Category: Reviews

The Last Love Song by Lucinda Riley

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This is a reworking of one of Lucinda Riley’s early novels, originally published as Losing You in 1997 under the name Lucinda Edmonds. After Riley’s death in 2021, her son Harry Whittaker completed her unfinished novel, Atlas, then updated another of her early books, Hidden Beauty, as The Hidden Girl. It would be interesting to know exactly how much is Whittaker’s work, but without reading the originals it’s impossible to tell.

The Last Love Song begins in 1964 in the village of Ballymore on the coast of West Cork, Ireland. When sixteen-year-old Sorcha O’Donovan goes to see a local band with her friends from school, she has no idea that her life is about to change forever. Within months she is heading for London with the lead singer, Con Daly, having been disowned by her father, who disapproves of their relationship. After a period of struggling to make ends meet while Con looks for opportunities in London’s vibrant music scene, he finally achieves stardom with his new band, The Fishermen, and he and Sorcha become rich and famous almost overnight. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily bring happiness and when Helen McCarthy, a face from both their pasts, arrives back in their lives, everything starts to go wrong.

Two decades later, preparations are being made for a huge charity concert at Wembley Stadium. The Fishermen have agreed to reform for the event, but one member is missing – Con Daly, who disappeared seventeen years ago after suffering a personal tragedy. There’s only one person who may be able to find out what happened all those years earlier; the problem is, she’s in prison…

I enjoyed this book; it was much more than just the simple romance it seemed to be at first. Although I found Sorcha slightly bland, I thought Helen McCarthy was a great character and I veered between loving and hating her at various times throughout the book. Mostly I admired her for trying to get what she wanted out of life despite things not always going her way. There’s also a crime element to the story, which becomes stronger towards the end – my biggest criticism of the book is that this part of the plot is dropped for a long section in the middle – and although I easily guessed who the culprit was, I was kept in suspense wondering when and how they would finally be caught!

What I really loved about this book, though, is the portrayal of the 60s music scene. The novel takes us step by step through every stage of the Fishermens’ rise to fame, beginning with the formation of the band and choosing of the name, their first meeting with the man who would become their manager, and the difficulties they faced in getting signed to a record label. The complex and often tense relationships between the four band members are explored and it’s difficult not to think of the Beatles, with Con and Todd in the Lennon-McCartney positions as the band’s two main songwriters, Derek as an aspiring songwriter in his own right, struggling to make himself heard, and Ian as the happy-go-lucky drummer. If you enjoyed Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Daisy Jones and the Six, I think you’ll like the musical aspect of this novel, if nothing else!

I think there are one or two more Edmonds novels that haven’t been published yet, but I haven’t seen any news on whether Harry Whittaker will be reworking them as well. Of the books already available under the Riley name, I haven’t read Hothouse Flower or The Angel Tree yet, so still have those two to look forward to. I’ve also discovered that Harry has written his own book, Orlando, coming later this year.

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

Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (re-read)

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I hadn’t been planning a re-read of this book, but when FictionFan announced a review-along I couldn’t resist joining in. I’m not sure exactly when I first read it, but it must have been around twenty years ago when I went through a phase of reading Victorian sensation novels (if you’re not familiar with the term, the sensation novel was a popular genre of 19th century fiction featuring shocking crimes in ordinary domestic settings). This is one that I particularly enjoyed so I was happy to read it again and am looking forward to reading the other review-along participants’ reviews to see what everyone else thought!

Lady Audley’s Secret was published in 1862 and was Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s most successful novel, although she wrote more than eighty others, as well as some short stories. The first thing I discovered when I started to re-read it is that I could barely remember anything at all about it, so it was almost like experiencing it for the first time again.

The novel opens with the marriage of Sir Michael Audley and Lucy Graham. Lucy is young and beautiful and Sir Michael, a middle-aged widower, is enchanted by his new wife. Little is known about her past before she arrived in the village as governess to the local doctor’s children, but Sir Michael doesn’t care – Lucy’s happiness is all that matters to him. Meanwhile, his nephew, Robert Audley, has just been reacquainted with his old friend George Talboys, who has been in Australia for three years. George, who had found himself struggling financially, had left his wife, Helen, in England while he went off to improve his fortunes. Now that he’s returned, he’s looking forward to seeing her again and is heartbroken when he discovers that she has died during his absence.

Robert does his best to comfort his friend and brings him to Audley Court to meet Sir Michael, hoping it will help to take his mind off things. However, when George disappears without explanation, Robert begins to grow suspicious of his uncle’s new wife. Convinced that George has been murdered and that the new Lady Audley is implicated, Robert begins to investigate her past and is shocked by what he discovers.

I won’t discuss the plot in any more detail as I don’t want to give too much away, but all the typical elements of a sensation novel are here: murder, arson, family secrets, stolen letters, faked telegrams, blackmail, hidden identities, thunderstorms and all sort of lies and deception! The book also touches on some more serious topics, such as the subject of madness, how it was viewed in the 19th century and how it was often used as a convenient excuse to have women locked away in order to avoid embarrassment or scandal. It’s not really difficult to guess some of the secrets but, remembering that this was one of the first and most influential books of its type, I expect readers at the time would have found it more shocking and unpredictable. It would also have had some extra relevance for Victorian readers, as Braddon took inspiration from the high profile Constance Kent murder case of 1860, which also inspired parts of Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone and, much later, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale.

One thing I had forgotten from my previous read was how little of the story is actually written from Lady Audley’s perspective. Instead, we spend most of the novel in Robert Audley’s company as he tries to get to the bottom of his friend’s disappearance. Although ‘detective fiction’ didn’t really exist in 1861 in the way we know it today, Robert, who is a lawyer, takes on the role of an amateur detective, tracing clues, gathering evidence and speaking to witnesses. It’s fascinating to watch him gradually begin to unravel the truth, although I didn’t always agree with what he did with the information he uncovered! Because most of what we see and learn of Lady Audley is from Robert’s point of view, she’s very much the villain of the book, but I think it’s clear that Braddon wants us to at least have some sympathy for her circumstances, if not her actions. I was a bit disappointed that George’s sister, Clara Talboys, doesn’t play a bigger part in the story, though – when she’s first introduced, it seems she’s going to join Robert in his investigations, but she barely appears again until the end.

I enjoyed my re-read, then; it’s a very readable book and although it’s quite a long one and the pace slows down at times, I still flew through the pages faster than you would expect. I’ve also read two other books by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, both of which I’ve reviewed on my blog: Aurora Floyd and The Doctor’s Wife. The first has quite a similar feel to Lady Audley’s Secret, although I didn’t find it as exciting, but the latter is very different. I’ll definitely try to explore more of Braddon’s books soon, but I would also like to revisit East Lynne by Ellen Wood and some of my favourite Wilkie Collins sensation novels.

Here are the reviews of the other review-along participants. Let me know if I’ve missed yours!

FictionFan’s Book Reviews

Rose Reads Novels

Novel Deelights

Kelly’s Thoughts and Ramblings

What? Me Read?

The Eagle and the Hart by Helen Castor

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The Eagle and the Hart is a dual biography of two English kings, Richard II and Henry IV (also known as Bolingbroke). Cousins born just a few months apart, they were both grandsons of Edward III, so their lives were linked from the beginning, although their paths to the throne were very different. In this biography, which was longlisted for last year’s Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, historian Helen Castor explores the stories of the two kings, with the title of the book inspired by their heraldic emblems, Richard’s white hart and Henry’s golden eagle. The book moves forward chronologically, beginning with the childhoods of both kings then continuing through Richard’s reign and deposition by Henry, finally ending just after Henry’s death in 1413.

Richard II is shown very much as he usually is: a weak, unpopular king whose reign was marked by high taxation and accusations of favouritism, his only shining moment being his handling of the Peasants’ Revolt; a man who believed in his divine right to rule, who liked the status and power that came with being king but didn’t have the personal qualities needed to be a good leader. Castor doesn’t challenge any of these ideas and her sympathies are clearly more with Henry, portrayed as having all the abilities Richard lacks but the misfortune to be born to a younger son and not in the direct line of succession. However, when Henry eventually seizes his chance to become king, his own reign is also beset with problems and he spends his time dealing with various plots, assassination attempts and rebellions.

Although I’ve read historical fiction featuring Richard II and Henry IV and both have popped up in some general non-fiction I’ve read about the period (such as The Plantagenets by Dan Jones), this is the first time I’ve read a full biography of either of them. It wasn’t quite what I would have preferred, though. The book is described in the blurb as ‘the story of one of the strangest and most fateful relationships in English history’, so I would have liked more focus on this relationship, more direct comparison of their backgrounds and discussion of how this shaped their different political and leadership styles, some analysis of their meetings and interactions etc. In fairness, as Castor points out in her introduction, it’s difficult to draw a psychological portrait without access to diaries, private letters or memoirs. What we get, then, is a book that feels like two separate biographies unfolding in parallel, with little crossover between the two, and I found the writing style generally quite dry and impersonal.

The Eagle and the Hart is a long book and I took my time reading it as there’s so much information to take in. There’s also some additional material at the front of the book including maps, family trees, a list of illustrations and at the back, taking up the final 25% of the book, a bibliography, directory of the main players in the royal and noble families, notes and an index. I think for anyone wanting to make a serious study of the period, this book could be a very useful resource. For the general reader, there’s maybe a bit more detail than is really necessary, but it obviously depends on the type of book you prefer and are looking for. The other book I’ve read by Castor, She-Wolves, was more enjoyable but I did get a lot out of reading this one as well.

The Cromarty Library Circle by Shona MacLean

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My experience of Shona MacLean’s work has so far been limited to her historical thriller, The Bookseller of Inverness, set in Scotland in the aftermath of the 1745 Jacobite Rising (and published under the name SG MacLean). Her newest novel, The Cromarty Library Circle, is very different – the only similarity is that it’s also set in Scotland.

Cromarty is a town in the Scottish Highlands, situated at the tip of the Black Isle. The story takes place in 1831, when a group of people get together to form a circulating library and discuss which books they should order for it. They’re a select group, referred to by the town clockmaker (who has not been invited, despite being better read than they are) as ‘the great and the good’. They include Sir William and Charlotte Mackenzie, the local laird and his wife; her best friend, Rachel who is married to the minister, Alasdair Mackay; the previous minister, Micah Fraser, now retired; the hotel keeper Mrs Cameron and her son Ludovic, who works in a bank; two spinster sisters, the Misses Rose; a newly arrived schoolteacher, John Learmonth; an antiquarian, Isaac Fordyce, and the owner of a rope factory, Willie Hossack.

If you feel overwhelmed by this list, I can tell you that there are even more characters – those outside of the library circle – who also play a part in the story. Maybe it would have been better if I’d read this book in physical form and could easily turn back to the character list at the beginning, but I read it on my Kindle and struggled to keep track of who was who. It didn’t help that we switch from one perspective to another every few pages, rather than being given time to get to know one character before meeting another. Once I eventually managed to settle into the book and keep the many residents of Cromarty straight in my head, though, I found a lot to interest me.

In terms of plot, not much actually happens in the first half of the book. MacLean takes her time setting the scene and introducing the characters, focusing on all the gossip, snobbery, rivalries and minor scandals that go along with being part of a small 19th century community with a clearly defined social structure. I was strongly reminded of Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. The drama is saved for later in the book, when the troubled marriage between Sir William and Charlotte Mackenzie reaches breaking point, the secret past of schoolmaster John Learmonth is revealed, and the people of Cromarty have finally had enough of the arrogant, bullying attitude of the ropemaker’s son, Farquhar Hossack. I was more invested in the story by this point, so I think, for me, it was worth persevering through the slow, confusing beginning.

The lives of the characters play out against the backdrop of wider political and social changes affecting Scotland and the world as a whole. One of these issues is the debate around the abolition of slavery; this is of particular significance to our story because Sir William owns a plantation in the Caribbean and another character, Hester, is a formerly enslaved woman from Demerara who now works as a servant at the Camerons’ hotel. There’s also a lot of discussion in Cromarty of the Reform Act about to be passed in parliament which will extend the right to vote (although still not to women or most working class men). Then there’s the cholera epidemic gradually moving closer and closer to Cromarty and we even hear about the recent Polish uprising against Russia through the character of Stanislas, the clockmaker’s apprentice. The novel touches on so many different things that I felt the library circle storyline got a bit lost in the background, although it serves its purpose of bringing the central group of characters together now and then.

I had a mixture of feelings about this book, then, but in the end I enjoyed getting to know the people of Cromarty. I’ll look out for Shona MacLean’s next book, but I still have one of her earlier ones, The Redemption of Alexander Seaton, waiting to be read.

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

Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie

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This month’s theme for the Read Christie 2026 challenge is ‘Best Short Story Collection’. I’ve already read the suggested title, The Labours of Hercules, so I decided to choose a different one – and although I’m not sure whether Poirot Investigates would be considered one of her best short story collections, it was her first and it’s one I hadn’t read before. Originally published in the UK in 1924, it contains eleven stories all featuring Hercule Poirot and narrated by Captain Hastings. The US version published a year later includes three extra stories, which later appeared in the UK in Poirot’s Early Cases.

The stories in this book are quick and fun to read, although some of them feel a bit insubstantial and there’s a sense that Christie is experimenting with different types of plot and still finding her feet as a writer. Poirot himself also doesn’t feel entirely like the character we get to know later on, but Christie is beginning to develop his famous characteristics and mannerisms in these stories. I’ve always loved Hastings and his relationship with Poirot, so I was happy that he narrates this whole collection. It’s very endearing every time he gets excited thinking he has solved the mystery and tries to console Poirot for getting things wrong – only to find out, every time, that Poirot has been a step ahead all along!

I won’t discuss all of the stories here, but will mention a few of the highlights. I think my favourite story was The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim, in which Inspector Japp tells Poirot about the disappearance of a banker who went out to post some letters and hasn’t returned. Poirot makes a bet with Japp that he can solve the crime without even leaving his armchair. The solution to this one is clever and the way Poirot carries out his investigation from his own home makes it feel slightly different. I also really enjoyed The Adventure of the Cheap Flat. One of Hastings’ friends, Mrs Robinson, tells him how she and her husband have been searching for a flat to rent and have been offered a beautifully furnished one at a desirable address for a suspiciously low price. This entertaining little story brings in some elements of espionage and adventure and, of course, Poirot quickly discovers why the flat is so cheap!

The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb is another I particularly liked, mainly for the setting and the atmosphere. It involves the deaths, one by one, of the people involved with the opening of the tomb of King Men-He-Rah. Poirot and Hastings travel to Egypt to try to unravel the mystery, which is clearly inspired by the real life opening of the tomb of Tutankhamun which took place just before the story was written.

This is an enjoyable collection, then – maybe not as strong overall as some of her others, but it was interesting to read some stories written so early in Christie’s career. I’m not planning to take part in Read Christie next month but have The Rose and the Yew Tree, one of her books published as Mary Westmacott, lined up for July.

24 Hours in Shogun’s Japan by Mark Hudson

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This is part of a series in which each book explores the history of a different time and place through the lens of one twenty-four-hour day. I haven’t come across any of the previous books, but I was drawn to this one because I know relatively little about Japan’s history and wanted to add to my limited knowledge. Most of what I do know about this period (the Tokugawa shogunate of 1603 to 1868) comes from novels like James Clavell’s Shogun so I thought it would be interesting to read some nonfiction on the subject – although as it turned out, this book is an unusual combination of fiction and nonfiction.

24 Hours in Shogun’s Japan focuses on a day in 1614 and devotes one chapter to each hour of the day, beginning at midnight. The chapters are headed with both the Western time and the equivalent Japanese term, a system introduced from China – for example, Upper Hour of the Rat or Lower Hour of the Dragon – which I thought was a nice touch. We are then given a short fictional story providing a snapshot of one person’s life as they go about their usual daily activities during that hour. As we progress through the day one hour at a time, we meet a range of characters from all walks of life – a doctor, a pilgrim, a merchant, a pirate and many more – and each one has their own story to be told.

The stories are too short to be very satisfying as works of fiction, but they are there to serve a purpose and they do that very well, providing snapshots of all aspects of daily life – the food people ate, the clothes they wore, the housing they lived in and the types of job they did. Some of the characters who stood out for me included a tea master preparing for the elaborate ritual of the tea ceremony, a fisherman trying to persuade everyone to buy a new type of fish they’d never even seen, a Kabuki dancer performing on stage by the river in Kyoto and a man known as a Yamabushi, or mountain ascetic, getting ready to climb Mount Fuji.

Each chapter includes some key historical facts, there are illustrations and at the end of the book there’s an index and a list of sources and suggestions for further reading. If you want something more academic you would need to look elsewhere, but this is an excellent starting point. The book is obviously intended as an introduction to the time period and the style and structure make it very accessible to readers who are new to the subject.

If you like the sound of the format of these books but aren’t interested in Shogun-era Japan, the others in the series cover Ancient China, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Athens, Ancient Rome and the Viking World. They’re not all by the same author but I assume they’re all written in a similar way. I found this one a quick and informative read, so I would probably consider reading another one.

Can you recommend any good books about Japanese history?

Thanks to Michael O’Mara Books for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

The Lost Orphans of Lyon by Helen Parusel

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There are so many books set during the two world wars, it can be easy to think that you’ve read enough of them and don’t need any more…but I’m so pleased I didn’t overlook The Lost Orphans of Lyon. Although I’ve read other novels about the French Resistance, this one touches on aspects that were new to me, such as the role of the Huguenot community of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in sheltering hundreds of child refugees fleeing the Nazis.

Although the novel is inspired by real historical events, the story is told through the eyes of two fictional women. Yvette Dubois and her husband Armand have been married for just two weeks when they receive the news that Armand’s brother, Lucien, has died, leaving them to inherit his crumbling château and vineyard in the French countryside. Armand insists that he can’t leave his business in Lyon, so it falls to Yvette to take on the management of their new property. With only a hostile housekeeper for company, Yvette is annoyed at being abandoned so early into her marriage, but she soon finds a sense of purpose when she hears a knocking from behind a tapestry in the library. Pulling back the tapestry, she opens a hidden door to discover a young woman with two small children. It seems that Lucien was part of an escape network smuggling vulnerable children to safety in the nearby village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon.

To put things in context, it’s September 1942 and a large part of France is under Nazi occupation. The area around Lucien’s château has remained part of the ‘free zone’, but will soon become occupied as well. When Yvette decides to continue Lucien’s work, she knows how dangerous it will be – particularly when she learns that Armand is collaborating with the Germans.

Part of the book is also written from the perspective of Marie, a seventeen-year-old girl who lives in Chambon. Marie is in love with Pierre, a man who has joined the maquis – the band of armed fighters hiding in the countryside and working on behalf of the French Resistance. Determined to play her own part in defying the Nazis, Marie takes on the job of collecting the children at the other end of the tunnel from the château and bringing them to the village to be housed.

Yvette and Marie are both very engaging characters – two women from completely different backgrounds, but dedicated to the same cause. I liked both of them and was equally invested in each of the two narratives. This is a book I didn’t want to put down…and when I did have to, I couldn’t wait to get back to it! With the stakes being so high, there’s a real sense of danger throughout the novel (the Nazi characters are as horrible and brutal as you would expect) and there’s no guarantee that any of the people involved in the escape chain are going to survive.

As well as the storyline with the children, Yvette and Marie both have their own personal stories – Yvette’s discovery that her husband isn’t the man she thought she knew and Marie’s love for Pierre, despite the disapproval of her parents – as well as some subplots involving other characters, such as the servants at the château. I thought the balance between the historical and the personal was just about right, although other readers may prefer more or less of one or the other. Overall, though, I found this a vivid and moving portrayal of life in Occupied France.

This is the first book I’ve read by Helen Parusel. I see she has written three others dealing with the resistance movements in other parts of Europe, so after enjoying this book so much, I would definitely like to try another one. I just need to decide which one to choose next!

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