THE MESMERIST
Barbara Ewing, Sphere, 2007, £18.99, hb, 400pp, 9781847440655 / also £11.99, pb, 9781847440228
As Queen Victoria comes to the throne, the mysterious Mrs. Cordelia du Pont begins her meteoric rise to fame and fortune as a lady Phreno-Mesmerist. Although her career begins as a money-making scam hatched by two aging and out-of-work actresses, Cordelia Preston (aka Mrs. du Pont) and Amaryllis Spoons, things soon take a darker and more serious turn. Cordelia’s success is challenged by a painful past which threatens to overwhelm her, and what began as her last, great theatrical role gradually becomes real as she discovers in herself a genuine talent for mesmerism. The foundation of her popular success, however, is the advice she gives to young ladies of good breeding about “the gentle intricacies of the wedding night”. When a member of high society is brutally murdered in Bloomsbury Square, Cordelia’s past comes back to haunt her with dramatic results.
    As with all her fiction, Ewing uses historical stories to address issues of continuing relevance – women’s rights, the balance of power between the sexes and, in this novel, the debate between conventional and alternative medicine, and the pernicious power of the gutter press. This is a much stronger novel than Ewing’s previous book, Rosetta, perhaps because it is set almost entirely in London. Ewing writes with great verve and confidence about 19^th century London, bringing its crowds and smells and dank basements wonderfully to life. As an actress herself, Ewing also shows a sure hand when describing the theatre of the time.
    A gripping and entertaining read. Recommended. -- Sarah Bower

ABRAHAM’S WELL
Sharon Ewell Foster, Bethany House, 2006, $12.99, pb, 335pp, 9780764228872
Until she is about seven years old, Armentia never knows she is a slave. She grows up in the southern Appalachians of North Carolina, watched over by loving parents, her older brother, Abraham, and Mama Emma and Papa, a married couple of white and Indian blood who treat her almost as a daughter. But an act of childhood mischief, and the arrival of whites who want the Indians’ land, makes their true relationship painfully clear. In 1838, Armentia’s family, along with thousands of other Black Cherokee – African Americans of mixed heritage, both slave and free – is forced westward on foot, accompanying their owners and other Indians along the Trail of Tears to what is now Oklahoma.
     Foster writes in the honest, direct, occasionally folksy style of a slave narrative, recounting Armentia’s journey from innocence to resigned wisdom in the first person. Time and again, Armentia sees others trade her friendship, love, and trust for material gain. Neither her child’s viewpoint nor the reader’s foreknowledge of her survival into old age lessens the impact of the heartbreak she experiences. Foster also proves descriptions of graphic violence unnecessary in conveying the unexpected horrors that shape a slave’s existence. Elements of her Christian faith, which gives Armentia hope in the hardest of times, are woven into the narrative in a natural, historically appropriate fashion. But Abraham’s Well is not only a powerful indictment against slavery, it’s also a revelation of the hidden history of the Black Cherokee, who know the shame of both cultures but belong fully to neither, not even today. The concluding author’s note, in which Foster explores her own perplexing family history, makes her tale even more meaningful. An impressive, impeccably researched novel that deserves to be widely read; highly recommended. -- Sarah Johnson

BLOOD ON THE STRAND
Susanna Gregory, Sphere, 2007, £17.99/$24.95, hb, 457pp, 9781847440020
Spring 1663, the eve of the third year of the Restoration, but all is not well in the capital city. Wealthy merchant Matthew Webb is murdered, his blood staining The Strand. Elsewhere a vagrant is shot during a royal procession. The two incidents seem unconnected until intelligence agent Thomas Chaloner is sent to investigate.
    His enquiries lead Thomas towards the powerful Company of Barber-Surgeons and their work in Public and Private Anatomies. They are also complicated by the bitter feud raging between Thomas’s master, the Earl of Clarendon, and the Earl of Bristol. If Thomas cannot uncover the real murderer, the life of an innocent man is at risk.
    This is the second novel in a new series to feature Thomas Chaloner and is written by Susanna Gregory, well known for her medieval detective, Matthew Bartholomew. The two series share some common elements – in-depth historical research, a basis in factual historical incidents retold in a lively and witty narrative, and devilishly complicated plots.
    Fans will be pleased to hear that Susanna Gregory has yet again hit on a winning formula of taking a likeable main character, involving him in gripping plot, and setting them within a commendably realistic setting. It is another bravura performance. -- Sara Wilson

THE SECRET
Philippe Grimbert (trans. Polly McLean), Portobello, 2007, £12.99, hb, 154pp, 9871846270437
This autobiographical novel tells the story of young Philippe’s childhood in post-war Paris. The sickly only child of glamorous, athletic parents, the boy worries that his own inadequate body is the source of his father’s unspoken disappointment. He senses a shadow hanging over his family. His parents never speak of the past and have altered their surname to hide their Jewish identity.
    After discovering a toy dog in the attic, lonely Philippe dreams up an imaginary big brother who is everything he is not: fit, healthy, his father’s pride. The ghost brother overshadows Philippe’s existence until Philippe turns fifteen and sees a film about the Holocaust at school. When a classmate makes a vicious anti-Semitic jibe, the ‘weakling’ Philippe, overcome with a force and fury he has never known before, beats the much stronger boy bloody. Then Louise, a trusted family friend, takes him aside and tells him the truth about his family’s past, a story so harrowing that his parents are unable to face it. His imaginary brother was, in fact, a flesh and blood boy who died in Auschwitz years before Philippe’s birth, and his parents’ marriage is rooted in adultery and devastating betrayal.
    No plot summary can quite do justice to this hypnotic, deeply moving novel. This deceptively slender volume can be read in an afternoon, but will haunt the reader for a lifetime. The author, a psychoanalyst, delves deep into the dark abyss of human loss and repression. His spare, luminous prose is beautifully rendered in this fine translation by Polly McLean. A gem of a novel, very highly recommended. -- Mary Sharratt

THE SOLITUDE OF THOMAS CAVE
Georgina Harding, Bloomsbury, 2007, £12.99, hb, 237pp, 9780747587002 / Bloomsbury USA, $23.95, hb, 256pp, 1596912723
Set in the first half of the 17^th century, this is a poetic and highly literate novel that has as its themes the nature of mankind and our impact on the environment. Thomas Cave is a whaler on Arctic expeditions collecting whale oil and associated products, which in the early 1600s was a highly hazardous though lucrative occupation. Cave accepts a wager that he would be able to survive an Arctic winter alone and is left behind by his ship with provisions and shelter as the summer conditions begin to give way to the icy temperatures of winter.
    The long months of utter isolation and privation are recorded in his journal and by the author as narrator. As the reader soon grasps, there are reasons apart from monetary gain why Cave has taken up the challenge. He is a bereaved widower and seeks out silence and loneliness to be with his grief and despair. Cave reflects on his brief marriage to Johanne and her death in childbirth. In his privations he hallucinates and feels haunted by his dead wife and child.
The novel is not primarily plot driven, so nothing is given away by revealing that Cave survives the long, desperately hard winter: but he is a changed man. The young ship hand, Thomas Goodlard, records his friendship with Cave both before and after the latter’s experience and, many years later, he seeks out Cave as an old man.
    Thomas Cave developed an innate empathy with the fauna of the Arctic and regrets mankind’s vicious depredation to extract profit and ruin their teeming environment. It is a message for the modern world with the fast disappearance of species and man’s increasingly clumsy and destructive footprints on the world. It is also a wonderfully delicate novel, not one to be rushed but savoured and reflected upon. -- Doug Kemp

Bluebird, or the Invention of Happiness
Sheila Kohler, Other Press, 2007, $24.95, hb, 444pp, 9781590512623
Upon occasion a reviewer is familiar with the source material for a fictional biographical novel, and therefore dreads the transformation from actual to imagined history. Readers of Madame La Tour du Pin’s magnificent memoir need not be concerned, for Kohler exquisitely and creatively depicts Lucy Dillon’s life and times, tracing her history from the Court of Versailles to a humble farm in America.
    A descendant of the Catholic Irish Wild Geese who sought refuge in France, Lucy is raised by her cruel grandmother. During her early years she lives on the periphery of the French court—maturity thrusts her into that scandalous world. A matrimonial pawn, she has the good fortune to marry an admirer of her soldier father. Frédéric is a nobleman, one capable of appreciating and adoring his bride. But for this hopeful couple there can be no happily ever after—married life begins as the sparks of revolution begin to flare. The riots, the executions, the loss of friends are revealed through Lucy’s perceptive and pragmatic mind. When her husband goes into hiding, she disguises herself as a citoyenne in a rural area, bearing a daughter while a suspicious mob rages on her doorstep, carefully planning an escape.
    With their son and infant daughter, Lucy and Frédéric sail to America on a dodgy vessel to embark upon an uncertain and unfamiliar life. Lucy rises to the occasion, stocking and managing the Hudson Valley farm that her husband eventually purchases, proudly marking her butter molds with the family crest. She thrives on exile, but it reduces her loving Frédéric to a nostalgic, displaced aristocrat. In the aftermath of domestic tragedy they embark on yet another journey, each harboring different feelings about it.
    Anyone seeking quality historical fiction will welcome the publication of this poignant, powerful novel. -- Margaret Barr

LETTERS FROM A SLAVE BOY: The Story of Joseph Jacobs
Mary E. Lyons, Atheneum, 2007, $15.99/C$19.99, 198pp, hb, 9780689878671
Having reworked the autobiography of Harriet Jacobs (escaped slave turned abolitionist and once as famous as Frederick Douglass) in Letters From a Slave Girl, award-winning author Mary E. Lyons turns her pen to telling the story of Harriet’s son, Joseph. Beginning in Edenton, North Carolina, in 1839, Joseph secretly writes letters to his recently-escaped mother and others who are lost to him sharing the day-to-day details of his life. He soon learns hard lessons as his white friend, Josiah, is forbidden to see Joseph. Slowly realizing the stark reality of the world he inhabits, Joseph dreams of life with his mother up north.
    Lyons’s poignant handling of such emotional material is masterful. Readers are drawn into the drama of Joseph’s life and kept on tenterhooks wondering what crisis or adventure the next letter will bring. Imagining Joseph’s thoughts based on the scant letters and writings that survive, Lyons manages to convey the fear and uncertainty as well as the quiet dignity the Jacobs family embodied. At times both sad and humorous, Letters From a Slave Boy (as well as Letters From a Slave Girl) is an intriguing addition to the world of African-American fiction for young people, with its portrayal of fighting against all odds, and is highly recommended. -- Dana Cohlmeyer

THE SUN OVER BREDA
Arturo Pérez-Reverte, (trans. not credited), Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007, £9.99, hb, 276pp, 9780297848646 / Putnam, 2007, $24.95, hb, 288pp, 9780399153839
This is the third in the adventures of Captain Alatriste in 17^th century Spain, following Captain Alatriste and Purity of Blood. In 1625, Captain Alatriste has rejoined the army and left the dangerous streets of Madrid for the war in Flanders. He is accompanied by the young Íñigo Balboa, who narrates the novels. The Captain Alatriste series is the kind of adventure that Alexandre Dumas and Rafael Sabatini used to write, and it delivers. The battle scenes are appallingly vivid, as is the exposition of how Captain Alatriste and his close companions fight on from duty and loyalty.
    Íñigo Balboa also relates the scenes in which Alatriste is on his own, trusting the reader to infer that Alatriste would have told Íñigo about them at some unspecified later time. Alatriste and Íñigo are kept informed of events back in Madrid by letters from Alatriste’s friend the poet Quevedo, and from the beautiful Angélica de Alquézar. Íñigo has a lifelong passion for Angélica, while also deeply hating and fearing her, for good reasons.
    As in the two previous novels, Pérez-Reverte gives the reader a bonus in the form of poems, extracts from a play, and a lengthy editor’s note. If this evokes memories of Flashman, be assured that the Alatriste novels have a much darker tone, with no trace of humour. If you want to try the Alatriste series, and you should, you might be better off reading at least one of the two previous novels first, but The Sun Over Breda can stand by itself, and will introduce you to a world where heroes are heroes, and honour is defended by immediate recourse to sword and dagger. -- Alan Fisk

Arturo Pérez-Reverte is a bestseller in the Spanish speaking world. His books, among them The Club Dumas, The Fencing Master, Queen of the South and The Flanders Panel, have been translated into twenty-nine languages. His creation, Captain Alatriste, is a cultural icon, and The Sun Over Breda is the third part of the captain’s continuing story.
    It is set during the counter-reformation, as Spain attempts to maintain control over an empire that is full of heretics and brimming with nationalist fervor. Their bloodiest struggle during the early part of the 17^th century was with the Dutch, and this novel concerns one of the many Flemish campaigns waged by Spain, in particular the siege of Breda. Alatriste, a canny professional soldier, is accompanied, as always, by Íñigo Balboa, who also functions as the narrator for the stories. (This is just as well, as Alatriste is a man of action and few words.) Fifteen now, Íñigo has become a mochilero. His job is to carry ammunition for Alatriste’s harquebus, as well as water and spare gear. With others like him, he scours the war-torn countryside for supplies. Although he is unpaid—and his master isn’t paid often—Íñigo is put in harm’s way as often as any regular. His dagger is frequently put to use.
    In short, think of the Sharpe series, but add a literary dimension, with quotations from Spanish poets and the elegant circumlocutions of period language. As expected with a writer of this caliber, the characterizations are complex, and each scene is as exquisitely detailed as any Velásquez. If, like me, you only know Spanish history from an English speaker’s perspective, Pérez-Reverte will be happy to escort you toward a deeper understanding of an old enemy. Recommended, but do begin with the first of the series, Captain Alatriste.  -- Juliet Waldron

KILLING CHE
Chuck Pfarrer, Random House, 2007, $26.95/C$34.95, hb, 512pp, 9781400063932
Bolivia, 1967: Paul Hoyle, an ex-CIA paramilitary with experience in Laos, Vietnam and various Latin American hot spots, is now employed as a “contractor.” The problem? A dangerously effective group of rebels, perhaps Communists infiltrating from Argentina, have ambushed and destroyed a government convoy traveling in a more than usually inhospitable and poverty-stricken part of central Bolivia. The CIA, in an all-too familiar role (protecting multinationals and propping up a corrupt but pro-American regime) is immediately interested. When it becomes clear that this is not a home-grown operation, but is led by the formidable, charismatic Che Guevara, their interest turns to passion.
     Killing Che is a gut-wrenching tale of espionage, betrayal and military adventure. Terrifying firefights and numbing slogs through the jungle feel like the real thing. What makes this novel exceptional—besides the author’s brilliantly evocative descriptions of land and people—is the effortless telling from multiple points of view. Besides the burned-out career soldier, Hoyle, there is Tania, an East German-Cuban triple-agent and one-time lover of Guevara’s. There are many other characters, too, all complex and fully realized.
    The masterstroke, however, may be the portrait of the heroic true believer, Che Guevara. The author, Chuck Pfarrer, has several successful action screenplays to his credit, but it is his resume as an ex-Navy SEAL (as well as the mountains of research that so obviously went into this novel) that makes him absolutely qualified to handle his subject. Don’t miss this one, or start it at night, as I did. Killing Che is almost impossible to put down. -- Juliet Waldron

THE TERROR
Dan Simmons, Little, Brown, 2007, $25.99/C$32.99, hb, 769pp, 0316017442 / Bantam, 2007, £20.00, hb, 784pp, 0593057627
In 1845, two ships of the Royal Navy, the HMS Terror and the HMS Erebus, led by Sir John Franklin, attempted to sail through the Arctic Circle looking for the Northwest Passage. This novel is a fictionalized account of the actual expedition. The ships would become trapped in the Arctic ice for several years. The men were faced with rancid food, freezing temperatures, and a creature that stalked the ships looking for human food.
    When Franklin dies, Captain Francis Crozier takes command. An alcoholic, he tries to maintain discipline aboard the two ships while the men continue to die from both the predator and scurvy. A mysterious Inuit woman is captured and becomes a hostage. Because her tongue had been removed prior to her capture, she is unable to speak, but forms a relationship with members of the crew. Several men feel she may know the secret of the terror that lurks in the snowscape that has enclosed the two vessels in this land of ice and snow.
    Dan Simmons kept me on the edge of my seat with suspense and his chapter-ending cliffhangers. He does a marvelous job describing the land, the misery and the fear felt by the sailors caught in a frozen land. As a reader, you’ll become attached to certain characters and hope they will survive the ordeal.
    This is the first historical horror novel I’ve read, and Dan Simmons pulls it off with exceptional flair. If you enjoy reading novels that tend to cause the small hairs on the back of your neck to rise, you will want to read this extraordinarily well-written work. -- Jeff Westerhoff

THE MERCY SELLER
Brenda Rickman Vantrease, St, Martin’s Press, 2007, $24.95/C$31, hb, 422pp, 9780312331931
Anna Bookman and her grandfather, Finn, make their living illuminating precious books in early 15^th-century Prague, a hotbed of religious change. Jan Hus, a Lollard follower, is challenging the Church’s authority, spreading the word that the religious texts should be available to people in their native language. The Church takes the position that religious texts must only be written in Latin and that those who copy and spread religious texts in native tongues are heretics subject to the most horrible punishment.
    After one of many religious purges, Anna attempts to commit suicide but is saved by a gypsy, Jetta, who has a profound impact on her life. However, it becomes clear to Anna that she must leave Prague or face possible persecution. She travels to England, Finn’s final wish for her, carrying her most prized possession – a Wycliffe Bible, written in English. Anna later learns why Finn has chosen England for Anna as her safe haven.
    When Anna stops in Rheims to sell her work, she meets and falls in love with a rich, young merchant. She does not know that this is Brother Gabriel, a friar previously engaged in selling pardons, sent on a mission by Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, as a Church spy.
    What could become a soap opera is a beautiful, complex love story in Vantrease’s talented hands. Although some of the Anna-Gabriel plot is predictable, how they come to understand their destinies, confront their greatest fears and deal with the very terrible reality of the Church’s power – represented marvelously in Arundel who is frighteningly real – is lovingly drawn by an author whose has a unique ability to build a story and develop characters.
    A highly recommended read.  -- Ilysa Magnus

LUNCHEON OF THE BOATING PARTY
Susan Vreeland, Viking, 2007, $25.95, hb, 448pp, 97806700385
Paris, 1880. Pierre-Auguste Renoir is thirty-nine, his enchantment with the revolutionary Impressionist style is fading, and the movement threatens to splinter. Renoir paints society women for money, but longs to produce something monumental, a tableau of la vie moderne which cannot be ignored by critics and will cement his career. He settles on the theme of a boating party luncheon, set on the terrace of the Maison Fournaise, a hotel/restaurant on the banks of the Seine.
    Vreeland, known for her other novels based on art history, has crafted another masterwork. Her expressive, enviable prose vibrantly imbues both Renoir and his models with life. These are all captivating people, and as Vreeland follows each against the background of Renoir’s art, she uses words to paint la vie moderne through their eyes. Paris and the banks of the Seine come alive, as do the models, from the feisty actress Angele to the tragically selfless widow Alphonsine. Renoir is obsessed with his art and is, in modern parlance, a player, for which his excuse is that he must love a woman in order to paint her. This loses him sympathy points, but like all the historical figures Vreeland has characterized here, he is refreshingly human and strikingly real.
    Vreeland’s other masterstroke is her absorbing portrayal of the progression by which great art comes into being. Like Renoir’s Ball at the Moulin de la Galette, Luncheon of the Boating Party may look like a spontaneous moment frozen in time, but this effect is the result of months of consideration, posed models, and homage to classical paintings such as the Marriage Feast at Cana. From her vivid description of colors to the play of light to the minutest of brush strokes, Vreeland shows the inspiration and technical knowledge behind the process of painting—all without devolving into a dry art history lesson.
    This novel is a beautiful, lyrical, fascinating portrait of painting, personalities, and a particular moment in the river of time. Very highly recommended. -- Bethany Latham

APRIL IN PARIS
Michael Wallner (trans. John Cullen), John Murray, 2007, £14.99, hb, 246 pp, 9780719568664 / Doubleday/Talese, 2007, $21.95, hb, 256pp, 9780385519144
Don’t be fooled by this book’s unfortunate UK cover. This is not another romantic wartime saga, but a powerful study of a young Wehrmacht corporal in occupied Paris who yearns to shed his German identity and become a French civilian.
    Michel Roth’s extraordinary command of the French language enables him to avoid the “real war” on the Eastern Front and while away the months translating in Paris, the city of his dreams. His life seems like a cakewalk until he is transferred to the SS and ordered to transcribe the confessions of Partisans while they are being tortured in front of him. Unable to stomach his daytime occupation, he takes a huge risk, donning civilian clothes in his off-duty hours and becoming his alter ego, Antoine, a Frenchman who can stroll through the streets and chat amiably with the locals. As Antoine, he meets Chantal, a bookseller’s daughter, and falls deeply in love, only to discover that she is a Resistance leader and a far more effective warrior than he could ever be. Chantal is not fooled by his disguise, and her copains regard him as the crazy Boche. More dangerously, his commanding officer begins to see through him, too. Soon Michel will be forced to make a choice and the ultimate sacrifice.
    This can be no simple tale of love conquers all. None of the characters can emerge unscathed. Nor is this a revisionist attempt to exonerate Germans of their war guilt. Wallner’s descriptions of SS brutality are as uncompromising as Michel’s epiphany that he should have been as brave as Chantal and resisted his own regime from the very beginning. Though marred by a clunky translation (Lebensraum becomes “breathing space”), this novel is searing and unforgettable, as true as fiction can be.  -- Mary Sharratt

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