Stormy Petrel by Mary Stewart

September 18, 2013September 18, 201318 Comments

It’s hard to believe it’s only been two years since I discovered Mary Stewart! I read the brilliant Nine Coaches Waiting in November 2011 and since then I’ve read seven of her other books and loved most of them. When I first started to think about what I wanted to read for Anbolyn’s Mary Stewart Reading Week, Stormy Petrel wasn’t a title that came to mind, but I decided to see what the library could offer and this was the only one they had that I hadn’t already read. Knowing that this was one of her later books (published in 1991) and not considered to be one of her best, I was careful not to go into it with my expectations too high.

Stormy Petrel is narrated by Rose Fenemore, a poet and writer of science fiction novels. Due to her busy schedule as a tutor of English at Cambridge, Rose doesn’t have as much time to write as she would like, so she decides to take a break and spend two weeks at a cottage on the Hebridean island of Moila. Her brother Crispin, a doctor, agrees to meet her there as he is a keen wildlife photographer and is looking forward to taking pictures of the rare birds that nest on the island.

Rose arrives several days before Crispin and begins to settle into the cottage, but on her first night the island is hit by a storm and she wakes up to find a strange man in the kitchen. His name is Ewen Mackay and he tells her that his foster parents used to live in the cottage and he has come to visit them unaware that they had moved away. As Rose listens to Ewen’s story, another man arrives at the door. Introducing himself as John Parsons, he explains that he was camping and his tent has blown away in the wind so he is looking for somewhere to shelter from the storm. Rose lets them both stay until morning but over the next few days she learns more about both men and discovers that neither of them has been completely honest with her. How can she decide who to trust?

This was not one of my favourite Mary Stewart books and slightly disappointing compared with some of her earlier ones, but I still liked it and rate it above Rose Cottage, which was her final book, published several years after this one (I didn’t dislike Rose Cottage either, but it was a bit too gentle for me). The problem with Stormy Petrel is that as a ‘romantic suspense’ novel the romance is only hinted at and there’s not much suspense either. After one or two surprises near the beginning of the book the rest of the story is predictable, the villain is not really all that villainous and I never felt that Rose was in any danger.

Something I did love about this book was the wonderful Scottish setting. Every time I read a Mary Stewart novel I find myself enthusing over her beautiful descriptions of the area in which the story is set, and Stormy Petrel is no exception:

The Isle of Moila is the first stop past Tobermory. It is not a large island, perhaps nine miles by five, with formidable cliffs to the north-west that face the weather like the prow of a ship. From the steep sheep-bitten turf at the head of these cliffs the land slopes gently down towards a glen where the island’s only sizeable river runs seawards out of a loch cupped in a shallow basin among low hills. Presumably the loch – lochan, rather, for it is not large – is fed by springs eternally replenished by the rain, for nothing flows into it except small burns seeping through rush and bog myrtle, which spread after storms into sodden quagmires of moss. But the outflow is perennially full, white water pouring down to where the moor cleaves open and lets it fall to the sea.

Moila doesn’t really exist but the descriptions are so vivid I’m sure it must be based on a real Hebridean island. Stewart’s love for the landscape and the wildlife are obvious and throughout the story she explores the importance of preserving the beauty of nature. If you don’t already know what the title ‘stormy petrel’ refers to, she explains that too.

At just over 200 pages, this is a quick read and perfect for those times when you just want to relax with a book that’s not too complex or demanding!

Cragside

September 16, 201319 Comments

Have you remembered it’s Mary Stewart Reading Week this week? I hope to have a review of Stormy Petrel for you later in the week, but today I wanted to share some pictures I took on Saturday.

We drove up to Cragside near Rothbury in Northumberland as they were offering free admission as part of this year’s Heritage Open Days. We had been before but not for a long time and as there’s so much to see there we thought it would be worth going again. Cragside was built in 1863 and was the home of the Victorian engineer Lord William George Armstrong. It was the first house in the world to be lit by hydroelectricity, generated by water from the lakes on the estate.

This is the view of the house from the Iron Bridge at the bottom of the rock garden:

Another view of the house surrounded by trees:

A carving inspired by the mythical Green Man:

The kitchen:

Lord Armstrong’s Billiard Room:

The study (the globe on the left is an art installation forming part of an exhibition):

Sorry about the quality of the interior pictures; the rooms aren’t very brightly lit and I haven’t mastered the settings on my new camera yet.

Did you do anything interesting at the weekend?

Seven for a Secret by Lyndsay Faye

September 13, 2013September 13, 201313 Comments

One of the most surprising books I read last year was The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye. Surprising because it didn’t really sound like my type of book, yet once I started reading I loved it from the first page. Seven for a Secret is the second in the series and just as good as the first. While I like discovering new authors and meeting new characters, there is something comforting about reading a book that is the second or subsequent in a series and returning to a world you’re familiar with and characters you already know.

This series is set in 19th century New York City and follows the adventures of Timothy Wilde, a ‘copper star’ with the newly formed New York Police Department (the name comes from the copper stars the officers are required to wear for identification). After Timothy’s crime-solving skills in The Gods of Gotham brought him to the attention of Chief George Washington Matsell, he has now been given a special position as one of the department’s first detectives. In Seven for a Secret, Timothy is on the trail of a gang of ‘blackbirders’ (people employed to catch runaway slaves and return them to slavery in the South). The gang have captured the family of Lucy Adams, who insists that they are free New Yorkers and not slaves. Timothy promises to help and with the assistance of his brother Valentine sets out to investigate the crime.

Some of the characters we met in the previous novel are back again in this one including Julius Carpenter, Gentle Jim, Bird Daly and Silkie Marsh, but there are plenty of new characters too, from six-year-old chimney sweeps to corrupt Democratic Party members. But one of my favourite things about this series is the relationship between the two Wilde brothers, Timothy and Valentine. Tim continues to be torn between admiration for Val and disgust with his less savoury habits; Val continues to be the exasperated but protective older brother. I love them both, but I have to say I think Val is a wonderful creation and the more interesting character of the two.

The thing that really sets this series apart from other historical mystery novels I’ve read is the setting and the plots that arise from that setting. Before discovering these books I had virtually no knowledge at all of the early days of policing in New York or the work of the ‘copper stars’. And although I have read quite a lot of novels that deal with the subject of slavery, I hadn’t read anything that looked at this particular aspect of slavery. But much as I love Timothy Wilde and think he’s a great narrator, I did sometimes feel that his attitudes towards slavery and other issues raised in this book seemed more like the reactions of someone living in 2013 rather than the 1840s. Other than that, the atmosphere of 19th century New York is completely believable; as in the first novel, the feeling of authenticity is enhanced by the inclusion of ‘flash’, a sort of slang used mainly by criminals but also spoken by both Wildes. There’s a useful flash dictionary at the front of the book to help translate any unfamiliar words, but in most cases it’s easy enough to work out what is being said.

If you’re new to this series you could certainly enjoy Seven for a Secret without having read The Gods of Gotham first, but I would still recommend reading them in the correct order if you can. And really, they are both so good I’m sure whichever one you read first you will want to read the other anyway. I really hope there are going to be more books in this series as I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for Tim and Val!

The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton by Elizabeth Speller

September 11, 20137 Comments

I first met Laurence Bartram two years ago when I read The Return of Captain John Emmett, a mystery novel set in 1920s England. The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton is the sequel. In this book, Laurence’s friend William Bolitho, an architect, has asked Laurence to join him in the village of Easton Deadall. Easton Deadall lost many of its young men in the First World War and William has agreed to design a memorial window for the small church at Easton Hall. As an expert on churches and their renovations, Laurence’s help and advice is needed.

During the journey to Easton Deadall, Laurence learns about the disappearance of Digby and Lydia Easton’s five-year-old daughter, Kitty, several years earlier. Kitty went missing from her bed one night but her body was never found and her fate is still unknown. Since Kitty’s disappearance, the Easton family have continued to suffer; Digby was killed in the war, Lydia has become seriously ill and the relationship between Digby’s two surviving brothers, Julian and Patrick, is strained and tense.

After a slow start in which Elizabeth Speller introduces us to the characters, describes their tragic history and paints a portrait of a small English village trying to recover from the devastation of war, a mystery begins to develop. Another child disappears on a family trip to London to see the British Empire Exhibition and when a murder is committed in Easton Deadall, Laurence is sure both of these incidents are connected to the disappearance of Kitty Easton all those years ago.

I enjoyed this book almost as much as the previous one. The plot was well constructed with some interesting twists and lots of family secrets that are slowly revealed to the reader, but although I’ve referred to the book as a ‘mystery novel’ once or twice in this post, and in many ways it is a mystery novel, it’s also much more than that. The fate of Kitty Easton really only forms a small part of the story.

While reading both of the Laurence Bartram books, I have been impressed by the amazing sense of time and place the author creates. These books don’t just feel like pieces of historical fiction written in the modern day and set in the past – they almost feel as if they could really have been written in the 1920s. As with The Return of Captain John Emmett, my favourite thing about this book was the way it explores so many different aspects of the Great War and reminds us that although the war may have ended in 1918, its consequences were still being felt all over the world for many years afterwards.

There are lots of interesting characters to get to know too (I was particularly intrigued by the story of the youngest Easton brother, Patrick, resented by his family for abandoning them during the war after being excused from fighting on health grounds). The only thing that disappointed me slightly was that until we reach the final chapters of the book, Laurence seems to be on the outside watching and observing rather than taking an active role in the story. I do like Laurence but as the central character of a series I find him a bit bland and it would be nice to see his own personality coming through more strongly.

The way this book ended leaves plenty of scope for a third in the series and I hope there is going to be another one, though I notice that Elizabeth Speller has a new book due out in November with different characters, set during the Battle of the Somme.

Midnight is a Lonely Place by Barbara Erskine

September 9, 201315 Comments

My first introduction to Barbara Erskine’s work last year, River of Destiny, left me unimpressed but I was assured by Erskine fans that her earlier books were better, so when I found this one at the library I decided to give her another chance. I also thought it sounded like an ideal book to read for the RIP challenge, even though it wasn’t on my original list.

When author Kate Kennedy’s relationship with her boyfriend, Jon, comes to an end and she is forced to move out of their London home, she decides to rent a cottage on the Essex coast where she can spend the winter working on her new biography of Byron. The owners of the cottage, Diana and Roger Lindsey, live in a farmhouse nearby and do their best to make Kate feel welcome, but unfortunately not all the members of the Lindsey family are happy to see her. The eldest son, Greg, an aspiring artist, had been using the cottage for his painting and resents Kate for pushing him out. His fifteen-year-old sister, Alison, is an amateur archaeologist and is furious when she discovers that Kate has been interfering with her dig at what she believes is an ancient Roman grave.

When strange things start to happen at Redall Cottage, Kate suspects Greg and Alison of trying to frighten her away, but after several encounters with ghostly figures she begins to accept that she is being haunted by the ghosts of the Roman soldier Marcus Severus Secundus, his wife Claudia, and the Druid prince, Nion. It seems that Kate has stumbled upon a two thousand-year-old love triangle that ended in a murder and a curse – and secrets that have been buried under the earth for centuries are about to be revealed at last.

Midnight is a Lonely Place was much better than River of Destiny, but still not a book that I can say I loved. I was right about it being a perfect RIP choice, though. It has all the elements of a classic ghost story: a lonely, isolated cottage, an ancient burial site, ghostly apparitions, strange smells and unexplained noises, relentless snow, sleet and blizzards. It’s quite scary in places and you might not want to read it late at night if you’re on your own (while I was finishing the book on Friday evening the real-life weather outside obliged with heavy rain and strong winds which made it even more atmospheric).

While Marcus Severus Secundus, Claudia and Nion do have a strong presence in this novel, the story is set entirely in the early 1990s (which actually feels surprisingly dated from a 2013 perspective) and we only learn about the Roman characters’ lives in brief flashbacks at the start of the chapters. I would have liked their storyline to have been more fully developed as I felt I didn’t get to know them well enough to really care about them or their secrets and this meant that, for me, the novel wasn’t as effective as it would have been with a stronger historical element.

The second half of the book is suspenseful and action packed, as the level of paranormal activity increases and more and more of Kate’s friends and neighbours become involved (at one point it felt as if the whole population of Essex were wandering about getting lost in the snow) but I found the ending disappointingly abrupt. I’m not sure I correctly interpreted the final page and after reading what was quite a long book (more than 400 pages) I had expected a more satisfying conclusion. I certainly enjoyed this book a lot more than River of Destiny but I’m not sure I’ll be looking for any more of Barbara Erskine’s books – though I might still be interested in reading Lady of Hay, her first and best known book.

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

September 6, 201322 Comments

This is the sequel to Wolf Hall and the second in a planned trilogy of novels telling the story of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s chief minister.

While Wolf Hall was concerned with Cromwell’s rise to power, the fall of Cardinal Wolsey and the process that led to Henry’s divorce from Katherine of Aragon, in Bring up the Bodies the King has grown dissatisfied with his second wife, Anne Boleyn, who has failed to give him a male heir, and he is now turning his attentions to Jane Seymour. Beginning in 1535, just after Wolf Hall ends, this book follows Cromwell as he attempts to find a solution to Henry’s problem. It’s not an easy task but Cromwell has already proven himself to be an expert at negotiating complex political situations and getting what he wants, while also trying to do what he believes is best for the King and for England.

I think most of us probably know what happened to Anne Boleyn and what her eventual fate would be, so I won’t say much more about the plot of this book. But although I’ve read about Anne Boleyn’s downfall many times before, I have never read about it from this perspective or in so much detail. By allowing us to follow events through Cromwell’s eyes, Mantel makes what to many of us is a familiar story feel like a fresh and interesting one – and in a world already filled with Tudor novels this is a real accomplishment!

I was intrigued by the suggestion that Cromwell had his own motives for plotting the demise of Anne and the men who were brought down with her. I don’t suppose we can ever know what thoughts were really going through Cromwell’s mind or what made him act the way he did, but Mantel’s theory was interesting. As in the previous book, Cromwell is a fascinating character and portrayed as neither a hero nor a villain. He’s ruthless, clever, ambitious and (in this book, at least) vengeful, but away from the court and the world of politics, we are shown a more human side to him. Through his relationship with his son, Gregory, and through his frequent memories of his wife and two daughters and his mentor Thomas Wolsey, who are all now dead, we see that he is also a man who loves his family and is loyal to his friends.

You could probably read Bring up the Bodies without having read Wolf Hall first, especially if you already have a good knowledge of Tudor history, but I would still recommend reading Wolf Hall before starting this one. It’s not completely necessary but will help you to understand Cromwell’s personality and how his mind works. You will also be introduced to the members of Cromwell’s large household (made up of extended family, servants and employees) and the other secondary characters who appear in this book.

Mantel’s novels are not easy reads but I did find this book much easier to read than Wolf Hall, maybe because I knew what to expect from her writing style this time. One criticism that I and many other readers had of Wolf Hall was regarding Mantel’s use of the pronoun ‘he’ without making it obvious who ‘he’ refers to. It was usually safe to assume that ‘he’ was Cromwell but it could still be confusing, especially when there were a lot of male characters in the same scene. In this book, Mantel still uses ‘he’ but sometimes clarifies it by adding ‘he, Cromwell’ which makes things easier to follow. I also found this a much quicker read than Wolf Hall, as it’s not as long and is faster paced and more focused on one subject – the fall of Anne Boleyn.

Now that I’ve caught up with the first two books in the trilogy, I can join those of you who are patiently (or maybe impatiently) awaiting the third one!

Post Captain by Patrick O’Brian

September 3, 2013March 4, 201510 Comments

This is the second book in Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series following the adventures of Royal Navy Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend, ship’s surgeon Stephen Maturin.

Post Captain continues the story begun in Master and Commander. As the novel opens, the French Revolutionary Wars have come to a sudden end with the Peace of Amiens and Aubrey and Maturin have returned to England where Jack has rented a country estate – which happens to be near the home of Mrs Williams, a lady with several daughters of marriageable age. For the first hundred or so pages of the book, we follow Jack and Stephen as they live the lives of country gentleman, attending social engagements and becoming involved in complex romantic relationships with the eldest Williams daughter, Sophia, and her widowed cousin, Diana Villiers.

This period of peace soon comes to an end, though. Jack and Stephen are forced to flee to France when Jack finds himself in financial difficulties and while they are there, war breaks out again. The rest of the book centres around their return to naval action, Jack’s efforts to avoid being arrested for debt, and the conflict between Jack and Stephen caused by their involvement with Sophie and Diana.

After I posted my thoughts on the previous book, Master and Commander, and mentioned my general dislike of nautical books, I was told that this one might be more to my taste as it had more land-based action. And I did enjoy this book a lot more than the previous one. I still struggled at times with the sea battles and naval terminology, but I think I can cope with not being able to follow all the details of what is happening as long as I can understand the final outcome. As for the land-based chapters, I don’t think I’ve ever read anything more Austenesque that wasn’t actually written by Jane Austen! The Austen comparison, by the way, is not just because of the plot but also the writing style and language.

The fact that fewer pages are devoted to descriptions of naval action means there’s lots of time to develop the two main characters and explore various aspects of their personalities and their relationships. I also enjoyed meeting Sophie and Diana and I look forward to getting to know them better. Obviously when Aubrey and Maturin are at sea it’s a very male-dominated environment, so I was pleased to see that O’Brian also writes such convincing female characters.

With the friendship between Jack and Stephen being threatened by their romantic entanglements, there’s a lot of tension in this book but there are plenty of funny moments too, including a scene with a dancing bear on the road to Spain. I also loved Stephen’s attempts at beekeeping while at sea…

“There! A glass hive. Is it not ingenious, charming? I have always wanted to keep bees.”

“But how in God’s name do you expect to keep bees on a man-of-war?” cried Jack. “Where in God’s name do you expect them to find flowers, at sea? How will they eat?”

“You can see their every motion,” said Stephen, close against the glass, entranced. “Oh, as for their feeding, never fret your anxious mind; they will feed with us upon a saucer of sugar, at stated intervals. If the ingenious Monsieur Huber can keep bees, and he blind, the poor man, surely we can manage in a great spacious xebec?”

Having enjoyed this book so much, I now feel much more enthusiastic about reading the rest of the series than I did after the first book. I’m looking forward to H.M.S Surprise!