Category: Historical Fiction

The King’s Witches by Kate Foster

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Historical novels based on real-life witch trials seem to be very popular at the moment; I can think of several I’ve read just in the last two or three years. The King’s Witches is another and takes the slightly different approach of telling the story not only of the so-called witches, but also of the woman married to the man behind the witch hunts, King James VI of Scotland.

The novel opens in Denmark in 1589, where Anna, daughter of King Frederick II, is preparing for the arrival of the Scottish ambassador who will escort her across the sea to her new life in Scotland. Anna is betrothed to James VI and before leaving Denmark, they undergo a handfasting ceremony by proxy, with the Earl Marischal standing in for James. Setting sail for Scotland a few days later, Anna’s ship is hit by violent storms and is forced to turn back several times. Witches are blamed for summoning the winds in an attempt to stop the new queen from reaching her destination and by the time Anna eventually arrives in Scotland the fear of witchcraft is becoming widespread.

In the town of North Berwick, another young woman, Jura, is working as a maid in the Kincaid household. Jura has inherited her mother’s skills as a healer and knowledge of herbs and charms, but when the whispers of witchcraft grow louder – and the unwanted attentions of her master become more difficult to avoid – she is forced to flee to Edinburgh. However, escaping both the witch hunts and the Kincaids is not going to be easy…

The King’s Witches is narrated by both Anna and Jura, as well as a third woman, Kirsten, who is Anna’s lady-in-waiting and accompanies her on the journey from Denmark. Kirsten has been to Scotland before, but is very secretive regarding what happened during her previous visit and we will have to wait until later in the book for her full story to emerge. Kirsten and Jura are both fictional characters, but Anna (usually known as Anne of Denmark) was obviously a real person. However, Kate Foster doesn’t stick entirely to historical fact; for example, the real Anna was only fourteen years old when she married James VI, but Foster makes her slightly older at seventeen. She also uses the Celtic tradition of handfasting, which expires after a year, to introduce the idea that Anna was ‘on trial’ and the marriage would only go ahead if she managed to please James. I didn’t feel that this – or the fictional lover Foster creates for Anna – was really necessary or added much to the book and I would have preferred Anna’s story to follow the facts, considering we already had two other entirely fictional viewpoint characters.

The witchcraft aspect of the book is interesting, particularly the connection between the North Berwick witch trials, in which Jura is involved, and previous trials in Germany and Denmark which inspired James VI to take similar action. The storms that delay Anna’s voyage to Scotland in the novel really happened and really were blamed on witches. The King’s paranoia increases until he decides that the town of North Berwick (not to be confused with Berwick-upon-Tweed, by the way) is a nest of witches plotting to kill him, possibly in league with the Earl of Bothwell, and eventually more than 70 people are implicated. Foster explores all of this not just from the perspective of Jura, who is directly affected as a suspected witch, but also Anna from her position close to the King, and Kirsten, who provides a sort of bridge between the two worlds.

Even with the addition of the Anna and James angle, this book felt a bit too similar to other books I’ve read about historical witches, but obviously that won’t be a problem if you haven’t read as many of them as I have! I did still find it enjoyable and will have to look for Kate Foster’s first book, The Maiden, which I haven’t read.

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

This is book 15/20 of my 20 Books of Summer 2024.

Book 33/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

House of Shades by Lianne Dillsworth

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I enjoyed Lianne Dillsworth’s first novel, Theatre of Marvels, so I was looking forward to her new book, House of Shades, which sounded like an atmospheric Gothic mystery. It turned out to be not quite what I expected, although that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

The setting is London, 1833. Hester Reeves is a young black woman whose mother has recently died, urging Hester to take care of her younger sister, Willa. Unfortunately, Willa already seems to be getting herself into trouble, having caught the eye of Rowland Cherville, the manager of the factory where she works. Rowland is running the factory on behalf of his invalid father, Gervaise, and with the differences in race and social status, Hester is sure his intentions towards her sister are not good. If only Hester and her husband, Jos, could improve their financial situation, then they could move out of the slums of King’s Cross and get Willa away from Rowland’s influence…

Hester’s chance to make some money comes when the local vicar puts her name forward for a job at Tall Trees, home of the elderly Gervaise Cherville, who has a serious medical condition and wants someone to nurse him through it. Hester is considered suitable for the position as she is a ‘doctoress’ – not really a female doctor, as it will still be several decades before the first woman earns her medical degree and even longer for the first black woman to do the same, but someone with a knowledge of herbs and healing potions. However, Hester soon discovers that Mr Cherville has another task in mind for her.

The Chervilles made their fortune through mahogany and they own slaves on a plantation in Honduras. With the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 stating that slavery is to be abolished across most of the British Empire, it seems that Gervaise has developed a conscience and wants to give compensation to his slaves – not the ones in Honduras, though, whom he has never met, but two who once lived at Tall Trees before running away. Aphrodite and Nyx have been missing for many years and Gervaise wants Hester to help track them down so he can make amends.

If you can accept the rather unlikely plot (for a start, is it really believable that a wealthy 19th century gentleman like Gervaise Cherville would bring an unknown young woman from a slum community into his home as a nurse?), this is quite an entertaining novel. Like Dillsworth’s first book, it has a likeable heroine, it’s easy to read and the pages go by surprisingly quickly. There are a few twists, although they’re fairly predictable and I was hoping for one or two more! Apart from Hester herself, most of the other characters lack depth and nuance – there’s no real explanation for why Rowland is such a wicked person with seemingly no redeeming qualities at all, and we don’t see much of Willa’s good side either, which makes it difficult to understand why Hester views her as such a beloved sister, putting her needs above those of herself and her husband.

The most interesting aspect of the book is Gervaise Cherville’s desire for atonement and his attempt to make reparations for the harm he has caused. It seems clear that, at least at first, Cherville’s main motive is to assuage his own guilt, but Hester reflects that “maybe when it came down to it, all apologies were like that, even when they were heartfelt.” I would have liked more depth here as well, but maybe that would have been difficult as the whole novel is narrated by Hester and we never get inside Cherville’s head to see what he’s really thinking or whether his feelings are genuine.

House of Shades is a book with lots of good ideas and interesting themes, but I struggled to get past the implausibility of the plot and on the whole I preferred Lianne Dillsworth’s first book.

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

Book 32/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

The Elusive Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy

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Since reading Baroness Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel several years ago, I have been slowly working my way through the rest of the Pimpernel series. There are various recommended reading orders – some following publication dates and others attempting to follow an internal timeline – and I’m not sure if I’ve chosen the best route through the series, but The Elusive Pimpernel is the fifth book I’ve read. Like the others, this one revolves around the efforts of the English adventurer known as the Scarlet Pimpernel to rescue aristocrats from the guillotine during the French Revolution.

*If you have not read the first book and would prefer not to know the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel, you may want to avoid the rest of this review as I can’t really discuss this book without naming him!*

First published in 1908, the novel begins in September 1793 with Citizen Chauvelin, the Scarlet Pimpernel’s arch-enemy, receiving orders from Robespierre in Paris. Having failed to capture the Pimpernel in the past, Chauvelin is being given one last chance. He must go to England as a representative of the Committee of Public Safety, responsible for the interests of French citizens who have settled in England. The real reason for his mission, however, is to hunt down the Scarlet Pimpernel and bring him back to France dead or alive.

As the action switches temporarily to England, we meet a French actress, Désirée Candeille, who has been befriended by Marguerite Blakeney, wife of Sir Percy, the Scarlet Pimpernel himself. Unknown to Marguerite, Désirée is in league with Chauvelin and part of the scheme to lure Sir Percy to France. Will their scheme be successful – and could Marguerite unintentionally be the one to lead her husband into the trap?

Although it’s not quite as good as the original book, The Elusive Pimpernel is probably the best of the sequels I’ve read so far. The plot Chauvelin comes up with to capture Sir Percy is so fiendishly clever I couldn’t see how he was going to find a way out of it. Of course, I knew that he probably would find a way out, because he’s the Scarlet Pimpernel, after all, and there are more books in the series, but it seemed to me that he was well and truly trapped this time! One of the things I like about these books is that Chauvelin is by no means portrayed as a bumbling idiot who is easily outwitted; his plan would almost certainly have succeeded against anybody less brilliant than Sir Percy.

We don’t see very much of the other members of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, although we are briefly reunited with some characters from the previous book, I Will Repay (so I would recommend reading that book before this one, if you can). Marguerite, though, plays a big part in the story and is one of our main viewpoint characters. It’s frustrating to see how easily she is manipulated, but she does mean well and her love for Percy isn’t in doubt, so I can forgive her!

Continuing chronologically, the next book for me to read will be Lord Tony’s Wife. Have you read that one – or any of the others in the series?

This is book 14/20 of my 20 Books of Summer 2024.

Book 31/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

This is also book 44/50 from my second Classics Club list

A Case of Mice and Murder by Sally Smith

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After finishing Sally Smith’s A Case of Mice and Murder I was delighted to find that it’s the start of a new historical mystery series, which is great news as this first book is excellent. I hope we don’t have to wait too long for a second!

The novel is set in 1901 in the Inner Temple, one of the four Inns of Court that make up London’s legal community. Sir Gabriel Ward KC is a barrister who leads a quiet, reclusive life within the Temple grounds, only venturing into the outside world when absolutely necessary. He’s not the sort of person you would expect to become an amateur detective, but that’s what happens when he steps out of his rooms early one morning in May and stumbles across the dead body of the Lord Chief Justice. Sir Gabriel is persuaded by his superiors to investigate before the police are brought in and he reluctantly agrees, despite already being busy with a very different case.

The manuscript of a children’s book, Millie the Temple Church Mouse, had been left at the door of Herbert Moore’s publishing house with no way of identifying or contacting the author. Moore went ahead with publishing the book anyway and it has become a huge success, inspiring Millie toys and a forthcoming stage play. Now a woman has come forward claiming to be the author and Moore is in trouble! Gabriel is Moore’s lawyer and must work on establishing authorship of the book while also trying to solve the mystery of the Lord Chief Justice’s death.

When writing a novel set in the past, creating a sense of time and place is incredibly important and Sally Smith does that extremely well here. She writes in a style that is appropriate to the time period and at no point does it really feel like a ‘modern’ book. The descriptions of the Inner Temple are perfect, both in terms of the physical buildings, chambers and grounds, and the way of life with its rituals and traditions. The Inner Temple, like the neighbouring Middle Temple, is considered a local authority largely outside the jurisdiction of the City of London (hence the police needing to be invited in to investigate the murder) and it makes a fascinating and unusual setting.

Gabriel Ward is a great character and it’s interesting to see him grow as person as the story progresses. At the beginning he is a quiet, solitary man who spends most of his time in his rooms with his books and his legal work, following little routines, such as checking the door three times, that today would be called an OCD. Being forced to leave the confines of the Temple to interview suspects and witnesses from a range of social backgrounds gives Gabriel a different perspective on life and helps him to open up to new ideas. My only complaint is that Smith gives him the character trait of ‘snuffling’, a word she repeats far too often throughout the book. Looking at other reviews, I can see that many of us felt the same way, so I hope Gabriel will snuffle a bit less often in the next book!

The murder mystery is an interesting one, with a solution I hadn’t seen coming, but I found the Millie the Mouse storyline even more enjoyable. I started to have my suspicions about that second mystery by the middle of the book and was pleased to be proved right. I can’t wait to see what Gabriel’s next case will be!

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

This is book 13/20 of my 20 Books of Summer 2024.

Book 30/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

The Trouble with Mrs Montgomery Hurst by Katie Lumsden

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In a small, close-knit community in 1841, the arrival of a newcomer can really cause a stir – and that’s what happens when Mr Montgomery Hurst brings his new wife home to Wickenshire. Mr Hurst was one of the county’s most eligible bachelors, so everyone is curious to see what sort of woman has tempted him to marry at last. The new Mrs Hurst, however – a widow in her thirties with three small children – is not what they are expecting. It seems to the people of Wickenshire that she is not quite respectable and gossip quickly begins to spread as they speculate about her past and her previous marriage.

One person who doesn’t care too much about the gossip is Amelia Ashpoint. Amelia’s father owns a brewery, making the Ashpoints one of the richest families in Wickenshire, yet they are still not regarded as equals by the older families whose wealth and titles have been passed down through the generations. At twenty-three, Amelia is expected to marry soon, but what she really wants is a career as a writer and the freedom to be with the person she truly loves. Meanwhile, Felicia Elton, ‘the great beauty of Wickenshire’, is also under pressure to find a rich husband. With her looks and accomplishments, it shouldn’t be a difficult task, but for some reason nobody seems interested in marrying Felicia and she’s beginning to think she’ll have to settle for the first man who asks.

In The Trouble with Mrs Montgomery Hurst, Katie Lumsden tells the stories of Amelia Ashpoint, Felicia Elton and the Hursts, as well as several of their other friends and neighbours, all of whom occupy different positions on the social ladder. At the top there’s the Earl and Countess of Wickford and their dissolute son, Lord Salbridge; lower down, the town families who have made their money through trade and industry; and lower still, people such as Mr Lonsdale, the foreman at the Ashpoint brewery, and Monsieur Brisset, Felicia’s piano teacher. With so many unwritten rules of society and boundaries that can’t be crossed, it seems that nobody in Wickenshire is free to live and love as they choose and it’s easy to see why someone who doesn’t conform, like Mrs Hurst, can become the subject of rumour and slander.

Although the book is set in the early 1840s, at the start of the Victorian era, it has the feel of a Regency novel and there’s an obvious Jane Austen influence in both the writing style and the plot. The worldbuilding is strengthened by the inclusion of a map at the beginning and a list of characters giving their age, address and occupation. It was all so immersive that I really didn’t want to have to leave Wickenshire behind when I reached the end of the book! Because it’s a modern novel, though, Lumsden is able to explore topics that an author like Austen couldn’t (or at least not so explicitly). For example, one of the main characters is a lesbian and her story really helped me to appreciate how difficult it must have been to have no romantic interest in men in a world where it seemed that a young woman’s whole purpose in life was to find a husband. However, her story didn’t go quite the way I had predicted – and neither did the stories of several of the other characters. Some got happy endings, some didn’t and others just had to make the best of things, which I found very realistic.

In case you can’t tell, I loved this book and I think I preferred it to Katie Lumsden’s previous one, The Secrets of Hartwood Hall, which borrows from the Brontës rather than Austen. I would like a sequel so we can catch up with the residents of Wickenshire again and see how they are getting on, but I suspect this is probably intended as a standalone. Either way, I’ll be looking out for whatever Katie Lumsden writes next.

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

This is book 12/20 of my 20 Books of Summer 2024.

Book 29/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

The King’s Mother by Annie Garthwaite

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Since reading Annie Garthwaite’s first novel, Cecily, about the life of Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, I have been looking out for a sequel. As the first book ended in 1461 and Cecily lived until 1495, I knew there was more than enough material for a second novel – and here it is, after a three year wait!

Cecily was set during the reign of Henry VI and the early stages of the Wars of the Roses, describing how Cecily’s husband, the Duke of York, led an army against the king and was killed at the Battle of Wakefield. A few months later, Cecily and York’s son, Edward, was more successful, defeating the king’s forces at the Battle of Towton and being crowned Edward IV. The King’s Mother picks up the story as Edward begins his reign and Cecily enters a new phase of her life as mother to the king and therefore one of the most powerful women in England.

This is a complex period of history and I would find it difficult to give a summary of the plot. You may already be familiar with the key points anyway – Edward IV’s unpopular marriage to Elizabeth Woodville; the various threats to his reign and the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury; his death, leading to the accession of his younger brother, Richard III; and finally, Richard’s defeat by the future Henry VII at the Battle of Bosworth, marking the start of the Tudor dynasty. This entire turbulent period is seen only from the perspective of Cecily, which is slightly limiting as Cecily is rarely at the heart of the action herself and often has to learn about major developments from letters or messengers. However, the story is never boring and moves along at a steady pace, holding my interest until the end even though I’ve read about this period many times before.

Cecily is shown as a controlling force behind Edward’s throne in the early days of his reign, advising him on what to say and do, but her influence over him gradually fades. She concentrates instead on building alliances, arranging marriages and doing whatever else she can to keep the kingdom and her family secure, taking her title of King’s Mother very seriously. The cover of the novel states ‘There can only be one’ and it’s true that Cecily is not the only candidate for this position. She forms an uneasy friendship with Margaret Beaufort, mother of the young Henry Tudor, deciding to trust her even while knowing that Margaret will do whatever it takes to further her own son’s claim to the throne. Then there’s Elizabeth Woodville, Edward’s wife, who also expects her eldest son to inherit the throne. Cecily makes it clear that she disapproves of the marriage and dislikes Elizabeth, but she accepts that Elizabeth is queen whether she likes it or not and does what is necessary to protect the Woodvilles – at least while Edward is still alive!

Elizabeth herself is not shown in a sympathetic light at all and comes across as immature, whiny and spiteful, which is disappointing as other characters are given more nuance. I thought Cecily’s relationship with her middle son, George, Duke of Clarence, was particularly well done, capturing Cecily’s mixed feelings about him – the love of a mother for her son mingled with anger and frustration as George, along with his cousin Warwick, betrays Edward over and over again.

One of the interesting things about reading a lot of books about the same period of history is wondering how the author will tackle some of the controversies and mysteries of the period. One of these is Edward’s alleged pre-contract of marriage to Eleanor Talbot, signed before he married Elizabeth. Some historians believe this was fabricated by Richard III in order to invalidate Edward and Elizabeth’s marriage and declare their children illegitimate; in this book, Annie Garthwaite assumes that the pre-contract did exist and was known to Cecily, who tried to cover it up. Another controversy, of course, is the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower. I won’t tell you how Garthwaite approaches this, but authors do usually have to choose one side or the other and this is definitely more of a pro-Ricardian novel.

Richard’s entire reign is covered in the final 20% of the book, which does feel a bit rushed considering how eventful that period was. I think there would have been enough material for a third novel, which would have allowed for more depth. I felt that we never really got to know Richard’s wife, Anne Neville, for example, which took away some of the emotional impact from the later stages of the book. Still, I really enjoyed The King’s Mother. Start with Cecily if you can, but they are both excellent novels and reminded me yet again of what a fascinating period of history this is!

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

This is book 10/20 of my 20 Books of Summer 2024.

Book 28/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

A Woman of Opinion by Sean Lusk

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In his new novel, A Woman of Opinion, Sean Lusk tells the story of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, based closely on her own published letters. Montagu, whom I previously knew almost nothing about, lived from 1689 to 1762, and was an English writer, poet and medical pioneer. She led a fascinating life and I enjoyed seeing it unfold through the pages of this novel.

A Woman of Opinion begins in 1712 with Mary eloping with Edward Wortley Montagu in order to avoid being pushed into marriage to her father’s choice of husband, the Irish nobleman Clotworthy Skeffington. Edward is a Whig politician and the two settle in London for a few years until, growing impatient with her husband’s lack of ambition and desperate to see more of the world, Mary manages to engineer a job offer for him as ambassador to Constantinople.

While Edward is busy trying to negotiate an end to the Austro-Turkish War, Mary gets to know some of the local Turkish women and is intrigued when she observes them inoculating their children against smallpox, through the method of ‘engrafting’ – taking pus from an infected person and introducing it into the arm or leg of an uninfected child. Mary, who has suffered from smallpox herself and been left with scarring to the face, is so impressed by the results of this procedure that when she returns to England she becomes determined to inoculate as many children as possible.

Most of the novel is narrated by Mary herself – in a formal, eloquent style that fits the 18th century setting, with no glaringly anachronistic language – but some chapters are narrated by her sister, Frances. Unlike Mary, who is the strong, independent ‘woman of opinion’ of the title, Frances has a gentler, more trusting nature. She is easier to like than Mary but her story is much less interesting and I didn’t feel that her perspective really added anything to the book.

Although the Constantinople episode is the most engaging part of the novel, Mary’s life continued to be eventful after her return. She formed a friendship and then a rivalry with the poet Alexander Pope, travelled to Italy where she began an affair with Count Francesco Algarotti, and produced a number of poems and essays. She also left behind her collection of letters, which were published in three volumes after her death as Turkish Embassy Letters (and are still in print today). Her other lasting legacy – her role in the development of the smallpox vaccine – has been overshadowed by Edward Jenner and I’m pleased that this novel has been able to raise some awareness of her contributions.

I enjoyed A Woman of Opinion much more than Sean Lusk’s debut, The Second Sight of Zacahary Cloudesley, which I felt had an unnecessary magical realism element and lost its way halfway through. However, I discovered from Lusk’s author’s note at the end of this book that one of the characters in Zachary Cloudesley was also based on Mary Wortley Montagu. If you’ve read both books, I’ll leave you to guess which one!

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

This is book 9/20 of my 20 Books of Summer 2024.

Book 27/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024