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  Oh dear, this was not for me.  I never do well with fantasy fiction and with the exception of Set My Heart to Five by Simon Stephenson , I have not found one I liked. I knew I was in trouble by the time I read the second sentence and found the main character was called 'Wendowleen'.  That's the same name given to the potential girlfriend in one of the Wallace and Gromit animated films, and after that I was stuck with the image of a plasticine woman with bobbed hair that looks like a loaf of bread and rather big teeth. The story is set in a fantasy world that I didn't really get to grips with, but the people are ruled by a political group known as The Finery that oversees all aspects of their lives.  Professor Wedowleen Cripcot is over a hundred years old and lives with her assistance wolf in a large house with more bedrooms than she is entitled to.  The Finery has decided that she must either take in a lodger or move somewhere smaller, even though it has ...

  This book was being reviewed a lot on Instagram last year, and most people seemed to like it so I thought I'd give it a go.   On the front cover, the British writer Nina Stibbe is quoted as saying that ' Rachel Joyce is our own Elizabeth Strout ', and I immediately thought; please don't say that. No-one can be compared to Elizabeth Strout! I can see where Nina Stibbe is coming from because the eponymous Maureen Fry is a grumpy woman of a certain age with a wonderful husband who inexplicably loves her dearly, and that is exactly the premise for Strout's character Olive Kitteridge.   Maureen Fry is the third book in a series of three novels, which can all be read independently, although the same characters appear in each one as Strout's characters do in her books.  Sadly though, Maureen Fry is nowhere near as complex as Olive, and although the reviewer for the Observer thought the book was ' Deeply moving and life-affirming ', it didn't ...

  If you write an historical fiction novel that has praise from Hilary Mantel on the front cover, then I think you can be safe in the knowledge that you have done a good job. Katherine J. Chen certainly has done a good job, and right from the start, the writing draws the reader in, and Joan of Arc becomes a living person and not just a stylised portrait from the history books. The author tells us at the end of the book that she created a version of Joan who was personal to her, and not everything in the book actually happened, but true historical events are there as the backbone and certainly the lives of the people of the time are well researched. It's easy to forget how young Joan was when she strode into battle and even when she was put to death in 1431, she was still only nineteen.  France had been at war with England since 1337 and both countries laid claim to the French throne.  This series of armed conflicts became known as the Hundred Years War and the English had...

  Another historical novel from Maggie O'Farrell, who also wrote Hamnet that I reviewed about a year ago.  This one is set in Italy during the renaissance period and is the story of a high born young girl, Lucrezia, whose family arranged for her to marry the Duke of Ferrara when she was only fifteen. The book was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2023, and focuses on the difficulties faced by women of noble birth.  Although they are surrounded by luxury, wearing the finest clothes and eating the best available food, there is no freedom for these women.  From the moment of birth they are in training to become the bride of a man from a similar lineage, and before marriage they obey the will of their father, and then must accept whatever befalls them when they go to live with their husbands.  Lucrezia was an awkward child who spent her time painting and always had a great fascination for animals.  If she was the eldest daughter, much of her behavio...