Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction – 2022 Shortlist

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The shortlist for the 2022 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction has been announced today! Thanks to this prize, I have discovered lots of great books and authors over the last few years and always look out for the longlists and shortlists; in fact, trying to read all of the shortlisted titles since the prize began in 2010 is a personal project of mine (you can see my progress here).

From the longlist of thirteen books, which was revealed in February, I have managed to read The Sunken Road, Mrs England, Still Life and Rose Nicolson – and still have some of the others waiting on my TBR. But have any of the books I’ve read made it onto the shortlist?

Surprisingly, there are only four titles on this year’s shortlist, rather than the usual five or six – and here they are:

Rose Nicolson by Andrew Greig

Embra, winter of 1574. Queen Mary has fled Scotland, to raise an army from the French. Her son and heir, Jamie is held under protection in Stirling Castle. John Knox is dead. The people are unmoored and lurching under the uncertain governance of this riven land. It’s a deadly time for young student Will Fowler, short of stature, low of birth but mightily ambitious, to make his name.

Fowler has found himself where the scorch marks of the martyrs burned at the stake can be seen on every street, where differences in doctrine can prove fatal, where the feuds of great families pull innocents into their bloody realm. There he befriends the austere stick-wielding philosopher Tom Nicolson, son of a fishing family whose sister Rose, untutored, brilliant and exceedingly beautiful exhibits a free-thinking mind that can only bring danger upon her and her admirers. The lowly students are adept at attracting the attentions of the rich and powerful, not least Walter Scott, brave and ruthless heir to Branxholm and Buccleuch, who is set on exploiting the civil wars to further his political and dynastic ambitions. His friendship and patronage will lead Will to the to the very centre of a conspiracy that will determine who will take Scotland’s crown.

Rose Nicolson is a vivid, passionate and unforgettable novel of this most dramatic period of Scotland’s history, told by a character whose rise mirrors the conflicts he narrates, the battles between faith and reason, love and friendship, self-interest and loyalty. It confirms Andrew Greig as one of the great contemporary writers of fiction.

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News of the Dead by James Robertson

Deep in the mountains of north-east Scotland lies Glen Conach, a place of secrets and memories, fable and history. In particular, it holds the stories of three different eras, separated by centuries yet linked by location, by an ancient manuscript and by echoes that travel across time.

In ancient Pictland, the Christian hermit Conach contemplates God and nature, performs miracles and prepares himself for sacrifice. Long after his death, legends about him are set down by an unknown hand in the Book of Conach.

Generations later, in the early nineteenth century, self-promoting antiquarian Charles Kirkliston Gibb is drawn to the Glen, and into the big house at the heart of its fragile community.

In the present day, young Lachie whispers to Maja of a ghost he thinks he has seen. Reflecting on her long life, Maja believes him, for she is haunted by ghosts of her own.

News of the Dead is a captivating exploration of refuge, retreat and the reception of strangers. It measures the space between the stories people tell of themselves – what they forget and what they invent – and the stories through which they may, or may not, be remembered.

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Fortune by Amanda Smyth

Eddie Wade has recently returned from the US oilfields. He is determined to sink his own well and make his fortune in the 1920s Trinidad oil-rush. His sights are set on Sonny Chatterjee’s failing cocoa estate, Kushi, where the ground is so full of oil you can put a stick in the ground and see it bubble up. When a fortuitous meeting with businessman Tito Fernandez brings Eddie the investor he desperately needs, the three men enter into a partnership. A friendship between Tito and Eddie begins that will change their lives forever, not least when the oil starts gushing. But their partnership also brings Eddie into contact with Ada, Tito’s beautiful wife, and as much as they try, they cannot avoid the attraction they feel for each other.

Fortune, based on true events, catches Trinidad at a moment of historical change whose consequences reverberate down to present concerns with climate change and environmental destruction. As a story of love and ambition, its focus is on individuals so enmeshed in their desires that they blindly enter the territory of classic Greek tragedy where actions always have consequences.

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The Magician by Colm Tóibín

Colm Tóibín’s new novel opens in a provincial German city at the turn of the twentieth century, where the boy, Thomas Mann, grows up with a conservative father, bound by propriety, and a Brazilian mother, alluring and unpredictable. Young Mann hides his artistic aspirations from his father and his homosexual desires from everyone. He is infatuated with one of the richest, most cultured Jewish families in Munich, and marries the daughter Katia. They have six children. On a holiday in Italy, he longs for a boy he sees on a beach and writes the story Death in Venice. He is the most successful novelist of his time, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, a public man whose private life remains secret. He is expected to lead the condemnation of Hitler, whom he underestimates. His oldest daughter and son, leaders of Bohemianism and of the anti-Nazi movement, share lovers. He flees Germany for Switzerland, France and, ultimately, America, living first in Princeton and then in Los Angeles.

The Magician is an intimate, astonishingly complex portrait of Mann, his magnificent and complex wife Katia, and the times in which they lived—the first world war, the rise of Hitler, World War II, the Cold War, and exile.

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As you can see, I’ve only read one of these four books, Rose Nicolson – and loved it, so I would be very pleased if it won! I will be trying to read the other three, but might not have time before the winner is announced at the Borders Book Festival on Friday 17th June.

Have you read any of these books or are you tempted to read them? Which one do you think will win?

The Dark Queens by Shelley Puhak (non-fiction)

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Their ghosts are everywhere; we just need to know where to look.

This is a fascinating dual biography of two little-known medieval queens, Brunhild and Fredegund, who belonged to the Merovingian dynasty and ruled over large swathes of the lands we now know as France and Germany. I don’t often find myself drawn to non-fiction, but this book was a great choice for me as it’s both educational and entertaining – and every bit as readable as fiction.

Most people today have probably never heard of Brunhild and Fredegund and it seems there’s a good reason for that: as Shelley Puhak explains, following the deaths of the two queens, their stories were rewritten – and some of their achievements erased altogether – by the rulers who came after them, including their own son and nephew Clothar II, and later by Charlemagne’s Carolingian dynasty. And yet the influence of these two Merovingian women lived on, in legends and fairy tales, in the naming of roads, and in the character of Brunhild the Valkyrie from Wagner’s opera Der Ring des Nibelungen. Most intriguingly, a battle strategy of Fredegund’s appears to have inspired, whether directly or indirectly, the ‘Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane’ episode of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

The two queens came from very different backgrounds. Brunhild was a princess from Visigothic Spain who was married off to King Sigibert of Austrasia in 567 as part of a political alliance. Austrasia was the north-eastern territory of the Kingdom of the Franks; Neustria to the west and Burgundy to the south were ruled by Sigibert’s brothers, Chilperic I and Guntram, respectively. Fredegund, a former slave, rose to power when she married Chilperic of Neustria following the death of his wife under suspicious circumstances. This was only the first of many murders with which Fredegund would be connected; she went on to be associated with a whole series of poisonings, tortures and political assassinations. Brunhild is portrayed as a much more sympathetic character, but the prejudices of the sources do need to be considered!

After the deaths of their husbands, both Brunhild and Fredegund reigned as regents on behalf of their young sons and grandsons. Their kingdoms of Austrasia and Neustria were engaged in war for many years, fuelled by a rivalry between the two queens, which originated in Fredegund allegedly being responsible for the murders of both Galswintha, Brunhild’s sister, and King Sigibert, Brunhild’s husband. However, they were willing to work together where necessary and both queens proved themselves to be strong, intelligent, politically astute women in a world dominated by men.

The Dark Queens is not a particularly academic book. It’s written in the style of narrative non-fiction, drawing on the available primary sources such as the writings of Gregory of Tours and Venantius Fortunatus but sometimes finding it necessary to speculate in order to fill in the gaps. Despite this, it’s clear that Shelley Puhak has carried out a huge amount of research in writing this book and she does include a list of all of her sources, both primary and secondary, at the end, along with a comprehensive section of notes and references. Although The Dark Queens may not satisfy readers who are looking for something more scholarly, I thoroughly enjoyed it and am so pleased I’ve had the chance to get to know Brunhild and Fredegund. I’m surprised they haven’t been written about more widely; they would be wonderful subjects for historical fiction and would make a nice change from the Tudors!

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

Top Ten Tuesday: Incoming Books

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This week’s Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is a ‘freebie’, meaning we can choose our own topic.

It’s been a few months since I highlighted any of my new acquisitions, so I’m listing below ten books that have recently been added to my TBR.

1. The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn – I loved my first Kate Quinn novel, The Rose Code. Her new book, The Diamond Eye, is out now and I’m hoping to read it very soon.

2. All the Seas of the World by Guy Gavriel Kay – This is set in the same world as Kay’s previous two novels, Children of Earth and Sky and A Brightness Long Ago, both of which I’ve read and enjoyed, so I was pleased to receive a review copy from NetGalley.

3. The Toll-Gate by Georgette Heyer – I’ve just started reading this in preparation for the upcoming 1954 Club hosted by Karen and Simon. There’s nearly always a Heyer book to read, whichever year is chosen (and an Agatha Christie as well).

4. The House of the Deer by DE Stevenson – I receive the daily Lume Books newsletter which offers a selection of their titles free or at reduced prices. This DE Stevenson novel was on offer a few weeks ago, but it looks like I’ll need to read Gerald and Elizabeth first.

5. Death on Gokumon Island by Seishi Yokomizo – I’ve enjoyed two of the previous books in the Kosuke Kindaichi mystery series and this one, said to be inspired by And Then There Were None, is the latest to be translated into English.

6. Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe – I signed up to read this via Pigeonhole in fifteen daily instalments. I’ve had mixed experiences with 18th century literature in the past, but will see how I get on with this one!

7. Yes, Giorgio by Anne Piper – I’ve never heard of this 1961 novel, but it was another special offer from Lume Books. It’s described as a ‘classic comic romance’ and was made into a film starring Pavarotti.

8. In Place of Fear by Catriona McPherson – I’ve been interested in trying Catriona McPherson’s books for a while, as I keep seeing them on other blogs I follow. This is her new book, set in 1940s Edinburgh, and I hope it will be a good one to start with.

9. Winchelsea by Alex Preston – This ‘adventure novel for adults’, about smugglers in the 1740s, sounds as though it could be my sort of book. We’ll soon find out!

10. A Lady’s Guide to Fortune-Hunting by Sophie Irwin – I’m not at all sure whether I’ll like this one, but it was a ‘Read Now’ title on NetGalley last week and is getting mainly good reviews, so I thought I’d give it a try.

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Have you read any of these? Are you tempted by them? Which new books have been added to your TBR recently?

Six Degrees of Separation: From Our Wives Under the Sea to Full Dark House

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It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for another Six Degrees of Separation, hosted by Kate of Books are my Favourite and Best. The idea is that Kate chooses a book to use as a starting point and then we have to link it to six other books of our choice to form a chain. A book doesn’t have to be connected to all of the others on the list – only to the one next to it in the chain.

This month we’re starting with Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield. Yet another book I haven’t read! Here’s what it’s about:

Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep-sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah is not the same. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has brought part of it back with her, onto dry land and into their home.

Moving through something that only resembles normal life, Miri comes to realize that the life that they had before might be gone. Though Leah is still there, Miri can feel the woman she loves slipping from her grasp.

Our Wives Under The Sea is the debut novel from Julia Armfield, the critically acclaimed author of salt slow. It’s a story of falling in love, loss, grief, and what life there is in the deep deep sea.

Although I haven’t read the Julia Armfield book, the title and blurb immediately made me think of another novel about women who work in the sea: The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See (1). This book is set in South Korea and tells the story of Young-sook, a woman who belongs to the haenyeo community – female divers who gather seafood from the waters surrounding the island of Jeju. It’s a fascinating novel, but also a powerful and poignant one, as the time period in which it’s set covers World War II and the Korean War.

The haenyeo are a semi-matriarchal society, with the family relying on the woman’s income while the husband stays at home to look after the children. The Mark of the Horse Lord by Rosemary Sutcliff (2) set during the time of the Roman Empire, also features a matriarchal society – the Caledones who worship the ‘Great Mother’. The novel follows the gladiator Phaedrus who becomes part of a plot to impersonate King Midir of the Dalriadain.

I’ve read several novels about imposters, but the one I’ve chosen to link to next is a classic from 1894: The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope (3). This novel is set in the fictitious central European kingdom of Ruritania. When the new king is kidnapped and imprisoned by his half-brother Black Michael, his distant cousin Rudolf Rassendyll is persuaded to impersonate him at his coronation. I found this book great fun to read, although I still haven’t continued with the sequel, Rupert of Hentzau.

Another book set in a fictional land is First Night by Jane Aiken Hodge (4), which takes place in 1802 in a European principality known as Lissenberg. The novel follows Cristabel Sallis, a talented young singer, as she sets out to launch a career in opera. I’ve read several of Jane Aiken Hodge’s novels and this is the only one that I haven’t really enjoyed. It’s the first in a trilogy, but I probably won’t continue with it while there are so many of her other books I could be reading instead.

Thinking about books featuring opera, The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (5) is obviously the first one that comes to mind! It’s not a favourite classic, but I did find it an entertaining read and loved the descriptions of the Paris Opera House with its underground tunnels and lakes. It’s worth reading even if you’ve seen one of the many film, TV or stage adaptations.

In Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler (6) our octogenarian detectives Arthur Bryant and John May are remembering a case from their younger days in which they investigated a series of murders in a theatre carried out by a killer known as ‘the Palace Phantom’. This is the first in the Bryant and May series and has a wonderful wartime London setting. I also enjoyed the next three books in the series and must continue with the fifth one soon!

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And that’s my chain for April! My links included women who work in the sea, matriarchal societies, imposters, fictional lands, opera singers and phantoms.

In May we’ll be starting with True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey.

My Commonplace Book: March 2022

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

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

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For as long as she could remember she had been obsessed with the ocean. It was the beating heart of many of the books she read, bringing people together or tearing them apart. The world was just a myriad of people in different places and only the sea could decide whether they would find each other in the end or not…

The Sunken Road by Ciaran McMenamin (2021)

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What use dwelling on it? Nought could be changed of the past, except his opinion of it. It was not only our beginning that made us, but what came after.

Privilege by Guinevere Glasfurd (2022)

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But she’d learned, occasionally to her cost, more often to her benefit, that no matter how well you hid yourself from life, life – pesky business that it was – had a way of tracking you down.

The Dark by Sharon Bolton (2022)

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Engraving by Hendrik Hondius showing three people affected by the dancing plague.

‘Know this: fear is a weak hold. It will not bind. That is what you never understood.’

The Dance Tree by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (2022)

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Long ago Eve had discovered that the small amenities and sensualities of life are more comforting in a crisis than any philosophy. She was fond of saying that there was no tragedy in this world that could not be softened a little by a hot bath, a cup of strong coffee, and a good cigarette, while a couple of cocktails and a well-cooked dinner would mend a broken heart.

Who’s Calling? by Helen McCloy (1942)

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‘You cannot take the measure of a man when things are working well,’ said Wilde, as though it were a truth I ought to know. ‘It’s only when the plan goes badly wrong and everything is broken that you’ll see what he is made of – if he breaks, too, or builds something from the pieces that remain.’

The Vanished Days by Susanna Kearsley (2022)

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My training and my habits of thought are those of a scientist. No scientist is worthy of the name if he is content to build up a hypothesis on simple intuition or guesswork. When he has definite evidence , even if the final proof is lacking, he may venture to put forward a theory, in order that others may be able to check, establish or disprove his contention.

Scarweather by Anthony Rolls (1934)

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Woodland at Hardcastle Crags, West Yorkshire

I cast about for the right words. ‘I suppose I wonder what employment could be more interesting than training a child’s mind.’ Now I had his attention, and went on self-consciously. ‘My principal says that the material on which nurses work is more precious than canvas, more exquisite than marble, and more valuable to the world than both of those things. It’s about the shaping of people into good human beings.’

Mrs England by Stacey Halls (2021)

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How can a day, an hour, a minute change a life so completely? Why can these clocks not be made to run backward and take him to the day before, to the life he had supposed he would have? That, he thinks, would be a worthwhile pursuit for a clockmaker, not simply to mark off time as it passes, but to tame the beast, to make it run this way and that; to make time man’s servant, not man its ever more obedient slave.

The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley by Sean Lusk (2022)

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“No man owns his own life,” he said. “Part of you is always in someone else’s hands.”

Go Tell the Bees That I am Gone by Diana Gabaldon (2021)

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“I may,” said Poirot in a completely unconvinced tone, “be wrong.”

Morton smiled. “But that doesn’t often happen to you?”

“No. Though I will admit – yes, I am forced to admit – that it has happened to me.”

“I must say I’m glad to hear it! To be always right must be sometimes monotonous.”

“I do not find it so,” Poirot assured him.

After the Funeral by Agatha Christie (1953)

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Favourite books read in March:

The Dark, After the Funeral and Mrs England

Places visited in my March reading:

England, France, USA, Ireland, Turkey, Scotland

Authors read for the first time in March:

Ciaran McMenamin, Anthony Rolls, Sean Lusk

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Reading notes: I enjoyed my March reading and was pleased that I found time to read something for both Reading Ireland Month (The Sunken Road) and Reading Wales Month (Scarweather), as well as returning to the Read Christie 2022 challenge with a book that I loved, After the Funeral. I haven’t managed to review everything I’ve read, but some of those books haven’t been published yet and I’ll be posting my reviews nearer to the publication dates.

In April, I’m looking forward to 1954 Club and have two or three possibilities lined up for that – and of course, I still need to read my book for the recent Classics Club Spin, In a Lonely Place.

How was your March? Do you have any reading plans for April?

Traitor in the Ice by KJ Maitland

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Traitor in the Ice is the second book in KJ Maitland’s new historical crime series set in the early 1600s during the reign of James I of England and VI of Scotland. The first, The Drowned City, introduces us to Daniel Pursglove as he searches for a mysterious Catholic conspirator known as Spero Pettingar in the aftermath of the failed Gunpowder Plot. That book is set in Bristol just after the devastating Bristol Channel Floods of 1607; Traitor in the Ice takes place the following winter – a particularly cold winter referred to as the Great Frost.

In these freezing, icy conditions a man has been found dead in the grounds of Battle Abbey in Sussex. The man was one of the King’s agents, sent to infiltrate the Montague household at Battle to try to root out those with Catholic sympathies. Lady Magdalen, Viscountess Montague is believed to be sheltering Catholic priests within the abbey walls, but the agent has been killed before having the chance to send his report to London. A replacement is needed, so Daniel Pursglove finds himself summoned by the King’s man, Charles FitzAlan, once more and sent to Battle to find evidence of treachery. He quickly discovers that almost everyone in the abbey has something to hide, but when more murders take place Daniel begins to wonder whether he is on the trail of the elusive Spero Pettingar at last.

One of the things I liked about the previous book in this series was the setting; I knew nothing about the Bristol floods and found the descriptions of the city in the aftermath quite eerie and otherworldly. The frozen landscapes of Sussex described in this second novel are equally atmospheric: the ‘withered brown bracken, each frond encased in its own ice-coffin’; the pink light of dawn ‘sending sparks of light shivering across the frost’. It’s the perfect setting for a murder mystery and Maitland weaves her usual mix of superstition and legend into the plot, adding to the sense of time and place. I was particularly intrigued by the practice of ‘night-creeping’, which Maitland explains in more detail in her very comprehensive author’s note at the end of the book.

I had hoped to learn more about Daniel Pursglove in this novel, but that doesn’t really happen and he is still very much a man of mystery by the final page. Although it’s not essential to have read the previous book first, I was pleased that I had as it meant I was familiar with at least some of Daniel’s background and wasn’t quite as confused as I might otherwise have been. I do like Daniel, though, and enjoyed following him through his investigations.

However, I had the same problem with this book that I had with the first one: there was just too much happening! The chapters set at Battle Abbey alternate with others set at court where through the eyes of two cousins, Richard and Oliver, we watch the rise to power of the King’s new favourite, Robert Carr. We also see Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, working to maintain his own influence over King James, while in the streets and taverns of London violence is brewing between gangs of local youths and the Scottish courtiers who are newly arrived in the city. All of this is very interesting, but too much for one book on top of the murders and the Catholic conspiracies! With a tighter focus on just one or two threads of the plot, I think this would be a much stronger series. Anyway, I did enjoy this second novel overall and will be looking out for a third one.

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

This is book 15/50 read for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2022.

After the Funeral by Agatha Christie

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This month’s theme for the Read Christie 2022 challenge is ‘a story Agatha wrote abroad’. After the Funeral, a Hercule Poirot mystery first published in 1953, doesn’t include any travel and is set entirely in England, but it was written while Christie was away on an archaeological dig with her husband Max.

After the Funeral begins, as the title suggests, just after the funeral of the wealthy Richard Abernethie with the family assembling to hear the reading of the will by his lawyer, Mr Entwhistle. As he has no surviving children of his own, it seems that Richard’s fortune is to be divided between his brother and sister, two of his sisters-in-law, and several of his nieces and nephews and their spouses. After hearing the terms of the will, Cora Lansquenet, Richard’s sister, remarks that her brother was murdered. This is not something that has occurred to anyone else, as they have all accepted that Richard died of natural causes, so Cora’s comments are not taken seriously. The next day, however, Cora herself is found dead, having been brutally murdered in her bed.

Mr Entwhistle, the lawyer, is convinced there must be a connection between the two deaths and begins to interview the family members, hoping that they will all be able to prove themselves innocent and avoid bringing shame on the family. As the mystery deepens, he decides that he needs to call in an expert – and so he contacts his friend, Hercule Poirot, who listens to the facts and agrees that an investigation is required…

This is maybe not one of the better known Poirot novels, but it’s one that I particularly enjoyed. After a confusing start – Christie throws a huge number of characters into the opening chapters and it takes a while to straighten out their relationships and remember who they all are – I became completely absorbed in this fascinating mystery, having a few guesses at the identity of the culprit and getting it wrong every time! It’s one of those mysteries where literally any of the characters (apart from Poirot, of course) could have been the murderer and the solution relies on a wonderful twist, which I don’t think many readers will have seen coming. Well done if you did, but I certainly didn’t.

Poirot himself doesn’t have a large part to play in the novel until the second half; before that, it’s actually Mr Entwhistle who is trying to investigate the deaths, by questioning suspects, speaking to doctors and establishing alibis. During that first half of the novel, I couldn’t help thinking that it wasn’t really essential for Poirot to appear in the story at all as Mr Entwhistle seemed to be doing such a good job! However, it’s Poirot’s ‘little grey cells’ that are necessary to spot that final crucial clue and solve the mystery.

Next month’s theme for the Read Christie challenge is ‘a story featuring adventure’. There are plenty of those to choose from!