The Butcher’s Hook by Janet Ellis

February 26, 201612 Comments

Life is not easy for Anne Jaccob, the young protagonist (more anti-heroine than heroine) of The Butcher’s Hook. Her mother is an invalid, her father is cold and distant, and she is struggling to warm to her new baby sister, who will never, ever take the place of the beloved little brother who died. The one bright spot in Anne’s life is her secret romance with Fub, the butcher’s apprentice, but even this is threatened when her father announces that he is arranging a marriage for her with the vile Simeon Onions. It seems that Anne is going to have to take matters into her own hands…

The Butcher’s Hook is the debut novel of Janet Ellis, who is probably best known for presenting the BBC’s long-running children’s show Blue Peter in the 1980s. It’s an unusual and imaginative story set in a Georgian London populated with colourful, larger-than-life characters. Many of them feel as though they could have stepped out of the pages of a Charles Dickens novel. There’s Titus Levener, the grotesquely fat butcher, and Dr Edwards, the sinister tutor who gives the young Anne an education she’ll never forget. There’s Angus, the Scottish soldier defeated in the recent Jacobite rising, who wanders the streets of London hungry, ragged and cold. And then, of course, there’s Anne.

From the beginning I was drawn into Anne’s world – the world of a lonely, confused young woman who has difficulty fitting in with the people around her. As the story progresses, Anne decides to take control of her life and shape her own destiny despite the obstacles which have been placed in her way. From this point on, things become very dark and twisted! I don’t want to say too much, but you need to be aware that you’ll be spending a lot of time in the company of a character who is seriously flawed and capable of the most horrifying things.

The Butcher’s Hook is an unsettling and atmospheric novel, with a plot that took me by surprise several times with its unexpected changes of direction. Based on this first effort, I’m sure Janet Ellis can look forward to a successful new career as a writer. To think that I nearly didn’t read it because I’m a vegetarian and found the title off-putting! My only disappointment was that I thought the ending felt slightly unfinished, as if there was more of Anne’s story still to be told; I don’t know whether there will be a sequel, but if not I’ll be interested to see what Janet Ellis writes next.

I had the opportunity to read this book just before Christmas, but have been waiting to post my review here until after the UK release date – which was yesterday. Thanks to Lovereading for the review copy.

2016 Walter Scott Prize longlist announced

February 25, 201622 Comments

As some of you may know, I am in the process of slowly working my way through all the shortlisted titles for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction since it began in 2010. Historical fiction is my favourite genre and I have so far found the books nominated for this prize to be of a consistently high quality.

You can learn more about the prize on the Walter Scott Prize website and you can follow my progress through the shortlists on this page. Kay of What Me Read has already joined me in this project and if anyone else would like to do the same, you’re more than welcome.

Anyway, the reason I’m posting this today is that this year’s longlist has just been announced – with the shortlist to follow in March and the winner in June. I’m not currently planning to attempt to read the entire longlist, which includes thirteen books, but I would like to dip into the list from time to time and read at least some of them.

The thirteen books are as follows:

A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
Sweet Caress by William Boyd
A Petrol Scented Spring by Ajay Close
A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale
Dictator by Robert Harris
Devastation Road by Jason Hewitt
Death and Mr Pickwick by Stephen Jarvis
Mrs Engels by Gavin McCrea
End Games in Bordeaux by Allan Massie
Tightrope by Simon Mawer
Signs For Lost Children by Sarah Moss
Curtain Call by Anthony Quinn
Salt Creek by Lucy Treloar

The only one I have read so far is A God in Ruins, but I do have Dictator on hold at the library and can’t wait to read it. I have heard good things about Sweet Caress – and Death and Mr Pickwick sounds interesting, although I’m not sure if I should wait until I’ve read The Pickwick Papers first. Most of the others are new to me, so I have some investigating to do!

Have you read any of these books?

Renegade by Robyn Young

February 23, 201620 Comments

One of the reasons I love reading historical fiction is that it gives me an opportunity to learn about historical people and events that I might otherwise have gone through life knowing little or nothing about. I would probably never have thought of picking up a non-fiction book on Robert the Bruce, so I’m pleased to have been introduced to him in fictional form in this trilogy of novels by Robyn Young.

The first book, Insurrection, which I read in 2014 and loved, took us through Robert’s early years, explaining the origins of his claim to the Scottish throne, his family’s rivalries with the other contenders, the Balliols and the Comyns, and how he entered the service of Edward I of England after John Balliol was made King of Scotland. I immediately bought a copy of the second book, Renegade, so that I could find out how Robert’s story would continue, but I struggled to get into it and put the book aside until a few weeks ago, when I felt ready to have another attempt.

Renegade begins in the year 1300 with Robert Bruce in exile in Ireland, having betrayed the English and set his sights on taking the throne of Scotland. He intends to search for the Staff of St Malachy, one of four legendary relics, and use it to bargain with King Edward, but things don’t go according to plan and Robert is forced to take a different approach. Swearing loyalty to Edward again, Robert must convince the English that he has turned his back on Scotland once and for all…while secretly biding his time and waiting for a chance to launch his campaign for the Scottish crown.

I think my initial problem with this book was due to the fact that it opens with the search for the Staff of St Malachy and I tend to find ‘hunting for hidden relics’ stories quite tedious and over-used in historical fiction. However, once I got past the first few chapters this storyline was pushed into the background and I started to find the book much more enjoyable (although I still think Insurrection was the better of the two).

Robert himself is still not a character I particularly care for, which is maybe not surprising as his path to the throne is built around treachery and betrayal, but I did have sympathy for the position he found himself in and the difficult choices he had to make. I felt sorry for his friend, Humphrey de Bohun – one of the few characters in the trilogy that I do like – when it became obvious that he too was going to be deceived by Robert for a second time. As in the previous novel, the women in Robert’s life have only small roles to play, but I enjoyed the brief glimpses we are given of his wife, Elizabeth de Burgh, and daughter, Marjorie, and I was sorry that Robert seems to have so little time for them both. Isabel Comyn, Countess of Buchan, is another intriguing female character and I’m hoping we’ll find out what happens to her in the final novel – although I suspect it won’t be good.

Also in this book we learn the fate of William Wallace, who has been lying low since the Battle of Falkirk, trying to avoid being captured. Meanwhile, in England, the ageing King Edward is looking to his son – Edward, Prince of Wales – to carry on his work once he is gone, but the prince seems more interested in his friendship with Piers Gaveston and it is already obvious that he is not going to be the ruler or the military leader his father is. The period in which Renegade is set is a time of conflict and conquest, which means Robyn Young devotes a lot of pages to battles, sieges and ambushes. I’m not really a lover of battle scenes but these were easy enough to follow and understand, as well as being detailed and, as far as I could tell, quite accurate. I was interested to find that the trebuchet Warwolf which Edward is having built during the novel really existed and was used in the Siege of Stirling Castle just as Young describes in the book.

I’m now looking forward to reading the final part of the trilogy, Kingdom, and would like to do so as soon as possible, because Robyn Young has a new novel set in Renaissance Europe coming out later this year.

The Poisoned Crown by Maurice Druon

February 19, 201611 Comments

The Accursed Kings has it all. Iron kings and strangled queens, battles and betrayals, lies and lust, deception, family rivalries, the curse of the Templars, babies switched at birth, she-wolves, sin and swords, the doom of a great dynasty…and all of it (well, most of it) straight from the pages of history.

This is how the author George R.R. Martin has described Maurice Druon’s series of French historical novels, the inspiration behind his own Game of Thrones. The Accursed Kings (Les Rois Maudits) consists of seven books, all published between 1955 and 1977 and all available in English translations. The Poisoned Crown (Les Poisons de la Couronne) is the third in the series, continuing the story from The Iron King and The Strangled Queen.

It’s 1315 and Louis X (known as le Hutin, the Quarreller) is on the throne of France. As the son of the late Philip the Fair, whose line was cursed ‘to the thirteenth generation’, Louis’ reign will be short and troubled. In the previous novel we saw the demise of his first wife, Marguerite of Burgundy. Now a second marriage has been arranged – with the beautiful Clémence of Hungary, who arrives in France after a terrible sea voyage and quickly wins the hearts of those around her with her kindness, generosity and religious devotion. All that remains is for Clémence to provide the king with heirs and secure the succession to the throne.

In some ways it seems that the presence of Clémence is making Louis a better person, but in others he is still proving to be cruel, weak and incompetent. A war against Flanders ends disastrously, he is unable to deal with the impact of famine and he fails to listen to good advice, being too easily influenced by his unscrupulous uncle, Charles of Valois. Meanwhile, trouble is brewing again between the king’s cousin, Robert of Artois, and Robert’s great-aunt Mahaut, who are still fighting over the lands they each regard as their own. Eventually the barons of Artois begin to rise against Mahaut, bringing the king into the dispute and setting a chain of events into motion which could bring about the end of Louis’ reign.

Three books into this series, I’m still enjoying it, but The Poisoned Crown is probably my least favourite so far. It feels like a bridging novel, leading us from the previous two volumes into the remainder of the series, rather than a satisfying story in itself. There’s less action in this one and too much focus, at least in my opinion, on the conflict between Robert of Artois and the Countess Mahaut. Still, there were plenty of things that I did like and the history is as fascinating as ever; I previously had almost no knowledge of what was happening in France during this period, so I’m really learning a lot from these novels.

Not everything in The Accursed Kings is based strictly on historical fact, though. One of the subplots which is largely fictional involves the Lombard banker, Spinello Tolomei, and his young nephew, Guccio Baglioni. Guccio’s romance with the impoverished noblewoman Marie de Cressay moves on a step in this book, although Druon goes on to spoil things for us by informing us of what the next ten years will have in store for them. One thing I find quite annoying about Druon’s writing is his habit of constantly telling us what is going to happen next. Of course, when you don’t know the history, even the titles of some of these books are spoilers in themselves!

The Poisoned Crown ends abruptly, but the scene is set for the fourth book in the series, The Royal Succession.

Here Comes the King by Philip Lindsay

February 11, 201612 Comments

Philip Lindsay (1906-1958) was an Australian author of historical fiction. His books have been out of print in recent years but are now being made available to a modern audience in ebook form by one of my favourite independent publishers, Endeavour Press. Here Comes the King, a 1933 novel about Katherine Howard and Thomas Culpeper, is the first of his books that I’ve read.

Katherine (or Catherine, but I’m sticking to the spelling used in the novel) is a young woman of seventeen or eighteen when she marries Henry VIII at Oatlands Palace and becomes his fifth wife. Her predecessor, Anne of Cleves, has recently been set aside by the king, who believes he was misled as to her appearance. The new queen’s beauty and youthful spirit are much more pleasing to Henry, who calls her his ‘rose without a thorn’. Katherine, though, is less enamoured with her fat, gluttonous, fifty-year-old husband who is suffering from painful leg ulcers and whose moods are becoming increasingly volatile. Although Henry is not generally unkind to her, she is tempted into an affair with the handsome young courtier, Thomas Culpeper – an affair which will lead to both their downfalls.

Here Comes the King is written in the third person from the perspective of several different characters including Culpeper, Henry and Katherine herself, as well as Will Sommers, the king’s fool, Francis Dereham, another man once romantically involved with Katherine, and Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford, who helps to arrange Katherine’s secret meetings with Culpeper. Jane and Sommers were both in a difficult position, knowing or suspecting what was going on and unsure of what to do with that knowledge, and this made them interesting characters to read about.

However, I felt that I didn’t get to know Katherine very well. She is portrayed as a pretty, flirtatious, immature young girl, and while this does seem to be a widely held view of what the real Katherine was like, I would still have preferred her character to be given a little more depth. Even when she was the viewpoint character, I never felt that I really knew what she was thinking. Culpeper’s character is better written; he is shown in a negative light, being irresponsible, impulsive and a heavy drinker (and allegedly guilty of both rape and murder, although these things are only briefly mentioned as they happen outside the scope of the novel), but his thoughts and feelings come through strongly.

I am far from being an expert on Katherine’s life and her time as Henry’s queen, so I can’t really comment on Lindsay’s accuracy, but the story did seem to follow quite faithfully the general outlines of Katherine’s and Culpeper’s lives. He incorporates things which are known to be historical fact, such as the text of Katherine’s incriminating letter to Culpeper (complete with grammatical mistakes; she is thought to be the least well educated of Henry’s wives) as well as things which may or may not be true but which have become part of the legends surrounding Katherine: practising laying her head on the block the night before her execution, for example, and declaring that “I die a Queen, but I would rather have died the wife of Culpeper”.

I had no problems with Lindsay’s writing (it’s slightly flowery and over-descriptive in places but otherwise feels surprisingly contemporary for a 1930s book) and I would read more of his work, but I didn’t find this particular novel very compelling, maybe because it’s so romance-centred. Admittedly, it would be difficult to write a book about Katherine Howard and not focus on her love affairs; as she spent such a short period as queen and died so young, she left less of a legacy than some of Henry’s other wives, and I think this is why her story has never appealed to me very much. Maybe one of Lindsay’s other novels would interest me more than this one did.

I received a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

The Viper of Milan by Marjorie Bowen

February 8, 20166 Comments

Marjorie Bowen was a new discovery for me towards the end of last year. Born Margaret Gabrielle Vere Campbell, she wrote more than one hundred and fifty books under several pseudonyms, covering a variety of genres from historical fiction and romance to supernatural horror, crime fiction and biography. Having enjoyed Dickon, her fictional account of the life of Richard III, I decided not to wait too long to try another of her books.

The Viper of Milan, originally published in 1906, was Bowen’s first novel and a favourite book of the author Graham Greene. This reissue by Endeavour Press includes an introduction by Greene (I recommend reading it at the end to avoid spoilers) in which he explains how Bowen influenced his own early attempts at writing. The Viper of Milan, he says, taught him that human nature is “not black and white but black and grey”.

The novel is set in Lombardy in the middle of the 14th century and follows a battle for power between Gian Galeazzo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, and Mastino della Scala, Duke of Verona. As the story opens, in 1360, Visconti is busy expanding his territories and forging alliances; he has forced della Scala out of Verona and taken his wife, Isotta d’Este of Ferrara, as a hostage. It seems that nobody can stop Visconti in his relentless conquest of northern Italy – nobody apart from della Scala, who vows to regain his lost lands and release Isotta from captivity.

Meanwhile, Visconti’s sister Valentine has problems of her own: her brother has arranged a marriage for her with the Duke of Orleans, while the man she really loves has been imprisoned in a deserted villa outside the city and is slowly starving to death. Another young lady, Graziosa, who lives with her artist father by the western gate of Milan, is also in love – but is her lover really as he seems?

As you can probably tell from my summary of the plot, The Viper of Milan is a dark tale of treachery, trickery and betrayal. I was amazed to learn that Marjorie Bowen was only sixteen years old when she wrote it. Apparently it was rejected by several publishers who considered it an inappropriate novel for such a young woman to have written. What interests me more than the darkness of the story, though, is – as Graham Greene said – Bowen’s view of the ambiguities of human nature. The Duke of Milan, a clever, patient and shrewd man, is also a cruel and brutal one, ruling through fear and violence. In contrast, the Duke of Verona is honest, honourable and trusting, inspiring respect and admiration in those who follow him. It’s only when he discovers that doing the right thing doesn’t always pay that he begins to wonder whether it’s worth continuing to stick to his morals.

After reading Dickon, I thought I had an idea of what to expect from Bowen’s writing, but I found The Viper of Milan to be very different in style and tone. The archaic language which felt slightly unnatural in Dickon suited this book perfectly, with its more melodramatic and gothic feel. This is an ideal read for people who, like myself, enjoy reading authors like Alexandre Dumas and Rafael Sabatini (in fact, Sabatini’s Bellarion is a very similar novel, set in the same part of Italy at about the same time).

If you do choose to read this book, I should warn you that the historical background to the story is not particularly accurate. Some of the characters have the names of real historical figures, but the plot is fictional and many of the things that happen have no basis in history. Having said that, the novel does capture perfectly the atmosphere of early Renaissance Italy with its warring city states and is a wonderfully entertaining story in its own right. There are some beautifully written descriptions of the Lombardy region too. If this sounds like your sort of book, then I would highly recommend The Viper of Milan. If not, Marjorie Bowen does seem to have been a very versatile author, so maybe one of her other books would be of more interest. I will be reading more of them, so I’ll let you know what I discover!

For the Most Beautiful by Emily Hauser

January 29, 2016January 29, 201610 Comments

“For the most beautiful”. These are the words inscribed on a golden apple presented by Paris, Prince of Troy, to the goddess Aphrodite whom he has chosen over her rivals, Hera and Athena. In return, the goddess rewards Paris with Helen of Sparta, the most beautiful woman in the world – but unfortunately, Helen is already married. Not surprisingly, her husband, Menelaus, is enraged by the theft of his wife and sends the mighty armies of Greece, led by his brother King Agamemnon, to the shores of Troy to bring her back.

The story of the Trojan War is one that has been told many times before and with which a lot of readers will already be familiar before picking up Emily Hauser’s debut novel, For the Most Beautiful. However, this book retells the story from a feminine perspective and focuses on two female characters – Krisayis and Briseis – who both have important roles to play yet have not been given much attention in other versions such as Homer’s Iliad.

Krisayis (whose name is usually spelled Chryseis) is the daughter of a Trojan priest and companion to Cassandra, a princess of Troy. As the novel begins, we learn that Krisayis is in love with Cassandra’s brother, Troilus, and that, much against her wishes, she is about to become a priestess devoted to the god Apulunas. Our other main character, Briseis, is a princess of Lyrnessus who has unexpectedly found love with her husband Mynes, despite growing up under the shadow of a prophecy which seemed to rule out the possibility of happiness. With the onset of war, the lives of both young women are thrown into turmoil; their paths cross while held captive in the Greek camp, but will they be able to change fate and save Troy?

I found For the Most Beautiful a very enjoyable read. I think it was probably aimed at a younger audience but there was enough depth to keep an adult reader happy too. Having only read two or three other novels about Troy (including Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles and Judith Starkston’s Hand of Fire) I found that while I knew the basic outline of the story, a lot of it was new to me and the approach the author took made it feel fresh and original. It was interesting to see how Emily Hauser interpreted the characters of not just Krisayis and Briseis but also Achilles, Patroclus, Paris, Hector, Cassandra and others.

The stories of our two heroines unfold in alternating chapters and I thought these sections of the book were well written and emotionally engaging (both Briseis and Krisayis suffer the death of a loved one and then face further ordeals and difficult decisions after their capture by the Greeks). However, these chapters are interspersed with short scenes in which we witness the gods on their mountain observing and manipulating the lives of the mortals below – and this is the one aspect of the book which really didn’t work for me. The writing style in these sections is quite different – the language feels much more modern and the tense changes from past to present – and the gods come across as bored, shallow and petulant. I think I can see what the author was trying to do here and I’m sure other readers will enjoy the light-hearted, comedy feel of these scenes, but it just made me impatient to get back to Briseis and Krisayis!

After finishing this book, I was pleased to discover that it’s the start of a new Golden Apple trilogy. Greek mythology is not a subject that particularly interests me, but I was still captivated by For the Most Beautiful and am looking forward to reading another two books by Emily Hauser.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley for review.