#BookReview ‘The House of Seymour’ by Joanna Hickson @joannahickson #historicalfiction  

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A preface featuring the best known Seymour of them all, Jane, sets the background to The House of Seymour by Joanna Hickson. It is 1537 and a new coat of arms has been created for Queen Jane as she awaits the birth of her first child. It features six crests: King Henry VIII’s personal symbols, the badge of the Seymour family plus four that are unfamiliar to the queen. They belong to her four grandmothers. Joanna HicksonThe House of Seymour starts in 1424 and concentrates on the life of sixteen-year-old Isabel Williams who is promised to a boy she loves. It is a love match, her betrothed Thomas Stamford is of a good family and a friend to Isabel’s younger brother and Williams heir Robert. But when Rob dies of a fever, Isabel’s parents seek a more advantageous match for their remaining child. And so she marries into the Seymour family. John Seymour is a good customer of Isabel’s father, a vintner, and Mark Williams has discovered John is also heir to a rich grandfather. He is set to inherit a Wiltshire manor, Wolf Hall, and the wardenship of Savernake, a royal hunting forest. And so Isabel’s life changes forever.
Running parallel to Isabel’s story is that of Jess Henge, unusually a shepherdess, whose family live at Henge Farm beside the standing stones at Avebury. This is an area of superstition and the family are regarded as different, especially when one of the ewes cared for by Jess gives birth to two lambs. When her cousin Addy disappears in odd circumstances from the Long Barrow at Silbury Down, villagers say Addy was stolen by the devil. Whisperers and gossips blame Jess. In search of a church where she may give confession to a priest who does not know her, she flees to Easton Priory.
This is a story of godliness and superstition, of cruelty and kindness, of naked ambition fuelled by the gains to be made by moving in royal circles. It is a story of loyalty and support among women and friends, sometimes from unexpected places, and the arrogance and sense of superiority of a male-dominated society that sees women as objects. Foreshadowing of King Henry VIII, perhaps, though not all the male characters in the book are thoughtless or rough in their treatment of women.
I read The House of Seymour easily over a weekend and enjoyed this glimpse into society on the edge of royal circles when King Henry VI is a young child. Isabel Seymour and Jessica Henge are two very different women, both compelling characters who face pain and abuse by holding their heads up high. The pace drops at times but my curiosity about the women kept me reading.
An intriguing insight into a family I know little about. The two major settings, Wolf Hall and Avebury, are wonderfully depicted. I anticipate further Seymour novels telling the life stories of Jane’s other female relatives.

Here are my reviews of Hickson’s two Queens of the Tower books:-
THE LADY OF THE RAVENS #1QUEENSOFTHETOWER
THE QUEEN’S LADY #2QUEENSOFTHETOWER

If you like this, try:-
‘The Royal Rebel’ by Elizabeth Chadwick #1JEANETTEOFKENT
‘Days Without End’ by Sebastian Barry #1DAYSWITHOUTEND
‘Orphans of the Carnival’ by Carol Birch

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COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Kate Quinn

#BookReview ‘Death on Deck’ by Verity Bright @BrightVerity #cosymystery #crime

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It’s not normal to start a book review by describing the end but Death on Deck by Verity Bright ends in such a thrilling chase on an ocean liner that I had to mention it first. It is thrilling, in more ways than one. Verity BrightIn Death on Deck, thirteenth in the 1920s Lady Eleanor Swift cosy mystery series, Eleanor is at last able to spend some time, her birthday, with her handsome beau Detective Chief Inspector Hugh Seldon. Except yet again, Hugh has to work instead. So Eleanor, offered a free ticket on the maiden transatlantic of the luxurious Celestiana ocean liner, takes Clifford and her staff with her across the Atlantic to New York. With echoes of Titanic, which sank ten years earlier, the descriptions of the accommodations, décor, furnishings, food and guests are beyond anything we have seen before in this series. Everything is going swimmingly until on a bitterly cold March night, Eleanor goes out onto deck to clear her thoughts. She thinks she is alone until she shivers and the hairs on her neck stand up. There are two dark shadows wrestling, a gunshot, then one of the shadows falls overboard. Racing to the scene, she stumbles on the murder weapon. It is a revolver, one she knows well.
Seldon, not knowing Eleanor is a guest onboard, is working undercover on the Celestiana. His gun is the murder weapon. Clifford and Ellie’s staff – housekeeper, cook and two maids are travelling too – identify Hugh’s cabin where he is valiantly trying to work despite suffering from extreme sea sickness. Of course the captain engages Seldon and Eleanor to investigate the murder, hoping they will solve the crime with discretion and the planned triumphant arrival of the liner into New York will not be wrecked. Ellie knows she has broken the law by not disclosing the murder weapon, but she will do anything to save Hugh.
Nothing goes to plan. Seldon is so ill he can hardly think straight, Eleanor’s usual slick questioning doesn’t seem to work on her fellow first class passengers, and every hour New York draws nearer. When another first class guest is murdered, Ellie fears Hugh will hang. This plot is full of twists and tumbles, false clues, over-the-top opulence and a cast of shady characters who all look very guilty. There is room for an attractive captain, who doesn’t appear in enough scenes, and a stowaway who proves critical at the end. Plus a dancefloor lothario, a card shark, an insufferable hotelier, a jobsworth master-at-arms and a femme fatale. Ellie’s staff, the ladies, travelling in second class, are under-used and some of the language slips into modern tones, but I loved it. The plot is pulled onwards by the thread of Ellie and Hugh’s growing recognition of their love.
Highly recommended. Read with delight over a weekend.

Read my review of other books in the Lady Eleanor Swift series:-
A VERY ENGLISH MURDER #1LADYELEANORSWIFT
DEATH AT THE DANCE #2LADYELEANORSWIFT
A WITNESS TO MURDER #3LADYELEANORSWIFT
MURDER IN THE SNOW #4LADYELEANORSWIFT
MYSTERY BY THE SEA #5LADYELEANORSWIFT
MURDER AT THE FAIR #6LADYELEANORSWIFT
A LESSON IN MURDER #7LADYELEANORSWIFT
DEATH ON A WINTER’S DAY #8LADYELEANORSWIFT
A ROYAL MURDER #9LADYELEANORSWIFT
THE FRENCH FOR MURDER #10LADYELEANORSWIFT
DEATH DOWN THE AISLE #11LADYELEANORSWIFT
MURDER IN AN IRISH CASTLE #12LADYELEANORSWIFT

If you like this, try:-
‘The Marlow Murder Club’ by Robert Thorogood #1MARLOWMURDERCLUB
‘A Rising Man’ by Abir Mukherjee #1WYNDHAM&BANERJEE
‘Fortune Favours the Dead’ by Stephen Spotswood #1PENTECOST&PARKER

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#BookReview DEATH ON DECK by Verity Bright @BrightVerity https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8sn via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Joanna Hickson

#BookReview ‘Confessions’ by Catherine Airey @catherineairey #contemporaryfiction

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An emotional story of three generations of women moving back and forth between New York and the west of Ireland from 1970s to 2018. Confessions by Catherine Airey is an accomplished debut examining the changing freedoms of women fifty years apart, and the social mores and variations between two countries that speak the same language but are oh so different. Catherine AireyConfessions is a book about stories, secrets and confessions; the telling of stories and the keeping of secrets and about whether confessing your secrets is the right or wrong thing to do. The story starts in New York 2001 as the Twin Towers fall. Sixteen-year-old Cora Brady’s accountant father never comes home. She is left alone – her artist mother Máire having died years earlier – and disorientated, until a letter arrives from her Aunt Ró in Ireland. Before she leaves the city, Cora hangs posters of her father ‘Missing. Cantor Fitzgerald. 104th Floor, North Tower. Father’ in places she will miss.
Airey takes time to establish the character of Cora but as soon as the teeneager arrives in Ireland, the story switches to 1974 to tell the story of two sisters, Róisín and Máire. This is 1970s Ireland, strictly Catholic, setting up stark contrasts between Ireland and New York city at that time: the illegality of abortion, alcohol, sexual freedom, drugs and the coming of AIDS. Occasional references throughout are made to a ‘game’ which make no sense to me until three-quarters of the way through the novel.
Airey is particularly good at juxtaposing the expectations placed on her female characters, in different decades; by the women themselves, on each other and by society, to suffer, to put up with things, to make do, to stay silent. And conversely to let it all out, to scream, to admit the truth even when painful and uncomfortable to oneself or others.
By the end, for me the women merge into one homogenous character. Though the writing is beautiful – ‘I was too wired to even close my eyes, my thoughts wound up like swirls inside a marble’ – the loose plotting is at times disorientating and at times I forgot which woman was speaking. The anchoring point of time in this family’s story is the fall of the Twin Towers in 2001, the events leading to it and what happened afterwards. Airey takes us on a meander through the decades, showing events and their consequences. Stories are the things you present to other people, secrets are the things you never confess to another soul. Viewpoints switch around until the final quarter which is told largely in letter-form when uncomfortable truths are finally addressed. ‘We’re only as sick as our secrets,’ writes one to another.
I finished Confessions not sure if I enjoyed it or not; at times it focusses on distressing subjects, death, addiction, rape, abortion, betrayal, grief. At times it is beautiful. Sometimes I wanted to read on to know what happened next, but then I delayed picking it up again. Challenging. Unflinching.

If you like this, try:-
‘A Little Life’ by Hanya Yanagihara
‘Brooklyn’ by Colm Tóibín
‘Nora Webster’ by Colm Tóibín

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COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Verity Bright

Great Opening Paragraph 144… ‘The Gift of Rain’ by Tan Twan Eng #amreading #FirstPara

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“I was born with the gift of rain, an ancient soothsayer in an even more ancient temple told me.”
Tan Twan EngFrom ‘The Gift of Rain’ by Tan Twan Eng

Here’s my review of THE GIFT OF RAIN …and two other books by the same author:-
THE GARDEN OF EVENING MISTS …read the first paragraph HERE
THE HOUSE OF DOORS

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Anna Karenina’ by Leo Tolstoy 
‘The Paying Guests’ by Sarah Waters
‘Queen Camilla’ by Sue Townsend

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#Books #FirstPara THE GIFT OF RAIN by Tan Twan Eng https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8Lr via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Royal Rebel’ by Elizabeth Chadwick @Chadwickauthor #historicalfiction #medieval

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1338 England is at war with France. The court of King Edward III travels to Calais and with them goes Jeanette of Kent, a rebellious, outspoken, daring, determined young girl, all the things a lady of the court is supposed not to be. War runs throughout The Royal Rebel by Elizabeth Chadwick and so does love. I loved Jeanette’s character arc through the course of this book, from impressionable young teenager to twenty-something. As a cousin of the king, twelve-year-old Jeanette spends much of her time at court, chaperoned, managed, supervised, hardly ever alone. In Calais, she meets a young soldier, commoner Thomas Holland, and the two fall head over heels in love. Married secretly their plans immediately go wrong. Jeanette returns to England with the court while Thomas must go to war again. Both are desperately in love.
As happens with any young woman of the court, Jeanette is expected to make a pragmatic politically-acceptable marriage. When told she must marry a childhood acquaintance William Montagu who she dislikes, she explains she is already married. Her mother and William’s reject Jeanette’s inconvenient story as a child’s fancy and deem her evidence insubstantial. Jeanette has no choice but to marry as she is told, ‘she could not refuse; she was a sparrow tossed in a storm wind, wings over tail. She curtseyed, and took her leave, carrying herself with pride and grace until she was out of the door, but then grabbed her skirts in her fists and started to run… on and on… [until] the enormity of what she had tried to outrun caught up with her like a gazehound on a hare.’
This is essentially a love story set within the unemotional, unromantic world of the court. Marriage matches are made for convenience, diplomacy, for political gain, wealth and property; never for love. Jeanette and Thomas’ love for each other means nothing. Decisions are taken about their lives without their input. There are many twists and turns in this story and I really rooted for the couple to find a way to be together. They are manipulated, lied to, separated, bullied and abused. Thomas must continue to earn his living as a soldier and a piece of luck means he gains the funds to mount a legal challenge. But this court case moves so slowly, delayed by process, by the spreading plague, by machinations of the witnesses giving evidence against Jeanette and Thomas. But the couple, still so young, continue their fight, continue to hope despite all the setbacks, opposition and accusations of dishonesty. Jeanette learns patience, ‘All her hopes were like beautiful eggshells, and she dared not tread too heavily for fear that they would shatter.’
Elizabeth Chadwick has created strong, nuanced characters to care for. She is a new author for me and now I look forward to reading the sequel, The Crownless Queen.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Last Hours’ by Minette Walters #1BLACKDEATH
‘The Turn of Midnight’ by Minette Walters #2BLACKDEATH
‘The Story Spinner’ by Barbara Erskine

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#BookReview THE ROYAL REBEL by Elizabeth Chadwick @Chadwickauthor https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8Sj via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Catherine Airey

#BookReview ‘The Secret Keeper’ by Renita D’Silva @RenitaDSilva #romance #India #WW2

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From 1930s India to England in World War Two and the 1990s, The Secret Keeper by Renita D’Silva is the story of Rani Raj, the secrets she kept, the secrets she didn’t keep and the fallout across two generations. Renita D’SilvaRani grows up in pre-war Europe with her Indian father, a crown prince, and German mother. Their life is thrown into turmoil when her grandfather dies and her baba becomes king. This doesn’t simply mean that the family must relocate to India, but that they must abandon their Marxist beliefs and adopt the wealthy segregated existence that goes with the royal role. Rani and her mother must live in the women’s zenana, separately from Rani’s father and brother Arjun. Rani’s entire world turns upside down, she struggles to understand her father’s about-face of everything he believed in, and encouraged her to believe. Planning to study at university, Rani’s world becomes limited to an enclosed space, albeit a beautiful, privileged one.
Strong-willed Rani rebels. Adopting her maid’s sari and strong accent, she ventures beyond the palace walls where she meets the milkman’s son Prasad and falls in love. After a misguided plan to convince her father the king that Prasad is a suitable husband for her, she is banished to England where she studies at university. In Cambridge she struggles with an ethical dilmena; her delight at being able to study again, against the silence from her family and the uncertainty about Prasad’s fate. She writes home weekly but receives no reply. It is a severe punishment for an idealistic, hopelessly naive mistake.
When war begins, Rani is recruited as a codebreaker at Bletchley Park while her best friend Gertie joins the Special Operations Executive. I so wanted to know more about Gertie, and it’s at this point that I felt the book could have gone in a different direction.
In England 1990, a young woman called Esme is bereaved twice in a matter of weeks. First her beloved, quiet, academic father dies, and then the family’s motherly housekeeper Mrs Lewes who has raised Esme in the absence of a mother. Struggling with her grief, Esme visits a counsellor who encourages her to explore her past family history. A visit to her older brother Andrew unveils a childhood different from the one she remembers.
The Secret Keeper is a moralistic story about teenage mistakes having a tragic consequence in the adult world. This is an emotional story about the traps of idealistic first love coming back to haunt you in later life. Young Rani makes promises without understanding or stopping to think what it may mean to keep them.
I always enjoy Renita D’Silva’s stories set in India. Whether describing extremes of wealth or poverty her description puts me in the place, in all its intensity and power.

Read my reviews of these other novels by Renita D’Silva:-
A DAUGHTER’S COURAGE
A MOTHER’S SECRET
BENEATH AN INDIAN SKY
THE GIRL IN THE PAINTING
THE ORPHAN’S GIFT
THE SPICE MAKER’S SECRET
THE WAR CHILD

If you like this, try:-
‘Daughters of War’ by Dinah Jefferies #1DAUGHTERSOFWAR
‘The Secret History of Audrey James’ by Heather Marshall
‘Dear Mrs Bird’ by AJ Pearce

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#BookReview THE SECRET KEEPER by @RenitaDSilva https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8LE via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:-

#BookReview ‘The Silk Code’ by Deborah Swift @swiftstory #WW2

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World War Two is one of my favourite periods to read about and so I expected much from The Silk Code by Deborah Swift, especially as it is based on the Special Operations Executive in London. Coding, female agents, secrets, spies. Deborah SwiftOn the rebound from a broken engagement, Nancy Callaghan leaves her beautiful but claustrophobic home in Scotland for London. Her brother Neil, who works in an unnamed adminstrative department in Baker Street, offers to put her forward for a secretarial job. Except Baker Street is the home of SOE and Nancy turns out to be a dab hand at decoding, especially the ‘indecipherables,’ the messages sent by agents that are muddled and meaningless. Nancy finds Neil much changed; he seems to sleep little, is out much of the night, is grumpy and uncommunicative. Then when Nancy takes a shine to Tom Lockwood, the expert who trains the coders, Neil instantly disapproves. Of course there is more going on here than office politics. Is it simply a matter of professional jealousy or is there a traitor in the building? Why is the death rate of SOE agents parachuted into Holland so high? And why won’t the bosses listen to Tom’s suspicions? When Nancy is given an ultimatum – spy on your colleagues for the good of your country, or be demoted and moved from Baker Street – she feels she has no choice.
This is a thrilling story packed with moral choices of the ‘do the easy thing or the right thing’ type. Based on true history but populated with mostly fictional characters, Swift has written a novel that kept me reading just another chapter. The pace is fast following the introduction to Nancy in rural Scotland and Swift convincingly shows Nancy’s difficulties arriving in a strange city, living in a box room in her taciturn brother’s flat, training to do a job that isn’t explained alongside colleagues who have all signed the Official Secrets Act. As Nancy is trying to work out what is going on, so is the reader. Everyone knows only so much and everyone, it seems, has secrets.
When Tom and Nancy invent a method of printing one-time codes on silk cloth that can be hidden in the agents’ clothing, little do they realise that Nancy will soon be in Holland. Half-Dutch and fluent in the language, Nancy is a natural for SOE espionage training. But she truly has little idea of what she is flying into. N-Section in Holland is a vipers’ nest of double agents with Nazis masquerading as Allied coders. From the moment her feet touch the ground, she doesn’t know who to trust.
The Silk Code is a very good introduction to Swift’s WW2 Secret Agent series. Next is The Shadow Network. Deborah Swift is a new author to me and I’d also like to read some of her historical fiction.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society’ by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
‘Dominion’ by CJ Sansom
‘The Rose Code’ by Kate Quinn

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#BookReview THE SILK CODE by Deborah Swift @swiftstory https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8Sr via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Renita D’Silva

#BookReview ‘Murder on Board’ by Helena Dixon @NellDixon #cosymystery #crime

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Kitty Underhay’s wedding is approaching fast but as the late summer season at the Dolphin Hotel proves busy there is little time to think of the nuptials. In Murder on Board by Helena Dixon, tenth in the 1930s amateur detective series, hotel owner Kitty is having a fitting for her wedding dress one day and organising a glamorous birthday party on board a riverboat steamer the next. Unfortunately the latter includes a murder and a jewel theft. Helena DixonDartmouth, September 1934. Life at the Dolphin Hotel is transitioning as Kitty prepares to marry on Christmas Eve and her grandmother gets ready to retire. Chief evidence of this is the arrival of the new hotel manager, Mr Cyril Lutterworth. Meanwhile Kitty’s fiance Captain Matthew Bryant is working again for his old London spy boss, Brigadier Remmington-Blythe, following a man suspected of trading top secret information to the enemy. So when Kitty boards the Kingswear Castle to check everything is ready for the 21st birthday party of the Chief Constable’s daughter, she is horrified to see Matt’s suspect is working on board as a steward. And even more horrified when he is later killed in the engine room.
The party guests, unaware of the crime on board, are enjoying the second half of the celebrations at the Dolphin Hotel as planned with a glamorous evening ball. Sir Montague Hawkes presents the birthday girl, his daughter Serafina, with the fabulous Firestone diamond necklace, a family heirloom. But as soon as the necklace is fastened around her neck, the lights go out, Serafina screams and the necklace is gone. Chaos ensues. Inspector Greville is short-staffed and so recruits Kitty and Matt to help with the investigations of the two separate crimes, separate except for the fact that they happened in the presence of exactly the same group of guests.
Inspector Greville has no leads; every party guest seems to have seen nothing, to not know the dead man and to be shocked by the theft. There is an old foe, a kidnapping, a very flash car, a visit to Dartmouth Naval College and some unwanted romantic advances for Kitty, while Matt’s unruly dog Bertie is proven to have a hidden talent. How can Matt’s spy, the murder and the theft possibly be linked?
Borrowed from the library as an emergency read when my faithful Kindle finally died, this novel is just the ticket if you’re looking for a story to take you away from the stresses of modern life. I thoroughly enjoyed Murder on Board. I quickly guessed the puzzle of one of the crimes but wasn’t correct at identifying either the murderer or thief.

Next in the series is Murder at the Charity Ball.

Here are my reviews of other books in the series:-
MURDER AT THE DOLPHIN HOTEL #1MISSUNDERHAY
MURDER AT ENDERLEY HALL #2MISSUNDERHAY
MURDER AT THE PLAYHOUSE #3MISSUNDERHAY
MURDER ON THE DANCE FLOOR #4MISSUNDERHAY
MURDER IN THE BELLTOWER #5MISSUNDERHAY
MURDER AT ELM HOUSE #6MISSUNDERHAY
MURDER AT THE WEDDING #7MISSUNDERHAY
MURDER IN FIRST CLASS #8MISSUNDERHAY
MURDER AT THE COUNTRY CLUB #9MISSUNDERHAY

And my reviews of the first in a new series by Helena Dixon:-
THE SECRET DETECTIVE AGENCY #1SECRETDETECTIVEAGENCY
THE SEASIDE MURDERS #2SECRETDETECTIVEAGENCY

If you like this, try:-
‘A Mansion for Murder’ by Frances Brody #13KATESHACKLETON
‘The French for Murder’ by Verity Bright #10LADYELEANORSWIFT
‘Death comes to Marlow’ by Robert Thorogood #2MARLOWMURDERCLUB

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#BookReview MURDER ON BOARD by Helena Dixon @NellDixon https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8RS via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Deborah Swift

#BookReview ‘The Sinner’s Mark’ by SW Perry @swperry_history #historical #crime

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Religious extremism, Moorish diplomacy, sedition and missing youths. In England 1600, Dr Nicholas Shelby’s elderly father is accused of distributing seditious pamphlets. The Sinner’s Mark by SW Perry is sixth in the fantastic Jackdaw Mysteries historical series. SW PerryNicholas and Bianca are happily married, living in Bankside on the south bank of the Thames, with their five-year-old son Bruno. Bianca is a talented apothecary, Nicholas attends the sick and, with misgivings, answers the occasional call of Queen Elizabeth I’s right hand man, Sir Robert Cecil. Accustomed to being ordered to undertake a distasteful task for Cecil, Nicholas is shocked to learn the reason for his summons. Sedition. Cecil has discovered that Shelby’s elderly father in Suffolk has been arrested. With Cecil’s help, Nicholas secures his father’s freedom but is disturbed by the stories of a firebrand young priest whose sermons have bewitched a local congregation. When the priest arrives in London, the pace of the story speeds up.
When Petrus Eusebius Schenk, an army acquaintance of Nicholas from his fighting days in the Low Countries, arrives at the Jackdaw, Bianca cannot warm to the man. Uneasy at Nicholas’s instant trust of the newcomer, Bianca observes contradictory behaviour. Nicholas believes she is being uncharitable about an old soldier still suffering from traumatic memories of war. When Schenk takes the Jackdaw’s tavern man Ned Monkton to listen to an evangelical new preacher, Bianca decides to investigate. What follows is a rollercoaster ride of radical puritanism, what today we would call grooming, the disappearance of young men and a conspiracy to commit treason. At this time Bianca comes into an unexpected inheritance, a small house and warehouse on the north bank of the river, where she makes an unwelcome discovery. Nicholas is called into the queen’s service again, this time as diplomat and translator during the state visit of the Morroccan ambassador. Nicholas met Muhammed al-Annuri in Marrakech seven years previously, as featured in The Saracen’s Mark, and is expected to inform Cecil of Annuri’s real expectations, something he finds difficult to do. As always when Nicholas is pushed into doing something reluctantly, or is divided between two loyalties, the story gets interesting.
A page-turning historical mystery that doesn’t disappoint, set in a time of political uncertainty as the queen approaches the end of her reign. Difficult to review without giving away critical plot points but the interventions of Will Shakespeare are welcome, as is the presence of Carib-born apothecary trainee Cachorra who proves herself a suitable, independent-minded sidekick for Bianca.
Excellent.

Here are my reviews of the  other books in the series:-
THE ANGEL’S MARK #1JACKDAWMYSTERIES
THE SERPENT’S MARK #2JACKDAWMYSTERIES
THE SARACEN’S MARK #3JACKDAWMYSTERIES
THE HERETIC’S MARK #4JACKDAWMYSTERIES
THE REBEL’S MARK #5JACKDAWMYSTERIES

If you like this, try:-
‘The Almanack’ by Martine Bailey #1TABITHAHART
‘The Blue Afternoon’ by William Boyd
‘The Glassmaker’ by Tracy Chevalier

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#BookReview THE SINNER’S MARK by SW Perry @swperry_history https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8KJ via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Helena Dixon

#BookReview ‘Leeward’ by Katie Daysh #historicalfiction #adventure #navalwarfare

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I’m new to historical naval fiction and wasn’t sure what to expect from Leeward by Katie Daysh, first in the Nightingale & Courtney mystery series. Life at sea is brutal, and beautiful. It is lonely, and companionable. It is exhilarating, it is terrifying. Katie Daysh1800 Antigua. For Hiram Nightingale, naval captain and veteran of the Battle of the Nile, the sea is everything. ‘The sea. The sea… Nearly everything of importance in his life had happened on the ocean.’ Horribly injured, physically and emotionally, after the famous battle of the Napoleonic Wars and grieving for his lost crew, Hiram is encouraged back to sea by his father and father-in-law who arrange a captaincy in the West Indies. Expecting a quiet commission, instead he finds himself captain of the ‘Scylla’ charged with hunting down and apprehending a mutinied ship, the ‘Ulysses.’ His mission is to chase the ‘Ulysses’ wherever she goes, even around Cape Horn into the Pacific. It soon becomes clear that Hiram hasn’t been told the real reason for his mission or why the ‘Ulysses’ crew mutinied. He is uncertain who to trust either onboard or on shore and uncertain about his own capability to do the job.
I took a while to settle into the story but after that I didn’t want to put it down. For me there is just enough nautical detail to be interesting but not so much that I started to skip sections. Naval warfare tactics are fascinating as are the politics of the region and the character clashes on board, but professionalism, talent and justice mean nothing in the face of ostentatious wealth and overwhelming greed. Nightingale becomes a detective, hunting his prey, trying to decipher the truth of the crime. He is on a nautical journey, making his peace with the sea and grieving those he lost in battle; he’s also on an emotional journey, being honest with himself about his deepest nature. The gay sub-plot complements the main storyline but doesn’t dominate. As Hiram struggles with the lonely responsibility of command, his dreams are full of flashbacks to his loss of the ‘Lion’ at the Nile, moments with his wife Louisa, and an unforgettable, unforgiveable incident in his childhood. The journey parallels throughout to Homer’s Odyssey are handled with a light touch: Hiram’s ship the ‘Scylla’ is named after Homer’s multi-headed monster, while ‘Ulysses’ is the Roman name for Odysseus.
What a surprising delight this novel is, an insight into the professionalism of the Royal Navy, a fight to catch the criminals, the ocean, the unpredictable elements and a naval trial. I’m looking forward to the next in the series, The Devil to Pay.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Silver Wolf’ by JC Harvey #1FISKARDO’SWAR
‘Nero’ by Conn Iggulden #1NERO
‘The Surfacing’ by Cormac James

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#BookReview LEEWARD by Katie Daysh https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8Qr via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- SW Perry