The King’s General by Daphne du Maurier

February 7, 201312 Comments

If you asked me to name my favourite author I wouldn’t be able to give a definitive answer; there are so many that I love and I would find it hard to single one out. But one name that would always be high on my list is Daphne du Maurier. I’ve read twelve of her books now, including this one, and I can honestly say I’ve enjoyed all of them.

The King’s General is set in seventeenth century Cornwall, during the English Civil War. Our narrator is Honor Harris, whose family are Royalists fighting for the King against the Parliamentarians. Honor is eighteen years old when she meets and falls in love with Richard Grenvile but on the day before their wedding tragedy strikes and the marriage never takes place. As the years go by, Richard rises through the ranks of the army, marries another woman and has children, while Honor stays in the Harris family home and remains single.

As the war intensifies and the fighting spreads throughout Cornwall, Honor joins her sister and brother-in-law in the safety of their home, Menabilly, and here she meets Richard again for the first time in fifteen years. He has left his wife, bringing their fourteen-year-old son, Dick, with him, and is now commanding the Royalist forces as the King’s General in the West. Richard and Honor discover they still love each other as much as before and although she refuses to marry him, they begin an unusual relationship that withstands the war, betrayal and rebellion going on around them.

I wasn’t sure at first that I was going to like this book. The first chapter was very confusing – it’s narrated by an older Honor looking back on her life and reflecting on people and events that we know nothing about yet, before going back in time in the next chapter to tell her story from the beginning. But as soon as Honor and Richard had their first meeting on the battlements of Plymouth Castle I knew I needn’t have worried! After I finished the book I went back to re-read the first chapter and it did make a lot more sense.

The King’s General is historical fiction rather than the gothic suspense Daphne du Maurier is probably better known for, but there are still elements of the gothic here, mainly in the atmospheric descriptions of Menabilly with its secret tunnels, hidden chambers and mysterious noises in the night. Menabilly (the inspiration for Manderley in Rebecca) was du Maurier’s home in Cornwall and previously belonged to the Rashleighs, one of the families featured in The King’s General. It was apparently the story of a discovery at Menabilly by William Rashleigh in the 19th century that inspired the writing of this novel.

But while this book could be described as historical romance, as you might expect from du Maurier the romance between Richard and Honor is not a conventional one and neither of the two main characters is a typical romantic hero or heroine. Even people who like flawed characters (and I usually do) might have trouble with Richard as he is not a very pleasant person at all. He’s ruthless, arrogant and cruel and the way he treats his shy, nervous son Dick is particularly horrible. I couldn’t help thinking that his relationship, or lack of it, with Dick reminded me of Heathcliff’s with his son, Linton, in Wuthering Heights and of course, many of du Maurier’s books do have a strong Brontë influence. The only point in Richard’s favour is that he does seem to truly love Honor and in the scenes where they are alone we sometimes see a more human side to him. Honor herself is another strong and complex person. I didn’t always agree with the decisions she made but I admired her courage in helping to protect her family and friends throughout the war and her strength in dealing with the disaster that befell her early in the story. I deliberately haven’t told you exactly what this disaster was because if you can manage to avoid knowing before you start to read the book, it will probably have more impact!

Du Maurier had obviously put a lot of effort into her research for the novel. Although this is a fictional story, the various battles and other historical events in the book did take place as described and most of the characters were real people recorded in history, including both Richard Grenvile and Honor Harris. The Civil War (actually three separate wars between 1642 and 1651) is not a period of English history I have read much about. I know the basics that we were taught at school – that the Royalists (Cavaliers) were defeated by the Parliamentarians (Roundheads), and King Charles I was beheaded and replaced by the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell – but beyond that, I don’t know very much at all. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, because my total lack of knowledge of the Battle of Lostwithiel, for example, or the Siege of Plymouth Castle, meant that I never knew what was going to happen next.

While The King’s General doesn’t rank as one of my top three or four Daphne du Maurier novels I still loved it and am looking forward to the remaining du Maurier books I still haven’t read.

Gemini by Dorothy Dunnett

January 26, 201328 Comments

In June last year, having finished the final book of the Lymond Chronicles in April, I picked up Niccolò Rising and embarked on Dorothy Dunnett’s second historical series, the House of Niccolò. And now here I am, seven months and eight books later, at the end of Gemini and finding it hard to believe that there are no more adventures of either Lymond or Nicholas left for me to discover. There will be re-reads, of course, but it does make me sad that I can’t read any of these books for the first time again.

*Spoilers follow for both the House of Niccolo and the Lymond Chronicles*

Geographically, unlike the last few Niccolò books where the action switched between a variety of different settings, Gemini is focused mainly on one location: Scotland. After causing damage to the Scottish economy in the course of his long-running contest with his wife, Gelis, Nicholas has returned to try to make amends. Soon after his arrival in Scotland, Nicholas finds himself having to contend with a possible inherited illness (porphyria?) afflicting the royal family, trying to handle the King’s wild and unpredictable younger brother, John of Mar, and attempting to thwart a rebellion by the King’s other brother, the Duke of Albany. With Nicholas’s two biggest enemies, his grandfather, Jordan de St Pol of Kilmirren, and his former trading rival, Davie Simpson, also in Scotland, Gelis stays behind for a while in the relative safety of Bruges with their son, Jordan. But it’s not long before she and Jordan are in Edinburgh too and the eighth and final volume of the House of Niccolò starts to head towards its conclusion.

I did love Gemini overall, but I confess to getting a little bit bored with the political aspects of the novel. It’s not that I don’t find this period of history interesting and important, because I do – it’s just that at this late stage in the series, and especially as I began to reach the end of the book, I was too impatient to slow down and concentrate on all the details. I’m sure on a future re-read I’ll be able to appreciate this side of the novel more, but on this first read I was desperate to see how Nicholas’s personal story would be resolved and to have some of my questions answered.

I found Simon’s and Henry’s deaths particularly moving, though not so much for their sakes as for Nicholas’s, though I did feel slightly cheated when I realised that Simon was never going to acknowledge Nicholas as his son, and that neither Simon nor Henry were ever going to find out the truth about Henry’s parentage – I think I had expected there to be a big confrontation at the end of the book where everything would be revealed. I suppose it’s not the first time in a Dunnett novel that things haven’t turned out the way I had been anticipating! I was also a bit disappointed that a true reconciliation between Henry and Nicholas never happened, despite there seeming to be some steps in that direction earlier in the book.

I get the impression that opinion is divided over the Epilogue with some readers finding it unnecessary, but personally I liked it and was pleased to see that some of the links with the Lymond Chronicles were explained at last. Although I’ve been doing my best to avoid spoilers while reading this series I must have picked up somewhere that Rankin was Lymond’s father because I had that at the back of my mind, but I was completely confused as to how Rankin of Berecrofts could possibly be the same person as Francis Crawford, 1st Baron Culter. As for Sybilla’s parents, I had guessed that Jordan was probably her father, though I had no idea about the identity of her mother. I had been coming up with various theories about the significance of Bel of Cuthilgurdy, but not the right one.

Now for one of the most shocking revelations of the novel: Julius. I didn’t like him and had started to suspect there might be more to him than met the eye, but even though his mother’s name was there in the family tree at the front of the book, it had never occurred to me that there was any connection and when it was revealed it took me completely by surprise. When I get around to reading this series again I will certainly be looking for clues about Julius and paying more attention to everything he says and does in the earlier novels!

*End of spoilers*

I’ve really enjoyed working my way through this series, but the House of Niccolò hasn’t had quite the same effect on me as the Lymond Chronicles, mainly because Nicholas himself, to me, is a less appealing character than Lymond – though I know others will disagree. While I was reading the Lymond Chronicles (and sometimes even now, a year later) I was thinking and worrying about Lymond all the time, even when I was away from the books, but I never really connected with Nicholas on the same level. Still, I did love the series as a whole and am looking forward to reading all the books again and looking out for some of the things I know I missed during the first read. I’ve also bought a copy of King Hereafter and will be reading that at some point, but first I’m spending some time catching up on all the non-Dunnett books I’ve been neglecting over the last year!

The Master of Verona by David Blixt

January 24, 2013January 24, 20132 Comments

The Master of Verona is set in Northern Italy in the early 14th century. At the beginning of the novel the great poet Dante Alighieri, after years of exile from Florence, has been invited to the city of Verona by its ruler, Francesco della Scala, known as Cangrande. Dante and his two sons, Pietro and Jacopo, arrive in Verona at a turbulent time for the city; not only has war broken out with Padua, but Cangrande’s heir, Cesco, has been the target of an assassination attempt.

When seventeen-year-old Pietro impresses Cangrande with his courage and loyalty, he becomes caught up in Verona’s battles with Padua and is also entrusted with trying to help protect the life of baby Cesco. As if this wasn’t enough, Pietro’s two best friends, Mariotto Montecchio and Antonio Capecelatro have both fallen in love with the same girl and an ancient feud between their two families looks set to be reignited…

This was one of the final books I read in 2012 and I finished it just in time for it to make my list of favourite books of the year. It has taken me a while to actually write this post as there’s so much going on in the novel and so many different aspects to the story, it’s difficult to know where to begin! First, there’s a link with Romeo and Juliet; although this is not a retelling of Shakespeare’s play, Blixt suggests a possible theory to explain how the feud between the Montagues and Capulets may have originated. I noticed allusions to some of Shakespeare’s other plays too, but the story could still be understood and enjoyed even if you have no knowledge of Shakespeare at all as this is just one small element of the novel.

The plot does become quite complicated and some concentration is needed at first to keep all the characters straight, especially as many of them are also referred to by their titles or nicknames (Cangrande, for example, is sometimes referred to as Francesco della Scala, the Scaliger, the Greyhound or the Capitano). However, I never had any problems understanding what was happening and could even manage to follow the battle scenes! This is a great book for those of us who like our historical fiction novels long, detailed and complex but with plenty of action at the same time. There’s always something happening, whether it’s a battle, a chase, a festival or a duel. One of the most memorable episodes of the story describes Pietro’s participation in the Palio, a dramatic horse race through the streets of Verona. It’s all breathtakingly exciting and makes the book a much quicker read than you might expect considering the length of it.

But it’s not all non-stop action; in quieter moments, the characters have lots of discussions on religion and philosophy, mainly with reference to Dante’s work – the concepts of Heaven and Hell, the significance of stars, etc – which made me wish I had actually read Dante so I knew what they were talking about! He is definitely on my list now for future reading. There are also some fascinating passages in which we see the 14th century literary world of booksellers and scribes through the eyes of Dante’s daughter, Antonia Alighieri.

Many of the characters in the book are real historical figures of the period. Cangrande, the ‘Master of Verona’ who is believed by some to be the legendary ‘Greyhound’ or saviour of Italy, is fascinating and charismatic, a complex character with several different sides to his personality. As all good historical fiction novels should, this book left me wanting to know more about the real life Cangrande. Dante himself is someone I have never read much about, so knowing very little about his life, I have no idea how accurately he was portrayed in this book. The spelling Alaghieri is sometimes used in place of Alighieri but the author explains his reasons for this both in the text of the story and in his notes at the end of the book, and again, I don’t really have enough knowledge of Dante to be able to comment on this. There are some strong and interesting female characters in the book too: I’ve already mentioned Antonia, but there’s also Katerina della Scala, Cangrande’s sister. And even little Cesco, despite being not much more than a baby, has a very strong personality of his own.

The only negative thing I can say about this book is that the dialogue felt a bit too modern at times (I’m sorry for mentioning this yet again – I feel as if I’ve been complaining about the dialogue every time I’ve reviewed historical fiction recently!) but luckily I was enjoying the story so much I could overlook the occasional word that didn’t sound right.

This book is the first in a series and I’m already looking forward to reading the second one, Voice of the Falconer!

The Beggar King by Oliver Pötzsch

January 18, 201311 Comments

It’s 1662 and the Schongau hangman, Jakob Kuisl, is travelling to Regensburg to visit his sister Lisbeth who has sent him a message saying she is seriously ill. Arriving in the city, Jakob discovers that he has walked into a trap: his sister and her husband are found dead in their bathhouse and Jakob is arrested on suspicion of murder. Imprisoned and tortured, he awaits his execution in one of the city’s dungeons.

Jakob’s daughter, Magdalena, vows to help her father and sets off to Regensburg with her lover, doctor’s son Simon Fronwieser. As they begin to investigate, Magdalena and Simon meet a variety of characters including a Venetian ambassador, a raftsman, a brewmaster – and the city’s community of beggars and thieves, led by Nathan the Wise, the ‘Beggar King’ of the title. They must decide who can and cannot be trusted and come up with a plan to rescue Magdalena’s father before it’s too late.

The Beggar King is the third in a series of historical mystery/thrillers following the adventures of 17th century Bavarian hangman Jakob Kuisl and his daughter Magdalena. The first two in the series are The Hangman’s Daughter and The Dark Monk; I haven’t read either of these but starting with the third book was not really a problem as this was a complete story in itself and not dependent on things that had happened in the previous books. If I had read the others I might have got more out of the story, as there were relationships that had obviously been developing over the course of the series, but I was still able to follow what was happening easily enough.

There were things that I liked about The Beggar King and the fast-paced, action-packed story did keep me entertained, but I don’t think I will be looking for any of the others in the series. The problem I had with the book was the language used in the dialogue. Would people in the 1660s really have called each other ‘lowlife drifters’ and would they have said something like “Just my luck that I wind up in the hands of a quack like you”? A lot of the terms and phrases that were used just sounded wrong to me. I’m aware that the book has been translated into English from its original German, so it’s hard to tell how much of this is down to the original text and how much to the translation, but when I read historical fiction I like to feel that I’ve been transported back in time and because of the dialogue I did not get that feeling at all with this book. As well as the language being too modern, the way some of the characters thought and behaved also felt too modern and I found it particularly difficult to believe in Magdalena as a realistic 17th century woman.

What I did enjoy was all the information we are given on the living conditions and medical history of the time, things I always find interesting to read about. Magdalena’s lover Simon is a ‘medicus’ (physician) and she herself is training to be a midwife. Jakob Kuisl also has some medical skills – it seems that the town hangman did much more than just carry out executions and was also involved in operating the instruments of torture during the interrogation of prisoners, and ironically, was responsible for tending the prisoners’ injuries after he had finished torturing them. In this way, the hangman gained a good knowledge of human anatomy and physiology.

I also loved the setting and the descriptions of the Bavarian village of Schongau and the city of Regensburg on the River Danube where most of the action takes place. I haven’t read much, if anything, about Germany in the 17th century and I enjoyed the author’s note at the end which takes us on a journey through Regensburg and tells us more about some of the places mentioned in the novel.

Inappropriate dialogue is something that often irritates me in historical fiction, but I know not everyone will be bothered by it. Looking at other reviews of The Beggar King, it does seem that the general opinion is overwhelmingly positive and a fourth book is already on its way!

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

Caprice and Rondo by Dorothy Dunnett

January 7, 20138 Comments

The seventh in the House of Niccolò series and another one I enjoyed, although it was actually one of my least favourites so far. I know other readers will disagree, but in an eight-volume series it’s inevitable that there are going to be some that I don’t love as much as others and this was one of them. Before I try to explain why, I’ll repeat my usual warning that if you have not read the previous six Niccolò novels, you will encounter some spoilers below – it’s impossible to avoid them at this stage in the series!

At the beginning of Caprice and Rondo, we find Nicholas in exile following the revelations at the end of the previous book, To Lie with Lions. After allowing his rivalry with his wife, Gelis, to cause financial problems for his bank and almost destroy the nation of Scotland, it seems that his friends and colleagues may not be able to forgive him this time. Spending the winter drinking with the pirate Paúel Benecke in Danzig, Poland, Nicholas appears to be without aim and direction, until the opportunity arises for him to travel to Caffa on the Black Sea in the company of the mysterious Anna von Hanseyck. He is also still searching for the African gold that was stolen from his ship in Scales of Gold, as well as trying to protect Gelis and their son, Jodi, from their numerous enemies who include the former Vatachino agent, David de Salmeton.

I think part of the problem I had with this book was that we are taken to such a lot of different geographical locations and yet none of them really came to life for me as vividly as the settings in the previous books. I realise the cold, subdued atmosphere of the Danzig chapters was probably intended to match Nicholas’s mood and the state of mind he had found himself in, rather as the frozen landscapes of Russia matched Lymond’s in The Ringed Castle, but for me, this was probably the least successful of all the settings in any of the Dunnett novels I’ve read. Caffa is beautifully described, but I couldn’t help thinking the whole section of the book that took place in the Crimea felt a bit irrelevant, though maybe that’s partly because I was finding it difficult to really get interested in the intricacies of Tartar politics. I was much more interested in the other main thread of the story which involved Gelis, with the help of Tobie, visiting Thibault de Fleury and trying to unearth the truth about Nicholas’s parentage. I found myself liking Gelis again in this book after being so frustrated and confused by her since the end of Scales of Gold. I had never doubted that she and Nicholas loved each other and it’s so sad that they had wasted all those years when they could have been together as a family.

We also get a new villain in this book: Julius’s wife, Anna. I was suspicious of Anna from the beginning having learned not to trust characters who seem too good to be true, though I hadn’t guessed who she really was (or not until Adelina’s background was discussed, after which it was quite easy to make the connection) so that was a surprise. I was a bit disappointed though that our established villains, Jordan de Ribérac and Simon de St Pol, never appeared in this book.

While some new questions were raised – the identities of the six children, for example – it also felt as though a lot of things were being tied up in this book in preparation for the final one, such as the death of Nicholai Giorgio de’ Acciajuoli and the end of the mercenary company led by Astorre (I thought Astorre’s death at Nancy was one of the most moving scenes in the book). And of course, the Duchy of Burgundy itself was thrown into disarray with the Duke also losing his life in the battle of Nancy. I also, like Nicholas, finally began to have a better understanding of Ludovico da Bologna who seems to have popped up all over the place in whichever obscure corner of the world Nicholas has been visiting.

“Josaphat Barbaro, speaking of him in Persia, had said, ‘One meets him everywhere, does one not, as one might expect to see the ubiquitous God? But what one meets is not God, but one’s own conscience’.”

Although I started this post by saying this was one of my least favourite Niccolo books, ironically I also found it one of the quickest and easiest to read and I flew through it in a few days over Christmas. I’m reading Gemini now and can’t wait to see how the series concludes!

The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin

January 3, 2013January 3, 20139 Comments

Melanie Benjamin picks such interesting subjects for her novels, introducing us to historical figures who, despite their significance, we may not know much about: first Alice Liddell, the inspiration behind Alice in Wonderland, then Lavinia Warren or ‘Mrs Tom Thumb’, and now Anne Morrow Lindbergh, wife of the famous aviator, Charles Lindbergh.

We first meet Anne Morrow, daughter of the US ambassador to Mexico, in 1927 at a reception attended by Charles Lindbergh who has recently completed his first solo flight across the Atlantic. Everyone expects Lindbergh to be drawn to Anne’s beautiful older sister, Elizabeth, but instead it is the shy, quiet Anne who catches his eye and when he takes her up in his plane for a private flight, she finds that she shares his love of flying. Soon Lindbergh proposes and Anne accepts, but she quickly discovers that being married to one of the most famous men in America is not going to be easy.

Before reading this book I had heard of the Lindberghs but knew almost nothing about them so, for me, The Aviator’s Wife was very educational as well as being an enjoyable story. I’ve never given much thought as to what being an aviator actually involved and it was interesting to see how the Lindberghs use their roles as aviators to perform a range of useful and varied tasks including charting new routes and mapping flight paths for passenger planes, flying over places of interest to take aerial photographs, and delivering aid to disaster zones. Flying in those early aircraft must have been an amazing experience – the description of Anne’s first flight with Lindbergh is wonderfully written and sounds both terrifying and exhilarating.

This book gives us some fascinating insights into what it is like to be a celebrity. The Lindberghs have very little privacy and everything they do attracts attention from the world’s media. They are followed by reporters and photographers everywhere they go, though as quiet, reserved people neither Charles nor Anne seem very comfortable with being constantly in the spotlight. Charles has already learned to deal with it in his own way, but Anne often finds it difficult. Their fame eventually leads to tragedy – I won’t go into details here (if you’re familiar with the Lindberghs’ lives you will know what this tragedy was and if not I won’t spoil the story for you) but this part of the book was heartbreaking and made even worse by the fact that the way Charles chose to deal with the disaster was completely inadequate.

The relationship between Anne and Charles becomes more and more tense and strained as the years go by, but even as Charles grows increasingly cold and distant, Anne tries to stay loyal to her husband and is supportive when he expresses his controversial views on Hitler and the Nazis, despite the fact that she’s not convinced that he’s right. Charles is portrayed as a complex person with some good qualities but also a lot of bad ones. He tries to control every aspect of Anne’s and their children’s lives and at first it’s frustrating to see how Anne allows him to do this, but eventually she begins to move out of his shadow and finds some independence. As well as being her husband’s co-pilot, navigator and radio operator, Anne becomes an accomplished pilot in her own right and is also the first American woman to obtain a glider pilot’s licence. She later starts to build a successful career of her own as an author, publishing books including the best-selling Gift from the Sea.

I’ve enjoyed all three of Melanie Benjamin’s books but I think this one is her best so far. I was left wanting to learn more about Anne Morrow Lindbergh and feeling that she really deserves to be known as more than just ‘the aviator’s wife’!

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

Three nurses, a ghost and a computer genius

January 1, 2013January 1, 201321 Comments

The Nightingale Girls by Donna Douglas / For One More Tomorrow by Elizabeth Bailey / Goodbye for Now by Laurie Frankel

Happy New Year! With a backlog of books read near the end of 2012 still to write about, I am starting 2013 with reviews of not just one book but three. Apologies in advance for the length of this post…I thought these were going to be mini-reviews but they turned out to be longer than I expected!

The Nightingale Girls by Donna Douglas

The Nightingale Girls is set in the 1930s and follows the stories of three student nurses at one of London’s top teaching hospitals, the Nightingale.

Life is not easy for Dora Doyle, who comes from a poor, working class family from the East End of London. Dora sometimes feels out of place among the other, richer girls at the Nightingale and is struggling to find money to buy the books she needs, but she is determined to succeed, partly because she’s passionate about nursing but also because she’s desperate to get away from her abusive stepfather. The aristocratic Lady Amelia Benedict, known as Millie, is from a very different social background to Dora, with whom she shares a room. Millie wants to build a life for herself away from her luxurious home and glamorous friends, but as she is constantly finding herself in trouble and has already failed her preliminary training exams once, it’s going to be difficult to prove that she’s serious about her nursing. The third girl we meet is Helen Tremayne, a second year student. Her domineering mother is on the hospital’s board of trustees and her brother is a doctor, so expectations are high. Helen works hard, but has trouble making friends, especially as the other girls don’t trust her because of her mother.

At first it seems that Dora, Helen and Millie have nothing in common but as they get to know each other during their long, hard days at the Nightingale, a bond begins to form between the three of them. I didn’t feel I got to know Helen as well as the other two but I loved both Dora and Millie. Dora was completely inspirational and a perfect example of someone managing to fulfil her dreams through sheer determination and hard work. And the rebellious but warm-hearted Millie was so endearing. Through her story we see that money and possessions are not everything and that true happiness can come through doing something that we love. There are some great secondary characters too, including the spiteful and snobby but bitterly unhappy Lucy Lane, and the Doyles’ neighbour, Nick, who is desperately trying to make enough money to take his little brother to America. Dora’s grandmother, Nanna Winnie, was another favourite.

It was so interesting to see what was involved in being a trainee nurse in the 1930s. The book shows us the hardships of nursing, but there are also lots of moments of fun and humour, including one hilarious scene involving false teeth. As a historical novel, the setting of 1930s London is wonderful, whether we’re reading about the streets in the East End where the Doyle family live or an afternoon eating cakes and drinking tea at Lyons’ Corner House! The Nightingale Girls is the first in a series of novels about the Nightingale Hospital and I will look forward to reading the others.

Thanks to Random House for sending me a review copy of The Nightingale Girls

For One More Tomorrow by Elizabeth Bailey

For One More Tomorrow, currently available as an ebook, tells the story of Sadie Grey, who is directing a production of Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth. Growing frustrated and disillusioned with some of the actors in the play and their inability to inject real passion into their roles, Sadie is stunned when she meets the ghost of Macbeth himself. Soon Mac, as Sadie calls him, seems to be invading her thoughts and taking over her life, and as her relationship with the ghost develops there are some surprises in store for both Sadie and the reader!

At first Sadie wonders whether Macbeth’s ghost has been produced from her own imagination – he looks and sounds exactly as she had pictured him in her mind, even wearing tartan like the characters in Sadie’s play despite the fact that she knows the real Macbeth would not have done so. And yet it seems that Mac does have an existence of his own outside of her imagination, and some sections of the story are seen from his point of view, as he roams the streets alone or watches rehearsals from the shadows at the side of the stage. Through his own thoughts and his conversations with Sadie, we see that he is not very pleased at the way the story of his life has been distorted by Shakespeare; he’s angry and hurt that his reputation has been damaged and history has been altered in the name of entertainment.

I haven’t read all of Shakespeare’s plays but I have read Macbeth more than once and it’s probably the play I’m most familiar with. I could sympathise with Sadie, who clearly has a real understanding and love of the play; she knows how she wants the actors and actresses to play their roles and it annoys her when they do not portray their characters as she wants to see them portrayed…especially Curtis, the man who is playing Macbeth. I did enjoy the parts of the book that deal with the rehearsals for the play and the problems Sadie encounters as director, but my favourite scenes were those in which Sadie is interacting with the ghost. For One More Tomorrow was an unusual and imaginative story and I’m sure the next time I read Macbeth I’ll remember Mac and how he felt about Shakespeare’s words.

Thanks to the author for sending me a review copy of this book

Goodbye for Now by Laurie Frankel

Sam Elling is a computer software engineer who works for an online dating company based in Seattle. Sam has created a new computer algorithm to help people find their perfect partner, but it proves to be too successful as people are meeting their soulmates too quickly and don’t need to use the dating agency anymore. As a result he loses his job but it’s not long before he comes up with another invention.

When Sam’s girlfriend Meredith loses her beloved grandmother, Livvie, she tells him she wishes she could speak to Livvie one more time. Wanting to help in any way he can, Sam creates a computer program based on the online presence Livvie has left behind, including emails, texts and videos. Meredith is shocked but overjoyed to discover that she can now continue to chat to Livvie and exchange emails just as she used to when her grandmother was alive. Soon Sam and Meredith decide to give other bereaved people the same opportunity to communicate with loved ones who are no longer with them, but they are not prepared for the number of moral issues they will have to face.

Different people have different ways of dealing with grief and what works for one person will not necessarily work for everyone. I can’t imagine ever wanting to use this type of technology myself and I tend to agree with the characters in the story who found the whole idea creepy and disturbing. However, I still thought it was fascinating to read about. There’s nothing paranormal involved and the software Sam invents sounds completely believable from a scientific point of view.

With death and grief forming such a big part of this book I had expected something very sad and emotional, but the story was actually not as moving as I had thought it might be. That could be because the main characters – Sam, Meredith, her cousin Dashiell and their clients – are all so ‘nice’ that I had difficulty believing in them as real people and didn’t manage to fully connect with them. What I did love about this novel was the number of thought-provoking questions it raises by showing us how the world reacts to Sam’s controversial new technology and telling the stories of the people who decide to use it.

Is chatting to a computer generated image of a friend or relative who has died really a good idea or is it better to let the grieving process take its natural course? Can social media actually be isolating rather than social? Are there things that our loved ones may have said or done online that we would be better off not knowing about? What about privacy? Nobody seemed to have any problems with allowing Sam to access their family member’s emails, blog, internet browsing history or Facebook and Twitter accounts, but I know I wouldn’t feel comfortable with that. Goodbye for Now may not have been a perfect novel but has left me musing on all of these questions and more.

Thanks to Headline for the review copy of Goodbye for Now