Bernard Cornwell’s twenty-fourth Sharpe novel, Sharpe’s Storm is actually the nineteenth in chronological order, taking place in 1813, following after Honour and Regiment (both 1813) and before Siege (1814). It isn’t a disappointment.

Sharpe and his battalion are with Wellington’s troops in Southern France, faced with crossing the river Nive to confront Marshal Soult’s formidable force. It’s winter and there seems to be perpetual rain, and it’s cold. Sharpe is tasked with escorting a couple of naval men on a secret reconnoitring mission: one of whom is Rear-Admiral Sir Joel Chase, a man he knew years ago (see Sharpe’s Trafalgar). Sir Joel’s enthusiasm soon becomes tiresome to Sharpe’ and to make matters worse he is also hindered by the buffoon Sir Nathaniel Peacock.

As well as Wellington, on good form as usual, we meet again Sharpe’s devoted Three Aitches: Harper, Harris, and Hagman.

All the ingredients we’ve come to expect are here: a couple of skirmishes, a fraught bloody battle, wife Jane, and a brief romantic interlude, laced with humour and pathos.

Sharpe is aware that the end of this war approached and if he survived it he doubted if his services would be retained. He would be at a loss if he didn’t soldier. Fighting, that’s what he was best at. And yet again he proves the truth of that.

As ever, the author’s historical note is enlightening, revealing the real characters and the author’s strategies to shoehorn his heroes into historical events.

A satisfying entry into the canon.

Editorial comment (for the benefit of writers):

‘Quiet!’ Sharpe hissed back (p27). This is not a word that can be hissed... A couple more inapt instances crop up...

‘... firing blindly though the smoke towards the far ridge’ (p126). Of course this should be ‘through’. It’s a common oversight made by editors.

‘Your men call you Mister Sharpe, not “sir”...’ (p150) This in essence repeats an observation made on p49 in the company of Sir Nathaniel Peacock.

E.V. Thompson’s third book in the Retallick Saga Harvest of the Sun was published in 1978. It’s a direct sequel of Chase the Wind. 

Josh Retallick and Miriam Thackeray with their young son Daniel are sailing to Australia when their ship is wrecked off the Skeleton Coast of South West Africa.

Their small party encounter the Bushmen who have survived in the harsh land and climate for thousands of years. At times of prolonged drought the Bushpeople would abandon newborn babies in order that the mother would survive. (p59).

Next they befriend the Herero tribesmen where they find a German missionary, Hugo Walder, whose ‘capacity for loving his fellow-men was as large as the frame that held his great heart’ (p98).                   

Josh, Miriam and Daniel live with the missionary and the Herero. They become hardened to the land and its people, treading with care where the neighbouring chief Jonker is concerned. And there is the chief’s vicious ally, the Boer Jacobus Albrecht to contend with as well. ‘Africa is a restless continent, ever changing and shifting in moods – a vast rumbling pot-pourri where fortunes swirl this way and that, like the sand shifting before the four winds’ (p133).

As this is a saga, the narrative – third-person omniscient – spans the period from the early 1840s to 1858. The family also befriends a Jewish trader Aaron and his daughter Hannah. By the time Daniel is seventeen he is an experienced tracker and good shot with a rifle. There are mining opportunities for Josh here too. Inevitably there are clashes between Jonker’s people and the Herero and Josh and his family are caught in between. The reader soon cares about these characters as they overcome a succession of travails, not least the neighbouring Zulu tribesmen, successors to the mighty Shaka. Sadly, good people succumb. Also, past events in their saga have a tendency to rear up and bite. There’s tension, suspense, humility, humanity, physical and geographical conflict, and great insights of the period and place. Indeed, Thompson repeatedly puts the reader in the scene and does not shirk from revealing the unpleasant gruesome aspects of the time along with the raw beauty of the land. This is history and as such needs no trigger warnings.

Any fans of H Rider Haggard or Wilbur Smith would appreciate this saga. The next instalment is Singing Spears (which I read out of order in 1990 and was the first Thompson book I’d read – and clearly not the last).

E.V. Thompson’s second book in his Retallick saga, Chase the Wind, was published in 1977 and won the Best Historical Novelist Award. In the chronological story sense it’s the sequel to Ben Retallick (1980) though clearly the first book in the series was published three years later!

The story is written in the omniscient viewpoint in order to provide the thoughts and actions of assorted characters, and works well, pulling the reader into the saga.

Set mainly in 1840s Cornwall, it begins with young Josh Retallick down the copper mine of Wheal Sharptor – the same mine his father worked in. Ben, aged 35, was reckoned an “old man” by mining standards. ‘It was an era when a miner who had seen his fortieth birthday below ground was something of a rarity’ (p8). They worked hard, digging ‘deep into the bowels of the earth, raising mountains of rubble around their shafts’ (p65).

Josh is being taught to read and write by the local preacher, William Thackeray, a good man who ‘was concerned for the souls of his people... he saw no reason why they should suffer unnecessary hardships in this life in order to enter the same heaven to which their far more comfortable employers were bound’ (p61).

It’s the time of the Corn Laws that created a cost-of-living crisis for the working men and women, a time when unionism was being advocated at great risk to those who espoused it. ‘The shortage of corn had been growing steadily worse throughout England. It had not been helped by the government laws which prevented corn being imported, in a misguided attempt to protect the interests of the farmers’ (p64).

For many years as youngsters, Josh had been a play friend of Miriam Trago, a wild child. But Josh had to put childish play aside as he was going away on an apprenticeship to become a mine-engineer. While on his apprenticeship he befriends Francis Trevithick and is not slow to grasp the nettle of new inventions, always seeking greater efficiency and increased safety.

Miriam is given some advice by the preacher: ‘You must find a man who recognises that a woman is capable of thinking for herself – a rarity in these parts, I’m afraid’ (p130). Before long Miriam was thinking for herself all right – vociferously saddened and angry at the lot of a miner’s wife. If her husband died in a mine, she was cast out of her cottage within a month. Her future might be the poor house or selling herself to drunken miners to feed her children. ‘That’s the system her husband gave his life for’ (p155).

Not all the mine owners are despots; some are considerate with a conscience, and it’s Josh’s fortunate lot that he works for such men. But the odds are still stacked against him and tragedy strikes more than once to contrive the separation of Josh and Miriam before they can truly be together. The preacher becomes a zealot for unionism, though ‘He’s the spoon as does the stirring, not the pot as sits on the fire’ (p349). Betrayal, conflict with the armed forces of the law, love and death, trial and retribution create tension for the reader. The pages fly by as the denouement closes in.

A very satisfying historical novel that puts you there, with believable characters, which impelled me to pick up the next book in the series to find out what happens – Harvest of the Sun.

Ernest Victor Thompson died in 2012, aged 81.

Editorial comment (for the benefit of writers):

‘Where are we?’ he asked as he swung his legs to the ground (p104). This scene is indoors so the ‘ground’ should read the ‘floor’. A common error to be found in a number of books.

‘(Josh and John) galloped past the bridge...’ (p353). Having written several westerns, I have tussled with this ambiguity. Of course the rider isn’t doing the galloping, but the horse is; maybe instead it could read ‘They led their horses in a gallop past the bridge’. A quibble, really; we know what is meant.

Mission: Falklands is the fourth in the Tana Standish psychic spy thriller series. 

The Tana Standish missions are a mixture of fact and fiction but with ‘a nifty twist’, as one reviewer put it. The ‘smart, sexy female protagonist isn’t just a rare child survivor from Warsaw’s WWII ghetto. Nor is she merely a highly skilled covert operative, brought up by the British to be extremely effective against the KGB. Tana Standish has one more thing going for her: psychic talents. There’s nothing outlandish in the psi-spy’s capabilities – they’re neatly underplayed, a talent which isn’t understood or entirely controllable but which frequently tips the odds in her favour.’

Mission: Prague (Czechoslovakia, 1975).

Mission: Tehran (Iran, 1978).

Mission: Khyber (Afghanistan, 1979-1980).

Mission: Falklands (Argentina, the Falkland Islands, and South Georgia, 1982).

[All of the above are available on Amazon in paperback and e-book format]

Prague garnered good reviews, such as ‘Interestingly, Morton sells it as a true story passed to him by an agent and published as fiction, a literary ploy often used by master thriller writer Jack Higgins. Let’s just say that it works better than Higgins.’ – Danny Collins, author of The Bloodiest Battles.

Each book begins with my first person narration. I receive a manuscript from a secret agent which recounts one of Tana’s missions. Here’s an excerpt of the Prologue from Mission: Falklands:

Beyond the headland the North Sea was grey and turbulent, white horses racing towards the shore. Leaden clouds swirled, harbingers of rain, threatening another bleak December day. I managed to find a parking space for my Dacia Sandero on the road opposite the Octagon Tower, built in 1720, in the Northumberland town of Seaton Sluice – known colloquially as ‘the Sluice’ – half-way between Whitley Bay and Blyth.

I walked the short distance past a dry-stone wall towards the King’s Arms, a large three-storey whitewashed sandstone pub. Almost everywhere you went in the north-east was steeped in history and this Grade II listed public house was no exception, built around 1764. Overlooking the small harbour and Seaton Burn with its smattering of small boats beached on mud, it had started out as an overseer’s house, and then became the King’s Arms Hotel and coach house. In the nineteenth century the coach house was used by HM Coastguard on the lookout for contraband smugglers.

On the left was a short bridge which crossed a manmade channel blasted out in the 1760s by Sir John Delaval and named ‘the cut’; the bridge linked the newly formed ‘Rocky Island’ to the mainland and is now adorned with love-padlocks.

Despite the slight chill in the air and the threat of rain, a handful of male and female regulars in shorts and T-shirts sat drinking at wooden tables outside in an area roped-off with beer-barrels: the usual tough north-easterners.

Keith Tyson, retired spy, stood waiting for me at the entrance porch, as punctual as ever. I was pleased to see under his arm he carried a familiar leather valise though it was now a little careworn – a bit like him.

The stories about her missions are told in multiple third person narrative, merging fact and fiction. Part of the inspiration for the series stems from my interest in history.

Wherever possible I have tried to write about places I’ve seen or visited, such as Gosport’s Fort Monkton, the Khyber Pass, Belize, Bahrein, the United States, the Falklands and South Georgia. Other places have required considerable research. In Mission: Tehran at a critical point there is an earthquake in Yazd; that actually happened on the date shown in the book. An episode in Mission: Falklands that involved two Soviets in Altun Ha is derived from my trek there. Another sequence describes a meal in the Pink House in Savannah, Georgia, which I’ve frequented. My memories of two days on South Georgia informed a section of the story too. And so on...

Tana has a few contacts in Argentina and several friends who suffer at the hands of the military regime. Tana is determined to help them. And of course betrayal lurks in the shadows... When she embarks on her rescue crusade she learns a devastating fact that changes everything and thrusts her towards the Falkland Islands and inhospitable South Georgia at the outset of the historic conflict...

Inevitably Argentina’s ‘disappeared’ and ‘death flights’ are relevant. As with all the books in the series, I’ve strived to inject realism even with the fantasy concept of psychics. As one reviewer has stated, ‘Such is the level of detail and ambition that Morton soon sweeps up the reader in the narrative and creates so convincing a canvas that we can easily accept the central conceit. Bouncing between different times and locations, he has created a book which feels big in scope, an adventure story with a supernaturally gifted protagonist that still feels absolutely real.’

It’s 1891 in Paris and eighteen-year-old Hannah McLeod is a waitress in La Coquille restaurant. She’s bilingual and is especially useful to the owner when English patrons dine there. She lives in a modest garret and conceals her real past and has invented an alternative which she doesn’t volunteer but which is available if pressed. She gets on well with the other staff but her only true friend seems to be a neighbour across the landing, Toby Kent, an Irish artist, for whom she occasionally poses (fully clothed).

One night on returning from her stint in La Coquille, she rescues a stranger who was being attacked by thieves. This leads to some complicated relationships which entail her taking up employment as a French teacher for two children of Mr Sebastian Ryder in England. ‘As soon as we were seated Mr Ryder said briskly, ‘Grace’. We all bowed our heads and he thanked the Lord for what we were about to receive, but in a manner which seemed to hint that he would have managed very well without the Lord’s help’ (p88).

Gradually, we learn about Hannah’s tragic past, some of it quite salacious though never graphic. ‘I have a heritage of shadows, long dark shadows thrown by my past. They are not of my making, yet I must walk in those shadows all my life’ (p197).

Hannah is a well-drawn, likeable and believable character, made of stern stuff; bold, forthright and honest – a marvellous heroine. There are several other characters of interest, too who come into her orbit – for good and ill. There is a reason why Mr Ryder had employed her. There is a betrayal, a kidnapping, and a confrontation with Mexican bandits – plenty to keep those pages turning.

Well-written, well-visualised, this is a most satisfying read. I’d previously read three Brent novels (in bold below) and enjoyed every one.

Madeleine Brent was one of the best-kept secrets of the publishing world. She was the pseudonym of Peter O’Donnell, creator of Modesty Blaise which he scripted for a comic strip, and which then became the first of a series of 13 best-selling thrillers. His Madeleine Brent books are Tregaron's Daughter (1971), Moonraker's Bride (1973), Kirkby's Changeling (1975), Merlin's Keep (1977), The Capricorn Stone (1979), The Long Masquerade (1981), A Heritage of Shadows (1983), Stormswift (1984), Golden Urchin (1986). He died in 2010.

Beginning in the early 1890s, the book concerns the life and loves of Lucy Darling, a Texan girl who dreams of riches and castles. She helps her father Jack in the town’s general store, with few prospects of escaping this humdrum existence. Her childhood friend Jamie Cullen harbours unrequited love for her. ‘Handsome and gentle, but strong, too; and unselfish. She was conscious that she might not love him forever: that if he didn’t agree to stay with her now, she might not give him a second chance. Life was too exciting for second chances’ (p107). [She would rue that thought about second chances some years later...]

Her Uncle Casper, a spendthrift adventurer, visits the store, though he is not particularly welcome by her father. Yet Casper brings exotic stories about his failed business ventures that intrigue Lucy. Yet, before long she comes to hate Casper. ‘Hatred can cool; envy can be assuaged; but guilt never forgets, and guilt never forgives, and guilt eats the spirit like fire consumes flesh’ (p111). This is a striking allusion to the fate of Casper, which is a traumatic tragedy. The result is that Lucy finds herself inheriting undreamed-of wealth, which enables her to escape with her father to elite drawing-rooms of New York, where she soon becomes a success, despite her strange Texan manner of speaking. Though not everyone was enamoured of her: ‘Mrs Harris at the back of the crowd with a face like a prairie cyclone’ (p137) Indeed, Mrs Harris, being outshone by Lucy, didn’t take kindly to the teenager: ‘... and glared at Lucy with an expression that could have crushed glass’ (p142).

And into the mix arrives British MP Henry Carson who is swept off his feet by the impetuous Lucy. ‘Henry was so direct about his interest in her, and she had never come across such candour before, especially when it came to courting. Bob Wonderly had at least tried to offer her a pound of liver, by way of foreplay’ (p157). Henry was an inveterate traveller, and in his spare time wrote, though his book royalties were not much more than £34 the previous year – join the club, Henry, though that sum in the 1890s is a lot more in today’s money... Henry harbours a secret which he is reluctant to divulge; and she soon learned that ‘his greed for public duty was beyond her understanding’ (p409).

Masterton has created an engaging, wilful, selfish and strong character in Lucy.

There are humorous and sad moments, and three notable quite graphic sexual encounters: ‘He must have the highest collar I ever clapped eyes on’ (p128) ‘Life became one glittering carousel of shining carriages and chandeliers, and men whose collars were so high they had to stare at the ceiling all evening’ (p178).

There is plenty of conflict between the main characters and certain subsidiary people. There are some twists in the tale, and a surprise or two at the end. A satisfying read.

I read this book while undergoing chemotherapy and was amused to read about a journey that Lucy took along the Saline Rive (p343) when I was actually being infused with saline solution!

Editorial comments:

I don’t know whose decision it was to begin the book with a short sequence showing Lucy in India and then skipping to her younger days in Texas (possibly an editor?). But that short sequence ruins much of the subsequent anguish she suffers prior to finally getting to India; in effect it is a spoiler. Roughly the last 200 pages (of 648) are set in India – which is described with colour, feeling and loving detail.

‘... thought to herself...’ (p145) – This is used more than once and is tautological – ‘thought’ would do. You can’t think to anyone else, after all.

The above reference to high collars is repeated – amusing the first time, granted.

Bernard Cornwell’s 2001 historical novel Gallows Thief is yet another rip-roaring fast-paced enjoyable read.

Set in England a short while after Waterloo we find retired Captain of the 52^nd Regiment, Rider Sandman, in need of work for his late father left his family with massive debts. Another problem for Sandman is his proneness to quick temper: ‘His soldiers had known there was a devil in Captain Sandman... he was not a man to cross because he had the temper as sudden and as fierce as a summer storm of lightning and thunder’ (p54).

The Countess of Avebury, previously an opera dancer, was killed while having her portrait painted. The artist, Charles Corday, was accused and found guilty of the murder. However, his mother has the ear of the Queen and the Home Secretary, Viscount Sidmouth, is tasked with ascertaining without a doubt that the guilty verdict is sound. Sidmouth hires Sandman to investigate. Sandman was a man of principle and, after an interview with the condemned man, he came away not liking him but believed in his plea of innocence.

Sandman is an excellent cricketer, but he is reluctant to play as the game is spoiled by gambling and cheating. ‘He refused to share a carriage with men who had accepted bribes to lose a match’ (p27). The early – underarm bowling – history of cricket is one of many fascinating snippets Cornwell provides: with even a discussion on adopting overarm bowling (p270).

There are several characters – Sally Hood and her brother the highwayman Jack, Sergeant Sam Berrigan, Eleanor Forrest, Sandman’s ex-fiancée, and the Reverend Lord Alexander; the latter has been studying the flash language – for example the many words for a pickpockets, from cly-fakers to buzz-coves. Flash language for a gallows thief is someone who deprives the hangman of his victim (p195).

As Sandman is attempting to prevent a hanging, there is considerable detail about the capital punishment of the time, much in graphic imagery. Needless to say, many innocent individuals ended up on the gallows; however, the majority of those condemned had their sentences commuted to transportation to Australia.

A hero of Waterloo, Sandman recalls his time in Spain, notably when he was saved from French cavalry by a Greenjacket officer and his half-dozen riflemen – clearly, an allusion to Sharpe and his chosen men (p338).

Can Sandman obtain proof of Corday’s innocence before the fateful hour? It’s a race against time and powerful adversaries who prefer the artist to hang.

As ever, Cornwell has created a believable sordid benighted world of that period, complete with crisp dialogue, humour both dark and ribald, and with strong characters. Highly recommended.

Note:

Bernard Cornwell acknowledges a debt to Donald Rumbelow and his book The Triple Tree (1982). I met Mr Rumbelow, previously a London policeman, in the 1970s at Swanwick, where he gave a talk about his book The Complete Jack the Ripper. 

The first Amelia Peabody novel, Crocodile on the Sandbank, was published in 1975.  I read her third and sixth adventures (The Mummy Case and The Last Camel Died at Noon, respectively) in 2001, and enjoyed them immensely. Thereafter I collected four more adventures over the years but have only now got round to reading them. There are twenty books in the series.

Narrated in the first person by Amelia, it is a light-hearted period piece beginning in 1880: her father has died, leaving her a wealthy woman – she was ‘visited by streams of attentive nieces and nephews assuring me of their devotion – which had been demonstrated, over the past years, by their absence... A middle-aged spinster – for I was at that time thirty-two years of age, and I scorned to disguise the fact – who has never received a proposal of marriage must be a simpleton if she fails to recognise the sudden acquisition of a fortune as a factor in her new popularity. I was not a simpleton. I had always known myself to be plain’ (p4).

Elizabeth Peters gets the tone just right – an emancipated and forthright woman in a man’s world.

She was keen to travel, her ultimate destination being Egypt. While en route, in Rome her chaperone, Miss Pritchett fell ill and returned to England. By chance, Amelia helps a destitute young woman in the street; Evelyn Barton-Forbes has been ruined and abandoned by her callous lover Alberto: ‘She was English, surely; that flawless white skin and pale-golden hair could belong to no other nation... The features might have been those of an antique Venus or young Diana’ (p10). Evelyn becomes Amelia’s companion and they travel to Egypt. Evelyn ‘was too kind, and too truthful. Both, I have found, are inconvenient character traits’ (p77).

Amelia needed to obtain certain supplies to sail on the Nile. ‘If I had not been a woman, I might have studied medicine; I have a natural aptitude for the subject, possessing steady hands and far less squeamishness about blood and wounds than many males of my acquaintance. I planned to buy a few small surgical knives also; I fancied I could amputate a limb – or at least a toe or finger – rather neatly if called upon to do so’ (p44).

Before long the pair encounter two archaeologists – the Emerson brothers: gruff, bearded irascible giant Radcliffe and the amiable Walter. Radcliffe Emerson reminded me of Conan Doyle’s Professor Challenger.

It is obvious that Amelia and Radcliffe spark off each other, two strong wills competing: ‘Peabody had better retire to her bed; she is clearly in need of recuperative sleep; she has not made a sarcastic remark for fully ten minutes’ (p242).

Her nursing skills are needed more than once. ‘I tore up my petticoat in order to fasten his arm to his body so that it would not be jarred unnecessarily. He had his wicked temper back by then, and made a rude remark. “As you would say, my lord, it is just like one of Mr Haggard’s romances. The heroine always sacrifices a petticoat at some point in the proceedings. No doubt that is why females wear such ridiculous garments; they do come in useful in emergencies’ (p168).

The Emerson dig is sabotaged, there are strange, possibly supernatural, things going on, and Evelyn seems at great risk... An enjoyable historical romance and mystery.

Elizabeth Peters is the pen-name of Barbara Mertz and also wrote as Barbara Michaels; she received her PhD in Egyptology in 1952. She died in 2013, aged 85.

Major Sharpe is leading his Chosen Men, with sergeant Harper and the familiar other characters. They are behind enemy lines, intent on preventing the French from crossing the bridge to reinforce one of their forts which is soon to be under British siege.

Needless to say, he triumphs after a number of setbacks, this time aided by his wife Teresa and her guerrillas. Some of the impediments are due to betrayal by presumed allies, and others by the incompetence of British officers.

If you’ve watched any of the Sharpe TV films then you’ll be familiar with the characters and can even hear their voices as they speak from the page. If you haven’t, you’ll still enjoy an engaging and fascinating adventure sprinkled with knowledge about rifles, muskets and big guns! We meet again major Hogan who this time opines ‘A wise man once said that the best way to win a war is to do it without fighting’ (p210). He was doubtless quoting from Sun Tzu’s Strategy of War: ‘To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence.’

It would be unfair to go into details (spoilers) about the book. There’s historical fact, humour, bravery, and blood and gore. The usual ingredients for a fast-paced Sharpe read.

***

He begins his narration when he was born – not as absurd as it first appears: we’re privy to second-hand details from his father and mother about their time in Granada in the late fourteen hundreds. His mother Salma befriends a Jewish pedlar-clairvoyant and healer, Gaudy Sarah, and ‘began to read my palm like the crumpled page of an open book’ (p6). Sarah’s prediction – and her elixir of orgeat syrup – result in Salma’s pregnancy (with Hasan).  Sarah also ‘doubled, when necessary, as midwife, masseuse, hairdresser and plucker of unwanted hair’ (p8).

The days of Islamic Andalusia are numbered. ‘And did not Andalusia flourish in the days when the vizier Abd al-Rahman used to say jokingly: “O you who cry ‘Hasten to the prayer!’ You would do better to cry: “Hasten to the bottle!” The Muslims only became weak when silence, fear and conformity darkened their spirits”.’ (p38).

The Arabs were evicted from Spain in 1492, among them the ineffectual ruler Boabdil, who lingered on the last ridge that afforded him a view of Granada – a place the Castilians thereafter called ‘The Moor’s last sigh’. It was said that the fallen sultan had shed tears there, of shame and remorse. ‘You weep like a woman for the kingdom you did not defend like a man’ (p57). At this time of expulsion of his family, Hasan was three years old. After eight centuries, no more would the voice of the muezzin be heard to call the faithful to prayer.

Hasan grew up in Fez, alongside Jews and Christians as well as Muslims. It is during this time that he learned about the philosophy of life and death: ‘… thank God for having made us this gift of death, so that life is to have meaning; of night, that day is to have meaning; silence, that speech is to have meaning; illness, that health is to have meaning; war, that peace is to have meaning…’ (p103)

Hasan’s friend Harun the Ferret got a job as a porter: ‘Three hundred men, simple, poor, almost all of the illiterate, but who had nevertheless managed to become the most respected, most fraternal and best organised of all the guilds of the city’ (p108). This guild takes care of its members; ‘when any of their number dies, they take over the responsibility for his family, help his widow to find a news husband and take care of his children until they are of an age to have a professions. The son of one is the son of all’ (p108).

The families would hang on the walls of their adopted homes the keys of their homes they left behind, hoping one day to return to Granada. Hasan was a quick learner and soon became successful in trading.

One of the most powerful men in Fez was the Zarwali, an ex-bandit and murderer who ‘had built the largest palace in the city, the largest, that is, after that of the ruler, a piece of elementary common sense for anyone who wanted to make sure that his head remained attached to his body’ (p131).

Harun the Ferret had learned about Zarwali’s past and his behaviour. Zarwali was ‘always convinced that his wives are trying to betray him, particularly the youngest and most beautiful ones. A denunciation, a slander, an insinuation on the part of one of her rivals is enough for the poor unfortunate to be strangled. The Zarwali’s eunuchs then make the crime look like an accident, a drowning, a fatal fall, an acute tonsillitis…’ (p137). Hasan and the Zarwali will clash – and there will be dire repercussions…

There are several amusing and even apt sayings scattered about the book, for example: ‘Destiny is more changeable than the skin of a chameleon, as one of the poets of Denia used to say’ (p57); and ‘If anyone tells you that avarice is the daughter of necessity, tell him that he is mistaken. It is taxation which has begotten avarice!’ (p154); and ‘I had become very susceptible to magic and superstitions… This is probably the fate of rich and powerful men: aware that their wealth owes less to their merits than to luck, they begin to court the latter like a mistress and venerate it like an idol’ (p196); and, finally, ‘in the face of adversity, women bend and men break…’ (p250).

Hasan ventures to Egypt and witnesses the Ottoman conquest there; he is abducted and becomes a prisoner in Renaissance Rome under the Medicis, and yet remarkably finds himself being a confidant of the Pope, and converts briefly to Christianity, and ultimately witnesses the horrendous sack of Rome in 1527.

The book possibly suffers from too much barely digestible religion and politics, yet these were the driving forces that impelled Hasan to wander.

The smells, the colours and the feeling for the period are well-conveyed and indeed instructive for anyone interested in these historic times. 

Margaret Lawrence’s final book in her Hannah Trevor historical trilogy, The Burning Bride, was published in 1998. I have been remiss in not reading it until now. 

This tale takes place between 6 November and 24 December 1786.

Widow midwife Hannah Trevor has always been an independent soul, even when wed to her unsavoury husband. So, even though she is pregnant by Daniel Josselyn, Major of the Continental Army, and a landowner, she is not committed to the betrothal. Yet, as circumstances begin to crush them all, she relents: ‘If marriage be a bond, I am ready to bear it. If love be a fire, I am already burnt’ (p269).

Daniel had once been the friend of Hamilton Siwall, but that was a long while back. 

Siwall is a land merchant, moneylender, magistrate and member of the General Court. When he tries debtors, he often acquires the offender’s land in settlement, continually extending his power and prestige. It seems that Siwall is keen to lay blame on Daniel for the slightest perceived infraction, and it is not long before the opportunity presents itself.

Marcus Tapp is the High Sheriff of the county and a creature of Magistrate Siwall. ‘Tapp’s eyes scanned the yard, missing nothing…Strange eyes, they were, so pale they seemed in daylight to have no colour at all, glass eyes that the world passed through without effect, to be recorded by the raw ends of his nerves’ (p23).

At this time there is a big issue regarding taxation among the townspeople of Rufford, Maine: ‘Tax upon tax had been laid on them, debts from a war that set rich men free to get richer, but ground out all hope from the labouring poor’ (p2). There are too many debtors; often the prison is bursting at the seams.

‘Rich men elected other rich men and they scratched one another’s backs like sleek cats and did not understand why poor men resented them, and any who resisted the growth of their power was labelled as traitors and fools. So it would be under governors and presidents, as it had been under kings and popes and caesars’ (p235). Anarchy does not seem too far off…

Another of Siwall’s creatures is the town’s local doctor, Samuel Clinch; he is a drunkard and a misogynist: ‘These country midwives are no more skilled than a witch with a broomstick, with their pawings and strokings! What does a woman know of such matters? Can she spell, sir? Can she read and write and cipher Latin like a man? No, she cannot! Women are soft for our pleasures, but they ain’t got the brains of a sheep where Science and babies is concerned!’ (p128). As implied, he is not averse to taking payment for his doctoring of female patients with pleasures of the flesh. Until, that is, he is found murdered in the forest. A mystery surrounds the violent death.

For different reasons, both Siwall and Tapp soon accuse Daniel of the murder, though there is little conclusive proof.

Hannah is kept busy with her midwife role. ‘It was always there at a borning, the spectre of dying, the other side of the treacherous coin of hope’ (p335). Yet, in reality, she would prefer to spend her time quilting and finally preparing for her wedding to Daniel. Several quilt patterns are named throughout the book: Bridges Burning, China Dish, Cross and Crown, Cradle in the Wilderness, Flame in the Forest, and Star of the Forest. Instead, she finds herself puzzling over the unpleasant doctor’s murder. That is, when she is not laying out the men who’d been sentenced to death by the loathed magistrate.

‘This is her work in the world, to reconcile living and dying. To wash away fear and shame and loneliness with a touch the dead must somehow feel where they stand watching, invisible, behind their window of clouded glass’ (p244).

Again, we meet Hannah’s deaf mute daughter Jennet, always depicted with compassion and eloquence. As before, Lawrence’s prose and imagery suck you into the story, and into the period:

‘A woodpecker rattled in the crown of an oak tree, and a flock of kinglets chattered as they flew from one tree to another, their scarlet crowns a flash of fire against the heavy hung branches. And now and then a limb creaked with the weight of slowly melting ice, and a burden of wet snow fell with a plop to the ground…’ (p398)

Here you will find poignancy, cruelty, anger, despair, injustice, love, hate, suspense, and tension aplenty.

A fitting end to an engrossing historical series. 

‘Lucy Hannah Trevor turned thirty-eight years old on that foggy St Valentine’s Day of the year 1786. She had the ripeness of a woman who had borne four children and the unconscious sensuality of one who thinks she has long since cured herself of needing men for more than idle conversation’ (p11, Heart and Bones).

Hannah is a midwife in the town of Rufford, Maine. Three of her children died and her fourth, Jennet is a loving deaf mute, now aged eight. ‘She had listened in vain for the birth cry, and when her aunt laid the girl-child on her belly, Hannah was sure she had given birth to the dead. Even when her hands found the warm, slippery shape of a living baby there, it seemed to her an alien gift that had nothing to do with her own body nor with anyone else in the world – and was more precious, being only itself’ (p47).

Her husband James had abandoned her while she was pregnant with Jennet, leaving gambling debts, and was presumed dead. Hannah’s secret lover was Daniel Joselyn – Jennet’s father.

The three books are written from the omniscient point of view. However, each book begins and ends with an extract from Hannah’s journals in the first person: 1) 14 February 1786 and 22 February 1786; 2) 12 July 1786 and 12 September 1786; 3) 6 November 1786 and 24 December 1786. So the three novels barely cover ten months of the same year – though event-filled months indeed!

A recurring theme is the making of quilts, which Hannah endeavours to accomplish when she is not in conflict with officialdom and some thoroughly unpleasant individuals. And the three books tend to follow a pattern, too.

Each book begins with a prologue. 1) How he killed her; 2) How she made God weep; 3) How he killed the ghost of shame. None of the individuals are either Hannah or Daniel; at this point they are anonymous.

The penultimate chapter headings are relevant: 1) The breaking of hearts and bones; 2) Blood and roses; 3) The refiner’s fire. Each echoes the titles of the relevant books. The book title Blood Red Roses is from a children’s dance.

Interspersed are chapters relating to legal proceedings investigating the murders – they’re all murder mysteries besides being historical novels: ‘Piecing the Evidence’.

When they first met, Daniel’s wife was living in England. Hannah wanted him merely to give her a child; she did not seek love. Yet inevitably love followed – on both sides: ‘His life turned always upon the sight of her – even more intently since the winter, for now he knew her heart better. As she went upon her nursing visits, Hannah was a bright fleck of colour – her hooded red cloak against the winter snow, and in summer, a plain linen bodice and a homespun skirt that might have been dyed in the same pot of cochineal as the cloak’ (p27).

Midwife Hannah was independent, and did not stand for any nonsense. ‘It was no matter of dying; surely Molly’s case was, the midwife judged, more messy than desperate, the girl cried for a nurse if she suffered a hangnail. Hannah could witness, and besides, men always got liverish, and histrionic at bornings’ (p44).

Many of the characters are neatly described. ‘Andrew Tyrell held a long-handled glass to one eye and peered through it. He had spent much of his life poring over badly-printed books and now, at five-and-forty, he could not see more than a yard beyond his nose without a lens’ (p52). And: ‘He was a tall man and heavyset, with a long, lugubrious countenance and grey eyes set deep in his skull, like musket balls in a bore’ (p177). And: ‘Honoria Siwal eyed Hannah down a nose so long and thin it might have served a heron for a beak’ (p217).

And the author’s descriptions of Jennet’s travails are beautifully done: ‘But when there was music, Jennet Trevor seemed to see it in the very air, and something that had slept in her since before she was born awoke and climbed the blank walls of her silence, demanding to be heard’ (p87). And: ‘Hannah could feel the pounding of her daughter’s heart like a fist, slamming, slamming, slamming at the invisible door that locked her out of the world’ (p89). Jennet ‘did not wake from her drugged sleep till near six that evening, but in the clock of her bones it was morning still’ (p278).

This period – like many before and after – was a time where women were considered chattels, second-class citizens, if considered at all. ‘Known and unknown, seen and disregarded. All women are nobody. Poor women are nothing at all’ (p161). [Have times really changed? Women have had to fight for recognition for centuries and now a certain vociferous minority want to eliminate the definition of ‘woman’. Really?] ‘Nothing. I am nothing human. I am a weed to be torn from the world’ (p170).

The murder mystery is resolved.

The times were perilous, violent and in many instances unjust; that’s history for you. Certainly, if anyone is ‘offended’ by factual historical events, then these splendid novels are not for them. For the majority who enter Hannah’s world they will feel they are almost there, and will be moved by her gripping tale.

The final book is The Burning Bride, which I have begun and will review next.

Historical fiction - 10th century Spain!

Spirited and learned, Qamira has discarded the strictures of her life in Baghdad to travel with her grandfather to Cordoba. Here she embraces the undreamed-of freedoms accorded women. She befriends her neighbours, attractive young men and women of Jewish, Christian and Arabic faiths, all living in harmony. One of these is Zayd, a swordsman, poet and teacher from the Maghreb; they form a strong emotional attachment. Sadly, that harmony will be shattered…

Amazon UK: https://tinyurl.com/yaz96c77

Amazon US: https://tinyurl.com/545ctprh

Excerpts:

She had gone through twelve months of deep depression after her parents died horribly and swiftly of the plague that had wiped out hundreds of pilgrims on the way to Mecca. The vultures had made light work of the bodies.

When fellow travellers brought the devastating news, although a younger maiden aunt said she was happy enough to care for Qamira, Talha insisted she come to live with him. 

Since that day she had barely spoken, just sitting swaying, silent – an elective mute. She ate because she must; she said her prayers because God was watching her; she kissed her grandfather good morning and good night because it was expected; but all joy had fled her short life.

***

Talha and Qamira entered the splendid garden with the three-tiered fountain Qamira had glimpsed from above. They made their way along cobbled pathways, past myrtle hedges and a pool covered with water lilies. Jasmine clambered up the walls to reach the balconies of the upper floors and niches, pots and urns brimmed with scented roses.

They followed the colonnade that snaked round the house, passing tables and chairs, glass-fronted cabinets filled with ornaments and books.

Voices and laughter summoned them to the feast. Comfortable leather divans surrounded a convivial table in whose centre were bowls of water containing sweet-scented rose-petals and lemon peel. Soft cloths were provided to dry hands and faces. Each place had a drinking glass and ceramic plate. Ornate metal teapots and trays of food stood at the ready. Three young people sat in one corner, heads together, whispering, oblivious of the presence of strangers.

***

The gate swung open on well-oiled hinges and Yuhana and Qamira exited into glorious countryside. Qamira gasped at the view, deeply inhaling the cool morning air, scented with herbs and pine. Carobs and oaks lined the narrow winding path leading to the lake and in the distance the Dark Mountains were bathed in a ghostly white mist.

They ambled along the shady path then Qamira halted, suddenly anxious.

Yuhana grabbed her arm and lengthened her stride, pulling her past the high wall of the munyat cemetery. ‘Qamira, hurry, the lake is this way. Or have you lost your nerve, no longer daring to defy Urvan’s ban?’

‘Not at all.’ She slowed her pace. ‘Why do you let him dictate to you? Does your father also disapprove?’

Yuhana fell into step beside her. ‘Yes, he also fears for our safety and because he is my father I must obey him! Surely you obey your grandfather?’

Qamira gave her a devilish grin. ‘Most of the time. But he is always open to discussion. It is often the only way forward. Besides, he approves of swimming. This is an ideal time of day to bathe and,’ she indicated the cemetery, ‘the dead won’t talk, or harm us.’

They reached a clearing, uncultivated except for clumps of herbs. At a glance Qamira recognised borage and rosemary, comfrey and lavender. She stooped and squeezed a handful of rosemary, cupped her hand around her nose and inhaled the sweet smell. Rising, she observed a small copse of hazel and almond trees. A cluster of six beehives to her left crouched like slatted creatures from another world. ‘Whose are those hives?’ she asked.

‘Ours but no-one tends them. I stay away. I was stung once. Mother used marigold flowers to ease the pain.’

‘She was right to do so,’ Qamira said. ‘Perhaps I can take the beeswax for my creams and I must gather those herbs before the sun wilts them.’

Yuhana plucked a stem of lavender and breathed deeply. ‘Tell me about them.’

‘There are many types. Here we have thyme, parsley, sage and rosemary for cooking.’ She spun round. ‘And there are comfrey and witch-hazel for sprains and bruises, borage for fevers, lavender to aid restful sleep. There are poisonous plants too – arum, nightshade and wormwood – but they can be used safely…’ She ran ahead down the path, calling back, ‘if you know how.’

They arrived at the lake. Herons skimmed the calm surface seeking fish, a bunting hidden in the reeds called plaintively to its mate, frogs croaked unharmoniously and the reeds themselves whispered in the breeze. Along the shore-line, a row of willows stood sentry-like, a natural barrier from prying eyes. Qamira noted the trees. She must tell Grandfather.

She ran forward to the edge, removed her sandals and dipped in her toe. Glancing around, she stripped off her robe and undergarment then plunged into the rippling wavelets, naked and free. She disappeared below the surface, swam some way off then reappeared.

‘You are bold!’ Yuhana called. ‘And such a strong swimmer.’

‘It is heavenly. Come in.’

Yuhana began to wade in but Qamira called out peremptorily, ‘Your clothes? Remove them. Or walk home soaking.’

Yuhana blenched. ‘Someone may see.’

‘There is no-one. Anyway, the trees will hide us. You must, or your robe will drag you down.’

Yuhana removed her robe, threw it ashore then ducked down into the water.

***

Zayd sat beside her and eyed the poem. ‘Is that a muwashshah?’

‘I don’t know. It’s an ode.’

‘A qasidah, then, a classical ode. To…?’ the handsome Berber inquired gently.

‘Dido.’

‘Ah, the tragic Queen of Carthage.’

‘When Grandfather and I disembarked there, he recounted the sad tale of Dido and the Greek Aeneas: their love affair, his treachery, his abandonment. Her despair, her death,’ she finished with barely a whisper.

‘Please read me your ode.’

‘It’s not ready.’

‘No matter. It’s not the end-product that matters but the journey we make to achieve it. The road we pursue can enrich all things. So, may I hear it?’

She obliged, reading the poetry in a clear voice.

‘Your words are poignant. How they remind me…’

Qamira’s brow furrowed. ‘Remind you of what?’

‘Of my own land, Qamira, of El-Maghreb.’

His look was wistful, longing for something lost forever. Maybe, like her, he was a wandering soul, far from his native land, still on his own journey, accepted but apart, not quite at peace. Was this to be their common bond, then? Should she feel sorry for him, or a kindred spirit? Should she by silence demonstrate her understanding of his situation and his destiny or by questioning seek to discover more?

‘Do you miss your home?’

‘Sometimes.’ He ran his hand through his thick hair. ‘Tell me about Baghdad.’

‘It is a city of wondrous architecture: minarets, mosques. Much activity: learning, invention. Like here but bigger.’

‘And the people?’

‘Dark and mysterious.’

Zayd pursed his lips. ‘And life?’

‘Unbearably lonely. I had my dreams and I was afraid I would never achieve them, always bound by tradition and rules. A foolish desire.’

His eyes bored into hers. ‘No, Qamira. No ambition is foolish. The only rules that should bind your life are those that you yourself make. Nothing should constrain you.’

‘Easy to say.’ She turned slightly to contemplate the garden. ‘Are we not all constrained – even Nature? Do not the trees grow to their expected height, flowers bloom with their due colours, all things in their season? Dogs bark and cats mew? Unchanging? Never branching out?’

‘We are humans, not flowers. We may do as we please. You have branched out. You’re here with your grandfather, embracing a new life.’

Qamira contemplated this a while. ‘As did you,’ she agreed finally. ‘Do you have any family left in El-Maghreb?’

He gazed at the ground. ‘My parents are both dead.’

‘Mine died too – before their time. We’re both orphans, then.’

He looked up at her through long thick lashes. ‘Indeed we are.’

***

‘Do not run from me!’ His voice rasped unkindly in her ear. ‘I want you! I have made myself clear on countless occasions. I will wait no longer. You will submit to me.’

‘If Grandfather were here, you wouldn’t dare make so bold.’

‘But he is not here, and I am. Here, to fulfil your destiny.’

Then his mood changed, his voice pleading. ‘It is I who beg you, my sweet nightingale. You cannot comprehend how much I love and desire you. Not just your music–’

She turned her face away as he kissed her again, his beard scratching her soft cheek.

Remember Zayd! She sobbed, her will almost broken. Why was he suddenly so difficult to resist? Then from somewhere in her inner core she mustered the strength of mind to withstand him. ‘I cannot do this. I cannot love you as you would have me do. I do not want you!’

But to no avail. He was panting now, whether from passion or exertion, she could not tell. She tried to push him away, the heels of her hands against his shoulders, but his grip tightened and he slid down to his knees, kissing her stomach, her abdomen, moving lower until his hands were raising the hem of her nightgown. His desperation revolted her yet her whole being ached with a treacherous sensation of pleasure and betrayal – and she the betrayer.

Remember Zayd! Now his fingers probed, seeking her secret warmth.

The sudden unexpected stab of bliss surprised her. She gritted her teeth, shuddered. She must not succumb.

Remember Zayd! The dim light and his lustful eagerness made him awkward, fumbling, and in that instant she came to her senses, all thoughts of pleasure fled. Her fingernails dug into the soft flesh between his shoulders and neck. She hoped she’d drawn blood. He roared in pain and stumbled away, releasing her to massage the spot.

She slid sideways and staggered towards the door.

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