Tag: historical fiction

The Sun King Rises (2005): Yves Jégo and Denis Lépée

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Yves Jégo and Denis Lépée at Vaux le Vicomte

★★

A tale of intrigue at the court of Louis XIV

It’s no surprise, surely, that I asked to review this book. With the promise of intrigue and danger at the court of the Sun King, I thought I was in line for a delectable swashbuckler, which would doubtless be all the more interesting for my recent wanderings around Versailles. If only I had read the back of the book first! Here I would have learned that the intrigue was less courtly than esoteric, and that the book focused on ‘a religious brotherhood, guardian of a centuries-old secret’. Da Vinci Code-shaped alarm bells would have started to ring. However, I didn’t see this and, in the end, this strange hybrid of a book – half channelling Dan Brown, half Dumas – simply ended up feeling rather limp, for all its earnest attempts at adventure.

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Tipping the Velvet (1998): Sarah Waters

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★★★★

One of the most mortifying moments of my teenage years – and there’s plenty of competition, believe me – was watching the BBC’s adaptation of Tipping the Velvet with my parents at the age of seventeen. I remember being utterly shocked (I had a very sheltered upbringing), although since it’s rated 15 it really can’t have been that scandalous. I’ve read two of Sarah Waters’s books since then, but I’d never quite had the courage to go back to this: her first and most celebrated novel. However, I found it in Oxfam yesterday, decided to give it a go at last, and have devoured it at high speed. Beautifully written, evocative, sexy and playfully transgressive, it deserves its status as a modern classic. I could claim I timed this post specifically to coincide with Pride, but that’s just a happy coincidence.

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The Chevalier (2016): M.C. Hobbs

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★★½

A recent visit to Netgalley revealed a host of interesting fiction titles, but the one which excited me most on first impressions was The Chevalier, based on the early life of the remarkable Chevalier d’Eon. My interest in the Chevalier was originally piqued when a fictionalised version of him appeared in the BBC’s Scarlet Pimpernel series, and it was revived when the National Portrait Gallery acquired his portrait in 2012. He is one of the most colourful and intriguing figures in 18th-century history and I’m extremely surprised that there aren’t more novels about him. I couldn’t wait to settle down with this. Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to expectations.

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Boudica: Dreaming the Bull (2004): Manda Scott

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★★★★

Boudica: Book II

Naturally it didn’t take long for me to plunge into the second of Manda Scott’s Boudica books after my admiration for the first volume, Dreaming the Eagle. It is just as magisterial and sensitive as its predecessor, with an epic sweep that now opens out far beyond the tribes of Britannia. Rome is, both culturally and geographically, a more significant player here. Perhaps it lacks a little of the tightly-forged focus of that first book, but this is often the case with second instalments, which both open and close mid-action, as it were. But if that’s a flaw, it’s small and scarcely visible in the finely-crafted whole. Weaving between her two protagonists with elegance, and a fine feeling for the grey areas of the soul, Scott creates yet another gripping glimpse of a lost history.

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The Double Tongue (1995): William Golding

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★★★

When William Golding died in 1993, he was in the middle of working on a new novel, which was left unfinished. At an advanced draft stage, it told the story of a young woman plucked from her miserable family life and offered the chance of a new existence at the ritual site of Delphi, where she becomes a servant of the god Apollo and, later, the mouthpiece for his words. The story was in good shape and so Golding’s editors and executors decided to publish it – and it became The Double Tongue. That title is apparently only one of those which Golding had tried out on the top of the manuscript, but it’s a very fitting name for a book which is all about the duplicity and sleight-of-hand that accompany the act of prophecy.

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Boudica: Dreaming the Eagle (2002): Manda Scott

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★★★★★

Boudica: Book I

Three years ago, just after finishing the last novel in Dorothy Dunnett’s Niccolò series, I asked for recommendations of similar books to fill the gap. Although Manda Scott’s Boudica novels were mentioned several times, I didn’t follow them up. I think I shamefully leapt to the conclusion, without any evidence whatsoever, that Boudica was just another identikit sword-and-shield historical series. How wrong I was. When I recently found the first book in a second-hand sale, I decided to see what I made of it. And it’s stunning.

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The Long War (2010-14): Christian Cameron

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This really is going back a bit. I came across these books in January, which proved to be an odd month for reading: I had plenty of time for it, but little mental capacity. I was either waiting around at airports, wiling away transatlantic flights with a flimsy attention span, or wilting after intellectually intense days of training. In short, I needed good, solid entertainment and by chance I unearthed a series that was just the ticket: Christian Cameron’s Long War books.


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The Inheritors (1955): William Golding

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★★★★

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.

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Island of Ghosts (1992): Gillian Bradshaw

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★★★★

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.

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The Beacon at Alexandria (1986): Gillian Bradshaw

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★★★★

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.

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