The house at Riverton, Kate Morton, 2007 (warning: spoilers)

This is the story of a house in Essex and the Hartford family that lived there: Lord Ashby and his wife Lady Violet; their two sons, Major James and Mr Frederick; James's wife, Jemima, and their one child, Gytha, born late in the marriage; Frederick's children (his first wife is not named): David, Hannah and Emmeline. It is also the story of Grace, a housemaid and her mother who was formerly a housemaid but now lives in the village. Grace's father was also Frederick Hartford.
The chronological story begins in June 1914 when Grace, aged 14, starts work as a housemaid at Riverton. Although she does not know it, the three children of the house: David, Hannah and Emmeline are her half siblings. For the reader it is quite easy to guess this from the clues in the text quite early on but Grace herself does not realise until quite a way through the book. In the First War some of the characters are lost whilst others return but are not the same.
The novel is constructed in the present and the past: mostly in June 1914 and the summer of 1924 and the years in between. Grace, now an old lady, is contacted by a young woman named Ursula, a distant Hartford relative from America, who wants to make a film about the Hartford family, the house at Riverton and Robbie Hunter, a young poet known by the family who died tragically in the summer of 1924.
Grace slips between the present and the past in her mind as she recalls the incidents leading up to 1924. She is worried about her grandson, Marcus, who is trying to cope with tragedy in his own life and has disappeared. It gradually becomes evident that her part in the story is crucial as is the lie that she tells Hannah in the early part of the book. The lie festers and Grace never corrects it so that Hannah, who loves secrets, believes that they have a secret between them.
The author's note at the end of the book sums up the themes and includes some titles, both fiction and non-fiction, for further reading. The historical setting is portrayed with a sure but light touch with just enough, but never too much, detail. With Emmeline we witness the downhill spiral of parties, alcolhol, jazz and fast cars; with Hannah we sympathise with women's struggle for independence and with their father Frederick we see the inevitable decline of his businesses.
The triumph of the novel is surely the plotting which is confident and skilled with all the loose ends tied up by the end, concluding with the final twist in Hannah's letter on the last page. This novel is recommended to lovers of historical fiction and a deft plot line.

Kept by D J Taylor, Harper Collins, 2008.

This is a substantial novel of nearly 500 pages which has been written in the style (or several styles) of a typical Victorian novel. The author also includes pastiches of newspaper reports, local guides, letters and other types of account which contribute to this nineteenth century tale. The author takes on various voices as he attempts ventriloquism for many of the characters that teem through these pages.
The story starts with report of two deaths which occur within several years of each other: that of Mr Henry Ireland, caused by an apparent fall from his horse, and that of Mr James Dixey who has had his throat torn out, seemingly by some wild beast. The two individuals are connected by family ties and, more importantly by Mrs Ireland, the widow. She has been gradually sinking into mental instability following the death of their only child and it is Mr Ireland's stated wish in his will that she should be kept at Mr Dixey's decaying home in the remote Suffolk countryside upon his death. This wish is carried out but the one thing that Mr Dixey, an amateur naturalist and ornithologer, lacks is ready money to carry out any repairs or maintain his estate.
A cast of minor characters appear before the reader: William, Mr Dixey's footman, and Esther, a newly arrived maid. Mr Pardew, a debt collector, and Mr Crabbe, a crusty old lawyer. Then there is Dunbar, a jack of all trades who acquires rare birds eggs for Mr Dixey, and Dewar, a down at heel former grocer whose wife is dying of consumption, who helps him out.
These various characters are connected by tenuous, and not so tenuous threads, and as the plot slowly and meanderingly plays itself out all their connections are explained. The vast stage and cast of characters is typical of several major nineteenth century novelists, most obviously Dickens and Wilkie Collins, as the author acknowledges in his epilogue.
The book is worth a read but may require a second reading to appreciate the full complexity of the story. It joins an impressive canon of historical novels, including A S Byatt's Possession (which I prefer, I have to say) which can take the reader on a convincing journey into the past and tackle subjects without some of the constraints of modern times.

The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox. John Murray, 2006

This 600 page novel took the author 30 years to complete and was eventually finished when the author was diagnosed with cancer and feared that he would lose his sight.  The text is a supposed confession by Edward Glyver to the killing of two men and the story that led up to the events. One man was a totally innocent stranger whilst the other was a lifelong enemy.
The story is narrated mainly in first person by Glyver and interspersed , here and there, with letters and quotations by various others. Glyver's academic future is ruined at an early stage by a schoolfriend who sets him up for the theft of a book causing him to be expelled and leaving him with no chance to continue to university. The schoolfriend is A P Daunt, son of a rector at a stately home called Evenwood, seat of the 26th Baron Tansor. This connection is to have strange repercussions in Glyver's future life but for the time being he travels to Heidelberg to study there and spends some time abroad. He is able to do this due to the mysterious legacy of 200 sovereigns in a box from an old friend of his mother's who he recollects visiting them.
During Glyver's travels he gains an interest in antiquarian books but returns to England when his mother dies and sets himself the task to sort out and put into order his mother's papers and household records. His mother had earned a living as a writer working under a pseudonym. As he workd through the papers he is puzzled by some references to an earlier incident involving his mother and a friend of hers and a journey to France. Gradually it becomes clear to him that he is not who he thought he was and there are many secrets waiting for him discover. The mystery is intricate and complex and it is the coincidental employment he gains with a solicitor, Mr Tredgold, in London that helps him to unravel the story. But this unravelling sets him on an obsessive and doomed course.
Full of atmospheric Victorian details from London's underworld and elsewhere we compulsively follow Edward Glyver on his fateful journey. This book was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and received with critical aclaim

'An engrossing and complicated tale of deception, heartlessness and wild justice, one that touches on nearly every aspect of Victorian society' [Washington Post]

'a refreshing dedication to the art of storytelling' [Time Out]

'[Edward Glyver] is an outstanding creation: bibliophile, corporate spy, opium addict, he teeters on the brink of sanity, yet remains frenetically eleoquent. Cox lovingly recreates the atmosphere of the period' [Daily Mail]

The Lake House by Kate Morton, 2016.

Long and complex novel set in multiple time periods and various locations: Cornwall 1913, 1914, 1931, 1932 and 1933; London 1911, 1931, 1941, 2003 and 2004; Oxford 2003. 

The story plays out over three generations: Constance deSheil and her husband Henri; their daughter, Eleanor and her husband, Anthony Edevane and their daughters, Alice Edevane and her sisters, Deborah and Clementine. In more up-to-date times (2003) a modern life detective Sadie Sparrow, on enforced leave from her job, decides to investigate a cold case whilst staying with her grandfather, Bertie, in Cornwall. The case involves the tragic disappearance of a little boy in the summer of 1933 in a house not far from her grandfather’s home. The house is called the Lake House and exists in a state of suspended animation where everything was left as it was when the family left that long ago summer. The little boy was the only son of Eleanor and Anthony and Alice’s brother.

Alice Edevane in 2003 is a very successful writer of detective stories living in London, has never married and has a personal assistant called Peter. Alice, even at 86, has to let the self-deception that has clouded her vision all her life, roll away so that she can see the past clearly as a startling truth about her mother is revealed to her.

Alice’s mother, Eleanor, is the emotional and moral centre of the novel as the reader realises when the story is finished and the plot unravels. She ultimately decides on the right thing to do after considering everybody involved, indeed the main perspective of the book is a female one.

 Eleanor’s mother, Constance, and the death of her first baby, by the tangling of the umbilical cord round its neck, provide a sub-plot; and the role of Mr Llewellyn and his connection to the family is explained toward the end of the novel. He writes a book about Eleanor as a child called ‘Eleanor’s Doorway’. Apparently the author only realised how the story would end when she was two thirds of the way through the book. 

The main themes of the novel are: missing children (in both senses of the phrase); abandoned houses; abandonment generally; dogged determination and the role of the detective; mistaken identities; adolescence (Alice and her sisters); effects of the war (shell shock and deserters); the hidden depths of family histories. There is also a helpful librarian who provides Sadie with newspaper article, maps and plans during the initial stages of her investigation. 

It is not surprising that this book, usually described as a page turner, has been just as successful as the author’s previous work.

Desire for Chocolate by Care Santos; translated by Julie Wark, 2016.

This novel won the Ramon Lull Prize in 2014 for its author who writes for children as well as for adults and previously studied law.

The book is cleverly constructed with three separate stories about chocolate makers in different epochs linked by a porcelain chocolate pot which was made in the eighteenth century on the command of Madame Adelaide, the fourth daughter of King Louis XV of France. The story is told back to front with the 21^st century story of Max, Sara and Oriol first and begins with the accidental smashing of the pot into smithereens and its painful piecing back together again by Max. The pot belongs to Sara who bought it an old antiques shop in Barcelona many years before. The pot has a chipped spout, no lid and lacks its swizzle stick which would have stirred the chocolate.

The second story is of the illegitimate kitchen maid Aurora who works for a local Barcelona family, the Turulls, and is of the same age as their daughter, Candida.  Aurora  makes a surprisingly good marriage to a local doctor who has a great fondness for opera, whilst Candida Turull marries into the Sampon family. The chapters in this section are named after the operas which Aurora and her husband go to see where, in one of the boxes, is Antoni Sampons, esteemed chocolatier, and his daughter and we learn more about the scandal that surrounds them.  Aurora, accidentally, comes into possession of the chocolate pot which she tries to return to the rightful owners. Small incidents about how the pot comes to be damaged are sprinkled throughout the novel

The third story is about the Marianna, wife of Fernandes, the most famous eighteenth century chocolate manufacturer, who supplies the French court with chocolate and invents a chocolate mill. Marianna is based on the real life figure of Eulalia Gallisans who singlehandedly ran a chocolate shop in Barcelona after her husband died and ran into trouble with the Guilds. She is visited by French representative of Madame Adelaide, Victor Guillot, another historical character. And so we arrive back in time with Madame Adelaide at the court of Louis XV.

There is a helpful list of characters at the end of the novel; also helpful notes explaining some of the technical chocolate terms.

Review copy sent to me by Alma Books

March, Geraldine Brooks, 2005.

Completely different in theme and style from Geraldine Brooks’ bestseller The Year of Wonders this book tells the story of Mr March, the father, in the world famous children’s book Little Women. Set during the time of the American Civil War, though Louisa May Alcott took some liberties with the actual chronology of events, between the Christmases of 1861 and 1862. At the beginning of Little Women Mr March has left to minister to the Union troops in the south leaving his wife with daughters Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy alone on Christmas Day. Two thirds of the way through the book Mrs March receives a telegram with the news that her husband is gravely ill, so she leaves to find him. He is returned to the family by the following Christmas. The author has taken this story and turned it inside out by choosing to tell of Mr March’s experiences as a minister in a war zone and his relationship with the slaves he encounters especially one called Grace Clement. He tries to compose letters home to his wife but finds that he cannot tell of the horrific things he finds there so tries to cover it up with hopeful but deceitful words. His life becomes disconnected as his experiences of the war find no echo in the home life of his family.  The reader shares the horrors of battle, an interlude where Mr March becomes a teacher to the slaves on a cotton plantation, then more slaughter of those he has become fond of. After being wounded and suffering from fever he is rescued by one of the female slaves he has helped until he eventually finds safety with a hospital ship in the north.

The novel also fills in some of Mr March’s backstory prior to meeting his wife and describes how he knew Grace Clement from his previous life before the Civil War. The author has a fine ear for the speech and writing of nineteenth century America, both south and north. The book won the Pullitzer Prize in 2005.

The author, though of Australian birth, is a naturalised American citizen and her inspiration for the novel was the discovery of a Union soldiers belt buckle in the courtyard of the Brooks period home. Some critics have referred to the novel as ‘fan fiction’ which is a genre inspired by the famous classic novels of established authors. Other examples of this type are novels based on the works of Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters. Brooks denies this, however, and claims that she came to the story through the history of the Civil War and the local history of their home.

The character of Mr March is based on the real figure of Bronson Alcott, Louisa May Alcott’s father,  who was a committed vegetarian and abolitionist and who numbered among his friends Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson who feature as lesser characters in the story.

March is Geraldine Brooks’ second novel.

Year of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks, 2001.

Geraldine Brooks’ astounding first novel, and international bestseller, is located in the notorious village of Eyam in Derbyshire which decided to cut itself off from the outside world in an attempt to suffocate the Great Plague of 1666. The book’s title is from the Latin phrase annus mirabalis which was coined by John Dryden in 1666 in his poem “Annus Mirabalis, the Year of Wonders”.  As the author says in the Afterword

“…. it always seemed incongruous that Dryden should have chosen [that title] to describe that terrible year of 1666, marked by plague, the Great Fire and the war with the Dutch. But Anna would surely have believed that ‘God works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform” [p309]

The prose style is beautiful and concise and the descriptions of the natural world have, in places, echoes of the style of Emily Bronte. 

“There are some who deem this mountainside bleak country ….  Our only strong hue is green, and this we have in every shade: the emerald velvet mosses, the glossy tanged ivies, and in spring, the gold-greens of tender new grasses. For the rest we move through a patchwork of greys. The limestone outcrops are a whiteish-grey, the millstone grit from which we build our cottages a warmer greyish yellow. Grey is the sky colour here, the dove-breast clouds louring so upon the hilltops that sometimes you feel you could just reach up and bury your hands in their softness” [p65]

The main characters are Anna and the couple for whom she works during the greater part of the book, Michael Mompellion, the vicar, and his wife, Elinor. It is the vicar who persuades his congregation to renounce personal contact with the nearby villages despite unbearable personal loss which results in the deaths of two thirds of the village’s population. Anna and Elinor become close as they study herbs and medicines in an attempt to alleviate the deadly symptoms of the disease. Whilst contemplating the spread of the disease, Mompellion hits on the right idea when he commands the villagers to burn all their belongings especially those which have been in contact with Plague victims. They are also urged to scrub their homes with plenty of boiling water. The death rate begins to fall away but it is too late to save most.

An interesting character in the book is Anys Gowdie who has a very modern attitude to life and her place in society. She shuns convention by her actions as a free spirit and could have been a friend to Anna who is too timorous to risk association with her. Anys and her mother cultivate an herb garden and assist with births in the village but their medical knowledge becomes cause for suspicion when they are accused of witchcraft and ungodly ways and Anys is sacrificed by the superstitious villagers

Anna is, in some ways, a puzzling character as she travels on her personal journey towards maturity. Her positive relationships with men are short lived. Her marriage seems to have existed on a basic level and, though it gives her two young sons, when her husband is killed in a mining accident it is the practical difficulties that she feels the most. Her tailor lodger, George Viccars, with whom she becomes close, is the first Plague victim and Anna makes a fatal mistake when she lets the villagers take their partly completed garments away and carry the ‘Plague seeds’ with them against his instructions. Anna’s two young sons are amongst the first victims. Anna discovers that she was not the only woman in the village in George Viccars’ life which causes her some disillusionment. Later in the book Anna has a strange and brief relationship with Michael Mompellion, the vicar, after his wife is killed, but recoils from him when she learns of his cruelty towards Elinor. Anna reveals that she only began a physical relationship with Mompellion to get closer to Elinor who she misses bitterly. Anna’s relationships with other women begin to seem emotionally more compelling and fulfilling to her.

This was Geraldine Brook’s first novel but she has since added four more including March (2006) about the author Louisa May Alcott which won the Pulitzer Prize; People of the Book (2008) and Caleb’s Crossing (2012)

Although Australian by birth Brooks has citizenship of the United States and worked as a Foreign Affairs journalist before taking up fiction.