(Review of an ARC via Netgalley)

Well, this is a bizarre book. I never thought the day would come when I'd stay awake late at night, fervently reading a novel about Francis Bacon, but there you go. Stranger things have happened.

I've been craving a novel about James I and his male favourites for years and years, and although this isn't quite the novel I would have expected, it's a bit of a riot, and I honestly have no idea where to start reviewing it. It really is the sort of book that begs for a full literary analysis. Blackmore's version of Francis Bacon is such a compelling yet unreliable narrator that the first half of the book really threw me off kilter in the best way; it's obvious that Bacon isn't who he says - or thinks - he is, and the journey of discovering that alongside him was sort of exhilarating, if frustrating because he's supposed to be so clever and yet sees so little of his own behaviour and character. He's a great narrative voice, deliberately anachronistic and sympathetic despite his very obvious flaws. The rest of the characters were all interesting and well-drawn, especially Mrs Turner, who, even through Bacon's very limited perspective, clearly has her own machinations and motives. Villiers, as he appears here, is a fascinating sort; I never knew what to make of him, even at the end. It's the sort of book that builds and builds up to a climax which I've really not stopped thinking about for days, and will probably ruminate over for months to come. Few books manage to linger in that way.

Really, the one thing that makes this a 4 star rather than a 5 star rating is just the fact that Blackmore has chosen a series of real historical events (i.e. the relationships of James I, Robert Carr and George Villiers) but completely changed absolutely everything about them, to the extent that I wonder if it needed to be based on those real events at all. I do fully understand that historical fiction is just that, fiction, and that it doesn't need to follow the events as they happened, but Blackmore's version of it all bears quite literally no resemblance to any of the sources (as an example, Bacon and Coke's rivalry, in historical terms, was very much centred around Coke marrying Bacon's own betrothed, whereas here there's no mention of Bacon ever being engaged or married, even though their rivalry is a huge plot point) and I do wonder if inventing a new set of characters would have been less jarring in some instances. There were times that the grotesque (and, honestly, slightly offensive to the Scots, I should imagine) caricature of King James was just a bit weird. Still, I do know that the use of real characters gives relevancy and context to the themes, as well as making it just a more interesting read in general, so this may entirely be personal taste.

As a novel, it has so much to say about the nature of love, and posterity, and power, and also saffron coloured ruffs, and although I'm still hoping that a more sympathetic novel about King James and Villiers might be written one day, I'm inordinately glad that this wasn't it.

Edit: except I'm still thinking about it months later, so clearly it is, in fact, a 5 star book.