Tag: historical romance

#BookReview Summer of the Three Pagodas by Jean Moran @HoZ_Books

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Summer of the Three PagodasAbout the Book

Hong Kong, 1950. Now the war is over, Dr Rowena Rossiter is ready to plan a new life with her great love, Connor O’Connor. But before they can, bad news arrives.

A female doctor is urgently needed in Seoul and the powers that be want Rowena to go. She refuses – until rumours begin to swirl about the sinister, beautiful man who held her captive during the war.

They say he may still be alive and looking for her. By comparison, Korea on the brink of war seems safer, but will Rowena ever truly be able to escape the shadows of her violent past?

Format: Hardcover (422 pages)      Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 5th March 2020 Genre: Historical Fiction

Find Summer of the Three Pagodas on Goodreads

Purchase links*
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*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

My Review

The events in Summer of the Three Pagodas follow on from Jean Moran’s previous book, Tears of the Dragon. If, like me, you haven’t read the earlier book I can reassure you that Summer of the Three Pagodas works perfectly well as a standalone read. However, it does contain references to key events in Tears of the Dragon which would amount to spoilers for that book.

Kim Pheloung, the ‘sinister, beautiful man’ mentioned in the book description (and who featured prominently in the previous book) is a constant if shadowy presence in Summer of the Three Pagodas. However, Rowena’s fear that he may still pose a threat to her and her daughter, Dawn, propels much of the plot and will have dramatic and, in some cases, tragic consequences. And, as it happens, there’s another candidate for ‘chief villain’ close at hand who proves to be just as ruthless.

The storyline moves between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, to Korea and back again. There is some great descriptive writing. I particularly liked how the author conjured up the atmosphere of Kowloon’s Walled City, a squalid labyrinth of ‘shambolic and haphazard construction’, full of dark alleyways that are the haunt of criminal gangs. A place to venture into at your peril.

It seems the author has a fondness for invertebrate-related similes. For example, ‘The local headquarters was based in what had been a school, typewriters clicking like manic grasshoppers.‘ Or how about
‘The chock-chock-chock sound of helicopter blades filled the air, their outlines like a swarm of hornets roused from their nest.‘ Later a helicopter is described as hanging ‘like a black insect in the sky, like a huge mosquito’ and later still another as like ‘a black spider’. Ugh.

As well as being a compelling, well-crafted story, Summer of the Three Pagodas exposes the cruelty and futility of war and explores issues such as racism, the plight of refugees and women’s rights. The book features some strong female characters; Rowena herself but also the capable and formidable Kate, sister of Rowena’s partner, Connor, and the courageous Sheridan Warrington, prepared to defy her father despite the consequences. As Rowena remarks at one point, “This is nineteen fifty. The world is changing.”

My thanks to Lauren at Head of Zeus for my advance review copy.

In three words: Atmospheric, compelling, romantic

Try something similar: The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng

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Jean_MoranAbout the Author

Jean Moran was a columnist and editor before writing full-time. She has since published over fifty novels and been a bestseller in Germany.

Jean was born and raised in Bristol. Her mother, who endured both the depression and war years, was a natural born storyteller, and it’s from her telling of actual experiences of the tumultuous first half of the twentieth century that Jean gets her inspiration.

Her novel Tears of the Dragon was published by Head of Zeus in 2019. Jean now lives in Bath. (Photo credit: Publisher author page)

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#BookReview The Lost Lights of St Kilda by Elisabeth Gifford @CorvusBooks

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20200214_130225About the Book

When Fred Lawson takes a summer job on St Kilda in 1927, little does he realise that he has joined the last community to ever live on that desolate, isolated island. Only three years later, St Kilda will be evacuated, the islanders near-dead from starvation. But for Fred, that summer is the bedrock of his whole life…

Chrissie Gillies is just nineteen when the researchers come to St Kilda. Hired as their cook, she can’t believe they would ever notice her, sophisticated and educated as they are. But she soon develops a cautious friendship with Fred, a friendship that cannot be allowed to develop into anything more…

Years later, to help deal with his hellish existence in a German prisoner of war camp, Fred tells the tale of the island and the woman he loved, but left behind. And Fred starts to wonder, where is Chrissie now? And does she ever think of him too?

Format: Hardcover (288 pages)      Publisher: Corvus
Publication date: 5th March 2020 Genre: Historical Fiction

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

Find The Lost Lights of St Kilda on Goodreads

My Review

I absolutely loved Elisabeth Gifford’s last book The Good Doctor of Warsaw, so I approached her latest novel with eager anticipation; I was not disappointed. The Lost Lights of St Kilda is undoubtedly the best book I’ve read so far this year.

I confess I’d always thought St Kilda was an island but, as I learned from the book (and from the maps that form the gorgeous endpapers), it is in fact a group of islands. Hirta is the main island and the only one inhabited in 1927, when part of the book is set. However, to avoid confusion I’m going to refer to it, like the blurb does, as St Kilda.

I loved the descriptions of St Kilda and the details of the islanders’ life – “a daily struggle against nature”. (I wasn’t so sure about the island cuisine – ‘boiled oats with a salted puffin for flavour’ anyone?) I vaguely knew about the evacuation of the islanders but nothing of their history before that or the hardship of life there battling illness, cut off from the outside world for weeks at a time by storms, and living a hand to mouth existence from farming and the hunting of seabirds involving perilous climbs along cliff ledges. The sense of isolation is overwhelming. “Imagine a hill farm of some four square miles dropped in the middle of an Atlantic swell that even the sturdiest boats would think twice to sail and you have the situation of St Kilda.”

Moving between different timelines and points of view, each strand of the story – Chrissie’s life on St Kilda and Fred’s wartime experiences – would be enthralling enough in their own right. Woven together by the skilful hands of the author (much like a bolt of St Kildan tweed) they are simply wonderful.

Storytelling is a major element of the book, reflecting the oral tradition of passing down tales and legends from generation to generation; tales that are linked to the landscape, the sea and the weather. Chrissie gradually recounts her own story of growing up on St Kilda and her childhood friendship with laird’s son, Archie. Although used to being an object of fascination for summer visitors to the island, the St Kildans cannot know the chain of events that will be set in train by the return to the island of Archie and his friend, Fred, years later.

Fred develops an interest in recording the islanders’ stories and, through his study of geology, in telling the story of the island, created as it was by a volcanic eruption. As time goes by, that’s not Fred’s only interest. “All the heart and the beauty and the magic of that place distilled into the girl that was Chrissie.” Memories of his time on the island, and of Chrissie, will come to be a beacon of light in times of darkness and danger, giving him the courage and energy to battle on.

The Lost Lights of St Kilda is wonderfully romantic without being sentimental and a beautifully crafted depiction of a (now lost) community and way of life. It’s a story of love, betrayal, endurance and faith. “For what is faith but the sure hope of things that will come but are not yet seen.” I loved it and I’m sure all fans of historical fiction will too.

I received a review copy courtesy of Corvus and Readers First.

In three words: Romantic, emotional, compelling

Try something similar: The Watch House by Bernie McGill or The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason

FB_IMG_1581621051683About the Author

Elisabeth Gifford grew up in a vicarage in the industrial Midlands. She studied French literature and world religions at Leeds University. She has written articles for the Times and the Independent and has a Diploma in Creative Writing from Oxford OUDCE and an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway College. She is married with three children and lives in Kingston upon Thames. (Photo/bio credit: publisher author page)

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