Beatrice and Benedick by Marina Fiorato

May 26, 2014May 26, 201413 Comments

“I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.” These words are spoken by Beatrice near the beginning of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, when she is reunited with Benedick, a man whom it is hinted she had been romantically involved with in the past. Shakespeare never gives us any details of Beatrice and Benedick’s history together and in this new novel, Marina Fiorato imagines how they may have met, what could have led to their separation and what brought them together again.

As the novel begins in the summer of 1588, Beatrice, the daughter of Prince Escalus of Verona, is visiting Messina in Sicily, staying at the home of her uncle Leonato, the Governor of Messina. Sicily is under Spanish rule and Leonato is preparing to welcome a party of Spaniards to the island, including the Prince of Aragon, Don Pedro, who is accompanied by his two young Italian friends, Claudio and Benedick. Claudio instantly falls in love with Leonato’s beautiful daughter, Hero, while Beatrice and Benedick are also attracted to each other – but are unable to admit it, preferring to trade insults instead. Just as they begin to acknowledge their love for each other, the two are torn apart with Beatrice heading home to Verona and Benedick joining Don Pedro and Claudio at sea as the Spanish Armada sets out to invade England. Eventually they will all meet again in Messina, setting the scene for the events of Much Ado About Nothing…

Well, this book was a surprise! I had expected a light, gentle romantic comedy, but what I got was an entertaining and often quite dark historical adventure novel filled with duels, pageants and puppet shows, sea voyages, mutinies and treasure troves. Like a play, the novel is divided into Acts and Scenes, each Scene narrated by either Beatrice or Benedick. The voices of the two narrators were very similar and I thought more effort could have been made to make them more distinctive, but otherwise I liked the way the novel was structured. I wondered whether Fiorato would be able to pull off the wars of words between Beatrice and Benedick, but I think she did this very well – although Benedick doesn’t seem as quick-witted as Beatrice and usually comes off worst in their encounters.

I know there are some readers who are not interested in prequels, sequels or rewritings of any kind (and actually, I usually am one of those readers) but I enjoyed this one and thought it was very cleverly done, with Shakespeare’s characters and storylines woven perfectly into the history of the period. There are also some elements and characters from other plays, most notably Othello and Romeo and Juliet. Fiorato even manages to incorporate Shakespeare himself into the novel – if you’re not already aware of the theories connecting Shakespeare with Sicily I’ll leave you to find out for yourself!

You don’t really need to be familiar with Much Ado About Nothing as this book does work as a straightforward historical fiction novel, but you will get more out of it if you do read (or watch) the play either before you start or after you finish. As for the historical aspects of the novel, it was interesting to learn about Spanish-ruled Sicily and the fate of the Moors who lived there. I also loved all the beautiful descriptions of both Messina and Verona.

Having enjoyed Beatrice and Benedick so much more than I’d expected to, are there any other Shakespeare-inspired novels you would recommend?

The Temporary Gentleman by Sebastian Barry

May 22, 20146 Comments

“It seemed there was more cruelty than joy stored up in the human story, and kindness and comfort only rationed, and the ration book for both indeed not issued to everyone.”

The Temporary Gentleman is the third Sebastian Barry book I’ve read and I was looking forward to it, having loved both The Secret Scripture and On Canaan’s Side. Based on those two novels I knew I could expect a tragic, heartbreaking story and some beautiful, haunting writing – and that’s exactly what I got. Whenever I read a book by Sebastian Barry I am impressed by how much care he gives to each and every sentence, always searching for the perfect word or phrase to use. He can make the most ordinary, mundane things sound poetic and magical.

This is the third, I think, of Barry’s novels to focus on members of the McNulty family. The first, which I haven’t read yet, is The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty and the second is The Secret Scripture, which tells the story of Roseanne, Tom McNulty’s wife. This new book, The Temporary Gentleman, is narrated by Jack McNulty, the brother of Tom and Eneas. They are all standalone novels and I don’t think they need to be read in any particular order, but I do like the fact that they are all loosely connected.

As an Irishman whose commission in the British Army during the Second World War is not permanent, Jack McNulty is the ‘temporary gentleman’ of the title. In 1957, sitting in his lodgings in Accra, Ghana where he lives alone with only his houseboy, Tom Quaye, for company, Jack begins to write his memoirs. He remembers his early days in Ireland and his first meetings with his future wife, Mai Kirwan. He reflects on the reasons why their relationship became strained and their marriage began to disintegrate. And he thinks of the mistakes he has made and the terrible impact of alcohol on both his own life and the lives of his family. Occasionally we return to the present where we learn a little bit about the political situation in 1950s Ghana, but the majority of the novel is devoted to Jack and Mai’s troubled marriage.

This is such a sad story, made even sadder by the fact that Jack does truly love Mai and although he can see that he is ruining his life and hers, he can’t stop himself from doing it. He knows he has made bad decisions and that he is to blame for the tragic outcome of those decisions – and yet he seems incapable of trying to put things right. Jack is not the most pleasant of people but even while I felt frustrated and angry with him, it was still possible to feel a bit of sympathy for him at times. I was also intrigued by Mai’s character, particularly because we only see her through Jack’s eyes and never have a chance to hear her point of view. It would have been interesting to have been able to read the same story from Mai’s perspective – I would love to know how she really felt about Jack and his actions.

As usual with a Sebastian Barry novel, I found that I was constantly marking lines and passages that I loved and as usual, if I started to quote them here I would have to quote almost the whole book. But despite the gorgeous writing I didn’t like this book quite as much as The Secret Scripture or On Canaan’s Side, maybe because Jack causes so many of his problems through his own behaviour and I didn’t feel as desperately sorry for him as I did for Roseanne McNulty or Lilly Dunne. I also felt that the Ghana sections of the novel added very little to the story. Still, this book was worth reading for the beauty of the writing alone. While I’m waiting for Sebastian Barry’s next novel I would like to go back and read his other books on the McNulty and Dunne families that I haven’t read yet.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley for review.

Insurrection by Robyn Young

May 20, 201419 Comments

Insurrection is the first in a trilogy telling the story of Robert the Bruce, who was King of Scotland in the 14th century. The second book, Renegade is available now and the third, Kingdom, will be out this summer. In this first novel, beginning in 1286, we meet Robert as a young boy in a Scotland torn apart by the sudden and unexpected death of King Alexander III. The King has died without a male heir, leaving the succession to the throne undecided. The Bruces believe they have a strong claim, but they face competition from their enemies, John Balliol and the Comyns.

In England, meanwhile, King Edward I is forming his own plans for Scotland. Beginning a search for four ancient relics that will enable Merlin’s Last Prophecy to be fulfilled, Edward enlists the help of a group of young noblemen known as the Knights of the Dragon. When Robert, sent to England to restore his family’s reputation, is approached by the Knights, he must decide exactly where his loyalties and ambitions lie.

Insurrection is exactly the sort of historical fiction I love. As someone who reads a lot of historical novels I often find that they either focus too much on romance and court intrigue or are too action-packed with one long battle scene after another. I had neither problem with this book; I found it to be a fascinating, atmospheric tale of kings and knights, witches and soldiers, treachery, murder and war. The descriptive writing is wonderful and the battles (yes, there are a few) are well written and easy to follow. I admit that my heart sank when I discovered this was yet another book with an ‘ancient prophecy’ storyline, but I needn’t have worried because it is only one small part of the plot and I thought it actually felt quite plausible as it’s true that Edward I really did have a fascination with Arthurian legend.

Robert the Bruce is a name I’ve always been intrigued by without really knowing much about him. I have a memory from years ago of going out with my parents one Sunday afternoon on what my dad always called ‘an aimless drive’ and ending up in Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland where we noticed a sign pointing to ‘Robert the Bruce’s Cave’ – the cave where Robert supposedly went into hiding from Edward I in 1306 and was famously inspired by a spider weaving its web. Not one of the most exciting places I’ve ever visited (there wasn’t even a spider in sight when we went to look inside the cave), but it has stayed in my mind all these years later!

Because I knew so little about Robert and this period of history, I felt that I was really learning a lot from Insurrection. Everything felt accurate and thoroughly researched and although I had to concentrate to keep track of the complex politics and relationships between the characters, I was never bored. At the end of the book there’s a character list, glossary of medieval terms and a chart showing the order of succession to the Scottish throne, all of which I found useful.

Of course, this is a work of fiction rather than non-fiction so there are times when the author doesn’t stick exactly to the known facts. For example, the deaths of Alexander III and his granddaughter Margaret, Maid of Norway may have had more innocent causes than those described in the book. The Knights of the Dragon is also a fictional order, although the men who belong to it really existed. Robyn Young explains some of her choices in her author’s note so that we can see where she has used her imagination to fill in some gaps and provide motivations for the actions of her characters.

I know this book will not suit all tastes in historical fiction (some readers might dislike the inclusion of prophecies and witchcraft or will be disappointed by the lack of significant female characters and the fact that Robert himself is not always easy to like) but I absolutely loved it. I’m looking forward to reading Renegade and Kingdom and also exploring Robyn Young’s earlier trilogy on the Knights Templar.

The Chains of Fate by Pamela Belle

May 18, 2014March 29, 20172 Comments

This is the second book in Pamela Belle’s Heron series, set in the 17th century and following the adventures of Thomazine Heron and her family in an England torn apart by civil war. I loved this one almost as much as The Moon in the Water, which I read last month, and would highly recommend these books to anyone who enjoys family saga-style historical fiction. The only problem is that they are now out of print, but I definitely think it’s worth trying to find copies.

*Spoiler warning – As this is a sequel and as the previous book ended on such a big cliffhanger, it would be almost impossible for me to discuss this novel without making references to the first one. If you’re interested in this series, please see my review of The Moon in the Water before reading any further!*

The Chains of Fate begins where The Moon in the Water ended, with Thomazine embarking on a journey north to Scotland in search of her cousin and lover, Francis Heron. Believing Francis to have drowned, Thomazine had married Dominic Drakelon before discovering that she had been misled and he was not dead after all. Leaving her husband and baby son behind, she sets off to find Francis with only her friend Grainne, servant Holly and Grainne’s two young children for company. The road north through a country at war is not without its dangers but Thomazine eventually arrives at the Borders home of her Graham cousins – only to discover that convincing Francis of her innocence will not be as easy as she’d hoped.

Will Francis and Thomazine find happiness together in the end or will they be separated forever by war or by the evil scheming of cousin Meraud? I’m not going to say any more because the story that unfolds throughout The Chains of Fate is a wonderful, epic tale of love, war and betrayal and I wouldn’t want to spoil a single page of it for you.

Much as I enjoyed reading this book, however, it’s not without a few flaws that prevented me from loving it quite as much as the first book. While I love Thomazine as a narrator, the fact that she is telling her story in the first person means that she is usually far removed from the centre of the Civil War action. The outcomes of various battles and the movements of the armies are described to Thomazine through letters or gossip picked up in taverns and I thought this became a bit tedious at times. Having said that, I am not a big fan of battle scenes, so I did appreciate the focus on ordinary families and the people who were forced to stay behind, worrying about their loved ones in the thick of the fighting.

I was also slightly disappointed that Thomazine and Francis are kept apart for such long stretches of the book. The other storylines the author brings into the novel – the relationship between Thomazine and her little boy, Kit; the love affairs of Grainne, Lucy and Jamie; and the question of who will inherit Goldhayes – were compelling too and did interest me, but I still found myself getting impatient wondering when Francis was going to make another appearance!

Anyway, this was another great book and I’m now looking forward to reading the third one, Alathea – but apprehensive too because I’m aware that it’s about the next generation of Herons and in my experience sometimes a series is not as good once we leave the original characters behind. I’m hoping this won’t be the case with Alathea and it shouldn’t be too long before I have the chance to find out.

The May Bride by Suzannah Dunn

May 13, 2014May 13, 20144 Comments

One day in May 1536, Jane Seymour became Henry VIII’s third wife – but she is not the only May bride in Suzannah Dunn’s new novel. The other is Katherine Filliol, the wife of Jane’s elder brother, Edward. Jane is only fifteen when Edward first brings Katherine to Wolf Hall, the Seymour family home, and she is instantly captivated by her beautiful new sister-in-law. Jane and Katherine become close friends – or so Jane thinks, but gradually she discovers that Katherine has been keeping secrets from her and that her marriage to Edward may not be as perfect as it first appeared.

I had my doubts about this book before I started reading it because I had tried to read another of Dunn’s books a few years ago, The Confession of Katherine Howard, and didn’t get very far with it before giving up, not having connected with the writing style or the characters at all. I wondered if I would have the same experience with this book, but luckily that didn’t happen; I found this one much more enjoyable and easier to get into.

I’ve read a lot of novels set during the Tudor period, but this one is slightly different, for several reasons. First, it is a very domestic story, being set almost entirely at Wolf Hall with only the final, shortest section of the book covering Jane’s time at court as lady-in-waiting to Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. Until that last section there are so few mentions of politics, court intrigues or famous people of the period (apart from the Seymours themselves) that it could almost have been a story about any other wealthy Tudor family going about their daily lives.

I also found it intriguing that although Jane is the most famous Seymour and the one who is narrating, this novel is actually about Katherine Filliol as much as it is about Jane. I didn’t know anything about Katherine before reading the book and although Suzannah Dunn admits in her author’s note that there is very little historical information available on Katherine (and no record of what eventually happened to her) I still appreciated the fact that she had chosen to focus on a little-known character who is not usually the subject of historical fiction.

Finally, this book is written in a style that feels very modern and there is no real attempt to use language appropriate to the period. This is something that usually irritates me, but in this case I think it actually worked quite well once I got used to it. Because this is a family drama, with the emphasis on exploring the relationships between Katherine, Jane and the other Seymours, the fresh and contemporary feel made it easy to identify with the characters. I thought Jane’s brothers, Edward and Thomas, with their very different personalities, were particularly well drawn.

Compared with some of Henry VIII’s other wives, Jane Seymour as queen is often portrayed as quiet and uninteresting but here the young Jane comes to life as a loyal and loving person who is able to see the best in everyone. Unfortunately I didn’t share her fascination with Katherine, but I suppose that’s because I was able to pick up on clues and nuances that wouldn’t have been obvious to an innocent fifteen-year-old girl who is dazzled and enchanted by her new friend.

Although I maybe haven’t learned as much about Jane as I would have done from a more conventional historical novel, I did enjoy reading about her early life and the experiences that shaped the woman and queen she would become.

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

The Gondola Maker by Laura Morelli

May 8, 2014May 8, 20142 Comments

The Gondola Maker is set in Venice in the 16th century and tells the story of Luca Vianello, the son of a gondola maker. As the novel opens in 1581, Luca’s future seems secure – he will marry Annalisa Bonfante, the blacksmith’s daughter, and on his father’s death he will inherit the family business. However, when a tragedy unexpectedly tears the Vianello family apart, Luca is forced to leave the squero (boatyard) behind to seek a new life and career for himself.

I was lucky enough to visit Venice for the first time last year and reading The Gondola Maker reminded me of what a beautiful, unique city it is and how I would love to go again. The author’s descriptions are so vivid that whether or not you’ve been to Venice you’ll be able to picture the grand palazzos of the rich merchants and noblemen lining the Grand Canal, the sun setting behind the basilica of San Marco, the view across the lagoon to the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, and the inside of a prison cell in the Doge’s palace.

Being a novel about a family of gondola makers, it’s no surprise that we are given lots of information on the art of gondola making. And it really is an art! As we accompany Luca on a mission to restore one of his grandfather’s old gondolas, we see how many different people are involved in the process, from the remèri who make the oars and the fórcole (rowlocks which secure the oar) to the blacksmiths who construct the ferri (the metal decorations at the prow). Each of these artists pours their skill, knowledge and love into their work so that each complete gondola is an object of beauty and perfection.

This was all much more interesting to read about than I had expected, but of course there is more to this story than just the making of boats. While it’s true that most of Luca’s time is spent among fellow craftsmen and gondoliers, after he leaves the family squero his adventures also bring him into contact with a successful portrait painter, a maker of costumes for balls and carnivals, and a beautiful young woman who becomes his love interest. Luca himself is a character I found easy to like, which is fortunate as he is narrating his story in the first person, meaning we spend the entire novel in his company.

This is not a particularly fast-paced book and Luca’s story is not always very dramatic, but despite this I did enjoy The Gondola Maker. I found the ending of the book too abrupt and the conclusion of the romantic storyline wasn’t very satisfying which was a bit disappointing, but this didn’t spoil the rest of the novel for me. It was good to have an opportunity to learn about the creation of gondolas, a subject I had never read about or even thought about before – and I loved visiting Venice again, albeit through fiction this time, instead of in person!

I read The Gondola Maker as part of an iRead Book Tour. For more reviews, interviews and giveaways please see the tour schedule.

The Fortune Hunter by Daisy Goodwin

April 29, 20146 Comments

Set in 1875, this is the story of two women and their love for the same man, Captain Bay Middleton, a cavalry officer and renowned horseman. One of these women is Charlotte Baird, heiress to a fortune, whose brother is a friend of Bay’s from the army. Bay asks Charlotte to elope with him but she convinces him that it will be best to wait nine months until she comes into her inheritance. However, this could be a mistake because in the meantime the Empress Elizabeth of Austria and her retinue arrive at nearby Easton Neston for the hunting season.

Elizabeth – or Sisi, as she is known to her friends – is the wife of Franz Joseph of Austria. Bored with her marriage and with constantly being in the public eye, Sisi is looking forward to spending some time in the English countryside riding and hunting. Sisi is an excellent horsewoman herself, and when Bay Middleton is given the job of acting as her ‘pilot’ (or guide), she and Bay find that their shared passion for horses leads to passion of a different sort. They are unable to keep their affair secret and when people begin to gossip about the Empress and her relationship with her pilot, Bay must decide whether his fascination with Sisi is more important than his love for Charlotte and his dream of winning the Grand National.

This novel is based on a true story – Sisi, Bay and Charlotte are all people who really existed – but it’s probably not one that many people will be familiar with. I certainly wasn’t. However, having read the author’s note and also the small amount of information I could find online, it seems that The Fortune Hunter is largely fictional and only loosely based on the real life story. There are some significant differences, such as the fact that the events of the novel take place over just a few months while in reality, Bay was Sisi’s pilot for five years. But whether or not the characters and their actions were completely true to life, it didn’t matter to me because the author made them feel so real and made me care about them so much that I found myself thinking about them even when I wasn’t reading the book.

The Empress Sisi, who I admit I knew nothing about before starting this book, must have been a fascinating woman. She was also known as a woman of great beauty and I was interested to read about how she would have her floor-length hair tied to the ceiling at night to relieve the pressure of its weight on her head and how she would cover her face in strips of raw meat to freshen her complexion. I particularly enjoyed a scene in the novel where Sisi meets and makes conversation with Queen Victoria, a very different type of monarch with very different views!

Although I was unable to find out anything about the real Charlotte Baird beyond her name, the fictional Charlotte is another character I loved. I enjoyed reading about her experiments with photography, a hobby that in Victorian England was not considered entirely appropriate for a young woman. But the character I was drawn to the most was Bay Middleton. I never doubted that he loved Charlotte but it was easy to see how he became captivated by the Empress and why he was ashamed of his behaviour while at the same time being unable to stop himself. It was not clear to me what the outcome of the story would be for Bay, for Charlotte or for Sisi and I was kept in suspense until the final chapter.

There are also some great secondary characters including Caspar Hewes, a flamboyant American photographer; Augusta Crewe, who is engaged to Charlotte’s brother; and Chicken Hartopp, a disappointed suitor of Charlotte’s. Another favourite was Bay’s grey mare, Tipsy – I thought the relationship between Bay and his horse was well written and very touching. There’s a lot of period detail too and the setting feels believably Victorian, with no irritating anachronisms or language that feels inappropriately modern.

This is a long novel (there were more than 600 pages in the version I read) but I was so engrossed in the story that I didn’t really notice the length. I loved this book and now I need to find a copy of Daisy Goodwin’s first novel, My Last Duchess.