Category: Historical Fiction

Mary I: Queen of Sorrows by Alison Weir

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This is the third novel in Alison Weir’s Tudor Rose trilogy, following Elizabeth of York: The Last White Rose and Henry VIII: The Heart and the Crown. You definitely don’t need to have read the previous two books before starting this one, although if you’re not very familiar with Tudor history it would probably be helpful to read them in order.

The novel begins in 1525, introducing us to nine-year-old Mary who has recently become betrothed to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain. As the daughter of Henry VIII and his Spanish wife, Katherine of Aragon, a marriage between Mary and Charles would cement England’s alliance with Spain. Mary’s future looks bright, but things don’t go as planned and it’s not long before her whole life is thrown into turmoil. First, Charles decides he doesn’t want to wait for Mary to grow up and takes another bride, one who is richer and old enough to give him children. Then, Mary’s father becomes obsessed with the idea of marrying Anne Boleyn and casts Mary’s mother aside.

It would be difficult not to sympathise with the young Mary as she is put under pressure to betray her mother and denounce her Catholic faith, gains and loses one stepmother after another and, with the arrival of a younger half-sister and half-brother, becomes uncertain of her place in the succession. However, I did find these early sections of the book quite repetitive as having read all of Weir’s Six Tudor Queens series, as well as her novel on Henry VIII, I felt that there wasn’t much here that was new to me. The second half of the book interested me more as it moved on to Mary’s own reign as Queen, her marriage to Philip of Spain and her ‘phantom pregnancies’, and, of course, the persecution of Protestants that famously gained her the nickname ‘Bloody Mary’.

On finishing the book and reading the author’s note at the end, I was interested to find that Alison Weir herself felt that she and Mary shared some childhood experiences, such as the separation of their parents and dislike of the new woman in their father’s life; this probably explains why the chapters dealing with Mary’s early years are written with such sympathy and understanding. Later in the novel, however, Mary becomes a much more difficult character to like as she ignores advice and public opinion, makes some poor decisions, and those who don’t share her Catholic faith burn at the stake. Weir states that she found it hard to make the adult Mary sympathetic when the historical evidence tells us otherwise.

As I wouldn’t want anyone to accidentally buy the same book twice, be aware that the US title of this book is The Passionate Tudor: A Novel of Queen Mary I. Alison Weir’s next novel, coming in 2025, stays in the Tudor period and is about the rise and fall of Cardinal Wolsey. I’ve never read a book written from Wolsey’s perspective before, so that should be interesting.

Thanks to Headline for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Book 43/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

Precipice by Robert Harris

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Robert Harris became a must-read author for me after reading and loving An Officer and a Spy, the Cicero trilogy and Conclave, but some of his more recent books have left me feeling slightly disappointed. His new one, Precipice, sounded promising, but would it be a return to form?

The novel opens in London in the summer of 1914 and introduces us to Venetia Stanley, a twenty-six-year-old woman from a wealthy, aristocratic family. Venetia is growing bored with the aimlessness of her days and the spoiled, shallow group of friends, known as the Coterie, that she has fallen in with, so when Herbert Henry Asquith begins an affair with her she sees it as a welcome escape. Not only is Asquith more than twice her age, he is also the Prime Minister and Venetia finds it flattering that he seems to value her opinion on politics and includes her in discussions on important matters of state.

Asquith is currently preoccupied with the situation in Ireland where the Nationalists are campaigning for Home Rule, but soon he has an even bigger problem to deal with as tensions begin to escalate in Europe and it looks increasingly possible that Britain could be pulled into a war. At this crucial moment in British history, it seems that the security of the nation is being put at risk – several confidential documents giving details of the government’s military and diplomatic plans have been found by members of the public and handed to the police. Only a small number of high-ranking government ministers have access to this information so, unlikely as it seems, one of them must be responsible for the leaks. Detective Sergeant Paul Deemer is given the task of investigating and it’s not long before he makes a shocking discovery.

Although I’ve read many novels set during WWI, they’ve usually dealt with ordinary people rather than politicians and certainly haven’t been written from the perspective of the Prime Minister. I knew nothing about H.H. Asquith’s private life, what he was like as a person or how he was viewed by his friends, colleagues and the public, so I learned a lot from this book. Harris draws on Asquith’s published letters to Venetia Stanley as one of his main sources and quotes from them extensively throughout the novel (Venetia’s letters to Asquith were apparently destroyed, so Harris uses his imagination to recreate them).

The impression I got of Asquith from this book, as a politician, was of a generally well-meaning man who was competent enough as a peacetime Prime Minister (apart from where the challenge of Ireland was concerned) but definitely not the right person to lead the country through a war. His overly cautious approach in the early stages was very frustrating to watch; it’s likely that the outbreak of war was inevitable and nothing he could have done would have averted it, but he didn’t seem to grasp the seriousness of the situation at all and refused to commit Britain one way or the other when he was being pressed from all sides to take decisive action. Even when war did break out, it seemed to be of less importance to him than his relationship with Venetia and again it was frustrating to see him sitting composing letters to her during cabinet meetings and plotting ways to escape from political duties to go and visit her. Although the general public weren’t supposed to know about the affair, it was an open secret amongst their family members and I couldn’t help feeling sorry for Margot, Asquith’s wife.

The thriller element of the novel is weaker and although I was never bored, the book never quite became unputdownable either. There’s no real mystery surrounding the security breaches because both we and Paul Deemer know from very early on who is responsible, but it’s still interesting to see how Deemer approaches the situation and there’s an entertaining section where he goes undercover in Wales in search of more information. There’s also a small twist towards the end of the book, which I hadn’t really seen coming, although it had started to occur to me that something wasn’t quite right!

Precipice is definitely more historical fiction than thriller, which may or may not appeal depending on your personal taste. Although it hasn’t become one of my absolute favourites by Robert Harris, I really enjoyed it for the fascinating insights into Asquith and his government.

Thanks to Hutchinson Heinemann for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Book 42/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

The King’s Messenger by Susanna Kearsley

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The role of Royal Messenger is one that still exists, but has changed and diminished over time due to modern technology and the declining power of the monarchy. In the 17th century, when Susanna Kearsley’s new novel is set, the job involved acting as a courier to convey messages or important documents around the country, as well as carrying out other diplomatic missions on behalf of the monarch, in this case King James VI and I.

The King’s Messenger opens in London in 1613, ten years after James united Scotland and England under one crown. His eldest son and heir, Henry, Prince of Wales, has died unexpectedly and rumours of poisoning have started to spread. Determined to find out who is responsible, the King summons one of his Messengers, Andrew Logan, and sends him north to Scotland with orders to arrest Sir David Moray, who had been a companion to the young prince. James believes that capturing Sir David is the key to finding out what really happened to his son and he hopes to make him confess to his involvement.

A neighbour of Logan’s, Laurence Westaway, is commissioned to travel with Logan as a scrivener, or scribe, tasked with writing down any information Moray gives them that can be used as evidence. Because Westaway is in poor health, his daughter Phoebe insists on accompanying them to Scotland and back. Unfortunately, Phoebe has always hated Andrew Logan and her loathing for him has intensified since he became embroiled in a confrontation with her lover, the courtier Valentine Fox. It’s going to be an interesting journey!

The novel is written from four different perspectives. Andrew Logan and Phoebe Westaway are two of them and it’s interesting to see how they view each other and how their feelings change as the journey progresses. Sir David provides a third perspective, offering an outsider’s view of the other members of the party, as well as giving us some flashbacks to his time in Prince Henry’s service. Finally, there are a few chapters focusing on Queen Anna, the Danish wife of King James, who also wants to know more about her son’s death. I felt that the Anna sections weren’t really needed and added very little to the novel, but the other shifting perspectives worked very well, changing from one to another at appropriate times to move the story forward.

A large portion of the book is set on the road, as Andrew, Sir David and the Westaways make their way back to London from Scotland. I found the route they take interesting because it’s not very direct, but of course there are no modern roads or infrastructure in the 17th century and they also need to find towns and castles where they can shelter for the night along the way. Andrew’s scarlet livery, which identifies him as a King’s Messenger, can be either a blessing or a danger, depending on the political allegiances of the people they meet. Something else which could put him in danger, considering the witch hunts sweeping across the country during that period, is his ability to glimpse the future. Susanna Kearsley’s novels often contain elements of the supernatural and I liked the way they were handled in this book; Andrew’s second sight doesn’t form a big part of the story but does lead to a wonderfully eerie scene as the party are crossing the Tarras Moss in the land of the Border Reivers.

Susanna Kearsley’s author’s note is almost as interesting as the book itself! I was impressed by the level of research she carried out, including touring the Scottish Borders and north of England to trace the route her fictional characters would take. She also describes the history of the Royal Messengers which led to the creation of her fictional hero Andrew Logan and explains which of the other people in the book were historical figures who really existed. Sir David Moray is one of these, although usually referred to as Murray (she has a reason for using the Moray spelling). Whether real or fictional, all of the characters in the novel come to life; I loved both Andrew and Sir David and although it took me longer to warm to Phoebe, she did win me over in the end!

I loved this book; it’s probably my favourite by Susanna Kearsley so far. It’s also coincidentally the second book I’ve read in the space of two months about Anne/Anna of Denmark (the other was The King’s Witches by Kate Foster).

Thanks to Simon & Schuster UK for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Book 41/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

A Little Trickerie by Rosanna Pike

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This was surprisingly good! A few pages in, I started to wonder if I’d made a mistake in choosing to read this book – the writing style was very unusual and I thought I was going to find it irritating – but once I settled into the story I fell in love with the narrator and was gripped all the way to the end.

The novel is set in the early Tudor period, during the reign of Henry VII, and begins with the death of Tibb Ingleby’s mother. Tibb has never known a home of her own; she and her mother have lived the life of vagabonds, moving from one place to another to escape the consequences of her mother’s con tricks or relationships with unsuitable men. Now, left alone in the world with her newborn baby sister to care for, Tibb sets off across the countryside with one aim in mind: to one day have her own roof over her head at last.

Tibb soon finds that making your own way in life as a young woman in 16th century England is not easy. She gets herself into trouble now and then and despite her wish to settle down in one place, she is forced to stay on the move. Along the way she meets a multitude of people including a troupe of travelling performers, a villainous farmer and even royalty. There’s also Ivo, a young man who, like herself, is an outcast who doesn’t feel he can conform to society’s expectations. She and Ivo become close friends and although most of the novel is narrated by Tibb herself, Ivo provides us with an occasional second perspective.

Tibb’s narrative style, as I’ve said, is unique and takes a while to get used to. She seems unaware of the correct words to describe things – a balding head becomes a ‘thinning-on-top-head’, being naked is ‘wearing a no-clothes outfit’, an empty room is a ‘sad nothing-in-it room’, all of which make sense but are not what other people would say. It fits with her portrayal as an illiterate, unsophisticated, naive young woman, but at the same time she’s certainly not stupid and I would have thought that with age and experience her language would have improved, yet she sounds the same at the end of the book as she does at the beginning. Still, the unusual narrative voice didn’t annoy me as much as I thought it would and I did love Tibb. One scene in the middle of the book even brought tears to my eyes, I was so emotionally invested in her story.

I had assumed Tibb was an entirely fictional character, so I was surprised to learn that she was inspired by a real-life woman known as the Holy Maid of Leominster who, like Tibb herself, engaged in fraud and ‘trickeries’ (although at least in Tibb’s case, she acted with the best of intentions). I really enjoyed this book and will look out for more by Rosanna Pike.

Thanks to Fig Tree for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Book 40/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

Cabaret Macabre by Tom Mead

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After enjoying the first two books in Tom Mead’s Joseph Spector mystery series, Death and the Conjuror and The Murder Wheel, I was pleased to see that he had written a third one. I think this might even be my favourite of the three! If you haven’t read any of them, you could start here if you wanted to; although there are some references to Spector’s earlier cases, there are no spoilers and all three mysteries work perfectly as separate standalones.

It’s December 1938 and retired magician Joseph Spector has been approached by the wife of Sir Giles Drury, a prominent judge, who wants him to identify the sender of some threatening letters. She believes the culprit may be Victor Silvius, who attacked her husband nine years earlier and has been confined in a private sanatorium ever since. Having noted Spector’s involvement in solving the recent Dean case (described in The Murder Wheel), she hopes he will be able to find out who is behind the letters.

Coincidentally, Spector’s friend Inspector Flint of Scotland Yard has had a visit from Caroline Silvius, sister of Victor Silvius. Caroline believes someone is trying to murder her brother and she’s convinced that person is Sir Giles Drury. With Spector and Flint both investigating the same situation from opposite sides, it’s inevitable that their paths will cross. Arriving at Marchbanks, the Drurys’ country estate, during a period of heavy snow, both men are baffled when a member of the family is found dead under very unusual circumstances. Can they solve the mystery before another murder takes place?

I really enjoyed Cabaret Macabre. It’s very cleverly plotted, with not one but two locked room style murders for Flint and Spector to investigate, but unlike the previous book, which I found too complicated, this one was easier for me to follow. That doesn’t mean it was easy to solve, however, because it certainly wasn’t! I had no idea how the murders were carried out or who was responsible for them, even though the clues were all there in the text. Tom Mead really is a master of this type of mystery and it’s easy to see the influence authors like John Dickson Carr and Agatha Christie have had on his work.

The book has a large number of suspects (and also potential victims) including Sir Giles, his wife and their four sons and stepsons, Victor and Caroline Silvius and an assortment of servants at Marchbanks. There’s also another murder case – or was it suicide? – from nine years earlier (the source of the animosity between Victor and Sir Giles), which could provide the key to what’s happening in the present. It’s impressive that Mead manages to pull all of this together without leaving any obvious holes in the plot. What I particularly love about this series, though, is the idea of a former magician becoming an amateur detective and using his special knowledge of illusions and deceptions to solve crimes and assist the police. Although Spector is still something of a mystery himself and reveals very little of his past or his private life, I think he’s a great character and the perfect partner for the more practical, less imaginative Inspector Flint.

If you haven’t tried a Joseph Spector book yet and are a fan of Golden Age mysteries, I do recommend them; this one and the first one, in particular, have quite an authentic 1930s feel, as well as being fun and entertaining. I’m hoping there’ll be more!

Thanks to Head of Zeus for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Book 39/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

This is book 20/20 of my 20 Books of Summer 2024.

Yes, I have completed my 20 Books of Summer list with nearly a week to go! I’ll be looking back at my 20 books and my experience with this year’s challenge in a special post at the end of the month.

The Golden Tresses of the Dead by Alan Bradley

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I had thought this book, published in 2019, was going to be the last in Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce series, so I hadn’t rushed to read it, thinking that once I had I would have no more to look forward to. Then I discovered that there’s actually another book coming in September – which will be the eleventh in the series – and decided to pick this one up now in preparation.

The Golden Tresses of the Dead begins in 1952 with our twelve-year-old heroine Flavia de Luce attending the wedding of her elder sister, Ophelia (known as Feely). I won’t tell you who she’s marrying, in case you haven’t reached this point in the series yet – or haven’t started at all. Everything is going well, apart from the usual naughtiness of Flavia’s annoying little cousin, Undine, but when Feely steps forward to cut into her wedding cake she screams in horror. There’s a human finger inside the cake! As Feely retreats to her room to recover from the shock, Flavia whisks the finger away to her laboratory so she can examine it and try to identify its owner.

The next day, Arthur W. Dogger & Associates, the new detective agency Flavia has formed with her father’s friend and manservant Dogger, receives its first client. A Mrs Prill is trying to track down some stolen letters and wants Flavia and Dogger to help. When they begin investigating, however, they discover that Mrs Prill hasn’t been entirely honest with them. Are the letters really missing – and could there be any connection with the severed finger in the cake?

As I’ve come to expect from the Flavia de Luce books, The Golden Tresses of the Dead (the title comes from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 68) is a quick, entertaining read; I did enjoy it, but it’s not one of the strongest and I think if I didn’t know there was another book on its way, I would have been disappointed with this one as a conclusion to the series. In general, I think the earlier books are more fun and have more charm than the later ones, so if you still haven’t tried one I would recommend going back to the beginning and starting with The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.

Although this book has many of the same elements as most of the others in the series – it’s set, as usual, in and around the small English village of Bishop’s Lacey in the 1950s; Flavia still gets around on her trusty bicycle, Gladys; she still loves chemistry and conducting experiments in her fully equipped laboratory – there are also some differences. Feely leaves for her honeymoon early in the book and Flavia’s other sister, Daffy (Daphne), is tucked away working on her memoirs and only makes one or two brief appearances. The relationship between Flavia and her two sisters is one of the things that has always fascinated me about the series, so I was sorry that it’s not really explored any further here. We do see a lot of Undine, but I’ve never liked her and she doesn’t make up for the absence of Feely and Daffy! Also, as hinted at in the previous book, The Grave’s a Fine and Private Place, crime-solving is no longer a solitary activity for Flavia and she forms a new partnership with Dogger. It works well – Flavia does most of the trespassing, risk-taking and hunting for clues, but Dogger, with the benefit of age and life experience, knows how to interpret those clues. I’ve always loved him and was pleased to see him take such a prominent role in this book.

The mystery itself is complex, involving potential grave-robbing, poisonous plants and two missionaries who may not be quite what they seem, and I’ll admit that I found it confusing and didn’t really understand how everything tied together. I wondered if I just hadn’t been paying enough attention and had missed something, but looking at other reviews it seems that a lot of people had similar problems. This is not a favourite Flavia de Luce book, then, and I’m glad it’s not how the series ends! I’m looking forward to reading book eleven, What Time the Sexton’s Spade Doth Rust, and am hoping it will be better than this one.

Book 38/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson

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I enjoyed Helen Simonson’s previous two novels, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand and The Summer Before the War, but we seem to have had a very long wait for her third one. Eight years, in fact! Was it worth waiting for? I think so.

Although there’s not really any connection with The Summer Before the War, this book could easily have been titled ‘The Summer After the War’. It’s set in a small English seaside town in 1919, the year after the end of World War I. Now that the men have been returning from the front, Constance Haverhill has had to give up her wartime job running a farm and estate and is now at a loose end. Reluctantly contemplating work as a governess, she is given a temporary respite when a family friend asks her to accompany her elderly mother to Hazelbourne-on-Sea for the summer. Working as a lady’s companion is not really what Constance has in mind, but she agrees and soon she and Mrs Fog are settling into the hotel that will be their home for the next few months.

Everything changes for Constance when she meets Poppy Wirrall, a young woman from a wealthy local family who has started a motorcycle club for ladies so that they can use the skills they gained during the war. Some of the women are mechanics, while others are using their motorcycles to provide a taxi service for Hazelbourne residents. Constance is intrigued, particularly when Poppy decides to buy a damaged Sopwith Camel fighter plane so that, once it’s been restored, the club can begin training women pilots in addition to their other services. Poppy herself has never flown a plane, but she knows who will be the perfect instructor: her brother Harris, a former fighter pilot who returned from the war missing a leg and has been sinking into depression ever since.

The Hazelbourne Ladies… is a fascinating portrayal of life in the aftermath of the war. The War Practices Act, which is referred to in the novel, means that men returning from war must be given their jobs back – jobs which have been filled by women during their absence. It’s easy to have sympathy for women like Constance and her new friends who had, at least in some ways, experienced a greater degree of equality during the war that seems to be being eroded again in peacetime. Simonson also explores a different but equally frustrating situation through the story of Harris, whose disability has left him feeling useless and unwanted.

Another interesting character is Klaus, originally German but now a naturalised British citizen, who is working as a waiter at the hotel and is worried for his safety and position due to the general anti-German sentiment of the public. Although most of the novel is written from the perspectives of Constance and Harris, we do occasionally hear from Klaus as well, adding another layer to the story. I felt that the book was a bit longer than it really needed to be and it took me a while to become fully absorbed in it, but once I did I found it a perfect summer read.

Thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

This is book 18/20 of my 20 Books of Summer 2024.

Book 37/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024