Category: Books

The Raven’s Head by Karen Maitland

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

I loved Karen Maitland’s medieval mysteries, Company of Liars: a novel of the plague and The Owl Killers and although I didn’t think The Vanishing Witch had quite the same magic spark I still enjoyed it. So when Lovereading offered me a proof copy of The Raven’s Head for review I was keen to read it.

Publisher: Headline Review
Publication date: March 12, 2015
ISBN: 9781472215055

Summary from Karen Maitland’s website:

Vincent is an apprentice librarian who stumbles upon a secret powerful enough to destroy his master. With the foolish arrogance of youth, he attempts blackmail but the attempt fails and Vincent finds himself on the run and in possession of an intricately carved silver raven’s head.

Any attempt to sell the head fails ‘¦ until Vincent tries to palm it off on the intimidating Lord Sylvain ‘“ unbeknown to Vincent, a powerful Alchemist with an all-consuming quest. Once more Vincent’s life is in danger because Sylvain and his neighbours, the menacing White Canons, consider him a predestined sacrifice in their shocking experiment.

Chilling and with compelling hints of the supernatural.

My thoughts:

Set in 1224 in France and England this is a dark book. I found parts of it very uncomfortable and disturbing to read and yet also very compelling. Life in the medieval world was cruel and brutal and The Raven’s Head describes that world in minute detail, evoking the superstitious fear of the period.

The story is told from the three main characters point of view -Vincent, Wilky, a young boy taken from his family to live in a monastery in Norfolk where unspeakable terrors await him and the other young boys, and Gisa also living in Norfolk, working in her uncle’s apothecary’s shop. Their lives are connected through Lord Sylvain who is trying to find a way to bring the dead back to life and the abbot, trying to find the elixir of life – both experimenting with alchemy.

Karen Maitland provides a cast of characters and sets out the historical background and provides notes and a glossary on the practice of  alchemy during the Middle Ages, all of which I found indispensable. Each chapter is headed by a quotation taken from the writings of early Christian and Islamic alchemists – most of which I found incomprehensible.

She explains that alchemy was a dangerous practice, many chemical experiments could go horribly wrong – as in this book. Alchemists worked in secret. It was mystical, as they searched for the means to transform the base soul of man into pure incorruptible spirit, as well as physical, searching for the stone, elixir or tincture to turn base metals into precious metals.

Although long this is a fast-paced book and I read it quite quickly.  I enjoyed the historical setting and even though it took me right to the edge of my comfort zone as far as reading horrific detail the rest of the book made up for that in terms of a well constructed storyline and believable characters. Once I began I had to finish the book.

Nonfiction Reading Challenge 2015

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

I wasn’t going to take part in any more challenges this year – I’m probably doing too many – but when I saw this Nonfiction Challenge, hosted by The Introverted Reader I thought it could encourage me to read my non-fiction books. It runs between 1 January to 31 December 2015. You can sign up any time throughout the year.

Unlike some of the challenges I’ve joined this one really is a challenge for me, because although I like to read non-fiction I often find my self opting for fiction.

Nonfiction Reading Challenge hosted at The Introverted Reader
Image courtesy of Serge Bertasius Photography at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Challenge:  Read any non-fiction book(s), adult or young adult.That’s it. You can choose anything. Memoirs, History, Travel – absolutely anything that is classified as non-fiction counts for this challenge.

The levels:

Dilettante–Read 1-5 non-fiction books

Explorer–Read 6-10

Seeker–Read 11-15

Master–Read 16-20

I am aiming at the Seeker level and hoping to read more than 12 books (my total for last year!)

See my progress page here.

The Dead Secret by Wilkie Collins

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

I can imagine how intriguing Wilkie Collins’ novel The Dead Secret must have been when it was first serialised in weekly episodes in Household Words in 1857, every episode ending leaving the reader eager to know what happens next. It’s a sensation novel* (see my note below) , with many twists and turns, giving hints to the secret (which I did guess fairly early in the book) gradually and surely building up the suspense and with a final twist at the end (which I hadn’t forseen).  I’m reading Anthony Trollope’s Autobiography and this is what he had to say about his friend, Wilkie Collins:

 When I sit down to write a novel I do not all know, and I do not very much care, how it is to end. Wilkie Collins seems so to construct his that he not only, before writing, plans everything on, down to the minutest detail, from the beginning to the end; but then plots it all back again, to see that there is no piece of necessary dove-tailing, which does not dove-tail with absolutely accuracy. The construction is most minute and most wonderful.

And the plotting is like this in The Dead Secret – detailed and dove-tailed right from the powerful beginning at Porthgenna Tower in Cornwall in the 1820s, at the bedside of a dying woman, Mrs Treverton as she commands her maid, Sarah Leeson, to give her husband a letter confessing a great secret, to its end when all is revealed.

I think that to the modern reader the impact of this book is not the revelation of the secret but the manner of its style of delivery – the initial questions about the secret, what is in the letter, why has Sarah’s hair turned prematurely white, why she visits an an old grave set apart from others in the graveyard, why she talks to herself and why she disappears from Cornwall soon afterwards, having hidden the letter.

Fifteen years later, Rosamund, Mrs Treverton’s daughter returns to Porthgenna Tower to live in her old home. By an accident of circumstances, before Rosamund and her husband reach Cornwall, she gives birth a month earlier than expected and Sarah under an assumed name, is appointed to nurse Rosamund and the baby. Overcome by emotion Sarah cannot stop herself from warning Rosamund not to go into the Myrtle Room, which of course arouses Rosamund’s curiosity.

Trollope, however, says he ‘can never lose the taste of the construction’, feeling that Collins ‘books are ‘all plot’. I think this is a harsh judgement. In The Dead Secret, I think that on the whole the characters do come across as real people – I particularly like Rosamund and Sarah’s Uncle Joseph, both are sympathetically drawn – and there are other characters that add colour and interest. The settings and details of Victorian life are clearly described.  It also examines several social and moral issues of period, such as the role of women and respectability.

I don’t think The Dead Secret is in quite the same league as The Moonstone or The Woman in White, but it has all the elements of a good mystery story, drawing out the secret in tense anticipation of its revelation and making me as eager as Rosamund to know the secret and then almost as paranoid as Sarah that it should remain a secret!

*Sensation Novels*

I wrote about sensation novels,  in an earlier post and have reproduced the information here for ease of reference. It is a novel  with Gothic elements  ‘“ murder, mystery, horror and suspense ‘“ within a domestic setting. They have complicated plots, are set in modern times, and are reliant on coincidences, with plots hinging on murder, madness and bigamy. They exploited the fear that respectable Victorian families had of hidden, dark secrets and explored the woman’s role in the family. There is a pre-occupation with the law ‘“ wills, inheritance, divorce and women’s rights over property and child custody. They are emotional dramas about obsessive and disturbed mental states, with villains hiding behind respectable fronts, and bold assertive women, as well as passive, powerless and compliant women.

Reading Challenges: Mount TBR Challenge 2015, My Kind of Mystery Challenge, Victorian Bingo Challenge 2015 

Books I read in January & Reading Challenges

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

I’ve not got any  reading plans for 2015  and I’ve not set myself a target on the Goodreads 2015 Reading  Challenge as I find it annoying that it tells you whether you’re on target or how many books behind you are – as though you need prodding to make you read more. Reading should be a pleasure not a chore or a competition.

I finished reading eight books in January,  all fiction apart from Wilkie Collins, which is a biography. Three of them are crime fiction – marked with an asterisk*. Two are books I received for review – both from Love Reading. (The links are to my posts on the books)

  1. The Book of Lost and Found by Lucy Foley (review book) – most enjoyable.  It’s the story of Tom and Alice beginning in 1928 in Hertfordshire and moving backwards and forwards in time and place to 1986, from Paris, to London, Corsica and New York.
  2. Towards Zero* by Agatha Christie – now one of my favourite of her books. A murder is planned, events set in motion, people are brought together and murder ensues.
  3. Wilkie Collins by Peter Ackroyd – very readable and a clear and concise account of Collins’ life and work.
  4. Green Darkness by Anya Seton – better in parts than in others.
  5. The Betrayal of Trust* by Susan Hill –  a rather dark and complex book highlighting the dilemma facing those with terminal and debilitating illnesses.
  6. A Question of Identity* by Susan Hill – I preferred this book to the previous one. This is full of tension and suspense, revolving around the question of ‘identity’.
  7. The Raven’s Head by Karen Maitland (review book) – her latest book, due to be published in March, a book that pushed me to the edge of my comfort zone in places with  some scenes of dark horror – more about that in a later post.
  8. The Dead Secret by Wilkie Collins  (post to follow) –  a well-plotted book, full of clues about the secret.

I have also been reading An Autobiography by Anthony Trollope for most of January. I’ll probably finish it tomorrow, so more about that later. And I’ve just started reading two books -Trollope’s Barchester Towers, his second book in the Barchester Chronicles, and The Burning by Jane Casey. Both books are looking good so far.

My favourite book is without doubt The Book of Lost and Found by

Lucy Foley. I don’t often read love stories so I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this beautiful book. It is a book I shall re-read – a book for keeping.

Taking Part in Reading Challenges

I’ve  been wondering if I’ve committed to doing too many reading challenges and whether I should pull out of some as I don’t want to read to any set plan or timetable. But I’ve realised that for me these are not ‘challenges’ but are different ways of recording and analysing what I have read. So I’ve decided to stick with them.

The challenges I’ve joined are:

Current Library Books

Published on by Margaret11 Comments

I always have several books on loan from my local library. These are my current loans:

It’s no wonder my TBR pile of my own books doesn’t go down very quickly! I didn’t borrow these books all in one go – they are the result of several visits and are due back on different dates!

They are a mix of fiction and non-fiction. At the bottom of the pile are three art books – two by Barrington Barber about painting and drawing,  a comprehensive step-by-step instruction book and Anyone Can Paint about painting in watercolours, acrylics and oils,  The third art book is Cold Breeze, Dark Fire a book of paintings and drawings of North Northumberland by Peter Podmore.  Podmore lives in this area and paints mainly outside using pastels, oils, acrylic and charcoal – such inspiring, beautiful and dramatic paintings.

Next up in the pile is Stephen Fry’s memoir, More Fool Me, his third volume. It begins with a synopsis of his earlier books, which as I haven’t read them is very helpful.

Then up to the fiction beginning with a Catherine Cookson, The Silent Lady. I haven’t read many of her books, but this one appealed to me. It’s her last novel, written when she was very ill, but she was convinced that she had a good story to tell.

The Spice Merchant’s Wife by Charlotte Betts. This is one of those books that I know nothing about or about its author, but took down off the library shelves on an impulse. I like to try new-to-me authors and this is one of my favourite genres – historical fiction set in 1666.

Trouble Brewing by Dolores Gordon-Smith, chosen because it’s crime fiction set in 1925, written in the classic mystery style, according to the back cover.

I’ve enjoyed The Woods by Harlan Coben, so I thought I’d try another one and picked up Tell No One, about a couple visiting a lake that had been part of their lives since they were children – then the wife is kidnapped and killed.

More historical fiction with The Botticelli Secret by Marina Fiorato. I liked her earlier book The Madonna of the Almonds, about the artist Bernadino, a protege of Leonardo da Vinci. This one is about the model of Botticelli’s painting La Primavera.

Margaret Forster is one of my favourite authors, so I thought The Seduction of Mrs Pendlebury could be a safe bet for me. Mrs Pendlebury lives in Islington, has little in common with her neighbours and keeps herself to herself – gradually she comes out of her shell. Nina Bawden quoted on the back cover describes it as a tragi-comedy.

Finally, the book at the top of the pile, The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis, a Marcus Didius Falco novel set in the time of the Emperor Vespasian – historical crime fiction, a combination of two favourite genres. I’m surprised at myself that I’ve never read any of this author’s books, she ‘s written nineteen novels, but at least I’m starting with the first one in this series.

I just need to get reading!

Green Darkness by Anya Seton

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

I finished reading Green Darkness a couple of weeks ago and have been wondering what to write about it or whether to write anything at all. I thought I’d read the book years ago, not long after it came out, but as soon as I began what I thought was a re-read I realised that this was completely new to me – I just thought I’d read it because I’d visited Ightham Mote, a beautiful 14th century moated manor house in Kent where part of Green Darkness is set.

A brief synopsis from Goodreads:

This story of troubled love takes place simultaneously during two periods of time: today and 400 years ago. We meet Richard and Celia Marsdon, an attractive young couple, whose family traces its lineage back to medieval England. Richard’s growing depression creates a crisis in Celia, and she falls desperately ill. Lying unconscious and near death, Celia’s spirit journeys backward to a time four centuries earlier when another Celia loved another Marsdon.

I wasn’t enthralled by it and nearly abandoned it after the first few chapters set in 1968, because the characters didn’t come over as real and the writing in accents was awful. But once I got on to the historical part, set in the 16th century it was better, so I read on.

There are some books that are easy to write about – this isn’t one of them so this is a brief post. Green Darkness is written around the premise of reincarnation, so the characters/personalities feature in both time periods. I didn’t think this was successful, but seemed contrived. For me the book would have been better as straight historical fiction.

Reading Challenges: Color Coded Challenge – green (I don’t know why this book is called Green Darkness – if the book explains the title I missed it). What’s In a Name – a book with a colour in its title. Historical Fiction challenge – 16th century England. My Kind of Mystery Challenge.