Tag: historical fiction

Day 363: The Captive Crown

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Cover for The Stewart TrilogyAt the beginning of this novel, the third in Tranter’s Stewart Trilogy, Jamie Douglas has fled to the highlands after being declared an outlaw following the disastrous battle of Homildon. That no Scot who fought in the battle would so call him is no concern to Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany and the Governor of Scotland.

Jamie is living with his family on the estate of Alexander Stewart of Badenoch, acting Justicaire of the Highlands. Although King Robert III is still alive, he has handed over the government to his brother Robert of Albany. His young son James, heir to the throne, has been captured by the English on his way to France, where his father sent him for safety after the death of his older son, David, at the time in Robert of Albany’s custody.

Jamie, who has always believed that the Duke of Albany plotted the murder of his chief, the Earl of Douglas, also believes that David Stewart was starved to death at Albany’s order. Jamie is content to stay away from the Lowlands and serve with Alexander.

The plot of this novel is a lot more difficult to describe than that of the other two, as it covers the significant events of several years in Alexander Stewart’s life, including battling the invasions of Donald of the Isles, forming an embassy to the British to treat for the release of King James after Robert III’s death, privateering against the British, and so on. This is a fault with the novel, constrained as it is by actual historical events to seem disjointed. It is definitely the weakest of the trilogy and does not make a satisfying ending for the series.

Day 358: People of the Book

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Cover for People of the BookBest Book of the Week!

I read People of the Book several years ago and remembered that it was good, but when re-reading it for my book club, I enjoyed it even more. The novel is based on the history of a Hebrew codex known as the Sarajevo Haggadah. Part of the novel is envisioned based on what is known of the book’s history, while the rest is invented.

In the immediate aftermath of the Bosnian war, Hanna Heath, an expert in the restoration of old books, is asked to restore the priceless Sarajevo Haggadah, a famous book believed twice to have been destroyed by war that was both times rescued by Moslem museum curators. The book is especially important because of its beautiful illustrations, as before it was discovered, scholars believed that old Hebrew books did not contain such illuminations.

While Hanna is working on the book, she makes observations and collects artifacts that will help trace its history. She notes that the book once had clasps that are now missing, collects an insect wing, and scrapes residue from staining.

Hanna also becomes involved with the man who rescued the book, Ozren Karaman, whose wife was killed during the war and whose baby son is in the hospital with a brain injury. As Hanna was raised by an aloof and competitive mother, though, she is poor at forming attachments.

When Hanna finishes restoring the book, she follows up with research into the clasp and the artifacts she collected. As she finds out about each item, the novel goes farther back in time, explaining what happened to the book and telling the stories of the people involved with it, until the creation of the book in 15th century Spain.

A poor Jewish girl named Lola works for the partisans in the forest outside Sarajevo during World War II after the Jews are expelled from the city by the Nazis and her family is shipped off to camps. Later she is helped to safety by the Moslem curator of the museum, who also has a book to hide. A 19th century Viennese bookbinder who is dying from syphilis steals the beautiful silver clasps from the book to exchange with his doctor for treatment. In 1609 Venice, a priest working for the Inquisition saves the book from burning but confiscates it from its owner. A young girl saves the book as the Jews are expelled from Spain in 1492.

These are just the bones of some of the absorbing stories that draw you along as Brooks imagines the history of the book. Each tale is vividly imagined and skillfully told, and they are all held together by Hanna’s experiences. People of the Book is a gracefully written and imaginative novel that emphasizes the contributions of multiple cultures and religions to the book’s creation and safety.

Day 353: Friday’s Child

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Cover for Friday's ChildFriday’s Child is one of Georgette Heyer’s funniest Regency romances. Although some of her novels are a bit closer to being “serious” romances (that is, with the emphasis on the romance, but always with witty dialogue), this novel is endearing in its plethora of foolish characters.

Anthony Verelst, the Viscount Sheringham, is a wild young man who is extravagantly wasting his inheritance on gambling and women, but his estate is left so that he cannot touch the principal unless he marries. He has fancied himself in love with the current reigning beauty, Isabella Milbourne, but he is not tempted to matrimony until he becomes fed up with his mother and her brother, one of his trustees, whom he believes is milking his estate. He proposes to Isabella, plainly expecting an answer in the positive, but piqued by his lack of ceremony, she rebukes him for his dissipated lifestyle. In a rage, he storms off, vowing to marry the first female he meets.

As he is returning to London from his mother’s house in the country, he meets Hero Wantage, a very young lady who is an impoverished orphan and a neighbor. He thinks of her as a little sister, so he has no hesitation in relating the tale of his misfortunes. When he tells her of his vow, she answers, “Silly, that’s me!” So, the heedless viscount throws her up into his curricle and drives her off to London to get married. Since she has long worshipped the Viscount, or Sherry, as he is known to his friends, and has been mistreated by her Bagshot relatives, she is happy to go.

The couple is naturally headed for trouble, for Hero is completely naïve and badly brought up, with no idea of how to behave in society. The heedless Sherry seems to feel that he can go on about his business as always without paying much attention to her, so she begins befriending the wrong people and otherwise falling into scrapes.

This novel features an outstanding cast of secondary characters, especially Sherry’s close friends–Gil Ringwood, a thoughtful young man who vaguely feels there is something wrong with the way Sherry neglects his wife; Ferdy Fakenham, a silly but warm-hearted dunderhead reminiscent of Bertie Wooster; and George, Lord Wrotham, a hot-tempered gentleman who constantly challenges other men to duels and is madly in love with Isabella. As a side comment, I think it is a hallmark of a good Heyer novel that the characters who would be the heroine and hero in a typical romance novel (that is, Isabella and George) provide some of the humor in her own novels, especially the devastatingly handsome George, with his exaggeratedly romantic behavior.

Heyer is one of my favorites for light reading, and Friday’s Child makes me laugh out loud, particularly when Ferdy gets it into his head that he and Gil are being pursued by “that dashed Greek we learned about at Cambridge. Kept lurking about in corners,” in other words, Nemesis. The characters are funny, the dialogue is witty, and the plot is full of twists and turns.

Day 351: The Fixer

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Cover for The FixerBest Book of the Week!

In 1911 Russia, Yakov Bok is tired of his difficult life in the shtetl. So, after his wife leaves him for another man, Yakov travels to Kiev in hopes of making a better living. When he helps a drunken man who is passed out in the snow, Yakov is offered a job supervising a brick yard. However, in order to take this job, Yakov must live in a part of the city forbidden to Jews.

It is this circumstance followed by a series of mishaps that ends up with Yakov being accused of murdering a boy he chased away from the brick yard. As the case continues, it becomes clear that the murder is being used by authorities an an excuse to trump up charges of ritual murder against the Jewish community.

The novel becomes more and more difficult to read as literally everything that happens to Yakov makes things worse for him. The gentiles he knows in Kiev tell lies about him. Once he is in prison, the jailers do everything they can to incriminate him, including trying to entrap him into breaking the rules or admitting his guilt.

Yakov goes into jail a nonpolitical, irreligious, naive man who hopes for justice, and the novel is partially about his development into an angry man who refuses to be beaten. Although almost nothing in the way of plot or action happens from the time he goes to jail, I was absolutely compelled to finish reading.

Written in a storytelling fashion that I associate with the tales of Sholem Aleichem or Isaac Bashevis Singer, this novel is more grim than most of the stories I’ve read by these other writers. However, both The Fixer and The Bloody Hoax, by Aleichem, are based on a true event from 1911 Kiev, called the Beiliss blood libel case.

Day 347: The Strangled Queen

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Cover for The Strangled QueenBest Book of the Week!

The Strangled Queen is the second in Maurice Druon’s The Accursed Kings series. In The Iron King, King Philippe IV and his progeny were cursed at the stake by the Grand Master of the Knights Templar for conniving with the pope to destroy the knights for their wealth. Now, after the pope and one of the king’s advisors dies, Philippe begins to believe in the curse and dies shortly thereafter, within a year, just as foretold.

His death leaves Philippe’s eldest son, Louis X, on the throne. Louis needs an heir, but his wife, Marguerite of Burgundy, was imprisoned in the Chateau Gaillard for adultery along with her sister-in-law Blanche. He is unable to get a divorce because a new pope has not yet been chosen. He sends Robert of Artois to coerce Marguerite into signing a letter claiming that their marriage was not consummated and their daughter is illegitimate.

In the meantime, Louis is involved in a power struggle against his uncle Charles of Valois. Louis does not know that Robert of Artois has taken his uncle’s side as part of his scheme to reclaim his inheritance, stolen by his aunt Mahaut.

Druon’s historical fiction is powerfully written, elegant and ironic. His novels do not take the point of view of one fictional character, as do most historical novels. All of the characters are actual historical figures, and few of them are sympathetic. The plots are driven forward by the power of the events they relate.

Several years ago, I had a hard time finding this series of books so that I could read it, but I felt that the result was worth the effort. Now, luckily for readers who are interested in the series, a new version of these books is available in paperback.

Day 345: The Chalice

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Cover for The ChaliceI am not sure why I found this novel so irritating. Possibly it is because it is a sequel, but nowhere on the cover is that indicated, and this novel is definitely one that requires knowledge of the previous book, which I have not read.

Joanna Stafford is a former Dominican novice after the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. At the beginning of the novel she is in Canterbury with some ex-monks about to commit some serious act, but then the action turns back several months.

Joanna is living in Dartford with her young cousin and her friends Brother Edmund and Sister Winifred, a former monk and nun who are sister and brother. Some of the townspeople are suspicious of the former residents of the priory, but Joanna has plans to continue there and set up a loom to weave tapestries.

Soon, however, her cousins Gertrude and Henry Courtenay arrive to invite her and her cousin Arthur for a visit. Little does Joanna know that Gertrude is aware that Joanna is the subject of a prophecy, which a group of Catholics believe will save Catholicism in England. Apparently, in the previous novel she received a prophecy and was told she would learn it in full after she received three prophecies. Since her family was destroyed as the result of a prophecy, however, she has promised never to dabble in it again. She is soon subject to immense pressure from Gertrude Courtenay and others, including the Lady Mary Tudor and the Spanish ambassador Chapuys, to see a seer.

The novel does not seem very coherent. Joanna is told she must hear the prophecies of her own free will, yet all kinds of pressures and threats are applied to make her hear them. She is refusing to hear the prophecy, then she isn’t. Then we go through the same thing with the next prophecy. Some of her decisions seem completely unlikely for a person who is extremely religious and was previously a novice. At one point in the book she throws herself at two different men within the space of weeks.

It takes an incredibly long time to feel certain that we’ve learned of everything revealed in the first book–new facts keep popping up until nearly halfway through the volume. This is not a stand-alone novel by any means. Whether it would be more satisfying for someone who has read the first book I cannot answer.

Day 337: A Folly of Princes

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Cover for The Stewart TrilogyIn the sequel to Lords of Misrule, Prince David Stewart is now a young man ready to challenge his ruthless uncle Robert Stewart for the Governorship of Scotland, under the weak rule of David’s father, Robert III. Jamie Stewart, our hero, who has always suspected Robert Stewart of having his lord, the Earl of Douglas, murdered, has declared himself David’s man.

But the Stewarts are an unruly bunch. David’s governorship is more fair and less corrupt than his uncle’s, and he puts in place reforms, but he takes no care in dealing with the proud nobles of Scotland and behaves wildly and promiscuously in his private  life. Although Jamie continues to support him, he is disappointed in his prince and fears that all will not be well.

While this is going on, changes in the Plantagenet monarchy in England threaten the border. At the same time, Donald of the Isles is making his own forays farther north. This northern threat gives Jamie an opportunity of renewing his acquaintance with Alexander Stewart of Badenoch.

Again, Nigel Tranter does a wonderful job of explaining the complicated politics and alliances of early 15th century Scotland, while spinning an absorbing adventure story.

Day 334: Pawn in Frankincense

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Cover for Pawn in FrankincenseBest Book of the Week!

In the fourth exciting book of the Lymond Chronicles, Francis Crawford of Lymond sets out to find his two-year-old child by Oonagh O’Dwyer, hidden somewhere in the vast Ottoman Empire. He disguises his personal mission with the official one of delivering an elaborately decorated piano from the King of France to the Sultan in Constantinople. Another goal is to find and kill the traitor Graham Mallet Reid, who has the child in his power. The problem of the child is complicated because Lymond doesn’t know which of two boys, one Reid’s by his sister Joleta, is his own. Another complication is that if any harm comes to Reid, the boys, under the protection of Sulieman, will both be murdered.

Accompanying him and his household are a couple of merchants, including the mysterious Marthe. Raised in the household of the Dame de Doubtance, Marthe, except for her sex, could be Lymond’s identical twin.

After some disastrous adventures, Lymond believes he has sent home the redoubtable fifteen-year-old Philippa Somerville, who foisted herself upon him thinking he would need her help to care for the child. However, she is actually on her way to join the seraglio to find one of the boys, Kuzum, while Lymond searches in the stews of the city for the other one, Khaireddin. Philippa’s role in this novel is a major one, with her character and her opinion of Lymond changing and maturing as their adventures continue.

Aside from the intrigues taking place in an empire that is Byzantine in its complexity (not to make a pun), Lymond is hampered in his activities because of sabotage by a member of his own household staff. He also suffers from his usual problem of failing to explain his actions to his adherents, such as Jerrott Blyth, so that they become angry and occasionally work against him.

In action that moves from Marseilles across Europe to North Africa and finally to Constantinople, Lymond’s concerns grow to involve the fate of nations.

Day 326: Life After Life

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Cover for Life After LifeBest Book of the Week! Year!

From the descriptions of this book, I wasn’t sure I would like it even though I usually enjoy Kate Atkinson, a very playful writer. But what a great book–completely engrossing, oddly funny, and immensely satisfying.

Ursula Todd is born on a snowy night in 1910, but the umbilical cord is wrapped around her throat, so she dies. On the same night, Ursula is born again, but this time she lives. As she gets older, she faces various hazards, some of which she does not survive. Each time she is born again, on the same snowy night.

Through vignettes during the course of Ursula’s life, Atkinson skillfully and compellingly weaves the story of how small decisions in life can affect larger issues. We know a very large issue is coming up from the beginning, because in the first scene of the novel, Ursula assassinates Adolf Hitler and is killed in turn by his men.

Life After Life is a stunningly inventive novel about choice, fate, free will, and the nature of time, which Ursula explains to her psychiatrist (who believes in reincarnation) is not a circle but a palimpsest–a manuscript that has been overwritten but on which you can still see some of the writing.

I found this novel amazing, having never read anything quite like it. It is fascinating, funny, touching, and thought-provoking. I personally am going to miss Jackson Brodie, but Atkinson has launched herself far beyond him.

Day 320: The Malice of Fortune

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Cover for The Malice of FortuneThe Malice of Fortune follows a current trend of mystery fiction to use actual historical people as detectives. In this case, the novel is set in 16th century Italy, and the historical detective is Niccolò Machiavelli, assisted at times by Leonardo da Vinci.

It is 1502 in the Papal States of Italy, and the infamous Pope Alexander VI, the former Rodrigo Borgia, has received word of his beloved son Juan, who was murdered years before. A woman was found butchered in Imola, and with her body was an amulet Juan always kept with him. The Pope summons the courtesan Damiata, whom he suspects of complicity in Juan’s death, and takes her little son hostage while he dispatches her to investigate.

In Imola, Damiata finds that someone has been murdering and butchering women and then leaving quarters of their bodies around the city. When she travels out to the scene of the latest discovery, she finds that Juan’s brother, the dangerous Duke Cesare (nicknamed Valentino) Borgia, has Leonardo da Vinci on the scene as his investigator. Da Vinci thinks that the killer is playing a game by constructing puzzles for him. At the scene some masked men provide an additional clue by fleeing the investigators.

Damiata also meets Niccolò Machiavelli, who is in town representing the city of Florence, which is afraid that Duke Valentino and his condottieri, or mercenaries, are planning to attack the city. Damiata suspects one of the three condottieri generals of being the murderer, but she does not know which one.

Machiavelli provides a different insight into the murderer. He has made a study of what he calls “the necessity” for each man–what drives him–and he begins trying to discover the murderer’s necessity. Machiavelli and Damiata team up to find the murderer.

This novel has interesting characters and situations, but at some point I felt as if the characters are chasing around too much with little result. Instead of building suspense, the plot seems unplanned and disorganized.

Michael Ennis is a historian, and the historical background is convincing and seems accurate. Compared to his previous novel about medieval Italy, The Duchess of Milan, a straight historical fiction novel about the powerful d’Este family, The Malice of Fortune is a little disappointing.