Category: Historical Fiction

The Midnight Guests by Alex Hay

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It’s 1926 and London’s newest, grandest hotel is opening its doors for the first time. Owner Diana Gold is getting ready to welcome her first guests, who include some of the richest and most powerful people in the world – millionaires, bankers, royalty, film stars, politicians and gamblers. But she’s also expecting two guests who are not so welcome – two people who took her under their wing as a young woman and led her into a life of crime. Now Diana has found herself in their debt and they’re due to arrive at midnight to take what they are owed.

From that fateful opening night, we jump forward one hundred years to 2026 and meet Joe, an out-of-work historian who is staying at that same hotel, the Hotel Artemis, on its final night before it closes down. Joe’s grandmother, a former journalist, has recently died, leaving behind her uncompleted research into the mystery of two unidentified dead bodies found in the vaults of the hotel in 1929. Seeing a chance to earn some money, Joe has decided to continue his grandmother’s research and write about a book about it – but tonight is his final opportunity to investigate inside the hotel itself before it closes its doors again forever.

The novel is written from the perspectives of both Diana in 1926 and Joe in 2026, but there are also some chapters written from another character’s point of view – Cleo van der Meer, a young American woman who is one of the first guests at the Hotel Artemis. We don’t know at first how Cleo fits into the story, but everything becomes clear eventually! Although the plot is quite complex, it moves along at a fast pace and there are some clever twists, including a great one halfway through which I hadn’t seen coming at all. Hotels are always interesting settings, I think, and although the Artemis doesn’t really exist, I loved Alex Hay’s descriptions of it – he really captures the feel of what it may have been like to stay in a luxury hotel in the 1920s.

Like Hay’s previous two novels, The Housekeepers and The Queen of Fives, The Midnight Guests is unusual in that it focuses on the lives of criminals – people we would usually see as villains. Through the stories of Diana, her assistant Silas, and several of the other characters we see how easily people can drift into a life of crime and how difficult it can be for them to get out of it again. This is not a book to be taken too seriously, though, and is clearly intended to be fun and entertaining. It does all become quite far-fetched, particularly towards the end – with such a high body count that the remains found in the vault could be almost anyone’s! – but if you’ve read Hay’s other work you’ll have known what sort of book to expect anyway.

I don’t want to say too much more about this book as I don’t want to risk spoiling a story that relies so much on suspense and surprises. I enjoyed it and will be looking out for his next one.

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

Cold Sunset by William Boyd

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This is the third of William Boyd’s novels featuring travel writer turned spy Gabriel Dax. If you haven’t read the first two, Gabriel’s Moon and The Predicament, I highly recommend you do so as it will make this book much easier to follow – and they are both excellent books in their own right, so you won’t regret it.

Cold Sunset opens in 1964 with Gabriel in California where he has been instructed by MI6 to make contact with poet Francis Falkner who says he suspects his former Bletchley Park colleague, Angus Fairford, of passing information to the Russians during the war. As always, Gabriel feels uncomfortable with this kind of task and would prefer to spend his time in America researching his new book, but by now he’s so deeply entangled with his double life and the requests of his M16 handler Faith Green that he doesn’t know how to get out of it.

After returning to England (and dealing with the reappearance of a villain from the previous book who comes looking for revenge), Gabriel finds himself sent on yet another mission, this time to Russia to help exfiltrate Kit Caldwell, a triple agent who is trapped in Moscow. Gabriel has successfully managed to convince Russia’s KGB that he himself is a secret agent working for them but how much longer will he be able to keep up this pretence?

Since starting this series I’ve been particularly intrigued by Gabriel’s relationship with Faith Green. Her true motives have never been clear: Gabriel is infatuated with her, but does she really have feelings for him or is she just using him for her own purposes? I’ve never trusted her at all but Gabriel seems to trust her completely, which is quite frustrating! Even when slight doubts creep into his mind, he never acts on them. However, Boyd does a great job of keeping us wondering exactly what she’s up to and whether she’s really the person Gabriel thinks she is. I’d hoped for some answers to my questions in this book, as I believed it would be the last one – although now I’m not so sure.

Another thing I love about these books is the range of interesting locations Gabriel visits. The settings for the previous books included the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala and Berlin; in this one, he finally makes his long-awaited trip to Russia, where the novel’s most dramatic scenes take place, and there’s also a section set on a Greek island. Although Gabriel finds that his travel writing usually has to take second place to his spying, we do still hear a lot about the books he’s working on and they actually sound fascinating – I wish they were real! His current project is On the Beaten Track, which looks at famous tourist attractions from unusual perspectives, and his next book, The Job, will explore people in different countries working in the same three basic jobs.

As for William Boyd’s own next book, who knows? This has been marketed as a trilogy but it ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, with some key plot points still unresolved. Maybe we’re supposed to draw our own conclusions or maybe the door has been left open for more Gabriel Dax novels – if so I will definitely be reading them.

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

The Heiress of Northanger Abbey by Nancy Bilyeau

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Although I like Jane Austen’s novels, I’ve never had much interest in reading any of the many sequels, prequels or retellings written by other authors. However, I’ve read and enjoyed all of Nancy Bilyeau’s other books, so was happy to give this one a chance. As the title suggests, it’s inspired by Northanger Abbey, not my favourite Austen novel (that would be Persuasion), but one that I found entertaining and amusing. Those of you who have read it will remember that the heroine, Catherine Morland, is obsessed with Gothic novels; The Heiress of Northanger Abbey pays tribute to this with plenty of Gothic touches of its own!

The novel opens twenty-two years after the events of Northanger Abbey. Catherine has settled into married life as the wife of clergyman Henry Tilney and they have two daughters, Phoebe and Susan. Seventeen-year-old Phoebe, the eldest, is away from home accompanying her uncle and aunt, Frederick and Aurelia Tilney, who have gone to Bath to take the healing waters. Catherine is aware that as Frederick and Aurelia have no children of their own, they are considering making Phoebe their heiress, which means she would eventually inherit Northanger Abbey. However, in the 19th century being an heiress can be dangerous – as Catherine herself discovered twenty-two years earlier when a misunderstanding made her the target of fortune hunters John and Isabella Thorpe.

Catherine’s sister-in-law Eleanor Granville has come to visit for a few days with her children and Catherine offers to read Phoebe’s latest letter from Bath to them. She’s horrified when Phoebe mentions that the Thorpes are in Bath and that John Thorpe has suggested Phoebe go out riding with his son, Jack. Have Isabella and John set their sights on Phoebe and her possible fortune this time? Leaving eleven-year-old Susan in Eleanor’s care, Catherine heads straight for Bath to investigate – but is she right to distrust the Thorpes or is she just letting her imagination run wild again?

I really enjoyed this book, despite my usual aversion to Austen sequels. If you’ve never read Northanger Abbey, I don’t think that would be a problem at all; Bilyeau doesn’t just assume that you’ve read it and provides enough background information to make it easy to follow what’s happening and to understand Catherine’s history with the Thorpes. The writing style and use of language aren’t exact imitations of Austen’s, but still feel appropriate for the time period and the book can easily be read as an entertaining novel in its own right.

I loved the way we are kept guessing, at least for a while, about whether Catherine is correct about the Thorpes and Phoebe really is the target of their schemes or whether Catherine is judging them based on their actions all those years ago rather than the people they are now. I had my opinion and was proved right, but the story could have gone in different directions and been just as interesting. My favourite thing about the book, though, was the way Bilyeau uses Gothic elements to create suspense and atmosphere: a beautiful heiress who is (possibly) in danger; a mysterious villain; a lonely house on the moors; noises at night; and plenty of discussion of various Gothic novels, particularly John Polidori’s The Vampyre, published the year before the book is set.

My favourite Nancy Bilyeau novels are still the Genevieve Planché thrillers (beginning with The Blue), but this one was also very enjoyable and I’m happy to recommend it, whether or not you’re an Austen fan.

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

I’m linking this to RIPXXI hosted by @perilreaders

The Snow Witch by Kirsty Ferry

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Close to Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, there’s a stream known as Meggie’s Dene Burn. According to legend it’s named after Old Meg, a witch who lived in the area in the 17th century and whose burial site is said to be marked by a pink thorn tree. When Violet Marsh, the modern day heroine of Kirsty Ferry’s The Snow Witch, comes to Hadrian’s Wall to research her new book on the Newcastle Witch Trials, it’s Meg’s story that she finds most captivating. Basing herself near the village of Newbrough, Violet sets out to discover the truth about Meg, who she was and how she died.

The story of Meg Noble unfolds alongside Violet’s and the first thing we learn is that she isn’t old. When we first meet her in 1650, she’s a young woman who has inherited her grandmother’s gift of creating herbal remedies which she uses to help the people of Newbrough. She’s aware that fifteen people have been executed in the recent witch trials just a short journey away in Newcastle and, although she doesn’t really expect the witchfinder to come to Newbrough, she can’t help feeling uneasy. Her childhood nickname, a reference to her white blonde hair, is the Snow Witch, and she worships regularly at the well of the goddess Coventina, both things that could count against her if things go wrong…

Like Ferry’s previous book, The Witch’s Stone, this is a dual timeline novel where the two narratives become more and more entwined with each other as the story progresses and the characters begin to slip between time. There’s a strong supernatural element as Violet and Meg each become aware of the other’s presence despite being separated by centuries and Violet starts to see scenes from the past play out in front of her almost as if they were really happening. However, although I did like this book, I felt that it was very, very similar to The Witch’s Stone, even in the way the time periods merge together, and I think if I hadn’t already read that other book just a few months ago I would probably have enjoyed this one more.

Meg’s story is tragic and moving, especially when you remember that it’s based on historical fact; whether or not there really was a woman known as Old Meg who was executed for witchcraft in Newbrough, we do know that many other women (and some men) really did face this fate. I was frustrated with Meg’s naivety in thinking that the witchfinders wouldn’t come for her and wished she had just run away from the village, but I suppose then there would have been no story! In the modern day, I enjoyed watching Violet unearthing information about Meg, helped by her partner, history teacher Jake, who turns up unexpectedly, and another man, Ollie, who is in the area researching his family tree. All three become emotionally invested in Meg’s story, in one way or another.

I loved the setting of the book; I have visited some parts of Hadrian’s Wall but not the place where Meg supposedly lived. I was particularly interested by the inclusion of Coventina’s Well, as I recently read about Coventina and her links with water and healing in No Fair Maidens by Kim Willis, a book about ancient British goddesses. It seems that Kirsty Ferry will be writing more books about historical witches: her next one, The Witch of the Solstice is advertised for February 2027 and I’ll be looking out for it.

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

The dark atmosphere, witch trial theme and supernatural aspects meet the requirements of RIPXXI, I think!

The Matchbox Girl by Alice Jolly

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My 20th and final book for the 20 Books of Summer challenge is the winner of this year’s Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, Alice Jolly’s The Matchbox Girl. I wasn’t sure about reading this book as I’d heard that it was written in an unusual style, but as reading the Walter Scott Prize shortlists is a personal project of mine, I knew I’d have to at least give it a chance.

The matchbox girl of the title is Adelheid Brunner who is twelve years old when the novel opens in 1934. Accompanied by her pet rat Franz Joseph, Adelheid arrives at the Vienna Children’s Hospital where she will stay for a while to be assessed and observed by a team of doctors. It was her grandmother’s decision to send her there as she was struggling to cope with Adelheid’s unusual fixations, such as her obsession with collecting matchboxes which she is constantly counting, arranging and putting in order. One of the doctors at the hospital, referred to by Adelheid as Dr A, shows a particular interest in her behaviour because it aligns with his research into what he calls ‘autistic psychopathy’.

Dr A, as we’ll find out later, is Hans Asperger, the man whose name was given to Asperger’s Syndrome, although that term is no longer used for various reasons – partly because people are usually now diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum rather than with specific conditions, but also because of Hans Asperger’s ties with the Nazis. This Nazi connection becomes an important part of the novel as the years go by and the war gets under way. Adelheid is now working as an assistant in the Vienna Children’s Hospital, copying and typing records. She knows that some children are being transferred to another clinic, Am Spiegelgrund, where they’ll supposedly receive specialist treatment, but through her work with the hospital records, Adelheid discovers that these children are described as ‘useless eaters’ – in other words, not considered worthy of life or conforming to the Nazi ideal – and once they are sent there, they’re unlikely to return.

Dr Asperger’s role in all of this is quite ambiguous in the novel; we’re seeing things from Adelheid’s point of view and she doesn’t understand exactly what’s going on. How much knowledge did Asperger have of what was happening at Am Spiegelgrund and what was the extent of his involvement with the Nazis? In reality, it does seem that there’s still some debate around this and the level of his complicity. The other doctors and nurses are also people who really existed and Jolly incorporates some of their personal stories into the novel too, for example Anni Weiss and Georg Frankl, who also carried out research into autism at the hospital but were forced to flee Austria for America because they were Jewish, and Sister Viktorine and Dr Feldner, who both bravely try to defy the Nazi regime.

As well as collecting matchboxes, Adelheid loves writing in her notebooks, which she does compulsively. She never speaks – she’s not sure what she should and shouldn’t say, so it’s safer to not speak at all – but her voice still comes across strongly through her unusual way of writing. Unfortunately, I found this as irritating as I’d anticipated: random words have capital letters, there are no quotation marks around speech and Adelheid often repeats words three times (“For so long everything was the samesamesame. Until it was all changechangechange”). I do understand what Alice Jolly was trying to do here and I suppose it was quite effective, but I found it so distracting I couldn’t get invested in the story as much as I would have liked.

Still, the setting and subject were interesting enough to make this a worthwhile read for me. The insights into how children with autism were viewed and treated in the 1930s were fascinating and so was the portrayal of life in Nazi controlled Vienna. I can see why the Walter Scott Prize judges were impressed with this book, even if it wasn’t a complete success with me.

Book 20/20 of 20 Books of Summer

The Crownless Queen by Elizabeth Chadwick

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This is the second of Elizabeth Chadwick’s two novels about Jeanette of Kent. If you haven’t read the first, The Royal Rebel, it’s not essential, particularly if you’re already familiar with this period of history, but I would still recommend it so that you can enjoy the whole of Jeanette’s story. The first book introduced us to Jeanette (usually called Joan, but I’ll stick with the name Chadwick uses in the novel), a granddaughter of Edward I, and took us through her nine year struggle to get her secret marriage to Thomas Holland, a knight in the royal household, officially recognised and declared valid.

The Crownless Queen begins in 1361 with Jeanette, now thirty-four years old and a mother of four children, awaiting news of Thomas, who is in Normandy on military duty. Sadly, when news eventually arrives, it’s the last thing she wants to hear – Thomas has caught a fever and died. Jeanette is heartbroken but understands that due to her position and wealth, she’ll be expected to marry again, so when the king’s eldest son and heir – Edward, the Black Prince – makes her an offer of marriage, she accepts. Edward’s father isn’t pleased and believes he could have made a better match, but Jeanette and Edward have been close friends since childhood and there’s genuine love and affection between them.

All of this happens very early in the book, so there’s a lot more to follow including Edward and Jeanette’s time in Aquitaine, where Edward has been sent to govern; the lives of their two young sons and of Jeanette’s children from her previous marriage; Edward’s mysterious illness which shortens his life; the death of Edward’s father, King Edward III, and the accession to the throne of the young Richard II at the age of only ten. Most of this is written from Jeanette’s point of view, but we do occasionally see things from the perspective of other characters such as Edward himself and Jeanette’s eldest son, Tom Holland. I enjoyed watching Tom grow up and mature into a young man, learning to love and respect his wife Alys FitzAlan, to whom he is married while they are both still children. Tom’s brother John (referred to as Johan in the book) enters the service of one of the king’s younger sons, John, Duke of Lancaster – better known today as John of Gaunt – and would later marry John’s daughter Elizabeth. Their story is told in The King’s Sister by Anne O’Brien – one of the things I love about reading historical fiction is the way so many books by different authors overlap and intersect providing different angles and approaches.

Chadwick has a real talent for bringing her characters to life, so even if you already know what happens, it’s still possible to become emotionally invested in the story. We know from history that Edward would die a year before his father and would never become king, but that doesn’t make the story any less interesting or the descriptions of his long illness and Jeanette’s despair any less tragic. We also know that it would be their son Richard who would come to the throne instead; child characters can be difficult to get right, but Chadwick does a good job of showing the flaws already present in the young Richard’s character that would make him an unpopular king later on, such as an obsession with the outward symbols of power and wealth.

Another aspect of this book I loved was the relationship between Jeanette and her brother-in-law John of Gaunt, beginning with suspicion and disapproval, but developing over the years into a friendship based on mutual trust and respect. Although John is married twice over the course of the novel, first to Blanche of Lancaster then Constanza of Castile, his affair with Katherine Swynford is also touched upon and apparently John and Katherine are going to be the focus of Chadwick’s next novel, which I’m already looking forward to!

Thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Book 19/20 of 20 Books of Summer

The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett

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Since reading The Help, which was published in 2009, it’s been a very long wait for Kathryn Stockett’s second novel. The Calamity Club finally arrived earlier this year, after a seventeen year gap, and I put it on my list for the 20 Books of Summer challenge – which maybe wasn’t a great idea as it was so long I could probably have read two or three other books for the challenge in the same length of time! Anyway, I loved it so it was time well spent.

The book is set in Oxford, Mississippi in 1933. Many families are struggling financially as the Great Depression tightens its grip and Birdie Calhoun’s mother and grandmother have sent her to Oxford to ask her wealthy sister Frances to lend them some money. However, Birdie quickly discovers that her sister’s life isn’t as perfect as she would like everyone to believe and she and her husband are having difficulties of their own.

Meanwhile, in Oxford’s Lafayette County Orphan Asylum, eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur is still hoping that her mother will come to reclaim her. Abandoned on Christmas Eve, Meg has been living at the orphanage for two years and is now one of the ‘big girls’, considered almost unadoptable as most people would prefer a baby or toddler. For some reason, she has also become the main target of Garnett Pittman, the cruel and abusive woman in charge of the orphanage. Miserable and isolated, Meg is given a glimmer of hope when she meets Birdie, who has taken a temporary job as bookkeeper at the orphanage.

The novel is narrated by both Birdie and Meg and each has her own narrative voice (Meg’s is particularly distinctive). As the book has more than 600 pages, there’s obviously a lot more to the plot than the brief summary I’ve given above, but I don’t want to spoil things by going into too much detail. The way in which Birdie sets out to make the money she and her family need, while also trying to help Meg, is unexpected and daring, so I’ll leave you to find out what it is for yourself if you decide to read the book. What I can tell you is that it’s a book which touches on lots of interesting but serious topics including prostitution and what drives a woman to it, views on homosexuality at a time when it was considered an illness that could be cured, alcoholism and how it can break up a family, and of course dealing with poverty and everything that comes with it. However, it’s not as depressing as it sounds and there’s plenty of humour to lighten the mood, mostly provided by the unusual group of women who form the Calamity Club of the title.

I liked Birdie, who is outspoken, loyal and courageous, but it was Meg who really won me over. I thought Stockett perfectly captured her vulnerability, her longing to feel loved and wanted and her desperation to get away from the orphanage and never be sent back. She’s also intelligent, resourceful and, due to her circumstances, often seems older than her years, so she’s a child character with a lot of depth and complexity. There are other characters who, although much less sympathetic, are equally memorable: Garnett Pittman is a truly horrifying villain, while Birdie’s shallow, self-absorbed sister Frances is a constant source of frustration for both Birdie and the reader!

So, does the book feel too long? I think at times, yes, it does, and could probably have been condensed a little bit, but on the other hand it means there was plenty of time to become fully drawn into the story and the world Stockett was building. I loved the insight this book gives us into life in 1930s Mississippi and I’m hoping we won’t have to wait another seventeen years for Kathryn Stockett’s next book!

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

Book 18/20 of 20 Books of Summer