Reviews: My Most Heartening & Most Disappointing - Madeleine McDonald

Author Madeleine McDonald reacts to her most heartening and most disappointing reviews from readers of one of her novels.

The following review came from an American reader of her historical romance, A Shackled Inheritance. 

Buy A Shackled Inheritance

“This book has a strong heroine in Ms. Abigail Carrick. She struggles to seek out her inheritance in a world that does not allow women much authority. I admit that I did not check all of the facts in this book but I looked up some of them. There are references to authors that actually lived and real events in history. I feel that I learned a lot while reading it. It caused me to rethink some ideas about civil rights, history and race. The line between right and wrong become blurred which is something I really like to see in a book.

My only criticism of the book is that the ending is too neat. I would have liked to see the characters work out some of their problems which were not resolved. I think a second volume would be welcome.”

‘I was cheered by this review,’ says Madeleine. ‘It great to find that someone was interested enough in the historical context of the story to check some of the facts, and to weigh them against her own knowledge and ideas. It’s what I would do, but then I’m a history addict.’

Musing on the joys and pitfalls of historical research, Madeleine reveals, ‘A Shackled Inheritance was in danger of never being finished as I burrowed deep into the treasure trove of Jamaica’s splendid digital archives. One site led to another, as I found inventories and wills that detailed the ambiguous lives of the sizeable ‘free coloured’ community, the mixed-race descendants of slave owners and enslaved people. The tragedy was that the free coloureds were often slave owners or overseers themselves.’

Madeleine’s meticulous research into the brutal conditions of plantation life also impressed the writer of the book’s disappointing one-star review:

“Let me begin this review stating I give props to Madeleine for depicting the harshness and hardness of a slave's life. To see anyone abused, mistreated in any decade, at any age, is unthinkable and deplorable. I can't fathom how someone can treat another person so cruelly. Despicable!”

Madeleine notes that ‘This reviewer’s emotional reaction coloured her view of the book. She said at one point

“You know what else is despicable? A vast majority of the characters in A Shackled Inheritance.” 

‘She did not like either my heroine or her sister, saying they were both “consumed with money”. In my view, that was inevitable in a time when women had no financial independence.’

The review ends by saying: “At least it ended on a HEA so that's something.”

‘Good or bad,’ Madeleine says, ‘I welcome readers’ opinions. They make the solitary hours of writing worthwhile.’

Read more about Madeleine McDonald HERE. 

Extracts From The Writing Of Joy Gelsthorpe

The Search For Family Became A Saga

When author Joy Gelsthorpe (writing as Joy Stonehouse) looked into her family history, she had no idea it would lead to a family saga spanning 5 novels. “I discovered that, on my mother’s side, I had descended from the Jordan family in Reighton, just south of Filey,” she says. “The Jordans had been substantial landowners living at Uphall, and there were plenty of wills available to add detail. One, from 1574, not only left the usual farm animals and implements, but also a coat of armour, a helmet and a long bow with half a sheath of arrows.”

The idea of dramatizing the story grew, the more she uncovered. “My imagination was first fired when I looked closely at the Reighton Parish Records from the early 1700s. The marriages revealed a closely-knit community, and the deaths were intriguing—an unusual mixture of young adults along with the expected babies, children and elderly.”

As a lover of all things historical, Joy wanted to recreate the atmosphere of a small coastal village in Filey Bay three centuries ago. It would have had no electricity, no running water and poor roads. Joy says, “I decided to begin the story of the Jordans of Reighton in 1703 as the Great Storm of that year was well documented by Daniel Defoe. The weather becomes as important as the characters, often determining the action.”

The following extracts are from Book One, Witch-bottles and Windlestraws. 

***

They dreaded the return of those winters of the late 1600’s; years when they were cut off completely from the outside world and when heavy snow even fell in May.

William Jordan, watching his breath steaming above the pew, was also remembering those cold winters. He and most of his brothers and sisters had been born then. He’d spent long, dark days kept indoors for weeks at a time, bundled up in such thick clothes he could hardly move. Other memories were of a silent white world, the snow piled up outside and small birds, frozen to death, dropping from the trees. 

The really cold spell began on the evening of 5th January. That night the temperature plummeted dramatically and kept falling. Rabbits froze in their burrows, and pheasants lay dead in the hedgerows. The wind came from the northeast and, although Filey Brigg looked clear and distinct one morning in the sunshine, all views were soon blotted out by a snowstorm. The sky became a dirty yellow and everything went quiet as if nature itself had shut down.

***

By the end of January, the Gurwoods sat with as many clothes on as they could manage, as near to the fire as was safe and, even then, did not feel warm. John had the unwelcome experience of waking one morning to find his nightcap frozen to the bed-head. He couldn’t shave because the water froze on his stubble before the razor could do its work and, when he cut his chin, his veins were so far below the skin that he hardly bled.

Water froze in the bowls and buckets and even Martha Wrench’s ale froze in the casks. The ponds and wells, and even the cistern at Uphall, all turned to ice; chunks had to be hacked off and melted over the fires. Dickon tried to make sure all the animals drank warm water but, by the time he carried it from the fire to the troughs, it had gone stone-cold again. Within minutes of pouring it out, ice would start creeping over the surface like ghostly fingers. The still air had almost a tinkling sound and, out in the yard, any sound carried for miles. At night, trees could be heard cracking apart as frost penetrated the trunks. Reighton, lying in a hollow, was trapped by the ice and snow. No one came into the village and no one left it.

***

The novels are full of old remedies and superstitions. The following extract describes one strange rite—placing a witch-bottle in a new house to ward off evil spirits and/or witches.

***

There was just one thing, however, that Mary needed to do before she could consider the house ready to live in. When the men were out ploughing, she fetched Sarah Ezard to carry out a secret ritual in the kitchen.  Sarah had brought a small brown stoneware bottle full of urine.

Mary shuddered. ‘William will hate us doing this.’

‘What ’e won’t see ’e can’t grieve over,’ Sarah replied.  ‘Come on, let’s get on with it.  Pass me all that I need.’  Mary handed over a few small iron nails, some human hair and finally some small chicken bones.  Sarah put them in the bottle and then stopped it up with clay.  Then she tied on a piece of leather to secure it.  They prised up the hearth stone, dug out a small hole and wedged the bottle in upside down, packing the earth back round it and over it.  Then they laid back the flag, satisfied they’d done what was necessary to ward off evil spirits.

***

The five novels cover the years 1703 to 1734.

Book One: Witch-bottles and Windlestraws 

Book Two: New Arrivals in Reighton  

Book Three: Whisper to the Bees 

Book Four: Bonfires and Brandy 

Book Five: A Time for Reaping due out in 2024

The saga might be finished, but Joy has not forgotten Filey and is working on a new book called The Boy with Mussel-shell Eyes. “I had an idea inspired partly by the folk song, The Bonnie Fisher Boy, and by a report in a Scarborough Newspaper from 1822. It’s a love story written through the letters of a girl who stays in Filey one summer.”

Learn more about Joy and her writing HERE.