Historical Novels Review | Issue 49 (August 2009)

The

Issue 49, August 2009, ISSN 1471-7492

HistoricalNovelsReview A publication of the Historical Novel Society

SIN-EATING and PEOPLETRAFFICKING

A glimpse into Karen Maitland’s medieval world and Interviews with Anna Elliott, Melinda Hammond, Ian Morson, Kamran Pasha and Rosemary Rowe

In this issue...

Plus...

coverage of the 2009 Historical Novel Society North American Conference

Editorial

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Historical Fiction Market News

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Until We Meet Again and the Case is Solv-ed: 10 Detectives Who Might Not Crack the Case

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Plus...

Editors’ Choice & reviews

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

Historical Novels Review ISSN: 1471-7492 © 2009, 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>

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

Associate Editor, Fiction: Debbie Schoeneman 73 Deepdale Drive South Huntington, NY 11746, USA <literarymuse@hotmail.com>

Publisher Coverage: Penguin (inc. Hamish Hamilton, Viking, Michael Joseph, Allen Lane), Bloomsbury, Faber Associate Editor, Industry: & Faber, Constable & Robinson, Transworld (inc. Bantam Cindy Vallar Press, Black Swan, Doubleday, Corgi), Macmillan (inc.

PO Box 425 Pan, Picador, Sidgwick & Jackson) Keller, TX 76244-0425, USA

<cindy@cindyvallar.com>

REVIEWS EDITORS (USA) Andrea Connell 4750 Dorsey Hall Drive #11 Ellicott City, MD 21042, USA <andrea_lyn@comcast.net>

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

Ellen Keith Milton S. Eisenhower Library Johns Hopkins University 3400 N Charles Street Publisher Coverage: Random House (all imprints), Baltimore, MD 21218-2683, USA Penguin Putnam, Five Star, Bethany House, MacAd- <ekeith@jhu.edu>

Book Review Editor: Sarah Johnson 6868 Knollcrest Drive Charleston, IL 61920, USA <sljohnson2@eiu.edu>

CONFERENCES The Society organizes annual conferences in the UK and biennial conferences in the US. Contact (UK): Richard Lee <richard@historicalnovelsociety.org> Contact (USA): Sarah Johnson <sljohnson2@eiu.edu>

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 isam/Cage, university presses, and any North American Publisher Coverage: HarperCollins (inc. William Mor- sues of Historical Novels Review. Back issues row, Avon, Regan, Ecco, Zondervan), Houghton Mifflin of society magazines are also available. For presses not mentioned below current rates, contact: (inc. Mariner), Farrar Straus & Giroux, Kensington, Features Editor: Myfanwy Cook Carroll & Graf, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill Sue Hyams 47 Old Exeter Road, 56 Ackroyd Road Trudi Jacobson Tavistock, Devon PL19 OJE UK Honor Oak Park, London SE23 1DL UK University Library <myfanwyc@btinternet.com> <sue.hyams@virgin.net> University at Albany Susan Higginbotham Copy Editor: Andrea Connell 1400 Washington Avenue 405 Brierridge Drive 4750 Dorsey Hall Drive #11 Albany, NY 12222, USA Apex, NC 27502, USA Ellicott City, MD 21042, USA <readbks@verizon.net> <boswellbaxter@bellsouth.net> Publisher Coverage: Simon & Schuster (inc. Atria, <andrea_lyn@comcast.net> REVIEWS EDITORS (UK) Alan Fisk Flat 25, Lancaster Court Lancaster Avenue London SE27 9HU UK <alanfisk@yahoo.com>

Scribner, Touchstone, Washington Square), Warner, Little EDITORIAL POLICY Brown, Arcade, WW Norton, Hyperion, Harcourt, Toby, Reviews, articles, and letters may be edited Akadine, New Directions, Harlequin, Medallion, Crippen & Landru, Hilliard & Harris, Trafalgar Square, Steerforth for reasons of space, clarity, and grammati-

cal correctness. We will endeavour to reflect the authors’ intent as closely as possible, and will contact the authors for approval of any major change. We welcome ideas for articles, but have specific requirements to Publisher Coverage: HarperCollins UK (inc. Flamingo, Publisher Coverage: St Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books, consider. Before submitting material, please contact the editor to discuss whether the Voyager, Fourth Estate), Orion Group (inc. Gollancz, Picador USA, Tor/Forge, Grove/Atlantic, Poisoned Pen proposed article is appropriate for the HNS Phoenix, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Cassell), Piatkus, Press, Soho Press, Dorchester, Tyndale magazines.

Severn House, Quercus, Duckworth, and all small indeIlysa Magnus 5430 Netherland Avenue #C41 Bronx, NY 10471, USA <goodlaw2@optonline.net>

pendent UK publishers not handled by other editors

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

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

SOLANDER

ISSN: 1471-7484 © 2009, The Historical Novel Society Managing Editor: Richard Lee Marine Cottage The Strand Starcross, Devon, EX6 8NY UK <richard@historicalnovelsociety.org>

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.

Doug Kemp Tulip Lodge, Harrowden Road, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire NN8 5BD UK Associate Editor, Features: Marina Maxwell <doug.kemp@lineone.net> PO Box 24 Publisher Coverage: Allison & Busby, Little, Brown & The Patch, Co, (inc. Abacus, Virago, Warner), Random House UK VIC 3792, Australia The Historical Novel Society (inc. Arrow, Cape, Century, Chatto & Windus, Harvill, on the Internet <purpleprosepatch@yahoo.

Heinemann, Hutchinson, Pimlico, Secker & Warburg, com> Vintage), Simon & Schuster (inc. Scribner) WEBSITE: www.historicalnovelsociety.org Mary Moffat Sherbrooke, 32 Moffat Road Dumfries, Scotland, DG1 1NY UK <sherbrooke@marysmoffat.ndo.co.uk>

Publisher Coverage: Children’s historicals - all UK publishers

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

Issue 49, August 2009, ISSN 1471-

History As Soap Opera?

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‘ve had Showtime’s The Tudors in my Netflix queue for a while, and finally had a chance to watch it while I was laid low with a sinus headache. Since said pounding made doing anything as productive as moving from my favorite overstuffed leather chair prohibitively painful, I felt absolutely no guilt in vegging out for an entire day.

And I spent almost all of it watching The Tudors.

I knew what I was in for — I was familiar with the work of screenwriter Michael Hirst (the Cate Blanchett Elizabeth and its sequel) who proclaimed, “What I always say is that I’ve written a soap opera based on historical material!” and I mostly wanted to see the costuming and sets. What I found in The Tudors didn’t surprise me, but being unable to tolerate soap operas, I was surprised by how engrossed I became by this historical iteration of one. Inaccuracy abounds, chronology is defenestrated, and there’s not even an attempt to make the actors resemble their historical counterparts ( Jonathan Rhys Meyers’s Henry is barely 5’9 and sports brown rather than the trademark Tudor red hair; Natalie Dormer’s Anne Boleyn has blue eyes, not the bewitching dark orbs for which Anne was known, etc.). What comes across in the first few episodes is that court is one glittering playground for the young and beautiful, with the favorite game being sex, sex, SEX. The dialogue is often hilarious (e.g., lady-in-waiting to an amorously poetic Thomas Wyatt: “You are so weird.”) Like, totally. But what engrossed me were the portrayals of such acting heavyweights as Sam Neill (a worldly but sympathetic Cardinal Wolsey), Maria Doyle Kennedy (the long-suffering Queen Catherine), James Frain (industrious, guilt-ridden schemer Thomas Cromwell) and most of all, Jeremy Northam (as the idealistic and quintessential man of principle, Thomas More). There is something of worth here, and if I had to sum it up, it would be this: these actors capture the zeitgeist and the essence of those they represent. As Northam stated, “...all the great dramas are fictions that actually tell us the truth about us or about human nature or about human situations without being tied into the minutia of documentary events”, and these actors tell us something about the court of Henry VIII — they make us feel something about the court of Henry VIII. And that’s worth watching. However, all of these (with the exception of Frain) are long gone before the start of the third season, so I remain curious to see if others will step in to fill their void, or if The Tudors will lose all redeeming factors, sliding completely and firmly back into its soap opera roots.

So what does that have to do with this issue of HNR? Nothing, really. I just wanted to offer it in lieu of the History & Film column, which is on hiatus this issue. But we do have interviews with Karen Maitland and much more, as well as coverage of the recent North American Conference and a hilarious piece on 10 historical detectives (one of them from the Tudor court) who might need some sleuthing help. Enjoy!

Bethany Latham

Historical Fiction Market News Would you like your latest publishing deal to appear here? Email me at sljohnson2@ eiu.edu.

Editorial Editorial Bethany Latham Historical Fiction Market News Columns Sarah Johnson Letters to the Editor

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Features & Inter views Sin-Eating and People-Trafficking Myfanwy Cook talks with Karen Maitland about her medieval world

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Weaving Legends Ray Thompson interviews Anna Elliott

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An Interview with Melinda Hammond HNS jay Dixon interviews Melinda Hammond Announcements about her Regency romances 7 Andrea Connell has joined the A 13th Century Academic Detective Ian Morson shares with Sue Berry about editorial team for Historical Novels his William Falconer mysteries 9 Review Online, taking over for Suzanne Faith & Controversy Sprague. Andrea is a professional Adelaida Lucena-Lower talks with Karman Pasha about Mother of the Believers 10 copy editor working at a think tank in the Washington, DC, area, and she’s Roman Mysteries & Cornish Sagas Edward James looks at the work of 11 been reviewing for HNS since 2002.

Rosemary Rowe 13 Welcome, Andrea! We’d also like to Until We Meet Again and the Case is Solv-ed thank Suzanne for her work on HNR 10 Detectives that might not crack the case 18 Online over the past three years.

In addition, the HNS is still Reviews Editors’ Choice searching for a managing editor for & More 19 Solander. Please see the ad on page 64 for more info.

New Publishing Deals Sources include author submissions, Publishers Marketplace, Booktrade.info, Publishers Weekly, The Bookseller, and more.

Kate Emerson’s Between Two Queens, based on the life of Anne Bassett, maid of honor to four of Henry VIII’s queens, will appear from Pocket in January 2010.

Emerson also has a new contract with Pocket/S&S for two more books in the Secrets of the Tudor Court series. The first, By Royal Decree, set between 1542 and 1558, will follow Elizabeth Brooke, Marchioness of Northampton, whose fortunes (and the validity of her marriage) changed with each change of ruler; publication will be early 2011.

Tony Hays recently closed a deal with Claire Eddy at Tor/Forge for volumes #3 and #4 in his new Arthurian mystery series (launched this spring with The Killing Way). They will be published in Spring 2011 and 2012 respectively.

Michelle Frey at Knopf acquired world rights to Sonia Gensler’s debut, The Revenant, in a two-book deal via Jennifer Laughran of the Andrea Brown Agency.

The Revenant is a Victorian ghost story set at a Cherokee girl’s school in the old West.

Hana Samek Norton’s as-yet-untitled historical novel about a woman, coerced into marriage by Eleanor of Aquitaine, who conspires to wrest her inheritance from her mercenary husband and uncover his secrets sold to Denise Roy at Penguin, for publication in Summer 2010, by Martha Hoffman and Judith Ehrlich.

Orion’s Deputy Publishing Director Kate Mills bought world rights in former BBC script editor Brenda Reid’s debut novel, You and Heavenly, a story of love and friendship set on the island of Crete during the late 1930s, from Zoe Waldie at Rogers, Coleridge and White. Publication will be 2010.

Kirsty Dunseath, fiction publishing director at Weidenfeld & Nicolson, -1-

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acquired UK rights in Sarita Mandanna’s debut novel Tiger Hills, a sweeping multigenerational epic set in a coffee plantation in Coorg, southern India, spanning the years between the late 19th century and the post-WWII period, for publication in May 2010. US rights went to Sara Weiss at Grand Central, for publication in 2011, by Sophie Hoult at David Godwin Associates.

Cathryn Summerhayes at William Morris sold Daphne Kalotay’s Russian Winter, an epic of passion, envy, and betrayal set against the backdrop of the early Soviet Union and balanced with a present-day narrative, to Emma Rose at Cornerstone. US rights were sold by Dorian Karchmar, also of William Morris, to HarperCollins. Century (UK) and HarperCollins (US) will publish in summer 2010.

Maddie West at Mira UK has signed a two-book deal with historical romance author Anne O’Brien for historical novels about Anne Neville, queen of Richard III. The first book, Virgin Widow, will be out in May 2010.

Paula McLain’s The Great Good Place, a historical novel written from the perspective of Ernest Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley Richardson, sold to Susanna Porter at Ballantine, reportedly for just over $500,000 (per the Observer), at auction, for publication in fall 2010 or spring 2011, by Julie Barer at Barer Literary.

Toby Mundy and Ravi Mirchandani have acquired world English language rights from Andrew Nurnburg Associates for Youssef Ziedan’s Azazil (to appear in English as Beelzebub), the winner of the 2009 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF). Set in 5th- century Upper Egypt, Alexandria and northern Syria, the novel focuses on the period following the Roman Empire’s adoption of the “new” religion, Christianity.

Laura Kinsale’s new historical romance Lessons in French, set in the English countryside, featuring a dashing roguish Frenchman and his childhood sweetheart, separated by her father and now fatefully thrown together, sold to Deb Werksman of Sourcebooks Casablanca, by Richard Curtis, for Feb 2010 release.

Author of The Distant Land of My Father Bo Caldwell’s City of Tranquil Light, the moving portrait of two missionaries who settle in a rapidly-changing China in the early 20th century, sold to Helen Atsma at Holt for publication in Fall 2010 by Paul Cirone at Friedrich Agency.

Marie Brennan’s A Star Shall Fall and City of Dreadful Night, the next two books in the Onyx Court series, set in 18th-century London and the hidden faerie city below, sold to Paul Stevens at Tor by Rachel Vater at Folio Literary Management.

Sarah Savitt, fiction editor at Faber and Faber, bought UK and Commonwealth rights to As Meat Loves Salt author Maria McCann’s second novel The Wilding, a novel of family secrets and passionate romance set after the English Civil War, from agent Annette Green, for publication in Feb 2010.

Leila Aboulela’s Lyrics Alley, a novel set in 1950s

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Sudan, Egypt and Britain, told from the points of view of five characters and inspired by the life of the author’s uncle, poet Hassan Aboulela, went to Elisabeth Schmitz at Grove/ Atlantic, for publication in Spring 2011, by Stephanie Cabot at The Gernert Company.

Virago editorial director Ursula Doyle recently acquired Gin Phillips’ The Well and the Mine, a Barnes & Noble Discover Award-winning debut set in a small coal-mining town in Alabama in the early 1930s. Initially turned down by nearly every mainstream US publisher, it was first published by tiny Oregon-based press Hawthorne Books.

In Stores Soon Douglas Jackson’s (author of Caligula) Claudius, Emperor of Rome, Conqueror of Britain appears in July from Bantam UK. Also in July, part two of Harry Sidebottom’s Warrior of Rome series, King of Kings, appears from Penguin/Michael Joseph. Reviews of both will appear in November’s HNR. Australian historical novelist Joanna Challis’s Murder on the Cliffs, first in a new mystery series set in Cornwall and featuring Daphne du Maurier as sleuth, appears in November from Minotaur.

The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse, a thriller set in 1920s France, appears this October from Orion.

Terry (T.G.) Morgan’s The Master of Bruges, from Macmillan New Writing in January, centers on a master painter in 15th-century Bruges and his involvement in the power struggle surrounding the lost Plantagenet princes.

Clare Clark’s Savage Lands, out from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in Feb. 2010, takes readers to colonial French Louisiana with the story of a girl sent from France to wed one of the struggling settlers.

Linda Holeman’s The Saffron Gate, a romantic adventure in which a young American woman tracks down her missing lover in 1930s Marrakech, appears in October from Headline.

The Queen’s Mistake by Diane Haeger, a fictional account of Catherine Howard, appears in Oct from NAL. Ballantine will publish Jeff Shaara’s No Less Than Victory, the conclusion of his acclaimed, bestselling World War II trilogy, this November.

Robin Maxwell’s O, Juliet, a re-imagining of Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers, appears from NAL in Feb 2010.

New Transatlantic Editions Peter Tremayne’s Council of the Cursed appears this November from Minotaur ($24.99, hb, 320pp, 9780312375652). In May’s HNR, Marilyn Sherlock wrote about it: “Tremayne has a good grasp of 7th-century Ireland and weaves the fictional tale into an historic event with his usual skill and artistry.”

For additional forthcoming titles, visit: http://www. historicalnovelsociety.org/forthcoming.htm -2-

Letters to the Editor

HistoricalNovelsReview EDITORIAL RESPONSE:

Letters to the Editor To the editors: I want to thank HNR reviewer Tamela McCann for pointing out an error in my novel The King’s Daughter, set in the reign of Mary Tudor and featuring the Wyatt rebellion of 1554. The reference to the “sons” of the Duke of Suffolk was incorrect; it should have been “brothers.” This will be corrected in future editions of the novel, an event that looks likely as The King’s Daughter, selling well, is now in its second printing.

Regards, Barbara Kyle Dear Editors, We have a problem. Who has redefined the definitions of historical fiction for the Review and Solander without a great deal of discussion with the HNS members?

For some time I have been concerned that books reviewed by the HNS are not historical fiction. Slip stream, cross genre, fantasy or horror, yes, historical fiction, no.

The line was blurred when there was a change of editors and all of a sudden genre romance novels were allowed in. Whilst this increased membership, particularly in America, it caused quite a few of the original members to stop paying subs. Genre romance had not been consider historical fiction when the HNS began.

Those affronted had a point. The historical romance specifications from publishers like Harlequin are not exactly in line with the definition of historical novels. The hea (happy ever after) ending, the obviously modern MCs transplanted from the 20thC or 21stC, the fact that the history is a pretty setting and not an integral part of the novel, are not norms for historical fiction. The popularity of writing historical romance, one well known writer of historical romance told me, is due to the fact that the popular Alpha male of readers’ dreams is not now found in the 21stC but back in the history books!

Soon after Romance thundered into the Review, alternate history, time slip and then historical fantasy crept in. Now we allow werewolves and vampires to be part of historical fiction? Carrie Lofty’s article in the May Solander on unusual historical fiction mentioned: “Author Isabel Roman, who blends paranormal aspects with her usual settings - such as werewolves in 1934 Germany...”

Carrie Lofty was discussing historical novels. So who decided that werewolves and vampires were part of mainstream historical novels?

This is historical fiction? Horror, fantasy or cross genre please, but historical fiction?

I’m a cynic. I can see writers eager to get their horror or fantasy, slip stream or cross genre novels in front of a larger audience by labelling them historical. Bigger market, more money and the Review does get read by many publishers’ editors so it’s handy to get your novel reviewed in there.

But I don’t see why we readers have to be told that our beloved historicals now include vampires and werewolves without a bloody good discussion first.

Let’s see all members canvassed on these changes and let’s have a real and honest, uncensored discussion about what is and is not historical fiction and therefore deserving of being reviewed by the HNS for the Review. pdr lindsay rowanlindsay@rowanlindsay.co.nz www.rowanlindsay.co.nz

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Dear Ms. Lindsay, We appreciate your feedback on the focus of the HNS and the content of the Review and Solander. However, you seem to be laboring under several misconceptions which we feel obligated to address.

It’s incorrect that the HNS began reviewing genre romances recently or that their inclusion has anything to do with a change in editorship – genre romances have been a part of the Review since its inception. You’ll find reviews of romances by Johanna Lindsey, Amanda Quick, and Marion Chesney within the first issues (1997-98). The same goes for alternative histories (given their own section in Aug 1998), time-slips (in Feb 1999) and historical fantasy (ditto). Solander published an overview of historical romance in 2000. Our editorial teams, both past and present, have sought to follow founder Richard Lee’s broad definition of the genre, posted on the Society’s website (http://historicalnovelsociety.org/definition.htm), which includes all of these types of novels: To be deemed historical (in our sense), a novel must have been written at least fifty years after the events described, or have been written by someone who was not alive at the time of those events (who therefore approaches them only by research).

We also consider the following styles of novel to be historical fiction for our purposes: alternate histories (e.g. Robert Harris’ Fatherland), pseudo-histories (eg. Umberto Eco’s Island of the Day Before), time-slip novels (e.g. Barbara Erskine’s Lady of Hay), historical fantasies (eg. Bernard Cornwell’s King Arthur trilogy) and multiple-time novels (e.g. Michael Cunningham’s The Hours).

While some romances may be light on history, many historical romance writers do extensive research. Also, many HNS members write for Harlequin/Mills & Boon, Robert Hale, and other wellknown publishers of romances. We feel they deserve no less respect than any other author members. Other magazines cover romances comprehensively, and we don’t intend to duplicate their efforts. The HNS remains the one place where these works are presented and evaluated alongside more “mainstream” historicals, and where their authors can network with colleagues who write in different subgenres.

As Carrie Lofty alludes in her piece, genre-blending with fantasy and horror is a popular trend and, as such, is one it would be irresponsible of the HNS to ignore. For example, we reviewed Anne Rice’s vampire novels in 1998. Since then, we’ve reviewed critically acclaimed fantasies such as Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Frances Sherwood’s The Book of Splendor, and Emma Bull’s Territory. Next issue, we’ll cover the authorized sequel to Stoker’s Dracula, set in 1912, and Amanda Grange’s Mr Darcy, Vampyre. In your own review of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Lavinia (an Editors’ Choice for May 2008), you wrote “if you like classical history, this is a fascinating glimpse of the little warrior states that eventually became part of Rome.” And yet Lavinia recently won the 2009 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel. All are quintessential examples of mainstream HF blended with the paranormal. We should not and will not ignore them.

Our editors seek to make our magazines a place for showcasing historical fiction in all its forms. We take an inclusive approach: we’ve always celebrated the field’s variety rather than attempting to restrict it to a narrow definition. Although we acknowledge some may feel differently, we believe it would be unfair to our wideranging membership to do otherwise. What a boring world (and extremely short magazine) it would be if we all liked to read the exact same thing!

With all best wishes, The Editors.

Features & Interviews

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Issue 49, August 2009

SIN-EATING and PEOPLE-TRAFFICKING A glimpse into Karen Maitland’s medieval world

Myfanwy Cook talks to Karen Maitland about her fascination with the medieval world and the inspiration for her medieval novels.

MC: Have you always been interested in medieval history?

KM: When I was ten years old, a student teacher took over our class for a term. I don’t know if he ever qualified as a teacher, because instead of teaching us math, he thrilled us with the historical novels of Henry Treece. He cancelled sports lessons and took us field-walking in the New Forest in Hampshire to collect Saxon pottery and to Old Sarum, the ancient hill fortress near Salisbury, Wiltshire, where he vividly described life in Norman times. When we left, I was convinced I’d seen those monks, knights and craftsmen rise up out of that hill and stroll among buildings long since vanished.

Through that teacher I learned that history was about people like me, not simply about kings and wars. Over the centuries there have been millions of people who lived and died without any record or tombstone. Yet without these men and women, no fields would have been ploughed, no cathedrals built or horses shod for battle. These were people with the same hopes, fears, lusts and dreams, vices and virtues that we too might share. They are the truly great characters of history that I want to bring alive again because, as I’ve discovered through years of writing about modern communities and industries, it’s the seemingly ordinary people who often live the most extraordinary lives.

MC: As a writer, what fascinates you about the plague?

KM: When plague arose first in the Far East, contemporary accounts tell of all kinds of strange events surrounding the outbreak: fire, serpents and scorpions raining from heaven, swarms of locusts, earthquakes, and poisonous mists. It must have seemed like the end of the world. Although the origins of the plague were natural, one contemporary witness reported that Tartars hurled plague corpses into a Genoese fortress in an attempt to infect the Genoese merchants. Not so very different from the modern use of biological weapons.

In the Middle Ages, plague was terrifying because it struck at random and in some cases could kill within hours. The plague not only affected humans, but all kinds of mammals. Drovers would leave a healthy flock of sheep in a fold overnight and in the morning they would be dead or dying. No scavenging animal or bird would approach plague corpses, so they lay untouched where they fell until they rotted. Imagine how terrifying and supernatural

this must have appeared to people at the time, particularly for travellers who, when the towns closed their gates against them, were forced to survive on the road, trying to outrun the plague, as my characters do in Company of Liars.

But what fascinates me most as a writer is the behaviour of people threatened by a plague or pandemic. Like war, it brings out the best and worst in people. Even with all our modern medical knowledge, the threat of modern pandemics, such as bird and swine flu, still cause people to react with the same panic, fear and hostility. Just as in medieval times, communities attack strangers, determined to find a human scapegoat they can blame. Individuals engage in all kinds of bizarre rituals to protect themselves and to isolate themselves, stockpiling food and shutting others out.

When threatened by things we can’t control, human behaviour doesn’t change.

MC: What inspired you to write Company of Liars?

KM: A few years ago I was commissioned by the National Rural Touring Forum to accompany their multicultural show and write about their tour. The show travelled the length of England from Cumbria down to Devon, playing in remote villages. We were touring for three months in the middle of winter, frequently arriving after dark, having got hopelessly lost on narrow, unlit country roads, to find that the only café was closed. We carried props and scenery up muddy tracks in pouring rain, while the players changed in freezing village halls, huddled round a tiny electric fire. Many of the villages we visited were founded in the Middle Ages, and I began to imagine what it would have been like to earn your living on the road in those days, tramping, wet and cold, from village to village, never knowing what you were walking into or if you’d find food. Company of Liars was born from this experience. In the novel, nine strangers – a peddler, storyteller, musicians, artist, conjuror and a rune reader – are forced together for protection as they flee the plague, travelling through medieval England in one of the wettest years ever recorded.

MC: In The Owl Killers you mention the beguines. Was your imagination fuelled by the strong presence of the beguines in Bruges in Belgium?

Fourteen years ago I first walked round the beguinage, or city of women, in Bruges. The guide in the beguinage told me that “beguines were nuns,” but later that day a Cathedral guide told me that “they were all prostitutes.” Their comments spurred me to research this remarkable movement of women which was to

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Features & Interviews

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survive for nine centuries. The last remaining beguine still lives in Flanders today.

Beguines were religious women who took no perpetual vows, but set up female collectives in the Middle Ages, earning their own living in the wool trade and through other crafts. They also governed themselves, wrote books and ran hospitals and schools, much to the fury of the Church and the male-dominated guilds.

Some beguinages were single houses where half a dozen women would live together, others were complete cities containing a thousand women and their children.

Beguinages flourished throughout Europe from Flanders and Germany to Spain and Italy. But historians always maintained none were ever set up in Britain. However, local historians, researching the history of their own towns, have recently found documentary evidence that beguinages were set up in England, but they disappear from the records within a few years, without explanation. The question which inspired my novel, The Owl Killers, was why did they vanish from England and what happened to the women who came here?

MC: Myth, legends and the battle between light and darkness are obviously important themes in your writing. Why? KM: Our ancestors used stories to communicate great truths and explain events. Religious leaders, like Jesus, did the same. In the 21st Century we’re obsessed with dividing the world into real and unreal, fact and fiction, but when you’re writing a medieval novel, you have to try to see the world through their eyes, and they did not make these modern distinctions between myth and reality.

The battle between light and darkness shaped medieval lives and thought. People were surrounded by images of hell, demons, monsters, werewolves, mermaids and dragons, all interwoven with depictions of God and other Biblical figures. The Church taught that all of these things were real. Sailors coming back from voyages told of ships being smashed by leviathans and lands where men had the heads of dogs. Medieval people attended church, but they also tied “fern seed” into the manes of their horses to render them invisible to evil spirits.

Although it was an age of great scientific and engineering advance, people didn’t divide science and religion, astronomy and astrology into separate disciplines in the way we do, nor did they make the same division between good and evil. Some Catholic priests were trained in necromancy and provided it was undertaken for the Church, it was seen as a holy activity, whereas an old woman in the village who practised it would be accused of sorcery. I’m fascinated by the idea that good and evil are not easily identified and even in modern times, good and evil, darkness and light can often appear in guises which are the exact opposite of what we expect.

Issue 49, August 2009

period without slowing down the story. And you never know, it might help to revive some of these vanishing words and customs.

MC: When trying to create a picture of the period that you are writing about, how important do you think details like food and cooking are?

Having lived for eighteen months in Africa without sanitation, running water, electricity, or any means of keeping food overnight, I began to realise how many hours a day our medieval ancestors had to devote to obtaining and preparing food, as well as making sure they had made enough candles and collected enough fuel to get them through the long dark night. I think it’s vital to try to bring everyday details like this alive for the reader; after all, eating is a huge part of life in every age and in many ways it defines the times people live in. So I cook most of the dishes I mention in my novels. I also grow the herbs so that I can smell and feel them as I write.

I also try to experience other details of medieval life too. I spent time observing glassblowers in a travelling glassworks so that I could feel the heat and see implements being used, before I wrote about a glassworks in Company of Liars. In one paragraph of the novel I describe a bird of prey, the red kite, so I visited a kite feeding station in Wales to observe the way the birds attack a carcass, to try to conjure up the picture for the reader. Experiencing these things first hand gives me details I could never get from a textbook or video, and these details, I hope, help to make the reader feel they are back in the Middle Ages.

MC: What is your next writing project?

KM: I’m really excited to have been invited to join the Medieval Murderers – Michael Jecks, Philip Gooden, Susanna Gregory, Bernard Knight and Ian Morson – in writing their sixth joint historical crime novel, The Sacred Stone. In the novel, each author writes a self-contained medieval crime novella centred around an object which passes down through the generations, and I’m developing a new medieval female sleuth for this book. I’m also completing my own novel, The Mandrake’s Tale, about sin-eating and people-trafficking set in the time of King John. I’m hopelessly captivated by mystery and magic of the Middle Ages.

Myfanwy Cook is an English language consultant. She writes a range of short fiction, designs writing workshops, and is currently Historical Novels Review Features Editor.

MC: Has using a glossary to accompany your novels enabled you to write using more intriguing and unusual vocabulary?

KM: Readers tell me they love the glossaries. Most of the language in the novels is modern, otherwise I’d have to write in the language of Chaucer. But I do occasionally like to use an ancient word or term, such as avering, ka, weller, or widdershins. Readers can easily work out the meaning of the word from its context in the novel, but for those who want to know a bit more about a word or a strange custom, such as the need-flame, the glossary does allow me to offer readers some additional curious facts or details about the

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Features & Interviews

HistoricalNovelsReview site. The Arthurian connection is largely discounted, but the latest work suggests some kind of fortress was there during the 5th/6th centuries.

Ray Thompson interviews Anna Elliott RT: What first attracted you to Arthurian legend in general, and the story of Trystan and Isolde in particular, as the subject for a novel?

AE: I studied medieval literature in college and fell in love with the magic and atmosphere of the Arthurian world, though it was a bit of an accident that I ended up weaving the two legends together in the way I did. Twilight of Avalon was inspired by a vivid dream in which I told my mother that I was going to write a book about Modred’s daughter. When I woke up, the idea just wouldn’t let me go. Then in the very early stages of outlining, I was looking at Celtic names for my protagonist. The name Isolde caught my eye, and I thought, hmm . . . and began to realize how many aspects of my story already fitted with the Trystan and Isolde legend. Blending the two together felt completely natural from then on.

RT: Had you read modern Arthurian fiction?

AE: I loved Mary Stewart’s Merlin trilogy.

RT: Did you read additional Arthurian sources in preparation for writing the books?

AE: I tried to read all the Arthurian primary sources. Since Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain was the version of the story I’d decided to use as the basis for my book, I re-read that, as well as Nennius’ Historia Brittonum, early Welsh Arthurian tales like Culhwch and Olwen and The Dream of Rhonabwy, and later works like Le Morte d’Arthur. I also read the AngloSaxon Chronicle and Gildas’ De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, which give a picture of the political climate in 6th-century Britain.

Of course, I read all the available versions of the original Trystan and Isolde story.

RT: How about history and archaeology?

AE: I read every book I could get my hands on about Dark Age Britain in general and the possibility of a historical Arthur in particular. It definitely helped that I live in a university town and have access to a great research library! Since I’d decided to make Tintagel Castle in Cornwall the setting for Twilight of Avalon, I studied the archaeological work that’s been done at the

RT: Did you do additional research after you had started writing?

AE: Throughout the writing process I had on my desk an enormous pile of research books. I would constantly need to check a date or place name or other historical reference, or look at pictures of Cornwall to refresh my mental image of the landscape.

The herbal medicines that Isolde uses meant looking through early herbals and medical tracts to find cures that would have been known and used in 6th-century Britain.

RT: How conscious were you that you were working within a tradition that limited your freedom to invent whatever you wished?

AE: I never felt it as a limitation. I loved having the framework of the original stories as a foundation on which to build. I was fairly free in my adaptation of the legend in terms of letting myself tell the story I wanted to: that felt very important to me.

After all, these stories have been around for centuries, told and retold countless times.

How could I justify yet another re-telling unless my version added something new to the mix? Fortunately, Twilight of Avalon takes place in a post-Arthurian Britain. I loved the excitement of using my story to catch a glimpse of what might lie beyond the curtain that’s rung down at the end of the usual Arthur tales.

RT: There are so many fantastic elements in Arthurian legend that it is not always easy to preserve historical verisimilitude. How did you deal with this problem?

AE: I’ve always felt that the fantastical elements in the Arthur legends can be read both literally and symbolically. Dragons can be literal scaly monsters, but they can also be seen as a metaphor for the evil that exists outside the bounds of organised society. The love potion can be viewed as a metaphor for the all-consuming nature of passionate romantic love. In the second book of the trilogy, Dark Moon of Avalon (to be released in 2010), Trystan and Isolde journey together by boat as in the original tale, and it is over the course of the journey that their relationship deepens, which again is true to the original legend. But they don’t need a magical potion to fall in love: only the magic of their own powerful emotional bond.

RT: Were there any themes that you particularly wanted to develop in your book?

AE: I do a fair bit of outlining and planning before I begin, but the underlying themes

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Issue 49, August 2009 of my books evolve organically as I write.

What I would consider the book’s main themes - the tension between the old pagan beliefs and the new Christianity, the place of women in a male-dominated society, the effect of constant strife and war - all emerged and gained in importance during the writing process, as I got to know my characters and their world and grew to understand fully the journey they were on.

RT: Some of the Arthurian characters are already well-established in tradition: did this restrict their development?

AE: No, it really didn’t. When I write, I don’t consciously create characters: they usually simply appear in my mind, fully formed, and it’s my job to get to know them well enough that they come across as vividly on paper as they do in my imagination. I used the Arthurian sources as a starting point, but the characters who wound up walking onto the stage of my book felt very connected to me and unique to my story, even if their names were familiar from the tales. I think that’s part of what makes the Arthur stories so magical: their characters are so multilayered that they can always be seen from a different angle.

RT: Did any of your characters develop in directions you didn’t anticipate?

AE: One of my absolute favorite aspects of writing is when my characters start talking to me and astonish me by what they have to say, and it happens often. No matter how much planning I do, they are constantly taking me by surprise. In Twilight of Avalon, Madoc in particular surprised me by how he developed over the course of the story.

He started out as rather an unsympathetic character, but he changed a good deal in ways I’d not anticipated.

RT: For someone so well-intentioned, Isolde encounters great hostility.

AE: That wasn’t so much a result of conscious planning on my part as simply the way the story took shape in my mind. The Battle of Camlann formed such an utterly catastrophic memory in Britain’s cultural consciousness that I couldn’t imagine the daughter of the story’s great villain not facing a good deal of prejudice and hatred.

RT: Is your conception of the trilogy changing as it progresses?

AE: I’ve certainly gotten to know my characters - Trystan and Isolde in particular - on a deeper level as I spend more time with them and watch them grow through each book. But my fundamental plan has remained essentially the same. I actually wrote the final scene of the third book (working title, Sunrise of Avalon) before I

Features & Interviews typed a single line of Twilight of Avalon, so I’m always writing with that ultimate goal in mind.

RT: What particular elements of the legend did you feel were most important to include in your trilogy?

AE: Obviously Twilight of Avalon presents a version of the Trystan and Isolde story that differs from the medieval tales, whose courtly style reflects a 12th or 13th-century world and sensibility. This doesn’t work so well when you drop it into 6th-century Britain, the age in which a historical Arthur might have lived. That was one of the main reasons I wound up being fairly free in my adaptation of the legend: to fit it better to the world of Dark Age Britain I was uncovering - and falling in love with - in my research.

I did try to stay true to what I considered the essential elements. In terms of Arthurian legend, I wanted to address the relationship between Arthur and Morgan and the conception of Modred, their son, as well as Modred and Arthur’s final battle at Camlann; and to include the character of Merlin (or Myrddin), who has always been a particular favorite of mine and who just refused to be left out of my story. In terms of the Trystan and Isolde legend, I felt it was important to maintain the triangle between Marche, Trystan, and Isolde that forms the fundamental conflict of the original story, as well as Isolde’s skill as a healer and Trystan’s skill at swordsmanship and disguise.

Ray Thompson is an Arthurian scholar. He is an associate editor of The New Arthurian Encyclopedia and its supplements, and a professor emeritus at Acadia University in Nova Scotia.

HistoricalNovelsReview

Issue 49, August 2009

An Interview with Melinda Hammond jay Dixon speaks with Melinda Hammond, who also writes under the nom de plume Sarah Mallory, about her Regency romances jD: How long have you been writing?

MH: Since I was a child. I started by telling stories, and as a teenager I wrote them down. Getting published was always a dream. My first success was writing an essay about chocolate when I was ten years old – and winning several bars of chocolate for it! After that I began scribbling my own stories. I have never been paid in chocolate again, alas! jD: Do you think your education helped or hindered your writing career?

MH: I left school at sixteen. In some ways I would have loved to have gone to university, but I wonder if that might have made me too analytical and hung up on research. I know many people who are so busy researching and getting every little fact right that they never actually start their book. However, the grammar school I went to gave me a fabulous grounding – in those days one had to learn a little Latin as well French and German, plus read lots of English literature. My history teacher was also fantastic – she used to tell us the gossip of the period we were studying, and I think this really inspired me to think of history in terms of people rather than dry facts. jD: How did you learn to write - that is, novel-writing techniques?

MH: I taught myself! First of all by reading anything and everything - I think reading widely is a very good way of learning the craft. Then, I bought one of those black and yellow “Teach Yourself” books on writing, which gave me very basic information on layout and how to approach publishers, etc. It did NOT help me to write the book! jD: What is your writing routine?

MH: To write wherever and whenever I can! I carry a notebook nearly everywhere so I can at least jot down ideas or odd sentences when they occur to me. At home, I like to get started by 9 a.m. and work through 5 or 6 p.m., grabbing a sandwich but keeping my mind on my writing. I have to spend a few minutes getting into the writing mood, looking up notes or re-reading the last paragraph. I tend to write in “scenes”. They are in my head very much like a TV drama, and I like to finish a scene before I stop writing for the day. I work outside the home three days a week, so on those days I like to spend a couple of hours in the evening at my writing. It is very difficult to quantify just how many hours a week I write because I can be working on a story while I am doing housework or gardening, but I spend a minimum of 10 hours every week at the computer – more if I can get the time. Of course, there’s also research – reading up on events, checking dates, etc, and that all takes time. I still have one son at home, so we try to have our evening meal together – it’s important to have some family time every day, but I fear that when I am in the grip of a new story I am not very good company! jD: What about language - do you use the language of the period or modern language?

MH: I try to give a flavour of the period, but anyone reading 18th or 19th-century literature will know that they used big words and lots of them! I want my stories to be accessible to the reader, and if the language is too flowery, it slows the pace and detracts from the story. jD: Do you still like your first published book?

MH: Yes. I think one’s first book is always special, and Fortune’s Lady is still one of my favourite books (and it’s available as an e-book with Regency Reads, so I’m really pleased about that). jD: Why Harlequin Mills & Boon?

MH: Why not? HM&B like the kind of books that I write. Yes, of course it would be nice to be a big high-street name (and I’m still working on that), but for me it’s the writing that’s important – to be able to write the books I love and get them published is a dream come true. jD: Where do your ideas and characters come from? What inspires you?

MH: Ideas can come from anywhere. The question that always seems to be in my head is “what if?” I might see something on the news and think: what if that had happened

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Features & Interviews

HistoricalNovelsReview

two hundred years ago? Or I might see a place or a building and think: what if so-and-so happened here?

Many of the characters “walk into my head” fully formed. When I wrote The Belles Dames Club, the Marquis of Ullenwood was a minor and rather disreputable character, but in my head he kept telling me he wanted a book of his own. (I know it sounds insane, but I’m not the only writer who has this problem with their characters.) I made him (or rather his relative) the hero in a Rational Romance. At other times, it might be a face on TV or someone I meet briefly. jD: What sort of research do you do and how?

MH: History is very much the background for my novels. Although I might include real people in my books, they are never the main characters. I concentrate upon the flavour of a particular period. I read history books and biographies as well as contemporary novels and poetry to set my scene. I also like to visit locations – for my latest book I spent quite some time in Kent and Sussex looking at the churches and villages, reading up on the smuggling traditions and getting a “feel” for the area. Very little of this goes into the actual book but it’s there in the background, influencing the story. jD: Do you think it is allowable to alter historical facts to suit a novel’s plot?

MH: No, I have never found it necessary to alter history (not knowingly, anyway). I like to read around a subject and then fit my characters into the history, not the other way around. jD: Why Georgian period?

MH: I feel there is a freedom about 18th-century England (and early 19th century) – yes, there was a social hierarchy, but a rich man (or a clever one) could make his way up the social scale – look at Brummell, his grandfather was a shopkeeper and his father a civil servant. I also love the clothes - from the heavy silks and brocades of the early 18th century through to the flimsy muslins of the Regency – such variety! Also, from contemporary records it is possible to get an understanding of the people who lived during that age, and they really were not that different to us. jD: Why do you think the Regency is so popular with readers?

MH: That is such a hard question! I think possibly because it is very accessible, readers can still identify with the characters from that period, they do not seem so very different from ourselves. Also, the costumes are very “wearable” – it is much more difficult to imagine wearing the hoops and crinolines of earlier and later periods, but those soft muslin gowns look almost practical! jD: Would you like to write in another period? Or a contemporary?

MH: Yes, I have a great fascination for the Elizabethan era. I did try to write a contemporary once, but the history kept creeping in: it ended up as Moonshadows, my e-book (Samhain Publishing, September 2008 and available in print from July 2009) which combines a Georgian love story with a modern romance and a few ghostly goingson to link the two. jD: What do you get out of the Societies you belong to?

MH: A sense of comradeship – the HNS is wonderful for sharing that love of history.

From the Romantic Novelists Association there is also a great deal of support – romantic fiction is not always taken seriously and it is encouraging to talk to other writers who understand and appreciate the genre. jD: What next?

MH: Well, I am currently working on a novel that begins with the Battle of Corunna in 1809 and ends with Waterloo. I toured the Peninsular battlefields of Northern Spain in January this year, ending in Corunna to join in with their celebrations – in Corunna they consider the Peninsular War as their war of independence and are very keen to honour Sir John Moore, who died during the Battle of Corunna. We tend to think of Spain as warm and sunny, but the mountains in the north can be very inhospitable. The soldiers had a terrible time of it – they had to march across the mountains back to Corunna with no food through blizzards and torrential rain and to fight a battle at the end of it. It was very inspiring – an author could write a whole series of books based just on this one small part of the Peninsular War. After that, I am planning another book about an officer returning to England after Waterloo. He has promised his dying friend that he will look after his widow, but when he finds her, things do not go as planned…. (better stop there or I shall give the plot away!) jay Dixon is a freelance editor specialising in women’s historical fiction who also reviews for Historical Novels Review.

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Issue 49, August 2009

Features & Interviews

A 0111th Century Academic Detective Sue Berry talks to Ian Morson about William Falconer of Oxford SB: William Falconer is the protagonist in your series of novels set in 13th-Century Oxford.

Many of the subsidiary characters are historical figures (e.g. Roger Bacon and Thomas de Cantilupe); did William really exist and, if so, who was he?

IM: No, William did not really exist.

But I did make use of a passing reference Roger Bacon makes to knowing a man who had worked out the principle of a flying machine. In an early Falconer novel, William is experimenting with toy gliders.

I was considering at one point using a reallife scholar as my detective. He was a blunt Yorkshireman who lived a hundred years after the fictional Falconer, but his name put him out of the running as another writer had used it. His name was John Wycliffe.

SB: What made you decide to write novels set in this period and to use an Oxford academic as your detective?

IM: I suppose I had fallen in love with Oxford as a place when I was at university there in the 1960s. With so many old buildings still surviving, you can imagine yourself back in several different time periods. When I decided to start writing crime stories, I wanted to avoid the present day as I naively thought I would have to learn a lot about current policing methods. If I set my stories in the past, I could say what I liked.

Little did I know then that I would have to be very accurate historically! The actual period I chose came about by serendipity.

I was casting around Oxford history for an interesting event around which to build my first story, and found a student riot in 1264. And at the same time I was reading “Montaillou” – the book about the Cathars in France. One name stood out in both cases, De Montfort. Simon the elder led the crusade against the Cathars, and Simon, Earl of Leicester, was involved in the Barons’ War in the 1260s. I conceived of a revenge theme, and wrote ‘Falconer’s Crusade’.

SB: Do you have a background as a historian?

I ask because I get the impression you use original sources in your research. For example, in Falconer and the Great Beast you refer to Gerard de Somerby knifing a fellow student who “lived to share a drunken revel with him that evening”. That sounds like a genuine case from local court records.

IM: My only history qualification is an

HistoricalNovelsReview “O” Level obtained in 1962. In fact, I was not keen on the subject, which was taught by a martinet (who I shall not name) who drummed kings and queens and dates into us malleable schoolboys. It was only later that became interested in history, particularly social history. I laid my hands on a quirky three-volume history of the University of Oxford written by Charles Mallett in 1924, and have since accumulated quite a few works on Oxford history over the years. I did progress to one particular original source – that of Matthew Paris’s Chronicles (in modern translation, of course), which I value as a wonderful insight into contemporary opinion.

SB: I wondered also if you would describe yourself as mechanically minded? I’m thinking of the use of a piece of the mechanism of Roger Bacon’s “horologium” to set up the murder weapon in one of the books. What gave you that idea?

IM: I don’t think I am particularly mechanically minded – I am good at taking things apart, but not so good at putting them together again. What I do like are stories about ideas and machines that are ahead of their time. Babbage’s “Difference Engine” fascinates me. I like to insert into stories mechanisms or concepts that could have existed (indeed, sometimes did exist), but seem to jar with the mood of the period. In another Falconer book, there is a description of industrial scale iron working.

We don’t usually associate that with the medieval mind.

SB: How important is historical accuracy to you? Are you prepared to bend it a little if it gets in the way of the plot or the development of a character?

IM: I would never change known facts belonging to a certain period. I have talked earlier about mechanical devices being used in the 1260s, and only included them because they could have existed. But I would not have Falconer knowing about the circulatory system in the body, for example. However, I have stretched timelines before now, so that a particular event takes place at a more convenient time for the storyline. But I usually admit it and beg to be excused at the end of the story. On the other hand, I remain tied to when real people were around at the times I am describing. All my Chancellors of the University come and go when the real ones did.

SB: You have referred to William leaving Oxford and travelling to Cathay. Are you planning to write that story sometime in the future?

IM: When I wrote the first Falconer, I thought it would be a good idea to give a

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Issue 49, August 2009 summary at the end of what happened to the characters in the future. I thought it would make them seem more real. I wish I hadn’t done that now. One of my main characters, the constable Peter Bullock, is said to have been killed in 1274. I am rapidly approaching that date as I write subsequent books. The next one – Falconer’s Trial – is set in 1272, and in a year or two I don’t want to kill him off! I also referred, as you mention, to William going to Cathay. That was because I was reading Marco Polo at the time, and wanted to leave a thread there that might be useful for another book. Another of my characters, Nick Zuliani, has taken over that role in City of the Dead, and has beaten Falconer to it. Maybe I will eventually have them meet up in Cathay.

SB: Do you read historical or detective fiction yourself for pleasure? I know you’ve contributed to at least one of The Medieval Murderers series; do you read the other contributors’ novels, or shouldn’t I ask?

IM: I read a lot of detective stories. Mainly for pleasure, but also because I review new books for “Tangled Web” on the Net. I love modern American crime fiction, and the explosion of Scandinavian writers that have followed Henning Mankell on to the scene.

But I also like quirky and unusual stories set in curious historical times. I recently read Death in Breslau by Marek Krajewski, which is set in 1930s Germany, and beautifully encapsulates that strange and degenerate period. Of course, I have read my fellow Medieval Murderers’ books, and love them all. But I would say that, wouldn’t I? Oh, and I’ve contributed a story to every one in the series, including King Arthur’s Bones due out this year.

SB: And finally, what do you hope your readers take away from reading a Falconer story apart, of course, from the pleasure of a wellwritten historical novel?

IM: I see you have saved the trickiest question to the last. I hope anyone who reads a Falconer story is engrossed and entertained. I don’t expect them to have learned anything about history, only that I have succeeded in not irritating them by avoiding any glaring error they might otherwise have spotted in my stories. If the reader thinks – “I enjoyed that, and I would like to read more” – then I have succeeded.

Sue Berry is a retired archivist who has been an avid reader of historical fiction all her life. Her recent chance discovery of the HNR has opened up a whole range of new authors to explore.

Features & Interviews

Issue 49, August 2009

HistoricalNovelsReview

ancient practices over time. The challenge for Muslims today is to continue that progressive tradition of Islam and move toward a better world, rather than seek to turn the clock back to the Middle Ages, like the Taliban are attempting today.

I am not worried that my book will be used to support child marriage, as those who wish to preserve such outdated practices are not relying on novels like mine to justify themselves. They are relying on the precedent of human history. Anita Diamant describes a similar world in her wonderful book The Red Tent, in which polygamy and child marriage were practiced by the ancient Hebrews. Jews and Christians no longer find such practices acceptable, even if the biblical patriarchs did, and no one should use Diamant’s book to call for a recreation of that ancient way of life.

Similarly, my novel should not be used for that purpose in the Muslim world.

As for my use of the most controversial account regarding Aisha’s age (that she was nine when she menstruated and consummated her marriage), I chose to do so exactly because that account is used to attack the Prophet today.

Islamophobes cite that account to call Prophet Muhammad a pedophile, an outrageous and inflammatory charge. The Prophet’s marriage to Aisha (whatever her true age) was in no way controversial in his lifetime and was never used by his many enemies as a criticism of his character in his own era. The same people who insult Prophet Muhammad today would, of course, not use such derisive terms to describe the great biblical heroes who lived in a similar world and whose actions would not live up to modern ideas of morality. The Bible glorifies many actions that do not appear moral to us today. Joshua proudly committed

Faith & Controversy

Author Kamran Pasha talks with Adelaida Lucena-Lower about the controversial subject of his novel, Mother of the Believers ALL: In the preface of your novel you tackle a very controversial subject, Aisha’s age when she married Prophet Muhammad, by stating that it is “foolish to project modern values on another time”. Child marriage, however, is a reality even today; Saudi Arabia has recently moved to regulate the practice.

Are you concerned that Mother of the Believers may be used to justify child marriage? Also, since Muslim scholars are divided as to Aisha’s age, can you address the unease Muslims may feel at a portrayal that will surely incite criticism?

KP: The ancient practice of child marriage has no place in the modern world, and must be abolished, even as human beings have abolished ancient human traditions such as slavery. As I discussed in my Author’s Note to Mother of the Believers, there are many social practices that were commonplace in 7th-Century Arabia that are difficult for us to understand today. These include marriage of very young girls and institutions such as polygamy and slavery. Islam was born in a world similar to the Old Testament, a chaotic wilderness in which life and

death were the daily concerns. The world of Prophet Muhammad was parallel to the world that existed during the days of Abraham, Moses and King David, a world in which polygamy, child marriages, slavery and tribal warfare were a normal part of daily life and completely uncontroversial. Jesus Christ, by contrast, lived in the relatively civilized Roman Empire. He could teach his followers to avoid violence, as the streets were already patrolled by soldiers. His advice to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” meant that there was a Caesar, someone in charge who could keep order. Prophet Muhammad did not have the benefit of being born in an organized civilization.

Like Moses and David before him, the Prophet had to establish order in a brutal and primitive world. But what Islam did was to take that world and attempt to reform it, to push people to grow out of that barbaric environment and build a more civilized society.

The Prophet accomplished a huge amount in his lifetime, quantum leaping the Arabs from a primitive nomadic people to the rulers of a global empire, all within a few decades.

But there was only so much one man could do in his lifetime. The Prophet had no love for many prevailing social practices such as slavery, but he did not have the ability to abolish such deeply ingrained institutions overnight. So he set up a system where freeing slaves was encouraged and incentivized, helping society evolve past these

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Features & Interviews genocide of the Canaanites, including killing their women and children. David was a polygamist and a brutal warrior who had no problem desecrating the corpses of his enemies, bringing back 200 Philistines foreskins as a wedding dowry. Solomon is admired as a man of legendary wisdom, but he had a harem of 700 wives and 300 concubines. Yet those who criticize Prophet Muhammad seem to have no problem with holding these biblical figures up as heroes for their children in Sunday school.

Furthermore, the fact that Christian scholars generate little controversy by suggesting that Mary was 12 years old when she had Jesus shows that horror over the lives of young girls in these ancient societies tends to be selectively applied. Whenever people criticize my faith and its historical origins, I tell them I am happy to have a debate as to where Prophet Muhammad stands morally compared to the great heroes of the Bible who are the bedrocks of Western history and culture. It is not a debate that anyone with knowledge of the Bible really wants, so the attacks on Prophet Muhammad are coming from a place of bigotry rather than honest intellectual discourse.

ALL: Ancient Arabia is portrayed with rich detail in your novel. Tell us about your research, the obstacles you encountered, and how you solved them.

KP: The wonderful thing about Islamic history is that there is so much of it. Islam was born in the full light of recorded history, unlike Judaism and Christianity, whose origins are difficult to confirm for historians who choose not to take the Biblical accounts on faith. The amount of recorded historical data about the life of Prophet Muhammad is staggering, and much of that is due to Aisha’s prodigious memory. She related over two thousand historical accounts about her life with the Prophet. As a result, we know everything from major historical events around the birth of Islam, to the details of the Prophet’s daily life, what

HistoricalNovelsReview he looked like, how he ate and tied his shoes. The challenge for me as a writer was to sift through the vast historical data and piece together the story as a novel. There are many great accounts that I simply could not include in the book due to length concerns. Indeed, the original manuscript for Mother of the Believers was over 700 pages long, and I had to cut almost 200 pages out to make the book publishable. So the problem was not in finding enough information, it was in selecting the best accounts to convey the incredible history of Islam without turning the novel into a dry recitation of facts and dates. In my preface, I list many of the sources I used to craft the tale, and I encourage readers who are fascinated by the world I draw in my book to go back to those sources to learn more.

Truth in this case is definitely grander than fiction.

ALL: What was your vision before you started and how much did you depart from it once the writing began?

KP: I actually wrote the last lines of the book first. The novel ends with Aisha’s answer to the question she raises at the onset: “What is faith?”

The answer came to me in a flash when I first sat down to write and I recorded it first. And then I had to go back and figure out how I was going to tailor the story so that the final answer would be poignant and meaningful. I am a screenwriter by profession, and so I first drafted the story as a movie script, which ended up being over 200 pages long – a four-hour epic if it was ever produced as a film! And then I took the individual scenes and turned them into chapters, expanding the dialogue and action with descriptive prose. That is why many people who have read Mother of the Believers say that it moves with lightning speed, like a feature film. They’re right, because it was first written as a movie.

My biggest disappointment in the process was being unable to include everything that I originally wrote in the screenplay version. As I mentioned,

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Issue 49, August 2009 the book was initially over 700 pages long and had to be cut. And that editing process forced me to excise a large part of the final section of the novel, which deals with Aisha’s life after the Prophet’s death. While that last section works well and concludes in a very emotionally compelling way, I am sad that I could not include many chapters that I loved in the final version.

If I had been able to write the book I wanted, it probably would have come in at over 1,000 pages, which would have been difficult for any publisher to put out there successfully. So I did the best I could and kept the core of the story. Perhaps one day, if this book survives the passage of time, I will be able to issue the unabridged version, which would probably rival in length my favorite historical novel, Gone With The Wind.

ALL: How did your own faith as a Muslim and the unfortunate stereotypes of Islam in the media compel or restrict your treatment of the material?

KP: I was motivated to write this book primarily to address the false stereotypes of Islam as a violent and misogynistic religion. Islam is a beautiful faith that offers humanity a great deal today. It is a faith of love for God, equality between human beings, and mutual respect and tenderness

Features & Interviews between men and women. I have endeavored to show in my novel how these principal values have always been at the heart of the religion, despite the brutal and violent nature of the world in which Islam was born and had to survive. I also spent a great deal of time in my novel explaining the context of the world in which the Prophet lived and why Muslims were forced to take arms to defend themselves from annihilation.

In addition, I tried to show how Prophet Muhammad was deeply sympathetic to women and worked hard to make their lives easier. In fact, Islam gave women rights that Christians denied them until the modern day. For example, Muslim women were given the right to inherit and own property in the 7th Century, rights which American and European women only achieved in the past century, after intense political struggles.

In my novel, I show that Islam began as a progressive movement to help the poor and weak against the oppression of the powerful. This is not the image that people have of Islam today, which is a tragedy. And I hope my book will remind Muslims today to recapture that progressive spirit that made Islam such a quantum leap forward in human rights and civilization.

ALL: The women in your novel — particularly Aisha — will surprise those who think Muslim women have never had a voice or a role. How did women in your life inspire or inform the depictions of these strong characters?

KP: I have always been surrounded by powerful Muslim women. My mother and sisters are strong, confident women as well as devout believers.

They have continued Aisha’s tradition of intellectual curiosity, scholarship and leadership. I think aspects of how I portray the powerful women in my novel were probably derived from the images of women that I had in my family, as well as the many strong Muslim women I have had the pleasure to know over the years, including

HistoricalNovelsReview doctors, lawyers and social activists.

The spirit of Aisha is very much alive today in their actions, and I hope to inspire more Muslim women to follow in the footsteps of the Mother of the Believers.

ALL: Other than the main characters, which historical figure in Mother of the Believers merits another book?

KP: That is a hard question, as I am utterly fascinated by all of the people I feature in the book. But if I had to choose, I would suggest the character of Umar ibn al-Khattab, a formidable figure in the history of Islam who became the second Caliph, or leader, of the Muslim community after the death of the Prophet. Of all the historical figures I profile in the book, Umar went through the most radical change. He started off as one of the most feared and hated enemies of Islam, a man of terrible cruelty and violence, who was intent on murdering Prophet Muhammad and destroying the new religion. And yet he experienced a life-changing moment when he read the Qur’an for the first time and instantly converted. Umar went from Islam’s greatest enemy to its most powerful supporter. And as the Caliph, he ruled with incredible wisdom and statesmanship, and his reign is still remembered by Muslims for it dedication to justice. Umar’s personality was so rich that I could only begin to explore his depth and complexity over the 500 pages of my book. If I could do a sequel to Mother of the Believers, I would love to write a novel that more closely examines this remarkable man and his legacy.

ALL: How did your background prepare you to write this novel?

KP: As I mentioned, I am a filmmaker by profession, so my training as a screenwriter allowed me to create a screenplay-style outline for the novel.

My career background definitely helped me stylistically in creating a fastmoving story, despite its epic scope

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Issue 49, August 2009 and length. With regard to content, my life experiences as a Muslim raised in America certainly guided me thematically. The terrible negative images of Islam in the media have haunted me all my life, and so I was aware of the specific issues I needed to address and clarify in this book. Many people wrongly believe that Islam is a religion of hate and oppression. And there are many people, both among Muslim extremists and anti-Muslim bigots, who misread Islamic scriptures and history to support that idea. So I knew it was critical for me to go back and show how the Muslim faith actually developed and why it became a successful global religion.

A faith that has survived fourteen centuries and now is the second largest religion on the planet cannot ultimately be about destruction. Destructive ideologies cannot last because human beings simply don’t have the heart or the energy to continue to support these ideas for long. The Nazis were only in power for a few terrifying years, and the Soviets lasted less then a century. Islam could not have survived this long and become such a powerful force in human history if it is what its detractors claim it to be. So it was my duty to present the majesty and the wonder of Islam, to show why the religion is so attractive to human beings and why it continues to play a major role in this world today. And as a believer myself, I had to ultimately share and illuminate my personal faith in the pages of the book.

ALL: What message would you like to linger in the minds of the readers of Mother of the Believers?

KP: I hope that my readers come to see the beauty, joy and love that is the heart of Islam.

Adelaida Lucena-Lower is a contributor to the HNS magazines and regular reviewer for the Historical Novels Review.

Features & Interviews

HistoricalNovelsReview

Roman Mysteries &

Cornish Sagas many years ago for my work on listening). There is also a book for teachers about grammar in the EFL classroom,TeachingTenses,whichhas been reissued several times. All very worthy and not much fun.

The short stories are various.When I began writing seriously – as a result of an industrial accident which cut short my teacher training career Edward James interviews – I contributed stories to women’s Rosemary Rowe, aka magazinesandhavehadaboutthree Rosemary Aitken dozen of those published, as well as one or two broadcast by the BBC, Mostauthorswouldbehappytohave in the days of “Morning Story” and onebest-sellingseries,butRosemary the like. More recently, I have been Rowe, whom many HNR readers will invited to contribute to anthologies, know as the author of the Libertus which I have been pleased to do. series of Roman mystery stories, set Some of these feature Libertus, in Roman Gloucester (Glevum), is although there are others - one also Rosemary Aitken, author of a about Shakespeare, and even one series of early 20th-century Cornish about a cat! sagas.Andasifthatwerenotenough, Rosemary is the prize-winning EJ:You were a teacher and the author author of two textbooks for English ofsuccessfultextbooks.Whatleadyouto language teachers and a plethora of turn to historical fiction? short stories.

RR: I was always interested in writing, and like many people tried EJ: Could you tell us why you write Mills and Boon – and again, like under two different names? many people, I did not succeed, RR: Actually they are both my names because my heart was not in the – Rowe was my maiden name, and product. I was first drawn to writing Aitken my married one. I wanted to historical fiction following a visit distinguishbetweenthetwogenres– down a tin mine with my uncle, people wanting an early 20th century who was in his eighties. His father Cornish historical don’t want to find (my grandfather) was killed in the themselves reading about Roman Levant mine disaster in Cornwall, Britain. The readership for the two leaving eleven surviving motherless series is quite different. children, of whom my father was The textbooks are chiefly in number 10. My uncle had been a tin the realm of EFL – most of them miner himself and spoke so warmly listeningtextsandexercisesintended and interestingly about the life of the for foreign learners and teachers’ miners that I felt I had to capture it, books to match (I won an English while there was still time. The result Language Speaking Union prize was my first Cornish novel, and - 13 -

Issue 49, August 2009 interviews with other relatives and contacts have been the basis for all the rest of the Cornish series. The Roman ones grew out of a short story which an editor admired.

EJ:Howdidyoubecomeinterestedin Roman Britain?

RR: I taught Latin briefly in New Zealand, when I was young, as part of a wider curriculum, but it wasn’t a major interest. I have always been interested in archaeology, and that, perhaps, was the result of early experience, as I remember the first artefacts being disinterred from the ruins of the New Zealand village that was buried under lava at the time of the Tarawera eruption in the Victorian age. Pompeii and Herculaneum and the Roman ruins in Britain fascinated me in the same way, and the more I read and learned about that period, the more it struck me that people are in many ways unchanged – although the culture wasapparentlycompletelydifferent.

(The parallels between chariot racingandmodernfootballamused me very much!) The Romans were so advanced and civilised in some ways and so crude and barbarous in others that I was intrigued – and what can be discovered about Celtic culture is much more interesting than we tend to suppose.

EJ: But isn’t a Roman detective an anachronism?

RR: Yes, that’s why Libertus is not really a detective. He gets shanghaied into solving crimes because they might be politically embarrassingtohispatron,awealthy and important magistrate. The differences in methods are rather fun – I don’t have to worry about fingerprints and forensic evidence, let alone police procedure, because these did not exist. If Libertus finds a pool of blood, he can’t be sure it isn’t from a cow! The penal system is more difficult. The punishment for parricide, for instance, was so

Features & Interviews horrible that modern readers are likely to be uneasy if someone is caughtandexecutedforsuchacrime.

Similarly, the difference between punishments for the rich and poor is largely unacceptable to a readership which is - after all - only seeking to beentertained.Ioftenhavetoensure that my murderer escapes, if only by committing suicide or having someone exact immediate revenge (which was defensible in law).

EJ:Why did you choose an ex-slave as yourmaincharacter?Isitsignificantthat he is Celtic?

RR: Of course. He is Cornish – like me! I found it useful to have a protagonist who is not himself Roman – so he can comment on the Romanwayoflife,withoutitseeming out of character. It is significant that he was once a slave himself – it gives him an insight into how slaves think and act and a lot of his information comes from them: most wealthy people simply behaved as if slaves were not there. Having a profession (mosaic maker) which allows him to go into people’s houses and talk to wealthy men, tradesmen and the servant class, gives him a mobility mostpeopledidn’thave.Theaverage visitor would never see behind the scenes – but a man who’s going to build a pavement for you is different.

His patron’s influence is a factor too – it gives him credibility which he would not have of himself.

EJ: You have had homes in both Cornwall and Gloucestershire. Is it importanttoyoutoknowtheplacesyou write about?

RR: I knew the places first. The stories grew out of what I knew of them. I might find it hard to write about a place if I had no mental map or picture of it at all. For instance, I had to visit Venta (Caerwent) before I could imagine Libertus being there, but most of the content is fiction.

EJ: How do you carry out the research

HistoricalNovelsReview for your stories?

RR: The stories tend to come out of the research. For instance, the ideaaboutPompeia’swedding,arose from finding a book about different marriage ceremonies and rituals.

Then you start to think, who might die and why… and there’s your story.

Occasionally it does happen that I start to write and then don’t know what there would be in some place, or how some commodity would be produced, and then I have to look it up, or visit a museum. I have a study full of books on Roman Britain and the Celts, I love to visit sites like Vindalanda and the Corinium museum, and I sometimes use the internet – although you can’t rely on what people post on sites – though experts on things like Roman costume and religious cults, Celtic dyeing and round-house construction, are often amazingly helpful if you email them.

Obviously, one builds up a picture of a way of life – and that helps to get the feeling right from one novel to another – but the reverse is also true. There are many things (like the back-story, and who has to wear a toga and what Libertus’s relation is to other characters) which will be familiar to readers who have read my booksbefore,butmaybecompletely unknown to someone who has just picked up a late one in the series. I have to find a way to work that in, quite early in the text, and that gets more difficult every time.

Issue 49, August 2009

Rosemary Rowe that anyone else was doing it – so discoveringpeoplelikeLindseyDavis was both a pleasure and a shock – though her period/setting and mine areasdifferentas,say,modernBritain and Victorian Canada.

EJ:Couldyoutellmesomethingabout your latest book?

RR: The most recent Libertus book isDeathatPompeia’sWedding.Atowncouncillor with very old-fashioned patriarchal views on the role of women in society is poisoned on the day when his younger daughter was to be forced into a marriage with a man she doesn’t like. The daughter confesses to the murder on the spot, but the groom, who wants the dowry rather than the girl, pays Libertus handsomely to prove she’s innocent, so that he can still take her as his wife. Whether he does, and what the consequences are…well, you’ll have to read the book to discover.

Rosemary Rowe, Death at Pompeia’s Wedding,SevernHousePaperbacks, EJ:Whatauthorsdoyoumostadmire, May 2009, £10.99, 244pp, andwhichofthemhaveinfluencedyou 9781847510891 For details of Rosemary Rowe/ the most?

RR: Ooh, there’s a hard one. I have Aitken’s nine other Roman mysteries eclectic tastes. I admire authors as far and ten Cornish sagas and her other apartasJaneAustenandColinDexter, publications see her website www.

James Joyce and Ruth Rendall. I’d raitken.wynet.co.uk like to think that I was influenced by them, but I’m not sure that I was. Edward James is a reviews editor for Possibly by Agatha Christie, because Historical Novels Review and is she’s a craftswoman. When I started currently working on a novel set in writing the series about Roman early colonial Mexico. times, I was completely unaware - 14 -

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Historical Novel Society

3rd North American Conference Schaumburg, Illinois June 12-14, 2009 p

This year, HN R selected three conference attendees to share their thoughts about the 3rd Historical Novel Society North American Conference...

Sharratt is an American writer living M ary in England, near Pendle Hill, haunt of the notorious Lancashire Witches of 1612, who feature in her new novel, Daughters of the Witching Hill (to be published Spring 2010 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). Her novel The Vanishing Point (Houghton Mifflin) was a UK Guardian Readers’ Book of the Year. Visit her website: www. marysharratt.com.

Economic Hardships & Men in Tights: The 2009 Historical Novel Society Conference

by Mary Sharratt It was with much excitement that I checked into the Hyatt in Schaumburg, Illinois, for the 2009 Historical Novel Society Conference.

My enthusiasm was not to be disappointed.

The action-packed Friday to Sunday historical fiction lovefest was filled with some superb fan girl moments when I got to gush all over honored guests Margaret George, Sharon Kay Penman, as well as Margaret Frazer, a fellow Minnesotan who writes engaging novels about sleuthing medieval nuns. Ms. Frazer was also one of the winners of our Saturday night Historical Costume Parade, which featured a Pyrate Queen and some fabulous Men in Tights. (I would like to see more men in tights in the future, please.)

Historical Diva Diana Gabaldon was as stunning as ever in her turquoise shawls and

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Margaret George

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was the star of the Late Night Sex Reading.

Unfortunately, being such a meek jet-lagged soul, I had to bow out around 10:30. At least I got to hear a scene from Jade Lee’s searingly hot novel, The Dragon Earl. I’ll never look at Regency romance the same way again.

On a more somber note, surviving as a writer in hard times seemed the dominant theme of this conference. Touchstone editor-in-chief Trish Todd gave a great talk on the state of the market. What’s selling now generally involves well known historical figures. An English setting is a plus. Paperback is a much easier sell than hardcover. Shana Drehs, senior editor at Sourcebooks, describes how she is acquiring a wide range of new fiction and rescuing formerly outof-print historicals from obscurity. Barbara Peters, the powerhouse behind Poisoned Pen Bookstore and Poisoned Pen Press, discussed how smaller presses can provide a safe haven for authors who find the world of big publishing too cut-throat and cynical.

As an indy bookseller, she was pleased to announce that the traditional author tour is not dead. Indies generally offer more support in terms of hand-selling and eventhosting than the big chains who demand coop money for book placement.

Michelle Moran, Karen Essex, and CW Gortner gave a fantastic panel on what authors can do to promote their books in a dire economy. Moran stressed the importance of getting a good author website with a dedicated bloggers’ and book group page.

In terms of advertising, she pointed out that online ads get you more bang for your buck – blog ads are the way to go, but just be sure to be creative in finding out what sites your audience reads. Moran reported much

Sharon Kay Penman

success advertising her novels of Ancient Egypt on the LOL Cat website, I Can Has Cheezburger! Karen Essex talked about the importance of writing for the market – producing an excellent book that people want to read. Choose well known characters that intrigue people or, if you write about invented characters, find a wonderfully arresting setting. CW Gortner discussed the importance of perseverance and investing in your career. It can’t hurt and might help a lot to spend up to half your advance on publicity and marketing. If you blog, as he does wonderfully on his site Historical Boys, have something to say. It shouldn’t be all about self-promotion. He felt that virtual blog tours are more successful in terms of sales and publicity than the traditional author tour.

Tony Hays’ panel Research Methods on a Budget: What to Do When You Can’t Go There, featuring authors Roberta Gellis, Brenda Rickman Vantrease and Lauren Willig, discussed how authors can research on a budget. Can’t afford a ticket to Zanzibar to research your new novel? Never mind— the past is another country anyway. The panelists provided great tips for would be time-travelers such as making use of vintage Baedeker tourist guides.

I greatly enjoyed Clare LangleyHawthorne’s panel, We’re Not in Kansas Anymore: Writing About Non-Western Cultures, which included lively discussion of cultural appropriation and multiculturalism

Features & Interviews with Michelle Moran, Kamran Pasha, Eileen Charbonneau and Jade Lee. My only regret is that I have to wait two years for the next North American conference!

Douglas’s novel about poets and J ulianne printers in Renaissance Lyon is currently out on submission. She blogs about historical fiction and sixteenth-century France at Writing the Renaissance: http://writingren.blogspot.com.

Mentors & Friends: Networking at the 2009 HNS Conference

by Julianne Douglas

HistoricalNovelsReview to sell books and shared successful marketing strategies. In “Debut Novels,” Catherine Delors, Kamran Pasha, Barbara Corrado Pope and Ann Weisgarber recounted their varied paths to publication and encouraged authors to remain optimistic and resolute. At the Editors’ Panel, Shana Drehs (Sourcebooks), Barbara Peters (Poisoned Pen), and Trish Todd (Touchstone) described how their presses acquire new work and are adapting to the difficulties of the present market. In “Talking the Talk,” Christine Blevins, Kate Forsyth, Margaret George, Nancy Hull and Mary Sharratt addressed the use of dialogue to establish character, narrative, and setting. “Query Letters that Worked” allowed literary agents Stephanie Cabot and Pam Strickler to pinpoint what piqued their interest in the letters of Catherine Delors, Barbara Corrado Pope, and Joyce Moore and to answer questions from writers engaged in crafting their own queries.

Saturday evening, instruction gave way to

Ever since the end of 2007’s Albany event, I’ve been counting the days until the next North American Historical Novel Society Conference. Held June 12-14 at the Hyatt Regency Woodfield in Schaumburg, Illinois, this year’s conference did not disappoint. The organizers did a spectacular job bringing together 260 readers, writers, and publishing professionals in an informative and enjoyable celebration of historical fiction.

Three luminaries of the historical fiction world shared their wisdom during keynote addresses. Declaring historical fiction authors time travelers who take their readers with them, Margaret George described how she surrounds herself with “relics” of the past -- objects, music, smells and tastes -- in order to immerse herself in the worlds she writes about. Trish Todd, editor-in-chief of Simon Kathy Lynn Emerson & Schuster’s Touchstone imprint, discussed the economic difficulties facing fun. Over seventy authors signed copies of publishers today and the thrill she finds in novels fans purchased from the well-stocked her work despite them. She foresees changes bookshop. A cash-bar reception preceded the in the way publishers do business, but assured sumptuous banquet, followed by a costume us that good books will continue to find their parade that featured everything from way into readers’ hands and hearts. Sharon medieval wimples to suffragette placards.

Kay Penman regaled her listeners with little- The hardiest attendees braved their fatigue known facts about medieval women’s lives, to listen to Eileen Charbonneau, Margaret revealing that Welsh women could initiate Frazer, Jade Lee, Anne Easter Smith, and divorce if their husbands had bad breath! Diana Gabaldon read sex scenes from their I found these glimpses into the speakers’ novels. Bartenders and wait-staff got more artistic and professional lives both helpful than they bargained for working this gig!

For me, the best part of the conference and fascinating.

Panel sessions proved equally enlightening. was connecting with writers I’d met over In “Breaking in and Staying in the Historical the internet, mentors who have now Fiction Game,” Michelle Moran, Christopher become friends. I came away from the Gortner, and Karen Essex emphasized how conference exhilarated and inspired. The authors must work alongside their publishers only disappointment was that, like all good

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Issue 49, August 2009 things, the conference came to an end and now I have to wait two entire years for the next one.

C olleen Fliedner is a multi-published au-

thor, journalist, and travel writer. She has had two nonfiction books published, and recently signed a contract to write a history book series. Colleen’s background covers a wide range of writing experience, including screenplays, radio scripts and interviews, magazine and newspaper articles, plays, radio and television advertisements, a cable T V mini-series and over 100 travel articles.

Making a First-timer Feel at Home

by Colleen Fliedner Arriving early at the Historical Novel Society’s conference in Schaumburg, Illinois, I headed into “Fresh 1800,” a restaurant at the Hyatt Regency, for a quick bite. This was my first HNS conference, and I didn’t know a soul. I couldn’t help but overhear several groups at nearby tables having intense discussions. Writers’ discussions.

Make that, historical writers’ discussions.

They talked about plot, periods of history, using real versus fictional characters, and so forth. Okay, I was eavesdropping. I couldn’t help myself! I was in writers’ heaven!

Unable to hold back my excitement, I introduced myself to numerous fellow HNS members. Everyone was friendly and open, in spite of the fact that I was the “new kid on the block.” Judy Ridgley and Winifred Halsey talked about how wonderful the past two conferences had been and how much they were looking forward to this year’s speakers. I met sisters Karen Lee and Judith E. Davis, both writers. Judith had come all the way from her home on the Island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean. When I joked that she should receive an award for traveling the furthest distance, she laughed and said, “I wouldn’t have missed this conference for anything.” Boy, I thought, this is really going to be good.

Ann Chamberlin introduced herself a few minutes later. Chatting for a while, I discovered we share an interest in Turkey.

Features & Interviews Ann has written numerous books set there.

Although I spent a month in Turkey and plotted two historical novels, I never wrote the books. Why? I became disenchanted with the genre in the late 1990s, after completing my first novel at the time historicals died. My agent advised me to wait for the “pendulum to swing back in a few years.” Frustrated, I packed my manuscript and piles of story ideas in boxes, stacked them in the closet, and returned to nonfiction writing.

So, there I was on Friday evening…in a room bulging with hundreds of people who shared my passion for history and writing.

This was precisely why I decided to spend money I don’t have right now to attend the conference. I felt completely and utterly comfortable.

Saturday was packed with so many outstanding panels, it was difficult to choose which ones to attend. I filled an entire composition book with notes covering everything from breaking into historical fiction, to publishing with small presses, to using appropriate dialogue. The banquet speakers were wonderful, and although everyone was disappointed that Edward Rutherfurd had to cancel, Sharon Penman seamlessly stepped in as keynote speaker on Saturday night.

We writers often work in a bubble; alone with our computers, notes, rough drafts,

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Issue 49, August 2009

and reference books. By coming together Authors Beverle Graves Myers & Kamran Pasha at the conference, I believe a special, infectious synergy was created. Somewhere between meeting the HNS members in the restaurant, and the last workshop on Sunday, my determination to write historicals was rekindled. I came home energized by the speakers, encouraged by the other writers, and very grateful to the people who put the conference together.

Margaret Frazer

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Until We Meet Again & the Case is Solv-ed 10 Detectives Who Might NOT Crack the Case

by Susan Higginbotham

With everyone from Elizabeth I to Jane Austen busy solving crimes, surely there’s room for some other historical figures (and the occasional fictional creation) turned sleuth. Or is there? on the Moors 1. Mayhem Inspired by his sister Charlotte’s success as

a detective, Branwell Brontë decides to solve mysteries, too. He finds that, somehow, all clues keep leading him back to the Black Bull.

Could Not Stop By 2. Death Thinking that solving crimes will give her

poetry a certain edge, Emily Dickinson offers her services, but requiring all suspects to come to her home for interrogation makes her new job a bit problematic.

Red Rose of Death 3. The Margaret of Anjou investigates her husband

Henry VI’s mysterious death in the Tower. She is shocked to discover that Bishop Morton, Margaret Beaufort, and Thomas More’s father conspired to arrange the killing as part of an elaborate scheme to defame the future Richard III. King’s Favorite Sleuth 4. The Piers Gaveston proves quite hopeless in his

new role as court detective, but finds that Edward II doesn’t mind — provided his ineffectual sleuthing is done shirtless.

Then There Were No Suspects 5. And A crestfallen Agatha Christie discovers

that writing mysteries is much easier than solving them.

Suspicion and Suggestibility

6. Finding that life at Highbury has become

humdrum, Emma and Mr. Knightley begin investigating the backgrounds of their old

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Elementary, my dear... acquaintances and are shocked to uncover Miss Bates’s deeply sinister past. of Detection 7. Prince Unfulfilled by his role as royal consort, Prince

Albert begins moonlighting as a private eye.

When word gets out about his secret activities in the worst parts of London, he finds that Queen Victoria is NOT amused.

Kant Be Done 8. ItImmanuel Kant is determined to solve the

mystery of human existence once and for all, but dies just before he can do so. Young adult.

Queen’s Blood 9. The Convinced that her sallow-complexioned,

insomniac new sister-in-law, Anne Boleyn, is a vampire, a desperate Jane Rochford teams up with Cardinal Wolsey to find out the truth before the entire court is exsanguinated.

Wings of the Bat 10. The When Henry James begins receiving

anonymous notes threatening to reveal his secret vice of reading cheap detective novels, our hero must put his ill-gained knowledge to use in order to find the blackmailer before his reputation — and High Art itself — is forever sullied.

Susan Higginbotham has the utterly deplorable habit

of reading the ending of a novel — even a mystery novel — before she reads the rest of the book. She’s one sick character.

Prehistoric-Classical

Reviews N PREHISTORIC n SHADOW VALLEY Steven Barnes, Del Rey, 2009, $26.00/C$30.00, hb, 272pp, 9780345459039 Set 30,000 years ago in Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro region, this follow-up to Great Sky Woman has T’Cori, the heroine from the previous novel, on an important quest: to lead her people to a safe haven far from their ruthless enemies, the cruel and brutish Mk*tk. The gods tell T’Cori through dreams that the Ibandis’ only hope for survival is to follow the pathway they provide to another land and settle there. With the support of her husband, the brave and caring Frog Hopping, and the wise elder, Mother Stillshadow, T’Cori is able to lead the peaceful Ibandi tribe to the Shadow Valley, a paradise of plenty, teeming with huge herds, rippling lakes, and vast plains. But underneath the beauty exists the constant threat of the Mk*tk, determined to annihilate the Ibandi, and, from within the tribal group, a man thought dead returns to take revenge on those he deems responsible for his misery. An additional complication is the Vokka, strange, light-skinned people who control wolflike animals, and who seem to be neither friend nor foe—yet.

Barnes has written a wonderfully imaginative story of life in prehistoric Africa, with all its natural beauty and inherent dangers. His depiction of the three tribes, Ibandi, Mk*tk,

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HistoricalNovelsReview and Vokka, are interesting and realistic, both culturally and anthropologically. His characters, including the villainous Flat Nose and the tortured Fire Ant, are well drawn, along with scenes of battles, torture and mutilation, disease, childbirth, death, and lion attacks. Certain sections may not be for the faint-hearted, but on the whole, this is an entertaining adventure of how life may have been on the African plains at the beginnings of tribal civilization.

Michael I. Shoop

N BIBLICAL n MICHAL Jill Eileen Smith, Revell, 2009, $13.99, pb, 382pp, 9780800733209 Adhering closely to the traditional Bible story found in the books of Samuel, Smith places Michal, daughter of semi-mad King Saul of ancient Israel, at the forefront of this novel.

At the height of the continuous war with the Philistines, the handsome shepherd-who-willbe-king David volunteers to slay the Philistine giant Goliath and is promised Saul’s beautiful eldest daughter, Merab, as a reward. Young Michal falls for the charismatic and heroic David and manipulates events to marry him herself. The king’s dangerous bouts of madness and repeated threats of violence and murder intervene to separate them for years. Saul’s death and the ensuing power struggle provide a glimmer of hope for the couple’s eventual reunion.

Smith’s Michal is passionate, courageous, and desirable, as well as selfish, jealous, and unforgiving. Written with an inspirational slant and a smooth narrative, this retelling of Michal’s life allows the reader to see her

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Nick Drake, Bantam, 2009, £10.99, pb, 9780593054024 Thebes, 1324 BC. Tutankhamun has inherited an empire that should be at the height of power and glory. The king, only just 18 years old, faces the political conspiracies of the court and a bitter struggle for ascendancy. When his own security is threatened by an intruder in the palace, he summons Rahotep, chief detective, to track down the traitor. The detective is already involved in solving a series of brutal murders where the cryptically mutilated bodies of several young people are threatening to destabilise a ruthless regime already made precarious by corruption, dissent, the strain of distant wars, and the appalling divide between rich and poor. What he discovers at the dark heart of power will put his life and his family in grave danger.

This is the second novel featuring Rahotep, and judging by the quality of this book there will be many more to follow. The characters are well drawn and believable, and the use of the first-person narrative brings an immediacy and excitement to the book.

The reader is drawn in to the culture, sights, smells, and life of ancient Egypt without being overwhelmed by pages of descriptive passages. If you like the genre, you will undoubtedly like this atmospheric and intriguing novel.

Mike Ashworth

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Issue 49, August 2009 mature emotionally and spiritually, confronting (however unwillingly) events leading to the eventual transformation of her faith in God. I found this enjoyable and entertaining, similar in style and tone to Biblical novels by Lynn Austin. I look forward to the next installment in the series.

Michael I. Shoop JOURNEY TO THE WELL Diana Wallis Taylor, Revell, 2009, $13.99, pb, 329pp, 9780800733094 In a familiar New Testament story, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman by a well, speaks to her in spite of custom, and then proceeds to tell that woman her own history: That she has had five husbands and that the man she was with now was not her husband. In Journey to the Well, Diana Wallis Taylor pens an imaginative scenario for this woman’s life.

Marah’s story is a tale of woe. Orphaned young, she is forced to marry a brute instead of the young shepherd she loves. She is widowed by the age of fourteen. Following the Law, she is betrothed to her husband’s brother, but for his own reasons, he divorces her. Some joy enters her life when she encounters her shepherd again, and they are happily married. When he dies unexpectedly, she is once again forced to marry a relative—a deceitful man soon executed for murder. With a son and an elderly in-law to care for, she decides to marry a gentle merchant who offers her financial stability. He promptly goes missing, for three long years. When her husband’s half-brother arrives, he takes terrible advantage of her vulnerability. It is then, at her most sorrowful, that she encounters Jesus at the well.

In an unexpected twist on the usual depiction of the Samaritan woman as a creature of loose morals, Ms. Taylor portrays Marah as a Godfearing girl who, through obedience to the Law and her elders—and a terrible stretch of bad luck—,finds herself married five times and then raped. Written with passion and honesty, Journey to the Well is a heartfelt story about the difficulties of being a woman in Biblical times.

Lisa Ann Verge

N CLASSICAL n LAVINIA Ursula Le Guin, Orion, 2009, £14.99, hb, 295pp, 9780575084582 / Harvest, 2009, $14.95, pb, 288pp, 9780156033688 The setting and characters of this novel all stem from Virgil’s poem the Aeneid. In the poem, the character of Lavinia is minor and voiceless, while here she is the narrator of her life and the events surrounding her. This is not a straightforward tale; Lavinia is aware of herself as a literary character and even meets the poet in a strange mystic dream sequence. They discuss the poem and her place within it, and the poet foretells what will happen to her, raising the question of free will versus destiny. The jumping

Classical-1st Century around of the story from past to present to future adds to the sense of inevitability as the event is first told in prophecy, and is then experienced in the present. The mystical elements are reflected in the language with sentences such as “I am a fleck of light on the surface of the sea”.

I’m sure it’s all very deep and meaningful, but these parts for me detracted from the narrative drive. The historical details are well researched and conjure up a sense of time and place, but the endless religious rituals with sacred salt and animal slaughtering became a little repetitive, as did the chunks recounting battles, truces, and slaying. The pointlessness and casual carnage of war are clearly shown, and there are various musings on the nature of honour, the gods, and the attributes necessary for leadership. The book provides an interesting view into this ancient time and shows events from an unfamiliar and female perspective. I’m sure many would enjoy this novel, especially those who enjoy fantasy and myth, but for me, it failed to compel as much as I’d hoped.

Ann Northfield

N 1st CENTURY n WARRIOR DAUGHTER Janet Paisley, Penguin, 2009, £7.99, pb, 320pp, 9780141033044 In the Isle we now know as Skye, Kerrigan, Iron Age Queen of Warriors, has met a premature death. Living in a powerful matriarchy, women were highly regarded. Considered twice the value of men, they were mistresses of their own destinies, uninhibited sexually and trained in all the attributes of war. Kerrigan’s daughters, however, too young to claim leadership, have become outcasts. Skaaha, the eldest at eleven years old, leaves home with a father she did not know she had, to learn from the craft of a smith working in bronze, iron, and silver.

Janet Paisley has drawn her latest novel, Warrior Daughter, from historical legend and gleaned the early life of Skaaha from archaeological and anthropological research.

The rite of passage to womanhood is convincingly written, the author seeming totally immersed in the distant world she has created.

The warrior lifestyle of the Celts is well attested to by Plutarch and Tacitus; Druidic culture had only oral tradition.

This is in many ways a surprising book that totally enthrals. It is also very erotic and gives warning in its overt feminism to the male species—be aware and cautious; remember, patriarchy was only brought to Britannia by the Roman conquest.

Placing her novel in the setting where remnants of the prehistoric past remain, exchanging possible facts for mythical elements, Ms. Paisley has written a compelling story. I do not wish to detract from this but even the second Iron Age had ended by 25 BC, so why choose a birth date of 1 AD for Skaaha?

Gwen Sly

HistoricalNovelsReview GIVE ME BACK MY LEGIONS Harry Turtledove, St. Martin’s Press, 2009, $24.95/C$27.95, hb, 310pp, 0312371063 Quinctilius Varus is not a natural soldier. But no upper-class Roman can refuse the wishes of the Emperor Augustus, and so when the emperor sends Varus north to bring Germany under Roman control, Varus dutifully goes.

In Germany, Roman and German soldiers alike view the other side with fear, hatred, and grudging respect. Although the two sides seem to be at a stalemate, both Varus and Arminius, the cultured son of a German chieftain, realize that Germany is slowly but steadily becoming Romanized. The difference is that Varus wants to accelerate this process, while Arminius secretly is determined to keep his people independent.

Through guile, Arminius gains the confidence and friendship of Varus and leads him into an ambush that destroys three full Roman legions and ends Augustus’ hopes of a Romanized Germany.

Harry Turtledove does an excellent job contrasting the cultural differences of the Romans and the Germans, in everything from their views on sexuality to their methods of farming. Historical details are presented for the most part organically (for instance, Arminius studies Roman customs and military tactics to better fool Varus and defeat the Romans).

Turtledove also balances well the two main characters. Varus and Arminius are sympathetic but flawed: Varus is fair but foolish, Arminius is

Y PATHS OF EXILE

Issue 49, August 2009 brave but lacks empathy. However, Arminius’ deception is too prolonged. Although at the start of the novel Arminius’ hidden motives help to create an effective ominous tone, the middle of the novel drags from a lack of conflict. As a result the climax seems rather abrupt. Overall, an interesting read, but not an outstanding one.

Caitlin Higgins GLADIATRIX Russell Whitfield, Griffin, 2008, $14.95/C$16.95, pb, 448pp, 9780312534882 / Myrmidon, 2008, £7.99, pb, 320pp, 9781905802098 In the first century AD, a 19-year-old Spartan, Lysandra, is enslaved after being the sole survivor of a shipwreck. In Sparta, she was raised to be a warrior-priestess. The Romans force her to become a gladiatrix. She undergoes brutal training in a school for women gladiators, finds a female lover there, and is sent to live or die in the arena.

There were, as we learn from the Author’s Notes, actually were women gladiators in ancient Rome. The gladiatorial combats seem historically accurate and believable, and the book is full of well-described action scenes.

Lysandra’s struggle to survive at first kept me quickly turning the pages. However, despite the fact that Howard Fast’s Spartacus is one of my favorite novels and I’m a fan of the movie Gladiator, my interest dipped by the middle of this book. My problem, I think, was mainly with Lysandra as a protagonist. For one thing,

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Carla Nayland, Quaestor2000, 2009, £9.99, pb, 221pp, 9781906836092 Paths of Exile is a wonderful story, one that conjures up this long-gone age in extraordinary detail and reveals a profound understanding of its politics, cultures, and religions based on extensive research. It may be true, as Nayland admits, that “solid facts are rare indeed in 7thcentury Britain”, but these characters—some real, others pure fiction—are so solid and credible that they will stay with you long after you turn the last page.

There will, I’m sure, be more to come, as this is just the first stage of Eadwine of Deira’s story. He and his loyal companions—Lilla, Ashere, and Drust—escape after the disastrous battle outside Eboracum (modern York) at which Aethelferth the Twister, a powerful ruler from the northern kingdom of Bernicia, routs the army led by Eadwine’s father, Aelle, contemptuously known as “Ox Brains.” Who else would relinquish a stronghold like Eboracum? Eadwine flees south, but as he knows well, there is no a safe haven if you have a price on your head—particularly when loyalty demands that he first solve the mystery of his brother Eadric’s death and then avenge it.

Nayland is an author who confidently weaves together an intricate and thrilling series of subplots, revealing more about the individuals whom Eadwine meets while in exile and the widely diverse groups that occupied areas now so familiar to us. Severa, a keenly intelligent young Christian woman and a healer whose skill exposes her to accusations of witchcraft, is a particularly unforgettable character. One controversial hurdle that Nayland has, to my mind, cleared in every respect is her wholly convincing dialogue that satisfies the modern ear while also distinguishing between the various accents and languages then in use. In all, a compelling tale and an authoritative new voice: one to watch.

Lucinda Byatt

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11th Century-13th Century she lacks a fully fleshed-out past. The warriorpriestesses of Sparta never existed. Novelists have made wilder flights of fancy than this, and those come vividly to life for the reader, but here we have a perfunctory backstory devised to explain Lysandra’s fighting spirit. Despite her bravery, I found it hard to care about her. At the beginning of this novel she is credulous and arrogant, and, as the story goes on, though she suffers, she does not change much. None of the characters has much depth.

Some readers may be put off by this novel’s explicit lesbian sex or a truly savage heterosexual rape scene, but neither goes beyond the bounds of other recent fiction. If you want action packed entertainment with a dash of historical realism, you may enjoy this book.

Phyllis T. Smith

N 11th CENTURY n MERCENARIES Jack Ludlow, Allison & Busby, 2009, £19.99, hb, 380pp, 9780749007508 The Norman/French Border in 1033. Duke Robert is preparing for battle supported by his cousin Tancred de Hauteville and his sons.

Tancred is hoping that Duke Robert will take the boys into his household but is sadly disappointed when he refuses point-blank to do so. When it also becomes clear that the Duke intends to name his bastard son William as his heir, the de Hauteville boys have no alternative but to make their own way in the world. Meanwhile in Italy, there is another power struggle going on.

Sixteen-year-old Guaimar, heir to Salerno, vows vengeance when his father is betrayed by the Normans and sees his lands stolen by Pandulf, Prince of Capua, known as The Wolf.

The two eldest de Hauteville sons, William and Drogo, travel to Italy to enlist as mercenaries in whichever household will take them and soon find themselves in service to Rainulf Drengot.

The story continues with the paths of William and Drogo, and Guaimar and Pandulf crisscrossing across Italy. It has pace and excitement and the pages just keep turning. This was not an episode in history that I knew much about, being more familiar with the exploits of the Normans versus the English than the Normans in Italy and Sicily. This is the first book in a new series by Jack Ludlow, chronicling the achievements of the de Hauteville family, and I look forward to reading the next one.

Marilyn Sherlock

N 12th CENTURY n A KNIGHT’S TEMPTATION Catherine Kean, Medallion, 2009, $8.95, pb, 388pp, 9781933836522 Lady Leona Ransley has taken responsibility for her family estate since her father is in no condition to handle affairs. When Leona brings a stolen ruby pendant to a local tavern

HistoricalNovelsReview in order to collect the reward, she is abducted by squire Aldwin Treynarde, who is charged with returning the pendant to its rightful owner.

Leona and Aldwin have a past—they met as children and were involved in a tragic accident.

As the two travel the countryside on a quest to return the pendant to its rightful owner, they quickly realize that they also have a future.

Both Leona and Aldwin are a little too headstrong for their own good, and both have a strong sense of duty. Aldwin’s desire for forgiveness is the novel’s emotional center, and the love story hinges on whether Leona can forgive Aldwin—and whether Aldwin can forgive himself. Kean’s love of the era is apparent, and readers looking for medieval romantic suspense will find much to enjoy here.

Nanette Donohue

N 13th CENTURY n A PLAGUE OF POISON Maureen Ash, Berkley Prime Crime, 2009, $7.99/C$8.99, pb, 291pp, 9780425226773 Maureen Ash’s Templar Knight mystery series has introduced Bascot de Marins to scores of readers in previous volumes. Her latest finds the battle-scarred veteran of Crusader warfare challenged by a series of murders by poison in and around Lincoln Castle. An intelligent and methodical man, Bascot is faced by a puzzling number of murders which seem to have no relationship to one another, but all involve the same type of poison. Called upon by the Lady Nicolaa to resolve the problem, Bascot steadily moves forward from isolating the means by

Y THE SINS OF THE FATHER

Issue 49, August 2009 which the poison is transmitted to the inevitable confrontation with the murderer. Along the way, the reader is treated to Ash’s absolutely astonishing understanding of early 13th-entury social life and conditions. Every detail from food preparation to castle life is outlined in a manner which appears almost seamless to the 21stcentury interloper. Unfortunately, Ash is unable to inject any life into her characters. Bascot and those around him move through their world as lifeless and uninteresting actors in a drama that does not concern them. This is a shame, since it is such a contrast with the author’s brilliant eye for providing the setting in which they live.

John R. Vallely THE REBEL PRINCESS Judith Koll Healey, Morrow, 2009, $24.99, 384pp, 9780061673566 Healey (The Canterbury Papers/The Lost Letters of Aquitaine) brings readers the second installment of the story of Princess Alaïs Capet, sister to King Philippe Auguste of France. Set in 1207, the tale begins as the court of King Philippe is awash in conspiracies. Alaïs’s aunt, the dowager countess Constance of Toulouse, is acting secretive, the king does not know which of his ministers he can trust, and two monks dispatched by the pope in hopes of persuading the king to support stamping out the Cathars, a Christian sect in the south of France, arrive at court. King Philippe turns to his beloved sister Alaïs for advice. Alaïs vows to help her brother and uncover the mischief at court. What she really longs to do though is finally reunite with and settle down with her lover, William of Caen, and reveal to Williams’ ward, Francis, that she is his mother. The plot deepens when

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Catherine Hanley, Quaestor2000, 2009, £9.99/£14.99 (large print), pb, 200pp, 978190683 6115/9781906836122 (large print) England in 1217 is in turmoil. Many nobles have rebelled against King John and invited the French prince Louis to take the throne. Because of John’s sudden death the year before, William de Warenne, Earl of Surrey and Lord of Conisbrough Castle in Lincolnshire, switches his allegiance away from Prince Louis and declares for the young King Henry III and his regent William Marshal.

William Marshal calls for the loyal forces to muster at Lincoln, but when another lord and his retinue arrive at Conisbrough for a stopover on the way to Lincoln, there is a murder in the night.

Such a crime would normally be dealt with by Conisbrough’s bailiff, but he is mortally ill, so his son Edwin is ordered to solve the mystery within two days, before the combined retinues leave for Lincoln.

The story is mainly told from Edwin’s point of view, but there are frequent excursions into the minds of other characters. This results in the reader having more information than Edwin does, which makes it too easy to spot the murderer. The Sins of the Father is gripping, nonetheless, with interesting characters who are credibly mediaeval. The author is an academic expert on the period, but she doesn’t deliver a history lesson. Instead, we get a fascinating glimpse of how a mediaeval murder might really have been investigated. Highly recommended.

Alan Fisk

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13th Century-14th Century the St. John’s Cup, a relic sacred to the Cathars, is stolen. Following the cup’s disappearance, Constance is absent from court, and Francis is kidnapped. Alaïs takes matters into her own hands and devises a way to search for her son, risking her life and rebelling against William’s explicit instructions to stay at court.

The Rebel Princess is a fast-paced historical mystery with plenty of suspense and intrigue.

With every turn of the page there is the threat of bloodshed due to the rising conflict between the bishops and the Cathars. Healey does a fantastic job rendering the touching story of the intense bond between Alaïs and her son. Equally compelling is the exploration of Alaïs’s regret over the harsh parting words between her and William. I am looking forward to more in this series and hope that the love story between William and Alaïs unfolds even more. A very enjoyable read.

Troy Reed VOICES OF THE DESERT Nélida Piñon (trans. Clifford E. Landers), Knopf, 2009, $24.95 / C$28.95, hb, 272 pp, 9780307266675 A retelling of One Thousand and One Nights, Nélida Piñon’s Voices of the Desert is concerned not with the tales but with the teller, and the effect on Scheherazade and her family of her decision to sacrifice herself to the ruler of 13thcentury Baghdad. Convinced she can entrance the ruler with her tales, Scheherazade becomes one of the Caliph’s wives in an attempt to save other young women of the kingdom. After one night with each, the Caliph executes his wives as an act of vengeance. Scheherazade succeeds in engaging the Caliph with her stories, winning another day of life for herself, and advancing her plan “to make the Caliph suffer whenever she introduces him to her creatures and he becomes a participant in the pain of others.”

Through her adventure tales Scheherazade hopes to instill compassion for his subjects in the ruler of the Caliphate of Baghdad. But the tales take a toll on Scheherazade, as do her nightly loveless couplings with the ruler. Voices of the Desert is a challenging novel, devoid of dialogue, detailing Scheherazade’s nights with the Caliph, as seen from the storyteller’s point of view and those of her family members, servant, and the ruler himself. Perhaps because of this, the story has a densely packed quality, but the exceptionally rich language of Voices of the Desert does evoke an exotic place and time long past.

Eva Ulett

N 14th CENTURY n TAMED BY A LAIRD Amanda Scott, Forever, 2009, $6.99/C$8.50, pb, 432pp, 9780446541374 Jenny Easdale awaits her fate—marriage to a man who wishes to possess her lands and title.

Not the future she desired, but her guardian

HistoricalNovelsReview insists this is best for her. She craves a last adventure and escapes her betrothal feast to join a band of traveling musicians. Never has she felt such freedom, but unease filters through her as she overhears whispered tidbits and is mistaken for someone else in the company.

Sir Hugh Douglas wants no part in hunting down his brother’s wayward heiress, but agrees to prevent a scandal. A warrior adept at mimicking others, he assumes the identity of a troubadour to travel with the musicians. Accomplishing his task proves challenging, for Jenny has stumbled on a plot that might endanger the peace between Scotland and England, and she’s determined to warn his liege lord herself.

Slow to start, this story, set in the Border region of Scotland in 1374, captivates and charms once Jenny and Hugh join the musicians.

Humor, love, and tension build to the climax, where secrets and truths are revealed. This is the first in a trilogy and more of a backstory to the next title, which may explain why the ending leaves the reader feeling a bit disappointed.

Cindy Vallar ORDER IN CHAOS Jack Whyte, Putnam, 2009, $26.95, hb, 560pp, 9780399155772 / Harper, Oct. 2009, £7.99, pb, 400pp, 9780007207497 Early on the morning of Friday the thirteenth of October, 1307, King Philip le Bel of France descended upon every Templar house in his realm, arresting every knight. Within days, torture had wrung the confession of horrible

Y THE MAGICIAN’S DEATH

Issue 49, August 2009 crimes from the captive men, and within years, the last Grand Master would die at the stake in Paris. This was the effective end of the order, save for mystical rumors.

In Jack Whyte’s retelling, Scottish knight Sir William St. Clair manages to save the Templar treasure and a few boatfuls of knights from their fortress at La Rochelle and bring them to safety on the Arran Islands, eventually to his family’s ancestral home at Roslin. How some few Templars lived in those dark days when every hand in Christendom was after their proud insignia is interesting to contemplate, evolving, I don’t doubt, into Scottish rite freemasonry. I was frustrated, however, by the dearth of battle scenes, for which Whyte is famous. Of course, when you’re lying low, galloping onto the field under your black-and-white banner should be avoided. Getting us up to speed on Scottish politics involves pages and pages of dull dialogue, which in the end proved unnecessary, and the sudden miraculous appearance of the defeated order on the Scottish side at Bannockburn receives but a similar cursory account. A nod to romance, possible now as monkish vows of celibacy are wiped out, is just that, an awkward nod, although it improves a little toward the end.

All in all, however, the book is worth the read to discover how those North American plants got on the walls of Roslin chapel years before Columbus.

Ann Chamberlin

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Paul Doherty, St. Martin’s Press, 2009, hb, 288pp, $24.95, 9780312565626 / Headline, 2004, £7.99, pb, 384pp, 9780755307753 The Magician’s Death is the fourteenth of Paul Doherty’s Hugh Corbett medieval mysteries. Playing on the rivalry between England’s Edward I and France’s Philip IV, Doherty draws the reader into multilayered political conspiracies that would make any spy’s heart flutter with envy.

The top layer of the intrigue surrounds Roger Bacon’s impenetrable text, the Secret of Secrets, in which both sovereigns have developed an inexplicable interest. A collaboration is arranged to attempt translation of the mysterious tome. The symposium of scholars will meet through the bitter cold winter of 1304 at remote Corfe Castle, near the coast of Devonshire.

While France’s top schoolmen puzzle over the arcane text, young women—six is the final tally—have their throats slashed, Flemish pirates are sighted too near the coast, and local bandits find a corpse hanging in the forest.

Then, one after the other, France’s three scholars suffer unfortunate deaths. Add to the mix the mysterious Father Matthew, the castle’s chaplain, who is not what he purports to be. Corfe’s winter blizzards are a fitting metaphor for the swirl of puzzle pieces and hidden motives that confound Sir Hugh until at dawn’s first light (another apt metaphor) the pieces fall into place just in time…for an excellent climax.

The Magician’s Death is a rollicking good story, but what gives special pleasure is the gracefulness of the story’s development. It is like a finely executed dance—one scene flowing into the next, in a measured, accelerating pace to a beautifully crafted climax. It’s the work of a writer at the height of his skill. Most highly recommended!

Lucille Cormier

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15th Century-16th Century

N 15th CENTURY n THE WHITE QUEEN Phillipa Gregory, Touchstone, 2009, $26.99, hb, 408pp, 9781416563686 / Simon & Schuster, 2009, £18.99, hb, 432pp, 9781847374554 Gregory’s newest entry is all about Elizabeth Woodville, told in her voice and with a few twists and turns.

Elizabeth is a commoner who we meet as a young widow with two small boys. That she is beautiful beyond description is apparent. Using that beauty, she is determined to snare Edward IV, newly made the Yorkist king of England, not merely because he is beautiful as well and she is drawn immediately to him, but because she seeks to ensure the survival and elevation of her own family, Lancastrians all, by becoming his queen.

The story of the woman many label “the Woodville Witch” is one of legend. That Elizabeth cleverly manages and manipulates Edward is the stuff of history. However, Gregory, a very talented writer, deftly develops Elizabeth into a sympathetic character from a history that is not always kind to her. A significant part of that characterization, though, is an embellishment on the “witchy” aspect of the Woodvilles. After all, how does a commoner manage to get, catch, and keep the eye of Edward other than by magic and sorcery? A different perspective, perhaps, and a bit distracting.

While much is made of Elizabeth’s use of magic, much also is made of her tenacious fight for her family, and particularly for her children, two of whom are the two young princes who vanish from the Tower of London.

Elizabeth’s relationship with Richard III, too, is an interesting read.

Clearly, Gregory knows her history and has done extensive research. True to time and place and well written, this is a far superior entry to her last novel about Mary, Queen of Scots. That said, some of the writing is a bit pedestrian; it doesn’t grab you and keep you in its sway as did many of her earlier books. Overall, though, a worthwhile read and a different take on Elizabeth.

Ilysa Magnus KNIGHT OF DESIRE Margaret Mallory, Forever, 2009, $6.99, pb, 384pp, 9780446553391 Knight of Desire, the first novel of a planned series entitled All the King’s Men, is set in England and Wales in 1405. Lady Catherine is left widowed after her traitorous husband, Rayburn, joined the rebel forces against their king, Henry IV. Rayburn’s lands were granted to William FitzAlan, a knight who fought bravely and loyally on the side of the king. When William rides to Ross Castle to claim his reward, which includes Lady Catherine, he is surprised and impressed by her headstrong attitude. Catherine

HistoricalNovelsReview is given the choice to either marry William or go to the Tower. The pair marry within the hour.

The rocky beginning to their relationship is caused by the great mistrust that exists between them. William is wary of Catherine because she spied for the king and betrayed her own husband. Catherine cannot fully give her heart to William because of the horrible abuse she met at the hand of Rayburn. Slowly the two learn to trust each other, though each time they move forward in their relationship, an incident happens to set them back again. Knight of Desire is a satisfying love story full of emotion with a bit of danger and plenty of passionate love scenes. An entertaining and satisfying read.

Troy Reed THE STOLEN VOICE Pat McIntosh, Constable, 2009, £18.99, hb, 297pp, 9781845298418 / Soho Constable, 2009, $25.95, hb, 212pp, 9781569475829 The Sidhean (Sheean) is a local hill where the Good Neighbours dwell, so when 12-yearold David Drummond, a chorister, vanished from that very spot and returned thirty years later, seemingly not a day older, it was perfectly natural to believe that the Good Neighbours had had a hand in it. Within the last year more singers disappeared, the last of them being George Brown, secretary to the Bishop of Dunkeld, who had been present when ambassadors had been received from England in the summer. Is someone simply poaching good singers or are there darker deeds afoot? This is just what Gil Cunningham has been sent by the Archbishop, Robert Blacader, to find out.

This book gets away from Glasgow and the environs of the university and up into the Highlands around Perth. The story moves along well and the characterisation is as good as ever, but a glossary to explain the Gaelic and Scots words used would be useful. The author does give a web site to find a dictionary of the Scots language but, in my opinion, to have to do this in the middle of the story is not the best of ideas.

Marilyn Sherlock

N 16th CENTURY n THE PROMISE T.J. Bennett, Medallion, 2009, $8.95, pb, 322pp, 9781933836966 As a teen, Alonsa falls in love with Miguel, a Gypsy living on her merchant father’s land.

When she realizes that she cannot keep the promise she made to run away with him, he tries to abduct her and is foiled by Alonsa’s father.

Miguel’s dying words are a curse—any man who loves Alonsa will die. Years later, Alonsa is traveling with a small merchant caravan.

Her fiancé, Martin, dies following an attack on the caravan, and Martin’s dying words are to his friend Günter—he must care for Alonsa by marrying her. Fortunately for both Günter and Alonsa, they are strongly attracted to each other, but Alonsa has given up on love because

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Issue 49, August 2009 of Miguel’s curse. Can Günter convince her that true love can overcome fear?

Bennett’s second novel shares the same 16thcentury European setting as her first, as well as the same focus on lesser-known social and political issues of the era. The characters are appealing, and a secondary romance between Ines, a marketwoman who travels with Alonsa, and Fritz, a young man training to be a soldier like Günter, is charming. Readers who enjoy steamy historical romance in an outside-theordinary setting will enjoy The Promise.

Nanette Donohue DAUGHTERS OF THE DOGE Edward Charles, Tralfalgar Square/Pan, 2009 (c2008), $13.95/£7.99, pb, 374pp, 9780230531239 In this novel, the sequel to In the Shadow of Lady Jane, young Richard Stocker is still mourning his friend Lady Jane Grey when he accepts an invitation to accompany Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon, to Venice. A Protestant in a country ruled by the Catholic “Bloody” Mary, Richard is eager to take the excuse to leave England for a time and to consider whether he wants to devote his life to the practice of medicine. Richard soon finds, however, that he has not left intrigue behind in England. And when the vain Courtenay decides that he must have his portrait done at an inexpensive price, Richard’s dogged quests through Venice’s art studios will lead him to convents and courtesans—and to a new love as well.

Earnest and resourceful, Richard, the narrator, is a likeable hero, whose coming-of-age story is all the more appealing for being set in the atmospheric location of 16th-century Venice.

Charles neatly integrates historical characters, including Courtenay, Francis Walsingham, Titian, and courtesan Veronica Franco, into Richard’s adventures, and he employs a broad variety of Venetian settings, from slums to convents to art studios. The story of an innocent abroad who gains experience and a fresh start, Daughters of the Doge is an engaging tale.

Susan Higginbotham MARTYR Rory Clements, John Murray, 2009, hb, £12.99, 409pp, 978848540774 / Bantam, 2009, $25.00, hb, 400pp, 9780385342827 Welcome another Tudor detective. This one is John Shakespeare, elder brother of the famous Will (who makes a cameo appearance towards the end of the book) and one of Queen Elizabeth’s ‘intelligencers’. He is working in London about 50 years after C. J. Sansom’s Shardlake, and to judge by this book the city has become much more squalid and violent in the interim. Indeed it probably had, for it had grown much bigger as landless peasants swarmed in from the overpopulated countryside. Clements spares us none of the squalor and violence—the book opens with the discovery of a disembowelled

16th Century pregnant woman in a burning brothel!

England in the 1580s is in the midst of a security scare. The Pope has declared Holy War on Elizabeth and is infiltrating foreign-trained religious fanatics into England to carry out terrorist attacks. Anti-Catholic paranoia sweeps the country, conspiracies are everywhere, and some members of the security services resort to torture in secret prisons. Shakespeare will have none of this and of course he succeeds in thwarting the terrorists and bringing them to justice, although if Francis Drake’s wouldbe assassin had had a better aim, the outcome might not have been so fortunate.

If you enjoy the Shardlake series, you will probably like this, but it is not for the squeamish.

Edward James SACRED HEARTS Sarah Dunant, Random House, 2009, $25.95, hb, XXpp, 9781400063826 / Virago, 2009, £14.99, hb, 480pp, 9781844085965 In Renaissance Italy, the Council of Trent moves to purge convent life of the contamination of the outside world, the Counter-Reformation imposing further oppression on already marginalized religious communities. Meanwhile, behind the high walls and locked iron gates of the convent of Santa Caterina in Ferrara, prayer and hard work define the hours of the day, angelic voices raised in heavenly praise. Abbess Madonna Chiara ruthlessly guards her charges, juggling convent politics and secular interests on behalf of those in her care. In contrast, the piously ambitious mistress of novices, Suora Umiliana, yearns for transcendence from earthly restraints, convinced that starving the body feeds the soul.

Dispensary mistress Suora Zuana cultivates herbs to relieve the sisters’ physical suffering, conscientiously attending the newly arrived novice, Serafina, who howls against her fate, stripped of love, her future interred behind convent walls. It is over Serafina that the battle is waged, a confrontation of pragmatism and piety, the order’s law of obedience sorely tested as the novice flails against a life she has not chosen and those who would manipulate her gifts to their own ends.

Dunant treads fearlessly the terrain of the soul and the temptations of the heart, a place suffused with worship yet tainted by fanaticism, where miracles flirt with gossip, holiness riddled with human flaws. Richly nuanced characters inhabit this rarified world where the Divine is avidly pursued, each failed test a mark against the soul. Strong women beget passionate conflicts, Serafina at the heart of all, an innocent pawn hollowed by submission, broken by despair.

Sacred Hearts is a harrowing excavation of spiritual conceits, a collision of body and soul, an exquisite balance of rage and ecstasy, of love and hope, of dark secrets and unexpected grace.

Luan Gaines

HistoricalNovelsReview

Y THE STING OF JUSTICE

Issue 49, August 2009

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Cora Harrison, Macmillan, 2009, £16.99/C$34.99, hb, 355pp, 9781405092272 / Minotaur, Nov. 2009, $25.99, hb, 368pp, 9780312372699 Mara, the Brehon judge, attends the funeral of a local priest little expecting that his will not be the only dead body in the church that day. Sorley Skerrett, silversmith and local mine owner, has been stung to death by bees. Mara becomes convinced that his death is no accident and is soon on the murder’s trail.

Her efforts are hampered by the multitude of suspects available, ranging from his wife, his son, and his daughter to his apprentice. Even Mara’s own fiancé might be implicated in the gruesome death. A man as unpleasant and as harsh an employer as Sorley is bound to have hidden enemies, too, and the innocent are relying on Mara to clear their names.

With her superb attention to detail, Cora Harrison brings medieval Ireland into vivid life, being equally skilful at portraying the good, the bad, and the ugly. Her research appears impeccable and is always included using a lightness of touch.

Mara is up there with the great fictional detectives. Her formidable intellect is beautifully balanced by her humanity and ability to empathise even with those she dislikes. She is a creation to be proud of and one assured a long stay on my bookshelves.

Sara Wilson

THE DEVIL’S QUEEN: A Novel of Catherine de Medici Jeanne Kalogridis, St. Martin’s Press, 2009, $24.95/C$27.95, hb, 470pp, 9780312368432 Catherine de Medici is perhaps one of the most maligned women in history. It appears, however, in Kalogridis’s deft interpretation of Catherine’s life, she was more sinned against than sinning, a political pawn in Machiavellian times. She lived much of her young childhood either a prisoner of Florentine rebels or the patsy for her manipulative family.

Much is known and written about Catherine’s attraction to and reliance on the black arts and astrology. Her confidant and astrologer, Cosimo Ruggieri, appears to have played a major role not merely in her surviving the overthrow of the Medicis, but in having shaped her major life decisions by use of talismans and much worse.

Without ruining the story, suffice it to say that Catherine’s desire for children was so powerful that she was willing to do anything to make that happen—anything.

Kalogridis paints Catherine as a brilliant, tenacious, and single-minded woman who is often able to manipulate those around her to do her bidding. What Catherine often fails to see is impending betrayal. We empathize with Catherine’s ability to give her love, but there are occasions where Catherine is a tough pill to swallow.

So, too, are some of what seem to be gratuitously gruesome scenes in the novel.

Without going into specifics, and giving Kalogridis the benefit of the doubt in grafting those scenes onto the plot, they merely illuminate the inhumane, sickening lack of “people value” that characterizes war and the abuse of power.

That having been said, what is admirable is how Catherine stands by her husband, Henri, year

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after year, tolerating his dalliances, particularly with Diane de Poitiers. She truly loves him and wants to be able to share her life with him.

Kalogridis’s Catherine is a complex, intricately drawn character. Despite the downsides to this book, it is a very good read.

Ilysa Magnus ROYAL BLOOD Rona Sharon, Kensington, 2009, $15.00/ C$17.95, pb, 488pp, 9780759228581 Arriving at the court of King Henry VIII in the spring of 1518, within days of one another, in fact, Michael Devereaux and Princess Renee of France have seemingly little in common. One is a newcomer, a first-time courtier, representing his benefactor, the Earl of Tyrone. His intention is to secure an appointment through knightly prowess in the Order of the Garter. The other, having grown up in the French court, is well acquainted with court intrigue and custom. She joins the English court with a secret mission assigned to her by Cardinal Medici. Events and an undeniable chemistry draw them together as they strive to attain their perhaps not altogether separate goals.

This seems to be a traditional historical, at first. Michael and Renee interact with all the usual suspects in the Tudor court as they navigate various political and social currents.

Along the way, they land in the middle of the tug-of-war between the king, Cardinal Wolsey, and the Duke of Buckingham. Hints that there is more to the story than meets the eye begin to surface in the narrative about a quarter of the way through. Only after a heinous murder occurs, however, is it clear what that difference might be.

I enjoyed Royal Blood immensely. I found it fun to read, with lively dialogue and

16th Century-17th Century

Y THE VIRGIN’S DAUGHTERS

HistoricalNovelsReview

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Jeane Westin, New American Library, 2009, $16.00/C$20.00, 400pp, pb, 9780451226679 It seems as though everything that could be written about the Tudors has been done in recent years, with a glut of books retreading the same tales saturating the market. So it was with mild trepidation that I opened Jeane Westin’s The Virgin’s Daughters, wary yet hopeful that maybe this novel would succeed where others had become stale. After literally racing through its 400 pages, I happily breathed a contented sigh of relief that yes, indeed, this is a Tudor novel not to be missed.

The Virgin’s Daughters is actually two tales woven together by service to Elizabeth I. The first half of the book focuses on Lady Katherine Grey, sister to Lady Jane, whose illicit love affair and marriage with Lord Hertford leads to disaster when discovered by Elizabeth. Katherine’s nearness to the throne and her impetuous nature fuel this part of the story as she runs headlong past her cousin’s adamant dictate that she remain an unmarried virgin.

In the second part of the novel, set almost forty years later, young Mary Rogers begins her service to Elizabeth with good intentions of remaining devotedly virtuous, yet still manages to find herself in love with one of the queen’s godsons. Though much time has passed, Mary’s story begins to echo Katherine’s; time alone will show whether or not she retains the fortitude to withstand her beloved’s advances.

Well told and well researched, this book gripped me from its earliest pages and wouldn’t let go until I’d read all the way through the reader’s guide at the end. I became caught up in the lives of these two relatively unknown ladies of Elizabeth’s court, and the way Westin ties both tales together is unique and riveting. What might have been merely two love stories truly became history brought to life. Highly recommended.

Tamela McCann

Y CITY OF SILVER

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Annamaria Alfieri, Minotaur, 2009, $24.95/C$27.95, hb, 336 pp, 9780312383862 In the 17th century, fabulous lodes of silver were mined from the area around Potosi, making the city in the mountains the richest city in the western hemisphere.

As part of the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru, the wealth derived from Potosi financed Spanish colonial efforts around the world and supported the infamous Spanish Inquisition. But when the King of Spain discovers that the coins the city has been circulating throughout the world are not pure silver, the city’s very existence is threatened.

His prosecutor and the Grand Inquisitor come to Potosi to uncover and punish both the counterfeiters and those who have run afoul of the Church.

Amid this tension, Inez Morada, the willful daughter of Potosi’s powerful alcalde, dies under mysterious circumstances in the convent run by Mother Maria Santa Hilda. All the signs point to suicide as the cause of death, but the abbess refuses to believe the girl would commit an act that would condemn her soul to hell and buries her within the convent. The abbess finds her own life at stake as a powerful enemy connected to the Inquisition uses that act against her and some of her fellow sisters.

Annamaria Alfieri weaves together a beautiful tapestry of life in 17th-century New Spain with amazing details; as an example, the reader learns that Spanish newlyweds consummated their marriage through a slit cut into the linen bed sheets. The author also has a great appreciation for the Indian and Spanish cultures of that time and place, as well as for the political and social nuances that made that period so intriguing. This is an engrossing, fast-paced mystery packed full of historical fact that illuminates the story but never overshadows it; a great read, highly recommended.

John Kachuba

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Issue 49, August 2009 generous detail. The relationship between the main characters, while improbable, evolved realistically.

Alice Logsdon

N 17th CENTURY n THE FREE NEGRESS ELISABETH Cynthia McLeod (trans. Brian Doyle), Trafalgar Square/Black Amber, 2009 (c2008), $16.95/£11.99, pb, 496pp, 9780060822217 This semi-biographical novel is set in early 17th-century Dutch Surinam, a land as exotic, brutal, and utterly insane as any other slave society of the time. By accident of birth, Elisabeth is born free, with a wealthy white Dutch benefactor, who is also a de facto uncle.

Uniquely, she is raised, educated, and adored like a white child. Intelligent and acquisitive, she creates an import business which becomes the eventual source of legendary wealth.

Although jealousy, prejudice, and hatred are relentless facts of her life, what she wants more than anything is social acceptance—and the legal right to marry her white lover.

The story is meticulously researched and abundantly footnoted. The author cites much original material which had been, in succeeding centuries, swept under the (White) rug. Despite the dedication to the subject and to history, the characterization didn’t always satisfy, perhaps due to difficulties with translation. I also wished, even if it had to be fictionalized, to know more about Elisabeth’s business, and to see her more often at work upon it. While I’d recommend this to anyone interested the period or in European/ Dutch colonial history, I found the larger issues raised by the story—race, religion, gender, and the inefficiency and universal degradation that afflicts a slave-owning society—to be more interesting than the characters.

Juliet Waldron SEA ROBBER Tim Severin, Macmillan, 2009, £12.99, hb, 322pp, 9780230709713 The book opens with Hector Lynch, pirate and fugitive, working for a slave trader on the Guinea Coast of West Africa. While waiting for his employer to return from a slaving expedition, Hector is ambushed by a gang of sea robbers and forced to navigate them around Cape Horn.

Abandoned in Peru, along with his group of close companions, Hector learns that Maria, the woman who stole his heart, is now living on the remote Thief Islands on the far side of the Pacific. He persuades a group of marauding buccaneers to sail to the remote islands with promises of unlimited gold and plunder. The voyage to reach her brings him face to face with a Japanese warlord and a Stone Age tribe whose boats can outpace the fastest galleon.

The characters are well drawn and the plot believable, but I would recommend reading the first two instalments in the series first. Although Sea Robber is the third in the Hector Lynch

17th Century-18th Century

Y HIGHLAND REBEL

HistoricalNovelsReview

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Judith James, Sourcebooks, 2009, $6.99, pb 450pp, 9781402224331 Set during the religious warfare in the reign of James II of England (1685-1688), this rousing historical romance pits the fearless Catherine Drummond, the daughter of a Highland laird, against Jamie Sinclair, a seasoned soldier, adventurer, and spy who lives by his wit and sword.

After Jamie impulsively marries Catherine on the battlefield to keep her from being defiled and executed by the king’s mercenaries, their lives and fortunes become entwined. Whether in the Highlands, on Jamie’s estate, or in the London court of King James, they navigate through intolerance and ever-shifting political and personal alliances of Restoration England, Jacobite Scotland, and Ireland. They grow to respect, protect, and love each other over the course of adventures that test friendship, family ties, and intimacy.

Highland Rebel represents the best of the genre: carefully researched, with complex, compelling characters and a good, galloping plot that, despite a slightly sagging middle, is sure to please. Upscale historical romance at its best! Highly recommended.

Eileen Charbonneau

LADY OF THE BUTTERFLIES

Fiona Mountain, Preface, 2009, hb, £12.99, 400 pp, 9781848091641 After Cromwell, 17th-century England has entered a time of enormous changes. Politics are driven by the intense demands of religion and commerce. In the great maritime city of Bristol, ruthless men of business are intent on draining the peat moors of Somersetshire and turning the land over to farming. The inhabitants should gain in health and comfort but are dead set against losing their way of life. Over many generations they have gained knowledge and expertise, using their environment to the greatest advantage.

Eleanor Goodricke, lady of the manor of Tickenham, loves her changeable, water-filled land of wide skies, streams and springs, causeways, and bog and marsh, home to an extraordinary variety of wildlife. For Eleanor that means her lifelong obsession of the beauty and mystery of butterflies, which she identifies, names, and collects. Her struggle to protect her moorland brings powerful enemies and, ironically, hostility and suspicion from her tenants: a woman who chases after butterflies must at best be insane, at worst a witch.

Adored by her malleable husband Edmund and tantalised

by Richard Glanville, her beautiful prince of darkness whose temperament matches her own sensuality, she finds that only James the London apothecary understands her restless spirit.

When she seems to have lost everything, he points out the dangerous and difficult path she must take. Sadly, her own kinsmen have proved to be her worst enemies.

A serious and impressively researched work of exciting historical fiction that gathers momentum after a slow-paced start up to a thrilling finale.

Nancy Henshaw

THE FRENCH MISTRESS: A Novel of the Duchess of Portsmouth and King Charles II

Susan Holloway Scott, New American Library, 2009, $15/C$18.50, pb, 400pp, 9780451226945 Susan Holloway Scott’s latest novel revolves around the life of the controversial and muchmaligned Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth, lover of King Charles II. Like many other well-born girls, she is sent to the glittering royal court of Louis XIV to make her fortune as maid of honor to the English Princess Henriette.

During her service to the princess, Louise is initiated into her mistress’s innermost confidence, wherein lie ugly and treacherous secrets. After the princess’s mysterious death, Louise is sent to the English court, where she had previously caught the lustful eye of King Charles II. Her dual roles as spy for the French king and lover to the English king cause Louise many perils, but in the midst of it all, she uses her wit and ambition to create her own destiny in a dangerous dance of intrigue between two kings—and two countries.

This is the first of Susan Holloway Scott’s novels I’ve had the pleasure of reading, and it won’t be the last. Her grasp of period detail is impressive and colorful. She fleshes out these well-known historical figures’ psyches so they become alive and human, and her words evoke the senses—one can feel silk and wool against skin, experience the discomfort from long hours of standing in an overheated ballroom, and witness the first shocking view of London from a Frenchwoman’s perspective. She expertly weaves the complex political events of the time into the flow of the story, which makes for a thoroughly entertaining, enjoyable, and intellectually stimulating read. Highly recommended.

Andrea Connell

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Issue 49, August 2009 series, it is the first that I have read and I found myself at a distinct disadvantage. References to previous adventures help to move the plot along but do not clarify how and why Hector and his companions have got to where they are. The world of 17th-century sailing with dangers of shipwreck, scurvy, and casual deadly violence is effectively portrayed.

Mike Ashworth

N 18th CENTURY n THE CAVALIER OF THE APOCALYPSE Susanne Alleyn, Minotaur, 2009, $24.99, hc, 304pp, 0312379889 The story begins prophetically on All Hallows Eve, 1785, as Aristide Ravel, an impoverished young political writer, wanders into the scene of a fire set in the small Parisian church of St. Médard. In this prequel to Susanne Alleyn’s Game of Patience (2006) and A Treasury of Regrets (2007), it is over the curious pattern of charred debris at the altar of St. Médard’s that Ravel first meets his future cohort, Inspector Brasseur.

Two months later the curious pattern is repeated in the churchyard of St. André des Arts, scene of a grizzly murder, the victim unidentified but clearly a wealthy man. Brasseur suspects Ravel and forces him into the role of investigator to avoid arrest. Over a period of eight days the investigation moves nonstop. The corpse, still unidentified, is stolen from the morgue. There are signs of Masonic intrigue and political plots at the highest levels. Ravel’s investigation takes him to the Royal Veterinary School and Honoré Fragonard’s Le Chevalier de l’Apocalypse, his ghoulish écorché masterpiece—a dried, preserved horse and rider—which turns out to be the key to the mystery.

Reading The Cavalier of the Apocalypse is like being in France just before the Revolution.

Ms. Alleyn has managed to capture the spirit of the time in the angry squalor of the poor against the backdrop of titled privilege. But the story is not a social commentary—it never stops being a splendid mystery, packed with historical detail, red herrings, surprising twists, and even a little romance. If this is your first Aristide Ravel mystery you will want to dive into the sequels as soon as you can—promise.

Lucille Cormier THE BROTHERS BOSWELL Philip Baruth, Soho, 2009, $24.95/£16.99, pb, 336pp, 9781569475591 In 1763 John Boswell, brother of writer James Boswell, stalks his older sibling down the Thames with sinister intent. John has recently been released from a Plymouth mental hospital and accuses his brother of hiding him from his esteemed friends—most notably his new friend, the author of the famous dictionary, Samuel Johnson. Both Boswell boys grew up in Scotland reading the dictionary and playing word games with the definitions. James now

18th Century seeks acceptance as a writer in England. His incredible charm fascinates the literary giant, Johnson, and John is desperate to join their inner circle. With madness always lurking in his fevered mind, John packs two golden pistols and plans to kidnap both men to demand retribution.

The river excursion and kidnapping frame flashbacks into John’s boyhood and troubled relationship with his brother. Part of the story is told from James’s point of view, which helps illuminate his struggles in London society. James Boswell will go on to fame as the biographer of Samuel Johnson. This novel’s prose is beautiful, never plodding and shows what good writing can accomplish. The dénouement is dragged out a little too long, however. An author’s note is needed at the end to explain which details are true events and which are not, but the novel is a literary excursion in itself.

Diane Scott Lewis THE TORY WIDOW Christine Blevins, Berkley, 2009, $15.00, pb, 384pp, 9780425226018 The widow Anne Merrick, virtually sold into marriage with a much older man, runs a print shop and coffee house in colonial New York on the eve of the Revolution. A Tory because of her late husband’s sympathies, she must bend and sway with the changing fortunes of her city to keep herself and her business intact.

At first, keeping to the familiar Tory ways, she attracts the notice of a rebel, Jack Hampton— who burst into her wedding ceremony ten years earlier and gave her an exuberant and thrilling kiss. Now, however they are on opposite sides, as he goes undercover to help the rebel cause when General Howe’s army sends Washington’s rebels into retreat. But as time passes and Anne’s brother enlists in Washington’s army, Anne becomes caught up in the cause and does her own dangerous part in helping the Continental Army.

It’s always a pleasure to read a really wellresearched novel that takes you into a period in history in a way that illuminates it or brings a new perspective to historical events. Blevins has truly mastered her subject matter, with a tone and attention to details of speech and expression that feel authentic and draw the reader into the period and the story.

At its best in the scenes of action and adventure, where pages go by quickly as scenes are brought to life with evocative language and unerring syntax, The Tory Widow starts a little slowly, weighed down by a preponderance of adjectives. But this is a small fault in an otherwise engaging book, with a strong main character and just enough romance.

Susanne Dunlap LOVE’S FIRST LIGHT Jamie Carie, B&H, 2009, $14.99, pb, 320pp, 9780805448139 In 1789, during the opening weeks of the

HistoricalNovelsReview French Revolution, Christophé St. Laurent’s entire family is guillotined at the behest of Maximilien Robespierre. Barely escaping from Paris with his life, Christophé flees to Carcassonne, in the south of France. For five years he lives alone, in constant fear of discovery and denunciation. As he wanders through the cemetery early one morning, he encounters a pregnant woman mourning at her husband’s grave. Her name, Scarlett, suits her vivid personality, and soon Christophé falls in love. Shocked by his discovery that Scarlett’s deceased husband was Robespierre’s nephew, he packs his dagger and heads for Paris. When Scarlett grasps that Christophé plans to avenge his family, she follows him north.

Much of the excitement in this novel is created at the expense of historical authenticity (the St. Laurents are executed, without trial, on a portable guillotine brought to their own home) or practical reality (Scarlett is eight months pregnant when she blithely travels the 500 oftenmountainous miles from Carcassonne to Paris), but these lacks may be overlooked in a novel essentially about faith, love, and forgiveness.

The inventive plotting of Love’s First Light will entertain the many fans of Carie’s inspirational fiction.

Nancy J. Attwell SALLY HEMINGS Barbara Chase-Riboud, Chicago Review, 2009 (c1979), $14.95/C$16.95, pb, 371pp, 9781556529450 I am old enough to remember the furor this book caused when it first came out in 1979, presenting in novelized form the thesis that Thomas Jefferson had a long-time liaison and numerous children by his slave Sally Hemings.

Since that time, DNA studies have confirmed the connection, which was ardently denied by staunch Jefferson defenders then and still today.

Details of these conflicts as well as a helpful family tree appear in a new afterword by the author along with Reader’s Questions which will make this new edition even more useful for today’s readers.

I didn’t read this book when it first came out, but I’m glad to have done so today. Although sometimes weighted down by a history we all know, or think we know, this novel nonetheless demonstrates the power of fiction to put forth historical facts in a way that scholarly articles cannot. The story of the Hemingses was floating around in scholarly journals and yet did not become widely known—or widely objected to—until this story portrayed the woman “as a person with actual thoughts and conflicts,” as another reviewer has said. This is the power of fiction to offend the creators of larger-than-life heroes of any stripe, but particularly those who deny the paradoxes upon which our country is built. Fiction can offend where nonfiction cannot. It also brought to my mind the dubious nature of “freedom,” of monetary relationships where the people who clean up all our present-

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Issue 49, August 2009 day messes are anonymous, not tied to us in webs of family and childhood play, and so we feel no responsibility to sit with them as they die.

Ann Chamberlin SURRENDER THE WIND Rita Gerlach, Abingdon Press, 2009, $13.99, pb, 381pp, 9781426700729 Revolutionary War veteran Seth Braxton loses his father in America and his grandfather in England, thus inheriting estates in both lands.

Although he does not want his English manor, Seth travels there to reunite with a younger sister, who lived with his grandfather. Seth quickly falls for his sister’s friend, Juleah, and they marry. But an old flame of Juleah’s kidnaps her and ships her to America, covering his tracks by burning down Seth’s home. Believing Juleah dead, Seth goes back to Virginia where he discovers her alive. The couple returns to England where Juleah is kidnapped again by the same villain and Seth comes to her rescue.

Although marketed as Christian romance, Surrender the Wind is more like a Victoria Holt gothic romance with stock protagonists, an amber-eyed damsel in distress and a handsome nobleman with an air of danger about him. The plot is likewise formulaic in that the nobleman lusts for the heroine, often happening upon her in states of undress, falls in love with her, and then rescues her from a lecherous man. In addition, this novel suffers from poor editing and is riddled with historical errors and plot flaws. For example, Seth wears a black crepe mourning armband, a Victorian fashion. Seth’s friend claims to be “not rich” even though he has an income of £2000 per annum. And everyone in the novel can tell that Seth is an American by his accent, even though the American accent was not considered unique until the middle of the 19th century.

Patricia O’Sullivan WIND OF THE SPIRIT J.M. Hochstetler, Sheaf House, 2009, $13.99, pb, 368pp, 9780979748530 In book three of the American Patriot series, Elizabeth Howard continues posing as a Tory by day and transforming into a male Rebel spy at night. In her breeches role, she escapes capture with the rest of the Rebel troops after their defeat in the Battle of Brooklyn. But Elizabeth’s main preoccupation is her sweetheart, General Jonathan Carleton, who was sent west to treat with the Indians and hasn’t been heard from for months. Elizabeth joins an expedition to the Ohio country to find him, only to learn that Jon, now the Shawnee war chief White Eagle, may not be so eager to return to the white world.

I haven’t been able to “buy” Jon’s triple change of allegiance. He begins as a British officer in the first book, changes to the Rebel side, and then once among the Shawnee, fights the white settlers he was formerly defending as a Rebel officer. Hochstetler lets the reader inside

18th Century Jon’s head, but I still didn’t find the situation believable. Some purple prose passages may prove distracting: “he at last surrendered to slumber.” A positive is that the series is set in one of the less “sexy” time periods for historical fiction.

B.J. Sedlock THE TIDE OF WAR. Seth Hunter, Headline Review, 2009, £19.99, hb, 344pp, 9780755343089 1794. A French frigate is causing trouble in the Caribbean. The British have a frigate there, too, but she has lost her captain in decidedly strange circumstances. Newly promoted Nathan Peake is sent to take command, unravel the mystery of what happened to his predecessor, and of course eliminate the French ship.

The first third of the book is background. It takes forever to actually reach the Caribbean but things pick up as soon as we arrive, although the emphasis is on character rather than action.

There are lots of coincidences and Peake makes some decidedly dodgy decisions. Mr. Hunter has a wonderful knack for painting interesting characters, but unfortunately its main effect is to make the hero seem pallid in comparison. Still, there is a lot of tension and a good air of mystery, and I wanted to know how it all ended.

Martin Bourne DUCHESS BY NIGHT Eloisa James, Hodder, 2009, £7.99, pb, 406pp, 9780340961087 / Avon, 2008, $7.99, pb, 384pp, 9780061245572 Harriet, the Duchess of Berrow, has led a life of quiet rural seclusion since the suicide of her husband, Benjamin, and is ready for some fun. On a whim she agrees to masquerade as a man during a decadent house party held at the country home of Lord Strange.

For the first time in her life, Harriet feels properly alive, attractive, and witty and all because of her newfound friendship with Lord Strange himself. Mixing with actresses, scientists, gamesters, and politicians is bound to be a dangerous game, but Harriet excels at it until she finds herself falling in love. Then she must decide whether to stay a man and deny her love or declare her true identity and risk losing her heart.

Duchess by Night is the third in a racy new series of novels all featuring the “Desperate Duchesses,” and what a triumph it is.

Characterised by its wit, charm, and downright sexiness, this is a historical romance to give its pallid competitors a proper run for their money.

Stuffed full of nubile ladies, cads in tight breeches, swordplay, gambling, and seduction, it is cheeky, ever so slightly camp, and the most charming romance I’ve read in years. And if that sounds too frivolous then don’t be fooled—this is no old school historical novel with essentially modern characters simply dressed in period costumes. Eloisa James knows her history and is canny enough to ground her plot firmly in the

HistoricalNovelsReview

Y THE DEVIL’S COMPANY

Issue 49, August 2009

EDITORS’ CHOICE

David Liss, Random House, 2009, $25.00, hb, 384pp, 9781400064199 Fans of David Liss’s Benjamin Weaver series will not be disappointed by his latest installment. Benjamin Weaver makes his living as an independent thief-taker, detective, bodyguard, and sometimes thug. But after a seemingly simple job goes wrong, he is forced to work for the mysterious Jerome Cobb, who has threatened to ruin Weaver’s family and friends if he does not comply.

Filled with Dickens-like characters and descriptions of London’s dangerous back streets, The Devil’s Company finds Weaver forced into the heart of the British East India Company where he must negotiate a world of foreign spies, corporate secrets, and deadly rivals. At the heart of this tale is the Company’s attempt to remain the primary importer of textiles despite growing competition from France and the American colonies, the machinations of Indian suppliers to secure a more equitable relationship with the Company, and Parliament’s attempts to protect the British wool industry.

Liss’s ability to slip into the story historical tidbits and lessons in 18th-century manners, fashion, and commerce is masterful, as it neither feels pedantic nor contrived. Also, his period vocabulary is authentic without being archaic. But what makes the Benjamin Weaver series so compelling is the protagonist himself. Born in London to PortugueseJewish parents, Weaver stands between two cultures, often defying the expectations of both of them while trying to figure out his place in the world. This is a character Liss’s readers admire for his uncommon streets smarts, but care about because of his personal struggles with religious bigotry and difficult relationships with his family and his people.

Patricia O’Sullivan late 18th century.

Fabulous fun and highly recommended.

Sara Wilson THE COUNTERFEIT GUEST Rose Melikan, Sphere, 2009, £19.99, hb, 408pp, 9781847441355 / Touchstone, 2009, $15.00, pb, 432pp, 9781416560876 This, the second in the Mary Finch series (the first reviewed in HNR 44) sees our redoubtable heroine immersed in yet another, somewhat unlikely Adventure (with a capital A) set in the last years of the 18th century.

Mary is now the owner and mistress of White Ladies, a substantial property on the Suffolk coast. When she has suspicions about the activities of Colonel Crosby-Nash, the new husband of her good friend Susannah, Mary is recruited by the shadowy intelligence agencies of Britain to stay at their house in Kent and spy on Crosby-Nash. Meanwhile, Captain Holland, Mary’s love interest from the previous novel, maintains his somewhat ambiguous passions for Mary (reciprocated, but not acknowledged) and is likewise involved in nefarious activities in preventing mutiny and sabotage against the British Army, fomented by France and involving the arch-cad Crosby-Nash. This all comes together in a thrilling but rather far-fetched conclusion, in which Mary plays the role of brave heroine, with a huge hand from Holland.

This is good historical fiction with a racy and enjoyable plot based upon a core of actual events, though I do not feel that the book has quite the same panache and appeal as the volume.

Doug Kemp

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KILL-GRIEF Caroline Rance, Picnic, 2009, $10.00, pb, 371pp, 9780955861345 ‘Kill-grief’ is 18th-century cant for gin, and this novel certainly is awash with the stuff.

Mary arrives in Chester in 1756 to work as a nurse in a newly established infirmary for the poor. However, her secret purpose is to help her smuggler husband who is awaiting trial for murder. This task is complicated by her passion for the Squire, a thief-taker, who has turned her husband in for a reward, and also by her growing infatuation with the infirmary’s alcoholic porter.

Seeking comfort from the blood, stench, and filth of her job and the horrors of her husband’s gaol, she relies on gin. There are many twists and turns to the plot and many, often colourful, characters are involved. At times the novel is confusing, yet Rance skilfully pulls all the threads together for a surprisingly heartening conclusion.

Her research is thorough and her sense of period excellent. But the grim reality of 18thcentury urban life is pictured in such sordid detail that it can become monotonous. Disease and deformity, squalor, decay, and cruelty threaten to lose their impact through overuse. However, the dialogue is particularly good—colourful but never obscure. Even better, although Mary is strong (when nowhere near a gin bottle) and ambitious, she is never a 21st-century girl dressed in 18th-century rags. Unfortunately, drunks do tend to be bores and this reader often longed for Mary and her porter to go on the wagon.

This first novel is not a comfortable read, nor

18th Century-19th Century is it intended to be, but it is an often interesting and ultimately satisfying one.

Lynn Guest INSTRUMENTS OF DARKNESS Imogen Robertson, Headline Review, 2009, £19.99, hb, 376pp, 9780755348398 A crime novel set at the end of the 18th century, Instruments of Darkness has multiple points of view and moves between America, during the War of Independence, and London and Sussex in the 1780s. It opens with the discovery of a body and from that point we are taken on a voyage into the secrets of the Earl of Sussex and his family, with more deaths and villainy on the way to the unmasking of the culprit.

Set against the Gordon Riots, which add an authentic background of blood and fear to the main plot, this novel has well-drawn characters, in particular the young girl whose father is killed, is well written and historically accurate (although I was puzzled by some of the Americanisms in it, e.g. ‘britches’ for ‘breeches’, ‘your smarts’, ‘speak with us’ for ‘speak to us’, as both the author and the publisher are English). However, this did not detract from what is a well-written, multilayered story, which kept me engaged from the first to the last page. jay Dixon WHEN FORTUNE FROWNS William H. White, Tiller, $29.95, hb, 337pp, 9781888671247 October 1790. Captain Edward Edwards of the Pandora is directed by the Admiralty to seek out the infamous mutineers, late of the Bounty, and return them to England to face justice. The journey around the world to find and capture the missing mutineers mirrors the journeys of Captain Bligh: the Royal Navy winning through at last but not without hardship and hard work.

This is a serviceable Age of Sail story, with plenty of scrupulously accurate details.

Unfortunately, the pacing is as slow as a frigate in the calms around the equator, and the dialog as stiff as a captain’s neck stock. The characters, including the protagonist, third lieutenant Edward Ballantyne, are one-dimensional, and I’m afraid I was never really interested in them or their journey. What pulled me along to the end were the historical detail and the inherent mystery and adventure of searching for the missing mutineers.

The sudden shifts of point of view were hard to digest and the overuse of exclamation marks and random quotation marks were distracting.

Recommended for Age of Sail die-hards looking for a quick, historically accurate read.

Julie K. Rose

N 19th CENTURY n THE HORSE-TAMER’S CHALLENGE G.K. Aalborg, Five Star, 2009, $25.95, hb, 298pp, 9781594147425 The story begins in 1876 in the Montana

HistoricalNovelsReview Territory with Rebecca Susan Bennett agreeing to her father’s dying wish: Rebecca will rescue her kidnapped sister or kill her. Amy Bennett was taken as a young girl by Indians, and Mr. Bennett believes Amy will be better dead than as an Indian captive. The capable and mysterious horse-tamer, Lucas Swallow, agrees to help Rebecca, although he does not admit all of his reasons for doing so. The romance between Lucas, who is part Indian, and Rebecca, who hates Indians, is equal parts passion, frustration, and misunderstanding. The conflict in their relationship is realistic and its resolution is what every romance reader seeks. The romance is balanced by a strong storyline which includes not only a mystery surrounding the kidnapped sister, but also lost gold, a frightening band of outlaws, and a redeemed Indian grandfather.

There is much to enjoy and appreciate in Aalborg’s western romance.

Elizabeth Caulfield Felt BEYOND THIS MOMENT Tamera Alexander, Bethany House, 2009, $13.99, pb, 394pp, 9780764203909 In 1876, Dr. Molly Whitcomb, dismissed from her professorship at a university for an indiscretion, travels west to the Colorado Territory to start over as a children’s schoolteacher. Sheriff James McPherson was eager to hire a schoolteacher, but “Mrs.” Whitcomb isn’t what he expects. Despite liking Molly, his instincts tell him she’s hiding something, and when her secret is revealed, Molly risks losing her friendship with James and her renewed faith in God. This second novel in the Timber Ridge Reflections series delves into issues of deception and the consequences of dishonesty. Alexander’s reoccurring theme of trusting in faith and believing in forgiveness echoes throughout.

Both Molly and James keep secrets, and their trust in one another is tested several times. With several lovable side characters, this is not just the story of Molly and James but the whole town of Timber Ridge. Alexander successfully brings the town alive; with thought-provoking plot and poignant prose, you will be whisked Beyond this Moment into another time and place.

Rebecca Roberts THE PLIGHT OF THE DARCY BROTHERS Marsha Altman, Sourcebooks Landmark, 2009, $14.99, pb, 359pp, 9781402224294 This is subtitled “A Tale of the Darcys and the Bingleys,” and this describes it rather well, for this is a chance of catching up on what happened to those families after Pride and Prejudice ended. More accurately, this is a sequel to a sequel following on from Altman’s previous The Darcys and the Bingleys and is their next batch of adventures. This time Elizabeth’s sister Mary has a problem to solve, and this has Darcy and Elizabeth chasing off to the Continent in search of a solution. While in France they make

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Issue 49, August 2009 another surprising discovery, and after concluding their business in Rome, it is back home again…to more trouble!

If you like action-packed stories you will enjoy this, as so much happens to all the characters. I found it an antidote to lengthy novels where nothing much occurs, but do read Book One first. If you don’t (and I didn’t) you will be a bit mystified about some things while feeling that you have missed out on another good book.

There is humor, drama, tragedy, and everything in between, and, while I might have enjoyed a fuller account of the overseas travel, perhaps they are too busy having adventures to spend time describing everything at length. I’ve read various Austen sequels, but this is the best so far. Not to be missed for fans of the original.

Rachel A Hyde GIRL IN A BLUE DRESS Gaynor Arnold, Crown, 2009, $25.95, hb, 432pp, 9780307462268 / Tindal Street, 2008, £9.99, pb, 512pp, 9780955647611 All of Victorian London is mourning the death of famous author Alfred Gibson, but one woman has not been invited to the funeral: his widow, Dorothea, who has lived in virtual seclusion since being cast out of her husband’s life years before. Shut off from most of her family after the separation, Dorothea has accepted her position with a quiet dignity that borders on passivity, but as she mourns her brilliant husband and reflects on their lives together and apart, she will slowly muster the courage to re-enter the world, to face those from whom she has been long estranged, and even to encounter the woman who Dorothea believes stole her husband from her.

Girl in a Blue Dress is based heavily on the marriage of Charles and Catherine Dickens, but Arnold, by turning Catherine Dickens into Dorothea Gibson, gives herself the freedom to stray from the historical record, though the personalities of the main characters remain very close to their real-life counterparts. Dorothea, the narrator, commands our respect and sympathy but has enough inner strength to avoid being pitiful, and the rest of the characters are vividly drawn as well. In her portrait of Alfred Gibson, Arnold does justice to Dickens’ own charisma and complexity; we deplore his behavior toward Dorothea while feeling the same attraction for him that his wife does. Gibson even gamely tackles the task of supplying Gibson’s literary oeuvre with Dickens-like prose and characters.

First published in the UK in 2008, Girl in a Blue Dress was long-listed for the Booker Prize.

It’s easy to see why: this is a richly satisfying debut novel.

Susan Higginbotham THE DEVIL’S PAINTBRUSH Jake Arnott, Sceptre, 2009, £15.00, hb, 296pp, 9780340922705 Paris 1903. A homosexual scandal has shattered a British military hero’s career. Sir Hector MacDonald is at his nadir when he

19th Century encounters an unlikely ally in the form of notorious occultist Aleister Crowley, himself no stranger to homoerotic desire. Moved by pity, fascination, and his own dark designs, Crowley lures MacDonald into the depths of sin, claiming that the only path to redemption is through damnation. After secretly dosing the general with a hallucinogenic drug, Crowley guides the taciturn Scotsman on a stygian odyssey through the fleshpots of Paris.

Under sway of the drug, MacDonald relives his glorious victories in the Sudan where he fell painfully in love with one of his Abyssinian soldiers, a former jihadiyya, or holy warrior, forced to fight on the side of the British infidels.

The devil’s paintbrush of the title is the newly invented automatic machine gun which, in the mind of MacDonald’s lover, is bringing about the End of Days foretold by Mohammed. Later, serving in South Africa, MacDonald finds himself herding Boer families into the world’s first concentration camps. These flashbacks force him to realise that he lost his soul years before Crowley escorted him to his first black mass.

This powerful and highly intelligent novel echoes Joseph Conrad in heralding the 20th century’s heart of darkness: a godless epoch ruled by selfish lusts, diabolical weaponry, swastikas, and death camps. A highly recommended, sobering read.

Mary Sharratt JULIA AND THE MASTER OF MORANCOURT Janet Aylmer, Harper, 2009, $14.99, pb, 224pp, 9780061672958 After her brother is killed in the Napoleonic Wars and her family loses its fortune, Julia Maitland’s mother wishes her to marry Dominic Brandon, the elder son of an earl, a wild young man who prefers to live the high life in London with his lower-class mistress. Julia’s ailing father would rather that she consider Jack Douglas, the son of a self-made man and neighbor of the Maitlands in rural Derbyshire. On a visit to the Douglas family, Julia is drawn not to Jack, who cares for nothing but horses and farming, but to his younger brother Kit, who shares her love of books. Later, while Julia visits her aunt in Bath, she discovers that Kit has inherited the estate of Morancourt in Dorset from his childless godmother and taken her family name. She and her aunt visit Kit at Morancourt, where Julia and Kit discover that a ring of smugglers has been using the farm buildings. Will they succeed in tracking down the smugglers and finding happiness together?

Aylmer, author of Darcy’s Story, a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, has written a delightful Regency romance with a strong-minded, intelligent heroine, which should appeal to fans of Jane Austen.

Vicki Kondelik

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Issue 49, August 2009

SEDUCING AN ANGEL Mary Balogh, Bantam Dell, 2009, $22.00/ C$26.00, hb, 339pp, 9780385341059 In this fourth Regency romance series starring the Huxtable family, Stephen Huxtable, unattached youngest and only son, gets the spotlight. Set two years after the marriage of Meg, our favorite golden-haired angelic man becomes the perfect target for Cassandra Belmont, a destitute widow who allegedly murdered her husband. In town hoping to find a wealthy, wellborn lover, Cassandra wants someone to support her while she pieces her life back together. Setting her sights on Stephen, Cassandra soon learns that heartless seduction is not easy when Stephen pronounces he will not accept a mistress, but only a friend and a wife.

While not as sparkling as her Slightly series, the Huxtables still contain Balogh’s trademarks: flawed yet engaging characters and a charmingly alluring storyline. Delving into deeper themes, including alcoholism and domestic violence, this series rings slightly modern. But with her adept skill and creative storytelling, Balogh still manages to create a passionate love story that dazzles. Seducing an Angel is a fine addition to the series, and fans will hope to see cousin Con Huxtable’s story next.

Rebecca Roberts

RIO CHAMA Johnny D. Boggs, Five Star, 2009, $25.95, hb, 224pp, 139781594147371 New Mexico Territory in the 1890s was as wild as the West could be with gunslingers, cattle rustlers, and hostile Indians, trying to outsmart, outsteal, and outshoot each other.

Three-time Spur Award winner Johnny D. Boggs captures the excitement and drama of those times in the story of notorious gunman Britton Wade’s attempt to bring to justice a young man convicted of lynching a priest.

But the murderer, Jeremiah Cole, is the son of Senator Robert Cole, the most powerful man in New Mexico Territory. The senator has no intention of letting his son hang for killing the priest, despite the fact that young Cole admitted to the crime. Why would a man like Wade— an outlaw and dying consumptive—risk the senator’s wrath to bring Cole to Chama where he is sentenced to hang? As Wade’s story unfolds, it becomes clear that there is more than simple justice at stake. Ultimately, the story becomes that of a man’s search for redemption for a life lived badly and for a restoration of a faith he thought he had lost long ago. Rio Chama is an engrossing Western with several surprising twists and well worth the read.

John Kachuba

CROOKED MILE Ben Beazley, Picnic, 2009, £9.99, pb, 448pp, 9780955861352 The wages due to the Irish navvies digging a cutting for the Kelsford Canal are snatched, then one of the crooks is murdered and the money disappears. Detective Tom Norton investigates.

There are multiple strands in this closely plotted thriller set in the 1880s. The thieves work for the Fenian Irish Brotherhood, with its connections to New York gangsters. A wealthy widow, Ruth Samuels, is involved with helping persecuted Jews escape from Tsarist Russia. Among them is a Latvian anarchist eager to purchase guns from the Irish, who stays in Jack the Ripper’s Whitechapel. Then there are the local businessmen constructing financial frauds. It is a heady brew.

The author makes the most of copious historical research, and his fertile imagination in constructing minutely detailed backgrounds for even minor characters has to be admired. The tendency, however, of giving elaborate and often irrelevant biographies when any new characters are introduced breaks into the flow and pace of the story. I frequently think many novels would be improved by judicious pruning, and most of these mini-life histories could with benefit be cut. So could much of the background detail, though in among this ostensibly full account there is deliberate and misleading selection. A few hints to prepare readers for the final twist dénouement would have made the story more skilful.

Marina Oliver

OSCAR WILDE AND THE DEAD MAN’S SMILE Gyles Brandreth, Touchstone, 2009, $24.00, hb, 368pp, 9781439137284 / John Murray, 2009, £16.99, hb, 384pp, 9780719569807 Oscar Wilde sails back to Europe after one of his visits to the United States, where this latest mystery begins to unfold with the death of an obnoxious poodle. Most of the story takes place in Paris among the theater circles, where Oscar is assisting with an adaptation of Hamlet for the French stage. With the death of the star’s dresser, the theater family staging the play appears to be as cursed as that of the Danish prince. While Oscar and his friends investigate the events, the actors and actresses, including the Divine Sarah (Sarah Bernhardt), indulge themselves in the “art of life.” My favorite line “Darjeeling tea and Swiss absinthe, cucumber sandwiches and pipes of hashishin were served,” illustrates this rather well. Crossing the strata of society at will allowed Oscar Wilde unique perspectives during this period of his life and this makes for another vastly entertaining novel among the rich, the artistic, the working classes, and the outcasts.

Mary K. Bird-Guilliams

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DARCY AND ANNE Judith Brocklehurst, Sourcebooks Landmark, 2009, $12.99, pb, 190pp, 9781402224386 Readers of Pride and Prejudice will remember that Darcy had a cousin called Anne de Bourgh, daughter of the formidable Lady Catherine. They will also remember her as a sickly, unattractive little thing that her mother hoped would catch Darcy’s fancy. But suppose she had

19th Century the opportunity to spread her wings and flourish?

In this delightful sequel to the great novel, Anne gets the chance to do just that. En route to Pemberley for a visit there is an accident that leaves Lady Catherine laid up at an inn. Anne has to get word to her cousin, and thus begins a remarkable transformation leading to love and more. I’ve read other Pride and Prejudice sequels but this is one of my favourites for several reasons. I enjoyed the way in which it concentrated on a minor character rather than the further adventures of the more major ones only, as most of the sequels seem to. Nor does it tell the story we already know from another character’s perspective, but builds cleverly on what is already there and takes it in a different direction. Here, too, is an author who can tell her tale in a suitable voice, and in remarkably few pages while filling those pages up with enough incidents to satisfy the reader. I will be looking out for more from this author, and if you enjoy Regency romances you will surely enjoy this one.

Rachel A Hyde THE STREETS OF BABYLON: A London Mystery Carina Burman, Marion Boyars, 2008, $16.95/£7.99, pb, 468pp, 978071453180 Renowned Swedish mystery author Euthanasia Bondeson and her companion, Agnes, travel to England to spend a season enjoying the Great Exhibition of 1851 and surrounding London.

Euthanasia is not your ordinary 19th-century lady; refusing to be confined to a woman’s role in her society, she sometimes wanders the evening streets wearing men’s clothing and smoking the best of Cuban cigars. In contrast, her companion, Agnes, is rather unassuming yet beautiful with a penchant for getting lost.

At first her second disappearance within one week of their London tour is mildly troubling to Euthanasia, who diligently searches for her friend but at the same time continues to carry out her social obligations and touring schedule with some fascinating people in her new social and detective world. They include the debonair Indian swooner, Professor Devindra, who with each successive meeting has more than casual conversation in mind with Euthanasia. You’ll also meet the painter Sir Edmund, whose constant lectures on art and culture repulse our heroine and whose secrets seem to frighten his timid wife. However, it is the indomitable Inspector Evans who captures our heroine’s mind and heart as they explore the mystery of seven other rapidly disappearing, attractive, young women from the London scene and the murder of other unfortunate young ladies.

Simple but elegant jewelry, outrageously fierce statues of Eastern and Greek gods and goddesses, the terrifying streets of the more sordid sections of London, the secret behind some supposedly innocent paintings, and much more combine to mold this cleverly plotted, always thrilling mystery which remains

HistoricalNovelsReview

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Issue 49, August 2009

EDITORS’ CHOICE

A.S. Byatt, Chatto & Windus, 2009, £18.99, hb, 617pp, , hb, 9780701183899 / Knopf, Oct. 2009, $26.95, hb, 688pp, 9780307272096 This long-awaited novel, A.S. Byatt’s first since 2001, is extraordinarily difficult to encapsulate and to do full justice to within the confines of this short review. It straddles the last five years of the 19th century and the period leading up to the First World War, narrating the various stories of a related group of disparate intellectuals, writers, artists, and bohemian folk associated with the Arts & Craft movement.

The novel allows numerous readings and interpretations.

It is a splendid historical novel, a family saga, a study of a cultural and artistic movement, as well as a gimlet look at society and family politics, of sex, betrayal, and fidelity and the importance of one’s past and one’s parents to shape a life—as Philip Larkin so pungently observed. It is narrated with the same element of eccentricity that the characters display; it is detailed and slow-paced. Artistic endeavours and clothes are described in minute detail and the historical content is comprehensive and impressive in its depth and accuracy.

I will not attempt to describe the plot, for it is too ramified to adequately summarise.

Save that Byatt gets the reader to care passionately about her large cast of characters and what happens to them, and the ending is moving and sobering. The children’s author Olive Wellwood is based very much on E. Nesbit and her complicated domestic arrangements, and Eric Gill can be seen in the eccentric potter Benedict Fludd and his sexual peccadilloes.

Occasionally basic history is dumped somewhat awkwardly on the narrative and there a few typographical errors; Rupert Brooke is described as being “beautiful” on a number of occasions within a few pages. But this does not detract from the delights of reading this challenging and demanding book—a work that demands time and dedication from the reader and repays it fully.

Doug Kemp

impossible to solve until the very last pages (no sneak peeks, please)! While certain elements within the tale seem rather contrived, these parts admittedly fit well into what is a light-hearted yet captivating and enjoyable read.

Viviane Crystal McNAUGHTEN Sian Busby, Short Books, 2009, £14.99, 475pp, 9781906021054 It is 1843, a time of intense agitation about the Corn Laws. Sir Robert Peel’s private secretary is shot and dies, and a Scot, Daniel McNaughten, is charged and tried. His defence leads to the drafting of the McNaughten rules on guilt and insanity. The author has researched the subject intensively and provides convincing detail of London life. She follows the initial shooting, investigation, and trial and includes the early life of McNaughten.

Busby’s non-fiction is well regarded but, though this is a clever pastiche, as a novel it did not work for me. I rarely give up on novels but this time was tempted for several reasons. There are so many characters of equal importance, yet there were none to empathise with. The copious punctuation and the author’s often seemingly random use of dashes, ellipses, italics, and parentheses is so obtrusive it distracts from rather than illuminates the sense. The narration, written in a number of third person viewpoints, incorporating different voices, using dialect and

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phonetics, draws attention to the style rather than the content and, incidentally, refutes the cover suggestion of it being written by one of the characters.

If you enjoy detailed discussions about obscure arguments for and against the Corn Laws, you will appreciate this book. For my taste there was rather too much detail that was irrelevant to the plot.

Marina Oliver THE BELLY DANCER DeAnna Cameron, Berkley, 2009, $14.00, pb, 311pp, 9780425227787 At the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, young wife Dora Chambers hopes that her appointment as one of the Fair’s Lady Managers will impress her emotionally distant husband and gain her approval from the matrons who rule Chicago’s high society. But when Dora’s given the task of ensuring that the Egyptian belly dancers observe proper modesty and decorum in their act, she finds the exotic, passionate life of the dancers strangely compelling. When her attempt to gain her husband’s love fails, and a secret from her past threatens her position in society, Dora must make a choice between respectability and freedom.

Although The Belly Dancer has an intriguing premise, and although the author clearly did a great deal of research on the Fair, her handling of the time period and its historical details is

19th Century unconvincing. The descriptions of the clothing are awkward and inaccurate, and the author’s grasp of Chicago society is shaky at best. (A young matron being introduced to Mrs. Potter Palmer on the street does not curtsey! And we don’t have “women of rank” here either.) I would also have liked a great deal more about the belly dancing and the dancers. I was deeply disappointed in this book.

India Edghill REMARKABLE CREATURES Tracy Chevalier, HarperCollins, 2009, £15.99, hb, 324pp, 9780007178377 / Dutton, 2010, hb, $25.95, 9780525951452 In this novel, Tracy Chevalier turns her novelist’s eye to the life of Mary Anning who, although reasonably well known as a pioneering fossil hunter, has never received the attention she deserved and remains something of an enigma.

However, without her skill and knowledge, the learned palaeontologists of her day would never have had access to the specimens from which they formed their theories and reputations.

Mary was born in and never left Lyme Regis on the coast of Dorset, a place long renowned for its strange fossils. The family supplemented their income by selling fossils to visitors.

Mary’s keen eye began to discern the fossilised remains of huge and strange creatures buried in the rocks. These finds caught the attention of the leading fossil hunters of the day and in turn led to a radical rethinking of the earth’s origins and the Biblical interpretation of the Earth’s creation.

As an experienced and talented writer of historical fiction, Chevalier is not content merely to tell Mary’s story. She has cleverly allied it to that of another fossil hunter, Elizabeth Philpot, who also lived in Lyme and who became an authority on fossilised fish. Her story was new to me and I am grateful for Chevalier’s insight.

This is not just a story about two remarkable women but an exploration of women’s roles in the 19th century and particularly friendship between women of different background and expectations.

With Remarkable Creatures, Chevalier has returned to form partly, I believe, because she is more comfortable writing about women’s domestic lives. Having said that, although Remarkable Creatures held my interest, I felt the writing lacked passion and commitment and was a little tired and predictable. For me, it concentrated too much on the heart rather than the intellect, which belittled both of these remarkable women.

Sally Zigmond MY COUSIN CAROLINE Rebecca Ann Collins, Sourcebooks Landmark, 2009, $14.99, pb, 320pp, 9781402224317 This is, before you rush out and buy it, book six in a ten-book series following on from the events in Pride and Prejudice. This continues the story of minor character Caroline Gardiner,

HistoricalNovelsReview the daughter of the Bennets’ uncle and aunt.

This is her story, telling the tale of her refusal to become a dutiful, compliant wife and her career as a forthright reformer—as well as her business sense when her father becomes ill—and, of course, her romance.

This saga is something rather different from the usual run of Austen sequels, taking minor characters and cutting them a story of their own from whole cloth while at the same time including the familiar P&P characters. It is not an easy book to read without reading the others first, and trying to do so is rather akin to being invited to a party where you don’t know anybody. The author (who is Australian) demonstrates a good knowledge of the period and its mores, and Caroline is a modern young woman who wants more than the meager rights that society can give her. This makes it sound rather as though it is just another tale of women’s fight for equality, which is unfair. Austen fans are treated to a novel that contains something of the appeal of the original, while at the same time adding much that is uniquely that of the author as well as plenty of appeal for the modern female reader. I aim to read the whole series.

Rachel A Hyde THREE TIMES BLESSED Lori Copeland, Avon Inspire, 2009, $12.99/ C$16.99, pb, 264pp, 9780061364938 In post-Civil War Texas, Audrey Pride is excited to visit her friend Willow in Thunder Ridge, after which she expects to take up a teaching post. But she arrives to find that the school board doesn’t have enough money to pay her until the following year, which leaves

Y A GENTLEMAN OF FORTUNE

Issue 49, August 2009 Audrey with no means of support. Swallowing her qualms, she agrees to a job as an undertaker’s assistant. Days of rain in a normally dry locale result in a wagon train full of sick people stopping in Thunder Ridge, which provides her with more work than she bargained for. Can Audrey keep body and soul together in these conditions, while pursuing young but dour widower Eli Gray, despite his lack of encouragement?

With the exception of a brief prologue, this inspirational novel starts pretty much in media res, assuming that you have already read the first book in the Belles of Timber Creek series.

The story is fast-paced, with lively, though not very deep, characters. But look elsewhere for historical accuracy. I doubt that people in 1860s Texas would have used the expressions “upside the head” or “uptight.” A list of discussion questions for book club use is included.

B.J. Sedlock SEDUCE ME Robyn DeHart, Forever, 2009, $6.99/C$8.50, pb, 297pp, 9780446542005 Esme Worthington, a self-taught scholar, lives in Victorian London and dreams of finding the location of the legendary Pandora’s Box. She knows that, as a woman, her adventures are fated to be conducted from a seat in her parlor. Fielding Grey, Viscount Lord Eldon, is an adventurer and treasure-seeker who lives the life that Esme covets. When Esme is kidnapped for the key to Pandora’s Box that she possesses, Fielding rescues her. From that point, passion and treasure are foremost in their minds.

Together they discover the Box and the wonders held within.

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Anna Dean, Allison & Busby, 2009, £19.99, hb, 335pp, 9780749007256 This is the second novel featuring amateur detective Miss Dido Kent and is set during the Regency period. This was a new author for me and a very welcome one at that; although second in a series, the book stands alone without any confusion.

An old lady is apparently murdered by an overdose of ‘Black Drop’ and her beneficiary, a handsome young man, is thought to be the guilty party and so faces a terrible fate.

Convinced that the explanation is more complex than this and inclined to believe in the man’s innocence, Miss Kent decides to find the real culprit. By means of opening the novel with a letter, the author introduces the characters and central premise of the novel skilfully. The central character is believable, likeable, and convincing while the historical details are beautifully rendered, subtle, and unobtrusive yet adding an unmistakable sense of period and place.

In some ways it is reminiscent of Cranford with its small town full of women with little to do except gossip and keep an eye on each other. There are sly subtle comments about the status of women at this time, particularly commenting on the difficult and often unpleasant situation of spinsters and governesses, those without money or a chance of marriage. The plot is full of twists and turns with mysterious visitors, disguises, and lots of secrets discovered by Miss Kent. There is never a dull moment and I didn’t want it to end. Overall, a wonderful book which I recommend very highly. I will definitely be getting the first in the series and looking forward with great anticipation to the third.

Ann Northfield

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19th Century Readers should not expect this novel to be full of historical facts and dry information. This is a fun, fast read and is part of the Legend Hunter series. Its short length makes it the perfect beach read. Enjoy!

Monica E. Spence GOLD DIGGER: A Klondike Mystery Vicki Delany, RendezVous Crime, 2009, $18.95, 328pp, 9781894917803 The mysterious Fiona MacGillivray and her 12-year-old son Angus came to Dawson at the end of the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush to evade a scandalous past. In the Yukon Territory, where traditional laws do not apply, Fiona’s charm attracts men willing to spend their gold at the successful Savoy dance hall, which she co-owns with a Scottish business partner responsible for bartending and security. When an unscrupulous San Francisco reporter arrives, murder soon follows. After he reports disgraceful lies and harasses Irene, Fiona’s most popular dance hall girl, his corpse winds up on the Savoy dance hall stage. Almost everyone is a suspect. Constable Richard Sterling of the Canadian Mounties assists with the investigation and keeps tabs, like usual, on Fiona, whom he respectfully admires. Fiona, always wary of the law, hastens to find the murderer first, convinced that it must be one of her allies.

Mostly murder mystery, part farce, and completely amusing, Gold Digger is told mostly from Fiona’s point of view. Chapters are also devoted to the activities of Angus and Constable Sterling. Fiona, despite her penchant for selfishness and manipulation, except where her son is considered, becomes a likeable character as she frets over Angus and reluctantly worries about her friends and customers. Angus and Sterling, as well as many townsmen, are smitten with Fiona’s resourcefulness and grace.

Both men clearly recognize Fiona as a capable woman who does not need a man’s protection, but could use a little help now and again.

The accurate depiction of Dawson life as muddy and harsh and the hints to Fiona’s past as a lady of means add depth to this intriguing comedic murder mystery that is too entertaining to be missed.

Suzanne Sprague THE TUAREG: Blue Man of the Sahara George DiGuido, Vivisphere, 2009, $22.95, pb, 412pp, 9781587761577 Fleur Caldwell, an orphaned Virginia belle, is sent to live with an estranged uncle in London in 1828. Unbeknownst to her, the uncle is a heartless slave trader. After arranging to be his niece’s heir, the uncle arranges for Fleur’s disappearance. By introducing Fleur to Gregoire, a mysterious employee, the uncle hopes that she will instantly fall in love with the handsome Frenchman and join him on his dangerous assignment: Gregoire must travel deep into Africa to curry favor with the Slave King, by using Fleur as a gift. It’s a plan that goes quickly

HistoricalNovelsReview awry, as their ship to Africa is wrecked in a storm.

Fleur and Gregoire survive, and she succumbs to his seduction as they struggle to find their way to safety. After they are separated, a powerful man of a Tuareg tribe saves Fleur from certain death, and she succumbs to him, too. Fleur later runs away, only to be captured anew by slave traders. Meanwhile, Gregoire meets the Tuareg leader and they become friends as they set out to find their mutual lover. They discover her at the palace in Algiers—only for her to be sold into slavery yet again. This time, her freedom comes at a great price.

Though the story is written with great passion, and the author has done considerable research on African tribes, languages, and customs, this book falters on very fundamental writing issues. The characters—particularly Fleur—are one-dimensional, the dialogue is stilted, and there is little real emotional development of the relationships that are central to the plot.

Unfortunately, these issues make The Tuareg a very difficult read.

Lisa Ann Verge THE WET NURSE’S TALE Erica Eisdorfer, Putnam, 2009, $25.95, hb, 272pp, 9780399155765 Miss Susan Rose is the narrator and protagonist of this tale, which takes place in Victorian England. Raised by a surly father and caring mother, Susan must leave home to work at a neighboring manor house. She is free with her favors and thoughtless about her future, which she readily admits, but she’s flattered by the attention she receives from the heir to the manor. Soon she is pregnant and must return home. When her son is a month old, her father insists with fists and anger that she leave her child behind and become a wet nurse as her own mother has done since the birth of Susan’s oldest sibling.

Thus begins one of the best stories I have read in a while. As Susan sits quietly in the nursery of her employers, she is privy to goings-on in the rest of the household, and it’s not long before her honesty and wisdom are appreciated by all who come to know her. She describes herself as having a lumpy body and a nose like a potato, but she’s smart, tenacious, promiscuous when need be, and brutally honest about herself and those around her. She’s not pretty, but she’s real.

When her second child is born out of wedlock, she is forced to go home once more. Her irate father decides that the child would only hinder Susan’s ability to make him money and gives her son away.

Reader, her frantic search to find her Davey will have you cheering on one page and tearyeyed on the next. The ending is uplifting and joyful. The small vignettes between the chapters are an added treat as well. I highly recommend this first novel by Erica Eisdorfer.

Susan Zabolotny

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Issue 49, August 2009 THE QUICKENING MAZE Adam Foulds, Jonathan Cape, 2009, £12.99, hb, 262pp, 9780224087469 England, around 1840, and John Clare, the middle-aged poet of rural England, is incarcerated with his delusions and alter egos in High Beach mental asylum in Epping Forest, near London. The young Alfred Tennyson, still grieving over the death of his beloved friend, Arthur Hallam, lives nearby to be close to his brother Septimus who is also at High Beach. The asylum is run by Matthew Allen, a progressive man of science and industry, with his family living in unusually close proximity to the mentally disturbed inmates.

From this foundation in actual events, Adam Foulds weaves a delicate tale that has at its centre the inner lives, thoughts, desires, and self-deceptions of both the seemingly sane and those incarcerated in the asylum. Foulds, who last year published the highly regarded versenovel The Broken Word (reviewed in HNR 45) writes as a poet, with shaped prose and accurate and original description and impressions driving the narrative and plot. At times, the language and depiction of events is visceral and disturbing as Foulds depicts the churn of human activity.

As Matthew Allen reflects upon the failure of a business venture, he captures the essence of the novel: “He achieved a deeply peaceful dejection….thinking of man’s short squirming frenzy before entering the silence.” The kind of maze without a way out that entraps us all, eventually.

Doug Kemp EMILY’S GHOST: A Novel of the Brontë Sisters Denise Giardina, Norton, 2009, $24.95/C$27.50, hb, 320pp, 9780393069150 William Weightman, the personable young curate who assisted the Reverend Patrick Brontë at Haworth Parsonage for several years, is best known for sending Valentines to the three Brontë sisters and for possibly being the object of Anne Brontë’s affections. In this novel, however, it is the fiercely independent, unconventional Emily Brontë who finds herself falling in love with Weightman, who possesses not only charm and good looks but also a social conscience and a kind heart.

Meticulously researched and written in a clean, crisp prose style, Emily’s Ghost encompasses not only the splendor of the Yorkshire moors but also the hardships of daily life in the poor parish of Haworth, where, as one character notes forebodingly, few people live past their thirties. The inhabitants of the Brontë parsonage, human and animal alike, each possess distinct personalities. Giardina manages the difficult feat of making Weightman a genuinely good man without making him colorless, Emily is strongly individualistic without becoming tiresomely eccentric, Charlotte exasperates the reader but never entirely forfeits our sympathy, and Branwell’s better qualities are not lost amid

19th Century his dissipation.

Without departing from known facts or engaging in bodice ripping, Giardina gives us a compelling and moving love story between people we come to care about deeply. Even those who have not read the works of the Brontë sisters should enjoy this novel thoroughly.

Susan Higginbotham RIDING VENGEANCE WITH THE JAMES GANG Donald L. Gilmore, Pelican, 2009, $23.00, hb, 368pp, 9781589806269 In the preface to this novel about the notorious gang headed by Frank and Jesse James, Gilmore expresses how difficult it was to imagine the thoughts, words, and emotions of his characters while telling their story in an historically accurate manner. Still, he succeeds admirably.

Gilmore, who has written other works about the Missouri-Kansas border war, shows in detail how much that war, and the subsequent Civil War, affected the James brothers, especially Jesse, and how it shaped their future lives as outlaws. The James brothers teamed up early in their careers with the Younger brothers, an alliance that lasted many years. The novel gives the reader a bonus in that it provides as much information about the Younger brothers as it does about their more famous partners.

One of the most dramatic episodes in the history of the James-Younger gang was the disastrous bank robbery in Northfield, Minnesota.

The raid triggered one of the most massive manhunts in history as hundreds of policemen and vigilantes combed the countryside for the gang members. Gilmore’s vivid retelling of this event is extremely well detailed and keeps the reader engrossed in the daring story. This is a great read all around.

John Kachuba CRUEL LORD CRANHAM Sandra Heath, Robert Hale/Trafalgar Square, 2008 (c1993), £18.99/$39.95/C$43.95, hb, 223pp, 9780709083399 Sarah Lovell was living a contented life in England in 1803. She had good friends, an attentive father, and a loving fiancée. She was also heiress to a comfortable fortune. She was young and beautiful and her whole life was before her. Then her fiancée chose to leave her at the request of his father.

Nicholas Stanhope never wanted to know his own father. He was a self-made man, and his father, who schemed to cheat men of their fortunes, was an embarrassment to him. He tried to avoid his father at every turn. When Nicholas and Sarah meet, their attraction for each other is instant. But there are so many people who contrive to ensure their budding romance is doomed to fail.

Sandra Heath has crafted a romantic adventure full of twists and turns that keep the protagonists from trusting each other, though their attraction remains. Ms. Heath enhances her story with

HistoricalNovelsReview detailed physical descriptions of the characters, clothing, and scenery.

Nan Curnutt MISS CHENEY’S CHARADE Emily Hendrickson, Robert Hale/Trafalgar Square, 2009, £18.99/$24.95/C$27.95, hb, 223pp, 9780709082736 Emma Cheney is in London in 1815 at the height of the season, determined to do her duty to make a successful match, helping to bolster her family’s flagging finances. While most young women are looking forward to dancing at balls and meeting new beaus, Emma would rather spend her time sketching the antiquities that she loves. Therefore, when she intercepts an invitation to her brother to attend the unwrapping of an Egyptian mummy at the home of Sir Peter Dancy, she decides to disguise herself as a young man and attend in her brother’s place.

The plot thickens when Lady Titheridge, Sir Peter’s aunt, decides to take an active role in Emma’s deception.

Miss Cheney soon finds herself employed as an artist by the owner of the mummy himself.

As Emma sketches Sir Peter’s acquisitions, she begins to hope he will see her as a woman, but this would be hard for him to do when she is dressed as a man.

Author Emily Hendrickson has crafted a delightful romp in Miss Cheney’s Charade, complete with characters and details that reflect the times and an engaging and entertaining plot.

Nan Curnutt

Y ALL OTHER NIGHTS

Issue 49, August 2009 SEEN THE GLORY: A Novel of the Battle of Gettysburg John Hough, Jr., Simon & Schuster, 2009, $25.00, hb, 420pp, 9781416589655 The young Chandler brothers, brash 18-yearold Luke and soft-spoken 16-year-old Thomas, advance to maturity in the blood-soaked fields of Gettysburg in John Hough’s latest novel.

At novel’s start, the brothers live in isolated Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, in a house they share with their widowed doctor father and the pretty Rose, a black freedwoman from Cape Verde. Rose plays a central role in the story as she becomes the love interest of all three Chandlers. The lonely father’s love and that of the two brothers serve to drive the tale along in the face of the impending Union and Confederate trial of strength at Gettysburg. The young soldier brothers must confront combat while simultaneously quarreling over Rose.

The object of their affection is, meanwhile, attempting to survive in the face of the local toughs, Ben Howland and Luke Daggett. At first glance, one assumes the Battle of Gettysburg will occupy center stage, but the reality is this is a compelling love story and family saga set against the backgrounds of 19th-century small town Cape Cod, American race relations, the coming-of-age of young men, and the stress of military life in the American Civil War. John R. Vallely THE SECRET DIARIES OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE Syrie James, Avon A, 2009, $14.99, pb, 512pp,

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Dara Horn, W.W. Norton, 2009, $24.95/C$27.50, hb, 363 pp, 9780393064920 The title to this brilliant and thought-provoking novel comes from a question asked to the youngest participant at a Passover seder: Why is tonight different from all other nights? For Jacob Rappaport, a young Jewish soldier from New York City serving in the Union Army, the answer is provided to him by his commanding officers. Jacob is to go to New Orleans and, at the first seder of Passover, 1862, to murder his uncle, a man who is conspiring to plot the assassination of President Lincoln.

Jacob is so successful a secret agent that he is recruited again, not to murder, but to marry in order to break up a spy ring in Virginia. What Jacob encounters there tests the bounds of family ties and tradition. It also brings him face-to-face with what he values most in life.

The novel reads so beautifully, it virtually sings. The characters are fully fleshed out—Jacob is a gem of a creation. The plotline is tight, and one event runs seamlessly into the next. The introduction of historical figures like Judah Benjamin, Jefferson Davis’s second in command of the Confederacy and himself a Jew, is by no means a “throw away”—Benjamin becomes a focal character in the second part of the book. Horn introduces us to the workings of the slave spy network. She leads us inexorably through the self-destruction of the city of Richmond. The Author’s Note is a wonderful addition, helping us to put the events in perspective.

What is clear is how we continue, over 140 years later, to confront many of the same conflicts that confronted Jacob—conflicts over heritage, religious tradition, and equal rights.

This is a must read and highly recommended.

Ilysa Magnus

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19th Century 9780061648373 Jane Eyre and Villette are two of my favorite books, and I’ve always been interested in Charlotte Brontë and her family. I am fascinated by the idea of three sisters, living in a remote Yorkshire village, all becoming published authors and then all dying so young. (Charlotte died from complications of pregnancy in 1855 at the age of 38.)

Syrie James has studied Charlotte’s life and has drawn on many of the sources she studied, such as Charlotte’s letters to her good friend Ellen Nussey and the biography written by Charlotte’s friend, the author Mrs. Gaskell, to tell Charlotte’s story in Charlotte’s own voice.

We read about her experiences at boarding school; her time in Belgium teaching at a pensionnat and her attachment to the married headmaster Monsieur Hegér; the evolution of her and her sisters’ writing careers; the decline and death of her alcoholic brother Branwell; the deaths of her sisters Anne and Emily; and her relationship with her father’s curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls, who later became her husband. By the time I finished reading, I had an understanding of how Charlotte’s life experiences are reflected in her novels.

I wasn’t sure I would like this book, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The author has done a wonderful job. The story of Charlotte’s life flows like a novel and has the sound of a 19thcentury diary. I had to keep reading to find out how Charlotte went from disliking Mr. Nicholls to marrying him! The book includes a Q&A with the author, excerpts from selected correspondence of Charlotte Brontë, selected poetry by the Brontës, and a bibliography of Charlotte’s writings. I especially appreciated the information at the end about what the author imagined and what was fact.

Jane Kessler WITHOUT A MOTHER’S LOVE Catherine King, Sphere/Trafalgar Square, 2009, $38.95/£18.99, hb, 384pp, 9781847442345 In 1830s Yorkshire, Harriet Trent moves to Hill Top House, hired as a governess for Olivia Copley who has been living with her great-uncle (Old Hesley) and cousin (Young Hesley) since the death of her parents. Olivia, a sweet but wild girl, becomes a young lady under the tender guidance of Miss Trent. However, the Hesleys are evil people, with drinking, gambling, and the raping of innocent young women as common activities. Harriet and Olivia need to leave Hill Top House, but without money, family, or friends how can they survive?

Harriet is the stronger character, a selfsacrificing governess who cares more for her charge than for her own well-being and who attempts to do what little she can to improve their situations. Olivia is described as intelligent, but she comes off as childlike and dim-witted.

When Olivia plans her escape from Hill Top House, she takes no food, has no planned destination, and soon loses her one cloak and

HistoricalNovelsReview the little money she brought with her.

King’s Silk and Steel was on the shortlist for the UK Romantic Novel of the Year, but American romance readers should note that Without a Mother’s Love is not a typical Victorian romance. A majority of the sexual encounters involve an unwilling female participant, and the novel’s ending may leave some disappointed.

Still, King’s third Yorkshire novel will please her loyal readers with its strong sense of time and place and its unpredictable plot twists.

Elizabeth Caulfield Felt LOVING MR. DARCY Sharon Lathan, Sourcebooks, 2009, $14.99, pb, 448pp, 9781402217418 My idea of good company is that of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation. But, I fear Loving Mr. Darcy seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.

Its author appears to possess the unhappy talent of flattering without delicacy. These attentions appear to proceed from the impulse of the moment (2005 film) rather than the result of previous study (Pride and Prejudice). On the subject of cultural and linguistic anachronisms, may I make bold to remind authors one and all that an artist cannot do anything slovenly?

I would by no means suspend any pleasure of yours, and I am firm in the belief that the person who has not pleasure in a good novel must be intolerably stupid. I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress. Moreover, I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting. Yet, those who do not complain are never pitied.

Eileen Charbonneau (with apologies to Jane Austen) MASTERED BY LOVE Stephanie Laurens, Avon, 2009, $7.99/C$10.99, pb, 480pp, 9780061246371 / Piatkus, 2009, £7.99, pb, 320pp, 9780749940133 The ninth Duke of Wolverstone died in 1816 before his long-estranged son could reach the castle. Arriving too late to reconcile with his father, Royce Varisey, now tenth Duke of Wolverstone, has a difficult time assuaging his guilt. To help him put it all in perspective, as well as bring him up-to-date on the estate is his beautiful chatelaine, Minerva Chesterton. When Minerva was orphaned as a child, Royce’s mother brought her to Wolverstone and raised her with her own children. Although well born and an heiress in her own right, Minerva stayed on at Wolverstone as companion to the duchess and, after her death, to became chatelaine of the estate for the duke. Minerva plans to leave Wolverstone and begin her own life as soon as she can turn over her keys to the new duchess and despite his mourning, circumstances decree that Royce choose a bride immediately. Whoever that may be.

This is vintage Laurens: excellent plot, erotic

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Issue 49, August 2009 love scenes, mystery, and danger. Laurens’s devoted readers will meet characters from the Bastion Club series and the Cynster novels who are all friends of Royce. Mastered by Love also answers the question of ‘who is Dalziel.’

Audrey Braver ENDURING LOVE Bonnie Leon, Revell, 2009, $12.99, pb, 301pp, 9780800731786 John and Hannah Bradshaw had emigrated to Australia against their will, on a prison ship in 1804. Three years later they are free, and the newlyweds are determined to make a go of it as settlers. But their plans come to a sudden halt when John’s first wife, whom he thought dead, reappears, very intent on resuming their relationship. Because the church doesn’t consider the awkward situation reason enough for John to divorce Margaret, Hannah’s faith is tested, as she can see no way out of their predicament.

Then her suspicions are raised when Margaret shows signs of being more interested in John’s property than in John himself.

This is book three of the author’s Sydney Cove series. Leon says in the acknowledgments section that she had Australians vet the manuscript for her, so I must be mistaken about what I thought were some Americanisms, such as the use of “pants” to refer to men’s trousers.

There’s more talk than action in the story, even in the final confrontation with Margaret. Fans of the quieter type of inspirational romance will like it, but would probably enjoy the story arc more if they started with the first volume of the series.

B.J. Sedlock THE HONORED DEAD Robert N. Macomber, Pineapple Press, 2009, $21.95, hb, 400pp, 9781561644384 In 1883, President Arthur orders Lt. Commander Peter Wake on a secret mission into French Indochina. As an intelligence officer, Wake travels the Mekong River on a riverboat to deliver a secret message to the king of Cambodia. Thinking this a simple assignment, he ends up fighting with Chinese-Malay pirates and French gangsters looking to make money in illegal trading and finally joins the French in a battle against the Empire of Viet Nam. The cultural clash between Indochina and the West, which the author describes in great detail throughout the novel, will continue for another one hundred years.

This novel is the seventh book in the series about Peter Wake, spanning the years 1863 through 1883. I have read all his novels and enjoy Mr. Macomber’s writing style, his ability to get the historical facts correct, and his development of interesting characters while spinning his tale.

This series is a different type of naval fiction than the Hornblower or the Aubrey books; you don’t have to be knowledgeable about nautical terms. Instead, you get caught up in the story without becoming confused trying to define

19th Century unusual words, which tend to stop the flow of the novel. This book can be enjoyed without reading the previous books in the series. Highly recommended. I look forward to his eighth book.

Jeff Westerhoff ANGEL TRAIN Gilbert Morris, B&H, 2009, $14.99, pb, 324pp, 9780805447293 The Pilgrim’s Way, a devout religious community in Pennsylvania, decides to accept the government’s offer of free land in the West.

Knowing little of the Oregon Trail, the pioneers pray for guidance and are led to engage a crew of rough ex-convicts to help them across dangerous 1850s America. Beautiful and strong-willed Charity Morgan is the first in the community to meet the ex-convicts, including their handsome leader Casey Tremayne.

Heavy doses of romance, danger, and prayer are what drive this mismatched group on their way to Oregon. All conflict in Angel Train is quickly and predictably resolved and, although the suspense surrounding the romances is more drawn out, there are no surprises. The writing is simple, almost clunky, but perhaps that was Morris’s intention. I was often reminded of Genesis: “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.”

Still, Angel Train is a fun, upbeat story.

The good characters are likeable and realistic, the bad guys are not wholly bad, and God is available to redeem their souls. Readers of Christian historical fiction will find much to like in this story of a community whose faith and prayer lead them to a happy ending.

Elizabeth Caulfield Felt MRS LINCOLN (UK) / MARY (US) Janis Cooke Newman, Myrmidon, 2008, £16.99, hb, 565pp, 97881905802104 / Harvest, 2007, $15.00, pb, 636pp, 9780156033473 Born in 1819 and brought up in Kentucky in a slave-owning family, Mary Lincoln visited a black one-legged ‘conjure woman’ who told her that she would marry a very ugly man who would one day be president. Over the next month she studied all the unmarried gentlemen in town, looking to find one sufficiently ugly to satisfy the prediction. Abraham Lincoln was swarthy, and his large ears were as fleshy as ham steaks. Worse still, he was badly dressed. His swallow-tail coat, too short, did not match the cut of his trousers.

Mary’s behaviour scandalised society. She attended séances, aired her political opinions, and ran up huge debts with her compulsive spending. Although Mary’s family disapproved of her relationship with Abraham, the sheer inevitability of marriage due to their physical need for each other resulted in a hurried wedding.

Abraham’s political career progressed and he soon became president. Mary, who bore him four children, was delighted to become first lady. The

HistoricalNovelsReview happiness and success of Mary and Abraham Lincoln ended when President Lincoln was assassinated and their two younger sons died.

The eldest surviving son, Robert, lacked the ability to show sympathy and understanding to both his mother and his own wife, and he began committal proceedings against his mother. He persuaded Cook County Court to declare Mary insane, and she was incarcerated in an asylum.

In this book, Mary Lincoln writes her own story in order to prove her sanity and win back her freedom.

This is a powerful novel. I was impressed with the research, but horrified at the ease with which families were able to commit their own relatives to lunatic asylums when it suited them.

Jane E. Hill THE COSGROVE REPORT: Being the Private Inquiry of a Pinkerton Detective into the Death of President Lincoln G. J. A. O’Toole, Grove Press, 2009 (c1979), $14.95, pb, 464pp, 9780802144072 Originally published in 1979 and now reissued to coincide with the Lincoln bicentennial, the novel purports to be a manuscript written by one Nicholas Cosgrove, Pinkerton agent. In 1868, Cosgrove is assigned to determine whether John Wilkes Booth escaped from the burning farmhouse in Maryland and still lives. His report, having lain concealed for a century, now falls into the hands of private detective Michael Croft, whose job is to verify and annotate it.

Writing in a grandiloquent High Victorian style, Cosgrove tells a tale of switched identities, doctored documents, and bitter feuding within the White House as he pursues the elusive Booth. Historical characters, such as President Andrew Johnson, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Allan Pinkerton, and many others make their appearance to either aid or thwart Cosgrove in his mission. And Cosgrove himself is an ambiguous figure with seemingly no family, friends, or worldly attachments. It all ends with a duel and a fatal balloon chase—or does it?

One final plot twist turns the whole tale on its head. ‘Croft’s’ annotations, like the footnotes in George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman novels, are, in this reviewer’s opinion, the best part of the book. With impressive scholarship and sharp wit, O’Toole lays bare for the nonspecialist the real and persistent mysteries that still surround the trial of the Lincoln assassins. Altogether, highly entertaining and highly informative.

Bruce Macbain LEADEN SKIES Ann Parker, Poisoned Pen Press, 2009, $24.95, hb, 298pp, 9781590585771 It’s 1880 and Ulysses S. Grant is visiting Leadville, Colorado, with an entourage of hangers-on, among them John Quincy Adams Wesley, a wet-behind-the-ears political upand-comer. Against the distraction of the Grant visit, a mysterious fire rages in the bordello.

The next day a prostitute is found, apparently

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Issue 49, August 2009 murdered, shortly after Inez Stannert, co-owner of the Silver Queen saloon, becomes caught up as a silent partner in Frisco Flo’s new, uptown brothel.

Leaden Skies is the third in the Silver Rush Mystery series. In this adventure, Inez tries to move her life forward by divorcing her husband, Mark, who abandoned her. Not that this will necessarily make life easier for her lover, the honorable Reverend Sands, but it may allow her to reclaim her young son.

It’s great to see Ann Parker’s Leadville characters back in the latest series installment!

While Inez is still able to run a man’s business and command respect in a frontier town, she isn’t satisfied to remain where she is indefinitely, nor is she able to walk away from the challenge of a mystery.

As always, Parker’s settings feel true to their time, right down to the rain-muddied streets.

This installment features an intriguing cast of characters that will keep the reader guessing. A wonderful book for a lazy summer weekend.

Janette King BRIMSTONE Robert B. Parker, Putnam, 2009, $25.95/ C$32.50, hb, 293pp, 9780399155710 Hired gunmen Everett Hitch and Virgil Cole become deputies again to “clean up” a town in the Old West. These two heroes got their reputation for restoring law and order in the towns of Appaloosa and Resolution, the previous two books in the series. Now, a year later, after locating Virgil’s sweetheart Allie French, they arrive in the small town of Brimstone. Looking to start over, they become the law and must deal with two opposing elements—Brother Percival and his Church of the Brotherhood, who want to eliminate the town’s saloons, and Pike, owner of Pike’s Palace. Each side hires gunmen to eventually wage war against each other, while Everett and Virgil try to maintain peace in the town.

I enjoy a good Western, and, in my opinion, this is one of the finest series of Western stories ever written. The dialog and characterization are brilliant. If you prefer to read novels with descriptive settings and scenes, you would not care for Mr. Parker’s style, but this novel is a page-turner, with short chapters and exceptional action. I really hope there is another Western in Mr. Parker, because I would surely miss reading another adventure of Everett and Virgil. Robert Parker is known as the dean of American crime fiction and has written over fifty novels in that genre. This series of Western stories are fun reads, and if you’ve never read a Western novel, I would highly recommend this series, starting with Appaloosa.

Jeff Westerhoff THE LAST DICKENS Matthew Pearl, Harvill Secker, 2009, £12.99, 358 pp, hb, 9781846550843 / Random House, 2009, $25.00, hb, 381pp, 9781400066568

19th Century Charles Dickens has just died, and his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, is unfinished. Boston publisher James R Osgood is expecting the next instalment and has sent out his young clerk Daniel Sand to the docks to collect it. But the next time he sees Daniel, he is lying dead on a morgue slab—was he running away, unlucky or murdered? The manuscript is missing and, in the face of pressure from New York publishers, James and Daniel’s sister Rebecca must go forth to find it—and discover more things besides.

This is a convoluted tale with more to say for it than just another historical murder mystery.

Balancing out a somewhat far-fetched “penny dreadful” plot is the very real presence of Osgood himself, partner in an old established publishing company who is looking ruin in the face. The world of books and publishing is moving forwards rapidly to what we know today, and it was this that stayed in my mind after the book had been read. A complicated subplot involving India, foggy London streets, the theatre, opium dens with sinister Fu Manchu Chinamen and all the panoply of Victorian mysteries can also be found in here, making it an interesting blend of the literary and genre fiction. Anne Perry it ain’t, but the Dickens theme and the author’s very palpable love of books makes it an interesting curiosity.

Rachel A Hyde A LOVE TO LAST FOREVER Tracie Peterson, Bethany House, 2009, $13.99, pb, 367pp, 9780764201493 A Love to Last Forever, the second in the Brides of Gallatin County trilogy, focuses on Beth, the middle Gallatin sister. Beth is ready to settle down and find the love she reads about in romances, but is also dealing with guilt over her father’s death. Nick Lassiter, her neighbor, to whom she has long been attracted, has finally found faith, and she feels she can allow herself to turn to him. But just when they are on the verge of an engagement, Nick’s past returns to threaten their relationship.

Entwined with their romance are the ongoing troubles of the Montana frontier settlers, hoping that the railroad will choose a route through their fledgling town and ensure their prosperity.

Parallel romances between Nick’s brother and a saloon girl, and Beth’s sister and the deputy sheriff investigating their father’s death further season the plot.

Although the novel has no distinguishing elements, it was nevertheless engaging.

Peterson creates characters with whom it is easy to empathize, whose struggles are not extraordinary yet are relatable. My only real complaint is that she leaves too many threads hanging in anticipation of the third book. A cozy, inspirational romance for a rainy afternoon.

Susan Cook LOVING A LOST LORD Mary Jo Putney, Zebra, 2009, $6.99/C$8.49, pb,

HistoricalNovelsReview

Issue 49, August 2009

340pp, 9781420103281 What happens to aristocratic boys who rebel against the strict mores of the English nobility? In this charming debut to The Lost Lords series we learn the answer: they go to Westerfield Academy, Lady Agnes’s school for unconventional youths. The year is 1812.

Westerfield’s first student, Adam Lawford, Duke of Ashton, who is now a respected member of the peerage despite his Anglo-Indian heritage, has lost his memory in a steamboat accident.

When Adam awakes he is relieved to find that he was dragged ashore near his own home, in Cumberland, and is safe in the delectable arms of his wife. There is just one problem: Mariah Clarke falsely claimed her injured guest as her husband in order to rid herself of an obnoxious suitor. Mariah wishes to end the deception but fears that, if she acknowledges the truth, her patient may never recover his wits.

Mariah and Adam are both very likeable characters. The complex plotting required to bring the story to resolution is saved from absurdity by Mariah’s amused exclamation, “I feel as if I’ve wandered into a Restoration comedy.” This book was such an enjoyable read that I eagerly await my next frolic with a “Lost Lord.”

Nancy J. Attwell

discover who her mother really was: her father’s deceased wife or his slave. Ex-slave Tom reencounters his old nemesis, Clyde Bricket and, through a twist of fate, becomes Clyde’s business partner and co-owner of Clyde’s family farm.

The novel begins in the chaotic days following the end of fighting when Reconstruction is taking control of the South and freed slaves are experiencing the first euphoric days of freedom and the beginnings of political power. Eugenia lands in the thick of this, living with wealthy preCivil War white friends all the while working as a nurse among poverty-stricken freedmen. One of the novel’s characters, an actual historical figure of the time and a powerful exponent of Negro rights, Abraham Galloway, befriends Eugenia. He and his family help her to discover her parentage and her place in the new South.

Filled with considerable insight into the psyche of both white and black southerners of the time and into why the South evolved as it did, this novel lacks the driving suspense of its predecessor. The relationships among the main characters reach surprising conclusions, but the coincidences which bring them all together stretch credulity. Nevertheless, it’s a worthy, thoughtful read for anyone interested in race relations and Southern history.

Pamela Ortega

THE PERFECT POISON Amanda Quick, Putnam, 2009, $24.95/C$31.00, hb, 352pp, 9780399155802 / Piatkus, 2009, £12.99, pb, 352pp, 9780749909154 Lucinda Bromley is a botanist living in Victorian London. She has an apparently paranormal knack for detecting poisons which makes her quite a useful friend to the police. But having in the past been wrongly suspected of poisoning her fiancé, she senses peril when she discovers an aristocrat was done in by a poison made from a plant stolen from her conservatory.

Lucinda is a member of the Arcane Society, dedicated to the study of paranormal phenomena, and she and fellow member Caleb Jones set out to solve the case. They fall head over heels for each other, as old Arcane Society secrets emerge and a knot of danger tightens around Lucinda.

This is the kind of light, romantic historical mystery that doesn’t strain the intellect but is fun to read. I can’t say I felt transported to a different time and place as I do when I read the best work in the genre. On the other hand, Amanda Quick knows how to write a terrific love scene.

This book is sixth in a series of novels about the Arcane Society by this extremely prolific author.

Phyllis T. Smith

THE TURQUOISE Anya Seton, Chicago Review, 2009 (c1946), $14.95/C$16.95, pb, 378pp, 9781556528033 Santa Fe Cameron never knew her aristocratic Spanish mother. When she was seven years old, her Scottish father discovered that she had what they call “the sight” back in his native Highlands.

Fey’s father, a doctor, dies in a cholera epidemic, and her Mexican nurse raises Fey in squalor and poverty along with her own children. Fey’s gift is recognized by an old Navajo medicine man, who gives her a turquoise talisman along with a warning about her future. At seventeen, Fey, longing to leave New Mexico and start a new life, runs away with an itinerant actor, Terry Dillon. At first Fey resists Terry’s amorous attentions, but when he arranges to marry her at a Colorado frontier station, she agrees. The couple head for New York City. Terry, dazzled by the slick glamour and golden opportunities of 1870s New York, soon abandons Fey. After his departure Fey realizes she is pregnant. A woman doctor befriends Fey and urges her to become a doctor also. However, Fey has an ambition for herself and her child that requires a great deal of money and she has already found the way to attain all her dreams. After divorcing Terry, she marries financier Simeon Tower and climbs to the top of New York’s society. For ten years, Fey and Simeon are a typical wealthy society couple, and then Terry returns, bringing misery and death.

The late Anya Seton was a prolific bestselling author in the 1940s and ‘50s. Miss Seton’s novels always reflect a rich historical background based on solid research. Her style

CHILD OF THE SOUTH Joanna Catherine Scott, Berkley, 2009, $14, pb, 324pp, 9780425226025 This sequel to The Road from Chapel Hill continues the saga of Eugenia Mae Spotswood and Tom Maryson now that the Civil War has ended. Eugenia returns to Wilmington to try to

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19th Century is clear, concise, and flowing. The end of The Turquoise, however, seems a bit rushed and vaguely unsatisfactory.

Audrey Braver HAMMER Sara Stockbridge, Chatto & Windus, 2009, £12.99, hb, 277pp, 9780701182236 Set in Victorian London and concerning a young woman pursued by a master criminal with murder on his mind, this book should work very well as a thriller, but somehow it never quite succeeds.

Grace Hammer, a single mother, is in many ways a likeable young woman and is well educated. But she has a talent for thieving. She lives alone in the East End, where the airs are less balmy than the countryside from which she comes. Yet, she is, in a sense, respectable.

She not only trains her children in her trade of thieving, but she makes every effort to educate them in higher matters, and it is clear the family are familiar with such books of the period as Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities. Such titles occur frequently in the text. Indeed there is a Dickensian feel to the writing. The characters have a larger than life quality. A female character is spoken of by one of Grace’s children as a crone from Grimms’ Tales. She is also variously described as a goblin and a witch. Such characterisations have a nightmare quality.

Add to this the fact that the murderous master criminal who pursues Grace does so because she has acquired a valuable necklace he believes to be rightfully his, and the book has all the ingredients for a thriller—all that is except one crucial ingredient. It lacks the requisite tension and narrative drive. The writing is good, the descriptions of the squalor of London’s East End are vivid and evocative, but I could not engage and identify with Grace and her plight.

For me the writing is somehow too distant to induce empathy. I’m afraid I could not warm to this book.

Neville Firman MURDER ON WAVERLY PLACE: A Gaslight Mystery Victoria Thompson, Berkley Prime Crime, 2009, $24.95, hb, 304pp, 9780425227756 Sarah Brandt has eschewed her wealthy background to become a midwife for the needy of New York City in the 1890s. A widow, whose husband was murdered sometime before this story begins, lives with her adopted daughter, Catherine and Maeve, the nanny. Sarah’s mother, one of the wealthiest women in New York, has suffered terrible guilt since the death of Sarah’s sister. She wants to contact Maggie at a séance and apologize. Sarah, a nonbeliever, agrees to go with her. We meet Mrs. Gittings, Serafina, and the professor running the very successful business of contacting the dead.

After the first visit, Sarah hopes her mother is appeased, but Mrs. Decker attends the next session alone where Mrs. Gittings is murdered.

HistoricalNovelsReview Detective Frank Malloy, a longtime friend of Sarah’s, begins his investigation. Together, they solve this perplexing whodunit.

This is Victoria Thompson’s 11th book in the series. She does a good job with the time period, and her characters are well developed.

I’m planning to read the entire series to see how Frank and Sarah arrived at this point in their lives.

Susan Zabolotny THE COLLECTOR OF WORLDS: A Novel of Sir Richard Francis Burton Iliya Troyanov (trans. William Hobson), Ecco, 2009, $24.99, 454pp, hb, 9780061351938 / Faber & Faber, 2009, £8.99, pb, 464pp, 9780571236541 Sir Richard Francis Burton—British military officer, spy, and gifted linguist—has been the subject of multiple biographies, with conflicting opinions as to his motivations and veracity. Perhaps it is best, then, to turn to a fictionalized account of three of his adventures for assistance in contextualizing the “facts” of his life. Troyanov does just that: he provides historical settings and backgrounds, peppered with real-life figures and invented characters who fit seamlessly into the time and place under discussion.

First up is the story of Burton’s years in British India, as related by his servant, Naukaram, who has hired a greedy scribe to tell his story. Interspersed with the details provided in response to the scribe’s prying questions are sections from Burton’s perspective, as he becomes immersed in the languages, politics, and culture of mid-19th-century India. Next, Burton continues in his Indian guise, this time as a doctor and a dervish on a traditional hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina—something definitely not allowed to Christians. Arabian government officials track his activities in an attempt to prove England’s imperial designs on the area; their interrogations and reports provide a counterpoint to Burton’s reflections on the journey. The final adventure nearly was the end for Burton: his explorations in Africa for the source of the Nile almost killed him. The trek from Zanzibar to Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria with fellow Brit John Hanning Speke are related by Burton’s guide, Sidi Mubarak Bombay, who vividly recalls the many dangers posed by both the land and the people along the way; his recollections are interrupted by his listeners’ questions and segments of Burton’s perspective.

All three tales are great stories in their own right, with the added value of providing insights into the life of a most interesting man.

Helene Williams BEEN HERE A THOUSAND YEARS Mariolina Venezia (trans Marina Harss), Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009, $24/C$30, hb, 272pp, 9780374208912 Life has always been hard in the small

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Issue 49, August 2009 southern Italian farming village of Grottole.

The inhabitants give their all to the land, but the land doesn’t always give back; any gains in productivity or prosperity are looked upon with suspicion, as everyone knows that happiness and satisfaction are fleeting. What holds the village together is its women, and this delightful tale is the story of six generations of Falcone women.

The dynasty begins around 1850, with Don Francesco Falcone’s lust for a young field worker, Concetta. Like the other girls in the village, Concetta is resigned to her fate of hard work, a loveless marriage, and as many children as her body can bear. What happens, though, is that she loves the man who seduced her in a shed, then refused to marry her until she bore him a boy. Don Francesco loves her, too, in his way—and he loves their children—six girls, then, finally, a boy. Although the family makes a good living off the land, Don Francesco’s hopes of a large home and fortune are dashed by politics.

The supposedly unified Italy is rife with outlaws and bandits fighting the government, and in the battle of the haves vs. the havenots, sometimes the bad guys win. The women learn and relearn this lesson throughout the generations, dealing with wars, Fascism, and Communism, all the while holding the family and community together. Concetta’s daughters have their own daughters, who in turn have daughters—there are sons, too, but their stories are ancillary—who all meet the challenges of the day with their individual strengths. Their hardscrabble tales, often sad, but sometimes slyly humorous, serve to succinctly illustrate 150 years of Italian history and culture.

Helene Williams BEYOND THE BLOSSOMING FIELDS Jun’ichi Watanabe (trans. Deborah Iwabuchi and Anna Isozaki), Trafalgar Square/Alma, 2008, $24.95/C$27.95/£18.99, hb, 313 pp, 9781846880643 Set in Japan from 1851 to 1913, this novel illuminates the life of Ginko Ogino, the first woman doctor in that country. Married in her late teens to the son of a wealthy neighboring family, Ginko contracts gonorrhea from her husband, whom she divorces. Suffering humiliation and pain at the hands of male gynecologists, Ginko determines to become a doctor for women. Her family finds this unacceptable within Ginko’s social class, and she leaves her family, finding her parents’ values at odds with her own.

Determined to gain an education, she pursues her goals as she struggles in school for many years. She enters a medical school where she is the only woman, and she must endure ridicule and abuse in order to succeed. Brilliant, she establishes her own clinic in Tokyo, becoming a renowned mentor to aspiring women doctors and a strong figure in the Japanese Christian Women’s Organization. Despite suffering chronic symptoms of gonorrhea, she becomes famous—from far and near the Japanese public

19th Century-20th Century seeks her out for her leadership in medical and political causes. She remarries Yokiyoshi Shikata, a Protestant minister and eventually follows him to the northern island of Hokkaido to build a utopian Christian settlement.

Reading more like a biography than a work of fiction, this detailed novel, eye-opening in its descriptions of the sacrifices independent women endured, will interest those curious about woman’s issues in Japan in the late 1800s.

Western audiences will gain respect for Ginko, who refused to be limited by her time and place in history.

Liz Allenby SIEGE OF KHARTOUM John Wilcox. Headline, 2009, £19.99, hb, 373pp, 9780755345595 The year is 1884. General Gordon is under siege in Khartoum. Under pressure from public opinion, the government has ordered General Wolseley to put together a relief column to raise the siege and rescue Gordon. Simon Fonthill and his sidekick ‘352’ Jenkins must cross the desert, enter Khartoum, and make contact with General Gordon to ascertain how long he can realistically hold out. The first part of the mission, although filled with danger and threats from both the Mahdi’s forces and friendly forces, is successful and the intrepid duo make contact with Gordon. Unfortunately, as they leave the stricken city, the group is captured. Will Fonthill manage to escape and get the vital information that Wolseley needs before Khartoum falls?

This is the latest instalment in the series of novels about Fonthill and ‘352’ Jenkins. As with previous novels, the book is well researched with actual events and historical figures woven seamlessly into the plot, while the politics of the time provide a framework against which the action takes place. The relationship between Fonthill and his intended, Alice Covington, a headstrong but resourceful heroine, provides further opportunity for exploits, as well as (just a little) romantic involvement. A sadistic enemy, deadly adversaries, honourable friends, and lots of action—what more could you ask for?

Recommended.

Mike Ashworth

N 20th CENTURY n HAUNTING BOMBAY Shilpa Agarwal, Soho, 2009, $24.00/ C$26.00/£16.99, 362pp, hb, 9781569475584 Bombay, India, in the summer of 1960 is a city crowded with color, politics, and ritual; it’s hot and humid, on the cusp of the monsoon season, lending an air of feverish expectancy to the atmosphere. There’s also a lot of fear among individuals, families, castes, neighborhoods and—because of the Partition of 1947—between countries.

Pinky Mittal lost her mother during Partition and was taken in by her grandmother Maji, matriarch of one of Bombay’s powerful

HistoricalNovelsReview families. Pinky dearly loves her grandmother, but chafes against the anger and bitterness of her Aunt Savita, who lost a baby at the same time Maji took in the infant Pinky. Added to this intergenerational strife is the undercurrent of fear that pervades the Mittal house itself: the family believes Savita’s baby was drowned in the children’s bathroom by Avni, the baby’s nurse, and for the last thirteen years the door to that room has been bolted at sundown, out of fear that the baby’s ghost will escape that room and wreak havoc. In a rage one night, Pinky unbolts the door, and immediately she and the family can sense the difference and feel the growing strength of an evil presence. Everyone in the house, from the servants to Maji, try to free themselves from this evil spirit through rituals both religious and profane.

Whether the ghost is intent on destroying the Mittal family or simply trying to expose the truth, the readers learn much about Indian society and culture of the time through this unnerving tale. Although the characters are well drawn, there’s a dearth of redeeming qualities among them, making it difficult for readers to sympathize with their plight. Keeping one’s distance from a ghost may be the proper course of action in any case!

Helene Williams THE DEAD OF WINTER Rennie Airth, Macmillan, 2009, £16.99, hb, 408pp, 9780230714847 / Viking, 2009, $25.95, hb, 416pp, 9780670020935 This is the final book in the murder mystery trilogy featuring Inspector Madden. In wartime London, a young Polish girl is found murdered near the British Museum. She is identified as a Land Girl who was employed by John Madden.

Madden has long since been retired from the police force and settled into a quiet married life, but the girl’s death prompts him to get back in harness and find her killer.

More murders follow, and a trail leads to refugees from occupied Europe. It is a gripping tale, and the atmosphere of the darkest days of World War II is perfectly captured. The old order has been turned upside down and the usual rules do not seem to apply any more. Believable characters and a well crafted story make for an enjoyable, satisfying read. I have not read the previous novels, and although it has taken ten years for Rennie Airth to complete the series, I am sure that fans will consider this final novel worth waiting for.

Ann Oughton STRANGE BUSINESS Rilla Askew, Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 2009, $14.95, pb, 208pp, 9780806140285 Strange Business is a collection of short stories written about the people of Cedar, Oklahoma, focusing on specific events between the years 1961 and 1986. Although several of the stories share characters, each tale is an entity unto itself, focusing on a few characters

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Issue 49, August 2009 and some unusual happenings. Beginning in 1961, Askew describes the events leading up to a strange encounter between a toddler and a raccoon. As the decades unfold, the characters become older—teenagers who steal watermelons and defy authority, a dead Vietnam soldier and the friend who stayed behind—until the final 1986 story of an ancient, bedridden, smelling-like-death auctioneer whom nobody cares to visit. These sketches are rich in detail, allowing the reader to breathe the dust-filled air of rural Oklahoma. Askew delves deeply into the minds of her characters, allowing the reader to befriend, briefly, a different sort of person trapped in the strangeness of a different sort of life. Askew provides vivid glimpses of these rural Oklahomans, which, taken together, forge the town of Cedar and all its Strange Business.

Elizabeth Caulfield Felt EVIL FOR EVIL James R Benn, Soho, 2009, $25.00, hb, 320pp, 9781569475935 In this fourth installment of the Billy Boyle World War II mysteries, the intrepid lieutenant from South Boston is sent by General Eisenhower to investigate the disappearance of fifty Browning automatic rifles from a U.S. Army depot in Northern Ireland. This assignment places him in the middle of a chaotic mix of IRA terrorism, Ulster-baked reprisals, MI-5 skullduggery, and possible German infiltrators, with a dose of good old-fashioned Army rear echelon embezzlement to boot. Billy handles all of this with his usual aplomb, keeping his Irish sympathies at bay, even while being forced to question his most basic assumptions about good and evil in this almost mythic land of his forefathers.

This is a very good mystery, set in a credibly presented Ireland at the time of World War II. Benn gets his characters right and manages to pass along some history along the way without letting any of it get in the way of a compelling story. The basics are indeed rooted in facts, although the author takes those facts a bit further than what actually really happened. Still, his projections are plausible. As ever, the clever device of Boyle being a sort of handyman on Eisenhower’s staff allows the telling of almost any story related to the war without unduly hampering reality. This is first and foremost a mystery, although, due to its setting, one with more than the usual sense of adventure. Anyone who loves mysteries and has more than a passing interest in the era of World War II will not be disappointed.

Ken Kreckel THE CARPENTER’S CHILDREN Maggie Bennett, Allison & Busby, 2009, £19.99, hb, 352 pp, 9780749079895 As a writer/reader, I find sagas irritating.

I want to delve more deeply into the main character’s personality and motives, but sagas cover all the family members and long spaces

20th Century of time; thus, the writing tells a lot about too many characters for me to be deeply involved with. But a good saga is a corking good story, and Maggie Bennett writes some of the best.

The carpenter is Tom Munday who lives, with wife and three children, in the village of North Camp, southern England, in 1904. Violet Munday loves her husband and is ambitious for her children. Ernest, she hopes, will become a clerk in a bank or solicitor’s office. Beautiful Isabel, the good child, she hopes will teach.

Grace, the naughty, hot-tempered baby of the family, she worries about, but hopes nursing might calm her.

As a good saga, we follow the Mundays and their friends and community through all the radical changes that take place in the early 20th century. These historical details are one of Maggie Bennett’s strengths. Her research is excellent and used not as a history lesson, but to show how they affect the characters. Grace and her friends are influenced by Hollywood films and dream of being ‘discovered’ and becoming film stars. Ernest is bright, but religious, and becomes a pacifist. Isabel falls in love when fifteen, but he is a curate and much older. Tom watches his children grow and struggle, helps when he can, and reaches his own kind of peace in 1919 with his daughters near him. It’s a comfortable ending: the good get their earthly rewards, and the bad receive their just desserts.

That’s what sagas do, provide a comfortable read. This is an excellent book for bedtime reading—one chapter a night to cheer you up. pdr lindsay-salmon THE SECRETS OF THE CAVE Phillipa Bowers, Trafalgar Square/Piatkus, 2009, $12.95/£7.99, pb, 9780749909390 In the rural village of Oakey Vale, teenage Betty Barnes dreams of becoming a glamorous movie star. Her sister, now her guardian after their parents’ deaths, has moved them back from London to their recently deceased grandmother’s home to care for their feeble Uncle Albert. A cave nearby hides a grotto where the women of their family, and at least one unlucky man, have been entombed for generations. Betty and Kate have inherited special psychic gifts and were taught the healing benefits of herbal potions by their grandmother. Betty sees visions through touching the personal belongings of others. When she finds the handle of her great-grandmother’s knife, she can witness her ancestor’s history.

Betty eventually runs away to London and leads a fashionable but rather unsatisfying life that she supplements by holding the knife handle. Still young, and with a broken heart, she eventually returns home where she knows she is needed to carry on the tradition of wise women.

Bowers tells a complex tale of Betty and her friends from the gentleman’s club that intermingles with the effects of World War II. The juxtaposition of her visions brought about by objects furthers the storyline rather than detracts. The parallel stories give insight to

HistoricalNovelsReview current as well as past events, providing hints to tragedies and a future happiness despite her current circumstances.

This novel, second in the Wise Woman series, proves entertaining on its own, but would be best read after the first novel, The Wise Woman’s Tale. Anyone who enjoys magical elements with their historical fiction will find this book enchanting.

Suzanne Sprague HYPERSONIC THUNDER Walter J. Boyne, Forge, 2009, $26.95, hb, 352pp, 9780765308450 This is the third book in Boyne’s trilogy about the Shannons, a family of test pilots whose careers span the years of jet aviation from the first successful jet flight in 1939 through the trilogy’s end in 2007. In the previous books, Vance Shannon, a WWI flying ace and renowned test pilot, founded Aerospace Consultants, a firm that grew into a multicity company involved in “avionics, simulators,

Y REMEMBER ME

Issue 49, August 2009 precision-guided munitions, and the executive jet business.” Vance’s twin sons, Tom and Harry, his grandson, V.R., and his protégé, Bob Rodriquez, all followed in his footsteps (or, more appropriately, “in his jet stream”) as pilots cum businessmen.

When this novel begins (1973), the future of the company is at risk: Vance is retired and unwell, Tom is shattered by his experiences in a Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp, Harry is preoccupied with his wife’s alcoholism, V.R. is launching his career in the Air Force Academy, and Rod is ensnared by a feud with Tom. While the loves and losses within the Shannon family propel the book forward, the heart of the story is in the never-ending quest for new technology within the aerospace industry. There are many participants in this quest, including NASA, the Air Force, McDonnell Douglas, Boeing, Lockheed, and, of course, the fictional Aerospace Consultants. We are given glimpses into numerous projects, but the book highlights the development of the Stealth Bomber, the

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Melvyn Bragg, Sceptre, 2009, £7.99, pb, 551pp, 9780340951231 This is the fourth in Melvyn Bragg’s autobiographical quartet of novels about Joe Richardson, the workingclass boy we first meet as a child of seven in The Soldier’s Return (HNR 10). Joe is now in his final year at Oxford in 1960, hurting from the love affair so tenderly evoked in Crossing the Lines. At a party, he meets Natasha, a French art student several years his senior, also nursing a lover’s rejection. With moving, microscopic intensity, Bragg explores their relationship over the following decade, the nature of marital love and conjugal loyalty at a time of rapid social change, London in the sixties, superbly drawn. Joe—idealistic, romantic, works for the BBC and also writes film scripts and fiction—is swept into the spirit of the times, growing his hair and abandoning his tweed sports jacket for crushed velvet. Natasha, captivated by his zest for life, suppresses anxieties, inner darkness, and a troubled childhood.

The novel is a confessional to their daughter, a brave use of knowledge and imagination to reconstruct the past. Sometimes Bragg breaks from the narrative to address her directly. For the reader, there is the temptation to put real names to fictional faces. Yet the novel demands more than this. In intimate, powerful detail, Bragg captures the emotions that bind two people together and the subtle shifts in thought and feeling that can prise them apart. He adopts an authorial viewpoint, frequently jumping from one character’s thoughts to another’s. This I found a distraction, as I did the references to the ultimate tragedy, so that I was waiting for it to happen. Nothing, however, can detract from the empathy, insight, the visceral emotional honesty of the writing of two damaged characters unable to communicate, and the tormenting power of memory years later.

Janet Hancock I knew Melvyn Bragg at Oxford; I left college the term before the action in Remember Me begins, so I cannot say authoritatively how much of the story is autobiographical and how much fiction. Bragg prefers to describe it as a novel based on personal experience.

Obviously, I found it fascinating, but I thought it fairer to ask somebody else to review it and I am pleased Janet Hancock agrees with my sentiments. However, I found that knowing the tragic outcome gave the book an extra power, like a novel set on the Titanic.

The ‘sixties’ are only borderline historical, but if you are too young to remember what it was like to be a young professional starting your career and your family in this decade, then read Remember Me and you will understand our generation a little better.

Edward James

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20th Century Global Positioning System (GPS), and the Hypersonic Cruiser.

All of this technology may sound a little overwhelming to those who are not aviation enthusiasts, but Boyle does a superb job of intertwining the history of the aerospace industry with the saga of a fictional family. The result is a fascinating story about an industry that is leading mankind beyond the moon and into the future.

Nancy J. Attwell HONOLULU Alan Brennert, St. Martin’s Press, 2009, $24.95, hb, 360pp, 9780312360405 Originally named “Regret” in Korea by her parents, who had prayed for a male baby twenty-five years earlier, Jin chooses a costly rebellion as a young girl by deciding to learn how to read—an almost criminal act for Korean women in the early 1900s. She then decides to become the “picture bride” of a Korean man living in Hawaii, an experience which enables her to deeply understand the Korean concept of han, the endurance of suffering with courage and dignity despite and throughout life’s most difficult circumstances.

The novel is chock full of historical relevance, ranging from the horrific conditions of Koreans’ submission to Japan’s invasion and control, the dire conditions of Hawaiian pineapple farm workers, the struggle for survival through the 1929 Depression and its aftermath, the violent conflicts between white (haolis) and native/ Asian-Hawaiian residents, and so much more.

Jin returns to Korea twenty-five years later to complete unfinished business with her family and her adopted sister-in-law, who early on in the story ran away to find the family who had sold her. Violence, divorce, prejudice, financial strife, and finally acceptance fill Jin and her family’s life, as dramatically and lovingly presented in these fascinating pages so elegantly crafted by this talented author. Hawaiian customs and traditions are depicted with just the right balance of truth to lend a spirit of joy and celebration next to the more cutting edges of this very “real” saga.

Honolulu is a graceful, honest, and dynamic story sure to evoke a multitude of emotions and leave the reader with deep respect for the endurance and dignity of the human spirit.

A must read and superb example of KoreanAmerican historical fiction.

Viviane Crystal LILY’S JOURNEY Tania Crosse, Allison and Busby 2009, hb, 320pp, 9780749007201 The story is set in 1952. After the death of her mother, 15-year-old Lily Hayes leaves London to live with her estranged and mysteriously hostile father in a remote cottage on Dartmoor.

Gradually their relationship develops and the secrets and shames of the past begin to be revealed. Lily has to come to terms with her

Issue 49, August 2009

HistoricalNovelsReview

Y THE DAY THE FALLS STOOD STILL

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Cathy Marie Buchanan, Voice, 2009, $24.99, hb, 320pp, 9781401340971 / Hutchinson, 2010, £14.99, hb, 368pp, 9780091925956 Bess Heath is in her next to last year at the Loretto Academy in Niagara Falls in 1915 when her father loses his job as the director of the Niagara Power Company.

Her life, previously one of ease and comfort, changes almost overnight. She won’t be able to return for her senior year, and when she slips away from the school at night, with only her mother to help carry her bulky trunk on the trolley home, the man who offers to assist them will propel the change in her life. He is Tom Cole, a workingman with great knowledge of Niagara Falls, who is obviously not of her social class. While she is drawn to him, her mother battles the attraction. At home, her family life seems to be splintering in front of her eyes. Bess helps her mother, who has had to start working again as a seamstress, and also tries to cajole her older sister, Isabel, back to health. She is torn between the social connections her mother seeks for her, and her feelings for Tom. This compelling story is set against the backdrop of the falls and the effect that the emerging hydroelectric power plants are having on them. Should the greed of the business owners and their persuasion of the populace to embrace electrical gadgets be allowed to radically change nature? Readers will learn fascinating details of the river and the falls, both through Tom’s expertise and the newspaper articles sprinkled through the book, which illuminate the action. The novel, the author’s first, was inspired by the life of life of an actual, legendary, Niagara riverman. It is a novel to savor.

Trudi E. Jacobson discoveries whilst facing the challenges of growing up and falling in love.

The novel is richly evocative of Dartmoor and its history, intertwined with the stories and the struggles of the people who lived there. I was more convinced by the setting than by the

romance, but as one who remembers Devon’s steam trains, crisps with blue salt twists, and Camp coffee, I found much to enjoy here.

Ruth Downie

Y THE PALACE OF STRANGE GIRLS

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Sallie Day, Grand Central, 2009, $13.99/C$16.99, pb, 344pp, 9780446545860 / HarperPerennial, 2009, £6.99, pb, 304pp, 9780007276073 This engaging novel takes place during the summer of 1959 in the resort of Blackpool, England. Seven-year-old Beth is there with her family—her parents Ruth and Jack and her 16-year-old sister, Helen, who would have much preferred to stay home and work at the dress shop. Ruth has iron-clad rules, not only for Beth, who recently underwent a heart operation and whose health is uncertain, but also for Helen, who is eager to join in the fun of other adolescents who have far more freedom than she does. There are also tensions between Ruth and Jack, exacerbated by a letter Jack has just received from the woman he loved when he was in Crete during World War II and whom he believed to be dead. Each chapter is prefaced by an item from Beth’s I-Spy at the Seaside book, which has become her favorite possession, and she strives to earn enough points to qualify for an official membership card issued by Big Chief I-Spy. The correspondence between the quote and the action in each chapter is fun to identify.

The author skillfully interweaves details of what things were like in 1959 to fully transport us to that period. I particularly enjoyed learning more about the cotton manufacturing trade in which Jack is employed. The effect that imports and new synthetic fabrics had on the cotton firms and on those employed by the companies came across vividly. There is an endorsement on the book from Easy Living: “This might just be the most delightful book you read this year.” I’ll second that.

Trudi E. Jacobson

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20th Century PRAYERS FOR SALE Sandra Dallas, St. Martin’s Press, 2009, $24.95, hb, 320pp, 9780312385187 This charming novel follows the life of 86year-old Hennie Comfort as revealed in the stories she spins for her newly married friend, 17-year-old Nit Spindle. In a Depressionera Colorado mining town, Hennie gradually reveals how the tragedies of Civil War-era North Carolina led to the deaths of her husband and young daughter and how a chance letter from an old friend led Hennie to become the wife of a Colorado miner. Stories abound about 1860s North Carolina and about the turn of the century in the High Country West. Told with humor and wit and authentic regionalisms, Hennie’s stories help young Nit face her own hardships with grace and optimism. They also help Hennie sort out her own long life as she prepares herself to deal with changes she also must face.

Filled with history and eccentric characters of the period, Prayers for Sale gradually profiles an extraordinary woman who passes on her strength to the younger woman. The stories are told with wit and irony and great pathos, but the innermost secret of Hennie’s life is not revealed until the surprising ending, one which is sure to please all readers.

Pamela Ortega MAN ON THE MOVE Otto de Kat (trans. Sam Garrett), MacLehose Press, 2009, £12.99, pb, 136pp, 9781906694081 This slim novella translated from the Dutch is the author’s second book. It begins with the protagonist Rob being waved goodbye by his parents as he sets out for Africa in January 1935.

The action, or perhaps a better word would be description, switches from goldmines to a Japanese POW camp where Rob makes friends with Guus. After their ship is torpedoed, Guus is lost—presumed drowned—and Rob never seems to recover from the loss of his friend.

Maybe it is survivor’s guilt. Rob cannot seem to find anywhere in the world where he feels at home. He has rejected his family seemingly due to unresolved issues with his father. One of the reasons he is so drawn to Guus could be that Guus embraced the conventional family life disdained by Rob. The existential angst and emotional distance from the narrator makes it difficult sometimes to really empathise with him. The book is written in a minimalist, economical style which still conveys a great deal. It is reminiscent of a Joycean stream of consciousness in many ways.

If you are a fan of modernism and like authors such as Sartre and Camus (to whom de Kat is compared on the back of the book) then you will probably enjoy this very much. For me, despite several moments of power, it lacked a cohesive whole and sometimes the narrator’s aloneness and angsty self-involvement seemed just a little bit teenage. Not a book for all therefore, but I’m sure Joyce fans would like it.

Ann Northfield

HistoricalNovelsReview THE INVISIBLE MOUNTAIN Carolina De Robertis, Random House, 2009, $24.95, hb, 384pp, 9780307271631 / HarperCollins, 2009, £12.99, hb, 432pp, 9780007302819 The Invisible Mountain is Carolina De Robertis’s accomplished generational saga describing the fates of three women intertwined with those of Uruguay and Argentina. In Uruguay an infant girl, Pajarita is missing and then found on New Year’s Day, 1900. Pajarita marries an Italian immigrant from Venice. When demons plague her husband, Pajarita sustains the family with a combination of herbal medicine and psychological counseling. Divided into three parts, the novel moves to Eva, Pajarita’s fourth child. Assault drives Eva to flee Montevideo with a childhood friend for Argentina. In Buenos Aires Eva becomes dangerously ill, and in the hospital the star physician falls in love with her, enchanted by the fierce Uruguayan writing poetry from her bed. Married to the doctor, Eva enters elegant Buenos Aires society in the same strata as President Peron. When she helps expose a human rights issue, Eva and her family must flee to Uruguay. The novel concludes with Salomé, Eva’s daughter, and the young woman’s adolescent enchantment with revolution and such figures as Ernesto (Che) Guevara. Salomé joins a revolutionary group at a time in both Uruguay and Argentina when dictators were making victims of their own citizenry.

Salomé’s tale is the most tragic, and the arc of the women’s stories, begun with the miraculous survival of Pajarita, seems to follow that of the 20th century at the beginning of which Uruguay thought itself the Switzerland of Latin America.

By Salomé’s time Uruguay had become “less innocent, smaller somehow, dwarfed by the looming world.”

Rich in language, character, and incident, The Invisible Mountain is a satisfying tale wherein, as De Robertis writes, “women were like cities, full of darkened rooms, able to find new worlds down hidden hallways.”

Eva Ulett THE CROOKED CROSS Michael Dean, Quaestor2000, 2009, £9.99 pb, 191pp, 9781906836139 and £14.99, 9781906836146 (large print) This is a masterly fiction of events and characters who, in 1933, hatch an elaborate plot to kill Hitler in Munich. The author has researched in detail the places, buildings, furniture, art galleries, and events that might offer success. The cover, a Durer allegorical engraving of a crusader on horseback, and the title are too intellectual a face for an absorbing yet despicable history.

Though fascinating as a read, the book shows a sore lack of editing. Expressions such as “keeping tabs on” and “plasterboard” do not ring true for 1933. I was there! The profusion of characters and places, some with three names, at times hides the story. If the Nazi high-ups and

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Issue 49, August 2009 locations are right, then the book is a staggering, if ponderous, piece of research. If they are not, there are far too many. This book seems so truthful yet it purports to be fiction. Michael Dean has done a brilliant job writing a “love it or hate it” book.

As Hitler inspects the Munich artists’ studios, the author displays sensitive understanding of the work of the period and the Nazi (i.e.

Hitler’s) preferences. There is remarkable police prosecution detail of a terrifying period in German history when both Jews and Communists were persecuted, their property and art collections stolen, or bought for a pittance, and painters were either in or out. And out meant death.

I don’t need to tell you how the book ends.

Geoffrey Harfield ANGEL’S FLIGHT Alice Duncan, Five Star, 2009, $25.95, hb, pp, 9781594147838 Boston blueblood Mercy Alcutt returns in the second book in Duncan’s series set in 1920s Los Angeles. Mercy, a budding novelist, has taken a job as secretary to Ernest Templeton, Private Investigator, in hopes of life experiences to inform her work. Ernest isn’t too inclined to take the cases that would add some spark to Mercy’s days, but she has enough drive for two.

Incidentally, although the name Ernest conjures up a less than prepossessing image, this Ernest is attractive enough that female clients give Mercy pangs of jealousy.

Phony psychics, a murdered gossip columnist, and worst of all, a visit from Mercy’s terrifying mother—these things turn out to be the least of Mercy’s problems when she once again unwittingly reveals too much to a murderer. I had a sense of déjà vu as she found herself in the same situation in the first book, but she remains a highly enjoyable character. Despite her penchant for confessing her suspicions to the wrong people, she proves to be a worthy foil to her employer and even manages to stand up to her formidable mother. I’m an admitted sucker for mysteries set in the early Hollywood era, and Duncan makes this a fast, fun read.

Ellen Keith THE HIDDEN WAR David Fiddimore, Pan, 2009, £7.99, pb, 496pp, 9780330454483 Set in 1948, the novel opens with tensions increasing between the Soviet forces and the western Allied forces in Berlin. As the situation deteriorates, Charlie Bassett finds himself coordinating the efforts of a small freight outfit flying from the UK to West Germany and on to Berlin as part of the massive allied air bridge, making essential drops of food and medicines to help the increasingly beleaguered and starving population. Of course, it’s not all work for Charlie who soon has a girl in each airport and a scheme in every country. However, when the people he loves are threatened by the effects of

20th Century the blockade, he knows he must take a desperate chance to smuggle them out of the country.

The Hidden War is the fourth in a series of novels involving Charlie Bassett—war hero, man-about-town and inveterate womaniser.

David Fiddemore’s story is an entertaining mixture of the strangely surreal and the totally believable while evoking the danger and tragedy that were an unspoken but inevitable part of the whole operation. Bassett is a plausible personality whose wisecracking and cynicism masks a more sensitive, caring side.

An entertaining read. Recommended.

Mike Ashworth COLD BLOOD James Fleming, Jonathan Cape, 2009, £16.99, hb, 328pp, 9780224087216 As the Bolsheviks seize power, Charlie Doig, half-Scot, half-Russian, sets off in pursuit of personal vengeance. Acquiring an armoured train and a motley collection of followers, not all of whom are to be trusted, naturally enough, he heads east and learns that there is huge quantity of gold bullion at Kazan, a city being fought over by Reds, Whites, and the Czech Legion. Charlie determines that he will not only kill the villainous People’s Commissar Glebov, but carry off the gold as well.

Is Mr. Fleming writing a serious thriller or a send-up of the genre? Cold Blood occupies an uneasy boundary between the two and doesn’t quite work as either. We are informed that Mr. Fleming is a nephew of Ian, and his previous work has been extensively and favourably reviewed, but I found myself wondering why, although the book frequently reads like a screenplay for a modern Bond film—all action sequences and dashing about and very little to hold things together. For me, a serious thriller needs to convey a strong sense of ‘this really could happen’, but Cold Blood doesn’t do that. In the comic thriller/historical sphere, Mr. Fleming faces the awesome precedent of Flashman, which, despite all the absurdities and the suspension of disbelief required as our antihero manages to get involved in every war of the Victorian age, remains strongly rooted in reality as well being very funny indeed.

The reader is also with Flashman all the way.

There are moments of good muscular writing in Cold Blood, and the chaos and anarchy of Revolutionary Russia is well conveyed, but at times I lost track of what was going on. And did I care about Charlie Doig and his quest? No, I didn’t.

Ann Lyon THE GIRL FROM JUNCHOW (US) / THE CONCUBINE’S SECRET (UK) Kate Furnivall, Berkley, 2009, $15.00/C$16.50, 512pp, pb, 9780425227640 / Sphere, 2009, £6.99, pb, 528pp, 9780751540451 Lydia Ivanovna is The Girl From Junchow.

When Lydia was five, she and her Russian mother went to China to escape the Bolsheviks,

HistoricalNovelsReview

Y SUNNYSIDE

Issue 49, August 2009

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Glen David Gold, Knopf, 2009, $26.95, hc, 560pp, 9780307270689 / Sceptre, 2009, £17.99, hb, 559pp, 9780340829813 Gold’s panoramic novel of World War I and early Hollywood opens with a mass delusion: film actor Charlie Chaplin is simultaneously spotted in more than eight hundred places across the United States. Sunnyside’s main characters, though they never connect, are affected by the incident: Leland Wheeler sees Chaplin drown in a boat off the rugged northern California coast, and Hugo Black witnesses a riot in a small Texas town where the residents are disappointed that Chaplin has snubbed them by not appearing on a train. Chaplin, however, is safely ensconced in southern California—while he is famous, he hasn’t reached the level of celebrity or legend that we associate with him. Gold follows Chaplin, Wheeler, and Black as they navigate difficult personal situations, the war in Europe, and their desire for fame and recognition.

It’s difficult to describe what type of novel Sunnyside is, since it is so many things all at once—a war novel, a romance, a comic novel, biographical fiction, a portrait of a nation on the brink of a new era. The threads of the story connect in unsuspected ways, and readers will find themselves learning things that they did not know about WWI-era film and how it influenced the way Americans (and, through the long arms of cinema, much of the Western world) think about war and celebrity. By delving into stories and legends both well known and long forgotten, Gold captures the moment where the modern era of celebrity and American cultural dominance begins—and he does it with style. At the end of Sunnyside, you’ll find yourself awed by the lasting influence of a few seemingly minor incidents in American cultural history.

Nanette Donohue Historical novels usually take themselves rather seriously, even the romantic fantasies. It is rare to find an historical novel which is intentionally humorous. Sunnyside is an exception; indeed, it is exceptional in many ways.

Sunnyside is an exuberant, hilarious, anarchic book. It is definitely historical since it is firmly anchored in the years 1916 to 1919 and takes in great historical events such as America’s entry into the Great War, the Western Front, and the Allied intervention in the Bolshevik Revolution, as well as the early history of Hollywood and the career of Charlie Chaplin. It is more difficult to decide if this is a novel.

There are several different stories told concurrently, all of them fantastical but clearly with elements of historical fact (the author adds the usual appendix which explains which is which but deliberately leaves large areas in doubt). Each story has its own protagonists and even at the end they do not link up, although they touch each other at points.

Gradually the reader realises that the book is itself like a Charlie Chaplin film, the shooting of which is one of the story lines. We laugh because it touches on things which are too deep for tears, as when Charlie laughs during the funeral of his baby son. The stories are about love and betrayal—all sorts of love including Charlie’s mix of love and shame for his half-mad East End mother and a soldier’s love for the puppy he finds on the battlefield—about death and life, the meaning and the meaningless of life and the capriciousness of fate. You will laugh as you read this book and feel like weeping for the pity of all when you reach the end.

Edward James leaving behind Lydia’s father, Jens Friis, a Danish engineer, whom she and her mother believed had been killed by the Bolsheviks. In 1929, after her mother’s death, Lydia learns that her father is alive and a prisoner in Siberia. She longs to see her father again. She leaves China with her half-brother, Alexei, and her self-

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appointed protector, a Cossack named Popkov.

Their journey to Russia brings many dangers, friends, false friends, and betrayals. In Moscow, where Jens Friis has been transferred to a secret prison, Lydia renews her love affair with Chang An Lo, her Chinese Communist lover from Junchow. Not only is Chang in Moscow as

20th Century a delegate for Mao Tse-Tung, but he also has knowledge of Jens Friis’s whereabouts. He helps Lydia and Alexei in their efforts to rescue their father. Chang also has knowledge concerning the truth about Lydia’s brother, Alexei.

In this immediate sequel to The Russian Concubine, Kate Furnivall has created a remarkable heroine in 17-year-old Lydia, who is young and vulnerable yet headstrong and fearless. This is a believable depiction of survival in Stalin’s Communist Russia. Ms. Furnivall’s descriptions are powerful, bringing the reader completely into the setting. She has developed characters that are well balanced and believable.

The plotting and pace are breathless.

Audrey Braver THE MOON LOOKED DOWN Dorothy Garlock, Grand Central, 2009, $19.99, hb, 386pp, 9780446577946 Sophie Heller and her family flee the Nazi regime in 1933, emigrating from Germany to the United States. The family settles in the small farming community of Victory, Illinois, where they own a farm. As anti-German sentiment increases during the early years of World War II, the Hellers are persecuted by a group of local ruffians intent on driving them out of town. One summer night, Sophie witnesses the destruction of the family’s barn, as well as threats against her family, and acts bravely to fight back.

Meanwhile, Cole Ambrose returns to Victory after completing his education in Chicago. Cole is discouraged because he can’t go to war due to a disability, and his relationship with his father is poor, but when he meets Sophie, he finds a reason to overcome all his fears and concerns.

While Garlock does a masterful job capturing small-town America, the characters leave something to be desired. Though their love story is sweet, there’s nothing distinguishing about Sophie and Cole—their actions are often predictable. Sophie is a textbook plucky heroine, showing bravery and resilience in the face of fear; Cole is a typical unexpected knight in shining armor, ready to ride to her rescue in his pickup truck. The villains show little motivation for their actions other than general small-mindedness, and even though the reader knows from their actions that they are the ”bad guys,” the author makes them over-the-top vulgar and abusive to remind us of the fact. The wife of Sophie’s employer pops up throughout the novel to harass Sophie for no apparent reason other than to add conflict. A little more backstory to explain the characters’ motivations would have improved this novel.

Nanette Donohue A RELIABLE WIFE Robert Goolrick, Algonquin, 2009, $23.95, hb, 291pp, 9781410417381 / Little, Brown, 2009, £12.99, hb, 304pp, 9781408701935 Ralph Truitt and Catherine Land meet at a train station in rural Wisconsin in 1907. Ralph’s

HistoricalNovelsReview ad for a reliable wife has brought them together.

They’re both looking to make a change in their life, but it may be more than just a simple marriage. She hungers for more in life, with money and social standing utmost in her sights.

She is not who she seems: she hides more than the precious gems sewn in her dress hem and a small blue bottle she carries. When she steps off the train, Ralph takes one look at the well-worn photograph of Catherine; clearly she is not the woman he has been corresponding with. Though furious at her subterfuge, she will still suit his purpose. He has plans for Catherine that with any luck will bring his wayward son home to him. Detectives do locate this lost son, now a man who plays piano in a bar. He is the lascivious Tony Moretti, but on approach he denies Ralph is his father. Meanwhile, Catherine sets in motion a plan to kill her husband with arsenic from her small blue bottle. Why would she jeopardize her new charmed lifestyle married to the rich Mr. Truitt?

The characters of Ralph and Catherine are carefully chiseled and polished. Robert Goolrick creates a clever labyrinth of deceit, guilt, and forgiveness. The story is racked with tension as he slowly manipulates his readers through the twisted maze of plot complexity.

Goolrick’s writing is warm and embraceable but with an occasional electric shock. Suspense is this storyteller’s magic.

Wisteria Leigh MURDER IN THE DARK Kerry Greenwood, Poisoned Pen Press, 2009, $24.95, hb, 266pp, 9781590584392 Phryne Fisher receives an invitation from the eccentric twins Gerald and Isabella Templar to the Last Best Party of 1928, to be held at their estate near Werribee, Australia. At first she hesitates, but after she receives various threats, including a snake in a Christmas present, she decides to go because the best way to get Phryne to do something is to tell her not to do it.

Phryne enjoys herself at the party, peopled by a number of eccentric guests. But soon Gerald’s obnoxious adopted son, Tarquin, is kidnapped, and Phryne learns that an internationally renowned assassin is among the guests. Who is the killer’s intended victim: the twins or Phryne herself? And are the kidnapper and the assassin one and the same? Phryne races to find the truth, with not many clues to go on except a series of riddles left on luggage labels for her to find. But the intrepid Phryne is determined to win this cat-and-mouse game with her adversary.

I had read only one other book in this mystery series before, but I don’t think you need to have read the others to fully appreciate this one.

Greenwood provides extensive details about life in 1920s Australia, and the adventurous Phryne is a delightful heroine with whom I would definitely like to spend more time. These books are pure entertainment—an absolute pleasure to read.

Vicki Kondelik

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Issue 49, August 2009 MURDER ON A MIDSUMMER NIGHT Kerry Greenwood, Poisoned Pen Press, 2009, $24.95/C$31.95, hb, 268pp, 9781590586327 Greenwood’s latest entry in the Phryne Fisher series, her 16th, has the unflappable Melbourne detective facing a multitude of problems: her 29th birthday (a serious occasion); a midsummer heat wave (complete with dangerously hot winds); a dead antiques dealer (young, and not suicidal, so he must have been murdered); and a genealogy quest (for a fractious, and fractured, family). It’s enough to leave other investigators wishing for a stiff drink and some ice.

Fortunately, Phryne has the resources to meet all challenges—for one of them, a large block of ice is indeed the answer—without breaking a sweat. Her foray into the antique dealer’s life includes meeting his mother, who had once been a model for the Pre-Raphaelites, his friends, who are “modern” types into smoking pot and holding séances, and the stock of his store, which holds many secrets, and perhaps the answer to his untimely demise. The family asking for help with resolving a will that mentions an unknown child has just as many quirks and secrets. Phryne enlists the help of her companion, Dot, and her sister, Eliza, as well as her usual cadre of lovers, adopted daughters, cab drivers, and off-duty policemen to help track down every lead; the expanded roles of Dot and Eliza are especially well crafted. The only false note is that of the Pre-Raphaelite model, as she would have had to be a very young model, and a very old mother, for the dates of the artists (1850s) and the story (1929) to mesh.

Given a willing suspension of disbelief, however, the story works just fine. Readers should sit back and enjoy the rollicking action that Phryne Fisher’s investigations always provide. A glass of iced orange crush is optional.

Helene Williams WINTER IN JUNE Kathryn Miller Haines, Harper, 2009, $13.99/ C$17.99, pb, 336pp, 9780061579561 Third in Haines’s Rosie Winter mystery series, this outing finds the World War II-era actress on a steamer to the South Pacific with best gal pal Jayne and three other actresses to be in a USO show. Her motives are personal rather than patriotic; she’s in search of her exboyfriend Jack, a Navy man gone missing. The discovery of a dead woman in the water at the docks is not a propitious start to the journey, nor does the murder of a fellow actress during a show contribute to morale.

I’ve been a fan of this series for the first two books, and the third increases my admiration for Haines and her protagonist. In the first two, Haines brought wartime New York to vivid life, and in Winter in June she brings the reader to the war itself. Rosie, her fellow actresses, and the men with whom they are stationed are alternately

20th Century bored and terrified. Wartime politicking abounds, and Rosie is almost blackballed for daring to express the opinion that “Japs” are people, too, who shouldn’t be tortured. Haines has an ear for the dialogue of the 1940s, and in Rosie, she’s created a heck of a dame.

Ellen Keith THE FINEST TYPE OF ENGLISH WOMANHOOD Rachel Heath, Hutchinson, 2009, £12.99, hb, 373pp, 9780091925864 Two girls who have never met escape from the drab restrictions of post-World War II Britain, their destination South Africa.

Innocent and bewildered 17-year-old bride Laura Lovell struggles for understanding in this hot, disturbing alien land where nothing is explained and knowledge is no sooner gained than discredited. Actress Gay Gibson’s diary shows a fiercely ambitious and manipulative young woman whose compelling attractions spell danger: but for whom? Her motives are obscure; her actions, self-damaging.

The meeting of the two girls brings Laura grief and more confusion but a growing maturity as she demonstrates her own resourcefulness.

Gay is apparently a desperately sick woman living on alcohol, cigarettes, her own nerves, and valiant determination. They decide to return to England together.

The news of Gay’s disappearance from the liner Durban Castle en route from South Africa is a welcome sensation in shabby, war-torn Britain. The glamorous vanished protagonist and enticing rumours of all manner of vice lead to a notorious and well-documented murder trial.

This book could have given readers a commonplace story of lust in a hot climate.

Instead the author has created a surreal 20thcentury scenario with the quality of a grim fairy tale where the normal threatens to become monstrous and clues, which may prove to be true or false, must be followed,. An accomplished and successful first novel.

Nancy Henshaw DARKEST HOUR James Holland, Bantam, 2009, £12.99, hb, 432pp, 9780593058367 Sergeant Jack Tanner hasn’t even been at Manston training camp for 24 hours before he realises something dodgy is going on. The death of two Polish refugees and an attempt on his life and that of his loyal corporal, Stan Sykes, heighten Tanner’s suspicions against an old army adversary.

Before he can get to the bottom of the mystery, however, his company is sent out to reinforce the rest of his regiment in France and Flanders. It is May 1940, and the French and Belgian armies are in retreat in the face of the relentless thrust of the Germans. As the evacuation of the BEF becomes more inevitable, enemy opposition and treachery from within means that Tanner and his

HistoricalNovelsReview men may not make it back to Dunkirk in time.

Darkest Hour is a rollicking, testosterone- and adrenaline-fuelled adventure story. Tanner is the sort of hero I imagine many little boys would like to grow up to be: principled, courageous, and resourceful enough to be able to come up with a cunning plan, however dire his situation appears.

Inevitably, given the subject matter, the novel is an all-male affair (apart from the guest appearance of a pretty nurse whom, I suspect, might play a greater role in future novels). To enjoy this book I suspect many new readers will probably seek out the earlier novel, The Odin Mission.

The book includes a glossary of military terms and slang, several maps, and an informative historical note. For boys of all ages.

Jasmina Svenne THE BURNT-OUT TOWN OF MIRACLES Roy Jacobsen (trans. Don Bartlett), Trafalgar Square/John Murray, 2009 (c2008), $12.95, pb, 200pp, 9780719521126 When his village is evacuated by the Finnish army, Timo Vatanen, a village idiot who makes his living as a woodcutter, refuses to leave.

As Timo is confirmed a fool by his fleeing countrymen, he muses, “At such moments it is difficult to know whether you are changing or just learning to understand yourself.” When the Russian army sets up camp in his village, Timo remains and plays the fool to his captors, secretly acting as caretaker to the villagers’ homes and savior to an odd assortment of Russian men pressed into service by the Russian army. But when the war is over, Timo is finally driven from his home when neither he nor the returning villagers understand his actions during the war.

Plagued for years by confusion and shame, Timo concludes that “everyone has the right to be a hero in his own life.” He decides to discover the truth about Finland’s Winter War and the fate of his Russian companions. Artfully translated from Norwegian, Jacobsen’s novel is an internal narrative of survival, friendship, and loss with the war serving as little more than a backdrop.

It is the kind of story that stays with the reader long after one has put it down, like a hauntingly beautiful melody that cannot be shaken.

Patricia O’Sullivan INSPECTOR GHOTE’S FIRST CASE H. R. F. Keating, Minotaur, 2009, $24.95, hb, 288pp, 9780312384043 Inspector Ghote has been with us for over forty years, solving crimes in newly independent India since it was contemporary, and not historical, fiction. This installment returns us to the moment when Ghote has just been advanced to the rank of inspector and posted to the Crime Branch in Bombay. His wife is expecting their first child, he wants to move to a new flat corresponding to his new status—but is called by Sir Rustom Engineer to investigate the suicide of the wife

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Issue 49, August 2009 of an old British acquaintance—coincidentally also pregnant.

Self-doubts plague the novice inspector in a maddening fashion, resonating the words from the Sir Lawrence Olivier Hamlet which duty compels Ghote to miss attending with his wife: “a man who couldn’t make up his mind.” Of course, in Ghote’s case, the doubts bring him back again and again to probe the life of the dead woman that was more than it seemed, even to her husband. To my ears, pitch-perfect Indian English, even in Ghote’s tortured thoughts, keeps the story going at a clip. Excellent reading for those who couldn’t get enough of Slumdog Millionaire.

Ann Chamberlin THE LANGUAGE OF BEES: A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes Laurie R. King, Bantam, 2009, $25.00/C$28.95, hb, 434pp, 9780553804546 I, admittedly, have been a fan of Laurie R. King’s since I picked up The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, the first installment in the RussellHolmes series, years ago. I’ve also reviewed a number of the entries for this publication.

This one stands out and is perhaps the most compelling and complex of them.

Holmes fans know that he was a beekeeper.

He understood the “language of bees”—how they operate within a hive, how their communal society works, how they communicate wordlessly and yet extraordinarily effectively.

So, when Mary and Sherlock return to Sussex after a long absence, it is mystifying to them why an entire hive has inexplicably disappeared. The only reason for this behavior is the community was driven by some sort of madness to take flight.

Add to that mix is the disturbing reappearance of Holmes’s son—by Irene Adler—the surrealist painter, Damian Adler. His wife and child have gone missing. Can Damian’s behavior, often as bizarre as his paintings, be explained away or is he involved in the disappearances?

The investigative team of Holmes and Russell follow an increasingly sinister path of gruesome murders and strange cults. Russell finds herself in the underbelly of London, cultivating acquaintanceships with bohemian artists and cultist fanatics—all the while recognizing that Holmes is dealing with an investigation much too close to home emotionally.

This is a very satisfying and enjoyable mystery, dense and yet an easy read. I highly recommend it whether you’ve read the earlier installments or not.

Ilysa Magnus A SEASON OF LEAVES Catherine Law, Preface, 2009, £7.99, pb, 341pp, 9781848090989 The novel begins in 1992, in Cornwall, England, with an old lady, Rose Pepper, preparing for a trip to Prague. Many intriguing

20th Century mysteries are set up in this first chapter—a scar, half-remembered memories, hidden unopened letters, and lots of hints about the past—leaving the reader suitably curious to find out what happened. The story then switches back to wartime England and the reader is immersed in the world of air raids, uniforms, blackouts, and so on. The historical details set the scene but don’t overwhelm the characters or story. Rose becomes a Land Girl and, although engaged to the deeply unpleasant Will, she meets and falls in love with a Czech soldier. The later parts of the novel switch to Prague showing the problems, fears, and difficulties of Czechoslovakia at that time, particularly the tribulations caused by the presence of the Russians and the beginnings of the communist state.

Sometimes it is easy for modern women to become a little frustrated with Rose not standing up for herself as much as she might, but this is, in fairness, probably more accurate for a nice, young girl of the Forties. The novel is very enjoyable, entertaining, and deserves to be very popular. If you liked The Outcast or The Welsh Girl, you’ll probably love this. The harshest of critics might find it a very little bit clichéd, but who cares? It’s an excellent, old-fashioned story and I found it thoroughly compelling.

Ann Northfield AFTER YOU’VE GONE Jeffrey Lent, Atlantic Monthly, 2009, $24.00, hb, 272pp, 9780871138941 After You’ve Gone takes place at the beginning of the 20th century and spans a number of years in the life of Henry Dorn. It takes place where he grew up in Nova Scotia and follows his travels to New York and Amsterdam. Henry Dorn’s life is radically changed one day when his wife Olivia and son Robert are tragically killed in an automobile accident. Olivia is the love of Henry’s life, and with her death he carries unbearable grief. He and Robert have had a strained relationship, unable to communicate, neither able to understand the other. Robert has returned from war addicted to morphine, full of self-pity and lacking motivation. Henry’s last conversation with his son was a disaster. When he realizes his two daughters are too busy to include him in their lives, he withdraws, instead making plans to travel. He chooses Amsterdam where he decides he will research his heritage.

While there he meets Lydia Pierce, independent and confident, happy to be single and free to come and go as she pleases. It is a new age, where women are venturing out on their own. The plot is somewhat predictable as Henry falls in love with Lydia. However, this is not the full story, nor is it the end.

Jeffrey Lent again demonstrates his storytelling finesse. The language is breathtakingly rich, the characters are crafted with finite detail, and the ending is anyone’s guess. Although somewhat slow reading at the beginning, the story soon picks up momentum. Reading anything by Jeffrey Lent is a sensual gift to savor. After

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You’ve Gone is no exception, a love story that will leave a lingering imprint.

Wisteria Leigh

to barely ruffle the surface of your reading then this gentle saga is for you.

Sally Zigmond

HOLLYWOOD BUZZ Margit Liesche, Poisoned Pen Press, 2009, $24.95, hb, 285pp, 9781590585795 To begin with, Pucci Lewis is a WASP, Women’s Airforce Service Pilot, that is, the organization established during World War II to ferry warplanes and perform other flight related duties to free up the men for operations against the enemy. Finding herself in Hollywood in this second installment of a series, the intrepid Pucci, master pilot and semi-professional government agent, becomes involved in all manner of skullduggery, including the suspicious crash of a fellow female pilot, possible Nazi agents, the black market, foreign propaganda, illegal drug trade, and even a Bela Lugosi in the downside of his career. All the while, she has to cope with promoting an organization threatened by a potent male backlash and keeping her bearings in the glitz and glamour of Tinseltown.

There is more novel than history to this work. Although the WASPs, the environs of Fort Roach and nearby Hollywood are rendered competently, history is not allowed to get in the way of a good story. That is both this book’s blessing and its curse. As an amateur sleuth tale it succeeds, but it often feels that the historical background is mere prop. Pucci could be in any profession in any time period without the story missing a beat. Take this one as a light mystery, one that happens to throw in a bit of history along the way, and you won’t risk disappointment.

Ken Kreckel

THE LAST TRAIN TO SCARBOROUGH Andrew Martin, Faber & Faber, 2009, £12.99, hb, 314pp, 9780571229697 March 1914. In what could be his last case before leaving the force to train as a lawyer, railway detective Jim Stringer has been ordered to go undercover in a seedy Scarborough lodging house (misnamed Paradise) to investigate the disappearance of the last railwayman to stay there overnight.

Along the way he has to deal with a disgruntled chief inspector who seems to be withholding information about the case, an overenthusiastic assistant with a passion for guns, and the voluptuous and seductive landlady of Paradise, Amanda Rickerby.

The structure of this novel is clever, beginning with Jim waking up after the climax of the book in a dark, confined space on a shifting mound of coal with only fragmentary memories of the events leading up to this point. This device allows Martin to inform new readers and remind existing fans about Jim’s family, background, and work colleagues in a natural way while he tries to piece together what happened.

The book can be read as a stand alone novel, though I suspect I might have cared more about the potential threat to Jim’s marriage from the ambitious, energetic Lydia if I had read the earlier novels in the series.

Jasmina Svenne

GIVE ME TOMORROW Elizabeth Lord, Piatkus/Trafalgar Square, 2009 (c2006), £6.99/$9.95, pb, 344pp, 9780749929817 Elizabeth Lord writes warm and dependable sagas about the lives of women in the early 20th century. This one, first published in 2006, is no exception. Eveline meets Connie at a suffragette march, and they immediately become friends despite their contrasting backgrounds. Eveline is the daughter of an East End grocer whereas Connie’s father is a Harley Street doctor. And yet both face similar difficulties, especially Connie, whose father is a domineering bully.

When she falls in love with a ‘lowly’ bank clerk, she is disowned. Eveline, on the other hand, finds herself attracted by a man from the upper classes. But can she trust him?

Their friendship, which begins with a dalliance with the suffragettes, takes them through the First World War and its aftermath with the usual heartbreak and horrors. It endures and it matures.

When I began reading this novel and its vibrant opening scene of a suffragette rally, I had hoped that Connie and Eveline would become more involved with the movement, but this was not to be. If, however, you prefer history

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MURDER AT DEVIATION JUNCTION Andrew Martin, Mariner, 2009, $13.95/C$18.95, pb, 256pp, 9780156034456 / Faber and Faber, 2008, £7.99, pb, 256pp, 9780571229666 In this fourth in a series featuring railway detective Jim Stringer, the harsh British winter of 1909 can be felt to the bone. Jim is now a family man with a wife and small, sickly son, so he’s desperate for a promotion. He agrees to investigate an assault case, but upon returning home, a frozen body of an apparent suicide sends him on a different track. Soon Jim is entangled in a series of grim events that surround a group of men who shared a private railway car. He follows his instincts, much to the consternation of his fellows, and embarks on a wild chase from the furnaces of Ironopolis to a hideout in Scotland. On the way he tries the patience of his temperance-leaning wife and searches out the perfect Christmas presents for his aeroplane-, not railway- ,entranced son.

England’s industrial age is illuminated with a fierce beauty from a crime-solving perspective that cuts through class lines. Jim struggles to make life better for his family without sacrificing his own steady and dogged allegiance to justice and truth. He’s a character who sustains a series well. And does he know and love his railways!

Eileen Charbonneau

20th Century BLOOD & ICE Robert Masello, Harvill Secker, 2009, £12.99, pb, 495pp, 9781846552731 / Bantam, 2009, $24.00, hb, 512pp, 9780553807288 Photojournalist Michael Wilde, tormented by guilt and grief, takes on an assignment in the Antarctic, a chance to abandon the intolerable circumstances of his life in the United States.

His first dive into dangerous waters beneath the ice cap leads him to a discovery so dauntingly bizarre that only his colleagues, the hardened, experienced scientists and service personnel there at the furthest reach of existence, would believe him. They have learned that nothing can be discounted in this region “at pole” where humanity has such a fragile toehold. A second dive brings two ice-shrouded treasures into the laboratory. Terror and tragedy ensue, the grisly events vividly detailed and horribly convincing.

Then a discovery by dedicated marine biologist Darryl Hirsch brings hope to the beleaguered survivors—a hope that may allow Michael a strange chance of happiness in an ending that can never be more than bittersweet. To disclose anything more would spoil the story for readers.

There is some excellent characterisation of clever, inquisitive, and occasionally eccentric people, each one sharply individualised, plus exciting scenes of intense physical action. The verses from The Rime the Ancient Mariner are a nice touch. This is an unusual and admirably researched book mainly set in a place where men and women live at the limit of human endurance and the smallest mistake may prove deadly.

Nancy Henshaw THE CHAPEL AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD Kirsten McKenzie, John Murray, 2009, £14.99, hb, 307pp, 9871848541498 In 1942, Italian prisoners of war were taken to the Orkneys and employed to build the defences around Scapa Flow and later the causeway.

While there, they turned a Nissen hut into a chapel. The chapel is still there and is visited by thousands of tourists every year, myself being one of them.

These events are told around a story featuring Emilio and his childhood sweetheart, Rosa, who live on the shores of Lake Como in northern Italy. They are engaged to be married when Emilio is called up and sent to North Africa.

He is soon captured by the English and finds himself on board a ship bound for Scotland and the tiny island of Lamb Holm. Meanwhile, back in Italy, Rosa and her mother, who runs a small hotel, find themselves caught up in the local resistance.

Although the characters are fictitious, I found this a very moving story and one that I couldn’t put down, made all the more real as I have seen the Chapel and appreciated its apparent isolation from the rest of the world. I highly recommend this book.

Marilyn Sherlock

HistoricalNovelsReview AMERICAN ADULTERER Jed Mercurio, Jonathan Cape, 2009, £12.99 hb, 354pp, 9780224081566 This novel is unputdownable. Much of what makes it compulsive reading, however, is its voyeuristic quality. Although written in prose of lapidary concision and brilliance, it is literary fiction’s answer to a Sunday tabloid, which is all part of the author’s plan.

Mercurio’s subject is the presidency of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, from Jackie’s dress bills to Marilyn’s overdose, the Bay of Pigs to the Cuban missile crisis, and the fateful motorcade through Dallas. But what Mercurio has done with the legend is something very clever. A doctor himself, he makes Kennedy’s health the focus of the novel. Stretching a point, perhaps, he casts the president’s libido as one more in a list of ailments which included chronic back trouble and Addison’s disease. By juxtaposing accounts of Kennedy’s ordeals with his health and the women in his life, with transcriptions from his speeches and accounts of his war heroism, his actions on Cuba, civil rights, or space exploration, Mercurio leads us to question the relationship between the public and the private man. From there it is a short leap to the realisation that, today, when the press can plead public interest as an excuse to demolish a public figure’s reputation on a whim, Kennedy could never have been elected.

There are many ways to interpret a public life, but Mercurio leaves the reader in little doubt of his belief in the importance of Kennedy’s presidency. He implicitly questions whether we would still be here at all had it not been for Kennedy’s willingness to override

Y UNDER THIS UNBROKEN SKY

Issue 49, August 2009 his military advisers and engage in a direct, personal correspondence with Khrushchev in 1961—which leads back to the bigger question underlying his narrative: What do we want from our public servants and what happens when we get the politicians we deserve? This is a deeply serious novel, one we should all read and be thoroughly ashamed of ourselves.

Sarah Bower THE SUMMER HOUSE Mary Nichols, Allison and Busby, 2009, £19.99, hb, 399pp, 9780749079840 Lady Helen Barstairs marries her soldier husband at her family’s request and regrets it almost instantly when she meets Oliver Donovan. Their brief but intense affair leaves her with a baby daughter, Laura, much wanted but forcibly adopted. Laura’s life is poor but happy until another war robs her of her fiancé and also leaves her a single mother.

Then Laura and Helen’s lives come together again and the family begins to learn to love each other. Cue the arrival of Oliver’s son Wayne to stir the mix. Secrets long hidden are likely to come into the open and could ruin the lives of all concerned. But always in the background is Steve, Laura’s “rock”, who, although badly injured, is the one person to teach Laura to live and love again.

Mary Nichols is a prolific and popular novelist and from this latest offering it is easy to see why. She writes in a lively and engaging style and knows exactly how to spin a darn good tale. The Summer House is a lovely slice-of-life saga which uses its dual First and Second World War backdrops to the full. Her characters are

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Shandi Mitchell, Harper, 2009, $25.99, hb, 352pp, 9780061885266 / Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2009, £12.99, hb, 368pp, 9780297856580 Lured by promises of prosperity and fertile land for farming, Theo Mykolayenko and his family immigrated to Canada to escape the political and social unrest and harsh conditions of Stalin’s regime. As the novel opens, he is returning from prison—he was imprisoned for ”stealing” grain from his harvest to feed his family. His experiences in prison haunt him throughout the novel as he struggles to tame the land and care for his family. Both nature and civilization seem to be against the family’s success; they are faced with fires, wild animals, blizzards, and inhospitable locals, among other challenges. Theo’s greatest challenge, however, is his sister Anna, who owns the deed to the land Theo farms and whose husband, Stefan, wants a prosperous life without exerting any effort.

Mitchell’s unflinching debut chronicles the harsh conditions for immigrants to the prairie provinces during the 1930s. The region was still an unsettled frontier, and the challenges of ekeing out a living were overwhelming. Yet despite all the despair, there’s a light of hope that permeates this novel. Mitchell based the story on her own family’s experiences settling in the prairie provinces, and there’s a love for the land and the immigrant spirit throughout the book. This is one of the finest novels I have read this year—a lyrical, evocative tale of pioneer life from an immensely talented debut author.

Nanette Donohue

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20th Century rather appealing and even the various “bit parts” are well fleshed out. All in all a very good read.

Sara Wilson EARLY’S FALL Jerry Peterson, Five Star, 2009, $25.95, hb, 303pp, 9781594146787 Sheriff James Early is an old-fashioned lawman in late 1940s Kansas, confronted with a gruesome murder and a daylight bank robbery that leads him on a futile chase. The outrageous robbery is a welcome distraction to the brutal axe murder of a local schoolteacher, Judith Smitts. Early is a good-hearted, cowboy lawman with a pregnant wife, more at home on the range than facing the ugly realities of his job. Investigating the murdered woman’s past, the sheriff discovers connections to a newly formed Israel that belie the unassuming lifestyle of a teacher, wife, and mother.

Peterson sprinkles his homey, but ultimately tragic, tale with eccentric characters and quirky events: a conversation with President Harry Truman while in Kansas City to interview a witness, a spontaneous friendship with a black railroad worker, an audacious bank robber, an Israeli agent, and a homeless old man who provides a critical link to the killer. At the heart of all is a conscientious sheriff who solves the murder only to suffer a heartbreaking loss, an ex-foot soldier who personifies the landscape of post-WWII America.

Luan Gaines LARK AND TERMITE Jayne Anne Phillips, Jonathan Cape, 2009, £16.99, hb, 254pp, 9780224059763 / Knopf, 2009, $24.00, hb, 272pp, 9780375401954 Set in 1950s Virginia, Lark and Termite is a suspenseful novel focusing on a cast of characters affected by love, loss, dreams of the future, and ghosts of the past. Concentrating on Lark and Termite—two children—the result of passionate love for a lost soldier and strong sister, the reader explores the relationships that bring the characters together and events that will change all their lives.

The book opens with Sergeant Leavitt, Termite’s father, caught in friendly fire in Korea and his thoughts of his unborn child.

As the attack continues, we learn of his love for Lola, a beautiful and seemingly confused young woman, who is a singer in a club where she helps look after the ‘girls’. Ten years on we meet Nonie, Lola’s sister, who raises the children and is a waitress in love with Charlie, the diner owner. We learn of the mysteries and social circumstances surrounding all their relationships until a terrible flood forces them to finally face the past and look to the future for the sake of Lark and Termite.

Lark and Termite is captivating, beautifully and gently told by each character. We are introduced to each character’s world and are provided glimpses of an era where appearances are important to the detriment of change. With

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Y DEATH ON THE ICE

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Y SHANGHAI GIRLS

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Robert Ryan, Headline Review, 2009, £12.99, hb, 500pp, 9780755348350 As every British schoolchild used to know, Captain Robert Falcon Scott led an expedition to win the South Pole for King and Empire in 1910-13, only to be beaten by the Norwegian, Amundsen. Scott’s party perished on the return journey, leaving the expedition to be remembered as an Heroic Failure.

Death on the Ice opens in 1917 when Scott’s widow, Kathleen, asks Tryggve Gran, Scott’s Norwegian ski expert, to contribute to a book she is writing about the expedition. Gran is not sure that she and the British public are ready for ‘the true story’. He was amongst those who found the frozen remains and had become a close friend of Captain Lawrence ‘Titus’ Oates, who had been critical of Scott but famously sacrificed himself in a blizzard to give his companions a chance of survival. Thus the story awakes from the memories of those who knew Scott, starting with Shackleton, a member of Scott’s earlier Antarctic expedition, who became his bitter rival.

Although Ryan introduces a few fictional elements, he stays close to the record, venturing into imaginative speculation only at the end. He celebrates the men’s courage and endurance whilst acknowledging mistakes and recognising that this was a serious scientific expedition. Characters and conflicts are shown in deft, vivid brushstrokes but because we see Scott mainly through the eyes of others, he himself remains enigmatic.

Ryan is particularly good on the austere beauty of Antarctica and the horrific toll taken on the brave but astonishingly (to us) underequipped explorers by the harsh landscape and cruel weather.

This is a thrilling and thoughtful novel which puts flesh on the bones of history and allows us to look on the past with deeper understanding.

Sarah Cuthbertson

Lisa See, Random House, 2009, $25.00, hb, 360pp, 9781400067114 / Bloomsbury, 2009, £11.99, hb, 336pp, 9780747597384 Pearl and May are two sisters born in Shanghai, China in the early 20th century. Raised in luxury with traditional Chinese parents, they become the “beautiful girls” adorning Chinese posters advertising modern products.

On the cusp of what appears to be a bright future balancing tradition and modernity, their father loses everything and arranges their marriage to “Gold Mountain men” living in San Francisco, California. Horrified by this loss and the fear engendered by this arrangement, they seek to escape this future and instead are plunged into the nightmare of the Japanese invasion of China.

Betrayal, unspeakable violation by the invaders, and dire poverty force Pearl and May to compromise everything true for the sake of survival. They arrive in America in the early 1930s and undergo a lengthy, torturous investigation at the infamous Angel Island, a place designed to permit entry to those with legitimate connections and deport anyone with suspicious backgrounds. The birth of Joy facilitates a quick entry, and the remainder of the tale harbors the sorrows and joys borne out of a series of fabricated stories. Later tragedy will again result from the family’s exposure to the little-known “Confession Period” of American history rooted in the fear of encroaching Communism.

The outstanding quality of this novel is the way Lisa See has captured the essence of those clinging to the traditions of their ancestral home and embracing the beauty and boundless possibilities of American life. The fear, conflict, joy, and love of every scene are so palpably described that the reader is vicariously living each event, thought and consequence, including the endearing, complex relationship of siblings caught up in the vicissitudes of immigration. Shanghai Girls is another phenomenal addition to Lisa See’s masterpieces of historical fiction. Stunning!

Viviane Crystal

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20th Century

Y ONCE ON A MOONLESS NIGHT

HistoricalNovelsReview

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Dai Sijie (trans. Adriana Hunter), Knopf, 2009, $24.95/C$28.95, 288pp, hb, 9780307271587 / Chatto & Windus, 2009, £12.99, hb, 224pp, 9780701182458 This latest novel from the author of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is another tour de force of intertwined language and love. The unnamed narrator is a young French woman studying languages in Peking in the late 1970s; a young greengrocer, Tumchooq, introduces her to some of the local customs, and, as their relationship deepens, to the story of his lifelong search for the lost language for which he has been named.

Legend holds that when Pu Yi, the last Chinese emperor, was exiled to Manchuria in 1924, he took with him a silk scroll containing a Buddhist sutra in an unknown language.

The scroll was torn and the last segment of the sutra was lost. A French linguist, Paul d’Ampere, illegally obtained the first part of the scroll and successfully translated the beginning of the sutra, but the missing piece of the tale torments d’Ampere, Tumchooq, and the narrator in turn, as each devotes a lifetime to locating and translating the missing segment. They all suffer for their efforts, whether their prison is emotional or physical.

The interconnectedness of the three characters and the larger meaning of the sutra makes for a captivating and well-told story. The strictures of China during the mid-20th century, the history of the emperors and their collections of treasures, and excursions to France, Africa, and Manchuria, are revealed through flashbacks, diary entries, and inserted chapters of scholarship. Together, these tales weave together a powerful story of love, language, and heritage which will follow the reader long after the last page is turned.

Helene Williams hints of the supernatural, passionate love, and forgiveness, I found this novel gripping from the start.

Kathryn Downes LITTLE GODS Anna Richards, Picador, 2009, £16.99, hb, 422pp, 9780330464406 This is a story revolving around four people: Jean, Gloria, Jack, and Denny. It begins in England just before WWII. Jean and Gloria meet Jack and Denny when the Americans enter the war and come over to England. They marry and then are separated for the remaining three years of hostilities before going to America as GI brides.

Apart from the date linking it with the war and the connection with the GI brides, I found this to be a fairly mainstream novel following the life and loves of the four main characters. I found the story line fairly thin and the characters more caricatures than real flesh and blood people.

With apologies to the author, I regret that I did not like this book at all, but it may well appeal to others.

Marilyn Sherlock ROOFTOPS OF TEHRAN Mahbod Seraji, New American Library, 2009, $15.00/C$18.50, pb, 345pp, 9780451226815 In this stirring coming-of-age story set in Iran under the Shah, Mahbod Seraji pens a poignant tale of forbidden love in troubled times.

On the rooftops of Tehran in 1973, 17-yearold Pasha and his best friend, Ahmed, sleep

off the heat of a carefree summer, joking, laughing, and talking about their futures. Pasha plans to become a filmmaker in America, but for the moment he has a guilty secret: He is in love with his neighbor, Zari, a beautiful girl a few years older than himself, who has been betrothed since birth to “Doctor,” Pasha’s good friend and mentor. When Doctor is arrested for activities against the Shah, Pasha and Zari are thrown together in anxiety and grief, a bond that deepens after Doctor is executed in prison.

But guilt and uncertainty work to undermine their relationship, as does Pasha and Ahmed’s growing anti-Shah sentiments. When one of them, frustrated by powerlessness, commits a desperate act of violent political protest, all three lives are altered forever.

Full of domestic details about the everyday lives of middle-class Iranians, Rooftops of Tehran evokes a warm sense of community and nostalgia even in a time of great troubles.

The author, himself an Iranian immigrant to the United States, has poured his heart into this lovely story—and it shows.

Lisa Ann Verge THE BLOOD LANCE Craig Smith, Myrmidon/Trafalgar Square, 2008, £11.99/$16.95/C$18.95, pb, 382pp, 9781905802234 In 1935 Otto Rahn publishes a book about the Holy Grail that catches the eye of Himmler.

Rahn agrees to become the SS’s official historian and to search for the Blood Lance of Antioch, which legends claim will make its owner’s army

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Issue 49, August 2009 unconquerable. In 1997 on their honeymoon, Robert and Kate Kenyon are attacked while climbing the Eiger Mountain. The assassins kill Robert and leave Kate for dead. In 2008 a board member of the philanthropic organization, the Order of the Knights of the Holy Lance, steals millions of dollars of corporate funds and goes into hiding with Europe’s most famous assassin.

CIA agent T.K. Malloy enlists the help of Kate and Ethan Brand on this international manhunt, which may also lead them to the murderer of Kate’s first husband.

Switching between stories and decades, Smith takes readers on a fast-paced ride of love and revenge, innocence and guilt, with glimpses of the subtle areas that fall in between. Seamlessly mixing history, legend, and fiction, Smith’s writing is both intelligent and exhilarating. His characters are alive, and the twists and turns of the several plots will keep readers breathless.

The Blood Lance is Smith’s second book to chronicle the exploits of CIA agent T.K.Malloy, who was also featured in The Painted Messiah (Myrmidon, 2007).

Elizabeth Caulfield Felt THE SECRET SPEECH Tom Rob Smith, Grand Central, 2009, $24.99/C$27.99, hb, 407pp, 9780446402408 / Simon & Schuster, 2009, £12.99, hb, 464pp, 9781847371287 Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s 1956 detailing of the monstrous crimes of the Joseph Stalin era had an enormous impact on both the Soviet Union and communists all over the world.

One Soviet citizen affected is Leo Demidov, a policeman who is one of many who participated in the arrest of thousands of innocent fellow citizens, two of whom were the parents of his adopted daughters. Demidov is consumed by guilt and a justifiable fear for his future as he confronts the post-Stalinist world inhabited both by communists and by those seeking vengeance for the bestial acts of the ruling cliques. His path to remedy his sins would lead him ever deeper into the nightmarish world of Soviet security, the twists and turns of the dead hand of Soviet bureaucracy, the brutal and unforgiving world of the dreaded Gulag, and an exhilarating climax in the Budapest of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Dealing with the horrors of the Gulag and the security system that underlay every facet of Soviet life are serious challenges for the historical novelist. Tom Rob Smith allows us to experience them in all their clarity and frightfulness through the eyes of the tormented and tragic Demidov and his family.

John R. Vallely BITTER TIDE: An Ellis Island Mystery Ann Stamos, Five Star, 2009, $25.95, hb, 410pp, 9781594147821 It’s 1901 and Ellis Island, New York, is teeming with scores of immigrants seeking a better life for themselves and their children. Joseph Hennegan feels an almost sacred need to fight corruption

20th Century and discharge his duties as the superintendent.

His attempt to gather evidence of corruption is sidetracked when Irish immigrant Maggie Flynn shoots her fiancé moments after they disembark.

Joseph’s efforts to solve the crime are impeded

by Maggie’s refusal to talk, the disappearance of the victim, and Joseph’s growing concern that his own father may be withholding important information. He asks Rachel Bonner, a women’s matron at the facility, to help. She’s wealthy and works for social reform while Joseph has known severe poverty in a strange country and the harm a social worker can do. She and Joseph must overcome these differences if they are to prove Maggie’s innocence.

Ann Stamos is the pen name for mystery writers Takis and Judy Iakovou. This is the first in a series of Ellis Island mysteries. It was a fascinating time in history, and they’ve made the events of that era come alive.

Susan Zabolotny ASK ALICE D.J. Taylor, Chatto & Windus, 2009, £16.99, hb, 341pp, 9780701183561 From the windswept prairies of Kansas to downtown Chicago, and from rural Norfolk to the rarefied atmosphere of Chelsea and Mayfair society, D.J. Taylor’s latest novel includes a motley cast of characters and landscapes, forming separate strands that weave together as the plot moves towards an unlooked-for end. A chance encounter and a delayed train journey results in an invitation that triggers a life-changing chain of events. Even seemingly insignificant occurrences—a snowstorm, a safe left ajar—can prompt unpremeditated actions and consequences: after being seduced by the travelling salesman, George Drouett, in 1904, Alice Alden is saved by a Lutheran preacher, Sven Hanson, who knocks on the door of the isolated house in De Smet, and finally—having escaped to London and made her name on the stage—she marries the rich but consumptive businessman Guy Keach. However, in order to bring about this last transformation from actress to society hostess and heiress, Alice is forced to abandon the child who is her only tie to her past life in America.

In a parallel plot, the narrator is a small boy growing up in a sprawling country house who, on the outbreak of the Great War, is informally adopted by the housekeeper’s brother. Through a series of harebrained schemes this eccentric inventor develops a receipt for coal-tar dye that heralds a complete transformation in his and Ralph’s fortunes. As the economic storm clouds gather in the late 1920s, however, these business disasters are reflected in Alice’s life by Drouett’s unexpected arrival in London. What does he want is the question Alice repeatedly asks.

With its vignettes of the bright young things of London society and richly detailed settings, this is an exploration of change and identity that both entertains and disturbs.

Lucinda Byatt

HistoricalNovelsReview AN IRISH COUNTRY DOCTOR Patrick Taylor, Brandon, 2009, £8.99, pb, 322 pp, 9780863224003 More faction than fiction, for Doctor Taylor calls heavily on his own experiences as an Ulster country doctor, the characters in this book first saw life in a series of humorous medical tales in ‘Stitches’, the apt name for the ‘Medical Journal of Humour’. Indeed, it was the editor who encouraged the development of these characters. Taylor is an experienced novelist and writer of humour and it shows. The novel is well written and guaranteed to make readers laugh. Lovers of James Herriot will enjoy this novel; substitute people for animals and you have the same sort of laughter over peculiar country practises, larger than life eccentrics, and humanity’s foibles.

Taylor writes of a remote Ulster community in the early 1960s, seen through the eyes of a newly qualified doctor, assistant to the irascible older doctor, a well-established character who does not do things by the medical book.

Definitely shades of Doctor Finlay and Doctor Cameron here, and indeed the novel would make a delightful, humorous television series.

The book is a tonic in itself and should be available on prescription. Do buy it for anyone who needs cheering up. pdr lindsay-salmon ULTIMATE BETRAYAL Loren Teague, Robert Hale, 2009, £18.99, hb, 224pp, 9780709087335 When Katrina Jones finds out the man she loves is an IRA terrorist on the run from the police, she is devastated. He disappears after a bomb explosion, and Katrina sets out to track him down. She finds Sean McKinlay on a high country station in New Zealand and confronts him about his past. What she uncovers leads them both into danger but also reignites the love between them.

Strictly speaking, this is not what I would call an historical novel. It is set in presentday New Zealand but deals with events that occurred during the IRA bombing campaign in London and in the peace process that eventually followed. Halfway through the book, it livens up a bit. Add a bomb plot and throw in a bit of Al-Qaeda and you have the makings of a good story, but to me it lacked depth. The characters were a little superficial, and the story wrapped up too quickly. I kept on wondering where the betrayal came into it, so in that sense it held my interest, but I found it very much an average sort of read.

Karen Wintle REMEMBER ME Margaret Thornton, Alison & Busby, 2009, £6.99, pb, 512pp, 9780749079048 A saga set in Edwardian Britain, this is the story of Maddy Moon, a 17-year-old singer with a touring company in the north of England.

During her travels she meets many new people,

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Issue 49, August 2009 falls in love, and eventually finds the man she wants to marry.

Although the author uses many viewpoints, she has a trick of repeating information in virtually the same phrasing, from the point of view of different characters, which neither gives us a greater knowledge of the event, nor advances our understanding of the characters concerned, which I found made for boring reading. And the story as a whole lacks tension—there are no really villainous characters (the rape scene early on in the plot peters out into a non-event), and none of the main characters seem to have any flaws to make them interesting.

Thornton is, apparently, a very popular writer who has published 15 novels, but I was disappointed with this one. However, if you enjoy sagas set in the north of England, you might while away a pleasant hour or two in Maddy’s company. jay Dixon THE ENGLISHMAN’S BOY Guy Vanderhaeghe, Grove, 2009 (c1996), $14.00, pb, 333p, 9780802144102 Two story lines present the title character, caught up in a massacre in 1870s Saskatchewan, and the machinations of 1920s Hollywood. A film mogul, Chance, has heard rumors that a particular stunt man has an extraordinary life story that’s ripe for exploitation in Chance’s plans to produce a Western on the grand scale.

Chance hires a silent film title writer, Harry Vincent, to try to find Shorty McAdoo and record his memoirs. But Shorty has no desire to relive the past, namely his involvement in a conflict between a group of wolfers arriving at a Saskatchewan trading post demanding whiskey, and a band of Assiniboine camped near the post, accused of stealing horses. Harry must resort to bargains and fast talking to finally worm the story out of Shorty.

Chance then plunges into production. While he insists on historical accuracy in the film’s visuals no matter what the cost, truth has no place in his ambition to twist the facts of the story to suit his own ends: critical acclaim a la D.W. Griffith, and an absurd political, but in his mind patriotic, agenda.

Vanderhaeghe won the Canadian Governor General’s Award for fiction when the book was originally published in 1996. It contains some memorable prose images: “the short curly grass writhed and shuddered under the invisible lash of the shrilling wind. The Englishman’s boy rode leaning into it, like a man shouldering through swinging doors…” Both story lines portray life on different frontiers—the harsh North American West and the beginnings of the Hollywood film industry, a place no less ruthless.

I was fascinated by both. An historical footnote: the Cypress Hills massacre, fictionalized here, led directly to the formation of the North-West Mounted Police, forerunner of the RCMP. B.J. Sedlock

20th Century-Multi-period THE INNOCENT SPY (US) / STRATTON’S WAR (UK) Laura Wilson, Minotaur, 2009, $24.95, hb, 464pp, 9780312538101 / Orion, 2009, £7.99, pb, 464pp, 9780752884585 In wartime London, Detective Stratton is investigating the death of silent screen star Mabel Morgan. Although it appears to be the work of a Soho gangster, he soon finds himself immersed in the shadowy world of counterespionage. At the same time, beautiful Diana Calthrop flees a stifling marriage to take a job in government, only to be pursued by a womanizing double agent and eventually recruited as a spy herself by her boss. This man becomes the link that ties Stratton and Diana together in a sordid, many-faceted investigation that is as murky as a blacked-out London night.

This is a mystery that could only be written in England.

It is longish, overflowing with exposition, delving into the minutiae of the daily lives of its two main characters without restraint. Indeed, the reader can never be sure if it is about the plodding Stratton, the conflicted Diana, or even the plot at hand, which seems at times almost incidental. That’s not to say the work isn’t well written—it is. The characterizations are first rate, and the historical context rings true. The story can be absorbing. But in the end there is something unsatisfying about it. Realistic, perhaps, but disappointing in its resolution, like an investment that doesn’t quite pay off as one would have liked.

Colin Dexter was a master at this sort of thing, but at least one liked the complex and brooding Morse. I found it difficult to warm to either Stratton or Diana. Worse, I’m not sure it really matters.

Ken Kreckel AMONG THE MAD Jacqueline Winspear, John Murray, 2009, £16.99, hb, 303pp, 9780719569814 / Henry Holt, 2009, $25.00, hb, 320pp, 9780805082166 I first encountered Maisie Dobbs in her first outing in the book of that title, the premise of which—a maid of all work being able to find time to study and do so well as to eventually get to Cambridge—I did not find credible. Among the Mad is the sixth book in the series, and the plot is more believable, involving a terrorist threat to London by a disaffected soldier injured in the First World War. Invited to temporarily join Scotland Yard’s Special Branch, Maisie has to race against time to stop him. Intertwined with this plot is the story of the effect of the death of a baby on the wife of Maisie’s assistant, which counterpoints the main plot nicely.

Winspear has garnered a lot of praise for this series, but I personally find it lacking in period detail—there is, for instance, no description of dress to give the reader the sense she is reading a historical novel—although the historic geographical detail is accurate. I also found there to be too much coincidence in the plotting for my liking. That said, though, it is fluently

HistoricalNovelsReview written and there are some affecting scenes. If you enjoy 1930s-set crime novels, this series is not one to miss. jay Dixon

N MULTI-PERIOD n ABANDON Blake Crouch, Minotaur, 2009, $24.95/C$27.95, hb, 352pp, 9780312537401 In 2009, Abigail Foster, a journalist enticed by the prospect of a good story, is recruited by her estranged father, a history professor, to trek into the Colorado wilderness and investigate Abandon, a ghost town. Its name, quite apt as it turns out, was taken from Dante’s inscription on the entrance to hell, “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.” Why did the town’s entire population disappear on a single day, Christmas of 1893?

Abigail hopes to find the answer. This novel, a dark, harrowing thriller with an historical twist, takes the reader back and forth in time and tells two interrelated stories, each full of dread.

Two casts of characters—one in the present, one in 1893—are presented quickly. In 1893, the author sketches a whole community. I have to admit I struggled to keep the characters straight.

Some, like the female bartender in 1893, an accused murderess kept chained as she serves drinks to customers, are vividly drawn. Others are barely described. A character list would have been a great help.

As Abigail, her father, two wilderness guides, and two paranormal investigators make their way toward Abandon, the author sets the scene—his descriptions of nature are achingly beautiful—and then, when the reader least expects it, unlooses horrendous violence. It would be giving too much away to say what the source is, but the effect is pure terror. Abigail and her father are suddenly caught up in a struggle for survival. Their troubled bond adds depth to the story, as love and pain in the relationship between parent and child resonate in both the present and past. The plot is fast moving, and its two threads finally come together in a way that is highly satisfying but not for the squeamish.

Phyllis T. Smith THE GUARDIANS OF THE COVENANT Tom Egeland, John Murray, 2009, £10.99, pb, 484pp, 9780719521430 If you liked The Da Vinci Code (and millions did despite the ridicule), then you will be delighted with The Guardians of the Covenant.

If not, be warned, for this is TDVC on a grander scale, ranging in time from Moses to Christopher Columbus and visiting not only Egypt and the West Indies but also Iceland, Norway, Rome, London, and elsewhere. Eurostar will not be organising any Guardians tours.

All the familiar ingredients are here: ruined abbeys, lost tombs, coded manuscripts, ruthless enemies and treacherous friends, a little light love interest, and a mystic secret which has been guarded through the centuries by a select

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Issue 49, August 2009 group of initiates. There are also two elements of TDVC which imitators often miss. Firstly, Tom Egeland is a Norwegian writer who is sufficiently steeped in Viking and mediaeval history and legend to make his fantasy almost credible. Indeed, there is rather too much cryptanalysis for my taste, but one can skip it.

Secondly, the hero is not a super-James Bond but an impractical nerd who stumbles into the mayhem by accident and is as bewildered and frightened as any reader would be.

In the author’s own words this is ‘a mind game that starts where reality and science end’.

Edward James THE GLASSBLOWER OF MURANO Marina Fiorato, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2009, $13.95, pb, 368pp, 9780312386986 / Beautiful Books, 2008, £7.99, pb, 356pp, 9781905636242 In a tale of genius and tragedy, Leonora Manin is inspired to travel to Murano, Italy from Hampstead, England, the home of her 17thcentury ancestor, glass artist Corradino Manin.

In Murano, Leonora hopes to find her roots, become a glass artist, and heal her heart, and is faced instead with a mystery that casts a shadow over her life.

In the 17th century, Murano is rich with history, the exquisite art of glassblowing a carefully guarded secret, craftsmen and artists strictly governed by the powerful Council of Ten. Seduced by the promises of France’s Louis XIV and his plans for the palace at Versailles, Corradino makes a fateful decision, his secrets lost with his death. Centuries later, while Leonora discovers her own artistic talent, she learns that her future happiness is inextricably bound to the mystery surrounding Corradino’s tragic fate.

Surrounded by treachery and intrigue, Corradino pays a terrible price for his hubris, but Leonora finds her future as Fiorato transports her characters across time, their art forged by their passion for glass. Melding Venetian history with contemporary romance, this novel celebrates creativity and the flawed humans who breathe life into art.

Luan Gaines THE TIGER WARRIOR David Gibbins, Headline, 2009, £12.99, hb, 431pp, 9780755335176 This is the fourth novel by underwater archaeologist David Gibbins, and although it is not presented as a sequel, there are quite a few events referred to in this book that must have happened in the previous one(s). This is a little confusing at times. The novel opens promisingly in 19 BC with the violent murder of a trader by ‘lost’ Roman legionaries. He tells them of treasure beyond their wildest dreams and so begins a pursuit that continues into the present day. The main character is Jack Howard, an underwater archaeologist who is presented in the novel as akin to Indiana Jones.

Multi-period Sadly, characterisation takes a back place to the chunks of history, and we never get a sense of Jack as a person. The history is well researched, detailed, and interesting but it is introduced into the narrative sometimes quite clumsily (‘What?

You mean the tomb that was discovered in 1908 by such and such a person?’), and then comes a whole history lesson disguised as filling in a character on the information.

The action moves from ancient times to modern, and there is also a part set in 1908 involving Jack’s long-lost great-grandfather.

The plot centres around a search for fabulous jewels, with the tiger warrior of the title, a member of a weird familial sect, also in pursuit.

The descriptions of the jungle, the underwater scenes, and the gun battles make it move along at a rapid place but because of the weak characterisation, it is difficult to care much. Lots of interesting things, extremely well-researched, and exciting scenes with lots of action but overall a little disappointing.

Ann Northfield HOUSE OF SHADOWS: A Historical Mystery by the Medieval Murderers Michael Jecks, Susanna Gregory, Bernard Knight, Ian Morson and Philip Gooden, Pocket/ Trafalgar Square, 2009 (c2007), $9.95/£6.99, pb, 386pp, 9781416526803 This compendium of short stories by five well-known and talented authors of medieval mysteries, each a star in his or her own right, all revolve around mysterious goings-on at Bermondsey Priory from its earliest years in the 12th century through the 16th century. Broken out in “acts,” each author has penned a story around a particular weird event occurring at Bermondsey in which his or her protagonist solves the mystery.

It all begins in 1114 when a young chaplain succumbs to the temptations of the flesh and suffers a gruesome fate. From Knight’s Crowner John, to Morson’s William Falconer, to Jecks’s Sir Baldwin, to Gooden’s Chaucer and Gregory’s Thomas Chaloner, each investigator works—over a span of 500 years—to understand the priory’s dark history and to unravel the treacheries that continue to haunt that old and hallowed place.

This is a fun summer read—nothing terribly deep or profound—but if you enjoy the works of any or all of these respected writers, it’s a joy seeing just how each of them manages to find a common thread and to embellish it. Each story is chock full of historical references and the tenor of the times, and, of course, each of the protagonists, well drawn in their creators’ hands, act just as we remember them from their full-length adventures.

Ilysa Magnus APOCALYPSE 2012 Gary Jennings, Robert Gleason, and Junius Podrug, Forge, 2009, $25.95/C$28.95, 384pp, 9780765322593

HistoricalNovelsReview Gary Jennings, author of many historical thrillers including Aztec, died in 1999, leaving behind notes of ideas for further stories. Editor Robert Gleason and writer Junius Podrug have paired up to continue Jennings’s historical thriller legacy with several novels, including this one.

Apocalypse 2012 describes a modern world where global warming is destroying the planet, the volcano under Yellowstone National Park is about to explode, and an asteroid is heading toward the earth. Astrophysicist Monica Cardiff believes that four codices written 1000 years ago by an Aztec-Mayan man named Coyotl may contain a solution to the earth’s problems. Racing against bandits and time, two archeologists travel through lawless Mexico in search of the hidden codices.

In a parallel story we follow the life of Coyotl from his time as a slave of the Dog People to his eventual role as astronomer to the king of Tula. The civilization of Tula is collapsing, and Coctyl must work on and then hide the Great Calendar and three other codices so they will be available for future generations.

For a historical thriller, Apocalypse 2012 is slow moving. Near mid-novel, the pace picks up, but the suspense is not gripping, possibly because the action scenes are not smoothly written. The reader must at times reread a scene to figure out what happened. The dialogue is implausible with characters sharing encyclopedic information rather than having conversations.

The novel concludes mid-action, making this reader guess that a sequel is forthcoming.

Elizabeth Caulfield Felt THE TOWN HOUSE Norah Lofts, The History Press, 2009 (c1959), £7.99, pb, 349pp, 9780752448695 THE HOUSE AT OLD VINE Norah Lofts, The History Press, 2009 (c1961), £7.99, 349, 9780752448688 THE HOUSE AT SUNSET Norah Lofts, The History Press, 2009 (c1963), £7.99, pb, 285, 9780752448701 This trilogy, spanning six centuries, is the story of a Suffolk house and the people who lived in it from the late 14th century until the middle of the 20th. The house evolves as each successive family puts their own individual stamp on it, adapting the building to suit their needs. Like the house, its inhabitants develop as their situation and custom dictates. They are, each and every one, children of their time.

The founder of the house and a dynasty is Martin Reed, a serf living under the yoke of Lord Bowdegrave. Denied permission to acquire an education or to marry, Martin decides to run away with his Kate. A life of hardship and tragedy follows as the couple struggles to survive the harsh reality of a fugitive life. Martin tells his own moving story and each successive chapter introduces another character who takes over the continuing narrative throughout the trilogy.

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Issue 49, August 2009 A consummate storyteller, Norah Lofts’ sympathetic touch and ability to imbue each character with life involves the reader from the first to the last page. She convincingly recreates the historical era in which each character lives, not merely to set the scene but to add an understanding of why and how they act as they do. The vast scope of this trilogy involves the reader in a fascinating journey through time. Although life for some may become more comfortable, every age throws up new challenges and there are always winners and losers.

These latest editions of Norah Lofts historical novels, as readable today as when they were first issued, will surely please existing fans as well as introduce them to a new generation of readers.

Ann Oughton THE TREASURES OF VENICE Loucinda McGary, Sourcebooks Casablanca, 2009, $6.99, pb, 318pp, 9781402226700 Ah, Romance! Loucinda McGary’s second ultra-romantic novel, set in a sultry modernday Venice, has all the requisites of a frothy by-the-pool read: a hunky, mysterious action hero (Kiernan) with startlingly blue eyes and a sexy Irish lilt; a stubborn, pretty American librarian (Sam) on the rebound from a no-good fiancé; and a breathless round of chases, fights, kidnappings, and various dangers that require the heroine to be rescued by the hero—and vice versa!

The “historical” part is a parallel romance in 15th-century Venice, with a mystical link between the lovers in the past and the present.

The mulligan in the tale is a set of blue jewels that went missing in the 15th century and are now the object of desire by several characters (both good and evil). The sex scenes (mostly the present-day ones) sizzle with thankfully brief episodes of “soul-searing kisses,” “hot, liquid centers,” and the “silken steel” of the hero’s male member.

Not a literary gem, and rather light on the historical treatment, but a good, fun, fast read which starts with that magic “love at first sight” moment and keeps you turning the pages until the final kiss.

Mary Burns THE DEVLIN DIARY Christi Phillips, Pocket, 2009, $25.00/C$32.99, hb, 448pp, 9781416527398 / Simon & Schuster, 2009, £12.99, pb, 448pp, 9781847373199 Have you ever read a book that you wish did not end? The author’s second novel focuses on Hannah Devlin, a middle-class woman “physick” trained by her late husband and her father in the practice of medicine. Although it was illegal for a woman to practice medicine, Hannah possesses the skills and talent to heal and pays little heed to a person’s class or wealth if he or she is in need. When Hannah is kidnapped and ordered to care for the favorite mistress of England’s King Charles II, she is

Multi-period-Historical Fantasy thrust into a political morass that involves ritual murder, conspiracies, and threats to the throne.

Claire Donovan’s new job as a lecturer in History at Trinity College is her dream come true. When an overbearing colleague is found dead on the riverbank, doubts are raised about the validity of his research. A scrap of paper leads Claire and her friend, Andrew Kent, her associate from Phillips’s debut novel The Rossetti Letter, to discover a coded diary written

by Hannah Devlin in the dead professor’s apartment. The race is on to decode the diary, find the killer, and solve a four-hundred-yearold mystery.

Phillips’s storytelling style is easy to read and keeps you interested throughout. The flashbacks are told in the present tense, and the modern story is told in the past tense. A reader may not even notice the subtle change, the story is so engrossing. The Devlin Diary is a historical page-turner in the truest sense.

I have read both of Christie Phillips’s novels and thoroughly enjoyed the plots, the characters, and the writing. I look forward to her next book.

Monica E. Spence STRANGER ROOM Frederick Ramsay, Poisoned Pen, 2008, $24.95 hb, 256pp, 9781590585351 The fifth title in the Ike Schwartz series finds the erstwhile sheriff of Picketville, Virginia, with a murder on his hands that has its roots in a Civil War-era mystery.

In the days before train travel, homeowners near stagecoach stops would rent out rooms in their homes to rich travelers for whom the local inn or pub couldn’t provide adequate accommodations. These rooms, usually unconnected to the main house, and with their own entrance, were called “stranger rooms.”

During the Civil War, a traveler was murdered in the stranger room at the Jonathan Lydell residence; the case was never solved.

Fast forward to today: the house’s current owner, Jonathan Lydell IV, is proud of his family and his home’s heritage, to the point of restoring it exactly as it was 150 years ago. When a visitor turns up dead in the stranger room, with the same lack of clues, Ike has to figure out whether the two murders are related or just coincidental bad luck for the Lydell family. Accompanying Ike is Karl Hedrick, an African-American FBI officer “on loan” to the sheriff’s department.

Karl’s perspective as an outsider provides some additional light on the local situation. This fastpaced tale is well told, though it is a bit overrun with eccentric characters who at times distract from the plot. Overall, there’s enough Civil War history (and guns and politics) to keep buffs intrigued but not too much to be overwhelming to a reader who’s just passing through.

Helene Williams THE GOD MACHINE J. G. Sandom, Bantam, 2009, $7.99, pb, 468pp,

Issue 49, August 2009

HistoricalNovelsReview 9780553589979 Several hidden pieces of a map focus the quest to find the Gospel of Judas, a puzzle spanning A. D. 33 in Egypt to the present day in Europe and New York City.

Joseph Koster, a brilliant architect whose Asperger syndrome helps and hurts this work, and Savita Sajan, a wealthy computer engineer, are manipulated into becoming the last pieces of a puzzle that could change governments, religions, and the very existence of human beings. Their search involves Judas Iscariot, infamously known as the traitor who betrayed Jesus Christ but whose gospel might reveal that he was the most beloved disciple who actually was chosen to be the keystone of a far larger divine plan. Representatives of the Masons, the Knights of Malta, the Templars, the Roman Catholic Church, and the United States Government are on a similar quest, but what starts out as a journey to enhance each group’s status becomes a frenzied attempt to squash the revelation of a disastrous, enigmatic puzzle’s outcome.

History galore, violence, and intrigue fill the pages of this tightly plotted, twisting and turning adventure story, reminding one of a multilayered Russian matryoshka doll. The reader will also learn a great deal about da Vinci, Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and many more historical geniuses, albeit in a simplistic, surface manner. Those who love numbers, physics, and a truly unpredictable, suspenseful mystery will relish the facts and ponderings replete in this well-written, mysterious spin-off of The Da Vinci Code. The God Machine is a very impressive historical thriller!

Viviane Crystal A MONSTER’S NOTES Laurie Sheck, Knopf, 2009, $28/C$33, hb, 540pp, 9780307271051 What would it mean if Mary Shelley’s monster had been real? What implications would there be for her story, what clues about her story could we find in the people she lived with and loved?

That is the premise of this ambitious book.

Sheck, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry, poses answers to these questions in a series of stories and flashbacks, all connected by the monster who was created by an unknown hand and interacted with Mary when she was a child, sitting together, reading at her mother’s graveside. The stories are told through the monster’s own ponderings, letters written by Mary Shelley, her sister Claire, and Clerval, who in this universe was an intimate of the monster’s maker, as well as a character in Mary’s book.

As is to be expected, the book is well written—more of a free-form 540-page poem than a novel. There is little plot, and it is difficult to connect with the characters and their plights—even the monster.

It is a meditation on mind, what it means to think, what it means to be a person, what it means to be an individual; what it means to

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dream, think, see, to know someone, to know yourself. It’s heady, ambitious stuff, quite thought-provoking, though not at all an easy read.

Julie K. Rose

N TIMESLIP n RUDE AWAKENINGS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT Laurie Viera Rigler, Dutton, 2009, $25.95/ C$32.50, hb, 336pp, 9780525950769 Regency romance intertwines with modern chick lit in this is the highly anticipated sequel to Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict. Previously, modern-day free spirit Courtney Stone awoke into the social confines of the Jane Austen era.

Now, Rude Awakenings continues the story, but with Jane Mansfield, an English country lass from 1813, who inexplicably awakens in 2009 Los Angeles. Jane has no opportunity to ponder how this transfer could have occurred, as she must quickly learn to interact with the people of this technological world. Strange noises, fewer clothes, and living on her own are just a few things Jane must strive to understand. The one thing she finds in common with Courtney is their mutual passion for Jane Austen, and Jane is thrilled to discover that she can watch tiny figures act out the scenes of her favorite stories inside a small container in her new living quarters.

As Jane begins to relish the privacy and independence, she remains bewildered by memories that are not her own. Even more confusing are the attentions of a friend named Wes. Jane wonders if she can ever truly fit in and begins to miss home, where at least the rules were clear.

Flung into the future, Jane learns the importance of living in the present. Blending humor, love, and exploration of identity and destiny, Rude Awakenings is a colorful look at this genre. The ultimate question is answered: can a 19th-century girl survive in a morally confused world? This bubbly take on literary time travel will appeal to Jane Austen and chick lit fans alike. It will be interesting to see what Rigler comes up with next.

Rebecca Roberts

N

HISTORICAL FANTASY n

BOOK OF SHADOWS Paula Brackston, Snowbooks, 2009, £7.99, pb, 382pp, 9781905005970 1628. When Bess Hawksmith’s mother is hanged as a witch there is only one person to whom she can turn to save her from sharing her mother’s fate. The help of the warlock, Gideon Masters, comes at a terrible price, one that, ultimately Bess is not prepared to pay. (Bess’s story continues from the 17th century up to the

Historical Fantasy-Children & YA present.)

2007 and Bess, now calling herself Elizabeth, is still in hiding. Believing she may have finally found a safe haven she allows herself to befriend a lonely teenager, Tagen, in whom she glimpses a spark of magic. But, Gideon is not done with her yet, and Elizabeth realises she will be forced to face him one last time.

I am not usually a fan of supernatural fiction, but Brackston does a good job of rooting her magic in the everyday world, not only in this century but in previous ones, too, which makes it easier to suspend disbelief. It helps that she starts with odd little incidents that could be put down to coincidence, sleight of hand, or the medicinal properties of herbs building towards more dramatic demonstrations of magic.

There are one or two tiny glitches with her research. Haymaking, for instance, unlike the rest of the harvesting, takes place at the beginning and not the end of summer. She is also unaware that the new moon always occurs in whichever sign the sun is currently placed.

In mid-October the new moon will be in Libra making it impossible for it to move into Cancer the next day. Minor quibbles that did not spoil my enjoyment of the book.

The characterisation is consistent throughout and there are some interesting twists to historical periods we think we know--not just the 17th century but late Victorian London and the dying days of World War I. All in all, a promising debut novel.

Jasmina Svenne THE PATRIOT WITCH C. C. Finlay, Del Rey, 2009, $7.99/C$9.99, pb, 341pp, 9780345503909 I must admit that I approached this novel predisposed to writing a negative review. I was not a fan of fantasy fiction and was certainly antagonistic to the very idea of using fantasy and magic in a book on the American Revolution.

That said, I now admit I thoroughly enjoyed C. C. Finlay’s work.

Patriot Witch is based on the interesting concept that New England witches were not eliminated in the years preceding Lexington and Concord, but went into hiding in the midst of populated areas. The central figures, the young farmer-rebel Proctor Brown and his colleague Deborah Walcott, practice their ancient rituals and make prudent use of their special powers as Boston and the surrounding towns inch closer to armed rebellion. John Pitcairn, a British marine officer, early on stands in as a symbol of royal power and arrogance and is ready and able to apply his magic to frustrate the rebellious colonists. Proctor must deal with his love for Emily Rucke and his desire to fight British military might while simultaneously adjusting to life as a witch. Clearly, this plot has possibilities in the hands of a clever craftsman.

C. C. Finlay plans to add two other novels to his Traitor to the Crown series. Consider me a convert to fantasy fiction.

John R. Vallely

HistoricalNovelsReview HEART OF THE RONIN Travis Heermann, Five Star, 2009, $24.95, hb, 442pp, 9781594147791 Ken’ishi, a ronin or masterless samurai living in 13th-century Japan, resumes living in the human world after having received superior martial arts training from a bird-like tengu (goblin). His major strength lies in the way he wields his ornate sword, Silver Dragon, a weapon which he believes will someday lead him to discover the truth about his background and the sword’s mystical powers. For now, though, he must confront an evil spirit-like creature, the complexities of a nobleman’s daughter whom he comes to love, a former samurai planning the ultimate betrayal of his country to the plans of Genghis Khan, a water demon who devours neighboring villagers, an enemy who makes up for lack of military skill with strength fostered from a fierce desire for revenge, and many more unforeseen problems.

Ken’ishi’s abilities to hear the kami (gods) spirits help him acquire discipline and wisdom he will need in the fiercest and bloodiest battles as well as in the cultural suspicions of the most innocent and guilty men and women he meets on a daily basis.

Travis Heermann has done his research well and infuses the first of this planned threepart saga with both typical Japanese folk tales and legends. The history contained herein is accurate, if not well-developed, which adds enough to the story’s credibility to keep the reader thoroughly engaged and wanting more of this well-written blend of fantasy and historical fiction. This reviewer thoroughly enjoyed this first novel in the Ronin Trilogy and is avidly looking forward to reading the next installment.

Very nicely done!

Viviane Crystal

CHILDREN & YOUNG ADULT N n SECRETS OF GREYMOOR Clara Gillow Clark, Candlewick, 2009, $15.99, hb, 166pp, 9780763632496 Secrets of Greymoor is Clara Gillow Clark’s third book about inquisitive Hattie Belle Basket.

In this book 11-year-old tomboy Hattie is still living with her “prim” grandmother in late 19th-century Kingston-on-the-Hudson. No one speaks about her grandfather, who is living in the Utica Insane Asylum after he squandered his wife’s money and started hearing voices. After a telegram arrives about her grandfather’s death, Hattie intercepts a threatening notice from a tax collector and learns her grandmother is in danger of losing her fortune. Hattie cannot believe the fortune is lost. Clark’s feisty young heroine finds a mysterious book in her grandfather’s suit pocket and works to crack its secret code and save the family’s wealth.

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Issue 49, August 2009 Readers will love this middle-grade historical mystery and will want more from Clark’s Hattie. As in all good mysteries, the author provides readers with believable characters, a fair number of clues, period details that don’t detract but rather enhance the setting, and a satisfying ending. Clara Gillow Clark’s firstperson narrative does all that and more. Readers new to Hattie will want to pick up the first two books, and fans will happily devour Clark’s latest. Ages 9-12.

Nancy Castaldo HIDDEN VOICES: The Orphan Musicians of Venice Pat Lowery Collins, Candlewick, 2009, $17.99, hb, 352pp, 9780763639174 This engaging novel focuses on the lives of three members of the figli di coro at the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice in the early 1700s. Young women with musical talent, almost all orphans, receive an extensive musical education. Those girls without such talent become members of the figli di commun and are trained to become nurses or lace makers or such. Anetta, Rosalba, and Luisa lead lives that may seem highly structured to them but have allowed them to thrive and to develop their prodigious talents. Anetta excels on the viola d’amore, and Luisa has a heavenly voice. Luisa, unlike the others, has a fashionable and mysterious mother who visits, but not often enough to make Luisa happy. These young female musicians are studying under Vivaldi, who writes compositions for them: compositions that allow them to develop their talents and that might attract rich and cultured suitors for their hands. When Rosalba decides that the young man she frequently sees passing the Ospedale is of more interest than her studies, her life changes dramatically, and only then does she realize the wonderful opportunities she had previously taken for granted.

Told alternately by the three young women, this novel will entice both young adults and notso-young adults with its glimpse into a riveting world.

Trudi E. Jacobson A BRIEF HISTORY OF MONTMARAY Michelle Cooper, Random House Australia, 2008, AU$17.95, pb, 286pp, 9781741663228 / Knopf, Oct. 2009, $16.99, hb, 9780375858644 The island kingdom of Montmaray is fictitious. Its royal house never existed. But everything else about this delightful historical novel—its voice, its context and its detail—is grounded in research.

Set in the year 1936, The Brief History of Montmaray is the diary of Sophia Fitz Osborne, niece to the kingdom’s reigning monarch, King John. Sophie’s brother Toby is heir to the throne of Montmaray. But he is away at school. Sophie lives on the island with her cousin Veronica, her younger sister, Henry, her mad uncle, the king, and a handful of loyal retainers. The castle is crumbling, war is brewing in Europe, and

Children & YA Sophie’s Aunt Charlotte has decided it is time for the girls to leave their island home and take their place in society.

Sophie’s last days on the island are marred by death, the emergence of deep family secrets, her growing affection for Simon Chester, the housekeeper’s son, and a mysterious visit from Nazi officials. But this is no vacuous secret diary. Through Sophie’s interaction with two unexpected groups of visitors, we experience the aftermath of World War I, which killed many of the island’s male inhabitants, the turmoil of Spanish Civil War, and the impending disaster which became World War II. In the midst of political upheaval, Sophie grapples with issues of love, identity, and truth. Her voice is vivid and engaging; her inner growth real and profound.

By the end of the book she is ready to take her place in society. But her interests have grown beyond dress shops, parties, and cinemas.

This is an excellent book for teenage girls with an interest in history, a weakness for crumbling castles, and a desire to see beyond the princess myth without becoming completely disillusioned. I couldn’t put it down.

Elizabeth Jane JOURNEY TO GOLIAD Melodie A. Cuate, Texas Tech Univ. Press, 2009, $17.95, hb, 176pp, 9780896726499 The fourth in an ongoing series for YA/ middle readers, Journey to Goliad once again transports the trio of Jackie, Hannah, and Nick back into Texas history via their history teacher’s “mysterious trunk” aka time machine.

With plenty of junior-high-school-level banter, whining, mischief ,and pluck, the three heroes acquit themselves well in the midst of battle between the Texians and the soldados of Santa Anna in 1836 during the Texas Revolution.

Central to the theme is the notion that the trunk won’t let them return to the present until they’ve accomplished what “it” wants them to do—plus, they have to track it down each time before they can attempt the magic trip home!

Award-winning author and history teacher Melodie Cuate is persnickety about her facts and gives readers a charming and fast-moving adventure tale while relaying important historical information for present-day Texans (and others). The author conducts teacher workshops with a curriculum developed specifically for the Mr. Barrington’s Mysterious Trunk Series, and each book includes translations of Spanish and citations for excerpts from original historic documents (letters, books, etc.). I wish we had books like these when I was studying history in elementary school!

Mary Burns THE FIRE OF ARES Michael Ford, Bloomsbury, 2008, £6.99, pb, 245pp, 9780747593669 / Walker Books for Young Readers, 2008, $16.95, pb, 256pp, 9780802797445 Ancient Sparta. Lysander is a helot—a

HistoricalNovelsReview slave—in Sparta, one of the most ruthless states in the Classical world. All Spartan males undergo a rigorous and brutal training to become the most feared warriors of the age. Then a gang of Spartan youths on a terrorizing and killing spree attack Lysander and steal his most valuable possession, a pendant called ‘the fire of Ares’, left to him by his unknown father.

All Lysander and his friend Timeon can do is secretly train for the longed-for resistance uprising.

Then, a chance meeting with a Spartan nobleman, Sarpedon, changes Lysander’s life.

He discovers that his unknown father was Sarpedon’s son, and he is offered an escape from slavery—a Spartan warrior training. Timeon can accompany him as his servant. But will the training camp boys accept him? Or will they treat him like a despised ‘half-breed’? And does he want to become a Spartan, anyway? On the other hand, it will give him a chance to search for the fire of Ares.

As the press release has it, ‘this is an absorbing and informative read with bags of boy appeal.’ There is certainly enough brutality. Spartan training included savage, and sometimes fatal, punishments; the repression of any softer emotions like pity or empathy; denigration of helots and women (there are only two minor female characters in the book) and the glorification of war.

Personally, I found the Spartans so repellent that it was difficult to cheer when, after the usual spills and thrills, and some dastardly behaviour

by Lysander’s particular enemy, the vicious Demaratos, Lysander wins the victor’s crown at the Festival of Ortheia. However, blood-thirsty boys of 10 plus might well enjoy it. I’ll be interested to see what Hal thinks.

Elizabeth Hawksley The Fire of Ares is an excellent book. It’s about a boy aged thirteen called Lysander who is a Helot (slave of the Spartans). His life is filled with pain and anguish along with that of his mother and many other Helots who work in the fields every day. Until one day he finds out his ancestry and goes to the Agoge to train as a Spartan.

I cannot find any faults in this book. Michael Ford is an incredibly gifted writer. I enjoyed this book because unlike some books, it is not filled with happiness throughout, and so does not grow boring. My favourite character is a Helot slave called Timeon who is the friend and slave of Lysander. I like him because he helps Lysander instead of staying back.

I think The Fire of Ares is a great book, and I will be looking out for a sequel.

Hal McNulty, aged 11 DIDO Adele Geras, David Fickling, 2009, £12.99, hb, 272pp, 9780385615174 When Aeneas and his soldiers, battle weary and almost shipwrecked, arrive on the shores

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Issue 49, August 2009 of Carthage seeking refuge, they are welcomed with open arms by Queen Dido. Herself an exile, Dido has used her beauty, intelligence, and natural power to establish herself as a popular and independent queen. Identifying with Aeneas’ plight and beguiled by his tales of the war in Troy, she finds herself falling helplessly and passionately in love (with a little help from Aphrodite!). The two marry, but sharing power is something that neither finds easy. His destiny lies elsewhere and he abandons her to establish his own city overseas.

As with her previous novels, Troy and Ithaka, Geras takes a well-known Classical tale and gives it her own twist. The story unfolds not from the viewpoint of the main characters or the Gods, but through the eyes of minor characters: Elissa, the nursemaid; Cubby, the kitchen boy; Iopas, the poet; and Anna, the Queen’s sister. These characters are wrapped up in their own problems, and an overarching theme of unrequited love echoes the main story. Through their interactions with Dido and Aeneas, as well as each other, the classic story is revealed.

The number of narrators distances the reader from becoming fully emotionally involved but gives an overview of the whole Dido story and a glimpse into the various areas of the Classical court from the kitchens to the queen’s bedchamber. The Gods appear regularly to the mortals in order to help them (or to cause trouble!). They are a nice touch and help create a magical atmosphere where people are not wholly responsible for their actions.

This is an enjoyable novel for young adults that should appeal both to those who are familiar with the Classical story and those that come to it fresh.

Julie Nicol ENVY Anna Godbersen, Penguin, 2009, £6.99, pb, 405pp, 9780141323381 / HarperCollins, 2009, $17.99, 416pp, 9780061345722 It is now Manhattan in 1900 and a few months have passed by since we left the story of the Holland family in Rumours. Once again, the simplicity of the title Envy explains the theme of the book; however, it hides the complexity of the lives of the troubled characters revealed within its pages.

Elizabeth Holland, once the envy of all young ladies of society, is now a grieving widow of a secret marriage. Her health, her spirits, and her future prospects are equally bleak. Her younger sister Diana is also nursing a broken heart. Meanwhile, Mrs Penelope Schoonmaker has everything she wants except the love and company of her husband Henry. Miss Carolina Broad has the trinkets and lifestyle she craved, one beyond her own birthright, but lacks the freedom to enjoy it. Together they go on a journey that will change fortunes, affect each character’s destiny, and leave many unanswered questions.

This series has the ability to hook the reader.

Children & YA Gossip can kill a reputation and ostracise a person and their family from the society they so tentatively cling to. The lifestyle is shallow and fickle. However, the characters are believable, intricate, and deep. Whether good or bad, or just trying to survive within a world they crave but have no right to, they are all engaging. The reader wants to know what is going to happen— who will find happiness and who will stay in despair?

The plot is full of interesting twists and turns and, as usual, the ending is far from predictable.

This is another very enjoyable and well written Luxe novel. Young Adult.

Val Loh STEPPING ON THE CRACKS Mary Downing Hahn, Sandpiper, 2009 (c1991), $5.99, pb, 224pp, 9780547076607 In a small Maryland town in 1944, the specter of world war shadows everyone’s lives.

Eleven-year-old Margaret is eager for news of Allied advances, for her brother Jimmy fights in Europe. Her best friend Elizabeth can sympathize, having a brother of her own fighting in the Pacific. Both girls believe the war is a just one, and that it’s only a matter of “breaking Hitler’s back” before their brothers are home safe. They know others have lost loved ones, but neither can imagine the violence actually touching their own families.

At the opening of the story, Margaret’s main concern is how to avoid Gordy, the local bully. Gordy is vicious and violent—for no good reason, as far as she and Elizabeth are concerned. The girls are furious when he wrecks the tree house they worked so hard to construct. But when they search out Gordy’s forest hideout to exact revenge, they learn a disturbing secret. Further revelations follow, changing their perception of the boy and his family. Ultimately, these secrets will alter their understanding of the war itself.

First published in 1991, this reprinted edition features an eye-catching new cover. The story itself is well paced, multilayered, and poignant, raising issues about war and patriotism that young readers will find relevant today. Hahn’s own memories of wartime College Park, Maryland, enhance the intimate feel of the setting. A winner of the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction, this novel is recommended for readers 9 and up.

Sonia Gensler THE EVOLUTION OF CALPURNIA TATE Jacqueline Kelly, Henry Holt, 2009, $16.95/ C$18.95, hb, 352pp, 9780805088410 It is the summer of 1899, and 11-year-old Calpurnia Virginia Tate discovers that her forbidding grandfather is actually an engaging person who will help open her eyes to the wonder of nature around her. Calpurnia (better known as Callie Vee) is not your typical young lady—the traditional tasks of knitting and cooking leave her cold—so she revels in the

HistoricalNovelsReview chance to explore the habits of wildlife and the characteristics of plant life. When she and her grandfather find what might be a new species of plant, the excitement is palpable. However, Callie Vee’s mother is not pleased at these new interests of her daughter’s, and we watch Callie Vee try to find her way between conflicting forces. Exciting new inventions find their way to Caldwell County, Texas, during this year, including a telephone exchange and a motor car, and present throughout Callie Vee’s narration is the anticipation over what the coming turn of the century might hold.

Callie Vee is part of a large family, though the only girl, and readers will enjoy her interactions with her six brothers, root for her time with her grandfather, and probably wish her mother would leave her alone. Callie Vee is inquisitive, charming, and a delight to spend time with. I recommend her to you highly.

Trudi E. Jacobson THE SCRIBES FROM ALEXANDRIA Caroline Lawrence, Orion, 2008, £8.99, hb, 259pp, 9781842551905 81 A.D. Alexandria. In this, the fifteenth Roman Mysteries adventure, the four children, Flavia, Jonathan, Nubia, and Lupus are shipwrecked off the coast of Egypt. Flavia, Jonathan, and Lupus are rescued and go to the port of Alexandria, hoping to find news of the missing Nubia.

Here, they stumble on a mystery. Chryses, a young eunuch who works in Alexandria’s world famous library, has gone missing, taking Nubia with him. But where are they going? And why?

The head scribe orders junior scribe Seth (who dislikes Chryses intensely) to escort Flavia, Jonathan, and Lupus up the Nile in search of Chryses.

Then the children learn that government officials have issued orders for their arrest; they must get out of Alexandria, and fast.

Fortunately, Chryses deliberately leaves clues in the form of elaborate riddles chalked on various famous buildings and they follow the trail. But what will they find? Nubia? The mysterious treasure Chryses keeps hinting at?

Or death?

Generally, the story is pretty silly, with the children regularly disguising themselves, usually as members of the opposite sex, in order to evade capture. And a child coming new to the series would have difficulty working out who was who and what was going on.

Fellow novelists will recognize ‘information dumps’ all through the book. Remove the detailed descriptions of Alexandria, its famous buildings, the travelogue as they go down the Nile, the explanations of the attributes of various gods and religious festivals and the book would be about a quarter of the length.

Fortunately, the information dumps are interesting, even if the story itself is somewhat preposterous. My impression is of a series which is getting a little tired. However, Rachel

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Issue 49, August 2009 feels very differently.

Elizabeth Hawksley

This is a very exciting book full of adventure and mystery with lots of surprises and little twists.

I found it an easy, quick, enjoyable read, although if you have not read the preceding book, you might get a bit confused as it starts in the middle of a shipwreck that happened at the end of the last book. However, the ending is a bit disappointing. Things are left hanging in the air and the story doesn’t really finish properly. For example, we don’t know why the four children are being hunted down, and we don’t know what happens to them because they are just left in the middle of Egypt, although this does make me want to read the next book.

Generally, I enjoy this series because it shows you lots of different places in the world in one era. It keeps the same characters throughout, which means you get involved with them. From a historical point of view, I think the author goes into a lot of accurate detail, which I find very interesting. I enjoy learning about all the different gods in Egypt, Africa, Rome, and Greece.

I think this book would be suitable for both boys and girls aged around 11-14.

Rachel Beggs, aged 14 PHARAOH’S DAUGHTER Julius Lester, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009 (c2000)), $6.99, pb, 182pp, 9780152066628 The story of Moses, hidden among the reeds and found by a princess of Egypt, is one many of us remember hearing from earliest childhood. We know that from the moment of his rescue, Moses went to live at the Pharaoh’s palace, accompanied by his own mother as his wet nurse at the suggestion of his sister. The mention of the sister is often overlooked; it is this character that Julius Lester has chosen to illuminate in his young adult novel. Almah, sister of Mosis (as he is called here), goes with her mother and younger brother when they are taken to the palace, and it is Almah who is most accepting of the turn her life has made. Though she has always felt herself to be different than her family, the speed and ease of her transition into Egyptian life amazes not only Almah but the Pharaoh as well. So taken with Almah is he that he claims her as his own daughter, but will she be able to fully leave her Hebrew past behind her?

Lester’s novel moves between Almah’s point of view and Mosis’s, though it might have flowed more smoothly had it remained with just Almah’s. The conflict Mosis feels for his Hebrew family and his Egyptian life is heartfelt, and Lester shows us an unsure young man whose life has been shaped by the three women who have raised him. Almah is a strong personality who finds her own way but at major cost to her familial ties; I enjoyed reading her point of view and felt she spoke clearly and engagingly. Lester

Children & YA went to great lengths to show both the Hebrew and Egyptian sides, and I very much enjoyed this different take on a story I felt I knew well.

This is a short, easy book; quite well written and thought provoking.

Tamela McCann THE LOCKET Suzanne Lieurance, Enslow, 2008, $27.93, hb, 160pp, 9780766029286 This is a young adult story of the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of March 25, 1911, as told through the eyes of Galena, an 11-year-old girl employed at the factory. Galena and her older sister Anya work in the factory in order to help their Russian immigrant family pay for the expenses of living in New York City. Anya wears a locket holding two precious pictures, one of their grandmother and another of their own family. Every morning Galena asks Anya if she may see the pictures. This gives Galena strength to get through her day, as well as making a connection to her grandmother, who she misses very much.

The work in the factory is long and difficult.

The conditions are unsafe, with fabric, oily rags, and crowded conditions adding to the mix. One day fire breaks out. The owners had locked the doors from the outside, in order to prevent theft and possible union activity. This sealed the fate of the workers trapped inside. By the time the fire was doused, 146 people had lost their lives.

All but 21 of those were women in their midteens.

Lieurance paints sympathetic main characters.

She does not gloss over sweatshop conditions or the tedious, repetitive work done by underage women working for pennies a day in order to survive in their new country. This is a wellwritten, fascinating account of life in New York City at the turn of the last century. I recommend The Locket to readers and librarians.

Monica Spence SAHWIRA Carolyn Marsden and Philip Matzigkeit, Candlewick, 2009, $15.99/C$17.50, hb, 189pp, 9780763635756 In a Methodist mission in Rhodesia in 1964, two 12-year-old boys call themselves Sahwira, meaning best friends who are closer than brothers. One boy, Evan, is from America.

He is white, and his parents are teachers in the mission. The other boy, Blessing, is the son of the mission’s pastor. He is black. At the mission, everyone lives in peace. Unfortunately, outside the mission, the world of Rhodesia is not at all at peace.

Evan attends an all-white school in town, while Blessing attends the mission’s school.

Evan’s friends at school make fun of him and his parents for being “kaffir lovers.” They do not approve of treating black people equally.

Blessing has problems of his own. His minister father is taken to jail for questioning when a white man is killed near the mission. Blessing’s

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Issue 49, August 2009

friends from the mission don’t understand why he is friends with a white boy. Evan and the young men in his school are trained as cadets.

They are asked to look for signs of rebellion from the black people around them. They are offered rewards for any information they find.

When Evan sees a piece of evidence that could convict one of the young men in the mission, he must decide what to do. If he turns the evidence in, he will be a hero in his school, but it may hurt the people he loves in the mission. This decision he cannot even share with his friend, Blessing.

Sahwira is a story of two boys who find friendship more important than the color of their skin or the circumstances of their lives. It is a coming-of-age adventure that can be enjoyed by both teens and adults.

Nan Curnutt

character: courageous and thoughtful; painfully honest and staunchly loyal to her friends; and understanding of and compassionate towards others, even those who have injured her. She will be an ideal partner for Arthur with his noble aspirations for Britain. Yet she is doomed to betray him and to destroy all that he has built.

This is the fate that awaits her; it is decreed by the legend and by the author’s own earlier novels, and, in this series, by the prophecy with which she is burdened. It creates a level of irony that adds poignancy to the story of a girl growing to womanhood, struggling to deal with all her hopes and uncertainties, and torn between the securities of childhood and the challenges of the future. This is another insightful and thoughtprovoking novel from a skilled author.

Ray Thompson

JESSE BOWMAN: A Union Boy’s War Story Tom McGowen, Enslow, 2008, $27.93, hb, 160pp, 9780766029293 Young readers are the target audience of this American Civil War story. Jesse Bowman enlists in the Chicago Zouaves, a colorful unit outfitted in Moroccan style by way of French imitators and noted for complex parade ground drills. By the time Jesse joins, they are wearing ordinary Union uniforms, but they do receive special training in Zouave tactics, enabling them to perform gallantly in a series of gently described bloody battles leading up to the capture and holding of Chattanooga. All action is seen through Northern eyes, but one constant theme is the Union admiration for the courage and tenacity of the rebels. The book is at its best describing how and why the soldiers’ shoes have to fit either foot or how the troops were victimized by shoddy clothing from unscrupulous manufacturers. A generous, wellillustrated final section called “The Real History behind the Story” helps to turn the story into a history lesson.

James Hawking

WHEN I CROSSED NO-BOB Margaret McMullan, Sandpiper, 2009 (c2007), pb, $5.95, 209pp, 9780547237633 Being an O’Donnell isn’t easy, but being an O’Donnell abandoned first by your Pappy and then by your Momma is even more difficult to live down. Quite unexpectedly, 12-year-old Addy finds herself living with the couple whose wedding her momma abandoned her at and feels she must at least earn her keep in order to repay their kindness. She sets herself to win the respect of Frank Russell, who only agreed to take her in because his new wife Irene insisted.

Told in the present in Addy’s voice, When I Crossed No-Bob is like hearing a story told from the heart by a friend. Author Margaret McMullan’s use of language and the characters she creates are richly evocative of post-Civil War times in the South. Addy is from NoBob, a backwoods slum. Already a resourceful girl, her lack of parents gives her the gift of perspective on ways of life. Proving her worth to Mr. Frank allows her to become the sort of person who isn’t from No-Bob. Along the way Addy makes friends, something she doesn’t take lightly. When she and her best friend, Little Bit, witness a shocking event, Addy finds she must decide where her loyalties lie, with real kin or the people in her new life. A clear but uneasy choice.

When I Crossed No-Bob is a gem of a book that can be read again and again.

Janette King

GUINEVERE’S GAMBLE Nancy McKenzie, Knopf, 2009, $16.99/C18.99, pb, 368pp, 9780375843464 Book II of the Chrysalis Queen Quartet for younger readers chronicles the formative years of the woman destined to become King Arthur’s queen. Though a princess, Guinevere is an orphan being raised by her uncle and aunt, the rulers of Gwynedd. Her relationship with her aunt and cousin have improved since the events in the first novel, Guinevere’s Gift (2008), but fresh challenges await when the family travels to attend an assembly of Welsh kings and to meet Arthur’s sister, Morgan. Not only must she sort out friends from enemies among the intimidating strangers whom she encounters, but she must foil the plot to blame her friend Llyr the hillman for the theft of a valuable dagger if she is to save his life.

Thirteen-year-old Guinevere is a sympathetic

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THE TRUEADVENTURES OF CHARLEY DARWIN Carolyn Meyer, Harcourt, 2009, $17, hb, 336pp, 9780152061944 The book is very much a record of Charles Darwin’s youth from the time he is a nine-yearold going off to boarding school to his work as an established scientist twenty years later. It is also a wonderful, clearly written introduction to his theories of evolution and natural selection and to social life in 19th-century England.

What may most attract young readers to the book is the focus on Darwin’s personal life. The

Children & YA author gives us a very real boy who gets bullied, feels homesick, and hates studying Greek and Latin. What captivates Charley Darwin is the outdoors and collecting specimens of all sorts of things, especially beetles. The opportunity to ship onto the Beagle comes at a time when he cannot make up his mind about a career. After some convincing his father agrees to support the venture, and at twenty-two, Charles leaves on the historic voyage.

During the next five years, Darwin will ride with gauchos in Argentina, survive storms off Tierra del Fuego, experience an earthquake, and witness a volcanic eruption. He will discover fossils and collect crates of specimens to ship back to England from every port, recording his discoveries in meticulously kept journals. The excitement of the adventure is shaded with the death of shipmates and long waits for mail from home.

All in all, this is a fine read. The author makes abundant use of Darwin’s journals and autobiography but does not bog the text down with it. She portrays Darwin’s research as a large part of his life—but not the whole of it so there is plenty of room for readers to see him away from his desk. Charley Darwin turns out to be a strong, engaging, and very likeable character. The book is an excellent choice for summer reading and should be on every library’s shelves.

Lucille Cormier BLOODLINE Katy Moran, Candlewick, 2009, $16.00, hb, 320pp, 9780763640835 / Walker, 2008, £6.99, pb, 400pp, 978-1406309386 Set in Britain circa 650 AD, Katy Moran’s debut novel is a coming-of-age story featuring a boy named Essa who is caught in the middle of two warring kingdoms when he is abandoned by his father, Cai, a traveling bard and double agent spying for both the Mercians and the Wolf Folk.

Left on his own with the Wolf Folk, Essa forges new friendships while struggling to discover not only who but also what he is. Half British and half Anglish, he is the “son of no tribe, child of no kingdom.”

But Essa possesses great gifts: heightened intuition and the ability to enter the minds and eyes of animals, which saves him on more than one occasion. Destiny gives him the leading role in the fateful final battle between the Mercians and the Wolf Clan; a battle that is at once realistically gory and beautifully

HistoricalNovelsReview wrought. In Essa the author creates a complex and satisfying teen: angry, sullen, questioning, and brave. Hi s relationship with birds, dogs, and horses is wonderfully written and utilized to the fullest potential in the development of the plot. Although the ending is satisfying, there are enough loose ends to keep readers hungry for the next title in the trilogy. The publisher has provided a map of 7th-century Britain to help readers visualize Essa’s landscape; a wise decision, as I found myself referring to it repeatedly. Highly recommended.

Alana White FAR FROM HOME K.M. Peyton, Usborne, 2009, £5.99, pb, 191pp, 9780746090886 This is the third volume in the Roman Pony Stories trilogy. Minna is watching as Theo, with whom she is hopelessly in love, leads a cohort out of Camulodunum bound for Hadrian’s Wall. On a sudden impulse Minna rushes and pulls herself into one of the last of the baggage wagons.

Minna is now one of the army’s camp followers. These camp followers are mostly centurions’ wives and slaves. Minna’s position is made slightly easier by the fact that the reliable and resourceful Stuf is always there for her. He gives her a cloak and sheepskin and finds food for her. Stuf has not joined the army, but Theo finds his skills of scouting useful.

Then Theo receives orders. In what is now Derbyshire, a ruined Roman fort has been taken over by a native tribe of brigands. Theo is ordered to retake the fort before continuing on the march north. As the story is being told from the point of view of Minna, there is no detailed description of the battles. Instead Minna, in hiding with the rest of the women, just hears the screams and shrieks of the wounded. Afterwards, she sees the piles of corpses and helps with the wounded.

Then she is horrified to find that Theo, the man she loves, is actually excited and enjoys the fighting which results in such carnage. Minna has some serious decisions to make. Eventually she settles for a compromise of realism and is able to look forward to a life of contentment. A life which also includes Silva.

But this is also history for animal lovers, and Silva and the faithful hunting dog Fortis also have their parts to play.

This book gives a graphic picture of the Roman army on the march and shows the period from a different perspective. It comes with a

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Issue 49, August 2009 glossary and a map and is suitable for teenage girls.

Mary Moffat ROMAN DIARY Richard Platt and David Parkins, 2009, $18.99/ C$21.00 hb, 64pp, 9780763634803 The subtitle of this illustrated children’s book is “The Journal of Iliona of Mytilini, Who Was Captured and Sold as a Slave in Rome, AD 107.” The intended audience is preteen and, considering that, the book is rather daring.

Roman slavery was not pretty—in fact, Roman society was not pretty—but the author resists the temptation to entirely gloss over the unpleasant bits.

Iliona, a Greek girl of about twelve, and her little brother Apollo are purchased by a Roman senator and separated, Apollo being sent to the country villa to perform grueling farm labor, while Iliona is kept as a girl-of-allwork in the family’s townhouse. Over the next months she experiences Rome’s delights (the baths, a splendid triumphal procession) and its depravities. Taken to the arena, she is swept up by the excitement of gladiatorial combat, “but when the show ended, I felt ashamed.” Taken to see a pantomime (a kind of Roman burlesque), “When some of the women in the cast took off their clothes, I covered my eyes.” At home she is, momentarily, a victim of sexual abuse. The eldest son, a rough soldier, pinches her bottom and, when she protests, warns her, “…you are just a slave girl and I can do whatever I like.”

Strong stuff for a kid’s book. Eventually, due to her pluck and good heart, Iliona wins freedom for herself and her brother—although ‘freedom’ in a Roman context means that they are still bound by duty to their former owner.

Young readers will learn a great deal about Roman daily life both from the text and from Parkins’s superb illustrations. An appendix offers additional information on the Roman army, technology, religion, and other matters.

Bruce Macbain HANNAH PRITCHARD, PIRATE OF THE REVOLUTION Bonnie Pryor, Enslow, 2008, $27.93, hb, 160pp, 9780766028517 Hannah Pritchard, a young teenage New York farm girl, returns to her home after a carefree day of berry gathering to discover her family murdered by the Iroquois Indians and the British army during the Revolutionary War. This sets

Children & YA the main character on a journey for revenge. She hides her gender and lands a position as a cabin boy on the privateering vessel Sea Hawk.

What follows is a predictable, well-traveled and glossed-over tale that is both emotionless and dull. It lacks wit, energy, and real focus.

The historical characters that make fleeting appearances (Paul Revere, John Paul Jones) are cursory and insignificant. The plot moves quickly because it has little substance to slow it down. Hannah’s life is all too unreal and convenient even for a tale of fiction, nor is this young character ever weighed down by emotions.

While by no means is this book poorly written or even scantily researched (the “Real History” incorporated in the end notes was a terrific bonus) its main character is missing warmth and substance.

Wendy Zollo SOVAY Celia Rees, Bloomsbury, 2008, £10.99, hb, 404pp, 9780747592006 / Bloomsbury USA, 2008, $16.99, hb, 416pp, 9781599902036 1794. England. The government is in the grip of paranoia about the effects of the French Revolution on Britain’s political stability. Any Republican sympathizer is seen as potentially a traitor. Among them is idealist Sir John Middleton, now in France. Back home, his wilful and passionate 17-year-old daughter, Sovay, is also in trouble. Disguised as a highwayman, she holds up her fiancé to see if he will hand over the ring she gave him. When he does, she throws him over and, unwittingly, precipitates a chain of events which take her to London, Thursley Abbey (part Strawberry Hill Gothic, part Hell Fire Club), and to France, a country in the grip of the Reign of Terror. Can Sovay and her friends unmask the power-crazy Sir Robert Dysart before he installs a murderous Committee of Public Safety along the French model in London?

Celia Rees certainly knows how to write a page-turning adventure story – the pace never drops – and she captures well British fears about possible Republican repercussions in Britain, and the dangerous volatility in Paris during the Reign of Terror.

However, I must be honest and say that I have some historical quibbles. For example, no 18thcentury young lady would ever receive a man at home without a chaperone, as Sovay receives Sir Robert Dysart, nor would she go to his party,

HistoricalNovelsReview no matter who he provides to chaperone her. She is underage; it would be impossible to do such a thing without her father’s consent. Nor would her friends leave her alone in the middle of London to find her own way home. Such anachronistic behaviour destroyed my suspension of disbelief and made the book difficult to read.

Still, Celia Rees is an immensely successful author and most readers probably won’t notice the various social solecisms.

Elizabeth Hawksley SISTERS OF THE SWORD: The Warrior’s Path Maya Snow, Oxford, 2009, £5.99, pb, 300pp, 9780192728296 Japan 1216. The respected and powerful Jito, Lord Yoshijiro, is awaiting the arrival of his much-loved elder brother, Hidehira. It should have been Hidehira who inherited the family estate, but their father thought his younger son’s prowess in martial arms made him fitter to become the Jito. But the affection between the brothers has remained strong—or has it?

When Kimi and Hana, Yoshijiro’s daughters, peek through a screen to watch the welcome ceremony, what they witness instead is murder.

Hidehira suddenly plunges a dagger into the Jito’s back, kills his two nephews, and yells to his Samurai guard to kill the rest of the family.

Kimi and Hana must flee for their lives.

Disguised as peasant boys, they enter the service of Master Goku, who runs a martial arts school and once trained their father. Kiri and Hana must adapt to their new lives and learn things they would never have dreamed of doing as wealthy daughters of the Jito. All they have to hold on to is the hope that their mother and youngest brother managed to escape and to train for the day when they can avenge their father’s death and restore the prestige of their family. They must also keep out of the way of their arrogant cousin, Hidehira’s son, Kan-ichi, who is a student there. The sisters have done some martial arts training with their father and, recognizing their talent, Master Goku allows them to watch some of the classes. The girls practise all they can.

Then they learn that Hidehira intends to pay the school a visit…

This is the first of a quartet about Kiri and Hana’s adventures, and it certainly kicks off splendidly. The author skilfully entwines 13thcentury Japanese customs and assumptions with an exciting and entertaining story.

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Issue 49, August 2009 For 11-14 year-old girls.

Elizabeth Hawksley I thought this book started well, with an interesting atmosphere set up, warriors, etc, and at the beginning of the book there were some exiting plot twists and situations. However, I didn’t think the characters in this book were very three-dimensional or original, and this meant that the book, narrated by the main character, was not very easy or interesting to read, although some scenes in it were intriguing.

There are some tense life-or-death situations, which create suspense, and some good descriptions of fighting. There was also a good family dynamic, with characters protecting each other, etc.

I would have liked better descriptions of the setting of the book, as the time/place was unusual.

I think altogether this book could have been better if the characters, especially the main one and her sister, had more to them.

Ella McNulty, age 14 THE WOLF KING Ann Turnbull, Back to Front, 2008, £6.99, pb, 141pp, 1904529402 Bronze Age Britain. ‘We are the Wolf Clan.

Long ago our people swore brotherhood with the wolves.’ But now Coll’s tribe is under attack by their former friends, led by the terrifying Wolf King, a masked horseman dressed all in black.

Two people have already disappeared: Coll’s brother Ruadh, whose inadvertent killing of a wolf began the present feud, and the travelling smith, Arven. Desperate to find their missing kinsmen, Coll and Grayla, Arven’s daughter, go in search of them.

Can they find a way to break the power of the Wolf King?

Ann Turnbull has written over thirty books for children and been short-listed for both the Guardian and Whitbread children’s fiction prizes, and The Wolf King does not disappoint.

I found it gripping. Conn must learn to discard his prejudices and judge people for what they are; he must also face his deepest fears and take responsibility for his actions—and he is tested to the uttermost.

The book reminds me of Rosemary Sutcliff’s Warrior Scarlet, another story of a world on the cusp: the Bronze Age giving way to the Iron Age. Ann Turnbull shows us how the smith, Arven, is respected by the various communities he visits.

Children & YA-Nonfiction Not only does he bring news but he also knows the secrets of working the new metal, iron—a metal regarded with both awe and superstition by the Wolf Clan. We also meet the indigenous ‘Dark People’ who still use stone tools. Once they owned all the land but now they have been ousted by the Bronze Age tribes and are either enslaved or live in the forest.

The Wolf King would be a good introduction to the dawn of history and a world in transition.

Elizabeth Hawksley The Wolf King is set a long time ago, at the beginning of the Iron Age. The main character is Coll, and he sees something in Grayla, the blacksmith’s daughter, that no one else can see. It isn’t a frightening story; the wolves sometimes taunt the humans, but they aren’t scary. In the winter, the community moves because it is too cold where they are. I wouldn’t have liked to live with them; it felt very bleak and uncomfortable. This is a very action-packed story, and it makes you feel like you are there in the cold mountains. I enjoyed it, but I thought the story moved too fast at the beginning, and I would have liked to get to know Cole and Grayla better first. I think 9-10 year olds who like a bit of action and suspense would like this book.

Minna McNulty, aged 9 LINCOLN AND HIS BOYS Rosemary Wells, Candlewick, 2009, $16.99/ C$18.50, hb, 96pp, 9780763637231 In Lincoln and His Boys, Rosemary Wells traces Lincoln’s journey to the presidency and through the Civil War years through the eyes of his two younger sons, Tad, and, more poignantly, Willie, who died in the White House. Although an interesting biographical introduction to the Lincoln family, the book is more about fatherson relationships than history or politics. We see Abraham Lincoln as a man who involves himself with his sons at every level, be it inspecting a fort set up on the White House roof, colluding at their welcome intrusions into cabinet meetings, or leading Tad through the ruins of Richmond. Difficult situations, such as war and mental illness, are seen sensitively through the eyes of children, who are ultimately more concerned with their parents’ love than events in the adult world around them. P.J. Lynch’s lavish illustrations compliment the text, depicting a Lincoln who is both a haunted man and a loving father. However, although a picture book, the vocabulary and subject matter are too

HistoricalNovelsReview mature for very young readers. Recommended for grades 3 upwards or as a gift for a father.

Susan Cook CECELIA’S HARVEST: A Novel of the Revolution Blonnie Bunn Wyche, Whittler’s Bench Press, 2009, $19.95, pb, 243pp, 9780978526566 It is the eve of the Revolutionary War, but the only independence on the mind of 16-yearold Cecelia Moore is freedom from her family.

When handsome Kenneth Black comes courting with tales of an easy life on his family plantation, she is eager to accept. Then tragedy strikes and Cecelia is left with a baby, a dilapidated farm, a few slaves, and the choice to flee or fight back against her circumstances.

Cecelia has a vision that goes beyond mere survival to turn the plantation into a thriving business, but the war and the lawlessness it generates are relentless enemies. As she struggles to make her dream a reality, she learns, along with her fledgling country, that independence has a price, but that the rewards are worth the suffering.

In Cecelia’s Harvest, Blonnie Wyche captures the complexities of a country divided, with honor and dishonor, and heroes and villains on both sides. She also creates an absorbing narrative and a cast of colorful, sympathetic characters. It may be a cliché to call a heroine ‘feisty’, but Cecelia is, well, feisty; in some ways, she reminded me of Little Women’s Jo March. Readers will be informed and impressed at just what a colonial teenager faced, both in war and everyday life—and cheering Cecelia on all the way.

Susan Cook Cecelia’s Harvest is an inspiring novel.

Cecelia was put in an awful position, but she did not give up. She learned how to manage her household and run a farm. Cecelia herself was a remarkable young woman. One of the things about her that stood out to me was her decisiveness. She seemed to know the right thing to do in all the challenges that were thrown at her. I would highly recommend this book.

Magdalen Dobson, age 12

N NONFICTION n FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE Mark Bostridge, Penguin, 2009, C$20.00, pb, 646pp, 9780140263923

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£10.99/

Issue 49, August 2009 At the age of 17, Florence received a calling from God, and although she persisted in her quest to study nursing, her parents refused permission for their daughter to involve herself in an occupation that was seen to be peopled by the dissolute and immoral. Florence’s chance to escape came when the Crimean War broke out and Sir Sydney Herbert, Secretary at War, asked her to take a number of nurses to Scutari.

After just six months she returned home to lead the life of an invalid. For want of a better name, Crimean fever was diagnosed but it was probably brucellosis, a debilitating illness contracted by drinking untreated milk.

So much is already known about Florence Nightingale that it seems unlikely that any further investigation can shed more light on this Victorian icon. Mark Bostridge, however, gives a new, unbiased account of the character that was Florence Nightingale. Fanatical pioneer of cleanliness and fresh air, arrogant and opinionated she undoubtedly was, nevertheless, she got things done.

Ann Oughton TESTAMENT OF YOUTH Vera Brittain, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2009, £30/$29.95, hb, 608pp, 9780297858317 What more can one say about this classic autobiography? It is one of those books that absolutely everyone should read and not just for its harrowing depiction of the horrors of the First World War, its filth, its stench, its total futility.

Vera, with her parochial and tranquil middleclass background, was about to take a place at Oxford University. She had fought prejudice and had worked hard to get there. She was engaged to her brother’s best friend, a young poet who shared her world view. Life was sweet, so when war was declared, she saw it as no more than an irritation. Not for long…

What Brittain experienced first hand as a Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse turned her into a vehement life-long socialist, a member of the women’s movement, but above all an antiwar campaigner. She spent the rest of her life as a pacifist and a political activist.

I consider it essential reading, not just as an anti-war polemic but as a portrait of a whole generation of young people who were totally illprepared and whose lives were utterly changed within four momentous years. It’s full of anger, pain, and bitterness but also determination and joy. The paperback edition I’ve owned and cried over since the seventies is battered and

Nonfiction well thumbed so this new hardback edition is a welcome addition to my shelves. It contains some photographs—although I would have liked more—and a foreword by Baroness Shirley Williams, Vera Brittain’s daughter.

Sally Zigmond THE CANTERBURY TALES Geoffrey Chaucer/A retelling by Peter Ackroyd, Penguin Classics, 2009, £25.00, hb, 435pp, 9781846140587 Geoffrey Chaucer (c1343-1400) was an English author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat, courtier, and diplomat. Best known for The Canterbury Tales, he spent his life at court, first serving Edward III and then his son, John of Gaunt, for whom Chaucer wrote poetry. From his house in Aldgate, he was able to observe the multitudes coming and going, which undoubtedly provided a rich source of material for his writing.

Peter Ackroyd’s prose retelling of the tales brings to life all the wit, ribaldry, and romance, providing an insight into human nature and a glimpse of 14th-century London. The introduction explains the historical background to Chaucer, his life and times, and Ackroyd’s reason for translating the work to make it accessible to the general reader. The attractive cover design is sure to attract the bookshop browser, and in truth, the entire work is nothing short of a masterpiece.

Ann Oughton THE FIRST FAMILY: Terror, Extortion, Revenge, Murder, and the Birth of the American Mafia Mike Dash, Random House, 2009, $27.00, hc, 357pp, 9781400067220 The roots of the Mafia lie in Sicily, but one man—Giuseppe Morello—is primarily responsible for the rise of organized crime in the United States. Morello, known as the Clutch Hand due to a physical deformity, came to the United States during the last decade of the 19th century during a boom of Italian immigration.

Morello’s cruelty and cunning may be the stuff of legend, but the events chronicled in the book are all true.

Organized crime has had a surprising impact on American popular culture, and The First Family gives readers a unique look at the people who first brought the Mafia to prominence.

Dash relied heavily on primary sources in his research, including some previously unreleased

HistoricalNovelsReview material from the U.S. Secret Service. His goal was to write an historically accurate book that would debunk some of the commonly accepted myths about the rise of the Mafia, and he has accomplished just that. A must read for Mafia and true crime aficionados.

Nanette Donohue CAPTIVATED: J. M. Barrie, Daphne du Maurier and the Dark Secret of Neverland Piers Dudgeon, Vintage, 2008, £9.99, pb, 333pp, 9780099520450 ‘Barrie has a fatal touch for those he loves.

They die.’ D. H. Lawrence.

This fascinating and disturbing book unravels the subtle and deadly mixture of manipulation, fantasy, and control with which J. M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan, entangled a number of child victims. The most famous examples are the orphaned Llewellyn-Davies boys, but their tomboy cousin, Daphne du Maurier, was also profoundly affected by Barrie’s games.

Dudgeon begins with the children’s grandfather, George du Maurier, author of Trilby, which features the hypnotist, Svengali, and Peter Ibbetson, which centres on ‘dreaming true’, that is, being able to communicate even when apart.

Both became bestsellers and influenced the 1890s generation. He demonstrates how George du Maurier’s interest in hypnosis and dreaming true fed into Barrie’s psychological need to have emotional control over those he loved.

Dudgeon is good at asking the right questions, particularly about Barrie’s own tragic and dysfunctional childhood. This, together with his long view covering several generations, allows him to disentangle the threads and examine not only how Barrie was able to take over the Llewelyn-Davies boys so completely, but also how they, and Daphne du Maurier, ended up deeply disturbed and, in some cases, destroyed, by him. Highly recommended.

Elizabeth Hawksley THE AGE OF THE SHIP OF THE LINE: The British and French Navies, 1650-1815 Jonathan R. Dull, Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2009, $29.95, hb, 250pp, 9780803219304 The “ship of the line” was the equivalent of the battleship in navies in the Age of Sail. While numerous smaller types of naval vessels played critical roles in battle, blockading, and convoy protection, the large and heavily armed ship of the line was the final arbiter when it came to maritime supremacy. Acclaimed naval historian

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Issue 49, August 2009 Jonathan Dull takes the reader through the intricacies of warship design and construction in both French and British navies and the wars they and their allies waged from 1688 to the fall of Napoleon in 1815. Dull’s knowledge of the topic is encyclopedic, and he offers both the first-time researcher and the specialist a comprehensive study of these ships and the role they played in allowing the Royal Navy to dominate the world’s oceans at book’s end. I can think of no better tool for a writer wishing to publish in the ever-popular field of Age of Sail fiction than The Age of the Ship of the Line.

John R. Vallely AGNES LAKE HICKOK: Queen of the Circus, Wife of a Legend Linda A. Fisher and Carrie Bowers, Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 2009, $29.95, hb, 287pp, 9780806139838 Agnes Lake Hickok must have been made of extraordinary stuff. She married circus performer Bill Lake in 1847 and made her circus debut shortly after. She performed on the “floating wire,” a predecessor of the high wire that was not stretched taut, and was a superb horsewoman. For many years, she and her husband appeared in circuses throughout the United States. Although he was a well-known star, she eventually surpassed him in crowd appeal and billing.

In addition to being successful performers, the couple proved to be able entrepreneurs, eventually owning their own circuses. They had no children of their own, but “adopted” several to take part in circus acts.

Their fruitful association was curtailed when Bill was murdered by a disgruntled audience member, leaving Agnes either to sell off the circus assets or carry on alone. She chose to carry on, becoming the first woman circus proprietor.

It was in this capacity some years later that she met the legendary Bill Hickok, who ended his bachelorhood to marry Agnes.

This scholarly and absorbing biography gives a nearly forgotten woman of courage and talent her place in history. Lavishly illustrated with pictures and reproductions of advertisements and circus posters, the late Linda Fisher and coauthor Carrie Bowers have provided a wellwritten testament to a unique period in American history.

Susanne Dunlap

Nonfiction

HistoricalNovelsReview

N STAFF PUBLICATIONS N

Historical Fiction II A Guide to the Genre

by Sarah Johnson

Libraries Unlimited, 2009, $65.00, hb, 738pp, 9781591586241

The world of historical fiction is at once vast and panoramic — and occasionally overwhelming when selecting books for oneself or one’s library patrons to read. A guide for those traveling in this beautiful landscape emerged in 2005 in the form of Sarah Johnson’s Historical Fiction: A Guide to the Genre, which was lauded as “a must-have...essential tool” (Booklist) and “wellresearched, exhaustive” (Choice) by reviewers. Sarah might say “exhaustive” described the effort involved as well as the coverage, and regardless, it is an adjective that implies no more need ever be done. Au contraire.

Sarah says, “The finished manuscript turned out longer than expected because of the large number of historical novels being published in the US. Fortunately, my editor understood this! This, plus continuing reader interest in historical fiction, is the reason my publisher saw demand for a followup volume just four years after the first one was published.” That volume, Historical Fiction II: A Guide to the Genre, was published in March. Historical Fiction II and its predecessor are unique in that they are organized by subgenre, and this latest volume also has updated coverage (ie, over 2,000 new titles) — examining the vast array of new historical novels that have appeared since the original volume’s 2005 publication. In all, Historical Fiction II provides 2,700 titles, and due to its organization by subgenre, is ideal for the purpose of finding read-alikes.

In addition to the novels themselves, Historical Fiction II also defines historical fiction (which can be an amorphous genre to categorize), explains the appeal of the genre (what fans of historical fiction are looking for), and addresses the thorny question of historical accuracy. One particularly helpful section deals with recent trends in the world of historical fiction; by examining such current tendencies as focusing on historical women, genre-blending, and modernizing historical characters and events to make them more palatable to today’s audiences, the book helps readers better understand the current state of the genre.

As HNR’s Book Review Editor, Sarah is ideally placed in the world of historical fiction, and this book allowed her to explore a subject she loves: “The most enjoyable part of the book was the research, of course. To increase my knowledge of the newest authors and trends, I read a wide variety of historical novels, everything from literary thrillers to historical romances to mysteries and sagas (my personal favorite). Editing the HNR also helped out a lot, as I got to look over new titles as they arrived from publishers. Not all historical novels receive major review attention, so another thing I enjoy doing — and which I hope the book accomplishes — is introducing readers to authors and titles they may not have heard about otherwise, and providing my personal ‘spin’ on them.”

In addition to being one of the HNS’s most active members, Sarah is a Reference Librarian and Associate Professor at Booth Library, Eastern Illinois University, located in Charleston, Illinois. She is also a reviewer for Booklist and contributes articles to EBSCO’s NoveList database. She provides “news, views, and reviews on historical fiction, both new and old” on her blog: http://readingthepast.blogspot.com.

Bethany Latham, with comments by Sarah Johnson

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Issue 49, August 2009 PAULINE BONAPARTE: Venus of Empire (US) / VENUS OF EMPIRE: The Life of Pauline Bonaparte (UK) Flora Fraser, Knopf, 2009, $28.95, hb, 304 pp, 9780307265449 / John Murray, 2009, £20.00, hb, 304pp, 9780719561108 The Bonaparte clan depicted in Flora Fraser’s biography could rival any reality TV family for scandal. Pauline Bonaparte is thought to have indulged in excessive sexual activity that adversely affected her health. Amid many lovers, Pauline married twice. In her adolescence, she first married Victor Emmanuel Leclerc. She respected General Leclerc, who behaved with courage during the uprising in Haiti where Leclerc was the French commander in chief.

Pauline’s second husband, Prince Camillo Borghese, fared less well in her esteem. Yet it was the Roman prince who sheltered Pauline in her last days.

Pauline reserved her fiercest loyalty for her brother Napoleon, with whom she is thought to have carried on an intimate relationship. A cartoon showing Pauline and her brother in bed is one of twelve illustrations contained in the book. Respecting the relationship of Napoleon and Pauline, author Fraser concludes, “it seems inevitable, given the strong sex drive for which Pauline and Napoleon were both renowned… that they should have experimented sexually together.” [p. 144] Pauline Bonaparte is a richly detailed biography revealing the life of the Emperor of France’s notorious sister and a time in history not unlike our own, in which celebrity and prestige held the utmost interest.

Eva Ulett FREUD’S WAR Helen Fry, The History Press, 2009, £20, hb, 240pp, 9780750951128 Sigmund Freud has been extensively written about, but Helen Fry’s book concerns his life as a father to Martin, and Martin’s son, Walter.

Their extraordinary stories are written in a clear, readable style, heavily interspersed with extensively researched archive documents, newspaper articles, letters, journals, and previously unpublished photographs from the family’s private collection. Sigmund’s worldwide reputation afforded his family a privileged life in a Vienna, full of etiquette and protocol, which shaped Martin into a man with strong principles.

He qualified as a lawyer in 1913, but within months joined the Austrian army, was decorated for bravery twice, wounded, and then captured by the Italians.

Nonfiction He returned to Vienna to his troubled marriage, began a career in banking, and managed his father’s Psychoanalytical Press.

As political unrest escalated from neighbouring Germany, Walter was born.

The day after the Anschluss, Sigmund had been discharged from hospital after surgery for cancer when the Gestapo raided the Press’s office. Nazi control tightened as anti-Jewish laws took effect; Sigmund’s work was forbidden and his Press disbanded. Every facet of their life was systematically stripped away. They lived in fear under house arrest. Frantic diplomatic appeals from various governments eventually secured their passage out of Austria. They fled to England only to be arrested two years later as friendly enemy aliens.

Martin and Walter were released and immediately enlisted in the British Army. Martin recruited for the Pioneer Corps and Walter trained extensively before entering the Special Operations Executive, where his heroic exploits became legendary. After the war he compiled evidence against known war criminals for the War Crimes Investigation Unit.

The book concludes with them adjusting to a very different world in postwar life. The result is a detailed, absorbing, and thought-provoking biography. Recommended.

Janet Williamson CONSTABLE IN LOVE, Love, Landscape, Money and the Making of a Great Painter Martin Gayford, Penguin Fig Tree, 2009, £20.00, hb, 367pp, 9781905490240 When John Constable, a struggling young painter, fell in love with Maria Bicknell, daughter of a prominent London lawyer, it was not only the disapproval of her father that counted against him in his suit but lack of ‘the necessary article. Cash.’

Through John and Maria’s correspondence, their touching love story unfolds. All the while, John is badgered by his mother to get down to the work of painting and furthering his career while Maria is constantly reminded of what might happen to her should she marry a penniless painter.

Constable’s contemporaries—JMW Turner, Byron and Wordsworth—are among the characters that enrich this story of Constable’s struggle to become an acknowledged artist and marry the woman he loved.

Ann Oughton

HistoricalNovelsReview WE TWO: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals Gillian Gill, Ballantine, 2009, $35/C$40, hb, 480pp, 9780345484055 Gill, biographer of Florence Nightingale, turns her attention to one of the most famous marriages of 19th-century England, that of Victoria and her Prince Consort. Recent history has focused on her widowhood following his death at age 42 in 1861 (most notably, the film Mrs. Brown) but Gill concentrates instead on their respective childhoods (à la Tolstoy, they were each unhappy in different ways) and their marriage.

This is a fascinating account of a marriage about which much has been assumed but there is still much to reveal. Gill makes a strong case for famed Victorian prudery being Albertian prudery instead. As important as it was that Victoria be a virgin until her marriage, it was equally important that her spouse be unsullied; in Albert’s case, he was more loved than loving.

Although proceeding chronologically like a traditional biography, Gill has also written chapters thematically, focusing in turn on their home life, Albert’s relationship with political leaders and his jockeying for power, their attitudes towards childrearing, and their dynastic hopes. To read this book is to unravel much of what became 20th-century European history and to wonder what would have been had Albert survived his wife.

Ellen Keith EIFFEL’S TOWER Jill Jonnes, Viking, 2009, $27.95/ C$35.00/£19.99, hb, 354pp, 9780670020607 The 1889 Exposition Universelle would be forgotten by all but a few were it not for the centerpiece of the affair—the brand new Eiffel Tower. Jill Jonnes has earned a fine reputation for her writings on urban history, and her latest effort is certain to add to it. She not only delves into the design and construction of Eiffel’s masterpiece, she discusses popular and artistic reactions to it. All of this is outlined against storylines as fascinating as Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley, Rosa Bonheur, Thomas Edison, and an absolutely unforgettable analysis of the building of the Tower’s elevator. The author is one of those few scholars who have the ability to make their writing as riveting and tempting as the finest novel. I went from knowing little beyond the commonplace about the Eiffel Tower and nothing whatsoever about the 1889 Paris World’s Fair to being an individual captivated by the Belle Époque and the critical role it

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Issue 49, August 2009 played in guaranteeing Paris’s place in French, and world, culture.

John R. Vallely IN THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS Daniel Meyerson, Ballantine, 2009, $26.00/ C$30.00, hb, 230pp, 9780345476937 This is Howard Carter’s story, and how he, though not a gentleman, was able to work in Egyptian archeology during the last hectic days of European colonialism. Carter’s father was a painter of animals for the upper classes, and, at first, so was Carter. Lord Tyssen-Amherst’s pets were his first subjects. This gentleman, an antiquarian with a fascination with ancient Egypt, would be Carter’s sponsor. As a painter with an eye for color, Carter began by copying hieroglyphics for others. The author conveys the flavor of the last of the Indiana Jones style “archeologists,” where digging for treasure was perceived as a gentlemanly occupation about as likely to hit the jackpot as a season in Monte Carlo. Lord Carnarvon was the gambler/playboy who eventually bankrolled Carter, but the burgeoning nationalism of the Egyptians would eventually wrest their most celebrated find—the contents of King Tut’s tomb—from their grasp.

I found the opening chapters difficult to navigate because of constant backtracking.

There were plenty of excellent footnotes, but I felt the narrative was stylistically inconsistent, the voice sometimes scholarly, sometimes more like that of a raconteur. On balance, however, in whatever voice, I found this an enjoyable read, with plenty of fascinating insights into the character of a brave, stubborn, self-made man.

Juliet Waldron THE BLUE TATTOO Margot Mifflin, Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2009, $24.95, hb, 261pp, 9780803211483 The Blue Tattoo pieces together the true story of Olive Oatman, a 14-year-old girl taken captive by the Yavapai Indians in 1851 after the massacre of almost all her family as they traveled west. Olive and her sister Mary Ann lived as servants to the Yavapai for a year until they were traded to the Mohave Indians and adopted into their tribe. Though Mary Ann’s frail nature eventually claimed her life, the girls were considered Mohave during the four years of their captivity; each was given a distinctive facial tattoo to identify them as tribe members. It was this tattoo that brought Olive Oatman fame after her eventual release and helped define her

Nonfiction life afterwards. Mifflin sifts through the known facts of Olive’s story, giving us a glimpse of a young woman conflicted by two separate lives.

The Blue Tattoo is a fascinating look at how Olive’s life has been enhanced through the years, and it gives an in-depth perspective of the influences Olive must have felt, particularly after her repatriation into white society. Having always been intrigued by stories of whites who were captured by Indians, I found this factual account well written, if at times a little meandering in its focus. The Blue Tattoo is an interesting, thoughtful look at the outward sign of an indelible mark left by the Mohave on Olive Oatman’s life.

Tamela McCann THE BOLTER Frances Osborne, Knopf, 2009, $30.00/$35.00C, hb, 320pp, 9780307270146 / Virago, 2008, £8.99, pb, 336pp, 9781844084807 Frances Osborne, the great-granddaughter of Idina Sackville, has written a shockingly candid biography of a brazen woman who defied the convention of upper society’s expectations.

She glowed in the scandalous acts of the choices she made but always yearned for love. Born in 1893, she married Euan Wallace, the first of five husbands, and they set sail to Kenya to build a home. She was surrounded by majestic breathtaking vistas, and there she fell in love.

After having two sons, the marriage began to disintegrate; a divorce was inevitable. When she lost custody and visitation from her boys, she was devastated. She returned alone to her idyllic hideaway of hedonism with only short respites back to England. Idina’s world was wrapped in a cocoon of pleasure with an edge of danger looming. Her friends, The Happy Valley Set, knew Idina for her outrageous behavior, including frequent nude appearances, adultery and couple-switching, and the endless flow of alcohol. The Bolter is absorbing with Idina’s life laid bare and presented in detail. Her quest for love and freedom was paramount to her.

Osborne succeeds brilliantly in conveying a sense of compassion, not condemnation, for this petite powerhouse.

Wisteria Leigh THE LAST CRUSADERS Barnaby Rogerson, Little Brown, 2009, £20.00, hb, 431pp, 9780316861243 Barnaby Rogerson spent his childhood living on military bases around the world with

HistoricalNovelsReview his family. He played in the coves once used by the corsair captains of the Mediterranean, and his father told him stirring tales about Barbarossa, Dragut and Don Juan—adventures sure to fire the imagination of a young boy. This love of the Mediterranean shore inspired Rogerson, and he has written guide books and conducted lecture tours around the region. Who better, then to write part of its history with, as he says himself, “some of the passion of a native”?

The Last Crusaders is much more than a description of the struggles between Christendom and the Ottoman Empire in the 15th and 16th centuries: it is the story of the Mediterranean region as we know it, for many of the religious and cultural boundaries that were laid down in the 1570s, when an uneasy peace at last broke out, are still in existence today. The book is meticulously researched (even the notes are extremely readable!) Explanatory maps and the appendices of the key characters and comparative timelines are very useful for those of us who are not familiar with the subject. Full of fleshed-out characters and eye-witness statements, this is no dry and dusty retelling of the facts but a highly readable account of the struggle for supremacy by neighbouring powers. Sometimes heroic, often brutal, the action is as vivid and fast paced as a novel. An excellent read.

Melinda Hammond THE BROTHER GARDENERS: Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession Andrea Wulf, Knopf, 2009, $35.00, hb, 354pp, 9780307270238 / Windmill Books, 2009, £8.99, pb, 368pp, 9780099502371 During the 18th century, Britain moved from following the French and Italian styles of gardening to become the foremost nation in gardening and botany. This fascinating book tells how it happened, with an emphasis on the extraordinarily productive relationship between Peter Collinson in England and John Bartram in the colony of Pennsylvania, which introduced large numbers of North American plants to England; the Swede Carl Linnaeaus and his impact on nomenclature, which made it possible for the average person to gain an understanding of it; and Joseph Banks and his extraordinary efforts to use the increased knowledge of plant life to benefit the empire.

Along the way are fascinating tidbits, such as Erasmus Darwin’s poem called “Loves of the Plants,” which personified plants and their love lives, staying true to the Linnaean system that

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Issue 49, August 2009 categorized plants by their sexual apparatus.

As the author writes, “Plants not only changed the English landscape but the very fabric of the nation, contributing to the country’s global dominance and imperial strength.” Wulf tells the story compellingly.

Trudi E. Jacobson

POSITION POSTING MANAGING EDITOR SOLANDER This position requires knowledge of authors, works, topics, and trends in historical fiction, as well as a high-speed Internet connection. Responsibilities include, but are not limited to: directing the overall content of the magazine, coordinating the work of four sub-editors, and doing the design/layout of the magazine using desktop publishing software (e.g., InDesign, Quark, or Microsoft Publisher). Accuracy, dependability, and ability to keep to deadlines are essential.

Although all HNS editorial staff are volunteers, this is a wonderful opportunity for anyone wishing greater contact with authors, publishers, and other movers and shakers of the historical fiction community. To express interest in the position, or for more information, please contact Richard Lee: richard@historicalnovelsociety. org.

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Historical Novels Review ISSN: 1471-7492 © 2009, The Historical Novel Society