‘A stellar piece of storytelling’: The best Historical novels out now – THE GHOSTS OF
THE GHOSTS OF ROME by Joseph O’Connor (Harvill Secker £20, 384pp)
RETURNING to war-ravaged Europe and occupied Rome so cinematically described in My Father’s House, O’Connor’s ‘dread-drenched’ sequel is subtle and sombre, as the incursion of the Nazis into the city puts the members of ‘The Choir’ in grave danger.
Committed to smuggling refugees and Allied soldiers to safety, the crew are worn down and worn out; food is scarce, the atmosphere claustrophobic and mistrust seeps into their psyches, especially with the arrival of a mysterious airman, whose loyalties are open to question.
It’s a stellar piece of storytelling.
O’Connor brilliantly captures the sense of the city and its inhabitants in peril.
But he also celebrates The Choir’s doughty friendship, their vivid voices conveying their stories of unshowy heroism in the face of Hitler’s henchman Hauptmann, whose determination to stop them knows no bounds.
THE ARTIST by Lucy Steeds (Michael Joseph £16.99, 304pp)
HONEYED heat and slow-burn attraction make for a smouldering atmosphere in Lucy Steeds’s intense, beautifully realised debut.
It’s summer in Provence in 1920 and aspiring writer Joseph finds himself in the tempestuous orbit of reclusive artist Tartuffe, known as Tata, and his put-upon niece Ettie.
Tata’s pictures are filled with light but he’s a dark character; temperamental and misogynistic, being around him is like ‘living with an ever-changing storm’.
Grieving his inspiring, dead mother, and heart sore for his war-damaged elder brother, writing about Tata’s luminous pictures give Joseph hope.
But slowly his attention and his affection turns to Ettie, who’s living a secret artistic life of her own, growing into a gift which has been ‘quashed, hidden, smothered’, in Tata’s repressive world.
It’s a blaze of a book, poetic, passionate and quietly powerful.
THE QUEEN OF FIVES by Alex Hay (Headline £18.99, 416pp)
ALEX HAY, the author of the rip-roaring debut The Housekeepers, returns to the fray with an audacious tale of charlatans and chicanery set in the gorgeous surrounds of 1898
Mayfair. In a breathless game of bluff and double bluff, carried off in glorious disguises and glamorous ballgowns, conwoman Quinn Le Blanc embarks on an elaborate ruse to separate the rich-beyond-belief Duke of Kendal from a huge chunk of his fortune over the course of five frantic days.
Masquerading as a wealthy debutante, the shape-shifting Quinn infiltrates their Berkeley Square mansion, but she is not the only with secrets.
The duke, his fiery sister Tor and their ruthless stepmother are just as duplicitous, as the cunning quartet embark on a dangerous game of brinkmanship, delivered with fabulous aplomb by Hay, who delights in these high-stakes high jinks.