Historical Fiction – Page 50

Six Degrees of Separation from Memoirs of a Geisha to …

Published on April 7, 2018May 25, 2018 by Margaret18 Comments

I love doing Six Degrees of Separation, a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. Each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the one next to it in the chain.

This month the chain begins with Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, a book I haven’t read.

Memoirs of a Geisha

It’s described on Goodreads as the extraordinary story of a geisha -summoning up a quarter century from 1929 to the post-war years of Japan’s dramatic history, and opening a window into a half-hidden world of eroticism and enchantment, exploitation and degradation. A young peasant girl is sold as servant and apprentice to a renowned geisha house. She tells her story many years later from the Waldorf Astoria in New York.

Japan is the first link in my chain with An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro.

An Artist of the Floating World (Faber Fiction Classics) by [Ishiguro, Kazuo]

It is set in 1948 as Japan is rebuilding her cities after the calamity of World War Two. The celebrated artist, Masuji Ono, fills his days attending to his garden, his house repairs, his two grown daughters and his grandson. He spends his evenings drinking with old associates in quiet lantern-lit bars. But his memories continually return to the past – to a life and career deeply touched by the rise of Japanese militarism and a dark shadow begins to grow over his serenity.

The word ‘world‘ takes me to the next link – Eowyn Ivey’s To the Bright Edge of the World a novel about Lieutenant Colonel Allen Forrester’s journey in 1885 from Perkins Island up the Wolverine River in Alaska. The Wolverine is the key to opening up Alaska and its rich natural resources to the outside world, but previous attempts have ended in tragedy. It’s a book full of love, the love of Allen and Sophie, his wife, and the love of the country, the landscape and its people.

A Cold Day for Murder (Kate Shugak #1)

Also set in Alaska is A Cold Day for Murder by Dana Stabenow, the first in her Kate Shugak series. This is crime fiction in which Kate Shugak returns to her roots in the far Alaskan north, after leaving the Anchorage D.A.’s office. Her deductive powers are definitely needed when a ranger disappears. Looking for clues among the Aleutian pipeliners, she begins to realise the fine line between lies and loyalties–between justice served and cold murder.

Silver Lies (Silver Rush, #1)

The next link is also to crime fiction – Silver Lies by Ann Parker, historical fiction set in 1879/80 in the silver-mining town of Leadville, Colarado in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. Leadville was a colourful place, a boom-town, bustling with life -everything is there – the Silver Queen saloon and the Crystal Belle Saloon, Leadville’s leading parlor house, a brick built opera house, whose patrons ‘swelled the after-midnight crowds’ in the Silver Queen saloon, five banks and a small white church with a steeple.

Pompeii

Pompeii by Robert Harris is also historical fiction, set in August AD 79, recounting the eruption of Vesuvius destroying the town of Pompeii and killing its inhabitants as they tried to flee the pumice, ash and searing heat and flames. My favourite character is the hero of the book, engineer Attilius. Before Vesuvius erupted he realised the danger when the aqueduct Aqua Augusta failed to supply water to the people in the nine towns around the Bay of Naples, and attempted to repair the aqueduct.

Part of the book’s appeal to me was because I visited Pompeii and had a trip up to the summit of Vesuvius some years ago and so I could easily picture the location.

Murder on the Eiffel Tower (Victor Legris, #1)

This leads me on to Murder on the Eiffel Tower by Claude Izner because this is also a place I’ve visited. It’s also historical fiction featuring a crime – that of the murder of Eugénie Patinot when she takes her nephews and niece to the newly-opened Eiffel Tower in 1889. She collapses and dies, apparently from a bee-sting. This book is full of historical detail but the mystery element is not really convincing.

My chain this month has a lot of crime fiction and historical fiction, but it has travelled through time and space from the first century AD to the 20th century through Japan, Alaska, Canada, Italy and France. It has followed artists, explorers, silver miners and detectives and looked in on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the opening of the Eiffel Tower.

Next month (May 5, 2018), we’ll begin with Barbara Kingsolver’s bestselling novel, The Poisonwood Bible.

My Week in Books: 4 April 2018

Published on April 4, 2018 by Margaret17 Comments

This Week in Books is a weekly round-up hosted by Lypsyy Lost & Found, about what I’ve been reading Now, Then & Next.

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A similar meme, WWW Wednesday is run by Taking on a World of Words.

Currently reading:

I have started to read The Fire Court by Andrew Taylor, due to be published 5 April 2018 and it’s looking good so far.

Blurb:

Somewhere in the soot-stained ruins of Restoration London, a killer has gone to ground…

The Great Fire has ravaged London, wreaking destruction and devastation wherever its flames spread. Now, guided by the incorruptible Fire Court, the city is slowly rebuilding, but times are volatile and danger is only ever a heartbeat away.

James Marwood, son of a traitor, is thrust into this treacherous environment when his ailing father claims to have stumbled upon a murdered woman in the very place where the Fire Court sits. Then his father is run down and killed. Accident? Or another murder…?

Determined to uncover the truth, Marwood turns to the one person he can trust – Cat Lovett, the daughter of a despised regicide. Marwood has helped her in the past. Now it’s her turn to help him. But then comes a third death… and Marwood and Cat are forced to confront a vicious and increasingly desperate killer whose actions threaten the future of the city itself.

Recently finished:

The Tenderness of Wolves

The last book I finished is The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney, historical fiction set in Canada in 1867. I am so, so pleased to finish this as it has taken me almost 4 weeks to read it. I found it really hard to get into it at first and disliked the use of the present tense throughout. But overall I did like the story and will try to expand on these thoughts in a separate post.

Next:

Now the difficult part – what to read next!

Little Dorritt

I really should get back to reading Little Dorrit which I temporarily put on the back burner so that I could finish The Tenderness of Wolves. It’s my Classics Club Spin book but haven’t got very far with it yet and it’s looking extremely unlikely that I’ll finish it by the end of April!

But I am so tempted to read The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton that I’ve borrowed from my local library as I suspect I won’t be able to renew it.

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

Blurb (Goodreads):

How do you stop a murder that’s already happened?

At a gala party thrown by her parents, Evelyn Hardcastle will be killed–again. She’s been murdered hundreds of times, and each day, Aiden Bishop is too late to save her. Doomed to repeat the same day over and over, Aiden’s only escape is to solve Evelyn Hardcastle’s murder and conquer the shadows of an enemy he struggles to even comprehend–but nothing and no one are quite what they seem.

Deeply atmospheric and ingeniously plotted, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a highly original debut that will appeal to fans of Kate Atkinson and Agatha Christie.

Have you read any of these books? Do any of them tempt you?

The Ashes of London by Andrew Taylor

Published on April 3, 2018 by Margaret10 Comments

Andrew Taylor is one of my favourite authors, so I had high hopes of The Ashes of London. And I was not disappointed – I loved this book, set in 1666 in London. It was just six years after the Stuart Monarchy had been restored – Charles II was reinstated as King after twelve years of the Interregnum under the Cromwells’ reign (Oliver succeeded by his son, Richard) as Lord Protector and there are still sympathisers of their regime at large.

What struck me most is just how real it seemed as people struggled after the Great Fire had reduced a large part of London to ashes and rubble. It brings home the reality of being homeless – a refugee in your own country – and I could hear the noise of the fire, smell the smoke and almost feel the heat and the pain of the victims of the fire.

The novel is narrated in the first person by James Marwood, working for Master Williamson (under-secretary to the Secretary of State for the South) as one of the clerks on the London Gazette, and also from Cat (Catherine) Lovett’s viewpoint in the third person. James’s father, who was a Fifth Monarchist, an extreme Puritan sect, and a supporter of Cromwell, has recently been released from prison, and is now suffering from dementia. Whereas Cat’s father, Thomas Lovett, was one of the Regicides, excluded from the pardon granted to those to those guilty of most crimes committed during the Civil War and the Interregnum, now in hiding, after Charles II took the throne. They meet briefly as they both stand watching the fire engulf St Paul’s Cathedral when James snatches Cat, dressed as a boy, away from the flames. Their stories later combine when the body of a man is found in the ruins of St Paul’s Cathedral – stabbed in the neck, thumbs tied behind his back, followed by the discovery of a second murder victim in the Fleet Ditch.

Andrew Taylor has written a complex story interweaving the murder mystery, the hunt for the regicides responsible for the execution of Charles I and the historical details of the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire. Both James and Cat meet Master Hakesby, a draughtsman working with Dr Wren – that is Christopher Wren – on a design for rebuilding London, including St Paul’s Cathedral.

I found it all fascinating, fully engaged in the plot full of suspense and tension, loving the detail of its setting and the characterisation. I particularly liked James Marwood and the glimpses of Charles II as he directs the work to prevent the fire from spreading and his engagement in scientific research. It is an impressive recreation of the period, full of historical detail without overwhelming the story. In short, I loved it.

There is a second book continuing the story, The Fire Court, to be published on 5th April, which I have just started to read.

Many thanks to Harper Collins for a review copy via NetGalley.

Amazon UK link
Amazon US link

Munich by Robert Harris

Published on March 12, 2018 by Margaret9 Comments

Munich

Munich is about the 1938 Munich Conference and I found it absolutely fascinating as I know very little about the period beyond the basic facts – PM Neville Chamberlain was trying to maintain the peace in the face of Hitler’s aims to expand German territory (but I was a bit vague about the actual details) and in 1938 came back from the Munich conference with a piece of paper signed by Hitler, proclaiming that it meant ‘peace for our time‘.

Munich is a mix of fact and fiction. Harris uses two fictional characters, Hugh Legat as one of Chamberlain’s private secretaries and Paul Hartmann, a German diplomat and a member of the anti-Hitler resistance to tell his story. Harris’ interest in the Munich Agreement began thirty years ago when he made a BBC TV documentary, ‘God Bless You Mr Chamberlain’ to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the conference in 1988. He has thoroughly researched the subject, consulting many books (listed in the Acknowledgements) and has seamlessly woven the facts into the novel. It has a a strong sense of place, based no doubt on his visits to what was once the Führerbau, now the Faculty of Music and Theatre and Hitler’s old apartment in Prinzregentenplatz, now used as a police headquarters.

Munich explores the moral dilemma of appeasement, and of making a stand. It portrays Chamberlain as a man of high moral principals, deeply concerned that the horrors of World War One should not be repeated and not as a weak appeaser easily fooled by Hitler. His objective was:

… to avert war in the short term, and then to try to build a lasting peace for the future – one month, one day at a time, if needs be. The worst act I could possibly commit for the future of mankind would be to walk away from this conference tonight. (page 267)

Reading this book has made me want to know more about Neville Chamberlain and I hope to read one of the biographies that Harris lists.

The fictional story of Hugh and Paul, who had been friends at university six years earlier adds additional tension and drama to the already tense story of the Munich conference. As in his earlier books Harris has captured the atmosphere and mood of the times, making me feel as though I’m there with the characters taking part in the action. The key characters are seen through Hugh’s and Paul’s perspectives – Chamberlain and Hitler – and others such as Mussolini, Goering and the other British politicians who travelled with Chamberlain to Munich. Among the later was Lord Dunglass, described by one of Chamberlain’s secretaries as ‘one of the cleverest politicians she had ever encountered‘; she considered that he would ‘be Prime Minister one day‘. At the time it was inconceivable that a premier could sit in the House of Lords and her prediction was dismissed. However, Dunglass went on to inherit his father’s title and become the 14th Earl of Home and as Sir Alec-Douglas-Home (renouncing his peerage) he did indeed become Prime Minister.

I really like Harris’ straight forward writing style with no flashbacks, fly forwards or ambiguities. I learned a lot from this book and as far as I can tell (as I said I don’t know much about the period) it is an accurate version of what happened at Munich. It is a dramatic story well told – definitely a 5* book!

Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Hutchinson; 01 edition (21 Sept. 2017)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0091959195
ISBN-13: 978-0091959197
Source: Library book
My rating: 5*

The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey

Published on March 7, 2018 by Margaret6 Comments

Jonathan Cape, Vintage Digital| 1 March 2018|304 p|Review copy|4.5*

Description

15th century Oakham, in Somerset; a tiny village cut off by a big river with no bridge. When a man is swept away by the river in the early hours of Shrove Saturday, an explanation has to be found: accident, suicide or murder? The village priest, John Reve, is privy to many secrets in his role as confessor. But will he be able to unravel what happened to the victim, Thomas Newman, the wealthiest, most capable and industrious man in the village? And what will happen if he can’t?

Moving back in time towards the moment of Thomas Newman’s death, the story is related by Reve – an extraordinary creation, a patient shepherd to his wayward flock, and a man with secrets of his own to keep. Through his eyes, and his indelible voice, Harvey creates a medieval world entirely tangible in its immediacy.

My thoughts:

The Western Wind really is an extraordinary book. I was drawn into the story right from the start. Samantha Harvey’s writing brings to life the sights, smells and sounds of the daily life of the ordinary people living in Oakham, a small village in Somerset in 1491. So often in historical fiction it’s about the notable historical figures of the period that are the main characters – here there none (although there is a reference to their bishop who is in prison for trying to put a pretender on the throne (Perkin Warbeck had first claimed the English throne in 1490).

A man disappears, presumed drowned – but how and why did he die? Oakham, an impoverished village is isolated, cut off from the surrounding villages and from the monks at the abbey in Bruton by the river with its bends and oxbows, and the long woody ridge to the north-east edge of the village. There are no outsiders.

I thought the way Samantha Harvey reveals how Thomas Newman died telling the story moving back day by day to the day of his death was very effective, although at first I was a bit puzzled. By the end – that is – on the day Thomas Newman disappeared – we know so much about him and his neighbours, mainly through the confessions they made to the narrator, John Reve, the village priest. And the sequence of events, the why and the how are revealed.

The people are superstitious, living in fear of the whims and punishments of God and taking everything as a warning. Reve tries to reassure them that the creatures they fear, such as wolf-men and grotesque sea creatures don’t exist, but that there are ill spirits to test us and strengthen us; that what we call good or bad luck are spirits, that live in the air or in the water and that we can conquer them. Reve prays for a sign that Newman was on his way through purgatory safely to heaven. The wind is blowing from the east, a strong and bitter wind, so he prays for a wind from the west to blow the ill spirits away.

This is in some ways an allegorical tale, with the characters standing for symbolical figures, and events as symbols of change. Hence there is Newman, a relative newcomer to the village the bringer of change as he gradually bought land off Townshend, the lord of the manor, now impoverished. Does this make him a suspect for Newman’s death?

The monks, who it is said are keen to buy the village land, also foreshadow the changes that are to come in the next half century or so. Reve, the priest (my Local Historian’s Encyclopedia tells me a reeve was usually a man of villein status who organised the daily business of the manor) is concerned that people are no longer coming to him for confession but paying a travelling friar, who didn’t know them, for a confession incognito. The people are losing their faith in God.

I loved other details, setting the book in the 1490s – the techniques of bridge building, the traditional games such as ‘campball’ (the precursor of football) played by all the young men of the parish with a pig’s bladder up and down the village road, the cock-fighting, the food and drink – spiced beer and metheglin (a variety of mead), giving out the sweetness of honey, and the music – the tinkling of tambourines, pipes and drumming on goat-hide.

I came to the end of this book and immediately wanted to start it again. What seems at first to be a simple tale is actually a multi-layered and complex book. I really enjoyed reading it.

About the author

Samantha Harvey is the author of four novels, The Wilderness, All Is Song, Dear Thief and The Western Wind.

Her novels have been shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, the Guardian First Book Award and the James Tait Black Prize, and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Baileys Prize and the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. She won the AMI Literature Award and the Betty Trask Prize. She lives in Bath, UK, and is a Reader in creative writing at Bath Spa University.

My thanks to Jonathan Cape for a review copy via NetGalley.

Amazon UK link
Amazon US link

My Week in Books: 28 February 2018

Published on February 28, 2018 by Margaret19 Comments

This Week in Books is a weekly round-up hosted by Lypsyy Lost & Found, about what I’ve been reading Now, Then & Next.

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A similar meme, WWW Wednesday is run by Taking on a World of Words.

Now:

51IBFwYPBfL Munich by Robert Harris, set in 1938, beginning in September as Hitler is determined to start a war and Chamberlain is desperate to preserve the peace. I’ve read about half the book and am finding it fascinating.

Blurb

As Chamberlain’s plane judders over the Channel and the Führer’s train steams relentlessly south from Berlin, two young men travel with secrets of their own.

Hugh Legat is one of Chamberlain’s private secretaries; Paul Hartmann a German diplomat and member of the anti-Hitler resistance. Great friends at Oxford before Hitler came to power, they haven’t seen one another since they were last in Munich six years earlier. Now, as the future of Europe hangs in the balance, their paths are destined to cross again.

When the stakes are this high, who are you willing to betray? Your friends, your family, your country or your conscience?

Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading by Lucy Mangan, due to be published tomorrow, 1 March 2018. This is a delightful book taking me back to the books of my childhood as Lucy Mangan describes the books she loved. I’ve nearly finished it, so I’ll post my review soon.

Blurb

The Cat in the Hat? Barbar? The Very Hungry Caterpillar? Whoever it was for you, it’s very hard to forget the vivid intensity of your first encounter with a book.

As a bespectacled young bookworm, Lucy Mangan devoured books: from early picture books, to Swallows and Amazons, Enid Blyton to Little Women, and from trashy teen romances to her first proper ‘grown-up’ novels. In Bookworm, she revisits this early enthusiasm; celebrating the enduring classics, and disinterring some forgotten treasures.

This is a love letter to the joys of childhood reading, full of enthusiasm and wit, telling the colourful story of our best-loved children’s books, the extraordinary people who created them, and the thousand subtle ways they shape our lives. It also comes packed with brilliant recommendations to inspire the next generation of bookworms and set them on their way.

This impassioned book will bring the unforgettable characters of our collective childhoods back to life – prompting endless re-readings, rediscoveries, and, inevitably, fierce debate. It will also act as an invaluable guide to anyone looking to build a children’s library and wondering where to start, or where to go next.

Then:

The last book I finished is D ry Bones in the Valley by Tom Bouman. This book has won several awards: Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller (2014), Edgar Award for Best First Novel (2015), Strand Critics Award Nominee for Best First Novel (2014). I really enjoyed it. My review will be up soon.

Blurb

When an elderly recluse discovers a corpse on his land, Officer Henry Farrell follows the investigation to strange places in the countryside, and into the depths of his own frayed soul.

In Wild Thyme, Pennsylvania, secrets and feuds go back generations. The lone policeman in a small township on the sparse northern border, Henry Farrell expected to spend his mornings hunting and fishing, his evenings playing old-time music. Instead, he has watched the dual encroachment of fracking companies and drug dealers bring money and troubles to the area. As a second body turns up, Henry’s search for the killer opens old wounds and dredges up ancient crimes which some people desperately want to keep hidden.

With vivid characters and flawless pacing, Tom Bouman immerses readers in this changing landscape. In these derelict woods, full of whitetail deer and history, the hunt is on…

Next:

The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey, also due to be published tomorrow, 1 March 2018.

Blurb (Amazon):

Have you read any of these books? Do any of them tempt you?