Category: Historical Fiction

Penmarric by Susan Howatch (re-read)

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A long time ago (before I started blogging, anyway, which feels like a lifetime ago!) I picked up Susan Howatch’s 1971 novel Penmarric at the library. I knew nothing about it but, as soon as I started to read, I was drawn into a wonderfully compelling story which begins in 19th century Cornwall and is linked in a unique way to a much older story. I went on to read two of her other novels, Cashelmara and The Wheel of Fortune, which I also loved, and I’ve been thinking for a while now that I would like to read all three again.

Penmarric is divided into five sections, each narrated by a different character, beginning in 1890 with Mark Castallack. Mark’s mother, Maud, has spent her whole life working towards one goal: regaining Penmarric, the family estate which her father left to her cousin Giles rather than herself simply because she was a woman. Maud is determined to see Mark take his rightful place as master of Penmarric and eventually she gets her wish – but this does not bring happiness to any of the Castallacks.

The other four narrators are Mark’s wife, Janna, two of his sons – Philip and Jan-Yves – and one of his illegitimate sons, Adrian. It’s a story which spans six decades, taking us from the Victorian era through the turn of the century to the First and Second World Wars, but in Mark’s little corner of Cornwall a war of a different sort is played out as his marriage with Janna breaks down and his sons turn against each other and then against him.

What makes Penmarric such a great novel and what has made me remember it so vividly over the years, is that the story of the Castallacks mirrors very closely the story of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine and their sons. We know from history that Henry and Eleanor’s marriage was troubled, that she and their sons rebelled against Henry and that she was sent away from court, so Howatch’s fictional story follows the same outline. If you think of Penmarric as the throne of England, the rest begins to fall into place, and if you’re familiar with the period you’ll be able to identify Henry, Eleanor, Richard I, King John and even the King of France amongst the fictional characters in the book.

Each chapter opens with one or two relevant quotations from historical sources, giving an idea of what will happen in the pages that follow and helping the reader to draw parallels between the characters in the novel and their historical counterparts. The first time I read the book I didn’t have the knowledge I have now, so I didn’t pick up on everything, but this time I could appreciate just how well structured it all is and how cleverly Howatch works even minor episodes from history into the plot. Of course, it’s not essential to know anything at all about Henry and Eleanor before you begin as Penmarric can still be enjoyed as a wonderful family saga in its own right.

Of the five narrators, my favourites are the last two: Philip, the son who, being the closest to Janna, is hurt the most by Mark’s actions and who retreats into a single-minded obsession with reopening the Penmarric tin mine, Sennen Garth; and Jan-Yves, the youngest son and the one who stays loyal to their father – until it really matters. Each section is written in a strong, distinctive voice, each one adding to, complementing and contradicting the one before so that a character who seems particularly unpleasant when seen through the eyes of another becomes more sympathetic once they get a chance to tell their own side of the story.

Penmarric is a dark novel – as I’ve said, none of the characters experience much happiness in their lives and none of them are easy to like – but the plot is completely gripping, even when you’re reading the book for the second time. There are some lovely descriptions of Cornwall too; this is one of those books where the setting is as important as the characters and the plot. Although some of the family members move away and do other things, they are all drawn back again and again to Cornwall and Penmarric.

I really enjoyed my re-read of this book, especially now that I have enough familiarity with medieval history to be able to follow both layers of the story. I will be re-reading Cashelmara very soon and am looking forward to it as I can remember very little about that one.

The Snow Globe by Judith Kinghorn

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This would have been a good book to have read over the Christmas period, but when I picked it up at the beginning of March we were having a spell of particularly heavy snow, which was quite appropriate! This is the fourth book I’ve read by Judith Kinghorn, so I had an idea of what to expect from it: an early twentieth century setting, a big house, a family with servants, their way of life changing as a result of the First World War. The Snow Globe does have all of these things, although the war aspect is not as strong as in The Last Summer or The Echo of Twilight.

The novel opens in December 1926. At Eden Hall in Surrey, the Forbes family are preparing to celebrate Christmas and eighteen-year-old Daisy has brought out her snow globe, a treasured gift from her father, Howard. She and her father have always had a close relationship and this makes it particularly upsetting when she overhears the servants saying that he has been having an affair. To make matters worse, her mother has just invited Howard’s mistress to spend Christmas with them. This creates a dilemma for Daisy. Does her mother know what has been going on – and if not, should she be told?

The discovery that her father may not be the man she has always believed him to be shakes Daisy’s confidence and makes it difficult for her to trust the other men in her life. There are three of them and they have each declared their love for Daisy over that same Christmas period: Stephen Jessop, the housekeeper’s adopted son and Daisy’s childhood friend; Valentine Vincent, the son of her father’s mistress; and Ben Gifford, who works for the family business. To give herself some time to think, Daisy goes to stay in London with her glamorous older sister Iris but eventually she will need to make a decision…will it be the right one?

I enjoyed The Snow Globe, but I found it very light compared to Judith Kinghorn’s other books. Although the book is set in the 1920s, there’s not a lot of history in it. Apart from the opening chapter, which discusses the disappearance of Agatha Christie, there are very few mentions of any other historical events or people of the time. However, it does still capture the feel of the 1920s very well, touching on the lives of those both upstairs and downstairs, class differences within society, attitudes towards marriage, and the changing roles of women.

I liked Daisy – although some of her actions seem a bit silly, it’s worth remembering that she is young and innocent and has just had her world torn apart. Her precious snow globe, which shows a miniature world encased in glass, could be seen as symbolising this: when the globe is shaken the illusion is destroyed and then, when things fall back into place, they are in a slightly different position than they were before. I also liked spending time with the servants, listening to their gossip and seeing life at Eden Hall through their eyes. The character who interested me most, though, was probably Mabel, Daisy’s mother. I found her reaction to the traumas in her life dignified and mature; she didn’t fall apart as some people would, but searched for the strength within herself to carry on.

There was enough happening in The Snow Globe to hold my interest from beginning to end, but it didn’t have the level of depth that I prefer in a novel. I would recommend it to fans of Downton Abbey or other ‘big house’ stories, but I think The Echo of Twilight would be a better choice to start with.

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

The Savage Brood by Martha Rofheart

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Having read two of Martha Rofheart’s other books, Lionheart and Burning Sappho (about Richard I and the poet Sappho, respectively), I decided to try her 1978 novel The Savage Brood next. It sounded different from the others, being a multi-generational family saga and concentrating on fictional characters rather than real historical ones. I liked it enough to finish it but, as I so often find with this kind of book, the earlier sections were the best and I struggled to stay interested as the action moved closer towards the modern day.

The novel follows the fortunes of the Savage family, who have a long history as actors of one sort or another. It is divided into three sections which are set in different periods and work almost as self-contained novellas. We begin in Tudor England where we meet one branch of the family, a group of travelling players who make their living moving from town to town in a horse-drawn wagon and putting on performances for the local people. Finding English law too restrictive, the troupe move to Italy where, under the patronage of Cosimo I de’ Medici, they learn the skills of Commedia dell’Arte.

After a short ‘interval’, the story then jumps forward to 1752 where some of the Italian Savages (or Savaggi, as they have become known in the intervening years), return to London’s Drury Lane to work with the great English actor and producer, David Garrick. Garrick identifies young Miranda Savage as a special talent, but loses her when she moves to America – just in time for the Revolution.

There’s another interval and then we skip forward again, this time to San Francisco in 1906. The Savages have now made a name for themselves as vaudeville entertainers, but this form of theatre is in its final days as the first silent films begin to make their appearance. This section of the novel takes us right through both world wars and follows the careers of comic actor Sammy Savage, showboat musician Solange Sauvage, and Hollywood star JP Savage.

As I said, the first two sections were the most enjoyable, at least in my opinion. The third dragged on for too long, and except for the wartime parts, when the action moves to France for a while, I found the storyline much less interesting. The characters were unlikeable and self-obsessed, lacking the charisma of some of their earlier ancestors and little more than stereotypes of early Hollywood stars. By contrast, I loved the eighteenth century section and was particularly fond of Miranda Savage’s cousin Beau, who rises from humble beginnings to become a stage and fashion icon. Taken as a whole, though, I found the saga of the Savages unconvincing, with too many chance encounters between people who turn out to be distant Savage cousins.

Although Rofheart does acknowledge that women couldn’t act on stage in England until the Restoration, she does depict some of her sixteenth century female characters as acting with a travelling troupe. I didn’t think women were allowed to perform at all during that period (apart from in Italy), so that bothered me while I was reading, although I have since discovered a book on Women Players in England, 1500–1660, which suggests that women may have had more opportunities to act in sixteenth century England than I had imagined, at least on an amateur basis. I really don’t know enough about the subject to comment any further on Rofheart’s historical accuracy.

Despite the problems I had with The Savage Brood, I think it will be a fascinating read for anyone interested in the theatre, incorporating almost every type of acting you can think of – Commedia dell’Arte, Shakespeare, vaudeville, film and more – set against a backdrop of major historical events. I’m not really in any hurry to read the rest of Martha Rofheart’s books, but if anyone has read The Alexandrian, Cry God for Glendower and Fortune Made His Sword I would like to know if you enjoyed them and if you think they’re better than this one?

The Sealwoman’s Gift by Sally Magnusson

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This is a beautifully written novel based on a little known historical event: the 1627 raid by Barbary pirates on Iceland’s Westman Islands. Around four hundred Icelanders were taken in captivity to Algiers to be sold at the slave markets, among them the priest Ólafur Egilsson, his pregnant wife Ásta Thórsteinsdottir, and two of their children. We know from historical records that Ólafur was released and sent to Denmark to petition the Danish king (Iceland’s ruler in those days) in the hope that he would provide the ransom to free his subjects. His story was preserved in a memoir describing his capture and the voyage there and back, but the story of Ásta, who was not allowed to accompany him on the journey home, has been lost to history.

In The Sealwoman’s Gift, Sally Magnusson has given a voice to Ásta, a woman who, like so many others in centuries gone by, has been ignored and forgotten by history. As we know little or nothing about what happened to Ásta and the other women and children after their arrival on the shores of Algeria, this gives the author the freedom to create an interesting, realistic and believable story to fill in the gaps. She writes with sensitivity and understanding as she describes Ásta’s pain at being separated from her husband and children, her changing feelings for the man who buys her – Ali Pitterling Cilleby – and the agonising decision she eventually has to make.

There’s a lot for Ásta to adjust to in her new life; Algeria and Iceland couldn’t be more different, with very different climates, customs, foods, languages and religions. The religious difference is one of the most difficult for Ásta to accept – as the wife of a Lutheran minister, the possibility of her children having to convert to Islam is not easy for her to come to terms with. We also follow Ólafur on his return to Heimaey in the Westman Islands and see both the short-term and long-term effects the raids have had on the community. With such a small population to begin with, the loss of several hundred of their people has a big impact; it seems that almost everyone has lost a husband or wife, a child or a parent or a friend.

Iceland has a strong tradition of storytelling and some of these myths, legends and sagas are woven into the novel as Ásta finds some solace in remembering the stories of her homeland and narrating them to her master and his wives. This is another aspect of the book that I liked; you can learn a lot about a country from its stories and its folklore.

Sally Magnusson (who is the daughter of the television presenter Magnus Magnusson) has previously written several non-fiction books, but this seems to be her first novel. I liked her writing, apart from the fact that she chose to write in the present tense. I’m really not a fan of present tense and in this case I found it distracting and distancing, which I’m sure is not what the author intended. It’s down to personal taste, I suppose – you either have a problem with it or you don’t. I also thought that, while Ásta, Ólafur and the other Icelandic people are strong, interesting characters, the characters they meet in Algiers feel less well developed. If I’d had a stronger feeling for Cilleby, for example, as a person, I think I would have found the later stages of the story more emotional.

These are just small criticisms and, as I’ve said, are probably just due to my tastes as a reader rather than the book itself, which is getting great reviews and really is a fascinating read.

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

Marry in Haste by Jane Aiken Hodge

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This is the third Jane Aiken Hodge novel I’ve read and my favourite so far. Based on an earlier story, Camilla, which was serialised in Ladies’ Home Journal in 1961, Marry in Haste was originally published in 1969 and has just been reissued by Ipso Books. It is set in England and Portugal during the Napoleonic Wars and has just the combination of romance, suspense and history that I am coming to expect from her novels.

The saying “marry in haste and repent at leisure” perfectly describes Camille de Forêt’s situation. Having fled to England with her father, a French Comte, and changed her name to Camilla Forest to distance herself from her French origins, she has spent several years in the home of the Duchess of Devonshire. Following the death of the Duchess, Camilla found a position as governess in another household but when we meet her at the beginning of the novel she has been dismissed from her job and sent away with no money and nowhere to go.

A chance encounter with the Earl of Leominster when his carriage passes her on the road seems to provide the perfect solution to Camilla’s problems. She needs a husband, a home and some money; Leominster (or Lavenham, as he is known to his friends) needs a wife in order to claim his inheritance. In the sort of plot development which will be familiar to readers of Georgette Heyer’s Regency romances, Lavenham proposes to Camilla and she accepts – on the condition that it will be a marriage in name only. Of course, it doesn’t take long for Camilla to discover that she is falling in love with her husband after all…but will Lavenham, who has a distrust of women based on a bad experience in his past, ever return her feelings?

Marry in Haste is an enjoyable and entertaining novel; it’s not particularly original (as I said, it feels quite similar to some of Georgette Heyer’s books, among others) and most of the plot twists are very predictable, but that doesn’t make it any less fun to read. The romance between Lavenham and Camilla is thwarted by misunderstandings, lies and communication problems, which makes it feel very contrived at times, but it’s satisfying overall – and anyway, things which would be likely to annoy me in a more ‘serious’ novel feel much more acceptable in this sort of book. There’s also a secondary romance later in the book, involving Lavenham’s younger sister, the lively and irresponsible Chloe, and I enjoyed this storyline too.

Most of the action takes place in Portugal, where Lavenham is sent early in the novel to carry out secret diplomatic work. Camilla and Chloe accompany him there and promptly find themselves caught up in the conflict involving France, Britain, Spain and Portugal which has been escalating in Europe. There are some lovely descriptions of Portugal and enough historical detail to give the reader a basic understanding of the Peninsular War, but the focus is always on the characters and the relationships between them. I was disappointed that Lavenham kept abandoning his wife and sister for long periods while he was away on undercover work, but I can see that it was necessary for the plot and enabled them to have some adventures of their own while trying to escape the French and make their way back to the safety of England.

I’m looking forward to reading more Jane Aiken Hodge as so far I’ve only read this one, Strangers in Company and Watch the Wall, My Darling (three very different books). I already have a second-hand copy of Red Sky at Night on my shelf as well as another new reissue, First Night, from NetGalley – and I think it’s time I tried her sister, Joan Aiken’s, books too!

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

The Coffin Path by Katherine Clements

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This is Katherine Clements’ third novel set in 17th century England, but it has a different feel from the previous two. Rather than being a straight historical novel like The Crimson Ribbon and The Silvered Heart, The Coffin Path is a ghost story with a lonely rural setting and this time there is much less focus on the political and social events of the period.

It’s 1674 and there are signs that spring is on its way to the Yorkshire moors. The first lamb of the season is about to make its appearance, but it is a difficult birth and requires human assistance. Mercy Booth of Scarcross Hall, who farms the land and tends the sheep for her elderly father, helps to deliver the lamb into the world but its mother dies in the process – the first of several bad omens. Next, three ancient gold coins go missing from her father’s collection and reappear in unexpected places – and then Mercy begins to hear noises coming from a disused bedchamber upstairs.

Around this time, a stranger arrives looking for work. His name is Ellis Ferreby and although the local people are slow to trust him, he soon proves himself to be a good shepherd and a reliable worker. Ellis, however, is a man with secrets and it seems that he could have reasons of his own for coming to Scarcross Hall.

We slowly get to know both Mercy and Ellis as their stories alternate with each other throughout the novel. We hear what Mercy’s life has been like, growing up without a mother, with only her eccentric father, Bartram, and the servants for company – and we learn of her hopes for the future, which centre around the knowledge that one day, as her father’s only heir, she will inherit her beloved Scarcross Hall. As for Ellis, his background is shrouded in mystery and the truth about both his past and his purpose in being at Scarcross is only revealed later in the novel.

The 17th century is obviously a period which interests Katherine Clements and of which she has a lot of knowledge: The Crimson Ribbon was the story of a servant in the household of Oliver Cromwell, while The Silvered Heart was about a highwaywoman in the aftermath of the English Civil War. The Coffin Path is set just a few decades after those two books yet I felt that the story would have worked just as well if it had been set in almost any other period, either an earlier century or a later one. Although the effects of the recent Civil War do still linger in the lives of our characters, this only has any real significance towards the end of the book – otherwise, perhaps because Scarcross Hall is so isolated from the wider world, there is a general feeling of timelessness.

However, what the novel lacks in sense of time is made up for in sense of place. There are some wonderful descriptions of the moors surrounding Scarcross Hall, bringing to life this harsh but beautiful landscape. We also explore some of the old traditions and beliefs which survive in this remote part of England: the White Ladies is an ancient stone circle which the villagers associate with evil, while the Coffin Path of the title refers to the old track down which coffins would be carried from the moors to the church for burial. It’s no wonder that in a place like this, people like Ellis and Mercy are viewed with suspicion and distrust – Ellis because he is an outsider and Mercy because she is an independent, unconventional woman, still unmarried in her thirties and doing ‘a man’s work’ on the farm.

I enjoyed following the personal stories of both main characters and I liked the supernatural elements too: they were suitably eerie, but at the same time subtle enough to keep me wondering whether there really were ghosts involved or whether something else was happening. My only problem with the book (other than the fact that, like many novels these days, it is written in present tense) was that there were times when the plot seemed to be moving forward very slowly. It didn’t help that the first few chapters are devoted to describing, in great detail, the birth of a lamb; I would have preferred a stronger opening to pull me straight into the story.

Of the three books by Katherine Clements I have read, I think I liked both of the others better than this one, but it’s good to see that she has tried something slightly different here. What will she write next, I wonder?

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

The Wicked Cometh by Laura Carlin

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With such a beautiful cover and with the enticing subtitle “A novel of darkest London”, Laura Carlin’s The Wicked Cometh was impossible to resist. I was looking forward to reading it but, having seen a mixture of reviews over the last few weeks, some very positive and others less so, by the time I started it my expectations weren’t as high as they had been.

The novel is set in the early 1830s, during the reign of William IV, and opens with The Morning Herald reporting on the increasing number of men, women and children being declared missing in London. One young woman who has been following the news reports closely is Hester White; she is growing concerned about her cousin Edward who had arranged to meet her at Smithfield three weeks ago and has failed to arrive. Hester’s life has not been easy since the death of her parents a few years earlier; finding herself alone in the world she has been living with her father’s former gardener, Jacob, and his wife, Meg. Their home is a London slum, very different from the parsonage in rural Lincolnshire where Hester grew up, and she has been hoping that Edward can offer her an opportunity to start a new life away from the city.

When Hester is knocked down and injured by a carriage belonging to Calder Brock, suddenly another way of escape presents itself. Calder, who is a doctor, takes her to his family’s country estate, Waterford Hall, to recuperate, and explains to her that he would like her to stay and be educated by his sister Rebekah. With his interest in social reform, he hopes this experiment will show that even those from the poorest slums are capable of learning and improving themselves. Hester can already read and write, but is happy to pretend otherwise to avoid having to go back to Jacob and Meg. And so her lessons with Rebekah begin and a special friendship starts to form…

Everything I’ve described so far happens in the first half of the book and up to that point I found that I was really enjoying it. I liked Hester and although present tense first-person narration isn’t my favourite, her voice was strong and compelling. Her relationship with Rebekah felt natural and right, and I was pleased that it took time to develop. I was curious about the disappearances in London too and wanted to know more.

Then, in the middle of the book, there was a change of pace. As Hester and Rebekah began to investigate and uncover the truth, I felt that the author was trying too hard to incorporate every possible trope of the 19th century sensation novel, from family secrets to hidden documents to clandestine marriages. The story began to feel very melodramatic and contrived and lost its effectiveness. There were aspects of the plot that reminded me of Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, as well as one or two developments that made me think of The Woman in White, and I suspect that if I hadn’t read so many similar books I would probably have enjoyed this one a lot more. This was a particular problem at the very end of the novel where something which should have been a big surprise was too easy to predict.

I did like Laura Carlin’s writing and the atmosphere she creates; The Wicked Cometh is already receiving a lot of attention and as a debut novelist I’m sure she has a successful career ahead of her. For me, though, this is a novel of two very different halves. Some readers will prefer, as I did, the slow scene-setting of the first half and others the dramatic revelations of the second. If it sounds like your sort of book, give it a try – maybe you’ll love it more than I did!

Thanks to Hodder and Stoughton for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.