Month: January 2024

The Falcons of Fire and Ice by Karen Maitland

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OK, this was not what I was expecting.  The blurb said that it was historical fiction set in 16th century Portugal.  To be fair, part of it was … but then it somehow turned into a very strange tale about, er, the spirits of the undead possessing Siamese twins chained up in a cave in Iceland.   Which was not exactly what I’d been after.  Some people just don’t seem to get the difference between history and fantasy.  I blame Game of Thrones.

The book was *supposed* to be about Isabela, a girl whose father was the falconer for the legendary King Sebastian of Portugal during his boyhood.  When the falcons were mysteriously killed, Isabela was told that she had to find replacements, or else her father, who’d been arrested by the Inquisition, would be killed.  So that was what I was expecting.  Then the Inquisition got a man called Ricardo (his real name was Cruz, and he told Isabela that his name was Marcos, but he went under the name Ricardo.  Keep up.)   to follow Isabela and kill her, and a disguised Jesuit called Vitor to follow Ricardo whilst he was following Isabela, and make sure that he killed her.

That was bonkers enough.   However, the falcons in question could only be found in Iceland, so Isabela – er, plus Ricardo, plus Vitor – all had to sail to Iceland.  Given that Denmark had banned traders from other countries from Iceland at the time, that wasn’t very realistic, but then none of it was realistic.   Over in Iceland, a man had killed two falcons so that he could steal their chicks and sell them, causing his wife to give birth to Siamese twins who were possessed by some sort of weird spirits.  The Siamese twins were then chained up in a cave by one of the Hidden People.  Then one of them died.  And the other one was possessed by a draugr, which is some sort of undead spirit which has escaped from its corpse.   Isabela, Ricardo and Vitor somehow all ended up at the cave, where Isabela helped to get rid of the draugr by following the surviving twin’s instructions to conjure up the spirit of a dead friend who’d been burnt to death by the Inquisition.   As you do.

As a famous Icelander would have said, I’d started (the book) so I decided I’d finish (it), but this was really *not* what I’d bargained before.   Oh, and Isabela and Ricardo helped the surviving twin to escape from the cave, but Vitor was accidentally killed in all the carryings on with the undead.  The surviving twin died.  Isabela and Ricardo managed to capture two falcons.  Then Vitor turned up, having miraculously survived, and somehow found them, but then he fell in a crevasse and was definitely dead this time.

Ricardo/Marcos/Cruz decided to stay in Iceland, but Isabela decided to go back to Portugal.  And there it ended.  After all that, we never found out whether she made it back to Portugal or not, or whether her father’s life was spared or not!

This was a very, very strange book!   The blurb on the back said “1564, Lisbon” and then went on about the Inquisition.  If I’d wanted to read a book about spirits of the undead possessing deceased Siamese twins in Iceland, I’d have looked for one!

Atalanta by Jennifer Saint

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No, this is not a book about football.  It’s a book about Atalanta, the Greek mythological heroine, who could outrun any man, who was the only female Argonaut, and who was the first one to wound the boar in the legendary Calydonian boar hunt.  It says a lot that, whilst I can name numerous women of Greek mythology who were temptresses, murderesses or victims of assaults by the gods – the other mortal female to feature significantly in the book is the infamous Medea, and her story’s well enough known -, I’d only heard of Atalanta because of the Italian football club named after her.   There are myriads of “feminist retellings” of Greek myths around at the moment, but this is a particularly interesting one, because Atalanta should be as well known as the likes of Theseus and Perseus; but she isn’t.

Incidentally, my nerves are shredded after the Aussie Open final and the Test Match.  Huge congratulations to Jannik Sinner and to the England cricket team (I am so, so pleased for Jannik #Sudtirol #CarotaBoys), many commiserations to Daniil Medvedev and to India, and could we please not have any dramas in the United-Newport match because I’ve had enough stress for one day!!

As with most figures in Greek mythology, there are various different versions of Atalanta’s story, but the general gist of it is the same in all of them.   In this book, we see Atalanta, as the baby daughter of a king who wanted a son, being abandoned, being adopted by a bear, and then coming under the protection of the goddess Artemis, in the forest of Arcadia.  Atalanta was never supposed to marry.  In some versions of the story, that’s because she was warned off marriage by an oracle.  In this book, it’s because Artemis was opposed to marriage.   We get some brilliant descriptions of the forest of the Arcadia and the lives of the nymphs, and we see the part of the Atalanta myth in which she kills two centaurs who tried to attack her.

Then comes the voyage of the Argonauts.  Some versions of the story include Atalanta and some don’t.   The book includes all the traditional stories of the voyage of the Argonauts, but makes the interesting point that those accompanying Jason were probably rather disappointed that the Golden Fleece was won by Medea’s witchcraft, rather than through heroic endeavours.

Then comes the story of how Atalanta joined several of the other Argonauts in fighting a monstrous boar sent by Artemis, and how fighting broke out when some of the men sought to deny Atalanta her right to the boar’s hide, and two men were killed as a result.

After that, the story breaks away from the myth.  Atalanta had a son, Parthenopais, who in this book was fathered by Meleager, who was involved in both the voyage and the boar hunt.  In the myth, she abandons him, not wanting Artemis to find out that she’s had a lover.  In this story, she finds foster parents for him.   She was then reclaimed by her own father, who promised her in marriage to any man who could outrun her.   Many men failed, and were killed as a result.  In the myth, Hippomenes wins her hand in marriage by distracting her with golden apples given to him by Aphrodite.  Jennifer Saint’s changed that, to a story in which Atalanta and Hippomenes are friends, and Atalanta throws the race to save his life.

In the myth, Aphrodite is angry that Hippomenes has forgotten to thank her, and sends the couple into a passion which drives them into a cave sacred to Rhea.  In this version, they’re overcome by passion because they genuinely love each other.  Rhea then punishes them for desecrating her cave by turning them into lions.  Apparently, there was an idea in Ancient Greece that male and female lions couldn’t be together, but that seems a bit odd.  An alternative idea, which is the one presented in this book, is that the two lions lived happily ever after.   And that, of course, is much better!

Just on the subject of names, Jason is a real Generation X name.   When I was at school, there were plenty of Jasons, and then there were people like Jason Donovan and Jason Priestley who were 6 years older than us.   But the name’s never really been popular either before or since.   I know there was a film about Jason and the Argonauts in (thank you, Google) 1963, but I wouldn’t have thought that that was enough of a thing to make the name popular.  Hmm.   As for football club names, using names inspired by Ancient Greece definitely seems to have been a thing at one time, in the Netherlands and Czechia as well as in Greece and Cyprus.  Ajax are the obvious ones, but there are other clubs named after Ancient Greek heroes, and there are several clubs with Sparta or Spartans in their names.  There are Blyth Spartans, come to that.  However, I think Atalanta are the only ones named after a woman from Greek mythology.  Ah, Google informs me that there was a ladies’ football club in Huddersfield in the 1920s who were also named after Atalanta.  Anyway, none of that’s actually directly relevant to the book!

These books are always a bit tricky, because convincingly working the actions of the gods and the sorcery of witches like Medea into a novel is awkward, but Jennifer Saint does a good job of it.  Her previous books have been good, but I particularly liked this one because Atalanta isn’t a seductress, a murderess, a survivor of sexual assault by the gods, or someone whose story is a tragedy – if we take the version of events in which the two lions live happily ever after.   She’s a heroine.  She was one of the Argonauts.  She helped to kill the Calydonian boar.  She could outrun any man.   And yet her name’s only really known because of the football club, and I suspect that most people think that Atalanta’s an area of Bergamo.  She deserves to be better known, and hopefully this book will help to achieve that.

 

 

 

 

The Sworn Virgin by Kristopher Dukes

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  The Albanian practice of women taking a vow of chastity and then living as men, which largely but not entirely died out in communist times, was an interesting idea for a novel, especially when combined with the phenomenon of blood feuds, which still exists.   And the author particularly wanted to explore what might happen if a sworn virgin fell in love with a man.   However, the story turned rather bonkers when our heroine killed her lover’s brother, because he’d killed her father, and then found out that her lover was actually her late mother’s abandoned husband.   Keep up!!

The portrayal of life in early 20th century Albania was very well done, although a few references to the independence movement would have been welcome; but the plot just got a bit silly.   It’s worth reading because Albania’s arguably the least well-known country in Europe and there are very few English language novels set there, but it all just got a bit silly.

 

The Inheritance by Anne Allen

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  I don’t usually read dual timeline novels, but it’s really hard to find historical fiction set on Guernsey in any period other than the Occupation, and this one was set – well, part of it was – in the late 19th century, when Victor Hugo was living and working on Guernsey.   Why don’t people write more books about the earlier history of Guernsey?   It had the last Royalist stronghold to surrender during the Civil War: it was still holding out two years after Charles I had been executed.   Then it had lots of smugglers and privateers, which all sounds very exciting.   But there is very little historical fiction set there at any period other than the Second World War.  Apart from this.

Anyway!  The modern part was set in 2012, when Tess, a doctor living in Exeter but originally from Guernsey, inherited a house on the island from her great-aunt.  She decided to move to Guernsey, where she immediately bagged a good job, a handsome and successful boyfriend, and a load of lovely new friends.  Would that life were that easy!

The historical part was about Tess’s great-great-great-great-grandmother Eugenie, a young widow who became a copyist for Victor Hugo whilst he was writing Les Miserables, and was very close to him and his family.

The builders working on the house discovered a secret room and a secret drawer – which was all a bit Blytonesque! – housing Eugenie’s diaries and various things related to her work for Victor Hugo.   That was a bit daft, as was the way that everything in Tess’s life just fell into place so easily after her move, but Eugenie’s story was interesting.   And, despite having owned a copy of it for about 30 years, and knowing every word to every song in the musical, I still have not read Les Miserables …

 

The Cat Who Caught A Killer by L T Shearer

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This is *not* my usual sort of book: it was a “challenge” book.   Talking cats are all very well in children’s books – I love Carbonel and his family – but they’re pretty silly in adult books.  Also, who goes to a cafe, a friend’s party, a solicitor’s office and even a funeral with a cat draped round their neck?!   The murder mystery was rather silly as well.  Having said all that, it was quite entertaining in a weird sort of way.  And it was free with Amazon Prime.

Recently widowed retired detective Lulu is feeling down when a calico cat called Conrad (lots of alliteration here) appears, and starts talking to her.   I’d never heard of  a “calico cat”, but apparently it’s the American term for a tortoiseshell-with-white cat.   “Calico” has a different meaning in America … which is all to do with the history of the Lancashire textile industry, which is far more interesting than cats.  I didn’t know that when I was a kid, and I could never understand why Ma Ingalls always seemed to be wearing aprons made of tent fabric.   Apparently calico cats are almost always female, because the relevant gene’s on the X chromosome, and Conrad’s male, but never mind.

Lulu’s elderly mother-in-law then dies suddenly, and Lulu suspects her nasty brother-in-law and his wife of murdering her.  And murdering her own late husband.  And attempting to murder her.  With Conrad’s help, she solves the mystery.  Apparently, books involving animals as detectives – and we’re talking books for adults here – are now a thing.  I have no idea why.  But I was supposed to read one for my “challenge”.  Most of them involve either dogs or cats, and I cannot abide dogs.  Dogs and motorbikes are the twin scourges of a nice, quiet society.   I’m not a huge fan of cats, but at least they’re fairly quiet.

There’s another book in this series, and a third one due; but they’re both quite expensive.  But, if I could get them for free, I might give them a go.  As I said, it was quite entertaining in a weird sort of way!

 

These Days by Lucy Caldwell

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This book has “For Taylor, with my warmest wishes, Lucy Caldwell, Belfast Book Festival ’23” handwritten in it.   I think I’d have hung on to a book that was signed by the author, but Taylor obviously wasn’t impressed, because he/she flogged it on Amazon.  Maybe he/she wasn’t impressed by the fact that it’s yet another book written in the present tense – so annoying.   However, other than that, it’s really rather good.   It’s set during the Belfast Blitz, and the descriptions of the aftermath of the air raids are very moving.

It’s nice to find a book about Belfast which isn’t about the Troubles.  When religion’s mentioned, it’s in the context of intermarriage, about which no-one seems to be very bothered.   Joan Lingard’s books say that intermarriage in Belfast is less of an issue for the middle-classes than the working-classes – I don’t know whether or not that’s true?   The book’s set around the love lives of two sisters, one of whom is courting a doctor (and I don’t think the wording of the engagement announcement was right!), the other of whom is having a secret affair with a female colleague on a First Aid unit.  There’s also a sub-plot about their mother, but that isn’t really explored.   But what really stands out is the descriptions of the aftermath of the air raids – the grief for those killed, the distress of the medical staff trying to treat the injured, the chaos as people frantically try to find out if loved ones are alive and dead, trying to reunite lost children with their families in a world without mobile phones and social media, the despair at the loss of homes and treasured possessions, the destruction of neighbourhoods.

There are so many books about the Second World War, and yet there are very few which deal with this aspect of it in any detail.  It’s worth reading for that.   But, oh, this trend for writing books in the present tense really is annoying!

 

Paperboy by Tony Macaulay

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This is the author’s account of growing up in the Shankhill Road area of Belfast in the 1970s … with “so it was” or “so I did” added to the end of every other sentence, presumably to give an authentically Northern Irish feel!!   It’s a really interesting book, combining the everyday schoolboy experiences of family, school, friends, girlfriends, football (everyone seems to support United, possibly because of the George Best connection), watching TV, music and, as the title suggests, delivering papers, with the horrors of frequent bombings and having your daily activities disrupted by fires and barricades.   It’s surprisingly funny and upbeat, considering how difficult life must have been at times, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

 

Island Madness by Tim Binding

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  This one’s also set in Guernsey during the Occupation, but it’s partly a murder mystery.   It’s also rather confusing, as some chapters just start with “he” or “she” and it isn’t immediately clear who the person is, and everyone seems to have been romantically involved with numerous different people at various times.

Some aspects of it were quite interesting – seeing how the local police were forced to work with the Nazis, and how people tried to carry on with “normal” things such as pantomimes, and how the locals were simultaneously sympathetic with and suspicious of the slave labourers brought from abroad.   But, although obviously there were “jerrybags”, there really wasn’t as much involvement between local women and German soldiers as this book makes out.

It’s quite confusing because there are so many relationships between different people – friends, relatives, ex-partners, current partners, employer-employee.  And very few people actually seem to care that a local woman has been murdered.   But it’s interesting in that we see the viewpoint of the Germans based in Guernsey as well as the locals.   I’m not sure I’ll be rushing to read anything else by this author, though.

The Needle-Watcher by Richard Blaker

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  This, first published in the 1930s, tells the story of Will Adams, the man on whom James Clavell’s Shogun was based.  In 1600, Adams, serving on board a Dutch ship, became the first Englishman to reach Japan.  He wasn’t allowed to leave, and ended up becoming a senior advisor to the shogun, playing a major part in the establishment of the Japanese navy and trading links throughout the area.  He was a real life Boys’ Own hero!

Some people – staff of the BBC, I am looking at you –  don’t like us to think that any English/British adventurers played a positive and important role in other countries; but many of them did, and Will Adams was one of them.  Some of the language in this is a bit archaic, which I assume was the author trying to sound 17th century, but it’s generally very well-written and very entertaining.   We learn a lot about Japan at the time, and also about how well the English and the Dutch worked together before the Anglo-Dutch Wars broke out, and about the distrust of the Spanish and Portuguese.   A very interesting book.

The French House by Jacquie Bloese

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  This is set in Guernsey during the Occupation.  It doesn’t go particularly deep, and all the secrets which come tumbling out are obvious a mile off, but it’s quite an interesting portrayal of life in the Channel Islands during that very difficult time.

Middle-aged Emile, deafened in an accident as a young man, is unhappily married with two daughters.  Meanwhile, his one-time sweetheart Isabelle is also unhappily married, to a violent man.   During the course of the novel, we find out why Emile and Isabelle ended up with other people instead of together … although it is all rather obvious from quite early on.  There’s also a sub-plot about a gay German soldier who makes an extremely unlikely escape.   The French House, where both Emile and Isabelle work for a time, is the house where Victor Hugo lived during his time on Guernsey.

It’s not the best book ever, but it’s quite a good read, about a strange and difficult time.