Category: Historical Fiction

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!

Book 18/20 of 20 Books of Summer

Little Spark by Jess Kidd

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A new Jess Kidd book is always something to look forward to and this year we’ve had two of them: first, Murder at the Spirit Lounge, the second book in the Nora Breen Investigates series, and now Little Spark, a standalone novel set in Victorian England.

Little Spark is the story of Bodkin Bell, a young woman with the unusual ability to generate powerful currents of electricity within her body. Bodkin has no idea why she has this particular skill – or curse, as it often seems to be. In fact, she knows very little about herself at all, except that she’s an orphan who has been taken under the wing of Cornelius Bell, a travelling showman. Cornelius has taught Bodkin how to pick pockets and use her wits to survive and together they travel the country with a sideshow act so Bodkin can perform as ‘Little Spark’. One day, however, things go wrong and Bodkin finds herself arrested.

Separated from Cornelius, her only friend, Bodkin begins to serve a prison sentence until she is rescued by Lady Hesperia Haseley who is making a charitable visit to the prison and takes a liking to her. Bodkin is offered a position as a servant at Point Mote, the Haseley estate, but once she arrives at her new home, she begins to wonder whether Lady Hesperia may have had another motive for bringing her there.

Point Mote is a neglected, crumbling mansion situated in the Kent marshlands, an appropriately atmospheric setting for a novel like this one. The former owner, Spendlove Haseley, was an inventor of automata, and his work is being continued after his death by his son, Ramshaw. Almost the first thing Bodkin sees when she enters the house is a disembodied mechanical hand stirring a pot of stew in the kitchen – and there are other machines and devices like this all over the house and its grounds. I was reminded of Anna Mazzola’s The Clockwork Girl, another dark historical novel about a creator of automata, although the settings and plots are quite different. Bodkin’s new job is to assist Ramshaw with his inventions and as she does so, she makes some discoveries about her employer, his family and herself.

Bodkin herself is an engaging heroine and although I’d expected more focus on her strange powers, it was interesting to watch her trying to solve the various mysteries of Point Mote with the help (or hindrance) of its other inhabitants, the usual cast of colourful characters you would expect to find in a Kidd novel. I was particularly intrigued by the two maids, sisters Coralie and Claudine, who have each lost an eye, one on the left and one on the right, although they won’t say exactly how it happened. There’s also Huffkin the dog, who may or may not be real! It’s such a fascinating, imaginative story; my only criticism is that I guessed the twists too easily – one in particular is a twist I’ve come across in several other books. Still, I found this a very enjoyable, entertaining novel, probably my favourite by Jess Kidd since Things in Jars.

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

The Boleyn Secret by Alison Weir

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Alison Weir has written so many novels about the Tudors it’s surprising that she’s still able to find different angles and perspectives to write from. In The Boleyn Secret, she tells the story of Kate Carey, daughter of Anne Boleyn’s sister Mary and, some believe, Henry VIII himself. There have been other books about Kate, but I haven’t read any (apart from where she’s mentioned as a minor character), so reading a whole book from her point of view was something new for me.

Katherine Carey (referred to as Kate throughout the book, so I will do the same) was born in 1524 to Mary Boleyn and her husband, William Carey, However, as Mary was having an affair with Henry VIII around this time, many historians have suggested that he was the true father, although this has never been confirmed and Henry never acknowledged Kate as his daughter. For the purposes of this novel, Weir assumes that the rumours were true and that Kate was aware that Henry was her father. She uses this idea to explore how this knowledge may have impacted on Kate’s life, how she discovered it and whether she wanted it to be known.

The book begins with the twelve-year-old Kate witnessing the execution of her aunt, Anne Boleyn (another story that has never been confirmed). We are then taken through the whole of Kate’s life, encompassing her close relationship with her cousin and half-sister Elizabeth (the future queen), her marriage to Sir Francis Knollys, her view on key historical events such as Henry VIII’s next four marriages, the reigns of Edward VI and Queen Mary, religious change and turmoil, and finally the long reign of Queen Elizabeth and the downfall of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Having read all of Weir’s Six Tudor Queens series and several of her other Tudor novels, a lot of this felt repetitive as I was just seeing the same events from yet another perspective. However, there was still plenty of new material, mainly surrounding Kate’s family life with Francis and their sixteen (yes, sixteen!) children. Kate and Francis appear to have had a genuinely happy marriage, a nice change from all the unhappy marriages that often fill the pages of historical novels! I particularly enjoyed the part of the book where they, as Calvinists, go into exile in Europe during the reign of Mary I and her Protestant burnings. Weir admits in her author’s note, though, that this episode of their lives is poorly documented so she had to use her imagination here.

Elizabeth is a huge presence in Kate’s life; they are very close from childhood and Kate loves her as a sister, although she’s never quite sure whether Elizabeth knows the truth about their relationship and is afraid to bring the subject up herself. Elizabeth is presented as a complex person of many contradictions: she can be exceptionally generous and thoughtful, but also incredibly selfish; she often seems cold-hearted and appears to be jealous and resentful of Kate’s loving marriage to Francis, but she also has a vulnerable side and relies on Kate for friendship and support. It’s frustrating to see how Elizabeth repeatedly finds ways to keep Kate and Francis apart, purely because she doesn’t want to share Kate with anyone else; I don’t think I could have kept forgiving her the way Kate did – but of course, in the turbulent Tudor period it was important to stay on the right side of your king or queen!

Overall, I enjoyed this book but I thought it felt unnecessarily long, a common criticism I have of Alison Weir’s novels. I understand that she wants to include as much information as possible to give a full picture of the subject she’s writing about, but this is fiction, not non-fiction, and I’m sure there must have been things that could be left out or condensed to make the story more fun to read. Still, it was interesting to have the opportunity to learn more about Kate Carey and her family. Alison Weir’s next novel will be The Pretender’s Wife, about Lady Catherine Gordon and Perkin Warbeck, so that’s something to look forward to.

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

Book 14/20 of 20 Books of Summer

The Forever Summer by Lulu Taylor

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The first thing to say about this book is that it’s definitely not the light summer read you would probably expect from the cover and title. It’s actually a tale of lies, betrayal and treason set during the rise of the Nazis in 1930s Germany. It’s the first Lulu Taylor book I’ve read and I really enjoyed it.

The novel opens with a brief section set in the modern day, introducing us to Lottie Conway, a young woman who has grown up under the shadow of a family scandal – one linked with the actions of two women at the start of the Second World War. The Conway name has become tarnished by association, although the details have always been vague. When a new blockbuster film is made about the incident, Lottie decides it’s time to speak to the one person who knows exactly what happened: her grandmother, Dinah.

Dinah’s story begins in 1931 when her wealthy friend, Marina, invites her to a dinner party. Here she meets Marina’s cousin, William Conway, whom she hasn’t seen since they were children and they quickly fall in love and decide to marry. The marriage isn’t welcomed by everyone – William’s mother refuses to even speak to Dinah, which she assumes is due to her poor background – but the two are blissfully happy and head to Germany on their honeymoon. They’re planning to visit Rosemary, another of William’s cousins, at her school in Munich, but first William wants to visit the site of the Battle of Blenheim. However, they are not the only British tourists in the area that day…Winston Churchill is also visiting the battlefield, having some time on his hands after resigning from the Conservative shadow cabinet.

The Conways’ lives are changed forever by that chance meeting with Churchill, who believes that William, who works for the Foreign Office, can be of use to him in providing information on activity in Germany and the British government’s response to it. But they also make another new acquaintance in Munich who will have an equally big influence on their future fates: Ernst Hanfstaengl, known as Putzi, a close friend of Adolf Hitler, leader of the increasingly powerful Nazi Party.

The Forever Summer is quite a long book but was a faster read than I expected as I was so gripped by it. I loved the way the author obscures the true intentions of the characters from us, leaving us questioning who can and cannot be trusted. A good example of this is Victoria Gauntlett, one of the women who brought shame on the Conway family; it’s never quite clear whether Victoria is spying for Britain, spying for Germany, a double agent or just an innocent young woman. We only see her through Dinah’s eyes and Dinah is hardly an unbiased observer, as she is jealous of Victoria’s close friendship with William. By the time we reach the end of the book, then, there are lots of secrets to be revealed and some surprising twists to look out for along the way.

What I found most interesting, though, was the portrayal of the mood in Munich during the build to the war. When Dinah first visits for her honeymoon in 1932, she can sense a tension in the air even then; there are already men on the streets wearing brown uniforms with the swastika insignia and disturbing rumours of their plans for Jews. When she returns just three years later, the atmosphere has become much more oppressive; there’s a stronger military presence and Nazi flags line the boulevards and hang from shops and houses. I was also fascinated by the depiction of Putzi Hanfstaengl, a real person although I don’t think I’ve come across him in fiction before. Most poignantly of all, the book explores the question of whether another war was inevitable or if anything could have been done differently during that period that may have prevented it.

I’ll have to investigate some of Lulu Taylor’s other books; I had previously dismissed them as probably not being for me, but I’m interested in trying more of them now.

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

Book 12/20 of 20 Books of Summer

The Persian Boy by Mary Renault

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First published in 1972, this is the second book in Mary Renault’s Alexander the Great trilogy, following Fire from Heaven, which I read last year. It was also the book chosen for me to read in the latest Classics Club Spin (the deadline was earlier this month, but I find that Mary Renault’s novels need a lot of concentration and shouldn’t be rushed, so I took more time to finish it).

Fire from Heaven covered Alexander’s childhood and early adult life, up to the death of his father, Philip II of Macedon, and his own accession to the throne; The Persian Boy takes us through the final seven years of his life and has a slightly different style and focus. Unlike the previous book, which was written in the third person, this one is narrated entirely by Bagoas, Alexander’s servant, friend and lover.

We first meet Bagoas as a young boy, the son of a Persian nobleman who is betrayed and killed by his enemies. Bagoas himself is captured, castrated and sold into slavery, eventually finding himself at the court of King Darius III. Having become a favourite of the king, his life is thrown into uncertainty again when Darius is defeated by the Macedonian army and Bagoas is presented to Darius’ conqueror, Alexander, as a gift. At first he is disgusted by what he sees as the barbaric ways of the Macedonians, but over time he becomes a trusted member of Alexander’s inner circle, with a close friendship and romantic relationship beginning to form between the two.

With the book being written from Bagoas’ perspective, the story has a more intimate feel than Fire from Heaven. As Bagoas is a courtier, not a soldier or a fighter, battles are seen from a distance; although he travels with Alexander and his men, Bagoas does not accompany them on the battlefield but waits in camp for them to return, sharing with us the outcome and some insights into the impact, both mental and physical, on the people involved in the battle. So although Alexander’s success as a great military leader is certainly not ignored, the focus here is more on Alexander as a human being. Through Bagoas’ eyes we see a more tender, vulnerable side of Alexander, a man who often feels lonely and isolated, so relies on Bagoas to provide love, warmth and friendship.

I do feel that because of the choice to tell this part of Alexander’s story from the perspective of someone who loved him, we get quite a one-sided view of him. It’s a very sympathetic, heroic portrayal and we don’t hear much of how his enemies viewed him or what his wife Roxane thought or felt – she is pushed completely to the sidelines of Bagoas’ account (understandably, as she tries to poison him, and he wants no more to do with her after that). Hephaistion, Alexander’s lifelong companion, also has a relatively small part in the novel as he and Bagoas mostly avoid each other, having an uneasy relationship as rivals for Alexander’s affection. Renault frequently compares Alexander and Hephaistion to Achilles and Patroclus, something they apparently publicly identified themselves with, but I felt that the emotional impact of Hephaistion’s death later in the novel was lost because of seeing so little of him, especially compared to the first book where he had a much bigger role.

One aspect of the book I found particularly interesting was seeing how both Alexander and Bagoas adapt to the differences between Greek and Persian culture. Alexander wishes to unite the Greek people with the Persian people he has conquered and as time goes by, Bagoas observes him wearing Persian dress and trying to introduce Persian customs such as prostration (which meets with strong opposition from his Macedonian men).

Although there’s obviously a limit to how much we can truly know about the world of the 4th century BC, Alexander’s life has been well documented and Renault discusses in her author’s note the sources she has used and decisions she has made. Bagoas himself only appears a few times in historical sources, but Renault is such a gifted writer she makes everything he says and does seem plausible. I’m looking forward to reading Funeral Games, the final part of the trilogy, which deals with Alexander’s death and its aftermath.

Book 10/20 of 20 Books of Summer

This is also book 6/50 from my third Classics Club list.

The Alchemist’s Secret by Clare Marchant

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The Alchemist’s Secret is the story of two women separated by four centuries but linked through one house – Woodham Hall in Suffolk. In 1672, Jeanne is living at the Hall with her older sister, Marie, and young niece, Hélène. Jeanne is still unmarried at the age of twenty-four and looks set to remain a spinster, but she doesn’t really care. She’s happy devoting her time to painting and practising her alchemy skills, and there’s no money for a dowry anyway. Marie, on the other hand, is very unhappily married; her husband, Sir Robert Woodham, is having an affair with a widowed neighbour who has given him the sons Marie has been unable to provide. Eventually, Sir Robert decides to move his mistress into the Hall and tells Marie and Jeanne he is sending them to a convent in France where they will stay for the rest of their lives.

Back in their home country – the two women had left France ten years earlier, when Marie married Sir Robert – they are determined to find a way to escape from their captivity and get back to England and Hélène. Their adventures take them to the court of the Sun King where they make some new acquaintances whom they hope can help them take revenge against Sir Robert and resume their rightful places at Woodham Hall.

Meanwhile, in 2026, we meet the current residents of Woodham Hall – Simon and his daughter, Paige, who has just returned home after the break-up of her marriage. Simon has been hiring the house out as a wedding venue but is starting to struggle financially and is in need of new ideas. Paige begins to research the history of the Hall and the Woodham family and comes across an intriguing painting which seems to depict a poisoning which took place in the house centuries earlier. But who was the artist – and, more importantly, who were the victims and why were they killed?

I liked The Alchemist’s Secret, although it’s yet another example of a book with dual timelines where most of the drama unfolds in one of them, leaving the other feeling a bit superfluous. The 17th century storyline dominates this book and I found it by far the most interesting. The plot was slightly far-fetched at times and there were moments when attitudes or actions didn’t quite ring true to the period, but otherwise I was much more absorbed in Jeanne and Marie’s story than I was in Paige’s. I loved the parts of the book set in Paris and at the Palace of Versailles (which is still under construction in 1672 – no Hall of Mirrors yet) and I thought this made a good contrast to the English country house that forms the setting for the majority of the novel.

There’s not a lot of mystery involved, as it’s obvious that the events depicted in the painting are connected to the historical storyline, but I enjoyed seeing how the characters get to that point and how things play out afterwards. I’m not sure if the title is really representative of the novel, though; alchemy is barely mentioned, although it doesn’t matter too much as the story is interesting enough even without it! This is the first book I’ve read by Clare Marchant but I’m planning to read her new one, The Curse of the Saltmarsh Girl, and am tempted to try some of her others as they all sound intriguing.

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

The Scandalous Ladies Football Club by Frances Quinn

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Published earlier this month to coincide with the World Cup (congratulations to Spain on their win), Frances Quinn’s latest novel is set in the final years of the 19th century and inspired by the formation of the British Ladies’ Football Club. Having loved her two previous books, The Lost Passenger and That Bonesetter Woman, I was hoping for good things from this one and wasn’t disappointed. Despite not being very interested in football (soccer to my blog readers in other parts of the world!) I found this a fascinating, inspirational story.

It’s 1897 and in a world dominated by men, where husbands and fathers make all the rules, the idea of women playing football is considered ridiculous and inappropriate. But when schoolteacher Minnie Newton kicks a ball back to a group of men playing in a London park one day, she’s reminded of how much she enjoyed the game as a child. Minnie places an advertisement in the local newspaper, not sure what kind of response there’ll be, and is thrilled when she receives several replies from interested applicants. However, as the group of women gather on Saturday morning for their first session, it quickly becomes obvious that this isn’t going to be easy. Most of the women have never even watched the sport before, let alone kicked a ball – then there’s the question of what to wear (long skirts are hardly suitable) and the problem of finding somewhere to train. Eventually, though, solutions are found, and soon the club has obtained both a patron – the explorer, writer and women’s rights activist, Lady Veronica Montague – and a coach, retired male footballer Bill English.

The novel focuses on three of the lady footballers. The first is obviously Minnie herself as the club’s founder and leader. The second is Grace Mousel, a shy single woman who lives with her father and spends her days catering to his every whim. Grace discovers that she has a real talent for football but feels that she has to keep her new passion hidden from her father, as he would never understand and would insist that she give it up. Then there’s Harriet Flinders, a married woman whose husband, Richard, is stationed in India, leaving her alone in London with their two sons. Bored and dissatisfied with her marriage, Harriet decides to join Minnie’s club purely because she knows it would annoy Richard if he found out but, like Grace, she soon finds that playing football is something she enjoys both for its own sake and for the independence it gives her.

As for Minnie, we know from the beginning that she’s hiding a big secret – her real name is Adela Adams and she’s a married woman, a fact that would cause her to lose her job as a teacher if it became known. Although I felt that the false identity subplot was recycled from Quinn’s last book, The Lost Passenger, it added tension to her story just as it did to Elinor’s in that book, and we find out only gradually why Adela left her husband and changed her name and what she stands to lose if she’s caught.

Quinn has loosely based the novel on the story of the real life British Ladies’ Football Club, but doesn’t stick very closely to the facts, changing the names of the people involved and imagining matches and rivalries that the club never actually had. There are some similarities, though – the real founder of the club was Nettie Honeyball which, like Minnie Newton, was thought to be an assumed name (although Nettie’s true identity is still unconfirmed); their patron, Lady Florence Dixie, closely resembled Lady Veronica in the book (she explored Patagonia and kept a pet jaguar called Affums); and of course, both clubs, real and fictional, faced a huge amount of prejudice, scorn and ridicule.

Although I found the book very enjoyable, it’s not perfect. In particular, I wished more attention had been given to other members of the club, not just Minnie, Harriet and Grace. Some of them were barely even mentioned by name. Also, without wanting to give away spoilers, I felt that the way the story ended for two of the characters seemed very convenient and clichéd. Other than that, I loved it. It’s obviously a book with a lot to say about feminism, equality and women’s rights, but the message never gets in the way of the story. Definitely worth reading, whether or not you’re a football fan!

Thanks to Simon & Schuster UK for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Book 9/20 of 20 Books of Summer