Historical Novels Review, Issue 82 (November 2017)

A PUBLICATION OF THE HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY

HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW Issue 82, November 2017

RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONARY READS footsteps of katharina the wife of martin luther sugar money jane harris’ latest a triumphant return minette walters’ the last hours between the lines the women of pepys’ diary the historical & the utopian or, fact vs invention letters to loved ones great war correspondence

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE historical fiction market news | red pencil | new voices | 300+ reviews

Historical Novels R eview

ISSN: 1471-7492 | © 2017 The Historical Novel Society |

pub lis h er

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Richard Lee Marine Cottage, The Strand Starcross, Devon EX6 8NY United Kingdom <richard@historicalnovelsociety.org> |

edit o r ial boa r d

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Managing Editor: Bethany Latham Houston Cole Library, Jacksonville State University 700 Pelham Road North Jacksonville, AL 36265-1602 USA <blatham@jsu.edu> Publisher Coverage: Simon & Schuster US (all imprints) Book Review Editor: Sarah Johnson 6868 Knollcrest Drive Charleston, IL 61920 USA <sljohnson2@eiu.edu> Publisher Coverage: Bethany House; Five Star; HarperCollins; Henry Holt; IPG; Penguin Random House (all imprints); Severn House; Trafalgar Square; university presses; and any North American presses not mentioned below Features Editor:

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

review s edit o r s , u k

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

Alan Fisk <alan.fisk@alanfisk.com> Publisher Coverage: Aardvark Bureau, Black and White, Bonnier Zaffre, Crooked Cat, Freight, Gallic, Honno, Impress, Karnac, Legend, Pushkin, Oldcastle, Quartet, Sandstone, Saraband, Seren, Serpent’s Tail Linda Sever <LSever@uclan.ac.uk> Publisher Coverage: All UK children’s historicals Edward James <busywords_ed@yahoo.com> Publisher Coverage: Arcadia; Atlantic Books; Canongate; Head of Zeus, Glagoslav, Hodder Headline (inc. Coronet, Hodder & Stoughton, NEL, Sceptre); John Murray; Pen & Sword, Robert Hale | Alma and The History Press Doug Kemp <doug.kemp@lineone.net> Publisher Coverage: Allison & Busby; Little, Brown; Orion; Penguin Random House UK (Cornerstone, Ebury, Transworld, Vintage, and their imprints); Quercus Karen Warren <worldwidewriteruk@gmail.com> Publisher Coverage: Accent; Birlinn/Polygon; Bloomsbury; Duckworth Overlook; Faber & Faber; Granta; HarperCollins UK; Knox Robinson; Pan Macmillan; Penguin Random House UK (Michael Joseph, Penguin General, Penguin Press, and their imprints); Short Books; Simon & Schuster UK

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re v i e ws e d i tors , u s a

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Rebecca Cochran <CochranR95@gmail.com> Publisher coverage: Amazon Publishing; Hachette; Hyperion; Pegasus; and WW Norton Bryan Dumas <bryanpgdumas@gmail.com> Publisher coverage: Algonquin; Kensington; Other Press; Overlook; Sourcebooks; Tyndale; and other US/Canadian small presses Arleigh Ordoyne <arleigh.johnson@att.net> Publisher coverage: US/Canadian children’s publishers Ilysa Magnus <goodlaw2@optonline.net> Publisher Coverage: Bloomsbury, FSG; Grove/Atlantic; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Minotaur Books; Picador USA; Poisoned Pen Press; Soho Press; St Martin’s Press; and Tor/Forge |

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Richard Lee <richard@historicalnovelsociety.org> Publisher Coverage: all self-published, subsidy, and electronically published novels |

e d i tori a l pol i cy & copy ri g h t

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

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

m e m be rs h i p d e ta i l s

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

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

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The Society organizes biennial conferences in the UK, the US, and Australasia. Contact Richard Lee <richard@historicalnovelsociety.org> (UK), Vanitha Sankaran <info@vanithasankaran.com> (USA), or Elisabeth Storrs <contact@hnsa.org.au> (Australasia).

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The

Historical Novels R eview

I ssue 8 2 , N o ve mbe r 2017 | I SSN 1471-7492

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histor ic a l fic tion market n ews s ar a h joh nson

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n ew voic e s p r of ile s of debut his torical f iction authors k a te m ilde nh a ll, joy r hoades , helen s teadm an , a nd t heodor e whe e le r | m y f anw y cook

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r ed pe nc il l i b e rt y bo y | c indy vallar

| features & interviews |

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RU SSIAN R EVOLUTI ONARY R E A DS a s ur vey | b y charlotte ho bso n

11 the f oots tep s of ka tha ri na the wife of martin luther | by margaret skea 13 s ug ar mo ney ja ne h arris ’ lates t | by catherine ho k i n 14 a trium phant retu rn m in ette wa lte r s’ the last hours | b y lis a redmo nd 15 b et ween t he l i nes deb o r ah swift on pepys ’ women | b y charlot te betts 16 the his torical & the u to pi a n or , fa c t v s invention | b y s teve wiegenstei n 17

letters to loved o nes t he Gr e a t Wa r | b y haz el g ayn or & heather w ebb

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book r e v ie ws e d ito rs’ c h oic e & m ore

H ISTO RIC AL FIC TIO N M ARKE T N E W S NR announcements

Linda Sever has taken up the reins as UK Children’s Reviews Editor for the HNR, replacing Elizabeth Hawksley, who has recently stepped down. Welcome, Linda, and thanks to Elizabeth for her contributions to the magazine over the last five years.

Interested in receiving copies of new and forthcoming historical novels and sharing your thoughts about them with other historical fiction enthusiasts? We’re looking for reviewers for all eras and subgenres of historical fiction. Please email me at sljohnson2@eiu.edu for the guidelines. New writers are welcome.

New books by HNS members Here’s another lengthy list of new releases by HNS author members for consideration for your TBR piles. Books are in order by date, with descriptions provided by the authors.

Congrats to all!

If you’ve written a historical novel or nonfiction work published between Sep 2017 – Mar 2018, please email the following details to me at sljohnson2@eiu.edu by Jan 7, 2018: author, title, publisher, release date, and a blurb of one sentence or less. Details will appear in next February’s magazine.

The first three books in a seven-book series by Jennifer Macaire – The Road to Alexander (April), Legends of Persia ( June), and Son of the Moon (Sept) – were published by Accent Press. Ashley, a journalist from the future, meets Alexander the Great; he mistakes her for Persephone and kidnaps her, stranding her in his time.

Gaelle Lehrer’s Kennedy’s Night in Jerusalem (PKZ, May 1) is about a young, beautiful orthodox widow’s quest to break the shackles of her tradition to find love.

Summerwode by J Tullos Hennig (DSP Publications, May 15) is the newest in the historical fantasy series re-imagining the Robin Hood legends, in which both queer and pagan viewpoints are given realistic and respectful voice.

My Interview with Beethoven by L.A. Hider Jones (CreateSpace, May 17) features a young Virginia newspaperman who goes to Vienna to interview the great composer, Ludwig van Beethoven, because he’s been told that the maestro is his father.

Gideon’s Credo by Ben Laffra (Optimus Maximus, Jun 10), a narrative of war, intrigue, courage, and honour set in 16thcentury France, depicts the passions and emotions of those who were caught in its midst and one man’s desperate pursuit for justice.

In Elena Douglas’s Shadow of Athena (Knox Robinson, Jun 13), a young girl in ancient Greece is chosen to take part in an HNR Issue 82, November 2017 | Columns | 1

ages-old ritual and sent on a journey that she may not survive.

In Publish & Perish: A Francis Bacon Mystery by Anna Castle (Anna Castle, Jun 20), London’s wittiest pamphleteers are being murdered, and Francis Bacon must see through his own envious desires to stop the killer.

Fenella Forster’s Kitty’s Story (Silverwood, Jun 26) is Book 3 of The Voyagers trilogy, but also stands alone. It’s Cairo 1941, and Kitty is determined to ‘do her bit’ by joining ENSA and singing to the soldiers, but nothing prepares her for an unwelcome mission of betrayal of her dearest love: an Italian POW. AJ Lyndon’s first historical novel, The Welsh Linnet, Book 1 in the War Without an Enemy trilogy (Tretower Publishing, Jun 26), follows two young cavalry officers and their sister during the English Civil War as their search for glory becomes a fight for survival after a man with a dark secret enters their lives.

Chicago Movie Girls by D. C. Reep and E. A. Allen (CreateSpace, Jul. 23) tells the story of three sisters in 1914 who fight for success in Chicago’s early movie industry, but face betrayal and danger.

A high-concept time-slip novel, Julia Ibbotson’s A Shape on the Air (Endeavour, Jul 28) finds medievalist Dr Viv DuLac in the body of troubled Lady Vivianne as the Dark Ages move into the Anglo-Saxon era.

In Helen Maskew’s On the House (Unbound, Aug 1), set in a small Suffolk workhouse in 1838, the complacency of its guardians leads to a suicide and a brutal murder which are investigated by the local JP and, covertly, a London journalist, but neither is aware of the other.

Quaker’s War by Jason Born (Halldorr, Aug 2) is a lively, sometimes gritty adventure that pits hearts, revenge, and empire in a relentless struggle on the cusp of war in pre-Revolutionary North America.

Barb Warner Deane’s On the Homefront (The Wild Rose Press, Aug 23) tells a story of three young women on the rural American home front during WWII, and their experiences with war manufacturing jobs, rationing, shortages, farm life, and loneliness, until one of whom joins the American Red Cross Clubmobile program and is sent to the front lines.

A Lady’s Deception by Pamela Mingle (Entangled, Aug 28) is about Sir Hugh Grey, war hero, who returns to England hoping to renew his brief affair with Eleanor Broxton, but the secret she’s keeping could ruin their second chance at love.

Cometh the Hour by Annie Whitehead (Amazon, Sept 2), book 1 of the Tales of the Iclingas, is set in 7th-c Mercia.

Why is a mysterious, ragged orphan boy who has a gentleman’s manners, speaks fluent French and knows Latin forced to clean chimneys for a living? Lord Roderick Davenant seeks the answer in Margaret Southall’s debut novel, A Jacketing Concern (Knox Robinson, Sept 12).

The HNS’s newest short story collection, Distant Echoes (Corazon, Sept 25), brings you vivid voices from the past. This haunting anthology explores love and death, family and war.

Contributors are Dorita Avila, Anne Aylor, Anna Belfrage, Richard Buxton, Christopher M. Cevasco, Lorna Fergusson, 2 | Columns |

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Cj Fosdick, Mari Griffith, Patricia Hilton-Johnson, Lisa Kesteven, Vanessa Lafaye, Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger, Yvonne Lyon, Jeffrey Manton, Nicky Moxey, S. Pitt, Jasmina Svenne and L C Tyler. These 19 stories were the winners or runners-up in recent HNS short story competitions.

HNR reviews editor Karen Warren’s Shadow of the Dome (Endeavour, Sept 25) is a tale of friendship and destiny, based on the true story of a 13th-c Mongol princess who travelled from China to Persia with the explorer Marco Polo.

In When It’s Over by Barbara Ridley (She Writes, Sept 26), Lena Kulkova reaches England soon after the outbreak of WWII, but she faces anti-refugee sentiment and wartime deprivations, while desperate for news from her Jewish family left behind in Czechoslovakia.

Artist Pamela Colman Smith, befriended by Bram Stoker, is commissioned to create a new deck of tarot cards for the Golden Dawn but discovers she must battle to keep her creations molded after Sir Henry Irving and William Terriss from being used for evil purposes; this is the premise of Susan Wands’s Magician and Fool (i2i Publishing, Oct 13).

Karen Harper’s The It Girls (William Morrow, Oct 24) follows the scandalous and very modern lives of two real British Edwardian sisters: Lucile, Lady Duff Gordon, who dared to design racy lingerie and get women out of corsets, and Elinor Glyn, who wrote banned romances and scripts for the silents in Hollywood.

In C.L.R. Peterson’s Lucia’s Renaissance (Renaissance Reimprints, Oct 24), when Martin Luther’s heretical book ignites a young girl’s faith, she must choose: abandon her beliefs, or risk her life in the turbulent world of late Renaissance Italy.

Queen of Incense by Signe Kopps (Rainhorse, Oct 25) is the story of a young woman, Bilqis of Saba, later known as the Queen of Sheba, who traveled across a vast and dangerous desert in 950 BC, bringing a magnificent treasure to King Solomon in Jerusalem.

Tracey Warr’s Conquest: The Drowned Court (Impress, Oct 30), 2nd in the Conquest trilogy, takes place in 12th-century Wales. After a series of abductions, and her brother Gruffudd’s attempt to regain his kingdom from the Normans, Princess Nest’s loyalties are torn between her Welsh heritage and her Norman husband; after her husband Gerald dies, King Henry must prevent her from again becoming the symbol of the Welsh resistance.

London, 1840: Edgar Allan Poe and C. Auguste Dupin investigate letters that suggest Poe’s grandparents were the true perpetrators of the notorious London Monster attacks of 1788 - 1790 and discover that they are being stalked by a murderous assailant – might the crimes of the past and present be connected? Karen Lee Street’s Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster is published by Point Blank in the UK (Sept.

7) and Pegasus in the US (Nov. 14).

In An Orphan in the Snow by Molly Green (Avon HarperCollins, Nov 30), war rages, but the women and children of Liverpool’s Dr Barnardo’s home cannot give up hope. But how can June Lavender even think of love when Murray Andrews is

New publishing deals Sources include author and publisher submissions, Publishers Marketplace, Publishers Weekly, The Bookseller, Booktrade.info, Australia’s Books+Publishing, and more. Want to see your latest publishing deal in an upcoming column? Send it to me at sljohnson2@eiu.edu.

Susan McDuffie has signed a contract with Bagwyn Books for The Death of a Falcon, a Muirteach MacPhee Mystery, with a planned fall release date.

The Lodger author Louisa Treger’s The Dragon Lady, biographical fiction about the life of Lady Virginia “Ginie” Courtauld, a woman in 1950s Rhodesia “with a dramatic snake tattooed on her leg and a mysterious past,” sold to Stephanie Duncan at Bloomsbury for summer 2019 publication.

Warlight, by the Booker Prize-winning Michael Ondaatje, set in 1945 London and a dozen years later, focusing on a teenage boy, his sister, and the eccentric man and his friends who care for them after their parents’ abandonment, sold to Sonny Mehta at Knopf via Ellen Levine at Trident Media Group; it will be out in May 2018.

Quintland, Shelley Wood’s debut novel based on the true story of the Dionne Quintuplets, born in Ontario during the Great Depression, sold to Lucia Macro at William Morrow via Stephanie Sinclair of the Transatlantic Literary Agency.

Alyssa Palombo’s The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel, which retells and continues The Legend of Sleepy Hollow from Katrina’s viewpoint, sold to Vicki Lame at St. Martin’s, for a Fall 2018 release, by Brianne Johnson at Writers House.

The Fraud by Zadie Smith, set in mid-19th c England, “when the streets of North West London still bordered fields and Kilburn’s ‘Shoot-Up Hill’ was named for a highwayman,” sold to Ann Godoff at Penguin Press, and Simon Prosser at Hamish Hamilton, by Georgia Garrett at Rogers, Coleridge & White.

The Lost Queen, a trilogy by Signe Pike focusing on early British queens, the first volume focusing on Languoreth, queen in 6th-c Scotland, whose reign helped shape the legend of Merlin (believed to be based on her twin brother), sold to Trish Todd at Touchstone, at auction, via Faye Bender at The Book Group.

Carrie Callaghan’s A Light of Her Own, based on the life of 17th-c artist Judith Leyster, who struggles to be the first woman to paint alongside the greats of the Dutch Golden Age, and whose ambition threatens not only a conspiracy of powerful men but even those she loves, sold to Dayna Anderson at Amberjack, for publication in October 2018, by Shannon Hassan at Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

Molly Green signed a contract for a three-book deal with Avon HarperCollins (UK) for a new series based on a (fictitious) Dr Barnardo’s home, Bingham Hall, near Liverpool in WW2. The first, An Orphan in the Snow, is out in Nov 2017, the second: An Orphan’s War is for summer 2018, and the third (untitled) is for spring 2019. The orphans and evacuees are traumatised by the raging war, but fresh hope comes from the young women who care for them.

Sonia Velton’s debut Blackberry and Wild Rose, centering on a household of Huguenot master silkweavers in Spitalfields in the 18th c, sold to Jane Wood, publisher at Quercus, via Juliet Mushens at Caskie Mushens, for spring 2019 publication.

Blackstone will publish in North America (rights acquired via Jenny Bent at The Bent Agency on behalf of Juliet Mushens).

Australian writer M. J. Tija’s debut She Be Damned, first in the Heloise Chancey mystery series set in Victorian London, has been acquired by Pantera Press in Australia, via Legend Press in the UK. The manuscript was longlisted for the 2015 Crime Writers’ Association’s Debut Dagger.

Lucia Macro at William Morrow acquired When the Men Were Gone by Marjorie Herrera Lewis, based on the true story of Tylene Wilson, a woman who became a high school football coach in 1940s Texas while the men were away fighting in WWII,via Andrea Somberg at Harvey Klinger.

The Beast’s Heart by Australian author Leife Shallcross, described as the Beauty and the Beast fairytale recast in 17th-c France, sold to Thorne Ryan at Hodder & Stoughton for mid2018 publication.

Bestselling YA author Lauren Kate’s adult fiction debut, Pearl’s War, following an enslaved woman’s quest to find her daughter in Civil War-era America, sold to Tara Singh Carlson at Putnam via Laura Rennert at the Andrea Brown Literary Agency.

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan (Giller Prize winner for Half-Blood Blues), following a boy who escapes enslavement on a Barbados sugar plantation and, following a dramatic series of events, becomes a free man, his story based on an infamous 19th-c legal case, sold to Diana Tejerina Miller at Knopf by Ellen Levine at Trident Media Group.

The Debutante, Kerri Maher’s novel about JFK’s sister Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy and her life in pre-war and WWIIera London, sold to Kate Seaver at Berkley via Margaret O’Connor at Innisfree Literary.

Suzanne Bridson at Transworld acquired The Call of the Curlew by debut novelist Elizabeth Brooks, about an orphan in 1939 England, her relationship with her adoptive parents at their mysterious house on the edge of a salt marsh, and what happens after a German airman is shot down in the area, via Joanna Swainson at Hardman & Swainson.

Kyoung-Sook Shin, best known for her novel Please Look After Mom, sold The Court Dancer, set during the Korean Empire’s last years in the late 19th c, to Jessica Case at Pegasus.

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For forthcoming novels through mid-2018, please see: https://historicalnovelsociety.org/guides/forthcominghistorical-novels/

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a fighter pilot who risks death every day?

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

HNR Issue 82, November 2017 | Columns | 3

NEW VOICES Casting new light on the past through detailed research and vivid recreations of past people and places are debut novelists Kate Mildenhall, Joy Rhoades, Helen Steadman, and Theodore Wheeler.

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heodore Wheeler is a journalist by trade. For the last 10 years, he has “covered a beat as a reporter at the Douglas County courthouse in Omaha, Nebraska, a building best known as the site of a race riot and horrific lynching in 1919.” He elaborates: “I first heard of the riot when my fourth-grade teacher displayed a famous photograph from the Omaha World-Herald of rioters posing with the lynched body of Will Brown, a 40-yearold black man who was dubiously accused of the rape of a young white woman. The image has stuck in my mind ever since.

“Having spent so many hours at the courthouse, the riot and lynching were something I thought about every day while walking the halls and surrounding neighborhood. Over time, while researching Kings of Broken Things (Little A, 2017), I’d come to learn about specific events that happened in these spots: where a lynch mob broke down the north doors and was beaten back with fire hoses; where, to this day, you can run your fingers over bullet holes in the marble facade of the fourth-floor balcony; the very spot where Will Brown was seized by the lynch mob and shot to death while he hung from a lamppost. It’s troubling material, and the only thing that made sense was to write about what happened, to hopefully shed some light on an explosive tragedy that is surprisingly little-known in this state.”

Wheeler discovered that once he had started writing the book, “the era itself was so pivotal and lively; it really was a joy to delve into the more exuberant aspects of Omaha at that time. The coalescing of immigrant culture, the madcap adventures of boys let loose in a city, and the brand of baseball played at the time.

Despite its obvious flaws, I really fell for World War I Omaha and am thrilled to be sharing its story with readers.”

It was while she was walking in the woods that Helen Steadman’s novel Widdershins (Impress Books, 2017) began to take shape. She explains: “After reading Hilary Mantel’s magnificent Wolf Hall, I realised there was a historical novel in 4 | Columns |

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me, but I had no clue about subject, so I waited for inspiration to strike.”

Then one day in the woods, Steadman says, “I followed a lovely smell until its source became clear: loggers had cut down Scottish pines, revealing an amphitheatre populated by oozing stumps.

Possibly in an altered state due to the pine sap, I was wondering what might have happened here in past centuries, when Florence and the Machine jumped into my head, singing ‘Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)’. Sacrifice. Ritual. Rituals could have happened here. Magical goings-on. Witches! Armed with nothing more than an overdose of pine sap, I knew my book had to be about witches. Strangely, the subject was unwelcome. Why witches? I knew no witchcraft. I knew no witches. Witches would not be easy. This would mean research. Sorry, this would mean Research, and lots of it.

“As the muse had been good enough to strike me down, I committed myself to research – deskbound and practical.

For practical research, I undertook herbal medicine training at Dilston Physic Garden and then grew a potted herb garden to practise making my own plant remedies. This work inspired lots of the herbal lore in the book.

The story itself arrived courtesy of Ralph Gardiner’s England’s Grievance Discovered, in Relation to the Coal Trade. It sounds an unlikely source of inspiration, but Gardiner described the Newcastle witch trials where fifteen people were executed. I couldn’t understand how this happened and the travesty lodged in my mind, eventually compelling me to write the tale.”

A compulsion to write can strike the unsuspecting author in the most unusual and unexpected settings, as Kate Mildenhall discovered.“I literally stumbled upon the story behind Skylarking while on a camping trip with my family and dear friends, almost three years ago now. Right next to the spot where we put up our tents, there was an historical gravesite, marked out with a white picket fence. In between endless trips to the toilet block with my two young daughters, I read the inscription on the grave. It belonged to a woman called Harriet Parker, and I learned that she had lived at the nearby lighthouse and was best friends with the Head Lighthouse Keeper’s daughter, a girl two years her junior, called Kate Gibson.”

Mildenhall says: “I was camping with my own best friend at the time. She and I had met when we were twelve and had been best friends ever since. I hadn’t been planning to write a novel,

but it seemed so serendipitous to have found this story while I was there, doing the thing I loved most in the world, camping on the coast with my loved ones.”

During this holiday, as they “tramped around the ruins of the sandstone lighthouse high up on the cliffs,” she continues, “I learned more of the story, including the tragedy that befell Kate and Harriet. A tragedy that involved a fisherman named McPhail. And a gun.

“I quickly became obsessed with the story, hunting out any historical reference to the girls and the Cape St George Lighthouse I could find. I climbed up and down lighthouses, read the spidery handwriting in young Victorian women’s diaries and Googled endlessly.”

Mildenhall’s novel Skylarking (Black, Inc., Australia, 2016 / Legend Press, 2017) was fueled by imagining “what it might have been like to grow up as a young woman in such a remote place, and I drew on everything I knew about desire and envy and dreaming big dreams.”

The inspiration for The Woolgrower’s Companion (Random House Australia/Chatto & Windus, 2017) by Joy Rhoades was in part drawn from, she writes, “the wonderful stories I heard growing up from my grandmother. She was a fifth-generation grazier and had lived almost all of her life on her family’s sheep place in northern New South Wales. She loved the land, and she’d speak of people, of droughts, and the occasional flood, of bush fires and snakes, of her love of birds and wallabies.”

It was only as Rhoades wrote that she “found a story emerging, a story set in the Australian bush about a young woman, struggling to save her family’s sheep farm during the drought that lasted throughout WWII,” she continues. “I wanted the main character to be a young woman facing adversity, and follow her journey.

“And I wanted her world to be real. So I spoke to many experts: graziers, historians and others. Because although I had grown up on the bush, I had a lot to learn, and I wanted the story to be one that could well have happened. The area where I learned the most is the history of Aboriginal people. I am so grateful, and I salute the people who spoke to me. First among them are Catherine Faulkner, a woman of the Anaiwan Nation, who provided expert guidance on birthing practices, and help in ensuring respect for traditional knowledge and cultural practices. Activist and poet Aunty Kerry Reed-Gilbert, a woman of the Wiradjuri Nation, guided me too. Her keen eye on my manuscript and her gentle suggestions have taught me more than I could ever imagine.”

What Rhoades learned during the writing of The Woolgrower’s Companion was “about so many different things, and it has changed the way I see things. I very much hope that that learning is a quiet presence in the book, an artery that carries a story of resilience and hope.”

The writers of this rich vein of debut novels have been able to integrate their own personal experiences with those of their characters. In doing so, the novelists have also bequeathed to their readers a range of detailed research and intimate knowledge about the periods and places they have uncovered through their research and writing.

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MYFANWY COOK is a prize-winning short story writer, Associate Fellow at two British Universities, researcher and workshop designer. Please do email (myfanwyc@btinternet.com) about any debut novels you would recommend.

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Left to right: Joy Rhoades, Theodore Wheeler, Kate Mildenhall & Helen Steadman

HNR Issue 82, November 2017 | Columns | 5

THE RED PENCIL Cindy Vallar analyzes the work behind published manuscripts. In this issue, she examines how David Gaughran fleshes out scenes in Liberty Boy (CreateSpace, 2016).

Stories do not miraculously appear. They begin as ideas, which are then written down; even then they are incomplete.

Only through multiple revisions do the story and characters evolve into a novel that captures our attention and transports us back in time. Liberty Boy is set in Ireland in the aftermath of the 1803 Rising – an event that fascinates David Gaughran, he says, because “it’s the last real time that Catholics and Protestants came together for Irish independence.

The course of Irish history would have been very different had it been successful.

After the catastrophic failure of 1803, the independence movement became more sectarian, more ruthless, and focused on guerrilla attacks and sabotage and infiltration, rather than engaging the British in open warfare. I was also interested in how the figure of Robert Emmet had been mythologized since, and how disagreements still rage today over what happened in 1803.

An intriguing thought popped into my head: if we have difficulty making sense of what happened now, how hard must it have been for people on the streets back then? All sorts of scenes then started unfolding.”

The main character in Liberty Boy is Jimmy O’Flaherty, whose father never returned from the 1798 rebellion. He meets Kitty Doyle, a rebel tasked with “getting close to Jimmy as her superiors suspect he may be a British informant,” at a hanging outside a church. They travel from Dublin to Vinegar Hill to find his father’s grave. “It’s a pivotal scene [because] Jimmy and Kitty seem to be progressing towards some kind of romantic encounter . . . but Jimmy makes a balls of it.” It unfolds from Kitty’s perspective so David can “organically feed some historical context to the reader.” It also allows him “to contrast Kitty’s view of recent history with Jimmy’s – sowing the seeds for what will eventually cause them to be tragically separated.”

Kitty could feel Jimmy’s eyes tracking her as 6 | Columns |

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she wandered about, trying to get her bearings.

“Are you sure you know where it is?” She looked down onto Enniscorthy below, desperately trying to remember. “Don’t tell me we came all this way –” “Shush and let me think.” She walked up to the crest of the hill, without waiting to see if he was following, and looked downwards. The mound her uncle had previously pointed out to her was immediately obvious. Jimmy came to her side and saw what she was looking at. He then fell to his knees, clutching the sad bunch of flowers he had picked on the way up. He flung them to the ground for there was no need to place them. The whole mound was covered with bright red flowers.

Blood is the best fertilizer, Kitty thought, watching Jimmy’s face contort with pain. She sat down beside him, brushing her skirt. He began to cry and she put her arm around him, hesitantly at first before pulling him into an embrace. She could feel his tears on her neck as his body convulsed with sobs, while he let out all the pain he’d carried with him for so long.

Kitty knew exactly what he was feeling. She almost felt like sharing her own pain, but something stopped her. She pulled back to look at him.

His eyes were puffy from the tears; he wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. “Sorry,” he said.

“Don’t –” He kissed her. She almost resisted and then let herself go. She lay back on the long grass, taking him with her. He moved on top of her and kissed her more deeply, his hands on her face one moment and nervously approaching her breasts the next. She parted her legs a little and drew him even closer.

He pulled away. “I can’t,” he said, and sat up panting, staring down at the flower-covered mound. Kitty’s face burned bright red. She turned away, and then got up and walked down towards the horses, leaving him to stew in whatever bitter juices were flowing through his veins instead of

blood.

David’s initial drafts are “threadbare” and meant to record the scene “before [the idea] vanishes.” One problem in this version is that Kitty “comes across as an empty cipher.” She believes strongly in a free Ireland, but Jimmy wants nothing to do with ridding the country of its British invaders. The one commonality between them is that they are both from the Liberties section of Dublin. “Irish history is extremely contentious and I wanted to represent a range of views in the book, and show how events might have been interpreted contemporaneously by those experiencing them on the street, rather than how a historian might assess matters from a distance. By adding a little more description and atmosphere, all viewed from the eyes of Kitty, I was able to reveal a little more of her character. It also allowed me to foreshadow the secret she will reveal later on.”

A secondary, but equally important, goal is to take advantage of the tension building between Kitty and Jimmy. The draft fails to do this, so David has Jimmy “muck up the encounter . . . so that any consummation of their budding attraction could wait until later in the narrative. I wanted the readers screaming at them to get together by the time it finally happened – something I shamelessly stole from romance novels.”

David prefers to view the world through a wide lens, a standpoint that affects his writing. “There are wonderful tropes from other genres which you can incorporate in your work to give it more resonance. These are tropes for a reason. I saw a very clever talk by a writer called Jeremy Sheldon who explained how Lethal Weapon incorporated many elements from rom-coms to give the relationship between Mel Gibson and Danny Glover more emotional power . . . . That stuck in my mind and I was keen to deploy some of these devices to beef up the romantic thread that runs through the novel, as that had to be strong enough to carry across a series.”

Revising takes time and is rarely easy, but when done well, it adds depth to the characters, the scene, and the story. It removes what bogs down the plot and inserts details and emotions that make us care about what happens.

Kitty could feel Jimmy’s eyes tracking her as she wandered about, trying to get her bearings. She looked down onto Enniscorthy below, desperately trying to remember. Tendrils of smoke reached lazily towards the sky. A pair of fishing boats bobbed on a river swollen with rainfall. Maybe that’s why God is so blind to our suffering, she thought. From this distance, the town looked so

peaceful. There was no indication of how many had died on that bridge; the blood had long been washed from the cobbles. No monuments stood to remember the dead either, nor was there any other outward sign of the havoc that had been wreaked. Down on the streets, you could see it – in people’s eyes, in their shifting gait, their haunted expressions. Not from up here.

She shook her head, not wanting to remember what she was trying to forget.

“You sure you know where it is?” Jimmy asked.

“Don’t tell me we came all this –” “Shush and let me think.” After a couple of moments, she turned back to him. “They call it The Battle of Vinegar Hill, but it wasn’t much of one. The English general brought in four columns of troops – twenty thousand, all told – and tried to trap the Unitedmen on Vinegar Hill. They began shelling immediately. Only the late arrival of one of the columns gave the rebels any chance to run for it. Needham’s Gap, they called it, named for the commander whose lateness prevented an even worse slaughter.”

Kitty turned westward, toward Enniscorthy.

“Those who did escape struck out for the woods east of the River Slaney, eventually making it to Wicklow.” Her eyes followed the curve of the river as it encircled the hill to the north. She stepped northwards toward the edge of the bluff. “Which means it should be down here.”

She strode up to the crest of the hill, not waiting to see if he was following, and peered downwards.

The mound her uncle had previously shown her was immediately obvious. Jimmy came to her side and saw what she was staring at. He fell to his knees, clutching the sad bunch of wildflowers he had picked on the way up. Then he flung them to the ground. There was no need to place them; the mound was covered with vivid blooms.

Blood is the best fertilizer, Kitty thought, watching Jimmy’s face contort with pain. She sat down beside him, brushing off her skirt. When he began to cry, gently at first, and then louder, she put her arm around him, hesitantly pulling him into an embrace. His tears were warm on her neck, his body convulsing with sobs, as all the pain he’d carried with him for so long found a voice.

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An evident change is the additional description in the opening paragraph. “I used to write very neutral descriptions, but with this book I wanted to make sure characters had an opinion about what they were seeing and that was conveyed to the reader. If everything should be driving the narrative forward, then description is no different. . . . [A]side from getting to know Kitty a little better, and showing her alternative perspective on historical events, the description here gives the reader a chance to breathe somewhat – a necessary pause before what happens next. It was all too abrupt in the first draft. As for God, the thought struck me that people living in Dublin in 1803 probably didn’t have too many opportunities to see the world from above.

You know the first time you climb a tall building and look down?

Even if you aren’t religious, you can’t help thinking of God. This was a chance to show that Kitty is angry at the world, that she feels there is no justice, and it’s also foreshadowing something . . . about her past . . . .”

David also inserts historical background, but doing this effectively requires practice because it needs to be accomplished with subtlety. “You can get away with a paragraph or two, but any more than that can feel like a history lesson, and that’s not what readers want. You can weave it through the narrative in various ways and doing so in dialogue is especially good as it also gives you an opportunity to reveal character at the same time.”

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Two other minimal changes concern repetition and sensory detail. “Flowers” occurs twice in the draft and referring to them as a “sad bunch” reminded him of “flowers someone buys in a . . . gas station, which have wilted from car fumes, rather than something plucked on a mountain trail in 1803.” As for his use of the senses, David’s first drafts rely almost exclusively on sight. “[I]n successive drafts I always have to remind myself to add sounds and smells and tastes. And touch, of course, especially when two people are being intimate.”

Liberty Boy is the first installment in the Liberty series, and a change of pace from his earlier works which take place in Latin America. “I had never wanted to write anything set in Ireland. It’s my home country and didn’t have the exotic appeal, to me, of a faraway place. Anyway, I eventually solved the problem by realizing I could have a hero begin his journey in a more commercial setting, before whisking him away to parts unknown, and the idea for the series was born. It turns out that I know nothing: I ended up loving writing about Ireland and can’t wait to do it again.”

Nor can I. David’s captivating novel vividly recreates the past and when his characters speak, it’s as if you are nearby listening to their words. He hopes to release the next title in the series, Diemen’s Land, in Fall 2017.

If you’d like to know more about David and his writing, visit his website, davidgaughran.com. He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

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Kitty knew exactly what he was feeling. She almost felt like sharing her own anguish, but something stopped her. She pulled back to look at him. Eyes puffy with tears, he wiped his nose on back of his sleeve. “Sorry,” he muttered.

“Don’t –” Then he kissed her.

Kitty almost resisted, but then she fell back on the long grass, taking him with her. He moved on top of her, his kiss deepening, his hands on her face one moment and nervously cupping her breasts the next. She parted her legs, drawing him even closer.

“I can’t.” Jimmy pulled away and sat up, panting. He stared down at the flower-covered mound; his wet eyes almost as red as Kitty’s crimson face. She turned away, biting back an acerbic response. With a deep breath, she rose to her feet. Jimmy didn’t even try to stop her.

Keeping her emotions in check, she set off down the hill, leaving him to stew in whatever bitter juices flowed through his veins instead of blood.

A freelance editor and historical novelist, CINDY VALLAR also presents writers’ workshops and writes nonfiction articles about maritime piracy and historical fiction. Her historical fantasy “Rumble the Dragon” appears in Dark Oak Press’ anthology A Tall Ship, a Star, and Plunder. You can visit her at www.cindyvallar.com.

a survey

or first-hand witnesses of the Russian Revolution and Civil War, the shattering events of those years were a story that insisted on being recorded. In the Slavonic section of the London Library, where I did a large part of the research for my novel The Vanishing Futurist, the shelves of memoirs from the period run and run. Russian émigrés, foreigners of all stripes who found themselves in the right spot at the right time and, later, Soviet writers, told and retold the events of those days, circling around the same details, remembering the same moments in a myriad of different ways.

This abundance of primary sources is a gift, of course, for a historical novelist—although when I was researching, it did occasionally feel like a magic porridge pot. The more I read, the more the material seemed to proliferate.

Add to that the shelves of essential history, analysis and counter-analysis, and you will perhaps see how I managed to spend over a decade on this novel.

This centenary year seems a good moment to pick out the sparkling gems for recommendation, those accounts whose vividness and subtle handling of the drama and tragedy have stood the test of time.

Often they were also those with a surprising comic touch: surreal comedy was as much a part of those anarchic times as cruelty and desperation.

The most glittering of all is, to my mind, Vladimir Nabokov’s memoir of his childhood and youth, Speak, Memory (1951).

With affectionate, ironic incredulity he recalls the excesses of life in his highly privileged St Petersburg family; in his studiously uninflected voice he observes the small tragedies in the lives of his inferiors, if not caused then certainly unremarked by his cultured, liberal parents. Above all, however, it is his infinitely refined aesthetic sense, intensified by the almost hallucinatory clarity of exile and grief, that renders these pages unforgettable: his mother’s delicate gesture in the sleigh as she holds her fur

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muff to her face; his father, tossed in the air by grateful peasants from his estates, his limp, white-suited body framed, silently, through the dining-room windows.

Many other extraordinary accounts emerged from the White Russians who fled the country after the Revolution, for example by the Nobel prize-winning Ivan Bunin, but one that still feels particularly fresh is Memories from Moscow to the Black Sea, by Teffi (1928). Teffi, who was a well-regarded author in Russia before the Revolution—the only author admired by both the Tsar and Lenin, it’s said—fell into almost complete obscurity after her death in Paris in 1952. Recently republished in English by Pushkin Press, she is now gaining recognition once more for her wonderfully readable, amusing and elliptical style. Here she describes her picaresque journey into exile, swept along with the flotsam and jetsam of an empire.

The Vanishing Futurist spans the period before and after the Revolution, and this not only means two very different ways of life, but also two different modes of expression.

Historical fiction is as much a matter of literary ventriloquism as it is research, and I found that memoirs are one of the best routes into the sound and rhythm of the time; the cadences of speech, the vocabulary, and above all, the unquestioned assumptions, so different from our own.

‘After 1917,’ wrote Nina Berberova in The Italics Are Mine (1969), ‘everything from before seemed old.’ The world was being transformed from the ground up: houses, streets, clothes, as well as society, and even the old patterns of speech, seemed unbearably long-winded and reactionary. Brevity, surprising juxtapositions, and single-line paragraphs like bullet points were the hallmarks of the new style. Victor Shklovsky is best known as a proponent of the Formalist school of literary criticism, but I loved his Sentimental Journey: Memoirs 1917-22 (1970) and absorbed a little of his style for the voice of my Futurist hero,

by Charlotte Hobson

THIS CENTENARY... year seems a good moment to pick out the sparkling gems for recommendation, those accounts whose vividness and subtle handling of the drama and tragedy have stood the test of time

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Tale, by Anonymous, it reproduces with very little further context the diary of a governess from 1917 to 1920. Her shoes disintegrate, she is reduced to eating cattle feed, but she remains remarkably stoical, escapes imprisonment (unlike a dozen or so other governesses) and is finally evacuated to Finland. After this encounter, I chased down other governesses: Florence Farmborough, who enrolled as a nurse and finally escaped across Siberia into China (Nurse at the Russian Front, 1914-18); and a whole array of them in Harvey Pitcher’s When Miss Emmie Was in Russia (1977). Again and again I was impressed by these young Englishwomen’s courage and initiative—heroines, all of them; my own Gerty Freely owes them a large debt.

This list would not be complete without some of the later novels that have been set during the Revolution, which I have devoured with delight and not a little envy. My favourite is still Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Beginning of Spring (1989), that captures the imminent anticipation in Moscow just before war and Revolution. She is the prose-writer par excellence of hints, nuances, possibilities; also so funny, in her deadpan way. A completely different, and rather unknown novel that I enjoyed hugely is The Red Cabbage Café (1990) by Jonathan Treitel, a perkily surreal tale of life in Soviet Moscow, complete with avantgarde cabarets, metro-building plans and a waxwork impresario.

Arthur Koestler’s devastating Darkness at Noon (1965) is the monologue of a true Communist, forced by his own internal logic to denounce himself, to ‘self-criticise’ for the good of the Revolution to which he has devoted his whole life. It seems to me tragically accurate of the thought-processes of so many brave and well-meaning Soviet citizens.

Finally, a couple of more recent titles that have garnered praise: James Meek’s The People’s Act of Love (2005) conjures up the strange bedfellows that the Civil War brought together in Siberia: a battalion of Czech soldiers fighting their way home from the First World War trenches; an Orthodox sect with a taste for castration, as well as psychopathic warlords and the Red Army on the move—so, no shortage of drama! If you add to these The Chosen Maiden (2017) by Eva Stachniak and Sashenka (2008) by Simon Sebag Montefiore, you should have enough reading matter to sit out several revolutions.

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CHARLOTTE HOBSON’S First book, Black Earth City: A Year in the Heart of Russia, won a Somerset Maugham Award. Her debut novel, The Vanishing Futurist (Faber & Faber, 2016) was shortlisted for the 2017 Walter Scott Prize. She lives in Cornwall with her husband, the author Philip Marsden, and their two children.

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Nikita Slavkin.

Isaac Babel’s Red Cavalry (1929), a cycle of short stories about the Soviet-Polish war of 1920, is an extraordinary, literary record of Revolution in action. The author, who was Jewish himself, experienced the brutal advance of the Red Army through the Polish countryside as a reporter attached to Budyonny’s Red Cossacks; in his fictional reimagining of the events, the narrator has become a soldier himself, directly implicated in the raping, pillaging, vandalising and killing of the Jewish inhabitants of the shtetls. In Babel you see the apogee of the ‘new’ style, a Soviet modernism that manages a remarkable balancing act: simultaneously violent and tender, grief-stricken and contemptuous of the Old World in its death throes, proud of and repelled by the New. In the West, Mikhail Bulgakov is perhaps the most wellknown and loved Soviet writer, in particular for the grotesque Moscow of The Master and Margarita (1967) and The Heart of a Dog (1968). The White Guard (1966), his first full-length novel, however, bears few signs of his later fantastical style. The action centres on a Russian family living in Kiev during the Civil War, and contrasts their domestic life with the violent chaos around them. Tender and poignant, it gained a surprising fan in Stalin himself, although you shouldn’t let that put you off.

During Khrushchev’s Thaw in the Fifties and Sixties, several memoirs were published by Soviet writers who for the first time felt free to describe their own Revolutionary experiences.

Konstantin Paustovsky’s Story of a Life (1964) flows like early Tolstoy, lyrical and rich with the detail of life. A loyal yet vigorously questioning Soviet citizen, the honesty of his account was an inspiration for the younger generation of the Sixties who heard for the first time about the reality of the Revolution, the chaos, horror and dislocation of the Civil War years. The international sensation of the time was, of course, Pasternak’s Dr Zhivago (1957), although few Soviet citizens read it until the late Eighties. Smuggled out and first published in Italian, it enraged the Soviets, especially when Pasternak was then awarded the Nobel Prize. Literary Russians tend to be scathing of the novel itself; ‘a metro romance’ is the phrase I’ve heard several times.

To my mind, however, there are unforgettable passages in it: the vast, serene moon on the night of the Tsar’s abdication, the snowy train journeys across the plains, and Zhivago’s glimpse, after several years, of Lara in a small-town reading room, which perfectly encapsulates the eroticism of libraries.

I knew my story contained Revolution, and that it would be told from the point of view of an idealistic believer in the new world that was being born; I knew, too, that the utopian dreams of the Russian Avant-Garde would play a part in it. I struggled, however, with the structure until I discovered the governesses. In the London Library is a book that I’ve not found listed on any other bibliography. Called simply A Governess’s

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Margaret Skea on the wife of Martin Luther

Every

writer of historical fiction knows how important research is. For some it may be a necessary chore that distracts from the real job of writing. For others, and I count myself in this category, it is addictive: fascinating and intriguing in equal measure, frequently opening up new avenues to explore. Which, of course, can sometimes make it difficult to stop researching and start writing. It is all too easy to wander down highways and byways on the trail of snippets of information that, however interesting, will almost certainly never be used.

However, that wasn’t the issue that faced me when I decided to write a novel, or rather what I hoped would be categorised as biographical fiction, based on the life of Katharina von Bora, Martin Luther’s wife. Quite the opposite, in fact. There are some books written about her, though not many, and Martin Treu, the person widely regarded as the nearest one can get to an expert, opens his (extremely slim) volume with this sentence: “It is impossible to write a biography of Katherine Luther, née von Bora.”1 So there I was, wanting to write a novel about an historical person about whom almost nothing is known. A gift to the historical novelist? Well, perhaps.

Treu continues: “The lacunae in the sources have, of course, tempted authors and authoresses to fill in the gaps with their own imagination. The result of this is frequently enough a picture that says more about the writer and their time than about the person and journey through life of Katherine von Bora.”

Did I want to write a book that said more about me and the 21st century than it did about Katharina? No, I didn’t. It is, of course, inescapable that my background, experience and, yes, personal perceptions – dare I say, bias – colour what I write.

And while a biographer must strive to avoid bias, a writer of biographical fiction can choose whether to strive for objectivity;

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The Footsteps of Katharina focus on fiction; or, as in my case, seek to steer a course somewhere between the two.

Katharina von Bora, the renegade nun who became Martin Luther’s wife, is a fascinating and, in many ways, an enigmatic character. There is debate over her parentage, her birthplace and the circumstances surrounding her admission to two different convents. Her subsequent escape, as one of a group of twelve, is the first recorded ‘mass’ breakout following Luther’s revolutionary teachings. From the time of her arrival in Wittenberg onwards, there is more information on the timing and place of key events, though even that is incomplete, and sometimes differs between sources.

There is little documentary evidence of her personality: only a handful of letters written

by Katharina remain, and of those, only one contains a personal reference. It is possible, however, to catch tantalising glimpses of her from surviving letters that are written to her, particularly by Luther; through the reactions of others, both positive and negative; and via her reported actions.

With my ‘novelist’ hat on I relished the challenge of seeking to find a ‘voice’ for Katharina and was glad of the somewhat freer hand that the lack of concrete evidence made possible. However, as someone who is passionate about historical authenticity – short of time-travelling I don’t think it’s realistic for any novelist or historian to claim accuracy when writing about former times – I was concerned not to step outside the bounds of what was at least plausible, and could be defended by reference to the historical record, sparse as it was. As a consequence, the writing of this book was a continual juggling act between what I wanted Katharina to say and be and what might have been possible for her at the time.

As a child Katharina was placed in two separate convents, one Benedictine, and one Cistercian. Studying their rules and practices was an obvious starting point, as was the situation of impoverished members of the German knightly class,

by Margaret Skea

The more...I sought to draw Katharina out of the shadows, the more convinced I became that ...the best research I could do would be to go there myself, to try to experience the physical surroundings through her eyes.

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in the early stages of construction, but I was able to stand in what was most likely the Stube (heated living room) of the house she stayed in prior to her marriage and stare out of the windows as she might have done. I visited Luther’s birth house, stayed in the building he died in, spent one night in a room overlooking the famous ‘Theses’ door of Wittenberg’s Castle Church and one in a monastery cell. Albeit more comfortable than it would have been in 1517, its size and position, adjacent to an internal cloister, was enough to give me a sense of enclosure.

There were two unexpected highlights of the trip. The first was Quedlinburg, which, while not directly connected to Katharina, has some 1,200 half-timbered buildings, and wandering through the narrow streets mentally transported me back in time. All that was needed to complete the picture was muck and glaur underfoot, the reek of animals and unwashed bodies, smoke from hundreds of chimneys and the everyday sounds of a small medieval town.

That, aside from the smell, was what I found in the magnificent Yadegar Asisi 360° Panorama of the Wittenberg of the early 16th century. Watching every aspect of life unfold through changing images and sounds over the equivalent of a twentyfour hour period, was a breath-taking experience. The details were exquisite, the whole Panorama seething with life. It was a ‘you are there’ experience par excellence. The longer I stayed, the more I found to see and many of the details that contribute to the atmosphere created in the book come from that Panorama.

Talking to experts on the ground at all the various Lutherrelated sites I visited was immensely valuable, not least because they often answered questions that I wouldn’t have known to ask without being there. And, as always, it was the unsought and unexpected discoveries that proved the most valuable. Would I do it all again? In a heartbeat … now where can I set my next book?

Katharina: Deliverance will be published by Sanderling Books in both print and e-book in October 2017, exactly 500 years after Martin Luther displayed his 95 theses on the Wittenberg church door, an event which is credited with sparking the Reformation.

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References 1. Treu, Martin. Katharina von Bora Luther’s Wife, Reformation Biographies, English Edition, Drei Kastanien Verlag (2016), p.5.

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as Katharina’s family appears to have been. A scouring of documentary sources makes it possible to speculate, in a reasoned way, about the background to decisions made by others about her future. I do have to admit here to succumbing to one legend about her, which from a novelist’s point of view was irresistible – that her father’s remarriage contributed to her being sent to the first convent at about five years old – though I did try to soften the ‘evil stepmother’ image a little.

It was much more difficult when it came to the adult Katharina. There are extant records of the Nimbschen convent where she lived from c. 1509–23 and where she took her vows, aged 16. They contain no censure of her, so clearly she did not cause her superiors concern. And yet she is part of a mass breakout at Easter 1523, aided by Luther. How she personally came to that point can only be speculation, but I felt it important that my speculation was not contradicted by such facts as could be ascertained. Nor could I allow myself the luxury of indulging in the perpetration of one often-quoted legend, that the nuns escaped from the convent hidden in herring barrels. While the idea may be attractive from a dramatic point of view, it is highly impractical. Being bounced along some 30 miles from Grimma to Torgau in the back of a goods wagon, in the middle of the night, would be uncomfortable enough, but folded into a barrel which normally contained fish? I don’t think so. It is possible to see how this error could have arisen from a misreading of a contemporary source, which indicates that it was a merchant who supplied fish to the convent who helped the nuns escape. It also serves, however, to illustrate both the need for careful reading and the value of applying common sense when interpreting sources.

The more I sought to draw Katharina out of the shadows, the more convinced I became that as well as reading about aspects of 16th-century life in Saxony – household matters, husbandry, clothing, transport and so on – the best research I could do would be to go there myself, to try to experience the physical surroundings through her eyes. I would seek to gain a sense of her by walking where she walked, standing where she stood, and, if such a thing should prove possible, handling things she handled. I was fortunate (and thrilled) to be given a grant by Creative Scotland to do just that, in a two-week solo trip that involved driving 1,000 miles in a circular tour of Saxony.

Of course, the Saxony of 2017 isn’t the Saxony of 500 years ago, and there was much that I would have liked to see that has disappeared. But the Black Cloister in Wittenberg remains.

Now called the Lutherhaus, it was her marital home, and through the combination of the existing architecture, the well presented displays, the access I was given to some areas not open to the general public, and the help of senior staff, it was possible to imagine what it would have been like to live there in her time.

The square in Wittenberg is very different now from when Katharina first saw it, when the current Rathaus (town hall) was

MARGARET SKEA is an award-winning novelist and short story writer. Her Scottish novels, also set in the 16th century, are Turn of the Tide and A House Divided. www.margaretskea.com

Jane Harris on where fact and imagination meet

T he basis for many a strong historical novel is a true story, even

if that story has come down to us only in the most fleeting way.

Such is the case with Sugar Money (Faber & Faber UK, 2017 / Arcade US, 2018), the third novel from author Jane Harris, which reworks the rescue of a group of slaves in the 18thcentury Caribbean. As Harris explains, although this is an event which she describes as “a very moving story of great injustice,” it is one about which very little information survives: “just a few paragraphs in the history books, a few ancient documents and letters in the archive at Kew, and some in the archives in the south of France. Plus, of course, the enslaved people at the heart of the story had no voice and are not on record at all.” A challenge then, but not perhaps such a challenge, as Harris’ “first two novels came entirely out of my imagination.”

The spark for the novel struck when Harris came across a brief depiction of the event, which occurred in 1765, in a history book about Grenada: “a ‘mulatto’ slave was hired by some poverty-stricken French monks in Martinique to steal back a number of enslaved people from a hospital and sugar estate in Grenada, people that the monks insisted still belonged to them, despite the fact that the English now ruled the island.” This slave became Emile, one of the novel’s two key protagonists. The second, his brother Lucien, is Harris’ creation, introduced “to lighten the narrative somewhat, by giving Emile a companion, someone to bounce off. Having Lucien as narrator enabled me to create a sibling dynamic between the two brothers which, in some respects, is the engine of the novel.” The addition of a third character, “Emile’s first love, Celeste,” adds a further layer to the novel’s narrative as it “complicates the motivation of the brothers, in a way that (I hope) makes everything a bit more intimate.”

Harris’ immersion in her novel’s world is apparent not only in the text-based research, but also in her attention to its geography

Harris’...

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and language. Harris visited the areas and discovered that, although “hardly any buildings that would have been standing at the time of the novel still exist… the islands are rural, for the most part, and… it’s much the same now as it was in the 18th century. I was able to trek across Grenada… retracing the steps of my characters, and the experience showed me how difficult the terrain might have been for them.”

Both Harris’ previous novels are characterised by a distinct narrative voice, and this is a writing style strongly developed in Sugar Money. It uses a lyrical language Harris describes as a “hodge-podge,” which is intended to make the novel feel “authentic and lively” and is “based on Creole and French.” For Lucien, Harris also “took into consideration all the ways in which his voice might have been influenced. For instance, he learned to speak Creole from the other enslaved people in whose midst he grew up—but he was also brought up to some extent by a Scottish nurse, so I tried to sprinkle a little Scots here and there. Also, he spends a lot of time with the French monks and is very intelligent, so he has picked up the French language. In later life, there are further influences on his voice.”

Despite the gaps in the testimony, Harris has created a complex novel which touches, among many themes, on religion and colonial oppression. It is a testament to the interweaving of research and imagination which is the hallmark of good historical fiction.

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Catherine Hokin is the author of short stories and the novel Blood and Roses, which re-examines Margaret of Anjou’s role in the Wars of the Roses. www.catherinehokin.com

by Catherine Hokin immersion in her novel’s world is apparent not only in the text-based research, but also in her attention to its geography and language.

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Minette Walters’ The Last Hours

A fter a gap of ten years, Minette Walters’ new novel is a game

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A Triumphant Return is a scheduled monument, and it’s hard to rub shoulders with history without becoming fascinated by it.”

Living in an area so closely impacted by such a devastating event, it was probably inevitable that Walters’ writer’s brain would begin to ask “what if?” While the Black Death has been explored in fiction before, the fact that the novel focuses on the impact felt in a very particular location and among a small group of people makes it a unique and intriguing prospect for fans of medieval fiction. Walters says, “The Black Death became a particular interest when I discovered that its first port of entry into England was Melcombe (Weymouth), which is nine miles from where we live. Fourteenthcentury chroniclers reported barely one in ten being left alive in Dorset by the time the pestilence passed. I wondered what that meant. Had some fled? Who were the ‘bare’ few who managed to survive? And how had they avoided it?”

Walters took a long break from writing; other than a horror novella, The Cellar (Hammer, 2015), she has not published in ten years. While she never gave up writing, she did take a step back, and with time to think, the idea for The Last Hours began to form. Walters explains, “I did indeed spend considerable time on research for The Last Hours but, once the idea crystallised in my head, the writing came easily.”

I’m sure her countless fans will be pleased she’s back, and she is likely to gather many more fans from those who enjoy the books of Sarah Hawkswood, Karen Maitland, and S.D. Sykes.

changer for the author once dubbed the “queen of British crime.”

The Last Hours (Allen & Unwin, 2017) is an historical novel set in 1348 in rural Dorsetshire as the Black Death sweeps across England. I had the chance to put a few questions to the best-selling writer and ask what drew her to the subject matter.

Walters says, “As a storyteller, I’m intrigued by everything, and the Black Death is a powerfully interesting subject. Six centuries on, it’s hard to grasp how devastating it was or how far-reaching its consequences.”

While it might seem an unusual step for a writer to move out of the thriller genre towards historical fiction, the author sees it as a natural progression: “The idea for The Last Hours kept knocking at my mind, and never to have written it for the sake of remaining in ‘genre’ would have been frustrating. In any case, I wonder if it is such a big change! The Black Death was the worst killer man has ever known. Which crime author wouldn’t want to write about it... and point fingers at the culprits? There are many worse criminals in history than there are in crime fiction.” Despite the apparent change of genre, Minette Walters’ talents as a thriller writer are still very much in evidence: with a cast of characters trapped in a confined space and growing fears about their own survival, the author ramps up the tension, particularly because, with this novel, she has created some truly memorable characters who will captivate readers.

Walters is a long-time resident of Dorset, and the locality and its history seems to have gotten under the author’s skin. She explains, “My husband and I moved to Dorset nearly twenty Lisa Redmond is a writer, currently working on a novel about years ago, and one of the first things we learnt about our village 17th-century Scottish witches. She blogs about books, writing was that it has a plague pit. No one’s entirely sure where it is, but and women in history. the 12th-century church still stands, and visitors can still see the mounds that delineate the medieval settlement. The whole site

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by Lisa Redmond

The Black Death... was the worst killer man has ever known. Which crime author wouldn’t want to write about it... and point fingers at the culprits?

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Deborah Swift on the women in Pepys’ diary

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Between the Lines

S amuel Pepys’ Diary is the foremost resource for life in 17th-

latter, the maidservant/mistress, always an ambiguous role century London, and the diary is justly famous for Pepys’s in the household, is forced to endure a life hidden away from frank revelations about Charles II, the English court, and city mainstream society. In Swift’s novel, though, the maid is more society—not to mention his marriage and his dalliances with equipped to deal with Mr Pepys’s advances. other women. Deborah Swift’s new book, Pleasing Mr Pepys ‘The key for me to Deb’s character was in the words of the (Accent, 2017), explores the lives of some of the women in Pepys’s diary,’ Swift explains. ‘Pepys says she is exceeding well bred and Diary. An enormous amount of detail can be gleaned about the that she has been educated at a school at Bow for the last eight women’s daily lives from the diary; Elisabeth’s penchant for years. He also fears she might be a little too good for my family. So French romances, for example, and Deb’s unpleasant daily duty this was a well-educated young woman, engaged as a companion of combing nits from Samuel’s hair. for Elisabeth, not (as some TV dramas I asked Swift why, given such a wealth would have us think) a mere kitchen maid. of material, so few books about Pepys have It also gave me the idea that she might been written from the women’s perspective. have had an agenda of her own, and could ‘I think it’s because nothing survives of possibly be a spy for the Dutch.’ the women: no letters, no diaries, nothing The triangle between Pepys, his wife and at all to give them a voice. So the novelist his maid form the emotional heart of the is entirely reliant on Pepys’s words in the book, although the third female character, diary, which can be somewhat daunting. the actress Abigail Williams—based, Swift Though of course I did use other women’s tells me, on Aphra Behn—drives the action. journals—Anne Clifford and Anne Faithful though it is to the diary, Swift Fanshawe—and also letters of the period weaves a story around treason, espionage, to bring the women to life.’ and stolen extracts of the diary, with the Although it might seem an obvious idea, women in leading roles.

Swift chose not to use the diary form to ‘I am clear that it’s an entertainment,’ give voice to Elisabeth Pepys. ‘It had already Swift says. ‘In the absence of hard evidence been done, and excellently, by Sara George from the women themselves, we can only in her book, The Journal of Mrs Pepys,’ guess what they did between the lines of the Swift says, ‘but more than that—I wanted diary—whilst Pepys thought they were safe to focus on Deb Willet, the maidservant. And the limitation of at home, or shopping at the Exchange. They perhaps had lives he the diary form is that events are always reported after they’ve was completely unaware of. This is a difficult line to tread, to use happened. I wanted to give the women more agency, to put them the facts of the diary as reported by Pepys, but also to use them into action before the reader’s eyes. By using more than one to support some quite other view of events.’ viewpoint, we are able to witness the interaction between them, bringing them out from between the lines.’

Charlotte Betts is an award-winning writer of six novels and The drama that ensues when Pepys falls in love with Deb two novellas published by Piatkus. Her most recent novel is The forms the emotional lynchpin of the novel, and I was reminded of Dressmaker’s Secret. Find her at www.charlottebetts.co.uk maidservants in other 17th-century novels such as Jessie Burton’s The Miniaturist (Ecco & Picador UK, 2014) and Guinevere Glasfurd’s The Words in My Hand (Two Roads, 2016). In the

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by Charlotte Betts

In the absence...of hard evidence from the women themselves, we can only guess what they did between the lines of the diary—whilst Pepys thought they were safe at home, or shopping at the Exchange.

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or, the line between fact and invention

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he list of historical novels grows ever longer, as does the list of utopian (nowadays, more likely dystopian) novels. Yet few novels occupy places on both; the historical and the utopian seem to be antithetical impulses. Although utopias fascinate historians and sociologists, they pose narrative challenges that may help explain why few historical novelists have entered this territory.

The classic utopian/dystopian novel is set either in the future or in a geographically indeterminate present. For this reason alone, historical novelists would find this genre inhospitable.

A few novels give fictional treatment of actual communities; Terra Ziporyn’s Time’s Fool (Xlibris, 2001) portrays a child of the Oneida colony of New York who becomes a zealot for sexual hygiene, highlighting the oppressive potential of utopian idealism.

My novels explore similar themes based on the 19th-century Icarians, French socialists who had colonies in the United States from 1848 to 1898.

Similarly, T. C. Boyle’s The Road to Wellville (Viking, 1993) finds the dark and ridiculous sides of another utopian project, John Harvey Kellogg’s late 19th- to early 20th-century sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, where the health-obsessed sought relief through Kellogg’s regimen of vegetarianism, abstinence, and “colonic irrigation.” The novel also sees the authoritarian shadow behind the utopian impulse, especially with a charismatic leader in charge.

I recently posed some questions to Boyle about his work. I began by asking whether the American sensibility lends itself to the obsessives, cranks, and con-men that seem to populate American history and literature.

Boyle says, “Because we are essentially an anti-authoritarian nation founded by and harboring utopian cultists, we are uniquely susceptible to the leader (con man?) who says, ‘Give yourselves over to me and my regime and I will purify and sanctify you.’” Examples in Boyle’s oeuvre include The Women (about Frank Lloyd Wright), The Inner Circle (Alfred Kinsey), and The

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THE HISTORICAL & THE UTOPIAN Terranauts ( John Allen and the Biosphere II project), and those, he observed, are only a partial list.

In The Road to Wellville, the characters’ preoccupation with diet seems to have contemporary resonance, and this might be connected to the utopian impulse. Boyle comments: “Even in the early 1990s when I was writing The Road to Wellville, I was inspired by the parallels between the early health-food advocates and the ones we see now, as well as their food and exercise fads. Kellogg had splendid ideas—vegetarian diet, no alcohol or tobacco, regular exercise—but what made him ludicrous (and suspicious) in my eyes was his messianic and puritanical bent. (Incidentally, I loved Alan Parker’s film version, with Anthony Hopkins in the ever-so-slightly menacing role of Dr. Kellogg.) Further, I do see our obsession with purity of food as part of the utopian impulse, as you put it, and, as The Road to Wellville suggests, what does this have to with but the very saving of our souls (and corporeal beings, too) through staving off death?”

On the balance between fact and invention, and the question of where to draw the line, Boyle explains, “Fiction has no compulsion to do anything but exist as art. That said, in all my historical novels, I have been motivated by the oddness of actual events and their correspondence with today (how did we get here?), and so have given the history to you as I have received it. All the facts of Kellogg’s life are accurate (so, too, with my portrayal of Frank Lloyd Wright in The Women and Alfred C. Kinsey in The Inner Circle)—I suppose I’d be a historian if I weren’t a novelist. But the novelist can dig into the brains and point of view of historical figures in the way historians can’t, and that is a great joy for me.

As for your final question regarding the line between invention and fact, my conscience is clear.”

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Steve Wiegenstein’s latest novel is The Language of Trees (Blank Slate Press, 2017).

by Steve Wiegenstein

In all... my historical novels, I have been motivated by the oddness of actual events and their correspondence with today (how did we get here?), and so have given the history to you as I have received it.

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how the Postal Service helped to win the Great War

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Letters to Loved Ones

T hey say the pen is mightier than the sword, and this may

us so much. never be truer than during a time of war. Over the four years of Without these records of written correspondence, we wouldn’t the Great War, letters and telegrams passed fast and furiously have these intimate accounts of war. Newspaper reports tell us from the Front to home, and back again, boosting morale in the only what those in charge of the printed press wished the public trenches, and helping soldiers and civilians endure this difficult to know at the time. What we know about the regular tommy time. The anticipation of news from the trenches, the agony of waiting to go over the top, or about the young VAD nurse who long weeks without word, and the despair of the telegram boy’s has left home for the first time and finds herself in a field hospital knock on the door were all part of everyday at the Somme, was made possible because life in wartime Britain. of those much-cherished letters.

Letters and telegrams were exchanged As novelists embarking on our first with surprising speed and efficiency, often collaboration, we found something deeply arriving within two to four days of being compelling about the immediacy and posted. By 1915, the amount of mail being intimacy of wartime letters. It was the sent to and from Britain led to a purposeraw honesty of these letters that attracted built sorting office established at Regent’s us to the epistolary form. Letters served Park. At the height of the war, around as the perfect vehicle for us to develop 2,800 workers were employed there— clearly defined characters with distinct mostly women and injured soldiers. Trains voices, characters we could initially write ran to and from France around the clock, individually and subsequently edit together carrying one million parcels and over twelve to produce a seamless novel. In addition, million letters per week. this format seemed an organic way to work With the War Office censoring letters, as a team—an idea we had toyed with as many soldiers shied away from being overly a means to push our skills as well as to sentimental in their missives, and some connect and grow our readership. relied on the language of stamps to convey The challenge for any historical novelist emotion. Placing a stamp in a particular is to take the known facts of an event and position to communicate a secret meaning began when enrich them—fill in the blanks with our imagination. When we postcards were first introduced during the Victorian era. As war do this in the epistolary form, we can intimately transport the ravaged the globe, the tradition regained popularity—anything reader not only into the hearts and minds of our protagonists, to encourage a loved one waiting at the other end of the postal but also into the historical setting: something every reader hopes chain. for when choosing great historical fiction.

Letters offer a wonderful snapshot of a moment, captured forever. For novelists researching an event such as the Great War, letters are especially vital because they offer a uniquely personal Hazel Gaynor is the bestselling author of The Girl Who Came insight into the important issues, hopes, and fears of a generation. Home and The Cottingley Secret. Heather Webb is the author Reading these snippets of everyday life—to understand how of historical novels Becoming Josephine and Rodin’s Lover. people expressed themselves, to access a permanent record of Their co-written novel, Last Christmas in Paris: A Novel of the conventions, restrictions, and etiquette of an era—can tell WWI (William Morrow), was released on October 3rd.

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by Hazel Gaynor & Heather Webb

Letters... offer a wonderful snapshot of a moment, captured forever. For novelists...letters are especially vital because they offer a uniquely personal insight into the important issues, hopes, and fears of a generation.

HNR Issue 82, November 2017 | Features | 17

Reviews |

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online exclusives

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Due to an ever-increasing number of books being reviewed and space constraints within HNR, many reviews are now published as online exclusives.

To view these reviews and much more, please visit http://www.historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/?type=online Denotes an Editors’ Choice title

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classical

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SHADOW OF ATHENA Elena Douglas, Knox Robinson, 2017, $17.99/£12.99, pb, 250pp, 9781910282663 In 7th century B.C.E. Greece, the Fall of Troy is still fresh enough to demand sacrifice. The homeland of the disgraced Greek warrior Ajax still sends maidens on a perilous journey to Athena’s temple at Troy for a yearly enslavement and lifetime virginity. As she turns sixteen, the lottery falls to a direct descendant: Marpessa, daughter of a rich merchant.

More a woodland-loving daughter of Artemis than Athena, Marpessa leaves her family and beloved mother under the care of a family slave, Arion. Arion grows to admire Marpessa, but once they overcome perils to reach the temple, he leaves his charges and plots his escape to freedom. Soon after, barbarians raid Troy, leaving Athena’s temple defiled and in ruin, and Marpessa barely alive.

Arion returns, smuggles out the girl he’s come to love, and cares for her as she returns to health. The two become lovers in their hiding. Going home has its dangers for both the transgressors, but they decide to return as Arion observes “how unfair the decrees of the gods and the laws of men.” Fresh hell awaits them there.

Fast-paced and dynamic, Shadow of Athena’s hero and heroine are worth following through Hellespont and beyond. Marpessa’s quiet devotion to Athena is a great match to her more practical lover (who is respectful of sometimes hidden female power) as they struggle with a violent and manipulative former suitor, mob force, cruel strangers, and the perils of life at sea.

Eileen Charbonneau EGYPT’S SISTER Angela Hunt, Bethany House, 2017, $15.99, pb, 384pp, 9780764230424 Chava and Urbi are best friends, despite the fact that Urbi is a royal princess with the world at her fingertips, whereas Chava is a Jew, and Jewish 18 | Reviews |

HNR Issue 82, November 2017

people aren’t considered citizens in Alexandria.

After the death of Urbi’s father, she is thrust into the role of Queen of Egypt and renamed Cleopatra. Chava’s devotion to her friend remains, despite the distance growing between them. When Chava refuses a gift of citizenship from her friend, one that would demand she worship in the temples of Greek gods, her family is thrown in prison.

Lonely and forgotten, Chava wonders why God has let this happen to her family. Eventually, Chava and her father are sold at a slave auction. She is purchased and sent to Rome. There she discovers a new meaning of friendship and works to keep her faith despite dire circumstances. All the while, she waits for the words of God to come true, words she heard years ago on the Sabbath, promising that she would bless Urbi and that she’d be with her on Urbi’s happiest day and her last.

Chava experiences a lot of growth, and her development kept me intrigued. Yet this book felt emotionally light, and I would have liked if Hunt had taken a little more time to “feel” significant events that occurred. Overall, this is a well-written work of Christian fiction which weaves in familiar figures such as Cleopatra, Octavian, Mark Antony, and others. There’s a great amount of research used to portray a life of opulence contrasted with slave life, and the tragedy of both social situations is brought to the forefront. However, I would encourage Hunt to dig deeper into the heart of her scenes so readers genuinely feel her powerfullypenned moments.

J. Lynn Else

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1st century

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GLORY OF ROME Douglas Jackson, Bantam Press, 2017, £18.99, hb, 449pp, 9780593076156 AD 77. Gaius Valerius Verrens is an honoured member of Emperor Vespasian’s inner circle, but this is no bar to danger caused by the enmity of Domitian, the Emperor’s son. In Britannia, Agricola, the governor, is preparing to march his legions against rebellious natives, and Verrens is summoned to be his chief legal advisor and deputy governor. Verrens uses the opportunity to move his wife and family away from the potential danger of Rome. The massacre of a Roman garrison, and the suspicious death of the Legate of the Ninth Legion, thrust Gaius Verrens into a deadly maelstrom of rebellion, druids, Roman politics, murder, kidnapping, and the assault on the island of Mona.

This is the latest in the very successful series

featuring Gaius Valerius Verrens. The plot is taut and gallops along at a pace. The characters are all well-drawn and convincing, while the action sequences are exciting, bloody, and dramatic, without being overly graphic. The novel can be read as a standalone without any loss of enjoyment. A gripping tale from start to finish, and you will find it difficult to put down. Recommended.

Mike Ashworth PILATE’S DAUGHTER Fiona Veitch Smith, Endeavour, 2017, $3.95, ebook, 319pp, B01N7T5TDR Claudia Lucretia Pilate, the fictional daughter of the historically accurate governor Pontius Pilate, is not happy with her father’s choice of husband for her: the handsome Roman Tribune Marcus Gaius Sejanus, who has been assigned the task of ridding Palestine of the troublesome Zealots. The fact that one of these young Jewish Zealots, Judah ben Hillel, has stolen Claudia’s heart makes the story even more compelling.

The Pilates are citizens of Rome, but Pontius’ service as governor to Judea has brought them to a troubled part of the Empire at a very inauspicious time—when a Jewish prophet from Galilee is wreaking havoc on the same powers that Rome hopes to keep under their firm control. From the lurid halls of Herod to the over-turning of the Temple stalls, these facts are interspersed with genuine, believable responses created from the author’s painstaking research.

True to the genre, this historical novel brings to vivid detail the strife and struggles of a wellknown time and place. Seamlessly weaving facts and people with imaginary events and characters just as vibrant, Smith has written a satisfying read that leaves you with much to ponder. Just when you think you know what’s going to happen, she takes a turn you never expected. Very well done!

Ashley York

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6th century

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THE GOSPEL OF MARY Philip Freeman, Pegasus, 2017, $24.95, hb, 192pp, 9781681775081 This is the third in Freeman’s popular Sister Deirdre mystery series set in 6th-century Ireland.

Deirdre is a multitalented sleuth who is both a Christian nun and a Druid bard, and her privileged status allows her the freedom to travel around Ireland solving problems and frustrating the cynical designs of powerful men. She and her colleagues at St. Brigid’s Abbey in Kildare have strangely contemporary views on equal rights, humanism, science, literacy, and medicine, but Freeman’s command of life in the ancient world is impressive, and he has an admirably efficient way with a plot. This installment is not so much a mystery as an extended chase over a large chunk of Classical — 6th Century

Ireland (at a somewhat incredible pace), as Deirdre and her friend Dari try to stay ahead of church authorities while they carry to safety a long-lost papyrus that they believe contains the first-person reminiscences of Jesus’s mother, Mary.

Half this short novel is a translation of Mary’s “gospel,” which is actually a simple—but touching—retelling of the events of the New Testament from her point of view. Deirdre finds both friends and adversaries in her headlong race to get the papyrus translated before it falls into the clutches of the misogynistic Abbot of Armagh, her longtime foe. If you overlook the simplistically modern voices and attitudes Freeman gives his characters, it’s actually an absorbing story, and offers just enough of Deirdre’s background to be enjoyable without having read the first two books in the series.

Kristen McDermott

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7th century

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DARK WINDS RISING Mark Noce, St Martin’s, 2017, $26.99/C$37.99, hb, 304pp, 9781250072634 It is the year 602, and Wales is not yet united.

Small neighboring kingdoms fight viciously against each other. Amid this disunity, and continually threatened by the Saxons from the east, Wales is now attacked by Picts from the north—outsiders always hungry for richer lands. The kings and queens of these small Welsh kingdoms rely on both force and strategy as they battle back and forth between themselves, with alliances forming and failing. Queen Branwen is determined to unite these small kingdoms even as they threaten each other and weaken what should be a united position.

Meanwhile, the Picts entrench themselves even more strongly, and eventually they must be faced.

This is largely a book about fighting and killing.

The battles are linked by the strategies of Queen Branwen, the viewpoint character who manages to fight while hampered by her pregnancy. Although apparently a woman’s story about touching family affections and uniting kingdoms, what comes across is a man’s love of exciting battles.

Valerie Adolph

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9th century

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DAUGHTER OF THE WOLF Victoria Whitworth, Head of Zeus/Trafalgar Square, 2016, $27.95/C$37.95/£20, hb, 512pp, 9781784082130 This powerful novel is set in the Humber estuary of northeastern England in the mid-9th century. Radmer, lord of Donmouth, is sent to Rome, and his teenage daughter, Elfrun, is left to manage his lands with very little guidance. She is responsible for the valuable herds of sheep, the farms, fishing, craftspeople, and the day-to-day running of the hall and its staff. Surrounding her are those responsible for each of the many tasks, each one driven by hopes, dreams, strengths and 7th Century — 12th Century

frailties.

She is aware that some are less than honest, that some do not honor their vows, but she is unaware that she might have a traitor in her household.

She is unaware, also, of the threat posed by her neighbors across the water, who are always poised and waiting to take over the rich lands of Donmouth should she show weakness.

The writer weaves a complex story with a wealth of characters fully true to their time yet their motivations driving behaviors clearly recognizable to today’s reader. The women are the focus: Elfrun herself, naïve but determined; the enigmatic slave owner; the sexy wife of the shepherd; the smith’s daughter, who dreams of becoming an artist in metal; and the elderly grandmother who tries to make her children and grandchildren live the life that has been denied to her.

Daughter of the Wolf translates a vast amount of research into an engrossing saga of life in pre-Conquest England. The strongly-worked characters, plot, and vivid detail combine to make this an engrossing read.

Valerie Adolph

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11th century

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AN ARGUMENT OF BLOOD Matthew Willis and J.A. Ironside, Penmore, 2017, $21.50, hb, 486pp, 9781946409140 Set in the earlier years of William the Conqueror’s rule over Normandy, An Argument of Blood opens with him as a young, arrogant duke, although he makes a concerted effort to become a mature leader when an assassination attempt forces him to flee in the middle of the night. The story then follows him through the Battle of Valès-Dunes and the nearly continuous warfare of the later 1040s to mid-1050s.

Across the Channel, readers meet Ælfgyfa, youngest daughter of Godwin, Jarl of Wessex. She is highly intelligent, her father’s favorite daughter, but her mother, Gytha, can’t stand her. Ælfgyfa is deformed, possibly from a cleft palate, though there is little historical evidence to support that.

Overlooked and ignored, she learns to read people well, becoming invaluable as a pseudo-spy to her brother Harold Godwinson and his wife Edith Swanneck, and later to her other sister, Eadgyth, queen consort to Edward the Confessor. Eventually, Ælfgyfa and her younger brother Wulfnoth become political hostages to William, a common practice, in exchange for the good behavior of Godwin, who is accused of treason. The plot entwines the families nicely, as it happened in history, and establishes a solid base for the rest of the series.

The novel comes equipped with a lot of action and intrigue. Many of the characters are well developed, but I loved Ælfgyfa. She is clever, witty, and complex. When historical information is lacking, authors get to play and fill in gaps, and Willis and Ironside use the Saxon culture to make her a realistic and sympathetic though not always likeable character. I also enjoyed the portrayal of Edward the Confessor; the authors’ twist on his “pious” nature is very interesting. The depth of cultural detail, both for the Saxons and the

Normans, adds a lot of color. I am looking forward to the next book. Strongly recommended!

Kristen McQuinn

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12th century

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THE STAIRWAY GUIDE’S DAUGHTER John Burgess, River Books, 2017, $14.98/C$20.00, pb, 400pp, 9786167339870 In 12th-century Cambodia during the golden age of the Angkor civilization, the divine right of succession for temple abbots is from an abbot to his nephew (born from the abbot’s sister).

However, the current abbot has a different plan and is slowly restructuring the religious foundation in order to ensure his son inherits. Far below this brewing religious upheaval, Jorani is daughter to the stairway guide who leads pilgrims up a two-thousand-step stairway to Preah Vihear, an astonishing cliff-top temple. When she accidentally witnesses the abbot’s son burning texts, she quickly becomes embroiled in a struggle that spreads across the land and even brings into question the power held by the current king in Angkor. When Jorani is called to become servant of the head abbess, she finds herself on the opposing side of the abbot’s war of succession.

Burgess does a marvelous job with his characters, whose mindsets are anchored beautifully in the historical culture. Unfortunately, almost every event is told to our main character, Jorani, instead of experienced by her. While I enjoyed Jorani’s vividly realized voice, if your main character is not an active part of your story’s plot, a different character needs to be the focus. The story arc is epic in scope, and I wish Burgess would have expanded his narration to include other characters with a direct impact on the outcome of events. Burgess’s knowledge of Cambodian history and culture is impressive, and I wanted to feel that time period with both heart and mind. Instead, everything I needed to know was given to me in a succinct little package without any emotional weight. Nothing is unexpected because readers are given all the answers immediately.

While historically and visually interesting, the storyline just does not engage the reader.

J. Lynn Else MARKED TO DIE Sarah Hawkswood, Allison & Busby, 2017, £19.99, hb, 283pp, 9780749022402 This medieval whodunit is set in 1143 in what are now the West Midlands. Droitwich, or Wich as it was known then and as such can be found in the Domesday Book, is and was famous for its salt production. Salt was produced from the local brine pits and then taken around the area by teams of pack horses to provide the monasteries and manor houses, etc., with this much-needed commodity.

All is well until, for no apparent reason, a train of ponies is attacked and every man killed by a wellaimed arrow, including Lord Corbin FitzPayne.

Many questions are asked. Why the salt trains, why Lord FitzPayne, and who was the mysterious archer who killed silently and unseen and then apparently disappeared without a trace? Was he HNR Issue 82, November 2017 | Reviews | 19

human or a ghostly apparition? Hugh Bradcote, the undersheriff, and Serjeant Catchpoll are sent by the Sheriff of Worcester to find out.

The story unravels with many twists and turns and, in doing so, describes the way of life in the12th century. The characters are well developed, and the many dead ends keep the reader’s interest and the pages turning. I had not come across this author before but will certainly put her on my list.

If the others in the series are as good as this one, they will easily pass a dark winter’s evening curled up in front of the fire.

Marilyn Sherlock

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13th century

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CATHAR Christopher Bland, Head of Zeus/Trafalgar Square, 2017, $12.95/£7.99, pb, 340pp, 9781784976088 François de Beaufort is a knight in the Languedoc region of southern France at the end of the 13th century. When readers first meet him, he has lost an eye and an arm, and has a huge scar across his back that he’s never seen.

François, his family, and most around him are Cathars—believers in a different god, different church rulers, and different religious doctrines than the dominant Roman Catholics. The Catholic powers fear and hate all Cathars and, using mainly unemployed crusaders and other ruffians, are well on the way to the destruction of everything Cathar: its land, its animals, and its people.

Bland tells the cruel history through first-person accounts by François, as well as courageous women around him, evil Inquisitors, Catholic clergy, and local rulers. Fear is constant, brutality plays out at every turn, and treachery and betrayal come from seemingly the most devout.

Bland’s account remains true to the actual settings, battles, and historical leaders of the Catholic Church’s merciless and successful genocidal mission. The story leaves lasting impressions about the evils of man against his fellow man which are justified by religion. Through it all, the cleverness, faith and deep humanity of his characters, their spirit to survive in this world or in the next, and their capacity to suffer, but then move on, all shine in the darkest times. Cathar is a fastmoving, well-told, and honest novel, though it’s not for the faint of heart.

G. J. Berger

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14th century

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UNDER THE APPROACHING DARK Anna Belfrage, Troubador, 2017, $14.99, pb, 432pp, 9781788035095 Adam de Guirande deeply desires an end to the turbulence in his world. In the year 1327, Hugh Despenser and his lord, King Edward II, are dead.

The people, including Adam’s wife, Kit, also hunger for stability and peace. Edward III is too young to rule, and so England is ruled by his mother, Queen 20 | Reviews |

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Isabella, and her lover, Sir Roger Mortimer, a fact greatly resented by other lords, such as Lancaster.

Edward III is getting older, however, and growing to resent the policies the Regents dictate, especially that of consoling Scotland rather than destroying it.

The novel has several subplots, and Adam becomes involved in all of them as he is called upon to serve the young Prince Edward. While that should be fine, there is such distrust that tempers flare; tournament matches become brutal attacks that result in severe injuries. Meanwhile, the rumor is spreading that the old King Edward is not dead, that Adam and Kit’s son Tom is not dead, and that rebels in the country are going to take over the crown.

What the author deftly mixes into all this tension is the romantic passion between Adam and Kit, the introduction of a very young but wise Queen Philippa, and other choice scenes that blend sultry sex with humor and wisdom, reducing the tension to manageable levels. Anna Belfrage is a born storyteller, and she obviously has done exceptional research, adding to the credibility of the facts within this novel. Under the Approaching Dark is commendable, highly recommended historical fiction. You’ll want to read her other works, which are just as magnificent!

Viviane Crystal THE HABIT OF MURDER Susanna Gregory, Sphere, 2017, £19.99, hb, 432pp, 9780751562637 1360, Cambridge. Michaelhouse is facing bankruptcy when word comes that the wealthy Lady of Clare has died and a hinted-at legacy could save the College. Matthew Bartholomew and Brother Michael hurry to Clare for the funeral. On arrival, they learn that the Lady still lives but Clare is a troubled place. Dangerous conflict simmers between the castle and the townspeople over expensive renovations to the parish church. The Lady’s arrogance combined with the rowdiness of her squires has provoked near rebellion among the townsfolk. This unrest is being stirred up by the anchoress, Anne, walled up in the church as punishment for performing abortions on local women. An unusual anchorite, Anne lives in comfort dispensing advice and gossip with unholy zeal. In addition, there is a series of unexplained deaths: accidents or murder? If Matthew and Michael can solve that problem the Lady will reward them with 100 marks, saving Michaelhouse.

This is the twenty-third of the popular Matthew Bartholomew crime series. Matthew is a pleasant if unexciting hero rather overshadowed on the page by the cleverer Michael. However, the most fascinating aspect of this novel is that every person except Matthew is an historical figure, mentioned in town records, the Lady’s will or Cambridge documents. This gives the lively people of Cambridge and Clare a medieval flavour which is lacking in the rather colourless

narrative. Despite Gregory’s obvious knowledge of her period, the novel has a very modern feel, amplified by the running debate on the morality of abortion as opposed to its practicality for the Clare women. Nevertheless, the plot moves along and the murders’ solutions are cleverly set up.

Lynn Guest BLOOD OF THE INNOCENTS Michael Jecks, Simon & Schuster, 2017, £8.99, pb, 560pp, 9781471149986 This is the third book in a trilogy on the Hundred Years War, the first being about the Battle of Crecy (Fields of Glory) and the second the Battle of Calais (Blood on the Sand). In this one we are taken, after a ten-year interval including an epidemic of the plague, to Poitiers and the victory of the English over a much larger French army. During this time, many things have changed.

Berenger Fripper now commands a company of mercenaries who, with other groups, terrorise the people of France, burning the towns and causing as much disruption as possible.

Although this story, as the author himself states, is a work of pure fiction, it still aims to give a graphic picture of conditions in France as the English fought for domination of a land of which Edward III believed himself to be the rightful King. However, I did find it a little difficult to work out who was who and whose side the various protagonists were on, as I hadn’t read either of the two preceding books (although the cast of characters at the beginning did help).

This is an author who researches in detail. I have read several of his books over the years, and this one is no different. It is well told and often graphically chilling. It kept the pages turning, and I wanted to know all the answers, but to be able to enjoy it fully I am afraid that at times it needed a rather stronger stomach than mine.

Marilyn Sherlock DEEDS OF DARKNESS Mel Starr, Lion Fiction, 2017, $14.99, hb, 240pp, 9781782642459 In Deeds of Darkness, the tenth installment of the Hugh de Singleton medieval mystery series, the titular character Hugh, Oxford surgeon, is called to help investigate a murder. The victim turns out to be one of his friends, Hubert. He had been killed, while traveling between Oxford and Bampton, by a group of goliards, a band of lawless young men who had at one time been scholars but had, for one reason or another, left their studies before they finished their degrees. Hugh has to figure out ways to deal with them when they have protection that is far above him in social rank, and to bring his friend’s killer to justice. As Hugh investigates, more murders occur, and the pressure increases to uncover the identity of the men responsible for the crimes.

As with all of Starr’s previous novels, Deeds of Darkness is chock full of thoroughly researched detail and interesting tidbits of daily medieval life. The characters are well fleshed-out and believable, making readers either care a great deal about their well-being or hope they really get a good comeuppance. Hugh remains an intriguing man, complex and honest without being annoyingly pedantic, as some protagonists can be.

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Most of the secondary characters are pretty well rounded, though I felt that Kate, Hugh’s wife, was overlooked. To be fair, she doesn’t have a large role in this novel, but she seemed like an afterthought.

Overall, though, this is a fine addition not only to the Hugh de Singleton series but to the medieval mystery genre as a whole.

Kristen McQuinn

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KINGMAKER: Kingdom Come Toby Clements, Century, 2017, £20.00, hb, 441pp, 9781780894669 Kingdom Come is the fourth and final novel in Toby Clements’ Kingmaker series, set during the Wars of the Roses. It continues the story of Thomas Everingham and his wife Katherine, who, when the book opens, have settled down peacefully as small landholders in Lincolnshire, surrounded by a group of loyal friends and retainers (mostly, for reasons which remain obscure, called John).

But the political situation doesn’t allow them to stay settled for long, and as the conflict between Edward IV and the Earl of Warwick erupts again they are caught up in events. Long-buried secrets— some personal, and one with the power to unseat a King—come to the surface, requiring hard choices from both Thomas and Katherine.

Although the finale to a series, Kingdom Come works also as a novel in its own right. Its main characters are convincing and well-rounded, with enough back story given to ensure the novel stands on its own feet (while still reminding returning readers of previous events). It is well-researched, providing a vivid sense of the reality of life in 15th-century England and the vicissitudes of war, as well as the universal human emotions of grief, love and betrayal. The story is tightly plotted, and Clements builds the tension right through until the end, managing to weave together the personal and political extremely well. It is an enjoyable and engaging novel. Recommended.

Charlotte Wightwick

BY BLOOD DIVIDED James Heneage, Quercus, 2017, £19.99, hb, 479pp, 9781786480149 By the late 1440s Siward Magoris, varangopoulos of Mistra and trusted officer of Emperor Constantine XI, is used to loss. His whole family is gone, his powerful grandfather Luke has exiled himself to Venice, and young Sultan Mehmed threatens what little remains of the Eastern Roman Empire. Siward fully intends to die fighting for his doomed city, until news reaches him that his grandfather has died under suspicious circumstances, and willed him only half of the family fortune—the rest going to an unknown cousin, who also happens to be an Ottoman enemy. Danger, intrigue, love, and perhaps the key to a whole new world await Siward in Venice—but what of his loyalty to Constantinople?

In this latest instalment of his Mistra Chronicles, Heneage weaves a colourful, fast-paced tale around the events going from before the Battle of Varna to the fall of Constantinople—and plays 15th Century — 16th Century

fast and loose with facts, mostly to make the Siege very much a Magoris family matter (Giovanni Giustiniani’s age and parentage come particularly to mind). An entertaining adventure, but a little far-fetched on the historical side.

Chiara Prezzavento THE ORPHAN OF FLORENCE Jeanne Kalogridis, St. Martin’s, 2017, $15.99, pb, 324pp, 9780312675479 It is November 1478, only seven months after the Pazzi conspiracy which took the life of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s brother, Giuliano, in a brutal attempt to gain control of the Florentine government.

Giuliana, who was raised in Florence’s Hospital of the Innocents, has been turned out onto the streets by the nuns. She is with young Tommaso, and together the two have managed to survive to the best of their ability by thieving. Giuliana has disguised herself as a boy, calling herself Giuliano, and the two have worked out a system of picking pockets that usually works. But one evening they prey on the kindness of the wrong person, and both of their lives are irreversibly changed forever.

The man whose pocket they tried to pick has separated them and taken Giulia into his home, convincing her to become his apprentice instead of being sent to jail as he might have otherwise.

The apprenticeship is questionable, however, as the man’s identity is unknown to her, but the offer is so generous she cannot turn it down. Though only known to her as the Magician of Florence, Giulia accepts his offer, through him learning ritual magic, astrology, and how to make powerful talismans.

The mystery surrounding the Magician deepens with time, however, and soon Giulia is on her own again, trapped within a plot thicker than anything she might ever have imagined.

This is an engrossing read with detailed descriptions of the art and architecture of 15thcentury Florence. Kalogridis brings modern readers into a world of intrigue and possible magic without losing them in the finer details of mysticism or Florentine politics. Recommended for anyone with an interest in Florentine history, particularly surrounding the Medicis, but be willing to suspend some level of disbelief.

Elicia Parkinson FALSE RUMOURS Danae Penn, Nichol Press, 2017, £8.99, pb, 270pp, 9791097586010 In the stormy summer of 1483, the cathedral town of Condom in Gascony is an important centre for pilgrims walking the Compostela route.

Belina Lansac usually works in the cathedral shop selling souvenirs, but her half-English husband, Guillaume, is obliged to travel to Bordeaux, and he delegates his task of investigating the suspicious death of a pilgrim to his wife. The mood in the town is brooding and angry, like the weather. The townspeople are squeezed for taxes by the crooked treasurer, Rocca, and rumours are strident about a possible English invasion. Gascony was, formerly, the territory of the English crown but is now part of France.

In England, the young princes, Edward and Richard, have been declared illegitimate and Richard III has taken the throne. Belina is anxious that her husband may be involving himself in

English intrigues. She discovers that the murdered pilgrim was poisoned and had many gold and silver coins sewn into his clothes. Her efforts to unravel the mystery are complicated by the arrival in town of a handsome Fleming named Barvaux. He insists on helping Belina in her husband’s absence, making her anxious about gossip and her reputation.

The plot thickens around the poisoned pilgrim as Belina discovers a connection to the English princes, presumed to be incarcerated, and perhaps murdered, in the Tower in distant London.

The detail of this medieval world is vividly drawn and envelops the reader. Belina questions the cooks in a busy household, and the reader can smell the aromas, and see the colourful ingredients, in that kitchen. There are a few moments in this debut novel where the story is a little overloaded with its researched detail or where the exposition is unwieldy, but these are minor quibbles in this hugely enjoyable and engrossing story.

Tracey Warr THE GRYPHON AT BAY Louise Turner, Hadley Rille, 2017, $18.48, pb, 434pp, 9780997118857 1489: Hugh, the Second Lord Montgomerie, has just lost his father and is now given substantial power as a member of the Privy Council, also carrying the authority of the Scottish King James IV in Lennox and the Westland. He must now deal with his enemies, the Cunninghames, and decide whether to be loyal to his King or to the family, the Darnley Stewarts. The conflicts increase with a few trusting peers who are, however, always leery of traitors. One character, John Semple of Ellestoun, remains an ally. Many enemies plot against Montgomerie, and a tremendous amount of bloodshed follows, at one point leaving Hugh close to death after suffering a brutal beating by the common people.

Sometimes the many characters can be confusing, but eventually it all gets sorted out. The characters’ complexity is what becomes intriguing to the reader. Hugh is a very devout Christian, always praying or reading a spiritual book. Yet so many people hate him, and recount that he is guilty of the worst atrocities, that it becomes hard for a contemporary reader to merge the two sides of this notable historical character. He is also a passionate, caring lover to his wife and endearing to his family.

Scottish feuds seem to last forever, and as soon as one is supposedly settled, some fine point unravels everything, and fierce fighting quickly ensues.

However, the reader will find it fascinating to see how loyalty was judged and with what fierceness revenge was carried out. A passionate people, these lords and ladies lived in tumultuous times that Louise Turner deftly depicts in this memorable work of Scottish historical fiction.

Viviane Crystal

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FOOLS AND MORTALS Bernard Cornwell, HarperCollins, 2017, £20.00, hb, 357pp, 9780007504114 / Harper, 2018, $27.99, hb, 384pp, 9780062250872 This is a complete change of scene, time and HNR Issue 82, November 2017 | Reviews | 21

character from Sharpe and Uhtred, previous wellbeloved characters in Cornwell’s fiction. In Elizabethan London do we lay our scene, and the main protagonist is Richard, brother to the already successful playwright William Shakespeare.

The theatre business is booming and this novel takes the reader behind the scenes to understand and really feel what it was like to be a player at that time, an actor in competition with rival theatres and always concerned about who will play which part and how many lines the character has. The plays are the precious things, painstakingly copied by hand with new ones in constant demand. It is 1595 and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men are rehearsing and preparing A Midsummer Night’s Dream to perform at a wedding.

It seems strange now to think of this famous play having a premiere with the actors unaware of how well-known this play will become or how it will be received. Dramatic irony is a technique used throughout and is often very funny, particularly with Richard’s desire not to play any more female roles. The atmosphere of the times and the world of the theatre are expertly conveyed, based as usual on thorough research. The master of historical fiction demonstrates exactly why he is so successful.

Thoroughly enjoyable.

Ann Northfield THE RAVEN’S WIDOW Adrienne Dillard, MadeGlobal, 2017, $15.97, pb, 378pp, 9788494649837 Jane Parker Boleyn has had a mixed reception throughout history; she is thought to have been a scheming, wily woman. Dillard has painted a vastly different picture of Jane here.

The daughter of Baron Morley, Jane married George Boleyn, and from Dillard’s point of view, notwithstanding the paucity of historical support, she and George were very much in love. Jane went on to serve his sister, Anne, whose fate we all know.

History advises that the reason for her execution was that Henry VIII was led to suspect that Anne and George were committing incest and as a result, Anne became pregnant with George’s child, only to miscarry the baby. Jane remained in court and served Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard.

It was in service to Howard that Jane was caught in a snare and executed in 1542, when Howard’s infidelities were brought to light.

Dillard’s Jane is depicted as a victim of circumstance in a harrowing cycle of executions that mark Henry’s reign. There never seems to be a time when Jane and her family and friends are not worrying who their enemies and friends are. Jane is compassionately and meticulously drawn and given a voice that is vibrant, sometimes poignant and sometimes irrational, but always enticing to the reader. Court life and intrigues are beautifully woven into Jane’s story, and we are never permitted to lose sight of her as our protagonist. An extensive author’s note provides further background and fleshes out what is historically known from what is 22 | Reviews |

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an exercise of artistic license.

Highly recommended for those who are not worn out by Tudor historical fiction. This one brings a fresh light to the period by focusing on a fascinating woman.

Ilysa Magnus A COLUMN OF FIRE Ken Follett, Macmillan, 2017, £20.00, hb, 751pp, 9781447278733 / Viking, 2017, $36, hb, 928pp, 9780525954972 This engrossing book is the third novel in Ken Follett’s Kingsbridge series. The first two were worldwide best sellers and the third is absorbing: it will doubtless tempt new readers, like me, to read the earlier books.

In Christmas 1558, Ned Willard returns home to Kingsbridge to win his true love, Margery Fitzgerald. Ned loses Margery, as her Catholic family needs a more auspicious alliance. Mary Tudor is on the throne; friends are tortured and even executed, as Catholics and Protestants go to war, although often betrayal is for economic gain, rather than belief. “The Fitzgeralds had won. They had killed the man who cheated them; they had stolen the Willards’ fortune and they had kept their daughter from marrying Ned.” Away from Kingsbridge, Follett paints a wider, but no less cruel picture. As a young Protestant Elizabeth Tudor takes the throne, Europe unites against England. Elizabeth is set against her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, who is waiting to wrest the throne from her. The wily Queen Bess creates a secret service to protect her from plots, rebellion and even assassination. Ned joins it.

Follett shows empathy for all those used as pawns in a wider game—with the young Mary Stuart, forced to (appear to) lose her virginity to her spouse, Francis, in front of a roomful of witnesses; with those forced to conceal their faith or face death as the religious wars gather traction; and with a man and woman set apart by forces far greater than love.

This tome of a book combines romance, history and drama in equal measures, in a tale that soaks the reader in the heart-churning life of the 16th century. Through this complex novel Follett shows how tolerance is worth defending. A book for our times.

Katharine Quarmby THE WOLF TRIAL Neil MacKay, Freight/Trafalgar Square, 2016, $22.95/C$30.95/£13.99, hb, 373pp, 9781910449721 Neil MacKay’s version of 16th-century Germany resembles hell on earth. Pamphlets from the period describe the trial of one Peter Stumpf in Bideburg, executed for the murder and mayhem he committed… as an alleged werewolf. MacKay has fictionalized the historical events through the eyes of young Willie Lessinger, student of university academic and avowed rationalist Paulus Melchior. Melchior is assigned by the PrinceBishop to try the case. What they find in Bideburg is as dark and disheartening as anything I’ve read in years (and I don’t exactly shy away from lessthan-sunny fiction). The evil of the werewolf is barely distinguishable from that exhibited by the

townspeople and “authorities.”

The historical events occurred in 1589; MacKay has moved them backwards to the 1560s, presumably so he can also include flashbacks of cruel, gruesome events from the Münster Rebellion that shaped Melchior’s childhood. He has escalated Stumpf ’s confessed crimes; Stumpf ’s historical execution, an exercise in creative horror, MacKay has also embellished. Characters exhibit casual brutality, there is venality, ignorance, unspeakable torture of children— humanity on display at its absolute worst. Lessinger and Melchior are the oasis of logic, spouting polemics which reflect MacKay’s viewpoint: religion is evil, hand-in-hand with the military (no man can wear a uniform and “still be called a human being”), personified by the Landsknechts.

The history here is altogether fascinating; this is not a geographical setting and period often featured together in historical fiction. Characterization is well-realized, especially Melchior. Comparisons have been made to Umberto Eco and Iain Pears, yet this is not in their league—it’s too ungainly in its philosophical discourse and, at the same time, overwrought, as if reveling in upping the ante, perhaps to appeal to those who enjoy gore porn. I admit, I am not one of them.

Bethany Latham QUEEN OF MARTYRS Samantha Wilcoxson, CreateSpace, 2017, $13.95, pb, 396pp, 9781542639361 Uncertainty is the byword of Mary Tudor’s tumultuous life. Kept away from her father, King Henry VIII, until shortly before he died, she is always afraid that the wrong sentence will enrage him. Her sister, Elizabeth, seems friendly one minute and then cold and distant in the next moment. Mary has suffered immensely following the losses of her mother, her faith, her good friends Katherine Parr and Margaret Pole, her counselor the Spanish Ambassador and her brother King Edward VI. The Reformation has taken root throughout England, and initially Mary wants the Catholic faith restored as the central religion after she becomes Queen in 1553. Mary’s devout character begins to undergo a considerable transformation when she believes she is responsible for the souls of her subjects. One minute she is washing the feet of her enemies in a moving service on Maundy Thursday and a few weeks later she is ordering the beheading or burning of those who refuse to renounce their Protestant faith.

Readers initially will find it hard to fault Mary for her religious zeal, but by the end of this novel, both they and England’s citizens will have had enough of killing in the name of religion. Still, this is a fascinating read which shows us the true nature of Mary, whose reign was marked by extraordinary uneasiness and a lack of strength to set a standard of stability and acceptance for both friend and foe. Samantha Wilcoxson has done a fine job of revealing the motives behind Queen Mary Tudor’s rocky youth and just as stormy reign.

Viviane Crystal

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DAYS TO THE GALLOWS Katherine Spada Basto, CreateSpace, 2016, $12.99, pb, 286pp, 9781536978049 Set in Hartford, Connecticut, this book is a wellresearched retelling of the Hartford Witch Panic in 1662, a tragic event when the unsubstantiated accusations of a young girl led to the hanging of several persons as witches.

At the time, Hartford was a very Puritan place, and Ms Basto gives a lot of insight into just how constricting it was to live in a theocracy, all the way from the very long sessions at the meeting house every Sabbath to the constant vigilance against any signs of sinful behaviour. When Hester Hosmer sees her neighbour and friend Ann Cole sneaking out at night to spy on their neighbours, she decides to accompany her. Ann had a reputation of being a bit touched in the head, and Hester worries she might come to harm stumbling about in the dark on her own. As it turns out, what the girls witness will give result in Ann accusing others of witchery, thereby making her something of a celebrity in the little town. When Hester is appalled at Ann’s behaviour, her former friend turns on her too.

I imagine anyone with an interest in the early colonial period in New England will find this book an interesting read. Other than a few ugly tense shifts right at the beginning, the writing is fluid. I would have wanted more character development— especially when it comes to Ann’s motivations. As it is, Days to the Gallows reads more like a drama documentary than a novel.

Anna Belfrage THE WILLOW KING Meelis Friedenthal (trans. Matthew Hyde), Pushkin Press, 2017, $17.95/£12.99, pb, 256pp, 9781782271741 The country of Estonia during the late 17th century is a place where science and the supernatural uneasily coexist. Laurentius Hylas, a young university student who studied at Leiden University in Holland, arrives in Revel, Estonia to study the latest research on bloodletting, observe local superstitions, and discuss with a well-known professor the position of the soul in the human body. Soon after Hylas’s arrival, his caged parakeet is taken from him and killed by a lunatic. He soon discovers an acrid stench, which it seems only he can smell, and which influences his ability to eat.

Hylas also suffers from melancholy, which his parakeet tended to sooth. He meets an unusual young woman named Clodia (also the name of his dead parakeet) outside his rooms, a woman no one else seems to see or know. When Hylas journeys into the woods to cut bark for medicinal purposes from a willow tree, he is observed by the locals, who begin to suspect him of witchcraft. Hylas eventually uses the willow bark to help save the life of a local peasant girl.

I found this novel to be an unusual story, combining medieval superstition and supernatural sightings with in-depth discussions about the existence of a soul. The belief in the Willow King 17th Century — 18th Century

by the villagers adds to the confusion and conflict between science and the superstitions long held by the local populace. Translated into English

by Matthew Hyde, this book won the EU Prize for Literature in 2013. This is a well-written tale containing elements of history, philosophy, and science fiction. I became sympathetic to the main character, a man suffering from melancholia while trying to scientifically understand what was happening to him.

Jeff Westerhoff THE QUEEN’S PROPHET Dawn Patitucci, Turner, 2017, $17.99, pb, 384pp, 9781683366829 Gazing out from Velasquez’s Las Meninas, the enigmatic Maribarbola challenges the viewer with her thoughtful expression and genial dignity. She was one of numerous dwarves at the mid-17th century Spanish court. Brought there as curiosities, to entertain and to prophesy, they were treated as property but exempted from protocol.

This debut novel takes on the challenge of that gaze and imagines Mari’s backstory as the longtime companion of a learned German countess who trained her in science and observation. When her patroness dies, Mari gets a taste of independence working as a travelling seer at local markets, only to be sold to Queen Mariana of Spain as a good luck charm in the queen’s quest for a male child.

Life at the Spanish court is overwhelming for Mari, full of dancing dwarves, high protocol, and feuding factions. For all her supposed knowledge, she is not very good at judging people or accessing situations. Resolving again and again to serve only the queen, she goes around in circles making lucky pronouncements but bad choices. When a plot against the king emerges, she has the chance to redeem herself and to right a few wrongs.

Readers with a deeper knowledge of the Spanish court will be disappointed with the snapshot given here of bedding rituals, an embattled royal marriage, and the looming Inquisition. But the bigger problem is that no one is truly likeable: not the queen who bought Mari but has not earned her friendship; not the king burdened with sorrow who nonetheless has flagrant affairs and participates in mean tricks against his wife; not the only dwarf in the position to be her friend, Nicolasito, who Mari can’t bring herself to trust and with whom the historical Maribarbola shares the stage in Velasquez’s masterpiece.

Martha Hoffman THE GREEN PHOENIX Alice Poon, Earnshaw, 2017, $24.99/C$39.99, hb, 372pp, 9789888422739 / also $18.99/C$24.99, pb, 372pp, 9789888422562 Bumbutai, the Mongolian princess groomed to be the wife of an Emperor, loves a soldier, Dorgon, and will love him her entire life. However, the path of fate calls her to become a concubine of the Chinese emperor’s brother, Hong Taiji. Hong is an unusual man, willing to curry favor with Bumbutai by allowing her to study Chinese and Mongol literature, calligraphy, history and culture.

He will not sleep with her until she wants him.

After circumstances change and time passes, she becomes Empress of the early Qing Dynasty.

Bumbutai possesses a canny sense of who

is trustworthy and has the best skills to play a significant role in China’s development in the 1600s. She remains steadfast when Hong Taiji, Dorgon, and other leaders, including her own son, become obsessed with drink, food, other women, and crooked supporters. Numerous family members and friends come to untimely ends, but the Empress and then Empress Dowager knows precisely when to advise her family and councilors through all the trials and tribulations of a multitude of Chinese characters fomenting rebellion, betrayal, wars and weakness.

The loveliness of this novel, however, lies in the characters’ appreciation for beauty in nature, paintings, calligraphy, historical tales and legends, nature and spontaneously shared poetry that never fails to engage the reader. The history is wellresearched and accurate, including the advice the Empress and her son receive from the German Jesuit and astrologer, Johann Adam Schall von Bell.

The wisdom of Confucian and Chinese teachings ultimately leads the Empress to enable her country to evolve into modernity. The Green Phoenix is delightful historical fiction and a wonderful tribute to a noteworthy Chinese empress!

Viviane Crystal WIDDERSHINS Helen Steadman, Impress, 2017, £8.99, pb, 242pp, 9781911293040 Inspired by the Newcastle witch trials of 1650, this is the parallel story of two people on a collision course towards disaster. One is Scottish witchfinder, John Sharpe. The other is English Jane Chandler, healer and midwife. We follow their lives from youth to maturity, in John’s case from birth, when he was ironically ‘saved’ from certain death by a midwife who he later is certain is a witch. Brought up first by a cruel father and then a bigoted priest, it is inevitable that he learns the witch-finder craft, which is nothing more than misogynistic trickery.

This was a difficult novel to read at times because of its cruelty, but compelling none the less. Impeccably written, full of herbal lore and the clash of ignorance and prejudice against common sense, as well as the abounding beauty of nature, it made for a great read. There are plenty of books, both fact and fiction, available about the witchtrial era, but not only did I not know about such trials in Newcastle, I have not read a novel that so painstakingly and vividly evokes both the fear and joy of living at that time. I have one criticism. I like uplifting endings, but here I felt it too much a case of deus ex machina. That aside, I thoroughly recommend Widdershins and look forward to reading more by Helen Steadman.

Sally Zigmond

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QUAKER’S WAR Jason Born, CreateSpace, 2017, $16.99, pb, 284pp, 9781974031160.

Quaker’s War is the first thrilling novel of Jason Born’s The Long Fuse series. It’s the story of the beginning conflicts in 1752 leading to the French and Indian Wars. Ephraim Weber is a Quaker who winds up working for a trader. But HNR Issue 82, November 2017 | Reviews | 23

the biggest influences on his life are the Iroquois “Half King” and the young George Washington.

The latter’s job is to deliver the British king’s demand that the French leave the Ohio River Valley. The riveting plot is rife with gruesome deaths, torture, and murders, interspersed with peace rituals and conversations. Both Weber and George Washington are mourning great losses that sometimes block clear thinking and decisions.

Except for some extraordinarily gruesome scenes of Indian massacres and some stereotypical battles, this is a rousing adventure story about the real history that almost tore apart the Northern territories in colonial America. Loyalty and abandonment cycles rapidly progress based on the desire for possession and wealth. Ephraim and George grow in wisdom, knowledge and humor by the time the initial battles have receded into a temporary lull. Gradually we learn that only young Major Washington foresees a bright, prosperous and united country. Fine historical fiction, and recommended reading.

Viviane Crystal

1796, and Lieutenant John Pearce is headed to England on board a hospital ship, his future uncertain. But first there is a small matter of avoiding capture by an Algerine warship, and a Royal Navy ship looking to illegally press able bodied seamen into its own crew. Then there is a problem with his complicated love life, murder, forged wills and a dangerous spy mission.

This is the 14th book in the very popular John Pearce series by prolific writer David Donachie.

With a tight plot, strong characters and action on both land and sea, this novel races along with the speed of a frigate under full sail. Pearce is opinionated, selfish, outspoken, brave, skilful and totally believable. The author effectively evokes the attitudes and culture of the time, both at sea and on land. Although the latest in the series, this can be read as a standalone, as there is plenty of back story to bring the reader up to speed. If you are looking for a story of swashbuckling derring-do, skulduggery and naval action, this is for you. Pour yourself a tot of rum—and enjoy. Recommended.

Mike Ashworth

THE INDIGO GIRL Natasha Boyd, Blackstone, 2017, $26.99, hb, 345pp, 9781455137114 With her younger brothers away at school in England, and her father’s departure, 16-year-old Eliza Lucas is left to manage three plantations in South Carolina’s Low Country in 1738. Her father, leaving to further his naval career in the West Indies, has prepared her for this responsibility.

However, the smart, feisty, and determined Eliza has a heavy burden to make the plantations produce, as her father’s career has unduly strained their finances.

Learning how much Europe is willing to pay for indigo dye, she believes that crop can save their dwindling wealth, and decides to attempt its cultivation at Wappoo, their main plantation.

Obstacles are at every turn: her foolish and unsupportive mother, who wants to marry her off to the first wealthy suitor who will offer for her; uncooperative workers; local laws against educating slaves; and overseers who disdain taking orders from a woman. She receives encouragement from an elderly local botanist and also from family friend Charles Pinckney, but after one failed crop, Eliza requests that her father send an expert to help. It arrives in the person of an old friend, the enslaved Ben, which causes further confusion and disruption in her life.

Boyd excels in her descriptions of coastal South Carolina and its climate, in the intricacies of 18th-century colonial society, and in her strong characters. Her information regarding indigo production adds interest to the narrative. Eliza is an engaging heroine, both compelling and realistic, who discovers her strengths and capabilities amid a series of setbacks and frustrations. This is a solidly researched and well-crafted story based on the life of a woman, Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722-1793), largely forgotten today, but who left an important legacy.

Michael I. Shoop

THE FOUR HORSEMEN Gregory Dowling, Polygon, 2017, £8.99, pb, 307pp, 9781846973840 / Thomas Dunne, 2017, $27.99, hb, 320pp, 9781250108548 The Four Horsemen is the second in a series of books following the adventures of Alvise Marango, an 18th-century Venetian tourist guide and spy, although it stands well as a novel on its own.

Alvise works by day as a tourist guide for wealthy young English noblemen on the Grand Tour.

But he is also a reluctant spy for the notoriously secretive and powerful Venetian state. When he is caught up in a tavern brawl, the leader of the secret service is unimpressed and forces him to take on an undercover investigation into the death of another agent. This leads him to a mysterious group, the Four Horsemen, and a spate of attacks against the Turkish inhabitants of the city.

Dowling depicts Venice beautifully, capturing both the beauty and the squalor of the city, the surrounding lagoon and islands. Alvise is an engaging protagonist: charming, self-deprecating and accident-prone. The secondary characters are also well-drawn on the whole, although both Alvise’s sinister boss Missier Grande and the mysterious Greek bandit Komnenos have a touch of the pantomime villain about them, complete with swirling cloaks. Overall however, The Four Horsemen is a pacey, enjoyable thriller with an excellent sense of location, entertaining characters and a satisfying twist. Great fun to read.

Charlotte Wightwick

ON A PARTICULAR SERVICE David Donachie, Allison & Busby, 2017, £19.99, hb, 320pp, 9780749021559 24 | Reviews |

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SEVEN STONES TO STAND OR FALL Diana Gabaldon, Delacorte, 2017, $30.00/ C$36.95, hb, 528pp, 9780399593420 / Century, 2017, £20, hb, 544pp, 9781780894157 Gabaldon fans awaiting the ninth installment of the main Outlander series will be delighted with this hearty snack of seven novellas, which fill in narrative gaps and explore the lives of some of the series’ secondary characters. Five of the pieces were previously published. “The Custom of the Army” and “A Plague of Zombies” feature Lord John Grey, first in the Battle of Quebec, then fighting off the undead in Jamaica. Both tales are awash in

adventure, swordfights, and literal skullduggery, and they deepen readers’ understanding of Grey’s analytical and tactical skills. In “The Space Between,” the recently widowed Michael Murray (brother of young Ian) is escorting Jamie Fraser’s stepdaughter, Joan MacKimmie, across the English Channel to Paris, where she is to join a convent.

Their paths cross with the Comte St. Germain, who will do anything, to anyone, to locate his rival, Master Raymond. This tale alternates between the contemplative and shocking, with a convincing intersection of storylines. “A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows,” reveals the gripping backstory of Roger Mackenzie’s parents, and beloved Jamie Fraser and his best friend Ian Murray are in fine form as young mercenaries in France in “Virgins.”

The two new novellas are equally compelling reading. In “A Fugitive Green,” Harold “Hal” Grey, Duke of Pardloe, is undergoing political and personal trials; a young Minerva Wattiswade treads dangerous ground in trying to root out his secrets for her information-selling father. We return to Hal’s younger brother, John, in the final story, “Besieged,” in which Lord Grey finds himself rescuing his mother in Havana while Spain and England battle over Cuba. Gabaldon is in fine form throughout, weaving together characters’ lives, connecting plot points, and showing tantalizing glimpses of the larger Outlander world, of which this reader can never get enough.

Helene Williams

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CROSSING POINT James Glickman, Rare Bird, 2017, $17.95, pb, 480pp, 9781945572425 The American Revolution has begun, and is threatening to spill out of Boston in April 1775 when Guy Watson, slave to Rhode Island’s Hazzard family, is hired out by his master as a carpenter. Hiring out Guy’s services has often happened before, but this time is different.

Guy is not on his way to a Newport family, but to Charlestown, Massachusetts. There, he helps create fortifications across the river from Boston at Breed’s and Bunker Hill.

Something else strikes Guy as ominous. Master Hazzard is a British sympathizer, and tells Guy to keep his ears open, especially about American troops, and tell what he learns to a messenger that he will send. Hazzard makes clear that Guy’s future depends on his reports, along with the future of the woman Guy loves.

Thus begins Crossing Point, James Glickman’s elegant historical novel centered on lesser-known events of the early Revolution, back when the name Benedict Arnold meant “hero,” not “traitor.”

Guy becomes a shocked eyewitness to the brutal slaughter of British soldiers at Breed’s Hill, and participates in the grueling overland trek from Maine’s coast to Quebec City. Once more he sees disaster during the futile siege of that armored citadel by exhausted, starving American troops.

Glickman does a terrific job of fleshing out 18th Century

historical events with thoroughly believable characters from all strata of society from slave to General Washington. He follows the historical record closely, and paints events in glowing detail that seizes the imagination of even the most jaded reader. I couldn’t recommend Crossing Point more highly.

Jo Ann Butler THE BLOODY BLACK FLAG Steve Goble, Seventh Street, 2017, $15.95, pb, 240pp. 9781633883598 Spider John Rush was a married carpenter, but forced by circumstance into piracy. Now he and his friend Ezra must once again join a pirate crew to avoid danger ashore. Their new ship is captained by William Barlow, a harsh but seemingly competent skipper. When Ezra is killed under mysterious circumstances, Spider turns sleuth, an unpopular role on a pirate ship. To make matters worse, Barlow grows tyrannical and eventually murderous. After a second mystery is thrown into the mix, Spider’s life expectancy plummets.

Set in the 1720s, this novel is enjoyable as both historical adventure and whodunit, but it has shortcomings in each area. The nautical and military action and terminology sometimes lack precision and authenticity. Both mysteries are intriguing, but clues are lacking so that Spider seems to ask himself the same unanswerable questions over and over. Finally, Spider’s character presents some contradictions that are hard to reconcile.

He’s portrayed as a sympathetic character, but he kills many men on this voyage and, according to backstory, he must have been a party to the killing of many more earlier, some of them presumably innocent victims of pirate attacks. Despite these negatives, however, the book held my interest to the end.

Loyd Uglow THE CAPTAIN’S GIRL Nicola Pryce, Corvus, 2017, £7.99, pb, 449pp, 9781782398851 Set in Cornwall in 1793, the early scenes in this book reminded me of Daphne du Maurier’s Frenchman’s Creek. However, the story veers off the plot of that novel thereafter, being full of lies and betrayals, autocratic and vicious men, and many adventures for the heroine.

Celia Cavendish runs away from home when she discovers the man she is promised to in marriage is a whip-wielding brute. She seeks refuge with some neighbours and through them meets Captain Arnaud Lefevre. This leads her into danger and adventures, which take her into the back streets of Cornish towns, meeting the good and the bad, the poor and the well-to-do, while trying to discover who to trust, as well as resolve the rather complicated plot. In doing so, she does, of course, also discover love.

This is a sequel to Pryce’s previous book Pengelly’s Daughter, so it may be in that we learn of the fate of Arbella, Celia’s cousin, who has eloped two months prior to the opening of this novel, but it would have been nice to have been told what happened to her in this novel for those of us who haven’t read the earlier book.

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unaided with a young boy in her arms?), but the story is full of action which keeps you reading, while learning a lot about the politics of the day! jay Dixon I, ELIZA HAMILTON Susan Holloway Scott, Kensington, 2017, $15.00/ C$16.95, pb, 439pp, 9781496712523 In 1777, Elizabeth Schuyler met the one man who’d change her life, and the fledgling nation as well. At the home of her parents—The Pastures— Eliza charms and beguiles a young Colonel Alexander Hamilton. From the moment they meet, they both know that they are destined to be with one another. Despite the demands of the Revolution swirling around them, they are able to marry, and Eliza becomes Hamilton’s confidant, his sounding board and his eternal partner.

Together, they forge a love and a family all the while Hamilton is intertwined in the birth of the new nation. Eliza is a woman of her times—she is devoted and dutiful, but she becomes Hamilton’s equal in helping him shape his ideas and plans for America. She’s beside her husband despite his capricious desires and near-fanatical need to make and protect his name and reputation, and there until his fateful day on the bluffs in New Jersey.

Susan Holloway Scott sheds a different perspective on the life of Alexander Hamilton in allowing us to see one of the Founding Fathers through the eyes of his devoted wife. Eliza comes through in a strong, clear voice, but at times can become wordy, slowing down the pace. There is a bit more “telling” than “showing” throughout, but since Hamilton’s story is told from Eliza’s perspective, that’s understandable since there were many times that they were apart. If you are versed on Hamilton’s life, there isn’t much new here, but Scott’s research is thorough, and she creates a wonderful story that breathes life into Alexander and Eliza’s deep love and romance, and how Eliza was the woman beside her husband. A must-read for Hamilton fans.

Bryan Dumas THE TIGER’S PREY Wilber Smith and Tom Harper, William Morrow, 2017, $29.00, hb, 426pp, 9780062276506 / HarperCollins, 2017, £20, hb, 432pp, 9780007535910 “Aurangzeb died two years ago... the Mughal Empire is tearing itself apart,” Ana, a Goanese merchant, informs Tom Courtney, an English trader in Cape Town. Due to the lack of control, Ana suggests increasing trade in India. Tom and his wife, Susan, agree to Ana’s proposal to interfere with the East India Company’s (EIC) trade. They stock a ship with valuables. Then Tom’s nephew, Francis, arrives from England seeking Tom’s head, but instead joins Tom’s crew. Meanwhile, Tom’s estranged brother, Guy—the EIC Governor of Bombay—has a disagreement with his son, Christopher, who absconds. Christopher arrives at the Rani of Chittattinkara’s palace and agrees to train her troops.

Encountering severe storms, Tom’s ship is wrecked on the Chittattinkara coast. He and his crew seek refuge in a nearby EIC fort. Tom and the EIC garrison—led by his brother-in-law—visit the Rani’s palace but are ambushed. Tom struggles

back to the fort. The Rani lays a siege, and Tom must not only escape but find Susan, who has vanished, and resolve other family predicaments.

In this 16th offering in the Courtney series, set in the 18th century, Wilbur Smith takes Tom Courtney to settle scores with the EIC, which is headed by his relatives. This interesting tale features the sins of the fathers disrupting the younger generation’s lives. The plot pits brother against brother and cousin against cousin, with fascinating results. The storyline takes readers on an exciting adventure from the Cape of Good Hope through the turbulent Indian Ocean to South India’s lush tropical coast. While the vivid land and sea battle scenes play out as if on screen, the many technical details and jargon keep us attentive: for example, how to use the “club haul” technique to turn a ship around in a storm, or a unique fighting device, the “urumi,” which can subdue even the fiercest assailant.

Waheed Rabbani THE BERMUDA PRIVATEER William Westbrook, McBooks, 2017, $22.95/ C$29.95, hb, 328pp, 97881590137444 In 1796, Captain Nicholas Fallon sails the Caribbean aboard the schooner Sea Dog as he protects the salt business against pirate raiders.

The Somers Salt Company is owned by Ezra Somers, who lives in Bermuda. Captain Fallon also happens to be in love with Somers’ daughter, Elinore. Somers’ ships carry salt from the mines on the Turks islands to destinations in North America. The pirates are led by the ruthless Jak Clayton. Somers assigns Captain Fallon, assisted

by Captain Bishop of the Royal Navy, to lay a trap and capture the pirate. Bishop disagrees with Fallon as to the plan, but proves a coward during the ensuing sea battle between the pirates and Fallon’s ships. Because of Bishop’s cowardice, Fallon becomes a prisoner of the pirates.

This is the first book in a new series. I enjoy exciting, edge-of-your-seat, sea stories, and this book did not disappoint. It’s a well-crafted sea adventure with an interesting cast of characters and a fast-paced plot. The story moves along from one thrilling escapade to another. The Caribbean culture of the 18th century is well researched. The author is also knowledgeable about the terminology used during the Age of Sail. I look forward to the author’s next book in the series.

Jeff Westerhoff WHISPERS OF DEATH Patricia Wynn, Pemberley, 2017, $29.95, hb, 354pp, 9781935421085 In October 1716, Hester Kean and her cousin Mary are touring St. Paul’s Cathedral when Hester overhears a dangerous threat, “I shall kill him with my bare hands.” The architectural design of the cathedral’s dome causes words said on one side of the room to travel to the other, even when whispered, so Hester isn’t sure who in their touring party uttered the phrase. Not long after, Mary’s unsavory suitor, Lord Wragby, is found murdered.

Blame falls on James Henry, the receiver-general of Mary’s brother-in-law, who quarreled with Wragby in defense of Mary’s honour. Hester is determined to clear James’s name. When her fiancé, a man falsely accused of murder and in exile, surprises HNR Issue 82, November 2017 | Reviews | 25

Hester over Christmas, they decide to exonerate James together. At the same time, the couple explores the depth of love they share.

Not having read the previous books, I felt at a disadvantage. The number of names dropped in the initial chapters made me feel quite lost, particularly when also trying to catch up on previous events.

There’s a large focus on political schemes and tensions, but the characters don’t have emotional reactions to them. Due to the scant amount of character opinions or internal musings, I didn’t get a sense of their personalities. Political elements do tie into the murder mystery, but the sheer amount included saturates the narrative and slows its pace.

In terms of prose, Wynn oftentimes uses doublenegative phrases in her sentences, which comes across as unpolished. For example, “…therefore, could not be trusted not to betray him.”

Wynn has great knowledge of this period, and I delighted in the details of everyday life. In terms of historical accuracy, this novel gets an A plus. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough character substance, and I wasn’t drawn into the story.

J. Lynn Else

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THE LIVING INFINITE Chantel Acevedo, Europa, 2017, $17.00/ C$22.00/£12.99, pb, 320pp, 9781609454302 Chantel Acevedo takes the true life of the Spanish Infanta Eulalia, born to Queen Isabella in 1864, and weaves in the fictional characters of Amalia and Tomás.

Amalia is hired as the nodriza (wet nurse), and she and her infant, Tomás, move into the palace. When Amalia’s job is done, they return to their conventional lives, but a strong connection remains. Eulalia grows up within the strict rules and confines demanded of her as a royal. Tomás grows up with a love of books and is fortunate to be gifted a bookstore. When Eulalia writes about her life and political opinions, she asks Tomás to take the manuscript to a publisher friend.

It is soundly refused: “women cannot demand perforce their share in the freedoms afforded to men.” What she wrote was scandalous to the royal family and treasonous to Spain. Tomás has suffered a terrible loss, and he wants to escape the confines of his life. America seems to be the answer for both.

This book is about the struggle against the finiteness of life. The writings of Jules Verne are influential in Tomás’s life. Verne compared the sea to life: “The sea is everything… it is the Living Infinite.” Tomás felt the limits society placed on him as a member of the lower class. Eulalia certainly felt it as a royal in the public eye and more importantly as a woman.

This is a wonderful novel addressing our limits and possibilities and how far we should go in the quest to go beyond the confines of the life we are 26 | Reviews |

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given. In the end, infinite possibilities may only lie in remembrances and in one’s children. Acevedo has penned a thought-provoking and flawlessly written book with strong characters and an engaging plot.

It’s truly a marvelous read that I didn’t want to end.

Janice Ottersberg

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CHRISTMAS AT CARNTON Tamera Alexander, Thomas Nelson, 2017, $12.99, pb, 240pp, 9781492628644 As Christmas 1863 approaches, recentlywidowed Aletta Prescott loses her job and home. With one child and another on the way, possible employment for an upcoming auction seems heaven sent, but the position has been filled. Although the carpenter’s job remains vacant, Carnton’s mistress is reluctant to hire a woman with such skills.

Jake Winston’s wound has healed, but not his eyesight—a requirement for a Confederate sharpshooter. Rather than return to active duty, he’s sent to Carnton to assist “a bunch of petticoats.”

He feels it would be better to just give money to Confederate troops, rather than waste time baking, sewing, and auctioning off the items. Aletta wonders why a man with no visible wounds isn’t fighting. Hiding his affliction, he’s amused when pride initially keeps her from asking for his help.

After the walls between them crumble, unexpected news leaves one feeling guilty and the other yearning for the impossible.

Set in Tennessee, this novella introduces a new series at a historic plantation. Alexander intertwines love, war’s cruelties, disabilities, and perseverance in a way that captivates readers.

Her well-developed characters and attention to historical detail sweep readers back to the American Civil War. Often novels of this period concern the battles and soldiers who fought them. While this narrative touches on these, Alexander focuses on those left behind and the adversities they endured.

Christmas at Carnton is a tale of emotional highs and lows that allow readers to experience the joy, sorrow, and hopes of women in a southern town surrounded by war, as well as witnessing the daily struggles of men who must come to grip with lifealtering wounds.

Cindy Vallar

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SOMEONE TO WED Mary Balogh, Berkley, 2017, $7.99/C$10.99, pb, 384pp, 9780399586064 “I am twenty-nine years old… and I would like someone to wed.”

A blunt offer of marriage was not what Alexander Westcott, Earl of Riverdale, expected when he accepted an invitation to visit a distant neighbor. But though Miss Wren Heyden believes her disfiguring facial birthmark would deter suitors, she is wealthy and she has decided to purchase a husband. Alex is offended, but the neglected estate he recently inherited needs substantial investment, he takes his obligations

seriously, and a rich wife is his best hope. And so the dance begins, though not promisingly, for Wren has lived as a recluse, avoiding social interaction because of her appearance. Despite her initiative, the prospect of change is terrifying, particularly after the psychological damage wrought in the first ten years of her life.

This is a version of the ugly duckling story, and since it is a Regency, a happy ending awaits.

The healing journey is not an easy one, but Balogh weaves the tale with wonderful skill: impressive structure, delicious irony, a fascinating array of likeable (and some not so likeable) characters, and sympathetic protagonists—her courage, his compassion, mutual self-honesty. Regency romance at its best. Highly recommended.

Ray Thompson JACK THE RIPPER: Case Closed Gyles Brandreth, Corsair, 2017, £18.99, hb, 368pp, 9781472152329 This is the seventh in Brandreth’s popular series featuring Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde. Having met in 1889, these rather different personalities became firm friends and got involved in solving a number of criminal cases. For the creator of Sherlock Holmes, this was perhaps no surprise, but for the more mercurial talents of Oscar Wilde, this particular ability was rather more astonishing, though he has used his razorsharp intellect and wit to investigate and solve their various cases.

It is New Year 1894, and Chief Constable McNaghten of Scotland Yard requests the assistance of Wilde and Conan Doyle in reexamining the unsolved Whitechapel murders of so-called Jack the Ripper. There is a shocking violent murder of an elderly woman near Wilde’s London home in Tite Street, Chelsea, and Wilde and Conan Doyle investigate the case, speaking to the major suspects. There is an ingenious solution in unmasking the identity of the notorious Ripper which is done in traditional style, with Wilde unfolding the truth at supper to a table of the main suspects and characters involved in the case. Wilde acts almost like the Holmes to Conan Doyle’s rather more pedestrian Watson, and produces a stream of epigrams and witticisms, many of which are already familiar. It is an easy and interesting read with enough clues distributed to allow the reader to have a bash at the solution.

Douglas Kemp THE ENCHANTRESS OF NUMBERS Jennifer Chiaverini, Dutton, 2017, $27.00, hb, 448pp, 9781101985205 The only legitimate daughter of George Gordon, Lord Byron, is the focus of Chiaverini’s newest novel. Born in 1815 of a disastrous marriage between the great poet and Anne Isabella (Annabella) Milbanke, Augusta Ada Byron never knew her father. Her mother removed her as a newborn because of her belief that Byron was mad 18th Century — 19th Century

and likely involved in an incestuous relationship with his sister, Augusta.

Lady Byron was an extraordinarily brilliant, intellectual woman, and from the time that Ada was an infant, her sole goal was to prevent Ada from having any relationship with fantasy or fun.

Angry and bitter, Annabella believed that Ada was going to fall victim to her “Byron blood,” so she did everything humanly possible to weed out imagination from Ada’s life and education.

Annabella surrounded Ada with tutors, governesses and overseers who simply did not tolerate anything but adherence to learning—primarily language and math, a subject in which Ada excelled from a very early age. I personally came to detest her.

But Ada is also a member of the aristocracy, and expected to make an appearance in society. When she does, she meets Charles Babbage, scientist and inventor of the Difference Engine and then the Analytical Engine. Ignoring skeptics and being a brilliant mathematician, Ada attempts to work with Babbage to bring his Analytical Engine to fruition. Alas, politics and personalities get in the way, and Babbage’s dream (and Ada’s) is never realized.

The subject of Chiaverini’s book is a marvel, and I was desperate to know who she was and why. But I could never get close to her and found Ada’s voice to be monotonous, didactic and annoying. Others in Ada’s life—Charles Dickens, Charles Babbage, the great scientific mind, and Mary Somerville (who was a mentor to Ada)—felt more real to me than did Ada. Ilysa Magnus THE TRUE SOLDIER Paul Fraser Collard, Headline, 2017, £19.99, hb, 485pp, 9781472239044 April 1861. Jack Lark—soldier, leader, imposter—has arrived in Boston as civil war erupts across America. In the aftermath of a battle in northern Italy, Jack had made a rash promise to deliver letters from a dying man to his parents in Boston. Jack finds himself a Sergeant in the Union Army, preparing for the approaching conflict. The people of Boston are confident that the war will be ended in one decisive battle, but with his years of experience of war, Jack knows better. Fighting his instincts, Lark is forced to look at himself, and what he is fighting for.

Leading up to and including the Battle of Bull Run, the story evokes the time, attitudes and culture of a nation unknowingly about to tear itself apart. With a tight plot, strong characters, and descriptions of battle which bring alive the brutal reality of warfare, without being gratuitous, this is an action-packed adventure guaranteed to get the pulse racing. The latest in a series this can be read and enjoyed as a stand-alone, as there is sufficient back story to fill out Lark’s background. I look forward to the next instalment. Recommended.

Mike Ashworth COMANCHE CAPTIVE D. Lászlo Conhaim, Five Star, 2017, $25.95, hb, 221pp, 97881432837396 This story takes place during the U.S. Army’s Red River campaign in 1874 and the removal of Comanche, Kiowa, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indian tribes from the Southern Plains to reservations.

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Scott Renald, the Indian agent commissioned to search out and rescue white captives, met Laura Little in the Tonkawas’ possession while he was on a mission to find two young boys. Laura had been recently rescued from the Comanche, returned to her family in Fort Worth, and subsequently placed in an asylum for a suicide attempt. She escaped the institution to return to the son she had with Talking Moon, chief of the Quahada Comanche tribe, but ended up captive in Tonkawa hands.

Renald negotiated her release, but she convinced him to help her return to her Comanche tribe. The U.S. Army finds out about Renald going rogue and sends a scouting team to bring him back. This adds another level of conflict to the plot with opposition from the Army and Tonkawas, plus traveling into dangerous Comanche territory. Along the way, he makes a discovery that turns this mission deeply personal.

Their travel back to the Comanche tribe is full of obstacles and hostilities, making this a good adventure story, and the reveal halfway through increased my engagement with the book. Unfortunately, the writing style doesn’t flow smoothly and is hard to follow at times. The author’s use of words is awkward: for example, the word “ambuscaded” is used in place of “ambushed.”

The novel has an appealing plot, and I enjoyed it for this reason, but the writing took away from an otherwise good read. Overall, I would recommend it. It is an interesting look into this part of history.

Janice Ottersberg SMOKE AND MIRRORS Casey Daniels, Severn House, 2017, $29.99/£20.99, hb, 204pp, 9780727887252 Phineas T. Barnum employs his sister Evangeline to help him run his New York City museum of human oddities in 1842. When a friend from Connecticut seeks her help and is later found slain, the bumbling constable concludes the Lizard Man from Borneo, who had threatened the visitor in the morning, must be guilty. Since Evie has befriended Bess the Bearded Lady and Jeffrey the Lizard Man, she knows he would do no such thing, and resolves to find the guilty party.

Along the way she has to fight off the amorous advances of both a traveling salesman and her Fifth Avenue neighbor, venture into the less desirable areas of the city while following leads, and survive four attempts on her life as she nears the truth.

She also encounters several ambitious females who may be using the “smoke and mirrors” of the title to cover up an international criminal ring.

Evie is portrayed as the voice of reason, a woman doing a man’s work, and sympathetic enough to earn the trust of the oddities the crowds gawk at.

Both the history and the mystery engage the reader, and Evie is a plucky heroine who deserves this new series.

Tom Vallar THE CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER Jennifer Delamere, Bethany House, 2017, $14.99, pb, 352pp, 9780764219207 In 1873, 17-year-old Rosalyn and her younger sisters, bossy Julia and delicate Cara, are standing atop a cliff on England’s rocky Dartmoor coast, as if awaiting their lost father. After their mother’s death, they had been placed in the well-known

George Müller orphanage. Rosalyn leaves shortly thereafter to become a lady’s maid.

Six years later, Rosalyn is falsely accused of theft by her employer and flees. At London’s railway station, she falls for a scam, and despite being warned by Nate, a soldier on medical leave from India, she ends up in a brothel. Destitute, Rosalyn runs away, and while in a theater alleyway, she’s spotted from the window by Gilbert and Sullivan.

Rosalyn is offered a backstage job and coincidentally meets Nate, who is there subbing for his injured brother. Rosalyn desires to become an actress and is assisted by her new friend, Tony. Although Nate plans to return to India, he’s drawn to Rosalyn and greatly helps her. She hopes he might change his mind about rejoining his regiment.

Jennifer Delamere has combined her interests in Victorian life, theater, and orphanages into an engaging historical romance. While the streets and neighborhoods of 1880s London, their people, and their lifestyles are brought vividly to life, it is the staging of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas that captures our imagination. The workings of the theater are blended well into the plot. The novel throws a sympathetic light on the theater industry which, although enjoyed by many, was considered immoral. The characters quote from the Bible at times, which mostly serves to demonstrate their Christian values rather than preaching. While the book’s cover and the title indicate that Rosalyn’s father is a seafaring man, and he’s also mentioned at the beginning by his daughters, the captain is not a character, but he may appear in the sequel.

Waheed Rabbani THE VINEYARD (US) / A VINEYARD IN ANDALUSIA (UK) María Dueñas (trans. Nick Caistor and Lorenza García), Atria, 2017, $26, hb, 544pp, 9781501124532 / Scribe UK, 2017, £8.99, pb, 544pp, 9781911344469 Mauro Larrea has become a self-made man in 1860s Mexico City by means of courage and brawny determination. Over decades, this native Spaniard has risen from silver miner to wealthy entrepreneur, owning a lavish colonial mansion, but thanks to an investment mishap involving a deceased gringo, he’s lost most of his fortune. If knowledge got out, it would not only ruin him personally but also disrupt his grown children’s social prospects. Now, at 47, he’s faced with starting over. Indebted to an unscrupulous moneylender, then traveling to Havana on an errand for a family friend, he gets caught up in a marital squabble, which leads, eventually, to his winning substantial properties in Andalusia—an abandoned house, vineyard, and winery—in a bold gamble. He travels to the small Spanish town of Jerez, at the heart of the sherry trade, hoping to quickly sell them to a new buyer. Then Soledad Claydon, the former owner’s cousin, makes her appearance.

The narrative is eventful, the translation is nimble and smooth, and each of the three settings is presented in abundant, skillfully realized detail.

It’s also refreshing to see mature people in leading roles. However, what prevents The Vineyard from being an engrossing story from start to finish is that Mauro doesn’t demonstrate significant depth in the beginning, and the story is his alone for nearly half the book. The strong and intelligent HNR Issue 82, November 2017 | Reviews | 27

yet vulnerable Soledad, a London wine merchant’s wife who insists on telling Mauro about her lost family legacy, is the novel’s real star. Through the pair’s interactions, many nuances get added to his character. Finding her company intoxicating, Mauro gets drawn deeply into the Montalvo family’s affairs, which conceal many secrets. As a romantic epic with a hint of mystery, The Vineyard works well, though it takes a while to hit its stride.

Sarah Johnson WHISPERS OF WARNING Jessica Estevao, Berkley, 2017, $15, pb, 336pp, 9780425281611 It’s the turn of the 20th century, and the resort town of Old Orchard Beach, Maine, expects a busy season. Large crowds gather for a suffrage rally, plus everyone awaits the opening of a lengthy pier designed to entice tourists. This second novel in the A Change of Fortune series finds former con artist Ruby Proulx enjoying her new life in town at her Aunt Honoria’s spiritualist-themed Hotel Belden and learning to heed her clairaudient abilities. The arrival of nationally-known psychic and suffragist Sophronia Foster Eldridge draws new business to the hotel while alarming townspeople. After the lady makes a public announcement at the rally, promising to expose corruption among those in power, it’s a sure sign that trouble’s ahead.

This is a mystery, so fans of the genre can infer that Sophronia’s days are numbered. However, the plot is rather dilatory in getting there. There are a host of unconventional characters staying at the Belden, including opinionated cook/housekeeper Mrs. Doyle, who can detect people’s auras; the obnoxious brother and sister-in-law of Honoria’s devoted suitor; and an author belonging to an elite group of hay fever sufferers (this society, fascinatingly enough, is based on historical fact).

Also visiting town is an anti-suffrage politician who was once engaged to Sophronia.

Reading about these backstories is interesting, but suspense is lacking early on. Once Sophronia’s body is discovered in a saltwater pool, the pacing improves. Discouraged by the dishonest police chief ’s lack of interest in the case, Officer Warren Yancey reluctantly teams up with Ruby, who he admires, although he thinks her psychic work is a bunch of hokum. Their growing friendship is spiced with romantic tension. The social concerns of the period are well evoked. Not surprisingly, Ruby encounters a few men with sexist attitudes, which were just as irritating then as they are today.

Sarah Johnson THE VENGEANCE OF MOTHERS Jim Fergus, St. Martin’s, 2017, $26.99, hb, 352pp, 9781250093424 Legend says that in 1873, a Cheyenne chief offered a startling trade to President U.S. Grant—1,000 horses for 1,000 white women willing to marry into the tribe, produce children, and help the Cheyenne Indians make peace and blend white settlers’ culture with their own. The government had little faith in the program, so they selected prospective brides from society’s more desperate tiers: prisoners, prostitutes; even insane asylum inmates. The proposal and trade were never actually made, but Jim Fergus adopted the folklore for his award-winning novel, One Thousand White 28 | Reviews |

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Women. In it, Meggie Kelly kept a journal of her experiences.

In his new western novel, Fergus brings back Meggie and her sister Susie, and introduces readers to Molly McGill. When Molly volunteers, she is released from prison, where she was sent after murdering her husband after he drunkenly beat their daughter to death. She narrowly escapes death when a Lakota band attacks her train, and takes the few survivors to their village. Molly meets Meggie and Susie Kelly there. They married Cheyenne men and bore children as hoped, but then barely survived the massacre of their village by U.S. Cavalry. Their children did not. Molly McGill joins Meggie in chronicling her assimilation into Indian culture, and her growing affection for the warrior Hawk.

I have not read One Thousand White Women, but didn’t need it to catch up with Meggie and Susie’s lives, or to thoroughly enjoy The Vengeance of Mothers. The women’s lives are hard, sometimes brutal, but with moments of tenderness, just like our own. Recommended (and I’m going to look for One Thousand White Women).

Jo Ann Butler MISTRESS SUFFRAGETTE Diana Forbes, Penmore, 2017, $20.50, pb, 397pp, 9781946409072 Rhode Island debutante Penelope Stanton has lost her chance to make an advantageous marriage due to her father’s failed business during the Panic of 1893. Her fiancé has abruptly broken off their engagement. Her parents want her to move to New York and become a schoolteacher so she can send some of her wages home to help out the family. But New York is the home of Edgar Daggers, a married man who won’t stop pursuing Penelope. To avoid him, she goes to Boston and becomes a reluctant but successful speaker for the women’s suffrage movement.

Oddly, the first section of the novel gives no hint of Penelope’s later feminist concerns, seeming instead like a bizarre sexual nightmare in which Penelope is assaulted by apparently respectable people (both men and women). While the author may have been attempting to show the need for feminism, Penelope’s reactions are inconsistent and her motivations unclear.

The novel improves in the middle section, and I became more invested in the story and enjoyed some of the new characters introduced in Boston.

The narrative voice has a certain charm and humour: “He had about him the air of a Russian intellectual, although I was certain I had never met a Russian in my life or, for that matter, an intellectual.”

Unfortunately, the last section of the novel resembles the first part, veering wildly between serious, moving scenes (Penelope showing sensitivity towards a black elevator operator) and ridiculous, sordid ones bordering on slapstick (a female companion helps Penelope steal a pie by putting it between her legs under her skirt).

If you’re looking for a light read and don’t mind some anachronisms, you may be entertained

by Penelope’s adventures.

Clarissa Harwood

ZOFFANY’S DAUGHTER Stephen Foster, Blue Ormer, 2017, £16.99, hb, 152pp, 9780992879143 This unusual book tells with considerable verve and charm the little-known story of Cecilia Horne, daughter of the painter Zoffany, and the custody case concerning her youngest daughter, Laura, in which she became embroiled on Guernsey in 1825.

Foster deliberately mixes fact and fiction, using historical documents and an imagined journal written by Cecilia’s older daughter, Clementina, to tell his tale. The book also includes meditations on the difference between the art of the historian and that of the novelist and a fascinating account of Guernsey’s eccentric legal system.

It does not, however, entirely fulfil its ambitions.

This is partly because it is neither one thing nor the other, but I think Foster could have got away with this if his narrative choices had been more judicious. Clementina is very much an observer of the tragedy that embroils her mother and sister, which results in the reader feeling shut out of the emotional worlds of Cecilia and Laura. Because Foster focuses his narrative solely on events that take place on Guernsey, we have no sense of what happened to end Cecilia’s marriage before she fled to the island, which results in a lack of context. I was, therefore, left with a sense of a good story, with much to say about Victorian attitudes to the family, not quite done justice by the teller.

Sarah Bower MURDER IN THE LINCOLN WHITE HOUSE C. M. Gleason, Kensington, 2017 $25.00/ C$27.95, hb, 304pp, 9781496710192 March 4, 1861—President Abraham Lincoln has been inaugurated and has given his first address and is now joining thousands of citizens to celebrate his presidency. The inaugural ball is full of well-wishers but also those who would just as easily celebrate the death of this man who is determined to hold the Union together. He’s also seen as a slave lover and therefore a very real potential threat to Southern finance and culture. One plot to kill him had already been stymied by his secret arrival in Washington.

Now Adam Quinn, nephew of Joshua Speed, best friend of the President, is called upon to assist the President. Not far from the ballroom, a man, Custer Billings, has been found stabbed to death. Adam has recently returned from living in Kansas for five years, learning Indian skills to track animals and respect nature. He’s also repulsed by the barbaric, brutal treatment of enslaved and freed black men and women. Adam sets about the task of trying to find Billings’ killer, with the help of an unusual journalist.

What is unique about this story is the focus on division within the United States and the fact that all who wait in line for a potential job in Lincoln’s government are not necessarily friends.

The division in Kansas specifically is described as paralleling that which prevails in the nation.

Adam is an honorable investigator who makes this mystery compelling historical fiction. What is also obvious is the honesty and integrity of Abraham Lincoln, who demonstrates unusual perception in whom he trusts and what he knows he can expect not only from Adam but also his opponents. A fine 19th Century

read!

Viviane Crystal

MOTHERING SUNDAY Rosie Goodwin, Zaffre, 2017, £12.99, hb, 444pp, 9781785762314 Sunday Small is named for the day she was abandoned as a newborn on the steps of Nuneaton workhouse in 1870.

We first meet her, aged ten, standing up to the sadistic matron, Miss Frost. Sunday is a goodhearted, resilient girl who abhors bullies and befriends the orphaned Daisy and Tom Branning, who have recently been sent to the workhouse.

By the time she is thirteen, she has attracted the attentions of the vile workhouse master, Mr Pinnegar, and is relieved when a housemaid’s post with the flamboyant lodging-house owner, Mrs Spooner, is found for her—but she has made enemies who are prepared to bide their time for revenge.

This Victorian saga is packed with melodrama and sentimentality. We know who Sunday’s mother really is, which lends certain scenes a particular poignancy, and there is some vivid characterization—Sunday herself, Mrs Spooner, and her housekeeper, Annie, in particular. Tom Branning matures into fine hero material.

However, as a reader there was much that annoyed me. There is frequent “head-hopping” between characters within paragraphs, sometimes to people with only a “walk-on” role. We are often told, for example, that people “looked exhausted” or “felt sad” without any further attempt to describe appearance or emotion. There is a plethora of clichéd similes such as clean/bright as a new pin, still as a statue, and quiet as a mouse. Particular verbs such as scuttle (for run), trip (for walk), and hover for wait or loiter tend to distract me.

The good characters are “very, very good” and the bad—Miss Frost and Mr Pinnegar in particular— verge on grotesque caricature. The opening workhouse scenes were over-familiar. I was as glad as Sunday herself to put them behind me.

Mary Fisk HALF A SIXPENCE Evie Grace, Arrow, 2017, £5.99, pb, 403pp, 9781787756222 Set in rural east Kent in the 1830s, this book follows the life of Catherine Rook. She is born into a prosperous farming family, attends the local school and leads a very comfortable life, but things change drastically after her father buys a newfangled threshing machine which threatens the livelihood of many of the villagers who rely on the farm for employment. Things can only get worse before they get better.

I found this an interesting story, particularly as I was born and brought up in the same area of the county and know well the towns and villages around which it is set. The characterization is good, and the setting and lifestyle comes across as authentic, but I did find the style of writing a little old fashioned. I can only assume that the author was trying to emulate the speech and phrasing of the day, but for me it didn’t work and I found it somewhat irritating at times. Altogether it is a good read with valid insight into the life and customs of England in the 19th century. This is Evie Grace’s 19th Century

first novel in a trilogy set in Kent, and I wish her success with it all.

Marilyn Sherlock

sincerity of their time together win them over, and Quincy, Illinois thrives.

Tom Vallar

WORKHOUSE ORPHANS Holly Green, Ebury Press, 2017, £5.99, pb, 395pp, 9781785035715 Workhouse Orphans, described as “an uplifting story of the struggles of two children left with nowhere else to go”, is not the sort of book I normally read. However, I was pleasantly surprised.

Despite the title, May and Gus, two Victorian orphans, only remain in the workhouse for the first 50 pages, after which they are sent out to earn their living, Gus as a sailor and May as a housemaid. The shadow of the workhouse, however, continues to hang over May’s head in particular while she tries to make her way in the world.

On the whole, the book seems well-researched, and it is an easy introduction to the role of Liverpool in the slave trade, as well as to the use of raiding ships by the Confederates during the US Civil War. However, the research does not extend to the vocabulary used; it is particularly jarring when May excitedly thinks on how she now has a “boyfriend”, a word that would not be used in the romantic sense until 1905. In addition, characters sometimes act out of character for their times, none more so than Mr Freeman. The department store owner takes May, his maid, under his wing, delivers her ponderous speeches on the importance of charity, and eventually kisses her in a fatherly manner, and tells her that he wishes his daughter were more like her.

Workhouse Orphans is to be the first in a series of four books set around the Brownlow Hill Workhouse. The book is not a challenging read: the language is simple, the issues explained carefully, and there is no sense of any real danger to the characters. However, it is a gentle and enjoyable book that would appeal to lovers of sagas and ragsto-riches stories.

Laura Shepperson

BILL RILEY’S HEAD Douglas Hirt, Five Star, 2017, $25.95, hb, 223pp, 9781432838171 During the early 1870s, bounty hunter T. J. Ragland rides into Bend City carrying the head of outlaw Bill Riley. He stops at the small town along the Missouri River to catch a riverboat that will take him to Fort Leavenworth, where he can turn in the head and receive the bounty. He needs the money to impress the father of the woman he wishes to marry. While returning to his hotel from a card game, he is attacked, and the head is stolen. A local marshal, Bethany Bulger, provides help at first in locating the thieves, but with little success. Ragland must soon rely on an undercover Pinkerton detective to help him in the search for the missing head. Soon several murders are discovered around town, and another mystery develops. It is difficult to tell the good guys from the bad guys throughout the novel until the very end. The novel does a masterful job with character development while providing an unusual plot (finding a missing head). An absorbing blend of a good western story and a mystery, this is an enjoyable read that’s hard to put down.

Jeff Westerhoff

WITH YOU ALWAYS Jody Hedlund, Bethany House, 2017, $15.99, pb, 359pp, 9780764218040 At 19, Elise Neumann is the oldest member of her immigrant family in 1857. She is looking for work as a seamstress when she is nearly trampled in a New York gang war. A handsome stranger rescues her; she directs him to the mission where her little family has been surviving, and they defend the place against the violence.

Thornton Quincy is the younger son of a ruthless businessman whose dying wish is to see one of his sons take over his empire. He challenges them to build a town along the Illinois Central Railroad and marry for love by Christmas Eve. Thornton’s attraction to the plucky German girl in the mission is at total odds with his daunting deadline tasks: hewing a town out on the wilds of the prairie, gaining a society marriage, and finally winning against his twin brother and making his father proud of him.

This Cinderella-story plot kicks off inspirational author Hedlund’s Orphan Train series. Main and secondary characters are well-drawn, and though Thornton and Elise initially lack the faith sufficient to carry them through, perseverance and the

THE PLEASURES OF PASSION Sabrina Jeffries, Pocket, 2017, $7.99/C$10.99, pb, 400pp, 9781501144462 Niall and Brilliana are in love, but when he asks her to accompany him to the Continent after he kills someone in a duel, she refuses. Years later he returns after receiving a pardon, but in exchange he must help a spymaster trap a counterfeiter. The cover for his investigation is to pretend to be the fiancé of Brilliana, now a beautiful widow. Since they blame each other for betrayal, the situation is fraught, to say the least. But though buried, their feelings have never died, and since this is a Regency, true love triumphs against adversity.

As in most series, the novel is peopled with characters from earlier books whose backstory can be a distraction; though hardly unexpected given the title, the sexual encounters seem reckless; and the conclusion teeters on the edge of melodrama.

This is, nevertheless, an involving tale, a double mystery, really. Unmasking the counterfeiter, though satisfying, is really a device to throw the protagonists together again, and it is overshadowed by the gradual, and more interesting, revelation of the true circumstances that separated the young lovers. They need to learn to trust their own hearts, and each other, once again. Not an easy journey.

Recommended.

Ray Thompson THE ALPHABET OF HEART’S DESIRE Brian Keaney, Holland House, 2017, £10.99, pb, 386pp, 9781910688373 In his Confessions of an English Opium Eater, Thomas de Quincy tells of a streetwalker called Anne who once offered him succour when he was down and out in Oxford Street. He also gives an unrelated account of a mysterious visit from a man he describes as ‘a Malay’. From these two HNR Issue 82, November 2017 | Reviews | 29

references, Keaney has crafted an ingenious tale of three lives that cross and recross in a Dickensian characterisation of London, noxious, impoverished and violent.

The novel is an engaging, easy, and well-crafted read, well-paced and carefully plotted, which I devoured in a single sitting on a train journey.

Though none of its characters really stand out, the three principals—Tuah the freed slave, Anne the prostitute, and Thomas himself in the precarious years before he wrote his best-seller—are likeable enough to make the reader care about what happens to them. What is problematic about the book is that what does happen to them is so relentless in its misery that it tends to offend one’s sense of poetic justice.

That said, however, there is a cynical edge to the storytelling which rings true. Keaney succeeds in creating a world in which everyone is out for themselves and in which decent souls like Anne and Tuah, and the naïve romantic Thomas, are endlessly exploited by those they depend on and harshly judged by a hypocritical, moralising ruling class. While salvation feels a little thin on the ground, there is certainly a passion for justice.

I admire Keaney for not taking the easy way out and providing the kind of happy ending Anne and Thomas dream of in their opium haze.

Sarah Bower

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THE SOLDIER’S CURSE Meg and Tom Keneally, Point Blank, 2017, £14.99, hb, 364pp, 9781786071996 Set in 1825 in the early years of the Australian colony, this first novel in The Monsarrat Series is set in Port Macquarie.

The penal colony was established as a place for secondary punishment for reoffending convicts.

Spared from the harsher life on the road gangs or in working the lime kilns, gentleman forger, Hugh Monsarrat, is serving his term as a convict clerk to Commandant Major Angus Shelborne. The mystery begins when the commandant’s wife, Honora, falls ill and dies as he sets off to try and locate a water source, a rumoured river. It is soon apparent that she has been the victim of slow poisoning—but by whom? Both Hugh and his friend, the housekeeper Mrs Mulrooney, suspect the motives of the cruel second-in-command, Captain Diamond, but are outmanoeuvred when he has her arrested for murder. Only Hugh can try to save her from the noose.

This exceptionally well-written novel combines fascinating historical factual detail into carefully crafted, fast-paced fiction. We are taken back to a time that was harsh and often unjustly cruel, as shown through the actions of Captain Diamond.

The settlers’ ignorance of the indigenous Birpai people, who were both friendly and helpful by returning escapees, is shown clearly, as is their love of the land. They have a healthy respect for it, unlike the European arrivals who would own it. I was totally absorbed by the characters of Hugh Monsarrat, his friend, housekeeper Mrs 30 | Reviews |

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Mulrooney and the likeable Private Fergal Slattery.

They strive to survive within this strict regime, miles from home in a beautiful, yet unforgiving environment. Their relationships are complex as are their back stories, as are their motives—an excellent read.

Valerie Loh

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ALL SHE LEFT BEHIND Jane Kirkpatrick, Revell, 2017, $15.99, pb, 352pp, 9780800727000 Jennie Pickett deals in herb healing and longs to become a doctor in 1860s Oregon. She marries her sweetheart, Charles, and has a son, Douglas, while she puts her dreams aside.

Charles becomes a raging alcoholic, and Douglas resents his mother’s reprimands toward his beloved dad.

Jennie works hard to hold her family together.

She sells herbal tinctures and always forgives her volatile husband. Divorce is a sin she doesn’t wish to face.

The Oregon frontier is changing, and more women are graduating from medical college. Jennie hasn’t the money for college so takes to nursing instead. She cares for the ailing wife of a prominent reverend, Josiah Parrish. Charles deserts her, and Jennie is heartbroken and must forge ahead on her own. Will she ever achieve her dreams of becoming a doctor, and discover true love?

Based on real events, the story of Jennie Pickett needed to be told. I found little about her on the internet, so I commend the author’s careful research. Kirkpatrick’s descriptive prose and the conflicts, heartache, and perseverance Jennie experiences drew me in from the first page. The Christian aspect is woven seamlessly into the story.

Time-shifts and transitions can be abrupt, but the novel is a wonderful read. I hope people flock to All She Left Behind to learn more about this fascinating woman. Very highly recommended.

Diane Scott Lewis THE BRITTLE STAR Davina Langdale, Sceptre, 2017, £14.99, hb, 364pp, 9781473622036 This is a dazzling debut about a young man in 1860s California. John Evert Burn is 16 when his ranch is attacked, his mother taken, and he is left for dead. Making his way to Los Angeles, he seeks help to find his mother and finds work at a newspaper and companionship of sorts with Bill Gosling, a bounty hunter and Texas Ranger.

When Bill is arrested as an outlaw and a killer, John Evert must make a choice between living within or outside the law. Caught up in the battles between North and South as the Civil War breaks out, John Evert chooses to fight alongside the man who has promised to seek his mother. Hardened by the soldiering life, he returns determined to take revenge on those who took her and ultimately to win back the life that was stolen from him.

This is a powerful coming-of-age tale of a young man buffeted by fate and toughened by cruelty,

full of beautiful description and characterisation and strong on historical detail. There are strong messages, too, about the impact of war and violence, about the harshness and cruelty of life on the frontier, and especially about the dangers of racism and bigotry. The Civil War and its impact are seen from the point of view of the ordinary people, and this book artfully blends careful research with beautiful writing. This young British writer is clearly incredibly talented and versatile, and I hope this will be the first book in a long and fruitful career. Ideal for fans of Cormac McCarthy or anyone who enjoys Westerns.

Lisa Redmond BLOOD OATH Melissa Lenhardt, Redhook, 2017, $15.99/ C$20.99, pb, 345pp, 9780316505383 This story, book 2 in the Sawbones series, starts with a killer first sentence (which aspiring authors will envy) to grip the reader from the get-go. The first chapter’s gory conclusion gives the reader a taste of what’s to come: Lenhardt makes it clear from the outset that this is not the usual prairie romance.

The woman doctor now going by the name Laura Elliston is fleeing along with AWOL army officer William Kindle. In the first book, Sawbones, on her journey west, Laura was captured and raped

by Native Americans. Kindle’s unit rescued her and they fell in love. Now, he’s avoiding the army, and Laura is wanted for murder back east. They fall in with the Bell Gang and Laura intervenes in the gang’s rape of a captured Native American woman, Aenoheke. The three travel together until Aeneoheke discovers that Kindle murdered her son at the Washita massacre, and wreaks a terrible vengeance on him. Laura receives word from relatives in Scotland that she can claim an inheritance if she will visit. She and Kindle set off for New Orleans to take ship for Europe, but they don’t get far; on the riverboat, Kindle runs into some old acquaintances and is recognized.

From the outset, I liked the story a lot, despite lacking information from not having read the first volume. Laura and Kindle’s relationship is made especially interesting by their run from the law, their engaging, humorous banter, and Laura’s proto-feminism, within the limits of 19th-century mores. As the tale went on, though, I thought Laura spent too much time ill or unconscious, and I wished it didn’t end with a cliffhanger. The couple’s relationship redeems the small flaws, so I heartily recommend this romance/Western to readers who don’t mind dollops of gore and violence.

B.J. Sedlock

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UNQUIET SPIRITS Bonnie MacBird, Collins Crime Club, 2017, $25.99, hb, 400pp, 9780008201081 In her second Sherlock Holmes novel, Bonnie MacBird gives us a rollicking tale worthy of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself. Upon finding another recently discovered “manuscript” of Doyle’s, or so the author tells us, she brings the new story to light.

And what a story it is! A beautiful and mysterious woman arrives at 221B Baker Street with a tale of ghosts, kidnapping, and dynamite on a whiskey estate in Scotland. Just when Holmes 19th Century

is becoming vaguely intrigued with her tale, his brother, Mycroft, sends Holmes and Watson to the Riviera, where they run into their old rival, French Detective Jean Vidocq. They also bump into the woman who visited them back in England.

Coincidence? Unlikely.

As a result of the events in France, Holmes, Watson, and the lady head to Scotland to the haunted castle. And Holmes discovers a ghost from his own past.

As Holmes and Watson try to untangle the familial rivalries, jealousies and powerplays involved in a play for the family whiskey business, they discover there is much more than meets the eye.

In this well-constructed tale, MacBird captures the style of the original series perfectly. Over the last century, many have attempted to revive Holmes and his amazing sleuthing ability. Few achieve even a measure of likeness. MacBird does this handsomely, adding her own flair for a twisting plot and mysterious characters. I, for one, hope she continues to recreate the greatest detective duo in English literature.

Anne Clinard Barnhill BEYOND THE WILD RIVER Sarah Maine, Atria, 2017, $16.00/C$22.00, pb, 352pp, 9781501126956 / Hodder, 2017, £8.99, pb, 336pp, 9781473639690 In 1893, nineteen-year-old Evelyn Ballantyre joins her father and his wealthy friends on a visit to the Chicago World’s Fair. She and her father, Charles, are no longer close due to an incident at their Scottish Borders estate five years before. An old poacher and an estate manager were murdered, with blame falling on Evelyn’s inappropriate friend, stable boy James Douglas. But Evelyn suspects her father lied to protect himself and his house guests.

James escaped and Evelyn longs for the truth. After the Fair, their group heads for Nipigon, in the wilds of Ontario, Canada, for a fishing expedition. When they arrive, Charles is shocked to find James is one of the guides. He warns James to stay away from Evelyn, but James has his own agenda. He’s furious that Charles—a man he once revered— allowed the authorities to accuse him of the murders, and worse still, fears the real killer is among Charles’s fishing party. James vows revenge.

Maine’s description of the Canadian wilderness and its dangers, both from nature and men, kept me engrossed. Characters are fully fleshed out as James and Evelyn fight their growing attraction.

Charles keeps telling his daughter to “wait,” he has a plan to sort out the mess from five years ago, but will he be able to pull all these strings together for a satisfying conclusion? The plot twists are surprising, the author a master at building tension.

The story starts out leisurely, with Evelyn a passive young lady full of angst—but once in the backwoods, she and the novel rush like river rapids toward a startling finish. Excellent.

Diane Scott Lewis 19th Century

THE CIRCUS TRAIN CONSPIRACY Edward Marston, Allison & Busby, 2017, £19.99, hb, 351pp, 9780749021276 In 1860, the railways are opening up England and Wales to all classes of men and women. It is a time of ruthless competition amongst the new railway companies as tracks are laid down piecemeal. Moscardi’s Magnificent Circus— including three lions, superb Arab horses and Rosie the elephant—are travelling north, enjoying this new, fast and comfortable form of transport. When a shattering disruption leaves the train derailed, only Jacko, the capuchin monkey, escapes from the trapped and terrified menagerie. Following him with enticing treats, Mulryne, Moscardi’s man-of-all-work, stumbles on the shallow grave of a murdered woman. She proves to be Margaret Pulver, a woman widely regarded as saintly. Hottempered circus owner Moscardi is certain that his greatest rival, Sam Greenstreet, is responsible for the accident but Robert Colbeck, the police detective is puzzled: it could have been much worse—the incident occurred where damage was minimal, and the Circus didn’t even miss a single performance at its next venue. Further happenings seem to indicate more mischief than crime. With an enormous number of uncooperative, sometime hostile suspects, these are frustrating investigations, but there is plenty of rail travel for Colbeck, with his handy copy of Bradshaw’s timetable and reliable trains.

The heroes of this story are the indomitable members of a travelling circus who have to be on top form however dire the situations, but the railways themselves bring a romantic picture of those thundering monsters and the supremacy of steam. The accomplished author provides easy reading in his multi-viewpoint story of a fascinating time when England’s ancient landscape changed forever.

Nancy Henshaw

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THE WATERCOLOURIST Beatrice Masini (trans. Clarissa Ghelli and Oonagh Stransky), Pan/Trafalgar Square, 2017, $14.95, pb, 336pp, 9781447257707 / also £7.99, pb, 336pp, 9781447257745 “It was easy to think I knew everything. I felt like I was on top of the world. And then the bubble burst…” A young artist, Bianca, is hired to illustrate and catalogue the botanical collection of an Italian poet and novelist in 19th-century Milan, Italy. She lives with Don Titta and his fragile wife, rambunctious children, the Don’s dominating mother, and an adopted daughter, Pia. As Bianca’s skill develops over time, so does her relationship with the complex characters in this family. A mystery enters the story with a ghost who appears to almost everyone but who disappears just as rapidly. Bianca discovers the identity of the ghost and, in her naïve innocence, believes she can solve the mystery. But some things are best left alone! So absorbed is she that she fails to notice that she is

the object of love from more than one observer.

The plot is simple in this beautiful novel, but what is totally captivating lies in the gorgeous descriptions of colors, shapes, and sizes of the flowers Bianca observes and draws, the mysterious accounts of the men’s political leanings, the thoughts and emotions that obsess the family poet, and the changes that evolve as secrets are revealed and truth is spoken. Bianca matures but pays a huge price for yielding to her base desires, and for her belief that truth is always superior to lies and subterfuge. Bianca draws perfect flowers but fails to see how shadows and different shades of color parallel the lives of Don Titta’s family and friends.

Astonishing and compelling historical fiction that is highly recommended!

Viviane Crystal THE COMPETITION Caroline Miley, Greenslade, 2016, $17.99, pb, 366pp, 9781925516333.

True artists are compelled to create! Caroline Miley, an art historian, has depicted the life of an artist, Edward Armiger, who doesn’t want to copy other great or amateur artists in Georgian England. He and his friends, who are mostly poor and dependent on the patronage of rich art lovers, want to enter a contest called “The Competition” at the Royal Academy. The winner will be guaranteed a successful career. But Edward’s plans are put on hold as he falls in love and is invited to visit the home of the young lady’s father, a mill owner. The Industrial Revolution has dramatically changed the milling business, and Edward is astonished at the complexity of the factory but appalled at the working conditions of the employees. He experiences the fury of the Luddites who want to force just wages and the removal of dangerous conditions. Edward will integrate this shocking experience into his painting for the upcoming contest.

The reader watches as Edward mixes colors for different shades and tones, sketches what he observes at a furious pace, and shares his love for visions that move him. However, he is also a sensitive soul who inserts dignity where it is lacking, strength in situations that are daunting, and honor for those who work so very hard and earn a pitifully small salary. Edward Armiger’s refusal to copy art increases his sensitivity to create what topically lies beyond standard paintings in frames. He represents how art fosters social consciousness and change, and readers will feel as if they are right there with him. The Competition is fine, creative historical fiction.

Viviane Crystal

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THE DISHONORABLE MISS DELANCEY Carolyn Miller, Kregel, 2017, $14.99, pb, 296pp, 9780825444524 This Regency-set historical romance opens with almost-gothic high drama instead of levity—its heroine is contemplating suicide. The Honorable Miss DeLancey has made herself a scandal of the ton by being jilted by the man she loves, then trying to reclaim him after he is wed. Add that her family fortune and dowry are gone, thanks to a gambling-addicted brother, and we have a young lady thoroughly “on the shelf ” at twenty-five.

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Her rescuer is a wounded sea captain hero of the Napoleonic wars with neither fortune nor title, but a great heart and an interesting family to set a plot of intrigue, class conflict and redemption in motion.

This inspirational novel is a rare blend of grace-based faith that fits into both history and circumstances.

Details of the period and Brighton are spot-on. Its winsome heroine finds her redemption through her art (she’s a gifted musician), her Christianity, and the love of a good man. Through her trials and adventures, Clara DeLancey learns to value character over breeding.

A wonderful novel of flawed people growing in their faith, hope, and love. Highly recommended.

Eileen Charbonneau THE MAN WHO COULD BE KING John Ripin Miller, Little A, 2017, $14.95, pb, 290pp, 9781477820209 In 1843, Josiah Penn Stockbridge, one of General Washington’s former senior aides, is penning notes for his great-grandchildren about his experiences with the general and especially the momentous and little-known events of the second week of March back in 1783. There have been occasional mutinies among some of the colonial troops throughout the Revolution, but in early 1783 anonymous letters are being circulated by suspected senior officers castigating Congress and seemingly urging a military takeover of the embryonic nation. The difference now is that these letters are apparently being well received throughout the Army.

Josiah goes on to give examples of Washington’s exemplary leadership and decorum covering bad times at New York, Philadelphia and New Jersey, and good times at Boston, Trenton and Yorktown.

Stockbridge’s key focus for his heirs is, however, the extraordinary occurrences during that one week in March at Newburgh, New York. Even more fascinating is that it is not significant for what happens there but, more importantly, what does not.

This comprehensive and singularly informative book reads more like non-fiction than a novel.

Josiah is a fictional character based on a composite of Washington’s many aides. Most of the text is written in the first person from his perspective, with comparatively little dialogue for a novel. But given the context and intent, this style works well here. It is based on thoroughly researched documentation which is helpfully provided in the appendices in the back. The book humanizes Washington without unduly lionizing him. After getting over my initial skepticism, I came to like the book the more I read.

Recommended for its superbly accurate history and insight into a potential tragedy that was fortunately averted at the nation’s birth.

Thomas J. Howley BEYOND THE RICE FIELDS Naivo (trans. Allison M. Charette), Restless Books, 2017, $19.99, pb, 400pp, 9781632061317 This powerful novel follows the lives of Fara 32 | Reviews |

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and Tsito, her father’s slave, from their childhood through their adult lives, the alternating chapters telling both of their stories through their unique perspectives. It’s the 19th-century in Madagascar, during a time of political terror and violent upheaval as both Christian missionaries from Britain and French industrialists invade the country all at once. The unlikely bond Fara and Tsito formed as children (in spite of their difference in class) is broken as their lives are taken down markedly different paths, yet they remain connected spiritually, frequently remembering each other in some of their darkest moments.

While the novel tells a heartbreaking set of storylines, it is a lost opportunity to have woven a beautifully written book. Some passages are wonderfully written, but most of the story is devoid of emotion or connection. The period of Queen Ranavalona’s horrific reign was one of intensity and violence, and yet for a few occasions near the end of the book, much of the historical context is superficial at best.

This is Naivo’s debut novel, and it shows the possibility of greater things to come. One of the striking details about this book is it is the first book from Madagascar to be translated into English. Naivo captures a profound relationship between two people and how vastly our lives and experiences change on our various paths, while also illuminating the Malagasy experience.

Elicia Parkinson LIES AND LETTERS Ashtyn Newbold, Cedar Fort, 2017, $17.99/ C$20.99, pb, 264pp, 9781462119844 Charlotte and Clara Lyons, sisters living in Regency England, understand that they can have no greater destiny than attracting a rich, titled husband. Charlotte, the older sister, is attractive, ruthless, and devastatingly flirtatious and looks set to succeed. Clara, lacking these attributes, is disregarded until the sudden loss of their father’s money and reputation forces their move out of the city to a cottage in a fishing village in the north of England.

Charlotte finds her flirtatiousness and lack of practical skills a disadvantage here, and she fails to find success in her pursuit of Lord Trowbridge.

Her sister, meanwhile, adjusts to the change in lifestyle more successfully. Charlotte struggles to change her behavior but is forced finally to choose between marriage for wealth and title and marriage for love.

As a “pure” romance, this book lacks the sensuality of most Regency romances. Instead, I found frequent reminders of characteristics more appropriate in today’s world—generosity, kindness, and empathy. I found the constant repetition of these virtues tedious. The main characters are well developed, however, and I was rooting for Charlotte by the end of the book.

Valerie Adolph THE CURSE OF THE BRADDOCK BRIDES Erica Obey, Walrus, 2017, $15.95, pb, 310pp, 9781940442181 This Gilded Age story is first in a series inspired by the stately homes of the Hudson River Valley.

For this book, the inspiration is Rhinecliff ’s lovely and eccentric Wilderstein. Libba Wadsworth is an

American heiress being courted by Will Ransome, aka William, Lord Hardcastle, a new, impoverished English earl and experienced spy and orchid hunter.

It takes a brave man for the job, as, since colonial days, the Braddock family brides have a habit of slipping over cliffs. Their suitors come to similarly mean ends. Then there’s the business of poor Libba’s being on the shelf and both a “hoyden and a bluestocking,” her father’s work in the quarryman’s trade, and her beautiful mother’s secret past.

But Will is up to the task, once he establishes his bona fides over an impostor suitor, who soon becomes a murder victim, with bodies to follow.

The mysteries are two generations thick in this well-researched romp tinged by an acerbic Wildean humor. Convoluted sentence structures and abrupt viewpoint shifts sometimes get in the way of the storytelling, but our self-deprecating hero and oftconfused but always delightful heroine come to the rescue. Looking forward to more adventures set in the historic Hudson River Valley.

Eileen Charbonneau AN ECHO OF MURDER Anne Perry, Ballantine, 2017, $28.00, hb, 289pp, 97810425285015 / Headline, 2017, £8.99, pb, 352pp, 9781472234162 This latest installment in the William Monk series resounds with the great Victorian classics, Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dickens’ Edwin Drood, and Stoker’s Dracula. The Crimean War lies fourteen years in the past, but its living dead still walk the streets of London; among them is Herbert Fitzherbert, a brilliant army surgeon and erstwhile colleague of Monk’s wife, Hester, who served as a nurse in the conflict.

Since she was forced to leave her friend behind on the battlefield, Hester has buried him in her imagination. However, when Commander Monk investigates a number of gruesome murders in London’s Hungarian community and looks for an interpreter, Fitz—who, it turns out, has spent the intervening years in Hungary—comes back into Hester’s life. He is still handsome, likeable, and an excellent doctor, but is he hiding a terrible secret?

As it happens, the first murder coincided with his arrival in England; thus, Hester and William must find out the truth before it is too late. In this attempt, they have the help of Hooper, William’s faithful second, as well as Crow and Scrub, interns at Hester’s benevolent hospital. And another person from Hester’s past resurfaces—her estranged brother Charles, with whom she is reunited upon Fitz’s advice. Charles has in the meantime acquired a stepdaughter, swelling the ranks of the Monks’ unconventional family, intent on shining a light into Victorian London, the scene of rampant racist, social, and misogynistic strife. Into this festering mess of prejudice and despair, the Monks and their circle—decent, well-meaning Victorians—struggle to introduce a sense of order, righting wrong with the aid of their keen minds and feeling hearts. An atmospheric whodunit, which awakens London to tumultuous, compelling life.

Elisabeth Lenckos DUNGENESS Karen Polinsky, Bedazzled Ink, 2017, $14.95/ C$19.95, pb, 280pp, 9781945805189 “Inevitably there are three sides to any story.”

19th Century

These are the words of Mary Ann Lambert, historian of the S’Klallam people, who live around Port Townsend, Washington, on the extreme northwest tip of the United States. Born in November 1879, Mary Ann is considered one of the most important recorders of S’Klallam history, documenting not only their traditional lore but also their interactions with the incoming white people and some of their stories, too.

The title of the book, Dungeness, is the name of a sandbar in the ocean where, in 1878, the S’Klallam massacred 18 Tsimshians. Mary Ann grew up beside the spit, daughter of a Norwegian sailor turned fisherman-farmer and his native wife, Annie. Mary Ann is raised to be at home and competent in the forest, on the water, and in the kitchen.

Her stories have been passed along and form the heart of Dungeness, mingled with historical fiction to create a patchwork quilt of a book. Despite its many facets and its wanderings away from the main theme, the writer has created an overall unity combining truth, human frailty and strength, and philosophical depth. She has taken Mary Ann Lambert’s knowledge and understanding to create a multi-dimensional picture of a place, a time and a mingling of people.

The protagonist in Dungeness is Millie—a fictionalized Mary Ann Lambert. Her deeply spiritual nature is shown in contrast to life in the nearest town known as “Whiskey City”—Port Townsend. The novel’s strength is its sensory detail as noted by a child of nature. It’s a book to be read word-by-word to savor its full depth and meaning. Mary Ann’s/Millie’s observations of her native environment, and the people superimposed on that, are the third and most revealing side of the story.

Valerie Adolph

Just 20 pages. And then they find themselves 100 pages later craving more. The English countryside, from the family’s cold and mysterious Lynhurst Manor to the dark and foreboding Mallet, all resonate with a wonderful authenticity, while every character draws the reader in. A book to savor and enjoy, and one not to miss.

Bryan Dumas

LADY JAYNE DISAPPEARS Joanna Davidson Politano, Revell, 2017, $14.99, pb, 400pp, 9780800728755 In the summer of 1861, after Miss Aurelie Harcourt’s debtor father dies in Shepton Mallet Prison, she couldn’t imagine the wild twists and turn her life would take. Aurelie moves in with his wealthy sister and her family, and all that she has in her life now is her father’s pen name and the mysterious serialized story of Lady Jayne. She decides to finish her father’s story and even begins inserting her new family into the story in rather unflattering ways. Aurelie has to fight to keep her identity secret, struggle to fit in with her new family and ultimately discover the true identity of Lady Jayne—a woman who may be her own mother— and solve a murder in the meantime. And if that wasn’t enough, there’s the matter of the enigmatic houseguest with whom Aurelie is falling in love.

Joanna Davidson Politano delivers a remarkable debut novel with intriguing characters, a witty and mysterious plot, and a unique romance or two. It’s the kind of book where the reader tells themselves:

A DANGEROUS WOMAN FROM NOWHERE Kris Radish, SparkPress, 2017, $16.95, pb, 263pp, 9781943006267 Briar Logan has survived trauma upon trauma in her past. But now the pioneer woman has a good life in the Old West, accompanied by a good man: her husband, Logan. But one night, evil visits her remote ranch. A group of ruthless horsemen kidnaps Logan, and they ride away into the night.

Briar watches them go, and determines to slip into an old persona, Mika, to whom violence and anger come naturally. She will get her man back if it’s the last thing she does.

Except that first she has to reflect upon said past traumas, and think about having chickens for dinner, and meet a neighbor woman, and notice the beautiful sky and the beautiful land, and get roped into taking a young field hand along with her. By this time, the reader is nearly a quarter of the way through the book, and Briar hasn’t even started after her husband yet. Neither does she spend any time worrying about him. She does think about how she’s a dangerous woman, though.

And she’s from nowhere. But it takes a long time for her to prove her danger by taking action to get her beloved husband back. Without this sense of urgency, the book has little drive.

The book purports to be an adventure, and instead it meanders along like a boat on a lazy

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19th Century

ONCE A REBEL Mary Jo Putney, Zebra, 2017, $7.99/C$8.99, pb, 366pp, 9781420140941 Part of Putney’s Rogues Redeemed series, Once a Rebel mixes romance and American history in equal measure, and produces a riveting story.

Rarely does the War of 1812 become the setting for a romance. Putney crafts an exciting, enjoyable novel. She treats the historical period, as well as its importance in the birth of the national anthem of the United States, with respect, giving the reader a terrific tale of “what if,” as well as “what happened.”

Catherine Callista Brooke is a British-born, talented seamstress and widow living in Baltimore.

British soldiers burn her home to the ground, thinking it houses snipers. When Callie is about to be raped and murdered at their hands, a man from her past stops the soldiers and orders them away.

Lord George Gordon Audley was Callie’s best friend and confidant throughout her childhood.

When her father commands her to marry a man thrice her age, Gordon agrees to elope with her in order to protect her. The thwarted lovers are violently separated, each thinking the other is dead.

After years of challenging life experiences, the two are reunited, with considerable scarring on their souls. It takes cooperation and the elusive factor—love—to make things work in the end.

Delightful.

Monica E. Spence

summer stream, bobbing and drifting and observing. But once the puzzle places are set up, the story unfolds, and the sluggishness at the beginning passes away. If you have patience, you may enjoy the journey of damaged people toward redemption and love.

Xina Marie Uhl A LOVE OF WAR Louise Ripley, MLR Press, 2017, $6.99, ebook, 179pp, B01N1ZMOVI General J.E.B. ( Jeb) Stuart cut a dashing figure in the Confederate army with his scarlet-lined cape, plumed hat, white gauntlets, and gleaming boots.

A fearless cavalry officer and brilliant military tactician, he was admired on both sides of the Civil War. Word of his death at Gettysburg had Robert E. Lee prostrate with grief.

At fifteen, after surviving childhood abuse, handsome Private Liam Ashley finds in his appointment as Stuart’s camp aide both salvation and exquisite pain. Seized by intense, hopeless love for his general, he endures agonizing fear for Stuart’s safety, the humiliation of Stuart’s flirtations with Southern belles and teasing pique of Liam’s desperate adoration. Constantly courting his general’s anger, Liam is both terrified and excited by his punishments.

Set in the months before the Battle of Gettysburg, A Love of War lacks the drive of a character-driven plot, and the conclusion feels a bit implausible. But readers will find an ingenious, fictional take on the iconic figure of General Jeb Stuart which contributes to the growing body of gay-themed historical fiction, and a unique view of life behind the front lines of the Civil War. Pamela Schoenewaldt IT’S HARD OUT HERE FOR A DUKE Maya Rodale, Avon, 2017, $7.99/C$9.99, pb, 384pp, 9780062386816 Although American-born James Cavendish has inherited the dukedom of Durham, he is reluctant to undertake a role for which he is totally unprepared. Earlier books in the series follow the (mis)adventures of his three sisters; now it is his turn. Will he too find love? Since this is a Regency romance, success is not really in doubt, but the obstacles are formidable, for Meredith Green is not an aristocrat, merely a lady’s companion, and dukes are expected to marry well. But though both struggle against their feelings, they fall hopelessly in love.

This is the Cinderella story, but it explores some interesting topics: the problems of trying to win acceptance in a society with strict (and unreasonable) conventions; the obligations of great landowners to those who work in their houses and estates; the conflict between personal feelings and duty to family; and that between head and heart. After all the stress, the resolution seems a bit convenient, but this is a thoughtful and wellwritten story with a delightfully ironic perspective.

And some literary nods: Meredith is reading Pamela, and the odious Mr. Collins, a clergyman of course, arrives eager to marry one of the sisters.

Recommended.

Ray Thompson

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THE BEATEN TERRITORY Randi Samuelson-Brown, Five Star, 2017, $25.95, hb, 338pp, 9781432834050 Denver was a booming city in the 1890s, and along with the growth of the railroad and industry came brothels, gambling dens, and all manner of vice and corruption. The brothels thriving on Market Street were left alone to flourish in squalor and seediness. The lowest of the prostitutes lived and worked in cribs, rows of makeshift hovels. The Ryan family has a tradition of working businesses on the wrong side of the law. Annie Ryan has been working as a prostitute and now aspires to open her own brothel. She meets Lydia Chambers, a wealthy society woman with a laudanum addiction and a miserable marriage. Lydia has recently purchased a building on Market Street without her husband’s knowledge. She rents the building to Annie in a secret arrangement to start her brothel. Annie hires her 16-year-old niece and her daughters, already seasoned prostitutes.

This book highlights the oppression of women during that time and the limits governing their lives. They didn’t have career choices or protection under the law. It would do no good for Lydia to go to the police when her husband beat her. The police didn’t bother with a prostitute being beaten or murdered; it didn’t even merit a mention in the newspapers. I became immersed in this harsh world of prostitution, underhanded booze dealings, bribery, fraud, corrupt cops and politicians, drug addiction, and murder. There were no honest people or upstanding citizens to be found. The author was so good at pulling me into the story that I could set aside my feelings of revulsion for these characters. It is a gritty and unsentimental book with a gripping plot. Read it to get a sense of the reality faced by many women in the Old West.

Janice Ottersberg DASAMUKA Junaedi Setiyono (trans. Maya Denisa Saputra), Dalang, 2017, $17.95, pb, 256pp, 9780983627319 When Willem Kappers’ fiancée decides to run off with his father instead, the Edinburgh-trained scientist opts to die in the jungles of Java with the British army in their quest to take the island from the Dutch in 1811. However, instead of dying, Willem finds himself recruited by John Leyden to research the culture and history of Java— specifically the bronjong. As he begins his research, Willem is drawn deep into the convoluted politics of both the English/Dutch colonial governments and the corrupt Javanese aristocracy. Eventually, Willem meets the enigmatic title character and learns of Dasamuka’s troubled past and his ties to a rebellion quietly simmering in Java.

Through Willem’s perspective, we are introduced to a turbulent time in the history of Java from the Invasion of Java in 1811 through the start of the Diponegoro War starting in 1825. The reader is shown the troubling aspects of colonialism—both from the colonizers as well as the aristocracy trying to play sides to their favor—and its impact, often cruel, on the people of Java. At times, the writing is choppy and slows the flow of the narrative.

However, Willem is an interesting character in that he is more a listener rather than a narrator, allowing the reader a chance to delve into the varied perspectives and stories of the time. A captivating 34 | Reviews |

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story that leaves with the reader a unique look at the history of colonialism in Java.

Bryan Dumas THE POSTMAN POET Liz Shakespeare, Letterbox Books, 2017, £9.99, pb, 336pp, 9780951687949 Edward Capern, aka The Postman Poet, deserves wider recognition, not just for his pastoral poetry but for his concern for the poor and needy.

Capern’s life, mainly spent in North Devon, spans the Victorian age. We follow his short-lived schooling to working in a lace-making factory, to carrying the Penny Post, walking miles delivering and collecting letters from the outlying villages around the beautiful lanes of North Devon in all weathers. He later married and had a son and daughter, who tragically died very young. On his long walks he absorbed the details of the landscape, the flora and fauna, life’s beauty and bounty as well as the unfairness of society which he recreated in his poetry. He was fortunate to gain entry to a local library and reading room, reading, thanks to the local entrepreneur, William Rook of Barnstaple, as many books as he could which was as much a lifesaver to him as food. An enthusiastic autodidact and lifelong abstainer, he also gained the support of Charles Kingsley and Dickens. But it was Rook who helped most to publish his poetry. Another enthusiastic supporter was the philanthropist Baroness Burdett-Coutts who took him under her wing and even petitioned the prime minister, Lord Salisbury, to grant him a civil-list pension.

The author is well-versed in the social history of the period such as the factory acts, poor laws and the working-class dread of the workhouse.

Although she is no polemicist, she clearly shows how with access to education and healthcare, life would be more equitable. Combining fiction, social history, and biography, The Postman Poet is an engaging and entertaining read that both brings a lump to one’s throat and joy to the heart. Highly recommended.

Sally Zigmond ON STARLIT SEAS Sara Sheridan, Black and White, 2017, $14.95/ C$19.95/£8.99, pb, 439pp, 9781785300387 1823, Valparaiso, Chile. The novel’s opening highlights the journey of widowed author, Maria Graham, and follows her to Brazil, where she encounters Captain James Henderson, a smuggler in the chocolate trade. At the outset, their fortunes intertwine as Maria books passage to England aboard his ship, The Bittersweet. Meanwhile, fellow smuggler, Willow Simmons, has secreted a jewel inside a bar of chocolate and Maria finds it, casting fear and doubt on her newly budding relationship with Captain Henderson. Thus continues their journey in which the ship and the starlit seas beyond lend the backdrop for Maria’s struggle for a voice beyond society’s constraints on women.

Although the multiple interwoven points of view took this reader some getting used to, the relationship between the Captain and Maria develop with depth and compassion, setting it above the usual romance. The depictions of the chocolate trade and life aboard a sailing ship of the era are well-researched and compelling. The descriptive language is at times breathtaking, as in

the scene on land at San Fernando when Maria and her party observe a waterfall and its pond below.

“Over the drop, a luminous pond lay below them like a pale magic lantern. It was as if the moon had plummeted into the water and smashed open.

Engulfed in darkness, with only a scatter of stars above… a secret lake of light.” This is a novel to be savored with a bar of chocolate as the reader experiences life aboard ship and again on land during the days of sail.

Gini Grossenbacher MR DICKENS AND HIS CAROL Samantha Silva, Flatiron, 2017, $24.99/C$34.99, hb, 288pp, 9781250154040 Charles Dickens, used to living the life of a successful writer in Victorian London, finds to his dismay that his most recent literary effort, Martin Chuzzlewit, is not selling well. His publishers suggest that he write a short Christmas book to recoup recent losses. Dickens declines, it being only a few weeks before Christmas. However, a clause in his contract makes refusal impossible. Very reluctantly he agrees.

This new burden seems like the last straw. Both his father and his brother ask repeatedly for loans he knows will never be repaid. His family now numbers six children, and his wife plans a large Christmas celebration as well as improvements to their house. His children want more and better toys, and he is expected to contribute to charities.

It is all too much. When his wife leaves him, taking the children, he has what we would call his mid-life crisis.

Moving into cheap rooms, he struggles to write a Christmas book and finally cobbles one together, full of struggles and pain. Yet he has met a mysterious woman who becomes his muse, guiding him to discover the finer side of human nature. Her son and other street children deepen his understanding until he starts anew and triumphantly completes the masterpiece we now know as A Christmas Carol.

Ms. Silva deftly weaves fact with fiction, developing a tale of a man who finds salvation in his writing, understanding finally what we might achieve as we accept human nature—our own as well as others’—for the best it might become. With a light touch, she presents the depth of meaning of A Christmas Carol along with a detailed picture of Dickens himself, London life, and the landscape of the time.

This is a book of many dimensions and a worthwhile read.

Valerie Adolph NATIVE Mike Sparrow, Five Star, 2017, $25.95, hb, 494pp, 9781432835903 Manifest Destiny in 1860s America is the policy of promoting ownership of Western lands, initially making treaties with Native American Indians and later breaking or ignoring those same treaties.

Looking at one particular tribe, the author depicts the Lakota’s attempts to stop this incursion. What makes the struggle so poignant is the depiction of the Lakota tribe’s beautiful and powerful rituals and efforts to treat creation in a loving, reverential manner on a daily basis.

Takoda’s story begins with accidentally causing 19th Century

the death of his shaman father in a hunting expedition. Takoda also has gifts of perception that arise out of dreams and watching nature’s signals, but these gifts are marred by the guilt he carries after his father’s death. Nevertheless, he and his tribe battle trappers, hunters, migrants and politicians.

Senator Theodore Winthrop of Minnesota worships money and power. Holding both, he is determined to direct the creation of a railroad across the Western United States. The starkness of Indians who revere the land, juxtaposed with white men who “consume” the land, will intrigue readers, causing them to side with the Lakota even while knowing the eventual outcome of this microcosm of Indian-American civil war. Rather than being stereotypically one-sided, the reader will also meet decent, honorable military officers, soldiers and civilians who with the Lakota represent all that is noble and praiseworthy in the American West.

Adventure, passion, battles and verbal manipulation fill these pages alongside appreciation for the beauty of this unexplored, challenging land.

Native is a great historical fiction read!

Viviane Crystal

During the early 1800s in a small village on the Illinois frontier, young Mary Jo Proud is raised by her mother and older brother, Caswell, and treated as a slave. At a young age, she is forced to have sex with men from the village, while her brother collects the money to help his mother with the finances. Other characters include Annie Gray, a spinster farmer who helps the poor in the community. Fish, a local Kickapoo Indian who lives in a wigwam outside of town, befriends Mary Jo and Annie Gray. A traveling preacher arrives in the village to hold services and soon becomes Caswell’s enemy. During a sermon, an unusual event occurs that leaves Caswell injured, causing him to fear the preacher.

This novel is a terrific study of human behavior in a small town in the Midwest. I loved the book’s title. Caswell is a despicable character, and everyone in the village wants him to “disappear.” The author provides excellent descriptions of each character as they move toward the conclusion, when the eventual death of Caswell is discovered and the murderer found. I look forward to the author’s next novel and may want to read her previous thrillers.

Jeff Westerhoff

UNDER THE HEARTLESS BLUE Allyson Stack, Freight/Trafalgar Square, 2016, $14.95/$19.95/£9.99, pb, 358pp, 9781910449868 It’s 1884, and Vera Palmer, widowed at twenty-three, has left middle-class Connecticut for a bookkeeping job at a frontier Arizona boardinghouse. But the boardinghouse is actually a brothel, and the sheltered Vera must learn to cope with combustible, violent surroundings. Lucky for her, she has inherited a mining claim, and the attorney helping her, Will Keane, may turn out to be more than a legal adviser.

From this solid premise, Stack conveys the Far West in visceral detail, whether she’s describing an abortion, the brothel madam, or the muddy streets of Goose Flat, Arizona. But, contrary to what the jacket flap would lead you to believe, the novel actually begins thirty years later with Vera’s nursing service during the First World War, a confusing narrative with no obvious connection to her earlier life. The Arizona story, wings clipped before it even starts, never quite takes flight.

I like Stack’s grasp of metaphor, and her ability to show rather than tell. But her descriptions rely too heavily on choppy fragments that interrupt the flow, as do the Briticisms that pepper Vera’s supposedly American voice. As to characters, Vera comes across fully, but not Will, her good-hearted lawyer, who makes a sudden reversal and steps out of himself. It’s essential to the plot and the theme of sexual attitudes, but I don’t see Will acting like that. Maybe if the narrative had stayed with Will and Vera throughout, Stack could have persuaded me.

Readers of literary historical fiction may like Under the Heartless Blue for its prose and vivid glimpse of a Far West that Hollywood never shows.

But at least in this, her first effort, the author shows a greater gift for style than for storytelling.

Larry Zuckerman

A CHAOTIC COURTSHIP Bethany Swafford, Clean Reads, 2016, $3.99, ebook, 207pp, B01KKMZ2VY Since Miss Diana Forester is as modest as her dowry, she is taken aback when the handsome and wealthy Mr. John Richfield not only pays her marked attention during her stay in London with her aunt, but asks her permission to speak to her father about courting her. Embarrassed at her own confused reply, she is convinced he will lose interest, but he recognizes her shyness and persists.

The courtship encounters problems: she pays too much attention to idle speculation that her betrothed is a highwayman; he to gossip that she is a fortune hunter. All, fortunately, is resolved and a happy marriage takes place.

The focus in this Regency is upon a credibly drawn domestic sphere: family and a close circle of friends in rural England. Diana’s lively interaction with her infuriatingly provoking younger sister and brothers, her love and respect for her wise parents, and her affection for her loyal friend Anna do, however, overshadow her developing romance, partly because the pair are so concerned to observe restrictive social conventions. Readers who prefer spirited heroines may find Diana’s anxieties and insecurities frustrating.

Ray Thompson

WISHING CASWELL DEAD Pat Stoltey, Five Star, 2017, $25.95, hb, 230pp, 9781432834401 19th Century

THE PAIN AND THE SORROW Loretta Miles Tollefson, Sunstone, 2017, $22.93, pb, 260pp, 9781632931849 Set in the 1860s in the New Mexico Territory, this is a fiction built upon an actual event. Gregoria is a brutalized Mexican girl who, at 14, is married off by her mentally ill father to an American thug, Charles Kennedy. As Gregoria is used to nothing but neglect and abuse, Charles is nothing new or unexpected. New Mexico has already been colonized by the Spanish, but now American exsoldiers, misfits, opportunists, and farmers are beginning to move west, too. It is here amid social upheaval, with rushes for gold and for land in progress, that the story takes place.

Gregoria’s husband is violent and paranoid, a serial killer who builds a cabin in a lonely mountain pass beside a trail much used by immigrants.

Here, he robs and murders weary travelers and then disposes of their bodies and personal possessions at his leisure. That Gregoria finally discovers enough sense of identity to finally give evidence against the brutal psychopath to whom she is yoked is something of a miracle, but in the end, she isn’t the main focus. That, I think, is the Moreno Valley itself, the land, the people, and the historically accurate retelling of a gruesome “true crime” tale from New Mexico’s past. Not always easy reading because of the content, but a vivid, pull-no-punches trip to the 1860s “Wild West.”

Juliet Waldron BEHIND THE SCENES Jen Turano, Bethany House, 2017, $15.99, pb, 352pp, 9780764217944 In this first in the Apart from the Crowd series, set in 1883, Miss Permilia Griswold is a perpetual wallflower, not having been fully accepted by the New York elite. However, her style, beauty and personality attract the notice of department store owner Asher Rutherford. At the Vanderbilt ball, Permilia overhears a plot to murder Asher.

When she tells him, Asher does not believe her, so Permilia takes protecting him into her own hands, much to the dismay of Asher.

Once again, Turano has created a cast of quirky and lovable characters. Permilia is bold and brave, with her priorities in good order. Asher is charming and heroic. Permilia’s friends are fun as well, many of them forward-thinking females with odd habits and eccentricities. There is plenty of conflict, with evil step-relations, a murder plot, a missing shoe, and, of course, a romance between two adorable characters who take some time falling in love.

This is a clean, Christian romance. The elements of religion are well integrated and handled with a light hand. The quirky nature of the characters and story mean the historical setting may not be fully accurate, but that is part of the fun.

Elizabeth Caulfield Felt THE CURIOUS AFFAIR OF THE WITCH AT WAYSIDE CROSS Lisa Tuttle, Jo Fletcher Books, 2017, £16.99, pb, 368pp, 9781784299590 This is the second book in the Jesperson and Lane series of gently paranormal mysteries set in the 1890s. The stories are narrated by Aphrodite (Di) Lane, a young female detective, who assists Jasper Jesperson in solving mysterious cases and phenomena that inflict the inhabitants of late Victorian Britain. When a previously unknown man, one Charles Manning, drops dead in their house in the early hours of one November morning, the duo are tasked by the deceased’s brother to find out more about the circumstances and causes of his mysterious death, and go to Norfolk, where he was lodging with the vicar and his large family in a small village, Aylmerton. Charles Manning’s close connections are with Bella Bulstrode, the eponymous witch and neighbour, who is a young woman with a reputation for her herbal and medical knowledge, while over in Cromer the sinister Felix Ott seemed to possess an unhealthy influence over the unfortunate Manning. There is HNR Issue 82, November 2017 | Reviews | 35

another unexplained death to investigate, and a missing baby.

The story trots along pleasantly, and it is an easy and unchallenging read. There are instances of behaviour which seem a little implausible in late Victorian England as well as some solecisms in Lane’s narrative. The tale later shifts into elements of outright fantasy which seem a little bizarre and unexpected and jar with the tenor of the overall story.

Douglas Kemp THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF NORTHERN FIRES Daren Wang, St. Martin’s, 2017, $26.99/C$37.99, hb, 288pp, 9781250122353 Although the time span of this novel is the six years of the Civil War era, it has the feel of much longer multi-generational family sagas like North and South. The events are far removed from the usual Civil War setting, focusing on a little-known incident in which a single small town near Buffalo, New York, seceded from the Union in response to the region’s support for the Underground Railroad and the many escaped slaves who passed through on their way to Canada.

The Willis family—patriarch Nathan, ne’er-dowell son Leander, and strong-willed abolitionist Mary—struggle to keep their farm and sawmill going in the face of the rapid upheaval caused by a conflict distant geographically, but close to home in its moral and economic impact. When Mary takes in an escapee named Joe Bell, she sets in motion consequences that involve Virginia plantations, Manhattan opium dens, and a Confederate plot to invade the Union via Canada.

Wang ably navigates the shifting alliances and emotional highs and lows of Mary and her loved ones, evoking the pleasures of rural work and play on the Great Lakes as well as the horrors of war and slavery. The multiple points of view enrich the narrative, although the focus is on the intelligent, idealistic Mary and her fierce love for her family and for Joe. Wang wisely doesn’t try to impose a modern sensibility about race and class on his story, but rather leaves it to his characters to respond to the titanic cultural shifts taking place in their own way, at their own thoughtful pace. The result is a rich, painful, and moving drama.

Kristen McDermott ADOBE MOON: Wyatt Earp, An American Odyssey Mark Warren, Five Star, 2017, $25.95, hb, 266pp, 9781432838164 A boy becomes a man when he faces down a crisis and resolves to stand for a cause. This biographical novel of Wyatt Earp follows him from age 14 in Iowa until he is 25 in Kansas. The “odyssey” of the subtitle refers to the nearly 5000 miles he covers, primarily on horseback, during that decade.

In 1862 Wyatt is put in charge of his family’s farm while his older brothers fight in the Civil War. Leaving home to forge his own future, he endures brawls in railroad camps, the loss of a wife in childbirth, ten days in jail for a wrongful arrest, and the dubious distinction of being the best bouncer in any brothel. His stand for right over wrong in a frontier town presages his fame as a lawman.

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This is unlike any Western you’ve ever read. It’s lyrical and philosophical, yet the action scenes are fulfilling and you gain insights into this American legend. The rich detail speaks to the depth of Warren’s research, and the planned trilogy of Earp’s life could not have had a better beginning than Adobe Moon.

Tom Vallar THE LANGUAGE OF TREES Steve Wiegenstein, Blank Slate, 2017, $16.95, pb, 214pp, 9781943075386 The Language of Trees is the third book in Steve Wiegenstein’s Daybreak series and set in the 1880s, about 25 years after book 2 (no, you do not have to have read the previous books to enjoy this one). Once again, it’s set in the small utopian commune of Daybreak, Missouri, but now it is their children, grown and leading the community, who are faced with adversity. Daybreak sits on the teetering edge of the old and new worlds, and their ideals now seem antiquated. Newton Turner, the son of a town founder, must guide the community as a New York timber company offers to buy all their timber lands. Josephine Mercadier, Turner’s half-sister, wants to be something, do something more than just take care of her sick mother. What that something is, she doesn’t know, but when J.M. Bridges, the man in charge of the timber company, arrives in Daybreak possibilities arise.

The Language of Trees is the story of multiple characters—and of the town itself—and that is both its strength and weakness. Each character deals with love, loss and change in different ways as they all move toward the 20th century, whether they like it or not. Each character has a unique voice and perspective, but having so many characters’ lives being detailed leads to a rather abrupt ending.

This is especially true for the change in Newton; it feels all too quick and undeveloped. Overall, it is a well told story, and Steve Wiegenstein does well maintaining the many plot lines and character developments. It is a wonderful look at human greed and love, nature and progress, idealism and realities.

Bryan Dumas

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THE SECRET OF SUMMERHAYES Merryn Allingham, HQ, 2017, £7.99, pb, 360pp, 9780008193850 When Canadian infantry officer Jos Kerrigan stumbles on a lost garden on the Summerhayes estate, where he is billeted, he feels a strange sense of familiarity, as if he has been there before. As the spring of 1944 edges towards summer, however, he finds himself distracted from his training by Bethany Merston, the paid companion of Alice Summer, the last survivor of the family that owns Summerhayes. The attraction is mutual, but Bethany has her own reasons for staying aloof. She is increasingly concerned that someone is playing mind games with her elderly employer in order to undermine her physical and mental health.

This is the sequel to Allingham’s The Buttonmaker’s Daughter and, like many sequels, I

felt it suffered a little under the burden of having so much back-story, so there was less room for subtlety in the development of the plot. The ending too struck me as clichéd and predictable. I wasn’t always convinced by some of the historical details.

For instance, would walking wounded really be sent back to their former billets rather than to a convalescent hospital with proper medical supervision to prevent infection? Wouldn’t the domestic staff of Alice’s wealthy nephew Gilbert have been conscripted to do some sort of war work?

Why has Summerhayes’s vegetable garden been neglected when there was so much propaganda about Digging for Victory? Allingham also clearly subscribes to the myth that more men were killed in WWI than came home (albeit physically and/ or mentally scarred), which simply isn’t borne out by statistics.

That said, this is an atmospheric novel with a vividly evoked setting and most of the characterisation is excellent. (Gilbert’s bright but unacademic son Ralph is particularly delightful.)

Perhaps I expected too much, but I was a little disappointed after the promise of the previous book.

Jasmina Svenne THE SMOG Timothy Allsop, Amper & Sand, 2017, $3.89/£2.99, ebook, 429pp, B06XQKR45X Harry, a WWII English combat veteran, looks for his mysteriously missing wife, Phyllis, in postwar London. His sister Jean takes a break from her own rocky marriage to help him in his search, and to assemble the pieces of Phyllis’s extensive double life and links to London’s sordid underworld. A heavy smog blanketing the city is a somewhat hamfisted metaphor for the opacity of English social life in the 1950s, especially as related to the novel’s LGBT conflicts.

The style is readable despite some descriptive filler and improbable dialog. Indeed, in plot as well as character, much is made of little, and the committed reader never fully realizes the hope that a greater sense of connection might develop.

That said, the novel is intelligent and compelling in a number of respects. Jean’s gradual realization that her brother, despite his marriage to Phyllis, is not strictly heterosexual highlights the sense of English shame surrounding the issue during the era. Most interesting is Harry himself, an inwardly well-balanced bisexual who struggles to gain understanding from family and friends, both gay and straight, for the sincerity of his emotional spectrum and non-binary sexuality.

The Smog may be best thought of as a novel of alternative romance clothed in a mystery. Its best quality is that it avoids the avant-garde or Bohemian mood often associated with the topic in other period literature. Students of the era and topic will find the novel’s insights valuable.

Jackie Drohan THE DEATH OF THE FRONSAC Neal Ascherson, Head of Zeus, 2017, £18.99, hb, 393pp, 978178694379 It is difficult to classify this book. It is certainly a war story: the central character is a Polish soldier, Maurycy Szczucki, and the story opens in 1940 and runs until the end of the war, although it 19th Century — 20th Century

also throws forward episodically as far as 1992.

However, there is very little about Maurycy’s combat experience. He spends most of the war in Scotland, where most of the book is set. It is also a love story, indeed a triple love story as Maurycy has a complicated and tragic love life. It is also a spy story to the extent that three different jurisdictions (British, French and Polish) suspect him of espionage and he spends a long time in prison in Poland accordingly, but he is never actually a spy, although he may have aided one.

Essentially this is a book about the experience of exile, about breaking with the past, about conflicts of loyalty, about accepting and being accepted in another land—in short, about identity. Specifically, it is about the Polish diaspora during WWII, and if you wish to understand Poland then you should read this book. However, Maurycy’s tortuous journey to live down his past and learn to love Scotland is similar to the journeys many migrants have taken before and since.

The book takes its title from an incident in the Firth of Clyde in 1940, when the French warship Fronsac blew up and sank. Was it accident or sabotage? Maurycy becomes involved in protecting the possible saboteur, which is how he falls under suspicion as a spy. But how did the saboteur expect to survive the sinking? Nobody knows why the Fronsac sank (it was a real event), and the book does not offer a convincing explanation. Nonetheless this is a great read, and the setting and characters are wonderful.

Edward James

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THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF EURIDICE GUSMAO Martha Batalha (trans. Eric M. B. Becker), Oneworld, 2017, $25.99/C$33.99, hb, 240pp, 9781786071729 / Oneworld, 2017, £12.99, pb, 240pp, 9781786072986 “This is the story of Euridice Gusmao, the woman who might have been.” In 1940s Rio de Janeiro, Euridice is a housewife with two children. She suffers from idleness and boredom. Any attempt to bring herself fulfillment outside her household duties is quickly squelched by her husband, the superior Antenor. In a parallel storyline, her sister Guida has run away with the wealthy Marcos, and they marry. Marcos is nothing of what she thought, and he abandons the pregnant Guida. Years later and after much hardship, she swallows her pride and returns to her family.

With humor and fresh, clever writing, the author addresses women’s issues in mid-century society. She often strays from the path of Euridice and Guida to weave in the lives of many other characters. These are delightful vignettes of the numerous people surrounding the lives of the two sisters. Keep a pencil handy to keep track of all the mothers, fathers, children, cousins, grandparents, in-laws, neighbors, and townspeople. For example, there is Zelia, the neighbor with “a turtle’s neck, which seemed to lengthen from inside her collar any 20th Century

time she saw someone of interest pass by her house” and her husband whose “burps outnumbered his syllables uttered.” All the characters’ stories and descriptions are so cleverly told and so much fun to read.

I loved this book. It puts a spotlight on women living in the ´40s, and is told with originality and skill. It is such a refreshing read, and I highly recommend it. This is the author’s debut novel, and I will watch for anything new from her in the future.

Janice Ottersberg WE THAT ARE LEFT Lisa Bigelow, Allen & Unwin, 2017, A$29.99, pb, 396pp, 9781760297008 Set in Melbourne during World War II, this novel tells the parallel stories of two women: Grace Fowler, who works as a secretary for a newspaper editor but has ambitions to become a reporter, and Mae Parker, wife of Harry, an officer in the Royal Australian Navy.

In 1941, when the pride of the fleet, HMAS Sydney, and all of her 645 crew go missing in the Indian Ocean after a battle with German cruiser, Kormoran, Grace gets a chance to realise her dream reporting on how the potential tragedy is affecting those at home, while Mae struggles with guilt over a quarrel she had with Harry shortly before he left and must also face the possibility she will never see him again. Both women have to negotiate false information and the cruel hope generated by the Government’s evasiveness over what happened.

With her positive and practical attitude, Grace is the more appealing and dynamic of the pair, whereas Mae is a complex and introspective individual who struggles with her motherhood role and is in constant denial of the truth. Grace’s romance with journalist and prisoner-of-war Phil Taylor has an uneven outcome, and Mae’s preoccupations tend to get maudlin and repetitious, but overall this portrayal of life on the Australian home front is a compassionate and satisfying read. As both Grace and Mae have interesting family back stories, there is scope here for further complementary novels from promising debut author, Lisa Bigelow.

In the concluding notes, the author says she was inspired by the story of her own grandfather, who was lost in HMAS Sydney, and that her grandmother never knew what happened to the ship. (The mystery was only finally solved when it was discovered off the coast of Western Australia in 2008.)

Marina Maxwell THE GIRL FROM MUNICH Tania Blanchard, Simon & Schuster Australia, 2017, A$29.99, pb, 432pp, 9781925596144 Lotte lives in Munich and would love to follow her dream of becoming a professional photographer, but her parents insist she contribute to the German war effort in a more practical way. She takes an administrative job with the Luftwaffe, working for the handsome but married Oberinspektor Erich Drescher.

As the war escalates and Munich suffers bombing, Lotte is torn between her growing attraction to Erich and trying to keep alive her romantic illusions of a peaceful future when she and her childhood sweetheart, Heinrich, can marry

and build a life together. But as the Nazi regime crumbles, Lotte and Erich are forced to flee and take to the road together while everything they ever trusted or believed in is ripped apart.

The somewhat naive Lotte is likeable enough, but the love triangle and resulting family arguments tend to get overworked to the point where there is a real risk of losing the reader’s sympathy with everyone. However, Lotte does redeem herself as she matures and is determined to no longer “live the lie” as she did under Hitler.

World War II novels from a German point of view are not as common as those from the Allied side, and this one offers a different focus on the chaos, displacement and family fracture that afflicted so many people throughout Europe. It is apparently inspired by the author’s own family history, and a sequel about the post-war German immigrant experience in Australia is planned. It will be interesting to see if these characters gain greater depth in another environment.

Marina Maxwell THE CHRISTMAS BLESSING Melody Carlson, Revell, 2017, $16.99, hb, 176pp, 9780800722708 It’s November 1944, and Amelia Richards is an unwed mother working as a hairdresser, barely making ends meet in California, as her fiancé has been killed in the war. James’s parents don’t know about her or baby Jimmy, so Amelia scrapes together money for the train so she can visit them in Montana. But before she can work up enough courage to knock on the Bradleys’ door, both she and Jimmy become ill with pneumonia. Desperate, down to her last dollar, Amelia leaves Jimmy in the manger of the nativity scene the Bradleys have set up in their yard. Surely they will find him, and he’ll be better off than remaining with her?

While Amelia is a complex character, the novella form doesn’t leave room for a lot of development for the others. An historical misstep: would Amelia really be able to so easily find a sleeper berth, when wartime trains were overcrowded with troops and people barred from driving private cars? I would have recommended this book if the ending hadn’t been tied up so patly. The story would have been more resonant if Carlson had opted for a less heartwarming fate for one of the characters.

B.J. Sedlock THE LAST BALLAD Wiley Cash, William Morrow, 2017, $26.99, hb, 372pp, 97800623119 North Carolina, 1929. Twenty-eight-yearold Ella May has come down from the hills of Tennessee to the textile mills of North Carolina in search of a better life, but she finds only crushing poverty. Despite working full time, she cannot afford to feed and clothe her children. Learning of a union rally, she boards a truck “piloted by the young girl with the strange accent” and joins the strikers.

Her voice and the ballads she has composed about her life make her a valuable asset to the union, and she is quickly recruited, earning a salary that allows her to risk her nine-dollar-a-week job and join the strikers.

But this is not only Ella’s fight, nor is this only her story. Author Wiley Cash reveals up front that Ella was murdered in that strike and later hailed

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as a heroine. “No one knows who did it or why,” relates Ella’s now elderly daughter, “although I have long suspected that at that time everyone knew who did it and there were many reasons why.”

Knowing the ending from the very start deprived me of the pleasure of wondering how Ella could possibly succeed and worrying about her as she faces down strikebreakers who decry her as a “commie bitch” and attack her from day one.

But The Last Ballad is not a portrait of Ella; it’s a mural of late-1920s America depicting the clash of workers, mill owners, and strike breakers, each chapter entering the life of a character through detailed backstory and advancing the plot slowly and deliberately. Readers expecting a fast-moving, edge-of-the-seat story may be disappointed, but those who enjoy well-crafted life stories of many characters and seeing how those lives come together in a desperate cause will appreciate The Last Ballad.

For them this book is recommended reading.

Rebecca Kightlinger I’LL BE SEEING YOU Eileen Charbonneau, Books We Love, 2017, $13.50, pb, 112pp, 9781772994810 Lieutenant Luke Kayenta, a Navajo code talker during WWII, is sent by the OSS to the Pyrenees Mountains in 1942 as part of an intelligence operation. He and his cousin Nantai use their native language to shield radio transmissions from the Germans, but Luke is obsessed with the memory of beautiful Kitty Charante, wife of Canadian pilot Philippe Charante. There is little time for Luke to think of love, however, after the Pyrenees operation begins to unravel, especially when German intelligence operative Helmut Adler, an expert on Native American languages, learns of the Navajo transmissions. From that point, it’s touch and go for Luke and his comrades.

The novel is exciting and develops Luke’s character well. The combat scenes could be more authentic, and some plot elements seem rather implausible, but many other passages are vivid and moving. The heavy use of French, German, and Yiddish terms is rather distracting, but similar use of Navajo words adds authenticity to the story. The brevity of the work, at 112 pages, doesn’t allow for everything in the plot to be resolved, but the next book in the Code Talker Chronicles series should take care of that.

Loyd Uglow

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THE WISH CHILD Catherine Chidgey, Chatto & Windus, 2017, £12.99, hb, 384pp, 9781784741105 It has been over ten years since the publication of Catherine Chidgey’s previous novel, also historical fiction. This seems a very long time for someone so talented, who can narrate a story with such finesse and poetic elegance. This novel is set in Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Sieglinde Heilman is a 38 | Reviews |

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young girl growing up with her bourgeois family in Berlin, and Erich Köning is a young boy living with his family outside Leipzig. While Sieglinde’s father is a civil servant working in censorship bureaucracy, Erich’s father, a farmer, is called up by the Wehrmacht and sent to the Eastern front. The story unfolds to bring Sieglinde and Erich together in the last, apocalyptic days of the War—which is giving nothing away, as the opening chapter reveals that they knew each other through the nearlyretired Sieglinde searching for evidence of Erich’s whereabouts in 1995. There is a moving and surprising conclusion, one that identifies the hitherto distant and vague narrator.

Nazi Germany seems to have an apparently inexhaustible attraction for writers—entirely justified when a writer like Catherine Chidgey is prompted to write such a gentle, well-observed work. There is an increasing element of symbolist fantasy in the narrative, which throws the reader a little, as there was no initial indication that the plot was going to leave the path of grim mundane reality that is wartime Germany. This is an absorbing story, intelligent and literary.

Douglas Kemp THE SONG OF THE STORK Stephan Collishaw, Legend, 2017, $16.95/ C$22.95/£9.99, pb, 288pp, 9781785079191 Yael is a fifteen-year-old Jewish girl running from the Germans in Eastern Europe during WWII. She seeks shelter at the farm of the socalled village idiot, Aleksei. He is mute, but he makes it clear enough that he doesn’t want her there. Nevertheless, she slowly wins his trust, and a fascinating relationship develops between them.

The Germans ultimately find Yael’s hiding place, and she is forced to move on, eventually joining a Jewish partisan group.

The Song of the Stork has the simple, savage beauty of a fairy tale without the black-and-white morality. It is a tale of survival and hope amidst the bleak reality of war. Collishaw avoids graphic descriptions of violence and focuses on the feelings of fear and anger in those forced to witness and endure that violence. The reader feels Yael’s hunger and cold along with her, rooting for her as she reaches out for help, not knowing if the strangers she encounters will shelter her or turn her over to the Nazis. Yael is a three-dimensional character, a quiet, imaginative girl who takes moments of beauty wherever she finds them. Collishaw’s writing is at its best when depicting Yael’s relationship with Aleksei, an impressive achievement when one considers that their relationship develops almost entirely without words.

This is a literary novel, and few loose ends are tied up at the end. There is closure for one subplot, but I found it rushed and unconvincing. Characters appear and disappear, especially during the second half of the novel. This is undoubtedly realistic for wartime, but I mourned the loss of people Yael cared about whom she never heard from again.

Recommended.

Clarissa Harwood

RUBY FLYNN Nadine Dorries, Head of Zeus/Trafalgar Square, 2017, $14.95/C$19.95/£7.99, pb, 352pp, 9781784082208 Set in County Mayo, Ireland, the action begins with the rescue of twelve-year-old Ruby, who has become orphaned during the worst winter on record in 1947. Losing her family and the six difficult years she then endures at a convent school do not break her strong spirit. Once she is hired as a nursery maid at Ballyford Castle, Ruby becomes an indispensable member of the staff, her education and ability to read and write setting her apart from the other servants.

Oddly, Ballyford feels familiar to Ruby from the moment she arrives and she intuits that the kindly couple who manage the estate know something they are unwilling to tell. Matters are bleak at the castle because the current lord and lady have lost five infant sons in five years. Lady Isobel dwells in a haze of despondency while Lord Charles has been staying away in Liverpool to avoid his sad memories. Local legend tells of a curse and a ghost that have brought tragedy to the FitzDeane family.

When Lord Charles returns for a visit, Ruby’s need to understand the secret of her connection to his ancestral home gains new urgency.

The locales in this novel come alive through believable characterization and authentic dialects.

A stark contrast exists between the scenes in Liverpool and those on the west coast of Ireland, with a menacing subplot in the former providing gritty realism while the folk customs and superstitions of tenants inhabiting the estate’s cottages open an age-old link to the supernatural.

Fairytale aspects of the story that could seem absurd in a 1950s context are not entirely predictable and suspense is maintained long enough to make them intriguing.

Cynthia Slocum DISTRICT NURSE ON CALL Donna Douglas, Arrow, 2017, £6.99, pb, 435pp, 9781784757151 Set in West Yorkshire in 1926, the latest novel by Donna Douglas introduces us to District Nursing in a mining community in the village of Bowden.

In anticipation of bringing innovative, yet practical nursing into a community where people are used to calling on the local healer, Agnes Sheridan expects to be welcomed by the villagers. But this is a closed community, suspicious of new ideas, and though she has been funded by the Miner’s Welfare, Nurse Sheridan finds herself shunned when she offers her services. Her opponent, Hannah Arkwright, formidable in size and personality, is respected yet feared by the locals. Agnes pursues her ambition to attend to the health needs of the community using the skills she learned in her training, but finds her way thwarted by the locals, specifically Hannah Arkwright who is determined to continue using her potions irrespective of the developments in medicine at the time.

Though the General Strike was resolved within nine days in most services nationwide, it continued for months in Bowden Main mine along with other collieries in the area, resulting in miners and 20th Century

their families facing hunger, severe hardship and eviction. The pit manager’s wife, Carrie, a miner’s daughter, finds herself torn between the two sides in the dispute over working hours and lowering the wages of the miners: wanting to support her husband James in his role keeping the mine operating versus giving aid to those in need in the pit families.

This is an engaging book that draws the reader into the characters’ lives, developing the story as a believable record of the history from that period.

It is also an exposition of the challenges faced by nurses in rural medicine during the years between the wars.

Cathy Kemp PURCHASE Christopher K. Doyle, Blank Slate Press, 2017, $16.95 pb, 241pp, 9781943075409 Baltimore, 1926. Eighteen-year-old A.D. is brilliant but homeless. But with the encouragement of Isaiah, the janitor of the Peabody Conservatory, A.D. rises from “a porter of detritus or debris,” to janitor’s assistant.

Identifying A.D.’s problem (the blues) and his salvation (the Blues), Isaiah—musician, wiseman, and fugitive from justice—takes A.D. under his wing and teaches him the guitar chords that kindle A.D.’s quest for the tune lodged deep in his soul, a song inspired by his obsession over a Peabody student well outside his social stratum. When A.D. accidentally sets fire to his muse, killing her, he and Isaiah make tracks. In their flight from the law, A.D relentlessly seeks out and gives voice to the music inside him.

Author Christopher Doyle blends gospel cadences and biblical references with the grammar of the unschooled and the polysyllables of the autodidact to create Isaiah’s lyrical, if not quite believable, narratorial voice.

Acknowledge that it was as transcendent as God’s green gospel? That it was more resplendent than any opera of note? That your theatergoers ate it up as if served the last supper? But the director was gone, and as Runnymeade’s oratory ceased, he smiled when he saw A.D. in the doorway.

Throughout the book, poorly punctuated dialogue sends the reader searching for the answer to one question: where does dialogue end and narration resume?

You write that?

I looked at him straight then. I sure did, and I rubbed my hands together as if performing some magician’s rite.

Somewhere in this amalgam of literary tics— overly lyrical narration, confusing dialogue formatting, and inconsistent punctuation—is the story of a tortured musician searching for his sound.

Readers who enjoy jumping through narratorial hoops in search of A.D.’s story will find this novel satisfying. I just found it exhausting.

Rebecca Kightlinger MANHATTAN BEACH Jennifer Egan, Scribner, 2017, $28.00/C$36.00, hb, 432pp, 9781476716732 / Corsair, 2017, 20th Century

£12.99, hb, 9781472150875 The latest book by Pulitzer Prize-winner Jennifer Egan is quite a change from A Visit from the Goon Squad. In Manhattan Beach, the story is set in the 1930s and ´40s, during the Great Depression and WWII. Told more chronologically than the earlier book and limited to only a few points of view, there is no confusion and the story flows nicely.

The book opens when twelve-year-old Anna Kerrigan accompanies her father, Eddie, to the home of one Dexter Styles, his employer. Though Anna is relegated to playing with Styles’s children, she senses Mr. Styles is very important in the life of her family.

Not long afterwards, Eddie disappears, leaving Anna, her mother, and her extremely disabled sister, Lydia, to fend for themselves. Five years later, Anna works at the Brooklyn Naval Yard—once the sole province of men, now a place where women can make contributions to the war effort. She runs into Mr. Styles at a nightclub, and thus begin her efforts to ascertain what happened to her father.

Mr. Styles has connections to the mob, and she wants to know if her father is dead or if he simply walked away from his family.

The writing in this novel is clear and sharp. Egan flawlessly recreates New York City during this time. Obviously, much research was required, but the facts flow seamlessly within the story; nothing feels contrived. In spite of pitch-perfect writing and a noir-like mystery, there’s an odd distance between the reader and the characters. At one point in the novel, Anna must go deep diving to help repair ships for the Navy, wearing a “dress” which separates her from the water and keeps her safe. It’s almost as if the reader, too, is wearing something that keeps the characters from actually touching the heart.

Anne Clinard Barnhill

It is a good, comfortable read which will probably not keep you guessing, but you’ll enjoy the ride and look forward to more of Beryl and Edwina.

Wendy Zollo

MURDER IN AN ENGLISH VILLAGE Jessica Ellicott, Kensington, 2017, $25.00/ C$27.95, hb, 294pp, 9781496710505 Edwina Davenport lives in the cozy English village of Walmsley Parva. With her comfortable living affected so bleakly by the aftermath of WWI, she’s compelled to advertise for a lodger. Beryl Helliwell, a famous, thrill-seeking journeyer and also her former classmate, answers, with thoughts of finally living a life of tranquility and discretion.

And so their needs should be met; however, Walmsley Parva is a village of hidden truths and murder. Edwina and Beryl set out to unravel the mystery along with a fabulous cast of characters, including the gossipmonger of a postmistress, a war veteran with unhealed wounds, and a lady of the manor. All are very English and subjected to the wiles of a proper, demure Edwina and the brash impulsiveness of her American friend.

In this, the first of a planned series, the plot is simple, even naïve, but in the best way. It is very much an English cozy mystery. The origin of the tale in Murder in an English Village is anything but organic. Its concept is forced, its initial tone contrived, but as the plot moves forward its flow becomes more natural. The writing is splendid, and this twosome is likable if not yet fully developed.

THE LAST SON’S SECRET Rafael Nadal Farreras (trans. Mara Faye Lethem), Black Swan, 2017, £7.99, pb, 385pp, 9781784162269 This is an international bestseller first published in 2015 and the first of the author’s works to be translated into English, in this case by Mara Faye Lethem. The novel spans the First and Second World Wars, with the main characters being members of the Palmisano and Covertini families who live in the fictional village of Bellorotondo in southern Italy. During the Great War all the male members of the Palmisano family are killed, which leads to the belief in a curse on the family. When the last boy of the family is born, his mother vows to protect her son from the curse whatever the cost.

At the same time a girl, Giovanna, is born into the Covertini family. The story moves on to the Second War when the two children and their childhood companions have grown up and become involved, on one side or another, in the struggle between Italy and Germany against the Allied forces and the Italian rebels.

Part political novel and romantic family saga, the book places the personal story against the backdrop of wartime struggle and tragedy and the inevitable consequences of individual choices

THE WARDROBE MISTRESS Natalie Meg Evans, Quercus, 2017, £8.99, pb, 435pp, 9781784299385 The Wardrobe Mistress is mainly set in and around a small theatre, the Farren Theatre in London, after World War II. The area had been heavily bombed during the war but the building had survived. We first meet Vanessa as a child of five who has been taken to the theatre by her father to see a production of Sleeping Beauty. After the performance, she is taken backstage and meets Eva St. Clair, who gives her a small gold key on a length of ribbon. We then jump to the 1940s where Vanessa has joined the WAAF. She meets a naval commander, Alastair Redenhall, and after the war they both become involved in running the Farren Theatre, she as the wardrobe mistress. Much is to follow.

I found this to be a fascinating tale and more so the further I read into it. The characters are believable and the pace is good, but its provenance as an historical novel is vague, to say the least.

Apart from references to the war and the inclusion of the extreme winter of 1947, there is little to recommend it as history. It could have been set in any small theatre in any town at any time as the Naval and WAAF connection has little bearing, if any at all, on the actual story. A previous book by this author won the 2014 Festival of Romantic Fiction’s “Best Historical Read” and was shortlisted for the 2015 Romance Writers of America Award.

To my mind this is more a romantic than a historical novel. However, a good read for all that.

Marilyn Sherlock

HNR Issue 82, November 2017 | Reviews | 39

are played out. The role of the Allies at the end of the Second War is also examined and is both courageous and disastrous.

Julie Parker THE REVOLUTION OF MARINA M. Janet Fitch, Little Brown, 2017, $30.00/ C$39.00/£20, hb, 816pp, 9780316022064 The Russian Revolution of 1917 and its aftermath are explored in this lengthy, poetic novel by the author of White Oleander and Paint It Black.

Marina Makarova is the privileged daughter of a bourgeois lawyer and socialite, and a gifted writer in her own right. While she dreams of life in cultured salons and dabbles in the political fervor spreading throughout Petrograd, unimaginable change is brewing. Caught between two worlds, Marina is forced to face hardship, betrayal, and one tragedy after another as the Red Terror overtakes the country.

On the cusp of womanhood, Marina falls in love with two vastly different men—one a childhood companion from her own social class, and the other a poverty-stricken poet and fervent revolutionary.

She is also in turns burdened and blessed with the friendship of a devout member of the Bolshevik party. With deft precision, the author weaves through three tumultuous years of Marina’s life, detailing her warring thoughts, feelings, and decisions. One may think a book of this size would indicate a sweeping saga—and it is considering the multitude of events and turmoil—but the timeline itself is short. The finer details of the history, literature, politics, social structure, science, and even spiritualism are nothing short of brilliant.

The ending leaves too many loose ends, which the prologue does little to improve. It is truly jarring the turn the story takes when the reader is expecting certain situations to come full circle; however, it seems the author has chosen to take a poetic exit instead. The writing is infused with alliteration and idioms, as well as powerful and beautiful poetry in Marina’s voice. It is intense and unforgettable—not at all a disappointment for Fitch’s fans.

Arleigh Ordoyne SHELTER Sarah Franklin, Bonnier Zaffre, 2017, £12.99, hb, 432pp, 9781785762994 World War Two continues to be a fertile area for works of both fact and fiction. Many of the latter have the characteristics of first-hand experience and are often the better for it, whilst others, such as Shelter, bear the hallmarks of diligent research.

Shelter opens with a sort of prologue, written in the third person, but suggesting the speech patterns and vocabulary of one of the central characters, Connie. Confusingly, this questionable device, which does very little to endear Connie to us, is not used when we meet Seppe, the second major character.

As the opening of the novel expands, we are introduced to a plethora of characters with very little to indicate to us how each convincingly forms part of an engaging and complex narrative which should be taking us into, and through, a compelling 40 | Reviews |

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storyline.

The settings, such as the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, as well as the various privations of the wartime world, are cleverly and sometimes touchingly evoked, although many of the descriptive passages seem overworked and selfconscious.

Much is made, in the publisher’s notes, of the fact that the writer produced this work under the hand of a Jerwood/Arvon mentorship award.

First novels are often blessed with the vivid flavour of an original mind. Strong, personal ideas need to be allowed to flare and flourish, untamed and uninhibited by any suggestion of box-ticking, which in this case, sadly and however much it tries, has resulted in a novel that contrives to be both lightweight and heavy-handed.

Julia Stoneham THESE HEALING HILLS Ann H. Gabhart, Revell, 2017, $15.99, pb, 368pp, 9780800723637 At the end of WWII, when Francine Howard discovers the man she thought she was going to marry is bringing home his English fiancée, she literally runs for the hills—the hills of Kentucky.

And Kentucky is quite a change from her home in Cincinnati, one both frightening and exciting.

Fran is coming to the Appalachian Mountains to attend the Frontier Nursing Service and learn to become a midwife. Medical attention is hard to come by for hardscrabble mountain women, and Fran wants to put her nurse’s training to good use, but she is amazed at the poverty she finds. However, there’s more to the area than mere poverty. She also finds a resilient spirit among the people, despite their circumstances. She is slowly seduced by the mountain beauty and the culture.

Even the imaginative use of language delights her.

She is also pleased when she meets returning soldier Ben Locke. Well, maybe she’s not happy at first. But slowly, as Fran grows to appreciate the simple pleasures of life in the mountains, she also begins to think about her life in new ways. A life that might include Ben. Well-researched and vivid in its love for the Appalachian Mountains, this inspirational novel expresses the hope evidenced after WWII. While inspirational novels can be heavy-handed in their message, this one is less so than many.

At the beginning of the story, Bible quotes from Fran’s grandmother tend to overpower the action; however, as time progresses, these intrusions happen with less frequency and the reader is more prepared for the grandmother’s voice in Fran’s ear.

Anne Clinard Barnhill THE GLAMOROUS DEAD Suzanne Gates, Kensington, 2017, $15.00, pb, 303pp, 9781496708120 Penny and Rosemary, childhood best friends, decide to try their luck as actresses in Hollywood.

While they don’t find instant stardom, they are fortunate enough to get jobs as dancers in a nightclub and as extras at Paramount Studios.

Things are really looking up when they get to be background players in Barbara Stanwyck’s film,

The Lady Eve, and Rosemary proves she has star potential. Then the dream turns into a nightmare when Rosemary’s nude body is found buried in a shallow grave and the police name Penny as the prime murder suspect. Suddenly it is Penny who is thrust into the limelight as she fights to prove her innocence and discover Rosemary’s real killer. Penny finds unlikely help in her new selfproclaimed friend, Barbara Stanwyck, who jumps to Penny’s defense and uses all her resources and connections to help solve the mystery.

The novel is told from Penny’s point of view in a stream-of-consciousness, staccato style that is a bit confusing and jarring. It is no doubt used to convey the main character’s shock and state of mind, but it is difficult for the reader to discern what is going on. The glamorous, old Hollywood backdrop is eschewed for the seedier side of the city in the 1940s. And Barbara Stanwyck feels like an afterthought; drifting in and out of the story at random, she never seems to have a true role.

Janice Derr LAST CHRISTMAS IN PARIS Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb, William Morrow, 2017, $14.99/C$18.50, pb, 384pp, 978006256268 Few challenges are more daunting for two writers than attempting to take on a narrative told almost exclusively through an exchange of letters.

In addition, these two writers are from different continents, one from America, and the other from Britain. So, this novel is a testament to the expertise of Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb.

They have woven a narrative in letters, mostly told through the main characters Evie and Tom. The story unfolds during almost a four- year period while Tom is stationed in France on the battle lines and in the trenches of World War I, while Evie is in London writing copy for the newspaper that Tom’s family owns. The war itself is a character in their story, since it is the impact of the raging conflict and the way the characters interact within its bounds that propel the account. Through their letters they cope with the loss of Evie’s brother Will on the battlefield, and the loss of innocence they face as they mature into adulthood, each encountering revulsions they wish to shield from one another.

Much of what makes the novel compelling is its dramatic irony; the reader knows the war will be longer than one year, yet the letter writers express their initial desires to return home since they think the governments will come to their senses and find peace. Yet, the war drags on, and with it the horrors of trench sickness, encircling death, and the gutwrenching realization that there is no end in sight.

The story resonates with our modern day when Tom copes with post-traumatic stress disorder. A very enjoyable, informative novel.

Gini Grossenbacher THE PRICE OF SILENCE Dolores Gordon-Smith, Severn House, 2017, $28.99/£20.99, hb, 224pp, 9780727887269 Set during WWI, The Price of Silence has Doctor Anthony Brooke, a secret agent for the 20th Century

British government, trying to make sense of the murder-suicide of an unlikely couple. Before long the investigation becomes more complicated and widespread. All clues point Anthony to a gang of blackmailers and extortionists, using a housekeeping agency as their front. But every time Anthony gets close to any person with ties to the gang, he or she is killed off. At the very bottom of the investigation is Milly, a little girl hidden in a Belgian orphanage in German-occupied territory.

Anthony must race around the clock to solve the crimes in order to get to the bottom of the murders, understand what Milly has to do with it, and then rescue her before she falls prey to the gang.

The Price of Silence is a fast-paced and enthralling mystery that hooked me from the onset and kept me guessing and mystified as any good crimemystery should. Gordon-Smith keeps loading on more complications, adding to the suspense as Anthony tries to unravel the mystery, which isn’t resolved until the very end. According to the publisher’s write-up, the novel is “Dolores GordonSmith’s tribute to John Buchan and the Thirty Nine Steps, now celebrating its centenary. All references and similarities are intentional.” I have not read this novel, but thoroughly enjoyed Ms. Gordon-Smith’s spin. A fun and exciting read.

Francesca Pelaccia THE LONG COUNT JM Gulvin, Faber & Faber, 2017, $22.00, hb, 288pp, 9780571337743 It’s the start of a hot Texas summer in 1967.

Ranger John Quarrie is asked to take the long drive over to Marion County, where local police need his help in solving the brutal beating of a cop. John Q’s dispatcher interrupts the drive with a call to check on another “incident” not far out of the way. The incident looks like the suicide of a middle-aged military veteran, though John Q does not buy it.

The dead man’s young son, Isaac, returns home after three tours of duty in Vietnam intending to surprise his now suddenly dead father. John Q and Isaac set out to find the killer or killers.

Strange little discoveries pull John Q and readers forward. More dead bodies turn up. The hunt accelerates and grows both more complex and ominous. John Q sees connections in the killings.

Suspicion falls on Isaac’s twin brother, Ishmael, believed to have died in the fire of a local asylum for the insane but perhaps not.

Gulvin’s portrayal of widower and single father John Q works well. The crime details and settings ring true. Lesser characters are intensely human and interesting. The main plot and several subplots challenge logic but come together in a rousing ending that will surprise some readers and cause others to shout, “I knew it!”

G. J. Berger

C

THE HOUSE OF MEMORY Carolyn Haines, Thomas & Mercer, 2017, $15.95, pb, 306pp, 9781477819937 Raissa James can see the dead, and she has capitalized on this by opening a private investigation agency specializing in the occult. “Pluto’s Snitch” she calls it, and she was successful in solving her 20th Century

first case. In this new book, she and her partner Reginald Proctor have set out to solve a troubling case of Camilla, a normally kind young woman who has suddenly begun violently attacking the man she is to marry. She is now locked away in a grim asylum, where a terrible fate awaits her.

Camilla’s good friend Zelda Fitzgerald has hired Raissa to help Camilla.

Zelda is the new wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald and close friend of movie star Tallulah Bankhead.

These two Southern belles appear throughout the book as the part-regal, partimpish young women they were in the days of the flappers and the early movies. Together with these characters, we have the strong evocation of a hot summer in Alabama to enrich the sensory environment.

Characters in this story range from the down-toearth Raissa and her cardsharp partner, Reginald, to the patient fiancé David, the vengeful spirit of Nina Campbell, and the evil doctors at the Bryce Hospital asylum, who are practicing an early and unsuccessful form of lobotomy surgery. Raissa’s task is not only to try to save Camilla from the surgery but also to save her from the malevolent spirit of Nina.

The writer presents an evocative treat for the reader—a strong impression of the heat of the Southern summer and of the dramatic showdown with the malevolent spirit one stormy midnight in a southern mansion. This book is a tour de force from an accomplished writer who has a gift for delivering vivid sensory impressions to deepen the impact of her story. This is a powerful book you will not soon forget.

Valerie Adolph THE IT GIRLS Karen Harper, William Morrow, 2017, $14.99/ C$18.50, pb, 384pp, 9780062567772 Lucy and Elinor Sutherland have big dreams that seem far-fetched for girls growing up on the Isle of Jersey in the late 1800s, but after moving to London they seize the opportunity to mingle with high society and to make the most of their creative talents, ultimately forging unprecedented international careers.

This biographical novel outlines the remarkable lives of Lady Lucy Duff-Gordon, whose imaginative fashion designs led the way to a daring, corset-less style of dressing for women in the early years of the 20th century, and her younger sibling Elinor Glyn, whose romance novels shocked and entranced readers with their bold sensuality. Both possess a will to succeed and buoyant confidence that enable them to break free of the restrictive social norms of their time and remain resilient despite disappointment, betrayal, scandal, and fluctuating fortunes.

These ambitious women’s paths intersect with several notable people and events spanning

from the twilight of Queen Victoria’s reign to the 1920s heyday of silent films. Their marriages, love affairs, and professional accomplishments during approximately three decades are deftly condensed into a series of key moments that reveal their personalities and inner thoughts. An unspoken rivalry between the sisters forms the story’s core tension, which is satisfyingly resolved. Although their self-absorption makes them unsympathetic characters at times, Lucy and Elinor are exceptional individuals, and this book offers some surprising details to depict the verve and colorful experiences of two nearly forgotten figures who influenced trends in fashion and attitudes about romantic passion.

Cynthia Slocum

C

COME BACK FOR ME Sharon Hart-Green, New Jewish Press, 2017, $20.00, pb, 304pp, 9781988326061 Come Back for Me is a superb novel about love, loss, letting go of the past and choosing life.

When he is a young teen, during the Holocaust era, Artur Mandelkorn is ripped away from his family in Hungary. After being separated from his beloved younger sister while on the run from the Nazis, he spends years trying to learn of her fate. At the same time, he attempts to start his life over by moving to Israel and living on a kibbutz. Though he finds love with a woman who also grapples with ghosts from her past, Artur cannot rest until he uncovers the truth about what happened to his family.

Twenty years in the future, Suzy Kohn, a teenager living in Toronto, has only a tenuous connection to Judaism. While trying to navigate her love life and other teenage issues, she is grappling with the sudden death of her uncle, as well as trying to console her seemingly inconsolable aunt. Although they live on opposite ends of the world, Suzy and Artur’s lives will converge in ways that no one could have expected or predicted.

Artur and Suzy take turns narrating each chapter; the transition between the two characters, though separated in time and in life circumstance, flows smoothly. In fact, their voices are quite distinct, a hallmark of a skilled writer. Artur is an endearing and authentic character. Though prone to melancholy, his struggles to keep his faith are poignant. While Suzy is a more difficult character with whom to connect, she matures as she comes of age, making her more likeable as the story moves forward. The writing is evocative and the storyline mesmerizing.

Despite the tragedies that befall both families, the unexpected ending is a hopeful one. Come Back for Me deserves a place on the shelf alongside the best of the best Holocaust-based novels.

Hilary Daninhirsch HNR Issue 82, November 2017 | Reviews | 41

THE TWELVE-MILE STRAIGHT Eleanor Henderson, Ecco, 2017, $27.99, hb, 560pp, 9780062686510 In Depression-era rural Georgia, twin babies are born to Elma Jesup. This would not normally be cause for any eyebrows to be raised, but for the fact that one baby is black and the other is white.

Events leading up to the birth of the babies are told in a series of flashbacks, alternating with scenes from the current day. Elma grows up in a household with her widowed father, Juke, and Nan, the black daughter of the servant that raised Elma after Elma’s mother passed away. Nan is mute, as her well-meaning but unknowing mother cut her tongue out of her mouth when she was a baby.

Despite the lack of language, the two have forged a sisterly bond.

Elma has her eyes on Freddy, the son of the man who owns the land upon which her father is a sharecropper. But soon she becomes enamored with Genus, the black farmhand, who is brought to work on the land. Eventually Elma discovers she is pregnant. When the babies are born and one is black, Genus is accused of her rape and is lynched, while Freddy is run out of town, accused of masterminding the murder.

The Twelve-Mile Straight looks at poverty and race through the lens of history; the result is an absorbing and disturbing piece of literary fiction that does not sugarcoat any of the difficult topics it covers. It is also a tale of survival, of societal norms, and of family. The characters are well-fleshed out, and though the book is a touch lengthy and perhaps could have been wrapped up earlier, the stellar writing makes the extra time spent wholly worthwhile.

Hilary Daninhirsch THE RULES OF MAGIC Alice Hoffman, Simon & Schuster, 2017, $27.99/ C$36.99, hb, 384pp, 9781501137471 / Scribner, 2017, £16.99, hb, 384pp, 9781471157677 This prequel to Hoffman’s famous Practical Magic portrays the story of the Aunts and their intriguing past. Franny, Bridget ( Jet), and Vincent have grown up in New York City with practical parents. This is sometimes hard because Franny can talk to birds, Jet can read people’s thoughts, and Vincent can charm anyone he meets. Their mother, Susanna, knows her children are different, but she’s afraid of the family curse, so runs her household with no nonsense, no magic, and a strict no-fallingin-love rule. As the children grow up in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, they begin to get more and more curious about the family secret. When they spend one summer at their Aunt Isabelle’s house in Massachusetts, they begin to learn more about their family and embrace their heritage. Each sibling has a chance at love, but will they take the risk? Will their mother be right, after all, and will love only lead to ruin?

Hoffman has a gift for fine storytelling, and this story does not disappoint. The transformation of each sibling from gawky, lost children into powerful, independent adults resonates and enchants. And while the story lacks historical detail, there is plenty of character development and 42 | Reviews |

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family drama to satisfy most readers.

Rebecca Cochran HOMICIDE FOR THE HOLIDAYS Cheryl Honigford, Sourcebooks Landmark, 2017, $15.99, pb, 420pp, 9781492628644 Near Christmas 1938, Vivian Witchell discovers a long-missing key to her deceased father’s desk. She finds money and a seven-yearold warning—not to talk—inside the locked drawer. Who threatened her father and why? The questions stir her curiosity, but the threat brings back memories of the murder she helped solve two months earlier at the Chicago radio station where she works. When the money vanishes, she knows someone else knows what she’s found. Then she uncovers a second key, but to what? Private detective Charlie Haverman could help, but she hasn’t seen him since they solved the other mystery.

Viv longs to renew their acquaintance, but he refuses to play second fiddle to Graham Yarborough, her co-star in The Darkness Knows.

She doesn’t love Graham, but the radio station insists that the public think they are an item.

Refusal would mean losing her job. Once she tracks down Charlie, he agrees to help her purely as a business proposition. The more they learn, the more she realizes her father wasn’t the man she thought he was. The closer she comes to the truth, the more determined someone else is to keep her in the dark.

Suspects abound in this second Viv and Charlie Mystery: a partner who drinks too much, a secretary with a green thumb, an assistant state’s attorney, a secretive German companion, and a loyal housekeeper. The red herrings and diverse subplots will keep readers guessing, but the historical tie-in to her father’s death is tenuous. The romance is less satisfying and the repartee between Viv and Charlie is disappointingly absent in this sequel to The Darkness Knows; in fact, Charlie doesn’t show up until chapter ten, and he’s more of a supporting character than one might expect. Still, fans of Viv and Charlie will welcome their return.

Cindy Vallar THIS SIDE OF MURDER Anna Lee Huber, Kensington, 2017, $15.00/$16.95, pb, 289pp, 9781496713155 In 1919 England, young war widow Verity Kent receives an anonymous letter suggesting her husband, Sidney, committed treason. At first, she refuses to believe it, but the sender knows she worked for the Secret Service during the war, something not even Sidney knew. Determined to find the truth, Verity accepts an invitation to the engagement party of one of Sidney’s fellow officers, which is being held in a castle on an island. There, she finds a coded letter in a book that belonged to Sidney. Does the letter hold the key to her husband’s guilt or innocence? At the party, she meets the officers from Sidney’s battalion and uncovers secrets involving their wartime service. Another cryptic letter arrives, telling her to trust no one. Then one of the guests is found dead. Is it a suicide or a murder? As a storm strands the guests on the island and another death occurs,

Verity knows she must find the truth or she may be the next victim. Handsome aristocrat Max Ryde appears willing to help Verity, and she feels drawn to him. But can she trust him?

Anna Lee Huber, author of the Lady Darby mysteries, has created a vibrant new heroine in Verity Kent. Huber paints a compelling portrait of the aftermath of World War I, and shows the readers how devastating the war was for everyone in England. Huber shows how people dealt with their grief in different ways. Some people turned to drink, drugs, and sex as a way to cope with their loss, while others retreated into themselves. The descriptions of the island are beautifully written, and the setting and plot recall Agatha Christie. There is one twist in the plot I never saw coming. I am looking forward to reading many more of Verity Kent’s adventures.

Vicki Kondelik AURORE Graham Hurley, Head of Zeus/Trafalgar Square, 2017, $26.95/C$35.95/£18.99, hb, 416pp, 9781784977856 In June 1943, wireless operator Billy Angell beats the odds to survive his thirtieth bombing mission for the Royal Air Force, which entitles him to a six-month respite from combat. But there’s no rest for Billy. Spymasters recruit him to parachute into Occupied France, where he’s to pretend to be a deserter and give out disinformation about Allied invasion plans.

Hurley brings Billy’s aerial war, the first part of the narrative, to terrifying life. I wish the novel had stayed there, focusing on Billy’s shame over the firebombing of Hamburg, which gives him a depth the other characters lack. Unfortunately, the espionage story soon takes over, and the novel goes off the rails.

Even readers unschooled in WWII intelligence operations may wonder how Billy drops into France after only a week’s training, a rank amateur spilling a tale that should fool no one. Obstacles occur and threats abound, but a benevolent higher power repeatedly quashes them, so that the good guys seldom have to face trouble for long. As a consequence, these Germans come across as cardboard villains, in the main hardly more brutal than a tetchy schoolmaster with a switch. To sustain this fabrication and prop up a sagging plot, the novel risks trivializing the real intelligence war, the Occupation, and (because there are Jews and death camps involved) the Holocaust.

As a thriller, Aurore pulls too many punches to succeed. And as historical fiction, aside from the RAF chapters, gripping and well told, there’s little here to evoke a plausible, compelling narrative of warring Europe in 1943.

Larry Zuckerman A LOVE SO TRUE Melissa Jagears, Bethany House, 2017, $14.99, pb, 368pp, 9780764217524 In 1908 Teaville, Kansas, Evelyn Wisely runs an orphanage with her parents, but wishes to extend her good works by creating a refuge for the town’s “fallen women” looking to escape their 20th Century

way of life. David Kingsman’s father sends David to Teaville to sell a factory they recently acquired.

He meets Evelyn in the town’s seedy district and offers to escort her home, but she declares she can take care of herself. David’s attraction for the independent Evelyn grows, but his attempts at getting to know her are rebuffed. Evelyn’s parents don’t even know about her secret past, and she is afraid that confession will leave her an outcast from respectable society.

This is the third volume of the Teaville Moral Society series. References are made to events in prior volumes, but it’s not essential to read those first. I liked how this inspirational novel acknowledges the less savory sides of life. My one objection was in how long it takes Evelyn to overcome her past. People may dither for long periods over moral dilemmas in real life, but I thought the dithering dragged on too long in the story. Still, I recommend the book to Christian fiction fans.

B.J. Sedlock A BEAUTIFUL POISON Lydia Kang, Lake Union, 2017, $15.95, pb, 383pp, 9781477848876 Allene Cutter’s 1918 engagement party should have been a smash. After all, the Cutter family’s Gilded Age wealth is still intact, and Andrew Smythe Biddle III is a real catch. Unfortunately, Florence Waxworth, a socialite busybody who has managed to offend nearly everyone, dies in a fall during the party. The police rule it an accident, but a lingering odor of bitter almonds makes Allene, Birdie Dreyer, and Jasper Jones, chums since childhood, wonder if something more sinister is at work. Then Allene gets an anonymous letter ominous in its simplicity: You’re welcome.

With WWI and the Spanish flu epidemic serving as a backdrop, A Beautiful Poison is an intricate romp through New York City’s mansions, slums, and even an impromptu autopsy at the city morgue. The influenza is not the only thing making the body count rise. One after another of Allene, Birdie, and Jasper’s friends and relatives come to a mysterious end, and each time another anonymous letter appears. The odd, scientific nature of the deaths awakens Allene’s interest in chemistry, and Jasper’s job as an apprentice medical examiner comes in handy as the three investigate the series of bizarre deaths. Then Birdie falls ill…

Author Lydia Kang is also a physician, and she uses her medical background to elegant effect in her historical thriller. She keeps the reader guessing through the final pages and beyond in this most enjoyable tale. Mystery fans will particularly like A Beautiful Poison, but I recommend it to all.

Jo Ann Butler IT WAS ONLY EVER YOU Kate Kerrigan, Head of Zeus/Trafalgar Square, 2017, $12.95/C$16.95/£7.99, pb, 389pp, 9781784082420 Three women, Rose, Ava, and Sheila, center around Patrick Murphy’s life in late 1950s New York. He is a handsome, charismatic singer who aspires to become part of the early Rock and Roll 20th Century

scene. Before Patrick immigrated to New York, a love story began in Ireland between him and Rose. When the story moves to New York, Patrick is lonely and hears nothing from Rose; then Ava comes into his life. Sheila is trying to break into the male-dominated world of music managers. She discovers Patrick and believes in his star potential.

Meanwhile, still in Ireland, Rose has learned about where Patrick is and a deception by her parents to remove him from her life. This explains Patrick’s disappearance. She runs away to New York to find him, but discovers him already married to Ava. This is a relaxing comfort read with more than one romantic storyline. There is Dermot who wants to marry Ava, and Iggy who is falling for Sheila. The novel is not predictable. There are some plot turns that left me guessing until the end who will end up with Patrick. Rose is the first love who he had planned to marry. He also has a special love for Ava and his unborn child. He and Sheila have formed a bond while she guides his career. All the characters are struggling to find true love and their place in the world. Kerrigan’s writing hooks you and sweeps you along. Anyone with a fondness for romance novels will love this book.

Janice Ottersberg THE WOMAN IN THE CAMPHOR TRUNK Jennifer Kincheloe, Seventh Street, 2017, $15.95/ C$17.00, pb, 304pp, 9781633883635 Los Angeles, 1908. Chinatown is seething with unrest. Tong wars erupt into instant violence. There exists a vast gulf between Chinese people and white people, bridged only by a few missionaries and the police. Girls from China are brought over to become prostitutes, imprisoned by the tongs until they are of no further use. Intruding into this secret world are Police Matron Anna Blanc and her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Detective Joe Singer.

They find the body of a white woman in a camphor trunk in an apartment in Chinatown.

Knowing the ill-feeling between Chinese and whites, they understand that this matter must be handled very carefully to avoid bloodshed.

Together they follow the trail back to white missionaries, to two enslaved Chinese girls, to the wilderness outside Los Angeles, and back to face the violence of the tongs. Throughout, Anna and Joe spar verbally as they meet different characters from the world of Chinatown, hare off to chase suspects, and duck to avoid flying bullets.

This second book featuring the independent Anna Blanc develops further her turbulent relationship with Joe Singer and offers a hint of greater closeness—and additional turbulence— ahead. Their efforts to solve the mystery of the body in the camphor trunk lead to many twists and surprises and are complicated by the involvement of the enigmatic Mr. Jones. Throughout the story, Kincheloe describes well the hostility between whites and Chinese and the internecine warfare between the tongs.

In this book, the author has struggled to combine an important era in American history, a romance, and a mystery, but the combination does not blend together comfortably and believably.

To lighten the mood we find Anna’s cheeky, pert dialogue and self-talk that, while amusing to our ears, does not quite fit the period.

Valerie Adolph DEATH AROUND THE BEND T. E. Kinsey, Thomas & Mercer, 2017, $15.95, pb, 316pp, 9781503940109 It’s 1909 in England, and Lady Hardcastle and her maid, Florence Armstrong, are guests at “Fishy’s” or Lord Riddlethorpe’s country estate.

However, what was supposed to be a relaxing week of parties and games and Fishy’s newfound hobby, motor racing, turns deadly. The accidental death of a professional driver becomes murder when Lady Hardcastle and Florence learn that the car’s brakes have been snipped. Then, another guest is murdered and several other guests have attempts made on their lives. As the police take their time investigating, Lady Hardcastle and Florence begin their own snooping and off-handed spying and even bring in household servants to do what they do best: listen, but pretend they’re not, and report back.

Reading Death around the Bend, the third installment in the Lady Hardcastle Mysteries, was like watching Downton Abbey with insight into the life of the Edwardian aristocracy and their strict adherence to propriety and formality, as well as the lives and social expectations of servants. Lady Hardcastle, however, is the exception to the rules of status. She treats Florence as a friend and her equal in solving crimes while she offhandedly fulfills her duties as a lady’s maid.

Death around the Bend immersed me in the social manners of the Edwardian aristocracy with authentic language that stood on formality but was balanced with lots of wit and humour. Although representative of their classes, the characters each had some unsavory side that fleshed them out. The novel has a solid mystery and is an enjoyable read.

Francesca Pelaccia LAND OF HIDDEN FIRES Kirk Kjeldsen, Grenzland Press, 2017, $12.95, pb, 207pp, 9780998465722 Fifteen-year-old Kari Dahlstrom witnesses an American plane going down in 1943 in Germanoccupied Norway. Her widowed father, Erling, tells her to ignore it, but she disobeys and locates the pilot, Lance, and offers to guide him to Sweden.

Oberleutnant Conrad Moltke is a disgruntled German officer, longing to be where the real action is in North Africa rather than chasing after downed pilots in this Norwegian backwater. And Sverre, a former neighbor of the Dahlstroms, intends to gain German favor by informing, and maybe getting his land back as a result. Erling discovers Kari missing and sets off to find her. The story follows the four different parties trekking through the Norwegian backcountry in winter, each bent on capturing or trying to avoid being captured. When they come together in the climax, the unexpected happens.

Kjeldsen does a beautiful job of describing the Norwegian landscape: “thin bands of clouds appeared on the horizon in violet and peachcolored waves.” The reader will be soaked in the HNR Issue 82, November 2017 | Reviews | 43

winter atmosphere. A plot point confused me, though. Would people trying to escape capture in wartime light fires and shoot off forbidden firearms to kill game? I would think that no matter how hungry they were, it would be too risky to draw that much attention to their location. The book has a printing glitch—there are several pages where alternate lines of type are in slightly different sizes, enough to notice and be jarring to the eyes trying to scan the page. Readers who like World War II stories, and those who appreciate lyrical descriptions along with an exciting plot, will enjoy this novel.

B.J. Sedlock DEATH AT THE EMERALD R. J. Koreto, Crooked Lane, 2017, $27.99, hb, 272pp, 9781683313373 In Edwardian-era London, Lady Frances Ffolkes’s reputation as an amateur detective precedes her when she is commissioned by a wealthy widower to find the widow’s missing daughter, Louisa, who disappeared over 30 years ago after running away from home. Louisa ran to join a theater, so Frances decides to start her investigation there. While no one at the theater remembers a Louisa, Lady Frances learns about a beautiful actress named Helen who attracted multiple suitors. She too disappeared 30 years earlier. That evening, word reaches Lady Frances that one of Helen’s former suitors has been murdered. Shortly thereafter, Lady Frances finds herself being shadowed by a man who appears to be another of Helen’s former suitors. With the help of her stalwart maid, June Mallow, Lady Frances will cross paths with playwright George Bernard Shaw, King Edward VII, film directors, actors and actresses, and Scotland Yard inspectors in her search for answers. In a time where manners and etiquette rule, can a single lady and her maid overcome gender and class constraints in order to uncover a murderer and locate a missing person?

R. J. Koreto sets the stage with flawless historical detail and character mannerisms. His third Lady Frances Ffolkes story develops the characters and their relationships more fully while also exploring a dual mystery: a murder and a disappearance. The plot unravels at a steady pace and keeps readers engaged. Like the second Lady Frances novel, Death Among Rubies, the culprit isn’t hard to figure out, but the way Koreto reveals everything is done in a dramatically entertaining way. Lady Frances has wit that goes on for days, and her intrepid personality coupled with a delicious historical ambience makes this read a delight.

J. Lynn Else BABYLON BERLIN Volker Kutscher (trans. German Niall Sellars), Sandstone, 2017, £8.99, pb, 524pp, 9781910124970 Berlin in May 1929. Detective Inspector Gereon Rath has been transferred from Cologne to work in the Vice Division of the Berlin Police, based in Alexanderplatz. As well as growing levels of vice to suppress in the capital, this is a time of political ferment for Germany. Rath gets involved 44 | Reviews |

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in a case that concerns the killing of an unidentified Russian and uncovers a trail that plunges him into all kinds of unexpected dangers and excitement.

Rath is ambitious and benefits from having a father as a senior police officer in the Rhineland. But he is possibly not as clever as he sometimes thinks he is. He uncovers a plot involving smuggled Russian gold and guns and has to negotiate carefully through the tortuous intrigues.

This is the first in the Gereon Rath Berlin detective series. The Berlin of 1929 is described in forensic historical detail: the bohemian nightlife, the new construction blooming throughout the city, and the growth of extreme and polarised political activities are all portrayed with an engaging exactitude. Berlin stories set in the 1920s always have that appeal for the reader of a city that is on the cusp of entering global pre-eminence, yet with the knowledge of the destruction and damnation that was to be visited upon it but a few short years later. The plot becomes quite elaborate, but the author is always in control of events; it is a police procedural, and the narrative speeds along expertly.

Douglas Kemp FRIENDS AND TRAITORS John Lawton, Atlantic Monthly, 2017, $26, hb, 352pp, 9780802127068 / Grove, 2017, £16.99, hb, 352pp, 9781611856224 Scotland Yard’s Chief Superintendent Frederick Troy has known Guy Burgess since the mid-1930s.

Burgess, a product of Cambridge and a Russian double agent, has intermittent contact with Troy through the years leading to his defection to the Soviet Union in the early 1950s. In 1958, Troy, on a family vacation in Vienna, is approached by Burgess, who tells Troy “I want to go home.” But things are not that simple.

This book, one of a number of Inspector Troy novels, follows Troy and Burgess over twenty years, from 1935 to 1958. In the process we meet many people in Troy’s world, and the book references events in other Troy novels. Lawton has constructed an intricate world, with many real people interwoven into the fictional population.

Enough backstory is given for the reader to get a rough gist of other threads in the plot, recurring characters, and references to past events, although I did feel that reading the other Troy novels would have enriched my understanding of this one, and of the complex characters Lawton portrays.

Guy Burgess is an historical person, and this novel is grounded in fact. This well-plotted and well-written book kept me intrigued; Troy’s world rings true. I enjoyed every page of this trip back to the height of the Cold War, and recommend that lovers of spy fiction and Cold War thrillers give Frederick Troy a try. Recommended.

Susan McDuffie WICKWYTHE HALL Judithe Little, Black Opal, 2017, $15.00, pb, 331pp, 9781626946798 Wickwythe Hall, an estate in England, is pivotal in this story of WWII. The narrative alternates among the viewpoints of three of the main characters: Mabry, Annelle, and Reid. Mabry is an

American who married into the family who has owned Wickwythe Hall for generations. Annelle has grown up with her two brothers as orphans in a French nunnery. Reid is also American and an old love interest and friend of Mabry’s. The story begins with the German army breaking through the Maginot Line and endangering the nunnery where Annelle is a novice. The nuns refuse to leave, but Annelle joins hordes of other people fleeing and dying on the roads while escaping the Germans. Fate lands her on a boat crossing the channel. Upon landing in England, she meets Mabry, a volunteer feeding the British soldiers fleeing France. Mabry brings a distressed Annelle home to Wickwythe Hall. Reid is sent by President Roosevelt from the U.S. to England as a liaison to Churchill. Reid and Mabry meet after many years when he accompanies Churchill to Wickwythe Hall for a weekend of rest and respite.

The author has skillfully brought these three fictional characters together at Wickwythe Hall, and the story develops from there. The first chapters left me with the impression that this book would be a light romantic WWII read.

But as I read on, it had substance with endearing characters and solemn subjects. It is based on the true events of WWII Operation Catapult, when Churchill made the decision to bomb the French naval fleet at Mers-el-Kébir to prevent their battle ships being handed over to Germany. Little’s characterization of Churchill is so well done. She makes his personality and presence so real. Mabry was a character to be admired for her decisions and actions. A good read with a satisfying ending.

Janice Ottersberg DEVIL IN THE DUST Cara Luecht, Heritage Beacon, 2017, $7.99, pb, 303pp, 9781946016072 This approachable Dust Bowl-era coming of age story evokes elements of The Grapes of Wrath and Tobacco Road. Fifteen-year-old Jessie watches the life of her small Oklahoma town slowly blown away while hoping for the return of her absent father. Her head is turned by the arrival of Randall, a well-heeled, slick stranger twice her age. Is he savior or predator? Both Jessie and the town at large struggle with issues of trust and moral boundaries in their struggle to survive. The characters of the town pastor and his wife stand in witness to the town’s slow, dismal apocalypse. Only Randall seems to believe the town has a future, and is determined to exploit its hardship so he can profit for its future recovery.

Very readable in style, the novel’s mood matches its subject, but falls short in providing the emotional connection the reader hopes for. Shifting perspectives, a somewhat overly explanatory style and a limited range of narrative voice and style limit the dimensionality of the characters.

The moral ambiguity may be intentional; demonstrative of the effects of numbing poverty, but we are left feeling there is a lesson we have missed. That said, fans of the era will be affected by its descriptive authenticity.

Jackie Drohan 20th Century

THE HOUSE BY THE RIVER Lena Manta (trans. Gail Holst-Warhaft), AmazonCrossing, 2017, $14.95, pb, 544pp, 9781542045896 In the years before WWII, Theodora and Gerasimos live in a small house by a river, at the foot of Mount Olympus in Greece. Theirs is a simple life: maintaining a vegetable garden, keeping chickens and goats, and working as farmhands.

Their five daughters are Melissanthi, Julia, Aspasia, Polyxeni, and Magdalini. The villagers are astonished to see that the girls are among the first to be sent to school. Gerasimos dies during the war, and throughout the German occupation, Theodora manages to survive, keeping herself and her daughters out of harm’s way. One after another, the girls find suitors and leave home, and each time, Theodora is covered in dust from their new husband’s departing vehicle, except in the case of Polyxeni, who runs away with a theater troupe.

However, Theodora instills in each daughter a love for their home and the assurance that she’ll be waiting for them. While subsequent chapters narrate the girls’ stories, we long to know if they’ll ever return to the house by the river.

In this poignant chronicle, Lena Manta examines the lives of five individual girls who leave their home. While their departures are typical, the possibility of their return forms the intriguing premise of this novel. Although they each go their separate ways—mostly to other locations in Greece, one to Africa, and another to America— their stories are similar, except perhaps in one instance. Readers wishing to see more variation in the girls’ lives and more interactions in their storylines may be disappointed. Their long absence from home, and the lack of visits to their mother, or her to them, is also puzzling. This book seems to be a collection of stories about the parents and each daughter, with some integration at the end.

However, the strong prose and descriptions of Greece and other locales are engrossing.

Waheed Rabbani THE TSAR OF LOVE AND TECHNO Anthony Marra, Riverrun, 2017, £8.99, pb, 336pp, 9781784707255 / Hogarth, 2016, $16, pb, 384pp, 9780770436452 This is a series of interconnected stories that dwell upon the state of the Soviet Union and Russia. They begin in 1937 with Roman Markin, a party member, and an artist by profession, but now a censor who airbrushes photographs of the increasing cascade of those unfortunates who have been erased from Soviet history and whose lives have been forfeit. He also touches up photographs of the favoured few to make them look younger, including Stalin. He revolts against the system by putting in portraits of his younger brother Vaska, who was seized and “disappeared” by the regime, into doctored photographs. Inevitably, early one morning, there is the arrival of the NKVD to seize Markin. This story is the foundation for the succeeding linked narratives, which also depend upon some fairly eye-opening coincidences, and a grim, surreal humour. The constant shifts in time and characters make it a little difficult to follow the 20th Century

overall thread of the narrative, without having to check back and remember events and relationships from before. Nevertheless, it is an entertaining and well-written novel and provides an insightful commentary into the nature of the USSR and Russia, its fateful history and its people.

Douglas Kemp

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THE NINTH HOUR Alice McDermott, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2017, $26.99, hb, 247pp, 9780374280147 / Bloomsbury, 2017, £12.99, hb, 256pp, 9781408854617 In the early 1900s in immigrant-packed Brooklyn, a young Irish husband commits suicide, a grievous and unpardonable sin for Catholics. He leaves behind a pregnant and unsuspecting wife. It is at this moment that the story begins with an unsolicited act of kindness which sets the theme for the entire novel. Sister St. Saviour, a Little Sister of the Sick Poor, happens upon the scene and is summoned in by two policemen. An older nun, she immediately takes over, trying to comfort the widow and assure the dead man is given a Christian burial.

The young widow, Annie, is given a job working with the convent’s laundress, Sister Illuminata.

Eventually, Annie and her daughter, Sally, establish a simple but comfortable routine among the hard-working and saintly nuns. Sally considers becoming a nun herself but inwardly knows she’d rather punch evil people in the nose. Even one of the nuns, beloved Sister Jeanne, considers herself a “pagan” in reality. The book goes on to examine how the man’s suicide subtly impacts every facet of succeeding generations’ lives, including that of family, friends and, of course, the nuns.

Full disclosure: As a big-city born and raised Irish immigrant family kid with 13 years of Catholic education, I related to every sentence of this book.

The author dazzles with the sheer majesty of her prose and the vivid and stark historical accuracy of the times. The Ninth Hour humanizes the urban nuns who were real, admirable and seemingly indispensable to the neighborhoods, not the comic caricatures of modern-day script writers. Despite the fact that many of the male characters are not portrayed positively, this is no feminist screed. This emotional book will raise both readers’ IQs and their spirits. A must read.

Thomas J. Howley DAUGHTERS OF INDIA Jill McGivering, Allison & Busby, 2017, £14.99/$19.95, hb, 320pp, 9780749021825 This is Jill McGivering’s third novel, all informed by her journalistic career in Asia, and featuring sympathetically-described women. Set in India just before World War Two, this story tells the contrasting tales of Isabel, the daughter of the local British head man, and Asha, a poor Hindu

girl whose father once worked for Isabel’s family.

Asha becomes embroiled in the bitter struggle for Independence, whilst Isabel yearns to stay in the country she calls home. I grew up in colonial Africa, and many of the sounds and smells—and attitudes—described were very familiar indeed; I was transported back many decades. We are taken from the hustle, noise, and squalor of Delhi, to the aching beauty of the Andaman Islands, as both young women try to come to terms with the life-shattering changes happening all around them. Asha’s life is ripped apart as first her father, then political leaders she admires, are executed by the British justice system. The outbreak of war only serves to escalate the violence. Isabel is torn between loyalty to her Indian childhood friend, fear for the man she loves, and the loss of the way of life her father upholds.

You will be locked in the tense, heat-filled days before the monsoon, when bloodshed is a release from tension; then dance in the streets when the rain finally comes. You’ll feel the warm waves on your shoulders as you laze off a jungle-lined beach in the Andamans. The rank smell coming from prison cells will offend you. For a deeper understanding of both sides of the Colonial debate, and for a truly immersive piece of descriptive writing, I would thoroughly recommend this book.

Nicky Moxey

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AN UNLIKELY AGENT Jane Menczer, Polygon, 2017, £8.99, pb, 386pp, 9781836973802 London, 1905. Margaret Trant, a young secretary for an importexport company, sees no future for herself when her boss, the sleazy Mr Plimpson, informs her they have to relocate the ailing business to Deptford. What is more, she would also have to convince her badtempered and bullying invalid mother to move with her, so she resigns.

When a stranger on the tram hands her a newspaper open at the recruitment page, Margaret decides to apply for a job claiming to “open new horizons beyond your wildest dreams”. She is offered the job, and finds herself in a dreary office above a backstreet shop that sells hearing trumpets.

However, this turns out to be a front for a secret branch of the intelligence service, Bureau 8, where Margaret is now employed as “an unlikely agent”, helping to track down a ruthless band of anarchists known as the Scorpions.

Menczer’s debut novel is remarkable. Every character and detail are somehow tied up into the unfolding plot, leaving the reader to try and fit the pieces together as the novel progresses. The style and language are genteel and old-fashioned, but surprisingly interspersed with some violent scenes, as well as laugh-out-loud humour, as Margaret tries to negotiate her way around the Bureau and its bunch of eccentric characters. The atmosphere and HNR Issue 82, November 2017 | Reviews | 45

etiquette of Edwardian London are persuasively conveyed with Margaret Trant as a likeable and believable character, using her obsessive passion and knowledge of crime fiction to figure out the clues. Menczer demonstrates an excellent knowledge of the popular fiction of the early 20th century. If you are looking for a beautifully written gentle and funny thriller, full of twists and turns, and with a strong female lead, this is a compelling and recommended read.

Linda Sever THE CHAPEL CAR BRIDE Judith Miller, Bethany House, 2017, $15.99, pb, 341pp, 9780764219054 Hope Irvine joins her preacher father on a railroad chapel car, which brings church services to remote towns like Finch, West Virginia in 1913.

Some people in Finch are eager for church services, yet others are suspicious. Fortunately, Luke Hughes is attracted to Hope and acts as their guide. He explains that outsiders take jobs away from locals, or might be spies for the government looking for moonshine stills, which the poor miners need to supplement their income.

Kirby Finch arrives, exiled by his mine-owner father as punishment for gambling. Always moneyhungry, Kirby joins forces with a moonshiner and begins selling the whiskey. He covers his deliveries by giving rides in his truck to Hope, who distribute Bibles in nearby settlements. Luke grows suspicious of Kirby’s intentions towards Hope, and sets out to find evidence that Kirby is up to no good.

It was interesting to learn about chapel cars, which I hadn’t encountered before this book.

Luke and Hope are likeable characters, though the romantic scenes are scanty. Miller removes a character at a critical time, and then nothing further is heard of him, making the ending rather flat, almost unfinished. If it weren’t for that, I’d recommend the book.

B.J. Sedlock LIKE A FADING SHADOW Antonio Muñoz Molina (trans. Camilo A. Ramirez), Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2017, $27.00, hb, 320pp, 9780374126902 In April 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated by James Earl Ray. Ray was not caught immediately, instead escaping to Lisbon, Portugal.

Our author travels to Lisbon in 1987 to research this story, which he wants to turn into something of a detective novel, A Winter in Lisbon.

The plot appears at first to be relatively simplistic, but it becomes a complex, meditative journey. The two narrative voices belonging to Ray and Molina often converge momentarily but then evolve into surrealistic, divergent ramblings.

This is the story of two lost individuals. Ray has quite a criminal past and has never really known a time when he wasn’t running from arrest, being imprisoned or disconnected from all humanity.

Molina can’t find a narrative voice or a meaningful plot to depict, so his journey to Lisbon and other places becomes a search for meaning in his own life. He feels that, if one doesn’t write purposefully every day, can one tell people one is a writer? He is 46 | Reviews |

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married with children yet he is only happy when he travels for “research.” Ray is like someone suffering from an obsessive-compulsive condition, reading newspapers and magazines from cover to cover.

Molina sees the inherent beauty and power of story in jazz music and the literature of the past twenty years.

Satisfaction eludes both travelers; they are successful, but not by society’s standards. Ray finds peace only when finally arrested; Molina’s novel is a success that he is unable to personalize.

In reality, each evolves into a mirror image of the other character, and that is the fascinating aspect of this evocative linguistic journey of two fading, shadowed souls.

Viviane Crystal RED SKY AT NOON Simon Sebag Montefiore, Century, 2017, £16.99, hb, 397pp, 9781780894720 / Pegasus, 2018, $25.95, hb, 416pp, 9781681776736 The author is a well-known historian who has previously written factual works about Stalin and Catherine the Great. This is the third novel in the Moscow Trilogy following on from Sashenka and One Night in Winter and takes place in Stalingrad, Russia, in 1942. Stalin, with his daughter, Svetlana, features as a major character in the novel, but the main character is Benya Golden who also featured in the first two novels. His position as the story begins is as a political prisoner in the Gulags suffering horrendous conditions.

As Russia continued to put battalions into the war against the Germans and the Italians, Stalin gave orders for the criminals and political prisoners from the Gulags to also be formed into battalions and sent to the front. Benya is one of those who is given a horse and sent to join the cavalry. The descriptions of torture, injuries and death are horrific, painting a graphic picture of life at the front. Against this background Benya forms relationships with his fellow soldiers and prisoners and with the medical staff who try to help them.

He is also able to have a romantic relationship with an Italian nurse when he becomes a prisoner of war. The book was the winner of the Political Novel of the Year and was also nominated for the Orwell Prize.

Julie Parker THE ASYLUM OF DR. CALIGARI James Morrow, Tachyon, 2017, $14.95, pb, 192pp, 9781616962654 It’s the beginning of the Great War, the year 1914, and American painter Francis Wyndham has just arrived at a European mental hospital, Traumenchen Asylum. Wyndham has been employed to offer art therapy to the patients under the hand of the eccentric and villainous Dr. Caligari. The focus of the story here is Caligari’s artistic masterpiece, a secret weapon of sorts which can take down all of mankind: a mesmerizing, hypnotic, and hallucinogenic behemoth of a painting he calls Ecstatic Wisdom, a work of art and war that helps Caligari with a rather nefarious plan.

The story was inspired by the classic 1920s film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. While Morrow’s

story is satirical and almost slapstick at times, it manages to avoid delving into the ridiculous, but a certain amount of patience with the absurdity is required. While it is possible to read this book without having much knowledge of Dr. Caligari or the original Robert Weine film, having that experience and background brings the story and the character to life all the more. Morrow successfully uses art as the link between the worlds (bridging from film to print), but the story is essentially original and all his, in all of its strange and interesting glory.

Elicia Parkinson

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LIGHTNING MEN Thomas Mullen, 37 Ink/Atria, 2017, $26/ C$32.99, hb, 374pp, 9781501138799 / Little, Brown, 2017, £14.99, hb, 384pp, 9781408710623 1950: In segregated Atlanta, a few black families buy homes in policeman Danny Rakestraw’s all white sub-division.

“Negro Officers” Lucius Boggs and Tommy Smith stumble onto a moonshine and marijuana drop in their precinct, and a man is shot dead by a mysterious marksman.

A white businessman is savagely beaten by a trio of Ku Klux Klansmen in nearby Coventry. And Jeremiah is released from the Georgia State Prison in Reidsville after serving five years for trafficking in stolen goods during the war. Mullen flawlessly weaves these disparate threads together here, creating a rich tapestry of a novel.

This book vividly brings post-war and pre-Civil Rights era Atlanta to life. The opening passage hooked me, and I stayed riveted until the end.

Mullen intensely evokes a segregated and racially divided Atlanta on the cusp of change. I spent many summers in Georgia during the mid- to-late 1950s, and this book brought it all back, both the good and the bad. I could taste the atmosphere. All the diverse characters in the novel are sympathetically portrayed and each individual is tested; loyalties and ideals are challenged and twisted by events and society, and no one emerges unscathed.

Good historical fiction shines a light on the past and, in the process, illuminates the present. This novel does just that, especially considering some disturbing current events. Highly recommended.

Susan McDuffie THE TURNCOAT Alan Murray, Freight/Trafalgar Square, 2017 (c2016), $14.95/C$19.95/£9.99, pb, 244pp, 9781911332022 George Maclean and Danny Inglis, two wartime Military Intelligence agents assigned to investigate the devastating Luftwaffe bombings of Clydebank in March of 1941, have hit nothing but dead ends in their attempt to find the informant whose intelligence contributed to the assault. The murder of one suspect eventually sets Maclean and Inglis 20th Century

on the trail of two mysterious Ulstermen working in the shipyards. But the unexpected defection of a high-ranking Nazi official complicates this investigation. Adolf Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess, following the advice of his astrologer, pilots a small airplane from Germany to a rough landing in a farmer’s field in southwestern Scotland. Maclean and Inglis become deeply involved with this highlevel prisoner as well, uncovering unexpected treachery and a conspiracy that threatens the free world.

This fictionalized account of Hess’s defection, and the aftermath of the 1941 bombing of Clydebank and the Glasgow shipyards by the Nazis, draws heavily on actual top-secret documents, released in 2012. I thoroughly enjoyed this gripping WWII thriller, and the light it cast on wartime British politics and Britain’s struggle against fascism. The characters are interesting and the pace is quick; I did not want to put the book down. Sadly, though, the subject remains timely, and, after some recent events here in the US, Hess’s rants sound all too familiar. Recommended.

Susan McDuffie THE YEAR OF THE GUN Chris Nickson, The Mystery Press, 2017, £8.99/$14.95, pb, 285pp, 9780750969840 It is 1944, and at Leeds City Police, DCS McMillan has a murder to solve. He has the assistance of his dependable driver WAPC Lottie Armstrong. The older, rather careworn senior policeman would be retired by now were it not for the war. There are moments when he wishes he were. His younger driver dearly wishes she was still the ‘real’ policewoman she had been twenty years before, and is willing to offer her crime-solving abilities to help. Their contrasting attitudes make them an unorthodox but entertaining and likeable team, as they search Leeds in the police-issue Humber Snipe for clues to the crime.

Many a cul-de-sac, actual and figurative, is explored, usually with no result. Might the mounting problem be now so big it should be handed over to Scotland Yard? Never, responds the police chief. Author Chris Nickson knows Leeds so well he can create a thoroughly distinct and colourful story woven round this lively city, a city which in 1944 has large numbers of US troops stationed nearby. They attract some wariness and envy because they seem to have a way of acquiring the sort of food and goods wartime locals have to manage without. They also seem to be unconcerned about regulations everyone else has to obey.

A gentle romance provides both distraction and complication as the police chief and the expolicewoman inch towards an explanation of the crime. At times they are dashing to the car to follow a new and promising lead, and at others waiting glumly, hour after hour, at the police station for fresh inspiration. Even as understanding dawns, we are presented with a surprise.

Modern DNA evidence and mobile phones would have made their work so much easier, and spoiled a thoroughly enjoyable story.

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A DEATH BY WOUNDS J. D. Oswald, Amazon, 2017, £5.81/$7.49, pb, 210pp, 9781521298831 Winchester, 1919, Armistice Day. Returning to her duty as nurse to the pupils of Winchester College, Philippa Lambert is called to view the body of a woman that has been found in a trench close to the Cathedral wall. The survivor of an abusive marriage, and thwarted in her ambition to study medicine, Philippa offers to assist Canon Cresswell Strange in investigating the murder.

Head Constable John Sim—the real head constable of Winchester at the time—is happy to hand the investigation over to the duo. The action develops slowly, hampered by the author’s love of description and a sub-plot relating to Philippa’s past. The resolutions both of this sub-plot and the murder case are not wholly satisfying.

The stultifying atmosphere of both College and Close is well-conveyed. Philippa is a fish out of water here, grateful to be employed but aware that, as men return from war, women are being forced back into a domestic role. Overall, an interesting portrayal of a provincial England that looks to the past rather than the future in the horrifying aftermath of WWI. The paperback is poorly formatted, and more care in preparing the text for publication would have resulted in a more pleasant read.

Catherine Kullmann A PROMISE OF RUIN Cuyler Overholt, Sourcebooks Landmark, 2017, $15.99/C$22.50, pb, 320pp, 9781492637394 Young Italian Teresa Casoria is one of hundreds of immigrants arriving daily in New York City early in the 20th century. She is full of hope as she looks for her beloved husband-to-be, Antonio, who has promised to meet her as she lands. But he is not there, and Teresa is kidnapped and forced into prostitution by the Black Hand gang, who are terrorizing the Italian community.

Meanwhile, psychiatrist Dr. Genevieve Summerford watches in horror as the body of an escaped prostitute is pulled from the East River where she has drowned herself rather than submit to her abusers any longer. A letter in her pocket identifies her as a recent arrival from Italy.

So, when Genevieve is asked to investigate the disappearance of the Italian bride-to-be, she feels there might be a connection. Rapidly she is drawn into the heart of the Italian community, assisted by the man she loves—Tammany Hall fixer Simon Shaw—and his friends, including 11-year-old Frankie, whose driving ability exceeds her own. She tries to distinguish allies from adversaries until she suddenly finds herself far too deeply and personally involved in white slavery.

This book is absorbing on many levels, starting with the research into the life of immigrants in early 20th-century New York. This is revealed strategically so it never distracts the reader. It has a complex plot peopled with characters that have depth, humor and essential believability. It has an understated romance that lightens the mood. But its most unique aspect is the understanding of human emotions and the behaviors they engender.

The writer exposes the wounds suffered by the women kidnapped into white slavery that go far deeper and are much more lasting than the physical.

A book to enjoy, but also to make one think. A keeper.

Valerie Adolph DEATH ZONES Simon Pasternak, Vintage, 2017, £8.99, pb, 338pp, 9780099593195 Belorussia in the hot summer of 1943. The embattled German forces are struggling in their brutal war of occupation, and the story is narrated in the first person by Heinrich Hoffmann, a police officer attached to the S.S. in the small town of Lida. When a senior S.S. officer, General Steiner, is tortured and killed in an ambush on his way to visit Lida, Hoffmann is tasked by Lida’s S.S. commandment, the brutal and unpredictable Manfred Schlosser, to investigate the crime and quickly identify the perpetrators. Heinrich’s relationship with Manfred is complicated by the fact that Heinrich is engaged to Manfred’s sister, Eline living in northern Germany. Hoffmann is enraptured by Eline, whose family appears to be somewhat scornful of Hoffmann’s inferior social status. On a visit to Minsk to pursue lines of enquiry, Hoffmann is summoned to Generalkommissar Kube where he is given a specific task with reference to the killing of Steiner.

The pursuit descends into grotesque madness and untrammelled barbarism as a convoluted truth and a plot is uncovered.

Pasternak describes a cruel and violent occupation, with the Germans by 1943 aware that their invasion of the Soviet Union was failing and that retreat was the only ultimate option. In the midst of this nightmare, Hoffmann’s investigation has to continue, with all the frustrations and limitations of bureaucracy that characterised all the elements of the Nazi project. It is not exactly an easy book to read with the unremitting cruelty, but one that is well-written and with considerable literary merit.

Douglas Kemp ANOTHER WOMAN’S HUSBAND Gill Paul, Hodder Headline, 2017, £7.99, pb, 456pp, 9781472249111 Is there a secret connection between the death of Princess Diana in the Paris car crash in 1997 and Wallis Simpson and the Abdication Crisis of 1936? I was hooked immediately.

Like most conspiracy novels, Another Woman’s Husband is narrated in two time streams. The ‘modern’ stream is set in the latter part of 1997 and centres on a Brighton shopkeeper and her TV producer fiancé who is researching a programme on the fatal crash. The ‘historic’ stream runs from 1911 to 1941 and covers the life of Mary Kirk, lifelong friend and confidante of Wallis Simpson, who became the third Mrs Simpson after Wallis became the Duchess of Windsor. The modern time stream is entirely fictional, while the historic stream is based on well-documented facts which the author acknowledges in her notes.

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or more time periods, the streams are not of equal interest. Another Woman’s Husband would be well worth reading for the historic stream alone. Indeed, I think it would be a better book without Princess Diana or the Brighton shopkeeper.

So read it for a fresh view of the Abdication Crisis and the story of an unusual female friendship.

Don’t worry about Diana.

Edward James THE PAINTED QUEEN Elizabeth Peters and Joan Hess, William Morrow, 2017, $27.99/C$34.99, hb, 323pp, 9780062083517 It’s 1912, and Amelia Peabody, with her beloved archaeologist husband Emerson, has arrived in Egypt for another excavation season. However, their delight with their cherished country is soon put to the test when a would-be assassin staggers into Amelia’s bath chamber and dies at her feet, with a knife in his back. What follows is a delightful escapade of a stolen Nefertiti bust, counterfeits galore, and murderous bad guys with monocles. As always, Amelia and Emerson jump headlong into the intrigue, putting their detective skills to work, regardless of the danger afoot. Old favorites such as Ramses, David, and Nefret play an integral part in this splendid adventure as well, which adds to the delight.

The Painted Queen was finished posthumously

by Peters’ longtime friend and fellow author, Joan Hess. It could not have been an easy task for Hess to take up the challenge of finishing this last Peabody caper; Peters has been enchanting readers for more than 40 years with Amelia and Emerson’s antics, mysteries, and mayhem. But, Hess has deftly paid homage to Peters with a familiar tone and sarcastic humor throughout. It is with a heavy heart that we admirers must bid farewell to our favorite archeologist family. Readers should note that this was meant to fill in a gap between titles, so while it is the last Peabody novel, it is not last in the series. If you are unfamiliar with this series, start at the beginning with Crocodile on the Sandbank, and be prepared to fall in love. I might just have to go back and reread them all.

Rebecca Cochran SHIPYARD GIRLS AT WAR Nancy Revell, Arrow, 2017, £5.99, pb, 448pp, 9781784754648 Shipyard Girls at War displays the struggles of women shipbuilders based in the Sunderland shipyards. This takes place during the Second World War and is inspired by the author’s family history. Throughout the novel all kinds of women’s lives are depicted, from the Czech Jewish refugee to the British fiancée waiting for her man to come home from the war. As a consequence of the fighting, themes of death, life, hope and love are constantly in the background of this novel. As well as the women’s lives, the returning wounded are represented, for example Joe, mourning his twin brother, struggles to find a place in his community which has become accustomed to not having many young men present. There is a constant fear in this story of Hitler’s invasion of Britain—this dark 48 | Reviews |

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threat permeates their language, heightened by the falling bombs bringing death. Everyone wants to help the war effort in their own way, even if it means changing the community’s structure and risking their lives. Despite the negative atmosphere, almost all of the community strives to let hope survive, demonstrating that if hope is lost, the war is lost. I found this an encouraging representation of World War Two. Clare Lehovsky

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THE SISTERS OF GLASS FERRY Kim Michele Richardson, Kensington, 2017, $15, pb, 255pp, 9781496709554 Lost things spilled onto the Kentucky’s banks, into fishermen’s hands, more than a few, revealing ageold secrets.

Glass Ferry, Kentucky, June 1972.

Patsy Butler’s been gone for twenty years.

Some maintain she ran away with Danny Henry; most presume she’s dead. Yet Jean Butler has just baked another birthday cake for the daughter she’s sure is coming home today.

Patsy’s twin sister, Flannery, is just as sure that today will be a bitter disappointment for her mother. But as she prepares for another birthdayparty-that-will-not-be, Flannery flips on the radio and hears that a mud-caked Mercury has just been pulled out of the Kentucky River, “shedding light on the decades old disappearance” of the sister Flannery last saw with Danny and Hollis Henry in Hollis’s Mercury, on Ebenezer Road, prom night, 1952.

Flannery harbors two secrets from that night: her own petty theft and the pact she made with Hollis. So, if that car is the one Patsy and Danny disappeared in, Flannery and Hollis will have a decision to make.

In The Sisters of Glass Ferry, Kim Michele Richardson once again evokes secretive, smalltown Southern life, this time in the bourbondistilling, riverside town of Glass Ferry. Told from Flannery’s and Patsy’s points of view, the nonlinear narrative weaves intriguing characters through the girls’ story: whiskey distiller Beauregard “Honey Bee” Burton; long-dead midwife Joetta Ebenezer, alleged to have been a witch and a murderess, whose spirit still haunts Ebenezer Road; and Hollis Henry, whose character arc takes him from abusive roughneck to town sheriff and familyman-with-a-secret. Like Gunnar Royal, the Godfearing onetime executioner in Richardson’s awardwinning Godpretty in the Tobacco Field, it is the complex, enigmatic Hollis, a finely nuanced villain at the heart of the story, who continues to haunt long after Richardson’s skillfully crafted tale ends.

Highly recommended.

Rebecca Kightlinger WHEN IT’S OVER Barbara Ridley, She Writes, 2017, $16.95, pb,

356pp, 9781631522963 In pre-WWII Prague, Lena Kulkova, who is Jewish, becomes involved with the underground resistance movement, as well as with Otto, a German-Jewish refugee. Lena has a troubled relationship with her strict father and, other than sadness at leaving behind her mother and younger sister, Lena does not look back when she flees her childhood home. Together, she and Otto make their way to Paris and eventually England, where Lena awaits news of the rest of her family, some of whom are still trapped in Nazi-occupied Prague.

The couple lives with other friends, also part of the resistance group.

As Otto becomes more withdrawn and more involved in the movement, Lena begins to pull away from him, turning her attentions instead to the nephew of an aristocratic lady of the manor in the English countryside.

Many WWII-era novels are set in the midst of the fighting; it was intriguing, yet heartbreaking, to read about the war from the perspective of those who are safe but whose families are trapped.

Lena is strong-willed and often butts heads with those around her, but she is nonetheless an engaging protagonist. Otto, on the other hand, is less likeable, and at times reading about his political viewpoints bordered on the tedious. Nonetheless, the book held my interest, particularly as it was based on true stories told to the author by her parents. The book is well researched and will likely resonate with those looking for a WWII novel with some politics in the mix.

Hilary Daninhirsch

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TO DIE IN SPRING Ralf Rothman (trans. Shaun Whiteside), Picador, 2017, £12.99, hb, 211pp, 9781509812851 / Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017, $26.00, hb, 224pp, 9780374278144 Two things to know: this novel is excellent, and it’s no place to be looking for even involuntary laughs. Set in the last days of WWII, when the Third Reich died thrashing and took anyone it could down with it, it’s a story of the author’s father, who “volunteered” to join the Waffen SS in the spring of 1945. “A story,” not “the story,” for Rothmann’s father died without ever telling his young son anything about the war at all.

From the few facts he did know, Rothmann weaves a short, powerful, elegiac novel.

Its protagonist, Walter Urban, is 17, working in a protected job as an apprentice dairyman, when he innocently attends a dance—only to find himself forced into the SS as part of the Nazis’ last-ditch attempt to keep fighting. A peaceful young man, Walter is himself desperate to survive and to return home when the war is over. But neither goal is easy to achieve, as Walter endures the horrific last days of the Third Reich on the battlefield… and on the 20th Century

war-ravaged land that is all that’s left of Germany after the war.

Intense and beautifully written (the translator is clearly excellent), this apparently simple story forces the reader to live through a desperate, deadly time rapidly receding out of living memory.

India Edghill

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THE CONSTANT SOLDIER William Ryan, Pan, 2017, £7.99, pb, 390pp, 9781447255062 In late 1944, veteran of the Eastern Front Paul Brandt is invalided home, maimed and disfigured almost beyond recognition.

When he discovers that an SS rest camp has been built within sight of his father’s farm, Brandt thinks he might have found a way to atone for his past— particularly as he recognises one of the female prisoners who staff the camp as the one woman from his past he has never been able to forget. But danger looms all around: from the officers who run the camp, the partisans that lurk in the forest and the approaching Red Army...

This powerful and at times lyrical novel, inspired by a real rest camp close to Auschwitz, vividly evokes the atmosphere of the last months of the Third Reich. All the characters are complex and human, but in Neumann, the officer in charge of the rest hut, Ryan demonstrates how an ordinary man, no better and no worse than anyone else, could be sucked into committing atrocities that continue to haunt him long afterwards. The novel is all the stronger because most of the violence and horror of the Nazi regime is kept offstage, allowing the reader’s imagination full rein. As in the best psychological thrillers, as the book built to its climax, I found myself both desperate to find out what happened next and afraid to go on, because anyone with even a smattering of knowledge of the period would be aware there is a strong possibility that it won’t end well for the central characters.

I can’t praise this book highly enough. Everyone should read it, including those, like me, who are wary of reading anything involving the SS. Because it isn’t really about them. It’s about love and humanity that survive even in the direst circumstances.

Jasmina Svenne CAREERS FOR WOMEN Joanna Scott, Little, Brown, 2017, $26.00/ C$34.00, hb, 296pp, 9780316363839 The punning title of this sharp and clever novel hints at its complexity: it explores the interconnected personal and professional lives of four 20th-century women by careering from decade to decade. There is a mystery at the heart of this tale, but a summary can’t do justice to the inventive shifts of tone and voice that Scott achieves as she follows these women story by story, just as 20th Century

the Twin Towers that stand at the center of the narrative were constructed.

Pioneering Port Authority executive Lee, desperate single mother Pauline, tormented housewife Kay, and the quietly watchful narrator, Maggie, all struggle to define themselves in a world built by men. “I felt as if the old rules of cause and effect were obsolete,” explains Maggie, and orders her tale of Pauline’s perils and triumphs in a streamof-consciousness style anchored by her careful, analytical voice. This is a literary novel that may seem fragmentary at first, but that slowly reveals its shape and logic as you read. Maggie appears to be a cold, dispassionate narrator at first, but her ability to imagine the feelings and thoughts of her subjects contributes an emotional punch to their narratives, and a smidge of magical realism here and there gives this novel a lyrical brilliance that balances the elegiac tone afflicting any story that culminates in the fate of the World Trade Center.

Kristen McDermott

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UNFORGIVABLE LOVE: A Retelling of Dangerous Liaisons Sophfronia Scott, William Morrow, 2017, $15.99, pb, 528pp, 9780062655653 Updated to more modern times, this retelling of Dangerous Liaisons takes place in 1940s Harlem instead of the 18th century French court. The scheming Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil has become the rich, coddled heiress Mae Malveaux, while seductive rake Vicomte de Valmont is transformed into Valiant Jackson. Their cruel pact remains the same: if Valiant can seduce Mae’s virginal cousin Cecily, he gets to spend the night with Mae. But there’s always a catch and when you’re used to getting what you want, it’s the thing you can’t have. For Val, that is Elisabeth Townsend, an upright married woman with whom he falls madly in love. As the famous aphorism says, “the heart wants what the heart wants,” but in this tale, mixing love and lust can have disastrous consequences.

I’ve been a fan of the storyline of Dangerous Liaisons since its 1990s cinematic counterpart, Cruel Intentions, was released so any retelling had big shoes to fill with me. Unforgiveable Love did not disappoint! It is sultry and sexy as a summer night, languid and luscious as the jazz that underscores its pages. Others have compared reading it to listening to poetry or a beautifully scored symphony and I would agree. Scott’s prose is beautiful and evocative.

She manages to keep the keen, calculating intellect and power-driven lust of the original characters while still making them her own, thanks to vivid settings and creative back stories. Similarly, relocating the story to 1940s Harlem was brilliant, enabling the author to use the conflicts of race and class to even greater advantage than the original.

Most of all, Scott manages to do something no

other retelling has: make the reader truly believe redemption is possible for the deceitful characters at its heart. Highly recommended.

Nicole Evelina THE TOBACCONIST Robert Seethaler, House of Anansi, 2017, $15.95, pb, 249pp, 9781487002510 When Franz Huchel travels from his serene mountain village to troubled, turbulent Vienna in 1937, it is a journey into the heart of darkness.

For this is the year before Hitler’s annexation of Austria, and life in his uncle’s tobacconist shop, where he works as a clerk, is about to change.

The shop serves the neighborhood of middleclass residents, among them Sigmund Freud, whom—with the aid of the professor’s favorite cigars—Franz befriends when he falls in lust with a Bohemian girl. But the young man is not allowed to take his mentor’s advice for long; all too soon, his uncle is attacked for catering to Jewish customers, and his shop vandalized. When he dies in custody at Gestapo headquarters, his nephew stages a series of protests that put him in peril. In the meantime, Freud and his family are preparing to leave the country.

Robert Seethaler’s The Tobacconist is a tender coming-of-age novel set at a time when Vienna’s moral and artistic light was about to be extinguished, and his descriptions of a city on the brink of destruction are vibrant and unforgettable.

The depictions are similarly fascinating when Franz’s imagination flashes back to his boyhood home, a vanishing arcadia, which is being invaded by Nazism and its attendant horrors—as his mother’s letters attest eloquently. How can a sensitive, young man survive this nightmare without the consolations of love? Franz walks the streets of Vienna in search of the elusive Anezka, but when he finds her, tragedy and suffering ensues. Desire and poetry, along with history and drama, are the driving forces of this narrative, which describes Franz’s childhood and lost innocence in cinematic clarity. Watch out for a pair of billowing trousers.

Elisabeth Lenckos A BOY IN WINTER Rachel Seiffert, Virago, 2017, £14.99, hb, 248pp, 9781844089963 / Pantheon, 2017, $25.95, hb, 256pp, 9780307908834 A small, unnamed town in Ukraine on the periphery of extensive marshlands in the autumn of 1941 is under German occupation. One foggy morning, all of the town’s and outlying area’s Jewish population is rounded up and forced to stand for hours in a factory. Otto Pohl is a civil engineer, who escaped enlistment into the Wehrmacht, and is working on managing a road construction project in occupied Ukraine; he is appalled by the brutality of the German troops and their Ukrainian assistants.

Yasia is in her late teens, a maternal Ukrainian girl, living with her family on a local farm. Her intended is Mykola, a young farmer’s son, who has deserted from the Red Army, but volunteers to work for the Germans. The appalling events over the few days of the round-up of the Jewish people and its aftermath are narrated through these main HNR Issue 82, November 2017 | Reviews | 49

characters. Although the overall narrative of these horrific years is now well known, it is still an absorbing and shocking story, and one that does need to be re-told and re-imagined (if that can be possible to those of us fortunate enough not to live through such times).

The events are unfolded with intelligence and in elegant prose. It is a little bizarre that Otto Pohl has a very similar name to Oswald Pohl, who was a senior and now-notorious figure in the SS, and it seems strange that the main “action” against the Jewish people takes place at the margins of the town, so that the shooting and disturbance is known to all the population, whereas I was under the impression that such atrocities were generally performed in rural areas, away from the ears and eyes of the local population.

Douglas Kemp RUSSIAN ROULETTE Sara Sheridan, Constable, 2017, £19.99, hb, 320pp, 9781472122377 Russian Roulette is the sixth outing for Sara Sheridan’s plucky 1950s crime-solving sleuth Mirabelle Bevan. The story works well as a standalone, but readers of the previous novels will enjoy the development of Mirabelle’s relationships with both her faithful sidekick, Vesta, and her onoff boyfriend, Superintendent Alan McGregor.

As you would expect with Sheridan’s work, the story is very well plotted: the opening murder is an unusual one, but the path to its solving obeys crime novel conventions in a nicely satisfying way. As you would also expect, the settings (London and the main location, Brighton) are lovingly described with a wealth of period detail. This is a Brighton with a seedy underbelly where call girls, high-stakes gambling and the threat of violence lurk behind the elegant houses and the Grand Hotel.

Mirabelle’s attempts to solve Helen Quinn’s brutal death bring her into danger, not just from external forces but from elements in her own character which suggest our heroine, while quite rightly remaining far more Miss Marple than Jessica Jones, may have a darker side herself. This offers a lot of potential for future outings. Similarly, introducing the Russian angle in the person of the mysterious countess opens up Mirabelle’s world to the growing Cold War and adds another dimension of uncertainty to the personal challenges she faces here. An accessible and entertaining read which Mirabelle’s fans in particular will thoroughly enjoy.

Catherine Hokin A FRIEND OF MR. NIJINSKY Caro Soles, Crossroad, 2017, $14.99, pb, 300pp, 9781946025050 Author Caro Soles notes in the foreword that this is not the story of famed Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky but of his friend, Morgan Vanheusen.

Vanheusen meets Nijinsky in New York in 1916 when he helps the great, but paranoid, dancer leave Vanheusen’s mother’s charity event after performing. Nijinsky, having broken with Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, is convinced the impresario is out for revenge. A loose floorboard where he dances is surely no accident but 50 | Reviews |

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Diaghilev’s attempt to injure and embarrass him.

Removing Nijinsky from the party does Morgan no favors with his angry family but earns him Nijinsky’s gratitude and the invitation to call him Jinks, an incongruous nickname. And truth be told, except for the financial support, Morgan doesn’t mind being on the outs with his family. He would rather race cars than go into the family business, which is something vaguely defined as financial.

The problem with this being Morgan’s story is that Morgan isn’t that interesting. He pines after his sister’s friend Muriel, who coolly ignores him, is a patron of a fashionable brothel, but is unexpectedly aroused by a female impersonator he meets in the company of Jinks, whose own homosexuality is only hinted at. This collection of behaviors isn’t enough to make a compelling character. Nijinsky’s broken English combined with his paranoia makes him more pitiable than virile.

A mystery is thrown in for good measure. A young female dancer dies in Nijinsky’s arms middance after drinking from Nijinsky’s lucky flask.

This begs the question: was what killed her meant for Nijinsky? The denouement to this mystery becomes all about Morgan when his sister Gloria is poised to be the next victim: will he rush to save his sister or make the big race? What do you think?

Ellen Keith NADYA’S WAR C.S. Taylor, Tiny Fox Press, 2017, $14.95, pb, 290pp, 9781946501011 Nadya’s War is the rare WWII tale that focuses on the Soviets as allies and even rarer in that its protagonist is a female pilot with the Red Army, Nadya Buzina. She is not a fervent Communist, however. Her father fought with the White Army and she believes in God, two facts to keep hidden from her superiors. Commissar Petrov has his suspicions of her, and her place in the 586th regiment is continually threatened.

This is a tough, brutal read. Shot down on a mission, Nadya suffers burns and steals morphine to cope with the pain and the loss of her fellow pilots on that flight. I know absolutely nothing about being a pilot, but Taylor brings the reader into the cockpit with Nadya, both when she’s on her game and flying with skill and when she’s under the influence of the drug and shouldn’t be in the air at all. In the flight that injured her, Nadya was close enough to the German plane to note its distinctive markings. When she is allowed to fly again, bringing this particular pilot down consumes her.

The narrative is quite matter-of-fact about Nadya being a female pilot, which is refreshing.

She’s in an all-female regiment, so still subject to segregation and sexism, but it’s taken for granted that all the pilots with whom she flies are skilled, and this is their contribution to the Motherland in wartime. Less surprising is the oppressiveness.

Taylor paints a harsh, realistic picture of Soviet opposition to religion, homosexuality, antiCommunism, and free thought. Nadya is sent to “the box” a number of times, but her spirit remains resilient. I finished the book with admiration for this complicated Soviet woman, who was much more interesting than a Cold War villain in a Bond

film.

Ellen Keith

A CASUALTY OF WAR Charles Todd, William Morrow, 2017, hb, $26.99/ C$33.50, 400pp, 9780062678805 Armistice Day brings no peace to nurse Bess Crawford. In the waning days of the Great War, she nursed a patient, Captain Alan Travis, who is convinced that he has been shot by a distant cousin rather than the enemy. Bess believes he is credible, not crazy, and feels a certain sense of responsibility when she discovers that he has been confined to a clinic, strapped to a bed with no light or exercise, his accusations deemed to be the ravings of a madman. True to Bess’s sense of duty, she spends the entirety of her leave in England in the small Suffolk town where the captain’s late cousin lived.

Yes, the cousin had been killed in the war prior to Travis being shot, so there are grounds for the captain’s confinement, but Bess believes there is more to this story.

I had wondered what Todd would do with Bess once the war had ended. It’s barely over, but it’s clear that its effects will linger. Bess, accompanied by faithful family friend Sergeant Major Simon Brandon, finds that the loss of the cousin, James Travis, has touched almost everyone in the town.

As in Todd’s Inspector Rutledge series, questioners are treated with suspicion; there is no warm welcome for Bess and Simon. It takes them all of Bess’s leave to untangle the mystery, which makes it clear that Bess’s post-war life will follow the same principles, putting patients first.

I’m a fan of this series, but this outing could have used a little more introspection and less selflessness on Bess’s part. It’s been hinted throughout the series that Simon and Bess may have feelings for each other besides friendship, but once again, that can is kicked down the road. I look forward to more of Bess’s personal life in the succeeding books as she faces her next steps.

Ellen Keith THE SCARLET LADY Giada Trebeschi, Oakmond, 2017, £10, pb, 236pp, 9783962070397 The Scarlet Lady is a conspiracy novel with a difference. As is common with conspiracy novels, the main protagonist, Letizia Cantarini, is an art historian (I suppose because art historians have an expertise in researching the provenance of old and precious objects) who, in the course of exploring a palazzo 30 miles from Rome, discovers a secret room in which a woman was walled up alive in the 16th century. From the remains of her red dress Letizia’s team calls her the Scarlet Lady.

Before dying the Lady has written out a long poem containing a series of clues to the whereabouts of a fabulous treasure.

I appreciate that it creates a compelling story to present Letizia with a set of increasingly difficult and dangerous tasks to complete before she can reach her goal, but why was the Scarlet Lady so coy? Why the coded message? It is only Letizia’s profound knowledge of Renaissance art and politics that enables her to solve the Lady’s puzzles 20th Century

and locate the treasure.

The difference between this and other conspiracy novels is that Letizia is not living in the near present but in 1930s Italy, and the dark force opposing her is Mussolini’s Blackshirts. They are ruthless in pursing Letizia, and Trebeschi does not spare the sex and violence. At least six of the main characters are killed before the end of the book.

This is a fast-paced political thriller as well as a conspiracy novel, and I think you will enjoy it even if it is far-fetched.

The publishers recommend a wine to go with each of their books. For this book they advise a Barbera d’Asti. A nice idea, but perhaps not good for book reviewers if the practice spreads.

Edward James NINE LESSONS: A Josephine Tey Mystery Nicola Upson, Crooked Lane, $26.99, hb, 320pp, 9781683313212.

In Nine Lessons, Nicola Upson serves up multiple murders, romances on the rocks and a horrible act occurring years ago at the heart of it all. Set in the 1930s in England, the mystery begins when Detective Archie Penrose is called to a local churchyard where he must investigate one of the most horrid murders of his career. A man has been buried alive. Penrose doesn’t know that this is only the beginning.

Meanwhile, Josephine Tey has settled in Cambridge. A series of rapes terrorizes that quiet community. Everyone is scared, as the violence in the attacks increases with each victim.

When a second murder is discovered, the trail leads to King’s College, where Penrose and Tey continue their long-term friendship. Penrose enlists Tey’s help in researching the choral society at King’s College from 25 years back. Ghost stories, copy-cat murders and a horrendous act involving students and a young girl combine to create a riveting mystery.

As a sideline, Penrose’s personal life is rocky, and he is in for the surprise of his life from his girlfriend, Brigette. Tey also has relationship troubles as her significant other has hopped across the pond to pursue theatrical dreams, and Tey must decide if the relationship is important enough for her to travel to New York The writing is crisp and sharp, with the authentic feel of England lending credence to the tale. The plot twists and turns like a whirly-gig, taking the reader for an enjoyable ride. Heartily recommended.

Anne Clinard Barnhill

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THE HIDING PLACES Katherine Webb, Orion, 2017, £14.99, hb, 408pp, 9781409148562 In the sweltering summer of 1922, the sleepy, idyllic village of Slaughterford in Wiltshire, is shaken by a brutal murder, and the son of the local doctor is arrested for it—a kind young man who came back from the war “not quite right in his head”. Only two young women are convinced of poor Donnie’s innocence: his sister Pudding, the “girl groom” at Manor Farm, and wealthy Irene Hadleigh, the squire’s new wife, fleeing the ugliness 20th Century

of an adulterous scandal in London. Can they find the real culprit in time?

And how does the murder tie to a much older local crime?

Around a whodunit premise, Katherine Webb weaves a rich, intricate, thoughtful story, peopled with wonderful characters.

Pudding, Irene, and farm-girl Clemmie all come to vivid life, each with her own distinctive perception of the same little world. The writing is beautiful, the story is compelling, and clever surprises await at the end. A deftly woven, bittersweet, and truly lovely book.

Chiara Prezzavento THE COUNTESS OF PRAGUE Stephen Weeks, Poisoned Pen, 2017, $26.95, hb, 304pp, 978-1464208423 / also, $15.95, pb, 304pp, 9781464208447 This first entry in a projected ten-volume series welcomes a sassy aristocratic heroine who steps outside her exalted circles to solve crimes and has a great time doing so. It’s 1904 in Prague, and Countess Beatrice “Trixie” von Falklenburg gets drawn into an irresistible mystery when her great-uncle Berty is informed that a body caught in the Vltava River is that of his old army batman, Alois. However, the old soldiers’ home still claims Alois as a current resident. Alois had been Uncle Berty’s representative in a Tontine, an investment lottery in which the member with the last surviving nominee reaps all the benefits, so his death would be bad news for Berty. Curiously, someone besides Berty clearly has a motive for wanting Alois to appear alive, but who?

The intrepid Trixie dives eagerly into the investigation, although for her family’s sake, she can’t let on that the “Alois” in the home is probably an impostor. Her madcap adventure takes her from an unusual fancy-dress ball to the fashionable spa town of Marienbad to a train bound for London.

She chops off her hair, dons a poor urchin’s garb, and gets accused of murder. Most shockingly, she says “thank you” to a servant for the first time ever.

The Countess is absolutely delightful. She charms everyone from her mini-garrison of urchin helpers to King Edward VII himself, and her excitement at breaking free of her snobby social confines is infectious. Her French ladies’ maid, Sabine, and her courageous butler, Müller, are equally as fun. The mystery involves many characters who appear only fleetingly and gets somewhat convoluted; careful reading is needed to keep the many plot points straight. Pre-WWI Prague comes alive in its elegance, and it’s hard to say who will look forward to her next adventure more: Trixie, or her readers.

Sarah Johnson A NAME UNKNOWN Roseanna M. White, Bethany House, 2017, $15.99, pb, 432pp, 9780764219269

It’s 1914 in England. Rosemary Gresham is a top-caliber thief who can disguise her low birth and lack of education and mingle with aristocrats to steal high-value items. She has been hired to work as a librarian at the country estate of Peter Holstein by the mysterious Mr. V. Her mission is to find evidence to establish that Peter’s allegiance lies with Germany and not England. A social recluse, who anonymously writes a detective series, Peter has economic ties to Germany but is a loyal British citizen and a close friend of the royal family.

But with England drawing closer to WW1, Peter is seen by neighbours and politicians as an enemy who could steer the king wrong.

A Name Unknown is an inspirational mysteryromance with the emphasis on Rosemary’s character and spiritual development. Rosemary starts off determined to do her job and help her family of orphans and pickpockets, but ends up falling in love with Peter and trying to find evidence that will disprove Mr. V’s assertion. Peter also develops and becomes more social and engaging.

The novel is a lovely story about the strength of faith and love.

Francesca Pelaccia SWEARING OFF STARS Danielle M. Wong, She Writes, 2017, $16.95, pb, 261pp, 9781631522840 As we know, the world of the 1920s through 1950s and beyond was anything but kind and understanding to lesbian and gay people. This story takes place across that time span in England, America, and Hong Kong. Amelia (Lia) and Scarlett meet at Oxford University and fall in love.

Lia tires of the secrecy and Scarlett’s refusal to make their affair public. She leaves to return to her home in America, and we follow her life to 1930, when she returns to London and briefly connects with Scarlett, then through to 1949 where the two women again pick up their affair in Hong Kong.

There is another breakup for the same reason as the first, and Lia again returns home.

I wanted a book of more depth that realistically showed societies’ attitudes and the true conflicts and consequences of sustaining a lesbian relationship. The only obstacles the two women face are maintaining public secrecy and a misunderstanding around an undelivered letter.

Both Lia’s and Scarlett’s fathers are very accepting and happy for the two women. Lia tells her boyfriend when he starts to propose. He responds, “I’m proud of you, Lia. I just want you to be happy,” and moves on with his life: not a credible emotion. The time setting doesn’t ring true. I felt the characters’ conversations and social interaction were too modern and conveniently dropped into a 1920s campus setting, or in 1930 or 1950. I was also bothered by other anachronistic missteps. Lia notices the airport security line is moving quickly on her way to Hong Kong in 1949, and she boards the plane via the terminal ramp. Back then, there was no airport security, and boarding meant using stairs on the tarmac. Sadly, I can only recommend this for anyone who wants a light romance and can ignore the anachronisms.

Janice Ottersberg HNR Issue 82, November 2017 | Reviews | 51

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THE SECRETS OF TIME AND FATE Rebecca Alexander, Del Rey, 2017, $14.95, pb, 384pp, 9780091953263 In present-day London, Jackdaw Hammond’s medical records after her attempted suicide indicate multiple organ failure, a diagnosis inconsistent with her jumping into the Thames—or leaving the hospital under her own power. But Jack has lived most of her life on the brink of death, having been saved by magic right at the moment she broke her neck in a childhood accident. More recently, she has been blacking out, and waking up to evidence that she might be committing horrific crimes.

A second story line follows 16th-century occultists Edward Kelley and John Dee as they travel from Prague to Venice and Alexandria searching for a way to end the demonic possession of Elizabeth Báthory, an actual historical serial killer. While these episodes have a more straightforward plot line, it’s a bit confusing as to whether Báthory has sent them to find a cure or is threatened by their cure, as she menaces Kelley’s stepdaughter in yet another time line, which is relayed through journal entries.

As Jack’s friends, including a witch, an anthropologist, her foster sister, and a former nun, along with a team of exorcists from the Vatican, race to save her and rid the world of a fallen angel, a volume of poetry encoded by Kelley’s stepdaughter shows up, leading to a final confrontation.

The story is a page-turner in many ways, though it treats demons, exorcists, revenants, and witches in a rather matter-of-fact manner. There’s a lot to keep straight, from characters and backstory to the mechanics of magic, and at times the relationships and connections feel a little thin. This is the third book in a series, so readers may be on firmer ground if they start with the first novel.

Martha Hoffman THE TRICK Emanuel Bergmann, Atria, 2017, $26.00/C$35.00, hb, 375pp, 9781501155826 In 1930s Europe, it isn’t safe to be a Jew. It is least safe in Hitler’s Germany, which is where young Moshe Goldenhirsch, aka “The Great Zabbatini, Persian Prince and True Aryan, Magician,” winds up. While he’s a great success as a magician, he can’t stop a war, or the betrayal that unmasks him as a Jew to the Nazi authorities. Deported to the east and the death camps, carrying only his battered, empty magician’s trunk, on the train The Great Zabbatini performs a last, desperate magic trick...

In the present day, ten-year-old Max Cohen’s parents are divorcing, and he’s desperate to keep them together. Finding an old record of The Great Zabbatini’s magic tricks—including a spell of true unending love—Max decides he and the now elderly, impoverished Zabbatini will bring Max’s parents back to loving each other. Desperate for a place to stay, Zabbatini agrees to help Max. 52 | Reviews |

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And in his last performance, The Great Zabbatini discovers just how much his life has really meant.

Perhaps there will be one more miracle….

This is a tartly heartwarming book, and I particularly enjoyed reading about the magic scene in the 1930s. While the two stories weave together well, there’s still the problem common to this sort of dual-period novel: the older story is far more interesting than the modern one. However, it’s a lovely book; a poignant story about one’s true worth.

India Edghill BUTTERFLY ISLAND Corina Bomann (trans. Alison Layland), AmazonCrossing, 2017, $14.95, pb, 435pp, 9781477819951 Diana Wagenbach of Berlin, Germany, hits one of the deeper potholes in life; she discovers her husband is having an affair. Then a message comes that her elderly aunt is in hospital, not expected to live. Diana rushes to the old family home near London to see her aunt, and think about how – or if – she wants to salvage her marriage. Aunt Emily wakes long enough to tell Diana that a secret hangs over the Tremayne family; a falling-out between sisters, the cause of which has never been disclosed.

Diana, who with her aunt’s passing, becomes the final descendant of the Tremayne family, finds clues in a hidden compartment. If she can connect them, she will disclose the family secret – why Emily’s grandmother Victoria needed to beg forgiveness of her sister Grace (the grandmother of Diana).

One of those clues is a palm leaf covered with archaic Ceylonese writing. Diana takes it to Sri Lanka (once Ceylon), where with the help of historian Jonathan Singh, she seeks to decipher the leaf ’s significance, along with the other long-hidden Tremayne secrets. Diana learns that Victoria and Grace once lived on a Ceylon tea plantation owned by their father. The closest of friends, the sisters energetically explore their new home together, and with the help of the plantation’s Ceylonese foreman.

Butterfly Island is a very entertaining multiperiod novel by the German author Corina Bomann. Bomann presents the intertwined lives of Diana Wagenbach and Grace Tremayne in a beautifully-told story, lush and romantic, but not necessarily a romance. The author skillfully teases the reader with Diana’s clues, leaving the most heart wrenching twists for the final pages. I recommend Butterfly Island for all.

Jo Ann Butler THE COTTINGLEY SECRET Hazel Gaynor, William Morrow, 2017, $15.99/C$19.99, pb, 416pp, 9780062499844 / HarperCollins, 2018, £7.99, pb, 480pp, 9780008208158 In 1917, nine-year-old Frances Griffiths and her mother arrive in Cottingley, Yorkshire, from South Africa, to stay with her aunt, uncle and cousin Elsie while Frances’s father is at the front. Frances bonds with the 16-year-old Elsie and enjoys spending hours at the rushing stream, or beck, behind her relatives’ property. Within a few months Frances

and Elsie claim to have captured fairies in photos taken with Uncle Albert’s camera. Are the photos real, or just a clever hoax? Over the next few years the story gains momentum as a war-weary world looks for hope.

In the present day, Olivia arrives in Ireland after the death of her beloved grandfather. She finds he has left her his antiquarian bookshop—and a manuscript, written by Frances Griffiths, that tells her story of what really happened one hundred years earlier. But Olivia has her own problems to deal with, including a fast approaching marriage to a “Mr. Right” who may not be so perfect after all.

Hazel Gaynor ties Olivia’s story to that of Frances and Elsie in this new novel. I devoured the book in one day.

Who doesn’t secretly want to believe in fairies?

The Cottingley fairy story remains as compelling now as it was one hundred years ago, when a traumatized world, tired of conflict and death, was all too eager to believe in these delicate, winged beings. Frances and Elsie’s story sweeps us along with it, and Olivia’s portion provides a nice modern frame for the tale. Both readers who believe in fairies and those who are more skeptical will enjoy this novel, as will those who are curious about the Cottingley incident. Recommended.

Susan McDuffie THE WRITING DESK Rachel Hauck, Zondervan, 2017, $15.99/ C$19.99/£7.99, pb, 352pp, 9780310341598 Dreaming is as natural as breathing; it takes phenomenal courage and persistence to forge ahead to make a dream reality.

Birdie Shehorn was born during the Gilded Age, when marriages were arranged to unite aristocracy and wealth. Birdie, however, has two vibrant dreams: to marry for love and to write great novels. Both are anathema to her parents, whose desires are to reach the social and financial pinnacle of New York society. So they plan Birdie’s marriage while her first novel suspiciously disappears; not surprisingly, circumstances seem to circumvent everyone’s plans.

Tenley Roth lives in the present day as a new author who’s just won a prestigious literary award founded by her grandfather. Suddenly, Tenley has a pivotal choice to make: to live with her estranged mother and help her during her battle with cancer, or go to Paris with her boyfriend to help him with his career and live in an atmosphere where she can escape “writer’s block” and create another literary gem. Tenley chooses to live with her mother and meets Jonas, who exudes sparks of creativity.

Throughout this entire story, an inspirational quote appears, “Do not be dismayed!” As these two women from different times battle their own fears and imagined inadequacies, they come to know the effects of betrayal, loyalty, integrity, and more from other characters and from within themselves.

The story will come full circle showing that Birdie and Tenley are connected in more ways than one.

The Writing Desk is a truly lovely story about the honesty of writing and relationships—a timeless and gratifying tale for readers of every age. Highly recommended!

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THE SHADOW DISTRICT Arnaldur Indridason, (trans.

Victoria Cribb), Minotaur, 2017, $25.99, hb, 368pp, 9781250124029 Retired detective Konrád is contacted by his former partner in the Reykjavik CID about the death of 90-year old Stefán Thordarson, also known as Stefan Thorson. They find that what had appeared to be an old man dying in his sleep is actually murder. Konrád puts retirement aside to investigate. He finds that Thorson was born in Canada of Icelandic parents and had been in Reykjavik during the Second World War working with the American military police in tandem with Icelandic policeman Flovert. They are investigating an American soldier and his girlfriend who have come across a woman’s body outside the back door of the National Theatre. Some people believe the woman had been attacked and raped by a man of the ‘huldufolk’—the hidden creatures of legend. Soon Thorson and Flovert discover that another girl has been similarly attacked, also by the huldufolk, in the north of the country. Tension mounts as Thorson and Flovert investigate from Reykjavik’s shadow district of ill-repute to the wild north of the country, making an error that will cost a life and haunt them forever but yet lead to the truth.

The story travels in time, switching back and forth between the initial investigations of Thorson and Flovert to the investigations of the elderly Thorson ending with his murder, to the most recent investigations of Konrád. Throughout we learn much about the Icelandic culture during the years of its significant change, from the arrival of Allied troops in WW2 to the present.

The strength of this book lies in its powerful storytelling and in its array of unusual and very vivid characters. The writer lays before us Iceland, its people, their legends and beliefs and the ways they have changed. The time switches throughout the tale highlight the depth of these changes.

Valerie Adolph

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COURT OF LIONS Jane Johnson, Head of Zeus, 2017, £18.99, hb, 386pp, 9781786694331 / Pegasus, 2018, $25.95, hb, 496pp, 9781681776552 In the last decade of the 15th century, a scrap of paper containing a mysterious message was hidden in a wall in the Alhambra Palaces in Granada, to be discovered five centuries later by Kate Fordham.

It will change Kate’s life.

She is working as a waitress in the shadow of the palaces, hiding from a terrifying past. We follow her story and the unravelling of the paper’s message alongside the story of Ferdinand and Isabella’s expulsion of the last Sultan and Granada’s fall.

The dual-time narrative is thrilling, with many tense scenes. The descriptions pull readers into Multi-period

hauntingly beautiful gardens, palace rooms, arid landscapes, and scary, narrow lanes.

Blessings, Prince Momo’s friend and guard, is a vividly realised personality, dedicated to his master, moving around the Alhambra as a spy. We meet the young prince’s bitter and strong mother, a wicked stepmother, viziers and Spanish generals as the depths of internecine plotting and betrayal are revealed. Johnson’s masterly character depictions mean that we climb walls with Blessings, participate in battles alongside him, feel sympathy when he loses his foot and has a golden replacement.

Creative, elegant Momo sadly lived through several decades of ruthless Spanish rule to see much of his peoples’ culture destroyed. Johnson’s handling of this through Momo’s perspectives is masterful, sensitive and poignant. He is delightful but unlucky, ousting his father to become Sultan, only to be betrayed by Ferdinand and the Spanish Inquisition.

The past narrative of personal loss and unrequited love is balanced by Kate’s story. She is believable and sympathetic. In a Shakespearean way, her world rights itself in time’s fullness. If you enjoy exquisitely told, superbly researched, epic dual narratives with characters that remain in your mind after the last page is turned, read Court of Lions.

Carol McGrath

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A TANGLED MERCY Joy Jordan-Lake, Lake Union, 2017, $14.95, pb, 462pp, 9781477823668 Past and present meld together in this absolutely riveting novel, based on a real-life slave revolt plot in pre-Civil War Charleston, South Carolina. The story is told in alternating voices, with the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church as the center of much of the action, both past and present.

Weeks after her mother’s death, a grief-stricken Kate Drayton suddenly walks out of a lecture she is giving at Harvard, leaving her career as an historian in the balance. She drives to Charleston, determined to learn more about her late, estranged father, and find out why her mother was obsessed with a secretly plotted 1822 slave rebellion. When she comes to town, determined to get to the truth, she meets and befriends several locals whose significance will prove to be life-changing.

In 1822, Tom Russell, a slave with a blacksmith trade, is a reluctant part of the famed Denmark Vesey planned uprising, making and surreptitiously delivering weapons. His love for the slave girl, Dinah, is the force that drives him forward.

The novel, part mystery and part history, is a winning combination. Although the story of Tom Russell is a necessary part of the plot, I favored the present-day storyline, as I was intrigued by Kate’s journey to unmask family secrets. It is also

a love story—a love of family and of place. The city of Charleston is as integral to the plot as the characters themselves.

The author poignantly weaves in another reallife tragic event that also occurred in Charleston, connecting the past and present, a commentary on the racial divide that still exists despite the passage of 200 years. A novel of secrets, racial tensions, family, and a love that withstands the passage of time, A Tangled Mercy is truly enthralling.

Hilary Daninhirsch

BY LIGHT OF HIDDEN CANDLES Daniella Levy, Kasva, 2017, $14.95, pb, 370pp, 9780991058471 Entertaining, culturally rich, and fearless in speaking of complex theological questions, American-Israeli author Levy’s debut novel delves into the history of Spain’s crypto-Jews— descendants of Jewish people who secretly observed their faith following expulsion or forced conversion. The story is structured into three intertwined narratives, two contemporary and one historical.

Alma Ben-Ami, a gregarious college student who defies the stereotype of observant Jewish women, gets excited after discovering an engraved gold ring and a box of ketubot—Jewish marriage contracts—covering 24 generations in her family’s female line. Her memory-impaired grandmother, who was born in Morocco’s Spanish protectorate, can no longer recall the ring’s history. Shortly thereafter, at the family Judaica shop in Manhattan, Alma meets Manuel Aguilar, a Spaniard whose former priest had discouraged his curiosity about Judaism. When they enroll in the same NYU archives program and study abroad in Madrid to research their genealogies, their growing closeness affects their friendship, since Alma won’t date anyone outside her faith. A separate strand presents the experiences of Míriam de Carmona, Alma’s ancestor, living with her spice-merchant father, Abraham, in the judería of Lorca in southeastern Spain in 1492. Abraham’s decision to sell kosher wine to a converso family attracts the Inquisition’s attention.

Young people often explore questions of religion and identity in college, so Alma and Manuel’s indepth discussions about her Jewish customs, his Catholicism, and where they overlap and differ all feel honest and real. Their humorous banter keeps the pacing brisk. It’s difficult for Alma to keep kosher in modern Spain, and the story explains the importance of these traditions and emphasizes the tenacious survival of the Jewish people. In the 15th century, Míriam faces her own romantic dilemma, and her fear of discovery by the Inquisition is terrifyingly palpable. The plotline relies on coincidence at times but has an enjoyably satisfying outcome.

Sarah Johnson THE MURDERER’S MAID: A Lizzie Borden Novel Erika Mailman, Bonhomie Press, 2017, $25.00/ C$36.50, hb, 400pp, 9780997066449 Erika Mailman brings to life the story of the HNR Issue 82, November 2017 | Reviews | 53

Borden murders, inflating new life into the oft-told tale by using the perspective of the Bordens’ maid, Bridget, and divulging a present-day account of a young, unknowing descendant of Lizzie’s.

Bridget finds herself sympathetic to the plight of Abby Borden, stepmother to Lizzie and Emma in this highly dysfunctional and strained family.

This wealthy household lives more than frugally and with very little open affection. However, based on Bridget’s telling, Abby did have some care for her stepdaughters, but a pivotal, selfish moment solely instigated by the sisters forever cut her off emotionally from them.

Brooke has been on the move all her adult life, the consequence of aging out of the foster system following her mother’s murder; she also has a sense of impending danger. Brooke has a backstory that evolves over the course of the novel, and which also brings into question some of her careless motives and actions.

While the two stories don’t necessarily intersect they compellingly energize each other.

The Murderer’s Maid is an absorbing tale, and if it sometimes becomes disjointed between its two universes, the slips are forgivable in light of the originality of the author’s perspective on an overworked story.

Wendy Zollo THE BOOK OF ARCHIVES AND OTHER STORIES FROM THE MORA VALLEY, NEW MEXICO A. Gabriel Meléndez, Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 2017, $19.95, pb, 248pp, 9780806155845 This collection of 42 short stories covers the period from 1835 until the present day, with the first half of the book written in English and the last half in Spanish. The stories provide a picture of life in the Mora Valley of New Mexico.

They encompass the early days of Mexican land ownership, the Mexican wars, and finally the American occupation. There are family stories that retell histories of the villages and their people.

Each provides an historical and cultural narrative of this land. “The Book of Archives” is a collection of scraps of paper that document the history of the Mora Valley, including military records, diaries, and newspaper articles, and are bound together in a leather portfolio. Although the portfolio itself was destroyed during the Mexican-American War, storytellers have verbally passed down the tales from one generation to the next.

The author brings to life a land of change brought about by wars, the displacement of the inhabitants (the Indians), and territorial land-grabbing by newcomers to the valley (the American settlers). Although many of the stories are unrelated, the author is able to provide a linear flow of narrative from earliest New Mexico until the 20th century. The culture is especially wellresearched, and the stories probe into the spirit of the original inhabitants of the land as they deal with the changes to their culture. Even if you dislike short stories, you may want to experience the tales as presented in The Book of Archives.

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THE PRAGUE SONATA Bradford Morrow, Atlantic Monthly, 2017, $27.00, hb, 528pp, 9781250055729 In 1939, the Nazis invade Prague and begin l o o t i n g C z e c h o s l o v a k i a ’s cultural treasures.

Otylie Bártošova watches in dread, wondering how to protect an antique musical manuscript that her father called priceless.

Otylie reasons that separated movements will lose their value, so she keeps one and gives the second to her husband, Jacub. The third goes to a friend, Irena, along with a note asking her to reunite the manuscript if she survives the war. However, people and manuscripts are flung widely by war’s upheaval.

Decades later, in New York City, the mortally ill Irena gives the note and the ancient music to Meta Taverner, a young woman who played a piano recital at Irena’s hospital. Though an injured hand ended her professional career, Meta is still a highly talented musician who recognizes brilliant composition when she reads it. It is clearly a threepart sonata, but what happened to the other movements? Meta is determined to reunite the score and reveal its familiar-sounding composer.

The movements were last united in Prague, so that is where Meta begins her search.

The Prague Sonata is more than a superb multiperiod novel; it reads like a concerto by one of the masters. Themes and counterpoints intertwine, just as we follow Meta’s exciting leads and the schemes of the experts she consults. The melody passes seamlessly from one instrument to another, just as Bradford Morrow deftly transports us between WWII Prague and the vital city of today. Meta is the well-rounded, passionate soloist who waltzes us through The Prague Sonata under Morrow’s deft baton, and makes us fall in love with his literary artistry. Highly recommended.

Jo Ann Butler THE WALWORTH BEAUTY Michele Roberts, Bloomsbury, 2017, $28, hb, 400pp, 9781408883402 / Bloomsbury, 2017, £16.99, hb, 400pp, 9781408883396 This is a beautifully written dual-timeline novel with ghostly overtones. The two stories are linked primarily by location. In 2011 London, Madeleine, a retired English lecturer in her sixties, moves into a basement flat in Apricot Place, a quiet street south of the river Thames. In 1851, however, the house in Apricot Place was the home of Mrs Dulcimer, an enigmatic black woman who may or may not have been a brothel-keeper. In the historical sections of the novel, Joseph Benson encounters Mrs Dulcimer through his work as a recorder of social conditions in London and in particular on the thriving trade in prostitution. Almost against his will he is drawn back to Apricot Place time and time again.

Beyond location, the two narratives are linked by

themes about women needs, both sexual and social, as well as a series of ghostly connections where shades of the past in Apricot Place appear to bleed through into the modern day. Roberts presents two Londons both vividly described and appealing to all the senses. She has adopted a close third person style, eschewing formal punctuation of direct speech and preferring a stream of consciousness form of story-telling that breaks grammar rules in order to bring the reader as close as possible into Joseph and Madeleine’s feelings and observations about the world each of them inhabits.

Perhaps more of triumph of style (language and description) than substance (plot and character), The Walworth Beauty is a poetic and richly imagined novel full of sensuality and gothic overtones.

Kate Braithwaite

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THE ROAD TO ALEXANDER Jennifer Macaire, Accent, 2017, £8.99, pb, 401pp, 9781786154675 The story starts about 300years in the future when a young journalist wins a prize to be sent back in time to interview an historical figure of her choice. She chooses Alexander the Great, but after the interview the return flight goes awry, and she finds herself stranded in the 4th century BC. This is obviously not historical fiction in the sense that the author is trying to enter the mind of somebody in the past. The protagonist, Ashley, remains resolutely (ultra)modern in her attitudes and prejudices (e.g., slavery and religious sacrifices), but this means that she can look at the Ancient World as an outsider, seeing things the Ancients cannot see. Also, the author knows her Alexander and vividly describes the everyday life of his army as it crawls across the Middle East.

Not that Ashley is a dispassionate observer.

She becomes Alexander’s consort and falls passionately in love with him, all the time knowing that Alexander is doomed to an early death. She cannot try to change history or she will be ‘erased’.

The situation is unresolved at the end of the book, because this is the first in a series.

This is a witty, sexy, fast moving, colourful story, and you will enjoy it even if Timeslip is not your usual reading.

Edward James

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THE RISE AND FALL OF D.O.D.O. Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland, William Morrow, 2017, $35.99, hb, 752pp, 9780062409164 / The Borough Press, 2017, £20, hb, 768pp, 9780008132569 In modern Boston, linguist and expert in ancient languages Melisande Stokes is an underpaid Harvard lecturer. Tristan Lyons, a physics major, military guy and agent of “a shadowy government agency” (his words), hires her to translate some ancient documents. All the documents deal in some way with magic, and Mel and Tristan come to the conclusion that magic used to exist, but that Multi-period — Timeslip

somehow, in the mid-1800s, technology blocked and ended its ability to function. With the help of a cryogenic chamber and the world’s oldest witch, Mel and Tristan (and the expanding D.O.D.O. agency) are able to re-start magic. D.O.D.O’s employees use magic to time-travel, performing unusual and dangerous missions in a variety of historical locations. The official goals of D.O.D.O. are to subtly change the past to benefit the current US government, but there are side-efforts and secret agendas.

This epistolary novel is told through journal entries, emails, classified reports, PowerPoints, and other documents. Starting with Mel’s journal, we learn that she has been trapped in 1851 London and has decided to write down what happened and how it all went wrong.

This sci-fi/ contemporary/ historical novel is brilliant! The explanation of how magic works (using quantum physics and the many-worlds theory) is fascinatingly believable.

The way the D.O.D.O. bureaucracy grows, with mismanagement and jealousy and businessspeak, is excruciatingly realistic. Mel and Tristan’s “romance” is painfully (in a good way) slow-moving.

This book is nail-biting, mind-blowing and, above all, hilarious. My favorites were the witches: women with intelligence and strong opinions who were good at surviving—in all time periods. Oh, and the Vikings. You have to read about the Vikings.

Highly recommended.

Elizabeth Caulfield Felt THE FORTUNE TELLER Gwendolyn Womack, Picador, 2017, $16.00, pb, 357pp, 9781250099778 This time-traveling novel rests on an intriguing premise. An ancient Egyptian manuscript, which tells the story of a missing deck of tarot cards, addresses its modern translator by name, drawing her into the mystery of their disappearance. Its author, Ionna Callas, is a seer in the reign of Queen Cleopatra who witnesses the destruction of the great library at Alexandria, while the translator, Semele Cavnow, is alive in the 21st century and employed by a Manhattan auction house. The house’s director has sent Semele to the Swiss chateau of a client, Theo Bressard, in order to catalogue the collection of artifacts he has inherited from his father, Marcel; here, she discovers, in a secret cabinet, a parchment entitled My Chronicles through Time and finds that Marcel has posthumously willed it to her. But things go wrong the moment Semele begins deciphering the work; someone is intent on uncovering the secret obscured in Ionna’s ancient memoir—which, fittingly, is also a prophecy—and will stop at nothing to get it, placing Semele’s life in danger.

The strands of the women’s narratives are interwoven until they unite in the book’s finale.

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The mystery portion of The Fortune Teller story proceeds at a goodly pace, but unfortunately, Semele is not as well depicted as Ionna, a sympathetic protagonist placed in a rich, atmospheric setting.

By contrast, Semele, her contemporaries, and their surroundings never rise above the familiar, romance stereotypes.

Elisabeth Lenckos

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historical fantasy

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THE QUEEN OF SWORDS R.S. Belcher, Tor, 2017, $25.99/C$36.99, hb, 368pp, 9780765390097 “The best you could hope for were good charts, good memories, maps of love, family and friendship to help you find your course through loss and disappointment, straight and sure.” This conclusion drawn by Maude, one of Belcher’s two extremely engaging heroines, is an excellent summary of the book’s positive theme, despite monsters and evil forces that haunt the novel, the kickass heroines who don’t follow the rules, and a cynical streak a mile wide.

This is a dark fantasy, stretching across Belcher’s Weird West to London of 1870 and Africa of 1721, but it’s also all about the ties of friends and family.

Nothing is stronger or more enduring in Belcher’s world, so bring on the mankind-destroying creatures. This is third in Belcher’s Golgotha series about the Daughters of Lilith, women who partake of her blood and a lot of cool training to become protectors of humans against the giant wurms and other evils that most of us are blessedly unaware of. He builds awe-inspiring worlds and fully-developed characters, both primary and secondary, that suck the reader in. Delightful fun from beginning to end.

Judith Starkston SUMMERWODE J. Tullos Hennig, DSP Publications, 2017, $21.99, pb, 430pp, 9781635333572 1194, England: As this book opens, Templar assassin Guy de Gisbourne, born as noble Gamelyn Boundys, camps in the Shire Wode forest with a motley band of outlaws. His Templar masters have charged him with discovering the Druidic secrets held by Hob-Robyn, and delivering this ancient magic to the Grand Master of the Temple.

But other ties bind Gamelyn to this forest band.

Gamelyn’s forbidden love for Robyn Hood, and his affection and respect for the Maid Marion, conflict with his oath to his Templar masters. The magic of this dark forest and the old and powerful forces it harbors call to his heart, while his vows to the Templars bind his intellect. This struggle plays out against the siege of Nottingham and the return of King Richard the Lionheart to English shores.

This book, volume four of the Wode series, continues Hennig’s creative and magical retelling of the Robin Hood story. The book is not a quick read, but the tapestry Hennig weaves is

intricate and worth the interested reader’s effort.

The characters are complex, and the world the author creates is equally so; I was reminded of the writing of George R. R. Martin. I had not read the other volumes in this series, but Hennig provided enough backstory in this volume to give me a rough gist of past events. However, I did feel that reading the previous three volumes in the series (Greenwode, Shirewode, and Winterwode) would have contributed to the richness of the story and my understanding of this book. A fifth volume in the series is planned. Recommended for lovers of historical fantasy, the old religion and Druidic mythology, and those fascinated by the story of Robin Hood.

Susan McDuffie PERILOUS PROPHECY Leanna Renee Hieber, Tor, 2017, $15.99/C$22.99, pb, 319pp, 9780765377449 This reprint of the prequel to Hieber’s Strangely Beautiful series weaves Greek mythology into a supernatural Victorian England and Cairo. The novel provides the series’ origin story. A manic and flighty, but peace-loving Persephone plots with her mortal six-member Guard to free the world from unquiet spirits and the ruler of the underworld, Darkness, a god who shifts between handsome man and skeleton. As in the Greek tradition of gods, Persephone has faults and doesn’t always consider fully the well-being of mortals. Each of the six Guard have distinctly developed characters in harmony with the role they play as one of the Muses: Memory, Art, Intuition, Healing, Heart, and the Leader. While romance is easy for some of the Guard, the two top members stubbornly resist their powerful draw with Victorian decorum, providing the romantic focus.

Hieber uses language reminiscent of the era.

The atmospheric depictions of London and Cairo are otherworldly. Being a prequel gives the book, appropriately, a slightly unfinished feel, with the worst yet to come. Recommended for readers of gas-lamp fantasy, Victorian and paranormal romance, or dark fantasy.

Judith Starkston STONE CIRCLE Kate Murdoch, Fireship, 2016, $17.95, pb, 208pp, 9781611793864 In 16th-century Pesaro on the Adriatic coast, Antonius, a young man of common background, is born with an ability to read minds. This gift finds him a position as an apprentice to the local seer, Savinus. But the Conte Valperga is one of the seer’s most important clients and, to avoid offending him, Savinus must take the nobleman’s less gifted son, Nichola, on as apprentice as well. Antonius and Nichola compete for skills including shapeshifting, attention, and the seer’s beautiful daughter in ways that soon turn deadly.

Frequent ambiguous antecedents and jumbled points of view are basic technical shortcomings of this book that make reading a chore. The author doesn’t have a good handle on the nuts and bolts of the era, either. Potatoes? Bloomers (as in underwear)? Insane asylums? (The insane asylum HNR Issue 82, November 2017 | Reviews | 55

in Pesaro dates to the 19th century.) Reading scripture to the insane is a Protestant thing; we’re in a world where the only good scripture is in Latin. Cod are a cold-water fish, not found in the Adriatic. Stray, unnecessary characters, unsupported events and a villain made unworthy by ten key days spent in a funk in bed continue the list of my struggles. Many titles deal with the time period much more skillfully, and the fantasy elements can be more viscerally felt and believably seen as plot points in any number of books of that genre.

Ann Chamberlin CALL OF THE MORRIGÚ Christy Nicholas, Tirgearr, 2017, $4.99, ebook, 217pp, B071ZFV6ZG It’s 1798, a particularly tense time in always rebellious English-occupied Ireland. However, the troubles haven’t yet reached the country estate of Strokestown in County Roscommon. Theodosia “Dosie” Latimer and her sickly but always curious grandfather, Reginald, who runs the estate, are set on exploring and finding out what ancient Irish historical artifacts may be under mysterious mounds on the property. Incredibly, they unearth a long-buried and now rejuvenated war goddess from pre-Christian Ireland’s mythical past.

Morrígan is tall, strong, beautiful and entrancing.

She’s also imperious and seemingly always angry at the state of 18th-century Ireland, especially at the presence of English invaders. Poor Dosie must try to tame and educate this mythical figure while simultaneously dealing with a dubious aristocratic fiancé, the declining health of her beloved grandfather, her insane and bedridden mother, and the oncoming storm of a war of liberation. As she and Morrígan are inevitably drawn into this battle, Dosey discovers the phenomenal strength that has always been untapped within her.

This is a charming and brilliant novel combining fascinating mythology and genuine history. The female characters are almost all formidable, interesting and sometimes even humorous. My only quibble is the total lack of a single strong male character. Even the few men who are positively portrayed are either mentally or physically weak.

That said, the author’s prose and storytelling talent sparkle throughout. The second half of the book is particularly riveting as mythical Morrígan becomes an integral and imaginative feature in the genuine and tragic history of the 1798 Irish rebellion. I strongly recommend this book and keenly hope this is the first in a series featuring this enticing goddess of war.

Thomas J. Howley GLASS TOWN Steven Savile, St. Martin’s, $25.99/C$36.99, hb, 352pp, 9781250077837 This is a strange novel, a fantasy set in the 1920s and the 1990s. The story involves two brothers who both love the same woman, Eleanor Raines, a promising young actress in London’s East End. Seth Lockwood, the elder brother, is as mean and nasty as they come. His love is more a desire to possess Eleanor, rather than to treasure her. Isaiah, 56 | Reviews |

HNR Issue 82, November 2017

the younger brother, loves her purely. However, Eleanor and Seth suddenly disappear, never to be seen again. Isaiah spends the rest of his life trying to find them.

This obsession passes on to his son and then down the line to Josh Raines; yes, Isaiah changed his last name to Raines when he married Eleanor’s sister. And yes, Josh takes up the task of searching for Eleanor and Seth.

Flash-forward to the 1990s and you’ll find Josh reading Isaiah’s confession, explaining his wild theory about Eleanor being somehow kidnapped

by Seth. Josh is mildly intrigued, but becomes more so when a young Seth look-alike shows up at Josh’s grandfather’s funeral. Slowly putting the clues together, Josh discovers an unbelievable secret that involves magic—real magic.

The story is compelling but perhaps overwritten. The constant rhetorical questions begin to grate on the nerves, especially when they are repeated frequently. Let the action happen.

Unusual and perhaps reminiscent of Clive Barker’s Weaverworld.

Anne Clinard Barnhill THE INFINITE NOW Mindy Tarquini, SparkPress, 2017, $16.95, pb, 280pp, 9781943006342 Fiora Vicente is only 15 when her parents die, just two of the millions of deaths from the 19181919 influenza outbreak. She’s left with an elderly gentleman who’s well-respected in their Italianimmigrant society. But as the daughter of a fortuneteller, Fiora is treated with suspicion and fear by others in the Philadelphia community. Frustrated and lonely, Fiora has trouble adjusting. When her mother’s old-world curtain casts an upside-down image from the street market across her room, Fiora soon learns the curtain holds magical powers.

Yet this is America, a modern world with modern thinking, and Fiora’s plans involve a career—not becoming a wife and mother like her neighbors expect. Then she meets the village gauritrice, and everything begins to change, but are things changing for the better?

Tarquini uses words like a composer. Her word choices crescendo into sentences that read like majestic musical scores and artfully explore the angst, fears, and emotional struggles of a confused teenage girl. Fiora offers to help others, but her difficulties in being accepted are themes that resonate strongly even in today’s society.

When faced with this, Fiora thoughtfully observes, “Superstitions… Stitched into the fabric of our society. Shaken out in times of crisis.”

At times, I was frustrated with Fiora’s headstrong personality, and near the end, she makes a choice that seems incongruent with her nature. Overall, though, this is a beautifully written book with heart, humor, and just enough magic to make things a bit dangerous. Unexpected and poignant: I recommend it.

J. Lynn Else

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DARK MAIDEN Lindsay Townsend, Prairie Rose, 2017, $3.99, e-book, 236pp, B0722TNLG5

When we first meet the Black Maiden Yolanda in 1350, she is naked with boots on, lying in a bathtub, and armed with bow and arrow. A formidable exorcist, she apprehends a lecher mislabeled as an evil spirit. Who but Geraint, an easy-going Welshman juggler, could be a better romantic match for Yolanda on her quest of tracking down and ridding evil spirits in plague-stricken England? In between facing demons, displaced souls, and an incubus, Geraint lustily woos the Black Maiden.

The courtship is complicated by an abbot’s instructions that Yolanda preserve her maidenhead, a barrier to a demon trying to possess her, for a time of seven, until she fulfills her duty. Not sure if the time is in days, weeks, or years, Geraint is nonetheless determined to win Yolanda’s hand as they roam town from town, each of which holds dark secrets of people who live there.

Lindsay Townsend has created a masterfully written romance intermixed with the horrors of the plague and the superstitions that arise out of its chaos. The voice is heavily sprinkled with humor, making this a thoroughly entertaining story. I was hooked from the first page and could not put the book down. The dialogue is witty, the characters are well-developed, and the stories of the people whom the couple meet are heartfelt. The rituals of exorcising demons and helping displaced souls find their spiritual home base is well-researched and fascinating. Most of all, the love scenes are sensual but tastefully written.

Dark Maiden is a must-read for readers who love historical romance with unique characters and a dash of paranormal elements. Highly recommended.

Linnea Tanner

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alternate history

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AN ARMY OF ONE Tony Schumacher, William Morrow, 2017, $27.99, hb, 385pp, 9780062499875 It’s hard being a cop in dystopian universes!

Police inspector John Rossett is just trying to serve and protect in the third entry of this postWWII alternative history series. Known as the British Lion for his wartime service, he is now, with his German partner, on the hunt for a rogue SS officer and marksman, Captain Bauer, known as The Bear. The chase takes them to Liverpool, where the Nazis have less of a stranglehold. In this bombed-out port, criminal networks and the British resistance hold some power, complicating Rossett’s job. And besides a plot to smuggle large amounts of gold to what’s left of the Free World, the Bear loves the challenge of having a worthy opponent in Rossett. He cuts a murderous path to Timeslip — Alternate History

get into man-to-man combat with the person he deems a worthy adversary.

Author Tony Schumacher’s alternative history is not focused on big events but a realistic landscape of urban despair. His conflicted hero and cohorts experience enough bombing, sniper attacks, and fistfights to fulfill thriller readers’ expectations.

And though he has as many regrets as heroics, fans of the single-minded John Rossett novels might be assured that he will keep going while there is still justice to be served.

Eileen Charbonneau FALSE LIGHTS K. J. Whittaker, Head of Zeus, 2017, £14.99, hb, 368pp, 9781786695345 The strapline of this book is: ‘What if Napoleon, instead of Wellington, had won the Battle of Waterloo?’ Well, apparently Napoleon continues in his conquests and sends his brother Jerome and his ex-Empress Josephine to England, which is seething with underground societies, all wanting to get rid of the French, but otherwise with different political agendas.

The hero, Lord Lamorna, known as Crow, haunted by his failure to reach Wellington in time at Waterloo with a vital message, is now a spy playing a double game. Other characters have different allegiances. The heroine, Hester Harewood, daughter of a black navy captain and a white English aristocrat, is in mourning for her father, killed by the French, who capture her from her home in Cornwall. After escaping she is helped

by Crow, travelling to London with him. As a result of spending days on the road unchaperoned, they are forced into marriage.

As usual with this type of story, characters don’t communicate with each other but, despite this, all comes well in the end. With its multiple viewpoints and large cast of characters, it is at first confusing, although eventually the reader starts to understand who is who, and the motives behind the events of each section of the story, which leads to a tensionfilled finale. The main characters, especially Crow and Hester, are well-drawn, although there are some historical details I didn’t think accurate— for instance, the hero is asked if he is going to give up his earldom on marrying Hester. Prior to the Peerage Act of 1963, this would not have been possible.

Although not directly stated, this is obviously the first in a series of books, as it ends with some unanswered questions. It will be interesting to see what happens next. jay Dixon

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MIDNIGHT AT THE ELECTRIC Jodi Lynn Anderson, Harper Teen, 2017, $17.99/ C$21.99, hb, 257pp, 9780062393548 Anderson, a celebrated YA author, has written a moving multi-period novel told from the points Alternate History — Children & YA

of view of three young women poised in three time periods on the brink of voyages away from everything they’ve known in their short lives.

They are linked by ancestry and propelled on their journeys by disaster—WWI, the Dust Bowl, and global warming—and their stories share lessons about resilience and the value of reading about human lives.

The focus is on Adri Ortiz, preparing in 2065 to leave the Earth behind and join the human colony on Mars. Prickly, practical, and uncomfortable with emotions, Adri welcomes the chance to abandon a ravaged planet on which she has no human connections.

However, her training requires her to spend a few months in Canaan, Kansas, with a long-lost relation, 107-year-old Lily, in a ramshackle farmhouse where Adri unearths journals and letters belonging to two girls her age: Lenore in 1919 and Catherine in 1934. The loves, losses, and journeys of these two young women help Adri to understand why she is taking her own journey—and more importantly, what she is leaving behind.

Anderson’s writing is lyrical and deeply emotive, creating patterns of insight and imagery that resonate through the three stories, linked not only emotionally but also by the presence of a charming tortoise named Galapagos. The secrets that the letters unlock come to light in flashes and sparks of intense beauty and deep empathy. This is a novel that belongs on awards lists for Young Adult Literature in the coming year, and ought to find its way quickly onto school reading lists as well. Very highly recommended.

Kristen McDermott CROSSING THE LINE Bibi Belford, Skyhorse, 2017, $19.99, hb, 272pp, 9781510708006 In this novel set during 1919 on the South Side of Chicago, times are hard when returning veterans vie for jobs and housing with one another and against blacks moving north in search of a better way of life. Billy’s father returned from the Great War, but not as a hero. He is hospitalized with a severe case of “shell shock.” Still, their tight-knit Irish neighborhood bands together. To ease the financial pressure, Billy agrees to leave his private Catholic school and attend public school. That’s when Billy’s life changes. But Billy doesn’t mind. He makes friends with Foster, a black boy who loves baseball as much as he does. Both boys understand their friendship is taboo. Billy carefully walks a line between his Irish-American friends who spout racism and his growing friendship with Foster and Foster’s brothers, Emmett and Odell. But at some point, Billy must choose to cross the line, to stand up for what he believes despite the consequences.

Based on historical events, Bibi Belford has crafted a timely novel for readers ages 10-14.

Belford deftly walks her own line, telling a story of racism and hatred from the perspective of a white fifth-grade boy. Billy’s innocence and confusion are real. His fears and concerns about speaking against the hatred spewed by his friends, neighbors, and even sister are real. He is not a white savior; he is a young boy trying to understand something that is almost incomprehensible. In the end, he makes his choice, and there are consequences—tragic consequences—to be paid, not only by Billy and his family, but by Foster, Emmett, and Odell.

Meg Wiviott

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WITCHBORN Nicholas Bowling, Chicken House, 2017, £6.99, pb, 452pp, 9781911077251 1577. Elizabeth I has returned England to a moderate Protestantism.

However, some think that her cousin, the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, should be queen. The country is deeply divided; medieval superstition has not yet given way to rational science. Even the queen seeks advice from Dr John Dee, accused by many of being a wizard.

Alyce, fourteen-year-old daughter of the local wise-woman in Fordham, Essex, is forced to flee when a witch-finder burns down her home and her mother is killed. All Alyce has is a letter for Dr John Dee in Bankside, London, which she is desperate to deliver. But first she’s got to get there and someone is desperate to stop her.

The novel’s press release calls Witchborn ‘a dark, twisty, and thrillingly original Elizabethan fantasy, exploring true history through a magical lens’. That is largely true, but, for me, it’s more than simply a ‘fantasy’. The author plunges us into an authentic Tudor London: dirty, smelly, where the old medieval streets have rotting houses; where life is cheap; and poor, vulnerable girls, like Alyce, can only ever hope to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

Alyce is cold and filthy at the beginning of the book and things only get worse as she rarely has enough to eat, and constant rain soaks her.

Alyce herself believes that she has magical powers, and that the men who are after her deal in the dark arts. But, what is so clever about Witchborn is that the whole zeitgeist of the times encourages the irrational, and superstition is a powerful weapon for those who would rule others.

The characters themselves believe in magic, but, underneath, the reader can glimpse the selfdelusion, the twisted psyches, and the desperation to control the chaos.

Highly recommended. This author is one to watch.

Elizabeth Hawksley RETRIBUTION RAILS Erin Bowman, HMH for Young Readers, 2017, $17.99/C$24.99, hb, 384pp, 9780544918887 Teenager Reece Murphy is compelled to join HNR Issue 82, November 2017 | Reviews | 57

a ruthless outlaw gang, the Rose Riders, during a robbery, when the outlaws discover a mysterious gold coin in his possession. Reece doesn’t know much about the man who gave him the coin, but the boss figures he does, and keeps a close eye on him.

In the meantime, Reece is guilty by association and finds himself dubbed the Rose Kid due to the train robberies, murders, and general mayhem caused by the gang.

Spunky 15-year-old Charlotte Vaughn means to follow in the journalistic footsteps of her idol, Nellie Bly, and in doing so lands in the middle of a train robbery committed by the Rose Riders and starring Reece Murphy. This sets up the frequently changing fortunes of the two main characters, which continues until the end of the book with breathtaking regularity.

Written in crisp, vibrant prose, the short chapters and shifting points of view of Reece and Charlotte suck the reader into the dangerous world of Arizona Territory in 1887, and play up the desolate surroundings, scrubby inhabitants, and the ever-widening grasp of the railroad in an effective combination. High stakes put Charlotte and Reece at odds and then in reluctant cooperation as feelings blossom between them.

Don’t be surprised if you hear the far-off echo of train whistles and cowboys’ yee-haws in this fastpaced, emotionally satisfying read that hits all the right notes of a western adventure.

Xina Marie Uhl NO SAINTS IN KANSAS Amy Brashear, Soho Teen, 2017, $18.99/C$21.99, hb, 320pp, 9781616956837 In 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, brutal murders are discovered in a farmhouse by two teenagers. The respected Clutter family, husband, wife and two teenage children, have been shot to death. The town and surrounding area are devastated, afraid, and everyone suspects everyone else. A newcomer to Kansas, Carly, was wellacquainted with Nancy Clutter. They attended the same high school and Carly was tutoring Nancy in math. When Nancy’s boyfriend, Bobby—the last person to see the Clutters alive—is suspected of the crime, Carly is determined to prove his innocence.

This novel reconstructs the true murders of the Clutter family—detailed in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, published in 1965—from a teenager’s perspective. Capote himself makes a brief appearance in the narrative. Carly’s father is a defense attorney, giving her access to the courthouse and the FBI agent called in to investigate. Why she is so set on helping prove Bobby innocent isn’t clear, they hardly speak to one another, and he’s a shadow in the background for most of the story. The slightly negative connotation of Nancy’s character seems unnecessary.

Carly is bold and reckless, to the point of putting herself in danger several times, but worth rooting for. She drives the story, proving that girls in this more repressive decade are as capable of detective work as boys. Recommended for teens.

Diane Scott Lewis

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TOM AND HUCK’S HOWLING ADVENTURE Tim Champlin, Five Star, 2017, $25.95, hb, 234pp, 9781432837624 Thirteen-year-old Zane Rasmussen falls into a coma and wakes up in 1849 in the Missouri of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Zane is quickly befriended by Tom, Huck, and freed slave, Jim, and is immediately pulled into their adventures which includes saving Becky (and later Tom and Huck) from kidnappers, piloting a canoe down the Mississippi River, camping in the wild, joining a wagon train heading to California for the Gold Rush, and venturing into Indian territory.

Champlin’s work is a mash up of Mark Twain’s classics (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) and his interest in time travel (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court). But time travel can be tricky. In terms of writing craft, the entire premise of the story—that a thirteen-year-old boy in 2017 purposely eats a candy bar he knows he is deathly allergic to and thereby falls into a coma and is sent, not only back in time to 1849, but into the fictional lives of Tom Sawyer, et al.—is extraordinarily difficult, and something in which the author falls short. If readers are able to overlook this shortfall, they might enjoy the wild adventures in a time where there was little adult supervision. Champlin ends the book with potential for more adventures with Tom, Huck, Becky, Jim, and Zane, and while there is resolution for Twain’s original characters, there is none for poor Zane, who remains out of his time and, therefore, in a coma.

Meg Wiviott FREEDOM SWIMMER Wai Chim, Allen & Unwin, 2016, £6.99, pb, 252pp, 9781743369432 1968. Guangdong Province, China. Somehow, the 17-year-old Ming has survived a three-year famine, though he lost his family. He now lives in the village’s orphans’ hut and his daily life is a gruelling workload of farming under the watchful eye of the Communist Party Cadre. Discipline is harsh.

It is the year of the Great Leap Forward, and the villagers learn that a group of city youths are coming to be ‘re-educated and re-enlightened’.

They will work alongside the villagers. When they arrive, Ming sees immediately that none of them has ever done a stroke of physical work. They all quote from Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book, and, though Ming knows that it’s dangerous even to think of criticizing Mao’s work, he’s aware that the ‘thoughts’ it contains can’t help with the harsh realities of farming.

Gradually, he makes friends with the educated and charming Li. They discover a mutual love of swimming and begin, tentatively, to share their dreams of a different life. The British-owned island of Hong Kong is within their reach—if they are strong swimmers and can avoid the sharks and naval patrols; but the penalties for being caught are harsh.

I was very impressed by Freedom Swimmer. The author doesn’t pull her punches about the appalling

suffering during the Three-Year-Famine, both on a physical and psychological level. The injustice of a system which damns someone on obviously manufactured evidence and where there is no appeal, is all the more shocking for the restraint with which it’s spelt out. And the Great Leap Forward is no such thing.

She illuminates the difficulties of discussing anything, and the terrors of life under a regime where snoopers are encouraged and where a few malicious words can destroy a life. I look forward to her next book. Highly recommended.

Elizabeth Hawksley CANARY CLUB Sherry D. Ficklin, Crimson Tree, 2017, $10.95, pb, 325pp, 9781634222501 Massie Schultz is the daughter of Dutch Schultz, a notorious crime boss in 1920s New York City. Her beautiful voice and stunning good looks have made her the star entertainer in his successful nightclub. But despite the privileges her family’s wealth and fame afford, Massie feels trapped in a dangerous life and desperate to break free from a world where women are undervalued and often abused.

Enter Bad Luck Benny, a kind-hearted boy from the wrong side of town looking for work to support his mother, brother, and ailing sister. He winds up with a position as Massie’s bodyguard and soon discovers that working for the mob is more complicated than he had anticipated, especially when he finds himself falling for the boss’s daughter.

Romance blossoms between Massie and Benny despite the fact they come from very different backgrounds and are surrounded by secrets, crime, and murder. Will their forbidden love find a way to overcome the odds, or will they become collateral damage in the gangsters’ war for the city?

Canary Club effortlessly transports readers to the Prohibition era of glittering speakeasies, decadent dinner parties, and late-night jazz. This novel is packed with action and undeniably likable characters. It’s not only a great read for young adults, but a fun novel for adult readers as well.

Jenna Pavleck PAWNS Brian Gallagher, O’Brien, 2017, £7.99, pb, 256pp, 9781847178930 Balbriggan, Ireland, 1919. The First World War is over, but the increasingly violent demands for Irish independence are threatening to precipitate war with the rest of Britain. Thirteen-year-old Johnny knows which side he’s on—the Irish.

Brought up in a brutal Catholic orphanage, he’s now a general helper-out at the Protestant Mill Hotel. Two things brighten up his life: his dreams of making it as a musician (he’s a talented clarinetist) and his friendship with Stella and Alice, both eleven.

Stella’s father is the Commanding Officer at the nearby British R.A.F. base. She’s on the British side, but she’s appalled by the brutality of the Black and Tans, ex-WWI soldiers brought in to deal with the Irish so-called rebels. Alice’s mother Children & YA

runs the Mill Hotel. Politically, Alice is undecided but she dislikes the way her mother treats Johnny.

He can’t help being an orphan, so why should her mother look down on him? ‘ When Johnny secretly becomes a spy for the I.R.A., things take a dangerous turn…

What I admire about Gallagher’s writing is that he never forgets that it’s the adults who are the driving force in what becomes an increasingly dangerous war of attrition. The three children’s thoughts, aspirations and activities are set against a background over which they have very little control. He is interested in how children grow up in a world where there are those fighting, on both sides, who don’t care who they hurt.

Johnny, Alice and Stella have to grow up fast, to decide for themselves what sort of people they want to become. Johnny and Stella must also come to terms with their own past traumas; and all three must decide whether their friendship can survive the political divisions between them and how far they’ll go to help each other. Highly recommended.

Elizabeth Hawksley TOKOYO, THE SAMURAI’S DAUGHTER Faith L. Justice, illus. Kayla Gilliam, Raggedy Moon, 2017, $6.99, pb, 122pp, 9780692677087 Tokoyo is not your average 14th-century Japanese girl. She rejects learning sewing, embroidering, painting and cooking to prepare for a married life. Instead her father humors her by teaching her how to read, write, learn samurai fighting skills, and prepare her mind and body with martial arts practices. In her work with the Ama, divers who search for treasure and food, she earns great respect for her ability to remain underwater longer than any of her peers.

However, Tokoyo’s world comes to a startling crash when her father is accused of being dishonorable by a dishonest minister of the local Shogun. This is the story of how Tokoyo travels to the island where her father has been exiled and kills a dragon associated with a curse on the residents of the island. No spoilers here. The story is accompanied by vivid cartoon images of the progressing action which young readers are sure to eagerly enjoy. Tokoyo, The Samurai’s Daughter is a dramatic, adventurous story reflecting the legends and tales of Japan in medieval times. Thoroughly enjoyable and highly recommended!

Viviane Crystal AMONG THE RED STARS Gwen C. Katz, HarperTeen, 2017, $17.99/ C$21.99, pb, 384pp, 9780062642745 The author takes on a tremendous task in this book, depicting the struggle between Russians and Germans during WWII. Several million combatants were lost on each side. The front, continually snaking, stretched over thousands of miles of inhospitable country; cold was an additional enemy.

This vast, hostile sweep of history is seen here through the lens of a simple love story about two young people: Valka, the girl destined to become a pilot, and Pasha, the artistic, thoughtful boy who is forced to become a soldier. They have grown up Children & YA

together hardly recognizing the depth of feeling that has developed between them. Their story is told partly in the third person, partly in letters between them expressing their feelings and fears.

Valka flies night bombers—no, not those huge steel bombers we know, but flimsy little biplanes with fabric wings and bombs hooked manually beneath them. She and her friends face not only the Russian cold, darkness, German fighters and guns, but also the disdain and dislike of the male establishment, layered on top of political divisions and paranoia.

There is no way to make this topic a light read and carefree romance. It is a tale of great bravery against almost impossible conditions. Katz has achieved much in presenting her theme through the eyes and feelings of two young people struggling to survive as best they can. She keeps us in mind of the suffering of two huge armies in inhumane conditions as she shows us the individual bravery of two vulnerable people caught up in war. This is history we seldom hear about.

And, oh, yes, we even start to feel warmly about Valka’s little biplane.

Valerie Adolph THE GROWING ROCK Susanna Lancaster, Harvard Square Editions, 2017, $22.95, pb, 195pp, 9781941861479 Life is difficult during the Great Depression, and when 14-year-old Caroline’s father leaves to find work and promises everything will be all right, Caroline doesn’t believe him. First, strict Aunt Elsmere comes to live with them. Then, her sickly younger sister, Phoebe, falls gravely ill, and her favorite brother, who also left to find work, stops writing. Mama falls into hopelessness, and her older sister, Blanche, is up to something, skipping out on her chores and leaving Caroline to do all the work. When Phoebe is well enough, Caroline takes her to the Growing Rock, which sits in the yard, to tell her the hopeful stories that had once been told to her—of the magical rock that grows during the summer to make room for the faeries that live beneath it.

For readers ages 10-14, The Growing Rock is a coming of age story which offers a realistic glimpse into life during the Depression. Caroline is an historically accurate character from a more innocent time. Particularly relatable for today’s young readers is her relationship with Blanche, whom Caroline admires despite her selfish behavior. Also of particular tenderness is the budding romance between Caroline and Peter, the boy next door.

There is little depth in the story, despite all the currents running through it. Still, it is a tenderhearted story for young readers.

Meg Wiviott WINSTON AND THE MARMALADE CAT Megan Rix, Penguin, 2017, £5.99, pb, 178pp, 9780141385693 1962. Seven-year-old Harry loves helping out Mr Jenner at his local RSPCA centre. He longs for a pet of his own but his father, blinded by a wartime grenade, says ‘No’. It’s not safe; he might

trip over it or step on it. So when Harry rescues a tiny marmalade kitten stuck in a drainpipe, he reluctantly takes it Mr Jenner, who is delighted.

Ex-Prime Minister and wartime hero, Sir Winston Churchill, lives nearby at Chartwell, and he loves animals, particularly marmalade cats. His 88th birthday is coming up and the kitten, now named Little Houdini after the great escapologist, will be the perfect present for the great man.

Megan Rix gives her young readers stories within stories: the seven-year-old Winston’s awful time at school and his love of his cat, Sergeant Tommy; his affection for a pig called Piggly; his wartime pet, a miniature poodle called Rufus; and, of course, Harry learns at school exactly what Churchill did during the war and how he inspired the nation during those dark days. Harry loves the stories but will he ever be allowed his own pet?

This book ticks a number of boxes; it’s perfect for children of six plus who love animals; it relates, in interesting bite-size chunks, stories of Churchill’s life, from his lonely childhood, his love of painting and animals, how he held the nation together during World War II, and, lastly, as the aged war-hero. And the thread of Little Houdini’s own story binds it all together.

Elizabeth Hawksley KISKA John Smelcer, Leapfrog, 2017, $12.95/C$18.95, pb, 188pp, 9781935248934 In June 1942, 14-year-old Kiska Baranoff leads a peaceful life with her family on one of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. They live a traditional life; she collects seagull eggs for her mother while her father and brother hunt seals. Kiska wants to be a great hunter, but girls are not allowed to hunt.

When US ships arrive and forcefully evacuate all the residents—claiming it is for their own good and allowing them to take nothing but the clothes on their backs—Kiska’s life changes forever. Taken to Admiralty Island, the Aleutians are forced to live under constant guard in an abandoned cannery far from their home, the ocean, and their way of life. Under the tutelage of an elder shaman, Kiska defies tradition and learns a way to help her people survive.

Based on historical events and written for readers ages 10-14, Kiska, shines a much-needed light on a shameful and little-known episode in US history. Smelcer’s descriptions of Kiska’s island, traditions, and way of life are beautiful, the loss of which is made all the more painful when contrasted with his descriptions of the internment camp where Kiska and the other Aleut people are held. His style is quiet and literary, making the racism and cruelty the Aleutians endure more palatable for young readers. Kiska is a bold and believable heroine; a character who will stay with readers long after they have finished reading her story. This would make an excellent companion to Aleutian Sparrow by Karen Hesse.

Meg Wiviott THE SECRET OF NIGHTINGALE WOOD Lucy Strange, Chicken House, 2017, $16.99/ C$22.99, hb, 304pp, 9781338157475 HNR Issue 82, November 2017 | Reviews | 59

A debut novel, this is a delightful tale of love and loss, family and friends, and mystery and magic.

The story begins when Henry, rather Henrietta Abbott, and her family move to a new house in the aftermath of the Great War. They have suffered a tragedy, but what has happened remains unclear until the end of the book. All the reader knows is that Henry’s mother is distraught and her father must leave the family to find work. Left with her mother and little sister, Piglet, along with Nanny Jane and the cook, Mrs. Berry, Henry must learn to listen to her heart—and, as an avid reader, she must also learn how much of life is real and how much is a fairy tale.

The first thing Henry discovers as she explores the gardens and woods surrounding her new home is her brother, Robert—or rather, Robert’s ghost.

With him to guide her, Henry finds much more than she could ever have imagined: there’s a strange witchy woman living in the woods, a quack doctor who treats her mother’s depression, and an old tragedy that has left its evidence in the attic.

Well-written and emotionally authentic, this debut heralds great things for Lucy Strange and her young readers.

Anne Clinard Barnhill I SURVIVED THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1776 Lauren Tarshis, Scholastic, 2017, $4.99, pb, 144pp, 9780545919739 This book is a part of the popular “I Survived” series, written for upper elementary readers to bring them a first-person narrative of important events in world history.

Set in the summer of 1776, the story is told through the perspective of Nathaniel Fox, an eleven-year-old boy who gets caught in the middle of the Battle of Brooklyn, the largest battle fought during the American Revolution. As an orphan, Nathaniel has been living with his despicable uncle, Uriah Storch, in Norwalk, Connecticut, when he decides to run away. Stowing away on a ship bound for New York, Nate arrives in New York City to find its streets packed with colonial soldiers.

Within hours, British ships arrive off port and begin firing on the city. Nate is caught without cover on the streets, and runs for his life. He arrives at a city green north of the city, and rests at the military encampment where he is taken in as a camp assistant. For the next several weeks Nate does more physical labor than he ever thought possible.

The story climaxes as the Battle of Brooklyn, in full swing, helps Nate to learn firsthand about the perils of warfare. Nate survives, but has grown up through the process of being immersed in the American Revolution.

Well-researched and packed full of action, this book should appeal to elementary students who are learning about the American Revolution. I enjoyed the development of the characters, but felt the ending occurred too rapidly once the battle was over.

Linda Harris Sittig HETTY FEATHER’S CHRISTMAS Jacqueline Wilson, Doubleday, 2017, £12.99, hb, 60 | Reviews |

HNR Issue 82, November 2017

183pp, 9780857535535 It is 1888, and London’s Foundling Hospital, run by Matron Bottomly, is a grim place, even on Christmas Day. Twelve-year-old Hetty Feather has been locked in a dark cupboard for bad behaviour.

Fortunately, one of the new governors, Miss Smith, rescues her and takes her out to visit Mr Rivers, a Bohemian artist friend of hers.

For Hetty, Mr Rivers’ house is a magic Arabian Nights’ world. There’s a brightly decorated Christmas tree, coloured paper chains and a mistletoe ball. The house is full of marvellous things, including a stuffed peacock, and huge blue and white jars. The Christmas tea is delicious with pancakes, patties, brandy snaps, ice cream and Christmas cake. Afterwards there are Christmas crackers and games, like Blindman’s Buff and Charades. But there are tensions under the opulence. Not all the Rivers children are happy, and Mrs Rivers is not pleased to see Hetty; Foundling children should be in the kitchen with the servants, in her view. Hetty isn’t altogether comfortable.

This is a Christmas treat, ‘stocking-filler’ book, for Jacqueline Wilson’s Hetty Feather fans. I loved the over the top Victorian Christmas tea which Charles Dickens would have approved of. And Mr Rivers’ artist home might have belonged to Laurence Alma-Tadema, R. A., with fellow-artist Lord Leighton’s stuffed peacock thrown in for good measure.

I enjoyed the ‘All the Trimmings’ section at the end about Victorian Christmases, and tips on things to do and make, inspired by the book. Girls of nine plus should love this book.

Elizabeth Hawksley

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THE LIFE AND DEATH OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (UK) / FROM HOLMES TO SHERLOCK: The Story of the Men and Women Who Created an Icon (US) Mattias Boström (trans. Michael Gallagher), Head of Zeus, 2017, £25, hb, 597pp, 9781784977733 / Mysterious Press, 2017, $28, hb, 608pp, 9780802126603 This is not a Sherlock Holmes pastiche nor a fictional biography of the fictional detective. This is a non-fiction book about Sherlock Holmes as a brand, or should we say a legend? The UK title is misleading, because of course the legend has never died.

The first four of the book’s eight parts cover the life of Holmes’s creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, and how he came to write and market his brainchild.

Famously he also tried to kill him but was forced to resurrect him by popular demand.

After Arthur’s death in 1930, the task of managing the legend fell firstly to his widow, who never made a decision without consulting her late husband via her Spiritualist medium, then to her two quarrelling sons and finally her daughter, who died in 1998. The copyright has now expired and it is a free-for-all.

Bostrom covers every aspect of the legend; books, theatre, radio, TV, the Internet, and the whole Sherlockian world of clubs, societies and spin-offs. I am not a Sherlockian, but I found this a fascinating account of an astonishing literary phenomenon.

Edward James EMIGRANTS: Why the English Sailed to the New World James Evans, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2017, £20, hb, 336pp, 9780297866909 Why did almost 400,000 people leave English shores for a daunting trip across the Atlantic to North American settlements throughout the 17th century? James Evans sets out to describe this socalled ‘swarming of the English’ in his new book Emigrants and to explain why the English, rather than their French or Spanish competitors, took over America and Canada. These English colonialists ranged from Puritans seeking religious freedom, Royalists escaping Cromwell, opportunists seeking to exploit natural resources like the cod fishery and most of all, desperate people prepared to endure the brutality of indentured servitude for a better life in the longer term.

Emigrants covers these broad themes using contemporary maps, official letters and court records to provide fascinating insights into ultimately why North American opportunities outweighed the considerable dangers. The pillars in the author’s narrative though are the personal diaries and letters that reveal the personalities of the emigrants themselves, from lesser-known people like Christopher Newport and Anne Bradstreet to the more famous Humphrey Gilbert and John Smith. Evans ties these disparate subjects together to produce an engaging and vivid narrative that will enthral both those with an interest in the 17th century as well as the general reader.

Gordon O’Sullivan STORIES OF INSPIRATION: Historical Fiction Edition, Volume 1 Suzanne Fox, ed., Stories of You, 2017, $13.99, pb, 248pp, 9780998122908 This book is a little different from most we review in this publication because it is an anthology of essays by more than 30 of our fellow historical fiction writers. In this volume, they write about what inspired them to write their particular books, share their challenges (such as getting mired in facts to the detriment of story), and sometimes reveal why they chose this genre. Some essays are personal, some educational, others entertaining; they are as diverse as the authors who penned them.

The spark of magic that ignited their tales also runs the gamut, from strange and mundane locations, photographs, and family lore to demands from characters, unbelievable historical facts, natural disasters, and everything in between. But it is clear they all share a passion for and respect of the past.

This is a valuable resource to both readers and writers. As a reader, I sat with my phone next to me, constantly adding books to my “To Be Read list” on Goodreads as I went along. Many of their articles included details – bits of information not Children & YA — Nonfiction

available from the back cover copy or title – that made me want to read books I otherwise might have passed by. It was fascinating to get a sneak peek into the minds and processes of so many wonderful authors.

As an author, I was comforted reading about other writers having similar experiences to mine when they were struck with story ideas, sometimes becoming obsessed (in a good way) with their topics or characters. I particularly loved the introductory essay “On the Power of the Historical Novel” by Eliot Pattison. I found myself highlighting passages about the “why” of historical fiction, such as “I don’t want a vital people to be reduced to a date; I want to see the tears of the Iroquois widows and hear the slow, melancholy beat of their tribal drums,” and saying “yes!” out loud as I read, growing more and more proud to be a historical fiction author with each line. I could have read an entire book just on that topic.

A second edition of historical fiction stories of inspiration was mentioned in the book, and I believe any of us would be honored to be included.

I know I would!

Nicole Evelina

directly following the end of WWII, his latest effort explores the war’s global impact from 1945 to today. Each chapter has a theme that is introduced by a man or woman’s personal reflections of the war and their life after. The individuals chosen represent a vast spectrum of experiences and come from varied backgrounds. Some are well-known, like Israeli novelist Aharon Appelfeld, and others like Choi Myeong-sun represent just one of the thousands of Korean “comfort women.” One of the standout stories is Yuasa Ken’s, a Japanese doctor who performed vivisections on Chinese prisoners during the war, and who later wrote a book confessing his crimes. His story highlights a central theme in the book, that there is no black and white in war, that no side was all good or all bad.

Trying to encompass the cultural, psychological, technological, political, etc., consequences of WWII on the entire world in one book is no easy task. The author admits to a slight Western bias but does an admirable job making the book truly global with his thoughtful sections on Africa and Latin America. A riveting read and a truly important book.

Janice Derr

TWILIGHT OF EMPIRE: The Tragedy at Mayerling and the End of the Habsburgs Greg King and Penny Wilson, St. Martin’s, 2017, $27.99/C$38.99, hb, 352pp, 9781250083029 The murder-suicide at Mayerling was an event that ripped a family, an empire, and eventually the entire world apart. Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination touched off World War I, would never have been heir to the AustroHungarian throne had his cousin, Crown Prince Rudolf, not died at the imperial hunting lodge in 1889.

The authors deconstruct the accepted romanticization of the events at Mayerling as a tragic lovers’ suicide pact. Instead, here is a portrait of the Habsburgs at their zenith, an eccentric family done no favors by generations of inbreeding: the cold, regimented patriarch, Emperor Franz Josef; supremely selfish mother, Empress Elisabeth; and stifled, reckless and emotionally unstable heir Crown Prince Rudolf. Add to this recipe a hearty dose of political intrigue and a silly young baroness raised on romantic French novels in a completely amoral environment, and the stage is set for total disaster. King and Wilson’s prose is straightforward, and their research thorough. The build-up to Mayerling seems inevitable and events are fairly well-known, but the authors’ systematic examination of the events and personalities involved, presented in readable style, makes for a compelling treatment of the subject.

Bethany Latham

THE TIME TRAVELLER’S GUIDE TO RESTORATION BRITAIN Ian Mortimer, The Bodley Head, 2017, £20, hb, 468pp, 9781847923042 / Pegasus, 2017, $25.95, hb, 464pp, 9781681773544 This is part of the author’s series which has the stated intention of taking the reader back in time to see just what it would be like to live in a particular period of British history. This is at one with the current trend of studying history predominantly from the perspective of the ordinary individual, and not the traditional interplay of elites and the unfolding of wider social movements.

It is an entertaining and informative work. There is some original research and intriguing revelations in the impressive cascade of information about life in 17th-century Britain, although the author mostly depends upon a small range of known accounts, in particular the wonderful Pepys who is ever the treasure-trove of quotidian London life and customs in the 1660s. For anyone familiar with Restoration history, there is still a fair amount to be learnt from this rehashing of material. It is written well in a jaunty and chatty style and is a pleasing, absorbing, highly informative and, for history, an unchallenging read.

Douglas Kemp

THE FEAR AND THE FREEDOM: How the Second World War Changed Us Keith Lowe, St. Martin’s, 2017, $29.99, hb, 512pp, 9781250043955 / Viking, 2017, £25, hb, 576pp, 9780670923519 Lowe’s new book picks up where his previous one, the excellent Savage Continent, left off. Moving beyond the devastation in Europe in the years Nonfiction

CAESAR’S FOOTPRINTS: Journeys to Roman Gaul Bijan Omrani, Head of Zeus, 2017, £25.00, hb, 386pp, 9781784970659 Caesar’s Footprints is an excellent and thorough account of many aspects of Roman Gaul (roughly equivalent to modern-day France), from general life in town and country to religious and cultural changes. It begins though with an overview of Gaul prior to Roman rule, in which its position in the Roman imagination as the barbarian other is highlighted, before moving on to a detailed account of Gaul’s conquest by Julius Caesar. Here,

no apologies are made for the cynical motives and brutal nature of his campaigns. The book then covers the aforementioned aspects of Roman Gaul throughout the whole period of Roman occupation, and it is from these chapters that a real appreciation of Rome’s importance to modern-day France can be gleaned. This leaves the question of whether the later benefits justified the initial, inhumane invasion.

I very much enjoyed reading this book. It addresses a topic not often covered but arguably very significant, making many pertinent and intriguing points along the way. Recommended.

Chris James THE PLOTS AGAINST HITLER Danny Orbach, Head of Zeus, 2017, £25.00, hb, 408pp, 9781786694577 / HMH, 2016, $28, hb, 432pp, 9780544714434 Hitler led a charmed life. From the moment he took office as Chancellor in 1933 until the failure of the July 1944 Bomb Plot, there was never a moment when at least several people were not plotting to kill him. Some were ‘lone wolves’, like the Communist carpenter who nearly succeeded with the Munich Beer-Hall bomb in November 1939, but most were part of a long-running conspiracy in the higher reaches of the armed forces. After a series of failures, some technical and others matters of chance, they nearly pulled it off in July 1944. Even when Hitler survived the bomb the conspirators might still have staged a successful putsch, but bad luck and misjudgement lead to most of them being caught and executed.

It would be difficult not to write an exciting, suspenseful story with such material, and Danny Orbach does not let us down. He also tries to fit the different plots into a theoretical framework, and he agonises over whether or not the conspirators were ‘heroes’. You may find the analysis interesting; you will find the story compelling.

Edward James REBELLION IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES II John Whitehead, Pen & Sword, 2017, £25, hb, 277pp, 9781473896789 There was no rebellion in England in the reign of Charles II and only minor revolts in Scotland and Ireland. Plots and conspiracies abounded but never came to anything. This book explains why.

Charles II had very limited military resources (he wisely disbanded Cromwell’s army after the Restoration) and relied instead on cunning statecraft and a good intelligence service.

Whitehead is an ex-intelligence officer and gives special attention to this aspect of Charles’ rule but the book also covers the whole complex and shifting pattern of Restoration politics, not neglecting the sexual politics of Charles’ several mistresses.

The intelligence service was not always reliable.

The greatest plot of all, the Popish Plot of 1678, never existed, but the intelligencers were content to feed popular hysteria to boost their own importance. Quis custodiet?

Edward James HNR Issue 82, November 2017 | Reviews | 61

© 2017, The Historical Novel Society ISSN: 1471-7492 | Issue 82, November 2017