The Girl in the Photograph by Kate Riordan

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Kate Riordan’s 2015 novel The Girl in the Photograph is one of many to be compared to the Daphne du Maurier classic Rebecca, but apart from being set in a country house and having a few Gothic undertones, I couldn’t see many similarities. It is, however, an interesting read in its own right, exploring some of the social issues faced by women who lived during less enlightened time periods.

This is a dual-timeline novel, but unlike most, which have one thread set in the present and the other in the past, both narratives in this book are historical. In 1932, we meet Alice Eveleigh, a young woman of twenty-two who lives with her parents and works in an office as a junior typist. With many of her friends becoming engaged, Alice is worried that she will be ‘left on the shelf’, so she is flattered when the new accountant at work, a handsome older man, begins an affair with her. Unfortunately, he is already married and when she inevitably finds herself pregnant, he refuses to leave his wife for her. On discovering what has happened, Alice’s mother quickly packs her off to stay with an old friend at remote Fiercombe Manor where she can give birth away from prying eyes and have the baby adopted.

After arriving at Fiercombe Manor, Alice becomes intrigued by hints of the house’s tragic past, picking up snippets of information about Elizabeth Stanton, whose husband Edward was the Manor’s previous owner. Alice attempts to learn more about Elizabeth from Mrs Jelphs, the housekeeper, but it seems that she is reluctant to talk. Not ready to give up, Alice finds Elizabeth’s diary and gradually her secrets begin to be revealed.

Elizabeth’s story, set in 1898, unfolds alongside Alice’s in alternating chapters, allowing us to see parallels between the lives of the two women. Like Alice, Elizabeth is expecting a baby; unlike Alice, she has a husband, but she still feels very alone. Edward is controlling and distrustful and they don’t have a close or loving relationship, but as Elizabeth’s narrative progresses we begin to wonder whether she is really the most reliable of narrators and whether something could have happened to cause Edward to turn against her.

The Girl in the Photograph is a beautifully written novel, with lovely, vivid descriptions of the old house surrounded by yew trees, the formal gardens and terraces, and the views of rolling meadows and setting suns. Riordan creates an eerie atmosphere, with some very subtle ghostly/supernatural elements. However, I found the book very slow and unnecessarily long – I felt that some of Alice’s chapters could probably have been left out without affecting the overall story too much. Still, the novel offers some fascinating insights into what it was like to be a pregnant woman in the 1930s or the 1890s. Attitudes of society towards unmarried mothers, the challenges of postnatal depression and ‘puerperal insanity’, and the general lack of understanding of women’s mental health issues are some of the subjects Riordan touches upon.

Although I felt that this book didn’t have much, apart from the quality of the writing, to set it apart from others of this type, I thought it was still a worthwhile read. I see Kate Riordan has written several other novels which all sound interesting too.

Historical Musings #69: Books to look out for in 2022

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With only a few weeks of 2021 left to go, it’s time for my annual post looking at some of the new historical fiction being published in the year ahead. As usual, I have included a mixture of books I’ve received for review, books by authors I’ve previously enjoyed and books that just sound appealing for one reason or another.

All blurbs and dates are taken from Goodreads or Amazon. The publication dates given are for the UK and could change. I think there should be something here for most historical fiction fans!

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A Fatal Crossing by Tom Hindle (20 January 2022)

November 1924. The Endeavour sets sail to New York with 2,000 passengers – and a killer – on board…

When an elderly gentleman is found dead at the foot of a staircase, ship’s officer Timothy Birch is ready to declare it a tragic accident. But James Temple, a strong-minded Scotland Yard inspector, is certain there is more to this misfortune than meets the eye.

Birch agrees to investigate, and the trail quickly leads to the theft of a priceless painting. Its very existence is known only to its owner…and the dead man. With just days remaining until they reach New York, and even Temple’s purpose on board the Endeavour proving increasingly suspicious, Birch’s search for the culprit is fraught with danger.

And all the while, the passengers continue to roam the ship with a killer in their midst…

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The Queen’s Lady by Joanna Hickson (20 January 2022)

Raven-haired and fiercely independent, Joan Guildford has always remained true to herself.

As lady-in-waiting and confidante to Queen Elizabeth, wife of Henry VII, Joan understands royal patronage is vital if she and her husband, Sir Richard, are to thrive in the volatile atmosphere of court life.

But Tudor England is in mourning following the death of the Prince of Wales, and within a year, the queen herself. With Prince Henry now heir to the throne, the court murmurs with the sound of conspiracy. Is the entire Tudor project now at stake or can young Henry secure the dynasty?

Drawn into the heart of the crisis, Joan’s own life is in turmoil, and her future far from secure. She faces a stark choice – be true to her heart and risk everything, or play the dutiful servant and watch her dreams wither and die. For Joan, and for Henry’s Kingdom, everything is at stake…

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The Silver Wolf by JC Harvey (3 February 2022)

The extraordinarily rich, dark, panoramic tale of an orphaned boy’s quest for truth and then for vengeance as war rages across 17th-century Europe.

Amidst the chaos of the Thirty Years’ War, Jack Fiskardo embarks upon a quest that will carry him inexorably from France to Amsterdam and then onto the battlefields of Germany. As he grows to manhood will he be able to unravel the mystery of his father’s death? Or will his father’s killers find him first?

The Silver Wolf is a tale of secrets and treachery and the relentlessness of fate – but it is also a story of courage and compassion, of love and loyalty and ultimately of salvation too.

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The Leviathan by Rosie Andrews (3 February 2022)

Norfolk, 1643. With civil war tearing England apart, reluctant soldier Thomas Treadwater is summoned home by his sister, who accuses a new servant of improper conduct with their widowed father. By the time Thomas returns home, his father is insensible, felled by a stroke, and their new servant is in prison, facing charges of witchcraft.

Thomas prides himself on being a rational, modern man, but as he unravels the mystery of what has happened, he uncovers not a tale of superstition but something dark and ancient, linked to a shipwreck years before.

Something has awoken, and now it will not rest.

Richly researched, incredibly atmospheric, and deliciously unsettling, The Leviathan is set in England during a time of political turbulence and religious zealotry. It is a tale of family and loyalty, superstition and sacrifice, but most of all it is a spellbinding story of impossible things.

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I, Mona Lisa by Natasha Solomons (10 February 2022)

In Leonardo da Vinci’s studio, bursting with genius imagination, towering commissions and needling patrons, as well as discontented muses, friends and rivals, sits the painting of the Mona Lisa. For five hundred tumultuous years, amid a whirlwind of power, money, intrigue, the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo is sought after and stolen.

Over the centuries, few could hear her voice, but now she is ready to tell her own story, in her own words – a tale of rivalry, murder and heartbreak. Weaving through the years, she takes us from the dazzling world of Florentine studios to the French courts at Fontainebleau and Versailles, and into the Twentieth Century.

I, Mona Lisa is a deliciously vivid, compulsive and illuminating story about the lost and forgotten women throughout history.

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The Rebel Daughter by Miranda Malins (17 February 2022)

A country torn apart by war. A woman fighting for her future…

Ely, 1643. England is convulsed by Civil War, setting King against Parliament and neighbour against neighbour. As the turmoil reaches her family home in Ely, 19-year-old Bridget Cromwell finds herself at the heart of the conflict.

With her father’s star on the rise as a cavalry commander for the rebellious Parliament, Bridget has her own ambitions for a life beyond marriage and motherhood. And as fractures appear in her own family with the wilful, beautiful younger sister Betty, Bridget faces a choice: to follow her heart, or to marry for power and influence, and fight for a revolution that will change history…

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The Clockwork Girl by Anna Mazzola (3 March 2022)

Paris, 1750. In the midst of an icy winter, as birds fall frozen from the sky, chambermaid Madeleine Chastel arrives at the home of the city’s celebrated clockmaker and his clever, unworldly daughter.

Madeleine is hiding a dark past, and a dangerous purpose: to discover the truth of the clockmaker’s experiments and record his every move, in exchange for her own chance of freedom.

For as children quietly vanish from the Parisian streets, rumours are swirling that the clockmaker’s intricate mechanical creations, bejewelled birds and silver spiders, are more than they seem.

And soon Madeleine fears that she has stumbled upon an even greater conspiracy. One which might reach to the very heart of Versailles…

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The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn (31 March 2022)

In the snowbound city of Kiev, aspiring historian Mila Pavlichenko’s life revolves around her young son – until Hitler’s invasion of Russia changes everything. Suddenly, she and her friends must take up arms to save their country from the Fuhrer’s destruction.

Handed a rifle, Mila discovers a gift – and months of blood, sweat and tears turn the young woman into a deadly sniper: the most lethal hunter of Nazis. Yet success is bittersweet. Mila is torn from the battlefields of the eastern front and sent to America while the war still rages. There, she finds an unexpected ally in First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and an unexpected promise of a different future.

But when an old enemy from Mila’s past joins forces with a terrifying new foe, she finds herself in the deadliest duel of her life.

The Diamond Eye is a haunting novel of heroism born of desperation, of a mother who became a soldier, of a woman who found her place in the world and changed the course of history forever.

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Theatre of Marvels by Lianne Dillsworth (28 April 2022)

Unruly crowds descend on Crillick’s Variety Theatre. Young actress, Zillah, is headlining tonight. An orphan from the slums of St Giles, her rise to stardom is her ticket out – to be gawped and gazed at is a price she’s willing to pay.

Rising up the echelons of society is everything Zillah has ever dreamed of. But when a new stage act disappears, Zillah is haunted by a feeling that something is amiss. Is the woman in danger?

Her pursuit of the truth takes her into the underbelly of the city – from gas-lit streets to the sumptuous parlours of Mayfair – as she seeks the help of notorious criminals from her past and finds herself torn between two powerful admirers.

Caught in a labyrinth of dangerous truths, will Zillah face ruin – or will she be the maker of her fate?

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Elizabeth of York, the Last White Rose by Alison Weir (12 May 2022)

AN ENGLISH PRINCESS, BORN INTO A WAR BETWEEN TWO FAMILIES.

Eldest daughter of the royal House of York, Elizabeth dreams of a crown to call her own. But when her beloved father, King Edward, dies suddenly, her destiny is rewritten.

Her family’s enemies close in. Two young princes are murdered in the Tower. Then her uncle seizes power – and vows to make Elizabeth his queen.

But another claimant seeks the throne, the upstart son of the rival royal House of Lancaster. Marriage to this Henry Tudor would unite the white rose of York and the red of Lancaster – and change everything.

A great new age awaits. Now Elizabeth must choose her allies – and husband – wisely, and fight for her right to rule.

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The Fugitive Colours by Nancy Bilyeau (12 May 2022)

As Genevieve Sturbridge struggles to keep her silk design business afloat, she must face the fact that London in 1764 is very much a man’s world. Men control the arts and sciences, men control politics and law. And men definitely control women.

A Huguenot living in Spitalfields, Genevieve one day receives a surprise invitation from an important artist. Grasping at the promise of a better life, she dares to hope her luck is about to change and readies herself for an entry into the world of serious art.

She soon learns that for the portrait painters ruling over the wealthy in London society, fame and fortune are there for the taking. But such high stakes spur rivalries that darken to sabotage and blackmail—and even murder. And watching from the shadows are ruthless spies who wish harm to all of England.

Genevieve begins to suspect that her own secret past, when she was caught up in conspiracy and betrayal, has more to do with her entrée into London society than her talent. One wrong move could cost her not just her artistic dreams but the love of those she holds dear…and even her life.

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Privilege by Guinevere Glasfurd (12 May 2022)

After her father is disgraced, Delphine Vimond is cast out of her home in Rouen and flees to Paris. Into her life tumbles Chancery Smith, apprentice printer sent from London to discover the mysterious author of potentially incendiary papers marked only D. In a battle of wits with the French censor, Henri Gilbert, Delphine and Chancery set off in a frantic search for D’s author. But who is D and does D even exist?

Privilege is a story of adventure and mishap set against the turmoil of mid-18th century France at odds with the absolute power of the King who is determined to suppress opposition on pain of death. At a time when books required royal privilege before they could be published – a system enforced by the Chief Censor and a network of spies – many were censored or banned, and their authors harshly punished. Books that fell foul of the system were published outside France and smuggled back in at great risk.

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The Dance Tree by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (12 May 2022)
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In Strasbourg, in the boiling hot summer of 1518, a plague strikes the women of the city. First it is just one – a lone figure, dancing in the main square – but she is joined by more and more and the city authorities declare an emergency. Musicians will be brought in. The devil will be danced out of these women.

Just beyond the city’s limits, pregnant Lisbet lives with her mother-in-law and husband, tending the bees that are their livelihood. Her best friend Ida visits regularly and Lisbet is so looking forward to sharing life and motherhood with her. And then, just as the first woman begins to dance in the city, Lisbet’s sister-in-law Nethe returns from six years’ penance in the mountains for an unknown crime. No one – not even Ida – will tell Lisbet what Nethe did all those years ago, and Nethe herself will not speak a word about it.

It is the beginning of a few weeks that will change everything for Lisbet – her understanding of what it is to love and be loved, and her determination to survive at all costs for the baby she is carrying. Lisbet and Nethe and Ida soon find themselves pushing at the boundaries of their existence – but they’re dancing to a dangerous tune . . .

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The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley by Sean Lusk (2 June 2022)

In 1754, renowned maker of clocks and automata Abel Cloudesley must raise his new-born son Zachary when his wife dies in childbirth.

Growing up amongst the cogs and springs of his father’s workshop, Zachary is intensely curious, ferociously intelligent, unwittingly funny and always honest – perhaps too honest. But when a fateful accident leaves six-year-old Zachary nearly blinded, Abel is convinced that the safest place for his son is in the care of his eccentric Aunt Frances and her menagerie of weird and wonderful animals.

So when a precarious job in Constantinople is offered to him, Abel has no reason to say no. A job presented to him by a politician with dubious intentions, Abel leaves his son, his workshop and London behind. The decision will change the course of his life forever.

Since his accident, Zachary is plagued by visions that reveal the hearts and minds of those around him. A gift at times and a curse at others, it is nonetheless these visions that will help him complete a journey that he was always destined to make – to travel across Europe to Constantinople and find out what happened to his father all those years ago.

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The Colour Storm by Damian Dibben (23 June 2022)
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Renaissance Venice is a furnace of ideas and ambition. Artists flock here, not just for wealth and fame, but for revolutionary colour. Yet artist Giorgione ‘Zorzo’ Barbarelli’s career hangs in the balance. Competition is fierce, and his debts are piling up. When Zorzo hears a rumour of a mysterious, other-worldly new pigment, brought to Venice by the richest man in Europe, he sets out to acquire the colour and secure his name in history.

Winning a commission to paint a portrait of the man’s wife, Sybille, Zorzo thinks he has found a way into the merchant’s favour. Instead he finds himself caught up in a conspiracy that stretches across Europe and a marriage coming apart inside one of the floating city’s most illustrious palazzos.

As the water levels rise and the plague creeps ever closer, an increasingly desperate Zorzo isn’t sure whom he can trust. Will Sybille prove to be the key to Zorzo’s success, or the reason for his downfall?

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The House of Fortune by Jessie Burton (7 July 2022)

In the golden city of Amsterdam, in 1705, Thea Brandt is turning eighteen, and she is ready to welcome adulthood with open arms. At the city’s theatre, Walter, the love of her life, awaits her, but at home in the house on the Herengracht, all is not well – her father Otto and Aunt Nella argue endlessly, and the Brandt family are selling their furniture in order to eat. On Thea’s birthday, also the day that her mother Marin died, the secrets from the past begin to overwhelm the present.

Nella is desperate to save the family and maintain appearances, to find Thea a husband who will guarantee her future, and when they receive an invitation to Amsterdam’s most exclusive ball, she is overjoyed – perhaps this will set their fortunes straight.

And indeed, the ball does set things spinning: new figures enter their life, promising new futures. But their fates are still unclear, and when Nella feels a strange prickling sensation on the back of her neck, she remembers the miniaturist who entered her life and toyed with her fortunes eighteen years ago. Perhaps, now, she has returned for her . . .

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The Night Ship by Jess Kidd (12 July 2022)

Based on a real-life event, an epic historical novel from the award-winning author of Things in Jars that illuminates the lives of two characters: a girl shipwrecked on an island off Western Australia and, three hundred years later, a boy finding a home with his grandfather on the very same island.

1629: A newly orphaned young girl named Mayken is bound for the Dutch East Indies on the Batavia, one of the greatest ships of the Dutch Golden Age. Curious and mischievous, Mayken spends the long journey going on misadventures above and below the deck, searching for a mythical monster. But the true monsters might be closer than she thinks.

1989: A lonely boy named Gil is sent to live off the coast of Western Australia among the seasonal fishing community where his late mother once resided. There, on the tiny reef-shrouded island, he discovers the story of an infamous shipwreck…​

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Haven by Emma Donoghue (23 August 2022)

Three men vow to leave the world behind them. They set out in a small boat for an island their leader has seen in a dream, with only faith to guide them. What they find is the extraordinary island now known as Skellig Michael. Haven, Emma Donoghue’s deeply researched new novel, has her trademark psychological intensity–but this story is like nothing she has ever written before.

In seventh-century Ireland, a scholar and priest called Artt has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind. Taking two monks – young Trian and old Cormac – he rows down the river Shannon in search of an isolated spot on which to found a monastery. Drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find an impossibly steep, bare island inhabited by tens of thousands of birds, and claim it for God. In such a place, what will survival mean?

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Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris (1 September 2022)

1660, General Edward Whalley and Colonel William Goffe, father- and son-in-law, cross the Atlantic. They are on the run and wanted for the murder of Charles I. Under the provisions of the Act of Oblivion, they have been found guilty in absentia of high treason.

In London, Richard Nayler, secretary of the regicide committee of the Privy Council, is tasked with tracking down the fugitives. He’ll stop at nothing until the two men are brought to justice. A reward of £100 hangs over their heads – for their capture, dead or alive.

ACT OF OBLIVION is an epic journey across continents, and a chase like no other. It is the thrilling new novel by Robert Harris.

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Then there’s Elektra by Jennifer Saint (Greek mythology – 28th April) and All the Seas of the World by Guy Gavriel Kay (historical fantasy – 17th May) which I haven’t listed above as it’s debatable whether they would strictly be classed as historical fiction. Also The Vanished Days by Susanna Kearsley (28th April), which I know is already available in some countries but not in the UK yet, and Shadow Girls by Carol Birch (14th April), if you consider the 1960s to be historical!

Are you tempted by any of these? What else have I missed? Are there any other new historical fiction novels being published in 2022 that you’re looking forward to reading?

Ride the Pink Horse by Dorothy B Hughes

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Ride the Pink Horse was the book chosen for me in the last Classics Club Spin and I have finished it just in time to write about it by the Spin deadline, which is this weekend. There were two reasons why I added this book to my Classics Club list in the first place. One was that I loved Dorothy B Hughes’ The Expendable Man and wanted to read more of her work; the other, I have to admit, was that I liked the title. Otherwise, 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!

Ride the Pink Horse was published in 1946 and is set in Santa Fe during Fiesta, a festival commemorating the reconquest of New Mexico by the Spanish. The central character, known only as Sailor, was once ‘confidential secretary’ to Senator Willis Douglass (in reality, his job involved carrying out the corrupt senator’s dirty work for him) until the day the senator’s wife was murdered during what appeared to be an attempted robbery. Only Sailor and the Sen, as he calls him, know what really happened that day and Sailor is determined that if the Sen wants him to keep quiet then he will have to pay him for his silence. Sailor has followed the Sen to the Fiesta, planning to get as much money out of him as possible and then cross the border into Mexico to start a new life – but he hasn’t bargained for the appearance of McIntyre, a Chicago detective who is also on the senator’s trail in search of answers.

The first thing I should tell you about Ride the Pink Horse is that it’s not really a mystery, even though it’s currently being published as part of the Otto Penzler American Mystery Classics series. There’s a detective, but we don’t actually watch him doing any detecting because we see everything solely from Sailor’s perspective and Sailor already knows how the Sen’s wife was murdered. However, there’s still plenty of suspense as we are kept wondering whether Sailor will get what he wants from the Sen or whether he will drop his attempt at blackmail and tell McIntyre what he knows instead. The way in which the novel is written meant I honestly had no idea what would happen and which choices Sailor would make, so I found the ending both surprising and realistic.

The next thing I want to mention is the setting, which is wonderfully atmospheric. Santa Fe is not actually mentioned by name – Sailor, who is from Chicago, just refers to it as a ‘hick town’ – but it can be identified by the descriptions of the Fiesta and the festival traditions such as the burning of Zozobra, the wooden effigy of ‘Old Man Gloom’. Hughes creates an amazing sense of place and a feeling that, for Sailor, Fiesta is not a fun or exciting experience but a stifling, claustrophobic one – a trap from which there is no escape:

The whole town was a trap. He’d been trapped from the moment he stepped off the bus at the dirty station. Trapped by the unknown, by a foreign town and foreign tongues and the ways of alien men. Trapped by the evil these people had burned and the ash had entered into their flesh.

Sailor himself is not a very appealing or pleasant character, but as we learn more about his past – and his unhappy childhood, growing up in poverty with an alcoholic father – it becomes easier to have sympathy for him. One of his least attractive traits is his racism, so be warned that he uses offensive language to describe the Mexican and Native American people he meets during Fiesta. However, as he gradually befriends Pancho, a good-natured merry-go-round owner, and Pila, the young girl who rides the ‘pink horse’ of the title, there are signs that his attitude is beginning to change, as seen here in this conversation with McIntyre:

“…they don’t shove you around. They give you a smile. Even if you don’t talk their language they don’t shove you around. The way we shove them around when they come up to our town.”

“I know,” Mac said. “I’ve thought sort of along that line myself. We’re the strangers and they don’t treat us as strangers. They’re tolerant. Only they’re more than tolerant. Like you say, they’re friendly. They give you a smile not scorn.”

I loved this book and am so pleased it came up for me in the Classics Club Spin! I think The Expendable Man is still my favourite of the two, but I’m looking forward to reading more by Dorothy B Hughes; In a Lonely Place will probably be next.

This is book 25/50 read from my second Classics Club list

The Village of Eight Graves by Seishi Yokomizo – trans. Bryan Karetnyk

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Over the last few years I have discovered several Japanese crime authors – including Soji Shimada and Yukito Ayatsuji – thanks to Pushkin Press making them available in English translations, but the one who has impressed me the most is Seishi Yokomizo. I really enjoyed The Honjin Murders, one of his many books to feature the detective Kosuke Kindaichi; I didn’t like The Village of Eight Graves, another from the same series, quite as much, but it’s still an entertaining read.

First published in 1950, the novel is set in the small Japanese village of Eight Graves where, centuries earlier, eight samurai were brutally murdered, bringing down a curse upon the village and giving it its sinister-sounding name. In the 1920s the curse struck again when a village leader went on a violent killing spree. Now, twenty-five years later, our narrator Tatsuya Terada, a young man who has been raised in Kobe by his mother and stepfather, is informed by a lawyer that his real father was the man responsible for those terrible murders. It seems that Tatsuya is now the heir to the family estate and must return to Eight Graves to claim his inheritance – but before he has even left Kobe he receives an anonymous letter warning him to stay away.

On his arrival in Eight Graves, Tatsuya finds that most of the other villagers are hostile and unwelcoming, believing that his presence will bring bad luck and tragedy to the village yet again. And so, when more murders begin to take place, suspicion immediately falls on Tatsuya – but as he is our narrator, we know that he is innocent. Or is he? Kosuke Kindaichi is called in to investigate, but at the same time Tatsuya is carrying out investigations of his own to find the real culprit and clear his own name.

Unlike in The Honjin Murders, where the untidy and unassuming Kindaichi plays a big role in the story, in this book we hardly see him at all. Almost as soon as he arrives in Eight Graves he disappears into the background again. We know that he is working on solving the mystery, but we don’t actually watch him doing it because we stick exclusively with Tatsuya’s narration and he and Kindaichi have very little interaction until nearer the end of the book. This makes this one less of a detective novel and more of a thriller or adventure novel, as Tatsuya explores the village alone looking for clues and stumbling into danger.

Yokomizo creates a wonderful atmosphere in this book with Tatsuya’s investigations leading him into networks of tunnels, caves with stalactites, and underground lakes and caverns. The legend of the eight murdered samurai is also incorporated into the story, along with a search for hidden treasure said to be buried somewhere within the village and a rivalry between two branches of Tatsuya’s family: the ‘House of the East’ and the ‘House of the West’. It’s an entertaining novel and there’s always something happening – but I did think the parts where Tatsuya is wandering around in the caves and tunnels became a little bit tedious. The absence of Kosuke Kindaichi for most of the book was also disappointing and I think I would have preferred a more conventional detective novel with the focus on solving the mystery rather than on treasure hunting.

Still, this book was fun to read and I loved the setting. Now I need to read the other Yokomizo novel currently available in English: The Inugami Curse.

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

Six Degrees of Separation: From Ethan Frome to Murder Under the Christmas Tree

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It’s the first Saturday of the month 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 beginning with the classic novella Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. I’ve read this one and liked it, although it’s still the only book I’ve read by Wharton. Here’s what it’s about:

Ethan Frome works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult, suspicious and hypochondriac wife, Zeena. But when Zeena’s vivacious cousin enters their household as a ‘hired girl’, Ethan finds himself obsessed with her and with the possibilities for happiness she comes to represent. In one of American fiction’s finest and most intense narratives, Edith Wharton moves this ill-starred trio towards their tragic destinies.

It’s been ten years since I read Ethan Frome, but I still remember the atmospheric setting of Starkfield, Massachusetts with its cold, harsh winters. My first link, then, is to a recent read which is also set in winter, Midnight in Everwood by MA Kuzniar (1). This is a retelling of ETA Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker and follows aspiring ballerina Marietta as she hides inside a grandfather clock on Christmas Eve and steps out into the enchanting world of Everwood. The descriptions of snow-covered landscapes are lovely, but I was disappointed with the writing style and the general lack of depth.

Another book with a very strong sense of place – and another wintry setting – is Touch by Alexi Zentner (2). This is a beautifully written novel about three generations of a family who live in a Canadian gold mining and logging town. There are elements of the supernatural and we meet lots of creatures from Canadian and Inuit folklore – sea witches, golden caribou, wood spirits and water monsters – but although I’m not always a fan of magical realism, I thought it worked well here.

I could easily have continued with the winter theme, but I like to have some variety in my chains so I’m going to link instead to another book with the word ‘touch’ in the title: Touch Not the Cat by Mary Stewart. This is one of Stewart’s later novels, published in 1976, and tells the story of Bryony Ashley who returns to her ancestral home, Ashley Court, to investigate after her father dies under suspicious circumstances leaving her a cryptic message warning her of danger. I enjoyed this book, although it’s not one of my favourites by Stewart.

Bryony Ashley, the heroine of Touch Not the Cat is able to communicate with an unidentified secret lover using telepathy. In Robin Hobb’s fantasy novel Fool’s Assassin (4), the characters use two forms of magic known as the Skill and the Wit in order to form telepathic connections with other people and animals. It’s a great book, but if you’re new to Robin Hobb don’t start with this one – it’s part of a much longer series and you really need to start at the beginning with Assassin’s Apprentice.

Although Fool’s Assassin is the fourteenth book in the sequence and therefore reacquaints us with lots of old friends, it also introduces a fascinating new character, Bee, and a large part of the story is written from her perspective. Her name makes me think of The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R King (5). This mystery novel teams up a teenage orphan, Mary Russell, with Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, who has retired to the countryside to keep bees. It’s the first in a series, of which I’ve still only read two!

There’s a Sherlock Holmes story included in the anthology Murder Under the Christmas Tree edited by Cecily Gayford (6). This Christmas-themed collection features stories by classic crime authors including Dorothy L Sayers, Edmund Crispin and Margery Allingham, as well as more recent authors such as Val McDermid and Ian Rankin. I think this book brings my chain to an appropriate end!

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And that’s my chain for December. My links have included wintry settings, the word ‘touch’, telepathic connections, bees and Sherlock Holmes!

Next month we’ll be starting with Rules of Civility by Amor Towles.

The Ambassador’s Daughter by Pam Jenoff

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It’s 1919 and twenty-year-old Margot Rosenthal has accompanied her father, a German diplomat, to Paris for the Peace Conference that has been arranged following the end of the First World War. At first Margot is unhappy in the French capital – even though the war is over, she and her father are still thought of by the Allies as ‘the enemy’, while their Jewish background means they are viewed with suspicion by their fellow Germans – but the alternative is to return to Berlin, where her wounded fiancé Stefan awaits. Margot had agreed to marry Stefan before he went away to fight in the war, but now that he is back she’s no longer sure whether she wants to go ahead with the wedding.

Life in Paris becomes more interesting for Margot when she makes two new friends. One is Georg Richwalder, a former naval officer who has arrived with the German delegation; the other is Krysia Smok, a Polish pianist who introduces her to a group of political activists. When one of Krysia’s radical friends starts to put pressure on Margot to obtain information on Germany’s plans from Georg, suddenly Stefan and the wedding seem the least of her problems!

The Ambassador’s Daughter is a prequel to The Kommandant’s Girl and The Diplomat’s Wife, neither of which I have read, but that didn’t matter at all as this one works as a standalone novel. In fact, I suspect it’s probably better to start with this book anyway as it comes first chronologically. I do wish authors and publishers would move away from ‘wife’ and ‘daughter’ titles (which I discussed in one of my Historical Musings posts), but this series was written before that seemed to become such a popular trend, so I can be more forgiving!

Although I have read a lot of novels set during and just after World War I, I don’t think I’ve ever read anything specifically about the Paris Peace Conference, so I found that aspect of the book interesting. The German delegation was kept on the sidelines during the negotiations and excluded from decision-making, not being officially called to the conference until the details of the treaty had already been agreed upon. Because the Germans played such a minor role in all of this, it doesn’t form a big part of the novel, but I think Jenoff does a good job of showing how frustrating it was for diplomats such as Margot’s father to be kept out of making the important decisions that would affect their own country’s future.

The espionage element of the story is also well done, as we wait to see whether Margot will really betray Georg and Germany – and if so, whether she will be caught? However, a twist that comes near the end of the book is very obvious and because I had predicted it so quickly, it took away some of the suspense. The main focus of the novel, though, is not the conference or the spying, but Margot’s personal story and her relationships with Georg and Stefan, so if you’re not interested in romance, this probably isn’t the book for you. Overall, I found it quite enjoyable, but I’m not sure whether I would read anything else by Pam Jenoff – although I was intrigued by the character of Krysia and it seems she also appears in The Kommandant’s Girl, so maybe I could be tempted.

My Commonplace Book: November 2021

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

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

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He wanted to know in order to get closer to the group, to become part of it. Not that the group meant anything! It was merely an order of things, a life within life, almost a town within the town, a certain way of thinking and feeling, a tiny handful of humans who, as some planets do in the sky, followed their own mysterious orbit heedless of the great universal order.

The Strangers in the House by Georges Simenon (1940)

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Liam would say no good ever came of blame. The national curse, he called it. Always the pointing finger, the excuse. He’d rather find solutions.

Fallen by Lia Mills (2014)

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The only known contemporary portrait of Perkin Warbeck, pretender to the English throne

“Whatever his birth,” shrugged the cardinal, “he has his dreams. And dreams, your grace, make dangerous enemies. Swords cannot slay them nor torture exorcise them.”

A Princely Knave by Philip Lindsay (1956)

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And he thought to himself: What a start! Things always turn out differently from what you expect. What you think is going to be hard is often easy, and something you don’t even think about turns out to be difficult.

Nightmare in Berlin by Hans Fallada (1947)

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One of the things I have come to know most surely in my work is that the belief system acquired in childhood is never fully escaped; it may submerge itself for a while, but it always returns in times of need to lay claim to the soul it shaped.

The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton (2012)

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“The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors” by William Orpen

“Self-determination isn’t just some abstract political notion, intended for the masses. Each of us must decide whom she will be, what we want for ourselves.”

The Ambassador’s Daughter by Pam Jenoff (2013)

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I didn’t believe myself to be so cowardly, but it was impossible to reason with these people, and it could never have ended well. Nothing is more frightening in this world than ignorance and stupidity.

The Village of Eight Graves by Seishi Yokomizo (1949)

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Sakura petals fall before they’ve withered, like the samurai who were destined to die young. Why do we neglect to revel in life when it can end at any moment? We are so often blessed, but fail to see it. The sakura remind us to pay attention.

I am the Mask Maker by Rhiannon Lewis (2021)

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Penelope by Franklin Simmons (1896), marble

He told me once that everyone had a hidden door, which was the way into the heart, and that it was a point of honour with him to be able to find the handles to those doors. For the heart was both key and lock, and he who could master the hearts of men and learn their secrets was well on the way to mastering the Fates and controlling the thread of his own destiny.

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood (2005)

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Something peculiar happens when you set out to recount the past…It is as though the memory is a series of interconnecting rooms, each leading to the next, less-visited one, if only you’ll try the door.

The Girl in the Photograph by Kate Riordan (2015)

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“I hope,” he said, “that you are not feeling the worse for the shock. To be at close quarters with what is undoubtedly murder must be a great strain on anyone who has not come in contact with such a thing before.”

Modesty forbade Miss Marple to reply that she was, by now, quite at home with murder. She merely said that life in St. Mary Mead was not quite so sheltered as outside people believed.

They Do It with Mirrors by Agatha Christie (1952)

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Favourite books read in November:

The Secret Keeper and I am the Mask Maker

Authors read for the first time in November:

Lia Mills, Pam Jenoff, Kate Riordan

Places visited in my November reading:

France, Ireland, England, Germany, Australia, Japan, Italy, Wales, Ancient Greece