Tag: Reviews

#BlogTour #BookReview Squire’s Hazard by Carolyn Hughes

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Squire's Hazard Blog Tour BannerWelcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for Squire’s Hazard by Carolyn Hughes, the fifth book in her Meonbridge Chronicles series. My thanks to Carolyn for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my digital review copy. Do check out the post by my tour buddy for today, Debbie at Brook Cottage Books.

Squire’s Hazard is available now as an ebook from Amazon UK at the discounted price of £1.99 for a short time only. It will be published in paperback later this month.

Squire's HazardAbout the Book

How do you overcome the loathing, lust and bitterness threatening you and your family’s honour?

It’s 1363, and in Steyning Castle, Sussex, Dickon de Bohun is enjoying life as a squire in the household of Earl Raoul de Fougère. Or he would be, if it weren’t for Edwin de Courtenay, who’s making his life a misery with his bullying, threatening to expose the truth about Dickon’s birth.

At home in Meonbridge for Christmas, Dickon notices how grown-up his childhood playmate, Libby Fletcher, has become since he last saw her and feels the stirrings of desire. Libby, seeing how different he is too, falls instantly in love. But as a servant to Dickon’s grandmother, Lady Margaret de Bohun, she could surely never be his wife.

Margery Tyler, Libby’s aunt, meeting her niece by chance, learns of her passion for young Dickon. Their conversation rekindles Margery’s long-held rancour against the de Bohuns, whom she blames for all the ills that befell her family, including her own servitude. For years she’s hidden her hunger for revenge, but she can no longer keep her hostility in check.

As the future Lord of Meonbridge, Dickon knows he must rise above de Courtenay’s loathing and intimidation, and get the better of him. And, surely, he must master his lust for Libby, so his own mother’s shocking history is not repeated? Of Margery’s bitterness, however, he has yet to learn…

Beset by the hazards triggered by such powerful and dangerous emotions, can Dickon summon up the courage and resolve to overcome them?

Format: ebook (417 pages)              Publisher: Riverdown Books
Publication date: 6th October 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

Squire’s Hazard is the fifth in Carolyn Hughes’ series featuring the inhabitants of the fictional village of Meonbridge in Hampshire.  Having read and enjoyed all the previous books in the series – Fortune’s Wheel, A Woman’s Lot, De Bohun’s Destiny and Children’s Fate – I feel as if I’m an honorary resident of Meonbridge so invested have I become in the lives of the characters. As I start a new book in the series I find myself wondering about what has happened to particular characters in the interim, whether feuds continue or have been resolved and who’s the latest subject of village gossip.

Even if you haven’t read any of the previous books that won’t be a barrier to enjoying this one because much of the story involves characters learning more about past events in their own families. Some of these cast an entirely different light on people they have come to know, make them think differently about themselves or reveal the reasons for longstanding feuds. For followers of the series this also acts as a useful memory jogger since, over the course of the five books, the reader has been introduced to a large number of characters.  However, what Carolyn Hughes has always done particularly well is to focus more closely on just a few individuals in each book, often female characters. In Squire’s Hazard the story centres on young Dickon de Bohun, heir to Meonbridge, Libby Fletcher, companion to Dickon’s grandmother, and Margery Tyler, Libby’s aunt. They each face their own share of challenges.

For Dickon it’s coming to terms with a very different future than the one he might have imagined, one which brings a new position in society and a new set of responsibilities. It means a change to his relationships with others as well, for example his childhood playmate, Libby. And it doesn’t help that he has become a useful target for the settling of old scores. Meanwhile Libby’s dreams for her future seem to be dashed when what she desires most becomes out of reach. And Margery Tyler is a woman who feels she has been wronged and robbed of her future. In fact, she is still being wronged in the most vile way possible, a chilling demonstration of the imbalance of power in medieval society particularly where women are concerned.

As always in one of Carolyn Hughes’ books, there’s a wealth of detail about medieval life, everything from pottage to potagers.  What comes across strongly is not just the sheer grind of daily life for many but also how early in life people’s futures were determined. For example, Dickon, separated from his family as a boy and sent away to train as a squire. But there are also heartwarming examples of strong family bonds.

In case you’re thinking you might not have a lot in common with people who lived in the 14th century, then consider the fact that many of them experienced the years when the Black Death – or the Great Mortality, as it was known – ravaged England, killing many, creating widows and orphans, and leaving economic hardship in its wake. And although centuries may divide us, the people of Meonbridge share many of the same concerns as us: they worry about their families, their relationships, how to make ends meet, and the future of their community.

As in real life, there are happy endings for some whilst, for others, new challenges and possibilities await. Life can be cruel though. Although Meonbridge will continue to exist, the same cannot be said of all of its inhabitants.  And some actions cast long shadows. Roll on book six!

In three words: Authentic, absorbing, engaging

Carolyn HughesAbout the Author

Carolyn Hughes has lived most of her life in Hampshire. With a first degree in Classics and English, she started working life as a computer programmer, then a very new profession. But it was technical authoring that later proved her vocation, as she wrote and edited material, some fascinating, some dull, for an array of different clients, including banks, an international hotel group and medical instruments manufacturers.

Having written creatively for most of her adult life, it was not until her children flew the nest several years ago that writing historical fiction took centre stage, alongside gaining a Master’s degree in Creative Writing from Portsmouth University and a PhD from the University of Southampton.

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#BookReview The House of Birds by Morgan McCarthy

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TheHouseofBirdsAbout the Book

Oliver has spent years trying to convince himself that he’s suited to a life of money making in the city, and that he doesn’t miss a childhood spent in pursuit of mystery, when he cycled around the cobbled lanes of Oxford, exploring its most intriguing corners.

When his girlfriend Kate inherits a derelict house – and a fierce family feud – she’s determined to strip it, sell it and move on. For Oliver though, the house has an allure, and amongst the shelves of discarded, leather bound and gilded volumes, he discovers one that conceals a hidden diary from the 1920s.

So begins a quest: to discover the identity of the author, Sophia Louis. It is a portrait of war and marriage, isolation and longing and a story that will shape the future of the abandoned house – and of Oliver – forever.

Format: Paperback (464 pages)  Publisher: Tinder Press
Publication date: 1st June 2017 Genre: Dual Time

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My Review

It will come as no secret to regular followers of this blog that I sometimes find dual-time novels problematic, often finding myself more drawn to the past timeline than the present. However, in The House of Birds, the author manages to pull off the feat of making the two timelines both equally interesting and, indeed, interdependent.

The book moves between the present day story of Oliver, who finds himself rather adrift having quit a job he never really liked but not sure exactly what he wants to do next, and that of Sophia Louis whose life is documented in a journal Oliver discovers when clearing out the old house inherited by his girlfriend, Kate, who is off in New York pursuing a promotion opportunity. What starts as a project to fill a gap between jobs becomes something more as Oliver begins to feel a connection with the house, an obligation to save it even.  Unravelling the mystery of just who Sophia Louis was and what became of her provides Oliver with something to focus on, to draw him out of his apathetic state.

I liked the way Sophia’s story is revealed in instalments, in a way that is akin to a puzzle. Indeed, at one point, Oliver becomes irritated that her journal ends suddenly and, seemingly, unfinished. ‘Oliver was baffled and outraged. He felt keenly that Sophia – so aware of her reader had treated him unfairly.’ I also loved Sophia’s witty, teasing style of writing, often addressing her reader directly. But just who is Sophia’s intended reader? And why did she feel the need to hide the journal?

The story Sophia tells is one of disappointment, sadness, forbidden love, thwarted ambition, and the cruel and longlasting legacy of war, in this case the First World War. The latter is embodied in a character who is a tragic figure – ‘the grim king of a grim land’ – imprisoned in self-imposed silence and seeing the world as full of danger, of ‘black and smoking chaos’.

But how much of the story Sophia tells is true? Could her journal be fiction rather than fact? Indeed, Oliver ponders, ‘What if Sophia were a character in someone else’s novel?’ (I bet the author had a little chuckle to herself when she wrote that.)

As Oliver follows the trail Sophia has left, puzzling it out alongside the reader, it causes him to reflect on his own life. As he observes, ‘It’s ironic really. [Sophia] knew exactly what she wanted, but she couldn’t have any of it. I’ve had the opportunity to do whatever I want to do, and it seems like in almost thirty years I’ve only just managed to work out what that might be’. Oliver undergoes a kind of epiphany as he realises it’s not too late to pursue his childhood ambition, a path he was dissuaded from taking by his parents. In a way, he comes to feel he owes it to Sophia.

There is some beautiful descriptive writing, full of clever metaphors, such as this passage in which Oliver, as a young boy, first glimpses the rather neglected ‘House of Birds’ and its overgrown garden.

‘The darkly varnished ivy was tussling with the white bindweed over ownership of a sagging fence, while not far away, a honeysuckle, unchallenged, had claimed a garden table and swallowed a small tree. The lawn was an army massing under high spears, its regiments filing into the cracks between the paving stones to do battle with the dandelions. Above them the wisteria maintained a lordly rule over the house itself, loaded with it spectacular purple flowers, hundreds of fluttering confetti showers clamouring for the friskings of the bees.’

The House of Birds is the first novel I’ve read by Morgan McCarthy and, although she has written three previous novels, none of them appear to have been as positively received by readers as this one, and she has written nothing since. That’s a shame because I really enjoyed The House of Birds. I found the story enthralling, romantic without being sentimental and with some really clever touches. In fact, I imagined Sophia laughing to herself at an inspired one that occurs towards the end of the book.

In three words: Tender, intriguing, assured

Try something similar: The House at Helygen by Victoria Hawthorne

Morgan McCarthyAbout the Author

Morgan McCarthy lives in Berkshire, and has been writing since primary school. She is the author of four novels: The Other Half of Me, The Outline of Love, Strange Girls and Ordinary Women, and The House of Birds. (Bio/photo: Publisher author page)

Connect with Morgan
Website |  Goodreads