Library Loot

Eva is coordinating Library Loot this week.

It was very nearly a zero week this week, with both my libraries closed for the Bank Holiday weekend. But I looked into the library last night and found a reserved book waiting for me and two more gems on the shelf. Here they are:

Savage Lands by Clare Clark

“Louisiana, 1704, and France is clinging on to a swampy corner of the New World with only a few hundred men. Into this precarious situation arrive Elizabeth Savaret, one of a group of young women sent from Paris to provide wives for the colonists, and Auguste Guichard, the only ship’s boy to survive the crossing. Elizabeth brings with her a green-silk quilt and a volume of Montaigne’s essays; August brings nothing but an aptitude for botany and languages. Each has to build a life, Elizabeth among the feckless inhabitants of Mobile who wait for white flour to be sent from France; Auguste in the ‘redskin’ village where he has been left as hostage and spy. Soon both fall for the bewitching charisma of infantryman Jean-Claude Babelon, Elizabeth as his wife, Auguste as his friend. But Babelon is a dangerous man to become involved with. Like so many who seek their fortunes in the colonies, he is out for himself, and has little regard for loyalty, love and trust. When his treachery forces Elizabeth and Auguste to start playing by his rules, the consequences are devastating.”

I ordered this when I saw it on the longlist for the Orange Prize, and I’ve only read the first chapter but I’m very pleased I did. It’s very well written, and you have to love a heroine who takes linen out of her trunk so she can fit in more books!

Consequences by Penelope Lively

“Penelope Lively writes about a young woman, her daughter and her granddaughter, their contrasting lives and their achievement of love. Lorna escapes her conventional Kensington family to marry artist, Matt. They settle in a small cottage in Somerset, where their daughter Molly is born. But World War II puts an end to their immense happiness. Molly will have to wait longer to find love as she gamely grapples with work and sex in 1960s London; while Ruth, Lorna’s granddaughter, has to wait even longer still.”

I read a glowing report about this book a while back – I’m afraid I forget where – and Penelope Lively is one of those authors I’ve been meaning to try for a while but never quite got to. So when this appeared on the returns trolley I just had to pick it up.

Corrag by Susan Fletcher

“The Massacre of Glencoe happened at 5am on 13th February 1692 when thirty-eight members of the Macdonald clan were killed by soldiers who had enjoyed the clan’s hospitality for the previous ten days. Many more died from exposure in the mountains. Fifty miles to the south Corrag is condemned for her involvement in the Massacre. She is imprisoned, accused of witchcraft and murder, and awaits her death. The era of witch-hunts is coming to an end – but Charles Leslie, an Irish propagandist and Jacobite, hears of the Massacre and, keen to publicise it, comes to the tollbooth to question her on the events of that night, and the weeks preceding it. Leslie seeks any information that will condemn the Protestant King William, rumoured to be involved in the massacre, and reinstate the Catholic James. Corrag agrees to talk to him so that the truth may be known about her involvement, and so that she may be less alone, in her final days. As she tells her story, Leslie questions his own beliefs and purpose – and a friendship develops between them that alters both their lives.”

A piece of history I’d like to know more abou and a new novel by an author with two very good books to her name already. Of course this had to come home”

*****

Have you read any of these? What did you think? Which book should I go for next? And which are you curious to know more about?

And what did you find in the library this week?