Tag: Historical Fiction

Posted in Netgalley

The Mourning Necklace by Kate Foster

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Inspired by an infamous real-life case, The Mourning Necklace is the unforgettable feminist historical novel from the Women’s Prize-longlisted author of The Maiden, Kate Foster.

They said I would swing for the crime, and I did . . .

1724. In a tavern just outside Edinburgh, Maggie Dickson’s family drown their sorrows, mourning her death yet relieved she is gone. Shame haunts them. Hanged for the murder of her newborn child, passers-by avert their eyes from her cheap coffin on its rickety cart.

But as her family pray her soul rests in peace, a figure appears at the door.

It is Maggie. She is alive.

Bruised and dazed, Maggie has little time for her family’s questions. All that matters to her is answering this one: will they hang her twice?

What a brilliant advocate Kate Foster is for these women she finds in historical documents, often in dire situations in their time for ‘crimes’ it’s hard to comprehend today. Although, in our heroine Maggie’s case, this has novel does have some relevance to modern day America where politicians seemingly wish to revert to the Puritan values last seen when the first settlers arrived and James VI of Scotland was on the throne. In some states we have recently seen women arrested after stillbirths or miscarriages, something I find disturbing and is deeply traumatic for a bereaved woman in her most vulnerable state. This is the fate that awaits Maggie, but first Kate takes us back to how Maggie ended up in this terrible situation. Maggie and her younger sister Joan have grown up in a coastal village known for its fishing and the strong, hardworking women that mend the nets and clean the fish ready for market. It’s a hard life and not one that Maggie wants forever. She dreams of living in London and making her own life there. So, when Patrick Spencer walks into their cottage one evening, with his sparkling eyes and easy charm Maggie sees someone like her, who wants to make their own luck. He has come to ask father if he could store some items in their safe – something the family do from time to time for tea merchants. These are altogether different ingredients, they are ingredients for perfume. Patrick wants to open his own perfume shop and will occasionally be passing through with expensive ingredients, could they agree a price to store them? Maggie knows she isn’t the beauty of the family because anyone can see that’s Joan. She isn’t even the favourite, but she does know that if Patrick is looking for a wife to support and help him in business that she’s the best choice. When he takes her out walking one evening she hopes that perhaps he’s seen someone as ambitious and hardworking as he is. Their courtship and marriage are a whirlwind and they’re soon living in a bungalow closer to the centre of the village. Married life is not what Maggie expected, after all her only example is her mother and father and they’ve always come in third place after his drinking and his temper, but she’s in thrall to Patrick. So, it’s a terrible shock when she hears the news that a press gang has visited the hotel bar in town and they’ve taken Patrick into the navy. 

Maggie doesn’t have many choices. She’ll need income in a short while or she must return to her family. Maybe this is the only chance she has of getting herself to London and as the days go by she’s ever more sure that she’s having a baby, it must be now. Her mind is made up by a terrible betrayal and she sets off, reaching a a quiet market town where she picks up some work in the inn, concealing her pregnancy and living in an upstairs room. However, the truth always finds a way out and it’s not long before she finds herself standing in front of the justices to answer charges of concealing a pregnancy and infanticide. 

I was fascinated by Maggie’s story immediately, desperate to find out how she survived the gallows and whether she could advocate well enough for herself to avoid a second hanging. She’s a dreamer, but she’s also determined and incredibly intelligent. It’s this combination of qualities that Patrick sees in her and why he thinks she will be a good partner to him. Although his wandering libido destroys their chances all too quickly. Maggie’s ambition to carry on her plans after his disappearance has all the impetuosity and ignorance of youth. She would never be able to hide her pregnancy for long, if she’d been honest about being pregnant and her husband deserting her I had a feeling that the innkeeper might just have given her a chance anyway. There is curiosity about her though and an attempt at friendship teaches her that there are far worse ways to live than being a fishwife. It also puts her in the path of a local doctor who is so unpleasant that I wanted to wash my hands just reading about him. However, it’s the early arrival and sudden death of her daughter that has her transported to Edinburgh. This is a capital case and must be heard by the best justices in the land, although it’s common knowledge they drink at lunchtime. What’s amazing about Maggie is her ability to adapt and keep going. Despite being dealt a terrible hand, her will to survive and to appreciate the humble life she once had is admirable. She is a match for any man, whether it’s a hangman, the justices, her husband or even her violent and drunken father. She will make sure she has her dues from Patrick Spencer and that she will remove her mother and sister from the cottage where they’ve spent their lives fearing payday and her father’s visit to the inn. She is a better woman than me because I’d have left my sister there. Joan is one of those characters you want to slap, but I think that Maggie can see she was just another starry eyed girl being manipulated by a man used to getting his way. 

As always Kate’s novels are rich with description, placing us very firmly in Scotland and in very different establishments. Maggie’s family live in a one room cottage and all of them work incredibly hard, but they need the extra money they make from holding onto goods for those avoiding the law or the tax office. Despite a poor existence the family have a rich community around them and a long tradition of fishwives. When she’s in Kelso Maggie learns that the women of Fisherrrow are well thought of and known for their hard work. It’s the heritage she wants to escape that gets her first job. The cottage where she lives with Patrick is a step up but still a world away from the women who would buy his perfumes. The doctor in Kelso has a grand house, but once Maggie knows what takes place within its walls she could never envy it. All of is thrown into stark relief by the squalor of where she’s held awaiting trial. It’s filthy, filled with vermin and women willing to exchange sexual favors with the guards for extra privileges. Maggie would rather go hungry. Each of these worlds is beautifully rendered and I could see it all very clearly in my mind’s eye. 

I am amazed by the talent of Kate Foster that she is able to find these cases from Scottish history and breathe life into them. She takes them from a simple story in a news sheet of the time and like many of us who aspire to write she thinks ‘this would make a good novel’ and actually fleshes out these characters and places with what must be endless research. She creates women who feel like they could be one of us. Instead of being a distant newspaper headline they become real, with hopes and dreams and make incredibly relatable mistakes. Having lost my own babies I felt so much for Maggie at that moment and understood completely her need to say her own goodbye. For a long time it has been just the two of them and I could see that it would feel strange to involve others, they’d never known her anyway. I flew through the rest of the novel to find out how Maggie would move on from her moment on the gallows, should she be successful in arguing for her life first. Would she go back to her fishing village and the shared room with her parents? Would she make bold choices in order to remain independent? Or would she look for the man who set all this in motion and look for revenge or reparations? I loved the idea of the scar round her neck as a mourning necklace. There’s something about setting making inner wounds visible that resonates very strongly with humans. How many of us go on to have a tattoo after a traumatic or memorable event? Anyone who has gone through a profound experience has a sense of being stationary as the rest of the world keeps turning. When recently bereaved I wondered why people couldn’t see just how changed I was and I was frustrated by my inability to explain. Losing a baby is so hard because you are a mother, but because you don’t have a child no one ever sees you that way. Maggie could see her scar as a mark of shame, to be covered. However, she chooses to wear it with pride because it is proof that her little girl lived. I felt proud of Maggie, which might be a strange thing to say about a fictional character, but I was so happy that she took the path she did. Hardened by experience, she thinks of her fellow women first, but doesn’t allow that experience to completely rob her of a future. This is the best of her novels so far and that’s a high accolade considering how good they were. 

Meet the Author

Kate Foster worked as a national newspaper journalist for more than twenty years before becoming an author. Growing up in Edinburgh, she became fascinated by its history and often uses it as inspiration for her stories. Her previous novels include The Maiden, which won the Bloody Scotland Crime Debut of the Year and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and The King’s Witches. The Mourning Necklace is her third novel. She lives in Edinburgh with her two children.

Posted in Netgalley

Dear Miss Lake by A.J. Pearce

Posted on by thelotusreaders

It was lovely to be back with the gang at Woman’s Friend magazine and particularly with our narrator Emmy Lake as they enter the final and arguably most difficult stretch of WW2. After five years of war both the team and their readers are tired. As a way of boosting morale at the magazine Emmy suggests they all decamp to Bunty and Harold in the countryside. As Hitler’s V1 and V2 bombs start to hit, it will certainly be safer. Emmy strongly feels they all need a boost in order to keep supporting and inspiring the women who read their magazine. If they’re tired and the magazine suffers, how will their readership keep the fight going? Although they’ll still be working, the children, the animals and the beautiful countryside should have the desired effect. Plus, for Emmy, she’ll be closer to where her husband Charles is posted and she’ll be with her best friend Bunty. Emmy throws herself into rural life and is soon organising games nights, competitive knitting and planning the very important wedding of their officer administrator Hester and her fiance Clarence. She also has an important phone call from the ministry to travel abroad and report from the French field hospitals looking after the wounded. She even manages to mastermind a break into husband Charles’s barracks before they’re both deployed. Emmy has no idea how much she’s going to need those around her in the coming months as her hardest test is yet to come. On their return to London after the summer she receives a telegram to say that Charles is missing, presumed captured, in enemy territory and she has the agonising wait for the confirmation letter. Then Hester receives a blow when Clarence calls to say he’s being deployed in three days, two days before their planned wedding. Hester is inconsolable and after catching Emmy in a moment of frustration, she disappears. However, Emmy isn’t one to dwell on her misfortunes for long and I wondered what schemes and plans she would hatch next. 

This is a very fitting end to the Emmy Lake series, because it showed, no matter how Pollyanna our attitude is, it is okay to sometimes find we’ve run out of steam. It’s hard to imagine what five years of war must feel like when we take into consideration women having to work, look after children, support their husbands and face the fear of losing someone important to them or even their home if situated in London or other major cities. The nearest thing we have to such upheaval is the COVID pandemic and that meant two years of shielding for me. However, I still had tv to stream, books to read and could send myself little treats from Amazon or Betty’s tearooms. I can’t imagine how I’d have felt if I was exhausted from working, missing my husband, had the possibility of a bomb coming through the ceiling and had to find the tenth thing to do with a cabbage. Although the Lakes and friends are relatively okay financially, many were not and the author brings in these experiences through the magazine where some readers are infuriated with the magazine’s rather chirpy, optimistic tone or want to vent about the desperate situations they’re in. I loved the storylines about unexpected pregnancies as I could really understand getting carried away in the moment when someone you love is being deployed to fight, perhaps never to return. I could also imagine myself being swept off my feet by an American GI or one of the Polish airman posted only a few miles away from my village all those years ago. I could absolutely understand why some readers lost their faith in the magazine and whether it’s writers truly understood the predicaments some readers were in. I could also understand if Emmy did run out of patience, because sometimes the only answer is ‘talk to the people who love you’ no matter how angry or disappointed they might seem at first. It always gets easier.

 When news arrives that Charles’s secret mission was Arnhem and he’s been captured behind enemy lines, it takes a while for Emmy’s emotions to catch up with the news. She has all the information at her fingertips, having had years of finding out what to do for her readers. Practically she’s doing all she can, plus organising the Christmas Fair and making connections with other POW wives. She’s particularly proud of the piece she wrote for the ministry on the military hospitals so hopes for another mission. When she, the editor and publisher are pulled in for a chat the news isn’t good. It’s this that seems to bring her to a standstill. Returning to the magazine office she’s despondent and feels a deep sense of injustice, leading to a sudden and misdirected rant. Things go from bad to worse when the next morning, Hester has gone missing. Emmy knows she took her cancelled wedding plans hard, but surely that’s not the reason for her disappearance? Could it have been her own moment of anger and emotion that provoked this sudden reaction? Emmy realises how much of a lifeline they all are to each other and resolves to find her, whatever it may take. 

A.J. Pearce has written a triumph of a series in this quartet of books and in her main character too. We’ve experienced the ups and downs of different editors and publishers, the staff’s other responsibilities for their families and war jobs such as the fire service or driving ambulances, as well as terrible losses on the battlefield and in the Blitz. Through what seems on the surface to be a light-hearted and perhaps frivolous lens, I’ve learned so much about what it was like to be a young woman during WW2. It’s given me an insight into my grandparent’s generation – my Aunty Connie who was an unmarried mother and a subsequent marriage to my Uncle John who suffered from PTSD after his ship was attacked and his friend was blown up right next to him. My grandad went into the army just as war was ending and experienced the other side’s struggles – German cities destroyed by our bombardments and people living in the ruins of their homes. I don’t know if I’d have the strength and determination to contribute in the way people did, something brought into sharp focus when I had to discuss what the war in Ukraine could mean for those who’ve served in the forces but are still under reserve? Could I cope if he was called back in?

Strength is one of those things we find reserves of when the situation demands it of us and I have no doubt I could keep the ‘home fires burning” but I certainly don’t have the grit that some of the Ukrainian women are showing, having lost their husband then joining up to fight themselves. I feel the author doesn’t let us forget the sacrifice and loss in people’s lives at this time, but still manages to bring in humour and a defiantly upbeat make do and mend attitude. This is the closest I’ve seen Emmy come to breaking point and it’s hard to do when you’re the one whose role it is to buoy everybody else up. As she finds out though, those who she’s helped and supported are so happy to be able to return the favour and support her. This is a set of books I always recommend, to women of all ages, because it’s so easy to relate to one of the characters and absolutely root for them. The main impression I take away from them is that sense of female solidarity. The instinct we have to come together, share the load and make each other’s lives a little easier – from taking on someone’s children all the way down to being there with a meal or a shoulder to cry on. Emmy uses her writing to do the same and triumphs in being exactly what the magazine promises – the Woman’s Friend. 

Meet the Author

AJ Pearce was born in Hampshire, UK. Her favourite subjects at school were English and History, which now (finally!) makes sense.

Her debut novel Dear Mrs Bird was a Sunday Times Bestseller and Richard and Judy Bookclub Pick. It was shortlisted for Debut of the Year at The 2019 British Book Awards and has been published in the USA, Canada and Australia and in translation in over fifteen languages.

Dear Mrs Bird was the first in AJ’s series The Wartime Chronicles which now includes Yours Cheerfully and Mrs Porter Calling. Her books are funny, sometimes extremely sad, but always uplifting stories about a group of women standing together to face the challenges of World War II.

The fourth and final book in the series, Dear Miss Lake, will be published in the UK on 5 July 2025 (and on 3 August in the USA and Canada).

When not writing books, AJ enjoys being fairly rubbish at a variety of hobbies and has recently started to learn to paint, with so far messy although enthusiastic results.

Follow AJ on Instagram, Facebook and Threads: @ajpearcewrites.

Posted in Monthly Wrap Up

Best Books July 2025.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I’ve had a lovely reading month because even the books I had for blog tours, turned out to be fantastic reads. Any of these could easily make my end of the year list and some are by authors I’ve never read before. Others were from series I’d lost touch with and one has an incredible back story of the struggle the author had to get it published. I feel very privileged, looking back and realising what an incredible month of reading I’ve had. I’m already looking forward to next month’s choices.

This was one of those unexpected joys, a book I’d heard very little about and chose to read with my Squad Pod just on a short synopsis. I had no idea whether I’d enjoy it or not, but it turned out to be fascinating and very apt, because I’d been reading about Functional Neurological Disorder. Havoc is a brilliant combination of school drama, mystery and dark comedy featuring a wonderful character called Ida who lives on a remote Scottish island with her mother and sister, after fleeing from her mother’s boyfriend Peter. What started as a lonely but safe place to live, became impossible when her mother did something unforgivable and the island’s inhabitants turned against them. Deciding she wants to leave, Ida looks for private boarding schools who provide scholarship places and discovers one, as far away from Scotland as she can find. St Anne’s sits on the south coast of England, so remote and underwhelming that the school are terribly surprised when their scholarship student actually turns up. No one ever has before, so they don’t have anywhere suitable to put her. The school is ramshackle and in danger of falling off the cliffs and the food is questionable and often tastes of fish, even when it isn’t. Ida is placed in a double room with school miscreant Louise and starts to settle in. However, things take a very strange turn when Head Girl Diane becomes unwell, starting with strange jerks of the arms and soon descending into full blown seizures. Soon after, Diane’s friend April is sick and then starts the familiar pattern of jerks. By the time a third girl has the same symptoms outside agencies such as environmental health, doctors and the police start to descend on the school. Is this illness a virus or is it environmental? Could it be something more sinister like poison? This was a fascinating and often amusing read, with an illness that shares the symptoms of FND – a syndrome where neurological symptoms are present and real, but are often somatic. Although it’s also possible some malign force is at work, especially when rat poison appears in an unexpected place. Louise and Ida are a dastardly duo and I also loved the friendship between the school’s geography teacher and her strident and rather cynical flatmate. Little surprises are everywhere and I would love to meet the characters again,

This book was the total opposite of the last in that I’ve heard nothing but praise for A.J.West’s newest novel. I’d loved The Spirit Engineer so much and I knew the struggle he’d had to get this published, but he believed in it and I’m so glad he was picked up by my favourite indie publisher Orenda Books. A match made in heaven. Having been supervised for my university dissertation by a lecturer who specialises in 18th Century Literature and secret sexualities, this was the perfect marriage of subject and style for me. I love when post-modern authors write back to a time in history to place people into their historical context. These are people who were erased from history due to their disability, sexuality or the colour of their skin. This has been done so well by authors like Sarah Waters who features 19th Century lesbians, Lila Cain whose main character were freed slaves in The Blackbirds of St Giles and Suzanne Collins, whose novel The Crimson Petal and the White is narrated by Sugar, a young prostitute with a disability.

Thomas True wears its vast amount of research lightly and definitely follows the style of the picaresque novel, where a young naive person makes their way into the big wide world with some humorous and rather risqué adventures. This young innocent travels to seek his fortune in London and is robbed on the highway, falling into the ‘wrong’ company – here this is the Molly House run by Mother Clap. A giant but gentlemanly man called Gabriel has brought him here and he is intrigued by the merriment, the wearing of women’s clothes and the safety of a place without scrutiny. This is above all a love story.  Thomas can’t possibly know how important this moment will be in his life, but it’s pivotal to his journey, his future and his heart. Far from the genteel worlds of Bridgerton and Jane Austen, the author creates a richly imaginative setting that brought all my senses to life – but not always in a good way. London is grim, overcrowded and disgusting. One scene where a body needs to be extracted from a ditch full of sewage is revolting. Even Mother Clap’s has a grotesque feel. These are not the preened and powdered men you might expect. Gabriel is huge, hairy and spends all day doing a heavy building job. He and Thomas have a complicated journey, one naive and optimistic and the other haunted by his past. You’ll be transfixed, hoping for their outcome to be a happy one but knowing this is a city that punishes ‘mollies’ by hanging and when the mysterious ‘rat’ betrays the men from Mother Clap’s the danger becomes very real. You can tell I loved it by the amount I write about it! It’s a definite must read.

I knew from the first page that this novel was going to be special and it is utterly brilliant and an unbelievably good debut from Florence Knapp. It’s 1987 and Cora is going to register the birth of her baby boy. His name has been settled on because Cora’s husband has chosen his own name for his son – Gordon. But it wouldn’t be Cora’s choice. Cora’s choice would be something that doesn’t tie him so obviously to his father. She thinks Julian would suit him. Little sister Maia looks in the pram at her brother and decides he looks like he should be called Bear. All of these options swirl around in Cora’s head. In this moment, Cora has the power to make a choice and it’s done. It can’t be changed. What would happen if she went with Julian or even Bear? In the short term Gordon would be furious. How bad would it be this time? Long term, would it change her baby’s character or path in life? This is exactly what Florence Knapp does with her story. The book splits into three narratives and we discover what happens to this whole family, depending on Cora’s choice for her baby boy’s name. 

We then move on seven years and meet Bear, a name that proves to be a catalyst for change. We also meet Cora’s choice, Julian – the choice she hoped would break him free from domineering generations of Gordons. Although, what if he is called Gordon? Brought up by a cruel father to continue in the same mould perhaps? Or he might just break free from the shackles of his name? Each life is sparked by this one decision but it isn’t just Cora’s son’s story. This is the life of the whole family with all its ups and downs. It’s about how trauma shapes lives and whether love brings healing and hope to every version of who we are. Even her minor characters absolutely shine. Grandmother Silbhe and her friend Cian are so wonderful, modelling healthy male/female relationships for Julian and Maia. Cian is also Julian’s mentor at work, bringing out a creative side that needs nurturing. Julian needs to work with his hands and meeting fellow creatives helps him find his tribe. Lily is lovely character and we get to know her best during Bear’s narrative. I loved how she has to find a balance between giving Bear the freedom he needs without breaking her own boundaries in the relationship. It’s an utterly compelling debut and zooms straight into the list of best books I’ve read so far this year. The author brings incredible psychological insight to a story about how our names shape our identity, our relationships and our life choices. Something we didn’t even choose. Can it influence us to a huge extent, or do we become the same person no matter what the choice? 

Rachel Joyce is a must-buy author for me and she gets better and better. This brilliant novel focuses on a bohemian family; Vic the father who is an artist and his four children – Netta, Susan, Iris and Goose (short for Gustav and the only boy). They’ve been parented by Vic and a series of au pairs after the sudden death not long after Iris was born. Their father’s art came first always and the conditions he needed in order to create were paramount so the oldest girls often played the mother role for Iris and Goose, especially when Vic inevitably slept with the au pairs. Vic was not an artist celebrated by the establishment. The description of his paintings brought Jack Vettriano to mind, criticised heavily by the art world, but very popular with the public. Now grown up, his children are stunned when Vic starts losing weight and drinking green, sludgy health drinks. His diet is being looked after by his new girlfriend, 27 year old Bella-Mae. None of his children have met her and she doesn’t seem keen to try. Within weeks Vic announces they’re engaged and Netta suggests that they all stand back and give this the space it needs to fizzle out. A couple of weeks later, Vic announces their marriage with a single photograph from the family home in Orta on Isola Son Guilio with Bella-Mae in such a heavy veil they can’t make out her face. They are staying at the house, situated on an island in the middle of a lake, but only two days later Netta is stunned by a phone call from a stranger called Laszlo, claiming to be Bella’s cousin. Vic has been dragged from the lake, drowned after a morning swim went wrong as the mist descended. Why would Vic go swimming in the mist? His children come together to travel to Orta, to finally meet their new stepmother and to find out whether she has killed their father. 

Bella isn’t what the siblings expect and nor is the villa, which has been changed in decor and atmosphere. She seems insubstantial and too fragile to have caused such an uproar. Especially when they’ve pictured her with an iron will, imposing her diet on their father and gaining their inheritance. She will prove to be a mirror through which each of them evaluate their lives. I love family sagas and this one is brilliant. It’s psychologically fascinating and I’m not going to ruin that for you by delving too deeply. I was absolutely transfixed! I couldn’t work out whether there was deliberate manipulation at play or if this was just a case of an outsider causing people to view everything through a different lens. Is Bella a destructive force or a helpful one? Whatever she is, the siblings will have to look at themselves, their choices and their relationship to their father. Some revelations will be explosive and take place in the open air- one particular meal is cataclysmic. Other revelations are quieter, insidious or internal but no less devastating. An utterly brilliant read for someone who loves complicated and tangled relationships. I LOVED it.

This book opened with a heart-stopping scene that set the pace for the rest of the story. Helen is relaxing after meeting her lover in a luxury hotel. While he has a shower, she is in her nightgown and robe enjoying the night time view over downtown Southampton. Movement suddenly catches her eye and she’s drawn to a woman who’s running down a darkened street towards a precinct of shops, pursued by two men. As they catch up, one of them pulls out a bicycle chain and starts to beat the woman. Helen doesn’t wait or think, tearing out of the hotel room and down several flights of stairs as she’s too impatient to wait for the lift. She tears down the dark street hoping that someone has called the police. Helen flies at one of the attackers, who is taken completely by surprise and she soon disables the second attacker before turning to the woman who has been badly beaten. She looks like she’s from the Middle East perhaps, with two very distinctive tattoos placed on her forehead and chin. Unfortunately, Helen has committed the cardinal sin of combat and has turned her back on her attackers. The next thing she feels is a huge bang to her head and then everything goes dark. This opening scene tells me this will be a gritty, modern thriller with a kick-ass heroine. 

This is the thirteenth novel in the DI Helen Grace series and I’m seriously out of touch with the character, having only read the first couple of novels after picking them up in a book swap. Helen is working on her own initiative after handing in her notice at the end of the last novel, with her protege Charlie being promoted in her place. Helen doesn’t know what the next step is, but she’s been enjoying the break. The only thing she misses is the camaraderie of a team and although she has enough money to really think about what’s next, she is anxious about it. Although life will bring it’s own answer soon enough and it might be the last thing she’s expecting. She starts to investigate alone, feeding into Charlie who is trying to target traffickers and their victims coming through the port in lorries and containers. The story is told mainly through Helen’s eyes, but also through the narratives of two other women. Viyan is another trafficked Kurdish Syrian woman and Emilia is a journalist whose father is dying in prison. At first we’re not sure how all of these narratives fit together but slowly they form a cohesive picture. Helen is formidable! You will hold your breath for the final showdown and all the women involved. Each short punchy chapter is action packed and will keep you reading ‘just the next chapter’ until it’s 2am. I now need to set aside time and read the ten novels between this and the last one I read. I’ll probably load up the kindle with them before I go on holiday so I can carry on without interruption. This was a belting, action-packed, female led, crime thriller and I recommend it highly. 

August TBR

Posted in Sunday Spotlight

Sunday Spotlight. City Break in a Book: Prague

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Prague is one of those places on the bucket list that I’ve never managed to get to, but I’m very drawn to it. There’s something about Prague that’s a touch gothic, mystical and dark. It strikes me as being like Venice, a place where you can almost touch the layers of history. A thin place, where you might take a wrong turn and end up in the 18th Century. Prague knows you are temporary, while it endures forever. That is probably just a romantic notion, but I’m looking forward to testing out my impressions. Much of the fiction I’ve read deals with the city’s history and I’m hoping some of these choices might tempt you to visit too, if only in one of these books.

An intriguing and almost hallucinogenic novel that has Kafka in its DNA. Blake is a pornographer who photographs corpses. Ten years ago, a young man becomes a fugitive when a redhead disappears on abridge in the rain. Now, at the turn of the millennium, another redhead has turned up in the morgue, and the fugitive can’t get the dead girl’s image out of his head. For Blake, it’s all a game — a funhouse where denial is the currency, deceit is the grand prize, and all doors lead to one destination: murder. In the psychological noir-scape of Kafkaville, the rain never stops, and redemption is just another betrayal away. Armand is an Australian writer who lives in Prague and is director of the Centre of Critical and Cultural Theory. This is definitely not for everyone, but just go with it as he strips bare this society and reveals it in all its decadence.

Prague Spring is a wonderfully atmospheric portrait of the city as well as a political and historical thriller with dashes of espionage. It’s the summer of 1968, the year of love and hate, of Prague Spring and Cold War winter. Two English students, Ellie and James, set off to hitch-hike across Europe with no particular aim in mind but a continent, and themselves, to discover. Somewhere in southern Germany they decide, on a whim, to visit Czechoslovakia where Alexander Dubcek’s ‘socialism with a human face’ is smiling on the world. Meanwhile Sam Wareham, a first secretary at the British embassy in Prague, is observing developments in the country with a mixture of diplomatic cynicism and a young man’s passion. In the company of Czech student Lenka Konecková, he finds a way into the world of Czechoslovak youth, its hopes and its ideas. It seems that, for the first time, nothing is off limits behind the Iron Curtain. Yet the wheels of politics are grinding in the background. The Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev is making demands of Dubcek and the Red Army is massed on the borders. How will the looming disaster affect those fragile lives caught up in the invasion? This is a great read about a city teetering on the edge of one of it’s most significant moments in history.

The banned books club was only the beginning; a place for the women of Prague to come together and share the tales the Germans wanted to silence. Is she brave? No, she’s just a bookshop girl doing whatever she can.

For bookshop owner, Jana, doing the right thing was never a question. So when opportunity comes to help the resistance, she offers herself – and her bookshop. Using her window displays as covert signals and hiding secret codes in book marks, she’ll do all in her power to help.

But the arrival of two people in her bookshop will change everything: a young Jewish boy with nowhere else to turn, and a fascist police captain Jana can’t read at all. In a time where secrets are currency and stories can be fatal, will she know who to trust? If you enjoy Kristin Hannah you’ll love this story from WW2.

Oh my friend, won’t you take my hand – I’ve been so lonely! 

One winter night in Prague, Helen Franklin meets her friend Karel on the street. Agitated and enthralled, he tells her he has come into possession of a mysterious old manuscript, filled with personal testimonies that take them from 17th-century England to wartime Czechoslovakia, the tropical streets of Manila, and 1920s Turkey. All of them tell of being followed by a tall, silent woman in black, bearing an unforgettable message. Helen reads its contents with intrigue, but without knowing everything in her life is about to change. I love creepy little novellas like this and Sarah Perry does everything right here. I loved the almost Victorian ‘Dear Reader’ and the Dracula-like inclusion of letters and diaries. The fear comes from that very Freudian juxtaposition of repulsion and fascination or death and desire. It assumes we all have that thing we’ve done that we wish we hadn’t, buried at the back of the mind or written in a decades old diary. Melmoth is the embodiment of the thing we’ve repressed and she will come for you. Dark, mysterious, thrilling and scarier than you’d think.

Paris, today. The Museum of Broken Promises is a place of wonder and sadness, hope and loss. Every object in the museum has been donated – a cake tin, a wedding veil, a baby’s shoe. And each represent a moment of grief or terrible betrayal. The museum is a place where people come to speak to the ghosts of the past and, sometimes, to lay them to rest. Laure, the owner and curator, has also hidden artefacts from her own painful youth amongst the objects on display. A marionette from her time in Czechoslovakia as a teenager.

Prague, 1985. Recovering from the sudden death of her father, Laure flees to Prague. But life behind the Iron Curtain is a complex thing: drab and grey yet charged with danger. Laure cannot begin to comprehend the dark, political currents that run beneath the surface of this communist city. Until, that is, she meets a young dissident musician. Her love for him will have terrible and unforeseen consequences. 

It is only years later, having created the museum, that Laure can finally face up to her past and celebrate the passionate love which has directed her life. It may seem strange that someone would base their whole life’s work on an experience at the age of 18, but that misunderstands the power of traumatic experiences. While the objects in the museum may seem mundane, their importance is in the wealth of emotion in those memories. It is by holding or valuing these things that we remain connected to the past and the person in it.

Errand requiring immediate attention. Come.

The note was on vellum, pierced by the talons of the almost-crow that delivered it. Karou read the message. ‘He never says please’, she sighed, but she gathered up her things. 

When Brimstone called, she always came. 

In general, Karou has managed to keep her two lives in balance. On the one hand, she’s a seventeen-year-old art student in Prague; on the other, errand-girl to a monstrous creature who is the closest thing she has to family. Raised half in our world, half in ‘Elsewhere’, she has never understood Brimstone’s dark work – buying teeth from hunters and murderers – nor how she came into his keeping. She is a secret even to herself, plagued by the sensation that she isn’t whole. Now the doors to Elsewhere are closing, and Karou must choose between the safety of her human life and the dangers of a war-ravaged world that may hold the answers she has always sought.

I’m not usually a fan of fantasy but this is an exception and Prague is the perfect setting for a girl with blue hair who does the bidding of a chimera who’s part human, ram and lion! Karou is my kind of heroine and I’d happily take her for a drink. I blew through the first third of the novel without thinking, just wishing I had an imagination like this.

This is probably best described as ‘faction’, while it is shelved as a novel there is so much fact in it that it reads like a true crime story, except the author keeps interrupting his own narrative. Two men have been enlisted to kill the head of the Gestapo, in a mission named Operation Anthropoid. In Prague, 1942 two Czechoslovakian parachutists are sent on a daring mission by London to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich – chief of the Nazi secret services. Known as ‘the hangman of Prague’, ‘the blond beast’ and ‘the most dangerous man in the Third Reich’. His boss is Heinrich Himmler but everyone in the SS says ‘Himmler’s brain is called Heydrich’, which in German spells HHhH. 

It is an incredible story, occasionally interrupted so the author can point out something he’s made up for dramatic effect – such as, ‘I don’t really know if a tank was the first vehicle to enter Prague’. Or even re-writing a paragraph if he later finds he got it wrong. It’s strange and a little jarring but you get used to it. In fact I don’t doubt his research, you will see the acres of documents and history books in his bibliography. This is a very clever panorama of the Third Reich told through the life of one outstandingly brutal man, a story of unbearable heroism and loyalty, revenge and betrayal. It is a moving work of fiction you will not forget.

Prague 1939. When the Nazis invade, Eva knows the danger they pose to Jewish families and the only way to keep her daughter Miriam safe is to send her away – even if it means never seeing her again. Eva is taken to the concentration camp Terezin, her secret is at risk of being exposed.

In London, Pamela volunteers to help find places for the Jewish children arrived from Europe. Befriending one unclaimed little girl, Pamela brings her home. Then when her son enlists in the RAF, Pamela realises how easily her own world could come crashing down…

Moving between England and Czechoslovakia this is a heart-rending story made all the more poignant for me as my mother-in-law Hana was sent from Poland as a child to England, separated from all her family and was eventually reunited with her mother after the war. I loved the themes of motherhood and music too. This is one of those historical novels that concentrates on emotion and character rather than acres of detail, but thar makes it all the more heart-rending.

In 1934, a rabbi’s son in Prague joins a traveling circus, becomes a magician, and rises to fame under the stage name the Great Zabbatini, just as Europe descends into World War II. When Zabbatini is discovered to be a Jew, his battered trunk full of magic tricks becomes his only hope for survival.

Seventy years later in Los Angeles, ten-year-old Max finds a scratched-up LP that captured Zabbatini performing his greatest illusions. But the track in which Zabbatini performs the spell of eternal love—the spell Max believes will keep his parents from getting divorced—is damaged beyond repair. Desperate for a solution, Max seeks out the now elderly, cynical magician and begs him for help. As the two develop an unlikely friendship, Moshe discovers that Max and his family have a surprising connection to the dark, dark days the Great Zabbatini experienced during the war.

With gentle wisdom and melancholy humor, this is an inventive, deeply moving story about a young boy who needs a miracle, and a disillusioned old man who needs redemption.

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

Posted on by thelotusreaders

As part of the Squad Pod, I’ve been re-reading this novel in its new edition and I’ve really enjoyed my reintroduction to these interesting characters and the incredible atmosphere the author creates around the Blackhurst Estate in Cornwall. Our story begins in 1913, when a little girl sits forlorn on the harbour side, using her white suitcase as a seat. The authoress told her she was going on an adventure and she’d stayed hidden for such a long time, but now she doesn’t know when the authoress is coming. The harbour master notices her and resolves that if she’s still there when he finishes work, he will have to take her home to his wife. Surely someone will come for her in a day or two? The mystery of the authoress and the little girl took me from 1900 to 2005, in the company of three women who have a link to that little girl in 1913. Eliza lives in London digs with her mother and twin brother at the turn of the Twentieth Century but finds life changes suddenly after her brother is killed in an accident with a coach and horses. She is taken to the Blackhurst Estate in Cornwall to be the companion of Rose, the daughter of the family, who is an invalid and rarely leaves her bedroom. Then in 2005 there is Cassandra, living in Australia and also facing upheaval after the death of her beloved grandmother Nell. Cassandra has lived with her gran since her mother left her there when she was a little girl. She promised to return and never did, leaving her mother Nell to raise her daughter. Together they run an antiques business and after Nell’s death, Cassandra is stunned to find a series of sketches by American artist Nathaniel Walker in her grandmother’s belongings. There’s also a small white case and inside there is a book of strange fairy tales also illustrated by the artist, but the writer is unfamiliar. Eliza Makepeace doesn’t seem to be well known but Cassandra is happy to do some digging and understand what link exists between this famous painter, an obscure writer and her grandmother. After the funeral, Cassandra’s great aunties explain that Nell was the baby in the family, arriving some time after them since their father found her on the Maryborough harbour alone. He decided that Nell needed to know about her true origins before he died, but her sisters wonder if that was the right thing to do. It left her a little distanced from them, as if she didn’t know where she belonged anymore. 

Interspersed between Cassandra and Eliza’s narratives is that of Nell, who did her own detective work on who she was decades before. In fact she had plans to make a big change before her daughter turned up with Cassandra and asked her if she would look after her for a short while. Nell knew that once her daughter was gone, neither of them would ever see her again. This put her own plans to one side but Nell never regretted bringing up Cassandra. Cassandra takes her book of fairy tales to a book dealer who explains that Eliza Makepeace was linked to the Blackhurst Estate in Cornwall. In fact Nathanial Walker was married to Rose, the daughter of the family. When Nell’s lawyer confirms that Cassandra has been left a small cottage on the Cornish coast she is intrigued and before long is on a flight to the UK. From there we are catapulted into the past where Eliza is adjusting and trying to make friends with Rose who has been ill for most of her childhood. Her regime is overseen by her rather formidable mother while her father seems largely absent, secretly longing for the return of sister Georgina who ran away to London with a menial worker from the estate. All of these separate story lines are linked beautifully by the author over the course of the novel, telling the story of a family beset by tragedy, but also shaped by rigid control, manipulation and jealousy. All of this is set within the beautiful backdrop of Cornwall and its history of fishing and smuggling as well as its stunning scenery. Cassandra’s cottage sits above the cliffs looking down to the sea, but has a stone wall around it. She wonders why someone would block off that incredible view, but also whether they were blocking people from seeing out or in? It must have been a gloomy existence. When Cassandra hires a local gardener to remove the tree that’s partially growing inside the cottage they discover a crawl space under the back wall and inside an overgrown but entirely enclosed garden. The walls that cradle the garden create a deep sense of belonging, as if the birds sing just for her. It’s a peaceful space, almost frozen in time. 

Cassandra is also interested to know how Nell ended up buying the property and why she never came back. Speaking to the village’s estate agent Robin gives her a lot of insight and the date Nell bought the cottage starts to make sense to her. Through Robin’s father, a retired fisherman, she hears some of the cottage’s history from a smuggling lookout to the home of the Authoress, a beautiful red- headed lady who used to live at Blackhurst. The actual manor has slowly become a hotel and Cassandra learns more by talking to the owner, who has refurbished the house and made some fascinating finds. She shares some scrapbooks with Cassandra, made by Rose who later became the wife of Nathaniel Walker. Rose was an invalid and her scrapbooks show a young girl’s imaginings from fairies to beautiful dresses and what she imagined her wedding to be like. Not that anyone expected she would meet anyone to marry. Her cousin Eliza tells her strangely dark fairytales and encourages her to aim for some of her dreams, to travel and perhaps get married someday. When she is married, her longings become focused on having a child, but will that be possible for her and if not, how can she find another way to become a mother? Kate Morton gives us little revelations as we go along, taking us back into the past to show us exactly what transpired and another jigsaw piece of this mystery slots into place. 

I loved how vividly Morton describes the squalor of turn of the century London and the harsh way of life for those just trying to keep a roof over their head. Blackhurst is the perfect name for the estate in Cornwall, named after an outcrop of black rock that juts out into the sea and provides an incredible lookout for the brave who enjoy the crashing waves and the seaspray. The estate feels like a mausoleum in contrast to Cornwall’s natural beauty. It is somewhere where people are shut away and miserable, with Rose in bed and her father shut away in his study and harbouring his secret obsessions. The cottage is accessed through the maze and it feels like a walkway to another world as it opens out in Eliza’s garden. What could possibly have caused two cousins to be entirely separate, with the maze as the barrier between their properties? I loved the theme of motherhood throughout, especially the loss of mothers for Eliza, Nell and Cassandra. One of the saddest parts for me was when Nell finds out that she isn’t a blood member of her Australian family and it changes her outlook, leading to her own trip to Cornwall. There’s even a touch of romance for one character who’s suffered a terrible loss. Reading this again has made me realise how rich Morton’s writing is and how reading her books probably led me to me enjoying this genre so much and current writers like Amanda Geard and Kate Lumsden. This is a sweeping epic of a mystery, with great characters and dark gothic undertones which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed rediscovering. 

Meet the Author

KATE MORTON is an award-winning, Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author. Her novels – The House at Riverton, The Forgotten Garden, The Distant Hours, The Secret Keeper, The Lake House, The Clockmaker’s Daughter and Homecoming – are published in over 45 countries, in 38 languages, and have all been number one bestsellers around the world.

Kate Morton grew up in the mountains of southeast Queensland and now lives with her family in London and Australia. She has degrees in dramatic art and English literature, and harboured dreams of joining the Royal Shakespeare Company until she realised that it was words she loved more than performing. Kate still feels a pang of longing each time she goes to the theatre and the house lights dim.

“I fell deeply in love with books as a child and believe that reading is freedom; that to read is to live a thousand lives in one; that fiction is a magical conversation between two people – you and me – in which our minds meet across time and space. I love books that conjure a world around me, bringing their characters and settings to life, so that the real world disappears and all that matters, from beginning to end, is turning one more page.”

Posted in Sunday Spotlight

City Break in a Book: Vienna

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I’ve never been to Vienna but it’s very firmly on my list of places I’d like to visit. Firstly I love Klimt with a passion and have been to any and every exhibition of his work, but never in his homeland. I’m also interested in Freud, for obvious reasons. I’d like to eat a piece of Sachertorte there too. For now I’ll have to keep reading books set in the city.

Set in 1938 in London and Vienna, this is a tense and atmospheric thriller told from within a climate of uncertainty and fear as World War Two threatens. As war looms over Britain and there is talk of gas masks and blackout, people are understandably jumpy and anxious. Stella Fry, has been working in Vienna for a Jewish family and returns home with no job and a broken heart. She answers an advertisement from a famous mystery writer, Hubert Newman, who needs a manuscript typed. She takes on the job and is shocked the next day to learn of the writer’s sudden, unexplained death. She is even more surprised when, twenty-four hours later, she receives Newman’s manuscript and reads the Dedication: To Stella, spotter of mistakes. Harry Fox, formerly of Special Branch and brilliant at surveillance, has been suspended for some undisclosed misdemeanor. He has his own reasons for being interested in Hubert Newman. He approaches Stella Fry to share his belief that the writer’s death was no accident. What’s more, since she was the last person to see Newman, she could be in danger herself.

It is 1966, and Robert Simon has just fulfilled his dream by taking over a café on the corner of a bustling Vienna market. He recruits a barmaid, Mila, and soon the customers flock in. Factory workers, market traders, elderly ladies, a wrestler, a painter, an unemployed seamstress in search of a job, each bring their stories and their plans for the future. As Robert listens and Mila refills their glasses, romances bloom, friendships are made and fortunes change. And change is coming to the city around them, to the little café, and to Robert’s dream. 

A story of the hopes, kindnesses and everyday heroism of one community, The Café with No Name has charmed millions of European readers. It is an unforgettable novel about how we carry each other through good and bad times, and how even the most ordinary life is, in its own way, quite extraordinary.

Hedy Lamarr possessed a stunning beauty. She also possessed a stunning mind. Could the world handle both?

Her beauty almost certainly saved her from the rising Nazi party and led to marriage with an Austrian arms dealer. Underestimated in everything else, she overheard the Third Reich’s plans while at her husband’s side, understanding more than anyone would guess. She devised a plan to flee in disguise from their castle, and the whirlwind escape landed her in Hollywood. She became Hedy Lamarr, screen star.

But she kept a secret more shocking than her heritage or her marriage: she was a scientist. And she knew a few secrets about the enemy. She had an idea that might help the country fight the Nazis…if anyone would listen to her.

A powerful novel based on the incredible true story of the glamour icon and scientist whose groundbreaking invention revolutionised modern communication, The Only Woman in the Room is a masterpiece.

The year is 1853, and the Habsburgs are Europe’s most powerful ruling family. With his empire stretching from Austria to Russia, from Germany to Italy, Emperor Franz Joseph is young, rich, and ready to marry.

Fifteen-year-old Elisabeth, “Sisi,” Duchess of Bavaria, travels to the Habsburg Court with her older sister, who is betrothed to the young emperor. But shortly after her arrival at court, Sisi finds herself in an unexpected dilemma: she has inadvertently fallen for and won the heart of her sister’s groom. Franz Joseph reneges on his earlier proposal and declares his intention to marry Sisi instead.

Thrust onto the throne of Europe’s most treacherous imperial court, Sisi upsets political and familial loyalties in her quest to win, and keep, the love of her emperor, her people, and of the world.

With Pataki’s rich period detail and cast of complex, bewitching characters, The Accidental Empress offers a glimpse into one of history’s most intriguing royal families, shedding new light on the glittering Hapsburg Empire and its most mesmerizing, most beloved “Fairy Queen.”

Erika Kohut teaches piano at the Vienna Conservatory by day. By night she trawls the city’s porn shows while her mother, whom she loves and hates in equal measure, waits up for her. Into this emotional pressure-cooker bounds music student and ladies’ man Walter Klemmer.

With Walter as her student, Erika spirals out of control, consumed by the ecstasy of self-destruction. A haunting tale of morbid voyeurism and masochism, The Piano Teacher, first published in 1983, is Elfreide Jelinek’s Masterpiece.

Jelinek was awarded the Nobel Prize For Literature in 2004 for her ‘musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that, with extraordinary linguistic zeal, reveal the absurdity of society’s clichés and their subjugating power.

The Piano Teacher was adapted into an internationally successful film by Michael Haneke, which won three major prizes at Cannes, including the Grand Prize and Best Actress for Isabelle Huppert.

Vienna at the dawn of the 20th century. An opulent, extravagant city teeming with art, music and radical ideas. A place where the social elite attend glamorous balls in the city’s palaces whilst young intellectuals decry the empire across the tables of crowded cafes. It is a city where anything seems possible – if you are a man. 

Edith and Adele are sisters, the daughters of a wealthy bourgeois industrialist. They are expected to follow the rules, to marry well, and produce children. Gertrude is in thrall to her flamboyant older brother. Marked by a traumatic childhood, she envies the freedom he so readily commands. Vally was born into poverty but is making her way in the world as a model for the eminent artist Gustav Klimt. 

None of these women is quite what they seem. Fierce, passionate and determined, they want to defy convention and forge their own path. But their lives are set on a collision course when they become entangled with the controversial young artist Egon Schiele whose work – and private life – are sending shockwaves through Vienna’s elite. All it will take is a single act of betrayal to change everything for them all. Because just as a flame has the power to mesmerize, it can also destroy everything in its path…

It’s Ball Season in Vienna, and Maria Wallner only wants one thing: to restore her family’s hotel, the Hotel Wallner, to its former glory. She’s not going to let anything get in her way – not her parents’ three-decade-long affair; not seemingly-random attacks by masked assassins; and especially not the broad-shouldered American foreign agent who’s saved her life two times already. No matter how luscious his mouth is. Eli Whittaker also only wants one thing: to find out who is selling American secret codes across Europe, arrest them, and go home to his sensible life in Washington, DC. He has one lead – a letter the culprit sent from a Viennese hotel. But when he arrives in Vienna, he is immediately swept up into a chaotic whirlwind of balls, spies, waltzes, and beautiful hotelkeepers who seem to constantly find themselves in danger. He disapproves of all of it! But his disapproval is tested as he slowly falls deeper into the chaos – and as his attraction to said hotelkeeper grows. Diana Biller’s The Hotel of Secrets is chock full of banter-filled shenanigans, must-have-you kisses, and romance certain to light a fire in the hearts of readers everywhere.

Vienna, 1913. It is a fine day in August when Lysander Rief, a young English actor, walks through the city to his first appointment with the eminent psychiatrist Dr Bensimon. Sitting in the waiting room he is anxiously pondering the particularly intimate nature of his neurosis when a young woman enters. She is clearly in distress, but Lysander is immediately drawn to her strange, hazel eyes and her unusual, intense beauty. Her name is Hettie Bull. They begin a passionate love affair and life in Vienna becomes tinged with a powerful frisson of excitement for Lysander. He meets Sigmund Freud in a café, begins to write a journal, enjoys secret trysts with Hettie and appears – miraculously – to have been cured. Back in London, 1914. War is imminent, and events in Vienna have caught up with Lysander in the most damaging way. Unable to live an ordinary life, he is plunged into the dangerous theatre of wartime intelligence – a world of sex, scandal and spies, where lines of truth and deception blur with every waking day. Lysander must now discover the key to a secret code which is threatening Britain’s safety, and use all his skills to keep the murky world of suspicion and betrayal from invading every corner of his life. Moving from Vienna to London’s West End, from the battlefields of France to hotel rooms in Geneva, Waiting for Sunrise is a feverish and mesmerising journey into the human psyche, a beautifully observed portrait of wartime Europe, a plot-twisting thriller and a literary tour de force from the bestselling author of Any Human Heart, Restless and Ordinary Thunderstorms.

The artistic stagnation of Vienna at the end of the nineteenth century was rudely shaken by the artists of the Secession. Their works at first shocked a conservative public, but their successive exhibitions, their magazine Ver Sacrum and their dedication to the applied arts and architecture soon brought them an enthusiastic following and wealthy patronage. With 60 new colour illustrations, this classic book, now in its third edition, brilliantly traces the course of this development, of the Wiener Werkstätte that followed, and the individual works of the artists concerned. The result is a fascinating documentary study of the successes and failures, hopes and fears of the members of an artistic movement that is so much admired today.

This is the true story that inspired the movie “Woman in Gold” starring Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds. Anne-Marie O Connor brilliantly regales us with the galvanizing story of Gustav Klimt’s 1907 masterpiece, the breathtaking portrait of a Viennese Jewish socialite, Adele Bloch-Bauer. The celebrated painting, stolen by Nazis during World War II, subsequently became the subject of a decade-long dispute between her heirs and the Austrian government.When the U.S. Supreme Court became involved in the case, its decision had profound ramifications in the art world. Expertly researched, masterfully told, “The Lady in Gold” is at once a stunning depiction of fin-de siecle Vienna, a riveting tale of Nazi war crimes, and a fascinating glimpse into the high-stakes workings of the contemporary art world.

Seventeen-year-old Franz Huchel journeys to Vienna to apprentice at a tobacco shop. There he meets Sigmund Freud, a regular customer, and over time the two very different men form a singular friendship. When Franz falls desperately in love with the music hall dancer Anezka, he seeks advice from the renowned psychoanalyst, who admits that the female sex is as big a mystery to him as it is to Franz.

As political and social conditions in Austria dramatically worsen with the Nazis’ arrival in Vienna, Franz, Freud, and Anezka are swept into the maelstrom of events. Each has a big decision to make: to stay or to flee?

Posted in Random Things Tours

The Betrayal of Thomas True by A.J. West

Posted on by thelotusreaders

In simple terms, this fascinating book is a love story. Two people meet in unlikely circumstances and fall in love. However, it’s so much more than that, but that’s what happens when something as simple as love is an act of subversion or rebellion. When I last read a novel like this I was on my 18th Century literature module at university and I had the luck to be taught and supervised for my dissertation by Dr. Ian McCormick who was an 18th Century literature specialist and also taught our Gothic, Grotesque and Monstrous module. He wrote a book called Secret Sexualities, a collection of 17th and 18th Century writing that covered cultural constructions of eunuchs, hermaphrodites, cross dressing, mannish women, female husbands, trials for sodomy and other legal injustices. I was absolutely fascinated because it was an utterly different picture from the 18th Century literature I’d read before. To be honest that was mainly Jane Austen and from her writing you might think that a fellow’s main preoccupation was finding a suitable wife and all women were waiting for Mr Darcy to come along – although I’m a Captain Wentworth girl, all day long. What my tutor’s book did for me was the academic equivalent of Sarah Water’s transgressive novelisation of the 19th Century. Variations in sexual preference is nothing new and taking a marginalised group and placing them firmly within their historical context is what is going in with A.J. West’s novel. Thomas True is well-researched, beautifully characterised and fits perfectly into its time period rather like an 18th Century version of Tipping the Velvet. 

The book that came most to mind, because of its bawdy humour and characterisation of a young innocent seduced into licentiousness on their adventures into the big city, was Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe. However, I also had Tom Jones in mind by Henry Fielding, a picaresque novel where our hero embarks on a journey and is lured into bawdy and roguish adventures. A picaresque novel is also critical of the society it represents, using satire to make its point usually in the favour of the lower classes. Here our hero is drawn into the ‘Molly’ culture, practiced at Mother Clap’s house and while considered corrupt by some, it turns out to be less judgemental and violent than both the religious and legal communities, both seemingly riddled with cruelty and corruption. In this case they employ a spy known by the mollies as the ‘Rat’, his purpose is to give up individual mollies to the justices who would have them hung. The hangings are a horribly public spectacle with the crowd baying for blood and the selling of candles or other mementoes by shop keepers. This is where the novel sits for me, yes it’s crime fiction, historical fiction and also a love story, but it’s the picaresque novel’s bawdy, episodic and satirical mix that grounds Thomas firmly in the tradition of 18th Century literature. 

Thomas sets off for London to escape a miserable family life, where he’s clearly not the man his father would like him to be. On his journey he is accidentally parted from his coach and luggage, deciding to trust a huge bear of a man who offers him help. What he doesn’t know is that Gabriel is a Molly, one of a group of men who enjoy dressing in women’s clothes and have names for their alter egos. They also prefer the love of another man, something taboo and unnatural in contemporary society. The law would punish them by death. Thomas can’t possibly know how important this moment will be in his life, but it’s pivotal to his journey, his future and his heart. Far from the genteel worlds of Bridgerton and Jane Austen, the author creates a richly imaginative setting that brought all my senses to life – but not in a good way. London is grim, overcrowded and disgusting. One scene where a body needs to be extracted from a ditch full of sewage is revolting. The two rescuers slipping and sliding into faeces and almost losing the body to the depths. Even Mother Clap’s has a grotesque feel. These are not the preened and powdered men you might expect. Gabriel is huge, hairy and spends all day doing a heavy building job. The atmosphere is also dark and threatening, if the mollies are the light then their nemesis belongs in the shadows as do the curious urchins who are so ignored and forgotten they’ve literally become the darkness they inhabit in the menacing surroundings of Alsatia. The ever present fear of not knowing who the Rat is, make even the lighter scenes hum with tension. While the mollies are dancing, wearing their finery or even sneaking off to be ‘married’ – their euphemism for sex – no one knows if the Rat is among them, watching and biding his time. 

How far would the Rat go to gain information or incriminate the mollies? I was intrigued as to what their motive was? Religion, fear, money or more personal motives? Whatever the Rat, or the justice’s motives they mete out terrible violence. As if the public hangings were not enough, the Rat is handy with a knife too. One molly has his tongue cut out and another is stabbed and left in sewage. Being pilloried turned out to be way more violent than being popped in the stocks for the afternoon and being pelted with rotten vegetables. This is all told in the same detail the author describes the London streets running with urine and smelling so bad it takes a few days to become immune to it. It brings a reality into sharp focus, this isn’t just our current climate of punching down against the poorest and most vulnerable or venting hate on social media. This is wanting someone dead for the perceived crime of who they love. Thomas is naive, clumsy, endearing and ripe for the picking. He guides us through most of this in wide eyed wonder at first, but we also have Gabriel’s take on events and he really is the opposite of Tom. He is older, has known who he is for a long time and battles with regret, grief and shame. Gabriel is haunted, emotionally and literally. His profession means he’s in an intensely masculine environment, working on completing St. Paul’s and the chandlers where Tom is learning a trade. He’s drawn to Tom’s naivety and excitement at the new life he’s found and his molly name – Verity True Tongue. They’re so different but have that chemistry. It’s undeniable, but only Gabriel who fully understands the price they may pay for choosing each other. 

I was bowled over by the incredible detail in the setting but also the characters they meet. Every one of the mollies is different are so different from each other. Some are welcoming and nurturing, while others are cynical and suspicious. I have a hatred for people who want to control other’s behaviour through a moral or religious code. Thomas’s family believe they’re doing the right things to save their souls and to lie with a man is a sin against God. The justices are no better than- using the legal code to outlaw sodomy, but then resorting to punishments of horrific violence without irony. It’s inevitable that with such blood lust and religious fervour, we might have to say goodbye to some of the wonderful characters yet it is still devastating when it happens. This group of men, when in their safe environment, are full of joy, fun and laughter. When they are free to be themselves they create an incredible atmosphere. It’s a party I’d love to go to and I honestly can’t wait for it to become a film. The eventual ending might leave you needing a box of tissues, but the journey Thomas and A.J. West takes us on is glorious. 

Meet the Author


A.J. West’s bestselling debut novel The Spirit Engineer won the Historical Writers’ Association Debut Crown Award, gaining international praise for its telling of a long-forgotten true story. His second novel, The Betrayal of Thomas True, is published July 2024.

An award winning BBC newsreader and reporter, he has written for national newspapers and regularly appears on network television discussing his writing and the historical context of contemporary events.

A passionate historical researcher, he writes at The London Library and museum archives around the world.

Posted in Sunday Spotlight

Sunday Spotlight. City Breaks in a Book: Paris

Posted on by thelotusreaders

A weekend trip to the City of Lights is usually on everyone’s bucket list but if you can’t travel these books will give you a flavour of Paris. Whether it’s an escapist romance or a travelogue each will give you an insight into life in Paris, from the fin de siecle through two World Wars and all the way through to the COVID pandemic and it’s aftermath, these choices take in the Twentieth Century and beyond. Hope you find something you enjoy.

Not the best known of Jojo Moyes’s books, but a series of short stories all with the backdrop of Paris.

In Paris for One, Nell is deserted by her boyfriend minutes before setting off on what was supposed to be a fantastic romantic weekend away to Paris. Can she forget him and find herself? Honeymoon in Paris is a tale of the early days of two marriages in both 1912 and 2012, featuring Liv and Sophie from Jojo Moyes’ bestselling romance The Girl You Left Behind.

Beth is faced with a difficult decision in Bird in the Hand when she bumps into an old flame at a party, with her husband . . . 

This is classic Jojo Moyes fiction – easy to read and within a few lines you’re pulled into the story. The characters are absorbing and soon have you on side, rooting for their romantic dreams to come true.

Historical Fiction

This book is utterly charming from start to finish, while seemingly sprinkled with fairy dust our heroine has some very painful and difficult setbacks. Mrs Harris is a salt-of-the-earth cleaner living in London, struggling financially with her husband never returning from WWII. She cheerfully cleans the houses of the rich and one day, when tidying Lady Dant’s wardrobe, she sees the most beautiful thing she has ever seen in her life – a Dior dress. In her fairly drab and working class existence, she’s never seen anything as magical as this dress. It seems to be alive, like living and wearable work of art. She’s never wanted a material thing so much in her life. Mrs Harris scrimps, saves and slaves away, often finding that the very rich avoid their bills and has to assert herself. Then one day, after three long years, she finally has enough money to go to Paris. However, when she arrives at the House of Dior, she could never have imagined how her life is going to be transformed and how many other lives she will touch in return. Always kind, always cheery, she finds time to charm the ladies who create Dior’s designs in the atelier and organise the love lives of other key staff. Mrs Harris really does takes Paris by storm and learns one of life’s greatest lessons along the way. This treasure is from the 1950s introduces the irrepressible Mrs Harris, part charlady, part fairy-godmother, whose adventures take her from her humble London roots to the heights of glamour in Paris until eventually she has the dress of her dreams. It only highlights those lovely qualities that we know have been there all along. I am absolutely in love with this character.

Rene is the concierge of a grand Parisian apartment building. With the residents she keeps up a professional facade and to them she’s what they expect, a helpful and reliable concierge but not as sophisticated or cultured as they are. Underneath is this the real Rene – a woman who’s incredibly passionate about culture and probably knows more than her rather snobbish residents. Her loves are Japanese Arthouse Cinema and her cat, Leo Tolstoy. Meanwhile, several floors above, is twelve-year-old Paloma Josse, another person keeping their knowledge to themselves. She doesn’t want the empty future her parents have laid out for her and decides she will end her life on her thirteenth birthday. Unknown to both Rene and Paloma, the sudden death of one of their privileged neighbours alter everything for them. The simplicity of the story is what makes this book magical. It shares deep truths about the choices we make in life and the way they change everything. It’s quirky and has an intelligent humour, but is also elegantly written. The charm of it seems quintessentially Parisian.

Doria is in a difficult place. That place is the Paradise Estate, dreadfully misnamed and situated on the outskirts of Paris showing a different side to the city. In Doria’s unforgettable voice, we learn that her father has returned to Morocco. He’s looking for a new wife, who can produce a boy. So her mother is trying to get by a single mother, but she can’t speak French and is illiterate. The only work she can find is cleaning. It could be worse, Samra who lives above them has a father who won’t let her out. Another young resident, Youssef, has been put in prison for stealing cars and supplying drugs. One good thing is her weekly appointment with a psychologist, who listens even if she doesn’t have answers. The author has created a memorable character in Doria who is knowing beyond her years but also heart-breakingly naive. This book gives us a beautifully drawn alternative to the romantic tourist impression of Paris.

A woman called Mado is determined to make her mark and begins a journey that will change everything. Set on a train to Paris in 1895, and based on a real incident when a train crashed into the platform at Montparnasse, a young woman boards the Granville Express with a deadly plan. The author sets us firmly in the fin de siecle, not just with the clothing but with the attitudes. We can see a shift from the Victorian ideals of the previous seventy years. We have Alice who is travelling for work and taking the opportunity to talk her boss into a new investment. Marcelle is a pioneering scientific researcher inspired by Marie Curie. Mado’s androgynous clothing and short hair make her stand out as someone unconventional and modern. She’s definitely a feminist, but is also an anarchist and I could feel the tension in her body as I read, how far is she willing to go to make her political point? The prose speeds up as the train edges closer and closer to Paris and more passengers climb aboard until the reader is almost breathless.
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Another wonderful historical novel here, this time set in Paris during WWII. It’s 1944 and Jean Luc is working on the railway under the Nazi occupation when a train bound for Auschwitz is passing through. In an act of desperation a mother makes the ultimate sacrifice and gives the thing she loves most to a stranger. Now she can face her own future with the hope that she’s done the right thing.

Ten years later in Santa Cruz and Jean Luc is happy to have left the memories of the occupation behind. The scar on his face is the daily reminder of the horrors of life under the Nazis. His new life has given him the family he’s always wanted and he doesn’t expect the past to come knocking. That one night on the train platform has shaped all of the futures in a way none of them imagined.

This is such an emotional story, beautifully researched and gives us some insight into life in Paris under the occupation and the terrible choices people had to make to save the ones they love.


Could one split second change her life forever?

Hannah and Si are in love and on the same track – that is, until their train divides on the way to a wedding. The next morning, Hannah wakes up in Paris and realises that her boyfriend (and her ticket) are 300 miles away in Amsterdam!

But then Hannah meets Léo on the station platform, and he’s everything Si isn’t. Spending the day with him in Paris forces Hannah to question how well she really knows herself – and whether, sometimes, you need to go in the wrong direction to find everything you’ve been looking for…

PARIS, 1920. On the bohemian Left Bank, Sylvia runs a little bookshop called Shakespeare and Company. Here she welcomes the greatest writers of the day – and from the moment James Joyce finally walks through her door, the two become friends.

When Joyce’s controversial novel Ulysses is banned, Sylvia is determined to publish it herself.

But championing the most scandalous book of the century will come at a cost – and Sylvia finds herself risking ruin, her reputation and her heart, all in the name of the life-changing power of books.

Set in post-war Paris, The Paris Bookseller is a sweeping story of love, courage and betrayal – and a breathtakingly beautiful love letter to books.

Sixteen-year-old Alice is spending the summer in Paris, but she isn’t there for pastries and walks along the Seine. When her grandmother passed away two months ago, she left Alice an apartment in France that no one knew existed. An apartment that has been locked for more than seventy years.

Alice’s grandmother never mentioned the family she left behind when she moved to America after World War II. With the help of Paul, a charming Parisian student, she sets out to uncover the truth. However, the more time she spends digging through the mysteries of the past, the more she realizes there are secrets in the present that her family is still refusing to talk about.

THEN:

Sixteen-year-old Adalyn doesn’t recognize Paris anymore. Everywhere she looks, there are Nazis, and every day brings a new horror of life under the Occupation. When she meets Luc, the dashing and enigmatic leader of a resistance group, Adalyn feels she finally has a chance to fight back.

But keeping up the appearance of being a much-admired socialite while working to undermine the Nazis is more complicated than she could have imagined. As the war goes on, Adalyn finds herself having to make more and more compromises—to her safety, to her reputation, and to her relationships with the people she loves the most.

Because Paris is always a good idea…

Years ago, Juliet left a little piece of her heart in Paris – and now, separated from her husband and with her children flying the nest, it’s time to get it back!

So she puts on her best red lipstick, books a cosy attic apartment near Notre-Dame and takes the next train out of London.

Arriving at the Gare du Nord, the memories come flooding back: bustling street cafés, cheap wine in candlelit bars and a handsome boy with glittering eyes.

But Juliet has also been keeping a secret for over two decades – and she begins to realise it’s impossible to move forwards without first looking back.

Something tells her that the next thirty days might just change everything…

In the depths of the archive, Hannah dances with the ghosts of Vichy France, lost in testimony and a desire to hear the voices of the past. Back in her apartment, Moroccan teenager Tariq crashes on her sofa, consumed by his search for the mother he barely knew. Their excavations will unearth rich histories that will teach them both just how much the future is worth fighting for.

She is there to study the wartime experiences of women living there under German Occupation, while still licking the wounds of a painful, decade-old romance.Paris Echo knocks on big subjects such as the legacy of empire and identity, but mostly it’s a heart-warming masterclass in storytelling that weaves and winds and brims with a deep affection for Paris: its otherworldliness, and the ghosts of history that lurk around every beautiful, tree-lined avenue.  

Paris Echo is a propulsive and haunting novel of empire and identity, told with biting wit and tenderness, which exposes the shadows of the city of lights.

PARIS, 1939
Odile Souchet is obsessed with books, and her new job at the American Library in Paris – with its thriving community of students, writers and book lovers – is a dream come true. When war is declared, the Library is determined to remain open. But then the Nazis invade Paris, and everything changes.
In Occupied Paris, choices as black and white as the words on a page become a murky shade of grey – choices that will put many on the wrong side of history, and the consequences of which will echo for decades to come.

MONTANA, 1983
Lily is a lonely teenager desperate to escape small-town Montana. She grows close to her neighbour Odile, discovering they share the same love of language, the same longings. But as Lily uncovers more about Odile’s mysterious past, she discovers a dark secret, closely guarded and long hidden.

When you’re a woman of a certain age, you are only promised that everything will get worse. But what if everything you’ve been told is a lie?Come to Paris, August 2021, when the City of Lights was still empty of tourists and a thirst for long-overdue pleasure gripped those who wandered its streets.

After New York City emptied out in March 2020, Glynnis MacNicol, spent sixteen months alone in her tiny Manhattan apartment. She was 46, unmarried and the isolation was punishing. A whole year without touch. Women are warned of invisibility as they age, but this was an extreme loneliness, so when the opportunity to sublet a friend’s apartment in Paris arose, MacNicol jumped on it. Leaving felt less like a risk than a necessity.What follows is a decadent, joyful, unexpected journey into one woman’s pursuit of radical enjoyment.

The weeks in Paris are filled with friendship and food and sex. There is dancing on the Seine; a plethora of gooey cheese; midnight bike rides through empty Paris; handsome men; afternoons wandering through the empty Louvre; nighttime swimming in the ocean off a French island. And yes, plenty of nudity. I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself is an intimate, insightful, powerful, and endlessly pleasurable memoir of an intensely lived experience whose meaning and insight expand far beyond the personal narrative. MacNicol is determined to document the beauty, excess, and triumph of a life that does not require permission.The pursuit of enjoyment is a political act, both a right and a responsibility. Enjoying yourself—as you are—is not something the world tells you is possible, but it is.

When Paris Sizzled vividly portrays the City of Light during the fabulous 1920s, when Parisians emerged from the horrors of WWI to find that a new world greeted them. This world reverberated with the hard metallic clang of the assembly line, the roar of automobiles, and the beat of jazz. Mary McAuliffe traces a decade that saw seismic change on almost every front, from art and architecture to music, literature, fashion, entertainment, transportation, and, most notably, behavior. The epicenter of all this creativity, as well as of the era’s good times, was Montparnasse, where impoverished artists and writers found colleagues and cafés, and tourists discovered the Paris of their dreams. Major figures on the Paris scene―such as Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau, Picasso, Stravinsky, Diaghilev, and Proust―continued to hold sway, while others now came to prominence―including Ernest Hemingway, Coco Chanel, Cole Porter, and Josephine Baker, as well as André Citroën, Le Corbusier, Man Ray, Sylvia Beach, James Joyce, and the irrepressible Kiki of Montparnasse. Paris of the 1920s unquestionably sizzled. Yet rather than being a decade of unmitigated bliss, les Années folles also saw an undercurrent of despair as well as the rise of ruthless organizations of the extreme right, aimed at annihilating whatever threatened tradition and order―a struggle that would escalate in the years ahead. There are rich illustrations and an evocative narrative, through which Mary McAuliffe brings this vibrant era to life.

Posted in Sunday Spotlight

Sunday Spotlight: Cornish Holidays in a Book

Posted on by thelotusreaders

The Classics

Rebecca is probably the reason I first visited Cornwall, but it’s also one of those books that I’ve changed my mind about when I reread it. I read the book as a teenager from mum’s bookshelf and I also watched the Hitchcock film at a similar age and both book and film are still favourites. I think I read it as a romance at first, rooting for the rather young and mousy heroine as she falls in love with brooding stranger Maxim de Winter as they meet in Monte Carlo. Now I read it as an altogether different story, probably emphasised by the above new Virago edition that’s billed as one of her ‘dark romance’ books. Maxim is dazzlingly and tragically romantic to our young heroine, mourning the wife who was known as a great beauty and unable to be in their Cornish stately home Manderlay. Perched on the cliffs near Fowey and based on de Maurier’s home Menabilly, this is one of the most beautiful and gothic settings. It’s impossible to see from the road, only from the sea and its private beach only accessible by boat or on treacherous steps from the grounds of the house. The heroine does seem to win it all – the man, the house, the money and love – but does she really? Immediately invisible next to the dark and sexy Rebecca of the title, the new Mrs de Winter doesn’t even warrant her own name. She’s scared of running the house having never done it, she’s not even the same class. She’s also scared of the servants, especially the creepy maid of his first wife, Mrs Danvers. At one point she breaks a statue in the morning room and hides the evidence. Maxim is no help. Instead of appointing a servant to help with decisions in the house, or at least to bring her up to speed, he just goes out first thing and leaves her to the brooding and obsessive Mrs Danvers, now the housekeeper. Max has no idea how privileged he is and can’t comprehend her hesitancy and fear of getting it wrong and when she does he flies into a temper or scolds her like a child. He gaslights, lies and yells at her. She may as well have been poured into a pit of vipers. This has never been a love story, it’s more a gothic retelling of Jane Eyre and origin of the domestic noir genre. This is an absolute Cornish classic from one of their most famous writers.

https://www.foliosociety.com/uk/rebecca

The Poldark Novels by Winston Graham

The Poldark novels had a resurgence and series of new editions thanks to the new BBC series which dominated Sunday nights and starred Aiden Turner as Ross Poldark and Eleanor Tomlinson as his wife Demelza. They begin in the late eighteenth century as Poldark returns from the American Revolutionary War to his home county of Cornwall and the Poldark house and land. Things have changed since he left. His father is dead and the copper mine is failing. His sweetheart Elizabeth has become engaged to Ross’s cousin George and they will be living at Trenwith with Ross’s grandmother. There are differences between the books and the TV series. Demelza is actually a child when Ross first meets her and he takes her to be one of the staff at the smaller farm estate of Nampara. There are ten years in age between them and it’s only when she’s an older teenager that their relationship changes – in the series he brings her as an adult and marries her very quickly, much to the disgust of his parish. I think the books are grittier than the tv series, with the main characters having more complexity and actually doing things we might not like. Ross particularly has more ambiguity, a good man when it comes to his workers and his politics but not such a great husband. The abuse and rape suffered by Morwenna in the marriage forced by Warleggan hits harder. The series really deviates after book three with no exploration of the children as they grow up and the terrible grief they go through as parents. I think the series wanted to paint Ross and Demelza as a love story with a happy ending after a tough period following infidelity, but in the books life goes and Ross’s rivalry with George Warleggan still continues, even when they’re older men. I think the books give more of that historical background, particularly with the backdrop of war and later the Industrial Revolution. It’s almost as if the series is the tourist’s view and the books place the characters more firmly in their time period.

For those of you missing Aiden Turner as Ross.

Mysteries and Thrillers

When I read a more recent Ruth Ware thriller I went back to some of her earlier books and I inhaled this in two sittings. We follow Harriet Westaway as she receives an unexpected letter telling her she’s inherited a substantial bequest from her Cornish grandmother. Could this be the answer to her prayers?

There’s just one problem – Hal’s real grandparents died more than twenty years ago. Hal considers her options, she desperately needs the cash and makes a choice that will change her life for ever. She knows that her skills as a seaside fortune teller could help her con her way to getting the money and once Hal embarks on her deception, there is no going back. This keeps you on tenterhooks from the minute Hal arrives at Trespassen House in Cornwall and there is that hint of Daphne du Maurier in the family estate and the mystery that plays out. Hal is also placing herself in a wholly different family and social class. Her upbringing may have been short on money, but it was never short on love. The tragic death of her mother Maggie was only three years ago and it catapulted Hal into adulthood but the Westaway family don’t hold the same values. They do have secrets though, ready to drop out of every closet. She is the outsider here, totally out of her depth and the wild coastline, storm porch and St Piran’s Church place this firmly in Cornwall. This family may have money and privilege but they don’t have the love or care for each other that Hal is used to, she will have to use her skills of perception and discernment honed by years of tarot reading. The remoteness of Trespassen and lack of internet signal add to the Gothic feel of this novel and there is even a Mrs Danvers mentioned. This is a great thriller with plenty of clues but a lot of red herrings, so you must be prepared for surprises.

Tamsyn is as local as it getsin their Cornish village. Her grandfather worked the tin mines, her father was a lifeboat volunteer alongside his work, but her brother is struggling to find work that’s not seasonal. Tamsyn’s attachment to The Cliff House to a beautiful coastal property just outside her village comes to a head in the summer of 1986. To her, the house represents an escape, a lifestyle that’s completely out of range for her and represents the perfect life. It’s also her last link to her father, who brought her here to swim in the pool when he knew the owners were away. Her father felt rules were made to be broken and they both considered it madness to own such a slice of perfection overlooking the sea yet rarely visit except for a few weeks in the summer. Now he’s gone, Tamsyn watches the Cliff House alone and views it’s owners, the Davenports, as the height of sophistication. Their life is a world away from her cramped cottage, her Granfer’s coughing into red spattered handkerchiefs and their constant struggle for money.

Tamsyn’s family are firmly have nots. Her hero father died rescuing a drowning child and now she has to watch her mother’s burgeoning friendship with the man who owns the chip shop. Her brother is unable to find steady work, but finds odd jobs and shifts where he can, to put his contribution under the kettle in the kitchen. Mum works at the chip shop, but is also the Davenport’s cleaner. She keeps their key in the kitchen drawer, but every so often Tamsyn steals it and let’s herself in to admire Eleanor Davenport’s clothing and face creams and Max’s study with a view of the sea. Yet, the family’s real lives are only a figment of her imagination until she meets Edie. When Tamsyn finally becomes involved with the Davenports she gets to see the reality of a family bathed in privilege. As we try and work out Tamsyn’s motivations, she seems blind to the problems and ticking time bomb at the centre of the family. Or is she more perceptive than we think? This is a great thriller with disturbing family dynamics and an interesting tension between second homers and those who live in Cornwall all year round and struggle to own a home. The rugged cliffs and raging sea are a beautiful, dangerous and fitting backdrop to this tension.

Another book highlighting the dangerous beauty of the Cornish coast is Jane Jesmond’s first thriller On The Edge. I was thoroughly gripped by this tense thriller set in Cornwall concerning Jenifry Shaw – an experienced free climber who is in rehabilitation at the start of the novel. She hasn’t finished her voluntary fortnight stay but is itching for an excuse to get away when her brother Kit calls and asks her to go home. Sure that she has the addiction under control, she drives her Aston down to her home village and since she isn’t expected, chooses to stay at the hotel rather than go straight to the family home. Feeling restless, she decides to try one of her distraction activities and goes for a bracing walk along the cliffs. Much later she wakes to darkness. She’s being lashed by wind and rain, seemingly hanging from somewhere on the cliff by a very fragile rope. Every gust of wind buffets her against the surface causing cuts and grazes. She gets her bearings and realises she’s hanging from the viewing platform of the lighthouse. Normally she could climb herself out of this, most natural surfaces have small imperfections and places to grab onto, but this man made structure is completely smooth. Her only chance is to use the rapidly fraying rope to climb back to the platform and pull herself over. She’s only got one go at this though, one jerk and her weight will probably snap the rope – the only thing keeping her from a certain death dashed on the rocks below. She has no choice. She has to try.

My heart was racing during the opening of this novel and I was so hooked I read it in one sitting. The sense of place was incredible. The author conjured up Cornwall immediately with her descriptions of the tin mine, the crashing sea on the cliffs and fog on the moors. I recognised the sea mist that seems to coat your car and your windows. The weather was hugely important, with storms amping up the tension in the opening chapters and the fog of the final chapters adding to the mystery. Will we find out who is behind the strange and dangerous events Jen has uncovered or will it remain obscured? Cornwall is the perfect place to hide criminal activity, hence the history of smuggling and piracy, so why would it be any different today? Has the cargo changed? I loved that the author wove modern events and concerns into the story, because it helped the story feel current and real. The concerns around development and tourism are all too real for a county, dependent on the money tourism brings, but trying to find a balance where it doesn’t erode the Cornish culture. Local young people are priced out of the property market completely. This is a great combination of setting and edge of your seat thriller, with a character as wild as the coastline.

Family Sagas

This book makes me nostalgic for the times I’ve spent in Cornwall. It also makes me want to go on RightMove and look for a little shop I can turn into a bookshop and writing therapy centre. Enough of my daydreams. I think this is one of those books that modern readers avoid because the covers have been too feminine and floral, marking it out as a romance when really it’s a family drama ( i want to use the word sweeping when I think about). Penelope is elderly and while she is recovering from a heart attack she thinks about the years she spent in Cornwall. What follows is the story of a family—mothers and daughters, husbands and lovers—and the many loves and heartbreaks that have held them together for three generations. It’s a magical novel, giving the kind of reading experience you can get swept away in for hours. Penelope prized possession is The Shell Seekers, painted by her father. It seems to symbolise her unconventional life, from her bohemian childhood to WWII romance. When her grown children learn their grandfather’s work is now worth a fortune, each has an idea as to what Penelope should do. But as she recalls the passions, tragedies, and secrets of her life, she knows there is only one answer…and it lies in her heart.

One of my favourite places in the world is Watergate Bay and I feel energised just by standing on that beach and feeling the sea spray hit my face. This book gave me the same feeling because you can feel Pilcher’s love for Cornwall throughout. It also made me grateful for a family who don’t care about money, just about love. This is a fabulous holiday read so don’t be put off by the cover.

In Kate Morton’s second novel she takes us through a family’s history with Gothic undertones, contrasting the beautiful setting of Cornwall with 19th Century London. It covers three timelines over three generations of women, all caught up in one compelling mystery.

Once, a little girl was found abandoned after a gruelling sea voyage from England to Australia. She carried nothing with her but a small suitcase of clothes, an exquisite volume of fairy tales and the memory of a mysterious woman called the Authoress, who promised to look after her but then vanished. Years later, Nell returns to England to uncover the truth about her identity. Her quest leads her to the strange and beautiful Blackhurst Manor on the Cornish coast, but its long-forgotten gardens hide secrets of their own. Now, upon Nell’s death, her granddaughter, Cassandra, comes into a surprise inheritance: an old book of dark fairy tales and a ramshackle cottage in Cornwall. It is here that she must finally solve the puzzle that has haunted her family for a century, embarking on a journey that blends past and present, myth and mystery, fact and fable. I am lucky enough to have a new edition of this book to read with my Squad POD next month so look out for my review.

Historical Fiction

My mum was a huge fan of D.H.Lawrence’s books so this book jumped out at me in a second hand bookshop. It’s Helen Dunmore’s first novel published in 1993. Set in the coastal village of Zennor, this covers the time that D.H.Lawrence and his German wife, Freida, laid low during the First World War. In the spring of 1917, at a time when ships were being sunk be U-boats, coastal villages were full of superstition. The Lawrence’s were hoping to escape the war fever in London and chose Cornwall. There, they befriend Clare Coyne, a young artist struggling to console her beloved cousin, John William, who is on leave from the trenches and suffering from shell-shock.

Yet the dark tide of gossip and innuendo is also present in Cornwall, meaning Zennor neither a place of recovery nor of escape. Freida and Lawrence are minor characters, with the main story focused on Clare and suspicions about her relationship with her cousin. Helen is adept at bringing people from history back to life, filling them with emotions and preoccupations that are familiar to us. The Cornish coast is vividly described with its fishing industry, craggy inlets and secret beaches providing a wonderful backdrop to the atmosphere of suspicion especially with the their smuggling history. She captures the claustrophobic feel of a small village where everyone knows each other and incomers are kept at a distance. She also captures how lonely it can be to move into such a close knit community and how lives can be ruined by assumptions.

Caroline Scott’s book is set in the aftermath of WWI in the summer of 1923. Esme Nicholls is drawn into spending the summer in Cornwall, close to Penzance which was the birthplace of her husband. Alec died fighting in the war and she’s hoping to spend some time learning more about the man she fell in love with and lost too soon. She’s been invited to stay in the home of her friend Gilbert, as a potential retreat for the lady she works for, Mrs Pickering. He inherited the rambling seaside house and has turned it into a recovery centre of sorts. All residents are former soldiers, expressing themselves through art or writing. She is nervous to be the only woman, but soon gets to know the men and their stories. They give her insight into what Alec may have experienced and that’s exactly what she needs.

However, this summer retreat is about to change as a new arrival brings with him the ability to turn Esme’s world upside down. She will soon be questioning everything about her life and the people in it. Cornwall is an idyllic backdrop to the story and a huge factor in the recovery and the creative work of these men. Esme’s growing friendships are beautifully drawn and as always I was emotionally invested in her characters. I loved how her relationship with Mrs Pickering softened from being a professional companion to friendship. I also enjoyed her growing closeness to Rory and Hal. They all help with her grief and the shock of this new guest. But as always, holidays come to an end, leaving Esme with huge choices to make.

My Favourite

I first read this wonderful novel when I was a teenager, captured by the romance at the centre of the novel. Then the backdrop really started to sing out to me, especially when I started to regularly visit Cornwall around twenty years ago. Lastly it was the history aspects to the latter parts of the story with our characters caught up in English Civil War and Cornwall’s unique role, both geographically and as staunch Royalists. It’s fair to say that the book wasn’t well received at first, especially after the instant success of Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel. This takes a similar romantic narrative but weaves in the history of a Cornish house that would eventually become her home, Menabilly on the Gribben peninsula near Fowey. At the time of starting her new book it had been owned by the Rashleigh family for over 400 years. Daphne would visit and talk to them about using the house and they told her a story about building work they were having done when builders found a bricked up room housing the skeleton of a Cavalier. She decided to write this real life mystery into the novel wanted to write, when she finally and inevitably overcame their objections.

Her decision to record historical facts truthfully could have been the book’s undoing. The history of the Royalist cause in Cornwall is convoluted and confusing and there’s a large background cast of related Cornish families. I think she wanted to remain faithful to the Cornish cause and be seen to include real Cornish people, but the reader could be forgiven for struggling with them, many names are similar and the intricacies of intermarriage sometimes make the plot hard to follow. Cornwall did declare for the King and our hero Richard Grenvile is the grandson of Sir Richard Grenville who fought the Spaniards in the Azores. He is depicted as flamboyant, with an incredibly fiery temper, but he can be very charming and as time and experience show, he is incredibly loyal. Our heroine Honor Harris is the character I fell in love with possibly because of the fact she’s always reading and is a bit wild. She is absolutely swept off her feet by the man she meets in the family orchard, while sitting in her reading place up in an apple tree. Luckily her hiding place is just big enough for two. Richard is older, a seasoned soldier with wars on the Continent and Ireland under his belt. He is known as ruthless with a terrible reputation. However, he and Honor fall in love. Only a day before their wedding, Honor goes hunting with Richard and his sister. He calls back to warn her about a ravine but his call is lost on the wind and she falls down the precipice. She is then paralysed from the waist down. I think this is possibly why I fell in love with the book, having had my own accident when I was eleven. I had two fractures and a crushed disc, but luckily my spinal cord wasn’t affected. I didn’t finish primary school but returned to start secondary school in the autumn. It has given me problems ever since. It was wonderful to read a character who had a disability but whose fiancé still loved and wanted to marry her, at a time when I was starting to look at boys a little differently.

Despite Richard’s promises, Honor knows she can’t fulfil the role of an army officer’s wife. She decides to let Richard go and gives him her blessing to find someone else. She still follows Richard’s exploits as he moves through Cornwall trying to turn the Royalist sympathisers into an effective fighting force. The Cornish aristocracy have the hereditary right to become fellow commanders, although he finds them incompetent and at times cowardly. Honor has a wheelchair made by her brother, which allows her some movement and at times she manages to support and actually assist Richard. Their love for each other never seems to fade and I enjoyed the romantic aspects of the novel. Their relationship is the spark that lights up this novel, even more so now that I am a wheelchair user at times. I was impressed by how intrepid and determined Honor is and that Daphne wrote a disabled heroine in the 1940s. A couple of years ago, on my honeymoon, I went to Fowey and the Daphne du Maurier bookshop and bought a first edition of the novel for my collection. My old copy was falling apart from re-reading, but I also wanted to own such an important copy of my favourite Cornish novel.

Posted in Personal Purchase

The Year of Zara Holt by Kimberley Freeman 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I discovered Kimberley Freeman’s novels about ten years ago and read all of them in one go. It was the combination of historical fiction, with an emphasis on Australian and women’s history that drew me and the romance element is always rooted in that context. I’ve been waiting a very long time for a new novel and this is particularly interesting as it’s based on a true story. I did drop everything to read it. She takes us through a large part of the early – mid Twentieth century through the life of Zara Holt. We join her as a teenager, living with her parents and dreaming of becoming a fashion designer. She spends hours drawing elaborate evening and wedding dresses with Betty her best friend. On a night out together Zara meets Harry, a handsome and ambitious young man who is aiming to get into law or politics. They have an instant connection and Zara feels it, almost like a jigsaw puzzle clicking into place. Their love will dominate her life as she also builds her own fashion empire and travels the world. As fiery as the couple are, it’s never an easy road and Zara will have to make difficult choices about whether she follows her head or her heart. 

I had to keep reminding myself that this was set in the earlier part of 20th Century. Zara feels like a woman far ahead of her time, so that when she comes up against male attitudes and societal expectations it feels like a surprise. It did take me a little while to realise she was a real woman, born in Kew Victoria in 1909 as Zara Kate Dickens. In 1929 when she was still just 19, she approached her father who was a successful businessman for a loan. She made the case that her sister had an expensive wedding and since she had no plans to get married in the near future, could she use the equivalent money to start her own business. With the money and her friend Betty in tow, she opened a dress shop called Magg. They provided a bespoke service with Zara designing for the client and Betty as the seamstress. When Betty got married and left the business, Zara tried to continue alone but was exhausted by her own success. At this point she was expecting a proposal from Harry, which wasn’t forthcoming. On her mother’s advice she liquidated the business, coming out with $1500 ($125,000 in today’s money). She used her money to travel the world, including an impromptu trip to India with Colonel James Fell who she met on her return voyage. James did propose and became her first husband, but this wasn’t the end of Harry and it wasn’t the end of Magg. 

Zara Holt

I found Zara such a compelling character and admired her boundless energy for business and travel. She is endlessly creative, never losing that urge to sketch a dress  or incorporate a detail she’s seen into a new collection. She was particularly inspired by her time in India and the bold colours and decorative flourishes in women’s clothing. In later years, as Harry becomes more important in government she has to try combining her business affairs with the role of a political wife, using her new contacts and always trawling markets in other countries for fabrics to ship back to India. With more age and experience she manages to keep Magg running, even expanding and hiring new seamstresses and designers. I loved her little rebellions, such as talking to a gathering of women about business rather than her life as ‘first lady’. She also changes an opera fundraiser to a fashion show, both rewarded by the enthusiasm of her audience. 

In her personal life she finds it a lot harder to stick to her guns. Harry is utterly single- minded and only proposes when he’s boxed into a corner. She has suspicions about his womanising early on, but it takes decades for him to be honest with her. He never makes promises he can’t keep, aside from his vows, and while he professes to love only her he will not hear ultimatums. What I found hardest to swallow was his disregard for places and people that were special to him and Zara as a couple, he trashes Zara’s special memories of finding a natural waterfall near Bingle Bay where they stay with close friends, eventually buying their own home there. Harry ruins both by taking a mistress there and my sympathies for him were gone at that moment. I wanted Zara to leave him and use all her energy into her work and children. I felt he did not hear her or deserve her. She is left with the age old compromise, that the little bit of him she does have is better than nothing. 

Zara and Harold Holt

Kimberley has Zara narrate the full story and that’s wise because she really is the main draw of the book. I was full of admiration for the way she bucked the system. When living in India she finds out that their head servant is taking such a huge cut of the other servant’s wages they can’t afford to eat. She’s told it’s best to turn a blind eye and that the British don’t meddle in servant’s affairs, but she has him fired anyway. She also builds a friendship with an Indian doctor and academic that she meets at the stables, often riding out with him in the mornings. Her husband James forbids this and is furiously jealous. She has a sense of fairness and equality in how she approaches life which is appealing and interesting when you read about some of the policies that Harry works hard for as prime minister, when he eventually gets there. She stands up for her interest in fashion and is incredibly proud of knowledge and skills she’s built. She can look at any woman and see what dress style will best suit her body and how to combine current trends with what will suit the client. She knows how confident a woman feels when she is well dressed and aims to give all her clients that feeling of looking their best. She also defends it as an art form. Her designs are her preparatory sketches and the fabrics are her paints, what is created from her imagination and these materials is no less an art than an oil painting in a gallery.

I wanted her to have the same confidence in her personal life and to trust that she will find someone who loves her and gives her the attention and fidelity she deserves. Yet her love for Harry seems to transcend his behaviour. If you know anything about the Holts it’s probably the mystery surrounding Harry’s disappearance while swimming in a bay he knew well. It is assumed he was caught in a rip tide and drowned, but his body was never found. Zara wrote her own book about their life together. Her achievements included winning ‘Gown of the Year’ in 1961 and in 1962 Miss Australia, Tania Verstak, wore a Magg gown in the Miss International contest, which she won. Zara also advised on Australian uniforms for events such as Expo ‘67 in Montreal and the Mexico Olympic Games in 1968. In 1979 she was appointed as chair of the Yves Saint Laurent board in Australia. She had a bubbly personality and could say the wrong thing, occasionally portrayed as a bit scatterbrained by the press she was actually incredibly astute with a business brain. She also claimed that her eye for fashion was inspired by her own figure, being rather short and round in shape – something I share with her. When she died in 1989 she left over $5 million dollars and several properties to her three sons. I think Kimberley Freeman does an incredible job of capturing this fascinating woman, including the odd hilarious public gaffe. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Zara and I’m sure many other readers will too. 

Out now from Hachette Australia

Meet the Author

Kimberley was born in London and her family moved back to Australia when she was three years old. She grew up in Queensland where she currently lives.

Kimberley has written for as long as she can remember and she is proud to write in many genres. She is an award-winning writer in children’s, historical and speculative fiction under her birth name Kim Wilkins. She adopted the pen name Kimberley Freeman for her commercial women’s fiction novels to honour her maternal grandmother and to try and capture the spirit of the page-turning novels she has always loved to read. Kim has an Honours degree, a Masters degree and a PhD from The University of Queensland where she is also a senior lecturer. She lives in Brisbane with her kids and pets and lovely partner.