Reviews for Cashmere

The average rating for Cashmere based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-08-14 00:00:00 Chelsea Mauck Cashelmara by Susan Howatch is a 2012 Open Road Media publication. (Originally published in 1974) What an epic family saga! This is a 'doorstop' tome written way back in 1974, but is now been formatted into digital form by Open Road Media. Susan Howatch, at one time, was the queen of the family saga. I didn't get around to reading her books until decades after they were published, but I loved this style of family drama, which covers several generations of related characters, and is packed with life's trials, triumphs and tragedies, and often includes scandals, mysteries, murders, and a touch of Gothic melodrama. Well before the current love affair with various first person POV's, this novel allows each of the key characters a chance to tell the reader a part of the story. I am not always a fan of this format, but it works beautifully here. The story begins with Edward de Salis, a widower, with a young son still living at home, one he has trouble understanding and keeping in line. When Edward travels to America, he meets his wife's cousin Marguerite- a young girl still in her teens. She's plain compared to her sister, but Edward is immediately smitten with her, and he quickly proposes marriage. Once they are finally married, Edward brings his new bride home to Ireland, to his grand estate-Cashelmara. From there the story follows three generations as they face hardships, difficult marriages, and relationships, while struggling with secrets, forbidden passions, and jealousies, which will eventually set in motion a tragic and shocking chain of events. The book is allegedly based on Edward 1, 2, and 3 of England, but is set in 19th century Ireland. While it might appear as though there is not much happening, but there is a lot going on- if that makes any sense. It's an incredibly absorbing story, and for its time, it was pretty spicy. It wasn't all that sexually explicit, but it dealt with subject matter that had yet to make it into mainstream literature. It also included adulterous behavior and co- habitation between unmarried partners… who were both married to other people. That would have been quite the scandal in the 19th century- and in most areas it still was in 1974. The mystery doesn't develop until later in the saga, but when it does become obvious something is amiss, the suspense leads the way to a stunning conclusion. It goes without saying that I loved this book. I have a weakness for family dramas, and I've often lamented the demise of the big, thick generations sagas. I think it's good to lose oneself in a good, expansive tome from to time. The only downside is that once I've immersed myself within the shelter of a long, dialogue friendly, dramatic, nuanced and atmospheric historical novel, it is sometimes jarring to return to the brash, loud and fast-paced contemporary world of today. 4 stars

Review # 2 was written on 2014-03-18 00:00:00 David Jankovsky 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 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.