Go back in time this October with The Bells of Westminster by Leonora Nattrass, The Book
- Eithne Farry reviews the best Historical fiction out this month
THE BELLS OF WESTMINSTER by Leonora Nattrass (Viper Books £16.99, 384pp)
There’s plot a plenty in Nattrass’s stand-alone historical thriller set in 1774. A mysterious death takes place, a ghost walks, a king visits and a romantic proposal is made.
But it’s the vivid characters and wonderful descriptions of Westminster Abbey that make her fourth novel sparkle.
It’s the perfect backdrop to the entertaining story told by self-confessed spinster Susan Bell.
She is a gloriously opinionated 24-year-old who loves bonnets and gowns, new scientific advances, her irreverent parrot Cuthbert and her father, the Dean of Westminster.
A kindly figure with a penchant for replacing beautiful medieval choir stalls with mahogany, the Dean opens the tomb of Edward I and sets mayhem in motion.
THE BOOK OF WITCHING by CJ Cooke (HarperFiction £16.99, 384pp)
Cooke delivers another hair-raising dose of horror in her fourth supernatural novel; here the heebie-jeebies come courtesy of a cursed book, which links two families across the divide of centuries.
The titular tome has pitchblack pages, a creepy wooden cover and echoes with the screams of a clan of Orkney healers and witches.
Cooke unspools the stories of Alison Balfour, who was accused of witchcraft and burned alive in 1594 – and present day Clem, whose daughter Erin has been found on Orcadian Fynhallow Bay, with horrific burns, alongside the charred body of her boyfriend, and a belief that she is someone from the past.
A fantastic blend of folklore and feminism, Cooke delicately balances terror and tenderness in a gothic, gripping tale.
THE CATCHERS by Xan Brooks (Salt £10.99, 272pp)
BROOKS’ second novel heads off in search of the Delta Blues in the company of Coughlin, a reformed criminal. He hopes to find a performer that’ll make him rich in the fast paced music business of 1920s America.
White Coughlin hears of a black teenage musician, whose songs have the power to part rainclouds.
Moss Evans has a cheap guitar, a head haunted by songs and is trapped in a world of plantation houses and ingrained prejudice.
Surrounded by floodwater from the breached Mississippi river, he’s waiting for some kind of rescue which comes in the shape of Coughlin.
Elegant and eloquent, this is a cautionary tale of melody and myth-making, where the grim realities of exploitation tussle with the transformative power of music.