HISTORICAL
WHEN I COME HOME AGAIN by Caroline Scott (S&S £14.99pp, 496 pp)
WHEN I COME HOME AGAIN
by Caroline Scott (S&S £14.99pp, 496 pp)
Caroline Scott’s quietly devastating second novel insightfully explores the effect of the Great War on returning soldiers and the families that waited, longingly, for their return. ‘Adam’, traumatised, amnesiac and in uniform, remembers nothing of his past when he’s arrested for drawing a bird on a tomb at Durham Cathedral.
He’s transferred to a rehabilitation unit, whose aim is to help war-damaged men recover a measure of their former lives.
A gifted artist and gardener with a knowledge of Latin, his identity remains unknown until his photograph is published in a newspaper, and three very different women attempt to claim a connection with him, hoping that he’s their lost son, missing husband, vanished brother.
Scott skilfully unspools their heartbreaking stories, while uncovering the source of Adam’s fear.
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MAGIC LESSONS by Alice Hoffman (Scribner £16.99, 416 pp)
MAGIC LESSONS
by Alice Hoffman (Scribner £16.99, 416 pp)
The Owens women have been marked by magic for generations; they’re unlucky in love, and all the messy emotional entanglements that involves. Hoffman described their contemporary exploits in earlier novels Practical Magic and The Rules Of Magic.
Here she heads back to the origin story, explaining how the Owens became haunted by a long-lived curse — it’s an altogether more brutal tale.
Set in England, Curacao and Salem, and with on-going witch hunts as a backdrop, it follows Maria Owens, who embraces her witchy gifts in a perilous time, but whose magic can’t save her from heartbreak.
Abandoned by her Puritan lover, and left to bring up her daughter alone, Maria vows vengeance on love, ensuring a bitter legacy for her future generations in this enticing read which conjures up spells, herbal lore and romance in harsh, historical times.
INSIDE THE BEAUTIFUL INSIDE by Emily Bullock (Everything With Words £8.99, 240 pp)
INSIDE THE BEAUTIFUL INSIDE
by Emily Bullock (Everything With Words £8.99, 240 pp)
It’s 1800 and American sailor James Norris is imprisoned in Bedlam, physically restrained in the most inhumane way, mentally unstable and taunted by inescapable memories.
Bleak, harrowing and, disturbingly, based on a true story, this chronicles the inner world of a man whose body is chained to a wall, but whose mind is allowed free reign.
It’s a tough read, veering from moments of sublime sanity to unreasonable obsession as Norris vows bloody vengeance on his friend-turned-enemy Fletcher Christian (of Mutiny on the Bounty fame) and on Ruth, a prostitute he fell in love with.
His distress is made worse by the appalling conditions in the asylum, where the patients are malnourished and abused, and the idea of release or escape seems an impossible reality.
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