The Revelations of Carey Ravine by Debra Daley

August 4, 2016January 18, 202210 Comments

There was always a good chance that I was going to love The Revelations of Carey Ravine. A book which has been compared with “Sarah Waters, Amitav Ghosh’s The Sea of Poppies, and Jamaica Inn” sounded perfect for me…and it was. Set in 1770s London, this is a dark tale of deception and betrayal in which nothing is as it seems. Our guide through all of this is Carey Ravine, an intelligent and spirited woman with an interesting past.

On the surface, Carey and her husband, Oliver Nash, appear to be the perfect couple: rich, good-looking, charming and leading a life of glamour and luxury. In reality, their lavish lifestyle is funded by Carey’s dwindling savings – and as their finances become stretched to the limits, cracks in their marriage begin to appear. When Carey finds a dossier in Nash’s desk describing the death by poisoning of a young man during a medical experiment in India, she confronts her husband and asks for an explanation. It’s obvious, though, that Nash doesn’t want to talk about it, so Carey is left to investigate on her own…

Towards the end of the novel, revelation follows upon revelation as the mystery surrounding the poisoning starts to unfold…but Carey also makes some important discoveries about herself and the sort of person she really wants to be. The novel is narrated by Carey herself, which means the reader can only know as much as Carey does – and it quickly becomes obvious that there are some big gaps in our heroine’s knowledge. The fate of her father, the horticulturalist Daniel Ravine, for example, is unknown to Carey. The last she heard of him was when he wrote to her from India ten years earlier to tell her of her mother’s death in Calcutta. Having had no further news, Carey has given up hope of ever seeing or hearing from him again. Eventually, though, the truth about Daniel Ravine begins to emerge, and as we learn more about Carey’s family and her past, some light is shed on her present circumstances.

Carey is a wonderful character – she’s strong and resourceful but she’s still convincing as a woman of her time and her actions never fall outside of the realms of plausibility. Through her eyes we see what it was like to be female in the 18th century, facing a range of challenges, some of which were unique to the time period and others which we can still identify with today. Carey’s relationship with Nash is particularly interesting; she’s in love with her husband and wants to please him, but not at the expense of losing her own identity. Although her freedom is restricted as a married woman, she still does what she can to support herself independently and finds work translating scientific texts.

The setting for this novel is one that I always enjoy – Georgian England – and Debra Daley does a wonderful job of bringing the time period to life with descriptions of flamboyant clothing of silk, velvet and lace, popular dances (the cotillion, for example), and entertainment (masquerade balls and card games such as faro). But it’s the lesser-known details of Georgian life and culture that I like reading about the most; I love the idea that pineapples were seen as such a status symbol in the 1770s that it was possible to hire one to use as a table decoration for your dinner party!

Too many good novels are let down by a poor ending which leaves the reader wondering what was the point of it all. Carey Ravine, though, feels like a complete novel with a beginning, a middle and a satisfying ending. I was also happy, on reaching the end of the book, with the level of character development throughout the story – Carey changes and grows as a person as the novel progresses and by the time we come to the final page she is a rather different woman than she was at the beginning.

This is the second novel by New Zealand author Debra Daley; her first, Turning the Stones, was published in 2014. I will certainly be going back to read that one, as well as looking forward to any future books from Daley.

Prince of Foxes by Samuel Shellabarger

August 2, 20168 Comments

This was the book chosen for me in the Classics Club Spin a few months ago; I’m a day late posting this review (the deadline was yesterday) but I did actually finish the book in time. It has taken me a while to decide what to say about this wonderful novel and I probably still haven’t done it justice! I had at least three reasons for adding Prince of Foxes to my Classics Club list in the first place: it’s a classic historical fiction/adventure novel published in 1947 and set in Renaissance Italy, a period I love; it sounded very similar to the work of Rafael Sabatini, an author I love; and it came highly recommended by The Idle Woman, whose blog I love. It seemed inevitable, then, that I would love the book itself – and fortunately I did.

In 1500, when Prince of Foxes begins, Italy is divided into a collection of city-states which are constantly at war, leaving them vulnerable to foreign invasion. Our hero, Andrea Orsini, dreams of seeing the country united under one ruler and has entered the service of the ruthless and powerful Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI. We first meet Andrea in Venice, preparing to undertake a mission for the Borgias. He has been given the task of travelling to Ferrara to try to negotiate a marriage between Alfonso d’Este, son of Duke Ercole, and Lucrezia Borgia, Cesare’s sister. When the d’Estes hear about this, however, they decide to have Andrea killed in Venice before he can reach Ferrara – but the murder attempt is foiled and the hired assassin, Mario Belli, ends up switching sides and joining Andrea on his journey.

If he is successful, the Borgias have promised to reward Andrea with the strategically placed hill town of Città del Monte, and the town’s ruling lady, the beautiful Camilla degli Baglione, as his wife. The problem is, Camilla’s husband, the elderly Lord Varano, is still alive and must be disposed of before Andrea will be able to claim his reward. As Andrea gets to know both Varano and Camilla, he finds that he’s not at all sure he’ll be able to betray them into the hands of Cesare when the time comes. Torn between his loyalty to the Borgias (and the personal ambition which goes with it) and his increasing love and respect for Camilla and her husband, Andrea is faced with making a decision which could affect not only his own future but the future of Italy.

As well as navigating his way through this delicate political situation, Andrea and Belli have a number of adventures involving battles, duels, clever disguises, last-minute escapes, sieges, miracles and all sorts of trickery and deception. I was right in thinking that this book would be similar to Sabatini; in particular, I kept being reminded of Bellarion (a previous Classics Spin read) which is also set in Renaissance Italy and includes many of the same elements. But while I remember feeling irritated by the perfection of the main character in Bellarion, I did like Andrea Orsini. He’s another hero who is good at everything, but with just enough flaws and ambiguities to make him interesting. Mario Belli was my favourite, though – and I can’t say too much about him without spoiling the story!

I also loved Camilla, an intelligent and courageous woman with a sense of humour, although other female characters such as Lucrezia and Angela Borgia felt less well developed. Moving away from the novel’s central characters, there’s also a fascinating supporting cast consisting of assorted dukes, lords and ambassadors, soldiers (including the Chevalier de Bayard) and saints (Lucia of Narni). The language used throughout the novel always feel appropriate to the time period and the dialogue is subtle and witty.

Not being an expert on the Renaissance (although I always enjoy reading about it and am gradually building up my knowledge) I found that I was learning a lot from Prince of Foxes as well as being entertained by it. It really is a great book and if anyone else has read it – or seen the 1949 film version with Tyrone Power and Orson Welles – I’d love to know what you thought.

Sons of the Blood by Robyn Young

July 27, 20168 Comments

Having read Robyn Young’s Robert the Bruce trilogy recently, I was looking forward to reading her new novel, Sons of the Blood. It’s the first in a planned series – New World Rising – set in Renaissance Europe and following the adventures of Jack Wynter, the illegitimate son of royal chamberlain Sir Thomas Vaughan.

As the novel opens in 1483, the unexpected death of Edward IV after several years of stability has plunged England back into turmoil and uncertainty. Just when it seemed that the Wars of the Roses were over, the country now faces the prospect of another child king on the throne, unable to provide the strong leadership required. But as Thomas Vaughan escorts the young Edward, Prince of Wales, to London to be crowned, they are intercepted at Stony Stratford by the prince’s uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester.

Accused of treason and fearing for his life, Thomas finds an opportunity to send one of his squires to Seville with an urgent message for his son, Jack, who has been in Spain for several months guarding a mysterious leather scroll case. To Jack, this had seemed like an excuse to remove an inconvenient illegitimate son from the country, but when he learns that his father’s messenger has been attacked on his way to Seville, he realises that the case really does contain secrets of great importance and that men are prepared to kill to get their hands on these secrets.

Returning to England in the hope of learning more, Jack finds himself surrounded by enemies, one of whom is his own half-brother, Harry Vaughan. Desperate to find answers to his questions, Jack decides to seek the help of another boy to whom Sir Thomas had been a father of sorts – the young Edward V, who has now been deposed by his uncle Richard, and has disappeared, along with his brother, into the Tower of London. As rumours of the princes’ deaths begin to spread throughout the city, Jack is drawn into one of history’s greatest mysteries.

I have to say, this wasn’t quite what I expected when I first heard that Robyn Young was writing a series set during the Renaissance; I had thought there would be a wider geographical scope, so I was surprised to find that this first book is set mainly in Richard III’s England. The Wars of the Roses is one of my favourite subjects to read about, though, so I’m not complaining – and I’m sure Jack’s adventures will be taking him to other locations in future books.

I have read a lot of different portrayals of Richard III over the last few years and a range of different theories and opinions on the question of what really happened to the Princes in the Tower. From the beginning, Robyn Young’s depiction of Richard was quite negative – he comes across as ambitious and ruthless (a human being, though, rather than an evil monster) – so I thought I knew which direction the story was going to take. I was wrong, of course! Richard is responsible for a lot of the bad things that happen in the novel, but not all of them, and it’s worth mentioning that Henry Tudor isn’t exactly shown in a very good light either.

As usual with one of Young’s novels, there’s a lot of additional material which all adds to the experience: maps, character lists (clearly showing who is real and who is fictional) and a comprehensive list of sources. Young admits in her author’s note that she had little prior knowledge of the fifteenth century, having been immersed in earlier periods while writing her previous trilogies, but I would never have guessed because, as far as the historical background is concerned, everything in the novel feels fully researched and authentic. I think she does a good job of working Jack Wynter’s fictional story into the historical facts – however, I’m slightly disappointed that the conspiracy/secret society/mysterious document aspect of the novel is so dominant. This period of history is interesting enough as it is!

With Sons of the Blood, the New World Rising series is off to a good start. I did enjoy it, despite having one or two reservations, and now I’m curious to see how the story is going to develop.

Mrs Engels by Gavin McCrea

July 24, 20169 Comments

This is another book read for my Reading the Walter Scott Prize project and another one that I’ve enjoyed. I don’t think I had even heard of it until it appeared on the shortlist for this year’s prize and I’m pleased that it did because otherwise I would probably never have read it and would never have had the opportunity to get to know Lizzie Burns – the Mrs Engels of the title.

The novel is narrated by Lizzie herself, a working-class Irish woman who becomes the lover and common-law wife of the German philosopher Friedrich Engels. In 1870, when we first meet Lizzie, she and Engels are boarding a train which will take them from Manchester to London, where they will be moving into a house in Primrose Hill close to Friedrich’s friend, Karl Marx. The narrative then moves backwards and forwards in time, so that as well as watching the couple settle into their new home, we also learn something of Lizzie’s early life in Manchester, where she and her sister, Mary, grew up in poverty before starting work at Ermen & Engels cotton mill – something which will bring them into contact with the man who is to become such an important part of both of their lives.

I came to this book knowing almost nothing about Friedrich Engels and his work (other than that he co-authored The Communist Manifesto with Karl Marx) and I wondered whether that would be a problem. I needn’t have worried, though, because the focus of this novel is very much on the details of his personal life and his relationships with the Burns sisters, first Mary, his partner of many years, and then – after her death – Lizzie. It seems that little is known about the real Lizzie and Mary, so I kept in mind while reading that not everything that happens in the novel is historically accurate and that a lot of it is the product of the author’s imagination.

One thing we do know about Lizzie Burns is that Marx’s daughter Eleanor said she was “illiterate and could not read or write but she was true, honest and in some ways as fine-souled a woman as you could meet”. I think Gavin McCrea does a great job in Mrs Engels of displaying these different facets of Lizzie’s character. On the surface she’s strong, outspoken and tough – she has to be, to cope with everything life throws at her – but underneath there’s an intelligence, a sensitivity and a sharp wit. Through his choice of words and spellings, McCrea also manages to convey the fact that she is illiterate and poorly educated. The result is a narrative voice which is unusual, memorable and perfectly suited to Lizzie’s character.

Mrs Engels is not a perfect novel – the transitions between time periods are not always clear and the characters, with the exception of Lizzie, feel thinly drawn and difficult to like. However, I found it interesting to read the descriptions of the living and working conditions experienced by mill workers in Victorian Manchester and the challenges faced by a working-class woman who suddenly finds herself moving up the social ladder and trying to manage a London household. It’s a fascinating read – and I loved the fact that a woman who was unable to tell her own story has finally been given a voice.

The Rider of the White Horse by Rosemary Sutcliff

July 20, 201616 Comments

Rosemary Sutcliff is an author I’ve been meaning to read for years, having heard only good things about her work. I wasn’t planning to start with this particular book (The Eagle of the Ninth and Sword at Sunset are the ones which have been recommended to me most often) but as I had the opportunity to read The Rider of the White Horse via NetGalley and have been enjoying other books set in the same time period recently, I thought I would give it a try.

Many of Rosemary Sutcliff’s books were written for younger readers, but this is one of her adult novels, published in 1959. The ‘rider’ of the title is Sir Thomas Fairfax, also known as Black Tom, commander-in-chief of the Parliamentarian army during the English Civil War, and the ‘white horse’ refers to his stallion, White Surrey. Sutcliff’s novel tells Fairfax’s story, from the events leading up to the conflict, to his exploits on the battlefield and the formation of the New Model Army. But this is also the story of Anne Fairfax, the devoted wife who – along with their daughter, Little Moll – follows her husband to war.

Written largely from Anne’s perspective, The Rider of the White Horse is a moving portrayal of the relationship between husband and wife. It’s not so much a sweeping romance as a quiet, poignant tale of a woman with a passionate love for a man whom she knows does not – and probably never will – feel the same way about her. Despite this, Anne wants to be there for Thomas whenever he needs her; she wants to help in any way she can. Following him on campaign, travelling from one town to another, a lot of time is spent anxiously awaiting news of Thomas, but Anne also has adventures of her own – including one episode in which she is captured by the Royalist commander, Lord Newcastle.

As for Thomas Fairfax himself, I have to admit that he’s someone I previously knew very little about. Although I’ve read other books (both fiction and non-fiction) about the Civil War, Fairfax tends to be overshadowed by Oliver Cromwell. In this novel, he comes across as a decent, humble, honourable man who loves his daughter and – even if he is unable to return her feelings – appreciates and respects his wife. He is portrayed very sympathetically, which I hadn’t really expected as from the little I’d read about him I had picked up a more negative impression. Of course, that could be partly because I tend to be drawn more to the Royalist side anyway (not for any good reason, I have to confess, but purely because from a fictional point of view, they seem more colourful and interesting). I have no idea how accurate this portrait of Thomas is – or how much of Anne’s story is based on fact – but I did like this version of both characters.

I’ve never been a fan of battle scenes as I often find them boring and difficult to follow. There are several in this novel and while I could see that they were detailed and well-written, they didn’t interest me as much as the domestic and family scenes. Luckily for me, there are plenty of these too. What I’ll remember most, though, is the character of Anne and her love for a man who is simply not able to give her what she wants, cherishing each moment of happiness, however brief and fleeting…“You could not hold a winged thing; you could not even perfectly remember it afterwards, for that, too, was a kind of holding.”

The Mauritius Command by Patrick O’Brian

July 16, 201614 Comments

This is the fourth of Patrick O’Brian’s novels following the adventures of Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr Stephen Maturin. I have always been (and I’m sure I always will be) a landlubber, so I’m actually quite proud of myself for managing to get so far into a series which is set largely at sea! Unfortunately, the nautical details and terminology are not getting any easier for me to understand and that made this fourth novel, in particular, slightly challenging at times – but I did still enjoy this one, if not quite as much as I enjoyed the first three books.

In the intervening period between the end of the previous novel, HMS Surprise, and the beginning of The Mauritius Command, Jack Aubrey has married Sophie Williams and she has given birth to twin girls. Despite these happy events, however, Jack is feeling restless and miserable. Currently ashore with no ship to command, he is having to live on half-pay, and as his mother-in-law has lost all her money, including Sophie’s dowry, the whole family are crowded together in a small, damp cottage on the Hampshire coast.

Jack’s spirits are lifted when his friend, Stephen Maturin – ship’s surgeon, naturalist and occasional spy – arrives bearing the news that Jack is required to lead a naval campaign against the French with the aim of taking control of the islands of Mauritius and La Réunion. Setting sail aboard the HMS Boadicea, a thirty-eight-gun frigate, Jack is temporarily promoted to commodore and given command of a squadron. As if his mission wasn’t already going to be difficult enough, he also faces problems in the form of his own captains: Lord Clonfert, a handsome, dashing young man who is determined to outdo everybody else, and Captain Corbett, who believes in strict discipline and whose crew are always on the verge of mutiny.

Until now, we have only seen Jack Aubrey as captain of one individual ship; here he is in command of several, something which brings new challenges and requires a new set of skills. Whereas in the past he has been able to concentrate on getting to know his own crew and his own ship, now he is responsible for coordinating the movements of more than one vessel and working with other officers of various ranks.

‘Why, don’t you see,’ cried Jack, his mind fixed upon this question of command, ‘it has always been the command of a single ship. You are bred up to it—it comes natural. But high command is something you come to suddenly, with no experience. There are captains under you; and handling the captains of a squadron, each one of them God the Father of his own quarterdeck, is a very different matter from handling a ship’s company under your own eye. You can rarely choose them and you can rarely get rid of them…’

The plot of The Mauritius Command is based on a real naval campaign in the Indian Ocean (the Mauritius Campaign of 1809-11, part of the Napoleonic Wars) and I think this is possibly why I didn’t get on as well with this book as I did with the previous ones. Sticking so closely to historical events meant less time was spent on fictional storylines and on developing the friendship between Aubrey and Maturin; apart from the opening chapters, there is almost no land-based action either and a large portion of the novel is devoted to naval battles which, well-written and accurate as they may be, I find it hard to get excited about. This is just my personal opinion, of course, and I’m sure readers with different tastes will love this book for the very reasons that I didn’t!

Although we are given a glimpse at the beginning of the book of Jack’s married life with Sophie (and have our first chance to meet the twins) I was sorry not to see anything of Diana Villiers in this novel and I’m hoping she will make an appearance in the next one. So far I have found each book in the series to have its own different strengths and weaknesses; maybe book five (Desolation Island) will be more to my taste than this one.

Six Tudor Queens: Katherine of Aragon, the True Queen by Alison Weir

July 14, 2016September 17, 202314 Comments

I thought I’d read enough about the Tudors, but it seems that I was wrong. Despite having read about Henry VIII’s first wife, Katherine of Aragon, several times before, I was still able to enjoy this new fictional account of her life – the first in a planned series called Six Tudor Queens in which Alison Weir will devote one novel to each of Henry’s six wives.

Katherine of Aragon, the True Queen is a straightforward retelling of Katherine’s story, beginning in 1501 with her arrival in England at the age of sixteen to marry Prince Arthur, son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. The young Katherine is nervous and homesick but as the daughter of Spain’s King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella she is determined to accustom herself to her new country as quickly as possible and prove herself a worthy future queen of England. Her future is thrown into doubt, however, when Arthur dies just a few months into their marriage, leaving Katherine a widow.

In 1509 – after a long period of uncertainty – Katherine marries Arthur’s younger brother, Henry, who has just succeeded to the throne as Henry VIII. At first, Katherine is full of optimism; she and Henry are in love and looking forward to the birth of their first child, which they hope will be one of many. Unfortunately, the reader knows what is coming: a series of miscarriages, stillbirths and infant deaths (a daughter, Mary, would be the only child to survive), and the breakdown of Katherine’s marriage as Henry turns his attentions to Anne Boleyn. A story which began with so much hope and happiness ends in disappointment and heartbreak, but through it all Katherine stands by her conviction that she is Henry’s lawful wife and his one true queen.

As I said above, I have read other novels which tell Katherine’s story in fictional form, but this is certainly the most detailed and the most thorough. While most books tend to concentrate on Katherine’s later years and Henry’s mission to have their marriage annulled (which came to be described as ‘the King’s Great Matter), Alison Weir spends a lot of time on the period before they were married when Katherine, as Prince Arthur’s widow, was living at the court of Henry VII. I enjoyed reading about all the intrigue taking place within Katherine’s circle as her dowry of plate and jewels becomes the centre of a power struggle between strict Spanish duennas and manipulative ambassadors.

There were times, though, when I wondered whether this book really needed to be so long and so detailed. Alison Weir is a historian who writes non-fiction as well as fiction, but this is a novel rather than a factual biography and I think there were probably things which could easily have been left out to help the story flow better. Still, because Alison Weir does write so much non-fiction, I could trust that the background to this novel would have been fully researched and I had no problems regarding accuracy. However, there are a few controversies surrounding Katherine over which historians disagree, such as the question of whether her marriage to Arthur was ever consummated (Henry used this as the basis to his claim that his own marriage to Katherine was invalid). As Katherine is the heroine of the novel, we are asked to accept her own version of events (that is, that she and Arthur never consummated their marriage) and believe that she was telling the truth.

This is not an unbiased portrayal of Katherine, then; the whole novel is written from her own perspective, so we don’t hear anyone else’s side of the story. Because Katherine falls in love with Henry early on and continues to love him no matter what, she rarely attributes any blame to him – whatever he does is always the fault of someone else: usually Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell or Anne Boleyn. It’s understandable, I suppose, that Anne Boleyn is very much the villain of Katherine’s story, but Anne will be the central focus of the second book in the series so it will be interesting to have a chance to see things from her point of view.

I thought this was an enjoyable start to a new series and I’m now looking forward to reading about the other five queens!