Tag: England

The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson (Historical Fiction)

Writing: 4.5/5 Characters: 5/5 Plot: 4/5

Constance Haverhill is a girl with few prospects. 1919 finds her spending a summer as companion to an elderly lady at a posh hotel at the seaside with an unpleasant future looming before her. The Pre-War Practices Act of 1919 gave returning soldiers their pre-war jobs back and forbade women from holding jobs in Covered Occupations. While Constance is pondering her (limited) options, she meets and is befriended by Poppy Wirrall, a local baronet’s daughter and proprietor of the fledgling women’s motorcycle-based taxi service which she hopes to expand to flying lessons for women. Poppy’s primary goal is to keep women employed and progressing while the government and local councils work equally hard to send the women back to homes and domestic service.

The book is beautifully written with a cast of compelling characters set in a very realistic post-war environment. Each person represents a kind of cohort of the day — women facing the loss of their livelihood and an (extremely) limited supply of potential husbands, wounded soldiers returning to a population that doesn’t want to be reminded of the war, those of the wealthy class still scheming for good matches at the expense of ethics and friendship, foreign born naturalized citizens who had been detained during the war and relegated to low status jobs, and even a mysterious Indian national whose character brings to light the treatment of Indians in Britain and the under-appreciated contribution of Indian men in the war. Simonson writes with intricate detail about the inner thoughts and struggles of several characters as well as painting a comprehensive picture of life in that era. It’s an Austen-style novel of manners combined with a feminist look at post-war lives in Britain with a little romance tossed in.

My only complaint might be that certain “types” of people were not given interior lives but were presented as pure negative stereotypes — mostly people of the monied class and one horribly stereotyped American. I’m sure there were plenty of Americans at the time who really were that unpleasant, but being an American myself I would have enjoyed having at least one “decent” American included 🙂

Thank you to The Dial Press and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on May 7th, 2024.

The Rising Tide by Ann Cleeves — A Vera Stanhope Novel (Mystery)

Writing: 3.5/5 Characters: 4/5 Plot: 5/5
A group of friends have been meeting for reunions on Holy Island for fifty years. One — a particularly obnoxious media star who just lost his job due to a #metoo style accusation — is surprisingly upbeat with a new plan he is hatching. At least until he is found hanging in his room the next morning. Suicide? He didn’t seem the type but … Vera has to untangle a pile of messy relationships and a forty year old tragedy before she gets to the bottom of it. I didn’t figure out whodunnit until very near the end.

I’m a long time fan of the ITV Vera series, but this is the first book (number 10) that I’ve read and ,it was completely impossible to put down! There is a lot more (interesting) depth on the team dynamics and internal states of the main characters — definitely not apparent in the TV series. But Cleeves’ real strength lies in her stories — perfect pacing of new information twisting and shifting current assumptions. No filler (i.e. no gratuitous taking of tea, repeating what everyone knows twenty times to other characters, etc) — constantly kept my brain engaged in trying to figure things out. Some very interesting political commentary as asides to the story — not your standard PC or standard non-PC Stuff.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on September 6th, 2022.

Persuasion by Jane Austen (Literary Fiction)

I reread this for a book club and am so glad I did. We’ve all seen the BBC period dramas that have brought all of Austen’s books to life, and they are all wonderfully delightful, but upon rereading I found a lot of depth that simply can’t be put easily into film.

Persuasion — the story of a woman who was once persuaded to reject the man she loved upon the recommendation of a trusted family friend — brings together all of the thoughts, manners, and considerations of a woman in the landed gentry at that time (~1815). While I am no expert in literary history, I wonder if this isn’t one of the first books to emphasize marital happiness and harmony over passionate love or a business like negotiation for status and money. Austen looks at the essential temperaments and morals of her characters and makes those considerations paramount in thoughts of marriage. And like many classics, the lessons are completely apt for today, despite their being couched in an “olde” patter. Plenty of early feminism, too, in the more open consideration of women as full beings in their own right, without application of the stereotypes of the day.

Delightful characters, thorough descriptions of the rules of society, and a real description of what is and isn’t important in considering one’s place in society, one’s duty, and one’s hope for happiness. The style is not modern — there are many long sentences with a great many commas liberally applied — but once I was back in the rhythm of the thing I had no problem.

Some good quotes:

“She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped.”
‘
“Mr. Elliot was rational, discreet, polished, but he was not open. There was never any burst of feeling, any warmth of indignation or delight, at the evil or good of others. This, to Anne, was a decided imperfection. Her early impressions were incurable. She prized the frank, the open-hearted, the eager character beyond all others.”

“She thought it could scarcely escape him to feel that a persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of happiness as a very resolute character.”

“…on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would bear ill examination.”

“His looks shewing him not pained, but pleased with this allusion to his situation, she was emboldened to go on; and feeling in herself the right seniority of mind, she ventured to recommend a larger allowance of prose in his daily study; and on being requested to particularize, mentioned such works of our best moralists, such collections of the finest letters, such memoirs of characters of worth and suffering, as occurred to her at the moment as calculated to rouse and fortify the mind by the highest precepts, and the strongest examples of moral and religious endurances.”

“We never shall. We never can expect to prove anything upon such a point. It is a difference of opinion which does not admit of proof. We each begin, probably, with a little bias towards our own sex; and upon that bias build every circumstance in favour of it which has occurred within our own circle; many of which circumstances (perhaps those very cases which strike us the most) may be precisely such as cannot be brought forward without betraying a confidence, or in some respect saying what should not be said.”

Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for an early review copy which will publish Dec. 4, 2018.  All thoughts are my own.
Writing: 4 Plot: 5+ Characters: 4

An old-fashioned Story (with a capital S!) full of richly drawn archetypal characters, a convoluted but cohesive plot, and just the hint of inexplicable mysteries.

In (roughly) England in the mid-1800s, near a powerful river that may or may not be the Thames, there stands The Swan — a country inn known for the storytelling skills of its patrons. One night during a rough storm the regulars swear to a Miracle — the corpse of a drowned child, pale and angelic, comes to life hours after the local healer pronounced her dead. The child has a strange effect on those who see her — she raises an inexplicable feeling of connection and need in them all. Lily White swears the child is her long-dead sister Ann; the Vaughans are convinced she is the child abducted from them two years ago; Robert Armstrong thinks it is the abandoned child of his neer-do-well son Robin. Launched by this perceived Miracle, there are stories upon stories, many intertwined, all of them rich, some bursting forth while others are slowly extracted. The overall pacing at which the confusion unravels is just right. With beautiful descriptions of the countryside and the different moods of the river, it is a lyrical tale about the power of storytelling that utterly embodies the point!

Great for fans of Alice Hoffman or Charles De Lint.