★★
Enthusiastically recommended by our guide on holiday, this is one of only a handful of historical novels set in Sicily. I eagerly sought it out on my return, hoping to fill the gaps in my knowledge. Before our trip I’d scarcely heard of Dionysius the Elder or of Syracuse’s dominance of the Greek cities in Sicily, which proves that I need to reread Tom Holt’s Walled Orchard and Mary Renault’s Mask of Apollo, both of which touched on this period.
★★★
This was another purchase from Amazon’s Kindle sale. Initially I hesitated over buying it because Leonardo da Vinci is a subject particularly close to my heart. As a teenager, I read a lot about him (I still have at least sixteen books on my shelves) and I have yet to find any novel which gets him entirely right. Yet I keep looking, in the hope that one day I’ll stumble upon a book which does for him what The Agony and the Ecstasy did for Michelangelo. Sadly, this is not that book; although it certainly has its strengths.
★★★★
I’d probably never have read Resistance if Amazon hadn’t put the Kindle version on sale for 99p. At that level it seemed churlish to ignore a book which made such a splash a few years ago. The reason I hadn’t picked it up before was because I rarely venture into books about the Second World War. I’m not a great fan of war stories in general. Fortunately for me, this turned out to be an unexpectedly moving story about compassion, humanity and idealism rather than about war per se. However, having read other reviews on Amazon since finishing the book, I see that many people who bought it expecting a war story were underwhelmed by the fact that very little happens. After all, the resistance that underpins the novel is not the kind you might expect.
★★★½
You may remember that a few months ago I spoke of my admiration for Linda Proud’s wonderful Botticelli Trilogy, which follows the circle of painters and philosophers who gathered around Lorenzo de’ Medici in Florence in the 1480s and 1490s. Her newly-published book, which can also be read as a standalone novel in its own right, forms a prequel to that trilogy. Looking back to the foundations of the intellectual and artistic world described in the Botticelli Trilogy, it moves between Florence and Prato over a span of some thirty years, from 1434-1469.
★★★★
Serendipity was in action when I decided to move onto this after Death of the Fox. Although Christopher Marlowe is the protagonist here, and events take place some thirty years earlier than Garrett’s story, A Dead Man in Deptford also features Raleigh as a prominent character (though morally more ambivalent). Both books are written in a dense, elaborate, semi-archaic style and both create a vivid impression of late Elizabethan England, although these impressions couldn’t be more different from each other.
★★★½
Early one morning in October 1618, three men are unable to sleep. It is the day that Sir Walter Raleigh (or Ralegh) is due to come before the King’s Bench on a charge of high treason. Sir Henry Yelverton worries about serving as the King’s Attorney General, to condemn a man he can’t help but respect. James I lies tormented by paranoia and doubt, clinging to the superficial friendship of his favourites and eager to be rid of Raleigh, who reminds him of the gulf between Elizabeth’s sovereignty and his own. Raleigh himself, imprisoned in the Tower, finds himself remembering the steps which brought him there, and the lost, golden world of Elizabethan England which made his fortune and then brought it down crumbling in its wake.
★★★★
Now for something very topical. Although best known for his comic fantasy books, Tom Holt has always been a classicist at heart and this is one of his three historical novels based in Ancient Greece. Deliciously tongue-in-cheek, Olympiad offers a gleeful romp through the Peloponnese of the 8th century BC, as a group of hapless travellers set out to create a whole new kind of sports event.
★★★★★
The Lymond Chronicles: Book VI
In the last half an hour, traversing the final few chapters of the book, my emotions have been masterfully manipulated. I’ve swerved from denial to triumph, followed by shocked immobility, and then a cool, tingling spread of realisation; finally, I have to admit, I actually cried (mainly with relief). I should say, first and foremost, that if you have any intention of reading this series – and by God, if you enjoy good books you should – then you shouldn’t read this post. There is no way on earth that I can write this without spoilers. So stop reading this now and, for goodness sake, go buy the first book and start the series for yourself!
★★★★
The Lymond Chronicles: Book V
My head is spinning: I am now so close to the end of the series that I find myself galloping along, devouring the book whenever I have a few minutes. I’ve been reading at ramming speed – and I have such a compulsion to find out what happens that I’m afraid I may have missed some of the finer points.
★★★★★
The Lymond Chronicles: Book IV
After my reservations about The Disorderly Knights, I felt some anxiety as I embarked on Pawn in Frankincense, the fourth book in the Lymond Chronicles. However, there is very little to find fault with here: it is a magnificent novel, richer and more powerful than any of its predecessors in the series. I found it interesting to compare it to Queens’ Play, which I also enjoyed, for very different reasons. While Queens’ Play takes place in a small area of France, Pawn in Frankincense unfurls across the breadth of Europe and North Africa, embracing Switzerland, France, Algiers, Djerba and then Constantinople, the greatest and most dazzling city of all.
The Idle Woman 