Burning Bright by Helen Dunmore. Penguin, 2009

As with many of Dunmore's books this one tells more than one story, in more than one time period. The main character is Nadine through whom the reader experiences the contemporary story. She is sixteen, although she tells everyone she is nineteen, and has left home. She has an autistic sister who gets more attention than she does and, though she used to do well at school, she has suddenly begun to have trouble with her schoolwork. Maybe she has a form of dyslexia? She has acquired a Finnish boyfriend much older than her and has left her family in order to live with him. He is setting her up in an old Georgian house somewhere west of London in the country, probably Wiltshire. She does not realise initially that Kai and his friend Tony are pimps as she believes that they make all their money from property deals. In fact, Tony, in particular, specialises in supplying girls to politicians who have particular requirements but as Kai is the boss in the partnership it must be his idea.  One of his clients is Paul Parrett who is the third significant character in the novel. The second is Enid who is an old lady in her seventies living at the top of the house that Tony and Kai have bought and that Kai has moved Nadine into. She has tenant's rights and they cannot get her out. The old woman and the young one befriend each other and begin to find out about each other's lives.
Enid has a past and the flashbacks concern her life as a young girl and the Manchester Ladies that become a part of her life. She has a relationship with one of these ladies but jealousy and tragedy ensue. The book was first published in 1994 so this story probably took place about the time of World War Two and just before. The reader sees the novel's action through the eyes of Enid, Nadine and Paul which helps to reveal new aspects but the story is strangely dark. I wonder what gave Dunmore the idea for writing it - it could almost be a story in a newspaper. The language is as elegant as ever and she understands, tellingly, the different speech nuances of the characters. Some people find the ending disappointing but I think that it is just a young girl moving on to the next phase of her life. Not my most favourite of her books.

A spell of winter by Helen Dunmore. Penguin, 2007.

Originally published in 1995, this was Helen Dunmore's third book, her first, Zennor in Darkness,  having won the McKitterick Prize. This one, however, did better and won the Orange Prize in 1996. It is told from the perspective of Catherine, a young girl from a fairly privileged background in the English countryside in the years leading up to the First World War. She lives with her brother, Rob, her grandfather and their servants, of whom Kate is the one she gets closest to. Their mother, their grandfather's daughter, has left the family home and gone to live abroad. There are constant references to the resemblance between Catherine and her mother, particularly of her hair which is black and curly betraying her Spanish heritage. Her grandfather was known as 'the man from nowhere' when he arrived in the English village as nobody knew anything about him.
There are a number of flashbacks in the novel which reveal Catherine's relationships to the people nearest to her. The servant, Kate, introduces the novel by relating a gruesome story of her uncle Joseph who is buried after too long a delay resulting in his arm falling off when he is transported downstairs in the house. The children, Catherine and Rob, listen in fascinated horror but it is a story that returns to haunt Catherine at later stages of her life. On a walk through the grounds with Catherine, Rob shoots a hare but he does not kill it outright and has to hit it with a stick but the incident disturbs both the children. The last time that the children see their father is when they are escorted by Miss Gallagher to visit him in a nursing home where it becomes clear that he has had a breakdown, most probably caused by the departure of his wife. Her father, at a later stage of the visit, confuses Catherine with her mother and begins to smother her with kisses upon which Rob hits him on the side of his head with a branch. Miss Gallagher has an unhealthy interest in Catherine which Catherine feels as a smothering love which she cannot bear. Another flashback is to a dance that is held by the grandfather when Catherine is probably eighteen. Her grandfather intends for her to marry George Bullivant, a wealthy man much older than her who is a new neighbour in the area. Catherine doesn't dislike him and she and Rob pay a visit to his house. Whilst Catherine is shown the garden and the inside room containing a collection of paintings, Rob goes to the stables to see Mr Bullivant's fine horse, Starcrossed. Rob watches his sister and George Bullivant together when he returns and, probably reacting through jealousy and an awareness of Mr Bullivant's interest in his sister, entices Catherine to make a snow house on their walk home. As they get inside the snow house the proximity of their bodies results in them having their first sexual encounter. After they return home the relationship continues but Catherine's mind begins to unravel. Unconsciously knowing they are doing the wrong thing, she cannot refuse Rob.
The language in the novel is vivid and poetic. The state of Catherine's inner consciousness is beautifully described as, after the tragic consequences of the sibling's relationship, she loses her grip on reality and suffers a breakdown. The inner life of the other characters is only really described as seen through Catherine's vision. The first chapter of the book is situated in almost the most recent episode of the timeline of the story. Catherine walks through the grounds of the house in Rob's coat  and, as she looks at the house she thinks 'I have got what I wanted. A spell of winter hangs over it and everyone has gone'. But the story is not quite over and there are still one or two surprises in store for the reader and for Catherine.

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.

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