Rosemary Sutcliffe's "The Rider on The White Horse"

 

 

 

Reviewed by M. J. Logue

 



I make no apologies for my first review for this blog being an old-fashioned, out of print novel, one of Rosemary Sutcliff's lesser-known books.

In fact, I'm reviewing it in the hope that people will once again turn to this simple, tender, moving portrayal of the relationship between Thomas Fairfax, Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Parliament during the English Civil War, and his plain, brown, feisty wife Anne.

It's no epic courtly love story. Quite the opposite: the story of a plain woman who comes to love her principled and honourable husband with a passion that frightens her, in the uncomfortable self-knowledge that he will, in all probability, never see her in the same way as she sees him. There is little glamour in their love story, little chivalry, little courtliness. Despite its setting in the England of the 1640s, we are not in the realms of lace and glittering satins, but of buff and steel, of hunger and  danger and tragedy. Of the little commonwealth of a small manor in Yorkshire, thrust all unwilling into war, and of a woman's fear for the man she has come to hold precious.

As ever, Rosemary Sutcliff's skill lies in her ability to weave a tale around the tiny domestic details of a household that stick in the reader's memory long after the last page: the honeyed scent of the snowdrops on a table, the whiff of tobacco smoke and a golden sunset over the Yorkshire Dales. The Fairfax of Ms Sutcliff's writing is not an articulate, poetic courtier, but an awkward, rather diffident soldier - and a reader expecting grand declarations may wonder what on earth the fiery Anne sees in him at times, this decent, kind, stiff, rather too honourable gentleman whose idea of a compliment is to tell her she looks "bonnie in t'firelight".

Nor - this book having been written in 1959 - is there a deal of sexual tension. But indeed, it would have jarred, had there been explicit physical loving in this story. I am still not sure - having read this book every year without fail, for the last 20 years, having cried at exactly the same parts every time, at the death of Captain Smith and of the baby Elizabeth - I still couldn't say with any degree of certainty whether or not Thomas Fairfax ends the book by returning his wife's love, not physically. But then, as Anne says, “You could not hold a winged thing; you could not even perfectly remember it afterward, for that, too, was a kind of holding.” Whatever it is, is enough.

No, I love this book. I would like more people to love it. Some of the historical accuracy is shaky, but the battle scenes are stirring and moving, and the relationships drawn with a tenderness that can be heartbreaking. Sutcliff's dialogue is almost perfect in its simplicity, of things not said but felt with the heart.

Amazon

Latest 17th century novel.

 

 

 

Reviewed by Francine.

 

 

 

Historically accurate in every detail, this is a time slip novel that rips a reader from the 21st century and casts them back to Scotland in the year of 1658. It is the very year in which a great storm raged across the British Isles ripping up trees and flooding the land, and all on the very night Oliver Cromwell died. It is the year people throughout the Commonwealth held their breath in anticipation of “what now?” For with the Lord High Protector gone, and the populous wearied by two Civil Wars, a new Stuart era was secretly in the making.

 

 

And so, A Rip in the Veil begins in 2002 with Alexandra Lind, a typical 21st century woman, whom, accustomed the instantaneous age of electronic devices, is suddenly caught up in an electrical storm. Worse, the storm not only scares the proverbial out of her, every electronic device to hand malfunctions. What next? What to do? And little does she know Hell is about to open up and swallow her: literally.

 

 

In Mathew Graham’s world it’s 1658, and as a man given to strong belief in God, angels in his mindset don’t wear strange blue breeches nor are they devoid of wings. Trusting in God and instinct Mathew sees only a woman in need, and whilst tending to Alex’ needs he struggles to understand the complexity of her fate whilst his own is dire in itself. And when Mathew’s lifetime suddenly intervenes and danger is close at hand, Alex knows her life can never be as it was before, not unless she can find a way back to her own time.

 

 

Fate works in mysterious ways, and as time passes Alex is torn between the past and the present, or is it the present and the past? And while she’s not alone in comparing love in the past with love in the here and now, true hearts cannot let go, no matter the cost and no matter the losses along life’s path. Thus the Graham Saga begins.

 

 

Reader note: I fail to understand why some readers (Amazon) have taken affront at A Rip in the Veil and thus implying it is a rip-off of Diana Gabaldon’s “Outlander” Series. Publishing dates are far from proof that a series of novels were devised before or after one another, and for this very reason editors at publishing houses are oft quoted as saying “books drop on their desks with similar (almost identical) plots within weeks of one another, and while one may get taken up, others will be discarded”. Thousands of authors ply their novels to numerous publishers over a period of years, and few if ever are lucky enough to have their books snatched up and published. Coincidence of plots and even character names are more common than might be imagined, of which I can testify to, for a fellow author and I (FB friends) both dreamed up the same titled character and both of us were penning Regency novels, neither aware of the other’s project until both were published!