Featured Book Review ~ The Honey and the Sting by E C Fremantle

Today on the blog I'm combining 

Hist Fic Saturday with my Featured Book of the Month

Lets go back to ...1628

Michael Joseph
6 August 2020

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

Three sisters.

Three secrets.

Three ways to fall . . .

England, 1628.

Forcibly seduced by the powerful George Villiers, doctor's daughter Hester is cast aside to raise her son alone and in secret. She hopes never to see Villiers again.

Melis's visions cause disquiet and talk. She sees what other's can't - and what has yet to be. She'd be denounced as a witch if Hester wasn't so carefully protective.

Young Hope's beauty marks her out, drawing unwelcome attention to the family. Yet she cannot always resist others' advances. And her sisters cannot always be on their guard.

When Villiers decides to claim his son against Hester's wishes, the sisters find themselves almost friendless and at his mercy. But the women hold a grave secret. The question is, will what they know be their undoing or their salvation?

What did I think about it..

The Honey and the Sting takes us back to a time when to be an independent woman was treated with suspicion and to have three single women living together without the protection of a man was nothing short of scandalous. For sisters, Hester, Melis and Hope, surviving against the odds is what keeps them going, that and protecting Hester's illegitimate son, Rafe, from the clutches of his scheming father. Forced to flee their family home, and the small circle of  friends who support them, the sisters have no choice but to take Rafe far way from his father. A father who is powerful and who has  both the guile and the means to track the family down. What then follows is a fascinating historical drama which has danger, intrigue and the shadowy darkness which comes from living a life in fear of being discovered. When Rafe's father sends a formidable adversary to find the women the story takes on an altogether more sinister atmosphere.

I've really enjoyed spending time with the sisters, they're an interesting bunch to be sure. Hester is the family matriarch who wants to keep them all safe, Melis is the ethereal one, given over to visions of the future and, if this was discovered, she would be denounced as witch. The youngest of the three is Hope,  the beautiful one with an allure which attracts her to the wrong type of men. 

The Honey and the Sting is an interesting historical mystery and I have enjoyed placing myself in the early part of the seventeenth century. I liked being back in the time of James I, and more particularly discovering more about George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who I always had in mind as the quintessential villain. I wasn't disappointed in the way he is portrayed in this story.

The Honey and the Sting is a well written historical adventure. The author captures the mood of the time very well and intertwining this drama with what is known about Villiers gives the story a dangerous edginess. I've now read several of this talented author's historical novels and I am always impressed by the way she brings history alive in the imagination.

The Honey and the Sting will be published on the 6th August by Michael Joseph.

About the Author

Elizabeth Fremantle is the critically acclaimed author of Tudor and Elizabethan set novels: Queen's Gambit, Sisters of Treason, Watch the Lady and Times Books of the Year: The Girl in the Glass Tower and The Poison Bed, a historical thriller written under the name EC Fremantle described as 'a Jacobean Gone Girl.' Her latest novel is The Honey and the Sting, published August 6th 2020 as EC Fremantle

Twitter @LizFremantle #TheHoneyAndTheSting

@MichaelJBooks

Website

Blog Tour ~ The Merest Loss by Steven Neil

Jaffareadstoo is delighted to be hosting a stop on The Merest Loss Blog Tour

Matador
2017

My thanks to the author for my copy of this book
and to Rachel's Random Resources for the invitation to be part of this blog tour

A story of love and political intrigue, set against the backdrop of the English hunting shires and the streets of Victorian London and post-revolutionary Paris. 

When Harriet Howard becomes Louis Napoleon’s mistress and financial backer and appears at his side in Paris in 1848, it is as if she has emerged from nowhere. How did the English daughter of a Norfolk boot-maker meet the future Emperor? Who is the mysterious Nicholas Sly and what is his hold over Harriet? Can Harriet meet her obligations and return to her former life and the man she left behind? What is her involvement with British Government secret services? Can Harriet’s friend, jockey Tom Olliver, help her son Martin solve his own mystery: the identity of his father? 

The central character is Harriet Howard and the action takes place between 1836 and 1873. The plot centres on Harriet’s relationships with Louis Napoleon and famous Grand National winning jockey, Jem Mason. The backdrop to the action includes significant characters from the age, including Lord Palmerston, Queen Victoria and the Duke of Grafton, as well as Emperor Napoleon III. The worlds of horse racing, hunting and government provide the scope for rural settings to contrast with the city scenes of London and Paris and for racing skulduggery to vie with political chicanery. 

The Merest Loss is historical fiction with a twist. It’s pacy and exciting with captivating characters and a distinctive narrative voice.

My thoughts about it...

Harriet Howard is feisty and ambitious and, from the very beginning of the novel, it would appear that she lived her complicated life in a way that very few women in the mid- nineteenth century could ever have imagined. Born into a fairly nondescript country family, Harriet is determined to make her mark on society and in doing so gets embroiled in the social and political turmoil of nineteenth century polite society.

Based on the true story of the red-haired beauty, Harriet Howard, who became the mistress and financial backer of Louis Napoleon, later Napoleon III of France, the author cleverly takes us  through Harriet's turbulent life, from her tumultuous early relationship with Jem Mason, a well known and successful jockey, to her complicated, romantic, attachment with Louis Napoleon.

The author writes well and seamlessly blends fact with fiction creating a sense of style and a dangerous sense of the illicit game Harriet is forced to play.  The story covers a lot of ground and yet, it does so with a flair for history and a distinct sense of time and place. I knew absolutely nothing about Harriet Howard before I read The Merest Loss and all credit to the author for bringing this rather unknown woman to life in such an enjoyable, fictional account of her life and times. 

About the Author

Steven Neil has a BSc in Economics from the London School of Economics, a BA in English Literature and Creative Writing from the Open University and an MA in Creative Writing from Oxford Brookes University. In his working life he has been a bookmaker’s clerk, management tutor, management consultant, bloodstock agent and racehorse breeder. He is married and lives in rural Northamptonshire.

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