Category: Reviews

The Blind Woman of Sorrento by Francesco Mastriani

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Translated by Idara Crespi

Francesco Mastriani is a completely new author for me – I’m sorry to say I hadn’t even heard of him until I was offered a review copy of his 1852 novel, The Blind Woman of Sorrento, but it seems he was a very prolific Italian writer, producing over two hundred works of fiction during the 19th century. Espresso Publishing House, an imprint focusing on neglected foreign-language novels, have made this one available in its first modern English translation.

The ‘blind woman’ of the title is Beatrice, daughter of the Marchese di Rionero. She wasn’t born blind, but at the age of three she witnessed the brutal murder of her mother and lost her sight due to the shock and trauma she suffered. Now, seventeen years later, an English doctor, Oliviero Blackman, has arrived in Sorrento and believes he can help her to see again. Unknown to Beatrice, however, Dr Blackman is not all he appears to be. Who is he and does he have another motive for promising to restore Beatrice’s sight?

We also get to know Gaetano Pisani, the son of the man who killed Beatrice’s mother all those years earlier. Gaetano’s life has also been affected by the events of that terrible night and he can’t escape the shame and guilt of knowing that his father was hanged for murder. When he crosses paths with his father’s accomplice and gets his hands on a box of jewels stolen from the murdered woman, it seems that he may still have a chance to find redemption.

I don’t want to say much more about the plot as I would prefer future readers to discover all the twists and turns of this fascinating novel for themselves, as I did. The publisher compares it to Wilkie Collins, which is a good comparison as this book does share many of the elements you would often find in Collins’ work and other 19th century sensation novels such as murders, stolen jewels, family secrets, revenge plots and hidden identities, as well as lots of melodrama! I was particularly reminded of Poor Miss Finch, which also deals with the subject of blindness in a similar way (although that book was published twenty years after this one and the plot itself is quite different). I also think if you’ve enjoyed books by authors like Alexandre Dumas or Rafael Sabatini, there’s a good chance you would enjoy this one too.

Although I would have preferred Beatrice to have been a stronger character (she has a tendency to faint and swoon), I did find it interesting to see how Mastriani writes about her blindness. For a book published in the 1850s, he handles the topic quite sensitively, never implying that she’s any less intelligent because of her condition – on the contrary, she is more observant and perceptive than most people, with her other senses being heightened to compensate. Gaetano is also a complex character: although his actions and motives are sometimes questionable, I could never really think of him as a villain, but at the same time he’s not entirely heroic either.

I found Idara Crespi’s translation very clear and easy to read and I appreciated the translator’s note at the beginning, explaining why certain words and spellings had been chosen. There’s also an introduction, which you can read before or after the novel itself (I got more out of it reading it afterwards), a glossary and some notes on historical Naples. Naples was Mastriani’s own place of birth and both that city and nearby Sorrento are vividly brought to life through his descriptions. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and was entertained by it from beginning to end.

A Remedy for Fate by MA Kuzniar

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I wasn’t sure whether to read this as I didn’t care for MA Kuzniar’s previous book, Midnight in Everwood, but I loved the idea of a story set in 18th century Prague so I decided to give her a second chance. I’m glad I did as I thought this book was much better.

A Remedy for Fate is very loosely based on the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin and is written from the perspective of Thea, a ‘fate weaver’ who runs Stiltskin’s Apothecary, brewing special potions that can change her customers’ futures – for a terrible price. Thea herself paid that price seven years earlier when she agreed to lose her memories and her heart for reasons she can no longer remember and in return has been given the ability to weave fates. Although she’s still human, Thea’s body is held together by a spell controlled by her employer, Jasper Stiltskin. The only way to free herself from the spell is to correctly guess her birth name, which she has forgotten as it’s yet another memory taken from her by Jasper.

The Apothecary is located in Prague’s Magic Quarter, a secret world hidden beneath the city which can only be accessed by people in need of help. However, the protections that keep the Magic Quarter safe from those who wish it harm are starting to break down, allowing entry to the sinister Magic Hunters who are determined to find the evidence they need to close the whole area down.

Although the historical Prague setting was the thing that attracted me to this book, I found that we didn’t actually see as much of Prague as I’d expected. Although Thea does occasionally venture up into the city, most of the action takes place in the Magic Quarter, which is described very vividly – a maze of narrow streets, wreathed in mist and lined with enchanted pastel-painted shops. It’s also populated with colourful characters including Pani Dagmar, an elderly witch who claims to be five hundred years old; Wojslav the vampire, who leads a solitary life running an antique shop; and Thea’s friend Zofka, the kitchen-witch, who bakes magical cakes and pies. The world-building is wonderful and I loved the way Kuzniar creates a feeling of community where the residents of the Magic Quarter, despite not always seeing eye to eye, all come together to fight the forces threatening their lives and livelihoods.

Because the story is set mainly in the Magic Quarter, a fantasy land which is very separate from Prague itself, there’s very little sense of the time period. Apart from some references to Empress Maria Theresa’s recent banning of witch burning and torture in 1768, I felt that the book could really have been set in any period, past, present or future. I also thought Thea, although she’s supposed to be a woman in her thirties, felt much less mature and the book in general, like Midnight in Everwood, seemed to be aimed more at younger readers, despite them both being marketed as adult novels. Not necessarily a problem, but something to be aware of if you’re planning to read them.

Thea’s actions frustrated me at times, but I thought Jasper was a great character and I enjoyed watching his relationship with Thea unfold and change throughout the book. The answer to the question of Thea’s real name seemed quite obvious to me, though, and I’m surprised she was having so much trouble guessing it! Overall, then, I found this an entertaining read, with just a few negative points, and the writing style didn’t irritate me the way it did in Midnight in Everwood. I would be happy to try Kuzniar’s other adult novel, Upon a Frosted Star, which is based on Swan Lake.

Thanks to Hodderscape for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark – #1961Club

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This is my second review for Karen and Simon’s 1961 Club which is taking place this week. When I put my new Classics Club list together earlier this year, I included two books published in 1961 with this week’s event in mind. I haven’t had time to start the other one (No Fond Return of Love by Barbara Pym), but I have managed to read Muriel Spark’s 1961 novella, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Miss Brodie is a teacher at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls in Edinburgh and in 1936, when the book opens, she believes herself to be ‘in her prime’. Her teaching methods are unconventional – she largely ignores the official school curriculum and instead focuses on subjects that the other teachers consider useless and irrelevant:

These girls were discovered to have heard of the Buchmanites and Mussolini, the Italian Renaissance painters, the advantages to the skin of cleansing cream and witch-hazel over honest soap and water, and the word “menarche”; the interior decoration of the London house of the author of Winnie the Pooh had been described to them, as had the love lives of Charlotte Brontë and of Miss Brodie herself.

The love life of Miss Brodie herself is one of her favourite topics of conversation and the six girls she takes under her wing – known as ‘the Brodie set’ – are regaled with tales of Hugh, her first love, who fell on Flanders Field. The Brodie set appear to be completed devoted to their teacher and captivated by her stories and the wisdom she is passing on to them. However, we know from very early in the book that one of them will eventually betray her – but which of them will it be and will the betrayal be deserved?

Miss Brodie could have been portrayed purely as a heroine, trying to equip her girls for the years ahead, giving them the knowledge she believes they need and encouraging them to think differently. However, she’s a more complex character than that – she’s flawed, manipulative and self-obsessed, trying to live out some of her own fantasies through the girls, even pushing one of them, Rose, into a romance with the art teacher Mr Lloyd, with whom she herself is in love.

The book has a non-linear structure, beginning by introducing us to the girls of the Brodie set at the age of sixteen, then going back several years to their first meeting with Miss Brodie as ten-year-olds and occasionally jumping forwards to show us the girls as adults. There’s also a lot of foreshadowing and moments when we are told what will happen to a character long before it actually happens, all things which add additional layers and depth to what would otherwise be quite a simple story.

This is the first book I’ve read by Muriel Spark. I have to be completely honest and say that I didn’t particularly love her writing style, which I’m disappointed about as I’ve seen so many positive reviews of this book and expected to enjoy it a lot more than I did. I tend to prefer books where I form an emotional connection with the characters and that just didn’t happen here. I did find it interesting, though, and am pleased I’ve finally read it – I’m not sure why it has taken me this long to get round to it! I would certainly be happy to try more of her books and would welcome any recommendations.

As well as counting towards 1961 Club, this is also book 2/50 from my third Classics Club list.

A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer – #1961Club

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This week, Karen of Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings and Simon of Stuck in a Book are hosting another of their clubs where we all read and write about books published in the same year – and this time it’s 1961! There are some authors who were so prolific you can usually rely on them to have had a book published in any given year and one of those authors is Georgette Heyer. Her novel from 1961 is A Civil Contract and it’s one I hadn’t read before, so I decided to read it for the club.

A Civil Contract is set, like most of her novels, in the Regency period and begins with Adam Deveril, the new Viscount Lynton, returning from the Peninsular War to find his family facing financial ruin. It seems that his father, who recently died, has left so much debt that the Deverils could have to sell Fontley, their beloved country estate. Adam is also forced to end his relationship with the woman he loves, Julia Oversley, knowing that a marriage between the two of them will no longer be considered appropriate. Julia’s father, Lord Oversley, however, has a possible solution to Adam’s money problems – his friend, Jonathan Chawleigh, is a very wealthy merchant and has a daughter whom he is determined to marry into the aristocracy.

Compared to the beautiful Julia, Adam finds Jenny Chawleigh plain and ordinary, but as he gets to know her better he quickly discovers that she’s intelligent, funny, sensible and kind-hearted. To Mr Chawleigh’s delight, the marriage goes ahead, with his daughter gaining the title of Lady Lynton, and in return Adam receives the money he needs to keep Fontley in the family and provide for his mother and sisters. It’s a practical marriage rather than one made for love and Jenny understands that Adam’s heart still lies with Julia, but the two are quite happy together – except on the many occasions when Mr Chawleigh interferes and becomes irritatingly over-generous with his money!

I enjoyed this book. It’s not as much fun as some of Heyer’s others – it’s a quieter, more mature novel, similar to Black Sheep, for example – but I liked the characters and the realistic portrayal of a marriage of convenience in that era. There’s no passionate romance here, just two people learning to get along together. I did feel sorry for Jenny, though, because she clearly loves Adam from the beginning and has to accept that he doesn’t feel the same way about her, at least not while Julia is still around. He does eventually start to see Julia in a slightly different light, but there’s still a sense that part of him will always love her and not Jenny. As a romance, then, the book is not entirely satisfying, but it’s believable.

We don’t really get the sparkling, witty dialogue between hero and heroine that we get in other Heyer novels, but there’s still some humour, mainly provided by Jenny’s father, Mr Chawleigh. He’s a wonderful character – he’s loud and overbearing, considered ‘vulgar’ by upper class society, but he’s also well-meaning and genuinely wants to use his money to make Adam and Jenny happy. I enjoyed watching his relationship with Adam develop as they come to understand and respect each other, despite some serious differences of opinion along the way.

So, I don’t think I would name A Civil Contract one of my absolute favourite Heyer novels, but it’s still one that I liked very much and a perfect choice to start my 1961 Club reading.

Circle of Shadows by Marisa Linton

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Mystery, fantasy, historical fiction, dark academia…this is a difficult book to classify as it’s all of those things and more. Most importantly, it’s also a fascinating, entertaining read and after finishing it I was pleased to learn that it’s the first in a series, with the second book, Domain of Darkness, coming later this year.

The novel is set in 1904 and follows Evie Winstanley, the daughter of a scholar who collects occult books. When her father is found dead in his study, with his clothes dripping with water and a circular symbol chalked on the floor beside him, Evie is determined to find out what has happened to him. Convinced that he was working on some kind of occult ritual before his death, she manages to identify the symbol as the Kuroskato, or circle of shadows.

Evie’s investigations take her first to a country house on the Yorkshire moors and then to Oxford, where she learns more about the Kuroskato and how it could be dangerous in the hands of the wrong people. She also meets two very different men: Marcus Ellingham, a reporter for The Ghost Hunter, who has written a series of articles on fraudulent mediums, and Aubrey Penhallow, a country gentleman who is an expert on horse racing. One of them is a friend from the beginning, whereas the other is much more difficult to interpret. As Evie’s path crosses with both men again and again throughout the book, she must decide which, if either, can be trusted.

I enjoyed this book and liked the way the supernatural elements were always there in the background but never really dominated the story too much. Yes, this is a world where the dark arts really exist, where people can be possessed and spirits can be summoned, but Linton manages to weave these things into the plot in a way that feels convincing and believable. The mixture of a scholarly historical setting with a real, practical system of magic kept reminding me of Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, although the plots of the two books are very different.

I also found Evie a very engaging character. She shares her father’s love of history, books and archaeology, but as a woman in Edwardian England her opportunities to pursue an academic career of her own are very limited. When she finds her way to Oxford University in search of answers to the mystery, she has to navigate the halls of all-male colleges, gain access to the Bodleian Library and infiltrate a secret society, the Sons of Dionysus, made up of rich and privileged young men. The sections of the book set in Oxford are wonderfully atmospheric, whether Linton is describing the world of academia, the bustling streets of the tourist areas or the banks of the River Cherwell at night. The earlier parts of the book, where Evie and her sister visit Yorkshire are just as vividly described and the country estate with its dark and sinister lake provides a contrast to the urban setting we see later on.

Although I guessed who the villain was in advance, I was still satisfied with the ending, particularly as it sets things up perfectly for the second book. I can’t wait to see what Evie does next and wish we didn’t have to wait until December to find out!

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

Tales from Watership Down by Richard Adams

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Watership Down has been one of my favourite books since I first read it as a ten-year-old and when I re-read it in 2010 I was pleased to find I still loved it as much as I ever did (it’s a book that can be equally appreciated by both adults and children, I think). Despite that, the thought of reading the sequel, Tales from Watership Down, has never really appealed to me – it’s a collection of short stories rather than a novel like the first book and I’ve heard a lot of people say they were disappointed by it. Anyway, I decided to give it a try this Easter (I’ve always associated Watership Down with this time of year as the film often used to be shown on Easter Sunday until parents complained that it was too violent and not the nice cartoon about cute bunnies they’d assumed it was!).

The book is divided into three sections, beginning with a selection of stories featuring El-ahrairah, also known as ‘the Prince with a Thousand Enemies’, the legendary folk hero of the rabbit world. If you’ve read Watership Down, you’ll remember that the rabbits often entertain or comfort themselves by telling stories about El-ahrairah (whom Richard Adams himself described as a rabbit version of Robin Hood). These stories were always my least favourite parts of the novel as I felt they were just a distraction from the main narrative, so I wasn’t exactly thrilled about there being so many of them here. However, I really enjoyed the first one, The Sense of Smell, in which El-ahrairah goes on a journey to several faraway lands in search of someone who can give him the ability to smell, a sense which rabbits don’t yet have, making them vulnerable to predators. He is told that the sinister Ilips, who live in a cave in a land of perpetual darkness, will be able to give him this sense for himself and his rabbits, but things don’t go to plan and El-ahrairah is forced to travel on to the Land of Yesterday, a fascinating fictional world!

At the end of this section there are two stories which don’t involve El-ahrairah. One, Speedwell’s Story, is an intentionally silly story which Adams says in the introduction is ‘representative of the kind of nonsense tales which rabbits enjoy’. As I’m not a rabbit, I didn’t enjoy that one, but I did like The Rabbit’s Ghost Story, which is told by a rabbit called Coltsfoot. As he tells of his encounter with a ghostly rabbit, it’s very atmospheric and while Adams’ writing is often quite dark, this particular story comes close to the horror genre.

The second section of the book consists of four more El-ahrairah stories, but this time they are connected and describe what happened when El-ahrairah and his friend Rabscuttle return from visiting the Black Rabbit of Inlé (this journey was referred to in the original novel). I was intrigued by the first one, The Story of the Comical Field, in which the two rabbits are tricked into entering a man-made maze where they encounter an unspecified ‘evil’, but I found the other stories less interesting.

Finally, we come to the third section and the one I think most of us will have been waiting for: a continuation of the events of Watership Down, describing some of the things that happen to Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig and the others after they establish their new warren on the Down. They don’t have such dramatic adventures as in the first book, but do have to deal with various newcomers who disturb the stability of the warren, including Stonecrop, an escaped hutch rabbit who smells of man, and Flyairth, a doe who is convinced they are all going to die of the White Blindness (myxomatosis). Maybe in response to criticism of the first book being sexist, Adams gives a lot of attention to Hyzenthlay, Vilthuril and the other doe characters and explores the idea of warrens being run by female Chief Rabbits. I enjoyed this final part of the book, but was left feeling a bit sad because it gave us a glimpse of what a true sequel could have looked like.

So, do I think this book is worth reading? I wouldn’t recommend it as an introduction to Richard Adams, but if you enjoyed Watership Down and want to spend more time in that world, then you’ll probably like the third part of the book at least – but don’t set your expectations too high and be prepared for lots of El-ahrairah.

The Mill House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji

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Translated by Ho-Ling Wong

This is the third of Japanese author Yukito Ayatsuji’s books I’ve read – I loved The Labyrinth House Murders but found The Decagon House Murders disappointing, so I was curious to see what I would think of this one. All three books are part of Ayatsuji’s Bizarre House series and all of them feature the detective Shimada Kiyoshi and an unusual, sinister house designed by the architect Nakamura Seiji. The Mill House Murders was originally published in Japanese in 1988 and is available from Pushkin Press in an English translation.

This book is set entirely within the walls of the Mill House which, like the Decagon House and Labyrinth House, is one of Nakamura’s creations. It’s home to Fujinuma Kiichi, who sustained terrible injuries in a car accident several years earlier and is now confined to a wheelchair, with a mask and gloves covering the damage to his face and hands. Kiichi is the son of the late artist Fujinuma Issei, and although he normally lives a reclusive life with his wife, Yurie, and their servants, once a year he invites a group of acquaintances to the house to look at his father’s paintings.

In September 1985, the group are making their annual visit when several shocking events occur, all in the space of one night: a woman falls to her death from the tower, one of Issei’s paintings vanishes, one of the guests disappears without explanation and a gruesome discovery is made in the furnace room. A solution is suggested by the police, but it’s not very satisfactory and lots of questions remain unanswered. A year later, in September 1986, the same people have gathered at the Mill House again and this time they are joined by Shimada Kiyoshi, a friend of the man who disappeared (and was largely blamed for everything that happened). Shimada believes he can find out the truth about the events of 1985, but he’ll have to hurry before history begins to repeat itself.

The Mill House Murders is another Ayatsuji novel that I thoroughly enjoyed, so it does seem that it’s only The Decagon House that, for whatever reason, didn’t work for me and I’m glad I decided to give him another chance! Although I often find that Japanese mysteries focus very heavily on complex puzzle solving, often involving alibis, timetables and maps, with characters, relationships and motives pushed into the background, this particular book is more balanced. It does have some floor plans, but I was pleased to find that I could follow the plot quite easily without having to study them too carefully, and the characterisation is stronger than in the Decagon and Labyrinth books.

The timeline switches backwards and forwards throughout the book, with one chapter describing the events of 1985 and the next set in the present day of 1986. This could have become confusing, but as long as I paid attention to the chapter headings, I had no problem keeping them straight in my mind. The mystery itself is a clever one; I partly managed to solve it (mainly because some of Seishi Yokomizo’s novels have similar tropes), but I didn’t get it completely right and was content to let Shimada Kiyoshi, the series detective, explain the full solution for me.

The translator, Ho-Ling Wong, also translated the other books I’ve read in this series and does a great job of making everything very clear and readable. I see there’s a fourth book in the series already in print – The Clock House Murders – and another, The Black Cat House Murders, on its way. I’ll look forward to reading both!