Paternoster: an Eden Grey mystery by Kim Fleet. History Press, 2015

This book is set in two time periods: London and Cheltenham in 1795, in London in 2012 and 2015 and Cheltenham in 2015. The main action in 1795 takes place in various brothels and the main characters are prostitutes. The story begins in London but moves to Cheltenham  which is becoming more popular with the wealthy taking its waters.
The main character in 1795 is Rachel Lovett who, at the start of the story, is being kept by a young man from a wealthy aristocratic family but, let down by her lover, she moves into a brothel.
The main character in 2012 and 2015 is Eden Grey, as in the subtitle of the book. In 2012 she had a different identity and was working as an undercover police woman but, when the case went wrong and she nearly died, had to accept a witness protection scheme. Emerging as Eden Grey, private investigator, in 2015 she takes on a variety of cases which come her way including missing persons, fraud and infidelity. In her current case, however, she becomes involved with two murders and, with the help of Aidan, her archaeological boyfriend, she uncovers the link between past and present in the underground tunnels of Cheltenham Ladies' College and stories of the Hellfire Club. The book is a definite page turner and is written in an economical and convincing style; looking forward to more Eden Grey mysteries.

Fludd by Hilary Mantel. Penguin, 1990.

This book is set in a bleak remote moorland village in Derbyshire in which the population is of a predominantly Catholic-type religion in the mid 1950s. The first characters that the reader meets are Father Angwin and his housekeeper, Miss Dempsey. Father Angwin is a Catholic priest (or similar) who has lost his belief in God. As well as a church and a school the village has a convent which is ruled over by Mother Perpetua who metes out physical punishment at will to the sisters who reside inside. The local Bishop has ordered Father Angwin to remove some of the statues in the church so the Father decides to bury them in the churchyard. The Bishop has also said that he will send a curate to Father Angwin to help him out in his time of indecision. In the meantime a stranger arrives at Father Angwin's front door in the middle of the night and gives his name as Fludd. Father Angwin assumes that he is the curate but the reader knows that he is not. The main theme of the novella is the difference between appearance and reality and the reader begins to suspect that Fludd is either an angel or a devil. Another character in the story is Sister Philomena who lives under Sister Perpetua's tyrannical rule and who undergoes a transformation in the book.
The writing is elegant, concise and unexpected.

Bernard Knight Crowner John books

The Crowner John  mysteries by Bernard Knight

The reason for my prolonged silence on this page is that I have been reading my way through a boxed set of stories about a character called Crowner John, or John de Wolfe, by Bernard Knight. The author used to be a Home Office pathologist and has written at least ten books in this series. The stories begin in 1194 when John is appointed the first coroner for the county of Devon by decree of Richard the Lionheart, King of England at that time. There are frequent references in the books to Richard’s brother, John, Count of Mortain, who makes continued plans to take over from Richard who is permanently abroad fighting in the Crusades. The position of coroner is a new one, mainly to add fines and charges to Richard’s coffers to help with the fighting, but John determines to take his responsibilities seriously.

John was persuaded into a loveless marriage with Matilda de Revelle some years before,  largely because both sets of parents though that it would be a good match, but it has turned out to be fruitless one with no children. Matilda’s brother, Richard, is the bane of John’s life as he is the sheriff for Exeter where much of the action is based. Other characters that appear in each book are: Gwyn, John’s Cornish and uncouth man at arms; Thomas, an unjustly defrocked priest and clerk to John; Nesta, an Exeter ale-wife and John’s mistress; John de Alencon, a local bishop and various officials who help run the day to day workings of Exeter Castle.

The duties of the coroner are to investigate suspicious deaths or attempted murders, rapes, treasure trove and the washing up on the beaches of large fish which also belong to the king as of right. In all the books a useful glossary of medieval terms is included together with a map of Exeter showing John’s house, the castle, other churches, various inns etc

I would say that the first ten books follow the course of a year or so in the life of the coroner, each story occupying around a month at most. Although John is based in Exeter some of the mysteries involve travel through the county of Devon and occasionally further afield, to Winchester, for example. The books are quite readable and, though no previous knowledge of medieval times is required as all is explained along the way, the reader is quite likely to have acquired some familiarity with the medieval world by the time they have finished the series.  

Zennor in darkness by Helen Dunmore, 1993

For this, Helen Dunmore's first novel, the author won the McKitterick Prize which is an award given to the first novel by an author over 40. The dual threads follow the lives of Clare Coyne and her two friends, Hannah and Peggy, who are fictional characters living in Zennor, Cornwall, and of D H Lawrence and his German wife Frieda, real life individuals who lived in a cottage near Zennor during part of the First World War. Lawrence and Frieda have chosen a remote place to live partly to escape the prejudice against Frieda because of her German nationality and the fact that her maiden name was von Richthofen. She was a relative of the famous ace German pilot of the Great War. Also Lawrence had ideas of a self sufficient artists' community which he founded with Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murray in Zennor but Murray and Mansfield soon gave up and left because of the remoteness and basic way of life.
Clare Coyne is fond of her cousin, John William who is also Hannah's brother. He has been fighting at the front and is soon to return to Cornwall on leave before he is made up to an officer. The short novel recounts the relationship between the cousins and their other relations in the tight knit community when they were children. The story particularly highlights the development of the relationship of Clare and John William. Clare also accidentally meets Lawrence whilst walking on the cliffs and they strike up a friendship. Clare is a budding artist, thus far concentrating on accurate flower drawings for her father's book. She quickly sketches Lawrence and gives him the picture and offers to sketch Frieda and is invited to tea in their cottage.
The language of the book is rich and evocative reflecting the style of Lawrence in his determination to describe nature and the world in the most honest way possible. Dunmore is also a poet which can be seen in her use of extended descriptions.
This first novel does have a slightly halting nature to the structure and the way that the scenes shift about but does foreshadow her better work which is to come.

The secret keeper, Kate Morton, 2013

Fans of Kate Morton cannot fail to be pleased with this novel with its well constructed plot line set in three different time periods and a deliciously unexpected twist at the end.
The central character is Laurel, born just after the war and, in the most modern time slot of 2011 aged 66 and a successful actress of stage and screen. She is the eldest of the family with three younger sisters and a younger brother, Gerald. Their mother, Dorothy, is ill and the family assemble at their old family home, a rural farmhouse, in what will probably be the last such meeting with their mother present. Laurel is intrigued by her mother's past and, in particular, an event which she witnessed from the branches of the family tree house one fateful day in 1961. She saw her mother murder a strange man with a kitchen knife whilst the rest of the family are celebrating a family birthday down by the river. Gerald, just a toddler, is in his mother's arms as the man approaches. It is this memory, which she has never shared with her siblings, that prompts Laurel to go back in time together with some old family photos, including one of their mother's mysterious wartime friend Vivien.
The mystery is tightly ravelled up in the war years in London, where Dorothy found various jobs including one as a companion to a wealthy old lady. Across the road lived Vivien and Henry Jenkins, a famous novelist. Dorothy's boyfriend is called Jimmy, a talented young photographe, originally from Coventry, as was Dorothy.
We discover through letters and diaries from earlier times that Vivien's family, living in Australia, were all killed in a tragic motor accident - all apart from Vivien who was not allowed to go on the trip because of bad behaviour. Eight year old Vivien is then sent to England to live with a relative of her mother's.
We see most of the action through the eyes of Laurel, Dorothy and Vivien, switching viewpoints as the story twists and turns through different time periods. Love, retribution and second chances are  important themes of the story which has a satisfactorily unexpected ending.

An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears, 1998.

I was very pleased to complete this book which, at just under 700 pages, is the longest that I have undertaken recently. The novel is set in 1660s Oxford and concerns itself with religion, politics (Cromwell and Charles II), medicine and science. The book consists of four parts, each of which is told from a different character's perspective: Marco da Cola, a Catholic traveller from Venice; John Prescott, son of a supposed traitor to the Royalist cause; John Wallis, a code breaker who worked for both Cromwell and Charles II, and lastly, Anthony Wood, an Oxford historian and man of learning. Most of the characters in the book were real people but the exceptions, James Prescott and Sarah Blundy, were based on actual figures of the day. There is a list of the individuals at the end of the book with a potted biography of each.
The main event of the book is the death of Dr Grove, a fellow of New College, Oxford, who is discovered to have been murdered. Linking all the stories and the murder is Sarah Blundy who, with her mother and deceased father, Anne and Ned Blundy, was a Leveller during Cromwell's time. Sarah and her mother are now down on their luck and living in poverty. Sarah is a servant for several characters in the book while her mother, near to death, is treated and visited by other characters. An amusing description is made by Marco da Cola of a play he goes to see which the reader deduces is Shakespeare's King Lear.
The revelations and explanations are made in the last section of the book by honest historian, Anthony Wood, and may impell the reader to revisit the first three sections of the book if not put off by the length of the whole. A prospective reader would probably need some interest in the complexities of the 17th century, but there is a mystery at the heart of the book which does achieve resolution by the finish.

The last runaway by Tracy Chevalier, 2013.

I decided to read this after coming across an article about the author in New Books magazine.
The book is set in 1850 and the main themes are emigration, slavery, the Quaker religion and their church and the importance of silence to reach God and find Inner Light. Another of the themes is difference between two countries and two cultures: difference in the natural world, food, farming, names, traditions and attitudes. In her isolation Honor Bright, the main character feels these differences more intensely.
Honor and her sister, Grace, have set off from their home in Bridport, Devon, for a new life in America. The sea journey seems to take forever and Honor is physically sick for most of the voyage. Grace is emigrating to Ohio to get married and Honor is going with her after being jilted by her young man. Both the girls are Quakers and the language reflects this with many 'thees' and 'thous'. However, when the girls get there events take an unexpected turn and Honor has to stay in Wellington with Belle Mills, a milliner. Honor is very skilled in sewing and quilt making and she is given work by Belle making bonnets. She meets Donovan, Belle's brother, who is considered to be a bad man and who catches runaway slaves for a living. Donovan is fascinated by Honor and their paths start to cross. Honor becomes aware of the issue of slavery in America and how the different states, and even different towns in the same state, have subtly different views.
She learns about the "underground railway" which was a network of safe houses which offered shelter to runaway slaves making their way north to Canada where slavery is illegal. The novel is set some years before the American Civil War which was fought over the issue of slavery between the southern and the northern states.  The slaves are advised to follow the north star to find their way to freedom and a quilt pattern 'The Star of Bethlehem' provides a key motif in the book.
The role of sewing and quilt making in women's lives is am important aspect in the story and it is probably this skill that helps Honor to be accepted by the community she finds herself in. Eight quilts are required by families in that community before a bride can be considered ready for marriage. Interspersed between the chapters are letters from Honor to her family and friend, Biddy, and letters back from them which take several months to arrive. Also crossing the Atlantic are some of Honor's quilts which she gave to friends and family before she left for America.
Eventually, Honor has to make a choice between two men and two different possible futures.
The book is easy to read and full of details about the differences between the life in England and America. The reader perceives the experience through the eyes of Honor and, because she is a Quaker with silence and stillness parts of her faith, this makes the experience so real and intense.

If you could see me now by Cecelia Ahern, 2005.

I decided to read this on the recommendation of my daughter who was having a clear out of her room from which this and the previous Robert Goddard came. This particular edition was free with Marie Claire magazine so, I guess, is aimed at young women. When I was the same age I was studying English Literature as part of my degree so my reading material would have been somewhat different. It is quite an unusual book and not the sort of thing that I would normally read as is revealed in this blog. It tells of a woman, Elizabeth, living in a small Irish town with her father and adopted nephew, Luke. She has issues about her mother who used to disappear for long periods when she was a child and issues with her sister who does the same. She eventually realises the reasons for her mother's disappearances. Her mother finally disappeared many years before but her sister is still around. Elizabeth gave up a successful career and relationship in New York when her sister became pregnant and later adopted her sister's son, Luke. The bitterness she feels is never far below the surface. The story begins when Luke begins to see an imaginary friend called Ivan who quickly takes over the story. Charming fantasy for teens to 20 somethings.

Days without number by Robert Goddard, 2003.

Robert Goddard is a very popular and bestselling author and this book is in a long line of successful titles. Plotline is the most important aspect of the story with the characters, perhaps, lightly delineated, but the complex twists and turns of the story are deftly handled as one would expect from an expert.
The story is set mostly in the present day but there are some flashbacks to the early life of the main protaganist, Nick, and also to ancestors possessing his rather unusual surname of Paleologus. The story begins with the assembling of Nick and his siblings in Cornwall on a mission to try to persuade their father to sell his rambling old house, Trennor, for an amazingly lucrative amount. The old man is found dead at the bottom of the cellar steps shortly after the family meeting. As the bodies begin to pile up Nick learns how the house is involved in the local history of the area and is a possible 17th century hiding place for the famous Doom Window from nearby St Neot's church.
This is a very readable story which has references to the Holy Grail, King Arthur's (supposed) castle at Tintagel, the Knights Templar and the Crusades thrown in for good measure. It would probably make a good tv drama or film with the unexpected incidents and intricate plot making gripping viewing.

The memory keeper's daughter by Kim Edwards, 2006.

This book is set in multiple time periods beginning in the 1960s and 1970s and tells the story of the birth of twins to successful couple, David and Norah. The girl twin is born with the obvious physical expression of Down's Syndrome so David, himself a doctor, takes a split second to tell his wife that the second baby had died and sends her away to an institution to be looked after. The person who is given the task is Caroline Gill, an associate of David's, but she decides to keep the child and moves away from the area to claim her as her own.
The lie told by David to his wife festers and, unknown to her and their son, ruins their life together . It changes David's personality so that he begins to grow away from his wife and son. The memory keeper of the title is David who becomes increasingly obsessed with photography and the effort to capture infinitesimal fragments of time, his daughter is Phoebe.
An interesting, and unusual, story about the importance of honesty and the alternate lives that could have been lived which also highlights the different attitudes to Down's Syndrome in the 1960s and 1970s.