PORTRAIT OF AN
UNKNOWN WOMAN
Vanora Bennett, Morrow, 2007, $24.95, hb,
417pp, 9780061251832 / Harper, £7.99, pb, 400pp, 9780007224937
In
this, journalist Vanora Bennett’s first novel, Meg Giggs, adopted
daughter of Sir Thomas More, springs brilliantly to life. Surrounded
by a close-knit, complex family with perhaps the most extraordinary
man of his age at its helm, Meg finds love with More’s protégé, John
Clement. A healer in her own right, Meg is impulsive, clever, and
deeply intuitive. As she later learns, John, earlier her tutor and
later a physician, has been groomed by More. Clement’s story forms a
tantalizing part of the plot, and the twists and turns of his life
lend suspense and intrigue to what is—even without that convention—a
page-turner.
Into the lives of the More family comes painter Hans Holbein.
Where Pater More is an intellectual firestorm with a mind unlikely
to be matched by his contemporaries, Holbein increasingly becomes,
during the course of the novel, a man of such intense artistic
creativity that his talent appears to know few bounds. Spurred on by
the likes of Erasmus and Kratzer—and his love for Meg—Holbein
returns to repaint the More family, seemingly capturing every nuance
of their convoluted interpersonal relationships. Indeed, the
portrait itself becomes a novel.
This is as rich, satisfying and multi-layered a work as I
have ever read. Bennett’s attention to historical fact, lovingly
embellished with details of daily life and beautifully drawn
characterizations of such historic personages as Erasmus, Holbein
and More, make this novel a living, breathing organism. An author’s
note puts the subject matter into clearer focus, but it certainly
isn’t necessary. There is nothing phony, strained or fabricated in
this book. Even Meg’s visceral reaction to the heretic torturing and
burning spearheaded by her father makes the reader say, "Yes…that’s
right. That’s exactly what I would do."
Meg Giggs is an unknown woman no longer. An absolute must
read.
-- Ilysa Magnus
THE THIEF OF
TIME
John Boyne, St. Martin’s Press, 2007,
$24.95, hb, 376pp, 9780312354800
John
Boyne has written a quietly profound tale about a middle-aged man
who, inexplicably, stops aging. Matthieu Zela, born in
1743, flees Paris with his half-brother after his stepfather murders
his mother. He survives as a pickpocket in Dover, but after 256
years, he has become a wealthy owner of a satellite television
broadcasting station. Jumping around in time, Matthieu fills the
reader in on his long and varied life, but most of the anecdotes
concern his stepbrother, Thomas, and Thomas’s children. For the “Thomases,”
as Matthieu calls them, are stuck in a seemingly unbreakable cycle:
They tend to go bad and die young. One is guillotined in the French
Revolution, another dies in a duel in Italy, a third is killed
during a bank robbery. Furthermore, each Tom tends to die right
before the birth of the next Tom. As Matthieu prepares for the third
century of his life, he is determined to break the cycle with the
current “nephew,” an insolent drug-addled soap opera star with an
ominously pregnant girlfriend.
Matthieu Zela is a wonderful
character. He’s a man of dry wit and a deep understanding of human
nature, a man who has avoided growing impatient with the unchanging
ways of the world, a man who has, in fact, adapted to his
immortality. No novel is perfect: Some of the anecdotes feel only
vaguely thematically relevant, and the writer ducks a bit, at the
end, but The Thief of Time is one of the finest reads this
reviewer has enjoyed in quite a while. It’s gripping without
cliffhangers, philosophically deep without angst, honest and wise
and absolutely charming. Bravo to Mr. Boyne—and when’s the next
book?
-- Lisa Ann Verge
THE RUSSIAN CONCUBINE
Kate Furnivall, Berkley, 2007,
$15.00/C$18.50, pb, 517pp, 042521558X / Sphere, Nov. 2007, £6.99, pb,
416pp, 0751540420
Don't
judge this book by its cover. To look at The Russian Concubine,
you might expect a steamy romance novel, but there is much more to
it than romance. This stunning debut brings the atmosphere of 1920s
China vividly to life. The fictional city of Junchow is divided into
two districts that have little to do with each other: the
International Settlement, inhabited by Westerners only, and the
Chinese Old Town. The Westerners treat the Chinese as second-class
citizens (if that), fit only to be servants. Socializing between the
two groups is strictly forbidden.
Then one day, Lydia Ivanova, a teenaged Russian exile living
in a dingy attic in the International Settlement with her mother
Valentina, a concert pianist, wanders into the Chinese town and is
rescued by Chang An Lo, a young Chinese Communist. Lydia and Chang
soon become friends in spite of the enormous differences in their
backgrounds. Eventually, they fall in love. But Chang is in danger
both from Chiang Kai-shek’s forces, who are hunting down the
Communists, and from the dangerous Black Snake brotherhood and its
leader, Feng Tu Hong. Lydia must not let anyone know of their
romance—not her mother, not her mother’s new suitor, a British
journalist, not even her schoolmaster, Theo Willoughby, who himself
keeps a Chinese mistress in spite of society’s disapproval.
Furnivall draws an excellent portrait of this distant time
and place. Her characters are not entirely sympathetic—Lydia lies
and steals with no regret, although she does it to survive—but that
makes them all the more human. There is quite a bit of sex and even
more violence in the last part of the book, but this should not
deter readers. I hope to see more from this author.
-- Vicki Kondelik
THE
LARK’S LAMENT
Alan Gordon, Minotaur, 2007, $24.95,
272pp, hb, 0312354266
The
Lark’s Lament is the sixth of Alan
Gordon’s Fools’ Guild mysteries. Theophilus the Fool now shares the
stage with his fool wife, Claudia, their baby, Portia, and Helga,
apprentice fool and adopted daughter.
In 1204 Pope Innocent III threatens to disband the Fools’
Guild. The Guild needs Folquet of Marseille, erstwhile minstrel, now
abbot of the Cistercian Abbey of Le Thoronet, to dissuade the pope.
But Folquet has been threatened. Scrawled on the librarium wall, in
the blood of a murdered monk, is the cryptic message: “FOLQUET: COLD
IS THE HAND THAT CRUSHES THE LARK.” The price of Folquet’s diplomacy
is the killer’s capture. Murders compound as Theophilus’ troupe
follows the trail through the taverns and manors of Marseille and
Montpellier. It all comes back to Le Thoronet in a decidedly
non-contemplative climax.
The Lark’s Lament
deserves Academy Awards for best acting, best writing, and best
fooling in the Medieval Mysteries category. In scenes worthy of
Monty Python, and with dialogue of nonstop shtick, the author jests
his way through a very sad story of tragic love, betrayal, and
revenge. It is the stuff of minstrels and troubadours: a performance
not to be missed!
-- Lucille Cormier
MY LADY JUDGE
Cora Harrison, Macmillan, 2007, £16.99, hb,
311pp, 9781405091909 / Minotaur, 2007, $
24.95,
hb, 368pp,
9780312368364
On the eve of the
first of May, 1509, people from all over the Burren, on the western
seaboard of Ireland, climb the mountain of Mullaghmore to celebrate
the festival of Beltaine. One man does not come down again. Colman,
assistant to Mara, Brehon of the Burren, has been murdered, and his
employer must search for his killer.
Although she has the support and indeed the love of King
Turlough Don O’Brien, Mara finds it a difficult task, with many
suspects and little help from the tight-knit local community.
Matters are especially complicated because some of Mara’s young
students seem to be implicated, and the murdered man was both unpop
ular
and secretive.
The character of Mara is taken from a real-life female Brehon,
or judge, from the 16th century whose case notes are in
the British Library. From these brief fragments, Cora Harrison has
woven a fascinating and beautifully evocative mystery. The
unconventional heroine is well drawn, and there are plenty of plot
twists to keep the action flowing.
My Lady Judge is an enthralling murder
mystery with a strong historical basis. It is sure to appeal to fans
of the detective genre and, in particular, to fans of Peter
Tremayne’s Sister Fidelma series. -- Sara
Wilson
VOICES FROM THE
SEA
Evelyn Hood, Sphere, 2007, £5.99/C$10.99,
pb, 355pp, 9780751537338
In
1865 Eppie has lost her beloved husband to the sea—that eternal
danger faced by the fisher folk of Portsoy. Her parents provide a
loving home for her young daughter. Eppie, daughter of a
schoolmaster and sister of a teacher, is well educated and a
suitable housekeeper for wealthy widower Andrew Geddes. Andrew has
troubles: a spiteful mother and Lydia, his idle, ignorant daughter.
His son Duncan has a passion for the new science of geology; Andrew
believes the boy will simply end up labouring as a quarry man. At
fifteen Duncan runs away to pursue his dream.
When Lydia meets Eppie’s daughter Charlotte, she has found a
true friend and they share lessons with Eppie’s sister Marion. With
both sisters now working for Andrew Geddes, Marion has a chance of
unlooked-for joy, but Eppie seems to be a woman who only loves once.
After five years Duncan returns triumphant with a rough
and loud-mouthed stranger—Foy, his experienced mentor in geology,
who delights in teasing Eppie... Andrew and Foy are old enemies; a
long-ago jealousy and present blazing dislike threaten the
close-knit village with tragedy.
This is a skilfully written, deceptively simple story. The
author, while revealing the hardships, allows us in this
accomplished novel to share the pleasure of a sturdy, life-loving
community. -- Nancy Henshaw
DARK HEARTS OF
CHICAGO
William Horwood and Helen Rappaport,
Hutchinson, 2007, £12.99, pb, 630pp, 9780091796532
Dark
indeed. This 1893 version of Chicago is a thoroughly unpleasant
place: violent, racist, sexist and corrupt, both politically and
morally. Helen Rappaport and William Horwood have researched the
city in depth and present it as one of the characters in an
engrossing thriller. From the Cook County Insane Asylum to the giant
meat packing companies, the threads of the story spread across the
city, involving characters ranging from politicians to bellboys.
Emily Strauss, who wants to be a reporter of real news, not
the women's page, tricks Joseph Pulitzer into letting her write a
trial story, but she has to have it in the office in only nine days.
She is sent to the World's Fair in Chicago to find out why so many
young women are vanishing there. The story snowballs, with many
dramatic twists and turns, pulling all those disparate threads
together to a sizzling and unexpected ending.
This well-written and well-researched thriller is one of a
planned series following Emily’s career. If the others are as good,
they will also be worth reading. -- Patrika
Salmon
THE
COURT OF THE AIR
Stephen Hunt, Voyager, 2007, £7.99, pb, 320pp,
0007232187
The
Land of Jackals is a warped echo of Britain during the early 19th
century, and at its beating heart is the city of Middlesteel. This
is home to young Molly Templar, an orphan at the Sun Gate Workhouse,
and Oliver Brooks, another orphan who lives with his mysterious
merchant uncle. There is something about both of them that has
assassins (and just about everybody else) panting for their
blood—but what is it? When Oliver comes home to find his uncle and
servant both equally dead and everybody in the orphanage is found
butchered, it is time for Oliver and Molly to go on the run.
To date, this has to be the best book of 2007 as far as I am
concerned. Think Joan Aiken for grown-ups, with echoes of Susanna
Clarke and various other talented crossover writers and you are
there. Of course, this is not a historical novel but a fantasy, and
if this is not your bag then you won’t necessarily like it. It is
true that there are no dragons in here, but you will find plenty of
dungeons and an aerial navy, a kingdom ruled by oddly appealing
sentient machines, an alternative court floating high above the
city, ancient ruins, forgotten gods and more adventures than you can
imagine. For once, somebody has actually managed to fill a big book
with a big story, and if Mr Hunt isn’t penning the sequel I am going
to be very disappointed… it is that good. It might just be
the book for you if you are thinking of branching out from reading
mainly historical fiction, and wondering what else is out there. Not
a lot of this calibre… hugely enjoyable. --
Rachel A Hyde
DISPENSATION OF DEATH
Michael Jecks, Headline/Trafalgar Square, 2007,
£19.99/$24.95, hb, 364pp, 9780755332793
1325:
the reign of Edward II. England is in the grip of tyranny. Not so
much from the reigning king, who though weak-willed is not actually
cruel, but his ruthless and greedy lover Sir Hugh le Despenser.
Queen Isabella has been very effectively sidelined; robbed of her
lands, her authority and her children, she is all but a prisoner in
the Palace of Westminster. War threatens: with France, again. Edward
must go to pay homage to the French king. But how can he bend his
knee to another sovereign and retain his own authority? Sir Hugh
cannot go to France with Edward, or the French monarch will kill
him; he cannot remain in England or the English barons will murder
him—just as they did Piers Gaveston. Isabella is trapped and
desperate.
Into this hotbed of intrigue comes Sir Baldwin de Furnshill,
Keeper of the King’s Peace in Devon, with his friend and companion,
Simon Puttock, bailiff to the Abbot of Tavistock. They are brought
to court by Bishop Walter de Stapledon, whom it soon becomes clear
is a man of many parts. Murder occurs in the Palace of Westminster,
but this being the English court, nothing is quite as it appears. A
fiendishly complex intrigue rapidly turns into a compelling game of
bluff and double bluff played out for the highest stakes.
The result: a page-turning masterpiece that will keep the
reader totally gripped until the very last page. Highly recommended.
-- Fiona Lowe
STORMY WEATHER
Paulette Jiles, Morrow, 2007,
$24.95/C$31.50, hb, 352pp, 9780060537326 / Fourth Estate, 2007,
£11.99, pb, 336pp, 9780007156450
This
is the second novel by Paulette Jiles, a poet and memoirist. Her
first novel, Enemy Women, which won a Canadian fiction award,
is now at the top of my reading list. She currently lives in Texas
and has clearly done her homework on Texas history; she does a
masterful job evoking Texas of the 1920s and 1930s with its dust
storms, oil strikes and the Great Depression. I could almost feel
the dust in my hair and taste it in my mouth. Her spare prose style
perfectly reflects the dry, barren Texas landscape.
The story centers on the Stoddard family: the father, Jack, a
ne’er-do-well gambler, drinker, horse lover and womanizer; his wife,
Elizabeth; and their three daughters, Mayme, Jeanine and Bea. The
Stoddards have spent their married life moving around Texas as Jack
follows the oil strikes and works delivering pipes and equipment to
the oil fields. After Jack’s accidental death, Elizabeth, weary of
this itinerant lifestyle, takes her daughters back to the farm on
which she was raised, which had been abandoned for years. All Jack
left them was a small amount of cash, which Elizabeth promptly
invests in an oilcat well and an unlikely racehorse. The girls work
hard to survive as they struggle to pay back taxes and get the farm
working again. Despite some additional bad luck, they manage to keep
the family together while holding on to their dreams of love and
success and waiting for better times. However, this is not some
saccharine romance. The Stoddard girls have no illusions about men
and marriage, thanks to their father. Don’t miss this story of ordinary people in extraordinary
times.
-- Jane Kessler
THE ROSE OF SEBASTOPOL
Katherine
McMahon, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007, £12.99, hb, 394pp,
9780297850922
Mariella
Lingwood is a typical Victorian young lady. She is quiet, dutiful,
unadventurous, shy and modest. She helps her mother in her
charitable works and is an expert seamstress. She becomes engaged to
her childhood sweetheart, Henry. Her cousin, Rosa, is the complete
opposite, being a wild, adventurous, unconventional, independent
spirit. When the Crimean war breaks out, Henry, now a surgeon,
immediately goes out to help. Rosa is desperate to join Florence
Nightingale’s nurses, and when she is turned down she determines to
make her own way there. Mariella stays at home, makes bandages,
keeps a war scrapbook and finds it difficult to understand what is
happening and why. Then she receives news that Henry is now safe in
Italy but close to death and needs her. What happens when she gets
there shocks her to the core, and leads her to the heart of the war
and events that will change her life completely.
I loved everything about this book. With a cracking plot,
wide in scope and yet exquisitely detailed, it conveys the world of
England in the 1850s—domestic life, medicine, industry and
charity—with a confident brush. McMahon also cleverly evokes the
gulf between middle-class life in England and its perception of the
situation which is at total odds with the reality. She also subtly
draws out the similarities between the Crimean War and what is
happening in Iraq now without any sense of the didactic. Her
portrayal of Rosa and Mariella is particularly fine, as is they way
they, and our perceptions of them, deepen and evolve as the novel
progresses.
I have enjoyed reading all Katherine McMahon’s historical
novels but this, to me, is her best so far. I thoroughly recommend
it. -- Sally
Zigmond
ALL
THE TEA IN CHINA
Jane Orcutt, Revell, 2007, $12.99, pb,
352pp, 9780800731793
Isabella
Goodrich is a singular woman. Raised by her uncle, an Oxford Dean,
she is a swordswoman and scholar. Since both of these attributes are
not considered womanly, it is no wonder she is still single at
twenty-five. In 1814, this makes her officially on the shelf.
Isabella decides, as a result of what she sees as three “signs,”
that she is meant to be a missionary to China. Although those around
her try to make her see reason, Isabella is convinced of her
calling. She stows away on a ship that is returning missionary
Phineas Snowe, a man she detests, to China. She believes that
although Phineas dislikes her, his sense of honor will not allow him
to leave her unescorted.
Jane Orcutt has written a witty, vivacious, highly entertaining
tale of adventure and romance. This book is a work of art. The
inspirational elements in the story, though subtle, enhance the
plot. The characters are human, imperfect, and amusing. Although
this book was intended to be Book One in the Rollicking Regency
series, sadly, it will now stand alone. Jane Orcutt passed away in
March 2007. -- Nan Curnutt
THE DIG
John Preston, Penguin, 2007, £16.99, hb,
230pp, 9780670914913
In
the summer of 1939, as Britain prepares for war with air-raid drills
and trench digging in Hyde Park, in the depths of rural Suffolk, an
excavation of a very different kind is about to shake up Europe’s
perception of its history just as much as the impending war. When
local landowner, Edith Pretty, employs archaeologist Basil Brown to
excavate a series of large earth mounds on her land, little can any
of them know that they are about to re-illuminate the Dark Ages. As
history goes into overdrive around them, and those drawn together at
Sutton Hoo become involved in their own emotional upheavals,
gradually, painstakingly, with many setbacks and a few blinding
revelations, one of the most important, enigmatic and beautiful
archaeological discoveries of modern times is laid bare.
The discovery of the Anglo Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo in
the Deben valley hardly needs the attentions of a novelist to make
it any more dramatic than it was. A visit to the site and a tour of
its treasures make the hackles rise; you instinctively know you are
in the presence of something magical. That said, John Preston has
written a wonderful novel about it, excavating the lives of those
involved with as much care and precision as they applied to the dig
and fashioning from them a small jewel of a book. Not a word is out
of place in his meticulously observed account of these variously
repressed lives, of Edith’s anxiety for her solitary young son as
her health fails, or Basil’s inability to express any feeling at
all, or brilliant young Peggy Piggot’s reluctance to step out of the
shadow of her husband and former professor.
None of these individual stories ends happily because
they are all drawn from life, but what a legacy they left us, and
what a skilful tribute Preston has paid them in this almost perfect
novel. -- Sarah Bower
ROYAL HARLOT: A Novel of
the Countess of Castlemaine and King Charles II
Susan
Holloway Scott, NAL, 2007, $14, pb, 384pp, 0451221346
Having
previously provided a fictional memoir of Sarah, first Duchess of
Marlborough (Duchess, an
Editors’ Choice), Scott brings to vivid life another of the 17th
century’s most notorious, brazen, and powerful females. If anything,
Royal Harlot is an even more assured, nuanced, and colorful
portrait of a woman and her age.
Well-born Royalist Barbara Villiers, stifled by Cromwell’s
Puritanical regime, wastes no time shedding her useless virginity.
Her first passion, the faithless libertine Lord Chesterfield, uses
her voluptuous body and teaches tricks she will later put to good
use. Enter Roger Palmer, a gentleman working in league with
those aiming to place the exiled Stuart king upon his rightful
throne. Serving as her husband's courier, Barbara travels to Holland
to personally deliver money to King Charles. Their first meeting,
followed immediately by their first coupling, is combustible.
After the king’s restoration, Barbara's barely compliant
husband is ennobled and she becomes Lady Castlemaine. As His
Majesty’s premier mistress she reigns supreme, even after her royal
lover takes a queen. Catherine of Braganza, Charles’s consort, is
heartlessly mocked and disdained—neither her redeeming qualities nor
the many miscarriages she suffered while her husband dallied with
bad Barbara are mentioned here.
In her intriguing portrayal, Scott tempers Barbara’s
rapacious sexuality while presenting a Charles who seems far less
frustrated with her tempestuousness than the historical record
indicates. And although the real Barbara was better known for her
ambition and avarice than her maternal devotion, the novelist
incorporates her motherhood to good effect.
Among this novel’s many strengths are Scott’s
impressive depiction of time and place, her evocation of the
Restoration-era mindset, the exuberance of the period, and her sure,
succinct presentation of complex historical events. The reader can
well believe that this is a memoir penned by a woman
who—in reality—was clearly too busy living to ever write one!
--
Margaret Barr
PEONY IN LOVE
Lisa See, Random House, 2007, $23.95, hb,
304pp, 9781400064663 / Bloomsbury, 2007, £10.99, pb, 304pp,
9780747582489
Enter
the enticing world of the Peony Pavilion, a 16th-century
Chinese opera now entwining the lives of three Hangzhou women over a
hundred years later. Peony is a sheltered, obedient girl whose
father invites family and friends to a special dramatic presentation
of this famous piece. There Peony, who knows the opera by heart,
secretly sees and later meets one man her father has invited. For
three days Wu Ren and Peony share their deep love for the story of
ideal love epitomized in the opera by Liu Meng-mei (Willow Dreaming
Plum) and Tu Li-niang.
Obsessed with what she believes can never be true in an
arranged marriage, Peony pines away, dies, and inadvertently becomes
a “hungry ghost.” Intriguing irony follows as Peony in the afterlife
guides first Tan Ze and much later Yi Qian in their marriages to Ren.
The story of their rich relationships immerses the reader into
stories of love affected by their complex personalities. As these
characters learn about ideal love as portrayed in The Peony
Pavilion, each undergoes a rich and vivacious metamorphosis.
Lisa See is an immensely talented writer who deftly intertwines
Chinese history through the literary parallels of 16th and 17th
century poets and dramatists, as woman poets begin literary circles
for reading and discussion. This move toward independence from
tradition, initially celebrated, was gradually perceived as
dangerous by the new dynasty. Peony’s grandmother and mother
eventually describe how they had earlier survived the devastating
massacre of the invading Manchu army. But what they learned through
that experience adds to the respect of their literary peers, for
immortal creation arises from deep suffering and love for one’s
family and friends.
The language of Peony in Love is exquisite and poetic
in itself, conveying a magical, mysterious, powerful, beautiful, and
unforgettable story.
-- Viviane Crystal
SOUL
CATCHER
Michael White, Morrow, 2007,
$24.95/C$31.50, hb, 384pp, 9780061340727 / Quercus, Nov. 2007,
£12.99, pb, 336pp, 1847241581
Dark,
wounded hero Augustus Cain, Mexican War veteran and son of a
Virginia planter, wakes in a whore’s bed and a laudanum haze to an
offer he can’t refuse. To pay a gambling debt, he must once more
undertake a profession he’d sworn off—again—heading north after a
pair of runaway slaves. One of the slaves is the beautiful blue-eyed
Rosetta, for whom her master will pay a very high price to
recover—and who will herself pay the highest price not to be dragged
back to the man who sold her infant son down river.
Michael White teaches us the power of strong characterization
and of breathing new life into common human situations. He
brilliantl
y
brings the violence and divided loyalties of the antebellum years to
life; fiery John Brown is just one of the obstacles Cain must
overcome. Fast action, well-crafted scenes and a high body count
make this perfect for the bestseller list and big screen, with
something of Cold Mountain in it to delight fans. But all is
not leveled for the lowest common denominator. He writes beautiful,
descriptive passages: the sky is evoked with visceral words—“a vast
coffin lid”—which keeps it from being an overused motif. Our hero
and heroine are surrounded by exquisite period details and
soul-wrenching decisions that get to the very core of America’s dark
heart. -- Ann Chamberlin
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