The Ballad of Lord Edward and Citizen Small by Neil Jordan

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March is Reading Ireland Month, hosted by Cathy at 746 Books, so I looked at my unread books by Irish authors and decided on this one, The Ballad of Lord Edward and Citizen Small. Neil Jordan is better known as a film director (his directing credits include Interview with the Vampire and The Company of Wolves) but has also written several novels and short story collections. This is the first of his books that I’ve read.

The Lord Edward of the title is a real person – Lord Edward Fitzgerald, an 18th century Irish aristocrat and revolutionary. His life has been well documented but little is known about his relationship with his servant, Tony Small. At the beginning of the novel, Fitzgerald is fighting for the British Army in the American Revolution when he is wounded at the Battle of Eutaw Springs in September 1781. Small, an escaped slave, rescues him from the battlefield and saves his life, and in return Fitzgerald frees him from slavery. Small then chooses to remain in Fitzgerald’s service when he leaves America and travels first to London, then home to Dublin, and later to France.

As time goes by, Small becomes Fitzgerald’s constant companion and close friend, but never loses sight of the fact that he is a servant and their racial and class differences mean that society will never consider him the equal of his lord. While Fitzgerald enters into a romantic liaison with Elizabeth Sheridan, wife of the famous playwright Richard Sheridan, before becoming involved in revolutionary politics and working towards an independent Irish republic, Small gets to know the other servants in the grand houses they reside in and takes steps to learn about his own heritage.

This could have been a great novel – it covers a period of Irish history not written about very often and seeing things through the eyes of a former slave provides an interesting perspective – but I didn’t like the writing style at all. I have no idea why it seems to have become the fashion for authors to ignore conventional punctuation, in this case speech marks. I found it very difficult to tell where the dialogue began and ended or who was speaking to whom and I had to keep going back to read the same sections more than once before I could follow what was being said. Punctuation was invented to help the reader; choosing not to use it just makes things unnecessarily confusing.

I do appreciate having had the opportunity to learn about the life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald and the significance of Tony Small and there were some parts of the book that I enjoyed. It was interesting to see other well known historical figures such as Richard Sheridan and Thomas Paine making appearances in the story and I loved the way Jordan showed Small developing a passion for theatre and literature (obviously two passions of Jordan’s own). However, the book felt uneven, with too much time spent on some episodes and not enough on others – the last few months of Fitzgerald’s life seemed particularly rushed.

I had mixed feelings about this one, then, and I’m not sure whether I would read anything else by Neil Jordan, but I’m pleased I managed to fit in a Reading Ireland book this month, as well as the Welsh ones I’ve read for Reading Wales!

Book 14/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

Impact of Evidence by Carol Carnac

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“The snow and the floods have been abnormal even for these parts,” said Rivers. “I’ve had several investigations in country areas, but I admit I’ve never struck anything quite like St Brynneys. It has a secret quality, and its remoteness affects all the people who live in it.”

First published in 1954, Impact of Evidence has recently been reissued as a British Library Crime Classic. It’s my first Carol Carnac book – I haven’t read Crossed Skis, the other one currently in print – but she also published as E.C.R. Lorac and I’ve read her before under that name. This one is subtitled A Welsh Borders Mystery and is part of a series featuring Chief Inspector Julian Rivers and his sidekick, Inspector Lancing.

The novel begins with a car accident near the village of St Brynneys in the hills of the Welsh borders. Elderly Dr Robinson – whom everyone agrees was too old to be driving – has collided with Bob Parsons’ jeep, with both vehicles being thrown off the road by the impact. Parsons has been lucky and escaped with minor injuries and concussion, but the doctor, whose car has ended up in a stream, has been killed. The Lambton family, who live on a farm nearby, hear the crash and hurry to the rescue, but after retrieving the doctor’s body from the car, they make a shocking discovery. There’s a second body in the back of the car – a man none of the local people have seen before, and as St Brynneys has been cut off from the world for the last few days due to extreme winter weather, nobody knows where he came from.

A local police inspector visits the doctor’s house to try to get to the bottom of the mystery, but when he suffers a fatal accident on the stairs, the mystery only deepens. Chief Inspector Julian Rivers and Inspector Lancing are called in from Scotland Yard, and with the roads still impassable they require the help of the army to access the area. Once they reach St Brynneys, Rivers and Lancing begin their investigations and uncover tensions between the local farming families, the possibility of blackmail and a range of theories to explain the presence of the unidentified corpse.

As my first Carol Carnac book, I’m not sure if there’s anything significantly different between these and her books published as E.C.R. Lorac. The writing style feels very much the same but I haven’t really read enough of her under either name to be able to comment on any other differences. What struck me most about this particular book was the setting and the wonderful atmosphere Carnac creates. The novel is set in a place that has experienced several days of very heavy snowfall, followed by a thaw that has caused flooding, destroying bridges and blocking roads. Carnac’s descriptions of the flooded countryside, the damaged infrastructure and the effect all of this has on a small community really convey a sense of isolation and remoteness. Also, with no routes in or out, this means the suspects (and for that matter, the victims) are limited to people who were already in the area when the snow began.

The actual mystery, I felt, took second place to the setting – which is not to say that it wasn’t interesting, because it was, but I think the descriptions of the snow and the thaw and a society severed from the outside world are what I’ll remember about this book rather than the plot. I’ll try to get round to Crossed Skis at some point and hopefully some more of the Lorac books as well.

The Reckoning by Sharon Penman – #Dewithon24

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My second book for this year’s Reading Wales Month, or Dewithon, hosted by Book Jotter, is not actually by a Welsh author (Sharon Kay Penman – or simply Sharon Penman as she is published here in the UK – was an American historical novelist) but it’s set in Wales and is the third and final part of the Welsh Princes Trilogy, following Here Be Dragons and Falls the Shadow. I loved both of those books, so I expected to love this one too and I wasn’t disappointed.

Although I would recommend reading all three books in order, it’s not essential and it’s been such a long time since I read Falls the Shadow that I had forgotten a lot of the details anyway. I did remember the dramatic descriptions of Simon de Montfort’s defeat at the Battle of Evesham that ended that book; The Reckoning begins more than five years later in January 1271, but the effects of the battle are still being felt. Simon de Montfort’s surviving family members have fled England to take refuge elsewhere in Europe and his daughter Ellen’s planned marriage to Llewelyn ap Gruffydd, Prince of Wales, now seems in doubt. With de Montfort defeated, Henry III of England’s position on the throne is now much more secure and when he dies in 1272 his eldest son, Edward, succeeds him as king.

Meanwhile, the situation across the border in Wales is less stable. Prince Llewelyn is determined to continue the work of his grandfather Llewelyn the Great and keep Wales independent and united, but with his own younger brother Davydd conspiring against him it’s not going to be easy. When England’s new king, Edward I, turns his attentions to bringing Wales under English rule, Llewelyn finds that he can’t rely on the support of Davydd and the other Welsh lords – and to complicate things further, his bride Ellen de Montfort has been captured by Edward on her way to Wales for the wedding.

The Reckoning is a wonderful, thorough account of the final years of an independent Wales. Reading the book from a modern perspective, knowing that Edward will succeed in conquering Wales and that Llewelyn will become known as ‘Llewelyn the Last’, it’s impossible not to feel a sadness as the story approaches its end and it becomes clear even to Llewelyn himself that defeat is inevitable. What makes it particularly sad is that divisions between the Welsh nobility and even within Llewelyn’s own family play such a big part in their defeat and by the time war actually breaks out, Llewelyn has already had to concede so much Welsh territory and political power that he knows there’s little hope of succeeding.

A book of this size – around 600 pages – takes a long time to read when the story is so detailed and needs a lot of concentration, but I thought it was worth every minute. I loved Ellen and Llewelyn (although having read several of Penman’s books now, I’ve found that her brave, honourable heroes all seem to be cast in the same mold) and found the ‘villains’ equally interesting. Some sections of the novel are written from the perspectives of Edward and other members of the English court, which adds some nuance to the story – and I was particularly intrigued by the complex character of Davydd, who spends the entire book switching between supporting his brother and plotting to betray him, but has a personal charm that makes him difficult to actually dislike.

I learned a lot about Wales from this book, and from the first two in the trilogy – not just about Welsh history, but also Welsh laws and customs and how life in medieval Wales differed from life in medieval England. Although I had to read it in small doses due to the length and the small print in my edition, the story held my interest from beginning to end – and the ending, when it came, was heartbreaking, but that was to be expected!

Have you read this or any other books about the English conquest of Wales?

Book 13/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

The Book of Secrets by Anna Mazzola

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Anna Mazzola’s new novel – her fifth and the fourth that I’ve read – is set in Italy and takes as its inspiration the real life story of a group of women accused of selling poison in 17th century Rome.

It’s 1659 and Stefano Bracchi, a junior magistrate at the Papal Court, has been commissioned by the governor of Rome to investigate some unusual deaths that have taken place in the city. The plague that recently swept through Rome took many lives, but this is something different. These deaths are all men and for some unexplained reason, the bodies haven’t gone through the normal process of decay.

Meanwhile, Anna is trapped in an abusive marriage and searching for a way of escape. Her maid introduces her to a woman who says she can help, but the sort of help she provides is not quite what Anna was expecting! As Stefano begins to close in on the people responsible for the mysterious deaths, Anna finds herself caught in his net, but will he be able to prove that she has done anything wrong?

The Book of Secrets is written from the alternating perspectives of Stefano, Anna and a third character – Girolama, a Sicilian woman with a knowledge of herbs, potions and fortune telling, who is said to possess the ‘book of secrets’ of the title. Because we see the story unfold through all three of these characters, there’s very little mystery involved in the book; we know what Girolama and her friends are doing to help the women of Rome, we know how Anna deals with her violent husband and we know how Stefano’s investigation is progressing. However, what I found interesting about this book was not so much the plot as the characters and the way each of them reacts to the situation in which they find themselves.

Our sympathies are naturally with Anna, a desperate woman who takes the only way out she feels is open to her, while Girolama is a more morally ambiguous character – she has the best intentions and her work does a lot of good, but at the same time she seems largely unconcerned that her actions may occasionally cause harm to innocent people. The Rome of 1659 is a male-dominated society and many of the women in the book are victims of men, but Stefano Bracchi is another nuanced character; as he begins to round up Anna, Girolama and their associates for interrogation at the Tor di Nona prison, he becomes torn between compassion for their suffering and the desire to keep his superiors happy for the sake of his career.

Before starting this book, I knew nothing about Girolama Spana and the case this novel is based on. Although Anna Mazzola hasn’t stuck to the historical facts and has invented or expanded parts of the story, she does explain her choices in her author’s note at the end of the book. The Clockwork Girl is still my favourite of her novels, but this is another fascinating one.

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

Book 12/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

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 TBR”.

I’m expecting to read more than ten books this spring, but here’s a selection that are coming up soon on my TBR:

Some NetGalley review copies:

1. Enlightenment by Sarah Perry
2. The Puzzle Wood by Rosie Andrews
3. Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz
4. A Different Sound by various authors

From my Classics Club list:

5. The Elusive Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
6. The Black Lake by Hella S. Haasse

For Read Christie 2024:

7. Lord Edgware Dies by Agatha Christie
8. Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie

From the Walter Scott Prize longlist:

9. The Fraud by Zadie Smith
10. The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng

~

What are you hoping to read this spring?

The Trumpet-Major by Thomas Hardy

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I love Thomas Hardy so was pleased when The Trumpet-Major was chosen for me in the recent Classics Club Spin. The deadline for finishing our Spin books was 3rd March, but I’m late as usual!

First published in 1880, The Trumpet-Major is set in Hardy’s fictional Wessex during the Napoleonic Wars (making it his only historical novel). Beginning in 1804, it follows the story of Anne Garland and her three suitors: miller’s son John Loveday, who is the Trumpet Major of the title; his brother Bob, a sailor whom Anne has secretly loved since she was a young girl; and Festus Derriman, nephew of the local squire. Anne’s mother, who marries Miller Loveday, would prefer Anne to pick Festus, but it quickly becomes obvious to the reader that he is spiteful and cowardly and that Anne’s choice will be between Bob and John.

With John being a soldier and Bob a sailor in the merchant navy, they each have to spend long periods of time away from home, allowing Anne to grow closer to the other in his absence. It’s difficult to know which, if either, she will eventually accept; John is a typical loyal, steadfast Hardy hero, but Bob, although more immature and less trustworthy, is clearly the one she has lost her heart to. There are lots of twists and turns along the way as the situation becomes complicated by misunderstandings, the arrival of another woman, and the scheming of Festus Derriman. There’s a subplot involving Squire Derriman – known as Uncle Benjy – who is looking for a place to hide his will, but otherwise the novel never really loses its focus on Anne and the three young men, which makes the story easy to follow and, for a Victorian novel, relatively short and quick to read.

The action all takes place in and around Budmouth, a fictional town based on Weymouth on the Dorset coast. This is not a military novel, despite the title and the occupations of two of the main characters, but it plays out against a backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars and the people of Budmouth live in fear of a French invasion at any minute. It’s quite a light story, in comparison with Hardy’s more famous tragedies like Jude the Obscure and Tess of the D’Urbervilles, but the constant threat of war gives it a more serious tone than it would otherwise have had, and there are some dramatic episodes such as a false alarm which causes Anne’s village to begin evacuating in panic and the arrival of a naval press gang.

The Trumpet-Major has a happier ending than many of Hardy’s other books, but I didn’t personally find it very satisfying and would have preferred it to end in a different way. Still, I enjoyed this book and although I would definitely describe it as one of his lesser novels, I can honestly say that I haven’t yet read anything by Hardy that I didn’t like! I only have two of his novels left to read and they are probably his most obscure ones – The Well-Beloved and The Hand of Ethelberta – so I’ll be curious to find out what I think of those two.

This is book 43/50 read from my second Classics Club list.

Book 11/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

Deep Secret by Diana Wynne Jones – #MarchMagics2024

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Diana Wynne Jones is not an author I’ve ever read or been particularly interested in reading – for some reason I’ve always just assumed I wouldn’t like her, although I should have learned by now not to make assumptions like that! #MarchMagics is a reading event hosted by Chris of Calmgrove to celebrate the work of both Diana Wynne Jones and Terry Pratchett, so I decided this would be a good opportunity to finally try one of her books. I chose Deep Secret, which is marketed as one of the few books she wrote for adults.

First published in 1997, Deep Secret is set in a multiverse shaped like infinity (a figure eight laid on its side) and made up of a collection of worlds which are either ‘Ayewards’, where magic is accepted and practiced, or ‘Naywards’, meaning they are more cynical towards magic. Early in the novel we learn that Earth is currently a Naywards planet and it’s the job of Rupert Venables to nudge it in an Ayewards direction. Rupert is a Magid, a powerful magician responsible for maintaining the balance of positive and negative magic in the multiverse and he is one of the novel’s two main narrators.

At the beginning of the novel, Rupert’s mentor Stan, an older Magid, is dying and on his deathbed gives Rupert the task of recruiting a replacement. Armed with a list of five new Magid candidates, located all over the globe, Rupert sets out to track them down and decide which has the most potential. Before he can make much progress, however, he is summoned to the Koryfonic Empire, a world which is situated across the twist in the middle of the infinity symbol, where another difficult mission awaits – the Emperor has been killed in an explosion, leaving no known heir. It’s believed that he does have several living children, but their identities and whereabouts are a mystery. Rupert must try to find them before the situation leads to the downfall of the Empire

A large part of the novel is set during a Fantasy and Science Fiction convention at a hotel, where Rupert manages to gather together all five of the Magid candidates. I’ve never been to one of these conventions myself, but I could tell Diana Wynne Jones was having fun describing the chaotic nature of the event, some of the colourful characters who attend it and the confusing, maze-like layout of the hotel (which becomes even more confusing when an evil presence begins weaving its spell). The world-building is very impressive, merging together the fantasy land of the Koryfonic Empire with its emperors and centaurs, the normality of daily life in Bristol, where a lot of the story takes place, and the craziness of the hotel, which is almost a whole separate world in itself.

One of the five possible new Magids on the list Rupert is given is Maree Mallory; it quickly becomes obvious from the way she is given so much more attention than the other four that she is likely to be the one Rupert recruits. Their relationship doesn’t get off to the best of starts and the way she is introduced into the story makes her difficult to like at first, but I warmed to her as the book went on and we started to see things from Maree’s perspective as well as Rupert’s. I also liked her relationship with her teenage cousin, Nick (who I think also narrates the companion novel to this one, The Merlin Conspiracy, which I haven’t read yet).

This is described as an adult book, maybe because there are a few references to sex, but I’m sure it would be suitable for young adults as well and the age of the protagonists (Maree and Rupert are in their twenties and Nick is fourteen) does make it feel as though it’s aimed at younger readers. As my first experience of reading Diana Wynne Jones, it was very enjoyable and I’m sure I’ll read more at some point.