Category: Historical Fiction

The Reckoning by Sharon Penman – #Dewithon24

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My second book for this year’s Reading Wales Month, or Dewithon, hosted by Book Jotter, is not actually by a Welsh author (Sharon Kay Penman – or simply Sharon Penman as she is published here in the UK – was an American historical novelist) but it’s set in Wales and is the third and final part of the Welsh Princes Trilogy, following Here Be Dragons and Falls the Shadow. I loved both of those books, so I expected to love this one too and I wasn’t disappointed.

Although I would recommend reading all three books in order, it’s not essential and it’s been such a long time since I read Falls the Shadow that I had forgotten a lot of the details anyway. I did remember the dramatic descriptions of Simon de Montfort’s defeat at the Battle of Evesham that ended that book; The Reckoning begins more than five years later in January 1271, but the effects of the battle are still being felt. Simon de Montfort’s surviving family members have fled England to take refuge elsewhere in Europe and his daughter Ellen’s planned marriage to Llewelyn ap Gruffydd, Prince of Wales, now seems in doubt. With de Montfort defeated, Henry III of England’s position on the throne is now much more secure and when he dies in 1272 his eldest son, Edward, succeeds him as king.

Meanwhile, the situation across the border in Wales is less stable. Prince Llewelyn is determined to continue the work of his grandfather Llewelyn the Great and keep Wales independent and united, but with his own younger brother Davydd conspiring against him it’s not going to be easy. When England’s new king, Edward I, turns his attentions to bringing Wales under English rule, Llewelyn finds that he can’t rely on the support of Davydd and the other Welsh lords – and to complicate things further, his bride Ellen de Montfort has been captured by Edward on her way to Wales for the wedding.

The Reckoning is a wonderful, thorough account of the final years of an independent Wales. Reading the book from a modern perspective, knowing that Edward will succeed in conquering Wales and that Llewelyn will become known as ‘Llewelyn the Last’, it’s impossible not to feel a sadness as the story approaches its end and it becomes clear even to Llewelyn himself that defeat is inevitable. What makes it particularly sad is that divisions between the Welsh nobility and even within Llewelyn’s own family play such a big part in their defeat and by the time war actually breaks out, Llewelyn has already had to concede so much Welsh territory and political power that he knows there’s little hope of succeeding.

A book of this size – around 600 pages – takes a long time to read when the story is so detailed and needs a lot of concentration, but I thought it was worth every minute. I loved Ellen and Llewelyn (although having read several of Penman’s books now, I’ve found that her brave, honourable heroes all seem to be cast in the same mold) and found the ‘villains’ equally interesting. Some sections of the novel are written from the perspectives of Edward and other members of the English court, which adds some nuance to the story – and I was particularly intrigued by the complex character of Davydd, who spends the entire book switching between supporting his brother and plotting to betray him, but has a personal charm that makes him difficult to actually dislike.

I learned a lot about Wales from this book, and from the first two in the trilogy – not just about Welsh history, but also Welsh laws and customs and how life in medieval Wales differed from life in medieval England. Although I had to read it in small doses due to the length and the small print in my edition, the story held my interest from beginning to end – and the ending, when it came, was heartbreaking, but that was to be expected!

Have you read this or any other books about the English conquest of Wales?

Book 13/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

The Book of Secrets by Anna Mazzola

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Anna Mazzola’s new novel – her fifth and the fourth that I’ve read – is set in Italy and takes as its inspiration the real life story of a group of women accused of selling poison in 17th century Rome.

It’s 1659 and Stefano Bracchi, a junior magistrate at the Papal Court, has been commissioned by the governor of Rome to investigate some unusual deaths that have taken place in the city. The plague that recently swept through Rome took many lives, but this is something different. These deaths are all men and for some unexplained reason, the bodies haven’t gone through the normal process of decay.

Meanwhile, Anna is trapped in an abusive marriage and searching for a way of escape. Her maid introduces her to a woman who says she can help, but the sort of help she provides is not quite what Anna was expecting! As Stefano begins to close in on the people responsible for the mysterious deaths, Anna finds herself caught in his net, but will he be able to prove that she has done anything wrong?

The Book of Secrets is written from the alternating perspectives of Stefano, Anna and a third character – Girolama, a Sicilian woman with a knowledge of herbs, potions and fortune telling, who is said to possess the ‘book of secrets’ of the title. Because we see the story unfold through all three of these characters, there’s very little mystery involved in the book; we know what Girolama and her friends are doing to help the women of Rome, we know how Anna deals with her violent husband and we know how Stefano’s investigation is progressing. However, what I found interesting about this book was not so much the plot as the characters and the way each of them reacts to the situation in which they find themselves.

Our sympathies are naturally with Anna, a desperate woman who takes the only way out she feels is open to her, while Girolama is a more morally ambiguous character – she has the best intentions and her work does a lot of good, but at the same time she seems largely unconcerned that her actions may occasionally cause harm to innocent people. The Rome of 1659 is a male-dominated society and many of the women in the book are victims of men, but Stefano Bracchi is another nuanced character; as he begins to round up Anna, Girolama and their associates for interrogation at the Tor di Nona prison, he becomes torn between compassion for their suffering and the desire to keep his superiors happy for the sake of his career.

Before starting this book, I knew nothing about Girolama Spana and the case this novel is based on. Although Anna Mazzola hasn’t stuck to the historical facts and has invented or expanded parts of the story, she does explain her choices in her author’s note at the end of the book. The Clockwork Girl is still my favourite of her novels, but this is another fascinating one.

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

Book 12/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

The Tower by Flora Carr

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It’s 1567 and three women are being rowed across a Scottish loch towards Lochleven Castle. Two of them are maids – one is a Frenchwoman, Marie de Courcelles, known as ‘Cuckoo’, and the other is Jane, a Scot. The third woman is Mary, Queen of Scots, who is being imprisoned in the castle following her surrender at the Battle of Carberry Hill.

Although Mary doesn’t know it when she enters the castle, she will remain there for almost a year. It seems that no help is forthcoming from Mary’s fellow queen, Elizabeth I of England, or from Margaret Erskine, the castle châtelaine, who places her daughter-in-law in Mary’s chamber as a spy. Eventually, Mary’s spirits are lifted by the arrival of her good friend, Mary Seton, who joins the three of them in captivity, but Jane and Cuckoo are not so thrilled by this addition to their number and Seton’s presence quickly changes the balance of power inside the tower. Together they begin to form a plan of escape, but which of them will be prepared to risk the most to save their queen?

I’ve read other books about Mary, Queen of Scots, both fiction and non-fiction, but this one is different because it focuses on just this one specific period in Mary’s life. The narrow scope of both the span of time covered and the physical setting – the confines of one tower in a remote castle on an island accessible only by boat – give the story a tense, claustrophobic feel. We do get some backstory in the form of flashbacks, otherwise the four women have to wait for news from the outside world to reach them in their confinement.

For the reasons I’ve mentioned, this is a slow paced novel, with not a lot of action, and it mainly concentrates on exploring the relationships between Mary and her three companions. The different personalities of Cuckoo, Jane and Mary Seton come across strongly and these different personalities affect the way each woman responds to being imprisoned. However, I didn’t really like any of the characters, which was a problem when so much of the book revolves around their internal thoughts and feelings. I also felt that the author was projecting modern views and attitudes onto these 16th century women, which was a bigger problem for me.

The story does become much more compelling towards the end, when Mary prepares to put her escape plan into motion, and despite my criticisms, I do think the book is still worth reading for the insights into this short but important episode in Mary’s life.

Thanks to Random House UK for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Book 10/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

The Life of Rebecca Jones by Angharad Price – #Dewithon24

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Translated by Lloyd Jones

I’m aiming to read more books in translation this year so when I started considering possible options for Reading Wales, also known as #Dewithon, hosted this month by Paula at Book Jotter, it seemed like a good opportunity to read something translated from the Welsh language. Eventually I decided on The Life of Rebecca Jones by Angharad Price, first published as O! Tyn y Gorchudd (“oh, pull aside the veil”), in 2002 and translated into English by Lloyd Jones in 2010. It has been listed as one of the top 25 Greatest Welsh Novels by the Wales Art Review (a good resource if you’re looking for Welsh reading ideas).

The novel is a fictional biography, spanning almost the whole of the twentieth century, and is narrated by Rebecca Jones, who looks back on her life in the small rural community of Maesglasau. Beginning with the arrival of her newly wed parents at Tynybraich farm, followed quickly by the birth of Rebecca herself in 1905, she takes us through her entire life, comparing the twists and turns it takes to the path of the stream that flows through the Maesglasau Valley:

“Memories of my childhood reach me in a continuous flow: smells and tastes converging in a surging current. And just like the stream at Maesglasau, these recollections are a product of the landscape in our part of rural mid-Wales at the beginning of the twentieth century. Its familiar bubbling comforts me.
It was not really like that, of course. The flow was halted frequently. Indeed a stream is not the best metaphor for life’s regular flow between one dam and the next.”

Rebecca’s story is not a particularly dramatic or exciting one and is structured as a simple, linear chronicling of events, yet I found it very moving and compelling. As the novel progresses, Rebecca tells us about her daily life on the farm and the different roles performed by men and women, she describes the beautiful landscape and the changing seasons, and looks at some of the customs and traditions of the Maesglasau people. All of this is interspersed with the poetry of Hugh Jones, who was born in Dinas Mawddwy in the 18th century and wrote the hymn that inspired the Welsh title of the novel.

Rebecca is not the only child in the Tynybraich household; she has several younger brothers and sisters, some of whom die in infancy. Three of the brothers – Gruffudd, William and Lewis – are either born blind or become blind later in childhood (is it worse to have never seen the beauty of the world or to have glimpsed it and had it taken away?) and are all sent away to a boarding school for blind children. The education they receive leads to opportunities they would never have had at home in their Welsh valley and while Rebecca is proud of their remarkable achievements she also feels that her brothers’ ties to their own history, culture and language have been broken. This is a pattern she sees repeated in the wider community as the years go by and more and more young people are choosing to leave Maesglasau and make their homes elsewhere. Meanwhile, for those who remain, further changes are brought by modern technology, new ideas, and a greater movement of English people crossing the border into Wales.

When I first started to read, I wasn’t quite sure whether Rebecca and her family were real people or fictional ones, although the book does include photographs and feels historically authentic. I was quickly able to discover that the family at Tynybraich did indeed exist and are ancestors of Angharad Price. There was even a documentary filmed in the 1960s about the three blind brothers. However, not everything Price tells us about Rebecca’s life is the truth, for reasons only explained once we reach the end of the book. That ending was both surprising and perfect.

Have you read this book or are there any others written in the Welsh language that you can recommend?

Book 9/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden

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I loved Katherine Arden’s Winternight Trilogy, set in medieval Russia and drawing on elements of Russian history, folklore and fairytales. I’ve been waiting for her to write another adult novel for five years and my patience has finally been rewarded with The Warm Hands of Ghosts. Taking us to the battlefields of the First World War, this is very different in terms of setting, atmosphere and scope, but I’m pleased to say that it’s another great book.

Laura Iven has been serving as a military nurse in Belgium but in January 1918, when the novel begins, she is back at home in Halifax, Canada, having been wounded and discharged. It has not been a happy homecoming for her, as not only has she left behind a brother, Freddie, still fighting on the front line, but soon after her return to Halifax a ship exploded in the harbour, destroying part of the city and killing her parents. When Laura receives a box containing Freddie’s belongings and a note telling her that he is missing in action, she is reluctant to believe that he has also died and decides to return to Belgium as a volunteer at a private hospital where she can search for more information on his disappearance.

A second thread of the novel is set several months earlier and follows Freddie, who awakens on the battlefield to find himself wounded and alone with an enemy soldier – a German, Hans Winter, who is also badly injured. Lost in no man’s land, together they try to make their way to a place of safety, knowing that depending on whom they encounter first, one or both of them could be shot as either an enemy or deserter. It’s here that they first meet Faland, a fiddler who seems to offer them a way of escape. When Laura arrives at the hospital a few months later and hears tales of the mysterious musician who can give soldiers the gift of oblivion – if they are prepared to pay a price for it – she begins to wonder whether this is what has happened to her brother.

As I said above, this book is quite different from the Winternight Trilogy and I wouldn’t really describe it as fantasy – although it does contain some elements of the supernatural, mainly surrounding the appearances of Faland the fiddler. I don’t want to say too much about him but as Katherine Arden explains in her author’s note, if he reminds you of Woland from Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita it’s not a coincidence! Faland is one representation of evil in the novel; the vast horror of the battlefield is another and the tired, desperate soldiers face a difficult choice between the two.

I found the opening chapters set in Halifax very interesting as I previously knew so little about life on the Canadian homefront during the First World War. This is the first time I’ve read about the explosion of the Mont Blanc and the massive loss of life it caused (nearly two thousand people were killed and thousands more injured). In Flanders, meanwhile, the details of the Battle of Passchendaele and its aftermath and the conditions faced by nurses and patients in the field hospitals are equally interesting to read about.

This is not my favourite Katherine Arden book – I preferred the characters in the Russian trilogy and the more magical setting – but I still enjoyed it very much.

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

Book 8/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

Clairmont by Lesley McDowell

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I have read several novels about the Romantic poets and their social circle, including Jude Morgan’s Passion and Guinevere Glasfurd’s The Year Without Summer, but Claire Clairmont has always seemed a shadowy character, who hasn’t come to life as strongly as other women such as Mary Shelley or Lady Caroline Lamb. This new novel by Lesley McDowell changes that by giving Claire a voice and placing her at the forefront of her own story.

Clairmont follows Claire throughout three different periods of her life, beginning in 1816 when she accompanies her stepsister Mary Godwin (later Mary Shelley) to Geneva. Claire, Mary and Mary’s married lover, Percy Bysshe Shelley, with whom she already has a baby son, are renting a house by the lake, while Shelley’s friend Lord Byron is staying at the nearby Villa Diodati with his doctor, John Polidori. Claire is pregnant with Byron’s child, but it’s becoming clear that he now views her as an inconvenience and would prefer it if the child was never born.

The Geneva episode taking place in 1816, the ‘year without a summer’ which followed a volcanic eruption in Indonesia, is the part of Claire’s life most people will be familiar with (if they’re familiar with her at all). It was during their stay at the Villa Diodati that Mary began to write her famous novel Frankenstein, and it’s through her own relationships with Byron and the Shelleys that Claire has gained historical significance. In addition, this novel also follows Claire during her time working as a governess in Russia in 1825 and later when she settles in Paris in the 1840s, and we gradually begin to see how those events of 1816 have impacted the rest of her life.

There were things that I liked about this book and things that I didn’t (more of the latter than the former, unfortunately). To start with a positive, I appreciated having the opportunity to learn more about Claire Clairmont, having previously known very little about her beyond her involvement with the Romantic poets. I had no idea what she did or where she went later in life, so I found that interesting. The story is not told in chronological order, but moves back and forth in time, with a Russia chapter followed by a Paris one then back to Geneva again, which I thought was quite confusing, particularly as the gaps between the timelines aren’t adequately filled in and no backstory is given for the characters prior to 1816. It felt as though half of the story was missing and it made it difficult to become fully immersed.

The writing is beautiful and dreamlike and at times reminded me of Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet (especially since, like the O’Farrell novel where Shakespeare is never referred to by name, here Byron is always referred to by his nickname, Albe, and never Byron). However, sometimes beautiful writing isn’t enough and I didn’t get on very well with Hamnet so maybe it’s not surprising that I didn’t get on with this book either. The constant jumping around in time and the vagueness of the plot made it hard for me to really get to know Claire and understand her actions. Although I had a lot of sympathy for her because of the terrible way Byron treated her during and after her pregnancy (which has been well documented, including in his own letters), I had no idea what attracted her to him in the first place or how their relationship had reached this point, because none of that is explained or touched upon. Throughout the book, we are continually being dropped into situations that don’t make much sense without being given the full context.

Don’t let me put you off this book if you want to try it – there are plenty of other books I didn’t care for that other people have loved! This will probably be a good read for the right reader; it just wasn’t for me.

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

Book 7/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo

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The famous scholar Ji Yun, who was obsessed with foxes, said: Humans and things are different species, and foxes lie between humans and things; darkness and light take different paths, and foxes lie in between darkness and light.

Like Yangsze Choo’s previous two novels, The Ghost Bride and The Night Tiger, The Fox Wife is a fascinating blend of history, fantasy and folklore. It takes as its premise the idea that fox spirits, who play a large role in Chinese and Japanese mythology, really exist and can take on the appearance of human beings.

Beginning in Manchuria in the winter of 1908, one thread of the novel follows Bao, an elderly private detective who has been called in to investigate the death of a young woman. The woman’s body was found frozen in the doorway of a restaurant and people are already starting to whisper that she was lured to her death by foxes. Ever since he visited a shrine to a fox god as a child, Bao has been blessed, or maybe cursed, with the ability to detect truth from lies. Now, he hopes he can use that gift to find out what happened to the woman found dead in the cold.

In chapters that alternate with Bao’s, we meet Snow, or Ah San, a white fox spirit who is searching for the man she blames for the death of her daughter two years earlier. Snow has taken the form of a human woman and joined the household of a Chinese medicine seller. In her position as maid, she is able to accompany the family on a trip to Japan where she hopes for an opportunity to take her revenge.

At first, the two threads of the novel are very separate; Bao’s story is written in the third person and focuses on his investigations, with some flashbacks to his childhood; Snow’s narrative is in first person, giving it a more intimate feel. Eventually, their paths begin to converge, producing some interesting plot twists and revelations. We also find that there’s not just one fox in this story, but who are the others and what is their relationship with Snow? It takes a long time for everything to unfold and for a while in the middle of the book I thought it was starting to drag, but the pace does pick up again towards the end.

My knowledge of Chinese folklore is sadly very limited, so I enjoyed learning more about the significance of fox spirits, their characteristics and powers, and some of the myths and folktales that have been told about them. With the novel being set partly in Japan as well as in China, we also see how similar myths and legends about foxes cross over into Japanese culture. It’s all very fascinating, and whenever my attention was starting to wane due to the slow, meandering plot, there would be another passage about foxes that would grab my interest again.

I had mixed feelings about The Fox Wife, then, but I’m pleased to have had the opportunity to learn something new! It’s definitely worth considering this one – and Yangsze Choo’s others – if you have any interest in Chinese myth.

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

Book 6/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024