HT News - The Firemaster's Mistress Noon Time Chats

Christie Dickason's book The Firemasters Mistress is the focus of Noontime Chat this week over at J Kaye's Book Blog and Peeking Between the Pages.

The Firemasters Mistress is set against the backdrop of The Gunpowder Plot, where Guy Fawkes and his fellow radicals tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament. With the anniversary of the plot coming up soon it's a really good time to be reading this book.

If you would like to follow along with the discussions, then this is the schedule

Monday at J. Kaye's Book Blog.
Tuesday is at Dar’s place, Peeking Between the Pages.
Wednesday is back at J. Kaye's Book Blog.
Thursday is at Peeking Between the Pages.
Friday will be at both Peeking Between the Pages and J. Kaye's Book Blog where we'll wrap up the end of the discussion.

Marg's review of the book can be found here

The Principessa by Christie Dickason

Robert Cecil, Secretary of State to James I, has a problem. He owes a vast and secret debt to the Prince of La Spada, who is dying and has called in the loan – and Cecil cannot pay. Even worse, he has staked as security, without royal authority, the King's Great Pearl. To Cecil's surprise, the Prince will agree to a hostage but he wants Cecil's firemaster: Francis Quoynt, the best in his dangerous business. Cecil immediately seizes the chance, for Quoynt also serves as his spy.

La Spada is a wealthy, beautiful Italian city–state – the gateway of Europe. Whoever controls the mountain passes of La Spada also controls the flow of intelligence and much of the trade from the Middle East. As his mind disintegrates into fantastic obsessions, the Prince makes his treacherous illegitimate son his heir. Which thwarts the deadly ambition of his daughter, Sofia – the Principessa.

Sofia is young, seductive, wily and recently widowed. Already a blooded player of politics, she could outdo Lucretia Borgia in the lethal game of survival. Which she must now play to save herself and her beloved state. As unpredictable as gunpowder, will she choose to seek Francis's heart, or his life? Or both?

Events in The Principessa start two years after those in The Firemaster's Mistress. In the intervening two years, Cecil has fulfilled his promises by being Frances Quoynt's sponsor, and as a result Frances has been the fireworks master of choice of the rich and famous of England. For all of his newly acquired wealth, Frances is somewhat dissatisfied with his life, and he knows that the day will come when the wily Cecil is going to call on Frances to once again undertake some deed for him. When the time does come, he is somewhat surprised to find that it means that he will have to travel to the distant principality of La Spada. The principality is at a critical crossroads in it's history. It's ruler is dying, and there are two possible successor - one is his legitimised son and prescribed heir Ettore, and the other his legitimate daughter Sofia.

As always when working for Cecil, nothing is as straight forward as it seems, because not only is Frances being asked to get lavish funerary fireworks ready and acquire the secret loan bond that could very well be the end of Cecil if anyone in England finds out about it. The Prince is also determined that, in order to ensure that he gets to heaven after a lifetime of debauchery, he must be made to fly towards heaven right at the moment of his death and that Frances is going to help him achieve this goal. The prince is dying of the pox and is completely mad, to the point of killing his attendants for the smallest of reasons. So not only does Frances have to survive the Prince by some how ensuring that he is attempting to do his will, but he has to survive the political manoeverings of the court at this time of change, and that means walking a fine line between Prince Ettore and the Principessa, Sofia. Adding to the complications, there is a smouldering attraction between Frances and Sofia - one that can go nowhere given that Frances is a common firemaster and she is royalty.

Whilst this is once again a very entertaining story, I do think that it lost something in moving away from actual historical events and moving towards fictional places and people. I did check and I could no reference to any place called La Spada, that was supposed to be at a crucial location in Europe - a multicultural crossroads located between the lands of the Hapsburgs, the Italian principalities like Venice, and the Ottoman empire.

One interesting group of people included in the novel were the Uskok's who were the loyal guard of the dying Prince, and who seem to be from a group of Balkan people that I haven't actually heard much about previously.

As a character, Frances was once again well written - a man driven by honour and learning, trying to do the best that he can in difficult circumstances. His relationship with Sofia was complex and twisting. He was constantly aware of the shifting sands in their relationship - never quite sure of whether she was using him or if she loved him. The resolution of their relationship was very surprising to me as it is not one that I could see Frances accepting, but I don't want to say too much more without spoiling!

Sofia was harder for me to warm up to. She was extremely ambitious, and I can see how living constantly in fear of her life would cause her to become as withdrawn and secretive as she was. She did open up to Frances eventually, but she was definitely using him for her own means for a long time. There were glimpse of a kind heart, especially in the way she treated the librarian of the castello, but it probably wouldn't have hurt to see a little more of that side of her.

The story was entertaining, if somewhat fantastical in parts, and is an interesting follow up to The Firemaster's Mistress.

The Firemaster's Mistress by Christie Dickason

The Firemaster is Francis Quoynt, recently returned from Flanders and dreaming of making fireworks rather than ordnance. Kate Peach was abandoned by Quoynt, then lost her entire family to plague, and has since been forced to live as a kept woman in Southwark. Now they meet again, and the circumstances are not good. Guido Fawkes and other papist hotheads are about to appear in their lives in the gaudy, conspiracy-ridden streets of Shakespeare's London.

One the fourth centenary of Guido Fawkes' attempt to blow up King James I and his parliament, here is the astonishing and never-before-told story of the infamous Gunpowder and Treason Plot. Guido Fawkes and Robin Catesby, Robert Cecil and Francis Bacon are among the historical characters that spring to life in Whitehall and the City - and the fishing village of Brighton - as a very surprising love story confounds expectations and a stunning new conspiracy theory unfolds.

I bought this book in December of 2005, and there it has sat languishing, waiting on the shelves for me to find the time to read it as I try to balance my ever growing TBR pile and juggle between library books and the books I own. And there it would probably have stayed except for the fact that I was notified that I have been selected to receive the sequel to this book, called The Principessa as part of the Harper Collins First Look program.

The thing is, if it had of just stayed there, I would have missed out on quite an entertaining read. It tells the story of the Gunpowder Plot, an event that is remembered each year in November at Guy Fawkes/Fireworks night celebrations. Given that this is an event that is still celebrated, I am somewhat surprised that I haven't come across more historical fiction about this event.

The central characters in this story are Francis Quoynt, his father Francis 'Boomer ' Quoynt, Kate Peach and Robert Cecil.

Francis has not long returned from the battlefields of Flanders, and is living with his father at Powder Mote, when he receives a request from Robert Cecil, English Secretary of State. The Quoynt family had a long history of being guns-for-hire and so Francis headed to London to see what was in store for him - not realising just how much his life was about to change. Cecil asks Francis to turn traitor, to try and infiltrate a group that was planning on trying to kill the King. The only thing that Francis needed to know was that Cecil would provide support to him secretly, but if he was caught, there would be a chance that he would not be able to be saved, and would be treated as a traitor along with his accomplices. So, the world that Francis agrees to enter is one filled with subterfuge, mistrust and secrecy. This becomes even more apparent when Francis is approached by Cecil's political arch enemy and cousin, Francis Bacon, who questions whether Cecil is really acting on behalf of the King or perhaps for other, more sinister reasons.

As Francis has to learn to walk the fine line between becoming embroiled in a dangerous and treasonous plot, yet still being loyal to either Cecil or England, he is approached by Mistress Kate Peach, the former love of his life - the woman he left behind when he went to Flanders. For Kate, the intervening years have been tough. She is the only member of her family left after her village was visited by the Plague, and she now lives in the seedy Southwark area of London, making a little spare cash making gloves, but mostly being a kept woman. It seems that Kate is somehow embroiled in this plot as well, and Francis has an added thing to worry about - how to keep Kate safe and away from the noose that awaits all traitors. That is made all the more difficult when Kate has some secrets of her own.

Meanwhile, Boomer is seeing events from 20 years ago come back to haunt him, and yet, it somehow appears as though those events are somehow connected to the mess that his son has now got himself into.

It took me a little while to get into this book, but in the end I did quite enjoy it. Dickason does propose an interesting new theory on what the Gunpowder Plot was really about. To be honest, I didn't quite buy it, but it certainly is an entertaining theory if nothing else.

There are some scenes in this books that are quite graphic, including some sex scenes, a scene where a Jesuit priest is hung, drawn and quartered, and the story of what happened to Kate when her family died. The latter does go a long way towards explaining some of Kate's fears though.

One thing that I am pleased about, is that the author didn't go the most obvious route when it came to the relationship between Francis and Kate. It was quite surprising to see what did happen, but I am not going to spoil here! One thing that I will say is that by taking the option that she did, it certainly left the opportunity for a sequel more open than it may have otherwise done. Oh, and the mistress referred to in the title isn't Kate, but it's not another woman - how's that for a tease?

Overall, this turned out to be an interesting read about an interesting time in English history. I am glad that I finally read this, and I am looking forward to reading The Principessa.

Rating 4/5