Category: HF Reading Challenge

#BookReview #Ad The Darlings of the Asylum by Noel O’Reilly

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The Darlings of the AsylumAbout the Book

To marry is madness. To escape is impossible.

In 1886, a respectable young woman must acquire a husband. Violet Pring’s scheming mother has secured a desirable marriage proposal from an eligible Brighton gentleman. But Violet does not want to marry. She longs to be a professional artist and live on her own terms.

Violet’s family believes she is deranged and deluded, so she is locked away in Hillwood Grange against her will. In her new cage, Violet faces an even greater challenge: she must escape the clutches of a sinister and formidable doctor and set herself free.

Format: ebook (381 pages)                  Publisher: HQ
Publication date: 8th December 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction

Find The Darlings of the Asylum on Goodreads

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My Review

The Darlings of the Asylum joins the list of historical novels I’ve read in which young women are prevented from pursuing their chosen career, displaying their talents or exercising any independence over their lives by the expectations of family or society. In this case, Violet Pring’s ambition is to become a professional artist. Actually, ambition isn’t quite the right word. Violet’s need to express herself and unleash her vivid imagination is part of her psyche. It’s the thing she lives for and when engaged in drawing or painting she can often lose herself for hours on end in a kind of artistic frenzy. And her paintings, full of sexual imagery, are certainly not the sort of thing genteel ladies of that time are expected to produce. 

What Violet definitely doesn’t want is to marry as her mother, in particular, is anxious for her to do. Violet fears that, if she does, even to someone as seemingly understanding as her friend Felix, creating art will be viewed as nothing more than a pastime to be fitted in between tedious domestic duties and meaningless social calls. Violet is encouraged in her artistic ambitions by her art tutor, Miss Fanshaw, a woman who has managed to carve out the sort of independent life for herself Violet would like to emulate, and by rakish artist, Wilf Lilley, who praises Violet’s unconventional, unrestrained style of painting.

When Violet’s artistic impulses are frustrated, her extreme reaction, as well as the nature of her paintings, sees her diagnosed with ‘moral insanity’ and committed to Hillwood Grange Lunatic Asylum (known to the inmates as Hellwood). There she is exposed to the malevolent ministrations of the utterly hateful Dr. Harold Rastrick, a man who displays a perverted misogyny, is a believer in eugenics and carries out foul experiments on a group of female inmates, the ‘darlings’ of the book’s title. At one point, he even ponders the use of vivisection ‘if done humanely’. He is an absolute monster, representing in an extreme way the sort of vile attitudes towards people with mental conditions, learning difficulties and physical disabilities in this period. In fact, these attitudes persisted into the 20th century as we know only too well. Indeed some might argue they still do. As a person with epilepsy (thankfully controlled through medication) it was particularly shocking to see epileptics included in the category of ‘incurables’, ‘freaks of nature’ and ‘imbeciles’. 

I confess that for some time I struggled to empathise with Violet although of course I was appalled by the treatment she, and others, receive at the hands of Dr. Rastrick.  Violet’s unwavering focus on achieving her own desires means she fails to appreciate until quite late in the book the harm she has unwittingly caused. And although I could understand her desire for freedom, that didn’t mean I felt comfortable about the way she achieves it. However, what I did think was clever is how Violet’s artistic talent enables her to create portraits of her fellow inmates that reflect their individual characters and their humanity, in stark contrast to the ‘identikit’ photographs taken by Dr. Rastrick in which the women resemble ‘ghosts of themselves’.

The Darlings of the Asylum is rich in atmosphere and there’s a real Gothic flavour to the depiction of Hillwood Grange. It’s a dark tale of obsession and the desire for self-expression.  

I received an advance review copy courtesy of HQ via NetGalley.

In three words: Atmospheric, intense, disquieting

Try something similar: The Deception of Harriet Fleet by Helen Scarlett

About the Author

Noel O’Reilly was a student on the New Writing South Advanced writing course. He has worked as a journalist and editor at the international business media company RBI, and is now a freelance writer. His first novel is Wrecker and The Darlings of the Asylum is his second. He lives in Sheffield.

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#BlogTour #BookReview #Ad Forest of Foes by Matthew Harffy @AriesFiction

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BLOG TOUR BANNER Forest of FoesWelcome to the opening day of the blog tour for Forest of Foes by Matthew Harffy, the latest book in his Bernicia Chronicles series. My thanks to Andrew at Head of Zeus for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my review copy.

Forest of FoesAbout the Book

AD 652. Beobrand has been ordered to lead a group of pilgrims to the holy city of Rome. Chief among them is Wilfrid, a novice of the Church with some surprisingly important connections. Taking only Cynan and some of his best men, Beobrand hopes to make the journey through Frankia quickly and return to Northumbria without delay, though the road is long and perilous.

But where Beobrand treads, menace is never far behind. The lands of the Merovingian kings are rife with intrigue. The queen of Frankia is unpopular and her ambitious schemes, though benevolent, have made her powerful enemies. Soon Wilfrid, and Beobrand, are caught up in sinister plots against the royal house.

After interrupting a brutal ambush in a forest, Beobrand and his trusted gesithas find their lives on the line. Dark forces will stop at nothing to seize control of the Frankish throne, and Beobrand is thrown into a deadly race for survival through foreign lands where he cannot be sure who is friend and who is foe.

The only certainty is that if he is to save his men, thwart the plots, and unmask his enemies, blood will flow.

Format: Hardback (448 pages)            Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 8th December 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

I first discovered Matthew Harffy’s Bernicia Chronicles when I read Storm of Steel, book six in the series. Since then I’ve read the two subsequent books – Fortress of Fury and For Lord and Land – and I’ve also been taking advantage of opportunities to acquire earlier books in the series.  The latest is a copy of The Cross and the Curse which I spotted the other day in my local Oxfam bookshop. I also enjoyed the two books – A Time for Swords and A Night of Flames – that have appeared so far in the author’s other series, and just to prove I’m becoming a real Harffy groupie, I also loved the standalone Wolf of Wessex.

Forest of Foes sees Beobrand in Frankia far from his beloved Ubbanford, longing for his homeland but constrained by a promise he made at the end of the last book to a woman he feels drawn to but who is seemingly out of reach.  Beobrand is starting to feel his age – he’s about to become a grandfather – but, although he may be battle-scarred, he remains a formidable warrior and a leader whom men will follow unerringly into battle. However each victory comes at a price and the faces of the men he has killed, of fallen comrades or of people he was unable to save often haunt him. It’s at times like these he needs his friend Cynan to rouse him from despondency.

Actually I liked the introspective Beobrand the author gives us in this book. We really get an insight into Beobrand the human being, not just the man of action. He’s a leader who carries the burden of responsibility for the safety and wellbeing of a community, and for the lives of the men who follow him. And he’s keenly aware he may not be able to save them all. He’s also, at times, a rather lonely man who regrets the breakdown in his relationship with his son, and mourns the woman he loved and lost. Of course, Beobrand the fearless – and to be feared – man of action is pretty brilliant too and that side of him is never far away. As one character observes, ‘Beobrand is no normal man. He is like a storm, or a raging tide. A force of nature’.

If you love the action scenes that have become one of the trademarks of the series, then you needn’t wait long for Beobrand’s cry of ‘To me, my gesithas’ as he summons the famed Black Shields to his side to embark upon yet another bloody encounter.  There are plenty of bone-crunching, skull-splitting, shield-shattering encounters involving sword, spear and axe. However, Beobrand and his comrades find themselves in some pretty sticky situations, with the odds seemingly stacked against them. As Beobrand observes at one point, ‘We are far from home. We are but few, and we are surrounded by a forest of foes’. He is also reunited with a ‘monster’, a ruthless enemy from his past with whom he has scores to settle – and he’s not the only one. What’s more, as Beobrand will discover, your deadliest enemies may not be those you face across the shieldwall.

As always the meticulous detail really immerses the reader in the period.  The author’s Historical Note provides fascinating information about the events that underpin the plot and also about the character of Wilfred who plays a key role in the book. It also contains a tantalising promise of ‘more action, adventure and intrigue, and just maybe, love and peace’.  To borrow Beobrand’s favourite curse, by Tiw’s cock, I’ll be disappointed if there isn’t.

In three words: Action-packed, immersive, gripping

Try something similar: The Serpent King by Tim Hodkinson

Harffy_MatthewAbout the Author

Matthew Harffy lived in Northumberland as a child and the area had a great impact on him. The rugged terrain, ruined castles and rocky coastline made it easy to imagine the past. Decades later, a documentary about Northumbria’s Golden Age sowed the kernel of an idea for a series of historical fiction novels. The first of them is the action-packed tale of vengeance and coming of age, The Serpent Sword.

Matthew has worked in the IT industry, where he spent all day writing and editing, just not the words that most interested him. Prior to that he worked in Spain as an English teacher and translator. Matthew lives in Wiltshire, England, with his wife and their two daughters.

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