Category: Historical Fiction

To Defy a King by Elizabeth Chadwick

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Why are some reviews so much easier to write than others? This one has been sitting half-finished in my drafts folder since the end of July, waiting for inspiration which has never really arrived. This is no reflection on the quality of the book, which I enjoyed as much as all the other Elizabeth Chadwick books I’ve read, but for some reason I’ve had trouble thinking of what I want to say about it.

Anyway, To Defy a King is the story of Mahelt Marshal, the daughter of William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke and hero of two of Chadwick’s previous novels, The Greatest Knight and The Scarlet Lion. At the age of fourteen Mahelt is married to Hugh Bigod, the son of the Earl of Norfolk, and goes to live with her new family at Framlingham Castle. The Bigods have connections with King John through Hugh’s half-brother, William Longespée, who is also a half-brother of the King. As King John’s relationship with his noblemen slowly worsens and the country descends into war and political turmoil, the Bigod and Marshal families find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict. Mahelt must try to decide where her allegiances lie – with the family she was born into or with the Bigods and the husband she loves?

A few weeks before reading this book, I had read Here Be Dragons by Sharon Penman which covers much of the same period and this was useful as it meant I already had an understanding of some of the history. But where Here Be Dragons gives us a more balanced view of King John, seen through the eyes of his daughter Joanna as well as from the perspective of his many enemies, with this book we are given a very negative portrayal of the King. Anyone who tries to defy him, as Mahelt Marshal does, could be putting themselves and their family in serious danger.

Mahelt is a strong and independent person, who sometimes refuses to behave in the way a woman might be expected to behave during this period, yet she doesn’t feel too ‘modern’ or out of place in her medieval setting. Longespée is another great character and one of my favourites. He is in a difficult position, torn between his loyalty to the King and his relationship with his Bigod family. His rivalry with his half-brother Hugh leads him to do some cruel and insensitive things, but by the end of the book we see that he is not completely beyond redemption and I was happy with the way his character developed.

Although this book is set after The Greatest Knight (which I read last year and can recommend) I don’t think it’s necessary to have read that one first. I haven’t read the sequel to The Greatest Knight, The Scarlet Lion, yet but didn’t feel I had missed anything that was essential to my understanding of this book. There are also two other books I haven’t read, The Time of Singing, which tells the story of Roger Bigod, Hugh’s father, and A Place Beyond Courage, the story of William Marshal’s father, John. While reading the previous novels would help you become more familiar with the backgrounds of some of the characters, To Defy a King is easy enough to follow as a stand-alone novel and is one of my favourite Elizabeth Chadwick books so far.

The Autobiography of Mrs Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin

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Despite the title, this is not a real autobiography, but a fictional account of the life of Mercy Lavinia Warren Bump. Measuring only two feet eight inches tall, Vinnie is described as ‘a perfect woman in miniature’. Not content to spend her life living on her family’s farm in Middleborough, Massachusetts, she works briefly as a schoolteacher before leaving home to perform with Colonel Wood’s riverboat show. Wood, who claims to be a cousin, promises to make Vinnie famous as an entertainer but it soon becomes obvious that he has other plans for her and she returns home disillusioned.

Determined not to give up on her dreams, Vinnie contacts the great showman P.T. Barnum and soon becomes a celebrity, travelling the world and meeting presidents and royalty. Her wedding in 1863 to another small person, Charles Stratton, known as General Tom Thumb, captures the imagination of both the press and the public. But when her younger sister Minnie, who is even smaller than herself, is also drawn into the world of show business, Vinnie fears it could all end in tragedy.

I enjoyed Melanie Benjamin’s previous novel, Alice I Have Been, which told the story of the girl who inspired Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, so I’ve been looking forward to reading more of her work. And I enjoyed this book too. There were plenty of things to admire about Vinnie – she had lots of courage, lots of confidence and dignity, and lots of ambition. Instead of staying in the safety of her home which would certainly have been the easiest thing to do, she wanted to get out and see the world, to have new experiences and to build a successful career for herself. I’ve never really stopped to think about how difficult – and even dangerous – everyday life can be for a person smaller than average in a world built for much taller people. Such simple things as opening a door, getting into bed, climbing up stairs and even walking through a crowded room were a challenge for Vinnie and I was impressed with how well she dealt with the situations she found herself in.

However, as the story continued I began to dislike Vinnie more and more. She was obsessed with fame and fortune, she had a very superior attitude and appeared to consider almost everyone else, including her husband and sister, to be less intelligent than herself. I found her relationship with Charles particularly sad to read about as it had the feel of a professional business arrangement rather than a happy marriage and Vinnie seemed to have very little affection or respect for him. Luckily, though, my dislike of Vinnie didn’t stop me from loving the book; it was still one of the most fascinating and original historical fiction novels I’ve read for a long time.

While Vinnie’s personal story is the main focus of this book, there are also lots of interesting facts of American history scattered throughout the novel. Vinnie lived through an eventful period that included the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, as well as the arrival of some exciting new inventions such as the electric light and the telephone. Information on all of these things and many others are provided in the form of short news articles during the ‘Intermissions’ between chapters. Some of these facts are relevant to the chapter that follows, while others are seemingly unrelated pieces of trivia – these don’t do anything to move the story forward, but they all give fascinating insights into the period.

I knew nothing about Lavinia Warren before reading this book so I can’t comment on the historical accuracy of the story, but it did appear to be very well researched. The real Vinnie never actually wrote an autobiography, but she left behind some travelogue-style journals and essays which Melanie Benjamin read as part of her research for the novel. She also includes some interesting photographs in the book, though I was disappointed that there weren’t more pictures illustrating some of the characters who appeared in the story. I was able to find some for myself online and seeing photos of Vinnie, Charles, P.T. Barnum and the others really helped bring the story to life!

The Kingmaker’s Daughter by Philippa Gregory

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This is the fourth book in Philippa Gregory’s Cousins’ War series which looks at the Wars of the Roses (the series of conflicts in the 15th century between the House of York and the House of Lancaster) from a female perspective. The others in the series are The White Queen, the story of Edward IV’s wife Elizabeth Woodville, The Red Queen, which follows Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII, and The Lady of the Rivers, the story of Elizabeth Woodville’s mother, Jacquetta. This one, The Kingmaker’s Daughter, focuses on the life of Anne Neville.

Anne is the daughter of the powerful nobleman Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick, known as the Kingmaker for the part he played in putting Edward IV on the throne in place of Henry VI. When Edward marries the beautiful Elizabeth Woodville despite Warwick’s attempts to negotiate a marriage for him in France, Warwick changes allegiance and rebels against the King he had once helped raise to power.

Warwick has no male heirs, but he does have two daughters, Isabel and Anne, and is determined to make one of them Queen of England. Anne, our narrator, is only eight years old at the beginning of the book but soon both she and her sister become caught up in their father’s political machinations. Isabel is married to Edward IV’s brother George and Anne to Henry VI’s son, Edward of Lancaster. But after Warwick’s rebellion fails and Anne finds herself widowed, she marries again – this time to the Duke of Gloucester, the man who will become Richard III.

I’m sorry if I’ve made this sound very confusing, but it was a confusing period of history and Philippa Gregory does a good job of presenting the information in a way that is easy for the reader to follow and understand even if you’ve never read about the period before. Although this is the fourth in the series, these books could be read in any order and all four also work as standalone novels as Gregory does not assume that the reader has any knowledge of events that happened in the previous books. However, reading the whole series helps to build up a full and well-balanced picture of the period. I love the way the books overlap, showing us some of the same events but from different perspectives. This book, for example, seen through Anne Neville’s eyes, is extremely biased against Elizabeth Woodville and her family, the Rivers – but if you also read The White Queen you get Elizabeth’s point of view which is obviously very different!

Like The White Queen and The Lady of the Rivers, this book has strong themes of witchcraft and magic. Elizabeth Woodville and her mother Jacquetta were supposedly descended from the water goddess, Melusina, and Gregory suggests that they might have had magical powers. There’s a lot of focus on this in The Kingmaker’s Daughter, with Anne becoming more and more convinced that Elizabeth is using witchcraft to attack her family, to whistle up storms and put curses on people. This is one aspect of the series that just hasn’t been working for me; I feel that this period of history is already interesting enough without needing to bring in an element of fantasy.

Richard III is one of my favourite historical figures and I was happy enough with the way he is portrayed in this book. He’s not perfect, but he’s certainly not the villain of Shakespeare’s play either – he comes across as a loyal brother and husband and a good king who really cares about the future of his country. This book is also more sympathetic towards George, the Duke of Clarence, than any other novel I’ve read and it was refreshing to be shown the good sides of his character as well as the bad. The characterisation of Anne, though, was not quite what I would have expected or hoped for. In other books that I’ve read about her, she has been portrayed as quiet and gentle with a lot of inner strength and dignity, but this version of Anne doesn’t display much strength or courage, while being too ready to blame other people (usually Elizabeth Woodville) when things go wrong. But I did think the relationship between Anne and Isabel was handled well, showing how they were friends one minute, rivals the next – the ‘sisters’ aspect of the book reminded me of Mary and Anne Boleyn in The Other Boleyn Girl.

This was not my favourite of the Cousins’ War books but I’m enjoying the series and will look forward to the next instalment. Apparently the fifth book will be about Elizabeth of York, the sister of the Princes in the Tower and daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville.

I received a copy of this book from Simon & Schuster for review

The Conductor by Sarah Quigley

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It’s 1941 and Russia is now at war with Germany. As the Nazis surround Leningrad with the aim of starving the city into submission, the composer Dmitri Shostakovich begins work on his Seventh Symphony. While other important musicians are being evacuated, Shostakovich insists on remaining to help defend his city. To his wife, Nina, the real reason he doesn’t want to leave is because he doesn’t want to be disturbed while writing his symphony and it seems to her that he is putting his music before the welfare of his family.

During the siege, the government orders that the Seventh Symphony be performed to raise the morale of the Soviet troops at the front. Since the members of Leningrad’s famous Philharmonic Orchestra and their conductor Mravinsky have already been removed from the city, the job of performing the Seventh Symphony falls to another, less highly regarded conductor, Karl Eliasberg and the second-rate Radio Orchestra. Eliasberg finally has the chance to do something great, but it’s not going to be easy…of the musicians who have stayed in Leningrad through the long, cold Russian winter some of them are dead and the others barely have the strength to lift their instruments.

Alongside the stories of Shostakovich and Eliasberg is the story of a third man, Nikolai Nikolayev, and his beloved nine-year-old daughter, Sonya. Nikolai must make the heartbreaking decision of whether to risk sending Sonya out of Leningrad on her own while he stays behind to continue his work as violinist in the orchestra.

The Siege of Leningrad was surely one of the most horrific episodes of the Second World War. This book was maybe not quite as emotional as other novels I’ve read on the same subject (The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons, for example) but it was still very moving. The idea of people being so hungry they’re driven to boiling down leather briefcases for protein or mixing water and hair oil to make soup, while watching as their family and friends die one by one of starvation or cold, is horrible to think about. And yet the story is not too bleak or depressing because it’s not just about war and suffering – it’s also about the power of art and music and how something good can come from even the worst circumstances imaginable.

The characters Sarah Quigley has chosen to focus on in this novel are all interesting, three-dimensional people who each have their own set of problems and obstacles to overcome during the siege. My favourite was Karl Eliasberg, the conductor of the book’s title. Based on a real person but one who we don’t know much about, the author imagines him as a shy, awkward man with low self-esteem, desperate to have his talents recognised and to be accepted by the cultural elite. Shostakovich is his idol but every time he comes face to face with him he finds himself saying the wrong things and failing to give the impression he was hoping to give. Eliasberg’s character is so well-written and believable I felt I could really understand him and empathise with him.

Despite Shostakovich being one of the central characters and the story revolving around one of his compositions, you don’t need any knowledge of classical music to enjoy this novel. However, I would highly recommend listening to the Seventh Symphony after finishing the book – it’s definitely worth it and it really adds to the reading experience. I loved this book and I have a feeling that when I make my list of favourite books of the year in December this might be one of them.

Race of Scorpions by Dorothy Dunnett

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This is the third book in the House of Niccolò series, the first two being Niccolò Rising and The Spring of the Ram. The series is set in the 15th century and follows the adventures of Nicholas vander Poele as he travels throughout Renaissance Europe and beyond. By the time this third volume begins, Nicholas’s spectacular rise from dyer’s apprentice to head of a successful trading company, bank and mercenary army has not gone unnoticed and has brought him to the attention of various people who are hoping to use his skills for their own purposes.

In Race of Scorpions Nicholas finds himself kidnapped and taken to Cyprus, an island torn apart by civil war. Cyprus is in a strategically important location and has become the centre of power struggles between various groups including Christians and Muslims, Genoese and Venetian merchants, Egyptian Mamelukes, Portuguese traders, the Pope, the Sultan, the Knights of the Order of St John – and the two Lusignan siblings who are fighting for the crown. Both of the claimants to the throne, Queen Carlotta and her half-brother James de Lusignan (known as Zacco), are determined to recruit Nicholas and his army to their side and are prepared to use any means possible to do so. Nicholas must choose which of them, if either, to support in their battle to gain control of Cyprus, but as well as being drawn into the conflict between Carlotta and Zacco, Nicholas faces some problems of a more personal nature when he is reacquainted with Katelina van Borselen, who we first met in Niccolò Rising.

Many of the characters we have been getting to know over the previous two books are here again – including Tobie, Loppe, Astorre and John le Grant – and we are also introduced to some new ones. A lot of the other characters in the book are real historical figures and one of the most fascinating, I thought, was Zacco’s mother Marietta (known as Cropnose after her nose was bitten off by her rival). Nicholas also meets his young cousin Diniz Vasquez for the first time, contends with a new villain in the form of the Mameluke emir, Tzani-bey al-Ablak, and tries to unravel the complex motives of Primaflora, a beautiful courtesan who is working for Queen Carlotta…or is she really working for Zacco?

Luckily, with his talent for solving puzzles and coming up with labyrinthine plots and schemes, Nicholas is adept at getting out of the difficult situations he finds himself in and although his plans don’t always work out exactly as he wanted them to, he usually manages to stay at least one step ahead of everyone else, including the reader – or this reader at least, and I don’t mind admitting that! But despite not quite understanding everything that is happening or being said, I still loved this book. It also features one of the best scenes in the series so far, certainly one of the most eerie and atmospheric. I’ll never be able to see a moth again without thinking of it!

I loved the setting too – I haven’t been to either Cyprus or Rhodes (Dorothy Dunnett’s books always make me aware of how little of the world I’ve actually seen) but as usual every location is described so thoroughly I can form a vivid picture of them without ever having been there. And not only have I never visited these countries, I know almost nothing about their histories either so it was good to have an opportunity to learn about the Cyprus civil war – a fascinating piece of 15th century history I’d never read anything at all about before.

However, I wouldn’t recommend reading Race of Scorpions unless you’ve read the previous two novels in the series first. These books are complicated enough as it is without reading them out of order and you would also miss watching the development of Nicholas’s character over the course of the series. I really enjoyed this one, and luckily for me I still have five more House of Niccolò books to read. Scales of Gold is next!

Lion of Alnwick by Carol Wensby-Scott

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Set in the 14th century during the reigns of Edward III and Richard II, Lion of Alnwick tells the story of Henry (Hal) Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland. The novel begins in the year 1357 and ends in 1409, covering all the major events of Hal’s adult life including his marriage to Margaret Neville, sister of his bitter enemy and rival Northern lord, his conflict with John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, and his relationship with his son Harry “Hotspur” Percy.

Before I say any more about this great historical fiction novel, I should point out that this book has now sadly gone out of print, but for anyone who loves fiction set in medieval England it is definitely worth reading if you can manage to find a copy. Please don’t let the cover (pictured above) put you off – it has to be one of the worst covers I’ve ever seen and is really not representative of the quality of the story!

I can’t remember how this book first came to my attention, but the reason it appealed to me is because I only live an hour away from Alnwick and have been there several times (usually to visit the castle, the gardens or Barter Books) so I was attracted by the mention of Alnwick in the title. There are so few books that focus on the north east of England that whenever I do come across one I always feel I should read it (though of course, with this novel being so epic in scale, the action is not just confined to Northumberland but also sweeps down to York and Westminster and across to Wales).

The story concentrates on Hal, his son Harry, and their respective wives, Margaret Neville and Elizabeth Mortimer, but we also meet lots of other fascinating characters, most of them real historical figures of the period. One of the most intriguing characters, I thought, was Hal’s enemy from over the border in Scotland, Archibald Douglas, known as The Black Douglas. His rivalry with Hal is a recurring theme throughout the novel and I looked forward to all of their encounters. I also thought the characterisation of Richard II as a young and incompetent king unable to command the respect of his men while bestowing gifts and titles on his favourites, was very well done.

The author does seem to assume that the reader already has a good knowledge of the period; the history becomes very complex and detailed, so this is the type of historical fiction novel I would recommend only to readers who really do love history! It’s such a shame this book is out of print; it was very well-written and well-researched, maybe not as much fun to read as a Sharon Penman or Elizabeth Chadwick novel, but almost as good. If you’re interested in reading this book I would suggest trying to get a copy of this one and the other two in the trilogy (Lion Dormant and Lion Invincible) as soon as you can, before they become impossible to find!

In a Treacherous Court by Michelle Diener

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There are already so many historical fiction novels set in the Tudor court that for a book to stand out from the others the author really needs to find a new way to approach the subject. Michelle Diener’s In A Treacherous Court is refreshingly different because it features two interesting but little-known historical figures – John Parker and Susanna Horenbout – both of whom really existed, yet aren’t characters that you would usually find in Tudor novels. Despite having read a lot of books set during this period, I had never come across either of these people until now.

Susanna Horenbout is a Flemish artist who travels to the court of Henry VIII in 1525 to become the king’s illuminator. During the journey to England, a man dies on board the ship and Susanna is at his side as he whispers his dying words, a secret message that he wants her to deliver to the King. It seems that someone is afraid of what Susanna may have learned, because as soon as she arrives in England an attempt is made on her life. One of the King’s most trusted courtiers, John Parker, Yeoman of the Crossbows, has been sent to meet the ship and after discovering how much danger Susanna is in, he vows to protect her while at the same time trying to unravel a plot that could threaten Henry’s throne.

In a Treacherous Court is the first in a series and after reading this one, I think both Susanna Horenbout and John Parker have a lot of potential as characters. As historians know so little about their lives, it gives the author some freedom to create exciting adventures for them without being too restricted by what really happened (the story does stick to the historical facts where possible though, and there is an author’s note at the end of the book that explains which parts of the novel are based on truth and which are purely fictional). I did find the romance between Susanna and Parker a bit hard to believe as it all seemed to happen so quickly, but who can say whether or not their relationship might really have developed the way it did in the novel?

The plot is very fast-paced with lots of action in every chapter which makes the story fun to read, although I thought the constant murder attempts and attacks on Susanna did become a bit repetitive. This book is definitely at the lighter end of the historical fiction spectrum, but it’s certainly an entertaining read with some original ideas that give it a different feel from most of the other Tudor court novels I’ve read.

I received a review copy of In a Treacherous Court from Simon & Schuster