Category: Fiction

A House on the Rhine by Frances Faviell – #DeanStreetDecember24

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My previous experience with Frances Faviell has been limited to her Second World War memoir, A Chelsea Concerto, so I was curious to see what her novels were like. There are several currently available from Dean Street Press and as Liz is hosting her Dean Street December event this month, I decided it was a good time to give one of them a try.

A House on the Rhine, first published in 1955, tells the story of a family trying to adjust to life in postwar Germany. After their home was destroyed during the war, the family – Joseph and Moe and their twelve children – spent four and a half years living in an air raid shelter and have now been rehoused by the authorities in a village outside Cologne. Moe once received a medal from the Nazis for having more than ten children (large Aryan families being seen as the Nazi ideal), but now it seems that almost every member of that large family is embroiled in trouble of some sort and it’s anything but a happy, harmonious household.

Seventeen-year-old Katie is raising her young son alone after his father, a Belgian soldier, left her and went back to his own country. She sees the little boy as a burden preventing her from getting a job like her siblings and is envious of her older sister, Anna, whose own illegitimate child died. She can’t rely on her mother to help her with childcare because Moe is too distracted these days – she’s having an affair with their lodger, the much younger Rudi, and the whole family knows about it, including Joseph. And so, determined to have some fun and the chance to make some money, Katie has started sneaking out at night with several of her brothers to join a gang of other young people who engage in theft and violence under the cover of darkness.

Katie’s foster sister, Krista, has no memory of her own parents or her early life, having been found unconscious by Joseph during an air raid on Cologne. She has grown up with Joseph and Moe’s children, but is still seen as different and not quite like the others. Krista is in love with Paul, an American soldier, but is afraid to take their relationship any further because she knows her foster father doesn’t approve. Paul is confused. Is it his nationality that’s the problem – or is it because Joseph’s own feelings for Krista are not purely paternal?

I wasn’t prepared for this book being so dark! As well as the affairs, the unwanted pregnancies and the gang violence, some of the siblings also become implicated in a murder, while another, little Carola, is suffering from polio in hospital. It’s very bleak and the only characters I really liked, apart from the very young children, were Krista and Paul. Katie, her brother Hank, and the gang leader Leo were particularly horrible! The narrative moves around from one character to another so we have a chance to get to know all of the major players and I found Joseph, the patriarch of the family, the most complex and interesting. It’s clear that the war – and the time he spent in a prisoner of war camp in France – has affected him deeply, as has the loss of pride he has suffered in not being able to house his own family and the discovery that his children are now earning more than he is himself.

This is certainly not the usual gentle, comforting read I’ve come to associate with the Dean Street Press Furrowed Middlebrow imprint. I found it quite disturbing at times, though also very gripping. It’s a novel with a lot of depth and multiple layers and I know I’ve barely scratched the surface of it here. I can find very few other reviews of it, so if you’ve read it I would love to hear what you thought!

This edition of the book also contains a short story, The Russian for Sardines, originally published in the London Evening Standard in 1956 and also set in Germany after the war – a much more optimistic and uplifting story than A House on the Rhine! I’ll look forward to reading Frances Faviell’s other two novels published by DSP, Thalia and The Fledgeling, as well as her other memoir, The Dancing Bear.

The Hidden Girl by Lucinda Riley

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When Lucinda Riley died in 2021, it seemed that there would be no new books from her, but since then her son Harry Whittaker has completed her final, unfinished Seven Sisters novel, Atlas, and now has reworked one of her earliest novels which was originally published as Hidden Beauty in 1993 under the name of Lucinda Edmonds. Retitled The Hidden Girl, it’s not clear exactly how much input Harry has had, but he states in the foreword that he has ‘refreshed and updated the text’.

After a brief prologue, we meet our heroine Leah Thompson as a shy teenage girl living with her parents in 1970s Yorkshire. Leah has no big plans for the future – her time is filled with schoolwork and assisting her mother with her job as housekeeper at the big farmhouse owned by Rose Delancey – and she doesn’t consider herself to be anything special. She does have natural beauty, but is overshadowed by more confident girls, like Mrs Delancey’s adopted daughter, Miranda. Yet it’s Leah, not Miranda, who is spotted by a London modelling agency and within a few years has become one of the world’s top models.

In a second timeline, we join the young Rose – or Rosa as she was previously known – and her brother David, who are children in Poland during the Second World War. Rose and David are from a Jewish family and like many Polish Jews they experience some terrible things and are very lucky to survive the war. Some of the tension is lost because we already know that Rose and David are still alive in the late 1970s – we meet Rose in the very first chapter, a semi-retired artist living in Yorkshire with Miranda and her older son, Miles, and we learn that David is a wealthy businessman and a widower with a teenage son, Brett. However, it’s still harrowing to read about the things they had to go through before reaching a more settled status in life.

Although the wartime narrative does have relevance to the lives of the younger generation – in ways that they themselves don’t understand until much later – most of the novel is devoted to the ‘present day’ storyline (the 70s and 80s). At first I thought it was going to be a bit of a shallow story about celebrities leading glamorous lifestyles, but I soon discovered there was more depth to it than that. Riley explores the dark side of stardom and the fashion industry, including the temptations of drugs and alcohol, the pressure to succeed, the internal rivalries and competitiveness, and the men who just want to take advantage of beautiful young women. Some of the things that happen to Leah’s friend, Jenny, in particular, are horrible and I think anyone who picks up this book expecting a light read may be surprised by the topics it covers.

This is actually the third Lucinda Edmonds book to be reissued under a new title, after The Italian Girl and The Love Letter, but those two were rewritten by Lucinda herself and published during her lifetime. I wonder whether any of her other Edmonds novels will be reworked by Harry now as well – or whether he’ll decide to write a book of his own.

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

Fire by John Boyne – #NovNov24

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This is the third book in John Boyne’s Elements quartet and it’s the darkest and most powerful so far. Each book can be read as a standalone story, but if you’ve read the previous two – Water and Earth – you’ll see some links between the characters and plots. I would still recommend reading them in order if possible, although it’s not essential.

Fire, like the other books, is novella-length – in this case 163 pages – but as usual, Boyne manages to pack a huge amount into those pages, more than you would often find in a much longer novel. Our narrator this time is Freya Petrus, a renowned surgeon who works with burns and skin grafts. She’s only in her thirties but has already established herself as one of the best in her field. What Freya gets up to in her private life, however, is much less admirable…in fact, it’s horrible. To understand what has made her the person she is – both the good side and the bad – we have to go back to Freya’s childhood and witness the traumatic experiences that shaped her future.

It’s difficult to really discuss the issues a book like this raises without spoiling things, so I’ll just say that what Freya experiences as a child leaves her badly damaged and, in her mind, justifies the harm she does to other people as an adult. I did have some sympathy for the young Freya, but that was surpassed by the loathing I felt for the older Freya. John Boyne is never afraid to tackle unpleasant and controversial subjects in his books, but the things Freya does are particularly shocking and I found it a very uncomfortable book to read. It’s also fascinating and completely gripping, so I do recommend it as long as you’re prepared!

As with the themes of water and earth in the previous two books, the element of fire plays a part in this one in several different ways: not only does Freya work with victims of fire, it could be said that she’s also playing with fire in her personal life. Other important themes running through the story include the question of nature versus nurture and which has the biggest role in forming our character, the level of responsibility each of us has to do what we know is right, and the different expectations society has of men and women. It’s a book that leaves you with a lot to think about after reaching the final page.

Although each book in this quartet does work on its own, a minor character from each one becomes the main protagonist of the next. It seems that Aaron, who works with Freya at the hospital, is going to be the star of the final book, Air. It will be published in May 2025 and I’m looking forward to seeing how Boyne brings the series to an end.

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

I’m counting this book towards Novellas in November, hosted by Cathy of 746 Books and Rebecca of Bookish Beck

Finn Family Moomintroll by Tove Jansson – #MoominWeek

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Translated by Elizabeth Portch

I’ve never read a Moomin book until now – and if it hadn’t been for Mallika of Literary Potpourri and Chris of Calmgrove hosting #Moominweek this week (in time for Paula’s Moomin-themed wedding), I would probably never have picked one up. I’ve seen some of the cartoons/animated series, but it hadn’t occurred to me that I might enjoy reading the books. With no idea where to start – I’ve found several recommended reading orders, which aren’t necessarily chronological – I decided to begin with Finn Family Moomintroll and I think it was a good choice! As it was originally published in Swedish, it also counts towards Women in Translation Month.

First of all, what are Moomins? Well, they’re small, troll-like creatures who live in Moominvalley. There’s Moomintroll and his parents, Moominmamma and Moominpappa, and an assortment of friends including the Snork and the Snork Maiden (a related species, but with hair), Sniff, a strange little creature resembling a kangaroo who has been adopted by the family, and Snufkin, who wears old clothes and a wide-brimmed hat. You can see some of them, and others, in the illustration below:

Finn Family Moomintroll begins with the Moomin family preparing for their winter hibernation. After waking up again in spring, the book then takes us through the rest of the year, during which the Moomins have a series of adventures revolving around the discovery of a top hat belonging to a Hobgoblin. The hat turns out to have magical powers – some eggshells dropped into it become clouds for the children to ride on, and when Moomintroll himself hides inside it during a game, he too undergoes an unexpected transformation. The Moomins also go on an expedition to the Island of the Hattifatteners, are visited by two tiny creatures called Thingumy and Bob, and finally encounter the Hobgoblin, who has come in search of the missing King’s Ruby.

This book was first published in 1948 (and translated into English in 1950) and is the third in the Moomins series by order of publication. Although it would have been helpful to see how the various characters were first introduced, I didn’t really feel that I’d missed out on much by not reading the previous two books first – and in fact, this one was apparently marketed as the first in the series until the 1980s. I do wonder about the original Swedish title, Trollkarlens hatt, which translates to The Magician’s Hat; he is referred to as a Hobgoblin in the edition I read, but ‘Magician’ would have made more sense, I think.

The book has an episodic feel, with each chapter almost a separate little story in itself, linked by the common thread of the Hobgoblin’s Hat and its magical properties. There’s a focus on the relationships between friends and family members and on the various quirks and eccentricities of the characters. It’s obviously aimed at children, but as with all good children’s books it can be enjoyed by adults as well. I’m not even sure if I would have liked it as a child; I was never a big fan of the adaptations and I think I probably appreciated the book more now than I would have done when I was younger.

There aren’t really any deep themes here, but there’s a message of kindness and tolerance (the Moomins welcome all sorts of visitors and unusual creatures into the Moominhouse) which would have been more relevant than ever in the aftermath of World War II. I’ve heard that some of the later books in the series have more depth. I’ll probably try another one, although not immediately, and I’m interested in reading Tove Jansson’s adult books as well.

Miss Granby’s Secret: or The Bastard of Pinsk by Eleanor Farjeon

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Like many readers who have previously enjoyed books published by Dean Street Press, I was pleased to hear recently that they were continuing with their Furrowed Middlebrow imprint, after a period when the future had looked uncertain. Miss Granby’s Secret: or The Bastard of Pinsk is the first new book since that announcement was made. First published in 1941, it was written by Eleanor Farjeon and this edition also includes an introduction by Elizabeth Crawford.

The novel opens with the death of Miss Adelaide Granby in 1912. Miss Granby had been a prolific and very successful author, publishing forty-nine romance novels and gaining a large readership, but to her great-niece Pamela, she was always just Aunt Addie. Pamela, who considers herself a ‘modern woman’, has long suspected that Addie, who never married, didn’t understand the facts of life – in fact, Addie always insisted that she didn’t want to know, as it would affect the innocence of her writing. When a large, elaborate wreath is delivered to the funeral, then, accompanied by a romantic poem and a card inscribed “from Stanislaw”, Pamela is intrigued by the idea that Addie must once have had a love interest after all.

Pamela has inherited Aunt Addie’s house and her collection of papers, which includes letters, diaries and the unpublished manuscript of her first novel, written when she was just sixteen. This novel is entitled The Bastard of Pinsk (it seems from Addie’s notes that she believes a bastard is “a very noble Hero of Royal Blood”). As Pamela reads the documents she looks for clues to the identity of Stanislaw and wonders if it will be possible to track him down.

The text of The Bastard of Pinsk is included in its entirety, forming a story-within-a-story. Incorporating lots of tropes of the Romantic or Gothic novel, it’s both ridiculous and quite amusing, mainly because Adelaide Granby clearly doesn’t understand the words she’s using or what they imply. Although it was fun for a while, I started to get impatient to go back to the main story, but I’m sure for other readers it will be their favourite part of the book! I can see why the full story was included, though, as some of the things the young Addie writes about have parallels with her own life.

I enjoyed Pamela’s parts of the book and seeing the mystery of Addie’s relationship with Stanislaw unfold and overall I found it a lovely, entertaining read. A good choice for the revival of this imprint!

Thanks to the publisher for providing a copy of this book for review.

The Dumas Club by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

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Translated by Sonia Soto

For Spanish and Portuguese Lit Month, hosted by Stu of Winstonsdad’s Blog, I decided to read a book that sounded perfect for me. A bibliomystery set in the world of antiquarian booksellers, paying tribute to Alexandre Dumas, whose novels I love. What could go wrong?

The Dumas Club (or The Club Dumas – it has appeared under both titles) was originally published in Spanish in 1993 and translated into English three years later by Sonia Soto. You may have watched the 1999 film adaptation The Ninth Gate, starring Johnny Depp; I don’t think I’ve seen it, but apparently it’s very different from the book and completely removes the Dumas connection, which seems strange but maybe they thought there was too much going on and couldn’t include everything.

Lucas Corso is a ‘book detective’ who hunts down rare or valuable books on behalf of his clients. Corso has found that unscrupulous dealers and collectors are prepared to pay large sums of money for the books and don’t really care whether the methods he has used to get hold of them are particularly legal or ethical. In The Dumas Club, we follow Corso as he travels across Europe on two separate missions. The first concerns an early draft of a chapter from Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers. The chapter, titled Anjou Wine, appears to be written at least partly in Dumas’ own handwriting and Corso’s job is to prove its authenticity.

His second task is more complex and involves a very different kind of book: The Book of the Nine Doors of the Kingdom of Shadows, published by Aristide Torchia in 1666. This rare and sinister book is thought to contain the key to summoning the Devil and Torchia was burned at the stake shortly after its publication. Only one copy is thought to have survived. Corso’s client, Varo Borja, owns a copy of the book which he believes may be a forgery and he wants Corso to examine two other copies, one in Portugal and one in France, to determine which is genuine and which are fakes.

Setting out on his journey, Corso begins to encounter some mysterious strangers who remind him of characters from books. For example, he is pursued by a man with a scar who resembles Rochefort, the ‘Man from Meung’, from The Three Musketeers and he also crosses paths with a young woman who introduces herself as Irene Adler after the character from the Sherlock Holmes stories. Corso is unsure whether these people are interested in The Anjou Wine, The Nine Doors or both, so he must try to keep the manuscripts out of their hands until he has solved the two mysteries.

The Dumas Club is an unusual novel and there were lots of things I liked about it. As a Dumas fan, I enjoyed all the references to The Three Musketeers and other titles; it’s not really essential to be familiar with Dumas, but you’ll definitely get more out of the book if you are. Pérez-Reverte includes a lot of unnecessary information, though, such as a full bibliography of all Dumas’ works inserted into the middle of a chapter. This info-dumping continues throughout the book, as well as lots of long digressions into printing and binding techniques and discussions of first editions, illustrations and rare collections. Some of it is quite fascinating and I think people who love books as physical objects more than for the words they contain will find it particularly interesting, but it doesn’t make for a very quick or easy read.

Although I enjoyed following the Anjou Wine thread of the story, Corso’s second mission revolving around The Nine Doors and the occult was of less interest to me and reminded me too much of The Da Vinci Code. It didn’t help that I didn’t like Lucas Corso at all and found most of the other characters equally unpleasant. Still, the ending is clever and we are given answers to both of the mysteries, so I think my feelings about this book are probably slightly more positive than negative. Another of Pérez-Reverte’s novels was recommended to me a few years ago – Captain Alatriste – and wonder if I would get on better with that one.

Thomasina by Paul Gallico – #ReadingtheMeow2024

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When I saw that Mallika of Literary Potpourri was hosting her second Reading the Meow event this week – a celebration of cats in books – I knew exactly what I wanted to read. The Disney film The Three Lives of Thomasina was a favourite of mine as a child, but it never occurred to me to read the book on which it was based until I noticed that Lory of Entering the Enchanted Castle had read it for last year’s Reading the Meow so onto the list it went!

Published in 1957, Paul Gallico’s Thomasina is set in the fictional Scottish town of Inveranoch. Having lost his wife a few years earlier, veterinarian Andrew MacDhui has moved to the town from Glasgow and opened a surgery there, where he treats the pets of the townspeople, as well as looking after the health of the livestock on the surrounding farms. When the novel begins, MacDhui has only been living in Inveranoch for eighteen months and has already gained a reputation as a cold, bitter man who is good at his job but not mentally suited for it:

The gossips allowed that Andrew MacDhui was an honest, forthright and fair-dealing man, but, and this was the opinion of the strictly religiously inclined, a queer one to be dealing with God’s dumb creatures, since he appeared to have no love for animals, very little for man, and neither the inclination nor the time for God.

Since his wife’s death it seems that MacDhui has given what little love he still possesses to his seven-year-old daughter, Mary Ruadh, who is devoted to her ginger cat, Thomasina. When Thomasina becomes ill with a suspected meningeal infection, Mary takes her next door to her father’s surgery and begs him to save her pet’s life. Not pleased at being interrupted at his work and distracted by a difficult operation on a blind man’s dog, MacDhui tells her that Thomasina can’t be cured and orders his assistant to put the cat to sleep. Heartbroken, Mary vows never to speak to her father again and seems to really mean what she says. As the days go by and Mary’s silence continues, a desperate MacDhui pays a visit to Lori, a young woman who lives alone in the forest and is said to be a witch. Can Lori help repair the relationship between father and daughter or has too much damage been done?

Although I was already familiar with the plot, I found that this novel had far more depth than the Disney version and also a stronger religious element. There’s a lot of focus on MacDhui’s internal struggles as he tries to confront the loss of faith that has been with him since his wife died and on the efforts of Lori and the minister, Angus Peddie, to restore his belief in God and the power of love. Lori, a gentle, compassionate woman who tries to heal injured wild animals that others see as worthless, is a lovely character and reminded me a lot of Froniga in The White Witch by Elizabeth Goudge. However, I didn’t find the book overly sentimental because it’s balanced by the darker themes of loss and grief, as well as animal cruelty and its consequences for those who perpetrate it.

I’m sure younger readers will enjoy the chapters written from Thomasina’s own perspective, where she gives amusing descriptions of life in the MacDhui household, but I never really felt that I was reading a ‘children’s book’ and I think there’s enough here for readers of all ages to enjoy. Finally, without wanting to spoil too much, if you think Thomasina’s fate sounds too sad, I can assure you that her story is a happier one than you might expect.

This is book 3/20 of my 20 Books of Summer 2024.