Tag: historical fiction

#BookReview #Ad Bone China by Laura Purcell

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Bone ChinaAbout the Book

Consumption has ravaged Louise Pinecroft’s family, leaving her and her father alone and heartbroken.

But Dr Pinecroft has plans for a revolutionary experiment: convinced that sea air will prove to be the cure his wife and children needed, he arranges to house a group of prisoners suffering from the same disease in the cliffs beneath his new Cornish home. While he devotes himself to his controversial medical trials, Louise finds herself increasingly discomfited by the strange tales her new maid tells of the fairies that hunt the land, searching for those they can steal away to their realm.

Forty years later, Hester Why arrives at Morvoren House to take up a position as nurse to the now partially paralysed and almost entirely mute Miss Pinecroft. Hester has fled to Cornwall to try and escape her past, but surrounded by superstitious staff enacting bizarre rituals, she soon discovers that her new home may be just as dangerous as her last.

Format: ebook (448 pages)                        Publisher: Raven Books
Publication date: 19th September 2019 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

The book alternates between three different timelines, curiously in the reverse order to what you might expect based on the blurb, opening with the woman who now calls herself Hester arriving at Morvoren House.  The events forty years earlier involving Louise Pinecroft’s efforts to help her father in his experimental treatment of patients with tuberculosis don’t appear until later in the book. This part is fascinating as it illuminates the lack of knowledge about the causes of the disease at the time (probably late 18th Century) but it is also rather distressing to witness the “treatments” Dr. Pinecroft inflicts on his patients in an increasingly crazed desire to succeed in finding a cure.

I was particularly drawn to Hester’s story as we find out more about the reasons for her sudden departure from her previous employment as maid to Lady Rose. I thought the author did a great job of making us feel sympathy for her whilst at the same time introducing a sense of unease as we learn what has occurred in previous positions she’s occupied. Her desperation to be valued by Lady Rose and her disappointment when she realises the difference in their social position can never bring about the sort of relationship she desires is painful to witness. At the same time, she commits an act that has dire consequences and I liked that the author challenged the reader’s view of Hester in this respect.  The later parts of Hester’s story and, in particular, the final scene, I found less credible.

The ailing Miss Pinecroft that Hester encounters is very different to the Louise Pinecroft of forty years before and I wasn’t totally convinced by her transformation from down-to-earth capable young woman to a Miss Havisham type figure sat in a gloomy room full of china.

The book certainly has many of the ingredients you look for in a Gothic novel: a chilly brooding house in a remote location, unexplained noises and locked doors that don’t seem to keep things out. In fact, Hester’s first impression of Morvoren House is as something ‘not just bricks and pebbles but a living thing’. And Creeda, employed as nursemaid to Miss Pinecroft’s ward, with her strange ways, belief in fairies, changelings and the need for protective talismans, makes for an unsettlingly creepy character. (With her black gown and habit of suddenly appearing, she’s a bit Mrs Danvers from Rebecca, a bit Grace Poole from Jane Eyre.) But are the strange goings-on the result of malicious human agency, the product of a disturbed imagination or an actual supernatural presence? It’s up to the reader to decide. For me it all got a little bit bonkers towards the end but if you’re looking for a dramatic climax to a book then you won’t be disappointed.

I received a digital review copy courtesy of Raven Books via NetGalley

In three words: Atmospheric, chilling, unsettling

Try something similar: The Coffin Path by Katherine Clements

Laura PurcellAbout the Author

Laura Purcell is a former bookseller and lives in Colchester with her husband and pet guinea pigs. Her first novel for Bloomsbury, The Silent Companions, was a Radio 2 and Zoe Ball ITV Book Club pick and was the winner of the WHSmith Thumping Good Read Award, while Laura’s Gothic chiller, The Corset, was acclaimed as a ‘masterpiece’ by readers and reviewers alike.  (Photo: Twitter profile)

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#BookReview #Ad Rivers of Treason by K. J. Maitland

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Rivers of TreasonAbout the Book

From the stark Yorkshire landscape to the dark underbelly of Jacobean London, Daniel Pursglove’s new mission sees him fall prey to a ruthless copycat killer…

London, 1607. As dawn breaks, Daniel Pursglove rides north, away from the watchful eye of the King and his spies.

He returns, disguised, to his childhood home in Yorkshire – with his own score to settle. The locals have little reason to trust a prying stranger, and those who remember Daniel do so with contempt.

When a body is found with rope burns about the neck, Daniel falls under suspicion. On the run, across the country, he is pursued by a ruthless killer whose victims all share the same gallows mark. Are these the crimes of someone with a cruel personal vendetta – or has Daniel become embroiled in a bigger, and far more sinister, conspiracy?

A new river of treason is rising, flowing from the fields of Yorkshire right to the heart of the King’s court …

Format: eARC (432 pages)               Publisher: Headline
Publication date: 13th April 2023 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

Rivers of Treason is the third book in the author’s series set in England during the reign of James I and featuring reluctant spy, Daniel Pursglove. It’s the follow-up to The Drowned City and Traitor in the Ice both of which I’ve read and reviewed.  Rivers of Treason is very much a continuation of the story that commenced in The Drowned City so, although there are a few brief recaps of events in earlier books, I would recommend reading the series from the beginning.

Daniel is still involved in the hunt for Spero Pettingar, the only conspirator involved in the failed Gunpowder Plot who evaded capture, and the gruesome interrogations and executions that followed. I confess that until I read the historical notes at the end of the first book I hadn’t realised Spero Pettingar was a real historical figure. In fact, I was convinced his name was an anagram!

The author continues to introduce tantalising details about Daniel’s troubled past. The identity of his father, even his own real name, remain just as much a mystery to him as it does to the reader, although he is beginning to uncover small clues about his childhood. But some of these provoke more questions than answers.  Daniel can look after himself and that’s just as well because he has made himself some formidable enemies. There’s one in particular whose hatred for Daniel is very personal. Unfortunately, people who get involved with Daniel, or try to help him, have a habit of ending up dead, often in particularly unpleasant ways. And if Daniel is often perplexed by the motivations behind certain characters’ actions than he’s in good company because the fiendishly intricate plot definitely demands concentration on the part of the reader.

No historical novel set in the period is complete without an appearance by one of the Cecil family; in this case it’s Robert Cecil. I actually felt some sympathy for him having to deal with the petulant, impulsive King James who seems more interested in adding wild beasts to his menagerie than matters of state. Having said that, with the Gunpowder Plot still within recent memory, the King can be forgiven for taking steps to thwart any future attempt. This gives rise to a neat little side plot. I really enjoyed the insight into the Stuart court: the lavish feasts, preening courtiers and extravagant masques.  I can recommend reading the fascinating ‘Behind the Scenes of this Novel’ and Glossary (which goes beyond brief definitions) in which you can find out about such things as purveyance, huffcap, Jenny Hanivers and what it means to be ‘bumpsy’.

Weather has played a key part in the previous two books: the Great Flood of 1606 in The Drowned City and the Great Frost of 1607 in Traitor in the Ice. In Rivers of Treason it’s the impact of both of these on livelihoods that is the focus. ‘Food is scarce: half the farmland in the west was ruined by salt in the flood, thousands of cattle and sheep drowned or frozen, winter wheat wiped out by frost, and the land now too sodden to be worked for weeks.’ It’s no wonder there is a pervading atmosphere of unrest.

As always, the author conjures up the sights, sounds and smells of London – the latter being invariably unpleasant. ‘A thick blanket of fog oozed up over the city as dusk crept in. It rose like marsh gas from the open sewers and reeeking cellars, and from the slug-grey river itself.’

Rivers of Treason is an absorbing, intricate historical thriller whose startling conclusion will leave you eager to find out what happens next. Personally, I hope this features more of the mysterious Cimex.  (If you would like to be whisked away to an earlier time period, the author also writes medieval novels under the name of Karen Maitland.)

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

In three words: Suspenseful, immersive, intriguing

Try something similar: The Sinner’s Mark by S. W. Perry

K J Maitland Karen MaitlandAbout the Author

Karen Maitland is an historical novelist, lecturer and teacher of Creative Writing, with over twenty books to her name. She grew up in Malta, which inspired her passion for history, and travelled and worked all over the world before settling in the United Kingdom. She has a doctorate in psycholinguistics, and now lives on the edge of Dartmoor in Devon.

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