The River at Night by Erica Ferencik is a novel I described elsewhere as ‘The Golden Girls’ meets ‘Deliverance’, though the four women are slightly younger than that. We have four very different types escaping into the Maine wilderness on a whitewater rafting survival weekend, and our narrator Win is the most sensible of the bunch. She’s not the one shagging the fit young boating expert, or exposing the mercies of a feral and murderous mother-and-son combo in the middle of the woods. I found this book completely terrifying and believable. Even in the midst of lockdown, it put me right off the idea of weekends away.
Simon Turney’s ‘Caligula’ is from the Emperor’s loyalest sister’s point of view, and it’s about how, though the shocking legend might have been mostly bad PR, he still went bonkers in the end. This is a gutsy book that sets us right down in some of the most dangerous places in history – notably Tiberius’s villa on Capri, where you’re best off keeping away from the balcony view. I clung to this book when I ran out of episodes of ‘I, Claudius’ to rewatch – it has the same atmosphere of hectic scandal and terror.
Giles Kristian’s ‘Lancelot’ took me two weeks to read. Two weeks in a filthy mucky, noisy, bloodthirsty, vengeful, romantic, spooky, wonderful fifth century Britain. His prose just rolls along beautifully and even as someone who can’t stand battlefield scenes in anything I loved every page. Highlight was probably a Merlin’s every sinister appearance – especially in the Excalibur chapter. This is a big, bold, exciting retelling from an unusual point of view.
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