My Commonplace Book: March 2025

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A selection of quotes and pictures to represent March’s reading:

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

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You never knew in advance if a decision was the right one. All you could do was try to imagine the future and use that to help you make up your mind in a difficult situation, and if you couldn’t imagine the future, well, you had to make up your mind anyway.

Clear by Carys Davies (2024)

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Fiction, if it is worth anything at all, is about life but it is not life.

The Game is Murder by Hazell Ward (2025)

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Miniature of Mary Shelley, Reginald Easton c. 1857

Grief marks a person as fire marks a house. You can paint over the soot and repair the boards, but the rooms will be haunted always by the scent of ashes.

Love, Sex & Frankenstein by Caroline Lea (2025)

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The last winter days went by like weary brokedown soldiers at the end of a war.

The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry (2024)

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One does not have to leave the old world to find a new one. A new one can be built by changing the old one for the better, one act of love at a time, seeding new memories among the old, so that both can bloom together.

The Darkening Globe by Naomi Kelsey (2025)

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Women who adore chocolate to the same degree enjoy a friendship that can’t be shaken.

The Versailles Formula by Nancy Bilyeau (2025)

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A carved relief of Cleopatra and her son Caesarion at the Temple of Dendera, Egypt, 1st century BC

What survives our mortal death is our ideas, transcribed in art and words and stone, they are the piece of us that remains. But if that can disappear in a single night, consumed by flame? What then for immortality?

Cleopatra by Natasha Solomons (2025)

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As in life, so in a game of hazard, skill will make something of the worst of throws.

Moonfleet by John Meade Falkner (1898)

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The lesson, said he, be this – we tell tales of what lurks out in the dark so that we need not acknowledge the truth within.

What truth?

That, oftentymes, the fiend be our fault. Do you understand?

Mother Naked by Glen James Brown (2024)

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Judy Garland as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, 1939

Finally, Annie looked at Emily. ‘You’re right. We must all follow our hearts, even when it scares us, because the most frightening thing of all is to not do the thing we are meant to.’

Before Dorothy by Hazel Gaynor (2025)

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Trials, like life, always go on to some sort of ultimate conclusion, however shockingly they unfold along the way.

A Case of Life and Limb by Sally Smith (2025)

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As individuals, none of us matters much. Our joint effort matters, though, when we work together.

Secrets of the Bees by Jane Johnson (2025)

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Favourite books read in March:

A Case of Life and Limb, Love, Sex & Frankenstein, Mother Naked and The Versailles Formula

Authors read for the first time in March:

Carys Davies, Hazell Ward, Kevin Barry, Naomi Kelsey, John Meade Falkner, Glen James Brown

Countries visited in my March reading:

Scotland, England, USA, Egypt, Switzerland, France

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Reading notes: I was pleased to be able to take part in both the Reading Ireland and Reading Wales events this month (and read new-to-me authors for both – Kevin Barry and Carys Davies respectively). I also made some progress with my Classics Club list and the Walter Scott Prize longlist, as well as reading some of my upcoming releases from NetGalley. I’ve only posted reviews for a few of these books so far, but the rest will follow, I promise!

In April, I’m looking forward to 1952 Club, which will be hosted by Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings and Stuck in a Book. I’m already halfway through my first book for that and have some others I’m also hoping to get to. 21-27 April, if you want to join in.

What did you read in March? Do you have any plans for April?

The Queen and the Countess by Anne O’Brien

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I’ve been looking forward to reading Anne O’Brien’s new novel as it’s set in one of my favourite periods of history, the Wars of the Roses. O’Brien has written about this period before, from the perspectives of Anne Neville in Virgin Widow (which I haven’t read) and Cecily Neville in The Queen’s Rival, but this book is slightly different because it focuses on not just one woman but two: Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI, and Anne Beauchamp, Countess of Warwick.

The two women take it in turns to narrate their story, alternating chapter by chapter throughout the book and beginning in 1458 with the Loveday Parade – a procession through London intended to promote peace between York and Lancaster, the two feuding branches of the royal House of Plantagenet. In the parade, Queen Margaret walks hand-in-hand with the powerful Duke of York, while Anne watches her husband, Richard, Earl of Warwick, walk with his rival nobleman, the Duke of Exeter. The peace is very short-lived, however, and the following year York and Lancaster are at war again.

As the mental health of the Lancastrian king, Henry VI, goes into decline and he gradually retreats from real life into a world of prayer, Margaret does her best to rule in his place, aiming to keep the throne safe for Prince Edward, their young son. When Margaret’s army is defeated in battle and Warwick helps to put the Yorkist heir, Edward IV, on the throne, it seems that her life is in ruins, but it’s not long before Warwick falls out of favour with the new king and comes to her ready to form a new alliance with Lancaster. Meanwhile, Anne stays loyal to her husband throughout all of this but, with no real influence over his decisions, she can only hope that he’s picked the right side this time…

I was intrigued by O’Brien’s decision to pair Margaret of Anjou’s story with the Countess of Warwick’s in this book. There are so many other interesting women from this period – Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry Tudor; Edward IV’s wife Elizabeth Woodville and her mother Jacquetta, to name a few – it seemed like a bit of an arbitrary choice to put these two together, but as I read on and saw the shape the novel was starting to take it did make sense. Margaret and Anne are at first on opposite sides of the conflict, then on the same side, but in the difficult position of never fully being able to trust each other, which is an interesting dynamic for O’Brien to explore. Although they are two very different women, there are some parallels between them which begin to emerge as the novel progresses.

This is an eventful and dramatic period of history, so there’s always something happening in the novel – a battle to be fought, a marriage to be negotiated, a plan for invasion to be put into place. Using two narrators rather than one gives O’Brien a wider scope instead of being limited to one character’s personal experiences. However, the two threads of the story come together now and then through a series of fictional letters sent between Margaret and Anne. I’ve no idea if they really corresponded or not (I don’t think there’s any evidence of it, and if they ever did, I doubt it would have been as often as depicted in the book) but it’s a nice touch and makes the lives of the two characters feel less separate and disconnected.

The narrative voices of the two women sound almost identical, so I had to pay attention to the section headings, otherwise it sometimes took me a few paragraphs to decide which of them was narrating. Margaret of Anjou never really seems to be portrayed in a very positive light and she’s not very likeable here either, but I could at least have some sympathy for her. She was in a very challenging situation, trying to hold onto the throne for Lancaster with a husband who didn’t understand what was going on and who was by now completely incapable of ruling. Anne is a much easier character to like, but then, she doesn’t have the difficult decisions to make that Margaret does. Things aren’t easy for Anne either, though, as her fate is determined by the actions of her husband, Warwick, and while she does involve herself in politics to a degree, she has very little say in the course her life will follow.

This is ultimately quite a sad story – anyone familiar with the Wars of the Roses will know what happens to Margaret, her husband and her son, and how Anne’s later life plays out (at one point she’s declared legally dead while still alive in order to settle an inheritance dispute) – but I enjoyed reading it. It was nice to see some links to O’Brien’s previous novel, A Court of Betrayal, whose heroine, Johane de Geneville, was an ancestor of Anne Beauchamp’s – something I wasn’t aware of until I started reading this book and Anne mentioned her great-great-grandmother! I’ll look forward to O’Brien’s next book, whatever it may be, but I should probably try to find time to go back and read the earlier ones that I’ve missed as well.

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

The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry – #ReadingIrelandMonth25

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When I first heard about The Heart in Winter last year, despite seeing some very positive reviews I decided I wasn’t interested in reading it as it didn’t sound like my sort of book. After it was longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize earlier this year, I wondered if I’d been too quick to dismiss it and as Kevin Barry is an Irish author, I decided to try reading it for Reading Ireland Month (hosted this month by Cathy of 746 Books).

When I started reading, it seemed that my fears about it were justified. It’s a western, set in 1890s Montana, with lots of drinking, lots of swearing and lots of sex. Worse, there are no quotation marks to indicate speech, something I always dislike and find distracting. Still, I was prepared to give it a chance and persevere…

Tom Rourke is an Irishman living in Butte, Montana, where he works as a photographer’s assistant and a writer of love letters for illiterate men hoping to find wives. He’s also a drunk and an opium addict, drifting through life with no real aim or direction. Everything changes for Tom when Polly Gillespie arrives in town. Polly is newly married to an older man, Anthony Harrington, the fanatically religious captain of a copper mine. She’s already having doubts about her marriage, so when she and Tom fall in love, they decide to run away together. Stealing a horse, they head out across Montana and Idaho, hoping to make it all the way to California, but Harrington won’t let his bride escape that easily and soon a posse of gunmen are in pursuit.

Once Tom and Polly left Butte and set out on their journey, I started to feel much more engaged with the story. Although their romance was very sudden (literally love at first sight, with no time to show how their relationship developed), I still found it convincing and could easily believe that these two flawed, lonely people would form an instant connection. The narrative is split between Tom and Polly on the run and Harrington’s men who are hunting them down and although it seems that the odds are against the young lovers, I still hoped things would work out for them and they would find the happiness they deserved.

I wish I could say I loved this book the way everyone else has, but that wouldn’t be true. However, I did find a lot of things to admire in it, particularly the way Barry’s use of language brought the setting so vividly to life. There are also some very colourful supporting characters, both in Butte and among the people Tom and Polly meet on their travels. As I mentioned earlier, though, I really hate the current trend for not using punctuation correctly. If the idea is to make the prose feel more immersive, it does the exact opposite for me. Apart from that, I think I’m just not a fan of westerns in general. I did enjoy Patrick deWitt’s The Sisters Brothers, but the other westerns I’ve tried since then haven’t really worked for me, not even Days Without End by Sebastian Barry, whose work I usually love.

I won’t be at all surprised if this book is shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize next month or even if it turns out to be the eventual winner. I just wasn’t the right reader for it, but I’m still glad I tried it and got to know Tom and Polly.

Moonfleet by John Meade Falkner

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I added Moonfleet to my Classics Club list after seeing some very positive reviews from other bloggers and thinking it sounded like something I might enjoy. It’s an adventure story and was apparently very popular when it was published in 1898, although it seems to have been overshadowed by similar books like Treasure Island and Kidnapped. Modern authors are still influenced by it, though, such as Alex Preston, who named it as the inspiration for his 2022 novel, Winchelsea.

Moonfleet is set in the 18th century and is narrated by John Trenchard, a fifteen-year-old orphan who lives with his aunt in the village of Moonfleet on the south coast of England. The village takes its name not from the moon but from a prominent local family, the Mohunes. Generations of Mohunes are buried in the family vault under the church, including the notorious Colonel John ‘Blackbeard’ Mohune who once stole a diamond from King Charles I and hid it in a secret location. According to legend, his ghost now walks the churchyard trying to find the hidden jewel.

One night, John Trenchard finds himself accidentally locked in the Mohune vault where he discovers a locket containing a scrap of paper with what appear to be clues to the location of the missing diamond. He also makes another discovery: a group of local smugglers are using the vault as a hiding place for their contraband. He is rescued by two of the smugglers – the innkeeper Elzevir Block and Master Ratsey, the church sexton – and now that he knows their secret, he becomes involved in their smuggling operations. When an encounter with the excisemen ends in violence, John and Elzevir are forced to flee and as they’re unable to return to Moonfleet, they decide to go off in search of Blackbeard’s diamond.

Although this is usually described as a children’s book, like most classics it can also be enjoyed by adults. As it was published in the 19th century, the writing style is naturally very dated now, but I think there should still be enough to keep both older and younger readers interested – as well as the smugglers, hidden treasure and haunted churchyards, there are sea voyages, shipwrecks, coded messages, curses and even a touch of romance (John is in love with Grace, daughter of the novel’s villain, the magistrate Maskew). Later in the book, there’s also a surprising amount of emotional depth as a relationship forms between John, who has grown up without a father, and Elzevir, who has lost a son.

Moonfleet itself is a fictional village, but is based on East Fleet near Chesil Beach in Dorset. The geography of the area plays a big part in the book, with descriptions of the high cliffs, secluded bays and hidden coves that make the coastline ideal for smuggling. It’s just as important to the story as the characters and the plot. I enjoyed the book, although I don’t think it would have been a favourite classic even if I’d read it as a child. Still, I found it entertaining and perfect escapism, which is something I think most of us need now and then! It seems Falkner only wrote two other novels, The Lost Stradivarius and The Nebuly Coat; if you’ve read them, I’d love to know what you thought.

This is book 46/50 from my second Classics Club list.

Murder at Gulls Nest by Jess Kidd

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I’ve read three books by Jess Kidd and so far they’ve all been completely different. This new one, though, is described by the publisher as ‘the first in a sparkling new 1950s seaside mystery series’, so presumably she’s going to stick with one style and genre for her next few books. The series stars Nora Breen, a former nun who has left the convent that has been her home for the last thirty years. She’s an interesting and unusual character and I enjoyed meeting her in this first novel, Murder at Gulls Nest.

Gulls Nest is a guest house in the seaside town of Gore-on-Sea on the southeast coast of England. It’s also the last known address of Frieda, who was once a novice at Nora’s convent before leaving the order and promising to keep in touch. Frieda had been a good friend of Nora’s and when her letters stop arriving, Nora becomes so worried that she also decides to leave and travel to Gore-on-Sea to find out what has happened. Once at Gulls Nest, Nora learns that Frieda disappeared one night without explanation, yet no one else seems to be concerned about it, including the police. Convinced that something bad must have happened to her friend, Nora takes the room that was once Frieda’s and begins to investigate.

As Nora gets to know the other lodgers, she discovers that some of them are not what they seem and appear to be hiding secrets. Then a murder takes place, which may or may not be linked to Frieda’s disappearance. Nora is sure that if she can solve one crime it could provide clues to the other, but Inspector Rideout makes it clear that the police don’t want or need the assistance of a middle-aged ex-nun. Of course, Nora isn’t going to give up that easily!

Murder at Gulls Nest is as entertaining as I’ve come to expect from Jess Kidd’s books, with her usual array of colourful, quirky characters. Some of the most memorable are Professor Poppy, an elderly puppeteer who runs a Punch and Judy show; Dinah, the young daughter of the Gulls Nest landlady, who never speaks but sees everything that’s going on; and the exasperated Inspector Rideout, who wants Nora kept away from his investigation at all costs. I loved Nora’s relationship with Rideout and look forward to seeing how it continues to develop in the next book. As for Nora herself, although I couldn’t quite believe that she had until recently been a nun, I did like her as a character and enjoyed seeing her interacting with the other residents of Gore-on-Sea. I particularly loved the chapter where she’s invited to afternoon tea with the vicar and his ‘family’ – and I won’t spoil the fun by telling you what happens there!

At times this felt like a parody of a mystery novel rather than one to be taken too seriously, but at other times it became surprisingly dark, which kept things interesting all the way through. There’s also a good sense of time and place, bringing the 1950s British seaside setting to life. I hope we don’t have to wait too long for the second book.

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

Clear by Carys Davies – #ReadingWales25

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Clear is a book I hadn’t really considered reading until it appeared on the Walter Scott Prize longlist in February and I was pleased that I was still able to get a copy through NetGalley. Carys Davies is also a Welsh author, which is perfect for Reading Wales Month ’25, hosted this year by Karen at BookerTalk.

Clear is a beautifully written novella set in 1843 and telling the story of a friendship that forms between two men who should be enemies. John Ferguson is one of many evangelical ministers who have broken away from their church to form the Free Church of Scotland. Having given up his job and his home to establish this new church, John is struggling financially and, out of desperation, accepts an offer of work from a landowner who wants him to travel to a remote Scottish island and evict the last remaining tenant from the land. Forced evictions like these, known as Clearances, have been happening all over the Scottish Highlands as landlords remove the people living on their estates so that they can use the land for other purposes such as sheep farming. It’s a traumatic and often cruel process and not something John is looking forward to being part of.

The man John will have to evict is Ivar, who has lived alone on his island in the far north of Scotland since the deaths of his remaining family members. It’s an isolated life, but Ivar is content and has his horse, Pegi, for company. One day, he finds a man unconscious on the beach under the cliffs and takes him to his home to nurse him back to health. This is John Ferguson, who has met with an accident soon after arriving on the island. Ivar finds a picture of John’s wife, Mary, in his belongings and becomes infatuated with her, the first woman he’s seen for a long time – but as the injured man begins to recover, Ivar switches his affections to John himself. He has no idea why John is there, however, and because the two men speak different languages, he’s unable to ask.

Language forms an important part of the novel. Ivar speaks only Norn, a now extinct language once spoken in Shetland and Orkney, and John speaks English with a small amount of Scots. Over the course of the book, we see how two men unable to communicate in words are still able to bond and connect until eventually they do begin to learn each other’s language. In her author’s note Davies explains how the novel was inspired by Jakob Jakobsen’s Etymological Dictionary of the Norn Language in Shetland and she scatters Norn words throughout the book with a glossary at the back. Norn appears to have been a fascinating language; John is surprised to discover how descriptive it is and how many different words there are for mist, fog, wind and other types of weather.

Some parts of the novel are written from the perspective of Mary, John’s wife, who becomes concerned about the work her husband has been sent to do – she’s heard that the evictions can be unpleasant and violent – and decides to follow him to the island. I enjoyed reading Mary’s story and thought her sections of the book perfectly complemented Ivar and John’s. Mary’s thread of the novel comes together with the others near the end, and although I’m not going to tell you how the book ends I can say that it wasn’t what I expected but I was quite happy with it!

Carys Davies’ writing is beautiful and also very readable and I found this a quick, absorbing read. For such a short book, there’s a lot packed inside it. It reminded me a lot of Claire Keegan’s novella Small Things Like These, so if you enjoyed one book I would recommend trying the other.

Thanks to Granta Publications for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Top Ten Tuesday: Books on My Spring TBR

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This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is “Books on My Spring 2025 To-Read List”.

I have a lot more than ten books I’m hoping to read this spring, but here’s a selection of them:

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1. That Dark Spring by Susannah Stapleton – I haven’t read Susannah Stapleton’s previous non-fiction book, but her new one, about a true crime in 1920s Provence, sounds fascinating.

2. The Versailles Formula by Nancy Bilyeau – I was very excited to see the next book in the Genevieve Planché series on NetGalley last week.

3. Traitor’s Legacy by SJ Parris – The first in a new series of historical thrillers set in Elizabethan England.

4. Written on the Dark by Guy Gavriel Kay – A new book by GGK is always something I look forward to. This one is set in a world based on medieval France.

5. The Mourning Necklace by Kate Foster – I enjoyed Kate Foster’s last novel, The King’s Witches, so I’m hoping this one will be just as good.

6. The Elopement by Gill Hornby – A sequel to Hornby’s Godmersham Park, about Jane Austen’s niece, Fanny Knight.

7. Linden Rise by Richmal Crompton – When I was looking for books published in 1952 to read for the upcoming 1952 Club, I remembered I had this one on my Kindle. Not sure what else I’ll read yet.

8. White Corridor by Christopher Fowler – My recent Six Degrees of Separation post reminded me about the Bryant and May series. I enjoyed the first four books and this is the fifth.

9. The Eagle and the Hart by Helen Castor – Another non-fiction book, this time about the relationship between Richard II and Henry IV. I’ve already started it, but it’s so long I think it will take me the rest of the spring to finish it.

10. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene – One of the final few books on my Classics Club list. It will also be the first book I’ve read by Graham Greene.

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What are you planning to read this spring?