The Pretender by Jo Harkin: Inside Early Tudor England

I enjoyed Jo Harkin's The Pretender, which was on the short list for the Sir Walter Scott Historical Fiction Prize this year. The novel begins in the late 1400s, and Henry of Breton, or Henry Tudor (later to become Henry VII), is plotting and planning desperately to become King of England after King Richard's death. That's the back action. The story primarily revolves around a young boy living a humble life on a farm whose world is transformed when strangers come to take him to a new life, because he is the Yorkist heir to the throne, and is truly, Edward, the Earl of Warwick. This review from The Guardian is a good one. The novel is 475 pages.

I have now read about 100 pages of a 2024 novel by J. Courtney Sullivan, The Cliffs, which is the fifth book I'm tackling from my 20 Books of Summer List. The link will take you to an NPR interview with the author about this book. The novel revolves around a once-abandoned old manse on the Maine coast, and the lives of women who have lived there and those who have coveted it from afar. 

 

I'm a little concerned about the future of my summer reading, because my workload has increased and it seems as though I may not have quite as much time for reading as I'd hoped. Still, I'm sure lots of hot and humid weather is on the way, so all is not lost!  

 

 

 

 

The Things We Never Say

I read The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout over a period of 10 days. I read it slowly, with deliberation. I must say that I was deeply affected by Artie's story. How I wish I knew others who have read it, because I'm longing to discuss it. I feel lonely not being able to talk about it, actually. I will say that the novel was the most moving book I've read in a very long time. I was deeply affected by Artie's increasing closeness with his son--that was a wonderful part of the book. The things he never said haunted me.

The only other book I've read by Strout is Olive Kitteridge, which I liked and admired. But The Things We Never Say was a much deeper reading experience. 

Do you have other books by Strout that you would particularly recommend?  

The past week was a particularly exhausting one, so just a brief post today.  

 

 

A Late May Read AND My First Book for 20 Books of Summer

In late May I read Rachel Seiffert's historical novel, Once the Deed is Done. It's set in northern Germany, during the final two months of World War II and in the immediate post-war period. For two months before the surrender, the British have advanced and have come to occupy a small town. 

This town, once the site of a German (Nazi) labor camp/factory, whose forced laborers had been mostly deported from Poland and Ukraine, is now the site of a DP (Displaced Persons) camp. The story focuses on the activities and viewpoints of a woman who's a Red Cross worker from Britain, three German children who spend the summer of 1945 renovating a shepard's hut high in the hills of the town, a German couple who are hiding a very young Polish child who was abandoned in their barn, British military staff, and various characters who are living in the DP Camp. There is a mystery, too. What happened one frigid month in March 1945 when dozens of women deportees from the factory vanished?

 

I thought this novel was exceptionally well-done. I have an intense interest in 1945 Germany and the early post-war era and have read many histories on the subject. I can say that Seiffert did a tremendous amount of research for this novel. It was short-listed for the 2026 Sir Walter Scott Historical Fiction Prize. Seiffert has been on the short-list for the Booker Prize at least once. I loved her handling of the multiple viewpoints. 

This summer I also plan to read another book that's on the Scott shortlist. That's The Pretender by Jo Harkin.   

I read my first book for my 20 Books of Summer this past week.  I galloped through At Midnight Comes the Cry, the 10th and most recent book in the Claire Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne mystery series.  It seems that this installment has been announced as the final book in the series. I have read them all, starting with my favorite, the first book, In the Bleak Midwinter. Well worth reading! 

 

Although this latest entry in the series received very high ratings on Goodreads, it was one of my least favorites. There's a great deal of action, and I found it chaotic. The premise was difficult for me, too: A white supremacist group in the Adirondacks is on the verge of wreaking havoc. I found the themes difficult to read, especially because we're dealing with these issues all the time in real life in our country.  I hope that other readers have thought differently about this book and I hope you will share your thoughts here. 

I'm also reading The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout and have started The Black Death by Thomas Asbridge, a work of history.