City of Glory by Beverly Swerling

Set against the dramatic backdrop of America's second war for independence, Beverly Swerling's gripping and intricately plotted sequel to the much-loved City of Dreams plunges deep into the crowded streets of old New York.

Poised between the Manhattan woods and the sea that is her gateway to the world, the city of 1812 is vibrant but raw, a cauldron where the French accents of Creole pirates mingle with the brogues of Irish seamen, and shipments of rare teas and silks from Canton are sold at raucous Pearl Street auctions. Allegiances are more changeable than the tides, love and lust often indistinguishable, the bonds of country weak compared to the temptation of fabulous riches from the East, and only a few farseeing patriots recognize the need not only to protect the city from the redcoats, but to preserve the fragile Constitutional union forged in 1787.

Joyful Patrick Turner, dashing war hero and brilliant surgeon, loses his hand to a British shell, retreats to private life, and hopes to make his fortune in the China trade. To succeed he must run the British blockade; if he fails, he will lose not only a livelihood, but the beautiful Manon, daughter of a Huguenot jeweler who will not accept a pauper as a son-in-law. When stories of a lost treasure and a mysterious diamond draw him into a treacherous maze of deceit and double-cross, and the British set Washington ablaze, Joyful realizes that more than his personal future is at stake. His adversary, Gornt Blakeman, has a lust for power that will not be sated until he claims Joyful's fiancée as his wife and half a nation as his personal fiefdom. Like the Turners before him, Joyful must choose: his dreams or his country.

Swerling's vividly drawn characters illuminate every aspect of the teeming metropolis: John Jacob Astor, the wealthiest man in America, brings the city's first Chinese to staff his palatial Broadway mansion; Lucretia Carter, wife of a respectable craftsman, makes ends meet as an abortionist serving New York's brothels; Thumbless Wu, a mysterious Cantonese stowaway, slinks about on a secret mission; and the bewitching Delight Higgins, proprietress of the town's finest gambling club, lives in terror of the blackbirding gangs who prey on runaway slaves. They are all here, the butchers and shipwrights, the doctors and scriveners, the slum dwellers of Five Points and the money men of the infant stock exchange...conspiring by day and carousing by night, while the women must hide their loyalties and ambitions, their very wills, behind pretty sighs and silken skirts.

Bearing in mind that I read this, the third book in the series, second, I can't tell you how pleased I was that the author didn't try to fit another 100 years of history into one book. In fact, in this book the time frame of the novel is tightened down yet again, and instead of covering a period of over 100 years (as we were in City of Dreams) or even a handful of years (Shadowbrook), we are treated to the stories of what happened to a group of characters, some imagined and some real, over the period of 10 days or so (with a few flashbacks here and there). And what a tumultuous ten days they were in 1814. The British were advancing on Washington, and everywhere there was fear, distrust and temptation.

The main character of this book is Joyful Patrick Turner. He is a surgeon until he is forced to look for a new line of work due to the fact that his hand is blown off by a British cannon ball during the blockade. Joyful as a character has an intriguing past, having spent many years in China as a young man, and his ability to understand the Chinese way of business as well as to speak the language are very handy skills to have, as he tried to work his way up to being one of the most influential people in the world of New York trade, and if that influence comes to the detriment of his estranged cousins, then so be it.

Along the way Joyful rubs shoulders with many real life characters including the Astors, and some significant events such as the meeting of businessmen in Wall Street (the basis of the Stock Exchange) and the burning of Washington amongst others events.

If I was asked to provide a summary of the events in this books there is no way that you could think that such a variety of plot lines could possibly work, and yet it does. There is opium trading, pirates, love, lust, prostitution, bribery, kidnapping, betrayal, magnificent jewels, talk of secession, battles, blackbirders (people who capture blacks, who may or may not have the necessary documentation, and sell them off to slavers). Whew...there's a lot going on, but Swerling does manage to keep hold of all the various threads of storyline and bring it all to a surprising, if a little fantastical, conclusion.

I have really enjoyed each of the Swerling books that I have read. If I had to pick a favourite though, it would definitely be a toss up between City of Glory and this one.

Now, I need to wait for the next book in the series to come out. According to her website, Beverly Swerling is working on it now. I am looking forward to seeing what period of American history the author wants to show us next.

Shadowbrook by Beverly Swerling

1754. In a peaceful glen in the Ohio Country, the firing of a musket ball signals beginning of the infamous seven-year that paved the way for the American Revolution.

In Shadowbrook a cast of unforgettable characters brings to life the bloody conflict between the French and the English that ignited the 18th century and sparked a nation's battle for independence. Characters like Quentin Hale, the fearless gentleman-turned-scout the Indiians call 'Red Bear'; Cormac Shea, the part-Irish, part-Indian woodsman scarred in battle by his own kin, sworn to drive white man from his land; Nicole Crane, the beautiful young half-French woman whose struggle to reconcile her love for Hale with her vow to become a nun causes her to become a pawn in the quest for territory.

Centred around the coveted Shadowbrook, a prosperous plantation in the northern wilderness, and peopled with such historical figures, including a young George Washington, this richly textured novel vividly captures the conflict that opened the eighteenth century and ignited our nation's quest for independence. A classic in the making, Shadowbrook is a page-turning tale of ambition, war, and the transforming power of both love and duty.

When I read City of Dreams, one of the things that I found most surprising was that the author chose to tell the story of several generations in one book, and therefore covered quite a significant period of history (from 1661 to 1798). Whilst it didn't detract from the novel too much, I do much prefer to read a book that concentrates more fully on just one set of characters.

There is nothing in the blurb to easily connect Shadowbrook to the first book. It is only as you start to read that you find out that Quentin Hale's mother is a Devrey of New York and therefore connected to the characters from the first book. With a time frame from 1754-1760 this book sits within the scope of the first book, but I guess the story was just so much bigger than just being a section of the earlier book.

The two main characters are Quentin Hale and Cormac Shea - they are not physically brothers, but they are in all other ways, including by the fact that they have the same adoptive Indian father, with Quentin having been adopted by the Potawatomi tribe. Cormac is half Irish and half Indian, and had been bought to Shadowbrook as a young teenager when Quent's father made Cormac's mother his mistress. To the Indians these two young men are Bridge people - men who can provide a way for the Indians to understand what is happening in the very different world of the white man. For Cormac and Quent, quite often it means internal strife as they must try to balance the two worlds of which they are part.

The story that Swerling attempts to tell is huge - not only is there the Indian vs white man issues to deal with, there is also the simmering tensions between the British and the French who are fighting to win control of the land stretching from what is now the northern US up to and including Quebec in Canada. Add in the machinations of the Church, and you have a complicated and diverse cast of characters. There are also episodes of Indian mysticism, as well as Catholic religious experience.

As if all of that is not enough, when Cormac and Quentin meet after a long time apart, Cormac is accompanying a young lady north to Quebec. Her name is Nicole Crane, and she is half British-half French, and she is travelling north to become a member of a the Sisters of the Poor Clares - a convent. Whilst Quentin is a man of honour and wouldn't dare to touch Nicole whilst he believes that she has chosen Cormac to be her man, he finds himself falling in love with her, and when his mother seems to sanction her as the perfect wife to be mistress of Shadowbrook, he knows that she should be his. The only problem is that Quent will never be master at Shadowbrook. As the younger son, he has to watch his sadistic older brother (a completely one dimensional character - evil in just about every way - particularly in comparison to the perfect Quent!) make decisions that will cause trouble for all those who live there, including the slaves and the Quakers who live in a township on the Hale patent.

There are several historical characters woven into the narrative - in particular during the sections dealing with the battles between the British and the French. Possibly the most interesting inclusions were a young man by the name of George Washington who was leading a force of Virginian soldiers and fighting on the side of the British against the French, influential Indian chief, Chief Pontiac, and several generals on either side of the battles over land.

On many levels this story did work for me, but at the end of the day, there was too much left unexplained for me to really love this book.

As an example, one of the major story lines was the wheeling and dealing that was being driven by a one-eyed Scottish man, Hamish Stewart, who fought at Culloden. Hamish wants the Hale patent...badly...and will do almost anything to get his hands on it. He manipulates and bribes, even at one stage trying to destroy the Hales, just so that he can be the owner. What I never did get is what his motivation was. He had been coveting the land for over twenty years, but why THAT land. Why was he so determined that Shadowbrook was the only land that he wanted. This is just one example.

Before finishing up I should mention that this is not a book for the faint of heart. There are battles galore, blood everywhere, and plenty of scalpings. For the most part, it is a fascinating read, although it is a long way from being a perfect read. I would class it as mostly enjoyable.

City of Dreams: A Novel of Nieuw Amsterdam by Beverly Swerling

In 1661 a brother and sister stagger off a small wooden ship after eleven perilous weeks at see to seek a new life in the rough and rowdy Dutch settlement of Nieuw Amsterdam. Lucas Turner is a barber surgeon, Sally Turner an apothecary. Both gifted healers, they are bound to each other by blood and necessity. But as their new lives unfold, betrayal and murder will make them deadly enemies.

In their struggle to survive in the New World, both make choices that will burden their descendants - dedicated physicians and surgeons, pirates and whoremasters - with a legacy of secrets and retribution. The is heritage will set cousin against cousin, physician against surgeon, and ultimately, patriot against Tory.

In a city where black slaves are burned alive on Wall Street, where James Madison and Thomas Jefferson walk The Broad Way arguing America's destiny, and one of the greatest hospitals in the world is born in a former shipwright's workshops by the East River, the fortunes of the Turner and Devreys families are inextricably entwined.

Their pride and ambition, their loves and their hates and their determination to live by their own rules will shape the future of medicine - and the becoming of the dream that is New York.

This is a review that I posted on my blog some time ago, but as I am about to read the sequel I thought it would be a good idea to post this review here:

Subtitled A Novel of Nieuw Amsterdam and Early Manhattan, this is mainly the story of Lucas and Sarah Turner and their descendants. When Lucas and Sarah make the trip to the New World, they are looking for a new start where they will be free to live as they want to. For Lucas that means for him to operate as a surgeon and to have the opportunity to be able to try out some of his medical theories and for Sarah, that she can become an apothecary. When Lucas falls in love with a married woman, there are unexpected consequences that begins to impact the future of his family.

When Lucas agrees that Sarah can marry Jacob de Vries she is mortified, and thus begins a feud that will not only last the lifetime of Sarah and Lucas, but then escalate throughout the generations of their family... although it does have to be said that the next generations are happy to start feuds on their own.

The most interesting of their descendants is probably Jennet, who starts life as a young girl with a talent with the knife (as in surgery). It is however unthinkable for a woman to be a doctor in those days and so she takes to secretly innoculating people against smallpox and attempting to provide medical aid to those that she can in secret.

When she marries, her husband asks her to give it up, and she does so. When her husband returns from a journey as a shadow of his former self, she is transformed from a loving wife to a hard nosed business woman whose interests include several brothels. As she raises her son, her wealth increases, but really her focus is on destroying one of her relatives because of the way he treated her when they were younger.

Swerling takes us on a journey through the descendant's lives, and those of some of their slaves, servants and friends, whilst at the same time giving us glimpses into the life and times of Nieuw Amsterdam, or New York as the city became known as later, touching important events in the city's history without overwhelming with historical information.

I had seen this book recommended quite a few times as a book that fans of Diana Gabaldon would really enjoy, and I can see how those comparisons can be made.

The differences between the two authors:

Swerling covers quite a long period of time in one book. This book starts in 1661 and ends in 1798. Can you imagine how many books Gabaldon would take to cover that same timeframe?

Swerling covers seven generations of the two families, instead of focusing just on the one or two generations.

Swerling is jumps in time between various sections throughout the book, and from generation to generation. She gives a sufficient amount of detail in relation to the key events that in the lives of her characters as opposed to dwelling on everyday life.

The similarities:

In the Outlander series, Gabaldon is just building up to the American Revolution and has her characters interacting with some of the main historical figures. Swerling also brings us a section of the story from that time, and there is also some interaction with historical people, although it is only part of the stories.

Swerling also likes to give us details relating to medical procedures, cures and experiments of the time. The main difference is that her characters are doing trial and error experiments from scratch, whereas Claire at least knew where to start with her knowledge from the 20th century.

I really enjoyed watching New York grow throughout the series, from a town that stretched a mile from the port, to a town where there are elegant brick buildings, and quite a sizeable town over 100 years later.

There are significant enough differences that anyone who doesn't like Gabaldon's work may enjoy this, whilst fans of the Outlander series will also likely enjoy it as well!

The first 130 pages or so of this book were exceptional, and whilst the rest of the book was still enjoyable it didn't quite maintain that high standard all the way through. If there was anything that I wasn't sure of it was of the last few pages, but I believe that there is a sequel out soon so maybe that will clarify things for me a bit more.

I really, really enjoyed this book, and will definitely be reading more of her work.

Rating 4.5/5