The Conviction of Cora Burns by Carolyn Kirby

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The question of nature versus nurture lies at the heart of Carolyn Kirby’s dark and fascinating debut novel, The Conviction of Cora Burns. Are people born good or bad or is it their upbringing that determines their behaviour? Is it inevitable that some people will commit acts of evil or does this depend on their early influences and the way they have experienced the world? These ideas are explored through the fictional story of Cora Burns.

Born in a prison cell, Cora is raised in Birmingham’s Union Workhouse before going on to work as a laundry maid in the Borough Lunatic Asylum. It’s not the best of starts in life and by the time Cora is twenty she has served a prison sentence herself. At the beginning of the novel, in 1885, she has just been released and is about to take up a new position as ‘between maid’ in the household of the scientist Thomas Jerwood – not her ideal job, but she quickly finds that other opportunities for women in her circumstances are very limited.

A fragment of a bronze medal engraved with the words ‘Imaginem Salt’ – a reminder of her childhood friend, Alice Salt – and vague memories of a crime so terrible she has blotted out the details from her mind are all she has left of her earlier life and she is determined to make a fresh start. As she settles into her new home, Cora begins to befriend Violet, a young girl who appears to be the subject of Mr Jerwood’s experiments. But is Cora being experimented on herself – and if so, what will be discovered? Meanwhile, she decides to track down Alice Salt, the friend she hasn’t seen for years but who she believes holds the key to that terrible incident in her past.

As well as the nature or nuture debate that I’ve already mentioned, the novel incorporates many other interesting issues and themes, such as the effects of poverty, the treatment of prisoners and the mentally ill in Victorian Britain, and advances in science, psychology and technology (particularly photography). All of these things have an impact on Cora’s story, which is told in non-linear form, moving backwards and forwards between her present situation in Thomas Jerwood’s household and her childhood in the workhouse. Interspersed with these narratives are Jerwood’s reports to a scientific journal describing his latest research and theories and occasional updates from another doctor whose work may also shed some light on Cora’s past.

This is not an ‘easy’ read – you do need to concentrate to keep the various strands of the plot straight and you also need some patience as it takes a while for the different pieces of the story to fall into place, but it’s definitely worth it in the end. I should also warn you that the crime in which Cora was involved is a particularly chilling one and is described in detail, but I think this was necessary in order to illustrate the worst of Cora’s nature. Despite this, though, I could also see that Cora had plenty of good qualities and I hoped that she would eventually be able to move on from her past and find some happiness. Whether this does happen or not I will leave you to find out for yourself.

Finally, I loved the decision to set the story in Victorian Birmingham! It made a nice change from the many books set in Victorian London. This was an impressive first novel and I will be looking out for more from Carolyn Kirby.

Thanks to No Exit Press for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Left-Handed Death by Richard Hull

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I loved Richard Hull’s The Murder of My Aunt – it was one of the best books I read last year – but when I tried another of his classic crime novels, And Death Came Too, I was disappointed to find that it was a much more conventional murder mystery without the humour and originality I had expected based on my first experience. Left-Handed Death is my third Hull novel and I’m pleased to report that it’s another good one – not in the same class as The Murder of My Aunt, but much better than And Death Came Too.

This book was published in 1946, but is set slightly earlier, just before the end of World War II. It begins with Guy Reeves, one of the two directors of the Shergold Engineering Company, returning to his office after lunch and making a shocking confession to his co-director, Arthur Shergold: he has just murdered Barry Foster, a civil servant who has been investigating the company’s finances. Foster may have been on the point of revealing corruption within the company, something which matters to the Ministry he works for because the Shergold Company have been supplying government contracts throughout the war.

Reeves describes his actions of the afternoon to his partner, finishing with a detailed account of how he carried out the murder, then he heads to Scotland Yard where he repeats his confession to the police. Inspector Hardwick doesn’t believe him – why would somebody voluntarily admit to murder? – but he sends his men to Foster’s home where they discover that Foster is indeed dead and that it’s entirely possible that the murder could have taken place exactly as Reeves has described it. There seems little reason to investigate further, but Hardwick still has his doubts and sets out to prove that Reeves is innocent.

All of this happens in the first chapter of the book and I was immediately intrigued. Why would Reeves confess to a murder that he hadn’t committed? On the other hand, why would he confess to a murder that he had committed? And if he didn’t kill Foster, then who did? As Inspector Hardwick himself points out:

“I like my murders to start at the beginning with the corpse and go on to the end with the conviction. But when you start in the middle with the confession – well, all I can say is that it’s all wrong!”

As I continued to read, I started to form my own theory about what was happening and I was able to predict the solution before it was revealed, but I still enjoyed watching Hardwick and his fellow detectives sorting through the clues, looking for alibis, speaking to witnesses and gathering medical evidence. I thought the ending did let the rest of the book down slightly, though – surely there was room for one or two more twists!

As well as being an entertaining murder mystery, I found this book interesting because of the time period in which it is set. The story takes place right at the end of the war and that has an impact on the lives of the characters and on just about everything that happens in the novel. Guy Reeves’ description of the lavish meal he and Foster ate on the day of the murder, for example, provokes disapproval at a time when rationing is in place; the war makes it difficult to get hold of a doctor to examine the murdered man; Cynthia Trent, who works as a secretary at the Shergold Company, takes a walk in the countryside past an Italian prisoner-of-war camp; and Reeves himself has suffered an injury while serving in the army which has implications for the way in which the murder is carried out.

I will continue to read Richard Hull’s books in the hope that the others will be at least as good as this one, if not as good as The Murder of My Aunt. I suspect I probably started with his best book, but that doesn’t mean the others aren’t worth reading!

Thanks to Agora Books for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Walter Scott Prize shortlist of ‘favourite historical novels of all time’ revealed!

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The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction have revealed their shortlist of ten ‘favourite historical novels of all time’ as nominated by readers throughout the month of November. I’m pleased that one of my nominations (The Game of Kings) has made it onto the list, along with a lot of other books I’ve read, although I’m surprised by some of the titles as they are not necessarily books I would have expected to see shortlisted. Have a look at the list below and see what you think.

You can vote for the winner here on the Walter Scott Prize website. The poll closes on the 16th December and the winner will be announced in January.

Checkmate by Dorothy Dunnett
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff
The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
Waverley by Walter Scott
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

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Have you read any of these? Which do you think should win? What is your favourite historical novel of all time?

Six Degrees of Separation: From Sanditon to The Song of Achilles

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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 starting with Sanditon by Jane Austen. I haven’t read it – I do like Austen but am not as big a fan as many people are and haven’t yet ventured past her main six novels. However, I do know that Sanditon was unfinished at the time of her death.

Thinking about other unfinished novels, The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens immediately came to mind, but I used that one in another Six Degrees post quite recently, along with another, Elizabeth Gaskell’s unfinished Wives and Daughters. This made me think a bit harder and then I remembered Lord Byron’s Fragment of a Novel (1), his attempt at writing a vampire story which he never completed. I’m particularly pleased with this link because apparently Sanditon was also first published under the title Fragment of a Novel.

The stories of Byron and his fellow Romantic Poets, Keats and Shelley, are told in Passion by Jude Morgan (2). I love Morgan’s writing and I thought this was an excellent book, focusing on the roles women such as Mary Shelley, Caroline Lamb and Augusta Leigh played in the poets’ lives.

Another book about poets is Possession by AS Byatt (3), although the poets in this one – Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte – are fictional. The novel follows two modern day academics as they study the lives of Ash and LaMotte, delving into letters, poems, fairy tales and journal entries, which Byatt presents as if they were authentic Victorian documents.

My copy of Possession has butterflies on the cover. So does The Specimen by Martha Lea (4), a book which had many of the elements I usually enjoy in a book – a mystery to be solved, a Victorian setting, strong female characters – yet it turned out to be disappointing. You can’t love every book you read, I suppose.

The main character in The Specimen is a young woman called Gwen who travels to Brazil to study and draw plants and insects. Another book about a woman trying to break into the male-dominated field of natural sciences is Song of the Sea Maid by Rebecca Mascull (5), set in Portugal and the Berlengas islands in the middle of the 18th century. I did love that book!

For my final link, I’m taking the word ‘song’ in the title. I had a few books to choose from here, but decided on The Song of Achilles (6), Madeline Miller’s beautiful retelling of the Iliad, told from the perspective of Patroclus, who is portrayed in the novel as Achilles’ lover.

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Well, that’s my chain for this month. My links included unfinished novels, poets, butterflies and songs. In January, we’ll be starting with Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid which, coincidentally, I just started to read yesterday.

The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan by Cynthia Jefferies

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Cynthia Jefferies is probably better known as an established children’s author writing under the name of Cindy Jefferies, but she has recently turned her hand to writing novels for adults, of which The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan was her first. It was the title and cover that caught my attention at first, then when I read what the book was about I thought it sounded like something I was almost certain to enjoy.

The story begins in 1660, with Christopher Morgan returning to England following the restoration of Charles II, having spent several years in exile with the others who fought on the side of the Royalists in England’s recent civil war. Christopher no longer has any interest in taking his place at court and intends to start a new life for himself and his family as owners of the wonderfully named Rumfustian Inn in the village of Dario, but his dreams are destroyed when his beloved wife dies in childbirth. Sinking into depression, he is sustained only by his relationship with his baby son, Abel, whom he raises alone with the help of the servants.

As the years go by, the two become closer than ever, but when Christopher makes an enemy of a local smuggler, he and Abel both pay a terrible price. Abel disappears while out riding his pony and Christopher’s only clue to his whereabouts is a mysterious map of Constantinople. Does this show where Abel has been taken? Christopher isn’t sure, but he’s determined to do whatever it takes to find his son. While he continues to search, however, Abel himself is having adventures of his own…

The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan is best described as a good old-fashioned adventure story – a sort of cross between Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and Daphne du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn. With smugglers, secret tunnels, sinister villains, pirate ships and action on the high seas, it’s a fun and entertaining read – yet I didn’t love it as much as I felt I should have done. While I had a lot of sympathy for Christopher, I never warmed to Abel at all; I found him quite selfish and some of his actions towards the end of the book made me actively dislike him. As half of the novel was narrated from his perspective, this was definitely a problem for me. I was also confused by the storyline which plays out in Constantinople as it seems to have very little bearing on the rest of the story and a villain introduced in this section didn’t have the impact I expected him to have.

Still, I was kept in suspense throughout the novel, wondering whether Christopher and Abel would ever meet again. The main theme of the love between father and son is handled with sensitivity and emotion and I had tears in my eyes several times towards the end of the book – which I always think is a sign that an author is doing something right! I would be happy to read more of Cynthia Jefferies’ adult novels; her new one, The Honourable Life of Thomas Chayne, is out now.

Thanks to Allison & Busby for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

The Boy with Blue Trousers by Carol Jones

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I love learning about the histories and cultures of different countries, so I was pleased to find that Australian author Carol Jones’ new novel, The Boy with Blue Trousers, is set in not one location but two – the mulberry groves of China and the goldfields of Australia – and introduces us to two women leading very different lives.

In 1850s China, seventeen-year-old Little Cat is growing up in a small village on the Pearl River Delta. Like the other girls in her community, she spends her days picking mulberry leaves and teasing out the threads from silkworm cocoons to produce reels of silk. It’s hard work, but it is the only life Little Cat has known and, now that she is approaching adulthood, she is growing nervous about what the future may hold. What sort of marriage will the matchmaker arrange for her? Will her husband and his family be kind? Will she have to go and live in another village far away from her own?

In the end, though, none of these things matter to Little Cat, because a disastrous encounter with the village headman, Big Wu, forces her to flee the country in fear of her life. Disguised as a boy, she embarks on a ship bound for Australia where she will join the hundreds of men heading there from China who are hoping to make their fortune in the goldfields.

Meanwhile, another young woman, Violet Hartley, has recently arrived in Australia. Violet, a governess, is trying to escape from her own past in England, and Australia seems like a place full of opportunities. When her first job, looking after two small children, proves to be not quite what she’d hoped for, she decides to accompany the Chinese immigrants on their journey – a decision that leads to her path crossing with Little Cat’s and tying the two separate threads of the story together.

The Boy with Blue Trousers is written in the form of two alternating narratives, so that we spend one or two chapters with Little Cat before switching to Violet for a while and then back again. This allows us to get to know both characters equally well and to see how, although they are living in very different environments, they face similar struggles as unconventional, independent women who don’t conform to the expectations of their respective societies. I have to admit, I didn’t like Violet at all; while I did have sympathy for her situation and the loss of her reputation following an affair with a married man in England – unfair when the man involved didn’t suffer in the same way – I just didn’t find her a very appealing character, especially in comparison to Little Cat, whom I loved.

I had a few problems with this book – apart from not liking Violet, I thought the way in which her story came together with Little Cat’s and the reaction they had to each other felt odd and unconvincing – but I was impressed by the sense of place Carol Jones creates. I particularly liked the descriptions of the mulberry trees, river banks, alleys and courtyards of Sandy Bottom Village, Little Cat’s home in the Pearl River Delta, but the coastal landscape of Robetown in South Australia is also beautifully portrayed.

Carol Jones is not an author I’ve come across until now, but I see she has written another novel, The Concubine’s Child, set in Malaysia, which also sounds interesting. If any of you have read that one, let me know what you thought.

Thanks to Head of Zeus for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

My Commonplace Book: November 2019

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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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It had made Sarah think mournfully of the wasted potential of Mrs Simpson’s sister, Mina, her talents and intelligence unnurtured as she sought only to marry well. And this was to say nothing of the wasted potential of all those women who inhabited the realm below stairs, where she, until recently, had been confined. How many Shakespeares, how many Newtons – how many Simpsons for that matter – had we lost because they were born of a gender that was denied the chance to shine?

The Art of Dying by Ambrose Parry (2019)

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If you take the time and the trouble to look at his life he will emerge as a man of courage and ambition, a man of self-doubt and modesty. He could be merciful or he could be ruthless, depending on the situation and whatever he felt was required. But he could equally be seen as someone who was also filled with humanity.

Following in the Footsteps of Henry Tudor by Phil Carradice (2019)

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‘Things get difficult,” she said. ‘As one gets more money and more conventional in one’s ordinary routine, conventional people get in. Then the trouble is that the word “conventional” doesn’t mean what it used to any more. I mean, people aren’t necessarily honest or pleasant or kind just because they happen to be conventional. You get them in the house, and they play the devil with you because you’re unprepared and unarmed. You’re simple, unsuspecting, natural people. Everyone can see what you are at a glance. Their conventionality cloaks them. It’s their disguise. They beat you when it comes to it.’

The Allingham Minibus by Margery Allingham (1973)

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An Australian goldfield c. 1855

In her entire life, Violet had not been alone for longer than a few hours. What might it be like to be alone in the bush for days, a dog one’s only companion? Yet being alone wasn’t a prerequisite for loneliness. One could be alone in a house full of people. One could find oneself alone, lying abed with a lover. One could find oneself alone in the midst of a conversation.

The Boy with Blue Trousers by Carol Jones (2019)

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In my analogy, the production of a man is likened to the manufacture of a photographic print. The flash of creation (by which I mean conception in the case of the human and a timed exposure of light in the case of the photograph) determines the influence of Nature. It is then Nurture (upbringing in the case of the human, or the developing process in the case of the negative plate) which provides the detail, the finesse and the fulfilment of the final outcome. Any photographer, amateur or otherwise, will tell you the many ways in which inadequate skills in the developing room can alter or indeed ruin a perfectly good image.

The Conviction of Cora Burns by Carolyn Kirby (2019)

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Fiction had never been Jackson’s thing. Facts seemed challenging enough without making stuff up. What he discovered was that the great novels of the world were about three things – death, money and sex. Occasionally a whale.

Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson (2010)

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Portrait of Elizabeth Woodville c. 1472

The subject of this present study seems recently to have become known in historical fiction as ‘the White Queen’. But of course, historical fiction is not reality. In reality, as she herself knew very well (and it worried her greatly), it was and is definitely questionable whether Elizabeth Widville should really be accepted as a genuine queen. As for her associated colour, on the basis of the flower emblem which she herself chose and adopted, it seems it would actually be more accurate to call her ‘pink’ rather than ‘white’. An additional advantage of referring to her colour as pink lies in the fact that it also highlights her having been eventually acknowledged as of royal status by both white rose and red rose kings (Edward IV and Henry VII).

Elizabeth Widville, Lady Grey by John Ashdown-Hill (2019)

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Perhaps, James considered, for a contented life to be possible, no man could have everything he wanted, because if he did, he would want not to have everything, or else to die. Life was not a life if there was nothing left to achieve.

The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan by Cynthia Jefferies (2018)

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‘Beauty is for everyone,’ he continued. ‘It’s not just for the rich. Why should less fortunate people live in cheap and ugly places?’

‘There’s no reason!’ Andreas agreed with enthusiasm.

It was in an equal society that Nikos believed and it motivated every stroke of his pencil.

Those Who Are Loved by Victoria Hislop (2019)

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(L to R) Ching-ling, Ei-ling and May-ling – the Soong sisters

‘We learn from observation that no nation can rise to distinction unless her women are educated and considered as man’s equal morally, socially, and intellectually…China’s progress must come largely through her educated women.’

Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister by Jung Chang (2019)

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Favourite book read in November:

Those Who Are Loved

New authors read in November:

Phil Carradice, Carol Jones, Carolyn Kirby, John Ashdown-Hill, Cynthia Jefferies

Countries visited in my November reading:

Scotland, Wales, England, China, Australia, Greece, Turkey, Jamaica

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Have you read any of these books? Which books did you enjoy reading in November?