Tag: Scotland

Thomasina by Paul Gallico – #ReadingtheMeow2024

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When I saw that Mallika of Literary Potpourri was hosting her second Reading the Meow event this week – a celebration of cats in books – I knew exactly what I wanted to read. The Disney film The Three Lives of Thomasina was a favourite of mine as a child, but it never occurred to me to read the book on which it was based until I noticed that Lory of Entering the Enchanted Castle had read it for last year’s Reading the Meow so onto the list it went!

Published in 1957, Paul Gallico’s Thomasina is set in the fictional Scottish town of Inveranoch. Having lost his wife a few years earlier, veterinarian Andrew MacDhui has moved to the town from Glasgow and opened a surgery there, where he treats the pets of the townspeople, as well as looking after the health of the livestock on the surrounding farms. When the novel begins, MacDhui has only been living in Inveranoch for eighteen months and has already gained a reputation as a cold, bitter man who is good at his job but not mentally suited for it:

The gossips allowed that Andrew MacDhui was an honest, forthright and fair-dealing man, but, and this was the opinion of the strictly religiously inclined, a queer one to be dealing with God’s dumb creatures, since he appeared to have no love for animals, very little for man, and neither the inclination nor the time for God.

Since his wife’s death it seems that MacDhui has given what little love he still possesses to his seven-year-old daughter, Mary Ruadh, who is devoted to her ginger cat, Thomasina. When Thomasina becomes ill with a suspected meningeal infection, Mary takes her next door to her father’s surgery and begs him to save her pet’s life. Not pleased at being interrupted at his work and distracted by a difficult operation on a blind man’s dog, MacDhui tells her that Thomasina can’t be cured and orders his assistant to put the cat to sleep. Heartbroken, Mary vows never to speak to her father again and seems to really mean what she says. As the days go by and Mary’s silence continues, a desperate MacDhui pays a visit to Lori, a young woman who lives alone in the forest and is said to be a witch. Can Lori help repair the relationship between father and daughter or has too much damage been done?

Although I was already familiar with the plot, I found that this novel had far more depth than the Disney version and also a stronger religious element. There’s a lot of focus on MacDhui’s internal struggles as he tries to confront the loss of faith that has been with him since his wife died and on the efforts of Lori and the minister, Angus Peddie, to restore his belief in God and the power of love. Lori, a gentle, compassionate woman who tries to heal injured wild animals that others see as worthless, is a lovely character and reminded me a lot of Froniga in The White Witch by Elizabeth Goudge. However, I didn’t find the book overly sentimental because it’s balanced by the darker themes of loss and grief, as well as animal cruelty and its consequences for those who perpetrate it.

I’m sure younger readers will enjoy the chapters written from Thomasina’s own perspective, where she gives amusing descriptions of life in the MacDhui household, but I never really felt that I was reading a ‘children’s book’ and I think there’s enough here for readers of all ages to enjoy. Finally, without wanting to spoil too much, if you think Thomasina’s fate sounds too sad, I can assure you that her story is a happier one than you might expect.

This is book 3/20 of my 20 Books of Summer 2024.

Rosabelle Shaw by D.E. Stevenson – #1937Club

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My third and final book for 1937 Club, hosted by Stuck in a Book and Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings, is Rosabelle Shaw (also published as The Story of Rosabelle Shaw) an early novel by D.E. Stevenson. Wikipedia describes Stevenson as an author of ‘light romantic novels’, but I have read several of her books and although some of them fit that description, others (such as her dystopian novel, The Empty World) do not. This is another that is not a typical Stevenson novel and I found it suprisingly dark.

The novel begins in 1890s Edinburgh with Fanny Dinwiddie, a pretty, lively young woman, who catches the eye of John Shaw, a farmer visiting the city on business. For John, it’s love at first sight and it’s not long before he is heading back to Shaws, his farm near the Scottish coast, with Fanny as his wife. It takes Fanny a while to adjust to her new home – she has left behind her father and beloved sister, Alison, and she misses the social life of Edinburgh – but eventually she begins to settle in and make friends and soon a daughter, Rosabelle, is born. At this point, I was expecting a gentle, domestic novel about the life of a farmer’s wife on a Scottish farm…but I was wrong.

When Rosabelle is three years old, a ship is lured onto the rocks near Shaws farm during a storm. John thinks he knows who is responsible for causing the wreck and is filled with guilt for not doing more to stop it, but is able to make amends by rescuing and informally adopting the only survivor of the disaster, a small child with whom Fanny immediately forms a bond. Nobody knows the little boy’s name or the identities of his real parents, so John and Fanny raise him with their own children and name him Jay. From the moment Jay enters their lives, tensions begin to form in the Shaw household. Unlike Rosabelle and her real brother and sister, Jay is a deceitful, jealous and manipulative child determined to get his own way. John struggles to like the boy, while for Fanny he can do no wrong, causing the first real disagreements of their married life.

Moving forward several years, we meet the Shaw children again as young adults. Rosabelle has begun to look at Jay in a different light, captivated by his good looks and charisma, and begins to fall in love, much to the dismay of her neighbour Tom, who was hoping to marry Rosabelle himself. But there could still be a chance for Tom after all, because Jay is about to bring shame on the Shaw family and betray their kindness and generosity, breaking the hearts of both Rosabelle and Fanny.

I found Rosabelle Shaw quite enjoyable, but it seems to have had mainly negative reviews, maybe because the melodramatic, almost Gothic feel isn’t what you would expect from Stevenson. A lot of people have also complained about the racism, which I noticed as well – it’s definitely implied that because Jay arrived on a foreign ship and is possibly Spanish, he is naturally sly and untrustworthy, unlike the good, honourable Scottish characters. The book reminded me very much of Wuthering Heights, with Jay being similar to Heathcliff, who is also of unknown parentage and nationality and causes nothing but trouble for the Earnshaw family (Rosabelle is obviously in the role of Catherine Earnshaw, who falls in love with her adopted brother).

The book takes on a slightly different tone towards the end when, in 1914, war breaks out and brings big changes to our characters’ lives. From this point, the focus of the book shifts away from Jay to concentrate on the war and how it affects the family at Shaws. I thought it was a fascinating novel, but it won’t appeal to everyone and there are probably better places to start if you’re new to Stevenson. For me, though, it was another good choice for 1937 Club!

The Tower by Flora Carr

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It’s 1567 and three women are being rowed across a Scottish loch towards Lochleven Castle. Two of them are maids – one is a Frenchwoman, Marie de Courcelles, known as ‘Cuckoo’, and the other is Jane, a Scot. The third woman is Mary, Queen of Scots, who is being imprisoned in the castle following her surrender at the Battle of Carberry Hill.

Although Mary doesn’t know it when she enters the castle, she will remain there for almost a year. It seems that no help is forthcoming from Mary’s fellow queen, Elizabeth I of England, or from Margaret Erskine, the castle châtelaine, who places her daughter-in-law in Mary’s chamber as a spy. Eventually, Mary’s spirits are lifted by the arrival of her good friend, Mary Seton, who joins the three of them in captivity, but Jane and Cuckoo are not so thrilled by this addition to their number and Seton’s presence quickly changes the balance of power inside the tower. Together they begin to form a plan of escape, but which of them will be prepared to risk the most to save their queen?

I’ve read other books about Mary, Queen of Scots, both fiction and non-fiction, but this one is different because it focuses on just this one specific period in Mary’s life. The narrow scope of both the span of time covered and the physical setting – the confines of one tower in a remote castle on an island accessible only by boat – give the story a tense, claustrophobic feel. We do get some backstory in the form of flashbacks, otherwise the four women have to wait for news from the outside world to reach them in their confinement.

For the reasons I’ve mentioned, this is a slow paced novel, with not a lot of action, and it mainly concentrates on exploring the relationships between Mary and her three companions. The different personalities of Cuckoo, Jane and Mary Seton come across strongly and these different personalities affect the way each woman responds to being imprisoned. However, I didn’t really like any of the characters, which was a problem when so much of the book revolves around their internal thoughts and feelings. I also felt that the author was projecting modern views and attitudes onto these 16th century women, which was a bigger problem for me.

The story does become much more compelling towards the end, when Mary prepares to put her escape plan into motion, and despite my criticisms, I do think the book is still worth reading for the insights into this short but important episode in Mary’s life.

Thanks to Random House UK for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Book 10/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

The Spendthrift and the Swallow by Ambrose Parry

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I loved the first four novels in Ambrose Parry’s Raven and Fisher mystery series and although there doesn’t currently seem to be any news of a fifth, I was pleased to come across this digital short story available free for Kindle. It fits into the series chronologically between the third and fourth books but if you come to it late, as I did, it doesn’t matter at all as it works as a standalone story.

Ambrose Parry is a pseudonym used by the crime author Chris Brookmyre and his wife Dr Marisa Haetzman, a consultant anaesthetist. Marisa’s knowledge is crucial to the series, which is set against the backdrop of the medical world of 19th century Edinburgh. Our two main characters are Dr Will Raven, assistant to the renowned Scottish obstetrician Dr James Simpson, and Sarah Fisher, who also assists at Simpson’s clinic but is struggling to find a way to achieve her own dream of becoming a doctor. Each book in the series features a mystery to be solved, as well as details of Victorian medical procedures and treatments.

The Spendthrift and the Swallow is only 52 pages long, including a preview for Voices of the Dead, and can easily be read in about twenty minutes. The story is set in January 1853 and we follow Will and Sarah as they investigate the death of one of Dr Simpson’s patients, Cora Carlton, the wife of an entrepreneur. The circumstances of Cora’s sudden death could raise questions over the doctor’s medical abilities, so Will and Sarah hope to uncover the truth quickly enough to save his reputation. Meanwhile, Simpson has begun experimenting with the increasingly popular science of mesmerism and places a loud and difficult patient under hypnosis with startling results. I was interested to read in the author’s note at the end of the book that both of these incidents were based on real historical cases.

If you’re new to the Raven and Fisher books, reading this story first wouldn’t be a problem as it doesn’t really spoil anything from the main series and it’s a satisfying mystery in its own right. However, it’s too short for any character development or any background information to help you understand the relationship between Sarah and Will and what has happened to them up to this point. My recommendation is to start with the first full-length novel, The Way of all Flesh. For existing Parry readers, though, this is an entertaining little book and provides an introduction to the mesmerism storyline that will play such a big part in Voices of the Dead.

Book 3/50 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024

The Wayward Sisters by Kate Hodges

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It’s 1769 and Nancy Lockaby is on her way to Inverness where she has been invited to stay with the renowned Shakespearean scholar, Caleb Malles, to help him with his research. Nancy is a keen astronomer who has been developing a theory of her late mother’s involving an astronomical phenomenon known as ‘the Fold’ – a theory that has provoked the scorn and derision of her male colleagues at the Greenwich Observatory. Nancy isn’t sure what her role will be in Caleb’s work as she has little interest in literature, but she welcomes the opportunity to get away from the hostile atmosphere of the Observatory for a while and start a new life in Scotland.

Arriving at the large, crumbling Blackthistle House with her maid, Cora, on a cold, snowy night, Nancy is immediately unsettled by the atmosphere. Why are there lights flashing in the window of a turret? Who are the three strange women she sees in the darkness as her carriage approaches the house? Once she settles in, however, she becomes fascinated by Caleb Malles and his passion for Shakespeare’s Macbeth. She also gets to know the three women she glimpsed in the dark and finds them less threatening as she learns more of their backgrounds. But is it true that they have lived for many centuries and possess special powers? And what is Caleb’s real reason for bringing Nancy to Blackthistle House?

The Wayward Sisters is Kate Hodges’ first novel, having previously written several non-fiction books. You never really know what to expect when trying a new author and I had mixed feelings about this book, but generally more positive than negative. The first half is slow, but has a wonderfully eerie, Gothic atmosphere as Hodges sets the scene and introduces the characters. There’s a particularly memorable scene where Nancy encounters some sinister crows during a snowstorm! I had expected elements of Macbeth to be more deeply woven into the plot, but they really aren’t, apart from the presence of the three women, who clearly represent Shakespeare’s three witches, the Weird (or Wayward) Sisters. The witches have more nuance here than in the play, with each being given a detailed backstory of her own.

Kate Hodges writes very well and there are some nice descriptions to bring the Scottish setting to life, although I was surprised that the recent Jacobite Rebellions were barely mentioned as they must surely have still been having an impact on the lives of the Highlanders in the 1760s. Nancy is an interesting heroine; astronomy is an area of science where women could and did make an impact in the 18th century (the most famous female astronomer of that period was probably Caroline Herschel, the first woman to discover a comet) although it was obviously still a male-dominated field and difficult for women to be taken seriously. However, Nancy’s theories regarding the Fold begin to take the story into the realms of science fiction, particularly when the witches get involved and we discover Caleb’s motives for enlisting the services of an astronomer.

I think I would have enjoyed this book more if it had continued as the atmospheric historical fiction novel it seemed to be at first, rather than the more fantastical story it became. There’s a lot to like about The Wayward Sisters, but it wasn’t really the right book for me.

Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

This is book 45/50 for the 2023 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

Music in the Dark by Sally Magnusson

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This is the third novel by Scottish author Sally Magnusson and although I had a few problems with her first two – The Sealwoman’s Gift, the story of an Icelandic woman sold into slavery in Algeria, and The Ninth Child, about the construction of the Loch Katrine Waterworks – I still wanted to read this one because it sounded so interesting.

It begins in 1884 in a tenement in Rutherglen, a town near Glasgow, where the widowed Jamesina Bain is taking in a new lodger. The lodger is a man, newly arrived from America, where he has lived for many years. At first he has no idea who the Widow Bain is, but as he and Jamesina spend more time together, they discover that they have a shared past – they both lived through the forced eviction of Greenyards in Strathcarron.

The eviction was part of the Highland Clearances, the period when landowners in Scotland removed tenants from their estates so the land could be used for more profitable purposes – which, in the case of Greenyards, meant sheep farming. The clearances of Greenyards in 1854 and nearby Glencalvie a few years earlier, were particularly shocking, for reasons I won’t go into here as the novel will probably have more impact if you don’t already know what happened.

Sally Magnusson doesn’t delve too deeply into the politics surrounding the clearances or the reasons behind them – although Jamesina and her friends believe it was due to the Celtic people being considered inferior – and she acknowledges in her author’s note that it’s a very complex subject. Instead, she concentrates on exploring the long-term effects of the clearances, physically, emotionally and mentally, on the evicted people.

The novel is written from the perspectives of both Jamesina and her lodger, moving between the two as well as jumping backwards and forwards in time between 1884 and 1854. This structure is ultimately quite rewarding as things do eventually fall into place and we come to understand what happened during the Greenyards eviction and the sequence of events that sent Jamesina to Rutherglen and her lodger to America. However, it also means that the first half of the novel is slightly confusing and lacks focus, something that isn’t helped by the style in which Jamesina’s sections are written – often descending into a jumble of thoughts, word association and stream of consciousness. There was a reason for that style, which I understood later on, but it didn’t make this an easy book for me to get into.

I found this book very evocative of time and place, whether I was reading about Jamesina’s childhood in Greenyards or her life in the Rutherglen tenement, taking in laundry to earn a living and sleeping in the ‘kitchen bed’ to keep the bedroom available for lodgers. Magnusson also incorporates lots of other interesting issues, such as the healing power of music, the devastating impact of dementia and the joys of education. I found it very sad that the adult Jamesina, who had been such a bright child and was being taught Latin by the local minister, questions the point in being educated if you’re only going to be leading a life of drudgery.

I have deliberately not provided the name of Jamesina’s lodger, as we don’t immediately know who he is or how he fits into her life and I thought I would leave you to make that discovery for yourself. This is a fascinating novel in many ways and I did enjoy it once I got past the halfway point, which is why I don’t like abandoning books too early!

Thanks to John Murray Press for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

This is book 17/50 read for the 2023 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

Lady MacBethad by Isabelle Schuler

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The character of Lady Macbeth is known to many of us through Shakespeare’s play, but who was she really? What kind of person was she and what were the events that led to her marriage to Macbeth and the beginning of the story we think we know? These are the questions Isabelle Schuler attempts to answer in her new novel, Lady MacBethad.

The book is set in the first half of the 11th century and is narrated by Gruoch, the woman who will become Lady Macbeth. With royal blood in her veins, Gruoch has grown up listening to her Picti grandmother’s prophecies that one day she will be Queen of Alba. When she is betrothed to Duncan, heir to the throne, it seems that the prophecy is going to come true and although she is sorry to leave behind her family and her close childhood friend MacBethad, she heads for Scone to join Duncan’s court. However, she is unprepared for the hostility of Duncan’s mother, Bethoc, the scheming of her pagan friend, Ardith, and the arrival of another young woman, Suthen of Northumberland, who also catches Duncan’s eye.

When a dramatic turn of events leads to her having to flee Scone before the marriage can take place, Gruoch falls into the hands of Mael Colum of Moray and his brother, Gillecomghain. Her chances of becoming queen seem out of reach again, but Gruoch refuses to give up on her dream.

Lady MacBethad ends before Shakespeare’s Macbeth begins, so is not a retelling of the play but more of a prequel to it. Also, the characters in Schuler’s novel are based on the real historical figures rather than on Shakespeare’s interpretation of them, which of course can’t be taken as being particularly accurate! I was pleased to find that she tries to use language appropriate to the period and authentic medieval Gaelic naming, such as MacBethad mac Findlaich rather than the anglicised Macbeth. This was a relief after reading Joanna Courtney’s Blood Queen a few years ago, which renamed Gruoch as Cora and Gillecomghain as Gillespie, just in case the original names were too difficult for modern readers.

Schuler works some quotes from Shakespeare into the conversations between her characters – “Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent beneath it” is advice given to Gruoch by her grandmother, for example – but no knowledge of the play is necessary to be able to understand and enjoy this book. It can be read as a straightforward work of historical fiction, bringing to life a fascinating and complex period of Scotland’s (or Alba’s) history. It explores the conflict between Christianity and the old pagan beliefs, the fading culture of the Picts and the warring factions trying to gain control of the throne.

Gruoch (or Groa, as her pagan friends call her) is portrayed as ambitious, determined and driven by her desire to become queen no matter what. Yet her narrative voice feels slightly too young and immature for me to find her completely convincing. I think having read Dorothy Dunnett’s wonderful King Hereafter, it was just too difficult for me to put Dunnett’s Groa out of my mind and fully embrace a different version of the character.

The way the book ends sets things up perfectly for a sequel, maybe incorporating some of the more familiar events of Macbeth. I wonder whether there will be one or whether Isabelle Schuler is moving on to other subjects now.

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

This is book 7/50 read for the 2023 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.