I missed posting last week so my reading update today is for two weeks. I've not been overly busy just keeping on top of usual household tasks and lamenting the state of my garden. Not much gardening has been done as the weather has been hot. Despite watering it is still dry and very untidy with the gum trees shedding their leaves at a great rate. It's a battle to keep the ground clear around the house. Rabbits have also been nibbling at a few plants, as have the wallabies. What the wallabies don't eat they break by dragging their tails around. My thoughts often turn to the early settlers who had a much harder life in this harsh country. At least we have town water, even though it is unfit to drink, and should my meagre tomato crop fail, there are always some available from the supermarket.
I thought I was in a reading slump, but when I look back on the books I've read over the last two weeks I found that I'd read more than I thought.
Following on from Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, I read the sequel Rose Under Fire. Of the two, Code Name Verity had the greater impact, but Rose Under Fire is also memorable, dealing with life in Ravensbruck, a concentration camp for women, and the atrocities that took place there.
My children's/young adult fiction reading continued with a novel by Hester Burton entitled Time of Trial for which she received the Carnegie Medal back in 1963. It is set during the early nineteenth century when England was involved in the Napoleonic Wars and revolves around a bookseller, who is charged with writing seditious material, and his daughter.
I also finished The Royalist by S.J. Deas. This is the first of a series set during the English Civil War and introduces William Falkland, whose reputation as an investigator earns him a reprieve from execution. I'm not sure whether I wish to pursue another series at the moment so I'm not diving straight in to the next book, The Protector, though it is earmarked for future reading.
Alison Stuart's paranormal historical, Gather the Bones, was a great read, taking only one day from start to finish. I have recently discovered this Australian author and I'm looking forward to reading her other paranormal historical set during the English Civil War, Secrets in Time. I also have my eye on her Guardians of the Sword Trilogy, also set around the time of the English Civil War.
I'm still reading The Flight of the Heron, the first in the D.K.Broster Jacobite trilogy, and A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer. The latter is a re-read saved for bedtime reading.
Once again I'm reading a novel first published in the 1960s. Too Few for Drums by R.F. Delderfield was first printed in 1964 and has been reprinted a few times since. I've read a few other novels by this author, but this particular one, set during the Peninsular Wars, I'd overlooked.
What I'd like to read next is Tom Keneally's latest novel Napoleon's Last Island, which was inspired by a chance discovery at the National Gallery of Victoria.
What I Read Over the Last Two Weeks
Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein
The thrilling story of one young ATA pilot's unforgettable journey through World War Two. This is Rose Under Fire. Rose Justice is a young American ATA pilot, delivering planes and taxiing pilots for the RAF in the UK during the summer of 1944. A budding poet who feels most alive while flying, she discovers that not all battles are fought in the air. An unforgettable journey from innocence to experience from the author of the best-selling, multi-award-nominated Code Name Verity. From the exhilaration of being the youngest pilot in the British air transport auxiliary, to the aftermath of surviving the notorious Ravensbruck women's concentration camp, Rose's story is one of courage in the face of adversity.
The Royalist by S.J. Deas
William Falkland is a dead man. A Royalist dragoon who fought against Parliament, he is currently awaiting execution at Newgate prison. Yet when he is led away from Newgate with a sack over his head, it is not the gallows to which they take him, but to Oliver Cromwell himself. Cromwell has heard of Falkland's reputation as an investigator and now more than ever he needs a man of conscience. His New Model Army are wintering in Devon but mysterious deaths are sweeping the camp and, in return for his freedom, Falkland is despatched to uncover the truth. With few friends and a slew of enemies, Falkland soon learns there is a dark demon at work, one who won't go down without a fight. But how can he protect the troops from such a monster and, more importantly, will he be able to protect himself?
Gather the Bones by Alison Stuart
In the shadow of the Great War, grieving widow, Helen Morrow and her husband's cousin, the wounded and reclusive Paul, are haunted not only by the horrors of the trenches but ghosts from another time and another conflict. As the desperate voice of the young woman reaches out to them from the pages of a coded diary, Paul and Helen are bound together in their search for answers, not only to the old mystery but also the circumstances surrounding the death of Helen's husband at Passchandaele in 1917. As the two stories become entwined, Paul and Helen will not find peace until the mysteries are solved.
Time of Trial by Hester Burton
The time, 1801; the place, Holly Lane, in the dark little bookshop in the shadow of St.Paul's. This bookshop, with its musty smell of old leather bindings and parchment and ink, is Margaret Pargeter's home; and her father's books and his book selling are her life - or so they were, until one day disaster struck Holly lane. It was a disaster that unleashed a tide of anger against the social conditions of the time, and a flood of trouble for the Pargeter family. The life of each member was changed completely and Margaret found herself banished to Suffolk with the faithful old housekeeper, Mrs. Neech, separated from her father who lay in prison, and from her friend Robert Kerridge, the medical student who used to lodge with them in Holly Lane. The winter in Suffolk was a hard one, a "time of trial" indeed, but it was also a time of discovery, of growing up, and a time that ends with a surprise for Margaret and a new beginning for all the family
What I'm Reading Today
The Flight of the Heron by D.K. Broster
1745. When Bonnie Prince Charlie lands in Scotland, the mountains and glens of the Highlands ring to the pipes and drums of the clans who flock to his banner. Charged with excitement, heroism and romance, this stirring tragic adventure that is the unforgettable story of the 'King Over the Water', has never been better told.
A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer
Adam Deveril, the new Viscount Lynton and a hero at Salamanca, returns from the Peninsula War to find his family on the brink of ruin and the broad acres of his ancestral home mortgaged to the hilt. It is Lord Oversley, father of Adam's first love, who tactfully introduces him to Mr Jonathan Chaleigh, a City man of apparently unlimited wealth with no social ambitions for himself, but with his eyes firmly fixed on a suitable match for his one and only daughter.
Too Few For Drums by R.F. Delderfield
After the British victory at Busaco during the Peninsula campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars, Ensign Keith Graham finds himself cut off from the army, along with a sergeant and seven privates. This ill-assorted, tattered band is joined by a Welsh campfollower, Gwyneth and she and Sergeant Fox help nineteen-year-old Graham achieve both manhood and leadership. Struggling through strange, often hostile country, with insufficient food and sometimes mutinous men, his one aim is to reach the coast and, hopefully, safety ...
What I Hope to Read Next
Napoleon's Last Island by Tom Keneally
When Tom Keneally discovered by chance at the National Gallery of Victoria that Betsy Balcombe, a young girl living on St Helena while the Emperor Napoleon was exiled there, had become the Emperor's ‘intimate friend and annoyer', and had then emigrated with her family to Australia, he was impelled to begin another extraordinary novel, exploring the intersection between the ordinary people of the world and those we deem exceptional.
Betsy Balcombe moved as a child with her family to St Helena, ‘that high mid-Atlantic rock of exile'. Ten years later her family befriended, served and were ruined by their relationship with Napoleon. To redeem their fortunes William Balcombe, Betsy's father, betrayed the Emperor and accepted a job as the colonial treasurer of New South Wales, taking his family with him. After enduring a profound tragedy on the voyage out, and never quite recovering from the results of his association with Napoleon, William's life deteriorated; however, his family struggled and survived in Australia.
Tom Keneally recreates Betsy's friendship with The Great Ogre, her enmities and alliances with his court, and her dramatic coming of age during her years with them on the island. With his ability for bringing historical stories to life in the most brilliant and surprising ways, Keneally vividly shares this remarkable tale and the beginning of an Australian dynasty.
1745. When Bonnie Prince Charlie lands in Scotland, the mountains and glens of the Highlands ring to the pipes and drums of the clans who flock to his banner. Charged with excitement, heroism and romance, this stirring tragic adventure that is the unforgettable story of the 'King Over the Water', has never been better told.
William Falkland is a dead man. A Royalist dragoon who fought against Parliament, he is currently awaiting execution at Newgate prison. Yet when he is led away from Newgate with a sack over his head, it is not the gallows to which they take him, but to Oliver Cromwell himself. Cromwell has heard of Falkland's reputation as an investigator and now more than ever he needs a man of conscience. His New Model Army are wintering in Devon but mysterious deaths are sweeping the camp and, in return for his freedom, Falkland is despatched to uncover the truth. With few friends and a slew of enemies, Falkland soon learns there is a dark demon at work, one who won't go down without a fight. But how can he protect the troops from such a monster and, more importantly, will he be able to protect himself?
A humble soldier, known only as 'Jones', wakes in hospital with no recollection of his past. The few fleeting fragments of memory he glimpses are horrifying moments from the battlefield at Ypres. His very identity becomes a puzzle he must solve. Then Eden Valentine comes gliding into his world, a stunning tailoress who has a dream of her own business in high fashion but whose duty to her family may never permit her to fulfil. Her fiancé resents the intrusion of the disarming Jones who is in desperate need of her help to unravel his past. Surrounding the mystery is Alex Wynter, the influential heir to an industrial empire and country manor Larksfell Hall. With his aristocratic family still reeling from a recent tragedy, he brings news that will further rock the foundations of their privileged lives. When their three very different worlds collide, the pieces of the past finally fall into place and lead them into wildly unexpected futures. What they discover will bring shattering consequences that threaten to tear apart far more than just the heart of the tailor's girl.
Dacre's War is a story of personal and political vengeance. Ten years after the battle of Flodden, Adam Crozier, head of his clan and of an increasingly powerful alliance of Borderers, learns for sure that it was Lord Thomas Dacre - now the most powerful man in the north of England - who ordered his father's murder. He determines to take his revenge. As a fighting man, Crozier would like nothing better than to bring Dacre down face to face but his wife Louise advises him that he must use more subtle methods. So he sets out to engineer Dacre's downfall by turning the machinery of the English court against him. A vivid and fast-moving tale of political intrigue and heartache, Dacre's War is set against the backdrop of the Scottish and English borders, a land where there is never any chance of peace.
From the battlefield of Waterloo to the drawing rooms of Brantstone Hall, Sebastian Alder’s elevation from penniless army captain to Viscount Somerton is the stuff of dreams. But the cold reality of an inherited estate in wretched condition, and the suspicious circumstances surrounding his cousin’s death, provide Sebastian with no time for dreams — only a mystery to solve and a murderer to bring to justice. 
Waratah House, a beautiful mansion in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, is the only home Marina has ever known. Orphaned at a young age, Marina finds a new family in the colourful characters that occupy the bustling servants' quarters of this stately house.
Karleen Koen's sweeping saga contains unforgettable characters consumed with passion: the extraordinarily beautiful fifteen-year-old noblewoman, Barbara Alderley; the man she adores, the wickedly handsome Roger MontGeoffry; her grandmother, the duchess, who rules the family with cunning and wit; and her mother, the ineffably cruel, self-centered and licentious Diana. Like no other work, Through a Glass Darkly is infused with intrigue, sweetened by romance and awash in the black ink of betrayal.