Category: Reviews

Thomas Hardy by Jane Drake (Wessex Books)

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Wessex Books are a publishing house based in Wiltshire who specialise in books about the history, mysteries and legends of the Wessex region of South West England. I was unaware of Wessex Books until they contacted me before Christmas to offer me a review copy of one of their titles, Thomas Hardy by Jane Drake, and as Hardy is one of my favourite authors I was very happy to receive this beautiful 32 page guide to his life and work.

Thomas Hardy, as you probably know if you’ve read any of his books, set most of his work in a fictional Wessex and Jane Drake’s book begins with a useful fold-out map and a list of the place names found in his writing. The pages that follow give some basic biographical information about Hardy with a focus on how his life related to his work. There are also some beautiful illustrations and photographs (many of them in colour) showing some of the places that were important to Hardy, including his birthplace at Higher Bockhampton, near Dorchester. And interspersed throughout the books are some of Hardy’s poems: Tess’s Lament, The Ghost of the Past, After the Last Breath, and a few others.

With all the poems, extracts from his novels, quotations, photos and captions taking up so much space, there’s not a huge amount of original text to read in this book. It’s not a comprehensive biography and at only 32 pages it’s obviously not intended to be. However, the book is lovely to look at and I’m sure it would make a nice gift either for someone who is interested in Hardy’s work or who is planning a visit to that part of the country.

Stone’s Fall by Iain Pears

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With 2011 coming to an end, like a lot of bloggers I’ve been putting together a list of my favourite books read this year. One of the books on my list is Stone’s Fall by Iain Pears, which I finished a couple of weeks ago but haven’t had a chance to post about yet, so I thought it would make sense to tell you about the book today before posting my Top Books of 2011 later in the week.

I really wasn’t expecting to enjoy Stone’s Fall so much because a few years ago, I started to read Iain Pears’ An Instance of the Fingerpost and despite it sounding like exactly the type of book I would usually love, I couldn’t get into it at all and abandoned it a few pages into the second of the book’s four parts. With this book, though, I’ve had a completely different experience and I’ve never been so glad that I decided to give an author a second chance!

Stone’s Fall is a very complex and cleverly constructed novel. At the beginning of the story we are told that a man is dead but before we can understand the circumstances surrounding his death it’s necessary to go back in time and learn as much as we can about his life. And so the book is divided into three sections, each narrated by a different character, and moving backwards from London in 1909 to Paris in 1890 and finally Venice in 1867. The link between all three stories is the mysterious Elizabeth, Lady Ravenscliff, who plays an important part in the life of each narrator and is perceived in a different way by each of them.

The first narrator we meet, in 1909, is Matthew Braddock, a journalist working for a London newspaper. When John Stone, one of the richest and most powerful men in the world, meets his death after falling from an open window, he leaves behind a will containing an unusual bequest. Stone’s widow, Lady Ravenscliff, asks Braddock to investigate but as he begins to dig into the secrets of Stone’s business empire he makes some surprising discoveries.

At the end of the first part I was sorry to have to say goodbye to Braddock and move back in time and on to another narrator. However, it only took me a few pages to get back into the flow of the story – the second narrator is fascinating and I enjoyed the second section even more than the first! And in the third and final part of the book, we switch narrator yet again, with this section of the book being equally compelling.

Many of the characters are unlikeable or flawed in some way, but I found all of them interesting to read about. The way I thought about each character changed as I was given more information to piece together and I was constantly forced to re-interpret what I had just read.

Stone’s Fall is a long book (over 600 pages) and very detailed and the author takes his time in introducing us to each character and building up a full picture of John Stone’s world. However, despite the pace being slow at times I found the plot completely gripping and was never bored – it was all so wonderfully intricate and clever. The balance between the melodramatic plot twists and the more technical details of banking, politics and espionage was exactly right, so that the story was both entertaining and informative.

“Love, Murder, Espionage.” Those are the words on the front cover, but although all three can be found within this book, it also contains so many other themes and ideas that to mention everything would require a post twice as long as this one! And so I’ll finish by simply saying that I loved this book – which I hadn’t expected to, considering the problems I had with An Instance of the Fingerpost. This is a book I’d definitely like to re-read one day because I’m sure my knowledge of some of the later revelations would bring new meaning to the earlier parts of the book. I might even decide to try Fingerpost again too!

I am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley

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I hope everyone had a great Christmas! I don’t usually read a lot of Christmas-themed books but the one I’m posting about today, I am Half-Sick of Shadows, was a perfect seasonal read.

I know not everyone will be familiar with Alan Bradley’s books, so for those of you who need some background information I can tell you that I am Half-Sick of Shadows is the fourth in a series of mystery novels set in the 1950s and featuring eleven-year-old amateur detective and chemistry genius, Flavia de Luce. Flavia lives with her father and her two older sisters Ophelia (Feely) and Daphne (Daffy), at Buckshaw, their family estate near the small English village of Bishop’s Lacey. Other recurring characters include the de Luces’ two servants, Mrs Mullet and Dogger, as well as the local vicar, the doctor, Inspector Hewitt and several more of the villagers.

At the beginning of this fourth instalment, Flavia’s father is having financial difficulties and in an attempt to bring in some money, he allows the cast and crew of Ilium Films to move into Buckshaw to do some filming over the Christmas period. While the snow falls outside, the people of Bishop’s Lacey gather at Buckshaw to watch the two stars, Phyllis Wyvern and Desmond Duncan, give a special charity performance of Romeo and Juliet. Things go badly wrong, however, and a murder takes place. With the de Luce family and all their neighbours snowed in overnight, there’s a long list of suspects. Flavia begins to investigate, but before she can concentrate on identifying the murderer she needs to finish working on a special project of her own: a trap to catch Santa Claus on his way down the chimney!

I have enjoyed all three of the previous books in this series, but I think I am Half-Sick of Shadows could possibly be my favourite so far. It took a long time (almost half the book) before the murder took place and the actual mystery began – and it was probably the weakest mystery in the series too – but that wasn’t a problem for me at all. I don’t read these books for the murder mystery plots; I read them because I love Flavia and love reading about her adventures.

As well as being shorter than usual, this book has a different feel to the first three because it is set entirely within the confines of Buckshaw. This means we get to see more of Flavia’s interactions with her family members and we also have the chance to learn more about Dogger, one of the most interesting characters in the series. I’ve mentioned before that I was starting to get impatient with Feely’s and Daffy’s nastiness towards their younger sister, but there seemed to be a slight change in Daffy’s relationship with Flavia in this book and I almost liked her at times! There was also a hint that maybe Feely didn’t really hate Flavia and that there might be another reason for her cruel behaviour. I’m still hopeful that the three of them will be friends by the end of the series, but we’ll have to wait and see – I’m already looking forward to the fifth book to find out if there are any further developments.

I’m glad I was able to find time to read this book last week as it really was perfect for the Christmas season. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the title comes from the poem by Tennyson, The Lady of Shalott.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

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Sense and Sensibility was the only one of Jane Austen’s major novels I hadn’t read and when I saw that Yvann of Reading Fuelled by Tea was hosting a readalong for Advent with Austen it seemed like a good opportunity to read it. Unfortunately I struggled to keep up with the weekly readalong schedule due to lack of time earlier in the month, but I managed to catch up this week and finish the book. Now that I’ve read it, Sense and Sensibility is not my favourite Austen novel (that would definitely be Persuasion) but not my least favourite either.

For those of you who haven’t read it yet, this is the story of two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood (there is a third sister, Margaret, but she doesn’t have a significant part in the plot). Elinor and Marianne have entirely different personalities and temperaments, representing the ‘sense’ and ‘sensibility’ of the title. While Elinor is the more calm and practical of the two, Marianne is passionate and emotional. After their father’s death, their half-brother John inherits the family estate and the girls and their mother go to live in a small country cottage in Devonshire belonging to their relations, the Middletons.

Marianne soon falls in love with Mr Willoughby, a man she meets soon after moving to their new home. When Willoughby suddenly leaves for London, Marianne is left devastated. She’s certain that he still loves her, but does he? The man Elinor loves is Edward Ferrars, her sister-in-law’s brother, but there are several obstacles preventing them from marrying, including the disapproval of Edward’s mother and also a previous relationship of Edward’s. There’s also a third man, Colonel Brandon, who becomes a friend of the Dashwoods – but which sister is he interested in and will she ever be able to love him in return?

During the story both sisters experience disappointment and heartbreak, and it’s interesting to see how differently they cope with their feelings. Elinor is more reserved and tries to keep her emotions to herself, while Marianne makes no effort to hide how she is feeling. And that is really the major theme of the novel: a comparison between two extreme reactions to a similar situation. Is it better to wear your heart on your sleeve or to suffer in silence? Is one type of behaviour right and the other wrong? The answer, I think, is to find a balance between the two.

I liked both of the Dashwood sisters, though I found Elinor easier to identify with because I’m definitely more of an Elinor myself than a Marianne. Marianne annoyed me a lot during the first few chapters of the book, but my feelings about her changed as the book went on. I did like the fact that she had such strong opinions about things and that she was prepared to speak her mind when she believed it was necessary. I loved Elinor and admired her quiet self-control, though she did frustrate me at times too, because I don’t think it’s necessarily always a good thing to be so reserved that nobody can tell how you feel.

Other than the Dashwoods, there were a good variety of secondary characters. There were some that I liked (Mrs Jennings, who irritated me at first but I warmed to her later as she was one of the few women Marianne and Elinor met who seemed to genuinely like and care about them) and some that I disliked (I thought Lucy Steele and her sister were vile!) and some who gave Austen a chance to have some fun, e.g. Charlotte and Mr Palmer. The story also has lots of examples of Austen’s famous irony and satire. I’ll admit that when I read some of her other books in the past I didn’t always appreciate all the subtleties of her wit, but with this book I did and some of the dialogue and observations were very clever and amusing.

As this was the first time I’ve read Sense and Sensibility, I liked the way Austen kept me wondering what was going to happen. I suspected there would be a happy ending for Marianne and Elinor, but I couldn’t see exactly how things were going to work out for them or which men they would end up with. Austen does put a few twists into the last few chapters of the novel and I liked the way Elinor’s story was resolved, but I’m not sure I was very happy with how Marianne’s ended.

Now that I’ve read all six of her major novels I’m looking forward to exploring Austen’s other work and also reading the novels again so I can pick up on some of the details I probably missed the first time!

Have you read Sense and Sensibility? Are you a Marianne or an Elinor?

Shakespeare’s Mistress by Karen Harper

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It’s a well-known fact that William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway in November 1582. What fewer people know, however, is that just days earlier a marriage licence had been issued to William Shakespeare and Anne Whateley of the village of Temple Grafton. Historians are divided over whether Shakespeare was actually involved with two separate women or whether the first entry in the parish register was a simple clerical error. In Shakespeare’s Mistress Karen Harper takes this as a starting point to explore Anne Whateley’s life and the influence she may have had on Shakespeare’s work. Anne is portrayed as the woman Shakespeare truly loved while the other Anne, Anne Hathaway, is the one who is recognised as his legal wife.

The novel is narrated by Anne Whateley and divided into five ‘Acts’, like one of Shakespeare’s plays, and it really is a fascinating, entertaining story. As well as following the turbulent romance between Anne and Will (as he is referred to throughout the book) we also meet a host of other figures from the Elizabethan period including Queen Elizabeth I, Christopher Marlowe, Henry Wriothesley, John Dee, Richard Burbage, Sir Walter Raleigh and Lord Strange. The story is played out against a backdrop of historical events: an outbreak of the plague, Christopher Marlowe’s death, the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the funeral of Elizabeth I and the building of the Globe Theatre.

The book appears to have been very well-researched and I appreciated the author’s notes at the end as it’s always helpful to have an idea of which parts of a novel are based on historical fact and which are completely fictional. I enjoyed reading all the scenes in which Will and Anne are going through the creative process of writing and staging his famous plays – a knowledge of Shakespeare and his writing is not essential, by the way, but would probably help. Karen Harper has also done a good job of attempting to show how Anne could have been the inspiration behind some of Shakespeare’s work but I was less convinced by the way the characters were constantly dropping lines from Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets into their conversations. It seemed forced and unnatural, particularly when Anne and Will kept speaking to each other in rhyming couplets!

The dialogue, in general, has a modern feel, though it’s interspersed with words like ’twas and ’tis, in an attempt to make it more authentic. The language wasn’t always quite right but it didn’t feel ridiculous (which is always a danger with dialogue in historical novels) and I didn’t have a problem with it.

I did enjoy both this book and also Karen Harper’s The Queen’s Governess, which I read a couple of months ago. I really like the fact that with both novels she has found a way to approach the Tudor period from a fresh and unusual perspective. I think I would put her books on the same level as Philippa Gregory’s, so if you like Gregory’s historical fiction I would recommend trying Harper’s too.

For anyone interested in learning more about Anne Whateley, this website discusses the various arguments for and against her existence.

Note: This book has previously been published in the US under the title Mistress Shakespeare

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

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Until I picked up The Sisters Brothers last month I had never read a western before and didn’t think I would ever want to read one. But after Patrick deWitt’s novel, with its unusual title and cover, appeared on the Booker Prize shortlist earlier this year and so many people were saying they enjoyed it, I thought I’d see what it was like.

The Sisters Brothers is set in the 1850s during the Gold Rush and has everything you would expect to find in a western – guns, horses, saloons, duels, drinking, fighting, and gold prospecting. I know this might not sound very appealing to a lot of you, but I hope you won’t let it put you off because at the heart of this novel is a wonderful story about the relationship between two brothers. They are Charlie and Eli Sisters, names that are feared throughout the wild west. Charlie and Eli are hired killers, who earn their living by taking orders from the mysterious Commodore. When the Commodore tells them that their next assignment is to find and kill the prospector Hermann Kermit Warm, the brothers set off on an eventful journey from Oregon to California.

The brothers encounter lots of memorable characters on their travels (including a ‘weeping man’, an orphaned boy and his horse, and a dentist who introduces Eli to the joys of the toothbrush) but the focus is always on Eli and Charlie themselves. Charlie is the more dominant and aggressive brother, while Eli is more cautious and sensitive, which causes some conflict between the two. I was pleased to find that both characters did develop and change, at least to some extent, over the course of the book. Charlie had seemed a completely unsympathetic character at first, but I later found that he had a bit more depth than I’d originally thought. And while Eli wasn’t exactly the most pleasant of people either, I couldn’t help liking him as he did at least have a conscience and wanted to be a better person – even if he didn’t always manage it.

The Sisters brothers are the type of characters we would more often read about from the opposite perspective, as the book’s villains – but in this book, with the story being narrated by Eli, we are supposed to accept them as our heroes (or anti-heroes, maybe). It’s a testament to Patrick deWitt’s writing that he makes it possible for us to care so much about a pair of murderers and I think this is due partly to Eli being such an appealing narrator. Some of the dialogue is very funny and there’s lots of dark humour, but I should probably warn you that there are also some fairly graphic scenes of violence and cruelty, though I think this is to be expected considering the setting and the profession of the two main characters.

The chapters are short and there’s always something happening: in the first fifty pages alone, Eli is bitten by a venomous spider, his horse gets attacked by a bear and a witch tries to put a curse on the brothers. It all felt slightly surreal and sometimes it was hard to see where the story was really leading but it was so much fun it didn’t matter. Later in the book, though, there were some passages that were quite sad and melancholy, which I thought gave the second half of the book a noticeably different feel to the first.

As you can probably tell by now, I loved this book, which I think proves that it doesn’t matter if something is described as a ‘western’, a ‘romance’, a ‘mystery’ or anything else: a good story is a good story and The Sisters Brothers was one of the best I’ve read this year.

The White Devil by Justin Evans

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When seventeen-year-old Andrew Taylor gets into trouble at his school in Connecticut his parents decide to send him to Britain’s prestigious Harrow School to finish his education. On Andrew’s arrival at Harrow, people begin to remark on his resemblance to the poet, Lord Byron, who also attended Harrow two centuries earlier. This makes Andrew the perfect choice for the role of Byron in the school play, which is being written by his housemaster, Piers Fawkes. But when Andrew witnesses the death of one of his new friends and starts to experience terrifying visions and ghostly sightings, he becomes convinced that Harrow is haunted and that the death is connected with something that happened during Byron’s time at the school. With the help of Persephone Vine, the only girl at Harrow, Andrew and Fawkes begin to investigate, but can they discover the truth behind the hauntings before someone else dies?

I was excited about reading The White Devil as it really sounded like a book I would enjoy. And I did enjoy it, though maybe not as much as I was hoping to. I would describe the book as part ghost story, part literary mystery (though not a particularly scary ghost story, in my opinion – while it was certainly very atmospheric and unsettling, the scenes where Andrew encountered the ghost didn’t scare me very much). The Byron element of the novel was what really interested me and the main reason why I wanted to read this book. I admit I wasn’t sure exactly how much of this story was based on historical fact and how much was pure fiction, but I did enjoy watching Andrew and the other characters researching Byron’s life and attempting to solve the mystery surrounding him.

I also loved the Harrow setting, which was very vividly portrayed, and the descriptions of the old buildings, fog and rain gave it a slightly gothic feel. Justin Evans himself spent a year at Harrow and this obviously helped to make his descriptions of the school feel authentic and believable, with insights into many aspects of life at a boys’ public school including school uniforms, traditions and slang. And in making Andrew Taylor an American, this allowed the author to draw on his own experiences to show how Andrew had to adapt not only to a new school but also to a new country and culture.

The one thing that disappointed me about The White Devil was the lack of strong, well-developed characters. The only character I really liked was Piers Fawkes, who had once been a famous poet and now suffering from alcoholism and at risk of losing his job at Harrow. Persephone, as the book’s main female character, never really came to life for me – and apart from Andrew himself, none of the other boys at Harrow had any depth either. If the characters had been stronger I think I would have enjoyed this book more than I did, but it was still a good, atmospheric read.