Tag Archives: dual timeline

JANE CABLE REVIEWS APRIL’S NEW RELEASES

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The Forgotten Palace by Alexandra Walsh

A dual timeline based around Arthur Evans’ archaeological digs at Knossos on Crete, this book has an incredible sense of place, time and history. The heat and the dust from the excavations rise up from the page as the Victorian characters scrape in the earth and wash dirt from shards of pot.

In 1900 Alice departs on a grand tour of Europe accompanying her aunt and young nephews. She is heartbroken and in terrible disgrace, so her kindly family have sent her away to recover. In the present day timeline Eloise leaves for Crete on the day of her husband’s funeral wearing a red dress and red shoes. It’s clear she is glad he has gone – but why?

The book is packed full of history, myth, and dreams, with italicised sections which could be either of the latter, almost making it a triple timeline. But having read Alexandra Walsh’s other books I was not expecting this to be a simple love story and it is anything but.

A final word: don’t let the cast list at the front put you off – it really isn’t needed as all the main characters are so memorable.

 

The Cruise by Caroline James

I am not a great reader of romantic comedy, but I really enjoy Caroline James’ books. Not just because the protagonists are ladies in their sixties having a fabulous time, but because everything about them and their adventures is so beautifully observed and the pathos and humour eased out.

In The Cruise three single friends (one widowed, one almost divorced and the other resolutely single) decide to head to the Caribbean for Christmas. I loved the descriptions of the islands and it was wonderful to be back in a Barbados I recognised, albeit through the pages of a book. Anne, Jane and Kath, and the supporting cast of characters are bound to make you smile, so book your cabin now.

 

A Village in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd and Angelika Patel

I don’t often review non-fiction but I loved the premise of this book; to follow the life of a single village in Germany from the end of the First World War, and all through the Second.

It did not disappoint, and I would say it is essential reading for anyone interested in the era. It brings the human stories of the inhabitants of Oberstdorf in the Bavarian Alps to the fore, while setting them firmly in their social and political context. Whether dipping in and out, or reading from cover to cover, this in an exceptional history and meticulously researched.

 

The Girl Who Escaped by Angela Petch

This book is Angela Petch at her best, with a purely historical narrative set in her beloved Italy during the Second World War. It’s a gripping tale that explores the plight of the Jewish community as fascism tightened its hold on the country, and the efforts of the Italian resistance to return their nation to the tolerant society it once had been.

The Girl Who Escaped follows the stories of not only Italian Jew Devora, but her schoolfriends Luigi, a clandestine partisan, and Rico who may or may not be a collaborator. Their stories unfold and entwine, with Devora always centre stage as the world she has known crumbles around her when fascism begins to bite.

It’s an incredibly well researched book, so rich in detail that it absolutely transported me to Urbino during the Second World War, to circumstances that were at times so painful it was hard to read on. But, heart in mouth, I persevered, because I just had to know what happened. And that is the mark of a truly great storyteller.

SUNDAY SCENE: JAN BAYNHAM ON HER FAVOURITE SCENE FROM HER NANNY’S SECRET

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My third book, ‘Her Nanny’s Secret’, is a dual timeline novel, set in wartime and the sixties in rural mid-Wales and Normandy. It involves secrets, forbidden love, loss, and hope. In the 1963 story, my main character, Annie, travels to France with Clara Pryce to whom she was nanny when she was younger. Clara’s father had been shot down over Normandy in June 1943. Now as an adult, Clara is keen to try to find out what happened to him and where he’s buried. My chosen scene in the novel is when Annie accompanies Clara to Ville de Roi, a town near where her father’s Spitfire fighter plane had been shot down. It’s her first day and I want to capture Annie’s reactions to French life, seeing it through the eyes of someone who had never been to France before.

As she and Clara approach the town, ‘the sea sparkled like a mirror in the afternoon sun’ to the left; ‘coves and inlets surprised her around each bend’ in the road. Once parked, they wander through the streets, eventually choosing a pretty crepêrie where they can have lunch.

La Belle Epoque was situated down a narrow, cobbled street branching off from the main square. Outside, tables, covered with red-and-white tablecloths, and bentwood chairs were placed along each of the two large windows. Ornamental fruit trees in brightly glazed pots separated each table.

‘Is it warm enough to sit outside, do you think?’ asked Clara.

Just being able to sit out in the fresh air to eat is a new experience for Annie. A real treat. None of the cafés in Pen-y-Rhos have outdoor seating.

They sat down and studied the menu. Annie had never seen such a choice and couldn’t decide from the images between a savoury galette filled with ham and cheese, topped with a fried egg, or, to satisfy her sweet tooth, a crêpe, oozing with cooked local apples and whipped cream.

Clara laughed at her indecision and Annie wondered if her eyes were as wide as she felt them to be.

Back home, pancakes are only eaten on Shrove Tuesday and then always with lemon juice and white sugar.

Later in the scene, they come to a central square where a group of elderly men are playing a game Annie hadn’t seen before.

‘Pétanque,’ said Clara. ‘It’s very popular in this part of France.’

They found a bench and watched the game in progress. One man threw a small white ball onto the dusty gravel, a ‘jack’ Clara called it. In turn, each player threw a larger silver coloured ball, a boule, as close to the jack as they could. The men became more animated as the game went on especially when someone’s boule knocked another’s further away from the jack.

‘Every village will have a square for pétanque. Can you see how earnestly the old men take the game? You must never disturb a player when they’re about to throw.’ Clara laughed, waving a finger.

Clara explains to her that even the smallest village in France would have a square and a town hall, a mairie. Annie can’t get over how many cafés and bars there were in one place.

Pretty window boxes adorned the upstairs windows and scarlet summer geraniums and tumbling blue lobelia gave a blaze of colour.

During the rest of her time in France, Annie is to encounter many more new experiences. In the search for Clara’s father, she could never have imagined the outcome of the visit. Keeping her secret for over twenty years is justified at last.

 

https://janbaynham.blogspot.com

 

TWO EVOCATIVE AND INNOVATIVE DUAL TIMELINE ROMANCES FROM ONE MORE CHAPTER

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Dual timeline romances based around the First and Second World Wars are tremendously popular, but these two new summer releases from One More Chapter break the mould: Deborah Carr’s moved between WW1 and WW2, and Eva Glyn’s is set in the former Yugoslavia, a theatre of war in the 1940s that is barely mentioned in modern fiction.

 

The Beekeeper’s War by Deborah Carr, reviewed by Eva Glyn

An unusual dual timeline in that it is set during the First and Second World Wars, but I enjoyed The Beekeeper’s War all the most because of it.

I have read Deborah Carr books before and she is so skilled at recreating believable and accurate historical settings and characters, without ever beating you over the head with it. The history just flows as the natural backdrop for her story, which is of course how it should be but is nonetheless not easy to achieve.

The novel opens in 1916 when two friends from Jersey, Pru and Jean, are nursing wounded soldiers. Despite herself, Pru begins to fall for a handsome airman Jack who visits Ashbury Manor and is a close friend of the son of the house, Monty, who is a patient there. Jack is still very much on active service and the book opens with a scene of him escaping his German captors a year later, so we know this affair is not going to run smoothly.

In 1940 Pru’s daughter Emma finds herself at Ashbury to stay with her mother’s friends, determined to unlock some secrets from the past. To say more would spoil this story and that I don’t want to do, because it is such an enjoyable read I’d like you to find out for yourself.

 

An Island of Secrets by Eva Glyn, reviewed by Kitty Wilson

I raced through this novel over the course of two days and was thoroughly swept into the story of Guy and Ivka, as well as that of Leo and Andrej. The only drawback being that it ended too quickly and I should have savoured it.

It is written as a dual timeline and is seamlessly woven together as Leo goes in search of answers to outstanding questions her elderly grandfather has about his time in Yugoslavia (as it was) in the Second World War. I found the story of Guy as an SOE operative on the isle of Vis truly compelling and Eva Glyn writes with a sensitivity and insight that comes across on every single page. She truly bought home the scenes where Guy witnessed the horrors of war and I was totally pulled into the story as he battled with the choices he had to make.

From the very start of his first meeting with Ivka I was so invested in their relationship, they seemed like a natural good fit and I couldn’t help but respect the courage both of them showed on a daily basis. In fact, all the characters were written in a way that had you aware of their flaws but thoroughly rooting for their success.

But for me the most outstanding element of this fabulous novel was Eva Glyn’s way of conjuring the isle of Vis in the reader’s mind, she had me there seeing and smelling and feeling the scenery and made me feel that I could truly inhabit her characters’ world.

Overall, I found this novel to expertly crafted and cannot recommend it highly enough, it is a deeply impactful and emotionally powerful read and the story of Guy and Ivka in particular will stay with me for a very long time.

 

 

 

 

JANE CABLE REVIEWS TWO STUNNING WORLD WAR TWO DUAL TIMELINE ROMANCES

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I love a World War Two dual timeline novel. In fact I love them so much I’ve written one with my Eva Glyn hat on and it will be out this summer. However this article is not about me, it’s about two excellent writers who have created very different books in the genre, both out this week.

 

The Sweetheart Locket by Jen Gilroy

I love Jen Gilroy’s contemporary romances but this is her first foray into a dual timeline and I enjoyed it just as much. It was refreshing to have a modern main character who isn’t British and it brought an interesting take to the way the story was told, for example Willow’s lack of assumed knowledge about her grandmother’s World War Two story.

Her grandmother, Maggie, wasn’t British either but a Canadian who decided to stay in England to help fight the Nazi threat rather than go home, and this added an extra layer too. Her initial sense of isolation meant that she forged strong bonds and the stories of her closest friends’ wars were skilfully wound through her own, making the novel all the more compelling.

Although there are romances running through each timeline, other important relationships are explored. Willow’s difficult one with her mother Millie added depth to the story and for me it was one of the most important to be resolved, and there was a beautiful echo in Millie’s relationship with Maggie too.

The choices that the women (and men) of each generation have to make are vivid yet relatable and once I had settled into the book I found it very hard to put down.

The Sweetheart Locket is published by Orion Dash on 17th March

 

The Postcard from Italy by Angela Petch

From the moment the airman wakes and remembers nothing of who he is, I was hooked on his story and spent many happy hours wondering how on earth it could be resolved. I like that in a book; I like to be kept guessing, and wishing for the happiness of characters an author is clever enough to make me care about.

I also revelled in being lost in Italy, both in the 1940s and in the present day. Angela Petch has a fantastic knowledge of the country and that means both her settings and her research are impeccable. The wonderful descriptions of the landscape, the people, the food… it drew me in in a way that meant I could feel the sun on my back and a visit to Puglia is now definitely on my bucket list.

Every character is perfectly crafted, even those with little more than walk on parts, such as the village priest who dances the night away at a wedding. Little by little you come to know them as their stories unfold, their misunderstandings play out and ultimately the mystery of exactly how the airmen fits into both his past – and the future – is resolved.

The Postcard from Italy is published by Bookouture on 16th March

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE QUEEN’S SPY – CLARE MARCHANT’S SUPERBLY CRAFTED DUAL TIMELINE NOVEL

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Review by Jane Cable and a word from the author…

In her acknowledgements Clare Marchant describes The Queen’s Spy as ‘the difficult second novel’ – or words to that effect. Well she didn’t make it easy for herself, with an Elizabethan main character who is deaf and dumb and a modern day protagonist who is far from instantly likeable.

One of the triumphs of this book is how well the author pulls off both characters. We experience the Elizabethan world through Tom’s eyes, nose, hands… but not his ears. And despite this, it is a rich world indeed, brought vividly to life through the wonderful descriptive language. Despite the danger, intrigue and prejudice it was a world I wanted to return to again and again, which certainly kept me turning the pages.

Like all good dual timeline stories the links between present and past mirror each other well; both protagonists are outsiders, both gifted artistically and with herbs. There are other linking factors too, but to reveal them might spoil the story and I would hate to do that, because it is a book I would definitely recommend you read.

 

So fascinated was I by Tom’s story that I just had to ask Clare about him:

Over the course of my two books the character who has been my favourite is Tom. I always plan my work in great detail so I don’t have any shocks, and yet Tom arrived one day in the still room at Saffron Hall and took me completely by surprise. I’ve loved him from the first moment he appeared. At first he had no way of communicating but slowly he came out of his shell and as he did so, became more confident.

So, it was a no-brainer that Tom would be the main protagonist in my second book, The Queen’s Spy. He’s able to use his disability in a positive way spying for Elizabeth 1st but I won’t lie, it wasn’t easy writing a book where I had to tell his story through the other senses he had; sight, smell and taste. However I think it’s interesting to experience Tudor London as he would have done. With the heightened senses he has it meant the smells (quite often unpleasant!) would have been that much more pungent. And his intensified senses of smell and taste helps him as an apothecary, able to differentiate between and identify many varieties of herbs. I enjoyed him introducing vanilla to the court (in reality it was Hugh Morgan who was Queen Elizabeth’s apothecary) but it was a long time before horticulturalists knew the plants have to be pollenated by hand in the UK.

The fact he has this disability has always left Tom feeling it’s a weakness, a disadvantage, but it takes Francis Walsingham to recognise that Tom’s lip reading can be used as a skill and as the story develops, Tom’s self-confidence grows. For the first time in his life he feels properly valued and this just makes me love him move!

 

Publisher’s blurb:
1584: Elizabeth I rules England. But a dangerous plot is brewing in court, and Mary Queen of Scots will stop at nothing to take her cousin’s throne.

There’s only one thing standing in her way: Tom, the queen’s trusted apothecary, who makes the perfect silent spy…

2021: Travelling the globe in her campervan, Mathilde has never belonged anywhere. So when she receives news of an inheritance, she is shocked to discover she has a family in England.

Just like Mathilde, the medieval hall she inherits conceals secrets, and she quickly makes a haunting discovery. Can she unravel the truth about what happened there all those years ago? And will she finally find a place to call home?

 

THE DIARY OF A BOOK, JUNE 2021

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Research for The Lost Heir continues – and Jane Cable puts pen to Papyrus

DIARY OF A BOOK… JUNE 2021

June can be instantly categorised as a month when I didn’t get as much work done on The Lost Heir as I’d have liked to. This was for a number of reasons including a long overdue trip to visit my father-in-law and the edits arriving for my first Cornish Echoes book, The Forgotten Maid. But they have now been done and dusted and a review copy is ready and waiting for anyone who wants one (hint!).

But of course that does not mean I have been entirely idle on the next book in the series. Indeed, I have actually put pen to paper. Or to Papyrus to be precise, because I use writing software.

The first task with a new project is to set up the files. It’s not as complicated as it sounds – in fact you can just open a new document and get writing, but that isn’t using the system to its best advantage. In order to track your story and to keep your research together you need to use it properly. It’s an upfront investment in time that saves ages later.

One of the great features of writing software (and I understand that Scrivener works in much the same way as Papyrus) is the ability to move scenes around. So the first thing I did was to set up my scenes in the organiser. Just a line or two, so I know what happens in each, then you tag characters, locations and important items into each one.

Every tagged item has its own file so you can record all the important details about it or them – in other words, I never need forget the colour of a characters’ eyes again. I know perhaps it sounds a bit unprofessional, but while I know their backstory inside out I do struggle to remember physical characteristics. I’m the same in real life – I can’t even picture the faces of those closest to me (apparently it’s a known syndrome) – so to have descriptions to hand is a godsend.

I also loaded in the research sources and notes I wrote about last month, but of course some have stayed in my notebook – like the detailed family tree I spent a couple of days constructing for the Basset family, which started with truth but quickly and necessarily descended into fiction. But for this particular story it was vital to get it right – especially as each timeline deals with one end of it.

Alongside this I drew up some mind maps for my characters, and as I was planning to start writing in the present day timeline, took the contemporary protagonists further with detailed notes on their conflicts and emotional journeys. That done, I was ready to write the opening scene.

I always find it helps to play with your story a little before you settle down, and I know much of what I’ve written so far won’t make the final cut, but it helps me to establish people and places in my own mind. Some of the minor characters even surprised me a little, which is always good, and this is the point to open my heart and mind and listen to them. After all, The Lost Heir will be their story more than it will ever be mine.

There are still some loose ends to tie up before I get stuck into writing the 1810 narrative, largely driven by two more research books which have just arrived from the library. And then the exciting part can begin.