ramblingmads

Based on the true story of the 43 Group, A Monster in the Ash combines the East End resistance of Jo Bloom’s Ridley Road with the emotion of Kristin Hannah’s The Women and the suspense of Lara Prescott’s The Secrets We Kept.

Sadie Shaposnick spent the war running a black-market racket out of her husband Leon’s East End butcher shop. Now Leon has returned from a German POW camp, traumatised and dismayed to find Fascism rising once again, only ten years after Cable Street. With the authorities turning a blind eye, Leon joins a vigilante gang formed by Simka Reubens, a charismatic former street-fighter with ties to Sadie’s late mother Rosy Gold—a local anti-fascist icon who died fighting Franco in Spain. At first, Sadie resists being drawn into the gang, but as the violence escalates she realises that fighting back is the only way to protect her neighbours and hopefully repair her faltering marriage.

Meanwhile, Sadie’s widowed sister Karla has to raise her daughters alone in her grief-stricken in-laws’ mansion. When her late husband’s younger brother Rafi returns from fighting with armed partisans in Mandatory Palestine, Karla must decide how far she’ll go to feel alive again. But when Rafi crosses paths with Sadie, he is drawn into the struggle as well, sending the gang into even greater peril.

With Oswald Mosley gaining power, the only option is resistance, even if it means facing the ghosts of the past while fighting the monsters that are rising from the ashes of the war.

My thoughts: This period of time after the Second World War isn’t one I know much about and having now read this book, I think that’s a shame. My family (on both sides) has roots in the East End of London and I grew up and live in North West London where many of my neighbours are Jewish. Yet I had never heard of the 43 Group, which was dedicated to fighting Oswald Mosley and his disgusting fascists. Even after being imprisoned, he didn’t just go away. 

The actions that Sadie, Leon and their friends take are dangerous and come with the threat of prison and worse (Britain still had the death penalty at this point) if they weren’t careful to never fully cross the line. I think Daniel’s heartbreaking betrayal was the worst bit, but they let him down first.

Reading this feels quite timely, in a rather unpleasant way, as antisemitic attacks seem to be on the increase again. This was what the characters, and their real life counterparts, were so determined to put a stop to.

The book isn’t an easy read, the suffering and tragedies of Sadie and her friends, the death of her father, Karla’s husband dying in the war, all of these things are very real, even if the people are fictional.

It’s a powerful book, sad and moving. I really wanted happier endings for Sadie and her sister-in-law Sorel.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

From the acclaimed author of The Birth of Venus and In the Company of the Courtesan comes a vibrant exploration of the Italian Renaissance through the eyes of Isabella d’Este, the leading female art collector and patron of her time. Born in 1474, she ran a famed court, was a fashion icon and a cunning political operator. She left behind a magnificent collection of paintings, sculptures, books, instruments and curiosities. Long since lost or dispersed, all that remains is her correspondence – thousands of letters preserved in a deconsecrated church and convent, which make up the state archive of the city of Mantua.

Inside this cavernous space, the ghost of Isabella is searching for the right scholar to give voice to her story. When she finds her, together through the letters, they resurrect a remarkable life: from a precocious daughter of a Duke and the painfully young wife of the Marquis of Mantua to a formidable court consort, collector, patron and political operator, guiding the state through the vicissitudes of war. A woman who unapologetically refuses to be bound by convention.

The Marchesa is Renaissance history at its most vivid, an immersive, multi-layered experience that mixes historical fiction with biography, scholarship and art, images of both the people and the time. It is also a meditation on our attitude to history itself, challenging how far we can set aside our own values and moral certainties when it comes to understanding those in the past who grew out of very different cultural soil.

The Author

Sarah Dunant is a historical novelist, thriller writer, broadcaster and lecturer on women’s lives in Renaissance Italy. Explore her books, podcasts and online lectures on art, sex and religion in the 15th/16th centuries.

My thoughts: I love Sarah Dunant’s historical novels, she’s such a fantastic writer. This was a little bit different, with the ghost of the Marchesa, Isabella d’Este, narrating her story from the Mantua archives as a scholar, possibly the author, reads through the many letters that remain chronicling the life and times of this powerful and important woman.

Born into the Este family, rulers of the city state of Ferrara, the daughter of a Duke and granddaughter of a king, she marries the Marquise of Mantua, a small city state in Italy, which while it might not rival Venice or Rome, was, in its Marchesa’s eyes, equally as important.

It’s a fascinating and compelling story, as she wrote to and was related to crowned heads across Europe, including Popes, Dukes, Duchesses and royalty. Her careful letter writing was an important part of maintaining relationships with potential invaders and keeping her hot headed husband out of trouble at times. She understood the vital art of negotiation, flattery and maintaining those bonds when things went wrong.

In Dunant’s hands Isabella is clever, funny and a wonderful teller of her own tale. A really enjoyable read about one of history’s less well remembered women. 

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.