When her brother Lysander marries an Italian, Lady Julia Grey and her brothers are summoned back to the family home, a gigantic former abbey, for Christmas and for a scolding. The house party, however, consists of not just the large and eccentric family but some unexpected houseguests, including Nicholas Brisbane, who is in line for a title and with his fiancee, a silly widow, in tow. That isn’t the only shock going at Bellmont Abbey, though, when a body is found in the sanctuary and Julia’s priceless Grey pearls go missing. Reluctantly teamed up again, Julia and Brisbane must out the culprit and figure out who is behind the crimes.
I was so excited for this book and it didn’t disappoint at all! I just love when that happens. The plot may have taken a good 100 or so pages to get going, but I didn’t care, I loved this from the first word. The scene was carefully set before the murder occurred and I think the book would have suffered without that. The plot of this book is more complicated than in the first, but I didn’t find it any harder to understand by the end, though I’m sure more clues would reveal themselves on a reread. I did find myself reading much faster after the murder because I wanted to know what happened, but it was the difference between savoring Raybourn’s writing and desperately wanting to know how it all came out.
I also love the further development of the characters. Julia is an even sassier heroine than before. She’s come into her own and embraced her March background, firmly declaring herself her own woman. Brisbane is, if possible, even more of a mystery the more we learn about him. He’s an enigmatic, fascinating man, and it’s so easy to see why Julia is obsessed with him. I’m not into dangerous men, but I can see the appeal in this guy, and I think Julia’s infatuation is more on a level I can understand than, say, Bella’s was in Twilight. Also, this is a bit of a sidenote, but I adore the fact that these characters read! Raybourn mentions a stack of books on Brisbane’s nightstand and Julia reads herself to sleep on at least one occasion that I can remember.
Finally, I adore the atmosphere in this book. The prose is still gorgeous and clever and witty. I like the immediate contrast between sunny Italy and wintry England. I love Bellmont Abbey; as much as I deplore the dissolution of monasteries, the existence of these former religious buildings turned houses is fascinating, and such a conversion is much better than letting them go to ruin. I felt as though I could walk the halls of the abbey, see the ghost, feel the drafts, and just in general live in this novel for a little while. As soon as I finished, I wanted to go back and live in it a little longer. I can’t wait to read Silent on the Moor (a book like this set in my favorite part of England? Yay!) and am currently berating myself for having library books to get to before I can read it.
As you can probably tell, I loved this book. I really can’t stop gushing about it. If you love historical fiction, if you love mysteries, if you just love a good book, you should read this. Start with Silent in the Grave, but then buy this one on Amazon.
(I will be honest, about the only thing I don’t like about my copy of this book is its cover. Keith thought it was okay, but I really did not like it and think it gave the wrong impression, as do the romance novel covers that grace the current US versions. What do you think?)
Hanna’s phone rings in the middle of the night. When she answers it, she is at first annoyed, until she realizes that she is being offered the opportunity to work on the Sarajevo Haggadah, one of the world’s most precious medieval manuscripts. On her official visit, she not only re-binds and restores the book but also picks up little clues as to its history, which she then follows across the world. Interspersed with Hanna’s narrative, we get these glimpses of the people in the book’s past, illuminating its purpose and fascinating past.
I love books about books and this is no exception. I enjoyed the intimate description of the book to start off with; now that I understand what quires are and how parchment is made, these things become much richer for me. I think that Brooks pulled off the intertwined narratives very well. If anything, I always wanted to hear more about the historical parts; what happened to these people? Each time, I got drawn in, and I didn’t want the vignettes to end. For the most part, the stories only follow the history of the book. It made me think about all of the medieval books that I have encountered. Most of them do not have a history as exciting as this one’s, but it’s a heady, exciting thought.
That isn’t to say Hanna’s personal story isn’t interesting, though. I doubt it would have worked without the book, but her search for her father and strained relationship with her mother add something that I think may make this more universal than to just those of us who are obsessed with old books. I liked Hanna and I liked the ending. More, though, the overall message got to me. This book survived some of the hardest parts of modern human history and each vignette highlighted something horrific, whether slavery, warfare, or the Inquisition. It saddens me that people can do such things to one another, but I think the fact that this book, this Jewish book with illumination by a Muslim, survived is Brooks’ way of keeping hope alive. I like that. I like that a lot.
The people in Güde’s village are starving. 1507 is the second year of no harvest and the people have grown thin, listless, and hungry. When a visiting friar arrives and claims he has a solution, the people are overjoyed. Güde is certain that he will find this witch, who must be in another town for all of her neighbors are good, kind-hearted Christians, and restore prosperity to her small village. Then perhaps she will regain the respect of her daughter-in-law, Irmeltrud, and be at peace in her son’s home. She doesn’t realize that Irmeltrud will seize at anything to get rid of her, and worse, that she isn’t even sure she can deny those accusations.
The Witch’s Trinity is a well-imagined tale of late medieval Germany, struggling under the burden of famine. I particularly liked the atmosphere which pervaded the book. There is a constant feeling of dread in the little village on the edge of the woods and it’s easy to see how the population could be pushed into madness. The reader can feel the hunger, suspicion, and desperation that takes the place of common sense and affection. We already know what the friar’s arrival will bring, but that doesn’t take away from this sense of unease. Interspersed are memories of happier times, when Güde was a girl and in love and did not know what hunger really was. Longing for that time is clear as day and also helps us to understand the great changes that have taken place.
I also thought the angle this book took on witchcraft was interesting. Güde doesn’t know if she has signed her soul over to the devil or not. She doesn’t know if the things she sees are in the mind of an old woman or actual visions. When she is convicted of witchcraft, she is very confused. In most books, the accused is always innocent and there is rarely any supernatural element. This perspective is something new and provided for a fresh, more unpredictable read. It’s left up to the reader to decide, as the novel goes on, whether Güde is seeing truth or whether her aging mind is providing her with hallucinations.
This is a solid work of historical fiction. It provides an engaging, unusual view into a world that no longer exists, and has a gripping story and varied, sympathetic characters. I would recommend it.
If you’re in the UK, The Witch’s Trinity will be released tomorrow. Buy it here. If you’re in the US, you can also buy The Witch’s Trinity on Amazon.
Lady Julia Grey and her husband Edward are giving a dinner party when he is suddenly struck with convulsions. One of the guests, Nicholas Brisbane, immediately rushes to help, but Edward dies later that night. Julia is unsure what to think or feel, especially when Nicholas comes to her door claiming that Edward feared for his life and that he may have been murdered. Julia has heard the coroner’s reports and dismisses Nicholas immediately. One year later, however, she finds an incriminating piece of evidence suggesting that Brisbane was actually telling the truth. The trail has gone cold, but she enlists his help to determine whether her husband was murdered and if so, who did it.
I loved this book, from the first word to the last, and usually that only happens with my favorite authors. I picked it up and simply did not want to put it down, ever again. I think it’s the way that Raybourn writes, very elegantly, carefully, but with a little twist of humor, exactly how I’d envision a Victorian lady thinking. Or perhaps it just suits me. Whatever the combination, I was immediately swept into the book and Julia came to feel like a close friend.
I’m not a huge fan of mysteries, but I definitely felt that this one was well within my comfort range. I always understood what was happening and why characters reached certain conclusions, but I could never have guessed the ending. In fact, it’s very cleverly done so that the culprit’s name isn’t said in the scene and I actually thought it was the wrong guy! I was ready to throw the book across the room until I realized who it was, and then I realized that Deanna Raybourn deserves serious accolades for making it so tricky yet so obvious once you “get it”, because then it all makes perfect sense. I guess I could just be slow (and indeed I am according to Amazon reviews), but I was genuinely surprised. I enjoyed all the little side plots and the quirky characters, even the sleazy ones, because they really created an atmosphere for the whole story.
In conclusion, fantastic book. I adored it. I want to read it again. It’s so much fun and so enthralling and it has an edge of cleverness which makes it all come together really well.
“On June 9, 1865, while traveling by train to London with his secret mistress, fifty-three-year-old Charles Dickens – at the height of his powers and popularity, the most famous and successful novelist in the world and perhaps in the history of the world – hurtled into a disaster that changed his life forever.
Did Dickens begin living a dark double life after the accident? Were his nightly forays into the worst slums of London and his deepending obsession with corpses, crypts, murder, opium dens, the use of lime pits to dissolve bodies, and a hidden subterranean London mere research … or something more terrifying?”
First off, I love fiction featuring my favorite authors. Considering I don’t like to know much about their lives, that’s probably weird, but I find it gives me a bit of an attachment to them right before I start off, and there’s something about watching them live again that makes it all very enticing. This is even more the case in the Victorian period because this is my absolute favorite point in literature and it just doesn’t get any better. Even more exciting, this book is narrated by Wilkie Collins, who is sadly left off many curricula because I don’t think he’s enough of a “classic” for most teachers. Regardless, I loved The Moonstone AND The Woman in White, so I was all set for this book, and it didn’t disappoint me.
I found the mystery really intriguing. Obviously, there are no ghostlike guys named Drood walking around in actual London, but this works very well as a spooky, supernatural thriller which makes you wonder what parts are real and what parts are made up. At one point, the novel moves seamlessly into a dream and had me going, “OMG!” until the author stepped back a bit and made just what was going on a little bit clearer. I thought the plot was very well-crafted, especially for such a long book. This one clocks in at 773 pages, which is much bigger than anything I’ve read in a while. I will admit that I felt sort of bogged down by its length, but I think that’s more down to my anxiety towards slimming down my TBR pile than anything wrong with the book.
I really enjoyed the characterizations as well. One can easily imagine poor Wilkie standing in the shadow of the mighty Charles Dickens, one of few brilliant authors to achieve greatness while alive, feeling sorry for himself while still admiring his talented friend. I loved describing Dickens as “the Inimitable” and overall I felt that his fictional character here was about how I’d imagined him in my head. Also fascinating were the descriptions of his readings. I’d be really intrigued to know how close these depictions are to what really happened. We must have accounts of them somewhere. I think it would be truly amazing were he to be so active despite his advancing years.
This novel is just so huge that it’s very difficult to review! I would certainly recommend it though. It’s engrossing and a fabulous way to spend some time. I’d particularly say that you should read it if you love 19th century fiction, though.
When the Roman empire withdraws its troops from Britain, they leave a land in chaos. Vortigern, a name meaning “proud tyrant”, seizes control of the land from Uthr Pendragon, who is banished to Brittany. When Uthr returns, he is killed in battle, leaving his son Arthur as heir to the throne of Britain. Previously, Arthur had imagined himself as an insignificant bastard, but learning that he is Uthr’s son gives a whole new dimension to his dreams. Newly included in those dreams is Gwenhwyfar, the young daughter of his father’s ally Cunedda. Gwenhyfar pledges herself to him when he accepts the throne as heir. Winning Britain back is destined to be an uphill battle, but Arthur shows strength, tenacity, and smarts in his attempts to educate himself and get his legacy back.
Helen Hollick has made it pretty clear that she’s thrown out the Arthurian legends and attempted to re-imagine this as it really would have been, using the original Welsh poems. I think that’s awesome. Don’t get me wrong, I love Arthurian literature, but it’s not actually ever historical fiction, it’s just a literary tradition. I think it’s neat to put Arthur in a rougher context, and since there are so few sources relating to this period, the author has free reign and she really uses it to her advantage.
I liked this story. It feels huge. The book is long and many, many events occur within its pages, but it felt like an epic and I love epics. It’s a great mix between battles and more intimate goals and dealings of the heart. Tons of scheming goes on and I think Hollick gets across the nature of the changeable early middle ages especially well. I loved that some of the Britons thought that the Romans were coming back especially. They must have thought that given that the Romans had been ruling in Britain for hundreds of years. Who was to guess that the abandonment would have been so complete? The mixture between Christianity and paganism was interesting. Christianity didn’t “arrive” in Britain for several hundred years after this, but I’m sure there must have been devotees left from the Roman occupation. Overall, I think the stage is set very well for this sort of story. No one quite knows what to do, but they know they want power, and they’re all fighting for it.
When you throw Arthur and Gwenhwyfar into the mix with real figures from history, however shadowy, it makes for a fantastic story like this one. Both the protagonists go through a lot just to be together and their dominance is hard-won. I love the interpretation of Arthur as a tough guy, not a gentle chivalric knight who turns the other way when his wife starts cuckolding him (there is no Lancelot here, fyi, if you’re looking for him). He fights for what he wants, I’m sure this Arthur would have had Lancelot’s head rotting on a stick. And as for Gwenhwyfar, she is a powerful and inspiring woman in her own right here who grows from a lovely tomboy into a woman who isn’t afraid to defend herself and her family. They both have their moments of weakness, but it makes those moments of strength even stronger.
I do recommend this. It’s a fascinating re-imagining of Early Medieval Britain and gives the Arthurian legend a boost. If you enjoy historical fiction, I think you should read this. I for one am looking forward to the next two installments of the trilogy.
The Kingmaking comes out on March 1st. Preorder it on Amazon.
(As an addendum, I would just like to say that I don’t believe King Arthur actually existed – if he did, he wasn’t a king – and thus historical fiction written about him is free from all accuracy requirements I normally apply to historical figures. I can just enjoy it as a good book like this one!)
If you want to hear more opinions and read more interviews and guest posts from Helen, check out these other blogs throughout this week and next:
“Lilith is born into slavery on a sugar plantation in Jamaica near the beginning of the nineteenth century. Even at her birth, the slave women around her recognize a dark power that they – and she – will come to both revere and fear. The Night Women, as they call themselves, have long been conspiring to stage a slave revolt, and as Lilith comes of age they see her as the key to their plans.”
When I started this book, I basically hated it. I hate slave narratives because it is just so wrong that it makes me feel ill and uncomfortable. It’s hard for me to believe that people could do such a thing to other people. Regardless, I persevere because it is important and I should know and anyway, I had to review this book, so I didn’t have much of a choice.
That said, the power of this book seriously grew on me as I went in. I grew to really like Lilith even though she commits the most horrible crimes; you can almost see what drives her to them. I was repelled but fascinated by the plans of the slave revolt and their interactions with each other. I almost always wanted to smack all the white people and I must admit that I was pleased when they got their comeuppance and disappointed that not all of them did. There are some seriously disturbing scenes in this book, so I don’t think it’s appropriate for everyone. It’s not that I can say this was a good book, either, because nothing to do with slavery is good. It is, however, a daring story of the life of one slave woman, the every day struggle just to get by, and ultimately a powerful tribute to impossible love and the depth of human emotion.
In Jackson, Mississippi, three women meet and do their best to make an unforgettable mark on their town’s history. Aibileen is a black maid who in part, raises white children for a living, always leaving before the children get too old. Skeeter is a recent graduate from college, has scandalously not come home with a husband, and is determined to write but not sure how to go about doing it or even what to write about. Minny is Aibileen’s best friend and also a maid, but far too out-spoken to get an ordinary job at this stage. All these women put their lives and futures at risk so their voices can be heard; they just can’t put up with it any longer.
I was surprised by how much I loved this book. Each character is given individual sections of the novel and together they form a powerful narrative voice that is touching and significant at once. The difference between Skeeter’s life and those of Aibileen and Minny is immense and appalling, particularly how white people had blinders on and did ridiculous things like installing a second toilet just for the black servants to use. Perhaps the most affecting part of the novel, however, was the feeling between the black servants and some of the white families they served, particularly with the children. There was affection in some cases amidst the degradations and I never imagined it to be like that. That said, this is fiction and none of these women have spoken up in real life (to my knowledge) so maybe it wasn’t so, but it still made the book immensely powerful emotionally. It astounds me that all this was happening just 50-60 years ago.
This read comes highly recommended from me. The Help is a wonderful, well-paced, stunning novel from a new writer that I suspect will go far, and a brilliant beginning for a new literary imprint.
Over a span of ten years in Hong Kong, Will Truesdale falls in love with one woman before World War II and has an affair with another one after. When he arrives in society, he meets Trudi Canavan, an enigmatic, enchanting woman who somehow chooses him to take under her wing and they begin a passionate love affair. At the other end of the scale we have Claire Pendleton, a married piano teacher who generally reminded me of a mouse, and who can’t get enough of Will. It seems that Claire is merely a foil to get us to what happened with Will and Trudi during the war, which is where this story really lies.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t really enjoy this book much. It’s written in a spare style which I like very much and I thought the story was intriguing. I even grew to like Trudi over the period of the novel, though I didn’t at the beginning. I think the problem, however, was that Claire bothered me. Despite the fact that she steals from her employers and carries on an affair behind her husband’s back, she seemed spineless to me. To be honest, I didn’t like post-war Will either. They seemed empty, going through the motions to get the author’s plot where it was going by that point. The best parts were certainly those featured after the start of the war and the occupation of Hong Kong, at which point the novel develops into a very moving, human story about the unfortunate power of war.
Is it worth reading? Yes, but I really wish that the author had not chosen the dual narratives. They allow us to see the effects of the war, but it could have been done with someone more interesting than Claire, characters who had personality, or at least someone I could relate to in some way. Personal preference, and I’m sorry that such a thing marred my enjoyment of what could otherwise have been a stunning book.
Colin has invited Eloise to his country estate for a week away together, and for a chance to look at the Selwick papers. She finds the letters of Lady Charlotte Lansdowne, an extremely romantic girl who has spent most of her life at her country estate, Girdings, reading books. Charlotte has been infatuated with the duke of Dovedale, Robert, ever since her father grew ill and his father arrived to take up the dukedom. She is thrilled at his return. Robert, on the other hand, views himself as a “rotten apple” and is only in England to catch the man who killed his commanding officer and father figure under the guise of war. His mission is too important for him to fall in love with his distant cousin, but Charlotte has no such resolutions.
At first, I couldn’t figure out how on earth this book was connected to the other Pink Carnation books, except for that Charlotte is Henrietta’s best friend. It appears, however, that the man Robert is after is yet another in the series of flower spies, although we learn very little about the actual Pink Carnation in this book. After The Seduction of the Crimson Rose, this story begins as almost unbearably sweet and I was actually pleased when reality hit and the romantic delusions ended. It feels inevitable anyway, and the book got much better afterwards. Both Charlotte and Robert had to figure out who the other person was outside of their own romantic misconceptions. They both fell off the pedestal, so to speak, and I think that’s a problem rarely dealt with in romance; too often both characters are flawless. Also, I really enjoyed the way both characters had their own “bad guy” to deal with and the way the stories neatly combined. And once again, I can tell this will be a frustration for those who treat this as an ordinary romance, but there is no love scene here either! I find it refreshing and I think trying to fit one in would have ruined the plot, so good judgment on Willig’s part. Furthermore, some interesting revelations about Colin in this one, and it’s nice to see Eloise without her obsession about being boyfriendless.
I’m looking forward to the next one! As I said in my last review of this series, it’s not ending any time soon and I’m still enjoying it. I just hope we learn more about the Pink Carnation soon. I’m anxiously awaiting Jane’s story!
When her brother Lysander marries an Italian, Lady Julia Grey and her brothers are summoned back to the family home, a gigantic former abbey, for Christmas and for a scolding. The house party, however, consists of not just the large and eccentric family but some unexpected houseguests, including Nicholas Brisbane, who is in line for a title and with his fiancee, a silly widow, in tow. That isn’t the only shock going at Bellmont Abbey, though, when a body is found in the sanctuary and Julia’s priceless Grey pearls go missing. Reluctantly teamed up again, Julia and Brisbane must out the culprit and figure out who is behind the crimes.
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