Tag: Reading Challenges

Book Review: The Poison Bed by E. C. Fremantle

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The Poison BedAbout the Book

A king, his lover and his lover’s wife. One is a killer.

In the autumn of 1615 scandal rocks the Jacobean court when a celebrated couple are imprisoned on suspicion of murder. She is young, captivating and from a notorious family. He is one of the richest and most powerful men in the kingdom.

Some believe she is innocent; others think her wicked or insane. He claims no knowledge of the murder. The king suspects them both, though it is his secret at stake.

Who is telling the truth? Who has the most to lose? And who is willing to commit murder?

Format: Hardcover, ebook (416 pp.)    Publisher: Michael Joseph
Published: 14th June 2018                      Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery

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

Find The Poison Bed on Goodreads

My Review

Told in alternating chapters entitled ‘Him’ and ‘Her’, the book opens with the imprisonment in the Tower of the two main characters.  What follows is a series of flashbacks starting with the beginning of their relationship to their arrest and imprisonment.   It’s a story of friendship, betrayal, secrets, lies and, more than anything, obsessive love.  Based on a true event and featuring the actual historical figures, it is nevertheless a work of fiction and speculation on the part of the author as far as the feelings and motivation of the main characters is concerned.

Initially, both characters come across as pawns in a power game played by those seeking influence at the very top of the court of King James I.  ‘The court’s divisions were laid bare, each faction seeking a way to score points against the other, as if our lives were a game of chess.’   However, at around two thirds of the way through the book, the author throws a completely unexpected and absolutely brilliant curve ball which certainly made this reader rethink everything I’d read so far and question where my sympathies lay.

The Poison Bed is an intense and compelling historical mystery full of authentic period detail but which reads like a modern day psychological thriller.  I thought it was fabulous.  It’s definitely a book where the content lives up to the promise of its gorgeous cover.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of publishers, Michael Joseph, and NetGalley in return for an honest and unbiased review.

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In three words: Intense, compelling, suspenseful

Try something similar…Our Kind of Cruelty by Araminta Hall (read my review here)

ElizabethFremantleAbout the Author

E. C. Fremantle also writes under the name Elizabeth Fremantle.

Elizabeth has a first in English and an MA in creative writing from Birkbeck, University of London. She has contributed to various publications including The Sunday Times, Vogue, Vanity Fair, The Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal. She also reviews fiction for The Sunday Express.

Connect with Elizabeth

Website  ǀ  Facebook  ǀ  Twitter  ǀ Goodreads

Buchan of the Month: Introducing…The Half-Hearted

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Buchan of the Month

The Half-Hearted is the sixth book in my John Buchan reading project, Buchan of the Month. You can find out more about the project and my reading list for 2018 here.  If you would like to read along with me you will be very welcome – leave a comment on this post or on my original challenge post.

What follows is an introduction to the book (no spoilers!).  It is also an excuse to show off a picture of my (undated) Hodder & Stoughton edition of The Half-Hearted (without dust jacket unfortunately).  I will be posting my review of the book later in the month.

The HalfheartedThe Half-Hearted was written in 1899 and published in September 1900 by Isbister & Co Ltd. However, it had first appeared in serial form (in thirty-three parts) earlier that year in Good Words, a magazine also published by Isbister.  Hodder & Stoughton published a new edition of The Half-Hearted in 1920.

Buchan’s first contemporary novel, The Half-Hearted is dedicated to his friends, Raymond Asquith, Harold Baker and Cuthbert Medd.  Buchan’s first biographer, Janet Adam-Smith, believes its hero, Lewis Haystoun, owes much to Raymond Asquith.  The book features a very current issue in foreign affairs at the time, the so-called Great Game being played out between Britain and Russia in Central Asia and, in particular, the North-West Frontier of India (also the subject of Rudyard Kipling’s Kim).

In Lewis Haystoun, Buchan explores the idea that a life of easy pleasure may result in a man becoming ‘morally soft’.  As Lewis sets off into dangerous territory he feels, ‘At last he had found a man’s work.  He has never had a chance before.  Life had been too easy and sheltered; he had been coddled like a child; he had never really roughed it except for his own pleasure.  Now he was outside this backbone of the world with a task before him, and only his wits for his servant.’  It’s probable these were close to Buchan’s own views.

David Daniell describes The Half-Hearted as ‘an interestingly uneven novel’ and as A Lost Lady of Old Years ‘brought up to the present and turned upside-down and inside-out’.  (You can read my review of A Lost Lady of Old Years here.)  However, Daniell does admit that there are some ‘marvellous things’ in The Half-Hearted.  Why not join me in reading The Half-Hearted and see what you can find that is marvellous.  The book is also one of my #20BooksofSummer.

Sources:

David Daniell, The Interpreter’s House: A Critical Assessment of the Work of John Buchan (Nelson, 1975), pp.75-78
Janet Adam Smith, John Buchan: A Biography (OUP, 1985 [1965]), pp.98- 101