Tag archives for Hodder

Lindsey Davis – The Ides of April

Flavia Albia is the adopted daughter of a famous investigating family. In defiance of tradition, she lives alone on the colourful Aventine Hill, and battles out a solo career in a male-dominated world. As a woman and an outsider, Albia has special insight into the best, and worst, of life in ancient Rome.

A female client dies in mysterious circumstances. Albia investigates and discovers there have been many other strange deaths all over the city, yet she is warned off by the authorities. The vigils are incompetent. The local magistrate is otherwise engaged, organising the Games of Ceres, notorious for its ancient fox-burning ritual. Even Albia herself is preoccupied with a new love affair: Andronicus, an attractive archivist, offers all that a love-starved young widow can want, even though she knows better than to take him home to meet the parents…

As the festival progresses, her neighbourhood descends into mayhem and becomes the heartless killer’s territory. While Albia and her allies search for him, he stalks them through familiar byways and brings murder ever closer to home.

As has been established numerous times, I love historical crime fiction. Generally, I’ve been most at home reading historical (crime) fiction set in medieval, Renaissance and Victorian times, as those are also the periods in history I’m most familiar with. And while I’ve been branching out lately, it’s been generally into periods in between these former periods, only rarely have I strayed into the Classical age. In fact, looking at my Goodreads shelf, I can count them on one hand. The Ides of April has now made it possible to engage my other hand in tallying up the numbers. Why the emphasis on this lack of Classical historical fiction reading? Mostly because I think that it accounts for most of my problems with this first instalment in Davis’ new series. Because while I really enjoyed the setting and Albia’s voice, at times I struggled with how modern she sounded.

By Mieneke Published 23 April, 2013 Posted in crime, historical fiction, review Tagged: Hodder | 2 Comments

Guest Post: C.W. Gortner on Research

As part of his stop-over on A Fantastical Librarian on his The Queen’s Vow blog tour, Christopher Gortner was kind enough to write a guest post on his research practices. I asked him about this from both a personal and professional interest. The different topics of research that can be done with a collection, the details each researcher takes away from a particular document is endlessly fascinating. I wanted to thank Christopher very much for giving us a peek in the historical novelist’s work room and telling us about the way research can shape a narrative. This is actually the second half of my stop on C.W. Gortner’s blog tour. I posted a review for the book this morning. You can find an overview of all the stops on this tour on the author’s blog. Now onto the guest post!

C.W. Gortner on Research

Writing historical fiction is an arduous process; in order to fulfill the task, we must be part-detective, part-psychologist, part-actor, while at every moment having to remain first and foremost a novelist. The past is shrouded in obscurity. Facts aren’t always clear, motives and emotions less so. Though we want to know who these people were and how they behaved, for me the most important concern is always: Why? Without the why, who and how become meaningless. For example, history has established that Isabella of Castile, the subject of my new novel The Queen’s Vow, revived the Inquisition. We know this to be a fact, but what remains controversial is why she decided to take this approach. It has been said she did it because she was pious and sought to eradicate all non-Catholics from Spain. While this one act has defined her in history, my research found a lesser known explanation— one that is more complex and in keeping with facets of Isabella’s personality. Because of my research, I was able to craft an arguably more nuanced depiction of the queen. And I owe it all to the work I did in libraries.

C.W. Gortner

Research is a historical novelist’s tool in the struggle to bring the past to life, for unlike nonfiction, in fiction we must discover the why in order to create a living canvas. Much of my initial research for each of my novels begins at home. I’m an ardent bibliophile and own an extensive library of secondary sources, including innumerable biographies, accounts of various eras, and a multitude of architectural, costume, hunting, music, medicine, and gardening books. But when I need to drill further into the specifics of a character, the elusive ‘why’ of her behavior, I rely on the extensive wealth of information found in libraries. I have had the incredible privilege to research my books in places as varied as the Archives of Simancas in Spain; the Vatican Archives in Rome; and the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève in Paris. And within those walls, I’ve made unexpected discoveries that significantly altered my perception of my characters. In libraries, I have read letters, diplomatic dispatches, and eye-witness accounts written by those close to the character. While bias must always be taken into account, these fragments of information, carefully pieced together with a timeline of facts, can begin to elucidate a character’s motivation; insight into the character’s emotional state can be inferred through a judicious exploration of reactions to triumphs and tragedies, which can provide clues as to what kind of person she might have been. For example, Isabella’s trajectory shows a cautious and prudent woman, who grew up in an impoverished household with an unstable mother and therefore displayed a frugal approach both in her lifestyle and actions, except when it came to exalting her realm. Her few extravagances are therefore noteworthy, including her infamous gamble on an unknown Genovese navigator named Columbus.

In a cache of correspondence found in Simancas, I read some letters that went between Isabella and a council she’d set up to investigate heresy in her realm, which finally shed light on her motivations. These letters dispute the popular account and indicate that she in fact doubted persecution would achieve her aims. She thus delayed her momentous decision for years, despite pressure from her husband and ministers, and with the means at her disposal. In the end she made the choice and its terrible ramifications blackened her and Spain. Yet without a crucial key of evidence that unlocked her reasoning, to me she might have remained a fanatic blindly devoted to her faith, who never felt doubt. And as easy as that may be, the possibility of another truth is, I found, invariably more interesting.

Thank you so much for spending this time with me. I sincerely hope your readers enjoy THE QUEEN’S VOW. To learn more about me and my work, please visit: www.cwgortner.com

By Mieneke Published 8 January, 2013 Posted in article, guest post, historical fiction Tagged: Hodder | Leave a comment

C.W. Gortner – The Queen’s Vow

This review is the first half of my stop on C.W. Gortner’s blog tour. Please check back this afternoon for a guest post by the author on the research he did for The Queen’s Vow. You can find an overview of all the stops on this tour on the author’s blog.

Isabella was the notorious warrior-queen who, along with her husband Ferdinand, transformed Spain forever. Popular belief has her as a religious fanatic persuaded into the horrific excesses of the Inquisition by her confessor, Torquemada; but C.W. Gortner paints a picture of her early life, showing us a headstrong, passionate girl who grew into the most powerful queen Spain ever knew and whose vision and imagination allowed Columbus to discover America.

Before reading The Queen’s Vow, all Isabella was to me, was the queen who, together with her husband, enabled Columbus to discover the Americas. I wasn’t aware she was the one to instate the Spanish Inquisition or to unite Spain. So in that regard, the book was an education in and of itself. Of course, The Queen’s Vow also sits in the middle of one of my historical fiction sweet spots: it’s a narrative featuring the lives of royalty. Add to that the wonderful voice Gortner gives Isabella and his sense of pacing and romance and I couldn’t help but love this book.

Told from Isabella’s perspective in a first person narration, we’re privy to her innermost thoughts, doubts, and insecurities. The narrative opens on the night of King Juan II of Castile, Isabella’s father’s death. It’s the moment she says changed everything. Daughter to an unpopular second wife, Isabella and her younger brother Alfonso go from cosseted and spoiled infanta and infante to living in a dilapidated castle with a small to non-existent allowance to live on. Beside the financial troubles, there is also the gradually worsening mental decline of their mother, who seems to be suffering from clinical depression interspersed with almost schizophrenic episodes. This places a heavy burden on the young infanta Isabella, as she is the only one who can reach her mother when she goes into one of her spells and she’s called upon to talk her mother down more and more frequently. Reading about Juana’s decline was heart-breaking, both as it seems so unfair to Isabella to be put in that position and because one wonders to which degree Juana’s condition was treatable, maybe even curable, instead of the out-and-out insanity it was viewed as. However, this isolated and difficult youth form Isabella’s character and Gortner portrays her as a complex woman, one torn between her empathetic and inquisitive nature and her duties to God and country.

Gortner cleverly makes Isabella’s match with Fernando a love match from the start, which was rare and almost unheard of for the age. In reality, the marriage probably was one of political alliance and convenience, but over time could have become a true love match and certainly they ruled well together. But again, in this novel, even if arranged, once they meet, they fall in love and passionately at that. I loved how Fernando becomes both Isabella’s knight in shining armour, who she can depend on to come to her aid if she needs him, and also her light at the end of the tunnel, her chance at escape from her horrid situation at the court of her half-brother Enrique IV if only she’s strong enough to arrange it. Despite these romantic visions, Isabella never sits back and waits to be rescued, she rescues herself employing the aid of Fernando and others, but hers is the strength behind the plans. She doesn’t lose this strength once she’s married either; it is a union of equals and she won’t let anyone, not even the love of her life, make decisions for her. Gortner shows us a strong marriage, one that has some huge fights and even a period of estrangement, but also deep-felt passion and affection, resulting in five children, who were very much loved by both their parents.

While Gortner spends a lot of time setting up the circumstances which lead to the Spanish Inquisition and Isabella’s reluctance to pass the edict instating it and we follow her until just after she authorizes the expulsion of Castile’s Jews unless they convert, he skirts showing the actual horror and excesses of the Spanish Inquisition. Beyond Isabella’s receiving of some of Torquemada’s reports and her obvious upset at his methods and findings, there isn’t much detail about the bloodiness of the entire operation. Whether this is because the situation only escalated to that extent after the edict of expulsion was passed, I cannot say, I’m too unfamiliar with the facts and timeline of the Spanish Inquisition, but it does allow Isabella to remain a sympathetic character, who is forced by circumstance and a true devotion to her faith to make some awful decisions. In his interesting afterword, Gortner explains how he came to his interpretation of the facts and he indicates where he deviated from historic facts to facilitate narrative flow and points out the one completely fictional character in the novel. I found it interesting to read where and why he’d chosen to alter the facts a little, as it also was a peek in the kitchen of the way a story is built.

The Queen’s Vow is the story of a remarkable woman and a queen who was formative for Spain’s – the world’s even – history and one who up until now has been largely gone ignored in fiction, film, and TV. If you compare the amount of representations of her to those of Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria, for example, it is almost negligible. With his novel Gortner puts her in the footlights and shows the world her fascinating story, without excuses for her mistakes, but not letting the horrible facts of her reign overshadow her accomplishments or her humanity. The Queen’s Vow is a captivating book, which has made C.W. Gortner an author whose work I’ll definitely keep an eye out for in the future.

This book was provided for review by the publisher.

By Mieneke Published 8 January, 2013 Posted in historical fiction, review Tagged: Hodder | 3 Comments

Anticipated Reads (Winter/Spring) 2013

After last week’s posts on my Anticipated Books for Winter/Spring 2013, today I bring you the fifteen books I anticipate reading the most in the coming six months. Last year I couldn’t get the number down to ten so I stuck to fifteen and since I struggled to get the list down to even fifteen, I stuck with that number. I had to do a lot of gouging to get the list down from the initial twenty-five books to fifteen. There are a lot of books I’m really anticipating reading that I decided to exclude right off the bat, such as all the next books in series I’ve started in the past year. If I loved a book last year, you can bet that I’ll want to read the next instalment. Examples of these are Anne Lyle’s The Merchant of Shadows, Lou Morgan’s Blood and Feathers: Rebellion and Giles Kristian’s Brothers’ Fury. Another book that would have been sure to have been on this list is Laura Lam’s Pantomime if not for the fact I’ve already read and reviewed it here on the blog. And there a couple of historical novels and YA novels that I went back and forth over, but ended up scrapping. So below in alphabetical order by author is my list, with a little explanation of why I really can’t wait to read these books. Do you agree or would you have chosen differently from last week’s lists?

Clifford Beal – Gideon’s Angel (Solaris)
Ever since reading Anne Lyle’s Alchemist of Souls I’ve become more and more enchanted with historical fantasy. Of course this shouldn’t be surprising as it combines my two most favourite genres into a fabulous new whole. Add that to the fact that Beal’s debut novel is set in an era of British history that I’ve only recently come to read more about, but has demons and magic to boot and it had to be a given that I’d want to read this book.

Lauren Beukes – The Shining Girls (HarperCollins)
My favourite read for 2011 was Zoo City, while Moxyland grabbed third place last year, and I’ve been waiting impatiently for a new novel by Lauren Beukes ever since finishing Moxyland. And now The Shining Girls is almost here! I can’t wait to see what Beukes has in store for us, but the premise sounds amazing and I really look forward to seeing her take on a crime novel.

C. Robert Cargill – Dreams and Shadows (Gollancz)
Look at that cover. Tell me that isn’t a pretty cover! But more importantly, the book sounds really interesting and whisky-swilling genies and foul-mouthed wizards can’t be anything other than a good thing. Besides, comparisons to Gaiman, Del Torro, and Burroughs? I’m intrigued.

Cassandra Rose Clarke – The Mad Scientist’s Daughter (Angry Robot Books)
One of my favourite debuts this year was Cassandra Rose Clarke’s YA fantasy The Assassin’s Curse. So when Angry Robot announced they were publishing her first novel for adults and it was an SF story about robots, I was immediately on board. Then they released the cover and I really couldn’t wait for the book. Luckily, I received and ARC, so I’ll be able to read and review the book sooner rather than later!

Tara Conklin – The House Girl (William Morrow)
The first historical novel on the list and it’s one that piqued my interest for a number of reasons. First of all, it deals with one of the most difficult subjects to write about in US history: slavery. Set in the frame of a modern day law firm setting, the synopsis drew me in immediately. This looks like a very interesting story and as I know embarrassingly little of the history of slavery beyond what I was taught in grammar school, I thought this might be a good place to learn some more.

US Cover

Neil Gaiman – The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Headline)
When Headline announced that they’d signed Neil Gaiman for a new adult novel, the internet went kind of crazy. While reading The Graveyard Book and Neverwhere finally clued me in on why people turn into such rabid fans and Gaiman charmed my socks off with his ‘Make Good Art’-commencement speech, I’m still woefully under-read in his works, so I have to read this one, just to make sure I don’t get farther behind. Plus, that synopsis? It sounds amazing!

Rosie Garland – The Palace of Curiosities (HarperCollins)
Set in the Victorian age, in a circus and the characters are a lion-faced girl and a man risen from the dead? Done. What more can I add? Oh, perhaps that this is another title I have an ARC for, so look for a review of this title soon!

Helen Grant – Silent Saturday (Random House Children’s Books)
For Christmas 2010 I was given a copy of Helen Grant’s The Glass Demon by Liz. And oh, how I loved that book. Then I went to London and got my hands on Helen’s two other books The Vanishing of Katharina Linden and Wish Me Dead and devoured both of those. And then I had to wait, and wait… I had to wait till 2013 to get my hands on Helen’s next book. Fortunately, Silent Saturday is part of a trilogy and even more fortunately, I was lucky enough to get my hands on a very early ARC. So now I won’t have to wait so very long to finally return to the mysteries and creepiness that always pervade Grant’s writing.

Snorri Kristjansson – The Swords of Good Men (Jo Fletcher Books)
I’m going to cheat and just quote what I wrote over on the Jo Fletcher Books blog for my look at their spring 2013 debuts:

Vikings! What more do I need to say? Well, actually, there is a lot more to say about this debut. It’s a book in which the Old Gods confront the new and where betrayal is just around the corner. It’s also written by a true Viking descendant, as Snorri is originally from Iceland. However, the book was written in English, a feat I find astonishing, because even if my English isn’t shabby, I can’t imagine how hard it would be to write an entire novel in it. Then again, I can’t imagine writing a novel in Dutch either, so I’m impressed by anyone who can write a good story. The Swords of Good Men has been on my radar ever since Jo announced she’d signed Snorri and I’m looking forward to finally being able to read the book come June.

Elizabeth May – The Falconer (Gollancz)
Again Victorian – ~~not steampunk~~ the author let me know that the story is steampunk – Edinburgh, an aristocratic young Lady out for revenge, fairies?! Count me in. This is another book that’s been on my radar since its acquisition was announced and I can’t wait to read it.

Amy McCulloch – The Oathbreaker’s Shadow (Random House Children’s Books)
The Oathbreaker’s Shadow is the debut for Amy McCulloch, commissioning editor over at HarperVoyager UK and part of the Lucky 13′s. I love the premise of this one: that the promises you make are binding, even if they are made for you. From the synopsis, it also looks to have an interesting setting and a great classic fantasy feeling, so this is another one I’ve been eagerly awaiting for months.

Will McIntosh – Love Minus Eighty (Orbit)
Love Minus Eighty is based on Bridesicle, a short story McIntosh wrote for which he won a Hugo and which I heard on Escape Pod during their Hugo Month in 2010. I adored the story and I was really excited to hear that McIntosh was developing the story into a novel. The story sounds amazing and I know the concept for the world is strong, so roll on June.

Terence Morgan – The Shadow Prince (Macmillan)
This is a book I discovered going through the catalogues in preparation for this season’s Anticipated Books and the subject immediately caught my eye. The story of the Princes in the Tower has always fascinated me and some part of me always hopes they were smuggled out and lived happily ever after, or at least long and peaceful lives, away from the turbulence and violence their family was caught up in, however unlikely the chance that happened is. So the legend of Perrin Warbeck was one that has always been attractive to me and Terrence Morgan’s take on his story sounds like an intriguing one.

Emma Newman – Between Two Thorns (Angry Robot Books)
I’ve posted about Emma Newman and Between Two Thorns before and I’ve even hosted a story in her Split Worlds project on the blog. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Between Two Thorns is included on this list. In fact, I think you can well say that this is my most anticipated read for the next few months! I’m lucky enough to have received an ARC for it, so this is one title you can be sure will be reviewed sooner rather than later!

Benjamin Percy – Red Moon (Hodder & Stoughton)
A month or two ago a mysterious envelope appeared in my mailbox. In it was nothing but a business card with on it the title Red Moon with the subtitle They Are Amongst Us. On the back it said ‘Have there been lycans sightings in your local area? Do you think someone you know might be infected? Please report any suspicious activity. Call the Lobos Helpline:’ with a UK number listed, followed by ‘Or go to www.banthelycans.co.uk.’ To say I was intrigued was putting it mildly and from what I’ve been able to find out about the novel so far, I really want to read it, when it comes out.

By Mieneke Published 24 December, 2012 Posted in article, crime, fantasy, historical fiction, mystery, science fiction, YA Tagged: Angry Robot Books, anticipated, Gollancz, HarperCollins, Hodder, Jo Fletcher Books, Macmillan, Orbit, Random House Children's Books, Solaris, William Morrow | 4 Comments

Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2013: YA Jan-March

One of my reading resolutions for 2012 was to explore more YA fiction, which I did. I did it to such an extent that this list has just exploded this year, so much so that I’ve had to split it up, much like my fantasy list. Today the Anticipated Books will showcase YA fiction published from January to March and tomorrow we’ll look at April to June. For some of these I already have an (e)ARC or review copy, so they’ll definitely be read and reviewed. And for the rest, I’ll have to see whether I get the chance to get my hands on them!

January
Lenore Appelhans – Level 2 (Fantasy, Simon&Schuster)
Since her untimely death the day before her eighteenth birthday, Felicia Ward has been trapped in Level 2, a stark white afterlife located between our world and the next. Along with her fellow drones, Felicia passes the endless hours reliving memories of her time on Earth and mourning what she’s lost–family, friends, and Neil, the boy she loved.

Then a girl in a neighboring chamber is found dead, and nobody but Felicia recalls that she existed in the first place. When Julian–a dangerously charming guy Felicia knew in life–comes to offer Felicia a way out, Felicia learns the truth: If she joins the rebellion to overthrow the Morati, the angel guardians of Level 2, she can be with Neil again.

Suspended between Heaven and Earth, Felicia finds herself at the center of an age-old struggle between good and evil. As memories from her life come back to haunt her, and as the Morati hunt her down, Felicia will discover it’s not just her own redemption at stake… but the salvation of all mankind.

Cat Clarke – Undone (Contemporary, Quercus Children’s)
How far would you go to avenge the death of your best friend?

A video appears online. And a boy jumps off a bridge. Jem is determined to avenge the death of Kai – her beloved best friend who was driven to desperation after being ‘outed’ by the popular crew at school. Transforming herself from introverted emo to in-crowd acceptable, Jem becomes part of the clique. She’s going to take down those responsible, one by one.

But what if Kai was keeping secrets from Jem? Could her quest for revenge be directed at the wrong people? And can Jem find out what really happened before someone else gets hurt?

Gavin Extence – The Universe versus Alex Woods (Contemporary, Hodder & Stoughton)
This is the story of seventeen-year-old Alex Woods – born to a clairvoyant mother and a phantom father, victim of an improbable childhood accident – who is stopped at Dover customs in possession of 113 grams of marijuana and the ashes of his best friend, Vietnam veteran Isaac Peterson. What follows is a highly original and compelling account of Alex’s life and the strange series of events that brought him here.

Ellen Oh – Prophecy (Fantasy, HarperTeen)
The greatest warrior in all of the Seven Kingdoms . . . is a girl with yellow eyes.

Kira’s the only female in the king’s army, and she’s also the prince’s bodyguard. She’s a demon slayer and an outcast, hated by nearly everyone in her home city of Hansong. And, she’s their only hope. . . .

Murdered kings and discovered traitors point to a demon invasion, sending Kira on the run with the young prince. He may be the savior predicted in the Dragon King’s prophecy, but the legendary lost ruby treasure just might be the true key to victory. With only the guidance of the cryptic prophecy, Kira must battle demon soldiers, an evil shaman, and the Demon Lord himself to find what was once lost and raise a prince into a king.

Broken by A E Rought (Science Fiction/Horror, Strange Chemistry)
Imagine a modern spin on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein where a young couple’s undying love and the grief of a father pushed beyond sanity could spell the destruction of them all.

A string of suspicious deaths near a small Michigan town ends with a fall that claims the life of Emma Gentry’s boyfriend, Daniel. Emma is broken, a hollow shell mechanically moving through her days. She and Daniel had been made for each other, complete only when they were together. Now she restlessly wanders the town in the late Fall gloom, haunting the cemetary and its white-marbled tombs, feeling Daniel everywhere, his spectre in the moonlight and the fog.

When she encounters newcomer Alex Franks, only son of a renowned widowed surgeon, she’s intrigued despite herself. He’s an enigma, melting into shadows, preferring to keep to himself. But he is as drawn to her as she is to him. He is strangely…familiar. From the way he knows how to open her locker when it sticks, to the nickname she shared only with Daniel, even his hazel eyes with brown flecks are just like Daniel’s. The closer they become, though, the more something inside her screams there’s something very wrong with Alex Franks.

And when Emma stumbles across a grotesque and terrifying menagerie of mangled but living animals within the walls of the Franks’ estate, creatures she surely knows must have died from their injuries, she knows.

Megan Shepherd – The Madman’s Daughter (Science Fiction, HarperTeen)
Sixteen-year-old Juliet Moreau has built a life for herself in London—working as a maid, attending church on Sundays, and trying not to think about the scandal that ruined her life. After all, no one ever proved the rumors about her father’s gruesome experiments. But when she learns he is alive and continuing his work on a remote tropical island, she is determined to find out if the accusations are true.

Accompanied by her father’s handsome young assistant, Montgomery, and an enigmatic castaway, Edward—both of whom she is deeply drawn to—Juliet travels to the island, only to discover the depths of her father’s madness: He has experimented on animals so that they resemble, speak, and behave as humans. And worse, one of the creatures has turned violent and is killing the island’s inhabitants. Torn between horror and scientific curiosity, Juliet knows she must end her father’s dangerous experiments and escape her jungle prison before it’s too late. Yet as the island falls into chaos, she discovers the extent of her father’s genius—and madness—in her own blood.

Inspired by H. G. Wells’s classic The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Madman’s Daughter is a dark and breathless Gothic thriller about the secrets we’ll do anything to know and the truths we’ll go to any lengths to protect.

Catherynne M. Valente – The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There (Fantasy, Corsair)
In this, Valente’s second Fairyland book, September returns to Fairyland – but all is not well there. Folk have been losing their shadows and, with them, their magic. September must enter the dark, beautiful, strange kingdom of Fairyland-Below to discover what has happened and save Fairyland from losing all its magic and slipping into the mundane world entirely. But Fairyland-Below has a new ruler, Hallowe’en, the Hollow Queen – and Hallowe’en does not want to give Fairyland’s shadows back.

K.M. Walton – Empty (Contemporary, Simon Pulse)
Dell is used to disappointment. Ever since her dad left, it’s been one let down after another. But no one–not even her best friend–understands all the pain she’s going through. So Dell hides behind self-deprecating jokes and forced smiles.

Then the one person she trusts betrays her. Dell is beyond devastated. Without anyone to turn to for comfort, her depression and self-loathing spin out of control. But just how far will she go to make all of heartbreak and the name-calling stop?

Brenna Yovanoff – Paper Valentine (Crime, Razorbill)
Hannah’s best friend Lillian died six months ago. Now it is high summer and Hannah can no longer pretend everything’s fine. Because Lillian’s ghost still haunts Hannah, and Hannah can’t tell anyone about her. Then a young girl is found murdered in Muncy Park—the first of three who will be killed during the summer’s heat wave. Hysteria grips the city of Ludlow. And Hannah finds herself drawn to Finny Boone, a bad boy and petty criminal. Lillian’s ghost demands that Hannah investigate the mysterious string of murders. And though she would prefer to be with Finny, Hannah enters a world populated by ghost girls and horrifying secrets. Hannah becomes obsessed with the crimes and realizes that only by confronting the killer will she be able to come to terms with her grief, and put the loss of Lillian behind her.

February
Julianna Baggott – Fuse (Science Fiction, Headline)
After a young Wretch is abducted by the Dome and “cleansed” of her fusings and imperfections, she is only able to repeat the Dome’s latest message: “We want our son returned. This girl is proof that we can save you all. If you ignore our plea, we will kill our hostages one at a time.” Willux will go to any lengths to get his son Partridge back, including murder. Partridge sacrifeces himself and returns, in the hope of taking over the Dome from within, only to uncover more of his father’s chilling, dark secrets.

Robyn Bavati – Dancing in the Dark (Contemporary, Flux)
Ditty Cohen is passionate about ballet–she loves how it feels to stand en pointe, to rise and spin across the room. But her Orthodox Jewish parents want Ditty to focus on the teachings of the Torah and to marry at a young age according to their religious tradition. Although her parents forbid her to take dance lessons, Ditty secretly signs up for ballet and becomes entangled in a web of deceit. As one lie leads to another and another, Ditty knows she must stop dancing, but she can’t abandon the one thing that gives her freedom. She begins to question her faith and everything her parents have taught her, realizing just how much is at stake as her two worlds collide.

Ilsa J. Bick – Drowning Instinct (Contemporary, Quercus Children’s)
Jenna is sweet sixteen, the age when a girl is supposed to find her prince.

Instead she finds Mr Anderson – intelligent, handsome, married Mr Anderson, who just happens to be her chemistry teacher. With a dark past and a difficult family, Jenna is just happy to have someone to protect her, to worry about her, to love her.

But should she be suspicious of Mr Anderson’s reputation for helping ‘damaged’ students? Why is the most popular girl in school suddenly jealous of her? And where is Mr Anderson’s wife?

This is a love story that breaks all the rules, but that won’t stop it breaking your heart.

Gail Carriger – Etiquette & Espionage (Fantasy, Atom)
It’s one thing to learn to curtsy properly. It’s quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time. Welcome to finishing school.

Sophronia is a great trial to her poor mother. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper manners – and the family can only hope that company never sees her atrocious curtsy. Mrs Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. So she enrols Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But Sophronia soon realizes the school is not quite what her mother might have hoped. At Mademoiselle Geraldine’s young ladies learn to finish . . . everything. Certainly, they learn the fine arts of dance, dress and etiquette, but they also learn to deal out death, diversion and espionage – in the politest possible ways, of course. Sophronia and her friends are in for a rousing first year’s education.

Miriam Forster – City of a Thousand Dolls (Fantasy, HarperTeen)
Nisha was abandoned at the gates of the City of a Thousand Dolls when she was just a child. Now sixteen, she lives on the grounds of the isolated estate, where orphan girls apprentice as musicians, healers, courtesans, and, if the rumors are true, assassins. Nisha makes her way as Matron’s assistant, her closest companions the mysterious cats that trail her shadow. Only when she begins a forbidden flirtation with the city’s handsome young courier does she let herself imagine a life outside the walls. Until one by one, girls around her start to die.

Before she becomes the next victim, Nisha decides to uncover the secrets that surround the girls’ deaths. But by getting involved, Nisha jeopardizes not only her own future in the City of a Thousand Dolls—but her own life.

N. Griffin – The Whole Stupid Way We Are (Contemporary, Atheneum)
What happens when everything you’ve got to give isn’t enough to save someone you love?

It’s Maine. It’s winter. And it’s FREEZING STINKIN’ COLD! Dinah is wildly worried about her best friend, Skint. He won’t wear a coat. Refuses to wear a coat. It’s twelve degrees out, and he won’t wear a coat. So Dinah’s going to figure out how to help. That’s what Dinah does–she helps. But she is too busy trying to help to notice that sometimes, she’s doing more harm than good. Seeing the trees instead of the forest? that’s Dinah.

And Skint isn’t going to be the one to tell her. He’s got his own problems. He’s worried about a little boy whose dad won’t let him visit his mom. He’s worried about an elderly couple in a too-cold house down the street.

But the wedge between what drives Dinah and what concerns Skint is wide enough for a big old slab of ice. Because Skint’s own father is in trouble. Because Skint’s mother refuses to ask for help even though she’s at her breaking point. And because Dinah might just decide to…help. She thinks she’s cracking through a sheet of ice, but what’s actually there is an entire iceberg.

Pantomime by Laura Lam (Fantasy, Strange Chemistry)
R.H. Ragona’s Circus of Magic is the greatest circus of Ellada. Nestled among the glowing blue Penglass – remnants of a mysterious civilisation long gone – are wonders beyond the wildest imagination. It’s a place where anything seems possible, where if you close your eyes you can believe that the magic and knowledge of the vanished Chimeras is still there. It’s a place where anyone can hide.

Iphigenia Laurus, or Gene, the daughter of a noble family, is uncomfortable in corsets and crinoline, and prefers climbing trees to debutante balls. Micah Grey, a runaway living on the streets, joins the circus as an aerialist’s apprentice and soon becomes the circus’s rising star. But Gene and Micah have balancing acts of their own to perform, and a secret in their blood that could unlock the mysteries of Ellada.

Kasie West – Pivot Point (Fantasy, HarperTeen)
Knowing the outcome doesn’t always make a choice easier. . . .

Addison Coleman’s life is one big “What if?” As a Searcher, whenever Addie is faced with a choice, she can look into the future and see both outcomes. It’s the ultimate insurance plan against disaster. Or so she thought. When Addie’s parents ambush her with the news of their divorce, she has to pick who she wants to live with—her father, who is leaving the paranormal compound to live among the “Norms,” or her mother, who is staying in the life Addie has always known. Addie loves her life just as it is, so her answer should be easy. One Search six weeks into the future proves it’s not.

In one potential future, Addie is adjusting to life outside the Compound as the new girl in a Norm high school where she meets Trevor, a cute, sensitive artist who understands her. In the other path, Addie is being pursued by the hottest guy in school—but she never wanted to be a quarterback’s girlfriend. When Addie’s father is asked to consult on a murder in the Compound, she’s unwittingly drawn into a dangerous game that threatens everything she holds dear. With love and loss in both lives, it all comes down to which reality she’s willing to live through . . . and who she can’t live without.

March
Kristin Bailey – Legacy of the Clockwork Key (Fantasy, Simon Pulse)
When a fire consumes Meg’s home, killing her parents and destroying both her fortune and her future, all she has left is the tarnished pocket watch she rescued from the ashes. But this is no ordinary timepiece. The clock turns out to be a mechanical key–a key that only Meg can use–that unlocks a series of deadly secrets and intricate clues that Meg is compelled to follow.

Meg has uncovered evidence of an elite secret society and a dangerous invention that some will stop at nothing to protect–and that Meg alone can destroy. Together with the handsome stable hand she barely knows but hopes she can trust, Meg is swept into a hidden world of deception, betrayal, and revenge. The clockwork key has unlocked her destiny in this captivating start to a trilogy.

Liz Coley – Pretty Girl-13 (Contemporary, Katherine Tegen Books)
Pretty girl
13 when she
went missing

lost
to her family
to her friends
to the world

found
but still missing
her self

In Liz Coley’s alarming and fascinating psychological mystery, sixteen-year-old Angie Chapman must piece together the story of her kidnapping and abuse. Pretty Girl-13 is a disturbing—and ultimately empowering—page-turner about accepting our whole selves, and the healing power of courage, hope, and love.

Alan Gibbons – Raining Fire (Contemporary, Indigo)
Ethan is a promising footballer, and when he is selected to go on a training programme in the US, he feels sure that he has found his chance to escape the gangs that dominate his streets. But as life spirals out of control for his brother, Alex, and things unexpectedly take a turn for the worse for Ethan, he finds himself drawn into the midst of an explosive feud with the gun at its heart.

Shannon Messenger – Let the Sky Fall (Fantasy, Simon Pulse)
Seventeen-year-old Vane Weston has no idea how he survived the category five tornado that killed his parents. and he has no idea if the beautiful, dark-haired girl who’s swept through his dreams every night since the storm is real. But he hopes she is.

Seventeen-year-old Audra is a sylph, an air elemental. She walks on the wind, can translate its alluring songs, and can even coax it into a weapon with a simple string of commands. She’s also a guardian–Vane’s guardian–and has sworn an oath to protect Vane at all costs. Even if it means sacrificing her own life.

When a hasty mistake reveals their location to the enemy who murdered both of their families, Audra’s forced to help Vane remember who he is. He has a power to claim–the secret language of the West Wind, which only he can understand. But unlocking his heritage will also unlock the memory Audra needs him to forget. And their greatest danger is not the warriors coming to destroy them–but the forbidden romance that’s grown between them.

Julianna Scott – The Holders (Fantasy, Strange Chemistry)
17-year-old Becca has spent her whole life protecting her brother – from their father leaving and from the people who say the voices in his head are unnatural. When two strangers appear with apparent answers to Ryland’s “problem” and details about a school in Ireland where Ryland will not only fit in, but prosper, Becca is up in arms.
She reluctantly agrees to join Ryland on his journey and what they find at St. Brigid’s is a world beyond their imagination. Little by little they piece find out information about their family’s heritage and the legend of the Holder race that decrees Ryland is the one they’ve been waiting for—but, they are all, especially Becca, in for a surprise that will change what they thought they knew about themselves and their kind.

Sherri L. Smith – Orleans (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
After a string of devastating hurricanes and a deadly epidemic of Delta Fever, the Gulf Coast had been quarantined. Now, years later, a new primitive society has been born over the wall.

Fen de la Guerre is living with the O-Positive blood tribe in the Delta when they are ambushed. Left with her tribe leader’s newborn, Fen is determined to get the baby to a better life over the wall before her blood becomes tainted. Fen soon meets Daniel, a scientist from the Outer States researching a cure for Delta Fever. The pair form an unlikely bond and, in the end, may be each other’s last hope for survival.

By Mieneke Published 21 December, 2012 Posted in article, contemporary, crime, fantasy, YA Tagged: anticipated, Atheneum, Atom, Constable and Robinson, Flux, G.P. Putnam's Sons, HarperTeen, Headline, Hodder, Indigo, Katherine Tegen Books, Quercus Children's, Razorbill, Simon and Schuster, Simon Pulse, Strange Chemistry Books | Leave a comment

Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2013: Crime and Historical Crime Fiction

Murder, mayhem, sleuthing… who doesn’t like a good crime story every once in a while? Today my Anticipated Books post focuses on crime and historical crime fiction. For some of these I already have an (e)ARC or review copy, so they’ll definitely be read and reviewed. And for the rest, I’ll have to see whether I get the chance to get my hands on them!

Crime

January
David Jackson – Marked (MacMillan)
Her tattoo wasn’t just a mark for life; it marked her for death too.

In New York’s East Village a young girl is brutally raped, tortured and murdered. Detective Callum Doyle has seen the victim’s remains. He has visited the distraught family. Now he wants justice.

Doyle is convinced he knows who the killer is. The problem is he can’t prove it. And the more he pushes his prime suspect, the more he learns that the man is capable of pushing back in ways more devious and twisted than Doyle could ever have imagined.

Add to that the appearance of an old adversary who has a mission for Doyle and won’t take no for an answer, and soon Doyle finds himself at risk of losing everything he holds dear. Including his life.

Chris Kuzneski – The Hunters (Headline)
Chris Kuzneski, bestselling author of the Payne and Jones series, including Sign of the Cross and The Death Relic, moves to Headline for his brand new series, The Hunters.

The Hunters: a team of renegades, an ex-military leader, a historian, a computer whiz, a weapons expert and a thief – financed by a billionaire philantropist are tasked with finding the world’s most legendary treasures.

February
A.K. Benedict – The Beauty of Murder (Orion)
Stephen Killigan has been cold since the day he came to Cambridge. Then he finds the body of a missing beauty queen and thinks he’s found the reason why. But the police go to retrieve the body and find no trace…So begins a trail of tattooists, philosophers and scholars as Killigan must question how a corpse can be found before someone goes missing…

Jonathan Kellerman – Guilt (Headline)
When a young couple takes possession of their dream home, they can’t wait to remodel the neglected mansion. That is until they make a gruesome discovery of a rusted metal strongbox containing two rotting leather doctor’s bags. And inside each bag, swaddled in sheets of sixty-year-old newspaper, lies a tiny human skeleton. The case hits the media, and theories abound. The most likely culprit is a mysterious woman, employed as private nurse to wealthy L.A. families during World War Two and Lieutenant Milo Sturgis consults psychologist Alex Delaware for insight into the perpetrator’s motives. But the horror is just beginning. Two more bags are discovered, but this time the infants inside have been dead less than a month. Is a copycat at work? Or is there a link between the two finds which goes back decades? By the time both cases close, Alex and Milo will have confronted unprecedented narcissism, cruelty, deceit and a cold but fiendish objectification of the human spirit that shakes both men to the core…

Becky Masterman – Rage Against the Dying (Orion)
In her hey-day, Brigid Quinn worked serial killer cases. Small and blonde, she was the perfect bait to catch a killer. But as Quinn got older, she realised she needed to find a protégé. So Quinn trains a twenty-two year old to take her place. The plan works, Until the killer not only takes the bait, but kills it.

Mark Roberts – The Sixth Soul (Corvus)
London is in the grip of a barbaric serial killer. Four women have been abducted in quick succession, their bodies mutilated and dumped. When a fifth woman is taken from her home, DCI David Rosen knows that time is running out…

Then Rosen gets a mysterious phone call from Father Sebastian Flint, an enigmatic priest who seems to know rather too much about the abductions. But it isn’t until Rosen discovers the existence of an ancient text – said to be the devil’s answer to the bible – that the true horror of Herod’s plan begins to unfold.

Lachlan Smith – Bear is Broken (Headline)
Leo Maxwell grew up in the shadow of his older brother, Teddy, a successful yet reviled criminal defence attorney, who racked up enemies as fast as he racked up acquittals.

The two are at lunch when Teddy is shot, the gunman escaping through a crowd. As Teddy lies in a coma, Leo realises that the search for his brother’s shooter falls upon him, as Teddy’s enemies are not just among his criminal clients but embedded within the police department as well…

Leo must navigate the seedy underbelly of San Francisco, but the deeper he digs into his brother’s life, the more questions arise: about Teddy and his estranged ex-wife, about the ethics of Teddy’s career, and about the murder that tore their family apart decades ago. And somewhere, the person who shot Leo’s brother is still on the loose, and there are many who would happily kill Leo in order to keep it that way.

March
Tom Harper – The Orpheus Descent (Hodder & Stoughton)
Would you pay the ultimate price for the ultimate knowledge?

Today, twelve golden tablets sit in museums around the world, each created by unknown hands and buried in ancient times, and each providing the dead with the route to the afterlife.

And archaeologist Lily Barnes, working on a dig in southern Italy, has just found another. Then Lily vanishes. Has she walked out of her job, her marriage and her life – or is the explanation more sinister? Her husband, Jonah, is desperate to find her.

But not everyone who journeys to the hidden place where Lily has gone can return.

Julia Keller – A Killing in the Hills (Headline)
Nestled in the breathtaking beauty of the Appalachian Mountains, Acker’s Gap is a town rife with problems. Bell Elkins is a single mother with a sister in prison and a background full of secrets. She has returned to Acker’s Gap to become Raythune county’s prosecuting attorney and is desperate to bring stability to the town. But when her daughter is witness to a multiple murder, Bell must work fast to find the truth before her daughter pays the price.

Richard Montanari – The Killing Room (Sphere)
‘The thing is, Detective . . .

If you believe in God, you’ve got to believe in the Devil.’

Deepest winter. Darkest Philadelphia.

A murder shocks the frozen city – the most spectacular homicide in its 300-year-old history: an ex-cop has been lured to the basement of an abandoned chapel, wrapped in barbed wire – and kept alive for ten days.

Twenty-four hours after the discovery, Detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano find another victim in another church, encased in a pristine block of ice.

Someone is transforming the city’s cathedrals into killing rooms, someone who is determined to raise hell on earth.

April
Roberta Kray – Bad Girl (Sphere)
It’s 1959 and Lynsey Quinn has done the unthinkable. She’s got herself pregnant by a cop. Rejected by her criminal family, she will pay the price for her betrayal, and so too will her daughter.

At the age of eleven, Helen is returned to the clan. Hated by her grandfather, loved only by her uncle, she struggles to fit into a world she doesn’t understand. As warring factions battle for control of the East End, tragedy is about to strike again.

How can she survive? And who can she trust as the murderous past comes back to haunt her?

Andrew Pyper – The Demonologist (Orion)
Professor David Ullman, an authority on Christian religion and myth, accepts a mysterious offer to visit Venice with his teenage daughter in order to offer his expertise in an undisclosed case. But what he experiences when he gets there is horrifying beyond belief and leaves him with the unshakeable feeling he isn’t alone…

May
Lauren Beukes – The Shining Girls (HarperCollins)
The girl who wouldn’t die, hunting a killer who shouldn’t exist…

1930’s America: Lee Curtis Harper is a delusional, violent drifter who stumbles on a house that opens onto other times.

Driven by visions, he begins a killing spree over the next 60 years, using an undetectable MO and leaving anachronistic clues on his victims’ bodies.

But when one of his intended ‘shining girls’, Kirby Mazrachi, survives a brutal stabbing, she becomes determined to unravel the mystery behind her would-be killer. While the authorities are trying to discredit her, Kirby is getting closer to the truth, as Harper returns again and again…

Historical Crime Fiction

April
James Benmore – Dodger (Heron Books)
London, 1850s.

After five years in an Australian penal colony, the Artful Dodger returns to London in search of a hidden fortune. Unaware of the fate that befell Twist, Fagin and Sykes, Dodger revisits the criminal underworld of Dickensian London to seek out his old comrades, any of whom might possess the key to the treasure.

He finds the city a changed place from his youth: with law and order upheld by a new police force, Fagin gone to the gallows, his old gang scattered and danger around every corner.

Alex Connor – Isle of the Dead (Quercus)
In 15th Century Venice it is a dangerous time to be alive. A permanent winter has rolled in over the canals and bodies keep washing up on the banks of the city, especially hard to identify, since they have been skinned.

In the present day, a famous portrait by Titian has been discovered of the 15th Century murderer Angelico Vespucci. It is rumoured that when the portrait arises, so will the man. And when flayed bodies start turning up all over the world, it looks like this is more than just a superstition.

Lindsey Davis – The Ides of April (Hodder & Stoughton)
First of a new series of crime novels set in ancient Rome and featuring Flavia Albia, the adopted daughter of much-loved Marcus Didius Falco.

Based in real historical events: mysterious poisonings, in which victims died, often unaware they had been attacked. Albia is now twenty-eight and an established female investigator.

We meet Albia’s personal circle, glimpse old haunts and hear of old friends, but the focus is on Albia herself, a tough, witty, winning personality who fearlessly tackles inhumanity and injustice, braving any risks and winning the friendship of unexpected allies.

Sarah Pinborough – Mayhem (Jo Fletcher Books)
Gaslit London: and while Jack the Ripper’s murders are making headlines, there’s another madman on the loose in the East End . . .

A new killer is stalking the streets of London’s East End. Though newspapers have dubbed him ‘the Torso Killer’, this murderer’s work is overshadowed by the hysteria surrounding Jack the Ripper’s Whitechapel crimes.

Mayhem is a masterwork of narrative suspense: a supernatural thriller set in a shadowy, gaslit London, where monsters stalk the cobbled streets and hide in plain sight.

May
S.G. Maclean – The Devil’s Recruit (Quercus)
1635, and Europe is in the grip of the brutal territorial and religious struggle of the Thirty Years’ War.

Fear stalks the town of Aberdeen as a ship recruiting for the wars lies at anchor in the river mouth. A sinister figure watches from the shadows as apprehension grows and culminates in the disappearance of the son of a Highland chief – a student of Alexander Seaton.

When the frozen body of a young woman is found in the garden of a prominent citizen, Alexander becomes more deeply embroiled. He realises that the figure in the shadows is known to him and has come for him. He can hide from his past no longer.

Steven Saylor – The Seven Wonders (Constable & Robinson Crime Fiction)
Steven Saylor, the bestselling author of Empire and Roma, turns the clock back to 92 BC, where Gordianus, just turned 18, is set to embark on the adventure of a lifetime: a far-flung expedition to see the Seven Wonders of the World, the most spectacular constructions ever devised by mankind. Accompanied by his tutor, the celebrated poet Antipater of Sidon, he will journey to the fabled cities of Greece and Asia Minor, to Babylon and Egypt.

In this compelling prequel, Gordianus is not yet called ‘The Finder’ – that title still belongs to his father. But at each of the Seven Wonders, the wide-eyed Roman encounters a mystery to challenge his deductive powers. Here is a portrait of a master sleuth in the making, the earliest exploits of the man who will become Rome’s most sought-after investigator.

By Mieneke Published 20 December, 2012 Posted in article, crime, historical fiction Tagged: anticipated, Constable and Robinson, Corvus, HarperCollins, Headline, Heron Books, Hodder, Jo Fletcher Books, Macmillan, Orion, Quercus, Sphere | Leave a comment

Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2013: Historical Fiction

Today we’re doing some time travel for my Anticipated Books posts by looking at historical fiction. I rediscovered historical fiction in 2011 and 2012 only strengthened my love for the genre, so here’s another list that’s become a little longer. For some of these I already have an (e)ARC or review copy, so they’ll definitely be read and reviewed. And for the rest, I’ll have to see whether I get the chance to get my hands on them!

January
C.W. Gortner – The Queen’s Vow (Hodder & Stoughton)
‘I am Isabella, Queen of Castile…’

Katherine Keenum – Where the Light Falls (Berkley)
At the dawning of the Belle Epoque, Paris attracts artists from everywhere, including Jeanette Palmer, daughter of a prominent Ohio family, who has left Vassar College under a cloud of scandal.

Amid the city’s great bohemian neighborhoods and studios, Jeanette meets an American Civil War veteran named Edward Murer. As she begins to achieve artistic success, Jeanette’s relationship with Edward begins to flourish—but he is plagued by addiction and personal demons. Just as the world opens its arms to Jeanette, she finds herself torn between pursuing a burgeoning career or following her heart.

Annabel Lyon – The Sweet Girl (Atlantic Books)
Pythias is her father’s daughter, right down to her hard, slate-grey eyes. Aristotle’s child should be content with a life of childbearing. But she is smart, able to match wits with a roomful of Athenian thinkers. Is she a freak or a harbinger of what women can really be?
When Aristotle finally dies, however, the orphaned sixteen-year-old Pythias quickly discovers that the world is not a place of logic, but one of superstition. To reach her full potential, Aristotle’s daughter will need every ounce of wit she possesses, but she must also learn, quickly, to nurture her capacity to love.

Terence Morgan – The Shadow Prince (Macmillan)
One man’s impostor is another man’s king

Perkin Warbeck is an ordinary young man in fifteenth-century Tournai. The son of a port official, he loves nothing more than swimming, singing and fishing with his father. But Perkin has a secret. His real name is Richard, and he is the rightful Prince of England.

Thought to have been murdered with his brother, Edward, in the Tower of London, he was covertly taken to the continent and placed with an adoptive family under an assumed identity. But when his enemies seek him out he must flee, and embarks on a new life of derring-do, sailing the high seas with the era’s greatest adventurers. But Richard cannot avoid his fate forever. He knows he must return to England, to assume the throne that is his birthright. But what for Richard is a homecoming, for the new king, Henry Tudor, is nothing less than an invasion, and ‘Perkin’ slowly comes to learn that the price of his goal is the blood of innocent men.

February
Tara Conklin – The House Girl (William Morrow)
Virginia, 1852. Seventeen-year-old Josephine Bell decides to run from the failing tobacco farm where she is a slave and nurse to her ailing mistress, the aspiring artist Lu Anne Bell. New York City, 2004. Lina Sparrow, an ambitious first-year associate in an elite law firm, is given a difficult, highly sensitive assignment that could make her career: she must find the “perfect plaintiff” to lead a historic class-action lawsuit worth trillions of dollars in reparations for descendants of American slaves.

It is through her father, the renowned artist Oscar Sparrow, that Lina discovers Josephine Bell and a controversy roiling the art world: are the iconic paintings long ascribed to Lu Anne Bell really the work of her house slave, Josephine? A descendant of Josephine’s would be the perfect face for the reparations lawsuit—if Lina can find one. While following the runaway girl’s faint trail through old letters and plantation records, Lina finds herself questioning her own family history and the secrets that her father has never revealed: How did Lina’s mother die? And why will he never speak about her?

Moving between antebellum Virginia and modern-day New York, this searing, suspenseful and heartbreaking tale of art and history, love and secrets, explores what it means to repair a wrong and asks whether truth is sometimes more important than justice.

Elizabeth Gill – Miss Appleby’s Academy (Quercus)
Emma Appleby’s ordered and loving existence in New England comes to an abrupt and painful end with the death of her father. Emma plots her escape to the town in England where he was born. Opening an academy, she sets herself up in competition with the local school, provoking a savage response from the community. But she will not be deterred – even when her past catches up with her.

Victoria Lamb – His Dark Lady (Transworld)
Secrets, spies and murderous plots besiege Shakespeare’s Muse and the court of Elizabeth I

London, 1583

When young, aspiring playwright William Shakespeare encounters Lucy Morgan, one of Queen Elizabeth I’s ladies-in-waiting, his life is turned upside-down as the two fall passionately in love, He declares Lucy the inspiration for his work, but what secret is Will hising from his muse?

Meanwhile, Lucy has her own secret – and one that could destroy her world if exposed. For she bore witness to the clandestine wedding of the Queen’s cousin Lettice Knollys to Robert Dudley, rumoured to be the Queen’s lover. In a court where any slight against the monarch is considered treasonous, what will happen if Lucy’s secret is revealed?

With England in perilous times, Queen Elizabeth’s health begins to deteriorate, her throne under siege from Catholic plotters and threats of war with Spain. Faced with more than she can cope with, she longs for a confidante. But who can she turn to when those closest to her have proved untrustworthy?

Times have never been so precarious. And these two women, with polar-opposite lives, soon find that they are both in danger…

Lynn Shepherd – A Treacherous Likeness (Corsair)
This compelling follow-up to the acclaimed Tom-All-Alone’s sees the return of Charles Maddox in a new literary mystery that is inspired by the Young Romantics – the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, his wife, Mary, author of Frankenstein, and Lord Byron, famously ‘mad, bad, and dangerous to know’. Beginning in London in 1850, the story takes the reader back through time and across Europe, to reveal the dark secrets and tangled lives of a dazzling but doomed generation. Drawing on rigorous research, Lynn Shepherd finds new and explosive answers to questions that even modern biographers of the Shelleys still cannot explain.

March
C.C. Humphreys – Shakespeare’s Rebel (Orion)
London 1599, a city on the brink of revolution…

He is Queen Elizabeth’s last, perhaps her greatest, love – Robert Deveraux, Earl of Essex. Champion jouster, dashing general…and the man that John Lawley, England’s finest swordsman, most wishes to avoid. For John knows the other earl – the reckless melancholic – and has had to risk his life for him in battle one time too many.

All John wants is to be left alone to win back the heart of the woman he loves, be the kind of father that his son can look up to, and arrange the fight scenes for the magnificent new theatre, the Globe. To realise these dreams, John must dodge both Essex and his ruthless adversary for the queen’s affections, Robert Cecil, and remain free to help his oldest friend Will Shakespeare finish the play that threatens to destroy him: THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET.

But John is doomed by his three devils: whisky, women and Mad Robbie Deveraux. Despite every effort to evade the clutches of Elizabeth and her cohorts, John is soon enmeshed in the intrigues of court and dragged into the seemingly hopeless war in Ireland, forced to play his part in a deadly game of power and politics, conspiracy and rebellion.

From the scaffold of the Globe to the one in the Tower. From ambush in Ireland to even greater menace in Whitehall, John Lawley must strive to be – or not to be – the man who might just save England.

April
Richard Blake – The Ghosts of Athens (Hodder & Stoughton)
It is 612 AD and Aelric &8211; senator of the Roman Empire, fresh from a bloodbath in Egypt – is forced to divert the Imperial galley to Athens.

He finds a demoralized and corrupt provincial city threatened by and an army rumoured to contain twenty million starving barbarians.

Not to mention an explosive religious dispute, an unexplained corpse, and hints of something worse than murder…

He will have to call upon all his formidable intellect and lethal ingenuity to survive his enemies inside and outside the city walls…

Iain Gale – Keane’s Company (Heron Books)
James Keane, officer in the 27th Foot, card sharp, ladies’ man and one of the finest but most rebellious soldiers in the British army, is under threat of court martial for disobeying Wellesley’s strict rules. Buthis special, even ungentlemanly, skills have caught his general’s eye, so he is selected to form a unique unit which will work behind enemy lines.

Keane’s next task is to hand-pick his band of men, some from prison for their aptitude at lock-picking and forgery as well as fighting skills, and form them into an effective unit before being sent on their first intelligence-gathering special mission, this time to link up with a lethal Spanish guerrilla leader.

Stealing into Oporto, Keane’s men have to hold a vital post over the river a crossing against overwhelming forces, before being detached once more into the high mountains on another mission where the strains of the diverse characters of the unit test Keane’s leadership skills to the uttermost.

Tim Leach – The Last King of Lydia (Atlantic Books)
Croesus, once the richest man of the ancient world, remembers how he once asked the old philosopher, Solon, who was the happiest man alive? Croesus used to think it was him. Yet his wealth could not remove the spear from his dying son’s chest; could not make him as wise as his own slave; could not bring his wife’s love back; could not stop his army being torn apart, his kingdom defeated.

As the old philosopher replied, a man’s happiness can only be measured when he is dead. And Croesus is about to be burned alive.

Imogen Robertson – The Paris Winter (Headline)
Paris, 1909, Grieving the loss of her father, Maud travels to Paris to paint. Slipping into poverty, she is hired as a companion to young, beautiful Sylvie. But Sylvie is a prisoner in her own home, controlled by her addiction to opium. As Maud uncovers the secrets within this world of luxury, she is both fascinated and repelled by what she finds. Will she be able to resist the temptations of Paris and the seductions of wealth?

David Thomas – Killer at the End of the Line (Quercus)
Berlin, 1941: The battered remains of a woman: the seventh victim of a serial killer who has cast a pall of terror over the city. With SS-General Heydrich demanding immediate results, detective Georg Heuser races to catch the killer before he strikes again.

Minsk, 1942: Thousands of Jews arrive in cattle trucks. Among the policemen about to commit some of the most terrible crimes is detective Georg Heuser.

Koblenz 1962: One young lawyer closes in on her prey, and wonders – just how bad can a good man become?

Eva Weaver – The Puppet Boy of Warsaw (Weidenfeld)
Mika, a Jewish boy, inherits a coat from his grandfather and discovers a puppet in one of its many secret pockets. He becomes a puppeteer in the Warsaw ghetto, but soon his talent is discovered and Mika is forced to entertain the occupying German troops instead of his countrymen. There is one soldier, Max, with a heavy conscience, and when Max is handed one of Mika’s puppets, a war-torn legacy is passed from one generation to another.

Helene Wecker – The Golem and the Jinni (HarperCollins)
A marvelous and absorbing debut novel, an enchanting combination of vivid historical fiction and magical fable about two supernatural creatures in turn-of-the-century immigrant New York.

May
Christian Cameron – The Ill-Made Knight (Orion)
William Gold comes into the world as his family slides down the social ladder. His head filled with tales of chivalry, instead he is branded a thief, and must make do with being squire to his childhood friend Sir Robert, a knight determined to make a name for himself as a man at arms in France. While William himself slowly acquires the skills of knightly combat, he remains an outsider – until the Battle of Poitiers when Sir Robert is cut down by the greatest knight of the age, Sir Geoffry de Charny, and William, his lowly squire, revenges him. But with his own knight dead, no honour acrrues to William for this feat of arms, and he is forced to become a mercenary. Scavenging a mis-matched set of armour from the knightly corpses, he joins one of the mercenary companies now set to pillage a defenceless France, and so begins a bloody career that sees William joining forces with the infamous Sir John Hawkwood and immersing himself in a treacherous clandestine war among the Italian city states. But paradoxically it is there, among the spies, assassins and hired killers serving their ruthless masters, that William finally discovers the true meaning of chivalry – and his destiny as a knight.

Sarah Dunant – Blood and Beauty (Virago)
By the end of the fifteenth century, the beauty and creativity of Italy is matched by its brutality and corruption, nowhere more than in Rome and in the Church. When Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia buys his way into the papacy as Alexander VI, he is defined not just by his wealth or his passionate love for his illegitimate children, but by his blood: he is a Spanish Pope in a city run by Italians. If the Borgias are to triumph, this charismatic, consummate politician with a huge appetite for life, women and power must use papacy and family to succeed.

His eldest son Cesare, a dazzlingly cold intelligence and an even colder soul, is his greatest – though increasingly unstable – weapon. Later immortalised in Machiavelli’s The Prince, he provides the energy and the muscle. His daughter Lucrezia, beloved by both men, is the prime dynastic tool. Twelve years old when the novel opens, hers is a journey through three marriages: from childish innocence to painful experience, from pawn to political player.

Philip Kazan – Appetite (Orion)
Nino knows that having a passion is the key to surviving in Florence without losing yourself completely. But Nino’s greatest gift will be his greatest curse; every flavour, every ingredient comes alive for him as vividly as a painting. His desire to create the perfect recipe and his love for Tessina soon lead him into danger, and Nino is forced to battle his deadly sins.

Giles Kristian – Brothers’ Fury (Transworld)
Rebel Cast out from his home, rejected by his family, Tom Rivers returns to his regiment. But his former commander believes the young hothead’s recklessness and contempt for authority has no place in his troop. And yet to a spymaster like Captain Crafte, Tom’s dark and fearless nature is in itself a weapon to be turned upon the hated cavaliers. For who else would dare to infiltrate Oxford, now the Royalist capital, to destroy the King’s printing press and strike a blow at the very heart of the enemy?

Renegade Raw with grief at the death of his father, Edmund Rivers rejects the peace talks between Parliament and the King. Instead, he leads a ragged but hardened band of amrauders across the moors, appearing out of the frozen world to fall on unsuspecting rebel columns like wolves. But Prince Rupert, who recognizes in Mun a fellow child of war, has other uses for him, from stealing an enormous gun, to burrowing through mud beneath the walls of Lichfield. The only peace the enemy will get from Mun Rivers is that of the grave.

Huntress Her heart broken from the loiss of her beloved Emmanuel and her father, Bess Rivers must make the hardest decision of her life. Leaving her new-born son behind she rides from Sheer House seeking Lady Mary’s estranged father, for she hopes he will help her re-unite what is left of her broken family. Risking her own life on the road, Bess will do whatever it takes to find her brother Tom and secure his Royal pardon – can she douse the flames of her brothers’ fury and see them reconciled?

James MacManus – Black Venus (Thomas Dunne Books)
For readers who have been drawn to The Paris Wife or Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, Black Venus captures the artistic scene in the great French city decades earlier, when the likes of Dumas and Balzac argued literature in the cafes of the Left Bank. Amongst the bohemians the young Charles Baudelaire stood out—dressed impeccably thanks to an inheritance that was quickly vanishing. Still at work on the poems which he hoped would make his name, he spent his nights enjoying the alcohol, opium, and women who filled the seedy streets of the city.

One woman would catch his eye—a beautiful Haitian cabaret singer named Jeanne Duval. Their lives would remain forever intertwined thereafter, and their romance would inspire his most infamous poems—leading to the banning of his masterwork Les Fleurs du Mal and a scandalous public trial for obscenity.

Black Venus recreates the classic Parisian literary world in vivid detail, complete with not just an affecting portrait of the famous poet but also his often misunderstood, much-maligned muse.

Madeleine E. Robins – Sold for Endless Rue (Forge)
This captivating historical answers the question, “Why did Rapunzel’s mother lock her in the tower?”

After a blighted childhood, young Laura finds peace and purpose in the home of a midwife and healer. Later, she enrolls in Salerno’s famed medical school—the first in the world to admit women. Laura and her adoptive mother hope that Laura can build a bridge between women’s herbal healing and the new science of medicine developing in thirteenth century Italy.

The hardest lessons are those of love; Laura falls hard for a fellow student who abandons her for a wealthy wife. Worse, her mother rejects her as “impure.” Shattered, Laura devotes herself to her work, becoming a respected medico. But her heart is still bitter, and when she sees a chance for revenge, she grabs it—and takes for her own Bieta, the newborn daughter of a woman whose husband regularly raided the physician’s garden for bitter herbs to satisfy his pregnant wife’s cravings.

Determined to protect her adored daughter from the ravages of the world, Laura isolates the young woman in a tower. Bieta, as determined as her mother, escapes, and finds adventure—and love—on the streets of Salerno.

Bieta’s betrayal of her mother’s love comes at a terrible price as lives are ruined and families are torn apart. Laura’s medical knowledge cannot heal her broken heart; only a great act of love can bring everyone forgiveness and peace.

M.J. Rose – Seduction (Atria)
In 1843, novelist Victor Hugo’s beloved nineteen-year-old daughter drowned. Ten years later, Hugo began participating in hundreds of of séances to reestablish contact with her. In the process, he claimed to have communed with the likes of Plato, Galileo, Shakespeare, Dante, Jesus–and even the Devil himself. Hugo’s transcriptions of these conversations have all been published. Or so it was believed.

Recovering from her own losses, mythologist Jac L’Etoile arrives on the Isle of Jersey–wher Hugo conducted the séances–hoping to uncover a secret about the island’s Celtic roots. But the man who’s invited her there, a troubled soul named Theo Gaspard, has hopes she’ll help him discover something quite different–Hugo’s lost conversations with someone called the Shadow of the Sepulcher.

Robert Wilton – Traitor’s Field (Corvus)
It is 1648 and Britain is at war with itself. The Royalists are defeated but Parliament is in turmoil, its power weakened by internal discord.

Royalism’s last hope is Sir Mortimer Shay, a ruthless veteran of decades of intrigue who must rebuild a credible threat to Cromwell’s rule, whatever the cost.

John Thurloe is a young official in Cromwell’s service. Confronted by the extent of the Royalists’ secret intelligence network, he will have to fight the true power reaching into every corner of society: the Comptrollerate-General for Scrutiny and Survey.

June
Elizabeth Chadwick – The Summer Queen (Sphere)
Eleanor of Aquitaine is a twelfth-century icon who has fascinated readers for 800 years. But the real Eleanor remains elusive.

This stunning novel introduces an Eleanor that all other writers have missed. Based on the most up-to-date research, it is the first novel to show Eleanor beginning her married life at 13. Barely out of childhood, this gives an entirely new slant to how Eleanor is treated by those around her. She was often the victim and her first marriage was horribly abusive.

Overflowing with scandal, passion, triumph and tragedy, Eleanor’s legendary story begins when her beloved father dies in the summer of 1137, and she is made to marry the young prince Louis of France. A week after the marriage she becomes a queen and her life will change beyond recognition . . .

Laurie Graham – The Liar’s Daughter (Quercus)
Nan Brunty’s mother George keeps an alehouse in Deptford, named the Duchess of Brunty, the title she claims would have been hers, had Nelson survived.

Eighteenth century Admiralty Regulations forbade women living on board ship, but many found ways around this. George served on a number of ships, both as a man and unmasked. As Nan narrates her mother’s history she becomes obsessed by the idea that Nelson could have been her father. She meets a young man, Baltic Nelson, who clings to the same belief. Could her mother’s wild stories really be true?

Edward Rutherfurd – Paris (Hodder & Stoughton)
Edward Rutherfurd, the world’s greatest writer of historical epics, turns his attention to Paris and the lives of the men and women who, in two thousand years, transformed a humble Roman trading post on the muddy banks of the Seine to the most beautiful and celebrated capital in the world.

From its founding under the Romans to the timeless love story of Abelard and Heloise and the martyrdom of Joan of Arc; from the gilded glories of the Bourbon kings to the horrors of the French Revolution; from the glittering Napoleonic empire to the Nazi occupation and the incredible efforts of the French Resistance: PARIS brings the sights, scents, and tastes of the City of Lights to sumptuous life.

Henry Venmore-Rowland – The Sword and the Throne (working title) (Transworld)
AD 69. Aulus Caecina Severus has thrown in his lot with the hedonistic Vitellius and prepares his legions for a gruelling march over the Alps.

Driven by the desire to repay the treachery of his former patron, the Emperor Galba, and to keep his rival Valens in check, Severus leads his army against barbarian rebellions and against the mountains themselves in his race to reach Italy first. With the vast Po valley almost in sight, news reaches the army that Galba has been killed in a coup, and that Otho has been declared Emperor by the Praetorians who he had bribed to murder their own emperor.

But there is no turning back for Severus, even if he wanted to. The Rhine legions want their man on the throne, and they won’t stop until they reach Rome itself. Even once Otho is defeated, the battle for supremacy between Severus and Valens is far from over. The politics of the court and the mob is the new battleground, and Severus needs the help of his wife Salonina and his freedman Totavalas in this constant game of thrones. When stories spread of a new power in the east, Severus has to decide where his real loyalty lies: to his Emperor, to his city or to himself?

Kate Worsley – She Rises (Bloomsbury)
It is 1740 and Louise Fletcher, a young maid, has been warned of the lure of the sea for as long as she can remember—after all, it stole away her father and brother. But when she is offered work in the bustling naval port of Harwich serving a wealthy captain’s daughter, she leaps at the chance to see more of the world. There she meets Rebecca, her haughty and fascinating mistress.

Intertwined with Louise’s story is that of fifteen-year-old Luke, who is beaten and press ganged, sent to sea against his will on board the warship Essex in the service of His Majesty’s Navy. He must learn fast and choose his friends well if he is to survive the brutal hardships of a sailor’s life and its many dangers, both up high in the rigging and in the dark decks down below.

By Mieneke Published 19 December, 2012 Posted in article, historical fiction Tagged: anticipated, Atlantic Books, Atria, Berkley US, Bloomsbury, Constable and Robinson, Corvus, Forge, HarperCollins, Headline, Heron Books, Hodder, Macmillan, Orion, Quercus, Sphere, Thomas Dunne Books, Transworld, Virago, Weidenfeld, William Morrow | 1 Comment

Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2013: Fantasy April-June

The second day of my Anticipated Books posts and the second half of the fantasy books. For some of these I already have an (e)ARC or review copy, so they’ll definitely be read and reviewed. And for the rest, I’ll have to see whether I get the chance to get my hands on them!

April

Mark Alder – Son of the Morning (Gollancz)
Meet Hal Romsey
Priest, sorcerer, assassin
A good man
Who fights for the Devil

It’s 1337. Genoese mercenaries under the French are harrying the channel ports and Edward III is powerless to stop them. He’s bankrupt, up to his ears in debt to Florentine bankers. He can’t hope to defend his lands in France, which are subject to a vicious scorched earth policy pursued by the French king.

Hal Romsey is a sixteen year old boy, frightened and intimidated by exalted company. But he is a Luciferist – a visionary and a disciple of the devil. He has one of the keys to Hell, and knows how to use it. Hell is willing to ally with England – and thus begins a story that will shake the thrones of medieval Europe and see angels and demons fighting for the future of England and France.

Richard Ford – Herald of the Storm (Headline)
Under the reign of King Cael the Uniter, this vast cityport on the southern coast has for years been a symbol of strength, maintaining an uneasy peace throughout the Free States. But now a long shadow hangs over the city, in the form of the dread Elharim warlord, Amon Tugha. When his herald infiltrates the city, looking to exploit its dangerous criminal underworld, and a terrible dark magick that has long been buried, once again begins to rise, it could be the beginning of the end.

Stella Gemmell – The City (Transworld)
The City is ancient and vast, built up over the millennia, layer upon layer. Once a thriving metropolis, it has sprawled beyond its walls, inciting and waging constant wars with neighbouring tribes and kingdoms – creating a barren wasteland of what was once green and productive.

At the heart of the City lives the emperor. Few have ever seen him, but those who have recall a man in his prime, though he should be very old. Some speculate that he is no longer human, others wonder if indeed he truly ever was. And a small number have have come to the desperate conclusion that the only way to stop the City’s incessant war and the constant bloodshed is to end the emperor’s unnaturally long life.

From the maze-like sewers and catacombs below the City, where the poor struggle to stay alive in the dark, to the blood-soaked fields of battle where few heroes manage to survive the never-ending siege, these rebels pin their hopes on one man:Shuskara. Once the emperor’s foremost general, he was betrayed long ago and is believed to be dead. But, under different aliases, he has survived, forsaking his City and hiding from the man to whome he once vowed his allegiance. Now, the time has come for Shuskara to emerge from the shadows and lead a final bid to free the City from those who have brought it and its people to their knees for so long…

Justin Gustainis – Morris & Chastain Investigations: Play With Fire & Midnight at the Oasis (Solaris)
In Play With Fire houses of worship are burning around the U.S. From churches, to synagogues, to mosques. Usually while the places are full of people. Initially dismissed as random acts of violence, Morris and Chastain uncover the deadly meaning behind the fires, and the terrifying cause they seek to serve. In Midnight at the Oasis Middle Eastern terrorists have conjured a deadly djin that will lay waste to America — unless Morris and Chastain can stop it first.

Elizabeth May – The Falconer (Gollancz)
Edinburgh, Scotland, 1844

18 year old Lady Aileana Kameron, the only daughter of the Marquess of Douglas, was destined to a life carefully planned around Edinburgh’s social events – right up until a faery kills her mother.

Now it’s the 1844 winter season. Between a seeming endless number of parties, Aileana slaughters faeries in secret. Armed with modified percussion pistols and explosives, every night she sheds her aristocratic facade and goes hunting. She’s determined to track down the faery who murdered her mother, and to destroy any who prey on humans in the city’s many dark alleyways.

But she never even considered that she might become attracted to one. To the magnetic Kiaran MacKay, the faery who trained her to kill his own kind. Nor is she at all prepared for the revelation he’s going to bring. Because Midwinter is approaching, and with it an eclipse that has the ability to unlock a Fae prison and begin the Wild Hunt.

A battle looms, and Aileana is going to have to decide how much she’s willing to lose – and just how far she’ll go to avenge her mother’s murder.

Brian McClellan – Promise of Blood (Orbit)
‘The Age of Kings is dead. And I have killed it.‘

Field Marshal Tamas’s coup against his king sends corrupt aristocrats to the guillotine and brings bread to the starving. But it also provokes war in the Nine Nations, internal attacks by royalist fanatics and greedy scrambling for money and power by Tamas’s supposed allies: the Church, workers’ unions and mercenary forces.

Stretched to his limit, Tamas relies heavily on his few remaining powder mages, including the embittered Taniel, a brilliant marksman who also happens to be Tamas’s estranged son, and Adamat, a retired police inspector whose loyalty will be tested to its limit.

Now, amid the chaos, a whispered rumour is spreading. A rumour about omens of death and destruction. Just old peasant legends about the gods returning to walk the earth. No modern educated man believes that sort of thing . . .

But perhaps they should.

Sarah Pinborough – Poison (Gollancz)
POISON is a beautifully illustrated retelling of the Snow White story which takes all the elements of the classic fairytale that we love (the handsome prince, the jealous queen, the beautiful girl and, of course, the poisoning) and puts a modern spin on the characters, their motives and their desires. It’s fun, contemporary, sexy, and perfect for fans of ONCE UPON A TIME, GRIMM, SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN and more.

May
Mur Lafferty – The Shambling Guide to New York City (Orbit)
Following the disaster that was her last job, Zoe is searching for a fresh start as a travel writer in New York City. After stumbling across a seemingly perfect position, though, Zoe is blocked at every turn because of the one thing she can’t take off her résumé – human.

Not to be put off by anything – especially not her blood-drinking boss or death goddess co-worker – Zoe delves deep into the monster world. But her assignments turn deadly when the careful balance between humans and monsters starts to crumble – with Zoe right in the middle.

Justin Gustainis – Known Devil (Angry Robot Books)
My name’s Markowski. I carry a badge. Also, a crucifix, some wooden stakes, a big vial of holy water, and a 9mm Beretta loaded with silver bullets.
A new supernatural gang is intent on invading Scranton – as if I didn’t have enough to contend with!

Supernatural gang warfare? Not on my watch!

Benjamin Percy – Red Moon (Hodder & Stoughton)
They live amongst us. They are your neighbour, your mother, your lover. You think they are safe. They change.

Every teenage girl thinks she’s different. When government agents kick down Claire Forrester’s front door and murder her parents, Claire realises just how different she is.

Patrick Gamble was nothing special until the day he got on a plane and, hours later, stepped off it, the only passenger left alive. A hero.

President Chase Williams has sworn to eradicate the menace. Unknown to the electorate, however, he is becoming the very thing he has sworn to destroy.

Each of them is caught up in a war that has been controlled with laws and violence and drugs. But an uprising is about to leave them tied to one another for ever.

Jonathan Strahan (ed) – Fearsome Journeys: The New Solaris Book of Fantasy (Solaris)
Nothing further announced yet, but I loved the The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction last year and I well respect Jonathan Strahan’s chops as an editor, so I’m very much looking forward to this.

Chuck Wendig – Gods & Monsters: Unclean Spirits (Abaddon)
Exiled to Earth, the gods now walk amongst us, bringing with them their children and their servants and their monsters. Their power is a mere fraction of what it once was, but even a mote of divine magic is awesome – in the truest sense of the word.

Cason Cole knows this firsthand. He’s been serving the gods for the better part of a decade, their leash fastened tight around his neck. But when his most recent divine master gets killed – a thing Cason didn’t even know could happen – he finds himself once more a free man. All he’s got left is a burning need for vengeance against the very gods who forced him to kneel, but he’ll soon discover that getting revenge against the gods is no easy feat. He’ll have to put his life, love, sanity and soul on the line. Will he pay the cost? How priceless is his wrath?

June
Ben Aaronovitch – Broken Homes (Gollancz)
A new case for Peter Grant takes him into the heart of a crowded south London housing estate where he finds a brooding horror.

Alex Bledsoe – Wisp of a Thing (Tor Books)
Touched by a very public tragedy, musician Rob Quillen comes to Cloud County, Tennessee, in search of a song that might ease his aching heart. All he knows of the mysterious and reclusive Tufa is what he has read on the internet: they are an enigmatic clan of swarthy,, black-haired mountain people whose historical roots are lost in myth and controversy. Some people say that when the first white settlers came to the Appalachians centuries ago, they found the Tufa already there. Other hint that Tufa blood brings special gifts.

Rob finds both music and mystery in the mountains. Close-lipped locals guard their secrets, even as Rob gets caught up in a subtle power struggle he can’t begin to comprehend. A vacationing wife goes missing, raising suspicions of foul play, and a strange feral girl runs wild in the woods, howling in the night like a lost spirit.

Change is coming to Cloud County, and only the night wind knows what part Rob will play when the last leaf falls from the Widow’s Tree…and a timeless curse must be broken at last.

Stephen Deas – The Dragon Queen (Gollancz)
The war that destroyed mankind had a beginning shadowed by dragons.

This is the second standalone novel set in the world of Stephen Deas’ Memory of Flames trilogy. A pseudo-medieval world where life and politics are dominated by massive fire breathing dragons.

US Cover

Neil Gaiman – The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Headline)
THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE is a fable that reshapes modern fantasy: moving, terrifying and elegiac – as pure as a dream, as delicate as a butterfly’s wing, as dangerous as a knife in the dark, from storytelling genius Neil Gaiman.

It began for our narrator forty years ago when the family lodger stole their car and committed suicide in it, stirring up ancient powers best left undisturbed. Dark creatures from beyond the world are on the loose, and it will take everything our narrator has just to stay alive: there is primal horror here, and menace unleashed – within his family and from the forces that have gathered to destroy it.

His only defense is three women, on a farm at the end of the lane. The youngest of them claims that her duckpond is ocean. The oldest can remember the Big Bang.

Kevin Hearne – Hunted (Del Rey/Orbit)
For a two-thousand-year-old Druid, Atticus O’Sullivan is a pretty fast runner. Good thing, because he’s being chased by not one but two goddesses of the hunt – Artemis and Diana – for messing with one of their own. Dodging their slings and arrows, Atticus, his apprentice Granuaile and his wolfhound Oberon are making a mad dash across modern-day Europe to seek help from a friend of the Tuatha Dé Danann. His usual magical option of shifting planes is blocked, so instead of playing hide and seek, the game plan is . . . run like hell.

Crashing the pantheon marathon is the Norse god Loki. Killing Atticus is the only loose end he needs to tie up before unleashing Ragnarok – AKA the Apocalypse. Atticus and Granuaile have to outfox the Olympians and contain the god of mischief if they want to go on living – and still have a world to live in.

Snorri Kristjansson – The Swords of Good Men (Jo Fletcher Books)
To Ulfar Thormodsson, the Viking town of Stenvik is the penultimate stop on a long journey. Tasked with looking after his cousin after disgracing his father, he has travelled the world and now only wants to go home.

But Stenvik is different; it contains the beautiful and tragic Lilja, who immediately captures Ulfar’s heart. Because of her, he persuades his cousin to stay. But Stenvik is also home to some very deadly men, who could break Ulfar in an instant.

King Olav is marching on Stenvik from the East, determined to bring the White Christ to the masses at the point of his sword, and a host of bloodthirsty raiders led by a mysterious woman are sailing from the north. But Ulfar is about to learn that his enemies are not all outside the walls.

Mercedes Lackey – Steadfast (DAW)
Lionel Hawkins is a magician whose act is only partially sleight of hand. The rest is real magic. He’s an Elemental Magician with the power to persuade the Elementals of Air to help him create amazing illusions. It doesn’t take long before his assistant, acrobat Katie Langford, notices that he’s no ordinary magician—and for Lionel to discover that she’s no ordinary acrobat, but rather an untrained and unawakened Fire Magician. She’s also on the run from her murderous and vengeful brute of a husband. But can she harness her magic in time to stop her husband from achieving his deadly goal?

Will McIntosh – Love Minus Eighty (Orbit)
Welcome to dating a hundred years into the future: Technology has extended the lives of the rich and attractive by decades. The wealthy can arrange to be reanimated multiple times. While in cryogenic dating farms, dead women await lonely suitors to resurrect them and take them home . . .

Love Minus Eighty follows interconnected lives touched by these dating farms.

There’s Rob, who accidentally kills a jogger, then sells everything to visit her, seeking her forgiveness but instead falling in love.

Veronika, a socially awkward dating coach, finds herself responsible for the happiness of a man whose life she saved against his will.

And Mira, a gay woman accidentally placed in the heterosexual dating centre near its inception, desperately seeks a way to reunite with her frozen partner as the centuries pass.

Lou Morgan – Blood and Feathers: Rebellion (Solaris)
“This is a war. The war. There is no stopping; no getting out. You’re in this – just like the rest of us – to the end.”

Driven out of hell and with nothing to lose, the Fallen wage open warfare against the angels on the streets of our cities. And they’re winning.

As the balance tips towards the darkness, Alice – barely recovered from her own ordeal in hell and struggling to start over – once again finds herself in the eye of the storm.

But with the chaos spreading and the Archangel Michael determined to destroy Lucifer whatever the cost, is the price simply too high; and what sacrifices will Alice and the angels have to make in order to pay it?

The Fallen will rise. Trust will be betrayed. And all hell will break loose.

Seth Patrick – Reviver (Tor UK)
Revivers. Able to wake the recently dead, and let them bear witness to their own demise. Twelve years after the first reviver came to light, they have become accepted by an uneasy public. The testimony of the dead is permitted in courtrooms across the world. Forensic revival is a routine part of police investigation.

In the United States, that responsibility falls to the Forensic Revival Service. Despite his troubled past, Jonah Miller is one of their best. But while reviving the victim of a brutal murder, he encounters a terrifying presence. Something is watching. Waiting. His superiors tell him it was only in his mind, a product of stress. Jonah is not so certain.

Then Daniel Harker, the first journalist to bring revival to public attention, is murdered, and Jonah finds himself getting dragged into the hunt for answers. Working with Harker’s daughter Annabel, he becomes determined to find those responsible and bring them to justice. Soon they uncover long hidden truths that call into doubt everything Jonah stands for, and reveal a threat that if not stopped in time, will put all of humanity in danger . . .

S.M. Wheeler – Sea Change (Tor Books)
The unhappy child of two powerful parents who despise each other, young Lilly turns to the ocean to find solace, which she finds in the form of the eloquent and intelligent sea monster Octavius, a kraken. In Octavius’s many arms, Lilly learns of friendship, loyalty, and family. When Octavius, forbidden by Lilly to harm humans, is captured by seafaring traders and sold to a circus, Lilly becomes his only hope for salvation. Desperate to find him, she strikes a bargain with a witch that carries a shocking price.

Her journey to win Octavius’s freedom is difficult. The circus master wants a Coat of Illusions; the Coat tailor wants her undead husband back from a witch; the witch wants her skin back from two bandits; the bandits just want some company, but they might kill her first. Lilly’s quest tests her resolve, tries her patience, and leaves her transformed in every way.

Chuck Wendig – The Blue Blazes (Angry Robot Books)
Meet Mookie Pearl.

Criminal underworld? He runs it.

Supernatural underworld? He hunts in it.

Nothing stops Mookie when he’s on the job.

But when his daughter takes up arms and opposes him, something’s gotta give…

By Mieneke Published 17 December, 2012 Posted in article, fantasy Tagged: Abaddon, Angry Robot Books, anticipated, DAW, Del Rey, Gollancz, Headline, Hodder, Jo Fletcher Books, Orbit, Solaris, TOR, Tor UK, Transworld | 3 Comments

Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2013: Fantasy Jan-March

And so the Anticipated Books posts for the first half of 2013 start going up. As usual I had so many fantasy books catch my fancy I had to split them into two posts. For some of these I already have an (e)ARC or review copy, so they’ll definitely be read and reviewed. And for the rest, I’ll have to see whether I get the chance to get my hands on them!

January
Amish – The Immortals of Meluha (Jo Fletcher Books)
1900 BC: the once-proud Suryavanshi rulers of the Meluha Empire are in dire peril. There are devastating terrorist attacks from the east, the land of the Chandravanshis – and to make matters worse, the Chandravanshis appear to have allied with the Nagas, an ostracised race of deformed humans with astonishing martial skills.

The only hope for the Suryavanshis is an ancient prophecy: when evil reaches epic proportions and all seems lost, a hero will emerge …

Clifford Beal – Gideon’s Angel (Solaris)
1653: The long and bloody English Civil War is at an end. King Charles is dead and Oliver Cromwell rules the land as king in all but name. Richard Treadwell, an exiled royalist officer and soldier-for-hire to the King of France and his all-powerful advisor, the wily Cardinal Mazarin, burns with revenge for those who deprived him of his family and fortune.

He decides upon a self-appointed mission to return to England in secret and assassinate the new Lord Protector. Once back on English soil however, he learns that his is not the only plot in motion. A secret army run by a deluded Puritan is bent on the same quest, guided by the Devil’s hand. When demonic entities are summoned, Treadwell finds himself in a desperate turnaround: he must save Cromwell to save England from a literal descent into Hell.

But first he has to contend with a wife he left in Devon who believes she’s a widow, and a furious Paris mistress who has trailed him to England, jeopardising everything. Treadwell needs allies fast. Can he convince the man sent to forcibly drag him back to Cardinal Mazarin? A young king’s musketeer named d’Artagnan. Black dogs and demons; religion and magic; Freemasons and Ranters. It’s a dangerous new Republic for an old cavalier coming home again.

Leigh Evans – The Trouble with Fate (Tor UK)
SHE’S HALF FAE AND ALL TROUBLE

WHAT SHE DOESN’T KNOW MIGHT KILL HER: Hedi looks normal. Yet that’s taken effort. Her fellow Starbucks baristas don’t see her pointed ears, fae amulet or her dark past, and normal is hard for a half-fae, half-werewolf on the run. Hedi’s life changed ten years ago, when her parents were murdered by unknown assassins. She’s been in hiding with her loopy aunt Lou since, as whatever they wanted she’s determined they won’t get it.

Things change when wolves capture Lou, forcing Hedi to steal to free her – for if she can offer up a fae amulet like her own they may trade. But it belongs to a rogue werewolf named Robson Trowbridge, who betrayed Hedi on the night of her greatest need. Over forty-eight hours, Hedi will face the weres of Creemore, discover the extent of her fae powers and possibly break her own heart in the process.

Anne Lyle – The Merchant of Dreams (Angry Robot Books)
Exiled from the court of Queen Elizabeth for accusing a powerful nobleman of treason, swordsman-turned-spy Mal Catlyn has been living in France with his young valet Coby Hendricks for the past year.

But Mal harbours a darker secret: he and his twin brother share a soul that once belonged to a skrayling, one of the mystical creatures from the New World.

When Mal’s dream about a skrayling shipwreck in the Mediterranean proves reality, it sets him on a path to the beautiful, treacherous city of Venice – and a conflict of loyalties that will place him and his friends in greater danger than ever.

Gail Z. Martin – Ice Forged (Orbit)
Condemned as a murderer for killing the man who dishonoured his sister, Blaine ‘Mick’ McFadden has spent the last six years in Velant, a penal colony in the frigid northern wastelands of Edgeland. Harsh military discipline and the oppressive magic of the governor’s mages keep a fragile peace as colonists struggle against a hostile environment. But the supply ships from Dondareth have stopped coming, boding ill for the kingdom that banished the colonists.

Now, McFadden and the people of Velant must decide their fate. They can remain in their icy prison, removed from the devastation of the outside world, but facing a subsistence-level existence, or they can return to the ruins of the kingdom that they once called home. Either way, destruction lies ahead . . .

James Maxey – Witchbreaker (Solaris)
Long ago, Lord Stark Tower – the famed Witchbreaker – nearly wiped out the witches. Today, only a handful of women still practice the weaving craft in secret. The witch Sorrow, Infidel’s fellow adventurer, has vowed to right this wrong, wiping out the Church of the Book and launching a new golden age of witchcraft. In pursuit of her goal, she has bonded her soul with Rott, the primal dragon of decay, giving her near-limitless powers of destruction.

Unfortunately, this power has cost Sorrow her humanity, leading her to a desperate quest to fi nd the greatest witch of all time, Avaris – rumoured to still be alive after hundreds of years – in hopes of mastering her dark magic before it destroys her. But she’s not alone in hunting Avaris, as fate throws her into an uneasy partnership with a man who wants to be the new Witchbreaker. Can either of them survive their mutual quests when their journey leads them into battle with Tempest, the primal dragon of storms?

K.J. Taylor – The Shadow’s Heir (Ace)
Laela Redguard was born with the black hair of the Northern kingdom and the blue eyes of the Southern people, forever marking her as a hated half-breed child of both. While Laela’s Northern features allow her to blend into the crowds of King Arenadd’s seat at Malvern, she cannot avoid falling victim to a pair of common thugs. But when a stranger saves her life and gives her a place to stay, Laela is shocked to learn he is Arenadd himself—a man said to be a murderer who sold his soul to the Night God—the King without a heart…

February

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Robert Jackson Bennett – American Elsewhere (Orbit)
Ex-cop Mona Bright has been living a hard couple of years on the road, but when her estranged father dies, she finds she’s had a home all along: a little house her deceased mother once owned in Wink, New Mexico.

And though every map denies Wink exists, Mona finds they’re wrong: not only is Wink real, it is the perfect American small town, somehow retaining all the Atomic Age optimism the rest of world has given up on.

But the closer Mona gets to understanding her mother’s past, the more she begins to understand that the people in Wink are very, very different—and what’s more, Mona begins to recognize her own bond to this strange place, which feels more like home every day.

C. Robert Cargill – Dreams and Shadows (Gollancz)
In the debut novel DREAMS AND SHADOWS, screenwriter and noted film critic C. Robert Cargill takes us beyond the veil, through the lives of Ewan and Colby, young men whose spirits have been enmeshed with the otherworld from a young age.

This brilliantly crafted narrative – part Neil Gaiman, part Guillermo Del Torro, part William Burroughs – follows the boys from their star-crossed adolescences to their haunted adulthoods. Cargill’s tour-de-force takes us inside the Limestone Kingdom, a parallel universe where whisky swilling genies and foul mouthed wizards argue over the state of the metaphysical realm. Having left the spirit world and returned to the human world, Ewan and Colby discover that the creatures from this previous life have not forgotten them, and that fate can never be sidestepped.

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Myke Cole – Shadow Ops: Fortress Frontier (Ace/Headline)
Colonel Alan Bookbinder is an army bureaucrat whose worst war wound is a paper-cut. But when he develops criminalized magical powers, he is torn from everything he knows and thrown onto the front-lines—where he will face not only a horrific enemy, but the most wanted man in the known universe…

Lee Collins – She Returns From War (Angry Robot Books)
Four years after the horrific events in Leadville, a young woman from England, Victoria Dawes, sets into motion a series of events that will lead Cora and herself out into the New Mexico desert in pursuit of Anaba, a Navajo witch bent on taking revenge for the atrocities committed against her people.

Francis Knight – Fade to Black (Orbit)
Mahala: a city built in the dark depths of a valley. A city built up in layers, not across – where streets are built upon streets, buildings balance precariously upon buildings. A city that the Ministry rules from its lofty perch at the sunlit summit and where the forsaken lurk in the shadowy depths of the Pit.

Rojan is a bounty hunter trying to make his way in the city. Everyone knows he’s a womaniser, a shirker of all responsibility, but they don’t know he’s also a pain-mage: able to draw magic from his own and other people’s pain. He’s not keen on using it (not least because it’s outlawed), but when his niece is abducted and taken to the dark depths of the Pit, he may just be forced to unleash his power . . .

Ian Tregillis – The Coldest War (Orbit)
For decades, Britain’s warlocks have been all that stands between the British Empire and the Soviet Union – a vast domain stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the shores of the English Channel. Now each wizard’s death is another blow to Britain’s national security.

Meanwhile, a brother and sister – the subjects of a twisted Nazi experiment to imbue ordinary people with superhuman abilities –escape from a top-secret facility deep behind the Iron Curtain. They head for England, because that’s where former spy Raybould Marsh lives. And Gretel, the mad seer, has plans for him.

As Marsh is once again drawn into the world of Milkweed, he discovers that Britain’s darkest acts didn’t end with the war. And while he strives to protect queen and country, he is forced to confront his own willingness to accept victory at any cost.

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Paul Witcover – The Emperor of All Things (Transworld)
Tempus Rerum Imperator: Time, Emperor of All Things

1758. England is embroiled in a globe-spanning conflict that stretches from her North American colonies to Europe and beyond. Across the Channel, the French prepare for an invasion – an invasion rumored to be led by none other than Bonnie Prince Charlie. It seems the map of Europe is about to be redrawn. Yet behind these dramatic scenes, another war is raging – a war that will determine not just the fate of nations but of humanity itself…

Daniel Quare is a journeyman in an ancient guild, The Worshipful Company of Clockmakers. He is also a Regulator, part of an elite network within the guild devoted to searching out and claiming for England’s exclusive use any horological innovation that could give them an upperhand, whether in business or in war.

Just such a mission has brought Quare to the London townhouse of eccentric collector, Lord Wichcote. He seeks a pocket watch rumoured to possess seemingly impossible properties that are more to do with magic than with any science familiar to Quare or to his superiors. And the strange timepiece has attracted the attention of others as well: the mysterious masked thief known only as Grimalkin, and a deadly French spy who stop at nothing to bring the prize back to his masters. Soon Quare finds himself on a dangerous trail of intrigue and murder that leads far from the world he knows into an otherwere of dragons and demigods, in which nothing is as it seems … time least of all.

March
Lee Battersby – The Marching Dead Angry Robot Books)
Find the dead a King, save himself, win the love of his life, live happily ever after. No wonder Marius dos Helles is bored. But now something has stopped the dead from, well, dying.

It’s up to Marius, Gerd, and Gerd’s not-dead-enough Granny to journey across the continent and put the dead back in the afterlife where they belong.

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Rosie Garland – The Palace of Curiosities (HarperCollins)
Before Eve is born, her mother goes to the circus. She buys a penny twist of coloured sugar and settles down to watch the heart-stopping main attraction: a lion, billed as a monster from the savage heart of Africa, forged in the heat of a merciless sun. Mama swears she hears the lion sigh, just before it leaps…and when Eve is born, the story goes, she didn’t cry – she meowed and licked her paws.

When Abel is pulled from the stinking Thames, the mudlarks are sure he is long dead. As they search his pockets to divvy up the treasure, his eyes crack open and he coughs up a stream of black water. But how has he survived a week in that thick stew of human waste?

Cast out by Victorian society, Eve and Abel find succour from an unlikely source. They soar to fame as The Lion Faced Girl and The Flayed Man, star performers in Professor Josiah Arroner’s Palace of Curiosities. And there begins a journey that will entwine their fates forever.

Matthew Hughes – Hell to Pay (Angry Robot Books)
Meet Chesney Arnstruther. Once a mild-mannered insurance actuary, now a full-time crime-fighting superhero, it’s all he can do to kick bad-guy ass while at the same time holding down a steady relationship with the gorgeous Melda. Something is going on.

Meet Xaphan, wise-cracking demon and the source of (almost) all of Chesney’s powers. He’s been asked by his infernal master to give Chesney whatever he needs… but surely stopping bad guys is not in Hell’s plan? Something is definitely going on.

Meet Arthur Wrigley, a modest yet charming older gentleman whose nasty little hobby is fleecing innocent widows. Meet Simon Magus, ancient mystic and magician from Biblical times now very much enamoured of Vegas, baby. And pray you never meet the Chikkichikk, a proud and ancient race of, well, warrior dinosaurs, from the universe that God made then rejected before He started monkeying around with this one. Whatever the hell is going on, this is definitely the third book in the wondrous To Hell & Back series.

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Fiona McIntosh – The Scrivener’s Tale (HarperVoyager)
In the bookshops and cafes of present-day Paris, ex-psychologist Gabe Figaret is trying to put his shattered life back together. When another doctor, Reynard, asks him to help with a delusional female patient, Gabe is reluctant… until he meets her. At first Gabe thinks the woman, Angelina, is merely terrified of Reynard, but he quickly discovers she is not quite what she seems.

As his relationship with Angelina deepens, Gabe′s life in Paris becomes increasingly unstable. He senses a presence watching and following every move he makes, and yet he finds Angelina increasingly irresistible.

When Angelina tells Gabe he must kill her and flee to a place she calls Morgravia, he is horrified. But then Angelina shows him that the cathedral he has dreamt about since childhood is real and exists in Morgravia.

Soon, Gabe′s world will be turned upside down, and he will learn shocking truths about who he is . . . and who he can – or cannot – trust.

Emma Newman – Between Two Thorns (Angry Robot Books)
Something is wrong in Aquae Sulis, Bath’s secret mirror city.

The new season is starting and the Master of Ceremonies is missing. Max, an Arbiter of the Split Worlds Treaty, is assigned with the task of finding him with no one to help but a dislocated soul and a mad sorcerer.

There is a witness but his memories have been bound by magical chains only the enemy can break. A rebellious woman trying to escape her family may prove to be the ally Max needs.

But can she be trusted? And why does she want to give up eternal youth and the life of privilege she’s been born into?

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Geoffrey Wilson – The Place of Dead Kings (Hodder & Stoughton)
Can England be liberated if the Holy Grail is found? An epic quest to Scotland set in a magical alternate Britain.

It is 1855. The English revolt has failed, and brutal General Vadula governs England now. Only a few small bands of English rebels still hold out against the Rajthanan empire.

Jack Casey survives in remote Shropshire, training young rebels to use the conqueror’s magic. But he is gravely ill, with only two months to live…

Then refugees bring with them news of a rogue Indian sorceror in Scotland. Mahajan has discovered a mysterious power in the uncharted country to the north – a power that could be the legendary Holy Grail.

By Mieneke Published 16 December, 2012 Posted in article, fantasy Tagged: Ace, Angry Robot Books, anticipated, Gollancz, HarperCollins, HarperVoyager, Headline, Hodder, Jo Fletcher Books, Orbit, Solaris, Tor UK, Transworld | 3 Comments

Julian Stockwin – Betrayal

Cape Colony is proving a tiresome assignment for Captain Kydd’s daring commander-in-chief, Commodore Popham. Rumours that South America’s Spanish colonies are in a ferment of popular unrest, and of a treasure hoard of silver, spur him to assemble a makeshift invasion fleet and launch a bold attack on the capital of the Viceroyalty of the River Plate, Buenos Aires.

Navigating the treacherous bars and mud flats of the river, the British invasion force lands and wins a battle against improbable odds, taking the capital and the silver. But nothing is as simple as it seems in this region of the world: the uprising that will see the end of Spanish rule never arrives and the locals begin to see dark conspiracies behind the invader’s actions. Soon the tiny British force finds itself surrounded by an ever more hostile population. The city begins to revolt against its liberators.

Now Kydd’s men must face fierce resistance and the betrayal of their closest allies. Can they save themselves, and their prize?

As I mentioned in my review of David Wesley Hill’s At Drake’s Command, I have a soft spot for nautical adventure tales as they form some of my earliest childhood memories with my dad. Julian Stockwin’s Betrayal is another one such, a rousing tale of the high seas and the battle for Buenos Aires in 1806; it fits right in with the tales my dad read to me. Betrayal is the thirteenth tale in Stockwin’s series about Thomas Kydd, intrepid sailor and courageous and well-loved leader of his men. Despite of this, it was easily accessible to a reader newly come to this series and Stockwin manages to refer to earlier entries in the series without making the reader feel as if they’ve missed out on critical information for this story.

Central to the story is Captain Thomas Kydd, captain of the frigate L’Aurore. At the beginning of the book we find him stationed at the Cape of Good Hope, newly conquered by the British and life is settling down to a rather sedate routine. He’s introduced as an honourable man, but an ambitious one and languishing in port without the chance to gain distinction for himself and thus advance his career is making him restless. So when his commander, Commodore Popham, comes to him with a bold and not quite legal plan to win themselves glory and treasure and a way out of being stationed at the Cape, it’s easy to see why he agrees to take part. While Kydd tries to belay his conscience and ignore any implications that Popham’s motives might be anything but honourable, Stockwin slowly has him realise that perhaps Popham isn’t everything Kydd believes him to be. This is partly due to Popham’s own behaviour and the warnings given by Kydd’s best friend and secretary Renzi, but also due to Kydd’s disillusion when the invasion goes sour and he loses more and more good men needlessly.

Kydd’s relationship with Renzi and the rest of his men was wonderfully portrayed and in fact, the entire portrayal of the sailors was amazingly well done, which shouldn’t be surprising given Stockwin’s own distinguished career in the Navy. I loved the sailor’s salty language and the dialogues peppered with nautical terms, some of which were explained in a glossary, while others had to be understood from their context. It was an honest portrayal of the British Jack Tars, not bowdlerised, but also refraining from the crudeness often associated with sailors of any age. My favourite sailors were Lieutenant Clinton and Stirk, the gunner’s mate. They were the two that stood out from the crew and I especially appreciated Clinton’s development while they were in action on Buenos Aires.

The one thing that bothered me was the character of Renzi. While he does have some decisive actions in the plot and I liked him as a character, there is an entire story arc about him writing a novel, which while entertaining, didn’t really seem to serve any purpose in the story other than to keep him conveniently out from underfoot for large stretches of the narrative. Perhaps the novel will be an element in a future instalment; I hope it will be, because even if the philosophising on the craft of writing was interesting, otherwise it was a giant filler plotline. Other than the aforementioned novel plotline, the story is tightly plotted and moves at a fair clip.

Betrayal was an entertaining read, which also showed me something of history I didn’t know. Making Thomas Kydd’s acquaintance was a pleasure and one I hope to renew in the future. I’ll definitely be getting my dad a copy of the first novel in this series, as he loves a rousing nautical tale. If you like those as well, then Betrayal is definitely a book you’ll enjoy.

This book was provided for review by the publisher.

By Mieneke Published 8 December, 2012 Posted in historical fiction, review Tagged: Hodder | Leave a comment

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