The Silvered Heart

When I was studying 1940s fiction, I watched The Wicked Lady, one of Gainsborough Studios most glittering productions. With Patricia Roc and Margaret Lockwood facing off over who would marry the rich guy (as much as Patricia Roc ever does face off – she tended to play saintly, presumably as a nice contrast to her off-screen private life), over-blown costumes and constant melodrama, this was one of my favourite films from the course. Along with The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Millions Like Us and Passport to Pimlico. Basically, I love 1940s films. I was immediately intrigued therefore when I received my review copy of The Silvered Heart which takes the myth of the Wicked Lady – the female highwayman – into the twenty-first century. Rather than a war-time morality tale about the evils of transgressing gender boundaries, this is more of a tale of girl power and it was terrific fun.

Katherine Ferrers loved Markyate Cell, her childhood home, and was promised by her mother and stepfather that one day she would be its mistress. However, fate in the form of the English Civil War intervened. The novel begins with her journey to marry Thomas Fanshawe , a wealthy heir but on the way they are accosted by highwaymen. In many ways, The Silvered Heart is dystopian fiction as Katherine and company are living in a world that has cast off all accepted rules. As a part of the Royalist faction, Katherine waits and waits for something to happen – Clements captures vividly the notion of a life lived ‘in the mean time’ – but Katherine is not the type of girl to sit back.

There are plentiful clichés at work here – Katherine is terribly rebellious, she likes to ride, does not pursue the feminine arts etc and of course her husband fails to satisfy her. She is basically Katniss Everdeen in a crinoline. I heaved a sigh when one character implies that Thomas was gay but was pleased to see that fictional trope inverted here. It’s interesting how widely-used that notion has been in historical fiction over recent years – it’s as if homosexuality is a recent invention which authors feel compelled to stick in wherever possible but it isn’t the most imaginative notion.

I think that The Silvered Heart would have worked better had Clements fleshed out Katherine’s relationships further. Her supposed ‘best friend’ and maid Rachel is never more than one-dimensional, which means that the apparent ‘mirroring’ between the two of them never quite takes off. They are supposed to look alike, act similar and be extremely close but Rachel never gets enough screen time for this to be convincing and it all felt like an act of author intervention, crow-barring this in. More convincing was Katherine’s attraction to Ralf and her dilemma between her status as an aristocrat and her own quest for personal happiness.

I felt that this novel lacked the central focus which marked Clements’ previous novel The Crimson Ribbon but it was still entertaining. I liked the constant grace that Martha offered to Katherine, knowing her crimes but forgiving her even the very worst of them. Perhaps The Silvered Heart was no deeper a tale than Gainsborough Studios’ The Wicked Lady but it was still enjoyable, with the same light prose and vibrancy that made its predecessor such an easy read. It was nice too to read a version of The Wicked Lady where the heroine gets to have her fun and not die horribly of a mysteriously bloodless wound (watch the film) – in short, an interesting update to the myth.

This book had me hooked from the beginning, so much so that I had to stay up until the early hours in the morning to finish it. The story flows beautifully creating an atmospheric and intense read.

Katherine is a complex character. At times she seems selfish and self-absorbed but at other times it is clear she is hard-working and fiercely loyal. She is a character that I could admire and dislike at the same time, but I felt I had an understanding with her and could relate to her. One character I wished we could have known more about was Martha Coppin as she seemed to have a lot of influence over Katherine, but as a secondary character the background isn't really necessary.

My only complaint with this book is that it took so long to get to the highway robbery bit - I was nearly half-way through the book. Well it's not really a complaint because this book is fantastic and it was fascinating to see what turned Katherine into becoming a highway robber.

I enjoyed the fact that the history of the time was thrown into the story. It wasn't overwhelming - instead it helped to support the story and explain the times. I never really enjoyed history lessons as a child so it is nice to now learn more about our history from stories and to get more of an understanding. The author manages to make the story all-engrossing while giving you a fabulous history lesson. In fact the lesson is so good that you will leave this book wanting to know more about the period.

This is a story that is filled with twists and turns, romance and betrayals as well as a few highway robberies. It is an effortless blend of historical fact and fiction. A book that will keep you hooked and one that should definitely be on your reading list.

I found the opening of this book, set at the time of the English Civil War,caught my interest. A young Kate, from a very respectable background, has an unpleasant experience with a highwayman. The book follows Kate from here and is really quite wide ranging. It dimensions of politics, morality and feminism for example as well as others. There is passion and there is anger and I found Kate is a well written and credible character. Given the era this is set in it is unsurprising that conspiracy is part of the story line with Cromwell having disposed of the king.

Kate marries, matures and changes. I found the writing highly evocative and of a very high standard. I also found it rather a roller coaster of a read. It is dark in places, melodramatic in others and very powerful at times. There were times I found my attention wandering a little however mostly the pace was good and I did want to find out what happened in the end. I thought that the attention to detail such as clothing, food, occupations and the like seemed well researched and effective. This is one of those relatively rare books where I can honestly say that the end was for me extremely good and sent shivers down my spine. There will be those who disagree however I'm happy with endings that do not tie up every loose end - books are about imagination.

 
The Silvered Heart,  Katherine Clements

Review from Jeannie Zelos book reviews

Genre:  Adult Fiction, Historical.

 I like to mix and match my reading according to my mood, and sometimes I like to dip into a historical. I’m more familiar with fiction from the 1000s to 1500s, especially the Tudor period , and the English Civil War setting was new to me. I’d not heard either of the tale of legendary Highwaywoman Katherine Ferrers. We start with Katherine on the way to her wedding, held up by highwaymen. Events happen there that mean she is forced into action to save her group. That make a big impression upon her. I wonder how far it led to her learning what she needed to do for herself and those she felt responsible for. She’s little more than a child at just 14 but that’s regarded as old enough back then, for marriage to secure family inheritances. Its a tough time for everybody, with the country in turmoil and the changes that have been forced on it’s people. No one really knows what to do next, who best to support and there’s danger at every turn, imprisonment or death as a traitor if they make the wrong choice. Scary stuff, and so hard to imagine how life was, where those who had been rich lost everything, and those who had nothing were still in poverty. The ideals may have been sound but like always putting them into action and sorting out the moralist from the power hungry is never straightforward. The power/corruption debate has raged for many centuries...
Katherine finds marriage not what she imagined, though being orphaned at a young age she didn’t really know what to expect. We see her life getting more and more desperate, with a husband away much of the time, and money for the household being non existent. Its not a happy marriage, and increasingly she does things that are more and more dangerous. Would she have gone that route of danger if her husband had been different? If the household were not starving? If there was another way open to her? Who knows, but she seems to feel there’s a darkness in her that makes her choose the danger. I don’t know – in a way I admired her for taking control. Still, without the unceasing help of Martha, daughter of the man who now lived in  her family home, afforded by his help to Cromwell, things would have turned out very, very different. What I love about historical novels is feeling I’m there, living life with the people of the time. Somehow here it didn’t work that way for me, and I’m not sure why. I felt for Katherine at times but she wasn’t really ( to me) a likeable person, had an arrogance about her typical of those who grow up with money, and that came through in her early relationship with Rachel. She seems to feel Rachel should be grateful for her position as her maid, never looking at life from her viewpoint. Then again, no-one did then ( or now!!) You were either one class or the other. Her views changed a bit over the years as she was forced more and more into seeing what lack of money did for a family. Its a strange read, there were times I really felt for her, and times when I felt she was really arrogant and uncaring. I did so want things to work out from a romance side, I guess I’m just a romantic softy, and there was a point where I found something really heart-breaking. I think what I got most from this book was a sense of how tough life was for everyone during this time, how people did things they maybe would not have if times were different, how circumstance can make any of us do things we’d not other-wise. The worry over which to support, King, as you’d been brought up but then lose everything, including possibly your life, or Cromwell and Co and go against what you maybe believe. Or for those who think the equality route was coming with Cromwell, the despair when families were still left with nothing. The wondering who to trust, never knowing if that person was really working for the other side. Its a scary thought. Though I enjoyed this book, and it made me think a lot and wonder about the “what if’s” its not a story I’d read again. I liked the kind of full circle ending, though there were some really sad parts too.

Stars: Five, a book I really enjoyed but a one off read for me.

ARC supplied by Netgalley and publishers