The Shapeshifter’s Daughter by Sally Magnusson

May 4, 202618 Comments

I’ve read a lot of Greek mythology retellings but only one or two Norse ones, so I was curious about Sally Magnusson’s most recent novel, The Shapeshifter’s Daughter, described as a reimagining of the story of Hel of the Underworld. I’ve read all of Magnusson’s previous books and mostly enjoyed them; I hoped this would be another good one!

Hel is one of the three children of the Norse god Loki (the shapeshifter of the title) and Angrboda, a frost giant. She grows up in Utgard – a world on the peripheries of Asgard, home of the gods, and Mitgard, land of the humans – where she lives happily with her brother and sister, a wolf and a serpent, until Odin sends his gods to hunt them down and bring them to him. Hel finds herself sent by Odin to rule over the icy realm of Niflheim, where she welcomes the souls of the dead into the underworld – until one day she is drawn back to the surface by the memory of one of the dead she has guided.

Meanwhile, in the modern day, we meet Helen Firth, a woman in her fifties who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Helen has led a lonely, troubled life since the death of her father when she was a teenager. Believing that nobody cares about her, she decides to return to Orkney, her childhood home, so she can die on her own terms. However, she hadn’t expected to be reacquainted with an old friend, Thorfinn Coffin, who reminds her that maybe she’s not completely alone in the world after all.

Not only do our two main characters have similar names, their stories also mirror each other in several other ways and eventually begin to intersect. I couldn’t help thinking, though, that Helen’s story on its own would have been enough to form a compelling novel. Her life has clearly been a sad and isolated one, so I found her relationship with Thorfinn very moving, as well as bittersweet coming when she knows she only has a short time left to live. Magnusson writes quite sensitively on the topics of loneliness, bereavement and healing and I was completely drawn into Helen’s sections of the novel.

The Norse myth parts of the book were much harder for me to connect with. Hel, Loki and the others didn’t seem ‘real’ and I felt that I just watching their story unfold from a distance. I had similar feelings about A.S. Byatt’s Ragnarok (based on the same myths) and I remember in her author’s note Byatt said that characters in myths don’t have personalities the way characters in novels do – they only have attributes. Maybe that’s what Magnusson was trying to show here as well, but if so it didn’t really work for me and I would have been happy just to read a whole book about Helen and Thorfinn!

I’ll be interested to see what Sally Magnusson writes next, as her books so far have covered such a range of different subjects – although always with a Scottish or Nordic connection. And if you can recommend any good Norse myth retellings, I’d love to hear about them!

The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch

April 28, 202615 Comments

I’ve read very little of Iris Murdoch’s work – her Booker Prize winner The Sea, The Sea many years ago, which I can barely remember but know I struggled with, and a lesser known novel, A Word Child, which I really enjoyed. When picking another book by Murdoch for my new Classics Club list, then, I had plenty to choose from and decided on The Black Prince almost at random. I started to read it in March for Reading Ireland Month (although the book is set in England, Murdoch is an Irish author) but I had too many other books needing to be read at that time, so I put it aside and came back to it last week.

Published in 1973, The Black Prince is presented as a manuscript written by Bradley Pearson who has recently retired from his job as Inspector of Taxes to concentrate on his writing. Bradley’s book – an account of some life-changing events which occurred when he was fifty-eight years old – is framed by a foreword from his editor, P. Loxias, and a series of postscripts written by the other characters in the story. Although it’s easy to become absorbed in Bradley’s narrative and forget that it’s a book-within-a-book, the different perspectives we see at the end are a reminder that Bradley isn’t necessarily the most reliable of narrators and may not have been entirely honest with us. Of course, there’s no guarantee that the other characters are telling the truth either, so be prepared for a novel that’s ambiguous, thought-provoking and doesn’t tie everything up neatly at the end.

Bradley’s story begins as he decides to leave London for the summer and rent a cottage by the sea where he can work on his book in peace. Before he manages to depart, however, he is repeatedly delayed by a sequence of frustrating and unwelcome incidents. First, there’s an urgent telephone call from his friend and rival, Arnold Baffin, a much more successful and popular author than Bradley himself. Arnold is convinced he has killed his wife, Rachel, so Bradley rushes to their house only to find that it’s a false alarm and Rachel is not dead after all. Bradley’s involvement in the Baffins’ domestic disputes, though, leads to Rachel believing she’s in love with him. Then, Bradley’s sister, Priscilla, arrives at his flat tearful and distraught; her marriage has broken up and she’s depressed and homeless. And a third woman has also reappeared in Bradley’s life – his ex-wife, Christian, who has just returned from America along with her annoying brother, Francis.

The first half of the novel deals with Bradley’s relationships with these people as he tries to disentangle himself from the various situations he’s become caught up in and I have to admit, at this point I was finding the book a bit tedious and didn’t think I was going to enjoy it. That changed halfway through when Bradley falls in love with the Baffins’ twenty-year-old daughter, Julian, who has been pleading with him to tutor her in classic literature, particularly Shakespeare. Needless to say, Arnold and Rachel are not happy when they find out – there’s a thirty-eight year age difference – but the ensuing drama makes the second half of the novel much more compelling than the first.

Before I started reading, I wasn’t sure of the relevance of the title. In history, the Black Prince refers to Edward of Woodstock, the eldest son of Edward III, but in the context of Murdoch’s novel, the reference is actually to Hamlet. The play is alluded to many times during the novel and specifically discussed by Bradley and Julian (it’s while Julian is describing how she once dressed in black to play Hamlet that Bradley discovers he’s in love with her). I’m sure it’s no coincidence that Bradley Pearson himself shares initials with the Black Prince. Other names are also significant, including P. Loxias, the name of the fictional editor – Loxias is another name for Apollo, the Greek god of truth and prophecy, very appropriate in a book that makes us question what is true and what isn’t. And I spotted other examples of symbolism throughout the novel, such as the bronze water buffalo lady, an ornament which is passed from one character to another and is broken and mended at various points in the story.

This is a fascinating novel, then, and although I found it slow to start, I had been drawn in by the middle of the book and was glad I’d persevered. I’ve also been left with a lot to think about; as I said, it’s all very ambiguous and there are lots of unanswered questions at the end. If you’ve read it, let me know what you thought.

This is book 3/50 from my third Classics Club list.

Pixie by Jill Dawson

April 27, 20268 Comments

I was drawn to this book first by the title and the cover, then I remembered that I’d read and enjoyed one of Jill Dawson’s other novels, The Bewitching, a few years ago. That book was about witch trials in the 16th century, but this one is on a very different subject: the life of Pamela Colman Smith, an important and influential artist in her time who has been largely forgotten today. Pixie was the nickname given to Pamela by the famous actress Ellen Terry and I’ll keep things simple by referring to her by that name for the rest of this review. The book is a work of fiction, but closely based on what we know of the life and career of the real woman.

Born in England in 1878 to American parents, we first meet Pixie as an eighteen-year-old living in Jamaica due to her father’s job. Her mother has just died and Pixie is heartbroken, particularly when she learns that she and her father will be leaving her beloved Jamaica behind to return to New York. At least she has her love of art to sustain her and when her father also dies a few years later, leaving her alone in the world, Pixie decides to travel to London to pursue her dream of becoming an artist.

In London, Pixie is taken under the wing of Ellen Terry and is introduced to the other actors, artists and writers who form her social circle, including Henry Irving, Bram Stoker, William Butler Yeats and his brother Jack Yeats. She works on stage design for the Lyceum Theatre group, writes and illustrates books on Jamaican folklore and attempts to start her own magazine, but even when she begins to have success as an artist, she struggles to get people to take her seriously. She’s forced to hear herself described as ‘strange’ and ‘odd-looking’ and to listen to speculation over her racial background; it seems that people are determined to find a way to label her, but all Pixie wants is to be accepted for who she is and regarded as the talented artist she knows herself to be.

I knew absolutely nothing about Pixie before reading this book, so I resisted the temptation to look her up online until I’d finished and just let the story unfold. Pixie’s biggest achievement and the thing she is probably most remembered for today is the 1909 illustrated Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck and the later chapters of the book concentrate mainly on this (the fact that for decades it was usually referred to as simply the Rider-Waite Tarot shows the struggle Pixie has faced in getting the recognition she deserves), but I also enjoyed learning about her other projects and interests outside of the art world. For example, she joins a secret society known as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and meets famous occultists such as Aleister Crowley.

Pixie’s personal life is also interesting to read about. Dawson strongly implies that she’s a lesbian and although that doesn’t seem to have been officially confirmed, it’s considered likely due to the fact that she never married, lived for twenty years with her companion Nora Lake, and was friends and, at one point, housemates with Ellen Terry’s daughter Edith Craig and her partner Christabel ‘Christopher’ Marshall. There’s also the question of Pixie’s appearance, which seemed to confuse everyone she met; although both of her parents were white, she was described at various times as Japanese, Jamaican or a Gypsy, and Dawson provides a theory to try to explain this.

I found Pixie a fascinating character. She’s given a distinctive narrative voice – naive, sensitive and almost childlike – which suits her personality perfectly without being irritating. I enjoyed getting to know her and am pleased Jill Dawson has chosen to write this book and give Pamela Colman Smith the attention she deserves.

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

A Deadly Episode by Anthony Horowitz

April 24, 20266 Comments

The Word is Murder, the first book in Anthony Horowitz’s series chronicling his partnership with the detective Daniel Hawthorne, is being adapted for film. Although Anthony, to his disappointment, has not been asked to write the script or participate in any other way in bringing his own story to life, both he and Hawthorne have been invited to visit the set in Hastings. Here they meet the cast and crew, including the two actors in the main roles – David Caine, playing Hawthorne, and Ralph Seymour, playing Horowitz himself. It’s clear that there are tensions between the two, so when Caine is found stabbed to death, Ralph is one of the prime suspects. However, it quickly emerges that almost everyone else on the set also has a motive for the murder. It seems that Hawthorne and Horowitz have found themselves with yet another crime to solve…

None of the above is true; it’s entirely fictional, but part of the fun (at least for me – I know not everyone likes it) is that Anthony Horowitz uses himself as a character throughout this series, in a clever blend of reality and imagination. Hawthorne is not a real person and neither are most of the others, but Horowitz occasionally refers to his real-life wife, Jill, his own books, and other aspects of his own life and career. He’s very self-deprecating and portrays himself as the Watson to Hawthorne’s Sherlock Holmes, often completely missing important clues and coming up with theories that turn out to be entirely wrong. A Deadly Episode is the sixth book in the series and although I would recommend reading them all in the correct order to fully understand the relationship between Horowitz and Hawthorne, it’s not really essential and each book has a self-contained plot.

The mystery in this book is an interesting one, with plenty of suspects as David Caine has made enemies of everyone involved with the film: his co-star Ralph Seymour, with whom he’s had a long professional – and often personal – rivalry; the screenwriter Shanika Harris who has known Caine since they were both young eco-warriors; his agent James Aubrey whom he’s been threatening to break ties with; and the runner (production assistant) Izzy Mays, who has lost her job because of Caine. Even the director and the producer have good reasons to want him dead, so there’s a lot for Anthony and Hawthorne to untangle here. The real Horowitz has had experience of working in film and television and I think it shows in his descriptions of life on set.

Halfway through the book, a second mystery begins to unfold, revolving around a crime that took place more than a decade earlier. I found this a bit jarring at first, as it meant getting to know a whole new set of characters, but eventually connections between the two mysteries start to form and the eventual solution gives an explanation for both.

After the previous book, Close to Death, where our two main characters were separated for most of the novel, it was good to see them spending more time together again in this one. Hawthorne has never been the most pleasant of people – he’s secretive, prickly and tactless – but I do think he’s a fascinating character, partly because we know so little about him. In this particular novel, Anthony tries to dig into Hawthorne’s past, in a diversion that takes him to the village of Reeth in the Yorkshire Dales, but still doesn’t manage to shed a lot of extra light on things. Will we ever know the full story? Well, it seems there will be more books in the series, so there’s still hope!

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

The Blind Woman of Sorrento by Francesco Mastriani

April 23, 202610 Comments

Translated by Idara Crespi

Francesco Mastriani is a completely new author for me – I’m sorry to say I hadn’t even heard of him until I was offered a review copy of his 1852 novel, The Blind Woman of Sorrento, but it seems he was a very prolific Italian writer, producing over two hundred works of fiction during the 19th century. Espresso Publishing House, an imprint focusing on neglected foreign-language novels, have made this one available in its first modern English translation.

The ‘blind woman’ of the title is Beatrice, daughter of the Marchese di Rionero. She wasn’t born blind, but at the age of three she witnessed the brutal murder of her mother and lost her sight due to the shock and trauma she suffered. Now, seventeen years later, an English doctor, Oliviero Blackman, has arrived in Sorrento and believes he can help her to see again. Unknown to Beatrice, however, Dr Blackman is not all he appears to be. Who is he and does he have another motive for promising to restore Beatrice’s sight?

We also get to know Gaetano Pisani, the son of the man who killed Beatrice’s mother all those years earlier. Gaetano’s life has also been affected by the events of that terrible night and he can’t escape the shame and guilt of knowing that his father was hanged for murder. When he crosses paths with his father’s accomplice and gets his hands on a box of jewels stolen from the murdered woman, it seems that he may still have a chance to find redemption.

I don’t want to say much more about the plot as I would prefer future readers to discover all the twists and turns of this fascinating novel for themselves, as I did. The publisher compares it to Wilkie Collins, which is a good comparison as this book does share many of the elements you would often find in Collins’ work and other 19th century sensation novels such as murders, stolen jewels, family secrets, revenge plots and hidden identities, as well as lots of melodrama! I was particularly reminded of Poor Miss Finch, which also deals with the subject of blindness in a similar way (although that book was published twenty years after this one and the plot itself is quite different). I also think if you’ve enjoyed books by authors like Alexandre Dumas or Rafael Sabatini, there’s a good chance you would enjoy this one too.

Although I would have preferred Beatrice to have been a stronger character (she has a tendency to faint and swoon), I did find it interesting to see how Mastriani writes about her blindness. For a book published in the 1850s, he handles the topic quite sensitively, never implying that she’s any less intelligent because of her condition – on the contrary, she is more observant and perceptive than most people, with her other senses being heightened to compensate. Gaetano is also a complex character: although his actions and motives are sometimes questionable, I could never really think of him as a villain, but at the same time he’s not entirely heroic either.

I found Idara Crespi’s translation very clear and easy to read and I appreciated the translator’s note at the beginning, explaining why certain words and spellings had been chosen. There’s also an introduction, which you can read before or after the novel itself (I got more out of it reading it afterwards), a glossary and some notes on historical Naples. Naples was Mastriani’s own place of birth and both that city and nearby Sorrento are vividly brought to life through his descriptions. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and was entertained by it from beginning to end.

A Remedy for Fate by MA Kuzniar

April 20, 20266 Comments

I wasn’t sure whether to read this as I didn’t care for MA Kuzniar’s previous book, Midnight in Everwood, but I loved the idea of a story set in 18th century Prague so I decided to give her a second chance. I’m glad I did as I thought this book was much better.

A Remedy for Fate is very loosely based on the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin and is written from the perspective of Thea, a ‘fate weaver’ who runs Stiltskin’s Apothecary, brewing special potions that can change her customers’ futures – for a terrible price. Thea herself paid that price seven years earlier when she agreed to lose her memories and her heart for reasons she can no longer remember and in return has been given the ability to weave fates. Although she’s still human, Thea’s body is held together by a spell controlled by her employer, Jasper Stiltskin. The only way to free herself from the spell is to correctly guess her birth name, which she has forgotten as it’s yet another memory taken from her by Jasper.

The Apothecary is located in Prague’s Magic Quarter, a secret world hidden beneath the city which can only be accessed by people in need of help. However, the protections that keep the Magic Quarter safe from those who wish it harm are starting to break down, allowing entry to the sinister Magic Hunters who are determined to find the evidence they need to close the whole area down.

Although the historical Prague setting was the thing that attracted me to this book, I found that we didn’t actually see as much of Prague as I’d expected. Although Thea does occasionally venture up into the city, most of the action takes place in the Magic Quarter, which is described very vividly – a maze of narrow streets, wreathed in mist and lined with enchanted pastel-painted shops. It’s also populated with colourful characters including Pani Dagmar, an elderly witch who claims to be five hundred years old; Wojslav the vampire, who leads a solitary life running an antique shop; and Thea’s friend Zofka, the kitchen-witch, who bakes magical cakes and pies. The world-building is wonderful and I loved the way Kuzniar creates a feeling of community where the residents of the Magic Quarter, despite not always seeing eye to eye, all come together to fight the forces threatening their lives and livelihoods.

Because the story is set mainly in the Magic Quarter, a fantasy land which is very separate from Prague itself, there’s very little sense of the time period. Apart from some references to Empress Maria Theresa’s recent banning of witch burning and torture in 1768, I felt that the book could really have been set in any period, past, present or future. I also thought Thea, although she’s supposed to be a woman in her thirties, felt much less mature and the book in general, like Midnight in Everwood, seemed to be aimed more at younger readers, despite them both being marketed as adult novels. Not necessarily a problem, but something to be aware of if you’re planning to read them.

Thea’s actions frustrated me at times, but I thought Jasper was a great character and I enjoyed watching his relationship with Thea unfold and change throughout the book. The answer to the question of Thea’s real name seemed quite obvious to me, though, and I’m surprised she was having so much trouble guessing it! Overall, then, I found this an entertaining read, with just a few negative points, and the writing style didn’t irritate me the way it did in Midnight in Everwood. I would be happy to try Kuzniar’s other adult novel, Upon a Frosted Star, which is based on Swan Lake.

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

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark – #1961Club

April 15, 202625 Comments

This is my second review for Karen and Simon’s 1961 Club which is taking place this week. When I put my new Classics Club list together earlier this year, I included two books published in 1961 with this week’s event in mind. I haven’t had time to start the other one (No Fond Return of Love by Barbara Pym), but I have managed to read Muriel Spark’s 1961 novella, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Miss Brodie is a teacher at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls in Edinburgh and in 1936, when the book opens, she believes herself to be ‘in her prime’. Her teaching methods are unconventional – she largely ignores the official school curriculum and instead focuses on subjects that the other teachers consider useless and irrelevant:

These girls were discovered to have heard of the Buchmanites and Mussolini, the Italian Renaissance painters, the advantages to the skin of cleansing cream and witch-hazel over honest soap and water, and the word “menarche”; the interior decoration of the London house of the author of Winnie the Pooh had been described to them, as had the love lives of Charlotte Brontë and of Miss Brodie herself.

The love life of Miss Brodie herself is one of her favourite topics of conversation and the six girls she takes under her wing – known as ‘the Brodie set’ – are regaled with tales of Hugh, her first love, who fell on Flanders Field. The Brodie set appear to be completed devoted to their teacher and captivated by her stories and the wisdom she is passing on to them. However, we know from very early in the book that one of them will eventually betray her – but which of them will it be and will the betrayal be deserved?

Miss Brodie could have been portrayed purely as a heroine, trying to equip her girls for the years ahead, giving them the knowledge she believes they need and encouraging them to think differently. However, she’s a more complex character than that – she’s flawed, manipulative and self-obsessed, trying to live out some of her own fantasies through the girls, even pushing one of them, Rose, into a romance with the art teacher Mr Lloyd, with whom she herself is in love.

The book has a non-linear structure, beginning by introducing us to the girls of the Brodie set at the age of sixteen, then going back several years to their first meeting with Miss Brodie as ten-year-olds and occasionally jumping forwards to show us the girls as adults. There’s also a lot of foreshadowing and moments when we are told what will happen to a character long before it actually happens, all things which add additional layers and depth to what would otherwise be quite a simple story.

This is the first book I’ve read by Muriel Spark. I have to be completely honest and say that I didn’t particularly love her writing style, which I’m disappointed about as I’ve seen so many positive reviews of this book and expected to enjoy it a lot more than I did. I tend to prefer books where I form an emotional connection with the characters and that just didn’t happen here. I did find it interesting, though, and am pleased I’ve finally read it – I’m not sure why it has taken me this long to get round to it! I would certainly be happy to try more of her books and would welcome any recommendations.