ISLANDS OF MERCY

ROSE TREMAIN Chatto, 368pp, £18.99, ebook £9.99

Rose Tremain’s 14th historical novel is set in the 19th century, straddling Dublin, Bath, Paris and Borneo. Her characters interweave across these strongly contrasting backdrops, their stories joining together in search of places of solace, and meaning to life.

Stephanie Merritt, in the Observer, wrote that the novel contains ‘familiar Tremain themes: desire, purpose, the elusive rewards of art and the small acts whose consequences ripple outwards’. It is steeped in metaphor; neat, orderly Bath contrasts with the jungle of Borneo. The protagonist, Jane Adeane, a gifted nurse, contrasts with the colonialist, wittily called Sir Ralph Savage. He is nursing the brother of the suitor Jane has rejected. Jane seeks her road to self-discovery, Sir Ralph builds a road through the Borneo forest that leads nowhere.

Norma Clarke, in the TLS, said that while ‘Sir Ralph is a figure of fun, he is not harmless’. He is a ‘symbol of the evil and madness of colonial power’. Layered like a victoria sponge, Islands of Mercy ‘is a quietly mischievous evocation of the Victorian era as it ought to have been. Tonally, Tremain mixes the serious with the ludicrous.’ Alex Peake-tomkinson, in the

Spectator, found the novel full of ‘hectic sexuality as well as yearnings for solace’, but regretted that ‘all this searching is never entirely easy to take seriously or to wholly engage with’.

‘Sir Ralph is not harmless – he is a symbol of the evil and madness of colonial power’