Cashelmara

Cashelmara is Susan Howatch’s retelling of the lives of Edward I, Edward II, and Edward III of England. She sets her tale primarily at Cashelmara, an estate in Ireland, beginning in 1859, with Edward’s second marriage to his first wife’s cousin, Marguerite. The characters are wonderfully real and complicated, grabbing your attention and holding it to the end, and the story progresses so smoothly that it is like watching a movie.

Howatch uses a device that has become common, but isn’t always my favorite, a passing of the story from one point of view to another. She does it magnificently. We begin with Edward’s view, pass to Marguerite’s (Margaret), then to Patrick (Edward II) the son of Edward from his first marriage. Patrick show more marries Marguerite’s niece, Sarah (Isabella), and the next voice is hers. I was swept entirely into her story and found the events there fascinating. The fifth voice belongs to Maxwell Drummond (Roger Mortimer), and I wondered why this historical figure has been exploited so little because he is never clearly hero or villain but a blend of the two. No need for invention with such a character springing right off the pages of history. And, the last voice belongs to Ned (Edward III), son of Patrick and Sarah, who is left with the chaos created by his father’s debauchery and his mother’s defection and has to decide how to bring some dignity and morality back to life at Cashelmara.

I am always delighted with a good historical novel. Good ones, well-researched and accurate are difficult to produce and a joy to read. Susan Howatch goes one step further in resettling her characters in another time and place, and yet still being true to what history tells us about them and their relationships to one another. I know of no other writer who does this as well as she does. She always makes me want to know more about the real people behind her fictional ones and I find myself reading histories and researching online for tidbits of information. It is nice when a writer can awaken that kind of curiosity.

There is one more book by Howatch about the Plantagenets that I will try to get to before the end of the year. Hope it is as well-crafted and as much fun as this one was. show less

"The match flared in the darkness, his eyes watched me above the single steady flame.."

I cannot recall the last time a scene from a book has so thoroughly chilled me to the bone (and there were plenty more besides), but you'll have to read it for yourself to see what I'm talking about - I'm not telling! Set in Ireland in the latter part of the 19C, Howatch recounts three generations of the wealthy English de Salis family in six separate "books", each of those being in the first person POV of different characters.

Older Edward de Salis visits his distant cousins the Marriotts in New York and brings a much younger Marguerite home as his bride. Despite the great difference in their ages, the two are well matched and soon have children of show more their own to add to Edward's brood from his first marriage. When Edward's eldest son Patrick inherits the de Salis lands and fortune, he marries Marguerite's niece Sarah and upon their return from New York they live in London until their lavish lifestyle and Patrick's gambling brings it to a screeching halt. Forced to economize, Sarah and Patrick start life fresh at Cashelmara but Edward comes under the influence of childhood friend Derry Stranahan. Derry's unnatural hold over Patrick continues to grow and leads to clashes in his marriage and with his Irish tenants until Derry's fate is sealed during an Irish riot. Eventually Sarah finds her hopes to repair the marriage and run a profitable estate are hindered once again by Patrick's too close relationship with another man - Hugh McGowan. Sarah soon finds herself an unwilling member of a triangle that for the sake of her children she endures until......well you know I don't tell all.

Howatch takes the reader on quite ride in this one as Sarah's desperate situation forces her to make an unwise alliance of her own until she can return - although that return sets in place another set of circumstances leading to a death by natural causes - or is there something more going on here? If this is sounding a bit like you've heard this story before, you're probably right. Howatch based her characters on the lives of England's first three Edwards and that's really half the fun of reading this novel. Can you spot Piers Gaveston? Hugh Despenser? Isabella and her lover Mortimer?

All in all a near perfect read, the scenes between Patrick, Sarah and Hugh were downright bone chilling, let alone the effects of the famine on the Irish tenants. Darn near unputdownable, although the last hundred or so pages did slow down just a tad, and the ending it self just a bit too abrupt - although at 700 pages enough was probably enough. 4.5/5 stars and the story of the third "Edward" continues in Wheel of Fortune - but with entirely different characters. show less

60-year-old Englishman Edward DeSalis marries 18-yo Marguerite, an American girl he meets during a trip to the states just prior to the civil war. He owns several homes but the one she likes the least is Cashelmara, a great estate in Ireland. The story begins with Edward then Marguerite and continues to be told by their descendants and their significant others. This is an epic story (700+ pages) of the DeSalis family that suffers some tragic acts, including murders of both good and evil characters. At the same time the early English generation treats the Irish in much the way one would expect—as lesser people, mere peasants—although that viewpoint changes significantly over time. There’s also some Scottish characters and how they show more are seen by the English and the Irish is very interesting. This is quite the saga. Very long but certainly kept my interest throughout. show less

When his wife dies, Lord de Salis travels to America hoping to ease his grief. What he doesn't expect to find is love. Marguerite is young enough to be Edward’s daughter but there is something about her that makes Edward feel happy again. After they marry he takes Marguerite back to Ireland and Cashelmara, where tragic events begin to unfold.

Cashelmara chronicles three generations of the de Salis family and uses six different POVs. It’s a novel full of gothic romance, tragedy, passion, drama and covers everything from adultery, financial ruin, alcoholism, sexual desires to murder. Each new narrator shows us a bit of the story we've seen before from a completely different viewpoint, and then carries the story on to a new point of show more crisis before handing the story off to another character. Through the multiple points of view, across three generations and a background of world events, we fully see the story of a troubled family.

The first half of the book was fairly slow moving but I was intrigued by the story enough to continue. One I got about 25% into the book I found the characters much more interesting. This book was written in the early seventies when soap opera elements were fairly popular in this style of book. Although the book is long, it is not a difficult book to read and was a fun re-read on a long weekend. show less

Read -- or rather didn't read -- on Kindle. I've enjoyed Susan Howatch's books, particularly the Church of England books. She is a talented & readable writer. However, this story was going nowhere good and the fatal flaws of the characters were clear from the beginning. I just didn't want to read the book as the story worked itself out.

One of Susan Howatch's earlier books, written in her distinctive style with each section written from a different viewpoint, gradually revealing more of the story. The story takes places in the UK and USA, and I didn't like it nearly as much as the Starbridge series, but it's still extremely well-written and quite gripping.

I was surprised by the change in narrators throughout the book, but I loved the different point of views it offered over time. There was amazing growth in the characters and so many fascinating coming of age stories are told. I really enjoyed it and highly recommend if you like historical family sagas.