As a writer of historical fiction, it's encouraging to see the signs that historical fiction is experiencing resurgence. Indeed, five novels short-listed for the 2001 Parker Romantic Novel are set in the past:
- Elizabeth Chadwick - Lords Of The White Castle (12th and 13th century)
- Philippa Gregory - The Other Boleyn Girl/Harper Collins (Tudor)
- Joanne Harris - Five Quarters Of The Orange/Doubleday -WWII>
- Jane Jackson - Eye Of The Wind/Robert Hale - (18thC)
- Michelle Paver - A Place In The Hills/Corgi - (Roman Timeslip)
About twenty pages into the narrative, I realised that some of Fox's storyline resonated with another novel on my bookshelves: Shield of Three Lions, by Pamela Kaufman. Both novels have as their main characters young noble girls, who take on male identities, with the aim of reaching the crusades of the first Richard of England. Both characters spend time at the University of Paris, befriend prostitutes and join a troupe of performers. Both characters - in their boy's disguise- catch the eye of Richard. Though, at this point, the character in Fox's book decides then to return to her female gender. The two novels even have their two female characters falling in love with a Scottish knight, escaping from his dysfunctional family.
Yet- the writers 'flesh' their stories in entirely different ways. Whilst the writer of the Shields strived to adhere 'soothly' to the canon of historical romance, where all ends happily, Fox's novel falls in the category of literature that uses history as its platform for expression. Scraping through Stone's interest remains with the internal struggles of her two main Characters, as they search for identity and learn that not even death takes from you what you love.
Fox's lyrically woven and beautifully wrought tale - heavily threaded with grief and terrible bloodshed - takes the reader into an almost mystical realm, as if we journey with Fox's characters in an epic dream. A novel of sensitivity, Scraping through Stone brought me close to tears.
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