It's a funny thing, reading a book for review processes is a very different thing from reading it for fun.
Which is not to say that it can't be fun, but it's a different approach.
Since joining the English Civil War Society (Roundhead Association - down with Charles I), I noticed a request in the Roundhead Association newsletter for volunteers to review books.
I've reviewed stuff in the past - I used to write board game reviews, and I try to put decent descriptions on Good Reads when health allows - so I offered my services.
I got two books, one fiction one non-fiction.
The fiction book was a case where reviewing a book is a very different experience. It was a novel, set, naturally, during the English Civil War - a subject on which I have remarkably little knowledge...
I got half way down the first page before I was tempted to chuck it at the wall. The text was overblown and it was actually unclear what was going on.
It was a book I'd promised to review, so I persevered. Even with my knowledge of 17th century history, alarm bells were ringing. I can't remember why I felt it necessary to check the location of Bath's Guild hall in the 17th century, but half an hour on Google got it fixed beyond doubt. The writer had it in the wrong place. He also had a description of a tailors shop that felt totally wrong. The shop was all indoors, no apprentices, everything was ready made, no one was sitting sewing in the window. (Apparently I have picked up these things by osmosis over the years)
The urge to rip the book apart was increasing. I'd certainly never have paid money for it!
But, it was a review copy. I struggled onwards.
We got to actual warfare. And suddenly everything changed. This was history that the writer really knew well. He was crap on civilian history, but details of uniforms, weapons, siege warfare, dysentry, Clubmen (the other combatants apart from King and Parliament -essentially local groups who tried to keep both sides out of their local area) he was great.
And, the text suddenly came to life. Writing in his own field, he wrote far far better. The story became exciting and far more developed.
I checked facts here and there, learnt that ships were indeed steered by a whipstaff during this period. I didn't catch him out on a single military factor, even some details that I thought were well-conceived flavour text turned out to have a basis in history.
I ended up writing quite a positive review, which I would never have done if I hadn't felt that I HAD to read it.
But, he really, really needs a beta reader who knows the social history of the mid seventeenth century. eg. Shepherds did not wear smocks (came in a lot later). At this time, a smock was a women's undergarment.
(I appear have picked up quite a bit of stuff relating to clothing and laundry, just by talking to other re-enactors. And reading this that and the other.)
It's called 'Forlorn Hope', by Nicholas Carter. Published a small press that specialises in military history. It's the seventh in a series.
https://www.caliverbooks.com/bookview.php?pp96m2j96ms01sadvqt5q42dq1&id=30420Here's the review that I eventually wrote - just in case anyone here is into English Civil War novels...
Forlorn Hope (Shadow on the Crown, book 7)
by Nicholas Carter
available from
https://www.caliverbooks.com/Review by Judith Proctor
Initial impressions of this book are mostly positive.
It’s a large size paperback with attractive cover art by Chris Collingwood showing Prince Rupert looking over his cavalry.
It’s printed on excellent quality paper – far better than a typical hardback. This book will not go yellow and brittle over the decades.
However, it has double-spaced paragraphs, which instantly gives me a frisson of concern. Large paperback books with double-spaced paragraphs are almost always self-published, print on demand books, which means the quality can vary enormously...
The first few pages seemed to justify this fear:
The opening location is stated as ‘by Bath Guildhall, August 21, 1645’. (I like the writer’s habit of dating each section, it makes it very easy to track the course of the civil war.)
The opening paragraphs establish that the soldiers are in a tailor’s shop. However, a few pages later, the shop is described as a ‘back street hovel’.
But by 1645, Bath Guildhall was definitely in the High street, not a back street. In 1625, a new building had replaced the old Guildhall (which was probably on Boatstall Lane near the East Gate.)
The tailor’s shop itself feels wrong for the period. He’s selling shirts, stockings and hats as well as other breeches and doublets. He has a surprising amount of goods ready-made (which requires a lot of money, and tailors were not well paid). Also, it’s a weekday, so why has he no apprentices at work? It’s possible the Royalist army conscripted them, but I would have expected at least one or two.
The first few pages carry on in this vein – not feeling really grounded in the seventeenth century. My favourite error was ‘Lord High Executioner’. Any Gilbert and Sullivan fans among you will instantly recognise that that title comes from ‘The Mikado’. It had no existence as a real title at any point in history – which makes it extremely unlikely that Sparrow would use it, even in jest.
One minor point that I find irritating is Carter’s reluctance to stick to a single name for a character. eg. The Royalist Colonel, Pothcurn, has to be called ‘The Cornishman’ roughly every third time he is mentioned.
I’ll be honest, and say that if I wasn’t reading this book for a review, I would have stopped by the end of the first few pages.
But I’m glad I didn’t. It gets better. A LOT better.
Once we get out of Bath and into military affairs, Carter is on his home ground. His writing really starts to flow. The descriptive text is colourful and detailed and really sets you in the period. It’s full of period details and introduced me to things I hadn’t come across before like clay grenades.
I’m enjoying the book now, taking in the action, the characters and the little details that are the result of a writer loving his subject. I was delighted to find that Sparrow – a Bristol man – remembered details like the aldermen having a duck shoot at Treen Mills before the war began. Even more delighted when I discovered this came from an actual historical record that referred to the duck shoot. I’d have been fine if Carter had invented that particular detail, but it shows how cleanly he can weave historical details into his narrative, when they relate to combat scenes.
Not just the army combat, ships as well. While Sparrow is at Treen Mills, he is to encounter the ‘Tenth Whelp’. This ship did exist, and it existed in the time and place he sets it (It was the tenth ship called ‘Lion’s Whelp’, hence ‘Tenth Whelp’). Just as Carter describes, it was equipped with sweeps as well as sails, and was steered by a whipstaff – I hadn’t come across the term ‘whipstaff’ before as my naval reading is normally Napoleonic, and they’d advanced to the well-known, spoked wheels by then – So I spent a happy ten minutes diving into the Internet discovering how a whipstaff works. Carter’s use is spot on.
I like books that tell me things that I didn’t know before, enjoy it when they give me the option of exploring more. I didn’t need to know how a whipstaff worked to understand the story – Carter makes it clear from context – but for me, it adds an extra element.
It also increases my trust in the writer.
With civilian stuff, he really needs a beta reader to double check for errata, as out of period words and phrases do slip in occasionally. (and small historical errors eg. washing clothes in fermented urine does not make them yellow – it’s a bleach)
Anything military… If I ever wrote anything military, I’d value his advice.
I love Carter’s ability to set a scene:
The nightfires illuminated the walls, gate, moats and approaches, casting a hellish glimmer over the pocked and battered stonework. Bristol was a fuming volcano, ringed in blinking, flickering fires.
And beyond the walls, Parliament’s army, defined by ten thousand smoking camp fires, half glimpsed in the drifting rain and sullen mists rising from the river like the dying breath of an undead host.
The combat scenes are all that any military enthusiast could ask for. Full of action, lots of period detail.
The Forlorn Hope formed up in grumbling silence, musketeers blowing on their match and swordsmen in the front ranks, several files of Telling’s pikemen wielding pikes at porte, the steel blades gleaming evilly.
Sparrow lifted his halberd and pointed the leaf-shaped blade at the walls, defenders and attackers locked together – the grand assault dangerously stalled behind the turf wall.
“Keep quiet - and follow me!”
This is the seventh book in a series – can it be read without reading the six previous books?
I think my answer would be yes. Provided you gloss over the first few pages with their confusing references to Germany, the Merode Bruders, etc. All you really need to know is that Major Sparrow (recently promoted) is currently with the dragoons; Parliament has just taken Bath and is preparing to besiege Bristol.
Do I recommend it – Absolutely.
And I didn’t expect to be saying that, when I started!
PS. Ignore the blurb on the back of the book. Whoever wrote it hadn’t actually read the book… Sparrow’s wife is NOT in Bristol. He knows where she is and she’s safe.
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