📖 Blog Tour ~ The Poison Machine by Robert J. Lloyd

Melville House
27 October 2022

Hunt and Hooke #2

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book
and the invitation to take part in the blog tour

1679. A year has passed since the sensational attempt to murder King Charles II. London is still inflamed by fears of Catholic plots. Harry Hunt—estranged from his mentor Robert Hooke and no longer employed by the Royal Society—meets Sir Jonas Moore, the King’s Surveyor-General of the Board of Ordnance, in the remote and windswept marshes of Norfolk. There, workers draining the fenland have uncovered a skeleton.

Accompanied by his friend Colonel Fields, an old soldier for Parliament, and Hooke’s niece, Grace, Harry confirms Sir Jonas’s suspicion: the body is that of a dwarf, Captain Jeffrey Hudson, once famously given to Queen Henrietta Maria in a pie. During the Civil Wars, Hudson accompanied the Queen to France to sell the Royal Jewels to fund her husband’s army. He was sent home in disgrace after shooting a man in a duel.

But nobody knew Hudson was dead. Another man, working as a spy, has lived as him since his murder. Now, this impostor has disappeared, taking vital information with him. Sir Jonas orders Harry to find him.

With the help of clues left in a book, a flying man, and a crossdressing swordswoman, Harry’s search takes him to Paris, another city bedeviled by conspiracies and intrigues. He navigates its salons and libraries, and learns of a terrible plot against the current Queen of England, Catherine of Bragança, and her gathering of Catholics in London. Assassins plan to poison them all.

📖 My Review..

It’s such a treat to go back in time with this talented author and on this current journey into the past we meet up with Harry Hunt as he is, once again, drawn into an investigation which will, this time, take him from the Royal Society in London, to the Fenland area of Norfolk and into the shadowy darkness of seventeenth century Paris.

When a body is discovered in Norfolk, believed to be that of Captain Jeffrey Hudson, a dwarf, who was heavily involved during the English Civil War, Hunt is persuaded to investigate by Sir Jonas Moore, the King’s Surveyor-General of the Board of Ordnance. With the clock ticking Hunt must not only discover the secrets so carefully hidden but must also try to foil a plot to assassinate Catherine of Braganza, the current Queen of England and the wife of King Charles II. In 1679 England was well into the restoration period, and with both religious and political unrest,  Hunt certainly has to keep his considerable wits about him as he endeavours to navigate his way through the muddy waters of this current investigation. 

In recreating this time so carefully and by combining fiction with factual history there's a real sense of historical accuracy so that its feels as though you are travelling, alongside Hunt, and his companions, into a complex world of espionage, intrigue and danger. The sights, sounds and atmosphere of the seventeenth century world come alive and the author does a great job of fleshing out his characters so that they leap off right off the page and into whatever shadowy danger is waiting for them. 

The Poison Machine is the second book in the Hunt and Hooke series of historical adventures and whilst it is perfectly possible to read this continuation as a standalone story , it does makes sense to get a sense of the characters, particularly Hunt and Hooke, it would be better to start at the beginning with The Bloodless Boy.

Best Read with..a cask of good wine

About the Author

Robert J. Lloyd grew up in South London, Innsbruck, and Kinshasa (his parents worked in the British Foreign Service), and then in Sheffield, where he studied for a Fine Art degree, starting as a landscape painter but moving to film, performance, and installation. His MA thesis on Robert Hooke and the ‘New Philosophy’, inspired the ideas and characters in Hunt & Hook series. He lives in Crickhowell in the Brecon Beacons. The Poison Machine is his second book, following on from The Bloodless Boy.

Twitter @robjlloyd #ThePoisonMachine

@melvillehouse

📖 Blog Tour ~ This Place, That Place by Nandita Dinesh

Melville House is proud to be celebrating their 20th anniversary in 2022. Founded after, and in response to the 9/11 attacks their non-fiction and literary fiction aims to challenge, inform and entertain. 

Here are the highlights of 20 of their favourite titles for inspiration, 

and you can explore more books here

On its twentieth anniversary in the publishing world I am delighted to join in with this blog tour. Celebrating past and present successes with Melville House Publishers.

I'm pleased to share my review of This Place, That Place by Nandita Dinesh.

Melville House
16 June 2022

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

This Place,That Place centers on two characters from opposing sides of an unnamed war. On the day of a family wedding, a stunning announcement dramatically shifts the relationship between This Place and That Place, sparking a government-imposed curfew that locks everyone inside.

Suddenly finding themselves sharing the same isolated space, the two grapple with unexplored attraction, their deep and abiding admiration for each other’s work, and a bond they hope to save from being another casualty of war. Interwoven throughout are documents and past correspondence between the two laying out their history and how each sees in the other hope for mending the rift between This Place and That Place.

This Place,That Place is a dialogue-driven, evocative, and inventive debut that functions as an allegory for Kashmir/India, Palestine/Israel, or any instance of occupied and occupier. But more than that, it offers a new way to think about the intersection of the personal and the political, a new way to reconcile nationalism and activism, and a new way to talk about conflict and two-sidedness.

📖 My Review...

I've been involved with this publisher on previous occasions and I am always struck by the inventiveness of the books they publish and the way they push boundaries thus allowing me the privilege of reading a book which is, perhaps, not something I would normally have reached out to read. I think this is certainly the case with This Place, That Place which took me out of my comfort zone and into the world of this author's imagination.

The story opens when two people who are on opposing sides of an unnamed war meet at a family wedding. On the cusp of the wedding an announcement is made which places everyone under an imposed curfew. What then follows is a rather timely story which has a distinctly dystopian atmosphere bringing into question everything about the nature of relationships conducted under duress.  

Really difficult to describe in a few words, so I won't try, except to say that there is rather a lot going on in This Place, That Place and it took me a while to become comfortable with the author's style of writing, even on occasion I found that I had to go back a few pages to get the evolving story fixed in my mind but once I understood the way the narrative was evolving I found much to ponder over. The idea of interweaving very different styles of narrative to move the story forward is what makes this book into such an interesting, and rather different sort of read.

Difficult to describe, but definitely very cleverly written and immersive, This Place, That Place is a thought provoking novel about the minutiae of lives lived in difficult circumstances. It has been both imaginatively, and inventively, written by a talented debut author,

About the Author

Nandita Dinesh holds a PhD in Drama from the University of Cape Town in South Africa and an MA in Performance Studies from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Focused on the role that theatre and writing can play during and after violent conflict, Nandita has conducted community-based theatre projects in Kashmir, India, Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, and Zimbabwe. She has written multiple books about her work and in 2017 she was awarded the Elliott Hayes Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dramaturgy by Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas. This is her first novel.

Twitter @melvillehouse

📖 Blog Tour ~ The Bloodless Boy by Robert J. Lloyd

 

Melville House Publishing
2 November 2021

harry Hunt adventures #1

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book
and to Nikki at MPH Books for the invitation to the blog tour

The City of London, 1678. New Year’s Day. 

Twelve years have passed since the Great Fire ripped through the City. Eighteen since the fall of Oliver Cromwell and the restoration of a King. London is gripped by hysteria, and rumours of Catholic plots and foreign assassins abound.

When the body of a young boy drained of his blood is discovered on the snowy bank of the Fleet River, Robert Hooke, the Curator of Experiments at the just-formed Royal Society for Improving Natural Knowledge, and his assistant Harry Hunt, are called in to explain such a ghastly finding—and whether it’s part of a plot against the king. They soon learn it is not the first bloodless boy to have been discovered. 

Wary of the political hornet’s nest they are walking into—and using scientific evidence rather than paranoia in their pursuit of truth— Hooke and Hunt must discover why the boy was murdered, and why his blood was taken. 

📖 My Thoughts..

There are suspicious circumstances when the body of a young boy is found on the banks of the Fleet River on New Years Day in 1678. This discovery proves something of a challenge for Robert Hooke, the Curator of Experiments at the Royal Society for Improving Natural Knowledge, and his assistant Harry Hunt, for not only is it a distressing sight to welcome in the New Year but also the macabre aspects of the boy's death is something of a conundrum. This fascinating duo set about the challenge of discovery by using what they know about science, however, their knowledge will lead them into dangerous political territory.

The authenticity of Restoration England comes alive with fascinating insight into the way London is developing after the devastation caused by The Great Fire some twelve years before the story opens. The deadly intrigue which surrounds the pursuit of science and the distrust and suspicion which seems to follow anyone who doesn't conform is described in intricate detail and I have especially enjoyed following Hooke and Hunt as they seek to make sense of an investigation which seems to thwart them at every level.

I found The Bloodless Boy to be an intriguing historical adventure with a good sense of pace and and a well thought out mystery which has all the elements of surprise, intrigue and danger. However, it is the author's style of writing which excels in this beautifully written historical novel and in perfectly blending fiction, with known facts, a story of political intrigue, science and religion comes alive in the imagination.

About the Author

Robert J. Lloyd grew up in South London, Innsbruck, and Kinshasa (his parents worked in the British Foreign Service), and then in Sheffield, where he studied for a Fine Art degree, starting as a landscape painter but moving to film, performance, and installation. His MA thesis on Robert Hooke and the ‘New Philosophy’, inspired the ideas and characters in The Bloodless Boy. He lives in Crickhowell in the Brecon Beacons. This is his first book.

Twitter @robjlloyd #TheBloodlessBoy

@melvillehouse