Tag Archives: historical fiction

Lamentation by C.J. Sansom

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Lamentation Book CoverLamentation by C.J. Sansom was published in 2014 and it’s the sixth book in the Shardlake series.

Shardlake has been employed by Queen Catherine Parr, supposedly to track down a valuable ring of hers which has been stolen, but in reality he is searching for a book which she has written and which could be construed as a work of heresy. Catherine has plenty of enemies within the court, as ever King Henry VIII’s supposed loyal courtiers are intent on manipulating him for their own familial advantage.

The Queen will be in danger of being burnt at the stake for heresy if she can’t find her stolen book which is called The Lamentations of a Sinner, and so might Shardlake. She regrets not having burnt it when she could.

In this one Shardlake gets involved with men who are a lot more dangerous than he realises, and he and his male employees end up being outfought by men who are hardened fighters compared with them.

This was a good one although for my liking there was a bit too much jeapordy involved for Shardlake and Barak.

I love the historical notes at the back of these books. Sansom certainly put in a lot of research time and his description of Henry VIII in his final year or so seem very authentic and likely.

Heartstone by C.J. Sansom

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Heartstone Book CoverHeartstone by C.J. Sansom was first published in 2010 and it’s the fifth book in the Matthew Shardlake series.

It’s June 1545 and the setting is London, then Portsmouth. Henry VIII is now married to Catherine Parr and he’s not long for this world. He has put on even more weight and his leg ulcers are getting worse, but that hasn’t stopped him from starting a war with France. The road to Portsmouth is packed with soldiers, a massive English army to take on the French. Shardlake and Barak are heading that way too.

Shardlake is determined to get to the bottom of why a woman called Ellen is a patient in Bedlam, she’s terrified of the outside world and has been in Bedlam for over 20 years, but who is paying her fees and why was she put there in the first place?

This is a great read which really gets into the nitty gritty of what life must have been like for the soldiers and sailors who had often unwillingly been pressed into service of the King. In no time anyone travelling within the multitude is infested with fleas and lice. This is the time when the ship the Mary Rose sank so disastrously and it features in the story.

I have quite a lot of faith in C.J. Sansom’s historical details, but he did slip up with his knowledge of hunting when he wrote about servants gutting deer after a hunt. It wasn’t done quickly enough so the meat would have been inedible as deer have to be ‘gralloched’ (disembowelled) as soon as they are killed. But that’s me nit-picking

Heartstone is 715 pages long, which can be a bit off-putting especially when you have  a lot of books waiting to be read, but in no time you can read 100 pages and not realise it. I think that’s proof of how well written this series is.

 

Revelation by C.J. Sansom

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Revelation by C.J. Sansom is the fourth book in the author’s Shardlake series.

The book begins in the Spring of 1543. King Henry VIII is smitten by Catherine Parr whose elderly husband has just recently died, but she’s not all that keen, and who can blame her!

As the king gets older and more ill he seems to be hankering after the religion of his youth,  and all that goes with it, except the Pope of course. Catherine is a reformer, but some reformist congregations are becoming too strict, and  verging on lunacy.

When Shardlake’s friend ends up dead in a fountain, murdered horribly, and then another body is found, the circumstances lead Shardlake to believe that the murderer is a disgruntled reformist who is using the Book of Revelations to punish people that he disaproves of.

Shardlake is also trying to save a young man who has been sent to Bedlam for his own safety really as he has been drawing attention to himself with his vocal religious mania, people have been burnt at the stake for behaving like that.

This was another cracking read. If you do read it make sure that you read the historical notes at the back. I had no idea that there had been a lot of deliberation by the religious powersof the day over the Book of Revelations – as to whether it should be included in the bible or not. It does seem to have caused an awful lot of trouble over the years as it was thrillingly beloved by the Tudor Puritans, and likewise by the Christian Fundamentalists of today.

I must say that I didn’t realise that they picked and chose what they wanted to be included in the bible, so the whole thing has been manipulated, as well as being mis-translated.

 

Sovereign by C.J. Sansom

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Sovereign Book CoverSovereign by C.J. Sansom was first published in 2006 and it’s the third book in the Shardlake series.

It’s 1541 and Shardlake and his assistant Jack Barak have been riding for five days, making their way to the north of England. It’s a particularly gruelling journey as the summer has been so wet, the roads are bad. Shardlake is on a mission for Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and he wants to get to York before  King Henry VIII does. After the revolts in the north Henry is making his way there, the revolt has been quelled and this Royal Progress is to consolidate his power. He’s also expecting to meet with his nephew the Scottish King James V, but James isn’t daft enough to travel into England.

Not everyone has been forgiven though, Sir Edward Broderick is languishing in a filthy prison cell, waiting to be transferred to the Tower in London, and it’s Shardlake’s job to make sure that Broderick doesn’t die before he’s taken to London for interrogation and torture in the Tower. It’s a job that horrifies Shardlake, but he has troubles of his own, it seems that someone is trying to kill him.

This is a fairly hefty book at 658 pages, but it really doesn’t seem that long, it’s so well written the whole thing flows smoothly.  Sansom imagines the arrival of the King and his court, the army and masses of followers, and the effect that his presence has on the people who witness his arrival so well. People couldn’t even look at him, and shook in terror. At this time Henry was married to his fifth wife Katherine Howard, and her silly shenanigans come into the tale too. Sansom also didn’t ignore the problems that so many people descending on a place caused, specifically the amount of sewage involved. There’s more involved in the plot, but that’s as much as I’m going to say.

I’m so glad that I didn’t read this series as they were published because now I don’t have to wait for the next book to be published, I’ve already borrowed it from the library.

 

Dark Fire by C.J. Sansom

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Dark Fire by C.J. Sansom was published in 2003 and it’s the second book in the author’s Shardlake series.

The year is 1540 and with Henry VIII in a mood because his marriage with Anne of Cleves had been a disaster as far as he is concerned. As Cromwell brokered the marriage he’s in a difficult and dangerous position, and Shardlake finds himself working for Cromwell.

As Cromwell has so many enemies within the court he’s desperate to get into Henry’s good books. He has heard that someone has found some Greek Fire and is desperate to track it down and then have it analysed so that it can be replicated. The formula has been long lost. With such a horrific weapon in his arsenal the king will be euphoric and Cromwell will feel a lot safer.

Possessing Greek Fire/Dark Fire would have been the equivalent of being a nuclear power in Tudor times.

At the same time Shardlake has to work to get evidence of a young girl’s innocence of a murder. She has already been sentenced to be pressed to death for the murder of her cousin, and Shardlake is sure she is not gulity.

This was a great read, Shardlake is such a likeable character, I can’t wait to get my hands on the third book in this series – Sovereign –  I’m really enjoying this historical crime fiction series.

Kenilworth by Sir Walter Scott – Classics Club spin

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I completely missed the deadline of 22nd, September for reading Kenilworth for The Classics Club spin, in fact I completely forgot about it until the email popped up asking if I had finished my spin book – I hadn’t even started it.  Anyway, I got down to it straight away, it took me a week to finish it, it’s 568 pages long, my edition dates from 1908, it was a prize given to my granny-in-law for ‘general exellence’ at St Gabriel’s Church in Govan. I wonder if she ever ploughed her way through it, she was a big Georgette Heyer fan. The book was originally published in 1821.

I can’t say that I enjoyed this one. I usually get used to Walter Scott’s garrulous writing style fairly quickly but this one felt like a real drag.

The setting is mainly Kenilworth Castle which was owned by Robert Dudley (Earl of Leicester) Elizabeth I of England’s favourite. The whole thing is just Walter Scott’s version of what went on in that Tudor court where men were jockeying for Elizabeth’s attention in an attempt to climb the greasy pole and maybe even become her husband.

Dudley thinks he has a good chance of catching Elizabeth but crucially he is already married to Amy Robsart, although it is a secret marriage. Obviously things don’t end well for Amy.

There’s a lot more to it of course, I don’t think that it helped that I already knew how the story would end. I don’t think I’ll darken Scott’s door for quite some time – if ever.

I would really like to visit Kenilworth Castle sometime though, meanwhile I’m making do with this You Tube video with historian Dan Snow.

 

The Other Side of Stone by Linda Cracknell

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The Other Side of Stone by Linda Cracknell was published in 2021 by Taproot Press. The time switches between 1831, 1913, 1990, 2003, 2006 and 2019, but it’s never confusing. It’s a quick read at just 146 pages, I think it’s really well written. The setting is rural Perthshire. It is a novella although some people have described it as a collection of linked short stories.

It begins with a stonemason cutting the keystone of a Perthshire woollen mill, he chisels the date 1831 into it, but on the inside face that nobody will ever see he carves a secret mark.

Basically this is the history of a building over the years, from its beginning to its end. We often say when we’re in old buildings “if walls could talk” and that’s really what Linda Cracknell has done in this book. The woollen mill has seen strikes and strife particularly in 1913 when they are so disgruntled that immigration to Canada seems like a good move to some. But the wife of one of the mill workers just hopes to get her husband to sign papers to allow her to be able to train as a nurse, she needs his permission and it looks like he’s never going to give it. She becomes a suffragette which gains her husband a lot of sympathy  – from the drunken men anyway.

In the later years the mill’s fortunes decline, as almost all of them did, until the land it was built on is returned to an agricultural use again, and a circle of some sort has been completed.

 

 

 

The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar – 20 Books of Summer

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The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar was first published in 2018 and I think I’ve had it since then, waiting to be read, it’s one of my 20 Books of Summer. I must admit that I did have a few qualms at times about this book but I ended up really enjoying it. The qualms were because I’m one of those people that prefers to have the bedroom action in books staying in the bedroom with the reader staying on the other side of the door.

The book is set in 1785/86 and Jonah Hancock is a merchant and ship owner, he’s waiting for word of one of his ships to reach him, it’s always a fraught time as so many ships are wrecked and never heard of again. This time his ship has not arrived but its captain Tysoe Jones has, telling Jonah that he has sold his ship so that he could buy a ‘mermaid’. Jonah is dumbfounded but Tysoe explains that the oddity will make him a fortune as people will pay good money to see a mermaid. In truth it’s a dried up and ugly impish thing, but Tysoe is correct and people come from far and wide to see it.

Jonah Hancock had led a quiet and blameless  life for almost twenty years since his wife’s death in childbirth along with his baby son, but he is now catapulted into high society, a place of sex, sin and debauchery. Very young women are exploited by older women, who sell their bodies to wealthy men but the girls get nothing except clothes, board and lodging.

So bawds and bawdy houses feature in this book, some quirky but believable characters, and some problems which are still with us nowadays. The exploitation of young women, by other women as well as men. This was a good read though.

 

 

The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson – 20 Books of Summer

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Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson  is another of my 20 Books of Summer although it wasn’t on my original list which has had to be amended somewhat. This one was a request from the library.

It begins in 1919 in fictional Hazelbourne-on-Sea in the south of England. It’s a tough time for women as those who have been working during the war are having to give up their jobs so that the returning soldiers can have them. Constance Haverhill finds herself surplus to requirements at her family home as her parents are dead, her brother has inherited the farm and his wife doesn’t want Constance around. The estate where Constance worked during the war have got rid of her which means she is homeless as well as jobless, she’s lucky to have found work as a lady’s companion to an old family friend who is convalescing at a hotel.

The hotel is a popular meeting place for Poppy Wirrall, she’s the daughter of a baronet and during the war she and a group of women had flown aeroplanes from factories to the airfields. Now they can only drive motorbikes, they’ve set up a taxi company for women only, with sidecars for the passengers.

This was a good read. It features lots of the social problems that came with the end of World War 1. The lack of men for women to marry as so many had been killed in the war, the horror of severely damaged men both physically and mentally,  the problem of suddenly having no work for women after they had become used to being wage earners throughout the war years, and then the new laws which favoured the returning soldiers.

That makes it all sound a bit grim but there is some romance and light-heartedness in there too. This is the third book by Simonson that I’ve read, I’ve enjoyed them all, I’ve just had a look at my blogpost of her second book Before the War and I ended it by writing:

Snobbery, racism, prejudice, bitchiness, family strife – all the usual nastiness that goes to make up almost any society of human beings in fact – appear in each of Helen Simonson’s books.

That’s true of this one as well.

 

Where the World Ends by Geraldine McCaughrean – 20 Books of Summer

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Where the World Ends by Geraldine McCaughrean was first published in 2004 and it won the Whitbread Children’s book award that year, also the Carnegie Medal in 2018 for an illustrated edition. This is one of my 20 Books of Summer.

The setting is the St Kilda archipelago in the far north of Scotland, the date is summer 1727. As usual in the summer a boat full of young boys along with three men has sailed to a sea stac so that they can harvest sea birds to help them survive the next winter. They use every part of the birds to help them survive the grim weather to come. It’s a harsh existence, but it’s part of growing up for any young male St Kildan.

During the harvest time they live in a cave and have to bed down on the rough floor which causes them to have sores, if they get infected it’ll be the end of them, oil from the dead sea birds is rubbed into any cuts and grazes to try to avoid infection.

After their harvest season should be over no boat comes to pick them up as arranged. At first they assume that the weather has had something to do with the lack of a boat, but as summer turns to autumn and winter weather arrives they can’t imagine why they have been abandoned. They only have rain water to drink now and their clothes are in rags after having to climb the cliffs daily.

One of the men decides to start to gather any bits of wood which wash up around the sea stac, he hopes to be able to build some sort of raft in the hope that he’ll be able to sail to nearby Boreray to get help.

This book is based on a true story, the author has woven a tale around it, imagining the tensions that would have emerged under the circumstances. It’s a really good read.