Susan Appleyard's Blog, page 7

How Dare the Birds Sing by Marina Osipova

A wartime romance set in Russia and Germany

Fifteen years after the end of World War I and just as Hitler was coming to power, Lyuba and Natasha are walking in a park and meet two men who are enrolled at the flying school. Gunter is German and Germans are still disliked and mistrusted in Russia. Lyuba falls in love with him, although she feels a strong attraction toward his friend, Stepan. One day Gunter is gone. Lyuba assumes he has been called back to Germany but he left with no explanation and she feels betrayed. With Gunter out of the way, Stepan drugs Lyuba, forces sex on her, and then compels her to marry him to protect her and her mother from the secret police. She spends years longing for Gunter, at the same time as trying to reconcile herself to a life with Stepan who she loathes. When World War II breaks out and the Germans invade, she has to face dangers and difficulties far worse than marriage to an unpleasant man.

Stepan has some redeeming features. He truly loves Lyuba and, other than expecting her compliance in bed, doesn’t treat her badly. And when they adopt a little girl, he proves himself a good daddy. The author does a masterful job of turning him from an arrogant brute at the beginning of the book, to a man whose motives and actions (not all of them) we can sympathise with by the end.

At the start of the story, Lyuba is a sweet, naïve seventeen year-old with a future in teaching ahead of her. But she has to learn other skills in order to survive. Throughout the war years, she is the victim of circumstances again and again, and the reader is carried along from one tense situation to another. None of those situations stretch credulity.

World War stories are not my favourite reading, but I enjoyed this one. Love, loss, tragedy, pathos – it’s all there – with plenty of action added to the mix. I was enthralled throughout. An excellent book and the author will go on my tbr list.

Highly recommended

*****

The Cold Hearth by Garth Pettersen

Set in 11th century England and Norway.

Two incidents at the beginning move this Viking/Saxon saga forward. The first is the prologue which relates the murder of an entire family and household members by a neighbour. The second is the attempted murder of Swein, son of King Cnute (author’s spelling) who is warned that all the sons of King Cnute are dead men. Cnute has three sons (Athelings). Swein, the eldest, and Harald Harefoot are the sons of his first wife. Harthacnute, although the youngest, is his father’s heir. Harald is the protagonist of the story. He has retired to a ruined estate which happens to be where the family was murdered. When Harald learns about the attempted assassination of his brother, he becomes wary of those about him. The neighbour, son of the man responsible for the earlier killings, appears friendly, but is he? The two housecarls Harald has hired for protection – are they to be trusted? And what about the two dispossessed sons of the previous king, Ethelred? Even Harthacnute comes under suspicion until an attempt is made on his life.

            There are long periods of low drama when we read how Harald revives the estate his father has given him. The action picks up after he is attacked by hirelings. An element of suspense could have been added by the question: who did the hiring, but we already learned this early in the book.

            Set against the machinations of kings and princes, is Harald’s attempt to live in peace and build a life for himself and his wife, and a neighbour dealing with the guilt of a crime he didn’t commit.

Harald is not the stereotypical Viking alfa-male. He loves his wife and frequently defers to her. And he forgives and helps someone who betrays his trust.  

            There have been two previous books in The Atheling Chronicles but this one reads well as a stand-alone. Although the story comes to a satisfactory conclusion, the way is set for another in the series.

            Lovers of the period will enjoy.

****

I wrote this review for Discovering Diamonds.

A Blossom in the Ashes by Ron Singerton

This World War II epic is a sequel to A Cherry Blossom in Winter, which I read, reviewed and enjoyed.

With a Japanese mother and Jewish/Russian father, Tadichi learns a harsh lesson in bigotry when he confesses his mixed heritage to the girl he hopes to marry and is unceremoniously dumped. Twelve years later, he is still unmarried, a fighter pilot and on Oahu where his mother lives. There he meets his brother, Koizumi, who he hardly knows and who is also a fighter pilot in the Japanese navy. With him is the beautiful Sayuri and his mother’s old friend. But Koizumi isn’t on Oahu merely to accompany the two ladies. He has a mission which will pit him against his brother in the coming war. To complicate matters further, both men are in love with Sayuri.

The story contains some of the components of the last book – lovers of different cultures torn apart by war; battle scenes which include, in this case, Pearl Harbour from the Japanese perspective; the suffering of civilians on the fringes of war. This one has a broader sweep than the first book.

The author has cleverly set his characters in different countries to show different perspective and the impact of war on other peoples. There are the two naval pilots, Tad and Koizumi, zipping through the ether on opposite sides. Through them the author reveals his knowledge of the planes of the day and aerial combat. The air and sea battles are exciting without being overly-lengthy or too detailed. We see Sayuri alone in Tokyo when it is mercilessly bombed and when the atom bombs are dropped on unsuspecting populations just as Japan is on the point of surrender. Tad’s mother is a nurse in Hawai’i. His father is in Russia when war breaks and must make his way west to Germany and the allies. His friend Jeremy, an American of Japanese descent, becomes a prisoner of war, escapes when the ship he is on is sunk, and provides some of the most edge-of-the-seat adventures in the book.

I thoroughly enjoyed this action-packed book, but I must mention one thing. The opening chapter is set twelve years before the main action and deals with Tad’s girlfriend and her parents’ horror when he tells them of his Japanese/Jewish heritage. They immediately make it clear that he is not wanted. I expected that this kind of bigotry would be explored later in the book, but it wasn’t, which left me confused about why it was included.

****

A Cherry Blossom in Winter by Ron Singerton

Set in late19th/early 20th century, the story takes place in Russia and Japan. Russia and Japan. Revolution in simmering below the surface in Russia. Workers are striking and getting shot for peaceful protests. Dissatisfaction with the Tsar’s government is building. The background of the story is the Russo-Japanese War. The scenes of sea battle paint a horrifyingly vivid picture of the carnage and horror during the engagement at Tsushima. I hope it’s not a spoiler to say that this war was a factor in the coming revolution.

Young Alexei Brusilov makes an enemy of Boris Sukolov by besting him at in a fencing competition at the Naval Academy. This is the beginning of a bitter enmity on Boris’s part which only deepens with further encounters. When Alexei’s father is offered a post in Japan, Alexei reluctantly goes with him to get away from the vengeful Boris. In Japan, he meets beautiful Kimi-San. For both, it’s love at first sight, although she is promised to another man. Kimi is a woman of her time, so their relationship is very much hands-off in the beginning. It is a forbidden but tender romance, conducted for the most part through letters and at distance.

At the start of the story, Alexei is an unsophisticated 17-year-old. His growth is not always heroic but terribly human. We see him exiled in Siberia, sunk in despairing dissolution, and again on a ship succumbing to despair as shells explode and body parts fly around him. And we see him rise above these awful tests.

The secondary characters are all very believable and help move the sub-plots along. Olga with her secrets. Sergei who longs for revolution. Count Yevgeny who beats his wife but is dominated by his mistress. Even Boris is not entirely evil, being redeemed by his love for the wild Svetlana.

The author provides some delectable tidbits of social mores. In Russia, at least in noble circles, it was accepted that husbands take mistresses and wives take lovers. Often cuckolds were friends with their cuckolders. A high level of discretion was required, but any hint of jealousy was unacceptable. In Japan we learn something of Japanese culture, particularly as it relates to interactions between a man and a woman.

Really strong writing and so many elements to the book that I have no hesitation in recommending it.

*****

The long, long excommunication of Portsmouth.

            On January 9th 1450, Adam Moleyns, Bishop of Cichester was dragged onto the beach at Portsmouth by a mob and murdered. The motive behind this crime has been debated by historians without any resolution. There are three possible scenarios.

The bishop was sent by the king to pay some soldiers and sailors their wages before they embarked for France where the Hundred Years War was in its final stages. An argument ensued because the men were dissatisfied with the money they received and the bishop paid for the shortfall with his life.The Duke of York, then in Ireland as its lieutenant-governor, hired assassins to do the job.The people of the town blamed the bishop for the losses in Normandy – an accusation for which the Duke of Suffolk paid with his life four months later.

            Whatever the reason for the atrocity, Pope Nicholas excommunicated the entire town. That meant the loss of all spiritual benefits shared by Christians. The excommunicated may not receive any of the sacraments. No baptisms, marriages or consecrations. The mortally ill must die without the consolation of the Last Rites.

If the soldiers and sailors had been responsible, it would have been impossible to punish them because by the time the pope got the news, the men would have crossed the Channel and disappeared into the army. If the Duke of York was the responsible party, it ought not to have been impossible to identify and track down the assassins. In either case, why punish the whole town? It seems a bit extreme.

The most likely scenario is that the men of the town were responsible. The bishop had a close relationship with the very unpopular Duke of Suffolk and had advocated giving up territory to France to end the war. Rouen had been lost to the French the year before and it seemed likely that the whole of Normandy would go the same way. Portsmouth’s economy relied on trade with the towns of the French coast, which gave them a good reason to hate the bishop.

      The French did, in fact take Normandy, resulting in an economic downturn that must have made life in Portsmouth difficult enough. Incredibly, the people bore the burden of excommunication for almost sixty years.

      Not until 1508 did they appeal to Pope Julius II that they were anxious to submit themselves to penance. The Pope sent three commissioners. Upon their arrival at the Domus Dei, the garrison church, they summoned the townsfolk by ringing the bell of St. Thomas’s Church. But when the people arrived, they found the door bolted and a note ordering them to the Domus Dei. Once there, the commissioners berated them for their sins and drove them out saying they were not fit to enter a house of God, and forced them to return to the place of the murder. They were then told to return to St. Thomas’s in their bare feet. The church doors were still barred. They were ordered back to scene of the crime, where many prayers were recited. For penance, they were told to erect a cross on the spot as soon as possible and later a chapel. Also they had to present themselves at the chapel every Good Friday, and on the anniversary of the bishop’s death at least one member of every household was to return bearing a lighted candle and take part in a requiem mass. With this, the people were allowed to enter St. Thomas’s Church and their long years of misery were over.

To go or not to go

That was the question facing us when the time came around for our usual trip to Mexico. We live in an apartment in Ontario in the summer. Nothing much was going on this year. Three or four excursions to the beach. Two trips to visit friends. Dinner with our son once a week once restaurants opened. The occasional visit from our two busy daughters. What else? The gym for me once they opened. Very quiet. Rather boring. I had resolved to give up writing because too much computer use was affecting my eyes. Ever tried that? As bad as trying to give up smoking. Doing it in the Year of Covid only made it impossible. After doing a few crosswords and a 2000-piece jigsaw puzzle, I felt I had to get out of my own life into someone else’s in order to survive.

Then November rolled around. My brother left for his winter vacation in Florida. And the question went back and forth between us. Should we go or not? The numbers in Ontario were going up. You’re going to find this hard to believe, perhaps, but the numbers in the state where we have our house were going down. In fact, the last time I saw them, there were less than 200 new cases in a 2 week period. That helped us to decide. We were off to Mexico.

I saw the airport and the plane trip as the biggest risks. The airport wasn’t bad – everyone wearing masks – but the plane was full, which surprised me.

We survived. We have been here a week now in our own house, in a gated community, able to do whatever we need to do to stay safe. Restaurants are open, as are our pools although use is restricted to an hour a day. A little lonely right now but some friends will come later, some not at all. Everyone must do whatever is best for them. But the very best thing is that the weather is warm, the breezes balmy. A cold day in Mexico is 20C. We have 5 more months of this.

A beach in Mexico

Even before Covid, people would ask me if I felt safe in Mexico. I don’t know why anyone would think I would keep going to a place where I felt unsafe, but apparently they do. My answer was always that in almost 30 winters I have never had a bad experience. But I have had many good ones, demonstrating that the Mexican people on the whole are kind, friendly, honest and always willing to lend a hand.

So grab your mask and come on down!  

The Unlikely Occultist by Isobel Blackthorn

This is a dual time periods book: modern/early-mid twentieth century

Alice Bailey was an aristocrat and an evangelical Christian. As a young woman she did missionary work in soldiers’ homes in Ireland and India. Marriage to a violent man produced three daughters. When he abandoned them, Alice was destitute. She worked for several years packing sardines in a canning factory in order to feed herself and her children. But she was a purposeful and ambitious woman determined to rise above these appalling conditions. Seeking some intellectual stimulation, she attended a meeting of theosophists and found her calling.

Heather is an archivist, who has a hundred boxes of a late professor’s work on Bailey dumped on her, including many of Bailey’s books. Heather is soon engaged, and we see Bailey’s life and work through her sensitive and sympathetic eyes. She has her own issues: a recently dead and beloved aunt and a domineering mother.

This was not an easy read and I found myself having to read parts again. Bailey was not only an occultist and an esoteric, but her teachings also encompassed metaphysics, spirituality, and cosmology among other arcane subjects, all of which are on the very periphery of my core of knowledge. She was called by some the Mother of the Aquarian New Age, and she was certainly an important influencer. Others denigrated her as a disciple of the Antichrist.

As Heather digs deeper, she embarks on a quest to discover why Bailey was loved and revered by some, reviled by others and largely ignored by eminent historians and academics. The answer may surprise. Despite all, Bailey’s teachings and the organisations she founded have endured.

Not all of Bailey’s writings are her own. She transcribed telepathic messages from an entity she called the Tibetan whose purpose was to found a new world order, with one government, one people, peace and harmony. The nearest we have come is the United Nations.

While this book is interesting, it’s not for everyone. Like its subject it is erudite and deep. But it did something for me few other books have done by opening a whole world of new thoughts and ideas.

*****

Ella Maud by Nicholas Nicastro

Set in North Carolina in the early 20th century, this is a fictionalised account of a true crime. Ella Maud – Nell, as she is known – stepped out onto the porch of her family home with her beau, Jim Wilcox and disappeared. The first questions posed are: Was she murdered? Did she commit suicide? Did she run off? Thirty-six days later, her body is found in the river that runs behind her house in a remarkable state of preservation and with a contusion on her temple. After a public outcry against so heinous a crime, Jim Wilcox, the last person to see her alive, is tried – twice – and found guilty.

There are a fistful of characters so believable they leap off the pages as flesh and blood. Even the minor characters are well drawn with distinct personalities. This story is not so much about Nell or her murder. It is the author’s imagining of what might have happened, and he takes us well beyond the bare details of the crime to examine Jim’s inability to forgive himself for the part he played in her disappearance, the pathos of his downward struggle into dereliction, and a family unhinged by the loss of a loved one. It’s also about human strength and frailty and the cruel effects of guilt.

The writing is concise and the dialogue is appropriate to the period. It is one of the best true murder mysteries I have read – perhaps because it is so much more than that.

I have one caveat but it’s a big one. Early on in the book, the author gives us a glimpse into what happened. It is an unnecessary ‘spoiler’. The author could have kept the reader in suspense for longer. It didn’t impair my enjoyment of the book at all. It was just a little irritant. I hope the author will fix it.

****

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The Carpet Weaver of Usak by Kathryn Gauci

Great story well told

There are two villages in Anatolia. Pinarbaşi is Turkish, Stravrodromi is Greek. The only thing that divides them is a road. Their people live together in complete harmony. In reading about the relationship between the two villages, I got a sense that the march of time had left them behind. Mention of a caravanserai, camel trains, goat-herders, and the excitement produced in the women by a chiming clock, all suggest a simple people living simple lives according to a simple ethic: Help your neighbours; they are your family. They could as easily (apart from the clock) belong to biblical times.

The lifeblood of the two villages is the carpet weaving industry. Aspasia, a gentle, curious woman weaves exquisite carpets. Her husband Christophoros, a proud, hardworking and generous man works in Uşak for a carpet company. They are an adoring couple, whose language is spiced with tender endearments. They long for a child.

Then a bullet fired in faraway Sarajevo changes everything. In the villages, no one knows where Sarajevo is or who Archduke Franz-Ferdinand is or why war has been declared. The young men are summoned to fight, the Ottomans side with Germany and Austria, the Greeks with Russia and the allies. They march away and many are never heard from again. The war also impacts the carpet industry as the women are called upon to turn their skills to making blankets. Production is reduced but even so, carpets stockpile. After the war, further hardship for the two villages begins, testing friendships in the struggle for survival.

There is great depth to this book. The author invites us to look at our lives with all our sophisticated toys and gadgets and ask if we are any happier than women who thrilled at the chiming of a clock. The horrors of war, the ruin and devastation it brings to ordinary people, is juxtaposed by the birth of a child and the hope it brings; and also with a delightful description of Anatolia in spring

In keeping with the characters, the writing is simple and concise, with no dramatic flourishes or superfluity. I expected to enjoy this book and I did. It’s a story of love, friendship, courage, loss and war, superbly told, set during an epic and tragic event I suspect few know about. I didn’t. I have no faults to pick except that there were a few grammatical errors or typos.

A Perfect Stone by S.C. Karakaltsas

This is a dual timeline novel set in Greece in the mid-20th century and Australia in the 21st century. Nine-year-old Dimitri is exposed to the senseless brutalities of war when his father is taken away to prison for no apparent fault. Later he becomes one of the thousands of children forcibly removed from their homes to save them from becoming victims of the Greek civil war. Accompanied by a few brave women, Dimitri and his friends make a gruelling trek through the mountains without adequate food, clothing or shelter and exposed to bombs dropped from “blackbirds” as well as the risk of a chance encounter with soldiers who might or might not be sympathetic. The heroism and compassion of the children are awe-inspiring but never defies belief.

The story of the trek and Dimitri’s assimilation into a new life in a new country is told in the memoirs of Jim, an octogenarian of failing memory. Who nevertheless retains a sense of humour. After a stroke puts him in hospital, his over-protective daughter, Helen, helps him to confront a past he has hidden and overcome the guilt he has carried for decades.

This is a fictional story but based on actual events, and the author wastes not a word in evoking sympathy for those most vulnerable members of society, without ever becoming maudlin.

I didn’t know there was a Greek civil war. And although I vaguely understood that children were sometimes evacuated for their own safety, I never gave a thought to how those children felt about being separated from their parents and how they may have suffered in other ways. I now know that P.T.S.S. is not confined to soldiers.

This book is the best kind of historical novel: engaging, enlightening and thought-provoking. Kudos to the author for a well-told tale.

This review was originally written for Discovering Diamonds.

https://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Stone-S-C-Karakaltsas-ebook/dp/B07GNV5S1C/ref=sr_1_1?crid=UOYAAXZA1WB3&dchild=1&keywords=a+perfect+stone&qid=1591376947&s=digital-text&sprefix=A+perfect+stone%2Cdigital-text%2C182&sr=1-1