HISTORICAL FICTION
THE SEALWOMAN’S GIFT by Sally Magnusson (Two Roads £16.99)
IN 1627 Barbary pirates launched a raid on Iceland during which 400 Icelanders, including a pastor and his family, were carried off to Algiers. Accounts of the raid can be found in historical documents, but little is known of what happened to the women and children.
In journalist Sally Magnusson’s debut novel, Ásta, the pastor’s wife, is separated from her husband and she and her children fetch up in an alien land at the mercy of the slave master. Can she protect them in a society where women are disposable? All she has are her wits and a knowledge of the old stories.
Sally Magnusson writes compellingly of the psychological and physical shocks of being uprooted. Impeccably researched, this is a poetic retelling of Icelandic history.
THE COFFIN PATH by Katherine Clements
(Headline £18.99) ON THE weather-battered Yorkshire moors, Mercy Booth is battling to save a sheep in labour. A tough, unconventional girl not given to fancies, she cannot shake off a sense of foreboding.
It is 1674 and superstition and the unexplained are everyday fare, particularly in the remote and decaying Scarcross Hall where Mercy lives with her ailing father and Agnes, the maidservant. When a stranger turns up at the hall and Mercy gives him work, events take a sinister turn.
Driving deep into Bronte territory, the author also mines the conventions of the gothic novel for her intense, twisty drama involving family secrets, unexplained deaths, forbidden desires and echoes of the supernatural. The plot almost strains credulity but the character of Mercy, the atmospheric writing and the strong evocation of the landscape are terrific.
THE GOOD DOCTOR OF WARSAW by Elisabeth Gifford
(Corvus £14.99) AS A young man in Poland, Dr Janusz Korczak was celebrated for his compassionate views on childcare. At the outbreak of World War II he was running an orphanage in Warsaw and continued to look after the children, even after they were herded into the Jewish ghetto and Nazi terror was at full strength.
Written with quiet, almost heroic, determination, Elisabeth Gifford’s novel fictionalises these events. It opens with lovers, Misha and Sophia, who work with the doctor. As the war progresses, it becomes obvious they should flee. This they do and, mercifully, they survive. (Their descendants are alive today.)
They leave Dr Korczak behind, still struggling to love and care for his charges. The end is inevitable. It is painful to read about such wickedness and suffering.