Tag: historical fiction

Blog Tour/Book Review: The Cornish Lady by Nicola Pryce

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The Cornish Lady

I’m delighted to be kicking off the blog tour for Nicola Pryce’s latest book in her Cornish Saga, The Cornish Lady.  You can read my review below but do also check out the posts by my tour buddies Joules at Northern Reader and Cassandra at MADEUP Book Reviews.

Thanks to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me to participate in the tour.

Giveaway PrizeI’m pleased to say there’s also a giveaway (open internationally) with a chance for one lucky person to win a signed copy of The Cornish Lady, a box of Cornish Fudge and some bookmarks.

Please enter using the Rafflecopter link here.

Giveaway Terms and Conditions:

  • Worldwide entries welcome.
  • Open to entrants aged 18 or over.
  • The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner.
  • Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data.
  • I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.

The Cornish LadyAbout the Book

Cornwall, 1796. Educated, beautiful and the daughter of a prosperous merchant, Angelica Lilly has been invited to spend the summer in high society. Her father’s wealth is opening doors, and attracting marriage proposals, but Angelica still feels like an imposter among the aristocrats of Cornwall.

When her brother returns home, ill and under the influence of a dangerous man, Angelica’s loyalties are tested to the limit. Her one hope lies with coachman Henry Trevelyan, a softly spoken, educated man with kind eyes. But when Henry seemingly betrays Angelica, she has no one to turn to. Who is Henry, and what does he want? And can Angelica save her brother from a terrible plot that threatens to ruin her entire family?

Format: Paperback, ebook (464 pp.)    Publisher: Corvus Books
Published: 7th March 2019 Genre: Historical Fiction, Historical Romance

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com  ǀ Hive.co.uk (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find The Cornish Lady on Goodreads

My Review

Angelica Lilly is an independent-minded, strong-willed young woman with the prospect of an advantageous marriage to a wealthy aristocrat but who nevertheless finds herself longing for the freedom to make use of the commercial instincts gained from exposure to her father’s business in the same way a son would.  Instead she finds herself in the position of being expected to marry for the approval of society and to fulfil the wishes and ambitions of others.  It’s not that there aren’t a range of potential suitors including the wealthy aristocrat previous mentioned, a childhood companion and a more unexpected candidate.

However, as Jane Austen taught us in Pride and Prejudice, first impressions can be deceptive and Angelica’s childhood experiences have left her mistrustful of others’ motives – especially men –  even when it transpires they don’t deserve that mistrust.  Having said that, Angelica’s not averse to using a little artifice herself when the occasions demands, utilising the skills inherited from her actress mother.

Structured like a three act play, Angelica’s mission to find someone with whom she can be ‘her true self’ runs alongside storylines involving political events of the day: riots caused by grain shortages due to naval blockades, fears of invasion and the treatment of French prisoners of war confined within the walls of Pendennis Castle.    The last act brings everything together in a satisfactory way with villainy revealed and the reputations of others vindicated.

I particularly loved the setting of the book, around Truro and Falmouth, an area I know well from holidays spent there.  So I got an extra thrill from mentions of places I’ve visited like Pendennis Castle, Custom House Quay and The Quayside Inn in Falmouth, Flushing and Malpas (the location of The Heron Inn – a great deal more respectable these days than in the book!).

The Cornish Lady, with its spirited heroine, wonderful setting and fascinating period detail, is an engaging historical romance sure to find favour with fans of the genre and readers of the previous books in the series.

To find more books set in Cornwall, in various genres, follow these links – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

I received an advance review copy courtesy of publishers, Corvus, and Rachel’s Random Resources.

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In three words: Engaging, lively, romantic

Try something similar…Ross Poldark by Winston Graham

2 Author PhotoAbout the Author

Nicola Pryce came to writing after a career in nursing. She has an Open University degree in Humanities and is a qualified adult literacy support volunteer. She lives in the Blackdown Hills in Somerset and when she isn’t writing she’s probably gardening or scrubbing the decks. She and her husband love sailing and for the last twenty years they have sailed in and out of the romantic harbours of the south coast of Cornwall in search of adventure: it is there where she sets her books.

The Cornish Lady is her fourth book. The others are Pengelly’s Daughter, The Captain’s Girl, and The Cornish Dressmaker. Nicola is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and The Historical Writers Association.

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The Cornish Lady Full Tour Banner

 

Book Review: All Among the Barley by Melissa Harrison

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All Among the BarleyAbout the Book

The autumn of 1933 is the most beautiful Edie Mather can remember, although the Great War still casts its shadow over the fields and villages around her beloved home, Wych Farm.

Constance FitzAllen arrives from London to document fading rural traditions and beliefs. For Edie, who must soon face the unsettling pressures of adulthood, the glamorous and worldly outsider appears to be a godsend. But there is more to the older woman than meets the eye.

As harvest time approaches and pressures mount on the entire community, Edie must find a way to trust her instincts and save herself from disaster.

Format: Hardcover, ebook, paperback (345 pp.)    Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 23rd August 2018         Genre: Historical Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com  ǀ Hive.co.uk (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find All Among the Barley on Goodreads

My Review

All Among the Barley is definitely a book to lose yourself in and admire the quality of the writing and characterisation rather than expect a swiftly moving story line.   It’s also, I think, a book that is worthy of some reflection as there are ideas and issues explored that are not immediately discernible but subtly introduced by the author.  Like the onion that farmhand John enjoys between two pieces of bread during a break from the harvest, it has layers to be peeled away.

In Edie, Melissa Harrison captures all the uncertainty of early adolescence.  Edie has a sense that she wants more from her life than her mother and her siblings, but she doesn’t know quite what.  She also feels a strong loyalty and connection to the family farm. ‘Despite its privations I was happy to grow up there because I loved our land fiercely, every single inch of it – and because I knew nothing else.’  She even begins to believe that, in some strange way, the success of the harvest and the future of the farm is down to her.

When she meets the worldly and singular Connie FitzAllen, Edie initially falls prey to a kind of hero worship, seeing in Connie the possibility of a different kind of life, one less constrained by society’s conventions.  Ironically, Connie has a sentimental and bucolic view of the countryside, favouring the preservation of rural traditions over modernising initiatives that would relieve farming families like the Mathers of the repetitive, manual work that is their daily life. Like the reader, it will be only latterly that Edie learns Connie is not entirely what she seems and that her bright and breezy exterior hides some unpalatable attitudes.

After the measured pace of the rest of the book, I’ll confess I wasn’t completely sold on the rapid wrap-up contained within the epilogue.   However, I was definitely a fan of the wonderfully lyrical and closely observed descriptions of landscape and nature.

‘At dawn, the dew silvered the spiders’ silk strung between the grass blades in our pastures  so that the horses left trails where they walked, like the wakes of slow vessels in still water.’

‘It was full of the wheezing demands of newly fledged birds, the sky above us a hard blue vault where larks invisibly sang.’

‘The elders were in bloom, holding the creamy plates of their flowers up to the sky; somewhere deep in their green foliage wood-pigeons clattered and fought.’

All Among the Barley is one of the books in The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction’s ‘Academy Recommends’ list for 2019.  I received a review copy courtesy of publishers, Bloomsbury Publishing, and NetGalley. I interspersed reading the book with listening to the audiobook version narrated by Helen Ayres.

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In three words: Expressive, reflective, measured

Try something similar…Call of the Curlew by Elizabeth Brooks (read my review here)

Melissa HarrisonAbout the Author

Melissa Harrison’s debut novel Clay won the Portsmouth First Fiction Award, was selected for Amazon’s ‘Rising Star’ programme and chosen by Ali Smith as a Book of the Year for 2013.  Her second novel At Hawthorn Time was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2015 and longlisted for the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction 2016.  Rain, a work of non-fiction, was longlisted for the 2016 Wainwright Prize. A nature writer, critic and columnist for The Times, the Financial Times and the Guardian, she lives in London and Suffolk.  (Photo credit: Goodreads author page)

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