★★★★
In September last year, the Guardian published an article by Judy Golding (William’s daughter) about The Inheritors. I read it at the time but only recently tracked it down again. I already want to reread so I can savour the complexities that I missed first time round. But even my quick first read of the article lodged the title in my mind. When I saw a lovely old Faber & Faber edition in Oxfam a few weeks ago, I snaffled it.
★★★★
Hot on the heels of The Beacon at Alexandria, I turned my attention to the other Bradshaw novel I had lined up, and I’m delighted to say that Island of Ghosts proved to be equally enjoyable. Like Beacon it has a classical setting, this time in Roman Britain in 175 AD, and it’s written in the same easy, engaging style. Indeed, its protagonist is thoughtful and self-contained, much like Charis, and there are familiar themes of displacement and the difficulties of finding one’s path as an outsider.
★★★★
In one sense, of course, the title refers to the Pharos: that great lighthouse in the harbour of Alexandria which became one of the Wonders of the World. But it has another meaning too. Alexandria is a place of possibility and hope: a vast melting pot in which different cultures and religions have coexisted for centuries. It’s a place of ideas. And Charis of Ephesus hopes it’ll be a place of freedom.
★★★★
The easiest way I can describe this book, which follows four young women working in a New York publishing house in the early 1950s, is to ask you to think of Sex and the City crossed with Mad Men. With that description in mind you might be tempted to write it off as sugary vintage froth: a feast of twin-sets, cocktails and giggling bespectacled secretaries called Mary-Jane or Betty-Ann. But you’d be doing it an injustice. First published in 1958, this novel was written before the period had a chance to be romanticised, when the author herself had similar experiences fresh in her mind. It’s darker, shrewder and considerably more rewarding than you might expect.
★★★★
An Epic of Rome, Tyranny and Love
I discovered this novel tucked away near the back of our little lending-library shelf at work. I’m not all that familiar with Lindsey Davis’s Falco books, but I’ve read the one where he goes to Alexandria and remembered enjoying it, so I decided to give this standalone novel a try. Like the Falco series it’s set in ancient Rome, this time roughly covering the period of the emperor Domitian, from 80-96 AD. However it isn’t a mystery and, as far as I know, the characters are entirely different from those in Falco. From the very first line (‘It was a quiet afternoon on the Via Flaminia‘) I was drawn into Davis’s world, and can honestly say that this has been one of the most heartwarming, lovable books I’ve read in a long time.
★★★
Aristocrat. Heiress. Highwaywoman
It is 1648 and the fate of England teeters on a knife-edge. Civil war splits the nation into Royalist and Parliamentarian, and the effects are felt far beyond the battlefield. Even as the years pass and Cromwell comes to power, the ravaged land struggles to recover and the great estates which once dominated the country find themselves starved, fragmented and close to collapse. One of these estates is Ware Park, the home of Katherine Ferrers and her husband (and cousin) Thomas Fanshawe.
★★★★
There were many reasons I decided to give this book a go. It cropped up as an automated recommendation on Goodreads some time ago and the cover’s pretty wonderful; so when I found it in my local secondhand bookshop I snaffled it straight away. Add to that the fact it’s set in my native Bristol, and I simply couldn’t say no. Yet again, I’m pleased to say that Goodreads has come up trumps, because I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it anywhere near as much as I did. This is the best kind of historical fiction: full of convincing period flavour without ever sagging under the preparatory research, and enlivened with meaty characters who often occupy the shifting grey mid-tones of morality and are all the more interesting for it.
★★★ ½
Micah Grey: Book I
I can’t quite remember how this book ended up on my Kindle, but I suspect it was another Goodreads recommendation. I’ve always enjoyed novels about theatre and performance, and this one promised something along the lines of The Night Circus: blending the sleight-of-hand of the circus with a more mysterious, elemental kind of magic. I freely confess that the ‘young adult’ designation put me off reading it for some time: nothing but a silly prejudice of mine; and one that I regretted as I was drawn into the story.
★★★★ ½
To say that The Goldfinch is a good book, now, feels rather superfluous. Everyone has already read it and written about it and the most surprising thing is that it took me so long to read it. But its size was daunting and I’m always slightly put off by a book during its moment of high fashion, when it crowds in on you from every bestseller table and ‘must read’ list. This weekend, having to take two unplanned cross-country train journeys, I grabbed the closest thing to hand that would get me through four hours of the British rail network. That just happened to be a dogeared copy of The Goldfinch that I’d snaffled from the informal lending library at work.
The Idle Woman 