The Golden Horn by Poul Anderson

December 15, 2015December 15, 20158 Comments

Poul Anderson (1926-2001) was an American author of fantasy and science fiction, but he also wrote a trilogy of historical novels, known as The Last Viking, which tells the story of Harald Hardrada, who was King of Norway from 1046 to 1066. I have read about Harald before, but only as a minor character or in relation to the Norman Conquest of 1066 and the role he played in trying to claim the throne of England, so I was looking forward to reading The Golden Horn and learning more about his life.

Harald Sigurdharson (the name Hardrada or Hardrede, meaning “hard ruler”, will follow later) is the younger half-brother of Olaf II of Norway. Harald is only fifteen years old when he fights alongside Olaf at the Battle of Stiklastadh (Stiklestad) in an attempt to restore his brother to the Norwegian throne, which has been lost to King Canute of Denmark. Olaf is killed during the battle, his forces are defeated and Harald manages to escape. The Golden Horn, the first book in the trilogy, follows Harald throughout his time in exile as he waits for his chance to come home to Norway and reclaim the throne.

After recovering from being badly wounded at Stiklastadh, Harald flees to Russia with the help of Rognvald Brusason of Orkney. In Kiev, he meets the Grand Prince Yaroslav who makes him a captain in his army. Later, Harald continues south to Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, where he becomes commander of the Varangian Guard. The next few years are spent on various military campaigns in and around Constantinople and the Mediterranean. During this time Harald amasses great wealth, makes a name for himself as a warrior, and enters into marriage with Princess Ellisif (Elisaveta) of Kiev.

The Golden Horn was not quite what I was expecting: not being very familiar with Harald’s story, I hadn’t realised so much of the novel would be set in Constantinople rather than Scandinavia (although the title should have been a clue; the golden horn was the name of the horn-shaped harbour of Constantinople). I didn’t mind, though, as I loved this setting and enjoyed following the intrigue surrounding the Byzantine Empress Zoe Porphyrogenita, her husband Michael IV, and her sister Theodora. Harald is back in Norway by the end of the novel, so I imagine the next two books in the trilogy will be the ‘Viking’ stories I had expected.

What I liked less were the battle scenes and the focus on Harald’s military career with the Varangian Guard, which seemed to come at the expense of character development and the emotional connections which are so important to me in fiction. I never felt that I got to dig beneath the surface and really get to know Harald – or any of the other characters in the book – and that was disappointing. Still, it was good to have the chance to learn a little bit about Harald’s life, even if I sometimes felt overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of historical facts, which I felt could have been woven more smoothly into the fabric of the story.

The Golden Horn is followed by The Road of the Sea Horse and The Sign of the Raven. All three novels were originally published in 1980. I don’t think I’ll be reading the other two as this book just wasn’t really for me, but I would have no hesitation in recommending the trilogy to readers who are interested in this period and who look for different things in historical fiction than I do.

Thanks to Open Road Integrated Media for providing a review copy via NetGalley.

Historical Musings #9: Reading broadly or reading narrowly?

December 13, 2015January 10, 201618 Comments

In my fourth Historical Musings post back in July, I asked about favourite time periods in historical fiction. This month’s post is on a similar theme: when you read historical fiction, do you stick to one or two periods or are you happy to try anything and everything?

I am genuinely interested in most historical periods (I’ve always been less drawn to Ancient history, although that may be starting to change) and I feel that I read about a wide range of them. Looking back at the historical fiction I’ve read so far this year, I have read novels set during both World Wars, the English Civil War, the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars and the fall of Constantinople. I have read books set in Renaissance Italy, medieval England, 16th century Scotland and 19th century China – and too many others to list here.

I certainly don’t claim to be an expert on any of the historical periods or subjects that I like to read about, but there are some that I find myself reading more often than others – particularly the Tudors and the Wars of the Roses. To take the latter as an example, according to the list I have compiled here, I have read and reviewed 22 books on the Wars of the Roses since I started blogging in 2009 (19 fiction and 3 non-fiction). However, when I read other people’s reviews of the same books, I am often amazed and impressed by other readers’ depth of knowledge and their ability to spot minor historical errors that I hadn’t even noticed. This leads me to wonder whether some people (assuming they are not actually historians or students of the period) are simply better at retaining and remembering information than I am, or whether they have been focusing their reading on that one particular period to a greater extent than I have.

I can see the advantages of reading with a ‘narrow’ focus – gaining different perspectives on the same subjects, seeing how different authors portray the same characters, and adding to and expanding on existing knowledge. But while I do enjoy – and will continue to search out – books on the Wars of the Roses and my other favourite periods, I would get bored if I read about them all the time. I also love to discover new times and places about which I previously knew little or nothing. Some of my favourite new discoveries in 2015 have been the First Opium War (Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis Trilogy), the reigns of the 7th century kings of Northumbria (Edoardo Albert’s Northumbrian Thrones Trilogy), 18th century Portugal (The Devil on her Tongue by Linda Holeman) and the life of Cicero (Imperium and Lustrum by Robert Harris).

If some readers like to read ‘narrowly’, as I have described it here, I’m sure there are others who prefer to read very ‘broadly’ as far as historical fiction is concerned – and once they have read one or two novels with a particular setting, are happy with the knowledge they’ve gained and are ready to move on to something else. For me, though, neither reading narrowly nor broadly is enough: I like to do a mixture of both, which is probably why I always feel that there aren’t enough hours in the day!

What about you? Do you like to read as much as possible on one historical period or topic – or do you prefer to read about as many different ones as you can?

The Sea-Hawk by Rafael Sabatini

December 11, 201512 Comments

I love Rafael Sabatini! I can always count on him when I’m in the mood for a good old-fashioned adventure story (which is often) and The Sea-Hawk has it all: treachery, betrayal, revenge, duels, kidnapping and piracy on the high seas. It’s a similar story in some ways to his later pirate novel, Captain Blood, but I think I enjoyed this one slightly more.

Published in 1915, The Sea-Hawk is set in the sixteenth century during the reign of Elizabeth I. Our hero is Sir Oliver Tressilian, a gentleman and former sailor from Cornwall who has worked hard to restore his family’s reputation which had been tarnished by the behaviour of his late father. Sir Oliver is betrothed to the beautiful Rosamund Godolphin who returns his love despite the fact that her brother Peter hates the Tressilians due to a family feud. When Peter is killed in a duel the blame falls on Oliver – and while the reader knows that Oliver is innocent, Rosamund does not. Things quickly go from bad to worse for Oliver and he finds himself sold into slavery and sent to the Barbary Coast at the oars of a Spanish galley.

At home in England Rosamund continues to believe Oliver to be the murderer of her brother, while the real culprit stays quiet and benefits from Oliver’s absence by claiming his estates, as well as the woman he loves. Several months later, in Algiers, we meet a Muslim corsair known as Sakr-el-Bahr, or ‘hawk of the sea’. Sakr-el-Bahr’s pirating skills have won the admiration of Asad-ed-Din, the Basha of Algiers, who claims to love him as a son – but this has made him a target of the Basha’s Sicilian wife, the scheming Fenzileh, and her jealous son Marzak. I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to tell you that Sakr-el-Bahr is, of course, Sir Oliver, who is preparing to return to Cornwall to take his revenge…

Having read three of Sabatini’s other novels, I’ve come to know what to expect from him – and The Sea-Hawk definitely lived up to my expectations. I’m finding that his books all follow a similar pattern (at least, the ones I’ve read do) in which the hero suffers a betrayal or injustice of some kind, undergoes a transformation and plots his revenge/attempts to clear his name, while being completely misunderstood and misjudged by his love interest. Sir Oliver is a great character; he’s not always easy to like, but considering everything he is forced to endure, it would be difficult not to want things to work out for him in the end. Rosamund is a frustrating heroine, though, being so quick to think the worst of Oliver – but to be fair, she doesn’t share the reader’s knowledge that he is innocent.

The setting is great too. I particularly loved the chapters set in Algiers, in which Sabatini immerses us in the culture, religion and history of the Barbary coast, with some vivid descriptions of the labyrinths of narrow streets, souks and slave markets, and the courtyards, archways and orchards of the Basha’s palace. The focus on the Barbary corsairs rather than the pirates of the Caribbean gives the book a different feel and a different atmosphere from Captain Blood – and I was pleased to find that there was plenty of land-based action as well as ship-based (as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I’m not usually a big fan of books set at sea).

As I’ve now read the four novels which are probably Sabatini’s most popular – Scaramouche, Captain Blood, The Sea-Hawk and Bellarion – I would appreciate any recommendations as to which of his books to read next.

The Storm Sister by Lucinda Riley

December 9, 20154 Comments

The Storm Sister is the second book in Lucinda Riley’s ambitious new series, The Seven Sisters. Based on the mythology surrounding the Pleiades (or ‘seven sisters’) star cluster, each novel in the series will tell the story of one of the adopted daughters of a reclusive millionaire known only as Pa Salt. Maia, Alycone (Ally), Asterope (Star), Celaeno (CeCe), Taygete (Tiggy) and Electra D’Aplièse have all been named after one of the stars in the constellation and have grown up together at Pa Salt’s estate, Atlantis, near Lake Geneva, Switzerland. The first book, which I read last year, is Maia’s story; The Storm Sister is Ally’s.

The beginning of this novel is very similar to the first: the sisters have been informed of Pa Salt’s death and have all hurried home to Atlantis, where they find that their adoptive father has left each of them a set of clues which will enable them to discover the truth about their own origins. At first, Ally’s clues mean nothing to her: a small brown frog and a pair of coordinates directing her to a museum in Norway. She is intrigued but has no time to investigate because, as a professional sailor, she is preparing to take part in one of the biggest yacht races of her career. When tragedy strikes, however, Ally decides to travel to Norway where she attempts to unravel the secrets of her past.

Following the trail left by Pa Salt, Ally learns of a talented young singer, Anna Landvik, who sang at the premiere of Peer Gynt more than a hundred years earlier. It seems that Anna’s story – and that of Jens Halvorsen, one of the musicians in the orchestra – could be linked to Ally’s own, but Ally is not quite sure what the connection could be. With the help of Thom Halvorsen, who tells her he is the great-great-grandson of Jens, Ally is able to fill in the gaps and in the process makes some surprising discoveries that will change the course of her own life.

I enjoyed The Storm Sister but I think I preferred the first book in the series (I suppose in a seven-book series it’s understandable that I’m going to like some more than others). The Storm Sister is a very long novel and I think I would have been happier if less time had been spent at the beginning of the book on Ally’s sailing and her romance with her fellow sailor, Theo. It seemed to take such a long time for the historical storyline to begin! I did become much more engrossed in Ally’s story in later sections of the book, though; I loved the way things came together towards the end and the links between several different generations of Halvorsens grew stronger.

The Anna and Jens storyline was fascinating and made me want to pause in my reading and listen to parts of Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt to help me imagine Anna singing Solveig’s Song and Jens playing the opening bars of Morning Mood on his flute. There is a musical theme running throughout the entire book and I was reminded of one of Lucinda Riley’s other novels, The Italian Girl, in that respect.

As part of a larger series, I had hoped that this book might shed more light on some of the central mysteries. Who was Pa Salt? What were the true circumstances surrounding his death and burial at sea? And what happened to the seventh sister, who should have been called Merope? However, we don’t learn much more about any of these things in this book; based on the two that I’ve read, it seems that each novel will stand alone and can be read in any order – presumably until we reach the seventh book when our questions should finally be answered!

Book three will focus on Star, or Asterope, and I’m already looking forward to it. Star is not one of the strongest characters among the sisters, but I like her and I think her story will be an interesting one.

Thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy of The Storm Sister.

Royal Mistress by Anne Easter Smith

December 8, 20159 Comments

After reading Marjorie Bowen’s Richard III novel, Dickon, a few weeks ago, my interest in the Wars of the Roses was rekindled and the next book I picked up was Royal Mistress, another novel set in the same period…but from a very different perspective. Anne Easter Smith’s heroine is Jane Shore, famous for being a mistress of Edward IV. Jane is not usually given a lot of attention, so I looked forward to seeing her character fleshed out and brought to life, and to learning more about her beyond her relationship with the king.

Born Elizabeth Lambert, Jane is the daughter of a prosperous London silk merchant (the name ‘Jane’ is thought to have been the invention of a 17th century playwright, but in this novel we are told that Elizabeth has taken the name Jane to distinguish her from an Aunt Elizabeth). Jane is married off at the age of twenty-two to William Shore, another mercer, or dealer in textiles. The marriage is not what she’d hoped it would be and Jane quickly discovers that while her husband is not above using her beauty to advertise his silks and satins, in the privacy of their own home he is cold, distant and has no interest in giving her the children she so desperately wants. To make things worse, Jane is still in love with Thomas Grey, with whom she’d had a brief romance before discovering that not only was he married, he was also the son of Elizabeth Woodville, queen of England.

As she begins to seek an annulment of her marriage, Jane catches the eye of Will Hastings, the king’s chamberlain, and through him she gets to know Edward IV. Royal Mistress follows Jane throughout the years of her relationship with the king, as she becomes an important part of Edward’s life and finds some of the warmth and affection that was missing in her marriage. After Edward’s death, however, Jane finds herself at the mercy of Richard III, who disapproves of her behaviour and wants to have her dismissed from court. Jane turns to Will Hastings for protection…but he is also out of favour with the new king and Jane’s safety cannot be guaranteed.

Royal Mistress is the first book I’ve read by Anne Easter Smith and I’ll be completely honest and say that, based purely on the title and front cover, I didn’t expect much from it. And after reading the first few chapters, I thought I was right. The story is slow to start, concentrating on a purely fictional romance between Jane and Tom Grey (it’s true that Jane was a mistress of Grey’s after Edward’s death, but there is no evidence of an earlier relationship between them) and while I did like Jane – she is portrayed as generous, warm-hearted and down-to-earth – her character didn’t seem to have a lot of depth or a lot of purpose other than being the mistress of various men.

As I got further into the novel, though, more characters are introduced, parts of the story are told from perspectives other than Jane’s, and I was swept away by the retelling of a period of history that I love. Reading the author’s note at the end of the book, I could see how much care had gone into her interpretations of the characters and their actions and motivations (even if I didn’t always agree with these interpretations). It’s interesting that Smith says she is a staunch supporter of Richard III and yet with this novel being written mainly from Jane’s point of view, it was necessary for her to portray Richard in a less than positive light. Where the disappearance of the princes in the tower is concerned, though, I was happy with the theory she puts forward as it’s one I find quite convincing.

I see Anne Easter Smith has written four more novels set during the same period, but while I did end up enjoying this one, I’m not sure yet whether I will want to read any of her others. I would like to read more about Jane Shore, though; I have a copy of Vanora Bennett’s Queen of Silks on my shelf which I hope to read soon, but if you can recommend any other books please let me know. I was interested to see that Jean Plaidy’s 1950 novel on Jane is called The Goldsmith’s Wife, as it was thought until recently that William Shore was a goldsmith rather than a mercer. Proof that history is still evolving!

Classics Spin: the number has been chosen!

December 7, 201513 Comments

Last week I decided to take part in the Classics Spin. The idea of the Spin was to list twenty books from my Classics Club list, number them 1 to 20, and the number announced today (Monday) represents the book I have to read before 1st February 2016.

The number that has been selected by the Classics Club this time is 19, which means the book I’ll be reading is:

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

This will be a re-read for me and I’m looking forward to it as it’s been such a long time since I last read it. I also have a re-read of Wuthering Heights on my Classics Club list and I’m thinking that maybe I should read it as soon as I finish Jane Eyre so that I can compare my thoughts on both. That would make an interesting post for the Women’s Classic Literature Event.

Did you take part in the Classics Spin? What will you be reading?

The Georgian Menagerie by Christopher Plumb

December 5, 20156 Comments

Elephants, kangaroos, parrots, zebras, bears, tigers, camels – we all know what they look like and how they behave; even if we haven’t actually encountered them for ourselves in a zoo or on safari, we’ve certainly seen them on television and read about them in books. But there was a time when, for British people at least, these animals and birds were new and unusual. The Georgian Menagerie: Exotic Animals in Eighteenth-Century London is a fascinating account of how these creatures were brought to Britain and what happened to them when they arrived.

Christopher Plumb draws on a wide range of sources including diaries, court cases, wills and other legal documents, advertisements, newspapers, letters and even poems and jokes to explore the stories of exotic animals and birds in Georgian society. As the British Empire grew during the 1700s, overseas trade and shipping increased and it became easier to travel to faraway destinations; this meant that menagerists and private collectors were able to obtain animals from distant continents and – as long as they were able to survive a long sea journey – bring them home to exhibit to the public.

The book features anecdotes from all over Britain, but specifically London, where most of the early menageries were located – including Pidcock’s Menagerie in the Exeter Exchange and Kendrick’s Menagerie at Piccadilly. While a lot of attention is given to the menageries with their large collections of creatures, eventually some of the animals and birds (canaries, for example) became more common and ordinary people could sometimes afford to buy one to keep in their own home.

Unfortunately, though, some of the animals being imported were required for a different purpose. In a section entitled Ingredients, we learn about the popularity of turtle soup, the use of bear grease by wigmakers and the demand for perfumes made with oil from the glands of civet cats. And even dead animals were of interest to the Georgians: they could be studied by anatomists, artists and naturalists, and were often then stuffed and put on display in museums.

As you can probably imagine, many of the anecdotes in the book are very sad to read. The people who were removing these animals from their natural habitats had no idea how to look after them correctly and, in most cases, didn’t seem to care. The animals and birds usually didn’t live very long in captivity and had short, miserable lives, being fed inappropriate food and provided with inadequate housing. There are stories of a young polar bear kept for a month in a wooden barrel with fresh water poured in daily and a parrot left unable to walk after being tethered to a perch on a short chain, to give just two examples.

Sometimes the animals would take their revenge. In a chapter called Bitten, Crushed and Maimed you can read about owners, keepers and spectators being injured or attacked by animals – not always because the animal was being tormented or badly treated, but also due to human ignorance. If people didn’t know how to care for the animals, they didn’t know how to behave around them either and seemed to have no understanding of the dangers of taunting rattlesnakes, trying to climb on elephants’ backs or poking fingers between the bars of cages!

The Georgian Menagerie is not always a pleasant read, then, but I suppose not everything in our history is very pleasant. And of course, there are lots of amusing and lighthearted anecdotes in the book too, particularly in the final section, Humour, which discusses the novelty of electric eels, the jokes surrounding Queen Charlotte’s zebras, and the relationships between parrots and their owners. Christopher Plumb’s style throughout the book is engaging and easy to read and there are plenty of beautiful illustrations by artists of the period. References and sources are provided both within the text and at the back of the book.

Despite the sometimes distressing descriptions of animal cruelty, I found The Georgian Menagerie completely fascinating. I love reading about the eighteenth century and this book gave me an opportunity to explore an aspect of Georgian life about which I previously knew very little. Definitely recommended!

Thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy via NetGalley.