Although I've been reading and re-reading Georgette Heyer's light romantic historical fiction for about thirty years now, it's only relatively recently that I've discovered her crime fiction.
I began reading 'Footsteps in the Dark' a couple of years ago, but for some reason didn't finish it. So I decided to start it again recently. It's the story of a family who unexpectedly inherit an old country mansion, and decide to use it as a sort of holiday home. It's not in the best condition, and the grounds are like a wilderness. Moreover, it's reputed to be haunted by a monk...
Peter, Margaret and Celia are siblings who are all fond of each other. Celia is married to Charles. Neither Peter nor Charles is particularly impressed with the house, but the women think it has a lot of potential and they decide to spend a few weeks there. They get to know some of the neighbours, and also meet some slightly odd people: M Duval, a French artist who is frequently drunk or drugged; Michael Strange, who Margaret finds very attractive, who seems to behave very suspiciously; Mr Fripp, an even more suspicious man, who whispers to his associates in dark corners of the local pub.
Peculiar noises are heard in the evenings, and footsteps. Nobody really believes in the ghostly monk, until Mrs Bosanquet, aunt to the main characters, comes across him one night when she pops downstairs. Thereafter he makes a few more appearances, and it becomes clear that he's no ghost, but someone involved in nefarious activities who is in disguise as a heavily cowled monk.
It's quite an exciting story, with - as is usual for Georgette Heyer - some good characterisation, and even a little light humour. There are some very tense moments too, and one extremely unpleasant (though hardly unexpected) one. There are various mysteries to be solved - who is the monk? Why does he apparently haunt the place? Who works with him, and why?
I had not guessed what was going on until it was all revealed; however I did work out the identity of the monk several chapters before he was unmasked; I also guessed correctly about the occupation of another of the significant characters.
Heyer wasn't as good as Agatha Christie at laying false trails and surprising her readers - her talent was, instead, in making the people three-dimensional. That's perhaps a disadvantage in crime fiction, since it becomes clear from people's characters whether they are 'baddies' or not!
It's a good story; recommended if you like light crime fiction from the era.
Still in print in the UK, and readily available second hand.
I had no clue who Frank W Cawood and Associates might be - but they're apparently the longer name for FC & A, whose editors produced this book. It's not a volume that would normally appeal to me. The cover design is old-fashioned and remarkably ugly: it looks like the worst of 1990s bad design, made even less appealing due to the hints on the front and back covers ('Halt premature ageing with this potent, nutrient-rich herbal wonder' etc) which I suppose were intended to attract readers. Unfortunately the result is to make it sound rather artificial.
In a regular shop, at whatever the usual price is, I probably wouldn't have given 'Super lifespan super health' a second glance. But I came across it in 2003 when the ship MV Doulos came to Cyprus. There was a huge bin full of these hardback books, selling for 50c each. I have always been keen on health/nutrition books, so after much internal debate (that cover really is bad!) I decided to buy it.
I dipped into it for a week or two, and decided it didn't really say much that was new. But it was still interesting, and every so often I dipped some more. The focus is particularly on good health for older people, and increased longevity based on nutrition and lifestyle.
Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I decided I'd read it from start to finish, a chapter or two each day.
I found it very interesting. It was actually much better written than the cover would suggest, based on considerable research but clearly presented. The first section of the book, after some general introductory chapters, is about nutrition - both foods and minerals - and how they can aid in better health when aging.
Each chapter on topics such as ginger, garlic, magnesium, yogurt or Vitamin C gives anecdotal and research-based suggestions, explains how best to get sufficient of the food in question, and any contra-indications. Much of it was familiar to me, other parts were reminders, or new. As I get older myself, it's good to be reminded of positive ways to enhance healthy living.
The middle section is on what the book calls 'super health secrets' - chapters on echinacea, coenzyme Q10, melatonin, and so on. Pros and cons are given for various supplements for middle-aged and older people. The only thing I was less than impressed with was a mostly positive recommendation for HRT (hormone replacement therapy). But perhaps, since the book is over ten years old, ideas have changed.
The final section of the book is about general lifestyle - exercise, sleep, and so on.
Having finished it, there wasn't anything dramatically new that I will be altering in my own diet or life. But I certainly felt inspired anew to continue eating mostly healthy food, and taking the supplements I had already worked out were best for me.
Definitely recommended - particularly for anyone in middle age or older who is having any problems with their health, or who has a family history of heart disease or similar.
It doesn't seem to be in print any more in the UK; however both Amazon UK and Amazon US have second-hand copies, although the word 'lifespan' in the title seems to have been replaced by the word 'life'. This makes more sense, as there's never any guarantee of a longer lifespan.
I do enjoy the novels by Marcia Willett. She writes character-driven sagas, a bit like those of Rosamunde Pilcher. Since I have all her books to date and have read them over the past ten years or so, I'm gradually re-reading. Last Summer I decided to re-read the 'Chadwick trilogy' - some of the first of Marcia Willett's books that I read - but taking them gradually. I read the last of the three this week.
I first read 'Winning Through' nearly seven years ago. I can remember it being a moving and emotive finale to the series, with one shock which I remembered clearly, although I had forgotten most of the rest. I found that some of the plot came back to me as I read, but other sections surprised or moved me afresh.
This book begins in 1986, and ends in 1998. As with the other books in the series, there are several chapters set in a particular year, charting the lives of the various characters; then we leap ahead four years to a new scenario, in which the gaps are gradually filled in as needed. It works well as a style - I'm not generally keen on too much flashback, or characters talking about events after they have happened, but in these novels it's a technique that I quickly got used to, and found I could relate to well.
Fliss, who was a little girl in the first Chadwick novel, is forty at the start of the novel. She has to make the difficult decision whether to try and continue in her marriage to Miles, who adores her, but whom she has never truly loved. She lives at The Keep, the family home, where she is surrounded by loving relatives, including her Great-Uncle Theo, who is a wonderful Christian influence on all the family. Her twins, Bess and Jamie, are almost grown-up - confident and outgoing, planning their future at university.
Fliss's brother Mole has been promoted in the Navy, where he works with submarines. He still occasionally relives the terror of his childhood when his parents and oldest brother were killed violently. Then their youngest sister, Susannah, is happily married with two small children, and expecting the third.
Their cousins, Hal and Kit are also featured. Hal is not very happily married to Maria, and has two sons - the sensitive Jolyon, and the nervous Edward. Kit is still single, pining after a married man she once loved.
Doesn't sound very gripping, perhaps? Yet somehow the people drew me into the story, and it became compulsive reading. There was one major dramatic shock which I remembered very clearly... indeed, I kept expecting it to happen as I encountered the character concerned, and noticed the hints that might have led up to it.
There was another shock which I had entirely forgotten about, and one more at the end which brought the novel to a close, and which I had mostly forgotten too. In between there were daily events, minor problems, decisions to be made, and the ongoing question of whether or not it was possible to maintain a large and old-fashioned home as a refuge for the family.
At the start of the book is a family tree, which I found useful in remembering who was whom, and which would be vital for anyone who read this without the benefit of the first two in the series: Looking Forward and Holding On.
All in all, an excellent ending to the series. Highly recommended - but best of all if you read the series in order.
The historical novels by Georgette Heyer are my comfort reading, ideal to help me relax after a busy week. I try to re-read them all every four or five years - I find that's long enough apart that I can enjoy them afresh, even though (inevitably) I remember some of the plot.
I last read 'The Convenient Marriage' in 2002. I re-read it in the past few days. It's not a long book, and with all Heyer's novels I find them difficult to put down after I've started them. Even on the fourth or fifth re-read!
It's the story of young Horatia - known as Horry - the youngest of the three Winwood daughters. She is seventeen, but mature for her years despite being rather naive - as was only natural for unmarried girls in the period when the story is set, the 'Age of Elegance' (approximately 18th century).
Horry is determined and practical, but she also has a soft heart. As the novel opens, her oldest sister Lizzie has received an offer of marriage from the Earl of Rule - a rather wild-living man in his mid-thirties who she barely knows. It's a very good match from a worldly point of view, since Rule is very rich. Since there is also a brother (Pelham) who is a gambler, and very expensive, it's important that one of the daughters marry a wealthy man.
However Lizzie is in love with Edward Heron, an army man - well-born, but not particularly well-off. And the middle sister, Charlotte, is determined to remain single and look after their widowed mother into her old age. So Horry decides to offer herself to Rule as an alternative to Lizzie. There's a very amusing scene when she talks about making a sacrifice for the sake of her sisters... and Rule is shown to have a quick sense of humour, appreciating the absurdity of the situation.
But he wants to marry into a good family - if he must marry at all - and Horry rather charms him with her innocence, insisting that theirs will be a marriage of convenience and that she will not interfere with him in any way.
Naturally all is not plain sailing - there are misunderstandings, upsets, and inevitable clashes between these two people with strong temperaments. There are also those who want to cause trouble between them - the Earl of Rule's mistress, for instance, and his current heir. And there's a growing attraction between the Earl and Horatia as they learn to live with each other.
'The Convenient Marriage' is fast-paced, with plenty of ironic humour and some excellent characters. The morals of London at the time might shock some traditional readers - gambling, promiscuity and heavy drinking are a natural part of life amongst the upper classes, as is duelling at the least provocation. But Georgette Heyer only touches on the seedier side of life, without anything to make me squeamish.
All in all, a good light read for anyone who wants a historical novel with superb characterisation. It was first published in 1934 and seems to have remained almost continuously in print. Definitely recommended.
I started reading Joanna Trollope's novels about ten years ago, or a little more. It took me a while to get into her style but I enjoy it very much now. So I decided to re-read some of her books which I haven't read for a while.
It's ten years since I read 'The Men and the Girls'. Although I remembered the bare outline of the characters (two men in their early sixties married to women in their thirties) I had forgotten everything else about it.
I wasn't even entirely right about the people. Hugh, a television personality, is married to Julia. But James, an academic and Hugh's best friend, is living with Kate who has never wanted to settle down in marriage. Moreover, there were four other very important people I had quite forgotten: Hugh and Julia have delightful young toddler sons, and Kate has a teenage daughter called Joss, going through a rather difficult stage.
And then there's Miss Beatrice Bain, an elderly lady who is another academic. She enters the story right at the start, when James accidentally knocks her off her bike. She is not injured, but James strikes up a strange sort of friendship with her, and this is the catalyst for a lot of Kate's dissatisfaction to come pouring out.
Hugh isn't very happy, either. His career is on the wane due to his age, and changing styles. Julia, who is very well organised and confident, finds a good job which is also in television, but Hugh does not adjust well to his wife becoming the main wage earner.
It's a character-driven novel, and Joanna Trollope does it very well. The interactions between all the main characters are believable, and well-paced so that the story moves along at just the right speed. I particularly warmed to Joss, struggling with her identity, and a growing sense of independence which she inherits from her mother.
There are some quite strong issues covered in the book alongside the main people and their problems - battered women, euthanasia, the fickleness of the media. So it was quite thought-provoking at times, if not as hard-hitting as novels by Libby Purves.
I didn't find it compulsive reading, which is just as well as I had a busy schedule in the last couple of weeks. But I enjoyed it, despite a partly bittersweet ending, and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a light modern novel.
Recently republished in the UK with a cover that I don't personally like nearly as much as the previous white one with an impressionist park scene on the front - but perhaps it will have a new appeal to a different audience. This book is also fairly often found second-hand.
I had not come across Rosy Thornton before. If I hadn't been sent this book to review by 'The Bookbag', I probably would never have picked it up. The cover is light and fluffy, though not unattractive, and it looks as if it would be 'chick-lit'.
Moreover, a quick glance through the book shows that it's an epistolary novel - one written entirely in terms of correspondence (letters, emails, minutes of meetings, etc). I am not particularly keen on letters even in the midst of regular novels, so that would have put me off before I started.
But I'm so glad I did read it, because 'More than Love Letters' is an extremely enjoyable book.
It opens with several letters from Margaret Hayton to her MP, Richard Slater. She writes about greenhouse gases, dangerous wire in a park, the lack of waste bins, and taxes on women's sanitary products. She treats them all with equal passion... and he responds with exactly the same form letter each time, assuring her that he will be looking into the matter in the near future.
It made me smile. I thought Margaret was a middle-aged or elderly do-gooder.
Then, after the minutes of a meeting, there is a letter from Margaret to her grandmother... which made me blink a couple of times, and realise that she must be younger than I had thought. She turns out to be a twenty-four year old primary school teacher. She corresponds not just with her grandmother, but with her good friend Becs who teaches in an inner city school and has an insatiable appetite for men.
There are also emails from Richard Slater to a friend of his, another MP. He, too, assumes that Margaret is an elderly do-gooder until he actually meets her, and finds her extremely attractive...
It's all very cleverly done. The styles of letters are different enough to show the characters of the people concerned, and the story gradually builds up through the various correspondence.
There's a romantic thread running through the book, but there's also an examination of the problem of the homeless, a serious look at the long-term effects of incestuous child abuse, and a lighter look at the mistakes and misunderstandings that can easily arise in the media. It's thought-provoking in these ways and others, without in any way preaching. Although it took me a little while to get into it, I found it difficult to put down once I had got about fifty pages in.
It's much better written and deeper than typical chick-lit. It reminded me somewhat of the novels by Libby Purves, which also manage to combine a good story with some very thought-provoking issues.
Definitely recommended.
My slightly longer review of 'More than Love Letters' can be found at the Bookbag site.
