Book Review - The Beltane Choice

I’ve had a fascination for the period when the Britons were fighting the Romans since my school days. I enjoyed the adventures of Wulf the Briton – as can be seen here.

Wulf the Briton - excerpts from 1958 and 1959 (Express Weekly)

A long while back I bought and read Spartacus and Agrippa’s Daughter by Howard Fast and The Eagle and the Raven by Patricia Gedge, but, apart from a few forays about Boadicca, there didn’t seem that many books about the Britons.

Now, The Beltane Choice, the first in the Celtic Fervour series, published by Crooked Cat, has reignited my interest after all the intervening years.

The story is told from the point of view of Nara, eldest child of Callan, Chief of Tarras, a warrior princess of the Selgovae, and Lorcan, an enemy Brigante prince.

As this is an historical romance, when the two main characters meet up, the sparks fly, as you’d expect from strong personalities. The book is a pleasure to read, for Nancy Jardine is in full control of her characters throughout. Her descriptions are visual and sensual, leaving just enough to the imagination. For example: Their heated kiss outside had stirred his blood, his want of her remaining strained against his braccae…

When the time of the Beltane rites arrived, Nara needed to have chosen a lover, which posed a problem, since none of the men in her village appealed to her. Still, that decision seemed to have been snatched away from her when she became a captive of …, who noticed that: Her breathing almost normal, his captive’s head rose to look up at him. Her stare softened – no more than a blink – but it was filled with some reasoning he could not quite interpret. Exactly what she thought, he did not know, but found he liked that new regard, liked it much better than spitting ire at him as an angry cat.

I like her writing style very much. We seem to be there, with her characters, as the description is so vivid: The track snaked across the ridges of the highest hills, the going more difficult above the tree line where the barren terrain lay open to the sky god, Taranis. Random lumps of greywacks littered the surface… The research is never too heavy or intrusive; just right. …The sun, now breaking through the clouds, made the recent downpour sparkle on the verdant green below, the heathers above the tree line a contrasting vibrant purple. The varying browns of the roundhouse wattles and thatched roofs contrasted with the grey-white smoke gently drifting upwards.

The contrast between her own father and Lorcan’s father, Tully, is strong, and telling. While Callan, her father, seems to hate her, Tully sees so much to praise in her: “Your heart is large, and you shield your pain well. I say now, that warrior’s mark you wear was well worth the branding, for you have more courage in you than many a man I have come across. And they generally do not have your compassion.”

Like all good romances, there has to be conflict, not only with the ubiquitous Roman cohorts, but also with fellow Britons. Nara’s road to love is a rocky one, strewn with tears and disappointment. But she’s strong, believing that ‘Work is an answer to a bleeding heart…’

Perhaps the fighting scenes could have been more graphic, but then again this is a romance; indeed, the restraint may garner more readers. I for one was captivated by Nara and have already purchased the sequel, After Whorl: Bran Reborn.

A shorter version of this review will appear on Amazon etc.

 

 

Book list-1965

For many years now, I’ve kept a list of the books I’ve read.  In the 1980s, I used to review books for the British Science Fiction Association, and in the 1990s also for my semi-pro magazine Auguries. Then when I discovered the Internet, I continued to write reviews on Amazon. Looking back, it seems I started in 1965.

Then, I simply listed the book. Now, I show the book, the author and the date read.

I won’t present a full list, which might become tedious, but show a few selected titles, just for interest.

1965

Fittingly, I read Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End in October, 1965 on the fourteen-hour train journey to join the Royal Navy. That same year, I also read Len Deighton’s Horse Under Water, which began at HMS Vernon, the naval diving school. My first draft in the following year after training was to HMS St. Vincent, in Gosport, across the water from Vernon.

 

I enjoyed E.V. Cunningham’s Sylvia, actually written by Howard Fast, an excellent suspense novel that deserves to be reprinted; it was the first in an unconnected series, save that all the books had women’s names, such as Shirley, Phyllis, Lydia etc.

 

Winston Graham’s Marnie was much better than the Hitchcock film; his characters are always believable. Since then, I’ve read most of the Poldark novels and many of his suspense novels; he never disappoints.

I read a few true wartime exploit books too – The White Rabbit (Bruce Marshall, writing the exploits of Yeo-Thomas), Boldness be my Friend (Richard Pape) and The Colditz Story (P.R. Reid) – all excellent books about real heroes.

 

Some years earlier I’d read quite a few similar titles, such as Odette, Carve Her Name With Pride, the Cockleshell Heroes, the Dambusters et al. Richard Pape wrote an espionage novel Arm Me Audacity, which reads as though it was true, not fiction. Of additional interest is this thread:

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?68113-quot-Boldness-Be-My-friend-quot-by-Richard-Pape-a-pack-of-lies

I particularly enjoyed Ray Bradbury’s The Silver Locusts, alternatively titled The Martian Chronicles; a visionary and a poet at work. I still possess all his paperbacks, most of them the 1960s Corgi versions.

I was – and still am – a fan of Victor Canning, and his The Limbo Line didn’t disappoint. In those days I bought and read a lot of espionage thrillers – there seemed to be a great many around. One series I enjoyed featured Commander Shaw, by Philip McCutcheon, and in this year I read his Bluebolt 1 adventure.

 

For a few years prior to this, I’d discovered Dennis Wheatley, first his Duke de Richleau series (a few years earlier, my first foray was, prophetically, Vendetta in Spain), then Gregory Sallust; in this year, I read The Forbidden Territory and The Devil Rides Out, both landmark books for Wheatley.

 

The Forbidden Territory was Wheatley’s first published novel (1933) and introduced his modern trinity of musketeers in the epicurean Duke de Richleau, financier Simon Aron, and the wealthy young American, Rex Van Ryn. Happily, Bloomsbury is reprinting all of Wheatley’s books – www.bloomsbury.com/DennisWheatley

The Devil Rides Out (1934) was his second Richleau tale and his first black magic novel, which has become a classic of its kind (the recently released Kindle version is currently #1 in Horror and Occult categories, and #2 for Fiction Classics).

Wheatley’s point of view was generally omniscient when it suited the scene or third person when emotional conflict was necessary; though when the story called for it, he used first person narrative too (notably The Haunting of Toby Jugg). These books are two of his best adventures. The emphasis is on ‘adventure’; he wrote no-nonsense yet thoroughly researched thrillers with heaps of tension.

Another time, I’ll take a look at some books I read in 1966 – almost half a century ago!