marriage to a man who illegally sells whisky to the Indians.

Even though each married and traveled west from their homes in Minnesota, they all eventually wind up near Lake Shetek in Minnesota in 1862. An Indian war breaks out, and the five families are faced with capture.

Native Americans White Lodge and Lean Bear of the Santee Dakota join their bands together and attack the white settlements in Minnesota and capture the women and children. A Foot Soldiers band of the Lakota tribe located further west oppose the Santee Dakota and attempt to rescue the captured women and children.

This novel is a sad commentary of how women were used and mistreated as they led, in many instances, lonely lives on the frontier. The author describes the experience of these five women using each chapter as a timeline which, of course, ends with the capture of several of the women. Fortunately, the author provides maps of the area and a cast of characters, which I had to refer to occasionally. The book is based on actual events, and the author knows the geography of the area and its history.

Jeff Westerhoff

THE DEVIL’S ROAD

Jean-Pierre Ohl (trans. Mike Mitchell), Dedalus, 2019, £12.99/$17.99, pb, 351pp, 9781910213933

When a gloomy pool is drained in March 1824 to make way for the Stockton-toDarlington Railway, a skeleton is revealed with a dagger still stuck between its ribs. The coat-of-arms on the knife suggests the corpse might belong to Mathilde, the French wife of Lord Beresford, who went missing twenty years previously. Indolent, madeira-loving lawyer Edward Bailey is tasked with uncovering the truth, along with his imperturbable clerk Snegg. But nothing is quite as it seems.

This enjoyable novel is billed as a Dickensian romp and an exposé of the issues surrounding the industrialisation of early 19th-century England. The cast includes several real-life figures (George Stephenson, a 12-year-old Charles Dickens, and even a cameo appearance by Lord Byron), as well as fictitious ones, and at least one borrowed from Bleak House. The characters are not as exaggerated as Dickens’s, but are more realistic as a result. Edward’s relationship with Snegg seems to owe something to Jeeves and Wooster.

Occasionally, because the cast is so large, I lost track of who the minor characters were, and some of the subplots seem to have been included to make political points, rather than to contribute to the main narrative. I was also slightly distracted by occasional proofreading errors (mainly missing or misplaced speech marks) and there are some anachronisms (neither the modern police force nor Durham University existed in the first decades of the 19th century, and references to 17th-century serfs would be correct in France, but not in England). Lord Beresford is repeatedly and erroneously referred as Lord Robert (he is a baron, not the son of a higher-ranking peer).

Nonetheless this is a lively read, brightened by wry humour, and might be worth a second reading in order to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together and spot the hidden clues.

Jasmina Svenne

A PROMISE ON THE HORIZON

Ann Pearson, Granville Island Publishing, 2019, $22.95/C$24.95, pb, 309pp, 9781989467022

A Promise on the Horizon is a beautifully written novel about two French travelers in the Napoleonic Italy of 1811. Henri Beyle, later to become famous as Stendhal, is an official in the Napoleonic bureaucracy, bored with his position, who travels to Italy to revisit the places he had loved as a young soldier ten years before, and to see Rome, which he had always longed to visit. The fictitious Marie Vernet, a woman whose noble family was torn apart by the French Revolution, has recently come into an inheritance, and takes the courageous step of traveling alone, which is unusual for a woman of that time.

They travel together in the public coach, but then take different paths until they meet up again towards the end of the book. Henri

pursues women, especially a married Milanese beauty named Angela, while Marie finds herself attracted to Larocque, a man who is her social inferior. Both protagonists discover a love of Italian art. Henri encourages Marie to defy social convention and declare her love for Larocque. But will Marie, who has braved the perils of traveling alone through Italy, be equally as courageous in matters of the heart?

Pearson’s descriptions of Napoleonic Italy are exquisitely beautiful, and she makes the society come to life for the reader: the countryside, the cities, the art galleries, and the opera houses. Told in alternating sections by the two protagonists, the novel provides contrasting male and female viewpoints and highlights the difficulties of female travelers at the time. Henri, as a man, has much more freedom than Marie in what he is allowed to experience. The two characters also provide contrasting views of the Napoleonic regime: Henri thinks Napoleon will modernize Italy, while Marie sees the death and destruction the regime has brought. Highly recommended.

Vicki Kondelik

THE MASTER’S NEW GOVERNESS

Eliza Redgold, Harlequin, 2020, $6.50/C$7.50, pb, 288pp, 9781335505491

1885. Employment prospects blighted by dismissal without references, governess Maud Wilmot goes in place of her recently married sister (also a governess) to a post at Pendragon Hall in Cornwall. Despite initial challenges, her imaginative teaching techniques endear her to timid, six-year-old Rosabel, and her relationship with the widowed Sir Dominic Jago is ripening into love before disaster strikes.

Her former employer comes upon her alone in the woods, first threatening her, then, when Dominic arrives, accusing her of having made sexual advances to him.

Desperately, she struggles against a panic attack and attempts to defend herself, but, as the sinister Lord Melville sneered after raping her, ‘No one will believe your story’.

Will Dominic?

This romance stands out for three main reasons. First, it is inspired by Tennyson’s poem Maud, which offers suggestive parallels.

Second, the symbolism of butterflies, used to teach science, and to provide not only a source for stories that both entertain and instruct, but also an imaginative escape and coping mechanism for Maud after her trauma. Third, mistreatment and sexual exploitation of those in vulnerable situations have been a threat

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for not only Victorian governesses, but many throughout history. It persists, sadly enough.

Highly recommended.

Ray Thompson

A DUKE, THE LADY, AND A BABY

Vanessa Riley, Kensington, 2020, $15.95/ C$21.95, pb, 312pp, 9781420152234

First in a new series, Rogues and Remarkable Women, this Regency opens with AfroCaribbean widow Patience Jordan’s dilemma.

Her husband, Colin, has committed suicide, abandoning her and their baby, Lionel, at Hamlin Hall under the cruel auspices of Colin’s gambling partner, Markham, who imprisons her. She escapes to The Widow’s Grace, and with their help she returns in male disguise to Hamlin, only to meet up with Colin’s heir, the Duke Busick Strathmore, who claims Lionel as his ward. After Patience’s disguise is revealed, Busick hires her as a nanny for Lionel, and as such, they become allies in the search for a secret diary holding the truth behind Colin’s suicide and Markham’s possible rights to their property and Lionel. Meanwhile, the Duke is encumbered by an amputated limb and shrapnel in his spine, wounds suffered during the Napoleonic Wars. While assisting him and tending to baby Lionel’s needs, Patience finds herself and the Duke entangled in a romantic web of truth, lies, and unrevealed secrets.

The novel is unique for its multicultural perspective as Patience battles the constraints of British Regency society and longs for the freedom of her native shores, Demarara.

The reader learns that “mulattoes” and “Blackamoors” numbered from ten to twenty thousand in England at the time of the Regency. Wealthy plantation owners brought their mixed-race children to England to be educated and to marry. Vanessa Riley schools readers through her page-turning narrative about a woman caught in a culture not of her birth, yet drawn to a kind and loving man with a title.

Gini Grossenbacher

THE FIGURE IN THE PHOTOGRAPH

Kevin Sullivan, Allison & Busby, 2020, £16.99, hb, 352pp, 9780749025311

The novel begins in Cuba at the end of the 19th century, during the war between America and Spain over the future of the island, and during an uprising of local rebels. If the reader is expecting an historical novel based in Cuba, however, they will be disappointed, as the action swiftly moves to Glasgow. The main characters are Juan Cameron, of Spanish and Scottish descent, and his father (Spanish) who has been commissioned, by the publisher William Collins, to photograph architecturally important buildings of Cuba.

Juan has been his father’s apprentice for a long time and knows the job almost as well.

They also encounter on the island Juan’s father’s cousin and his wife, who manage the 32

family estate, and Robert McLellan, a local doctor, and his wife Effie, who later gives Juan an introduction to Marjorie Jane McGregor, a young lady in Glasgow. Due to several tragic events, Juan comes into possession of the island estate, but also has an idea for creating a series of photographs using a mechanical timer. Juan moves to Glasgow and becomes involved in the case of The Gorbals serial killer through the use of his new device. He positions one camera in the upstairs window of a bank, and the other in his hotel set to take a picture every 45 minutes. He meets Marjorie Jane, and she becomes interested in his photography and wants to help.

I enjoyed this story and found it to be a page-turning read; the forensic descriptions, especially of Glasgow and the photographic methods, are to be expected from a former journalist originating in Scotland. If there were to be another mystery to solve, I would enjoy reading another story about Juan Cameron, detective photographer.

Julie Parker

THE RETURN OF THE WOLF

Larry D. Sweazy, Five Star, 2020, $25.99, hb, 300pp, 9781432868925

There wasn’t much to keep Josiah Wolfe in the Texas Rangers or in Austin once his wife and daughters died. Besides, he had a place back in East Texas that still seemed like home, a good spot to raise his little son. The only problem was, he was walking into a war.

Two families, the Langdons and the Halversons, are hard at work gobbling up vacant land in the county while many of the honest folk pull up stakes and move on. Josiah would just like to be left alone, but his wife was a Halverson. On the other hand, now a Langdon daughter steps into the picture when she shows Josiah that not everyone in that family is vicious. After a confused confrontation that leaves a local lawman shot dead, Josiah’s old Ranger unit rides in to restore law and order.

But things are never that easy, are they?

Larry Sweazy has a knack for making down-to-earth characters who are imperfect enough to be believable and humble enough to engender sympathy. The writing is smooth, the pacing feels right, and the scenes transition naturally from one to the next. While the novel doesn’t take the reader on a heart-pounding thrill ride or answer the great moral questions of the day, it does something equally important— presenting a realistic character who acts in the finest traditions of the Ranger service.

Loyd Uglow

ISLANDS OF MERCY

Rose Tremain, Chatto & Windus, 2020, £18.99, hb, 368pp, 9781784743314

Bath, 1865 – Clorinda Morrissey, aged 38 and a spinster, has left her home of Dublin to try her fortune in England. After unfulfilling and tedious work in a milliner’s shop, she takes the plunge and sells her only item of value – a ruby necklace family heirloom – and opens a tea room in the bustling spa town. Here she

REVIEWS | Issue 93, August 2020

finds her metier and looks to becoming a part of Bath society, exercising her Celtic charms.

One day in her tea room, there is a proposal of marriage made by a well-known Bath physician, Valentine Ross, who works for the esteemed doctor Sir William Adeane; Ross asks Adeane’s daughter, Jane who works as a nurse for her father. The proposal is swiftly rejected, which leads to Jane’s abrupt departure from Bath to live with her bohemian Aunt Emmeline in London, while Ross is dejected and depressed. The disruption to and neglect of Dr Adeane’s household leads to Clorinda agreeing, a little reluctantly, to provide some meals for the distracted Dr Adeane.

Meanwhile in Borneo, Ross’s brother Edmund, a naturalist, is laid low with a severe attack of malaria while collecting specimens. In London, Jane has a surprising sensuous experience that changes her whole perspective on life, while Clorinda’s arrival in Sir William’s house has further personal implications for both of them.

The pace of the novel is managed excellently, as one would expect in a novelist of the calibre of Rose Tremain. The author often has a rather jaundiced view of human motivations and behaviour, allied to a forensic eye for their weaknesses and their shabby motivations; some of the characters in the story (the men mostly) are irredeemably unpleasant. The historical content, particularly the Victorian city of Bath and its spa, is excellently delineated, and makes for an intelligent, thoughtful story, though elements of the conclusion of the novel, particularly with regard to Jane Adeane, felt a little rushed or contrived.

Douglas Kemp

THE TASTE OF SUGAR

Marisel Vera, Liveright, 2020, $26.95, hb, 384pp, 9781631497735

Reading The Taste of Sugar will make you hang your head over what America has done to Puerto Rico these past 100+ years: the exploitation and land-grabbing and broken promises and treatment of its residents like animals or worse, like human chattel to enrich the white man’s bank account. If your insides don’t twist with shame and anger as you read what could be a beautiful love story—what should be that— but instead lays bare how white privilege, greed, and patriarchy shatter brown lives and destroy good people’s dreams—then you have only a dark void where your soul should be.

The story begins just before the turn of the 20th century when the adventuresome 17-yearold Valentina meets the handsome young coffee farmer Vicente Vega. Valentina, who

dreams of Paris, gives herself over to the hard life of a farmer’s wife. Vicente is passionate about two things: coffee and Valentina, and their love sustains them through the hard times that follow.

When the island’s oppressor, Spain, loses the Spanish-American War, American rule turns out to be even more crushing. A hurricane demolishes the Vegas’ farm, and no help is forthcoming from the U.S. government—does this sound familiar? Unable to earn a living, Vicente and Valentina move to Hawaii to work in the sugar cane fields, lured by promises of a better life. Instead they must work in brutal conditions and live in squalor and filth, too poor to leave. What they do next is breathtaking, a testament to human resilience, and pitchperfect in the #BlackLivesMatter era. Brown lives matter, too.

This beautiful, inspiring tale of love and courage had me rooting and cheering for the characters, longing to read more by Marisel Vera, and yes, hanging my head in shame over our treatment of the people of Puerto Rico. I highly recommend it.

Sherry Jones

THE QUEEN’S COLONIAL

Peter Watt, Pan Macmillan Australia/Trafalgar Square, 2020 (c2018), $15.95/C$20.95, pb, 398pp, 9781760781095

Set in England and on the Crimean Peninsula in the 1850s, The Queen’s Colonial introduces blacksmith Ian Steele, who takes the place of Samuel Forbes, a young aristocrat, to satisfy the terms of an English inheritance based on ten years of army service. On a chance acquaintance in New South Wales, the two men remark on their striking resemblance.

They could be brothers, but their hopes and dreams are very different. Ian longs to serve in the Queen’s army, and Samuel wants to relocate quietly to America. As Ian is groomed to take Samuel’s place, he is warned that he will face more danger from family than on any battlefield, but it isn’t until Ian meets the vindictive father and ruthless older brother, Charles, that he fully understands! Ian relies on his academic learning of warfare when he takes up his army commission but believes in his destiny to lead men into battle, and it turns out he’s good at it. Charles’s murderous intent stalks Ian at every turn, in England and across land and sea to the Crimea.

Judging by the title and cover, this could be an historical war novel, but it quickly becomes an engrossing family saga full of Watt’s interesting characterisations weaving in and out of the story, enduring the vagaries and ironies of life. Previous animosities become friendships, and trust and loyalty are built on shaky ground. Watt spares us nothing regarding the conditions on and off the battlefield – the filth, cholera, rats, lice, blood, the incompetence of the British generals and the shocking loss of life. My only complaint is the map, printed so badly as to be unreadable.

This novel will have wide appeal, but it leaves lots of loose threads to be picked up in the next

book, The Queen’s Tiger. Something to look forward to!

Fiona Alison

AT LOVE’S COMMAND

Karen Witemeyer, Bethany House, 2020, $15.99/C$19.79, pb, 384pp, 9780764232077 Sickened by their participation in the massacre of the Lakota at Wounded Knee in 1890, Captain Matthew Hanger and his three devoted friends retire from the US Cavalry in order to defend the innocent and preserve justice. When one of them stops a bullet, they bring him to the local doctor, but he turns out to be a she: Dr. Jo, not Joe. Not only does she prove her skill, however, but she and Matt share an instant attraction. Learning that her brother is being held for ransom, she hires the Horsemen to rescue him, and attraction grows into love.

There is plenty of action, though the Horsemen are careful to spare lives whenever possible, and insights into the challenges confronting a woman practicing medicine in 1890s Texas, but the main focus is upon the struggle of Matt and Jo to trust in God to determine their fate, rather than themselves.

As their situation grows more desperate, Biblical quotations become more frequent and the tone more didactic.

Those looking for idealized heroes vanquishing black-hearted villains and a comforting religious message that redemption is available, even amidst the bleakest adversity, will be gratified.

Ray Thompson

THE NOT SO QUIET LIFE OF CALAMITY JANE

K. Lyn Wurth, Five Star, 2020, $25.95, hb, 286pp, 9781432871352

In 1862 in Missouri, Martha Jane Cannary is six, the oldest sister to crying baby brothers and sisters. Her often absent mother craves whiskey and dancing, and scratches coins from begging and the occasional dalliances with strange men. Her father is away even more frequently, gambling to earn drinking money and whatever he can bring home with him on the occasional visit. Martha Jane tries her best to care for her desperate siblings.

Two years later, things seem to improve as Pa wins enough to outfit a wagon to take the family out to the new and golden West. But good things never seem to last for Martha Jane. So, at eight years old, the little girl who will be known as Calamity Jane starts on her course to becoming one of her new country’s most colorful and often tragic figures. She works hard to keep her family together even when her unreliable parents don’t seem to care. And if she can’t care for them, she finds good people who will, or so she hopes. As time passes, she succumbs to drink herself along with becoming a thief, outrageous liar, brawler, and occasional prostitute. Yet

Calamity is also an angel to sick men, a boon to beggars, a sure shooting gun hand, a soldier, Wild West Show star, and a devoted sister and mother.

Written in an earthy and poignant style from Calamity’s perspective, this novel succeeds in bringing her story to life in all its robust hellraising, along with its melancholy tragedies. The author excels and makes the reader care deeply about this American legend of the West. Recommended.

Thomas J. Howley

20TH CENTURY

DEATH AND THE DEAR DOCTOR

Valerie Fletcher Adolph, Valerie Adolph, 2020, $14.99, pb, 318pp, 9780968674741

Yorkshire, 1947. While on the run from an abusive husband, Trudy Bickerstaff meets Alice and Alastair Mackie, proprietors of a private home for the elderly. Alice is warm and inviting, while Alastair prefers a bottle and his grouchy moods. Hired on to help, Trudy meets the eclectic collection of residents who live at the home as she settles cautiously into her new life, but when Alastair turns up poisoned, both Trudy and Alice are instantly suspected of his death. With Trudy’s husband at her heels demanding her back, nosy housemates underfoot and a handsome and mysterious doctor on call, Alice and Trudy must piece together the confusing clues and clear their names.

Filled with quirky village life and a wide cast of interesting characters, Death and the Dear Doctor is a fast and easy read with an abundance of trouble, poison, and twists and turns. Each chapter alternates in point of view between Alice and Trudy, both of whom are clear but busy narrators, so the reader can experience each unique perspective as the pair tumbles into danger as amateur sleuths.

But the switching also had me struggling to fully connect with what was happening.

Perhaps because of this, I felt the urgency waned in spots, and a few details seemed overlooked. Overall, though, the case is solved to satisfaction, with a few surprises and quite a lot of personality along the way, leaving the new pair of lady detectives eagerly waiting for their next case.

Holly Faur

LOST BOY FOUND

Kirsten Alexander, Grand Central, 2020, $16.99, pb, 350pp, 9781538700563

John Henry Davenport and his wife, Mary, are the most prominent couple in Opelousas, Louisiana. On a summer day in 1913, their three boys scamper off into a nearby forest.

Four-year-old Sonny does not come home with his older brothers. Two years later, Sonny’s look-alike is found wandering with an itinerant piano tuner in Alabama. John Henry and Mary identify the boy as Sonny and take

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him home. Unwed housekeeper Grace Mill claims the boy is her own son, Ned. Is the found boy Sonny or Ned? Did the piano turner steal Sonny, or did Grace let him take her Ned for a spell? The local newspaper, the Davenport household staff, town’s people, the sheriff, the two Davenport sons, and the town judge all take sides. A jury trial of the piano tuner for kidnapping brings out the best and worst from all involved. Many powerful scenes explore brutal Southern society, corrupt leaders of this small town, loss of a child and motherhood.

Unfortunately, several significant aspects undermine the novel’s full potential. Chunks of back story and lengthy descriptions stall the pace of the main plot lines. The legal proceedings, from pre-trial activities to the jury trial, deliberations and verdict, are contrived.

The trial’s surprise ending leaves important questions unresolved.

A real-life boy, Bobby Dunbar, who disappeared in 1912 and was “found” with a tramp two years later, inspired Alexander to write this novel. That tramp was convicted of kidnapping but released after a successful appeal. Decades later DNA tests confirmed no blood relationship between Bobby’s descendants and the wealthy Dunbar family.

Alexander’s fictionalized version might have developed a similar and hence more plausible resolution.

G. J. Berger

MEET ME IN BOMBAY

Jenny Ashcroft, Sphere, £7.99, pb, 370pp, 9780751573220 / St. Martin’s, 2021, $26.99, hb, 352pp, 9781250270269

This is an intensely gripping story that takes you on a journey of past, present and the future. Maddy is swept off her feet by the mysterious stranger she sees at a sweltering New Year’s Eve Party in 1913. Luke is a friend of a friend and is determined to make Maddy deliriously happy for the rest of her life. But the tidings of war bring worry and separations that have consequences for years afterwards.

The author uses Bombay’s ancient traditions of exotic spices, intense heat and Indian-British history as her backdrop for this fraught quest for love. As the story goes on, the heat of the atmosphere brings out the warmth from the characters themselves. You feel emotionally connected to each character even though there are sides, since there are realistic consequences for all if the other choice was made. Most of all, you want to see the happiness of the protagonists Maddy and Luke when sometimes it feels nigh-on impossible.

The novel is planned out with different times, always going back to the present issues. The author creates a sensational world that will remain with the reader after the final page has been turned.

Clare Lehovsky

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FLORENCE ADLER SWIMS FOREVER

Rachel Beanland, Simon & Schuster, 2020, $25.99, hb, 320pp, 9781982132460

Atlantic City, 1934. On a fine June day, Florence Adler, training to swim the English Channel, dives into the ocean and disappears beneath the waves. Left on the beach are her parents, Esther and Joseph; her adoring young niece, Gussie; and a young German woman named Anna, who is staying with the Adlers while Joseph helps her negotiate the Byzantine immigration process. As Esther and Joseph bury Florence, they spin an elaborate deception intended to shield their other daughter, Fannie, pregnant and at hospital bedrest, from the tragic news. The secrets and lies insulate Fannie but eventually cocoon the entire Adler family.

The story’s setting further smothers them: Esther, Joseph, Gussie, and Anna are ensconced in a tiny apartment, Gussie sleeping in its hot, sometimes suffocating, sunporch, while Fannie is tucked away in a hospital room and her ne’er-do-well husband, Isaac, lives alone, his own lies and shifty business dealings further isolating him from the family.

It is Stuart, Florence’s friend and swim coach, who brings in light and fresh air. Though he keeps the Adlers’ secret, he lives outside their cocoon. His easygoing nature and his work as a lifeguard shifts both mood and setting from gloom to daylight. As co-founder of a club that includes only him, Anna, and Gussie, he helps Gussie keep track of the family’s “story” and forms ties with Anna that promise to bring her and the Adlers through their terrible ordeals.

Ensemble stories like this, with eight fully developed, intertwining main characters, can become unwieldy; but Beanland’s narrative, cleverly divided by timeline and character, flows beautifully, allows for enriching backstory, and draws the reader into an intimate family drama based on the life and tragic death of the author’s great-great-aunt, Florence Lowenthal. A lovely story, skillfully created. A triumph. Highly recommended.

Rebecca Kightlinger

NO SMALL SHAME

Christine Bell, Impact, 2020, A$32.99, pb, 396pp, 9781920727901

When fifteen-year-old Mary O’Donnell emigrates from Scotland to Australia in 1914, she’s hoping to taste a thin wedge of freedom, like a good pie—and to be reunited with her childhood crush, Liam Merrilees. But Liam has lost the fire in his eyes, though not his self-

REVIEWS | Issue 93, August 2020

involvement, and he’s a brute. Mary’s mother has flattened her all her life, and her daughter accepts this as her lot. The resulting narrative is largely predictable.

Yet the novel works, more or less, because Mary struggles to slip between the Catholic hellfire she’s learned to fear and the life she’s dreamed of leading. Her awakening from masochism won’t happen overnight, nor will the world spin any differently for it, but Mary’s interior journey is far less predictable than her exterior one. As background, First World War Australia suffers high prices, poor wages, bloodletting overseas, and strife between Catholic and Protestant, which Mary’s mother relishes. She’s a piece of work.

Mary’s well drawn, if uneven, for her slow transformation to selfhood follows a shaky arc. Liam, though predictable, has enough edges for two, and he wants to do better but can’t. He’s never learned to move past self-pity or reckon with who he is, and it’s sad. (Too bad Bell tries to redeem him, which I don’t believe.)

The children in these pages are idealized, not like any I’ve ever met. Ditto Tom, a Protestant friend of Mary’s, who holds a candle for her, which she’s remarkably slow to recognize. He’s a nice guy but cardboard.

Nevertheless, No Small Shame is unusual among First World War novels with a female protagonist. Mary’s neither nurse nor bandage roller nor factory worker nor her country’s soul, keeping the home fires burning. I like that.

Despite its flaws, I think this novel is worth reading.

Larry Zuckerman

THE VANISHING HALF

Brit Bennett, Riverhead, 2020, $27.00/C$26.00, hb, 343pp, 9780525536291

Brit Bennett’s second novel, a national bestseller, deserves all the attention it’s been getting.

Spanning over three decades, from the Jim Crow South through 1980s California, it centers on two sisters and their daughters, and how American society’s intense focus on skin color warps the natural course of their lives.

Desiree and Stella Vignes are twins: identical, but not alike. They come of age in 1950s Mallard, Louisiana, a Black farming community too small for any map, and whose residents take pride in the lightness of their complexions.

At sixteen, both girls flee their hometown for New Orleans—they have reasons—and their lives diverge not long after. By 1968, after an abusive marriage, Desiree returns to Mallard with her “blueblack” daughter, Jude, whose presence stands out and startles everyone in

town. After cutting herself off from her past, Stella, meanwhile, has successfully passed into white society and lives with her white husband and blonde daughter, Kennedy, in a wealthy LA neighborhood. When Jude and Kennedy happen to meet as young women—in a way that manages not to feel contrived—it has major repercussions.

Bennett draws her characters with empathy while making their flaws very plain; the story depicts a variety of relationships especially well and packs a punch with its emotional realness.

The story movingly explores contemporary issues of race and gender identity and the costs incurred when abandoning one’s earlier life for a new, different persona. The dialogue feels pitch-perfect, and the story moves with engrossing momentum as the mystery builds about whether Stella’s carefully built lies will unravel. This is an outstanding work of fiction, a thought-provoking literary saga that everyone should read.

Sarah Johnson

RED MISTRESS

Elizabeth Blackwell, Lake Union, 2020, $10.99, pb, 286pp, 9781542006514

Born the daughter of a minor Russian noble, Nadia Shulkina comes of age in the social upheaval of the aftermath of the Russian Revolution.

To protect her brother, an officer in the collapsing Imperial Army, she marries Alek, a committed Bolshevik who was an acquaintance of her uncle prior to the Revolution.

She tries to survive as the USSR is established, finding work as an artist and translator. Then she meets Lee Cooper, a young Englishman who introduces himself as a socialist journalist, and begins to feel free.

Elizabeth Blackwell structures Red Mistress by splicing Nadia’s life as a Soviet wife with the correspondence of the British pre-war intelligence service. The novel moves from the Shulkina country estate to post-revolutionary Moscow to 1920s Paris and 1930s England, and spans Nadia’s life from her preteen years to her late thirties. It is loosely a comingof-age novel, and Nadia develops subtly in her marriage. The reader can feel close to her and distant from her, all at once. The foreshadowing set up by its structure propels the story along and balances the first-person narration.

Red Mistress is a gem of a historical novel, accessibly offering one possible perspective on the aftermath of a historical event, the Russian Revolution, that is less examined among Western readers. It is a perfect

balance against the “lost princess Anastasia” narratives. Blackwell has built a detached and realistic, but sympathetic heroine. I found myself wishing the story didn’t have to end.

Recommended for fans of early 20thcentury history, and for those who wonder what followed the fall of the Romanovs.

Irene Colthurst

THE LAST MRS. SUMMERS

Rhys Bowen, Berkley, 2020, $26.00, hb, 304pp, 9780451492876

England, 1935. Georgie, cousin to the King of England and a newlywed, finds herself with time on her hands when her husband leaves for a secret assignment (she suspects he works undercover for the government). As luck would have it, her old friend Belinda WarburtonStoke stops by and invites her along for the ride to see White Sails, a house on the Cornish coast that Belinda’s late grandmother has left her. White Sails is remote, with enough dark, creepy corners and stairways to please the most discerning of gothic fiction fans.

However, most of the action takes place not at White Sails but at the equally gothic Trewoma Hall, home of a childhood acquaintance of Belinda’s. The members of Trewoma’s household are clearly based on Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca: the gauche young wife (Belinda’s acquaintance); her wealthy playboy husband whose sophisticated, beautiful former wife died under suspicious circumstances; and a housekeeper who is obsessively devoted to the first wife and dismissive of the second. Bowen adds some clever twists to the Rebecca framework, but I wish she would have deviated further from it. All the same, this is a delightful mystery that kept me guessing, with an interesting, sympathetic protagonist. I was confused by the many characters introduced at the beginning, so I recommend starting with the first book in the series. Bowen is a skilled writer, and mystery fans won’t be disappointed.

Clarissa Harwood

BLACK SUN RISING

Matthew Carr, Pegasus Crime, 2020, $25.95, hb, 368pp, 9781643134246

Soon after an anarchist detonates a bomb in a Barcelona café, British private investigator Harry Lawton is hired to investigate a suspicious financial transaction made by one of the victims days before. Schooled, if rusty, in Spanish because of his Chilean/Mapuche heritage and experienced as a former police detective sergeant, war veteran, and fist fighter, Lawton seems ideally suited for the assignment. Complicating his work, however, are his sudden and unexpected seizures and disturbing recollections of brutalities he witnessed during the Boer War. Black Sun Rising recalls Barcelona’s La Semana Tragica (The Tragic Week) that pitted anarchists, republicans, and socialists against the Spanish army in violent confrontations between July 26 and August

2, 1909. The novel also features principal players in the conflict: journalist Alejandro Lerroux, inspector Manuel Bravo Portillo, and anarchist/educator Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia.

Fictional storylines plant seeds of the Aryanism, eugenics, and racial stereotyping that will explode decades later in WWII and advancements in medical science that eventually make blood transfusions a standard part of surgical treatment.

This is the second novel by Carr, whose first, The Devils of Cardona, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice in 2016. The plot is weighty, as circuitous as the dingy and winding streets of the Raval section of Barcelona and overlaid by contrasting political philosophies; tantalizing as Lawton finds clues in the black sun runic symbols displayed by mesmerists and signs of the Templar Cross; and thoroughly but satisfyingly shocking. Este libro es también muy bueno.

K. M. Sandrick

LADY RIGHTS A WRONG

Eliza Casey, Berkley, 2020, $16.00, pb, 231pp, 9781984803900

Amelia Price, president of the Women’s Suffrage Union, is found dead at the foot of the stairs in the Yorkshire cottage she rented while on a speaking tour advocating for women to gain the right to vote in 1912 England. Lady Cecilia Bates, her maid Jane Hughes, and the intrepid cat Jack find and follow clues leading to the identity of the murderer.

This is the second in the Manor Cat Mystery series, and as a reader may expect, Jack is a constant and able sleuthing assistant, identifying and capturing a key bit of evidence. His mistress Lady Cecilia and maid Jane are astute observers. Through their eyes, readers enter the standard world of the murder mystery. They also get glimpses of both upstairs and downstairs manor house life and reflections of the changing times, including not only women’s place in society and the political sphere but also the rise of spiritualism.

The overall suffrage movement is more of a backdrop than a major plotline. Supporters are considered by some to be humorless and stern. Opponents are presented in brief sketches as adamant and vociferous. As women’s right to vote in the UK and the US celebrates its 100th anniversaries, much has recently been written about the complexity of the issue, the nuances of support and opposition, the difficulty of gaining a right that today is often taken for granted. While this reader was looking for more on the suffrage front, that is not a significant drawback. This is a breezy mystery with surprises aplenty, as this reader can attest: a confident early answer to the whodunit question was proved most decidedly wrong.

K. M. Sandrick

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THE LAST TRAIN TO KEY WEST

Chanel Cleeton, Berkley, 2020, $16.00, pb, 320pp, 9780451490889

During the Great Depression the U.S. workforce was flooded with idled veterans, but jobs vanished along with World War I. Unemployment was near 20% in 1935.

According to some estimates, that’s about what we have now, but our crisis is new. In 1935, some men had been out of work since the stock market crashed in 1929, and the depression was still deepening.

Key West, romanticized by the likes of Hemingway, flourishes anyway. The islandhopping Overseas Railroad delivers affluent vacationers – along with people escaping their past – to the end of the line. Pregnant and fed up with her abusive husband, Key West waitress Helen Berner is more desperate to escape her present. Impulsive Elizabeth Preston seeks her missing brother, a veteran whose last letter was mailed from Key West. And honeymooner Mirta Perez arrives by ferry from Cuba, wondering if she has dodged poverty through an arranged marriage, or faces peril via her husband’s shady business.

Best-selling author Chanel Cleeton brings these women together in her enjoyable novel. They are also united by the Labor Day hurricane of 1935; a monster storm which tests each to their limit. I was surprised that The Last Train to Key West downplays the hurricane (the strongest recorded in the Atlantic), but Helen, Mirta, and Elizabeth each has a male protector to help see her through the storm and provide happy endings. With three protagonists, Ms. Cleeton switches story lines more often than I like, but deftly knits them together at the end.

The Last Train to Key West is a fine, suspenseful romance for a beach vacation (but keep an eye on the weather forecast).

Jo Ann Butler

THE PELTON PAPERS

Mari Coates, She Writes, 2020, $16.95, pb, 324pp, 9781631526879

This beautifully rendered biographical novel imagines the vibrant interior world of 20thcentury artist Agnes Pelton. Forgotten after her death in 1961, Pelton is having a renaissance with a new show at the Whitney Museum and coverage in Vogue and The New York Times, but the brief biographies of the artist don’t come close to evoking the artist as Coates presents her.

Pelton grew up in a family that repressed tragedy, from a grandmother at the center of the infamous Beecher-Tilton scandal to a mother whose musical career halted for family.

Pelton herself grew up under the shadow of being “sickly,” but art became an anchor and an escape. Quickly, her talent revealed itself and allowed Pelton the opportunity for schooling with some of the early 20th century’s most important artists and instructors.

In Coates’ hands, Pelton’s life – quiet, mostly interior, introspective – opens in key moments to allow the reader to experience 36

what she might have. Writing about a visual medium is a skill not all authors possess, but Coates manages to articulate Pelton’s style in a manner that makes it easy to “see,” even if the reader might not be familiar with Pelton’s work. While Agnes Pelton might not have the notoriety or scandalous appeal of other public figures who get the biographical novel treatment, Coates makes apparent why Pelton’s story is meaningful, interesting, and worth experiencing.

Audra Friend

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

Petra Durst-Benning (trans. Edwin Miles), AmazonCrossing, 2020, $14.95, pb, 325pp, 9781542008495

Mimi Reventlow rejects a marriage proposal in 1905 Esslingen, Germany, because she has no desire to become a housewife. She wants to follow in her Uncle Josef’s footsteps and become a photographer. Her mother reluctantly lets Mimi use her trousseau money to buy equipment and pursue her dream.

Mimi has an ambition to break the usual mold of stiff, formal portraits, using retouching and interesting props to liven them up. An opportunity to photograph Queen Charlotte interacting with children rather than in a formal studio brings Mimi success as a traveling photographer.

By 1911 Mimi’s photos are in demand. But when her mother asks her to check on her Uncle Josef in Laichingen, Mimi discovers that he is ill and needs help, which will require her to settle there for a time. The townspeople are hereditary weavers in the local linen industry, rather provincial and resistant to change. Mimi opens Josef’s studio and persuades families to let her take their children’s confirmation pictures. She attempts to help young, artistically talented Alexander to get an art school scholarship, but his father insists he must become a weaver. Alex’s friend Anton, an innkeeper’s son, intends to use Mimi as his way out of the provinces once she moves on.

The story ends on a cliffhanger.

An image gallery of period photos in the afterword helps the reader see what Mimi was trying to achieve. I enjoyed Durst-Benning’s secondary characters as much as Mimi: Alex’s mother was formerly wealthy but married poor, the unionist Hannes shows interest in Mimi, and weaving factory owner Gehringer is a bit of a bully, yet he has a humane side in not laying off workers during a downturn.

Rounded characters and an unusual setting held my interest, though the cliffhanger ending was abruptly disappointing.

B.J. Sedlock

A DEATH IN MAYFAIR

Mark Ellis, Accent, 2019, £8.99, pb, 373pp, 9781786156723

This is the third in Mark Ellis’s DCI Frank Merlin series, set in London in WW2. The action takes place over two weeks in December 1941, the weeks which saw the Japanese attack

REVIEWS | Issue 93, August 2020

on Pearl Harbour, America’s entry into the war, and the first disasters in the Far East.

Although the reader is kept in touch with the wider war, DCI Merlin has his hands full with organised crime in London. He and his team are investigating not one but two deaths in Mayfair, a young prostitute and a celebrity film star. There is a link between the two, but essentially, they are separate crimes with separate killers (I don’t think that is a spoiler, as nobody is a suspect for both crimes). Both are interesting stories, fast paced and with a host of colourful characters, but I found it disconcerting to have two whodunnits running simultaneously. Of course, real-life policing involves a lot of separate things going on all at once, and Ellis gives us a convincing hourby-hour account of the life of Merlin’s team at Scotland Yard.

Merlin is a policeman, and there are no eccentric private detectives in the story. This is solid policework and the coppers get their men.

‘Police crime’ at its best.

Edward James

THE VOYAGE OF THE MORNING LIGHT (US) / THE DIFFERENCE (CAN)

Marina Endicott, W. W. Norton, 2020, $15.95, pb, 400pp, 9781324007067 / Knopf Canada, 2019, $32.95, hb, 392pp, 9780735276680

In 1911, twelve-year-old Kay and her older half-sister, Thea, take a sea voyage from Nova Scotia to the South Pacific islands. The merchant ship, Morning Light, is captained

by Thea’s husband, Francis. Thea is on her honeymoon trip, while Kay is on board since her father, who ran a school for Indigenous children in Canada, has died. She also has nightmares following some frightening experiences at that residential school. Unfortunately, during a stopover in Eleuthera, Thea has a miscarriage. When they reach Micronesia, Thea, still grieving her loss, impulsively trades with some native people for an eight-year-old boy. Thea adopts him, “to save this one soul from starvation,” and names him Aren. While he seems content, he searches from the ship for his people. Although concerned, Kay is happy to treat Aren like her brother. They study and play together on board. However, years later in Nova Scotia, Aren faces social issues, and Kay helps him slay his demons.

Marina Endicott has skillfully used the writing tools of historical fiction to turn a real event into a vibrant narrative of two voyages from Canada to the South Seas. Endicott profusely describes incidents during the long journeys, the flora and fauna, sea creatures, life on the remote islands, and the hardships of the seafarers. While some readers might find these lengthy accounts tedious, the publisher’s book summary discloses a “crystallizing moment” that occurs nearly halfway into the plot, and which keeps us engrossed. At its heart, the novel examines the all-too-troublesome question of whether it is appropriate to uproot, forcefully or otherwise, young children from their native

surroundings and bring them up in different conditions. Although the displacement is done to improve their well-being, most have to face discrimination afterward. This eloquent novel won the 2020 Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book Prize. Highly recommended.

Waheed Rabbani

SACHIKO

Endō Shūsaku (trans. Van C. Gessel), Columbia Univ. Press, 2020, $28.00, pb, 432pp, 9780231197311 Endō Shūsaku is enjoying a renaissance

among readers worldwide. His best-known novel, Silence, was adapted into a feature film by acclaimed director Martin Scorsese in 2017. With the release of Sachiko, gracefully translated by Van C. Gessel, fans and new readers alike will discover a profound meditation on the meaning of love, sacrifice, and the spiritual dilemma of Christian beliefs vying against the demands of the nationstate.

Spanning the years 1930-1945 in Nagasaki, Sachiko and Shūhei are Japanese Christians coming of age at a time when Christianity is still considered a foreign and “enemy” faith.

Growing up, they share in the joys of a carefree childhood of play, even as they experience the awkward and humiliating questions and suspicions of their non-Christian neighbors and authorities. As the years go by, war looms and challenges their Christian convictions of non-violence. But love still finds a way to create itself, as Sachiko and Shūhei realize their feelings for one another amid the tumultuous forces pulling them apart. Endō’s prose is at turns playful and serious as the two navigate their complicated emotions with a realism that is quite refreshing.

Endō’s finest moments, however, are in his evocations of the one place on earth where love cannot possibly exist: Auschwitz. This is where Father Kolbe, a Polish Christian missionary, finds himself upon his return from the Nagasaki mission Sachiko visited as a young girl. Inside this barb-wired hell, Endō peels back the psyche of prisoners and jailers as they witness a supreme act of sacrifice they can neither explain nor understand. These passages are devastating and mesmerizing.

Sachiko is yet another example of Endō Shūsaku’s stunning literary artistry that demands more than one reading. Highly recommended.

Peggy Kurkowski

THE NIGHT WATCHMAN

Louise Erdrich, Harper, 2020, $28.99, hb, 448pp, 9780062671189

In 1953, the House of Representatives passed House Bill 108, designed to terminate federal recognition of several Native American tribes. Facing the loss of his people’s land, infrastructure, and community, Turtle Mountain Chippewa council member Thomas Wazhushk scrambles to raise money to send a delegation from their reservation in North

Dakota to Washington, D.C., to persuade Congress to change its mind.

Meanwhile, Patrice Paranteau has taken a job at the reservation’s jewel bearing plant to help support herself and her mother after her alcoholic father abandoned the family.

But when her older sister, Vera, goes missing in Minneapolis, Patrice scrapes together her savings to journey to the city to find her and the baby she is rumored to have birthed.

Full of colorful, three-dimensional supporting characters, The Night Watchman depicts a community’s fight for survival in the face of crushing poverty, overt racism, and sheer ignorance of federal government officials regarding the realities of Native American reservation life.

In her usual compassionate style, Erdrich reveals these harsh realities without victimizing her Native American characters, showing that the Turtle Mountain Chippewa are fully capable of defending themselves. Blending the physical with the supernatural, she gives readers a feel for Turtle Mountain culture and spiritualism while also showing how adept they are at playing the political game. In short, she has shown the community in all its nuance and none of its stereotypes.

Exposing a moment in history typically absent from white-centered textbooks, The Night Watchman is a treat for all readers who love family stories and is an important contribution to #ownvoices novels.

Sarah Hendess

THE BIG MAN’S DAUGHTER

Owen Fitzstephen, Seventh Street, 2020, $15.95, pb, 180pp, 9781645060192

In its opening scene, Rita Gaspereaux makes funeral arrangements for her con artist father, whose illicit enterprise has come to a sudden and fatal end. Having been schooled in the finer points of scamming funeral directors, the young woman realizes a bit too late that this mortician was a victim of a prior scheme, and he is not about to let it happen again. It is a testament to her father’s example that she expertly weasels out of her predicament and gets what she wants.

Liberated from her father’s unseemly influence, 18-year-old Rita dreams of becoming a Hollywood movie star, but try as she might, she can’t seem to shake free of her father’s obsessive pursuit of a priceless black bird statuette. Sound familiar?

Fitzstephen gives us a clever sequel to Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, focusing on a minor character from the original, renaming and rewarding her with a story of her own. Broke, with only the pages of Dorothy G. (a novel reimagining the life of Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz) for consolation, Rita agrees to help a Pinkerton secretary and professor recover the statuette from a Russian count who may possibly be Rita’s biological father. In reality, Rita schemes to steal the secretary’s bankroll and pursue her dream, but in unreality is where the story

ends. With a wink and a nod to noir crime and Dashiell Hammett’s legacy, this is sure to please fans of both.

Mary Lawrence

PRISONER FROM PENANG

Clare Flynn, Cranbrook Press, 2020, $9.99/£9.99, pb, 177pp, 9781916469235

Clare Flynn’s short, chatty new historical romance is set in Malaysia during the World War II years, and it’s a pleasant afternoon’s read.

Mary Helston, the narrator, is a former teacher in her early thirties. As the book opens, Mary has been evacuated from Penang to Singapore, and she is soon thrust into the swirl of war. Mary has been engaged twice, but as the book opens, her second fiancé, an RAF pilot, has been shot down in combat against the Japanese. Her previous fiancé killed himself after an affair with a married woman.

That married woman, the wealthy aristocrat Veronica Leighton, is Mary’s nemesis. Veronica’s affair with Mary’s first fiancé caused his suicide, Mary believes, and Veronica also made a play for Mary’s second fiancé and tormented Evie Barrington, a widow who is Mary’s best friend.

As Japan advances and the occupation begins, British colonists are rounded up by the Japanese. Mary, her mother, and Veronica are among the women shipped off to Japanese prison camps where for years they suffer the abuses of war.

The British characters are mostly good, especially Mary, and the Japanese entirely bad. The scenes at the prison camps are realistically rendered, but Mary is a passive character, likeable but mostly swept along by events. After several acts of kindness during their captivity, Mary comes to realize Veronica is more noble than she imagined.

Flynn’s book reads much like a diary of the war years, and she creates a conventional happy ending for long-suffering, selflacerating Mary. After the war, the little British colony of Penang was absorbed into the country now known as Malaysia.

David Drum

SUMMER DARLINGS

Brooke Lea Foster, Gallery, 2020, $27.00, hb, 368pp, 9781982115029

In 1962, Brooklyn coed Heddy Winsome takes a summer job with an affluent family on Martha’s Vineyard as a nanny for their two spoiled kids. Although her employers, Jean-Rose and Ted, treat her well, they seem enigmatic. Ted has affairs and is rude to Jean-Rose, who is mostly busy with the island’s socialites. The housekeeper, Grace, enlightens Heddy on the island’s eccentricities.

But it’s Jean-Rose’s friend Gigi, an actress, who is a mentor to Heddy. When she learns that her Wellesley College scholarship is revoked on account of a misstep, it puts Heddy in a quandary. Unable to rely on her hard-working single mother, Heddy needs additional funds

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to return to college for her senior year. She is attracted to two very different young men vacationing on the island. One lives in a beach hut and encourages her to continue her education, and the other is from a rich family. However, the plot thickens when JeanRose accuses Heddy of theft, which might jeopardize her future.

This debut novel by Brooke Lea Foster has an exciting theme, a bit of a rags-to-riches story set amidst the glamorous life on Martha’s Vineyard during the Kennedy era. The plot skillfully includes the lives of summer residents on the island, mostly the rich but some underprivileged as well. It holds our interest up to the unpredictable ending. The Vineyard’s cuisine, landscape, and notable attractions are described adequately, to make the scenes play in our mind. The historical aspects of the 1960s are handled well. The mentions of the Kennedys, Marilyn Monroe’s tragic suicide, and other events add depth to the story. The novel examines the divide between the poor and the rich and deliberates whether wealth can make us truly happy. A thought-provoking read that transports us to a virtual holiday on Martha’s Vineyard.

Waheed Rabbani

AN APPALACHIAN SUMMER

Ann H. Gabhart, Revell, 2020, $15.99, pb, 368pp, 9780800729288

Set in the mountains of eastern Kentucky during the Great Depression, this novel tells the story of the Frontier Nursing Service. A relatively unknown slice of American history, the Frontier Nursing Service were women who rode horseback into the mountains to bring medical service, especially midwifery, to the hill people of Appalachia.

Young Piper Danson is being groomed to marry well, settle down, and raise a family.

However, she feels a tug in her soul that she isn’t ready for that kind of life. On a whim, she persuades her parents to allow her to volunteer for the summer at the nursing center headed by Mary Breckinridge.

Left behind are two young men, Braxton Crandall, considered a catch by most women, and Jamie Russell, Piper’s closest friend since childhood. Her heart has always belonged to Jamie, but after the stock market crash, he has not returned home. Piper becomes a stronger young woman from her summer experience of living in the mountains. When presented with the idea of returning home, Piper realizes she has a choice—become one man’s wife, or reconnect with her heart.

I appreciated how much research went into this novel. I often felt as if “I were there.” And I loved learning about the Frontier Nursing Service. A map of eastern Kentucky would have been helpful to ground me in the correct geography. Recommended.

Linda Harris Sittig

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THE BERMONDSEY BOOKSHOP

Mary Gibson, Head of Zeus, 2020, £18.99, hb, 435pp, 9781788542647

The Bermondsey Bookshop was founded in 1921 by Ethel Gutman. Its inspiration was similar to that of the better-known Workers’ Educational Association founded eighteen years earlier. Ethel Gutman wanted to bring men and women of every class together through a shared passion for education and culture. In her bookshop they would learn and discuss together in a democratic spirit.

So much is factual. Around this core the author has imagined how these values and this commitment might have played out through the life of a colourfully delineated group of characters who are attracted to the bookshop.

Central to them is Kate, a 14-year-old worker in a tin soldering factory who first becomes involved in the Bermondsey Bookshop through her need for a job. Her mother has died and her father gone to look for a better life outside East Lane, Bermondsey, but Kate is quite sure he will return for her when his circumstances improve.

While she waits she must earn a living in the tough economic world of early 1930s London.

Can the idealism of the bookshop’s founder overcome the gulf in social habits, experience and financial resources between those who frequent it? How well can these characters, whose origins range from Bermondsey to Belgravia, understand each other’s lives? How can those who have never experienced poverty appreciate the lifelong insecurities of those who have? We follow Kate’s mixed fortunes through a diverse range of encounters in a lively story, keen to see how she resolves her dilemmas and whether she will find a stable and happy future for herself.

Engaged as we are in the personal story of Kate, we can also see that the author has taken on the question posed by the Bermondsey Bookshop. Could it fulfil its idealistic intentions?

Imogen Varney

THE LOST LIGHTS OF ST KILDA

Elizabeth Gifford, Corvus, 2020, £14.99, hb, 279pp, 9781786499714

St Kilda is a tiny archipelago, the remnants of an ancient volcano, in the North Atlantic 40 miles west of the westernmost of the Outer Hebrides. It was inhabited from Neolithic times until 1930, although how and why it was settled I cannot imagine. The last 36 inhabitants were evacuated in 1930 at their own request.

The Lost Lights of St Kilda is essentially a love story set during the last years of the island community. It is structured as a multi-narrative novel, with the heroine telling the St Kilda story to her 13-year-old daughter in Scotland in 1940 while the hero, now a soldier, is in France making a perilous journey home after escaping from a German POW camp. The narrative cuts back and forth between the three locations, but Gifford’s heart is clearly in

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St Kilda, and the wartime escape story seems almost perfunctory by comparison.

This is perhaps an unfair criticism, which arises because Gifford’s account of the dying village, its frugal people and wild, beautiful landscape, is so very good. There will never again be a community like St Kilda, and this evocative novel is a tribute to a harsh, remote little lost paradise that is now a bird sanctuary.

Edward James

UNTIL THE WAR IS OVER

Rosemary Goodacre, Hera, 2020, £1.99, e-book, 275pp, B07VDBZDRS

1918. This is the second novel in the series that began with Until We Meet Again. Although I haven’t read the first novel, it wasn’t difficult to follow.

Amy and Edmond, a young married couple, have returned to England from the horrors of the fighting in France. Amy, a strong-minded, capable volunteer in a VAD (Volunteer Aid Detachment), must take care of their baby while nursing a badly set broken ankle. She lives with Edmond at the home of his wealthy parents and snobbish sister. He is slowly recovering from lung damage sustained in battle. He now wants to return to his studies at Cambridge, while Amy longs to move away from her in-laws, who think she is not of the right social class.

Although they are far away from the fighting, they are still in danger from enemy bombs, one of which kills Amy’s best friend and colleague in London. Then another enemy is upon them: the Spanish Flu pandemic.

Whether it was merely a coincidence to publish this novel just as we are in the grip of another pandemic, I can’t tell, but it is fascinating and sobering to read how people, already broken by the continuing war, coped.

I enjoyed this novel but felt that, on the whole, it was rather too sweetly polite for me.

However, I know most lovers of historical sagas will disagree.

Sally Zigmond

THE FORGOTTEN HOME CHILD

Genevieve Graham, Simon & Schuster Canada, 2020, C$17.99/$17.99, pb, 384pp, 9781982128951

Winnifred Ellis has been hiding her past for all her ninety-seven years of life. Winnie was one of thousands of orphaned or abandoned Home Children who were sent to live in Canada in the hopes of starting a new life away from the streets of England. Winnie and her street family, Mary, Jack, Edward, and Cecil, are shipped off in 1938 from various Dr. Barnardo schools/orphanages for children to begin new lives as indentured laborers. However, the promise of a new beginning, where they can enjoy shelter, food, the love of a family, and earn money for their future, is far from the truth. Jack, Cecil, and Edward are repeatedly beaten by an abusive farmer, Mary is both physically and sexually assaulted, and Winnie

is nothing more than a farm helper forced to sleep with sheep. When Winnie’s suitcase, holding the memories of her journey and life as a Home Child, is discovered in presentday Toronto, she finally opens her story and herself to her family.

Although written simplistically, The Forgotten Home Child delivers a hard and cruel punch. It is poignant and heartbreaking, all the more so because it is based on true events.

At least a hundred thousand children may have endured abuse and inhumanity at the hands of the very people who promised to protect them. Winnie is ashamed to tell her family that she was a Home Child, but she has nothing to be ashamed of. She comes to realize this as she tells her story. Winnie is also the only character who retains her sanity, hope, and compassion, as every one of her street family descends into some form of madness because of their abuse. As a Canadian, I can say I knew nothing about this episode in Canada’s history. It was quite the eye opener.

Franca Pelaccia

A SISTER’S SONG

Molly Green, Avon, 2020, £7.99, pb, 419pp, 9780008332471

The second in Green’s The Victory Sisters series, this wartime saga has Suzanne Linfoot, a talented violinist, joining the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) in 1943 and being sent to Malta to entertain the troops – as a singer. Suzanne’s story is rich in period color, with the author weaving in plenty of authentic detail, even down to how torches were muted in the Blackout. The American jazz singer Adelaide Hall is given a major role; Ivy Benson with her ground-breaking allfemale swing band is referenced; and Suzanne and her companions sail on the SS Orbita, a Belfast-built ocean liner commandeered as a troop ship. Suzanne leaves back home her unrelievedly unsympathetic French mother and a mystery about her parentage. The man she is falling in love with, James, is serving in the Navy, but his location (inevitably) is unknown to her.

What Green gets across so well is that wartime in a real sense provided young women with emancipating experiences they could not otherwise have had. The only wrong note historically-speaking comes with the description of Suzanne’s visit to the Royal Opera House for her audition, and a reference to “pretty little shops” in Covent Garden, when that area of London was still dominated by its vast fruit-and-vegetable market, that would have been unmissable but doesn’t get a mention. Plot-wise, there is probably too much reliance on coincidence: amongst the thousands of military personnel being moved around Europe, what would realistically have been the chances of the heroine encountering two characters so central to her life, one after the other, in the only two places where she disembarks? However, because she is likeable and determined, the reader is glad of the

discoveries Suzanne makes, and the nature of her happy ending is both unexpected and deserved.

Katherine Mezzacappa

TELL ME HOW IT ENDS

V.B. Grey, Quercus, 2020, £14.99, hb, 358pp, 9781529405392

London, 1963: the beautiful, enigmatic singer Delia Maxwell disappears the week she is supposed to sign her first film contract.

Frank Landry, a security consultant with troubles of his own, is engaged by Delia’s record company to find her. During Delia’s absence a young fan turned protégée, the calculating and manipulative Lily Brooks, gets herself signed by the film producers in the older woman’s place, and even records what was to be Delia’s next song release. The plot is an acknowledged homage to the 1950 film All about Eve, but the twists here are more complex, and much darker. Lily claims to be Delia’s daughter, but who is she really? What drives Lily not just to take Delia’s place in the limelight, but to want to destroy her utterly?

And why, even when Lily’s mask begins to slip and Delia learns the truth, does the older woman let her go straight ahead? This is a pacy read, confidently written; V.B. Grey is an established television screenwriter and as Isabelle Grey, is the author of a number of thrillers. Grey demonstrates an impressive industry knowledge of the technical business of making a film, without this ever weighing down the plot.

The story is told partly in the first person in Landry’s words, and partly in third person from the points of view of Delia and Lily. Sometimes the two latter strands are overly explicatory, which at times rather flattens the tension, and prevents the reader getting very far into the characters’ heads. But what Grey also gives us is a vivid portrait of the unscrupulous world of movie making, at a time when it was surprising just how much could still be kept out of the press.

Katherine Mezzacappa

THE EIGHTH LIFE

Nino Haratischvili (trans. Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin), Scribe, 2020, $28.00, pb, 944pp, 9781950354146

It is not idle hyperbole to say The Eighth Life

by Nino Haratischvili is the War and Peace of the 20th century, as well as the best piece of international fiction in the 21st. In its original German edition, The Eighth Life garnered wide acclaim and several awards, and became a bestseller upon publication in three other European countries. Published earlier this year in English, Haratischvili’s massively sprawling tale of one Georgian family’s harrowing experiences in the “Red Century” joins the ranks of the best historical sagas in literature.

Beginning with an ominous chocolate recipe handed down from a Georgian chocolatier to his spirited daughter, Stasia, The Eighth Life sets the foreboding tone for a century of earth-shattering revolution, war,

death, and devastation—both physically and e m o t i o n a l l y.

Niza is the last of her long matrilineal line, penning this engulfing missive to a niece she barely knows but seeks to give the gift of the “eighth life,” a knowledge of their shared history that binds everything together into a seemingly endless loop of love, loss, pain, hope, and, yes, chocolate.

Replete with rich and deeply drawn characters navigating the maelstrom of revolutionary Russia and the horrors of Stalin’s Soviet Union, the novel begins with women and ends with them, as well. Haratischvili does a great service in portraying the experiences of women in war, as well as the price many paid for the men they chose. There are gutchurning episodes, to be sure, but most of Haratischvili’s female protagonists find a way to push forward through unimaginably bleak scenarios. One quibble is that many of her male characters often lack the mental fortitude and emotional intelligence of their female counterparts, coming off as extremely fragile and weak willed in too many instances.

Overall, The Eighth Life is a 944-page opus that grabs you by the head and heart from the first page and refuses to let go. Readers will enjoy this delicious blend of family and 20th century history-in-the-making as seen through the eyes of several generations. After the last page, you will wish there were more… just like that last piece of chocolate. Highly recommended.

Peggy Kurkowski

PRIVATE LIVES

J. G. Harlond, independently published, 2020, £7.99/$9.55, pb, 286pp, 9788409204205

Retired Detective Sergeant Bob Robbins, who has reluctantly obeyed a wartime summons to return to duty, has managed to obtain some days of leave and travelled from his home county of Cornwall to neighbouring Devon for a short holiday.

While on a country walk, he is alarmed by the sound of shots and investigates but when he comes upon an injured, elderly farmer, his offer of help is refused. Later he hears another shot and discovers a body that is not that of the injured farmer, who seems to have disappeared.

He reports these events to the local police who suggest he stay overnight while they make enquiries. The following day, he is dismayed to learn that he has been recalled from leave to assist the Devon police in their investigation of the shootings.

Bob, supported by a young recruit, Laurie

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Oliver, pursues his enquiries across a variety of locations. As he attempts to discover the secrets of two isolated farms, he finds himself also dealing with his guesthouse’s larger-thanlife proprietress, her temperamental cook, and the troupe of touring actors who are her guests, while the local police are not as supportive as they might be.

J. G. Harlond deftly weaves the invisible web that connects her large and varied cast of characters and finally leads Bob to the truth.

Shades of Cold Comfort Farm hover over this story of wartime, country murder that is not for the squeamish.

Catherine Kullmann

THE DARK HORIZON

Liz Harris, Heywood Press, 2020, £8.99/$13.99, pb, 346pp, 9781913687007

Spanning the post-WWI period through the Great Depression in England and America, Harris delivers an addictive saga reminiscent of early Barbara Taylor Bradford. The story follows the romance between two young people from different worlds and its dramatic fallout. Lily Brown had met Robert Linford when she was a land girl working near his family’s Oxfordshire estate. Enraptured with one another, they marry and have a son, James, but Joseph Linford, the intimidating and stubborn family patriarch, schemes to split them up, since he thinks Lily is inappropriate wife material and only after Robert’s money.

Joseph is a villain with depth. As head of Linford & Sons, he oversees a company building new housing developments on London’s outskirts and knows that Robert, his son and future successor, will need a partner who bolsters his social position. While beautiful Lily is a devoted wife and mother, it’s true that her naivete, lack of education, and the resulting anxiety hold her back. After Robert and Lily are driven apart and forced to rebuild their lives separately, it leaves a question open about whether they will ever reunite, and how, especially with both unaware of the deceit underlying their split.

The novel journeys along with their welldeveloped coming-of-age stories, told in parallel, as they form ties with others that help them grow in confidence. The backdrop of early 20th-century Hampstead, a community in north London, is an original setting, and the Jewish tenements of New York’s Lower East Side are vibrantly animated. The story zips along with emotional currents that make the book hard to put down. Harris also manages to navigate a path through a complicated plot maze at the end, wrapping up her tale in a satisfying manner while leaving room for future volumes in the Linford Saga.

Sarah Johnson

DEATH OF A PROMINENT CITIZEN

Cora Harrison, Severn House, 2020, $28.99/£20.99, hb, 224pp, 9780727889249

I have read the six previous installments in

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this series and, from the outset, I must say that this is my favorite yet—the Reverend Mother plays Clue with her family!

The Reverend Mother’s wealthy widow cousin, Charlotte Hendrick, is not exactly beloved by her other cousins. Charlotte asks these seven to meet in her expansive Cork home for an overnight family get-together.

The purpose for the meeting: each of them is to present a case for being named as the sole beneficiary of Charlotte’s will. This is a shock since each of the cousins had anticipated a one-seventh share of Charlotte’s estate.

Certainly the Reverend Mother’s school could use that money.

During the night, Charlotte is murdered, the victim of an attack with half of a deadly sharpened craft scissor owned by her live-in companion, a cousin who would be left poor and homeless without her share of the estate.

This cousin appears at first to have every reason to kill Charlotte—but did she? Or was it one of the riverfront rioters who murdered a man that night?

This puzzle mystery is a sheer delight, and the Reverend Mother’s critical thinking hat is always on straight. The cousins are each drawn with a fine pen, and Harrison’s typical cast of characters, set in an early 20th-century Cork where poverty and violence are common, lends yet other layers of detail and flavor. Even if you haven’t read the others in the series, I would advise you to jump in here! Highly recommended.

Ilysa Magnus

AN EXQUISITE CORPSE

Helen A. Harrison, Poisoned Pen Press, 2020, $14.99, pb, 310pp, 9781728214009

Surrealist artist Wilfredo Lam is found dead in his New York City studio, his body mimicking the results of the Surrealist parlor game where each artist sketches a segment on a piece of paper that has been folded in sections and hidden from others’ view. Lam’s face is covered by an African mask, one arm is in the folds of an umbrella, the other is in a galosh, one foot is bare, the other bears a rubber chicken claw.

The presentation of the body leads police detectives to suspect foul play by one of Lam’s artist friends.

Helen A. Harrison is an art historian and author who specializes in modern American art. She is currently the director of the PollockKrasner House and Study Center in East Hampton, New York. Previous works include mysteries in The Corpse Trilogy and several volumes on Jackson Pollock.

An Exquisite Corpse is fast-paced, drawing readers into the art world as well as the underworld of drug dealing and crime in the 1940s. There are plenty of red herrings and plot twists to keep readers guessing. A problem for this reader is the underlying premise: Wilfredo Lam did not die in New York City in the 1940s; he died, as the author points out in a postscript, in 1982 in Paris. Sticklers who expect fealty to actual fact in historical novels may therefore

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feel they have been led astray. Other readers may just enjoy the romp.

K. M. Sandrick

DEATH AND THE BUTTERFLY

Colin Hester, Counterpoint, 2020, $26.00/ C$38.95, hb, 208pp, 9781640093256

Starting in 1940 and moving to the early years of the present century, this novel follows a disparate group of people connected by death and by poetry. We meet Susan McEwan in London and her older brother Phillip who is killed in the Second World War. In Toronto we meet Alexander Polo and his wife, Julie, mourning the loss of their baby girl, Shoshanna. Further west we meet Jack Riordan seeking comfort after the death of his wife, Bea. All of them, including Phillip’s friend Nial in Scotland, confront death and loss in different ways and at different times.

Hester takes us to a wide variety of settings, from London in the blitz to Toronto, Vancouver, California, and the northern plains of the United States. Each location is described in depth, each finely observed detail outlined with the clarity of the poet.

The novel covers not only a wide swath of geography but also several decades, not always presented in chronological sequence.

Also, slightly distracting to the reader, King George Vl appears briefly along with his secretary, his two daughters, and Winston Churchill.

Nineteen poems conclude the novel, giving a clue perhaps to the writer as more poet than an author. While his description of place is detailed in long paragraphs his limning of character is somewhat threadbare. As an extended metaphor ‘death and the butterfly’ (taken from a Japanese poem) remains ephemeral.

Valerie Adolph

THE ROYAL GOVERNESS (US) / THE GOVERNESS (UK)

Wendy Holden, Berkley, 2020, $26.00, hb, 432pp, 9780593101322 / Welbeck, 2020, £12.99, hb, 400pp, 9781787394667

In 1933, young and idealistic Marion Crawford takes on a temporary position as governess to Their Royal Highnesses Elizabeth and Margaret. The position turns into seventeen years of dedicated service. Marion’s main priority is to introduce the sheltered and privileged princesses to “normal” life. She takes them on the Tube for outings, to shop at Woolworths for Christmas gifts, to public swimming pools, and more. To the shock of the nanny, she even makes them wear play clothes her mother makes instead of frills.

During her employment, Marion witnesses the upheaval of the abdication, has interesting conversations with Wallis Simpson, keeps the princesses sheltered at Windsor Castle during

the Blitz, has a front-row seat at Elizabeth’s marriage to Philip and coronation, and most other historical events which affected the country and the world.

The Royal Governess is based on Marion Crawford’s memoir, The Little Princesses, which was publicly ignored by the royals but sheds light on Queen Elizabeth’s formative young years, and that of her family. Who would have thought young Elizabeth had compulsive behaviors, or her parents played eccentric games with her and her sister, or that Mrs. Simpson was so interesting? The novel, however, is also about Marion, who denies herself marriage and children to take care of the princesses whom she loves as though they were her own blood, only to be shrugged off as another civil servant when the princesses and their parents have no more need for a governess.

As a fan of The Crown, I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Royal Governess, which took me back even further into the life of the royal family and fueled my inner gossipy side with fascinating insights and tidbits. For anyone who is curious like me, The Royal Governess is an interesting must-read.

Franca Pelaccia

FAST GIRLS

Elise Hooper, William Morrow, 2020, $16.99/ C$21.00, pb, 512pp, 9780062937995

In 1928, 16-year-old Betty Robinson of Chicago represents the United States as a member of the first women’s Olympic track and field team. Her gold-medal win in the 100 meters thrusts her into the national spotlight and leaves her hungry for the next Olympics.

But a horrific accident derails her hopes for the 1932 games, and she must fight just to walk again.

Meanwhile, in Missouri, young Helen Stephens, gangly and awkward, dreams of escaping her family’s failing farm and her father’s constant criticism. Near Boston, Louise Stokes, one of only a few black girls in her town, dreams of her own Olympic glory but faces constant racism designed to prevent her from outshining her white competitors.

These three women, along with others, converge on the 1936 Olympics in Berlin determined both to crush Adolf Hitler’s dream of German athletic victories and to prove to the world that women belong on the track.

Hooper has delivered a stunning, multilayered gem of a novel. With stark frankness, she illuminates the racism, sexism, and homophobia of the era. Yet, while the three protagonists are often victimized, they never

allow themselves to become victims. Nor does the novel ever devolve into cattiness or manhating. The women have their disagreements, but never forget that they are a team. Many men, including the International Olympic Committee chairman, infantilize the women, but many others support them unconditionally, using their societal power to help these athletes achieve the recognition and respect they deserve.

Hooper could easily have taken the stories of these three real-life women and written a white-washed book that merely congratulated America on its triumphs over the Germans in 1936. Instead, she did the hard work to show the full story as it was: nuanced, complex, messy, and beautiful. Readers will be richly rewarded.

Sarah Hendess

A DAUGHTER’S SECRET

Maggie Hope, Ebury Press, 2020, £6.99, pb, 391pp, 9781785039348

This novel is about a girl’s journey in life with a scandal always in mind. Cath Raine has had to deal with her mother’s infidelity throughout her childhood, along with the abuse that affected her little sister so much.

Once she meets the wealthy Jack Vaughan, however, loyalties are tested and cultural norms abandoned since she is determined to find the love that she has craved throughout her life. The author creates the lives of her characters within the historical time period in the time of miners and World War Two. She uses stories from that time to create situations for her own characters. Within this she weaves intricate subplots that could affect the main story dramatically. Throughout the novel, themes of family loyalties, love, and fresh starts are examined. The protagonist Cath Raine has been through a lot, but her strength is admirable given her circumstances. Any reader will enjoy the flavour of the vernacular language that Maggie Hope has brought into the story. Meanwhile there is always the reminder of the War and the consequences that it has for the miners and their families. The author has created a world rife with tensions which could explode at any given moment. It is only by the strength of the characters that they can survive.

Clare Lehovsky

ARIA

Nazanine Hozar, Pantheon, 2020, $28.95, hb, 384pp, 9780241417904 / Knopf Canada, 2019, C$24.95, pb, 384pp, 9780345811820

On a wintry night in 1953, Behrouz, a military truck driver, is walking home to the poorer, southern part of Tehran. He discovers and rescues an abandoned baby girl, taking her home and naming her Aria, “after all the world’s pains and all the world’s loves.” His acrimonious wife, Zara, is not thrilled and considers the girl’s blue eyes a bad omen.

Zara makes the five-year-old Aria do heavy housework, beats her, and locks her out to sleep on the balcony. Behrouz is distraught, but

through connections, Aria is adopted by the childless Fereshteh, an affluent lady residing in northern Tehran. Here she is looked after, goes to school, enjoys cinemas and ice cream parlors, and makes friends. At university, she falls in love and looks forward to a bright future. But in 1979, Aria and her friends are caught up in the fervor of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution. Aria’s past and present worlds collide to change her and life in Iran.

Nazanine Hozar has penned a brilliant story about a young girl who has “a mother who left her, a mother who beat her, and a mother who loved her but couldn’t say so.” This historical novel seamlessly weaves into the plot the three decades of events leading up to the 1979 Iranian Revolution. While the country’s internal affairs feature prominently, some external world events, such as the American moon landing, are also included. The storyline incorporates descriptions of Iranian life, cuisine, customs like Ashura, and religions. The novel’s attempt to construct the narrative in a socially balanced way has mostly succeeded. Readers are presented with an impartial view of society in order to witness a more realistic view of Iran.

The similarities between the Iranian Revolution and the Russian Revolution, and of this novel to Doctor Zhivago, are unavoidable. Highly recommended.

Waheed Rabbani

THE GIRL FROM THE WORKHOUSE

Lynn Johnson, Hera, 2020, £1.99, ebook, 359pp, B08432S6Z7

The Potteries, Staffordshire, in 1911: Ginnie Jones’s father’s sight is failing and he cannot work, so she is sent to Haddon Workhouse.

Conditions have changed since Oliver Twist days, and though their existence is spartan, the workhouse children are in a rudimentary way schooled, albeit mocked by their classmates who live on the outside. Fellow inmates Clara and Sam keep her going, as later, so does an unexpected and life-changing friendship with the well-heeled and ideals-driven Connie.

Three years later, her sister Mabel takes Ginnie out of the workhouse to live with her, but more from self-interest than affection. Still a child, Ginnie becomes Mabel’s skivvy and another source of income for the household, working as a mould runner at Chamberlain’s pottery. Ginnie’s world is meticulously described – and has evidently been thoroughly researched without this weighing down the narrative – from the cramped interiors in which she lives, dodging the attentions of her brotherin-law, to the heat, dust and exhaustion of her job: this might be Arnold Bennett’s geography, but Ginnie inhabits a world far from his comfortable drawing-rooms.

The novel is intriguingly constructed, switching between the younger Ginnie’s workhouse life, told in the present tense, and her working life outside, told in the past, the two strands ultimately merging seamlessly together in the story of Ginnie and Sam’s growing love and the build-up to the cataclysm

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of the Great War. What this book is not is a rags-to-riches cliché; rather, it is the coming of age of an attractive and resilient heroine who finds contentment and fulfilment. After reading it I looked again at my modest collection of Staffordshire transferware with renewed respect for the people who made them.

Katherine Mezzacappa

WALKING

Kim Kelly, Jazz Monkey, 2020, $16.99, pb, 362pp, 9781925786705

In 1948 Sydney, Australia, Lucy Brynne, a physiotherapist at the Sydney Hospital, is puzzled after reading a newspaper obituary of Dr. Hugo Winter: “He was debarred from joining the Australian Imperial Force because of his nationality.” Lucy had known Hugo as a renowned orthopedic surgeon who, instead of amputating her leg, had mended it, enabling her to walk. Lucy is asked to sort through Hugo’s large volume of papers. In the process, she discovers some troubling information about Hugo’s mistreatment as a German émigré in Australia. Lucy couldn’t believe such subjugation was possible in her country. She discovers those responsible for it, particularly an incompetent surgeon named Eliot. Incidentally, that week a new patient, Jim, arrives with a fractured leg. While Lucy is attracted to him, she doesn’t believe that the treatment Eliot is administering to Jim is appropriate. Matters come to a head when Lucy dares to suggest an alternate procedure that might save Jim’s leg.

In her author’s note, Kim Kelly mentions that she based this novel on the true story of a German-Australian surgeon, Max Herz, a brilliant and innovative orthopedist who was interned as an enemy alien during the war. Kelly’s approach to telling the story as historical fiction rather than a biography feels appropriate. In doing so, she is able to bring in other aspects of the war years, medical procedures, and life in Sydney at that time.

The romance adds another facet to the story’s appeal. The details about orthopedic surgical procedures, their pros and cons, and physiotherapeutic treatments make the reading enjoyable, particularly for readers not versed in that field of medicine. The problems that soldiers faced during the war, both physically and mentally, are also adroitly included in the narrative. An important contribution to Australian historical fiction.

Highly recommended.

Waheed Rabbani

RIVIERA GOLD

Laurie R. King, Bantam, 2020, $28.00, hb, 368pp, 9780525620839

Intrepid Mary Russell, the oh-so-muchyounger wife of Sherlock Holmes, has just landed in the south of France after a threeweek working vacation on a fishing vessel while Holmes tends to business in Romania.

Her shipboard companions introduce her to two expatriate Americans, Sara and Gerald 42

Murphy, who form the center of a group of artists attempting to make a living in the summer of 1925 on the Cote d’Azur. But it’s the non-artist in their midst who astounds Mary: former housekeeper Mrs. Hudson has fled England and a false murder rap, only to turn up in Monaco where an exotic young man is found dead in her front room.

Holmes joins Mary after learning this news, and as he works with the local police to free Mrs. Hudson, Mary traces the threads between the artists and Monte Carlo’s less-than-legal operators, including some white Russian millionaires. After she innocently meets one of these ruthless tycoons in his hotel suite, Mary is convinced he is behind an illegal scheme.

And when her midnight sleuthing uncovers the worst tycoon plotting with an artist, she volunteers to assist that bronze sculptor in finishing his last commission before he ships it to New York, and deduces there may be another metal involved in this art.

Pablo Picasso finds his way into the solution of this 16th entry in the Mary Russell mystery series, and Lillie Langtry is featured as Mrs. Hudson’s life-long friend in both backstory and the present. King’s well-drawn characters will please fans of the series, yet this could be read as a stand-alone by anyone attracted to a fascinating tale of Jazz Age Europe. I number myself among the legion of Holmes devotees and the half-legion of those who have followed Mary through thick and thin, and this not only does not disappoint but also shines in capturing the unique relationship they each enjoy with Mrs. Hudson.

Tom Vallar

THE WOMAN OF A THOUSAND NAMES

Alexandra Lapierre (trans. Jeffrey Zuckerman), Atria, 2020, $30.00, hb, 628pp, 9781501197918

This is the story of Maria “Moura” Ignatyevna Zakrevskaya, an aristocrat who— along with the rest of her social class—suffered at the hands of the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution, and of the destruction of the way of life she once knew. It is a tale of her survival and of the men who deeply influenced her life in many ways. It’s a story of a seductress, adventuress, and perhaps a spy—a woman who couldn’t be pinned down.

As fascinating as the telling of this historical period and its repercussions are, the novel has a few flaws. The book is a fascinating combination of fiction, history, and biography, but these elements aren’t meshed as well as they could be, leading to a jarring narrative.

The constant shifting between points of view, even within a single page, is highly distracting.

The sudden switches between epistolary style and that of a traditional novel is disconcerting, interrupting the flow of the story. The amount of repetition and constant famous namedropping is also distracting. This is a massive tome, at over 600 pages.

Overall, readers interested in the history of 20th-century Russia will appreciate this book. There are sections that will particularly

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grab the reader, such as horrors of living in the country during the Revolution and the rise of its notorious leaders, as well as the literary landscape that flourished during this time.

Moura’s relationships with legendary literary figures, such as Maxim Gorky and H. G. Wells, and the portion of her life spent trying to escape this “new” Russia made this lengthy book worth reading.

Andrea Connell

HEDY’S WAR (UK) / THE GIRL FROM THE CHANNEL ISLANDS (US)

Jenny Lecoat, Polygon, 2020, £8.99, pb, 266pp, 9781846975318 / Graydon House, 2021, $17.99, pb, 320pp, 9781525806414

After fleeing from Vienna to Jersey after the Anschluss, Hedy Bercu finds herself trapped and in danger once more when the Germans invade the Channel Islands in 1940. Her employers have fled; her only friend Anton, a fellow Austrian, has a new girlfriend, Dorothea, whom Hedy finds naïve and faintly irritating; and her Jewishness means that, ironically, the only job Hedy can find is as a translator at a German camp. There she meets Lieutenant Kurt Neumann, a decent man caught up by events larger than himself. The attraction between them is instant, but could well be their downfall if they cannot stay one step ahead of the secret police.

Screenwriter Jenny Lecoat’s debut novel is based on an extraordinary true story of resistance and love against the odds. As a native of Jersey, she clearly knows the island well and its wild coastline, extreme tides and the backstreets of St Helier. As might be expected from an experienced writer (albeit in a different medium), the central characters are complex and well-developed. A tight rein is held on the plot, and the atmosphere of menace and paranoia is skilfully built up. The fact that the story the novel is based on is not well-known also means that the reader has no idea whether it will end happily or what the next twist might be. The only real criticism I have is that I would have liked a slightly more detailed historical note at the end of the book, to explain how much is actually known about the characters and events it depicts and what is conjecture.

Recommended, particularly for anyone with an interest in the Nazi Occupation of the Channel Islands.

Jasmina Svenne

MOONDROP MIRACLE

Jennifer Lamont Leo, Mountain Majesty Media, 2020, $16.95, pb, 304pp, 9781733705844

This Christian historical novel begins in Chicago, 1928. It follows the tribulations of socialite Connie Shepherd, who is about to marry into an even more established society family when she weds her financier beau Winston. Connie can’t even remember the name of her maid, but appears to be allergic to alcohol, which keeps her clear-headed enough

to realize her new husband has a drinking problem. She also loves her eccentric Aunt Pearl, whose wedding present is the formula for a home-brewed cat dandruff tonic. Connie has given birth to the delightful Scotty as deaths and the Great Depression wallop the family. Winston disappears to escape his shame and creditors.

Connie is left to grow up fast. With the help of several working-class women, she turns Aunt Pearl’s concoction into the Moondrop Miracle beauty product of the title, finds a deep and abiding Christian faith, and becomes a woman of substance.

Tightly written, fast-paced and eventfilled, Connie’s story may follow a familiar trajectory but does it with style and telling detail. The author’s love of place and time is evident, though a swipe at first-wave feminism seemed inaccurate and mean-spirited in this big-hearted story.

Eileen Charbonneau

THE KEY TO EVERYTHING

Valerie Fraser Luesse, Revell, 2020, $15.99, pb, 352pp, 9780800737504

Set in 1947, The Key to Everything is a story about the freedom to pursue one’s dreams.

Fifteen-year-old Peyton Cabot loves to watch the world speeding past, whether from a plane, a boat or a bicycle. That is what freedom is to him and mirroring his recently deceased father’s footsteps by cycling the length of Florida is his tribute. He begins his journey in St. Augustine with his Aunt Gert, whose whole-hearted trust and encouragement give Peyton the strength to learn self-sufficiency and self-reliance, in order to fulfill the odyssey of a lifetime.

Several aspects make this a poignant coming-of-age expedition. One is that Peyton works his way through his grief by touching places his father had been so many years before. He doesn’t always know the places but feels them through his parents’ love for each other. Another is the diverse cast of characters he meets, many of whom become more like family than his Cabot relatives. He races down Daytona Beach long before they thought of a speedway; passes nights in local jails, firehalls, and army bases. Despite being so young, Peyton is dependable and believes in people, and is willing to help, wherever needed, to work his way to Key West where he will reunite with the love of his life. He turns his hand to anything and the skills he picks up help him to move with confidence into the next leg of his journey.

This is a thoughtful look at the innate goodness of people, and friendship pulled from unlikely circumstances. In a time when we most need to feel the kindness of others who look for nothing in return, this is an uplifting journey, told by an author with a clear understanding of human compassion.

Fiona Alison

MURDER AT KINGSCOTE

Alyssa Maxwell, Kensington, 2020, $26.00/ C$35.00/£19.99, hb, 304pp, 9781496720733

Each book in Alyssa Maxwell’s Gilded Age/ architectural/historical/crime series (Murder at Kingscote is the eighth) centers around one of the palatial summer “cottages” built by 19th-century nouveaux riche (aka robber barons) in Newport, Rhode Island. Maxwell herself has a family connection to turn-of-thecentury gilded Newport, which she uses to good effect.

Maxwell’s intrepid amateur detective, Emma Cross, is a pioneering newspaperwoman à la Nelly Bly, always on the trail of a good story or a wicked butler.

Recurring characters surround her, including a romantic hunk of a boyfriend with patrician features and a sensual mouth, not to mention a good right hook.

We are in Edith Wharton country, as Newport is where Wharton set her masterpiece, The Age of Innocence, a tragic portrait of a poor relation trying to survive on the fringes of high society. Emma is a poor relation, too, but fortunately, she’s too independent and too busy investigating murders to fret over it—much. And this is a sprightly mystery, not a tragedy.

Emma, now promoted to editor-in-chief, has her hands full because, in spite of its pompadours and pearls, tennis and tea parties, this posh summer retreat turns out to be a very dangerous place. Two shocking murders occur at Kingscote, amid many plot twists, fascinating historical details (a parade of flower-decked horseless carriages, a sterling silver box of chocolates, a boxing match), and a plentiful supply of adjectives, making this latest mystery in the series—based on historical, peculiar, but non-homicidal, events—as lightly entertaining as its gilded predecessors.

Susan Lowell

THE TEA GARDENS

Fiona Mcintosh, Ebury Press, 2020, £6.99, pb, 394pp, 9781529103847

It is one thing to write a historical novel but quite another to present that story in language so naturally redolent with airs and tones of the time that the reader experiences a live travel journal.

As such, this is a remarkable example. Set initially in 1930s England then predominantly in India, Dr Isla Fenwick, independent intelligent maternity specialist, belatedly betrothes herself to childhood crush Jovian Mandeville, then travels alone

to a Calcutta hospital to pass on her medical knowledge, meanwhile attempting to avoid the forbidden TB ward where lurks not only that dread virus (from which her mother died) but also the complicated, enigmatic dish that is Saxon Vickery, professor and tempter.

The first-person narrative is personal and intimate yet somehow objectively presented, achieving a rare level of reader involvement as Isla rationalises consecutive dilemmas and growing awareness of the folly enticing her. She knows that even smart girls fail occasionally, so how can she possibly wriggle out of this, especially with the added attraction of Vickery’s Darjeeling tea gardens themselves beneath the majestically spiritual Himalaya backdrop? Detailed characterisation of the antagonists’ angstfilled relationships is divulged with a lightness of description as effortless as it is persuasive and enthralling. Intriguing lesser players feature prominently as memorable and meaningful. The author draws often from a deep well of local background knowledge; prevailing geographical, historical and social information runs throughout – women carried bundles of coal on their heads to refuel Indian steam engines. The author’s kempt prose can be summed up using the same words with which she describes the South Kensington house where Isla grew up, “Not overtly showy but leanly elegant…” And as if this excellent story wasn’t enough in itself, a tasty-looking teacake recipe awaits in the afterword. Put the kettle on!

Simon Rickman

AN ELEGANT WOMAN

Martha McPhee, Scribner, 2020, $27.00, hb, 416pp, 9781501179570

Needing money to fund their mother’s long-term care, Isadora and her sisters meet at their family home to prepare for its sale. As they scrutinize family possessions handed down from their grandmother and great-grandmother, the sisters find little has any monetary value. Isadora, a novelist, is amazed that her siblings don’t see each item is a treasure that supports the stories their grandmother told about her life. The sisters dismiss their grandmother’s tales as either embellishments or outright lies. As Isadora ponders the significance of her grandmother’s things, the novel moves back in time to 1910 when her grandmother, Tommy, was a young girl. Taken to Montana by her mother, a free spirit looking for work as a teacher, Tommy is suddenly responsible for the care of her younger sister, Katherine. She runs their home, makes a little pocket money, and ensures Katherine finishes school. When Katherine graduates, Tommy finally gets to start her own life. Unwilling to be confined to the limited opportunities in the West, she rewrites her life story and heads east to start a new adventure.

I loved the author’s exploration of fact versus family lore. Sometimes it doesn’t matter whether the stories are true or not. Ultimately

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the stories we tell end up shaping us as much as the truth.

McPhee’s characters are rich and well developed. The women, in particular, are dynamic and powerful, yet not without their flaws. It is interesting to see Tommy’s character grow and how her relationships with her family change over time. If you love multigenerational family sagas, I highly recommend this book.

Janice Derr

THE PAPER DAUGHTERS OF CHINATOWN

Heather B. Moore, Shadow Mountain, 2020, $26.99, hb, 384pp, 9781629727820

Based on true events, The Paper Daughters of Chinatown is a fascinating novel, bringing to light the heroic efforts of the real-life savior, Donaldina Cameron, who devoted her life to rescuing young Chinese girls from sex trafficking in the early 1900s.

Donaldina (Dolly) Cameron is in her mid20s when she accepts a position as a teacher at the Occidental Mission Home for Girls in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The home is a safe haven for Chinese women who had been sold into slavery and prostitution. Because of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prohibiting additional Chinese immigrants from coming to America, many Chinese girls came here illegally as paper daughters, on the pretense that they already had relatives in America.

Dolly quickly becomes a mother figure to most of the young girls at the home. Soon, she is recruited to go on dangerous rescue missions, raiding dangerous opium dens and tongs (Chinese criminal organization) to bring girls to safety. Eventually, she takes over as director. Dolly constantly has to be on alert, as the safe house is constantly under siege from tongs.

A separate storyline that ultimately unites with Dolly’s story is about Mei Lien, a naïve young woman who was brought to America from China under false pretenses, with the expectation she’d marry. Instead, she is cruelly kidnapped and forced into sex slavery, quickly becoming addicted to opium.

Despite the disturbing subject matter, this meticulously researched book is unputdownable. The book is as much a history lesson about a shameful piece of American history as it is a glimpse into the life of a heroine whose legacy lives on today: the mission home is still in existence, renamed the Donaldina Cameron House. Readers will come to care about all the women featured in the book and will marvel at the extraordinary accomplishments of a determined woman ahead of her time.

Hilary Daninhirsch

SUMMER OF THE THREE PAGODAS

Jean Moran, Head of Zeus, 2020, £18.99, hb, 422pp, 9781788542586

An exotic tale with an exotic title, but don’t be disappointed that there are no pagodas, 44

not even one. It is set in Hong Kong and Korea during the Korean war of the 1950s. The Korean side of the story is much the stronger, a tragic tale of courage, endurance and loss as a group of fugitives flee the North Korean advance. The Hong Kong side is less credible and depends heavily on a backstory which is never fully explained. It centres on intimidation by a mysterious Chinese gangster, but I feel it is all resolved far too easily.

The central character, a woman doctor who works in a refugee centre, is sympathetic and well-drawn. Her adventures in Korea are more dramatic than her love life in Hong Kong, but after all her trials and tragedies, who would begrudge her a happy ending?

Edward James

MEXICAN GOTHIC

Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Del Rey, 2020, $27.00/£16.99, hb, 320pp, 9781529402650

In 1950 Mexico City, socialite Noemí Taboada, content to spend her time partying, playing piano and studying anthropology, is less than thrilled when her industrialist father dispatches her to a remote mountain district to retrieve her cousin. Sweet, romantic Catalina, impetuously married into a oncewealthy Anglo-Mexican family, has been writing growingly unhinged letters – and asking for her cousin’s company. Doubtful but determined, Noemí travels to El Triumfo to find an isolated, decaying mansion, and a mostly hostile family, bent on keeping her away from the ailing, terrified Catalina. Even for a no-nonsense, thoroughly modern girl, the oppressive atmosphere of High Place is hard to ignore, and poor Catalina’s fears soon begin to make unsettling sense. What lurks hungrily in the gloomy old house? What are the secretive, haughty Doyles trying to hide from the unwelcome guest? Will Noemí be able to rescue her cousin – and herself? Silvia Moreno Garcia mixes English and Mexican elements, Gothic stories, fairytales, and more than a pinch of horror into an eerie, dark variation on the classic haunted house, with plenty of surprises, and an engaging heroine at its centre.

Chiara Prezzavento

THE LAST BLUE

Isla Morley, Pegasus, 2020, $25.95, hb, 330pp, 9781643134185

A large part of The Last Blue is set in 1937, when two men from Roosevelt’s Farm Services Administration arrive in the small town of Chance, in the eastern hills of Kentucky, looking for a story of people having a hard time. They hear from teenagers of a practice of “blue coon hunting,” and discover it takes lots of probing to get anyone to talk about it.

Turns out the term refers to going after a group of people who have blue skin, now living back in Spooklight Holler.

The visitors follow a complicated trail and spot a beautiful blue-skinned woman bathing in a pond. Clayton Havens, the photographer

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of the pair, is smitten by her. Both men follow her escaping figure, and Havens is bitten by a copperhead, saved by the young woman, and nursed back to health by her family. The young woman, Jubilee Buford, returns his feelings, and thus begins a love story about “the rugged, steadfast nature of hill people” and the enduring love of a lonely man. We read this story as it occurs in that year when the country was sunk into the Depression, and also in the memory of Havens when he is approached about Jubilee in 1972.

The rich language employed by Morley captures the reader from the first page. We can readily picture the characters and share their feelings as they fight through the prejudices and active threats facing the Buford family.

When Jubilee’s brother is killed, she is the last of the family with blue skin, and we worry along with Havens about whether she will survive.

Lorelei Brush

THE MUSIC BOX ENIGMA

R. N. Morris, Severn House, 2020, $28.99/£20.99, hb, 292pp, 9780727889553

Amateur choirmaster Sir Aidan Fonthill is found dead just after morning rehearsal for the 1914 Hampstead Voices’ benefit Christmas concert, his body slumped over the keyboard of an upright piano, a sharpened tuning fork protruding from an ear. There are plenty of likely suspects—Fonthill’s long-suffering wife, the brother of his mistress and mother of his bastard son, an impatient holder of his gambling debts, a mysterious blind man and supposed piano tuner—and many motives.

(Frankly, some readers might be forgiven for wanting to top off the loathsome Fonthill themselves.) In addition, there is the riddle of the music box. Delivered days before Fonthill’s death, the music box emits a staccato, metallic, toneless sequence of notes and bears on its underside the German words: Ehre Verloren, Alles Verloren: When honor is lost, all is lost.

The Music Box Enigma is a welcome addition to the Silas Quinn series of mysteries. As in other Quinn stories, readers are treated to evocative turns of phrase—winter against the window panes making a vast, weary sound, a gasp of frustration and despair keeping at bay the boom of war—internal machinations of New Scotland Yard, and the development of Quinn himself. The head of the Special Crimes Department of New Scotland Yard in this story is beset by recriminations and selfdoubt following the death of one of his own men. With cameo appearances by Winston Churchill and composer Sir Edward Elgar, The Music Box Enigma is more than a crime novel.

This book, and the Quinn series, strike multiple chords.

K. M. Sandrick

BIRDIE AND JAY

Ella Joy Olsen, Eva Kaminsky (narrator), Gerard Doyle (narrator), Audible Originals, 2020, $24.47, audiobook, 10 hrs. 26 min., B083L3ZCZH

Early 1900s, New York. What’s bigger news

than the Titanic’s sinking? Finding Darwin’s missing link. Birdie’s family plans to finance the expedition for the Museum of Natural History, with Jay as the museum’s representative. For Birdie, she’s more excited by an invitation to help paint the museum’s bird habitats. Birdie’s mother, though, refuses to have her daughter seen as a working girl and forbids it, so Birdie creates opportunities to sneak away. Despite their different social classes, Birdie and Jay are drawn together like magnets. Keeping their relationship secret, Birdie plans to get through her season without becoming engaged. But when a persistent Austrian count begins courting her and Jay is sent overseas on to the dig site, their new-found love will be put to the test.

Readers are welcomed into the extravagant lifestyles of New York’s wealthiest citizens while also digging for bones in Piltdown, East Sussex, searching for Darwin’s missing link. Opulent homes and outdoor landscapes are well described. The narration switches between Birdie and Jay with two different Audible narrators. Gerard Doyle’s Irish accent brings out Jay’s personality as well as his cultural roots. Eva Kaminsky has a wonderful ability to create distinct voices for both males and females. While pursuing their passions in the museum, Birdie and Jay are engaging characters. Jay’s work and his investigation into suspect activities surrounding the Piltdown dig are immensely intriguing.

However, as Birdie pines over Jay and reluctantly spends the summer with her family, she becomes a listless narrator. The story lacks a counterbalance of levity as situations get more serious for our main characters, slowing the plot’s momentum. While I greatly enjoyed the natural history aspects, the romance feels slightly rushed and the characters lack depth when they aren’t in the museum.

J. Lynn Else

JACKIE AND MARIA (US) / THE SECOND MARRIAGE (UK)

Gill Paul, William Morrow, 2020, $16.99, pb, 480pp, 9780062952493 / Avon, 2020, £7.99, pb, 400pp, 9780008366254

Jackie and Maria explores the eponymous two women and their connection through the millionaire philanderer, Aristotle Onassis.

The narrative is divided into two parts: Jackie Kennedy and Maria Callas. Jackie, the wife of John F. Kennedy, will later marry Ari. Maria, a Greek American opera singer, was in a longterm relationship with Ari before he married Jackie. Jackie begins as the sophisticated and elegant wife of a politician. Thrust into the public eye, she suffers privately as her husband cheats on her and she loses babies.

After JFK’s death, Jackie is swept up in Ari’s dogged pursuit of her. Meanwhile, Maria is a famous soprano trapped in a loveless marriage with her manager. Independent and self-sufficient, Maria leaves her husband and begins a relationship with Ari. Maria struggles

with losing the potency of her voice and has to deal with Ari’s wandering eye.

Jackie and Maria is a fictional take on these two characters, based on research but also filling in the gaps. There is no evidence that the two women ever met, but Paul has them meet briefly a couple of times. While Aristotle connects these two women, Jackie and Maria are also linked by tragedies and challenges: losing children in infancy, substance abuse, trying to find real love, cheating spouses, and life with paparazzi exposing their lives in the tabloids. But they are also very different. Jackie puts all her value in making a good marriage, while Maria creates her own life and future with her singing career. Through it all, Maria always plays second fiddle to Jackie, and the title reflects this. This book is perfect for fans of Stephanie Thornton and Elise Hooper.

Julia C. Fischer

ONE FATAL FLAW Anne Perry, Ballantine, 2020, $28.00, hb, 262pp, 9780593129524 / Headline, 2020, £8.99, pb, 368pp, 9781472257314

A man is found dead from head trauma in the rubble of a burned-out factory. A rival gang member is put on trial for his murder. A high-profile independent forensic specialist leads a jury to acquittal, testifying that the trauma was an accident of the fire and its excessive heat. Months later the gang member himself is found dead in similar circumstances.

Have barristers from the fford Croft legal chambers been duped by a budding criminal mastermind, manipulated by a self-serving forensic scientist, or led astray by nascent criminal sciences?

One Fatal Flaw is third in the series of Daniel Pitt legal thrillers set in 1910 London. The Daniel Pitt novels are themselves spinoffs of Anne Perry’s highly successful Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Victorian mysteries, focusing on Charlotte’s and Thomas’s son, the 25-yearold junior barrister in the fford Croft legal chambers. Characters are rich and multifaceted, and their development skillfully merges details from the past with hints of the future. Young women, in particular, are fleshed out in unexpected-of-the-times ways.

The reliance on courtroom testimony detracts, however. The cases tried in court are so similar that the testimony and machinations of legal counsel become repetitious. A tangential scene that threatens Daniel Pitt’s friend, Miriam fford Croft, with fiery injury is gratuitous. The denouement is abrupt and therefore not wholly satisfying.

One Fatal Flaw, nonetheless, captivates with both major and minor characters that readers will look forward to following.

K. M. Sandrick

THE CORPSE IN THE GARDEN OF PERFECT BRIGHTNESS

Malcolm Pryce, Bloomsbury, 2020, £12.99, hb, 370pp, 9781408895290

It is 1948, World War II has ended, and the country is getting back on its feet. One of the first events is to nationalise the four main railways, and Jack Wenlock, a railway detective working for one of them, is made redundant. He now has no job and a new wife to support. Put into the care of a railway orphanage when a small boy, he never really knew his mother, so when a letter arrives from a countess in Somerset purporting to be able to put him in touch with her again, he decides to follow this up. What follows is pure fantasy and becomes a tale of spies, secret organisations, crooks and a missing play script, together with journeys to foreign countries and so on.

This is a tale straight from the pages of a Boys’ Own magazine. It has been described as the perfect quirky, nostalgic crime read.

However, I found it distinctly difficult to get into, finding it more akin to a comic book. The characters were just characters: I could not believe in them, but can readily understand why they would appeal to readers who appreciate the make-believe. Does Jack find his mother in the end? That is definitely one for the reader to discover. It might be fun to read but, apart from the date, I don’t really feel that this is a historical novel.

Malcolm Pryce is also the author of the popular Aberystwyth Series, which have been serialised on Radio 4.

Marilyn Sherlock

ISLAND OF SECRETS

Rachel Rhys, Black Swan, 2020, £7.99, pb, 360pp, 9781784164898

1957 London. Iris Bailey, a talented amateur portrait artist, is working in a typing pool for a firm of architects when she receives an invitation from an American acquaintance Nell Hardman to fly to Havana and draw portraits at Nell’s stepfather’s forthcoming third wedding celebrations. Hugh Hardman is a film director, whose second wife, famous actress Jean Summers, had died in dubious circumstances, having seemingly fallen off a yacht and drowned in the Gulf of Mexico.

He is now marrying Jean’s daughter, his own stepdaughter, Lana Mickelson. For Iris this is a wonderful opportunity to escape the humdrum, sexist, unreconstructed life of 1950s England for a stay in the sleazy, humid glamourous pre-Revolutionary Cuba. But she is plunged into a dangerous vortex of duplicity, mob-rule, sexual threat and violence, staying at the wedding party’s luxurious house in Cuba, which belongs to Bruce Bonini, a shady American property developer. Although at times she feels utterly out of her comparatively innocent depth, there is a hard-nosed and somehow unbelievable tenacity and curiosity about Iris that allows her to question her

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subjects and investigate the complex mysteries of the families for the week she is in Cuba and learn more about the death of Jean Summers.

The author (Tammy Cohen) portrays the physical heat and lush surroundings of Cuba to perfection – anyone who has been to the Caribbean will immediately recognise and be taken back to the unique smells, noises and atmosphere of that part of the world. The plot and narrative place are excellent, even though it is a little Godfather-ish (sinister mobster and gaming cartels, Cuba before Castro and a lavish society wedding – all duly checked) and we also wander off in another direction with a tantalising appearance of an idealised family home – Manderley. Despite its implausibility, the story engages the reader entirely and is a pleasure to read.

Douglas Kemp

THE TWO MRS. CARLYLES

Suzanne Rindell, Putnam, 2020, $27.00, hb, 432pp, 9780525539209

In the wake of the infamous San Francisco earthquake, Violet, an orphan, and her best friends are trying to find a way for themselves in the world. This earthquake is not the first tragedy for the girls to encounter: prior to this, Violet’s family suffered a terrible demise, and the orphanage where she and her friends lived was burned to the ground. Perhaps the most shocking is the mysterious, graphic death of the dancehall owner who had been providing employment for the trio. What unsettles Violet is that each of these events is preceded by one of her “episodes” where she falls asleep and wakes up with tragedy surrounding her.

Now separated from her best friends after the dancehall murder, Violet meets the influential Mr. Carlyle, with more mystery in his past than gold in California. Can Violet clear her name in the tragic events of her past as well as keep further tragedy from unfolding? Will the truth of Harry Carlyle’s past come to light? Could he be a murderer as well?

The Two Mrs. Carlyles is a sometimes-spooky adventure novel with lots of unpredictable twists and engaging characters. Although it has somewhat of a slow build to the actual meat of the story, this book is overwhelmingly gripping in its second half. My ultimate impression is not divided: if I could go back and experience reading this book again for the first time, I would.

Alice Cochran

THE BLACK SWAN OF PARIS

Karen Robards, MIRA, 2020, $27.99, hb, 480pp, 9780778309338 / Hodder & Stoughton, 2020, £20.99, hb, 480pp, 9781529338171

Robards’ gripping novel is a powerful tale set in 1944 Nazi-occupied France. Artists have leeway in this strict, brutal regime, which enables Genevieve Dumont, a dazzling chanteuse in the vein of Edith Piaf, to travel between countries and access high-level Nazis.

She works under her pianist manager, Max 46

Bonet, aka Major Max Ryan, SOE: a former RAF officer, now a British agent running an espionage unit. Their relationship is one of intense antagonism and verbal sparring. This visual novel is packed with action, suspense and peril as they walk a continual tightrope; they could be found out at any moment.

I winced at the horrific graphic torture carried out by Genevieve’s admirer, S. S. General von Wagner, the most notorious interrogator of resistance workers. Dining with him to elicit information, she cringes, “looking into the face of evil.”

As Genevieve smuggles documents, we sense her precarious situation, which turns desperate as she attempts to rescue her estranged mother, Baroness Lillian de Rocheford, from von Wagner’s fortified castle in Stuttgart before a tortured Lillian reveals details of the upcoming Allied invasion or is executed.

Drawing parallels to Kristin Hannah’s acclaimed The Nightingale, we have estranged sisters risking death as resistance heroines, both with avian code names.

Why the Black Swan? “She was in costume, in a tight strapless black bustier style bodysuit glittering with sequins… a full trailing skirt of dyed-black ostrich feathers… a headdress of three tall black ostrich plumes… the nickname Max and his team had bestowed on her.”

The bird is also a metaphor for achieving artistic perfection and suffering that leads to transformation which occurs as she grows in courage. At the start Genevieve sees herself as a caged songbird but, facing danger, must succumb or soar.

Gail M. Murray

CHER AMI AND MAJOR WHITTLESEY

Kathleen Rooney, Penguin, 2020, $26.00/ C$35.00, hb, 336pp, 9780525507826

Cher Ami, a champion racing pigeon—and heroic World War I veteran—has the first say in this novel. She’s speaking decades after the action, from her perch in the Smithsonian.

She’s a stuffed exhibit but takes her situation with so much philosophical grace and humor that I was immediately won over.

Alternating chapters are from Major Whittlesey’s perspective. A lonely, unhappy man, he’s tortured by survivor’s guilt and loss.

His story isn’t straightforward like Cher Ami’s, but wrapped in mystery. Despite his having become a successful Wall Street lawyer, he was a disappointment to his parents, never as manly as his brother. So it’s partly from that childhood wish to be loved that he enlists.

Cher Ami, on the other hand, is donated to the cause by the trainer who raised and loved her. (She isn’t Chère Amie because that same trainer, nor anyone else, ever realized she was a female.)

Together, Whit and Cher Ami tell how the “Lost Battalion,” the 308th Infantry, 77th Division, under Major Whittlesey’s leadership avoided surrender and how Cher Ami flew out, through gunfire, to summon help. Amazingly,

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this is a true story. I googled “Cher Ami” and then “Major Charles Whittlesey” so I could see their photos.

This could have been a sentimental tearjerker. Who wouldn’t cry over a World War I story, featuring a sensitive, tortured officer and a brave, thoughtful messenger pigeon; that is, a dove. The pathos might have been awful.

But not in Kathleen Rooney’s elegant and wellresearched telling. From its first lines, hearing Cher Ami’s voice, I relaxed, knowing that even if (if?) the story turned out tragically, it was true in the way the best fiction is, with wit, intelligence, insights, and unexpected turns in the plot. Recommended.

Kristen Hannum

THE INTRIGUES OF JENNIE LEE

Alex Rosenberg, Top Hat Books, 2020, $18.95, pb, 336pp, 9781789044584

Member of Parliament from Scotland Jennie Lee is swept up in both romantic and political maneuverings in the turbulent 1920s and 1930s. Only 24 when first elected (too young even to cast her own vote), Lee is a fierce advocate for the Labour party, delivering from the back bench of the House of Commons fierce and pointed speeches at Tories as well as members of her own party who are not doing enough for the vast and growing number of the unemployed.

An accomplished political thriller that touches on behind-the-scenes manipulation and machinations, demagoguery and smoldering fascism, The Intrigues of Jennie Lee also offers astute insights about the failed promise of communism under Stalin and the devastating consequences of blind adherence to the gold standard. Portraits of major legislative players— Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, MPs Oswald Mosley and Frank Wise, and the firebrand Lee—are keenly drawn as they interact with one another in the halls of Westminster and move from bedroom to bedroom. A highly intelligent foray into a past that faced many of the same forces seen today.

Perhaps even more important: a jolly good read.

K. M. Sandrick

BELLADONNA

Anbara Salam, Berkley, 2020, $26.00, hb, 336pp, 9780593099346

In 1956, teenagers Bridget and Isabella are students at a Catholic high school in Connecticut. Smitten with pretty Isabella, Bridget goes to some lengths to gain her confidence and get close to her. While Bridget and her Egyptian mother are mostly ignored in the small town, Isabella helps Bridget mingle with the in-crowd. Yet the other socialites remain aloof and include Bridget in games, if at all, as a timekeeper. They even call her, to her astonishment, an “oriental pearl.”

Nevertheless, Bridget is thrilled when, upon graduation, both she and Isabella are selected to study art history at a prestigious academy

in Italy, for she would then have Isabella to herself. While life at the institution, located on the picturesque grounds of a silent convent, is stimulating, Isabella makes other friends, particularly a nun of Italian-African parentage. Bridget feels disheartened upon realizing that Isabella has been keeping secrets from her. Other events occur that impact the lives of the best friends.

Anbara Salam, herself of ScottishPalestinian parentage, presents a revealing look at the vicissitudes of teenagers of mixed heritage. The story’s narration, exclusively in Bridget’s first-person voice, is appropriate.

We feel her joys, anger, elation, and disappointments. Most scenes in the novel are set up with care not only to move the plot forward but also to reveal Bridget’s thoughts and her reflections on others’ racial biases, which would be all too familiar to people in her situation. These situations are as relevant today as they were in the 1950s. Not having any male contacts, it’s evident that Bridget prefers female friendships, and through her actions and mental views, her lesbian feelings are deftly presented. This coming of age story also reveals the importance of communication between beloveds. Highly recommended.

Waheed Rabbani

WE CAME HERE TO SHINE

Susie Orman Schnall, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2020, $16.99, pb, 384pp, 9781250169785

We Came Here to Shine is a delightful novel of friendship, ambition, and resilience.

Vivi Holden came to Hollywood with big aspirations, and for a while, it looked as if her dream of starring in a major motion picture was about to come true. However, the director and her agent have something else in mind for her: They send her to the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City to star in the Aquacade—a spectacular synchronized water show also starring the famous swimmer, Johnny Weissmuller. Vivi has no experience as a swimmer, and she is reluctant to return to New York, lest her past catch up with her.

But her ambition and inability to speak up for what she wants silences her, so she takes the opportunity rather than risk her career.

Along the way, she meets and befriends Maxine Roth, a Jewish journalism student who has ambitions of her own: to land a summer internship with the New York Times. When she winds up working for the World’s Fair’s daily newspaper instead, she has to find a way to squelch her ambition or turn this assignment into a chance to reach her goals. Together, the two women must summon the courage to reinvent themselves and decide what is truly important, even if it means defying gender expectations and risking family relationships, romance, and career opportunities.

The writing is stellar, and the World’s Fair backdrop is a pleasant change of pace. The storyline is engaging, and the author paints a realistic and heartwarming portrait of friendship between two strong women. The historical research brings this time period to

life, and the inside glimpse into the World’s Fair is riveting. The reader can only hope for a sequel to follow the lives of these two unforgettable characters.

Hilary Daninhirsch

THE DAUGHTERS OF ERIETOWN

Connie Schultz, Random House, 2020, $28.00, hb, 480pp, 9780525479352

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Schultz’s debut novel is completely absorbing from the opening pages through the finale. It follows a working-class family from the fictional Erietown in northeastern Ohio across the 20th century’s second half.

While its situations are familiar –teenage pregnanc y, generational c o n f l i c t , infidelity, w o m e n ’ s stifled hopes – the author renders them unique through characters whose vivid inner lives make them feel as real as any of us. In 1975, Samantha McGinty heads to Kent State, the first in her family to attend university. In the car with her parents and brother, Sam thinks back on the terrible day in 1969 that broke her family and made her see her father, Brick, in a new, critical light.

Following this provocative hint of mystery, the narrative smoothly moves back in time to depict Sam’s parents as young people facing troubled circumstances. It’s 1956, and petite sixteen-year-old Ellie Fetters, raised by caring, old-fashioned grandparents, loves red-haired Brick McGinty, top scorer for their high school’s basketball team. Brick grows up protecting his exhausted mother from his father’s abuse and plans a future that involves Ellie, a sports scholarship, and escaping their small rural town. Ellie’s pregnancy derails their dreams, transforming Ellie into a housewife and young mother in their new house in Erietown, while Brick works a union job at the electric plant and, over time, starts feeling resentful.

The story shows how patterns from previous generations repeat themselves, despite people’s awareness of them. The historical period emerges through social attitudes and the impact of larger events; the McGintys’ “Jack and Jesus” wall, with its pictures of Christ and President Kennedy, has a somber meaning after JFK’s assassination. This deeply felt saga takes on tough subjects with profound honesty and carries readers along with the multifaceted, flawed characters as they move through and deal with life.

Sarah Johnson

BONNIE

Christina Schwarz, Atria, 2020, $27.00/ C$36.00, hb, 360pp, 9781476745459

As the country sinks deeper into the Great Depression, mama’s girl Bonnie Parker feels her own prospects dimming with it. Her husband is in prison, the babies she could adore have not been forthcoming, and her dreams of making it in the motion pictures or gaining fame as a poet seem far away. Then Clyde Barrow walks through a friend’s doorway. With his help, Bonnie’s immortality will be assured—though not as an actress or as a poet.

In her novel, told in the third person from the viewpoint of the titular character and, occasionally, her mother, Schwarz takes us on a rollicking, and decidedly unglamorous, ride with the young couple whose life of crime fascinated and attracted a nation hungry for antiheroes. On the way, we are joined by a vividly drawn cast of accomplices, victims, lawmen, and the couple’s hapless relatives.

(The pair’s families, hoping for the best but confidently expecting the worst, make for some of the novel’s best scenes.). Add to this a dry wit, the author’s ability to turn a lovely, evocative phrase (a sky is “the pale blue of a girl’s wash dress”), superb research, and sharp dialogue, and one has an excellent read.

Susan Higginbotham

TO WAKE THE GIANT

Jeff Shaara, Ballantine, 2020, $29.99, hb, 443pp, 9780593129623

With no job prospects in Depression-era Palatka,Florida,19-year-oldTommyBiggsjoins the Navy, becomes a hospital apprentice, and is posted to the Pacific. Cordell Hull navigates the often-muddy waters of diplomacy in the White House and State Department.

Admiral Isoroku Ya m a m o t o plots a risky and unpopular course for the Japanese fleet and its air ships.

Bestselling and awardwinning author of military fiction, Shaara tackles a wellknown story and makes it his own.

With so many histories, movies, and novels written about the attack on Pearl Harbor, one may think there is

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little more to learn. But To Wake the Giant harbors many surprises and shadings, clarifications and corrections of misconceptions, offering a deeper understanding, at least for this reader.

Beginning a year before December 7, 1941, the novel presents perspectives from the level of the swabby on and below decks to the leaders of government fearful of looming war and top brass weighing sketchy information and making life-altering decisions.

To Wake the Giant is detailed and nuanced, gripping and breathless. Shaara himself admits the book was difficult to write, at times too emotional to begin or too consuming to stop. The same is true for the reader. Shaara tells not only what happens but how it affects the lives of the men onboard ship and in the halls of power. Moving. Masterful.

K. M. Sandrick

THE INTERPRETER

A.J. Sidransky, Black Opal, 2020, $14.99, pb, 303pp, 9781644372173

The Interpreter is a fictional biographical WWII thriller, alternating between 193940 and 1945, gleaned from family records, particularly the experiences of Kurt Berlin.

In 1939, 17-year-old Kurt’s parents send him away from Vienna for his own safety. On the Kindertransport he meets Elsa, raised Catholic but only recently informed of her Jewish heritage. They fall in love but are separated by circumstance. Hounded by the Nazis, Kurt’s father manages a narrow escape, and his mother has her jewellery melted down into rods used in corsets, barely escaping Vienna herself. The family is reunited in Brussels.

Recruited by U.S. Captain McClain as an interpreter in 1945, Kurt hears sickening testimony from SS Captain von Hauptmann, a rabid anti-Semitic thug and self-confessed murderer. Conversations between McClain and von Hauptmann become jovial and are dehumanising and distasteful. At times von Hauptmann relates the horrors he perpetrated as though to his biographer. When Kurt discovers the American aim is to recruit von Hauptmann into covert work in the coming cold war, he makes an official complaint but is simply ordered to redact the transcripts and eliminate everything concerning Jews.

Meanwhile he tracks Elsa to a bombed-out convent, and to the only survivor, who tells him of von Hauptmann’s role in Elsa’s fate. His vehement hatred towards the Nazi redoubles.

This is a difficult book to read at times, because Sidransky’s prose is infused with such fear and desperation it is impossible not to react emotionally. Kurt Berlin specifically asked Sidransky not to write a biography because he did not consider his experiences exceptional, but readers are challenged to form their own opinions. The Interpreter is a tribute to the courage of the human spirit in adversity and to the lengths which we will go to in order to preserve our humanity.

Fiona Alison

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A SONG OF JOY

Lauraine Snelling, Bethany House, 2019, $15.99, pb, 328pp, 9780764232923

This is the fourth of the author’s Under Northern Skies series. Norwegian immigrant Nilda Carlson lives in a lumber town in Minnesota in 1911, working as a secretary to wealthy Gertrude Schoenleber, who is also helping Nilda with English and music lessons.

Nilda is troubled by her recent past, a sexual assault by a man later found dead. She had thought the case was closed, but a suspicious Pinkerton agent turns up to interview her. She is reluctant about being courted by Gertrude’s arrogant nephew Jeffrey. And Gertrude puts Nilda in charge of an ambitious charitable project, but Nilda isn’t sure her background will give her enough authority.

Readers who relish domestic details from historical eras, such as the progress of a croquet game or breakfast table conversations on farm life, will appreciate the story. Nilda’s warm relationship with schoolteacher Fritz contrasts with Jeffrey’s pouting and whining.

Since I had not read the previous volumes, I wished for a character list to keep Nilda’s family relations back on the farm all straight. I liked the depiction of an immigrant struggling to fit into life in her new country. Snelling’s many fans will love it.

B.J. Sedlock

THE QUEEN OF TUESDAY

Darin Strauss, Random House, 2020, $27.00, hb, 336pp, 9780812992762

The premise of Strauss’s newest literary novel is grandiose and rather wacky: that his grandfather Isidore Strauss, a Long Island real estate developer, had a secret affair with Lucille Ball. This never happened. The author describes his work as “a hybrid: half memoir and half make-believe” sparked by “an innocent dream,” although Isidore and the actress did attend the same party in which Fred Trump demolished the glass Pavilion of Fun on Coney Island. Their imagined meeting there, moved to 1949 from its real 1966 occurrence, opens the story. Lucille, a former B-Movie queen, has ambitious plans for television; Isidore, a handsome Jewish man with a “Cary Grant chin,” is a better listener (and lover) than the actress’s hot-tempered, unfaithful husband.

The novel follows the pair – her overnight superstardom, his struggle to maintain normality amid their romance, their progressively strained marriages – mostly separately. In between, using metafiction techniques, the author describes his grandfather’s life and his own attempts to interest his (real) agent in a screenplay Isidore and Lucille co-wrote (obviously fictional).

The tale succeeds in entertaining, and Lucille steals the show, of course. Most moving are the scenes where she finds her comedic niche via the character of Lucy Ricardo: “Maybe she can be the audience, only funnier and a little prettier… She can conquer the world with realness.” Strauss also offers insight into celebrity culture and the difficult interplay

REVIEWS | Issue 93, August 2020

between Lucille’s on-screen and off-screen marriages, both involving Desi Arnaz.

So much even beyond the central conceit is made up, however, that it pushes the novel into the alternate history spectrum. Even the weekday when I Love Lucy aired is off-kilter (it was Mondays, not Tuesdays). The author’s notes are as brazen as the overall concept.

It’s best for people who value emotional over historical truth, but all the same, it should spur interest in Lucille Ball and her accomplishments.

Sarah Johnson

THE COLOR OF AIR

Gail Tsukiyama, HarperVia, 2020, $26.99, hb, 320pp, 9780062976192

On November 21, 1935, Mauna Loa in Hawaii erupted. Smoked filled the sky, and lava flowed from the volcano towards the town of Hilo at a rate of about one mile a day. Residents, waiting to see if they should evacuate, collectively held their breathe until the lava flow stopped, leaving the town and its diverse residents safe just in time to celebrate Christmas Day. It is with this historical backdrop we meet the fictional residents of the Big Island: first is the absent Mariko Abe, who has recently passed away. Her son Daniel returns to Hilo just as Mauna Loa erupts, coming back home after practicing medicine in Chicago. Welcoming him back are Mariko’s companion, Koji, and her friend, Nori.

Both Koji and Nori, along with a larger cast of characters from the Big Island, are trying to understand their place in the community with Mariko gone and the chaos of the eruption making everything seemingly changed.

The story jumps between these perspectives, showing a wide range of insight and experiences that weave together to create a strong sense of community and place.

Tsukiyama is able to bring the political through the personal, especially regarding Hawaii’s history of immigrant indentured laborers, and her writing of the island’s lush landscape fills the reader’s vision, drawing you closer to the inner perspectives of these characters’ lives. The result is a satisfying escape to a time and place long past, but feeling very real, interconnected, and meaningful to the present day.

Ellen Jaquette

THE WOMAN BEFORE WALLIS

Bryn Turnbull, MIRA, 2020, $17.99/C$22.99, pb, 416pp, 9780778361022

The real-life socialites Thelma and Gloria

Morgan are the twin daughters of American diplomat Harry Morgan. Thelma became the mistress of the Prince of Wales, while Gloria married into the Vanderbilt family. Turnbull travels between Paris and America as she reimagines the tangled lives of these two famous women during the 1920s and ‘30s.

When Thelma’s second marriage to Viscount Furness begins to fall apart, she starts a long-term affair with David, the future Edward VIII, who is next in line for the British throne. When Gloria’s husband Reggie Vanderbilt dies, she oversees their young daughter’s inheritance. Her sister-in-law, Gertrude, sees Gloria as an unfit parent and irresponsible in handling Little Gloria’s money.

This begins a long and nasty custody battle for Little Gloria. The press has a feeding frenzy over the secrets revealed during the trial, including the scandalous accusations of her mother’s affair with another woman. Thelma rushes to America to support her sister during the trial while her relationship with David falls apart. Wallis Simpson steps into Thelma’s place by David’s side, setting off the events that lead to his abdication of Britain’s throne.

The novel jumps between the Vanderbilt trial in 1934 and Thelma’s and Gloria’s lives in the 1920s. Although this dual-time narrative is the trend now, it does not work for this novel. The two close timeframes make the narrative confusing. Despite this drawback, I enjoyed the book because of the glimpse into a very different, exclusive world: the royal life of the Prince as he and Thelma socialize with his friends and family, and the childhood upheavals Little Gloria went through before becoming the famous fashion designer, Gloria Vanderbilt. I recommend this juicy read about the scandals and lives of the rich, famous, and royal.

Janice Ottersberg

THE ALOHA SPIRIT

Linda Ulleseit, She Writes, 2020, $16.95, pb, 328pp, 9781631527234

Spanning almost thirty years in the 20th century, The Aloha Spirit follows the life of Dolores. She is left behind on the Big Island of Hawaii at age seven, as her father relocates to California. Left in the care of a Hawaiian family that regularly takes in children in exchange for a fee, Dolores clings to the hope that the situation will only be temporary. She is quickly put to work doing massive amounts of laundry that the Hawaiian family takes in as another way to make an income.

At sixteen, Dolores is still living with the Hawaiian family and has given up any hope of ever being reunited with her father. Then she meets handsome Manolo Medeiros and falls in love. It doesn’t take her long to find out that married life with Manolo has its heartaches.

A heavy drinker, he strikes out in anger when frustrated. By nineteen, she realizes that her two children will be her only joy in life. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Dolores journeys to

California to start anew, carrying the spirit of aloha with her.

Good historical accuracy and an admirable glossary complement the author’s efforts. The pacing slowed in spots, and the concept of “aloha spirit” was reiterated maybe more than necessary. Still a good read. Recommended.

Linda Harris Sittig

HER LAST FLIGHT

Beatriz Williams, William Morrow, 2020, $27.99, hb, 400pp, 9780062834782 / HarperCollins UK, 2020, £8.99, pb, 400pp, 9780008380175

In 1947, Eugenia “Janey” Everett begins research on a book about famous pilot Sam Mallory, who died in a plane crash during the Spanish Civil War. To get at the heart of Sam, Janey looks for, and finds, the even-morefamous aviatrix Irene Foster, who disappeared on the last leg of a solo, aroundthe-world race in 1937. Sam taught Irene to fly, helped her become famous, and was her alleged lover.

This novel tells Janey’s story: she was a photojournalist in Europe during World War II, finds Sam Mallory’s crashed plane and diary, and is now on a small Hawaiian island interviewing Irene Foster and getting entangled with the aviatrix’s family and friends. Alternating chapters are excerpts from Janey’s novel, The Aviatrix, about Irene Foster, beginning in 1928 when the aviatrix is a ten-year-old girl with no mother, a drunk for a father, and a passion for surfing. Both stories fly toward the answers we want to learn: how did Irene end up hiding on this island? Why did Sam crash in a Spanish desert? And what was Sam and Irene’s true relationship?

The suspense and pacing of the novel are excellent. The pasts of the three main characters are complicated and tragic and suspenseful. Each character is richly developed; they are hard people, but they’ve endured so much, and you desperately want everything to work out for them—but how can it? We already know the ending.

The author used Amelia Earhart and other historical people as models for this story (as explained in her author’s note), but she alters Earhart’s life and disappearance and develops new characters, puzzles, and a fabulous story.

The historical details of early flight, women pilots, airplanes in war, and the beginnings of worldwide celebrity are fascinating. Highly recommended.

Elizabeth Caulfield Felt

THE DICTIONARY OF LOST WORDS

Pip Williams, Affirm Press, 2020, A$32.99, pb, 384pp, 9781925972597

The Dictionary of Lost Words is the first novel by English-born, Australian author, Pip Williams. Set in Oxford, England, the novel spans over forty years, from the late Victorian period, through the Great Wars to the end of the 1920s, as told in the first person by Esme Nicoll.

Esme is a precocious, motherless child with a doting father, who is employed as a lexicographer on the development of the first Oxford English Dictionary. As she plays under the word-sorting table, the young Esme starts to collect dropped and discarded word slips.

She keeps them in a tin box under the maid’s bed. Over the years she accumulates enough lost words to create an alternative dictionary that represents women’s suffering.

The Dictionary of Lost Words gives us the emotional story of Esme’s coming of age and eventual employment as part of the research team, against a backdrop of male-dominated employment and the emerging women’s suffrage movement.

Williams purportedly started to question whether words meant different things to men and women. She decided to explore this through the story of the decades long, development of the Oxford English Dictionary.

The Dictionary of Lost Words concerns itself with the gaps between the lines of the dominant male narrative, choosing instead the usually overlooked, everyday language of ordinary women.

It’s a masterfully written, beautiful first novel that tells a fascinating story of language, love and loss.

Christine Childs

THE ORPHAN COLLECTOR

Ellen Marie Wiseman, Kensington, 2020, $16.95/C$22.95/£13.99, pb, 304pp, 9781496715869

Thirteen-year-old Pia Lange follows her mother through the throngs of Philadelphians gathering for the 1918 Liberty Loan Parade, unaware that the lethal Spanish flu is in their midst. Shortly after the parade, Pia, at home in her squalid tenement with her mother and twin brothers, comes face to face with death.

After her mother dies from the flu, Pia sets out to find food for her brothers, but she falls ill herself.

What follows is Pia’s struggle to survive the flu, her new orphan life in a wretched orphanage, and final salvation working in the

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home of the kind Hudson family. But Pia has two secrets: She is forever tormented by the loss of her brothers, which she blames on herself, and she has a sixth sense of illness in others when she touches them.

Bernice Groves longs for death after her son succumbs to the flu. A neighbor to Pia, she is curious why Pia leaves the house alone.

When she pays the Lange apartment a visit, she finds the twins in a small cubby beside their dead mother. Taking the boys is so easy for Bernice, and what follows is a dark journey into xenophobia and ruthlessness.

Wiseman’s writing is superb, and her descriptions of life during the Spanish Flu epidemic are chilling. In Pia, Wiseman has created a character that will draw in readers with her courage and resilience. In Bernice, we find the darker side of American attitudes toward immigrants prevalent during the early 1900s. She is truly despicable character, yet horrifyingly beguiling. Well-researched and impossible to put down, this is an emotional tug-of-war played out brilliantly on the pages and in readers’ hearts.

Bryan Dumas

ALL THAT LINGERS

Irene Wittig, independently published, 2020, $16.00, pb, 9798623796721

All That Lingers is a sweeping family saga set in Vienna and New York that leads the reader from 1934 in Austria to life in 1960s New York City. Emma Hubner is thinking only of marrying her beloved Theo when the Nazis invade Austria. Friedrich, Count of Harzburg, wants to evade his financial difficulties and what his country is becoming. Over the course of the novel, three sets of people, working class and aristocrats, are brought together by the torturous politics of the time and have their lives unbearably altered for worse—and sometimes for better.

It is a novel of hope and human resilience.

Emma and Sophie, the daughter of Emma’s good friends, are sympathetic characters that engage the reader with their battle to survive a disastrous relationship. Count Friedrich and his money-grabbing wife are characters whom one hates and loves in equal measure. This is an ambitious work of fiction, and the author has put her heart into it, but it’s possible the family story that inspired the book might be more gripping than the fiction put to paper.

It is hard to work out what the driving forces are at certain points. The story leaps from person to person before we get a chance to know them, which is unfortunate as there are promising characters to enjoy. There’s sometimes more talk than action. The twopage chapters feel rushed, and the plunge toward the post-war world means we lose so much of the sense of jeopardy expected in this kind of book. This reviewer can’t help thinking we’ve had so many WW2 books now that any new one has to climb quite a mountain to say something new.

Jeffrey Manton

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SONGS FROM A VOICE

Baron Wormser, Woodhall Press, 2020, $17.95, pb, 178pp, 9781949116120

The subtitle gives a sense of what’s inside: “Being the Recollections, Stanzas, and Observations of Abe Runyan, Song Writer and Performer.” First-person meditations and recollections of this fictional musician unfold in 52 untitled and unnumbered segments, each separated from the next by a provocative quatrain.

The segments cover Abe’s Duluth, Minnesota, traditional family, his pre-teen years, high school, and college until he quits to make his way in Chicago’s and then New York’s coffeehouse music scenes. Woven in are Abe’s observations about the American landscape of the 1950s through roughly the 1970s. Abe muses about wide open roads, graveyards, tiny towns and big cities, orderly and predictable working lives, as well as aimless folk just living day to day. Through Abe, Wormser gives readers his meditations about the A-bomb and war, about justice and the injustices of slavery, treatment of Native Americans, African Americans, and the down-and-out. Other observations range from love and lust to the night sky and sunrise.

Abe’s musical journey loosely follows the early life of Bob Dylan. As young Dylan no doubt was, Abe is impelled by the constant urge to create and share his music, no matter where that might take him. Wormser’s writing style fits the journey. “A person has to listen to those promptings. You may get nothing more back than the ill taste of your delusions, but it’s your taste, not someone else’s.” This literary tale is no story of good versus evil or the typical hero’s journey. Rather, it prods awake deeper thoughts about what motivates what we do, and how each of us fits into the larger whole of American life.

G. J. Berger

RUN ME TO EARTH

Paul Yoon, Simon & Schuster, 2020, $26.00/ C$35.00, hb, 259pp, 9781501154041

One terrible night in 1969, three young Laotian medical workers pilot motorbikes and passengers toward a helicopter that will take them away from the war, but an accident occurs that splits their lives apart. Paul Yoon’s disjointed, dreamlike new novel shifts back and forth over 25 years to tell these orphans’ stories.

The backdrop is the emotional and physical devastation American bombers wreaked on Laos during the Vietnam War. Alisak and Prany are seventeen-year old boys, and sixteen-year-old Noi is Prany’s younger sister. All three have been recruited to run errands and help take care of patients in an abandoned colonial mansion converted to a hospital near the Plain of Jars, one of the most heavily bombed sites in former French Indochina.

At the hospital, a piano-playing Laotian doctor named Vang oversees the orphans’ work and is later captured with one of the orphans. After being released, the doctor

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and his former assistant seek revenge on the individual who tortured and disabled them in prison. A childhood friend and former lover of Vang’s, a smuggler named Auntie, sets in motion an escape which leads to the book’s conclusion years later.

Dialogue is sparse. Friendships formed and broken apart by earth-shaking events are not neatly resolved. Yoon’s orphans seem guarded and emotionally distant, if not quite of this world. There is a thin, filtered quality to these stories, as if events are seen through what might be called the haze of war.

The motorbike accident and revenge are graphically rendered, but there is little heroism or romance in this short, nicely packaged book, basically a tale of human beings scrambling to survive a terrible war.

David Drum

CHILDREN OF WAR

Ahmet Yorulmaz, Neem Tree Press, 2019, £9.99, pb, 140pp, 9781911107293

The 1923 treaty of Lausanne was signed after the First World War to divide up the old Ottoman Empire. The treaty stipulated that population exchanges would take place between Greece and Turkey, which led to the mass deportation of 1.8 million people.

The reality was that the Greeks saw this as an opportunity to ethnic cleanse the Turkish Muslim population and remove them from Crete.

This novel shows the fundamental humanity of ordinary people who have lived as neighbours for centuries, each accepting the other’s differences without prejudice, but finally realising that they are to be segregated.

Hassan is a young boy when he is forced from his father’s farm with his family. His older brother is killed by unknown assassins, and there are several beatings and rapes of other Muslim families. They are descendants of Ottoman Turks, but they have spoken only Greek all their lives. Hassan is taught Turkish by a Greek scholar friend and is the only one of his family who can read and write in both languages. They are herded into a coastal town where they are isolated. The Greeks shell them, and Hassan’s father is killed, but the family carry on with Hassan and his mother working tirelessly to feed and clothe them. The story is not brutal or bloody, but it shows that only radicals create conflict. Most people want a peaceful life with the prospect of modest wealth and family happiness. A touching story of the generosity and compassion of the human spirit.

Alan Pearson

THE POSTMAN

Bi Yu (trans. Jesse Field), Penguin Books China, 2020, $9.99/C$12.99, pb, 120pp, 9780734398697

This is a small book but a large, impressive story, simply told and heartbreaking but concluding with hope. In Shanghai in 1936, when young Zhouliang’s father, a local postman, is found dead, his mother is

approached by an agent offering to pay the tuition to continue Zhouliang’s schooling. His mother leaves Shanghai to marry again, but Zhouliang doesn’t go back to school. Instead he applies to join the post office, purchasing his own mandatory bicycle with the tuition money. Gradually he is groomed to deliver coded letters, as his father had done before him, and during this time encounters Su Lina, whom he worships from afar over many years.

The writing here is effortless and understated, the relationships matter-of-fact and cold, yet it is at once very stirring. So much happens in these few pages. Almost everyone is playing a double role, no one is who they appear to be, and the author reveals connections between the characters that we don’t see coming. The danger encountered by agents seeking to undermine the Japanese occupants is taken for granted, no emotion playing into it. Or perhaps the emotion is buried in the secrets. There are many mentions of people using only facial expressions or body language to convey answers or feelings or requests, which help to evoke the deferential Chinese mannerisms and stoicism. It also grounds the story in its clandestine nature, as everyone is working in secrecy toward some end. Death is just another part of life, and the cyclical nature of life and love is apparent in Zhouliang’s journey. As many Chinese names do not fall trippingly from the Western tongue, it was necessary to make notes, but this did not detract in any way from this poignant war story of love, loss, and sacrifice, which I highly recommend.

Fiona Alison

MULTI-PERIOD

THE NESTING DOLLS

Alina Adams, Harper, 2020, $27.99/£20.00, hb, 384pp, 9780062910943

In 2019, a cantankerous, self-aggrandizing, but still loveable Russian immigrant grandmother takes a gift at her 45th wedding anniversary party and raises her arms to dash the framed wedding certificate to the ground.

Her granddaughter, Zoe, is mystified. Then, the novel jumps back some ninety years to the efficient, utterly unromantic wedding-bysignature of a young Jewish woman in Ukraine and her piano virtuoso husband.

The Nesting Dolls masterfully unspools the story of five generations of Russian Jewish women by following three of them from Odessa to Siberia to the United States. Daria, the matriarch of the clan, faces impossible choices when her piano performing husband and the rest of their small family are marched off to Siberia, accused of being “Germanic.”

The horrors of the frozen labor camps take a terrible toll, and Daria learns the complexity and pain of love as she tries to keep her delicate husband and two small girls alive.

Then, in the 1970s, the daughter of one of those girls resents the Soviet Union’s antiSemitism, but the only recourse she can imagine is flights of fancy about a handsome young agitator. Finally, Zoe is Daria’s great,

great-granddaughter, living in Brighton Beach and struggling to bridge the chasm in her identity, split between Russian/Ukrainian Jew and American.

Alina Adams deftly weaves the stories of these women, their heartaches, their blind spots, and their growth. As with many coming-of-age stories, it can be frustrating to watch the characters make clear errors, and the verisimilitude in the characters’ prejudices can be painful to read, but the wisdom they gain and the love they have for each other make the reader’s investment well worthwhile.

This is a charming, heartfelt novel.

Carrie Callaghan

THE COLLABORATOR

Diane Armstrong, HarperCollins 360, 2020, $16.99/A$32.99, pb, 373pp, 9781867202394

To paraphrase William Faulkner, World War II isn’t even past. In fiction and nonfiction, the fight goes on—perhaps especially fiercely at the present time because, as one character in The Collaborator observes, “Soon no peoples left to tell stories.”

A child Holocaust survivor herself, Diane Armstrong tells a compelling set of stories in this novel, which is set partly in 1944, partly from 1952 to 1957, and partly in 2005.

Locations range from Australia to Hungary to Israel, and the narrative moves back and forth between two main characters: Annika Barnett, a Bridget Jones-like Australian journalist who’s floundering through a midlife identity crisis, and Miklos Nagy, a Hungarian Jew who may be either a Holocaust hero or a Nazi collaborator, or both. Originally inspired by a non-fictional and controversial Israeli case, Armstrong takes two apparently totally disconnected lives and weaves them together in an intricate historical design that enables her to tell touching human stories and also to explore serious philosophical issues such as the nature of goodness, evil, crime, guilt, forgiveness, and gratitude. Her references to Greek tragedy and Faust are not inappropriate.

Her own background as a journalist becomes apparent in the excellent research that lies behind the book. On one level it investigates (through travel, documents, and interviews) a mystery, which in the end is not so much solved as it is enlightened. Truth is in fact… a finely shaded gray. Armstrong’s generally serviceable prose takes flight in her excellent descriptions of Budapest and Israel.

And occasionally a truly wonderful word pops out—footy, fairy-floss, stringybark, journo, triffid, bludger, spruik—to remind a delighted reader of the many saucy, salty glories that Australia has sprinkled on the English language.

Susan Lowell

THE DAUGHTERS OF FOXCOTE MANOR

Eve Chase, Putnam, 2020, $27.00/C$36.00, hb, 368pp, 9780525542384

A baby abandoned on a tree stump in

a remote forest lies at the centre of this enthralling dual-timeline novel. There’s also a murder, an affair, an unhappy adolescent girl, and a fiercely protective nanny.

In 1971, Big Rita is wonderful with children but uncomfortable in her own skin and shy with her peers. She is also uncomfortable with the task her absent employer has given her, to keep notes on his wife’s physical and mental state. Her love for her employers’ children keeps her in an increasingly ominous situation.

Thirteen-year-old Hera is desperate for her mother’s attention and is traumatized by her baby sister’s death a year earlier. And Jeannie, Hera’s mother, seems unable to take care of her children because she is so worn down by her overbearing husband.

In the modern timeline, Sylvie is smarting from a painful separation and from her eighteen-year-old daughter Annie’s choices, which don’t align with the life Sylvie has imagined for her. When Annie announces her pregnancy, Sylvie is horrified. Despite Sylvie’s fears, Annie’s pregnancy leads to significant discoveries with the potential to heal generations-old wounds.

Chase’s mastery of language is impressive, and her concrete images pack a considerable punch with their freshness and emotional resonance. One image she uses for lovers’ entwined feet is so perfect that I’ll never forget it.

This novel is about girls and women, especially what it means to be a mother, sister, and daughter. I sometimes lost track of identities and relationships because of the large cast of characters, but my confusion never lasted long. A web of intricate threads links characters in both timelines, leading to a satisfying ending. Sure to please fans of Kate Morton and Diane Setterfield.

Clarissa Harwood

THE LIONS OF FIFTH AVENUE

Fiona Davis, Dutton, 2020, $27.00, hb, 368p, 9780593285985

This dual-time period novel begins in 1913 New York, where the Lyons family—Laura, Jack, and their two children— have just moved into a hidden apartment in the New York Public Library. While Jack tends the library by day and writes novels at night, Laura is given the opportunity to attend Columbia Journalism School, which exposes her to issues and lifestyles far beyond her own coddled world as a homemaker and mother. Over time, as her husband searches for a lost Edgar Allan Poe manuscript in his charge, she begins to become

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involved in the world of women’s suffrage and doubt the limited role of womanhood with which she was raised. This change in viewpoint, coupled with the increasing pressure Jack feels as suspicion about the theft turns to him, leads them to an explosive showdown.

Eighty years later, history seems to be repeating itself as Laura’s granddaughter, Sadie Donovan, now head of a special collection at the same library, faces her own lost manuscript mystery. Perplexed, she teams up with a private-eye to try to uncover who is stealing these valuable materials, but in the process uncovers long-buried secrets about her own family’s history that could change not only her life, but the history of the library.

This novel is a book-lover’s dream. Between the setting of the New York Public Library and a mystery involving several lost pieces of literature, as a reader, I couldn’t speed through the pages fast enough. Although I have read several of Fiona Davis’s books in the past, this is by far my favorite. Her characters and plot are all top-notch, while the mysteries lend this book an air of excitement and urgency not always felt in historical stories. I particularly loved learning about the history of the venerable institution and the world in which it was founded. Highly recommended.

Nicole Evelina

THE LOST DIARY OF VENICE

Margaux DeRoux, Ballantine, 2020, $27.00, hb, 336pp, 9781984819482

Margaux DeRoux’s debut novel, The Lost Diary of Venice, weaves together two stories of forbidden love. In contemporary New Haven, William, a married artist, and Rose, a book restorer, fall for each other. In 1571 Venice, the duo is Chiara, a courtesan with a powerful patron, and Gio, an artist commissioned to paint her portrait. Their stories meet when William brings a palimpsest to Rose for restoration. The surface reads as Gio’s treatise on art. As the undertext of the palimpsest is revealed, so are secrets that Gio and Chiara share only with each other.

The relationship between red-haired, greeneyed, virginal-ish Rose and the handsome William will indulge lovers of category romance, with lots of blushing and mental daisy-petalpicking. Fortunately, Rose’s emotional reserve and the complexities of William’s attitude toward his marriage don’t allow the reader to coast to a predictable Happily-Ever-After resolution.

DeRoux does a good job of interweaving the love stories; the weaving in of historical events and places is a bit looser. The 1571 Battle of Lepanto, which pitted European powers against the Ottoman Empire, provides a historical backdrop and some important plot points, yet the gritty scenes set on Cyprus, the object of the struggle, read like fragments from another book. More important, Venice does not feel like Venice. For example, when visiting his patron, Gio arrives on foot and knocks on the front door of a “great house set back some 52

distance from the avenue,” rather than set on a canal, or at least on a campo or calle.

Overall, sumptuous prose and a wealth of fascinating, if over-ambitious, historical threads make The Lost Diary of Venice an enjoyable read, while the well-paced conceal and reveal of the palimpsest keep curiosity alive and the pages turning.

Jean Huets

BLOOD SONG

Johana Gustawsson (trans. David Warriner), Orenda, 2019, $15.95/C$20.95/£8.99, pb, 270pp, 9781912374816

The modern setting and murder of three members of a well-to-do Swedish family are unraveled in the usual hard, dark style of the popular Nordic mystery genre. The couple have been running a profitable but perhaps underhanded fertility clinic that offers many options for motives from patients, both frustrated and gratified.

The very limited history part of this novel comes in brief interspersed chapters that flashback to the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, a neglected but brutal episode of human history. Extolled by Hemingway in heroic terms, the grim fates of orphaned children and other victims are often overlooked. Gustawsson focuses particularly on the inmates of the notorious Las Ventas women’s prison and the children forcibly taken from them to grow up in Madrid’s La Virgen de los Desamparados Orphanage during the time of Franco. Children wanted and too many unwanted make a gripping interplay, but we are always relieved to come back to the icy cold of a Swedish winter and police procedural.

Fascist Spain during this period is a time we all could learn more about, more than these brief snippets. It’s not clear if we could endure it in broader sweeps than this, however.

Ann Chamberlin

THE SEA GATE

Jane Johnson, Head of Zeus, 2020, £18.99, hb, 410pp, 9781789545166 / Simon & Schuster, 2020, $17.99, pb, 416pp, 9781982140878

It is rare to find a dual-narrative novel in which both strands of the narrative are equally compelling. Often the present-day strand exists as a rather pallid framework for the epic narrative from the past.

The Sea Gate is a remarkable exception. Each time the narrative switched from present to past or vice versa, it left me on a cliff edge, reluctant to leave the one sequence while yet eager to join the other.

Both narratives are set in Cornwall, in

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the same house. The historic narrative is set during WW2, and the narrator is a teenage girl, Olivia, who is left to fend for herself and to look after a younger evacuee when her mother goes off to war. The present-day narrative is told by Olivia’s second cousin, Rebecca, and begins in the traditional way with the mother’s funeral in London and the children emptying her house and uncovering a family secret. This sets Rebecca on the train to Cornwall to sort things out.

Each strand of the narrative is both a love story and a thriller in its own right. Rebecca is named after the title character in Daphne Du Maurier’s novel, and Johnson’s novel echoes Du Maurier in its strong Cornish sense of place as well as the way it builds the feeling of tension and foreboding.

Dual narrative at its very best.

Edward James

THE DECEPTIONS

Suzanne Leal, Allen & Unwin, 2020, A$29.99, pb, 269pp, 9781760875275

The Deceptions is award-winning Australian author, Suzanne Leal’s third novel. Like her first novel, Border Street, it was inspired by the Holocaust survival stories of Leal’s ex-landlords.

The Deceptions is a multi-generational story set in Europe in the later years of World War Two and Sydney, Australia, in 2010. Hana Lederova was a young Jewish Czech woman, imprisoned in a Jewish ghetto and alone in the world, after the Nazis took her parents away.

This is the story of what extremes Hana had to go to for survival and the subsequent web of deceptions that reverberated, more than sixty years later.

Leal chooses to tell the story through four different characters’ points of view: Hana; Karel (Hana’s guard); Karel’s granddaughter, Tessa; and Ruth, a modern-day Jewish minister.

The novel switches back and forth between the four characters’ perspectives more than thirty times. The reader is taken back and forth between the present day and war years, to gradually reveal what happened to Hana and the complicated connections between present and past.

Leal does this with considerable skill. She writes Hana’s voice in first person throughout the novel, helping provide a stable anchor for the reader. At times, however, I wished that there were less of Tessa and Ruth’s modern-day relationships and more about Hana and Karel’s experiences. Regardless, The Deceptions is an intriguing character-driven story, masterfully told, with a rich sense of time and place.

Christine Childs

THE LOST JEWELS

Kirsty Manning, William Morrow, 2020, $16.99, pb, 336pp, 9780062882028 / Allen & Unwin, 2020, A$32.99, pb, 336pp, 9781760528102

Jewelry historian Kate Kirby is asked to research and report on Cheapside Jewels, a bundle of precious gems that were unearthed after being buried during London’s Great Fire. Kirby decides to explore the nagging

mystery of why someone would hide a cache of jewels and never return to claim them. She also sets out on a journey to learn how and why individual pieces were made, to, as Kirby notes, listen for the jewels’ whispered secrets. The journey takes Kirby to diamond mines in India and jewelry markets in Sri Lanka. It also leads to her own family history and the source of the sapphires in the earrings she was given by her great-grandmother, Essie.

Author Manning expertly guides readers back and forth from present day to 1912 London with stops in 1630 Golconda, India, and 1666 London. Like a skilled lapidary, she shapes and polishes the narrative to gradually reveal character facets and the stories that gems carry over time—vignettes describing love, loss, sacrifice, and remembrance.

Characteristics of the gems themselves are carefully etched to reveal surprises, answers to riddles, and moments of deep emotion.

Plotline layers unfold, illuminating shades of dark and light. This is indeed a treasure.

K. M. Sandrick

THE FORGOTTEN LETTERS OF ESTHER DURRANT

Kayte Nunn, William Morrow, 2020, $16.99/ C$21.00, pb, 384pp, 9780062970589

This atmospheric dual-timeline novel tackles postpartum depression, the impossibilities of love, and the ways people harm when they mean to help. Shifting between 1951 and 2018, the story takes place primarily between London and St Mary’s, one of the Isles of Scilly (where much of the book’s moody flavor comes from the equally moody landscapes).

In 1951, new mother Esther finds herself committed to an asylum after sinking into a depression following the death of her baby. Brought to the isolated island by her husband under the guise of a holiday, Esther’s furious rage is tempered by her doctor’s compassionate concern for her happiness.

In 2018, marine biologist Rachel is assigned to research bivalves on St Mary’s, where she discovers a cache of unsent letters – and tries to find the recipient. In London, Eve cares for her grandmother, a famed mountaineer, where her attempts at interviewing her grandmother for a book turn into a more intimate opportunity to learn about her family history.

Nunn manages the three separate storylines well, with sympathy and grace extended toward each woman, regardless of their choices. Love and loss are both

monumental and mundane, impacted by societal restrictions of the time, and the end result is a story that is emotional without cheap manipulation, romantic but grounded in realism, and wraps up without trite neatness.

Audra Friend

THE SUN SISTER

Lucinda Riley, Atria, 2020, $28.00, hb, 848pp, 9781982110642 / Pan, 2020, £8.99, pb, 848pp, 9781509840151

Lucinda Riley returns with the sixth installment of her Seven Sisters series. In The Sun Sister, the reader finally learns about the enigmatic sixth sister of the d’Apliese clan: Electra. One of the world’s most famous supermodels, Electra seems to live a charmed life. But beneath the surface, she struggles with her identity, addiction, and fitting in with her adopted family. Through the help of Pa Salt’s last letter to her, Electra connects with her grandmother Stella and learns about her family’s history, including Cecily, her greatgrandmother. A New York City socialite in the late 1930s, Cecily escaped to colonial Kenya after a broken engagement. Staying with her godmother Kiki, Cecily is daunted at first by Kenya and Kiki’s circle of hedonistic expatriates. But a twist of fate results in Cecily staying in Kenya, which changes her life forever and will impact Electra’s future.

Fans of Riley’s Seven Sisters series will not be disappointed; The Sun Sister is the perfect book to read during quarantine. Riley writes an epic tale full of melodrama, family secrets, the power of chance, addiction, and forgiveness. While massive, the pages fly by in typical Lucinda Riley fashion. While Electra’s high-flying world is an addictive read, the story of her great-grandmother Cecily is even better. Riley transports the reader to colonial East Africa, making you feel like you are in a Kenyan landscape full of dusty red dirt, fever trees, and lions. The one critique, though, is the unrealistic dialogue throughout the book, which needs editing. Despite this, The Sun Sister is propulsive and full of family drama.

Like her other books, you will be sad when you’re finished. This book is perfect for fans of Alyson Richman and Kimberley Freeman and while it is part of a series, it can also be read as a standalone.

Julia C. Fischer

BLACK COTTON STAR: A Graphic Novel of World War II

Yves Sente and Steve Cuzor. Pegasus, 2020, $25.95, hb, 174pp, 9781643132051

This graphic novel tells the story of Angela, an African-American assistant to Betsy Ross.

In 1776, she conceals a black star under a white one in a flag commissioned by George Washington, symbolizing her people’s part in the struggle for freedom. During World War II, one of Angela’s descendants learns of the black star. When the “Betsy Ross Flag” is

reported stolen by Nazis, African-American soldiers in Germany are released from their menial tasks to undertake a suicidal mission to recover the flag. Despite their heroism, the mission fails.

Black Cotton Star’s visuals are gripping, taking readers from abuses suffered by freedmen and women in pre-Revolutionary Philadelphia to the segregated South of the 1940s, and then to Germany in 1942, where African-American soldiers are prey to a fundamentally racist U.S. military hierarchy and thrown against vastly larger, well-armed Nazi forces.

Neither the publisher’s letter to editors and critics nor the book itself acknowledges the wholly fictional basis of this novel. There is no reputable evidence that Betsy Ross either designed or created the iconic stars and stripes flag in 1776. In fact, Congress didn’t discuss a national flag until 1777, and there were multiple versions of the stars and stripes theme. There was no Nazi theft of “the Betsy Ross Flag.”

The interwoven narratives in Black Cotton Star do powerfully visualize the long history of institutionalized racism in the United States from the 1700s to civilian and military cultures in 20th-century America. However, a version of the standard disclaimer for historical fiction would be helpful for readers of any age.

Pamela Schoenewaldt

HONEYSUCKLE SEASON

Mary Ellen Taylor, Montlake, 2020, $12.95, pb, 347pp, 9781542017886

Honeysuckle Season is an intriguing novel of secrets, loss and family. A wedding photography assignment turns out to be lifechanging for a woman who is trying to put her life back together after a series of losses.

Libby McKenzie recently moved back to her hometown in Virginia after her marriage ended and her beloved father passed away.

Reconnecting with her childhood best friend, Libby tries to rebuild her life and focus on her photography business.

She is hired to photograph the wedding held on the grounds of the town’s famous Woodmont Estate. The owner, Elaine Grant, takes an interest in Libby, inviting her to family dinners despite the obvious resentment of Elaine’s daughter. She also asks Libby to photograph the restoration of the old greenhouse on the grounds of the estate. Libby agrees, though she does not understand why she is being pulled into the Grant family.

In another storyline set 80 years earlier in the 1940s, the reader meets Sadie and Olivia.

Sadie is a poor teen living in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Olivia’s husband reluctantly hires Sadie to drive Olivia around town but secretly teaches Olivia to drive, against her husband’s will. When Sadie has to go on the run, the two women form a lifelong bond, strengthened by a shared secret.

Eventually the storylines converge, though it is not hard for the reader to guess the family

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secrets and connections. Both Libby and Olivia are tenacious and headstrong, and both understand the effects of loss. The storylines are engaging, and the writing evocative. This is a novel for those who like dual timelines and stories about family secrets.

Hilary Daninhirsch

A MAP OF THE DAMAGE

Sophia Tobin, Simon & Schuster, 2019, £8.99, pb, 420pp, 9781471151668

Tobin has created a scintillating novel of smoke and mirrors set in the glass-loaded Mirrormakers Club in London.

Two narratives weave around each other and unfold in the novel. In 1940s Blitz-torn London, Livy Baker has lost her memory in a bomb blast and takes refuge in the damaged and fragile Mirrormakers Club. She navigates her relationships with the architect Christian Taylor, who seems to know her, and the wealthy club member, Jonathan Kinsburg, who asks Livy to comb the club’s archives in search of a missing family diamond.

In the 1840s, rich socialite Charlotte Kinsburg is oppressed by her controlling husband, Ashton, and as The Mirrormakers Club is under construction she discovers an empathy with its architect, Henry Dale-Collingwood.

Livy is fascinated by the portrait of Charlotte wearing the diamond that hangs in the club.

Like Saint Paul’s Cathedral, The Mirrormakers Club precariously survives night after night of bomb attacks. During one night of explosions and building collapses, a skeleton is partially uncovered in the foundations of the club.

This is a deliciously told mystery and a riveting tale of an illicit Victorian love affair.

Tobin’s writing on the subtle interplay of emotions between her characters, such as Charlotte’s relationship with her husband and with her children, is especially strong. The novel vividly confronts us with the physical damage of the Blitz and makes us alive to the emotional damage we are capable of inflicting upon one another. Highly recommended.

Tracey Warr

THE BOOK OF LOST FRIENDS

Lisa Wingate, Ballantine, 2020, $28.00, hb, 387pp, 9781984819888 / Quercus, 2020, £14.99, hb, 464pp, 9781529408928

Hannie Gossett is an eighteen-year old freed slave. In 1875 she finds herself caught up in the affairs of the Gossett family, on whose land she was born into slavery, and on a dangerous journey from Augustine, Louisiana to Texas.

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It’s on this journey that Hannie learns about the Lost Friends: advertisements placed in the Southwestern Christian Advocate, a Methodist newspaper, where families separated though the cruelty of slavery tried to reconnect. These stories of missing family members were read in pulpits across the South, and although Hannie’s tale of family separation is fictional, Wingate includes poignant real examples of these historical documents throughout the novel.

Hannie’s search also ties into the other timeline of The Book of Lost Friends, set in 1987.

This is the story of a new, young English teacher, Benny Silva, who takes a job at Augustine’s public school. It’s a run-down, under-funded institution where racial inequality, poverty and social challenges mean Benny faces an uphill task to engage her students. To do so, she will need the help of Nathan Gossett and the books and historical documents hidden in the deserted old plantation house that has been in the Gossett family for generations.

In alternating chapters, Wingate does an excellent job of pulling the reader in to each story and each set of characters. The two narratives dovetail effectively and create a compelling story which subtly highlights the racial disparity in opportunities for Americans – in both timelines. Hannie’s story is fictional, but in The Book of Lost Friends, Wingate highlights a real and often tragic aspect of slavery and sends a message that we should all learn from the past. “Stories change people,” Benny tells us. “History, real history, helps people understand each other, see each other from the inside out.”

Kate Braithwaite

HISTORICAL FANTASY

THE ANGEL OF THE CROWS

Katherine Addison, Tor, 2020, $27.99, hb, 448pp, 9780765387394

London, 1880. In this historical fantasy world, there are angels, werewolves, hell hounds, and vampires registered throughout London. However, the worst monster of all is a man who stalks the streets at night, Jack the Ripper. Dr. Doyle, recently returned from the war, and an angel named Crow will embark on a series of adventures as they are called upon to solve mystery after perplexing mystery. At the same time, they will relentlessly pursue the identity of Jack the Ripper in hopes of stopping the heinous criminal.

What started out as “wing fic,” a subgenre of fan fiction, has become an absorbing twist on the intrepid duo of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. While it may be set in an alternate history, Addison does a commendable job of setting a historical tone with the vernacular and landscape. However, readers are dropped into this alternate world without a map. I enjoyed the characters, but it took a while to figure out some of the rules of this world and its creatures, which are quite rich in detail.

Once references and social distinctions became clearer, it was easy to escape into the

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enigmas that Crow and Doyle were presented with. Addison pulls together multiple threads while always keeping the overarching goal at the story’s core, like a gravity well pulling all other mysteries toward it. Character development is charming and layered with surprises. If you like Victorian criminal investigations, a bit of the macabre, and supernatural adventures, The Angel of the Crows has all this and more.

J. Lynn Else

BRASS CARRIAGES AND GLASS HEARTS

Nancy Campbell Allen, Shadow Mountain, 2020, $15.99, pb, 320pp, 9781629727370

Emmeline (Emme), an advocate for the rights of the Shifter community, is the newly elected spokeswoman for an upcoming summit meeting in Scotland. Fiercely independent, she is the mouthpiece for the downtrodden and stands resolutely against injustice. Thwarting her efforts are her disagreeable stepsisters, the Predatory Shifter Regulations Committee, and its evil president. Her devoted mother insists on a bodyguard to accompany Emme and Detective Oliver Reed, her onetime nemesis, takes the job, much to Emme’s dismay. True to the clean and proper romantic theme she gradually sees a different side of the detective who has dogged her shifter rights’ steps since day one. Annoyance and mistrust soon turn to mutual respect, affection, and love as the adventure turns deadly. A race against time in a brass carriage, an arrival moments before the midnight deadline, a shimmering gown topped off with delicate stylish shoes, (Emme’s lost one is returned by Oliver), round off the Cinderella-esque story.

Automaton butlers, scribers, horseless travelers, flying machines, and the eponymous brass carriages transport us into Allen’s fourth in the series of a fairy-tale steampunk world of shifters and vampires, marginalised citizens both good and evil. Another excellent addition to the genre.

Fiona Alison

CARVED FROM STONE AND DREAM

T. Frohock, Harper Voyager, 2020, $17.99/ C$21.99, pb, 347pp, 9780062825643

In 1939, the Spanish Civil War is raging.

The Los Nefilim is in retreat, heading across the Pyrenees Mountains to a safe haven in France. The Los Nefilim possess the power to harness music and light in the supernatural war between the daemons and the angels.

Diago Alvarez, whose mother was an angel and his father a daemon, is leading the retreat with those who are mortals. Along the way, a notebook listing the spy network is stolen and must be retrieved by Diago and his King of the Nefilim, Don Guillermo Ramirez. Ramirez guards the Republican government elected by the mortals.

Ramirez’s brother, Jordi Abello, has united the Falangists and the Carlists under the Nationalist banner that forms a single army

under Franco’s leadership. He has been sent to assassinate his brother and wants dominion over the mortals and the Nefilim.

This supernatural novel (second in a series) “blends fantasy and pre-WWII history” with excellent writing, is professionally researched with exciting events in each chapter, and provides a fast-paced drama that engages the reader from start to finish. I must admit, it took me a while to grasp the meaning of the terminology used to explain the various fantasy words such as “glyphs,” “sigils,” and the “nefils” technique that are used throughout the story. It probably would have helped to read Book 1, Where Oblivion Lives, first. Nevertheless, if fantasy is your cup of tea, you may enjoy this well-written novel.

Jeff Westerhoff

THE LAST DISCIPLE

James Holmes, Harrison Media, 2019, $9.99, pb, 392pp, 9781734369816

In the present day, commando John Sunday finds a painting on the body of a terrorist in Syria that points to the resting place of the last remains of Jesus. Sunday is then assigned to guard the archaeological team dispatched to Jordan, funded by the CIA and headed by his ex-wife, Kat Devier. But the clay jar they discover in the secret cave puts more than just their lives at risk, for its contents hold a power beyond life and death, and its secrets prove the key to unlocking the gates of hell.

Alternating with John and Kat’s battles against the ruthless and endlessly resourceful enemy out to kill them is the story of Longinus, the centurion who lances Jesus’s side at the crucifixion and gains the power of resurrection. Longinus witnesses the growth of the cult of Yeshua through the reigns of the emperors Caligula and Nero, but his quest to reunite with his wife, Licinia, will lead him to put his own twist on Biblical prophecy.

Holmes’s interpretation of the Christian mythos overshadows its promises of joy and salvation with darker, more sulfurous Biblical texts, and his nightmare world of terrors is a far cry from the cheerful treasure hunting of Dan Brown and his imitators. There’s also a much higher body count. The apocalyptic ending holds less of a resolution than a lead-in to the next book in the trilogy, but readers will be swept up in the taut writing, relentless action, and clever plotting as Longinus’s legacy is revealed. Fans of first-century Christian and Roman history will enjoy the book’s take on key events and the terms in which it imagines the ageless battle of good vs. evil. For those with a strong stomach, this first in a promised trilogy is a memorable roller-coaster ride.

Misty Urban

TROUBLE THE SAINTS

Alaya Dawn Johnson, Tor, 2020, $26.99/ C$36.50, hb, 352pp, 9781250175342

Best known for her YA science fiction and fantasy, Johnson returns to adult fiction in this alternate-reality noir adventure set in New

York in 1940.

Phyllis LeBlanc is an assassin for a vicious mob boss, possessing a supernatural gift for throwing knives with deadly accuracy.

In this imaginative setting, certain people of color are blessed (or cursed) with “saint’s hands” that manifest various uncanny skills. They are both feared and coveted by whites who crave power, and symbolize the ambiguous status enjoyed in Depression-era America by mixed-race individuals who could “pass” as white. Phyllis, is one of these, has enjoyed a decade-long, glamorous existence as a paid assassin, but longs to leave her soulstaining profession to reunite with her former lover, Devajyoti Patil, an undercover agent who has powers and tragic secrets of his own.

They share a deep friendship with Tamara Anderson, a dancer/hostess and card-reading Oracle, able to see the patterns of power and resistance that drive their entwined fates.

Johnson captures the conversational rhythms of the hard-boiled denizens of the New York crime scene beautifully, allowing readers a new perspective on the power struggles between crime bosses and corrupt law enforcers jockeying for power at the end of Prohibition. People of color were often collateral damage in these struggles, and Phyllis and Dev’s desperate efforts to escape several kinds of war zones are complicated by the racism they encounter from both allies and enemies, even after the scene shifts from Manhattan to the bucolic Hudson Valley.

Johnson’s three narrators offer, in turn, fascinating case studies of how oppressed people have resisted white supremacy: with violence, with subterfuge, and ultimately, with a deep connection to the past that is the only path to reconciliation. Graphic violence and sexual encounters are rendered explicitly but in exquisite prose, contributing to the dreamlike atmosphere but definitely intended for adult readers.

Kristen McDermott

A DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAGICIANS

H. G. Parry, Redhook, 2020, $28.00/C$35.00, hb, 493pp, 9780316459082

The concept of this ambitious fantasy historical works neatly: substitute “magic” for “freedom,” and the French Revolution and the Abolition movement in England dovetail with a sprawling epic about the struggles of magicians to use abilities that are only allowed to aristocrats in this version of the 18th century. Parry imagines historical figures William Pitt, Maximilien Robespierre, William Wilberforce, and Camille Desmoulins as

tireless advocates for the rights of commoners to use the magical skills acquired genetically, but restricted through a system of childhood testing and shock bracelets administered by the Knights Templar. Magic in this alternate reality has been thus controlled since the 14th century, when the “Vampire Wars” threatened to destroy Europe.

The four main characters, plus Fina, a resourceful African woman enslaved in Jamaica and awakening to her own power during the events of Toussaint L’Ouverture’s revolt in Haiti, are all intensely moral, thoughtful figures struggling to manage the tides of Revolution. Robespierre and Pitt, however, harbor secret abilities that are being exploited by a shadowy supernatural figure haunting their dreams and urging them toward more destructive policies.

If this sounds like a lot, it is. The narrative limps under the weight of its own complexity, and characterization suffers as a result. The lack of female characters (aside from Fina, who only comes into her own in the last third of the novel) to balance the emphatically Platonic friendships of the four protagonists makes it difficult to become emotionally involved. Parry’s style is clear and natural, and her world-building is a marvel of historical adaptation, so perhaps a stronger editing hand would have been useful. The novel ends with the closing days of the Terror, but the underlying conflict with the malign figure behind Robespierre’s destructive reign is still to come, so at least another volume is forthcoming.

Kristen McDermott

THE NORSE QUEEN

Johanna Wittenberg, Shellback Studio, 2020, $13.99, pb, 318pp, 9781734566406

Norway, 9th century. Asa is only 15 when her father and brother are murdered by the vicious warlord Gudrod. She is forced from her home to become his bride. Asa attempts to escape but is found by Gudrod’s son, Olaf. If only it could have been Olaf’s proposal instead of Gudrod’s.

Despite their shared feelings, Olaf’s duty compels him to bring Asa back to his father.

Desperate to save her people from being punished for her actions, she consents to be wed. Because if Asa ever hopes to get retribution for her family and her people, she must become Gudrod’s queen.

The Norse Queen is an absorbing tale of sacrifice and courage. Asa is a strong, intelligent woman who’d envisioned becoming a Shield Maiden. She is a skilled warrior with a

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deep love for her family. The narrative switches between her and Olaf, a man who struggles to meet his father’s impossible expectations.

I was riveted to the pages as each character fought against the constraints Gudrod bound them both with. The characters are complex and compelling.

Based on the real-life historical figure of Queen Asa, Wittenberg’s thorough and detailed research paints a vivid picture of early medieval Viking life. While there was sword fighting, skirmishes, and a forced marriage, the violence was thankfully never overly graphic. There are fantasy elements which mirror the strong religious beliefs, adding an additional layer of intrigue to the narrative.

This is a fascinating glimpse into what a strong woman’s life in Viking times might have looked like, and I eagerly anticipate more from Wittenberg’s The Norsewomen series.

J. Lynn Else

TIMESLIP

FIFTY IN REVERSE

Bill Flanagan, Tiller Press, 2020, $23.99, hb, 208pp, 9781982152673

In this time-travel novel, Peter Wyatt, age 65 in the year 2020, wakes up in the body of his fifteen-year-old self in the year 1970. Wyatt is a nice guy, loves his wife, his adult children, his years as a father and content curator for a streaming music service. But if you woke up in your childhood bedroom, wouldn’t you think it was a dream? A chance to see your parents again? A chance to be carefree in the way only a child can? Or does it feel too uncertain, when you already took a path that led to happiness and contentment?

Peter Wyatt’s parents notice the sudden change in their son, now a fifteen-year-old who weeps while watching his mother make pancakes. After Peter takes off his clothes in math class, which he explains as an attempt to rouse himself out of the strange dream, his parents take him to a child psychologist.

Enter Dr. Terry Canyon, a man who is the embodiment of the 1970s with his turquoise belt buckle, shaggy blonde hair, and Triumph motorcycle.

It’s through these sessions with Terry that the reader gets to know Peter, gets to see the frustrations he has with the rage of hormones, and the longing he has for the easy comfort of a thirty-year marriage.

The storytelling is uneven—there are chapters of lovely insight into the human condition, and wonderful depictions of longing and connection—but then there are characters and plotlines that get dropped in late into the story, feeling forced and awkward. The omniscient perspective is also troublesome, a craft element not quite mastered. Overall, Fifty in Reverse is a quick and enjoyable read, especially if you know Seventies rock.

Katie Stine

ALTERNATE HISTORY BILLY (THE KID)

Peter Meech, Sentient, 2020, $23.00/ C$30.00/£23.99, hb, 195pp, 9781591813026

In 1881, Sheriff Pat Garrett shot young Billy

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the Kid dead. Or did he? Set fifty-one years later in Pueblo, Colorado, this story finds Billy living the comfortable life of a retired dentist. He marks time researching everything written or filmed about him as he pens an autobiography.

It will debunk all the false rumors about his outlaw life and supposed death. He even journeys to an auction in Denver, where he bids on Billy the Kid’s special rifle. At one point, Billy says that all he’s ever been is a dentist from New York. He soon denies that and goes on to recount or do things that only the real Kid would know or do.

Prohibition is in full swing with its speakeasies, brawls, and killings. The town sheriff looks the other way so long as he gets appropriate payoffs. Some old friends of Billy come to Pueblo with plans to build a new establishment competing against the town’s up and running bar and dance hall. The competition between the rivals quickly gets ugly and takes Billy away from his writing. Grace, widow of the town’s former sheriff, has her eyes on Billy too.

Meech honors the time and place. Readers come away hearing and feeling Billy’s trusty Model T Ford, the hot dusty air, and a plague of grasshoppers. Woven in are dreams, apparitions, and flashbacks. As with the main mystery—is this the Kid or an obsessed retired dentist—readers are often not sure whether a flashback is real or just an old man’s musings about what might have happened. Meech uses no dialogue quotation marks and spare dialogue tags, but that too adds to the eeriness of this engaging alternative history.

G. J. Berger

CHILDREN & YOUNG ADULT WAR IS OVER

David Almond, illus. David Litchfield, Candlewick, 2020, $16.99/C$22.99, hb, 128pp, 9781536209860

How does a child who has known only war begin to envision peace? This short, poignant story for young readers presents a boy named John who lives in the shadow of a Yorkshire munitions factory in the last year of World War I. A school trip to the factory introduces the reader to the pro-war rhetoric and antiGerman xenophobia fed tirelessly to the citizens of England throughout those years, and the efforts by conscientious objectors to humanize the enemy and end the endless war.

This is heavy stuff for a children’s book, but Almond, one of the elder statesmen of children’s literature in England, has always excelled at situating harsh realities about poverty, violence, and inequality in lyrical depictions of the natural world and the devotion of children to their friends and family.

John lives in constant worry for his mother, whose work in the factory he knows to be dangerous, and for his father, a soldier overseas.

He has begun to question the adults’ promises that the war will end soon. His emotions are reflected in Litchfield’s grayscale illustrations, which alternate images of battle with images of trees, seeds, and the peaceful Northern landscape. Given a photo of a German boy named Jan, John begins to vividly dream of the devastation caused by the bombs his mother makes and of joyful play with his parents, nature, and Jan. These sustain him through the harrowing last months of war and fear and

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help him empathize with his traumatized postArmistice friends and family. From a child’s point of view, war, stripped of its political and economic cause and imagined simply as a matter of hate, fear, and aggression, becomes a very simple thing, and peace a very necessary dream.

This book might seem melancholy for its intended readers (aged 7-12) but would be a lovely reading-together experience for parents and children.

Kristen McDermott

DEADLY CURIOUS

Cindy Anstey, Swoon Reads, 2020, $18.99, hb, 304pp, 9781250252272

July 1834. After receiving a desperate letter, Sophia Thompson rushes to her cousin Daphne’s side. One year prior, Daphne’s brother was murdered. The case is still unsolved, and the local constable has threatened to arrest Sophia’s uncle. With aspirations of becoming the first female Bow Street Runner of London, an elite group of detectives, Sophia feels up to the challenge. Armed with her handy reference book, Investigating Murder and Mayhem, Sophia is about to start inquiries when a handsome Bow Street Runner shows up at her uncle’s door.

The runner, Jeremy Fraser, is a newly appointed principal officer with a year’s worth of work to catch up on and an unhelpful constable. It isn’t long before Sophia and Jeremy find their own lives in danger. What could be Sophia’s first case might also be her last if the killer isn’t caught in time.

Alternating between Sophia’s and Jeremy’s voices, Anstey finds unique ways to add suspense to a year-old murder mystery without the advantage of forensic science. Most often, momentum is pushed forward by attempts on Sophia’s life or by finding other victims versus discovering clues. Additionally, there’s a budding romance between Sophia and Jeremy that adds to the intrigue. The characters are enjoyable and tenacious in their pursuits.

Local vernacular is also delightfully peppered throughout the narration. However, without clues to follow up on due to the gap in time and the local constable’s lack of evidence, I was left a bit wanting. As this is a murder mystery, I expected a few more breadcrumbs to follow. Anstey leaves the door open for more, and I do hope there’s a tantalizing trail to challenge Sophia’s and Jeremy’s skills. This is an enjoyable new series with a strong sense of setting and compelling characters.

J. Lynn Else

GOLD RUSH GIRL

Avi, Candlewick, 2020, $17.99/C$23.99, hb, 306pp, 9781536206791

Prolific author Avi proves once more why he’s one of North America’s most beloved children’s authors in this stunning middlegrade adventure set during the California Gold Rush.

In Providence, Rhode Island, in 1849, fourteen-year-old Victoria “Tory” Blaisedell’s typically spineless father finds himself unexpectedly unemployed. Swept away by reports of easy riches in California, he announces he’s taking Tory’s ten-year-old brother, Jacob, and heading for the gold fields.

Not content with the prospects allotted to a young woman in New England, Tory stows away on their ship and accompanies her

father and brother to California. Once the trio arrives in San Francisco, Tory’s father secures them a tent to live in (for “only” $100) and leaves Jacob in Tory’s care while he heads to the gold fields alone.

Annoyed to be saddled with her younger brother, Tory leaves him in their tent while she works odd jobs around town. But one evening, she returns home to find Jacob missing, and all signs point to his having been abducted to serve on the crew of a ship returning east. But which one? Accompanied by two new friends, Tory races to locate her brother among the hundreds of abandoned ships in the harbor, known as “Rotten Row.” Avi has masterfully captured the sights, sounds, and smells of San Francisco in its infancy, when it was less a town than a muddy camp. Through Tory, Avi reflects both the speech patterns of the era and Tory’s spunk.

The friends Tory makes in California reflect the diversity of the place and time and will make this book appeal to a wide audience.

Middle-grade readers will thrill over this swashbuckling adventure, and adults who grew up reading Avi’s books will delight to know this author hasn’t lost a single step.

Sarah Hendess

I AM HERE NOW

Barbara Bottner, Imprint, 2020, $17.99, hb, 350pp, 9781250207692

When this free-verse novel begins in 1960, fourteen-year-old Maisie lives with her unhappily married parents and misfit younger brother, David, in a cramped apartment in the Bronx. She’s starting high school and hopes her longtime friendship with across-the-street neighbor Richie, three years older, will help her fit in. Richie and Maisie have bonded over mentally ill parents. Richie’s father drinks and has violent episodes as a result of his work as a military adviser in Vietnam, while Maisie’s mother terrorizes her and David while accusing their father of infidelity. Maisie dreams of being an artist, and her friendship with high school classmate Rachel, whose bohemian mother is a painter, opens up a formerly inaccessible world as it creates tensions within Maisie’s family and between her and her new best friend.

Bottner’s novel offers a vivid, authentic portrait of working- and middle-class life among ethnic whites in early 1960s New York City, with occasional clashes among Jewish, Irish, and Italian teens, and family secrets behind locked doors. Through Maisie’s mother, Bottner portrays the plight of women forced into roles for which they were ill-suited, with the consequent resentment poisoning the lives of everyone around them. Even those who managed to break out, like Rachel’s mother, paid a heavy price. Divorce was rare and stigmatizing, and gay kids like David were forced deep into the closet. This is a powerful, inspiring story of small-scale resistance to

social norms and resilience in the face of oppressive family circumstances as Maisie and David put aside their rivalries to plot their escape.

Lyn Miller-Lachmann

DAUGHTER OF ANNEHOECK

Carol Pratt Bradley, WiDo Publishing, 2020, $16.95, pb, 279pp, 9781947966284

Boston, 1650: Susanna Hutchison, daughter of the heretic Anne Hutchison, and the only survivor of the Indian attack that killed her mother and siblings, has been ransomed from the Siwanoy tribe and returned to Boston, to the care of her eldest surviving brother, Edward. Susanna barely remembers her first language, English. She had accepted her adoption into the Siwanoy and had grown to love her foster family.

Now, after seven years among the “savages,” Susannah is uprooted again and sent to the unforgiving Massachusetts Colony where her mother is remembered as a rebellious woman who needed to be reduced and eventually expelled from the colony. Can Susannah find a place among these strangers, her own family? Does she even want to?

Daughter of Anne-Hoeck tells a fascinating tale well. In choosing to recount Anne Hutchison’s story from the viewpoint of her outcast daughter, Carol Pratt Bradley creates a novel that will appeal to the young adult audience, as well as to older readers. Bradley’s research into the different cultures portrayed informs the story, and her sympathy for Susanna rings true. The questions of individual conscience versus conforming to the dictates of society, and the urge to find one’s own place and roots within that society, will surely resonate with many readers. Recommended.

Susan McDuffie

THE LIGHT IN HIDDEN PLACES

Sharon Cameron, Scholastic, 2020, $18.99, hb, 400pp, 9781338355932

Przemysl, Poland, 1943. This incredible true story of survival centers on Stefania Podgórska, the teenage girl who hid thirteen Jews in the attic of an apartment she found for herself and her six-year-old sister, Helena, during the German occupation. Nearby is the ghetto where Jews live in the worst conditions imaginable, until they die of sickness or are shot. Stefania, a Catholic, believes love breeds love, and hate breeds hate. Struggling with the execution of the Jewish boy she hoped to marry, she chooses love. Thus begins Stefania’s journey to save others from certain death.

Stefania works in a tool factory making screws and hunts food in the markets, certain each time she returns to the apartment the SS will be waiting. As the number of people in the attic increases, hunger shrinks bellies, and tempers flare. Under suspicion, Stefania is taken to Gestapo headquarters. She is threatened in the street by young German soldiers and sees a man hanged, executed for hiding Jews, on her way to work. Then comes a knock on the door: Two nurses are moving into the apartment. With them, they bring their SS boyfriends. How much pressure to save Helena and the people hiding over her head

can Stefania bear, with thirteen Jews above, the Nazis below, and her in between?

Based largely on Stefania’s unpublished memoir and research conducted with the assistance of Stefania’s family, Sharon Cameron’s author’s note offers a welcome look at Stefania, Helena, and the attic survivors following Russia’s liberation of Przemysl in July 1944. In 1979, the sisters were honored by the Holocaust Remembrance Center as Righteous Among the Nations. Their bravery has been recognized in numerous articles, awards, film documentaries, a 1996 movie, Hidden in Silence, and within the pages of this compassionate, beautifully written book, as well. Very highly recommended.

Alana White

ORPHAN ELEVEN

Gennifer Choldenko, Wendy Lamb Books, 2020, $19.99, hb, 320pp, 9780375990649

Eleven-year-old Lucy used to talk and sing, but now she refuses to open her mouth, and none of her friends at the Home for Friendless Orphans knows why. Abused and belittled by the orphanage’s cruel matron, Lucy and three friends run away and are taken in by a traveling circus, where they each receive an opportunity to earn an apprenticeship.

Lucy quickly falls in love with the show’s two elephants, but her refusal to speak—and consequent inability to shout for help if there’s an accident— jeopardizes her place with the circus. Lucy must find her voice and hold on to her position long enough to reach Chicago, where she hopes to find her older sister.

Taking place over the course of a week in April 1939, Orphan Eleven is a beautiful tale of friendship, sisterhood, and the eccentricities of traveling circuses in the late 1930s. The supporting characters, including a little person named Jabo and a fellow orphan nicknamed “Bald Doris” for the unfortunate haircut she received at the orphanage when she caught lice, are as colorful and complex as Lucy herself. And, of course, elephants are always an excellent addition to a story.

Newbery Honor-winner Choldenko deftly unspools both the cause of Lucy’s selective mutism and her family history slowly over the course of the book. Both are revealed in their entirety in the climax of the story, which keeps readers waiting on tenterhooks to see if Lucy will find her sister or be recaptured by the cruel orphanage matron.

Intended for a middle-grade audience, this fast-paced delight will find fans of all ages.

Highly recommended.

Sarah Hendess

SPINDLE AND DAGGER

J. Anderson Coats, Candlewick, 2020, $17.99, hb, 291pp, 9781536207774

Coats’ newest historical novel is a

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penetrating portrait of women’s resilience and how they work through violent trauma.

It’s based around a historical incident likely unfamiliar to its intended young adult audience: the abduction of Nest of Deheubarth by her second cousin Owain, Prince of Powys, during the increasing conflict between Welshmen and the land’s Norman invaders. Nest was married to Gerald of Windsor, leader of the Norman forces.

The tale’s narrator is Elen, a richly complex fictional character. In 1109, Elen has solidified a place for herself in Owain’s warband as his nightly bedmate. Three years earlier, Owain and his men had attacked her family’s steading, killing her two sisters. Seeing no other alternative for survival, Elen healed Owain of his injury and declared—falsely—that Saint Elen would faithfully guard Owain’s life if he always kept her namesake close by. Owain believes in the saint’s protection, but his men are more dubious.

Tension remains high, evoking the political strain, and Owain augments it after his penteulu (right-hand man) is killed by the Normans, and he captures Nest and her three young children in revenge. This angers his father, Cadwgan ap Bleddyn, who fears paying the price for his hotheaded son’s act.

Elen faces her own battles. The flashbacks to her earlier ordeal are delicately handled, and even now, Elen’s mind vies between the status quo—staying with Owain and remaining alive and cared for—and wanting to take a dagger and stab him. Elen desperately wants a female ally. While Owain’s stepmother, Isabel, proves hostile to the idea, Elen sees how Nest bravely endures her captivity and envisions how to escape her longtime charade.

This gritty tale of feminine strength deserves attention from all medieval history enthusiasts, from YAs through adults.

Sarah Johnson

DEATH OF A DOVE

Griselda Gifford, Two Falcons Press, 2019, £7.99, pb, 191pp, 9780995588325

Griselda Gifford is a prolific writer of children’s books, and her latest is aimed at the teenage and young adult end of the market.

The heroine is the spunky and confident fifteen-year-old Bea. It’s 1915, and while war has begun to intrude into the lives of the people of the quiet country village where she has grown up, for the most part Bea’s thoughts are consumed by her desire to be an actress.

To further that aim, she has taken a job as governess in the home of the Rossiters, a wealthy bohemian family, and it is there she meets Ronnie and falls in love. Gradually war comes to consume more of the village’s young men, including Bea’s brother, her childhood friends, and even Ronnie.

This is a wonderfully readable and wellwritten tale of young people coming of age in an era dominated by war. As they struggle to throw off the Victorian values of their parents and to transition into adulthood, the struggles, grief, and heartache are well captured by Griselda Gifford’s page-turning prose. Though it’s fewer than two hundred pages in length, the descriptions and well-drawn characters in this novel bring a vanished era vividly to life.

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Perfect for fans of Sally Nicholls and Sheena Wilkinson.

Lisa Redmond

MY CALAMITY JANE

Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows, HarperTeen, 2020, $18.99, hb, 544pp, 9780062652812

Calamity Jane and Frank Butler, under the calm guidance of their adoptive father, Wild Bill Hickok, are more than performers in the Wild Bill’s Wild West Show. They are on a secret mission, charged by the U.S. government to hunt werewolves, or “garou,” as they are called. In particular, they are on the hunt for the “Alpha,” a particularly vicious garou intent on biting as many people as possible. Annie Oakley, a sharpshooter in her own right, is determined to join the show and quickly inserts herself, making the duo a trio. When Jane is bitten by a garou, she heads to Deadwood to search for a rumored cure, but instead finds the Alpha. Along the way, each character reveals secrets about themselves that fit seamlessly, regardless of whether or not they are true.

Told in alternating chapters, with occasional (and delightful) intrusions from the author narrators, My Calamity Jane makes no bones about taking liberties with the real lives of the historical characters. But honestly, who cares?

The changes give the three main characters more hopeful trajectories than their real-life histories, particularly true for Jane, and Annie is given opportunities to examine her own preconceived notions and intolerance. Set in 1876, the times are depicted accurately, including the abundance of guns, the lack of laws regulating drinking age, and the U.S. government’s shameful treatment of Native people. The critiques of these topics are dealt with by the established authorial intrusion with deserved respect. The budding romance between Frank and Annie is endearing, and the queer romance given to Jane is sweet and swoon-worthy. Written for readers ages 13 and up, this is a delightful, rollicking, and, sometimes, a laugh-out-loud read. This reader had a smile on her face from cover to cover.

Meg Wiviott

THE MAGIC IN CHANGING YOUR STARS

Leah Henderson, Sterling Children’s Books, 2020, $16.95, hb, 304pp, 9781454934066

This time-slip novel for middle-grade readers inhabits the modern small-town life of eleven-year-old Ailey, then sends him, by way of magic, to the 1939 Harlem childhood of his grandfather. Both are talented dancers who are crippled by stage fright. Ailey freezes at his audition for his school’s production of The Wiz. He learns that his beloved grandfather, now seriously ill, was also a dancer who had missed an opportunity to audition before the famous Bill “Bojangles” Robinson in his youth. Add the gift of tap-dancing shoes never returned to Robinson and a wish on a star, and Ailey is transported to the bustling streets of

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Depression-era Harlem in his bathrobe and Black Panther pajamas.

He soon finds his grandfather, called “Taps,” dancing on a Harlem street corner for tips, and enters a world full of dangers, the abiding care of strangers, and the love and devotion of his ancestors. The two boys recognize common insecurities about allowing their talent and hard work to shine. They help each other overcome and change family and dancing history.

This novel uses the clever device of naming characters for African Americans who have made important contributions to American history, from poet Jupiter Hammon to inventor Benjamin Banneker to playwright Lorraine Hansberry. Both modern and 1930s segments spark with life through good dialogue and characterization, although the plot might have moved along at a more galloping pace.

The devotion of grandfather and grandson is especially moving in scenes at the family’s Harlem apartment and as Ailey teaches Taps to rap (“What are you, a poet?”).

Eileen Charbonneau

CITY OF GOLD

Will Hobbs, Harper, 2020, $16.99, hb, 256pp, 9780061708817

In 1900, fifteen-year-old Owen Hollowell witnesses the theft of his family’s mules. Newly arrived in Colorado after the death of Owen’s father, the family faces financial ruin without the mules to plow the soil of their new farm.

Owen follows the rustler’s trail to Telluride, the “City of Gold,” where his nine-year-old brother, Till, arrives on the train to assist him.

The boys have no luck gaining the assistance of the local marshal until they identify the thief as one of Butch Cassidy’s notorious Wild Bunch.

Together, the trio ventures into the canyons of Utah, hunting down the Wild Bunch’s hideout, Robbers Roost.

Hobbs’s first book in seven years is a welcome return. In his usual fashion, he’s crafted threedimensional characters and set them in an exciting, rugged setting. Till, especially, is a delight, and Hobbs adds an interesting wrinkle by making the Hollowells Quakers and, therefore, opposed to violence in a place and time rife with it. And few authors can match Hobbs’s rich imagery of the American West.

The book stumbles over pacing problems in a few places, particularly when Hobbs provides exposition via awkward dialogue rather than a protagonist’s flashback. It’s unlikely, however, that the typical middle-grade reader will notice—they’ll be too caught up in Owen and Till’s adventure. Adults, too, will likely delight in this sprightly Western.

This isn’t quite Hobbs at his best, but it’s close.

Sarah Hendess

THE SILENCE OF BONES

June Hur, Feiwel and Friends, 2020, $17.95/ C$24.50, hb, 336pp, 9781250229557

Korea, 1801: Sixteen-year-old Seol, an indentured servant, or damo, to the Capital

Police bureau, assists the male police officers (who are forbidden to touch unrelated women) with investigations and performs domestic work at the police station. But Seol has another mission, one unknown to her superiors. She hopes to find her older brother, who abandoned Seol and her older sister twelve years earlier to journey to the capital.

Seol is curious and out-spoken, qualities perhaps not valued in an indentured servant.

She assists the young Inspector Han in the investigation of the murder of a highborn noblewoman. Is it possible Lady O was killed because of her ties to the heretic, forbidden Catholic sect? When it appears that Inspector Han could be involved in the killing, Seol must choose between her loyalty to her superior officer and her own desire for the truth. And does this investigation have any bearing on Seol’s own personal quest?

June Hur’s well written debut novel is a complexly plotted mystery novel with an intriguing heroine, set in an era and location that may not be well known to Western readers. Hur weaves the many threads of the plot, characters, and setting into a deeply rich fabric, and in the process, creates a read that should appeal to the stated young adult audience, and to adult readers as well.

Susan McDuffie

AGGIE MORTON, MYSTERY QUEEN: The Body Under The Piano

Marthe Jocelyn, illus. Isabelle Follath, Tundra, 2020, $15.99/C$18.99, hb, 318pp, 9780735265462

In 1902, twelve-year-old Aggie Morton lives in Torquay, a quiet town in southwest England overlooking the English Channel. Inquisitive, yet profoundly shy, Aggie has more invented friends than real ones. Still mourning her father, her fascination with death (she keeps a pet cemetery at the edge of the family property) has become more pronounced.

B e i n g homeschooled, her days are spent mostly alone or under the watchful eye of her nursemaid.

Her propensity to imaginations and yearning for real friendship merge when she happens to meet a young Belgian boy, Hector Perot, and then, while waiting for her dance lesson, happens to see a dead body under the piano. Aggie seizes this unique opportunity for true friendship and adventure with the gusto of a girl who has spent too many hours alone.

Marthe Jocelyn imagines the childhood of Agatha Christie, pairing the mystery writer

with her most famous character and making them child detectives. The tone is set from the opening line, and the voice never falters: “I will tell you first about making a new friend and save the dead body for later.” The adventure is quick and plausible and well-grounded in the period. Aggie’s shyness often makes her socially awkward, which endears her to the reader. Likewise, what her mother calls her “Morbid Preoccupation” with all things gruesome will be particularly appealing to middle grade readers. Aggie’s imagination presents serious topics—like death—in digestible bites: “Bereavement made me feel… like a jar full of freshly collected garden worms.” Aggie Morton, Mystery Queen: The Body Under the Piano, the first in a new series for middle grade readers, is a delight from start to finish.

Meg Wiviott

WHEN THE LYREBIRD CALLS

Kim Kane, Allen & Unwin, 2019, £7.99, pb, 303pp, 9781911631422

Twelve-year-old, athletic Madeleine is staying with her eccentric grandmother, Mum Crum, for the holidays. She expects the vacation to be dull and is unimpressed at being packed off. Her grandmother is a force of nature: interested in health, social justice, feminism and a home renovator. Her energy seems boundless.

When Madeleine is swept back to 1900, she is taken in by the affluent Williamson family with their four very different daughters.

Gert is clever, and she and Madeleine come up with a plausible reason for her sudden arrival.

The truth would have her committed to the asylum, as no one would believe her. There are also strict rules that the girls must obey, enforced by their nanny.

This novel cleverly educates the young reader about how differently many aspects of life were viewed in 1900, revealing how in this class-conscious, racist era, girls and women had little power over their lives and had to use cunning and a good marriage to survive.

Many topical issues are included in this adventure, such as the mother’s depression.

Also highlighted are the position and place of servants that must not be crossed. Racism towards any who are not white highlights the level of ignorance and mistrust that was acceptable at the time.

This action-packed adventure shows the strength and versatility of the human spirit to survive. All the characters are totally convincing and engaging. The writing is accessible; the detail of the era is beautifully entwined around Madeleine’s adventure – this is a time-slip story, which will make the past relatable to today’s child. Highly recommended for confident readers of 10+.

Valerie Loh

A TUDOR TURK

Rehan Khan, Hope Road, 2019, £8.99, pb, 285pp, 9781908446978

Istanbul, 1591. Sultan Murad III has been robbed. The Staff of Moses, a priceless symbol of wealth and power, has been stolen from his private collection. Awa, daughter of a noble family and survivor of the massacre of her people, has become a deadly master of the scimitar. Will, kidnapped from his home in London at age five, has now grown into a seasoned warrior. Together, although still slaves, they are part of an elite unit of warriors assembled to retrieve the relic – no matter where it is – and failure is not an option. Their quest takes them from Ottoman Istanbul to Venice and the court of Elizabeth 1.

This is the first part of the Chronicles of Will Ryde and Awa Maryam Al-Jameela trilogy. The novel is fast-paced with strong characterization and plot. The action sequences are exciting and realistic without being gratuitous. The culture and times are brought vividly alive in an easy to read, informative way This will appeal to young adults of all ages. The book ends on a high note, leading on to the next instalment, and I for one can hardly wait. Recommended.

Mike Ashworth

THE UNSTOPPABLE LETTY PEGG

Iszi Lawrence, Bloomsbury, 2020, £6.99, pb, 361pp, 9781472962478

Blending historical accuracy with high adventure, this well-paced story explores the life of Lettice Pegg. Strong willed and intelligent, Letty explores women’s suffrage in 1910. Letty’s middle-class mother and working-class father’s marriage is a bone of contention for her aristocratic grandmother.

At school, Letty doesn’t fit in and asks her parents for roller skates in order to bond with classmates.

During a suffrage rally, Letty’s mother is assaulted, then arrested; Letty witnesses not only the brutality of the patriarchy but the true spirit of suffrage. She also sees how some suffragettes defend themselves with jiu-jitsu.

After being befriended by Edith Garrud, a known suffragette, Letty also learns jiu-jitsu, using going out to roller skate as a cover for her training. From here, Letty begins a journey from a young and perhaps, at times, naive girl into an empowered and driven woman.

The story is engaging and easy to process and the flights of fancy, combined with historical fact, carry the reader through the fast-paced and believable narrative.

In real life, Edith Margaret Garrud was one of the first female martial arts teachers in the west, responsible for training the Bodyguard unit of the Women’s Social and Political Union in jiu-jitsu. Through her underground dojo, The Golden Square, she also passed on her knowledge to other members of the suffrage movement. The novel also touches upon other pertinent themes for readers, including racism and spiritualism. This is an important

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read for any young mind, informing them how women fought for equality, and in some cases, sacrificing their lives for this cause.

Jaime Birch

BROTHER’S KEEPER

Julie Lee, Holiday House, 2020, $17.99, hb, 295pp, 9780823444946

In North Korea during 1950, families live under the complete control of the Worker’s Party. The state has outlawed religion, installed Marxist dialectics as the mandatory educational curriculum for all students, and re-distributed people’s personal property according to “socially just” dictates. Those suspected of being “capitalist bourgeois pigs” are taken away to be imprisoned in labor camps or simply executed. It seems everyone is now poor, frightened and miserable. Then everything gets even worse.

On June 25, 1950, 75,000 North Korean soldiers pour across the 38th Parallel into South Korea, beginning a war. Twelve-yearold Pak Sora, her parents, and her two younger brothers make the potentially deadly decision to flee North Korea and join relatives in the far south in Busan. Sora and her eight-year old brother soon get separated from the others and she must bear the responsibility of getting her lovable but easily distracted brother safely through hundreds of miles of freezing weather, brutal terrain, and full-scale combat. She encounters threatening soldiers, strafing and bombing jets, and friendly and hostile fellow refugees. Finally, she reaches the south only to face new challenges and difficulties.

Based on a genuine family history, Brother’s Keeper is a magnificent and emotion-laden first novel written by a natural storyteller. It is also a tragic and heart-rending insight into the alltoo-common tale of the hundreds of thousands of pitiful refugees who have fled Communist governments in their own countries over the past 100 years all across the planet. Despite all that, this is ultimately an uplifting book.

Sora will inspire young and adult readers everywhere. I don’t think it’s too much of an exaggeration to say Brother’s Keeper qualifies as an instant classic.

Thomas J. Howley

CHICKASAW ADVENTURES

Tom Lyle, White Dog Press, 2019, $34.95, hb, 248pp, 9781935684794

Fifteen years ago, Chickasaw Adventures was released as a series of seven graphic novels, illustrated by Marvel and DC Comics artist Tom Lyle. The stories feature a young contemporary Chickasaw teen named Johnny who, through the power of a sacred staff given to him by his grandfather, becomes a timetraveler. His travels take him to important times in Chickasaw history.

Johnny finds himself as a scout during the American Revolution and as a soldier in the Chickasaw Mounted Rifles fighting on the Confederate side during the Civil War. Timetraveling through other periods of Chickasaw 60

history such as the time of their removal to Oklahoma and the breakup of their society caused by the Dawes Allotment Act, Johnny learns more about his heritage and what it means to be a Chickasaw.

In addition to the seven original graphic novels, this edition includes five more novels that conclude the series. The artwork is colorful and action-packed, befitting the style of Marvel and DC comics. Chickasaw words and place names are used throughout, and a glossary of terms appears at the back of the book. Although narrowly focused on Chickasaw history, the story of understanding one’s heritage and culture is a universal one.

This book will resonate with young readers who will learn of the contributions made by Native Americans to U.S. history and culture.

John Kachuba

DARING DARLEEN: QUEEN OF THE SCREEN

Anne Nesbet, Candlewick, 2020, $18.99, hb, 368pp, 9781536206197

Anne Nesbet’s middle-grade novel Daring Darleen: Queen of the Screen is a thrilling romp through the early days of the silent film era in 1914.

Darleen Darling is the 12-year-old heroine of the serial adventure movies produced by her family’s debt-ridden studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey. To build excitement for the newest release, Darleen’s uncles conceive an idea that can’t possibly go wrong: A fake kidnapping that will rivet the attention of the moviegoing public and sell more tickets. Instead of a flawless performance, however, bona fide villains with nefarious intent use the cover of the fake kidnapping to carry out their real abduction of Victorine Berryman, America’s poor little rich girl. Darleen is used to climbing cliffs and jumping off bridges in the movies, but now she finds herself in the perilous position of helping protect the life of a stranger in trouble.

Together, Darleen and Victorine take risks and find courage as they evade the kidnappers and try to figure out who wants to harm the lonely young heiress. Twin themes of friendship and family intertwine as the two girls use imagination and intellect to escape the snares that entrap them.

The history of the early age of silent movies is intriguing in this story. Author Anne Nesbet is a college professor who teaches film, and she does an excellent job relaying factual background in an entertaining, exciting way.

What is most notable about Nesbet’s writing, however, is her consummate voice. The second person point-of-view grabs the reader in the opening paragraphs, seemingly plunking the reader right into the exhilarating action of a serial adventure episode. Young readers will certainly enjoy the danger and daring of this story. Kid-lit authors wanting to study voice will certainly find Daring Darleen to be an outstanding mentor text.

REVIEWS | Issue 93, August 2020

Kimberly Cross Teter

I SURVIVED: THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC, 1912

Lauren Tarshis and Haus Studio, Graphix, 2020, $10.99, pb, 160pp, 9781338120912

Reluctant readers are not reluctant thinkers.

Lauren Tarshis understands that her action stories and their graphic adaptations are often the first choice for struggling readers, but Tarshis does not pander to her audience; she celebrates it.

Through the eyes of a ten-year-old farm boy, George, Tarshis explores the lives of the people brought together by the maiden voyage of the Titanic. Mischievous George relishes the splendor of his aunt’s stateroom on the Titanic, but he is drawn to passengers in steerage. He strikes up a friendship with two Italian immigrants while exploring the ship.

However, his sister is horrified by his antics, and her attempt to stop George ends with the children and their aunt locked in steerage as the ship sinks.

The seamless integration of text and art in this adaptation of the novel of the same name creates an immersive experience. Images of crew members locking gates and pointing pistols at helpless families challenge readers to consider the deadly impacts of classism. While the happy ending is appropriate for young readers, it does not treat them as reluctant or struggling. It treats them as human.

Melissa Warren

FOR TO SEE THE ELEPHANT

Tammi J. Truax, Piscataqua Press, 2019, $12.99, pb, 202pp, 9781950381050

Elephants bury and mourn their dead. Their bones are sacred, and their bonds are strong.

This novel-in-verse relates how capitalism and the worst of American values broke the bonds and desecrated the bones of two elephants and countless others since. The novel is an extraordinary blend of careful research and rich imagination. The author weaves diaries, advertisements, newspaper articles, court documents, and even accountants’ notes into compelling found poetry. Each poem expounding the joy, excitement, and danger in capturing, abusing, and showing the first elephants in America.

Truax’s ability to root her tale in truth is impressive, but what makes the novel unforgettable is her ability to fill the spaces in between. Beginning in 1795 in Salem, Massachusetts, short chapters throughout the novel give voice to the first two elephants imported to the United States. Elegant and simple poems share the pain and steadfastness of an enslaved man named William who devoted his life to both animals. The depth, brilliance, and deep connection to those they loved are carefully captured in these sections.

Making it painfully clear that the kindness and intelligence of these creatures and their caregiver far exceed the capacity of most humans to reason and love.

With a keen eye and an enormous heart, Truax’s words make it clear that suffering is suffering, whether animal or human. This idea

is skillfully illustrated through the intertwining path of William and the elephants. At the close of the novel, as the elephant Big Bette pleads for each of us to find and put to rest the sacred bones of the first elephants in America, it is clear that she is also urging us to seek the stories of all those exploited by this country for personal gain and amusement. I highly recommend it for middle grades and up.

Melissa Warren

WALL OF WILLOWS Luther Tsai and Nury Vittachi, Reycraft, 2020, $12.95, hb, 112pp, 9781478869252

Modern-day middle schoolers Marko and Miranda use their grandfather’s magic mirror to journey back in time to 210 BCE China. The first Chinese emperor, Qin Shi Huang. is dying and as a final wish wants his soft-hearted son, Fusu, to inherit the throne. Unfortunately, evil Chancellor Gao Zhao has a previous order condemning Fusu to death. Neither order has the emperor’s stamp, but Marko and Miranda have the stamp. They must find Fusu before Gao Zhao, to save the prince’s life. To do so, they travel along the Great Wall of China and get help from the legendary Lady of the Wall.

There is no need to read the earlier books in the series, as brief background is given about the children, their grandfather, and the magic of the mirror. This episode is full of exciting conflict and interesting Chinese history and legend, with an afterward clarifying fact from fiction. Much like the Magic Tree House books, this story is a good balance of suspense and history. Intended for slightly older audiences, the characters are in middle school and the reading level is slightly more advanced. Its focus on Asian history is a welcome addition to the genre. A good choice for reluctant readers and for book-loving children interested in discovering legends less well known to Western culture.

Elizabeth Caulfield Felt

LAST DAYS OF THE MORNING CALM Tina Jimin Walton, Marshall Cavendish, 2019, $13.99, pb, 232pp, 9789814841306

Korea, 1895. Ji-nah believes something very wrong is happening, but she can’t fit the pieces together. After a long absence, her guardian abruptly sends word he’s traveling to America and has left Ji-nah’s tutor in charge.

It’s quickly apparent the tutor has sinister plans for the household and its staff. One servant, Han, uncovers a threat to the queen, but how can a powerless girl and servant boy convince anyone of the danger when their

proof disappears overnight? And especially after Han is sold to foreign missionaries, leaving Ji-nah on her own?

Last Days of the Morning Calm is a quick read about the final days of Korea’s fallen kingdom. The narrative alternates between Ji-nah and Han as they discover clues within their spheres of influence. I enjoyed the way the author contrasted different cultures.

Most strongly realized is Han expecting the foreign missionaries to be one way, but working alongside them, he discovers a different narrative to their story. That being said, character and plot development are somewhat predictable, and the second half of the story feels rushed as multiple clues are revealed in quick succession. While emotions and intrigue are light, the exotic landscape and culture are enchanting. The author possesses great knowledge of the time and place and utilizes it well to create a comingof-age tale for young adults.

J. Lynn Else

THE ENIGMA GAME Elizabeth Wein, Little, Brown, 2020, $18.99, hb, 432pp, 9781368012584

Wein returns to her ever-increasing cadre of young pilots, spies, and support crew in this additional prequel to her award-winning World War II adventure, Code Name Verity.

Characters from her earlier novels— intelligence operative Verity from the first volume, along with her pilot brother, Jamie Stuart, and his childhood friend, mechanic Ellen McEwen— are joined by an enthralling new protagonist, Louisa Adair.

The tragic wartime losses of her parents bring Louisa, the teenaged daughter of a Jamaican father and an English mother, to the tiny Scottish hamlet of Windyedge in winter 1940-41, where she is installed in an ancient pub as a companion to an elderly woman with a mysterious past. The airmen of the 648 Squadron posted nearby spend their recreational hours in the pub, and Louisa becomes friends with Jamie, Ellen, and especially her charge, Jane Warner, aka Johanna von Arnim, a German refugee and former opera star.

The fascinating characters are enough to

make this a wonderful novel, but Wein is in top form with a propulsive plot involving a German defector and his stolen, code-generating Enigma machine. The three separate firstperson narrators have distinct voices, but their perspectives create a seamless narrative that is hard to put down. In particular, Wein’s depiction of the prejudice that Louisa and Ellen face in spite of their clear intellectual and practical gifts (Louisa for her skin color and Ellen for her family background in an itinerant Traveller clan) seems especially timely.

Fans of Wein’s intricate network of relationships spreading out from the charismatic Beaufort-Stuart clan will have fun spotting familiar names and faces from the other three novels, but the story can stand alone as an emotionally exhilarating portrait of grace under fire and friendships forged in the shared war effort.

Kristen McDermott

KENT STATE Deborah Wiles, Scholastic, 2020, $17.99, hb, 144pp, 9781338356281

On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a group of unarmed Kent State University students protesting the Vietnam War. Four students were killed. Nine others were wounded, one of whom was permanently paralyzed. Extensive disagreement over how the situation was handled heightened tensions nationwide. Immediately following the Kent State shootings, a student-led strike forced hundreds of high schools, colleges, and universities around the country to close temporarily. The shootings left an ugly scar on an already divided country.

In this exceptionally well-researched novel, Wiles uses free-verse poetry to present this tragic story. Different fonts represent the divergent perspectives of students, townspeople, a guardsman, and a black student (many of whom stayed away from the protest, knowing the guardsmen would have live ammunition). The varying story lines and fonts create a chaotic page, replicating not only the chaos of the moment, but of the times, and bring to mind the disparate points of view in today’s politics. Written for young adult readers, grades seven and up, this offers a glimpse at a small, though important, moment in history. Readers not familiar with the larger context of the events may not understand a few references, but that is scant criticism.

Meg Wiviott

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CONFERENCES

The Society organizes biennial conferences in the UK, North America, and Australasia.

Contact Richard Lee <richard@historicalnovelsociety.org> (UK), Jenny Quinlan <jennyq@historicaleditorial.com> (North America), or Elisabeth Storrs <contact@hnsa.org.au> (Australasia).

Š 2020, the Historical Novel Society, ISSN: 1471-7492 | Issue 93, August 2020

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

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