Books 2008: "Victory" by Susan Cooper
Victory by Susan Cooper
In Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence
, modern-day children stumble upon immortals, magic, heroism and ancient evil, always in a variety of charming tourist locations (and never, for example, in Haringey, or Luton).
Victory is a little reminiscent of this, as adolescent Molly stumbles upon an old book which somehow connects her to someone in the past: a sailor in Nelson's navy. However, Molly does not turn out to be immortal, king of anything, or have any mysterious powers, except for a surprisingly detailed knowledge of life as a powder monkey aboard a Nelsonian warship.
Cooper is a skilful storyteller and expertly weaves together two lives from different centuries into a satisfying narrative. It is an exciting book especially if you like Patrick O'Brian's sea stories of the same period, although regrettably there are no appearances by Captain Jack Aubrey, Stephen Maturin, or Killick's now-legendary coffee.