Tag Archives: historical fiction

My Porridge & Cream read: Julie Christine Johnson

#BookReview ‘The Wicked Cometh’ by Laura Carlin #historical #suspense

In the dark alleyways of London, in 1831, people are disappearing; the vulnerable poor, children, elderly, homeless. Missing posters line the streets. But none are found. The Wicked Cometh by Laura Carlin is a 19^th century crime thriller with two women, divided by class and background, who are determined to find the truth but who never once suspect the depth of wickedness they will uncover. When 18-year old Hester White is hit by a carriage, physician Calder Brock takes her to his London home. Cared for by his servants, he questions Hester about her birth. Ashamed of her bad luck – growing up at a country parsonage, she was orphaned and taken in by her parents’ servants whose own income declined so now they live in an East End slum – Hester hides her education with a deftly-adopted London accent. Brock rescues her as an experiment in educating the poor. He takes Hester to Waterford, his childhood home in the country, where he lives with his sister Rebekah and their Uncle Septimus. Rebekah is to be Hester’s tutor. What follows is a story of lies laid upon more lies, murder, theft, friendship and love. As the women set out to discover what happened to Hester’s missing cousin, and two servants who worked for Rebekah, they enter into an underworld neither guessed exists. Being female hinders their attempts to investigate and they put themselves into increasingly dangerous situations in their efforts to gather evidence.
This is a melodramatic rollercoaster which in places grew so convoluted that I at first re-read passages, but then simply skipped paragraphs. It would benefit from some robust editing. At its heart is a gruesome Victorian murder mystery and the love of two women. The answer to the mystery that Hester and Rebekah set out to solve – and I started with high hopes of the two female investigators – is perhaps predictable but the details are dense and colourful though at times needlessly confusing. Some of the descriptions are unbelievably gory, unnecessarily so.
There are two endings, difficult to describe without giving spoilers. Suffice to say I found the final ending unsatisfactory; too neat and tidy for me. The part of the book I enjoyed the most was the beginning, with the development of Hester’s character, her stop-start relationship with Rebekah, and the whispers that unsettle Hester so she doesn’t know who to trust. The London setting is well-written; the filth so real you can smell it. The medical detail is gruesome so be warned, a few pages require a strong stomach. Another positive is the two strong female protagonists.
I particularly liked Rebekah. All of this is well done. What let it down for me? It simply didn’t hold my attention in places.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Quick’ by Lauren Owen
‘The Secrets of Gaslight Lane’ by MRC Kasasian #4GOWERDETECTIVE
‘The Taxidermist’s Daughter’ by Kate Mosse

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#BookReview THE WICKED COMETH by Laura Carlin https://wp.me/p5gEM4-35y via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Highland Fling’ by Nancy Mitford #satire #historical

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First published in 1931, Highland Fling is the first novel by Nancy Mitford and the first I have read, determined to read them in order. What a breath of fresh air it was after reading two detailed historical novels, this light frothy concoction made me chuckle. An amusing observer of manners, Mitford excels at that peculiar type of incomplete conversation between two people gossiping about mutual acquaintances in which each completes the other’s sentences. This is a novel of its time, upperclass wealth, upperclass lack of wealth, centuries of families and traditions the roots of which have been forgotten, and the juxtaposition of bluff country old-timers with Bright Young Things from London. Highland Fling is set in a Scottish castle, a closed-room setting, loved by crime writers, which Mitford uses mercilessly to compare and contrast. It is a world with which the author knows well and at which she gently pokes fun.
Young artist Alfred Gates returns from Paris to London and visits his newly-married friends Walter and Sally. Sally’s parents are called away and the three friends go to Scotland to host the parent’s shooting party. As well as the shooting guests, including stodgy old-fashioned military and aristocratic types, the younger guests include Jane Dacre who fancies herself in love with the effete Albert. Albert, who dresses in brightly-coloured flamboyant clothing which offends the traditionalists, searches Dalloch Castle for examples of Victorian decorative accessories which he photographs for his book. While the shooting guests are up at dawn and tramp around the moorland, the youngsters rise at midday and drink champagne for breakfast. Teasing, of old by young, is inevitable with the hapless victims suspicious but unable to produce proof of their tormenters. Mitford mines the humour by placing both groups in close proximity and letting them clash, on a shoot, and a visit to the local highland games.
As a first novel this gave me a taster of Mitford’s acerbic wit and observation of social manners, acute in its sharpness of both old and young, wealthy and not, though crude in some instances.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Read my reviews of these other novels by Nancy Mitford:-
CHRISTMAS PUDDING
LOVE IN A COLD CLIMATE
PIGEON PIE
THE BLESSING
THE PURSUIT OF LOVE
WIGS ON THE GREEN

Read the first paragraph of THE PURSUIT OF LOVE here.

If you like this, try:-
‘Curtain Call’ by Anthony Quinn
‘Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day’ by Winifred Watson
‘Quartet’ by Jean Rhys

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#BookReview HIGHLAND FLING by Nancy Mitford http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2TH via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Silent Companions’ by Laura Purcell #historical #mystery

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How to describe this novel? Spooky, mysterious? A tale of witchcraft and trickery or malicious exploitation and fraud? The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell starts with a woman in an asylum. Mute, she is given chalk and a slate with which to communicate. What follows is her account of the Bainbridge family and their country home, The Bridge. From the beginning until the end, we do not know who to believe. The story is told in three strands – a woman in an asylum, accused of murder; a young widow who arrives at her husband’s family home, pregnant and vulnerable; and a couple excitedly prepare for a royal visit by Charles I. What unfolds is a complicated story. Purcell handles the many threads well although I would have preferred a clear delineation with each new section marked by date.
Elsie, the daughter of a match factory owner in London, is a survivor. She supported her mother after her father was killed in a ghastly workplace accident, she supported her younger brother Jolyon as their mother also fell ill. And when Jolyon brings a new investor for the factory the siblings, now jointly own, Elise marries Rupert Bainbridge. Odd things start to happen after Rupert dies soon after the marriage and Elsie goes for the first time to The Bridge. Exploring the rundown dusty house when she hears a noise at night, Elsie finds a locked door and in the room behind is a wooden stand-up figure of a girl. From this point, odd things start to happen, getting odder and more frequent as the tale progresses. The reader doesn’t know who to believe or who to trust. It feels as if everyone might be lying for their own ends, or perhaps the villagers are right and the house is riddled with witchcraft. But concrete things keep happening which cannot be denied.
This is a strange, unsettling read.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Night Child’ by Anna Quinn
‘The Penny Heart’ by Martine Bailey
‘The Witchfinder’s Sister’ by Beth Underdown

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE SILENT COMPANIONS by Laura Purcell http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2Tn via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Birdcage Walk’ by Helen Dunmore #historical

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Birdcage Walk is the last novel by the incomparable Helen Dunmore who moved between subjects and periods with ease, setting the dramatic minutiae of people’s lives against the huge social events of the time. War, spies and, in Birdcage Walk, the French Revolution and how its impacts on a family in Bristol. The novel opens as a walker and his dog discover a hidden grave in the undergrowth of a derelict graveyard. He reads the inscription to Julia Elizabeth Fawkes but subsequent research finds no information about her. This is followed by a short night-time scene in 1789 of a man burying a body in woods. We do not know the location, his identity or that of the body. How are these two things connected? For the first half of the book, I forgot these two short scenes until growing menace made me recall it and read faster.
It is 1792. This is the story of young wife Lizzie Fawkes, new wife of Bristol builder John Diner Tredevant and daughter of writer Julia Fawkes. Diner, as he is known, is developing a grand terrace of houses on the cliffs at Clifton Gorge, a development for which he specifies the best, borrowing against the potential sales. He is not keen on the company kept by his wife’s mother, seeing them as seditious socialists agitating in support of the French revolutionaries. He is aware of the potential cost to England, and his ambitious development, if the trouble in France turns into war. Lizzie is torn between two worlds, loyal to her Mammie and cautious about Augustus, her step-father and political pamphleteer, but aware her husband is under financial pressure. Diner is derided as a capitalist by Augustus and his writer friends. But Lizzie is proud, she chose her husband and remains loyal to him. But that loyalty and her young impressionable love for him are challenged. As news from Paris gets grimmer, Diner’s mood darkens. He must lay off workers, creditors chase payment, and he has night sweats. Insistent that independent Lizzie is his now, that he owns her and everything of hers, he is almost overpowering in his need to keep her close. She begins to fear he is having her followed and so disguises herself as she walks about town, lying about her visits home. And then there is the mystery of Diner’s first wife, Lucie, who died in France but of whom he does not speak. Lizzie fears he still loves Lucie.
This is a gently-written novel about tumultuous times in Europe, when the shadow of the unknown and fear – from the horrors in Paris to Diner’s secrets and his dark brooding nature – cannot be escaped. When the moment to run arrives, will Lizzie recognise it? If she does run, where to and who with? And will she know if she is running towards more danger? This is an expertly-written historical novel, rich in period detail, although the title is mentioned fleetingly and not referred to again.

Read my reviews of two other novels by Helen Dunmore:-
EXPOSURE
THE LIE

If you like this, try:-
‘The Walworth Beauty’ by Michèle Roberts
‘The Quick’ by Lauren Owen
‘The French Lesson’ by Hallie Rubenhold

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Bookreview BIRDCAGE WALK by Helen Dunmore http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2T2 via @SandraDanby

My Porridge & Cream read: Julie Stock

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Today I’m delighted to welcome romance author Julie Stock. Her ‘Porridge & Cream’ read is Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

“My ‘Porridge and Cream’ book is Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. The first time I read it was at secondary school, when I was about 14 years old, in the late 1970s. I went to a girls’ school and romantic love seemed very elusive and also illusory. What captivated me about the story was that it seemed so real. My school was nothing like Jane’s experience, thank goodness, although I might have felt like it was at the time but I appreciated the truth of the story, like the author was treating the reader with respect by drawing characters to whom life had not been kind, who were quite ordinary in their way, but had the potential to be extraordinary by their actions.

Julie’s copy of ‘Jane Eyre’

It was many years before I picked the book up again but I find myself moved to reread it regularly these days, especially when the real world becomes a bit too superficial and I need an escape to a world where people rose above their suffering and survived despite it because of the power of love. I love Jane most of all. I feel sorry for her, but I also admire her for surviving all the awful things life throws at her. And even at the last, when anyone else would be weeping with despair, she is happy to find Mr. Rochester again. What a woman!

The plot: Jane Eyre – an average woman of low means, destined to live her life alone but with a determination to make something of her situation.

Edward Rochester – a bitter man, whose wealth has brought him no advantages. Can he be saved by the love of a good woman?

This is an epic love story that will show you how love can overcome all obstacles, and save even the most desperate souls.”

Julie Stock’s Bio
Julie Stock is an author of contemporary romance from around the world: novels, novellas and short stories.She indie published her debut novel, From Here to Nashville [above], in February 2015 and published her second novel, The Vineyard in Alsace in March 2017. A follow-up novella to From Here to Nashville is also in progress, as well as the next novel. Julie is a proud member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, The Society of Authors and The Alliance of Independent Authors.

Julie Stock’s links
Website
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest

Julie Stock’s latest book
The Vineyard in Alsace is a contemporary romance, telling the story of Fran and Didier who have a second chance at love when she goes for a job on his vineyard. When fate throws them together again, will they be able to put the past behind them and forgive each other enough to build a new life together?
‘The Vineyard in Alsace’ by Julie Stock [UK: Clued Up Publishing]

‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte [UK: Penguin Classics]

Discover the ‘Porridge & Cream’ books of these authors:-
Tracey Sinclair
Laura Wilkinson
Rachel Dove

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Why does #romance author @wood_beez48 re-read JANE EYRE? https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3d2 via @SandraDanby #books

#BookReview ‘The Slaves of Solitude’ by Patrick Hamilton #WW2 #wartimefamily

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Patrick Hamilton is a new author for me. The Slaves of Solitude, published in 1947, is a novel about wartime in which war is deep background. The setting is Thames Lockden, a small town in the Home Counties, which Hamilton based on Henley-upon-Thames. It tells the story of Miss Roach – Enid, though hardly anyone knows this is her first name – and her life at a boarding house, The Rosamund Tea Rooms. This is a war novel with a difference, focussing on the people at home, not fighting but getting on with their lives in a world turned upside down, managing on a day-to-day basis, life is dreary and bare. Miss Roach, former schoolmistress, is single, 39, and fiercely independent. She has been bombed out of her London flat and has fled from the bombing. Life is dark. ‘The earth was muffled from the stars; the river and the pretty eighteenth-century bridge were muffled from the people; the people were muffled from each other. This was war late in 1943.’
Hamilton is a wonderful observer of human behaviour, he shows the nasty politeness between the residents at The Rosamund Tea Rooms, the bullying, the toadying, the power struggles and how the quiet ones are trampled over by the arrogant bullies. It is fascinating to see how the war makes things which seemed impossible before the war, possible. Miss Roach is a quiet, gentle woman, who over-thinks situations and constantly revisits things that happened and what she might have said. She is bullied at her shared dining room table by the odious Mr Thwaites who dislikes her democratic values, mistreated by ‘her’ American, the inept Lieutenant Pike, and stabbed in the back by her supposed ‘friend’ Vicki Kugelmann. Mr Thwaites is a clever portrayal of a man secure in the knowledge that he is always right and everyone else is wrong and inferior, reinforcing this position by snide comments to Miss Roach which, not wanting a confrontation, she sidesteps. The appearance in her life of the Lieutenant briefly gives Miss Roach’s confidence a boost, until she realizes that his compliments are always spoken in moments of drunkenness. She so longs to believe his protestations but is wary of his inconsequence so, when Vicki sets her sights on the Lieutenant, Miss Roach doesn’t know whether to be jealous or relieved.
Hamilton is a fine writer. He writes about the detail of everyday boring life and enlivens it with observations of human behaviour which are spot-on. The ending is satisfying and realistic.

For a taster of this novel, click here to read the first paragraph of THE SLAVES OF SOLITUDE.

Read my review of HANGOVER SQUARE by the same author.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Paying Guests’ by Sarah Waters
‘At Mrs Lippincote’s’ by Elizabeth Taylor
‘The Heat of the Day’ by Elisabeth Bowen

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE SLAVES OF SOLITUDE by Patrick Hamilton http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2AH via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘How To Stop Time’ by Matt Haig @matthaig1 #humour

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How To Stop Time is another hugely inventive novel by Matt Haig with a thoughtful message about identity. Tom Hazard is a history teacher with a difference. He can talk authoritatively about the Great Fire of London, because he was there; about Shakespeare, because he met him; about witchfinders, because he was terrorised by one. Tom Hazard is 439 years old but he looks forty one. When he was thirteen, the process of ageing slowed down. Tom and his mother are protestant Huguenot refugees in England when their life falls apart; his impossibly youthful looks draw accusations of witchery. We see snapshots of Tom’s past life as he teaches history to bored teenagers in London. And all the time he struggles with the past, so much so that he is unable to live in the present. So he exists, rather than lives, changing his identity to survive and losing sight of who he is.
This is a fascinating study of humankind, our development through history and inability to learn from what went before. Tom encounters threats and suspicions in the 21st century. Is he safe? Is a sinister bio-tech company searching for albas – short for ‘albatross,’ ie. long-lived – to use for experiments? And is the mysterious Hendrich, founder of The Albatross Society, a mentor or a threat? At the core of the novel is Tom’s love for his wife Rose, a mayfly – ie. short-lived – who dies of the plague, and their daughter Marion, an alba. Where is Marion now? Will Tom become reconciled with his past enough to live his life to the full, whether it be a long life or short, and will he ever feel free enough to love again?
A philosophical novel about making the best of what you have now without dwelling on the past, which cannot be changed, or worrying about the future, which cannot be predicted.

Read my reviews of these other Matt Haig novels:-
THE HUMANS
THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY

If you like this, try:-
‘Burial Rites’ by Hannah Kent
‘The Photographer’s Wife’ by Suzanne Joinson
‘Pod’ by Laline Paull

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#BookReview HOW TO STOP TIME by Matt Haig @matthaig1 http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2Ts via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Anderby Wold’ by Winifred Holtby #historical

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I was a teenager when I first read South Riding by Winifred Holtby but, until now, hadn’t read her earlier novels. Anderby Wold is her first; published in 1923 it is a portrayal of a Yorkshire Wolds village in the first years of the twentieth century. I was struck by the similarity to Jane Austen: both focus on the personalities, tensions, the pettiness, resentments and emotions of small communities, and both combine acute social observations with sharp humour. The novel opens with a family party at the farm, Anderby Wold, as Mary Robson and John, her husband of ten years and also her cousin, are celebrating a decade of hard work and penny pinching to clear the mortgage on the farm they had inherited. We are introduced to Mary and the family from the viewpoint of John’s sister, the spiteful Sarah. If ever there was a negative first chapter that makes you think the story is going to be full of unlikeable characters, this is it. It is, perhaps, a sign of its times; I am not sure a novel would be published today with such an ill-feeling introduction. But do persist, this novel is worth reading.
We are slowly introduced to each key character with their own viewpoint and take on their agricultural world, where hard toil, tough weather and difficult land unites – and separates – the community. Mary thinks of herself as a considerate benevolent mistress, she sits with sick people, visits the old, supports the school, and distributes gifts at Christmas. But she is unaware that some of the farm labourers resent what they see as her Mrs Bountiful role, a vision of her behaviour to which she is blind. She feels dissatisfaction with the minutiae of her life, dissatisfaction she pragmatically ignores. At a gathering of the village ladies, she listens to the gossip, ‘Mary shivered. They were as lifeless as the uprooted trees, carried from the wold side and laid in the back garden of the farm, awaiting destruction for firewood. Their talk was as meaningless as the rustle of dry leaves on brittle twigs.’
Into this fragile world where people speak bluntly and behaviour can be brusque, comes a writer from Manchester. He is researching the lot of the agricultural labourer with an eye on social change. When he comes into conflict with Mary, the beliefs and assumptions of both are challenged in an Austen-esque manner. As an outsider, David Rossitur is treated first with silence, then with suspicion. The innkeeper’s wife worries about his motivations, ‘Mrs Todd, being a personal of small imagination, had divided mankind into two classes, those who had designs on Victoria [her daughter], those who had designs on her Beer. Last night she had come to the regrettable conclusion that David had no true appreciation of Beer.’ A trade union for agricultural workers is formed, followed inevitably for a strike. At harvest time. Anderby Wold will be changed forever.

Click the title to read my review of POOR CAROLINE, also by Winifred Holtby.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Ballroom’ by Anna Hope
‘Time Will Darken It’ by William Maxwell
‘Under a Pole Star’ by Stef Penney

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview ANDERBY WOLD by Winifred Holtby https://wp.me/p5gEM4-353 via @SandraDanby

My Porridge & Cream read: Margaret Skea

	#BookReview ‘The Tus… on #BookReview ‘The Sicilian Secr…
	#BookReview ‘The Tus… on #BookReview ‘The Lost Garden…
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SANDRA DANBY'S BOOK REVIEWS

Sharing thoughts on the books I read, new authors, favourite authors, classics re-visisted

Tag Archives: historical fiction

My Porridge & Cream read: Julie Christine Johnson

#BookReview ‘The Wicked Cometh’ by Laura Carlin #historical #suspense

#BookReview ‘Highland Fling’ by Nancy Mitford #satire #historical

#BookReview ‘The Silent Companions’ by Laura Purcell #historical #mystery

#BookReview ‘Birdcage Walk’ by Helen Dunmore #historical

My Porridge & Cream read: Julie Stock

#BookReview ‘The Slaves of Solitude’ by Patrick Hamilton #WW2 #wartimefamily

#BookReview ‘How To Stop Time’ by Matt Haig @matthaig1 #humour

#BookReview ‘Anderby Wold’ by Winifred Holtby #historical

My Porridge & Cream read: Margaret Skea

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