The walk in my week...

My view of history is largely influenced by the imagination of those talented authors who bring history to life in the books I love to read. Whenever possible though,  I like to visit areas of historical interest, and luckily the area I live in has an abundance of historic sites.

This is Whalley Abbey in Lancashire, and the walk in my week led me to explore the remains of this beautiful  thirteenth Century Cistercian Abbey, and also to walk along the meandering banks of the River Calder.

River Calder

The Cistercian Abbey of Stanlow, in Cheshire, moved to Whalley in 1296. The Church was built between 1330 and 1380.

Only the foundations of the church remain. The remains of the former monastic buildings are more extensive. The west range, which was the lay brothers' dormitory, consists of two stories, and is roofed.

The Abbot's lodging and Infirmary were not completed until around 1440

The first stone was laid by Henry de Lacy in June 1296 and at least part of the site was consecrated by the Bishop of Whithern in 1306. Building proceeded slowly and the foundation stone was laid in 1330. Stone for building the abbey was obtained from local quarries. 

Supporting Pillar

A royal licence to build a crenellated wall round the site was obtained in 1339. The church was completed in 1380 but the remainder of the abbey was not finished until the 1440s. In 1480 the North East Gatehouse, which provided a new entrance to the abbey, was completed. In the 16th century, John Paslew, the last Abbot of Whalley, reconstructed his own lodgings and added a Lady Chapel. The abbey closed in 1537 as part of the dissolution of the monasteries. Also that year Abbot Paslew was executed for high treason for his part in events connected with the Pilgrimage of Grace the previous year.

After the dissolution of the Monastery in 1537, the property passed into private hands, and it was adapted to make an Elizabethan Manor House. It remained a private residence until 1923, when the Church of England acquired possession.

The ruins of the abbey have been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building and a Scheduled Ancient Monument.

It  is still a sacred place and an area for quiet reflection.

Book Beginnings on Fridays...

Hosted by Gilion at Rose City Reader

Book Beginnings on Fridays as stated by the host was started:

 "to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires."

You can share on Google + and social media , please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings

and there's also a Mr Linky on the host's blog.

 Book Beginning : Once Upon A River by Bonnie Jo Campbell

October 2012
4th Estate
An imprint of Harper Collins Publishers

Chapter One

The Stark River flowed around the oxbow at Murrayville the way blood flowed through Margo Crane's heart. She rowed upstream to see wood ducks, canvasbacks, and ospreys and to search for tiger salamanders in the ferns. She drifted downstream to find painted turtles sunning on fallen trees and to count the herons in the heronry beside the Murrayville cemetery. She tied up her boat and followed shallow feeder streams to collect crayfish, watercress, and tiny wild strawberries. Her feet were toughened against sharp stones and broken glass. When Margo swam, she swallowed minnows alive and felt the Stark River move inside her.

**

......This opening paragraph is so descriptive, I can sense the river as it meanders along, and the wildlife on the bank of the river is so tantalisingly close, I feel like I can almost reach out and touch the ferns and watch the ducks as they glide in the water. 

I yearn for the creaminess of the crayfish, the pepper of the watercress and the explosion of sweetness as the tiny wild strawberries shatter in my mouth, but more than anything, I want to know about Margo Crane ....

**

A Bit of Book Blurb..

..thanks to Goodreads..

Bonnie Jo Campbell has created an unforgettable heroine in sixteen-year-old Margo Crane, a beauty whose unflinching gaze and uncanny ability with a rifle have not made her life any easier. After the violent death of her father, in which she is complicit, Margo takes to the Stark River in her boat, with only a few supplies and a biography of Annie Oakley, in search of her vanished mother. But the river, Margo's childhood paradise, is a dangerous place for a young woman travelling alone, and she must be strong to survive, using her knowledge of the natural world and her ability to look unsparingly into the hearts of those around her. Her river odyssey through rural Michigan becomes a defining journey, one that leads her beyond self-preservation and to the decision of what price she is willing to pay for her choices.

I picked up this book this week in one of my cheap book shops and was primary intrigued by the cover of the beautiful girl pointing a gun at something or someone, and was tempted to read more...

Please let me know if you would be tempted by this book.

Thanks for looking at my Friday Book Beginnings.

Review ~The Humans by Matt Haig

Canongate Books
May 9 2013

There's No Place Like Home

I have a fridge magnet which reads “I am diagonally parked in a parallel universe” and this is exactly how I felt whilst reading this latest offering from the pen of talented author, Matt Haig. There is no doubt that he is the master of the slightly quirky story, and effortlessly creates a whole set of scenarios which in reality shouldn't work, but which invariably do work very well.

In The Humans he has created a brave new world which is seen through the eyes of an unnamed alien who has been sent to earth to take over the persona of Cambridge mathematical genius Professor Andrew Martin, who has recently cracked the elusive Riemann Hypothesis, the outcome of which will change the human race forever.

As always, the story draws you in from the beginning, and before long you are laughing out loud at some of the one liners, most of which are inspired - there’s are so many to choose from, but my favourite has to be:

A cow is an Earth-dwelling animal...which humans treat as a one-stop shop for food, liquid refreshment, fertiliser and designer footwear.

To write any more about the story would be to do the book a great disservice. It’s one of those books which deserves to be read in one sitting with no misconceptions. It will make you laugh, it will make you smile, and ultimately it will make you feel good.

Read it.

More about Matt Haig

Review ~ The Ways of the World by Robert Goddard

Transworld
Bantam press
July 4 2013

The blurb

1919. The eyes of the world are on Paris, where statesmen, diplomats and politicians have gathered to discuss the fate of half the world’s nations in the aftermath of the cataclysm that was the Great War. A horde of journalists, spies and opportunists have also gathered in the city and the last thing the British diplomatic community needs at such a time is the mysterious death of a senior member of their delegation. So, when Sir Henry Maxted falls from the roof of his mistress’s apartment building in unexplained circumstances, their first instinct is to suppress all suspicious aspects of the event.

But Sir Henry’s son, ex Royal Flying Corps ace James ‘Max’ Maxted, has other ideas. He resolves to find out how and why his father died – even if this means disturbing the impression of harmonious calm which the negotiating teams have worked so hard to maintain. In a city where countries are jostling for position at the crossroads of history and the stakes could hardly be higher, it is difficult to tell who is a friend and who a foe.  And Max will soon discover just how much he needs friends, as his search for the truth sucks him into the dark heart of a seemingly impenetrable mystery.

My Review

It is the spring of 1919, and in the aftermath of the Great War, delegations meet in Paris to determine the outcome of the peace process. Sir Henry Maxted, a British diplomat, who has come out of retirement for the conference, falls to his death from an apartment in a salubrious part of the city.  When Henry’s sons, Ashley and James arrive in Paris, to determine the truth about their father’s unexpected death, they are met with bureaucratic indifference, which creates a series of unanswerable questions. Determined to get to the cause of his fathers’ death, James ‘Max’ Maxted stays on in Paris, and is determined to leave no stone unturned in his quest for the truth.

After an initial slow start, the book starts to gain momentum about a third of the way through, when the narrative seems to take on more energy and becomes more focused. What then follows is a cleverly constructed espionage novel, which takes in, not just the whole conniving world of intelligence and counter intelligence, but also the slightly risqué and decadent Paris of the early 1900s. There is no doubt that Robert Goddard is the master of this type of historical narrative, he carefully blends factual history alongside fictional situations in such a seamless way that you actually believe that you are walking the same streets, and drinking in the same bars and cafes. Max is a worthy narrator, brave, pragmatic and with a degree of stubbornness which no doubt hails from his time as a fighter ace during the bombing campaigns of WW1. His drive and ambition are exemplary, and yet it is his tenacity in the face of extreme danger which gives the book its core strength.

Overall, I thought the book was well written and found that it delivered enough convoluted threats , double crosses and triple twists, to keep me entertained until the very end.

****

My thanks to Transworld/ Bantam Press for my review copy of this book.

I read this book as part of the Historical Reading Challenge 2013

Review ~ A Serpentine Affair by Tina Seskis

Kirk Parolles
August 2 2013

“The evening was set to be balmy, perfect for a picnic, even one destined to end in disaster.

When seven girl friends meet on a balmy summer evening for their annual picnic in a London park it should be an evening of shared memories and girly laughter washed down with copious amounts of prosecco. However, invariably, what happens is that old resentments float to the surface, and even before the petty squabbles appear, there are simmering undercurrents of discontent. What then follows is a story of how, over twenty five years, lies and resentment have festered until all the hurt surfaces and long buried secrets, are revealed.

This is a cleverly controlled narrative which allows the story to be revealed in tantalising layers and which skilfully manoeuvres around past and present without ever losing control. The characters are so realistic, they could be people you know, and even their petty slights and squabbles, which threaten the equilibrium of the group, are situations all too easily experienced.

There is no doubt that this author has started to develop a niche for this slightly edgy contemporary story. In A Serpentine Affair, she shows that she isn't afraid to reveal the darker side of friendship, and yet at the same time she sensitively explores the consequences of revealing long buried secrets which may well have been better left private.

A good read and highly recommended. 

My thanks to NetGalley and Kirk Parolles for my ecopy of this book.

Review ~ The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell

July 18th
Random House UK, Corner Stone

Our House. Our Family. And the secrets between us.

The Bird family have an idyllic existence living in a picture perfect English village in the eccentrically named Bird House. Megan, Bethan, Rory and Rhys have the kind of childhood than only exists in fairy tales, picnics on the lawn, Easter egg hunts in the nooks and crannies of the garden and rainbow filled afternoons of love and laughter with their mother, Lorelei and father, Colin. But on one Easter afternoon a tragedy of epic proportions rips apart the family and nothing will ever be the same again.

Lisa Jewell has written an entirely believable book which untangles the minutiae of family life, and quite simply reveals the vulnerabilities and insecurities which can unconsciously fester away until the hurt becomes palpable. Beautifully characterised, everyone could be people you know, in situations you can all too easily understand, and yet shining through the hurt and awfulness is a gem of a family who tug at your heartstrings with a poignancy that will leave you captivated.



It’s an absolute gem; it’s one of those books that you simply can’t put down and have to keep reading until your eyes sting with tiredness. Quite simply a perfect read and one that will stay with me for a long time.

My thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone.

A Serpentine Affair by Tina Seskis ~ Excerpt and Giveaway

Tina Seskis is joining us today with an excerpt from her latest novel

A Serpentine Affair

Happy Publication Day

2 August 2013

A Serpentine Affair is published 2 August 2013

Kirk Parolles

The blurb

Seven old friends. One annual reunion. Countless feuds.

How do friends stay friends for 25 years when there's so much to feel aggrieved about, 

such a tangle of lingering resentments? So when their picnic in the park goes horribly 

wrong and someone ends up in The Serpentine, who knows what really happened? 

And just what secrets from the past are about to unfold, changing everyone's lives forever?

***

Tina has kindly allowed us to read an excerpt from A Serpentine Affair....

PART ONE

1

Fulham, West London

The evening was set to be balmy, perfect for a picnic, even one destined to end in chaos.  Light was dappling in the sloping back garden, enormous for London, and it had rarely looked so lovely.  A glass of white wine stood gleaming on the window-ledge, chasing shadows across its surface.  A squirrel hot-footed it across the lawn.

              Juliette stood at her perfect white sink looking out the window fuming, ignoring the too-loud sounds of children misbehaving.  Her husband had just called, and he would be home late again, although he'd promised he'd be back by six.  He knew she was going out with her friends, and she really didn't want to be late for a change.  Her children were sat at the table behind her, throwing their food around like hand grenades, and she just didn't have the energy to stop them anymore.  She'd been effectively a single mother (apart from the nanny of course) for the entire week, as usual, and she was tired of it now.  She trusted Stephen, there were no problems on that front, he was way too obsessed with his job to have time for affairs, but she was thoroughly sick of taking second place to his career.  He was only editor of a newspaper, she always used to tell him when they still had that kind of relationship (you know, the one where people talk, really properly talk), no-one died, she'd joke, but then he would remind her that people did, that the stories he told could wreck or make a life, depending on his whim (or perhaps savagery, she'd thought) at the time.  She often wondered how she could have married such a man - maybe it was because she'd met him when they were both students at university, before she'd had time to grow into who she wanted to be, instead of who he wanted her to be.  He'd been behind her at the queue for the pay phones and they'd just got chatting and she'd thought he was quite nice, but not like that at the time, he'd been wearing a Chelsea shirt for a start.  And after that they'd said hello to each other around the campus, in that polite way where you don't really know each other, until eventually one night he had come and chatted to her in the student bar, and they'd both known when they got it together that he was doing well for himself - and although he was keener than she was before she knew it they were seeing each other every day.  Somehow by the final year they were even living together in a shared house and, apart from a brief split when he'd gone to America after they graduated (she'd put her foot down for once) when he came back he'd pursued her until she changed her mind, and then when they both moved to London he'd thought they may as well get a place together, they could just about afford a studio if they both pitched in, he'd said, and after that she'd never quite got round to dumping him again.  And so here they were now, married with three children and happy, apparently.  Juliette couldn't complain from a material point of view, the rented studio was long gone, their house was done up and beautiful, the kids were in private school, they had a place in Italy, and Stephen was making loads from having become a quasi-celebrity, appearing on late night game shows and being asked to present televised awards events.  It was odd how other people always found him funnier than she ever had, they never had shared much of a sense of humour......

Excerpt from A Serpentine Affair – © Tina Seskis

More about Tina 




Tina has kindly offered the winner of this giveaway
one signed paperback copy of A Serpentine Affair

(UK ONLY)

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