Category: Reviews

The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett

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The Game of Kings is the first of the Lymond Chronicles, a series of historical fiction novels by Dorothy Dunnett originally published in the 1960s and 70s. I’m actually quite surprised and disappointed that I had never come across these books before, especially as historical fiction is my favourite genre and for a few years was pretty much all I read. Anyway, I’ve discovered them now, which is the most important thing!

It’s 1547 and Francis Crawford of Lymond, accused of treason five years earlier, has returned to his home country of Scotland. As the leader of a band of outlaws he begins a search for the three men he believes might be able to clear his name. Lymond’s personal quest is played out during an important period in Scotland’s history: the English are hoping to marry the 4 year old Mary, Queen of Scots to 9 year old King Edward VI of England and unite the two countries – but the Scots are equally determined to prevent this from happening.

I really can’t tell you much more about the plot without spoiling the story, but I can promise you that this was one of the most gripping historical novels I’ve read for a long time – I was never bored for a minute. There are sad scenes, funny scenes, exciting scenes and moving scenes, not to mention the most thrilling sword fight I’ve ever read! I finished reading the book last weekend and since then have been trying to think of what I could possibly say about it that would do it justice…there were just so many things I loved: the wonderful plot, filled with twists and turns, surprises and revelations; the strong, memorable characters; the clever dialogue; and the accurate and well-researched historical setting. Most of all, of course, I loved Francis Crawford of Lymond, brilliant, charismatic and witty, but also very flawed and troubled. He is now high on my list of favourite fictional characters!

In fact, all of the characters in the book are incredibly well drawn. There’s so much I could say about Christian, Will, Sybilla, Kate, Richard, Mariotta and the others, but I won’t because it would be so much more fun for you to get to know these characters for yourself. They all felt like fully formed people rather than just words on a page and they lived on in my mind even when I wasn’t reading, which I always think is a sign of a good book. And I haven’t even mentioned yet the amazing sense of time and place Dorothy Dunnett creates. The amount of detail she goes into in building Lymond’s world is so impressive and everything feels completely accurate.

But much as I loved it, this was not the easiest of books to get into. There are a lot of characters to keep track of and some of them are referred to by more than one name or title, so the character list at the front of the book was very helpful! The novel also has a very, very complex plot and you really need to concentrate because the tiniest detail can turn out to be important later on. Lymond has a very good reason for almost everything he does but many of those reasons are not immediately obvious. Things that initially don’t make any sense suddenly take on new meaning a few chapters later and I found I had to keep re-reading previous sections so I could grasp what had happened.

I should also point out that Lymond’s dialogue is filled with quotes and references from history, literature, myth, nature, philosophy, nursery rhymes, songs and riddles (some of which are in French, Spanish, Latin or other languages, which are not translated for us). I soon realised there was no way I was going to understand all of the references, as unfortunately my education is sadly lacking in comparison to Lymond’s! Some of the things he says seem to mean nothing at all unless you recognise the context they are from, which in most cases I didn’t.

I know there are two Dorothy Dunnett Companions and other guides to the series that you can buy, but I think trying to read those along with The Game of Kings would have been too much for me on a first read! I decided just to enjoy the story and when I re-read the book, as I’m sure I will, I can look up the unfamiliar words and phrases then. In the meantime, there was always Google when I was desperate to know what something meant.

So, if you’re looking for a light, easy read The Game of Kings probably isn’t for you, but if you enjoy complex, well-written historical fiction then I hope you’ll give it a try. Although it could be challenging at times it was so rewarding and definitely worth the effort. I’ve already started reading the second in the series, Queen’s Play – I’m nearly 100 pages into it and loving it so far!

The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen

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The Land of Decoration is narrated by ten-year-old Judith McPherson. Judith’s mother is dead and she lives with her father, who is very religious. The religion to which they both belong is not named but they appear to be Jehovah’s Witnesses or something very similar. They read the Bible together, attend weekly meetings, knock on doors to spread their message and believe that the end of the world is coming soon.

Judith is lonely, friendless and has convinced herself that her father doesn’t love her. She spends most of her time playing in her bedroom, where she has created a ‘Land of Decoration’ from scraps of paper, pipe cleaners, felt, boxes, buttons and any other bits and pieces she can find. One day Judith adds some snow to the Land of Decoration– and when it suddenly starts snowing in the real world too she believes she’s performed a miracle. And when Judith begins to hear the voice of God, she decides to use her new powers to deal with the school bullies and some of the other problems in her life.

The Land of Decoration was not quite what I was expecting and if I had known more about it, it probably wouldn’t have been a book I would have chosen to read. It quickly became obvious that it was going to be a much darker story than I had thought it would be.

I did like Judith – she’s bright and intelligent but also quite innocent and naïve (although there were times when her voice seemed too ‘old’ and I thought she stopped feeling like a believable ten-year-old). The bullying scenes felt sadly realistic and so did her father’s experiences (he is breaking a strike at the factory where he works and he’s also starting to have some doubts about his religion).

I really cared about both Judith and her father and I actually thought the story of their relationship, his problems at work and her problems at school would have been strong enough on its own to form quite a compelling novel. I was less interested in the parts of the book that dealt with the miracles and the conversations with God, and I admit I found some of it very confusing. A lot of my questions were left unanswered at the end and I’m not sure I really understood everything that had happened.

The Land of Decoration is a very imaginative and original book, but not one that I personally enjoyed very much. I’m sure it’s going to be a success though, and it will be interesting to see what Grace McCleen writes next.

Mariana by Susanna Kearsley

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From the moment Julia Beckett first sees Greywethers as a five-year-old, she knows there’s something special about the lonely farmhouse, but it’s not until she’s an adult and a successful illustrator of children’s books that she gets the chance to buy it. As she settles into her new home, Julia gets to know her new neighbours, including the gardener Iain Sumner, Geoffrey de Mornay, the owner of nearby Crofton Hall (which is said to be haunted), and Freda Hutherson, who somehow seems to know a lot about Julia without being told.

Soon Julia’s life becomes mysteriously linked with the life of Mariana Farr, a young woman who lived at Greywethers with her uncle in the 17th century. As Julia spends more and more time in the 1600s she grows increasingly obsessed with Mariana’s story and starts finding it difficult to keep the past separate from the present.

There are some books that feel like they could almost have been written specifically for me and Mariana is one of them – it had all the things I love in a book and I really have nothing negative to say about it. The time period for the historical sections is one that I always find interesting to read about (the Restoration era, the plague and the aftermath of the English Civil War), the characters are easy to like and the relationships between them feel believable, and I also loved the atmosphere – although this is not actually a ghost story, it does have quite a ghostly, haunting feel.

I’ve mentioned before that novels with dual time frames don’t often work for me as I usually find myself enjoying the historical storyline more than the modern day one. That was not a problem with this book because the events that took place in the two time periods were very closely connected and the transitions between the two were so smooth I hardly noticed when one changed to the other. The other Susanna Kearsley book I’ve read, The Rose Garden, has a time travel element too but in Mariana a different method is used and the way Julia moves between the centuries really felt convincing.

The ending was unexpected and really surprised me because I certainly hadn’t guessed what was going to happen. It was maybe a bit abrupt and left a few things unresolved, but I liked it. Susanna Kearsley’s writing reminds me of two other authors whose novels I love – Daphne du Maurier and Mary Stewart. Having enjoyed this one and The Rose Garden so much I’m looking forward to reading more of her books.

I received a copy of Mariana through Netgalley

Two from S.J. Bolton: Now You See Me and Dead Scared

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I don’t read a lot of contemporary crime fiction, but one author whose work I’ve been enjoying recently is S.J. Bolton. Last year I read Sacrifice and Awakening and loved both of them. But while those two books had atmospheric settings and a gothic feel (both things which appeal to me in a book) Now You See Me sounded like a more conventional crime novel and I wasn’t sure how I would feel about it. I had been putting off reading it for a while but finally picked it up a couple of weeks ago to read in preparation for reading the sequel, Dead Scared. I’ve decided to combine my thoughts on Now You See Me and Dead Scared into one post as I read them so close together.

Now You See Me introduces us to DC Lacey Flint, a young police detective based in London. After interviewing a witness one evening, Lacey returns to her car to find a dying woman slumped across it. The woman has been stabbed but there’s no sign of her attacker. As more murders take place across the city it starts to appear that they are the work of a serial killer copying the crimes of Jack the Ripper – who happens to be Lacey’s favourite historical figure. Lacey uses her knowledge of the Ripper to guess the killer’s next moves, but it soon becomes obvious that there’s a connection between the murders and Lacey herself, and she’s forced to confront some secrets from her past that she would prefer to keep hidden.

I needn’t have worried that I wouldn’t like this book because I enjoyed it almost as much as the others. What I loved most about Now You See Me was the character of Lacey Flint. As the story’s narrator we’re relying on her to give us all the facts but we quickly discover that there are a lot of things she’s not telling us. I liked Lacey but she’s very flawed and secretive, and the truth about her past is only revealed very slowly as the story progresses. Towards the end of the book, the plot takes a lot of unexpected twists and turns and I loved the fact that S.J. Bolton managed to surprise me after I thought I’d figured everything out!

In Dead Scared we join Lacey again as she goes undercover at Cambridge University to investigate an unusually high number of suicides among the students, most of them attractive young women. Many of these students had reported having problems sleeping and waking from nightmares feeling that someone had been in their room. Posing as a depressed, vulnerable student, Lacey tries to find out what’s going on, but could she be putting her own life at risk?

The only person at Cambridge who knows Lacey’s true identity is Evi Oliver, a psychiatrist with an interesting past of her own. Although most of the book is again narrated by Lacey, there are also some chapters written in the third person from Evi’s perspective. Apparently Evi first appeared in Blood Harvest, the only book by Bolton that I haven’t read yet, and I felt there were a lot of things I didn’t understand about her background – I will have to read Blood Harvest soon!

Now that we’ve had the chance to get to know Lacey better she’s much more open with us and I felt her character had developed a lot since the first book. It would probably be best to read Now You See Me first as it will help you understand Lacey and the way she interacts with the other characters, but this book does stand alone quite well so if you do find yourself reading this one first it shouldn’t spoil things too much.

Both novels also explore Lacey’s relationship with one of her male colleagues, DI Mark Joesbury. It’s obvious almost from their first scene together that they have feelings for each other but neither wants to admit it to the other. There’s a real chemistry between the two of them and this adds another interesting angle to the story.

Like S.J. Bolton’s other novels, Now You See Me and Dead Scared are quick and exciting reads due to the combination of fast-paced plot, short chapters and cliffhanger chapter endings. Bolton is great at creating a dark, menacing atmosphere and building the tension as her characters find themselves becoming increasingly isolated and in danger. These books are not for the faint hearted as the descriptions of the murders and suicides are quite graphic, but if you enjoy reading this type of crime novel I can recommend either or both of these.

A Small Circus by Hans Fallada

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Of all the books I read last year, my favourite was Hans Fallada’s Alone in Berlin (US title Every Man Dies Alone), the story of a German couple who decide to resist the Nazi regime after their son is killed fighting in the war. It was such an exciting, moving and powerful book, and when I saw that Penguin Classics were publishing a new translation of another of Fallada’s novels, A Small Circus, I couldn’t wait to read it.

A Small Circus is set in and around Altholm, a fictional German town, in 1929. Within the town there are lots of different groups and factions who are all in conflict with each other, including the mayor, various political parties, farmers, journalists and the police. None of these opposing groups are able to cooperate and work together. The novel describes the events leading up to and following a demonstration by the protesting farmers which ends in violence, causing things to quickly spiral out of control.

I have to admit, based on the synopsis alone this was not the kind of book I would normally have chosen to read but I decided to give it a chance anyway, remembering how much I had loved Alone in Berlin. And I really wanted to love A Small Circus too, but I have to be honest and say that, for me, this book was a big disappointment. I found the plot confusing and difficult to follow, partly because of my lack of knowledge of early 20th century Germany and the politics involved, but also because so much of the story was told through dialogue. Almost two thirds of the novel is written in the form of dialogue (according to the Foreword) and it was just too much for me.

I also disliked the translation style. Obviously I haven’t read the original German edition of this book from 1931 so I don’t know what Fallada’s actual writing was like, but this translation feels too modern and full of words and phrases that I wouldn’t have thought would have been used at the time. I’m sure there will be a lot of other readers who will love this lively, slang-filled style, but it didn’t have any appeal for me personally. Alone in Berlin was translated by the same person, Michael Hofmann, but for some reason the language in that book didn’t bother me at all, maybe because I was so gripped by the story.

A bigger problem for me was that there wasn’t a single character in the book that I liked. I can see that I probably wasn’t intended to like them, and this was maybe the whole point of the story (to show the effects of hatred, violence and corruption on a small town and how this was being replicated across Germany, opening the way for the Nazis), but it didn’t make it much fun to read. It’s really important for me to have at least one or two characters that I can enjoy reading about or connect with in some way, but without exception I found everyone in A Small Circus greedy and selfish, with few or no redeeming qualities. And not only were there no heroes to side with, there were no great villains that I could love to hate either – just a lot of very unpleasant people.

I want to finish this very negative post by pointing out that although I didn’t enjoy it very much I didn’t actually think this was a bad book. For the right type of reader, A Small Circus would probably be a fascinating read and the other reviews I’ve seen have been mostly very positive. Unfortunately I was obviously not the right type of reader for this book, though I think I would still be prepared to try more of Fallada’s novels in the future.

Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier (re-read)

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After her mother’s death, Mary Yellan goes to live with her Aunt Patience and Uncle Joss at their inn on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall. But during the coach journey to her new home, Mary hears some disturbing things about Jamaica Inn and its landlord. Soon Mary makes her own shocking discoveries about Joss Merlyn’s activities and finds herself drawn into his villainous schemes while trying to protect her frightened, nervous Aunt Patience. And when Mary is befriended by two very different men – one of them her uncle’s horse thief brother, Jem Merlyn, and the other Francis Davey, the albino vicar of Altarnun – she must decide which, if either, she can trust.

This was actually a re-read for me, although it’s been so long since I first read it that all the details of the plot had completely faded from my mind. What I did remember was being disappointed. When I read it for the first time it was immediately after finishing Rebecca (which I loved – and which is still one of my favourite books ever) and Jamaica Inn just wasn’t as good. This was more than ten years ago though, so I recently decided to give it a second chance. And I did enjoy the book much more this time than I did the first time, maybe because now that I’ve read so many of du Maurier’s other novels it meant I could consider Jamaica Inn in the context of a wider body of work rather than solely in comparison with Rebecca.

Like many of du Maurier’s other books, this one is dark, gothic and atmospheric. Published in 1936 but set in the early 1800s, it has a lot of the traditional elements you would expect to find in a gothic novel (stormy weather, smugglers, locked rooms, shipwrecks, desolate moors, a remote, lonely inn). There are also some memorable characters – Mary herself is an intelligent and courageous heroine, and I know I said that I couldn’t remember much from my previous read, but I certainly hadn’t forgotten the character of her violent, brutal Uncle Joss!

So, Jamaica Inn is not one of my favourite du Maurier novels but not my least favourite either. It does not have the depth and complexity of Rebecca or some of her later novels, but then this one was written near the beginning of her career and is a good early example of her work. The plot is not particularly complicated and I found it quite predictable but du Maurier’s skill at creating tension and suspense meant that I still enjoyed reading it.

The Last Summer by Judith Kinghorn

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In the summer of 1914, Clarissa Granville is almost seventeen years old and lives at Deyning Park, her family’s country estate. For Clarissa, her brothers and their friends, it’s a summer of parties, tennis games, walking by the lake, playing croquet, and having a good time. It’s also the summer when Clarissa meets Tom Cuthbert, the housekeeper’s son who is home from university. The two soon fall in love but their romance is in trouble from the start, as they both know that Clarissa’s parents will never allow her to marry the son of a servant. Then suddenly everything changes: Britain is at war and Clarissa’s whole world is altered forever.

So many different aspects of World War I are covered over the course of the novel, though with the story being told from Clarissa’s perspective the focus is on the effects of the war on British society and on the people left at home while their loved ones are away fighting. After the war is over we see how the world has become a very different place. We meet men who are trying to cope with the injuries and disabilities they’ve been left with, and the women who are trying to understand and to help them, as well as coming to terms with the loss of all the husbands, brothers, sons and fathers who never came home.

One of the biggest changes to Clarissa’s life is that the class structure that was in place before the war has been broken down. Many rich families like the Granvilles are left struggling financially, unable to afford to keep big houses like Deyning and all the servants they used to have. People who had previously felt secure in their comfortable, privileged lifestyles find themselves desperately trying to find a place in a new and unfamiliar world. But through it all, Clarissa will always remember that final perfect summer of 1914.

Although the story is narrated by Clarissa, we are also given occasional fragments of letters written by unnamed characters. These letters give us a different perspective on things, including some glimpses of life in France during the war, but who is writing them? It’s all revealed eventually and by the time you reach the end of the novel I can almost guarantee you’ll want to go back and read the letters again – they’ll make more sense the second time round.

The Last Summer is a beautifully written novel and one that I really enjoyed. I liked the characters, the time period is one of my favourites to read about, and Clarissa is a lovely, engaging narrator. Clarissa and Tom’s relationship is an interesting one to follow because nothing ever goes smoothly for them and so many obstacles are thrown in the way of their love. Not only are they separated by the war, they also face a lot of other problems including their differences in class and background, Clarissa’s disapproving mother, and their relationships with other people. I desperately wanted them to find happiness together but it was difficult to see how that could ever happen, and I will leave you to discover for yourself whether the book has a happy ending or not.

The Last Summer is my second book for the War Through the Generations reading challenge.