Historical Novels Review | Issue 102 (November 2022)

H I S T O R IC A L

NOV EL S REVIEW

ISSUE 102

THE HUNTER & THE HUNTED Robert Harris on Act of Oblivion |

More on page 8

November 2022

F E AT U R ED I N T H IS ISSU E ...

Voicing Silent Stories Giving Voice to Stories from the Classical World Page 10

Drilling Deep Amanda Smyth's Fortune Page 12

The Power of Setting The Thames, the Dark River Page 12

The Best & Worst of Us Jennifer Coburn on the Evils of the Nazi Era Page 14

A Study of Violence Maggie O'Farrell's The Marriage Portrait Page 15

Historical Fiction Market News Page 1

New Voices Page 4

History & Film Page 6

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H I S T O R IC A L

NOV EL S REVIEW

Douglas Kemp <douglaskemp62@gmail.com> Publisher Coverage: Allison & Busby; Canelo; Penguin Random House UK; Quercus

Ann Lazim ISSN 1471-7492

Issue 102, November 2022 | © 2022 The Historical Novel Society

P U BLISH E R Richard Lee Marine Cottage, The Strand, Starcross, Devon EX6 8NY UK <richard@historicalnovelsociety.org>

EDI TOR I AL BOA R D Managing Editor: Bethany Latham Houston Cole Library, Jacksonville State University 700 Pelham Road North, Jacksonville, AL 36265-1602 USA <blatham@jsu.edu>

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

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

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

R EV I EWS EDI TOR S, U K Ben Bergonzi <ben@ruthrosa.plus.com> Publisher Coverage: Birlinn/Polygon; Duckworth Overlook; Faber & Faber; Granta; HarperCollins UK; Hamish Hamilton; Little Brown, Orion, Pan Macmillan; Short Books; Simon & Schuster 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; Bloomsbury; Canongate; Head of Zeus; Glagoslav; Hodder Headline (inc.

Coronet, Hodder & Stoughton, NEL, Sceptre); John Murray; Pen & Sword; Robert Hale; Alma; The History Press

<annlazim@googlemail.com> Publisher Coverage: All UK children’s historicals

R E V I E WS E DI T O R S , U SA Kate Braithwaite <kate.braithwaite@gmail.com> Publisher Coverage: Poisoned Pen Press; Skyhorse; Sourcebooks; and Soho

Sarah Hendess <clark1103@yahoo.com> Publisher Coverage: US/Canadian children’s publishers

Janice Ottersberg <jkottersberg@gmail.com> Publisher Coverage: Amazon Publishing; Europa; Hachette; Kensington; Pegasus; and W.W. Norton

Larry Zuckerman <boyonaraft64@gmail.com> Publisher Coverage: Bloomsbury; Macmillan (all imprints); Grove/ Atlantic; and Simon & Schuster (all imprints)

Misty Urban <misty@historicalnovelsociety.org.> Publisher Coverage: North American small presses

R E V I E WS E DI T O R , I N DI E J. Lynn Else <jlynn@historicalnovelsociety.org> Publisher Coverage: all self- and subsidy-published novels

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

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

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

M E M B E R S H I P DE TA I L S THE HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY was formed in 1997 to help promote historical fiction. We are an open society — if you want to get involved, get in touch.

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

HISTORICAL FICTION MARKET NEWS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

U P DAT ES TO T H E H N R R EV I EW CRITERIA

ISSU E 102 NOV EM BE R 2022

To allow our editors and reviewers to offer more timely coverage of the latest books, the HNR editorial team has revised our review submission guidelines. Previously, books published up to a year ago were considered for review; this has been changed to books published within the past six months. Please see https://historicalnovelsociety. org/about-our-reviews/about-our-reviews-and-reviewers/ for the full review policy.

COLU M NS 1

Historical Fiction Market News Sarah Johnson

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New Voices Sarah Adlakha, Maya Deane, Joanna Quinn, and Olesya Salnikova Gilmore | Myfanwy Cook History & Film Persuasion: Jane Austen for a New Generation | Corbett

Elizabeth

F E AT U R ES & I N T E RV I EWS 8

The Hunter & the Hunted Robert Harris on Act of Oblivion

by Gordon O'Sullivan

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Voicing Silent Stories Giving Voice to Stories from the Classical World

by Charlotte Wightwick

12

Drilling Deep Amanda Smyth's Fortune

by Jenny Barden

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The Power of Setting Karen Odden Considers the Thames, the Dark River

by Karen Odden

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The Best & Worst of Us Jennifer Coburn on the Evils of the Nazi Era

by Kate Braithwaite

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A Study of Violence Maggie O'Farrell's The Marriage Portrait

by Lucinda Byatt

R EV I EWS 16

Book Reviews Editors’ choice and more

N EW BOOK S BY H NS M EM BE R S We’re proud to share details on our members’ newest book releases.

If you’ve written a historical novel or nonfiction work published (or to be published) in August or after, please let us know! Send the following details to me at sljohnson2@eiu.edu or @readingthepast

by January 7, 2023: author, title, publisher, release date, and a blurb of one sentence or less. Space is limited, so concise blurbs are appreciated. Details will appear in February’s magazine. Submissions may be edited.

Set in 1917 Vienna, Villainy in Vienna by Kelly Oliver (Level Best Books/ Historia, Jan 4) explores real mysteries of strong women characters, including Mileva Einstein, Empress Zita, and hotel proprietress, Anna Sacher, along with fictional mysteries from dognappers to espionage.

In Bean Fate by James Arnett (Austin Macauley, Jan.), when a rookie cop is pulled off the case of a Prohibition-era murder in a dusty border town after he probes links between Saskatchewan politicians and Al Capone, Dutch Schultz and the Chicago Mob, he goes rogue.

In G. M. Baker’s The Wistful and the Good, book one of Cuthbert’s People (independently published, Apr. 4), for Elswyth of Twyford, the great Viking raid on Lindisfarne in 793 sees beloved old friends suddenly cast as monstrous enemies, and one wrong step on her part could lead to bloodshed and ruin.

The Navigator’s Daughter by Nancy Cole Silverman (Level Best Books, June 7) is a gripping tale of a daughter’s promise to her father to go back to Hungary, where the remains of her father’s drowned B24 have been located, and to find the people who rescued him.

Miss Glendenning’s Spy (independently published, June 10) by Karen M. Edwards is set in 1810 Gibraltar amid the Peninsular War, where Minerva Glendenning meets and falls in love with spy, Sir Richard Faulconer, who seeks a British traitor and missing plans of Viscount Wellington’s Lines of Torres Vedras fortifications in Portugal.

In A Taste of Betrayal by Julie Bates (Level Best Books, Historia Imprint, Jul. 5), set in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1775, poison fells Faith’s father-in-law, sending her on the path to avenge him before death claims another loved one.

In 1582, with banned books in tow, Martin, an accused seditionist,

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escapes the pyre and finds safety with Nicolas’s family; however, when Nicolas and his love, Catherine, are caught with the books, all three of them are plunged into a fight for their lives, in From the Drop of Heaven (Sunbury Press, Aug.), which is based on author Juliette Godot’s family tree.

Kathy Reichs meets Sherlock Holmes in Mim Eichmann’s Whatever Happened to Cathy Martin (Living Springs Publishers, Aug. 9), a Gothic thriller set in rural southern Indiana in 1978 that seeks to unravel a deadly tangled web of lies surrounding three former high school friends, one of whom has been missing for over a decade ... but which one? And why?

In JULIA PRIMA by Alison Morton (Pulcheria Press, Aug. 23), opening in AD 370 in the Roman frontier province of Noricum, when religious and political reality break the bond between Julia, pagan prince’s daughter, and disgraced tribune Lucius Apulius, she is determined not to lose the only man she will love – but a vengeful presence from the past haunts her perilous journey to find Lucius...

Two seemingly unrelated deaths in the winter of 1913 send society writer Louisa Delafield and former lady’s maid Ellen Malloy on a dangerous hunt for the truth in The Whispering Women, Book 1 of the Delafield & Malloy Investigations Series by Trish MacEnulty (Prism Light Press, Aug. 28).

Niccolò Ridolfi and the Cardinal’s Court: Politics, Patronage and Service in Sixteenth-Century Italy by HNR features editor Lucinda Byatt (Routledge, Aug. 29) examines the Florentine cardinal – nephew and cousin to the Medici popes Leo X and Clement VII – and his court in order to understand the extent to which cardinalate courts played a key part in Rome’s resurgence and acted as hubs of knowledge.

A woman fights for her legacy and the lives of the four hundred families who depend upon her ancestors’ vineyard that produces the finest wines in France as the French Revolution erupts, in Her Own Legacy by Debra Borchert (Le Vin Press, Sept. 1).

In Nell: Marshal of Bodie by John Edward Mullen (Murders in Time Press, Sept. 15), a Claymore Award finalist, an 18-year-old young woman with a wooden leg takes the job of Deputy Marshal of a goldmining town in 1892 California in order to track down her father’s killers.

Becca Parcell's and Daniel Alloway's new mission for George Washington turns deadly when a half-remembered woman from Becca's childhood is accused of murdering a suspected counterfeiter in revolutionary Philadelphia in The Counterfeit Wife by Mally Becker (Level Best Books/Historia, Sept. 20).

Based on the historical character who inspired the Jacobean play “The Witch of Edmonton,” The Wonderful Discovery of Elizabeth Sawyer by Jonathan Vischer (The Book Guild, Sept. 28) portrays a woman about to be hanged for witchcraft, who nevertheless might still be able to turn the tables on the men who revile her.

The Swan in Summer by Barbara Lennox (independently published, Sept. 30), volume II of The Trystan Trilogy, a gritty retelling of the Tristan and Isolde legend set in Dark Age Scotland, is an epic journey into the hearts of lovers divided by conflict.

Never underestimate the impact of what we leave behind, the power of life’s dust, as told in Life Dust by Pam Webber (She Writes Press, Oct. 11).

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David Putnam’s A Fearsome Moonlight (Level Best Books, Oct. 18) is a fast-paced police procedural that follows Dave Beckett as a trainee deputy in 1979 to his life as a seasoned detective in San Bernardino County.

Beneath the Darkening Clouds, Book 2 of Juliane Weber’s Irish Fortune Series (independently published, Oct. 25), is set in 19th-century Ireland as the Great Famine threatens: in a myth-shrouded land on the brink of ruin, an Englishman and his Irish wife are pursued by powerful enemies.

Based on actual events, Lost Souls of Leningrad by Suzanne Parry (She Writes Press, Nov. 8) is the richly layered and intimate story of two remarkable women, separated by years and experience; neither the oppression of Stalin nor the brutality of Hitler can destroy their courage or compassion in this testament to resilience.

In a Far Place (Heywood Press, Nov. 15), by Liz Harris opens with Peter Henderson, the missionaries’ son from The Road Back, returning to London in 1960 after 10 years in Ladakh, where his only companions had been his parents and a local boy to whom they’d taught English.

In Folly Park by Heidi Hackford (She Writes Press, Nov. 15), Temple Preston upends her small Southern town when she discovers that the wife of her ancestor, renowned Confederate general Thomas Temple Smith, gave birth to a biracial baby during the Civil War. In The Virgins of Venice by Gina Buonaguro (HarperAvenue, Dec. 13), an engrossing novel set in 16th-century Venice, one young noblewoman dares to resist the choices made for her.

From the glamorous stages of Covent Garden and Salzburg to the horrors of Bergen-Belsen, two ordinary women swept up by the tide of war discover an extraordinary friendship—and the courage to save countless lives in The Secret Society of Salzburg by Renee Ryan (Harlequin Love Inspired, Dec. 27).

N EW P U BLISH I NG DE ALS Sources include authors and publishers, Publishers Weekly, Publishers Marketplace, The Bookseller, and more. Email me at sljohnson2@eiu. edu or tweet @readingthepast to have your publishing deal included.

Monica Perez at Versify has acquired Kip Wilson’s (White Rose) next historical YA novel in verse, One Last Shot; Elizabeth Agyemang will edit. The story is based on the real life of Gerda Taro, the first female photojournalist to be killed in combat. Gerda’s indisputable charm, fluency in several languages, and photography skills served her well on the front line of the fascist insurrection in 1936 Spain. Publication is set for spring 2023; Roseanne Wells at the Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency negotiated the deal for North American rights.

The U.S. Naval Institute Press [USNIP] has contracted with multiaward-winning author Robert N. Macomber for the 17th installment in his Honor Series titled Full Naval Honors, with a release date set for April 2023. Get ready for more Peter Wake adventures!

Amanda Cockrell’s Coyote Weather (working title), set in the shadow of Vietnam, the Cold War and atomic bomb drills, has been acquired

by Lenore Hart at Northampton House Press for publication in April 2023. Jerry has made no plans for the future because he doesn’t think there will be one; Ellen is determined to have a plan, because nothing else seems capable of keeping the world from tilting; and the Ghost, who isn’t exactly dead, just wants to go home to a place that won’t let him in, the small California town where they all grew up.

In Lisa Ard’s Brighter Than Her Fears, a thirty-year-old spinster surrenders to an unwanted marriage in 1882 Asheville, North Carolina. When her property rights are challenged, she fights in the court to secure her independence and discovers an unexpected love.

Creative James Media acquired rights for a January 2024 release.

The Queen of Paris author Pamela Binnings Ewen’s new novel Emilienne, following the life of Emilienne d’Aloncon—Belle Epoque courtesan, mistress of Etienne Balsan, and friend of Coco Chanel— sold to Rick Bleiweiss at Blackstone via Julie Gwinn at The Seymour Agency for 2023 publication.

The next historical novel from Emma Donoghue, Learned By Heart, about the young Anne Lister’s forbidden love affair with heiress Eliza Raine in early 19th-century England, sold to Judith Clain at Little, Brown via Kathy Anderson at Anderson Literary Agency for August 2023 publication.

Tracy Rees’ new novel The Elopement, about a Victorian beauty’s scandalous love affair with a penniless artist, was acquired by Pan Macmillan (UK) publishing director Gillian Green from Hayley Steed at Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency, for publication this November in library hardback, and paperback in spring 2023.

Terri Bischoff at Crooked Lane acquired The Lace Widow by Mollie Cox, in which Eliza Hamilton uncovers secrets while looking into the reasons why witnesses to the deadly Hamilton-Burr duel are being murdered, via Jill Marsal at Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

The American Actress by Jane Healey, a novel based on the life of 1930s B-list actress Drue Leyton, who moved to Paris with her French future husband, later performing radio reports on WWII for Voice of America and working for the French resistance, sold to Lake Union editor Alicia Clancy by Carly Watters at P.S. Literary Agency.

Rani Selvarajah’s debut Savage Beasts, a reimagining of the Medea myth set in Calcutta in 1757, during the rise of the East India Company, and centering on Meena, daughter of the Nawab of Bengal, sold to Jenni Rothwell, commissioning editor at HarperCollins UK’s One More Chapter, via Olivia Maidment at The Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency, for spring 2023 publication.

Karen Ball’s first novel for adults, The Beauty Case, about a woman with a secretive past seeking career success as a make-up artist in misogynistic 1950s Hollywood, with hints that “something deadlier than make-up [is] lurking in her beauty case,” sold to Vikki Moynes, commissioning editor at Viking UK, via Katie Greenstreet at Paper Literary for summer 2024 publication.

Kate Morton’s novel Homecoming, a multi-period, multi-generational narrative set over a spread of sixty years, starting in 1959 and centering on secrets found within a grand house in Australia’s Adelaide Hills, sold to Maria Rejt, publisher at Mantle (UK), via Lizzy Kremer at David Higham Associates, for release in April 2023.

Mariner will publish it in the US, Simon & Schuster in Canada, and Allen & Unwin in Australia/NZ. Medea by Eilish Quin, a re-imagining of the Greek myth of Medea, Circe’s niece, sold to Loan Le at Atria via Jessica Spitz at William Morris Endeavor.

Amita Murray’s Regency-era Marleigh Sisters historical romance series, featuring the mixed-race daughters of an English earl and his Indian mistress, sold to Avon’s Lucia Macro, in a three-book deal, and to Kate Bradley at Harper Fiction (UK), via Priya Doraswamy at

Lotus Lane Literary. The first book, to be published next summer, is Unladylike Lessons in Love.

Cakewalk by Monica Chenault Kilgore, telling the story of a Black singer in the 1920s who becomes a vaudeville star while contending with romantic entanglements and dangerous secrets from her past, sold to Lynn Raposo at Graydon House, by Kevan Lyon at Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

National Book Award finalist (and author of the HNR Editors’ Choice novel Matrix) Lauren Groff’s The Vaster Wilds, set in the 17th-century American wilderness, sold to Sarah McGrath at Riverhead, by Bill Clegg at The Clegg Agency.

Walter Scott Prize winner Tan Twan Eng’s new novel The House of Doors, a story of love and betrayal based on real events about author W. Somerset Maugham’s trip to Malaya in the post-WWI era, sold to Daniel Loedel at Bloomsbury (N. America) for fall 2023 publication, via Jessica Woollard at David Higham Associates. UK and Commonwealth rights (excl. Canada) went to Francis Bickmore at Canongate, via Jane Gregory at David Higham Associates.

Ellie Pritchett at Vintage acquired Kelly Hill’s A Home for Friendless Women, taking place in a real-life charitable institution in Louisville, Kentucky, for unmarried pregnant women between 1876 and 1919, from Melanie Figueroa at Root Literary for summer 2024 publication.

Megan Campisi, author of Sin Eater, which won the Historical Writers’ Association Debut Crown, sold her as-yet-untitled novel about Kate Warne, first female Pinkerton detective, and her efforts to gain the trust of Confederate spy Rose Greenhow, to Atria’s Trish Todd via Stephanie Cabot at Susanna Lea Associates.

Neferura by Malayna Evans, described as “a tale of the forgotten daughter of a legendary Egyptian pharaoh and the path she must take to escape her own dangerous fate,” sold to MJ Johnston at Sourcebooks via Liza Fleissig at Liza Royce Agency.

OT H E R N EW A N D FORT HCOM I NG T I T LES For forthcoming novels through mid-2023, please see our guides, compiled by Fiona Sheppard: https://historicalnovelsociety.org/guides/forthcoming-historicalnovels/

COM PI LED

BY SA R A H JOH NSON 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.

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

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NEW VOICES

photo credit: NL Costa

Sarah Adlakha, Maya Deane, Joanna Quinn, and Olesya Salnikova Gilmore have set out to rediscover people, places and classic stories that have been overlooked or sidelined.

Maya Deane

© Nicole Levine Photography

Joanna Quinn

Olesya Salnikova Gilmore

Sarah Adlakha

Joanna Quinn, author of The Whalebone Theatre (Fig Tree UK/ Knopf US, 2022), lives in Dorset, in the South West of England, which is “famous for being the home of writer Thomas Hardy and is associated with the thatched cottages and manor houses found in his novels.”

Quinn explains: “Although Dorset has changed since Hardy’s time, those buildings still exist. I grew up in a thatched cottage and my Mum now lives next door to a 16th-century manor!”

Like many people, she says, “I have often wondered what it would be like to live in an ancient manor, not least as many of the books I read as a child, like The Secret Garden, were set in big houses. But I’m also aware of the inequalities inherent within them, both between owners and staff, and between men and women.

“My own family history is not particularly English—I’m a mix of Irish, Welsh and Cornish—so when I decided to write a novel set in an English manor in the first half of the 20th century, I knew that I wanted to come at it from an angle. I wanted to examine what it would be like for people who don’t fit in. I wanted to explore the gap between the roles they are expected to fill and those they want for themselves.”

Quinn’s “main character Cristabel Seagrave,” she continues, “is not only a girl—someone of secondary importance in an upper-class family—but also an orphan. Within the structure of the house, she is largely powerless, but she is also a strong-willed individual, and she lives at a time of immense social change.”

While preparing to write her novel, she says, “as well as researching 4

COLUMNS | Issue 102, November 2022

life in the English manor, I read a lot of Victorian children’s fiction, seeking out the books my characters would find in their dusty library. I think you can tell a great deal about a society by looking at its children’s books, and my fictional family would have been fed a steady diet of epic battles and male heroism, from Homer to G. A. Henty, a popular writer of jingoistic adventure stories for boys.”

She then asked herself: “What happens to a girl who reads these books? Who absorbs their lessons? Who does she become when she grows up? Well, of course, she would want to go to war if she ever had the chance—and as my book runs from 1919 to 1945, Cristabel is given that opportunity.”

Quinn found that some of her most valuable research was uncovered at her local library, “where I found memoirs from Dorset people who had lived through the war and newspaper cuttings from the time.

My first job had been as a reporter on the Dorset Echo, and I found I was returning to subjects I had written about back then. A woman I once interviewed about the fact she had married a German POW inspired a section of the book. Sometimes we overlook the places we live in, or believe them to be uninteresting, and writing the book was a reminder that good stories exist on our own doorsteps. I even found out that the road into my village was widened to accommodate U.S. military vehicles, as troops were camped in woods nearby before setting off to fight on the beaches on D-Day.” Maya Deane, author of Wrath Goddess Sing (William Morrow, 2022), points out that “there are many ways to retell a classic story. You can flesh out the details for a new audience; you can reinterpret, revealing facets that went unseen; or you can deconstruct, stripping away layers of past interpretation to reveal the bones, then reassembling them to engage with the tradition in new ways.”

Deane has “always loved the Iliad; in its raw Greek Dark Ages form, it defies the simpler, more polished, more consistent Edith Hamilton reinterpretation of it as part of The Classical Tradition, and instead reveals itself a strange story from the age of iron about the fall of the Mycenaean world (and the collapse of the entire Bronze Age international system) five centuries before.”

Research led her, she continues, “to read the Iliad not as the foundation of a canon but as it would have read to its contemporaries: the latest shaping of cultural memory about a past whose relics were visible everywhere, a collapsed cosmopolitan world that had been richer, gentler, and more civilized than the rough, poor world of its audience.”

Consequently, she wondered “what those events would have looked like to the Mycenaeans who lived through it,” she says. “Mycenaean elites decorated their houses with frescoes of the Egyptian Delta and craved carnelian beads from India. They didn’t know their descendants would become Classical Greeks. They didn’t know the minor sky god Zeus would take on Hittite Tarhunna iconography and displace Poseidon as chief god. They didn’t know later traditions would decontextualize their world, writing out the Hittites and Egyptians and Mesopotamians and Syrians. They didn’t know myth and history would separate, that later historians would view their world through a secular lens, disbelieving their gods, analyzing their fall in terms of economy and climate.”

Deane learnt “to deconstruct the Iliad we think we know and give voice to a story that’s nearly unrecognizable to those who remain

committed to a 20th-century recreation of a Classical or Hellenistic interpretation, a story that touches on the whole post-Iliad tradition— from Hesiod to Shakespeare—but remains deeply rooted in that earlier Bronze Age world.”

Olesya Salnikova Gilmore was born in Moscow, raised in the U.S., and graduated from the Northwestern School of Law. She practised litigation at a large law firm for several years before becoming an author, and lives in a wooded, lakeside Chicago suburb. The inspiration for her novel The Witch and the Tsar (Berkley, 2022) was drawn from was the witch Baba Yaga, a childhood “diet of poetry and fairy tales,” and “fantasy films with the actor Georgy Millyar in the role of Baba Yaga.” Millyar’s portrayal of her—old, bent, and in rags, so clearly a villain—horrified Gilmore. When she misbehaved, her mother would evoke Baba Yaga, “particularly at night, when she was said to be riding the skies in her mortar. Of all characters, she is the one I wanted to know more about. I wondered how she came to be, living alone in her chicken-legged hut, and how a man ended up defining her character and appearance as much as Millyar had.”

Many years later, Gilmore says, “I started to re-read the tales I had grown up with, immersing myself in that colorful world of my youth, of firebirds and spirits, of forests and winters, of onion-domed churches and white-walled cities, of Russia and of Baba Yaga and her history. Unlike Millyar’s portrayal, she is not always a villain; unlike our conception of her, if we look back far enough, she is not always a witch but sometimes a goddess. She is a powerful and intelligent woman, living outside of societal norms and expectations.

“I imagined such an independent woman would ruffle more than a few men and women, even tsars. One came to mind who would not only see her as a witch, but as a threat to his divine rule, a tsar remembered through the centuries as Ivan the Terrible. Medieval Russia, with its bloody history, its mystery and magic, and its timeless beauty, reminded me of the fairy tale realm in which Baba Yaga has been frozen all this time and proved the perfect setting. My hope is The Witch and the Tsar unfreezes Yaga from her past by reclaiming her history and finally giving her a voice.”

Sarah Adlakha’s Midnight on the Marne (Forge, 2022), is her first historical novel. However, the story of George Mountcastle, one of the main characters, was born from her debut novel, She Wouldn’t Change a Thing. “George was an ancillary character in my first book who barely made the editorial cuts, and whose only appearance was in a late chapter where he showed up as a nonagenarian who’d fought in one of the most pivotal battles of WWI with the American Expeditionary Forces—twice. Needless to say, this time-hopper

quickly became a crowd favorite; everyone wanted to know his story.”

Because George’s adventures were detailed previously, she says, “I was forced to work around those elements to ensure everything fell neatly into place. Besides George’s point of view, which highlights more of the strategical battle plans of WWI and France from the perspective of an outsider, there is also Marcelle’s point of view.

Marcelle is not only a French nurse working on the front lines, but she is also a revered spy working with British Intelligence.

“The period surrounding WWI is such a fascinating era of history and one that I don’t think gets enough attention from the pens of female authors. So, while George was the basis for this story, and the reason it even came into existence, I thought it equally important to include a female perspective of war, and not just from a woman on the sidelines.”

Midnight on the Marne is, according to Adlakha, “a love story at its core, but the path to get there is winding and tortuous. It is an alternate history tale, giving the reader a taste of what if. What if WWI had an entirely different outcome? What if you were given the chance to rewrite history? What if you were asked to make unconscionable sacrifices for the greater good of the world?”

Debut historical writers Adlakha, Deane, Quinn and Gilmore have all strived to ensure that their readers are able to reimagine past stories, events and people and to view them from a different perspective.

W R I T T EN BY M Y FA N W Y COOK Myfanwy Cook is an Associate University Fellow and ‘a creative enabler’. She is a prize-winning short story writer who facilitates creative writing workshops.

Contact myfanwyc@btinternet. com if you have been captivated by the writing of a debut novelist you'd like to see featured.

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

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HISTORY & FILM Jane Austen for a New Generation

presented a Fanny Price for a new generation. I was young when this film came out, and I positively loved it. It had a main character I could relate to.

If we view Carrie Cracknell’s Persuasion in the same light, we can see similarities. As a girl I subsisted on the 1990s Jane Austen renaissance of films and series, such as the 1995 Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. There has been a resurgence of Jane Austen remakes recently as well.

Let’s also consider Shonda Rhimes’s popular boundary-breaking series, Bridgerton. Based on Julia Quinn’s novels, the show is set at the height of the colorful Regency era, an epoch Austen is often associated with. Bridgerton boasts a diverse cast, stunning costumes, and compelling storytelling. This show is certainly modern in the sense that the costumes aren’t exactly historically accurate, and many of the pieces the characters dance to are instrumental versions of popular music.

When Carrie Cracknell’s film Persuasion premiered on July 15th, 2022, many Jane Austen fans were in an uproar. Among their complaints: it was nothing like the original novel, also called Persuasion, which was published months after Austen’s death. American actress Dakota Johnson stars as Anne Elliot, and her character is practically unrecognizable from the novel’s protagonist. In this version, we are treated to a sassy young woman who tells her side of the story to the screen, effectively breaking the fourth wall. She has a penchant for drinking wine, clowning around, and doing absurd things worthy of Bridget Jones. People bemoaned that this Anne was not at all true to Austen’s creation. Anne from the novel is a quiet and good-natured young woman who rarely speaks out of turn. She sits in stark contrast to her obnoxious family members, who seem to think very little of her.

These include her father, the vain Sir Walter Elliot of Kellynch; her self-important older sister, Elizabeth; and her irritable younger sister, Mary.

This situation calls to mind the reaction to Patricia Rozema’s 1999 film, Mansfield Park. Viewers used to period dramas, with their gorgeous costumes, encountered an unrecognizable Fanny Price, as portrayed

by Frances O’Connor. This Fanny was a self-assured young woman who seemed far more confident than the timid and shy creature from Austen’s 1814 work. Mansfield Park is generally considered the least popular novel amongst Austenites (fans of Jane Austen). After all, it features a Fanny who does the bidding of everyone around her and never quite speaks up for herself. She doesn’t have the sparkling wit of Pride and Prejudice’s Elizabeth Bennet or the confidence of Emma Woodhouse from Emma.

Rozema breathed new life into the film, envisioning a strong young woman who felt very modern. As Alison Shea writes: “[I]n the film, Fanny’s empowerment is born not from confidence gained through keen observation and good judgment – Austen’s virtues, acquired and fostered through quiet reflection. Rozema’s heroine has confidence aplenty. Her source of empowerment, rather, appears to be a newly discovered sense of sexual energy and awareness that emerges during the ball, after which her bodices become lower and her powers of flirtation greater.”1 Many Austenites decried the film as being nothing like the original novel. If you ask me, though, it

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What sets the 2022 version of Persuasion apart from its 1971, 1995, and 2007 predecessors is the fact that it is a modern take. It isn’t set in the current era, but there are so many nods to the present that you don’t fully become ensconced in Regency England. While we do have the historical backdrops of the imposing Kellynch Hall and the beautiful Great House of Uppercross, this film doesn’t exactly have the feel of a Jane Austen work. We visit the seaside at Lyme, where we are introduced to the Harvilles and the charming Captain Benwick.

We gaze at the gorgeous architectural marvel of Bath that was so often written about by Austen. Yet, still, something feels quite off.

What about the characters? Much like Bridgerton, Persuasion has quite a wonderfully diverse cast. In an interview with IndieWire, Carrie Cracknell explained why color-conscious casting is important: “A conversation that I’ve had with lots of the actors that I’ve worked with over the years is how powerful it can be for a diverse audience to see themselves represented in historic cultural texts and stories, because in some way it sort of broadens the scope of the audience who can feel part of this story or can feel ownership over this story.”2 We have the talented Nikki Amuka-Bird as Lady Russell, a woman of distinction and a good family friend of the Elliots. Richard E. Grant is the preening peacock Sir Walter Elliot, and Yolanda Kettle is the conceited Elizabeth Elliot. Ben Bailey is the common-sensical Charles Musgrove and Mia McKenna-Bruce is the short-tempered Mary Musgrove. Nia Towle and Izuka Hoyle portray Louisa and Henrietta Musgrove, the jovial and fun-loving sisters-in-law of Mary.

Captain Frederick Wentworth is portrayed by Cosmo Jarvis and his archrival, Mr. William Elliot, is portrayed by the handsome Henry Golding. Finally, the scandalous Penelope Clay is played by Lydia Rose Bewley.

While many of Cracknell’s characters remain true to the novel, her Anne Elliot is perhaps the greatest departure. Anne bares her soul to silent spectators in a world where she is ignored. She confides to us as she walks through her sister Mary’s house: “She’s so wrapped up in her own suffering that, until I clear my throat, she won’t even notice I’m here.” There is even a comical quip about speaking Italian for 24 hours, which her sister never even realizes. Of all the characters, I think that Mary Musgrove’s depiction is the most faithful: she is just as unbearable as her literary counterpart!

This Anne is spirited, fun, and doesn’t take herself too seriously. Deep down, as we see in the opening scenes, she pines for the lost love of Captain Wentworth, after having been persuaded to break off their engagement years earlier. I mean, she’s nursing a bottle of wine. Do you think she’s got a lot of hurt going on? While she is ignored by her close family members, she tells us what she really thinks. Director Carrie Cracknell describes her decision to break the fourth wall this way: “I think it allows this access to complexity of her inner thoughts.

It’s a way for us to understand Anne’s interiority. So much of the book is about Anne observing her family and their bizarre behaviors and her frustration at that, and so to be able to just look at the audience and sort of connect over that frustration felt really compelling as a device.” As Patricia Rozema did with Fanny Price, we start to see Cracknell’s Anne Elliot as a strong young woman who refuses to be silenced. After all, those of us who live in the modern age love strong, bold female leads.

Cracknell admits: “I’ve always found the combination of this protofeminism, of these women trying to make sense of the world that they’re trapped in, but also the romanticism and the kind of utter joy and the warmth of her storytelling, to be a really compelling combination.” If we look at the new Persuasion in this light, we see what she was reaching for.

For the costumes, we have a combination of Regency-era clothing and numerous modern creations. The attire of the background characters looks more historically accurate. Anne Elliot’s clothing is perhaps the most modern. She also wears her long hair down in certain scenes, rather than sporting the usual Regency style with a high bun and corkscrew curls. While some of her dresses look like they would fit the era, others stand out. One dress she wears while in Bath is dark gray with a white chemisette beneath, and she also wears a black beret. She looks like she should be in the Edwardian era, a time when women’s suffrage was a major bone of contention.

Women were starting to move into the workplace and forge their own paths independent of their male relatives. I don’t think this was simply Cracknell’s way of modernizing the character but also a way to give Anne the appearance of more agency.

Let’s also take a moment to talk about the language! Persuasion is littered with all kinds of modern slang you wouldn’t expect to encounter in a Jane Austen adaptation. In one scene, Anne and her pompous relatives are sitting around the table with Mr. Shepherd and his daughter, Mrs. Clay. She announces to Sir Walter: “Well, just think, you and Elizabeth. You’ll be thirteens there [Bath].” Elizabeth, the conceited witch that she is, says to her sister: “You’ll be at least six, Anne.” Later in the film, Anne refers to Wentworth as her “ex.”

Then there is the instance where Mary calls herself “an empath.”

(Oh, the irony!) These words take me out of the moment when I hear them. However, that may be deliberate!

When all is said and done, Carrie Cracknell’s adaptation of Persuasion makes quite a statement. Yes, this film has its critics, but I think many people are missing the point. Not every Jane Austen adaptation has to be 100% faithful to the literature. There is beauty in doing things differently. While Patricia Rozema’s Mansfield Park was a point of great conflict, it worked as social commentary on women’s empowerment and a British family profiting off the evils of slavery. This Persuasion has its own message to share about strong female leads, color-conscious casting, and modernizing Austen’s writings. Most importantly, Cracknell’s Persuasion introduces Austen to a new generation. More people are learning about Austen and her wonderful works. If these films succeed in doing that, I say bring on the new adaptations!

R E F E R ENC ES 1. Alison Shea

“‘I Am a Wild Beast’: Patricia Rozema’s Forward Fanny.”

Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal, vol. 28, 2006, p 52.

2. Kate Erbland ‘Persuasion’ Director Carrie Cracknell Talks That Trailer Response: Fans Have ‘Deep Feeling’ for Austen.” 28 June 2022. IndieWire, https://www.indiewire.com/2022/06/persuasion-carrie-cracknellresponds-jane-austen-fans-1234736852/ Accessed 14 October 2022.

W R I T T EN BY ELI Z ABE T H COR BE T T Elizabeth K. Corbett is an author, book reviewer, and historian who has recently published a short story, “MarieThérèse Remembers.” She is currently working on her gothic romance debut novel set in Jacksonian America.

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THE HUNTER & THE HUNTED Robert Harris on crafting his novel, Act of Oblivion

would he select for his novel? “I had to choose which of the men he was hunting I should focus on. That led me naturally to the real-life historical figures of Edward Whalley and William Goffe, a father-inlaw and son-in-law.” Colonels Whalley and Goffe were high-ranking Cromwellian soldiers who had signed the king’s death warrant.

Whalley was also Oliver Cromwell’s cousin. In the novel, Nayler quickly becomes obsessed with bringing these two men to royal justice, and an unrelenting chase begins.

The 17th century hasn’t been the most popular setting for historical novels, so what attracted Robert Harris to this period? “I was drawn principally to the landscape of America in its earliest days – what it would be like to be on the run across this vast, dangerous landscape, fleeing from one tiny, isolated Puritan settlement to another.” As Act of Oblivion’s tale travels back and forth across the Atlantic, Harris had to “recreate London in the 1660s, from where the manhunt was run.”

That enabled him “to write about the aftermath of the English Civil War and the declaration of a republic – a seismic event that affected not only my country but the whole world.” He also uses flashbacks and the clever device of Whalley writing a memoir, as many English Civil War leaders did, to further explore the political differences that led to fighting on the battlefield. Whalley, for example, as both gaoler to Charles I and comrade of Oliver Cromwell, is ideally placed to provide the reader with insight into both the personal characters and the political personas of these key Civil War figures. The political ideas that the English Civil War provoked would eventually make their way to the English colonies. Harris “found it fascinating to discover the extent to which the revolution that failed in England transferred to America and eventually succeeded there.”

In his latest novel, author Robert Harris “set out to create an epic.”

He soon found himself on a marathon journey, admitting that Act of Oblivion (Hutchinson Heinemann UK/Harper US, 2022) was “the hardest of all my fifteen novels to write.” Where did this narrative trek begin? Harris’s attention was initially caught by “a reference somewhere to ‘the greatest manhunt of the 17th century’”, he says.

“I read about the hunt in 1660 for the men who had signed the death warrant of King Charles I or had sat as judges at his trial.” That hunt began almost immediately after the restoration of the executed king’s son, Charles II. An Act of Free and Generall Pardon Indempnity and Oblivion pardoned all past treason against the Crown but specifically excluded those involved in the trial and execution of his father. These ‘regicides’ knew that all they could expect of the new king was the agony of a traitor’s death, and most quickly fled into exile. When Charles II offered a substantial reward for their capture dead or alive, the regicides all became hunted men.

Having decided that his subject would be a fugitive hunt, Harris thought “it would be interesting to create the character of the chief manhunter.” While most characters in Act of Oblivion are based on historical figures, Richard Nayler is fictional and styled by the author as the secretary of the regicide committee of the Privy Council.

Harris now had his ‘chief manhunter’, but which fugitive regicide

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Robert Harris has created a fully immersive world in Act of Oblivion, and he had to work long and hard to achieve it. “I researched pretty solidly for eight or nine months, from the autumn of 2020 to the early summer of 2021 – mostly during the COVID lockdown in England. I immersed myself in detail seven days a week – there was little else to do!” That sense of being ‘locked in’ is fully represented in the novel with the two regicides hiding away from the world during the day, venturing out only at night, forced to avoid the danger of contact with other people. The research was only the start of Harris’s longer-thanusual writing journey, though. “Then I started the actual writing, and it took me about a year – twice as long as I usually take to complete a novel.” No wonder Harris feels that it was the hardest of all his fifteen novels to finish.

From the very beginning of Act of Oblivion, there is a cinematic feel to the novel with hints of films like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: clear markers of an epic chase about to start. Harris did in fact “think about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I had them call themselves Ned and Will (which I think it’s likely they would have done).” In addition, there used to be a TV show when I was growing up called Alias Smith and Jones, and Ned and Will also had to live under false names.” But it isn’t just the characters in Act of Oblivion that evoke classic movies or television series; it’s also the movie-like panorama of American expanse, familiar to fans of Westerns but so alien to Whalley and Goffe, that the author creates. “The landscape they have to travel across – trekking in midwinter from Cambridge, Massachusetts to the Connecticut River, for example – is obviously very filmic.” Although the two regicides are initially feted by the many fellow Puritans living in America at that time, their welcome quickly fades as the royal pressure for their surrender intensifies. In

ONE OF the hardest tasks was to humanize my fugitives – these two, stern, highly religious, revolutionary Puritan colonels. facts, and then feel free to invent around them.” The fugitive hunt for Colonels Whalley and Goffe is a perfect example of putting this into practice. “We know enough to follow where they went and who they met, and not enough to know how they managed to survive so long, often living in the wild, or hiding in cellars, barns and attics.” In Act of Oblivion, Harris has invented freely and fruitfully around his research to create a deeply satisfying chase novel and character study. photo credit: Nick Gregan

constant fear of betrayal and arrest, Whalley and Goffe are forced to move constantly, in classic chase movie style. As Harris says, “the sympathy of the reader, or audience, is naturally awakened by people on the run who face a dreadful death if they are caught. That tension is the stuff of adventure stories, and films.” Robert Harris is a past master at piecing a narrative puzzle together, and his new novel is no exception. In Act of Oblivion, his characters don’t just plug gaps but also deepen the context and complexity of the story. This is a chase novel, but the complex characters ensure that the reader stays the course. Harris underlines that “it was conceived both as a chase novel and a character study.”

The author didn’t make it easy on himself with the characters that he chose to pursue, “one of the hardest tasks was to humanize my fugitives – these two, stern, highly religious, revolutionary Puritan colonels.” The period of the English Civil War and its aftermath isn’t easy for the modern reader to navigate. The deep and sincerely held religious beliefs that permeate the 17th century, particularly on the Puritan side, can seem almost alien in the 21st century. The two regicides, for example, believed firmly that they were part of the elect, the chosen few who would avoid damnation, while Goffe was convinced that the world was set to end in the year 1666. Harris doesn’t try to explain the intricacies of 17th-century Christian doctrine in depth, however. Instead, he offers the reader only as much information as absolutely required to understand his characters. As the harsh toll of months and years in hiding increases their personal, political, and religious doubts, he allows his characters the space to do their own soul-searching. Goffe is forced to come to terms with the apocalypse failing to arrive. Whalley, through his memoir, begins to question his former political certainties, even re-interrogating his relationships with both Cromwell and Charles I. The use of other characters such as Frances, Whalley’s daughter and Goffe’s wife, add further complexity to the novel without complicating the plot. Their implacable foe, Richard Nayler, is no simple hero or villain either. His personal motives for pursuing the fugitives can be empathised with even though he is just as fanatical in his political beliefs as the most fervent Puritans in their religious faith. In previous novels like those in the Cicero Trilogy (2006, 2009, 2015) and An Officer and a Spy (2013), the author created morally ambiguous characters. In Act of Oblivion, he’s also managed to pull off that difficult balancing act as the novel moves back and forth between the hunter and the hunted.

The reader can care about what happens to the main characters while also being repelled at times by both their attitudes and their actions.

Having written so many historical novels, what still challenges Harris about writing about the past? “I think there are multiple benefits in writing about the past, so long as you bear in mind the old adage, ‘just because it’s true doesn’t mean it’s interesting’. You have to guard against putting in details that aren’t relevant to the story simply because you know them.” As a writer, when you have learned to do that, you can “immerse the reader in an unfamiliar world. You have the excitement of describing something that actually happened. And you can use the past as a mirror to examine the present.” Although Harris warns that “you should guard against straining for effect by making comparisons that don’t really apply.”

W R I T T EN

BY GOR DON O'SU LLI VA N Gordon O'Sullivan is a freelance writer and researcher.

Robert Harris has only one rule that he follows when writing historical fiction, “never to put something in a novel that I know for sure didn’t happen.” He recommends sticking to “a framework of the

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VOICING SILENT STORIES Giving voice to silent stories from the classical world

difference, focusing instead on the historical realm, rather than the mythological one, and located in the Roman Empire. As she says: “I think the main overlap lies in reimagining a distant past that is very familiar in popular culture, but from a less familiar perspective.” It’s important to Harper to tell the stories that haven’t always been told – from those of women and enslaved people in the town of Pompeii in the period immediately before the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79, to an account of the rescue efforts and refugee crisis afterwards.

The Wolf Den (2021) and The House with the Golden Door (Head of Zeus/Union Square, 2022) are the first two books of a planned trilogy. They follow Amara, a young woman brought up as a middleclass doctor’s daughter, who is sold into slavery when her family’s fortunes go downhill. From a comfortable, pampered life, she is forced into the horrors of prostitution in Pompeii, and must use all of her intelligence and charm to survive life in the town brothel.

Described by the author as “one of life’s born survivors”, Amara is a compelling, complex, and sympathetic protagonist. Harper says of her: “Like anyone experiencing trauma, she is vulnerable as well as determined. I also wanted the reader to be confronted by the realities of Amara’s life. She is a kind, compassionate woman who loves others deeply, but we can only be as good as the choices placed before us.

And sometimes none of those choices are good.”

It is not only the female perspective that is important to the author, though, but also one of class and power. As she explains: “It was not just important to focus on women’s stories, but also those of enslaved Romans – both men and women. The ancient world looked very different from further down the social hierarchy.”

In Women & Power: A Manifesto, Mary Beard points out the simple yet devastating fact that “when it comes to silencing women, Western culture has had thousands of years of practice.”1 Historical fiction has a strong tradition of attempting to redress this balance, imagining moments in history not as academic history has traditionally done (and sadly, often still does)—primarily through the lens of “dead white men”, kings and battles—but also via the lives and interests of the women who also experienced those far-off times.

Recently, we have seen an uptick in interest in the women of the classical world, in books such as Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne (2021) and Elektra (2022), Madeline Miller’s Circe (2019), and Pat Barker’s female-centred retelling of The Iliad, The Silence of the Girls (2019) and The Women of Troy (2022).

Elodie Harper admits to being “a huge fan” in particular of Jennifer Saint’s books, as well as “Nikita Gill’s highly original Great Goddesses (2019) – which imagines what the Greek gods may have done after the fall of Olympus. Lore Olympus (2021), which is Rachel Smythe’s graphic novel of the Hades/Persephone myth, is also a fantastic retelling, not least for the gorgeous artwork.”

Harper’s books continue to follow similar themes, but with a

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The first book of the series, The Wolf Den, explores Amara’s time in the lupanar – the Latin word for a brothel – and the relationships she forges there. While sex (both forced and consensual) and romance are important elements of both books, what really stands out are Amara’s friendships with the other women, and Harper paints a picture of a complex set of attachments, affection and rivalries. She says: “For enslaved people in the Roman era, some of the closest relationships they would have formed were with their fellow slaves within the business or household that owned them. For the women in the lupanar, these relationships would also have been important for their physical safety, due to the dangerous nature of their work.

Given they were denied the opportunity to form their own families, their relationships with each other would also have been their main source of emotional support and relief. I wanted to show the loving, compassionate nature of their friendships, but do so in an unsentimental way. They have their rivalries too, and the lupanar would have been a stressful and claustrophobic environment for five women with radically different personalities to find themselves in… I think a sharp wit has been (and continues to be) a crucial tool used by people in less powerful positions to assert their humanity.

The women of the lupanar in my books certainly use humour both to create a counterculture and to distance themselves from the men who dominate their lives.”

The second book, The House with the Golden Door, continues with these themes. Amara is now a freedwoman, although her position as a courtesan – and one who still owes money to the violent and dangerous owner of the brothel – remains precarious, and she is forced into ever-more difficult choices as it becomes increasingly

IT WAS important to Harper to include these “fragments” of real people, so many of Harper’s characters are based on them. clear just how much her new life is built on unstable foundations.

One of the fascinating elements of the book is how she tries to navigate her change in status with her old friends at the lupanar, as well as with the other enslaved people she meets in her new household. She even becomes a slave owner herself, something which modern readers may find difficult to understand, although Harper’s writing gives us a real sense of the complexities of emotion and choice which make up Amara’s mind set. She explains: “This was very challenging to write, but I felt it was important to reflect the mentality of the time. Individuals fought hard to free themselves from slavery, and there was a general understanding among Romans of all classes that slavery was a terrible state to endure, and yet there was no mainstream emancipation movement. Former slaves went on to own others themselves, and the entire economy was based on enslaved labour. This meant I could not have Amara experience thoughts about the inherent moral evils of slavery from outside her own time – but I did give her a sense of empathy, awareness, and discomfort about what she was doing. How far we choose to understand or excuse her decisions is up to the reader.”

Another element of Harper’s books which helps to make them compelling is the fact that she integrates historical reality so seamlessly into her writing. “Pompeii is about as close as you can get to time travel in the Roman world,” she says, when asked why she wanted to set her books there. “It is incredibly evocative, from the astonishing mosaics and frescoes to the wheel ruts in the road. So much of the city survives, and importantly it is not just the grand villas and monuments but also places like the brothel, taverns, fast food joints and shops which would have been an integral part of ordinary people’s lives. This made it the perfect setting for the themes and ideas I wanted to explore in my trilogy.”

refugee crisis that followed. This is the aspect that most interests me.” It’s a theme which is highly relevant to today’s world, and feels that this will be a fascinating conclusion to a series which has already delivered an enjoyable and emotionally-powerful story.

The writing of history, including historical fiction, is always as much about the present as it is the past. As Mary Beard writes, “Looking harder at Greece and Rome, helps us to look harder at ourselves, and to understand better how we have learned to think as we do”2, and Harper has given us a sensitive and nuanced portrait of a woman doing her best to navigate a complex, challenging world where many of the choices she must make are between bad and worse options – and yet she still manages finds joy, love and friendship amongst the pain. It feels like a good lesson to take from these highly enjoyable books.

R E F E R ENC ES 1. Mary Beard (2017). Women & Power: A Manifesto, London Review of Books, p. xi.

2. Ibid p. 97.

The brothel not only survives in the remains of Pompeii, but it also records poignant traces of the reality and humanity of those who lived and worked there, even after more than two thousand years, via the graffiti on the walls. This names some of the inhabitants. It was important to Harper to include these “fragments” of real people, so many of Harper’s characters are based on them, including Cressa, Beronice, Victoria, Fabia, Paris and Felix. She points out that “in the case of Victoria, we even get a glimpse into her personality as she repeatedly refers to herself as Victoria Victrix – Victoria the conqueress.”

Where there is more evidence, Harper has also included other historical characters. In the first two books, we have met Pliny the Elder and Julia Felix. She says of them: “Pliny was based near Pompeii at Misenum and is central to the history of the area; as Admiral of the Roman fleet he commanded the attempted rescue mission after Vesuvius erupted. Julia is less famous but still a relatively well-documented businesswoman who ran a baths and apartment complex in Pompeii. I wanted to include her because all the evidence suggests she was a formidable entrepreneur and somebody Amara might want to befriend.”

In the third book of the trilogy, The Temple of Fortuna, due to be published in 2023, Harper will continue to tell the stories of those we know less about. She says: “I think readers will be expecting Vesuvius to make itself felt... The volcanic eruption is of course what Pompeii is famous for, but less well known is the relief effort, rebuilding and

W R I T T EN BY C H A R LOT T E W IGH T W IC K Charlotte Wightwick’s writing has been shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize and highly commended by the Caledonia Novel Award. She writes articles and reviews for HNS.

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DRILLING DEEP

BY JENNY BARDEN Jenny Barden Talks to Amanda Smyth about Fortune Fortune (Peepal Tree Press, 2021; shortlisted for the 2022 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction) packs a lot into a cracking good read. It’s a tense thriller, a moving love story, and a fascinating eye-opener into an unfamiliar place at a pivotal time. The setting is the roaring ‘20s in Trinidad, when the rush for oil changed lives profoundly, bringing the allure of fabulous wealth along with the ever-present threat of disaster. It is this threat which gives the novel its nail-biting edge. We know the story is going to end in tragedy. “Based on true events”, we are told in the blurb, and at the back of the book are photographs of the “Dome Fire” and a burning oil field. Yet somehow Amanda Smyth manages to ratchet up the tension until the horrific climax at the end, which numerous prophesies, signs, dreams and details point to, but which the reader can hardly bear to accept.

The story is poignant for being based on true events, but more than that, it’s based on events that touched the life of the author personally. One of the key characters, Tito Fernandes, a Portuguese entrepreneur, is based on her great-grandfather, who invested in the Dome Well. She says: “On the night of the explosion, he was visiting the islands with his family, otherwise he would have been there, and no doubt died, too. He was deeply affected by the tragedy. Life was never quite the same again.”

The photographs are unusual for a work of fiction, but they ground the story in truth. It was fascinating to hear that the author used one of them as a starting point to enter the novel. This is an image of a man walking, dressed in white, and two women against a backdrop of derricks. “I began by simply describing this image,” says Smyth, “the man became Tito”, and “the young woman became Ada”, his wife, with “his mother right there alongside.” In the story they carry on walking, right into our minds.

Like all terrific novels, this is one that succeeds on many levels. It’s not just an excellent work of historical fiction referencing the key events of the time: the Wall Street crash, the development of cars and consequent demand for oil, the dress of the 1920s, the music, drinks and dances, even the habit of always reaching for a cigarette.

At its heart is a love triangle. An ambitious young prospector, Eddie Wade, arrives fresh from the rigs in the U.S., hungry to use his skills to strike oil. After a chance encounter with Tito, he finds his investor.

He also finds, in Tito’s wife, the wild-spirited beauty who will become his lover.

All of these characters are superbly drawn and empathetic, and while we want Eddie and Ada to realise their love for one another, we also hope to spare Tito the pain of betrayal, not least because he trusts in Eddie completely and has given Ada everything he can.

With dramatic irony we see Eddie and Ada begin their affair while Tito remains in ignorance, even after confiding in Eddie that Eddie saved him from suicidal despair after he faced financial ruin. “I’ll owe you for the rest of my life,” says Tito. “You’re not that kind of man,” meaning the kind who would cuckold him. We read this and we’re wincing for Tito, and for Eddie’s dilemma when he wants to confess to his friend and say he’s sorry but cannot bring himself to do so. There is no moralising from the author, no defining of right or 12

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wrong, only a delicate probing. “I read Light Years by James Salter”, she says, “the way he writes about marriage, love, was really helpful and beautiful. I wanted Ada and Eddie to have their love affair, but to describe their dynamic and predicament without judgement, something Salter does brilliantly”1.

There are echoes of F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby in this novel, its period and doomed love affair, the themes of money, greed and materialism. Indeed, Smyth says she re-read Gatsby just before beginning the novel, but there were other books that pulled her deeper into the story and time, such as: “a collection of Tales from the Derrick Floor, which includes oral accounts of oil men in Texas in the early part of the twentieth century.”2 This careful research makes the descriptions of the drilling process and equipment used utterly convincing. We follow Eddie as he scavenges old machinery from abandoned derricks, worries about the danger of sand in oil, and fights to cap the fountain from each new well.

As a foil to the protagonists are the Trinidadians of colour, who speak in voices which ring wonderfully true: the poor villagers and those of Indian extraction who prove the most wise, humane and attuned to the environment. Grace is one such. She reminds Eddie: “Yuh cyah [can’t] build happiness on somebody else pain.” “Grace is familiar to me,” says the author. “I have grown up with women in my life like Grace. They have a deep wisdom and a simple way of speaking the truth.” Here is one of many gems from Grace: “She wondered who was in such a hurry and where were they rushing to. They should slow down. People must learn to sit with themselves.”

Another of the deep themes that resonates throughout the novel concerns the abuse of the natural environment. Sonny Chatterjee permits Eddie to begin drilling on his land with much misgiving, a foreboding which is heightened when a “sacred” silk cotton tree is felled by a neighbouring prospector. Sure enough, trouble follows.

For Sonny: “The soul of the land had let loose its fury on the people who’d harmed it.”

Fortune is profound; it’s also beautifully written. Eddie shares a thought from his first love with Ada which at the end she passes on to her daughter: “It is not the star you see but the light left behind when a star has gone.” So too, this story has lingered with me.

Jenny Barden is the author of The Lost Duchess, which focuses on the first attempt to found a permanent English settlement in North America. https://jennybarden.com References: 1. James Salter, Light Years. Penguin Modern Classics, first published 1975, 2007.

2. Mody C. Boatright, William A. Owens, Tales from the Derrick Floor.

A People’s History of the Oil Industry. University of Nebraska Press, 1982.

THE POWER OF SETTING

BY KAREN ODDEN Karen Odden Considers the Thames, the Dark River In London, the summer of 1858 was known for “the Great Stink”.

The stench of sewage and industrial effluent rising from the Thames was so vile that Parliament ordered the curtains of Westminster soaked in lime chloride to repel it. Covering their noses with scented handkerchiefs, the members vowed that something must be done and hired the civil engineer Joseph Bazalgette to remove the sewage from London, a project that culminated in the laying of the Victorian embankment over enormous drainage pipes a decade later. A famous drawing from 1858 shows a skeleton rowing a boat down the Thames amidst floating detritus, with a disease-laden “miasma” muddying the sky. The Thames was living up to its name, derived from Tamesa, Sanskrit for “dark river”.

leads to her death. In Great Expectations (1861), after the legally incarcerated pair of Magwitch and Compeyson fight on a boat, the worse villain, the heartless, shameless Compeyson, drowns. In Our Mutual Friend (1865), Gaffer Hexam says to his daughter: “The very fire that warmed you when you were a baby, was picked out of the river alongside the coal barges. The very basket that you slept in, the tide washed ashore. The very rockers that I put it upon to make a cradle of it, I cut out of a piece of wood that drifted from one ship or another”2. These mundane objects are neither trash nor treasure, just as many of Dickens’s characters are neither victim nor villain, but a mixture of both.

This representation is a far cry from the “Sweet Thames!” the poet Edmund Spenser sang of in “Prothalamion” (1596), “the sparking Thames” of Matthew Arnold’s “The Scholar Gypsy” (1853), Oscar Wilde’s “pale green Thames … like a rod of rippled jade” (1889), or J.M.W. Turner and Claude Monet’s many gorgeous paintings of the river. It is more in line with Clare Hunter’s unflinching look at the corruption associated with the river in her 2005 novel, The Great Stink. Setting variable pollution levels aside, however, the range of representations among literary works and paintings suggests the symbolic flexibility and power of the Thames, whose tidal waters rise and fall, twice daily, up to twenty-four feet, continually throwing both refuse and precious relics of the past onto its banks. For authors, a setting like the Thames can both enable worldbuilding and gesture to a rich backstory of place. As the narrator in Natalie Jenner’s The Bloomsbury Girls reflects, “The millennia of London life washed up on these pebbly shores: broken pieces of pottery that had belonged to the Romans, small clay pipes from Shakespeare’s time, diamondshaped shards of porcelain from the century just past”.1 Indeed, an adventuresome tourist can book a mud-larking expedition on TripAdvisor, complete with boots and tools for shoreside scrounging.

(For those who would prefer to mud-lark imaginatively, I highly recommend the memoir Mudlark by Lara Maiklem.)

The river’s centrality to modern life was readily apparent to the Victorians. I distilled dozens of newspaper reports to give these words to Inspector Corravan in Down a Dark River (2021). “Some people say the Thames is the lifeblood of the city … with boats carrying the foodstuffs and mail, textiles and machines that make our modern life what it is. But … I say it’s mostly a cesspool, a receptacle for the entire city’s detritus, complete with entrails and rotting corpses.” Other recent writers, including Gerri Brightwell, Michel Faber, Charles Finch, Sarah Waters, and Anne Perry, have all represented the Thames in ways that suggest its significance to Victorian London.

Award-winning mystery author Will Thomas notes: “The Thames is the heart of London, its purpose, where the city began. … My protagonist, Thomas Llewelyn, tried to kill himself there once. Later he was blown off a bridge into it. Many bodies have been recovered there. It always comes back to the Thames. It always will.”

As an author and reader, I draw upon and appreciate settings in novels that embody dichotomies such as past and present, constancy and change, and worthlessness and value, for they reflect the complexity of our world. In the breadth of their cultural meanings and metaphorical valences, settings such as the Thames can reinforce, interrogate, or nuance themes in a novel.

One Victorian writer who exploited the Thames’s symbolic meanings was Charles Dickens, who frequently employed the river as a setting for moments in his novels when life and death, law and justice, or trash and treasure commingle. In Oliver Twist (1837), the prostitute Nancy saves Oliver’s life by making a riverside confession that

Down a Dark River begins with a young woman’s corpse in a lighter boat, floating down the Thames. Similarly, in the second Inspector Corravan novel, Under a Veiled Moon (Crooked Lane, 2022), the river is the site of an historical tragedy that initiates the plot. On the evening of September 3, 1878, the pleasure steamer the Princess Alice was completing its daily trip from London Bridge to the North Sea and back. Returning by moonlight, the passengers lolled against the rails, listening to the orchestra aboard. As the Princess Alice rounded Tripcock Point, a 900-ton iron-hulled collier, the Bywell Castle, rammed it, shearing it apart. Within four minutes, the wooden steamer sank, and all 650 passengers were thrown into the water.

Most couldn’t swim, over 500 drowned, and with no passenger manifest, no one knew who they were. A leisurely, entertaining journey became a terrifying, deathly nightmare – one that only proliferated as a result of sensational reporting in the papers.

This disaster helped me see that I wanted to explore the precariousness of everyday life for many Londoners; how fast-paced modernity (in the shape of the speeding iron-hulled collier) clashed with older

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ways of life (represented by the wooden steamer) and shaped people’s very lives; and how the media coverage exacerbated the social damage. As an historical novelist, I appreciate the way setting contemporary concerns at a distance – e.g., in 1870s London – enables me to reflect upon concerns that are still relevant, including the ways unmanaged conflicts among different modes of existence can create situations that endanger us all and the ways the media has material effects on our world. Like the Thames, these problems persist.

USA Today bestselling author Karen Odden has written five mysteries, all set in 1870s London. She serves as a board member of Sisters in Crime and gives frequent writing workshops. She lives in Arizona.

References: 1. Natalie Jenner, The Bloomsbury Girls, St Martin’s Press, 2022, p.

273.

2. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, 1, p. 4.

THE BEST & WORST OF US

BY KATE BRAITHWAITE

Jennifer Coburn and the Evils of the Nazi Era A saturated market? One World War II novel too many? If you’ve had thoughts like these, be prepared to think again. In Jennifer Coburn’s Cradles of the Reich (Sourcebooks Landmark, 2022), the Nazi regime continues to fascinate and terrify.

Coburn grew up in New York City in the 1970s. The effect of World War II on her Jewish family was very much in evidence. She explains: “Although my father grew up in Brooklyn, his family had a plan to survive the anticipated Nazi invasion of the United States during World War II. His Polish-Jewish father had seen enough violence against his people to never feel completely safe, even in his new homeland. My father was a toddler, and the plan included his adoption by the Kihl family, German neighbors in their two-family house. My aunt Bernice would be sent to a convent upstate that had room for nine gentile-passing Jewish girls. But my aunt Rita walked with a limp from polio, so there was no hope for her. The three children grew up with a lot of fear. My father told me of this many times as I was growing up. This was more than family history; it was a warning: ‘We are Jewish and must always have an escape plan.’”

When the family’s worst fear – a Nazi invasion of America – was brought to life on the screen in the TV adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle (published in 1962, adapted for television in 2015), Coburn knew she had to watch. Through it, she learned about Lebensborn, an organization created by Heinrich Himmler to increase the number of “racially pure” children in Germany.

Maternity homes were established, where carefully selected women would give birth.

Cradles of the Reich brings together three German women in a Lebensborn breeding home in Bavaria. Irma, a nurse, hopes to rebuild her life but is increasingly alarmed by the system she is enabling. Gundi is unmarried and pregnant. She’s a poster child for Aryan beauty, but secretly a resister, and the father of her child is 14

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Jewish. Hilde could not be more different. She’s a believer in Hitler and the Third Reich, having a calculated affair with a Nazi official, delighted to be singled out for a place in the Lebensborn home.

“Writing Hilde, the ‘Hitler Girl,’ was challenging,” says Coburn, “because it meant embodying a character that would consider my Jewish family Untermenschen, subhuman. I tried to walk the razor-thin line of exploring the psyche of a highly damaged person without excusing or justifying her behavior. Before I wrote a single word of this novel, I did a character sketch of Hilde and imagined her as pathetic as she was cruel. In the writing, I found her actions deplorable. And my goodness, she is a delusional character. At the same time, I feel like Hilde’s family life and childhood traumas made it nearly impossible for her to rise above her circumstances.”

Through Hilde, Coburn touches on another aspect of Nazi cruelty in a striking episode where she remembers a disabled girl she knew in the past. “It was tough to write about,” Coburn acknowledges, while adding, “It was important for me to include this flashback, though, because the Nazis targeted the disabled as well as ethnic and religious minorities. The ‘Aktion T4’ program murdered 300,000 people with physical and intellectual disabilities, and I wanted to spotlight that. It also sheds light on Hilde’s backstory. My cousin has a son with severe cerebral palsy, and he told me that reading the section about Ursula was difficult. He meant this as a compliment, because if it wasn’t shocking and awful, it wouldn’t accurately portray the cruelty of Nazi culture.”

The personal connections Jennifer Coburn has with her subject matter make the story vibrant and relevant, but readers without such close ties to the history will still feel the past resonate with the present day. I read the book sitting alongside my teenage daughter whose summer reading included Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

Both books remind us that fascism and the control of women’s bodies are problems we continue to grapple with.

All of which is not to say that Cradles of the Reich is a depressing or heavy read, alarming and unflinching as it is. Above all, it is a character-driven story. Coburn explains: “The three women represent the different choices German gentiles faced as the Nazis gained power. Like Gundi, they could have resisted and fought Nazi oppression. They could have gone the way of Hilde, a Nazi true believer. Or, like Irma, they might have kept their heads down. I wanted to show these perspectives through female characters – then place them under one roof. Each woman has her own needs and desires, all which conflict with one another’s.”

For her next book, Coburn will explore another aspect of the Nazi regime’s atrocities, in the story of “two women who change the course of one another’s lives through their meeting at the Theresienstadt ‘model camp’ in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.” She explains, “The camp was used for Nazi propaganda. It’s where Red Cross inspectors were taken to see how well the Jewish people were being treated as prisoners. The Nazis even staged a film there entitled Hitler Gives a City to the Jews. In reality, Theresienstadt was a vermin-infested way station to death camps in the east. Prisoners were used as slave laborers for the Nazi war effort. At the same time, the camp had a robust arts scene because it was where many of Europe’s most prominent musicians, writers, poets, and visual artists were sent. I am intrigued by how the Nazis used propaganda so effectively, but I am even more fascinated by how the brave prisoners of Theresienstadt used art as a form of resistance.”

Coburn believes these stories remain popular “because they demonstrate the best and worst of humanity. Ordinary people rose to heroism and succumbed to evil.” Her passion is evident when she

I'VE READ that there is a belief among some art historians that this period in history can be seen as the first wave of feminism. tells me, “The research is breaking my heart, but I feel strongly that the story must be told.”

It’s clear Jennifer Coburn is not finished with World War II. And neither should we be.

Kate Braithwaite is the author of three historical novels and an editor for the Historical Novels Review. www.kate-braithwaite.com

A STUDY OF VIOLENCE

BY LUCINDA BYATT

Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait Hilary Mantel’s death had just been announced when I heard Maggie O’Farrell talking about her as an inspiration, as a writer who crossed boundaries and genres. She praised the “deep architectural sculptural brilliance” of Mantel’s plots and structures. There is a similar brilliance, a crescendo of violence, in O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait (Tinder Press/Knopf, 2022). The marriage in question is that of Lucrezia de’ Medici, fifth child of the Duke of Florence, to Alfonso II d’Este, scion of one of the peninsula’s most ancient dynasties. At thirteen, Lucrezia was a “stand-in” bride following the death of her oldest sister, although she did not leave Florence to live with her husband until two years later. Having initially planned to start the novel with the wedding scene, O’Farrell admits, “I wasn’t happy with the shape into which this pushed the narrative. As soon as I put Lucrezia’s realisation that Alfonso is planning to kill her at the start, everything else fell into place.” This is the premise that drives the entire book.

O’Farrell makes no secret that her inspiration came from “My Last Duchess”, Robert Browning’s dramatic monologue that first appeared in 1842, in which the Duke of Ferrara Alfonso II casually relates to a visiting dignitary how he had his wife murdered. In Browning’s imagination, the duke draws back a curtain, a veil that is not only physical, to reveal the portrait of his wife, “Looking as if she were alive”. O’Farrell says she had been re-reading the poem, a favourite, when she found “I was idly wondering to myself one day whether Browning had based it on real events. I started researching the source of his inspiration and, within minutes, I was staring at a portrait of a young girl with auburn hair and a rather frightened gaze. I knew instantly that I would write a novel about her.” Not all her novels, she adds, come to her so instantly; “others creep up on you very slowly, standing behind you to give you a fright”.

The various iterations of lockdown imposed huge constraints on international travel, so I asked O’Farrell how this had affected her research and knowledge of the settings. “I had lived near Florence for a while, so I knew the layout of the city and the aspect of the palazzo,” she told me, “but nothing can replace the experience of standing in the rooms where your novel takes place. You get to see how the light falls from a window, how the reflection of the castello moat in Ferrara is cast upon the ceiling, the way a certain fresco is visible from one doorway but not another. You can trace the footsteps of one of your

characters as they walk from bed chamber to salon. You learn what part of a city are visible from a terrace. No amount of time staring at maps and photographs can substitute this kind of research.”

Birds and animals appear throughout the novel. One of the first insights into Lucrezia’s character is her determination to see the tigress, caged in the basement of the Palazzo della Signoria (while the family was still living there), where her father kept a menagerie of exotic beasts. The encounter leaves her thrilled and distraught in equal measure. Later, after her engagement to the Duke of Ferrara, a small panel painting of a faina or stone marten speaks to her own considerable artistic ability, because every aspect of the animal is superbly rendered in textured layers of paint. “I’ve always loved the da Vinci painting, The Lady with an Ermine,” O’Farrell says, “and I was thinking of this sinuous white animal when I came up with Alfonso’s marten.” Lastly, the inclusion of Lucrezia’s favourite white mule in Ferrara was also inspired by Browning’s poem, in which the poet gives us a glimpse of “the white mule she rode with round the terrace”.

I asked O’Farrell about women and art at this time. “There has been more research recently on female artists of the Italian Renaissance, and I’ve read that there is a belief among some art historians that this period in history can be seen as the first wave of feminism. There were many women who made their living as artists and painters, most of whom were trained by their artist fathers – Sofonisba Anguissola, for example, Lavinia Fontana and Artemisia Gentileschi.” At the other end of the social scale, one of O’Farrell’s most memorable characters in this book is Sophia, the nurse, who succeeds – much to the discomfort of the palace officials – in disguising the advent of Lucrezia’s womanhood, therefore allowing her to stay in Florence for a few more precious months.

Recent research trends also fed into O’Farrell’s work, particularly with regard to women’s history. “Cosimo appears to have held women in great respect. He was devoted to his wife, Eleanora, and, unusually for his time and class, remained faithful to her during her lifetime.” Lucrezia is highly educated, which was not unusual for a girl of her status: “she and her sisters received the best education that money could buy. That said, Cosimo was content to marry off his young daughters into politically advantageous unions: this was the destiny he committed them to.”

O’Farrell has added a woman’s perspective to Browning’s chilling portrait of a man who controls his wife, even in death, choosing when to reveal her portrait: “since none puts by / The curtain I have drawn for you, but I.” Instead, here, it is Lucrezia who watches her husband closely. Domestic violence has an age-old history, and while such acts do not fit with the cultural perfection we tend to associate with Florence and Ferrara at this time, the lives of women then were fraught with dangers worse than childbirth. The words of the poem and the ferocious finality of the punctuation capture the most violent of these: uxoricide. “I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together.” O’Farrell’s captivating retelling of this story circles back to the tigress, its markings of “burnished gold, fire made flesh”, “branded for exactly this, as if captivity had been her destiny all along”. Might the woman who touched the animal’s soft fur have had the wit to escape such a fate?

When not translating, Lucinda Byatt also writes and teaches topics relating to Italian history at Centre for Open Learning, University of Edinburgh. @Lucy13Byatt

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REVIEWS ON LI N E E XC LUSI V ES 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

A NC I E N T H I STORY THE FINAL CROSSING Vince Santoro, Tellwell Talent, 2022, £13.99, pb, 332pp, 9780228871842

The Final Crossing is, in essence, a coming-ofage tale of Nenshi, a young Egyptian. Bought, aged eight, from a slave merchant, Nenshi is brought up by an architect, Tehuti, as a son, enjoying an excellent education and a lavish lifestyle. Nenshi falls in love with a girl above his station, and a series of coincidences result in him being banished to work in Nubian gold mines, from where he escapes and ultimately finds love and religious fulfilment.

The author cleverly mixes biblical characters and places into those encountered by Nenshi.

Visiting Damascus and Jerusalem, his journey brings him into contact with Abramu, a monotheistic tribal leader, who helps Nenshi settle his inner turmoil about religion and god(s).

As a story, Nenshi’s journey has much merit.

However, having chosen to set the novel at a specific point in time, sadly, the world the author creates bears no relation to the Egypt of Pharaoh Amenemhat III. Had the author set his novel in a non-specific, fantasy period (like Wilbur Smith does), some of the many anachronisms could be forgiven.

Highlighting a few: 12th Dynasty Egypt had no lawyers to present cases; no ‘lesser viziers’ to hear trials; inns and markets as described did not exist; ‘coins’ were first introduced to Egypt by the Greeks about 1000 years later.

Buildings were made of mud bricks (with the exception of pyramids, temples etc.,) so Hordekef’s accident couldn’t have happened as described. Pictures were not hung on temple walls—the walls were decorated with relief paintings and hieroglyphics. Neither Arab nor peasant drank tea or coffee, not for another 2000 years. A priest (or priestess) would have been consulted about dream interpretation, not a ‘witch.’

A few minor changes and more attention to historical detail would vastly improve this wellwritten, easy to read novel.

Aidan K. Morrissey

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C L A SSIC A L STONE BLIND Natalie Haynes, Pan Macmillan, 2022, £18.99, hb, 368pp, 9781529061475 / Harper, 2023, $27.99, hb, 384pp, 9780063258396

Most of us know something about the ancient Greek myth of Perseus slaying Medusa and making off with her head. The gaze of the snakehaired gorgon had the power to turn people into stone. The storyline was used loosely in the film Clash of the Titans. Young and handsome demigod Perseus, the son of Zeus, the king of the gods, is sent on a quest to find the gorgon and bring back her head. On his return journey, aided by the winged sandals of the messenger god, Hermes, Perseus chances upon Andromeda, the princess of Ethiopia, who is chained to the rocks as a sacrifice to pay for the hubris of her mother, Cassiopeia.

The hero rescues the princess, and the pair fall in love.

Stone Blind turns Medusa’s story on its head (excuse the pun), with the result that the reader empathises with the woman who, since ancient times, has been depicted as a terrible, hideous monster with no heart. In Haynes’s novel, Medusa is a loving sister, violated by the sea god Poseidon and abused from afar by the mean-spirited goddess Athene. And rather than being a dashing, macho hero, Perseus becomes a whining, weak and spoilt brat who achieves his great feats only because he has the reluctant but divine Hermes and Athene on his side. Changing perspectives, tenses, and voices amplifies Medusa’s status as a pawn used by the Olympians to liven up their boring lives. The quick-fire dialogue exchanges are playful and amusing, adding to the novel’s fast pace. There is some very beautiful writing in this novel, particularly the plaintive passages about Medusa and the sweeping, second person sections.

Haynes has the power to take a familiar myth and reimagine it, enabling us to see Medusa’s story with completely fresh eyes. I absolutely loved this book.

Margery Hookings

RHEA SILVIA Debra May MacLeod and Scott MacLeod, Independently published, 2022, $10.99, pb, 318pp, 9781999430085

This is the first novel in a trilogy featuring the

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mythical women of early Rome who guarded the sacred Vesta flame.

It is 772 BCE. Princess Rhea Silvia is a descendant of the Silvii who escaped the destruction of Troy and established themselves in Latium at Alba Longa. Her twin brother is Egestus, heir to their father, Numitor. Rhea is also keeper of the sacred Vestal flame that has been burning ever since her ancestors left Troy. She is betrothed to Mamilian, but there is unease among the surrounding states, and Egestus has his own shocking plan to strengthen the dynasty.

After Rhea’s marriage, Mamilian sends her back to her family as he believes she may be pregnant by someone else. This sets in motion accusations of incest that result in a grim tangle of plotting, violence and bloodshed. After Egestus is murdered by their cousin Nemeois, Rhea is shamed and locked into isolation in a necropolis, where she tends the Vesta temple.

There, she gives birth to twin sons who are spirited away by her handmaiden. Eighteen years later, two young farmers appear in Alba Longa ready to take up their destiny.

This novel turns the myth of Romulus and Remus into a plausible and energetic history but has many graphic scenes of the torture, assassination and aberrant behaviour that would come to mark the Roman Empire.

Ruthlessness is equated with strength and power whereas mercy or compassion demonstrate weakness. All the characters must walk this fine line in order to survive, and by the conclusion even Rhea herself accepts there is no room for sentiment or heartbreak.

The dialogue can seem a little modern in places, but it scarcely matters as you are swept along in this vibrant, enthralling tale.

Marina Maxwell

1ST C E N T U RY THE HOUSE WITH THE GOLDEN DOOR Elodie Harper, Union Square, 2022, $27.99, hb, 472pp, 9781454946625 / Head of Zeus, 2022, £16.99, hb, 496pp, 9781838933579

Ancient Pompeii comes to life in the second installment in Elodie Harper’s Wolf Den trilogy.

The bustling Roman Empire city is the vibrant home of Amara, a former enslaved woman for whom the figures of her traumatic past are not so far away as she might like them to be. Though she lives as a courtesan within the patronage of a wealthy and powerful man, Amara struggles to find happiness. She longs for sovereignty over herself, and to abandon forever the sex work that she was trafficked into as a young woman. Perhaps even more than that, she hopes to rescue her friends from the lower social classes, and it is this desire that drives her to constantly seek out ways to make more money. Her attempts at business— whether collecting interest on risky loans, or arranging musical performances for the Pompeiian upper classes—consume her days,

while her volatile patron and other lovers populate her nights.

The novel follows a circuitous path, winding down the ancient streets of Pompeii in pursuit of its heroine. Amara’s perspective is insightful and ambitious enough to hold the reader’s attention through her many small triumphs and tragedies. The portrayal of Amara’s sex work is always in service to the story, with a believable mix of feminist and misogynist character turns. As a sequel to the first book, it portrays a well-rounded and diverse cast, adding lively new blood to the well-known classical age with Harper’s clear prose and modern dialogue.

Erin Page

2N D C E N T U RY AN EVIL PLANNED Theo Faurez, Daytona Books, 2022, $19.99, hb, 302pp, 9789152722657

Antioch, 100 CE. A young woman is murdered in broad daylight, and her family is withholding secrets from the vigiles.

Investigating the murder are two brothers, Captain Antonius Sabas and Antonius Xandron. The victim was a well-liked and generous woman who recently inherited a large sum of money. The brothers will need to sift through secret missives, rejected suitors, past encounters with a delator who caused the death of the victim’s father, money trails, and religious rumors to uncover the facts about this brutal crime.

The font in the print version was much smaller than I expected. An e-book might be preferred for the zoom-in ability, particularly with italicized words. Faurez uses some odd and vague references now and then. For instance, a character is “staring after Haeste’s flexing rear.” Is it referencing Haeste’s movement—is she walking? Other times, places and people are overly described. Readers don’t need details about every type of stone of each ring on all the characters’ fingers or every decoration in a room to envision a scene. It’s obvious the author’s breadth of knowledge is deep and quite impressive within the storyline; however, a few times it was easy to get lost in too many details.

Faurez weaves a complex plot of intrigue.

There are multiple suspects and a fine trail of clues to follow until the surprising ending.

Faurez does well with his character’s deductive reasoning and the plausibility of solving crimes with few and, at times, uncooperative witnesses. In terms of a murder mystery, the book satisfies and is an excellent start to a new series. Historically, its setting is immersive.

I look forward to what’s next for Sabas and Xandron.

J. Lynn Else

THE IRON WAY Tim Leach, Head of Zeus, 2022, £9.99, pb, 303pp, 9781800242890

175 AD Vindolanda, Britannia. Sarmatian warrior Kai has paid for his people’s defeat on

the Danube by pledging his arms to Rome. At the edge of the empire, the Sarmatians fight to keep their world alive. At the milecastle near the centre of the Wall, the sentry nods; below, the raiders move silently. Kai shares a campfire with Lucius, the Roman commander.

He searches in the shadows for Arite. Perhaps she is in the women’s camp. Also, in the shadows, her husband Bahadur is looking for her. The signal fires are lit, the horns blown; it is time to fight, to die for Rome. Kai picks 20 riders to lead the advance. Twenty-five more years, after fulfilling their oath, and they can go home; Kai will see his daughter Tomyris.

From among the enemy dead, Kai rescues a boy. One of the raiders has escaped, the man on the tall horse. Kai and his sister Gaevani ride out beyond the Wall on a quest for justice, but they’ve got it wrong. When freedom is on the agenda, existing alliances, even oaths by the sword, may be threatened. ‘Something is stirring, north of the Wall,’ the Votadini chief tells Lucius, ‘something that your Empire cannot stop.’

This masterpiece is a tale of a conquered people and their tentative truce with invading imperialists, affording each other a portion of mutual respect, yet tinged with distrust. A great story from a fascinating period, superbly written, this is Book 2 in the Sarmatian Trilogy. It is masterfully written with beautiful language, and yet it still has a Roman province sense of place and an antique feel. It must have been quite a feat digging out such historical verisimilitude.

Susie Helme

3R D C E N T U RY EMPEROR’S LION Alex Gough, Canelo, 2022, £9.99, pb, 336pp, 9781800329010

Fifth in the Imperial Assassin series, Emperor’s Lion has the feel of historical believability right from the start. The “lions” involved are the Emperor Caracalla’s elite Leones bodyguard-cum-crack unit, into which Silas, the imperial assassin who is the anchor character for the series, is “promoted”. The Leones go everywhere that the Emperor goes— and so are subject to Caracalla’s increasingly desperate and unstable mood swings as the Senate loses confidence in him, and his lover’s life is at risk; only in the heat of battle, leading from the front with his bodyguard frantically trying to keep up, is the Emperor at peace. It doesn’t help that Silas’s other boss, the head of the Arcani, may be behind some of the plots fuelling the Emperor’s paranoia.

Gritty and exciting, this is a gripping read from start to finish, with several novel plotlines taking us from the sewers to the heights of Roman polite society, and to exotic reaches of the Roman Empire: a historical thriller at its most engaging. And then best of all for this reader is a comprehensive historical note detailing what did, and did not, happen in real life, and how the author dealt with the problem of story versus history, complete with extracts

from contemporary accounts of the events dealt with in the book. Fascinating stuff— one gets the impression that it’s sometimes necessary to avoid the most unbelievable real events from this era when building a story! A thoroughly satisfying read; recommended.

Nicky Moxey

4T H C E N T U RY THE LOKI SWORD Angus Donald, Canelo, 2022, £9.99, pb, 315pp, 9781800321915

Bjarki Bloodhand trudges through the snow; he seeks his mother’s people, the White Bear Clan of the Sami. The old woman caring for him, Fire Dancer, is his grandmother. He and his half-sister, shieldmaiden Tor, had killed their father, driven mad by his gandr.

Bjarki experienced the same madness when he killed his love, Yoni. Fire Dancer helps Bjarki tame his gandr.

Tor is feeding the pigs when she encounters a band of men from Starki, Jarl of Norrland.

The leader, Hafnar the Silent, demands tribute, an encounter with consequences for the farm. Tor kills him, and his son Rorik seeks revenge. A visitor, Valtyr, tells them the tale of Loki’s cursed sword, Tyrfingr, with which the tricky god killed the giant cockerel, Vithnofnir.

‘I know where the sword is today,’ he says; it’s in the tomb of an ancient king of the Goths.

He invites Bjarki to come with him to retrieve it and seize its treasure. Valtyr plans to give the sword to Widukind of Saxony, to fight against Karolus the Frank.

The ship which takes them, Wave Serpent, is owned by Lars, commissioned by Aistulf the Lombard to carry furs. Aistulf will trade his furs for amber in Truso, which they will transport to Carnuntum. An old song, sung by a skald, tells the way.

Tor and her half-brother Bjarki are the dual protagonists, she the brains, he the brawn. Their enemies, the Christian Franks, and their allies and their foes, enter the story, and battles are fought along the Amber Road. Who will wield the magical sword?

The prophecies come true in more ways than one. This inventive mix of Norse myth, real history and author’s imagination is a story of international travel in the 4th century. It is Book Three in the Fire Born series.

Susie Helme

7T H C E N T U RY THE NIGHT WILL HAVE ITS SAY Ibrahim al-Koni (trans. Nancy Roberts), Hoopoe, 2022, $18.95, pb, 278pp, 9781649031860

The half century of roughly 680-730 CE was a perilous time across North Africa.

Muslim armies out of Syria and Arabia crushed all opposition from Egypt to presentday Morocco and even north into Spain and Portugal. This retelling of that era combines

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history, philosophy, myth, and religion. Fiftynine essay-length chapters contain deep conversations and introspections of Berber warrior queen al-Kahina as she plots to resist the invaders and save her people. Secondary characters such as advisors, poets, emissaries, and al-Kahina’s sons and military rivals also express their views and feelings. The topics covered are many. They range from the evil in men and the good nature of women, to parents and children, causes of war, the power of scriptures, the strengths and weaknesses of both rulers and slaves, the soul-comforting ties of a fixed homeland compared to the freedom of a wandering nomad, and the deeper significance of day and night.

Translated from the original Arabic, this award-winning author’s prose fits the time and stories—variously poetic, harsh, complex and difficult to grasp. Patient western readers will be rewarded with insights into the rise of Islam and some lesser-known but important leaders. Many of the essay topics remain as relevant today as they were then. This work will not appeal to those looking for a conventional story arc, details of war preparations and battles, or troves of historical information. But most readers will find triggers here that cause one to examine, at least for a while, eternal questions about who we are and where we fit in the larger tides of life.

G. J. Berger

10T H C E N T U RY THE LAST CROWN Elżbieta Cherezińska, (trans. Maya ZakrzewskaPim), Forge, 2022, $27.99, hb, 544pp, 9781250775740

Covering the years between 997-1018, this Viking saga continues the story begun in The Widow Queen. Świętosława of the Duchy of Poland, the widow queen, is the standout character. She now wears her second crown as Queen of Denmark, married to King Sven.

Her first husband, King Eric, ruled Sweden and left her a widow. But her true love is Olav, King of Norway. Marriages are forged to create alliances, and her sister was given to Olav. Their tumultuous love story continues in this second book, and throughout is the hope Świętosława and Olav will unite.

The kings of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark are principal characters in constantly shifting alliances, and their sea battle at Øresund marks a major turning point. Other battles rage across the Nordic kingdoms, England, Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, Poland, Kiev, and Hungary to gain thrones and territories. Treachery, treason, and revenge play a role; the Vikings with their majestic ships haunt the waters, terrorizing and plundering treasure near and far; and conflicts arise with the spread of Christianity opposing the old religions. It is the women who add richness and dimension to this novel. Świętosława has learned to gain power within the confines of her 18

world, and being a widow with royal children places her in a better position in a man’s world.

Cherezińska blends fable and fact into this novel, which will leave the reader wanting to learn more about the brave and fierce women who influenced history. For readers who don’t enjoy reading through scenes of battles, Cherezińska is able to keep the reader under her spell with characters that are nuanced, multilayered, and fully alive. It is best to have read The Widow Queen for the character development and back stories. Both novels can be overwhelming with a multitude of characters and pages, but so very worth the time invested.

Janice Ottersberg

12T H C E N T U RY THE CALL OF THE SEA Sian Ann Bessey, Covenant, 2022, $16.99, pb, 272pp, 9781524422257

Wales, 1141: The night before Rhiannon’s betrothal to a man she barely knows, strangers arrive at her father’s estate: Vikings seeking food and plunder. Rhiannon watches in horror as one of the Norsemen splits her father’s head with an axe. Norse chief Leif is unaccountably disturbed by his follower’s violent act. His distress leads him to learn more about Christianity once back in Dyflin (Dublin). The image of dark-haired Rhiannon also lingers in his mind. An orphaned Rhiannon takes up residence in the royal court of Owain Gwynedd.

Two years later, a royal heir is murdered and the main suspect flees across the Irish Sea, seeking refuge with the Norse. This thrusts Leif into the maelstrom of Welsh politics and reunites him unexpectedly with Rhiannon.

This well-researched and unexpectedly plausible historical romance is a pleasure to read. Leif’s transformation from Norseman to Christian convert is believable, Rhiannon is a sympathetic heroine, and their romance feels realistic. The book gives a great sense of life to the fragmented Wales of the 12th century, and the interesting plot is based on a historical incident. Recommended.

Susan McDuffie

RUN WITH THE HARE, HUNT WITH THE HOUND Paul Duffy, Cynren, 2022, $30.00/£26.00, hb, 300pp, 9781947976344

Ireland is in the late 12th century, and the Norman invasion has begun. Alberic is the son of a Norman slave in Gaelic Meath (Midi), but after his capture by Hugh de Lacy he is taken to Dublin to serve as a translator. When King Henry grants Midi to de Lacy and the Norman army inexorably advances towards his old home, Alberic finds himself torn between confused loyalties. Despite mistreatment, he forms bonds with those among whom he was reared, but de Lacy offers hope for security and a better life—perhaps even with Ness, a fellow slave with whom he falls in love?

Alberic is an outsider and highly vulnerable.

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Whether slave or captive, he has few if any rights, depends upon the unreliable good will of great lords, and is widely resented and mistrusted by their followers. Through his eyes we witness the hardship and suffering experienced by the underclasses and the defeated: beatings, torture, slaughter, execution, rape, and wanton destruction.

Moments of kindness and friendship, love, and hope are fleeting and undercut by anxiety, constant fear, and cruel reversals of fortune.

This is a dark vision of life in a turbulent era and, as modern wars have reminded us, it is disturbingly credible. Even Alberic, despite his sympathy for the victims, can get swept up in excesses of violence that mark mobs, gangs, and soldiers when discipline and restraint are abandoned.

The author is an historian and archeologist, well versed in the details of life in that time and place. The use of Gaelic words and patterns of speech can pose a challenge to the reader, but they do add authenticity to the first-person narrative. Strongly recommended, especially to those with romantic delusions about life in the past—or present, for that matter, in far too many places.

Ray Thompson

13T H C E N T U RY REBECCA OF SALERNO Esther Erman, She Writes, 2022, $17.95, pb, 250pp, 9781647422479

Salerno, Sicily, 1205 CE: Rebecca, a Jewish woman who escaped England after her rescue by the knight Ivanhoe, has settled in Salerno, where Jews, Christians, and Muslims live in relative amity. She attended the city’s renowned medical school, and now practices her art as a physician and teacher. Rebecca has built a life for herself, but her heart still belongs to the gallant knight who saved her so many years ago, and she resists the marriage proposals of her good friend Rafael Lopes Dias.

Rebecca’s peaceful existence is upended when Crusaders begin terrorizing the innocent citizens of the town, inflicting rape and fear upon the locals. A visiting rabbi from Egypt condemns the local Jewish population for fraternizing with other faiths. When a Frankish crusader is stabbed in a tavern, the rabbi is arrested for the murder; this stirs up hatred against the local Jews. Rebecca and Rafael refuse to believe a holy man could be capable of this crime, and investigate, seeking justice and the true culprit rather than a convenient scapegoat. Can their search bring the true killer to light, and restore peace to this town, which has provided Rebecca with refuge?

The heroine of this novel is based on the character in Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe. Esther Erman has taken Scott’s Rebecca and given her a full life and history after her flight from England. The plot combines mystery and romance, and vividly recreates the precarious existence of Jewish communities in countries where violence and prejudice against them could erupt at the slightest provocation.

The author has done a fine job of bringing this period and setting to life, and created a memorable heroine in the process. A very enjoyable read!

Susan McDuffie

BY THE EDGE OF THE SWORD C. B. Hanley, The History Press, 2021, $14.99/£9.99, pb, 240pp, 9780750998161

Christmas in 1218. A stranger found frozen to death carries a message for our main characters, Martin and Edwin. An old friend named Joanna is accused of murder. Worse still, she was discovered holding a bloody knife over her dead husband’s body. If the sheriff’s representative convicts her, she’ll burn at the stake. For Martin, Joanna is a woman he still has feelings for. For Edwin, his talents of deduction are called on to uncover the facts when all that remains is gossip.

While book seven of a series, this is easily read as a standalone. The characters are effortlessly discernable from one another, and the relationships are easy to pick up on.

The actual investigation doesn’t start until midway through the book, which quickly escalates in tension as multiple suspects are forced by weather into proximity. Danger and intrigue surround Martin and Edwin, as they are outsiders in this community, and emotions are already running high in the castle they’re staying in. Martin’s lovesick pinings get tiresome, and his headstrong ways at times interfere with Edwin’s investigation.

Meanwhile, Edwin must contend with an inept investigator sent to represent the sheriff while also trying to discern fact from gossiped fiction. It’s easy to feel Edwin’s frustration as he interviews witnesses. Hanley has a strong grasp on everyday life in this time period with lovely setting details, particularly women’s roles. This is an intelligent and captivating mystery, and I would definitely read more of this series and this author.

J. Lynn Else

14T H C E N T U RY ESSEX DOGS

debut for the historian Dan Jones. It is packed with historical insight, bringing alive not only the war, but also the lives of the common soldiers as they struggled to survive not only in combat against the French, but the awful conditions they lived in, following leaders who ranged from experienced commanders who led from the front to incompetent, ignorant and uncaring men to whom the lives of their followers were worth little. The battle scenes are realistic without being overly graphic. This is the first in the trilogy, and I can hardly wait for the next instalment. Will these men survive?

Do we care? Too right we do! Recommended.

Mike Ashworth

A FOX IN THE FOLD Candace Robb, Severn House, 2022, $29.99/£20.99, hb, 237pp, 9781780291376

The body of a stranger who’d been stabbed and his neck broken is soon followed by another who’d been stabbed three times— in the throat, chest, and stomach—and the beating death of a resident of York known to offer lodgings to travelers when others wouldn’t and suspected of having a healthy stash of coins. Investigating the individual deaths and their connections is Owen Archer, former captain of the King’s Archers, respected for his tracking and detective skills.

Set in 1376, A Fox in the Fold is the 14th in the Owen Archer mystery series that first appeared in 1993. The series is highly regarded not only for the books’ put-the-puzzle-pieces-together plots, but for multifaceted characters and medieval historical detail. The storyline weaves in political machinations that presage the Wars of the Roses, glimpses of daily life for common workers as well as men in the upper echelons of religious hierarchy and women in priories and abbeys.

While Robb is careful to provide backstory for new readers, the number of characters, often with similar names, can be confusing.

The mystery often lags while subplots take center stage. Fascinating for those looking for a taste of medieval times, less so for those wanting mainly to track a detective’s path toward killers.

K. M. Sandrick

Dan Jones, Head of Zeus, 2022, £16.99, hb, 453pp, 9781838937911 / Viking, 2023, $28.00, hb, 448pp, 9780593653784

In this novel set during the Hundred Years’ War (July 1346), the “dogs” of the title are a motley band of ten British soldiers, including a mentally unstable priest and a drug addict, as well as a couple of Welsh archers whose skill with the longbow is matched by their lack of respect for authority. They are led by a battlescarred captain with his best days behind him, driven by the need to keep the group together and bring them all home safely after the campaign in France ends. The story takes them from a beach in Normandy to the battle field of Crécy.

Essex Dogs marks the historical fiction

15T H C E N T U RY HAWKER AND THE KING’S JEWEL Ethan Bale, Canelo, 2022, £8.99, pb, 352pp, 9781800329683

It’s 1485, and the eve of the Battle of Bosworth, when King Richard unexpectedly summons Sir John Hawker. Hawker, a middleaged knight with an interesting past as a condottiere for the Republic of Venice, and a spy for the House of York, is very surprised to be entrusted with not one, but two secret missions: he must return to Venice a priceless gem that just might be cursed, and he must

keep an eye on a certain teenaged knight, who happens to be Richard’s illegitimate son. We all know how things end at Bosworth: now defeated and hunted, Hawker decides to keep his word to the dead king, by bringing both the jewel and the son to Venice. Only, young Giles Ellingham isn’t exactly pliable, a few others tag along with questionable motives— and, most of all, it soon becomes clear that Richard’s secrets weren’t very well guarded to begin with.

Ethan Bale begins this new series with plenty of colourful action and a melancholy edge.

The haunted Hawker, blinded by his wish to recapture a brighter past, is a particularly interesting character, and I look forward to reading more of his adventures.

Chiara Prezzavento

THE HERETIC’S DAUGHTER M. Lynes, Orange Grove Books, 2022, $10.99, pb, 330pp, 9789948194088

In the years following the Reconquista, Andalusía is a difficult place to live for conversos like Isaac Alvarez and his blended family, even if he is an advisor to King Ferdinand. His friends Juan and Ana de Mota and his wife died at the hands of the Grand Inquisitor, Tómas de Torquemada, who now waits for the chance to come after Isaac himself. In this second book in Lynes’ Isaac Alvarez Mystery series, Father Tómas would most like to checkmate Isaac through his daughter Isabel, who is helping to raise the de Motas’ fraternal twins. When they are kidnapped from a Semana Santa festival, Isaac travels to Granada to find them, and Isabel must hold her own against Torquemada and his allies, as the Grand Inquisitor moves in pursuit of Isaac’s confession.

Lynes has painted the late 15th-century Spanish setting well, as the novel moves between Seville and Granada. Much of it follows the twins as they are held captive, which deepened my attachment to Isabel because of how much they reflect her influence.

Isaac Alvarez himself did not impress me; his flaws, such as understandable but overemphasized impatience, are central, and I found them irritating. His main development is to improve the best parts of himself, however, and Lynes does that well. While I enjoyed the secondary characters such as Catalina, the Alvarezes’ housekeeper, the highlight of this novel was its portrayal of Torquemada himself. He is depicted in his full near-elderly decadence, as he retains his fervor and his appetites, but his body starts to weaken. His henchmen are also perfectly drawn in their brutal cruelty.

For the rare look at life in barely-postReconquista domestic Spain, I recommend the Isaac Alvarez Mysteries, which should be read in order as a set.

Irene Colthurst

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THE IMPORTANCE OF SONS Keira Morgan, French Renaissance Fiction, 2022, $14.99/£12.50, pb, 380pp, 9781777397425

The Importance of Sons focuses on Duchess Anne of Brittany and Countess Louise d’Angoulême, and their open rivalry over who would produce a son to rule France. To bring peace to her beloved Brittany, 15-yearold Anne was rushed into marriage with Charles VIII despite annulments necessary on both sides, but in the few years before being widowed at age 21, her multiple pregnancies failed to produce any living heirs, a fact which made her question the validity of her marriage. Meanwhile, Louise had a son she was convinced by prophecy would one day be king. Anne’s marriage contract held a clause indicating if she considered marrying again, it must be to a king of France. Hence her marriage to Charles’s cousin, Duke Louis d’Orléans (Louis XII). An annulment from Louis’ detested wife was required for Anne to step in, and Louise wasn’t best pleased that Anne could still produce an heir.

Keira Morgan’s novel is complex, packed with historical detail of court life, royalty and dynastic relations. In my first foray into 15thcentury Renaissance France, I was thankful for the character list, which I referred to often, sometimes slowing the narrative, but, without doubt, clarifying ‘the importance of sons’! Anne exhibits maturity far beyond her years and is a shrewd, politically skilled, sensitive woman who gracefully accepts her role in life, including a philandering husband whose lifestyle probably cost him his young life. Juxtaposed against the scheming Louise, Anne’s demeanour is above reproach as she negotiates her world of intrigue and double-dealing. Although a ruler in her own right from a very early age, Anne’s autonomy was hampered by the necessity to create heirs; however, she was instrumental in the unification of Brittany and France. Her tragic pregnancies did indeed become Louise’s reward with the ascension of her own son, François I. Fiona Alison

THE HEARTS OF ALL ON FIRE Alana White, Atmosphere Press, 2022, $19.99, pb, 392pp, 9781639884216

Florence, 1473. Guid’Antonio Vespucci, Doctor of Law, is already preparing for a case when a guest at his home for a festival dies suddenly. The autopsy, performed by female physician Francesca Vernacci, reveals the prominent cloth merchant guest was poisoned by mushrooms served by Vespucci’s servant. When a dog ends up dying of the same poisoning outside their gates, Vespucci is forced to consider the merchant was murdered by someone who had access to his home.

In this latest volume in the Guid’Antonio Vespucci mystery series, which can be read as a standalone, White’s meticulous research shines as readers are taken through the streets of Florence, into its criminal justice courts and hospitals, and are shown the majesty of 20

its architecture and artwork. Rubbing elbows with the Medici family and a young da Vinci, Vespucci at first brushes off the possibility of murder. He’s preparing for a case involving a grandfather violating and murdering his granddaughter. But as time passes, he will learn to trust those around him if he wants to solve both alarming cases.

While I can’t say I was surprised who the culprit was, White’s writing skill will draw readers in as Vespucci begins his search for answers. White surprises with the secrets some of the characters hold, and readers will look at the victims and perpetrators in a new light as the story unfolds. A deftly researched, intriguing mystery tucked comfortably within a richly atmospheric setting.

J. Lynn Else

16T H C E N T U RY PRIZE FOR THE FIRE Rilla Askew, Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 2022, $26.95/C$36.95, hb, 384pp, 9780806190723

During England’s Reformation, when Henry VIII breaks from Rome and Cromwell is closing monasteries, fear and unease take hold with each new execution, r e l i g i o u s laws change frequently, and new beliefs are embraced.

In 1537 Lincolnshire, we meet 15-yearold Anne Askew, an educated gentlewoman. Anne is an actual historic figure who wrote her story in The Examinations of Anne Askew, one of the first women to write in English.

When Anne’s sister Maddie dies, she must marry Maddie’s betrothed, Thomas Kyme, as a replacement. Kyme is a papist, and a brutish man. Anne’s inability to conform to wifely expectations and to Kyme’s and his mother’s harsh rules result in severe beatings and punishments. She finds comfort in reading Maddie’s English translation of the Holy Scriptures found hidden in her sister’s dowry chest. When Kyme discovers and destroys Anne’s Bible, it doesn’t deter her. She goes to the cathedral to read the Great Bible chained to the reading table. This defiant act escalates Kyme’s violence.

The author writes powerfully of this world of diminished and marginalized women when men have the duty to administer “discipline” to maintain control of a rebellious wife, and women are prohibited from owning and reading religious texts. A woman’s view of the religious turmoil under the rule of Henry VIII is welcome. We also see a young Anne grow from impulsive and rebellious into a mature woman, scholarly and deeply spiritual, who

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has found her calling. Still resisting conformity and strong in her faith, she is respected for her biblical knowledge and her English translations from Latin. Katherine Parr, also a reformist, summons Anne to translate other texts and read to her court. When winds of change turn, the results of challenging Catholic doctrine are horrifying. Prize for the Fire has the tone and feel of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, and it stands tall among the best of Tudor historical fiction.

Janice Ottersberg

THE ROAD TO MURDER C. P. Giuliani, Sapere, 2022, $10.99/£9.99, pb, 273pp, 9781800556270

This is the first book in a new series, The Tom Walsingham Mysteries, taking place in 1581 England. Tom is a courier for his cousin Sir Francis Walsingham, spymaster for the court of Elizabeth I. Tom carries messages to the English ambassador in Paris, traveling regularly from London to Paris and back again. His work is halted, though, when an English glovemaker traveling with Tom is killed.

To make matters worse, Tom’s passport and a secret message he is carrying disappear. Are the two incidents connected?

What follows is an intricate plot with many interesting suspects, a lot of clues, and some political intrigue. This is a fantastic time, based on some real historical people, which helps to overlook some of the slow parts of the plotline.

The vast number of characters and suspects, including French, English, and Italians, makes it a little hard to follow at times. Tom is both very green and naive while at the same time observant and adept at following clues. He does make several bungles and mistakes, which beginner spies often do. But by the end of the story, Tom has learned some valuable lessons and earned his sleuthing hat.

Rebecca Cochran

TWELVE NIGHTS Penny Ingham, Nerthus, 2022, £8.99, pb, 368pp, 9780995503427

As wardrobe mistress to Burbage’s Theatre in Shoreditch, Magdalen enjoys affection and a degree of protection from the players, Will Kempe, Henry Condell, William Sly, et. al., and from Burbage’s scribbler, Will Shakespeare.

But when John Wood collapses and dies on stage, the constable accuses her of murder.

As everyone knows, poison is a woman’s weapon. Threatened with imminent hanging, Magdalen has only herself to rely on to clear her name.

Her friend, Chris Marlowe, swears he’ll let no one harm her, but he is fickle and elusive, often disappearing for days at a time. The taciturn and dispassionate Will Shakespeare assures her that everything will be fine! But the more she learns about John Wood’s scandalous behavior—dicing, whoring, drinking—and the massive debts he’s run up, the more she discovers just how many may have wanted him dead. Did Lord Hunsdon discover John’s affair with his mistress? Is she carrying John’s child?

Did John’s lover, the Earl of Southampton, tire of paying off his debts? And what about the Puritans determined to bring scandal to the sinful theatre trade?

It’s always a delight when an author’s love of an era bursts through the narrative. Ingham sweeps readers into the literary rivalries of the time, the deadly political arena and the squalor of tavern brawls, brothels, slaughter yards, and cess pits. The filth and the noxious smells are everywhere. Ingham has gleaned from fact, myth and legend to make people like Marlowe and Shakespeare accessible. I wasn’t quite sure where the penniless Magdalen found money to buy fabric, or hot pies for her grandmother, but those things didn’t interrupt a well-researched, atmospheric and engaging murder mystery with amusing nods to the Bard’s work and a fascinating author’s note.

No need to be familiar with Shakespeare, but all the more enjoyable if you are.

Fiona Alison

DANGEROUS LADY Amy Licence, Sapere, 2022, $10.99/£9.99, pb, 292pp, 9781800556515

Historian Amy Licence begins her first in the Marwood Family Tudor Saga in 1527, with the Marwoods travelling to court from their Suffolk country home to attend their eldest daughter Cecilia’s marriage to a member of King Henry’s household. The story unfolds through the second daughter, Thomasin, as she accompanies her family to her uncle’s London house. Once introduced at court, she catches the eye of Rafe Danvers, a ward in the household of Viscount Boleyn, head of the up-and-coming family whose daughter is about to upend Henry’s current queen and the world at large! Enthralled by the vivacious youthfulness of Anne Boleyn’s circle, Thomasin must learn to play both sides, but her head is turned by the handsome Rafe as he tries to gain advantage over her young innocence. When Cecilia admits she is in love with someone other than her chosen bridegroom, and subsequently disappears, the glittering world of the court takes on a deadlier feel, as Thomasin learns where duty and loyalty lie and how close she has come to allowing a dalliance to dictate her future.

Although a little slow to get started, this novel quickly grew on me as it went from what seemed a simple Tudor romance into something much more intriguing. Thomasin’s character arcs believably from rosy-eyed naivete to the strength and determination to make her own way in the new world of reform. Court intrigue and daily balancing acts are well delineated in the characters of Thomasin’s parents, her father looking to the Boleyn future, her mother rooted firmly in Queen Catherine’s past. I look forward to seeing how the Marwoods fare in Troubled Queen, and hope the series will follow not only the two older sisters but their younger siblings as well.

Fiona Alison

THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT Maggie O’Farrell, Knopf, 2022, $28.00, hb, 352pp, 9780593320624 / Tinder Press, 2022, £25.00, hb, 448pp, 9781472223845

M a g g i e O’Farrell follows her awardwinning Hamnet with another touching tragedy of a young life cut short. Lucrezia de’ Medici is 15 when, upon her sister Maria’s unexpected death, she is married off to Maria’s fiancé, the Duke of Ferrara—even forced to wear her sister’s wedding dress. Her desperate pleas to remain in Tuscany fall on deaf ears. Married almost a year in 1561, and not yet pregnant, she fears for her life.

Alone with her husband in a fortress outside of Ferrara, and deprived of her own household, Lucrezia contemplates her manner of death… and her short life. She guides us through her lonely childhood, the age gap between her older and younger siblings setting her apart. An intelligent and willful child, her only consolation is her art.

She tiptoes on eggshells around Alfonso and his enigmatic sisters, never sure where she stands. Alfonso rules his estates and family with an iron fist, congenial enough, but a menacing presence all the same. Witness to an act of unspeakable cruelty, Lucrezia is compelled to heed her sister-in-law’s warning that she will be blamed if there is no heir, no matter that the much older Alfonso has never fathered a child.

The Marriage Portrait is a visceral immersion in Gothic suspense: compelling, gutwrenching, with ominously dark undertones layering the narrative. The raw chill which pervades the fortress rivals the icy fear gripping Lucrezia’s heart. Although relating the tragic life of a terrified young woman, O’Farrell grants Lucrezia an autonomy she never achieved in life and the sole surviving portrait makes one wonder what those averted eyes might tell us. O’Farrell’s innate grasp of the human condition, her stylistic word and phrase repetition, effortless tense switching, and vivid illumination of a virtually unknown historical figure make for another superb achievement, brilliantly rendered.

Fiona Alison

OF BLOOD DESCENDED Steven Veerapen, Polygon, 2022, £8.99, pb, 374pp, 9781846976131

Located in the familiar territory of the reign of King Henry VIII, this is a notably brave attempt by a new novelist to move into

the world of the author who popularized the historical crime genre, C. J. Sansom. The difference is that while Sansom’s investigator Matthew Shardlake makes his first appearance in 1536 with Dissolution, here we are in 1522 and the King is still happily married to Catherine of Aragon, and Cardinal Wolsey is very much in favour. In fact, Wolsey’s own ‘court’ at Hampton Court Palace forms the location for much of the book, its topography being described in fine detail. King Henry remains a minor character.

The protagonist is Anthony Blanke, a musician in the cardinal’s service, who is called upon to investigate a series of murders which, though the killer has staged them for grisly effect, have to be hushed up to avoid alarming the King. Anthony is mixed race and finds his dark skin an embarrassment. I enjoyed seeing this world through his perceptive but diffident eyes. The cardinal is depicted with great skill, outwardly bluff, friendly and tactile, but his inner mistrust is clear: after touching anyone, he fastidiously wipes his hand. It emerges that the motivation for the killings is bound up with the cardinal’s attempt to fabricate history, to prove that King Henry is descended directly from King Arthur. Veerapen cleverly provides a literary homage through the inclusion of the Orwellian word ‘un-good.’ Some other modern phraseology, e.g. ‘his life is on the line’, sits less well in the period.

But in the main the dialogue, strong in itself, is believable for the era. I also liked the depiction of the rigid class distinctions. There is much to enjoy in this fast-moving thriller, well-located in its period and settings.

Ben Bergonzi

17T H C E N T U RY THE LEVIATHAN Rosie Andrews, Bloomsbury, 2022, £14.99, hb, 320pp, 9781526637338

This book starts with some beautiful writing and has a great sense of place and time. We are at the end of 1643, and Thomas Treadwater is back home in Norfolk, on leave from his Roundhead regiment. Thomas has been summoned by his sister’s worrying account of witchcraft in the family home.

His father is already dangerously ill. Matters rapidly deteriorate.

This author is concerned, like Thomas Hobbes who wrote his treatise Leviathan during the Civil War, with exploring how much chaos people can take before relationships break down and an absolutist ruler must take over. But this theme is tackled here not through philosophy but via a gripping, Gothic plot with unexpected twists. And the leviathan of Andrews’ title is not metaphorical but eventually appears, a seaborne bringer of evil. I was impressed with the male first-person voice—the best I have found recently from a female writer.

However, despite the generally sure tone, there are some historical mistakes. John Milton the poet—a major character in the story—at

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this date certainly did not yet live in Chalfont St Giles (the house we now know as Milton’s Cottage). No-one yet would have spoken of ‘The Long Parliament’, nor have said ‘The army under Cromwell.’

As the book progressed, I found that the pace slowed, and some of the more interesting characters were killed off or otherwise disappeared. The latter half is written with a small cast and is quite intense, though I did feel that in terms of sheer plot, the suspense would have benefitted without the framing structure scenes where Thomas looks back from the standpoint of 60 years on.

Still, this is a spellbinding tale, with memorable images and much to enjoy. Warmly recommended.

Ben Bergonzi

A DIAMOND IN THE DUST Michael Dean, Holland Park Press, 2022, £12.00, pb, 124pp, 9781907320965

London, 1649: This novel opens with Charles Stuart’s walk towards the scaffold, through the Palace of Whitehall, remembering the paintings that used to hang there, and then recounts, in flashback, his inauspicious birth as a frail baby not expected to survive, his attempt to marry the Spanish Infanta, his eventual happy marriage to the French princess Henrietta Maria, and his career as one of the leading art collectors of his age.

Dean has done his research thoroughly. In Charles, he provides a portrait of a physically unpromising individual who dressed in ways to disguise his rickets and who was afflicted by a stutter. His father James is much less sympathetically drawn: pious witchfinder he might have been, but here it is his alter ego, a vicious sexual predator with a disgusting disregard for personal hygiene, who comes to the fore.

Although there is much to admire in this book, it reads too much like non-fiction: “He [Charles] would marry the Infanta Anna of Spain, thus allying England with the major Catholic power occupying Elizabeth’s kingdom…”

At times the authorial voice is intrusive, as in “Men who delight women tend to dislike other men who delight women, and so it was with Buckingham and Olivares,” or “Lanier also wrote poetry, as most people did.” Most?

Dialogue, when it appears, is vivid and sprightly, but there is not enough of it, and it too quickly gives way to telling rather than showing. A closer proofread was needed of foreign phrases or names (as in “heaures”, “Guilio Romano” and “Vetruvius”). The book ends very abruptly, with the promise of a sequel, but it does not feel like a natural break; perhaps this volume and the sequel could have been combined, providing the whole arc of Charles’s life.

Katherine Mezzacappa

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ACT OF OBLIVION Robert Harris, Hutchinson Heinemann, 2022, £22.00, hb, 458pp, 9781529151756 / Harper, 2022, $28.99, hb, 480pp, 9780063248007

This novel tells the story of the hunt for the regicides of Charles I, principally Edward Whalley and his son-inlaw, William Goffe. Whalley and Goffe fled to America after the restoration of Charles II and the passing of the Act of Oblivion.

The Act was intended to help reconciliation between the Roundheads and Cavaliers, pardoning crimes committed during the English Civil War and Cromwell’s subsequent reign, with the obvious exception of the execution of Charles I. The regicides are relentlessly pursued by the fictional Richard Nayler, the secretary of the regicide committee, who has very personal reasons for wanting to hunt down Whalley and Goffe. His hunt takes him to the edge of the known world and spans decades, long after their crimes have been forgotten. At times Nayler’s relentless pursuit takes on aspects of a Western, set on the east coast of America, right up to the final showdown.

This is a very opportune novel to read at the start of Charles III’s rule, exploring why Britain has a constitutional monarchy as a result of the actions of his predecessors who bore his name. Like all the very best historical fiction, Harris’s novel both entertains and informs. He expertly brings together a number of story strands that encompass the seismic events which shaped Britain and the culture war between the Puritan Roundheads and the hedonistic Cavaliers. Harris doesn’t shy away from showing a “warts and all” portrayal of both sides, which has moulded the competing parts of the British character ever since, and was subsequently exported to America. If, like for me, this novel sparks your interest in the English Civil War, I would also recommend Jemahl Evans’s Sir Blandford Candy series.

Alan Bardos

THE POISON MACHINE Robert J. Lloyd, Melville House, 2022, £18.99/$29.99, hb, 416pp, 9781612199757

London, 1679. Harry Hunt, assistant to Robert Hooke, the renowned scientist and architect, feels humiliated after the failure of one of his experiments demonstrated at the Royal Society. Wanting to flee his shame, he agrees to work for Sir Jonas Moore as an investigator at the Board of Ordnance. His first job is to investigate the death of a dwarf, who is identified as Jeffrey Hudson, once Queen Henrietta Maria’s pet. Hudson had returned to England in disgrace after taking part in

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a duel some ten years previously and, so it seemed, been murdered. However, there was a dwarf calling himself Jeffrey Hudson living quite happily in the county of Rutland. Harry is tasked with finding out who had killed Hudson and who had been impersonating him for a decade and why.

In his quest Harry travels to both London and Paris and is submerged in a world of deceit, intrigue, bluff and double bluff, threat and enticement. He finds he can’t trust those he thought he could, finds support from most unlikely sources, and is terrified when he sees a man whose death he had witnessed. Lloyd describes beautifully the world of religious unrest, distrust and violence that prevailed at the time, and his descriptions of well-known people (Christopher Wren and Isaac Newton) and places (Somerset House and the Bastille) are fascinating.

This is a 17th-century Mission Impossible and a real page-turner. I literally couldn’t put the book down towards the end and just had to finish it to see how Harry got out of a very sticky situation and whether those who deserved their comeuppance received it.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading well-written books that thrill, confuse and inform in equal measure.

This is actually Book Two of the Hunt and Hooke series, and as soon as I’d finished this book I ordered the first one, The Bloodless Boy. I await Book Three with impatience.

Marilyn Pemberton

AN ART, A CRAFT, A MYSTERY Laura Secord, Livingston Press, 2022, $18.95, pb, 179pp, 9781604893038

This book is a rare thing indeed: a historical novel in poems. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I began reading it. So, first, let me say what the book is not: it is not one long narrative epic à la Homer. It is rather a series of lyrical snapshots revealing two women’s lives in colonial America that add up to a profound and moving history.

The story begins in 17th century England, where Lydea Gilbert and her niece Kate take in spinning work until the plague comes and wipes out Lydea’s husband and children. Left with nothing, the two women take a ship to America, where they are held in temporary bondage and must work in servitude to pay their passage. Once established, they slowly create new lives as healers, midwives, and farmers. Lydea, at long last, finds a shortlived love. Kate marries and has children. But this is a wild country filled with superstitious people who do not appreciate competent and independent women, a land where a woman may be whipped for having a voice “too brash and harsh” or tried for witchcraft if she sings and dances. Lydea and Kate each in turn must face accusations of their own.

These poems are treasures, offering glimpses into the lives of women at once ordinary and extraordinary. They are populated with the myriad details of colonial

life: “an earthen candle stick, a metal plate, a wooden trencher.” Secord has based her book on the lives of two of her ancestors.

Her painstaking research, combined with her luminous voice, brings them to life such that we know not only what happened in their lives, but also what happened in their hearts.

Trish MacEnulty

BÉJART’S CARAVAN Bonnie Stanard, Cuidono Press, 2022, $17.00, pb, 350pp, 9781944453183

Set in 17th-century France, the title’s caravan shuttles actors from the Augusto Troupe through villages, towns, and the countryside. The actors form a colorful company indeed, and the narrative switches point of view frequently from troupe director to lead actress to a young actor coming of age, among others. Character-focused, the tale follows the troupe through their adventures with peasants, nobles, religious fanatics, and the dreaded plague, always in the shadow of the great French writer, actor, and poet Molière.

Divided into scenes instead of chapters, the novel has a rowdy, bawdy feel, extending to the dialogue (“Huzzah! To the King’s cock!”) and scene titles such as “a story about a fart.”

The characters and their swelling bosoms, cracking voices, and ribald adventures never fail to entertain. Indeed, the Augusto Troupe displays “few virtues and many vices.”

Stanard wields the deft pen of an experienced novelist as she relays this earthy, delightfully period-appropriate tale. It’s filled with vivid details that makes France and its people come to life, and readers can rest assured that their money is well-spent on this rousing tale of ambition, art, and the foibles of human beings.

Xina Marie Uhl

THE GALLERY OF BEAUTIES Nina Wachsman, Level Best, 2022, $17.95/£14.99, pb, 334pp, 9781685121051

This debut mystery set in Renaissance Venice is a delight to read, especially for those who have visited the city. The Rialto, the Grand Canal, the Bridge of Sighs, the prison beneath the Doge’s palace, and the Jewish ghetto all have a starring role. The two heroines—Diana, a widow, and Belladonna, a courtesan— are both on journeys to discover what more they can be. While they are constrained by their circumstances, the author succeeds in conveying a note of optimism as they make their choices and face the consequences of their actions.

The driving force of the plot is a set of paintings of beautiful Venetian women commissioned by a visiting English noble. The creation of these paintings sets off a series of murders that are solved by the heroines.

The complex maneuvering of the players and politics of the day is brought out in an understandable way without overwhelming the narrative. We can guess who the murderer

is early in the book, but it’s the slow reveal of the causes which makes the mystery enjoyable.

The informative afterword discusses the historical background and points out some great reads. I have already downloaded the autobiography of Leon de Modena, a famous rabbi of the times; he is a scholar who also happens to have a gambling problem and, apart from being the author’s ancestor, is Diana’s father in the book. Recommended.

Kishore Krishna

18T H C E N T U RY CUT FROM THE EARTH Stephanie Renée dos Santos, Next Chapter, 2021, $13.49/C$17.99, pb, 333pp, 9798501737532

T h i s beautifully written novel set in Lisbon in 1755 tells the story of Pêro, a gifted tile-maker who is dedicated to freeing slaves and employing them in his workshop.

Together with his wife Paulinha, he creates exquisite tile designs including life-size human figures. Pêro attracts the unwanted attention of the Inquisition because they do not approve of women as tile designers, especially since some of Paulinha’s figures are erotic, and they are opposed to Pêro’s efforts to free the slaves. When Pêro receives a commission from a wealthy merchant in Brazil, he is determined to use the money to free an elderly slave, the father of his chief assistant. Then a catastrophic earthquake hits Lisbon, and Pêro loses everything he has. As he struggles to come to terms with his loss, he faces an important decision: should he go to Brazil to begin a new life or stay in Lisbon to help rebuild the devastated city?

Dos Santos immerses the reader in the vibrant, culturally diverse city of Lisbon, and makes us feel as if we are there. She writes in wonderful detail of the tile-making process, the festivals, the horrors of the slave trade, and, especially, the destruction brought about by the earthquake, as people search for loved ones among the ruins. My heart broke for Pêro and his friends as I read that part of the book. In spite of the horrific losses, there is a glimmer of hope at the end, and I think dos Santos strikes the right balance between that and the disaster of the earthquake. She also draws attention to the overlooked role played by women and Black people in the creation of art. I loved reading about life in Portugal, which is an underused setting for historical fiction. Highly recommended.

Vicki Kondelik

THE AVENGERS OF THE KING Jean Drault (trans. Ryan P. Plummer), Lambfount, 2022, $16.95, pb, 320pp, 9781732873421

On their way to rescue Louis XVI in 1793, Pierre Lézardière accompanies another man to the rendezvous, but Cécile Renault realizes that he’s not a royalist. He is Sénar, a police officer of the revolution. She must warn their leader, a man of two faces. To some he is Citizen Manaud. To others, Baron Jean de Batz. Monsieur Baron believes there are other traitors in their midst; their plan goes awry and the king is guillotined. Now, they concentrate on freeing the queen and her loved ones before they meet a similar fate.

Sénar follows the royalist leader and is astounded to find that he lives inside the notorious penitentiary, La Force. Yet when the warden opens the prisoner’s cell, another man is locked inside. Sénar is determined to solve this mystery, for it will permit him to pursue the woman he loves. There is also another rival for her affections—Robespierre, a powerful revolutionary whose name is synonymous with France’s Reign of Terror. Alas, she loves a third man.

Originally published in 1911 in French, this novel is rife with duplicities, blackmail, manipulation, romance, vengeance, and sacrifice. Many characters were true participants in the French Revolution, and Drault stays true to history while interweaving facts with plausible fiction. Familiarity with the French Revolution is a plus, but not required.

The translation flows well, although the older writing style contains offensive language and frequent asides to readers. Keeping track of who’s who can be difficult since many characters have aliases. Perhaps not everyone’s cup of tea, but Drault intricately interconnects threads and deftly unifies them by story’s end in expected and unexpected ways that rouse the reader’s curiosity.

Cindy Vallar

TRACES Patricia L. Hudson, Fireside Industries/Univ.

Press of Kentucky, 2022, $27.95, hb, 288pp, 9781950564286

Even in 1750s America, celebrity marriage is a challenge, especially if your husband is Daniel Boone. In Traces, Hudson gives voice to Boone’s wife and two of his daughters, women who were on the frontier, creating a home while Boone left for the woods.

While Traces is about frontier life in the early pre-Revolutionary War era, it’s really about partnership. Boone is gone for long stretches: fur-trapping, joining militias, or scouting new territory to push white colonialism westward.

Meanwhile, Rebecca births ten children, deals with scandal, and farms. The attention to detail of Rebecca’s daily life is a drudgery for her, but a delight to the reader. There are few frontier novels that convey the cyclical nature of maintenance and creation when living in the woods. In the latter half of the book, as the

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children get older, two of Boone’s daughters, Susannah and Jemima, get a perspective. Life for a young Boone woman wasn’t sparkles and ribbons, and between the two girls we see the dichotomy of impetuousness versus careful thought.

Amidst all of the family strife, the rumors that Rebecca slept with Daniel’s brother, and the constant upheaval subject to Daniel’s impulses, there are conflicts with different tribes of Native Americans. Hudson treats them well, distinguishing tribes, modes of dress, and attitudes towards white settlers. She even exposes how Daniel Boone continually pushes boundaries that the governments have settled, and creates enemies by doing so. She isn’t afraid to show that Daniel Boone was a man who sometimes made poor decisions for his own gain.

This book is harrowing—flaming arrows, kidnapping, escaping through the woods with small children. It’s a page-turner, and by the end, you come to respect Rebecca. She was pushed aside by history, but Hudson brings her back for a much-deserved curtain call.

Katie Stine

ERNESTINE Michiel B.L. Korte, Independently published, 2022, $15.00, pb, 325pp, 9798413976203

This novel tells the true story of Ernestine Lambriquet, the ten-year-old daughter of servants at Versailles just before the French Revolution. After the death of her mother, Ernestine is taken into the royal family by Marie-Antoinette as an adoptive daughter and playmate to her own daughter, Princess Charlotte. The two girls bear a strong resemblance to each other and form a close bond as if they were sisters. Ernestine shares in the royal children’s lessons and games. She feels she is living a dream, but she also has the constant fear that she will be sent away if she displeases the king and queen. Then the French Revolution turns Ernestine’s dream into a nightmare as an angry mob brings the royal family to Paris. Ernestine chooses to share their captivity even though she knows her life is in danger. How will she survive when her world is turned upside down?

Korte does an excellent job of writing about the details of the royal family’s life at their residences of 18th-century Versailles, Trianon, and, later, the Tuileries in Paris. You feel you are living there with Ernestine, even though, unlike her, you know their world is about to collapse. Marie-Antoinette is portrayed as a loving mother to her children: Charlotte, the frail Dauphin Louis-Joseph, and the playful Louis-Charles. What really stands out is the friendship between Ernestine and Charlotte.

The two girls are devoted to each other, even though Ernestine knows she is not royal and can be dismissed at any time. Korte also describes the violence of the Terror, and the fear the royal family felt as the mob stormed the Tuileries, very well. Occasionally he uses modern words such as “clueless” and “microaggressions,” 24

which took me out of the story. Except for these modernisms, I highly recommend the book.

Vicki Kondelik

THE SECOND SIGHT OF ZACHARY CLOUDESLEY Sean Lusk, Doubleday, 2022, £14.99, hb, 356pp, 9780857528056

Opening in the middle of the 18th century and moving between London, rural England and Constantinople, this novel is historical fiction laced with whimsy and magical realism.

Zachary’s birth is tinged with sadness, as it leads to his mother’s death; his father is almost broken by despair, but in his son, he finds new purpose. The boy is precocious and wildly intelligent and possesses a powerful ability to see the future. Just holding another person’s hand allows him a window into their soul. This uncanny ability is heightened when a terrible accident causes Zachary to lose an eye and, fearing that he would do better in the country with his wealthy aunt, Zachary is sent away.

His father, a prodigiously talented maker of clocks and automata, comes to the attention of powerful men and is sent on a spying mission to Constantinople. Years later Zachary uses his gifts to travel across Europe to discover what became of his father, with his ferociously determined aunt hot on his trail.

Sean Lusk’s writing is exquisite, and his characters are powerful and poignant creations which leap from the page. This story has all the elements of a fairy tale and is a must read for fans of Carlos Ruiz Zafón, David Mitchell, and Natasha Pulley.

Lisa Redmond

19T H C E N T U RY HESTER Laurie Lico Albanese, St. Martin’s, 2022, $27.99/ C$36.99, hb, 336pp, 9781250278555

In 1829, 19-year-old Isobel Gamble emigrates from Scotland to Salem, Massachusetts, with a tyrannical husband who’s ruined his apothecary practice through an opium habit.

No sooner have the Gambles landed than he signs on as a ship’s doctor, leaving Isobel to fend for herself in a town mistrustful of immigrants. She’s got no resources save her nimble fingers and a needle—and seamstresses are a penny a dozen. One gift she hides is her rare ability, now called synesthesia, to see letters and words as colors. The female ancestor who passed on this trait was accused of witchcraft.

A book titled Hester and set in Salem evokes

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The Scarlet Letter, so it’s no surprise that Isobel meets Nathaniel Hathorne, or that she sees the letter A as red. His ancestor was a judge at the infamous trials, a legacy that has haunted the up-and-coming writer so deeply he’ll later add a “w” to his name, hoping to differentiate himself. The gloomy Nat, who feels like an outcast, and the desperate, lonely Isobel, who is one, bond right away.

Albanese writes beautifully, and Hester has much to offer, despite certain literary inevitabilities. That’s because Edward’s pending return, Isobel’s ambivalence about it, and the price she’ll pay if anyone discovers her with Hathorne throw fuel on the fire. So do the two principals, who talk past each other, quarrel, and withhold. Two minor characters stand out: a Black neighbor who blows hot and cold, and an employer who pays Isobel a pittance and threatens to ruin her if she tries to hire on elsewhere.

I could have done without the italicized backstory about Isobel’s accused witch ancestor, which adds nothing and belabors the obvious. But Hester’s worth your time, whether or not you’ve read The Scarlet Letter, and I recommend it.

Larry Zuckerman

A MOTHER’S FIGHT Libby Ashworth, Canelo, 2022, £1.99/$3.99, ebook, 272pp, 9781800327641

1818 Bolton. This second book of The Lancashire Girls series follows Hannah’s struggles to feed her three children. The impoverished wife of a weaver, transported to New South Wales for attending a meeting, has had no word from him in years. When another man returns, having served his time, Hannah is told that Jack must be dead, and thinks she is a widow. This leads to a series of events and consequences which result in her leading her young family somewhat naively into the workhouse system. At a time when literacy was uncommon, a woman had few rights and limited choices, especially when poor, Hannah falls victim to a harsh system, but struggles throughout to do her best for her children.

Hannah has been forced to react to events ever since Jack’s forced departure rather than be able to plan for any kind of future. When she sacrifices her own happiness further to allow her children to have a better life, fate throws yet more surprises. When her greatest wish is realised, Hannah’s situation becomes more desperate as she is accused of a greater sin.

This an engaging novel that is emotionally charged as is a mother’s love. The pace is fast.

It could easily be read as a standalone novel, as I did; however, I would suggest reading the first book to gain greater depth and enjoyment from the characters. It is a swift read, with plenty of period and regional detail, that delivers plenty of twists and turns and heartfelt moments before culminating in a satisfying ending.

Valerie Loh

THE DECEPTION Kim Taylor Blakemore, Lake Union, 2022, $14.95/£8.99, pb, 357pp, 9781542037037

Kim Taylor Blakemore’s track record in psychological suspense underlies her cunning thriller, The Deception, giving a persistent darkness of manipulation and power to the tale of a grown-up “child medium.” In a New Hampshire town not all that far from Boston, Maud Price is slowly starving—both from lack of funds for food and because her childhood fame has entirely deserted her. Blakemore envisions social and professional connections among the spiritualists of 1877, such that clever Clementine Watkins, an illusionist and stage magician at heart with a deep understanding of how to get and use family information, locates Maud and offers to restore her career as the “Maid of Light.”

Clem’s deceptions are introduced slowly and labeled with the best of motives—to help a client feel relief, to ease someone’s grief— but soon Maud realizes that Clem and her boyfriend have entirely taken over Maud’s career, house, and morals. Money is rolling in, but Maud can’t live with how she’s raising it. Yet having participated willingly, she no longer has a viable escape from this villainy lest she be exposed, and all her performances, including the ones that have tapped into her authentic spirituality, be labeled fraudulent.

Besides, at her own assistance, Maud has signed a contract with Clem. And there’s no doubt that Clem’s recommendations have renewed Maud’s ability to reach the realms of the spirits. But is it because Clem realizes how Maud’s father tormented her to train her? That wouldn’t be surprising, considering how much pain Clem herself has sustained.

Blakemore’s exquisite pacing and clever dialogue push the tension to the sharp edge in this plot of ambitious deceit and surprising consequences.

Beth Kanell

AN INDISCREET PRINCESS Georgie Blalock, William Morrow, 2022, $17.99/£9.99, pb, 400pp, 9780063083288

Princess Louise, sixth child to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, was a talented artist, and it’s this drive to create, despite great opposition, that Blalock explores in this textured and intimate novel.

Inspired by her tutor, Mary Thornycroft, Louise coaxes the queen into allowing her to take classes at the National Art Training School. Once there, Louise is exhilarated to mingle with artists like Waterhouse, Millais, and Whistler, but she’s particularly drawn to court sculptor Joseph Edgar Boehm. To protect her secret liaison with Edgar, Louise marries Lord Lorne, heir to the Duke of Argyll, which provides her a shield of respectability.

Thereafter Louise struggles with childlessness, her mother’s concern for appearances, and her banishment to Canada when Lorne is appointed its governor. When a painful injury sends Louise back to England to mend, she

determines to overcome, once and for all, the obstacles to her passions: art and Edgar.

Spanning 1868 to 1887, the novel’s most compelling portrait is the crushing ideal of Victorian womanhood upheld by a dour, iron-fisted queen who giggles in private with Mr. Brown, while lecturing her daughters on husbandly submission. Louise’s brushes with other artists are fun for those acquainted with the Victorian art scene and its critics, and her royal siblings are lively and captivating characters.

Louise’s passion for sculpting is rendered in convincing sensory detail, but her struggles to express herself against her mother’s control, her husband’s petulance, and the moral strictures that distance her from Edgar begin to feel rehearsed without real character growth. There’s a style of appending modifiers, sometimes whole sentences, that can make the prose feel ponderous. But the peek inside royal lives is draw enough to overcome this, and the story of a woman fighting for a breath of independence in a restrictive world is touchingly portrayed.

Misty Urban

THE DUKE ALONE Christi Caldwell, Montlake, 2022, $12.95/ C$16.99, pb, 319pp, 9781542033954

It’s Home Alone in 1813 London when Lady Myrtle McQuoid’s family heads for Scotland for Christmas and mistakenly leaves Myrtle behind. Next door, duke Valentine has lived like a recluse since his wife’s death, but Val’s brooding is interrupted by visits from cheerful young Myrtle, who first seeks company and then aid when she fears her home is being watched by criminals.

The lack of servants, obligations, or anyone else in their neighborhood allows Val and Myrtle to become close as he helps her with daily tasks like building a fire and defending herself from house breakers. But as he escorts her north to rejoin her family, Val realizes Myrtle has revived his heart and his will to live, and Myrtle, who realizes she doesn’t want a London season after all, celebrates a holiday wedding with the duke of her dreams.

Caldwell’s humor, which often toes the line into farce, lightens the gloom of loneliness around the characters, and she hits every beat of the romance formula with charm and clever pacing. Sheer fun for readers who adore Pride and Prejudice, Christmas, and dogs.

Misty Urban

THE RICE BIRDS Lindy Keane Carter, Evening Post Books, 2022, $24.95, pb, 302pp, 9781929647682

In 1849, Nora and Claire Murphy, indentured servants during the height of the Great Hunger, make the crossing to the United States aboard one of the infamous “coffin ships” where life is less than cheap.

Nora tells her sister, “The English landholders are cleaning out the hills of Ireland… and we’re the trash.” Over one quarter of the starving

passengers die on the voyage. Nora and Claire are forcibly separated upon reaching New York City, and Nora ends up in South Carolina.

In the home of the new mistress, where she is expected to labor for four years, Nora meets Pearl, a likeable Black slave girl her own age. Both endure hardships at the hands of master and mistress and form an unlikely but charming friendship. When a crime is committed, the girls run away. Pearl wants to see her mother freed and flee north with her while Nora wants to get back to New York to be reunited with Claire. With the help of others and through sheer determination, they both get their wish.

This is a fascinating historical account of South Carolina in the mid-19th century.

Interestingly, Charleston, South Carolina, was richer in 1849 than either New York City or Philadelphia primarily because of the rice plantations. The author catches the sultry Southern ambience, the Irish brogues and slave dialects, and the technical details of harvesting rice flawlessly. As they struggle to achieve their dreams, there is always a new challenge confronting Nora and Pearl. How the girls deal with them is what makes this novel so endearing and ultimately uplifting.

Strongly recommended.

Thomas J. Howley

A LADY’S FINDER Edie Cay, ScarabSkin Books, 2022, $15.00, pb, 370pp, 9781734439755

In 1818 London, Lady Agnes has spent her entire life skirting her sister’s moods and her mother’s expectations. As the daughter of an earl, she is expected to find a prosperous match despite the fact that she does not intend to marry. She is filled with despair after pouring her attentions and affections on another woman of the ton, only to find out that she is getting married and leaving town.

In her state of grief and confusion, it takes a while for her to realize that there is someone else who just might deserve her love more.

Jack About Town does not lead an ordinary life. In fact, he spends his days finding things that are missing and his nights working at the Molly house that doubles as his home. It is there he found true acceptance when his elder brother made living at home unbearable.

You see, Jack About Town is living a nonbinary life when such a thing is thought to be impossible. And yet, Lady Agnes, the woman his heart desires, just might accept him in all his complexity. But, will her family feel the same way, especially after he is hired to find something thought to be in possession of her cousin?

The third installment in the When the Blood is Up series is filled with wonderfully complex characters and a twisty plot that keeps you guessing. Jack About Town is my absolute favorite romance character of all time and ends up with a very satisfying Happily-EverAfter to top it off.

Shauna McIntyre

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MURDER AT THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM Jim Eldridge, Allison & Busby, 2022, £19.99, hb, 352pp, 9780749028213

London in the autumn of 1899, and Daniel and Abigail Wilson (née Fenton) are back for the eighth instalment of the Museum Detectives series. They are now married and living in a good house in London’s pleasant Primrose Hill. After a murdered man’s body is found by the newly-laid foundation stone of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the construction of which has only recently started, Daniel and Abigail are summoned by Queen Victoria herself, no less, to find the perpetrator who dared to defile the stone and putative building in memory of her still-mourned husband Prince Albert. The Wilsons begin their investigations, once again much to the exasperation of their regular nemesis Chief Superintendent Armstrong of Scotland Yard, who is always the two-dimensional pantomime villain. They also quickly fall foul of Special Branch, who, it becomes obvious, have some engagement with the murder. The victim, Andrew Page, was a philanderer despite being married, and lived an ostentatious lifestyle which didn’t tally easily with the relatively modest salary he received as a museum curator.

The tale is an easy read, with the pleasure associated with series characters doing what they usually do in the stories. The plotting is excellent, with admirable narrative drive, and the author manages the various story strands capably. As with the previous volumes, Jim Eldridge occasionally provides just a little too much explanation, and the dialogue can be wooden and somewhat unlikely, telling the reader rather than showing. Nevertheless, an engaging and entertaining read.

Douglas Kemp

BITTER DRAUGHTS Yves Fey, Tygerbright Press, 2022, $14.99, pb, 302pp, 9798985858006

Paris Police Detective Michael Devaux excels at solving crimes in 1898 Paris. A varied cast of characters befriend him and sometimes aid him, including a lovely courtesan, an earnest partner, a skilled soldier from the foreign legion, a criminal boss with a heart, an enigmatic poet, quarreling gallery owners, several clairvoyants, and above all lovable expatriate American painter Theodora Faraday. Author Yves Fey sets her engrossing novel against the backdrop of the Dreyfus affair, which has divided the city into proDreyfus and anti-Dreyfus factions. A wealthy publisher who is about to print an article by Emile Zola, asserting Dreyfus’s innocence, is found murdered. Most Parisians assume the murder was a political act, perhaps by antiSemites, to stop the publication of Zola’s article. Detective Devaux, assuming nothing, sets out to solve the murder, and then the string of subsequent murders that follow.

Yves Fey excels at creating the atmosphere of Paris. Through her vivid writing, readers smell the city, see both its seamy settings 26

and its glamour, and hear the noise of mobs.

Two features slow down the novel’s pace. Fey includes an epigram at the opening of each of the fifty-one chapters, and she provides excessive back story for each character, back story that seems related to the previous book, Floats the Dark Shadow, in her Paris Trilogy series. With those minor exceptions, the novel is a memorable and engaging read.

between them.

They frequent Paris’s can-can clubs and dance halls. Fortuitously, she spots Colette with a family Manet knows.

Mimi implores him to regain her daughter. When he refuses, Mimi must return to the slums and begin her climb up the

Marlie Wasserman

BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP FOR DEATH Amanda Flower, Berkley, 2022, $17.00, pb, 336pp, 9780593336946

Named for the first line of one of Emily Dickinson’s best-known poems, Because I Could Not Stop for Death begins a new series following the contemporary trend of giving historically famous authors a second vocation as amateur sleuths. Shortly after Willa Noble applies to the Dickinson household as a maid, her brother is found dead in the stable where he works, and Emily suspects foul play. Someone in Amherst is using information about the Underground Railroad for profit, luring escaped slaves to the stable as a safe stop, where they are then picked up by slave catchers and returned South.

This is a well-paced mystery with a few twists, although there are readable clues to the culprit. Repeated reference to Emily and her brother and sister, who are respectively 24, 26, and 22 at the time, as ‘children’ threw me, when a word such as ‘siblings’ may have served better. A couple of situations did strike me as unlikely but not enough to worry about, but what slows the narrative in places is dialogue which does not always read as something a person might say in the circumstances. I felt quite at home in Amherst, and there are very interesting details about Washington and the lives of the Dickinsons. Emily is opinionated, aloof, and independent-minded, as one might expect, but she’s likeable enough, and there are a number of other characters who may well feature in future investigations as their personalities are developed. The novel’s main interest lies in the turbulent and unsettling mid1850s time period, a precursor to the Civil War. Fiona Alison

THE PAINTER’S GIRL Helen Fripp, Bookouture, 2022, $10.99, pb, 290pp, 9781803141237

Paris, 1860s. A zebra bolts from the Cirque d’Hiver, terrifying people on the streets of Montmartre. Mimi, a poor 19-year-old laundress, manages to jump on his back and guide him back to the circus. In return, she’s hired to clean the stables and watch the shows.

But because Mimi has acrobatic skills, she gets to try out the trapeze. She soon becomes a star performer. After an affair, she has a daughter, Colette, but is heartbroken when forced to give her up. She meets Édouard Manet at the nightclub Lapin Agile, a haunt for up-andcoming Impressionist artists. Mimi begins posing for Manet, which leads to intimacy

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social ladder, again.

Helen Fripp has done a remarkable job of transporting us to 1860s Paris, particularly Montmartre, enabling us to experience life and the smells and sounds of the Belle Époque that was just beginning. Pripp notes that she based this novel on “an amalgam” of models who appear in the paintings of Manet and other Impressionists. The artists’ boisterous lifestyles and their works are described in some detail. Although photographs are not included in the book, readers will be delighted with the accuracy of Fripp’s word-paintings if they find the images online. The story narrates Manet’s painting of Mimi in his well-known works, such as Olympia and Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe, but Fripp uses an interesting technique to blend the model into the paintings. The novel explores how dedicated, hard work can lead to glory, and again following a setback, and yet again in a third chance. Highly recommended.

Waheed Rabbani

THE AMERICAN ADVENTURESS C. W. Gortner, William Morrow, 2022, $16.99/£10.99, pb, 384pp, 9780063035805

In this fictional biography of Winston Churchill’s mother, Jennie Jerome, C. W. Gortner serves up a lively and engrossing portrait of an unconventional woman who never stopped turning heads.

The novel opens with Jennie at school in New York. A natural rebel, she’s looking out the window for her father instead of attending to class. This neatly sets the scene for the following 55 years of her life, encompassing births, deaths, marriages and divorces, wartime and peace. Throughout, Jennie’s voice warmly invites the reader into all her concerns, almost as if she were telling her story over a cup of tea. From New York to Paris and London to Blenheim, Jennie remains true to her own character, taking lovers and facing down her mother-in-law when she finds her beloved son Winston has been caned at boarding school.

In one of many remarkable parts of her life story, she spends her 46th birthday on a ship to South Africa, taking nurses and hospital supplies to care for soldiers injured in the Boer War. As fashionable and vain as she is resilient and kind, it’s a pleasure to travel through half a century of history with Jennie Jerome. Gortner’s

admirable ability to evoke events and weave period details seamlessly into his story is on full display here. Although readers may take up the book because of her famous son, this remains very much Churchill’s mother’s story.

Kate Braithwaite

THE INVINCIBLE MISS CUST Penny Haw, Sourcebooks, 2022, $16.99, pb, 320pp, 9781728257709

At the age of six, Aleen Cust discovered her vocation. Her early passion for animal welfare became the fire behind this fascinating story of a woman fighting to live the life of her choosing—regardless of the many obstacles in her way—and ultimately become the first female veterinary surgeon in Britain and Ireland.

Born into an aristocratic family, Aleen quickly learns that she faces opposition at home, as well as in wider society, if she is to follow the path she has chosen. Her mother, a member of Queen Victoria’s household, is horrified by Aleen’s ambition to work, a disgrace to the family name. Then there is the world of veterinary surgeons to persuade to even let her study, widespread horror that she wants to work with large farm animals, and the reluctance of farmers to accept and respect a woman as their vet. But Aleen is fortunate in her friends, her own persistence, and in finding the small but growing number of men in the veterinary world who are prepared to give a clever, determined woman a chance to succeed.

The drama of the story is not about Aleen’s ultimate success in her ambition to become a registered veterinary surgeon, but in her relationships, both personal and professional. Aleen is a wonderful character— single-minded, unconventional, resilient, and optimistic—and a robust range of secondary characters help Haw weave the wider world into her fiction. Advances for women in the world of medicine, suffrage efforts, increasing discontent in Ireland and the horrors of WWI all impact the story as they would have impacted Cust in real life. Haw’s excellent historical afterword rounds out the reading experience.

Kate Braithwaite

THE FIRE AND THE ORE Olivia Hawker, Lake Union, 2022, $24.95/ C$34.95, hb, 400pp, 9781662504198

Tamar Loader and her family travel from England to join the steady stream of people whose newfound Mormon faith draws them to the harsh landscape of Utah Territory. Their pilgrimage is fraught with challenges and very nearly destroys them, but Tamar clings to the promise of a better life with a man she feels destined to marry, only to discover he is already married.

Jane Shupe is travelling with her family to California when a series of tragedies leave her alone and caring for an ailing younger sister.

Out of desperation she agrees to marry a local Mormon man despite not being a part of the church. When Jane shows up at the church for her wedding, she discovers that Thomas Ricks is planning to marry both her and Tamar, despite already being married to Tabitha, the local healer and her friend.

Under a shroud of secrecy, the women must navigate a marriage that includes more than just a husband. The absence of their husband increases their uncertainty with each other and their position in society. When the political climate causes the U.S. Army to come after the Mormon community, the sister-wives flee into the wilderness and discover what family means to each of them.

A deeply moving novel that is so beautifully crafted you can’t help but feel the sun beat down on your back or the snow bite into your skin. The evocative setting and wellresearched history combined with nuanced characters make this novel one not to miss.

As a bonus, the author’s note is extremely insightful, thorough and adds much to the story.

Shauna McIntyre

NEVER RESCUE A ROGUE Virginia Heath, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2022, $16.99/C$22.99, pb, 368pp, 9781250787781

1826. Diana Merriwell and Giles Sinclair both have secrets. Behind the façade of a mere copy editor, she is a tenacious investigative reporter; he is not a wastrel, but deeply concerned about those who depend upon him. And though their friends feel they would suit each other despite their constant bickering, neither is interested in marriage.

When he suddenly inherits the dukedom upon the death of his callous father, he hopes to help the tenants, but his plans are disrupted when his nasty uncle turns up, threatening to reveal that Giles is, in fact, illegitimate. He appeals to Diana for help; but will the evidence they seek confirm or disprove the accusation?

As in Much Ado About Nothing, the insults which the protagonists trade conceal a growing attraction and protective feelings for each other. The truth of Giles’s birth is not unexpected, the threats are disposed of rather conveniently, and at the end the various elements of the plot are tied up with the suddenness of comic farce. Nevertheless, the interaction between the characters is lively, the ironic interplay impressive, and the insights into the abuses that men of power inflict upon the vulnerable, particularly women, are timely. Recommended.

Ray Thompson

TO THE COLOR Ray Herbeck, Jr., Five Star, 2022, $25.95, hb, 292pp, 9781432891367

The history of Irish mercenaries is long, colorful, and often tragic, and it stretches from the Viking era to—possibly—our own.

Ray Herbeck, Jr.’s new novel possesses all those qualities, and is especially riveting and

heartrending because in many respects it is true. Here, as in the prequel, Changing Flags, he dramatizes the actual life of John Riley, an Irishman who fought on the Mexican side in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848).

Along with other Irish soldiers and Catholic recruits, he formed the heroic Battalion of St. Patrick, which distinguished itself during the war. (Their hybrid Irish-Mexican flag is the “color” of the title.) Unfortunately, many of these recruits, like Riley, were deserters from the U.S. Army, which executed them in a brutal mass hanging after Mexico lost the war. But Riley, typically, managed to escape death… on a technicality.

This horrific event caps off many bloody battle scenes that somewhat resemble those of Bernard Cornwell. Herbeck’s historical research is meticulous, even incorporating contemporary slurs, slang, and the actual words of figures such as Lincoln, John Quincy Adams, and Gen. Winfield Scott. Herbeck’s scriptwriting experience shows in his dramatic scenes and dialogue.

Riley was apparently an engaging rogue, a career soldier who deserted his family and the British Army before briefly joining the American one. He remained faithful to his Irish battalion and the Mexican Army, however, and the brave Battalion of St. Patrick is still remembered and honored in both Mexico and Ireland.

Herbeck’s writing is occasionally clumsy, and his Spanish is shaky, but his enthusiasm and a cast of sympathetic characters carry the reader and Riley along to a (fictional) happy ending.

Susan Lowell

HAYMAKER IN HEAVEN Edvard Hoem (trans. Tara Chace), Milkweed, 2022, $18.00, pb, 340pp, 9781571311290

Translated from Norwegian, this book takes a compassionate look at the large number of people who were driven by economic conditions to emigrate from Norway to North America in the later years of the 19th century.

For many whose family had been farmers for generations, the shortage of good farmland caused thoughts to turn to the vast prairies in North America. All it took was one person from a community discovering good acreage across the ocean for others to think about following. Or one person from a family.

This is not a novel in the strict sense of the word; it is stories and vignettes based on “vague memories of people who actually lived.” Each person had to decide whether or not to undertake the difficult and expensive journey across the Atlantic to face a whole array of different difficulties in a strange land.

A common motivation was the desire for a better life for their children.

The prose demonstrates the writer’s insight into the emotional landscape of individuals and families making the choice to move.

The words are simple and direct, portraying struggles, strong ties to family and the land, individual idiosyncrasies and hope for the

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future. The characters are both unique and relatable, developed with nuance and with down-to-earth directness. Together they bring an important part of history into focus in this unusual but intriguing book.

Valerie Adolph

THE SEASON Sophia Holloway, Allison & Busby, 2022, £8.99, pb, 380pp, 9780749027988

Seventeen-year-old, country-bred Henrietta Gaydon is about to make her debut in polite society, together with her cousin Caroline, under the aegis of her formidable aunt, Lady Elstead. Henrietta is unsure whether she wants to leave her beloved father and his godson, her ‘special’ friend, Lord Henfield. Being suddenly in the marriage mart is terrifying. Will she cope? Charles Henfield, too, has problems: his feelings for Henrietta are far more than that of an ‘older brother’ (the role he used to play), but could Henrietta ever see him as a lover and potential husband?

There are a number of problems with The Season, the main one being that little actually happens. There are balls galore during which Charles dithers and Henrietta agonizes, as well as a balloon ascension (could have been dramatic, but all went well), being caught in a storm (they got wet), and so on. The worst problem is that Charles’s inability to do some serious courting makes him come across as, frankly, a wimp. It isn’t until later in the story that Charles suddenly becomes ‘action man’ and takes charge. He rescues a minor female character from a nasty villain, sorts out her tiresome young brother, and brings an unhappy situation to a satisfactory conclusion.

But by this time, I’m afraid, I’d lost interest in him.

On the plus side, Sophia Holloway knows her stuff. I sympathized with Henrietta as she struggled with the ridiculous garments and ostrich feather headdress which were de rigueur for a debutante’s presentation to the Queen—a ceremony she must carry out flawlessly. The author also gets across the importance of a young lady avoiding numerous faux pas and catching a husband in her first Season; and I enjoyed the tit-for-tat bitchy behaviour of the two aristocratic ladies who loathed each other.

Elizabeth Hawksley

ANNIE OF AINSWORTH’S MILL Katie Hutton, Zaffre, 2022, £7.99, pb, 432pp, 9781838775834

“You can take a man out of the streets of Belfast, but you’ll never take the streets of Belfast out of the man.”

Katie Hutton’s Annie of Ainsworth’s Mill is a gritty, honest, yet ultimately heartwarming story of migration and its effects on the migrant community trying to live and work in a new environment, of men trying to recreate what has been left behind, and women being left to pick up the pieces.

Annie, a Catholic, leaves a farming life 28

in Ireland and begins to work in a mill in England’s northwest in the county today known as Cumbria. Robert, an illegitimate son of a Protestant, is made to move to Cleator Moor, where almost immediately a deputation from the local Orange Lodge “invites” him to join their ranks, hinting that his job in the mines would be safer if he did so.

And so the die is cast. Annie and Robert are on opposite sides of a divide that perhaps only someone from Ulster can really understand.

Montagues and Capulets are bosom friends in comparison to the hatred felt by the Orange order towards the people they regarded as Fenians. This quintessential love story is set between 1897 and 1905, a time when Irish Republicanism was in a quiet phase, but sectarian acrimony and malice was as strong as ever.

Katie Hutton’s novel is a masterclass of descriptive writing about a period, a people and a place. Farms, towns, factories, houses and homes can be accurately viewed through the eyes of Annie and Robert. Accents and characterisations are superbly on point, with the people we meet in the novel feeling totally authentic and believable. A great novel by a great author.

Aidan K. Morrissey

ARABELLA’S ASSISTANT Judy Lynn Ichkhanian, The Wild Rose Press, 2022, $17.99, pb, 329pp, 9781509242337

Lady Arabella Warwick dreams of being more than a wife and mother, but in Victorian society, the cards are stacked against the 27-year-old spinster with a passion for Assyriology. Living in genteel poverty with an invalid mother, Arabella’s only option to improve her situation is through marriage to a wealthy young man. When Gabriel Darkwood, Baron Brynley, comes onto the scene, Arabella meets someone as interested in the Epic of Gilgamesh as she is. As a bond forms between the two aristocrats, romance is sure to blossom sooner or later.

Arabella is an intriguing figure, a unique young woman who doesn’t fit into the time in which she lives. While the other young ladies focus on romance, this erudite protagonist is far too busy pursuing her intellectual interests.

It took me quite a while to get into the story and connect with the characters, especially Arabella; the book starts off slow, and there is stilted dialogue in certain scenes. Once the plot started to unfold, I was hooked. My favorite aspect of this book, aside from the romance, was the building suspense that kept me on the edge of my seat. I thoroughly enjoyed not knowing what would happen next.

Elizabeth K. Corbett

BENEVOLENCE Julie Janson, HarperVia, 2022, $27.99, hb, 320pp, 9780063140950 / Magabala Books, 2020, A$19.99, pb, 356pp, 9781925936636

The uncertain future of an Indigenous Aboriginal woman in the early years of British

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colonization in Australia is richly revealed in the U.S. debut of Julie Janson’s Benevolence.

Basing her character, Muraging (renamed “Mary” by colonial authorities), on her own great-great-grandmother’s life, Janson invokes the long-silenced history of the Darug Aboriginal Nation (as well as other Indigenous tribes) during the early 19th century when the British brutally invaded and settled around the Hawkesbury River in Western Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Janson follows the torturous turns of Muraging’s life over the course of two decades, beginning as a young girl “given away” by her father to the Parramatta Native Institution, where she is taught English and groomed for eventual work as a servant on the colonial estates. But Muraging longs for her people, her language, and a way of life not prescribed for her by the hated British. Janson peppers her narrative throughout with the mellifluous notes of Darug language, as Muraging and her friends slip into and out of their dual realities as colonized servants (read: slaves) and proud Aborigines.

Through Janson’s lean prose, the torments of Muraging’s challenging decisions and compromises over the years resonate with the reader who roots for her liberation. Will she find the haven she defiantly seeks for herself and her children? Janson’s story mixes her own family’s history with that of early Australian colonization that, while harsh, is also a wonderful mélange of the beauty, sights, and sounds of Muraging’s native land. Shattering stereotypes, Benevolence gives voice to the countless Indigenous Aboriginals who resisted and survived British colonization—at much cost.

Peggy Kurkowski

A TENUOUS BETROTHAL Jen Geigle Johnson, Covenant, 2022, $16.99, pb, 288pp, 9781524422578

Romance readers will get their Cinderella fix with this novel. Rhianna Davies is the orphaned daughter of a mine owner in Wales in 1815. Her uncle, the new owner, rejects her efforts to get him to treat the mine workers more humanely.

Living in a hunting cabin to avoid her uncle, she finds out her father’s will arranged for her to marry the son of a university friend. Marc arrives from the Continent to take Rhi home with him and turns out to be a Prince of Oldenburg. He has come out of a sense of duty, but he doesn’t want to marry; as his father’s security officer he’s often in danger, which would be unfair to a wife. And Rhi doesn’t want a marriage based on duty—she wants to marry for love.

This is part of A Royal Regency Romance series; other volumes are about Marc’s brothers also seeking wives in Britain. Rhi and Marc are likeable characters, though a few of the plot points lean towards the contrived side, and the will-they-won’t-they gets stretched pretty far. Rhi finds out something surprising about her lineage to round out the Cinderella aspect.

Regency and royalty fans will enjoy this.

B. J. Sedlock

A WINTER CHASE Mary Kingswood, Sutors Publishing, 2022, $14.99, pb, 400pp, 9781912167425

The Fletchers are a wealthy merchantclass family in Regency Britain. Harry, the patriarch, has built his wealth as a mercer in the wool trade. The aristocratic Plummer family, now impoverished, must rent their vast mansion and move back to the original, much smaller manor. The Fletchers, attempting to move up in society, have the means to take up residence at the Plummer’s Chadwell Park, while the Plummers choke on their pride and move out.

Harry Fletcher has five daughters to marry off, but ungainly, clumsy Julia is unlikely to attract a husband and doesn’t want one.

But wait… the now less-privileged James Plummer lays eyes on her and is enchanted with her witty intelligence. In a charming story centered around family, and told in drawing room and domestic scenes—refreshingly, no bedroom scenes—the historical details take precedence. The narrative and dialogue feel of the Regency era and is enlivened with words like widdershins, comestibles, addle-pated, and higgledy-piggledy. You can count on class and societal rules playing a role, obstacles to romance, and a happy ending.

Kingswood’s books are the ultimate comfort read because of their gentle warmth and stories providing escape. I look forward to The Spring Dance when Julia’s brother Will, now a gentleman, will surely find love.

Janice Ottersberg

FIRE SEASON Leyna Krow, Viking, 2022, $27.00/C$36.00, hb, 336pp, 9780593299609

In 1889 Spokane Falls, Washington Territory, bored banker Barton Heydale plans to kill himself. But when he goes home to do the deed, a massive fire rips through the downtown, destroying nearly every business except the bank, where the citizens come running to cash in their insurance policies.

Seeing an opportunity, Barton decides to hang onto his mortal coil.

Posing as a federal arson investigator, con man Quake Auchenbaucher arrives in town planning to swindle the citizens as well. But the people of Spokane Falls are a bit more skeptical than he’s used to dealing with, and he has to draw their attention onto someone else.

Meanwhile, both Quake and Barton fall madly in love with Roslyn, an alcoholic prostitute who’s tormented by her ability to see images of the future. The two men unwittingly give Roslyn the confidence and opportunities she needs to take control of her unusual power and wield it to her own—and other’s—advantage.

Darkly funny, this novel explores a variety of themes, such as guilt, betrayal, misogyny, and redemption, as well as humankind’s overwhelming need to always find someone to blame for calamities. All the characters, even the minor ones, are larger than life, but

that’s part of the fun. Because of how tightly Krow weaves her plot, this is a difficult book to discuss without giving away too much, but readers will cheer for the surprisingly happy ending. Recommended.

Sarah Hendess

LADY LORING’S DILEMMA Catherine Kullmann, Books Go Social, 2022, $14.99, pb, 366pp, 9781913545963

Lady Delia Loring’s husband, Sir Edward, is cross with her. He sends her away to the country, to Harrogate, to take care of her invalid mother, with the expectation that she lives in quiet respectability and has no contact with her daughter. While in Harrogate, she is reunited with a lover from her first blush of youth, Lord Stephen FitzCharles. He asks if they can meet again but she rejects the notion. Delia frets over the limited amount of freedom she has over herself as a married woman, frustrated she cannot be reunited with her daughter. Eventually, she agrees to pursue a path forward with Stephen, and they travel to the Continent. But will she ever see her daughter again?

This second installment in the Lorings series is aptly named. Delia is trapped by her circumstances, highlighting the total lack of freedom married women had in Regency England. I loved the human, flawed characters. Yes, Delia doesn’t live up to Regency-era standards but has the courage to reach for what she desires. Sir Edward, very much a product of his time, is a cold husband and the embodiment of double standards. I also loved the rich descriptions, which made me feel as if I was experiencing Regency England alongside the characters. Catherine Kullmann is a masterful storyteller, and her background notes testify to her depth of research. Her extensive knowledge of the time period shines through in her writing.

Elizabeth K. Corbett

THE BONE FLOWER Charles Lambert, Gallic Books, 2022, £14.99, pb, 240pp, 9781913547271

Our Victorian hero is the young Edward Monteith, only son of his isolated and wealthy father. An indolent innocent, Edward is spending his days and money idly socialising with a group of men at his exclusive club in the West End of London. Edward meets and falls passionately in love with Settie, a very beautiful Romani flower-seller who reciprocates his feelings. Although marriage is out of the question, the affair blossoms.

When Settie becomes pregnant an abortion proves fatal to both mother and child. Guiltridden and broken-hearted, Edward leaves England and travels miserably and aimlessly, eventually finding happiness in a marriage to a young Sicilian heiress, Marisol.

It is when the happy couple return to London to set up home and prepare for their coming child that the malevolent and vengeful capabilities of Settie’s Romani family take

centre stage of the story, and it is here that Charles Lambert uses a memorable device.

Rather than attempting to scare us with too many bizarre happenings—which, all too often, in “ghost stories” become risible—he puts his horror into our minds and those of his main characters, so that their reactions to the rituals and ceremonies of the Romany people impart a logic to them, which recognises Edward’s guilt and acknowledges his “crime”.

Charles Lambert sets up and keeps a good pace, but he seems much more interested in his storylines than in the feelings of his major characters who, apart from Settie herself, neither encourage nor receive much analysis. Marisol is particularly weak in this respect, remaining so undeveloped and vapid that she might as well not be there at all.

Notwithstanding these deficiencies, The Bone Flower is a classic page-turner and is full of well-managed suspense. Recommended as a really entertaining read.

Julia Stoneham

HEARTBREAKER Sarah MacLean, Avon, 2022, $8.99/C$11.99, pb, 400pp, 9780063056787

1834. Adelaide Trumbull is royalty. Criminal royalty, that is, for her father is head of the most feared criminal gang in South London, and she herself is a ‘princess of thieves’. Five years later she has escaped his harsh control and been transformed into Adelaide Frampton, a distant cousin of the Duchess of Trevescan; but behind this undistinguished façade, she is the Matchbreaker, one of a group of women committed to helping other women escape from unwanted marriages. When her latest assignment brings her into competition with the very upright Duke of Clayborn, however, the competition becomes an alliance. A passionate and steamy one.

As the plot unfolds, the action remains unrelenting, albeit protracted by close attention to the protagonists’ powerful feelings for each other, as surprised admiration grows rapidly into emotional involvement and protectiveness. The final confrontation is drawn out melodramatically as yet another group of characters bursts in on the scene.

The links between criminal gangs and wealthy aristocrats, both only too ready to exploit those who lack protectors, are an insightful comment on the exercise of power in society, however, still applicable today.

This is second in the Hell’s Belles series.

Recommended.

Ray Thompson

ONE NIGHT WITH THE DUKE Jodi Ellen Malpas, Orion, 2022, £7.99, pb, 288pp, 9781398709706 / Forever, 2023, $16.99, pb, 304pp, 9781538726174

England 1816. Feisty, outspoken Eliza Melrose, 19, rails against the sexual inequalities of the time, specifically that men can choose their spouse whereas she cannot.

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She has been betrothed to the rich but boring Duke of Cornwall by her father, an extremely wealthy press tycoon, who relocated the family from the countryside to London’s fashionably elite Belmore Square. However, despite being resigned to her fate, Eliza falls in lust with a new neighbour, the enigmatic Duke of Chester, aka Johnny Winters, more rock god than royalty, who’s rumoured to have murdered his entire family, torched the house, and fled. So why is he now renovating that same mansion just across the gardens from her?

Eliza determines to uncover the dark secrets associated with the rakish duke, who in turn finds her outspoken attitude and stroppy stubbornness “unhealthily irresistible”. The two contrive to meet clandestinely pretty much anywhere—his place, soirées, shops, shrubberies, back alleys, you know—in a somewhat dragged-out will-they-won’t-they mutual stalkathon. Plus, smartly, she’s now suspicious of “the deal” by which she was traded away. A hectic denouement unveils several backstories of skulduggery, shaming the wrong-doers and freeing Eliza’s future.

The first-person present-tense Regencystyle narrative works well, written with pace and humour, except for a few oddities such as, “Mother takes a right” (turns), “scarper” and “over the top”, which seem anachronistic.

Otherwise, it’s an engrossing, compellingly amusing, fun story, certainly steamy enough to fog up any Georgian mirror.

Simon Rickman

THE BELLE OF BELGRAVE SQUARE Mimi Matthews, Berkley, 2022, $17.00/£14.99, pb, 432pp, 9780593337158

In Victorian London, Julia Wychwood is an only child of two sickly parents, and in possession of a fortune. Modern readers will recognize Julia as a “horse girl”: shy, bookish, and loves her horse. When Captain Blunt is introduced to her at a ball, the Hero of the Crimea boasts such an impressive facial scar that Julia’s anxiety rears its head, and Julia flees his presence. Captain Blunt is a man in need of a fortune to fix a crumbling estate in Yorkshire, and someone to tame his three illegitimate children.

Neither Julia nor Captain Blunt are as they seem. Indeed, their conversations about the latest novels seem counter to Blunt’s ruthless reputation in war, and his uncanny ability to tame Julia’s social anxiety seems unlikely.

When Julia’s parents inflict more harm than possible, Julia proposes to Blunt as a way to escape her circumstances.

This romance novel is swoon-worthy. While love scenes are closed-door, this book is full of the twists that Julia loves in her own novels.

A Gothic estate on the moors, casual cruelty, mistaken identity, a marriage of convenience, and passionate dialogue combine to make this an absolute delight.

Katie Stine

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ANCESTRY Simon Mawer, Little, Brown, 2022, £18.99, hb, 428pp, 9781408714836 / Other Press, 2022, $28.99, hb, 432pp, 9781635423198

Recent years have seen the growing popularity of what is generally known as autofiction, in which the writer utilizes elements of his or her own life, and casts it into a fictional format. So while the substratum may be based upon events and facts, it is still classified as a story. This can be confusing for the reader, as one is never fully sure what happened and what is part of the author’s rich imagination. Simon Mawer’s new novel has at its core the narrative of his ancestors. While much is supposition and the artistic creation of plausible events, the foundation of the structure has reliable historical sources such as birth and marriage registers, and shipping manifests.

The novel focuses on two strands of the writer’s distant family in the middle part of the 19th century that set off and continue the chain of connections that lead down the generations to the author, with ancestral accounts re-created and embellished. Mawer demonstrates the utterly improbable set of circumstances that have had to occur in order for him to be around on the planet in the 21st century—the same infinite complex set of events that have resulted in the life of us all— not unlike the indescribably strange occasions given the inexorable but uncontrollable laws of natural selection. The historical context is excellent and well written.

This is an absorbing account of his family, a fictional account in a descriptive setting. The form may seem a little unconventional, but it succeeds. Even though, as Mawer quite rightly points out, the incomplete family history does not usually have the tidy and fulfilling ends that fiction possesses. “In life, unlike in novels, things happen like this: people just turn up, interest with your own story for a while, then disappear”. This novel should also not just disappear.

Douglas Kemp

ON GOOD AUTHORITY Briana Una McGuckin, Thomas & Mercer, 2022, $15.95/£8.99, pb, 320pp, 9781662500909

This unsettling Victorian gothic romance has a content warning, for which I’m glad.

On Good Authority is a first-person accounting from Marian Osley, a young woman from a workhouse who has been given her first posting as a lady’s maid to Mrs. Bornholdt at a grand house. As Marian recounts her years at the workhouse and her friendship with a boy named Valentine Hobbs, she frets over her own goodness. Once settled, she encounters Mr. Bornholdt, who immediately attempts to rape her. She resists, expecting to be dismissed, but finds that no one will speak about Mr. Bornholdt’s assault nor her self-defense. As months pass, she stays out of Mr. Bornholdt’s path. When she gets word that her mother is sick at the workhouse, Marian leaves with Mr. Bornholdt’s aid. Marian understands that she is now indebted to the man, dreading what will

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be demanded as repayment. Upon her return, she finds a new footman— her old friend, Valentine Hobbs. Valentine believes at first that Marian is a willing participant in these assaults. Only later does Valentine understand the depth of Mr. Bornholdt’s sadism.

This book has a great deal of darkness, but not a great deal of plot. The external arc is the repeated assault attempts on Marian, which lend the novel a picaresque feel. The internal arc is theoretically one of Marian’s selfacceptance, but it doesn’t feel resolved. Marian believes she is deserving of a terrible life; and while the acceptance of her bondage fetish that she shares with Valentine is supposed to be the resolution of the internal plot, it misses the mark. That said, the prose is entertaining and readable. The life of “downstairs” servants is well-rendered, as is the life of a child in a workhouse. Definitely a dark romance with a happily-ever-after.

Katie Stine

WITH A KISS I DIE Rod Miller, Five Star, 2022, $25.95, hb, 301pp, 9781432895808

A wagon train of emigrants hoping for a better life in California leaves Arkansas. Polly is alone after her family has died of a fever. She has the opportunity of a new life when offered passage with the wagon train in return for her labor, cooking and tending to the drovers driving the large herd of cattle. While traveling through Utah Territory, Polly meets Tom, a Mormon rancher. Their love story is told within the true story of the Mountain Meadows Massacre in 1857.

There were reports of the U.S. army being dispatched to the Mormon communities to enforce U.S. laws. The Mormons, who had suffered years of persecution for their way of life, were hostile toward anyone attempting to interfere. The rumors of Federal spies within the wagon train were concerning, so in alliance with the Paiute tribe, dissenting Mormon leaders plan an attack to frighten and force the emigrants out of Utah after stopping to rest in Mountain Meadows. It all goes terribly wrong, and in order to eliminate any witnesses, everyone in the wagon train is murdered.

Miller writes poetic, beautiful descriptions.

The instant-love story feels shallow, but the real story is in the telling of this tragic piece of history.

Janice Ottersberg

MARMEE Sarah Miller, William Morrow, 2022, $29.99/ C$34.99/£20.00, hb, 432pp, 9780063041875

Readers of Little Women are well aware that Louisa May Alcott based the beloved characters of that classic novel on her own family. Sarah Miller has drawn on Alcott’s mother Abigail’s memoirs to create an enthralling alternate version of the fictional March family. The events of Marmee dovetail exactly with those of Little Women, but are delivered in the form

of Margaret March’s diaries, which capture the voice of a fiercely intelligent, passionate woman of the mid-19th century, as she experiences her and her daughters’ familiar joys and sorrows during and just after the American Civil War. It’s welldocumented that Alcott’s parents’ radicalism was toned down for the novel; Miller restores to “Marmee” Abigail’s commitment to social justice, her political acumen, her clear-eyed understanding of the limits of philanthropy, and what she calls her “temper,” which in a modern reader’s understanding, means her righteous fury at unfairness of all kinds.

Her special ire—expressed in a delightfully sarcastic tone at times—is reserved for bigots, the idle rich, and for the sexism of her own time; however, it’s refreshing to also see the saintly Marmee rendered as a woman exasperated by her husband’s indifference to practical matters, her daughters’ occasional shallowness, and the unearned privilege of the wealthier women she depends on for funding her attempts to help the poor of Concord.

Eventually, as readers of Little Women will anticipate, that temper will be vented at God as her darling Beth faces a mortal illness.

In Miller’s admirable hands, Marmee is heart-warming, sometimes heart-rending, but never cloying. Fans of Little Women will love this book almost as much; those who do not care for Alcott’s novel may find in Marmee a far more emotionally complex and satisfying portrait of family love and generosity in a politically realistic setting.

Kristen McDermott

THE DAUGHTER OF DOCTOR MOREAU Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Del Rey, 2022, $28.00, hb, 320pp, 9780593355336 / Jo Fletcher, 2022, £16.99, hb, 320pp, 9781529417999

Moreno-Garcia has made a name for herself with colonial Gothic novels, and in The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, she takes a sci-fi classic and reimagines it from the point of view of Moreau’s daughter, Carlota.

The setting has been moved to the Yucatán peninsula, so isolated in the 1870s that it might as well be an island. Carlota loves her life at Yaxaktun (Mayan for “green grotto”), where her father, French expatriate Moreau, uses his laboratory to create animal hybrids ostensibly to be used as labor for his patron, Mr. Lizalde. As yet, no viable workforce has been forthcoming, and Lizalde’s patience is dwindling. Carlota’s Mexican mother, and thus her origins, are shrouded in mystery, as are her father’s true motives. Englishman and

mayordomo Montgomery Laughton spends his days brooding and drinking, and he sees nothing but trouble ahead when Carlota falls for Lizalde’s handsome son and heir.

Meanwhile, the macehuales (indigenous rebel forces) threaten the other members of colonial society, from those of European blood like the Lizaldes to the mestizos of the Mexican melting pot.

Readers may find the plot “twists,” perhaps, anything but surprising (especially if they’ve read Wells’s novel), but that doesn’t detract from enjoyability. The unique setting is refreshing and innovative while still managing to feel true to Wells’s original jungle island isolation, and pacing works well. Characterization offers more for the hybrids in Moreno-Garcia’s take; while they may exhibit fur and claws, they show far more humanity than some of the humans in this tale. Threads of religion and the cultural and caste/racial aspects of the time period/setting (which the author calls a “dizzying array”) add complexity to the pure escapism. For fans of sci-fi, colonial Gothic, and reimagined classics, Moreno-Garcia’s novel offers an engaging read.

Bethany Latham

THE AERIALISTS Katie Munnik, Borough Press, 2022, £14.99, hb, 372pp, 9780008473204

Twelve-year-old Laura begs on the Paris streets in spring 1891. Husband-and-wife aerialists—Ena, and French aeronaut, Auguste Gaudron—take an interest in this American street girl. Laura has a gift for sewing and is taken into the family business of aeronautic shows to sew costumes and hot air balloons. But the real story in this novel does not come fully into view until Laura and the Gaudrons arrive at Cardiff’s Fine Art, Industrial and Maritime Exhibition in 1896, where the Gaudrons are flying. Here is where Munnik dovetails Laura into the true story of Louisa Maud Evans.

Louisa, called Grace, is so drawn to the glamour of high-wire performance that she has pursued Auguste Gaudron to the exhibition.

Gaudron’s commitment to making money by parachuting from balloons easily slips into all kinds of risk-taking. These aerialists emerge convincingly from a world of aeronautic endeavour uncomfortably tethered to the trapeze and magic acts of Victorian popular culture. Grace’s story is inlaid into the fictional story of Laura with some finesse. The two girls reflect each other’s circumstances until the choices they make separate them. Munnik’s retelling shows us how the Gaudrons’ hot air balloons rise above unchanging social conditions where the survival of working-class girls turns on a sixpence.

The novel wears its research lightly, immersing the reader in the fin de siècle’s mechanisation of the everyday and the spectacular. But a flying machine or a sewing machine is only as good as its user. This is a sensitive re-imagining of ‘one of those small

tragedies which happen’—in Ena Gaudron’s cool words. Munnik movingly conveys the fragility of the real Louisa’s life and afterlife, her rise and fall told by fictional friends and newspaper cuttings.

Louise Tree

MAN IN A CAGE Patrick Nevins, Malarkey Books, 2022, $18.00, pb, 343pp, 9781088034026

Richard Lynch Garner is convinced primates communicate with one another in a language that laid the evolutionary groundwork for human speech. He travels to the French Congo in the late 19th century to observe and record the animals in their native environment, lives in a cage in the jungle for weeks at a time, makes friends with a pair of chimpanzees—Moses and Suzie—and reports on his experiences to the Smithsonian Institution and the popular press.

Man in a Cage is a fictional memoir of Garner’s early experiments recording primate sounds in the Cincinnati Zoo and his first trip to Africa. It chronicles his travels and difficulties gaining support for his work—the promised Edison phonograph that never arrives in Gabon, the sudden loss of funding—as well as the threats and dangers of the jungle from sudden fever and the mysterious attack on the cage: was it done by animals or men?

Written in a fresh, almost ingenuous manner, the first-person narrative lets readers share Garner’s enthusiasm and breathlessness as he navigates elephant trails and fingers of jungle and discovers subtle animal behaviors.

Readers also can appreciate some of the underlying conflicts among tribesmen, traders, and missionaries.

The book takes the form of a Gilded Age novel that weaves in issues of the time period: emancipation and its effect not only on freed slaves but suddenly destitute small plantation owners, colonialism in Equatorial Africa, uncertainty about the theory of evolution, and outright disparagement among religious groups that classify any thought of the links between man and primates as heresy.

Author Nevins is an associate professor of English from Columbus, Indiana. Man in a Cage, his first book, is a phenomenal entry into historical fiction.

K. M. Sandrick

UNDER A VEILED MOON Karen Odden, Crooked Lane, 2022, $29.99, hb, 320pp, 9781639101191

Second in a series, Odden’s mystery is set in the politically volatile London of September 1878. Home Rule for Ireland is a real possibility, but there are those on both sides of the issue who want the plans thwarted at any cost.

After the pleasure boat Princess Alice collides one night with a huge iron-hulled collier, the Bywell Castle, and some 600 passengers are thrown into the Thames with many drowning, Scotland Yard Inspector Michael Corravan is called in to investigate. Many believe the Irish Republican Brotherhood to be behind the

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incident, as well as other terrorist activities that have recently occurred in Britain.

Irish-born and raised by an Irish family in London, Corravan faces huge obstacles in his investigation: witnesses gone missing, newspapers whipping up public sentiment against the Irish with misleading information, old secrets coming to light, long held antiIrish attitudes, and his beloved adopted brother Colin being mixed up in an Irish gang in Whitechapel. With the help of his stalwart assistant, Stiles, and his well-connected novelist lover, Belinda Gale, the tough Corravan determinedly pursues the facts to convince his boss, Director C.E. Howard Vincent, that the plot to destroy the Irish Home Rule plan goes far deeper than anyone realized—reaching into the upper echelons of the English government and society.

Odden’s research into 1870s London is apparent, her characters well-drawn and believable, and the story held my interest throughout. My only wish is that it had moved at a little faster pace; at times the overabundance of historical detail and dialogue dragged down the story a bit for me. But overall, I found this a plausible and involving story of people caught up in desperate and tragic situations.

Michael I. Shoop

THE DARLINGS OF THE ASYLUM Noel O’Reilly, HQ, 2022, £16.99, hb, 370pp, 9780008275310

We are in Brighton in 1886, and our protagonist, well-voiced in the first person by this male author, is Violet Pring, a talented artist keen to take charge of her own destiny.

After failing to accept that the fiancé lined up by her family could ever be more than a good friend, Violet finds herself incarcerated in Hillwood Grange Asylum under the tender mercies of Dr Harold Rastrick, who considers himself an expert alienist. Due to a blackout, she has no idea why she is there.

During the middle part of the book her task is to find out why her family agreed to this harsh incarceration which, despite variations in treatment, appears to have no end in sight.

We are vividly taken into Violet’s mind and its perceptions of the nightmarish Gothic setting.

I enjoyed the psychological acuteness shown in the painful relationship Violet has with her mother. O’Reilly has clearly researched both art and mental health treatment (hypnotherapist Jean-Martin Charcot’s famous photographs of Louise Augustine Gleizes come to mind).

The writing is well-observed but not polished, and at times I found the tone a little confusing. For instance, Violet opines, ‘I thought how fortunate women were that such enlightened men had taken charge of the rigours of childbirth and the duties of motherhood.’ If this is irony, then it would have been nice to have had something similar from Violet in her dialogue, which does remain rather intense and earnest. Or is it perhaps 32

meant as the sincere opinion of any woman in that era when female doctors were unknown?

Still, this is a gripping and thoughtprovoking read, indeed rather salutary to a male reader, so notably unattractive are all the male characters.

Ben Bergonzi

A TELLER OF TALES Marilyn Pemberton, Williams and Whiting, 2022, $12.99/£9.99, pb, 306pp, 9781912582747

Lizzie looks after her mute, handicapped little brother Bobbit, defending him from within and without the family, in the 1820s mining town of Wednesbury, Staffordshire. She tells him imaginative stories, tales of powerful girls who right all wrongs done to their brothers.

Does he understand them?

The addition to the family of a baby sister adds to the tensions, as Matthew, her favourite older brother, prepares to leave to study to be a vicar. Lizzie longs to be a missionary to some far-off land, or, failing that, a teacher. She is told that her place is in the home, and if she didn’t look after Bobbit, they’d place him in an institution. Instead, the good Mr. Whittaker, who has an admiration for Lizzie, is taken on as the new schoolmaster. She watches in envy as her other brother James “acts despicably one day and gets his heart’s desire the next.”

Matthew is going to be a missionary in Africa. Lizzie’s friend John, the carpenter’s son, who insists, despite her urging, on calling her “Miss Elizabeth,” makes for her a beautiful carved walnut box to give Matthew as a goingaway gift. John understands; she wants to be the heroine in her own stories. Then one day, Bobbit takes one of her stories literally. By this time, Lizzie has grown into a young woman, and tragedy ushers in some lessons about life as well as some redemption, as well as a happily-ever-after.

The dialogue feels a bit rushed in places, although that does match the fairy-tale-like style. I would have liked more commas (but then, I always want more commas). This is a tale of female empowerment. The story is told in first-person present tense, a brave voice, which adds to the immediacy and the storytelling quality. The tone is light and inventive.

Susie Helme

MURDER AT THE SERPENTINE BRIDGE Andrea Penrose, Kensington, 2022, $26.00/ C$35.00, hb, 356pp, 9781496732538

It’s 1814, and London is preparing for the peace celebrations, when major European sovereigns, politicians, and military leaders will gather for a series of parties and dinners celebrating victory over Napoleon. But when a Black engineering genius is murdered, newly married Charlotte Sloane and Lord Wrexford are thrown into another investigation that will test their skills and even force some examinations of racism in Regency England.

Readers may be familiar with Penrose’s

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historical mystery series, but even if this is your first time meeting satirical cartoonist Charlotte Sloane and brilliant scientist Lord Wrexford, you’ll be quickly absorbed in their world. Penrose brings back key characters like the Wrexfords’ young wards, Raven and Hawk, and drops plenty of clues as to how relationships have grown and changed in previous books so it’s not necessary to read the series in order, though doing so may help you keep track of all of the names.

This particular story starts slowly, but the build-up is worth it because Penrose takes the time to fully flesh out her characters. Jeremiah Willis, the murder victim, is an inventor of color based on historical figures. Penrose writes in her author’s note that “our view of the past is constantly changing,” and part of what she aims to do in this book is remind us to celebrate the long-overdue uncovering of the people of color who made brilliant discoveries that changed our world and are finally starting to receive credit.

Amy Watkin

THE LOST MELODY Joanna Davidson Politano, Revell, 2022, $17.99, pb, 384pp, 9780800736910

Set in northern England in 1886, most of this story takes place in what was called a lunatic asylum. On the death of her father, the protagonist, concert pianist Vivienne Mourdant, is shocked to find that not only has she inherited his considerable debts but she has also inherited the guardianship of his ward, Rosamund Swansea.

Rosamund is a patient of the Hurstwell asylum, having been deemed unfit to care for herself. As Vivienne puzzles over the identity of her new ward, she is offered a small income to go to Hurstwell to bring music to the patients in the hope of creating some relief for them.

She takes a menial position there to become familiar with the asylum and its people. But she has taken on a far larger task than she could have imagined.

This novel reveals a great deal of research into conditions in asylums of an earlier time as well as into the fragility of the mental health of both staff and patients alike. The theme of music being ever-present in the mental landscape of everyone is clearly presented, as is its ability to connect with even the most severely ill people and bring them comfort.

The author introduces the requisite elements of spine-tingling horror: the tunnel, a priest’s hole, a ‘lost’ tower, complete with screams, echoes and unpredictably dangerous patients.

The level of tension is high throughout, sometimes taking the focus away from the theme of the importance of music to the mental well-being of all of us.

Valerie Adolph

I AM NOT YOUR EVE Devika Ponnambalam, Bluemoose, £12.99, hb, 183pp, 9781910422892

2022,

1891: The painter Paul Gauguin arrives

in Tahiti, seeking a tropical paradise and inspiration for his art. His search leads him to take a young woman, Teha’amana, as his vahine or wife while he remains there. The girl is the same age as his own thirteen-year-old daughter, Aline, in Copenhagen. Or possibly she is even younger. Teha’amana becomes Gauguin’s muse, and he paints her repeatedly while he stays in Tahiti. “The Spirits of the Dead Keep Watch,” one of his well-known paintings, is a portrait of this child-bride.

This literary novel tells of this relationship from the viewpoint of young Teha’amana.

Woven through Teha’amana’s story are other voices. Myths of the islands, observations of a lizard, and the reflections of a copy of the painting Olympia, which hangs in the couple’s grass hut, add richness and depth to the tale.

The story is counterpointed by diary entries from Aline, as she hopes for her father’s return to Europe. I read it in one sitting.

Ponnambalam’s dreamlike prose recounts this true story, providing different perspectives on the relationship between Gauguin and Teha’amana. It explores the cost of colonization, the clash of cultures, and looks at these relationships through a modern lens. A fascinating book, not easily forgotten, which slips into one’s consciousness like a tantalizing and disturbing reverie.

Susan McDuffie

THE SECRET OF MATTERDALE HALL Marianne Ratcliffe, Bellows Press, 2022, £8.99, pb, 380pp, 9781739710101

Yorkshire, 1860s: the young Miss Mottrams, daughters of a rural vicar, have “a marked preference for gothic romances”. Their idyllic existence comes to an abrupt end with the sudden death of their father and the discovery of his debts.

Before long, 18-year-old Susan Mottram finds herself immersed in a Gothic novel of her own when she obtains a role as a teacher at the dirty and unprepossessing Matterdale Hall, where “the only colour was provided by a ring of glistening moss, which crept round the base of the house like grass-stains on the hem of a petticoat.”

Dr Claybourn exudes Dickensian bonhomie, but collectively the Claybourn family could have been imagined by the scriptwriters of The League of Gentlemen; one daughter is a laudanum-addicted invalid. It’s quickly clear that the Hall is a school for girls not wanted at home, much as Dotheboys Hall was for boys (complete with the mute Mary Martin, fulfilling the role of Smike), except that Dr Claybourn fancies himself an enlightened pioneer—and an alienist (the old term for a psychiatrist).

Susan’s dismay is only alleviated by her encounter with the beautiful Cassandra, living a reclusive existence in nearby Heathersage Manor. Cassandra is reviled locally for her black skin and her disability— like Mary Martin, she is profoundly deaf—but Susan learns to sign and the two fall in love.

There are shades here of both Jane Eyre and of Wuthering Heights, along with a tonguein-cheek reference to “Mr Bell’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall”, but both plot and style echo most closely the “sensation” novels of Mrs. Braddon. When Susan investigates the disappearance of her predecessor at the Hall she puts herself in mortal danger. This is an impressive and atmospheric debut, not just for the author but for her publisher.

Katherine Mezzacappa

MURDER IN WESTMINSTER Vanessa Riley, Kensington, 2022, $26.00/ C$35.00, hb, 336pp, 9781496738660

Abigail Carrington, daughter of an English solicitor and a West Indian seer, secured herself a respectable name when she married explorer Lord Worthing. Respect isn’t easily accorded a Blackamoor woman in 1806 Britain. Abbie’s clandestine work in support of abolition is derailed when her neighbor’s wife is found strangled near the fence between their properties. Juliet Henderson was known for her infidelities, but Stapleton Henderson, a naval hero who served with Nelson, swears he isn’t the murderer. Lady Worthing decides to winnow out the truth, but as casualties mount, the suspects narrow. If the sister isn’t responsible, the violent brother has an alibi, and Juliet’s handsome lover is a man of God, then Stapleton must be lying. Is Abbie risking her own neck by trusting a killer?

The many and varied conflicts demand that the reader slow and savor, and layers of backstory thicken the plot. Along with the puzzle around Juliet’s affairs, Abbie is in search of a missing sister, haunted by her mother’s legacy of visions, and concerned about her husband’s absence; Worthing, it seems, married her largely from gratitude after she cleared his name of a crime. In addition, Abbie has history with the lively characters who comprise her adopted family: mathematical Florentina, good-looking Wilson Shaw, and power broker Mr. Vaughn, also considered Blackamoors in the white world of Regency Britain.

Riley’s prose is unique, nestling a lush, lavish image next to a swift, chopping realization.

Her characters are opaque, hiding more than they reveal, and readers are kept on their toes guessing whence the next threat will arrive.

The book is an absorbing experience, a complicated mystery rooted in the compelling historical struggle for abolition that navigates the nuances of race and class with a heroine the reader can’t help but love. Highly recommended.

Misty Urban

THE NURSE’S SECRET Amanda Skenandore, Kensington, 2022, $16.95/C$22.95, pb, 368pp, 9781496726537

Today, we expect and rely on nurses to be competent, trained professionals. And yet, it wasn’t always so. Prior to the late 19th century, nurses had little to no training and

were basically lackeys to doctors who also had scant knowledge of modern medical principles, including hygiene. But in the 1880s with the example of Florence Nightingale, American reformers instituted a training program that would forever change medicine.

Skenandore, a nurse herself, explores this history through the adventures of con artist and pickpocket Una Kelly, who seems destined for the prison on Blackwell’s Island. She trusts no one and, in a moment of greed, betrays the one person who has always looked out for her. When she’s framed for a murder she didn’t commit, she decides her only recourse is to hide “in plain sight.” She concocts a false history, signs up for nursing instruction at Bellevue Hospital, and embarks on a journey that will upend her life.

Following Una’s evolution from a conniving thief, who looks out only for herself, into someone capable of caring for others, including a handsome doctor, makes for an enjoyable read. Skenandore not only explores the workings of early modern medicine, she also renders a believable depiction of the people who live in the shadows during the socalled Gilded Age with realistic and horrifying descriptions of the places they inhabit, even when they’re dead. A murder mystery serves as the engine for the plot, elevating the suspense, but frankly Una’s transformation as well as the birth of this important profession are the more interesting aspects of the story.

Trish MacEnulty

A DANGEROUS BUSINESS Jane Smiley, Knopf, 2022, $28.00, hb, 224pp, 9780525520337 / Abacus, 2023, £16.99, hb, 224pp, 9780349145457

In Smiley’s short but impactful latest, two sex workers get caught up in a crime-novel scenario, one calling to mind the Edgar Allan Poe stories they devour, and decide to solve the murders before they become victims themselves.

In 1852, the small town of Monterey, California, bubbles with prosperity and secrets. New arrivals pour in, seeking fortunes or a new start; people depart just as frequently.

Eliza Ripple, a young widow from Kalamazoo who doesn’t miss her abusive husband one whit, has settled in at her job at Mrs. Parks’s brothel. She makes a good living, and the proprietress looks out for her health and safety.

Then the first girl disappears, prompting Mrs. Parks to hire a bouncer, Carlos, a kind Mexican immigrant. The community, which relies on informal (vigilante) justice since they don’t have constables, decides the missingperson crime isn’t worth the bother. Other disappearances follow, bodies are found, and Eliza and her best friend, Jean—a fellow prostitute working at an establishment serving other women—grow concerned. How would Poe’s hero Dupin (or DuPANN, as Eliza calls him) handle this?

Rich in wit and human observation, Smiley’s telling is as matter-of-fact as Eliza’s approach to her profession. While Eliza is skilled, her

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encounters aren’t erotic and illustrate much about all the characters. Among her clients are farmers, a shy teenager, many sailors, and older men, all with their own preferences. With a killer still at large, Eliza analyzes each man carefully, wondering if he’s guilty. “Being a woman is a dangerous business,” Mrs. Parks tells her, accurately, and Eliza grows annoyed at having to uncover the truth because nobody else cares. As heroic, self-reliant young women who accomplish what needs doing, she and Jean make great partners in a town where a supportive female network is the key to success and survival.

Sarah Johnson

A TIME TO BLOOM Lauraine Snelling with Kiersti Giron, Bethany House, 2022, $16.99, pb, 352pp, 9780764235733

1866. In this second book of the Leah’s Garden series, Delphinium “Del” Nielsen and her sisters have traveled west and settled in Nebraska. They are building a garden dedicated to their mother and trying to run a successful farm. But money is scarce, and the salary from Del’s work as a teacher is much needed. However, the schoolhouse must be rebuilt, and the men who run the town are not making it much of a priority. Soon their brother Anders arrives with friends RJ and Climie. RJ lost an eye right after the Civil War and then found out he’d been jilted by his fiancée. Climie is fleeing an abusive husband who wants his “rightful property” back. RJ himself is withdrawn and has lost his sense of self-worth. Will a new location, a job, and new friends change his outlook?

Although this is a Christian romance, it is also an informative look back at 1860s Nebraska and the hardships of the time. The sisters are engaging, resourceful, faithful, and determined. RJ is the most interesting character, as he has lost faith in himself, God, and everybody else. The rebuilding of his life, a story in itself, is the best part of this novel.

As he heads up building the boarding house, RJ is being built anew as well. Del is such a strong protagonist as she farms, battles grasshoppers, fights for her students, and even begins a romance. Themes of racism and spousal abuse at the time really round out this story. Through the attitude of the town leaders and the life of Climie, we also see how few rights women had back then. Fans of Christian historical fiction will enjoy reading this second book about the Nielsen family. It can be read as a standalone.

Bonnie DeMoss

SINGING LESSONS FOR THE STYLISH CANARY Laura Stanfill, Lanternfish Press, 2022, $18.99, pb, 338pp, 9781941360613

With magical strands that sing as melodically as the canaries that the Blanchard family of Mireville, France, expect to train, Stanfill’s debut novel unfolds the delights of French rural culture through a series of ambitious 34

young men and their musical talents. Opening in 1718, the tale begins with a miracle—a baby who finally gets over his months of colic, and in his moment of healing, restores sunshine to a rural village.

Little George, adored by his neighbors, matures into a hard-working member of the family business, which is making “serinettes”— musical devices that can be used for training performing canaries. The tale follows the family’s generations through an apparent loss of the magical touch, as well as a loss of the village’s confidence, erupting at last in immigration (temporary or not) to America to meet the firm’s longest, most wealthy client.

Stanfill’s rambling gambol among mysteries of parenthood and love, set mainly in the 19th century, is spiced with French expressiveness.

Those who delight in cross-language word play and who savor classic fairy-tale storytelling will find this novel of music boxes, treasured birds, and unexpected love well worth the long, slow telling, in a tender exploration across generations, affections, and the very human miraculous.

Beth Kanell

LADY ODELIA’S SECRET Jane Steen, Aspidistra Press, 2022, $12.99/£11.99, pb, 446pp, 9781913810191

It will aid the reader to have read Lady Helena Investigates, the first book introducing Lady Helena—sister to the Earl of Broadmere and widow of a wealthy Sussex baronet—as a successful solver of mysteries with the help of her lady’s maid, Guttridge, and an attractive physician, Armand Fortier. In this installment, Helena’s older sister Odelia, an artist living in London, persuades her to refurbish her drawing room with an ambitious set of paintings by the famed Sir Geraint Dorrian-Knowles. As she meets the artist to discuss his commission, Helena is fascinated by his forceful wife, Millie.

This leads to conflicting loyalties when Helena learns that Odelia has been Geraint’s lover for years.

Drawn by concern for scandal and love for her sister into finding out who is sending harassing and increasingly foul messages to Odelia, Helena enlists Fortier’s help, and in so doing learns of his mysterious past. But scandal is unavoidable when a shocking murder puts Helena at the center of a police investigation, and her loyalties as well as her cool-headedness are tested when the danger draws too close to her own family.

Demanding more patience than the usual cozy, Steen’s novel revels in appreciation for the pre-Raphaelite artists and their sensualized medieval subjects and bohemian views. A love of literature, including fairy tales, weaves through the tale as well. With no real stakes for Lady Helena, the hint of attraction with Fortier, the pleasant rounds of an aristocratic lady’s life in 1880s England, and engaging secondary characters provide much of the action as pieces of the mystery eventually unfold. With polished prose and plenty of artistic Easter eggs for fans of the period, Lady Helena’s adventures can

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appeal to literary readers as well as mystery buffs.

Misty Urban

IN DEFENSE OF DELIA Pat Stoltey, Five Star, 2022, $25.95, hb, 269pp, 9781432894719

In September 1838, 29-year-old Delia Pritchard, dressed as a man, rides into her hometown of Sangamon, Illinois. Suffering from an untreated bullet wound, she can barely stay in the saddle. A seven-year-old Black boy, Jackson, rides in behind her. Delia had saved Jackson from slave bounty hunters who killed his parents. They find no welcome.

Folks in Sangamon believe Delia murdered her own parents thirteen years before, set the family house ablaze, ran off to join outlaws, and then stole from the outlaws themselves.

They fear she’ll bring her old gang and slave bounty hunters into town. Even Delia’s younger brother, Colin, manager of the local stable, shuns his sister. Delia does find the town’s new Doc Hemmer, who kindly takes her in.

Sangamon is home to other misfits. Two sisters pretend to be high-fashion hat makers but have another life. Crazy Annie runs a small farm by herself but might not be so crazy. Doc Hemmer’s helper, Mary, hides a disturbing past. Itinerant preacher, John Claymore, has seen too much and wants to give up the ministry.

The novel plays out in 45 short chapters. A fair number of chapters jump back in time and cover back stories and secondary characters.

Despite these interruptions, Stoltey effectively blends page-turning action with quieter passages of empathetic people striving to connect to each other and grapple with the effects of life’s mistakes. Delia is particularly complex and engaging. The main plot questions find interesting answers. Will Delia heal? Will outlaws find and avenge Delia leaving them? Will anyone in Sangamon turn Delia over to a U.S. Marshal or sell Jackson?

Will Delia leave with or without Jackson? This novel and Delia deserve a sequel.

G. J. Berger

THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES Loretta Miles Tollefson, Palo Flechado Press, 2022, $14.99, pb, 308pp, 9781952026058

Resentment against New Mexican Gov. Albino Pérez boils over in the summer of 1837 into outright revolt. Considered an outsider after his appointment by President López de Santa Anna in 1835, Pérez further stokes anger by hitting up landowners for loans and imposing new federally ordered sales taxes, then jailing the ones who refuse to pay, such as Antonio Abad Montoya. Tensions escalate when Alcalde Juan José Esquibel resists Pérez’s authority and is himself jailed. After Montoya’s cousins break him out of prison, the alcalde issues a proclamation calling for unity and appoints a council of 12 as a substitute government for the area. A year-long period

of violence begins with the death of Pérez in August 1837, and ends with the execution of José Angel Gonzalez, the rebel who replaces him.

Tollefson brings the rebellion to vibrant life by presenting the run-up to hostilities and the continuing unrest in a series of narratives from the points of view of the principal historical figures, including the Montoya family, Alcalde Esquibel, and governors Pérez and Gonzalez.

She lets readers hear characters’ voices, view situations through their eyes, and feel their anger and fear. The author of more than 20 other books about New Mexico history, Tollefson is skilled in joining fact with fiction.

The result is a fresh look at Old New Mexico.

K. M. Sandrick

THE DREAMING BEAUTY Anneka R. Walker, Covenant, 2022, $16.99, pb, 256pp, 9781524422066

When Tansy White is betrayed by her intended, she fears she is fated to be alone.

Encouraged by her three aunts, she visits Rose Cottage, the home of her late mother.

Tansy has dreamed of this cottage her whole life and wonders if it can provide the answers she seeks. But after getting caught in a storm and waking up in a strange house, she meets a man with secrets of his own. Marcus Taylor, the brother of a duke, also has troubling dreams. Working together, can they find out hidden secrets and piece together fragments of dreams?

This second book in the Enchanted Regency Romance series is such a delight.

What a treat to read a Regency Romance with a bit of magical realism that is also a Sleeping Beauty retelling! With many nods to the timeless legend running through it, this is a fresh, original, and intriguing romance.

Tansy’s ability to dream her future is just the right touch that adds an extra layer to this wellwoven story. Readers will become enchanted themselves while piecing together a tapestry made out of dreams, secrets, magic, and lies.

Fans of romance and magical realism will enjoy this book.

Bonnie DeMoss

THE PIANO PLAYER Maybelle Wallis, Poolbeg Press, 2022, £12.99, pb, 400pp, 9781781994740

The Piano Player is a thoroughly researched and impressive Irish novel from Poolbeg Press, which always publishes quality novels. It is cleverly plotted, addressing historical events in mid-19th-century Ireland: the effects of rack renting on a population crippled by the effects of potato famines, emigration on coffin ships, political oppression and repression, poverty in Dublin tenements, cholera and typhoid, struggling hospitals and rising freedom movements.

Jane, a talented piano player, is married to a handsome, famous actor who is also a compulsive gambler. She has a past, as has William, a doctor in a Dublin fever hospital,

who once loved Jane and still does. This romantic theme twists its way through an otherwise gritty and thrilling novel inhabited by greedy and dangerous cheats, and the noble poor, and by ruthless scoundrels, including William’s superior, who is so threatening that the reader will breathlessly turn pages praying that he will be exposed.

The Piano Player also contains a gallery of convincing supporting characters, developed and portrayed with depth. Of course, we root for William and Jane, the book’s protagonists. Scene-setting is as vivid as the set of a Sean O’Casey play. The writer came at this terrific story from an unusual and interesting perspective. Her author notes and bibliography are worth reading, too.

This novel has great heart and humanity and contains a meticulously plotted narrative that kept this reviewer turning pages until, at last, all its themes come together in a satisfying ending. It is a story for our times.

Carol McGrath

20T H C E N T U RY THE WAR GIRLS V. S. Alexander, Kensington, 2022, $16.95/ C$22.95, pb, 432pp, 9781496734792

The War Girls opens in 1939, as the middleclass Polish Jewish family in which Stefa and Hanna Majewski grew up faces Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland. One sister, Hanna, has already left home, unwilling to submit to an arranged marriage and other conventions of observant Jewish life of the time. The other, Stefa, is bold enough to ask the family to accept the boyfriend she’s already found, and after “losing” one daughter, there is enough emotional pain at home to make this seem possible.

Page by page, Alexander portrays the necessary bones of such lives. His emerging plot of espionage, as the runaway daughter attempts to assist in Poland after all, is clever and intriguing. However, Jewish readers may be uncomfortable with Alexander’s portrayal of a family life that includes items like Shabbos candlesticks, a Seder plate, a silver kiddush cup, describing them as if they were components of an altar. Though the items are part of important rituals, their value might be better described in terms of how each one is connected to an older family member or a transition. Similarly, Stefa’s father Izreal marvels at “inner peace and the spirit of joy,” a modern pair of concepts foreign to an observant Jewish family of the period. Stefa’s mother Perla speaks of family members deserving prayers, which again is more Christian than the Jewish approach to prayer that rises from a covenant and commandments.

Alexander’s strength draws from his active curiosity about events of the war as it unfolded in Poland, and about the struggle for survival under ghetto conditions. His portrait of romance in wartime will satisfy those seeking

kind and humane grace notes for a story of courage.

Beth Kanell

THE GHETTO WITHIN Santiago H. Amigorena (trans. Frank Wynne), HarperVia, 2022, $26.99/£20.00, hb, 176pp, 9780063018334

In 1928, former soldier and law student Vicente Rosenberg left Poland to start a new life in Argentina. He marries the beautiful Rosita and adores their three children. His life is simple, spending time with his family, running his furniture store, and occasionally stopping by a cafe with his friends, fellow Polish exiles. His mother, still living in Poland, writes frequently, but Vicente seldom writes back, finding correspondence a chore. However, things change in 1940 as war rages in Europe.

Suddenly, he is desperate to hear from his mother and writes to her often. Her responses detail the desperate situation around her, and she pleads for his help. Eventually, the letters stop coming, and he relies on newspapers to reveal the hardship Polish Jews are facing, leaving him to only imagine what his mother’s fate might be.

Vicente was the author’s grandfather, and the novel is an imagining of his life during the 1940s. The letters from his great-grandmother remain, but Amigorena was a child when his grandfather died. They never had a chance to discuss the war, though it seems such a discussion would have been unlikely as the real Vicente, as in the novel, walled himself off and kept his grief to himself, never confiding in his friends and family. The story is the author’s re-creation of what his grandfather must have thought and felt, a meditation on his emotions. In a less skillful author’s hands, this story would be too tortuous to read, but Amigorena’s use of lyrical language and thoughtful exploration creates a fascinating description of a man’s emotional prison. This important book shows how the horrors of the Holocaust were felt far outside of Europe and produced generations of pain.

Janice Derr

MOTHER OF STRANGERS Suad Amiry, Pantheon, 2022, $27.00, hb, 279pp, 9780593316559

Mother of Strangers tells the story of Subhi, a 15-year-old living in Jaffa in the late 1940s, a tumultuous time in Palestine. Subhi is such a typical teenager: he is enamored with a young girl whom he dreams of marrying, obsesses over the idea of owning a fancy new suit, and throws himself into activities he excels at. The main character is compelling and singular and one of the strongest features of the book.

Subhi’s childhood is, however, interrupted by war and violence. The story occurs during the 1948 displacement of Palestinian Arabs, known as the Nakba. Israeli settlers attacked Arab cities like Jaffa and forced Palestinians to leave their homes. Subhi is separated from

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his family and his beloved, a portrait of the Palestinian people in miniature.

This novel describes an important and overlooked event in history. The only drawback to the storytelling is that chapters that explain the historical situation are often separated from the story of Subhi. I would prefer a story that better integrates the coming-of-age conflicts in Subhi’s life with the tumult of the Nakba. Modern Palestine is best understood through the tragedy of wide-eyed, talented, and singular individuals like Subhi.

Jill E. Marshall

CHAMPLAIN STREET Victoria Arendt, Elusive Orao, 2022, $28.00, hb, 319pp, 9781734633184

I was pleased to be assigned a book about an event that took place very near to where I live. This is a novel about the April-June 1934 Auto-Lite strike in Toledo, Ohio. Auto-Lite was an automobile parts manufacturer, operating in a city hard-hit by the Depression. Men, desperate for work, had to operate machinery with little safety equipment; losing your finger to the press or breaking the machine would get you fired. Workers were penalized for restroom breaks, and were expected to make unrealistic production quotas. Once the workers went on strike, management called in the local sheriff’s forces and later the Ohio National Guard.

Strikers threw rocks and bricks while law enforcement used tear gas to disperse crowds.

Locals flocked to watch the action, resulting in two bystanders being killed. The strike leaders were successful in getting so many workers arrested that the courts couldn’t handle them all. The threat of a general city-wide strike was one factor that finally spurred a resolution.

Very short chapters (one is two sentences long) keep the story moving, but points of view are frequently switched, requiring a measure of concentration to keep everyone straight: secretaries trapped in the besieged factory, strikers, strike breakers, a National Guard member young enough to still be in high school.

After the long build-up, I expected a more dramatic climax: the ending switches rather abruptly from strikers planning a night’s action to the secretaries typing up resolution papers as the strike ends. Arendt provides historical supplements such as photos from the event, explanations of what happened afterwards, and a bibliography.

Today’s readers who may be ignorant of the working conditions our ancestors suffered and fought against will appreciate this blow-byblow-action novel based on a pivotal moment in U.S. labor history.

B. J. Sedlock

THE ECHOES OF LOVE Jenny Ashcroft, HQ, 2022, £14.99, hb, 468pp, 9780008469009

1936. Eighteen-year-old Eleni Adams is thrilled to escape to Crete to spend the summer as usual with her Cretan grandfather. But this year is different. The neighbouring villa 36

is occupied by the Linders, a German family already entangled in the web of conflicting loyalties, deception and oppression that is Nazi Germany. For Otto, the student son, and Eleni, it is love at first sight, and soon they are caught up in a summer idyll. Heartbroken when they must separate, they vow to remain in contact, but all too soon this becomes impossible.

In 1941, they meet once again in Crete. Eleni has returned as an SOE operative, and Otto has parachuted in, part of the German invasion.

Despite being on opposing sides in this bitter occupation that is marked by resistance and reprisals, and aware that the outside world would view their liaison as treacherous, they manage to carve out a private space where love and honour reign amid all the uncertainty of war.

Although fluently written, the story unfolds jerkily, switching back and forth between the transcript of a portentous 1974 interview, 1936 Crete, 1940 London, and wartime Crete.

A more linear narrative would have better suited the sweeping romantic arc, the internal conflicts between public and private loyalties, and the moving denouement. Both major and minor characters are well-drawn with a finely nuanced delineation of the different sides and groups. This is a riveting saga of love, loyalty and betrayal where the reader is kept on tenterhooks until the very end.

Catherine Kullmann

SHRINES OF GAIETY Kate Atkinson, Doubleday, 2022, £20.00, hb, 448pp, 9780857526557 / Doubleday, 2022, $29.00, hb, 416pp, 9780385547970

London 1926. Kate Atkinson works her literary magic on another historical novel.

Nellie Coker (based upon the Soho nightlife “godmother” Kate Meyrick), just released from Holloway prison, is the head of a London family that makes a substantial living from nightclubs and all sorts of associated activities, many of them illegal. Even though she is just out of jail, Detective Chief Inspector Frobisher is transferred to Bow Street police station and is keen to investigate her continuing profitable empire and stop all the illegal sidelines, hence closing it down.

Gwendolen Kelling, just free from the lingering death of a suffocatingly selfish mother, and made unexpectedly wealthy by her demise, arrives in London, and becomes involved, in somewhat unlikely circumstance, in Frobisher’s stratagem to infiltrate the Coker family crime network while on a mission to find a young girl, a relation of a friend, who absconded to London. There are complicated plotlines which Atkinson knits

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together expertly. The characters vibrate with life and feel entirely credible, making for an absorbing story set in the brittle, glitzy, sleazy post-Great War world of Soho—with the terrible shadow of that war hanging over society and its fragile individuals.

Atkinson has a unique style: an arch, ironically amusing commentary upon the foibles and imperfections of human existence, skewering the motivations and experiences of her subjects, whom she treats with a generosity, humour and insight, despite their often-considerable shortcomings.

The narrative heft does depend upon a number of rather extraordinary coincidences.

It is a very amusing book, in Atkinson’s trademark wry, understated elegance. When a group of Coker family members are discussing their brother’s girlfriend, seemingly one of the Bright Young Things, the conclusion is that as she’s not greatly Bright or indeed Young, then she must just be a Thing. Simply a delight to read.

Douglas Kemp

THE SECRETS OF SAINTE MADELEINE Tilly Bagshawe, HarperCollins, 2022, £7.99, pb, 478pp, 9780008521837

Covering almost five decades, from 1923 to 1971, this is the story of three generations of Salignacs and their passionate love for the château and vineyard of Sainte Madeleine.

Charming but erratic alcoholic Louis loves Sainte Madeleine but alienates both his sons, soulful Didier and ambitious Alexandre who, rather than watch his family estate go to ruin, creates a new life for himself in California.

But it is youngest child Elise who loves Sainte Madeleine the most obsessively, though she has no hope of inheriting it—until war and personal tragedies intervene. Elise sees a chance to get what she has always desired, but at a terrible cost to her family.

This is a rollercoaster of a novel, with numerous swooping ups and downs and twists and turns. It’s a brave choice to create a heroine as flawed as Elise, but Bagshawe succeeds in retaining a measure of sympathy for her, even when her behaviour is at its most obnoxious.

Inevitably, since the book covers such a long time period and includes such a large cast— including the Salignacs’ cousins, the Senards, and a younger generation of both families—the novel can’t go too deeply into some of the issues it raises. For instance, we are never shown the trauma Alex and his cousin Laurent must have suffered after their wartime experiences. Court cases are skimmed over, as if the author isn’t too sure about the technical details herself, and there are hints that one minor character is autistic, but he never appears onstage, so it’s impossible to tell how his condition affects him and the people who love him.

But on the whole, this is an enjoyable soap opera of a novel, which evokes its settings vividly (especially in terms of scents and tastes).

Jasmina Svenne

ESCAPE ROUTE Elan Barnehama, Running Wild Press, 2022, $19.99, pb, 244pp, 9781955062435

Growing up in New York City in the late 1960s, 13-year-old Zach’s life is defined by his Jewish roots and the war in Vietnam. His grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, warns him to have an escape route ready in case the United States follows the path of Nazi Germany. But hormones can be very distracting, as Zach learns when he meets Samm at a party of his older sister’s hippie friends. The two fall in love and have sex, Zach’s best friend Jonah also finds a new girlfriend, and they become part of a tight-knit group that sees them through a difficult eighteen months. Along with growing conflict over the U.S.’s involvement in a distant war, Samm’s brother, a Marine war veteran, struggles with PTSD and leaves home to join an encampment of disillusioned veterans on Ellis Island, where Zach joins Samm in an illfated attempt to rescue him.

Escape Route immerses the reader in 1960s New York City and its anti-war youth culture.

Barnehama seamlessly weaves folk and rock music into the story, a soundtrack central to the characters’ lives. It rings true to those who lived through it while introducing younger readers to a fascinating and troubling era with echoes in the present. Still, there is a gentleness to the narrative that captures the idealism of the time, and is above all a celebration of friendship and connection in the face of change. Though this coming of age story is written for adult readers, teens interested in the period will appreciate this exploration of family, faith, friendship, and first love.

Lyn Miller-Lachmann

THE WINTER ORPHANS Kristin Beck, Berkley, 2022, $17.00/£14.99, pb, 416pp, 9780593101582

This stirring World War II novel of courage and sacrifice focuses on 100 Jewish orphans whose parents send them to France in 1942 for their safety. The children are housed in an old chateau paid for by the Swiss Red Cross and overseen by a stiff martinet called Rosli. The protagonist is a teenager, Ella Rosenthal, who is desperate to protect her wild younger sister, Hanni, while slowly succumbing to the love of a fellow teenager. When the Nazis come for the older children, Rosli refuses the soldiers entry but knows their respect for her orders will wane quickly. She commits herself to spiriting the teens to safety across the border to Switzerland. Ella is torn between loyalty to her sister, who is viewed as too young for the arduous journey, and the desire to run away with her young man. The tension rises quickly.

Excellent prose draws the reader immediately into the story, and Beck’s ability to ratchet up the tension page by page makes the book hard to put down. In my case, it kept me up well into the night. The life-or-death consequences of the string of quandaries facing the main characters force the teenagers into the forest to join the Resistance, deepen

the bond between them, push Hanni beyond the physical limits of most young children, and provide the reader with a constantly burgeoning picture of terror and bravery.

Highly recommended!

Lorelei Brush

FROM THE SHADOWS James R. Benn, Soho, 2022, $27.95, hb, 336pp, 9781641292986

The Special Operations Executive (SOE) spy organization pulls Billy Boyle out of North Africa in October 1944 as WWII winds down. Boyle’s orders require him to find radio operator Richard (Dickie) Thorne on the island of Crete and then head to France.

There Boyle and Thorne will coordinate with Allied forces and French Resistance groups to ferret out German sympathizers.

Soon Boyle learns he is not operating in a simple us-versus-them conflict. A few years before, French freedom fighters had formed an independent state in the rugged region of Vercors. Allies promised them soldiers and equipment to fend off the surrounding Germans, but the aid never arrived. The Germans slaughtered the Vercors fighters and their families. Some of the few Vercors survivors now seek revenge against the Allied officers who betrayed them. On the evening Dickie and Boyle arrive in France, someone murders Dickie. Boyle and his small team now must help recruit loyal resistance fighters, find leads to German collaborators, and track down Dickie’s killer or killers, never sure whom they can trust. The pursuit takes them to heavy fighting, where a combat team of Japanese-American soldiers challenges dugin Germans. Hawaiian Senator Inouye, as a young soldier, makes a cameo appearance, as do the sons of Sinclair Lewis and Ernest Hemingway.

Benn’s research of people, places, and war operations is impressive. Historical facts and the fiction storylines mesh well. The descriptions of deadly encounters, whether small or large-scale, are riveting. However, too often conversations among the main characters stray from the core plots with repetitive historical information and social justice grievances that feel spliced in. Overall, though, this is an effective account of littleknown WWII theatres.

G. J. Berger

LIGHT TO THE HILLS Bonnie Blaylock, Lake Union, 2022, $14.95/£8.99, pb, 271pp, 9781542039925

In the mountains of Kentucky, times have always been hard, but during the Depression, they are leaner than ever. Young Sass MacInteer is gathering ginseng in the holler when she meets Amanda Rye, a packhorse librarian sent out to provide books and cheer to those who are isolated and struggling. The MacInteers are doing what they can to get by, and that includes sending their men deep into the coal mines to eke out a living. Amanda,

a young widow, is reeling from struggles of her own and is thankful for the librarian job, which helps her support her young son.

Wounds from her past have kept her from reaching out, although she feels an attraction to Finn MacInteer, the eldest son. Even as the family befriends Amanda, and Sass begins to appreciate the joy of books, secrets from Amanda’s past might threaten them all.

This is a gorgeously written and well-layered novel that immediately transports us to the Appalachian Mountains of the 1930s. Bonnie Blaylock does a wonderful job of portraying the beauty of the “shifting blues and greens” of Appalachia and the proud determination of its people. The characters draw you in immediately. Sass’s personality matches her nickname, and the quiet but steely resolve of Rai MacInteer keeps her family not only fed but well cared for. Illiteracy in Appalachia is explored, as there was usually no money for books or, for many, an ability to read them.

We celebrate with Sass as we feel the joy of holding a book and of learning to read for the first time. The ways, superstitions, folklore, and justice of the mountain people are woven deeply into the story. Rich in color, tradition, and character, this mountain saga will hold you spellbound.

Bonnie DeMoss

CORA’S KITCHEN Kimberly Garrett Brown, Inanna, 2022, $22.95/C$22.95, pb, 176pp, 9781771338516

Cora, a Black New York City librarian in 1928, is grateful for her stable job and its access to the literary glories of the Harlem Renaissance.

She even enjoys a correspondence with the young Langston Hughes, away at Lincoln University. But she wants more. She longs to be a writer, but her job and caring for her husband and children leave her little time and energy for creativity. When she agrees to substitute for her injured cousin as a cook in a wealthy white socialite’s home, she actually welcomes the work because it will leave her mind free to compose stories. Even better, her employer is a philanthropic feminist who invites Cora to take a summer writer’s retreat at her rustic vacation house on Seneca Lake.

The idyllic setting masks a dangerous family drama, however, which Cora becomes unwillingly embroiled in.

Brown has created a thoughtful narrative that will resonate with anyone who wants to live a creative, engaged life but is stifled by daily minutiae. Cora is no fool, and accepts her patroness’s help warily. She also feels limited by what are “acceptable” themes for writers of color in her time: tragedies of life in Jim Crow South, or sad tales of mixed-race women longing to pass. Cora’s life is nothing like that, and she wonders if there’s a place for stories of the everyday joys and frustrations of Black professional women.

Cora’s voice is practical and straightforward, and the reader gets a vivid sense of an authentic life behind them. In fact, Cora’s journal entries are much more

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interesting than her somewhat sentimental fiction, even if the book’s conclusion inserts some unexpected melodrama into this mildmannered librarian’s quest to find her own version of “a room of her own.”

Kristen McDermott

CASE STUDY Graeme Macrae Burnet, Biblioasis, 2022, $16.95/C$22.95, pb, 278pp, 9781771965200 / Saraband, 2022, £9.99, pb, 288pp, 9781913393441

An author researching a notorious and nowforgotten British psychotherapist unexpectedly receives a series of notebooks written by a former patient. Thus begins Graeme Macrae Burnet’s metafictional novel, presented as the footnoted second edition of a biography written by the slyly named G.M.B. The unnamed writer of the notebooks is a young London woman looking for explanations two years after her sister’s suicide in 1963.

Blaming the unconventional psychotherapist Collins Braithwaite for her sister’s death, she goes undercover as a patient named Rebecca Smyth. She worries that she looks too neat and collected to be “a nut,” but through her sessions with Braithwaite, “Rebecca” becomes less and less certain of that, as her real self and her undercover self vie for control. The five notebooks alternate with G.M.B.’s detailed biographical chapters on the forgotten—and, it should be said, wholly fictional—Collins Braithwaite.

Case Study is a dizzying dive into British counterculture of the 1960s and the radical anti-psychiatry movement. This short novel is wildly inventive and slickly written.

The notebooks feel so casually and authentically from the period, with “Rebecca’s” word choices and the details she includes saying as much about 1960s British society as they do about her place in it. “Rebecca” is deliciously unreliable as a narrator and seems as constructed as her undercover persona, leaving the reader to wonder at the honesty in either her initial self-assuredness or her later descent into instability. Through both “Rebecca’s” notebooks and G.M.B.’s biography, Braithwaite comes across as arrogant, dismissive, manipulative, but also undeniably magnetic and brilliant. I must stress the “fictional” again, as Burnet writes so convincingly that I found myself looking up Braithwaite, more than once, sure that I had just failed to find him in the last search. An excellent and imaginative novel, well deserving of its place on the Booker Prize longlist.

Jessica Brockmole

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A TRACE OF POISON Colleen Cambridge, Kensington, 2022, $26.00/ C$35.00, hb, 272pp, 9781496732477

A Trace of Poison is second in a historical mystery series featuring Phyllida Bright, fictional housekeeper at Mallowan Hall in Devon, England—estate of the renowned Agatha Christie.

Circa 1930, the village of Listleigh is hosting a Murder Fête, a charitable event for wannabe mystery writers. Amateur authors pay a fee to rub shoulders with the distinguished Detection Club, a real-life group of crime writers that included Christie, G. K. Chesterton, and Dorothy Sayers. The famous authors also serve as judges for a detective story contest, whose prize is a publishing contract and representation by a literary agent. Phyllida ensures the event runs like clockwork, but things go awry when the local pastor chosen to announce the winner keels over from a poisoned cocktail. Was his drink intended for the much-reviled Alastair Whittlesby, the favorite to win the prize? As the body count mounts, local constables are stymied, but Phyllida pieces together the clues to reveal the murderer—and a clever twist of a “whydunit.”

The premise of the novel is delicious fun— would a writer kill to be published?—and the locked-room mystery is a homage to the queen of crime herself. Observant, no-nonsense Phyllida makes an ideal amateur sleuth, given her proximity to Christie. Assisting her is the Mallowan Hall chauffeur, with whom she has a combative but somewhat flirtatious relationship. An extensive cast of characters takes time to sort out, but each suspect enjoys distinctive quirks and a list of their names and positions comes in handy. At the end, there’s even a recipe for the cocktail that propels the plot. Although it’s unnecessary to read the first book in the series to understand the story, readers may want to check out Murder at Mallowan Hall, a finalist for an Agatha Award.

Paula Martinac

THE LOST SISTER OF FIFTH AVENUE Ella Carey, Bookouture, 2022, $10.99/£8.99, pb, 309pp, 9781803145440

This World War II story (Daughters of New York, Book 4) concerns twin sisters Martha and Charlotte Belmont, who have roots in both France and New York. As the Nazis advance, Martha has remained in New York to support the war effort and assist refugee friends and her aging, widowed father. She had been unable to persuade Charlotte to return to the United States when international tensions rose. Charlotte stays in Paris to guard a family friend’s art collection, thinking at first that her American citizenship will protect her. Besides confiscating art, the Nazis are rounding up Jews, which increases the danger for many of Charlotte and Martha’s family members and friends.

The plot is hard to follow through the first third of the book. It introduces a host

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of characters while jolting backward and forward in time. Things bog down with lengthy descriptions of pre-war France and the complex relationships of the Belmonts’ circle.

Charlotte’s decision to stay in France with war looming is not believable, although it is needed to advance the plot. Martha’s romance is unlikely and unearned, and Charlotte’s is so thin as to barely be there at all.

When the Germans cross the French border in 1940, the book revs up and becomes a taut, suspenseful thriller. Charlotte must protect valuable art collections and her French friends while working for the Resistance. Family secrets are revealed that turn the story on its head as she struggles in heart-breaking, perilous situations. While not in immediate danger, Martha and her father work tirelessly to aid the war effort, advocating at the highest levels of government. This story reminds us that bigotry is evil and that tolerance and freedom are priceless.

Elizabeth Knowles

HOPE BEYOND THE WAVES Heidi Chiavaroli, Hope Creek, 2022, $18.99, pb, 446pp, 9781957663128

This story is told in two timelines. In 1993, 18-year-old Emily is banished from her parents’ home in Maryland to her grandmother’s in Massachusetts. Emily is despondent until her grandmother starts to tell her the story of another rejected, exiled young woman in another time: her grandmother’s sister Atta.

In 1916, all of Atta’s hopes for her life are shattered when she is diagnosed with leprosy and sent to the Penikese leper colony. And she is desperately worried about her sister Gertie (who will become Emily’s grandmother), whom she can no longer protect from their father’s alcoholic rages. When handsome young Dr. Harry Mayhew joins the staff at Pekinese, he and Atta resist their attraction to each other. Harry’s search for a cure for leprosy becomes more and more desperate. Hope and help come from an unexpected source, but is it too late?

This book starts strong. The growing affection between Emily, her grandmother, and Emily’s new friend Sam is touching and realistic. Atta’s hopes, her devotion to her little sister, and her devastating diagnosis make her a very sympathetic character. Harry’s bitterness against his own father, and his initial struggle between his ambitions and his desire to serve his patients, add complexity.

The historical period and the desolation of the leper colony are well-portrayed. And the transitions between 1993 and the 1916 era are smoothly handled.

The religious aspect of the novel gets a little heavy-handed as the story advances. That will appeal to some readers and less to others. I felt that, while Atta’s spiritual growth added to the gravitas of the story, it also detracted from the agency of the very human characters and from the connections between Atta’s and Emily’s growth trajectories.

Kathryn Bashaar

LOVE IN A TIME OF WAR Adrienne Chinn, HarperCollins, 2022, $16.99/ C$24.99/£8.99, pb, 480pp, 9780008501600

It is 1913 in London, and the three Fry sisters—Cecelia, Jessie and Etta—are young women looking forward to their futures. The eldest, Cecelia, is serious and committed to the suffragette cause but has fallen in love with her German tutor, Max. Level-headed Jessie is keen to become an army nurse as a way of breaking loose and seeing the world, while her artistic twin Etta is fascinated with all things Bohemian and the Bloomsbury Group. Their parents, Christina and Gerald, have concerns about each of their daughters when the outbreak of war changes everything.

Cecelia must suppress her loss and yearning for Max as she takes photographs and writes important articles for the British newspapers.

Etta falls in love with Carlo, an impoverished artist, and elopes with him to Italy. Jessie faces personal challenges in an Egyptian hospital while nursing the injured from the Mediterranean and Gallipoli campaigns.

All these characters are likeable, even with their flaws and foibles. Christina’s stiff reserve hides her own secret past in Italy, and the girls’ father, Gerald, is particularly endearing.

There is sadness and joy, and the historical details are all well-handled, touching on lesser-known aspects of the era, such as the growing unrest in Egypt under British rule and the ordinary lives of female munitions workers on the British home front.

Overall, this is a highly enjoyable and absorbing romantic read, but its main shortcoming is too many coincidences or chance encounters that the novel doesn’t need to support its already fine construction.

This is the first book in a trilogy, and it will be interesting to see what happens next in the tangled lives of the charming Fry sisters.

Marina Maxwell

CRADLES OF THE REICH Jennifer Coburn, Sourcebooks Landmark, 2022, $27.99, hb, 320pp, 9781728250748

In the burgeoning genre of Nazi-era historical novels, Jennifer Coburn’s Cradles of the Reich follows three German women caught in Heinrich Himmler’s Lebensborn breeding program, which produced 20,000 “racially pure” children between 1935 and 1945.

Thirty maternity houses cared for unmarried pregnant women whose babies were taken

by Nazi couples. Meanwhile, particularly attractive young women were bred to highranking officials. Fans of The Handmaid’s Tale will recognize similarities to a totalitarian patriarchy.

Coburn follows three women in the Lebensborn web. Gundi, a poster child of the Aryan beauty ideal, is a prize for the recruiter, who doesn’t know the father is a Jewish resistance fighter. True believer Hilde schemes to be the baby-mama and pampered mistress of a Nazi high official. Irma, an older nurse, laments youthful choices and needs a new life. Far from the war, women in the

gilded cage of Heim Hochland house are unaware of the ongoing Holocaust, massive sterilization programs, and kidnapping of an estimated 200,000 “racially pure” children from occupied countries.

While Cradles of the Reich carefully unveils a lesser-known feature of the Nazi master plan, readers may find some issues. German words and references to Nazi programs aren’t glossed. For an intelligent woman and resistance fighter, Gundi barely grapples with the mortal threat of carrying a Jewish baby. She’s only saved by the revelation of a fully formed escape network and last-minute conversion of a Nazi sympathizer. Hilde is consistently unlikeable, and Irma’s character is less developed.

Despite these issues, this is a resonant, timely read, vividly revealing how a brutally racist, nationalist agenda deprived vulnerable women of their human rights and reproductive autonomy.

Pamela Schoenewaldt

THAT SUMMER IN BERLIN Lecia Cornwall, Berkley, 2022, $17.00/£14.99, pb, 464pp, 9780593197943

Lecia Cornwall’s That Summer in Berlin is a close-up view of the 1936 Berlin Olympics through the lens of two debutantes on a holiday filled with terrible risks but great rewards. This compelling novel immerses readers from the beginning of the well-staged opening of the Olympics through the 1940 Battle of Dunkirk. Readers are submerged in different societal classes, opposing familial expectations, and varying political views and goals.

In the 1930s, the expectation of young upper-class women was to marry and produce heirs, not pursue careers. Cornwall explores this expectation through the main character, Viviane Alden. A secretly aspiring photographer, Viviane meets journalist Tom Graham, a well-educated Scotsman hired to appear as a Fascist sympathizer, who presents her with risky career choices in Germany.

Viviane chooses to accompany stepsister Julia to Count von Schroeder’s castle in Bavaria for the opportunity to follow her dreams. Viviane is settled in the politically divided household with the count and countess, and three sons.

Viviane’s interactions uncover the prejudices of each member’s involvement in the politics of Germany and the rising Nazi regime.

Cornwall’s narrative transports readers from London’s society balls and mob riots to nerve-wracking, bone-chilling missions in Germany, as careers and lives are risked in conflicts involving a clearly defined Nazi enemy.

Enthralled readers will be shocked as the plot twists and Viviane takes more risks with her camera. The well-researched prose immerses readers in politically charged Germany with captivating dialogue and ominous reactions in clutch situations. Viviane’s balancing act exposes political and religious tensions as she nimbly walks a fine line with members

of the von Schroeder family. An engrossing, absorbing picture of the 1936 Olympics from the perspective of a “pretty young tourist taking holiday snaps.”

Dorothy Schwab

THE GIRL WHO DARED TO DREAM Diney Costeloe, Head of Zeus, 2022, £20.00/$29.95, hb, 438pp, 9781801109802

Thisisasimpletalenarratedchronologically, mainly from the point of view of one principal character. No literary tricks, but beautifully crafted.

The date is 1912. The principal character is Mabel, daughter of a lower middle-class family in the East End of London. Mabel has ambitions to become a secretary—not yet a major occupation for young women—but her father’s traffic accident forces her to leave school and go into service. Costeloe vividly portrays the relentless, servile drudgery in the lower levels of domestic service in a rich household and the repressive hierarchy among the servants. Mabel loses her job following an unjust accusation of theft, but all ends well, and she not only survives but prospers, thanks to an unlikely friendship. My only criticism is that the resolution of the main plot is spoilt by two final chapters introducing a new story line centering on a hitherto minor character.

Diney Costeloe has written over 20 novels, and this is one of her best.

Edward James

THE UNLOCKED PATH Janis Robinson Daly, Black Rose Writing, 2022, $21.95, pb, 346pp, 9781685130145

In 1897, Laura Edwards is steamrolling her daughter Eliza’s debut into Philadelphia society. Eliza wonders, “is there more?” She soon discovers her grandfather was founder of the Female Medical College of Philadelphia and that the women in her life had “devoted themselves to following their hearts and helping others.” Is medical school on Eliza’s path?

Janis Robinson Daly quickly creates confidence in both Eliza’s skills and ability and the wisdom and guidance of medical student Anandi. Experience Eliza’s sheer joy as she befriends a wealthy classmate, Olga from Russia, and becomes enamored with a professor from Ireland. Olga’s humor adds levity, and her attachment as a sister develops over the years. Daly’s portrayal of the medical students’ resourcefulness in support of each other and Laura’s progression of ideals and realizations are aligned with the times and so uplifting as graduations, marriages, and births take place.

Additionally, Daly’s descriptions of surgeries and procedures of the early 1900s are supported by vast medical research. The prejudices and attitudes of male doctors and pharmacists, along with exhausting daily schedules are central to the emotional core of the novel. The amazing Bone Boxes and

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vivid descriptions from the physiology lab add sensory details connecting readers to the era.

Eliza’s world comes alive for readers as she experiences the ratification of the 19th Amendment, World War, a pandemic, and the sinking of the Titanic. She travels from the tenements of Philadelphia to the cottages of Newport searching for love, contentment, agreeability and hopefully, motherhood.

Follow The Unlocked Path for the key to results and answers.

Dorothy Schwab

VIVIANA VALENTINE GETS HER MAN Emily J. Edwards, Crooked Lane, 2022, $26.99, hb, 288pp, 9781639101825

Even if you’ve never been to New York (and I haven’t), when you read this novel you will feel that you know it. Set in 1950, it brings you the sounds, tastes and smells encountered by Viviana Valentine as she chases down her man or, in this case, men.

This is based on the old-fashioned New York gumshoe detective novel, but brought up to date and given a very feminine spin. Viviana and her team—actually the other tenants of Mrs K’s girls-only rooming house—are taking over a case because Viviana’s slightly seedy boss has disappeared. In his absence they must try to appease his client, the extremely wealthy but equally nasty Tallmadge Blackstone as they try to discover why his teenage daughter Tallulah refuses to marry his 60-year-old partner. They also attempt to discover why Viviana’s boss Tommy Fortuna is missing.

The reader is taken along through the brilliantly presented glamorous New York nightlife together with Viviana and Miss Tallulah Blackstone, who also visit Coney Island and Greenwich Village. Also vividly described are the sights and smells of garbage in less affluent, less tourist-oriented areas. In addition to the setting, the characters, from the New York cops to Mrs K and her son, are strongly presented. Their down-to-earth practicality comes to life to balance the glitter of the opulent nightlife.

This is an enjoyable romp of a book. Viviana has attitude even at a time when ladies were called ‘dames’ and expected to be subservient and agreeable. Her exploits maintain tension throughout, and there are few bouts of description or interior monologue to slow the pace. The novel was a pleasure to read. I look forward to more of Viviana and her exploits in New York.

Valerie Adolph

HOW TO TURN INTO A BIRD María José Ferrada (trans. Elizabeth Bryer), Tin House, 2022, $16.95, pb, 224pp, 9781953534460

Ramón leaves his 10-hour-a-day, five-daya-week job in a PVC factory to maintain a Coca Cola billboard on the outskirts of a small town near Santiago, Chile, in the 1970s. He soon decides to stay within the billboard 24 hours a 40

day, all seven days of the week, to make sure lamps are not stolen. By means of a pulley, his friends provide him with food, cigarettes, and beer, and his wife Paulina and nephew Miguel climb the ladder regularly to visit.

Members of the neighborhood housing complex where Paulina, Miguel, and his mother live increasingly worry about what observers and children think about the unusual situation, and Miguel’s schoolmates want to see what all the fuss is about inside the billboard. Distress intensifies when a group of homeless families settles nearby, their children begin to play beneath the billboard, and they try to join in neighborhood gatherings.

Award-winning Chilean writer Ferrada is known for her children’s books, and both her books for adults, How to Order the Universe and now How to Turn Into a Bird, have been much decorated.

Written from 12-year-old Miguel’s perspective, Bird is spare and childlike in language, but it delivers deep insights and delves emotional connections. It eloquently reveals how close-knit groups of individuals come to view those who are not like them or those who are like them but take different paths. Tender yet poignant, lyrical and evocative, this work is truly exquisite.

K. M. Sandrick

THE LINDBERGH NANNY Mariah Fredericks, Minotaur, 2022, $27.99, hb, 320pp, 9781250827401

In 1932, the son of the world-famous aviator Charles Lindbergh was abducted from the family home in New Jersey. It was declared the crime of the century, attracting the world’s press, and to this day, aspects of the story continue to be discussed and debated.

The Lindbergh Nanny takes on events from the point of view of Betty Gow, a young Scottish woman who considers herself lucky to obtain the job of nanny to the most talked-about but least-seen child in America, Charlie Lindbergh. Betty, a conscientious and serious-minded person who has been disappointed in love in the past, gradually gains confidence in herself and begins a relationship with Henrik Johnson, a Norwegian sailor she meets with other staff of the Lindbergh household. But when the child in her care is kidnapped, Betty, her boyfriend, and everyone working with the family will come under intense police scrutiny and suspicion.

Fredericks successfully explores this very public story through a new lens, and I really enjoyed her commitment to Betty as a full character with a life before, during, and after

REVIEWS | Issue 102, November 2022

the kidnapping. The way events affected the lives of everyone connected with the boy makes for fascinating reading. The early chapters build an eerie sense of calm before the storm, and as the tragedy plays out, the emotional tension is palpable. Fredericks hints at the darker aspects of Charles Lindbergh’s personality and foreshadows Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s work as a writer while remaining true to the ‘present’ world inhabited by Betty Gow. Regardless of the degree of prior knowledge the reader brings to the novel, this beautifully crafted, gripping tale is an excellent read. Highly recommended.

Kate Braithwaite

THE SOCIALITE’S GUIDE TO MURDER S. K. Golden, Crooked Lane, 2022, $28.99, hb, 320pp, 9781639101764

It is 1958, and Evelyn Elizabeth Grace Murphy, daughter of the immensely wealthy owner of the Pinnacle Hotel in New York City, is living in the hotel enjoying a life of conspicuous consumption. Her closest friend is her tiny dog Presley, but another good friend is the handsome film star Henry Fox. Together they are attending a gala in the hotel, where a famous artist is about to reveal his latest masterwork. However, the painting is missing.

Later the artist is found murdered.

The novel is the story of Evelyn’s investigations to find the killer. It is also the story of her reluctant but delicious affair with Mac Cooper, bellboy and Presley’s dog walker, who is a very junior hotel employee; his charm conceals a rather dubious history. And overall it is the story of a woman once so traumatized that she has not left the hotel in years but who must learn to face the outside world.

This novel’s charm lies in the voice of Evelyn herself. Her first-person narration is well designed and executed to give a vivid impression of Evelyn as well as her environment and the progress of her investigation into the murder, her love affair, and her efforts to face a world she finds fearful.

This is one of the more successful ‘vastly rich girl plays detective’ novels, enriched by its portrayal of a flawed character who is hiding her agoraphobia and panic attacks behind a screen of Dior and Chanel. The humor, insight, and sharp wit make this a light and refreshing read. It is first in a series of ‘Pinnacle Hotel’ Mysteries, and I look forward to reading more of them.

Valerie Adolph

IN A FAR PLACE Liz Harris, Heywood Press, 2022, $10.99, pb, 378pp, 9781913687199

In a hospital in Birmingham, England, in 1967, a young red-haired student nurse, Claire, accidentally bumps into Peter, a young trainee doctor. They blame one another for the encounter and proceed on their way, meeting again in the refectory. Peter apologizes and invites Claire out for dinner with his group of

friends. Claire accepts. They fall in love and, following graduation, become engaged.

Peter’s best friend, Alex, a doctor who is a womanizer, desires Claire and concocts an elaborate scheme to separate them. Playing on Peter’s longing for adventure, dating from his childhood in Ladakh, Alex shows him pamphlets about Australia and their Flying Doctors. This piques Peter’s interest, and his action sets up a collision course between the trio.

Part of Liz Harris’ Distant Places series, this novel continues the story of Peter, the missionary’s son from The Road Back. Claire’s and Peter’s interesting love story includes impressive details on the rigorous training of British nurses and doctors. Similarly, the workings of the Australian Flying Doctors are blended into the storyline, providing fascinating insight into the provision of medical care in rural Australian communities. The details of patients’ treatments and discourse between the medical personnel are sometimes described in some depth. The storyline includes numerous coincidences and turning points, but some of these actions feel uncharacteristic and require suspension of disbelief. This novel would work well as a beach read.

Waheed Rabbani

THE DEVIL’S BLAZE Robert J. Harris, Pegasus Crime, 2022, $26.00/ C$35.00, hb, 276pp, 9781639362486 / Polygon, 2022, £9.99, pb, 288pp, 9781846975974

Fans of Sherlock Holmes will welcome this latest addition to the great detective’s myth.

Robert J. Harris sets this novel at the dawn of World War II, with Hitler’s threats forcing the British to ramp up their intelligence endeavors.

Enter Sherlock and Dr. Watson, and unfortunately, the dastardly Professor Moriarty, whom the Whitehall politicians believe can prove useful in cracking enemy codes. (Mycroft is off on a job of his own.)

Moriarty has built a remarkable machine that can not only decipher codes and ciphers, but can also predict future behavior (potentially useful for bribery and blackmail activities— don’t you know?). Unlike the politicians, Sherlock is not persuaded of the professor’s altruistic patriotism. Thus begins one of the most dangerous matching of wits between these two great minds. The action keeps readers thoroughly engaged.

A subplot that involves various men dying by spontaneous combustion adds intrigue and horror. A female evangelist proclaims that these deaths are the devil’s doing. The person who figures out the cause behind these macabre deaths is none other than an attractive Scots woman scientist. Will Sherlock be tempted? One wonders… Another subplot reveals a murderous colonel who tests Holmes’ skills as a swordsman. And then, there’s the embittered scientist…

The Devil’s Blaze is taut and absorbing, particularly as the hero and anti-hero attempt to devise strategies to defeat each other.

Sherlockian humor also finds its way into the

story. Added to that, the novel is leavened with traditional inclusions of Sherlock’s Deerstalker hat, his Stradivarius playing, and his history of drug frailties.

Joanne F. Vickers

THE AIR RAID GIRLS AT CHRISTMAS Jenny Holmes, Corgi, 2021, £6.99, pb, 400pp, 9780552177078

Set as we move towards Christmas Eve of 1941, this book continues the story of Pamela, Connie, and Lizzie and, although I hadn’t read the first in series, it was no detriment to my enjoyment and easy to pick up the thread.

The United States is on the cusp of entering the war, and the Battle of the Atlantic is at its height, but this book is all about our heroines trying to survive in Kelthorpe, on the Yorkshire coast, through air raids, shortages, family upsets and intrigue.

There are wonderful touches of detail that immerse the reader in the era—grabbing sand from the many sand buckets dotted around to extinguish a flaring incendiary bomb was a particular favourite—but they never overwhelm the story. And the roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get -on-with-it attitude and overall determination to be cheerful among the main characters don’t shy away from the constant threat of death and injury that everyone lives with.

There is a particularly poignant plot line about what it was like to be a German Jew who had found refuge in Britain but was now the subject of suspicion by some fellow workers—but I’ll leave the reader to discover how that unfolds.

Overall Holmes beautifully captures the spirit and terror of the times; a most enjoyable read.

V. E. H. Masters

BY HER OWN DESIGN Piper Huguley, William Morrow, 2022, $16.99/ C$21.00/£10.99, pb, 400pp, 9780063059740

1953, New York City. In this novel’s first chapters, Ann Lowe faces the consequences of a broken pipe, a ruined wedding dress, and a lifetime of struggle as a Black designer in a majority-white fashion world. Commissioned to design and make the hand-sewn dress for Jacqueline Bouvier’s marriage to John F. Kennedy, Ann and her design team have to start from scratch to re-create the dress in six days.

The novel moves to 1907 Clayton, Alabama, where Ann learns about the seamstress trade from her mother and grandmother, a formerly enslaved person. Ann is gifted with the needle at an early age, creating eye-catching features on dresses, such as rosettes that provoke admiration from her mother’s customers, the governor, and the high-society white women who order the important gowns for cotillions and weddings. Ann elopes at twelve with an abusive older man who crushes her dreams of becoming a famous dress designer. Yet, in time she is hired as a seamstress for Mrs. Dempsey Cowan Lee of Tampa, a wealthy citrus magnate with two daughters. From that

point, Ann Lowe becomes one of the most famous designers of her era.

The novel’s voice, tone, and dialogue wrap the reader in the world of the Jim Crow South of 1907, and through the enfolding narrative, we experience Ann Lowe’s ups and downs as she leaves all she has known in Alabama and journeys to Tampa with only her fashion designs in her head. This story shows the importance of Ann’s courage and hopes as she encounters cruelty, discrimination, and poverty on the way to uncertain fame.

Through it all, Ann never loses her dream, and when she gains the respect and trust of Jacqueline Bouvier, she nearly loses it because of a broken pipe. An essential hidden history brought to life.

Gini Grossenbacher

THE HIDDEN PALACE Dinah Jefferies, HarperCollins, 2022, £8.99, pb, 528pp, 9780008427054 / HarperCollins, 2022, $26.99, hb, 528pp, 9780008544652

It is difficult to do justice to a novel such as this in a short review. The Hidden Palace is dual timeline and is the story of an aunt and niece, starting almost 20 years apart. Florence, the niece, we first meet on a train in 1944. She has left France, leaving behind her two sisters, and is now in Devon, England, for a short while; later she travels to the Cotswolds to stay with her mother, Claudette. Their relationship is strained, with secrets kept hidden from each other. Claudette asks Florence to help her find her sister, Rosalie, who she last saw many years before in Paris.

This is where the second character in the book enters, and we travel back in time to 1925 to begin Rosalie’s story. Modern themes are dealt with in a historical context in an honest, sympathetic way, which stays true to the prejudices and views of the time. Rosalie and Florence eventually meet, and they form a bond which transcends the generational gap.

I had not read the previous novel, Daughters of War, but did not feel I had missed anything as a result. This is definitely a stand-alone story looking into the fascinating characters of two women.

Dinah Jefferies is a master storyteller and great descriptive writer. Her descriptions of settings (particularly those she has personally visited) are tremendous and place the reader where she wants them to be. She is able to delve into the hearts and minds of the two protagonists, Florence and Rosalie, keeping the reader caring for them and wanting them to be OK, in spite of the traumas and difficulties they have faced. This is a wonderfully told story of familial love, and the family disputes that can test that love to its limit.

Aidan K. Morrissey

THE ORPHAN’S MOTHER Marion Kummerow, Bookouture, 2022, $9.99, pb, 290pp, 9781803143903

In the last winter of World War II, Emma and her two children (a German family) are trapped in Poland. The Russian army is

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advancing toward them, and rumors of the men’s savagery have traveled before them.

With Emma and daughter Sophie pulling a cart, son Jacob trudges alongside and soon falls ill. With Jacob close to death, Emma persuades a Polish hospital to take him in. The staff will not let her stay with him. Unfortunately, the Russians overtake the village, Emma cannot reach Jacob, and a nurse takes the child home to save his life. Then comes Emma’s choice: escape with her daughter and abandon her son or send her daughter off with family friends and try to find her son. She leaves, vowing to find and reunite with her son. The Iron Curtain closes behind her. The choice of actions then assails the nurse: report this German child to the Red Cross to be reunited with his family, or keep him and love him as the child she cannot biologically conceive.

This plot-driven tale describes the anguish of two mothers who love the same child, the loss and anger of the child who was chosen to stay with her mother, and the doubled anxiety of the child who was torn from his birth mother and then a second time from his adopted mother. It reminds us of how difficult it is to keep our children “safe,” however we choose to define that word.

Lorelei Brush

TERRA NOVA Henriette Lazaridis, Pegasus, 2022, $25.95/ C$34.95, hb, 304pp, 9781639362424

It is 1910, and Edward Heywoud and James Webb are attempting to reach the South Pole while Viola, who is wife to Edward and lover of James, remains in London. She is seeking a way to prove herself and be independent of masculine control and expectations. While the two men struggle through great hardship towards their goal and in the hope of beating the Norwegians, Viola embarks on an artistic project that will draw attention to the effects of assault, starvation, and forced feeding on the bodies of suffragettes imprisoned for their demands for equality. She fully intends to shock.

Skills with photography lie at the heart of this story, and images are not always what they appear to be. Although facing rejection by the very women she seeks to support in her exhibition, Viola finds a way of inserting herself into their cause but must deal with unwelcome consequences. A single photograph of the men’s moment of triumph at the Pole will come to plague their increasingly fractured relationship, and when they return home, how they will behave in public and relate to Viola.

Clearly this is a “what-if” or alternative history as it relates to real Antarctica exploration. It contains echoes of the personal lives of Robert Falcon Scott and his artistic wife, Kathleen. As a result, the characters can seem derivative and elusive. Viola is intriguing, a woman who seeks to live on her own terms yet benefits from being the wife of a hero.

The novel’s high points are the spectacular descriptions of endurance in the icy wastes 42

and how it makes the reader reflect on the differences between female and male heroism, the risks one might take in the pursuit of fame or love, and whether it is ever possible to live with dishonor and lies.

Marina Maxwell

THE PICTURE BRIDE Lee Geum-yi (trans. An Seonjae), Forge, 2022, $26.99/C$35.99, hb, 320pp, 9781250808660

Korea, 1917. Willow is offered the opportunity of going to live in Hawaii as a “picture bride.” Her family is poor, living in a remote village where she has no prospect of education so, with her friend Hongju and the rather strange Songhwa, she travels to Hawaii.

Her bridegroom, like many other Koreans and Asian immigrants, labors in the sugarcane fields. His family is poor and overworked, but while Hawaii is not the land of riches Willow had expected, she knows her life is better there, and she adjusts.

“Picture brides” are those whose photographs are sent via matchmakers to young male immigrants in North America unable to find wives of their own culture.

The potential bride receives a photo of her possible husband. If both agree, the bride is shipped to her new home. The risk of falsified photographs exists on both sides, with the consequent disappointment of bride or groom.

This happens to both Hongju and Songhwa, whose husbands are shockingly unlike their photographs.

Besides recounting the progress of these young women to a more prosperous, American style of life, the novel also documents the political strife in Korea and its influences on the lives and work of immigrants who follow closely Korean political wrangling and strife with Japan. This focus on the politics of the home country tends to take precedence over our understanding of Willow’s changing life and her emotional journey within her new country.

Further, the author tells the story in a somewhat detached, omniscient manner, which may be a style acceptable in Korea.

However, what the novel gains in historical accuracy and thoroughness it loses in depth of understanding of the protagonist’s experience.

Valerie Adolph

AN OCEAN APART Sarah Lee, Pan, 2022, £8.99, pb, 330pp, 9781529086812

In 1954, sisters Connie and Ruby Haynes sail from Barbados to England to join a nurse training programme to aid the fledging National Health Service (NHS). As they settle in at St Mary’s in Hertfordshire, they meet another nurse-in-training, Billie from Jamaica.

Each woman is eager and full of hope for the future but is also harbouring a secret. The book explores how these three women navigate new careers, life in a new country, and unforeseen difficulties. While Connie adapts quickly to the

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rigorous training schedule, she’s haunted by something she left behind in Barbados. Ruby struggles with the courses and expectations, her self-esteem starting to crumble because she’s being bullied by another nurse—who doesn’t hide her disdain for immigrants. Billie is made to curb her wild ways by the Matron, who threatens to send her home, the one place to which Billie can’t return. Will these women thrive or just survive?

This is a rendering of life for the Windrush generation that broadly touches important issues of the time. The main conflicts in the story were not always what I expected, which is one of the book’s strengths. The story moves at slow but even pace but is not quite a pageturner. The events, scenarios and storylines are realistic yet at times, the dialogue is artificial and stilted and slows the novel down. This novel is an homage to the NHS, which isn’t a bad thing, but the story suffers under the characters’ exalted belief in what they’ve undertaken, and their naivety comes across as somewhat inauthentic. Nevertheless, it’s an easy, enjoyable read that celebrates women working hard to succeed together.

Kelly Urgan

THE ORCHARD Beverly Lewis, Bethany House, 2022, $17.99, pb, 352pp, 9780764237539

Beverly Lewis continues to impress with thoughtful journeys and gentle romance in her latest novel, The Orchard. In this mid-20th century tale, the reader follows the lives of Amish twins, Ellie and Evan, as well as their father, Lyle. Together the family owns and operates an apple orchard while devoutly following God. All seems simple in their picturesque lives in the orchard until it is revealed that Evan registered for the draft, and not as a Conscientious Objector. Now the family faces new challenges personally, and new judgment among the tight-knit Amish community of Bird in Hand. Evan’s preparations to head off to war excellently couple with Ellie’s preparations to join the church officially through baptism. This foil is an excellent driver for the storyline as the reader completes chapter after chapter.

The novel quickly becomes a swarm of differing directions and gentle drama which are beautifully woven together, pulling the reader delightfully between Amish politics, the civil unrest of the 1960s, and the slow romance unfolding for Ellie back home. The stakes only get higher with the looming knowledge of attacks on young Amish men for their religious objection to the draft.

This novel is a lovely glimpse into Amish culture, and it’s even more interesting to see it paired with the tumultuous Vietnam era. A reader may even long for a sequel, detailing the next chapters after the conclusion of these pages. Overall, this story centered around an apple orchard is a recommended pick for any reader looking for another of Lewis’s best.

Alice Cochran

FUNERAL TRAIN Laurie Loewenstein, Akashic, 2022, $18.95, pb, 320pp, 9781636140520

The Great Depression, the Dust Bowl and, now, a train derailment batter the small town of Vermillion, Oklahoma in 1935. Sheriff Temple Jennings is the sleuth here, a middleaged fellow in love with his wife, Etha, who is injured in the wreck. Many of the dead are Black passengers in a segregated rail car. But that’s not the end of the drama and trauma at the tracks. A local woman who lives nearby is strangled, and Temple must find out who killed her and whether her death is connected to the derailment.

While the mystery pulls the reader along with steady interest, the book really shines with the picture it paints of small-town, Depression-era America. The past is brought to vivid, fascinating life with Loewenstein’s skillful descriptions. The lonely call of the train echoes in the air, interrupted by accented conversation, the whistles of dust-choked winds, and the click and sway of vehicles along the tracks. It’s easy to slip into the past with these carefully chosen descriptions, as well as with the characteristics of the people who inhabit the area: the housewives and railroad workers, the maids and company bigwigs.

You’ll enjoy this tale of foul murder, marital faithfulness, and hard-won justice, set in a time and place drenched with authenticity.

Xina Marie Uhl

GILDED MOUNTAIN Kate Manning, Scribner, 2022, $28.00, hb, 464pp, 9781982160944

In Gilded Mountain, Manning tackles a variety of societal ills, including the plight of laborers in the Western mines, the racist aftermath of the Civil War, and the limited choices for women—all from the point of view of a thoroughly engaging character: the smart, painfully shy, and dirt-poor Sylvie Pelletier.

In 1907, Sylvie, whose father works in a marble quarry, leaves her family to make her way in the world. Because of her fluency in French, the quarry owner’s wife hires her as a secretary. Just when you think this is going to be a “poor girl makes good” story, Sylvie rejects the easy path. Instead, she joins forces with a tough-talking newspaper publisher who refuses to let gender hold her back from speaking truth to power. All the while, two suitors vie for Sylvie’s affections: the son of her wealthy employers and a hardscrabble union man. One will give her money; the other offers a life of love and hardship.

The story of the battles between labor and the wealthy industrialists during the early 20th century is one we don’t hear enough. The inclusion of the rabble-rousing Mother Jones in the plotline is a bonus. Manning writes, “You could put her in a teacup, the woman was that small. A gust would take her, sail her up into the cumulus. Her hair was a white fluff of milkweed silk.”

I adored this book for three reasons:

the exquisite language, the organic twists and turns of the plot, and the riveting, brutal history of union organizing in the early 20th century.

The latter part of the book romps rather quickly through the years, but by that time the narrator has thoroughly seduced us with such fresh and vivid observations that we willingly follow her to the surprising conclusion.

Trish MacEnulty

MURDER AT BEACON ROCK Alyssa Maxwell, Kensington, 2022, $26.00/ C$35.00, hb, 272pp, 9781496736178

Emma Cross stars as the protagonist of Murder at Beacon Rock, set in 1900 Newport, Rhode Island. She works as a journalist for the Newport Messenger, owned by her fiancé.

Emma visits the Newport estate of Edwin and Elizabeth Morgan when they host a group of wealthy Americans who have formed a syndicate to back the yacht Columbia in competition for the World Cup. Soon Emma discovers the body of 18-year-old Lillian Fahey, but she doubts Lillian has drowned herself as the locals suggest. As Emma works with her fiancé and a policeman to hunt for the murderer, more bodies appear.

An accomplished writer, Alyssa Maxwell focuses effectively on the sounds and atmosphere of Newport rather than events going on in the larger world during the Gilded Age. She develops an intriguing cast of characters, all possible villains. The plot occasionally pushes the limits of credulity, but Emma’s instincts are so fine that readers will go along with her discoveries. Maxwell excels at folding this novel into her Gilded Newport Mystery series, incorporating only what readers need from the nine previous books. The novel works as a stand-alone while tempting readers to engage with the entire series.

Marlie Wasserman

THE CHOCOLATE TIN Fiona McIntosh, Trafalgar Square/Penguin Australia, 2022, $19.99/C$26.99, pb, 432pp, 9781761042454

McIntosh hits readers right in the sweet tooth with this delicious offering set in York during World War One. In 1915, Alexandra “Alex” Frobisher chafes against her parents’ pressure to marry. An only child, Alex is expected to produce male heirs to secure her family’s estate. But Alex would rather volunteer in the local chocolate

factory to support the war effort and learn to run a business so she can someday start a confectionery of her own. When Matthew Britten-Jones arrives in York eager to take a wife, he offers what she thinks could be the best of both worlds: A man who will allow her to follow her dream and who she might grow to love.

By the war’s end, Alex has learned a great deal from her time at the Rowntree chocolate factory and is ready to strike out on her own when Captain Harry Blakeney arrives, asking about a mysterious note he found in a Rowntree chocolate tin on the body of a dead soldier. In Harry, Alex, now married to Matthew for two years, finds the love she’d been hoping for and realizes how empty her marriage is. The attraction is mutual, but in trying to hide their relationship, Alex and Harry uncover an even bigger secret about Matthew. The three must work together to protect one another and unravel the mystery of the note in the chocolate tin.

Bookending World War I and set (mostly) away from the frontlines, this novel is a breath of fresh air. McIntosh brilliantly illuminates the unsung efforts of York’s chocolatiers during the war while also examining the societal constraints placed on both women and men of the time period. Readers will root for Alex, Harry, and Matthew and hope they all find the love they’re looking for. Highly recommended.

Sarah Hendess

MURDER AT THE MAJESTIC HOTEL Clara McKenna, Kensington, 2022, $26.00/ C$35.00, hb, 298pp, 9781496738189

The Stella and Lyndy mystery series from Clara McKenna portrays Edwardian England at its most charming. As an American business heiress marrying a peer of the realm, Stella has married Lyndy, a viscount, and become Lady Lyndhurst just before this fourth in the series.

She and Lyndy expect time with just each other on their honeymoon at the Majestic Hotel, the finest lodging in York, England. Alas, when they arrive, a corruptible hotel staffer has already given away their reserved honeymoon suite. By morning, that seems like potentially a good thing, since the occupant of the suite, a chocolate and candy magnate, is dead of gas poisoning, and the amateur sleuths are soon convinced this death was murder. Would they have been victims if they’d had the suite?

Investigating the parties involved—whether family members inheriting, or confectionery competitors—takes the romancing couple into the countryside; then with little time to prepare, they receive an invitation to an event featuring the royals of the time. Stella would rather finally have some time with her hunky husband—but he explains, “Sorry, love, but one does not question or say no to Her Royal Highness.”

Viewing royalty and the peerage through Stella’s intelligent but amazed eyes allows McKenna to present scenes and action with wonder and delight. When danger does

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come close, the burgeoning love and reliable friendship that Stella and Lyndy nurture offer a level of assurance that makes this mystery particularly good for sharing with young adults or those whose life traumas might otherwise make mystery reading too uncomfortable.

McKenna also deftly sketches in changes in women’s roles of the time, and provides a clever set of twists with a highly satisfying conclusion.

Beth Kanell

ANYWHERE YOU RUN Wanda M. Morris, William Morrow, 2022, $17.99, pb, 400pp, 9780063082502

Whether you’re seeking a cracking thriller, an empowering portrait of sisterhood, or a story steeped in the Black experience in the 1960s Deep South, Morris’s second novel delivers.

Violet and Marigold Richards, women in their twenties, both need to flee their hometown of Jackson, Mississippi, for different reasons.

After shooting the white man who assaulted her, Violet knows justice won’t take her side, so she grabs her late mother’s carpetbag, a .38 pistol, and her white boyfriend’s wallet and escapes by bus, landing in the small town of Chillicothe, Georgia, where her cousin lives.

Forced to defer her law school dreams after an unwanted pregnancy, Marigold, who works with the Mississippi Summer Project to register Black voters, feels she has no choice but to marry her longtime admirer and move with him to Cleveland, where African Americans are supposedly treated better. She comes to regret it. Plus, there’s someone on their trail: a man with escalating determination who pursues one sister to track down the other and reclaim an item belonging to the person who hired him. He isn’t a cardboard villain—he’s lured by money to help his wife and ill son—and this multidimensional view heightens tension.

Like all skilled historical novelists, Morris creates an immediately graspable period atmosphere while illustrating its impact on her characters. Despite the Civil Rights Act’s recent passage, Violet (who calls herself Vera to hide her identity) sees for herself how little has changed. Chillicothe does have its problems, but Violet finds a home there. While telling a galvanizing story with present-day relevance, Morris slows the pace down when needed to explore the sisters’ quest to flee their pasts— and the men who don’t deserve them—and claim their rightful place in the world.

Sarah Johnson

‘TIL ALL THESE THINGS BE DONE Suzanne Moyers, She Writes, 2022, $17.95, pb, 392pp, 9781647422356

On a hot Texas day in 1918, everything changes for Leola Rideout when her father is in a tragic accident. Disabled, he’s unable to find a steady job, pulling their family further into poverty and pushing the 15-year-old Leola out to work. Even her romance with a young Italian-American horticulturist feels threatened when the rising Ku Klux Klan fuels 44

racist and anti-American sentiments in the Rideout’s small town. When her father suddenly vanishes without a word, Leola is left to hold her family together, amid the worry over his disappearance, the emergence of long-buried family scandals, and a devastating second wave of the influenza epidemic. Almost 70 years later, Leola is still haunted by her father’s disappearance and its shattering repercussions that forever changed their family. She reaches through dementia-fogged memories of that summer, struggling to understand what had happened all those years ago.

Suzanne Moyers knows her history well and packs her novel with the kinds of details and language to draw the reader fully into late1910s East Texas. This coming-of-age novel is laced with somber history as its characters grapple with poverty, bigotry, loss, and sexual exploitation. But this does not make Leola’s story melancholy. She is a character determined enough to find goodness and happiness within all of that, making hers an engaging story and one that has the reader rooting for her.

Leola finds strength over the course of the novel, as she grows from an uncertain girl, just comprehending the injustice around her, to a brave woman, confronting violent injustice even if it means sacrificing something she’d dearly hoped for. An engrossing novel.

Jessica Brockmole

MISS DEL RIO Bárbara Mujica, Graydon House, 2022, $17.99, pb, 400pp, 9781525899935

Stories of two different but equally engaging women intertwine in Mujica’s superb historical novel portraying the life of film star Dolores del Río and her fictional childhood companion, Mara. As the tale opens in Mexico in 1910, young, impoverished Mara escapes the Mexican Revolution and finds refuge in Los Angeles. The wealthier del Río also escapes violence in Mexico and eventually gets to Hollywood. Years later, the women meet again. Del Río, unhappily married and childless, begins to act in silent movies. Her career thrives, either despite or because of her supposedly exotic looks. She divorces her husband and attracts a series of other men, including Orson Welles. We learn about del Río’s struggles from stories relayed

by Mara, who has become a hairdresser for the glamorous del Río. Mara marries and raises four daughters, while leading an unpretentious life. Mara’s curiosity about her parentage forms the underlying mystery.

Mujica sets her novel against the backdrop of events: world wars, the Great Depression, the switch from silent movies to talkies, a polio epidemic, fear of Communism, discrimination against immigrants and gay people, the development of Mexican cinema. Stars such as Greta Garbo and Charlie Chaplin, along with intriguing details about their lives, march across the pages. To frame the story, Mujica expertly conveys the friendship between the two protagonists, paying attention to their individual experiences and their complex

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relationship as they come together at critical points. Readers will appreciate M u j i c a ’ s descriptions, and in particular her imagined dialog about del Río’s Bird of Paradise dance sequence and will be tempted to check it out online. With the single exception of Mujica’s short sex scene between del Río and Welles, Mujica writes with extraordinary talent.

Marlie Wasserman

AS LITTLE AS NOTHING Pamela Mulloy, ECW Press, 2022, $17.95/ C$22.95, pb, 280pp, 9781770416369

It’s 1938 in Hampshire, England, and residents are trapped in their dread of an impending war with Germany and their memories of the Great War they already survived. More immediately, they are also dealing with personal crises. Marion, a young wife, has survived another miscarriage and wonders what her future holds. Her husband, Edmund, the local grocer and postmaster, just wants to work in his garden and make Marion happy.

Audrey, a woman born into the landed gentry, defies her class restrictions to campaign and lecture for women’s rights to their bodies, including their rights to birth control and abortion. Her nephew, Frank, born with a club foot, dreams of achieving some glory by building and flying planes. Marion and Frank meet when they rescue a downed biplane pilot.

The event ignites her desire to fly airplanes, for which she discovers she has a talent. Frank spurs her on. Edmund tries to cope with a different wife. Audrey struggles to put aside her fierce feminist crusade as patriotic duty to England becomes the most important reality.

The characters in this novel are well drawn and complex in their motivations, dreams, regrets about their pasts, and fears for their futures. Mulloy’s writing is tight; readers are immediately drawn into these people’s lives.

The backdrop of England at the dawn of a new war is vivid and compelling.

Joanne F. Vickers

ORPEN AT WAR Patricia O’Reilly, The Liffey Press, 2022, £19.95, pb, 289pp, 9781739789237

The author describes her work as “soft fiction based on hard fact,” a blurring of genres enhanced by the copious illustrations throughout in this novel-as-art-book.

It tells the story of the Irish artist William Orpen (1878-1931), by the outbreak of World War I a highly successful portrait painter, who chose to be a war artist when he could have gone back to Ireland where there was no

conscription; the privations experienced in the trenches undermined his already not very robust health.

Whilst Orpen’s reputation faded after his death, his stock has risen since; the near £2 million paid for the portrait Gardenia St George with a Riding Crop in 2001 makes it the most expensive Irish painting ever sold at auction. He was an exceptional draughtsman and stylistically versatile: his depictions of society figures are comparable to Sargent’s “swagger” portraits, his interiors sometimes echo Manet’s, and a portrait of his wife Grace at Howth recalls the work of his teacher Philip Wilson Steer.

Pleasingly, in O’Reilly’s meticulously researched book just about every painting that is referenced in the text is illustrated nearby. Most moving are his studies of individual soldiers, each one rendered as a unique human being, a humanisation of those endless published lists of the fallen.

These soldiers tell Orpen their stories—or choose not to—and he is anguished at the subsequent deaths of a number of his sitters.

Chronological order is eschewed in favour of thematic flashback, interweaving Orpen’s wartime experiences with his relationships with three women in particular: his wife Grace, his long-term mistress, the handsome and imperious Evelyn St George and his French lover Yvonne Aupicq, ultimately passed on by Orpen to his own chauffeur.

O’Reilly has written a compassionate and closely-observed portrait of a talented artist and a flawed human being, that succeeds both as a novel and as a work of art history.

Katherine Mezzacappa

NIGHTS OF PLAGUE Orhan Pamuk (trans.

Ekin Oklap), Faber & Faber, 2022, £20.00, hb, 681pp, 9780571352920 / Knopf, 2022, $34.00, hb, 704pp, 9780525656890

It is 1901, and Pakize, princess of the Ottoman Empire, sails away from Istanbul.

She has lived her life in gilded confinement, effectively imprisoned with her father, the deposed sultan. Now her uncle, the current sultan, has arranged a marriage and sent her abroad with her husband, Dr Nuri Bey. Their ship, however, is diverted to the island of Mingheria, where an outbreak of plague is denied. However, the sultan has sent Dr Nuri, a specialist in managing outbreaks of infectious diseases.

So opens a long, detailed, and richly imagined story that examines political power.

The fictional island, near Crete in the eastern Mediterranean, has been governed in the past

by Byzantines, Venetians, Greeks, and now the Ottoman Empire. When plague strikes, the political and social rifts arising from this history are cracked open. Lowly persons seize unexpected chances, while wily politicians exploit opportunities to gain power. In this febrile atmosphere, a large cast of characters are involved in the island’s descent into chaos.

The author handles them well, with vivid

introductions and useful reminders of who is who as the story unfolds.

The filmic setting, of verdant island with a fairy-tale castle, is beautifully realised, through the persona of a narrator in love with the island. This authorial voice, a historian, writes sometimes portentously, very much in the manner of ‘little did he know what would happen to him next’. However, I found the book surprisingly gripping. I think this was due both to authorial skill, and to my constant wondering: how could the author (who claimed to be writing in 2017) know about the coming pandemic? Recommended for those interested in political thrillers – and those who would enjoy an armchair trip to the eastern Mediterranean.

Helen Johnson

THE CIRCUS TRAIN Amita Parikh, Putnam, 2022, $17.00/C$24.99, pb, 408pp, 9781443464994 / Sphere, 2023, £16.99, hb, 416pp, 9780349994130

The World of Wonders circus and the train that carries it through Europe is the only world Lena has known. Raised by her illusionist father, Lena has spent her childhood constrained both by the wheelchair she uses, since polio took her ability to walk, and her father’s overly protective nature.

Never able to find a way to fit in with the other performers, Lena retreats into her books and her governess’s company, dreaming of going to a normal school and working in medicine.

When she discovers Alexandre, an orphan boy who manages to gain her trust, her world opens in ways she could never have imagined.

Alexandre is apprenticed to her father and in turn, he and Lena develop a friendship that blossoms into something more as they grow.

That is, until the secrets of everyone around her start to unravel the carefully constructed World of Wonders alongside the mounting chaos of WWII. Despite the challenges she faces, once Lena is set free of her confines, her world expands in ways she never thought possible.

This novel is full of secrets, heartbreaking choices, and human longing. The passionate human relationships will stay with you for a long time. The writing is rich and layered where the characters’ emotional landscape mirrors the illusions and glittery façade of the circus world they create. Highly recommended.

Shauna McIntyre

LOST SOULS OF LENINGRAD Suzanne Parry, She Writes, 2022, $17.95/£13.99, pb, 330pp, 9781647422677

Set in 1941 Leningrad, this tension-filled, well-crafted WWII historical novel tells the harrowing story of Sofya Karavayeva, a widowed violinist, and Yelena, her spirited, young granddaughter, as they struggle to survive the horrors of Hitler’s invasion and Stalin’s tyranny.

As bold and haunting as Shostakovich’s

Seventh Symphony, the valiant plight of these two indomitable women dramatically unfolds as once-beautiful Leningrad is reduced to rubble within a 22-month siege. Confronting constant bombardment, near-starvation, and political oppression, alone and adrift, they bravely face untold perils, turning to each other for support and comfort. Throughout this well-paced plot, intrigue and tender romance are deftly interwoven. Sofya reunites with Vasili Antonov, a former paramour, now a top-ranking admiral in Stalin’s navy, and young Yelena falls in love with Pavel Chernov, a dedicated Red Army soldier. Yet, Sofya hides a secret that, if revealed, will shock Vasili, her granddaughter, and her family.

Through masterfully created characters and vivid dialogue, this powerful, inspiring saga brings to the forefront the overwhelming challenges of the daily life of those “lost in Leningrad” during one of the most treacherous periods in Russian history. With dauntless courage, resilience, and enduring love, grandmother and granddaughter forge an unbreakable bond, overcoming the shattering losses of family, friends, and community.

Particularly poignant are the sequences of the inhumane treatment of children and civilians.

Lost Souls of Leningrad is a thoughtprovoking, disturbing, and compassionate portrayal of war’s impact and how the lives of ordinary people are forever changed. However tragic the events, the gripping ending provides hope for the future and new beginnings. A memorable, worthwhile read!

Marcy McNally

THE MANHATTAN GIRLS Gill Paul, Avon, 2022, £8.99, pb, 378pp, 9780008530945 / William Morrow, 2022, $16.99, pb, 416pp, 9780063161757

In 1920s New York, Prohibition is in force, and four women—renowned wit, Dorothy Parker; beautiful and gifted actress, Winifred Lenihan; journalist, Jane Grant; and novelist, Peggy Leech—become friends and start a bridge club. The historical setting is lushly drawn—the Algonquin, known as The Gonk; the lavish Astor Hotel; the women’s flapper outfits; illegal hipflasks and highballs; speakeasies; and dancing to Duke Ellington’s band. The novel is a-slosh with alcohol. Jane Grant has a gin still in her bathtub, interviews bootleggers and is arrested by Prohibition agents midway through the novel.

Dorothy Parker is shown as a fragile personality concealing grief and insecurity behind humour. She has lost her job at Vanity Fair. Her husband returns from ambulance service in World War I on the road to alcoholism and leaves her, and she has an affair with a notorious womaniser that ends in abortion. ‘I put all my eggs in one bastard,’ she remarks.

‘When I fall in love, I turn into the village idiot.’

She makes two suicide attempts and is cared for by the other three women. ‘Your life lurches from drama to crisis,’ Jane tells her, but Dottie

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keeps up a brittle lifestyle. ‘Growing old is inevitable but growing up is optional.’

Winifred Lenihan has to navigate the threats of sexually predatory directors and lustful gangsters. During the course of the novel, Jane and her husband set up The New Yorker magazine. Peggy is looking for a publisher and a husband. Other characters in their set include the poisonously divisive drama critic Alec Woollcott and the painter Neysa McMein.

This world of literati and budding feminism is vividly drawn by Gill Paul. The overarching theme of the novel is female friendship as the group aid each other through their tribulations.

The novel draws us inexorably into the women’s compelling stories.

Tracey Warr

A TRUTH TO LIE FOR Anne Perry, Ballantine, 2022, $24.99, hb, 288pp, 9780593359075 / Headline, 2022, £8.99, pb, 336pp, 9781472275318

It is 1934, and Britain’s MI6 recognizes that something unfathomable is evolving in Germany as they witness the rise of Adolf Hitler. In this fourth Elena Standish novel, the head of MI6 elects to send Elena, the granddaughter of the former head of the agency during WWI, into the jaws of the beast.

Her assignment is to bring out of Germany one of two eminent scientists working on germ warfare—or to kill him so that Hitler can’t use him against the Brits and their allies. Clearly MI6 is anticipating how devastating germ warfare could be in Hitler’s hands. Elena, now Ellen, knows Berlin well, speaks the language as a native and has maintained her contacts from an earlier assignment. Can she use her talents and savvy to save Professor Hartwig and protect the world?

Not having read the first three Elena novels, I only experienced here a mature character who lives by her wits and builds on her previous experiences—regrettable, but I’m now incentivized to read the first three books.

What I see in Elena is classic Perry: attention to character development and plot, a fine-tuned sense of place and time, and well-crafted secondary characters, Hans in particular. His interactions with the clearly unhinged Hitler are palpably frightening. Well worth the read even as a stand-alone.

Ilysa Magnus

THE SEAMSTRESS OF SARDINIA Bianca Pitzorno (trans. Brigid Maher), Harper Perennial, 2022, $17.00, pb, 304pp, 9780063271692 / Text, 2023, £10.99, pb, 289pp, 9781922330536

In early 20th century Sardinia, a quiet seamstress becomes implicated in the dramatic lives of her clients and finds her own life changed.

After losing their family to a cholera epidemic, the little seamstress or sartina (never named) grows up in the town of L— learning the trade from her grandmother, who goes 46

into the homes of the middle class to sew their clothes and linens. At first the sartina is merely a spectator, observing the love affair of Ester, la marchesina, the independent ways of La Miss, the American reporter, and the secret hidden by the proud wife and daughters of the lawyer Provera. She gains a sewing machine; she takes a vacation to the coast with the daughter of a family friend. Each chapter seems a saga of its own until the episodes turn out to be deeply interwoven, creating a pattern in which symmetry, beauty, and bitterness reveal themselves turn by turn.

While the sense of place isn’t strong, the cultural setting is fully imagined, from details of homes and fabrics to the rigid class system; lower classes live in bassi, the basements of buildings, and our sartina can only afford opera seats “in the gods” (i.e., the nosebleed section). When patrons gift her clothes, she’s careful to remove trim and decorations, knowing a sartina can’t dress like a signorina.

The class differences are precisely why the sartina is alarmed by the attentions of Guido, a genial student whose birth turns out to be far higher than she supposed, and whose pursuit first unnerves, then enchants her.

The story flows sleekly but stirs unquiet depths, and Brigid Maher’s beautiful translation captures the musical cadence of the Italian, the prose clear, tranquil, and seamless. This is a truly immersive read to be savored from beginning to end.

Misty Urban

THE HOUSE ON PEACE STREET Virginia Rafferty, Milford House, 2022, $19.95, pb, 247pp, 9781620067765

The House on Peace Street is the saga of the four Rebarchack children who lose their father to a mine accident in 1904, when 13-year-old Robert is vaulted to head of the family. He and brother Rudi work in the mine, until they enlist when America enters the war. Sisters Ceci and Ilona work at the mill until Ceci marries a mine worker in 1911 and Ilona joins the suffrage movement and becomes a volunteer nurse. The novel takes readers through the war years into the 1920s, documenting events partly through letters from Robert to his wife, Anna, and partly through events for sister Ceci, who lives on Peace Street, where she and her husband raise their three children until his tragic death in 1918. Ilona apprises Ceci of events in her world where women are working hard to get the vote, but they hear little from Rudi, who goes AWOL and ends up serving a five-year sentence before returning to the fold.

Despite being scattered by world events, the siblings remain close, returning to a world which has undergone tumultuous change; war, plague and social upheaval have altered life for everyone and no one is untouched by loss.

Working through her own tragedies, Ceci and the Peace Street house remain the focal point around which her siblings and their families revolve. The novel is based on the author’s family history and moves chronologically

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using short passages, often switching from one family member to another so fast that the author’s love for her subject doesn’t always translate into an immersive reader/character connection. I sometimes wished to dwell longer. This is a well-written, tender family history which illuminates a second-generation East-European experience of life in America.

Fiona Alison

STEEL GIRLS ON THE HOME FRONT Michelle Rawlins, HQ, 2022, £7.99, pb, 356pp, 9780008427351

It is 1940, and a group of women have bonded over their work for the Vickers steel factory in Sheffield. Their men are away at war, their work is vitally important, and their spare time is taken up with worrying about their families, eking out the rations, and knitting for the troops. But they still find time for camaraderie and the occasional trip to the pub or the pictures.

Two stories take centre stage: Patty’s concern for her boyfriend, whose heart condition keeps him away from the front but not always away from danger, and Nancy, who works long hours, wants to spend more time with her children, and wonders when she will see her husband again. This novel is the story of how the women support one another through their daily lives and troubles.

There is some historical interest in the progress of the “phoney war”, the lives of the steelworkers, and the genuine hardships endured by those on the home front.

Unfortunately, the book feels more like a segment of a soap opera (it is the third in a series) than a standalone novel with a coherent narrative arc. There is a large cast of characters and frequent references to incidents in the earlier books; as a result I found it difficult to become interested in any individual storyline.

I also found the style slightly irksome, with dialect speech and characters “trilling”, “chuckling” and “reiterating” rather than just speaking. And there is the occasional linguistic anachronism (for instance, no one outside academia used the word “proactive” in the 1940s). However, those who enjoyed the earlier books in the series will no doubt look forward to finding out what happened next.

Karen Warren

MOTH Melody Razak, Harper, 2022, $26.99, hb, 368pp, 9780063140066 / Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2022, £9.99, pb, 352pp, 9781474619257

India in 1947 is a land torn by violence: violence caused by the pen-stroke that turned India of the British Raj into two new countries, India and Pakistan. India is Hindu, Pakistan is Muslim, and the transition is anything but peaceful. Partition was one of the greatest upheavals in history, with millions of people moving across the new borders. Many of them never arrived in their new home; trains full of dead bodies arrived instead. Women were at

particular risk, many being kidnapped and taken into a strange country to live new lives with strangers.

Alma is fourteen and looking forward to her marriage. But her grandmother thinks her far too young for marriage and demands Alma come to stay with her. What should have been a quick train trip devolves into disaster.

And Alma’s life is forever changed.

Moth is a fine novel, beautifully written, but its very strengths made it hard for me to like.

The tone grows darker and darker through the course of the novel, and the book doesn’t flinch away from the strong emotions engendered by Partition. The sudden suspicion of long-known neighbors, the tensions between groups that had lived side by side for generations, and the sheer fear that lay over everything produces a vivid—almost too-vivid—novel. I recommend Moth, but it’s important to know that it covers very intense themes.

India Edghill

SINISTER GRAVES Marcie R. Rendon, Soho, 2022, $27.95, hb, 240pp, 9781641293839

When the winter snows of Northern Minnesota melt, the Red River Valley becomes a giant moving lake. One April in the 1970s, the river flood carries the body of a young Native American woman far from her likely home. County Sheriff Wheaton asks Renee (Cash) Blackbear to look at the corpse.

Cash, a 19-year-old Ojibwe woman, has been Wheaton’s ward for years after he saved her from yet one more foster home. Through dreams, visions, or feelings, she has helped Wheaton on other cases.

Pages of a hymn written in both English and Ojibwe sit tucked in the dead woman’s bra.

They send chills through Cash and suggest the woman might have lived on a reservation over in North Dakota. Cash starts snooping and searching. Soon she follows a risky trail to a second dead Native American woman, a missing baby, and a fundamentalist church whose minister and wife may know more.

As a murder mystery, this novel has no unusual plot twists. Rendon gives readers early clues to what happened and why. The engaging main character, Cash, makes this story resonate. After surviving a rough childhood, she has become both needy and strong. She taught herself to become a pool hustler, which keeps her in enough money to get by. She chain-smokes, can drink most others under the table, and loves, perhaps too easily. She’s also a reader and excellent student (though she often skips class) and has a way of connecting with most strangers. The secondary characters hold the reader’s interest, too. Towns in the wide prairie, small businesses and pool halls, and muddy rutted roads provide a realistic setting. Recommended for readers wanting a character-driven murder mystery.

G. J. Berger

A SLENDER THREAD John Rhodes, Roundel House, 2022, $16.99, pb, 303pp, 9781735373621

The Battle of Britain went on for a few short months, but the siege of Malta lasted for two long, hungry years. As told through the eyes of Eleanor, a senior officer and mathematician, and her husband Johnnie, a pilot, we are given a terrifying insight into the odds stacked against this critically strategic island. The issues of keeping the population (whose calorie count is reduced to 1500 a day) fed and the struggle for the convoys to get through the Med are well explored, and the reader is left in awe of the bravery of all concerned. We’re also given an insight into where the attacks on the convoys and the island are coming from— Italy, when it was dominating the area and before the Nazis took charge. Rhodes writes with great empathy for all those trapped in a war over which they had no control.

The third in Rhodes’s WW2 series, A Slender Thread can easily be read as a standalone although the other two books are also fascinating. The main focus in all three is on ‘the few,’ that is, the RAF. Rhodes’s research is a deep dive yet never overwhelming. His characters are well drawn so we’re rooting for them to survive in this most perilous of places and times. All in all, an excellent, absorbing and most enjoyable read.

V. E. H. Masters

THE GIRLS IN NAVY BLUE Alix Rickloff, William Morrow, 2022, $17.99/£10.99, pb, 416pp, 9780063227491

One of the pitfalls of the dual-timeline novel is that one story often overshadows the other. Happily, that is not the case for The Girls in Navy Blue. Rickloff has managed to create two compelling timelines, one in the spring of 1918 and one in 1968.

The later plotline begins when Peggy Whitby, after a devastating loss, flees her broken marriage and big city life to a beach cottage outside Norfolk, Virginia, near one of the country’s largest naval bases. She’s inherited the cottage from an estranged aunt and intends to sell it even though it’s in serious disrepair. While a handsome handyman works on the house, Peggy receives mysterious postcards dated from 1918 and soon discovers the cottage holds secrets to her own past. A cantankerous neighbor also knows more than he’s willing to tell about three young “yeomanettes” in the U.S. Navy who shared the cottage in World War I. One of these is Peggy’s aunt, Blanche, a brash suffragist determined to look up to no man. She lives with Marjory, whose German last name makes her the object of derision among the rank and file, and Viv, who is on the run from an abusive homelife. When Viv’s past reappears with a literal vengeance, the young women’s lives are forever changed.

This is an immersive read, and the writing is often gorgeous, such as when Rickloff describes how August slides in “like molten gold, slow and hot and cloudless.” Although

somewhat long-winded, this story with its mystery, romance and history of the navy’s first enlisted women as well as the vivid descriptions of abuse suffered by German Americans will enthrall many readers.

Trish MacEnulty

THE GIRL FROM GUERNICA Karen Robards, MIRA, 2022, $27.99, hb, 463pp, 9780778309963

Sixteen-year-old Sibi Helinger watches in horror as White Nationalist airplanes drop low in the sky and release bombs. Soon, smaller Junker Ju52 planes scream overhead as they strafe low-lying structures and anyone in front of them with machine gun fire. It is April 26, 1937, and Sibi is in Guernica.

The Girl from Guernica gives readers an eyewitness view of the White Nationalists’ attack on the small Basque town that was later memorialized by Pablo Picasso, and the girl’s realization of the links between Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s forces and the Wehrmacht of the Third Reich.

This is the 50th book written by bestselling author Robards, who specializes in thrillers.

Robards etches the story across a wide landscape—from the winding streets of the small Spanish town during the attack and immediately afterward to the Reich Chancellery in Berlin and a meeting with Nazi Party leaders. At the same time, it confines perspectives to the experiences of a single character—the title girl. The result are situations that strain credulity: a chance encounter with a London Times reporter on the ground in Guernica, Sibi’s knowledge of German aircraft, the subsequent need to retract her story about the presence of German planes in Guernica in keeping with Nazi propaganda.

As a thriller, the novel doesn’t disappoint.

The pace is pulse-pounding, action is often unrelenting, Sibi moves quickly from direct threats to political intrigues. But then again, as a thriller, action is a prime mover. Readers are kept breathless with little chance to pause and contemplate the heinousness of the attack and the timidity of world leaders who largely ignored it.

K. M. Sandrick

WHEN FRANNY STANDS UP Eden Robins, Sourcebooks Landmark, 2022, $16.99, pb, 400pp, 9781728256009

1951. Franny’s world is filled with conflict.

Her brother suffers from PTSD after returning from WWII. Their neighbors are hostile to the ‘colored’ family that recently moved in. Plus, her family is Jewish in a Catholic neighborhood. When Franny upsets the gangster owner of a nightclub, she finds herself up on stage trying to create a Showstopper.

The Showstopper is a comedian’s special magic that affects audience members when they laugh. However, it only works on women.

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Since each Showstopper is different, perhaps Franny can create one to help fix things, a magic that reaches beyond what’s been done before. If she’s going to create it, though, she has to dig deep into her own past trauma and expose some of her darkest secrets. She’ll need to turn her pain into laughter.

This magical realism story offers a glimpse of women’s roles in post-WWII American culture.

Once a woman’s game seven years ago (when the book opens), comedy was taken over by men and is too unladylike for Franny and her friends. The author highlights many issues that America faced at this time surrounding race, class, and sexuality. Each character has a past they’re dealing with or a future they’re trying to be brave for, which endears them to readers.

Franny, herself, is socially awkward and often puts her foot in her mouth. When Franny Stands Up is a story not just about standing up on a stage, it’s also standing up for what’s right and standing up for yourself. Franny’s journey is sometimes painful but, overall, heartfelt and compelling.

J. Lynn Else

BEFORE ALL THE WORLD Moriel Rothman-Zecher, Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2022, $27.00, hb, 323pp, 9780374231668

Leyb, a nineteen-year-old man, is one of two Jewish survivors of a Ukrainian village after a pogrom. He finds refuge in 1930s Philadelphia, where he encounters Charles, a Black man, in a gay speakeasy. Soon after, he meets the other survivor, Gittl, a woman in her mid-30s. Charles blends their stories into the book we read: Leyb’s experience in Yinglish (English inflected with Yiddish) along with his translation into Yinglish of Gittl’s written memoir.

Even helped by occasional footnotes and my own smattering of German, at times I found the dialect a job to read, but the poetry and character of the prose rewarded the effort. A heavy sprinkling of Yiddish words, as well as idiosyncratic compound words (“the riversome crowd”) and phrasings (“Once there was a jew what was called Gittl”) give the sense of a literal translation while voicing Gittl’s and Leyb’s stories authentically.

Gittl’s memoir is titled (in lowercase) “a mayseh,” “a story.” But Before All the World is far from a conventional novel or story. It’s a book of life stories, unsequenced, fragmented by dislocation and trauma. Not a plot, but two questions, pull the reader through. Will the “dust village” of their origins relinquish its memory-hold on Gittl and Leyb and allow them to start their lives anew? Acting as amanuensis and with his own experiences of ethnic brutality in common with them, not to mention a kind and generous spirit, Charles offers a bridge from past to present. The other question, more profound, perhaps, is whether Leyb and Gittl, and Charles, can place faith in their affirmation: “I do not believe that all the world is darkness.”

Jean Huets

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ANGELS OF THE RESISTANCE Noelle Salazar, Mira, 2022, $14.99, pb, 416pp, 9780778386797

Dutch sisters, known as “the angels,” become the superheroes in Noelle Salazar’s Angels of the Resistance. Lien and Elif Vinke, teenagers responding to grief, feel called to serve the Netherlands in 1940. Inspired by the true story of Truus and Freddie Oversteegen, Salazar conjures a heart-thumping, riveting narrative with main characters that grow from sullen, angry teenagers into women of courage and strength. Their assignments start simply, with distributing pamphlets, delivering messages, and forging identification cards, then move on to training with pistols and daggers.

Superb research into the planning of missions, then intricate details and gut-wrenching descriptions of frightening situations, evoke a range of emotions as readers follow the Angels to train stations, barns, and safe houses. The wins and losses of the missions resonate deeply with the friends and families associated with Lien and Elif. Throughout the novel, feelings of betrayal and guilt are mixed with triumph and relief.

Salazar has created characters with relatable human traits, relationships that dissipate then rebuild, and those that believe in something and prove it. The description and development of family friend and mentor, Aunt Liv, give readers insight into the social settings and advantages of the wealthy, but also the cunning, daring, and bravery of those who took risks to save families and soldiers. Salazar slips in the American comic creation of Wonder Woman, and Lien— admiring this superhero’s boldness—is determined not to repeat past decisions that caused hesitation and failure. Like Wonder Woman, she wants to become fearless, strong, and determined. In Angels of the Resistance Noelle Salazar successfully creates a triumphant celebration of real-life Wonder Women!

Dorothy Schwab

THE BLUMKIN PROJECT Christian Salmon (trans. William Rodarmor), Other Press, 2022, $17.99/C$23.99, pb, 336pp, 9781590511541

The Blumkin of the title is Yakov Grigorievich Blumkin, born in Odessa in 1900 and executed

by Stalin in 1929. The most famous deed of this short life was to assassinate the German ambassador to Russia when Blumkin was only seventeen. Amid the Bolshevik revolution, Germany was still fighting World War II

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and had captured Ukraine, for which the revolutionaries needed revenge. Many asides in the book illuminate present world events.

A raft of foreign languages and youthful passion sent Blumkin south and eastward to spread communism to what would become the central Asian Soviet republics, through Turkey where he served an exiled Trotsky, to Palestine where he dealt in rare 15th-century Jewish mystical books (the new atheistic Soviet Union had no need of them and liked the cash) and spied against the British Mandate.

Only a French Bolshevik could have written this, which I can hardly call a novel, although it has enough swashbuckling. It is more of a creative memoir. Salmon in fact interviewed an ancient Boris Bajanov, Stalin’s former secretary, in exile in Paris. These notes form part of the collection of items stashed in an old trunk which the author’s storytelling structure follows from one exotic location to another.

Another item consists of memories of the trip the author took, not to Baku but to the Spanish plain used by Warren Beatty to shoot the ´80s film Reds, which recreated the conference there. Perhaps you remember the scene where mistranslation changed “class war” to “jihad” for the sake of the local tribesmen—with unattended consequences that we live with today.

Although lacking the scenes and dialogue we Hollywood-drenched Americans are used to, this smart, literature-quoting, and eyeopening “biographical novel” is well worth the read.

Ann Chamberlin

THE WILD HUNT Emma Seckel, Tin House, 2022, $16.95, pb, 351pp, 9781953534224

On a remote Scottish island in 1949, Iain MacTavish and Leigh Welles have returned for different but equally tragic reasons. Iain has survived his service as a Royal Air Force fighter pilot with his sanity only barely intact; Leigh has returned to bury her father, after failing to make a life in the big city (Edinburgh). It’s October, which the locals know as the time of the sluagh – menacing spirits who escort lost souls from this world to the next. On the unnamed island (from the author’s hints, it seems to be located somewhere in the Orkneys), the sluagh take the form of dark, crow-like birds who flock in their thousands to the moors and crags, perching in threes wherever one looks, menacing the living human population with a constant reminder of loss and the thinness of the veil between the dead and the living. Because World War II has cut so many souls prematurely and traumatically adrift, the usual anxiety of the season is heightened unbearably; even worse, young Hugo McClare this year has desecrated the islanders’ annual ritual of protection from haunting by killing one of the hated birds.

Leigh and Iain join forces to search for Hugo, gone missing after his terrible act, and in the process realize that something even worse than the sluagh stalks the island. Seckel painstakingly reveals the islanders’ secrets

one by one, as we experience this worst of all Octobers from the point of view of various characters (but mostly Iain and Leigh).

Although the subject matter is painful, the prose is so lyrical and tender that the tone is never oppressive. Seckel’s descriptions of the landscape’s wild beauty, and her affection for its inhabitants, are so vivid that the reader empathizes easily with Leigh’s fierce determination to save her home.

Kristen McDermott

THE NAVIGATOR’S DAUGHTER Nancy Cole Silverman, Level Best, 2022, $16.95, pb, 232pp, 9781685120900

In Phoenix, Arizona, in 1996, Kate is summoned by her WWII veteran father, Steve, and shown a piece of an airplane’s aluminum skin that he received in the mail. It was sent

by Sandor from Hungary, who claims it comes from the wreckage of the B-24 bomber that Steve bailed out of in 1945. Since Steve has cancer, he wants Kate to go to Hungary to photograph the airplane and also locate a woman, Katarina, and her son. She had hidden Steve and his crew in caves from the Germans. Interestingly, Kate was named after the Hungarian woman.

Initially, Kate suspects a scam. But having recently lost her newspaper job, separated from her husband, and wishing for a change, she agrees to travel to Hungary. Surprises await her there, more than just the wreckage of a B-24.

Silverman loosely bases the novel on the life of her father, a WWII B-24 navigator and bombardier. In 1945, on his thirteenth mission, he was shot down over Austria and bailed out. In 1996 he received a piece of the skin of his B-24 that had crashed in Hungary.

However, the story’s similarity with the facts ends there, and Silverman’s fictional account takes over. It’s an impressive blending of real with imaginary events using historical fiction tools. The version of what could have happened to the crew of that shot-down B-24 is made interesting by the introduction of fictional characters. The descriptions of Hungarian cities, towns, castles, and caves, together with the customs of the inhabitants, seem very realistic. The introduction of art theft adds another dimension of intrigue.

This, together with the inclusion of a couple of romantic storylines, keeps up interest in the novel.

Waheed Rabbani

THE TIN NOSE SHOP Don J. Snyder, Legend Press, 2022, £8.99, pb, 284pp, 9781915054609

1916: talented artist Sam Burke is spared execution for cowardice in the trenches on the condition he goes to a ramshackle castle in County Down, to produce masks for soldiers whose faces have been mutilated beyond recognition, masks held in place by being attached to spectacles hooked over the

wearer’s ears. As his mentor, an enigmatic Boer War chaplain tells him, “for the soldiers who come here, the war that took them from their families has ended. And the war that will take them home is beginning. This second war is every bit as deadly. And terrifying.”

Not all survive that second war. In creating these thin copper masks, Sam will decide what expression each man will have for the rest of his life, on a face that will never age.

Sam fights his own terrors; his death sentence was for having caused the death of his closest friend Ned, whose widow had loved both men. Some respite comes through a fleeting relationship with a girl in hiding, maps of Ireland’s coastline hidden in the hem of a wedding dress she is not destined to wear, those maps intended for the Dublin rebels of Easter 1916. The location of this “tin nose shop” is artistic licence; the process of making the masks, however, is indistinguishable from that followed by Francis Derwent Wood in Wandsworth.

Occasional references to Northern Ireland are a blunder—Ireland was not partitioned until 1922. There are many novels based on the events of World War I; this one has to be among the most compassionate and moving.

Although based on actual events of a century ago, Snyder’s novel was inspired by more recent tragedy: an encounter with maskwearing survivors of the Omagh bombing of 1998.

Katherine Mezzacappa

THE VILLAGE IDIOT Steve Stern, Melville House, 2022, $27.99, hb, 368pp, 9781612199825

The eccentric life and adventures of renowned Expressionist painter Chaim Soutine (1893-1943) in early 20th-century Paris is hypnotically imagined in The Village Idiot, by award-winning author Steve Stern.

One of the more inscrutable artists of an emerging artistic movement, Chaim Soutine was a Belarusian Jew who emigrated to Paris in 1913 and immediately fell in with the bohemian art crowd centered in the Montparnasse district. Stern mixes fact with a unique vision of Soutine as a man at odds with himself and the world, viewing the panorama of his life through the port of a diving suit as he helps his partner-in-art (and crime), Amedeo Modigliani, win a regatta on the River Seine.

Moving seamlessly through time, Stern captures an artist in the heat of creation, as well as the physical torments of incurable ulcers that plagued his life (and caused his death). Along with a touching portrait of Soutine’s deep friendship with Modigliani, Stern explores Soutine’s ambivalent relationships with the women in his life, as well as his conflicted heritage. He is at odds with proud Jews, like Modigliani, who “is compelled to wear his Jewishness like a badge, while Chaim would rather erase all vestiges of his if he could. Especially the map of Jerusalem that is his face.”

Stern’s Soutine is a riddle to himself and

others, notable for his broken English and strange customs, his only fixed star the ineluctable drive to paint what he sees.

Evoking the feverish artistic scene of the interwar Paris years (and the frightening rise of Jewish persecution by Nazi Germany), Stern creates an unforgettable rendering of a visionary artist at the peak of his powers.

Peggy Kurkowski

THE SILENCE OF SCHEHERAZADE Defne Suman (trans. Betsy Göksel), Head of Zeus, 2022, £8.99/$15.95, pb, 502pp, 9781800246973

My birth, on a sweet, orange-tinted evening… in 1905 Smyrna, Turkey, begins an enchanting tale of mother and daughter, of a time and place forever lost. Set in the years before the great disaster that nearly destroyed the city, the novel chronicles the tales of an opiumaddicted mother and her silent daughter. The lives of mother and daughter weave together to produce a luxurious tapestry of words.

Beginning with “Scheherazade’s” birth to a mother zoned out of her mind on opium, on a day that coincides with the arrival in Smyrna of that mother’s true love, we follow various denizens of that beautiful, cosmopolitan city as they live through idyllic days, dancing in and out of each other’s lives yet only rarely interacting. Scheherazade, the silent narrator, reveals hopes, dreams, and longings in a city where everything seems possible. But politics eventually sweeps over Smyrna, ending in a day of fire and blood that sees lives and beauty destroyed… for the moment…

This is a truly beautiful book. Exquisite language is plied with great skill to create gorgeous imagery. And the translator is an absolute genius. While the plot’s a bit of a tangle, and it’s literary fiction rather than historical fiction—for example, I didn’t feel that this story could only have taken place in early 1900s Smyrna, and found the political details very hazy— reading this book is like eating an ivoryinlaid box of Turkish delight. Once started on it, you just can’t stop.

India Edghill

A QUALITY STREET CHRISTMAS Penny Thorpe, HarperCollins, 2022, £14.99, hb, 343pp, 9780008531102

Autumn 1938, and unease about a possible war is spreading among the workers of Mackintosh’s chocolate factory in Halifax, Yorkshire, especially as some of them have been assembling gas masks instead of carrying out their usual tasks. But personal issues also intervene as Reenie suffers a setback at work after her over-enthusiasm lands her in trouble again; Mary is trying to cope with bringing up two stepchildren as well as working parttime; and Diana fears that the secrets of her past might be exposed when her stepbrother Tommo is released from prison. But it’s

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unassuming new girl Ada, who finds the noise and bustle of the factory overwhelming, who inadvertently unleashes a chain of events that spread far beyond what she can imagine.

My expectations are never very high when I review sagas, but I was pleasantly surprised by this novel. Although this is the fourth book in a series about the girls of the Quality Street production line, I had no difficulty in distinguishing who was who. Just enough of the back-story is revealed in a naturalistic way to intrigue the new reader and remind existing fans of previous events. The characters are well developed, with their own individual personalities. Even the antagonists are complicated figures and, in the case of Tommo and Ada’s manipulative friend Caroline, have glimmers of redeeming features.

On the whole, the plot is well-handled, though Mary’s storyline gets a little lost amid the plethora of other stories unfolding during the course of the book. If I have a criticism, it’s that the title doesn’t necessarily reflect the contents of the novel, with Christmas being little more than an afterthought in the last chapters.

In short, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it even to readers who don’t think they like sagas.

Jasmina Svenne

SHADOWS IN THE MIND’S EYE Janyre Tromp, Kregel, 2022, $15.99, pb, 288pp, 9780825447396

Sam returns from WWII to rural Arkansas, excited to reunite with his wife, Annie, and their daughter, Rosie, but their reunion does not go as smoothly, nor is his integration into his old life as seamless, as he’d hoped. Sam has flashbacks and can’t always be certain whether what he’s seeing is real or just in his mind. Even worse, he proves himself capable of hurting his beloved Annie when in the grip of a flashback. And nobody believes him when he claims to see strange men near the sorting shed on his property engaging in possibly illegal activities that could endanger the lives of his family members.

Tromp cleverly sets up the mystery of whether the secondary characters in the novel are what they seem or whether Sam has grounds for his suspicions. As soon as I was certain that Sam was hallucinating because of his PTSD, something would happen to make me change my mind and believe that what he sees is real.

Thus, Annie’s similar uncertainty about Sam is convincing.

The pace is slow and uneven in the first half of the book, but the second half makes up for it with plenty of excitement and mystery, which is solved in a satisfying way. Occasionally I found the dialect too heavy, jarring me out of the story. The novel is marketed as Christian fiction, but the mentions of God and spiritual things are applied with a light hand, so it would appeal equally to a secular readership. This is 50

a heartwarming book that offers hope and healing for wounded people.

Clarissa Harwood

THE ORPHANS OF AMSTERDAM Elle van Rijn (trans. Jai van Essen), Bookouture, 2022, $11.99/£8.99, pb, 342pp, 9781803149196

Betty Oudkerk is a young nursery school teacher in Amsterdam in the opening days of WWII. She is fearless, unafraid to offer a modest smile to strange men on the tram.

When the Nazis bomb Rotterdam and overrun Holland, Betty is thrust into hell. Her family is Jewish.

Betty defies the Germans. To her, wearing the star is silly, until she witnesses a roundup of people not wearing theirs. Her brother and his wife disappear; then another brother. Then her mother and grandmother. A third brother goes into hiding. She and her sister have a Sperre, a special document declaring them essential to the Jewish Council.

Her director, Pimentel, recruits quickthinking, courageous Betty and two women to hide children in the school, knowing what will happen if they go with their parents. Though Pimentel chastises Betty for her impetuosity, it is what she counts on when things get dicey. Not everyone is brave. Betty confronts selfishness and cowardice at every turn. I was beginning to think Betty was too daring in the face of a German army who would have shot her without thought when, to my surprise, she has a complete and total meltdown when a child she tries desperately to save is discovered and taken away.

At first, I didn’t want to read another WWII story, but I was hooked instantly. The book starts off in the thick of things and never lets up. I felt Betty’s fear and courage coming off the page. This is a wonderful read: fast-paced, with twists and turns so gut-wrenching that it stays with you for days. Highly recommended.

Angela Moody

THE CALL OF THE WRENS Jenni L. Walsh, Harper Muse, 2022, $17.99/£9.99, pb, 368pp, 9781400233885

From its intriguing cover to the author’s note at the end, this book will captivate readers.

Alternating between the story of Marion, a “Wren” in the Great War, and Evelyn, who serves in World War II, the story delves into the important and often overlooked history of the British women who risked their lives to serve their country.

Marion is an unwanted orphan, who refuses to speak to anyone until she finds acceptance and love with Eddie, an orphan like herself.

When she ages out of the orphanage, she has only one option: join the Women’s Royal Naval Service. But Eddie isn’t about to let her go without him, so he joins the Navy and makes sure they are always in close proximity.

When tragedy befalls them, Marion becomes a bitter recluse until an old friend convinces her to come back to the Wrens, just in time to

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become a mentor to Evelyn, a young woman who has overcome a physical disability and familial disapproval to become a motorcycle messenger for the resurrected service.

The characters (including a brave pigeon) are sympathetic and believable, the plot has plenty of surprises, and the history of these heroic women is fascinating. I read this book on the beach and couldn’t turn the pages fast enough, but it would be also be an ideal read in a cozy chair with a cup of tea in front of the fireplace.

Trish MacEnulty

LIFE DUST Pam Webber, She Writes, 2022, $17.95, pb, 296pp, 9781647420918

This novel is a testament to the heroes of the Vietnam War and an eye-opening experience for readers. Our story opens in 1971 in Virginia, with childhood sweethearts Nettie and Andy saying goodbye as he is deployed to South Vietnam and she begins her nursing duties as an intern-in-training. Chapters alternate between Nettie and Andy as they both face daily struggles; for Nettie, harassment by a vindictive nursing supervisor, and for Andy guerrilla warfare. Their individual integrity and strength of character, immersive settings, and distinctive medical and military vocabulary make this an engrossing read.

In this brutal war, Andy and his cohesive squad are not only subject to Vietcong fire, ambushes, foot traps and trip wires attached to grenades; they also battle the unforgiving jungle’s bot flies, red ants, poisonous snakes, leeches and ankle-deep mud as they perform deep cover reconnaissance patrols near the DMZ (demilitarized zone). The plot turns action-adventure when they’re sent on a high-risk mission.

Nettie’s sensitivity and compassion for an elderly heart patient, William Pepper, assisting him build a healing garden at the hospital, and the description of Vietnamese women placing tea in lotus flowers at sunset all add to the beauty and poignancy of this engaging story. We come away not only caring about the characters but also having gained a new understanding of the conflict in Southeast Asia. Highly recommended.

Gail M. Murray

ONE WOMAN’S WAR Christine Wells, William Morrow, 2022, $17.99/£10.99, pb, 384pp, 9780063111806

England, WWII: and another take on Operation Mincemeat, the most famous

espionage operation of any war you care to mention. (It involved tossing a corpse loaded with supposedly top-secret papers into the water off Spain in the hopes that the Germans would find it and believe the lie that the coming invasion of Europe would start in Greece rather than its actual target, Sicily.

Spoiler: it worked!)

Despite the title, this is the story of two women: Paddy Bennett (considered to be the model for Miss Moneypenny) and Friedl Stöttinger (a double agent). Paddy works for Room 39, a top-secret Naval Intelligence Division. Among Room 39’s hopeful schemes is Operation Mincemeat, the brainchild of Commander Ian Fleming (yes, that Ian Fleming). It’s vital that the Germans think the coming landing in southern Europe is not Sicily. The plan involves an amazing amount of detail work, and Paddy is delighted with the opportunity to be one of Room 39’s active agents. But her war work begins to cause tensions in her marriage, as she can’t reveal her work—even to her husband.

Friedl is a full-blown double agent, involved in ensuring the operation’s false documents actually get to Berlin. But when she meets super-spy Duško Popov (one of the real-life models for James Bond), Friedl falls hopelessly in love with him, endangering herself and her mission. Unfortunately, Friedl’s story really doesn’t belong in the book; she was indeed a spy but had nothing to do with Operation Mincemeat.

That caveat notwithstanding, One Woman’s War is a fine novel, with plenty of twists, turns, and tension. The author manages to make long-ago events with long-known outcomes seem fresh and vividly real. In a market flooded with WWII novels, this one is a standout. And if you want to know more about the history, I highly recommend Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre.

India Edghill

COME DOWN SOMEWHERE Jennifer L. Wright, Tyndale, 2022, $26.99, hb, 385pp, 9781496471673

The shadow of Trinity, the first nuclear bomb test in July 1945, hangs over the events in this novel. The story alternates between 1944-45 and 1952, examining how Olive Alexander and Jo Hawthorn become friends, and how their contact was abruptly broken due to consequences of war.

In 1944, Olive lives on a remote ranch in New Mexico and resents the Army’s commandeering of their family property, forcing her to move into Alamogordo to live with her grandmother. Jo’s father is the Army officer sent to take over the ranch.

Olive’s resentment makes her resist Jo’s friendly overtures, and non-religious Olive doesn’t understand Jo’s faith. They eventually overcome their differences, to the point where Olive plans to break family ties and leave town

with Jo to see the world and do missionary work.

In 1952, Jo still does not know why Olive failed to show up at the bus station in 1945. Jo returns to Alamogordo to handle her estranged father’s affairs.

He is dying of cancer, one of many cases that developed among residents after the bomb test. Another hospital visitor, Charlie, tries to befriend Jo, offering her rides and buying meals. What exactly does he want from her? He seems to be looking for Olive as well, but why? The two timelines come together in the final chapters with a shocking revelation.

Fallout, nuclear and otherwise, figures in the story. Actions of some characters produce fallout for others. The setting is evocative and characterizations excellent. The alternating time frame drives the plot forward; I was nearly late for work one day because I wanted to find out what would happen next. No sophomore slump for Wright, this is in the same class as her HNR Editors’ Choice debut novel, If It Rains.

Highly recommended inspirational fiction.

B. J. Sedlock

M U LT I -P E R IOD TALES OF THE ROMANOV EMPIRE Tamar Anolic, Amazon, 2022, $12.75, pb, 231pp, 9798779580656

Few people today lived at a time when the Romanovs ruled Mother Russia. Peter the Great, the empresses Elizabeth and Catherine, as well as Nicholas and Alexandra live only in memory now. Or in works of scholarship and fine literature such as Tamar Anolic’s Tales of the Romanov Empire.

The book recounts, in short story form, the history of the Romanov tsars from the early 17th century to their demise during the Bolshevik Revolution. Author Anolic takes us into the private quarters of these rulers, unmasks these historic personages and reveals their human sides, and takes them into the darkest and most intimate rooms and halls of their lives.

Peter had to survive family in-fighting in order to survive and hold onto his throne as a child tsar, only to become a filicide himself.

Catherine the Great was a German teenager who transformed from the wife of an ineffective tsar to the ruthless leader of her adopted country. Alexander III, Nicholas’s father, was a reactionary whose policies led to pogroms and the immigration of many of Russian Jews.

The children of Nicholas and Alexandra never grew up to experience life as adults.

Tales of the Romanov Empire is composed

of 39 separate stories of varying length. I wondered at times if author Anolic might have made even more intimate revelations. There were instances when I wanted more detail, as when Nicholas’s chief administrator Stolypin is shot. We don’t know for sure why Stolypin was shot or whether or not he survived the assassination attempt. I might have preferred 25 fuller tales than 39 that left me aching for more information; to get to know the darker side of these people, who, after all, left Russia, in the end, a nation conceived in blood and to this day still shedding it.

Peter Clenott

WHEN STONE WINGS FLY Karen Barnett, Kregel, 2022, $16.99, pb, 344pp, 9780825447174

In the present day, Kieran Lucas’s grandmother, “Granny Mac,” is slipping away, her memories clouded by dementia. Granny Mac is also having disturbing flashbacks of her mother’s death and the loss of her home.

Hoping to bring her peace, Kieran heads to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to find answers. In 1931, Rose McCauley’s Smoky Mountain home is threatened by the creation of a new national park. Then she makes a compromise that could change everything, but will bootleggers operating near her home let this agreement stand?

This book transports us to Appalachia in the 1930s and captures the heart of the mountain people, as well as their connection to the land.

The absolute upheaval when many families had to leave the area and relocate for the park is well described. The vivid pictures of the mountain scenery painted by Karen Barnett made me feel as if I was seeing the Smokies with my own eyes. For example, “Wisps of clouds draped over the forested hillsides in the distance, like so many white silk veils” perfectly describes the beautiful covering of shifting clouds draping the Smokies that we see today. This book is true to life and true to history. The meaning of the land and of family connections is so powerful and real.

Rose’s determination to care for her sister and honor her late parents and family name is carried on by Kieran, who wants to honor her grandmother with the truth. There are two sweet romances in this powerful book, but the main message can be summed up by a quote from Rose: “If a bird wants to fly free, first it has to release the branch.”

Bonnie DeMoss

THE STOLEN BOOK OF EVELYN AUBREY Serena Burdick, Park Row, 2022, $28.99, hb, 336pp, 9780778386865

If you could get back at someone who profoundly wronged you, even if it upends your life, would you do it? This is the question facing Evelyn Aubrey, a once-adored wife in turn-of-the-20th-century Oxfordshire,

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England. For her, the opportunity proves too seductive to resist.

In 1898, after ditching her stolid fiancé, Evelyn dives headlong into a passionate marriage with William Aubrey, a writer basking in the success of his recent debut novel.

She expects their life at his ancestral home, Abbington Hall, to center on their shared literary interests—Evelyn is penning her own book—but a bout of writer’s block transforms William into a cold, jealous creature who steals her manuscript and publishes it under his own name. Much later, in 2006 Berkeley, California, Abigail Phillips finds a photograph of her late mother with a young man—the father she knew nothing about—and learns he was the great-grandson of Evelyn Aubrey, a redhead with Gibson Girl looks who she strongly resembles. Abigail travels to England to learn about the mysterious Evelyn, who vanished the same day William’s scandalous final book was published.

As with many multi-period novels, the historical thread is the more compelling, with twists aplenty and a period-accurate theme of sexist double standards. “It still surprises him that I am his equal, and it surprises me that he would think of me as anything less,” writes Evelyn about her new husband in her journal—words that hit home. To give her a deeper character arc, Burdick makes Abigail a directionless woman in her early thirties (she seems much younger), and Abbington Hall’s current residents accept her story with astonishing ease. Abigail’s journey toward maturity is ultimately touching, and the mystery of Evelyn’s fate unfolds in both timelines with growing suspense. This gothic-tinged novel tells an empowering tale of betrayal and delicious revenge.

Sarah Johnson

LONG SHADOWS Abigail Cutter, She Writes, 2022, $16.95, pb, 304pp, 9781647423872

This U.S. Civil War novel unfolds a Confederate infantryman’s story within a boldly unique supernatural structure. Tom Smiley has been dead for generations but is trapped by his tormented memories in his long-abandoned Shenandoah Valley family farmhouse when a descendant and his wife arrive to begin renovations. Objects and letters are disturbed, stirring Tom’s recall, even though for decades he had done his “best to avoid recollecting the cruelest particulars of the circus of war and the whisper of Death’s wing.”

Powerful scenes ensue, portraying Tom’s descent from an ordinary teenage country boy who, with his friends, is swept up into provincial rebellion fervor. The boys deal with the squalor of a Civil War soldier’s existence and must face the terror and horrors of battle, and then endure the abject misery of a Union prison camp. Loyalties to his friends from home sustain Tom, but losses along the way are inevitable, leaving him to not only rue his failures, but also to anguish over the meaning 52

of his actions. His emotional pain is palpable, and his anger grows as he reflects on the Southern elite who pushed him, his family, and friends into rebellion fueled by an unjustifiable cause to sustain the institution of slavery—and the devastating costs of war.

Tom’s journey towards absolution and eternal rest is both moving and well-researched period-perfect as the narrative explores the depths of his loyalties to those around him, and his convictions to the Southern way of life. An impressive debut by an author with deep links to the Virginia setting and subject.

Brodie Curtis

EYES TURNED SKYWARD Alena Dillon, William Morrow, 2022, $17.99, pb, 400pp, 9780063144767

After the United States joined the Allied effort during World War II, many American women took jobs vacated by men who’d been drafted into or volunteered for the military.

Less well-known among them are the Women Airforce Service Pilots, who were trained to transport military planes on domestic missions. You’d think anyone who’d served in that elite group would have championed their accomplishments. Not Peggy Mayfield. She’s kept this part of her life secret. Why? It’s a question that will nag at her daughter, Kathy Begley, after she uncovers evidence of her mother’s hidden past and becomes intent on seeing her mother get her due.

This dual-timeline novel tells the intriguing story of the formation and dissolution of the Women Airforce Service Pilots from 1943-44, interwoven with a contemporary story of a fraught mother-daughter relationship and a marriage unhinged by the husband’s recent involuntary unemployment.

The novel’s historical scenes of WASP training and its depiction of the friendships among its female characters are engaging. Yet, some scenes are overwrought, melodramatic or implausible. That a major would whisk one of his students into his office the day she completes flight training, have sex with her on his desk, and declare his eternal love beggars belief.

In the end, the question that had nagged at Peggy continued to nag at me: Why the secret? Dillon suggests Peggy kept her time with the WASPs secret because she associated it with loss. Transformed from a feisty young woman to a harpy, she spends the next six decades punishing her children, especially her daughter, for those losses. Peggy finally accepts belated recognition of her military contributions and begrudgingly apologizes for her coldness. Kathy acknowledges the gesture.

I remained unconvinced either character had changed.

Kathleen B. Jones

THE FORGOTTEN COTTAGE Courtney Ellis, Berkley, 2022, $17.00/C$23.00, pb, 416pp, 9780593201312

This dual-time novel set in North Yorkshire

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connects several generations of women through one cottage in a tiny village. In 2014, Audrey inherits a cottage from her beloved grandmother after caring for her for the past year. Feeling adrift and insecure, Audrey senses that she needs to see this cottage before ultimately selling it and trying to return to a life that has fallen to pieces. Once there she discovers a cottage frozen at the time her grandmother fled to the U.S. in 1941 at the age of seventeen. What isn’t clear is why she left and what happened to the rest of her family.

In 1915, Lady Emily feels trapped by her aristocratic family until she falls in love and dares to escape. Spurning the man she is supposed to marry and pushing away the man she loves feels like the only way for Emily to remain free. She becomes a nurse in the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) and is sent to a field hospital in France. As Audrey peels back the layers of history hidden in the cottage, she finds her own strength and the courage to take back control of her life.

This is an emotional and engaging story that keeps the pages turning. So often in dual-timeline novels one of the timelines takes over or has a more alluring pull. In this case, I found the stories of Audrey and Emily equally compelling, though one of the endings is necessarily more satisfying than the other.

A warning, though: the cozy cottage setting evokes strong urges to brew a pot of tea and curl up under a blanket to finish this novel in one sitting.

Shauna McIntyre

THE MANY DAUGHTERS OF AFONG MOY Jamie Ford, Atria, 2022, $28.00/C$37.00, hb, 364pp, 9781982158217

Afong Moy, usually called “the Chinese Lady,” arrives in New York in 1834. Displayed in theatres as a curiosity, she’s disgraced and in pain when doctors remove the bindings on her feet. Pregnant and betrayed by the man she thought loved her, she kills him and flees to lose herself in the city. Her daughter, Lai King Moy, experiences the plague in San Francisco.

To save her life, her parents use their savings to put her on a ship to China.

The story follows her descendants for generations until 2045, when Dorothy, who has inherited memories from her forebears, desperately searches for understanding of her feelings and memories. Stories of Afong’s descendants interweave throughout this imaginative and unusual novel. The writing is almost poetic, with touches of humor; the descriptions bring to life the New York stage in Victorian times, San Francisco’s burning Chinatown, and the ferry from Seattle.

But it is the suffering of these descendants of Afong that resonates, each woman in her own way trying to overcome the fragmentary memories of past generations and face her own issues as she makes a better life for those around her.

The author has taken the science of epigenesis, often seen as perhaps explaining

inherited physical characteristics, and ventured to use it to interpret the progression of experiences and memories throughout generations of one family. It is an idea that creates thoughtful discussion.

Valerie Adolph

BEYOND A BROKEN SKY Suzanne Fortin, Head of Zeus, 2022, £9.99/$16.95, pb, 451pp, 9781800243804

Beyond a Broken Sky is a dual-narrative novel in which a woman in a later time stream researches the life of a woman in an earlier time stream and in so doing resolves some of her own personal difficulties. Sound familiar?

I sometimes feel as though we are living in an endless creative writing competition in which every author has to submit a novel with the same basic plot. The room for originality gets progressively smaller, especially if the earlier time stream involves a tragic WW2 love story.

In Fortin’s latest novel, the woman in the later time stream (2022) is Rhoda, an expert in stained glass, who is called to a chapel in Somerset which is about to be demolished, to acquire the windows for her museum. In the course of a site visit, her host’s dog uncovers a shallow grave, obviously of a murder victim.

The story thus becomes a whodunnit, except that everybody in the locality seems to know who did it, and they conspire to try to frighten off Rhoda and her boyfriend.

The woman in the earlier era is Alice, a village girl who falls pregnant by an American airman in the last year of the war. She is sent away to Somerset to have the baby, but before it is born she has fallen in love with an Italian POW, thus bringing together two favourite WW2 romantic tropes. Both time streams are well told, and each builds up to a dramatic denouement. There is life in the genre yet.

Be warned that a novel with almost the same title, Beyond This Broken Sky, was published last year (Siobhan Curham, Bookouture). It too is a dual narrative story featuring a tragic WW2 romance, but this one is about the London Blitz.

Edward James

MY NAME IS ONA JUDGE Suzette D. Harrison, Bookouture, 2022, $10.99/£8.99, pb, 320pp, 9781803140773

In this dual-timeline novel, Suzette D. Harrison interweaves the story of Ona Judge, a favored slave of Martha Washington, with the modern-day story of Tessa Scott, a young Black woman who finds Ona Judge’s journal.

These two first-person narratives complement each other well. As a child aged ten, Ona is taken from her seamstress mother’s home on the Washingtons’ plantation and placed in the main house. Growing up as part of the Washington household, Ona travels from Mount Vernon to Pennsylvania where the Washingtons, anxious to avoid complying with the Gradual Abolition Law, rotate their slave household every six months and thereby

prevent Ona and their other enslaved people from obtaining their freedom.

Tessa Scott, meanwhile, is independent, hard-working and smart, a likeable character with relationship problems. From the outset, her partner Dominic is manipulative, and their relationship is on a downward spiral toward abuse. As the stories unfold, it’s clear both Tessa and Ona are looking to escape.

I very much enjoyed the switch-off between the two women’s distinct voices. Harrison captures both periods beautifully. Her modern characters’ outrage as they learn about Ona Judge’s life, and the lives of their forefathers, is honest and compelling. As one character exclaims, “I don’t care if they were the noble Washingtons!... They owned people.” Ona’s story is heart-wrenching but also inspiring.

This is a great example of historical fiction revealing important truths while still being engaging to read.

Kate Braithwaite

THE HOUSE AT HELYGEN Victoria Hawthorne, Quercus, 2022, £8.99/$17.99, pb, 368pp, 9781529418491

Cornwall in both the 19th century and 2019. This is a tale with a decidedly Gothic tint, following the fortunes of three women who marry into their husbands’ privileged Fox family, which includes the impressive Helygen House. In mid-19th century, Harriet suffers as her children die from various causes, while in 1881 Elizabeth, generally known as Eliza, is a new bride, and arrives in the autumn following her honeymoon. Eliza is from a more modest background than her husband, Cassius, and it takes her some time to adapt to her radically different circumstances and surroundings.

Meanwhile in 2019, Josie Corbyn, wife to the Helygen House owner, Henry, and heavily pregnant with their first child, has her life ripped asunder when Henry is found in the kitchen with much of his face blown off from a shotgun wound. There are evil mothers-in-law and unaccountable noises and apparitions on the property, suggesting evil events from years ago, which are slowly uncovered to reveal a thread of dreadful behaviour.

The story rips along pleasantly enough without literary frills or much subtlety.

Elements of the plot are somewhat unlikely, even allowing for the Gothic nature of the tale—much of the present-day police enquiry is just not plausible. There are also a few examples of ludicrously egregious cultural and linguistic anachronisms: would a young woman in 1881 really worry about river pollution, asking her husband “wouldn’t that harm the environment?”, and in 1847 would someone say, “I was in sync then with the storm”? No, of course they would not, and such blunders do not enhance the reading experience and make one lose the trust placed in the writer.

Douglas Kemp

THE GARDEN OF ANGELS David Hewson, Canongate, 2022, £9.99, pb, 437pp, 9781838857707

Venice was occupied by the Germans in WW2 for only 20 months (September 1943 to April 1945), but the occupation lay heavily upon the city. The action in The Garden of Angels takes place in the first winter of the occupation. The central character is Paolo Uccello, a reclusive and recently orphaned teenager left alone to manage the nearbankrupt family weaving business, with one remaining employee in a near-derelict palazzo. He is drawn into sheltering two fugitive partisans who suck him into a vortex of violence and death. The story is structured as a testimony bequeathed by the dying Paulo to his grandson (or is he?) many years later. At first this is simply a framing device, but after the old man’s death, it takes on a life of its own to carry the story to its conclusion.

The plot is strong, tense and intricate with an unexpected twist in the tail, and the sense of place is haunting and powerful, but the abiding strength is in the characterisation, not only of the principal characters but also the secondary actors, Fascists, Nazis, policemen, partisans, priests, Jews and ordinary Venetians trying to survive. You may feel that we are sated with novels about occupied Europe in WW2, but don’t miss this one.

Edward James

THE WHITE ROCK Anna Hope, Fig Tree, 2022, £14.99, hb, 283pp, 9780241562765

‘For a long time there was only water here… then, one day, a rock appeared, a white peak above the waves: the first solid object in the world.’ The Rock stood off the coast of Mexico, on the coast of northern Nayarit, and is believed by the local Wixarika and Yoeme people to be where the world began.

Pilgrimages have been made to it over the centuries, and four stories are told of people visiting it in 1775, 1907, 1969 and 2020.

It all sounded very interesting but didn’t come up to expectation in the end, as there seemed to be no cohesion between the four. Two of the stories are said to be based on historical events of the region and the others on the author’s imagination. All were fascinating stories to read but did not have anything linking them apart from their visit to the Rock. It is well-written, and each story holds the reader’s interest, but that is all. I hadn’t read any of the author’s other books

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and regret that this one wouldn’t encourage me to do so. Not one for the bookcase I’m sorry to say.

Marilyn Sherlock

LYING EYES A. K. Kulshreshth, Balestier Press, 2022, $13.99/£11.95, pb, 180pp, 9781913891374

In 2005 Singapore, the elderly Ah Ding is making a precarious living selling packets of tissues in one of modern Singapore’s steel and glass shopping centres. He is sitting in his unneeded wheelchair, in his usual spot at the bottom of the escalators, when a once-familiar face appears on her way down.

She recognises him, too, even after 60 years, remembering his “kind eyes”, and over the following days she starts trying to help him in his life of poverty, returning a favour that he did for her when they met on the day in 1945 when the Japanese occupation forces surrendered.

The action then moves back and forth among different periods and viewpoint characters, from 2005 to the dark days of 1942, with an interlude in 1972 when another incident of recognising Ah Ding’s eyes leads to a tragedy.

This is a moving and gripping story, with no plot as such, but a series of brilliantly described incidents of lyrical joy, and, much more plentifully, of appalling misery and brutality. For readers who are not familiar with Singapore, there is a helpful glossary at the end, but I felt that there are a few more terms that could have been added without making it unduly long.

The story is held together by the motif of Ah Ding’s “kind eyes”, which gives a bitter irony to the accounting of what Ah Ding went through in 1942 during the first weeks of the occupation, when the Japanese were selecting Chinese men to be executed in what became known as the Sook Ching Massacres, in which unknown numbers of thousands died. The atmosphere of tropical Singapore, and the diversity of its casually multilingual population, are well evoked, but it is the memorable characters and their tragic stories that will stay with you.

Highly recommended.

Alan Fisk

AN IMPOSSIBLE RETURN Caroline Laurent (trans. Jeffrey Zuckerman), Amazon Crossing, 2022, $24.95/C$34.95, hb, 360pp, 9781542035019

In 2018, middle-aged Joséphin travels from Mauritius to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. He is part of the eightmember Chagossian delegation to attend the hearing on the claim of the forcibly relocated 54

Chagossian islanders. With few Euros, the delegation travels with their own food provisions, including rice cookers.

In 1967, Gabriel, a young Mauritian, arrives in Diego Garcia as secretary to the Chagos Archipelagos’ administrator. He meets Marie, they fall in love, and shortly Joséphin is born.

Although life is harsh on the islands, they lead a cheerful existence among the friendly islanders, who primarily fish for food and work on the coconut plantation. The coconuts are sent to Mauritius and subsequently exported. While Gabriel is aware of the secret negotiations between the Mauritian and British governments, he is sworn to secrecy.

This has grave consequences for his family.

And in 2019, Joséphin recalls the life in Chagos and Mauritius while awaiting The Hague court’s verdict.

Franco-Mauritian author Caroline Laurent has penned this historical fiction novel based on stories her Mauritian mother told, and her extensive research. The narrative is written the typical lyrical style of a French novel, which the translator has reproduced faithfully for readers’ enjoyment. Life on the islands is portrayed with intimate details of the inhabitants’ day-to-day existence, such that one can feel the pain of the indigenous peoples’ evacuation for reasons they don’t understand.

The repercussions of this shameful act are well illustrated. Laurent was invited to be part of the Chagossian delegation to the hearing at the International Court of Justice. While earlier courts’ rulings were overturned, Laurent writes in her afterword about the proceedings that she wondered, “How would this one play out?

Would the UN be listened to? Like Marie, we’d have to keep [the] faith.”

Waheed Rabbani

A JEWISH GIRL IN PARIS Melanie Levensohn (trans. Jamie Lee Searle), Macmillan, 2022, £16.99, hb, 437pp, 9781529075731

It is 1940, and Judith lives with her mother in a small flat in Paris. She is a student at the Sorbonne and works in its library. Although Jewish, she and her mother regard themselves as French, until the occupying Nazis threaten the stability of their existence. At the same time, she forms a relationship with Christian, the son of wealthy Nazi sympathisers. Meanwhile, in 2006, Béatrice works for the World Bank in Washington, DC. A chance encounter leads her to befriend an elderly woman who wants to search for the half-sister she never knew. While assisting in the search for Judith, Béatrice meets the sympathetic Grégoire, but will he be able to help with the mounting problems in her own life, both at work and at home?

The book is based on the author’s family history, and Judith’s part of the story is adapted from the diaries of a relative who was caught up in the Nazi atrocities. It is—unfortunately—a familiar tale, but with the twist of Judith’s relationship with Christian, who comes from a very different background yet sympathises with her plight. And Béatrice’s story gives us

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some insight into the work of the Registry of Holocaust Survivors, which painstakingly researches and records the details of those who survived the concentration camps.

I found the novel a little uneven at first, and it took a while for the different threads to come together. And the plot felt slightly contrived at times. However, once I got into the story, I was keen to learn how it all turned out. The true story element of this book will make it essential reading for anyone with an interest in wartime Paris.

Karen Warren

THE MEMORY KEEPER OF KYIV Erin Litteken, Boldwood, 2022, £12.99/$16.99, pb, 334pp, 9781804269596

Have you heard of the Holodomor, the forced famine in 1930s Ukraine? I hadn’t, although I knew of Stalin’s collectivisation.

In Ukraine, an estimated 3.9 million people perished. In the words of a character in this novel: “Everyone wants Ukraine’s fertile soil for their own, and nobody wants to let Ukrainians rule it.” Any book about that country needs to be read, to widen our understanding of what its people have suffered.

In 1929, 16-year-old Katya and her elder sister live with their parents and farm their land, their life bound by seasons and celebrations in a close-knit community. When Stalin’s men come to collectivise the land and impose terror, the graphic horror presents Katya with impossible choices.

Alternating chapters take place in the United States in 2004. Cassie, mourning her husband killed in a car accident which rendered their five-year-old daughter mute the previous year, is persuaded to move in with her ailing grandmother. The grandmother, a Ukrainian known as Bobby—a corruption of babusya, grandma—has never talked about her past. She produces a journal written in Ukrainian, which she wants Cassie to read. A young neighbour, Nick, of Ukrainian descent, translates it.

It doesn’t take the reader long to realise that Bobby is Katya, but we know from Katya’s chapters what happened, so we wait for Cassie to catch up. Cassie’s developing relationship with Nick seems to belong to another book; it might have been more effective if the author had delved more into the growth of Katya’s love for Kolya, a boy in the village, mirroring healing—or not—from survivor’s guilt.

The writing contains a lot of clichés, repetitions, chat, and explaining which, for this reader, detracts from the narrative’s power. The book is also ill-served by poor proofreading.

Don’t let this dissuade you from reading it.

Janet Hancock

BY WAY OF THE MOONLIGHT Elizabeth Musser, Bethany House, 2022, $16.99, pb, 400pp, 9780764238802

This is a dual-timeline romance set in Atlanta

during the present and the World War II home front. Allie Massey thought she had it all: a loving fiancé, and a plan to open an equine therapy center at Hickory Hill, the estate her grandmother promised to bequeath to her.

Inexplicably, though, Nana Dale sells the land to a developer just before dying. Now Allie is trying desperately to find the last thing Nana Dale left for her, sure that it holds the key to her future. But in her obsession to save the farm, her engagement fails, and Allie is about to lose everything.

In the 1930s, headstrong Barbara Dale Butler’s life is all about two things: horses and her best friend, Tommy. When America enters the war, Dale decides she cannot put her dreams aside, so she follows Tommy to war, becoming one of the mounted patrol soldiers on the Georgian beaches known as the Sand Pounders. During this time, there is much danger, adventure, and a few secrets that alter Dale’s life forever.

Musser cohesively entwines the thirdperson narrative of Allie’s grandmother Dale, spanning the 1930s and 1940s, with Allie’s first-person present narrative. The two plots, while very different, meld together in the end with a satisfying conclusion. While slow to start, the intrigue builds midway through and becomes hard to put down. Dale’s story is by far the more intriguing, although Allie’s search for answers will satisfy mystery lovers.

Recommended for anyone interested in equine history, an interesting perspective on the WWII home front, and romance.

Rebecca Cochran

EVERYTHING THE LIGHT TOUCHES Janice Pariat, Borough Press, 2022, £14.99, hb, 491pp, 9780008500276 / HarperVia, 2022, $27.99, hb, 512pp, 9780063210042

Pariat’s novel is layered through the voices of diverse narrators: the present-day Shai; Evelyn, an Edwardian with a passion for botany that is wholly scientific (and, as she is reminded, not quite ladylike); Goethe, travelling to Rome and beyond; and an interlude of Linnaeus amongst the Laplanders.

Made redundant, Shai boards a flight from Delhi, leaving behind an intermittent lover she cannot commit to. Evelyn embarks on a voyage to India, everyone assuming she is on a husband hunt. Goethe has quit Weimar without a word to Charlotte von Stein. Pariat’s prose is as lush as the terrain of north-east India, her book’s principal setting. All three protagonists are restless; as Shai says, ‘home, for me, has always been a place not to live in but to leave.’ The Eden Shai discovers, following a long trek to find an old nurse she refuses to accept is dying, is under threat from uranium mining, just as the India of Evelyn’s day was threatened by the colonialists. There is a pleasing symmetry in the lives of the two young women; both the modern Indian and the English Edwardian are privileged, yet in some senses Evelyn has the greater struggle.

Both appear to reject the potential for love, yet

both find it in ways that will enrich rather than compromise their respective journeys.

Pariat’s research is impressive. There are some stumbles: Goethe passes through Lugano on his way from Venice to Rome, a view from the bell-tower of St Mark’s takes in the beaches of the Lido, and a room number at Cambridge refers to a hall of residence built decades later. But a description of a message not written but woven is one of many delights, and ‘wood wide web’ [sic] refers to something essential and enduring in a way a technological innovation cannot emulate.

Katherine Mezzacappa

THE COLOR LINE Igiaba Scego (trans. John Cullen and Gregory Conti), Other Press, 2022, $19.99/C$25.99, pb, 544pp, 9781635420869

Lafanu Brown is an outsider in 19th-century Rome—she’s a female artist, she’s American, and she’s Black. But she’s also proud of what she’s accomplished, becoming one of the city’s most renowned portraitists for wealthy expatriates, despite having grown up in Massachusetts amid poverty, prejudice, and violence. The novel is a long letter to her fiancé, where she recounts her history from her early days growing up in a Chippawa community under the shadowed legacy of her wandering Haitian father, to her rescue and schooling by a wealthy abolitionist, to her discovery of painting and her romance with a fictionalized version of Frederick Douglass. When Lafanu is forced to choose between passions, she seeks refuge in Italy, where she begins to piece together her complicated history. Framing Lafanu’s story is that of Leila, a Somali-Italian curating an art exhibit in present-day Venice on Lafanu’s work while trying to bring her young cousin safely to Europe.

This awardwinning Italian novel shines in translation, with lyrical prose and vibrant scenery. In a book about art, the pages almost glow with color, letting the reader experience Lafanu’s artistic awakening alongside her. Scego has written a novel dense with plot and with history, much of it little-known but sensitively rendered.

The reader is introduced to characters who almost seem familiar but are wholly fictional.

An extensive author’s note provides the history and the people that inspired The Color Line, delineating the documented from the imagined, but also details how Scego, a Somali-Italian academic, found links between her own history and literary influences, and the stories of two 19th-century African American women. This author’s note is almost as

fascinating as Lafanu and Leila’s stories and should be read as part of the novel.

Jessica Brockmole

A MATTER OF HAPPINESS Tori Whitaker, Lake Union, 2022, $14.95/£8.99, pb, 363pp, 9781542038072

I am a new fan of Tori Whitaker. This witty and engaging story is about Melanie, an upand-coming executive in the whiskey business in Louisville, Kentucky, and her “Grape Aunt Violet.” When Melanie’s great-great-aunt Violet died, she left her 1923 Jordan Playboy car to Melanie as an inheritance. Deciding whether to sell, Melanie finds the interior is full of hidey holes—convenient for a car built in the Prohibition era. She also finds a journal in a pocket. Aunt Violet has left a note inside for her, as if she knew one day Melanie would find it. Through the journal, we see Violet learning to live her life as an independent woman in 1920s Detroit.

Violet struggles with many of the same issues today’s women struggle with. Working woman or married? Family vs. career? Why should one have to sacrifice one for the other?

Violet learns what independence means as she finds a job and then loses it when she stands up for another employee, and they are both fired. Her friend Lela guides her to the seamier sides of independence, even as her boyfriend Robert is more of a traditionalist, and she must choose which direction her life should go. As Melanie reads, she learns of Violet’s life almost 100 years earlier and how they paralleled, both women wanting independence, to make a way for themselves, and to break away from the expectations for women of their day. The plot flows easily, and the characters, both modern and in the 1920s, are interesting people. The Jordan, while just a car, is a metaphor of transformation that works well in the story and is so subtle it almost goes unnoticed.

Angela Moody

THE PREMONITION AT WITHERS FARM Jaime Jo Wright, Bethany House, 2022, $16.99, pb, 384pp, 9780764238338

While not quite wilderness any longer, Michigan in 1910 remains a very rural state.

Perliett Van Hilton lives with her mother, an avowed spiritualist, renowned for conducting seances. Her late father, in contrast, was a devout Christian. Perliett seems to take a middle stance on all that, and is known for her sometime-curious rural healing practices.

When first one, then another grisly murder of young women occurs, Perliett finds herself a possible next victim. Complicating her situation is her love/hate relationship with a local doctor, George Wasziak, and the unexpected arrival of a strange but compelling man.

In the present day, Molly Wasziak has already gone through heartbreaking miscarriages when her husband decides to buy

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an old farm for them. While still dealing with her grief, Molly almost immediately encounters eerie supernatural experiences all around her, possibly associated with the discovery of a slain woman on a nearby property. Could whatever may have happened in the past be returning now to play out the same murderous scenario?

The large number of characters, compounded by the continuous changes in time period, almost proved too challenging for me. However, before that happened, I became hooked. There are a number of frenetic tense action scenes during times of utmost stress, followed by grisly results. The characters are all highly interesting, and the two protagonists become continually more appealing as the story progresses. And both, despite their unnerving predicaments, exhibit welcome occasional flashes of self-deprecating humor.

A bit of Stephen King, Rod Serling and Alfred Hitchcock, the novel kept me guessing to the very end. It is scary, wonderfully crafted and ultimately inspiring. Recommended.

Thomas J. Howley

T I M E SL I P THE WINTER GARDEN Nicola Cornick, HQ, 2022, £8.99, pb, 384pp, 9780008278557 / Graydon House, 2022, $17.99, pb, 336pp, 9781525811463

Nicola Cornick’s latest timeslip novel looks at the Gunpowder Plot and its leader, Robert Catesby, a Catholic who planned to blow up Protestant King James on November 5, 1605, at the state opening of Parliament. As we know, the assassination attempt was foiled, but how and by whom?

Cornick explores two time periods, starting in 1592, with Anne Catesby worried about her wild son and deciding marriage to heiress Catherine Leigh might be the right thing to calm him. Set against this in the present day is violinist Lucy Brown, whose career has been ended by illness. She flees to her aunt’s home to try to recover. The ‘Gunpowder Cottage’ in Oxfordshire was originally home to Robert and Catherine, and an impressive winter garden was built in the grounds for Catherine

by Robert. Lucy meets Finn, a garden historian leading an archaeological excavation of the site, and then she starts to have visions in the garden of a woman dressed in Tudor costume.

The woman is trying to tell her something, but what?

How these time streams come together and the secrets they reveal are part of Cornick’s well-plotted novel. Robert remains elusive, but this stops the reader being bogged down with the intricacies of the Gunpowder Plot and lets Anne’s dilemma of having to decide between her son and her family take hold, while Lucy tries to figure out past truths and lies. There are some red herrings and lots of romance thrown in. Another great read from Cornick.

Kate Pettigrew

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THE MAPMAKER’S DAUGHTER Clare Marchant, Avon, 2022, £8.99/$16.99, pb, 366pp, 9780008454388

Clare Marchant’s third novel returns once more to the Tudor period. The historical focus for this book is the Dutch Protestants who escaped Spanish persecution, many of whom sought refuge in London—including the book’s heroine, Freida Ortelius, who comes from a famed family of Dutch mapmakers. Building a new life in London with her family, Freida is asked by Queen Elizabeth to make a new map as a gift for Francis Drake. However, the Queen’s interest in Freida arouses suspicion and jealousy at court and, haunted by her past, Freida fears she will never escape the Spanish who brutally murdered her parents.

In the present day, Robyn is living with her father in Hay-on-Wye following the disappearance at sea of her husband six years before. She has been feeling directionless and putting off declaring her husband officially dead, but the mystery of a blood-stained Tudor map that she discovers at her father’s shop has piqued her interest, and so she begins to explore Freida’s story. This is a pageturning tale which I greatly enjoyed. It would be perfect for fans of Barbara Erskine, Christina Courtenay, or Carol McGrath.

Lisa Redmond

H I STOR IC A L FA N TA SY KEEPER OF ENCHANTED ROOMS Charlie N. Holmberg, 47 North, 2022, $14.95, pb, 347pp, 9781662500343

This historical fantasy is both a magic-filled thriller with a delightfully creepy villain and a romance with hesitant Victorian “lovers.”

Holmberg builds a richly immersive historical setting in 1846 Boston and an isolated island.

At the start, Holmberg presents “doctrines of magic” identifying existing spells and their negative side effects. This magic system feels entirely organic to her otherwise real Victorian world. The prized magic is dying out, including within enchanted buildings. So, Hulda, the keeper of the title, strives to preserve each enchanted house her job sends her to, including Whimbrel House, which has been inherited by a novelist named Merritt.

The house acts in alarming ways toward Merritt—melting the furniture, turning the stairs into a slide, and worst of all, entrapping him. Hulda attempts to settle the belligerent building and save Merritt, but the hostile house is only the beginning of their troubles. Their complicated personal histories include hateful, even murderous persons who raise the stakes.

The novel genuinely invests readers in these characters but also pokes fun at and with them. One target is Hulda’s prudish restraint.

Another is Merritt’s view of his own writerly filter.

For example, in Chapter 1, Merritt observes of his family’s lawyer: “He seemed to loom over

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Merritt and the well-worn chair he sat in, like a vulture sniffing out a fresh carcass, which was a somewhat harsh metaphor given that, thus far, Mr. Allen had been nothing but polite and professional.” Holmberg also has a deft hand portraying internal emotional responses: “When the doors opened, [Merritt’s] nerves coalesced into a ball, rushing up his torso before dissipating like feral dogs throughout his chest and arms.” Keeper of Enchanted Rooms combines lighthearted entertainment and nail-biting excitement.

Judith Starkston

RELUCTANT IMMORTALS Gwendolyn Kiste, Saga/Gallery, 2022, $17.99, pb, 307pp, 9781982172350

Kiste frames her story around gothic novels from classical literature, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, reimagining the lives of Victorian heroines Lucy Westenra and Bertha Rochester on a road trip in 1967 to counter-culture Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco. Both women died in the original novels, yet Kiste has literally resurrected them from the ashes. Lucy has hidden several urns containing Dracula’s ashes, and his evil spirit is hunting them down.

Both Dracula and Mr. Rochester, depicted as dark romantic heroes in literature, have become abusive husbands. Feminist Lucy, once a delicate and pure female in Victorian society, narrates with a wry tongue-in-cheek sense of humor, welcome amid all the gothic gloom and decay. She reminds me of warrior Sarah Connor in Terminator. The plodding plot turns all action-suspense as Dracula, Mr. Rochester, wolves, and compelled hippie vampires battle it out with our heroines.

This novel is feminist, gothic horror, a bit of a niche genre. For me, Kiste has tampered too much with classic literature. I embraced Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, but that involved creating new characters, dimensions, and characteristics of vampires. Perhaps I’m a purist. I found it difficult to muster the major suspension of disbelief required to immerse myself in this story.

Gail M. Murray

BINDLE PUNK BRUJA Desideria Mesa, Harper Voyager, 2022, $17.99, pb, 400pp, 9780063056084

In 1920s Kansas City, a young woman with two identities and two names—Luna, who is Latinx, and Rosa, who passes as white— struggles to make a success of herself. Rosa wants to own her own jazz club; in her way are mobsters, the KKK, and her own feelings of inadequacy. Luna, the granddaughter of a “bruja” or witch, should be able to work magic, but the only charm she possesses is literally just that—charm. Men find her irresistible, which isn’t much of a gift since the ones who flock to her also want to dominate her. To protect her family, she must cultivate her other talents and find her true identity. Is she Luna or Rosa?

In the beginning, she feels like a stranger in her Mexican family. Her mother has groomed

her to pass for white, but being white isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. As Rosa, she leads a double life. At her newspaper job, “she’s an accommodating cog who doesn’t talk back.”

At night, she’s a tough-talking flapper running a speakeasy. A piano player with bootleg connections helps her navigate this perilous man’s world.

The supporting characters—family members, co-workers and friends—enrich the story, except for the villains, who are stereotypical gangsters and baddies. The historical details and dialogue generally ring true to the time period, and yet odd anachronisms pop up, such as when Luna realizes her friend Heck is “gay” but not in the sense of being happy, and he talks about a “queer subculture”—terms more appropriate to the latter half of the century. These misgivings aside, the book offers an original take on the struggles of immigrants, women, and queer folk in the early 20th century.

Trish MacEnulty

A LT E R NAT E H I STORY MIDNIGHT ON THE MARNE Sarah Adlakha, Forge, 2022, $26.99, hb, 368pp, 9781250774590

Few people, especially writers, can resist a “what if?” In this book, Adlakha asks the question: What if the Allies had lost the Battle of the Marne in World War I? Might a bookish American meet a beautiful woman in a prisoner-of-war camp and build a life with her in a world run by Nazis and Russians?

When we first meet Marcelle, she is 94 and cared for by her daughter, Juliette, among others. A diary, written in English, arrives one day, but Marcelle is unable to read it, so Juliette reads it to her. It appears to be about a young, rebellious Marcelle, and yet the life it relates is not the one Marcelle remembers.

For one thing, she never betrayed the man who eventually became her husband to the Nazis! And yet this strange biography feels oddly familiar to her. In this story, she ignores her instincts on one of her errands for the Resistance and winds up captured and tortured. Instead of marrying her longtime boyfriend, she weds an American named George—the same man who sent her the diary.

At some point, George must decide which life will be the one that Marcelle gets to have.

The story is about the importance of choices and how something that seems tragic in the moment may be the one thing that saves us. The framing device is confusing, at first, and the early chapters get bogged down in exposition. However, once the story takes wing, it soars. Both histories—the alternate and the actual—are told in vivid, sometimes terrifying detail. The poignant ending will bring a tear to readers’ eyes.

Trish MacEnulty

SINGER DISTANCE Ethan Chatagnier, Tin House, 2022, $27.95, hb, 288pp, 9781953534439

In response to a message carved into the Tunisian desert in 1894, Martians began communicating with Earth. At first, the questions were simple equations, spelled out in glowing blue symbols on Mars’ surface, but the messages have gotten increasingly harder. The last query posed has taken almost thirty years to solve. Finally, in 1960, MIT student Crystal Singer thinks she has solved it and enlists the help of four of her classmates to journey to Arizona to paint a message in the desert.

One of the students is her boyfriend, Rick, who, despite being a math major, doesn’t understand Crystal’s message, but his faith in her leads him to plan and fund the trip. He isn’t surprised that she has indeed cracked it, causing the Martians to respond. Her discovery brings the group instant fame, and they are suddenly bombarded with media requests and hounded by curious people worldwide.

Unable to take the pressure, Crystal goes into hiding, infrequently communicating with anyone, including Rick. But he never stops loving her or loses his belief in her ability to solve the next equation.

Chatagnier’s debut novel is a beautiful musing on science and philosophy and how to measure physical and emotional distance.

Unique and fresh characters with detailed backstories fill the pages, including the heartbreaking account of the scientist who engaged a generation, including Crystal and Rick, but crumbled under the massive pressure to respond to Mars. A work of fiction with so much scientific theory could easily get tedious and overly complicated, but the focus on the emotional heartbeat of the story keeps the reader drawn in. Don’t worry if you don’t understand all of the scientific details; most of the characters don’t, either. An absorbing book that though set in the 1960s, feels surprisingly timeless.

Janice Derr

THE ONCE AND FUTURE QUEEN: Guinevere Reimagined Parker J. Cole, Independently published, 2022, $9.99, pb, 418pp, 9798824812046

515 AD. Gwenhwyfar and Arthur are both on the cusp of retaking their lands.

Their plans have been shaping for 10 years now. Gwenhwyfar, born as Princess Fayola, fled her home at 10 years old after her aunt murdered her mother, the Kandake, and seized the throne. Arthur’s father is a tyrant whose cruelty has stood unchallenged for too long. When the two meet, there’s an instant attraction. Could it be their shared losses pulling them together, or is it something more? Can either of them give up their throne for their growing love?

Parker J. Cole spins a fascinating tale of a woman from Nobadia who fled to Scotland

to live amongst the Picts as a warrior, breathing new life into the well-known name: Gwenhwyfar. While I’ve never heard of rulership legitimized by hexadactyly in the cult of Isis/Wusa, it is interesting to read about birth defects being an advantage in ancient times. There are new legs to Arthur’s journey, but as there are so many legends surrounding this historical figure, I enjoyed the new elements.

The prologue starts with Fayola fleeing, then things jarringly switch backwards in time for an untold number of months with Chapter One opening before Fayola’s mother was murdered. The nonlinear narrative isn’t always clearly defined, which frustrated.

The characters are well-developed. While some names are recognizable, like Arthur and Gwenhwyfar, others are not, such as Leofsige (not to be confused with the medieval Bishop of Worcester, Leofsige) and Gowon (not to be confused with the Klingon, Gowron). The Once and Future Queen gives voice to both women and people of color, whose beautiful and empowering stories have largely been left silent in history. Adding more political intrigue, scope of setting, and character depth, this is an enjoyable alternate history twist to Arthurian legend.

J. Lynn Else

C H I LDR E N & YOU NG A DU LT ROSIE RAJA: Churchill’s Spy Sufiya Ahmed, Bloomsbury, 2022, £6.99, pb, 218pp, 9781801990059

In 1941, eleven-year-old Rosie is a Muslim princess growing up amidst the Indian struggle for independence from British imperial rule.

When her mother dies, her English father uproots Rosie to England, where she finds the gardens dull, the food plain and the rain cold. She does not understand why her father went away while her mother was sick or why he brought Rosie to England after her death.

There is a mystery to her father’s reticence, his absences, and the strangers who visit him.

Rosie determines to discover his secrets and finds herself flung into his sabotage mission in Occupied France.

Sufiya Ahmed has previously written about Noor Inayat Khan, agent for the Special Operations Executive in wartime France, so we find here authentic details of covert operations and cameos from historical SOE coordinators, Vera Atkins and Winston Churchill. Indian cultural history beats beneath Rosie’s reaction to her English home while the political context—civil dissent in India and a brutal war in Europe—forces Rosie to adjust her life to uncontrollable forces. Rosie’s family involvement in the Indian independence movement provides a reflective thread which invites the young reader to consider the reasons for resistance to different forms of political domination. The ethical dilemmas which Rosie experiences emerge convincingly from lives under military

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occupation as she discovers the motivations of ordinary people who resist the regime. This brings complexity to the story.

There are some distracting stage directions as characters speak, but the young reader learns interactively with Rosie how to use different kinds of secret code. This is a story not only of her undercover missions (rather than the spying of the title) but also of how her risk-taking allows Rosie and her father to understand each other again after so much loss.

Louise Tree

THE DARK LADY Akala, Hodder Children’s Books, 2022, £7.99, pb, 308pp, 9781444942972

The rapper Akala’s debut novel, a magical realist adventure set in Shakespearean London, is quite frankly, just magical.

It features Henry, a boy thief, abandoned by his mother, the Dark Lady of the title, who haunts his dreams. Henry lives with two witches and spends his days pickpocketing with two cousins in stinking, violent London. Here the poor get by on their wits, knowing they could dance on the end of a rope at any time, and Henry faces discrimination for the colour of his skin as a Moor. But it’s not all bad. He spends time off at Shakespeare’s Globe watching Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet and has his own magic, an ability to close his eyes and envisage many languages and a natural gift in writing sonnets, just like Shakespeare. However, Henry’s life changes when he and his cousins rob a duke’s house and run into trouble. Can Henry’s gifts save them?

The book is peppered with Henry’s sonnets and Shakespeare references. It’s not surprising as Akala runs The Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company. He plays with ideas of who the Dark Lady of the Bard’s poems is, and what she means to Henry, along with a running theme of Othello. Famous Elizabethans like Moll Cutpurse, Dr John Dee, and Shakespeare himself make appearances.

The book is recommended for 13-17-yearolds. and it’s easy to see why. There are scenes of violence, death, animal cruelty and swearing. Elizabethan slang is used, which I found a bit distracting, but there is a list of modern equivalents at the back. Overall, a real page-turner which promises a follow-up, and I can’t wait.

Kate Pettigrew

VENTURA AND ZELZAH J. G. Bryan, Santa Monica Press, 2022, $12.99, pb, 286pp, 9781595801005

Set in suburban Los Angeles in 1975, Ventura and Zelzah follows Douglas and his friends from the end of their eighth-grade year through the summer and into the first few months of ninth grade. After proving himself to his parents through good grades and an assortment of odd jobs, Douglas is let loose for the summer.

He spends time with his friends, venturing through the Valley, riding roller coasters at 58

Magic Mountain, partying, going to the movies to see Jaws, and playing countless hours of basketball, all while struggling to maintain a balance between his fledgling romance with Natalia and his buddies Ronnie, Weddy, and Hank.

Ventura and Zelzah is a coming-of-age story filled with laughter, adventures, high-jinx, and friendship. The Valley setting is palpable. It is nostalgic and magical. Written for readers ages 15 and up, the story reads like a memoir, more like an adult reliving their adolescence, than a true YA. Bryan often goes off on tangents, amusing though they may be, that add little to Douglas’s growth or character.

These tangents, however, might make the story more appealing to adults who wish to relive their days of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

Meg Wiviott

THE PRISONER AND THE WRITER Heather Camlot, illus. Sophie Casson, Groundwood, 2022, $14.99, hb, 64pp, 9781773066325

Captain Alfred Dreyfus, wrongly accused of treason by the French government in 1894, was imprisoned on Devil’s Island, off the South American coast. This travesty of justice came to the attention of French writer Émile Zola, who wrote an open letter titled ‘J’Accuse’ to the newspaper L’Aurore. At the height of his career, Zola had everything to lose by exposing this injustice. After a trial, he was forced into exile.

However, his letter received worldwide attention and eventually resulted in Dreyfus’s release. The case is known as the Dreyfus Affair, and the headline ‘J’Accuse’ is still used worldwide to condemn injustice.

While Dreyfus was a victim of anti-Semitism, Zola was reviled for speaking the truth; both suffered from widely spread falsehoods.

Written for middle-grade readers, the novel in prose and poetry focuses not on the unjust treatment of Dreyfus, but on the importance of standing up to injustice despite personal cost.

This apparently simple little book, beautifully illustrated, is a vividly written parable for today’s age of misinformation. The concept is carefully formed and powerfully executed.

Yet it is easy to read; the words have a lilt that increases reading pleasure. A delight and a uniquely valuable book for today’s world.

Valerie Adolph

THE LOST RYŪ Emi Watanabe Cohen, Levine Querido, 2022, $17.99, hb, 432pp, 9781646141326

What Philip Pullman did for adults and young adults with his concept of the “daemon,” a linked being that nourishes the human soul, Emi Watanabe Cohen has taken to gentler, more tender realms with the ryū—a personal dragon that supports each caring person in Japan.

Since World War II ended twenty years ago, the dragons in Japan have been very small, small enough to perch on someone’s outstretched

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hand or snuggle in the curve where one’s neck meets the shoulder. Yet Kohei Fujiwara has an impossible memory of big dragons that existed before the war, both beautiful and brutal in their way. He can’t actually have seen them, although his grandfather certainly did. But at this point, Ojiisan, Kohei’s grandfather, is “loud and bitter and numb, and he drank too much.” He also doesn’t have a ryū of his own, not even the tiny sort like Yuharu, who comforts Kohei and reminds him of obligations.

When a family from America becomes a new neighbor, and their half-Japanese daughter (who speaks only English) enters school with Kohei, he’s eager to discover whether she has a Western dragon. Somehow he’s convinced that those are large and potent, like the one his grandfather once had—and if he could just provide a ryū like that, Ojiisan could recover from illness, both physical and spiritual.

Complicating all this is the nature of new neighbor Isobel’s ryū: Not big after all, Cheshire speaks in Yiddish, a nearly lost language. Will he be of any help? Contrasting several kinds of historical loss and loss of home, Watanabe Cohen offers a contemporary fairy tale of journey and quest, with a youngster’s determined heroic stance on behalf of those he loves.

Beth Kanell

THE SECRET OF SPLINT HALL Katie Cotton, Andersen Press, 2022, £7.99, pb, 320pp, 9781839131967

“Mum said the war was over, but Isobel thought that it was not. She could see it in the tight lips of the women as they queued to buy sugar, butter and bacon.” The opening sentences of this fantasy adventure point to its theme: that the war against evil is never completely over.

The story unfolds in two Acts. In the first, we meet sisters Flora (10 years) and Isobel (12), fleeing their bombed home with their mother at the end of WW2. They take refuge at Splint Hall (their mother’s ancestral home) with their aunt and uncle. However, their uncleby-marriage now controls the household in a climate of fear. As the sisters explore their surroundings, strange and unsettling events start to multiply.

Act 1 paints a vivid picture of post-war Britain. Rationing, clothing, the effects of grief and trauma on various characters—all are integral to the storyline. Katie Cotton writes beautifully, weaving in observations of domestic life and evoking the rivalries between the two sisters. Moments of anger and smugness are handled as easily as their shared grief at losing their father. Later they join forces with two brothers from the village, whose loyalties and differences are depicted with similar complexity.

Act 2 takes us firmly into fantasy, where the girls discover that the secret of Splint Hall involves evil creatures (Splints) who are regaining strength, and dragons who seek to stop them. The sisters embark on a challenging

quest to help the dragons. Readers who love a tense, page-turning adventure will not be disappointed here. The narrative twists and turns satisfyingly, whilst never losing its connection with the emotional and thematic truths that underpin the story. At 300 pages, this is a long and engaging read for children of 9+.

Marion Rose

THE WIND RISES Timothée de Fombelle (trans. Holly James), illus. François Place, Europa, 2022, $18.99, hb, 410pp, 9781609457877

In this middle-grade novel, book one of the planned Alma Trilogy, readers follow teenagers Alma and Joseph on very different adventures and await the moment when their paths collide.

It’s 1786, and thirteen-year-old Alma must leave her happy but isolated family home in Africa to search for her beloved younger brother. The idyllic life that her parents so carefully created for their children begins to shatter as Alma learns that people in her country are being hunted and kidnapped for slavery. Alma’s parents now have two children out in this dangerous world and are forced to assume their previous and surprising identities to help save them.

Nearly fourteen-year-old thief Joseph Mars cons his way onto the slave ship named Sweet Amelie in search of pirates’ treasure. Alma’s family, Joseph’s shipmates, new friends and enemies on both teens’ journeys, and even the ship’s namesake, young Amelie Bassac, become wrapped up in this absorbing journey.

De Fombelle has a no-nonsense style that is immediately engaging and accessible to kids while still being eminently readable for adults. Holly James’s translation is smooth and expresses de Fombelle’s eloquent turns of phrase. There really should be too many characters and names to keep track of, but somehow de Fombelle makes them distinct and keep readers’ eyes on the most important action in every scene. A satisfying ending and the compelling illustrations will leave readers excited for Book Two of this series.

Amy Watkin

THE ACCIDENTAL STOWAWAY Judith Eagle, illus. Kim Geyer, Faber & Faber, 2022, £7.99, pb, 277pp, 9780571363124

Liverpool, 1910. The awkward 12-year-old Patch has spent her childhood being handed from one reluctant relation to another—she knows she doesn’t fit in, but she is determined to look after herself and live the life she wants.

Then one day everything goes spectacularly wrong and, accused of a crime she didn’t commit, she escapes her pursuers by rollerskating up a gangplank onto an ocean liner bound for New York—only to become an accidental stowaway when it sets sail.

There are criminals aboard, and one of them has spotted her; there are other

stowaways, too, each with their own secrets.

But there are friends to be made as well as enemies to outwit and, as Patch scurries from steerage down in the hot and dirty bowels of the ship and up to the posh suites where the ultra-rich stay, she must learn that dangerous skill: hiding in plain sight.

I loved this book; it’s about friendship and loyalty; not making instant judgements, and learning who to trust. Patch will need all her wits about her if she is to keep herself and her friends safe. I read the book at a gallop, then re-read it slowly, with relish. It reminded me of the Edwardian children’s classic, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, where young Mary, like Patch, struggles to make a life for herself and decide what sort of person she wants to be.

I then recalled another novelist’s advice: ‘Kill off the heroine’s mother!’ Drastic?

Possibly, but Catherine Morland in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey would never have made such catastrophic mistakes if her sensible mother had been there—and Catherine’s misadventures certainly grab the reader’s attention. Judith Eagle has taken this option and twisted it, and the result is a terrific read for children from 10 up.

Elizabeth Hawksley

NEVER FORGET YOU Jamila Gavin, Farshore, 2022, £8.99, pb, 501pp, 9780755503346

This is a long, involving read about four young women who meet at boarding school in Sussex in the 1930s, that goes on to chronicle the courageous roles they take, as well as their friendships and emotional lives, as World War 2 progresses. The story is initially narrated by Gwen, born in India, and whose parents still live there in the colonial service, and her angle on events is repeatedly returned to. Where the stories of the protagonists diverge, the third person is used, so readers gain wider understanding of their situations and are privy to secrets they cannot divulge to each other, although they remain in contact when and where they can. As Gwen notes: ‘despite all our laughter and wisecracking, it was as though there were glass walls between us.

We were affectionately together yet strangely apart.’

Noor is the only character based on that of a real-life individual, Noor Inayat Khan, born in Russia of Indian parentage, who struggles with her conscience as a pacifist when she becomes a British resistance agent in France. In a brief afterword Jamila Gavin acknowledges that her life was the inspiration for this novel.

Vera is a Jewish refugee from Poland with family and friends in Paris. Since the disappearance of her parents and little brother, she has been living with her aunt and uncle who believe that they are safe from the persecution of Jews due to her uncle’s long French residency and Catholic conversion.

The quartet is completed by budding actress Dodo whose parents are Nazi sympathisers,

putting her in the invidious position of working out where her loyalties lie. Not all of the four will survive the war.

A YA novel encompassing great storytelling, characters that the reader cares about, and unobtrusive attention to period detail.

Ann Lazim

GRANNY CAME HERE ON THE EMPIRE WINDRUSH Patrice Lawrence, illus. Camilla Sucre, Nosy Crow, 2022, £7.99, pb, 40pp, 9781839942310

JOHN AGARD’S WINDRUSH CHILD

John Agard, illus. Sophie Bass, Walker, 2022, £12.99, hb, 32pp, 9781529501124

WE SANG ACROSS THE SEA: The Empire Windrush and Me Benjamin Zephaniah, Iwu, Scholastic, 2022, 9780702311161

illus.

Onyinye £6.99, pb, 24pp,

The arrival in Britain of people from the Caribbean on the ship the Empire Windrush has been the subject of several recent picture books. The racist treatment that many of the Windrush generation have received, to the extent that some have been unjustly deported despite their contribution to society, has attracted considerable attention, and these books for young children celebrate their lives collectively and individually with verve and vitality.

In Patrice Lawrence and Camilla Sucre’s book, Ava and her Trinidadian Granny explore Black women’s history as they talk about which woman she admires, who Ava could dress up as for a school occasion. The names of Rosa Parks, Mary Seacole and Winifred Atwell are invoked, and their achievements described. However, as Granny speaks about her own experiences, an answer nearer to home becomes apparent.

In Windrush Child, vivid pictures are painted of ‘a child stepping in a big ship/not knowing how long the journey/or that you’re stepping into history/bringing your Caribbean eye/to another horizon’. An explanatory historical note contextualises the poem further.

A poem also forms the text for We Sang Across the Sea: The Empire Windrush and Me. It tells the story of Trinidadian performer Mona Baptiste who sailed on the Empire Windrush and travelled the world bringing joy through her singing.

Ann Lazim

ESCAPE FROM EAST BERLIN Andy Marino, Scholastic, 2022, $6.99/£6.99, pb, 176pp, 9781338832044

This is the tale of two families from Berlin, Germany. In August of 1961, the East German Army laid down 30 miles of barbed wire throughout Berlin to separate East from West. Families became divided, and the wall

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eventually became a high concrete barrier. In November 1961, 17-year-old Stefan Dietrich attempts to swim across Humboldt Harbor to visit friends in West Berlin. The trapos, transit police, shoot him to death in the water.

Stefan’s tragic death changes his twelveyear-old sister, Marta. She overhears her cousin discussing a bold plan to take a train car of passengers to escape East Berlin through the ghost stations. Marta volunteers to pass coded messages from East to West.

The Dietrich family has now been targeted by the Stasi police. The man assigned to prove the allegations against the Dietrichs is Lothar Muller, an agent of the Stasi. He vows to bring down the Dietrich family.

The story then skips ahead to January 1989.

Kurt Muller and his brother Franz are living in East Berlin while their parents have been exiled to West Berlin. Franz has joined the grepo, the East German police. But Kurt misses his parents and cannot condone the injustice of the Wall. He dreams of escaping to the West.

As the book reaches its climax, the tearing down of the wall in 1989, readers finally see the threads that connect both families.

Well-written with distinct characters, good dialogue, and continuous pacing of the action.

At times I became a little confused about which decade I was reading, but the chapter subheadings helped to clarify. Definitely recommended.

Linda Harris Sittig

TORCH Lyn Miller-Lachmann, Carolrhoda Lab, 2022, $19.99, hb, 328pp, 9781728415680

1969, the year after the Prague Spring was crushed in August by Soviet tanks rolling over the “socialism with a human face” into Czechoslovakia, and four friends just coming of age learn to deal with the new reality. Religious Pavol and his friends Štěpán and Tomáš write a letter to the authorities expressing their frustration with the harsh new rules. For his antiRussian activities, Pavol has been denied his place at the university, which leaves him without a future beyond working in the killing mines. When their letter isn’t even read, in despair Pavol sets himself on fire—a “torch”—in the public square, emulating the real case of Jan Palach and others at the time.Štěpán, Tomáš, and Pavol’s girlfriend Lída, who discovers she is carrying Pavol’s child, have to decide how to get on with their lives. Tomáš’s communist party bigwigs and his own “antisocialist” autism and Štěpán’s

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forbidden homosexuality complicate their decisions.

I cannot praise this book highly enough. The publisher touts it as a Young Adult title, as was Miller-Lachmann’s previous historical novel, but limiting it to this audience would be a shame. Like all the best historical fiction, without sacrificing period perspectives, we are forced to look to our own souls. The number of the National Suicide Prevention Hotline in the opening pages brings echoes of the historical circumstances into our present day, of which the author in her note assures us she is fully conscious. The materialism of capitalism the Czech authorities warn their young people against when Western books and records are banned can also crush the hopeful young soul.

May the power of this novel be part of the solution.

Ann Chamberlin

THE HOUSE OF LITTLE SISTERS Eva Wong Nava, Penguin Random House SEA, 2022, $15.95, pb, 240pp, 9789814882279

In this atmospheric YA novel, Nava traces the plight of the mui tsai (little sisters)— unwanted girls of impoverished parents whose labor is essentially enslavement by wealthy families. Nava chooses the historical moment in 1940s Malaysia when the modern world is finally catching up with the feudal exploitation of these girls and activists begin to lobby the government to grant them human rights, education, and a future. The subject matter sounds grim, but Nava’s lyrical style captures the daily routines of life in this rich multicultural setting, where Chinese, Hindu, and Muslim traditions coexist on the eve of the Second World War. The story is alternately narrated by Lim Mei Mei, one of the mui tsai who is sold by her desperate family to work for a prosperous trading family, and by Wan Jie, the family’s older cook, who takes Mei under her wing. The women, young and old, soon realize that the outwardly serene Lee household is haunted by the “hungry ghost” of Mei’s predecessor, the unfortunate Ah Lian, whose fate Mei is likely to share unless she can discover a way out of her servitude and the predations of the Eminent Master Lee. Hope appears in the form of a devoted admirer, Hassan, and also Percy, the principled eldest son of the Lee family, whose modern education inspires him to right the wrongs perpetrated by his ancestors.

The novel offers many delights, not the least of which are the mouthwatering descriptions of Wan Jie’s traditional Malay dishes. The occasionally confusing time jumps early in the novel settle down as the narrative develops, but the ending is also abrupt and a bit simplistic.

Still, this story may inspire teen readers to investigate a lesser-known region of Asian history and mythology.

REVIEWS | Issue 102, November 2022

Kristen McDermott

LINES OF COURAGE Jennifer A. Nielsen, Scholastic, 2022, £12.99/$17.99, hb, 390pp, 9781338620931

This gripping WWI adventure weaves together the stories of five young people from different countries, whose lives are irrevocably changed by war.

Austro-Hungarian Felix witnesses the assignation of Archduke Ferdinand, which unleashes a series of global events leading to unimaginable hardship and millions of deaths.

Felix wants to be brave and find courage. Elsa is a German major’s daughter who wants to discover friendship. British Kara wants to use her Red Cross training to be a nurse or doctor, whilst French Juliette seeks her family after her village is destroyed. Meanwhile, unarmed Russian Dimitri strives to survive the misery of life in the trenches.

We learn that wanting does not guarantee getting. However, by extending kindness to others, we discover courage grows. By revealing the experience of these five very different characters from the varying countries involved in the conflict, WWI is brought into focus in all its complexity, whilst showing the deprivation, terror, hunger, and the hatred war brings. Yet, through a series of remarkable coincidences over this four-year period the five teenagers’ lives entwine. Maturity occurs against a period of occupation and bombings.

This impeccably researched novel will provide opportunity for discussion on an important period in history that should never be forgotten. It reveals how this ‘war to end all wars’ unfolded and why. The stories of the characters overlap to show how war touches everyone, on all sides of the conflict, as they are exposed to contrasting life and death experiences. Highly recommended as an enlightening novel that concludes neatly with a satisfying ending. Ages 12-18 and beyond!

Valerie Loh

RESIST Tom Palmer, illus. Tom Clohosy Cole, Barrington Stoke, 2022, £7.99, pb, 197pp, 9781800901063

Inspired by the teenage years of Audrey Hepburn, this story is set in the Nazi-occupied town of Velp in the Netherlands. Under a brutal occupation, teenager Edda has had to lose her English name to hide her dual heritage. Her uncle has already been murdered by the Nazi occupiers, her brothers are at risk of enslavement, and she has seen families forced onto trains and taken to camps where people say they are murdered. The occupying soldiers make her frightened and angry, but it is her anger at injustice which gives her the courage to help the local Resistance, starting with the distribution of their illegal newsletter, De Oranjekrant. Edda’s activities place her in great danger, not only from the Nazis but also from exposure by local collaborators. There are worrying rumours about her mother, and Edda must find out whether these are true. Edda also loves to dance, and the act of dancing on ‘dark evenings’—secret performances to raise money for Jews, Allied airmen and young Dutch men

in hiding from the German draft—provides hope not only to Edda, but to the occupied community who come to watch.

In a beautifully crafted story, Tom Palmer gives us a timely reminder of the grim details of military occupation and a community disoriented by destruction and refugees, a situation which forces ethical decisions from both adults and children. This is tense and sensory storytelling in which everyday details such as curfew, round-ups and cooking tulip bulbs show us a world of tight enemy control lit by the hope of liberation. A teenage reader will perceive the psychological strength and ingenuity required to survive brutality and starvation. This story provides a vivid experience of a young person’s response to war and the power of hope. Highly recommended.

Louise Tree

PLEASE WRITE SOON Michael Rosen, illus. Michael Foreman, Scholastic, 2022, £12.99, hb, 80pp, 9780702303180

This is a story based on the family history of the writer, told mainly in a series of letters and set in 1946. Solomon is asked to produce a school project and chooses the letters he exchanged with his older Polish cousin, Bernie, throughout the Second World War. Bernie’s story is true, but almost unbelievable.

Forced to flee the Nazis in Poland, he is sent to a Russian work camp, then recruited into a Polish national army being assembled in Russia. Eventually this army ends up fighting at Monte Casino in Italy, and then beside other Allied armies as they re-take Europe from the Nazis.

Solomon is lonely and has his own traumas: he is evacuated to a countryside and a family he knows nothing of, whilst his mother, a nurse, must remain in London to work throughout the Blitz. Sometimes bullied, sometimes happy—a trip to see badgers in the woodlands at night stays vividly in his mind—he shares his feelings and worries with Bernie and in return receives accounts of fighting, wise advice and the story of the bear mascot his squadron adopts. Bernie and Solomon are Jewish, and the book touches honestly but sensitively on the horror of the Holocaust, and the death of Bernie’s mother and father amongst countless others. The story deals with many kinds of loss and fear—the history of Miss Drury, Solomon’s class teacher is a poignant one—yet has a happy ending.

The book also has a final section dealing with the importance of Remembrance Day celebrations in the UK, and of memorials in general. Recent memorials to the victims of Covid-19 are mentioned. The novel is beautifully written, wonderfully illustrated and a treat to read.

Recommended heartily for primary schools and home-reading for children of eight and upwards.

Jane Burke

NISHA’S WAR Dan Smith, Chicken House, 2022, £7.99, pb, 368pp, 9781912626755

March 1942, and Nisha Barrow and her mother are the only people to alight from

the train at Bealmouth, Northumbria, UK. It’s dull, cold, and deserted—just like Nisha’s heart. Because her heart is with her father, left behind in Malaya, her home. The final leg of the journey to Barrow Island is by pony and trap across a tidal causeway. They are given plenty of warnings to beware the tide, should they cross again. Nisha needs no warnings: she’s terrified of the sea.

Once arrived at the island, they receive a cold welcome from a seemingly racist grandmother. Then Nisha’s mother falls seriously ill, and the servant sends Nisha out of the way. Thus, Nisha is left alone to explore the secrets of the barren island and its spooky house.

Thus begins a story that has echoes of classics such as The Secret Garden, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the Famous Five. There’s a strong sense of loneliness, of place, secrets, a hint of the supernatural—and a charming gypsy boy. As an adult, I saw the plot points coming. But it was well written, engaging, and enjoyable to read.

The supernatural element introduced a moral message that was delivered, in my opinion, in an effective, ‘non-preachy’ way.

What previous centuries called ‘morals’ might today be called strategies for managing one’s mental health. As flashbacks of Nisha’s escape from Singapore gradually explain her panic attacks, the book is revealed as a lesson in dealing with trauma and grief. A good read, with a well-taught lesson we can all learn.

Helen Johnson

ISLAND OF SPIES Sheila Turnage, Dial, 2022, $17.99, hb, 384pp, 9780735231252

Twelve-year-old Sarah Stickley “Stick” Lawson lives her with mom, dad, and older sister on Hatteras Island, North Carolina.

Stick, her ten-year-old friend, Rain, and another friend, Neb, have formed an alliance they call Dime Novel Kids. Each Kid has special talents. Savant Stick knows more science and Latin than most adults and has memorized titles, storylines, and lessons from more than 900 numbered dime novels. She speaks and thinks like an adult. Rain, too, is a grown-up soul and a talented artist who notices things only an artist would. Neb is a master at figuring out patterns and decoding secret messages. The Kids try to solve local mysteries, such as who’s been stealing school lunches, and yearn for FBI attention someday.

The surrounding Atlantic, with its unpredictable weather, tricky shoals, and strong tides, has long been a ship graveyard.

Now in January 1942, German U-Boats sink coastal water traffic. Some torpedoes and U-Boat cannon shells even explode ashore.

Suddenly the Dime Novel Kids have big quarry: German spies. The island’s post mistress, two tourists who fled from Austria, and several young men all behave strangely or seem out of place. They pull the Kids into complicated and harrowing adventures.

The story is told entirely in Stick’s sometimes

cryptic, always clever, and adult-sounding point of view. Latin phrases and word origins, references to many Dime Novels, science lessons, and catchy metaphors abound.

Unfortunately, most are not needed; some were not known at that time (a hawk diving “like a heat-seeking missile”). The Kids’ heart-tugging family challenges, ugly race relations, alongside double agents, secret codes, and deadly missions are weakened by Stick constantly showing readers how much she knows.

G. J. Berger

MY OWN LIGHTNING Lauren Wolk, Dutton, 2022, $17.99, hb, 320pp, 9780525555599 / Penguin, 2022, £7.99, pb, 320pp, 9780241424216

Closure is an ever-moving target in Lauren Wolk’s sequel to Wolf Hollow. After a tragic death, eleven-year-old Annabelle struggles to fit into her idyllic life on her family’s beautiful farm in Western Pennsylvania. In the summer of 1944, readers find Annabelle volunteering her time at the schoolhouse, attending to her farm chores, and struggling to let go of profound regret. We see Annabelle slip further away from the life she loves until a storm abruptly restores her fearlessness and kind heart.

The storm also brings several lost dogs and the school bully, Andy Woodberry, into Annabelle’s world. As the two work to rescue these animals and escape a dangerous stranger, Annabelle learns that forgiving Andy might be the path to self-compassion.

Along with many emotionally charged moments, this novel is rich with sensory details.

Wolk’s work transports readers to the beauty of another time, complete with descriptions of farm-to-table meals that will make readers drool. Many of these scenes reminded me of the beloved Little House on the Prairie series.

Much like Laura Ingalls Wilder’s work, Wolk’s story captures the sights, sounds, and smells of rural life and keeps young readers transfixed.

Unlike Wilder, Wolk shares the complicated inner struggle of her protagonist as she fights to understand acts of cruelty far worse than anything Nellie Oleson ever imagined.

Wolf Hollow and My Own Lightning make excellent additions to any classroom library. While these novels do not expand representation or challenge social norms, My Own Lightning teaches young readers that although tragedy shapes us, it does not have to define us. Highly recommended for ages ten and up.

Melissa Warren

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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).

© 2022, the Historical Novel Society, ISSN: 1471-7492 | Issue 102, November 2022

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

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