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Checkmate
"In 1948 Melita Jory ran away with a stranger and was not heard of again. " In Polwithian, Cornwall, strangers are always noticed. So when an unknown man arrives in the village, enquiring about the Jory family, still living on the farm that has been theirs for decades, and Melita in particular, the news spreads until it eventually comes to the attention of Silas Jory himself, Melita's abandoned husband. Still living with the consequences of Melita's disappearance, Silas meets with the stranger to discover his purpose. Eighteen years is a long enough time for scars to heal, but the stranger has not come to Polwithian without purpose and the effects of his presence ripple throughout the quiet community. Old wounds feel newly painful, and long forgotten ambitions resurface, disrupting everyone's lives and bringing about unwanted changes . . .
170 pages, Hardcover
Published February 25, 2016
1 person want to read
About the author
Mary Hocking
32 books8 followersBorn in in London in 1921, Mary was educated at Haberdashers’ Aske’s Girls School, Acton. During the Second World War she served in the Women’s Royal Naval Service (Wrens) attached to the Fleet Air Arm Meteorology branch and then briefly with the Signal Section in Plymouth.
Writing was in her blood. Juggling her work as a local government officer in Middlesex Education Department with writing, at first short stories for magazines and pieces for The Times Educational Supplement, she then had her first book, The Winter City, published in 1961.
The book was a success and enabled Mary to relinquish her full time occupation to devote her time to writing. Even so, when she came to her beloved Lewes in 1961, she still took a part-time appointment, as a secretary, with the East Sussex Educational Psychology department.
Long before family sagas had become cult viewing, she had embarked upon the ‘Fairley Family’ trilogy, Good Daughters, Indifferent Heroes, and Welcome Strangers, books which give her readers a faithful, realistic and uncompromising portrayal of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary times, between the years of 1933 and 1946.
For many years she was an active member of the ‘Monday Lit’, a Lewes-based group which brought in current writers and poets to speak about their work. Equally, she was an enthusiastic supporter of Lewes Little Theatre, where she found her role as ‘prompter’ the most satisfying, and worshipped at the town’s St Pancras RC Church.
* Source
Writing was in her blood. Juggling her work as a local government officer in Middlesex Education Department with writing, at first short stories for magazines and pieces for The Times Educational Supplement, she then had her first book, The Winter City, published in 1961.
The book was a success and enabled Mary to relinquish her full time occupation to devote her time to writing. Even so, when she came to her beloved Lewes in 1961, she still took a part-time appointment, as a secretary, with the East Sussex Educational Psychology department.
Long before family sagas had become cult viewing, she had embarked upon the ‘Fairley Family’ trilogy, Good Daughters, Indifferent Heroes, and Welcome Strangers, books which give her readers a faithful, realistic and uncompromising portrayal of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary times, between the years of 1933 and 1946.
For many years she was an active member of the ‘Monday Lit’, a Lewes-based group which brought in current writers and poets to speak about their work. Equally, she was an enthusiastic supporter of Lewes Little Theatre, where she found her role as ‘prompter’ the most satisfying, and worshipped at the town’s St Pancras RC Church.
* Source
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 5, 2016
Checkmate first published in 1969. A novel with fascinating complex characters, mystery and a superb sense of place I was gripped by it immediately. Several of Mary Hocking’s later novels explore issues of mental illness – and in the portrayal of one particularly disturbing character in Checkmate – we see what can result from years of jealously, fear and disappointment.
“The wind raided the French windows. There was something imperious about it, as though someone was demanding entry and would not be long denied. Catherine sat very straight in the middle of the couch; her head was still as though held in a vice, but her eyes looked round the room, expecting something to happen, hoping to forestall it. She looked at the antimacassar on the back of the winged armchair; it was a fine example of tatting and had a swan as centrepiece. She had never examined it carefully before, although it was so familiar; the swan had an exceedingly long neck, she was not sure whether it had always been as long as that. She switched her gaze sharply to the mantelpiece. Sure enough, the heavy serpentine clock had moved nearer to the edge. The wind buffeted the windows in a surge of frustration. Catherine looked at the angel which swirled above the clock, the angel was blowing a trumpet the end of which had been broken off. She was not sure how long the trumpet had been broken. Grit fell in the hearth and a little soot puffed into the room. She clenched her hands; they should have had the chimney bricked up long ago. Then, behind her, something clattered down.”
Polwithian, Cornwall is the setting for this complex, romantic thriller – a village where strangers stand out a mile. Huddled along a muddy estuary, it is well off the tourist tack. The Jory family have been living on their farm – which stands apart from the rest of the village – for decades. A strange, reserved family – they keep themselves to themselves. Silas Jory isn’t a farmer however – he’s a solicitor’s clerk – and twenty years earlier he had shocked the community when he returned from the war with a Syrian wife.
“In 1948 Melita Jory ran away with a stranger and was not heard of again. Her mother-in-law went into mourning. Rhoda Penryn said that she did this because she liked black; it was certain she had never liked Melita.”
It is eighteen years since Melita went away; leaving her young daughter Anna behind, Anna a young woman now, still lives at the farm, which has no electricity – with her father, grandmother and Catherine, her father’s troubled cousin.
As the novel opens a stranger arrives in Polwithian – with questions about the Jory’s and Melita in particular. His presence serves to rake up old stories, unearthing secrets and rousing passions, jealousies and violence.
full review : https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2016/...
“The wind raided the French windows. There was something imperious about it, as though someone was demanding entry and would not be long denied. Catherine sat very straight in the middle of the couch; her head was still as though held in a vice, but her eyes looked round the room, expecting something to happen, hoping to forestall it. She looked at the antimacassar on the back of the winged armchair; it was a fine example of tatting and had a swan as centrepiece. She had never examined it carefully before, although it was so familiar; the swan had an exceedingly long neck, she was not sure whether it had always been as long as that. She switched her gaze sharply to the mantelpiece. Sure enough, the heavy serpentine clock had moved nearer to the edge. The wind buffeted the windows in a surge of frustration. Catherine looked at the angel which swirled above the clock, the angel was blowing a trumpet the end of which had been broken off. She was not sure how long the trumpet had been broken. Grit fell in the hearth and a little soot puffed into the room. She clenched her hands; they should have had the chimney bricked up long ago. Then, behind her, something clattered down.”
Polwithian, Cornwall is the setting for this complex, romantic thriller – a village where strangers stand out a mile. Huddled along a muddy estuary, it is well off the tourist tack. The Jory family have been living on their farm – which stands apart from the rest of the village – for decades. A strange, reserved family – they keep themselves to themselves. Silas Jory isn’t a farmer however – he’s a solicitor’s clerk – and twenty years earlier he had shocked the community when he returned from the war with a Syrian wife.
“In 1948 Melita Jory ran away with a stranger and was not heard of again. Her mother-in-law went into mourning. Rhoda Penryn said that she did this because she liked black; it was certain she had never liked Melita.”
It is eighteen years since Melita went away; leaving her young daughter Anna behind, Anna a young woman now, still lives at the farm, which has no electricity – with her father, grandmother and Catherine, her father’s troubled cousin.
As the novel opens a stranger arrives in Polwithian – with questions about the Jory’s and Melita in particular. His presence serves to rake up old stories, unearthing secrets and rousing passions, jealousies and violence.
full review : https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2016/...
Displaying 1 of 1 review