Melancholy and magic in this month’s historical fiction: Roman Mornings by Matson
Roman Mornings by Matson Taylor (Scribner £18.99, 384pp)
Melancholy and magic wend their winsome way through the streets of 1970s Rome as Taylor’s endearing characters follow their destinies under the watchful eye of the Eternal City’s curiously sentient statues.
We meet sprightly, elderly Floss, who has an irrepressible sense of fun and shares a beautiful, but badly wired, palazzo with Clementine.
Clemmie arrived with a head full of dreams and poetry, but now feels like an invisible middle-aged woman. She befriends Montgomery Marsh, a carpenter who’s nursing a secret sorrow, and a head injury after Clementine crashes into him on her Vespa.
Taylor’s prose is lilting and lyrical, capturing the city’s beguiling atmosphere, creating the perfect backdrop for the allure of la dolce vita.
Venus, Vanishing by Rebecca Birrell (Picador £16.99, 384pp)
There’s a sombre gorgeousness to Birrell’s smart, sensuous debut. Meticulously researched, this vital, luminous novel slowly edges into danger and destruction from its opening in 1927 Berlin.
The city’s changing mood is seen through the eyes of a young Jewish woman, Hannah. She runs away from her family, and recreates herself as a painter.
She sketches in galleries, drinks in clubs, falls in love with Saul at a museum and Charlotte, a dancer at a nightclub. Precarious and pleasurable, it’s a life of new experiences.
Then along comes the dangerously enigmatic Elke, who commissions her to paint a series of nudes, and Hannah enters a complex world of obsession, patronage and chicanery, as the Third Reich begins its merciless ruination and she is caught up in its menace . . .
The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion is available now from the Mail Bookshop
The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower (Bloomsbury £9.99, 160pp)
Fresh, cheerful and fizzing with fun, Brower races off into 1880s London in the company of her heroine, 20-year-old, orphaned Emma, who’s forced to live in the garret of her own home by her cousin, Archibald.
The mini mansion is situated in the eccentric neighbourhood of St Crispian’s, near Primrose Hill.
Brower makes brilliant use of the diary format, unspooling Emma’s thoughts on her precarious financial situation, her demanding Aunt Eugenia, her friendships with the golden Arabella and the indefatigable Mary.
Mary introduces her to wolfish Jack, who helps her outsmart an old enemy, as is revealed in these first two volumes of a 25-book series.