Historical Novels Review | Issue 44 (May 2008)

The

Issue 44, May 2008, ISSN 1471-7492

HistoricalNovelsReview A publication of the Historical Novel Society

When

Music is the Muse

Susanne Dunlap talks with five authors bringing music to life in their fiction

In this issue...

Plus...

C.W. Gortner interviews Pauline Gedge, Lucinda Byatt looks at novels set in Venice, Jane Jackson’s Cornish fiction, and a memorial to Reay Tannahill and George MacDonald Fraser

Where Is the Good in Goodbye?

1

Historical Fiction Market News

1

History & Film: The Red Violin

3

10 Worst-Selling Tudor Novels

16

Plus...

Editors’ Choice & reviews

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Historical Novel Society Founder/Publisher: Richard Lee Marine Cottage The Strand Starcross, Devon, EX6 8NY UK <richard@historicalnovelsociety.org>

Historical Novels Review ISSN: 1471-7492 © 2008, The Historical Novel Society Managing Editor: Bethany Latham Houston Cole Library Jacksonville State University 700 Pelham Road North Jacksonville, AL 36265-1602, USA <blatham@jsu.edu> Book Review Editor: Sarah Johnson 6868 Knollcrest Drive Charleston, IL 61920, USA <sljohnson2@eiu.edu>

Harrogate, North Yorkshire, HG2 8JA UK <sallyzigmond@gmail.com>

Associate Editor, Fiction: Debbie Schoeneman 73 Deepdale Drive Publisher Coverage: HarperCollins UK (inc. Flamingo, Voyager, Fourth Estate), Orion Group (inc. Gollancz, South Huntington, NY 11746, USA Phoenix, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Cassell), Piatkus, Severn <literarymuse@hotmail.com> House, Quercus, Duckworth, and all small independent UK publishers not handled by other editors

REVIEWS EDITORS (USA) Ellen Keith Milton S. Eisenhower Library Johns Hopkins University 3400 N Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21218-2683, USA <ekeith@jhu.edu>

Associate Editor, Industry: Cindy Vallar PO Box 425 Keller, TX 76244-0425, USA <cindy@cindyvallar.com>

CONFERENCES The Society organizes annual conferences in the UK and biennial conferences in the US. Contact (UK): Richard Lee <richard@historicalnovelsociety.org> Publisher Coverage: HarperCollins (inc. William Mor- Contact (USA): Sarah Johnson row, Avon, Regan, Ecco, Zondervan), Houghton Mifflin <sljohnson2@eiu.edu> (inc. Mariner), Farrar Straus & Giroux, Kensington, Carroll & Graf, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

Trudi Jacobson University Library University at Albany 1400 Washington Avenue Albany, NY 12222, USA <readbks@verizon.net>

MEMBERSHIP DETAILS Membership in the Historical Novel Society is by calendar year (January to December) and entitles members to all the year’s publications: two issues of Solander, and four issues of Historical Novels Review. Back issues of society magazines are also available. For current rates, contact:

Publisher Coverage: Random House (all imprints), Penguin Putnam, Five Star, Bethany House, MacAdSue Hyams Publisher Coverage: Simon & Schuster (inc. Atria, am/Cage, university presses, and any North American Scribner, Touchstone, Washington Square), Warner, Little 56 Ackroyd Road presses not mentioned below Brown, Arcade, WW Norton, Hyperion, Harcourt, Toby, Honor Oak Park, London SE23 1DL UK Akadine, New Directions, Harlequin, Medallion, Crippen <sue.hyams@virgin.net> Features Editor: Myfanwy Cook & Landru, Hilliard & Harris, Trafalgar Square, Steerforth Patrika Salmon

47 Old Exeter Road, Tavistock, Devon PL19 OJE UK <vc@myfanwy.fsbusiness.co.uk>

24 Glenmore Street Glenleith, Dunedin, New Zealand <pdrlindsaysalmon@xtra.co.nz>

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

Susan Higginbotham REVIEWS EDITORS (UK) 405 Brierridge Drive Doug Kemp Publisher Coverage: St Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books, Apex, NC 27502, USA Tulip Lodge, Harrowden Road, Wellingborough, Picador USA, Tor/Forge, Grove/Atlantic, Poisoned Pen <boswellbaxter@bellsouth.net> Northamptonshire NN8 5BD UK Press, Soho Press, Dorchester, Tyndale <doug.kemp@lineone.net> EDITORIAL POLICY Publisher Coverage: Allison & Busby, Little, Brown & Suzanne Sprague Reviews, articles, and letters may be edited Co, (inc. Abacus, Virago, Warner), Random House UK Hunt Library for reasons of space, clarity, and grammati(inc. Arrow, Cape, Century, Chatto & Windus, Harvill, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University cal correctness. We will endeavour to reflect Heinemann, Hutchinson, Pimlico, Secker & Warburg, the authors’ intent as closely as possible, 600 South Clyde Morris Boulevard Vintage), Simon & Schuster (inc. Scribner) and will contact the authors for approval Daytona Beach, FL 32114-3900, USA of any major change. We welcome ideas for <suzanne.sprague@erau.edu> Mary Moffat articles, but have specific requirements to Publisher Coverage: all self-published, subsidy, and consider. Before submitting material, please Sherbrooke, 32 Moffat Road electronically published novels contact the editor to discuss whether the Dumfries, Scotland, DG1 1NY UK proposed article is appropriate for the HNS <sherbrooke@marysmoffat.ndo.co.uk> magazines.

Publisher Coverage: Children’s historicals - all UK publishers

Ann Oughton 11 Ramsay Garden, Edinburgh, EH1 2NA UK <annoughton@btinternet.com>

SOLANDER

ISSN: 1471-7484 © 2008, The Historical Novel Society

Managing Editor: Claire Morris 324-2680 West 4th Avenue Vancouver, BC Publisher Coverage: Penguin (inc. Hamish Hamilton, V6K 4S3 CANADA Viking, Michael Joseph, Allen Lane), Bloomsbury, Faber <claire.morris@shaw.ca> & Faber, Constable & Robinson, Transworld (inc. Bantam Press, Black Swan, Doubleday, Corgi), Macmillan (inc.

Pan, Picador, Sidgwick & Jackson)

Mary Sharratt 20 Mercer Drive, Great Harwood, Lancashire BB6 7TX UK <MariekeSharratt@aol.com>

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

Sally Zigmond 18 Warwick Crescent,

COPYRIGHT In all cases, the copyright remains with the authors of the articles. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the authors concerned.

THE HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY was formed in 1997 to help promote historical fiction. All staff and contributors are volunteers and work unpaid. We are an open society – if you want to get involved, get in touch.

Associate Editor, Features: Marina Maxwell PO Box 24 The Patch, VIC 3792, Australia The Historical Novel Society <purpleprosepatch@yahoo. on the Internet com> WEBSITE: www.historicalnovelsociety.org Associate Editor, Profiles: Lucinda Byatt 13 Park Road Edinburgh, EH6 4LE UK <mail@lucindabyatt.com>

WEB SUPPORT: sljohnson2@eiu.edu

EMAIL NEWSLETTER: Read news and reviews. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HNSNewsletter DISCUSSION GROUP: Join in the discussion. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HistoricalNovelSociety

HistoricalNovelsReview

Contents

The

Where is the good in goodbye?

case you were I nunware, every

editor of and contributor to this magazine, including yours truly, offers his/her services on a volunteer basis.

So we all have “real” jobs, and lately, mine’s been giving me fits due to a looming deadline. Luckily for me, we met the deadline (early, even!) and finished the Project From Hell, so now I have more time to devote to my position as managing editor of HNR. Unluckily for me, some of our wonderful UK reviews editors haven’t had things slack up for them, so they’re going to be relinquishing their positions in order to focus on their “real” work.

Sally Zigmond, who is currently a UK reviews editor and, in the past, had served as HNR’s Coordinating Editor, will be leaving us with this issue. Sally will soon be joined in her editorial “retirement” by Mary Sharratt, another of our UK reviews editors. I wanted to extend my personal thanks to them both for all the hard work they’ve put in over the years, and for the fantastic job they’ve done. We hate to say goodbye, and the team will greatly miss you both!

So before I completely devolve into maudlin sentimentality and embarrass myself (more so than usual), a bit about what you’ll see in this issue. Susanne Dunlap, author of music-inspired HF herself, talks with five other similarminded authors about their work. Lucinda Byatt looks at fiction set in Venice; Jane Jackson and Pauline Gedge favor us with interviews; and Sally Zigmond takes a look at the lives of two HF authors we recently lost, Reay Tannahill and George MacDonald Fraser. Susan Higginbotham tackles rampant Tudorism, and the History & Film column is back and better than ever with a look at The Red Violin. Enjoy!

Bethany Latham

Editorial Editorial Bethany Latham

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Issue 44, May 2008, ISSN 1471-7492

Historical Fiction Market News Sarah Johnson Columns

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Historical Fiction Market News

History & Film: The Red Violin Catherine Delors

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Please continue to send information on publishing deals and other news to me at sljohnson2@eiu. edu.

Features & Inter views When Music is the Muse Author Susanne Dunlap explores music-inspired HF

5

Cliché, Consolation & Expectation Lucinda Byatt takes a look at historical fiction set in Venice

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Captivated by Egypt C.W. Gortner interviews Pauline Gedge

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Accidential Pioneers An in memoriam tribute to Reay Tannahill and George MacDonald Fraser 12

HNS Announcements The 3rd North American HNS Romantic Cornwall Jane Jackson discusses her Cornish conference will take place on June 11 historical fiction 14 12-14, 2009, at the Hyatt Regency Top 10 Worst-Selling Tudor Novels Susan Higginbotham crashes the Tudor Woodfield in Schaumburg, Illinois, bandwagon 16 in Chicago’s northwestern suburbs.

Reviews More details to come!

Editors’ Choice & More 17 Don’t forget to let HNS know when you move, so that you don’t miss receiving any magazines. Contact the appropriate membership secretary (details on masthead) with your new address.

Sally Zigmond will be stepping down shortly as a reviews editor for the UK team. I will be very sorry to see her go, not only because she’s been a superb editor over the years, but because I can hardly remember a time when she wasn’t involved with the magazine. Sally served as Coordinating Editor from 1999 to 2004, after which time she transitioned to being a reviews editor. Her editorial contributions will be missed, but I’m sure we’ll continue to see her name within these pages. Best wishes, Sally, for your future writing endeavors!

That said, the UK editorial team is in need of a new reviews editor to take over Sally’s duties. If you enjoy editing reviews, working with publishers, and keeping up with the latest titles and trends, this could be the job for you. This is a volunteer position, open to UK members. Please contact Sarah Johnson if interested.

The HNR editorial team also seeks additional book reviewers to cover historical novels and occasional nonfiction on a variety of subjects. Reviewers should be able to write clearly and concisely and keep to deadlines. UK members, please drop an email note to Ann Oughton and/or Mary Sharratt, details on previous page. US and Canadian members (as well as those residing elsewhere) should email Sarah Johnson.

In Remembrance Longtime HNS member Karen Swee, author of the American Revolutionary War mystery Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Murder, passed away suddenly in March. Karen was an enthusiastic contributor to the mystery and historical fiction communities; she moderated a panel on Researching the Historical Novel at our Salt Lake conference in 2005. We extend our sympathies to her family.

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HistoricalFictionMarketNews

HistoricalNovelsReview

New Publishing Deals Sources include Publishers Marketplace, Publishers Weekly, The Bookseller, and more.

Susan Higginbotham’s The Traitor’s Wife, following the favorite niece of King Edward II as she becomes entangled in a complex web of treachery and betrayal, sold to Peter Lynch at Sourcebooks by Judy Klein of Kleinworks Agency, on behalf of iUniverse Star. Susan is the US membership secretary for the HNS. Emilie’s Voice and Liszt’s Kiss author Susanne Dunlap’s young adult historical novel The Musician’s Daughter sold to Melanie Cecka at Bloomsbury Children’s, for publication in 2009, by Adam Chromy at Artists and Artisans. Set in Haydn’s Vienna of the late 18th century, The Musician’s Daughter is the story of an aspiring violinist who tries to solve her father’s brutal murder and recover his missing violin.

Myrmidon Books (UK) has sold North American rights to Russell Whitfield’s ancient Roman novel Gladiatrix (reviewed this issue) to St. Martin’s Press.

Eva Stachniak’s two untitled novels about Catherine the Great sold to Maya Mavjee at Doubleday Canada for publication in 2010, by Helen Heller at Helen Heller Agency.

Picador UK’s Sam Humphreys has bought world rights to debut novel The Swansong of Wilbur McCrum by Bronia Kita. The book, the tale of a Gold-Rush-era American outlaw, was bought from Ben Mason at Sheil Land, and is due in 2009.

Ellen Archer and Pamela Dorman at Voice won an auction for Katherine Howe’s debut novel The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, a multi-period novel in which a Harvard grad student finds family connections to the Salem witch trials of 1692, via agent Suzanne Gluck (in a 7-figure, 2-book deal) for summer 2009 publication.

Howe, a PhD candidate at Boston U, is the descendant of two accused Salem witches.

Martyr by Rory Clements, a debut historical thriller about John Shakespeare, chief intelligencer to Queen Elizabeth, sold to Kate Miciak at Bantam Dell by Patty Moosbrugger at Patricia Moosbrugger Literary Agency.

Judith Koll Healey’s The Rebel Princess, the continuation of the story of Alais Capet, sister to the King of France, who battles corrupt court officials, religious fanatics and her beloved as she engages a band of underground Cathar noblewomen to assist her in the rescue of her illegitimate son, sold to Carolyn Marino of William Morrow by Marly Rusoff of Marly Rusoff & Associates.

Jill Eileen Smith’s Michal: Daughter of the King, the first book in Smith’s biblical fiction series featuring the wives of King David, sold to Lonnie Hull Dupont at Revell by

Issue 44, May 2008

Wendy Lawton at Books & Such Literary Agency.

Anna Elliott’s Twilight of Avalon, Dark Moon of Avalon, and Sunrise of Avalon, a retelling of the legends of Tristan and Isolde based on the earliest known versions of the tales, sold to Danielle Friedman at Touchstone Fireside for publication beginning in May 2009, by Jacques de Spoelberch.

Poet Bernardine Evaristo’s Blonde Roots, “turning the history of the transatlantic slave trade on its head,” sold to Megan Lynch at Riverhead, in a pre-empt, by Kate Lee at ICM. UK rights went to Simon Prosser at Hamish Hamilton.

Carol McCleary’s No Job for a Lady, in which the 19th century journalist Nellie Bly lands in Paris during the World’s Fair in search of a serial killer, pairing her with the likes of Jules Verne, Louis Pasteur, and Oscar Wilde, sold to Bob Gleason at Tor, for publication in 2009, by Harvey Klinger at Harvey Klinger.

In Stores Soon Anita Mason’s The Right Hand of the Sun, based on years of research about the Spanish conquest of Mexico, appears in September from Hodder Murray.

Sharon Kay Penman’s highly anticipated Devil’s Brood, the final book in her trilogy, continuing the story of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II, and their children, appears in October from Putnam.

Red Lotus by Pai Kit Fai, set in 1920s China and about the “daughter of a Chinese mother and the foreign devil ship’s captain who rescued her from death,” will appear next February from Sphere.

Christi Phillips’ The Devlin Diary, a novel of intrigue, romance, and murder shifting between present-day Cambridge, England, and Restoration London, as a killer stalks the court of Charles II, will be published by Pocket (US) in July.

Simon & Schuster US will publish Beverly Swerling’s City of God: A Novel of Passion and Wonder in Old New York in December.

Emma Donoghue’s The Sealed Letter, to be published

by Harcourt in September, is based on the details of a scandalous divorce case that gripped England in 1864. It appeared from HarperCollins Canada in March.

Elaine di Rollo’s The Peachgrower’s Almanac, a novel about twin sisters with a passion for botany which “illuminates the dark heart of Victorian hypocrisy and selfishness,” set in England and India in 1857, appears in July from Chatto & Windus.

For additional forthcoming titles, visit: http://www. historicalnovelsociety.org/forthcoming.htm

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History & Film

History

&

FILM The Red

Violin

by Catherine Delors When I heard that Historical Novels Review wanted a column on a music-themed historical film, The Red Violin immediately came to mind. I had watched it many times, and every time seen something new in it. I remembered, of course, John Corigliano’s haunting score, played by violinist Joshua Bell and the London Philharmonia Orchestra under the direction of Esa-Pekka Salonen. But there was far more to this film than the memory of an outstanding, Academy-Award winning score. It was the story that drew me back to it. Not the story of one character, but that of many characters who gravitate, across centuries, continents and oceans, around an extraordinary violin, the final masterpiece of legendary (but fictional) luthier Nicolo Bussotti.

The film begins in late 17th century Cremona, where we see Bussotti in his workshop, berating his apprentices for not striving to attain musical perfection. Back in the kitchen of Bussotti’s house, his very pregnant wife Anna asks the elderly servant Cesca to read her fortune.

There is a striking contrast here between the male world, where achievement is paramount, where Bussotti rants, yells, and in a fit of rage smashes a violin, and the quiet, understated female universe, where mistress and servant sit quietly across

HistoricalNovelsReview the kitchen table. Anna Bussotti does not forge her own destiny. She listens helplessly, breathlessly as Cesca reads it for her.

Cesca’s tarot reading is one of the backbones of the plot. It is divided into various episodes, each symbolized by a different card, an arcane, as a tarot lover would say. Cremona is represented by The Moon, 18th century Vienna by The Hanged Man, 19th century England by The Devil, 20th century China, in the throes of the Cultural Revolution, by The Justice, and modern-day Montreal by Death.

For, though this is a historical film, the story has a contemporary setting as well. In Montreal, we follow the auction of violins imported from China. Or rather, we keep coming back to the moment when a red violin is placed on a pivoting display, ready to be shown to the waiting bidders. Something — we do not yet understand what it is — goes wrong.

A few seconds’ delay. A clerical error, or a mere glitch in the rotating mechanism, perhaps.

This is where we meet violin expert Charles Morritz (Samuel L. Jackson).

He flies in from New York, not to have much of a say or an opinion about anything, but simply to sign an affidavit. He is kindly reminded of the fact that he is insignificant.

Others are in charge of the auction.

This Morritz character is not very likable. He does not return his wife’s calls. He is disdainful, arrogant, and verbally abusive with the hotel staff. Soon we realize that he is also cunning and dishonest, but that does not matter. What matters is that he is Death.

And Death in tarot, as Cesca points out to reassure the frightened Anna, is not physical death. It means rebirth following destruction, the completion -3-

Issue 44, May 2008

of destiny. What Morritz engineers in Montreal is both the counterpart and the fulfillment of the tarot reading in Cremona. The dénouement of the film is the merging of these two threads.

Anna has become the red violin. She has now found the measure of her own power, she has destroyed all of those foolish enough to believe they owned her.

In the course of the three centuries that separate the tarot reading from the Montreal auction, we hear the distant yet frightening rumblings of the French Revolution from glittering Vienna. We see the violin passing from hand to hand, first in a remote monastery lost in the Alps, then among bands of Gypsies across Central Europe. Then the violin crosses the sea, and enthralls the (also fictional) English virtuoso Frederick Pope. Another voyage, and we witness the systematic destruction of art during the Cultural Revolution in Shanghai.

These various parts, unrelated except for the violin’s presence, are exquisitely crafted short films. The performances, dialog, costumes and, of course, the music are consistently

History & Film outstanding, but settings and characters vary widely. Once the violin is gone from someone’s life, this person disappears from our sight.

We can only guess at what happens next.

Does Monsieur Poussin, the French violinist trying to eke out a living in Vienna, sink into poverty and disgrace after the sudden death of his protégé? What becomes of Victoria after the suicide of her lover in 19th century Oxford? Is she the one who set up the Pope Foundation, whose extremely nervous and unpleasant representative joins in the bidding at the auction?

Do Ming’s parents escape the Party’s retribution after the discovery of his mother’s cache of Western music in 1960s Shanghai? Are they sent to some political re-education camp, or do they meet a more gruesome fate?

These questions remain unanswered.

All we know is that Ming, now aging and obviously very wealthy, also attends the auction.

Taken individually, these short films, engrossing as they are, signify nothing. Together, they serve as a reminder of the passage of time, the power of music, the tenuous quality of human existence and even history.

The disjointed narrative leaves us with brief poignant images, snapshots of grief: the profile of Brother Kristof during the funeral of his former pupil, poor wunderkind Kaspar Weiss; the gaping holes of robbed graves; Ming’s frozen face when he realizes that he has betrayed his mother’s most precious and dangerous secret.

Even when Cesca assures Anna that she has at last reached her home, the end of her long journey, I could not help being skeptical. I believe, or want to believe, that there is more to the story.

I had lost my copy of The Red Violin

HistoricalNovelsReview in the course of my own tribulations.

I purchased a new one to write this review and watched the film yet another time. And another, and then still another. I too have fallen under the spell of that little red violin.

Catherine Delors is an attorney, a music lover and the author of the historical novel Mistress of the Revolution.

THE RED VIOLIN Directed by François Girard; written, partly in English with some subtitling,

by Don McKellar and François Girard; director of photography, Alain Dostie; edited by Gaëtan Huot; music by John Corigliano, with the London Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen and solo violin performed by Joshua Bell; production designer, François Seguin; produced by Niv Fichman; released

by Lions Gate Films. U.S. Rating: R. WITH: In Cremona: Carlo Cecchi (Nicolo Bussotti), Irene Grazioli (Anna Bussotti) and Anita Laurenzi (Cesca). In Vienna: Jean-Luc Bideau (George Poussin), Christoph Koncz (Kaspar Weiss), Clothilde Mollet (Antoinette Poussin), Rainer Egger (Brother Christophe) and Wolfgang Bock (Brother Michael). In Oxford: Jason Flemyng (Frederick Pope), Greta Scacchi (Victoria), Eva Marie Bryer (Sara ) and David Gant (Conductor).

In Shanghai: Sylvia Chang (Xiang Pei), Liu Zi Feng (Chou Yuan), Tao Hong (Comrade Chan Gong) and Han Xio Fei (Young Ming). In Montreal: Samuel L. Jackson (Charles Morritz), Colm Feore (Auctioneer), Monique Mercure (Madame Leroux), Don McKellar (Evan Williams) and Paula De Vasconcelos (Suzanne).

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Issue 44, May 2008

Features & Interviews

Music is the Muse

When

Susanne Dunlap talks with five authors bringing music to life in their fiction subjects, musicians A sarebiographical no different from any other

historical characters, aside from perhaps — with a few exceptions — being less generally familiar to a wide audience.

Yet in recreating the world of even the most famous and familiar of musicians or composers, writers face a unique difficulty. Namely, how does music look on the page? I don’t mean in the form of a score, a kind of coded communication that is meant to be interpreted by a proficient into a unique, temporal-aural experience.

I mean simply this: how does a historical soundscape translate into material that forms part of a created world in historical fiction?

I spoke to five authors whose novels have taken us into the hearts and minds of important figures from music history about the challenges and rewards of writing their books. Rita Charbonnier (Mozart’s Sister, Crown, 2007) and Stephanie Cowell (Marrying Mozart, Penguin, 2004) have taken characters around Mozart as their primary focus,

HistoricalNovelsReview while Barbara Quick (Vivaldi’s Virgins, HarperCollins, 2007) and Laurel Corona (The Four Seasons, Hyperion, Nov. 2008) chose the little-known life of the most famous and listened-to classical composer in the world today, Antonio Vivaldi. Beverle Graves Myers (Poisoned Pen Press) adds another generic layer to her lively mysteries by making her hero a 18th-century Italian castrato, those strange creatures whose ability to procreate was sacrificed at a young age to preserve their high voices.

Why musicians?

A writer arrives at her subject matter in many ways. For Cowell, it was spending so much of her life singing the music of Mozart and coming to love it deeply that led, after a series of books around Shakespeare, to the world of the musical Weber sisters, one of whom eventually married the composer. Charbonnier’s work as a pianist and natural affinity for Mozart’s compositions served as a starting point for her work, yet it was discovering that the maestro had a less well-known but extremely talented older sister that got her creative imagination in gear. Quick, by contrast, is not a musician although she is an avid and appreciative listener, and was captivated by the story of the orphanage where Vivaldi taught music as a way into the life of the composer. And Corona had no musical training at all, finding her subject through “a single sentence mentioning Vivaldi’s work with female orphans (not entirely accurate) in Venice”.

Yet choosing a subject, getting drawn into creating that world for a reader, is only a starting point. While certain challenges are universal for all writers of

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Issue 44, May 2008 fiction, all four of these authors shared the specific challenges—and rewards— which they faced in researching and writing their music historical novels.

Stephanie Cowell found it “very difficult to fictionalize the life of an artist. The standard problem when you fictionalize any real person is that you have to bend their lives and compress them to fit into the fictional arc. With an artist, you have to both create the inner world, the process of his creation, and the outer movement of his life circumstances.”

Here’s how Cowell introduces the young Mozart into the Weber family’s Thursday musical gatherings, conveying at the same time his character and his relationship with his music, and all by staying outside of him, giving us only what those around him observed and felt when first exposed to this remarkable individual: The young man leapt up to the clavier; he pushed back his cuffs and began a sonata andante with variations. Each successive variation gathered in depth. Weber leaned forward. There was a rare delicacy to the young man’s playing and an unusual strength in his left hand, which made the musicians look at one another . . .[Maria Caecilia Weber] glanced briefly at the man with little white hands who played with such concentrated intimacy, noting that when a spoon she carried clattered to the floor, his shoulders stiffened slightly, and he did not lower them again for a few minutes.

Cowell’s Mozart is deeply absorbed with his music, not just on an emotional but also on an intellectual level.

Nannerl Mozart and the frustrations and limitations of her sex are the central themes of Rita Charbonnier’s novel, yet she felt that her primary challenge lay in how to approach the character of Mozart himself. “I had to decide precisely where to draw the line between reality and fiction. I didn’t know whether I should best wear the restorer’s hat, filling in missing parts of the painting and attempting to reproduce it exactly as it was before; or the architect’s, building a new construction on the pillars of the old one. In the end I chose the latter, but only after much emotional deliberation.”

A scene between the distraught and depressed Nannerl, who has just been told she must stay at home and give piano lessons to support the family while her father and brother travel to Italy, and the younger, impetuous Mozart, illustrates both the character of Mozart as Charbonnier imagined him and his relationship with his sister: “I tried to persuade him,” he murmured

Features & Interviews after a long sigh, “but you know perfectly well it’s impossible. What was I to do?

Refuse to go myself?”

He seemed to perceive in her a sign of assent but it was only his imagination, because Nannerl did not move.

“I thought about it, but then concluded that no one, in my shoes, would have done that. Think about it: Should I give up an opportunity so great for my career, for my very life? Not even you, in my place, would have—come on, admit it.”

She rolled over, creating an abyss between herself and those words.

The boy then decided to be more honest. “I can’t stay in this provincial place, Nannerl.

Truly, I can’t. Life here is nothing but a repetition of tired ballets for a crowd of stupid rich people. There is so much new music inside me—and I know that I’ll only be able to pour it out in the freedom of the wider world.”

Perhaps she had made herself temporarily deaf.

This difficulty with very famous historical figures is universal: how to overcome the entrenched images and strong, emotional attachment readers have to a character they feel they already know. Those who love Mozart might find it distasteful to see him as an ambitious, self-occupied boy who, while sympathetic with his sister, had his eyes fixed firmly ahead on his career.

While some authors do not trouble themselves over those questions, both Cowell and Charbonnier solved this problem by focusing not so much on the famous character, but on the less wellknown real people around him. Mozart emerges as a convincing, flesh-and-blood personality in both Marrying Mozart and Mozart’s Sister, yet our sympathies are really with the young Constanze in the first, and the repressed Nannerl in the second novel.

Corona began digging into Vivaldi’s world by asking, “Where are the women?”

A question, she says, that informs much of her scholarly work as a professor of humanities. “I love music, but at the most basic level,” said Corona. “The Four Seasons started as an exploration of the lives of an interesting group of women.”

It wasn’t so much the music as the historical facts that drew her in.

Quick also tells her story not from the perspective of Vivaldi himself, but from that of his most famous pupil, Anna Maria dal Violin, a supremely talented inmate in the Convent of the Pietà. And for her, love of the music was an important part of the allure. Quick’s task was complicated by the lack of documentary evidence about Vivaldi himself. Despite being the

HistoricalNovelsReview most popular classical composer today, he “left very little behind in the way of written records. There are no diaries that have emerged, and not one single letter that could be classified as personal.” Such historical lacunae are often stumbling blocks for music historians, but can be a positive boon to writers of fiction. Lack of written records coupled with a degree of unfamiliarity gives a writer scope to explore the “What if?” more freely.

As Quick said, “I finally realized, after digging and despairing, that Vivaldi left a wonderfully revealing personal record behind in his music. That’s where his personality emerges unmasked: his narcissism, his ambition, his tenderness, his passion, and his faith. I was pleased to find in more than one instance that something I had divined from immersing myself in Vivaldi’s music was confirmed by some other source I was able to get my hands on.”

Quick’s Vivaldi is presented to us through the eyes of a young girl who is so deeply enmeshed with the music she draws from her violin that all she wants to do is please him: To hear him speak, the entire future of his career as a composer—to say nothing of the future of the Republic—is in our hands. And we are lazy and vain, and we laugh too much, and God will punish us if we don’t play the music as it’s meant to be played. The maestro prays and rails at us and then begs and cajoles us, and brings us sweets and pulls funny faces. But by the end of our rehearsal, he has more often than not squeezed the music out of us that he wants.

But the question of the music itself remains, of the degree to which it is even possible to convey in words how it threaded through the lives of composers and musicians in previous centuries.

Indeed, Charbonnier confessed that although her approach ended up as much a result of instinct as consciousness, she knew that, to write the portrait of Nannerl, she had to “. . . try to express the power of music and its ability to transform the emotions and communicate them in a way that is both universal and subjective at the same time. In short, I absolutely could not skirt around the problem.”

Charbonnier was fortunate to have skills at her disposal that helped her truly enter into Nannerl’s world of music.

She describes her process of putting the music into written words: “I remember writing the page about Fantasia KV 397, a piece from Mozart that I particularly love. I wanted the act of playing it to pacify Nannerl with her illusions of the past and to make her understand things

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Issue 44, May 2008 that Wolfgang had said to her, but that she hadn’t wanted to hear at the time. So I programmed my stereo to replay the CD continuously, then I sat on the sofa, which is right next to the piano, with my laptop on the piano stool and the score of the Fantasia propped up on a chair.

Listening to the music coming from the speakers and looking at the notes on the score from time to time, I scribbled down visual and emotional images just as they came to me; then I’d stop the CD, get up and play a few passages on the piano, then go back and note down what came to mind, crying my eyes out as I did it…This was essentially the method by which I transferred musical experience to the written page.”

And the result is a verbal fantasia that draws the reader in just as the music draws in a listener: . . . Suddenly a violent cascade of sound invades the entire space, and the hands speed along the keyboard, from one end to the other, crossing, and then two spacedout chords, and an unlikely finale, which overturns every premise. It’s a game, barefoot children chasing a ball who stick out their tongue at you, or a carillon that enjoys its own insolence and hammers you with those sharp sounds: and you think, before the piece ends, we’ll have to go back to the beginning. We’ll have to return to sorrow and, so, close the circle . . .

The greatest potential of music to convey something on the printed page perhaps lies in this power to move a listener. While the primary thrust of Myers’s novel is the mystery, she never loses sight of the fact that her “detective” is an artist. Here she presents him performing, in all the glory of his professional skill, exhibiting the power he knows he possesses: I sang the solemn bit with every ounce of conviction I possessed. Montorio’s eyes glazed over like a fish on a market slab, but Fabiani’s gaze locked onto mine as it had at the start of the concert. Only this time I was in charge. Now Fabiani was the one who was drowning, swept along by my heartbreaking lament, sucked beneath waves of sublime song until I chose to release him with one golden note that shimmered in the air long after the harpsichord had fallen silent.

The issue of music on the written page gets to the core of why musical figures have perhaps proven less popular subjects for fiction than artists. As Corona says, “Books on paintings at least give readers something to look at.” She expresses the wish—one I’ve also shared in thinking about my own music-based novels—that her book could come with a CD. While this would undoubtedly add to a reader’s

Features & Interviews ability to accurately imagine the music, a CD adds cost without any evidence that it will increase book sales.

Why music?

This may seem like the same question as the previous one, but there is a subtle difference. Musicians can be intrinsically interesting as people, just as a naval captain or a politician might be fascinating or mundane depending on the individual circumstances.

But music itself—does it matter? Is it sufficiently important in history to warrant thinking about for itself, for what it shaped or reflected that can illuminate a period?

Corona believes that “Music gives us insight into what a particular era enjoyed and valued,” but doesn’t see it as a shaper of history—until the 19th century, when the artist as hero and the idea of individual expression became more prevalent.

Quick thinks of the arts in general as a way into history: “I’ve always found the arts to be the most attractive and pleasant entrance into the by-ways of history. The only history I could be bothered with before I wrote this historical novel was history reflected in the mirror of visual art, literature or music. History isn’t really anything in and by itself—children know this, and that’s why they’re almost universally bored by the subject!” And for Cowell, it is fiction itself that brings arts and their place in history to life. “To me, the flowering of mankind has been the arts, which of course includes architecture and this ranks close to science. I think fiction can get inside the mind of the artist. What fascinates me most as a writer is expressing both how ordinary and extraordinary great artists were: Shakespeare worried about his daughters who lived far away from him, about meeting his bills, about finding love and a clean shirt and about writing Hamlet, and it all happened at the same time.”

Charbonnier believes in the importance of having a true appreciation of music or art in one’s life as both a current joy and an opening into history.

Here’s where it’s time for me to insert my own point of view about a subject that is my deepest, most passionate interest in life. Whether or not they have expressed it in our conversations, several of these writers have chosen to illustrate a very important aspect of our historical consciousness. Not

HistoricalNovelsReview just music in itself, but music as it was performed by or intertwined in the lives of women. While tales of wars and battles, political upheavals and momentous discoveries have involved women in peripheral ways, there is a special relationship between women and music that acts, in my view, like a microcosm of history. As Charbonnier illustrates so poignantly in Mozart’s Sister, women could have the same talent, the same ineffable feeling about music, the same skill at execution, and yet be prevented from realizing their potential by societal strictures that said, “ladies must not play the violin, or exhibit themselves in public, or compete with men.”

Both Quick and Corona have hit upon another startling illustration of the complex psychological and social ramifications of women as performers of music: They are almost without exception in some way controlled by men, who either facilitate their artistry or thwart it. The hothouse of the convent, a place that is both protecting and imprisoning, creates a safe space in which certain talented young girls could be allowed to reach a high level of artistry—but more as a special circumstance, a novelty, that was not without its titillating sexual overtones.

The sexually ambiguous castrato— the hero of Myers’s mysteries—is an odd distortion, created by the desire for a female-range voice with the power and acceptability of a male housing. Castrati were not “singers in drag,” as Myers well knows. They sang the heroic men’s roles. There is something in us that responds to the high notes, the “money notes,” as the opera world calls them. That this power would be appropriated to men is also an illustration of the love-hate relationship women performers of music have engendered throughout history.

I think it is the fact that music has been both empowering to women and illustrative of their limitations that has drawn me to the history of music not just as a scholar but as a writer of fiction. The challenges of putting the experience of music as a listener and a performer on the page are many.

Yet these five authors and myself have risen to that challenge in different ways to tell the stories that inspire us.

One final citation to illustrate my meaning comes from my own book, Liszt’s Kiss (Touchstone, 2007). As a lifelong pianist, I experienced in my own way the complex feelings that made

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Issue 44, May 2008 me want to disappear into the music I played, to escape from the “sordid perils of actual existence,” to quote the eminently quotable Oscar Wilde.

And at the same time, performing placed one very much in the sightline of others, who, if the performance were worthy, would be able in some way to see into those hidden joys and fears— or interpret them in their own way, taking them over, as it were. Here is the way Pierre Talon, a medical student who is in love with the protagonist Anne, hears her performance at Marie d’Agoult’s salon: . . . from the moment she began to play, Anne surrendered herself to the music.

Each nuance of feeling was etched on her features. Pierre thought his heart would burst, and he prayed that this lovely creature who embodied the soul of music would consent to be his, forever.

Anne’s performance was by no means a disappointment after the great Liszt’s. It was a gentle denouement, a wistful coda. When the last, lingering notes died away, no one moved for several seconds. Anne looked up, and Pierre could see the realization of where she was gradually dawn again, and fear—yes, unmistakably fear—creep back into her eyes.

Perhaps the most rewarding outcome of writing any book is to discover that someone is affected by it in a positive way. One chance comment by a blogger, who said she was inspired to start playing the piano again after reading Liszt’s Kiss, made the entire difficult, lengthy process of writing, editing and publicizing worthwhile to me. Ultimately, the goal of historical fiction is to bring some aspect of history to living, breathing now on the page. If a reader can not only see the settings, feel the textures of the costumes, smell the food or the ordure, feel the pain of a sword wound or the exhilaration of a sea breeze, but hear the music that underlined the characters’ lives, then that little part of the past has been appreciated in a new way.

I hope many more authors tackle musical subjects in the future. Welcome!

There are hundreds and hundreds of stories waiting to be told.

My thanks to Rita Charbonnier, Laurel Corona, Stephanie Cowell, Barbara Quick, and Beverle Graves Myers for sharing their thoughts with me so generously.

Susanne Dunlap holds a Ph.D. in Music History and is the author of Liszt’s Kiss and Emilie’s Voice.

Features & Interviews

HistoricalNovelsReview

Issue 44, May 2008

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extensively researched the background of the Ziani and Soranzo families, whose members were bitter rivals over successive generations. Set in the mid15th century, this book provides a vivid account of Venice’s involvement in the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and its extraordinary attempts to stem the advance of the Ottoman Empire and to protect its lifeblood: its seaborne trade.

Quinn captures the wheeling and dealing nature of Venetian politics – personified by the disgraced Foscari, the only Doge to be deposed – and the uncertainties of trade where fortunes could be made or lost overnight, with ramifications that were felt right through society. A pageturning plot makes up for hazy female characters, but the central figures are strong – particularly Antonio Ziani and his sidekick, the Greek dwarf Seraglio.

Sarah Dunant’s vibrant tale In the Company of the Courtesan is set in the first half of the 16th century at a time when the city was approaching the height of its power, a position that was reinforced by the disastrous Sack of Rome in 1527.

Told by Bucino Teodoldi, an enterprising dwarf who acts as her protector, the story centres on the beautiful Fiammetta Bianchini, who was immortalised by Titian as the Venus of Urbino. Dunant highlights the contrast between Rome and Venice – “Rome made money selling forgiveness for sins, Venice grows fat on feeding them.” Venice is idealised by all who live there, and in particular by those, like Fiammetta, seeking to rebuild their lives after fleeing Rome. Fiametta is helped by a mysterious woman, the blind healer Elena Crusichi, and also by a network of patrons, including highly respectable members of Venice’s highest elites and others, like Pietro Aretino, renowned and feared for his wit, who lived by the “sweat of his ink.” Through Bucino’s eyes, we see Venice in all its magnificence (“every cog in this wheel of state is well oiled and maintained, so that as long as the ships keep coming in and the money keeps flowing, who would want to live anywhere else?”). Yet, it is also full of intrigue: “After sunset, the city shifts closer to nightmare,” peopled by strange characters who survive in the darkest and slimiest recesses of the canals, where the dark waters hide many secrets.

The turn of the 15th and 16th century is also the background for the events

Cliché, Consolation & Expectation: Venice as Setting “Venice pleases me as much as I expected – and I expected much.” 1 Lucinda Byatt examines Venice as a setting for historical novels

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enice has been inspiring writers for centuries, enticing into them to its calle and piazze and entrancing them, so they return again, and again – or indeed, never leave. Many have tried to analyse this attraction: Muriel Spark, who lived in the countryside outside Florence, wrote that “Venice is a city not to inspire thought but sensations.

I think it is something to do with the compound of air, water, architecture and the acoustics.”2 Henry James called it “a sort of repository of consolations,” and of course there’s the old cliché that “there is absolutely nothing new that can be said about Venice.” While it’s true that the city may have become one of the most clichéd settings for any novel, historical or otherwise, the wealth of material available ensures a steady stream of new additions.3 There are one or two highly authoritative online bibliographies on Venice in fiction (and non-fiction) which quickly confirmed my thought that the subject’s far too large to tackle in a single article.4 So I’ll start with a caveat: this is a highly personal selection of the books that seem, to me, to capture the most fascinating qualities of the city, irrespective of the historical period they describe.

So what are these qualities? They are often ambivalent: some see the splendour of Venice, others, like D.H. Lawrence see “an abhorrent green, slippery city.”

However, at the risk of being totally selfevident, the first is water and everything associated with it: Venice conjures up contrasting images of dampness and decay, and the brilliance of the sunlight’s dancing reflections on water and marble; billowing fog; the acqua alta, when Piazza San Marco disappears underwater; and the rain that can lash down until the leaden skies merge with the grey water and stone. Venice’s labyrinth of canals are famous worldwide, as is the way the city appears to “float” in the lagoon, as if by magic. This symbiotic relationship

of wood, stone and water is also at the heart of Venice’s marriage with the sea and the wealth accumulated by the state and individual families at the height of its dominion as a sea power and trading empire.

This leads to the second extraordinary quality of La Serenissima, the magnificence of the city which is a celebration of art and architecture, and the whole gamut of cultural refinements – above all, music – made possible by wealth and the stability of a rigid society ruled by its oligarchic system of government. Venice has always been one of the most strictly regulated societies, yet it is equally renowned for its love of finery, its sensuality and its licentiousness. This is the carnival city par excellence: masks were developed into an art form and fashion accessories, disguising illicit behaviour of many kinds. The reputation of its courtesans, the lucciole, was for centuries an even greater attraction. As Jan Morris notes in his extraordinary book, there is “sex and susceptibility in the very air of the place.” 5 Lastly, Venice has always been associated with the darker sides of human nature and death: no one who has seen a Venetian funeral is likely to forget it.

Here come the clichés, tumbling out again, but it’s true that revenge, deceit, secrecy and intrigue seem more at home here, at every level, whether in politics or religion, or the spread of ideas. As H.V. Morton wrote, “Centuries of guile, stealth, and spying had made Venice the most cautious community on earth, a state so secretive and suspicious that one rash word might ruin a man. It was typical of the Venetian attitude to women that an ambassador might take his cook his abroad, but not his wife. Venice did not trust its women: it had too many secrets.” 6 Moving on to the books themselves, The Lion of St Mark by Thomas Quinn7 comes first in chronological order.

Venetian nobili were not expected to quarrel in public, but rivalries and feuds abounded and occasionally transgressed into out-and-out hostility. Quinn has

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Features & Interviews described in Michelle Lovric’s The Floating Book, one of a series set in Venice by this marvellously lyrical writer.8 The Floating Book focuses on Venice’s role in the history of printing, and above all the contribution made by the German community, based at the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. The two von Speyer brothers arrive in Venice with a Gutenberg press, whose “movable type” had brought about a revolution in printing. Their aim is to sell these “fast books” to the city’s aristocracy and wealthy merchants.

Business is at best mediocre for a long while, and only becomes moderately successful after publishing a book of erotic poems written by the Roman poet Catullus for his lover Lesbia. This strong erotic element is reflected in the important subplot focusing on the anti-heroine Sosia, whose sexcapades are recorded in lavish detail, as she leaves broken lives and worse in her wake. Wendelin von Speyer and his Venetian wife, Lussieta, come across vividly, but Lovric delights in characterisation and some of her marginal figures are the most memorable.

Among the themes of the book, Lovric looks at Venice’s ambivalent attitude toward foreigners and the problems of alienation. Germans and other foreign merchants were only allowed to trade through their guild, and Jews – even doctors with the skill of Rabino Simeon, and above all, moneylenders – were obliged to wear yellow stars. Before the ghetto was established in 1516, they were not even allowed to remain in Venice for long periods. Lovric is a connoisseur of Venice and this and her other novels, Carnevale and The Remedy, deserve a wider press.

The Passion by Jeanette Winterson is a hardly more than a novella, but the lucidity and magical quality of her writing will linger in your mind for weeks.9 The overall impression of Venice is perfectly captured in the following lines: “Arriving at Venice by sea … is like seeing an invented city rise up and quiver in the air. It is a trick of the early light to make the buildings shimmer so that they seem never still.” The Passion is set in the early 19th century, just after the last Doge surrendered the city to Napoleon Bonaparte, who first plundered its treasures and then sold the city to the Austrians. The Passion is a whimsical tale of the intertwining lives of a cook in Napoleon’s personal retinue

HistoricalNovelsReview and a female gondolier. Winterson’s Venice is imbued with tales of magic and wonder: “A changeable city – it is not always the same size. Streets appear and disappear overnight, new waterways force themselves over dry land.” In this city of mazes and disguises, nothing is as it seems.

Lastly, for the twentieth century, I briefly wanted to mention two books, although both take liberties with the definition of a historical novel. William Riviere’s A Venetian Theory of Heaven10 is worth reading for its poetic descriptions of Venice: Amedea, one of the central characters, loves to row and, lying in the bottom of her s’ciopon, she daydreams in the “brackish dazzle” of the lagoon, with its “sludgy creeks where only reed-cutters disturbed the curlews,” its “inlets rimmed with alder and tamarisk,” and its “acres of sea-lavender where rotting wherries lay.” Riviere’s intimate knowledge of boats and his elegy to Venice informs the whole book, which is a study of the gradual breakdown of a marriage and the fickleness of human relationships.

It’s hard to write about Venice without mentioning Donna Leon, whose detective series featuring Commissario Brunetti and his wife Paola reveals as much about the city and its foibles as any of the above books. Wilful Behaviour delves into the minefield of Italy’s war-time secrets, as Brunetti explores the misappropriation under Fascist rule of works of art owned

by Italian Jews in a horrific case of double murder.11 My apologies to all those readers whose knowledge of Venice far exceeds mine, or who have enjoyed any of the myriad other historical novels based in the city that I have completely passed over. My aim was to offer a glimpse, one that by definition is partial and narrow. However, for those who have not yet visited the city, beware. As Tiziano Scarpa writes in his unusual guide to the city: “The Geiger counter for aesthetic radioactivity reaches danger levels in the city centre.

Everywhere you look irradiates beauty.”12 Venice can be lethal, but if you take time to read any of these books, you will at least be forewarned.

Lucinda Byatt is a translator and book reviewer. She used to live in Italy, though not in Venice which she has only visited. She is currently associate editor (Profiles) for Solander.

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Issue 44, May 2008 References: 1. Lord Byron to his publisher, John Murray, November 1816.

2. Muriel Spark, “Venice in Fall and Winter”, The New York Times, October 25, 1981. Muriel Spark’s own novel, Territorial Rights, is set in Venice.

3. A recent addition is Barbara Quick’s Vivaldi’s Virgins, HarperCollins, 2007, which was highlighted in a review by Mirella Patzer in HNR, 42 (November 2007), p. 25. Highly recommended background reading is the riveting picture of convent life researched by Mary Laven, Virgins of Venice, Penguin, 2003.

4. See Jeff Cotton’s website: Fictional Cities http://www.fictionalcities.co.uk which includes a section on Venice. He also includes updates on his visits to the city, the latest being in October 2007.

This is a great site for all lovers of Venice with plenty of extra information. The other extensive list (spanning all types of fiction) was compiled by Jonathan Glixon (Kentucky University) with additions by Adrienne de Angelis: http:// www.efn.org/~acd/venicenovel.html.

Another interesting selection appears in Overbooked: a resource for omniverous readers http://www.overbooked.org/ booklists/place/venice.html updated in October 2007).

5. Prostitutes were called fireflies because the law at one time decreed that each such girl must carry a red light at the prow of her gondola. Jan Morris, Venice, 3rd rev. ed., Faber & Faber, 1993, pp. 47–48.

6. H.V. Morton, A Traveller in Italy, Methuen, 1964, p. 381.

7. Published by St. Martin’s Press, 2005.

8. Michelle Lovric, The Floating Book, Virago, 2003.

9. Jeanette Winterson, The Passion, first published 1996, new edition 2004.

10. Published by Hodder and Stoughton, 1992. A s’ciopon is a traditional Venetian rowing boat.

11. Published by William Heinemann, 2002.

12. Scarpa Tiziano, Venezia è un pesce. Una guida, Feltrinelli, 2000 [the quotation cited is the author’s own translation]. An English translation by Shaun Whiteside (Venice is a Fish: A Cultural Guide) will be published by Serpent’s Tail in 2008.

Features & Interviews

HistoricalNovelsReview

faces in appealing makeup, the filmy linen gowns, everything sensuous and at variance with my experience of the world around me. I admired Hatshepsut particularly for her courage, was intrigued by her arrogant insistence on her personal divinity, and caught up in the romance of her ultimate defeat at the hands of a relative I indignantly felt she should C.W. Gortner interviews have poisoned before he could become a threat. As I grew up, my interest became author Pauline Gedge more academic, but it never waned. Much An international bestseller, later, when my province introduced the Pauline Gedge’s novels have sold Search-for-a-New-Novelist Competition, six million copies world-wide. my third entry after two failed attempts Celebrated for her dedication at modern fiction was the story of to authenticity, her novels set in Hatshepsut, Child of the Morning, which ancient Egypt span a variety of netted me a publishing contract and topics, from the life of the female started my writing career. pharaoh Hatshepsut (Child of the Morning) to the supernatural CW: Your new novel,TheTwice Born,presents (Scroll of Saqqara) and the fight the first part of a two-volume exploration against the Hyksos (The Lord of of the life of Huy, son of Hapu, later known the Two Lands trilogy). Her latest as Amunhotep, a renowned royal seer and novel, The Twice Born, chronicles magician. Almost nothing is known about his the rise of Huy, son of Hapu, early life.What attracted you to him as a lead who became one of Egypt’s character, given the paucity of information? most revered seers. Pauline How did you go about researching his life, and lives in Alberta, Canada. You what, if anything, do you think is unique about can learn more about her work your approach to him? at: http://www.paulinegedge. ca.

PG: I must confess that I initially saw

j Captivated Z by Egypt , 1 g \ T F X w s G V k n ; y / =

CW: How did you first become interested in ancient Egypt? What influences or experiences inspired you to become a novelist who writes about ancient Egypt?

PG: I first became captivated by ancient Egypt at the age of eleven. I was attending a girls’ school in Oxford, England, where my father worked as an Anglican priest. I was a shy, outwardly conservative child, but I already had a vivid imagination that responded immediately to one of the first Egyptian characters presented to the class, Queen Hatshepsut.

Our study began with the magnificent treasures unearthed from the tomb of Tutankhamun.

I was enthralled by the glorious, barbaric jewellery, the beautiful

the life of Amunhotep son of Hapu as a simple story. I had ‘met’ him briefly and peripherally during my research for the book I wrote on Akhenaten, The Twelfth Transforming, many years before, and saw the paucity of information about him as an asset. I’d produced a heavily researched, intense trilogy that had left me wanting a relatively light project. After all, the son of Hapu didn’t emerge in history until he was forty-nine, at which time he burst onto the stage of Egyptian affairs and within another nine years was in control of the country, becoming more powerful than his king, Amunhotep III. For the first time, I asked myself how this unknown peasant from the Delta had achieved such phenomenal success. No historian or archaeologist seemed to have pondered the question. My researcher at the time was my husband, a stickler for detail with the ability to ferret out the most obscure details and create a coherent whole out of

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Issue 44, May 2008 a myriad of seemingly disconnected facts.

He was defeated in his attempts to discover anything about the early life of the son of Hapu, who had left many frustratingly obscure descriptions of himself and his talents on his many monuments that are puzzled over by experts even today. After much discussion, the examination and discarding of many theories, my researcher and I came up with what we saw as the only explanation left for Amunhotep’s elevation, an entirely unique but strangely logical one. Like the great Imhotep before him, he was a Seer with psychic abilities. This talent would have been greatly revered by the ancients and would have assured him of unquestioned power.

One of the assertions he made about himself on one of his monuments was the statement that ‘I knew all the mysteries of Thoth’. That fired me. The mysteries of Thoth were contained in a near-mystical book, the ‘Book of Thoth,’ fragments of which exist on pyramid and tomb walls and the scrolls containing what we know of as ‘The Book of the Dead,’ actually ‘The Book of Coming Forth by Day.’ Research into the Book resulted in the notes I used for The Twice Born. Writing the novel was an intriguing task!

CW: Do you consider historical veracity as important as good storytelling? When should one take precedence over the other, if ever? How do you deal with crafting fictional stories and/ or plotlines around known facts?

PG: This is a ticklish question. In dealing with characters that once existed I’m very aware of my responsibility to portray them as they saw themselves and as their contemporaries saw them. I see myself breathing renewed life into them, putting flesh on their bones and breath into their lungs. This naturally involves not only good research but also the constraint put upon me by the events in their lives that shaped them. Wherever possible, fiction should not overtake or engulf or supersede facts. However, having said that, I have a freedom in my work that the historian or archaeologist does not.

He/she may not speculate. The task is to discover and record facts, date finds, label and catalogue, add to our knowledge of the past, but never indulge in extrapolation.

Features & Interviews Time and again in my explorations of characters that intrigue me I come across actions or events in their lives that are documented but not explained. One example of this problem occurred in the second volume of my trilogy, The Oasis. We know that Kamose, the central character, quartered his army at the oasis of Uah-ta-Meh, a hundred miles from the Nile to the east and the same distance to the huge lake of the Fayum (Ta-she) to the northeast. We know the foreign ruler of Egypt at the time sent an army after him to this oasis. We know that Kamose’s army marched to the Nile in good health whereas the pursuing soldiers arrived in the last stages of thirst and were soundly defeated by Kamose’s force. Why, when the pursuing army arrived at the oasis and found it empty, did the men not stock up on water and reach the Nile in as good a shape as Kamose’s thousands? History does not provide an answer; it merely states the facts. But I and my researcher, while adhering strictly to those facts, may come up with a logical solution to explain the problem. I must in all fairness add that of course sometimes I have taken the very few facts known about a character and allowed myself a greater freedom in plotting. I did this in House of Dreams and its sequel, both based on a scrap of information regarding a harem plot against King Ramses the Third and its outcome. However, my backgrounds regarding food, clothing, mind-sets, administrative hierarchies, are always as accurate as I can make them.

CW: Can you tell us what you seek to

HistoricalNovelsReview illuminate or explore in the continuation of Huy’s story?

PG: In the first of the two volumes I introduced Huy as a psychic who was invited to read and try to understand the meaning of the fabled Book of Thoth. In the second volume I want to reveal what I believe to be the true meaning of the Book, through Huy’s mind of course, why the King retreated from active government and left it in Huy’s hands, and why Huy himself ultimately became disillusioned with his gift and withdrew from an active life.

CW: Traditional viewpoints about the way ancient Egyptians lived continue to be challenged by new discoveries.What do you think is one of the most commonly believed fallacies about ancient Egypt? What fascinating, littleknown fact do you think people should know?

PG: There are probably quite a few fallacies about ancient Egypt floating around. One of the most common is the belief in the mummy’s curse or a curse on anyone disturbing a tomb. I just love this one because it’s been the fodder for quite a few deliciously lurid movies! The truth, however, is that a curse would be uttered against anyone interfering with or failing to uphold the endowment of the dead.

In the case of royalty this would mean allowing a funerary temple to fall into disrepair, defacing likenesses of the dead, or no longer saying the prayers or making the offerings for the dead in their temples.

For the commoners who of course would not have constructed funerary temples, the curse would apply to relatives who grew lax in praying for the dead or who stopped bringing offerings to their tombs.

Disappointing but true! A l i t t l e - k n ow n fact is that the ancient Egyptians - 11 -

Issue 44, May 2008 knew the healing properties of penicillin. Many of their prescriptions for infections called for ‘rotten bread of seven days’, or however many days produced the required amount of ‘rot’ for each complaint. Remember that their bread was unleavened.

CW: The Twice Born takes us on a fascinating journey not only of Huy’s beginnings but also of the world around him, from the homes of peasants to noble estates and the temples of the gods, where magic is a real presence in the lives of these extraordinary people.

What do you consider are your biggest challenges in bringing the diversity of ancient Egypt to life?

PG: One of my biggest challenges in bringing the diversity of ancient Egypt to life is to make the Egyptian religion entirely believable to the reader. Many people today live essentially secular lives in which the element of the spiritual or the numinous is absent or perhaps exists as unreflective superstition. To the Egyptian it upheld and imbued every facet of their existence. In my work I must explain concepts like Ma’at, the balance between cosmic and earthly justice, morality, a harmony linking all aspects of life personified by a goddess and revered by King and commoner alike, and make such concepts comfortably familiar.

I must show my characters as fundamentally little different from us in their human nature but different, sometimes radically so, in their lifestyles and the way in which they viewed, and participated in, the construction of their society.

C.W. Gortner’s novel THE LAST QUEEN, about Juana la Loca of Spain, will be published

by Ballantine Books on July 29, 2008 and by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK in October, 2008.

j Z , 1 g \ T F X w s G V k n ; y / = 1

Features & Interviews

Accidental PIONEERS Reay Tannahill (1929-2007) & George MacDonald Fraser (1926-2008)

a sad fact some authors I t’s are so deeply woven into the

warp and weft of our lives that we take them for granted and only realise what we’ve lost when they are no longer with us.

Such is the case with both Reay Tannahill and George MacDonald Fraser, who shared more similarities than it would at first appear.

Both were journalists who were equally at home writing fiction and nonfiction. Their fiction may have been light rather than literary, but both had many loyal fans, and the seeming ease with which they wrote was built on a solid historical foundation.

Reay Tannahill was born and educated in Glasgow. (‘Reay’ was her mother’s maiden name.) After working as a probation officer and in advertising, she later became a reporter for the Times Literary Supplement, and she later moved from there into publishing. It was when working for the Folio Society that she was commissioned to write her first book — Regency England: The Great Age of the Colour Print, which was published in 1964. This was followed in 1968 by another Folio Society book, The Fine Art of Food. This changed her life. While undertaking the research for this book, she discovered that there was, in fact, very little on record about what ordinary people ate through the ages. Never one to shirk a challenge, she started from scratch using original sources, and in 1973 published Food in History, which has remained in print ever since.

It is almost impossible today, when food, its history and science is studied in universities, to appreciate just how revolutionary it was. Historians had written about

HistoricalNovelsReview banquets, feasting and the food of kings and much of what had been written in passing about ordinary people’s diets was based on repeated errors and misconceptions. For example, in order to understand what people eat, one needs to understand agriculture, and to understand that one needs to study climate and geology, patterns of famine and religious taboos.

And so it goes. Despite her lack of formal qualifications (which annoyed some purists), she became an authoritative voice on all aspects of food and nutrition and latterly on the pros and cons of genetically modified food.

Although there are now many such books in print, Reay Tannahill

remains the pioneer.

No wonder her book has gone through several new additions and is still an essential resource for the historical novelist. In these days when famine continues to plague large parts of the world whilst others are fighting huge rises in obesity levels amongst their populations, her findings are as important now as they were almost thirty years ago.

Further nonfiction works followed: Flesh and Blood, a study of cannibalism and Sex in History. The latter was not as well-received as the others but it was a pioneering study all the same. The title may, perhaps, be misleading because this is a serious work in which the author tackles tricky subjects such as venereal disease, AIDS and contraception and expresses her belief that that most of the misery and guilt about sex is the result of religious doctrine.

She also exposed the sufragette movement as less revolutionary than one might otherwise suppose because it vociferously opposed

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Issue 44, May 2008 contraception, which arguably is far more important for female emancipation than the vote.

Staunchly feminist, but never strident, this book deserved more acclaim than it received at the time.

Having accumulated a huge amount of historical information over the years, it was perhaps inevitable that she would not only tire of writing nonfiction but would put her research and knowledge to good use in historical fiction.

Scotland was always her first love and featured strongly in her first novel, A Dark and Distant Shore, a sweeping epic of one woman’s struggle to reclaim her ancestral home in the Scottish Highlands.

Over eight hundred pages long, it was desctibed by one reviewer as an amalgam of Gone with the Wind, The Thorn Birds and War and Peace.

Further novels followed, and in 1990, Passing Glory was voted the Best Romantic Novel of the Year by the Romantic Novelists’ Association.

In her novels, Tannahill moves seamlessly and authoritatively between times and locations, such as the Scottish royal court in the 15th century (The World, The Flesh and the Devil) and the lives of Mary, Queen of Scots (Fatal Majesty) and Richard III (The Seventh Son).

Later she was able to indulge her sense of humour by creating the indomitable Dame Constance de Clair who, in Having the Builders In, sets out to refurbish Vine Castle with the usual disastrous consequences we’ve all watched in appalled fascination on television home makeover programmes.

Having survived builders more keen to demolish than rebuild, Dame Constance is soon at it again in Having the Decorators In. Alas, there will be no more insights into the domestic mayhem at Vine Castle, since Tannahill died the day after the novel was published.

It is also humour that we associate with the works of George MacDonald Fraser. He was actually born in England — Carlisle to be precise, and throughout his life remained a staunch ‘borderer.’ He never hid the fact that his ancestors, the infamous border Reavers or

Features & Interviews raiders, were less than saints; in fact, many of them were thieves at best and bloody murderers at the very worst. He held no truck with the ‘victim’ culture of the 21st centrury in which history is rewritten so that, to take two examples, no Native American or African slave was ever anything but a noble and valiant victim of white greed and aggression. His selfconfessed ‘political incorrectness’ was to be his banner throughout his writing life and made him enemies, but without it we would never have been introduced to the most politically incorrect literary character of all times.

Fraser joined the Border Regiment in 1943, serving as an infantryman in North Africa and with the ‘forgotten’ army in Burma. He was later commissioned in the Gordon Highlanders. He chronicled his time in Burma in his memoir Quartered Safe Out Here, which the historian John Keegan called “one of the great personal memoirs of World War II.” In this work Fraser pulls no punches in exposing the horrors of war, but he also showcases his fluency in the gallows humour to which only men in the most challenging of conditions resort.

He remarked later, with justifiable bitterness, that when he returned to Britain after the war ended he was too young to vote in the General Election even though the army had considered him mature enough to lead jungle patrols into enemy territory.

He left the army in 1947, and after working on the Carlisle Journal, he and his wife emigrated to Canada where, after a run of failures — he lasted three hours working for Canadian Pacific — he went back to journalism and, having returned to Scotland, he joined the staff of the Glasgow Herald, where he rose to deputy editor, his position from 1964 to 1969.

But it was for his comic series of twelve novels chronicling the adventures of the lying, snivelling, cheating, all-round scoundrel, Sir Harry Paget Flashman, brigadiergeneral, VC, KCB, KCIE, that Fraser will be remembered. “Everyone loves a bad’un,” said Fraser when

HistoricalNovelsReview asked about Flashman’s popularity among readers, and even more so when the ‘bad ‘un’ manages to emerge from key moments of Victorian military history wreathed in glory rather than ignominy.

Fraser, as we all know, plucked Harry Flashman from Thomas Hughes’s classic Tom Brown’s Schooldays. In this work, Flashman is the bully who roasts the young Tom over a fire, is expelled from Rugby School for drunkenness and is seen no more. Fraser’s conceit is that he stumbled across Flashman’s memoirs in a saleroom in Ashbyde-la-Zouch. Such was Fraser’s familiarity with the history and slang of the period that some critics were convinced they were genuine.

The place of discovery should have alerted them. Ashby-de-la-Zouch is a perfectly ordinary and very real small town in Leicestershire but the name is so ridiculously pompous and odd-sounding that it always raises a smile among the English in the same way that Nether Wallop and Chipping Sodbury appeal to our childishness. Even so, the authenticity of these memoirs led to a debate within the pages of the New York Times. Thomas Hughes came up with Flashman’s surname, but it was a gift to Fraser with its connotations of dubious brashness.

Though the name itself was a gift from the gods with its connotations of sleaziness, one editor wanted Fraser to change it. Fortunately, he resisted.

Its hero aside, the style in which these novels are written is a send-up of those swashbuckling epics by the likes of Anthony Hope and Rafael Sabatini, not to mention those everso-British and stiff-upper-lipped heroes of Henty and Buchan.

Everyone loves rascals and rogues, Fraser said, remembering the cheers when the ‘baddy’ rode into town in the cinemas of his youth. And Flashman is the ultimate baddy — a self-serving liar and cheat who treats others with contempt. Although he is never in a hurry to put right favourable misconceptions as to his true character, he has no delusions about himself, and this may be what redeems him. P G Wodehouse

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Issue 44, May 2008 was a fan, as was Kingsley Amis, who wrote, “Whether Flashman goes a-rogering in Timbuktu or flees headlong down the Amazon pursued by native tribesmen with poisoned darts, I will follow him in the confident expectation of being uninterruptedly entertained. As well as providing a fine assortment of treats, George MacDonald Fraser is a marvellous reporter and a firstrate historical novelist.”

Others disagreed, but Fraser was dismissive. “It may be tripe, but it’s my tripe — and I do urge other authors to resist encroachments on their brain-children and trust their own judgment rather than that of some zealous meddler with a diploma in creative punctuation who is just dying to get into the act.”

The Flashman Chronicles caught the imagination of those, mostly men it must be said, who were looking for nothing more than fun and entertainment. And no disapproval could prevent the novels from selling well. So popular was Flashman that he even made cameo appearances in some of Fraser’s other historical novels, such as Black Ajax and Mr American.

There has always been a tradition of taking someone else’s fictional character and making it one’s own, but Fraser was a pioneer in that he turned a secondary character into a cultural icon. Describe someone as a Flashman, and no more needs be said.

Like Tannahill, Fraser was intensely proud of his heritage, and he wrote about his ancestors in the acclaimed history The Steel Bonnets, a well-researched account of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reavers.

Never letting good research go to waste, Fraser put it to great comic use in his novels The Candlemass Road and The Reavers, which was to be his last published novel. I fear we will not see his like again.

Sally Zigmond is a Reviews Editor for HNR and the author of Chasing Angels.

Features & Interviews

Issue 44, May 2008

HistoricalNovelsReview

Felicity Barnaby talks to Jane Jackson about her career as a writer, and her fascination with 18th, 19th and early 20th century Cornwall as a setting for her romantic historical novels.

FB: What influenced you to start writing?

JJ: I learned to read when I was four, and always loved books. It seemed a natural progression to write my own stories, though at five years old they were quite short! All through my teens and twenties I read avidly. But it wasn’t until my first marriage collapsed and I was on my own with two small children and an ulcer that I thought about writing as a means of making money. After completing courses in writing for TV and radio, I knew I really wanted to write novels.

My first book was inspired by a nightmare and took three years to research and write. It was accepted by Robert Hale, and though it made very little money at the time (it was re-issued in large print 20 years later and made far more in PLR) it gave me something more valuable, resurrected self-confidence and the status — however lowly — of a published author.

After that I wrote two historical romances set in Truro and Falmouth; Harlyn Tremayne and The Consul’s Daughter were both published by William Kimber.

Then, having found enormous pleasure and comfort in reading Mills & Boon romances I thought — as one does — that I’d like to try writing one. Ambitious I may have been, stupid I wasn’t. I realised I couldn’t compete with the Company’s stable of regular authors and expect to break in on the Contemporary list, so I decided to write a medical romance. To overcome the hurdle of not having been a nurse or worked in a hospital (except as a records clerk, which at least gave me considerable familiarity with medical terminology) I decided to set my book in an oasis in Egypt. To increase the potential tension I made both my hero and heroine doctors. As this was 1976, any woman competing in a man’s world had to be twice as good to be considered equal. I called it Desert Flower, and it was

accepted by M&B. Three more medical romances were followed by ten for the Contemporary list which sold in 23 countries and 19 languages. I had enjoyed writing them, but wanted the challenge of writing something longer and to return to historical fiction.

A Place of Birds and The Iron Road were published by Robert Hale and followed

by Eye of the Wind, shortlisted for the Parker Romantic Novel of the Year award in 2002. Next came Tide of Fortune, Dangerous Waters which reached the long list for the Romantic Novel of the Year in 2007, and The Chain Garden. January

crossing relationships. The past is very much a different country and they do indeed do things differently there. I find this fascinating.

FB: Your novels are always very strong on viewpoint. How do you decide on the proportions to give to different characters?

JJ: I prefer to use as few viewpoint characters as possible. Each time you switch viewpoint you are asking the reader to leave one character’s thoughts and emotions and enter those of another.

An advantage of this is that it can let the reader know something that one of the characters doesn’t know, increasing story tension and keeping the reader turning the pages. But the more viewpoint characters you have, the more you distance the reader. He or she becomes an observer instead of living the events of the story through the thoughts and emotions of the main character. In real life we cannot enter anyone else’s head and feelings.

We discover what they are thinking and feeling not just from what they say, but by listening to their tone of voice, watching their facial expressions, by eye contact — or lack of it — and their body language. All these are telling details that can inadvertently betray far more than the speaker realises, or convey something they cannot bring themselves to say. In my current book I have only three viewpoint characters. Students have often told me they need to go into another viewpoint — that of a minor character for example — so they can make a point about one of the main characters. But this is rarely necessary. Frequent head-hopping is high on editors’ lists of dislikes; the disadvantages outweigh any benefits.

R omantic ornwall C 2008 saw publication of Devil’s Prize, and I’m currently working on Wild Justice (see www.janejackson.net for further details) FB: Most of your novels are set from the late 18th to the early 20th century. Do you have any particular reason for choosing this period?

JJ: I have written both contemporary and historical romantic fiction. I think I prefer writing historicals — with a strong sense of adventure in them — partly because Cornwall offers so many possibilities. But there are other reasons — I’ve never lived in a city, visited a wine bar, or regularly eaten out in restaurants, and for most of my life I’ve been married, bringing up children and self-employed, so have no experience of a working life that encompasses aspects that feature in many contemporary novels. Also, as a post-war baby, I find it easier to identify and empathise with the social structure, etiquette and problems of the 18th and 19th centuries than I do with the rapid and not always pleasant developments of modern life.

Themes I particularly enjoy exploring are those of a woman fighting for survival or self-realisation in a man’s world, and the intense difficulties inherent in class-

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FB: All your novels have a very strong sense of place. Do you have a particular reason for the Falmouth/Truro/Helston area?

JJ: I set my books in Cornwall, and particularly the Falmouth/Helston and the Mount’s Bay area, because this is my home and I’m passionate about it. The county has rugged cliffs, crashing surf and wild moorland on the Atlantic coast and

Features & Interviews a gentler, softer aspect with meandering creeks, woods and rich farmland on the southern side. It also has a long and often difficult history which makes it a source of fascinating stories. Falmouth was the home of the Packet ships from the mid1700s. In the eighteenth century, Truro boasted grand town houses built by the wealthy owners of tin and copper mines.

Assembly rooms, excellent hotels, a Grammar School, and a thriving boatbuilding industry supported extensive trade with Europe and Scandinavia.

However, with waste from the mines, the town’s sewerage, and filth from the streets, the river began to silt up. While the mayor and burgesses argued over the costs of dredging the channel, trading ships anchored instead in the Carrick Roads and unloaded their cargoes in Falmouth, which swiftly expanded to become known as the first and last town in England.

FB: You have often said ‘I am a writer who teaches, not a teacher who writes.’ Is there any way in which you find that one benefits the other?

JJ: I’ve been a professional writer for thirty years and in that time I’ve learned a huge amount about my craft. Having the opportunity to pass that on to people who really want to write but aren’t sure how or where to start is enjoyable and a great privilege. When I first started giving talks, though I was painfully nervous, I discovered I had a knack for it, and people were kind enough to say that they left feeling inspired. That gave me the courage to offer courses in the basic techniques of novel writing. Taking the C&G teaching diploma gave me greater insight into best practices for teaching and learning.

I enjoy teaching because I derive great pleasure from helping students of all ages who come along with the germ of an idea, create realistic and interesting characters whose choices and action drive the plot through various complications to a gripping climax and satisfying ending.

It’s wonderful to watch each week as they make great leaps and achieve so much more than they ever imagined they could.

I learn from them as well, and I find that teaching the various techniques to others ensures I keep my own standards high.

HistoricalNovelsReview FB: How long do you spend on research, and is it mainly Internet-based?

JJ: It’s hard to quantify the time spent on research. I normally start researching the next book when I am halfway through the current one. But because my last five books were set during the Revolutionary wars with France and part of the action takes place in Cornwall (Eye of the Wind, The Chain Garden and Devil’s Prize are totally Cornish-based) I have already accumulated a considerable library of information about the period and life in every level of society.

Where possible I prefer to obtain information from books. But even here it’s important to double check, as biographies written during Queen Victoria’s reign were often censored by their authors if some aspects of the subject’s life were not quite suitable for public consumption.

The Internet can be an immensely useful resource. But it is important to remember that a site is only as reliable as the person who uploaded the information. That said, there are some wonderful sites dedicated to costume, medicine, the kind of food eaten, how it was prepared and cooked.

Such details where relevant and used sparingly can lift a scene to vibrant life.

Recently I was researching treatments for smallpox. One remedy used to alleviate the painful sore throat suffered by many involved among other ingredients something called Album Graecum. Having no idea what this was I looked it up.

Apparently it’s dog poo that has been bleached in the sun. The questions t h a t immediately sprang to mind were: who first decided that bleached dog faeces would ease pain? What made him

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Issue 44, May 2008 think so? Was he genuine in his intention to heal, or was he preying on frightened and gullible people? Did it work purely because people believed it would? Or is there indeed some chemical change that occurs in the material?

Another excellent site tells you when a word or phrase first came into use. This can help avoid anachronisms.

Research can be fascinating; it takes you down all kinds of unexplored paths. But it is seductive. There is always a convincing reason to do more. So I have to be strict with myself. After a general overview I focus on the particular information I need for the current book. I compile all this into a file divided into sections with an index.

At the front are my character biographies, with details of characters’ appearance, colouring etc. This hopefully avoids hair or eye colour changing partway through the story.

This is what works for me. The great thing about it is that when the book for which all this information was gathered is finished, the file goes onto my shelf with the others. There it sits, ready to be pulled down and plundered for some future book.

Felicity Barnaby is a founder member of Tavistock Writers’ Group, and works part-time at her local newspaper, proofreading and writing reviews. She is currently working on a late seventeenth century novel.

Features & Interviews

HistoricalNovelsReview

Issue 44, May 2008

Top 10 WorstSelling Tudor Susan Novels by igginbotham H You can’t go wrong these days

with a novel about the Tudors or anyone even marginally associated with them — or can you? Here are some proposals that (much like the Spanish Armada) got off to a good start, but didn’t make it very far...

The Drooping Rose. As Elizabeth of

1. York faces what will prove to be her

Henry V111, Henry V11, Elizabeth of York, & Jane Seymour

last childbirth, she reflects on the only true, real love of her life — not Richard III or Henry VII, but her husband’s stepfather, Thomas Stanley.

The Dragon Roaring. Newly widowed and smarting at his reputation as a killjoy and a miser, Henry VII

2. determines to spice up his life by disguising himself at night and frequenting the dives of Southwark.

Anne of a Thousand Beds. In this startlingly erotic novel narrated by Anne Boleyn, the unrepentant queen

3. recounts her sexual adventures in the French and English courts and reveals the true father of her child: Thomas Cromwell.

Jane: Herstory. A feminist retelling of Jane Seymour’s story that explores Jane’s death in childbirth as a

4. grandly defiant act of subversion against the patriarchal society that sought to marginalize her.

5.

P Is for Poison: Miserable in her marriage to the ailing and cranky Henry VIII and tired of playing the submissive wife, a desperate Katherine Parr takes drastic steps to rid herself of her sovereign. But will Edward Seymour guess her dark secret?

Tom. This long-overdue revisionist novel reveals Thomas Howard, Third Duke of Norfolk, for the man he really

6. was: a long-suffering husband, a loving uncle, and a patriot who always put the good of his country before self-interest.

Grey Matters: Bored with life at the Tower and sick of scholarly pursuits, Lady Jane Grey decides to pass the

7. hours by turning detective. First of a planned series.

The Last Confession of Queen Mary. In this inspirational novel, Mary reveals herself to have been a steadfast

8. Protestant all along.

The Bisley Boy and Girl. In a lively twist on an old legend, two children — one male and one female

9. — are substituted for the young Elizabeth Tudor. Can the irrepressible twins manage to share the throne of England with no one becoming the wiser? Ages 8 +.

The Days. This evocative literary novel deals with the parallel lives of Thomas Wyatt, poet and courtier,

10. and Tim Wiatt, a struggling young novelist in modern-day London. Just as Thomas witnesses the death of

his muse Anne Boleyn, Tim witnesses the death of his soul when in order to pay his bills, he turns to writing genre fiction.

Susan Higginbotham is writing a novel set during the Wars of the Roses, putting her closer and closer to writing about the Tudors someday. She may not be strong enough to resist the temptation.

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Ancient-Classical

Reviews N

ANCIENT HISTORY n

EMPIRE RISING Sam Barone, Century, 2008, £12.99, pb, 467pp, 9781846050497 / Morrow, 2007, $25.95, hb, 465pp, 9780060892463 Mesopotamia, 3157 BC. A bloody tyrant is dead in Akkad, and the city is ruled by erstwhile wild man, Eskkar, and Trella, his farsighted young wife. Eskkar has much to learn, chiefly about himself; persuading the entrenched nobles to accept changes in government is irksome.

When he leaves the city to bring the benefits of Akkadian protection to distant villages, he stays away longer than is wise. Not solely for the sake of the villagers; he has found a woman, the only one he has wanted since his union with Trella.

Korthac, a rare Egyptian visitor, arrives in Akkad. Fair-dealing and plausible, he is permitted to trade in gemstones. Trella is mistrustful but her spies cannot fault him.

Before Eskkar returns, unspeakably dreadful damage has been done.

The opening of Empire Rising is inevitably leisurely, sometimes repetitive, as the author

Y THE TWICE BORN

HistoricalNovelsReview ensures that readers may empathise with the longings and aspirations of a people so remote in time. As the book progresses, excitement builds up to the final battle for the city, a blowby-blow account, long-drawn-out but superbly choreographed and vivid almost beyond bearing. Eskkar’s nail-biting river journey is worth waiting for.

The sex is explicit but never gratuitously so. There are scenes of merciless violence and horribly effective torture; of love, loyalty and courage unto death. This is how empires are born and how they grow.

Nancy Henshaw

N BIBLICAL n THE TRIUMPH OF DEBORAH Eva Etzioni-Halevy, Plume, 2008, $14.00/ C$16.50, pb, 358pp, 9780452289062 It’s the early Iron Age, and the Hebrews, surrounded by enemies, struggle to survive in the Promised Land. Judge and prophetess Deborah persuades the warrior Barak to try and destroy the Canaanite king Jabin and his city, Hazor.

Barak defeats Jabin’s army, and its general, Sisra, flees, only to be killed by Jael when he takes refuge in her home. Barak captures Jabin’s fortress and takes Jabin’s beautiful daughter Asherah, Sisra’s widow, as his prize. Also taken to Barak’s home is Nogah, Jabin’s daughter by a Hebrew slave.

The rest of the book is a rather formless ramble through Barak’s love for Asherah and his lust

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Pauline Gedge, Penguin Canada, 2007, C$24.00, pb, 624pp, 9780143052913 After tackling the revolt against the Hyksos in her superb Lord of the Two Lands trilogy, Pauline Gedge returns in excellent form with her latest offering, The Twice Born. The first in a two-volume series surrounding the reign of Pharaoh Amunhotep the Third, this novel traces the childhood and eventual rise to power of Huy, son of Hapu, who became one of Egypt’s most respected and enigmatic seers, renowned for his insights into the fabled Book of Thoth.

Ms. Gedge readily admits in her afterword that very little is known about Huy before he attracted the patronage of his Pharaoh; nevertheless, she manages to weave out of a few historical fragments a vivid, emotionally charged tapestry about the spoiled, intelligent son of a peasant farmer who suffers a terrible accident and is plunged into a labyrinth of deities, prescience and divination. Anchored by her impeccable knowledge of ancient Egypt, Gedge portrays Huy’s struggle to accept his destiny with conviction and an unapologetic lack of sentimentality. Her descriptions of the daily lives of the priestly and the noble castes, as well as the toils of the commoner, capture in vivid color the smells, tastes, sights and sounds of a vanquished time whose mysteries continue to captivate our imagination.

While not as well known in the United States, Pauline Gedge has long been an international bestseller, with six million copies of her books in print. With The Twice Born, she cements her reputation as one of our genre’s finest writers, capable of conveying through her evocative prose the spiritual and secular panorama of a young man who must learn to come to terms with a terrifying power capable of transforming both him and the world around him.

C.W. Gortner

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Issue 44, May 2008 for Deborah, Asherah’s hatred for Barak and her yearning to escape, Nogah’s love for Barak and her desire to be his wife, and Deborah’s longing for her home—her husband Lapidoth divorced her because she might commit adultery—and her lust for Barak. (It’s almost as convoluted as A Midsummer Night’s Dream.) Oh, yes, and the attempt to make peace with the new Canaanite king…

I found this book very difficult to get through.

Most of the characters are either unpleasant or unlikable, especially the womanizing Barak.

Although Torah law is frequently invoked, Barak seems to think leaving a captive alone for thirty days to mourn her losses still lets him forcibly kiss and fondle her. There are a lot of sex scenes that I found irritating because they truly are gratuitous. (Princess Asherah’s pink-tipped breasts almost seemed to be extra characters.)

As for historical accuracy—this is supposed to be Canaan in the late Bronze/early Iron Age. Yet there are iron grates on windows, iron chariots, castles, and violins. There’s also some seriously awkward writing: one character is of “pretty, but unprepossessing appearance.” This book was a major disappointment.

India Edghill

N CLASSICAL n COUNTING THE STARS Helen Dunmore, Fig Tree, 2008, £16.99, hb, 9780670914548 Ancient Rome in the late Republic was an unsettled place: violence, corruption and murder were a tangible part of the brutal world empire where politics were power. It is in these extraordinary times and during one long hot summer that Helen Dunmore has set her latest novel.

The book focuses on the poet Catullus and his intense and tormented relationship with his older mistress, beautiful and unscrupulous Clodia, wife to the rich patrician, Metellus Celer and sister to the notorious Clodius Pulcher. It is the most documented and candid love story ever known to history.

The author has written a prose anthem on first century BC Roman society at the very apex of its glory and prosperity. The political events that make this period so fascinating are used only as the backdrop to Catallus’s obsession with his poetic ‘Lesbia’. At the beginnings of Empire, when he finally breaks with his dark muse and travels to the east, he is emotionally and financially drained.

The tale evokes an atmosphere of riches lightly balanced with sordidness and iniquity and mixed with a thesaurus of poisons, but the passions which should burn the pages with lust and rhetoric are confined to a low pitch which seldom leaves the level of domestic routine.

Witty Catullus, whose lyric poetry is the most versatile and rich in style, and his love songs, the finest in antiquity, is here given less than his full worth.

Gwen Sly

Classical-2nd Century

Y LAVINIA

HistoricalNovelsReview

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Ursula K. Le Guin, Harcourt, 2008, $24.00, hb, 288pp, 9780151014248 / To be pub. by Gollancz, 2009, £18.99, hb, 432pp, 9780575084582 I’ve always wished I could write Ms. Le Guin’s lucid prose. In so few words she can create a world and take you there. More than that, though, she slides you into the mind and mindset of her characters and gives you a sense of understanding their world. Lavinia’s world is also Virgil’s, because Lavinia is the king’s daughter from the Aeneid who marries Aeneas; together they founded the lineage of Rome.

Virgil spares her one line, but Le Guin gives her a life.

In the novel Lavinia tells her own story, but she also tell the poet’s. There is a fine interweaving between the story from the sacred grove, where Lavinia met (and continues to meet) the spirit of the dying Virgil, and Lavinia’s own.

Her future is foreshadowed by the poet’s words. She knows she will marry Aeneas and that he will live a scant three years longer. So we follow Lavinia as the threads are woven together: Lavinia’s growing up, her home and family, Virgil’s bloody battles and deaths, the sweet years of marriage, and then the struggles to see the son Lavinia bore Aeneas become the man his father would have wanted.

If you enjoyed Virgil’s Aeneid, you will enjoy seeing that one line fleshed out. If you like classical history, this is a fascinating glimpse of the little warrior states that eventually became part of Rome. For those who like poetic prose, a good story well told, and living through a different mind in another world, then Lavinia will be a book to enjoy again and again.

Patrika Salmon

AGE OF BRONZE, VOLUME 3: Betrayal, Part One Eric Shanower, Image Comics, 2007, $27.99, hb, 176pp, 9781582407555 Graphic used to mean a novel of Lady Chatterley’s ilk, but now it means what geriatric me calls a comic. Age of Bronze, however is not the jolly ‘Beano’ comic; this book, written and illustrated by Eric Shanower, tells the first part of the story of the Trojan War, and it does so very well. At the front of the book are detailed maps, a plan of Troy, a translation from Sophocles about Philoctetes, and an excellent summary of the story. At the back of the book are a glossary of names, a genealogical chart and bibliography.

You don’t find those in a comic.

As for the story, told over 143 pages in clear, black-and-white pictures with speech bubbles, it looks dramatic and moves with rapid pace, allowing the reader to meet the protagonists in their worlds, then pulling together all the threads of the stories so that we can understand who become involved in the war and why.

My problem with stories told in pictures is that the pictures of the people are never as I imagine them to be in my head. I prefer plain words, but children and teenagers don’t. This book should be in every school library, given to young male readers and used as an introduction to the Trojan War for anyone who thinks visually and enjoys manga and illustrated books.

Patrika Salmon

N 1st CENTURY n MARY OF NAZARETH Marek Halter, Crown, 2008, $24.00/C$28.00, hb, 320pp, 9780307394835

When Herod’s mercenaries make one of their nighttime raids on Nazareth, quick-thinking young Miriam—later renamed Mary by census officials—helps the young rebel Barabbas hide from his pursuers. Years later, Miriam’s father, pushed to the limits of his endurance, assaults a tax collector. Knowing the grim fate—crucifixion—awaiting her father, Miriam goes in search of Barabbas, the one person with the resources and daring who can help her rescue him. Her journey, physical and spiritual, culminates in Miriam’s being chosen to bear the Son of God, an act that Miriam is confident will deliver the people of Israel from their Roman oppressors.

Writing historical fiction about biblical

Y THE SWORD OF REVENGE

Issue 44, May 2008 figures must be an enormously daunting task: an author who lets his imagination run wild runs the risk of being offensive, while an author who errs on the side of caution runs the risk of boring the reader by rehashing Sunday School stories.

Halter chooses a middle ground, creating a pure but not flawless Miriam who’s even allowed a chaste love with one of Barabbas’s followers.

Miriam’s interactions with her family, friends, and fellow villagers are homey and natural, especially in the scenes when Miriam breaks the news of her pregnancy to her friends and family, who at first are skeptical of her story, to say the least. Familiar Gospel figures like Mariamne, the future Mary Magdalene (here the lively young daughter of a learned widow with whom Miriam stays for a while), also make an appearance.

Setting his story in the context of Jewish resistance to the Romans, and reminding the reader of modern-day parallels to the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto, Halter has created a memorable and appealing heroine.

Susan Higginbotham

N 2nd CENTURY n TERRA INCOGNITA (US) / RUSO AND THE DEMENTED DOCTOR (UK) Ruth (R.S.) Downie, Bloomsbury USA, 2008, $23.95, 400pp, 9781596912328 / Bloomsbury, 2008, £17.99, hb, 480pp, 9780718149444 This is the second installment in the trials and tribulations of our memorable hero, Medicus Gaius Petreius Ruso, a Gaul serving with the Twentieth Legion of the Roman Army stationed in Britannia.

After solving a mystery (Medicus) involving the murder of prostitutes in Deva where he is stationed, Ruso decides he needs to clear his head and get some distance from what is considered to be a fairly socialized part of Britannia. He joins a contingent of the Batavians headed for the far northern parts of the country,

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Jack Ludlow, Allison & Busby, 2008, £19.99, hb, 410pp, 9780749080143 This is the second of a trilogy set in the Roman Republic during the period before Julius Caesar. The first part, Pillars of Rome, was reviewed in HNR 43. The story has now advanced to the next generation of characters, who must deal with the consequences of death and betrayal in an age of wars and lethal politics. Titus Cornelius sets out on a path of vengeance that he hopes will make him a great soldier, whilst his brother Quintus follows a political route that brings him up against the most powerful senator in Rome, a man haunted by a prophecy connecting him with the Cornelius family. And then there’s Aquila, the abandoned child who becomes a mercenary in Spain.

This is a rip-roaring page-turner with considerable depth.

It gives a vivid, authentic flavour of those turbulent times, laced as it is with carefully-worked-in historical detail that’s informative without being intrusive. And the characters are engagingly three-dimensional, even the villains.

Sarah Cuthbertson

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2nd Century a wild and woolly place by all estimates. Not coincidentally, Ruso’s slave/girlfriend, Tilla, is from these parts. That Tilla’s knowledge of the people and locale doesn’t work in Ruso’s favor is putting it mildly. These people just don’t like Roman rule.

Naturally, the minute that Ruso beds down in this inhospitable clime, one of the Batavians is found beheaded. The retiring medic, Thessalus, admits to the murder. The head honcho of the Batavians can’t possibly permit a Roman doctor to be proclaimed a murderer, so he is determined to find a “local” on whom he can place the blame.

In Ruso, Downie has developed an engaging, funny, tongue-in-cheek, smart-as-a-whip character who doesn’t care to be typecast and who is capable of thinking outside the box.

Through her supporting cast, Downie also paints a remarkably vivid picture of what the farthest reaches of Britannia acted, sounded and felt like. Thoroughly enjoyable and delightful, and it’s not necessary to read the first book here – although, frankly, it only adds another layer of fun!

Ilysa Magnus DEEP MAGIC Joy Nash, LoveSpell, 2008, $6.99/C$8.99, pb, 374pp, 9780505527165 Set in Britain in AD 132, the second book in Nash’s Druids of Avalon series describes the struggle of a small community of druids to preserve their sanctuary on the Isle of Avalon (identified with Glastonbury Tor) from the Romans by concealing it in a magical mist.

To protect the settlement from a dangerous Roman magician, the shape-shifting druidess Gwendolyn seeks the help of Marcus, a Roman blacksmith, to create a mighty sword with magical powers. They name it Exchalybur (and it is destined to be wielded by Arthur, of course).

Although their supernatural battle against the magician forms the climax of the plot, the real struggle is between love and duty, as the beautiful, silver-haired Gwendolyn is forced to choose between her responsibility to stay and defend Avalon and her torrid passion for the handsome and muscular Marcus.

Their many amorous encounters are described in erotic detail, and as a result this combination of historical romance and fantasy will appeal to readers who are less interested in history than in sex that is graphic, lovers who are passionate and tormented, and magic that often reflects their mental state.

Ray Thompson GLADIATRIX Russell Whitfield, Orion, 2007, £7.99, pb, 320pp, 1905802098 Gladiatrix is set in the 2nd century, at the height of the Roman Empire, whose rulers were a discordant mix of classical learning and extreme cruelty. Under Domitian the spectacles of human slaughter have grown to epic proportions, and

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Two Messiahs, Two Centuries CHRIST THE LORD: The Road to Cana Anne Rice, Knopf, 2008, $25.95, hb, 241pp, 9781400043521 / Chatto & Windus, 2008, £17.99, hb, 256pp, 9780701178130

THE MESSIAH

Marek Halter, Toby, 2008, $24.95/£14.99, hb, 485pp, 9781592642168 I found the juxtaposition of these two novels fascinating. Both tell the tale of a man fulfilling prophetic hopes for a messiah. Halter’s “false” Jewish Messiah, David Reubeni in the 16th century, struggles very humanly with using or misusing his persecuted people’s belief in his divinity in order to lead them to return to their lost homeland. Rice’s Christ the Lord (the second in her series) knows he is God incarnate from page one and struggles only with if and how to reveal his dispassionate and limitless self to the agitated and petty world to which he has descended.

Author Marek Halter was born in Warsaw and at age five crawled with his family through the sewers to escape the Nazi extermination of the ghetto. His previous novels, written originally in his adopted French, include Jewish interpretations of The Book of Abraham and the popular Canaan Trilogy (Sarah, Zipporah and Lilah). Usually, Jews tend to distance themselves from the “half-mystic, half-adventurer” who appeared in Venice in 1524 claiming to be the prince of an eastern Jewish kingdom nobody had ever heard of. Recently expelled from Spain and often forced into conversion, Europe’s Jews live as refugees in their native lands. Europe’s Christian princes consume one another with Reformation-religious and more mundane conflicts, allowing Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and his Turks to march unhindered to the walls of Vienna. Wouldn’t it be more reasonable for Christian and Jew to join forces and drive the Turk from the Holy Land in order to re-establish a Jewish homeland in which the Christians, too, could have access to their holiest sites? To this end, Reubeni (whose journal still exists) appears appealing to the pope first and then to ruler after ruler. In Portugal, he causes a young man of converso heritage to reconvert, including self-circumcision—not at all what the Christian monarch wants to see. This zealot forces Reubeni’s hand, complicating what was meant to be a simple military action with divine overtones—and tragic results.

And the saga of Anne Rice—from lush pseudonymic S&M erotica, through vampires and witches given flesh-and-blood reality we common mortals never imagined, now to sparse and born-again Christianity—is a plot worthy of her own hand. The Road to Cana picks up where Out of Egypt left off, covering Jesus’s life in Nazareth, through his baptism to the marriage of Cana which might have been his own—were he not God. In the confrontation with a mirror-image Satan in the wilderness, I found reflections of the deep light-and-dark struggles that characterized Rice’s vampires. And the struggle of the falsely accused Avigail has some longed-for humanity.

Rice’s female characters are better drawn than Halter’s, but all in all this volume may be a third the size of the old Rice because true belief is a third or less of life. The old mouth-watering richness is gone. I found Halter’s the more intriguing work.

Ann Chamberlin each sponsor of gladiatorial games seeks novelty.

Set in the Eastern Mediterranean, Gladiatrix explores the world of female gladiators.

Lysandra is an educated Spartan warrior priestess who is captured by Lucius Balbus, the owner of a school for female gladiators in Asia Minor. Lysandra overcomes the shame of slavery to become a skilled and ruthless gladiatrix. The crowds love her stubborn hubris and she attracts the attention of Sextus Frontinus, the region’s governor. Within the palisade of the school, Lysandra finds the love and hate of both men and women; the resolution of these conflicts drives the plot at a cracking pace.

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Whilst Lysander is the dominant voice in the narrative, the story offers several other points of view; this lessens the intensity of Lysander’s emotional turmoil, but does offer external perspectives on her plight. What to us are small acts of kindness are depicted as important in the world of powerless slaves. The portrayal of the training regime, the slums in towns and the crowded arena felt genuine. I sweated and feared in the heat of the day and expired in the cool evenings.

Whitfield adopts a violent vocabulary in keeping with the vicious nature of the gladiatrices’ way of life. Sexual encounters are an escape

3rd Century-10th Century from the imposed external persona, rather than the lynchpins of developing relationships. His descriptions of combat are highly charged and exciting. The violent narrative and brutality of the characters imposes an authentic distance between the present day reader and the 2ndcentury gladiatrix.

Bill Dodds

N 3rd CENTURY n THE FIRE WAKER Ben Pastor, Minotaur, 2008, $23.95, hb, 300pp, 031235391X The second in what, judging by the last page, is intended to be a series, The Fire Waker should have everything going for it. It’s a fascinating period in the Roman Empire’s history. Hero Aelius Sparianus is Emperor Diocletian’s historian (and spy), plus there’s the ‘hunt the Christian’ theme, a mystery of rebirth from death, murders, details of the life of a Roman soldier, and frontier battles. So why did I sigh for a touch of Lindsey Davis?

It’s Pastor’s writing style. There’s an odd choice of words. Our hero smirks and simpers; there are men ‘standing on horseback’. The viewpoint bounces unexpectedly, and Aelius Sparianus is neither outsider-observer giving incisive insights to the reader, nor an emotionally involved, close-viewpoint character drawing the reader to him. He falls between the two and sometimes seems a cold fish. The plot is good, but I couldn’t care for our hero and found the villain a far more interesting character.

I’m sure many people will enjoy this novel, but reading is a matter of personal preferences, and Ben Pastor’s way of writing spoiled the story for me.

Patrika Salmon

N 4th CENTURY n SONG OF THE NORTH (US) / THE BOAR STONE (UK) Jules Watson, Overlook, 2008, $24.95, hb, 399pp, $24.95, 9781590200506 / Orion, 2008, £7.99, pb, 416pp, 9780752893389 Roman Britannia, AD 366. Minna, a servant girl of mixed Roman and British blood, feels out of place and discontented with her life.

The Romans whisper about her native features and strange visions of the old pagan gods; her brother wants to sell her off in marriage to advance his military career; and her beloved British grandmother has just died, leaving her alone in a world she wants no part of. Hopeless and desperate, Minna runs away to seek her own fortune. On the road she meets Cian, a traveling performer and skilled horseman, who becomes her only friend when they are captured by marauders and sold into slavery north of the Roman Wall, in the vast unconquered land of Alba.

The young pair ends up in the court of Cahir,

HistoricalNovelsReview ruler of the western Alban kingdom of Dalriada, and his Rome-loving queen, Maeve. In Cahir’s kingdom, a place of mixed loyalties and intrigues as ancient and mysterious as Alba itself, Minna finally discovers her identity and her destiny, a destiny tied to Dalriada and its gods, its wars, its secrets, and its king.

Song of the North is a blend of fact and fiction, history and myth, love and battle, Scotland and Rome. In short, this book is right up my alley.

It’s epic historical fantasy in the vein of Morgan Llywelyn, Marion Zimmer Bradley, or Donna Gillespie, filled with memorable characters, tense action, romance, intrigue, and a little bit of magic all woven into a richly layered plot.

The pages turned themselves, and the characters stayed with me after I put the book down. Despite being the third volume in the Dalriada trilogy, it stands alone as its own story. I very much look forward to reading the rest of the series.

Heather Domin

N 7th CENTURY n CONSPIRACIES OF ROME Richard Blake, Hodder & Stoughton, 2008, £19.99, 356pp, 9780340951125 608 AD. Young Englishman Aelric is interpreter and secretary to Maximin, a priest, who is part of the Roman mission to convert England to Christianity. But more texts are needed, and the pair travel to Rome to seek out suitable books. Aelric is amazed to find that the Romans don’t appreciate their glorious literature, but he wants to ensure that England is made the intellectual heart of the West. The ambitious plans go awry as murder and violence dog his footsteps. Are scheming politicians and diplomats hindering rather than helping?

Is the church being honest? Who is ultimately responsible for the murder?

This is the first in a trilogy. Written in the first person, this book has a strong voice. Aelric is well drawn, and he comes across as quite a vain and greedy person, but someone who ultimately has a sense of fairness. Seventhcentury Rome is a unusual subject for a novel. A great sense of decline and decay comes across.

Rome is definitely past her best, and the Church and various factions are jostling for control.

Sometimes the digression on religious points can get a bit wearing. However, it’s an enjoyable read, and I will certainly seek out the second part of the trilogy.

S Garside-Neville

N 9th CENTURY n SWORD SONG: The Battle for London Bernard Cornwell, HarperCollins, 2008, $25.95/C$34.95, hb, 336pp, 9780061470714 / HarperCollins, 2007, £18.99, hb, 366pp, 9780007219711 This is the fourth novel in The Saxon Tales series, which follows the adventures of Uhtred

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Issue 44, May 2008 of Bebbanburg (Bamburgh) during the wars between King Alfred and the Danes in the late 9th century. As its subtitle proclaims, Sword Song deals with the capture of London from occupying Vikings.

Although a Northumbrian Angle by birth, Uhtred was reared by Danes and remains fonder of them than his own people, preferring their pagan warrior code to the intolerance and greed that he finds in most churchmen. Since he has, however, given his oath to serve Alfred (whom he dislikes), he leads the desperate, but successful, assault upon London and the subsequent daring rescue of Alfred’s daughter after she is captured by the enemy.

Uhtred is a shrewd leader and a formidable warrior, with a fighting man’s scorn for those who shirk their duties and seek to profit from his sacrifices. He is loyal to true friends and generous to brave foes, allowing the latter to die with their weapons in their hands so that they may go to Odin’s corpse-hall to feast and fight in the afterlife. Since he has little time for peaceful pursuits, the story he tells focuses upon warlike deeds: the fierce and confusing struggle in the shield wall, the bitter hand-to-hand fight between crews of warships, single combat between champions. He is protective towards women, but this is typically demonstrated by defending and rescuing them from enemies.

This is a tale of fast-paced adventure, full of vividly described action, and Uhtred’s grim humor and sardonic point of view offer a highly entertaining commentary on people’s conduct.

Since the series is ongoing, however, the conclusion leaves many plot threads still to be followed.

Ray Thompson

N 10th CENTURY n GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD Michael Chabon, Ballantine, 2007, $21.95, hb, 204pp, 9780345501745 / Sceptre, 2007, £12.00, hb, 224pp, 9780340953549 Pulitzer Prize-winning Michael Chabon has “gone in search of a little adventure” in this impressive genre-twisting tale set along the Silk Road of the 10th century.

The two wandering con men of the title— Amram, an enormous, gray-haired African, and Zelikman, a moody scarecrow of a Frank— strike an agreement with a shifty Persian to return a troublesome captive to a faraway city for ransom. But the captive has a bloody history, and is not only adept at escape, but is also hunted by an army of mercenaries. Once the captive’s true identity is revealed, the two men are reluctant to help the youth in his wild and likely fatal quest, but a series of events—a stolen horse, a torn hat, a sudden urge to “see something through”—persuade the travelers to offer up their skills. Soon, the men are embroiled in an unlikely plan to return a child/king to the throne of the Khazan Empire.

Chabon has cooked up a religious and

10th Century-11th Century cultural stew of a world, full of Vikings and Arabs, Turks and Celestials, clashing both in commerce and in war. Though it’s a cliffhangerheavy, Conan-the-Barbarian kind of plot, the story is salted with chewy archaic words, and narrated in sentences as artfully twisted as a Möbius strip. Gentlemen of the Road is a strange hybrid—pure genre wrapped in literary trappings—and though it takes some hacking through the latter to get to the former, Chabon’s skill with language, artfully mastered scenes, and subtle wit is well worth the journey.

Lisa Ann Verge VARANGER Cecelia Holland, Forge, 2008, $24.95, hb, 303pp, 9780765305589 This fourth entry in the Corban Loosestrife saga takes us from frozen Viking trading posts to the outskirts of the Byzantine Empire. The first installment moved from raids on Ireland to conflicts in York and Scandinavia (Soul Thief, HNR 21). The second entry (Witches’ Kitchen, HNR 28) crossed the Atlantic to Vinland and back while introducing Corban’s son Conn and Raef, a nephew begotten when Corban’s sister was raped by a Viking. The Serpent Dreamer (HNR 36) shifted back to Vinland and does not relate much to the work under review.

Conn and Raef ultimately pledge their services to Volodymyr, the leader of the emerging Rus people, a mixture of raiders and traders and locals. Conn charms the scarce women and leads the fierce men, while his brother is more given to introspection and an incipient feminism resulting from empathy for his violated mother.

Other characters include a Muslim scholar from Bagdad, a Viking who turned Christian because Christ seemed to be winning over the other gods, a kidnapped princess from the semi-legendary Jewish Khazars, a Hun slave woman, and a sly government official from Byzantium. However, action takes up more pages than culture or religion as our heroes slash enemies and false allies through the ice and snow, navigate their dragon boat down thawing rivers, and sail over Greek fire to capture Chersonese. Volodymyr’s conversion to Christianity and subsequent marriage to the Emperor’s sister can be seen as the founding event of the Russian people, a key turning point in history.

Whether read independently or as part of the series, this novel represents another contribution from one of our finest, best known, and most prolific historical novelists.

James Hawking

N 11th CENTURY n THE TEMPLAR Paul Doherty, Headline, 2007, £19.99, hb, 301pp, 9780755338481 At the end of the 11th century, the Infidels captured Jerusalem. On November 27th, 1095, the call went out from Pope Urban II to the Kingdom of Western Europe to march and

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EDITORS’ CHOICE

Mandy Haggith, Two Ravens Press, 2008, £8.99, pb, 198pp, 9781906120160 Brigid is the last in a long line of medicine women; she lives alone in the forest since she has been banished from the local community by James, the priest and brother-in-law of the headman, Bjorn.

One thousand years ago, the Vikings are settled in the North West Highlands of Scotland, and the spread of Christianity clashes with the old pagan beliefs; conflicts arise and loyalties become confused. In her forest home, Brigid watches and marks the changes and their effects on the people and their world as the new ways encroach on the community, even into the forest. With the death of the last bear, the world is changed forever. There is no escaping the long-term effects that man imposes on his environment – a theme that resonates today.

Beautifully written, this is a wonderful mix of legend and historical romance: a moving and exciting first novel from a fine writer.

Ann Oughton reclaim the city in the name of Christendom.

The response was overwhelming, and according to the chronicles of Eleanor de Payens, one hundred thousand men, women, and children joined the Army of God and marched east. The first Crusade had begun. With Eleanor was her brother Hugh and Godfroi of St. Omer, and it was these two who were to found the Order of the Templars with Hugh becoming the first Grand Master.

This is no romanticised notion of what took place from the time the Crusaders left Europe with high hopes to July 1099 and the recapture of Jerusalem. Of those that set out only twenty thousand finally arrived.

Paul Doherty paints a vivid picture of the First Crusade with all its battles, privations, brutality and squalor. You can feel the squelch of the mud, hear the screams and smell the camps along the way. This is history come truly alive. It is a compelling read but not one for the queasy or fainthearted.

This is the first book in a new series charting the history of the Templars, and I can’t wait for the second one.

Marilyn Sherlock PEOPLE OF THE WEEPING EYE W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O’Neal Gear, Forge, 2008, $24.95/C$31.00, hb, 400pp, 9780765314383 During the 11th and 12th centuries, the Mississippi River Valley was populated by a number of Native American chiefdoms; this culture was known for its square earthen mounds, pottery and trench-walled houses. This is the story of Trader, a man who has traveled the length of the Mississippi River; Old White, known as the Seeker, who is haunted by visions that keep calling him home; and Two Petals, recognized as a Contrary with strange and exceptional powers. The three meet and begin a quest to return to Split Sky City to right an old wrong.

People of the Weeping Eye and its sequel,

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People of the Thunder, due out next year, continue the Gears’ First North Americans series. The husband-and-wife team has fifty years of combined archaeological experience, which is evident in the cultural detail throughout the book. My only reservation is the number of characters and unusual names introduced in the early chapters of the story. After the three major characters meet, the book becomes easier to follow. I’ve read all of the Gears’ novels in the series and enjoy the adventure and page-turning excitement each one brings. Each book stands alone; therefore, reading this book before the others in the series is not necessary.

Jeff Westerhoff SIEGE OF HEAVEN Tom Harper, St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2008, $24.95, hb, 518pp, 9780312338725 / Arrow, 2007, £7.99, pb, 240pp, 9780099454755 Harper writes about that charade of religious fervour, the First Crusade of 1096-98, in all its ghastly violence and hypocrisy. The reader is spared nothing of the petty rivalries between the various dukes and warlords, the infighting and power struggles which is all the Crusade turns out to be for these men.

Harper’s research is impressive. I learned a great deal about the shenanigans of the end of the Holy Roman Empire as the main character, a Greek, Demetrios Askiates, is the Emperor’s representative in Antioch. He’s an irritating fellow who just wants to go home and is always falling over his feet or door sills when he fights.

However, he cannot return to Constantinople until he has fulfilled his duty to his Emperor, and he doesn’t want to, not with the in-fighting between the lords, the plague among the true pilgrims and the double-crossing dealings his Emperor wishes him to be part of. So through Demetrios’ eyes we stagger along with the thoroughly unholy Crusade and finally reach Jerusalem.

One does not wonder, having read about the main players, why there was no earthquake

11th Century-14th Century of protest at the useless slaughter and cruel massacre in Jerusalem, but Demetrios survives, finds his family and does return them safely to Constantinople.

The research and writing are excellent, and the history of the whole Crusade is covered from start to dismal end, but it was, for me, grim reading. If you enjoy battles and fighting, politicking of the nastiest sort and hypocritical Christians, then you will enjoy the book. If you want to learn what the Crusades were really about, this is the book to read.

Patrika Salmon GODIVA Nerys Jones, Macmillan, 2008, £12.99, hb, 344pp, 9780230530683 England, 1045. Edward the Confessor is on the throne, and the Normans are circling.

Everywhere there is rumour, subterfuge and political intrigue. Edward is childless and the succession is in doubt. Caught up in all this is Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and his wife, Godiva, a landowner in her own right and ruling her estates from Coventry. What happens next is known to anyone who has had a half-decent education in history.

Without question, Leofric and Godiva lived at that time and their granddaughter, Edith, married Gruffydd ap Llewelyn, King of Gwynedd. Whether the story of Godiva’s ride through Coventry, naked and mounted on a white horse to save the people from taxes imposed by the King – the heregeld and successor of the danegeld – is true or just another legend like those of Arthur or Robin Hood matters not, but in this book Nerys Jones has woven a powerful story around it. As the Anglo-Saxon age draws to a close, life in what are now called the Midlands is vividly described, and just as in tales of Arthur and Robin Hood, the reader is swept along with the events taking place and made to want to believe in it.

Marilyn Sherlock

N 12th CENTURY n GENGHIS: Lords of the Bow (US) / LORDS OF THE BOW (UK) Conn Iggulden, Delacorte, 2008, $25.00, hb, 400pp, 9780385339520 / HarperCollins, 2008, £14.99, hb, 464pp, 9780007201761 By the beginning of the 12th century, Genghis the Khan of the Mongols has united the tribes north of China. Now Genghis’s brilliant, ruthless leadership has forged a force of 10,000 warriors whom he will use to exact vengeance.

Lords of the Bow depicts the beginning years of Genghis’s invasion of China, town by town, city by city, not an easy feat as the Mongols face the thick, formidable stone walls protecting each major city.

In this follow-up to the equally suspenseful Birth of an Empire, the Khan’s brothers are adults now, grown to maturity and their own place of leadership as well as loyalty to Genghis.

HistoricalNovelsReview Temuge evolves from a whining boy to the able assistant of the awesome, deceptive but powerful shaman, Kokchu. But Temuge is more than a trained, loyal servant and sets his sights much higher after a brief, expansive experience within the walls of a modern Chin city. Kachiun and Khasar become military commanders whose unrivaled skill with the bow, fearsome enactment of discipline, and inspirational appeal to succeed in capturing impossible enemy strongholds provide pages and pages of thrilling reading due to the author’s deft skill in maintaining plot tension.

Genghis’s conflict with his bastard son, Jochi, and his wife, Borte, grows after his first successful campaign and taking of a Chin wife.

The reader is gripped by the initial surprise and then palpable fear of the Chin leaders, who never imagined the barbaric Northern tribes could mean the end of the Chin dynasty.

If you love plenty of fierce combat scenes, fascinating yet unique characters, and historically accurate descriptions of artifacts and customs, Conn Iggulden’s novels are riveting works that will make you want to read more of this creative and talented author.

Viviane Crystal

N 13th CENTURY n DEATH OF A SQUIRE Maureen Ash, Berkley Prime Crime 2008, $6.99/C$9.99, pb, 241pp, 9780425219591 This is the second installment in the Templar Bascot de Marins mystery series, set in Lincoln, England, in the year 1200. Bascot has been living at the castle, providing his services to the castellan, while he tries to decide whether to return to his life in the Templars or to leave their service. When a young squire is found hanged in the forest, Bascot is immediately pressed into service an investigator, as he had recently solved a number of other murders. King John is on his way to Lincoln to receive homage from the Scottish king, so it is critical that this matter be cleared up immediately. Was it the work of outlaws living in the forest? After all, the remains of a poached deer were found not far away. But this answer might be just too easy. The deceased squire, a thoroughly unlikable individual, may have stumbled onto a plot to bring Arthur, King John’s nephew, to the throne in his place, and attempt to blackmail those involved.

Like the first book, Death of a Squire is hard to put down. The historical detail is everpresent, but isn’t forced or didactic. Bascot is an admirable character, and I shall look forward to his continuing tale, particularly given the cliffhanger ending of this one.

Trudi E. Jacobson CROSSED Nicole Galland, Harper, 2008, $15.95, pb, 672pp, 9780060841805 An unnamed British musician is the protagonist in Galland’s new book, in which the

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Issue 44, May 2008 disastrous Fourth Crusade forms the backdrop.

After the Musician tries to kill Marquis Boniface of Montferrat, the marquis’ son-in-law, Gregor of Mainz, takes the Musician under his wing to prevent him from committing suicide.

Gregor, an honest pilgrim and true believer in the Crusaders’ cause, tries to do what is right and just, with the goal of keeping the army together. Ultimately, the Musician joins Gregor, his brother and their coterie in their holy war, and they set off from Venice for Jerusalem. They never arrive there, because as history tells us, the crusaders get sidetracked at Zara and then Constantinople, where countless numbers of Christian citizens (as well as Jews) are murdered and their homelands despoiled.

The politics of the times – the unremitting control of the Venetians over the purse strings of the Crusade, papal bulls that are ignored and manipulated, the splintering of the army into factions, the wickedness of Marquis Boniface in redefining the goal of the Crusaders, the utter destruction of Constantinople’s Jewish population at Petra – become Galland’s gateway into character development. Using the mechanism of the one unnamed Musician as a mirror from which all around him is reflected is, from my point of view, an act of considerable creative genius. Jamila, the faux Arab princess, is our mirror into the lives of 13th century Jewry.

These two characters alone make the book a recommended read. When you add Gregor’s intensity, his ability to learn and change, and his deep commitment to his faith no matter the consequences, the book becomes a must read.

This is a long, sometimes light and humorous, and often profoundly disturbing book which has its forgivable faults. I loved it.

Ilysa Magnus

N 14th CENTURY n THE VOYAGE OF THE SHORT SERPENT Bernard du Boucheron (trans. Hester Velmans), Overlook Duckworth, 2008, hb, 206pp, $24.95/£12.99, 9781585679201 In an unspecified year, a Church cardinal sends a letter to a bishop with orders for a special mission. The remote Greenland settlement of New Thule has been out of contact for over fifty years, and now rumors have reached the Church that the settlers have turned to all manner of heresy and paganism. The cardinal sends the bishop to see if the colony truly has gone native and, if so, to restore it to the Church’s control.

He is instructed to take inventory of treasure, monitor property, collect tithe, and – oh yeah – see if the people are all right. Ready to eradicate sin and restore order, the bishop heads off to the icy wastelands on a ship called the Short Serpent.

After a grueling (and gruesome) journey, what the bishop finds at New Thule is more shocking than he could have imagined, but that is nothing compared to what happens next.

The Voyage of the Short Serpent is a short book, but it packs quite a wallop in its few pages.

14th Century-15th Century The story is full of historical detail with regard to shipbuilding, navigation, Church policy, local geography, and the horrors of the settler’s life, all told in a literary epistolary style with almost no dialogue. The writing style is somehow both offhand and pointed, describing the most disturbing scenes with a callous detachment that hides what feels like a kind of dark glee.

As the story goes on and the bishop’s report becomes less and less intelligible, the sense of morbid amusement grows even stronger. This is not a story for the faint of heart (or the queasy of stomach) -- part literary tale, part historical tragedy, part horror show, it is a book that defies genre and defies expectations. Short, shocking, and strangely celebratory – a dark and definitely recommended read.

Heather Domin HANGMAN BLIND Cassandra Clark, John Murray, 2008, £16.99, hb, 307 pp, 9780719522314 This first novel in a new mystery series introduces Sister Hildegard, a Cistercian nun who wants nothing more than to find a suitable grange on which to found her own modest priory. Instead she is dragged into intrigue when she finds five dead bodies hanging from a gibbet in the middle of the woods and a murdered young man in the undergrowth nearby. Later, when visiting old friends at Castle Hutton in Yorkshire, someone attempts to poison Roger, lord of the manor. The offended man plays dead and allows a mock funeral to be performed in his honour whilst Hildegard and Ulf, his steward, struggle to uncover the culprit. Meanwhile two servants are murdered in cold blood; Roger’s ‘widow’ is abducted; and Roger’s brother and sister-in-law attempt to pass off the wet nurse’s baby girl as the new male heir.

This is a fast-paced read with some colourful scenes, although the suspense is somewhat undermined by incongruous intrusions of slapstick comedy, such as a Pythonesque scene in which a house cat savages an armed warrior.

The writing itself seems rather weak in places, but it may appeal to those who enjoy their medieval fiction with a generous helping of Castle Anthrax.

Mary Sharratt CATHEDRAL OF THE SEA Ildefonso Falcones, Dutton, 2008, $25.95/ C$28.50, 592pp, hb, 9780525950486 / Doubleday, 2008, £14.99, hb, 640pp, 9780385611855 Cathedral of the Sea is a most welcome addition to the growing genre of medieval fiction. It is one of only a few that is set in Spain and available in English. The heart of the story is Barcelona’s Basilica de Santa Maria del Mar which captivates, consoles, and gives meaning to the city’s common people, especially to its bastaix, the dock workers who literally carried her building stones on their backs from the quarry to the building site.

HistoricalNovelsReview The principal character, Arnau Estanyol, is just such a dock worker. Born in 1321, he is the son of a runaway peasant. He unloads ships and carries huge blocks of stone on his back. He is one of the faceless mass of the city’s poor. From this seemingly dull cloth the author creates an irresistible tale that – unflinchingly - carries the reader into scenes of incredible cruelty inflicted by nobility and clergy on whose whims hang the workers’ lives, into the religious hysteria and the pogrom that came of it, of war, incessant hunger, and the terrors of the Inquisition.

Cathedral of the Sea is, in these respects, a dark story, for one cannot help being overwhelmed with sadness when confronted with the evil men can do. But the story also retells acts of kindness, love, and extraordinary loyalty – with touches of humor provided by Barcelona’s visiting prostitutes. This is a fast paced, page turning story that, in spite of its length, holds the reader’s attention to the very end. I agree with those who compare it to Follett’s Pillars of the Earth. Both are splendid examples of captivating epics grounded in solid historical research. Highly recommended for both historical content and narrative zest.

Lucille Cormier COMPANY OF LIARS: A Story of the Plague Karen Maitland, Michael Joseph, 2008, £12.99, hb, 552pp, 9780718153229 / Delacorte, Sept.

2008, $24.00, hb, 480pp, 9780385341691 Midsummer’s Day 1348, and the first victim of the pestilence dies in the English coastal town of Kilmington.

Camelot, a generic title for a peddler or hawker, is the narrator and together with a motley group of fellow travellers, comprised of a conjuror, a musician and his apprentice, a deformed storyteller, an adolescent couple on the run, a midwife and a rune-reading girl, set out on a journey away from the disease-ridden town.

On the way, each member of the group tells a story, and shades of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales or Boccaccio’s Decamaron spring to mind. As they suffer the wettest summer of the century, the spread of plague, the subsequent shortage of food and the breakdown of law and order, the little band is beset by tragedy as one after another of the group suffers a violent end. Only Camelot begins to suspect the strange rune reader, an albino child whose prophecies seem uncannily accurate.

The author has certainly researched her story well and it shows, sometimes too much.

There are some exciting episodes, but the pace is unnecessarily slowed by inconsequential storytelling and would be improved by some drastic pruning. Although the book is far too long it is redeemed somewhat by a devilish twist at the end.

Ann Oughton A VIGIL OF SPIES Candace Robb, Century, 2008, £18.00, 284pp,

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Issue 44, May 2008 hb, 9780434015474 The time is September 1373 and the Archbishop of York, John Thoresby, is dying in his palace at Bishopsthorpe. Princess Joan, the fair Maid of Kent, arrives with her entourage.

Among the party is Dom Lambert, an emissary from William Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester.

As they approach the palace, Dom Lambert’s servant falls from his horse, breaking his neck.

Was it an accident or are there darker deeds afoot?

As always, Candace Robb writes a powerful story intertwined with genuine characters of the day. Apart from John Thoresby and Princess Joan there is Geoffrey Chaucer, Lewis Clifford, John Holand (Princess Joan’s son by a former husband) and Alexander Neville, who features prominently while never actually appearing. In between her fictitious characters slip, seamlessly, in and out of the arena.

This is another book in the Owen Archer mysteries, and therefore it can be assumed that the accident was no simple fall, but what is behind it and why? And then another body is found in the woods. Times are uncertain and the question of Thoresby’s successor is ever present. Rivalries, jealousies and intrigue are the order of the day.

I enjoyed this book very much.

Marilyn Sherlock

N 15th CENTURY n FIGURES IN SILK Vanora Bennett, HarperCollins, 2008, £12.99, hb, 450pp, 9780007224944 Vanora Bennett’s debut was the fascinating Portrait of an Unknown Woman. In her second novel, she turns her attention to the previous century.

Jane Shore, mistress to Edward IV, is one of the most intriguing of history’s lesser players.

However, Bennett relegates her to a secondary character and creates a younger sister for her.

This novel is the story of a long-term secret love affair between Isabel and Edward’s brother, Richard of Gloucester, later Richard III. This affair, as Isabel makes clear, is nothing like her sister’s dalliances; rather, it’s a deep love through which the contradictions that have made Richard such an intriguing and controversial figure are expressed. However, we gain no new insights. Bennett’s Richard is the post-Tey modern manifestation, essentially noble in spirit, well-intentioned and wise but flawed by ambition and a quick temper.

The novel also follows Isabel’s progress from mercer’s daughter to wealthy, ambitious silk merchant. History tells us no silk was woven in England until the Venetian monopoly was broken, but Bennett has written an almost plausible tale of Isabel’s secret venture to weave silk in Westminster. Maybe it is only my cynicism that finds the ready assistance of a young William Caxton a little too convenient in furthering this enterprise.

15th Century-16th Century That aside, Bennett weaves both fact and fiction into a densely plotted, complex novel.

She is particularly adept at depicting the bustle, intrigue and jealousies of the London merchants, and I applaud the way she clearly distinguishes between life in commercial London and that of the royalty and government of Westminster.

I found the sections on the history of silk interesting, although sometimes the author allowed her research to hinder the narrative. I wish, though, that the author had either written a novel about Isabel and Richard’s passion or one about Isabel, the successful businesswoman.

Somehow trying to do both didn’t fully do justice to either.

Sally Zigmond THE APOSTATE’S TALE Margaret Frazer, Berkley Prime Crime, 2008, $24.95, hb, 307pp, 9780425219249 Margaret Frazer improves with each book.

This is her seventeenth Dame Frevisse novel, and it has more depth then some of the earlier ones. Here we find Dame Frevisse in her home convent in Northamptonshire in the spring of 1452. The struggle to keep the under-funded convent thriving with such a small population of nuns is just one of the details which make the story seem real.

What happens to nuns at the end of a long and lean Lent, a time of their lowest strength, when an apostate arrives? This apostate was once their Sister Cecely, before she ran off with a man; now she’s back, nine years later, with her son. Her man has died and she is seeking sanctuary from his family—or so she says. But when the family arrives, armed and threatening, it seems there was at least one other side to the story. As the nuns struggle to find time to rejoice for Easter and find the truth about their apostate, Cecely manages to unsettle each woman, filling some with doubt and others with emotions best not let loose in a convent. Then the poisonings begin. It is up to Dame Frevisse to sort it all out, not an easy task.

A well written mediaeval mystery, and a good read.

Patrika Salmon

N 16th CENTURY n THE SIXTH WIFE Suzannah Dunn, Harper, 2008, $13.95/C$16.50, pb, 336pp, 9780061431562 / HarperPerennial, 2007, £6.99, pb, 320pp, 9780007229727 Set during the reign of England’s Edward VI, Suzannah Dunn’s fictionalized account of the final two years of the life of Henry VIII’s last queen, Katharine Parr, is a delightful read. Told from the point of view of Catherine, Duchess of Suffolk, it follows Katharine’s marriage to Thomas Seymour through to its tragic end.

Catherine is a lively narrator who doesn’t hold back her opinions and finds herself drawn deeper into her closest friend’s life than she ever imagined. Through her, we see Katharine

HistoricalNovelsReview the Queen and Katharine the woman. But we also learn about court life, political intrigue and about Catherine herself, former ward of Henry’s younger sister, Mary.

Do not let the modern language fool you; this novel is steeped in history, with key period details adding depth and tantalizing glimpses of major historical figures of the era, including both Princess Elizabeth and Jane Grey. The characters are true to their times, drawing the reader into their lives as the story rolls along at a good pace.

It is a tale many readers know well, yet seeing through Catherine’s eyes makes it new and different. It is her story as much as the queen’s.

Though not always a sympathetic protagonist, she is an effective one, giving the novel energy without overshadowing Katharine, its true heart.

Together they dispel some of the myth of the oppressed woman in history, while at the same time reminding the reader that before modern medicine, childbirth was one of the most dangerous things a woman could experience, whether born well or not.

I found this book hard to put down, so ably did Ms. Dunn cast her literary spell. Readers who love the Tudor period, women’s history or just a jolly good yarn should pick up this splendid example of historical fiction.

Teresa Basinski Eckford THE SECRET BRIDE Diane Haeger, New American Library, 2008, $14.00, pb, 398pp, 9780451223135 Another episode in today’s Tudormania.

The story of Mary Tudor, Henry VIII’s younger sister, is relatively unknown to the reading public. She was probably the only woman in the English court able to get the better of her brother and then survive to tell the tale. The love story

Issue 44, May 2008 of Henry’s best friend, Charles Brandon, and Mary is both touching and romantic.

Diane Haeger’s novel entertains and informs without being pedantic. She writes of objects that I thought were anachronisms, but I later found were facts. For instance, who knew wallpaper was known in Tudor England?

The new viewpoint on the oft-told story of the Tudor family adds to the available history of the 16th century. Haeger’s sensitive treatment of Mary’s ailing first spouse, King Louis XII of France, is among the best characterizations I have read in historical fiction. The character of Charles Brandon grows from that a socialclimbing serial husband to a man with a heart willing to risk all for the woman of his dreams. Haeger’s Mary Tudor develops depth and maturity, going from a spoiled child to a politically savvy Queen who willingly takes risks to follow her own mind and heart, in contrast to the usual destiny of the era’s noblewomen.

The drawbacks of the novel include an overuse of narrative. I wanted to hear more from the characters through dialog rather than description. On several occasions, the author’s head-hopping pulled me out of the story enough to wonder whose point of view I was reading.

I recommend The Secret Bride to lovers of the Tudor era, and for readers looking for a rare happily-ever-ending love story in Henry VIII’s court.

Monica Spence ELIZABETH AND THE PRINCE OF SPAIN Margaret Irwin, Allison & Busby, 2008, £7.99, pb, 331 pp, 9780749080860 1554: At the court of Mary Tudor of England, a man and woman are joined in a battle of words and wits. He is Philip of Spain, the Queen’s

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Y MICHAELMAS TRIBUTE (UK) / A SECRET AND UNLAWFUL KILLING (US)

Cora Harrison, Macmillan, 2008, £16.99, hb, 326pp, 9781405092258 / Minotaur, Sept. 2008, $24.95, hb, 336pp, 9780312372682 The Brehon Judge, Mara, returns in this second historical murder mystery set in the Burren in north-west Ireland. It is 1509 and people are gathering for the Michaelmas Fair, but an angry undercurrent is marring the celebrations. Ragnall MacNamara, the unpopular steward of the MacNamara clan, is found murdered and Mara is called upon to investigate.

Another death soon follows to complicate the picture.

Mara needs all her professional wits about her – especially since an unexpected marriage proposal is distracting her thoughts – to get to the bottom of this knotty case. And, when she finally pinpoints the awful truth, it seems that she must inevitably hurt the person she loves the most.

Once again, Cora Harrison brings 16th century Ireland beautifully to life and her Brehon detective, Mara is a fantastic protagonist – an absolute one-off and yet refreshingly real. Her dignity and intelligence are beacons that guide the reader through a murky story of greed and vengeance.

Sara Wilson

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16th Century-17th Century husband and son of Emperor Charles, the most powerful man in Christendom. She is Elizabeth, twenty-one years old, bastardised by her father King Henry and for years a survivor of plots and scandals, each one of which might have brought her to the block. She is now in her greatest danger from the jealousy – political and personal – of her neurotic and capricious half-sister. Philip must bear the extravagant adoration of his ageing, unloved wife and walk warily if Elizabeth’s execution is not to precede Mary’s death. But does he want to keep alive this unparalleled young woman whose fierce intelligence and allure make Philip – soon to inherit his father’s throne – sometimes feel a dullard but at other times capable of extraordinary achievements?

For any reader unaware of the ending of these few momentous years this novel will be as suspenseful as any work of imagination. If the true story is familiar it is still riveting.

Elizabeth’s scenes with her greatest love, Robin Dudley, are a poignant delight, and all the great men are here: a procession of popes, cardinals and archbishops plus the unfortunate aristocrats of Philip’s entourage whose loathing of England is enthusiastically returned by its citizens.

I underestimated an author writing fifty years ago by expecting something more heavyweight and solemn. Instead, here is a writer blending compassion with a little irony who entertains readers with vigorous narrative and sprightly dialogue.

Nancy Henshaw THE GALLIARD Margaret Irwin, Allison & Busby, 2008, £7.99, pb, 586pp, 9 780749 080730 Young Mary, Queen of Scots, returns to Scotland after years of exile and is immediately caught up in the religious and political power struggles of her turbulent nation. Her cousin Queen Elizabeth of England is fighting for her own survival and sees Mary as a threat rather than an ally. Anxious to win over her people, Mary tries desperately to make friends but gradually discovers there is only one man she can trust, her loyal servant James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, known to all as the Galliard.

Bothwell first meets Mary when she is the very young Queen of France, setting the scene before moving on to the main arena for events – Scotland. The principal characters are richly drawn, with Mary growing from a cosseted and trusting child to a passionate young woman, a fitting partner for Bothwell, who is a “glorious, rash and hazardous young man.” The reader might well know that their romance cannot end happily, but there is plenty to keep one’s attention in this action-packed story.

Originally published in 1941 as The Gay Galliard, this is a masterful account of the love story between Mary and the Earl of Bothwell, and Irwin skilfully weaves her tale around the sometimes sparse facts of their relationship.

In this wide-ranging novel Irwin is not afraid

HistoricalNovelsReview

Y THE LADY ELIZABETH

Issue 44, May 2008

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Alison Weir, Ballantine, 2008, $25.00, hb, 496pp, 9780345495358 / Hutchinson, 2008, £12.99, hb, 496pp, 9780091796723 How does a Princess Elizabeth become a Lady Elizabeth within a matter of days, the almost-three-year-old wants to know? Her father, the powerful Henry VIII, beheads her mother, Anne Boleyn, a woman she hardly knows, and has her declared a bastard. She is no longer a princess of the realm now – only a king’s illegitimate offspring.

And in this way, Elizabeth, from the earliest of ages, learns what it means to be at the center of a political maelstrom. Always bright beyond her years, Elizabeth gingerly picks her way through one political minefield after another. She chooses her friends wisely and is quick to figure out who her enemies are. She desperately wants to be loved, seeks it from her sister, Mary, from her stepmothers (who often don’t last terribly long) and from her esteemed father. The queens come and go, but Henry remains the bastion of strength in Elizabeth’s eyes. She wants to be the king he is.

Weir, deftly applying historical fact to this wonderful personality, creates a young Elizabeth who is, at the same time, brilliant, aching for love, desperate for acceptance, analyzing her possibilities and ever vigilant. Elizabeth’s growth as a woman, as a warrior and as a politician is the focus of this most formidable book. By the time Elizabeth is prepared to ascend to the throne, she is well-schooled in the politics of manipulation and prevention – learning how to avoid becoming a tenant in the Tower of London or a victim of either Henry or her sister, Queen Mary, or of any number of Catholic or Protestant sympathizers. She has learned well.

This is a highly recommended read.

Ilysa Magnus

to move between colourful story-telling and (occasionally) a more withdrawn, biographical style of writing when necessary to maintain the pace without sacrificing historical detail.

This is an excellent novel, well worth republishing, although for me the editing errors detracted slightly from the reading enjoyment.

Melinda Hammond THE SERPENT GARDEN Judith Merkle Riley, Three Rivers, 2008 (c1996), $14.95/C$16.95, pb, 449pp, 9780307395368.

Riley’s exquisite tale begins in England in 1514 and follows the life of Susanna Dallet, daughter of a Flemish artist. Susanna is widowed when her unsavory husband is murdered by his lover’s spouse. Before his death, Mr. Dallet was part of a group who recovered a long lost manuscript that threatens to rip apart the French monarchy. Because of her husband’s role, Susanna is unknowingly thrust into peril, caught in the middle of conspirators who will stop at nothing to possess the complete manuscript.

As a widow, Susanna is left to make her own way in the world, no easy feat in the 16th century.

She begins by painting less than innocent Biblical scenes and portraits in miniature. Soon she is introduced to Cardinal Wolsey, who employs her and sends her to France with Princess Mary Tudor’s wedding party to paint the festivities of the union of Mary and the aging Louis XII. Susanna possesses an extraordinary gift for painting in miniature and is welcomed into the French court, a place full of schemes at every turn. Riley adds a good dose of the supernatural

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to the story with a demon named Belphagor who was released when the manuscript was unearthed. Belphagor’s goal is to cause chaos, and Susanna becomes a target for the demon’s wrath because of her association with the manuscript.

Riley packs quite a bit into the novel and achieves a nice blend of romance, intrigue, politics, and fantasy. The narration alternates between Susanna Dallet and third- person viewpoints which may take a bit to get used to, but soon readers will find themselves engrossed in the tale. Susanna’s sense of humor and the depictions of the French court are only two of the aspects that make this a novel not to be missed.

Troy Reed

N 17th CENTURY n THE PAINTED LADY Edward Marston, Allison and Busby, 2008, £7.99/$11.95, pb, 288pp, 9780749080778 This is Restoration comedy, the eighth whodunit in the popular Redmayne series.

Christopher Redmayne, the young architect, is making his reputation by building new houses for the wealthy in post-Great Fire London.

This time it’s a fashionable French artist who is building a home, and Christopher is delighted to design his house as it will be a very lovely building. The artist is pleased too, the money for the house comes from painting the portrait of the most beautiful woman in town. And so the

17th Century-18th Century

Y MISTRESS OF THE SUN

HistoricalNovelsReview

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Sandra Gulland, Touchstone, 2008, $26.00, hb, 400pp, 9780743298872 / HarperCollins Canada, 2008, C$29.95, hb, 352pp, 9780002007757 In her first novel in eight years (following the international success of her Josephine B. trilogy), Sandra Gulland has chosen an enigmatic figure—Louise de la Vallière, mistress to Louis XIV and mother of four children by him. Louise has been overshadowed in history by her more glamorous successors and the flamboyance that characterized the later years of Louis’s reign, but in her captivating jewel of a novel Gulland offers an absorbing account of a woman who reluctantly became a royal mistress and paid the price.

Gulland’s Louise has a fey spirit with the ability to enchant horses. In a desperate act of magic to save a feral stallion’s life she sets the course for her own destiny, one that will bring her equal measures of sorrow and joy. Uneasy with the cruel sycophantism of court, caught between her innate spiritual introspection and an impoverished lineage that compels her to noble servitude, Louise eventually catches the young king’s eye. Louis is handsome and vital, poised to assume his later embodiment as the Sun King. In Louise, he discovers incorruptible innocence, and their romance flourishes under a secrecy that continues for years, even as he grows in stature and she wrestles with her conscience and the degradation of her illusions. Scandal ensues when Louise is brought into the open as Louis’s lover; this fateful moment also sets the stage for her decline.

Fascinating details of life at the French court sparkle throughout the narrative, evidence of Gulland’s dedication to research. While Louise may not be as ambitious or clever as those who followed in her footsteps, she imbues an unforgettable authenticity that gives credence to the belief that she was Louis XIV’s only true love.

C.W. Gortner problems begin. The lovely Araminta is newly and happily married to Sir Martin Culthorpe, but that does not prevent the more unpleasant of her many admirers from plotting to seize her for themselves. When her husband is murdered and the artist accused, Christopher and his constable friend, Jonathan Bale, team up again to find the real villain.

This is a thoroughly entertaining romp, an easy read with nice pieces of period dialogue, amusing characters and a puzzle to solve. Just the book for an evening’s read by a snug fire when it’s pouring down outside.

Patrika Salmon CONCEIT Mary Novik, Doubleday Canada, 2007, C$29.95, hb, 402pp, 9780385662055 The Great Fire of London is the framing device for Mary Novik’s insightful portrait of famous and obscure 17th-century Londoners.

This novel explores the life and family background of Pegge Donne, daughter of preacher and poet John Donne, the Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Her childhood unfolds not only in his shadow but also in the one cast by her beautiful, scheming sister Constance.

Awkward and precocious, Pegge attains womanhood more slowly than she would like. It is essential for Donne’s many daughters to marry well. Constance, the unobtainable but enduring passion of young Izaak Walton, Pegge’s fishingmad friend, twice succeeds. Pegge, trapped at

home by her father’s last, lingering illness, nurses the man who did not value her and waits for young Walton to notice her.

His physical decline approaching, Donne’s pride, his flaws, and the venialities of his past are revealed. Using the entombed Anne Donne’s viewpoint, Novik traces the scandalous passion that resulted in a well-born young woman’s runaway match with the unscrupulous and sensual upstart Donne.

Pegge’s eventual and less flamboyant marriage to the Master of the King’s Wardrobe removes her to his country estate where she blossoms, romantically and creatively. Her husband Will, while often bemused by the complexities of his wife’s character, capably copes with her many eccentricities. Pegge’s long rivalry with sister Constance endures, but motherhood softens her edges. The fire that consumes London destroys Donne’s great self-designed mausoleum, freeing Pegge from the fetters of her past.

Margaret Barr THE MERRY MONARCH’S WIFE Jean Plaidy, Three Rivers, 2008 (c1991), $14.95, pb, 352pp, 9780307346179 The Merry Monarch’s Wife is the re-release of Jean Plaidy’s 1991 biographical novel (originally titled The Pleasures of Love) about Catherine of Braganza, wife of King Charles II in the late 17th century. Since childhood, Catherine has idolized Charles and has dreamt of her marriage to him. Eventually, political events align to bring her the fulfillment of her dream. Once

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Issue 44, May 2008 married, however, she discovers that Charles is not the perfect man, the faithful husband she had dreamt of, and she must adjust her expectations and resign herself to the reality of Charles’s infidelities. She must learn to share her place in his court and in his life with his mistresses. Her life as Queen of England and as Charles’s wife is a difficult and troubled one: not only is she a devout Roman Catholic in a strongly Protestant country, she also has powerful enemies at court who would wish her ill.

This is the first Jean Plaidy novel I have read, and I am appreciative of her flair for historical detail and character development. However, there was a fair amount of repetition and of telling of the story, rather allowing the action to unfold, especially in the second half of the book where the political machinations of Titus Oates and the anti-Catholic movement were in full swing. Those sections read like an historical lecture. The highlights for me were the drama of the Restoration, and of a convent-educated woman’s acceptance of her husband’s love for her, regardless of his continuous infidelities.

Overall, I found this to be a worthwhile, informative read. I look forward to reading some of the author’s earlier novels, which I hear are superior to her later works, such as this.

Andrea Connell

N 18th CENTURY n THEFT OF SHADOWS Naomi Bellis, Signet Eclipse, 2008, $6.99/ C$9.99, pb, 310pp, 9780451223289 Gabriel d’Aubrigny, Chevalier de Lesgardes, finds himself returning to England after living through the years of the Revolution in France, but unfortunately, things go wrong from the moment his ship pulls into port. When he is robbed of his dwindling funds by a female thief, Gabriel allows himself to be brought reluctantly back into the world of his former mysterious employer in order to spy on the nefarious Sebastian Balthazar, confidante of the Prince of Wales. Only this time, Gabriel discovers that his family’s ancient gift of magic has been roused, and he will have to learn to tame it if he’s to bring the evil Balthazar to justice. In addition, Gabriel must deal with the lovely Anne Tremaine, who just happens to be the thief who took his money, but who also has an agenda against Balthazar.

Set in late 18th-century England, this paranormal romance has it all, and Ms. Bellis keeps her story moving well. While some of the characters are a bit clichéd, the insertion of the paranormal brings vibrant life to the plot. Ms. Bellis is definitely an author to watch, and her novel will satisfy all who like their historical romances with a bit of a supernatural twist.

Tamela McCann MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY John Boyne, Doubleday, 2008, £12.99, hb, 352pp, 9780385611664 In December 1787, a fourteen-year-old boy,

18th Century John Jacob Turnstile, is arrested in Portsmouth for picking the pocket of a mysterious Frenchman. Due to his victim’s intercession he is offered the chance to go to sea as a captain’s servant boy rather than serve a term in prison.

This would have the makings of a good enough story in itself but it is about to get much better, for John Jacob’s master is William Bligh, and the ship on which he is to sail is the HMS Bounty.

This is a long book, but so well written and well paced you hardly notice it. Perhaps Boyne does repeat himself occasionally, but his repetitions are so grounded in John Jacob’s own voice – for he tells us his extraordinary life story in his own words – that they work to reveal the narrator’s character and preoccupations rather than to distract us from the narrative. The voice is terrific, clearly derived from the great 18th century confessional novels but not overloaded with archaisms. The characters of Bligh and Christian and the other crew members are revealed with great skill and perception.

Never mentioned, yet always present, are the two great revolutions of the period, those challenges to established authority which would help to ensure that Fletcher Christian would come down to us as a heroic champion of democracy and individual liberty and Bligh as the ogre fixed in our imaginations by Charles Laughton. Yet Boyne’s is a very different picture, in which Christian emerges as a selfish and tyrannical hedonist and Bligh as a man of great courage and high moral principle.

A wonderful read. Highly recommended.

Sarah Bower THE DUCHESS AND THE DRAGON Jamie Carie, B&H, 2008, $14.99, pb, 304pp, 9780805445350 The Duchess and the Dragon is an inspirational romance set in the mid-18th century. His father’s shocking new will denies Drake Weston his inheritance as Duke of Northumberland, and a desperate bid to retain the title sees him end up sick, penniless, and an indentured servant in Pennsylvania. There he is nursed to health by the Quakeress Serena Winter (who begins to have very un-Quakerlike thoughts the moment she sees him). Eventually, fate brings the possibility of return to England and the dukedom—but at the price of deceiving Serena, now his wife. In what ensues, both are brought to question the worlds in which they were raised, and discover the truth, their true selves, and, of course, true love.

Although I found the storyline very engaging, it was rather unevenly paced, and the character of Serena, and parts of the plot itself, sometimes felt to me like elements of a conventional romance squeezed into a Christian mold.

However, Jamie Carie is certainly a rising talent; if you are looking for a few hours of delightful escapism and like your inspirational romances a little breathless, then this novel will deliver.

Susan Cook

HistoricalNovelsReview THE ROSETTA KEY William Dietrich, HarperCollins, 2008, $25.95, hb, 339pp, 9780061239557 This sequel to 2005’s Napoleon’s Pyramids finds its engaging, amoral antihero, Ethan Gage, at the tail end of the 18th century, still in pursuit of both the mythical Book of Thoth, supposedly contained in the Ark of the Covenant, and of his exotic, Egyptian lover, Astiza. His forays into the Middle East take him from Egypt to Jerusalem with plenty of stops in between, and in and out of allegiances of convenience with the French, the English and the Ottomans and Arabs. Comparisons to Indiana Jones are easy, but Gage’s opportunism makes Jones look like the altruistic head of an international charity.

Likewise, the author’s extreme fondness for similes irritates at first, but eventually this reader just went with the flow and simply noted how many occurred per page.

The book is fast moving, following the historical events of Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt for the most part faithfully, with Gage meeting and fighting first with and later against most of the main historical players.

The descriptions of the myriads of cities and landscapes and cultures that Gage encounters are marvelous and filled with color. The author redeems his antihero’s opportunism with a witty, self-deprecating humor. There’s even a veiled 21st century comparison in the observation of Napoleon’s shock when the Arab populations did not welcome his invasion forces as bringers of the Enlightenment. All readers must do is check their grasp on reality and probability at the first page. Gage manages to escape nearcertain death numerous times while managing to lose fortunes, lovers, and political loyalties with the greatest of ease. The Rosetta Key is action packed, reads easily, and is ideal for the big screen.

Pamela Ortega AN AWKWARD COMMISSION David Donachie, Allison & Busby, 2008, £7.99/$11.95, pb, 380pp, 0749080671 This is the third novel in Donachie’s 1790s naval series and so continues the story of John Pearce and his friends, who have once again been pressed into King George’s navy. In his efforts to release them John tries enlisting the help of the authorities, and eventually follows them to the Mediterranean, bearing a message from Pitt to Admiral Hood.

I haven’t read the previous books in the series, but I found this one to be well-written by an author who knows his history, and with some exciting sea battles. That said, it didn’t appeal to me, for two reasons. My main problem was with the constant changing of viewpoint between three main characters, which meant that I didn’t get involved with any of them. My other objection is that not all the loose ends are tied up at the end, so you have to buy the next book in the series to discover how or, indeed if, Pearce succeeds in his mission to free his

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Issue 44, May 2008 friends. Plus, at one point we are taken into the mind of a minor character, but the story point he raises is not resolved and it is not clear whether it will be in the next novel. I dislike novels that leave the reader hanging in such a way. But for anyone who is more enthusiastic about seafaring stories than I am, this is a good read with some good detail about the workings of the seafaring ships of the day and an interesting historical background. jay Dixon A FLAG OF TRUCE David Donachie, Allison & Busby, 2008, £19.99/$25.95, hb, 364pp, 9780749080822 Toulon, 1793. In this fourth John Pearce adventure, our hero, now a naval lieutenant, continues to be a thorn in the flesh of Authority.

Admiral Hood acknowledges his skill and bravery but distrusts his egalitarianism (Pearce’s father supported the French Revolution). Pearce has called for the court-martial of Captain Barclay who illegally impressed him and his friends – which he is entitled to do – and Authority would rather it was swept under the carpet.

Admiral Hotham – who owes Barclay money – is in charge of the court-martial and determined to clear him, by perjury if necessary. For this, Pearce must be got out of the way. What better than the difficult and dangerous task of escorting 5000 French, supposedly royalist, sailors back to France?

There are plenty of deeds of derring-do, battles by sea and land, a duel, a storm and a near miss with the guillotine to keep readers hooked.

Not to mention Pearce’s growing interest in Barclay’s lovely and increasingly disaffected wife, Emily.

I enjoyed this. Donachie is good at plot and the various strands: the court-martial, Pearce’s exploits and his relationship with Emily, intertwine satisfactorily and help to keep up the tension. I also liked the way that Pearce has his own agenda: we learn something of his republican background, for example, and this gives his character added depth; we understand where he is coming from and why he acts in the way he does. Donachie also succeeds admirably in the difficult job of getting across the political complexities of the time without resorting to lecturing.

Elizabeth Hawksley NOW FACE TO FACE Karleen Koen, Three Rivers, 2008 (c1995), $15.95/C$18.95, pb, 734pp, 978030740608 In 1721, Barbara Montgeoffry, Countess Devane, newly widowed and mourning the death of her brother as well, travels to her grandmother’s Virginia plantation. Barbara’s husband has been ruined in the South Sea bubble, and she has traveled to Virginia to make a new beginning on the advice of her grandmother.

Moving between Virginia and England, to which Barbara eventually returns, Now Face

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Sally Gunning, Morrow, $24.95/C$26.95, hb, 307pp, 9780061240256 Gunning’s second outstanding historical novel explores a young woman’s difficult coming of age, a process that teaches her much about freedom, trust, and the responsibilities associated with both.

Sold by her debt-ridden father as an indentured servant upon their arrival in Massachusetts in 1756, Alice Cole grows up knowing abandonment by those she loves. She spends her childhood bound to the Morton family and treated almost like a sister by daughter Nabby, whom she follows to a new household when Nabby marries – which proves her misfortune. Dutiful Alice, fifteen and beautiful, attracts the unwanted attention of Nabby’s new husband.

Desperate to escape, Alice flees eastward on foot along the Boston road and stows away on a ship belonging to a sympathetic widow from Satucket, Lyddie Berry, and her companion. Widow Berry takes her in, making use of Alice’s skill in spinning, and they spend silent days weaving wool into homespun as a protest against costly British goods. Alice’s past life catches up with her, but she finds it impossible to trust the widow and her boarder, attorney Eben Freeman, until it’s almost too late.

From here on, the storyline becomes completely unpredictable, yet it’s fully in keeping with Alice’s character and her social milieu. Gunning’s spare dialogue captures the famous “New England reserve” (surely more pronounced in the mid-18th century?); she also painstakingly re-creates colonial Cape Cod, from its clapboard houses, busy wharves, and fresh salty air to the growing political stirrings among its residents. As a standalone novel, Bound will transport you 250 years into the past and immerse you in a dramatic storyline that exposes the injustice of indentured servitude. As a sequel to The Widow’s War, it not only continues but enhances the experience of the original. Beautifully done, and strongly recommended.

Sarah Johnson to Face is a panoramic novel with a large cast of characters, historical and fictional alike. It’s full of intrigue, and Koen handles the complex politics of the day with assurance and depicts this time period vividly. I must say, however, that I never really warmed to either Koen’s prose style, which I often found overwrought, or to Barbara herself, whose admirable qualities and beauty are too often commented on by the author and by other characters for my liking. But this is mainly a matter of taste, and other readers may not be bothered by this at all. I also suspect that I would have enjoyed the novel more had I first read its predecessor, Though a Glass Darkly, which shares a number of characters with Now Face to Face.

Susan Higginbotham THE VENETIAN MASK Rosalind Laker, Three Rivers, 2008 (c1993), $14.95/C$19.95, pb, 453pp, 9780307352569 Originally published in 1993, this novel of Venice is set in the last quarter of the 18th century. Marietta Fontana, orphan of a Carnival mask-maker, is placed in the famous music school for girls, Ospedale della Pietà. She attracts the attention of Domenico Torrisi, head of a prominent Venetian family, whose barren wife has taken an interest in Marietta after hearing her sing. Several years later, widower Torrisi follows his late wife’s suggestion that he choose Marietta as her successor, which causes Marietta to worry that memories of his first wife

may haunt their marriage. In the meantime, her Pieta friend Elena has married (unhappily) into the Celano family, archrivals of the Torrisis.

When Elena bears a love-child, she gives the baby to Marietta, who has managed to conceal her simultaneous stillbirth from Torrisi. The switch gives the feud a new dimension, and it’s brought to a head when Elena’s husband trumps up charges of treason.

Laker’s descriptions and period atmosphere definitely transport the reader to a faraway, yet believable time and place. I didn’t know much about Venice’s history and came away enlightened. The main characters are welldrawn and involving, although a few plot coincidences like the baby-switching caused a raised eyebrow. Expect no deep themes or psychological insights in the story, but readers will find a highly entertaining, escape-from-the21st-century tale.

B.J. Sedlock SOLDIER OF FORTUNE Edward Marston, Allison & Busby, 2008, £19.99, hb, 331pp, 9780749080525 Edward Marston is famous as a writer of whodunits, which are published under at least three names. For the first time he has departed from familiar waters and struck out for the unknown territory – to him – of military adventure. In the tradition of Sharpe, meet Captain Daniel Rawson who is in turns soldier, lover, spy, and confidant of the Duke

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Issue 44, May 2008 of Marlborough, leader of forlorn hopes and cuckolder of husbands. This has made him a bitter enemy of General Salignac, who has sent two assassins to bring back Daniel’s head so he can show it to his wife. But they will have to catch him first, and when better than at a time when Daniel’s guard is down due to the arrival in camp of an unusual visitor. Meanwhile, Marlborough’s army marches towards Blenheim…

I would award Mr Marston some marks for writing about an unfamiliar time and place instead of the Napoleonic Wars. As usual, this author is at his best writing about amiable heroes and hissable villains having some goodhumoured adventures in an entertaining plot.

It is not a boring story for these reasons, but what it does lack – and this is rather serious – is any military feeling whatsoever. The battle is more akin to a damp squib than a soaring rocket, and despite being set in an army camp on the move the atmosphere is absent. If you are reading the book because you enjoy military history (rather than because you are a fan of this writer’s other work) you will be disappointed in this, particularly as there is no crime for Daniel and his sidekick to solve. In common with all his books are those interminable conversations, where the participants bat flat sentences to each other like balls in a tennis match. Yet it still manages to be entertaining enough, and with more than a hint of the sort of swashbuckling classic-era historicals that got me into the genre in the first place. He will need to brush up on his military history, though, if I am going to read another one.

Rachel A. Hyde ANNETTE VALLON James Tipton, Harper, 2007, $24.95/C$31.50, hb, 496pp, 9780060822217 Although I’m not a fan of novels written by men from a woman’s point of view, Annette Vallon disposed of this prejudice in a few pages.

Born into a wealthy bourgeois family during the last days of the Ancien Régime, Annette is an avid reader of novels, particularly the “dangerous” ones by Rousseau and Laclos.

She is also an idealist, a perilous mindset in any age. When she meets the poet Wordsworth, on his free-spirited tramp through Europe, she falls—finally, fatally—in love. She bears him a daughter, but France and England are soon at war and will remain so for a generation. The lovers will never marry.

Tipton’s writing is polished and evocative, his settings a perfect form of time travel, but the novel is broken into two “movements.” I enjoyed the second, which deals with Annette’s lonely struggle to survive and raise her daughter, even more. France is undergoing successive spasms of revolutionary violence. Social reforms lead to the Terror, to which she loses her beloved father and brother. With the bloody logic of many later revolutions, the ever-increasing savagery of “purification” leads to Napoleon’s dictatorship

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Rose Melikan, Sphere, 2008, pb, £10, 435pp, 9781847441331 / Touchstone, Sept. 2008, $14.00, pb, 465pp, 9781416560807 Mary Finch receives an invitation from a rich, estranged uncle to meet him at White Ladies, his estate on the Suffolk coast. Mary’s own circumstances have been somewhat wanting, so she courageously sets off on her own with her uncle’s letter determined to mend the twenty-year family rift.

In 1795 such a journey is perilous enough for a young woman travelling on her own. However, Mary’s journey will become a greater adventure than she could have possibly envisaged. A roadside accident results in a man dying; he whispers strange warnings to her. Mary also discovers he carries her uncle’s watch. With no answers to her growing number of questions, she is saddened to learn on arrival at her destination that her uncle has already died. She is helped by two men, and confides in both as they try to find out the significance of the Blackstone Key. Mary is naïve about the world, but intelligent, knowledgeable about legal issues and gifted at analytical thinking. Her determination to solve the puzzle leads her into a lonely place where she does not know who she can trust. Fate draws her into the path of smugglers, and worse, the sinister world of espionage. But who is the traitor? She has stumbled into a world where nothing is as it seems. In the midst of this she has a growing fondness for one of her helpers.

The novel starts off in a gentle manner and increases in pace and action as the story progresses and the mystery builds. Readers who love period detail, whether in costume, fact, language or law, will revel in this book. Although predominantly a mystery, it has the contrast of a gentle romance building within it. Ultimately, it has an exciting, actionpacked and satisfying ending.

Valerie Loh

and from there to his endless wars.

I don’t know how much of Annette’s counterrevolutionary daring is imagined, but if you like brave, intelligent heroines who aren’t afraid to use a pistol in the defense of suffering humanity, here is one you‘ll never forget.

Juliet Waldron

N 19th CENTURY n THE STATE COUNSELLOR Boris Akunin, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008, £12.99, hb, 300pp, 9780297848233 I am a Boris Akunin fan, and the latest in his Erast Fandorin series does not disappoint.

Fandorin is a policeman working in late 19thcentury Moscow, and as the title of this novel indicates, his successes have now raised him to the rank of State Counsellor. But as always his worst enemies are not the criminals he tracks down but his own corrupt superiors.

In this novel, Fandorin tackles the War on Terror, in this case the nihilist assassins who are trying to destroy the Tsarist regime. Much of the book is narrated from the point of view of the principal assassin who, like many of Akunin’s villains, gets rather sympathetic treatment. He is evil but we understand why.

Like all Akunin’s novels, this one is beautifully written; light entertainment with a satirical edge which is not irrelevant to presentday Russia.

Edward James

A FATAL WALTZ Tasha Alexander, Morrow, 2008, $23.95/ C$27.95, hb, 304pp, 9780061174223 Vienna! “For the connoisseur of the waltz, there is no better place,” pens Lady Emily Ashton in the very beginning of her sleuthing quest for justice. It’s a place where the aristocrats of Europe and England in the very late 1800s are wining, dining and dancing as furiously as Chartist and other political plots gyrate to destroy tradition. Lady Emily has taken up the task of finding the killer of Lord Basil Fortescue, thus freeing her accused friend Robert Brandon.

Her fiancé, Colin Hargreaves, is about his own political secrets and can’t totally protect her against three foes that are quite vocal in their animosity toward Lady Emily.

Another unexpected beauty lies in this story’s beautiful descriptions of the period’s clothing, architecture, art, music and food. Historical fiction readers will also be delighted by the complex depictions of the innocent Hapsburg Empress Elisabeth, far too many questionable political heavyweights on both sides of the Continent, and anarchists deeply committed to remove monarchies and opponents. Lady Emily, however, in face of this whirling dance of intrigue, is a truly cultured detective who knows how to infuse life with gusto. Quite a formidable group of characters, and a terrific story!

Viviane Crystal THE DARCY CONNECTION Elizabeth Aston, Simon & Schuster, 2008,

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Issue 44, May 2008 $14.00, pb, 304pp, 9781416547259 Elizabeth Aston is the author of four previous novels about the daughters and other relations of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice. In this story, she turns her attention to Eliza and Charlotte Collins, the daughters of Mr. Collins and his wife Charlotte, Elizabeth Bennet’s friend. Mr. Collins is now the Bishop of Ripon and lives in Yorkshire with his family.

His daughter Charlotte is a beauty. Eliza is less pretty than Charlotte, but is spirited and intelligent, like her godmother, Mrs. Darcy. The social-climbing Mr. Collins pins his hopes for the future on Charlotte. She is to have a season in London with her godmother in the hopes of making a good match. Eliza is to accompany Charlotte to London to distance her from an attachment to Squire Diggory’s son, which the squire feels is not at all appropriate. Mr. Collins, ever the sycophant, agrees. Eliza doesn’t want to go, but prefers London to the alternative of being sent to Pemberley to stay with the two youngest Darcy children and their governess.

Not surprisingly, Eliza finds London stimulating and quickly forgets her attachment to the squire’s son. At a party, she meets Bartholomew Bruton, scion of a wealthy banking family. She dislikes him intensely after overhearing an unkind remark he makes about her. When he helps her with some family difficulties, she realizes that she has misjudged him and falls in love with him. Sound familiar?

Despite the similarity to the plot of Pride and Prejudice, I found the story charming and read it quickly. I felt like I was visiting old friends, and that’s a nice feeling. Austen enthusiasts should enjoy this one.

Jane Kessler THE WATSONS and EMMA WATSON: Jane Austen’s Unfinished Novel Completed Jane Austen and Joan Aiken, Sourcebooks, 2008 (c1996), $14.95, pb, 240pp, 1402212291 It must be a publishing truth universally acknowledged that unfinished works by famous authors shall be brought to a satisfactory conclusion, no matter the author’s original intention. In this reissue Jane Austen’s fragment The Watsons was lovingly reconstructed by the late Joan Aiken and re-titled Emma Watson.

The reissue also includes the original piece, abandoned when Austen’s father died in 1805.

The plot begins with a reversal of fortune, as sweet young Emma returns to her birth family in Surrey after losing her chance at a fine inheritance from the aunt who raised her.

When Emma’s father dies suddenly, the family faces the loss of their home with little income to support themselves. Emma has three sisters: one kind and good, two mean and selfish. All are competing for husbands. In Emma Watson, Emma disdains the tactics of her mean sisters, refusing to play the coquette, but is embroiled nonetheless in a tangled, almost farcical, mating game. Aiken has taken Austen’s characters with their rather bleak premise and created a modern-

19th Century style Regency romance, adding a dashing new hero. Austen’s subtle irony and complex characterizations are little seen, but this version is a pleasant, fast-moving read.

Nina de Angeli SIMPLY PERFECT Mary Balogh, Delacorte, 2008, $22.00/C$27.00, hb, 343pp, 9780385338240 Simply Perfect is the fourth and final installment in Mary Balogh’s Simply series set in Regency England, where four teachers from Miss Martin’s School for Girls find the men of their dreams. This book is about the schoolmistress herself, Claudia Martin. Ms. Martin is old enough to be considered on the shelf. When the Marquess of Attingsborough arrives to escort her to London, she tries to keep a professional distance, but finds herself drawn to him in spite of her dislike of the aristocracy, and in spite of the fact he has a beautiful, perfect fiancée. Soon the marquess is sharing his deepest secret with Miss Martin and asking for her help.

This draws the two even closer together.

Mary Balogh is a skillful and prolific novel writer. Her main characters are independent and forward-thinking for their time. This novel is no exception, and although the secondary characters lack the depth she usually infuses in them, this novel is a satisfactory conclusion to the Simply series.

Nan Curnutt DISTANT HEART Tracey Bateman, Avon Inspire, 2008, $9.95/ C$11.95, pb, 264pp, 9780061246340 In this second book in Bateman’s Westward Hearts trilogy set in 19th-century America, exprostitute Toni Rodden has joined a wagon train heading to Oregon, where the 22-year-old Toni hopes to make a living as a seamstress and to put her miserable past far behind her. As the settlers make their way west, Toni and her fellow travelers must cope with increased danger and tension, from forces outside and within, while Toni continues to struggle for acceptance—and with her feelings for Sam Two-Feathers, the wagon train’s handsome scout.

Bateman vividly depicts the hardships and challenges faced by the pioneers, though there’s a welcome note of understated humor now and then. Her characters, particularly the romantic leads and Ginger, a tough-talking, gun-toting young newcomer to the wagon train who befriends Toni, are well realized. In these characters, Bateman brings to life a slice of American history that’s usually relegated to a few lackluster paragraphs in grade-school textbooks.

It probably helps to have read the first novel in the trilogy, Defiant Heart, but this fine inspirational novel stands well alone as well.

Susan Higginbotham LOVERS AND LADIES Jo Beverley, Signet, $14.00, 2008, pb, 448pp,

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Gerri Brightwell, Crown, 2008, $24.95/C$27.95, hb, 320pp, 9780307395344 Brightwell has fashioned a multilayered, Upstairs Downstairs-type mystery that drew me in completely.

When I finally paused to reflect, I realized it had everything but the kitchen sink. To wit: a young servant girl moves from the country to London and hides her past from her new employers; the matriarch of this household is on her deathbed while her daughter-in-law longs to return to Paris; and her son is intent on proving that anthropometry is a superior method to fingerprinting in identifying criminals. One more thing—when the eldest son is expected to return from India, what the family gets instead is a woman claiming to be his widow and the news that he has drowned at sea.

The author deftly weaves together multiple plot strands—although on the surface there is no central mystery, there are several smaller ones that come together quite credibly at the end. Characters are unique and engaging, with Jane, the servant girl with the secret, being the most sympathetic. Her experience “downstairs” is rendered with such realism as to make me devoutly wish she would get the happy ending she deserved.

Is her gentleman caller too good to be true? Other plotlines are equally engrossing. Even knowing that fingerprinting wins out over anthropometry, I was fascinated by Robert Bentley’s utter devotion to the cause. And now this review has everything in it but the kitchen sink. So many reasons to enjoy this book.

Ellen Keith 97804512233647 Two classic stories by beloved Regency author Jo Beverley are brought together in this single volume, creating a delectable book filled with all the charm of the London Season. In The Fortune Hunter, Amy de Lacy and her siblings face poverty. Amy, the only beauty in the family, decides to marry a fortune to save her family from destitution. But when she meets Harry Crisp, a seemingly average country gentleman, her heart is torn between duty and desire.

In Deirdre and Don Juan, the dashing Earl of Everdon is most eager to marry anyone who will bear him an heir. But when he meets quiet, well-bred Lady Deirdre, he must resort to an affectionate plot of deception to gain her acceptance to his proposal, since she is determined to marry another.

Both stories are delightful, classic Regency romances written in the best of Beverley’s style.

Blending well with one another, the stories mesh to create a lovely volume where the heroes find their hearts and eyes opened to love.

Rebecca Roberts EMMA AND KNIGHTLEY Rachel Billington, Sourcebooks Landmark, 2008 (c1996), $14.95/C$17.95, pb, 368pp, 9781402212070 As Emma and Knightley opens, the titular couple has been married for over a year when tragic news arrives: Jane Fairfax, married to Frank Churchill, has died following childbirth.

Her demise sends Frank into a Byronic tailspin and back into the environs of Highbury—where his indiscreet and increasingly wild behavior causes Emma much distress. Meanwhile, the finances of Mr. Knightley’s younger

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brother, John, take a drastic turn for the worse, necessitating a sudden trip to London. Can the relatively new Knightley marriage—already a little tense as the spouses adjust to their new roles and to Mr. Woodhouse’s constant presence—survive these sudden strains?

First published in 1996, this is a lively, absorbing continuation of Jane Austen’s classic, with a plausible storyline and a cast that includes both familiar faces and some memorable newcomers. Billington’s characters are true to their originals, yet stand well on their own, even managing to surprise the reader from time to time. Janeites and non-Janeites alike should enjoy this engaging novel.

Susan Higginbotham COVER THE MIRRORS Faye L. Booth, Macmillan New Writers, 2007, £14.99, hb, 318pp, 9780230529663 Preston, 1856, and spiritualism is very popular in Victorian England. Molly Pinner, born into the town’s slums, was orphaned at birth and brought up by her Aunt Florrie, a highly successful medium living in the more prosperous part of town. In growing up, Molly learned all the tricks of the trade and, on her aunt’s death, dons her mantle and becomes very well established in her new life. Her oldest friend is Jenny, a mill girl, whom she befriends.

She then meets the wealthy mill owner, William Hamilton, and marries him, but it is not exactly a love match. Needless to say things do not go smoothly and much is to happen before the inevitable conclusion.

I found this an intriguing story with many twists and turns that came largely unexpectedly.

The characters are well defined and believable

19th Century and the contrast in lifestyle between the two girls is well drawn, with the result that the reader is given a very good idea of what life must have been like for the haves and have-nots in the mill towns of northern England in the 19th century.

Marilyn Sherlock THE SPIRITUALIST Megan Chance, Three Rivers, 2008, $14.95/ C$19.95, pb, 432pp, 9780307406118 Middle-class Evelyn’s dreams appear to have come true when Peter Atherton, scion of one of New York’s most prominent families, proposes marriage. Four years later, Evie’s idyll has long since crashed headlong into stark reality, as she makes the empty rounds of glittering social events without her increasingly distant husband. Though an avowed skeptic, Evie accompanies Peter to a séance to contact his recently deceased mother in order to attempt to mend their relationship. Peter introduces her to the seductive, magnetic, and dangerous medium Michel Jourdain, and shortly afterwards, Peter disappears. When his body is discovered a few days later, Evie finds herself under suspicion for his murder, and must delve into the world of spiritualism and its adherents in order to find the killer before she hangs for the crime herself.

Megan Chance has crafted a dark little confection with The Spiritualist, as hypnotic and alluring as the enigmatic medium, Jourdain. It’s not particularly novel in its plotting or “twists”— the reader will probably peg the murderer well before the denouement. But sexual tension abounds, the prose is stylish, and the ambience deliciously gothic. The characterization is strong; both Evie and Jourdain are intriguing individuals, and the subsidiary characters are also drawn with depth. Evie is particularly well crafted—her desire, as an intelligent woman, to have a man love and value her for her intellect rather than merely as decoration, to connect with an intellectual and spiritual equal, ring true. This theme is nicely echoed in Chance’s descriptions of the spiritualists’ belief in a particular soul’s “affinity” for another soul, in this as well as on other planes. Chance’s depiction of antebellum New York and its society are detailed, with only a few false notes, and this makes for convincing period atmosphere. Pick up The Spiritualist for a quick, entertaining read. Recommended.

Bethany Latham DARK OBSESSION Allison Chase, Signet Eclipse, 2008, $6.99/ C$7.50, pb, 350pp, 9780451223876 With a title like this, I should have known.

The main characters, Nora Thornegoode, ruined for society by her painting teacher, and Grayson Lowell, a pariah for his supposed murder of his brother, an earl, feel sparks whenever they are near each other. Well, lots more than sparks.

If only they had been able to think a bit more clearly at times, things would been resolved a lot more quickly. But there was enough in the plot to keep me reading despite their somewhat

HistoricalNovelsReview overwrought behavior. Nora and Grayson, strangers to one another, marry, to solve his financial problems and her reputation problems.

They take off for Blackheath Grange in Cornwall, where Grayson’s great guilt over his brother’s death intensifies, for it is here that he died. Their efforts to determine what happened with Grayson’s brother, and to help the brother’s young son, who hasn’t spoken since his father’s death, are complicated by issues of trust, possible piracy, and a couple of intriguing ghosts. Set in 1830, the book moves at a spanking good pace.

Readers who relish the passionate interludes will enjoy it all the more.

Trudi E. Jacobson YORKSHIRE ROSE Ann Cliff, Robert Hale, 2007, £18.99, hb, 224pp, 9780709084709 Presumably this will go on the romance shelves in libraries, but it is more a woman’s coming-of-age story than a pure romance novel.

It opens in 1890 and tells the story of fourteenyear-old Susan Wood, who is looking after her two younger brothers in a cottage on the Yorkshire Dales after her father has been falsely imprisoned for fraud. She starts working for the neighbouring farming couple, Martin and Ellen Gill, but after Ellen dies, she moves to the Mermaid Inn in Ripon. Feeling abandoned

by Martin, she nevertheless manages to make a life for herself, alone except for the occasional Sunday meeting with her brothers, one at school and one an apprentice. Now twenty, she moves to a better position as cook, serving the solicitor who defended her father at his trial. Here she meets Martin again.

Despite the flaws – there are only a few period details, characters come and go, and we do not find out what happened to them all – I enjoyed this novel, with its accurate descriptions of the countryside and farming activities, and I think Ann Cliff is an author to look out for. jay Dixon THE PEMBERLEY CHRONICLES Rebecca Ann Collins, Sourcebooks Landmark, 2008, $14.95/C$17.95/£7.99, pb, 352pp, 9781402211539 Beginning after the double wedding of Elizabeth and Jane Bennet to Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy and Mr. Charles Bingley respectively, this novel follows the lives of these well-loved characters as they marry, have children, and live their lives in 19th-century England. The story is written in the voice of Rebecca Ann Collins, a daughter of Charlotte Lucas and The Reverend William Collins, who was a witness to the lives of the characters portrayed.

Ms. Collins, the pen name of an anonymous author, thoughtfully and realistically portrays historical events of the time and the reactions of the characters to them. Because the story is written like a chronicle, it seems to meander aimlessly through the lives of the Darcys at times. The thoughts and opinions of the main

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Issue 44, May 2008 characters are repeated frequently. However, the characters portrayed are truly recognizable as Austen’s characters, and they act accordingly.

Although it may not hold the interest of general readers, this work will be adored by Austen fans. In fact, it has been adored by Austen fans already, as it was previously published in Australia, the first of ten sequels.

Nan Curnutt WOMEN OF PEMBERLEY Rebecca Ann Collins, Sourcebooks Landmark, 2008, $14.95/C$17.95/£7.99, pb, 288pp, 9781402211546 Between 1848 and 1858, the characters of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and their many descendants sort themselves out. We have five chapters, each one following a different woman: Emma, Jane Bennet Bingley’s daughter; Emily, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner’s daughter; Cassandra, Elizabeth and Darcy’s daughter; Isabella, Colonel Fitzwilliam’s daughter; and Josie, the spunky proto-feminist writer who is destined to be the next mistress of Pemberley. If you are confused, the list of names and connections at the end of the book provides some help.

As a great fan of the original, I have begged for years, “I’d like some more Austen, please.”

Yet I have watched the recent spate of spin-offs filling bookstore shelves with some trepidation.

My conclusion is that, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Jane Austen needs must have her fanfic. Unlike works still under copyright, however, Miss Austen is not around to sue anyone publishing less-than-standard stuff. If the reader relishes more time in a world where all the people are sensible, this is the book. If, however, a great portion of Austen’s appeal is her sharp humor, social commentary and brilliant characters, this way lies disappointment.

The difficult people who provide the whole impetus for the original—or their carbon-copy descendants—are the only glimpses we get of that sort of world. Mr. Collins and Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are sadly departed. Lady Catherine has left Rosings to more deserving hands (never!).

Wickham and Lydia had the good sense to have two sons the image of their father (without the charm), but Darcy’s stern oversight and bags of money come along to smooth over every bump far too soon.

Wouldn’t it be more interesting if the Wickham offspring were trying to cultivate some shred of decency in their parents’ shadows?

Ann Chamberlin SUNRISE Jacquelyn Cook, BelleBooks, 2008, $16.95, pb, 293pp, 9780976876090 This fictionalization of the life of historical Macon, Georgia, native Anne Johnston presents a faithful depiction of her life before, during, and after the Civil War. The novel portrays Anne’s growing love for her much older husband and details the deaths of several of their infant children. The hardships that the Civil

19th Century War brings cause Anne to become increasingly bitter about the loss of their Southern way of life, although her husband’s enormous wealth survives the war. A subplot segues into the life of her friend and fellow Macon native, Sidney Lanier, Georgia’s beloved poet laureate, before the story returns to Anne.

One of the problems of this novel is its faithful adherence to so many of the events in Anne’s life. This robs the novel of any suspense; it dutifully plods from one event to the next like an authorized biography. Another very disturbing problem is the lack of hardly any mention of slaves in the novel. The author glosses over the pesky issue of the owning of other human beings by referring (as the historical Anne presumably did) to the Johnstons’ “servants.”

Toward the end of the novel, aided by her faith and by one of Lanier’s inspirational poems, “Sunrise,” Anne sheds her much of her bitterness toward Northerners and learns to forgive. For the most part, the novel seems to have been written as a tribute to that tired mythology of a gracious, kind Confederacy and its vanished way of life. Recommended only for unrepentant revisionists.

Pamela Ortega A BRIDE SO FAIR Carol Cox, Barbour, 2008, $9.97, pb, 320pp, 9781597894920 Emily Ralston, a young woman searching for independence and adventure, works in the Children’s Building at the Chicago World Fair in 1893. Stephen Bridger, a handsome Columbian guard, finds a lost boy, Adam, and delivers him to the Children’s Building. Stephen and Emily feel an instant connection and sparks fly. But when a dead body believed to be Adam’s mother is found, danger and intrigue grow. Stephen and Emily find themselves in a perilous mystery, determined to do the right thing, but distracted by their growing romance. Caught in a web of conspiracy and deceit, they must solve the mystery and save Adam from an evil man.

Intrigue, murder, and romance are blended intricately with historical details of the World’s Fair to create a delightfully satisfying romantic mystery novel. Cox not only captures the spirit of the Fair, but successfully creates a story with several personable characters, lively dialogue, and a charming end.

Rebecca Roberts SOULS OF ANGELS Thomas Eidson, Random House, 2007, $24.95, hb, 287pp, 9781400062386 / HarperCollins, 2008, £14.99, hb, 400pp, 9780007181742 Sister Ria, a young nun who works with the poor in India, is abruptly called home to Los Angeles because her father, Don Maximiato Lugo, is accused of murdering a prostitute. She isn’t sure who called her home—when she fled her psychologically abusive father, she told no one where she was going—but she feels that it is her responsibility to determine exactly what

HistoricalNovelsReview happened.

When she returns to her home, Sister Ria finds her father in denial that anything happened, despite the fact that evidence of his responsibility was found at the crime scene.

Don Maximiato has done so much for the local Mexican community that they treat him as a saint, even though his temper is volatile and his handle on reality is increasingly precarious.

When Sister Ria begins to investigate what really happened the night Dorothy Regal was murdered, she sets a sinister chain of events in motion that threaten both her life and the lives of all living in her family’s villa.

The 1880s Los Angeles setting is less exotic than it sounds, and many of the tensions between the Anglo and Mexican communities that Eidson employs to build suspense are still active today, making Souls of Angels seem more timeless than bound to a particular historical period. As the story unfolds, Eidson provides glimpses of Sister Ria’s youth, illuminating the reasons why she fled her comfortable life to serve God as a nun. The mystery was intriguing and the ending was surprising, but the backstory of the troubled and volatile relationship between Maximiato and Sister Ria was what kept me interested.

Nanette Donohue THE RED THREAD Dawn Farnham, Monsoon, 2008, $15.95, pb, 328pp, 9789810575670 Charlotte and Robert are sibling orphans, now adults, who initially moved from Madagascar to Scotland and now reside in Singapore in the 1830s. Robert has been fortunate enough to secure a post as head of the police, and sends for Charlotte, knowing their future lies in this exotic but quickly evolving prosperous land.

Charlotte quickly falls in love with the town she thinks of as “varied and faceted as a fabulous jewel.” The foreign characters are intriguing as well, such as Coleman, the architect Irishman who has built most of the town in solid, beautiful style to rival any European city yet with its own natural shapes and flowers to enchant every view. Then there is the small group of wives and mistresses who come from their own mysterious Asian backgrounds yet have created an insular camaraderie to strengthen them in the terror-laden moments from both native men and beasts.

But the real threat to their security lies in the slowly emerging love between Charlotte and Zhen, a coolie who also belongs to a powerful Chinese triad group. Theirs is a passionate affair doomed to disaster. Zhen is assisted in attaining this love by his fellow coolie, Qian, a man unsure of where his sexual interests lie.

Yet Zhen relies on his faith in Taoist poetry to surmount all difficulties.

How will it all end or begin? The Red Thread is an exceptionally well-written novel whose descriptions and subplots concerning the land, religious beliefs, and relationships are so engagingly presented that the reader is sure

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Issue 44, May 2008 to want to keep this passionate novel, which celebrates meaningful union rather than division.

A beautiful story to relish on every page.

Viviane Crystal THE ANATOMY OF DECEPTION Lawrence Goldstone, Bantam, 2008, £12.99, 336pp, 9780593058893 / Delacorte, 2008, $24.00, hb, 342pp, 9780385341349 In the autopsy rooms of University Hospital, West Philadelphia, the young physician, Ephraim Carroll, is being taught about death by the famous Dr William Osler. In 1889 medicine is becoming less rudimentary and death more explicable, but doctors still kill almost as many as they cure.

The corpse of a beautiful young woman haunts Ephraim and his investigations into her identity and her fate take him from the seediest parts of the city to the drawing rooms of high society. There he learns to trust no one but himself and to always watch his back.

Every now and then a novel appears that crosses out of its genre and becomes a mainstream hit. The Anatomy of Deception seems certain to do just this. It is a high-class murder mystery that puts character, plot and historical accuracy on equal footings. The mystery is extremely well thought out and involving as demanded of the genre. The intriguing – and frequently gruesome – historical details add veracity and interest, yet are applied with the lightest of touches and never used at the expense of the plot. But it is the characters who reign supreme – they are so realistic that they almost jump out of the pages and start independently breathing.

Lawrence Goldstone has written a wonderful novel and should be justly proud. I, for one, will be looking out with great anticipation for his next work of fiction.

Sara Wilson EDMUND BERTRAM’S DIARY Amanda Grange, Robert Hale, 2008, £18.99, hb, 222pp, 9780709084648 Edmund Bertram is fond of his gentle cousin, Fanny Price, who has been taken in by his wealthy parents as a young child. Throughout the years they develop a strong friendship and share many happy times. Then Edmund falls in love with Mary Crawford and his steady life at Mansfield Park is thrown into disarray.

Fanny remains steadfastly loyal, even when Mary turns out to be not all she seems and Edmund finally realises that the one he really loves has been close at hand all along.

The story is well-known from Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, but this time it is told in diary form from the point of view of Edmund himself.

Amanda Grange has hit upon a winning formula and retells the familiar story with great verve whilst remaining faithful enough to the original to satisfy most Jane Austen fans. Edmund Bertram’s character flourishes, and it’s lovely to read this tender love story from a new, male perspective.

Sara Wilson

19th Century FALL OF FROST Brian Hall, Viking, 2008, $25.95, hb, 342pp, 9780670018666 Robert Frost, the beloved American poet, was born into a long and sorrow-ridden life in 1874. High infant mortality made parents show little or no affection, and children, often bursting to express themselves, were bewildered into silence. Yet Robbie took refuge in words and nature. Both became a necessary balm for his grief and guilt resulting from the tragedies of his life, particularly the death of Elliot, his firstborn.

Frost’s struggle for recognition of his poetry triumphed during a stay in England, where he was first published. Soon his own country would honor him with a sincere enthusiasm and awards for his work.

Facts about Robert Frost can be found in any encyclopedia, but Fall of Frost brings us inside the man’s life and mind in a new way. The poet’s “mental narration” leads us into the palpable world of this life-weary but unyielding poet as he darts among his life events not unlike an old man on his deathbed, lost in remembering. Deep slices of Frost’s past are interspersed with the current timeline which begins the novel: Frost’s visit to Russia in 1962 by invitation of Nikita Khrushchev. Nuclear danger lurks. President Kennedy worries. Frost wonders what his flying across the world will accomplish. Arriving to find the Premier rudely absent (on vacation!) he knows it’s not diplomacy. The 88-year-old poet is ferried around Moscow so the Russians can see “the people’s poet” of America.

Among continuous changes of time and place, this book is compelling reading, even the chapters that are as short as a single poem on a page. The reader lives Frost’s life intensely through the pen of Brian Hall in this unique telling of a great poet’s life.

Tess Allegra A RATIONAL ROMANCE Melinda Hammond, Robert Hale, 2008, £18.99, hb, 224pp, 9780709084488 Rosamund Beauvais is left homeless when her grandfather loses everything in a card game with Elliot Malvern. As a man of honour, he offers marriage. As a sensible woman, she accepts.

So far, so rational, but then the pair are forced into a perilous adventure in Napoleonic France.

Love blossoms, and logic is its first victim.

From its entirely original opening premise to its satisfying conclusion, A Rational Romance is a joy for all fans of historical romances. The likeable hero and heroine take the reader on an enjoyable escapade, and there’s even a spiteful ex-lover to put a spoke in the wheels. Fabulous fun.

Sara Wilson EXILES Ron Hansen, Farrar, Straus &Giroux, 2008, $23/C$25.50, hb, 240pp, 9780374150976 Exiles tells the story of a relationship between

HistoricalNovelsReview five nuns exiled from Germany and the English poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, who wrote one of his most famous poems in homage to their deaths; they were passengers on the Deutschland, which foundered in December of 1875. Hopkins himself was an exile from his family and society when he converted to Catholicism and entered the Jesuit order. The narrative moves back and forth in an oblique parallel between the Sisters’ disastrous adventure, memorialized in the poem “The Wreck of the Deutschland,” and Hopkins’ own troubled life after his conversion.

It also shifts backwards and forward in time to explore the context of the intimate lives of these individuals as they move to a convergence in history.

Hansen’s novel is fiction based on facts, difficult waters to navigate. On the one hand, much is known about Hopkins’ life as one of the most innovative of modern poets; on the other, almost nothing is known about the five Sisters who perished that fateful December. His narrative is a stirring insight into journeys both outward and inward of those exiled because of their faith. In the novel, both journeys are equally distressing. For Hopkins, the novel narrates primarily a personal struggle; for the five Sisters, it tells an exciting adventure. In both cases, the story is an exceptional description of torments that are spiritual, emotional, and psychological.

Hansen has crafted an extraordinary work that balances and unites these worlds. He also includes the poem as an appendix, which reflects brilliantly the nature and complexity of not only the characters’ lives but of all lives.

Gerald T. Burke THE SECOND LADY SOUTHVALE Sandra Heath, Hale, 2008, £18.99, hb, 222pp, 9780709080909 Washington, July 4th, 1811. Britain is at war with France, America insists on continuing to trade with France, the result being that tensions are running high between Britain and America and another war seems inevitable. The Carberrys are giving the annual Fourth of July Ball, and all is going well until John Carberry, the dissolute son of the family, arrives with Lord Philip Southvale in tow. Lord Philip, a very wealthy widower, is a British envoy sent over on a diplomatic mission from London. The day before the ball he sees Rosalind Carberry driving past in her carriage and immediately falls in love with her. When Rosalind meets Philip their feelings are mutual. What happens next I leave for the reader to discover.

This is a love story set against the background of impending war with America shot through with all the usual ingredients of love, jealousy and betrayal before the ending is resolved. It is well told, with believable characters and good descriptions of the social order of the day.

Marilyn Sherlock PHYLLIDA AND THE BROTHERHOOD OF PHILANDER Ann Herendeen, Harper, 2008, $14.95, pb,

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Issue 44, May 2008 544pp, 9780061451362 Phyllida Lewis is a young woman of modest means whose distance from the epicenter of the Regency marriage mart has ensured that her choices of husbands have been lousy, at best. When an attractive man named Andrew Carrington visits her Sussex home looking for a bride, she’s suspicious about his intentions, but his frankness and good looks compel her to accept his offer. Andrew wants a marriage based on honesty, and honest he is—he lets Phyllida know that he’s gay and that he has no intention of abandoning the Brotherhood of Philander, the high-class “madge club” that he has belonged to for years. Not surprisingly, Andrew’s sudden marriage is a shock to the ton, and a wager quickly surfaces: will Andrew, despite his disinterest in women, manage to produce an heir to the Carrington earldom?

Herendeen takes many plot devices of the traditional Regency romance and turns them, quite charmingly, on their ear. Phyllida is an independent, spirited heroine who refuses to let marriage change her into a meek, submissive lady, and Andrew is, as you might expect, slightly clueless as to what women want. A highly amusing case of mistaken identity leads Andrew to believe that Phyllida is the author of one of Jane Austen’s novels, and a subplot involving a meddling secretary who seems to be embezzling from the Carrington household adds action and intrigue. The final chapter, which features a play on the marriage scene that typically completes a Regency romance, is the perfect ending for this genre-bending novel. While Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander is enjoyable on many levels, readers of Regency romances who appreciate new interpretations of a classic genre will be delighted with the games the author has played in this novel.

Nanette Donohue THE GERMAN BRIDE Joanna Hershon, Ballantine, 2008, $24.95/ C$29.95, hb, 320pp, 9780345468451 It’s Berlin, 1865, and Eva Frank, the romantic daughter of a Jewish banker, falls in love with a handsome painter commissioned by her father to paint her portrait and that of her older sister, Henriette. By the time Eva realizes the painter is not the man she believed, the affair has tragically involved her family. To flee the scandal, Eva quickly marries the merchant Abraham Shein and leaves Berlin, following him across the Atlantic. At home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, she feels isolated, Abraham falls woefully short of her expectations, and, eventually, Eva must come to grips with her past.

The German Bride is a story about overcoming personal demons. It is an inner journey that shows the protagonist first as an immature, gullible adolescent, then a guilt-ridden, homesick young bride, afraid of everything, and, finally, a young woman who faces her present by struggling foremost against herself. The transformation makes for a readable page-turner. An evocative,

19th Century well-paced novel with an elegant style and a cast of believable characters, it spins the familiar Western yarn with an unlikely heroine, a young Jewish woman. It is world full of possibilities and of danger, a landscape where Eva discovers that being different is “both a luxury and a curse,” and where she ultimately forges her own redemption.

Adelaida Lower LET SLEEPING ROGUES LIE Sabrina Jeffries, Pocket, 2008, $7.50/C$8.99, pb, 400pp, 9781416551515 Jeffries delivers her fourth installment in The School for Heiresses series with this highly entertaining novel set in early 19th-century England. Madeline Prescott, daughter of a physician, is a teacher and naturalist working at a reputable school. Madeline asks the notorious rake, Anthony Dalton, Viscount Norcourt, to teach the young heiresses lessons on how to avoid rakehells much like him. Anthony is inexplicably attracted to Madeline and agrees to her plan. If his lessons are successful, Anthony will be allowed to enroll his niece in the exclusive school, but he must first return a favor to Madeline.

Headstrong and practical, Madeline is determined not to be seduced by Anthony’s magnetism, but soon finds him irresistible, especially when she gets to know his true self beneath his rakish exterior. The two hide many secrets from each other and both must learn to trust to find the true love that has eluded them for so long.

The plot becomes slightly convoluted near the end through several misunderstandings between the two which distract slightly from the story. Passionate romantic scenes do abound, though, and readers will be kept on their toes with the lively banter of the characters. An enjoyable, quick read.

Troy Reed ROSES FOR REBECCA Margaret Kaine, Hodder & Stoughton, 2007, £6.99, pb, 469pp. 9780340923924 At the end of the Second World War, Rebecca Lawson is orphaned and homeless. She goes to live and work with her aunt and uncle in their East End Pub. Romance soon blossoms between her and one of the customers, Ian Beresford.

One day he disappears and Rebecca to her horror discovers she is pregnant. Frantic with worry Rebecca travels to his family home in Stoke-On-Trent in search of him. Awaiting her is the news of a dreadful tragedy. Rebecca has to pick up the pieces and makes the brave decision to keep her baby despite her facing scandal and prejudice for being an unmarried mother.

I found this a sensitive and well-crafted portrayal of a young unmarried girl – to get to the stage of wearing a curtain ring from Woolworths to pretend you were married really tugs at the heart. I liked the characters. There was a whole cast of different types, and the story

HistoricalNovelsReview itself came to life through them. You were made to feel totally on Rebecca’s side throughout and through laughter and plenty of tears you reached a happy conclusion. How true to life it seemed.

A good read.

Karen Wintle HARD TRAIL TO FOLLOW Elmer Kelton, Forge, 2008, $24.95, hb, 288pp, 9780765315229 In Texas, several years after the American Civil War, former Texas Ranger Andy Pickard volunteers to track down an escaped outlaw named Luther Cordell and his two partners.

Andy’s close friend, Sheriff Tom Blessing, is killed in a jailbreak, and Andy seeks revenge.

The story follows the pursuit of the outlaws, both from the point of view of the reinstated Ranger and also from the outlaw named Cordell. The reader learns that Cordell isn’t the cold-blooded killer Pickard believes, but actually has many redeeming qualities.

This book is the seventh in the Texas Ranger series. Elmer Kelton knows how to build tension and excitement. His characters are well developed and believable, and his knack for writing Western stories is well known; he has received several Spur Awards and is recognized by many as the best living Western novelist. I enjoyed this tale and had a difficult time putting the book down.

I’ve read all the books in the series and suggest that the earlier books be read before this one. The series as a whole is character driven, and this way you will gain a better perspective of the major characters.

Jeff Westerhoff THE REBELS: Sons of Texas Elmer Kelton, Forge, 2007, $24.95, hb, 304pp, 9780765315267 In the 1830s, Texas is becoming a battleground between the American settlers of the open land and the Mexican government, which wants to maintain control of its country. As long as the Americans abide by the laws of the territory, they are allowed to farm and live in peace.

The Lewis family had settled in Texas several years ago. When the Mexican government ordered military units to live near the settlers and impose military law, a few began to rebel against Mexican rule. The Americans who believe in a peaceful solution apply to Mexico City for relief, while there are others who feel that the only way to regain freedom is to rebel and become independent from Mexico.

The Rebels is the third book in the Sons of Texas trilogy. I have read all three books and found them entertaining and basically historically accurate. Seven-time Spur Award winner Elmer Kelton knows how to write an exciting western tale with interesting characters and page-turning action. I highly recommend this book to those who wish to learn more about the days of the Alamo, Santa Anna and how the

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Issue 44, May 2008 Republic of Texas was formed.

Jeff Westerhoff

RIDE THE TRAIL OF DEATH Kenneth L. Kieser, La Frontera, 2007, $19.95, pb, 230pp, 9780978563417 Kieser builds on his ancestors’ experiences in 1870s Dakota Territory for this Western. On the trail to Deadwood, teenager Birch Rose’s family is decimated during separate attacks by Native American Black Moon, and bandit Rico’s lawless gang. Legendary Deadwood sheriff Seth Bullock takes Rose under his wing, teaching him to be a crack shot and giving him a badge.

Rose, now equipped to hunt down his family’s killers, must find Black Moon and Rico’s gang before they find him.

I don’t doubt Kieser did his research—he includes some interesting maps and photos of Deadwood, and incorporates historical figures as characters. The book falls short in other areas. It badly needs more editing: I gave up counting after ten instances of “starring,” when “staring” was meant, not to mention howlers such as “shear numbers.” Please, authors!

Word processing software is not a substitute for real editing. Furthermore, Kieser blatantly tells the reader that a character is obsessed or mean, instead of letting the reader figure it out from the context. An extraordinarily self-aware villain speaks of another character as “more evil than me.” Several exposition passages are plotdumped, rather than woven smoothly into the story. Sorry, but thumbs down.

B.J. Sedlock SILK AND STEEL Catherine King, Sphere, 2007, £19.99, hb, 376pp, 9781847441652 This novel is set in the mid-19th century, in a fictional South Riding, which is quite clearly, South Yorkshire, though that is a relatively recent coinage. The evocation of the region in this period, with its iron works and coal mines, and the description of the change-over which was occurring in the lives of the people from a rural to an industrial existence, is convincing.

The heroine, Mariah is the daughter of an iron master who has a dark secret. Mariah has to struggle against the limitations which the attitudes of the time place upon the lives of women The hero, Daniel, is the upwardly mobile son of a miner and the two are, of course, destined to fall in love. So much is formulaic.

For although this is not strictly speaking a family saga, we are clearly in saga-country.

As is common in this genre, the underlying ideology is one of personal betterment through hard work and capitalist enterprise, with a stress particularly on the enterprise of women - in this case Mariah. With this emphasis on the trials and struggles of the heroine, it is a type of book which appeals mainly to women. But no man should be deterred by that, for there is much of interest for both sexes.

The author’s portrayal of the period is,

19th Century as far as I am able to judge, accurate. The themes dealt with, which include rape, abortion and homosexuality, as well as the growing industrialisation of the area and the reactions to the change of the old landowning gentry, are handled in a way which vividly illuminates the attitudes of the time. All in all, a very good read.

Neville Firman WOMEN OF IRON Catherine King, Sphere, 2007, £5.99, pb, 453pp, 9780751539073 Set in 1830, during the Industrial Revolution in Britain, Women of Iron depicts a story of poverty, deceit, and revenge. Luther Dearne is rich, powerful, apparently above the law, and has everything he wants—except children. When a woman turns up in a tavern with an orphaned little girl for sale, Luther does not hesitate to buy her, despite his drunken wife’s instant hatred of the child. Lissie grows up to be a great beauty, but her mysterious origins prove to be Luther’s deepest heartache, and eventually his ruination.

A young, hotheaded Blake Svenson one day shows up in town working on the barges, with a secret agenda to avenge his murdered father’s death.

A chance encounter brings Blake and Lissie together, and they fall instantly in love, but must confront their differences. When Lissie’s father suddenly dies, seemingly at the hand of Blake, Lissie faces a bleak future. When Blake disappears, and her mother tries to sell her into prostitution, with no one to turn to, Lissie runs away, fearing for her life.

A gritty and realistic tale full of starcrossed love, sexual exploitation, murder, and vengeance, this is not for the faint-hearted, nor for the gentle romantics. Side stories, such as those about the woman who sold Lissie, add to the overall dark outlook. King has created a disturbing, powerfully written story in which only the toughest survive.

Rebecca Roberts A MENDING AT THE EDGE Jane Kirkpatrick, WaterBrook, 2008, $13.99, pb, 400pp, 9781578569793 This is the final installment in a trilogy about the life of Emma Wagner Giesy, the first woman of the Bethelites, a communal religious society, to come West to settle a new colony for the group. The group eventually settled in Oregon in 1856 and founded the town of Aurora.

In this installment, Emma is separated from her abusive second husband and is struggling to raise her four children. The community is also experiencing some difficult times. Their leader, William Keil, is distracted by grief when four of his children die of smallpox, and there is a shortage of housing for new arrivals. Some members become disenchanted with Keil, criticizing him for making decisions based on economics rather than religious beliefs. The group left Missouri to isolate themselves from

HistoricalNovelsReview a corrupt world, but in Oregon, Keil builds a hotel and restaurant and negotiates to have the railroad run through the settlement. In spite of these difficulties and disagreements, the community thrives because of the hard work of the members.

Emma continues to chafe at Keil’s authority and his beliefs about women. Emma is a devoted and caring mother, but she has a curious intellect and an artistic nature that she yearns to express.

Above all, she wants to feel in control of her destiny. She tries to live by the community’s Diamond Rule, to make other’s lives better than one’s own life. In this she succeeds, making sacrifices so her son can attend the university and become a doctor, providing a safe haven in her home for other single and abandoned women, helping to arrange marriages, and caring for her aging parents.

Kirkpatrick did extensive research at the Aurora Colony Historical Society and interviewed descendants of many of the Aurora families. She has succeeded in breathing life into Emma’s story.

Jane Kessler PINKERTON’S SECRET Eric Lerner, Henry Holt, 2008, $25.00, hb, 352pp, 9780805082784 This novel is told from the point of view of Scottish immigrant Allan Pinkerton, who became the backbone of Lincoln’s Civil War intelligence operations. His relationship with Kate Warne, the first female detective in the US, forms the spicy focus—if focus there be.

This is a very disappointing book, especially from an author we are told comes off a twentyyear career as a screenwriter in Hollywood.

No scene comes to life with any sort of cinematographic clarity. Dialogue is dead and only appears after we get but a cursory outline of what might have been dramatic exchanges. All the famous Pinkerton scenes—including him pursuing his man away from Rose Greenhow’s window in stocking feet—are crammed in such a few pages that we feel or see none. We are told, almost never shown. The scenes are rarely connected and do not build tension. Every name of every coworker detective appears, all the period’s great personalities including John Brown, parade through, but none (including John Brown) comes to life as a character.

An important skill in historical novel writing with real characters is to keep them ignorant of what is to happen, although the history books tell us. Lerner’s Pinkerton never wrestles with anything unexpected. Any well-written biography of Pinkerton would do better— except for the lurid sex. This Pinkerton also has a needlessly—and often too-modern—foul mouth interspersed with jarring effect between passages of the elevated style the old Victorian might have written himself. Beauregard’s in a “snit”? Pinkerton’s eldest calls his younger brother “you jerk” in a “snotty” tone? The famous detective comes off as a thoroughly despicable

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Issue 44, May 2008 man—which he might well have been—but we would rather not spend much time with such a one without fictional plastic surgery.

Ann Chamberlin THE HARTLEPOOL MONKEY Sean Longley, Doubleday, 2008, £14.99, hb, 316pp, 9780385612531 The legend of the Hartlepool Monkey is well known in the North East of England in that in the early 19th century, during the Napoleonic Wars a monkey, dressed in French naval uniform, is washed up on the beach at Hartlepool and is taken for a French spy. Sean Longley’s novel is wrapped around this legend and the circumstances that lead to the animal being on that particular beach.

Dr Simon Legris is a French physician living in Paris when he is caught up in the aftermath of a carriage accident and as a result becomes personal physician to the Duc Ladurie de Bretagne. He is sent on an expedition to Africa and returns with a pet monkey whom he names, Jacques. Back in Paris the French Revolution breaks out and Jacques becomes involved in a plot involving Claudette, a prostitute whom Simon knew well in his early days in the city.

Set during the Napoleonic Wars and the French Revolution, the tale is well told with a style of writing fitting the era in which the events happened.

Marilyn Sherlock COURTING EMMA Sharlene MacLaren, Whitaker House, 2008, $9.97, pb, 395pp, 9781603740203 Emma Browning, who runs a boarding house in 1896 Little Hickman, Kentucky, can fend for herself, having grown up as the motherless daughter of Ezra, the longtime town drunk.

Emma’s childhood has left her without much use for religion, so when Jonathan Atkins, who attended the same one-room schoolhouse as Emma, returns to Little Hickman as the town’s new preacher, Emma is reluctant to rent him a room. When Jon does Emma the favor of hauling Ezra off her premises, though, she relents. Jon decides to redeem what appears to be the hopeless case of Ezra, Soon, he sets his sights on the soul—and the heart—of the prickly Emma.

MacLaren writes in a lively, engaging style, with a welcome dash of humor, and her characters have depth and heart. Especially near the end of the book, her people tend to lapse into jarringly modern lingo such as “role model,” and the author sometimes spells out the psychology behind her characters’ actions more than seems necessary, but these are minor flaws in an enjoyable and moving novel.

Susan Higginbotham HONORABLE INTENTIONS Donna MacQuigg, Five Star, 2008, $25.95, hb, 299pp, 9781594146961 Set in the Territory of New Mexico, in 1881,

19th Century Honorable Intentions (a sequel to The Doctor’s Daughter) is a thoroughly enjoyable frontier romance. A wanted poster hangs on the wall of Santa Fe’s jailhouse, right beside the prisoner whose arm Lydia Randolph is sewing up. Lydia has no doubt that she is treating the wanted man, but her patient insists that he is Don Miguel Dominguez Mendoza Estrada, a Mexican horse-breeder, and not Antonio Garcia, the notorious bandito. When Lydia is taken captive by the banditos, Miguel takes advantage of his likeness to their leader, and rides with the band to their hideout. Unfortunately, his ruse is so successful that Lydia refuses to believe that he is an honorable man, risking his life to effect her rescue.

A native of New Mexico, the author brings an authenticity to the story that creates an easy flow.

After one suspends disbelief that two unrelated men can be so physically similar, the twists and turns in the plot seem perfectly believable. I’d like to say that this book is a keeper but, in truth, it’s Don Miguel Dominguez Mendoza Estrada whom I’d like to keep­. Right at my bedside, if you please.

Nancy J. Attwell THE PRIVATEER Dawn MacTavish, Leisure, 2008, $6.99/ C$8.99/£5.99/AU$14.95, pb, 325pp, 9780843959819 Lady Lark Eddington, despite being an earl’s daughter, is in Marshalsea prison for debt after her father gambled away his fortune and killed himself. Fortunately, “King” Kingston, Earl of Grayshire, comes looking for a genteel debtor to be his charity-minded mother’s companion in Cornwall. Since anything is better than prison, Lark agrees to take the post. King is as good as betrothed to Lady Ann Cuthbertson, so Lark doesn’t expect to be anything more than a lady’s companion. But when the Countess invites Lady Ann to visit Cornwall, King finds himself more attracted to Lark. Their budding relationship is further complicated by his commission as a privateer to fight both the French and the local smugglers, whom his late father had supported.

Despite the title, very little action takes place aboard ship, and I spotted quite a few historical errors and Americanisms. On the positive side, there are several well-integrated passages of discussion about the state of Regency-era aristocratic marriage, contrasting King’s unhappy parents’ union with the loving relationship the main characters hope for. King and Lark are likeable, and the Countess is a feisty secondary character. These outweigh the drawbacks, and the result is an enjoyable historical romance.

B.J. Sedlock A QUIET ADJUSTMENT Benjamin Markovits, Faber & Faber, 2008, £12.99, pb, 328pp, 9780571233342 This is the second in the author’s Lord Byron series – though both novels can be

HistoricalNovelsReview read independently and indeed this is set chronologically before the first book, which was mostly about Dr Polidori’s relationship with Byron. This story is narrated from the perspective of Annabella, Byron’s muchsuffering wife. Annabella, attractive and highly intelligent, falls for the dashing charms of the famous young poet and accepts his offer of marriage. The story is well known and Byron does not lack a stream of historical fiction writers to tell this tale. Annabella is desperate to do all that she can to make her new husband happy but, from their very first days together, Byron treats his new wife abysmally until, eventually, she is forced to leave him taking their newborn baby, Ada, Byron’s only legitimate child.

Annabella forms a friendship with Byron’s sister, Augusta, and it is the revelation of their incestuous relationship which the author argues is the key to Byron’s awful behaviour and Annabella’s realisation that he could never be tamed and reformed.

The legal battles, Annabella’s somewhat self-righteous attempt to force Augusta to let her brother be and the death of the great poet form the somewhat extended conclusion of the story. The prose is dense and demanding but wonderfully literary and engaging. Markovits has a splendid eye for descriptions of nature and dissects the often complicated layers and patterns of human behaviour. This is fiction that demands an attentive reader willing to work at the story, but it is very much worth the effort.

Doug Kemp A REASON TO SIN Maureen McKade, Berkley Sensation, 2008, $6.99, pb, 304pp, 9780425220597 Rebecca Colfax is searching for her husband Benjamin, who abandoned her after losing her inheritance at the gambling tables. Her search brings her to Oaktree, Kansas, and the Scarlet Garter saloon, where she takes a job as a singer and dancer to earn money to continue her search.

The Scarlet Garter is a typical frontier saloon, with booze, gambling, and prostitution, but it’s well-run, and Rebecca is treated with dignity.

Though Rebecca is wary of gamblers, she can’t help but notice Slater Forrester, one of the saloon’s dealers. Likewise, he can’t help but notice Rebecca, who’s a fish out of water at the Scarlet Garter. As their attraction grows, a gang of outlaws makes an attempt to extort “insurance payments” from the saloon. Can Slater use his training as a former Pinkerton agent during the Civil War to figure out who’s behind the scheme?

McKade delves into issues of post-Civil War race relations by including two AfricanAmerican supporting characters: Simon, a talented piano player and former slave, and Georgia, a dancer who grew up free in Chicago.

The romance between Rebecca and Slater is very sensual, and the suspenseful plot keeps the story moving.

Nanette Donohue

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Issue 44, May 2008 A KINGDOM FOR THE BRAVE Tamara McKinley, Hodder & Stoughton, 2008, £19.99, hb, 419pp, 9780340924693 A Kingdom for the Brave is the story of a disparate group of people struggling for survival in the early days of the colonisation of Australia. The book opens with the massacre of an aboriginal tribe as part of a policy of land clearance, which while not official policy is tacitly ignored. The only survivors are a small boy and his grandmother who seek refuge with another tribe, and while their story is an important part of the book, this is more than just a tale of what we would now call ethnic cleansing. It is also the story of three families – the Collinsons, Cadwalladers and the Penhaligons, set against a backdrop of raids against the aborigines, convict uprising and rebellion against the Governor.

Well written, A Kingdom for the Brave opens in Australia in 1797 and ends in England in 1813, and brings vividly to life an evocation of what life must have been like in those early days of Australian colonisation. The harshness of the life for both settlers and convicts alike is in stark contrast to the simple, but spiritual life of the aborigines, and makes you wonder who is civilised and who the savage. Recommended.

Mike Ashworth A VENGEFUL LONGING R.N. Morris, Faber & Faber, 2008, £12.99, pb, 352pp, 9780571232529 / Penguin Press, 2008, $24.95, hb, 336pp, 9781594201806 This is the sequel to the highly acclaimed A Gentle Axe, the first of Morris’s books to feature the investigating magistrate Porfiry Petrovich from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Set in St Petersburg in the late 1860s, a doctor’s wife and son die suddenly, in excruciating pain, at the height of summer.

When this murder is rapidly followed by others, Porfiry Petrovich acknowledges that this is one of those rare cases that challenge every ounce of his intellect and where immediate suspects are innocent. It gradually becomes clear that the chain of interlinking facts and circumstances is extraordinarily dense as Porfiry Petrovich tells his young assistant, Pavel Pavlovich, they must delve into every aspect of people’s lives because, like the stinking canals, everything is connected. The trail leads him deep into St. Petersburg’s worst slums and asylums, among the forgotten inhabitants of the city who live in horrendous poverty, stench and squalor, before he is able to glimpse a pattern and the elusive figure of the murderer starts to emerge.

Morris has a compelling knowledge of St Petersburg and every page of the story is securely anchored by his brilliant recreation of time and place. But even the most vivid selection of historical detail will pall unless an author taps into the minds of his characters. This is Morris’s great strength: his characters are so fully rounded that you follow their thought processes – or are alienated by them. Porfiry Petrovich displays an understanding of human

19th Century psychology that is fitting in view of his origins, and in doing so raises the bar for other writers in this genre. An excellent read.

Lucinda Byatt THE DARCYS GIVE A BALL: A Gentle Joke, Jane Austen Style Elizabeth Newark, Sourcebooks Landmark, 2008, $12.95/C$15.50, pb, 176pp, 9781402211317 Queen Victoria is on the throne, and the children of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy of Pride and Prejudice are young adults. Their son falls in love with the daughter of the unbearable clergyman, Mr. Collins, and Elizabeth’s dear friend Charlotte. There are other problematic romantic entanglements for the younger generation, eventually resolved at a climactic ball, but the prospect of Elizabeth and Darcy having to adjust to Mr. Collins as their son’s father-in-law is what pulled me into the story.

Unexpectedly, Charlotte is the novel’s most fully developed character, lending depth to what otherwise would be a lighthearted romance.

When she chose marriage to the absurd and selfimportant Mr. Collins rather than impoverished spinsterhood, she insisted that her chances for happiness were “as fair as most people can boast on entering the married state.” How does she feel about her bargain many years later? Elizabeth Newark provides a convincing and moving answer to that question. There is, of course, a whole subgenre of Austen sequels by modern admirers. Though I love Pride and Prejudice, this is the first “Jane Austen style” novel I have read. True to Austen in spirit as well as style, it far exceeded my expectations.

Phyllis T. Smith COMPROMISED Kate Noble, Berkley, 2008, $14.00/C$15.50, pb, 384pp, 9780425219645 In 1829, having recently returned to London, the two Alton sisters are preparing for the Season. Beautiful, demure Evangeline is quite excited at the idea, but too tall and too outspoken Abigail views the prospect with horror. During a peaceful ride in the park, Gail finds herself knocked into a chilly lake when arrogant Maximillian Viscount Fontaine can’t control his horse. Tempers and passion quickly flare between the two, but when Max is later seen kissing Evangeline, Gail knows trouble is seriously afoot.

Since Max’s father has ordered him to find a wife in three months’ time or be disinherited, Evangeline suits as well as any woman, and the two are soon engaged. But Max finds himself constantly seeking out Gail and her witty, intelligent conversations, and Evie finds herself quaking at the thought of Max as a husband, and does everything she can to avoid his company.

Noble’s first novel is a delightful debut with a humorous storyline, fast-paced plot and satisfying conclusion. Both Gail and Evie find romance in unexpected places, and their escapades in reaching their hearts’ desires are

HistoricalNovelsReview quite amusing. This lighthearted late Regency romp is an enjoyable read.

Rebecca Roberts CHANCES Pamela Nowak, Five Star, 2008, $25.95, hb, 327pp, 9781594146374 Ambitious, intelligent Sarah Donovan is the only female telegrapher in Denver. Though she is skilled at her job, she hasn’t won over everyone at her workplace—particularly Frank Bates, a jealous co-worker who dislikes the fact that a woman can do the job better than he can. When one of Bates’s pranks causes Sarah to misdeliver a telegram, she is forced to apologize to Daniel Petterman, a staunchly conservative undertaker who believes that women belong in the home, not in the public sphere. When Sarah and Daniel are both asked to serve on a committee to help solve the city’s stray dog problem, they discover that they have much more in common than they originally assumed—though it takes them quite a while to admit it.

The backdrop of Denver in the 1870s, with the suffrage movement gaining momentum, adds further depth to this breezy, enjoyable read. Sarah is an openly feminist heroine who is committed to women’s suffrage and to equal rights in general, and she isn’t afraid to be outspoken or politically active. Both Sarah and Daniel learn how to compromise without sacrificing their values or ambitions, and they find love in the process, making for a satisfying ending.

Nanette Donohue

Y SUN OF SILVER, MOON OF GOLD

Issue 44, May 2008 THE QUIET GUN: A Western Duo Lauran Paine, Five Star, 2008, $25.95, hb, 252pp, 9781594146292 In “Montana Manhunter,” Deputy U.S. Marshal Chad Greene pursues an outlaw to the ranch of a young woman named Margaret Fulmer, whose husband has been gone for several years. A rancher wants her land and will stop at nothing to achieve his goal. The arrival of Greene means the rancher is in for more than he bargained for.

In “The Quiet Gun,” Sheriff Frank Girard is ordered to visit his old friend George Carpenter and order him to remove the young Indian girl he is living with while still married to another woman. Girard feels that this is more a moral issue than a legal one and refuses to obey the order. A young attorney decides to serve the warrant himself and is killed by Carpenter.

When the jilted wife returns home to her husband, Carpenter decides to run. Girard must now capture Carpenter and bring his old friend to justice.

Both stories, which take place in the late 1800s, are well written, with strong lead characters and a good plot. Even though both plots have been told before in other Westerns, the author manages to pull a few surprises.

Recommended for those who enjoy a light read with action and suspense.

Jeff Westerhoff A DAUGHTER’S INHERITANCE Tracie Peterson & Judith Miller, Bethany House, 2008, $13.99, pb, 383pp, 9780764203640 Set in upstate New York (Rochester and

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Maureen Peters, Hale, 2008, £18.99, hb, 223pp, 9780709084440 In 1837, following her father’s death, Flora Scott is not surprised when her family decides to send her to the New World to stay with her uncle Frank. After all, she is already resigned to her fate – ending up as an old spinster. At 27 years of age, she knows the move would rid her family of an embarrassment, and a dependant.

Flora travels to Chicago, secretly hoping for an adventure. While she awaits collection at the coach stop, she encounters an Indian who helps her with her cases.

She immediately notices the arrogant behaviour of the white locals towards him. But she has no time to ponder on the injustice yet. Her uncle’s estate manager, Brent O’Brien, arrives to collect her and takes her to her uncle’s manor house.

As Flora settles in, she is confronted with suspicion by her uncle’s staff, Brent amongst them. She is enraged by the white settlers’ arrogance towards the Indians and stands up against what she considers to be a great injustice. She becomes friendly with an outcast, ignoring warnings and snubs. When actions by the local government to relocate a tribe get out of hand, she hatches a plan and receives help from an unexpected source, Brent. As his bloodline is revealed, they decide to face the truth – and the world –together, regardless of consequences.

Sun of Silver, Moon of Gold is a riveting tale of a young woman’s fight against cruelty and ignorance. It shows the hardships the Indian tribes faced at the hands of the white incomers, and the helplessness of individuals against the majority. That, with a dose of romance, makes excellent reading.

Stephanie Hochadel

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19th Century Broadmoor Island, a fictional island in the Thousand Island region of the St. Lawrence River­­­­), this first book in the Broadmoor Legacy series introduces three cousins: Amanda, Sophie, and Fanny Broadmoor. It is 1897, and the family patriarch, Hamilton Broadmoor, has just died.

When his will is read, the family is shocked to learn that seventeen-year-old Fanny will inherit one-third of her grandfather’s vast estate when she reaches her majority. Fanny, who longs to renew her friendship with the island boatman, Michael Atwell, is pleased that the family will continue their tradition of holidaying on their private island. While Fanny and her cousins fill their days with picnics and parties, Uncle Jonas (Amanda’s father) schemes to seize Fanny’s inheritance.

The opulent summer homes on the St. Lawrence River, near Clayton and Alexandria Bay, provide a picturesque backdrop for this family saga. Fanny is a delightful heroine, and her relationship with Sophie and Amanda is charming. Be warned, however, that the book ends mid-story, leaving the romance between Fanny and Michael unresolved. If the remaining books in the series are as well-written as A Daughter’s Inheritance, reading the continuation will be a pleasure.

Nancy J. Attwell DAPHNE Justine Picardie, Bloomsbury, 2008, £14.99, hb, 416pp, 9780747587026 / Bloomsbury USA, Aug. 2008, $25.00, hb, 416pp, 9781596913417 Here is a novel which combines the life stories and the novels of Daphne du Maurier and the Brontës, a literary mystery centred on the life and possible works of the saturnine Branwell Brontë in whom, we are told, the characters of Heathcliff and Mr Rochester are blended. All this in the hands of a writer – Justine Picardie – of skill and assurance and packaged in the inimitable Bloomsbury way – an elegant cover design, a satin ribbon marker. Just give me a comfy sofa, a roaring fire and the wind snapping around the house and let me indulge myself.

Perhaps my expectations were simply too high, alas, I could not get on with this book at all.

As Picardie admits in her acknowledgements she became completely hooked on the background story behind Daphne du Maurier’s biography of Branwell Brontë. This shows clearly in the text but not in the right way. Her research feels only partially digested, making for an intriguing and complex read but an arid one. I found it hard to break through her detached biographical style to the emotional core and, consequently, difficult to engage with her characters.

I am sure the book will sell very well. The fashion for novels which unravel literary mysteries set by works such as Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale, or Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian, is still going strong, and Justine Picardie has a justifiably good reputation as a writer. In this case, however, I

HistoricalNovelsReview fear success will be a triumph of marketing over reader discrimination.

Sarah Bower COURTING SHADOWS Jem Poster, Overlook, 2008, $24.95, hb, 288pp, 9781590200322 / Sceptre, 2003, out of print One would be hard-pressed to find a more unpleasant protagonist than John Stannard. A young architect commissioned in 1881 to oversee the restoration of a rural English church, Mr. Stannard tells himself the assignment satisfies an old interest in ecclesiastic architecture. In fact, his reasons for escaping his own life and city practice are more complex. As a fuller picture of Mr. Stannard unfolds, a reader might understand him better but is unlikely to empathize with this man without empathy. He is as willfully blind to the suffering of others as he is to the historical and emotional significance of the artifacts that stand in the way of his objective. He can tear apart lives as remorselessly as he breaks apart the ancient church. Courting Shadows is a beautifully written if unsettling study of a man who seems truly incapable of appreciating beauty or understanding love.

Sue Asher THE THIRD CIRCLE Amanda Quick, Putnam, 2008, $24.95/C$27.50, hb, 352pp, 9780399154843 / Piatkus, 2008, £12.99, hb, 400pp, 9780749939182 In Leona Hewitt’s desperation to get back the aurora stone, a crystal that was stolen from her mother, she dresses as a male servant and breaks into a museum of paranormal antiquities. There she meets Thaddeus Ware, who is also trying to recapture the stone. They decide to join forces.

Before they can get the stone, they stumble across a dead woman and unleash a poison that nearly kills them both. So begins a mysterious chain of events that leads them into an even closer association.

Jayne Ann Krentz has written four novels about the Arcane Society. This story and the novel Second Sight are authored under the pseudonym Amanda Quick and set in the late Victorian era. The other two books are written under the author’s own name and set in modern times. The Arcane Society is a group of people who have special metaphysical powers that pass down through generations. Each book reveals a mystery surrounding members of this society.

Although this novel has the trademark Amanda Quick clever plot and fast-paced action, the dialogue between the two main characters doesn’t sparkle with her usual wit.

Nan Curnutt THE MUTINY Julian Rathbone, Abacus, 2008, £7.99/C$18.00, pb, 447pp, 9780349119328 India, 1857. Do not be misled by the gentle opening scene where Lady Blackstock entertains officers’ wives. They are about to be overwhelmed by one of the most vicious,

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Issue 44, May 2008 hate-filled episodes in the history of the British Empire.

The East India Company dominates the subcontinent. In London an official hears Azimullah Khan’s submission on behalf of Nana Saheb.

As an adopted son of the deceased Maharajah of Bithur, the Nana is refused his inheritance.

The wily Azimullah turns to more than kingmaking. The Company’s new rifles’ cartridge cases allegedly greased with the animal fat forbidden to Muslims also means instant loss of caste for Hindus. This is the focus. Backed up by authentic records Julian Rathbone offers his own strong authorial voice plus a modicum of hindsight revealing the complexities behind the tragedy.

The word is sent, the date is set for mutiny amongst the highly trained Indian troops. Once started, the natives have everything to lose, and the British face loss of Empire in the ensuing explosion of merciless atrocity on all sides.

From many memorable characters, outstanding are the indomitable Ranee Lakshmi Bai with her female warriors; beautiful Eurasian Uma Blackstock, who finds her true place in India; dashing Lt William Hodson of Hodson’s horse, with his migraine and understandably foul temper; and unshakeable Sir Colin Campbell, who despises showy gallantry. In extremity the spoilt memsahibs command admiration.

But above all, it is the Ayah Lavanya, young, inexperienced and valiant, who leads her little band of British infants through unremitting terror and threat of starvation.

Cawnpore, Lucknow: the names resonate after a hundred and fifty years. This thrilling book is very easy to read. Rathbone has thrown himself a challenge and taken it up with relish.

(Ed. note – Julian Rathbone died on 28 February 2008.)

Nancy Henshaw HALLAM’S WAR Elisabeth Payne Rosen, Unbridled, 2008, $25.95, hb, 480pp, 9781932961492 The American Civil War looms and then bursts into flame during this debut novel.

Initially set on the West Tennessee farm of the Hallam family, the story moves to Charlestown, Richmond, and the battlefields at Shiloh, Manassas and Antietam. Although Hugh Hallam is against slavery on principle, he inherits his wife’s servants upon their marriage and buys several more to help run Palmyra. A northern newspaperman, John Varick is welcomed for a series on the real lives of slaveholders. Before he leaves, uncomfortable truths about the Hallams and their neighbors cause tension and estrangement.

But when Hugh is a Confederate prisoner of war years later in Washington, Varick remembers the family’s hospitality and comes to its aid. Aid also arrives from a more unlikely source, the escaped family slave known as French, who left the farm under mysterious and possibly criminal circumstances.

19th Century The Hallams are a dedicated, virtuous crew deeply devoted to each other. They covet neither neighbor’s goods nor spouses. They also suffer from the effects of Hugh’s pride and Serena’s willful ignorance. Neither recognizes slaves as fully human. Caught up in the momentous events of their time, missed opportunities and frustrations compound the story as it gallops to its inevitable conclusion.

Hallam’s War rages within and around its leading couple as it keeps a firm grip on its compelling, tragic time. Characterizations are complex, although sometimes circumspect to the point of sacrificing pace. Battle scenes of the Western theater of the war and its consequences are expertly depicted. The many viewpoint shifts sometimes seemed unnecessary, and the African Americans remained as elusive to this reader as they were to their owners. A promising debut from a gifted writer.

Eileen Charbonneau THE SECRET ADVENTURES OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË Laura Joh Rowland, Overlook, 2008, $24.95, hb, 320pp, 9781690300339 Three talented, young sisters are forced to publish under a male pseudonym in Victorian England. Fearing exposure after an accusation of plagiarism, Charlotte and Emily Brontë are traveling to London to solve the problem and perhaps risk public exposure of their true identities. Neither is prepared to cope with the secret maze of crime and evil they experience almost immediately after meeting an almost paranoid fellow traveler, Isabel White. By chance the Brontë sisters actually see Isabel White killed, a horrific crime that initially shakes their sheltered, puritanical world to pieces. But feisty Charlotte, after receiving a secret package from the murdered victim, is determined to solve the mystery.

Charlotte discovers that Isabel’s mother had no idea of her daughter’s strange liaisons with the aristocracy. Add to that the mystery of an inquiring, handsome brother of the victim and her exposure of his secret, and you have the opening setting for a potboiler Victorian mystery in the mid-1800s that spans the world to faraway China. Avoiding an imminent sibling quarrel with Charlotte, Anne and Emily agree to play their fearless part in solving this awful murder that has now put them in formidable danger.

The author describes the sordid city streets of London and just as skillfully conveys the frightening, explosive atmosphere of a torn Chinese empire wanting Western prosperity while desperately trying to maintain its traditional, pure identity. Laura Joh Rowland’s exemplary skills as a mystery writer again thrill readers as we watch this meek, naïve, romantic, idealistic but also incomparably bold character fulfill her quest for justice. The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë is a superb read that you won’t be able to put down once you’ve entered its pages. Wonderful!

Viviane Crystal

HistoricalNovelsReview THE SILK TRAIN MURDER Sharon Rowse, Carroll & Graf, 2008, $25.00, hb, 314pp, 9780786719464 The debut of a new historical mystery series featuring English-gentleman-turned-detective John Landsdowne Granville, this turn-of-the20th-century adventure is set in Vancouver, British Columbia, when imported Chinese silk worth more than Klondike gold is rushed across the continent to New York in specially designed trains.

Guarding these trains is a highly dangerous business, as Granville and his partner Sam Scott find out. On their first night they foil a sabotage attempt. And the second night’s discovery is the murdered body of the notorious Clive Jackson.

There are suspects galore, as everyone in town seems to have had an altercation with the man, but only Sam is arrested. Granville wants to help his partner, especially when he learns a speedy trail is planned eleven days hence. But he’s new in town, knows no one, and even his partner is not cooperating.

The investigation takes Granville through the city’s brothels, opium dens, gambling joints and burlesque halls. He gets help from a saboteur who becomes a little brother, an opium lord, a medium, and street reporter. By adventure’s end, he might have found something more from the proper but chafing-at-the-restrictions-of-herclass Emily Turner.

The Silk Train Murder establishes its scene and details well, with a good ticking-clock pace and hero haunted by his guilt over a friend’s death as well as his loyalty to Sam and his sense of justice. He grows in character as he unfolds the mystery. Similarly, Emily the “dreadfully bored” heiress grows her own detective team, complete with Bess and George-like pal assistants who haunt tea rooms as Granville haunts opium dens.

Eileen Charbonneau LISTEN TO THE MOCKINGBIRD Penny Rudolph, Poisoned Pen Press, 2007, $14.95/C$17.95, pb, 296pp, 9781590583487 Every good mystery begins with a murder, and Penny Rudolph’s Listen to the Mockingbird doesn’t disappoint: a young stranger is gunned down on Matty Summerhayes’ horse ranch, forever changing the path of her life just as she’s decided to sell and move away from the New Mexico territory. Matty’s future depends on the significance of the crude map she finds in the dead man’s pocket. Will it lead to treasure on her land?

Being 1861, the murder is soon followed by the occupation of the nearby town of Mesilla

by Texans on behalf of the Confederacy. Later a handsome stranger – a defrocked priest called Tonio Bernini – exacts Matty’s permission to live temporarily in a cave on her land. And Matty’s own mysterious past begins to catch up with her when her friend Winona, a former slave, comes back into her life.

Matty’s past, present and future coalesce to

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Issue 44, May 2008 create a compelling tale. While her ability to find unconventional solutions to problems that would otherwise be insoluble might push the bounds of believability for her time in history, the character makes an outstanding impromptu detective. I highly recommend this book.

Janette King THE AQUILA PROJECT Norman Russell, Hale, 2007, £18.99, hb, 223pp, 9780709084372 London, June 1894. The Prince of Wales arrives to open Tower Bridge; the police discover a bomb in one of its boiler rooms and arrest Anders Grunwalski, brandishing a pistol. After Grunwalski is sprung from custody before he can be questioned, Inspector Box of Scotland Yard and Colonel Kershaw of Military Intelligence set about uncovering a conspiracy among Polish émigrés against Tsar Alexander III. But the Russian autocrat is already a dying man. Is the true prey his heir, Nicholas, or another ruler?

When Frederick Forsyth published The Day of the Jackal he set a high standard for thriller writers plotting the death of a head of state. Alas, Mr Russell has some way to go to match Forsyth’s tour de force. The concept is good, not least because violent death was an occupational hazard of royalty at that time.

Tsar Alexander’s father and brother were both victims of assassination, along with the Kings of Italy (1900) and Portugal (1908), along with Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1898), the Portuguese Crown Prince Luis (killed alongside his father) and the Habsburg heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand. But Russell fails to bring it off.

Perhaps the main strength of Forsyth’s novel is that the story never loses its sense of being firmly grounded in reality, as the lone assassin makes his meticulous preparations to murder President de Gaulle, and the police painstakingly find and follow his trail. Unfortunately, The Aquila Project never acquires that sense, remaining unreal throughout. Too, apart from Inspector Box, the characters are stock figures, and far too many of them prove to be double agents.

Ann Lyon TRAIL OF THE RED BUTTERFLY Karl H. Schlesier, Texas Tech Univ. Press, 2007, $27.95, hb, 288pp, 9780896726178 In 1807, a Cheyenne warrior named Stone learns that his twin brother, Whirlwind, is missing after leading a raid into northern New Spain. Stone organizes a group of warriors from different tribes, including wives and children, to ride south to locate and bring back his brother.

They are traveling into an unknown territory, faced with meeting people who speak a different language, not to mention confronting Indian tribes who could be hostile to their small band.

As the small band of Indians travel in their quest, encountering pitfalls along the way, the author is able to draw on his background in anthropology. He creates a tale of individual

19th Century endurance and introduces the reader to unusual characters and provocative landscapes. This is a different kind of Indian story, a time when Indians roamed the Southwest for wild horses and buffalo, before the Americans moved into their territory and took away their hunting grounds and food sources. This novel is not just for those who enjoy a good Western tale.

I recommend this book to anyone who likes to read stories of compassion and human ingenuity while embarking on a dangerous and difficult journey.

Jeff Westerhoff STARLIGHT OVER SIMLA Deborah Siepmann, Hale, 2007, £18.99, hb, 224pp, 9780709084419 Rose Fielding is bored stiff with the lifestyle that Edwardian London offers her: endless rounds of fancy balls and tea parties. Rose is desperate for adventures and is thrilled when she receives an invitation from a friend of her mother’s, the Vicereine in India. A post of governess has become vacant and Rose would be perfect for the role.

Rose is fascinated by India from her first glimpse of the exotic country. She enjoys exploring the sights, but those outings often lead to exciting – and revealing – escapades. She is flattered by the attentions of dashing Captain Julian Turnbull but also feels drawn to the quiet intelligence of poor artist Peter Woods. She is torn between them and her decision affects the lives of the people around her – her friend Monica, her parents, her employer. But is it the right decision? Ultimately, Rose chooses her true love, but not before she has experienced both happiness and disappointment.

Siepmann writes beautifully about the wonders of India under the Raj – the scents, sights, people and traditions, her style at times reminiscent of the late, great M.M. Kaye. The tone and dialogue fits the era, but it also keeps the characters at a distance. I could not get into their heads, feeling detached from their emotions. Also, one character’s later change in attitude is not quite credible. Rose’s ultimate decision creates a race against time, which should provide a build-up to a great finale.

However, the conclusion feels somewhat rushed.

And predictable.

Starlight over Simla is an enjoyable read for brightening up a dull winter’s day with a colourful dose of Eastern wonders. Just don’t expect to bond with the characters.

Stephanie Hochadel VALERIE Joan Smith, Hale, 2007, £18.99, hb, 223pp, 9780709079224 This is a Regency romp first published in America in 1987 and now published in Britain.

Valerie, the eponymous heroine from a genteel, thrifty family, is invited by her rich, widowed aunt to stay with her. Here she discovers her aunt wants her as a model for the heroine of

HistoricalNovelsReview her latest Gothic novel, which involves Valerie in escapades such as climbing up a trellis to a second floor window with a knife between her teeth, and jumping her horse over a tollbooth, so that she can explain to her aunt what it feels like!

At the same time, Valerie, who thinks of herself as a lioness, having more than a Junoesque figure with tawny hair and a liking for the good things of life, meets a man to whom she is attracted, but who seems to be a dependent of Lord St Regis, a situation she disapproves of. And then there is Dr Hill, a close friend of her aunt, and a French cousin who is attracted to her and, it seems, every other woman of his acquaintance.

Written in the first person, this story has a certain exuberance, but contains quite a few anachronisms and Americanisms, and, although it grabbed my interest at first, with its unusually forthright heroine, there were times when I found myself skimming the page rather than reading it.

A slight read which would pass three hours pleasantly, but not a must-have book. jay Dixon THE CARSTAIRS CONSPIRACY Wendy Soliman, Hale, 2008, £18.99, hb, 224pp, 9780709084853 As sole heir of the late Duke of Penrith, Abigail Carstairs is the target of many fortune hunters. But it would also see that she is the target of a murderer. In desperation she calls on Lord Sebastian Denver to investigate.

As well as being a renowned investigator, Sebastian is also a notorious womaniser. Even so Abigail is attracted to the handsome nobleman – and he to her. Sadly this growing attraction cannot prevent the murderer striking again. It’s a race against time to find the culprit before he makes another move.

A beautiful heiress, a handsome hero and a perilous adventure – this novel has all the elements of a really delightful historical romance. The Carstairs Conspiracy is such fun and a great way to while away a few hours.

Sara Wilson ANOTHER COUNTRY Katharine Swartz, Hale, 2007, £18.99, hb, 222pp, 9780709083856 In the year 1832, young widow Eleanor Crombie is forced to decide. Should she stay in Scotland to live with her stepmother or search for her destiny on the other side of the Atlantic? Her siblings have long since left their home island of Mull for the New World and after contacting her brother Ian, a doctor in Boston, she does not hesitate when he books her a passage.

Caroline Campbell hopes to have a season in London when her uncle, Edward Rydell, pays her a rare visit at the family manor on Mull. He brings Mr Dearborn, an older gentleman, who eyes her a little too closely for her liking. Still, as she is promised a season in Boston – not quite London but infinitely better than Mull – she ignores her housekeeper’s warning and dreams

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Issue 44, May 2008 of balls and parties.

The widow and the spoilt girl are thrown together during a stormy crossing, and form an unusual bond. After their arrival in Boston, they quickly settle into their different lives. Eleanor takes over her brother’s household and meets her elder sister’s brother-in-law again whom she had not seen since their childhood. Will Rupert MacDougall’s curious and adventurous spirit win her heart or should she play it safe?

Caroline hopes for a good match but her uncle and his dubious acquaintance are always watching. Despite her high hopes she begins to feel drawn to Ian Crombie, Eleanor’s brother.

As the sinister dealings of Rydell and Dearborn are revealed, Eleanor and Caroline, Rupert and Ian are forced to choose their fate.

Swartz’s second novel is entertaining throughout, bringing to life a young America.

The family connections between the characters are a little confusing in the beginning but the story just pulls you in. A great read.

Stephanie Hochadel THE DISAGREEMENT Nick Taylor, Simon & Schuster, 2008, $26.00, hb, 360pp, 9781416550655 Framed by the gift of roses, everything in between this debut novel is haunted by the body- and soul-stealing times of the American Civil War. News of the impending hostilities reaches John Muro just as he’s trying to convince his mill-owning family that he’d like to study medicine. Although he had his heart set on studying in the North, John enters the University of Virginia.

There he realizes that “the greatest triumphs come from unbearable pain and exertion, of which I had experienced neither in my short and comfortable youth.” John advances in both his professional and personal life at an accelerated wartime pace as casualties stream in. He is guided by two mentors—instructor Dr. Cabell, who takes special interest in the bumbling young man once his niece Lorrie is smitten, and Lieutenant Stone, a wounded Union doctor who is also a physician and becomes John’s friend.

Meanwhile, the Muro family’s Lynchburg woolen mill fails. When creditors come to collect, John cuts himself off rather than share disgrace. At war’s end he is facing a failing new marriage, shortages and replacement in all medicines, and Yankee troops descending on Jefferson’s university. Thrown a lifeline from the north by Dr. Stone, he hatches an ill-fated plan to escape.

Short chapters and the intimacy and authentic language of its first-person narration enhance this view of the Civil War. Its callow protagonist is reminiscent of David Copperfield. John’s roommate B.B. even has the exuberance and overbearing pride of Dickens’ Steerforth. Like the heroes of Dickens, John Muro is forever baffled by the women in his life; viewed as manipulative mysteries, adornments, or paragons of physical beauty and support. A fine

19th Century debut from a gifted storyteller.

Eileen Charbonneau PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS Sherry Thomas, Bantam, 2008, $6.99/C$9.99, pb, 384pp, 9780440244318 In 1893 London, a perfect marriage among the aristocratic elite was hard to find, with one notable exception: that of Lord and Lady Tremaine. However, it should be noted that the couple hadn’t lived together since the morning after their wedding, when Camden Saybrook, Lord Tremaine, walked out on his bride. Now, nine years later, Lady Tremaine, Gigi, has asked for a divorce, and Camden has returned from his self-imposed exile in America. He is willing to oblige with one condition: that she give him an heir first. The story flashes back and forth from their first meeting in 1882 to 1893, but it is done in such a way as to further the plot and explain the past without unwieldy exposition.

Ms. Thomas has created a delightful story with a well-developed plot, balanced with the right amount of historical detail. Her characters are complex, and the emotional conflict is believable.

Audrey Braver SUN GOING DOWN Jack Todd, Touchstone, 2008, $26.00, hb, 367pp, 9781416550488 This Western saga begins in 1863 when Eb Paint, sick of war, sells his Mississippi River supply boat and lights out for the Dakota Territory to take advantage of free land. He marries a twice-widowed woman who is part Lakota, so their twin boys, Eli and Ezra, are raised to be sympathetic to the Native Americans. Ezra never marries, putting in spells of scouting for the Army and cattle-driving, while Eli and his family settle down to ranch in Nebraska. The story then follows Eli’s daughter Velma, who gets herself “in trouble” with one of the ranch hands, and is exiled from the family. Her trials include a stay in a TB sanitarium, and a second marriage to an alcoholic, before her fate brings the saga to a close in the 1930s.

In his author’s note, Todd states that the title refers to two sunsets, that of the Native Americans as settlers invade the Plains, and the more modern one, in which agribusiness and Walmartization have erased the Western way of life. He drew on family memoirs for the plot, basing Velma’s character on his grandmother.

There are moments of happiness, yet Todd doesn’t gloss over the many kinds of pain and suffering settlers of a new country endure.

Each generation of the Paint family produces characters the reader will care about. The one thing I objected to was the author’s use of dashes to begin a line of dialogue, instead of the standard quotation marks. But as that seems to be the fashion these days, I suppose I’m an old fuddy duddy for grumbling about it. The story was engrossing, nevertheless.

B.J. Sedlock

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A DARK ENCHANTMENT Roland Vernon, Black Swan, 2008, pb, 539pp, 9780552775007 1869. Young Englishman Godwin Tudor visits Athens intending to photograph antiquities, but soon discovers that modern Greece is far more interesting. He is invited to the remote and beautiful estate of expatriate landowner Edgar Brooke, and is captivated by Brooke’s daughter Lydia. Unfortunately for Tudor, Lydia has other suitors and Brooke’s estate is caught up in political and financial struggles that originate from far beyond its boundaries.

Greece is on the brink of vast changes. If they are allowed to proceed, they will sweep away traditional ways of life – including the power of the local brigands - as surely as they will devastate the local landscape. Tudor’s misguided involvement results in his companions being swept up into an intrigue which threatens not only their integrity but their lives.

The novel conveys a rich sense of 19thcentury Greece, recreating both the magnificence of the scenery and the physical discomfort and danger of travelling through it. The final section tackles the difficult challenge of a change of perspective, giving both a fascinating – and ironic – long-term view and an unexpected plot twist. This is an enjoyable novel that draws on the traditions of Victorian fiction, and offers all the adventure of exploring 19th-century Greece without the discomfort of leaving home.

Ruth Downie

Ransom, one will never be bored by him, nor the cast surrounding him.

Ken Kreckel

CITY OF THE ABSENT Robert W. Walker, Harper, 2007, $7.99/C$10.99, pb, 310pp, 9780060740122 If you ever craved the simpler life that was prevalent, say, before the turn of the century, reading this might cause you to think again. Set in Chicago of the White City in the late 19th century, this dark detective series reveals streets no less mean than the worst of today.

During the final night of the Chicago’s World Fair, a beloved and controversial mayor is felled by an assassin’s bullet. At the same time, Pinkerton detective Nell Hartigan is brutally stabbed to death while posing as a prostitute.

With the city inflamed by the assassination, Inspector Alastair Ransom is hot on the case of the latter murder, which soon becomes linked to several mysterious disappearances. However, both the Pinkerton’s and his own captain seem to do nothing but impede his investigation. When Ransom himself is accused of an incredibly foul, yet just, deed, it is up to him and the dual identity Doctor Tewes to exonerate him and solve the case.

This novel, the third in the series, continues in the same gritty, yet refined style of its predecessors. If it reads easier than the first, it may be that the author is now more at ease with his characters. Complex to say the least, they are at once strange and compelling. Although it might be difficult to grow to like his Inspector

BEFORE GREEN GABLES Budge Wilson, Putnam, 2008, $22.95, hb, 416pp, 9780399154683 / Puffin, 2008, £9.99, pb, 480pp, 9780141384122 In 1908 Lucy Maud Montgomery first published Anne of Green Gables, the story of the irrepressible redhead who brings joy to spinster Marilla Cuthbert and her bachelor brother, Matthew, when they adopt her into their home on Prince Edward Island. Now, in honor of the centennial anniversary of this beloved classic, Montgomery’s estate has authorized Budge Wilson to write Before Green Gables, a prequel that relates the details of Anne’s life before she comes to PEI. Walter and Bertha Shirley die in an epidemic that sweeps through Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia, in 1886. Their three-month-old daughter, Anne, is taken in by the housekeeper, Joanna Thomas, and her husband, Bert, a couple who are sadly disappointed in their hopes to lay claim to the Shirley furniture. By the time Anne is five, there are four more babies in the Thomas family, and her days are filled with the drudgery of dishes and diapers. Although several neighbors befriend Anne, none offer to take her in when Bert dies, so she is sent to live with the Hammonds, a family with eight children under the age of four. When tragedy strikes the Hammond household, eleven-year-old Anne is sent to an orphanage in Halifax, where she stays only a few months before she is selected as a

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VIRGIN RIVER Richard S. Wheeler, Forge, 2008, $25.95/ C$31.95, hb, 320pp, 9780765307095 Based upon actual events that occurred in Utah in 1857, Virgin River is the destination for a small wagon train of seriously ill people hoping to be healed by the dry, mild climate of the southwestern desert. Barnaby Skye, along with his two Indian wives, leads these people on a quest to find the promised land. Faced with hardships and distrust, especially from people that fear the contagion of the consumption plaguing the travelers, they must protect themselves from the Mormons, who own the land they wish to occupy, other travelers and Indian tribes they encounter along the way.

Virgin River is the sixteenth book in the Barnaby Skye series. Richard Wheeler has won several Spur Awards for his western writing, along with awards for lifetime achievements in western literature. I haven’t read the previous books in the series, but after reading Virgin River, I plan on adding his series to my reading list.

The author’s knowledge of the Western locale, the descriptions of the landscape and, above all, his characterization of Barnaby Skye make for a memorable read. Highly recommended for Western lovers.

Jeff Westerhoff

19th Century-20th Century “useful and hardworking girl” to be adopted by the Cuthberts.

Wilson’s Anne is precocious, talkative, hardworking, and honest, but lacks the enchanting personality and uncanny propensity for trouble that makes the original so endearing.

(What reader could ever forget the time Anne served her friend, Diana, currant wine instead of raspberry cordial?) The older Anne gets, the drearier her life becomes. It is a relief when she steps on the train and heads for Green Gables.

Nancy J. Attwell THE ABSENT WIFE Sandra Wilson, Hale, 2007, £18.99, hb, 223pp, 9780709083672 In 1811, Roslyn Meredith is new to London and its Season after a quiet country upbringing in Monmouthshire. At an evening visit to the theatre, she is captivated by a good-looking gentleman in another box, and later is intrigued to find that he is Lord James Atherton, the talk of the ton due to the disappearance of his beautiful – and dangerous – wife.

Thrown together with him in romantic Greece, Roslyn is bemused by the charming Lord Atherton’s changeable moods, but cannot help falling deep in love with him. He, however, is not free: what is behind his wife’s mysterious disappearance? Can Roslyn follow her heart, maintain her reputation in the ton, and be with the man she loves?

The Absent Wife has a compelling plot and a well-drawn main character, whose naivety is well handled by the author. Unfortunately, the other characters in this novel are less well realised, and their motivations difficult to discern. This reader found several of the story’s turning points a little hackneyed, especially where Lord Atherton’s wife was concerned.

Overall, the novel could be improved.

Erica Stretton

N 20th CENTURY n FUNNY BOYS Warren Adler, Overlook, 2008, $24.95, hb, 320pp, 9781590200346 Mickey Fine and Mutzie Feder dream big in 1920s New York. Mickey is a tumler, an entertainer and host newly hired for a lavish, elegant Catskills resort run by the very criminals who brutalized his family when he was a young boy. Mutzie decides to transform her lackluster personality and prospective future, emulating the renowned, gorgeous actress, Jean Harlow.

Their idealistic, glamour-ridden dreams seem to be progressing so easily, as Mutzie imagines, “Who said people can’t live the lives depicted in the movies… Who said it was not possible for a poor Jewish girl from Brownsville to reach such aspirations?”

The real business of the men whom Mickey and Mutzie join is crime—loan sharking, extorting labor union finances, gambling and prostituting needy woman like Mutzie. Once

HistoricalNovelsReview they begin to realize that they are nothing but pawns in the ever-changing “jobs” of crime, they have been threatened and manipulated into doing far different jobs than they originally believed possible. Will they stay or be eliminated by their new “owners”? Welcome to the world where thugs vie for favor and think nothing of snitching on each other, supplying true and false reports to remove the competition.

Warren Adler accurately and incisively portrays the stereotypical evil and funny mob world that viewers normally admire from the safety of their movie seats. The creator of The War of the Roses novel-turned-movie, Adler here spins a whirling, tense story about a frighteningly dangerous world where one wrong move mandates death or escape. Funny Boy is a great read for those who love the fairly common crime subgenre of historical fiction.

Viviane Crystal A GOLDEN AGE Tahmima Anam, HarperCollins, 2008, $24.95/ C$31.50, hb, 288pp, 9780061478741 / John Murray, 2007, £14.99, hb, 9780719560095 Tahmina Anam, the author of this first novel, begins powerfully: “Dear Husband, I lost our children today.” The voice is that of Rehanna, a young widow who has been forced to hand her children to her brother-in-law because she has no money. Fast-forward to years later, to 1971, when Rehanna’s children, Sohail and Maya, are young adults. Rehanna still celebrates the anniversary of their return, keeping secret how she managed to bring it about. Her problem is basically the same: how she can hang on to them. Now,

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Issue 44, May 2008 however, the world around them is crumbling.

Bangladesh is separating from Pakistan, and her children are involved in the separatist struggle.

It is a foregone conclusion when they ask their mother to hide a wounded rebel. Their mother can’t say no. More interestingly, Rehanna falls in love with him.

Still, through war, massacres and refugee camps, Rehanna is more a witness than an active participant. Her world continues to be circumscribed entirely to that of her children.

The setting is intriguing and the landscape, at times, vivid. Unfortunately, Rehanna’s oppressive relationship with her children overwhelms everything else. “It’s not your fault.

Whatever it was, it can’t have been your fault,” Rehanna tells her son at one point. Her tiresome devotion all but drowns A Golden Age. When the climax comes, and she must make a choice, it is predictable.

Adelaida Lower THE AFFAIR OF THE MUTILATED MINK James Anderson, Allison & Busby, 2008 (c1981), £9.99, pb, 350pp, 9780749080983 This is a delightful 1930s English country house murder mystery, the second in the series set in the Earl of Burford’s imposing house, Alderley. The Earl, who is an amiable old buffer, invites a number of people to Alderley for a long English weekend house party. These include film actors, directors and a writer, as well as two suitors for the hand of Geraldine, the Earl’s daughter. The tale rattles along at a fine pace with some fine plotting with all sorts

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Robert Alexander, Viking, 2008, $24.95, hb, 306pp, 97806700188199 In the first two decades of the 20th century, two worlds collide in Russia. The fall of the Romanovs and the massacre of Tsar Nicholas and his family make headlines.

The Romanov Bride, though, tells the story of another family member, Grand Duchess Elisavyeta (Ella), the older sister of Tsarina Alexandra. Raised to help those in need, Ella finds she must put aside her desires to follow the dictates of her husband. She loves him, but, scarred by the horrors of his father’s assassination, he is unable to return that love. When revolutionists murder Sergei, Ella reexamines her life and gives up her riches and power to become the abbess of a convent that caters to the needs of those less fortunate.

After the tragic and needless death of his wife and child during a peaceful march to see the tsar, Pavel seeks only revenge. He becomes a revolutionary who aids the cause by killing Romanovs and those who work with them. When he agrees to assist in the slaying of Grand Duke Sergei, Pavel’s life becomes intertwined with Ella’s.

What makes this account of the Romanov tragedy so compelling is that the reader lives the events from two opposing perspectives. Alexander brings to life the privileged world of the ruling family and the poverty they refused to see. How different Russia might have been “if only…” is vividly portrayed within these pages. The Romanov Bride is a poignant recounting of tragic and horrible events that will bring tears to your eyes. The ironic twist of fate at the end makes this a tale as haunting as the murders in the “House of Special Purpose” in Ekaterinburg in 1918.

Cindy Vallar

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EDITORS’ CHOICE

Antonia Arslan (trans. Geoffrey Brock), Atlantic, 2008, £12.99, pb, 275pp, 9781843546733 / Vintage, 2008, $14.95, pb, 288pp, 9781400095674 Arslan’s luminous debut novel tells the unbearable story of the 1915 Armenian genocide in Turkey. Ethnic Armenian Yerwant Arslanian has left his home in Anatolia to study medicine in Italy. He stays on, marries an Italian countess, and lives the life of a privileged Westerner.

After forty years in exile, he at last prepares to return to his homeland and visit his beloved brother Sempad and the rest of his extended family. But just as Yerwant is about to leave on his journey, Italy joins the Great War and the borders close. Meanwhile the Turkish regime, bent on cleansing the nation of ethnic minorities, order the gendarmes to round up all Armenian men. Sempad, his wife Shushanig, their family, and friends seek refuge on Skylark Farm, the family’s country house in the hills.

But Nazim, a double-dealing beggar, betrays them.

A squad of armed horsemen closes in on Skylark Farm and butchers the men and boys, while forcing the women and girls to watch. The survivors are then sent on a long death march which will end in the southern desert. By official government invitation, Kurdish tribesmen sweep down from the mountains to seize Armenian property and to rape the women and children. Sushanig and her daughters are brutalised and left to die of hunger and disease. Any Turk who helps an Armenian will be punished by death.

Horrified by his deed, Nazim, the betrayer, now seeks to redeem himself in a race against time to save Sushanig and her remaining children.

Arslan does not stint in exposing the carnage, yet there is nothing gratuitous here.

Writing about the lives of lost family members she never knew, she gives dignity to the dead and immortalises a tragedy that must never be forgotten. Heartbreaking and highly recommended.

Mary Sharratt of unexpected diversions and twists. The book plays fair with the rules of the Golden Age of mystery fiction, and is indeed very much an amalgam of the styles of Agatha Christie and DL Sayers with a dash of PG Wodehouse.

Indeed, some of the famous fictional detectives of the 1930s are referred to in the tale as real characters. A most entertaining, nostalgic read!

Doug Kemp THE SERPENT’S DAUGHTER Suzanne Arruda, NAL, 2008, $23.95/C$28.50, hb, 342pp, 9780451222947 Third in the Jade del Cameron mystery series, this outing finds Jade, a photojournalist for The Traveler magazine, traveling in Morocco in 1920 with her Spanish mother, an uneasy reunion to be sure. In previous books, Jade seemed almost too good to be true, but in her relationship with her mother, she reveals her human side, taking a perverse delight in behaving badly in front of her mother’s friends but having the grace to be abashed at her mother’s displeasure. She soon finds herself longing for even that strained relationship when her mother is kidnapped and Jade frantically searches across the country to find her.

Arruda is fond of mysticism, which comes to the fore here when Jade becomes involved with a Berber tribe, who reveal her to be the direct descendant of a legendary Berber woman, and enlist her aid in returning a powerful amulet to the tribe. The mysticism is leavened with the

more prosaic smuggling of hashish and gold.

The smugglers cross paths with Jade, of course to their detriment. Arruda nicely hearkens back to the first two books in the series, as Jade finds herself meeting an old adversary from the first

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Issue 44, May 2008 book and her would-be beau from the second.

As usual, the descriptions of African countries are vivid, and the mystery gallops apace like an old-time serial. I’m hooked—Jade, where are you traveling next?

Ellen Keith ARROWS OF DESIRE Emma Blair, Sphere, 2008, £19.99, hb, 341pp, 9781847441263 Life is hard for Beth Somerville in a Glasgow torn apart by the Second World War. Her sweetheart, Teddy, goes missing in action and Beth finds herself falling for his brother Steve.

Just before their planned elopement Steve is tragically killed and Beth is left alone with a baby on the way.

Gene MacKay seems to be the answer to her prayers and she allows him to whisk her away to a new life in Canada. But life is not a bed of roses, and Gene’s sister is hardly welcoming.

In fact someone seems to have murder on their mind, and Beth turns again to Teddy for help in her hour of need.

Emma Blair has legions of fans and once again Arrows of Desire demonstrates why.

There is such a strong sense of time and place that the reader is transported straight to wartime Glasgow and post-war Canada. This is how all romantic fiction should be.

Sara Wilson TELL ME, PRETTY MAIDEN Rhys Bowen, St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2008, $23.95/C$29.95, hb, 336pp, 9780312349431 Molly Murphy is back in New York City after doing some detecting in Ireland that almost cost her her life. It is December 1902

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Ace Atkins, Putnam, 2008, $24.95/C$30.00, hb, 352pp, 9780399154577 In 1954, Phenix City on the Alabama side of the Chattahoochee River was often compared to Sodom and Gomorrah. Situated on the Georgia border, Phenix City, nick-named Sin City by the press, was a magnet for the soldiers at Fort Benning. Nevertheless, there were many decent, upright citizens disgusted with the well-entrenched political machine that fed off Phenix City’s profits from gambling and prostitution. One man, Albert Patterson, stepped up to the mat, put his life on the line and was elected State Attorney General. His murder before taking office is the last straw.

The hero is a gas station owner named Lamar Murphy.

Lamar seems to be one of those men who, having found themselves in the right (or possibly the wrong) place at the right (or wrong) time, bites the bullet and just gets the job done. He is named sheriff and, along with Patterson’s son, investigates the murder. This investigation causes a rash of cover-up crimes. Despite threats to his life and family, Lamar manages to keep all intact and catch the bad guys in the end.

Ace Atkins has done a superb job with this fictionalized account of a true incident.

Wicked City is peopled with both real and invented characters. He successfully employs the style of investigative journalism, and the plot moves along at a rapid, cannot- put-down pace.

Audrey Braver

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20th Century and she is particularly busy. She’s been asked to investigate the possible haunting of a soon-tobe produced musical, where the leading lady is repeatedly threatened. Then she and Daniel, her police officer beau who is still under suspicion by the Commissioner of Police and hence suspended from working, find a young woman almost frozen to death in Central Park. Molly feels a sense of involvement, and certainly can’t let this enigma go. And then she is called in to investigate the possible involvement of a Yale student in a brutal robbery and murder in New Haven, Connecticut. She also has the excitement of meeting Nelly Bly during this time.

The winter scenes are evocative of the period. We find out too that this is the time when the new Sicilian gangs are making their mark, and bringing a new and brutal tone to the New York underworld. Molly finds herself struggling against some of Daniel’s to-her-mind outmoded views of a woman’s life and how to make it fulfilling. This is an engaging mystery series, best started at the beginning.

Trudi E. Jacobson SERPENT BOX Vincent Louis Carrella, HarperPerennial, 2008, $14.95/C$18.95, pb, 464pp, 9780061126260 The author’s debut novel focuses on the Flints, a family of Pentecostal preachers from Depression-era and postwar Leatherwood, Tennessee. The Flints and their friends spend their lives looking for signs and miracles.

They risk their lives in witness to the Lord as they spread the Word by drinking poison and handling dangerous snakes. Charles Flint knows in his heart his son Jacob is special, even a prophet. As they preach across the Deep South, they learn about each other and their faith. Jacob ultimately discovers the yearning of the human heart crosses barriers of time and color.

The words on every page of this novel demand you read further for the sheer joy of the prose; the poetry of expression plays counterpoint to the ugliness of the time and place. However, characterization was of secondary importance to beauty of the language.

The entire story is told in the present tense – even the flashbacks. Because of that, the reader is pulled out of the context and the history of the period. The description fails to anchor the reader to the scenes, because the writing style overwhelms every moment of the story. How could these mellow, one-dimensional characters be fired with the Spirit of God? It was difficult to become emotionally involved with the characters. I found myself reading, not from the need to know what happened to these people, but to see how the author would word it. Even the shocking ending left me unmoved.

Carrella has a glorious gift for language. I hope his next book is more character-focused.

Monica E. Spence THE DROP EDGE OF YONDER Donis Casey, Poisoned Pen Press, 2007, $24.95,

HistoricalNovelsReview hb, 217pp, 9781590584460 The engaging Oklahoma farm wife and mother of ten, Alafair Tucker (The Old Buzzard Had It Coming, Hornswoggled), is back for a welcome third adventure. August 1914’s pleasant family outing proves fatal to a young brother-in-law and devastating to his brutalized fiancée and wounded niece Mary, the most lighthearted of Alafair and Shaw’s children.

The killer is hell-bent on covering tracks with additional mayhem, so in the middle of their grief the Tuckers and their close extended family go into detective mode to discover the bushwhacker in their midst. Interwoven in the storyline is Mary’s journal entries, in which she tries to pull from her mind how the horrible crimes and the Fourth of July are connected.

Neighbors begin to suspect neighbors, families their hired men, and racial prejudice surfaces, heightening the tension. Her mother’s hovering shortens Mary’s temper, but also proves to be life-saving. And intrepid Alafair plumbs every lead including gossip, the “underground network… often much more informative than the official sources.”

Casey provides another excellent mystery, enhanced by telling details of farm life – where animals greet masters by shaking their entire hindquarters and the road to solving a murder is interrupted when a first grandchild must be helped into the world. Though the viewpoint shifts seemed at times disconcerting and unnecessary, this outing is also enhanced by a deft portrayal of trauma, and a pure, homegrown magical realism nested nicely beside Alafair’s recipes for fried okra, cornmeal dumplings and peach ice cream.

Eileen Charbonneau LAMBRUSCO Ellen Cooney, Pantheon, 2008, $25.00, hb, 352pp, 9780375424960 Lucia Fantini, legendary singer and widow of Aldo, whose village restaurant was her personal stage, secretly helps her son’s resistance movement by smuggling arms in shopping bags. Unfortunately, her son takes matters into his own hands and blows up a German tank, thus also bringing his mother under suspicion.

Enter an American undercover operative, a tall, angular woman named Annmarie who was a professional golfer in peacetime. Disguised as a nun, she alerts Lucia to the danger of returning to her home. But the dangers are nearer than anyone thinks, and Lucia and her friends are inadvertently bombed by the U.S., causing Lucia a head wound that gives her quest to find her son a dreamlike, surreal quality.

It is the strange relationship of Lucia and Annmarie that provides the true crux of the story. Annmarie, on the surface so different from Lucia, becomes her means of finding her way back to herself in the midst of the chaos of war.

Cooney populates her fictional world with colorful and varied characters, but occasionally

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Issue 44, May 2008 she overindulges by making them a little too obviously Italianate and melodramatic—perhaps intentionally operatic. She most successfully gives Lucia a distinctive voice in all senses, complete with delirious conversations with the three great Italian opera composers, Rossini, Verdi and Puccini. The story is well constructed and draws one through, but the reader’s sympathy is at times attenuated by scenes that start out amusing or engaging and then continue for too long.

Nonetheless, Lambrusco provides a glimpse of a part of World War II with which many Americans are unfamiliar, and believably illustrates the degree to which opera is part of the fabric of everyday life in war-torn Italy, either by its presence or its absence.

Susanne Dunlap THE KONKANS Tony D’Souza, Harcourt, 2008, $25.00, hb, 320pp, 9780151015191 / Portobello, 2008, £10.99, pb, 320pp, 9781846271304 Lawrence D’Sai is the firstborn son of a firstborn son, part of a line that stretches back generations. He’s also a Konkan—a member of the Catholic minority of the western coast of India, converted in the 1500s by Vasco da Gama and St. Francis Xavier. When Denise, an American Peace Corps volunteer, arrives in Chikmagalur, Lawrence’s father sees the opportunity to truly transform his son’s life, and plays matchmaker. Denise sees the marriage as a way to keep her love and admiration for India and its culture with her forever, and Lawrence sees the marriage as his ticket to America and prosperity.

When the newlyweds arrive in the United States in the early 1970s, Lawrence immediately begins the slow and often cruel process of assimilating into American culture. He is successful at his job at an insurance company, but despite his ambition and his attempts to fit in, his ethnic background relegates him to outsider status. Meanwhile, Denise realizes that the life of a suburban housewife is stifling her free spirit, and she takes up with Lawrence’s brother Sam, a recent immigrant who still maintains his love and respect for his native culture.

Folklore, history, and family narrative intertwine in this engrossing novel. By using Lawrence and Denise’s firstborn son Francisco as the narrator, as well as a nonlinear style that slowly reveals further detail about each member of Francisco’s extended family, the stories of all of the members of the D’Sai family are revealed through innocent, unprejudiced eyes. Told with warmth, humor, and finesse, The Konkans is a richly-layered novel of the emotional ties that bind a family together—and the inner turmoil that can tear a family apart.

Nanette Donohue DEATH ON THE HOLY MOUNTAIN David Dickinson, Constable, 2008, £18.99, hb, 312pp, 9781845296032 / Soho Constable, 2008,

20th Century $24.95, hb, 288pp, 9781569475034 The seventh Lord Francis Powerscourt murder mystery begins in 1905 with the detective peer returning to his native Ireland to investigate a series of thefts from stately homes.

The missing items are all ancestral paintings and their disappearances are accompanied by threatening letters. It would seem that these are no ordinary burglaries but the start of a new style of politically motivated campaign instigated by Irish Nationalists.

The thefts are closely followed by kidnappings, and then a body is discovered at the top of Croagh Patrick, Ireland’s Holy Mountain. Powerscourt needs to act swiftly to avert more bloodshed whilst, at the same time, his patriotism is called into question.

Death on the Holy Mountain is a rip-roaring period murder mystery with a good smattering of historical colour and plenty of political shenanigans. Lord Powerscourt himself is an appealing detective and the story is enhanced by some very vibrant characterisation. The reader is guaranteed several entertaining hours in the capable hands of David Dickinson.

Sara Wilson THE WHITE KING György Dragomán (trans. Paul Olchvary), Doubleday, 2008, £14.99, hb, 318pp, 9780385613439 Set in an East European communist totalitarian country in the 1970-1980s, this novel is narrated by an 11-year-old boy known just as Djata. The security police seize Djata’s father one morning for anti-state activities, and he and his mother have to adjust to their changed circumstances.

The book is divided into a number of episodes, each one covering the scrapes and adventures that Djata gets into, narrated in a breathless and ingenuous style – the perspective of young boy who does not fully understand all that is going on around him yet observes faithfully the events of his challenging childhood. Djata experiences violence, cruelty, deceit and corruption – all of the stories acting as an allegory for the brutality of the oppressive regime or by themselves amply demonstrating the utter nastiness of the collectivist, paranoid society of Ceaucescu’s Romania. It is a disturbing picture, though leavened by Djata’s native wit and the utter farce of life under collectivist corruption.

Doug Kemp SCOTTSBORO Ellen Feldman, Norton, 2007, $24.95/C$30.00, hb, 362pp, 9780393064902 / Picador, 2008, £20.00, hb, 368pp, 9780330456135 In Alabama in 1931, young people hitching rides on a freight train have a brawl. A group of white boys are driven from the train. Nine black youths, and two white females, both occasional prostitutes, remain on board. A posse stops the train. The white girls cry rape. The nine African Americans, who will be known to history as the Scottsboro boys, are automatically adjudged

Issue 44, May 2008

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Pamela Binnings Ewen, B&H, 2008, $15.99, pb, 480pp, 9780805447330 Barbara Perkins adores opera. She is a talented singer.

When her chance finally comes to work with the Chicago Opera, she finds her husband Harvey, a doctor, has an equal desire to be a missionary to Siam. Barbara must choose between the husband she loves and the musical career she always wanted. It’s 1919, and although Barbara considers herself a modern woman, she is still encouraged by all to accompany her husband and find her fulfillment with him. She chooses to follow her husband despite her budding musical career.

Barbara finds life in a remote northern village of Siam, far from civilization, to be both enchanting and horrific in turns. She makes herself unpopular with some of the missionaries when she enjoys learning about the traditions and religion of the people around her. The primitive living conditions and the deep-seated prejudice of her fellow missionaries make life in Siam very difficult for her, and she begins to wonder if she made the right choice.

Pamela Binnings Ewen wrote this richly detailed novel based on the experiences of her grandmother, who lived in Siam and Europe during the Roaring Twenties. The story thoughtfully and realistically describes the inner turmoil of this young woman as well as the beauty and dangers of Siam. Descriptions of the landscape and the people are so vivid that the reader becomes as enchanted with Siam as Barbara. The subtle inspirational elements enhance the plot without overpowering it. This is a thought-provoking and enjoyable story, difficult to put down. Highly recommended.

Nan Curnutt guilty, and threatened with death in the electric chair. Progressive lawyers from Northern states, possibly as interested in advancing a political agenda as in justice, flood Alabama, and a mammoth legal battle begins. One of the girls retracts her testimony and says there was no rape.

From this true story, Ellen Feldman has fashioned a novel. Several chapters are told in the first person voice of Ruby, the recanting witness, and they stand out from the rest of the book. Feldman makes us understand how ignorance and a life of deprivation prompt Ruby to falsely claim she was raped rather than admit to staying voluntarily in a compromising situation with black youths. We also see how her battered core of decency, her religious feeling, and her emotional neediness lead her to recant in return for the friendship and admiration the Scottsboro boys’ defenders seem to offer.

Multidimensional and real, neither wholly good nor wholly bad, Ruby is a marvelous fictional creation. By contrast, the young woman journalist who tells most of the story is a less convincing and engaging character, and we never really get to know any of the Scottsboro boys well. This account of a famous court case that exposed the murderous face of racial prejudice is truly gripping. But I wish more of the story could have been told in Ruby’s voice.

Phyllis T. Smith AFTER OMDURMAN John Ferry, Hale, 2008, £18.99, hb, 223pp, 9780709085164 It is 1935 and backbench Tory MP, Colonel

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Evelyn Winters is fighting a campaign in the House of Commons to prevent a bill which will give India dominion status. At the same time he is writing his memoirs of his exploits as an intelligence officer in the 1898 campaign to retake the Sudan from the followers of the Mahdi. He is assisted by a young historian called Parker who is acting as researcher. The book alternates between the campaign in the Sudan, where he is tasked by Kitchener with finding the saboteur who is threatening the success of the campaign, and the ongoing battles in Parliament, where after some years of silence he speaks out with great, but ultimately unsuccessful, effect against the bill.

Colonel Winters epitomises the culture and manners of Britain at that time without descending into cliché, but I found his adversary’s motivation rather weak. The device of running parallel storylines worked to a limited extent, but it felt at times to be contrived in that it was a device to introduce and involve Parker whose link to the campaign is eventually revealed. An enjoyable read, but I would wait for the paperback.

Mike Ashworth SUNSHINE AND SHADOWS Katie Flynn, Arrow, 2008, £9.99, hb, 486pp, 9780434016235 When her impoverished family is forced from their home, young Daisy Kildare is sent from Ireland to Liverpool to be companion to Cynthia, the niece of her Aunt Jane’s employers.

She does well in school and finds a good friend in Jake, the chauffeur’s son, but then tragedy

20th Century strikes her family.

Daisy remains strong and is determined to follow Jake to university. Then war breaks out and she goes to work in a munitions factory instead, falling in love with Sean along the way.

Then Jake is injured in action and Daisy realises that perhaps she doesn’t love Sean after all.

Katie Flynn writes her Liverpool sagas with so much passion and joy that it is impossible not to be swept along by her enthusiasm. Daisy is a great main character, hard as nails, but with just enough softness to make her vulnerable and likeable. Sunshine and Shadows is another surefire winner.

Sara Wilson THE RUSSIAN CONCUBINE Kate Furnivall, Sphere, 2007, pb, 577pp, £6.99, 9780751540420 / Berkley, 2007, $15.00, pb, 528pp, 9780425215586 As one of the characters remarks early in this novel, Russian and Chinese history is of little interest to people living in England. This is 1928, not today, I hasten to add, but it may explain why we are so familiar with the plight of Russian refugees from the 1917 revolution who came to Paris or London but know little about those who went east and arrived in China. Kate Furnivall’s novel, inspired by her own mother’s life story, came as a revelation to me.

Fifteen-year-old Lydia lives with her feckless mother in the international settlement in Junchow. Quick-witted, resourceful and, of course, beautiful, Lydia is also an accomplished pickpocket and it is this which precipitates the novel’s complex and far-reaching plot. This is a huge saga of love and loss, politics and gangsterism, peopled with rich and memorable characters. It is, however, over-long and marred by some sloppy writing in parts – a market stall which shouts, for example, and a stationary engine described as heaving – and those are in the first ten pages. What a pity Furnivall did not have the benefit of a good copy editor.

For this reader, alas, the ordinariness of the writing spoiled what should have been a unique and irresistible read. A good story deserves to be well written, yet I was left with the overriding impression that the author and her editorial team believed its intrinsic strength and originality were enough on their own. The novel has done very well – and I am delighted for Kate Furnivall that it has – but I lament the apparent fact that the more people there are reading novels, the less discerning they seem to be about the quality of the language.

Recommended with reservations.

Sarah Bower KING HENRY Douglas Galbraith, Harvill Secker, 2007, £16.99, hb, 409pp, 9780436206283 1915. America is debating its response to the war in Europe. Enter Henry Ford, selfmade billionaire and owner of the Ford Motor Company. He is a genius with engines but

HistoricalNovelsReview curiously blind to human emotions, preferring to ignore them. He’s against war – it’s bad for business. He firmly believes that if cars are cheap enough to enable people to travel abroad, they would see that foreigners are human, too.

War would then become impossible.

Encouraged by the forceful peace-activist Rosika Schwimmer, he vows to devote his fortune ‘to get the boys out of the trenches by Christmas’. He charters a Peace Ship, the Oscar, and prepares to take the great and the good of America – all expenses paid – to Europe, to broker a peace deal. To his surprise, the great and the good stay away, but for others it’s the opportunity of a lifetime. Soon, the ship is full of journalists hoping for a good story and cranks and idealists of every persuasion. The Oscar sets sail for Christiania (Oslo), and, inevitably, high-mindedness rapidly descends into farce as the usual murky emotions emerge on this ship of fools.

Galbraith ingeniously tackles this extraordinary episode by having a number of interweaving first person narratives. Some are close to Ford, like his chauffeur-cum-bodyguard Ray, and the redoubtable Rosika. Others are more distant, like Inez, the beautiful journalist.

Their differing viewpoints make up a rich kaleidoscope of stories which come together in an increasingly mad cacophony on board the Oscar.

I enjoyed this book – there was some laughout-loud humour, too – but it took too long to get into. There are nine separate stories to take on board in the first seventy pages alone, and I sometimes lost track of who was who. All the same, this is a fascinating look at a bizarre episode.

Elizabeth Hawksley THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING KENNEDY Laurie Graham, HarperCollins, 2008; $24.95/C$26.95, hb, 368pp, 9780061173523 / Fourth Estate, 2007, £11.99, pb, 326pp, 9780007228843 Nora Brennan, newly arrived from Ireland, narrates her life as nursery and companion servant of the renowned Kennedy family. But reader, beware: Nora’s tale is no sanitized version of the Kennedy family’s pre-Camelot days.

Referring to Joe Kennedy as Mr. K and Rose as “Herself,” Nora reveals the complex side of both. We read how both plotted and planned every second of their children’s lives, from what they were allowed and forced to read, their lack of friends, their fiercely competitive games generating support and animosity, their attempts to warn each other and hide associations that would flip out their parents, and so much more.

In multiple comic and also distressing scenes, Nora describes Rose Kennedy as a directive but totally absent mother, frequently leaving her children to go shopping and touring in Europe while her children forged on without her. Nora

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Issue 44, May 2008 is merciless in her descriptions of Rose, deriding her with humor and scornful commentary as well as through dialogue with fellow servants.

The novel also spans the family’s slow but steady rise in politics, including Joe Kennedy’s financial support of FDR’s election, his time in England as the U.S. ambassador, the family and servants’ contrasting roles during the long years of World War II when England was often bombed on a daily basis, and of course the all too well-known tragedies of Joe’s and “Kick” Kennedy’s deaths.

As harshly judgmental as this diatribe against Joe and Rose can get, this fictional account is a rousing good read that hits the mark with a comically satirical edge. Very nicely done, Ms. Graham, but, alas, the Kennedys won’t be inviting you to dinner after this one. Bear it like a Kennedy! Hold your head high and smile at all times!

Viviane Crystal RAISINS AND ALMONDS Kerry Greenwood, Poisoned Pen Press, 2007, $24.95/C$29.95, hb, 207pp, 9781590581681 This is the ninth installment in Kerry Greenwood’s series featuring Phryne Fisher, a wealthy, fashionable private investigator in Melbourne, Australia, in 1928.

Phryne is dancing with her latest lover, young Simon Abrahams, when his father asks her to investigate the murder of a Jewish student in a bookshop. Miss Lee, the bookseller, has been arrested, but after an interview with her, Phryne can tell that she is innocent. Phryne finds mysterious alchemical symbols in the dead man’s pockets, and she soon discovers that he was involved with a group of Zionists.

What is the connection between the symbols and Zionism? Phryne and friends—her maid Dot, her adopted daughters Jane and Ruth, the Communist taxi drivers Bert and Cec, and Detective Inspector Robinson—must find the killer before an innocent woman is executed.

Phryne is a delightful character—clever and independent, with an unconventional lifestyle, and the author gives us wonderful insights into Jewish life in Australia in the 1920s. This was the first Phryne Fisher mystery I’ve read, and, although I do think I have missed something by not having read the previous volumes, I still had no problem sorting out the characters. I am eager to read more of Phryne’s adventures.

Vicki Kondelik THE STORY OF A MARRIAGE Andrew Sean Greer, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008, $22/C$24, hb, 208pp, 9780374108663 / Faber and Faber, 2008, £12.99, pb, 288pp, 9780571240982 This is a book that prides itself on its plot surprises, and begs readers not to give them away.

So, to provide the bare bones, the protagonist, Pearlie, is a young woman who considers herself lucky to have married her childhood

20th Century sweetheart, now back from the war. She settles down to housekeeping and raising a young son in the Sunset District of San Francisco, in 1953.

One morning a man appears, an old army friend of her husband, Holland. Or is he? He claims he and Pearlie can help each other. As their strange relationship develops, she begins to question the very foundation of her marriage. She discovers she scarcely knows her husband at all.

The carefully crafted language of this book makes it a pleasure to read. The period details are a treasure. The author does a good job of leading the reader to certain expectations so that plot twists do surprise. My only complaint was that the husband, so central to the book, fell flat as a character. Movie-star handsome he might have been, but I had no sense of any personality, except maybe a faint glimmer toward the end.

For me, the greatest mystery throughout most of the book was why the fascinating Pearlie felt such a deep love for so shallow a character.

Sue Asher THE LAZARUS PROJECT Aleksandar Hemon, Riverhead, 2008, $24.95/ C$27.50, 304pp, hb, 9781597789884 History and literary narrative are inextricably interwoven in MacArthur “Genius Grant”winner Hemon’s latest work. Two stories are told: one is of Lazarus Averbuch, an Eastern European Jewish immigrant in Chicago, who had lived through the horror of the pogroms and refugee camps in Eastern Europe, only to die at the hand of the Chicago Chief of Police (“Shippy”) in March of 1908. The second story is that of the narrator, Brik, who is also an immigrant to Chicago, arriving in America in 1992 just before war broke out in his Bosnian homeland.

Brik’s obsession with the story of Averbuch— was he an anarchist? Why did he go to Chief Shippy’s house that morning?—leads him to retrace the steps of Lazarus and his sister Olga, as they left behind their disintegrating world for the promise of a better life in America. Brik takes along his fellow-Bosnian friend and garrulous photographer Rora, and they make their way through present-day Ukraine to Chernivtsi to Moldova and on to Sarajevo. During the journey, Rora regales Brik with accounts of the war in Bosnia, the heroes, the escapes, the deaths; Brik pieces together what he feels is the story of Lazarus and Olga, from the fragments he finds (or doesn’t) of their world.

There are layers of echoes between the two narratives: protagonists who will always be treated as perhaps-untrustworthy foreigners, who have hopes of creating better lives; the similarities between the early 20th-century treatment of outsiders and some of the current policies aimed to prevent terrorism in the U.S. also reverberate. This carefully-crafted work, along with its supporting photographs, is at once a fantastic tale of Eastern European life, a lesson in two centuries of (in)humanity, and an eerie reminder that those who don’t learn from past

HistoricalNovelsReview errors are condemned to repeat them.

Helene Williams THE MAN WHO KILLED SHAKESPEARE Ken Hodgson, Five Star, 2007, $25.95, hb, 247pp, 9781594145988 In 1932, Shakespeare, New Mexico, is barely surviving the Depression and quietly, steadily slipping downhill. Lett Halsey has inherited the Roxy Jay Saloon, but he had no expectations as he arrives in Shakespeare to take possession of his legacy. The Roxy Jay’s clientele are almost all out-of-work miners who drink beer on credit. In lieu of wages, the bartender is eating as much food as he can consume. In addition to the saloon, Lett has also acquired several cabins out back, only two of which are occupied. Lett moves into the one that has been his brother’s home. The other is rented by Delight Jones, an aging prostitute. Then Sam Ransom, a con man on the run from a bad deal in San Francisco, arrives to open The Last Chance Mine. He hires a small crew of men, makes Lett his foreman and sets them to getting the old, abandoned mine ready to go into production. No one is more surprised than Sam when they find a rich vein of high grade gold and silver.

Ken Hodgson has written a poignantly funny story peopled with wonderful characters. From the Roxy Jay’s hangers-on to the sleazy con man and pompous, self-righteous bankers who are not above a little larceny to the down-andout miners who have known hard work most of their lives, this novel screams authenticity. It is

Issue 44, May 2008 Grapes of Wrath and Paper Moon wrapped in a unique, vividly descriptive view of a deserted mining town gasping out its last breaths.

Audrey Braver BIRDS IN THE SPRING Evelyn Hood, Sphere, 2008, £6.99, pb, 484pp, 9780751537321 It is 1920 and women are no longer prepared to take a back seat in business. Fiona MacDowell is determined to inherit her father’s furniture emporium in spite of opposition from her half brother, Alex. Whilst Alex’s wife, Rose is running the thriving dressmaking business called Harlequin. Conflict between the women flares, and further trouble brews with the arrival of Irish cabinetmaker, Joe McCart. Maybe the arrival of an unplanned baby will ensure the inheritance goes one way or another.

There is nothing more compelling than a writer describing places she knows well. When Evelyn Hood writes about Paisley, she does so with such obvious affection that it is a joy to read.

From her opening description of Hogmanay celebrations the reader knows they are in safe hands. Birds in the Spring is compulsive reading throughout.

Sara Wilson THE PENNY BANGLE Margaret James, Robert Hale, 2007, £18.99, hb, 224pp, 9780709083887 It is 1942 and a nineteen-year-old munitions worker, Cassie Taylor leaves Birmingham to become a land girl in Dorset. When she arrives

Y THE INVENTION OF EVERYTHING ELSEEDITORS’ CHOICE

Samantha Hunt, Houghton Mifflin, 2008, $24/C$26.95, hb, 272pp, 9780618801121 / Harvill Secker, 2008, £12.99, hb, 368pp, 9781846551925 In 1943 Louisa and her father Walter live alone in a house in Hell’s Kitchen. Louisa is a chambermaid at the Hotel New Yorker, and her father is the night watchman at the New York Public Library in Bryant Square. Walter is a dreamer who has spent his life mourning the loss of his true love, Louisa’s mother, who died an indeterminate amount of time before. His one passion is science and science fiction, a passion he shares with his best friend Azor, who has been mysteriously missing for the past two years.

Enter the true hero of the piece: Nikola Tesla, an old, impoverished inventor living on the 34th floor of the Hotel New Yorker (visitors can still stay in that room). Louisa, who cannot resist snooping in the rooms she cleans, finds her way into his extraordinary abode and discovers a remarkable life, written in hidden papers. But things take a strange turn when Azor turns up again out of nowhere, claiming to have built a time machine that gives Walter hope that he can return to the past and have just one more conversation with his beloved wife, Freddie.

To try to encapsulate this remarkable story, how Hunt weaves together the threads of several lives—current and in times past—in a poignant and believable dénouement would be to do this beautiful novel a disservice. From the language that creates a magical atmosphere imbued with longing and possibility, to the perfectly paced, inevitable and yet surprising drama, The Invention of Everything Else is a joy to read.

A word of warning: you may just fall hopelessly in love with the striking Mr. Tesla, with the winsome Louisa, the dreamy Walter, the preposterous and impractical Azor, and the solid, secure Arthur, Louisa’s beau, and possibly find yourself wishing that you could turn the clocks back and enter their world.

Susanne Dunlap

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EDITORS’ CHOICE

Sadie Jones, Chatto & Windus, 2008, £12.99, hb, 347pp, 9780701181758 / Harper, 2008, $24.95, hb, 352pp, 9780061374036 Set in a middle-class commuter town in southern England in the late 1940s and 1950s, this is a highly accomplished first novel. The story begins with Lewis Aldridge, in his late teens, arriving home on his release from Brixton prison after serving two years for an unknown offence. The tale unfolds of the circumstances leading up to his incarceration and then the disturbing events following his return to home life in fictional Waterford (not to be confused with the town in Ireland). Lewis is a disturbed and difficult young man, but we are taken through the events in his young life, starting with the death of his mother in a drowning accident whilst picnicking. Lewis grows up bereaved in a cold and bleak domestic environment, with his father quickly remarrying.

The milieu of harsh home life and culture of the England in the 1950s are pictured with acute and searing honesty.

There is the hypocrisy of the small community, churchbased and yet utterly selfish and sanctimonious, and the delights of hidden domestic abuse, drunkenness and repression. Lewis finds some relief in this paean of gloom, notably with his developing relationship with Kit Carmichael, the rebellious and abused daughter of Waterford’s wealthy alpha-male. This is excellent historical fiction, both an engaging story and a work of literary finesse.

Doug Kemp at the Denham family’s farm she meets army officer twins, Robert and Stephen Denham who are convalescing at home after being wounded at Dunkirk. At first she is drawn to lively Stephen but then she falls deeply in love with his brother.

When Robert returns to active service, Cassie joins the ATS and meets up with him again in Alexandria where Robert asks her to marry him.

However, when Robert is reported missing in action Cassie finds Stephen hoping to take his place.

This is a lovely story, and Cassie is a spirited

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heroine. The love triangle that ensues creates a dilemma that makes you wonder how it will turn out in the end. Being in love with twins may be a familiar tale that has been played out before, but Margaret James’s story holds your interest up until the last page. Good characterisation and a strong story line make for interesting reading.

Karen Wintle THE DIPLOMAT’S WIFE Pam Jenoff, Mira, 2008, $13.95/C$13.95, pb, 352pp, 9780778325123 / Mira, 2008, £6.99, pb,

EDITORS’ CHOICE

A.L. Kennedy, Knopf, 2008, $24.00, 288pp, 9780307266835 / Vintage, 2008, £7.99, pb, 288pp, 9780099494058 Alfie Day has been an RAF tail gunner and a starved, beaten POW. Five years have passed, and Alfred is the sole survivor of his bomber crew. He is also among the millions of walking wounded, living in the scarcity and devastation of post-war Britain. A fishmonger’s battered son, he’d half hoped the war would end a life he’d been taught was worthless. Now he endures survivors’ guilt and a swarm of stabbing memories, the agonizing hyper-realities of childhood abuse and twenty-nine bombing missions.

The author’s exquisite prose carries the reader past the near dumb shows of Day’s conversation, deep into the clear, swirling eddies of his mind. This is a man who knows more than he shows, who is frozen by the violence he’s endured. Hoping to find his way out of paralyzing numbness, he travels to Germany to take part in a film set in a death camp. Here the past, both in memory and in the form of an SS man now passing as a partisan, confronts him. He remembers, hopelessly, the few moments of tenderness in his life, a wartime affair with a married woman.

Occasionally the stream of consciousness left me behind, but the superb precision of the writing brought a knockout punch to each and every page. Day gives the reader World War II warts and all, stripped of pieties or flag-waving. Ms. Kennedy, who has won prestigious awards for earlier works, again demonstrates a humbling mastery of her art.

Juliet Waldron

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Issue 44, May 2008 416pp, 9780778302001 This is the follow-up to the author’s debut novel, The Kommandant’s Girl, a tale centering on a woman reluctantly thrust into the Polish resistance during World War II. The Diplomat’s Wife picks up the story of a secondary character, Marta Nederman, a fellow resistance fighter.

Having survived Nazi imprisonment, Marta embarks on a new life after the war, however one not without tragedy. She endures the loss of a good friend, as well as a passionate American lover, before finally building a new life in London. Now married to an English diplomat, and the mother of a child, she lives a comfortable, if disturbingly sterile, way of life.

However, the pull of her past proves irresistible, and Marta soon finds herself on a mission back to Eastern Europe. Only this time the enemy, in the guise of the new Communist masters, is even more cunning and unpredictable.

This novel, a much more conventional romance than the author’s first effort, takes a while to really get going. When it finally does, the plot and pace are much more reminiscent of the earlier book. This is Ms. Jenoff at her best, relating a story of an ordinary woman suddenly immersed in the deadly world of espionage. Plot twists abound in this tale, and to say many of the characters are not who they seem is putting it mildly. However, unlike many works these days, the author ties them all up neatly in the end, coming to an exciting and satisfying conclusion.

Ken Kreckel THE ANGEL GANG Ken Kuhlken, Poisoned Pen Press, 2007, $14.95, pb, 226pp, 1590584090 “Turn on the radio, would you, Denny? … Find something loud, with horns.” So begins this Jazz Age crime drama. It’s a time of contradictions, with music blaring out Americans’ emergence from post-World War I senseless chaos and death. Its softer sounds reflect the entire country’s yearning for peace and prosperity.

Tom Hickey, a clarinetist and saxophonist, has found such a place of deep love and contentment with his wife, Wendy. In the final days before their son Clifford’s birth, Hickey gets an upsetting telephone call about an old girlfriend, Cynthia Tucker Jones, who’s been accused of arson and murder. Wendy encourages the caring, capable, former private investigator to use his formidable skills to help Cynthia. But little does Wendy know that his decision will spin him back into a world of enemies, rivals, Mafia-type underworld residents and a multitude of other shady characters.

While this drama plays out, including several kidnappings and violent encounters affecting even Wendy herself, the reader receives a small dose of historical events that weakly tie into the actual story. The Angel Gang is a phenomenal crime novel but very light historical fiction.

Viviane Crystal

20th Century THE WINTER OF THE WORLD Carol Ann Lee, HarperPerennial, 2007, $13.95/ C$16.50, pb, 319pp, 9780061238819 Love, betrayal, and a terrible debt to pay are the themes of The Winter of the World, the debut novel of biographer and children’s book author Carol Ann Lee. The themes are familiar, but the novel plots a course of its own. It starts with a gloomily subdued narrative, on Armistice Day, November 10, 1920, when Britain communally mourns the Unknown Warrior, a nameless soldier who is about to be buried in the heart of London, in Westminster Abbey, a symbolic ceremony meant to symbolize the bringing home of the thousands of missing young men who have died in the Great War. The novel then goes back in time, centering on Alex Dyer, a journalist who has made his reputation at the frontlines; his childhood friend, Ted Eden; and Ted’s wife, Clare, a nurse, the beautiful woman they both love. Sweepingly dramatic and mysterious, The Winter of the World is told mostly from Alex Dyer’s point of view, with Clare bringing here and there a balancing counterpoint.

Carol Ann Lee manages and succeeds with difficult narrative approaches. She can paint with an epic brush and meticulously describe apocalyptic battles, sounds, sights, and particularly smells. The landscapes too, both before and after the war, are gripping—first the nightmarish craters and thickets of barbed wire, and then the wastelands populated by ghosts and mourning families on “battlefield pilgrimages.”

She can also be eloquently, poetically intimate when summoning the heartache of a forbidden encounter “in a small hotel room illuminated by remote gunfire… [when Alex] passed through the looking glass of war into another world, one that haunts him still.” There are poignant allusions to Brooke, Owen, Remarque, McCrae, and Rilke, and of a whole generation of young men sacrificed and left disabled on the fields of Flanders. Absorbing, to the very last line.

Adelaida Lower THE END OF EAST Jen Sookfong Lee, St. Martin’s Press, 2007, $23.95, hb, 256pp, 9780312379854 Lee’s book, first published in Canada by Knopf as a “New Faces of Fiction” novel, is her first novel, full of promise. Perhaps the story of three generations of the Chans, Chinese immigrants to Canada, is autobiographical, but it’s not a happy read. The cultural isolation caused by racist governments never is.

Seid Quan arrives in Vancouver in 1913 at eighteen hoping to make a good life for himself.

He begins his life in Canada, returns to China to find a wife, spends a few happy weeks with her, then it’s back to Canada to scrimp and save so that he can pay head tax to bring her and his son to live with him. Quan dreams of his family being together, but when his son finally arrives, aged fifteen, they are two strangers. It’s heartrending to read that passage.

HistoricalNovelsReview As he works and waits, Seid Quan lives like a hermit in China Town, and his steady habits and determination find him working his way into a barber’s shop. He remains there for the rest of his life, saving for his wife and son, earning enough for a little house and garden away from China Town. He is respected for his determination and his discipline, but he is lonely, for his wife and son will always be close, and the family he longed for will never be his – those years apart prevent it.

The book has a present-day narrator, the mixed up young Chinese-Canadian granddaughter, who takes us between the past hell of her dreadful family life, her present hell of a life and of her grandfather’s and father’s lives. The weave didn’t quite work for me; I ended up with little sympathy for anyone except the grandfather. However, it’s a fascinating book and worth reading.

Patrika Salmon COME WITH ME TO BABYLON Paul M. Levitt, Univ. of New Mexico Press, 2008, $24.95, hb, 240pp, 9780826341785 This is not a typical, endearing Jewish immigrant story. In 1908 it was Esther’s Cohen’s dream to leave Russia and go to America. She is certain that it is the best opportunity for her family. Her husband, Meyer, who is something of an armchair Socialist, dreaming of his family’s property that had been confiscated by the Tsar, reluctantly complies, although his heart is with their older, estranged, revolutionary son, Jacob.

The Cohens are headed for Vineland, New Jersey, to become farmers. While they await the construction of their farmhouse, they stay in New York City. Fanny, the daughter, gets a job as a seamstress with the Triangle Shirtwaist Company and, although injured, survives the infamous fire. Ben, the younger son, meets, befriends, and becomes a minor associate of Arnold Rothstein. While this friendship often provides Ben with the wherewithal to come to the financial rescue of his family, it also causes him to resort to a marriage of convenience and forsake his dream of being a miniaturist.

Mr. Levitt has written a poignant tale, possibly a more realistic account of the immigrant experience than is often seen. Although the story unfolds in the first person from the points of view of the different characters, it is not in the least distracting; in fact, it keeps the reader always in the picture. Come with Me to Babylon is rich, earthy, and entertaining.

Audrey Braver IN THE MEANTIME Robin Lippincott, Toby, 2007, $22.95/ C$20.95/£12.99, hb, 170pp, 9781592642007 Kathryn, Starling, and Luke meet as young children in small-town America in 1931, and become fast friends. In this novel, we follow their intertwined stories for seventy years, until just one is alive and the other two exist only as memories.

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Issue 44, May 2008 Though Starling is so light-skinned many people assume he is white, he is in fact part African-American, which means he, Kathryn, and Luke must preserve their friendship in face of societal prejudice. As adolescents, Luke and Starling have a drunken sexual tryst.

Afterward, Starling, a homosexual, for the first time reveals that he is in love with Luke. Luke, who is sexually repressed, recoils. Eventually the platonic friendship is repaired and the three seek new lives in New York City, where they will again confront racism, and will find unequal measures of success, love, and disappointment.

The story is told mainly through exposition, which is beautifully crafted but results in our viewing many events from a distance. There is little dialogue, and few fully developed scenes.

History provides a backdrop: World War II, the execution of the Rosenbergs, and finally 9/11.

The friends see Billie Holiday perform at her best, and then after drugs have shattered her. At one point, the action abruptly shifts to Hiroshima on the day the atom bomb is dropped, and we glimpse Japanese friends not very different from Kathryn, Starling, and Luke. The Japanese and American characters never meet. Later, we are told about friends who were sent to Auschwitz.

At times the author strains too hard to hammer home a lesson about people’s common humanity.

But this brief book conveys a poignant sense of the fleeting joys and sorrows of ordinary life.

Phyllis T. Smith THE MISREMEMBERED MAN Christina McKenna, Toby, 2008, $24.95/C$29.95 /£14.99, hb, 303pp, 139781592642199 I could never laugh at “Fawlty Towers.”

John Cleese’s performance as a man falling apart was painful for me, not funny. I found this book the same. I think others may well laugh at Jamie McCloone’s struggles to find a life and wife. But the chapters between Jamie’s current struggles tell of his past struggles as an orphan in the 1930s, in one of Ireland’s dreadful Catholic orphanages. I found the story of his upbringing too horrifying to laugh at, and saw his struggles as a man were not about finding a life, but about finding the love he’d never had.

That anyone could simply number children (Jamie was number 86) and visit the sins of the parents upon them in such a grim style appalled me. That this novel is soundly based on research and tales from the orphans made me shudder.

That any of those children actually survived the physical and mental cruelty, never mind the lack of love, seems a miracle.

One can see why Ms. McKenna would tell of Jamie’s bumbling attempts to find a lady friend through the local newspaper’s Lonely Hearts Column with a lighter touch, and the ending is delightful. However, the book is not a pleasant escapist read, but more a book to ponder.

Patrika Salmon SHADOW WALTZ Amy Patricia Meade, Midnight Ink, 2008,

20th Century $13.95, pb, 240 pp, 9780738712493 This is the third in a series featuring mystery writer and amateur sleuth Marjorie McClelland.

It’s 1935 in Ridgebury, Connecticut, and Marjorie is happily planning her wedding to wealthy and suave Creighton Ashcroft III. Her bliss is disturbed by a distraught young wife and mother, whose husband is missing. The police have dismissed her concern and have made no attempt to locate him. Sympathetic, Marjorie and Creighton agree to take her case.

They quickly discover that the uptight, ambitious husband, an insurance claims adjustor, had a mistress. Things become very serious when they discover the mistress’s dismembered body in the cellar of her home. Everyone assumes that the husband is guilty, but Marjorie has her doubts. It turns out that more than one person had a reason to want the mistress dead.

Marjorie’s former beau, Detective Jameson, is assigned to the case, and she and Creighton bet him that they can solve the murder and locate the missing husband first. This was a light and breezy historical mystery, with a likeable heroine, that was lots of fun to read. I wish I had read the first two!

Jane Kessler THE HOUSE AT RIVERTON Kate Morton, Atria, 2008, $25.95/C$28.99, hb, 473pp, 9781416550518 / Pan, 2007, £7.99, pb, 599pp, 9780330448444 In the halcyon days before the First World War, Grace Bradley goes to work as a maid at Riverton House and becomes inextricably involved with the Hartford family, especially the two diametric daughters, intelligent Hannah and beautiful Emmeline. Later, in 1924, a young poet commits suicide, and only three people know the truth behind the events—Hannah, Emmeline, and Grace. Fast-forward to 1999.

A movie is being made about the poet and Riverton House, and Grace, now in a nursing home, is consulted for “historical accuracy.” In flashback form, Grace slowly tells Hannah and Emmeline’s real story.

The blurbs with this novel bill it as “reminiscent of the romantic suspense of Daphne du Maurier,” and there are elements of this, but it also smacks heavily of McEwan’s Atonement and Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day in the ambience and some of the characterization, as well as incorporating elements of other works.

The overall effect of the novel is… derivative. It also lacks the sharpness and polish, respectively, of these two authors, but Morton’s prose is well-written—often attractively evocative and the imagery vivid. She valiantly attempts to impress the upstairs/downstairs dynamic on a modern audience to which it is alien—to illustrate the mindset of those who took pride in subservience, rather than be constrained by it. Most of the characters are archetypes, but they fit in comfortably with the story, which is itself a familiar construct. Occasionally the dialogue rings false for English society of

HistoricalNovelsReview the time period, and this may spring from the fact that Morton is an Australian native. The atmosphere is the strong point of this tale, as the storyline of betrayal and secrets, though interesting enough to pull the reader along to the end, is not particularly gripping. On the whole, a comfortable read, if a bit overlong.

Bethany Latham IT’S ONE OF OURS Joan M. Moules, Hale, 2007, £18.99, hb, 224pp, 9780709083627 This is a story that begins on the day of the first air raids in London, 1939 and weaves a story that surrounds the life of four women, Anna, Queenie, Rosie and Liza, living in the same street during the Second World War, finishing in 1945 after Germany’s surrender. We enter into their lives and each has their own story but they all circulate around a single street.

This is a story of love lost and love found.

There is a lot of tragedy but also joy, especially at the end of the tale. What makes this book more interesting is not so much the story it tells but how a community comes together and adapts during war, and it makes it more realistic because the author lived through the war herself.

I’ve been reading a lot of World War II stories, and they all seem to follow a regular pattern, the lives of those left behind. This is one in the same mould – it centres around one street and the lives of the inhabitants there, all scarred by the war. It is well written, sometimes sad but all through there is a spirit of hope that at the end of the story peace has been declared and this sense of community will survive.

Karen Wintle WAVE OF TERROR Theodore Odrach (trans. Erma Odrach), Academy Chicago, 2007, $19.95, pb, 350pp, 0897335627 Like much of what went on in the Soviet Union during the Stalinist years, Wave of Terror is a revelation. Odrach experienced the upheavals of the time, then emigrated to Canada where he wrote about the terror of that time, his work largely unknown and unread.

I was quite taken with this novel, the story of a schoolmaster who views up close the coming of the Russian “liberators” into Belarus in 1939 and the chaos that follows. Anyone who knows the history of the time will know that the people of Eastern Europe were caught between the Wehrmacht and the Red Army for six years as the two grappled for the continent. But Odrach’s canvas is a village where the dramas of the era are played out in the lives of its inhabitants.

Kulik, the main character, muses early on that the lives of people rise and fall only to be forgotten instantly. This takes shape when a horse thief becomes the party exemplar for the Bolsheviks, and the townspeople vie for pieces of the carved-up farm they have coveted for years. Though they expect to enter a paradise of equality and abundance, instead they find their

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Issue 44, May 2008 lives spiraling out of control.

When I put this book down, I found myself curious not only about the other works of this author, but also his life. Much of the novel, like others of its kind, gives one the impression of an eyewitness who, to paraphrase Malraux, has not come back from his time in hell with empty hands.

William Thornton THE LAST STATION Jay Parini, Canongate, 2007 (c1990), £8.99, pb, 372pp, 9781841959672 This ambitious book sets out to give an account of Tolstoy’s final year (1910) that blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction. Parini was inspired to write it after finding a diary

by Valentin Bulgakov, who acted as Tolstoy’s secretary during the last months of his life, and wherever possible Parini quotes directly from the writings and reported conversations of Tolstoy, his wife and children, as well as from descriptions left by Tolstoy’s circle of friends and attendants. In doing so, Parini has to achieve that tricky balance between authenticity (especially when dealing with literary figures of Leo Tolstoy’s calibre) and the need to sustain the narrative. That he succeeds is indicative of Parini’s skill as a writer. Interestingly, Parini once claimed that he makes “few distinction between straight biographies and novels. They both are works of fiction. Fiction means ‘shaping’ in Latin. I shape reality in both genres.”

The novel explores the growing conflict between Tolstoy’s worldly success – notably the luxury he and his wife and sons have grown accustomed to – and his spiritual convictions.

Inevitably, his wealth also gives rise to the question of who will inherit the right to publish his works – his wife or the Russian people. The final circumstances of Tolstoy’s death are quite extraordinary, and the portrait of this great author so revealing that, like me, you’ll be compelled to re-read some of his earlier works.

Lucinda Byatt THE LAST COWGIRL Jana Richman, Morrow, 2008, $24.95, hb, 294pp, 9780061257186 Seven-year-old Darlene (Dickie) Sinfield’s life takes an altering turn when her teacher father decides to uproot his family from Utah’s suburbs to its ranching mountains in the early 1960s. Thirty years after her escape, she returns for a midlife course correction.

Told in alternating present and coming-ofage ‘60s time periods, we follow a sensitive youngest child of three as her imperfect birth family expands to include widow Bev, who loves her ranch life and Dickie’s mother, and Merv and Stumpy, an inseparable grandfather/ grandson team. Dickie hangs doggedly onto both her longing for the suburbs and her best friend Holly, who betrays her at every opportunity.

Traveling from the angst of youth to the darker anguish of adolescence, Dickie resents the

20th Century

HistoricalNovelsReview

Y KILLING ROMMEL

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Steven Pressfield, Doubleday, 2008, $24.95/C$32.00, hb, 333pp / Doubleday, 2008, £12.99, pb, 335pp, 9780385613880 North Africa, 1942. The British Eighth Army is in trouble. The brilliant and daring tactician, Field-Marshal Rommel, and his Panzer divisions have captured Tobruk, giving them a base from which to capture the vital oil fields of the Middle East. The Long Range Desert Group, a small, heavily-armed yet highly mobile force, is set up to get behind the German lines and cause as much damage as possible – preferably by killing Rommel.

Young Lieutenant Chapman finds himself seconded to this new commando force. Once behind enemy lines, they have only themselves to rely on. Chapman must learn fast if he and his mates are to carry out their objectives – and survive.

In war, a man learns who he truly is. Chapman has this epiphany and learns both his limitations and, paradoxically, that he can push himself far beyond what he ever imagined.

At the end of the book he says, ‘I did not go to war gravely and soberly as Lao-Tzu tells us a wise man ought. But I returned from it that way.’

This is a first-class war adventure: fast-paced, accurate without being pedantic, full of danger, chases, and hairbreadth escapes as Chapman and his men in their worn-out tanks and rapidly diminishing supplies somehow manage to keep one step ahead of the Germans. But Pressfield is too good a writer to ignore the brutal realities. He does not allow his readers to forget that soldiers get killed, sometimes agonizingly, and that military authorities can be incompetent. There is chaos as well as quiet heroism. If you want insight into the reality of life at war, as well as thrills, this is the book for you.

Elizabeth Hawksley And for a second opinion…

Up until now I never believed it would have been possible to have a story featuring Erwin Rommel and the Long Range Desert Group leave me begging for those two critical words “The End.” Steven Pressfield has done the necessary spadework: he can write with authority on the LRDG warriors, their equipment, and their missions, and he has a definite feel for listing the dangers of life and war in the desert. The problem is, he simply can not make his characters seem as if they are anything but a list of names.

They never are fleshed out enough to give them that life that is so critical for a work of fiction. Anyone could have written a story like “Journey’s End.” Could anyone other than R. C. Sherriff have made the central figures live and breathe?

Pressfield’s tale focuses on the British need to assassinate the “Desert Fox.” If the brilliant and unorthodox panzer officer is killed, the 8th Army will stand a better chance in the desert fighting. A British tank officer finds himself seconded to the larger-than-life special operatives of the LRDG in this long-range and hazardous journey behind Axis lines to find and kill Rommel. Ride along if you are more patient and forgiving than I. John R. Vallely ranching life even as both the life and Stumpy embed themselves into her being. As soon as she comes of age, she heads for Salt Lake City and her career as a journalist.

But the landscape of her youth and the deep emotional life she’s left behind exerts its pull when the tragic death of her brother brings her home. The circumstances of the death mirror a government cover up of a nerve gas accident years before, aided by a town “proficient in forgetting inconvenient facts.” But her brother’s death triggers personal reflection as well, for

this woman who can only cry in the desert and who’s finally decided that thirty years is long enough to let things go unsaid between herself and the love of her life.

Lyrical and heartbreaking, The Last Cowgirl’s climb back home is sure to please readers of Pat Conroy and Barbara Kingsolver.

Eileen Charbonneau THE SPANISH BOW Andromeda Romano-Lax, Heinemann, 2008, £12.00, pb, 553pp, 9780434017102 / Harcourt,

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Issue 44, May 2008 2007, $25.00, hb, 560pp, 9780151015429 In the wake of 9/11, American journalist and travel writer Andromeda Romano-Lax asked herself: if I could write about or do only one more thing with my life what would it be?

Longing to immerse herself in beauty and hope – the sound of which had always been the cello – she began work on a biography of Pablo Casals, the anti-fascist cellist. As the work developed, fictional protagonists claimed centre stage, in post-colonial Spain lurching towards civil war, 1930s Berlin, and Nazi-occupied France. The result is this remarkable novel.

In 1898, six-year-old Feliu Delgardo accompanies his mother to a railway station in rural Catalonia. She is expecting the remains of her husband, killed by insurgents in colonial Cuba. In the box that arrives, however, are belongings for Feliu and his siblings. Feliu chooses a cello bow. He is apprenticed in anarchist Barcelona, and then the royal court in Madrid where he is befriended by English-born Queen Ena. Partnership with piano prodigy Justo Al-Cerraz and Italian Jewish violinist Aviva, whom both men love, forces Feliu to confront questions the author was asking herself post9/11: in difficult times, is art an indulgence or a necessity? Must I sacrifice my own happiness to what is going on around me?

The writing is vivid, lyrical, engaging, the fictional characters rooted in their time, perhaps best exemplified by the tragic, divergent lives of Feliu’s two elder brothers. A book to savour, pause over, read a second time.

Janet Hancock AN ATLAS OF IMPOSSIBLE LONGING Anuradha Roy, Quercus, 2008, £14.99, pb, 346pp, 9781847244789 This a poignant love story spanning three periods of India’s turbulent history between 1907 and the mid 1950s and three generations of Amulya Babu’s family. As she traces the successive waves of love and loss that affect their lives, Anuradha Roy’s female characters loom larger than life: we witness Kananbala’s slow descent into dementia, Larissa Barnum’s fading beauty and the scandal of her long-kept secret, Meera’s imprisonment in traditional widowhood with its endless fasting and denial, and lastly Bakul herself, whose fiery spirit seems doomed to be quenched by the flood of monsoon waters that drowned her mother. But it’s also a true portrait of India and rich in detail and colours: from the exotic plants and flowers collected by Amulya himself and Bakul’s father, to the mysterious ruins of the fort at Songarh, and the noisy stench of Calcutta.

This is a story to be savoured for the beauty of the writing and the excellent construction, and above all because “life is made of brick and stone,” and even the most impossible longings can be achieved “brick by brick.”

Lucinda Byatt DREAMERS OF THE DAY

20th Century Mary Doria Russell, Random House, 2008, $25.00/C$28.00, hb, 272pp, 9781400064717 / Doubleday, 2008, £12.99, hb, 272pp, 9780385614542 Mary Doria Russell takes readers from postWorld War I Ohio to Egypt and back again in this roman à clef of the creation of the Middle East as we (mostly) know it today. Narrator Agnes Shanklin speaks to us from the afterlife, where she is able to overlay her great tale with the perspective of time. Her story is that of a shy, plain teacher in Cleveland, all alone after the mortality of the Great War and the Great Influenza; she inherits a little money and decides to spend it on a trip to Egypt, following the footsteps of her now-deceased sister’s wedding sojourn. One of her sister’s friends from that time turns out to be none other than T. E. Lawrence (“Neddy”), and once Agnes meets up with him upon her arrival in Cairo the action moves quickly.

Lawrence is attending the famed Cairo Conference of 1921, attempting to mediate the politics- and religion-riddled creation and boundary-setting of countries including Iran, Iraq, and Palestine. Agnes meets the aloof, intellectual Gertrude Bell, befriends a young, imperialist Winston Churchill, and is intrigued

by Karl Weilbacher, a German “businessman” who Lawrence repeatedly implies is not in Cairo by chance, and who loves Agnes’s dog Rosie nearly as much as she does. As Agnes’s feelings for Karl deepen, so does her understanding of the issues in the post-Ottoman Empire world, and the reader is privileged to sit in on highlevel meetings, experience the heat and crowds of Egypt, and live through incidents revealing the insight and power of Lawrence.

Agnes returns to reality, and the hard times of the 1930s and beyond—about which she moralizes from the afterlife, which is a rather clunky device. However, this is a stimulating read overall, and an excellent fictional supplement to Georgina Howell’s biography, Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations.

Helene Williams ‘All men dream, but not equally,’ wrote Lawrence of Arabia. ‘Those who dream at night awaken to find it vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men …’ The influenza pandemic of 1919 leaves Agnes Shanklin the only survivor of her family, and beneficiary of three legacies. A teacher in small-town Ohio, she takes a Cooks’ tour two years later to Egypt and the Holy Land, arriving in Cairo with her dachshund Rosie as the Peace Conference is getting under way. Here are young Winston Churchill, T.E. Lawrence, Lady Gertrude Bell, inventing the nations of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, the reverberations of their decisions still felt throughout the Middle East today.

Entertained and escorted by both Churchill and Lawrence, and by Karl Weilbacher, a German spy who has shadowed Lawrence since his days as an archaeologist, Agnes is drawn into

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geopolitical intrigue and towards a personal awakening.

Told entirely in the first person from Agnes’s viewpoint, looking back on her life in a chatty, confiding manner: ‘Well, my goodness,’ and ‘I’m getting to that,’ and even asking what the reader would have done – and in a bizarre twist in the final chapter, apparently from beyond the grave – the book skilfully blends real and fictional protagonists: the Churchills, Lawrence and Bell are all convincingly drawn. Agnes’ visit to Jerusalem reads like a travel diary, but the details are authentic and add richness and colour to what is ultimately a sad life. I felt rather sorry for her.

Janet Hancock

authorities she must appear to be his wife, and a private marriage ceremony is arranged.

Harry has no taste for this charade, there is a girl back home waiting patiently for his return but Major Carlsen assures him that as soon as they get safely to England he shall be free of this marriage of convenience.

The bulk of the story concentrates on Harry and Irena’s many adventures and narrow escapes before they reach their final destination. After being thrown closely together for many weeks the developing relationship between the two is inevitable, and there is a nice little twist at the end. From the author of the Adams Family sagas this is another entertaining read.

Ann Oughton

ON ACCOUNT OF CONSPICUOUS WOMEN Dawn Shamp, Thomas Dunne, 2008, $23.95/ C$27.95, hb, 320 pp, 9780312379971 In 1919, Richmond debutante Ina Fitzhugh, widowed after just a few days of marriage, decides to make a change and take a teaching job in the small town of Roxboro, North Carolina, “the Courteous City.” There, she meets three other young, unmarried women: Beatrice “Bertie” Daye, who’s campaigning to get women the vote and who’s the only woman in the county with a Model T; Guerine Loftis, Bertie’s stylish cousin, who’s just had her hair bobbed; and Bertie’s friend Doodle Shuford, who tends geese on her family’s farm and harbors literary aspirations. Over the next year or so, the four friends’ lives will take some astonishing turns.

I confess that my heart sank when I saw that Shamp has an M.F.A. in creative writing, because I’ve seen too many literary novels by writing-school graduates written to dazzle one’s fellow students with one’s genius rather than to do something as plebian as please the common reader. I’m glad to say that my misgivings were for naught. This first novel is a wonderfully humorous, humane tale of small-town Southern life in a rapidly changing nation, yet it’s a story that doesn’t sentimentalize its setting or skirt ugly issues such as poverty and racism. Shamp’s characters are vivid, original, and entirely believable. The writing sparkles—there’s a quotable bit on nearly every other page, even in the “Note to the Reader” section. On Account of Conspicuous Women is conspicuously delightful.

Susan Higginbotham

A PERFECT WAITER Alain Claude Sulzer (trans. John Brownjohn), Bloomsbury USA, 2008, $19.95, hb, 224pp, 9781596914117 / Bloomsbury, 2008, £12.99, hb, 224pp, 9780747590231 Erneste is a perfect waiter: now, in 1966 at the Restaurant am Berg; in 1934, at the Grand Hotel in Giessbach, Switzerland; and in the thirty-two intervening years. Shadowlike, he appears to meet the needs of diners and guests before their requests are voiced. Unflappable, impassive, he remains quietly in the background in the lives of all around him—and, it turns out, his own as well. For Erneste is indeed a perfect waiter, not only as one who serves others, but as one who postpones any action on his own behalf.

Where Erneste prefers to linger, mentally and emotionally, is the halcyon period in 1935 when Jakob, a young German seeking to avoid military conscription, arrived at the Grand Hotel and fell under the tutelage of the perfect waiter.

For his part, Erneste, while teaching Jakob the skills of diplomacy, averted eyes, and the best way to sweep the stairs in this glamorous hotel, falls under the spell of Jakob. Although their relationship is brief, and Jakob soon leaves Erneste and his quietly broken heart behind, it remains Erneste’s raison d’être three decades later, when he one day receives a letter from his erstwhile lover. Jakob is in America, in some sort of trouble, and he claims only Erneste can help, by approaching the famous author Julius Klinger—the very man who took Jakob away from him.

John Brownjohn’s spare translation is riveting: for a novel in which not very much happens (other than waiting), a lot actually does transpire, in the form of flashbacks and a final confrontation, in which Erneste is forced to acknowledge that the past is over, that all humans are flawed, and that forward movement, while perhaps slow, is inevitable.

Helene Williams

A WARTIME MARRIAGE Mary Jane Staples, Corgi, 2008, £5.99, pb, 399pp, 9780552150897 It is 1918 and Captain Harry Phillips is a prisoner of war in a Romanian hospital. When Major Carlsen tells Harry that he can go home his joy is short-lived when he learns that one condition dependant on his freedom is that he must escort the Princess Irena of Moldavia safely to England. In order to convince the

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BLEEDING HEART SQUARE Andrew Taylor, Michael Joseph, 2008, £16.99, hb, 480pp, 9780718153731 Legend has it that the Devil once danced in Bleeding Heart Square and, even in 1934, it

20th Century is an unlikely hiding place for genteel Lydia Langstone. Escaping from an abusive marriage, Lydia turns to her estranged father who lives at number seven. There she finds herself drawn into the mystery of the disappearance of Miss Philippa Benlow, middle-aged spinster and owner of her father’s lodging house.

Parcels of animal hearts, a struggling journalist and a plain-clothed policeman all have a part to play in unravelling the truth of what happened to poor Miss Benlow and explaining the sinister undercurrents that swirl around the goings-on in Bleeding Heart Square.

Situated in the Golden Age of the crime novel, this convoluted story, partly based on a real-life Victorian murder case, is told by the various inhabitants of Bleeding Heart Square and through a series of intriguing diary entries.

Set against a backdrop of Mosely Blackshirts, political upheaval and social change, Andrew Taylor’s gothic novel grips the reader from the opening pages. This is not just a run-of-themill mystery novel but literature of the highest quality.

Sara Wilson A PALE HORSE Charles Todd, Morrow, 2007, $23.95/C$27.95, hb, 360pp, 9780061233562 Tenth in the Inspector Ian Rutledge series, A Pale Horse finds Rutledge searching for a missing man in Berkshire, in whom the War Office takes a great interest. What does this man have to do with a body found in Yorkshire’s Fountain Abbey, wrapped in a cloak and wearing a gas mask? Rutledge makes connections that his superiors would rather he didn’t make.

Investigating in the small community, his questions raise suspicions and he is met with hostility (a usual occurrence in a Rutledge investigation).

With each book in the series, Todd (a mother-son writing team) deepens the reader’s understanding of Rutledge, who was shellshocked in World War I, and as a result hears the voice of Hamish, a Scottish soldier whose execution for desertion he ordered, in his head.

In this outing, Rutledge’s relationship with his sister Frances is given more play, a comfort to a man who otherwise cannot confide his secrets to others. The mystery reaches back into one of the worst inventions to come from the war, and its devastation extends to the present, affecting more than just those who fought. Todd’s books are always sober affairs but nothing less than absorbing.

Ellen Keith AN EXPERT IN MURDER Nicola Upson, Faber & Faber, 2008, £12.99, hb, 292pp, 9780571237708 / Harper, 2008, $24.95, hb, 304pp, 9780061451539 This is the first in a projected murder mystery series featuring the author Josephine Tey. There are now many such published books and series based on writers such as E.A. Poe, Jane Austen

HistoricalNovelsReview and others – yet this has a mark of sound quality.

The writing is excellent and the tale well plotted and effective.

Josephine is in London in 1934 during the highly successful performance of her play, Richard of Bordeaux at the New Theatre. She is involved in solving two murders associated with the play and the theatre; assisting her is close friend, D.I. Penrose of Scotland Yard. It is a complicated tale with many subplots and roseate herrings. The leitmotif of the novel and ultimate solution can be found in the still malevolent shadow of the Great War, which continues to have a malign influence on most of the main characters – battling against the trauma or the grief that ripped so many lives apart and left such a harsh legacy on British society.

Josephine, herself a complex character, was also left a spinster after the death of her lover, and she never married.

This is a profound novel, yet with the delights of an intriguing mystery. I look forward to the forthcoming books in the series.

Doug Kemp BLACK WIDOW E. Duke Vincent, Bloomsbury USA, 2008, $24.95, hb, 286pp, 9781596913899 Vinnie Vesta left Hell’s Kitchen in 1950 to find a better life. Now post-college, he leads an idyllic life in Jacksonville, Florida, as a U.S. Navy pilot and womanizer far removed from the organized crime of his youth. When one of Vinnie’s copilots dies in an accident, the Navy discovers that he was secretly married, and

Y THE SEVENTH WELL

Issue 44, May 2008 Vinnie is tasked with escorting the body home to California. Vinnie finds that the marriage had been short and was almost over, so the mutual attraction between widow Caitlin Pennington, a rising starlet, and Vinnie is quickly consummated, and they pledge eternal love.

Unfortunately, her mob-affiliated father does not approve and plays dirty to break them up.

Vinnie finds his mafia connections are needed to help him keep his dream girl.

While the big names in the 1950s mob scene and events are historically accurate, the premise of the book tests one’s suspension of disbelief.

Despite the widow’s impending reasons for divorcing, the rapid seduction seems ill-advised considering the rapid demise of her marriage and husband the last time she hastily hooked up with a pilot. No attraction other than sexual seems to exist, which does not seem to warrant the risks they take to be together, especially considering Vinnie’s past and her quest to be a movie star.

The first book in the series, Mafia Summer, is helpful to read first. Otherwise, the names and relationships do not resonate with the proper significance. The first book deals with the world of organized crime and violence, while the second focuses more on Vinnie’s shallowfeeling relationship with Caitlin. Gangster fiction addicts may want to read the first book in this series. Otherwise, fuggetaboutit.

Suzanne J. Sprague PAVEL & I Dan Vyleta, Bloomsbury USA, 2008, $24.95, hb, 304pp, 1596914513 / Bloomsbury, 2008,

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Fred Wander (trans. Michael Hofmann), Granta, 2008, £12.99, hb, 160pp, 9781847080226 / W. W. Norton, 2007, $23.95, hb, 192pp, 9780393065381 The Seventh Well was originally published in East Germany in 1971, but not until its reissue in 2006 did it begin to achieve the notice it deserves. Its life story is thus not dissimilar to that of Primo Levi’s If This Is A Man, which sank almost without trace on its first publication in 1947 but has gone on to be recognised as one of the greatest works of Holocaust literature. I fervently hope Fred Wander’s novel will achieve the same reputation. Although it is a novel, and Levi’s book is a memoir, there are many similarities between them – their brevity, their anecdotal structure, their memorable cast of everyday heroes, but most of all, their total freedom from judgmentalism. What is the point, they seem to say, in even trying to understand what the Nazis did to the Jews and other ethnic groups?

All the writer can do is bear witness, chronicle faithfully and meticulously his experience and those of his fellow prisoners, and let the events speak for themselves. This Wander does, with the same painful honesty as Levi. His narrator is no storybook hero, no beacon of moral rectitude and fearless valour. He is often ashamed of himself for surviving because this involves him in moral abnegation and a narrowing of focus which reduces him, in his own eyes, to little more than an animal. Conversely, he is always compassionate and often very funny about the men with whom he shares his existence in the camps. His humanity is not lost, merely dormant, and triumphs in his writing.

This is one of the best books I have read so far this year, which is a tribute as much to Michael Hofmann’s eloquent and unobtrusive translation as to Wander himself. I cannot recommend it too highly.

Sarah Bower

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20th Century-Multi-Period £12.99, hb, 352pp, 9780747591931 Set in Berlin during the deadly cold Christmas season of 1946, this is a story of intrigue and murder, peopled with armies and spies at the beginning of the Cold War. Pavel Richter is a decommissioned American soldier who, for reasons not made clear, has chosen not to return home. Although he suffers from a kidney infection that could be fatal, he has taken under his wing an illiterate, orphaned street urchin named Anders, to whom he reads Dickens’ Oliver Twist, which at times seems to parallel Anders’ own life. Pavel’s existence is further complicated by feelings for the beautiful Sonia, his prostitute neighbor, whose several lovers include a friend of Pavel’s, a midget who is a Russian agent, and a brutal British general, any of whom may be the enemy.

Dan Vyleta, a Czech, has written a suspenseful novel, rich in vivid description of the challenges and horrors suffered by civilian populations in the immediate aftermath of World War II, when essential services such as electricity, telephone, and water are only sporadically available to the general population. Civilians live in houses, half of which are bombed-out rubble, chopping up furniture for firewood. The true necessities cost a fortune and can only be purchased on the black market. Mr. Vyleta has written this novel in English, his second language, and occasionally there is an odd sentence structure. The story shifts back and forth from straight narrative to first person point of view that, at times, is jarring. Nevertheless, Mr. Vyleta does a superb job of putting the reader in the time and place.

Audrey Braver PICKLE TO PIE Glenice Whitting, Ilura Press, 2007, AU$30.95, 256pp, pb, 9781921325021 The premise of this “based on fact, veiled in fiction” novel is similar to Anne Landsman’s The Rowing Lesson: an elderly man dying in the hospital, unable to communicate with his children, reviews his life. In Whitting’s case, the narrative is much cleaner, with no confusion as to who is speaking and what time period is being relived.

Frederick Fritschenburg is a secondgeneration Australian who was raised by his Grossmutter and Grossvater after being rejected by his mother. It was Grossmutter who decided she and her family must leave Germany after a family tragedy, and in Australia she mourns the loss of her home country, and who instills in Fredi the ways of late 19th-century Europe: healing illnesses with herbs, reading the Bible, venerating one’s elders. Fredi, however, is confronted by current events, which early on include taunts and beatings from his classmates for being of German descent, his exclusion from his mother’s new family, and later, two world wars and the conflicted emotions surrounding them.

The episodes in Fredi’s life, such as picking herbs by the railroad tracks with Grossmutter,

HistoricalNovelsReview looking for work during the Depression until his feet bled, and his struggle to unite his upbringing with the present day, are all deftly told. Even though much of Fredi’s life is difficult, with many painful episodes, Whitting maintains a positive tone, showing the reader that Fredi did indeed live, grow, and make peace with his family, both past and present.

Helene Williams STRATTON’S WAR Laura Wilson, Orion, 2008, £9.99, pb, 447pp, 9780752872645 This is the first of a planned series of crime novels set in 1940s London. DI Ted Stratton is a decent man in an ever-darkening world, struggling in both his professional and personal life. He is tasked with investigating the gruesome death of silent screen star Mabel Morgan. Despite opposition from his superiors he starts asking questions of this apparent suicide. This sets in train a complex series of murky events and even murkier characters at the top and bottom of war time society. As the city endures its daily ration of bombs, blackouts and watered-down beer, Stratton soon understands that his case is linked to a MI5 investigation into a secretive pro-fascist organization. He must tread carefully as the intrigues of the Secret Service are alarmingly similar to those of wartorn London’s underworld. He is dealing with powerful men who have the ability to destroy his career.

Wilson portrays wartime London with a deft touch, blending contemporary detail with well-drawn characters, especially those from the working class. Stratton’s domestic scenes work especially well with convincing dialogue.

Unfortunately the book loses its way slightly over the final third with the plot taking too long to unravel to maintain the tension right through to the denouement.

Gordon O’Sullivan THE TEARS OF AUTUMN David Wiltshire, Hale, 2007, £18.99, hb, 224pp, 9780709084068 For Biff and Rosemary Banks, newly wed, their honeymoon in Italy is an adventure, one only improved by the close relationship they form with Konrad and Anna, another couple staying at their hotel. At the conclusion of their holiday, the couples pledge to meet again when possible, but as World War II looms large on the horizon, their goodbyes are tinged with sorrow.

The Tears of Autumn follows Biff and Rosemary’s fortunes as they struggle to come to terms with the war and their roles in it; their concerns for Anna and Konrad in Germany give them a unique perspective—because Konrad, like Biff, is in the military.

Fans of World War II fiction will enjoy this unique tale. Framed by Biff’s elderly reminiscences, the story takes several unexpected twists to reach an unexpected destination, fuelled by coincidence. The author

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Issue 44, May 2008 capably develops the relationships that this novel hinges on, between the two couples and between Biff and Rosemary. A well-researched solid novel for fans of the genre.

Erica Stretton MY ENEMY’S CRADLE Sara Young, Harcourt, 2008, $24.00, hb, 384pp, 9780151015375 Cyrla, child of a Polish Jewish father and a Dutch mother, is sent to live with her late mother’s family in Holland on the eve of World War II. It is hoped her Germanic blondness will be enough to keep her safe. She forms a close bond with her cousin, Anneke, who is in love with Karl, a German soldier. Cyrla has the opportunity to assume Anneke’s identity and escape immediate danger by entering a Lebensborn home for unwed mothers in Germany. In these homes, racially “pure” young women receive shelter and fulfill the exalted role of breeders for the master race. Of course Cyrla is not pregnant, but she remedies that with lightening speed, though it is left unclear whether the child’s father is Isaak, her Jewish lover, or a German soldier who rapes her.

At times, the plot relies too much on fortuitous twists. Anneke’s Karl appears at the home, expecting to find her there and instead finding Cyrla. Karl and Cyrla swiftly discover that they love, not, respectively, Anneke and Isaac, but each other. It was easier to believe that Karl was deeply attracted to Cyrla even while he was involved with Anneke than that Cyrla’s feelings would change so quickly. Cyrla’s first-person voice, that of a survivor recounting her tale, often seems absolutely authentic, but she never confronts her feelings about her child’s doubtful paternity in a way that rings emotionally true.

However, the chilling depiction of Hitler’s attempt to recreate the world in his own demonic image through selective breeding, and the constant sense of Cyrla’s peril, make this a gripping novel.

Phyllis T. Smith

N MULTI-PERIOD n THE LAST GOSPEL David Gibbins, Headline, 2008, £12.99, hb, 418pp, 9780755335145 1st century CE: the lame Claudius, not yet Emperor of Rome, travels to Galilee where he meets a charismatic young carpenter, Joshua of Nazareth, and is inspired by his philosophy of heaven on earth. Claudius records the carpenter’s words on a scroll that he takes back to Rome. Later, after the Nazarene is crucified, and after Claudius becomes emperor and then fakes his own death, he contrives an ingenuous plan to hide this secret gospel of Christ from those who would destroy it.

21st century: archaeologist Jack Howard and his team of researchers first learn of this last gospel when excavating Claudius’s secret library near Pompeii. Following the trail of

Multi-Period

HistoricalNovelsReview

clues Claudius has laid out, their quest takes them from Italy to London, California, and finally Jerusalem. All the while the mafia and elite Vatican henchmen are hot on their heels, willing to stop at nothing to prevent Christ’s true message from being discovered.

This novel suffers in comparison with The Da Vinci Code, which it so clearly emulates.

Brown’s book, for all its flaws, inspired a wider debate on the mystery of Mary Magdalene and the divine feminine within Christianity.

However Gibbins’s central theme that the historical Jesus would have been mortified by the ungodly deeds of power-mad churchmen through the ages seems rather obvious. Those who aren’t hungry for deeper revelations might enjoy the book as a fast-paced, escapist read.

Mary Sharratt

pirates and taken to Morocco to be auctioned off as slaves. Riveted, Julia decides to escape her heartache by journeying to North Africa, determined to prove the authenticity of the book, and to find out what happened to Cat. Switching between the stories of Julia and Cat, Johnson captures an exotic, turbulent world in which past and present are smoothly woven into a mesmerizing story. With an unearthing of a romance between clashing cultures, and with a budding romance of her own, Julia discovers herself, what happened to Cat, and how to live happily ever after. Johnson, inspired by her own experiences and ancestral history, has created a tale of mystery, intrigue, and cultural history.

Despite a somewhat lukewarm ending, The Tenth Gift is well worth a read.

Rebecca Roberts

THE TENTH GIFT (US) / CROSSED BONES (UK) Jane Johnson, Crown, 2008, $25.95, hb, 400pp, 9780307405227 / Viking, 2008, £12.99, hb, 384pp, 9780670917310 In present-day London, Julia Lovat receives a goodbye gift from her lover: a book of 17th century embroidery patterns which belonged to a woman named Catherine Ann Tregenna.

Interested in the book because of her love of embroidery, Julia begins to read. She soon discovers this is no ordinary book, but a secret diary. She learns that Cat and others were stolen from their Cornish church in 1625 by Muslim

SOUL Tobsha Learner, Forge, 2008, $14.95/C$16.95, pb, 425pp, 9780765320100 Soul is the story of Professor Julia Huntington, and that of her great-grandmother Lavinia Huntington. Julia, a renowned geneticist living in Los Angeles in 2002, is commissioned by the U.S. Department of Defense to research the genetically linked propensity to kill without remorse. She comes to realize that she is linked more closely to Lavinia, a spirited intellectual Irishwoman suffering under the unjust standards of Victorian society, more than anyone could have imagined.

Y THE MONSTERS OF TEMPLETON

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Lauren Groff, Voice, 2008, $24.95/$27.95, hb, 364pp, 9781401322250 / Heinemann, 2008, £12.99, hb, 384pp, 9780434017843 Willie (Wilhelmina) Upton, a doctoral student in archaeology who has gotten a bit too involved with a married professor during a dig in Alaska, returns to her hometown of Templeton, New York, to recuperate and to figure out what life holds in store for her. While she is moping about, her mother drops an explosive piece of news: Willie’s father wasn’t actually one of three possible hippies in San Francisco, but a fellow resident of Templeton. Willie’s mother sends her on a quest to find her father, giving her just one clue: he was an illegitimate descendant of Marmaduke Temple, the founder of Templeton. Willie begins to trawl through the family history to identify her father.

The author doesn’t hide the fact that Templeton is actually Cooperstown, New York, and the Temple family is the Cooper family, which included the famous author James Fenimore Cooper. A reader familiar with his work will find additional richness in this novel, but even one who does not know the stories will be captivated. Throughout the book, there are chapters written by various members of the Temple family and others who were involved with Marmaduke, giving great immediacy to what Willie is discovering through the distance of time. These chapters sometimes take the form of letters or testaments, and span the late 1700s to early 1900s. Willie manages to uncover a variety of family-related secrets during her search, all the time dealing with numerous stressful life events: the results of her affair, her mother’s new religious mania, her best friend’s illness, and the surfacing of the corpse of the longrumored Templeton monster from the depths of Glimmerglass Lake, which casts a pall over the town for much of the summer.

This multi-period, multi-textured novel is an absolute treat to read.

Trudi E. Jacobson

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Issue 44, May 2008 The book starts off rather jagged and confusing, but finally settles into a strong pace about one-third of the way in. The weaving together – and juxtaposition – of Julia and Lavinia’s stories is engaging, and I found that Lavinia and her doomed husband James jumped off the page.

The writing, in places, is maddeningly uneven – strangely shifting point of view within chapters and lovely description; stilted dialog in the modern-day sections and unique and thoughtful metaphors in the Victorian London sections.

There are distracting Britishisms in the mouths of American characters, and odd descriptions of modern life (a firefighter walking into a bar for a drink dressed in full turnout gear?). The bottom line is that Learner seemed to be more comfortable with the Victorian characters and settings, which ultimately is good news for historical fiction fans.

Overall, however, it is an engaging book, and I would recommend it for fans of murder mysteries, psychological thrillers, and those with an interest in the society and sociology of Victorian London.

Julie K. Rose SEPULCHRE Kate Mosse, Putnam, 2008, $25.95, hb, 560pp, 9780399154676 / Orion, 2008, £10.99, pb, 560pp, 9780752882949 Sepulchre is a tale of double crosses, murder, and the occult set in the 19th and 21st centuries, the interwoven story of Léonie Vernier in France in 1891, and American Meredith Martin in 2007.

Meredith is visiting France for research on her biography of Claude Debussy, and to learn the truth about her mysterious French ancestors. A chance encounter leads Meredith to a piece of 19th-century music known as “The Sepulchre,” and a pack of Tarot cards painted by Léonie Vernier more than a century earlier.

Léonie and Meredith’s paths cross—in time and place—again at the Domain de la Cade, outside the town of Rennes-les-Bains, in the Pyrenees of southwest France. The Domain was home to Léonie in the 19th century, and an eerily familiar grand hotel for Meredith in 2007.

The site of a series of tragedies for Léonie, the Domain also houses an ancient sepulchre which Meredith must find and open—to learn the truth of Léonie’s story, and Meredith’s past.

Mosse does an excellent job with pacing: the story, though complex, moves quickly and well. The mystery is unique and the historical detail excellent; she has successfully combined historical and speculative fiction elements into a cohesive whole. And while the language and phrasing can be simplistic, even trite, and the characters somewhat lacking in depth, the concept is unique and story itself still strong.

Overall a very enjoyable read.

Julie K. Rose THE ABYSSINIAN PROOF Jenny White, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008,

Multi-Period-Children & YA £12.99, hb, 344pp, 9780297851240 / Norton, 2008, $23.95, hb, 384pp, 9780393062052 1453. The eve of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks. Isaak Metochites prepares to flee the city with his family, taking with him a reliquary placed in his care. It contains The Proof of God, an ancient document carried from Abyssinia by his ancestors that could bring an end to all religious strife.

1887. Istanbul. Kamil Pasha is a magistrate charged with breaking up a ring stealing antiquities and sacred objects and smuggling them out to Europe. A battered reliquary is among the stolen items. An added complication is a series of murders. The dead are apparently victims of rivalry between gangs of smugglers, as each body is marked with the same four knife slashes.

Kamil’s investigations take him to the Sunken Village, where the descendants of Abyssinian slaves live by barter and fencing stolen goods.

The village is ruled by Balkis, priestess of a secretive cult. Kamil believes the Abyssinians and their cult are the key to the crimes. Attracted to Balkis and her forceful daughter, he uncovers through them secrets about his own family that leave him emotionally shattered.

White uses the genre of the period crime novel to present a fascinating picture of Istanbul. The plot may be slow to get moving but eventually becomes intriguing if occasionally predictable.

She is an anthropologist specializing in Turkish culture, so we are in safe hands as she leads us from Christian Constantinople to Muslim Istanbul. The 19th-century city is vividly drawn: the crowded streets, the crumbling buildings squatting on centuries of ruins, a colourful population from many races. We sense an empire slowly decaying, a backwater of Europe and not quite Asia. Kamil, an important magistrate and an aristocrat, has the reader’s sympathy when he is patronized by low-ranking officials at the British Embassy. He is an appealing hero. As for the Abyssinian cult and indeed, the Proof of God, real or not, they make a convincing and intriguing base for the plot.

Lynn Guest

HISTORICAL N FANTASY n BLACK SHIPS Jo Graham, Orbit, 2008, $14.99/$17.25, pb, 411pp, 9780316068000 / Orbit UK, July 2008, £7.99, pb, 352pp, 9781841496993 With his epic poem The Aeneid, Virgil established a mythological link between ancient Greece and Rome through Aeneas, a prince who fled Troy aboard ship with his fellow exiles, settled in Italy, and founded a new kingdom.

Graham retells this ages-old story from the viewpoint of Gull, an oracle who accompanies Aeneas on his nautical wanderings throughout the lands of the Mediterranean.

As the crippled, illegitimate daughter of a

Issue 44, May 2008

HistoricalNovelsReview slave brought forcibly to the Achaian city of Pylos after Wilusa (Troy) fell, Gull faces an unknown future until Pythia, speaker for the Lady of the Dead, takes her as her acolyte. At age seventeen, Gull becomes Pythia herself, in turn. When nine black ships carrying Prince Neas and his followers land on Pylos, they gather up the women of Wilusa taken prisoner years before and sail off to parts unknown, with Gull’s prescient abilities as their guide. They voyage from Byblos to Egypt to Mount Vesuvius, encountering many dangers—including storms at sea, vengeful Achaians, and a self-absorbed Egyptian princess. Gull must chart her own path, as a young woman hungry for knowledge, romance, and life’s plentiful offerings yet who is obliged to serve Death, and to speak with Her voice.

Graham excels at describing the landscapes of the ancient world and illuminating her characters’ spiritual lives; these passages ring with a pure, otherworldly clarity that evokes a true sense of wonder. Yet she is nearly equally skilled at choreographing action scenes, and the combination of both makes Black Ships a rare treat. Comparisons to The Mists of Avalon are somewhat apt, in that the novel revisits a familiar tale from a feminine perspective, yet it avoids Bradley’s gender-divisive approach. Despite a few modern phrasings, this is a welcome debut, well grounded in archaeological knowledge.

Sarah Johnson

N TIMESLIP n TESTAMENT Alis Hawkins, Macmillan New Writing, 2008, £14.99, hb, 568pp, 9780230700017 A debut novel for Alis Hawkins, Testament bridges time, beginning in the late 14th century and ending in the present day.

In 1385, master mason Simon of Kineton is given free rein by wealthy London vintner, Richard Daker, to build a college of learning for the common man with English as the medium of teaching – a dangerous concept in a period when the Roman church had the monopoly of knowledge and required prospective scholars to be priests and to acquire their learning through Latin.

Some 600 years later, Damia Miller is appointed to promote the now penniless Kineton and Dacre College. It is the discovery of a grotesque series of medieval panelled wall paintings during renovations that may hold the key to financial survival. She becomes determined to solve the enigma of these paintings, particularly when records show that Simon Kineton and his wife, Gwyneth, who was a master carpenter in her own right, waited twenty years for a son who was born imperfect.

Only the unlocking of the mystery will guarantee the future of the college.

The story, when set in a present day full of political correctness, is insufficiently cohesive and jars in transition to the past becoming, at

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times, repetitious, confusing and inconsistent.

The balance of the book is further disturbed as, gathering speed towards the end, the medieval period is curtailed, leaving the reader with unanswered questions. The feeling therefore is of two books pasted together, and the result is overlong.

Gwen Sly

N

ALTERNATIVE n HISTORY

ROME BURNING Sophia MacDougall, Orion, 2007, £12.99, hb, 472pp, 9780752860794 This is the sequel to MacDougall’s successful debut novel, Romanitas, but sadly I don’t think it makes much sense unless you have read that book first. Having said that, I thoroughly enjoyed the first book and this one also.

Marcus Novius, the heir to the empire, suddenly finds himself regent, and must cope with conspiracy within the empire from his ambitious cousin Drusus, who is desperate to be emperor, and hostile forces without. But Marcus is not alone, and when Drusus seems to have succeeded, he is aided by his friends as the world teeters on the brink of a global conflagration.

MacDougall develops the characters she introduced in Romanitas – the story is set three years after that book – and they are growing up fast. They are written with a deft touch that renders even the villains believable.

The background cannot be faulted – MacDougall clearly knows her stuff, but while I love alternate universe novels here, I’m really not sure that I quite buy the vision – I can’t help but feel this is really just ancient Romans with modern technology. However, MacDougall has created a workable and believable alternate history for the world from the time of Marcus Aurelius (her break point with our history) and has written a tense political thriller that I thoroughly recommend.

Cas Stavert

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CHILDREN & YOUNG ADULT n

RALEIGH’S PAGE Alan Armstrong, Random House, 2007, $16.99/ C$21.99, hb, 336pp, 978375833199 Andrew Saintleger is twelve, old enough to be apprenticed. His father writes to a childhood friend, the now-famous sea captain, Walter Raleigh, to ask if he will take the boy as a page.

Soon Andrew is on his way from Plymouth to London. Mr. Saintleger calls Raleigh’s London home “The College of the New World,” and so it proves to be. Andrew learns Mercator’s new geography, as well as practical skills such as making medicines, swimming, seamanship, and how to make invisible ink. He also uses knowledge he already has, helping the gardener

Children & YA maintain a nursery of mysterious New World plants.

As he gains his master’s confidence, he participates in Raleigh’s intrigues, and copies maps “borrowed” from the Spanish ambassador.

Their eventual voyage to Virginia is Andrew’s dream come true, but life in the plantation is difficult. The Indians are initially welcoming, so the boy makes friends and learns their language.

When greed destroys the peace, Andrew shares in the struggle for survival that follows. Historical fiction like this is useful in a classroom setting, but the sharp contrast between Andrew’s daily existence and that of a modern child’s might be even more instructive.

Juliet Waldron JOE RAT Mark Barratt, Red Fox, 2008, £5.99, pb, 312pp, 9781862302181 1866. Joe Rat, a ‘tosher’ who scavenges in the London sewers, is in thrall to ‘Mother’, who controls her patch ruthlessly and claims most of his finds. He is bullied, beaten and half-starved, but he manages to hide what he can in Poundfield, a disused pets’ cemetery backing onto a haunted house belonging to the ‘Madman’, a place feared by all.

Then comes a chance encounter with Bess, a country girl, brought to London by her mother’s fancy man, ostensibly to find her a respectable job, but in reality to sell her into a brothel. Soon Joe and Bess are on the run and the only safe place Joe knows is the Madman’s house – and rumour has it that he’s a murderer…

Barratt’s chosen setting is Shoreditch, in a slum depicted in Arthur Morrison’s A Child of the Jago (1896). Morrison’s ‘Jago’, which he researched personally, is as deprived, criminal and ruled by gangs as Barratt’s, but also a place whose inhabitants unite against the common enemy – the law, and where neighbours don’t ‘peach’ on each other. Barratt’s world, by contrast, is one where dog eats dog and offers Joe nothing: no hope of getting out nor even of having friends he can trust.

I found much of the book depressing. The blurb calls it ‘Dickensian’. Yes, the slums are as bad as anything in Dickens and some of the characters as grotesque, but Dickens’ heroes, unlike Barratt’s, have real friends and there is hope. At the end, Joe refuses the two decent homes he’s offered. Boys from destitute backgrounds could make good – Morrison himself did, as did the explorer Henry Stanley, a workhouse boy. But Joe ends the book as he began, uneducated, homeless and without friends. It will not be long before ‘Mother’ finds him. For 12 plus.

Elizabeth Hawksley PRIMAVERA Mary Jane Beaufrand, Little, Brown, 2008, $16.99/C$19.75, hb, 260pp, 9780316016445 Flora Pazzi is the youngest daughter of the second most illustrious family in Florence in

HistoricalNovelsReview the late 1400s. However, when we meet her, she is toiling in the hellacious atmosphere of a goldsmith’s workshop. Signor Botticelli has come to the store to arrange for a commission, a ring for his patroness, Lucrezia de Medici. But more importantly, he has brought the news that the Pazzi Conspiracy is considered concluded, and the Pazzis are no longer a threat to the Medicis. This leads to Flora’s tale of how she went from being the daughter (though one would hardly describe her as “pampered,” given her mother’s disdain) of such a prominent family to her role as a lowly apprentice. Her enticing story begins, “It was early 1478 when my family’s fortunes ebbed, like the waters of the Arno.”

Because Flora is not considered beautiful, like her sister, or suitable for marriage, she is allowed freedoms that normally would not be possible for a young girl in her situation. She spends time in the kitchen with her nonna, and even has a chance to train with the family guard.

Because we see Florence through Flora’s eyes, it is only gradually that we recognize the intrigue that is swirling around her family. When things go wrong, Flora does not hesitate to report on the violent turn of events. While limited, this perspective on the city of the time is vivid. I was completely entranced by this book, the author’s first novel. She has done a magnificent job.

Trudi E. Jacobson NICK OF TIME Ted Bell, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2008, $17.95, hb, 432pp, 9780312380687 Set in the summers of both 1939 and 1805 in the English Channel, Bell has fashioned a boy’s adventure courtesy of a time traveling orb invented by Leonardo Da Vinci. Twelve-yearold Nick McIver, growing up in a lighthouse family with a view “the most splendid in all of England,” is visited by a mysterious sea chest with his name on it: a call for help from an ancestor in Nelson’s navy.

Nick is soon up against both the vile timetraveling, dog- and children-napping pirate Billy Blood and a Nazi U-Boat and its mad captain and SS spies. Nick receives help from master British spies Lord Hawke and Commander Hobbes, who live on Greybeard Island’s mysterious lair.

Soon Nick, Hawke and innkeeper Gunner are off to aid his ancestor in 1805 while his little sister Kate joins forces with Commander Hobbes to turn the tables on their Nazi captors.

Once it overcomes a slow start, the story is full of pirates on top of the water and Nazis below.

Nick lassoes the U-Boat for a Nantucket Sleigh ride, and flies from the masts of his ancestor’s vessel. Plot-driven excitement, with moments that were, as Nick describes time travel, “magic itself,” the tale also suffers from sloppy editing and wooden, cliché-riddled dialogue. These lead, despite the novel’s formidable length, to an unfinished, inauthentic feel. Although its young readers are sure to enjoy Nick of Time, they deserve better. Ages 8-12.

Eileen Charbonneau

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Issue 44, May 2008 THE TIME THIEF Linda Buckley-Archer, Simon & Schuster, 2007, $17.99/C$21.00, hb, 512pp, 9781416915270 Second in the The Gideon Trilogy, The Time Thief also works well as a stand- alone novel. As a fan of time travel books, I was eager to read this one and am glad that I did. Twelve-year-old Kate has just arrived back from 1763 England, where she and her friend Peter were trapped.

Though happy to be home, she is torn by the fact she promised Peter she’d never leave him.

But he was left behind when the evil Tar Man hitched a ride with her to the 21st century.

Determined to rescue her friend, she convinces his father to help her and together they journey to the 18th century. Unbeknownst to them, the settings have been changed and they end up in 1792, encountering a grown-up Peter, who hides his identity from them. Even worse, their time machine has been damaged, and the one man who can help them is in Revolutionary France.

Adventure and intrigue abound as Kate, Peter, and his father set out to find and ultimately rescue the scientist they believe capable of mending the machine even as the Tar Man adapts quickly to the 21st century and discovers the means of his transport from the past. Soon he schemes to use it to his advantage, putting into motion a series of events that threatens not only Kate and Peter, but their entire world.

Replete with historical detail and flavour, this book certainly does take the reader back in time.

Kate is the heart of this story and will appeal to both girls and boys, while the plot twists and turns, keeping the pages turning at a remarkable pace. Readers young and old will thoroughly enjoy this rollicking tale of hide-and-seek through time.

Teresa Basinski Eckford FREEDOM TRAIN Evelyn Coleman, McElderry, 2008, $15.99, hb, 140pp, 9780689847165 Clyde Thomason has everything to live for and plenty to escape! His brother is serving as an Army Guard of the famed Freedom Train.

Touring the United States with its 127 historic, patriotic American documents, the train’s passage through large and small American cities and suburbs is inspiring a people exhausted from the suffering of the recent Depression and World War II. As the date for the Freedom Train’s appearance in Clyde’s hometown approaches, one student will be chosen to stand on stage and pronounce the Freedom Pledge. Will it be Clyde, who is more often than not the victim of bullies’ words and acts, or Phillip Granger?

And what will Clyde do with his thoughts and feelings that both compel him toward and away from William Dobbs the Third, the different newcomer boy who might turn out to be friend or just another enemy? Freedom Train is a young adult story that has several great historical plot lines eventually joining to create a believable, appealing ending.

Viviane Crystal

Children & YA IN THE HEROIC AGE OF BASIL II: Emperor of Byzantium Penelope Delta (trans. Ruth Bobick), 2006, Peter E Randall, $18.95, hb, 343pp, 1931807523 Set at the end of the 10th century and the beginning of the 11th, this story is about two young men during the struggle between the people of the Greek-speaking Byzantium Empire and the Bulgarians.

The story begins with sack of Adrianople by the Bulgarians. Constantine and Michael, his cousin, see Constantine’s parents slaughtered.

They themselves are taken prisoner and are made personal slaves to the Tsar Samuel of Bulgaria. But Nikitas, who is living with the Bulgarians but who is actually a Greek spy, secretly teaches the boys his craft, and when they grow up Constantine and Michael become spies for the Greeks too.

On one level this is an exciting historical adventure story as we follow the exploits of the two young men. And there is also the hint of mystery. Who is the strange mute Bulgarian girl?

And for whom is Father Gregory searching?

But the story operates on another level, a psychological one dealing with the themes of revenge and forgiveness and of divided loyalties.

Father Gregory tells Constantine that he should forgive the murderers of his parents, but Constantine says that there are some things that cannot be forgiven. Later Michael does manage to exact a dreadful revenge but afterwards he is plagued by shame and remorse.

This book also clearly illustrates the cruelty and brutality of the times. There is the description of the Bulgarians killing the unarmed inhabitants of Adrianople and tossing the bodies of babies in the air. There is an account of the Emperor Basil ordering 15,000 prisoners to be blinded. And there are details of the slow death by impaling.

It comes with are maps, historical notes and a glossary. This book was first published in 1911 and is a modern Greek classic. Young Adult.

Mary Moffat BATTLE FLEET: Trafalgar – 1805 Paul Dowswell, Bloomsbury, 2007, £12.99, hb, 291pp, 9780747883967 / Bloomsbury USA, 2008, $16.95, hb, 304pp, 9781599900803 In this third Sam Witchall adventure, Sam and his friend Richard have to work their passage home from Sydney to London on the merchant ship, Orion. In spite of the attractions of Miss Lizzie Barrow and her maid Bel, who are passengers on board ship, and a friendly cockatoo, all is not plain sailing. The passage though the East Indies is notorious for its fierce tropical storms and equally ferocious pirates and Sam and Richard encounter both – not to mention a hungry tiger who gives Sam and his friends a dangerous hour or so up a tree when they stop at one island to replace a broken mast.

Further dangers await them in London.

Napoleon is intent on invading England and the pressgang are looking for suitable recruits

HistoricalNovelsReview for the navy and Sam proves to be a prime target. Fortunately, he re-meets Robert Neville, whose life he saved in an earlier adventure, and Robert’s father, Lord Neville, offers to be Sam’s sponsor. Sam is ambivalent about going back to sea, but Lord Neville’s offer would make him a midshipman – a junior officer – something he could never have achieved on his own and the chance to go right to the top.

Sam and Robert find themselves on board HMS Victory, Nelson’s flagship, sailing towards an historic, and deadly, encounter with the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar…

I enjoyed this. There are plenty of adventures to keep the readers turning over the pages.

Dowswell gets across the hardships and brutalities of life on board ship, and in early nineteenth century London, as well as all the excitement of life on board the Victory at a turning point in our national history.

Boys (and some girls) of 10 plus should enjoy this book.

Elizabeth Hawksley Battle Fleet is a chaos-filled book and is very interesting. It’s interesting because of the way Paul Dowswell describes the emotions of the main characters. The one thing I didn’t like was that he lingered too long on the descriptions of scenes instead of just describing it and then getting on with the next event. I particularly liked the parrot called Sydney who was a very appealing and cheeky character. He’s funny and gives very rude answers to anyone who annoys

Y BEWITCHING SEASON

Issue 44, May 2008 him.

The book is set in 1805 on a battleship. The story is about two young boys who join the crew and face difficult times. All the crew on the ship gives the two a hard time just because they’re new. Eventually the crew begin to like them because they see that the boys are just like them.

I think it is an excellently gripping story, and Paul Dowswell is a fantastic writer.

Hal McNulty, age 10 QUEST Kathleen Benner Duble, McElderry, 2008, $16.99/C$19.99, hb, 240pp, 9781416933861 Quest is the story of the fourth of Henry Hudson’s voyages to try to discover the Northwest Passage to India, which took place in 1610. However, those left at home play as prominent a part as Hudson and his 17-year-old son, John, who accompanied him on the voyage.

The novel is composed of sections focused on four characters: John Hudson; Richard Hudson, his younger brother who was left at home with their mother in London; Isabella Digges, whose father is partially financing Hudson’s voyage of exploration; and Seth Syms, a young man who has taken his cousin’s place as a seaman on the Discovery to avoid a duel with an outraged husband in England. The Discovery makes it safely across the ocean, but trouble soon sets in as the weather gets colder: Henry Hudson is obsessed with finding a route to India and ignores the need to return home. Seth had no

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Marissa Doyle, Henry Holt, 2008, $16.95/C$19.75, hb, 352pp, 9780805082517 This delightful debut by Marissa Doyle bodes well for her career as a writer of young adult novels. Set during the months just prior to Queen Victoria’s ascension to the throne, Bewitching Season follows the adventures of apprentice witch Persephone Leland and her twin, Penelope.

The girls’ governess, Miss Allardyce, a powerful witch, disappears the week before the London Season begins, leaving the girls without her guidance during their coming out. Determined to find her, they join forces with their younger brother Charles, family friend Lochinavar Seton, and the Allardyce family, on a search that leads them into the depths of Kensington Palace, where they encounter an evil courtier with nefarious plans for Princess Victoria.

All the elements sure to appeal to teenage readers are here: a handsome young man, pretty dresses, balls, and a mystery to solve. Add the historical setting, beautifully drawn with just the right amount of detail, and the romance, with the aforesaid handsome young man, and it’s a hard tale to resist. The plot rolls along, alternating between the debutante balls and the gloomy palace.

Persephone is a wonderful heroine. Though talented at her studies, she lacks the confidence of her sister. Throughout the story she learns much about herself and those around her. This coming-of-age aspect adds depth to an already charming romp, broadening its appeal. The other characters are equally appealing and well defined, firmly rooted in their era. I especially liked young Charles, who bounded along with just the right combination of enthusiasm and boyish charm.

From the very first page, this book had me hooked, and it will join other favoured novels waiting to be shared with my nieces when they’re older. Very highly recommended.

Teresa Basinski Eckford

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Children & YA idea what life would be like at sea, but strikes up a friendship with John, and finds a measure of peace that his rough life in London did not afford him. Isabella is having quite an adventure— spying for England in a Dutch household rich in maps—maps giving information that England does not possess.

The sections of three of the characters are written in the first person, making them very vivid and also quite distinct. Young Richard’s sections are equally engaging, though written in the third person. Using the multiple narrator technique adds richness to the novel. There is an illuminating author’s note that indicates what is true. It also provides information on what happened to several of the characters in later life. Highly recommended. Ages 10-14.

Trudi E. Jacobson NOBODY’S PRINCESS Esther Friesner, Random House, 2007, $16.99, hb, 305pp, 9780375865281 Helen of Sparta is in many ways a typical young girl: she dislikes learning the boring carding and spinning that all women are expected to learn. She wishes she could do all the things that her brave, warrior brothers do.

And although still very young, she is beginning to feel the stirrings of womanhood with a combination of fascination, fear, and awe.

What she does not realize until her mother finally decides it is time to tell her is that she— not either of her brothers—is the heir to the Spartan throne, which always descends through the female line. Although she has a twin sister, it was Helen who first saw light.

With prescience and sensitivity, Helen’s mother turns a blind eye when Helen sneaks off to train in the arts of war with her brothers, and gives her more freedom than her younger twin sister Clytemnestra, who is soon to be married to a prince from Mykenae.

Friesner’s spirited imagining of the beautiful Helen’s youth is full of adventure and many realistic touches that bring to life the times of the ancient Greeks. From her ability to situate the gods and goddesses in the doings of everyday life, to her thoughtfully realized characters as seen through the eyes of someone who is still technically a child, the reader is drawn quickly into and through this excellent young adult novel.

In true Greek narrative fashion, though, it ends at a beginning—with the promise that a sequel is on the way. I, for one, cannot wait to see what happens next to young Helen. Ages 12 and up.

Susanne Dunlap NOBODY’S PRIZE Esther Friesner, Random House, 2008, $16.99, hb, 320pp, 9780375975318 Readers may be familiar with the legends and myths of Jason and the Golden Fleece, Medea, Hercules, and Helen of Troy, but Esther Friesner weaves these characters together in a teen novel that lifts them off those dusty pages

HistoricalNovelsReview

Issue 44, May 2008

and into a re-imagined tale of adventure and intrigue. Nobody’s Prize, the sequel to Nobody’s Princess, tells the tale of young Princess Helen of Sparta, who refuses to be left behind by her older brothers who head off to join Jason in his quest for the Golden Fleece. Disguised as a boy, Helen joins the crew as a weapons bearer, and her adventure begins. Battles ensue, a murderous princess is encountered, her life is threatened, and only through a treacherous escape can she return to her home.

Esther Friesner’s tale is as imaginative as the legends that inspire it. It is a thrilling comingof-age story that will undoubtedly please fans of Nobody’s Princess and garner new fans of the original timeless tales. Ages 12 and up.

Nancy Castaldo

definitely well worth the effort. Julie Hearn has managed to piece together a book that keeps you on your toes throughout! It raises important issues of the time it is set in, such as class division, slavery and women’s rights, as well as more personal problems for Hazel, such as the trials, maliciousness and hierarchy of the playground that every thirteen-year-old must face. Once in, I found it near impossible to put this book down, hanging on to each word whilst desperately willing Hazel not to make mistakes that she seemed blind to. An amazing read covering themes as varied as a Britain torn asunder by the suffragette struggle to a Caribbean, racked with racism and the misery surrounding the slave trade.

Rachel Chetwynd-Stapylton, age 15

HAZEL Julie Hearn, Oxford, 2007, £5.99, pb, 362pp, 9780192792143 London, 1913. Thirteen-year-old Hazel MullDare is being brought up as a young lady – in careful isolation from anything which might offend her ‘delicate senses’. But everything changes when, on Derby Day, she sees suffragette Emily Davison fling herself in front of the king’s horse. Why has she done it? And why does her father disappear the following day? Could it have anything to do with his gambling?

Then Gloria, a worldly-wise new girl at school, decides to educate Hazel and her friends in the ways of the world. Her plan involves a naive Hazel in an act of vandalism. Hazel is hastily packed her off to her grandparents, whose sugar plantation in the Caribbean is the source of the family fortune. Here, too, Hazel has things to learn: about the long shadow cast by slavery and her family’s part in it, and, above all, to question her own values.

I found this a curiously disjointed book.

I wasn’t convinced by the first half. Hazel veers between being a ninny and implausibly ‘knowing’, and the well-endowed Gloria with her louche boy-friend comes straight out of St Trinian’s. Furthermore, a reputable school in 1913 would have used Dr Bowdler’s expurgated Shakespeare – an error which affects the credibility of a major plot strand.

Once we are in the lush, tornado-swept Caribbean we are in Jean Rhys territory, where the Blacks and their ex-masters live in an uneasy symbiosis. Here, Hazel’s ignorance is entirely credible and her gradual understanding far more convincing. I like the way that Hazel’s state of the art typewriter is used by a mysterious well-wisher to leave messages, exactly as the cockroach Archy contacts Mehitabel the office cat in Don Marquis’s Archy and Mehitabel (1916). A nice period touch. I enjoyed this second half of the book. For 14 plus.

Elizabeth Hawksley

YOUR OWN, SYLVIA: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath Stephanie Hemphill, Knopf, 2007, 15.99, hb, 272pp, 9780375837999 Stephanie Hemphill, a poet in her own right, has fashioned a book of verse worthy of her subject. In chronological poems, she tells the story of the life of poet Sylvia Plath through the eyes of those who knew her well. Readers discover Sylvia’s life as experienced by her college boyfriends, roommates, friends, doctors, and her husband, Ted Hughes. Firsthand we see the struggles she faced juggling her life as a wife, mother and artist. The resulting poems comprise an intimate portrait of her life. Readers cannot help but feel Hemphill’s passion for her subject in what seems to be a work of reverence for her fellow writer. Brief notes offer helpful details to fill in Sylvia’s life. Your Own, Sylvia will find a place beside The Bell Jar on your shelf. Ages 12 and up.

Nancy Castaldo

I loved this book, although I have to admit the beginning did not immediately captivate me. However, taking time to read past this was

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IN THE HOUSE OF THE MAGICIAN Mary Hooper, Bloomsbury, 2007, £5.99, pb, 232pp, 9780747588863 1570s, Elizabethan England. When country girl Lucy flees from her drunken father and sets off to London to find work, she has no idea how far it is. The first day’s walk leaves her exhausted and hungry. The chance rescue of two small girls leads to her becoming a maid in the spooky house of real life Dr Dee, the queen’s magician and astrologer, who, it’s said, conjures up spirits of the dead.

Lucy, whose besetting sin is curiosity, cannot resist poking her nose into what Dee’s up to.

Soon, she gets more than she bargained for. She overhears a discussion between Lord Vaizey and Dr Dee concerning young Alice Vaizey, one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting who has died tragically. Vaizey begs Dr Dee to raise his daughter’s spirit from the grave and promises him thirty guineas. Later, Dr Dee asks Lucy to pretend to be Alice, and promises her two guineas. Lucy, who has just had news that her family has been left destitute by her father’s gambling, has no option but to agree. But now

Children & YA the dead Alice begins to haunt her dreams, begging her to ‘save the queen’. What does Alice mean? And what can Lucy do?

This lively first person narrative illuminates both Lucy’s intelligence and resourcefulness and the superstitious fears of the time. The credulous Dr Dee is well-drawn, too. The court’s anxieties about the threat posed by Elizabeth’s cousin, the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, is well brought out, as is the affection which Elizabeth inspired in her subjects.

It is full of fascinating historical detail, not only about life in the Elizabethan court, but also more homely things, like what people wore and ate and how they behaved. Generally (apart from some anachronistic tomatoes) the book would flesh out a study of Elizabethan England.

I enjoyed it.

Elizabeth Hawksley This is an adventure story with a hint of romance, set in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The author manages to engage you right at the start by telling you about Lucy’s rather violent father. It is quite exciting because you never know what is going to happen next. The characters and the setting are very good. The plot is imaginative, although the lead up to the climax isn’t as dramatic as it could have been.

I would say this book would interest girls more than boys, and would be a suitable reading age for 11 to 14 year olds. If you have read any other books by Mary Hooper you will know that they are very good and this is no exception.

Rachel Beggs, age 12 HEALING WATER Joyce Moyer Hostetter, Calkins Creek, 2008, $17.95, hb, 217pp, 9781590785140 Imagine being fourteen and diagnosed with a deadly disease. Now imagine being torn away from the loving arms of your family and sent alone to an unknown island to live with others who share your disease, where you must learn how to survive by whatever means necessary, knowing there is no hope that you will be able to leave. This is the setting of Healing Water, a young adult novel based on the real leper colony of Molokai in the late 1800s.

Filled with bitter anger over his abandonment by his beloved friend Kamaka, Pia allows himself to turn to the seamier side of the island’s inhabitants. Working for the evil Boki in order to keep a roof over his head and food in his stomach, Pia keeps mostly to himself and hates what he has become. His life takes a dramatic turn, however, when first Kamaka and then Father Damien, a Catholic priest, arrive on Molokai. Pia must either face his demons or find himself truly alone.

Healing Water is an engaging story that left me wanting to know more about Molokai and its unfortunate inhabitants. I found Pia both tragic

HistoricalNovelsReview and believable, and my heart broke for all those who found themselves ignorantly exiled there.

This book made a definite impression on me, and I can highly recommend it to readers of all ages.

Tamela McCann THE BEGGAR OF VOLUBILIS Caroline Lawrence, Orion, 2007, £8.99, hb, 253pp, 9781842551899 March, 81 AD. The emperor Titus is desperate to find the lost emerald, known as Nero’s Eye. According to prophecy, whoever possesses it will rule Rome – and rumours abound that the dead Emperor Nero is very much alive. Titus sends the four friends Flavia, Jonathan, Nubia and Lupus to Volubilis in Roman North Africa to find the emerald.

There is another reason for the friends to go: Flavia’s missing Uncle Gaius was spotted aboard a ship bound for Sabratha, a city on the North African coast. Can they find him and persuade him to come home?

But when they arrive in Sabratha, disaster strikes. The ship, which was to have taken them on to Volubilis, sails without them – taking all their belongings. Somehow, they must travel several thousand miles with no money. They join a pantomime troupe and begin the long trek across the desert –a place full of dangers from slave traders, sandstorms, thirst and mirages.

And there’s more: the leader of the troupe, Narcissus, has a hidden agenda – and one which could be politically explosive. The four friends will need all their courage as well as luck to find Gaius and reclaim Nero’s Eye for Titus.

I enjoyed this glimpse into Roman North Africa, called at the time ‘Rome’s bread basket’, though in places the plot was unnervingly reminiscent of Lindsey Davis’s Last Act in Palmyra, complete with travelling theatrical troupe, the hunt for a missing person and people pretending to be who they were not, all in a desert setting (though admittedly a different one). Caroline Lawrence has many young fans and I’m sure they will enjoy this latest adventure – and, at the same time, pick up a lot of information about this less well-known part of the Roman Empire.

Elizabeth Hawksley This is an adventure story, set in Africa in AD 81. It is very interesting because you honestly don’t know what is going to happen next. The descriptions are very good, and like the rest of the series, it has an excellent plot which, at points, is very dramatic. The author does a very good job of getting you into the story from the very first page. The ending is also very good, because it relates to things at the beginning that I had completely forgotten, such as Flaccus proposing to Flavia. It is a nice surprise.

I don’t think it could be read without reading

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Issue 44, May 2008 the previous book in the series, because it keeps referring back to when Miriam died. Also there is no description of the main characters.

I would say this book would appeal to both boys and girls aged 11 to 14.

Rachel Beggs, age 12 THE CASTAWAYS Iain Lawrence, Random House, 2008, $15.99, hb, 253pp, 9780385730907 In this third novel in the early 19th centuryset Curse of the Jolly Stone series, Tom Tin and his four companions are lost at sea in a rapidly disintegrating steam boat. The boys face extreme trials until an unmanned sailing vessel appears to save them. Midgley, Tom’s faithful blind companion, thinks it’s the fabled Flying Dutchman, but it soon proves all too real and even more sinister.

The boys rescue two men from an iceberg.

Beezley and Moyle teach them how to be sailors, but also plot to kill the too curious Tom and sell the remaining boys into slavery. That plan is thwarted in the Caribbean, where the ship takes on the slave trader a mother and daughter team.

Back in England, Tom hungers for an exchange with the villain Mr. Goodfellow once he unearths the buried Jolly Stone. But one more trial awaits as another adversary takes on a new life that’s out to extinguish both Tom and Midgley’s own.

The Castaways is fast-paced, rollicking adventure with life-threatening dangers in every chapter. Grim and at times surreal, this is Treasure Island meets Lord of the Flies. Ages 12 and up.

Eileen Charbonneau THE JOYS OF LOVE Madeleine L’Engle, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008, $16.95/C$18.95, hb, 272pp, 9780374338701 Twenty-year-old Elizabeth Jerrold, an aspiring actress, spends the summer of 1946 as an apprentice with a summer theatre company in a town by the ocean. She has never been so happy in her life—she had dreamed of being an actress since she was a child, and she soon falls in love with Kurt, the company’s handsome director. But her happiness is shattered when she realizes that Kurt does not love her as much as she loves him. Meanwhile, Ben, another apprentice, loves her, but she treats him only as a friend. In addition to these romantic complications, Elizabeth is disappointed when her role in Macbeth is taken away from her because of the machinations of a jealous older actress. And, her Aunt Harriet, who has raised her after the death of her father, has always opposed her wish to be an actress and demands that she come home before the summer is over.

Eventually, Elizabeth uses her experiences over the summer to learn more about the theatre and life—and herself.

Children & YA I have been a fan of Madeline L’Engle since I was a child, and was glad to see one more book of hers published after her recent death. As her granddaughter reveals in the introduction, this is actually a very early work of L’Engle’s which went unpublished for many years, and it is probably the most autobiographical of her novels. It was a pleasure to read. L’Engle gives us a very sensitive portrait of life in a summer theatre company, with all the friendships and rivalries between the actors, and it is an excellent coming-of-age story. I am only sorry that this is her last book. Ages 12 and up.

Vicki Kondelik THE GLASS WORD Kai Meyer (trans. Elizabeth D. Crawford), McElderry, 2008, $16.99, hb, 282pp, 9780689877919 / Egmont, 2007, £5.99, pb, 288pp, 9781405216395 This third volume of Meyer’s Dark Reflections fantasy trilogy takes place in an alternate universe where the Egyptian Empire, with its armies of mummy soldiers, has conquered most of the world. Two teenage girls from Venice, Merle and her friend Junipa, who was born blind and has mirrors for eyes, travel to Egypt, which is covered with snow in a new ice age.

With them are Vermithrax, the powerful flying stone lion, and the Flowing Queen, the spirit that has protected Venice for many years. With the help of the disgraced High Priest of Horus, they reach the Iron Eye, the great fortress of the sphinxes, which holds the secret that can help them defeat the Egyptians. The Flowing Queen must battle with the Son of the Mother, the fearsome forefather of the sphinxes, who has been reawakened by powerful magic. At the same time, Merle’s friend Serafin, formerly a master thief, also travels to the Iron Eye with the mermaid Eft and the beautiful sphinx Lalapeya. When the two groups eventually meet, Merle learns the secret of her parentage, and what the cost will be if they want to defeat the Egyptians once and for all.

The Glass Word brings Meyer’s trilogy to a satisfying—if heartbreaking—conclusion. This is one of the most inventive fantasies I have read in a long time. In addition to flying stone lions, a mermaid with legs, personifications of Winter and Summer (who must meet again in order to end the ice age), and powerful sphinxes, Meyer creates the fascinating mirror world, which Junipa has the power to enter when she speaks the glass word, and which leads to other worlds, including, presumably, our own. I highly recommend this book, but readers should definitely begin with the first volume, The Water Mirror. Ages 12 and up.

Vicki Kondelik BURN MY HEART Beverley Naidoo, Puffin, 2007, £5.99, pb, 193pp, 9780141321240

HistoricalNovelsReview This powerful novel brings to life the Kenya Emergency of the early 1950s, when a group of freedom fighters brought fear to white settlers on isolated farms and provoked a terrible backlash.

The story centres on two boys. Elevenyear-old Mathew Grayson, the bwana’s son, and Mugo, the kitchen toto, are friends. They play together, build a hide, and exchange small treasures. But Mathew and Mugo are both always conscious of their difference in status – and their lives are about to change forever.

The Kikuyu freedom fighters – the Mau Mau – want justice: the return of those farms where their families had lived for generations until the British government sold the land to white settlers and reduced the local people to the status of servants working for the new owners.

They are pressuring these servants to join their secret society. Mugo’s own elder brother joins, and because of this all members of his family become suspect. As fear and anxiety spreads, the settlers soon don’t trust even their most loyal servants.

Beverley Naidoo paints a devastating and totally realistic picture of life in Kenya at that time. She shows the harshness of the settlers’ lives – the guns, fences, dogs – but also the beauty of Mount Kenya and the closeness of the Kikuyu people to their land. Mathew’s father is a good man who feels betrayed by the servants he has cared for; he in turn betrays those who might have helped him. There is a sense of escalating horror as more and more innocent Kikuyu people are sucked into the emergency.

Wisely, the author does not suggest a possible reconciliation in the future, or a happy ending of any kind. A moving and detailed Afterword explains the background.

Ann Turnbull BLUE SKIES AND GUNFIRE K.M. Peyton, Random House (Definitions), 2008, £5.99, 264pp, 9781862301573 Set in World War II, the story begins with Josie’s final term of school being interrupted when she is evacuated from her Wimbledon home to the supposed safety of her aunt’s in the country. Separated from her parents and a difficult relationship with her mother, and parting from her first boyfriend, Sidney, she starts an emotional and life-changing journey that explains and expresses the effect of war upon individuals. The biggest threat is that of invasion and the shadow of death, which falls across those who risk their lives fighting in a battle not of their making. The daily existence of people trying to carry on as ‘normal’ in anything but usual circumstances, is shown with great skill as the war disrupts every aspect of their routines and relationships.

This is a very tender love story. Love in its many facets is exposed and weighed against

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Issue 44, May 2008 the inevitable hurt caused between two brothers who both want the same innocent girl, perhaps for very different motives. The crippled, goodnatured Jumbo and his ace fighter-pilot, Chris, both love each other dearly, yet the pain caused between them is almost palpable.

Josie is only a growing girl in a world which is changing all too fast, in uncertainty, like her own love for the brothers. The story has a dramatic plot as the Battle of Britain unfolds, and a very poignant ending. I think this book is a very good read and a lesson in life and the complicated relationships that people can unwittingly find themselves in. Young Adult.

Val Loh ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBRANCE & RUE FOR REPENTANCE Felicity Pulman, Random House Australia, 2007, AU$17.95, pb, 271pp & 290pp, 9781741662511 A reprint of the first two titles in the popular Janna Mysteries, this “bindup” edition of Rosemary for Remembrance and Rue for Repentance sets the pace for this medieval crime series for teens, currently four in number and counting. Set in 12th- century England during the civil war between King Stephen and Empress Matilda, the novels follow Janna’s quest to uncover the secret of her birth and investigate her mother’s mysterious death.

A Children’s Book Council of Australia Notable Book for 2006, Rosemary for Remembrance establishes Janna as a young woman forced to flee her home when her mother dies and their dwelling is burned to the ground. A perfect example of the quintessential heroine— spunky and strong-willed—Janna must survive alone in the harsh world of 1140s England.

While novice readers may find these stories appealing, those who are more experienced will likely prefer something fresh and new.

Janna’s mother was an herbalist and healer, so the villagers suspect both women of sorcery.

Naturally, someone kills Janna’s beloved black cat—and in a particularly gruesome manner.

Janna’s first suitor is the plain yet noble serf Godric (who in the opening pages of Rosemary for Remembrance saves her from a wild boar). Will Janna choose him—or the dashing stranger, nobleman Hugh fitz Ranulph, who rides a handsome black horse, has a scar down one cheek, and secrets of his own? Rue for Repentance continues Janna’s story, with Janna taking refuge at a manor farm—disguised as a boy. The book includes an enlightening glossary and author’s note, describing the history of the times. Ages 13+.

Alana White THE REDHEADED PRINCESS Ann Rinaldi, HarperCollins, 2008, $15.99/ C$18.99, hb, 214pp, 9780060733742 In this novel, young Princess Elizabeth tells

Children & YA-Nonfiction the story of her life from about the time of Henry VIII’s marriage to Katharine Parr to the day she becomes Queen of England.

Rinaldi writes well, with vivid scenery and lively dialogue, and the novel moves quickly, but I found it to be somewhat disappointing.

The author depicts most of the well-known episodes of Elizabeth’s life before she becomes queen and introduces us to some of those who will play an important role in her reign, like her childhood friend Robert Dudley. As she does so, however, characterization suffers: for the most part, people come and go in Elizabeth’s life without us getting to know any of them that well. Elizabeth herself is tough, smart, and resourceful, but I never felt a sense of her inner depth. Nonetheless, this novel serves as a good introduction to Elizabeth’s early life for young readers and will likely inspire some to read more in depth about her.

Susan Higginbotham SHELTER FROM THE STORM Jennie Walters, Simon and Schuster, 2007, £6.99, pb, 0689875282 This final instalment of Jennie Walters’ Swallowcliffe Hall trilogy tells the story of Isobel, the daughter of Grace from the second book, and granddaughter of Polly, who worked at the Hall as a maid in the late 19th century.

It is 1939, the eve of World War II, and Polly, now old and frail, is still employed at the Hall.

Fifteen-year-old Isobel is sent to stay with her while recovering from tuberculosis. She rapidly regains her strength and begins helping her grandmother with her work, during the course of which she becomes involved with the family at the hall, the servants, and the people in the village – among them a German Jewish boy, Andreas, to whom she becomes attracted. Andreas has been sent to England for safety, but his mother and cousin are still in Germany. With the increasing danger of war comes the realisation that many Jews will be trapped in Europe if they are unable to leave soon. Although she faces opposition in the village, Isobel feels compelled to speak out for work to be offered to refugees so that they are able to come to Britain.

Meanwhile, she begins to uncover longburied secrets: both her mother’s, and a secret involving her grandmother which began in the first book and which is now resolved in a moving and satisfying way.

Relationships are handled sensitively, and there are no falsely happy endings, either on a personal or wider scale. Jennie Walters’ research is excellent, and she brings the period to life with just the right details, creating an enjoyable and true-to-life story.

Although the three Swallowcliffe Hall books can each stand alone, a thread of mystery runs through them, and ideally they should be read in the right order.

Ann Turnbull

HistoricalNovelsReview

N NONFICTION n DIGGING UP THE DEAD Druin Burch, Vintage, 2008, £8.99, pb, 276pp, 9781845950132 This is a life of Sir Astley Cooper, whose accomplishments straddled the 18th and 19th centuries. He was Britain’s foremost surgeon of his day and this biography covers his rise to eminence. But it is more than just a standard life. The writer is a medical doctor, and the book is also a fascinating study about the level of medical knowledge (or, rather, ignorance would be a better description) and the treatment of those unfortunate enough to require surgery.

Cooper mostly developed his expertise by either dissecting illegally harvested corpses or experimenting through vivisection techniques.

These, together with the toe-curling descriptions of the surgery performed on trussed-up and terror-struck un-anaesthetised subjects can be challenging reading! Like many prominent people, Cooper was a mass of contradictions, but there is no doubt he should be admired for his tenacity in advancing the boundaries of medical awareness. This is also a most useful source for any writer wanting to understand and include medical subjects in historical fiction.

Doug Kemp THE SPARROWHAWK COMPANION Edward Cline and Jena Trammell, MacAdam/ Cage, 2007, $14.00/C$18.00, pb, 147pp, 9781596922617 This companion to Edward Cline’s sixvolume Sparrowhawk series contains seven essays, by the author and others, which nicely round out the reader’s understanding of the author’s motivation in undertaking such an epic task. Also included is an exhaustive list of characters, ships, and locations to aid in keeping track of all the details of the story. This list is followed by copies of the various speeches included in the series and a chronology of the relevant Acts of Parliament between 1650 and 1775. Finally, there is a list of British currency, a glossary, and a bibliography.

Cline is not only an historian, he is a storyteller with a deep understanding of the turmoil that the idea of breaking away from the British homeland raised in those undertaking this feat. This turmoil is conspicuously missing in historical education in American schools. We grow up believing that the American Revolution consisted of speeches and a few battles and Valley Forge and then victory. We were never really taught about the gut-wrenching decisions and agonizing debates through which the Continental Congress had to suffer. We never discuss the awful dichotomy of loyalty to one’s country versus loyalty to one’s self that many of the colonists had to face. The excellent essays in this companion volume shed

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Issue 44, May 2008 new light on this most important facet of the Sparrowhawk series.

Mark F. Johnson LUCIA: A Venetian Life in the Age of Napoleon (US) / LUCIA IN THE AGE OF NAPOLEON (UK) Andrea di Robilant, Knopf, 2008, $24.95/ C$27.95, hb, 350pp, 9781400044139 / Faber & Faber, 2007, £20.00, hb, 304pp, 9780571233175 Lucia, daughter of a Venetian diplomat, is married off at sixteen to nobleman Alvise Mocenigo. Lucia loves her husband, but her many miscarriages and the death of a small son threaten their future. Alvise takes care of his many estates, neglecting his wife. When Napoleon storms into Italy in 1796, Alvise aligns himself with the French general. Lucia learns to manage through the fall of her beloved Venice under French rule and assists her husband in his agricultural interests. When France signs a treaty with Austria, Venice comes under Austrian rule, and Alvise is ostracized as a collaborator. Lucia has an affair with an Austrian colonel and bears his son. When Alvise finds out, desperate for an heir, he legitimizes the boy. In Vienna, Lucia works hard for Austrian favor, but alliances shift again. Napoleon is now Emperor of France, and Alvise rises in his regime. Through war and hardship, Lucia struggles to keep her family together.

Lucia, an ancestor of the author, experiences firsthand the great events of her era. She befriends Empress Josephine, and is in Paris when Napoleon falls. Despite a few incorrect historical dates (e.g., Napoleon’s coronation was in 1804, not 1805), her life and times are fascinating.

Diane Scott Lewis THE QUEEN’S KNIGHT Martyn Downer, Bantam, 2008, £25.00, hb, 452pp, 9780593054857 Sir Howard Elphinstone distinguished himself as a hero of the Crimean War at the early age of 29 for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross. As he recovered from his injuries Queen Victoria and Prince Albert chose him to be governor to their son, Prince Arthur. Although the Queen did not approve of Elphinstone’s use of corporal punishment she was persuaded that her favourite son’s best interests were being served.

After Albert’s death in 1861 Elphinstone became closer to the royal family, acting as surrogate father to Arthur and his siblings but especially, he became a close friend and ally to Victoria.

Martyn Downer is married to Elphinstone’s great-great-granddaughter and this excellent account is the result of his being able to access hitherto unseen documents.

Ann Oughton

Nonfiction HOW TO WRITE KILLER HISTORICAL MYSTERIES: The Art and Adventure of Sleuthing Through the Past Kathy Lynn Emerson, Perseverance, 2008, $14.95, pb, 224pp, 9781880284926 This book presents an overview of the entire process of writing historical mysteries. It covers subjects from research, plotting, and language through to marketing and publicity. It is written in a straightforward style, and each chapter is subdivided into easy-to-digest segments for those who want to dip into various topics, all of which are indexed in the comprehensive table of contents. Emerson includes plenty of examples and advice from mystery writers, and a detailed case study of the writing process for one of her own Face Down mysteries. Through it all, as the subtitle suggests, she manages to convey the thrill (or compulsion?) that keeps writers going, paycheck or no. I actually had to remind myself to write a review of this book, as I was so busy putting it to use. It is an excellent introduction for writers starting out in the genre as well as a handy reference guide and encouragement for the more experienced.

Susan Cook THIS REPUBLIC OF SUFFERING: Death and the American Civil War Drew Gilpin Faust, Knopf, 2008, $27.95/ C$33.00, hb, 346pp, 9780375404047 Drew Gilpin Faust, the first female president of Harvard University, provides us with an extraordinarily well-researched and superbly written scholarly treatise on the disposal of the dead during the American Civil War. The topic is obviously a bit out of the ordinary and is, astonishingly enough for an event that has inspired thousands of books, one that has never been previously discussed. Faust, a gifted writer and a superlative historian, answers the question of how the North and South coped with 620,000 military and 50,000 civilian deaths through analyzing diaries, newspaper accounts, and memoirs. These records give this topic the power to move a reader 143 years later. The attempts to cope with the unexpected numbers of dead forced the government to intervene.

This was the beginning of national cemeteries (including Arlington), military pensions, and improved military medical services. Reading of New Yorker Amos Humiston dying at Gettysburg while clutching images of his three young children to his chest and the North’s subsequent search to find his family reminds us that 620,000 is not a statistic, but 620,000 unique national tragedies.

John R. Vallely THE FIRST SAMURAI: The Life and Legend of the Warrior Rebel, Taira Masakado Karl Friday, Wiley, 2008, $24.95/£13.99, pb, 220pp, 9780471760825 Taira Masakado, a fifth-generation descendant

HistoricalNovelsReview of Emperor Kashiwabara, is a cultured aristocrat whose response to attack prompts an appropriate response. From that point, his actions border on outright rebellion where he ultimately claims he is the New Emperor. Masakado’s meteoric rise to infamy is quickly snuffed out and would seem no more than a footnote in 10th century Japanese history. Yet Karl Friday provides a prodigious amount of scholarly, textual support to demonstrate how Masakado truly represents the very first samurai whose loyalties and insurrections represented the drama that would inevitably recur in Japan’s rapidly evolving military, political and social structure of later centuries. Drawings, as well as extensive notes and a lengthy bibliography, accompany this indepth, fascinating study of this first samurai’s world. Anyone interested in writing fiction about this Japanese period would do well to carefully read and fully appreciate this excellent, scholarly and frequently surprising work.

Viviane Crystal THE GRAIL ENIGMA. The Hidden Heirs of Jesus and Mary Magdalene Laurence Gardner, HarperCollins, 2008, £20, hb, 448pp, 9780007266944 The theory that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and founded a dynasty inextricably entwined with the search for the Holy Grail shows no sign of abating. In his latest and highly readable volume, Gardner claims to reveal in detail the historical sources which ‘prove’ the progress of the ‘bloodline’ from Jesus and Mary Magdalene down to King Arthur.

Now I don’t doubt for one minute that such documents exist. If, however, like me, you view Jesus as a person of historical fact clouded in centuries of half-truths, convenient concoction and fanciful elaboration, it all seems perfectly reasonable, if somewhat pointless.

The whole point about mythology is that it taps into mankind’s needs for neat solutions to unanswerable questions by giving life a meaning beyond mere existence and survival; that something of significance is just beyond our reach. And if Gardner makes a living from it, who can blame him? But believe it? Not me.

And I don’t think he does either but never mind.

It’s a highly readable book and all good clean fun.

Sally Zigmond WAS NAPOLEON POISONED? And Other Unsolved Mysteries of Royal History Peter Haugen, Wiley, 2008, $15.95/ C$18.99/£8.99, pb, 247pp, 9780470041260 If King Tut was murdered, why? Did King Arthur really exist? Compelling evidence suggests a Roman general may have been the basis for the Arthurian myth. Were the little princes in the Tower ordered murdered by their greedy uncle, Richard III? He did have the most

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Issue 44, May 2008 to gain. Who was the Man in the Iron Mask?

We are given several intriguing possibilities.

Did Elizabeth I have playwright Christopher Marlowe killed for being a heretic, or did he escape to Italy and ghost-write Shakespeare’s plays? Was Napoleon poisoned on the remote island of St. Helena? Or does a recent document uncovered in Ireland finally point to the truth?

Edward VIII abdicated a throne for plain Wallis Simpson. What was her allure that ensnared a king? Even Princess Diana’s death is examined here: accident or not? Conspiracy theories abound, but in some cases, plausible explanations are given.

These mysteries and others are presented in a wry style by author Haugen. After each chapter, he provides a list of books for further study. I found myself fascinated by some, and laughing at others. An entertaining look into royal history.

Diane Scott Lewis A VOYAGE LONG AND STRANGE: Rediscovering the New World Tony Horwitz, Henry Holt, 2008, $27.50, hb, 448pp, 9780805076035 / John Murray, 2008, £25.00, hb, 464pp, 9780719566356 Tony Horwitz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist with a penchant for history.

He also likes to re-examine all things American.

Here he looks at the general population’s accepted facts about the founding of America and turns them upside down. The publishers have great hopes of this book and have launched an expensive PR campaign; I can see why. It’s well written, with a clear readable style and nice prose, by an intelligent man who thinks around things and ponders the quirks of humanity. His book will infuriate and inflame many as their “known history,” which was taught them in school, is shown to be merely myth.

Horwitz isn’t just a stirrer, though; he journeys along the trails the earliest American explorers made and researches, in depth, the many books and original documents about each man. He travels to Newfoundland to the Norse settlements, probably the earliest settlements in America; he traces Columbus to the Dominican Republic and then tramps across America from Mexico northwards following the early Spanish and French settlers. It seems it was not a case of “Go West” that opened up America, but of “Go East”! He is a history graduate himself, but knew little of this “lost century” until he researched it. Yet he is not unkind to all those cherished beliefs about the Pilgrim Fathers.

“History is arbitrary, a collection of facts. Myth we choose, we create, we perpetrate.” And what a people choose and create is of as much interest as the real facts.

This has been one of my best non-fiction reads for a while; really thought- provoking.

Patrika Salmon THE GHOST MAP: A Street, A City, An

Nonfiction Epidemic and the Hidden Power of Urban Networks Steven Johnson, Penguin, 2008, £8.99, pb, 299pp, 9780141029368 In 1854 a cholera epidemic broke out in London’s Soho district. Until that time the popular belief was that such infections were the result of miasma or bad air. Dr John Snow discovered that it was a waterborne infection. No great surprise in an age when there was little or no sanitation and drinking water was frequently contaminated by raw sewage.

This is an in depth account of social history as well as an historical account of the beginnings of epidemiology.

Ann Oughton COMMONWEALTH OF THIEVES: The Improbable Birth of Australia Thomas Keneally, Anchor, 2007, $15.95/ C$21.00, 385pp, pb, 9781400079568 / Vintage, 2007, £8.99, pb, 528pp, 9780099483748 Novelist and historian Keneally (Schindler’s List) takes on the inauspicious early years of white settlers in his homeland in this denselypacked narrative, which recounts Britain’s Transportation Act of 1760 and the events surrounding the first few flotillas of convicts and military troops sent to New South Wales in the 1780s and 1790s. Based on journals kept by sailors, convicts, and settlers and supplemented with other contemporary sources, he paints a grim picture of life aboard the floating prisons, the tortuous and often-deadly journey to New South Wales, and the unfriendly conditions awaiting those who survived the trip.

Although not an apologist, Keneally does try to balance the Euro-centric view of the settlers with that of the Eora natives. The book follows the original landing party, led by colonial governor Arthur Phillip, through their first seasons of drought, hunger, disease, rebellion, and growth, with an epilogue tracing the lineage of some of Australia’s first political and economic leaders. The narrative is a fascinating read, and there are notes and a bibliography for readers wanting more details. Maps of the entire transportation trek, rather than just the two small maps of the immediate settlement area, would have been useful.

Helene Williams GEORGETTE HEYER’S REGENCY WORLD Jennifer Kloester, Arrow, 2008, £8.99, pb, 382pp, 979099478720 I would not call myself a Heyer fan as such, but a book on Regency life made an enjoyable prospect for a review. On receiving the book and noting that Georgette Heyer’s Regency World is by an Australian academic and based on a Ph.D. thesis I wondered whether I had jumped to the wrong conclusion; as an academic myself

HistoricalNovelsReview I know full well that theses tend to be dry and earnest (after all, I have written one).

But I need not have worried. Jennifer Kloester’s book is, quite simply, great fun, full of interesting details, and written with both style and aplomb. If you ever wanted to know what a Regency gentleman wore beneath his breeches, or what fashionable society did at morning calls (which usually took place in the afternoon) this is definitely for you.

Ann Lyon I WANT TO LIVE Nina Lugovskaya (transl. Andrew Bromfield), Black Swan, 2008 (c2004), £6.99, pb, 377pp, 9780552772907 / Houghton Mifflin, 2007, $17.00, hb, 304pp, 9780618605750 This is the diary of a girl in her teens, writing during the mid-1930s under Stalin’s Soviet Union. Nina’s father was classified as a counterrevolutionary and exiled from Moscow, and so the rest of the family lived under the threat of the NKVD (the forerunner to the KGB). The diary is a mélange of typical teenage angst about school, personal looks and relationships, interspersed with some lucid and dangerous criticism of the Soviet regime. It was these diaries seized in a NKVD raid which supplied the “evidence” to exile Nina and her immediate family to the Siberian wastes in 1937. Nina survived this harsh incarceration, and became an artist, dying in 1994, having seen the end of Communism. A sobering first-hand account of growing up during the start of Stalin’s Terror.

Doug Kemp THE GREAT WALL John Man, Bantam, 2008, £20, hb, 335 pp 9780593055748 Man doesn’t mince words. This is another author anxious to show that well- established ideas are more historical myth than fact.

Combining travel with history he treks the length of the Great Wall of China, and shows that it is not one wall, but a series of walls built by different peoples with different purposes.

Looking at the Great Wall of China from the so called ‘barbarian’ point of view is just one of the many topics he covers in this well written and illustrated book. It’s a big topic, covering the history of such notables as Genghis Khan, those mysterious Romans in China, and the complex intricacies of Chinese Dynasties, but Man enjoys his work and conveys much of this to the reader. As an introduction to the Wall, its history and particularly Mongolian history, this book is a clear and concise read and enjoyable too.

Patrika Salmon ANGEL OF VENGEANCE: The “Girl Assassin,” the Governor of St. Petersburg, and Russia’s Revolutionary World

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Issue 44, May 2008 Ana Siljak, St. Martin’s Press, 2008, $24.95/ C$31.00, hb, 354pp, 9780312363994 This volume focuses on the life of a woman revolutionary in Tsarist Russia, Vera Zasulich, who in 1878 shot the governor of St. Petersburg in retaliation for the flogging of a political prisoner. The trial of the would-be assassin (the governor survived) received worldwide attention, and the Russian regime was found guilty in the court of public opinion. Zasulich was set free and treated as a heroine. Her action inspired other revolutionaries to embrace terror, martyrdom, bombing and assassination as viable political tactics. Indeed, in 1881, the Tsar himself was murdered.

The trial scenes and vivid characterization of a large cast of characters is as absorbing as a superb historical novel. The author excels in painting a picture of Russia in upheaval, spawning violent political sects with visions of utopia. We get a sense of a motley stew of true idealists, disturbed revolutionary “saints,” and Manson-like psychopaths, and see the beginning of a progression that ended in Stalin’s gulags.

When the October Revolution occurred, in fact Zasulich herself was appalled by the regime her actions had helped pave the way for.

Phyllis T. Smith THE TROJAN WAR: A New History Barry Strauss, Arrow, 2008, £8.99, pb, 258pp, 9780099474333 / Simon & Schuster, 2007, $15.00, pb, 288pp, 9780743264426 In this most interesting book, Barry Strauss, an expert in ancient military history, places Homer’s The Iliad in its historical, cultural, economic and topographical context, without losing sight of its importance as a historical document as well as a literary masterpiece.

He uses all the tools of modern scholarship, for example, newly-translated Hittite texts, which confirm Troy’s importance in the Bronze Age and reveal it to be a Hittite ally. He compares Homer’s account with contemporary Bronze Age evidence, both written and archaeological, from Egypt, the Middle East and as far as away as Assyria.

This approach illuminates everything, from the way the combatants fought, to their customs, their assumptions, their relationships with the gods, as well as the economic reasons why the Greeks were interested in Troy in the first place.

What’s more, in a stroke of inspiration, he uses Pope’s 1720 translation of The Iliad which captures something of the poetry and grandeur of the original. He is refreshingly unsniffy about Achilles, Hector, Odysseus and the rest, arguing that they behave and act in ways which are demonstrably Bronze Age. The writing is lively and accessible without losing its scholarly credentials; I found it unputdownable. Highly recommended.

Elizabeth Hawksley

Historical Novels Review ISSN: 1471-7492 © 2008, The Historical Novel Society