Nelly Dean by Alison Case

Billed as a return to Wuthering Heights, Nelly Dean is the story of WH from the point of view of the servant who partially narrated the story. In it, Nelly has written her story down addressed to Mr Lockwood without sending it.

I think the most important thing about this is whether it adds to the story of WH, and out of the #backstairs books I’ve read, I think this one adds the most to the story. Nelly is a fully imagined character who sheds a great deal of light on Mr Earnshaw and particularly on Hareton who she has a really close, motherly relationship with. She also has a relationship with Hindley and sheds light on the way that he degenerates due to alcohol. The book doesn't go into a great detail about Heathcliffe and Cathy's relationship, but I don't think it needs to. However, it brings in all the themes of the moors, doomed love and the supernatural in anyway.

Aside from the WH characters, the author also brings Bodkin, the son of the family doctor who is a friend and advisor to Nelly. He brings in a welcome outside perspective to a story that can seem insular with its settings of the home and the Moor. The story can be heartbreaking at times, especially when Nelly is seperated from Hareton but her relationship with Bodkin often lightens the book without taking away the tragedy of the situation

A selection of books on a similar theme

The Five by Hallie Rubenhold

Reclaiming the Victims of Jack The Ripper

The Grave of the final victim

https://castbox.fm/vb/133741532 The Guardian podcast on Why we have forgotten Jack the Ripper’s Victims.

This book is a very timely exploration of the way that we view victims of these terrible crimes. In it, Hallie uses a quotation from 2008 for the trial of the Suffolk Strangler where the judge told the jury to disregard the lifestyles of the women he murdered as he felt that the jury may be influenced by their jobs as sex workers. This is a great point as we are still in a society where victims of crime such a rape are judged for their appearances.

She explores the lives of these women in a very accessible way, showing that although  it is widely believed (and indeed almost romanticised as such) that they were not all prostitutes and that we are doing them a disservice to believe the myths and focus on the murderer. Victorian society made it impossible for a woman to survive without men and any perceived transgression led to a woman being branded as ‘fallen’. All of these women had in one way or another suffered ill luck through their circumstances and suffered complete degradation as a result. This is a story of workhouses, doss houses, tramping the street, being cast out by your family and just trying desperately to survive. Alcohol was a major factor in two of the stories, the women were addicted to it as it was cheaper than food, numbed the pain and made them feel warm.

Rubenhold is a brilliant storyteller who brings the women to life so that you almost feel like you know them. She has also obviously done a great deal of difficult research, having to disregard biased and incomplete evidence.

I have been fascinated by the debate on twitter that she has begun about the way that Jack the Ripper is taught in schools as a way to draw teenagers into the history of Victorian slums and the business of the museums and tours where people seem to revel in the murders. It’s shocking some of the brutal and gory teaching materials she has found (work out the price of a prostitute, draw the dead victim etc.). She does not include anything about the murderer and not much about the murders, just where they took place and what the victims were carrying at the time. If you are looking for a book where the author provides any speculation about who the Ripper was or what happened when he murdered the victims this is not it, what it is is a meticulously researched biography of women who are traditionally overlooked.

The Conviction of Cora Burns by Carolyn Kirby

A Victorian gothic novel which investigates ideas that a person can be born 'bad’ and can be identified as a criminal by their features. The story centres around Cora Burns, a young woman who has grown up in a workhouse, an asylum and has spent time in gaol for a crime. She finds a position in a mysterious house where the owner is doing research mainly on Violet, a mysterious little girl.

The storyline is very well plotted, using different timelines and journal entries from another researcher who is hypnotising a woman in an attempt to find more about her. There is a strong sense of mystery about the story, and the reader has to prize out the puzzle of what is going on, what happened in the past and how the characters are related. I thought this was brilliantly done and kept me guessing until the end.

Cora is an incredibly interesting character, at turns meek and submissive, then resisting violent emotions and desires to hurt people who cross or annoy her. I love what the author did with her friend Alice, I thought that was really clever. Cora develops throughout the story from someone who has no control over what happens to her and is institutionalised to a woman who is fully in control and making her way in a society which stands against her. The story perfectly illustrates the position of lower class women and in particular the lives of the outcasts in society and how they were treated in the period. I thought that the author presented a historically accurate view - this was a tragic childhood but it was not all beatings and starvation, she was treated reasonably by some of the staff, who just didn't know what to do with her. I loved what the author did with the idea of photographic images in the book, whether or not the appearance gave an indication of the person's character.

Overall, I thought this was a good story and particularly liked the inclusion of the journal entries. The gothic elements were well handled and didn’t become too over the top. It was also a book that made me think but without becoming too obvious about it.

The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo

I think this is probably going to be one of my favourite books of the year. A beautifully written magic realist historical novel set in Malay during the 1930s. The story centres around Ren, a young boy who is given a mission by his British master (who has died) to return his missing finger to his grave, preventing the master from walking the earth in search of it, and Ji Lin, a young woman who works as a dance partner but wishes to become a nurse. Along with Ji Lin's stepbrother Shin, they are mysteriously connected by the Confucian virtues.

A great part of the story is taken up with Chinese traditions and mythology, which is fascinating. The main motif of the story is that there is a were-tiger killing and mauling people, this is part of the magic realist aspect as well as imagery the author uses to describe the reoccurring dreams where Ren and Ji Lin communicate.

The time period and the place are perfectly chosen as you get the amazing imagery of the tiger and the sense that things are changing as the expats live and work in Malay, mostly as doctors and missionaries. Another important character is William, who works as a doctor and is Ren's new master. There is a sense of the western world colliding with the eastern world, as well as old versus new and Ji Lin's role as a woman is changing. She longs for the freedom of escaping from her family by becoming a nurse, but at the same time she feels tied to her mother and to her stepbrother, whom she is in love with. The characters are also very well written and it's the kind of book that you could easily re-read to pick up more of the hints in the story. The characters are never quite what they seem, no-one is perfectly good or evil although Ren has such innocence and is masterfully written, something I image was difficult as he is so young. The unexpectedness of the characters make them even more human and is a big part of why I think this is such a magical book.

As readers have found on Quercus's brilliant #NightTigerTogether Twitter book club, it makes for some brilliant discussions and would make a perfect book club read. Yangsze Choo has participated in some of the discussions and has provided a brilliant insight into the writing process, she is currently in talks with Netflix about making her novel The Ghost Bride into a TV series. Can't wait to read it or see it as she provided some hints about it in the novel. She is also doing a Q&A on Twitter next week, so I will be looking forward to participating in this too.

Mona Lisas and Little White Lies

This is a gentle romance with a well written although ultimately rather passive female lead. Although Lily has unknowingly been placed on a pedestal by Ryder, she defies expectations by being a motor mechanic who is treated as 'one of the boys’ by the men she works mkwith. She seems to feel rather awkward in expressing her femininity, she doesn't wear makeup, finds it difficult to flirt and is obsessed with cars. Her date with Evan is an example of how awkward she feels, he takes her to an expensive restaurant where she is unsure of what she's wearing and how to behave. The author has a very delicate way of showing how Lily feels and who she is, she's a very nuanced character.

She's very passive during dates with Evan and she constantly worries about ‘keeping her slim figure’. Her relationships are unequal conversations are one sided. When she meets Ryder he doesn't ask her anything about herself except what she does which she lies about. When he asks her about her childhood dreams she describes wanting to be a beautiful doll.

Ryder had told her he knew everything he needed to know because he knew her deep down. He’d promised. Lily had tried to tell him more, but he didn’t seem interested in knowing more.

I think that the portrayal of the relationship could possibly be the weakest part of the book, probably due to Lily's self esteem issues. She just seems to spend her time asking her boyfriends about themselves and mentally not believing herself worthy. This is problematic as potentially she is looking for self worth by finding a boyfriend. There is part of me that wishes we could have had more of Lily discovering her fabulousness with Aaron and Brooke, but the novel was too short and focussed on the relationship with Ryder. It's a sweet, romantic novel but by no means that steamy. It gets a wouldn't make Grandma blush rating.

The Burning House by Neil Spring

Delighted to find this Neil Spring novel on Netgalley, having enjoyed The Watchers and Ghost Hunters. Spring writes a good variety of fiction related to the unexplained and even better, he's from South Wales 😉.

I didn't realise until the end that he had taken the story of the real Boleskin House and weaved the story around it. Boleskin sounds an absolutely fascinating place, owned by Alestair Crowley and Jimmy Page and reputedly incredibly haunted and the site of some odd rituals and occurrences. Spring explains in a footnote that a mysterious fire did really happen, do unfortunately you can't exactly visit the real place.

Boleskin house after the fire. 

The story is a fantastic mix of the paranormal and a psychological thriller. Clara is working as an estate agent trying to escape her tragic past by living in a small Scottish village on the edge of Loch Ness. In the course of her job she accidentally kills a man which is witnessed by a stranger, a man who had an unusual interest in the creepy dilapidated Boleskin house and is extremely into mind control and the rituals Crowley performed at the site.

The plot is skillfully woven around three main characters, and is gripping enough that I didn't want to put it down. Clara is a great character, and I thought that Spring did a good job with the mysterious stranger and Karl, Clara's abusive ex. The descriptions of Boleskin house are also very good. I would be interested to find out more about Crowley's philosophy, the philosophy of Thelema. The fantastically named Oswald Catternach believes that this philosophy entitles him to do whatever he wants, no matter how unethical. This is a shocking, sometimes gruesome but very well researched book and I highly recommend it.