Britannia Mews by Margery Sharp

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I discovered Margery Sharp through Jane of Beyond Eden Rock who, for the last few years, has been hosting an annual Margery Sharp Day on the author’s birthday. This year, Jane is doing something slightly different: she has put together a Birthday Book of Underappreciated Lady Authors to celebrate the work of some of her favourite writers throughout the year. Margery Sharp is first on the list and as I’ve enjoyed her books in the past, I wanted to join in.

Britannia Mews (1946) is my fourth Margery Sharp novel and probably my favourite so far. Beginning in the 1870s and taking us through to the 1940s, it follows the story of Adelaide Culver from childhood to old age. We first meet Adelaide as a curious ten-year-old exploring Britannia Mews, a London street inhabited by servants and coachmen – a street which is considered less than respectable and off limits to middle-class children like Adelaide. Returning to the Culver’s comfortable townhouse in nearby Albion Place, Adelaide has no idea that in just a few years’ time Britannia Mews will be her home.

It’s all cousin Alice’s fault; if she hadn’t been suffering from a cold and missed their drawing lesson, Adelaide would never have been left alone with their drawing master, Henry Lambert, and then he might never have told her that he loved her. But Alice does have a cold and Mr Lambert does declare his love for Adelaide – and Adelaide, despite knowing that her parents will disapprove, does agree to marry him.

Their marriage takes place on the day the rest of the Culver family move away to a lovely new house in the countryside. Adelaide, meanwhile, is moving into Mr Lambert’s rooms above a coach house in Britannia Mews. Estranged from her family, living in what is rapidly becoming a slum and finding that her new husband is not quite the person she thought he was, married life proves to be very challenging for Adelaide. When she finally has the opportunity to escape from Britannia Mews, however, she must decide whether she really wants to leave the street that has become her home.

Britannia Mews is very different from the other books I’ve read by Margery Sharp – The Nutmeg Tree, The Flowering Thorn and Cluny Brown. All three of those are lovely novels but they are much lighter in tone and, although Britannia Mews is not entirely without its moments of wit and humour, in general this is a darker and more serious story. I don’t want to give the impression that it’s a depressing one, though, because it isn’t. Yes, Adelaide’s life is difficult, at least at first, but it’s her own life – she has made her own choices and had to live with them, made her own mistakes and had to find her own solutions. Unlike her cousin Alice, who represents the ideal of what a Victorian woman should be, Adelaide is unconventional, independent and, by the time the twentieth century arrives, an inspiration to the younger generation.

One woman in particular who belongs to the younger generation is Dorothy – Dodo – Baker, daughter of Adelaide’s cousin Alice. Like Adelaide before her, Dodo feels stifled by the middle-class circles in which her parents move and she knows she wants something different out of life. Britannia Mews, which by the 1920s has become a lively and fashionable address, is, for Dodo as well as for Adelaide, a symbol of freedom and the opportunity to be who you want to be. The second half of the novel is very much Dodo’s story rather than Adelaide’s; it took me a while to adjust to the change of heroine but once I did I found Dodo just as interesting to read about. I enjoyed watching her get to know the Lamberts and waiting to see whether she would uncover the secret they had kept hidden for so many years.

Of course, the most important character of all is Britannia Mews itself, a street which seems to cast a spell over those who live there, pulling them back every time they might think about leaving. I loved reading about the changing nature of the street over the years and the people who inhabited it at various times in its history. I was also fascinated by the descriptions of the Puppet Theatre which Adelaide opens in one of the old coach-houses and the magnificent hand-made puppets created by Henry Lambert.

This was a wonderful choice of book to celebrate Margery Sharp’s birthday this year and I’m hoping to join in with some of Jane’s other Birthday Book authors in the months to come.

The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar

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The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock opens in 1785 with merchant Jonah Hancock sitting in his London counting house waiting for his ship to return. Imagine his horror when his captain arrives at the door and confesses that he has sold the ship in exchange for a mermaid. The captain assures him that people will come from all over the world to see the mermaid and that it will make him a fortune, but Mr Hancock is not at all convinced…

Angelica Neal has been living in comfort as the mistress of a rich duke. When the duke dies, leaving her with nothing, Angelica needs to find another way to support herself. The obvious solution is to return to her former employment in Mrs Chappell’s brothel, but Angelica is more ambitious these days and decides to make her own way in the world instead. Her path crosses with Mr Hancock’s when his mermaid is exhibited at a party she is attending and an unlikely friendship begins to form between these two very different people.

The first thing to say about The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock is that although mermaids and the legends surrounding them are symbolically important to the story, the part they play in the novel is relatively small. This could be a good or a bad thing depending on how you feel about magical realism, but be aware that the mermaid element of the story might not be what you are expecting. Their role is similar, in some ways, to the role of the serpent in Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, one of several books to which this one has been compared.

As for the humans, I thought Angelica and Mr Hancock were both interesting, well drawn characters. Whenever the ambitious, strong-willed Angelica appeared on the page I was reminded of Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair and Sugar from The Crimson Petal and the White. It took me a while to warm to her and I still can’t say whether I actually liked her, but I did have some sympathy for her and, by the end, some admiration as well. Jonah Hancock is a very different type of character – a quiet, humble, middle-aged widower who is haunted by memories of his wife and son. Since their deaths, he has allowed his sister Hester and niece Sukie to take charge of his life, but his relationship with Angelica introduces another dynamic into the household.

There’s a colourful cast of secondary characters too, particularly the girls from the ‘nunnery’ as they ironically call it, and their grotesque ‘abbess’, Mrs Chappell, but I found that I was less interested in finding out what would happen to these characters than I was in reading about Mr Hancock and Angelica. One of them, Polly – a prostitute from a mixed race background who finds herself, like the mermaid, viewed as a sort of curiosity by the men who visit the brothel – had a lot of potential but her storyline was not really developed until late in the book.

The novel’s setting (Georgian England) is one I usually like and I was quite impressed by the author’s attention to detail and her attempts to recreate an 18th century world. The language and dialogue generally feels suited to the period, although I think Francis Spufford’s wonderful Golden Hill does this more effectively. Actually, it’s difficult to read this book without drawing comparisons with Golden Hill and if you enjoy one of them I think there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy the other!

The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock will be published in the UK on Thursday and although I didn’t love it as unreservedly as I’d hoped, I predict it will be a big success for Imogen Hermes Gowar.

Thanks to Harvill Secker for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Traitor by David Hingley

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This is the third in a series of novels featuring Mercia Blakewood, a 17th century Englishwoman recruited by Charles II to carry out secret missions on his behalf. If you think that sounds far-fetched, it is worth noting that while Mercia is a fictional character, the King really did employ female spies, among them the playwright and novelist Aphra Behn. I haven’t read Mercia’s earlier adventures, but Traitor sounded so intriguing that I jumped at the chance to read it despite my usual preference for starting a series at the beginning.

The novel opens in 1665 and even without having read the previous novels, I quickly picked up all the background information I needed to be able to understand and follow the story. I discovered that Mercia’s father has been branded a traitor and executed following the English Civil War. His manor house has ended up in the possession of Mercia’s uncle, Sir Francis, but Mercia has not given up hope of regaining it, hence her desire to win the King’s favour.

At the beginning of the novel she has arrived back in England from America where she had been sent on a quest for the King and became caught up in the capture of New Amsterdam, now renamed New York. She has barely set foot on the shore when she receives a summons from Charles’ mistress, Barbara Palmer, Lady Castlemaine, who explains her next task to her. The country is now at war with the Dutch and it seems that someone close to the War Council is passing on secrets to the enemy. Mercia’s task is to identify the spy – a woman using the code name Virgo – but her investigations could endanger her own life as well as her young son’s.

I love books set in the seventeenth century but while I’ve read quite a lot about subjects such as the Civil War, the restoration of Charles II, the plague and the Great Fire of London, the specific setting for this novel – the Second Anglo-Dutch War – is something I’ve come across less often. Although the focus is on Mercia’s personal mission and her efforts to uncover the spy, the war provides an interesting backdrop for the story.

Mercia is a strong heroine and despite not having read the first two books in which she appears, I felt that I knew her well by the end of the novel. Other characters who stood out for me were Nicholas Wildmoor, the servant who has accompanied Mercia to and from America, and One-Eye, a sinister old woman who runs a ring of smugglers. There are also five suspects who could each be Virgo and although some of these characters are less developed than others, they are representative of different opinions and different positions in society. Helen Cartwright, for example, is delighted with the black boy, Tacitus, whom she receives as a gift and uses as a sort of fashion accessory, whereas Lavinia Whent has seen the results of slavery first hand in Barbados and has returned with more progressive ideas. Mercia herself is modern enough in her views to make her easy for a modern reader to like and identify with, but not so much that she feels entirely out of place in the seventeenth century either.

The mystery element of the novel worked well. I didn’t guess who Virgo was, although I did have my suspicions as to who else might be involved and wanted to scream at Mercia not to trust anybody! Along the way there’s plenty of suspense as both Mercia and Nicholas get themselves into some difficult and dangerous situations.

This was the first book I finished in 2018 but I have held back my review until now so I could take part in the Traitor blog tour. Other stops on the tour are shown in the image below. As I’ve said, I prefer to read a series in the correct order, but I enjoyed this book so much I think I’ll have to go back and read Birthright and Puritan now!

Thanks to Allison & Busby for providing a copy of Traitor for review.

The Pearl Sister by Lucinda Riley

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The Pearl Sister is the fourth book in Lucinda Riley’s Seven Sisters series based loosely on the mythology of the Pleiades (or ‘seven sisters’) star cluster. There will eventually be seven novels each telling the story of one of the adopted daughters of a mysterious millionaire known as Pa Salt.

The girls, who are all from very different backgrounds and who grew up together in Switzerland on Pa Salt’s Lake Geneva estate, are named after the stars in the cluster – Maia, Alycone (Ally), Asterope (Star), Celaeno (CeCe), Taygete (Tiggy) and Electra D’Aplièse. There should have been a seventh sister, whose name would have been Merope, but for some reason which has not yet been revealed only six girls were adopted rather than seven. Pa Salt dies at the beginning of the series, leaving each sister some clues to help them trace their real parents, if they wish to do so.

The books could be read in any order as they all work as standalones, with only a small amount of overlap. The first book in the series, The Seven Sisters, tells Maia’s story, the second, The Storm Sister, tells Ally’s, and the third, The Shadow Sister, concentrates on Star. This time it’s CeCe’s turn. CeCe and Star are nearly the same age, being adopted as babies just a few months apart, and have always had a very close relationship. In the previous novel we saw the shy, quiet Star stepping out from CeCe’s shadow to build a life of her own, while The Pearl Sister begins with CeCe feeling rejected and left behind as Star moves on.

Pa Salt has left CeCe the name of an Australian pioneer and a black and white photograph to point her on her way, so she sets off for Australia, stopping in Thailand for a few weeks first. Following a trail which she hopes will lead to her own birth family, CeCe makes some discoveries which help her to understand who she really is.

CeCe’s story is set in the modern day, but we also follow the story of another woman and this one takes place in the early part of the twentieth century. It’s 1906 and Kitty McBride has left her home in Edinburgh to travel to Australia as a lady’s companion. Here she meets the Mercer family, who own both a pearl business and a cattle station, and becomes entangled with twin brothers Drummond and Andrew Mercer. When it becomes obvious that both of them are hoping to marry Kitty, she will have a big decision to make. Her choice will affect not only her own life but the lives of future generations as well.

Having read most of Lucinda Riley’s novels now, I think she deals with multiple time periods very well, spending long enough in each one for us to become fully immersed in the story before switching to the other. I enjoyed both of the storylines, but Kitty’s was more dramatic, filled with plot twists and surprises (as well as one or two coincidences which I thought stretched things a bit too far, although that wasn’t a big problem). I loved reading about Kitty’s involvement in the pearl industry and about her friendship with another strong and courageous woman, her maid Camira. CeCe’s storyline kept me turning the pages too. There’s a subplot involving a man she meets in Thailand which feels slightly disconnected from the rest of the story, but once she leaves Thailand and arrives in Australia things become more interesting.

Until I read this book, CeCe was one of my least favourites of the sisters; because of the way she behaved whenever we saw her together with Star, I thought she was a bossy and controlling person, but it seems I had misjudged her. In this novel, we see a very different side of CeCe and discover just how dependent she had been on Star. She has a lot of insecurities as a result of her dyslexia and her appearance – she is convinced that her sisters are all much prettier than she is – and after a bad experience at art college she has even lost confidence in her abilities as an artist. As she gets closer to discovering her roots, CeCe begins to grow as a person; she finds some independence, makes new friends and enters into new relationships. The CeCe we leave behind at the end of the book seems a much happier person than the one we met at the start!

Earlier this week I said that I wanted to incorporate more books set outside my own country into my reading this year. The Pearl Sister takes place in two: Thailand and Australia. I particularly enjoyed the Australian settings – Broome and then Alice Springs – and I was as interested as Kitty and CeCe in learning about the history and culture of the Aboriginal people.

Having had the chance to get to know four of the D’Aplièse sisters now, I’m looking forward to the next two books on Tiggy and Electra.

Thanks to the publisher for providing a copy of this book for review.

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish resolutions

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Starting this week, Top Ten Tuesday is now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Her first topic is “Bookish resolutions and goals”. I sometimes put a post like this together at the beginning of January but didn’t get round to it this year, so I’m posting it today instead.

I don’t set goals in terms of numbers (apart from the Goodreads Challenge which I use more as a way of keeping track of what I’ve read rather than an actual ‘challenge’) so I prefer to call this a list of resolutions. Some of these are the same as my resolutions from previous years (most of which I didn’t manage to keep) and others are new.

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1. Make more time for re-reads. I say this every year and never seem to do it. I re-read three books last year, because I needed to so I could finish my Classics Club list, but there are many more old favourites I would like to revisit as well. I will definitely try to re-read some of them this year!

2. Make some progress with my new Classics Club list. I posted my second list in November after completing my first one. The new list has 50 classics on it and a target date of 14th November 2022. So far I have only read one book from the list – Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather – but there are a lot of others I’m excited about reading.

3. Continue to work on my Walter Scott Prize project for which I’m working my way through all of the shortlisted titles since the prize was first awarded in 2010. This year’s shortlist will be announced in March, but I still have some from each of the previous years’ lists to read too.

4. Read more books set in different countries. Reading can be a great way to learn about the culture and history of countries other than our own. When I posted my analysis of the historical fiction I read in 2017, I found that the majority of the books I read last year were set in Britain, with the USA, France and Italy also well-represented. This year I want to include more books set in countries I know less about.

5. Join in with other bloggers’ projects or events which sound appealing e.g. Jane’s Birthday Book of Underappreciated Lady Authors (for which I’m currently reading Britannia Mews by Margery Sharp) and Karen and Simon’s club years (1977 Club is coming in April).

6. Request fewer books from NetGalley and get caught up with my backlog. I have had the opportunity to read some great books through NetGalley but it’s easy to find yourself requesting more than you know you’ll realistically have time to read. This year I want to limit the number I request until I’ve read all the books already on my NetGalley shelf.

7. Continue to work through some of the series that I’m in the middle of reading. I’m very good at starting them but not so good at continuing with them!

8. Read the books that I really want to read. There are a lot of books that I’ve been wanting to read for years and am sure I’m going to love, but that I’ve been avoiding reading because I’m ‘saving them for later’ or ‘want to have something to look forward to’. I’m aware of how silly this is, so 2018 is going to be the year I finally read those long-anticipated books!

9. Abandon books that I’m not enjoying. Sometimes I can tell almost immediately that a book is not for me, but sometimes I’m not sure and decide to keep going in the hope that it will get better – and then even when it doesn’t improve I still struggle on to the end.

10. Try to make every book I read a potential favourite book of the year. I know this won’t actually happen, but it’s what we would all like, isn’t it? Resolutions 1-9 should help with this!

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What resolutions, goals or plans do you have for your 2018 reading?

Historical Musings #34: Historical fiction to look out for in 2018

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This time last year, I put together a list of upcoming historical fiction releases that I was looking forward to in 2017. For my first Historical Musings post of 2018, I’ve decided to do the same.

The publication dates I’ve given are for the UK only and may be subject to change. The dates for other countries could be slightly different – maybe you’ve already had the opportunity to read some of these! I haven’t provided a synopsis for each book, but the ‘find out more’ links will take you to Goodreads or other sites where you can find more information.

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The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar
25 Jan 2018
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I’ve actually just finished reading this one but am still including it here as it hasn’t been published yet. You’ll have to wait to read my thoughts until later in the month.

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The Wicked Cometh by Laura Carlin
1 February 2018
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This sounds like a book I should enjoy; a dark and atmospheric novel set in 1830s London. I have a review copy so should be reading it very soon.

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The Coffin Path by Katherine Clements
8 February 2018
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Having read Katherine Clements’ first two novels, I have been looking forward to her third one. A ghost story set in seventeenth century Yorkshire, it sounds a bit different from her others.

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Templar Silks by Elizabeth Chadwick
1 March 2018
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Elizabeth Chadwick’s new novel is another to feature William Marshal, the hero of several of her earlier books. I still haven’t read The Scarlet Lion, so I’m planning to read it while I’m waiting for Templar Silks.

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The Fire Court by Andrew Taylor
5 April 2018
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Andrew Taylor’s latest historical mystery is the sequel to The Ashes of London. James Marwood and Cat Lovett are investigating a series of murders which take place in the aftermath of the Great Fire of London, as the city is starting to rebuild.

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Circe by Madeline Miller
19 April 2018
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It’s been a long wait since Madeline Miller’s first novel, The Song of Achilles, was published in 2011, but Circe is here at last. I’m expecting another combination of Greek mythology and historical fiction, this time telling the story of the witch Circe from the Odyssey.

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Jane Seymour, the Haunted Queen by Alison Weir
3 May 2018
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The third book in Alison Weir’s Six Tudor Queens series about the six wives of Henry VIII is, unsurprisingly, the story of Jane Seymour. I have read about Jane less often than Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, so I’ve been looking forward to this one. I’m not sure why Jane is ‘the haunted queen’ but maybe I’ll find out when I read the book.

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Queen of the North by Anne O’Brien
31 May 2018
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I have enjoyed several of Anne O’Brien’s previous novels, so I’m sure I’ll be reading her new one. Queen of the North will tell the story of Elizabeth Mortimer, great-granddaughter of Edward III and wife of Henry Percy (better known as Hotspur).

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The Poison Bed by EC Fremantle
14 June 2018
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This historical thriller seems to be a slight change of direction for Elizabeth Fremantle (author of novels such as The Queen’s Gambit and Watch the Lady), which must be why it’s being published under a different name. I can’t wait to read it, especially as the subject of the novel (the Overbury Scandal of 1615) is something I read about for the first time just last year.

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The Romanov Empress by CW Gortner
10 July 2018
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I love Russian history so I’m looking forward to CW Gortner’s new novel which is about Maria Feodorovna, mother of the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II.

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The Story Keeper by Anna Mazzola
26 July 2018
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This is Anna Mazzola’s second novel (I read her first, The Unseeing, last year) and it sounds fascinating: a “period novel of folk tales, disappearances and injustice set on the Isle of Skye”.

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Court of Wolves by Robyn Young
9 August 2018
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Not much information available about this one yet, but it will be the second in Robyn Young’s New World Rising series which began with Sons of the Blood and is set in Renaissance Europe.

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A Gathering of Ghosts by Karen Maitland
6 Sept 2018
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This sounds like a good one to read later in the year when the nights are getting darker. It’s described as a medieval thriller in which “Religious fervour meets pagan superstition”. Maitland is another author whom I have previously enjoyed, so I will definitely be looking out for this one in September.

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A few others I’m interested in reading:

Dear Mrs Bird by AJ Pearce – 5 April 2018
The Cursed Wife by Pamela Hartshorne – 19 April 2018
The Sealwoman’s Gift by Sally Magnusson – 3 May 2018
The Illumination of Ursula Flight by Anna-Marie Crowhurst – 3 May 2018
The House of Gold by Natasha Solomons – 3 May 2018
The Pharmacist’s Wife by Vanessa Tait – 4 May 2018
The Tudor Crown by Joanna Hickson – 31 May 2018
For the Immortal by Emily Hauser – 14 June 2018
The Dying of the Light by Robert Goolrick – 3 July 2018

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Are you looking forward to any of these books – or have you already had the chance to read some of them? Which other historical fiction novels coming in 2018 have caught your eye?

The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton

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This 1908 novel from the author of the Father Brown mystery series is subtitled A Nightmare and it certainly does have a dreamlike feel. I picked it up expecting a vintage detective novel and emerged at the other end wondering what on earth I had just been reading and what it meant.

The novel opens with a conversation between two men who meet for the first time one evening in Saffron Park in London. One, Lucian Gregory, is an anarchist poet; the other, Gabriel Syme, is a member of the secret anti-anarchist police. They spend the whole of the first chapter debating the meanings of anarchy and of law and order, using arguments like this:

Gregory struck out with his stick at the lamp-post, and then at the tree. “About this and this,” he cried; “about order and anarchy. There is your precious order, that lean, iron lamp, ugly and barren; and there is anarchy, rich, living, reproducing itself—there is anarchy, splendid in green and gold.”

“All the same,” replied Syme patiently, “just at present you only see the tree by the light of the lamp. I wonder when you would ever see the lamp by the light of the tree.”

And this:

“An artist disregards all governments, abolishes all conventions. The poet delights in disorder only. If it were not so, the most poetical thing in the world would be the Underground Railway.”

“So it is,” said Mr. Syme.

“Nonsense!” said Gregory, who was very rational when anyone else attempted paradox.

It seems they will never agree, but to at least prove that he is serious about his cause, Gregory invites Syme to accompany him to an underground meeting of anarchists. Gregory gets more than he bargained for, however, when Syme puts himself forward for a position in which he himself had been interested: one of seven coveted seats on the Council of the Seven Days, the central council of the European anarchists.

Elected to the council and given the code name Thursday, Syme is introduced to his fellow days of the week, but will he be able to prevent them from guessing that he is an undercover policeman? And who is Sunday, their mysterious and sinister leader who is so big, so powerful and so much larger than life?

I don’t think there is much more I can say about the plot without spoiling the story. I can’t discuss the themes of the novel either, or the symbolism it contains, because those things are also spoilers. It’s such a strange and unusual book that I really think it’s best not to know too much about it before you begin. Just be aware that it’s not a conventional mystery or detective novel (or a conventional anything). There are parts that I loved, such as a scene where Syme is followed through the streets of London in the snow; there are funny moments too, some witty and amusing dialogue, and lots of thought-provoking philosophical ideas. At other times it becomes a little bit too bizarre, particularly after the action moves to France halfway through the book.

There are plot twists throughout the novel, some of which are quite predictable – but the revelations near the end of the book were not what I had been expecting at all. Looking back, there were plenty of hints and clues, but I didn’t pick up on them. I’m sure I didn’t fully grasp what Chesterton was trying to say, but I think there are probably different ways to interpret this book anyway. It certainly left me with a lot to think about and I love it when that happens – when you continue to engage with a story even after you’ve turned the final page.

I don’t have any more of Chesterton’s books, but I see there are some I could read for free at Project Gutenberg. I have previously read two of his Father Brown short stories (included in Miraculous Mysteries and Murder Under the Christmas Tree); should I read more of those or is there another of his books that you would recommend?