Category Archives: it holds stories of the past

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

November 4, 2014 By in Book Reports, Fictional, it holds stories of the past Tags: 15 Comments

I remember picking up a paperback copy of ‘Tipping the Velvet’, Sarah Waters’ first novel, in a London bookshop, years ago. It wasn’t because I’d heard of the author or of the book, it was because the cover caught my eye and because I spotted a Virago apple on the spine.

Since then her star has risen and risen to such glorious heights; I had to wait and wait in a very long library queue – as long a queue as I have ever waited in – to read ‘The Paying Guests.’

I wish that I could say that I loved it, but I can’t quite say that.

Maybe my expectations were just a little too high.

Maybe I was the wrong reader. I’ve always believed that how we respond to books is heavily influenced by the books we’ve read before. I’ve read many books from this period; and ‘A Pin to See the Peepshow’ by F Tennyson Jesse, a book that Sarah Waters has acknowledged as a significant influence, is a particular favourite of mine ….

As I read ‘The Paying Guests’ I found things to love, I found things to admire, but I also found things that I didn’t love and things that disappointed me.

The story began beautifully: on an afternoon in 1922, Mrs Wray and her grown-up daughter, Frances, were at home, on the outskirts of London, awaiting the arrival of their first paying guests. Mr Wray had died leaving little but debt, his two sons had been killed in the Great War, and so his wife and daughter had to manage alone. Frances had persuaded her other that, rather than sell up, she would take on the domestic duties that had been done by servants in the past and they would let part of the house. She could manage. They could manage. But now that the day had come Mrs Wray’s worries had returned and Frances was anxious about how it would all work.

18485452The Barbers were a young married couple, and they unsettled the house. They did nothing wrong. But they were different, they were so much more modern, so much more relaxed in the way that they lived.

Sarah Waters captures the discomfort of having change in your home, of having to be ever aware of other people, of having to deal with things – small but significant things that you never had to deal with before – quite perfectly. And as she slowly builds up to the dramatic incident that will be the centrepiece of her story she reveals more about her characters; the picture becomes clearer, the psychology becomes clearer, and it all makes sense.

The details are so well chosen, and the story is so very well rooted in its era; that and the sheer quality of the writing made this part of the story, where very little happened but it was clear that something was going to happen, utterly compelling.

The characters were not likeable, but they were believable. I appreciated that there were no heroes and no villains, just real, fallible human beings.

That dramatic incident was inevitable, but when it came it was shocking. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t.

That shifted the story, and that was where things started to go wrong.

The remainder of the book was concerned with the fallout from that incident, and though it was compelling, though it had significant things to say, about marriage, about justice, about change in the post-war world, it was compromised by the love story that Sarah Waters so clearly wanted to play out.

I could accept the blurring of right and wrong, though I didn’t like it; there were other thingsthat I found much more difficult to accept.

I felt that Sarah Waters compromised her characters – in some cases she made them blind – to reach the ending she wanted. I couldn’t help feeling that it was the wrong ending, though I give her great credit for not making it a definitive ending; there were clearly things that had to be faced in the future.

(I wish I could explain a little more, I wish I could ask certain questions, but I think that it’s far too early in this book’s life to write about specific plot points.)

The emotions rang true, so much rang true, but those things that didn’t ring true, pulled me right out of the story.

That’s why, though I found much to appreciate in this book, my lasting feeling is one of disappointment.

The Girl Who Couldn’t Read by John Harding

October 26, 2014 By in Book Reports, Fictional, it has intrigue, mystery and suspense, it holds stories of the past Tags: 11 Comments

A year or two ago I read a book called ‘Florence and Giles.’ It was a deliciously gothic tale; a reimagining, a distortion, of ‘The Turn of the Screw’; and the centre of it all was the most wonderful character.

Florence was trapped in a gothic mansion, she was forbidden to read, but she found a way to learn and to keep that secret, and she loved reading and words so much that she developed the language she read, making nouns into verbs, joining words in unexpected ways to make gloriously expressive expressions, and twisting the English language into something magically new and strange.

When I learned that there was a sequel I rushed to order a copy from the library.

This isn’t Florence’s story, but she has a pivotal part to play.

In New England, in the 1890s, Doctor John Shepherd arrives at an isolated women’s mental hospital to begin work as assistant to the owner, Doctor Morgan. He is shocked by what he sees, he realises that things are not right, and his mind fills with questions:

  • Why are so many of the patients treated do very harshly?
  • Who is the woman who wanders the corridors by night with murderous intent?
  • Why does the Nurse O’Reilly so hostile, and why does she have so many privileges?
  • Why are only Doctor Morgan and Nurse O’Reilly permitted to visit the third floor?

The new doctor wants answers, but he has to tread carefully. Because it is clear from the start that he isn’t John Shepard. And that he isn’t a doctor at all.

Can he keep his secrets? Can he uncover the secrets of the hospital?

The possibilities were intriguing, the setting was so evocative, and then there was Florence ….

9780007324231Doctor Shepherd was intrigued by a patient known as Jane Dove. That wasn’t her real name. she said that she couldn’t remember that. She couldn’t remember anything of her life before she was found at a railway station and was admitted to hospital.

She knew that she wasn’t allowed to read but she so loved stories, and she had a distinctive way of speaking, making nouns into verbs, joining words in unexpected ways to make gloriously expressive expressions ….

Doctor Shepherd persuaded Doctor Morgan to him take charge of her an attempt, to let him try to prove that there were  humane alternatives to the hospital’s harsh treatments.

He was sure that he could persuade Jane to learn to read, that he could restore her memories. And he thought that maybe she would offer him the chance of escaping from the hospital and from his own troubled past.

Maybe he could. Maybe she would. But of course it wasn’t as simple as that.

The story moves like a thriller, written in language that is clear and direct, concise and urgent; it is the perfectly evoked setting, the well-drawn characters, and the intriguing questions hanging in the air make it enthralling.

The plot grew nicely, with lovely echoes of a certain other story, and as it accelerated to a conclusion all of the promise that I saw was realised, and the echoes of that story grew louder.

The plotting was so well done, with twists nicely scattered, and the strand of bookishness threaded through was lovely.

The finale was pitch perfect.

And I think there is an opening for a third book.

I do hope there will be a third book ….

Mr Mac and Me by Esther Freud

September 18, 2014 By in Book Reports, Fictional, it holds stories of the past 11 Comments

Early in the twentieth century Thomas Maggs grew up in the Blue Anchor public house on the coast of Suffolk. When his parents took on the lease they had six children in infancy, only two young daughters, Mary and Ann survived, and they hoped that starting a new life would bring them luck, and a son who survived.

Thomas was born with a twisted leg but he was strong; he did survive.

21950245By 1914 Mary had gone into service, Ann was very nearly grown up, and Thomas was thirteen. Life at home was not easy; his father drank heavily; his mother was overworked, and so Thomas escaped whenever he could. After school her worked for the local rope maker in order to earn a few pennies. And he gazed across the country, towards the sea, watching the fisherman, looking at the girls who came to gut and pack the herrings that those fisherman caught, and dreaming of going to sea.

Esther Freud sets the scene beautifully; capturing the country and the community at the very edge of the land; capturing a way of life that had remained the same for generations, and that moved slowly with the seasons; capturing a world that was about to be changed for ever by the Great War.

He prose is simple, clear, and so very, very evocative.

As soon as the scene is set she gives Thomas his voice, because this is his story. She’s very good at child narrators, and that voice rings true.

I was quick to realise that this was a book to read slowly, because each and every short chapter painted a picture that I had to absorb. It was very easy to read, very easy to linger.

When Mr and Mrs Mac came to settle in the area the locals gossiped. Who was this man who spent hours out in the country and gazing out to sea, before setting up his easel to paint landscapes and flowers?

He was Charles Rennie Macintosh.

Thomas was fascinated by the newcomers and they warmed to him, encouraging his own artistic aspirations.

Meanwhile, young men were being billeted in the village on their way to the war, and when news arrived of the slaughter of a local regiment the villagers began to realize how terrible the consequences of that was would be.

There were repercussions for Thomas’s family.

And there were repercussions for his friend, who was an outsider, who looked out to see towards Germany, who had links with Germany and received a letter addressed to ‘Herr Macintosh’ ….

Esther Freud too a real incident from the artist’s life and brought it together with a boy’s coming of age to wonderful effect.

Thomas maybe sees and understands a little too much, but she gets away with it, because her story is so quietly compelling. I was captivated.

The vivid descriptions of the country and the coastline are captivating; the community lives and breathes, and the dialogue, the actions, the reactions, are utterly believable; and the way the war encroached on lives was portrayed beautifully and movingly.

I loved watching Thomas watching the artists; that was so very well observed.

The different strands of the story were balanced beautifully, and my only disappointment was with a little unevenness in the pace and a little predictability in certain places.

So I don’t think this is quite Esther Freud’s masterpiece, but it is definitely a step towards it. Her eighth novel is her best to date, and a very, very good book.

Its images are still swirling in my head ….

Mona and True Love’s Reward by Mrs Georgie Sheldon

August 21, 2014 By in 100 Years of Books, Book Reports, Fictional, it holds stories of the past Tags: 5 Comments

‘Mona’ and ‘True Love’s Reward’ are presented to the world as two separate books – the latter being the sequel to the former – but, because they tell one story, divided into two part of equal length at a place that really doesn’t feel like an ending before a new beginning, I am going to treat them as one.

Both books were published in 1891, and they were the work of a very, very popular author. They aren’t great works, but they are very engaging and very readable. They do what they do very well.

There’s mystery, there’s intrigue, there’s romance ….

MonaMona was raised by her uncle, but he fell in and died before he could sign a will and before he could finish telling Mona the story of he mother – who had died – her father – who had left – and the secret that he was holding until she grew up.

She was heartbroken, but when her uncle’s estranged wife had her turned out without a penny she drew herself up, with pride and with spirit, and set out to use her skill with her needle to support herself.

A position as a seamstress fell into her lap, but Mona realised that it might not be the blessing that it seemed to be. Because she believed that her employer was her father’s second wife. She knew that the lady would wish her ill – would quite probably do her harm – if she discovered who she was, but she also realised that her new job might offer her an opportunity – maybe the only opportunity – to uncover the secret that her uncle had been holding.

Mona was disappointed that her young man, the son of a wealthy jeweller, hasn’t been in touch with her since her uncle died. She didn’t know that he and his father had been stung by some clever and audacious thieves, and that he really had no way of getting in touch with anybody. And once things were sorted out she was living a different life in a different place under a different name, so it wouldn’t be at all easy for him to find her.

Would Mona uncover the truth about her family …. ?

What would the diamond thieves do next …. ?

Would her employer find out the truth about Mona …. ?

Would the young lovers be reunited …. ?

The story is very well plotted, with lots of twists and turns. At times it was predictable, and I caught echoes of other stories, but it was always engaging and there were more than enough tines when I was puzzled and intrigued.

True Love's Reward At first I thought that Mona might be a little too nice, a little too good to be interesting, but she grew into a very fine heroine. She continued to be good, but she was ready to stand up for herself, she learned to be practical and capable, and she coped well with some very tricky situations.

Her young man became a wonderful foil.

And the jewel thieves continued to prey on high society – thay provided great entertainment, and a lovely contrast to Mona’s story.

Everything worked out as it should in the end. This is that sort of story. It’s very black and white.

There were some small flaws in the logic, but as a whole the story worked.

It was wonderfully diverting at a time when I wanted something not too demanding to read.

The Tenth Gift by Jane Johnson

July 22, 2014 By in Book Reports, Fictional, it holds stories of the past, it moves between the present and the past, it took me on a journey, Reading Cornwall 8 Comments

In ‘The Tenth Gift’ Jane Johnson spins a story around an extraordinary piece of history:

In 1625 corsairs from North Africa sailed into Mount’s Bay, they entered a church and they took sixty men, women and children, to be sold as slaves.

That church might have been St Mary’s in Penzance, standing at the centre of Mounts Bay, just behind the harbour, clearly visible from the sea. My church, my mother’s church, my grandmother’s church ….

That drew me to the book, but it made me wary too. Because I knew that I’d know if she got it wrong. But I’m pleased to say that she didn’t get the things I knew wrong at all, she taught me some local history that I didn’t know, and that gave me so much confidence when she wrote about things that I didn’t, couldn’t know.

cornwall10Catherine Anne Tregenna, nicknamed Cat, was in service at Kenegie Manor, she was betrothed to her cousin Rob, but she wanted more than that. She was young, she was bright, she was spirited, and she hoped that her talent for embroidery would give her a chance to see more of life, more of the world. She had been given the chance to make an altar cloth for the Countess of Salisbury, and she hoped that might help her to win more commissions, and maybe even gain entry to Broderers Guild.

But her life changed when she and her mother went to church ….

Cat’s story was uncovered by Julia, in a second storyline set in the present day. When her lover left her he gave her antique leather-bound book.  ‘ Needle-Woman’s Glorie’  had been Cat’s book, and when she was torn from her home she began to keep a record of what she experienced, writing in between the embroidery patterns.

Julia followed Cat to Morocco – telling herself that she was researching the story she had uncovered, but also running away from the mess she had made of her life.

The two storylines worked well together, and the links and the mirroring of Cat’s and Julia’s lives didn’t feel contrived at all. But I liked Cat  far more than I liked Julia – it’s hard to care about a heroine who has been having an affair with her best friend’s husband – and her story was not nearly as strong as Cat’s. I would have liked the book more, I think, if the present day story had been pulled back to become a framing story, or even if it had not been there at all.

There was for than enough in Cat’s story – her life in Cornwall, her experiences when she was kidnapped, what happened in Cornwall after the raid – to make a fabulous book all by itself. There was a little dramatic licence taken, a little stretching of credibility, but not too much. Certainly no more than I could forgive when I found so much that was good.

The writing was wonderfully readable, the plotting was very well done, and I loved the links to real history and to the authors own story. I appreciated that she was even-handed, that she understood that the corsairs had reasons for doing what they were doing, that there was right and wrong on both sides, that there could be much common ground between people from different backgrounds and different cultures.

The evocation of time and place – of Cornwall and of Morocco – was so very vivid that it pulled me right into the story. And I couldn’t doubt for one moment that the author was writing of what she knew and what she loved.

Sugar Hall by Tiffany Murray

July 15, 2014 By in Book Reports, Fictional, it has intrigue, mystery and suspense, it holds stories of the past Tags: 7 Comments

Oh, this is lovely. A ghost story told so beautifully, so evocatively, and with just a perfect touch that it is something very special indeed.

“This morning I found a strange boy in the sheds. He frightened me , Cyn, but I want to see him again. You’d tell me not to, you’d tell me he wasn’t right, I know you would, but there’s no one else to play with. He didn’t speak to me, but I know he’s be my friend. Sas and Ma don’t believe in him, but you would. I am making it my mission to find out about him ….”

Dieter was just a boy, but he was that master of Sugar Hall, a grand country house in the Welsh borders that had been home to his ancestors for many, many generations.

His family had never visited that house while his grandfather was alive, but when he died his German-born widowed mother, Lilia, and his elder half-sister, Lilia, to make their home there.

20660874The house was big and grand, but it was terribly dilapidated, dirty and neglected. Lilia tries to put things to rights, with the support of her general factotum, John, and her neighbour, Juniper, but it is not easy to fit a modern family into the long-established pattern of an old house. And she had her own history, her own ghosts that she had to come to terms with.

And so Dieter was left to wander through rooms, to gaze at family portraits, to examine the collections displayed in glass cases, and to be drawn into the thrall of the silent boy who wore a silver collar.

He didn’t know, his mother didn’t know, that they had been caught, pulled into a story that had been playing out at Sugar Hall for years and years.

The arc of the story is simple, but the execution makes it special.

‘Sugar Hall’ illuminates the time when the war was over but the consequences were still being felt, and the post-war world hadn’t quite begun. It explores the consequences of old sins and the reverberations they send into the future. It considers the importance of the home, the consequences of leaving, the importance of having a place in the world.

And it does that with the lightest of touches, so that the stories of lives and the story of the ghost can live and breathe.

There’s room for lovely imagery, there’s room for lovely details, there’s room for letters, pictures, documents, lists …. and still there is space to think, to wonder, to catch your breath.

Tiffany Murray’s prose is gorgeous; evocative, spooky, light as air; and her storytelling is spellbinding.

I suspect that there is much more here than I could take in, but I was captivated by the people, the time, the place and the story.

This is a book that will stay with me for a long, long time. And I suspect that it will pull me back to read again one day.

An Appetite for Violets by Martine Bailey

May 20, 2014 By in Book Reports, Fictional, it holds stories of the past, it took me on a journey Tags: 7 Comments

An  intriguing title, a lovely cover, a promise of history and mystery gave me high hopes for ‘An Appetite for Violets’, and I am pleased to say that they were met. More than met.

The opening sets up the story beautifully.

A man arrives at a villa in Tuscany, looking for his sister, the lady of the house. But she is gone; her whole household is gone; only her little dog, the dog he knows she never would have abandoned, remains. Downstairs he finds a dining table is laid for a feast.  He climbs the stairs, fearful of what he might find.  But all he finds is a mannequin, clad in a lovely pink dress, and an envelope. He opens the envelope and a fabulous ruby falls out.

I had to find out what had happened, what led up to that extraordinary scene.

19825708A few months earlier Biddy Leigh had been an under-cook at Mawton Hall. I liked her from the moment we met: she was bright, she was curious, she was capable, she loved what she did, and her future was full of promise. She was going to marry her young man, and they were going to run a tavern together.

Biddy didn’t know it, but her life was going to change.

The widowed master of the house brought home a new, young bride. Lady Carinna was spoiled, temperamental and horribly demanding. She had her eye on Biddy for some reason, and she often called her to her side. When Lady Carinna decided to travel to her uncle’s estate in Italy she decided than Biddy would be in her retinue. It wasn’t what Biddy wanted, but her young man told her that they needed the five guineas that she would earn for their future, and it was only for a year. She knew that she had to go.

Biddy was thrilled when Mrs Garland, the cook who had guided and taught her, entrusted her with ‘The Cook’s Jewel.’ It was a journal that had been written in by generations of cooks; an extraordinary anthology of recipes and knowledge. The contents of that book were scattered through the story; recipes from the past and recipes that Biddy learned on her journey across Europe. It was a lovely, lovely touch, and oh how I wish I could have a copy of ‘The Cook’s Jewel’ to keep with my copy of ‘An Appetite for Violets.’

It was clear from the start that Lady Carinna was a schemer, but it took time for her plans for Biddy to become clear. At first I thought I was a step ahead, that I could see what she couldn’t. But she caught on, and she held her end up brilliantly. But she didn’t see all of the consequences, and neither did I.

I loved Biddy’s voice, and there were other voices too, and they opened out the story. There was Mr Pars, the butler, who had nobody who could talk to, but who could share his feelings in his letters to his bother. And there was Loveday, a black slave who had been torn away from his wife and children on a remote island. He and Biddy became friends; she was the only one who was interested in his story, who treated him with respect, who called him Mr Loveday.

Some very clever plotting explained just how that opening scene came to be, with lovely twists and turns, marvellous drama, and lots of lovely details. After that, the story moved forward to a very fine ending. It was unexpected and it was exactly right.

I loved the storytelling: the voices were distinctive, the period touches were lovely, and the story was captivating. There’s a lot more than history and mystery, but this is too good a book for me to spoil for anyone else. It’s a lovely, it’s distinctive, it’s full of interest, and it’s told with just the right amount of verve. The author’s love of her story and everything in it shone from the pages.

I can understand that: she’s written a fabulous first novel!

Turning the Stones by Debra Daley

April 26, 2014 By in Book Reports, Fictional, it holds stories of the past Tags: 6 Comments

This is an intriguing human drama, set in the middle of the eighteenth century.

In London, a young woman wakes in an unfamiliar bedchamber. She is dishevelled, she is covered in blood, and a man lies dead beside her. She has no memory of how she got there, of what happened, but she knows that she must flee.

In Connemara, an older woman stands on a beach, calling on ancient magic, turning the stones, as she strives to put right a terrible wrong.

It’s a confident beginning, and I was quickly captivated

I had no idea what the significance of what was happening in Connemara, but I was swept away by the story of the young woman who was searching for means of escape.

Mary Smith – known as Em – was a lady’s maid, and I liked her from the start. She was clearly bright and practical, and she was also very scared. With good reason.

Of course, I had to wonder if she was unreliable, is she was a murderer, but I was inclined to think not – especially when I observed her reaction as she realised who the dead man was. And it was clear that there were other, deeper, mysteries to consider.

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Em had been brought to the Cheshire country home of the ambitious Waterland family, as a very young child. She grew up as a companion to their daughter, Eliza, and her status was unclear. She was above the servants but below the family. They told her that she was a foundling, but she might have been a by-blow, or a poor relation.

The day came when Em’s position was made clear to her. Eliza was to be a lady and Em was to be her maid. The relationship between the two girls changed then, of course it did. And it became clear that Eliza was horribly spoiled and selfish. That her brother, James, was a dissolute schemer. That the family fortune was crumbling.

Em was horrified when she was molested by the wealthy man who the family hoped Eliza would marry. She knew that she had nowhere else to go, that she had no one to turn to, that she would be at the mercy of Eliza and the man she married.

She thought on all of this as she ran, telling her story to the mother she had never known. She planned to find a ship to take her to France, but after a series of accidents and misadventures she finds herself on board a smuggling ship. Captain McDonagh would listen to Em, he would protect her, but he would not compromise his vessel or his men. And he was sailing to a very different destination.

Maybe the stones were calling …. the narrative weaves together the stories of Em’s past and present and the visions and memories of Kitty Conneely, the woman turning stones on the beach, to very fine effect.

A fine array of characters and settings were conjured up very well, and there were some nice period details. But this isn’t really a ‘noticing the period details and assessing things’ book, it’s a ‘keep turning the pages to find out what happens next and how the story will play out’ book. And it does what it does very well, twisting, turning and holding on to the big reveal to the very end without ever feeling like a tease.

The grand finale is nicely dramatic, and it the end everything makes sense.

There are one or too loose ends, a few practical problems skated around, and places where a little more subtlety wouldn’t have gone amiss, but nothing that spoiled the story.

This a book to be entertained by, not a book to over-think.

Yes, I think that I’d call ‘Turning the Stones’ a fine, dark, historical entertainment.

Wilfred and Eileen by Jonathan Smith

April 24, 2014 By in Book Reports, Fictional, it came from the past and pulled me back there, it holds stories of the past, Persephone Books Tags: , 5 Comments

I have read ‘Winifred and Eileen’ before, years and years ago. The details had gone from my mind when I learned that the book was to be added to the Persephone list, but I did remember that I had been very taken with it, and that I looked for a long time, without success, for other books by the same author.

Some time later, when I’d given up looking, I found a copy of ‘Summer in February’ in a charity shop. But that’s another story for another day ….

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The story opens in 1913, as Wilfred Willett is coming to the end of his studies at Trinity College Cambridge, and looking forward to taking the next steps towards becoming a surgeon. He meets Eileen Stenhouse at a May Ball, and they begin to talk while they both, superstitiously,  sitting out the thirteenth dance of the evening. It would be the beginning of a love affair.

Their relationship met with disapproval from each side of the family. Neither thought that the other was good enough for their child. And so Wilfred and Eileen married secretly, and they planned to keep their secret until Wilfred finished his training and they could be financially independent of both families.

Of course their secret came out, and then a ‘proper’ wedding was forced upon them.

They were happy. He was an idealist and a worker; she was quiet, patient and supportive; they understood each other.

And they were utterly real.

And that wasn’t just because this is a novel inspired by a real story, by a real Wilfred and Eileen. It is because Jonathan Smith; writing made them real. He observes them carefully and sensitively, picking up just the right details to explain their lives, their times, their relationships, without ever seeming intrusive.

These would have been ordinary lives, beautifully illuminated, had it not been for the times.

Wilfred went to war, and Eileen was lost without him.  And yet, when Wilfred was terribly injured, she found the strength to fight, to bring him home, and to make sure that everything possible is done for him, to give him a chance, to give him his life back.

The writing is simple and understated, but it has such depth and power that it could not fail to move any reader.

I caught my breath at several points, because I was so caught up in the world of this man and this woman, because I so felt for them and their situation.

Their story could not have been better told. It is beautifully written, perfectly paced, and utterly true to its period.

It speaks profoundly of love, courage and the consequences of war.

And I’m not going to write any more, because I lack the words to do justice to the story – and the real lives – of Wilfred and Eileen

Except to say that is a very fine, and very timely, addition to the Persephone list ….

Dark Aemilia by Sally O’Reilly

April 13, 2014 By in Book Reports, Fictional, it holds stories of the past Tags: 4 Comments

Aemilia Bassano was born in 1569, the illegitimate child of a musician in the court of Queen Elizabeth. She was raised – and educated – in the household of the Countess of Kent. When she grew up she became part of the Queen’s household, and the mistress of Henry Carey, the Lord Chamberlain. Aemila kept those positions for many years, but she lost them when she fell pregnant; she was cast off and married off – to the lowliest of court musicians. He – Alfonso Lanyer- was quick to spend the dowry that his bride brought him, and within a year the couple were poor and struggling ….

…. and yet – somehow –  Aemilia Lanyer became the first woman have a volume of poetry published ….

But surely Adam can not be excused,
Her fault though great, yet he was most to blame;
What Weakness offered, Strength might have refused,
Being Lord of all, the greater was his shame:
Although the Serpent’s craft had her abused,
God’s holy word ought all his actions frame,
For he was Lord and King of all the earth,
Before poore Eve had either life or breath.

Who being framed by God’s eternal hand,
The perfectest man that ever breathed on earth;
And from God’s mouth received that straight command,
The breach whereof he knew was present death:
Yea having power to rule both Sea and Land,
Yet with one Apple won to loose that breath
Which God had breathed in his beauteous face,
Bringing us all in danger and disgrace.

(From ‘Eve’s Apology in Defense of Women’ by Amelia Lanyer)

Such a woman, such a life …. and such a gift to a historical novelist.

Sally O’Reilly has spun a story around the known facts of Aemilia’s life wonderfully well. And she adds in a hypothesis of her own which, though unlikely, she makes so very believable. What if Aemelia was the ‘Dark Lady’ of William Shakespeare’s sonnets ….?

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The sixteenth century lives and breather from the first word, with a wealth of details and such colour in the rich, lush prose. The Elizabeth’s court is painted with such bright colours, and I was utterly captivated, but it was when the story moved to the dark and dirty streets, and the gaudy world of the theatre, that the story took flight.

It was easy to see that Aemilia’s beauty, charm, wit and intelligence made her a favourite at court – and a particular favourite of the Queen; and it was equally easy to see that in a male dominated society, with little limited means to determine her own fate, even those qualities would not make her life secure.

It was Aemelia herself who pulled me through the story. She was fascinating, she was infuriating, and she was a real, fallible woman who was prepared to fight for the things she wanted. And most of all she fought for the son she loved so dearly.

That took her to some very dark places – and at time it veered dangerously close to melodrama, but the stark reality of Aemilia’s situation and the choices she had to make, and the cleverness of the plotting, saved it.

And that brings me to William Shakespeare. Sally O’Reilly painted his character so well, giving him the intelligence and wit he needed to write as he did, the charm to court Aemilia, and also making him vulnerable and fallible. The doubts about whether he wrote all of the work attributed to him are used very cleverly in the plot, and there’s a very nice explanation of the matter of the ‘second best bed’.

The portrayal of the dying Elizabeth I is very done too, balancing queenly regality and human vulnerability; and though I doubted that she would have summoned Aemilia, who had been assent from court for some years to her side, I was captivated by their dialogue and by the vivid storytelling.

The twists and turns of the plot – many of then so very clever – held me from start to finish.

There are one or two liberties taken – and a few times when the story was a little darker, a little more explicit than it needed to be. But in the end that didn’t matter.

I was pulled right into Elizabethan England.

I met a fascinating woman.  I am so, so pleased that we met.

And I do believe that she might have inspired a poet ….

“Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madman’s are
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night”

(William Shakespeare – sonnet 147)