#7: The Grand Tour -- Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer

Sequel to Sorcery and Cecilia, the prototype Regency-romance-with-magic. I didn't enjoy this quite as much as the first novel, but the plot's rather bigger, dealing with a European conspiracy and a set of magical objects. Some lovely observation, though it doesn't have the Heyeresque social-comedy feel of its predecessor. Kate and Cecy's travels around 19th-century Europe are fascinating, and historically credible: magic as a way of dealing with flea-ridden beds ...

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#6: The Book of Dead Days -- Marcus Sedgwick

The 'dead days' are the days between Christmas and New Year, when I started reading this. It's a YA novel, quite dark, and the first volume of a series. The protagonist ('Boy') is servant to a magician who's under a curse. The setting's a dark, Baroque city, rather Italianate and 18th-century but with elements of both fantasy and science -- electricity regarded as a dark art, etc. The writing's terse and choppy and quite well-paced, but I found the setting much more interesting than the events. A tendency to paint characters in black and white, too, though that leads to assumptions (by characters and readers) that are proved incorrect. Not desperate to read second volume.

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#5: A Time of Angels -- Patricia Schonstein

Oddly reminiscent of The Vintner's Luck (Elizabeth Knox) which is one of my favourite novels. Another novel about cause and effect, really, and the interconnectedness of three generations of Italian emigrants in South Africa. On the way, it includes fine art, the Holocaust, religion, story-telling, plastic surgery, infidelity, clocks, Italian cooking and conscription. Quite a dark novel, and I read it twice in an attempt to make sense of the ending. Beautifully written, full of sensual impressions: not a book to read without good food to hand! It's likely to stay in my mind for a long while.

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#4: The Time Traveller's Wife -- Audrey Niffenegger

Only finished this last night and am still thinking about it. Niffenegger explores all the classic time-travel themes: can a time-traveller change history? How does time travel work? What about cause and effect? Any profit in it? What happens when you know your fate? And a few others that I hadn't thought of but won't detail here. At least one scene feels very much like an afterthought and doesn't seem necessary for the story. The protagonists, Henry and Clare, are fascinating and three-dimensional, and the supporting cast isn't bad either. But the last few chapters seemed to lose focus.

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#3: Long John Silver -- Bjorn Larsson (trans. Tom Geddes)

Pirates, arrrrr! I've had this for ages and only just got around to reading it. The translation is excellent, e.g. unnoticeable, though I did wonder how the pirate-speak read in the original Swedish. This novel tells the story of Long John Silver in suitably swashbuckling prose, yet there's more depth to it than that: plenty of philosophising on the nature of freedom, the evils of slavery etc, without the author imposing a modern mindset upon his characters. Presents Silver as a real-life pirate and gives a very credible and witty explanation as to why he never made it into Captain Johnson's A History of the Pirates: excellent cameo appearance from Defoe, who discusses literature. Also plenty of rum, treasure, plundering and misbehaviour.

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#2: Earthly Joys -- Philippa Gregory

The fictionalised life of John Tradescant the Elder, gardener to Charles I, the Duke of Buckingham and Robert Cecil. A great deal of historical info-dumping here: the prose was rather dry. She does bring to life a whole outmoded -- almost feudal -- notion of service to one's lord, right or wrong. The characterisation of Tradescant is brilliant, but the backdrop felt two-dimensional, even when describing his travels to Russia and the Netherlands. Am tempted, though, to read the sequel (Virgin Soil) just for the historical aspects: Virginia in the early days.

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#1: According to Queeney -- Beryl Bainbridge

Dr Johnson's later years, and his friendship with Hester Thrale. Bainbridge is an astute observer of the little details, and how they become altered in one's memory. The title's a misnomer though: it took me a while to figure out why I felt off-balance, but it may be to do with the way that point-of-view changes throughout: not just between chapters but even within the same paragraph. The sort of historical novel that I'll keep for reference but not for reading pleasure.

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