Category: HF Reading Challenge

Book Review – Essex Dogs by Dan Jones

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Essex DogsAbout the Book

July 1346. The Hundred Years’ War has begun, and King Edward and his lords are on the march through France. But this war belongs to the men on the ground.

Swept up in the bloody chaos, a tight-knit company from Essex must stay alive long enough to see their home again. With sword, axe and longbow, the Essex Dogs will fight, from the landing beaches of Normandy to the bloodsoaked field of Crecy.

There’s Pismire, small enough to infiltrate enemy camps. Scotsman, strong enough to tear down a wall. Millstone, a stonemason who’ll do anything to protect his men. Father, a priest turned devilish by the horrors of war. Romford, a talented young archer on the run from his past. And Loveday FitzTalbot, their battle-scarred captain, who just wants to get his boys home safe.

Some men fight for glory. Others fight for coin. The Essex Dogs? They fight for each other.

Format: Hardback (464 pages)                Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 15th September 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

Essex Dogs is the first book in a new trilogy set during the Hundred Years’ War. It’s the author’s first foray into fiction (unless you count his novella The Tale of the Tailor and the Three Dead Kings) but on the evidence of Essex Dogs it’s clear he’s as adept at fiction as he is at non-fiction.

The events at the outset of the Hundred Years’ War are thrillingly brought to life through the escapades of the fictional Essex Dogs, a group of men of different ages, from different parts of what is today Great Britain and who speak different languages even. What unites them is a talent for fighting – whether with axe, sword or bow – a desire to make their fortunes and the bonds of comradeship. ‘We are who we are. We do what we do. We look after each other.’

This foul-mouthed, dishevelled brotherhood is ‘led’ by Loveday FitzTalbot from whose point of view we witness most of the action.  There are passing references and little nuggets of information about the backgrounds of the Essex Dogs, including mention of their previous leader, the enigmatic Captain.  (It would be great to learn more of their back stories – a prequel in the making perhaps?) Besides Loveday, the person we learn most about is Romford, a troubled young man for whom the Essex Dogs have become a sort of family. Other notable characters are Father, a rather demented priest, and Scotsman, a giant of a man whose talent for fighting is second only to his highly imaginative and extremely crude cursing. I also loved the mystical element introduced by way of the mysterious woman from Valognes.

Although the Essex Dogs are entirely the product of the author’s imagination, real historical figures play a part as well. Here I think the author really has some fun giving us a whiny Edward, The Black Prince and –  my favourite – an Earl of Northampton for whom the descriptions ‘colourful’ and ‘plain-speaking’ don’t do justice. He certainly gives Scotsman a run for his money when it comes to cursing with just about every utterance being peppered with the f-word and c-word. He’s the epitome of calling a spade a spade and not afraid to give his views on the foolishness of a proposed tactic. I would love to give you some examples of his imaginative cursing but most of them – actually all of them – are far too rude to repeat.

The book opens with a dramatic and bloody beach landing that could have come straight out of Saving Private Ryan or The Longest Day.  Then there’s a long and arduous march through France in an effort to meet with a constantly retreating French army, stopping only for a spot of pillaging along the way. As they trudge through wind and rain, I was reminded of the scenes in Kenneth Branagh’s film of Henry V in which he leads his bedraggled army. Towards the end of the book the action really picks up with some terrific battle scenes, culminating with the Battle of Crécy.  There is a real sense of the confusion of battle, the sheer brutality of hand-to-hand combat and of course the triumph of English longbows over French crossbows.

I thought Essex Dogs was a brilliant start to what promises to be a fantastic trilogy. And if you love a last minute revelation or an intriguing epilogue, then look no further.

I received a digital review copy courtesy of Head of Zeus via NetGalley.

In three words: Authentic, vivid, action-packed

Try something similar: The Blooding by David Gilman

Dan JonesAbout the Author

Dan Jones is the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author of ten non-fiction books, including The Templars, The Colour of Time and Powers and Thrones. He is a renowned writer, broadcaster and journalist, and has for many years wanted to write authentic but action-packed historical fiction. He lives near London with his family.

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#BookReview Learwife by JR Thorp

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LearwifeAbout the Book

“I am the queen of two crowns, banished fifteen years, the famed and gilded woman, bad-luck baleful girl, mother of three small animals, now gone. I am fifty-five years old. I am Lear’s wife. I am here.”

Word has come. Care-bent King Lear is dead, driven mad and betrayed. His three daughters too, broken in battle. But someone has survived: Lear’s queen. Exiled to a nunnery years ago, written out of history, her name forgotten. Now she can tell her story.

Though her grief and rage may threaten to crack the earth open, she knows she must seek answers. Why was she sent away in shame and disgrace? What has happened to Kent, her oldest friend and ally? And what will become of her now, in this place of women? To find peace she must reckon with her past and make a terrible choice – one upon which her destiny, and that of the entire abbey, rests.

Format: Paperback (368 pages) Publisher: Canongate
Publication date: 7th July 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

I bought a copy of this book when it was included in the longlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2022 in February this year and it has been sitting on my bookshelf ever since. A readalong of the book organised by Canongate Books to coincide with its publication in paperback last month gave me the impetus I needed to finally read it.

I can immediately see why it has captured so much attention because the writing is extraordinarily lush, imaginative and poetic in nature. As a result, it requires some concentration; it is definitely not a book to rush through, rather to immerse yourself in. For me that meant reading it rather slowly, a couple of chapters at a time. In fact, the author has encouraged readers to ‘give into the slowness a little’. There is a plot but it builds slowly and the book is more about the reader gradually discovering the woman who was Lear’s queen and her own discovery of why she has been banished and confined within the abbey. ‘My crime, we call it, my vice; the unknown offence that led to my sentence, here.’

A question I asked myself early on was whether it was necessary to be familiar with Shakespeare’s King Lear to appreciate, or even understand, the book. Although I know the vague outlines of the play I can’t really say I recall much about the part played by Lear’s wife, despite the publishers describing her as ‘the most famous woman ever written out of literary history’. Actually, hers is more a ‘non-part’. As the book commences with news of events at the end of the play, I came to the conclusion the answer to my question was no, it doesn’t matter as just about all of the events Lear’s queen gradually reveals to us – both past and present – derive from the author’s imagination.

The book’s first person narrator is never named; all we know is that she was Lear’s wife and his queen. ‘Nobody has called my name to me, not for fifteen years; perhaps I have none.’  Her identity is completely tied up in her status as the wife of a king. ‘Even unnamed I am queen, still.’  For the first part of the book, as well as being confined within the walls of the abbey, she is also unseen by the nuns who reside there, veiled when in public, viewing the religious services through a screen.

Having learned of the death of Lear and her three daughters, the queen becomes obsessed with the desire to escaping from the abbey to tend their graves. Despite her preparations, obstacles are continually placed in her path: a harsh winter, an outbreak of sickness that sees the abbey quarantined from the outside world, gentle persuasion that turns into outright refusal.

The abbey becomes her kingdom, as it were, and we are constantly reminded of her ability to exercise power over others, whether that’s through revealing the story of her life in tantalising snippets to nuns starved of other forms of entertainment, gaining influence with the Abbess or later being given a role in the choice of the Abbess’s successor. When it comes to the latter there is just as much intrigue and jostling for favour as in any royal court and we witness the queen embracing the opportunity to wield her power and use the wiles she learned there, not least the often unseen power of women. ‘Men always think they are the architects of women’s actions, when we can slip under their demands and flee, away.’

As the book progresses we see the queen’s power and status within the abbey gradually wane, along with her grip on reality, echoing Lear’s descent into madness. Increasingly she lives in the past – ‘I am profuse with past selves’ – haunted by visions of the dead. ‘The ghosts whisper. One could listen to them sing all night… Things are loose, are unstitching.’

Although it’s not my favourite of the books longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize (that was The Fortune Men), there’s no doubt Learwife is a remarkable book. In the author’s own words, it contains ‘threads of love and power and hate, threads of motherhood and friendship and violence’.

In three words: Lyrical, imaginative, intense

Try something similar: Matrix by Lauren Groff

JR ThorpAbout the Author

JR Thorp is a writer, lyricist and librettist. She won the London Short Story Award in 2011 and was shortlisted for the BBC Opening Lines Prize, and has had work published in the Cambridge Literary Review, Manchester Review, Wave Composition and elsewhere. She wrote the libretto for the highly acclaimed modern opera Dear Marie Stopes and has had works commissioned by the Arts Council, the Wellcome Trust and St Paul’s Cathedral. She was picked as an Observer Best Debut Novelist of 2021.

Born in Australia, she now lives in Cork, Ireland. Learwife is her first novel. (Photo: Amazon author page)

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