Book Review: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

A wonderfully entertaining coming-of-age story, Northanger Abbey is often referred to as Jane Austen’s “Gothic parody.” Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers give the story an uncanny air, but one with a decidedly satirical twist.

The story’s unlikely heroine is Catherine Morland, a remarkably innocent seventeen-year-old woman from a country parsonage. While spending a few weeks in Bath with a family friend, Catherine meets and falls in love with Henry Tilney, who invites her to visit his family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Catherine, a great reader of Gothic thrillers, lets the shadowy atmosphere of the old mansion fill her mind with terrible suspicions. What is the mystery surrounding the death of Henry’s mother? Is the family concealing a terrible secret within the elegant rooms of the Abbey? Can she trust Henry, or is he part of an evil conspiracy? Catherine finds dreadful portents in the most prosaic events, until Henry persuades her to see the peril in confusing life with art.

Executed with high-spirited gusto, Northanger Abbey is a lighthearted, yet unsentimental commentary on love and marriage.

This was Jane Austen’s micky take on the Gothic romances and the stupidity/vacuity of some girls.

Catherine gets introduced to Henry Tilney, and manages to secure an invite to the Tilney’s old house for an extended stay. Every where she looks she imagines that something horrendous is going to happen (e.g. looking for hidden doors behind tapestries, candles being blown out for other reasons than there just being a draught). In fact, not an awful lot happens during her stay (apart from her and Henry falling in love natch!).

Henry’s father is a drunk and a bully (generally not particularly nice person) and tries to put a stop to any marriage by threatening to cut Henry off, which in all Gothic novels would have instantly happened and that would have put an end to things. However, Henry stands up to his father, and he and Catherine get married.

I first read this after seeing a BBC adaptation in the 1980s, but it was only on re-reading it much later that I realised just hw awful Henry’s father was.

 

Book Review: Salt and Broom by Sharon Lynn Fisher

 

A gifted healer unravels the mysteries of a cursed estate—and its enigmatic owner—in a witchy retelling of Jane Eyre .

“Salt and broom, make this room
Safe and tight, against the night.”

Trunks packed with potions and cures, Jane Aire sets out on a crisp, clear morning in October to face the greatest challenge of her sheltered girls’-school existence. A shadow lies over Thornfield Hall and its reclusive master, Edward Rochester. And he’s hired her only as a last resort. Jane stumbles again and again as she tries to establish a rapport with her prickly new employer, but he becomes the least of her worries as a mysterious force seems to work against her. The threats mount around both Jane and Rochester—who’s becoming more intriguing and appealing to her by the day. Jane begins to fear her herb healing and protective charms may not be enough to save the man she’s growing to love from a threat darker and more dangerous than either of them imagined.

This was in an ebook format – I believe it was part of the Amazon offering. It forms part of my attempt to clear down my existing TBR, and therefore is part of my #BeatTheBacklog 2024 challenge.

This book follows the main story of Jane Eyre, but with some significant changes. Jane Eyre is now Jane Aire, who has grown up at the Lowood school for orphans as the local herbalist/witch (something the school has a reputation for, even if not outright condoned.) Jane is sent to help out Mr Rochester in his sprawling house. The rest of the book is, of course, pretty much original and therefore subject to a certain set of spoilers.

The principal characters are similar to those in Jane Eyre, at least by name if not by actions. Jane finds out that the Doctor who attended Mrs Rochester as she died also loved her, so there is motive about attending her etc. The marriage with Rochester was mainly financial (rather that a love match). Many of the events have Mrs Rochester at the centre, much like the original. There is also a take on Jane and her being an orphan (spoiler!). Aire is forced to leave, as per the original, but comes back to use her skills in order to solve the issues at hand.

The Ending was close to the original but there is no “reader, I married him” moment. It was different enough to be satisfying

The title does tie up with the ore witchcraft side of things which this book is fairly heavy one – it’s certainly not a book for those who are not open or interested in these things.

 

Book Review: Expiation by Elizabeth von Arnim

A satire of middle-class prudery and closed-minded cruelty, what was mostly ignored in the years after Expiation’s first publication was how laugh-out-loud hilarious it is, so funny that we genuinely believe it to be much better than the more well-known books by ‘Elizabeth’ (the name she wrote under). It is also extraordinarily atmospheric and perceptive about the English: in some respects it is Forsterian (the greatest compliment we can pay). It too would make a wonderful play or film.

I got this in paper form from Persephone Books as part of their subscription service. As you can see from the cover it’s one of the greys (number 133 for anyone counting)

It contributes to one of my own Reading Challenges (#BeatTheBacklog) because I wanted to work on clearing down my TBR.  It’s one of many books that have been waiting to be read for a while so is certainly a contender!

 Much of the first 100 pages reminded me much of the film “Brief Encounter” where a married woman keeps her affair secret from her husband. It’s NOT the same (we know virtually nothing about Arthur or his involvement in the story apart from the fact he existed) but nevertheless there are similarities. The film came out long after the book, so I’ll give the book the credit here.

It starts with Millie’s husband’s will being read after his unexpected death and Millie being left a small amount of money. It turns out that Ernest had learnt of one of Millie’s secrets several years previously and the will had been amended to reflect this secret (she had a long term affair). Her extended family at the will reading, knowing nothing of the secret, dont understand the will, and to escape the resulting pity, guilt and shame, she leaves the house early the following morning. Her plan is to go visit her sister Aggie (who she has been writing to in secret since Aggie’s elopement decades before).

I did struggle with this book, especially the first 100+ pages or so, I will admit. Others class this as one of her best novels, if not her best. It might be, but I struggled.

So, the first half of the book covers Millie in London, dealing with her sister and lover, neither of which act the way Millie had expected. In the end, she returns to where her in laws are, but without her money. The second half of the book deals with how the Botts deal with Millie being in their lives. Millie is barely in this part of the book (opposite to the intense monologue we had in the first half), but her presence causes immense trouble to her inlaws who gossip between themselves, invent rumours about Millie and lots of things are brought to a head.

In a way, it is very much a statement of a certain kind of marriage at a certain time, where men are expected to be “leaders” and women are expected to follow and agree with their husbands under all circumstances, with nery unique thought in the heads. Women Know Your Place! (tell me if you dont get that reference and I will try and find it for you!).

It is a book of 2 sides – how people think things will happen as opposed to how they DO happen. Overloaded with Millie in the first half, barely heard of in the second half.

Whilst I did struggle with the book, I’m glad i stuck around till the end.

About the Author

Elizabeth, Countess Russell, was a British novelist and, through marriage, a member of the German nobility, known as Mary Annette Gräfin von Arnim.

Born Mary Annette Beauchamp in Sydney, Australia, she was raised in England and in 1891 married Count Henning August von Arnim, a Prussian aristocrat, and the great-great-great-grandson of King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia.

She had met von Arnim during an Italian tour with her father. They married in London but lived in Berlin and eventually moved to the countryside where, in Nassenheide, Pomerania, the von Arnims had their family estate. The couple had five children, four daughters and a son. The children’s tutors at Nassenheide included E. M. Forster and Hugh Walpole.

In 1898 she started her literary career by publishing Elizabeth and Her German Garden, a semi-autobiographical novel about a rural idyll published anonymously and, as it turned out to be highly successful, reprinted 21 times within the first year. Von Arnim wrote another 20 books, which were all published “By the author of Elizabeth and Her German Garden”.

Count von Arnim died in 1910, and in 1916 Elizabeth married John Francis Stanley Russell, 2nd Earl Russell, Bertrand Russell’s elder brother. The marriage ended in disaster, with Elizabeth escaping to the United States and the couple finally agreeing, in 1919, to get a divorce. She also had an affair with H. G. Wells.

She was a cousin of Katherine Mansfield (whose full name was Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp).
Elizabeth von Arnim spent her old age in London, Switzerland, and on the French Riviera. When World War II broke out she permanently took up residence in the United States, where she died in 1941, aged 74.

Book Review: Sweet Danger by Marjorie Allingham

What was Albert Campion up to in the Hotel Beauregard, Mentone? Posing as the king of a tinpot Balkan state looking for his lost crown. It was all too intriguing for Guffy Randall, so he joined in the treasure hunt … to the bitter end. Even when it got very nasty indeed.

Having forgotten that I’ve read this before (early 2011 according to the review date), I decided to listen to this in my Audible Library. It was a tad disconcerting therefore to then realise that I basically knew what was going to happen.

A small portion of land has suddenly become very attractive and important to a number of parties, including the British Government, who charge Campion with sorting it out in their favour.

Having read this book before, it left enough of an impression on me that I knew some of the red flags as they happened.

Throw in Campion’s friends, pretty young girls, rich businessmen and their cronies, rural English Villages, psycho doctors and a quest, and that pretty much covers it in a really short book. Some twists are heavily signpointed, but little to dent the story.

Book Review: East of Algiers by Francis Durbridge

When Paul Temple agreed to do a favour for a friend of Steve, he could never have foreseen the extraordinary sequence of events that would be set in motion. For Judy Wincott’s simple request that Paul return a pair of glasses to David Foster in Tunis is a prelude to a body in a Paris rubbish bin and a succession of mysterious killings …

Narrated by Anthony Head, this is in fact a novelization of the original Paul Temple drama called “Paul Temple and the Sullivan Mystery”. Apart from a few name changes and the fact it’s told by the one person, it’s essentially the same story. I’m not sure which version I prefer – e.g. I’ve never liked the Marquand actor from the original radio play.

Essentially, Temple is asked by some rando take some eye-glasses to another rando in Algeria (originally Egypt). Things happen along the way, which makes Temple wonder what is happening – more is expanded in the original radio drama (e.g. whole scenes about Steve being drugged and kidnapped).

This is the second time I’ve listened to this (last time was a couple of years ago). I found I spent much of the time seeing where it differed to the radio original, which ended up being slightly detrimental to the listen. Anthony Head was a decent narrator, who had a wide enough range to cover the characters.

Book Review: The Girl from Vichy by Andi Newton

1942, occupied France.
With the war raging in Europe, Adèle Ambeh dreams of a France that is free from the clutches of the Nazis. As the date of her marriage to a ruthless man draws closer, she only has one choice: she must run.

Adèle flees to Lyon and seeks refuge at the Sisters of Notre Dame de la Compassion. From the outside this is a simple nunnery, but the sisters are secretly aiding the French Resistance, hiding and supplying the fighters with weapons. Adèle quickly finds herself part of the efforts to take down the regime.

As each day fills with a different danger and she begins to fall for another man, Adèle’s entire world could come crashing down around her.

She must fight for her family, her country – and her own destiny.

My First DNF in what seems like years. 70 pages in, 600+ books in the piles so I have to be quite strict when it comes to books I’m not engaged in.

This book is from a box from A Box Of Stories, which is designed to take books out of landfill. I presume that the books are good enough to make it to publication, but more books have been published than were sold in stores etc, so get passed on before being pulped.

This is only the 2nd book in all the years I’ve been taking these boxes that I’ve not finished a book – the previous one was a true crime book about serial killers.

This book was a fiction book about a French woman who escapes to a convent. For some reason I couldnt care to remember, a Novitiate has taken a dislike to Adele and the 1st few chapters deal with Adele trying to work out what’s going on.

It’s at this point that I gave up. Not engaged and not interested in taking the story forward, so I gave up.

Book Review: Caligula by Simon Turney

Forget everything you think you know. Let Livilla, Caligula’s youngest sister and confidante, tell you what really happened. How her quiet, caring brother became the most powerful man on earth. And how, with lies, murder and betrayal, Rome was changed for ever . . .

Everyone knows his name. Everyone thinks they know his story.

Rome 37AD. The emperor is dying. No-one knows how long he has left. The power struggle has begun.

When the ailing Tiberius thrusts Caligula’s family into the imperial succession in a bid to restore order, he will change the fate of the empire and create one of history’s most infamous tyrants, Caligula.
But was he really a monster?

This is the historical fiction version of the life and death of Caligula (Little boots), told from the stance of his sister Livillia. As with all 3rd person historical “Faction” there is a certain amount of factual leeway that must be given. e.g. would she be privy to the worst excesses of his later like ahead of his death? Probably not. Much of the book is given to Livillia and Caligula’s pre-emperor lives, that includes the kidnapping, torture and deaths of close family members.

Book Review: Death comes to Mr Dodsley by John Ferguson

‘A bookshop is a first-rate place for unobtrusive observation,’ he continued. ‘One can remain in it an indefinite time, dipping into one book after another, all over the place.’

Mr Richard Dodsley, owner of a fine second-hand bookshop on Charing Cross Road, has been found murdered in the cold hours of the morning. Shot in his own office, few clues remain besides three cigarette ends, two spent matches and a few books on the shelves which have been rearranged.

In an investigation spanning the second-hand bookshops of London and the Houses qof Parliament (since an MP’s new crime novel Death at the Desk appears to have some bearing on the case), Ferguson’s series sleuth MacNab is at hand to assist Scotland Yard in an atmospheric and ingenious fair-play bibliomystery, first published in 1937.

Welcome to another year of “I’m not reading books fast enough” At 300 pages long this book should have taken me under a week to read, yet oddly – didn’t. I’m placing the blame purely on myself and my “issues”.

One of the side effects of (say) reading a few pages at a time, I that I regularly forget who is whom.  I really need to start maintaining a “family tree” (what ever happened to them?),

Back to the book – Miss Grafton has written and published a crime book (“Death at the Desk”( , which is not being reviewed well. Her Father is a MP with a promising future. “Old” Mr D runs a 2^nd hand/Antique bookstore on Charring Cross Road in London, and is working late to finish some work needed at the printers the following day. However he’s found dead at his desk just after 3am, and so the search is on to work out who killed him.

The crime scene bears an awful lot of resemblance to Miss Grafton’s book. There’s a balance required to offset the fact the book was only published a few days earlier against the fact that Miss Grafton is dating “young” Mr D (Richard/Dick) who also worked in the shop.

Here’s where I get confused by not reading fast enough/take notes. MacNab was the PI who was hired to see who was stealing exclusive and expensive books from the shop, I had to remind myself that most of the narrative was from him and not his Scotland Yard colleagues who have come in to investigate the murder.

The rest of the book deals with the investigation, the clues that are picked and may or may not be discarded. I wont spell them out, or who is the eventual murderer, because it all leads to spoilers.

For my review: It could have done with some kind of Family Tree or Dramatis Personae, for those of us who are slow readers. IT was a decent, hard working book in it’s genre.

Had I read it more consistently or extensively, I think I would have taken even more enjoyment from this, so this is something I will take on for future books (especially those in this imprint, of which I have a subscription). I’m sure many people – especially fans of this kind of “Golden Age” novel.

About the Author

John Ferguson (1871-1952) was a Scottish clergyman, playwright, and mystery writer.

John Ferguson was born at Callander, Perthshire, but has made his home in many sharply contrasted places, from the misty isle of Skye to the sunlit island of Guernsey. And though now a resident in the New Forest near Lymington he lived for six years in the grim Dunimarle Castle in Fife, where Macduff’s wife and child were murdered by Mac­beth. As a dramatist Mr Ferguson is probably best known for his now famous play Campbell of Kilmohr, which at its first Royalty Theatre production was hailed by the dramatic critic of the Glasgow Herald as ‘a new and significant type of Scottish drama’. Of John Ferguson’s work one critic has said, ‘As no two of his stories are in any sense repetitious, it is probably his practice of setting each tale against the background in which he writes that gives this variety in characterization and action to each of his works.’ His books have been translated into many foreign languages, the latest of which is Turkish. In his story of the history and development of the detective story, Masters of Mystery, Douglas Thom­son writes, ‘Mr Ferguson is one of the most delight­ful stylists in this genre’

Book Review: The Christmas Wedding by Dilly Court

The village of Little Creek, the long winter of 1867 
 
The first flakes of snow are falling when Daisy Marshall, secretly engaged to her master’s son, finds herself jilted at the altar. 
 
Heartbroken, Daisy flees to the small village of Little Creek, nestled on the coast of Essex. There she is warmly welcomed – but the village is poverty-stricken, suffering under a cruel Lord of the manor. And when cholera hits, the villagers are truly in dire straits. 
 
Determined to help, Daisy makes new friends in earnest doctor Nicholas and dashing smuggler Jay – but also dangerous new enemies, who threaten to destroy everything she’s built. Can Daisy save the village and find happiness in time for Christmas?

Likely to be last “Christmas book” for the 2022/2023 season.

Within the 1st chapter, Daisy has lost her secret fiancé, lost her job as a governess, and lost the home she knew when her Uncle retires and everyone moves into the country

Her brother, Toby, is a newly qualified doctor, and soon realises that the village everyone has moved to, will not give him the training or living he requires, so soon moves back to London.

Nick Neville is also a newly qualified doctor, but who has his family home in Little Creek. The village is desperate for a doctor and Nick stays as long as he can, but enventually returns to London to earn money. The local squire owns much of the land and is making life difficult for many, including Neville.

Many of the tenants are living in squalor and destitution, including Mary (who is the mother of Jay, Linette, Dove and Jack, all of who play a reasonble part in the book, although Jack does disppear about half way throught)

Mary goes to London with a plan to see her brother, and get some form of job and lodgings. She becomes a Probationary Nurse, almost by accident and ends up sharing a room with another probationer.

The rest of the book deals with Daisy’s love life, supporting Nick Neville and the village through a bout of Cholera etc. The title should give an indication of what happens and when, but the question is “who is the groom?”

I have a few problems with the narrative:

1) Characters are dropped (never to be heard about again) as soon as they stop being useful to the story. This includes Jack, the London landlady, the cat (his poor attitude was narrated in depth, until he disappeared); Minnie (the roommate) and Aggie (the servant); The training sisters in the hospital etc

2) Timeline narrative. At one point Jay promised he would get Daisy to “little Creek” the following day, yet they docked 4 days later. I may well have missed something here, but it did grate on me a little.

Despite the narrative issues that I have, overall I found is a nice, lightish book for the Christmas/New Year period

Book Review: Married by Christmas by Scarlett Bailey

All she wants is a perfect Christmas Eve wedding...

It’s been on Anna’s wish-list since she was a little girl, dreaming of a far happier family life than she’d ever experienced.

But now – only two weeks before her big day – her perfect husband-to-be drops a bombshell…

Only nothing’s going to stop Anna’s plans – not even the pesky inconvenience of discovering her groom already has a wife!

My last book of 2022, and naturally, it’s Christmas related.

Anna, who never knew her father and who lost her mother when she was 9 and was taken on by those she classes as “family” ever since. As a result of such a disorganised childhood (her mother was also an alcoholic and druggie), Anna could well be classed as “High maintenance” or “OCD” where she find the need to contrl everything.

Tom proposes to Anna, who has her heart set on a Christmas Eve Wedding. Everything is organised, but there’s one thing that Anna could never have predicted – her fiancée and the fact he has apparently “forgotten” about getting married to an exotic dancer 8 years previously

In the first of multiple “out of character” decisions, Anna is on the next flight to the US to find Charisma (to get the divorce cleaned up). Anna is annoyed that Tom has left it this late, and it is her (not Tom) on the plane to sort this out

On the flight to JFK (referred to later as JKF, boo!). Anna finds herself sitting beside Miles who had a one night date with Anna several years previously.

The majority of the book is Anna and Miles in New York after Thanksgiving where Anna is doing one after another out of character things. They do find Charisma (now known as the actress Erica) and the divorce is progressed.

Anna would have been a nightmare had her initial behaviour continued, so thankfully she was relaxed for the majority of the book. Was a little bit disappointed that she was elsewhere whilst her BFF was getting married – I would have thought she would have bent over backwards in an attempt to be there (although this might be an example of how much he’s changed – I dont know).

In Short: Decent End of the year Book, with suitably complex main female leads (the men could be deeper BUT perhaps that’s not the point!), reasonable Romance levels