Category: Reviews

#BookReview #Ad The Drums of War by Michael Ward

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The Drums of WarAbout the Book

London 1642. The King has fled London with the drums of war ringing in his ears. Across the country, lines are being drawn and armies raised.

Influential royalist Lady Carlisle switches sides and presses spice trader Thomas Tallant and his partner Elizabeth Seymour into Parliament’s service.

Soon Thomas faces double-dealing in his hunt for a lethal hoard of gunpowder hidden on the river, while Elizabeth engages in a race against time to locate a hidden sniper picking off Parliamentary officers at will in the city.

The capital also witnesses a vicious gang of jewel thieves take advantage of the city’s chaos to go on the rampage, smashing homes and shops, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. They hand pick their targets but refrain from selling any of their loot. There are more questions than answers.

When war finally erupts, Elizabeth is caught in the brutalising carnage of Edgehill while Thomas joins the Trained Bands in their defence of the city. As he mans the barricades at Brentford, in a desperate rearguard action to repel Prince Rupert’s surprise attack, he realises the future of London rests in the hands of him and a few hundred troopers.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth believes she has identified the jewel thief and goes underground to trace his hoard. But all is not as it seems.

Format: ebook (227 pages)                  Publisher: Sharpe Books
Publication date: 18th August 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

The Drums of War is the third book in the author’s Thomas Tallant series, the sequel to Rags of Time and The Wrecking Storm. Links from the titles will take you to my reviews. The Drums of War can definitely be read as a standalone although I would recommend reading the series from the beginning for maximum enjoyment.

Once again the author has created an exciting combination of mystery and adventure built around actual historical events and featuring real historical figures, including the prominent Parliamentarian John Pym, pioneering physician William Harvey and the calculating Lucy, Countess of Carlisle.

I was delighted to see the return of the pipe-smoking Elizabeth Seymour, and playing a key role in the story too. Elizabeth prides herself on her logic and her knowledge of science, medicine and mathematics. Indeed the latter enables a breakthrough in the hunt for a sniper who has been targeting officers of the Trained Bands, the militia in charge of the defence of the City of London from the forces of the King. But Elizabeth’s confidence in her abilities is challenged when she finds herself at the Battle at Edge Hill, overwhelmed by the scale of the carnage and her inability to help the injured and dying.  ‘My God, it was Dante’s Nine Circles of Hell – the cries and shouts of desperate men, punctuated by booming cannon and the crackle of musket fire, in a fog of choking, gunpowder smoke.’  She also witnesses, in one particularly moving scene, the truth of what Thomas warned civil war would bring at the close of the previous book: ‘Father against son. Husband against wife. Brother against brother.’ 

Meanwhile Thomas finds himself thrust into the centre of the action as well and relying on some quick-witted companions and some lucky breaks to escape unscathed from the heat of battle.  

Alongside recounting Thomas’s and Elizabeth’s adventures (which on this occasion take place largely separately), the author introduces a mysterious, unnamed narrator with a connection to one of the secondary plot lines. But just what this person’s motive is remains unclear, as does their connection with an old adversary of the Tallant family. The book ends with a teaser that I hope suggests there are more adventures to come for Thomas and Elizabeth.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Drums of War with its intricate plot, fascinating historical detail and engaging leading characters. 

My thanks to the author for my digital review copy. You can find out more about ‘the life and times of Thomas Tallant’ on the author’s website.  

In three words: Intriguing, entertaining, eventful 

Try something similar: The Drowned City by K. J. Maitland 

Mike Ward Author picAbout the Author

Mike Ward is an English creator of historical fiction. Born in Liverpool, he was a BBC journalist and journalism academic before turning to non-factual writing.

His debut novel The Rags of Time is located in London in 1639. It marks the start of a tumultuous 30 years – civil war, regicide, republic and royal restoration. Politics, religion, commerce, science, and medicine – none are left untouched by this ferment of change.

Mike believes it’s the perfect setting for his hero Thomas Tallant’s series of adventures, starting with Rags of Time and followed by The Wrecking Storm and The Drums of War.

Connect with Michael
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#BookReview #Ad God’s Children Are Little Broken Things by Arinze Ifeakandu #SUDTP23

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God's Children Are Little Broken ThingsAbout the Book

A man revisits the university campus where he lost his first love, aware now of what he couldn’t understand then. A daughter returns home to Lagos after the death of her father, where she must face her past – and future -relationship with his longtime partner. A young musician rises to fame at the risk of losing himself and the man who loves him.

Generations collide, families break and are remade, languages and cultures intertwine, and lovers find their ways to futures; from childhood through adulthood; on university campuses, city centres, and neighbourhoods where church bells mingle with the morning call to prayer.

Format: Hardback (224 pages)       Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Publication date: 28th July 2022  Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Short Stories

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My Review

I was fortunate enough to be offered a copy of this short story collection by Emily at Midas PR when it appeared on the longlist for the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize 2023. Unfortunately, I couldn’t fit it into my reading schedule at that point but I’m rectifying that now that it has made the shortlist.

The author’s debut collection, it’s described by the publishers as ‘nine exhilarating stories of queer love in contemporary Nigeria’ and has been praised by Sarah Waters as ‘A hugely impressive collection, full of subtlety, wisdom and heart’.

As a straight white British woman I wondered if I would be able to feel a connection with the experiences of characters so different from me. However, at their heart, these are stories about relationships that involve passion, longing, betrayal, tenderness, disappointment and loss, experiences and emotions to which all of us can probably relate to some degree. However, in an environment in which homosexuality not only brings abuse and discrimination but is also illegal, as it is in Nigeria, there is an added element: the need for secrecy and hiding your true self. ‘He was not new to pretense. Wasn’t his entire life a play, and hadn’t he put on, so far, a stellar performance? He had picked this life and sworn to be very good at it because there was no reward in loving boys… It made you the most hated person in the world.’

In some cases, this hatred takes the form of physical violence, even perpetrated within familes. And, for many of the characters, the need to hide their sexuality leaves them open to abuse and violence that they cannot report. Intimacy may be confined to snatched moments in anonymous hotel rooms, in clandestine clubs, teenage bedrooms or even abandoned buildings.  Disclosure can damage careers, destroy reputations and wreck lives.

A story I found particularly moving was ‘Where The Heart Sleeps’ in which the relationship between Nonye and Tochukwu, the partner of Dubem, Nonye’s recently deceased father, changes gradually from hostility to a degree of understanding, united by their shared loss.  ‘They were silent, but it was not the silence of before. It was not exactly comfortable, but it was nice.’ It caused me to think about aspects of discrimination that wouldn’t otherwise have occurred to me, such as Tochukwu having no official status, even to have Dubem’s body released to him or to have the right to continue living in the house they shared. ‘It hit him like a sudden shard of light at a precarious bend on a dark road, the extent of his powerlessness.’ And the notion that Tochukwu, as a gay man, must by nature be predatory is reflected in Nonye’s mother’s remark that he ‘will be an old story soon, a memory, something that happened’ and that he will ‘move on to the next man’.

There is some beautiful writing, such as in the first story, ‘A Dreamer’s Litany’ in which a young man gazes at a cityscape from a hotel room.  ‘The city was like a drunken man, it wobbled, garrulous and loud, and then a moment came when it tempered into a fitful somberness, slipping finally into a long, exhausted sleep.’

The stories in God’s Children Are Little Broken Things are often dark, and occasionally distressing, but there are flashes of light in that darkness, such as in the final story, ‘Mother’s Love’. For those sensitive to such things, some of the stories contain scenes of a sexually explicit nature. And there are occasional fragments of dialogue in the native languages of Nigeria which, whilst giving authenticity, did require me to search out translations.

You can find details about the other books on the shortlist here.  The winner will be announced on Thursday 11th May 2023.

In three words: Intense, thought-provoking, intimate

About the Author

Arinze Ifeakandu was born in Kano, Nigeria. An AKO Caine Prize for African Writing finalist and A Public Space Writing Fellow, he is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is pursuing his PhD at Florida State University. His work has appeared in A Public Space, One Story, and Guernica. God’s Children Are Little Broken Things is his first book.

Connect with Arinze
Website | Instagram

Photo credit: Bec Stupak Diop for Black Rock Senegal