Tag Archives: historical fiction

#BookReview ‘The Princess’ by Wendy Holden @Wendy_Holden #historical #royal

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The early days of a young girl who is in love with the idea of being in love, with heroes, with paperback romances. Whatever love means. The Princess by Wendy Holden starts with two thirteen-year old girls, Diana Spencer and her friend Sandy, on the train going back to boarding school. Love, thinks Sandy, sounds ‘like a particularly delicious bath, deep and warm, with lots of bubbles.’ Wendy HoldenIt is Diana’s character that beams off the page. Packed with contemporary references, foods, music, expressions, we see what happens when the enthusiasm and can-do attitude of a teenage girl meets the tradition and rules of royal life. Through Diana’s voice and thoughts, through Sandy’s eyes and that of Stephen Barry, valet to the Prince of Wales, we see the young girl who is destined to become a queen. Holden has captured the exuberance as well as the shadows and emotional bruises of a broken family. But this isn’t a love story, it’s the story of old-fashioned matchmaking by two grandmothers.
The second part moves quicker than the first. I enjoyed the meetings between Diana and Princess Margaret. The pace, and sadness, picks up after the engagement when Diana moves into an empty, soulless Buckingham Palace; foreshadowing the days her body would lay at rest at St James’s Palace before her state funeral in 1997.
A poignancy hangs over this tale, the knowledge of the marriage’s failure and Diana’s death. Also the sadness of Charles, trapped in his role, unable to marry the woman he loves, forced into marriage by the need to marry and produce an heir. But The Princess is Diana’s story.
Though young and naïve in this book, she was also smart and not afraid to challenge the status quo. Her influence can be seen in the royal family today. Holden ends her story in 1992, the divorce was finalised in 1996. The book is packed with familiar incidences and quotations mixed in with many inventions. The story of how the famous photograph was taken of her in a transparent skirt at her nursery school in Pimlico, her sister Sarah saying, ‘Your face is on the tea towels,’ the Emmanuels taking in the waist of her wedding dress at every fitting.
Holden gets the tone of Diana’s voice spot-on. So familiar from page one from her public appearances and recordings, it is clear that the spoken words on the page, and the inner thoughts, belong to Diana.
Not as compelling as I expected, perhaps because the story is so well known. The Princess seems to end when it is just getting going.

And here’s my review of THE DUCHESS, also by Wendy Holden.

If you like this, try:-
‘Shrines of Gaiety’ by Kate Atkinson
‘The Forgotten Sister’ by Nicola Cornick
‘The Heiress’ by Molly Greeley

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE PRINCESS by Wendy Holden @Wendy_Holden https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7pI via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Elizabeth Fremantle

#BookReview ‘The Beasts of Paris’ by Stef Penney #historical #Paris #siege

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Set in Paris in 1870 during the four-month siege of the city, part of the wider Franco-Prussian war, The Beasts of Paris by Stef Penney tells this 19th century wartime story through the eyes of three young people. Each is an outsider, each is in the process of finding out who they are. Stef PenneyCanadian photographer Lawrence Harper works at the Studio Lamy taking saucy pictures of naked women, in his own time he visits the nearby Menagerie and focusses on wild beasts. He is particularly drawn to the large cats, a lion Tancred and lioness Irma, Nero the panther and particularly Marguerite the Caspian tigress. Anne Petitjean, former inmate at the Salpêtrière asylum, is also drawn to the animal cages, especially Marguerite. The animals are special, indulged, worshipped, but when war comes to Paris even the animals go hungry, even the tiger is in danger. No-one is immune. Ellis Butterfield, an American in Paris and nephew of a US diplomat, is a surgeon with experience of the American Civil War a decade earlier. The last thing Ellis wants to do is operate again, to sever limbs, to see death at every turn.
Each of the three sees and does things they never dreamed they would. There are awful choices, hardships, separations and bereavements awaiting them and they must find the strength and wits to survive. As the city falls apart and the political classes and working-class Commune fall out, scores are settled, new laws introduced. And then the denunciations, arrests and shootings begin.
Penney’s three lead characters are so believable, distinct, each infuriating at times but always drawing our understanding. The supporting cast are convincing too, particularly assistant vet Victor Calmette and studio model Fanny Klein. Before the war, everyone has a job, a role, a place in society. But as the city descends into the chaos of siege, with no food, bombarded by shells, afraid to go out and afraid to stay indoors, everyone becomes equally imprisoned. War is a great leveller and the siege is cruelly intense as people strive to go about their ordinary daily lives as guns fire on the streets they know and love.
The knife edge of daily fear is sharpened by the lack of reliable information. The city is surrounded. There is no news, no communication, no mail service from outside. Scandal sheets spring up, written and printed inside the besieged city. They publish ‘news’ stories which are factually unproven. Rumour and gossip – such as the Amazons of the Seine, said to be a ladies battalion armed with hat pins dipped in prussic acid – not unlike unverified rumour on social media today. Distrust of anyone different, the colour of their skin, their accent, their behaviour dominates daily life and any journey outside the home. Besieged Paris is a microcosm of human’s best, and worst, attributes. A petrie dish for rebellion fuelled by emotion, anger, misinformation and wishful thinking. In the centre of this, Penney has placed a relationship, a romance that begins with friendship.
Not a thriller despite its wartime setting, this is a high-quality character-led drama. The best novel I’ve read so far this year. I loved Under a Pole Star, but this book is way better.

Read my review of UNDER A POLE STAR, also by Stef Penney.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Warlow Experiment’ by Alix Nathan
‘An Officer and a Spy’ by Robert Harris
‘Birdcage Walk’ by Helen Dunmore

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE BEASTS OF PARIS by Stef Penney https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7g1 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Michelle Paver

#BookReview ‘Sparrow’ by James Hynes #historical #RomanEmpire

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Sparrow by James Hynes is a unique novel. It is a harsh and unrelenting story, often harrowing to read, about a slave boy in a brothel in a Spanish city on the edge of the fading Roman Empire. It is a slow burner told in retrospective by the grown boy, now a man called Jacob. So, we know he survives but we don’t know how. James HynesIn the city of New Carthage [now Cartagena in Spain] towards the end of the Roman Empire, Pusus, the slave name for ‘boy,’ is growing up in Helicon, a taberna with a brothel upstairs. Pusus thinks this is the name he was given by his parents, until he learns that slave names refer to the job done by that slave. His nickname in the household is Mouse. He lives a hard life but the women of the taberna, particularly cook Focaria and wolf Euterpe [one of the whores] try to shield him. Euterpe tells him stories, in part to distract him, in part to educate him but as Pusus sees more of the world outside Helicon he’s unsure if her stories are true or not. As he is exposed to the harsh realities of slave life he begins to resent her untruthfulness.
One day Euterpe tells a story about a small bird, a sparrow, and Pusus realises he is like a sparrow who is ‘not excellent at anything, but just good enough at everything.’ Being a slave means his body, his time, his privacy and everything about him belongs to his Dominus, his master, and Audo, the bully who manages the brothel. Only his thoughts are still his own. So Pusus imagines himself as a sparrow flying high, flying free, up high in the sky, looking down at life in the taberna and the small thin slave boy below.
His first job is as house boy, scrubbing floors. The taberna and its enclosed garden are his world, he’s not allowed beyond the heavy wooden door to the street. Next, he is sent out to the local fountain to fill the heavy water buckets. Then he is trusted with money to visit local merchants and buy bread and fish and deliver dirty sheets to the laundry. With each new freedom comes a wakening awareness of the wider world of Carthago Nova. Until the day comes when Pusus is renamed Antinous and moves upstairs into his own cell amongst the wolves.
The story moves slowly, tiny detail built on tiny detail. It is told retrospectively by the elderly Jacob, how old he is we don’t know, as he reflects on the ups and downs of his life at Helicon. Jacob is educated, he reads the philosophers and histories and reflects on his life as a boy. The Roman Empire ended in AD476 but Sparrow’s life speaks also about today’s class distinctions, racism, selfishness and corruption. The detail of life in Carthago Nova is honest and tough, the sophistication of the mansions, the grinding poverty of the slaves and the free people who live hand to mouth. The neighbours of the taberna, tradesmen such as fullers and bakers, are often customers of the wolves upstairs. There is a clear strata to society which reminds me of the 1966 Frost Report sketch ‘I Know My Place’ featuring John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett. Watch it at You Tube.
There is much pain, mental and physical, and always the threat that if Pusus doesn’t pick himself up he will be sold at the slave market. There is also sex, friendship, betrayal, abuse, violence, ambition and corruption. I honestly can’t say I enjoyed this story, it is too brutal for that, but it tells a story of a time long ago, and a time that is now.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Wolf Den’ by Elodie Harper #1WolfDen
‘A Traveller at the Gates of Wisdom’ by John Boyne
‘The Silence of the Girls’ by Pat Barker

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview SPARROW by James Hynes https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-76L via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Noah Hawley

#BookReview ‘The Girl Who Escaped’ by Angela Petch #WW2

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World War Two drama The Girl Who Escaped by Angela Petch is a heartbreaking slow-burner that had me reading late at night to finish it. Angela PetchThe story about four friends in the small Italian town of Urbino begins with a Prologue set in 1988. Enrico, waiting for a reunion with his childhood friends, looks at a photograph of them taken fifty years earlier, before the war, on a mountain hike. Young. Carefree. Unsuspecting.
In 1940 in Urbino, 20-year-old medical student Devora Lassa is struggling to accept how her movements, as a Jew, are now limited by law. She is unable to study, is seen as different. Sabrina Merli, who has a long-standing crush on Conte Enrico di Villanova, is jealous at a party when Enrico greets Devora with a kiss on both cheeks. Luigi Michelozzi, a civil servant, watches, quiet and thoughtful.
After the party, Devora’s world is thrown into chaos when her father explains the hard truth. Tomorrow, Italy will enter the war on the side of Germany and the racial laws applying to Jewish people will again be changed. Her parents, who were born in Germany but are Italian citizens, must leave in the morning for an internment camp near Arezzo. Their Jewish neighbours, not Italian citizens, are being deported. As Devora and her two younger twin brothers were born in Italy they are able to stay in the family home in Urbino but now Devora, helped by their maid Anna Maria, must become parents to the boys.
This the story of Devora, whose life within a matter of hours changes out of all recognition. She is the girl who escapes a multitude of times, but in wartime Italy it is difficult to know where is safe, who is trustworthy, strangers who help, friends who change sides, neighbours who spy, Italians who are fascists or partigianos (resistance fighters), German soldiers who are fascists and torturers or world-weary soldiers missing their own families. Every decision Devora makes affects not just herself but those closest to her. When Luigi warns her to leave Urbino, the three siblings are reunited with their parents at Villa Oliveto, the internment camp turned into a Jewish community by its inmates, with gardening, theatre, medical treatment. But is anywhere safe?
Devora runs and runs again, and comes to hate herself for not turning and fighting. When she joins the resistenza, she needs every ounce of bravery, ingenuity and intelligence to survive. But in Urbino, no-one can predict who will betray you, who wants to help, who is setting a trap. She is a fantastic heroine, we live with her day-by-day as she begins to understand what is happening to her country, as she grows from indignant student to strong fighter. She must learn to move in the shadows, how to act a role, when to keep quiet and when step forwards. Her character development is compelling. Luigi is fascinating too, his job registering births and deaths allows him to falsify records to protect people. We see a little of Enrico, an arrogant, flashy personality who I had no time for, and even less of Sabrina. I needed to know more about Sabrina’s behaviour throughout the war, to understand her experiences. She blows with the wind, supporting whoever she thinks will be of advantage to her, her loyalty is an enigma. Some people fight to survive, others stay quiet and collaborate.
The Girl Who Escaped portrays the reality of wartime Italy, focussing on one town and the four friends. At times its not an easy read, the plight of ordinary people persecuted for no other reason than their religion is not new but Petch maintains the suspense to the end so we don’t know who betrays who.

Here are my reviews of other novels also by Angela Petch:-
THE LOST GARDEN
THE POSTCARD FROM ITALY
THE SICILIAN SECRET
THE TUSCAN SECRET

If you like this, try:-
‘Day’ by AL Kennedy
‘The Garden of Angels’ by David Hewson
‘The Bird in the Bamboo Cage’ by Hazel Gaynor

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE GIRL WHO ESCAPED by Angela Petch https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-74A via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Ray Bradbury

#BookReview ‘The Wolf Den’ by @Elodie_Harper #historical #Pompeii

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The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper, first in the Wolf Den trilogy, is a visceral portrait of Pompeii, the wealth, the poverty, the luxury, the corruption, the art and culture. Set in a brothel, this is the story of Amara, a young Greek middle class woman sold into slavery and shipped to Italy. Amara’s story, and of her fellow she-wolves, is not pretty but this is such a dynamic tale, foul-smelling, full of abuse and also love and hope. Elodie HarperI loved the female dynamic. The strength and vulnerability of the women who live and work in the wolf den who band together as sisters, loving, bickering, competitive, supportive. But there is also mistrust and rivalry, dissembling about their real backgrounds.
Pompeii is a city of excess where there is everything to gain or lose and with that goes violence, secrecy, feuds, revenge and betrayal. Between the wealthy, between the brothel owners, the sybarites, the money lenders, the organised crime gangs. Through this minefield, the women of the wolf den must step carefully to survive, to find customers, watching each other’s backs, always searching for a man who is kind but at best not violent. It is a city of feast days, each excessive in their own way; Vinalia, the wine festival, and Saturnalia, celebrating agricultural god Saturn, are both key in the timelines of the novel. The Wolf Den is a fascinating glimpse into the life in Pompeii, Harper writes with such visceral clarity, detailing the violence and beauty with equal brightness. The novel is set in AD74, only five years before the eruption of Vesuvius destroys the city.
Negotiating the path to life improvement, one step at a time, Amara’s life is a pendulum, swinging one day good, the next bad. When bad can mean injury, cruelty, murder and good can mean a word of kindness, a gift of a necklace, a day in the brothel when the cruel master is absent. She makes tiny steps in improving her lot, making sacrifices along the way, always with a clear eye on her goal. To become a freewoman. Along the way, she learns compromise, pragmatism and loyalty, but will she find true love to guarantee survival. It’s a cruel and unequal world that Amara must navigate.
I’m so glad I stumbled upon this trilogy, it’s a rollercoaster emotional read.

Here are my reviews of the first two novels in the ‘Wolf Den’ series by Elodie Harper:-
THE HOUSE WITH THE GOLDEN DOOR #2WOLFDEN
THE TEMPLE OF FORTUNA #3WOLFDEN

If you like this, try:-
‘Frog Music’ by Emma Donoghue
‘The Fair Fight’ by Anna Freeman
‘A Dangerous Business’ by Jane Smiley

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE WOLF DEN by @Elodie_Harper https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-736 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Angela Petch

#BookReview ‘The Collaborator’s Daughter’ by Eva Glyn @JaneCable #WW2 #Croatia

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Modern-day grief and the turmoil of a wartime past are entangled for Fran in The Collaborator’s Daughter by Eva Glyn. Looking for a new start after the death of her beloved adoptive father, Fran leaves wintery England for the warmer streets of Dubrovnik. Feeling alone, vulnerable and anxious, Fran searches for the strength to look for answers. Eva GlynBrought from Yugoslavia to England as a baby at the end of the Second World War, Fran was raised by her mother to believe her father was a war hero. But Fran has recently discovered the name of Branko Milisic on a list of Nazi collaborators executed by partisan fighters in 1944. Unable to rationalise her gentle, loving mother Dragica as having loved a Nazi, Fran visits Croatia for the first time, taking small steps in discovering the history of the city where she was born. Her life is drifting. Having nursed her mother then father in their last years, raised her son and cared for grandchildren, Fran now realises she needs time for herself. But after a life of caring, being selfish is not as easy as it sounds. In her sixties, she lacks confidence and feels old, unattractive and shy.
Fran’s rebirth as an independent woman unfolds slowly, sometimes tortuously, as she treads the warm streets of Dubrovnik, shyly meeting the locals, learning their language, baking local delicacies and plucking up the courage to ask questions about her mysterious father. Fran is an introspective character and she spends a lot of time re-examining her motives, asking what-if, worrying about what she will find, summoning courage to take the next step, to ask the next question. As the grief at the recent loss of her father begins to lessen, she becomes bolder, finding strength with the new friends she has made in the beautiful city. Glyn’s descriptions of Dubrovnik are pictorial, so much so that the city almost becomes a character with a personality.
This is a compassionate telling of an emotional story about grief, about the fear of the past and ultimately about forgiveness. The truth about Branko and Dragica’s life during the Second World War seems deeply hidden, impossible to find, records lost, witnesses dead. As Fran struggles with the idea that her father was a traitor, perhaps a murderer, she is introduced to a local man who fought in the more recent Balkan War. Jadran knows what war is really like, the fear, the shame, the horror, the impossible choices, the loyalties and betrayals. Glyn cleverly juxtaposes the different wartime experiences as Fran tries to forgive a father who possibly did terrible things.
At times Fran is overcome with the enormity of what she is attempting. But with the help of her new Croatian friends, and bolstered by rallying Skype sessions with best friend Parisa back home in England, she investigates the truth, one small step at a time.
An original storyline in a country whose wartime story is read little in fiction.

Read my reviews of these other books by Eva Glyn:-
THE CROATIAN ISLAND LIBRARY
THE MISSING PIECES OF US

Eva Glyn is the pen name of author Jane Cable, here are my reviews of some of Jane’s other novels:-
ANOTHER YOU
ENDLESS SKIES
THE CHEESEMAKER’S HOUSE

If you this, try:-
‘The Last Hours in Paris’ by Ruth Druart
‘The Book of Lies’ by Mary Horlock
‘The Camomile Lawn’ by Mary Wesley

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE COLLABORATOR’S DAUGHTER by Eva Glyn @JaneCable https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-6Zl via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Joanna Trollope

#BookReview ‘World Without End’ by @KMFollett #historical #Kingsbridge

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What a wonderful series this is by Ken Follett. World Without End is second in the Kingsbridge series and is intimidating purely by its size, the 1264-page paperback is like a brick. But oh so worth it. Follet has created a world to lose yourself in. I was sad when it came to an end. Ken FollettThe year is 1327. In a wood near the cathedral city of Kingsbridge, four children witness a murder. The man responsible asks for their silence and the mystery of his secret runs throughout the book. The story is a little slow to get going but throughout World Without End the lives of these four children, soon adults, are woven together, intertwined, separated and combined again. Love and ambition are at the heart of everything; sometimes aided, sometimes thwarted, by money, greed, abuse and theft. There is violence, misogyny and racism. Yes, there may be similarities in plot and character with the first book, Pillars of the Earth, but this story is set two centuries later. The historical settings make both books distinctive, in World Without End it is the coming of Black Death and Edward III’s Battle of Crécy. And of course there are similarities; Kingsbridge is the centrepiece where the cathedral, priory, bridge and annual Fleece Fair are central to everyday life. There are power struggles – between master and apprentice, prior and alderman, father and son, father and daughter, between brothers. Follett’s success with this series is the accessibility of everyday lives; we can identify with these 14th century families, their hopes and desires, jealousies, disappointments and fears.
At the heart of the story are the four children in the woods that day. Quiet, clever Merthin and his younger brother Ralph, strong and always ready for a fight. And two girls, friends; Caris, clever and confident daughter of a wool merchant, and Gwenda, the under-nourished daughter of a thief but who wants so much more from her own life. Through their daily lives, Follett shows the development of Kingsbridge into a different town. Each child faces impossible decisions, each in their own way is determined and strong. Their choices, wrong or right, govern the narrative as, too quickly, these children become adults and face one of the most traumatic times faced by England. As the Black Death creeps closer and finally reaches Kingsbridge, the villagers, monks, nuns, lords, tenant farmers and farm labourers find themselves brought equal in the shared danger.
Two more books in the series await. A Column of Fire about Kingsbridge in the 16th century, followed by The Armour of Light set at the close of the 18th century.

Click the titles to read my reviews of other Follett novels:-
THE EVENING AND THE MORNING #PREQUELKINGSBRIDGE
THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH #1KINGSBRIDGE
A COLUMN OF FIRE #3KINGSBRIDGE
THE ARMOUR OF LIGHT #4KINGSBRIDGE
NEVER

If you like this, try:-
‘The Last Hours’ by Minette Walters [#1 Black Death]
‘The Turn of Midnight’ by Minette Walters #2 Black Death
‘Plague Land’ by SD Sykes [#1OswalddeLacy]

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview WORLD WITHOUT END by @KMFollett https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-6Vb via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Verity Bright

#BookReview ‘The Shadows of London’ by @AndrewJRTaylor #Historical

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When a body without a face is discovered on the site of Cat Hakesby’s latest building venture, Whitehall secretary James Marwood is ordered to investigate. The Shadows of London by Andrew Taylor is sixth in the Marwood & Lovett series that started on the night of the Great Fire of London. Andrew TaylorCat’s renovation of a city almshouse is delayed for the coroner’s verdict, putting extreme financial pressure on her architecture business. Marwood soon discovers two possible identities for the dead man – a French tutor to the daughter of the almshouse’s owner, or a civil servant at the Council of Foreign Plantations. Both suspects suggest a foreign connection to the affair. This excellent series about Restoration London is a wonderful portrayal of the squalor, smells and grime of daily reality juxtaposed with the corruption of wealth, power and politics. Stink, disguised by a clove-studded orange pomander. Meanwhile the eye of King Charles II is distracted by a young French newcomer to court, Louise de Keroualle. Surrounded by panders, English and French, who see advantage to a dalliance between monarch and maid of honour, Louise longs for a lost love and attempts in vain to stop the inevitable happening.
Set in 1671, this novel is a wonderful mixture of murder mystery, political thriller, seventeenth-century fashion [gorgeous shoes] and romantic suspense, set in the complex Restoration period. Eleven years after the restoration of King Charles to the throne and five years since the Great Fire, London still bears the marks of destruction. As Marwood investigates the murder, pulled this way and that by the demands of his political paymasters, Cat struggles to find skilled workers when all the ruined City of London is being redeveloped. The plot is complex, with modern echoes to pick up, and Taylor pulls the strings of tension this way and that. I stayed up late to finish it.
Cat remains one of my favourite fictional characters; independent, spiky, steadfast, a little solemn with endless determination. Marwood is alternately frustrating, arrogant and impulsive but also loyal, brave and honest. It is this last quality that is most pressed in The Shadows of London as, finding himself in unfamiliar territory, he questions what he is doing and why. Cat and Marwood are a brilliant pairing.
Excellent.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

Read my reviews of the first five books in this series:
THE ASHES OF LONDON #FIREOFLONDON1… and read the first paragraph of THE ASHES OF LONDON.
THE FIRE COURT #FIREOFLONDON2
THE KING’S EVIL #FIREOFLONDON3
THE LAST PROTECTOR #FIREOFLONDON4
THE ROYAL SECRET #FIREOFLONDON5

And a World War Two novel by the same author:-
THE SECOND MIDNIGHT

If you like this, try:-
‘The Lady of the Ravens’ by Joanna Hickson #1QueensoftheTower
‘The Drowned City’ by KJ Maitland #1 Daniel Pursglove
‘Wakenhyrst’ by Michelle Paver

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE SHADOWS OF LONDON by @AndrewJRTaylor https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-6Qd via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- HG Wells

#BookReview ‘A Gift of Poison’ by Bella Ellis #historical #crime

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A Gift of Poison, fourth in the Brönte Mysteries series by Bella Ellis, does not disappoint. It is a fast-moving, threatening and spooky tale of a murderer who may be innocent. Or not. Charlotte, Emily and Anne must investigate. Bella EllisBased on a real poisoning case, The Haworth Poisoner, is a tale of innocent until proven guilty, of poison, of ghosts, of revenants returning from the grave to demand retribution. Abner Lowood – the choice of surname, echoing Lowood School, is pertinent as Charlotte is writing Jane Eyre throughout A Gift of Poison – appears at the parsonage in Haworth. He has heard that the sisters are detectors and he demands they clear his name. If they refuse to help him he will disclose their secret detecting to their father. Disgusted by Lowood but desperate to protect their father from more anguish given the rapid deterioration of Branwell’s health, they agree.
Proven innocent in court of murdering his wife, Lowood claims the continued gossip and rumour that he is guilty is ruining his life. The sisters, Branwell is now so lost and ill that he plays no role in detecting, detest and distrust Lowood. But, following the example set throughout their lives by their father, they give him the benefit of the doubt. If he has been wronged, they will prove it. But, they warn him, if they find proof that he is a murderer they will not hesitate to report their evidence to the police.
The sisters are ably assisted by Charlotte’s friend Ellen Nussey, who is staying at the parsonage when the action takes place, and by author Mrs Catherine Crowe. The latter arrives with her scientific equipment to prove that the revenant – Lowood’s wife Barbara, said to have risen from her grave to identify her murderer – is in fact a hallucination. The balance of science versus emotion, logic rather than emotion, is the first instinct of the ladies. Their search for the truth leads them to Scarborough – where a year later the real Anne Brönte was to die, and is buried – where the decision of one man holds the key.
This is a case of double bluff and triple bluff with added cruelty, deprivation and gothic hauntings. The story is set in 1847, a time when superstition was widespread. Woven into the fictional crime case are glimpses of real life. Bramwell really did set his bed on fire, while Charlotte watched Emily and Anne correct the proofs of their first novels – Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey – soon to be published though her own The Professor was rejected.
This is the last book in the series. In an Author’s Note, Rowan Coleman, aka Bella Ellis, says farewell to her detectors. “I chose to leave them here, for now, at the moment Charlotte is sending off the manuscript for Jane Eyre and before the great waves of tragedy that were to follow all too soon, because although their lives have often been defined by sorrow, I want to celebrate the amazing victories and achievements they carved out for themselves.”
Quickly read and hugely enjoyed.

Click the title below to read my reviews of these other Bella Ellis novels:-
THE VANISHED BRIDE #1BRONTEMYSTERIES
THE DIABOLICAL BONES #2BRONTEMYSTERIES
THE RED MONARCH #3BRONTEMYSTERIES

And one by Rowan Coleman:-
THE GIRL AT THE WINDOW 

If you like this, try:-
‘The Secrets of Gaslight Lane’ by MRC Kasasian #4THEGOWERDETECTIVE
‘The Various Haunts of Men’ by Susan Hill #1SIMONSERRAILLER
‘The Lost Ancestor’ by Nathan Dylan Goodwin #2MORTONFARRIER

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A GIFT OF POISON by Bella Ellis https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-6J0 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Sebastian Barry

#BookReview ‘The Dead Men’ by JC Harvey @JCollissHarvey #historical

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The Dead Men by JC Harvey is a rattling good tale set during the Thirty Years War. The best I’ve read for a long time. JC HarveySecond in the 17th century series about adventurer Jack Fiskardo that started with The Silver Wolf, in which we see the boy Jack become a man, the action in The Dead Men takes place between July 1630 to November 1631 when fighting was at its most brutal. There’s a useful Author Note at the beginning with a historical background to the period, which was gratefully received, as was the cast of characters. The scope of this series is huge and so needs large personalities to populate it. Jack Fiskardo is that man. Scarred, fierce, loyal, thoughtful and yes, a little intimidating, he is a fantastic hero. Yes, a romantic hero too. Harvey takes him and his band of ‘discoverers’, advance scouts in today’s military terms, across Eastern Europe to some of the most deadly fighting in the war. They stay alive, some of them, by their skills, their instincts, bravery and camaraderie. Many characters are familiar from The Silver Wolf – Zoltan, the Gemini, Ziggy, Kai as well as Mungo Sant and his ship the Guid Marie – plus new faces including Rafe Endicott, an English writer who sends reports back to London to be published in the coranto or newsletter ‘The Swedish Intelligencer.’ People at home are hungry for information about the war, the bloodshed, the victories, the murders and atrocities. And the heroes and legends.
Staying one step ahead of the front line, scrounging food, living wild in the woods from Northern Germany to Bohemia, the band of spies are on the trail of Jack’s sworn enemy Carlo Fantom. On the way, they meet friends and enemies, lovers and liars and even a pack of English actors, the Pilgrim Players who are rehearsing a much-redacted version of Romeo and Juliet. Jack and his discoverers are present at the scenes of some of the worst fighting of this period, including the destruction of Magdeburg in 1631. Along the way, Fiskardo kills many men and makes many loyal friends.
Harvey has a light hand at putting her mostly fictional characters into the historical war setting. Many of the myths really existed, including Carlo Fantom, and a horde of gold really did disappear in the middle of war.
The cast of characters is long but each is a rounded personality, a real person, from pig boy Pyotri in the Giant Mountains, on the border between Bohemia and Poland, to Victor Lopov, the timid former archivist of the Prince-Bishop of Prague.
A real joy to read.
As with the first book I found it paid to stop trying to remember all the characters and towns and allow myself to be carried along on the emotion of Jack Fiskardo’s quest. I’m now awaiting the next installment.

Here are my reviews of other books in the Jack Fiskardo series:-
THE SILVER WOLF #1FISKARDO’SWAR
PEACE AND LOVE #3FISKARDO’SWAR
THE WANTON ROAD #4FISKARDO’SWAR

If you like this, try:-
‘The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock’ by Imogen Hermes Gowar
‘The Surfacing’ by Cormac James
‘The City of Tears’ by Kate Mosse #2JOUBERT

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE DEAD MEN by JC Harvey @JCollissHarvey https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-6FS via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Suzanne Collins