Tag: historical fiction

Pope Joan (1996): Donna Woolfolk Cross

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★★★

I’d been keen to read this novel for over a year, so it felt like destiny when I spotted it in my local second-hand bookshop. The shadowy figure of Pope Joan has intrigued me ever since I first heard about her at university: the woman who disguised herself as a man and rose to the highest, most sacred position early medieval Europe could offer, before being unmasked when she gave birth to a child. Cross’s novel, set in the 9th century when Europe was still being forged out of a struggling mass of tiny princedoms and counties, takes in the wild snowy forests of the north, Rome’s faded glory, battles, Viking attacks and a protagonist who had the potential to be one of the most gripping characters I’ve read about for a long time. But unfortunately it never quite gelled into a satisfying whole.

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The Soldier of Raetia (2009): Heather Domin

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★★★½

Valerian’s Legion: Book I

This was an automatic recommendation from Goodreads, which clearly leapt to certain conclusions about my reading preferences based on the large number of books I own by Mary Renault. However, as has happened before, their suggestion hit the mark. Domin writes beautifully, creating rich and believable characters, and succeeds in giving the flavour of an historical period without overloading the exposition and research. I’d never have stumbled across her book by myself and, even if I had, I might’ve (unfairly) been a little cautious because, when I read it, it had only been published digitally. In that case, I would have missed a rather lovely novel. It was a very pleasant surprise; and I’m pleased to hear there’s a sequel in the works about the same characters.

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The Brethren (1977): Robert Merle

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★★★

Fortunes of France: Book I

First published in 1977, The Brethren was followed by a whole series of novels which trace the fortunes of the de Siorac family in late 16th-century France. The French editions have been tremendously successful and Pushkin published this English translation of the first volume earlier this summer. I was delighted to be invited to review it, partly because it was compared to Dumas and Dunnett, but primarily because the blurb included the word ‘swashbuckling’ and that was too much to resist. There hasn’t been enough swashbuckling around here recently. This must be rectified.

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The King and the Slave (2014): Tim Leach

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★★★★½

When I finished Tim Leach’s debut novel, The Last King of Lydia, I was deeply impressed by the way he’d transformed a story from Herodotus into an elegant and beautifully-written meditation on fortune and happiness. Little did I guess that I’d have the pleasure of reading another of his books so soon (and a sequel no less!), returning to the sumptuous might of the Persian empire in the 6th century BC.

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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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