2017/95: The Black Moth: A Romance of the 18th Century -- Georgette Heyer

"It suited you that Jack should be disgraced? You thought I should seize his money. You— you—"
"Rogue? But you will admit that I at least am an honest rogue. You are — er — a dishonest saint. I would sooner be what I am." [p. 163]

The Black Moth, set in England in the 1750s, is Georgette Heyer's very first novel, which I reread after becoming aware that it was effectively a prequel to These Old Shades and Devil's Cub -- albeit a prequel in which the characters had different names and rather less rounded characters. Tracy 'Devil' Belmanoir, Duke of Andover, shares many of the Duke of Avon's less savoury habits, not least a taste for abducting innocent young women. The lovely Diana Beauleigh is his latest victim, but is saved by the sudden appearance of highwayman 'Sir Anthony Ferndale' who is, of course, a disgraced aristocrat in disguise. He is, in fact, Lord Jack Carstares, who chose exile rather than expose his brother Richard for cheating at cards: and he and Diana fall in love. Richard, meanwhile, has just inherited the family title and fortune, but is increasingly crippled by guilt, and his wife Lavinia is thoroughly fed up with him. And Lavinia's brother is ... Tracy 'Devil' Belmanoir, probably the most intelligent of the characters and certainly the wittiest.

Unlike Heyer's later novels, this focusses on the relationships between the male characters: poor Diana is little more than a Quest Object, and while Lavinia has a more central role she is far from a romantic heroine. There's a great deal more swashbuckling than in the Regency novels -- duels, dramatic gestures, ridiculous behaviour and passionate declarations abound. Great fun, amusing and well-paced, with typically sardonic dialogue and plenty of arch observations. Even at this point, Heyer is subverting the tropes of the genre: see, for instance, the title of chapter 28, 'In Which What Threatened to be Tragedy Turns to Comedy'.

2017/94: A Sword, a Star, a Flame -- Helen Lerewth

"...he is a doughty warrior."
She gave me a hard, piercing look. "I thought you were such a great warrior," she said, "and he’s womaned you." [loc 1076]

Alternate-world fantasy, set in a medieval Europe analogue where the Teutonic-flavoured Order of the Star fights against the Mongol-flavoured pagan Shee. Oglive, an heiress of the Shee, is brought up in the Order, disguised as a boy: the Order is somewhat misogynist, and also would very much like to get their hands on Oglive's inheritance. She watches the dashing Adal, the best of the knights, trounce his fellow Brothers, and falls in love. Luckily it is mutual and they plan to elope. Amidst popular revolt, they escape to the Shee, where everything becomes rather less predictable: polyamory, matriarchy, same-sex relationships, and maybe magic.

Much of the fun of this novel comes from the framing narrative: Oglive, Adal and some of the other characters are writing 'a proper record' of events that are in their pasts, and their friends and associates are transcribing and commenting on the original accounts. Those editorial conversations are delightful, and their complicity in obfuscating the steamier aspects of the story ('that would certainly make the bishop have fifty fits') adds an extra dimension to the story.

A warning, though, for several instances of dubious or absent consent to sexual intercourse between male characters. ("I dealt with my captive as the men of the Shee always treat their male prisoners.") As per the standard bodice-ripper trope, these relationships end up happily and romantically -- and the characters joke with one another about how much of a fight they actually put up -- but they are based on rape.

There are several more novels in this sequence, with (I believe) rather more explicitly fantastical content: I did enjoy this one, and will likely read the sequels at some stage -- not least because the framing narrative gives some intriguing hints of how things have changed between the events of A Sword, a Star, a Flame and the time at which the characters are writing and editing their accounts.

2017/93: The House at the End of Hope Street -- Menna van Praag

"The eyes of others are our prisons; their thoughts our cages."
Alba frowns. "Really?"
"Dismiss that warning at your peril," Dorothy says. "Literature is strewn with the wreckage of writers who have minded the opinions of others." [p. 176]

Alba Ashby is (was?) a PhD student whose world is falling apart. She ends up on the doorstep of a house on Hope Street that she's never noticed before, and is invited in by the mysterious Peggy, who tells her that -- like every other woman who's come to the house at a moment of desperation -- Alba can stay for 99 nights, and the house (and its current and former inhabitants) will help her to change her life.

Alba has plenty of problems to resolve. She's the child of an adulterous affair, has never met her father, and is estranged from the rest of her family; her PhD supervisor, on whom Alba has a crush, has plagiarised Alba's notes; and Carmen and Greer, the other residents of the house, seem intent on drawing her into their own lives, even though Alba would vastly prefer to be left alone to read. (I empathised.) Also, the pictures on the walls of the house are talking to her ...

This was a sweet and charming novel with a magical-realist flavour. The underlying philosophy (do what you love; be true to yourself; romantic love conquers all) is occasionally cloying, but within the frame of the story it works nicely: this is not a gritty documentary, but a book about achieving happiness.

The author, in an afterword, notes that despite having lived in Cambridge for thirty-five years, she didn't know there was an actual Hope Street. Me, I used to walk down it most days. I've never noticed that house, either.

2017/92: Slouch Witch -- Helen Harper

If I could make him believe that I wasn’t quite as lazy as he thought, I reckoned I’d be able to get away with more  – by which I actually meant less – in future. [p. 118]

Ivy Wilde is a witch -- or, perhaps, was a witch. Expelled from the Order for cheating, she makes a living driving taxis in Oxford, and her primary ambition is to spend more time doing less -- watching TV, eating, and talking to Brutus, her feline familiar. (The feline familiar might disappoint some: "he can talk but he only has a vocabulary of about twenty words and most of them aren’t very nice." [p. 32]) Unfortunately, a bureaucratic cockup causes Ivy to become magically bound to Adeptus Exemptus Raphael Winter, a high-ranking workaholic with a magical mission and a pronounced lack of patience for Ivy's slacker lifestyle.

You can probably see where this is going, and you're not wrong. It's an enjoyable journey though: Ivy snarks and is competent, Winter is not quite as stiff-upper-lip as he initially appears, and the magical mission throws all kinds of ingenious nasties at the pair.

First in a series (The Lazy Girl's Guide to Magic), and I will probably read the next one at some point when I want cheerful, entertaining urban fantasy. Plus, I'd like more of Brutus, as I find this particular talking animal horribly credible.:

From somewhere above me, there was an irritated hiss. "Food."
"Hi, Brutus."
"Food, bitch."
I sighed. "I've told you time and time again, if you call me that I'm not going to feed you."
"Food."
"Give me a minute."
"Food."
"I'd like the chance to get a cup of tea first."
"Food."
"Piss off."
"Food."

2017/91: The Cold Calling -- Phil Rickman

... by daylight, the whole idea of a cross-dressing actor-ventriloquist who believed he was into a mystical tradition with a direct line to the megalith-builders seemed a whole lot less convincing than it had last night. [p. 239]

DI Bobby Maiden dies in a hit-and-run -- but is revived. He remembers the terror of being dead, and his experiences somehow link him to the Green Man, a serial killer who murders his victims (apparently randomly chosen) at sacred sites. Is the Green Man really protecting Britain's sacred heritage? Did Bobby Maiden really encounter a primal force in the time when he lay dead? Can New Age journalist Grayle Underhill (I blame the parents), lately arrived from New York, unravel the mystery of her sister's disappearance? And will shaman and detective Cindy Mars-Lewis be able to discover the murderer's identity before he strikes again?

This was an enjoyable read. Rickman writes about paganism and New Agers without mockery or patronisation (though some of the characters are a bit rude about others). There is clearly something supernatural going on, though it may not be quite as supernatural as certain individuals believe it to be. Interesting characters, alternating viewpoints, and a whodunnit that -- while not wholly unpredictable -- did keep me guessing for quite a while.

I had issues with the Kindle edition, though: throughout the book, random letters were replaced by full stops mid-sentence. For instance, "letting him exp. rience the p. rverse ecstasy of unsp. akable, self-righteous cruelty" [p. 430].

2017/90: That Old Black Magic -- Cathi Unsworth

"Used to be the Variety circuit, before the war," said Lexy. "Now all the beaches are full of mines and barbed wire. The people who’re left there aren’t having a good time any more. Vulnerable to Jerry attack from the sea and where the Luftwaffe get rid of all their unused bombs on their way home. Easy prey for spook racketeers." [loc 1818]

That Old Black Magic (review copy received from Netgalley in exchange for this honest review) begins in January 1941, when medium Helen Duncan apparently channels the spirit of a woman who is being murdered in a wintry wood. Later that same month, the hapless Karl Kohl, on a spying mission from Germany, breaks his ankle and is captured by the security services. He doesn't tell them much -- but what he does confess is enough to involve MI5, and in particular the shadowy section known as 'Triple-U' -- witches, warlocks and wizards.

Detective Sergeant Ross Spooner, who grew up in a 'rare and occult' bookshop in Aberdeen, is assigned to trace the woman who was Karl Kohl's contact. His investigation takes him into a bohemian world of musicians, actors and circus performers -- and, later, into the equally theatrical world of seances and spiritualism. He meets historical characters such as ghost hunter Harry Price, journalist Hannen Swaffer and medium Helen Duncan: the latter was the last person to be tried under the 1735 Witchcraft Act in the UK, in 1944, and though Spooner is well aware of the trickery behind her performance, he also experiences the inexplicable.

This novel ties together historical events (Helen Duncan's trial, the bombing of arms factories in Birmingham, the discovery by four boys of a woman's bones in a hollow tree) with fiction. Spooner is a good protagonist, at once sceptical and eager to believe, determined to root out potential traitors, and beguiled by the mysterious musician Anna. What I found most interesting, though, was Unsworth's depictions of the spiritualist circuit, and the theatrical world, in World War II.

The narrative did jump around a lot: typically, Spooner would be walking somewhere; then he'd reflect on the circumstances that prompted his walk; then he'd get to his destination. A plethora of dream sequences, too (and Spooner is prone to bad dreams). There's a sense of fading, rather than closure, at the end of the book: I didn't find the ending wholly satisfactory. And I sometimes felt that too much information and too many subplots were being shoehorned in. Overall, though, this is an interesting, well-researched and well-paced read.

2017/89: First Person -- Richard Flanagan

What do you mean lies? Heidl said. His tone had altered. Being with Heidl was like eating an ice cream that turned into underarm deodorant that turned into an echidna. [loc. 2505]

Kif Kehlmann, a penniless young writer, is approached by notorious corporate fraudster Siegfried Heidl, who proposes a deal: $10,000 to ghost-write Heidl's biography, in six weeks. Kif, whose wife is pregnant and whose bank account is nearly drained, would like to be able to afford to refuse. He wants to write a great Australian literary novel, not a conman's life story. But he has to make some money somehow, soon, and Heidl has already produced an outline. How hard can it be?

Very hard indeed. The 'interviews' Kif has with Heidl turn into rambling, structureless reminiscence and philosophising, and Kif finds it impossible to extract any usable content from them. Worse, his failure to produce a draft for the publisher is draining his confidence. It's been his ambition since childhood to be an author, but all he has is a heap of disconnected notes, evidence that he can't write a book. Worst of all, Heidl's cheerily nihilistic utterances ("You should give up writing, he said. Have some fun while you can. Before you’re sacrificed.") are having an insidious effect on Kif's own psyche.

And who is Heidl, anyway? It becomes apparent that 'Siegfried Heidl' is the latest in a series of identities, the persona of a master manipulator. Heidl doesn't really change over the course of the novel, although we learn more about his unsavoury past. Perhaps at heart there's nothing there, no first person: a hollow man without the principles, creativity or individuality that Kif values in himself. Kif does change, or rather is changed. Heidl hollows him out.

There is some glorious prose here, and some very funny scenes (some of which are also very dark). I didn't engage with it, though: Heidl is slippery and evasive and seems to have no actual personality, and Kif is self-pitying, ineffectual and all too easily warped by Heidl's company.

According to Flanagan, this novel draws heavily on his own experience of ghost-writing the biography of John Friedrich, a notorious Australian conman who apparently committed suicide rather than face trial. I'm not sure if that means that Kif's reflections on the Australian publishing world ("Though I had nothing to say, I had read enough Australian literature to know this wasn’t necessarily an impediment to authorship") mirror Flanagan's own early experiences. And I hope the denouement of the novel is not written from life.

Read for review, via NetGalley: I have to say that the ARC I received was so poorly formatted (no capital Gs or Ds, random line breaks, etc) that reading it was hard work.