Historical Musings #70: My Year in Historical Fiction – 2021

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Welcome to my monthly post on all things historical fiction. For my first Musings post of the year, I am looking back at the historical fiction I read in 2021 and have put together my usual selection of charts and lists! I have kept the same categories I’ve used for the previous five years so that it should be easy to make comparisons and to see if there have been any interesting changes in my reading patterns and choices (my 2020 post is here, 2019 here, 2018 here, 2017 here and 2016 here).

Before I begin, just a reminder that I do actually read other genres but haven’t included those books in these stats!

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Time periods read about in 2021

In 2020, the 17th century was the most popular time period for my historical fiction reading; I still read a lot of 17th century novels in 2021, but the 20th century was the clear winner this time.

Of the 15 books I read set in the 20th century, 7 took place during World War II, one during World War I and the rest in other decades.

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39% of the historical fiction authors I read in 2021 were new to me.

This is more than the previous year’s 32%, but obviously I’m still most drawn to books by authors I’ve previously read and enjoyed.

Here are three books I’ve read by new-to-me historical fiction authors in 2021:

Red Adam’s Lady by Grace Ingram
Cecily by Annie Garthwaite
Fallen by Lia Mills

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Publication dates of books read in 2021

I’m still mostly reading new or recently released historical fiction, which is due mainly to the temptations of NetGalley. I really want to read more older books this year.

The two oldest historical fiction novels I read in 2021 were St Martin’s Summer by Rafael Sabatini (1909) and I Will Repay by Baroness Orczy (1906).

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10 of my historical reads in 2021 were historical mysteries.

Here are three of the historical mysteries I read last year:

Black Drop by Leonora Nattrass
The Royal Secret by Andrew Taylor
Rags of Time by Michael Ward

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I read historical fiction set in 14 different countries in 2021.

I’m disappointed with this, as 14 is the smallest number of countries I’ve read about in my yearly historical fiction reads since 2017. As usual, more than half of the books I read were set in my own country, England, but France, Scotland and Ireland were the next most popular settings. I say this every year, but I’m determined to read about a wider range of countries in 2022!

Three books I read last year set in countries other than my own:

The Country of Others by Leïla Slimani (Morocco)
Ashes by Christopher de Vinck (Belgium)
Still Life by Sarah Winman (Italy)

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Four historical men I read about in 2021:

John Milton (The Protector by SJ Deas)
William Fowler (Rose Nicolson by Andrew Greig)
Baldwin IV of Jerusalem (The Land Beyond the Sea by Sharon Penman)
William de Valence (A Marriage of Lions by Elizabeth Chadwick)

Four historical women I read about in 2021:

Margaret Mautby Paston (The Royal Game by Anne O’Brien)
Frances Griffiths (The Cottingley Secret by Hazel Gaynor)
Katharine Parr (Katharine Parr, the Sixth Wife by Alison Weir)
Frances Cromwell (The Puritan Princess by Miranda Malins)

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What about you? Did you read any good historical fiction last year? Have you read any of the books or authors I’ve mentioned here and have you noticed any patterns or trends in your own reading?

Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper

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Silver on the Tree is the fifth and final book in Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising sequence and although I’m sorry to have come to the end of the series, I enjoyed every minute of it. This particular novel is the perfect finale, bringing together all the characters and storylines from the first four books as we head towards the great, decisive battle between the forces of the Dark and the Light. If you are new to the series, I would recommend starting with the first book, Over Sea, Under Stone; don’t start with this one, or I think you’ll be very confused!

Silver on the Tree, like the previous book The Grey King, is set mostly in Wales, where Will Stanton and his friend Bran Davies are searching for the mysterious Lady who holds the knowledge that will set the final part of their quest in motion.

‘Until the Lady comes,’ Merriman said. ‘And she will help you to the finding of the sword of the Pendragon, the crystal sword by which the final magic of the light shall be achieved, and the Dark put at last to flight. And there will be five to help you, for from the beginning it was known that six altogether, and six only, must accomplish this long matter. Six creatures more and less of the earth, aided by the six Signs’.

Will and Bran, together with their wise, elderly mentor Merriman Lyon, make up three of the six who are needed to complete the quest. The other three are Simon, Jane and Barney, the Drew children who appeared in some of the earlier novels and who happen to be visiting Wales with their parents. The six are soon united and each has a part to play in the adventures to come.

The Arthurian elements which were introduced in the previous books are stronger here – we finally meet King Arthur himself; there’s a glimpse of the Battle of Badon, the conflict between the Britons and Anglo-Saxons in which he was said to be involved; and there are appearances by other characters who sometimes appear in Arthurian legend, such as Gwion (or Taliesin) the bard. Welsh folklore also plays a part and the children have some chilling encounters with creatures such as the afanc, a Welsh lake monster, and a terrifying horse known as the Mari Lwyd! These are both used as agents of the Dark, along with the more commonplace but equally sinister (in this context) black mink and polecat.

The fantasy sequences in the novel are very well done, particularly an episode where Will and Bran travel through the Lost Lands in search of the crystal sword and meet the legendary king, Gwyddno Garanhir. Meanwhile, the Drew children find themselves transported through time, to a 19th century shipyard and then to the Welsh stronghold of Owain Glyndwr. Back in the ‘real world’, we are reacquainted with the other members of the Stanton family, mainly Will’s brothers, Stephen and James, who have an unpleasant encounter with a racist bully. This part of the story felt out of place at first, but I think it was intended to show how the Dark can find its way into the world through those who are susceptible to evil. Will reflects later that maybe ‘the Dark can only reach people at extremes – blinded by their own shining ideas, or locked up in the darkness of their own heads’.

I still have the same complaint I had after reading some of the previous books – that the tasks are solved too easily and the correct solutions just ‘come’ to Will and the others without them having to put too much effort into it. However, I know this series is intended for younger readers, so maybe I was expecting too much. Apart from that, I loved Silver on the Tree and the whole of The Dark is Rising and just wish I could have discovered these books as a child!

Miss Austen by Gill Hornby

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The final book I read in 2021 was one that I very much enjoyed: Gill Hornby’s Miss Austen. The title character is not, as you might expect, the famous novelist Jane Austen, but her elder sister Cassandra. Cassandra, who outlived Jane by nearly thirty years, is known to have burned many of her sister’s letters, although we don’t know exactly why she did this. In this fictional version of Cassandra Austen’s story, Hornby explores a possible reason for the destruction of the letters, while also giving us a glimpse into the lives of Cassandra, Jane and the rest of the Austen family.

The novel opens in 1840 with Cassandra, now an elderly woman, arriving at Kintbury, home of the Fowles, the family of her long-dead fiancé. Following the death of the Reverend Fowle, his daughter Isabella has been left to pack up her parents’ belongings so that a new reverend can move in. Cassandra believes that the letters she and Jane wrote to their friend Eliza Fowle (Isabella’s mother) must still be in the house somewhere and she is determined to find them and remove them before they can be made public.

The story unfolds through the letters Cassandra discovers at Kintbury (not the real letters, of course, as they were destroyed) and through Cassandra’s memories of her younger days. The narrative moves back and forth in time as she remembers the loss of Tom Fowle, the man she should have married, her relationship with Jane and the lives they both led as single women. In the 1840s storyline, we also get to know Isabella, another spinster, and this provides some further insights into what it means to be an unmarried woman in the early 19th century: the lack of security; the pressures created by failing to conform to society’s expectations; and the feeling of being a burden to other family members.

This is a quiet, domestic novel, but I was never bored. There is an authentic period feel and although Hornby doesn’t try to imitate Jane Austen’s writing exactly, the language used generally feels suitable for the time. I enjoyed the occasional references to Jane’s novels, some of which we see her working on and others which the characters read to each other for entertainment. There’s an interesting suggestion that Jane based Mary Bennet in Pride and Prejudice on her sister-in-law, Mary Austen. Most of all, I enjoyed learning a little bit about Cassandra and the world in which she lived.

I had never come across Gill Hornby before, but it seems that not only is she the sister of the writer Nick Hornby, she is also married to one of my favourite authors, Robert Harris! Her earlier novels sound very different and don’t really appeal to me, but I’ve discovered that she has a new book out later this year – Godmersham Park, about a governess in the Austen household. I will be looking out for that one.

Six Degrees of Separation: From Rules of Civility to Giant’s Bread

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It’s the first Saturday of the month – and of 2022 – which means it’s time for another Six Degrees of Separation, hosted by Kate of Books are my Favourite and Best. The idea is that Kate chooses a book to use as a starting point and then we have to link it to six other books of our choice to form a chain. A book doesn’t have to be connected to all of the others on the list – only to the one next to it in the chain.

This month we are starting with Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. I haven’t read it, but I did enjoy Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow, so maybe I should try this one. Here’s what it’s about:

This sophisticated and entertaining first novel presents the story of a young woman whose life is on the brink of transformation. On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker, happens to sit down at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a year-long journey into the upper echelons of New York society — where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve. With its sparkling depiction of New York’s social strata, its intricate imagery and themes, and its immensely appealing characters, Rules of Civility won the hearts of readers and critics alike.

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I had trouble getting started with this month’s chain, but finally settled on New York as my first link. I can think of several books I’ve read that are set in New York, but I’ve chosen the most obvious one: New York by Edward Rutherfurd (1). This very long but fascinating novel tells the story of New York from its early years as a 17th century Dutch trading post right through to the present day, exploring some of the key events and important historical figures from the city’s history.

In New York, Rutherfurd focuses on several generations of one fictional family, the Masters, who are merchants and bankers. Another novel about a banking family is House of Gold by Natasha Solomons (2). The family in this book, which is set in Europe before and during World War I, are the Goldbaums, who are fictional but loosely based on the real-life Rothschilds. I really enjoyed this one and am looking forward to reading more of Natasha Solomons’ books (I have only read this one and The Novel in the Viola so far).

Gold makes me think of silver and leads me to The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis (3), the first book in the Marcus Didius Falco mystery series. This book is set in Rome and Britannia in the year 70 AD and follows Falco as he investigates a conspiracy involving a secret stockpile of silver ingots known as ‘silver pigs’. Ancient Rome is not one of my favourite historical periods and I wasn’t thrilled with the audiobook version I listened to either, but I found it interesting enough to want to continue with the series (in print format, I think).

The Silver Pigs has a silver coin on the cover. Using that as my next link takes me to the Hesperus Press edition of A Rogue’s Life by Wilkie Collins (4), which has lots of coins on the cover. Collins is one of my favourite Victorian authors and although this novella-length book about the money-making schemes of a loveable young rogue is not the best example of his work, I still thought it was a lot of fun to read.

The word ‘rogue’ brings me to my next book, Rogues’ Holiday by Maxwell March (5). This book is great fun too; first published in 1935, it’s a thriller in which a Scotland Yard Inspector stumbles upon a group of criminals while taking a two-week break in a seaside hotel. Maxwell March is a pseudonym of Margery Allingham, the Golden Age crime novelist best known for her Albert Campion mystery series.

Agatha Christie was another Golden Age Queen of Crime who wrote under a pseudonym. Giant’s Bread (6) is one of six novels published under the name Mary Westmacott. I found this story about a young man’s love of music entirely different from Christie’s detective novels, but just as enjoyable in its own way. I’m sure I’ll be reading more of her Mary Westmacott books.

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And that’s my first chain of the year! My links this month included: New York, bankers, precious metals, coins, rogues and authors with pseudonyms.

In February we will be starting with No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood.

My Commonplace Book: December 2021

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For the last time this year…

A selection of words and pictures to represent December’s reading:

commonplace book
noun
a book into which notable extracts from other works are copied for personal use.

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One thousand years. Two thousand. In time. Maybe it was the way to do things, not to worry about the now, to wait for time to take care of things. What if the measure of time was one thousand, two thousand years? In time everything was all right.

Ride the Pink Horse by Dorothy B. Hughes (1946)

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Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, c. 1564

Robert’s father had said that life was like storming a castle with many rooms. To be successful you needed not guns, but the right keys. If you could open the doors, you could go in, and up, up, up, until the battlements were scaled.

None But Elizabeth by Rhoda Edwards (1982)

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She seemed ringed with air in which there was no colour, only a sense of colour; of the white walls and the green trees and grass, the dots of nuns wearing their black winter habits and a blue whiteness that was the air itself. She felt her own heart beating, a suffocation in her head and she thought suddenly that if she were one of the eagles flying in the gulf, she would feel like this, seeing on tilted wings the colours of earth and snows and sky. However she soared and struggled, the gulf pressed down on her and she gained not an inch on the mountain.

Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden (1939)

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I stitched my love into this quilt, sewn it neatly, proud and true.
Though you have gone, I must live on, and this will hold me close to you.

The Forgotten Seamstress by Liz Trenow (2013)

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Silhouette of Cassandra Austen (1773-1845), sister of Jane Austen

And she decided that other families must be one of life’s most unfathomable mysteries. It was no use sitting as an outsider and even trying to fathom them. One could have no idea of what it must be like to be there, on the inside. She would share that thought later in her letter to Jane.

Miss Austen by Gill Hornby (2020)

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It was so hard to get an idea of people you had never seen. You had to rely on other people’s judgment, and Emily had never yet acknowledged that any other person’s judgment was superior to her own. Other people’s impressions were no good to you. They might be just as true as yours but you couldn’t act on them. You couldn’t, as it were, use another person’s angle of attack.

The Sittaford Mystery by Agatha Christie (1931)

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Favourite books read in December:

Ride the Pink Horse and The Sittaford Mystery

Authors read for the first time in December:

Rumer Godden, Liz Trenow, Gill Hornby

Places visited in my December reading:

New Mexico, India, England

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Happy New Year!

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge: Looking back at 2021 and forward to 2022

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I don’t take part in many year-long reading challenges as I prefer to just join in with shorter reading events and reading weeks. However, there is one that I like to participate in every year – and that is the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, hosted by Marg at The Intrepid Reader. This is not really much of a ‘challenge’ for me, but I still enjoy linking my reviews to the monthly challenge posts, seeing what other participants are reading and discovering new historical fiction novels and bloggers.

Before I post the details of the 2022 challenge, I want to look back at what I achieved in 2021.

I had signed up at the ‘Prehistoric’ level, which meant reading 50+ historical fiction novels during the year. I managed to read 56 and here they are:

1. The Land Beyond the Sea by Sharon Penman
2. The Queen’s Rival by Anne O’Brien
3. Islands of Mercy by Rose Tremain
4. Rags of Time by Michael Ward
5. The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson
6. The Soul Thief by Cecelia Holland
7. Ashes by Christopher de Vinck
8. The Cottingley Secret by Hazel Gaynor
9. The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles
10. Daughters of Night by Laura Shepherd-Robinson
11. A Net for Small Fishes by Lucy Jago
12. The Lost Diary of Venice by Margaux DeRoux
13. The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
14. The Prophet by Martine Bailey
15. The Puritan Princess by Miranda Malins
16. The Drowned City by KJ Maitland
17. Imperfect Alchemist by Naomi Miller
18. The Damask Rose by Carol McGrath
19. John Saturnall’s Feast by Lawrence Norfolk
20. The Hardie Inheritance by Anne Melville
21. The Metal Heart by Caroline Lea
22. The Royal Secret by Andrew Taylor
23. The Horseman by Tim Pears
24. The Rich Earth by Pamela Oldfield
25. Circus of Wonders by Elizabeth Macneal
26. The Missing Sister by Lucinda Riley
27. China by Edward Rutherfurd
28. Still Life by Sarah Winman
29. The Wrecking Storm by Michael Ward
30. The Protector by S.J. Deas
31. The Last Daughter by Nicola Cornick
32. Red Adam’s Lady by Grace Ingram
33. I Will Repay by Baroness Orczy
34. Cecily by Annie Garthwaite
35. St Martin’s Summer by Rafael Sabatini
36. The Country of Others by Leïla Slimani
37. Rose Nicolson by Andrew Greig
38. The Infernal Riddle of Thomas Peach
39. A Corruption of Blood by Ambrose Parry
40. The Women of Troy by Pat Barker
41. Katharine Parr, the Sixth Wife by Alison Weir
42. Daughters of War by Dinah Jefferies
43. The Mummy Case by Elizabeth Peters
44. A Marriage of Lions by Elizabeth Chadwick
45. Castle Barebane by Joan Aiken
46. Black Drop by Leonora Nattrass
47. The Royal Game by Anne O’Brien
48. The Swift and the Harrier by Minette Walters
49. Lily by Rose Tremain
50. Fallen by Lia Mills
51. The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
52. The Ambassador’s Daughter by Pam Jenoff
53. The Girl in the Photograph by Kate Riordan
54. None But Elizabeth by Rhoda Edwards
55. A Princely Knave by Philip Lindsay
56. Miss Austen by Gill Hornby (review to follow)

Here are the rules for the 2022 challenge, taken from Marg’s blog:

Everyone can participate! If you don’t have a blog you can post a link to your review if it’s posted on Goodreads, Facebook, or Amazon, or you can add your book title and thoughts in the comment section if you wish.

Any sub-genre of historical fiction is accepted (Historical Romance, Historical Mystery, Historical Fantasy, Young Adult, History/Non-Fiction, etc.)

During the following 12 months you can choose one of the different reading levels:

20th Century Reader – 2 books
Victorian Reader – 5 books
Renaissance Reader – 10 books
Medieval – 15 books
Ancient History – 25 books
Prehistoric – 50+ books

You can sign up for the challenge here. I will be aiming for Prehistoric again in 2022. Let me know if you’re planning to take part too!

Top Ten Tuesday: My favourite books of 2021

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This week’s Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) asks us to list our top ten books of 2021. I know there are still a few days of December left, but I’m confident that I’m not going to finish anything before the end of the year that would make it onto my list, so it should be safe to post it today!

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1. Good by Stealth by Henrietta Clandon (1936)

From my review: “This wonderful Golden Age crime novel from 1936 was written by John Haslette Vahey; Henrietta Clandon was one of his many pseudonyms…I found this one so much fun to read, I will certainly be reading more of his books! The book is hugely entertaining and often very funny and although some parts of the story don’t seem at first to have much to do with the overall plot, everything falls into place by the end and the significance of even the smallest detail becomes clear.”

2. The Rose Code by Kate Quinn (2021)

From my review: “I loved this! I’ve never read Kate Quinn before, although she has been recommended to me several times, so I’m pleased that my first experience of her work has been such a good one. The Rose Code wasn’t a perfect book, but the few flaws that I noted were quickly outweighed by the gripping plot, strong characters and interesting historical setting.”

3. China by Edward Rutherfurd (2021)

From my review: “Like all of Rutherfurd’s novels, this one is clearly the result of a huge amount of research…I think anyone with even the slightest curiosity about China, its history, geography and people, will find a lot to interest them in this book – just be aware that it’s quite a commitment and will take a while to get through, even for the fastest of readers!”

4. The Green Gauntlet by RF Delderfield (1968)

From my review: ” It was lovely to be back in the Shallowford Valley and become reacquainted with Paul and Claire Craddock and their family, friends and neighbours…Although there’s plenty of action and always something happening in the Valley, the story moves along at a leisurely pace and the focus is on the daily lives of the characters and the relationships between them.”

5. Castle Barebane by Joan Aiken (1976)

From my review: “I thoroughly enjoyed reading it – both the domestic parts and the gothic adventure parts. The atmosphere is wonderful, there’s a suitably sinister villain and I loved the remote setting…I’m certainly planning to read more of Joan Aiken’s books and am hoping they’re all as good as this one!”

6. A Marriage of Lions by Elizabeth Chadwick (2021)

From my review: “The main focus of the story, however, is Henry’s younger half-brother, William de Valence, and his wife, Joanna de Munchensy of Swanscombe…There’s not much information available on the real historical figures, particularly Joanna, but Chadwick’s portrayal feels convincing and believable and I enjoyed getting to know them both.”

7. Rose Nicolson by Andrew Greig (2021)

From my review: “I loved Andrew Greig’s last book, Fair Helen, a beautifully written historical novel based on a Scottish Border Ballad, so when I saw that his new one, Rose Nicolson, was going to be set in the same time and place I couldn’t wait to read it. Now that I’ve had the opportunity, I’m pleased to say that I enjoyed it just as much as Fair Helen and can highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about Scotland in the 16th century.”

8. The Land Beyond the Sea by Sharon Penman (2020)

From my review: “The Land Beyond the Sea is a fascinating novel. I have read a lot about Europe in the medieval period, but not so much about other parts of the world…As with Sharon Penman’s other books, this one has clearly been very well researched and her afterword and author’s note are almost as interesting as the story itself.”

9. St Martin’s Summer by Rafael Sabatini (1909)

From my review: “I had high hopes for St Martin’s Summer – and I’m pleased to say that it definitely lived up to my expectations. First of all, it’s a lot of fun to read…there are duels, disguises, impersonations and all sorts of other tricks and deceptions, some of which are obvious to the reader, but not to the characters, who repeatedly fall into each other’s traps!

10. Ride the Pink Horse by Dorothy B. Hughes (1946)

From my review: “I would probably never have picked this book up based on the description alone as it didn’t really sound like my usual sort of read. And that would have been a shame, as I thoroughly enjoyed it…The setting is wonderfully atmospheric and Hughes creates an amazing sense of place…I loved this book and am so pleased it came up for me in the Classics Club Spin!”

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So that’s my top ten…however, I have also read a lot of Agatha Christie novels this year for the Read Christie 2021 challenge and it didn’t seem right not to put any of them on my list – so I’m adding an eleventh book and highlighting my favourite Christie novel of 2021. I enjoyed all of them, but the one that particularly stood out for me was December’s read:

11. The Sittaford Mystery by Agatha Christie (1931)

From my review: “My favourite thing about this book, though, was the setting; many of Christie’s mysteries are set in small villages, but the wintry weather gave this one a special atmosphere. I loved it and am glad the Read Christie challenge prompted me to pick it up this December!”

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Have you read any of these?

What are your favourite books of 2021?