Category: Books

The Mirador (2007): Sarah Monette

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★★★

Doctrine of Labyrinths: Book III

We’re back in the Mirador, two years after the events of The Virtu, and things have settled into a routine for our characters, though to call it a ‘comfortable’ routine might be pushing things. Felix is thoroughly enjoying being back in the limelight, casually tormenting his old enemies and wallowing in the adoration of the more impressionable members of the court. Behind closed doors, however, he’s having a considerably less enjoyable time: his lover Gideon is unable to accept Felix’s constitutional inability to be faithful, and Felix himself continues to be haunted by thoughts of his thwarted former master Malkar, as well as tormented by needs that he can’t admit to anyone within the Mirador and which keep clawing him back to the Lower City.

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The Virtu (2006): Sarah Monette

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★★★½

Doctrine of Labyrinths: Book II

If you’re going to entrust your life and well-being to the care of another human being, would Felix Harrowgate really be your first choice?

Well, there’s no accounting for taste. Picking up from the end of Mélusine, we rejoin Mildmay and Felix in the Gardens of Nephele. Felix has been healed of his madness and Mildmay has been freed of his own death-curse, but is stuck with the pain of his lamed and twisted leg. Although Felix seems happy enough, studying dream-magic, working his way through the library, and winning admirers left, right and centre, Mildmay feels increasingly isolated and out of place. He’s perfectly aware that these elevated philosophers only tolerate him because he happens to be the half-brother of the new toast of the town. For once, Felix rises above his own selfishness just long enough to see Mildmay’s unhappiness; and he decides it’s time for them to go home.

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Mélusine (2005): Sarah Monette

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★★★ ½

Doctrine of Labyrinths: Book I

Having enjoyed The Goblin Emperor, I thought it would be fun to read some other books by the same author, and that meant going back to her popular Doctrine of Labyrinths series. Needless to say, I hadn’t read much of the first book, Mélusine, before realising that this was a very different kind of novel. So much for heart-warming cosiness! Something happens in the early chapters of Mélusine which very nearly made me decide not to carry on – those who’ve read the novel will know what I’m talking about. While I don’t mind reading about violence in battle situations, torture and sexual violation is another matter entirely. But I decided to give it a chance and ploughed on (things settle down a bit after that early, shocking scene); and, to my surprise, I was completely and utterly gripped. I still can’t decide whether or not I actually liked the book as a whole, but that’s immaterial in view of the fact that I was hooked.

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The Goblin Emperor (2014): Katherine Addison

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★★★★

Some weeks ago, Heloise told me about The Goblin Emperor, which she’d just finished reading (she posted a review earlier today). She knows that I’ve just finished a very intense period at work, and urged me to track down this book for some light relief. This friendly urging was repeated several times with increased insistence, to which I finally gave in; and I’m delighted I did. At the weekend, free at last, I curled up to read and was very quickly charmed. This is a delightfully heart-warming book: a feast of intrigue with a well-meaning, appealing and thoughtful protagonist at its core.

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Outlaw (2009): Angus Donald

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★★★★

The Outlaw Chronicles: Book I

Angus Donald’s name crops up a lot in the historical fiction forums over at Goodreads and so I was rather chuffed to stumble across a copy of his debut novel in my local second-hand bookshop. As you know, I find it hard to resist novels about Robin Hood and I was interested to see how Outlaw would tackle this character, whom I’ve recently come across in two very different fictional forms: romantic, noble and quietly traumatised in Lady of the Forest, and psychotic madman with a Messiah complex in the most peculiar Hodd. It’s proven to be a good read, full of colour and historical flair.

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Of Ink, Wit and Intrigue (2013): Susan Cooper-Bridgewater

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★★

‘You will not like me,’ warns the Earl of Rochester at the beginning of Laurence Dunmore’s 2004 film The Libertine; ‘you will not like me now, and you will like me a good deal less as we go on.’ This, of course, is nonsense: the rake of rakes; the canker at the heart of the Restoration rose; the closest we English have ever come to anyone of Casanova’s calibre… how can we fail to like Rochester? I’ve encountered him several times over the last couple of years, although always in a supporting role: his portrait, with monkey in tow, in the exhibition The Wild, The Beautiful and The Damned, for example, or making a cameo appearance in The Vizard Mask. When I spotted this book on offer on Netgalley, which promised to restore the syphilitic Earl to centre stage, I snapped it up immediately.

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The Lords of the North (2006): Bernard Cornwell

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★★★½

The Saxon Stories: Book III

Oh Uhtred. How I’ve missed you. Although it’s now been almost a month since I read this, I can still remember how refreshing I found it. That was during my deadline period where I was desperate for non-work-related reading material but entirely lacked the energy or mental capacity to write any blog posts; so I apologise. As you might remember, I’ve already read the first two novels in Bernard Cornwell’s series about Alfred the Great and the third proved to be just the tonic for some undemanding escapism. There are times, of course, when I want complex characterisation and meaty, intricate plots; and then there are times (largely coinciding with deadlines) when quite frankly I relish reading about someone like Uhtred, whose manifesto is short, simple and to the point: ‘That is my land. That is my woman. I will kill you now.’ Excellent.

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Dragonwyck (1944): Anya Seton

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Does anyone know of a better photo of Anya Seton than this showing her on her wedding day?

★★★

It’s about time I read Dragonwyck: I bought it at last year’s village fete and we’ve just, last Saturday, had this year’s fete. Of course it initially caught my eye for its rather hideous 1970s cover, but then I realised that it was by Anya Seton, who wrote Katherine, which I’d read and enjoyed, and so I thought I’d give it a go. Now, I’ll be frank and admit that I didn’t enjoy this as much as Katherine, and in fact found the heroine a bit of a wimp, but it was still fun to read as an undemanding piece of Gothic sensationalism. Moreover, I’ve hardly read any historical fiction set in America (beyond Gone with the Wind) and so Dragonwyck went some way towards filling that gap.

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Pilgrim (1999): Timothy Findley

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★★★★

This was a re-read: a cautious venture back to a book which I was given for Christmas when I was sixteen and devoured on that same day, and about which I am completely unable to be objective. For that reason this post is going to be even more subjective than usual. Pilgrim was an inspired gift on the part of my parents, who had managed to find the one novel which encompassed all my interests at that time. The protagonist is an art historian, educated at Magdalen, who happens to be the world authority on Leonardo da Vinci. It so happened that, at the age of sixteen, these were my three greatest desires in the world (I achieved the first two, and learned better than to wish for the third).

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The Vizard Mask (1994): Diana Norman

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★★★★½

Occasionally, entirely by chance, you come across a book so delicious, so full of serendipity, that you can hardly believe your luck. I bought The Vizard Mask entirely on the title and the précis – I haven’t read any of Diana Norman’s other books, nor her popular Mistress of the Art of Death series written under her pseudonym Ariana Franklin. It turned out to be a rare gem: a sprawling, meaty, bawdy slice of Restoration drama underpinned by one of the most wonderful romantic pairings I’ve come across in fiction. The overall flavour made me think of Forever Amber crossed with Stage Beauty, finished off with liberal dashes of Much Ado About Nothing (rather appropriately).

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