Tag: historical fiction

#BookReview The Night of the Flood by Zoë Somerville @HoZ_Books

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NightoftheFlood Blog TourWelcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Night of the Flood by Zoë Somerville, which will be published in hardback on 3rd September 2020. My thanks to Lauren at Head of Zeus for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my proof copy.

Somerville_The Night of the Flood_HBAbout the Book

Summer, 1952. Verity Frost, stranded on her family farm on the Norfolk coast, is caught between two worlds: the devotion of her childhood friend Arthur, just returned from National Service, and a strange new desire to escape it all. Arthur longs to escape too, but only with Verity by his side.

Into their world steps Jack, a charismatic American pilot flying secret reconnaissance missions off the North Sea coast. But where Verity sees adventure and glamour, Arthur sees only deception. As the water levels rise to breaking point, this tangled web of secrets, lies and passion will bring about a crime that will change all their lives.

Taking the epic real-life North Sea flood as its focus, The Night of the Flood is at once a passionate love story, an atmospheric thriller, and a portrait of a distinctive place in a time of radical social change.

Format: Hardcover (352 pages)              Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 3rd September 2020 Genre: Historical fiction

Find The Night of the Flood on Goodreads

Pre-order/Purchase links*
Amazon UK | Hive (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

The Night of the Flood involves not one but several love triangles. And we all know that three into two doesn’t go, that there’s always one left over.

The four main characters all to some extent feel as if they are outsiders. Arthur arrived at Howe Farm, home of the Frost family, as a child evacuee but feels he no longer belongs there. Peter Frost feels isolated by his inability to express his true nature and his sister, Verity, finds the expectations that she will marry and start a family alien to her nature. The most obvious outsider is Jack Doherty, a pilot stationed at the nearby American air base. However, he exudes a confidence and easy charm that enables him to be absorbed into local society in a way someone like Arthur can only dream of. A fifth character, Muriel, floats on the periphery. Once a playmate of the Frost children, she now feels distanced from them by her family’s poverty and social status.

Many of the characters also share a sense of thwarted ambition. Arthur has returned from National Service disappointed with the experience. He has aspirations to be a writer or journalist but finds himself instead acting as delivery boy in his mother’s grocery shop. It doesn’t help that he harbours doubts about his relationship with Verity, his childhood sweetheart. His frustration at times manifests itself in violent thoughts. Peter finds himself landed with the task of trying to rescue the family farm from financial ruin caused by his father’s profligacy, unwillingness to embrace change and descent into despair following a family tragedy. Verity’s hopes of studying and travel seem likely to be thwarted at the first hurdle.

In creating such a complex web of relationships, the author has skilfully created the ingredients for a dramatic and enthralling story. At the centre of the web is Verity, although she seems unaware of this and the effect she has on men who, as one character puts it, circle her like dogs on heat.

Starting the story in the months before the flood creates a sense of tension and expectation. Added to this is the backdrop of fear of nuclear war and the beginnings of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. When the flood does finally occur it is both actual and metaphorical. There are dramatic scenes as people try to escape the rising seawater, rescue others and salvage homes and possessions. But the night of the flood also sees events that will have long-lasting repercussions. Like an ebb tide, it leaves Peter and others trying to piece together what, if anything, is left from the wreckage and come to terms with what has lost been forever.

The Night of the Flood is an absorbing story of secrets, obsession and thwarted desire.

In three words: Atmospheric, compelling, dramatic

Try something similar: Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller

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Zoe SomervilleAbout the Author

Zoë Somerville is a writer and English teacher. Having lived all over the world – Japan, France, Washington – she now lives in Bath with her family. After completing a creative writing MA at Bath Spa, Zoë started writing her debut novel, which is inspired by her home county, Norfolk, and the devastating North Sea flood of the 1950s.

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#BookReview The Night of Shooting Stars by Ben Pastor @bitterlemonpub

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FINAL Night of Shooting Stars BT PosterWelcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Night of Shooting Stars by Ben Pastor, the seventh book featuring Wehrmacht Officer, Martin von Bora. My thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to participate in the tour and to Bitter Lemon Press for my digital review copy.

Night of the Shooting Stars_FINALAbout the Book

Berlin, July 1944, a few weeks before the attempted assassination of Hitler by Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators. Bora has been called back from the Italian Front to investigate the murder of a dazzling clairvoyant with Nazi connections.

Soon Bora realizes that there is much more at stake than murder in a city where everyone is talking about a conspiracy aimed at the Nazi hierarchy. Bora eventually meets with Stauffenberg. Are the plotters a group of heroes devoted to the salvation of Germany at the cost of their own lives, or a bunch of opportunists compromised from the beginning with the Nazi regime and now looking for a new virginity in the eyes of the Western Allies and Stalinist Russia?

Format : Paperback (365 pages)        Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press
Publication date: 20th August 2020 Genre: Historical fiction, crime

Find The Night of Shooting Stars (Martin Bora #7) on Goodreads

Purchase links*
Amazon UK | Hive (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

I was first introduced to this series when I participated in the blog tour for The Horseman’s Song. Although it was the sixth book to feature Martin von Bora, it was a prequel and therefore perfect for readers like me who’d not read any of the previous books. At the time, I vowed to read the series from the beginning but here we are eighteen months on and I still haven’t!

The Horseman’s Song was set during the Spanish Civil War and a lot of water has passed under the bridge for Bora since then. Now a Lieutenant Colonel, he’s served on the Russian front and in Italy, been wounded and suffered disappointment and unexpected betrayals in his personal life. Even back in 1937 Bora was carrying a fair amount of emotional baggage: things he wanted to forget and actions of which he felt ashamed. The baggage he’s carrying is even heavier now. As he reflects at one point, “For a long time he’d felt alone with his choices.”

Angry at being recalled from serving on the frontline with his regiment, Bora is also curious as to why he’s being ordered to investigate a murder – and who’s really behind the order. During his time in the now disbanded Abwehr (the German military intelligence service) he made a fair few enemies. As he confides to his friend, Bruno, “I can’t understand why on earth the Kripo would pick an ordinary lieutenant colonel to investigate a high-profile case.” (The glossary is helpful for navigating the different military and law enforcement bodies.)

Bora’s suspicions are multiplied when he is issued with a driver, Inspector Florian Grimm, and what seems to be a predetermined list of suspects. Ostensibly there to assist him in his investigation, Bora soon finds Grimm not just an annoyingly persistent presence but more like a watcher than an aide. Nevertheless, Bora embarks on the investigation with his customary thoroughness and vigour. “He rebuilt, from what a victim left behind, the substructure of deeds, relationships and secrets that permitted understanding and the solving of the crime.” Was the victim killed for what he knew or what he foresaw?

The author skilfully evokes the atmosphere of wartime Berlin with its bombed out buildings and beleaguered citizens. I liked the little details such as the fact that phosphorescent paint was applied to pavements to aid pedestrians during the blackout. “In the spectral geometry that allowed Berliners to orient themselves across the blacked-out city, trams with shaded windows crossed the night, letting out a blue-green glimmer like ignis fatuus or the trail of glow-worms.”

With the war going badly for Germany, the atmosphere of suspicion, intrigue and rumour has reached fever pitch. Little wonder that Bora feels distinctly uneasy about being approached by his old commander, now in a fragile mental state, who claims to have knowledge of a secret that could endanger them both. That secret, as trailed in the blurb, is the attempt to assassinate Hitler by Claus von Stauffenberg on 20th July 1944. Knowing from history the harsh punishment meted out to those involved in the (unfortunately) unsuccessful plot introduces an additional element of jeopardy. His knowledge of the plot and the likely repercussions – whether it should succeed or fail – will test Bora’s loyalty.

As with previous books, the reader gets a direct insight into Bora’s thoughts through extracts from his personal diary. It’s the only place he feels able to unburden himself, although it may be just a little too much introspection for some readers. For me, it added to the impression of him as a thoughtful, observant, perceptive but rather solitary man who prides himself on his ability to control his emotions and is a formidable opponent when the situation demands it. I thought his devotion to his mother, Nina, one of his most attractive characteristics, even if she is one of the few women to command his respect.

Bora observes at one point, “Order and disorder are the only two states of being. By inclination he belonged to the first, yet he repeatedly found himself in the second.” That contradiction is what makes Bora such a fascinating, multifaceted character and The Night of Shooting Stars such an interesting and rewarding read. Will Bora survive to return in an eighth book? You’ll have to read The Night of Shooting Stars to find out.

The Night of Shooting Stars – in fact, the whole Martin Bora series – would be perfect for readers mourning the end of (the late lamented) Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther series.

In three words: Gripping, tense, authentic

Try something similar: The Man From Berlin (Gregor Reinhardt #1) by Luke McCallin

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Ben Pastor Author PictureAbout the Author

Ben Pastor was born in Italy and lived for thirty years in the United States, working as a university professor in Vermont. She has now returned to Italy and is the author of novels including The Water Thief and The Fire Waker (published to high acclaim in the US by St. Martin’s Press). She is considered one of the most talented writers in the field of historical fiction.