Tag: NetGalley

Book Review: Blackberry and Wild Rose by Sonia Velton

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Blackberry & Wild RoseAbout the Book

When Esther Thorel, the wife of a Huguenot silk-weaver, rescues Sara Kemp from a brothel she thinks she is doing God’s will. Sara is not convinced being a maid is better than being a whore, but the chance to escape her grasping ‘madam’ is too good to refuse.

Inside the Thorels’ tall house in Spitalfields, where the strange cadence of the looms fills the attic, the two women forge an uneasy relationship. The physical intimacies of washing and dressing belie the reality: Sara despises her mistress’s blindness to the hypocrisy of her household, while Esther is too wrapped up in her own secrets to see Sara as anything more than another charitable cause.

It is silk that has Esther so distracted. For years she has painted her own designs, dreaming that one day her husband will weave them into reality. When he laughs at her ambition, she unwittingly sets in motion events that will change the fate of the whole Thorel household and set the scene for a devastating day of reckoning between her and Sara.

The price of a piece of silk may prove more than either is able to pay.

Format: Hardcover, ebook (416 pp.)    Publisher: Quercus Books
Published: 10th January 2019      Genre: Historical Fiction

Pre-order/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 Blackberry and Wild Rose on Goodreads

My Review

Tricked into prostitution as an innocent newcomer to London, Sara Kemp’s rescue by Esther Thorel from the clutches of the awful Mrs. Swann offers her the possibility of gaining control over her life.  However, Sara soon finds that it seems she may have swapped one form of dependence for another, constantly at the beck and call of her new mistress.   Furthermore, the possibility that the shameful details of her previous life may be revealed is a constant fear, especially since not everyone in the Thorel household welcomes her arrival.

Esther’s desire and determination to use her artistic talent to  produce designs for silk is a search for her own form of emancipation, an escape from what she describes at one point as ‘her gilded cage’.  It also becomes an act of defiance in response to her husband Elias’s hypocrisy and deceit – ‘He was not the man I had thought he was and I no longer took his word for granted’ – and his dismissal of her role as nothing more than social status symbol, bed-mate or organiser of their household.  ‘There was no mistress of silk in this house, only a master.’

The stories of Esther and Sara are revealed to the reader in alternating points of view.  Alongside learning their stories, I also enjoyed discovering fascinating detail about the silk weaving process and its place in the Huguenot community of the time.  In an early example of the affects of globalisation, it was interesting to witness how the pressures on the industry as a result of imports from abroad and competition from cheaper material create unrest between the journeymen silk weavers and those who control the Guild system and the silk weavers’ livelihoods.

At the end of the book, Esther and Sara both find themselves facing difficult personal and moral choices that may affect others, some with tragic consequences.  Might their experiences leave both women stronger and open up the possibility of them forging different, more fulfilling paths in the future?

Blackberry and Wild Rose is an impressive, assured debut that will be a treat for fans of historical fiction that feature skilfully crafted female characters and an interesting historical setting.  I received an advance review copy courtesy of publishers, Quercus, and NetGalley.

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In three words: Well-crafted, richly textured, engaging

Try something similar…The Blue by Nancy Bilyeau or A Light of Her Own by Carrie Callaghan (follow links from titles to read my reviews)

sonia veltonAbout the Author

Sonia Velton has been a solicitor in Hong Kong, a Robert Schuman Scholar in Luxembourg and spent eight years being a full-time Mum of three in Dubai. She now lives in Kent. Her first novel, Blackberry and Wild Rose, tells the story of a fictional household of master silk weavers living in eighteenth century Spitalfields. The protagonist is loosely inspired by Anna Maria Garthwaite who was the foremost silk designer of the mid-eighteenth century and the title takes its name from an actual silk design. The novel was shortlisted as a work in progress for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize 2015 and longlisted for the Myslexia Novel Competition. (Photo credit: Goodreads author page)

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Book Review: The Salt of the Earth by Jozéf Wittlin

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The Salt of the EarthAbout the Book

At the beginning of the twentieth century the villagers of the Carpathian mountains lead a simple life, much as they have always done. The modern world has yet to reach the inhabitants of this isolated and remote region of the Habsburg Empire. Among them is Piotr, a bandy-legged peasant, who wants nothing more from life than an official railway cap, a cottage with a mouse-trap and cheese, and a bride with a dowry.

But then the First World War comes to the mountains, and Piotr is drafted into the army. All the weight of imperial authority is used to mould him into an unthinking fighting machine, so that the bewildered peasant can be forced to fight a war as he does not understand, for interests other than his own.

Format: Hardcover (352 pp.)    Publisher: Pushkin Press
Published: 29th November 2018[1935] Genre: Literary Fiction

Purchase Links*
Publisher | 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 Salt of the Earth on Goodreads

My Review

The Salt of the Earth is described by the publishers as ‘a classic war novel, a powerful pacifist tale about the consequences of war on ordinary men’.  Although I had never heard of the book or the author prior to coming across it on NetGalley, I can say that it certainly lives up to that description.  If you care to look for equivalents these probably include modern classics such as All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer by Siegfried Sassoon and Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves.  However, because of its mordant humour, dark satire and ridiculing of those in positions of authority, it also made me think of the film Oh! What a Lovely War.

The book satirizes the absurdities of war and the pompousness, self-importance and (often) ineptitude of those in positions of authority.  These include: Emperor Franz Joseph, ruler of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, presented as a buffoon-like figure, full of puffed-up pride who shows no hesitation in consigning hundreds of thousands of his citizens to war and certain death; and Regimental Sergeant-Major Bachmatiuk, ‘the fanatical expert and high priest of Military Discipline’ who sets more store by precise adherence to military regulations than to the welfare of his soldiers.

The only sympathetic character is poor Piotr, something of an ‘Everyman’ figure.  An illiterate peasant unable to tell his left from his right, he is nonetheless, like many of his fellow Hutsul villagers, drafted into the army of the Emperor.  Piotr is determined to do his duty even though it becomes obvious his trust of those in authority is completely misplaced.  They don’t value him as a human being; he’s just another cog in the machine of war.

I mentioned previously the dark humour and satire in the book, exemplified by the following passage: ‘Newspapers throughout the monarchy were publishing enthusiastic reports from the “theatres of war”, which differ from other theatres in that the actors are also the audience and the audience are the actors.  Every day, images of their directors and prima donnas of the war looked out at you from the newsprint, profiles of old men in uniform, avidly seeking applause, flaunting their immortality gained at the expense of the deaths of other.’  

Because the book is the first in a planned trilogy which was never completed, the reader doesn’t get to learn the fate of poor Piotr, although it is probably correct to assume it wouldn’t have been a happy one (like so many millions of others).

The Salt of the Earth has a fable like quality at time, some imaginative descriptive writing and a dark undertone, all of which it seemed to me was rendered in an accomplished manner by the translator, Patrick Corness.

I received a review copy courtesy of publishers, Pushkin Press, and NetGalley.

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In three words: Satirical, dark, tragic

Try something similar… less satirical but no less tragic, The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason (read my review here)

Jozef WittlinAbout the Author

Wikipedia  ǀ  Goodreads