The Blurb (from Goodreads):
Iona Balfour's life is turned upside down when her beloved aunt Grizel is executed for the crime of witchcraft. Before she dies, Grizel appoints Iona as guardian of a precious family bloodstone and tells her she must flee their village and deliver the stone to the mysterious Guild of the Green Lion.
Accompanied by a new friend, Cal, Iona soon realises that she's awakened the powers of the bloodstone. But it promises to be a perilous journey. The wolf month is no time to be on the road. And there's a witch hunter on Iona's trail, who has a strange obsession with the stone.
When a devastating betrayal throws her into the hands of her enemies, Iona soon finds herself in the fight of her life. Will she suffer the same fate as her aunt, or will she escape the witch hunter and fulfil her destiny?
My Thoughts:
An utterly riveting tale of magic, danger and witch-hunts in 17th century Scotland that grips you by the throat and won't let go.
The story is set in sixteenth century Scotland, one of my favourite times and places. King James I sits on the throne, and has a dark, disturbing interest in witchcraft and Satanism (Shakespeare wrote ‘Macbeth’ during his reign, knowing it would appeal to him).
Iona Balfour and her sister Ishbel was raised by their aunt Grizel, but their life is destroyed when Grizel is accused of witchcraft and executed. Just before she dies, Grizel gives Iona an urgent task – she must carry the family heirloom, a bloodstone, to safety. Iona hesitates, but the witch-hunters are now on her trail. Helped by her sister, Iona escapes but the road ahead of her is filled with danger, betrayal and death.
No-one and nothing is as it seems. Iona must discover of her own magical potential and that of the bloodstone she carries if she is to survive.
This is just the kind of historical fantasy I most enjoy – deeply rooted in the real, with a strong sense of place, and a flawed and realistic heroine to cheer for. It is clear Cait Duggan has done her research, but she carries it lightly. I particularly loved the use of witchcraft in the book. Iona has to struggle to understand her powers, and nothing comes easily.
The book is also beautifully & limpidly written – Cait Duggan’s prose is as swift and smooth and dangerous as a Highland river.
You might also love Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik:
https://kateforsyth.com.au/what-katie-read/book-review-spinning-silver-by-naomi-novik
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
It is Winter Carnival in Quebec City, bitterly cold and surpassingly beautiful. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache has come not to join the revels but to recover from an investigation gone hauntingly wrong. But violent death is inescapable, even in the apparent sanctuary of the Literary and Historical Society - where an obsessive historian's quest for the remains of the founder of Quebec, Samuel de Champlain, ends in murder. Could a secret buried with Champlain for nearly 400 years be so dreadful that someone would kill to protect it?
Although he is supposed to be on leave, Gamache cannot walk away from a crime that threatens to ignite long-smoldering tensions between the English and the French. Meanwhile, he is receiving disquieting letters from the village of Three Pines, where beloved Bistro owner Olivier was recently convicted of murder. "It doesn't make sense," Olivier’s partner writes every day. "He didn't do it, you know." As past and present collide in this astonishing novel, Gamache must relive the terrible event of his own past before he can bury his dead.
My Thoughts:
I’ve been a fan of Louise Penny since her first book, Still Life, was published in 2006. When I met her at the Perth Writers Festival earlier this year, I was astonished to see how many books she had published and how many I had missed. I thought I’d better hurry and catch up with what’s been happening in the world of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec.
Bury the Dead is the sixth book in the series, and is set in Québec City, a lovely 16th century fortified town that is one of the oldest European colonies in North America. I really love the Canadian setting of Louise Penny’s books. They are so fresh and vivid, and I learn something new every time about Canadian history and life. Most of her books till now have been set in the fictional village of Three Pines, which – I joked to a friend recently – has had almost as many murders as Midsomer. Despite its extraordinarily high rate of murders, Three Pines is idyllic and makes me want to move there.
The change of setting to Old Québec was, nonetheless, welcome. I knew nothing about its long and bloody history, and found the history revealed in this novel fascinating. It is Winter Carnival, and the cobbled streets and slate roofs are thick with snow. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache has not come to Québec City to join in the revelries, but to recover from an earlier investigation which had gone terribly wrong. The aftermath of that investigation haunts Gamache, but the details are only revealed slowly, through memory and flashback, and so the novel is really about two separate violent events, that reflect each other in surprising ways.
The murder in Québec City takes place in the Literary and Historical Society, an old stone library, where a historian’s body has been discovered buried in a shallow grave in the cellar. He had spent his career searching for the grave of the founder of Quebec, Samuel de Champlain, which has been hidden for more than 400 years.
Meanwhile, Gamache’s second-in-command, Jean Guy Beauvoir goes back to Three Pines to reinvestigate the last murder which happened there, as Gamache has a terrible feeling that he had got it wrong.
So, stories within stories, deaths in the now and in the past, and a fallible detective who is nonetheless dogged and intelligent … Louise Penny writes top-notch crime fiction, and I’m really glad I’ve decided to read the whole series.
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
I was ten years old when my parents were killed by pirates. This did not bother me as much as you might think - I hardly knew my parents.
Bronte Mettlestone's parents ran away to have adventures when she was a baby, leaving her to be raised by her Aunt Isabelle and the Butler. She's had a perfectly pleasant childhood of afternoon teas and riding lessons - and no adventures, thank you very much.
But Bronte's parents have left extremely detailed (and bossy) instructions for Bronte in their will. The instructions must be followed to the letter, or disaster will befall Bronte's home. She is to travel the kingdoms and empires, perfectly alone, delivering special gifts to her ten other aunts. There is a farmer aunt who owns an orange orchard and a veterinarian aunt who specialises in dragon care, a pair of aunts who captain a cruise ship together and a former rockstar aunt who is now the reigning monarch of a small kingdom.
Now, armed with only her parents' instructions, a chest full of strange gifts and her own strong will, Bronte must journey forth to face dragons, Chief Detectives and pirates - and the gathering suspicion that there might be something more to her extremely inconvenient quest than meets the eye...
From the award-winning Jaclyn Moriarty comes a fantastic tale of high intrigue, grand adventure and an abundance of aunts.
My Thoughts:
I have always thought that Jaclyn Moriarty has one of the freshest and most original voices in Australian children’s literature and so was eager to read her latest children’s fantasy, beautifully presented as a hardback with whimsical illustrations by Kelly Canby. The book did not disappoint – it was a sparkling delight from beginning to end, with lots of unexpected discoveries, wondrous encounters and madcap adventures.
The story begins:
I was ten years old when my parents were killed by pirates. This did not bother me as much as you might think - I hardly knew my parents.
Bronte’s parents had run away to have adventures when she was just a baby, leaving her to be raised by her Aunt Isabelle and the Butler. But their last will and testament says she must set out alone, on a solitary quest, to take a farewell gift to each of her ten other aunts. Her parents’ will has been bordered by fairy cross-stitch, which means calamity will befall her home town if she disobeys. So Bronte sets out to fulfil her parents’ dying wish (although, really, it is extremely inconvenient). Before long she is grappling with dragons, Chief Detectives, spell whisperers and pirates. Luckily, Bronte is very resourceful and determined as well as kind-hearted and clever, and so she deals with one troublesome aunt after another with aplomb.
The world-building in this book is so rich and inventive it could easily support a dozen other books, and so I hope that The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone is the first in what will be a long series. This is the perfect book for a sensitive imaginative bookworm who is not yet ready for Harry Potter but wants a story filled with magic, adventure, humour and whimsy (the kind of kid I was when I was eleven!)
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
1660. King Charles II has returned from exile, but memories of the English Civil War still rankle. There are old scores to settle, and religious differences threaten to overturn a fragile peace. When Alice Ibbetson discovers a rare orchid, the Lady’s Slipper, growing in a wood belonging to Richard Wheeler, she is captivated by its beauty— though Wheeler, a Quaker, is determined to keep the flower where God intended it to grow.
My Thoughts:
Set in 1666, soon after the restoration of King Charless II, this novel begins with a young woman named Alice sneaking out of her husband’s house in the middle of the night to steal a flower from a nearby wood. The flower is a rare orchid, a Lady’s Slipper, and Alice wants to paint it. The wood belongs to a Quaker called Richard Wheeler, who will not tolerate the theft and demands the flower back. From this rather simple premise, Deborah Swift creates a fabulous historical novel full of passion, obsession, intrigue, murder, religious riots, madness and exile. I loved every word of it!
Other blogs on this book you may find interesting:
http://www.historyandwomen.com/2011/06/ladys-slipper-by-deborah-swift.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-pQCvPzGhI
http://historicalnovelreview.blogspot.com.au/2010/07/ladys-slipper-by-deborah-swift.html
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
Rose was lit by the sun, her beautiful face giving nothing away. Even back then, she was a mystery that I wanted to solve.
The lead homicide investigator in a rural town, Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock is deeply unnerved when a high school classmate is found strangled, her body floating in a lake. And not just any classmate, but Rosalind Ryan, whose beauty and inscrutability exerted a magnetic pull on Smithson High School, first during Rosalind's student years and then again when she returned to teach drama.
As much as Rosalind's life was a mystery to Gemma when they were students together, her death presents even more of a puzzle. What made Rosalind quit her teaching job in Sydney and return to her hometown? Why did she live in a small, run-down apartment when her father was one of the town's richest men? And despite her many admirers, did anyone in the town truly know her?
Rosalind's enigmas frustrate and obsess Gemma, who has her own dangerous secrets—an affair with her colleague and past tragedies that may not stay in the past.
My Thoughts:
So many brilliant contemporary crime novels being published in Austalia right now! It’s like a new Golden Age of detective novels. And like the Golden Age of the 30s in Great Britain, many of the writers of this new great Australian flowering are women. In recent months I’ve read and loved books by Jane Harper, Dervla McTiernan, and Emma Viskic, and now I need to add debut author Sarah Bailey to the list. The Dark Lake really is bloody brilliant!
Set in a small rundown Australian town, the story centres on the murder of a beautiful young teacher, her body found floating in the lake strewn with red roses. Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock went to school with the dead woman, but she hides this fact from her boss and her partner as she is desperate to investigate the crime. Slowly Gemma’s obsession with her old school friend deepens, threatening to derail her life and destroy all that she holds dear.
This is the kind of book that – once started – you really can’t put down. As more and more secrets are revealed, and more and more of Gemma’s life exposed, the mystery of how Rosalind Ryan died becomes increasingly gripping. And the story has a very satisfactory ending, as all good crime novels must have. I can’t wait for Sarah Bailey’s next book now!
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
1942, Nazi-occupied France. Sandrine, a spirited and courageous nineteen-year-old, finds herself drawn into a Resistance group in Carcassonne - codenamed 'Citadel' - made up of ordinary women who are prepared to risk everything for what is right. And when she meets Raoul, they discover a shared passion for the cause, for their homeland, and for each other. But in a world where the enemy now lies in every shadow - where neighbour informs on neighbour; where friends disappear without warning and often without trace - love can demand the highest price of all.
My Thoughts:
I really loved both ‘Labyrinth’ and ‘Sepulchre’, which brought together elements of my favourite genres – history, suspense, romance, with a twist of the supernatural. So I was very excited to get Kate Mosse’s new book, ‘Citadel’, which is a lovely, big, thick thwack of a book. You wouldn’t want to drop it on your toe or have to carry it around in your handbag.
Even though it is very heavy and hard to hold while reading in bed, ‘Citadel’ was a swift and pleasurable read. Most nights I stayed up later than I should have, unable to put it down. I love books set in France (I’m such a Francophile!), I love books set during the Second World War, and I love books that have a parallel narrative, set in two different time periods – and so ‘Citadel’ ticks a lot of boxes for me. Unlike ‘Labyrinth’ and ‘Sepulchre’, there is no contemporary narrative in this book. Instead, the story set during the Second World War is interwoven with a tale of a Dark Ages monk who is seeking to protect a mysterious scroll called the Codex. This secondary thread is only a minor part of the book, which concentrates on the primary story of the struggles of a group of women Resistance fighters trying to help people escape Nazi-occupied France. Really, the book could have done without the Codex - the story of the brave women Resistance fighters is strong enough to stand on its own. However, with this second narrative thread, Kate Mosse is able to have the same twist of the supernatural that worked so well in her earlier two books, plus tie all three books together at the climax.
I’m actually rather sad to know that this is the end of Kate Mosse’s Carcassone books – I hope she writes some more!
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
This is a tale of missing persons. Madeleine and her mother have run away from their former life, under mysterious circumstances, and settled in a rainy corner of Cambridge (in our world).
Elliot, on the other hand, is in search of his father, who disappeared on the night his uncle was found dead. The talk in the town of Bonfire (in the Kingdom of Cello) is that Elliot's dad may have killed his brother and run away with the Physics teacher. But Elliot refuses to believe it. And he is determined to find both his dad and the truth.
As Madeleine and Elliot move closer to unraveling their mysteries, they begin to exchange messages across worlds -- through an accidental gap that hasn't appeared in centuries. But even greater mysteries are unfolding on both sides of the gap: dangerous weather phenomena called "color storms;" a strange fascination with Isaac Newton; the myth of the "Butterfly Child," whose appearance could end the droughts of Cello; and some unexpected kisses...
My Thoughts:
I often tweet about a book while I’m reading it.
My tweets about ‘A Corner of White’ include ‘extraordinary, beautiful, startling’; ‘one of the most original and unusual books I’ve read in a long time’; and ‘I’m in awe’.
It is certainly unlike any other book I’ve ever read.
‘A Corner of White’ is basically a story about parallel words – our own familiar world - and another far different and yet strangely familiar place, the Kingdom of Cello.
A crack opens up between these two worlds, and a letter slips through. Madeleine, a teenage girl living in Cambridge, finds the letter and writes back … thinking her correspondent is just a boy with a vivid imagination. She does not realise that Elliot’s letters describe a real place …
Both Madeleine and Elliot are suffering loss and confusion and the pangs of first love.
Both Madeleine and Elliott feel very alone.
Their letters build a bridge between them and their world, and, in strange and unexpected ways, help each other make sense of the mysteries of their lives.
Jaclyn Moriarty has always had a quirky, wryly humorous style, but in ‘A Corner of White’ she reaches new heights of lyricism. There were some lines which sung with such truth and beauty that I wanted to learn them by heart.
Here’s just one:
'She felt the stars were folding into her chest; those sharp, shining, agitated pieces of excitement were stars'.
Such a perfect sentence, saying so much with so little.
I do have to say that ‘A Corner of White’ is a difficult book to categorise.
Although the secondary world makes it a fantasy novel, the book is without most of the trappings that we usually associate with fantasy. There are no quests, or magical beasts, or battles between good and evil. The secondary world is remarkably humdrum – despite waves of colours that sweep over the land and cause havoc with people’s emotions, and despite such extraordinary magical touches as the Butterfly Child, who brings luck to anyone who catches her.
Similarly, our own world is infused with strangeness and magic. There are troubling absences, inexplicable coincidences, and odd disruptions to what we would consider normal.
Because the book is truly concerned with the inner lives of its two protagonists, I’d call it ‘magic realism’ rather than fantasy – yet it is so fantastical, so filled with a sense of the strange and the impossible, that it really blurs the boundaries of magic realism as well.
I think Jaclyn may have invented a whole new genre. Fantastical magic realism, perhaps?
Or maybe magic unrealism?
Either way, ‘A Corner of White’ is quite simply one of the most astonishingly original books I’ve ever read. I loved it!
Leave me a comment and let me know what you think....
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
My Thoughts:
I’ve really enjoyed all of Louise Penny’s earlier books in the Inspector Gamache crime series, but have had this one sitting on my shelf for ages, waiting for me to read. Having met Louise Penny at the Perth Writers Festival this year (she is lovely!), I decided to catch up on the series.
Her books have mostly centred on the fictional town of Three Pines in the province of Quebec in Canada, with an array of loveable and eccentric locals who appear again and again. They include a gay couple who run the local bistro, a warm-hearted second-hand bookseller, a couple of married artists, and a foul-mouthed old woman who is an award-winning poet and has a pet duck called Rosa. Describing the series in this way, the books sound like cosy murder mysteries, and there is certainly plenty of warmth and humour. However, the depth of characterisation, the lyrical writing, and the darkness of the human psyche revealed both in the murders and the inner lives of the characters lift this series out of the ordinary.
The Brutal Telling centres on the murder of an old hermit who has lived hidden away in the forest outside Three Pines for decades with no-one – or nearly no-one - aware of his existence.
To Inspector Gamache’s surprise, he discovers the old man’s wooden hut is filled with antique treasures (such as a priceless first edition copy of Jane Eyre published under the pseudonym Currer Bell, something I myself would very much like to own.) His quest to find the murderer also leads him to follow in the footsteps of Emily Carr, the first Canadian artist to embrace Fauvism and Post-Impressionism. I have been interested in Emily Carr since reading The Forest Lover, a novel by Susan Vreeland that is inspired by her life, and so was really intrigued by this section of The Brutal Telling. This combination of warmth, intelligence and psychological depth combine to make Louise Penny’s books a cut above most contemporary crime novels and so I urge you to read one if you’ve never tried her before. But start at the beginning, with Still Life, as this series has a strong character arc.
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
For centuries, the mysterious dark-robed figure has roamed the globe, searching for those whose complicity and cowardice have fed into the rapids of history’s darkest waters—and now, in Sarah Perry’s breathtaking follow-up to The Essex Serpent, it is heading in our direction.
It has been years since Helen Franklin left England. In Prague, working as a translator, she has found a home of sorts—or, at least, refuge. That changes when her friend Karel discovers a mysterious letter in the library, a strange confession and a curious warning that speaks of Melmoth the Witness, a dark legend found in obscure fairy tales and antique village lore. As such superstition has it, Melmoth travels through the ages, dooming those she persuades to join her to a damnation of timeless, itinerant solitude. To Helen it all seems the stuff of unenlightened fantasy.
But, unaware, as she wanders the cobblestone streets Helen is being watched. And then Karel disappears. . . .
My Thoughts:
Sarah Perry is a British author who won many fans with her second novel, The Essex Serpent (including me!) An eerie magic realism novel set in Victorian times, The Essex Serpent had a forbidden love story at its heart, along with sightings of a monstrous human-devouring snake. It’s just my kind of book, and so I was eager to read her latest offering.
The title tugged at my memory. I studied Gothic literature at university, and heard about (but did not read) a book called Melmoth the Wanderer, written in 1820 by an Irish Anglican priest Charles Maturin. It’s a classic of Gothic horror, with storm-racked landscapes, midnight scenes set in graveyards, and a creeping sense of claustrophobia and dread. The hero – John Melmoth – attends the deathbed of his uncle, sees an ancient painting of an ancestor, and is mystifyingly told that this ancestor still lives and John shall meet him anon. It turns out that his ancestor sold his soul to the devil in a Faustian pact, but now roams the world trying to foist the deal on to someone else. The book is told as a sequence of stories within stories, in a technique often called a ‘nested narrative’.
I mainly remember the story of Melmoth the Wanderer because Charles Maturin was Oscar Wilde’s uncle and the book was a strong influence on Wilde’s great Gothic masterpiece, The Picture of Dorian Grey. After Wilde was released from gaol, he went into exile on the Continent under the alias of Sebastian Melmoth, the name of the cursed wanderer.
Knowing all this, I expected a dark Gothic tale. I did not realise, however, that Sarah Perry’s novel is actually a kind of retelling of Charles Maturin’s story. The story is inverted, in that both the protagonist and the cursed wanderer in Perry’s tale are women. The frame tale is set in contemporary Prague, rather than 19th century Ireland, but there are many echoes, including the story-within-story-within-story narrative structure.
Helen is a British woman living a life of denial and self-abnegation in Prague. She has few friends, few amusements. One day an acquaintance begs her to read a folder of old documents about a woman named Melmoth. He then disappears. Helen is troubled and unsure. She feels like she is being followed. A clattering of jackdaws in the sombre skies. A woman dressed all in black, seen in the corner of her eye.
Who is Melmoth? you ask.
Let me tell you.
Melmoth once witnessed the resurrection of Christ, but in her fear denied the truth. So she was condemned to wander the earth for ever more, bearing witness to acts of cruelty, betrayal, and atrocity.
She must wander ‘until she’s weary and her feet are bleeding. … she’s lonely, and she wants a companion, so she goes to cells and asylums and burned-out houses and gutters … she’ll follow you down paths and alleys in the dark, or come in the night and sit waiting at the end of your bed … it’s as if she’s been watching all your life – as if she’s seen not only every action, but every thought, every shameful secret, every private cruelty.’
Inevitably Helen begins to read the documents – letters, diaries, and first-hand accounts - and so we go back in time to others who have been haunted by Melmoth. Each one is a masterpiece of ventriloquism: a boy in Nazi-controlled Czechoslovakia who betrays a Jewish friend; a woman about to be burned to death for heresy in the 16th century; a Turkish civil servant who worked for those who masterminded the Armenian massacre. Behind all these tales of grief and horror is the mystery of Helen’s own crime: what did she do to draw Melmoth to her?
This book breaks a great many rules. Helen is an unsympathetic protagonist. Most of the other characters are too. The narrative is fragmented and uneven. The reader is directly addressed again and again:
‘She finds herself unwilling to raise her head to the window, as if she might see beyond the glass a face with an expression of loneliness so imploring as to be cruel. (And since she will not look, you must.)’
The book has divided readers. Some find it slow, boring, repetitive, self-conscious. Others think it is brilliant, provoking, and profound. I’m in the latter camp. It reminds me of other books I have loved – The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, The Angel of Ruin by Kim Wilkins, The People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. Each new story takes the reader deeper into the metaphysical truth at the heart of the book. We must bear witness. We must take responsibility. We are all human.
Buy Melmoth NowThe Coffin Path is a similar genre that you also might enjoy:
