This week, we finally managed to install our new (not new ) item of furniture - a mid-18th Century grandfather clock. It's not bright and shiny like more modern ones, but a dark oak with a warm patina which the beeswax polish is drawing out. In order to set it up, we had to do a certain amount of research - how to hang the pendulum, where the weight went on the endless chain - and it got me thinking... where and when did certain divisions of time come from? The time periods which I have written either had household clocks or didn't, I have not written novels from the time of their invention. Clocks have been around for a long time, and the obsession with measuring time in an ordered fashion dates back to at least the ancient Sumerians. It was they who established a circular reading of time and, I imagine, the sixty seconds/minutes came about as much because it was an easy way to divide a circle as anything else. But it wasn't until much later that the precision of seconds ...
Today, I am pleased to be sharing another book review. Read on to find out what I thought of Stephanie Barron's Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron. But first, let's meet the book...
Blurb
The restorative power of the ocean brings Jane Austen and her beloved brother Henry, to Brighton after Henry's wife is lost to a long illness. But the crowded, glittering resort is far from peaceful, especially when the lifeless body of a beautiful young society miss is discovered in the bedchamber of none other than George Gordon--otherwise known as Lord Byron. As a poet and a seducer of women, Byron has carved out a shocking reputation for himself--but no one would ever accuse him of being capable of murder. Now it falls to Jane to pursue this puzzling investigation and discover just how "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" Byron truly is. And she must do so without falling victim to the charming versifier's legendary charisma, lest she, too, become a cautionary example for the ages.
Get your copy of Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron here
My Review
I received this book a number of years ago, not long after it was released, because - as I'm sure you all know - Lord Byron is a pet project of mine. I started reading it at the time, but abandoned it after the first chapter. Since then, it has remained on my bookshelf, with me always promising myself that I would return to it.
This year I did. And I finished it.
It's not easy to write about real people in fiction. You have to commit wholeheartedly to the exploits you are about to create for them. Juggling this with one person is tricky enough, throw in multiple real people and it becomes a mass of tangled webs. Of course, that's great for a murder mystery!
For me, Stephanie Barron *almost* managed this. Leaving aside the fact that there are parts in the plot which, as a Byron buff I could confidently pull apart, this was a good imagination at work. Not everyone will remember - or know - the same events and rumours of an historical person's life and, having a safe distance of time from them, what author would not choose to massage believability? But you can go too far, and there were moments in this book where the author did.
The plot was great fun, though, and it was this which kept me reading. It took a long time to get going, but it must be said that what made it a slow start was also what made the book work as a standalone novel. I didn't feel cheated when I got to the end and found out who the murderer was, nor did I feel shocked - there were a number of suspects along the way, any of whom might have done this dastardly deed!
I was less convinced by the writing. This book couldn't quite decide what it was. I think it was meant to be written as Jane Austen's journal - in which case there were moments of confusion between tenses as well as occasional slips in the style. The editor's footnotes were pretentious and wholly incongruous with the style, causing a lack of fluidity in the writing. And there were massive information dumps which, after a few, I just skimmed over. From a major publishing house, I was surprised by how poorly edited this book was.
Overall, Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron has a fun plot, and a confident sense of setting. It's more for fans of Austen's novels than fans of history.
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