Niccolo Rising: The House of Niccolo 1

This is Europe in 1460 and there is a war on. There are a lot of wars on: Lancaster fights York for the English crown, Naples against Genoa, The French king fights his own son and anybody else who wants a go. They are all connected. It is highly complicated.There is no war in Bruges though, that would be far too damaging for trade. And Bruges is way more passive aggressive than that. There are deals and counter deals, concessions and alliances, spies, secret messages and unbreakable ciphers, and, of course, the men that now how to break them. There is also a naked ostrich.A person, if they pay attention, and listen, and speak in the right way to the right people, could work out how to play the game. They could make a lot of money. They might also make a lot of enemies.Nicolas might be such a man. A dye shop apprentice, whose good natured high spirits and hapless adventures seem to bring him endless trouble. And yet he is always the one smiling at the end, and behind that smile is a shrewd mind and an eye for detail.There are a lot of words in this book, I lived with it a long time. It is meticulously researched, this author can really bring history to life. The atmosphere seeps from the pages, the Flanders winter, the carnival, the docks with their barges and cranes. It gets inside you. There are the raucous adventures and careful scheming, but much less of the arrogant swashbuckling of Dorothy Dunnett's other novels. The story is tense and complex. This is just the first book in an epic 8 book series.No one is quite as they appear, their truths are teased out slowly and are seldom what you would expect. But it is still an enigma, I haven't solved the riddle yet. Perhaps I just need to dig a little deeper, but without a map it is difficult to know where to dig. I think I should sleep with it under my pillow a little while longer.

This opening novel of Dunnett's House of Niccolo series is a gem right from the off. We first encounter the protagonist, Nicholas, as he relaxes in an (empty) bath, which is strapped to the back of a canal barge and destined for the Duke of Burgundy. The year is 1459 and the eighteen-year-old has hitched a ride back to Bruges with Felix, his employer’s son, and Julius, his employer’s notary. The gentle absurdity of the scene sets the tone for most of the book, in which Dunnett’s delicious humour underlies many of the events and exchanges. This novel sets the scene for the rest of the series by introducing, vividly and sympathetically, her key characters; she enlivens the story from the off with bristling, brilliant dialogue; and she creates a warm sense of human relationships.Nicholas is known in Bruges by his Flemish diminutive, Claes. As an apprentice at the Charetty dyeworks, he’s a person of insignificant status, although his pranks, pratfalls and eternal good nature have won him the friendship of the other apprentices and the goodwill of a startling number of girls. Part of the book’s skill is in slowly introducing us to the real Nicholas: we move from the endearingly foolish clown to the more complicated, talented individual who is only really known to his employer, Felix’s widowed mother, Marian de Charetty. She has brought up Nicholas since he was ten years old and, virtually alone among her family and friends, can see the burning potential of the boy’s brilliant mind. She cultivates him, encourages him and, most importantly, trusts him – completely and steadfastly. Her late husband’s company is already a significant player in the Bruges market, but Nicholas’s visions promise to give the firm a truly international importance.One of the main joys of a book by Dunnett is her descriptive verve. The fabrics, houses and ceremonies of Bruges give her a splendid canvas on which to work, and she returns dazzling visions of Venetian galleys decked with flags and glittering with trumpets, or of elegant festivities. Her scenes are like illuminations from a Book of Hours and she manages to convey every detail of her world without weighing the reader down with research. On virtually every page there’s a turn of phrase which is unusual enough to make you pause, but so perfectly suited for its purpose that you can’t think of anything more appropriate. Who else would think to describe the ‘snapdragon silks’ of an army’s tented camp, or to describe the Venetian flagship in Bruges, ‘with its burden of lights and flowers and music, of unreeling silks and swaying fringes… like a garland made by a goldsmith’? Her writing is sumptuous, rich and slightly intoxicating: Chateau d’Yquem for the mind.For a full review, please read my blog

I have read and re-read Dunnett's novels more than any other author. Each reading reveals something new and special. I defy any hist-fic addict to tire of Dunnett's writing, especially the Niccolo stories, which take the reader right into the very rich tapestry of the C15.

The first 100 pages don't engage you right away, but stick with it as Dorothy Dunnett's characters and plot develop wonderfully. One of my favourite books.

This is the opening chapter of a family's history and immediately you are immersed in the sights and feelings of the times. It was written by a noted historian and her love and knowledge of the period is on every page. It begins a chronicle of one families rise and development through many generations.