The Trouble with Mrs Montgomery Hurst by Katie Lumsden

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In a small, close-knit community in 1841, the arrival of a newcomer can really cause a stir – and that’s what happens when Mr Montgomery Hurst brings his new wife home to Wickenshire. Mr Hurst was one of the county’s most eligible bachelors, so everyone is curious to see what sort of woman has tempted him to marry at last. The new Mrs Hurst, however – a widow in her thirties with three small children – is not what they are expecting. It seems to the people of Wickenshire that she is not quite respectable and gossip quickly begins to spread as they speculate about her past and her previous marriage.

One person who doesn’t care too much about the gossip is Amelia Ashpoint. Amelia’s father owns a brewery, making the Ashpoints one of the richest families in Wickenshire, yet they are still not regarded as equals by the older families whose wealth and titles have been passed down through the generations. At twenty-three, Amelia is expected to marry soon, but what she really wants is a career as a writer and the freedom to be with the person she truly loves. Meanwhile, Felicia Elton, ‘the great beauty of Wickenshire’, is also under pressure to find a rich husband. With her looks and accomplishments, it shouldn’t be a difficult task, but for some reason nobody seems interested in marrying Felicia and she’s beginning to think she’ll have to settle for the first man who asks.

In The Trouble with Mrs Montgomery Hurst, Katie Lumsden tells the stories of Amelia Ashpoint, Felicia Elton and the Hursts, as well as several of their other friends and neighbours, all of whom occupy different positions on the social ladder. At the top there’s the Earl and Countess of Wickford and their dissolute son, Lord Salbridge; lower down, the town families who have made their money through trade and industry; and lower still, people such as Mr Lonsdale, the foreman at the Ashpoint brewery, and Monsieur Brisset, Felicia’s piano teacher. With so many unwritten rules of society and boundaries that can’t be crossed, it seems that nobody in Wickenshire is free to live and love as they choose and it’s easy to see why someone who doesn’t conform, like Mrs Hurst, can become the subject of rumour and slander.

Although the book is set in the early 1840s, at the start of the Victorian era, it has the feel of a Regency novel and there’s an obvious Jane Austen influence in both the writing style and the plot. The worldbuilding is strengthened by the inclusion of a map at the beginning and a list of characters giving their age, address and occupation. It was all so immersive that I really didn’t want to have to leave Wickenshire behind when I reached the end of the book! Because it’s a modern novel, though, Lumsden is able to explore topics that an author like Austen couldn’t (or at least not so explicitly). For example, one of the main characters is a lesbian and her story really helped me to appreciate how difficult it must have been to have no romantic interest in men in a world where it seemed that a young woman’s whole purpose in life was to find a husband. However, her story didn’t go quite the way I had predicted – and neither did the stories of several of the other characters. Some got happy endings, some didn’t and others just had to make the best of things, which I found very realistic.

In case you can’t tell, I loved this book and I think I preferred it to Katie Lumsden’s previous one, The Secrets of Hartwood Hall, which borrows from the Brontës rather than Austen. I would like a sequel so we can catch up with the residents of Wickenshire again and see how they are getting on, but I suspect this is probably intended as a standalone. Either way, I’ll be looking out for whatever Katie Lumsden writes next.

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

This is book 12/20 of my 20 Books of Summer 2024.

Book 29/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

N or M? by Agatha Christie

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This month – and in August and September – the Read Christie challenge is moving on to books published in the 1940s and 1950s. I have several unread Christies from those decades to choose from, but I decided to start with N or M?, a Tommy and Tuppence novel from 1941. I enjoyed the first two T&T books, The Secret Adversary and Partners in Crime, and this is the third in the series.

I think this is a series best read in order as, unlike Poirot and Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence age almost in real time; they were in their early twenties in 1922’s The Secret Adversary and when we join them at the beginning of N or M? they are over forty. Their advancing age has become a source of frustration to them now that the world is at war and it seems that they are too old to make any meaningful contribution. Then, Mr Grant, a secret agent, arrives with an intriguing proposition for Tommy. He must travel undercover on behalf of the Secret Service to a boarding house on the south coast of England in search of two German spies, one male and one female, known only by the initials N and M. The mission must be kept secret from everyone, including Tuppence, who is told that Tommy is being sent to Scotland to take up a boring office job. However, Tuppence is already one step ahead and determined not to miss out on the excitement!

N or M? is more of a thriller/espionage novel rather than a traditional detective novel, which made a nice change from my last two Read Christie selections, which have both been Poirot mysteries. One of the good things about diving into Christie’s books more or less at random as I have been doing over the last few years is that there’s enough variety within her body of work that you never really get bored. However, there’s still a mystery to be solved here – the mystery of the true identities of N and M – and plenty of clues to look out for. I found it very easy to identify one of the spies (and was frustrated that Tommy and Tuppence didn’t work it out as quickly as I did), but I didn’t guess the other one so there were still some surprises in store for me.

With most of the novel being set in and around the Sans Souci boarding house, this means all of the suspects are together in one place, giving Tommy and Tuppence plenty of opportunities to observe them. The most obvious is Carl von Deinim, a German refugee and research chemist, but is he too obvious? The other guests include a larger than life Irishwoman, a retired Major, an invalid and his wife, and a young mother with her two-year-old daughter. Literally anybody could be a spy and Christie does a great job of capturing the sense of danger, mistrust and paranoia. I was quite worried for Tommy and Tuppence at times, even though I knew they must survive as there are more books in the series!

I’ve found that the other Christie novels I’ve read that were published during this same time period barely mention the war, if at all, so it was unusual to find one in which the war is such a central part of the plot and affects the lives of the characters in so many ways. I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to reading the next Tommy and Tuppence book, By the Pricking of My Thumbs – although not just yet, as it’s published in 1968 and we’ll be staying in the 40s and 50s for the next two months.

This is book 11/20 of my 20 Books of Summer 2024.

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Things I Love About The Count of Monte Cristo

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This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is “Ten Things I Loved About [Insert Book Title Here]” (Pick any book and tell us ten things you loved about it!) (submitted by Cathy @ WhatCathyReadNext)

I’ve just finished reading The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, so when I saw the topic for this week’s TTT the first book to come to mind was Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo, a French classic I love and have read several times, despite the length! Here are ten things I particularly enjoyed about it:

1. Edmond Dantès – Our hero (or anti-hero, at various times in the book) and one of my favourite characters in all of literature. Early in the novel, he is falsely accused of treason and imprisoned for fourteen years. He finally engineers an escape, but we quickly find that the youthful, naive Edmond Dantès we once knew has been transformed into the bitter and vengeful Count of Monte Cristo, out to hunt down the men who betrayed him and make them pay!

2. The exciting plot – With murders, poisonings, court cases, duels, thefts, anonymous letters, illegitimate children and searches for buried treasure, there’s always something happening. Most editions have over 1000 pages, so naturally there are some slower sections, but everything is relevant and I wouldn’t recommend reading an abridged version.

3. The setting – Or rather settings, as there are several. From Marseille with its island fortress, the Château d’If, and the small Catalan community where Edmond’s fiancée Mercédès lives, to Rome during Carnival, they are all memorable.

4. The Abbé Faria – When Edmond is imprisoned in the Château d’If, the Abbé Faria is occupying a neighbouring cell and the two manage to communicate and become friends. Faria passes on his wisdom and knowledge to Edmond and encourages him to never give up hope.

5. Monsieur Noirtier – M. Noirtier is the elderly father of Villefort, one of the Count’s main enemies. After suffering a stroke, he devises a form of communication using only his eyes and forms a special bond with his granddaughter, Valentine, two things that endeared him to me as a character!

6. The revenge theme – Stories of victims getting their revenge against the people who wronged them are usually very satisfying, but in this book the revenge plot has more layers to it. At times Dantès has doubts about the path he has set out on, regretting that “I did not tear out my heart the day I resolved to revenge myself”. When you finish the book you can decide for yourself whether it was all worth it in the end.

7. Monsieur Morrel – Another favourite character is M. Morrel, who makes Edmond Dantès captain of his ship, the Pharaon. During Edmond’s imprisonment, Morrel tries unsuccessfully to get him released, while also taking care of his elderly father in his absence, and his kindness is later rewarded by the Count.

8. The way there’s always something new to discover – The Count of Monte Cristo is a book that rewards multiple readings as there’s so much to take in the first time and it’s easy to miss important details. Re-reading has given me an even greater appreciation for the complexity of the story and how things that initially seem irrelevant are actually crucial to the plot.

9. The entertaining subplots – On re-reading the book, I found that I could slow down and enjoy some of the longer digressions and stories-within-stories that I got impatient with on my first read. During my most recent read I found that I particularly enjoyed the subplot involving La Carconte (the wife of Caderousse, another of Dantès’ enemies) and a valuable diamond ring. It could almost have made a great short story on its own.

10. The writing – It’s not just an adventure novel; there’s also some great writing, with quotes like this:

“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes.”

And this:

“Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget that until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words —’Wait and hope’.”

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Have you read The Count of Monte Cristo? If so, what did you love (or not love) about it?

Enlightenment by Sarah Perry

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Having enjoyed Sarah Perry’s previous two novels, The Essex Serpent and Melmoth, I had high hopes for her new one, Enlightenment. However, although I did find a lot to like about it, my feelings were more mixed than with the other two.

Enlightenment begins in 1997 in the small fictional town of Aldleigh in Essex, home to Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay. Thomas and Grace are decades apart in age but share a special bond, formed when Thomas first sets eyes on Grace as a motherless baby and experiences a wave of love and protectiveness he would never have expected. Now in his fifties, Thomas still feels an affinity for seventeen-year-old Grace who, like himself, is a worshipper at the Strict Baptist chapel in Aldleigh. The first cracks in their relationship appear when each of them falls in love – Thomas with museum worker James Bower, who unfortunately doesn’t seem to return his feelings, and Grace with Nathan, a boy from school.

Meanwhile, Thomas, who works for a local newspaper, has begun writing a column on astronomy and develops an interest – almost an obsession – with a vanished 19th century female astronomer, Maria Vǎduva, whose ghost is said to haunt a local manor. Thomas is so fascinated he devotes his life to trying to uncover Maria’s story, tracking down documents and correspondence in an attempt to find out who Maria was and why she disappeared.

The novel is divided into three parts, with the first part being set in 1997 before jumping forward in time to 2008 and finally 2017. Each time we rejoin Grace and Thomas, we see how their lives have changed in the intervening years and the effects of these changes on their relationship, while the constant threads running through the entire novel are the story of Maria Vǎduva and the mysteries of the night sky.

Sarah Perry writes beautifully but I think this particular novel might have worked better for me if it had been set in a much earlier time period. If the section heading hadn’t told us that the first part of the book took place in 1997, there was very little that would have made me guess I was reading about the 90s. The characters spoke and behaved more like Victorians, which I’m sure was intentional, to reflect the rather old-fashioned Strict Baptist community to which Thomas and Grace belong, but it still gave the novel a bit of an odd feel. It took me a while to connect with either main character, but I did eventually warm to them, finding a lot of sympathy for Thomas, who is gay and in love with a man who is not and isn’t interested, and for Grace, whose relationship with Nathan doesn’t go quite as planned either.

I did love the descriptions of the small Essex town, Bethesda Chapel where the congregation meets, and Lowlands House where Maria’s ghost is thought to roam. Not really knowing much about Sarah Perry, I was interested to learn that she drew on her own personal experience for both the geographical setting (she based the fictional Aldleigh on Chelmsford, where she was born) and Grace’s Strict Baptist upbringing (Perry herself also followed the same religion and grew up without television, pop music or fashionable clothes). And for readers who have read The Essex Serpent, this book overlaps with that one in a clever way which I’m sure you’ll enjoy as much as I did.

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

The King’s Mother by Annie Garthwaite

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Since reading Annie Garthwaite’s first novel, Cecily, about the life of Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, I have been looking out for a sequel. As the first book ended in 1461 and Cecily lived until 1495, I knew there was more than enough material for a second novel – and here it is, after a three year wait!

Cecily was set during the reign of Henry VI and the early stages of the Wars of the Roses, describing how Cecily’s husband, the Duke of York, led an army against the king and was killed at the Battle of Wakefield. A few months later, Cecily and York’s son, Edward, was more successful, defeating the king’s forces at the Battle of Towton and being crowned Edward IV. The King’s Mother picks up the story as Edward begins his reign and Cecily enters a new phase of her life as mother to the king and therefore one of the most powerful women in England.

This is a complex period of history and I would find it difficult to give a summary of the plot. You may already be familiar with the key points anyway – Edward IV’s unpopular marriage to Elizabeth Woodville; the various threats to his reign and the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury; his death, leading to the accession of his younger brother, Richard III; and finally, Richard’s defeat by the future Henry VII at the Battle of Bosworth, marking the start of the Tudor dynasty. This entire turbulent period is seen only from the perspective of Cecily, which is slightly limiting as Cecily is rarely at the heart of the action herself and often has to learn about major developments from letters or messengers. However, the story is never boring and moves along at a steady pace, holding my interest until the end even though I’ve read about this period many times before.

Cecily is shown as a controlling force behind Edward’s throne in the early days of his reign, advising him on what to say and do, but her influence over him gradually fades. She concentrates instead on building alliances, arranging marriages and doing whatever else she can to keep the kingdom and her family secure, taking her title of King’s Mother very seriously. The cover of the novel states ‘There can only be one’ and it’s true that Cecily is not the only candidate for this position. She forms an uneasy friendship with Margaret Beaufort, mother of the young Henry Tudor, deciding to trust her even while knowing that Margaret will do whatever it takes to further her own son’s claim to the throne. Then there’s Elizabeth Woodville, Edward’s wife, who also expects her eldest son to inherit the throne. Cecily makes it clear that she disapproves of the marriage and dislikes Elizabeth, but she accepts that Elizabeth is queen whether she likes it or not and does what is necessary to protect the Woodvilles – at least while Edward is still alive!

Elizabeth herself is not shown in a sympathetic light at all and comes across as immature, whiny and spiteful, which is disappointing as other characters are given more nuance. I thought Cecily’s relationship with her middle son, George, Duke of Clarence, was particularly well done, capturing Cecily’s mixed feelings about him – the love of a mother for her son mingled with anger and frustration as George, along with his cousin Warwick, betrays Edward over and over again.

One of the interesting things about reading a lot of books about the same period of history is wondering how the author will tackle some of the controversies and mysteries of the period. One of these is Edward’s alleged pre-contract of marriage to Eleanor Talbot, signed before he married Elizabeth. Some historians believe this was fabricated by Richard III in order to invalidate Edward and Elizabeth’s marriage and declare their children illegitimate; in this book, Annie Garthwaite assumes that the pre-contract did exist and was known to Cecily, who tried to cover it up. Another controversy, of course, is the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower. I won’t tell you how Garthwaite approaches this, but authors do usually have to choose one side or the other and this is definitely more of a pro-Ricardian novel.

Richard’s entire reign is covered in the final 20% of the book, which does feel a bit rushed considering how eventful that period was. I think there would have been enough material for a third novel, which would have allowed for more depth. I felt that we never really got to know Richard’s wife, Anne Neville, for example, which took away some of the emotional impact from the later stages of the book. Still, I really enjoyed The King’s Mother. Start with Cecily if you can, but they are both excellent novels and reminded me yet again of what a fascinating period of history this is!

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

This is book 10/20 of my 20 Books of Summer 2024.

Book 28/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

Six in Six: The 2024 Edition

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Unbelievably, we’re more than halfway through the year and Six in Six, hosted by Jo of The Book Jotter, is back again! I love taking part in this as I think it’s the perfect way to look back at our reading over the first six months of the year.

The idea of Six in Six is that we choose six categories (Jo has provided a list of suggestions or you can come up with new topics of your own if you prefer) and then fit six of the books or authors we’ve read this year into each category. It’s more difficult than it sounds, especially as I try not to use the same book in more than one category, but it’s always fun to do – and always a bit different as my reading tastes and patterns seem to change slightly each year.

Here is my 2024 Six in Six, with links to my reviews:

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Six books set in countries other than my own

1. Silence by Shūsaku Endō (Japan)
2. The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng (Malaysia)
3. Water Baby by Chioma Okereke (Nigeria)
4. Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein (Trinidad)
5. The Nightingale’s Castle by Sonia Velton (Hungary)
6. Spitting Gold by Carmella Lowkis (France)

Six classic crime books not by Agatha Christie

1. The Undetective by Bruce Graeme
2. Impact of Evidence by Carol Carnac
3. Opening Night by Ngaio Marsh
4. Fear Stalks the Village by Ethel Lina White
5. They Found Him Dead by Georgette Heyer
6. Deadly Duo by Margery Allingham

Six books with a touch of fantasy

1. The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton
2. The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden
3. Deep Secret by Diana Wynne Jones
4. The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks
5. Doomed Romances: Strange Tales of Uncanny Love by various authors
6. The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo

Six authors I’ve read for the first time this year

1. Akimitsu Takagi (The Noh Mask Murder)
2. Zadie Smith (The Fraud)
3. Alexander Lernet-Holenia (Count Luna)
4. Paul Gallico (Thomasina)
5. Neil Jordan (The Ballad of Lord Edward and Citizen Small)
6. Benjamin Myers (Cuddy)

Six books about real people

1. The Tower by Flora Carr (Mary, Queen of Scots)
2. The Household by Stacey Halls (Angela Burdett-Coutts)
3. The Black Count by Tom Reiss (General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas)
4. The Angel Makers by Patti McCracken (Zsuzsanna Fazekas)
5. Clairmont by Lesley McDowell (Claire Clairmont)
6. The Reckoning by Sharon Penman (Llewelyn ap Gruffydd and Ellen de Montfort)

Six book covers that catch the eye

1. The Beholders by Hester Musson
2. The Book of Secrets by Anna Mazzola
3. The Burial Plot by Elizabeth Macneal
4. The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye by Briony Cameron
5. The Puzzle Wood by Rosie Andrews
6. The Long Shadow by Celia Fremlin

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Have you read any of these books or authors this year? Are you taking part in Six in Six?

A Woman of Opinion by Sean Lusk

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In his new novel, A Woman of Opinion, Sean Lusk tells the story of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, based closely on her own published letters. Montagu, whom I previously knew almost nothing about, lived from 1689 to 1762, and was an English writer, poet and medical pioneer. She led a fascinating life and I enjoyed seeing it unfold through the pages of this novel.

A Woman of Opinion begins in 1712 with Mary eloping with Edward Wortley Montagu in order to avoid being pushed into marriage to her father’s choice of husband, the Irish nobleman Clotworthy Skeffington. Edward is a Whig politician and the two settle in London for a few years until, growing impatient with her husband’s lack of ambition and desperate to see more of the world, Mary manages to engineer a job offer for him as ambassador to Constantinople.

While Edward is busy trying to negotiate an end to the Austro-Turkish War, Mary gets to know some of the local Turkish women and is intrigued when she observes them inoculating their children against smallpox, through the method of ‘engrafting’ – taking pus from an infected person and introducing it into the arm or leg of an uninfected child. Mary, who has suffered from smallpox herself and been left with scarring to the face, is so impressed by the results of this procedure that when she returns to England she becomes determined to inoculate as many children as possible.

Most of the novel is narrated by Mary herself – in a formal, eloquent style that fits the 18th century setting, with no glaringly anachronistic language – but some chapters are narrated by her sister, Frances. Unlike Mary, who is the strong, independent ‘woman of opinion’ of the title, Frances has a gentler, more trusting nature. She is easier to like than Mary but her story is much less interesting and I didn’t feel that her perspective really added anything to the book.

Although the Constantinople episode is the most engaging part of the novel, Mary’s life continued to be eventful after her return. She formed a friendship and then a rivalry with the poet Alexander Pope, travelled to Italy where she began an affair with Count Francesco Algarotti, and produced a number of poems and essays. She also left behind her collection of letters, which were published in three volumes after her death as Turkish Embassy Letters (and are still in print today). Her other lasting legacy – her role in the development of the smallpox vaccine – has been overshadowed by Edward Jenner and I’m pleased that this novel has been able to raise some awareness of her contributions.

I enjoyed A Woman of Opinion much more than Sean Lusk’s debut, The Second Sight of Zacahary Cloudesley, which I felt had an unnecessary magical realism element and lost its way halfway through. However, I discovered from Lusk’s author’s note at the end of this book that one of the characters in Zachary Cloudesley was also based on Mary Wortley Montagu. If you’ve read both books, I’ll leave you to guess which one!

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

This is book 9/20 of my 20 Books of Summer 2024.

Book 27/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024