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THE ASSASSIN OF VENICE by Alyssa Palombo ~ A Book Review

THE ASSASSIN OF VENICE is a well-crafted tale about a Venetian courtesan called Valentina Ricciardi in 1530s Venice.

In those days, Venice was an rich and imposing republic, powerful enough to do battle with the Turks over who was going to dominate the trade routes in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Another up-and-coming power was Spain, who had already begun its colonization of what is now the United States and South America. Needless to say, spies were part of its armament. But when people think of spies who operated in the past, they still think of young men armed with daggers, their faces hidden by masks, their bodies hidden by cloaks.

But who better to spy than a popular courtesan? Unlike the wives of powerful men who were not allowed to be educated in those days, courtesans were not only gorgeous to look at but were also educated, well able to provide that intellectual firepower that was so stimulating to the élite, who enjoyed talking about politics and the problems they faced when trying to rise to the top. A clever courtesan could coax all kinds of secrets from these men in the form of pillow talk, when their guard was down.

But author Alyssa Palombo has pushed this side hustle a bit further. Supposing these women were employed not only as spies by the Venetian state but as assassins also?

And so we have the story of Maria Angelina, a gently-bred young woman, whose entire existence is destroyed one night in 1527, when the armies of the Holy Roman Emperor go on rampage in Rome.

Eighteen-year-old Maria Angelina manages to escaped (dressed as a boy, of course) and falls in with a Spanish solider who teaches her how to protect herself. They travel through Italy to Venice where he leaves her at a convent, the only respectable option for a young woman in her circumstances.

But Maria Angelina has no intention of spending the rest of her life behind walls. Before night has fallen, she has already escaped and made her way to a brothel in the Piazza di San Marco, where she learns her trade. Once she has made enough to set up on her own, she leaves. The Madam of the brothel makes her change her name – saying that Maria Angelina makes her sound like a nun – and so Valentina Ricciardi, fascinating courtesan is born.

And so when Valentina is ordered by a powerful member of the Council of Ten to murder the man she loves, or her daughter will be killed in his stead, Valentina, who has already lost everything she had once, fights back.

I think most people are going to enjoy the ending of this novel. Five Stars. 

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Adventures in Provence 2010

For an important birthday, I persuaded my husband to take me to Provence. I had never been to Southern France, while my husband’s family on his father’s side hails from the tiny village of Courbessac near Nîmes.

I consulted a favorite coffee table book The Most Beautiful Villages of Provence, and that is how we decided to make our base at Fox-Amphoux in the Département du Var. 

Fox-Amphoux is a charming village perché, meaning that it is literally perched on a rocky outcrop, often fortified and dates from the Middle Ages. From there, we visited The Promenade des Anglais in Nice, popular with British tourists in the 19th century, the Chateau d’Entrecasteaux, where Madame du Sévigné’s daughter lived (she was the recipient of most of her mother’s letters about court gossip) and Grasse, the Perfume Capital.

Everything was going wonderfully well, until we visited the Palais des Papes in Avignon – the seat of the Catholic Church during the 14th century – where I had a very strange turn.

Perhaps it was the description of the feasts held there during the elections of various popes. At one such feast, 96 thousand eggs were used to prepare the food. Now, as everyone who knows me well realizes, I have a sensitive stomach. If anyone is going to feel queasy, it will be me. But it was more than the stomach-churning amount of food. For it suddenly occurred to me that while all these men were celebrating the elevation of the new pope, everyone else outside this gilded cage of a palace was malnourished, half-starving, not getting enough to eat. 

And suddenly, I needed to leave. 

I don’t know how to explain this other than to say that the dark recesses of this palace, it gold bars hidden in boxes under the floor, its too-obvious power, oozed evil. I couldn’t leave fast enough, my bewildered husband running after me and asking what was the matter. 

Once I’d calmed down and explained, he understood what I meant. But I don’t think I will be visiting that Papal Palace at Avignon ever again.

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TO THE SUN by Octavia Randolph ~ Circle of Ceridwen #11

This volume has two very different threads. 

One is an adventure story about a group of Svaer (Swedes) and a group of Gotlanders who somehow manage to sail into the Gulf of Finland, through the marshy swamps of what is now St Petersburg, into Lake Ladoga before heading south to Novgorod, and across the snow and ice to Kiev, where they pick up the treacherous Dnieper River which takes them to the Black Sea and on their way to Mikligarðr, the glorious city we now know as Istanbul. This manuscript must have been written after the start of the war between Vladimir Putin and Ukraine, and I read it with that in mind. It was so poignant to wander around these lands and experience how they must have been in the 990s via Ms. Randolph’s marvelous descriptions. 

The other story thread has to do with the young people we have come to know ever since Tindr, the fifth volume of this series. Edwin of Kilton still cannot catch a break, and what he wants most of all – a suitable wife – still eludes him. Hrald, the young Jarl of Four Stones, is wracked with guilt about his forbidden love for his first wife Dagmar, when he must pretend that all is well with his marriage to his second wife Pega of Mercia. 

And this brings me to the best part of the book. For with the first half taken up with the adventure story that too-rapidly pivots to the trials and tribulations of the sons and daughters of Ceridwen, Sidroc, and Lady Edith, the ending is an absolute gob-smack. I have complained often about how nothing much happens in too many of Ms. Randolphs recent volumes that make up The Circle of Ceridwen series. But the ending of To The Sun is an absolute shocker I did not see coming. 

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Adventures in Paris in 2010

In 2010, ,my husband and I spent several months in Paris. We rented a top-floor apartment on the Rue des Rosiers in the Marais district of Paris. Every morning for six weeks, I would get up early, taking the Rue Vieille du Temple, the Pont Louis-Philippe, the Pont Saint-Louis, and the Rue du Cloître Notre Dame, before drifting left towards the Pont au Double right past the great western doors of Notre Dame as the bells chimed out eight o’ clock in the morning. I completed my journey by crossing the Pont au Double, through the Rues Lagrange, Fouarre, and Dante, onto the Boulevards Saint Germain and St Michel, onto the Rue Racine, then through the Jardins du Luxembourg to the Alliance Française which awaited me on the Boulevard Raspail.

It had been a long-standing wish of mine to go to Paris to perfect my French. I had had this dream ever since I fell in love with the beautiful and elegant French Language at High School at the age of sixteen. I loved it so much, I persuaded a French teacher to give me extra lessons in speaking French, for a year after O Levels. I acquired a French penpal. Then I met the man who was to become my first husband at a concert, and abandoned my plans to live in Paris and speak French, going to the United States instead.

So it was over thirty years later, as I approached my fiftieth birthday, that I had this opportunity to live in Paris and study French. I learned how tiny the ancient part of the city of Paris is. I saw that Paris has wonderful skies. And I discovered that the French have a taste for their “spectacles.” My husband and I were walking over one of those romantic Parisian bridges when we saw a man with an upside-down umbrella, various plastic bottles filled with water and a pump. There, on the street, in the last light of the sun, he had constructed a fountain inside an umbrella! I remember being stunned as something like that would never have occurred to me. But those of you who watched the Paris Olympics now know how spectacularly inventive the French can be !

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WATER BORNE ~ CERIDWEN #10 ~ by Octavia Randolph

Water Borne has such a poetic feel to it that it seems a shame that I’m going to start this book review by criticizing it. But this title doesn’t, in my humble opinion, really tell you what this novel is about. Yes, the piece starts with Lady Dwynwen pouring water from a silver jug. Yes, Edwin of Kilton does spend some time on the sea. But even so, I don’t think this title gives you enough of a flavor of what really happens in this volume.

I really think that matters could have been improved if this novel had been titled The Missteps and Misfortunes of Lord Edwin of Kilton. For poor Edwin cannot catch a break in this volume.

Naturally, his troubles start with Lady Dwynwen. Having traipsed all the way to Wales (at least a 50-mile journey over rutted roads), the lady refuses to marry him. Instead, she persuades him to take her back to Kilton so that she could see his home and then make a decision.

As soon as her gaze falls on his elder brother Ceric she changes her mind. 

“I will not leave you,” she says over and over again to him, as he sits bemused before her. For Ceric is  fragile, having just returned from his sojourn in the forests of Kilton, where he has been living for the past year. He would have died had it not been for the supplies that Worr sent him. And he is still shell-shocked over the death of his intended bride Ashild, because he was responsible for her death. Believing that he saw a Viking warrior before him, he threw a spear which pierced her heart. It was only as he took the speak out that he realized that the Viking was actually Ashild herself. This is the worst thing that could have possibly have happened to Ceric, for he loved Ashild dearly.

But that night, Lady Dwynwen appears at his door in her nightgown. Ceric is unable to resist, and so, of course they have to marry, which they do the very next day.

Everyone is delighted, that Ceric, who has suffered so much in the past year, has finally found happiness. All, except for Edwin, who is in shock. How can that child-like girl have spurned him so completely? Why did she choose Ceric? Edwin cannot understand what happened. She has slipped through his fingers like an eel, before he had a chance to get acquainted. 

And now he must go to the trouble and expense of acquiring another bride. So when a letter from King Alfred arrives, inviting him to court, Edwin is only too eager to go. But it turns out that the bride Alfred has in mind is Ealhswith, daughter of Sidroc the Dane. Edwin is appalled. For Sidroc murdered Edwin’s father Godwin. And so he refuses the King’s offer point blank. 

Disconsolate, he wanders the halls of the King’s palace, spotting a beautiful, dark-haired woman of noble aspect. He inquires who she is, only to be told that she is Dagmar, Hrald of Four Stone’s first wife, whom he divorced when he found her with another man. 

And so when Raedwulf proposes that Edwin travel all the way to Frisia, to the mouth of the Rhine river to negotiate a match with one of the local nobleman’s daughters, Edwin is desperate to go. But when he arrives, the nobleman has just died and the household is in mourning. As it seems the new count is not likely to do anything for his sisters, Edwin’s hopes are again dashed.

And that is how he makes the decision to visit his mother Ceridwen, who is now living happily with his nemesis Sidroc at the Hall of Tyr on Gotland. Of course, things are very tense, but I won’t say more so as not to spoil the ending for those of you who have not read this book. 

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The Treffrys and the Rashleighs

My paternal grandmother’s maiden name was Stephanie Treffry. Her surname, Treffry is Cornish with Tre meaning farm and Ffry meaning variously, nose, hill or hill-spur. So you could translate Treffry into Hill-Spur Farm.

The Treffrys have been in Cornwall since about 1260, where they lived at a place called Treffry near Lanhydrock. In Britain they form part of the Landed Gentry, which provides the ruling classes for the local inhabitants in the shape of Squires, and Justices of the Peace. 

If you visit Fowey in south Cornwall, you will find the Treffry estate called Place. It is hard to miss as there are various Italianate turrets that tower over the hilly village. If you go to the church of St Fimbarrus, you will see that one quarter of the church is taken up with monuments to various Treffrys. The other quarter (facing the Treffry monuments) is taken up with monuments to the Rashleigh family. The placement of these monuments, which glare at each other across the central aisle of the church, provides the faintest suggestion that the two families did not always get on.

According to Grandma Steffi, the Rashleighs were actually a branch of the Raleigh family, whose most famous member was Sir Walter Raleigh (1553-1618), swashbuckling adventurer who was given a grant by Queen Elizabeth I to explore the Virginia Colony. But I am not sure she was right. True, both the Rashleighs and the Raleighs came from Devonshire. But whereas the Raleighs were landed gentry from the Yeo Valley near Barnstaple in North Devon, the Rashleighs seem to have been merchants from the Taw Valley near Wembworthy in mid-Devon. 

One Philip Rashleigh (died 1555) migrated from Devon to Cornwall, where he bought the manor of Trenant in 1545 from King Henry VIII, shortly after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The Manor of Trenant is located near Fowey, and was originally part of the Priory of Tywardreath. Philip Rashleigh’s youngest son John purchased the estate of Menabilly, also near Fowey, and his branch of the family became successful and powerful merchants during the reign of Elizabeth I.

Possibly the Treffrys did not take kindly to their new neighbors gaining such power. After all, the Treffrys had lived in Fowey at least ninety years longer than the Rashleighs. In 1457, Dame Elizabeth Treffry was responsible for repulsing a French invasion of Fowey. (My grandmother was never quite sure whether she poured molten lead on the heads of the French soldiers as they clambered up the castle walls, or boiling oil.) In any event, the Treffrys became the heroes of the day. In the previous century, a Sir John Treffry had fought with distinction at the Battle of Crécy in 1346. And so the head of the family is always called “de Cressy Treffry.”

Perhaps the real problem between the Rashleighs and the Treffrys was that the tiny village of Fowey was too small for two such powerful families!

Do you have any amusing family stories you wish to share? If so, please click here and I will feature it in an upcoming post.

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THE VANISHED DAYS by Susanna Kearsley ~ A Book Review

Though she writes about Scotland during the Jacobite era (1688 to 1745), Susanna Kearsley is a Canadian author who lives near Toronto. Obviously, she has Scottish ancestors, some of whom must have been players in the Jacobite rebellion. I have not read her first two novels – Undertow published in March 1993 or The Gemini Game published in March 1994 – so I can’t comment on this work. But starting with Mariana (1995), and following along with The Splendour Falls (1996), Named of the Dragon (1998), The Shadowy Horses (1999), Season of Storms (2001), The Winter Sea (2008), The Rose Garden (2011), The Firebird (2013), A Desperate Fortune (2015), and Bellewether (2018), I have read every Susanna Kearsley book out there. And they are all wonderful. So when I learned that a new one had appeared, I opened it in great anticipation.

I hate writing negative reviews, but I would be lying if I didn’t tell you all how disappointing this book is. And I don’t understand quite why it is so bad. For, as you can see Ms. Kearsley is an experienced writer, not a newbie.

So what is wrong with The Vanished Days?

In my opinion, the main problem has to do with pacing.

Yes, of course you need to create slow, intimate moments between your reader and your character, where you allow emotions to unspool on the pages. You need glorious descriptions. You need to linger. But you don’t want to do that all the time. You want to leaven your slow moments, with fast ones. You want to skim over needless detail. You want to edit out all the boring bits. But in this volume, the reader is obliged wade through too many weeds, before getting to the heart of the novel. 

It takes Ms. Kearsley the first third of the novel – with all of its background detail, digressions and meanderings – to start the engine of the novel! That is 5 hours and 43 minutes of stuff that the reader is obliged to wade through before something actually happens. What happens? Something tragic happens to ten-year-old Lily, the heroine of this piece. Before this gut-wrenching incident, I got so weary, I nearly abandoned the novel.

Once something does happen – at the ten hour mark – things begin to get more interesting. But there are still too many problems. Ms. Kearsley is too fond of information dumps, given in the form of long speeches her characters make to each other about Scottish politics. This is calculated to make the reader fall asleep. 

Then there is That Scene. Or rather there are two scenes which are extremely confusing. 

The first one occurs when the narrator, Sergeant Adam Williamson, describes how Matthew Brown suddenly appears while he is in the middle of talking with Lily (now in her early thirties.) And how Lily “with love in her eyes” rushes past Adam to embrace Matthew, her long-lost beau. This is all the more frustrating for Adam because he had just been kissing Lily passionately. But Adam’s reaction is so strange. He merely shrugs his shoulders and lets her go. I don’t know of any man who would allow that to happen without registering some sort of protest. 

Which brings us to That Scene, ~ SPOILER ALERT ~ in which we realize that Adam Williamson the narrator is in fact Matthew Brown the romantic lead. Wait a minute, I can hear nearly every reader saying. If Lily recognized that it was Matthew Brown who was heading the enquiry to investigate her case, if it was Matthew who realized she was trying to con money out of the government via a sham marriage certificate, why was she so anxious? True enough, she was caught in a snare between being hanged for her “crimes” and ruining the reputation of the young woman (Maggie) in her care. But surely Matthew would have that all sorted for her. After all, they had loved one another for years, and Matthew is a clever and resourceful character. And surely, she would have recognized him, even after ten years of not seeing him, and even if his name were completely different?

I have seen many writers execute plot twists with successful aplomb. But this one thudded with a clunk. And I don’t understand why such a skilled and talented author let that happen. Surely Ms. Kearsley is an experienced enough writer not to make rookie mistakes?

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Adventures with Cecylee Part III ~ The Lockup

Lady Cecylee Neville, the protagonist of my first novel Thwarted Queen, was the youngest daughter of Ralph, Earl of Westmorland, and his second wife Joan de Beaufort. 

Earl Ralph was a shrewd operator. As a relatively young man, he became a protégé of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and so, when his first wife died in June 1396, he married John’s nineteen-year-old daughter Joan in November of that year. His second wife had royal blood flowing through her veins as her father John of Gaunt was the third son of King Edward III (1312-1377).

When Richard, Duke of York was orphaned in 1415, Earl Ralph acquired his wardship. This meant that he had total legal control over four-year-old Richard who would not achieve his majority until 1432, when he turned 21. In October 1424, as was his right, Earl Ralph betrothed his nine-year-old daughter Cecylee to thirteen-year-old Richard. This was a splendid match for not only would Richard be rich once he received his inheritance, he was also the closest male relative to the King of England, making him Heir Presumptive to the throne.

However, Earl Ralph had a problem. As Warden of the Western Marches charged with repelling the maraudering Scots, Earl Ralph was obliged to keep a standing army at Castle Raby, the family seat. But he couldn’t allow his lovely daughter to be pestered by young men. After all, it wouldn’t be seemly for the would-be wife of the Duke of York and Heir Presumptive to the Throne to be caught in a rough soldier’s embrace. And so he locked her up in The Keep.

In Thwarted Queen, I have Cecylee confront her father over the issue of her personal freedom, and get severely punished for her insolence. 

Earl Ralph put his most trusted men on the ground floor of The Keep, while his daughter resided in the top of the tower. The main room was large, having plenty of room for a canopied bed, chests, chairs and tables. Off to one side is a much smaller room where her damsel would sleep. There are windows, but they are very high up, making it difficult to see out of the window without standing on a chair. And so Cecylee was caged up, waiting for the time when her marriage to Richard of York could finally take place.

If this has whetted your appetite for Thwarted Queen, please click here.

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THE BEEKEEPER’S APPRENTICE by Laurie R. King ~ A Book Review

THE BEEKEEPER’S APPRENTICE strains credulity. If I ever thought that someone as self-centered as Sherlock Holmes would ever take on an apprentice, I would naturally have assumed it to be a young man, as Holmes consistently feels uncomfortable in the presence of women, or, at least, treats them in a very patronizing manner.

But perhaps I was wrong about that. Taking her cue from Holmes’ evident admiration of Irene Adler, author Laurie R. King presents Holmes with a young lady whose mind is just as brilliant as his. The opening scene of THE BEEKEEPER’S APPRENTICE is priceless. There is Sherlock Holmes, world-famous detective (now retired) sitting on the ground ins some obscure corner of Sussex watching bees, when a young lady, her nose in a book, nearly steps on him.

Being British he merely clears his throat. 

She looks up, irritated. Why has his absorption with watching blue-spotted bees caused him to be in her way? 

How did you know that? he asks. 

It’s obvious, isn’t it? she replies impatiently. And proceeds to give an account of her reasoning in a way that matches Holmes’ own thought-processes.

Holmes is rarely flabbergasted. But this young person has surprised him. Like most smart people he is lonely, because he cannot find someone on his level to discuss things with. But this young person has just remedied that unfortunate situation. Of course Holmes believes her to be a young man as she is garbed in her late father’s clothe, her long hair hidden beneath a cap. So when she pulls off her cap, letting her fair hair stream down he is astounded.

And so begins their relationship, with 54-year-old Holmes acting as mentor to a 15-year-old spitfire of a girl.

This volume is a marvelous evocation of the 1910s, mostly through Ms. King’s adroit use of language. She never makes a mistake. There are no jarring anachronisms. Instead the reader can lean back and enjoy the banter between Holmes and his new friend.

But the book would not sing without the character of Mary Russell. She gives new life to Holmes, who was slowly dying of boredom (literally.) And as she grows older and becomes more poised and confident, she stands up to Holmes’ paternalistic instincts, insisting on being a partner in his endeavors. 

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MAIDEN TOMB Cover Reveal

Thank you all for participating in my survey and choosing a wonderful cover 

for my new novel MAIDEN TOMB, 

which will drop 4 February 2025 on Amazon!

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