Susan Appleyard's Blog, page 2
June 25, 2024
Review of The Consequence of Anna by Kate Birkin and Mark Bornz
This lengthy book is set in the 1930s on a cattle station in the shire of Esperance, Australia. Based on facts, it’s a tale of family, obsessive love, and madness. Anna sees things that aren’t there and speaks to her dead mother and sister and people who don’t exist. Her husband, James, is a gifted musician who longs for a music career but is instead tied to Anna’s cattle station. When Anna’s windowed cousin Rose returns to the station after an absence of ten years, she confesses that her greatest desire is to have a baby. Anna conceives an audacious plan to keep her beloved cousin with her forever by persuading her husband to sleep with Rose. Although he is attracted to Rose, James is initially reluctant, but cannot withstand Anna’s will and eventually gives in. Rose becomes pregnant. But when the pair fall in love and Anna learns they have continued to meet in secret, the situation spirals out of control and so does Anna’s schizophrenia.
The characters come to life fully formed on the page. Anna is portrayed as childlike and with a powerful will. Her mental instability is a central theme of the book, and the author deals with it unsparingly and yet with insight and compassion. James’s frustrated desire for a life in music and Rose’s longing for a baby similarly move us to sympathy.
I was struck by an oddity in this book. The narrative goes back and forth between all three, and I couldn’t decide which was the protagonist. Is it possible to have three protagonists? All were dealt with by the author with sympathy. The only antagonist was Anna’s mental issues.
I have two niggles. One is the length of the book. Good value for your money at nearly 600 pages, but it could have been cut to 500 without losing anything of its appeal. The other thing was annoying. It seemed to me the authors must have scoured a thesaurus to find esoteric words to either a) impress the reader with their knowledge of esoteric words b) take the reader out of the story while the reader looked up the meaning of the esoteric words c) the authors don’t know any simpler words to use. I cannot see the reason for it.
Having said all that, I found it to be a brilliant book, beautifully and poignantly written, and of value in helping the modern reader to understand mental disease. I highly recommend it.
*****
June 14, 2024
Review of The Consequence of Anna
The Consequence of Anna
An epic love triangle
This lengthy book is set in the 1930s on a cattle station in the shire of Esperance, Australia. Based on facts, it’s a tale of family, obsessive love, and madness. Anna sees things that aren’t there and speaks to her dead mother and sister and people who don’t exist. Her husband, James is a gifted musician and longs for a career in music but is instead tied to Anna’s cattle station. When Anna’s windowed cousin Rose returns to the station after an absence of ten years, she confesses to Anna that her greatest desire is to have a baby. Anna conceives an audacious plan that will keep her beloved cousin with her forever by persuading her husband to sleep with Rose. Although he is attracted to Rose, James is initially reluctant but cannot withstand Anna’s will and eventually gives in. Rose becomes pregnant. But when the pair fall in love, and Anna learns they have continued to meet in secret, the situation spirals out of control, and so does Anna’s schizophrenia.
The characters come to life fully formed on the page. Anna is portrayed as childlike and with a powerful will. Her mental instability is a central theme of the book, and the author deals with it unsparingly and yet with insight and compassion. James’s frustrated desire for a life in music and Rose’s longing for a baby similarly move us to sympathy.
I was struck by an oddity in this book. The narrative switches back and forth between all three, and I couldn’t decide which was the protagonist. Is it possible to have three protagonists? All were dealt with by the author with sympathy. The only antagonist was Anna’s mental issues.
I have two niggles. One is the length of the book. Good value for your money at nearly 600 pages, but it could have been cut to 500 without losing anything of its appeal. The other thing was annoying. It seemed to me the authors must have scoured a thesaurus to find esoteric words to either a) impress the reader with their knowledge of esoteric words b) take the reader out of the story while the reader looked up the meaning of the esoteric words c) the authors don’t know any simpler words to use. I cannot see the reason for it.
Having said all that, I found it to be a brilliant book, beautifully and poignantly written, and of value in helping the modern reader to understand mental disease. I highly recommend it.
*****
November 8, 2023
The Defenestrations of Prague
I was thrilled to be asked to host a blog post for E.M. Swift-Hook as part of a blog tour for the anthology, Masterworks, in which she wrote a wonderful short story called Blood on the Mountain, set in Prague. During her research, she came across a curious mode of assassination that seems to be unique to that city.
Here is Eleanor to tell you all about it.
Such an arresting word ‘defenestration’.
The kind of word that sticks in the mind.
Unfortunately, its definition is not very delightful at all. It is the act of throwing someone out of a window but carries the implicit intent of killing them by doing so. Unlike many words in the English language, we know when it was invented and why.
It was invented in 1620 to describe a specific event that happened in Prague in 1618.
But in Prague, defenestration has something of a history.
The 1618 event that led to the creation of a new English word was not the first time the action it described had happened there. Indeed, the practice of throwing people from windows already had precedents in Prague and therefore carried a great deal of symbolism. To understand what was really going on in 1618, we need to look briefly at those.
On the 30th July 1419, the Hussites, a popular religious movement which sought urgent reform of the Catholic church, marched on the New Town Hall in Prague to demand the release of their co-religionists. A stone thrown from the town hall window hit their leader. Infuriated, the Hussite protesters stormed the town hall and threw the leader of the council and several councillors from a high window, killing them.
By Øyvind Holmstad – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.
On the 24 September 1483, fearing that a new king might deny them those hard won religious rights, the Hussites seized control of Prague and hurled the leading councillors from the windows of the Old and New Town Halls. Some of the unfortunate men were killed by the fall, some were already dead when they were thrown out. The religious rights of the Hussites were confirmed soon after and Bohemia continued under its Hussite majority.
It is against this backdrop that we have to view the events of 23 May 1618.
Less than a decade before, the previous King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf (who incidentally lived in Prague rather than the usual Habsburg capital of Vienna), had signed a letter which guaranteed freedom of worship for the Protestants in his kingdom of Bohemia and essentially established a Protestant state church there.
When Rudolf died, his successor, both as King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor, Matthias, confirmed the Letter of Majesty, which enshrined those religious rights. But Matthias was not a young man and had no children. So he wanted to be sure his heir was well established. On being assured their religious rights would be upheld, the Protestant Bohemian Estates agreed to elect his chosen heir, Ferdinand, as their new king.
That was the interesting thing about Bohemia. Unlike most nations where the crown passed down the generations automatically, it had an elective monarchy. Admittedly once elected, the job was for life, and it was a given that the elected king was always going to be the next Habsburg emperor, but even so, the Bohemian Estates did get that vote.
The problem was Ferdinand wasn’t just a Catholic. He was a fanatical Catholic and a champion of the Counter-Reformation. Before his election, Ferdinand gave assurances he would uphold the Letter of Majesty. But his interpretation of it was not the same as that of the Bohemians or of Emperor Mattias. Mattias had allowed the building of new Protestant churches on royal lands. Ferdinand claimed the Protestants had no right to do so. Even worse, he also declared that the Protestant estates could no longer meet.
The Protestant nobles weren’t going to stand for that.
Led by Count von Thurn and supported by a great crowd of ordinary people, they cornered the four Catholic lords that Ferdinand had appointed to see that his will was enacted.
When it became clear that two of those lords didn’t care what was going on and weren’t going to try and speak up for the majority of their countrymen, Thurn declared “You are enemies of us and of our religion”. The duo was thrown out of the window of one of the castle towers, together with their secretary.
However, there is a bit of an unexpected twist in this tale.
That window the three men were thrown from was some seventy feet (21.3m) above the ground. But all three survived. Two were able to get up and run off, the third was unconscious and carried away swiftly by his servants. We don’t know for sure why they survived, clearly something broke their fall. Protestant propaganda said it was a heap of manure set by the wall of the tower. The Catholics claimed it was divine intervention, but whatever it was the two noblemen lived to take refuge in the fortified palace of one of Ferdinand’s loyal supporters in the city. The secretary raced with the news to Vienna and was later ennobled by Ferdinand as Baron von Hohenfall, or Baron of Highfall.
The Protestant estates went on to elect a new king, the leading Protestant prince of the Holy Roman Empire, Frederick, Elector Palatine. He was married to Elizabeth, the daughter of James VI and I, King of Scotland, England and Ireland.
By the time the new royal couple were crowned in November 1619, Matthias had died, and Ferdinand was emperor. Now he had all the power that allowed him to command armies to redeem what he saw as his stolen kingdom.
Thus, the stage was set both for the outbreak of war and for my story ‘Blood on White Mountain…
E.M. Swift-Hook says: In the words that Robert Heinlein put so evocatively into the mouth of Lazarus Long: ‘Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.’ Having tried a number of different careers, before settling in the North-East of England with family, three dogs, cats and a small flock of rescued chickens, I now spend a lot of time in private and have very clean hands.
September 7, 2023
The love of her life
Grand Duchess Olga wanted more than anything else to remain in Russia instead of marrying a foreign prince when she would have to change her Orthodox faith and possibly learn a new language. Prince Peter was
not a very prepossessing fellow, but at least he was Russian despite his title, so she accepted his proposal. Not until the morning after her wedding night, which she spent alone, did she learn that her husband was a homosexual. This was a time in Russia when homosexuals were disparaged and regarded as deviants.
Two years later, Olga was at a military review when she saw a soldier and, as she said, “It was fate. I suppose on that day, I learned that love at first sight does exist.” His name was Nikolai Kulikovsky, a twenty-two-year-old lieutenant in the Blue Cuirassiers, the regiment in which her brother, Grand Duke Michael, was a colonel.
She arranged with Michael to have Nikolai seated next to her at luncheon the following day, and after getting to know him a little better, she asked if she could write to him. No doubt Nikolai was amazed by the request, but they began a correspondence that was lukewarm at first and then heated up. Olga asked Peter for a divorce, but he refused. However, she persuaded him to appoint Nikolai as one of his ADCs so the three of them were living under the same roof. The lovers were discreet at first, but as time went by, they were seen together in public, and the gossip started. Still, Peter refused to give her a divorce.
The situation continued in this manner for thirteen years until 1916, in the middle of WWI, when Olga persuaded her brother, Tsar Nicholas II, to appeal to the Holy Synod for an annulment on her behalf. When the annulment was granted, she lost no time in marrying the love of her life. They remained together through many hardships well into old age.
I wish I could find a title for this book. Any suggestions?
August 21, 2023
Grand Duchess Olga
My new book (first draft completed – yesss!) is about Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovich, daughter of Tsar Alexander III and Tsarina Maria Feodorovna. formerly Princess Dagmar of Denmark.
She was the youngest in a family of three boys and two girls. Most of her youth was spent in the palace of Gatchina with her brother Michael, living an extraordinarily modest and happy life with their father, who enjoyed simple pleasures. Meanwhile, their mother, with the three older children, spent those same months in St. Petersburg, enjoying the balls and parties as a leading light of society. Despite their differences in tastes and lifestyle, the Tsar and Tsarina had a happy marriage.
It’s hard not to sympathize with Olga. She was intent on remaining in Russia instead of being forced to marry a foreign prince and live in a strange land with a different language and faith, such as Germany – the fate of many European princesses. When Prince Peter of Oldenburg proposed, she accepted without giving the matter much thought. Prince Peter was not an attractive man, but although the Oldenburgs were originally from Germany, they had lived in Russia for many generations. He fit the criterion.
Prince Peter was not a great catch. He gambled his way through much of her fortune and was a hypochondriac; alas for Olga’s longing to have children, he was a homosexual. Their marriage remained unconsummated until it was annulled by the Pope fourteen years later.
Not to worry. Olga wasn’t entirely without a love life. More later.
A new book
My new book (first draft completed – yesss!) is about Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovich, daughter of Tsar Alexander III and Tsarina Maria Feodorovna. formerly Princess Dagmar of Denmark.
She was the youngest in a family of three boys and two girls. Most of her youth was spent in the palace of Gatchina with her brother Michael, living an extraordinarily modest and happy life with their father, who enjoyed simple pleasures. Meanwhile, their mother, with the three older children, spent those same months in St. Petersburg, enjoying the balls and parties as a leading light of society. Despite their differences in tastes and lifestyle, the Tsar and Tsarina had a happy marriage.
It’s hard not to sympathize with Olga. She was intent on remaining in Russia instead of being forced to marry a foreign prince and live in a strange land with a different language and faith, such as Germany – the fate of many European princesses. When Prince Peter of Oldenburg proposed, she accepted without giving the matter much thought. Prince Peter was not an attractive man, but although the Oldenburgs were originally from Germany, they had lived in Russia for many generations. He fit the criterion.
Prince Peter was not a great catch. He gambled his way through much of her fortune and was a hypochondriac; alas for Olga’s longing to have children, he was a homosexual. Their marriage remained unconsummated until it was annulled by the Pope fourteen years later.
Not to worry. Olga wasn’t entirely without a love life. More later.
April 26, 2023
Hello to all on this special day.
It is cover reveal day for The Disappearance of Michael Romanov. I am so excited to have finally reached this stage after the manuscript sat on the shelf for several months while I recovered from an illness that depleted my energy levels, both physical and mental- no, not covid. I’m still not entirely recovered, but well on the way. Now, let me see if I can remember how to do this.
What happened to Michael Romanov, the little-known brother of Tsar Nicholas II? And how did his wife survive the revolution? Find out on May 1st. publication day!
April 18, 2023
The Colour of Bone by Toni Mount
Set in medieval London, the Colour of Bone is the 11th Sebastian Foxley murder mystery by the prolific Toni Mount. Seb, as he is known, is an illuminator by trade but also wears other hats when the occasion calls for it. As an artist, he makes the acquaintance of Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Welles. As a sleuth, he enters the orbit of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, the king’s brother. He is also an unpaid and often reluctant assistant to the city Bailiff, Thaddeus Turner, which is how he gets to investigate enough murders to fill 11 books.
Seb moves from the grimy, dangerous streets of London to the grand and equally dangerous mansion of the Duke of Gloucester in order to solve three murders. At the same time, an arsonist is burning down buildings, including one owned by Seb. The sleuthing only takes up a portion of the story. The author fills in the rest with an array of friends, employees and family members – a rich panoply to provide Ms Mount with subplots for many more books. One interesting subplot here deals with what happens when a husband, presumed dead, returns to claim his wife, who has married again. Anyone writing a book or is simply interested in the everyday life of 15th century London should keep a notebook handy while reading this book. It is full of interesting details about London, its people, streets, laws and so much more.
Another delightful aspect of this book is its cover. The author fed a description of how she imagines Seb Foxley looks into a gizmo, and AI produced the figure on the front of the book. Now the reader has a face to go along with the narrative.
An excellent read.
*****
My latest non-fiction book “How to Survive in Medieval England” is the go-to guide for the would be time traveller and there is another one like this on the way – whilst my first non-fiction book “Everyday Life in Medieval London” has become a No1 Best seller under five Amazon categories.
To get updates on all my books visit http://www.ToniMount.com
I study, write and teach British history. My non-fiction books look at the ordinary lives of medieval people, leading me to write my successful series of murder mysteries. They are set in the stinking streets of medieval London and feature the talented yet humble artist, Sebastian Foxley. My Victorian melodrama is “The Death Collector”.
My fascinating non-fiction book “A Year in the Life of Medieval England” looks at real events that occurred on everyday of a medieval year and my first biography is about the life and times of Isaac Newton.
To download my free ebook, The Foxley Letters, go here: https://goo.gl/7Wcytm.
After many years of teaching history to adults several of my courses are also available online at http://www.medievalcourses.com
Please visit my website http://www.tonimount.com or follow me at http://www.twitter.com/tonihistorian or http://www.facebook.com/toni.mount.10
January 23, 2023
Beneath the Waves by Melissa Addey
Set in Rome in the first century A.D. Emperor Titus wants a Naumachia, a water event including a mock sea battle and other features. After the first event, he is so pleased that he wants another the following year, on a grander scale, this one with deeper water and deadly aquatic creatures: eels, vipers, sharks and crocodiles. An ensemble of workers has to figure out how to waterproof the floor of the Amphitheatre, how to get water to the Amphitheatre and onto the arena floor, and then how to drain it quickly. They also have to get ships (2/3 the size of a regular ship) into the water, get sea creatures from Ostia and house them safely until showtime. And, really, there is no point in having man-eating creatures in the water unless there is something to eat. Fighting gladiators falling from the ships satisfies this need, but the author skims lightly over this part.
Marcus, the manager of games and his assistant, Althea, face these Herculean tasks after having put on one hundred days of consecutive games, along with others recruited occasionally for their expertise. As well as working closely together, Althea and Marcus live in the same insula (apartment block) with a propina (eating place) on a corner run by Cassia and her father. Various other occupants of the insula include a retired Vestal Virgin and a lively, energetic orphaned black boy who’s a sort of mascot.
One night, Althea barely escapes being raped. The next day, she realises her attacker is a cousin of Cassia’s coming for a visit. She faces a moral dilemma. Should she tell Cassia or just hope the cousin will go home? Delay only makes things worse because it is soon apparent that the cousin has his eye on the propina through marriage to Cassia. Althea tells no one and lives in fear. She copes with her secret and the burdens of her job with the support of friends. This is only one of several sub-plots.
Three things I particularly liked about this book. The narrative takes a simple, unadorned style in keeping with the characters. Likewise, the dialogue is simple, even when explaining technically complicated things relating to the Naumachia, and skips along naturally without ever seeming forced. The third is the supportive and loving community of the insula, which adds a few heart-warming moments to the drama.
Anyone who reads this book would be forgiven for wondering how the author found information on something as arcane as Naumachia, which apparently only happened twice. It is explained in the Afterword, but I can’t begin to imagine the difficulty the author must have had tracking down resources on the subject. Kudos for that.
It is the second in a series. The first deals with the destruction of Pompeii – a must-read for me. Highly recommended.
*****
About Melissa Addey
I write historical fiction across several different eras, as I love to research new times and places. Come with me to:
Ancient Rome: meet the backstage team of the Colosseum, tasked with creating spectacular gladiatorial Games.
11th century Morocco: four women’s lives intertwine to tell the story of a rising empire across North Africa and Spain.
18th century China: the gilded lives of four imperial concubines, each struggling to find her place in the Forbidden City.
And a new era coming soon… press the ‘Follow’ button above to be sent an update when new books come out.
You can see some book trailers and videos of research trips on this page.
I hope you enjoy your travels with me – please do leave even a brief review if you have, it helps my stories find new readers and I read every one and am always touched by your kind words and by you taking the time.
I’ve been the Leverhulme Trust Writer in Residence at the British Library and won the Novel London award. I have a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Surrey and for my thesis I wrote about the balance between fact and fiction in historical fiction, while writing my novel The Garden of Perfect Brightness.
For more information on me and my books, visit my website http://www.melissaaddey.com
November 30, 2022
Discovering her Worth by Verne R. Albright
This book is like a Christmas hamper: There is so much good stuff in it, I hardly know where to begin and I won’t even attempt to repackage it in a short review. I will have to content myself with a brief list of the most delectable items. Such as, mother/daughter relationship; malicious sister-in-law; death of a loved one; family business on the brink of bankruptcy; ageing spinster giving up on love and then finding it; sexual dysfunction with compassion; a deep dive into the world of Peruvian Paso horses.
The main character is Malina Yarza, who agrees to try to rescue the family business, Casa Yarza, to prevent her sister-in-law from declaring bankruptcy. It is a gigantic undertaking as there is only $3000.00 in the bank with a towering debt of 8 million and the repair shop and warehouses are filthy and need repairs. Malina overcomes crisis after crisis with her ingenuity and intelligence while struggling against uncooperative family members and a culture that doesn’t take businesswomen seriously.
Love interest is Ramir, an American whose modern ideas sometimes gently clash with the traditional values of the culture in which Malina was raised. Nevertheless, he is always there to support her, and she has a wide array of loyal friends and employees.
Another aspect of this book is that it introduced me to the history of a country I knew little about, which is always interesting. The author, however, has spent a lot of time there and has learned a great deal. He writes authoritatively about the law, business, and customs.
My only critique is the cover that doesn’t do justice to the story. I require only two things from a good historical fiction book – entertainment and education – and this book gave me both. I highly recommend it to readers who are keen to try something different.
*****
About the author.
FLASH: My novel “Playing Chess with God” was voted Online Book Club’s 2019 Book of the Year. Order copies for yourself or to give as gifts.
“My earliest memory,” six foot, nine inch Verne Albright remembers, “is of an English class where the teacher assigned a one-page story. The other students’ reaction was summed up by a boy who exclaimed, ‘how will I ever write a whole page!’ I however, wrote twenty and in the process discovered my life’s first passion.”
At twenty-one Verne traveled to Peru and was enchanted by the country and its people. During that first visit he, his wife, and their year-old daughter traveled by jeep in the Andes Mountains of four nations. Over the next half-century he returned to Peru sixty-four times and imported over two hundred of its Paso horses—including a pair he took overland to California, a nine-month trek of more then five thousand miles in eleven nations. Riding much of the way he came face-to-face with killer deserts, witch doctors, bandits, avalanches, poisonous reptiles, vampire bats, and a violent revolution.
“Finding a true calling is a miracle experienced by few,” he once said, “and Peru provided me with two. I promoted its Paso horses worldwide for over fifty years and more recently began writing historical fiction set in its fascinating past and rich culture.”
Verne is a master story teller and his novels are so well written that they’ve already begun appearing on Best-Seller Lists. And why not? He has lived adventures at least as exciting as the ones he writes about.
