Tag: recommended reads

Book Review: Love Lane by Patrick Gale – part two in the Harry Cane story

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

Patrick Gale has long been a favourite author of mine, so of course I’d read A Place Called Winter when it came out in 2015. I’m pretty sure it was one of my top reads for that year. Its story was inspired by the life of the author’s own great-grandfather, a man who had left his wife and young daughter to become a farmer in the Canadian prairies. The novel, set in the early part of the 20th century, describes a secret love, the effects of the Great War and following flu epidemic on its characters, as well as the difficulties of building a life out of nothing. It’s both fascinating and moving and like all Patrick Gale’s novels, beautifully written

In Love Lane, Gale picks up Harry Cane’s story when he sells his farm and makes a visit to his long lost family in England. A kind of mythology has grown up around Harry, known as Cowboy Grandpa, his grandchildren imagining an ageing Gary Cooper. And it isn’t surprising as no one has seen him for most of half a century. His daughter Betty has been brought up by a grandmother and a bunch of formidable aunts – her mother having died when she was twelve. As a young woman engaged to Terry, she feels the urge to write to Harry out of the blue. Terry has asked about Harry and getting married seems the right time to get in touch.

So begins a correspondence that doesn’t result in a visit from either side until Harry sells his farm and, wheat prices being down, has to accept a low offer. He turns up at the Liverpool docks, a shabby elderly man with few teeth and wearing a string tie. At first Betty doesn’t know what to do with him, Terry has a stressful job as a prison governor, but she determines to look after her father. Her flighty daughter Whistle takes a shine to him and so does the dog. There’s also something about Harry which makes women want to talk to him about their problems.

Harry had never gone so long without fresh air, walking the turbulent corridors, from the acid stink of his little, wood-veneered cabin to the bottomless, empty talk of the dining room to the echoing whoops of the bar and – now that he knew the way – down the service staircase to the cosy snug on the deck below. He was having, or listening in on, conversations that left him as dizzy as an inexperienced climber on a mountainside. It gave him the curious sense that – in transit from a young world to an older one – he had stumbled onto yet another, that was altogether older and wiser than either. By the time they had passed Ireland and were nosing into the mouth of the Mersey on a dazzling April morning, he was left with the slightly panicky feeling of someone worrying they’d bought a ticket to quite the wrong place.

The story flips between the points of view of Harry and Betty, as well as Terry, whose prison is one where executions are still performed, something which is hugely stressful. Harry goes on to stay with Pip, their elder daughter, so we get her narration as well. She’s married to Mike, also in the prison service and a man with secrets. Harry is, as ever, perceptive and inspires confidences.

The author does a terrific job of capturing post-war England, still with rationing, and even though both Mike and Terry have important jobs, there’s not a lot to spare. Women of their class didn’t work after marriage, and we get a lot of societal expectations in the 1950s on wives and young mothers in a patriarchal system. It was also a difficult time to be gay, with men outed for homosexual acts given stints in Terry’s prison, among them the tailor he brings Harry to for a new suit and shirts.

But best of all are the characters. Gale has done plenty of research on the one hand, but has had a wealth of letters and diaries, as well, no doubt, as his own memories of old family stories to sift through to inspire the novel. You get to know the characters and really empathise with them, which is something I always like about any of Gale’s books, he’s such a perceptive writer, perhaps having something of his own great-grandfather’s gift.

You can read Love Lane as a stand-alone novel, but I would really also recommend starting with A Place Called Winter, which I recall as a beautifully intense and emotional read. Love Lane is a welcome return to Harry’s story, and a four-and-a-half star read from me.

Book Review: Time of the Child by Niall Williams – a beautifully crafted period novel set in rural Ireland

~ Judith ~ 4 Comments

This is one of those novels that rewards perseverance, opening as it does in a way a fable might begin, and taking its time with setting the scene and establishing character. The writing also takes a bit of getting used to, but once you’ve got the hang of it, you might find yourself utterly hooked, as I was.

Time of the Chid is set in Faha, a small town in Claire. It’s 1962 and we’re in the lead up to Christmas with a story centred mostly around the town doctor, Jack Troy, and his unmarried daughter Ronnie. There’s a lot of scene setting as we follow Jack on his rounds, and his reminiscences about lost love. He and Ronnie are isolated from the rest of the town in that they have no obvious social equals. Ronnie’s sister begs her to let her find a match for her, but Ronnie is happy where she is – what seems like loneliness to others is freedom to her.

Doctor Troy and Ronnie rattle around in Avalon, a large rambling home that doubles as a doctor’s consulting room, the house riddled with mice and various kinds of rot. It’s not a place you’d want to spend winter in, and the weather here is a character in itself, in various versions of wet – rain, sea mist or fog – and always chilling. Jack has a lot on his plate working in a town where people are mostly struggling to pay doctors fees in a timely manner, an ageing population and a priest who is losing his mind to dementia.

In the parish, the doctor had the standing that close acquaintance with suffering bestowed. Beneath his waved grid of silver hair, his sunken eyes said that acquaintance came at a cost. He had a worn air, his complexion tending now to ashen, his top lip covered with a shoebrush moustache he had grown to put a small distance between himself and the hurt of the world. Although he lived in the magnificent dilapidation of Avalon House, and carried himself in a manner that Faha might have summarised as Not like us, he was vouchsafed a place of honour in the parish by the twin virtues of not leaving and being indispensable.

There’s also young Jude Quinlan who comes from a poor farming family, with a father who drinks and gambles away much of what he earns. We follow Jude helping his father bring the cattle to sell at the town fair and you get more on this colourful event, the characters and how the townsfolk interact with each other, the expectations and buzz as people prepare also for the Christmas season. All of this before the pivoting event of Jude discovering an abandoned baby.

The story follows what happens with the baby, rescued by the doctor and Ronnie, and secretly cared for. We get a view of an Ireland where children born out of wedlock were a shame to be whisked away by the authorities, and your imagination conjures up orphanages run by nuns and not a lot of love. The baby meanwhile captivates Ronnie and the doctor, and as Christmas looms, each separately imagines what might happen next and how to fix it.

This is a delightful read, a gentle story that packs an emotional punch, with characters that you really get to care for. It’s all particularly enhanced by the wonderful writing in spite of sentences that are often long and convoluted in an Irish sort of way, and brimming with imagery that is somehow just right. Some, particularly the humorous ones, I just had to read out loud. There’s plenty to make you think, with themes around what is the right thing to do, about guilt and atonement, the spirit of Christmas and whether there is in fact a God.

I loved this book and seeing that Time of the Child is the second novel set in Faha, will be hunting out its predecessor, This Is Happiness – there’s a third, Oh, Now to be published later this year. Time of the Child won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year 2025 and is a five star read from me.

Book Review: Seascraper by Benjamin Wood – a gorgeous, atmospheric and evocative coming-of-age story

~ Judith ~ 4 Comments

Yes, I know a lot has already been said about Seascraper, the little book that made the Booker longlist and was a favourite to win, only to miss being picked for the shortlist. And it’s such a lovely read. Such an original story.

In case you missed it, it’s about Thomas Flett, who works on the West Coast of England at a place called Longferry, (which might be Southport), where he makes a small living collecting shrimp. It’s arduous work involving old technology and a horse. It’s the work he took over from his grandfather, now dead so it’s just him and his mother in the same cottage she grew up in with few mod cons. But outside it’s the 1960s – people are beginning to forget about the war, maybe thanks to the new music, and the movies.

An American movie producer Edgar Acheson turns up wanting an atmospheric coastal location for his upcoming film and charms his way into the family. Tom reluctantly agrees to take him out that evening at low tide and what follows makes Tom rethink his life. There’s some brilliant storytelling on display, original characters who come to the page with depth for such a short book. You really feel for them too, particularly Tom and his shyness around Joan who works at the post office and makes Tom feel scruffy and unkempt – which he is. Even the horse has character.

Benjamin Wood does everything brilliantly here, but he’s always been in the back of my mind as a writer to look out for ever since I read his debut, The Bellwether Revivals – well worth a read if you come across it. My reading of Seascraper was particularly enhanced by listening to the audiobook which is read by the author himself. He has a pleasant voice, well suited to bringing Tom to life, and does the contrasting Atcheson well too. He also does the musical performance too – yes, there’s music – and it really was amazing, well worth the switch to audio.

So if you’re looking for a nice audiobook, even if you’ve already read Seascraper in print form, check this one out. I can see what all the fuss was about – a five-star read from me.

Book Review: The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue – a gripping read set during the Spanish Flu epidemic

~ Judith ~ 2 Comments

Emma Donoghue’s novels are always worth checking out and quickly immerse you into all sorts of situations and topics. I loved Akin and was fascinated by Haven, but The Pull of the Stars is one of the most intense stories I’ve read in a while. Perhaps it is due to the short time-frame of the narrative, and its setting shortly before the Armistice of 1918. We’re in a struggling Dublin hospital where thirty-year-old nurse Julia Power is assigned to a tiny maternity ward for women infected with the Spanish Flu.

Julia is suddenly given the charge of the day shift for the three bed ward, a former storage room, taking over from the stern nun working through the night. The hospital is woefully understaffed and undersupplied, but Julia has good midwifery skills. A helper, Bridie Sweeney, is sent from a kind of convent workhouse and finally a doctor, Kathleen Lynn, who while being extremely caring and experienced, is wanted by the police for her involvement with Sinn Fein.

Over the four chapters, named for the four colours a flu victim’s skin turns, from early fever through to oxygen deprivation and even death, the reader is given a nail-biting ride into complications of childbirth. There are some pretty grisly details, and I confess to being somewhat squeamish when it comes to descriptions of operations, but this kept me reading, the life and death situations surrounding the women’s care quite fascinating.

Could she be hungry for her breakfast? Unlikely, in her state; patients with serious flu cases had no appetite. Haggard at thirty-three years old, pale but for those flame-red cheeks, her belly a hard hill. Eleven previous deliveries, it said on Ita Noonan’s chart, seven children still living, and this twelfth birth not expected for another two and a half months. (Since Mrs. Noonan had been able to tell us nothing about when she might have conceived or when she’d felt the quickening, Sister Finnegan had had to make a stab at the due date based on the height of the uterus.)
My job wasn’t to cure all Ita Noonan’s ills but to bring her safe through his particular calamity, I reminded myself, to push her little boat back into the current of what I imagined to be her barely bearable life.

Poverty is described in all its forms here, made all the worse by the war. We learn of the harsh social cost of carrying a child out of wedlock – we’ve all heard about the convent laundries – but the orphanages seem to be just as bad. Young Bridie is an orphanage girl, not sure of her age – “about 22” – undernourished and unpaid. For all that, she’s eager to help and enjoys the work, is kindly with the women in the ward and strikes up a friendship with Julia.

At home Julia has a brother, who has never spoken since returning from war service, the two making an odd sort of couple, Julia earning a living, Tim keeping the house and making meals. Talk of women’s suffrage and the division of opinion about the Easter Rising hover in the background. The character of Kathleen Lynn is based on a real person, and in the book she inspires Julia to think about political issues differently.

This is a dramatic and intense read about friendship in the face of adversity, changing political and social times, a microcosm that tells so much about the wider picture. I loved the book, though it was tough-going at times with the harsh realities of birth trauma and fever as grim as any battle story. In fact the two are compared more than once in the book. For all that there is a positive ending that gives you a glimpse of hope, so don’t let me put you off – this is such a brilliant story – a five-star read from me.

Book Review: Traitor’s Legacy by S J Parris – a fab new series of historical thrillers set in Elizabethan England

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been a big fan of S J Parris’s Giordano Bruno series of historical thrillers, which follow a heretic priest on the run from Rome, recruited by Queen Elizabeth’s spymaster Francis Walsingham. In this new series S J Parris has shifted the narrative along a decade or so and reintroduced a peripheral figure from the Bruno books as her main character, sleuth and spy. This would be Sophia de Wolfe, now thirty-five and a woman of means, living quietly in London. Queen Elizabeth is in her final years, but the threats to her sovereignty have not gone away, particularly since there is the big question of who will succeed the throne when the queen dies.

Traitor’s Legacy begins with the burial of a body – just a young girl – at a site where a band of players, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, has just removed its theatre, ready to rebuild on the other side of the Thames. It’s winter, and the dismantling of the theatre happens quietly, undercover of darkness, with a young boy called Badger paid to keep a look out. What Badger also sees, is the two men who hide the girl, as well as the jewelled clasp one of them leaves behind. There are documents with the body, too, written in code.

We flip to Sophia’s home where she is being tutored in the skill of swordsmanship. She wears her specially made duelling breeches, not an outfit any right-minded woman of the age would be seen in, but the canny reader knows they’re going to come in handy later on, along with her skills with the sword. Her session is interrupted by a visit from Thomas Phelippes, an envoy from Robert Cecil, Walsingham’s replacement. He has news of the body, an Agnes Lovell, and Cecil wants to see Sophia immediately. The coded documents are in Sophia’s cypher, from her days as one of Walsingham’s spies.

Thinking her days of espionage long over, Sophia is now tasked with discovering who might have written a warning in her code and left it with the girl’s body. Sophia will have to dig into who might have killed the girl and why, and whether the warning has links to the Queen’s determination to bring the Irish into line. Or something else entirely. Young Agnes was a ward under the guardianship of the powerful North family, and Sir Thomas North and his son had both served in the Irish War. But Agnes’s uncle was a known Catholic sympathiser – so there’s that. And then there’s the theatre company whose site was so convenient to the murderer – so many threads to unravel.

Sophia’s own history will come into play, particularly when the son she gave up for adoption at birth, now a teenage boy and member of the Chamberlain’s Men, becomes accused of the murder. There are threats against Sophia herself, some daring rooftop escapes and more bodies turning up to keep the story humming along. In the background you have Parris’s depth of research which brings Tudor England to life, not just the powerful players at court, such as Cecil and the Duke of Essex, but the ordinary folk – the street kids, like Badger, living off their wits, the servants that know more than they’d like to let on, the women working in brothels. There’s lots of insight into the precarious place of women in all levels of society too, something Sophia understands only too well.

This is such a rich and layered novel, keeping the reader on their toes, with a cast of interesting characters. I loved the scenes in the theatres – the Lord Chamberlain’s Men were Shakespeare’s troupe. But there’s also a rival group, the Admiral’s Men, and their playwright, Anthony Munday – a former spying colleague of Sophia’s who gets involved in the case. There’s some unfinished business for Sophia to sort out with both her son and with Munday – so plenty of interesting threads as the series continues.

I was delighted to listen to this as an audiobook read by Kristin Atherton, who does all the voices so well, it’s hard to believe they’re all the same narrator. And I’m also delighted that the next book in the series, Rebel’s Gambit, is out in May. Traitor’s Legacy is a five-star read from me.

Book Review: Belgrave Road by Manish Chauhan – an engrossing novel about love across the cultural divide

~ Judith ~ 2 Comments

This debut novel describes the immigrant experience from two quite different points of view. It begins with Mira’s arrival from India to make a new life in Leicester with her husband. She’s twenty-three, and this is an arranged marriage. In itself this would be fascinating for a reader from a culture where arranged marriages, apart from those on reality TV, don’t really happen. What can it be like to suddenly share a bed, a home, a life with someone you hardly know? Mira has to remain married to Rajiv for five years to stay in England, if that’s what she wants. Somehow you get the feeling though, there’s no turning back – that she could never face returning home to India to be a disappointment to her parents.

Mira had hoped she could use her beauty therapy diploma to start her own business – she’s bright and ambitious – but beauty therapists are a dime a dozen in this part of Leicester, an area that is surprisingly full of Indian people, Indian shops, Indian food outlets. It could even be a lot like home, if only it wasn’t so cold. An opportunity arises for Mira to work in the kitchens of a sweet shop, where she makes friends with the other workers and where, across the yard, she first sees Tahliil.

Tahliil is a young man who has recently had a harrowing journey from Somalia with his sister and lives with his mother in a tiny flat. He’s not legally allowed to work, has not even registered as an asylum seeker when we first meet him, but picks up several part-time jobs, paid in cash, no questions asked. He’s diligent and well-mannered, so is kept on. It’s at the cash-and-carry where he shifts stock, sometimes delivering grocery items to the sweet shop next door, where he meets Mira.

Mira begins to question her marriage. Rajiv is older and has a history with a woman who secretly texts him, and friends he sees without Mira. So it’s easy to fall into a friendship, and then something more with Tahliil. The story includes Tahliil’s struggles as an asylum seeker, the lengthy wait for his paperwork to go through, the worry that he could be sent home. The fact that he’s Muslim means any relationship with Mira would be unacceptable to his family.

This is such a compelling novel, beautifully written, with its two very different characters, who find themselves in desperate situations. Perhaps an older version of themselves would think twice, but when you’re in your twenties it’s so easy to let your heart hold sway. And why wouldn’t they? They’ve both travelled so far. Why would they settle for anything less than a life lived on their own terms? As a reader you can’t help thinking of the roadblocks, and whether each has the fortitude for the journey ahead of them if they want to be together. This drives the story and keeps you engrossed to the end.

Other characters have their struggles too. Mira’s mother-in-law seems to be eternally optimistic rather than seeing the reality of what’s going on with her family, with her marriage. Rajiv’s cousin Rupal is in a same-sex relationship she’s completely committed to, but struggles to formalise before her family. Tahliil works for an old man who hardly ever sees his daughter, and is estranged from his son.

I found the setting of Leicester, with its huge immigrant population, quite fascinating, a place that must seem cold and physically inhospitable to those from warmer climates, and yet which offers opportunities and safety. Belgrave Road is a brilliant story, and Manish Chauhan really gets into the heads of his characters, making their lives believable. If you want to understand what makes people leave their country for new beginnings in the West and the struggles they face, this is well worth reading – a five-star read from me.

I read Belgrave Road courtesy of Netgalley and Faber & Faber (UK). The book is due for release on 29 January.

Book Review: Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton – the best-selling memoir about the unexpected bond between the writer and a wild animal

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

I don’t often read non-fiction, preferring to immerse myself in the art of the story, the development of characters, atmosphere and mood. But Raising Hare has been such a popular hit, I was intrigued.

It begins during lockdown, when the author leaves her busy life in the city for a rural retreat, an old converted barn surrounded by farmland and woods. It’s wintertime when, out on a walk, she comes across a baby leveret sitting in the road – potential fodder for hawks or foxes, or in danger of being crushed between vehicle wheels. Chloe knows a thing or two about wildlife – her mother has a way with animals – and so realises she should leave it alone, that if she picks it up to put it somewhere safer, it’s mother will smell Chloe on the leveret and abandon it.

But returning from her walk, hours later, the leveret is still there, so against her better judgement, Chloe takes it in. The events that follow are fascinating as she learns how to care for the animal, accommodating it into her busy life as the lockdown ends and normal life is expected to take place again. You learn a lot about hares – how endangered they are in England, but also considered a pest by farmers and so aren’t protected by law with a dedicated hunting season. They’re also not typically thought to be easy to befriend, so Chloe’s experiences are enthralling.

The leveret was particular in its tastes. A ripe strawberry left out to tempt it was disregarded. But it loved an occasional raspberry. The sticky, squishy sound of a hare eating a raspberry has to be heard to be believed. Since hares don’t use their paws to help them eat, in the way that dogs or parrots grip their food at times to gain a better purchase, it would pick up the thimble-shaped cone in its mouth by one edge and slowly mash its jaws, drawing it in bead by bead while the raspberry bobbed up and down in front of its nose. There was something serious, almost ponderous, in the slow and methodical manner in which the leveret ate a berry.

Although Chloe doesn’t try to domesticate or keep the hare once it is ready to take care of itself, it still visits, barging in through its specially made door, making itself at home, quite some time later. It’s interesting to read about the effect on Chloe of having an animal, particularly a wild animal, in her life. How she changes from living for her work, which often takes her on special assignments overseas, with the thrill of new environments and political landscapes. How the hare makes her rethink what she wants from life, her growing fondness for the animal, and how it makes her so much more aware of the nature around her, not just animals, but also vegetation and seasons.

I came away from the book wishing the very best for the survival of the hare Chloe Dalton takes in, but also really feeling for the author. Her awakened awareness regarding how we treat the natural environment and her wanting to be a spokesperson for change, particularly in the way it’s always open season for hare shooting, but also how we farm and take so much from the landscape at the cost of lives we cannot see. But you can’t help but feel that with ever diminishing habitats, hares are up against it. Brilliantly written, Raising Hare was such an engaging read, with a ton of emotional heft, I know it will stay with me for a long time. So it’s a five-star read from me.

Book Review: The Silence In Between by Josie Ferguson – a remarkable historical novel about a family divided by the Berlin Wall

~ Judith ~ 2 Comments

I’ve read quite a few books about World War II from the Allies’ point of view – the families caught up in the war, on either side of the Channel, the people who helped Jewish children escape at risk of their lives and the SOE recruits dropped behind enemy lines to help the Resistance or lead downed Allied airmen out of occupied territory. Loads about Bletchley Park too. But I haven’t come across nearly so many about what it was like from the German perspective.

While The Silence In Between describes what happens to ordinary people in East Berlin when the Wall went up, it also dips back to follow the lives of a mother and daughter during the war and the terrible treatment they received at the hands of Soviet forces in 1945. Events of both periods are firmly linked.

The book opens in 1961 with the Wall. Lisette has just had a baby, and while she is ready to take little Axel home, the hospital want to keep him in for a bit longer. She goes home to fetch some things for him and to spend the night with her husband and daughter, and that’s when the Wall goes up. Overnight, Lisette and Axel are separated. The situation is made more poignant by Lisette’s admission to herself that she loves Axel more than her daughter, teenage Elly. As the days and weeks pass with no means of contacting the hospital or any news of Axel, Lisette sinks into despair, losing her speech.

Elly’s life goes from carefree outings with friends to trying to manage her mother. She decides the only way to save her family is to bring Axel back herself. The Wall is patrolled by armed Soviet officers sent over from the USSR, ordered to shoot anyone attempting to cross the border. By chance Elly meets the one soldier who doesn’t shoot. She has a gift for hearing music in other people, and the music the soldier Andrei has tells her she can trust him. In the background is the awareness that there are people watching and reporting back, a spy in every apartment block. Secrecy is of the essence.

The voice on the radio crackles, static eating the man’s words. I recognise the presenter, but his voice sounds more high-pitched than usual, as if he’s being strangled.
‘A fence…barbed wire? What’s he talking about? When did this happen?’
‘Elly, please, stop with the questions.’ Papa is still crouched down beside Mama. ‘There will be a way to cross,’ he says. But I can hear he doesn’t believe his own words.
‘Come, let’s go down,’ he says, gently touching Mama’s shoulder. ‘We’ll speak to them at the border. Explain.’
Mama won’t look at me. She simply howls once more and it’s then I see the empty wooden cot in the bedroom beyond, the crumpled sheet poking through the bars. I finally understand the full horror of the situation.
‘Axel?’ My voice is a whisper.
Papa looks at me, his eyes strained. ‘He’s on the other side.’

The story follows Elly’s plan to cross to West Berlin, which is told from Elly’s perspective, interwoven with Lisette’s narrative of her survival in Berlin during WWII. Lisette witnesses many terrible events, the barely acknowledged rounding up of the Jews; the pressure from nosy neighbour, Frau Weber, to meet her nephew, a Nazi officer; the lack of food; the fear of bombing, which becomes a reality as the war progresses. We learn why she never bonds with Elly, her worries for Julius, the boy she loves, fighting on the Eastern Front in a war he doesn’t agree with.

Throughout the book is music. Lisette is an accomplished pianist and gives lessons to a young girl who becomes like a sister. Elly has her own kind of musical synasthesia and a keyboard in her bedroom, which she loves to play, but for reasons she doesn’t understand, it only upsets her mother. If you check out Josie Ferguson’s website, there are pieces of music you can listen to that relate to some of the characters, composed by the author’s brother.

The Silence in Between is a gripping novel, beautifully written that had me constantly on edge. On the one hand I couldn’t wait to see what happened next, while also being almost too anxious to find out. I almost broke my rule about not reading the back of the book to see how it ended. But the book is much more than its story, and gives a good picture of what life was like on either side of the Wall, and the lot of women in Berlin during the war. Some of this makes for grim reading.

The Silence in Between is a brilliant debut, well-researched and gripping, offering a different view of the war as well as Berlin in 1961. Well recommended, it’s a five-star read from me.

Book Review: The Night of the Scourge by Lars Mytting – the stunning conclusion to an epic trilogy

~ Judith ~ 2 Comments

I was worried that I would have forgotten too much about the previous books in Mytting’s Sister Bells trilogy by the time the third book arrived. Should I have reread the previous two (The Bell in the Lake and The Reindeer Hunters) before setting out on the ominously titled The Night of the Scourge? In the end, it didn’t seem to matter, although I did think I would happily sit down and read them all again one day, one after the other, for this is one of those series that could become a firm favourite..

The setting of the trilogy is for the most part the tiny Norwegian settlement of Butangen, beginning with the first book in 1880 or so, when Kai Schweigaard arrives as a young pastor. He has to battle suspicion from the locals and a determination to remember the old ways, including pagan ideas and myths. This is particularly so for the magic accorded the Sister Bells, the two bells in the tower of the old stave church he takes over. There is the story of the Hekne weave, an almost magical tapestry completed by conjoined twins three hundred years before, while Kai feels himself drawn towards Astrid Hekne, their descendant.

The second book follows the next generation, with another set of Hekne twins, and a world war. The Night of the Scourge brings us up to the 1930s and another war and a new generation of Heknes, the family who still farm the same land nearby, and are prominent in their community with their dairy and general store. Running through all three books is the character of Kai Schweigaard, still the priest, and still grappling with his faith, his connection to the Heknes and the magic of the bells. There’s also his own guilt over losing the old stave church, which was removed to Dresden in book one.

With the rise of Nazism, there is new interest in Aryan connections between Norway and Germany, and their joint mythology. So much so that when the Germans invade Norway, the remaining Sister Bell is requisitioned to join its pair in Dresden. Kai sees an opportunity to step up and redeem himself. And throughout the story he can’t forget the prediction he has seen in the Hekne Weave that seems to predict his own death.

The novel describes the hardships the Butangen people face under the occupation, as well as schisms in the community – those siding with the Germans as well as those secretly doing what they can to resist and undermine the occupiers. The story switches between characters, but mostly it’s about Kai and Astrid, the young granddaughter of the Astrid that Kai fell in love with, a young woman of courage and intelligence. She’s not the sort to take the occupation lying down and gets herself involved in dangerous situations, which keep you on the edge of your seat.

Astrid was calmer now. She looked around her. Everything in here seemed so rough. Rusty suspensions, worn bell rope, dull bronze.
A gust of wind disturbed a pyramid of snow and caught her attention. On the other side of the belfry, on a crossbeam, something glinted at her.
She went over to it and blew the dust off it.
A ring. It must be gold. Heavy and wide. So that an observer should really notice it. Smooth. Without a single scratch, as though it had been crafted that morning.
She lifted it up to the shafts of light and saw an inscription inside.
1881. Eternally yours, Kai.
Had Kai been married? No, the ring looked unused. Had he come up here? Stood here alone and set it carefully aside?
She held it tentatively over her finger. Let it slide over her nail, past her knuckle.
It was then that the church bell began to ring.

Not that this is a pacy read. It evolves gently, filling in more details, including ones about the original Hekne twins and another time of persecution, with the witch hunts of the 1600s. The seasons change, there’s lots of snow, and a ton of atmosphere. Kai is a contemplative man in his eighties, so time spent with him is more about parish matters, politics and trying to handle the occupiers in a way that keeps everyone, and the remaining bell, safe. Still, we are conscious that we are heading towards his end, however that may turn out.

There is so much to get lost in, including shifts of setting to Germany and Scotland, as well as interesting details about technology and historical events. You can tell Mytting has done a ton of research, and that he also has an interest in the making of guns, particularly hunting rifles, something that pops up in his earlier book, The Sixteen Trees of the Somme. Everything comes together brilliantly, a hefty 520 pages that never flags for a moment. I loved, as I knew I would, and already miss the characters I’ve got to know and care for. I do hope Mytting has more books in the pipeline – everything I’ve read by him so far has been a treat. This book’s a five-star read from me.

Book Review: The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller – a carefully crafted and moving historical novel

~ Judith ~ 1 Comment

It’s always nice to see a novelist you admire long-listed for a Booker Prize. The Land in Winter has been on my radar for a while, since it won the Walter Scott Prize, and also because Miller’s an author I always look out for. So I was excited when I finally got my hands on a copy. And it didn’t take me long to become engrossed in this story of two couples who live in a village near Bristol and their struggles through the particularly cold winter of 1962-3, known as The Big Freeze.

There’s Bill and Rita on the farm – both new to farming and finding their way. Bill has big dreams for his land, as well as the kind of private school accent that doesn’t win him much respect among the farming community. Rita grew up too fast, with a father in a nearby asylum due to his experiences during the war. She has a veneer of glamour from her time working in a nightclub and fills her days reading sci-fi novels – so not farmer’s wife material. They are expecting their first child.

In a cottage nearby, Irene is also pregnant, her husband Eric a doctor at the local practice as well as visiting the asylum, where a young man has just taken his life. Eric has to deal with that and the pressure of his job, while having an affair he doesn’t know how to end. Irene meanwhile is trying to be the perfect wife but her middle class upbringing is sometimes at odds with Eric’s humbler beginnings, and the two seem to have different ideals.

Miller takes four characters who are each battling problems or being quietly miserable and then throws a tough winter at them. The narrative switches between them so we are right inside their heads as we watch them get things wrong and try to do better. They are so sensitively drawn that you can’t help but feel for each of them, caught as they are at a time when the war is still a raw memory and the future about to change. The class system is ready for a shake-up and feminism still emerging, but none of it can come fast enough for our characters.

In the kitchen, the cat jumped off the table where it had been licking out the inside of last night’s spaghetti pan. There was no obvious alarm in its jumping; it was not fleeing, merely taking up a more fortified position under the table. Next to the saucepan was the egg basket. She had not washed the eggs, she had not washed the pan.
On the floor by the Rayburn was a mug, a cushion, a book. He picked up the book and the mug, placed the mug in the sink and examined the book. That she liked to read, he had thought of as something that made up a little for the difference in their education. But Venus Plus X? And the rest she came back with from the library van, flying saucers on the covers, astronauts, red planets. He had suggested other things to her. She might, for instance, like Virginia Woolf. He had known girls at university who adored Virginia Wool and probably wanted to be her. Did the van have any Virginia Woolf? And she had given him a look, wide-eyed, not overly friendly, then turned to the cat to ask, ‘Does the van have any Virginia Woolf?’

A budding friendship between the women is viewed with suspicion by their husbands, but is never-the-less a godsend, opening up connection and different viewpoints for the two. There’s small-town gossip which only makes Rita and Eric separately more self-conscious. The period comes to life with some of the trashy horror and sci-fi movies of the day and music (dancing to the Mashed Potato; listening to Acker Bilk). There’s a brilliant chapter where Irene and Eric host a Boxing Day party – one of the best party scenes I’ve read – all that alcohol making people reveal themselves.

And then there’s the relentless cold. Nobody dies of hyperthermia or endures frostbite, but you can’t help feeling it’s not impossible as you read. So this is a novel best read somewhere warm. The story is carefully plotted and builds to a climax for each character with truths revealed that have to be dealt with, to find a way through.

You might think it sounds a little bleak, but I loved The Land in Winter because any time spent reading Miller means enjoying his wonderful writing. Every so often you hit a sentence you want to read again because it’s a fine and wonderful thing. It’s an altogether brilliant read and well worth the award nominations that have come its way. A five-star read from me.