Customer Reviews

A Secret Alchemy: A Novel (P.S.)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Unfortunately, this novel was not to my taste.
I knew before reading this novel that the narrative was from three different prospectives--Elizabeth Wydeville, Anthony Wydeville, and modern-day historian Una Proyr--and I was looking forward to reading it. I enjoy novels with a narrative structure that expertly manages to weave the past and the present.
In my opinion, this novel did not succeed in this. I found the modern-day narrative to be far too distant from that of Elizabeth and Anthony. I found the connections between the two to be far too loosely attached, and thus found myself hurrying through the modern narrative to return back to the words of Elizabeth.
Only towards the end of the novel, when Una Proyr actually began to visit the places of Elizabeth and Anthony's story, did I feel the story begin to take shape. And yet unfortunately, by that point, I felt that it was too late.

Una Pryor returns to England to settle her affairs, as well as the fate of her family's old home and printing business The Chantry, the cousins are torn whether to sell or to preserve it and it's long history. Interspersed with Una's story is that of Anthony and Elizabeth Woodville as they reflect back on their lives and the events that lead to what is now known as the Wars of The Roses and the disappearance of Elizabeth's two sons - the Princes in the Tower.

Darwin does a nice job of crafting the voices of both Elizabeth and Anthony as well as weaving Una's struggles with her grief over the death of her husband and a surprise meeting with a man from her past. It was quite refreshing to see the Woodvilles (especially Elizabeth) portrayed in a more realistic manner and not the black hearted villains you typically find them in novels on this period from today's latest and *cough* greatest authors. I have to say the two reviewers who posted just before me have done such a darn good job of putting this book into words that I really don't have much more to add. While I didn't find it the fastest paced book, I did enjoy it a great deal nonetheless. Four stars.

A Secret Alchemy is narrated by two historical characters, Elizabeth Woodville and her brother Anthony, and by one fictitious one, Una Pryor, a historian who's returned to England from her home in Australia to sell her English property. During her stay in England, the recently widowed Una, who's working on a book about Anthony Woodville and his reading, visits the cousins with whom she was raised and encounters the man whom she loved as an adolescent.

Anthony's story begins with the last journey of his life: he is bound for Pontefract Castle, where he knows that the future Richard III has scheduled his execution. Elizabeth tells her story from the quiet confines of Bermondsey Abbey, to which she has retired from the court of Henry VII. Neither tells his or her life story from beginning to end; instead, they each focus on a few selected episodes, such as Elizabeth's courtship by Edward IV and Anthony's exile abroad. As a result, the cast of characters is relatively small: we meet Edward IV, Edward V, a few Woodvilles, Anthony's lover, and Elizabeth's long-time attendant and confidante. There's a cameo appearance by Thomas Malory and a couple of very brief ones by the future Richard III.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Anthony's and Elizabeth's stories, and had tears in my eyes after reading both (which doesn't happen very often, especially when I know the ending). Anthony's tale, especially the love story Darwin gives him (which I found very plausible) and his terrible grief when he realizes that his charge Edward V is at the mercy of Richard III, is very moving. Elizabeth, who's so often reduced to a caricature by historical novelists, is beautifully drawn here. She's strong-minded and courageous, yet vulnerable. There's even a touch of humor here and there, as when Elizabeth's earthy sister Margaret comments on the queen's morning sickness.

The contemporary story, Una's, was well done also. I didn't find it as compelling as the medieval ones, but Darwin did a nice job of working the historical strands and the contemporary strand into an integrated whole.

Darwin has researched her novel with care, and she provides an afterword putting the tales of Anthony and Elizabeth in their historical context.

I heartily recommend this novel.

Una Pryor, a historian whose scholarly life revolves around books, returns to England to sell her house and help her cousins make the final decision about the fate of the Chantry, the home the orphaned Una had shared with her family members. (It also still houses the Solmani Press, a fine arts printing business founded by her ancestors more than a century previously.) But the story in this book is more than just the one of how Una and those around her come to terms with their own loves and losses, but that of the two figures from the past that Una intends to study -- Antony and Elizabeth Woodville (here known as Antony and Elysabeth Wydvil, providing the medieval spelling.) Elizabeth, the widow of a Lancastrian knight, goes on to captivate and marry the Yorkist king; Antony, a scholarly knight, becomes the guardian of their young son Edward, the heir to the throne.

Una grapples with the realities of her past losses, of her husband to cancer two years earlier, and, years before that, of the young man who she believed was her soulmate and who worked with her Uncle Gareth at the Solmani press. In the parallel narrative that frames the book, Antony and Elysabeth take turns recalling what led to their own most grievous loss -- that of the young prince, Edward. (He would become one of the 'Princes in the Tower', probably murdered, possibly by the uncle who took his crown, or by the invading Tudor king who killed that uncle and founded a new dynasty.) Una laments the fact that she can never really know what their world was like, even as she plans to write a scholarly work about their book collections. She wonders what their world smelt like: "sweet herbs and banquets? Latrines and flyblown meat? Sweat and fear?" What did it sound like? The court overseen by Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville was famous for its music, but Una wants to know more. "If I strain my eyes hard enough, perhaps I might hear them. If I could only peer hard enough through time-thickened, time-thinned air, they might come before my eyes."

Readers of this beautifully-written novel are far luckier -- we see and hear, thanks to Darwin's command of both the historical facts and a wonderful prose style that seems to slip almost effortlessly from the more flexible modern style used in the passages devoted to Una and her quest to save the Chantry to a more stylized English, marking the passage of centuries and the shift to a completely different world and world view of Antony and Elysabeth. Antony, for example, reflects on Edward IV's womanizing and carousing in the latter days of his reign: "He grew high in flesh and slack, the bright gold of him tarnished." In the hands of a lesser writer, or left without the more relaxed 'modern' passages, that might sound precious or affected. Instead, it just becomes Antony's voice.

Of the three characters, it is Antony that emerges the most clearly. His narrative is told as a look backwards in time as he travels across England in a day, knowing that the next morning at Pontefract Castle, he will be beheaded. His grief isn't for himself, but for his nephew, whom he thinks of as his son, "my boy". In the final stages of the book, Una retraces Antony's steps in a kind of pilgrimage of her own, by car with her onetime soulmate, Mark. She ponders what Antony's journey must have been like. "We know that they told him (of his upcoming execution) and we know the journey need have taken no more than a day, so near midsummer; a long, hot, single day." Ultimately, it is as if the emotionally-charged Una can't distinguish between her love for her late husband, her feelings for Mark and her fascination with Antony. "It suddenly seems unbearable... that I can't know Anthony, that I can't read his books, talk to him, walk beside him, look into his eyes, touch his hand."

It's hard to do justice to this book in a review, packed as it is with intriguing multi-dimensional character and ruminations on everything from the role of books in life to the way that emotions somehow echo through time. On a few occasions, the imagery starts to feel a bit heavy-handed, as with the repetition of the sun and moon theme (Solmani is a derivative of the words for both sun and moon; there is sun and moon jewelry; Elysabeth is the moon to the king's sun, etcetera). But those criticisms feel almost churlish set against the book's strengths. It's easily one of the best books of historical fiction I've read in a while, one that never allows effortless accuracy to detract from plot or character, and that provides a convincing portrayal of the Woodvilles and the question of what may have happened to the Princes in the Tower. Certainly, it's by far the best of the many books focused on this era and topic (to name only a few: The Sunne In Splendour: A Novel of Richard III, The King's Grey Mare, The King's Daughter. A Novel of the First Tudor Queen (Rose of York)) and looks as if it will handily beat Philippa Gregory's offering as well. It also persuades me that it's possible to do justice to parallel narratives set in the past and present in a single book.

As what we now call the War of the Roses (and that was called at the time The Cousins' War) reaches its bloody climax with the death of Antony and the young prince and ultimately of Richard III -- and many of their supporters -- the modern-era war of the Pryor cousins is also resolved, in a way that may feel rather pedestrian in contrast, but is also entirely logical in the context of the book. This was a book that I devoured in less than a day, reluctant to put down for even a second, but equally reluctant to have end. When it did, I promptly downloaded the author's other novel onto my Kindle.

You don't need to know a lot about the War of the Roses to follow this novel, just a willingness to pay attention as the various bits of background are spelled out over its pages rather than being presented en masse in some kind of historical FAQ. Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys literate and literary fiction revolving around relationships; an interest in history would be a plus. Very strongly recommended.

Since the book deals so much with printing, anyone whose curiosity is piqued could seek out Elizabeth Eisenstein's books on the subject, her magisterial The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (Volumes 1 and 2 in One) or the more succinct The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. Another, less scholarly work is A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books, as beautifully written in its own way as this novel.

After reading this unusual split time novel it took a little thought to decide how much I truly enjoyed the effort.The story is woven between the lives of Anthony Woodville, his sister Elizabeth, queen of Edward IV, and Una Pryor, a modern English academic.


Una is researching the books Elizabeth and Anthony may have owned.Her appearances are autobiographical sketches of an orphaned toddler raised by her Bohemian private printing press owning aunt and uncle.The extended family live in an arts and crafts bungalow attached to the ruins of a medieval chapel.

The lives of the Woodville sibs are portrayed sympathetically without being sanguine, minus the ventures into Ricardian white hot hatred of this historically important family.

With all the back and forth between modern and medieval, staying focused on the characters was quite easy thanks to Darwin's compact style.I especially enjoyed the parallels between then and now, some subtle, others not. The ancient chantry and Eltham Palace was an agreeable one. Anthony's final journey to his death at Pontefract crafted as a pilgrimige was also evocative.

Ms. Darwin leaves no doubts as to what she believes happened to the Princes in the Tower.This book is filled with people you will care about and I found myself wishing to know what happened next to Una, her family and friends.


My only criticisms would be that at some points the navel gazing was a bit much and a touch of humor would have been appreciated. Also, Edward IV was almost a caricature of the oft portrayed debauched womanizing drunkard when we know that he was a historically complex monarch and man.

Good summer read for those who love the Wars of the Roses era and are looking for a unique perspective.

The strength of this book is the love story between Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. Darwin writes one of the most beautiful descriptions of married love that I have ever read. The way Elizabeth resists Edward is not shown as being calculating but as a desire to preserve her honor, even under family pressure to give in. Edward respects and loves her all the more, and together, as man and wife, they discover a secret alchemy.

The love story was told so exquisitely that it made the descriptions of life in modern London seem so dreary, as if being in a perpetual shower of rain. I tried to read through the modern parts as quickly as possible. I wish that Darwin had focused solely on the Plantagenets and tried not to make a modern corollary. The only benefit of it was that it emphasized that in the days of the Wars of the Roses, although the times were terrible, people experienced great passion as opposed to the crassness of lust and the easily discarded relationships of today.

Thanks to both my primary and secondary school teachers, The War of the Roses was one of the more inscrutable periods of European history. Thanks to Emma Darwin's novel, the family and political dynamics are clear. She has expertly told the medieval story with a parallel, modern thread which occurs at the same genuine sites in present-day England. The family tree at the front clarifies the aristocratic and royal relations involved in the conflicts. Aside from the educational values, I could not wait to return to reading the beautiful prose which moves throughout the book. Particularly moving is the marriage proposal of Edward IV, and his alchemic allusions which persuaded Elisabeth's acceptance. If you read one historical novel this year, consider setting aside time for this treasure.

A twin narrative encircles this intense drama centering on Una Pryor, a historian who travels from Sydney to London to make peace with her past, and that of siblings Antony and Elizabeth Woodville, who lived through the noble sufferings of the Wars of the Roses. All three are severely tested throughout the course of this novel as they embark on their pilgrimages. Of course, such is the way of history with Elizabeth Woodville caught up in the machinations of a Machiavellian Richard, Duke of Gloucester who seeks to usurp the throne from her two young princes, and also that of Antony, given legal guardianship of the Ned, the eldest Prince by Edward IV`s own appointment, but who is soon imprisoned in Yorkshire, and later murdered by Richard. Meanwhile, Una is desperate to find something impersonal to hold onto, something that won't remind her of her husband Adam, who recently died of cancer back in Sydney. A researcher who wants to write about of Antony and Elizabeth Woodville, in terms of their books, (Antony was the first writer that Caxton printed in England), Una's ultimate desire is to make Elizabeth and Antony breathe and to tell us something about them and also that of Edward who seized the throne from Henry VI.

Family, affinity, allegiance, these are things shape everybody's life, both in the present and in the past are important facets of this novel. While Una has ostensibly come back to England, to sign-off on her long-dead English life, creeping over her is the thought that they still do shape it. This isn't a professional visit. Una must sell the family house, the Chantry and to see her family, her Uncle Gareth and her older sister Izzy, and her brother Lionel in order to sign away all that was once important to her and go home. The Chantry, the home of the family printing business, the Solmani Press is now cared for by the aging Uncle Gareth. Set before the Thames, wet cool and slightly rotten, this once thriving business has been beset with tough financial times. Now the House reeks of the dry office-smell of dusty files and fax machines and has a damp underlay of mildew and is in a solid layer of despair of which weighs down in Una "like a riverbed above which life goes on swirling by."

As the fog of a missing Adam fills her head, hanging between her and everything else, Una reconnects with Mark, her childhood companion who was much loved by Uncle Gareth, but who mysteriously vanished when Izzy and Una were teenagers. The Pryor is a family who are changing sides, a delicate family matter - just like the business of Edward IV's tumultuous Kingdom. While Izzy is determined that the family archive would be safe in a university library in San Diego, a the possibility of rescue for the Chantry comes when Mark suggests an appeal to put the estate in a type of trust. This causes something inside of Una to stir, something small but fierce, perhaps desire and even love.

Darwin constantly plays out Una's pilgrimage of love and against that of Antony and Elizabeth. Anthony understands that he will still die, all the while prayerful and wracked with guilt that he didn't more to protect his nephews. His chief terrors realized, those for his boy Ned, "who is his son in all but name." He had done no plotting but only fulfilled the late King's charge as best he could. And then there's Elisabeth, the grief, a sickness that overtakes her body, lamenting the loss of her husband, Sir John Grey, and Edward's fanatical courting of her, and later her reluctant marriage, and the danger of sacrificing her good name and her honor as a woman and as a mother when Richard issues his final command of the blood royal and takes away her remaining son. The author packs her novel with significant material, vivid and poignant, the lovely Elizabeth appears to be much like Una - both are widows and both suffer from disappointment and the hands of men, while Antony and Mark maybe separated by time, but both are wracked with regret that they could have done more. Rich in period detail, both in the 15th century and in modern day England, Mark and Una's trip to Sheriff Hutton, Eltham Palace, Towton, the Minster and the City of York along the river Ouse, add another colorful layer to the beautifully accented historical sections. Meanwhile, history continues to turn like fortunes wheel where pain and grief are hate fear and love are no more than a shadow. While the novel`s intricate narrative structure is sometimes confusing, most notable is Darwin's deftly handled integration of memory and history which ends up being as fleeting and as transparent as a scrap of gauze tossed to the wind. Leonard July 09.

Following the death of her husband, modern day historian Una Pryor is in England visiting her family and taking care of business. To escape her grief, she researches the lives of the fifteenth century Woodville siblings, Anthony and Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was married to Sir John Gray, but when he died the young widow pursued and married Edward IV; they have ten children, but when the king dies none of them take the throne as his Brother Richard acts swiftly. An earl, Anthony tries to save his nephew Ned from his fraternal uncle and get him crowned as the rightful king. Meanwhile Una turns to estate's handyman, Mark Fisher whom she has loved forever for solace.

A SECRET ALCHEMY is an interesting fiction that rotates Una's present life with fictional historian's deep look at the court dominated lives of Anthony and Elizabeth. The action is mostly off page, but ultra fans of fifteenth century royal intrigue will enjoy this fine entry somewhat overwhelmed with the details of how the Woodville siblings struggled to survive the internal battles for the throne.; which he and her sons (the Princes in the Tower) did not.

Harriet Klausner