Category: Books

Hild (2013): Nicola Griffith

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★★★★★

A Novel

This was a rare thing: a book I came to on the strength of its subject, knowing nothing about its author, hoping that it would be a amusing read – only to find myself simply blown away by the quality of the writing. And I’m not easy to impress. All I knew at first was that this covered the same period as the excellent The King in the North, which I enjoyed so much. It has turned out to be just as brilliant, in a rather different way. This is a splendid treat of historical fiction, embracing the experiences of both men and women through the story of one remarkable protagonist.

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The Far Traveler (2007): Nancy Marie Brown

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★★★½

Voyages of a Viking Woman

I realised that I was going to get along rather well with Nancy Marie Brown when I read the opening sentence of her first chapter: ‘The first time I saw a Viking ship in the water, I was struck with the desire to stow away on it‘. I was immediately charmed. Brown started out as a science writer, but she’s recently had the chance to return to her first love: Norse culture and mythology. Her writing is consequently an appealing blend of specialist and enthusiast.

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Ace, King, Knave (2013): Maria McCann

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★★★½

This is Maria McCann’s third novel and it has large shoes to fill: her debut, As Meat Loves Salt, set during the English Civil War, is one of the most compelling pieces of historical fiction I’ve read (with one of the most conflicted, unsettling antiheroes). Her second book, The Wilding, was set at a similar period and, for me, wasn’t nearly as powerful; but Ace, King, Knave is a return to form. Moving away from the male narrators and the 17th-century setting of the first two novels, McCann draws us into the roistering world of 18th-century London, and the experiences of two very different women.

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The Wilful Princess & The Piebald Prince (2013): Robin Hobb

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Robin Hobb © Ulf Andersen/Getty Images

★★★

Anyone who followed my Robin Hobb reread earlier in the year will understand why I’ve been looking forward so much to this new novella. Set at Buckkeep, it forms a welcome return to the history of the Farseer family – not, I hasten to add, that it’s a continuation of Fitz’s story (for that we have to wait until April and the publication of Fool’s Assassin – God help my poor nerves). Instead it takes a step back in time to look at the story behind one of Buckkeep’s most popular legends: the Piebald Prince.

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Blood & Beauty (2013): Sarah Dunant

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★★★★½

In 1492 the Spaniard Rodrigo Borgia is elevated to the papacy as Pope Alexander VI. It’s an appointment based less on piety than political shrewdness. Generous to his friends and flexible in his scruples, Alexander may not be the pope that Rome wants, but he is the one that it deserves. After all, Renaissance Rome is a seething, ambitious, dangerous city where life is merely a poor shadow of its ancient vanished grandeur. There are as many courtesans as clerics; anything can be had at the right price; and a man can be made to disappear between dusk of one day and dawn of the next. If the Tiber keeps its secrets, he might never be seen again.

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Bellman & Black (2013): Diane Setterfield

7 Comments

★★★½

A Ghost Story

As the clocks go back and the evenings grow colder – and we approach Halloween – it’s definitely time for a spot of Victorian Gothic fiction. I haven’t read Diane Setterfield’s very successful Thirteenth Tale, but I simply couldn’t resist the prospect of her most recent book, Bellman & Black. To my pleasure, it delivered all that it promised and I polished it off in two days. It reminds me, on a smaller scale and in a less ethereal manner, of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. It has the same sense of everyday life set awry by something haunting and eerie, hovering at the corner of your eye; and it has the same sensitivity to the language of the time, giving the book an air of 19th-century authenticity without sacrificing its lively readability.

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Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree (1992): Tariq Ali

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★★½

The Islam Quintet: Book I

It begins with an act of book-burning. In 1499, on the instructions of Archbishop Ximines de Cisneros, a troop of Christian soldiers storms the libraries and houses of Gharnata (Grenada), carrying off armfuls of precious theological, medical and scientific manuscripts. With only a handful of exceptions these are burned in front of the shocked Moorish citizens, who see the conflagration for what it is: a warning.

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The Republic of Thieves (2013): Scott Lynch

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★★★

The Gentleman Bastards: Book III

Having devoured The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies over the summer, I was impatiently waiting for this third book in Scott Lynch’s splendid series. The first two novels dazzled me with their twisting plots-upon-plots, their unusually rich settings and their sheer dexterity. This third book, however, is a different beast both in structure and in atmosphere; and I’m not entirely sure that I like the change (when an author has proven to be extremely good, I become especially demanding).

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