#BookReview — Waltz in Swing Time by Jill Caugherty #HistoricalFiction #NewRelease

Waltz in Swing Time

By Jill Caugherty

Growing up in a strict Utah farm family during the Depression, Irene Larsen copes with her family’s hardship by playing piano. Even when an unthinkable tragedy strikes, Irene clings to her dream of becoming a musician. When a neighbor's farm is foreclosed, Irene's brother marries the neighbor's daughter, who moves in with the Larsens and coaches Irene into winning leading roles in musicals. Clashing with her mother, who dismisses her ambition as a waste of time, Irene leaves home.

During a summer job at Zion National Park, she meets professional dancer Spike, a maverick who might be her ticket to a musical career. But does pursuing her dream justify its steep price?

Alternating between Irene’s ninetieth year in 2006 and her coming-of-age in the thirties, Waltz in Swing Time is a poignant tale of mother-daughter relationships, finding hope amidst loss, and forging an independent path.

"I never chose to spend my final days in a Disney Land for seniors."

Irene Stallings may well have one foot in the grave, but she was still humming. Did they not understand? It was just her body that was failing?

Irene could not deny that the Golden Manor was beautiful with its cathedral-style windows and potted plants. And of course, there was bridge night, craft days, and best of all there were people her own age for her to talk too! Sometimes there was even a pianist who played the old favourites. What more could she possibly want?

Irene would tell them if they let her. She wanted Harold. She wanted his stupid jokes and for him to take her in his arms like he used to. And she wanted to pirouette across a stage before an audience. She wanted the colour, and the music, and the jazz, and the dance. 

Irene knows what they think. They think she is losing her mind. All those hours spent outside in the courtyard talking to herself does indeed look suspicious, but what they fail to notice is the tape player in her hand. Irene is not talking to herself. She is leaving a legacy for the only person who would understand.

While those around Irene get ready to celebrate her 90th birthday, Irene allows her mind to escape back to 1930s Utah, where it all began...

From a wheat farm in the community of Paradise, Utah, to the blessed relief of a longed-for sleep, Waltz in Swing Time by Jill Caugherty is the utterly enthralling story of one woman who dared to risk it all and follow her heart.

The strong foreshadowing at the opening of this novel hints this tale will be an especially tragic one. Death is a foregone conclusion when a book is set in a home for the elderly, but the enormous dragon in the room which no one dares to talk about is as loud as an empty space where a piano once stood. I realised from the opening chapter that Waltz in Swing Time was going to demand every conceivable emotion from the reader. Still, nothing prepared me for how much of an emotional roller-coaster I had unwittingly found myself riding. I laughed, I cried, I wanted to scream at the injustice, and I had only just finished Chapter 4!

The story itself fluctuates between loud crescendos that then tapers into a sorrowful diminuendo. Of course, there are also moments in this book where the pianist abruptly stops playing, gets up, slams the piano lid down and storms out the room while the reader is left gasping and wondering what on earth just happened. This constant change in dynamics and time signatures is what made this book so very entertaining and immensely successful. The pages practically turn themselves — I was wholly bewitched with this symphony of colourful sights and sounds. 

This book is told in the first person from Irene's point of view, but she does pay homage, as she dictates her memoirs into a microphone, to some of the people who were so very influential in her life. Wylie, for example, is only mentioned a dozen times. Still, he is instrumental in showing Irene that she could change her stars and could get an education, which bucks the convention of the ideas a woman perhaps aspired to in the 1930s. Irene also has first-hand knowledge of what her life will be like if she were to settle down and marry at a young age. Irene goes from admiring and being somewhat jealous of Mae, a schoolfriend and neighbour, to pitying her when Irene realises the sacrifice she had made by marrying. Mae is a fabulous singer, but she no longer has the time for such trifle enjoyments, and as the music leaves Mae, she loses that sparkle that once made her shine brighter than a star. Irene is determined not to let what happened to Mae, happen to her.

I adored Irene. She is the kind of heroine that you cannot help but love. She is spirited, courageous and funny. She is talented, quick and ambitious. Irene knows what she wants, and nothing will stop her — not her friends, not her parents, nor her boyfriend. I really admired Irene for her tenacious determination to become the woman she wants to become despite the considerable opposition that she faces. Her mother does not want her to leave the farm. She wants Irene to settle down and get married. Irene's father is somewhat bemused by his daughter's ambition but indulges her, as father's often do. It isn't until Irene meets Spike that she realises that this is the young man who she was holding out for, but even then, she does not give up on her dreams. I thought Caugherty's depiction of Irene was simply marvellous.

And then there was Spike! Oh, my goodness! Caugherty has gifted her readers with a larger-than-life character who is not only an incredible dancer and a notorious flirt, but he is also filled with ambition. Like Irene, he comes from nothing and yet that does not stop him from carving out the life he wants. I adored everything about his characterisation — he is so much fun and so full of life — one could not help but like him. 

Caugherty explores the agonies of death and the consequences of it in this book in great detail. Indeed, at times, death leads the narrative. Irene's relationship with her mother deteriorates very rapidly because of a death, and they lose each other because of the subsequent grief that her mother drowns in. The person Mrs Laresen becomes is a shadow of who she really is. All that Mrs Laresen has left is cold bitterness and contempt, which is incredibly tragic in itself but more so when she has nowhere to tunnel that bitterness. Unfortunately, she ends up throwing it at Irene. As I read this book, I could not help but wonder if Mrs Laresen saw the image of her younger self in Irene, and she did not like to see the reminder. Irene is full of dreams and ambition, and her soul is filled with music. Mrs Laurence's dreams were buried six feet under.

The mother-daughter relationship is a theme that is explored in great lengths during this novel. There are moments when Irene realises she is watching history repeat itself — Irene's daughter, Deirdre, is very similar in personality to her grandmother. Deidre is a very controlling and opinionated woman who likes to take charge, be in control. Deidre is a complete contrast to her mother but also her own daughter, Amy. Like, Irene, Amy will live her life the way she thinks she should and not the way her mother wants her to. Ironically, while Deirdre is telling her grown-up daughter how to live her life, she conveniently forgets that she refused to live the life her father wanted her to live as well. Irene watches all of this with an almost amused detachment. She loves both her daughter and granddaughter, and she knows that it will somehow all work out for the best.

The historical detailing in this book has to be commended. Caugherty has captured the very essence of what life would have been like on a wheat farm in Utah during the Great Depression of the 1930s. To watch as everything you have worked for is destroyed must have been utterly soul-destroying. This was a terrible time in American history which Caugherty has depicted with great skill and diligence. Kudos, Ms Caugherty.

I was blown away by this debut novel. I could have read a thousand pages more, and I still would not have had enough of this story and these characters. I loved every word, every sentence, every syllable. I was captivated from the opening sentence to that final full stop. Waltz in Swing Time by Jill Caugherty is an absolute triumph.

 

I Highly Recommend.

 

Pick up your copy of

Waltz in Swing Time

Amazon UK • Amazon US

 

 

Jill Caugherty

 

Jill Caugherty is the author of the novel WALTZ IN SWING TIME, set in Depression-era Utah.

Jill’s short stories have been published in 805Lit and Oyster River Pages, and her debut short story, “Real People,” was nominated for the 2019 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers.

Jill holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University, an M.S. in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and an MBA with honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Kenan-Flagler Business School.

An award-winning marketing manager with over twenty-five years of experience in the high tech industry, she lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with her husband and daughter.

 

Connect with Jill: Website • Twitter • Goodreads.

 

 

#BookReview — The Rooming House Diaries - Life, Love & Secrets by Bill Mathis. #HistoricalFiction #LGBTQ

The Rooming House Diaries - Life, Love & Secrets

 By Bill Mathis

Six diaries and some correspondence are found in an old Chicago rooming house. The diaries span the 20th century. Written by the immigrants who built the place in 1887, their children and several roomers, they tell the stories of everyday people struggling, surviving and succeeding at life amidst the historical backdrop of World Wars I & II, the Great Depression, prejudice, demographic changes in the Back-of-the-Yards neighborhood, and epidemics, including AIDS. It's rich, deep, at times raw, yet shows the humanity, spirit and love of family, both blood related and non-DNA.

It's a novel of changing times and attitudes; family secrets covered up for over one hundred years; religious, ethnic and gender prejudice; the changes in Chicago, a neighborhood and our nation; the joys of diversity and the richness of our society, warts and all

"So, now we got us an eighteen-year-old Mexican from Tiawano and an albino banker from Roseland living on the third floor..."

Josef Sawicki knows that his time on earth is coming to an end. But before he dies, he wants to pen his memoirs so that his story will not be forgotten. What the old man did not realise was that he had started a tradition that would go on for three generations. This is the story of the Sawicki family and the Rooming House that was their business and their home.

The Rooming House Diaries - Life, Love & Secrets by Bill Mathis is an emotionally charged story of a seemingly inconsequential rooming house and the people that lived there.

 

With a sweeping, yet intimate narrative — composed of a memoir, diary entries and letters — and a crystalline understanding of what makes reading entertaining, Mathis has presented his readers with a book that is as mesmerising as it is powerful. This novel spans three generations and over one hundred years of history — it begins in a small village in Olsztyn, Poland (East Prussia) and ends with the AIDS Crisis of the 1980s. In the pages of this remarkable book, Mathis has penned a story that is as lucid in the telling as it is rich in the historical detail. Mathis takes his readers on a poignant journey of discovery and has written an unputdownable tale.

Six fabulous protagonists tell the story of The Rooming House, but I am just going to focus on two of them as well as one of the secondary characters. The first protagonist I want to talk about is a wonderful lady called Mae Sawicki. Mae married Hank, the son of the original owner of the Rooming House. Mae was like a fresh of breath air on a hot summer’s day. She was immensely likeable, full of good humour and a character that was an absolute pleasure to read about. Mae does face several trials and tribulations throughout this book, but her sense of joy and her love for her family is never diminished. The one thing I really liked about Mae was how she saw the world. She becomes very liberal in her views, especially when she is a very old woman, and in the end, she doesn't seem to care where you are from, and what your story is, all she is interested in is who you are now. With this approach to life, it is very easy to understand how she becomes a motherlike figure to several lodgers, for she is filled with tenderness and compassion. Sometimes she takes a little while to like and trust, but when she does, then there is nothing she would not do. She is the truest of friends. Mae is an incredible heroine.

My absolute favourite character in this book is a young Mexican called Manny Rodriguea. Manny's back story is incredibly moving — it is one of poverty, physical abuse and prostitution. Manny, however, is one of the most complex, and the most caring character in this book. He is this wonderful young man who is desperately trying to escape his past and start again. Being a Mexican in Chicago in the 1960s is a challenge — being gay makes it twice as hard. I adored everything about this character. He is the most caring and compassionate man who anyone would be proud to call a son, but whose own father fails to see the gem that Manny is. Despite a very dubious background, Manny is a very reserved young man, which more than likely saves his life. He ends up helping those who have AIDs die with dignity and respect. Manny is a character that will stay with me for a very long time.

Tommy is a source of violence and danger in this book, and although he is not one of the main characters, I feel I have to spend a little time scrutinising his depiction. Even from a toddler, Tommy is a threatening menace. He is uncontrollably violent, and his parents have no idea how to handle him — and it is not because they are bad parents, or that they are doing something wrong. In today's society, Tommy would have been under a paediatrician for his mental health — he shows signs of extreme Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA). Back in the late 1940s, children's mental health and disorders such as autism were only just being recognised, and it wasn't really understood. To write about a child who has an extremely violent mental health condition such as this, but then to express it so vividly and in a historical setting would, I think, be a challenge for many very experienced authors. Mathis' depiction of Tommy was staggeringly realistic.

Tommy is a character that will not attract sympathy from a reader, and I don't think Mathis wanted to make his readers sympathise with him. Tommy has very few redeemable qualities. He is excessively violent. He is narcissistic — he takes no responsibilities for his actions and blames his parents, particularly his father, for everything. He also becomes a violent sexual predator at a very young age. There are scenes in this book where Tommy is sexually abusing a younger child which was incredibly difficult in the reading, and it did make me feel physically sick. But what I was fascinated in was how, when discovered, this sexual abuse was dealt with. There were no therapists for either child and instead, Tommy is sent away to a boy's home because his parents do not know how to deal with him. The guilt that Tommy's parents feel and the grief that they have to go through to come to terms with the fact that Tommy isn't, nor will he ever be, the person whom they had imagined he would become is very sensitively approached and drawn. I thought Tommy's portrayal was incredibly convincing and the emotional rollercoaster that his parents go through is very real in the telling. They certainly had my sympathy.

The historical detailing of this book has to be commended. Over a hundred years of history is crammed into this book. I can only imagine how many hours Mathis spent researching all the different eras. However long the research took it was most definitely worth it. This book is a monumental work of scholarship. But it is not just the historical detail in this book that has to be commended. It is the hours researching the historical sociocultural anthropology / sociology as well. L. P. Hartley once wrote that "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." They also thought differently as well, and so, therefore, there are incidents of blatant racism and homophobia throughout most of this book because that is what society was like back then. But Mathis balances this awful prejudice by giving his readers Manny — who is both a Mexican and gay — which I thought was really well thought through.

Mathis gives us a glimpse into the lives of some very ordinary people. We become privy to their most cherished aspirations. We lament in their defeat and celebrate their success. This is a book that demands every conceivable emotion from its readers. I laughed out loud. I cried. I felt moments of anger and disgust. But I also felt a sense of hope, a sense of life, for that is what this book is about, it is about life in all its honest, ugly, beautiful detail. 

At times The Rooming House Diaries - Life, Love & Secrets by Bill Mathis does make for some emotionally challenging reading, but it is also immensely successful. This is the kind of book that deserves to be read again and again and again, and it is one you want all your friends to read as well so you can all chat about it over coffee. It is undoubtedly worthy of a place on your bookshelf.

I Highly Recommend.

Review by Mary Anne Yarde.

The Coffee Pot Book Club.

Pick up your copy of

The Rooming House Diaries

Amazon UK • Amazon US

Bill Mathis

Bill Mathis won the 2019 Pencraft Runner Up award for Family Fiction. Bill began writing after he retired from careers in YMCA camping and foster care. His books involve family, warts and all, usually some LGBTQ characters, diversity and non-DNA family. He resides in Beloit, Wisconsin and enjoys writing, reading, volunteering and traveling.

Connect with Bill: Website • Twitter • Facebook • Goodreads.

#BookReview — The Sign of the Blood (A Dangerous Emperor, Book #1) by Laurence O'Bryan #HistoricalFiction #AncientRome

The Sign of the Blood

(A Dangerous Emperor, Book #1)

By Laurence O'Bryan

A compelling tale of power, destiny and desire from an award winning, #1 Amazon bestselling author.

Cool mist settles over the legion sneaking toward the Persian army. Constantine, the son of an emperor, the Roman officer leading this raid, tells his men to halt - something is wrong. Have they been seen in the pre-dawn light? Before long, the battle rages. Eventually he frees a slave named Juliana. She is half Persian and half Roman. As they are pursued to Britannia over land and sea, he learns that she can see the future - his future.

It is 306A.D., long before Constantine the Great converted to Christianity and became the first Christian emperor.

To ensure he survives, he must now eliminate his enemies. But who must die first? The priestess, Sybellina, who joined them in Rome and practices dark and seductive magic? Or the brutal legion commanders who surround his father? Or, as Juliana suspects, are those who want him dead even closer?

An electrifying historical novel about Constantine’s bloody rise to power, the woman who helped him, and the real reason he supported a persecuted Christian minority, a decision which changed the world into the one we know.

"Everything would have been so different if the Persians hadn't come."

But come they did, and Juliana's life was irrevocably changed forever. No longer free, she is sold into slavery. Her life is now at the mercy of her master. 

Constantine dreams of the day he can escape Galerius' grasp and stand on the battlefield next to his father. But right now, he must concentrate on staying alive. A chance discovery may well help him take control of his destiny once and for all. If he can defeat the Persians, if he can bring honour to his name then maybe, just maybe, his father will name him as heir and one day he too will become an Emperor.

From the Battle of Satala to the death of an Emperor, The Sign of the Blood (A Dangerous Emperor, Book #1) by Laurence O'Bryan is the unforgettable story of Constantine the Great's rise to power.

With an elegant turn of phrase and a visceral understanding of what makes history worth reading, O'Bryan has given his readers a Constantine that is incredibly real in the telling. Constantine is a young man who wants to achieve recognition, who wants to become a man whom his father, Emperor Constantius Chlorus, would be proud of. At the beginning of this tale of Emperors and Empires, Constantine is at the mercy of Emperor Galerius. Historical sources tell us that there were numerous plots by Galerius to end Constantine's life but without much success. O'Bryan gives his readers a very lucid account of Constantine's struggle with being at the mercy of Galerius, and also his subsequent flight from the man who had blighted his life for many years.

Constantine is a very likeable character in this story. He is an honourable and kind man whose struggles with his destiny and what that destiny might mean for everyone around him. He is appalled by acts of unnecessary violence by men such as Governor Martinianus, and he cannot stand aside and remain silent about the injustice that he bears witness to. O'Bryan has certainly painted a portrait of how and why Constantine became who he was.

The other protagonist in this tale is a young girl, who has both Persian and Roman blood running through her veins. Rescued from the Persians by Constantine, Juliana's story is tragically moving. From slave to free woman, Julianna is the kind of protagonist a reader can get behind and root for. Although fictional in the telling, Juliana brings so much to the narrative of this novel, and she really drives the plot forward. Through her, O'Bryan describes what life was like for a slave and how it wasn't just a brutal master a slave had to fear — sometimes it was the other slaves as well. I feared for Juliana's life on more than one occasion, she really does go through the mill — it is one trauma after another. O'Bryan has her respond to the events that befall her in a very human way. Juliana is a strong character because she has to be if she wants to survive, but the emotional trauma that she suffers is evident throughout this book.

There are a host of secondary characters in this novel, which bring something unique to the story, and they all have their parts to play. I thought O'Bryan's portrayal of Lucius Aurelius Armenius was sublime. O'Bryan's depiction of the priestess, Sybellina, brings something very sinister to the plot as well.

Writing historical fiction set during the Roman Empire is incredibly challenging. The "history" of the period is often not consistent with the sources — for inscriptions, and the scribes who documented the history are often biased in their account of events. There are primary sources aplenty but the authenticity, the truth, is often hidden behind almost two thousand years worth of political propaganda. Therefore, I have tremendous respect for authors who write about the Roman Empire. But, I am particularly respectful of those who write about the Crisis of the Third Century which saw the Roman Empire's near collapse under the combined pressures of civil wars, peasant rebellions, political instability and barbarian invasions. This was a time when Roman resilience was tested to its limits. O'Bryan's book begins just after this crisis in 297 AD. He has portrayed the turn of the 4th century with a lavish sense of opulence. Nothing, it seems, is beyond the telling — from the Persian camp to the grandeur of the Imperial Palace. O'Bryan takes us on a journey of historical discovery and architectural brilliance. He writes with such skill and authority that I could almost smell the stench and fear of the slave markets — the metallic taste of blood on the battlefields.

It is the battle scenes that are portrayed with such vivid attention to the historical detail where O'Bryan seemingly comes into his own — they are lucid, evocative, and all too graphic in the telling. The fear, the despair, and the adrenaline of the soldiers as they fought to stay alive rang clearly out through the crystalline prose and expressive narrative. It is clear to see that O'Bryan was in his absolute element as he composed these scenes. The ambush by the Roman army of the Persians camp was especially vivid in the telling. Kudos Mr O'Bryan. Kudos, indeed.

There are many distressing scenes in this book that some readers will find very upsetting. O'Bryan does not shy away from the absolute horror that women and children faced when captured by the enemy. Nor does he sugarcoat what it was like to be a slave during this era. The romantic notions of The Roman Empire, the staggering architectural triumphs, and the extravagant lifestyle that the Imperial family and the patricians lived are overshadowed by the brutality of what life was like if you were a plebeian or a slave. Therefore, it is fitting that O'Bryan explores the fragility and frailty of the human condition throughout this book. We see humanity at its best and its worst. This attention to detail, along with a story that is impressive as it is splendid, made this novel unputdownable. 

The Sign of the Blood (A Dangerous Emperor, Book #1) by Laurence O'Bryan is a book that is especially hard to turn away from. It captured my attention from the opening sentences and did not let go of me until the final full-stop. It is an enthralling story from start to finish.

The Sign of the Blood is a must-read for fans of battle heavy Historical Fiction and for anyone with an interest in Constantine the Great and Ancient Rome.

I Highly Recommend.

Review by Mary Anne Yarde.

The Coffee Pot Book Club.

Pick up your copy of

The Sign of the Blood

Amazon UK • Amazon US

Laurence O'Bryan

My roots go back to a small estate deep in the Mountains of Mourne near the Silent Valley, in County Down, Northern Ireland.

I went to school in Dublin, drank way too much, studied English and history, then business, then IT at Oxford University.

My research has taken me all over the world, from San Francisco to deep in the Muslim world. There are secrets everywhere. I enjoy writing about them. I hope you enjoy reading about them.

I grew up learning Latin and loving books such as Robert Graves', I, Claudius. I spent over twenty years studying Roman history, reading every book about Constantine the Great I could find, and visiting numerous sites where my Roman series is set, including, Jerusalem, Rome and Istanbul.

My books have:
* Achieved #1 ranking on Amazon,
* Been translated into 10 languages.

Laurence is also the founder of BooksGoSocial.

Connect with Laurence: Amazon Author Page • Twitter • Goodreads.

#BookReview — The Ghostly Father by Sue Barnard #HistoricalFiction #Italy

The Ghostly Father

By Sue Barnard

Romeo and Juliet - was this what really happened?

When Juliet Roberts is asked to make sense of an ancient Italian manuscript, she little suspects that she will find herself propelled into the midst of one of the greatest love stories of all time. But this is only the beginning. As more hidden secrets come to light, Juliet discovers that the tragic tale of her famous namesake might have had a very different outcome...

A favourite classic story with a major new twist.

"For what I have done, and for what I am about to do, may Almighty God have mercy upon me. And I have much for which I need to seek forgiveness. During my lifetime I have concealed the truth, encouraged disobedience, plotted abduction, coveted another man's wife, and helped a convicted killer to escape justice. This, for a man of God, is quite an impressive catalogue of misdemeanours."

Hidden in a drawer was a book — a very old book whose pages had yellowed with the passage of time. When Juliet carefully opened the book, she saw, to her surprise, the neat handwriting of an Italian ancestor. 

Juliet's grandfather wanted only one thing for his 100th birthday. He wanted Juliet to translate the writing in the book into English so that he could understand the words and read what was written.

What Juliet discovered was a story about two Households both alike in dignity, an ancient grudge, a pair of star-crossed lovers and a Catholic friar whose secret was never meant to be told.

From an illicit love affair of the second son of a wealthy Venetian Count to the streets of fair Verona and a tragic love story that would transcend time, The Ghostly Father by Sue Barnard is the retelling of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, but this time it is the Friar that is controlling the narrative.

This story is one of intense and all-consuming passion, but it is also a tale of violent hate that seemingly supersedes everything else. Blood is spilt in the streets of Verona, and a secret so terrible, so destructive that it could destroy lives as efficiently as any steel blade is about to be divulged. With a sweeping narrative that is as compelling as it was engrossing, Barnard has taken a very old story and breathed life back into it. The strong foreshadowing at the beginning of this book hints that this tale will be an inevitably tragic one. But with a novelists intuition for what is entertaining and a healthy dollop of what if? The Ghostly Father becomes a story in its own right.

The Ghostly Father is told almost exclusively from Fra' Lorenzo's point of view. In Shakespeare's play, Friar Laurence is a kindly cleric, who is desperate to restore peace upon the streets of Verona. It is his schemes and his meddling in political affairs however, that, although well intended, hurtle the young protagonists towards certain death. Barnard has taken a somewhat different approach to Fra' Lorenzo's portrayal. Barnard's Fra' Lorenzo is like still water — he runs deep. Barnard takes her readers on an intimate journey and answers some of the questions that Shakespeare's play posed, such as, how does a Catholic friar have an almost mystic knowledge of potions that will render a person seemingly dead? She also answers the question as to why he embroiled himself in Romeo's affairs in the first place. I thought Fra' Lorenzo's depiction was wonderful. He is a larger-than-life man who is dealt a rather dreadful hand in his early years, but who has the serenity to accept the things that are out of his control and be content with what he has. But this contentment is challenged when he reaches Verona, and he finds himself staring the past in the face.

Fra' Lorenzo's relationship with Prince Bartolomeo Della Scala of Verona is an interesting one — he wants to help the Prince, especially after Mercutio's death. But the Friar also has his reasons for behaving in the way he does and mostly they are to do with his past — he does not want what happened to him, to happen to Romeo. How I adored Fra' Lorenzo. He is compassionate, he is gentle, and he worries excessively about his young charges. It is impossible not to like him.

Romeo, in this book, comes across as rather juvenile, which is the way Shakespeare also portrayed him. Romeo is forever in and out of love, and even Fra' Lorenzo, who is very patient with Romeo, laments with a sign and asks "How many levels of heartache will this one bring?" Romeo is in love with the idea of love, and every time he seemingly falls in love, he is insufferable to be around. It isn't until he meets Giulietta that he realises what true love it and then a transformation occurs in his personality. He is still highly-strung and passionate in his feelings, but love tapers him somewhat to become slightly more mature in his approach to life. Barnard's portrayal of Romeo fascinated me. 

There are many supporting characters in this story, and if you are a lover of all things Shakespeare and in particular Romeo and Juliet, you will recognise most of them. My favourite character in Romeo and Juliet has always been Benvolio, and I was looking forward to seeing how Barnard would approach his characterisation. I thought Benvolio's portrayal was absolutely fabulous. Like Shakespeare, she has made him a rational young man — the voice of reason when anger and hate threaten to overboil. He is genuine in his grief when Mercutio is murdered, and yet he is still thinking of others and wanting to take care of them. Barnard has also given us a young man who shoulders the responsibility of the House of  Montecchi with maturity. When tragedy strikes so dreadfully, Benvolio is dependable, and yet he is also passionate, but not to the extremes as his cousin is. Benvolio's love is reserved, rational, but more importantly, reliable. Benvolio's depiction really enriched this story, and I thought his portrait was a dazzling one.

Barnard's attention to the historical detail must also be mentioned. Barnard has captured the very essence of what it must have been like to have been a friar in 14th century Verona. Barnard also writes with a great deal of authority on the subject of herbs and their uses.

If, like me, you are a lover of Shakespeare's plays, then The Ghostly Father by Sue Barnard will undoubtedly appeal. It will also interest lovers of quality Historical Fiction. In all ways, The Ghostly Father is a profoundly successful story which will stay with you long after you turn that last page.

I Highly Recommended.

Review by Mary Anne Yarde.

The Coffee Pot Book Club.

Pick up your copy of

A Ghostly Father

Amazon UK • Amazon US

Sue Barnard

Sue Barnard is a British novelist, editor and award-winning poet whose family background is far stranger than any work of fiction. She would write a book about it if she thought anybody would believe her.

Sue was born in North Wales but has spent most of her life in and around Manchester, UK. She speaks French like a Belgian, German like a schoolgirl, and Italian and Portuguese like an Englishwoman abroad.

Her mind is so warped that she has appeared on BBC TV’s Only Connect quiz show, and she has also compiled questions for BBC Radio 4’s fiendishly difficult Round Britain Quiz. This once caused one of her sons to describe her as “professionally weird.” The label has stuck.

Sue lives in Cheshire with her extremely patient husband and a large collection of unfinished scribblings.

Connect with Sue: Ocelot Press •  Blog • Twitter • Amazon Author Page.