Category: Reviews

Friday’s Child by Georgette Heyer

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This Heyer novel was published in 1944 and as it’s a particularly lively and humorous one, I expect it provided her wartime readers with some welcome escapism. It’s still an entertaining read in the twenty-first century too and although it hasn’t become a favourite, I did enjoy it.

“Friday’s child is loving and giving” says the famous rhyme and that is how the heroine of the novel, seventeen-year-old Hero Wantage, is described by her friends. As an orphan treated as a poor relation in her cousin’s household, Hero’s marriage prospects are not good and she is facing a future as a governess when she receives a surprise proposal from her childhood friend, Lord Sheringham. Hero is under no illusions that Sheringham – or Sherry, as he is known – is actually in love with her; she knows that he needs to marry in order to receive his inheritance and that he has already been rejected by the beautiful Isabella Milborne. It will be a marriage of convenience only, but even this is so much more than Hero could ever have hoped for that she has no hesitation in accepting.

Hero may be young and naïve, but Sherry is only a few years older and no more mature. He has no intention of changing his lifestyle just because he now has a wife, so he continues his reckless spending, gambling and womanising without considering the bad example he is setting for Hero. I don’t think it’s spoiling too much to say that Sherry does gradually come to love and appreciate his wife, but not without a lot of misunderstandings and ‘getting into scrapes’ along the way! And when he does eventually admit to himself how he really feels about Hero, will he have left it so late that he risks losing her to another man?

Although the relationship between Hero and Sherry is at the heart of the novel, with both characters slowly developing and maturing as time goes by, there is also a secondary romance which involves Isabella Milborne (known as the Incomparable) and George, Lord Wrotham, a passionate, hot-headed young man who is always ready to fight a duel. George, along with Gil Ringwood and Ferdy Fakenham, forms Sherry’s little circle of friends – and they become Hero’s friends too, providing most of the humour in the book as they give her some dubious guidance in the social etiquette of Regency London and try to help her out of the disastrous situations she finds herself in.

Friday’s Child has just about everything you would expect from a Heyer novel: duels, card games, gambling, balls and parties, elopements and attempted elopements. It reminded me of two of her other books, The Convenient Marriage and April Lady, which also have storylines revolving around a newly married couple learning to love each other. Although I enjoyed this book much more than April Lady, The Convenient Marriage is my favourite of the three, mainly because I preferred the hero in that one, the Earl of Rule. I do tend to prefer her older, wiser heroes rather than the young, irresponsible ones like Sherry. I also thought this book felt slightly longer than it really needed to be and the constant misunderstandings became a bit repetitive towards the end.

There are other Heyer novels that I’ve liked better than this one, then, but her books are always a lot of fun to read and this is no exception. There are plenty of funny moments, usually involving Sherry’s three friends (I particularly loved the hilarious Ferdy). I have The Corinthian, An Infamous Army and Faro’s Daughter to choose from for my next Heyer. If you have read them, which one would you recommend I read first?

The Tower is Full of Ghosts Today by Alison Weir

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This is one of several e-shorts – short stories published exclusively in ebook format – which form part of Alison Weir’s new series on the wives of Henry VIII, Six Tudor Queens. I hadn’t had much interest in reading them until I noticed that this one, The Tower is Full of Ghosts Today, was (and still is, at the moment) free to download from Amazon. It seemed a good opportunity to see what they were like.

Having read the first two full-length novels in the series (on Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn) and with the third one, Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen, on my NetGalley shelf ready to start soon, this was the perfect time to read The Tower is Full of Ghosts Today because, chronologically, it provides a sort of bridge between the Anne Boleyn book and the Jane Seymour book.

The story is set in the modern day and is written from the perspective of historian Jo Maddox, who is taking a group of tourists around the Tower of London. Jo has arranged for a special guide to lead part of the tour and provide some history on Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife, who was of course imprisoned and beheaded at the Tower. When the guide arrives, Jo is impressed by her resemblance to Anne herself – right down to the authentic Tudor costume and French accent. But then another dark-haired young woman catches her eye and Jo begins to feel as though she is seeing Anne Boleyn everywhere she looks.

This really is a very short story! I had expected it to be longer as the book was seventy pages long, but most of those seventy pages are actually devoted to the opening chapters of the first three Six Tudor Queens novels. I didn’t need to read these as I’ve already read the first two and am about to start the third, so the story itself is disappointingly short and can literally be read in just a few minutes. Maybe the other e-shorts in the series have more substance, which could explain why this one is being offered for free.

Having said that, the story is quite entertaining, providing some information on the history of the Tower and separating the facts about Anne Boleyn from the myths. There’s even some humour:

‘Didn’t Thomas Cromwell play a large part in bringing down Anne Boleyn?’ a guest asked.

‘Cromwell!’ The guide’s eyes flashed. ‘Oh yes! He hated me, for he feared I would ruin him. So he pre-empted me. He was a man without scruples.’

‘Not if you read Hilary Mantel!’ muttered one of the group.

The other e-shorts in the series so far are Arthur: Prince of the Roses, The Blackened Heart, The Chateau of Briis, The Grandmother’s Tale and The Unhappiest Lady in Christendom, all of which fit before or after one of the three main novels. It seems that they are currently not available outside the UK, although according to Alison Weir’s website her US publisher is including some of the stories in the paperback editions of the novels. I think that’s a better idea anyway as if all of the stories are as short as this one I don’t think it’s really worth spending money on buying them all separately. I’m not planning to read any more of them, but I’m looking forward to starting Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen.

Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift

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I read this as part of my Walter Scott Prize Project (it was shortlisted in 2017) and yet again I am grateful to the Prize for pointing me in the direction of a book I would probably never have thought of picking up otherwise.

Mothering Sunday, in its original form, was a day when servants were given the day off work so that they could go home and visit their ‘mother church’ with their families. Jane Fairchild, the twenty-two-year-old heroine of Graham Swift’s novel, is an orphan, so when she is given a day’s holiday from her duties as a maid, she has no home to go to and no family to visit. Instead, she borrows a bicycle and rides across the English countryside to the big house nearby where her lover, Paul Sheringham, is waiting for her.

The book takes us through the course of that one single day in March 1924 – a day so warm and sunny it feels more like June, a day which begins with so much hope and happiness. But Jane shouldn’t really be here with Paul; he is engaged – to a much more ‘suitable’ girl than Jane – and the marriage is due to take place in just two weeks’ time. Their lovely, idyllic afternoon is cut short when Paul reluctantly gets dressed and goes to meet his future wife. Jane is left alone and what happens next is something that will stay with her for the rest of her life.

Mothering Sunday is a short novel, really more of a novella, but Graham Swift manages to pack a lot into those few pages. He has a lot to say – but always subtly and always ‘showing rather than telling’ – about relationships, about class differences and about a country still recovering from the effects of war. I particularly liked the way he handles the passing of time, describing the events of that March day in 1924 then moving smoothly and briefly forward to a later stage in Jane’s life to show how those events shape her future self.

My favourite aspect of the book, though, is Jane’s love of literature. Perhaps unusually for a servant in the 1920s, her reading has been encouraged by her employer, Mr Niven, who allows her to choose from his own shelves. The books she is most drawn to are the ones by Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, H Rider Haggard, and her newest discovery, Joseph Conrad.

And later, much later in her life, she would say in interviews, in answer to a perennial (and tedious) question, ‘Oh boys’ books, adventure books, they were the thing. Who would want to read sloppy girls’ stuff?’

Her eyes might glint, her wrinkled face purse up a bit more. But then she might say, if she wanted to be less skittish, that reading those books then — ‘the war, you understand, the first one that is, was barely over’ — was like reading across a divide. So close, yet a great divide. Pirates and knights-in-armour, buried treasure and sailing ships. But they were the books she had read.

Although, as I’ve said, this is a short book, by the end of it I felt that I knew Jane Fairchild well. The limited number of characters – Jane, Paul and Mr Niven are the only ones with significant roles – gives the book a feeling of intimacy and the sense that we are there with Jane on that long-ago Mothering Sunday.

Graham Swift is not an author I had ever considered reading or thought that I would like, but based on this book, I could be interested in reading some of his others. Does anyone have any recommendations?

The Scarlet Lion by Elizabeth Chadwick

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This is the second of Elizabeth Chadwick’s two novels covering the life of William Marshal, knight, soldier, statesman and adviser to four kings of England. I read the first book, The Greatest Knight, seven years ago but it was only when I discovered that Chadwick’s newest book, Templar Silks, was also about William Marshal that I remembered I still needed to read this one. Despite leaving such a long gap between the two novels, I was pleased to find that, as soon as I opened The Scarlet Lion, I was able to get straight into the story – in fact, if you wanted to read this book without having read the first it wouldn’t be a problem at all, although I would still recommend reading both.

The Scarlet Lion, which is as much the story of William’s wife, Isabelle de Clare, as it is of William himself, covers the period between 1197 and 1219. Early in the novel, King Richard I dies with no legitimate children of his own, leaving the succession to the throne of England in doubt. William supports the claim of Richard’s only surviving brother, John, ahead of Richard’s nephew, Arthur of Brittany, but as soon as John becomes king he begins to repay William’s loyalty with hostility and cruelty.

Tensions increase following negotiations over William’s lands in Normandy, for which he has to pay homage to the King of France. No longer as welcome at court as they once were, William and Isabelle retreat to Leinster in Ireland, only to find that John’s justiciar, Meilyr FitzHenry, has been sent to invade their Irish lands. John also asks for their two eldest sons as hostages and Isabelle is devastated when William agrees, putting their marriage under real strain for the first time.

I enjoyed this book as much as I remembered enjoying the first one and it was nice to finish William’s story at last! Having recently read The Autumn Throne, the third of Chadwick’s Eleanor of Aquitaine trilogy which covers roughly the same period and in which William appears as a secondary character, it was interesting to read about some of the same events again, this time with a focus on William’s family rather than Eleanor’s. The different perspective means that John, who was given a more balanced portrayal in The Autumn Throne, is very much the villain in this book and it’s easy to see why Isabelle is so worried about her sons being sent into his care. The fact that William is willing to let them go provides the first real test for their otherwise happy marriage.

William is a great character, but I already knew that from The Greatest Knight, so I particularly enjoyed getting to know Isabelle in this book. Being much younger than her husband, a lot of her time is taken up with giving birth to their ten children, but we also see her develop into a strong, independent woman who, during William’s absences, is able to make decisions and defend their Irish lands. Despite their disagreement over the hostage situation they have a wonderful partnership and a deep understanding of each other.

The Scarlet Lion takes us right up to final hours of William’s life, which as you can imagine, is a sad and poignant conclusion to the novel, but nobody could say that he hadn’t had an eventful and fulfilling life! I have just started Templar Silks and am looking forward to learning more about William’s pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1183.

Gentian Hill by Elizabeth Goudge

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For the last few years Lory of The Emerald City Book Review has been hosting a celebration of Elizabeth Goudge’s work on the author’s birthday and as a result I have read three wonderful novels, one every April since 2015 – The Child from the Sea, The White Witch and Towers in the Mist. This year Lory has taken a break from hosting this event, but I was pleased to find that it has a new home at Howling Frog Books and Jorie Loves a Story. Even before I knew that there would be an Elizabeth Goudge Day 2018, I had already decided to mark the day myself by reading another of her books. I still had plenty of unread Goudge novels to choose from, but Gentian Hill was the one I felt most drawn to this year.

Gentian Hill, first published in 1949, is set in Devon during the Napoleonic Wars. It opens on a peaceful August evening with a Royal Navy fleet arriving at Torbay during a glorious sunset. On board one of the frigates is fifteen-year-old Midshipman Anthony Louis Mary O’Connell, who has been in the Navy for eight weeks and has had all he can take of the seasickness, the brutal treatment, the punishments, and the taunts of the older, more experienced sailors. Escaping from the ship during the night, he deserts and disappears into the countryside where, taking the name of Zachary, he wanders from place to place looking for work until, eventually, fate takes him to Weekaborough Farm near Gentian Hill.

Weekaborough Farm is home to the Spriggs and their ten-year-old adopted daughter Stella. Stella is a gentle, sensitive girl whose time is divided between caring for the animals on the farm and attending lessons with Dr Crane, the village doctor, a man who values the importance of a thorough education for girls as well as boys:

Reading, writing, and elementary arithmetic were all the child needed to learn of the doctor, Mother Sprigg maintained. This, combined with the arts of housewifery that she herself could teach her, was all the education required by a farmer’s daughter. Doctor Crane disagreed; the education required by any individual, he maintained, was just exactly all the knowledge the individual could possibly assimilate.

When Zachary arrives in Stella’s life, an instant connection forms between the two of them which quickly blossoms into love, but soon Zachary must go to sea again…and there is no guarantee that they will be reunited.

I enjoyed Gentian Hill; as with all the other Goudge novels I’ve read, the writing is beautiful and there are some truly lovely descriptions of the Devon countryside. Here are the words she uses to bring Torbay to life:

The last light of the sun was streaming over the rampart of green hills to the west, brimming the leafy valleys with liquid gold, then emptying itself in a sort of abandonment of glory into the vast domed space of sky and sea beyond. There were ripples on the water, and a fragile pattern of cirrus clouds above, and these caught the light in vivid points of fire that were delicate as filigree upon the fine metal of the gold-washed sea and sky.

However, this is probably my least favourite of the four books I’ve read so far. With the hero and heroine being ten and fifteen (and they only age slightly over the course of the novel), I couldn’t really believe in the romance between them – it felt more like the love between a brother and a sister. I also found the characters a little bit too good and too pure, even for a Goudge novel; I feel sure there were characters in her other books who were more complex – unless I was just in the wrong mood this time.

I did find plenty of things to love, though. I particularly liked the way Goudge weaves local legends into the story, such as the legend of St Michael’s Chapel in Torquay, as well as all the customs and traditions that formed part of 18th century rural life: Christmas wassailing, the Ploughing Chant, harvesting, corn dollies, and the ancient instrument known as the bull-roarer. I also enjoyed following the story of the Abbe de Colbert, chaplain of Torre Abbey, who lived and suffered through the recent French Revolution. And although the plot is predictable, what I was hoping would happen is exactly what did happen, so I was happy with that!

Gentian Hill is a lovely story, but if you have never tried one of Elizabeth Goudge’s historical novels before I would recommend starting with either Towers in the Mist or The Witch Witch. She also wrote several contemporary novels including The Scent of Water…don’t forget to enter my giveaway if you would like to win a copy of that one!

The Feast by Margaret Kennedy

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It would have been Margaret Kennedy’s birthday today and she is the next author to be featured in Jane’s Birthday Book of Underappreciated Lady Authors. Having only read three Margaret Kennedy novels – The Constant Nymph, Lucy Carmichael and Troy Chimneys – I still have a lot of her books to choose from, but I decided on The Feast for this year’s Margaret Kennedy Day as I’ve seen several people name it as a favourite. Now that I’ve read it myself I can understand why!

The Feast was published in 1950 and is set three years earlier, in the summer of 1947. The novel follows a week in the lives of a group of guests who are staying at Pendizack Hotel on the coast of Cornwall. The week will end in tragedy when part of the cliff collapses on the hotel, killing everyone inside. This is not a spoiler because the book opens with a prologue in which we see the Reverend Bott attempting to write a sermon in memory of the dead. We also know that there will be some survivors – but the identities of those who will live and those who will die won’t be revealed until the end of the book.

The hotel is owned by the Siddals, although it’s Mrs Siddal who does all the work while her lazy husband does nothing at all and their three sons, now adults, make their own plans for the future. The housekeeper, Mrs Ellis, is a bitter, resentful woman who spends most of her time gossiping about other people, so the Siddals are relying more and more on the maid, Nancibel, a friendly, kind-hearted local girl.

The guests are a varied and not particularly pleasant group of people. They include Sir Henry Gifford, his selfish wife and their four children (three of whom are adopted); Mrs Cove, a cold and heartless woman who has very little affection for her three neglected daughters; the Paleys, a couple whose marriage has been strained since the loss of their child several years earlier; bad-tempered, overbearing Canon Wraxton and his long-suffering daughter Evangeline; Anna Lechene, an unscrupulous, irresponsible writer who is working on a new book about the Brontës, and her chauffeur, a handsome young man called Bruce who tells lies to make himself sound more interesting.

I was aware before I started the book that Margaret Kennedy had based the personalities of some of her characters on the Seven Deadly Sins and this added an extra layer of interest as I matched up different characters with different sins as I read. There are some obvious villains in the novel – Mrs Cove, Lady Gifford and Canon Wraxton are particularly nasty – but others have a mixture of good and bad qualities. I knew which characters I wanted to survive and which I didn’t, but life is not always fair and people don’t always get what they deserve, so there was still an element of suspense as the story moved towards its tragic conclusion.

I loved following the lives of the Siddals, their guests and their servants. Bearing in mind that the whole story takes place over the course of just seven days, there’s an impressive amount of character development with people making life-changing decisions, searching for happiness and taking control of their own futures. With over twenty characters all playing important roles in the novel, some authors would have struggled to make each man, woman and child different and memorable, but Margaret Kennedy succeeds and the result is a really enjoyable and absorbing read. It’s probably my favourite of her books so far – although I did love Troy Chimneys as well!

Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym #1977Club

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This is my second choice for this week’s 1977 Club (hosted by Simon and Karen) and the third book I’ve read by Barbara Pym. Having so far read only Excellent Women and Less Than Angels, I was surprised by how different Quartet in Autumn is. It’s a much darker, sadder, more poignant novel and, although I did like it, I found it a little bit depressing.

The ‘quartet’ are two women and two men – Letty, Marcia, Edwin and Norman – who work together in the same office in 1970s London. They are four very different people with different personalities, but they have two things in common: they are all in their sixties and they all live alone. Although Pym never specifies exactly what their jobs involve, it is implied that the four of them have been sharing an office for several years and have an understanding of each other’s personal circumstances and living arrangements. Despite this, and despite their loneliness, they never do anything together outside of working hours – they eat lunch separately and then go their separate ways again at the end of the day.

We learn very little about Norman, except that people consider him an ‘odd little man’ and that his social life consists solely of dentist appointments and occasional visits to see his brother-in-law, whom he dislikes. Edwin, a widower, is sometimes invited to stay with his married daughter and grandchildren, but otherwise tries to keep himself busy by taking part in as many church activities as possible. The two men seem to play slightly smaller roles in the novel, at least until halfway through when the women retire (not to be replaced) and the quartet is reduced to a duo.

Letty has always planned to move to the countryside with her friend Marjorie after her retirement, but when the unthinkable happens and Marjorie gets engaged, she is left facing a future in an old people’s home instead. But it’s Marcia who is the most tragic character – Marcia who has had surgery for breast cancer and looks forward to her trips to the hospital as ‘holiday treats’, who has developed an obsession with hoarding empty milk bottles in the garden and who attracts the unwelcome attention of a concerned social worker.

A book about four lonely people doing meaningless, unappreciated jobs and looking for ways to fill boring, empty lives does not make the most uplifting of reads, but Pym still manages to sprinkle some humour into the story and to leave us with the sense that there is some hope for our characters after all. Letty, at least, seems to want things to change and to be willing to take the first steps towards bringing about those changes.

Despite the sad, melancholic feel of the book, I think it is my favourite so far by Barbara Pym. Her observations are both witty and sensitive and I found myself really caring about Letty, Norman, Marcia and Edwin. Another good choice for 1977 Club and now I’m looking forward to reading Jane and Prudence, the other Pym novel I have on my shelf.