Historical Fiction Reading Challenge: Looking back at 2023 and forward to 2024!

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I don’t take part in many year-long reading challenges as I prefer to just join in with shorter reading events these days. However, there is one that I like to participate in every year – and that is the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, hosted by Marg at The Intrepid Reader. This is not really much of a ‘challenge’ for me as I read a lot of historical fiction anyway, but I still enjoy linking my reviews to the monthly challenge posts, seeing what other participants are reading and discovering new historical fiction novels and bloggers. This year, Marg has also been posting monthly statistics so we can see which books and authors are proving particularly popular.

Before I post the details of the 2024 challenge, I want to look back at what I achieved in 2023.

I had signed up at the ‘Prehistoric’ level, which meant reading 50+ historical fiction novels during the year. I managed to read 51 (I’m probably not going to finish any more before the end of the month) and here they are, with links to reviews where available:

1. The Giant, O’Brien by Hilary Mantel
2. A Marriage of Fortune by Anne O’Brien
3. My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor
4. For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain by Victoria MacKenzie
5. The Whispering Muse by Laura Purcell
6. Weyward by Emilia Hart
7. Lady MacBethad by Isabelle Schuler
8. The Shadows of London by Andrew Taylor
9. The Lodger by Helen Scarlett
10. These Days by Lucy Caldwell
11. The Secrets of Hartwood Hall by Katie Lumsden
12. The Spanish Bride by Georgette Heyer
13. Rivers of Treason by KJ Maitland
14. Prize Women by Caroline Lea
15. Homecoming by Kate Morton
16. The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman
17. Music in the Dark by Sally Magnusson
18. Farewell, the Tranquil Mind by RF Delderfield
19. The Stolen Crown by Carol McGrath
20. The Sun Walks Down by Fiona McFarlane
21. Savage Beasts by Rani Selvarajah
22. The Last Lifeboat by Hazel Gaynor
23. Voices of the Dead by Ambrose Parry
24. The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson
25. The Other Side of Mrs Wood by Lucy Barker
26. The Housekeepers by Alex Hay
27. The Graces by Siobhan MacGowan
28. The Witching Tide by Margaret Meyer
29. Disobedient by Elizabeth Fremantle
30. Death Comes as the End by Agatha Christie
31. The Orchid Hour by Nancy Bilyeau
32. Fair Rosaline by Natasha Solomons
33. The House with the Golden Door by Elodie Harper
34. Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik
35. Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue
36. A Song for Summer by Eva Ibbotson
37. A Lady’s Guide to Scandal by Sophie Irwin
38. The Ionian Mission by Patrick O’Brian
39. Henry VIII: The Heart and the Crown by Alison Weir
40. Night Train to Marrakech by Dinah Jefferies
41. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken
42. The Nonesuch by Georgette Heyer
43. Once a Monster by Robert Dinsdale
44. Scarlet Town by Leonora Nattrass
45. The Wayward Sisters by Kate Hodges
46. The Water Child by Mathew West
47. The Black Feathers by Rebecca Netley
48. The Murder Wheel by Tom Mead
49. The Black Crescent by Jane Johnson
50. Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville
51. The Witch’s Daughter by Imogen Edwards-Jones (review to follow)

Here are the rules for the 2024 challenge, taken from Marg’s blog:

Everyone can participate! If you don’t have a blog you can post a link to your review if it’s posted on Goodreads, Facebook, or Amazon, or you can add your book title and thoughts in the comment section if you wish.

Any sub-genre of historical fiction is accepted (Historical Romance, Historical Mystery, Historical Fantasy, Young Adult, History/Non-Fiction, etc.)

During the following 12 months you can choose one of the different reading levels:

20th Century Reader – 2 books
Victorian Reader – 5 books
Renaissance Reader – 10 books
Medieval – 15 books
Ancient History – 25 books
Prehistoric – 50+ books

You can sign up for the challenge here. I will be aiming for Prehistoric again in 2024.

Let me know if you’re planning to take part too!

Merry Christmas!

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Just a quick post to wish a Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it – and for those who don’t, I hope you have a lovely day anyway!

Thank you to everyone who has read, liked or commented on my reviews throughout the year. It’s very much appreciated! Have a great Christmas and I’ll be back soon with one or two more posts before the end of the month.

A Pink Front Door by Stella Gibbons

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My second book for this year’s Dean Street December, hosted by Liz at Adventures in Reading, Running and Working from Home, is Stella Gibbons’ 1959 novel A Pink Front Door. I didn’t love the only other Gibbons book I’ve read, Cold Comfort Farm – I know I’m in the minority, but I just didn’t find it as funny as everyone says it is – so I wanted to give her another chance. I’m pleased to report that I enjoyed this one much more.

The house with the pink front door is home to Daisy and James Muir and their baby son (whom Daisy always refers to as James Too). Daisy is one of those people everyone turns to when they are in need of help and who enjoys trying to solve their problems for them. In post-war London these problems often involve housing and the novel opens with Daisy finding new lodgings for Tibbs, an Eastern European refugee who is struggling to settle into a new life, and Molly Raymond, a young woman who keeps embarrassing herself by chasing after unsuitable men. However, when Daisy’s old university friend, Don, tells her that he is also searching for somewhere to live with his wife and three young children, this proves to be much more of a challenge. Daisy knows that Mrs Cavendish has the whole top floor of her house available to rent, but will that snobbish woman agree to share her home with people who are ‘not her sort’?

The novel shifts between the perspectives of some of the characters mentioned above and also several others, including Daisy’s elderly aunts, Marcia and Ella, who have lived together for many years since neither of their lives went quite the way they had expected when they were younger. Through the stories of Marcia and Ella, Gibbons explores some of the issues facing older unmarried women, as well as the different but equally frustrating ones faced by younger, married women – Don’s wife Katy, for example, who has a degree in chemistry which she is unable to use because she’s now looking after three children and being treated like a servant by Mrs Cavendish in return for the use of her spare rooms.

For most of the book, the plot moves along at a slow, steady pace; I would describe this as much more of a character-driven novel and I did enjoy getting to know all of the characters, even the unpleasant ones. There’s some drama later on when Daisy’s long-suffering husband begins to lose patience with being neglected all the time and decides to take drastic action – and then another dramatic development right at the end of the book which was unexpected and, in my opinion, unnecessary. Still, I got on with A Pink Front Door better than I did with the much more popular Cold Comfort Farm. I’m glad I decided to try Stella Gibbons again and am looking forward to reading more of her work now.

Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt by Lucinda Riley and Harry Whittaker

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In 2014, Lucinda Riley published The Seven Sisters, the first of a seven book series, with each book telling the story of one of the seven daughters of a mysterious billionaire they know only as Pa Salt. Six of the girls were adopted by Pa Salt as babies and although they came from different countries and cultures, they all grew up together at Atlantis, Pa’s beautiful estate by Lake Geneva in Switzerland. They are each named after one of the stars in the Pleiades, or ‘Seven Sisters’, star cluster – Maia, Alycone (Ally), Asterope (Star), Celaeno (CeCe), Taygete (Tiggy) and Electra D’Aplièse. The seventh sister, Merope, was never brought home to Atlantis and we found out why in the seventh book of the series, The Missing Sister.

Shortly after the publication of The Missing Sister in 2021 came the sad news that Lucinda Riley had died following a long battle with cancer…and then the happier news that she had been planning an eighth book about the D’Aplièse family and had left her notes with her son, Harry Whittaker, to be completed after her death. Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt is the result. This book should definitely be read after the other seven, but I think I’ve managed to review it here without spoiling anything, so if you’re new to the series it’s safe to read on!

Most of the earlier books in the series started in the same way, with the D’Aplièse sisters mourning the death of Pa Salt in 2007 and learning that he had left each of them a set of clues to point them in the direction of their biological parents. Each novel would then focus on one sister as she traced her family history and discovered her own heritage. In Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt, it’s now 2008 and all of the sisters and their partners have gathered on board Pa’s yacht, the Titan, to sail out into the Aegean to mark the anniversary of his death. However, Pa’s lawyer, Georg Hoffman, has one more surprise for them – a copy of Pa Salt’s diary, intended to be read by his daughters after his death.

The novel alternates between the modern day storyline set on the Titan and the story that unfolds through the diary of a little boy called Atlas who is found sheltering under a hedge in a Paris garden one day in 1928, starving and exhausted. He is taken in by the kind-hearted Landowski family who provide him with a home and an education, but it is not until many years later that he is able to begin to open up about the traumas of his past and his fear that he is still being pursued by a man who wants to kill him. It is this fear that eventually leads him to leave Paris and flee once again, but he quickly discovers that nowhere is safe and his pursuer will manage to track him down no matter where he hides. As he takes refuge in first one country then another, Atlas forms friendships with the ancestors of the girls he will later come to adopt and who will know him as their beloved Pa Salt.

This is a book where a lot of suspension of disbelief is necessary, from the number of characters with names that are ridiculous anagrams from Greek myth – including Atlas Tanit (Titan) and his enemy Kreeg Eszu (Greek Zeus), whose parents happen to be Cronus and Rhea – to the idea that so many people with connections to Pa Salt have babies in need of adoption. The events that lead to his adoptions of Electra and CeCe are particularly hard to believe. The earlier books in the series are also scattered with metaphors, symbolism and coincidences, but they are much more heavy-handed in this book. Still, I managed to overlook those things because at this stage of the series I just wanted to know how everything would be resolved and whether the theories I had been forming about Pa Salt and the other characters were correct.

I’m not sure exactly how much input Lucinda Riley and Harry Whittaker each had into this book, but I do think Whittaker does a good job of capturing his mother’s writing style; there are only a few occasions where it feels obvious that it’s not the same author, mainly where the dialogue between the sisters doesn’t feel quite right. I don’t want to be too critical, though, because we’re lucky to have this book at all and I’m sure it must have been a difficult task for Harry. Although there are some plot holes and some questions that aren’t answered very satisfactorily, overall I was impressed by how well all the separate threads from the previous seven books are brought together in this one. My only real complaint is that there wasn’t a happier ending for one particular character. Anyone who reads this book will know who I mean!

Have you read any books completed by a different author after the original author’s death? What did you think?

The Figurine by Victoria Hislop

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‘Every object, whether it’s old, new, beautiful or even ugly, has a life. A starting point, a journey, a story, Whatever you want to call it. Some have places where they really belong, which is different from the location where they find themselves.’

In her new novel, The Figurine, Victoria Hislop tackles the subject of the theft and smuggling of art and antiquities, a problem that has existed for centuries and sadly is still making news headlines today. As Hislop explains in her foreword to the book, ‘the theft of cultural treasures and the falsification of provenance diminishes our understanding of civilisation’. The Figurine explores this topic through the eyes of Helena McCloud, a young woman with a Greek mother and Scottish father.

We first meet Helena in 1968 as an eight-year-old child arriving in Athens to visit her grandparents for the first time. Her mother was born and raised in Greece, but she doesn’t accompany Helena on this trip and appears to have been estranged from her family for many years, although at this point we don’t know why. Everything is new and strange to Helena, but during this visit – and more to follow over the next few summers – she begins to fall in love with Greece and to develop loving relationships with her grandmother and the housekeeper, Dina. Her grandfather, however, remains a cold, remote figure and her dislike of him grows as she discovers that he has connections with the military dictatorship currently in control of the country.

Helena’s summers in Greece come to an end in the 1970s due to political turmoil and by the time it’s safe to return, her grandparents are no longer alive. Heading to Athens to inspect the apartment she has inherited from them, she makes another shocking discovery about her grandfather, this time relating to his involvement in the looting of valuable historical artefacts. Helena’s own interest in antiquities has already led her to take part in an archaeological dig on an island in the Aegean Sea. Can she use her newly gained knowledge to make amends for what her grandfather has done?

This is the third Victoria Hislop novel I’ve read, after Those Who Are Loved, also set in Greece, and The Sunrise, set during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, and although I didn’t enjoy it as much as those two books, it was still a fascinating story. As well as the exploration of cultural theft and its impact on world heritage, we also learn a lot about the political situation in Greece during the 1960s and 70s and of course, there are lots of beautiful descriptions of the country itself. While there are some horrible characters in the novel, Helena also makes several friends and I loved watching her bond with her grandparents’ servant, Dina – I enjoyed seeing them sneak out onto the streets of Athens in search of somewhere to view the 1969 moon landing, because her grandfather has cruelly removed the television to stop them from watching this historic event.

My main problem with this book was the length; I felt that there were lots of scenes that added very little to the overall story and could easily have been left out. I also found some parts of the plot predictable and others very unrealistic, particularly towards the end of the book where Helena and her friends decide to take matters into their own hands when it would surely have been much more sensible just to have gone to the police.

Although this isn’t a favourite Hislop novel, I do have another one, The Thread, on my shelf which I’m looking forward to reading.

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

Historical Musings #83: Books to look out for in 2024

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Now that 2023 is almost over, it’s time to look ahead to the historical fiction being published in 2024. I’ve listed below a selection of books that have caught my attention for one reason or another – some are review copies I’ve received, some are new books by authors I’ve previously enjoyed and others just sound interesting. 2024 looks like being a great year for historical fiction and I hope there’s something here that appeals to you.

Dates provided are for the UK and were correct at the time of posting.

January

The Beholders by Hester Musson (18th January 2024) – A debut Gothic thriller about secrets within the household of a politician and his wife, set in the 1870s and written from the perspective of their maid.

February

The Bone Hunters by Joanne Burn (8th February 2024) – I haven’t read either of Joanne Burn’s previous two novels but this new one, about the discovery of fossils in the cliffs of Lyme Regis, sounds appealing to me. I’ll be interested to see how it compares with Tracy Chevalier’s Remarkable Creatures, on the same subject.

The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo (13th February 2024) – Choo’s novels usually combine history with elements of fantasy or magical realism and her new book, in which rumours of ‘fox gods’ surround the death of a young woman in 1908 Manchuria, sounds like it will do the same.

The Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang (15th February 2024) – I don’t often read novels that are collaborations between two authors, but I’ve enjoyed other books by Kate Quinn, although I haven’t read anything by Janie Chang yet. This one is about two women who are drawn into a mystery when a dealer in Chinese antiques disappears after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Clairmont by Lesley McDowell (29th February 2024) – I’ve read other books about Lord Byron and Percy and Mary Shelley, but this one is written from the perspective of Claire Clairmont, Mary’s stepsister, which should be interesting.

A Court of Betrayal by Anne O’Brien (29th February 2024) – Moving on from her last two novels which were a fictional account of the Paston family based on the letters they left behind, O’Brien’s new novel has a completely different setting and tells the story of Johane de Geneville, an heiress of the Welsh Marches in the 14th century.

March

The Tower by Flora Carr (7th March 2024) – This is a novel about the imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots at Lochleven Castle, told from the point of view of Mary and her maids. It’s Flora Carr’s debut novel, so I’ll be interested to see what I think.

The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden (7th March 2024) – I loved Arden’s Winternight historical fantasy series set in medieval Russia, but this book, about a nurse investigating the disappearance of her brother in the trenches of the First World War, sounds very different.

The Other Gwyn Girl by Nicola Cornick (7th March 2024) – A dual timeline novel with the historical storyline set in 1671 and telling the story of Rose Gwyn, sister of the more famous Nell Gwyn, Charles II’s mistress.

The Book of Secrets by Anna Mazzola (21st March 2024) – I didn’t read Mazzola’s last book, but enjoyed her earlier ones. This new book is inspired by real events that took place in 17th century Italy.

April

The Household by Stacey Halls (11th April 2024) – A book inspired by the true story of Urania Cottage, a house for ‘fallen women’ co-founded by Charles Dickens. I enjoyed all of Stacey Halls’ previous three books so will definitely be reading this one.

A Plague of Serpents by KJ Maitland (25th April 2024) – This is going to be the last in the series of Daniel Pursglove mysteries set in Jacobean England. I’m hoping all my questions will be answered!

May

The Nightingale’s Castle by Sonia Velton (2nd May 2024) – This novel about the infamous Countess Erzsébet Báthory, an alleged 16th century serial killer, sounds fascinating and has a beautiful cover!

The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson (7th May 2024) – It feels like a very long time since Helen Simonson’s last book – in fact, it has been eight years! Her new one is going to be about a woman who joins a ladies’ motorcycle club in post-WWI England.

The Puzzle Wood by Rosie Andrews (9th May 2024) – I had mixed feelings about Rosie Andrews’ first book, The Leviathan, but I like the sound of this one, in which a woman takes up a position as governess in disguise so she can investigate the death of her sister.

Mary I: Queen of Sorrows by Alison Weir (9th May 2024) – The final book in Weir’s Tudor Rose trilogy, following her novels on Elizabeth of York and Henry VIII. I haven’t read as much about Mary I as I have about Elizabeth I, so it should be interesting.

Long Island by Colm Tóibín (23rd May 2024) – The long-awaited sequel to Tóibín’s 2009 novel Brooklyn will pick up the story of Eilis Lacey twenty years after the previous book ended.

June

The Burial Plot by Elizabeth Macneal (6th June 2024) – Described as a thriller set in Victorian London, this is Macneal’s third novel and having enjoyed her previous two, I’m already looking forward to it.

July

A Woman of Opinion by Sean Lusk (4th July 2024) – Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the 18th century writer, poet and medical pioneer, is the subject of Sean Lusk’s new novel, which sounds entirely different from last year’s The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley!

The Trouble with Mrs Montgomery Hurst by Katie Lumsden (18th July 2024) – Lumsden’s first book, The Secrets of Hartwood Hall, was a Gothic novel inspired by the Brontës, so her new book, in which a rich gentleman marries an impoverished widow, again sounds very different!

August

The King’s Messenger by Susanna Kearsley (1st August 2024) – Set in 1613, this book follows the story of Andrew Logan, messenger to King James I of England and VI of Scotland, who becomes caught up in rumours of poisoning following the death of the king’s eldest son.

The Briar Club by Kate Quinn (15th August 2024) – Kate Quinn’s second book of the year is a solo effort this time, about a group of women who hold weekly meetings in the attic of a Washington DC boarding house in the 1950s.

Unsinkable by Frances Quinn (15th August 2024) – I loved Frances Quinn’s last book, That Bonesetter Woman, so I’ll be looking out for Unsinkable which, as the title suggests, is going to be about the Titanic.

Precipice by Robert Harris (29th August 2024) – A new Robert Harris book is always something to look forward to. This one is set at the beginning of World War I and involves Prime Minister H.H. Asquith, his affair with Venetia Stanley, and some leaked secret documents.

September

The Royal Rebel by Elizabeth Chadwick (5th September 2024) – The first of two books telling the story of Jeanette of Kent (usually known as Joan of Kent), wife of Edward, the Black Prince and mother of Richard II. I have read about Joan before but I’m sure Chadwick’s version will add something new.

The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier (12th September 2024) – Chevalier’s first new novel in five years will begin in 15th century Venice and will follow a family of glassblowers down through the generations to the present day.

~

Are you interested in reading any of these books? What else have I missed?

We Know You’re Busy Writing… by Edmund Crispin

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I hadn’t read much of Edmund Crispin’s work – two novels and one or two short stories – so I jumped at the chance to read this new anthology from HarperCollins. It collects together in one volume all of Crispin’s forty-six published short stories, many of them featuring his series detective Gervase Fen. The entire contents of two previously published Crispin collections are included here – Beware of the Trains (1953) and Fen Country (1979) – as well as several standalones. It has taken me nearly two months to work my way through the whole book, a few stories at a time, as I think reading them all at once would have been too much!

Gervase Fen is a Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford University and a friend of Detective Inspector Humbleby of Scotland Yard, whom he often assists in the solving of crimes. Most of the short stories that feature Fen are very short – just a few pages long – and begin with Humbleby or another friend describing an unsolved case, after which Fen is soon able to tell him the solution, sometimes without even leaving the room, sometimes by making a quick telephone call or consulting a reference book. I was reminded of Baroness Orczy’s Old Man in the Corner stories, where her detective solves mysteries from the comfort of a London tea shop. The stories are too short for any real character development and the focus is on the puzzling scenario and how Fen solves it. I think there were only one or two that I guessed correctly; the majority rely on noticing tiny clues and sometimes require some specialist knowledge, for example knowing how cameras work or how a foreign word is pronounced.

Overall, I enjoyed the non-Fen stories more. The title story, We Know You’re Busy Writing, But We Thought You Wouldn’t Mind If We Just Dropped in for a Minute, is the highlight. Written in the first person, it’s narrated by an author who is working on a new novel and desperately trying to meet his publisher’s deadline. Unfortunately, he is constantly being interrupted by the telephone and people at the door. When his latest visitors sit themselves down and show no sign of leaving, he is forced to take drastic action! This is a great story, written with a lot of humour and a dark conclusion. Child’s Play, another standout, is dark from the beginning. Judith has just started a new position as governess to four children, one of whom is an orphan and is bullied by the other three. The story becomes very disturbing when a murder takes place and it seems that one of the children may be responsible.

This collection closes with a Gervase Fen novella from 1948, The Hours of Darkness, which was unpublished until it appeared in a Bodies from the Library anthology in 2019. The novella is set at Christmas, which makes it perfect for this time of year! Although the story itself isn’t very festive, Fen walks around singing carols as he works, much to the irritation of Inspector Wyndham, whom Fen is helping to investigate a murder which takes place during a game of hide and seek at a Christmas Eve house party. I didn’t find this a particularly outstanding or original mystery, but it was very enjoyable and the longer length allowed more depth of plot and characters.

I think the best place to start with Crispin, based on what I’ve read so far, is his 1946 Fen novel The Moving Toyshop, but these short stories are very entertaining, although I recommend taking your time over them as the Fen ones do become quite repetitive. You should also be aware that justice isn’t always done and Fen is sometimes satisfied just to find the solution and allow the culprits to get away with their crimes. Still, this is a great collection and has reminded me that I really need to read more of Crispin’s novels.

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