The Scholars by MacKenzie Common

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Having enjoyed MacKenzie Common’s previous book, The Six Murders of Daphne St Clair, about a ninety-year-old woman looking back on her life as a serial killer, I was interested in trying her new one, another crime novel this time set at Oxford University.

The Scholars follows five students who are awarded Oxford’s coveted Shepherd Scholarship, an award given only to the most exceptional candidates each year, many of whom go on to become world leaders in their fields. This year’s Shepherd Scholars consist of Azelle, a social media influencer from South Africa; Mabel, a young Canadian woman who runs a charity providing clean water to remote villages in India; Hugo, the son of a prominent British politician; and two Americans, Hadley, a history academic who is researching pogroms and riots, and Finn, who is developing an AI grief counselling service.

The five students seem to have very little in common and tensions develop within the group almost immediately. When one of them is killed after falling from a roof, it’s unclear whether or not it was an accident, but rumours quickly begin to circulate that they were pushed – and that one of the other four Shepherd Scholars was responsible. Then it emerges that the dead student has left behind a proposal for a book they were planning to write, featuring four fictional characters with strong resemblances to the four remaining Scholars. If the book had been published, it would have revealed secrets the Scholars have been trying to keep hidden. All four have a strong motive for the murder, then, but which, if any, was the culprit?

The story unfolds from the perspectives of each of the four students, all of whom are unreliable narrators, hiding their pasts from each other and from the reader, until it becomes impossible to keep things secret any longer. Their secrets are terrible ones – the kind that can ruin reputations and careers – and this raises some interesting questions about the integrity of the scholarships, the vetting process and whether candidates should be judged on their current achievements or whether their personal histories should be taken into account. I didn’t like any of the four surviving students and we probably weren’t supposed to, but there were two that I eventually began to warm to slightly and two that I didn’t. I suspected one character of being the killer from early in the book and was correct to suspect them – although a twist right at the end turned everything on its head again!

Although there were things I liked about this book, there were also some things I had problems with. First, once the murder took place I would have expected more involvement from the police and the university, yet the four students just seem to be left to continue their studies as if nothing had happened and even after their secrets are exposed the police still don’t come to speak to them regarding motives etc. The only investigations we see being carried out are by the four students themselves and random people discussing the case on social media. I also felt that although there are some nice descriptions of the city of Oxford, the university setting never really comes to life.

After a slow start, I became drawn into the story, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if there had been even one character I could have liked or connected with in some way. I preferred MacKenzie Common’s previous book, but will still be looking out for her next one.

Thanks to Mountain Leopard Press for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

I’m counting this towards RIPXXI hosted by @perilreaders

The Strangers by Naomi Alderman

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A few months after her mother’s death, the author Naomi Alderman tries to keep her grieving father occupied by setting up a camera to take photos of the foxes that visit his garden at night. Examining the photos the next morning, they discover that they’ve captured not only an image of the fox, but also another animal they’re unable to identify. Soon it emerges that other people all over the UK have also seen this new creature – a furry mammal, similar in appearance to a badger but with a flat face and a long nose almost like an elephant’s trunk. People begin referring to it as a mini mammoth, which is then shortened to ‘mimmoth’ and the name sticks.

As sightings of mimmoths spread across the world, scientists, the media and the public try to make sense of this strange new species. Where did the mimmoths come from? Are they as harmless as they seem or could they be a threat to humans? Alderman herself feels an affinity with the mimmoths, finding comfort in their presence, but when she starts to obsess over them, she begins to wonder whether she’s suffering from a condition known as ‘mimmoth psychosis”.

The Strangers is a strange book! It’s part science fiction but also part memoir, in which Alderman uses herself as the narrator and protagonist of the story. Although I’m new to Alderman’s work and I previously knew nothing about her as a person, it seems that she has drawn on incidents and experiences from her own life in the writing of this novel. She talks about the trauma of suffering a series of failed pregnancies, her complex relationship with her mother and learning to feel comfortable with her physical appearance, which I understand are things she has spoken or written about in the past.

I loved reading about the mimmoths. Alderman writes about them in a very convincing, matter-of-fact way that reminded me of John Wyndham’s books where one unusual, unexpected element is introduced into an otherwise normal setting. She goes into a lot of detail describing what the mimmoths look like, how they behave and, most importantly, how humans react to them. There’s a variety of opinions, ranging from those who believe the mimmoths are a nuisance and should be culled to those who welcome them and are happy to live alongside them. I started to wonder whether the book was intended as a political allegory in which the arrival of the mimmoths represents immigration and I think parts of the story could definitely be interpreted in that way.

The ending of the book disappointed me, though. I felt that we didn’t get a satisfying explanation for the mimmoths’ sudden appearance and what their intentions were; some fascinating threads start to emerge throughout the novel as researchers begin to notice some unusual population patterns seemingly connected with the mimmoths, but none of these ideas really seem to go anywhere and fizzle out towards the end when the focus moves almost entirely onto the narrator’s personal experiences of grieving and healing. For me, the memoir elements and the speculative fiction elements didn’t tie together very well and could almost have been two separate books.

I was left feeling let down by the final 20% or so of the book, but everything that came before that was fascinating so I think this was a worthwhile read overall. This was my first Naomi Alderman book and I would be happy to try another one.

Thanks to Penguin UK for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Historical Musings #96: HWA Crown Awards 2026

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Welcome to this month’s post on all things historical fiction!

This month, I want to highlight the books nominated for this year’s HWA Crown Awards. The longlists were announced last Wednesday by the Historical Writers Association (HWA) and you can find all the details here. There are three separate awards – one for debut novels, one for non-fiction and the other (the Gold Crown) for authors who have been previously published. The shortlists will be announced in October and the winner in November. Although I don’t have any plans to try to read all of these books, I thought it would be interesting to look at what, if anything, I’ve read so far from each list and what else I might like to read.

Debut Crown Award

The Daffodil Days by Helen Bain
Finding Ida by Marya Burgess
Splendour by Elizabeth Jane Burnett
The Show Woman by Emma Cowing
The Beheading Game by Rebecca Lehmann
A Mind Prone to Evil by PS Lynch
When Sleeping Women Wake by Emma Pei Yin
All That is Left is Life by Roberta Recchia translated by Antonella Lettieri
Soon Come by Shuba Shand-Baptiste
Blood Caste by Shylashri Shankar
Jamaica Road by Lisa Smith
The Visit by Neil Tully

Surprisingly, I haven’t read any of these! I’ve usually read at least one or two from the list. I’ve heard of The Show Woman and The Beheading Game but the others are all new to me.

Non-fiction Crown Award

Mad Tom’s Rising: The Revolutionary Mystic Sir William Courtenay and the Last Battle Fought on English Soil by Ian Breckon
Stay Alive by Ian Buruma
Deadwood by Peter Cozzens
Queer Georgians by Anthony Delaney
Margaret Beaufort: Survivor, Rebel, Kingmaker by Lauren Johnson
The Zorg by Siddharth Kara
Trafalgar: Battle & Aftermath by Paul O’Keeffe
Wreckers: Disaster in the Age of Discovery by Simon Park
Hotel Exile: Paris in the Shadow of War by Jane Rogoyska
A Day in the Life of a Gladiator: Those Who Are About To Die by Harry Sidebottom
The Surgeon, The Midwife, The Quack: How to Stay Alive in Renaissance England by Alanna Skuse
A Shellshocked Nation: Britain Between the Wars by Alwyn Turner

I haven’t read any of these either, although that’s less surprising as I read relatively little non-fiction. As I love reading about the Wars of the Roses, I should probably look for the Margaret Beaufort book, but some of the others also sound tempting, particularly Mad Tom’s Rising, Hotel Exile and The Surgeon, The Midwife, The Quack.

Gold Crown Award

The Bookbinder’s Secret by AD Bell
The Tarot Reader of Versailles by Anya Bergman
The Venetian Heretic by Christian Cameron
The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd-Robinson
Nonesuch by Francis Spufford
A Far-flung Life by ML Stedman
The Last Witch by CJ Cooke
A Scrooge Mystery by Andreina Cordani
The Pretender by Jo Harkin
Lion Hearts by Dan Jones
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon
The Winter Warriors by Olivier Norek translated by Nick Caistor

I’ve read two of these and enjoyed both, particularly A Far-flung Life which is one of my books of the year so far. I definitely want to read Nonesuch, although I still need to catch up on Spufford’s other recent books as well, and I already need to read The Pretender for my Walter Scott Prize Project. Of the others, I think the CJ Cooke and Anya Bergman appeal to me most.

~

What do you think of these longlists? Have you read any of these books or are there any you would like to try?

The Curse of the Saltmarsh Girl by Clare Marchant

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This is my second Clare Marchant book, following The Alchemist’s Secret which I read earlier this year. It’s also my favourite of the two – although I enjoyed both books, I found this one darker, more atmospheric and more gripping. Although I’m often critical of dual timeline novels (which this is), I thought that format worked quite well here as the modern day character has a well developed storyline of her own rather than just providing a frame for the historical thread.

The first chapter sets the tone for the rest of the book as Angel drives through a heavy sea fog on her way to stay with her brother on the North Norfolk coast. Convinced first that an animal of some kind is running along beside her car and then that the vague, murky figure of a human is actually inside the car with her, Angel begins to question why Dan has chosen to live in such an isolated, unsettling place. His home is a converted barn on the outskirts of Saltmarsh, a ruined village abandoned during an outbreak of plague in the 17th century and although Angel had wanted a quiet place to escape from her personal problems for a while, this isn’t quite what she’d expected.

In 1665, however, Saltmarsh is still a busy, thriving village. Margery has just arrived there in search of her mother who left their home in nearby Kelveton five weeks earlier to visit her other daughter who lives in Saltmarsh. She never returned, so Margery has decided to walk to the village herself to look for her – but she’s not prepared for what awaits her there. Her sister is dead and no one can tell her what has happened to her mother; in fact, the villagers are so hostile, Margery is sure they know more than they’re admitting. Lodging with Bridget and Anne, two healers who live just outside Saltmarsh, Margery is determined to get to the bottom of her mother’s disappearance, but when bubonic plague reaches the village, Margery is blamed for bringing the disease with her in the form of the mythical black dog, Black Shuck.

Black Shuck – who, depending on the legend, can be either a malicious demon or a protective creature – appears in both the historical and present day threads of the novel. Other pieces of Norfolk folklore are also woven in, such as the legend of the Lantern Men, marsh spirits associated with ghostly lights and the sound of whistling. I found the book genuinely creepy in places and although there are rational explanations for some of the things that happen, others aren’t fully explained, leaving a sense of the supernatural. There are also lots of vivid, evocative descriptions of the Norfolk coastal landscape with its treacherous marshes, all adding to the atmosphere.

Although Margery’s story was more exciting, it was interesting to see Angel uncovering the secrets of Saltmarsh. I liked the idea of symbols carved into the altar of the ruined church describing what happened in the village and Angel trying to interpret them – at first I thought it seemed a bit too convenient that anyone would do that, but then I remembered that of course there are real cases of what’s known as ‘historical graffiti’ recording important events. There are several other things tying the two narratives together as well. First, there’s a mother/daughter theme in each one. Angel, who was abandoned as a baby and adopted by two loving parents, has been contacted by a woman claiming to be her sister; Angel now has to decide whether to meet her (and potentially get to know her biological mother) but is struggling with the decision. Meanwhile, Margery, who has lost her own mother, finds that her new friends, Bridget and Anne, have become as close to her as family. There’s also a hint of romance for both Angel and Margery, but I liked the way it was only briefly touched upon in both cases, rather than becoming a big part of the plot.

I’ll look forward to Clare Marchant’s next book and will try to investigate some of her earlier ones as well.

Thanks to Boldwood Books for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Reviewed for RIPXXI hosted by @perilreaders

The Housekeeper by Rose Tremain

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Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca is one of my favourite books, so I was intrigued when I saw that it was the inspiration for Rose Tremain’s new novel, The Housekeeper. I’ve had mixed experiences with Tremain’s books in the past, but I knew I would have to try this one.

The Housekeeper is set in the 1930s at Manderville Hall, a large country house in Cornwall. Lilianne Maria Danowski has been housekeeper there for several years, having left Poland with her father as a young girl. Danni, as she is known – or sometimes Mrs D – is happy with her job and fond of her employer, Lord Grenville-Whithers, an elderly widower. However, the old man is starting to think about the future and as he has no heir of his own, he invites his niece Adelaide to come and stay, with the intention of leaving the house to her. Adelaide is an unpleasant, overbearing woman and Danni knows she will have to tread carefully around her, particularly as she’s currently in a relationship that could cost her her job if discovered…

Danni’s lover is the author Daphne du Maurier, who has come to research her new novel and has been given permission to use Lord Grenville-Whithers’ boathouse to do her writing. The two women are immediately drawn to each other; for Danni it’s a passionate love affair and she assumes Daphne feels the same, but when Daphne’s new novel is published, Danni is left feeling hurt and betrayed by what she reads.

Lilianne Maria Danowski was not a real person; she’s a fictional character invented by Rose Tremain, but if you’ve read Rebecca you’ll be able to see the parallels with Mrs Danvers, the housekeeper at Manderley, referred to by Rebecca as Danny. Tremain imagines that Danowski was du Maurier’s inspiration for Mrs Danvers and explores how she may have felt at seeing an unflattering portrayal of herself in a book. If you haven’t read Rebecca you’re probably wondering if you need to do so before reading The Housekeeper. My answer would be no, it’s not essential, but it would definitely be a good idea as then you would be able to spot all the little echoes of Rebecca that Tremain weaves into the story.

The Housekeeper is a beautifully written novel, but I did have a few problems with it. I felt that Danni and Daphne’s relationship began very suddenly with no real build and I just didn’t feel very convinced by it. I know quite a lot about Daphne du Maurier’s history and background, having read her autobiography Myself When Young, as well as Jane Dunn’s biography Daphne du Maurier and Her Sisters, and the impression I got from those books is that she was a complex person – shy, private and reclusive, which could make her come across as distant or aloof, but also loyal and affectionate towards her close friends. There’s not much of that complexity in Tremain’s novel; her Daphne is cold, manipulative and selfish, caring more about her reputation than Danni’s feelings.

Although I didn’t care for the portrayal of Daphne, I did like Danni. I loved the little glimpses we get of her childhood growing up as a Jewish girl in Radom, Poland, and I would have liked more of that. I also enjoyed the sections of the book set after Danni’s relationship with Daphne ends and she sets up her own business as a seamstress; there’s an interesting little subplot here involving a girl for whom Danni is asked to make a wedding dress, and another featuring two other former servants from Manderville Hall.

Apparently The Housekeeper, which began as a short story several years ago, is already being adapted for film and will star Caitriona Balfe and Emma Laird as Danni and Daphne, Anthony Hopkins as Lord Grenville-Whithers and Helena Bonham Carter as Adelaide.

Thanks to Chatto & Windus for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

By Horror Haunted by Celia Fremlin

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This month Rebecca of Bookish Beck is hosting Short Story September. There are lots of short story collections I would like to read but I knew I would probably only have time for one this month, so I chose one that I would be almost guaranteed to enjoy. I loved Celia Fremlin’s 1970 short story collection Don’t Go to Sleep in the Dark, which I read a few years ago, and By Horror Haunted, originally published in 1974, sounded very similar.

The title is slightly misleading, I think, as most of the stories can only very loosely be described as horror. Some are quite eerie and unsettling, one or two include ghosts, but most are concerned with the ‘horrors’ of everyday life. One story deals with a fear of flying, for example, and another features a man struggling to come to terms with blindness – both of which Fremlin describes convincingly and realistically. There are fifteen stories in the book and most are short enough to read in just a few minutes; although I would have liked some of them to have been developed further, they are all satisfying and each one has a clever twist at the end – my favourite kind of short story!

Of all the stories, the only one that did really scare me was The Savage Heart, in which a zoologist decides to keep a lion cub as a pet and raise it along with his little girl, Rosalie. This causes a sensation, with newspaper reporters descending on the house to take photos of Rosalie and Leo playing together. As the lion grows bigger and stronger, however, Rosalie starts to feel more and more uneasy around him. I read this story with a growing sense of dread, as I’m sure you can imagine!

The first story, Her Number on It, was another that stood out. A middle-aged woman finds that she can’t stop stealing dresses from a London department store, much to her husband’s embarrassment, as he’s the one who has to keep speaking to the manager and promising she won’t do it again. But what he doesn’t know is that something even stranger is happening to his wife – she has discovered a tube station that acts as a portal to a different time. I also enjoyed The Intruder, in which a young woman listens to noises upstairs in the night, convinced that there’s a burglar in the house. This is one of those stories with such a surprising twist it makes you want to go straight back to the beginning to read it again!

Fremlin writes from a variety of different perspectives, ranging from a ninety-year-old woman who, in Ephemerida, compares herself to the mayfly which lives for just one day, to the teenage girl in Barry Findlater, who tries to keep her mother happy by inventing a boyfriend – with disastrous results. Most of the stories, though, deal with people struggling with marital tensions or the challenges of parenthood. I loved The Sunday Outing, where a husband decides to pretend he was in a train accident to give himself some time away from his wife, and An Unsuspected Talent, which follows a wife who, frustrated with her husband’s lack of ambition, takes matters into her own hands – literally.

If I had to pick a favourite story it would definitely be Don’t Tell Cissie. Cissie is one of those people for whom if something can go wrong, it will go wrong. If anyone is likely to get lost and miss the bus, to fall in a pond and catch pneumonia, or drop a kettle full of boiling water and scald herself, it’s Cissie. As her friend, Lois, observes:

She was like that at school, and now, when we’re all coming up towards retirement, she’s like it still. You know the kind of person I mean? Friendly, goodhearted, and desperately anxious to be in on everything, and yet with this mysterious knack of ruining things – of bringing every project grinding to a halt, simply by being there.

So when Lois and another friend, Rosemary, decide to visit Rosemary’s new weekend cottage in the marshes, which is said to be haunted, it seems sensible to leave Cissie behind. Cissie, of course, has other ideas and isn’t about to miss out on the fun! I really enjoyed this one. It has the sort of humour I loved in Fremlin’s Uncle Paul and the ending is perfect.

Although I thought Don’t Go to Sleep in the Dark was slightly stronger overall, this is another great collection and reminded me how much I love Celia Fremlin’s writing. I’ve only read two of her longer novels so far (Uncle Paul and The Long Shadow) so I still have a lot to look forward to!

The Newer World by Sebastian Barry

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Sebastian Barry’s latest novel, The Newer World, is loosely connected to two of his earlier books, Days Without End and A Thousand Moons. If you’ve read those books you’ll remember the characters of John Cole, Thomas McNulty and Winona and all three appear again in this book. However, it’s not necessary to have read them first as this book works as a standalone and focuses on Tennyson Bouguereau, who was a secondary character in A Thousand Moons.

Tennyson and his twin sister Rosalee are born into slavery in 1840s Tennessee and later freed – although as Tennyson observes, “freed is not the same as free” and a lot is left to be desired in terms of equality and opportunities for people who were formerly enslaved. After the Civil War, Tennyson and Rosalee find themselves living on Lige Magan’s farm, the same place Irish soldier Thomas McNulty, his partner John and their adopted Lakota daughter, Winona, have ended up. The farm won’t be a safe haven for long, though, and eventually Tennyson is forced to flee, leaving Rosalee and their friends behind. Assisted by a kind-hearted lawyer, Tennyson makes his way to Nashville, where he attends a college and finds that he has a talent for singing. Joining a touring choir, he unexpectedly has the chance to visit England and on his return finds that he’s faced with making a decision that could change his life forever.

The novel is narrated by Tennyson himself, a brave decision by Sebastian Barry. His publishers had apparently advised against it due to cultural appropriation concerns, which is obviously a controversial topic, but I thought Tennyson’s narrative voice felt authentic and the themes of racism, prejudice and slavery were handled sensitively and sympathetically. Through Tennyson’s eyes, we see how even after the abolition of slavery he still has to deal with restrictions on his everyday life, such as when he is threatened with a fine for simply ‘walking without purpose’.

During his time at college in Nashville, Tennyson reads the Odyssey and afterwards begins to draw parallels between his own life and the journey of Odysseus who, like himself, is far from home. But Tennyson, however, has lost so much and so many of the people he loved that he’s not sure where home really is anymore: “I knew as I made my way home that there was no home. All the old things, my days in the world, even the eyes I had seen them with, were gone forever.”

Sebastian Barry’s books are always beautifully written and this one is no exception, although I’ve found that in general I seem to prefer his books set in Ireland rather than this sequence set in America. I suspect he may be returning to this world for a fourth novel, though, as several characters have decided to head for Alaska to start a new life. There would also be the option of telling Rosalee’s story, left behind on the farm during Tennyson’s long absence. Whatever he chooses to write next, I’ll be looking out for it.

Thanks to Faber and Faber Ltd for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.