Tag Archives: historical fiction

#BookReview ‘Orphans of the Carnival’ by Carol Birch @CarolBirch #historical

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What to say about this unusual novel by Carol Birch? First, I loved part of it. Second, I didn’t realize until I got to the end that it is loosely-based on a true story. If you loved Birch’s Jamrach’s Menagerie, try this. Carol BirchA young veiled woman travels by train from Mexico to New Orleans. She is disfigured but we don’t know the exact details until quite a way into the book: this is a novel which rewards patient reading. Julia Pastrana becomes a music hall attraction – singing, dancing, playing a guitar – while undergoing examinations by doctors who proclaim her part-human. Her successive managers make the most of the doctors’ pronouncements. This is a linear narrative, Julia’s life story, driven by her search for unconditional love.
The real Julia Pastrana had large ears and nose, irregular teeth and straight black hair all over her body. Despite her obvious intelligence – she spoke three languages – the myths continued until her death. It is an indictment of the way people not considered ‘normal’ were treated in the 19th century, seeing them as attractions rather than people with feelings.
The modern-day storyline of Rose, a young woman who collects unwanted items, was, for me, an unnecessary distraction from the main story. The obvious connection between the two women is their struggle to fit into society, though Rose is more of an emotional drifter.

Click the title for a brief taster of Carol Birch’s JAMRACH’S MENAGERIE.

If you like this, try:-
‘An Appetite for Violets’ by Martine Bailey
‘The Miniaturist’ by Jessie Burton
‘Frog Music’ by Emma Donoghue

And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview ORPHANS OF THE CARNIVAL by Carol Birch @CarolBirch via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-29G

#BookReview ‘Angel’ by Elizabeth Taylor #historical #romance

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Angel by Elizabeth Taylor tells the story of the rise and fall of one woman. Fifteen-year old Angel Deverell has always known she was different, determined to do better in life than her mother, when she is 15 she decides she is destined to live at nearby mansion Paradise House, where her aunt works as a maid. Elizabeth TaylorAngel starts to write a novel, allowing flight to her fantasies, caring nothing for accuracies of history, detail or context.  Her publisher agrees to take on The Lady Irania with misgivings but it flies off the shelves and a new romantic novelist is born. Angel, already living the life of a grand novelist, writes a second and a third.
This book is a wonderful study of a girl’s life, a girl who doesn’t take no for an answer, who grows into a woman who finds it impossible to accept advice or guidance from anyone. She learns to ignore the insults of the critics and relish her sales figures, whilst remaining separate from her readers. Elizabeth Taylor is a novelist with an acute observational eye and in Angel she has created a monster heroine: vain, blinkered, stubborn and lacking entirely in humility, empathy or self-knowledge, she leaves a trail as she charges through life. She is certainly unlikeable, but Taylor has created a chemistry which made me want to continue reading Angel’s story.
This is a quiet novel, the storyline has no bells and whistles but it follows Angel’s life through a time of great upheaval. She is born a Victorian, becomes an Edwardian, survives the Great War, the depressed 1930s and the Second World War. As women are agitating for the vote free of the constraints of their husbands, Angel has no husband to support her or vote for her. She is an independent woman and we see her life unfurl not only in her writing, but her interactions with men and women.

Read my reviews of other books by Elizabeth Taylor:-
A VIEW OF THE HARBOUR
A WREATH OF ROSES
AT MRS LIPPINCOTE’S
IN A SUMMER SEASON
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY

If you like this, try:-
‘Brooklyn’ by Colm Tóibín
‘The Lightning Tree’ by Emily Woof
‘The Past’ by Tessa Hadley

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview  ANGEL by Elizabeth Taylor via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1PB

#BookReview ‘Barkskins’ by Annie Proulx #historical

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This story of the North East American forests begins with two men who arrive in New France from Europe. It is 1693 and they find work wielding axes, chopping down trees. Barkskins by Annie Proulx ends in 2013 with their English, French and Indian descendants learning about the disappearance of the native trees and plants. It is a chastening story but throughout, Proulx’s descriptions of trees enable you to see and smell them. Annie ProulxProulx’s reputation precedes her: the Pulitzer Prize, Brokeback Mountain, The Shipping News etcetera. For me she is one of the classic American authors but refuses to be pigeonholed. Barkskins is a huge tome, starting with René Sel and Charles Duquet’s struggles to survive, their contrasting stories and the subsequent lives of their families. Barkskins is more the story of the forests than of the Sel and Duquet/Duke families and their subsequent timber business.
The natural world has a huge part to play in this novel. The trees breathe on every page, as the settlers fight the forests and the native Indian tribes struggle to understand the newcomers. It ticks so many boxes: indigenous culture, sea voyages, logging, trade with China, herbal remedies, Dutch merchant vessels, the plundering of nature for man’s thoughtless consumption. Each generation of the Sel and Duquet families experiences the evolution of colonial power, demand for timber for construction, war, ships and railways, and this shows us the passing centuries.
There is humour, brutality, and beautiful description of the natural world. The depth of research is clear on every page and at 736 pages, it demands patient reading. But if you allow Proulx to pull you into her stories, it is worth the commitment. But perhaps it would be more easily digestible as a trilogy of novels. There was a disproportionate amount of time spent on the lives of René Sel and Charles Duquet, while the modern-day Sels and Dukes were covered too quickly for me. At the beginning I remembered who was related to who, but as the generations passed quickly I lost track. This could easily be corrected by the addition of a family tree or character list at the front of the book. And a map.

If you like this, try:-
‘Summertime’ by Vanessa Lafaye
‘The Knife with the Ivory Handle’ by Cynthia Bruchman
‘The Last Runaway’ by Tracy Chevalier

 And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview BARKSKINS by Annie Proulx via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-24o

#BookReview ‘Dark Aemilia’ by Sally O’Reilly #historical

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Shakespeare, tick. Possible identity of the Dark Lady, tick. Supernatural, witches and demons, tick. Stinking, plague-ridden London, tick. The Globe, white-faced boy actors dressed in velvet, smoke, whistles and special effects, tick. This is Dark Aemilia by Sally O’Reilly. Sally O'ReillyBased on a foundation of history, O’Reilly tells the fictional story of real-life Aemilia Bassano and her love affair with William Shakespeare. There is no documentary evidence that this affair took place, but O’Reilly’s imagination conjures a rich story in which the setting of Elizabethan London is vibrant and believable. Wherever Aemilia goes – in an apothecary’s shop, in the audience at The Globe or standing at the edge of a plague pit – you can see, smell and hear her London.
Aemilia is something of a feminist, in that she struggles against men her whole life for the freedom to live her own life. Orphaned at 12 she becomes mistress to Lord Hunsdon [readers of Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl will be interested to know that Hunsdon was the real-life Henry, son of Mary Boleyn] but during an affair with Shakespeare, Aemilia falls pregnant. Hunsdon arranges a marriage for her to her cousin Alfonso Lanyer, and so Aemilia’s destiny is determined at each stage by men. Father, protector, husband, lover and son.
She is a fascinating character, a woman of her time or before her time? As a poet and a lover, her influence on Shakespeare is at the core of this book. But then with her son dying of the plague, she turns to witchcraft and so the wilder element of the story takes off. I admit to skipping some of these sections. For me, the interesting plot was Aemilia, Shakespeare, the Globe and the writing of Macbeth and consequently for me the book could have been shorter.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Quick’ by Lauren Owen
‘The Taxidermist’s Daughter’ by Kate Mosse
‘A Dangerous Business’ by Jane Smiley

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview DARK AEMILIA by Sally O’Reilly via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1RK

#BookReview ‘Curtain Call’ by Anthony Quinn #historical #1930s

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The 1930s come alive in Curtain Call by journalist Anthony Quinn, I stepped into his world and felt as if I was there. An effortless read, I was plunged into the worlds of Stephen Wyley, artist; Nina Land, actress; the gloriously-named Madeline Farewell, hostess; Jimmy Erskine, theatre critic; and Tom Tunner, Erskine’s assistant. Anthony Quinn The setting is a time of looming war, royal crisis, blackshirts and strict homosexuality laws. It is not an easy novel to categorize: there are murders, but it is not a detective novel; we see the world of art and theatre and prostitution, but it is not a novel about art etc. Packed with period detail, with not one detail too many, this is written with a light hand and a clever plot. It starts with a romantic assignation and chance encounter in a hotel with a murderer, known in the newspapers as the Tiepin Killer. This meeting of only seconds, brings together the key characters and kickstarts the murder plotline.
Curtain Call is the predecessor, not prequel, to Quinn’s novel Freya.

Click the titles to read my review of other novels by Anthony Quinn:
FREYA
HALF OF THE HUMAN RACE
MOLLY & THE CAPTAIN
OUR FRIENDS IN BERLIN
THE MILLIONAIRE WALTZ
THE MOUTHLESS DEAD
THE RESCUE MAN
THE STREETS

If you like this, try:-
‘The Light Years’ by Elizabeth Jane Howard  #1CAZALET
‘At Mrs Lippincote’s’ by Elizabeth Taylor
‘The Heat of the Day’ by Elizabeth Bowen

And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview CURTAIN CALL by Anthony Quinn http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Xu via @Sandra Danby

#BookReview ‘Mothering Sunday’ by Graham Swift #historical

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The title of Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift refers to the day on which the story takes place, rather to any essay about motherhood. It is March 30, 1924, Mothering Sunday, when servants are given the day off to visit their mothers. A young woman, an orphan and servant, meets a young man from a neighbouring house, who is betrothed to another woman. It is to be their last assignation before his marriage. Graham SwiftThis is a slim book, a novella, beautifully-written. I wasn’t sure at the beginning, I found the first page and the reference to Fandango the racehorse a little odd. But once I got past that, I read it in one sitting on an airplane.
It is a story about telling stories. This story is told by a novelist in her nineties who is used to be interviewed and asked repetitively about her life as a writer: when did she become a writer? The answer lies on Mothering Sunday in 1924. This is a treatise about the class system of the time, about sex and sensuality, about rebellion and about bucking the system. Jane – the housemaid and novelist – is a keen reader and with the permission of her master, she borrows books from his library. She prefers boys’ stories, adventure tales, and then she stumbles on Joseph Conrad and is smitten. Her reading sets her apart from her master, and her lover Paul. The Mothering Sunday on which the events happen takes place at a time of great transition between the wars, as the role of women was widening. Books give Jane a route out of her servile world, away from sex with the master’s son without hope of subsequent marriage, to a job as an assistant in a bookshop.
We only see the story from Jane’s point of view, Young Jane and Old Jane. Is she telling the truth, embroidering the story for fictional effect, layering on the emotions of the tragedy that occurs that sunny March afternoon?
A masterpiece, again by Swift. It stayed with me and will be re-read.
An aside, this hardback edition has the most wonderful cover design: a detail from Reclining Nude [red nude] 1917-18 by Modigliani. It will look well on my bookshelves for years to come.

Here’s my review of Swift’s HERE WE ARE.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty’ by Sebastian Barry
‘My Name is Lucy Barton’ by Elizabeth Strout
‘Lean Fall Stand’ by Jon McGregor

And if you’d like to share a link:
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#BookReview ‘The Taxidermist’s Daughter’ by Kate Mosse #historical #gothic #mystery

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I will say up front that the taxidermy sections in The Taxidermist’s Daughter by Kate Mosse were too gory for me. That aside, this is a gothic mystery set in the South Coast marshes of Fishbourne in 1912. In fact it seemed timeless, difficult to place the action only two years prior to the outbreak of the Great War.Kate MosseThe weather is ever-present to set the tone of the story: wind, rain and storms and Fishbourne is a real place. Mosse, a Chichester resident, uses her local knowledge to good effect. But, I struggled to connect with the story and cannot put my finger on why.
The storyline focuses on 22-year old Connie Gifford and her father, the taxidermist and his daughter, who live in an isolated house on the marshes at Fishbourne. In the Prologue, the village gathers in the churchyard to celebrate the Eve of St Mark. At the end of the evening, a woman is dead. So, already there is one dead woman and some secrets. Connie, it turns out, had an accident 10 years earlier and she has no memory either of what happened that day or of her life prior to the accident… more secrets. Are the two events, 10 years apart, connected? Are the same people involved? And if Connie’s memory returns, will she have the answer to the odd goings-on?
I admit to losing track of some of the peripheral characters who, unlike the atmospheric setting, are not fully-rounded. It is a strange book, taxidermy is an odd subject although it adds to the theme of reality versus false reality. There are lies between family and friends, lies between rich and poor; it is not only the guilty who lie, there are also secrets meant to protect the innocent. Amnesia is a difficult plot technique to use, too often it leaves the reader feeling cheated. I found the story rather drawn-out, the longer it went on the less mysterious it got.
My favourite Mosse novel remains Labyrinth.

And here are my reviews of other novels by Kate Mosse:-
CITADEL #3LANGUEDOC
THE BURNING CHAMBERS #1JOUBERT
THE CITY OF TEARS #2JOUBERT

If you like this, try:-
‘The Threshold’ by Anita Kovacevic
‘The House on Cold Hill’ by Peter James
‘The Little Red Chairs’ by Edna O’Brien

And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview THE TAXIDERMIST’S DAUGHTER by Kate Mosse http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Rx via @SandraDanby 

#BookReview ‘Freya’ by Anthony Quinn #historical

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When I finished reading Freya I wanted to shout out to everyone around me to read it. Why? It is a story of friendship and love, truth and honesty, loyalty and betrayal. Anthony Quinn captures Freya immaculately – he seems to intuit so much women’s stuff so well – so much better than other male novelists recently writing from a female point of view. It is such a refreshing read, I hope it sells loads and wins loads. It deserves it. If you can, read it next. Anthony QuinnFreya is the story of Freya Wyley from VE Day to the 1960s via Oxford, Nuremberg, Italy and mostly London. Recently demobbed from the Wrens, at which she achieved a senior position as bomb plotter in a world with few men, she goes up to Oxford unsure if she is too ‘old’ at the age of 21 to return to study. There she finds that pre-war expectations of women re-apply again and with her customary cussedness she fights against it. With the glimmer of an opportunity, she sets out to get a break as a journalist by interviewing a reclusive war reporter who will be attending the Nuremberg war trials. She calls in a favour from her father, lies, manipulates and bravely goes forth, setting foot into the ruins of the bombed city where she is later told she should not have ventured. But that is Freya: undaunted. She is strong, true, speaks without thinking and gets into trouble because of it. Of course it is the few times in which she is not honest, either with herself or with her best friend Nancy – who she met on the night of VE day when they got ‘stinko’ together – that make the most fascinating reading.
It is a joy to read a female character who is not nice all the time, who feels real, and who I can identify with more than some sugar-sweet modern protagonists. This book fairly fizzes along, read in two days on holiday, I found myself irritated when my Kindle’s battery died because I ignored the ‘battery low’ warning.
Quinn’s sense of time is perfect, he moves seamlessly from wartime to the Sixties. All his characters have depth, flaws and are believable, and his balance of action, contemplation and setting is exact. He covers a wide variety of subjects of the time – morality and art, homosexuality offences, celebrity, political rigour – by simply allowing Freya to investigate and report. The technique of covering Freya’s investigation of an article, followed by the published article, acts as a semi-colon before the next segment of her life.

Click the title below to read my reviews of other books by Anthony Quinn:-
CURTAIN CALL
HALF OF THE HUMAN RACE
MOLLY & THE CAPTAIN
OUR FRIENDS IN BERLIN
THE MILLIONAIRE WALTZ
THE MOUTHLESS DEAD
THE RESCUE MAN
THE STREETS

If you like this, try:-
‘Sweet Caress’ by William Boyd
‘The Secrets We Kept’ by Lara Prescott
‘Fatal Inheritance’ by Rachel Rhys

And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview FREYA by Anthony Quinn https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-1TV via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Rush Oh!’ by Shirley Barrett #historical #whaling

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I didn’t know what to expect from Rush Oh! Whaling is frowned on these days and somewhat gory. But I am so pleased I read it. Shirley Barrett has drawn a setting which comes alive. Shirley Barrett Australia, New South Wales, 1908. It is the story of Mary Davidson, the daughter of a whaler, it is her memoir of one year in her family’s rural life at Eden. It is not simply a story about whaling.
The historical context is so rich, so believable. The first page introduces the vivid setting: Mary’s home with its scent of boiling blubber for five months of the year, the rib cage of a 90ft blue whale sits in the front garden surrounded by jonquils, and a footpath laid with the pulverised vertebrae of whales. In this house in Eden lives Mary with siblings and their widowed father, the famous whaler George Davidson. During the whaling season her father’s whaling crew also live with the family and Mary and her sister cook meals and do the laundry. It is a hard life, harder when the whales do not appear in the bay and the general store will not further extend the credit line. Into this scene walks John Beck, former Methodist minister, offering his services as an oarsman. So this is a family story, a whaling/nature story, and a tale of teenage love.
George Davidson is a true character, his exploits were recorded in the local newspapers of the time and whale skeletons are on display at the Eden Killer Whale Museum. The ‘Author’s Note’ explains how Barrett combined history with invention in the writing of Mary’s memoir. As it is a memoir we know Mary is writing it years after the events she depicts, and there are hints of what may befall Mary and her family after the book has finished. The last two chapters are set later in her life and fill in some of the gaps.
I don’t like gory stories and don’t like whaling, but I found the story fascinating. Man v Beast fighting for survival, with an added twist: the whaling crew is aided in its hunt of the right whales by a group of Killer whales. Any catch is shared between men and killers. Again, factually correct. So, a story of Man + Beast interacting for the benefit of both.
Oh, and I loved the illustrations too. An unusual novel, but definitely worth a try.

If you like this, try:-
‘All the Birds, Singing’ by Evie Wyld
‘A Woman Made of Snow’ by Elizabeth Gifford
‘The Quick’ by Lauren Owen

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview RUSH OH! by Shirley Barrett http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1TH via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Ballroom’ by Anna Hope #historical

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It is 1911 at the end of the Edwardian era. At an asylum on the edge of the Yorkshire moors, a new patient sees an opportunity to run and takes it. As Ella runs across a field, she sees men digging a deep hole in the earth. She stumbles and one of the men reaches to help her. This is her first sight of John, and The Ballroom by Anna Hope is their story. Anna HopeElla is admitted to the asylum because she broke a window at the mill where she works. It is a mystery why John is there. Their story is told slowly as they get glimpses of each other, rare, as the men and women are kept separate apart from the Friday night dance in the ballroom. The asylum is a magnificent Victorian building and the ballroom is designed to inspire its inhabitants, to improve their spirits, with its stained glass pictures of birds and brambles, painted walls and stage for musicians. Their story is also told by Dr Charles Fuller, his interest in eugenics sets their plight into context with the times. At first he enthusiastically organises a musical programme designed to lift the spirits of the imprisoned men and women – incidentally the men work outdoors, the women shut indoors – until an experimentation with new music changes everything.
The background is a boiling hot summer, spirits and tempers run high. Hope draws such a clear picture of the asylum and the moors – helped, I think, by the fact she used a real building as her inspiration – that I can see it. This is a story of love, rather than a romance; the setting and context sometimes make for a difficult read, but throughout I was willing Ella on. You can’t but help admire the guts and determination described.

Read my review of WAKE, also by Anna Hope.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Quick’ by Lauren Owen
‘All the Birds, Singing’ by Evie Wyld
‘Burial Rites’ by Hannah Kent

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE BALLROOM by Anna Hope via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1TD