Category: 20 Books of Summer

#BookReview Rivals of the Republic by Annelise Freisenbruch

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RivalsoftheRepublicAbout the Book

Rome, 70BC. Roman high society hums with gossip about the suspicious suicide of a prominent Roman senator and the body of a Vestal Virgin is discovered in the river Tiber.

As the authorities turn a blind eye, Hortensia is moved to investigate a trail of murders that appear to lead straight to the dark heart of the Eternal City.

Format: Paperback (288 pages)          Publisher: Duckworth
Publication date: 10th August 2017  Genre: Historical Fiction, Crime

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My Review

In Rivals of the Republic the author has taken actual historical events and characters, including well-known figures such as Cicero, Pompey and even a young Julius Caesar, and used her imagination to weave an intriguing and dramatic story around them. And don’t worry about getting confused because the book includes a dramatis personae in case you need a reminder of who everyone is.

The book’s female protagonist, Hortensia, was a real person although little is known about her beyond the fact she was the daughter of renowned lawyer Hortensius Hortalus. But when it comes to historical fiction, a gap is something authors love because they can use their imagination to fill it, as Annelise Freisenbruch has done here. The author’s Hortensia is a young woman of noble birth who is intelligent, has inherited the rhetorical skills of her father and possesses an independence of spirit that makes her challenge the conventions and limitations of patriarchal Roman society. The role of a woman like Hortensia is to make a marriage that is advantageous to her family, increasing their wealth or influence. They are certainly not expected to appear in the law court as Hortensia does in one particularly entertaining scene in which her inspired defence of a wronged woman proves she is more than equal to any male opponent.

The plot is intricate without being confusing and progresses at a good pace with plenty of twists and turns as it builds to an exciting conclusion. Although many of the characters are real life figures, there are a few fictional ones, notably a ‘boo hiss’ villian complete with scarred face and ‘strange amber eyes’. There is intrigue, conspiracy and political machinations conducted by individuals driven by a lust for power and wealth. They are utterly ruthless when it comes to ridding themselves of opponents. Luckily Hortensia finds a useful ally in ex-gladiator, Lurcio, and despite the difference in their social station they make a great partnership: a winning combination of brains and brawn.

The author has clearly used her knowledge of the period to cram the book with the sort of detail – of food, dress, social and religious customs – that makes a historical novel come alive.  There’s a clear sense of the gulf between the lives of noble families such as Hortensia’s and the experiences of ordinary people. For example, in this account of Lurcio’s visit to the Subura, a lower-class area of Rome notorious as a pleasure district.

‘There was no street lighting in the damp alleyways and few of the residents could afford the cost of a lantern-bearer to illuminate their way, but the beat of footsteps, the rattle of vehicles and the screech of voices had barely abated since the sun went down. The waft of hot chickpea soup and thick sausage stew from the cook shops competed with the stench from the underground sewer, tempting the custom of those who did not dare risk a cooking fire in the precipitous, decaying tenements that teetered like crumbling cliff-faces above the narrow streets.’

Although Rivals of the Republic was intended to be the first in the ‘Blood of Rome’ historical crime series, there have been no further instalments to date. (The author now writes children’s books under the name Annelise Gray.) This is a shame because, on the strength of Rivals of the Republic, I think it had the makings of a first-rate series sure to appeal to fans of historical crime fiction. Perhaps the author may come back to it at some point.

I received a review copy courtesy of Duckworth.

In three words: Intriguing, engaging, authentic

Try something similar: The Senator’s Assignment by Joan E. Histon

Annelise GrayAbout the Author

Annelise Freisenbruch received her PhD in Classics from Cambridge University. She has worked as a researcher for the BBC and has appeared in documentaries about ancient Rome for PBS and CNN. Her first book, The First Ladies of Rome: The Women behind the Caesars, was published to much critical acclaim and has been translated into eight languages. Rivals of the Republic is her first novel. (Photo: Author Twitter profile)

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#BookReview The House of Birds by Morgan McCarthy

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TheHouseofBirdsAbout the Book

Oliver has spent years trying to convince himself that he’s suited to a life of money making in the city, and that he doesn’t miss a childhood spent in pursuit of mystery, when he cycled around the cobbled lanes of Oxford, exploring its most intriguing corners.

When his girlfriend Kate inherits a derelict house – and a fierce family feud – she’s determined to strip it, sell it and move on. For Oliver though, the house has an allure, and amongst the shelves of discarded, leather bound and gilded volumes, he discovers one that conceals a hidden diary from the 1920s.

So begins a quest: to discover the identity of the author, Sophia Louis. It is a portrait of war and marriage, isolation and longing and a story that will shape the future of the abandoned house – and of Oliver – forever.

Format: Paperback (464 pages)  Publisher: Tinder Press
Publication date: 1st June 2017 Genre: Dual Time

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My Review

It will come as no secret to regular followers of this blog that I sometimes find dual-time novels problematic, often finding myself more drawn to the past timeline than the present. However, in The House of Birds, the author manages to pull off the feat of making the two timelines both equally interesting and, indeed, interdependent.

The book moves between the present day story of Oliver, who finds himself rather adrift having quit a job he never really liked but not sure exactly what he wants to do next, and that of Sophia Louis whose life is documented in a journal Oliver discovers when clearing out the old house inherited by his girlfriend, Kate, who is off in New York pursuing a promotion opportunity. What starts as a project to fill a gap between jobs becomes something more as Oliver begins to feel a connection with the house, an obligation to save it even.  Unravelling the mystery of just who Sophia Louis was and what became of her provides Oliver with something to focus on, to draw him out of his apathetic state.

I liked the way Sophia’s story is revealed in instalments, in a way that is akin to a puzzle. Indeed, at one point, Oliver becomes irritated that her journal ends suddenly and, seemingly, unfinished. ‘Oliver was baffled and outraged. He felt keenly that Sophia – so aware of her reader had treated him unfairly.’ I also loved Sophia’s witty, teasing style of writing, often addressing her reader directly. But just who is Sophia’s intended reader? And why did she feel the need to hide the journal?

The story Sophia tells is one of disappointment, sadness, forbidden love, thwarted ambition, and the cruel and longlasting legacy of war, in this case the First World War. The latter is embodied in a character who is a tragic figure – ‘the grim king of a grim land’ – imprisoned in self-imposed silence and seeing the world as full of danger, of ‘black and smoking chaos’.

But how much of the story Sophia tells is true? Could her journal be fiction rather than fact? Indeed, Oliver ponders, ‘What if Sophia were a character in someone else’s novel?’ (I bet the author had a little chuckle to herself when she wrote that.)

As Oliver follows the trail Sophia has left, puzzling it out alongside the reader, it causes him to reflect on his own life. As he observes, ‘It’s ironic really. [Sophia] knew exactly what she wanted, but she couldn’t have any of it. I’ve had the opportunity to do whatever I want to do, and it seems like in almost thirty years I’ve only just managed to work out what that might be’. Oliver undergoes a kind of epiphany as he realises it’s not too late to pursue his childhood ambition, a path he was dissuaded from taking by his parents. In a way, he comes to feel he owes it to Sophia.

There is some beautiful descriptive writing, full of clever metaphors, such as this passage in which Oliver, as a young boy, first glimpses the rather neglected ‘House of Birds’ and its overgrown garden.

‘The darkly varnished ivy was tussling with the white bindweed over ownership of a sagging fence, while not far away, a honeysuckle, unchallenged, had claimed a garden table and swallowed a small tree. The lawn was an army massing under high spears, its regiments filing into the cracks between the paving stones to do battle with the dandelions. Above them the wisteria maintained a lordly rule over the house itself, loaded with it spectacular purple flowers, hundreds of fluttering confetti showers clamouring for the friskings of the bees.’

The House of Birds is the first novel I’ve read by Morgan McCarthy and, although she has written three previous novels, none of them appear to have been as positively received by readers as this one, and she has written nothing since. That’s a shame because I really enjoyed The House of Birds. I found the story enthralling, romantic without being sentimental and with some really clever touches. In fact, I imagined Sophia laughing to herself at an inspired one that occurs towards the end of the book.

In three words: Tender, intriguing, assured

Try something similar: The House at Helygen by Victoria Hawthorne

Morgan McCarthyAbout the Author

Morgan McCarthy lives in Berkshire, and has been writing since primary school. She is the author of four novels: The Other Half of Me, The Outline of Love, Strange Girls and Ordinary Women, and The House of Birds. (Bio/photo: Publisher author page)

Connect with Morgan
Website |  Goodreads