Sisters of Treason by Elizabeth Fremantle

June 22, 2014June 23, 20147 Comments

This is Elizabeth Fremantle’s second historical fiction novel. I read her first book, Queen’s Gambit, last year and was quite impressed by it, so I’ve been looking forward to reading this one. It didn’t disappoint me – I actually found it a more compelling and enjoyable book than the first. Although Fremantle’s books are set in Tudor England, a very popular choice with historical fiction authors, it would seem that she’s trying to write about some of the lesser known female figures of the period, which is very refreshing. Queen’s Gambit was the story of Henry VIII’s sixth wife, Katherine Parr, who is usually given less attention than some of the other wives, while her next novel – due to be published next year – is going to be about Penelope Devereux and should be really fascinating.

This book, Sisters of Treason, is the story of Katherine and Mary Grey – the two younger sisters of Lady Jane Grey, the ‘nine-day queen’. The novel opens in 1554 with Jane being beheaded, having been deposed by her cousin, Mary Tudor, after only nine days on the throne of England. Jane is dead before our story really begins but she remains a constant presence in the lives of both Katherine and Mary Grey who are unable to escape the taint of treason. Under the reigns of first Queen Mary and then Queen Elizabeth I – neither of whom have a child of their own to name as heir – the Grey sisters have a strong claim to the throne, which means they will never be allowed to live their lives in peace.

Following Jane’s execution, the family of Katherine’s husband, Henry Herbert, decide to distance themselves from the Greys. Katherine is heartbroken when her marriage to Henry is annulled but she does find love again with Edward Seymour, the brother of her best friend Jane (referred to in the novel as Juno to distinguish her from the other Janes in the story). Queen Elizabeth is furious when she learns of their relationship and Katherine soon discovers just how difficult life can be for those who go against the Queen’s wishes.

The youngest Grey sister, Mary, was born with a form of spinal curvature which has affected her growth and as she is unlikely to be able to have children she is seen as less of a threat than Katherine. However, she is forced to undergo degrading experiences such as sitting on Queen Mary’s knee and being treated as a sort of pet or baby. Later, when Elizabeth takes the throne, although Mary is not in as much danger as Katherine, she still finds that the Elizabethan court is not a pleasant place to be.

Sisters of Treason is narrated by both Katherine and Mary (my favourite character) in first person present tense. This is something I don’t usually like but I thought it worked well here. There’s also a third viewpoint character – Levina Teerlinc, a friend of Frances Grey, the girls’ mother. In her position as a portrait painter who produces miniatures of various important court figures, Levina gives us a different perspective on some of the things that happen in the book.

As well as being the story of the Grey sisters, the novel also takes us through some of the major events of Queen Mary’s and Queen Elizabeth’s reigns. While both Queens can be cruel and treat their Grey cousins very badly, they are not just portrayed as complete monsters with no depth to their characters. Instead, the author tries to give some possible reasons for their behaviour and shows us the pressures they are under as female rulers in a male-dominated society.

They sit in silence for a moment, and something occurs to Levina that she had not fully realized until she articulated it – that for Elizabeth politics come before everything. That is how it must be if you are Queen regnant, your passions shut away in a box buried deep beneath the ground. It makes her think of her predecessor Mary Tudor, who struggled so with that concept, and she surprises herself with a pinch of sympathy for these women who have to fashion a cold, hard face to show to the world.

I have read a few other novels about the Grey sisters (The Nine Day Queen by Ella March Chase and Alison Weir’s Innocent Traitor and A Dangerous Inheritance) but I still don’t think they get a lot of coverage in historical fiction compared to other figures from the Tudor period. Many people will have heard of Lady Jane Grey but may not be aware that she had two sisters and something that I liked about this book is that by beginning with Jane’s execution, Elizabeth Fremantle avoids re-telling Jane’s more famous story and instead concentrates on the other Grey sisters. However, Katherine and Mary never forget what happened to Jane and her influence on their lives is still very strong; Katherine inherits Jane’s Greek New Testament in which she has written “it shall teach you to live and learn you to die” and Mary often asks herself what Jane would do in certain situations. As Mary says to Levina near the end of the novel:

“In the scheme of a life, it is not the duration of something but its impact that is important.”

Thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy via NetGalley.

The Second Duchess by Elizabeth Loupas

June 19, 2014March 17, 20168 Comments

The Second Duchess is a fascinating historical novel set in Renaissance Italy and narrated by Barbara of Austria, the second wife of Alfonso d’Este, the Duke of Ferrara. The recent tragic death of the Duke’s first Duchess, Lucrezia de’ Medici, has never been satisfactorily explained and many people think she may have been murdered by the Duke himself. Listening to these rumours, Barbara doesn’t know what to believe. Determined to discover the truth she decides to investigate, but it seems that whoever killed Lucrezia doesn’t like Barbara asking questions. Will Alfonso’s second duchess meet the same fate as his first?

Although the back cover of this book promised “conspiracy, intrigue and murder”, I was still surprised that the story had such a strong mystery element. I have never read anything about Lucrezia de’ Medici’s death before and enjoyed watching Barbara trying to piece the facts together. Despite the gossip suggesting that Lucrezia was poisoned by the Duke, Barbara soon discovers that there are plenty of other people at court and beyond who may also have wanted the first duchess dead. With lots of possible suspects and clues that are only revealed slowly throughout the novel, it’s not easy to guess the truth. Today historians believe Lucrezia probably died of natural causes, but the mystery Elizabeth Loupas weaves around her death feels plausible and makes a great story!

I think another of the things I liked about this book was that the ‘romance’, if you can even call it that, is very subtle and understated. At twenty-six, Barbara has a mature and realistic outlook on life and she is aware that her marriage has been made for political reasons. She doesn’t expect to instantly fall in love with Alfonso and is prepared to work at their relationship, trying to get to know and understand him. Of course, this would be a lot easier if she could just find out whether or not he’s a murderer! Barbara is portrayed as an intelligent and courageous woman, not beautiful like Lucrezia but with a grace and dignity of her own, and never seeming too modern or out of place in a sixteenth century setting.

Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara is an intriguing character and I could never quite decide whether I liked him or not. He commits an act of violence near the beginning of the book that made me think not, but as the story progressed I started to have more respect for him. Both Barbara and the Duke feel like realistic people of their time period and don’t always behave as we might like them to behave, but I actually found that very refreshing as so many authors try to give modern day sensibilities to their historical characters. As for Lucrezia, although she is dead before the novel begins, she is still a very strong presence and we do have the opportunity to hear her point of view – in a very unconventional way. Lucrezia’s passionate, vengeful voice contrasts nicely with the style of Barbara’s narration and gives us a different perspective on the story.

I also loved all the descriptions of the court of Ferrara: the clothes, the food, the interiors of the churches and palazzi, the hunts, banquets and pageants – I particularly liked reading about the Festival delle Stelle with costumes and mechanical devices representing the signs of the Zodiac. Finally, I should mention that this novel is inspired by Robert Browning’s poem, My Last Duchess. The poem is included at the end of the book and I recommend reading it as it adds another layer to the story. I also found it interesting to search for more information and pictures of the main characters in the novel after I finished reading, as they are all historical figures I previously knew nothing about. Portraits of the beautiful young Lucrezia, the dark, enigmatic Duke, and our heroine Barbara can all easily be found online.

I enjoyed The Second Duchess and really liked the way Elizabeth Loupas writes, which is maybe not surprising as she lists two of my favourite authors (Mary Stewart and Dorothy Dunnett) among her influences. This is the first of her books that I’ve read but I’ll certainly be looking out for her others.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review.

The Quick by Lauren Owen

June 15, 2014June 15, 201410 Comments

Well, this is going to be a difficult book to write about! At first it seemed it was going to be one of those atmospheric Victorian-style novels I love (similar to Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, The Quincunx by Charles Palliser or The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox). It begins with two children, Charlotte and James Norbury, growing up in Yorkshire in a large country house complete with fountains, statues and secret chambers. When their father dies, Charlotte continues to live on the estate with an aunt while James goes away to school and then to university.

Trying to build a career for himself in London as a poet and playwright, James is befriended by the handsome Christopher Paige who will soon come to play an important part in his life. But when tragedy strikes, James becomes embroiled with the mysterious Aegolius Club…and this is where I’ll have to stop. From this point onwards the story goes in an unexpected direction and becomes something very different from what it had originally appeared to be. I can’t even tell you what the title of the novel, The Quick, means because that in itself is a spoiler.

I’m not sure whether keeping the true nature of this book hidden is a good idea or a bad idea. On the one hand, it means it will be read by people like myself who might not have picked it up otherwise, but on the other hand they may decide not to continue reading once the truth is revealed – while people who do like this type of book could be missing out on reading it. However, the publishers have obviously tried to create an air of mystery around it, so I respect their decision and will not give anything away!

I enjoyed this book up to the big plot twist but not so much afterwards. This was not necessarily because of the twist itself, but more due to the fact that at this stage we leave James and Charlotte behind for a while and are introduced to a new set of characters. Who was this Augustus Mould whose diary I found myself reading? What about Adeline Swift who suddenly begins narrating eleven chapters into the book? These things are explained, of course, and we do learn who these people are, but it meant that when the narrative eventually switched back to Charlotte or James I had lost the connection I’d felt with those two characters at the beginning.

The way the book ended took me by surprise and now I’m wondering if there’s going to be a sequel. If so, I’ll have to decide whether I want to read it, but if not then I’ll be interested to see what Lauren Owen writes next. I did like her writing and if this book had just been the straightforward neo-Victorian novel it seemed to be at first, I think I would have loved it.

I received a review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

The Lost Duchess by Jenny Barden

June 10, 2014June 10, 20148 Comments

With a title like The Lost Duchess and an opening chapter set at the court of Elizabeth I, describing an encounter between one of the Queen’s ladies and Lord Hertford, you may think this sounds like just another Elizabethan court romance – but you would be mistaken. With the arrival of Sir Francis Drake bringing stories of his adventures in the New World comes the first hint of what this book is actually about. And when Emme Fifield, the lady who had that confrontation with Hertford, decides to join Governor John White’s expedition to establish a new colony at Chesapeake, it becomes clear that The Lost Duchess is going to be something fresh and different.

Emme is desperate to leave England and sail to the New World so that she can avoid the disgrace she knows she will face when her involvement with Lord Hertford is made public. In order to convince the Queen to let her go, she promises to return with reports on the colonies for Elizabeth and her spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, but Emme’s real intention is to stay in Chesapeake and build a new life there…especially when she begins to fall in love with one of her fellow travellers, the mariner Kit Doonan. But while Emme is trying to keep the truth about her past hidden from Kit, we learn that Kit also has some secrets of his own.

Emme and Kit are great characters and I enjoyed getting to know both of them, but the aspect of this book that I found the most interesting was the fate of the lost colony of Roanoke – the English settlement established by Sir Walter Raleigh in the 1580s before being abandoned with no trace of the colonists. The explanation for the colony’s disappearance is still a mystery today, but Jenny Barden suggests one possible theory which I thought was very convincing. And if you’re wondering why all of this is significant to the story told in The Lost Duchess, although the ship on which Kit and Emme set out from England is originally heading for Chesapeake, Roanoke is where they end up.

The voyage itself provides lots of exciting action as Emme and the other colonists face dangerous seas and the loss of their supplies, while finding themselves at the mercy of their Portuguese navigator, Simon Ferdinando, who may or may not be trying to betray them. Life becomes no easier when they land at Roanoke – poisonous fruit being one hazard and conflicts with the native people another. Having befriended Chief Manteo of the Croatoans, the settlers are hopeful that they can negotiate with the Native Americans but it seems that things have happened in the past which will make it difficult for them to live peacefully alongside each other.

Roanoke and its mysteries is a fascinating, unusual setting and I’m sure you’ll agree that it makes a change from the majority of Tudor/Elizabethan novels which tend to focus on royalty and life at court. Jenny Barden’s previous novel, Mistress of the Sea, sounds wonderful too and is linked with this one through the character of Kit Doonan’s brother, Will. I’m looking forward to reading it.

I read The Lost Duchess as part of a blog tour. For more reviews, interviews and giveaways please see the tour schedule at Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours.

The Frost of Springtime by Rachel L. Demeter

June 7, 2014June 6, 20147 Comments

When I was offered the opportunity to take part in a blog tour for Rachel L. Demeter’s The Frost of Springtime, I wasn’t sure whether or not to accept. I read a lot of historical fiction novels and many of them have an element of romance, but I tend not to be drawn to books that are specifically classed as ‘historical romance’ as this one is. The setting sounded intriguing, though, so I decided to give it a try.

The Frost of Springtime is set during the Paris Commune of 1871, a brief period during which a revolutionary government ruled Paris. The novel begins with Vicomte Aleksender de Lefèvre rescuing a young girl, Sofia Rose, who has been sold into a Parisian brothel by her own mother. Sofia becomes Aleksender’s ward but she is later separated from her guardian while he goes away to fight in the Franco-Prussian War.

When Aleksender returns to Paris accompanied by his friend, Christophe Cleef, he finds that the city has been torn apart by revolution, protest and destruction. At home, too, things are changing. His father’s death has left him with new responsibilities and an altered relationship with his brother…and the little girl he saved from a life of misery and abuse has matured into a beautiful young woman of nineteen. Left scarred by his traumatic wartime experiences, Aleksender is in need of love and comfort and it seems that Sofia can provide them. But what about his wife, Elizabeth, the woman he married years earlier as part of an arranged marriage and has never loved the way he loves Sofia?

The Frost of Springtime is a dark and atmospheric story with some great descriptions of a Paris in political turmoil. Although there is certainly a strong romantic thread running through the centre of this novel, there is also quite a lot of history. In fact, there could be too much history for those who are looking purely for a love story, but for me personally the balance was about right. I had no previous knowledge of the Paris Commune and now that I’ve learned a bit about it from reading this book I would like to know more. I may have to do some further reading on the subject!

Aleksender and Sofia were both strong characters – characters I was interested in and cared about. Unless you just don’t like the idea of the age difference or a man falling in love with a girl who had been his ward, I’m sure you’ll feel the same and will be hoping for a happy ending for the two of them. However, I did also like Elizabeth and had a lot of sympathy for her as she really hadn’t done anything wrong and didn’t deserve to be treated badly. Aleksender’s behaviour sometimes disappointed me because it wasn’t always what you would expect from the hero of a romantic novel but this could be partly explained by the fact that he is suffering from what appears to be post-traumatic stress disorder caused by his experiences at war.

I’m glad I didn’t let my doubts about historical romance put me off reading this book as I did enjoy meeting Aleksender and Sofia and learning about such an interesting period of French history.

If you’d like to read more reviews, interviews and guest posts please see the tour schedule at Enchanted Book Promotions – and don’t forget to enter the tourwide giveaway for an Amazon gift card at this link: a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Long Song by Andrea Levy

June 4, 20149 Comments

When Thomas Kinsman asks his mother, July, to write her memoirs, she agrees on the condition that she is allowed to tell her story the way she wants to tell it:

“Please pardon me, but your storyteller is a woman possessed of a forthright tongue and little ink. Waxing upon the nature of trees when all know they are green and lush upon this island, or birds which are plainly plentiful and raucous, or taking good words to whine upon the cruelly hot sun, is neither prudent nor my fancy. Let me confess this without delay so you might consider whether my tale is one in which you can find an interest.”

The island with the lush green trees, raucous birds and hot sun is Jamaica, where July is born into slavery on the sugar plantation of Amity. As a young girl, July catches the eye of her master’s spoiled and selfish sister, Caroline Mortimer, and becomes her maid and companion. Kept apart from her mother, a field slave, and renamed ‘Marguerite’ because Caroline likes the name, life is not always easy for July but the Christmas Rebellion of 1831 brings hope that slavery in Jamaica will soon come to an end. And with the arrival of a new overseer, Robert Goodwin, life at Amity could be about to change forever…

I have read other books about slavery but never one that focused specifically on slavery in Jamaica, so The Long Song was something new for me. With July moving from the slave quarters to live with her mistress, we see how slavery and its abolition affected not just the slaves themselves but also the British slave owners and overseers. I liked the fact that July’s story does not just finish with the end of slavery in Jamaica but goes on to describe what happened after that. It’s easy to imagine that things improved instantly as soon as slavery was abolished but that was not necessarily true and July does a good job of showing us how she and the other newly emancipated slaves continued to face hardships and obstacles.

As you’ll be able to tell from the excerpt I quoted at the start of this post, July has a very strong and distinctive narrative style, which suits her lively, mischievous personality. She frequently breaks off in the middle of a chapter to argue with her son, Thomas, over what should or should not be included and at other times she addresses the reader directly. Sometimes she gives us one version of events, then admits that she is not being honest and begins again with a more truthful account. Most of her story is told in the third person, as if July was just somebody she had once known and not actually herself – maybe we’re supposed to assume this made it easier for the older July to discuss the painful things that had happened to her? She also adds a lot of humour to her story which makes it feel much lighter and less harrowing than it could have been.

At first I was intrigued by July’s unique narration; it felt different and unusual. After a few chapters, though, the novelty wore off and I started to find it irritating. I wished she would stop interrupting herself and get on with telling the story! I like this sort of writing in Victorian novels but in this case I thought it felt like a gimmick that, for me, just didn’t quite work. I did still enjoy the book but maybe I would have enjoyed it even more if it had been written in a more conventional style. I have a copy of one of Andrea Levy’s other books to read – Small Island, which is being reissued in a new 10th anniversary edition – and I’ve heard it’s very different, so I’m looking forward to reading that one.

Love and Treasure by Ayelet Waldman

May 30, 20146 Comments

In Love and Treasure, Ayelet Waldman traces the fate of a single item – a necklace with a peacock pendant – and uses it to tell the story of Hungary’s Jewish communities before and after the Holocaust. Spanning a period of one hundred years, the novel is divided into three separate stories, but there are links between all three and the peacock pendant plays an important role in each one.

The novel begins in 2013 with a conversation between Jack Wiseman and his granddaughter, Natalie, when he admits to her that the necklace she wore on her wedding day thinking it was her grandmother’s did not actually belong to her grandmother at all. The real owner, he says, is unknown, but he would like Natalie to find her and give the pendant back.

We then move back in time to Salzburg in 1945 where Jack is serving in the US army. He is given the responsibility for guarding the Hungarian Gold Train, a train containing the confiscated personal belongings of thousands of Hungarian Jews (paintings, watches, furs, cameras and other objects) but while he does his best to protect its contents he is forced to watch as his fellow army officers ‘borrow’ one item after another. When Jack’s days in charge of the train come to an end, he himself steals one of its treasures – the peacock pendant – because it reminds him of Ilona, a Jewish girl from the Hungarian town of Nagyvárad whom he has grown close to during his time in Salzburg.

Returning to 2013, Natalie is beginning her search for the original owner of the pendant – a search which will take her to Budapest where she joins forces with Amitai Shasho, an Israeli art dealer on a special mission of his own. This takes us into the final section of the book, set in 1913 Budapest and telling the story of a psychoanalyst and one of his patients, a young Hungarian suffragette whose strong views lead to her father wanting her treated for insanity.

Of the three main sections of the novel I think my favourite was the first one, the story of Jack and Ilona. Ilona is a survivor of the concentration camps and through her character, Waldman explores the lives of the Displaced Persons who lost their homes and their families during the war. I thought she did an excellent job of showing what it may have felt like to be a Jew displaced in Europe after the war had ended. I cared about Jack and Ilona in a way that I never really came to care about Natalie and Amitai, so I was sorry to leave them behind when I reached the end of the first section and moved on to the second.

I also enjoyed the final part of the book: narrated by the psychoanalyst, Dr Zobel, this is the only section to be written in the first person rather than the third, and I thought his narrative voice was very strong and distinctive – just what I would expect from a man of his profession in 1913.

I found Love and Treasure a very interesting read because it introduced me to subjects I knew little or nothing about. The Hungarian Gold Train, for example, really existed, yet it’s something I had never read about before and I thought it was fascinating. While the book didn’t really affect me emotionally as much as I would have expected from a novel about the Holocaust, the fact that it was so intriguing from an historical perspective made up for it.

I read this book as part of the Love and Treasure Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tour. For more reviews, interviews and guest posts please see the tour schedule.