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Recent reading
Nov. 18th, 2023 05:30 pmBadort by Tove and Hanna Folkesson (2023) [Spatown]
Another of the slew of recent Swedish historical novels that looked interesting. This one is cross-class f/f set in 1938 in the dilapidated spa town of Borgholm on the island of Öland. I don't know much about the time/place, but I thought it had a very good sense of setting, with lots of specific detail of both place and attitudes. It's litfic and not genre romance; the authors are a married couple where one of them did the drawings in the book, which match up nicely with the impressionistic language. The two main characters don't end up together and never see each other again, but only meet during a few intense days which completely change the course of both of their lives. I enjoyed it!
The Fiery Cross by Lady Kitty Vincent (1930)
A Jacobite historical, which I originally hoped would be about Margaret and David Ogilvy, whose descendant the author is. Instead it follows another newly married Ogilvy couple (Ronald and Mairi) through the '45, though Margaret and David do appear. This book is definitely worth reading, even if I think it suffers in comparison to Flight of the Heron--the prose is not as good, I think, and she's not quite as good at...setting the whole thing up so that it hangs together well, I guess? But some scenes I enjoyed were Mairi getting her dilemma between honour and duty, when she is asked to get information by conversing with a enemy guest (which breaks the law of hospitality!) Also the scene where she, Lady Ogilvy and Lady Kilmarnock drink General Hawley under the table, thus making him late for the battle of Falkirk, is great. I appreciated the scenes of women interacting!
The book compares interestingly to FotH, because in a way it's a variation on the story of Ewen and Alison and Keith, with a different ending. Because yes, there's a Keith analogue: the young subaltern Tony Wylie, who is wounded and captured at Falkirk, is nursed by Mairi, and falls head-over-heels in love with her. Wylie has a strong sense of honour in common with Keith, but they are otherwise not similar, since Wylie is young and idealistic. Okay, I'm going to spoil the ending here, because this book is not accessible online and there is currently only one copy of it on abebooks.com, which sells for $70, so I don't think a lot of you are going to read it. ( But I'll put further spoilers under a cut. ) Oh, and I should perhaps also say that the blurb lets you know that when Ronald and Mairi's noble deer-hound Angus dies, no reader's eyes will be dry! I confess that my eyes were indeed not dry when the dog died.
Another of the slew of recent Swedish historical novels that looked interesting. This one is cross-class f/f set in 1938 in the dilapidated spa town of Borgholm on the island of Öland. I don't know much about the time/place, but I thought it had a very good sense of setting, with lots of specific detail of both place and attitudes. It's litfic and not genre romance; the authors are a married couple where one of them did the drawings in the book, which match up nicely with the impressionistic language. The two main characters don't end up together and never see each other again, but only meet during a few intense days which completely change the course of both of their lives. I enjoyed it!
The Fiery Cross by Lady Kitty Vincent (1930)
A Jacobite historical, which I originally hoped would be about Margaret and David Ogilvy, whose descendant the author is. Instead it follows another newly married Ogilvy couple (Ronald and Mairi) through the '45, though Margaret and David do appear. This book is definitely worth reading, even if I think it suffers in comparison to Flight of the Heron--the prose is not as good, I think, and she's not quite as good at...setting the whole thing up so that it hangs together well, I guess? But some scenes I enjoyed were Mairi getting her dilemma between honour and duty, when she is asked to get information by conversing with a enemy guest (which breaks the law of hospitality!) Also the scene where she, Lady Ogilvy and Lady Kilmarnock drink General Hawley under the table, thus making him late for the battle of Falkirk, is great. I appreciated the scenes of women interacting!
The book compares interestingly to FotH, because in a way it's a variation on the story of Ewen and Alison and Keith, with a different ending. Because yes, there's a Keith analogue: the young subaltern Tony Wylie, who is wounded and captured at Falkirk, is nursed by Mairi, and falls head-over-heels in love with her. Wylie has a strong sense of honour in common with Keith, but they are otherwise not similar, since Wylie is young and idealistic. Okay, I'm going to spoil the ending here, because this book is not accessible online and there is currently only one copy of it on abebooks.com, which sells for $70, so I don't think a lot of you are going to read it. ( But I'll put further spoilers under a cut. ) Oh, and I should perhaps also say that the blurb lets you know that when Ronald and Mairi's noble deer-hound Angus dies, no reader's eyes will be dry! I confess that my eyes were indeed not dry when the dog died.
