None So Blind, Alis Hawkins (Canelo, 2021, first published 2018)

Between 1839 and 1843, the Rebecca rioters of west Wales rode out at night to tear down toll gates and make their protest against the high tolls charged on the roads by the businessmen and investors who ran the Turnpike Trusts. The rioters blacked their faces and wore women’s dresses, and they were armed with guns and other weapons. Their visits were sometimes announced in advance by threatening letters signed by “Becca”. Some rioters were arrested and transported, and the unrest affected many lives.

The history makes for a powerful setting for None So Blind. As Alis Hawkins explains in a historical note at the end of the novel, she has taken the story of the Rebeccas a little further by imagining that they have branched out into being a sort of moral vigilante group. It’s an idea that works really well, and even has an interesting feminist twist as at least one man gets visited for taking advantage of his female servants.

The public turmoil is matched by barrister Harry Probert-Lloyd’s private upheaval as he comes to term with the loss of his sight. It means leaving his career in London and returning to the life of a country squire which he had hoped to escape. As he has to face up to his increasing blindness, he has also to face up to the secrets of his past when a skeleton is discovered under the roots of an old tree.

The story is told in two alternating first-person narratives, Harry’s and his young clerk John Davies. They both know more about the victim than they want to let on, and this gives their narratives an added depth. Concealment by a first person narrator can be quite a difficult thing to pull off. Since we’re privy to the characters’ thoughts, it’s easy to wonder why, if Harry or John know something relevant to the case, they avoid fully revealing it until the plot demands a resolution. It’s a device that can feel contrived and throw you out of the story. Here, the fact that they are both appealing characters, combined with an engrossing mystery, keeps the pages turning. A strong sense of place, community and family add to the interest, especially as Harry and John clash with those who would prefer to let the past stay in the past.

Wales, protest, attractive characters, a quest for justice and a well-written novel: how could I not enjoy None So Blind? And so I did, and I’ve already bought the next book in the series.

And since writing this, I’ve read the next book! In Two Minds was as gripping and well-written as the first– so now on to the third, Those Who Know. It’s lovely to discover a series I really like.

You might also be interested in my review of Janine Marshall Wood’s No Ordinary Convict: A Welshman Called Rebecca (non-fiction), which tells the story of Welsh farmer John Hughes who was transported to Australia for his part in the Rebecca riots on this blog.

'We will have a fire': arson during eighteenth-century enclosures

Join our Winter Solstice Blog Hop! Thirty writers throw light on a dazzling range of topics . Follow the links at the end of this article to be enlightened and brightened by our blogs... “Inclosure came and trampled on the grave Of labours rights and left the poor a slave And memorys pride ere want to wealth did bow Is both the shadow and the substance now.” John Clare, The Mores On 1 May 1794, the writer Hester (Thrale) Piozzi of Streatham Park recorded in her diary that the furze on the common had been set on fire in protest at the enclosure of land “which really & of just Right belonged to the poor of the Parish”. Yet even while she acknowledged that the protesters had justice on their side, she criticised them for not “going to Law like wise fellows” and concluded: “So senseless are Le Peuple , & so unfitted to be souverain”. The senseless poor of Streatham were not unique. During the eighteenth centu...

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My blog has moved to my new website and is now at https://lucienneboyce.com/blog/ I'm no longer posting blogs on this site, but you can still read the old blogs on this site, or you can find them at the new location.

From Hogarth to Rowlandson: Medicine in Art in Eighteenth Century Britain, Fiona Haslam, (Liverpool University Press, 1996)

I’m often asked about how I go about doing the research for my historical novels. One of the sources I usually mention is visual art. I’ve always found that looking at contemporary paintings, prints, sketches, sculpture and so on reveals a wealth of information about how people of the past lived – what they wore, what sort of houses they lived in, how they spent their time, the towns and villages they inhabited. Going to an art gallery is one of my favourite research trips – especially if there’s a decent café with tea and cake at the end of an afternoon’s study! Of course, you don’t always have to take artistic representations literally. It’s obvious that whatever you’re looking at is an interpretation of the reality: it’s how the artist saw it. In fact, this subjectivity can be a real advantage if you’re looking for ideas about how people lived and thought. Often the most exaggerated representations, such as satirical prints or caricature, are the most revealing, telling us thi...

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