The Essex Serpent – Sarah Perry

The New Year (sometime in the nineteenth century) starts for Cora Seaborne with the funeral of her husband. Her grief is outweighed by relief and a sense of release from his oppression. Sill young, responsible only for a son in tow, she now has freedom and the means to follow her own interests.

But this Victorian heroine defies the stereotype. She is robustly independent with an enquiring mind and an interest in the natural world and, plain rather than pretty, she dresses for practicality and comfort. Not that Cora is unattractive; she already has an admirer in London surgeon Dr Luke Garret, and also a close relationship with her companion (and boy’s nanny) Martha.

When Cora, out walking the Essex coast, meets the Reverend William Ransome, Rector of Aldwinter parish, their differences of philosophy, hers scientific, his spiritual, clash but there is soon a respect, and then more, between them.

The attraction of Essex for Cora is not only the sea air and Will Ransome; there are rumours of unnatural happenings and possible sightings in the salt marshes of a creature that some think is supernatural. Cora dismisses that theory and dreams of discovering a new species; Will is also keen to rationalise the mystery which is starting to undermine his parishioners’ faith in him and his religion.

The story moves through the months of the year, centred on London, Colchester and Aldwinter, each atmospherically depicted and populated with minor characters of relevance and interest. The search for the eponymous reptile becomes less important than each character’s search for their own truth. And what will that mean for Cora and Will (and Will’s wife Stella and their children)?

The prose is well written and has an unusual (in a good way) style; description of place is evocative; the complexities of emotions and relationships are not overplayed but subtly put out there to be inferred.

So while not your standard Victorian melodrama it is a well written, insightful story featuring flawed but very human characters.

The Robber Bride – Margaret Atwood

Tony, Charis and Roz have more in common than their regular ladies-who-lunch date. More even that they were at college together, a long while since, where their paths rarely crossed. The glue that binds them is Zenia, who was also at college and who did cross all three of their paths, separately, and not in a pleasant way.

However having some time since attended Zenia’s funeral, she is far from their minds as they lunch at the Toxique in downtown Ottawa; until she walks into the restaurant, studiously ignoring them as she passes. The girls scatter in confusion.

Back at their respective safe havens of home, each of them looks back on Zenia’s impact on their lives. These are not thumbnail sketches to serve the plotline but in each case a full rounded life story is unfolded. Any one of them would make a novel in its own right; such is Atwood’s consummate skill in story-telling, use of prose, characterisation and nuance.

Back to the present, the girls reconvene to compare notes and discuss who has found out what about their un-deceased ‘friend’ and her Lazarus trick; more importantly they need to decide what to do about it.

No more need be said here, no spoilers given. It is a rich and satisfying read; its length (550 pages) is immaterial as it is one of those books where the urge to get on and enjoy it is tempered by never wanting it to end.