A BOOK IS FOR LIFE, NOT JUST FOR CHRISTMAS – Elizabeth Fremantle

It's that time of year again, so I'm going to take the stress out of your Christmas shopping chaos and suggest you find everything at your local bookshop. After all the pleasure of a book lasts a lifetime, unlike that of a comedy apron or a scented candle. Here are my recommendations for the stockings of all kinds of book lovers:

FOR LITERARY ECO-WARRIERS

For those undaunted by doorstep sized novels, then Annie Proulx's BARKSKINS is the choice. Spanning more than three hundred years and depicting numerous generations of characters it tells the story of the sacrifice of the world's forests in the name of progress.

FOR POLITICOS

For clever friends who prefer political non-fiction then you can't go wrong with BLOOD AND SAND, the latest book from historian, Alex Von Tunzelman, depicting the sixteen days in 1956 that pushed the world to the brink of a nuclear conflict with crises in Hungary and Suez.

FOR CRIME ADDICTS

For lovers of crime fiction series there's Antonia Hodgson's DEATH AT FOUNTAIN'S ABBEY, set in 1728, it follows Jack Hawkins to Yorkshire on a mission to uncover a murder; or MJ Carter's THE DEVIL'S FEAST, set in 1842, in which Captain William Avery must uncover a horrible death at The Reform Club. Both are the third books in their series, so if you were feeling generous you might want to offer all three.

FOR SPIES AND STRONG WOMEN

For those who like novels about strong women there's Katherine Webb's 1950s set, THE ENGLISH GIRL, about a woman who longs to escape the rigid boundaries of her life and marriage but finds more than she'd bargained for on a desert adventure. Or for a less exotic setting but equally strong women is Elizabeth Buchan's THE NEW MRS CLIFTON, set in London in the wake of WW2, when a brother, to his sisters' dismay, returns from the war with a German bride.

FOR WW2 BUFFS

These two gripping novels tell of soldiers devastated by their experiences war. Jason Hewitt's DEVASTATION ROAD follows a broken English soldier trying to find his way home in the dying days of the war. William Ryan's THE CONSTANT SOLDIER offers another perspective depicting a German soldier, badly injured who returns home to find his eyes are opened about the Nazis who have taken over his village.

FOR SECRET GOTHICS

For those with a yearning for dark victoriana Anna Mazzola's debut THE UNSEEING tells of a woman who is about to hang for a gruesome murder but there's more to her story than meets the eye. Your could offer it alongside Waterstone's pick, Sarah Perry's acclaimed victorian gothic novel THE ESSEX SERPENT.

FOR PEPYS PEOPLE

The Stuart period is having a moment. This year marked the 350th year since London's great fire and how about Rebecca Rideal's excellent non-fiction, 1666: PLAGUE, WAR AND HELLFIRE, which gives an overview of the world-shaking events of that year. You could give it together with Andrew Taylor's novel about murder at the time of the fire THE ASHES OF LONDON

FOR FAMOUS FEMALES

Themes of fame and the female run through Katherine Clement's and Essie Fox's latest novels. Still with the Stuarts THE SILVERED HEART, tells of a notorious highway-woman during the chaos of the English Civil War. THE LAST DAYS OF LEDA GREY slips between the heatwave of 1976 and the Edwardian era to reveal the secrets of a silent movie star.

FOR TUDOR FANS

For those who have read everything there is to read about the Tudors, Sarah Gristwoods far-reaching non-fiction work, GAME OF QUEENS, contextualises the lives of the Tudors by exploring the network of powerful women throughout sixteenth century Europe. Another little-known Elizabethan and Stuart woman is the subject to (ahem – cheekiness alert) my own novel. THE GIRL IN THE GLASS TOWER is Arbella Stuart, raised to be heir to Elizabeth I and the novel tells of her attempts to escape the life fate and politics has prescribed.

FOR WITCHES

Witchcraft or accusations of it in the Medieval period tie these novels together. Maitland's west country setting is the scene for dark happenings in THE PLAGUE CHARMER and Manda Scott's, INTO THE FIRE explodes myths about Joan of Arc in a thrilling tale of a political cover up that spans hundreds of years.

Elizabeth Fremantle's latest novel THE GIRL IN THE GLASS TOWER is published by Penguin.

Elizabeth Buchan's THE NEW MRS CLIFTON reviewed by Elizabeth Fremantle

Elizabeth Buchan’s latest novel, The New Mrs Clifton, depicts London in 1945 in the aftermath of war. The fractured city, its buildings blasted open, symbolises the psychological scarring and fragmentation of her characters. Everyone is in some way bereaved and seeking something, anything, to dampen the pain.

But when Gus Clifton returns from Berlin to the family house with a German bride on his arm his sisters, the widowed Julia and the wild Tilly, must hide their shock and hostility. Unbeknownst to Gus’s new bride he had left for the war engaged to his childhood sweetheart, the beautiful, loyal Nella and this betrayal is the catalyst for the two families, once happily interwoven, to unravel painfully with devastating effects.

It soon becomes clear that the German Krista, with her skeletal body and haunted looks, who flinches when touched, is more damaged by far than any of the women she encounters in London. But the enmity she faces in London is nothing compared to her experiences in Berlin at the hands of the Russian occupiers. Though we soon learn that extreme hardship and the brutality she has encountered have made her stronger than she appears and she has many secrets, which are slowly revealed as the narrative progresses.

The novel is shot through with mystery: why did Gus marry his strange, cold wife who is neither pregnant, nor apparently in love with him; what happened in Berlin; and who was the woman discovered thirty years later enmeshed within the roots of a large sycamore tree in the adjacent garden? The latter hangs darkly over the narrative like the tolling of a death knell.

The writing is beautifully fluent, moving from scene to scene, peeling away the layers of English formality in a way that demonstrates a deft and invisible authorial control. Buchan has a gift for understanding the complexity and ambiguity of human emotions and also for creating a quiet and sinister tension, which gives the sense, as the narrative passes through the heads of its damaged
characters, that everything is slipping inevitably towards catastrophe.

The New Mrs Clifton is a captivating and gripping read that seduces utterly, until its final page, leaving a deep imprint on the imagination long after. 

The New Mrs Clifton is published in hardback by Michael Joseph

INTERVIEW WITH ELIZABETH BUCHAN

EF: There is a very strong sense of place in the novel. Did you have a particular house in mind when you were writing and is there a significance to the part of London in which it is set?

EB: I have been lucky enough to have brought up my family near Clapham Common and I love it – particularly in the summer when everyone surges onto it to picnic, play games, lunge the children and exercise. The Common has a long and honourable history, not least as a centre for William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect while they fighting to abolish slavery – so it has a whiff of dissent about it. While researching The New Mrs Clifton, I got hold of the bomb maps published by the GLC which, area by area, showed the individual houses and buildings that had been damaged during the war and how badly. Since I walk past some of those sites every day, I was able to imagine the houses as they might have been without too much difficulty.

EF: One of the great strengths of your writing is in articulating complex family relationships. In both I Can’t Begin to Tell You and The New Mrs Clifton you have created central female characters who are outsiders. What is it about the outsider that most interests you?

EB: As an eight-year-old, I was sent off to boarding school because my parents had been posted abroad. I did not see them, or my two sisters, for a year. We took a bit of getting to know each other again when we did meet! I hasten to say that my parents were very loving ones and I was not the only child in that position but I have never forgotten the bewilderment and the loneliness which I felt and I know I call on that profound conviction of being an exile and apart when I am writing. How a man or a woman, or a child, negotiates their way out of their perceived isolation fascinates me because I remember it so well but, each time I write about it, I find a different aspect to it. For obvious reasons, war offers a very good theatre in which to fictionalize situations where a character is one side of the fence or the other.

EF: One of the messages of the novel is that war creates complicated moral situations that defy straightforward moral explanations. Can you explain how you confronted some of the darker elements of your story?

EB: I was thinking about endurance and compassion when I was writing this novel – and of finding the energy and faith to carry on after something so catastrophic as a war. Everything I had read in doing the research pointed to truly black things that were done during those years, sometimes by ordinary people who felt they had no option. Again and again, I was reminded that we have to remember the lessons from the past, otherwise we will repeat the wrongs. Of course, in peacetime, it is much easier to adopt straightforward moral positions. In war, and when faced with violence, deprivation and disease, it is almost impossible. Like Krista, you can still strive to feel love over hate, forgiveness over blame and compassion over brutality and still find yourself agreeing to do things which are morally questionable.


EF: You write vividly on the societal changes brought about by war. Do you intend to write another novel set in this specific period or are you moving to different pastures?

EB: I am not sure yet. I am still waiting for the light bulb to light up in the chest moment to find out what I am going to write about next. Mind you, I have just read a fascinating account of marriage bureau that was set up in 1939 and flourished during the war. It occurred to me that it just might have been a convincing cover for something else going on behind the scenes….

Who knows? 

Elizabeth Fremantle's latest novel The Girl in the Glass Tower is published by Penguin

Find out about Elizabeth Buchan's work on her website: elizabethbuchan.com

HISTORICAL FICTION PICKS FOR 2014 – by Elizabeth Fremantle

As the end of 2014 is approaching I felt it was time for a round-up, so here are some of the historical novels that have made an impression on me this year.

I'm a die-hard fan of Sarah Waters, but with THE PAYING GUESTS (Virago)
she surpassed all my expectations. The novel is set in the 1920s in a genteel suburb of South London where the socially awkward Frances Wray lives with her difficult mother. All the men of the family are gone and the two women strive to maintain appearances in their straightened circumstances. Frances feels their money worries may be resolved with the arrival of Len and Lil Barber who are the paying guests of the title. But the couple burst into the Wray's quiet world with their late-night drinking sessions, loud music and flirtatious behaviour. Inevitably Frances is drawn into this world with devastating consequences.

This begins as a story of love, told with intensity, passion and meticulous writing, but, as so often with Waters's narratives, it is not what it first seems and becomes increasingly dark as a central violent event takes hold of the story. Though it is long and meanders at times, I was completely gripped from start to finish.

I discovered Richard Skinner at a literary festival this summer and was intrigued to hear him talk about his novella, THE VELVET GENTLEMAN based on the life of Erik Satie, whose piano music has always captivated me. It is published in an anthology called THE MIRROR (Faber).

Skinner's approach to historical fiction is highly imaginative – when a novella begins with, 'I died yesterday,' you know your disbelief will be stretched in interesting ways. Satie tells his own story  from a kind of limbo presided over by a Mr Takahashi who is in charge of filtering arrivals through to the afterlife. But in order to move on Satie must choose a single memory to take with him, leaving all the others behind and this provides the opportunity for him to recollect the events of his life. He is characterised as a rather unpleasant individual, plodding miserably through life, but because of the originality of the setting this only serves to make the story more interesting, as does the portrait of a Paris populated by characters such as Cocteau, Picasso and Debussy. An intriguing and memorable read.

Imogen Robertson's latest novel THEFT OF LIFE (Headline), the fifth in her Westerman and Crowther series deals with the slave trade in Georgian London. Robertson draws on the lives of Oludah Equiano and Frances Glass for inspiration for her narrative which highlights the atrocities of the slave trade allowing the reader to understand the extent to which the drawing rooms of England were stained with the blood of slavery. When a slave trader is found dead, spreadeagled in a London cemetery, in what appears to be a case of straightforward revenge murder Robertson's doughty pair of proto-detectives discover that things are far more complex than they first appear. And so begins a gripping story of brutality and evil that uncovers dark revelations about the slave trade.

Elizabeth Buchan has changed direction with I CAN'T BEGIN TO TELL YOU (Penguin), a novel set in rural Denmark in the Second World War. Kay Eberstern is married into a well-to-do Danish family and finds world turned upside down with the Nazi occupation of her adopted country. Her husband Bror is determined to preserve his estate and family legacy by cooperating with the Germans but for Kay this is morally impossible and she becomes embroiled in resistance and espionage for British Intelligence, risking everything for what she believes to be right. This is a well researched and beautifully pitched novel that is full of revelations.

Suzannah Dunn has a way of getting to the heart of any story by exploring the edges of the action. In THE MAY BRIDE (Little Brown) it is the intriguing story of Katherine Filliol, wife of the ambitious courtier Edward Seymour, who was rumoured to have cuckolded him with his father. Fascinating enough on its own, this story is as much about its narrator as it is about its protagonist. She is the quiet observer at Wolf Hall, a woman who will become queen, Jane Seymour. Told with the benefit of her hindsight, allowing the silent narrative of her queenship and her ultimate tragedy to hover at the margins. Dunn is a master of the ordinary, making the mundane seem extraordinary with her attention to detail.

I don't normally read fiction which inhabits the same historical space as my own whilst writing but I read this in preparation for the Harrogate History Festival where we appeared together and I'm very glad I did.

What I will be reading over Christmas: I can't wait to hunker down with a hot water bottle and these two highly praised novels over the holidays.

I always look forward to Vanora Bennett's fiction, for the depth of her research and the deftness of her storytelling. Her latest novel THE WHITE RUSSIAN (Century), set in the Russian emigre community in Paris, tells of Evie a rebellious young American who leaves New York in search of art and adventure in Europe, finding herself embroiled in murder plots, conspiracies and illicit love affairs.




Antonia Hodgson's debut novel THE DEVIL IN THE MARCHALSEA (Hodder) has been recommended to me by so many people that I simply have to read it. Set in London in 1727 the wayward Tom Hawkins finds himself in the Marchalsea prison, a place gripped by fear and suspicion in the wake of the brutal murder of one of the inmates and Tom is sharing a cell with the prime suspect. He must risk everything to uncover the truth, or be the next to die. It sounds un-put-downable.



My own novel SISTERS OF TREASON sequel to QUEEN'S GAMBIT is out in hardback and will be out in paperback on January 29th. For more about me and my books, go to elizabethfremantle.com