Category Archives: Historical Fiction

January 6, 2022 · 2:09 pm

Citadel – Kate Mosse

Citadel – Kate Mosse

This is the third in the series that started with Labyrinth. Once again, I have borrowed this from a friend. It sat in my pile for quite a while, but once I started reading it I finished it quickly.

Here’s the blurb …

1942, Nazi-occupied France. Sandrine, a spirited and courageous nineteen-year-old, finds herself drawn into a Resistance group in Carcassonne – codenamed ‘Citadel’ – made up of ordinary women who are prepared to risk everything for what is right. And when she meets Raoul, they discover a shared passion for the cause, for their homeland, and for each other. But in a world where the enemy now lies in every shadow – where neighbour informs on neighbour; where friends disappear without warning and often without trace – love can demand the highest price of all. 

I must admit that towards the end I started to skim pages – particularly any torture sections. Over all I liked it, but these novels are long and in my opinion could do with a bit of editing. I think these novels would make a fabulous TV series.

A review

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January 1, 2022 · 3:01 pm

Small Pleasures – Claire Chambers

Small Pleasures – Clare Chambers

I can’t remember where I first hear about this novel – book club maybe? I had to order it from Dymocks and it did take about 4 weeks to arrive (book shortage).

Here’s the blurb …

1957, south-east suburbs of London.
Jean Swinney is a feature writer on a local paper, disappointed in love and — on the brink of forty — living a limited existence with her truculent mother: a small life from which there is no likelihood of escape.

When a young Swiss woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth, it is down to Jean to discover whether she is a miracle or a fraud. But the more Jean investigates, the more her life becomes strangely (and not unpleasantly) intertwined with that of the Tilburys: Gretchen is now a friend, and her quirky and charming daughter Margaret a sort of surrogate child. And Jean doesn’t mean to fall in love with Gretchen’s husband, Howard, but Howard surprises her with his dry wit, his intelligence and his kindness — and when she does fall, she falls hard.

But he is married, and to her friend — who is also the subject of the story she is researching for the newspaper, a story that increasingly seems to be causing dark ripples across all their lives. And yet Jean cannot bring herself to discard the chance of finally having a taste of happiness…

But there will be a price to pay, and it will be unbearable.

I really enjoyed this novel – it’s beautiful, and sad, and interesting. The writing is lovely. It was well-researched, but unobtrusively so.

Another review

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December 23, 2021 · 8:39 pm

Black Sheep – Georgette Heyer

Black Sheep – Georgette Heyer

This is another of my Rottnest reads. I like Georgette Heyer and I thought I had read all of her regency romances, but I hadn’t read this one. I found it for $5 at Target (about the cost of a coffee).

Here’s the blurb

With her high-spirited intelligence and good looks, Abigail Wendover was a most sought-after young woman. But of all her high-placed suitors, there was none Abigail could love. Abigail was kept busy when her pretty and naive niece Fanny falls head over heels in love with Stacy Calverleigh, a good-looking town-beau of shocking reputation and an acknowledged seductor. She was determined to prevent her high-spirited niece from becoming involved with the handsome fortune-hunter. The arrival to Bath of Stacy’s uncle seemed to indicate an ally, but Miles Calverleigh is the black sheep of the family.

Miles Calverleigh had no regard for the polite conventions of Regency society. His cynicism, his morals, his manners appalled Abigail. He also turned out to be the most provoking creature Abigail had ever met – with a disconcerting ability to throw her into giggles at quite the wrong moment. Will Abigail overcome Mile’s indifference towards his nephew and help Abigail foil Stacy’s plans?

This is fun, all set in Bath, lots of talk of clothes (or at least the fabric to make clothes) and Bath society (going to the Pump Room, excursions to Wells Cathedral, concerts, etc.)

Another review

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December 20, 2021 · 5:56 pm

The Mad Woman’s Coat – Ian Reid

The Mad Woman’s Coat – Ian Reid

At my last book club meeting someone mentioned this one and I was intrigued. I have read other novels by Ian Reid; The End of Longing and The Mind’s Own Place. This one is my favourite. Isn’t the cover lovely?

Here’s the blurb …

The Madwoman’s Coat, Ian Reid’s fifth historical novel, is set In England and Western Australia during the late 19th century. It is a story of love and grief, artistry and insanity, acts of sudden transgression and moments of quiet contemplation.

1897: Isabella Trent is found murdered in an Australian asylum cell. Why did she die? Who is the killer? What is the meaning of the ornate motifs that Isabella has secretly embroidered on a man’s frock coat?

Years earlier, young Lucy Malpass leaves her home town in Staffordshire for London, where she is drawn into a community of artists and socialists around William Morris and his family. Before long there is not only a prospect of fulfilling work but also a glimpse of reciprocal passion. Then her high hopes gradually begin to unravel.

There seems to be a link between Lucy and Isabella, related somehow to an old Icelandic tale. But what exactly is this link, and what can it explain about their closely held secrets?

I particularly enjoyed all of the mentions of the Morrises (William and May) and all of the textile bits. In fact, when the murder was finally solved, I didn’t really care who had done it. For me, the best parts were the sections set in England.

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December 19, 2021 · 1:35 pm

When he was Wicked – Julia Quinn

When He Was Wicked – Julia Quinn

I went to Rottnest Island for a few days and took this as my light, beach reading – and it didn’t disappoint.

Here’s the blurb …

In every life there is a turning point.

A moment so tremendous, so sharp and breathtaking, that one knows one’s life will never be the same. For Michael Stirling, London’s most infamous rake, that moment came the first time he laid eyes on Francesca Bridgerton.

After a lifetime of chasing women, of smiling slyly as they chased him, of allowing himself to be caught but never permitting his heart to become engaged, he took one look at Francesca Bridgerton and fell so fast and hard into love it was a wonder he managed to remain standing. Unfortunately for Michael, however, Francesca’s surname was to remain Bridgerton for only a mere thirty-six hours longer — the occasion of their meeting was, lamentably, a supper celebrating her imminent wedding to his cousin.But that was then . . . Now Michael is the earl and Francesca is free, but still she thinks of him as nothing other than her dear friend and confidant. Michael dares not speak to her of his love . . . until one dangerous night, when she steps innocently into his arms, and passion proves stronger than even the most wicked of secrets . . .

These books are all very similar, but what they do well is centre female pleasure and female experiences.

Another review

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December 17, 2021 · 6:02 pm

The Redeemed – Tim Pears

The Redeemed – Tim Pears

This is the third in the West Country Trilogy and it is definitely a three-act story.

Here’s the blurb …

The final instalment in Tim Pears’s spellbinding chronicle of love, exile and belonging in a world on the brink of change Selected as a book of 2019 by the Guardian, Scotsman and The TimesIt is 1916. The world has gone to war, and young Leo Sercombe, hauling coal aboard the HMS Queen Mary, is a long way from home. The wild, unchanging West Country roads of his boyhood seem very far away from life aboard a battlecruiser, a universe of well-oiled steel, of smoke and spray and sweat, where death seems never more than a heartbeat away. Skimming through those West Country roads on her motorcycle, Lottie Prideaux defies the expectations of her class and sex as she covertly studies to be a vet. But the steady rhythms of Lottie’s practice, her comings and goings between her neighbours and their animals, will be blown apart by a violent act of betrayal, and a devastating loss.In a world torn asunder by war, everything dances in flux: how can the old ways life survive, and how can the future be imagined, in the face of such unimaginable change? How can Leo, lost and wandering in the strange and brave new world, ever hope to find his way home? The final instalment in Tim Pears’s exquisite West Country Trilogy, The Redeemed is a timeless, stirring and exquisitely wrought story of love, loss and destiny fulfilled, and a bittersweet elegy to a lost world.

I found this one fascinating -I had no idea about the scuttling of the German fleet, or the effort to raise these ships again. Or the fact that all steel manufactured after world war two contains radiation (from Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and so these ships are some of the last ‘pure’ steel left in the world.

It is a beautiful story, full of detail of a vanishing world. Horses replaced by tractors and fewer men required to work the fields.

A review

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December 5, 2021 · 11:15 am

The Horseman – Tim Pears

The Horseman – Tim Pears

I heard about this trilogy from the Slightly Foxed podcast and then a friend asked if I wanted to read them – how serendipitous.

Here’s the blurb …

From the prize-winning author of In the Place of Fallen Leaves comes a beautiful, hypnotic pastoral novel reminiscent of Thomas Hardy, about an unexpected friendship between two children, set in Devon in 1911. In a forgotten valley, on the Devon-Somerset border, the seasons unfold, marked only by the rituals of the farming calendar. Twelve-year-old Leopold Sercombe skips school to help his father, a carter. Skinny and pale, with eyes as dark as sloes, Leo dreams of a job on the Master ‘s stud farm. As ploughs furrow the hard January fields, the Master ‘s daughter, young Miss Charlotte, shocks the estate ‘s tenants by wielding a gun at the annual shoot. Spring comes, Leo watches swallows build their nests, hedgerows thrum with life and days lengthen into summer. Leo is breaking a colt for his father when a boy dressed in a Homburg, breeches and riding boots appears. Peering under the stranger ‘s hat, he discovers Charlotte.And so a friendship begins, bound by a deep love of horses, but divided by rigid social boundaries boundaries that become increasingly difficult to navigate as they approach adolescence – Hallucinatory, beautiful and suffused with the magic of nature, this tale of an unlikely friendship and the loss of innocence builds with a hypnotic power. Evoking the realities of agricultural life with precise, poetic brushstrokes, Tim Pears has created a masterful, Hardyesque pastoral novel. The first in a dazzling new trilogy, The Horseman is his greatest achievement.

This is a beautiful novel – the writing is poetic. It spans 18 months from January 1911 to June 1912. Each chapter is a different event, activity or thing in Leo’s life. We learn a lot about farming in the early 20th century and it looks hard and very labour intensive.

Leo is a quiet and extremely observant boy and I loved all of the sections about horses and nature.

Lottie is a fiercely independent soul who shares Leo’s love of horses. There is definitely going to be class tensions or at least problems in the future.

Another review

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December 2, 2021 · 6:07 pm

Sepulchre – Kate Mosse

Sepulchre – Kate Mosse

This is the second in the Labyrinth series (i have borrowed them from a friend)

Here’s the blurb ..

In 1891, young Léonie Vernier and her brother Anatole arrive in the beautiful town of Rennes-les-Bains, in southwest France. They’ve come at the invitation of their widowed aunt, whose mountain estate, Domain de la Cade, is famous in the region. But it soon becomes clear that their aunt Isolde-and the Domain-are not what Léonie had imagined. The villagers claim that Isolde’s late husband died after summoning a demon from the old Visigoth sepulchre high on the mountainside. A book from the Domain’s cavernous library describes the strange tarot pack that mysteriously disappeared following the uncle’s death. But while Léonie delves deeper into the ancient mysteries of the Domain, a different evil stalks her family-one which may explain why Léonie and Anatole were invited to the sinister Domain in the first place.

More than a century later, Meredith Martin, an American graduate student, arrives in France to study the life of Claude Debussy, the nineteenth century French composer. In Rennesles-Bains, Meredith checks into a grand old hotel-the Domain de la Cade. Something about the hotel feels eerily familiar, and strange dreams and visions begin to haunt Meredith’s waking hours. A chance encounter leads her to a pack of tarot cards painted by Léonie Vernier, which may hold the key to this twenty-first century American’s fate . . . just as they did to the fate of Léonie Vernier more than a century earlier.

It took me a long time to get into this one, I was about halfway through before I really got engrossed (and these books are long). Once again, there are two time lines; 1891 and 2007, and a mystical element (this time Tarot cards and unrestful spirits). There is also a bit of a romance and you learn some French history. There is also a diabolical villain. So, I would say, something for everyone. You can definitely lose yourself in this world.

A review

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November 29, 2021 · 3:09 pm

The Lincoln Highway – Amor Towles

The Lincoln Highway – Amor Towles

I really enjoyed both Rules of Civility and A Gentleman in Moscow (Rules of Civility is my favourite), so I was very keen to read this one.

Here is the blurb …

Emmett returns home to pick-up his little brother Billy, tie-up his late father’s estate and get out of town for good. Since leaving the Kansas youth facility where he’s served time, Emmett has wanted one thing: to give them both a fresh start – and that means heading out to the sparkling west.

Young, precocious Billy has plans of his own – to get to San Francisco, where he believes their long-estranged mother is waiting for them. However, as soon as they’ve loaded Emmett’s bright blue Studebaker with their few belongings, trouble arrives and brings its sidekick in the form of Duchess and Woolly, two runaways from the very facility Emmett just left behind him.

Insatiable Duchess and his devoted, but slow companion Woolly soon wreck Billy’s plan to get onto the open road, one well-intentioned blunder at a time. Each young man sees this journey as his chance to pursue his dreams, settle scores and find riches. And a simple journey quickly becomes a dazzling odyssey filled with obstacles, villains and ruses fit only for heroes to overcome.

Bursting with life, charm and unforgettable characters, The Lincoln Highway is an extraordinary journey through 1950s America from a master storyteller.

This is a beautiful story told from different view points, each one unique and compelling.

Still Life by Sarah Winman is still my favourite for the year, but this is a close second.

Another review

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November 28, 2021 · 8:28 am

Matrix – Lauren Groff

Matrix – Lauren Groff

I read and enjoyed Fates and Furies, so grabbed this one when I saw it in Dymocks. It’s completely different from Fates and Furies.

Here’s the blurb …

Lauren Groff returns with her exhilarating first new novel since the groundbreaking Fates and Furies.

Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, 17-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease.

At first taken aback by the severity of her new life, Marie finds focus and love in collective life with her singular and mercurial sisters. In this crucible, Marie steadily supplants her desire for family, for her homeland, for the passions of her youth with something new to her: devotion to her sisters, and a conviction in her own divine visions. Marie, born the last in a long line of women warriors and crusaders, is determined to chart a bold new course for the women she now leads and protects. But in a world that is shifting and corroding in frightening ways, one that can never reconcile itself with her existence, will the sheer force of Marie’s vision be bulwark enough?

Equally alive to the sacred and the profane, Matrix gathers currents of violence, sensuality, and religious ecstasy in a mesmerizing portrait of consuming passion, aberrant faith, and a woman that history moves both through and around. Lauren Groff’s new novel, her first since Fates and Furies, is a defiant and timely exploration of the raw power of female creativity in a corrupted world.

I enjoyed this novel – I do like female-centred historical fiction. Marie is a formidable character, full of energy, drive, passion and very cunning. It is beautifully written.

A review from the Guardian

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