Category: Historical Fiction

Crippen by John Boyne

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Crippen I read my first John Boyne book, the Gothic ghost story This House is Haunted, last year just in time for Halloween. Since then I’ve been wanting to read another of his books and this novel, based on a real-life crime which took place in London more than a century ago, is the one I chose. It turned out to be a good choice because I enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed This House is Haunted, although the two books are quite different.

Crippen is a fictional account of the life of the notorious murderer, Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen, who was found guilty of murdering his wife and hiding the remains in the cellar of his home at 39 Hilldrop Crescent. It sounds very morbid and gruesome, I know, but the book is actually not as dark as you might imagine thanks to Boyne’s sense of humour, colourful characters and storytelling flair.

The story begins in the summer of 1910 and introduces us to a group of passengers on board the SS Montrose, sailing from Belgium to Canada. There’s Mrs Drake, a demanding, overbearing woman, and her daughter, Victoria, who is hoping to find romance on the journey. Then there’s Martha Hayes, who would prefer to hide herself away in her cabin with a pile of novels than mix with the other passengers, and Matthieu Zela, a Frenchman travelling with his obnoxious nephew, Tom. And finally, we meet Mr Robinson and his teenage son, Edmund, who are hoping for a quiet and uneventful journey.

If you’re not already familiar with the Crippen murder case, you might be wondering what the relevance is of the Atlantic voyage I’ve just described. I can promise you it is very relevant, although we don’t find out why until later in the book. Before we reach that point, we go back in time to the 1860s where we follow the young Hawley Harvey Crippen through his childhood in Michigan. As a teenager he decides he wants to study medicine, but when his parents refuse to help him financially it seems unlikely that Hawley will ever become a fully qualified doctor. After marrying Cora Turner, a music hall singer, the Crippens move to London where Hawley becomes an assistant in a homeopathic medicines company. Several years later, Cora disappears, her friends become convinced she has been murdered, and Hawley finds himself under suspicion…

Before beginning this book, I had heard of Dr Crippen but didn’t know any of the details of the case. I didn’t even know that there was so much controversy surrounding it. Boyne presents an interesting theory as to what may have actually happened, though I have no idea whether there could be any truth to this theory or not – I suspect there probably isn’t, but the book certainly does show Crippen in a much more sympathetic light than you might expect. It would be hard not to feel sorry for Boyne’s portrayal of a boy forced to abandon his dreams, a quiet and mild-mannered man bullied and abused by his selfish, manipulative wife.

My only complaint is that it was difficult to know exactly which parts of the novel were fictional and which weren’t. I looked up some factual information about Hawley Harvey Crippen after I read the book and was surprised to find that Boyne had changed so many biographical details, such as the names of Crippen’s parents and the fact that his first wife had actually died of a stroke rather than a road accident as described in the novel. When writing a fictional account of a real person’s life, it’s obvious that things like conversations, thoughts and emotions will have to be invented, but I’m not sure what the point was in altering all those little details.

Anyway, I didn’t worry about any of this until after I’d finished the book. While I was reading I was completely captivated by the twists and turns of the story and by Boyne’s wonderful writing style. I’m looking forward to exploring the rest of his novels now!

A Dangerous Inheritance by Alison Weir

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A Dangerous Inheritance The disappearance of the ‘Princes in the Tower’ (twelve-year-old Edward V of England and his younger brother Richard, Duke of York) remains a mystery to this day. Some believe that they were murdered by their uncle, Richard III, some suspect Henry VII or the Duke of Buckingham, and others prefer to think that one or both of the Princes managed to escape. My fascination with this mystery leads me to want to read everything I can find about it, even books like this one, written by an author whose views on the subject are entirely different from mine.

Alison Weir is an author of both historical fiction and non-fiction and A Dangerous Inheritance is one of her works of fiction. I had enjoyed a previous novel of hers, Innocent Traitor, which told the story of Lady Jane Grey, so I thought I would try this one despite knowing that Weir does not like Richard III at all and I was unlikely to agree with any conclusions she might come to.

Actually, this novel is only partly about Richard and the Princes; at least half of the book is set eighty years later and follows the story of Katherine Grey, the younger sister of the ‘nine-day queen’, Lady Jane Grey. After Jane’s very brief reign as Queen of England comes to an end when she is deposed by Mary I and beheaded, Katherine herself moves one step closer to the throne. To her disappointment, Mary is followed by Elizabeth I, who refuses to acknowledge Katherine as her heir and treats her badly. When Katherine marries the man she loves against Elizabeth’s wishes, she finds herself imprisoned in the Tower of London.

Katherine Grey’s story alternates with the story of another Katherine – Katherine Plantagenet (referred to as Kate to avoid confusion), an illegitimate daughter of Richard III. Kate loves her father and refuses to believe that he had any involvement in the disappearance of the two young princes. After Richard is defeated at Bosworth in 1485 and Henry Tudor takes his place on the throne, Kate’s loyalty to her father and her determination to clear his name could be considered treason. Several generations later, Katherine Grey discovers some letters written by Kate, learns of Kate’s connection with the princes and decides to continue investigating the mystery from within the Tower.

On the subject of the princes, I do find it fascinating that different authors and historians can begin with the same facts and come to entirely different conclusions! As nothing has ever been proven either way regarding the disappearance of the princes and the other controversies surrounding Richard III, I’m happy for it to remain a mystery. Having read quite a lot on the subject over the last few years, I personally find the pro-Richard viewpoint much more convincing than the anti-Richard one, but I can accept that we’ll probably never know the truth and that everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

For Alison Weir, although she states in her author’s note that she likes to keep an open mind, there is clearly no mystery: Richard was guilty of everything. As I was familiar with her views before beginning the book, I suppose I shouldn’t really complain! I was disappointed, though, that the main source Katherine uses in her investigations appears to be Thomas More (who was only seven years old at the time of Bosworth, is thought to have relied upon Richard’s enemy, Archbishop Morton, as his own primary source, and wrote his histories during the Tudor period, when it was obviously to his advantage to please the Tudor monarchs by discrediting their predecessors). However, as Weir explains in the author’s note, she could only use sources that would have been available to Katherine in the mid 16th century.

I did like the fact that this was a dual time period novel where both time periods were historical, rather than one being set in the present day, though I did sometimes feel that I was reading two separate stories that didn’t really belong in the same book. Apart from the fact that both main characters were Katherines and both suffered from being close to the throne, there was very little to link the two. It’s only in the final 100 pages of this 500-page book that Katherine Grey begins to investigate the mystery of the princes and parallels start to be drawn between the two storylines – some of them of a paranormal nature, which you may or may not appreciate!

Of the two, I enjoyed the Katherine Grey storyline the most. I found Katherine a much more engaging character, which is probably not surprising as she narrates in the first person while Kate doesn’t. Also, there is almost no historical information available on Kate Plantagenet, which meant that her sections of the book were largely fictional. I couldn’t help feeling that Katherine Grey’s life story would have been interesting enough to form the basis of a whole novel on its own without the addition of a second, imaginary storyline and without squeezing the Princes in the Tower into the same book as well.

Have you read anything about the Princes in the Tower? Who do you think was responsible for their disappearance?

After Flodden by Rosemary Goring

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After FloddenThe Battle of Flodden in 1513 was the largest and bloodiest battle fought between England and Scotland. The battle was fought near Branxton, Northumberland, in the north of England and despite the Scots having the biggest army in numbers, the result was a decisive victory for the English. It is estimated that while there were between 1,000-4,000 losses on the English side, there may have been over 10,000 Scottish casualties, including King James IV of Scotland.

After Flodden is a fictional account of the battle and its aftermath. Among the men who went to Flodden and never came back is Louise Brenier’s brother, Benoit. Since coming to Scotland from France several years earlier, the Brenier family have had more than their fair share of troubles, including the death of Louise’s sister, a mistress of James IV. Unwilling to accept that her brother could also be dead, Louise decides to search for him – but finding out the fate of one man among thousands is not going to be easy.

Accompanied by her faithful dog, ‘the vixen’, Louise leaves her home in Edinburgh behind and heads for the dangerous, lawless English/Scottish Borders. She is joined on her journey by two very different men: Gabriel Torrance, a nobleman from the court of King James, and Adam Crozier, leader of one of the Border clans. When both men offer to help look for Benoit, Louise must decide which of them she can trust.

After Flodden is Rosemary Goring’s first novel, published in 2013 to coincide with the 500th anniversary of the battle and having seen some very positive reviews of it last year I was looking forward to reading it myself. Now that I’ve read it, my feelings are mixed. After a slow start I did find myself enjoying the story but I didn’t think it was anything special – though maybe I was just expecting too much from it.

One thing I did love about this book was the choice of subject. Flodden has been mentioned briefly in other books I’ve read, but I have never come across a whole novel devoted to it until now. So many historical fiction novels are the ‘sweeping epic’ sort, covering several decades of history and spanning continents, so it was refreshing to see a book that was so tightly focused on one specific historical event. Reading After Flodden has helped me understand the reasons for the battle and why it was a disaster for the Scots.

In addition to the plot I’ve outlined above, other aspects of the battle and its consequences are also explored. The descriptions of the military preparations for the battle and the weapons and tactics involved are balanced by the more personal, human side. As well as seeing how Louise and her mother react to what has happened, we also meet a young boy who has carried his dying father from the battlefield. Some of the most emotional parts of the book are from the perspective of Patrick Paniter, secretary to James IV, who was one of the men advising the King before the battle and who feels responsible for the disastrous outcome.

I also found the sections of the book describing Louise’s journey south and her encounters with the Border clans very interesting as I only live around 60 miles from the border myself (on the English side). The history of this region is fascinating and I’m surprised it isn’t a more popular choice for historical fiction authors (The Disorderly Knights by Dorothy Dunnett features a feud between two rival Border families, the Scotts and the Kerrs, but I can’t think of many other books that I’ve read that even touch on this subject).

Dialogue is a difficult thing to get right in historical fiction but Goring’s attempt is reasonably good; it doesn’t sound too modern and she uses some Scottish dialect, but not too much. I was less convinced by the way she drops the occasional French word into Madame Brenier’s speech – it didn’t feel natural at all. A bigger problem, for me, is that the story is not told in chronological order but jumps around in time, which I found very confusing. It seemed unnecessary and made it difficult to follow the order of events.

The story was also too predictable, which is not always a bad thing, but when part of the plot revolves around the identity of a traitor it’s disappointing that it’s so easy to guess who that traitor is. It would have been nice to have been kept in suspense until Louise worked out the truth! On the plus side, the book included some useful character lists and a map so that readers can trace Louise’s journey through the Borders. I had to laugh at a misprint listing the members of the ‘Sottish Court’ (though knowing what some of these sixteenth century courts were like, maybe that was an accurate description!)

Although I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I’d hoped to, it was good to have the opportunity to learn more about this important battle.

The Secret Countess by Eva Ibbotson

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The Secret Countess The Secret Countess (also published as A Countess Below Stairs) is set in 1919 and the title character is Anna Grazinsky, the daughter of a Russian count and countess. During the Russian Revolution, she and her mother and brother are forced to flee their home in St Petersburg for safety in England, but on the journey they lose their remaining family jewels and arrive in England with nothing. Determined to get a job so that she can help to support her family, Anna finds a position as a maid at Mersham, the estate of the Earl of Westerholme. With Selena Strickland’s The Domestic Servant’s Compendium as her guide, she settles into her new job and earns the respect and friendship of the other servants, who are unaware that she is a countess.

The young Earl, Rupert Frayne, is returning to Mersham for the first time since leaving to fight in the First World War and has announced that his fiancée, Muriel Hardwicke will soon be joining him. At first the Fraynes, their friends and their servants are pleased with the news of Rupert’s forthcoming marriage because Muriel is a rich heiress and her money means that the future of Mersham will be safe. But while Rupert is awaiting Muriel’s arrival, he notices the new Russian housemaid and finds himself falling in love.

It was not hard to predict what was going to happen in The Secret Countess! From the beginning it was obvious how it was going to end, but that didn’t make the book any less enjoyable. After finishing the dark and disturbing Gretel and the Dark I wanted something light and gentle to read next and this book was the perfect choice. I thought it was a lovely story with a magical, fairy tale quality and an old-fashioned feel (the book was first published in 1981 but could have been much older than that). The romance between Anna and Rupert is a subtle, understated one and doesn’t ever really dominate the story, but I never doubted that there would be a happy ending and that they would somehow overcome the obstacles in their path.

While my preference is usually for books that are less predictable and with characters that are more complex and nuanced (most of the characters in this book are either completely ‘good’ or completely ‘bad’ with nothing in between) that didn’t really bother me this time. Anna could easily have been one of those sickening heroines who is too good to be true – she’s beautiful, generous, sweet, kind and loving – but I couldn’t help liking her anyway. In the same way, the character who turns out to be the villain of the novel is horrible in every way, yet perfect in the context of the story. Another of the strengths of this book is its wonderful supporting characters. My favourite was the Honourable Ollie Byrne, the little girl who loves life despite its unfairness towards her, but all of the others are given a distinctive personality of their own too – even Rupert’s dog, Baskerville.

If I’ve understood correctly, this book was originally written as a book for adults but has now been repackaged to appeal to YA readers. I honestly think this is a book that could be equally enjoyed by both adults and younger readers and it would be a shame if anyone missed out on reading it because it has been marketed in a certain way. This is only the second book I’ve read by Eva Ibbotson (the other was Madensky Square) and I’m pleased that I still have so many of her other books to explore!

Gretel and the Dark by Eliza Granville

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Gretel and the Dark One night in 1899, Benjamin discovers a young woman lying on the ground near Vienna’s mental hospital, naked and bruised, and takes her to the home of his employer, the famous psychoanalyst, Dr Josef Breuer. The girl, whom Dr Breuer names Lilie, insists that she is not human, that she’s just a machine. Her mission, she says, is to destroy a monster. The doctor enlists Benjamin’s help in trying to uncover the truth about his young patient, but both men find themselves increasingly drawn to the mysterious Lilie.

Many years later, in Germany, we meet a spoilt and badly behaved little girl called Krysta. She has recently moved house with her father, another doctor, to be nearer his job working with ‘animal people’ at what Krysta believes is a zoo. Krysta’s father is busy with his work, leaving his daughter to entertain herself by remembering the fairy tales she was told by her old nurse, Greet, and making friends with Daniel, a lonely little boy she discovers eating worms in the grounds of the ‘zoo’. When an unexpected tragedy throws Krysta’s life into turmoil, she learns that Greet’s stories can provide an escape from the horrors that are going on around her.

Well, this is proving to be a very difficult book to write about without giving too much away! Gretel and the Dark is one of those books where it is not immediately obvious what is happening. For a long time I was confused. What was the link between the two storylines? Was Lilie a real person or was she a machine, as she claimed? How did she seem to have so much knowledge of the future? And who was Gretel supposed to be?

I think I spent about 300 of the book’s 350 pages trying to figure out the connection between Krysta and Lilie and coming up with theories, most of which were completely wrong. I only started to guess the truth shortly before it was revealed and when everything began to come together in the final chapters of the book, I discovered that the story I had actually been reading was not quite the one I’d thought I was reading!

Despite the allusions to fairy tales and the fact that some of the main characters are children, this is actually a very, very dark novel. Again, I can’t really discuss any of the issues the book raises because it would be best to know as little as possible before starting to read – though I don’t think it would be too much of a spoiler to say that the place where Krysta’s father works is not really a zoo at all, but something much more sinister. And the fairy tales Krysta recalls throughout the book are not the light, whimsical kind, but the dark and gruesome ones. Hansel and Gretel is one of her favourites and she enjoys using her imagination to push various enemies into the witch’s oven! Later in the book, when something particularly horrible happens to Krysta, another of the tales Greet told her takes on new meaning.

I liked Eliza Granville’s writing but I didn’t find this an easy book to read because some parts of the story were so disturbing and unpleasant. Although it was not a book I could describe as ‘enjoyable’ it was certainly very clever and unusual…and I can almost guarantee you’ll still be thinking about it long after reaching the final page.

Thanks to Penguin Ireland for the review copy.

Falls the Shadow by Sharon Penman

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Falls the Shadow Although I just finished reading this book at the weekend, it was actually one of the first books I started in 2014. While I think Penman’s novels are wonderful, they are not quick reads, for me at least; they’re long, complex and emotionally intense and I like to give them the time and attention they deserve.

Falls the Shadow is the second in the Welsh Princes trilogy which began with Here Be Dragons, the story of King John’s daughter Joanna and her husband Llewellyn Fawr, Prince of Gwynedd. Falls the Shadow begins where Here Be Dragons ended, but while you may prefer to read them in order so that the end of the previous book is not spoiled for you, it’s not essential. This is a complete novel in itself and tells the story of Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, the French nobleman who ruled England for more than a year after leading a rebellion against King Henry III in 1264.

The story begins with Simon visiting his cousin, the Earl of Chester, to ask him to restore to him the earldom of Leicester which he believes is rightfully his. The Earl agrees to his request, but Simon’s visit is also successful in another way because it is here that he meets his future wife, Eleanor (known as Nell), the sister of King Henry III. Henry reluctantly agrees to the marriage between Simon and Nell, but a dispute over debts soon leads to Simon being temporarily exiled from England – and this is only the start of the turbulent relationship between the two men.

In contrast to Henry, who is portrayed as a weak, incompetent king, Simon is a great soldier and leader who believes in a more democratic form of government. Simon’s growing disillusionment with Henry, as well as his reluctance to abandon his principles and his hopes for England, leads him into war against his King. As one character comments, “it was not treason, was but a dream bred before its time”.

We are also reacquainted with some of the Welsh characters we first met in Here Be Dragons. After Llewellyn Fawr’s death, we see that the united Wales he had worked so hard to achieve is now at risk of division and disintegration again as his descendants fight amongst themselves. It seems that only his grandson, another Llewellyn, shares his vision of a strong and independent Wales. Llewellyn’s family have some blood ties with the English royal family (Joanna was the half-sister of Henry and Nell) and the events in England also have an impact on the lives of our Welsh characters.

Thanks to Dan Jones’ book on the Plantagenets which I read recently, I was able to begin Falls the Shadow knowing some of the basic facts surrounding the de Montfort rebellion and the reigns of Henry III and his son, Edward I, but this is still a period of history I know very little about. I think this was actually an advantage because it meant the story felt fresh and new to me and I didn’t always know what was going to happen next. I am always amazed by the accuracy of Penman’s novels, right down to the smallest details, and impressed by both the extent of her research and the fact that so much information has survived through so many centuries! The way in which one particular character died, for example, seemed a bit too dramatic to be likely, but when I looked it up, yes, that was how it really happened.

Penman is also one of the few authors who writes battle scenes that I actually enjoy reading. She manages to explain the tactics and strategies in a way that I can understand and follow without becoming bored or confused. There are two main battles in this novel, both part of the Second Barons’ War – the Battle of Lewes and the Battle of Evesham (described by the medieval chronicler Robert of Gloucester as “the murder of Evesham for battle it was none”).

I loved this book, but it did feel slightly unbalanced. In the first half the Welsh story runs parallel with the English one, but in the second half Simon and Nell’s story dominates completely and very little time is spent with the Welsh characters. Having finished the book and read the author’s note, she says this was intentional; there was too much material to fit into one novel, so she made the decision to devote this one to Simon and the next one to the Princes of Wales. At first I was disappointed that the Welsh storyline was virtually abandoned halfway through the book, as I was enjoying following the rivalries between Llewellyn’s sons, Davydd and Gruffydd, and later between his grandson, the younger Llewellyn, and his three brothers, but I didn’t mind too much because Simon’s story was so compelling as well.

I didn’t realise quite how much Penman had made me love Simon until I reached the end of his story. Not knowing much about the real Simon de Montfort, it’s possible that she has romanticised his character, but I do think she did a good job of showing both his good points and his flaws. As with The Sunne in Splendour (Penman’s Richard III novel) where I approached the final chapters with a growing sense of dread, it was the same with this book as I knew there wasn’t going to be a happy ending – and yes, it was as tragic and heartbreaking as I’d expected, and yes, I cried! I’m now looking forward to the final book in the trilogy, The Reckoning, and hoping to enjoy it as much as the previous two.

Norah by Cynthia G. Neale

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Norah Norah McCabe is a young Irish woman living in Five Points, New York City in the 1850s. Having left Ireland during the Famine to come to America as an immigrant, Norah is determined to work hard and escape a life of poverty. Her first venture is a used clothing store called A Bee in Your Bonnet which she runs with her friend, Mary, but when the purchase of an expensive dress leads to them both being implicated in a murder inquiry this proves to be an unexpected turning point in Norah’s career. Offered a job as a reporter for the Irish-American newspaper, she meets a man who introduces her to revolutionary politics – and finds herself both in love and in serious danger.

Cynthia Neale has previously written two young adult books about Norah McCabe, The Irish Dresser and Hope in New York City, which tell the story of Norah’s journey to America as a teenager and her first years in her new country. This book, subtitled The Making of an Irish-American Woman in 19th Century New York, is the author’s first adult novel and continues Norah’s story. The fact that this is actually the third Norah McCabe book probably explains why from the very first chapter Norah feels like a fully developed, three-dimensional character.

I didn’t always like Norah or agree with her decisions – she can be sharp tongued, impulsive and reluctant to take advice – but she is also ambitious, courageous and resilient. Some of the terrible situations she finds herself in could possibly have been avoided, which was frustrating, but I was pleased to find that she does learn from her mistakes and continues to mature over the course of the novel. While I’m not Irish, not an immigrant and not living in 1850s New York, I could still relate to parts of Norah’s story and enjoy watching her use her wits and intelligence to overcome the obstacles that are constantly being placed in her path.

As a work of historical fiction, the background to the novel has clearly been well researched. Life in the poorer areas of New York during this period was not easy and not always very pleasant and the author doesn’t shy away from describing the violence, corruption and prejudice that Norah encounters. But this is also a book about love, about the importance of family and friends, and about what it was like to be a woman in the 19th century – a woman with dreams and ambitions and the determination to try to make them a reality.

Although the pace was slow at the beginning of the book, there was plenty of drama in the later chapters to make up for it. I found this quite an enjoyable, inspirational read and I’m pleased to have had the chance to get to know Norah McCabe.

Norah book tour

I read Norah as part of a Virtual Book Tour organised by Fireship Press, an independent publisher of historical and nautical fiction and non-fiction. For more reviews, guest posts and giveaways please see the tour schedule.