Long Shadows

by Thorne Moore

Llys y Garn is a rambling Victorian-Gothic mansion with vestiges of older glories. It lies in the isolated parish of Rhyd y Groes in North Pembrokeshire. It is the house of the parish, even in its decline, deeply conscious of its importance, its pedigree and its permanence. It stubbornly remains though the lives of former inhabitants have long since passed away. Only the rooks are left to bear witness to the often desperate march of history. Throne Moore’s Long Tales of Llys y Garn comprises a trio of historical novellas that let us into secrets known only to these melancholy birds. The Good Servant is the story of Nelly Skeel, loveless housekeeper at Llys y Garn at the end of the 19th century, whose only focus of affection is her master’s despised nephew. But for Cyril Lawson she will do anything, whatever the cost. The Witch tells of Elizabeth Powell, born as Charles II is restored to the English throne, in a world of changing political allegiances, where religious bigotry and superstition linger on. Her love is not for her family, her duty, her God or her future husband, but for the house where she was born. For that she would sell her soul. The Dragon Slayer tells of Angharad ferch Owain in the early decades of the 14th century. Angharad is an expendable asset in her father’s machinations to recover old rights and narrow claims, but she dreams of bigger things and a world without the roaring of men. A world that might spare her from the seemingly inevitable fate of all women. In these three tales the rooks of Llys y Garn have watched centuries of human tribulation – but just how much has really changed?

232 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 26, 2018

Reviews

[Judith Barrow · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have long been an admirer of Thorne Moore’s work and have not been disappointed with these three novellas in Long Shadows: Tales of Llys y Garn

The first, The Good Servant is told from the point of view of the housekeeper, Nelly Skeel; the protagonist, living at the end of the nineteenth century. Well rounded and well portrayed in her actions, there is a vulnerability about this character; as the reader I found myself both can empathising and sympathising with her and yet being exasperated. Yet should I? She is of her time and of a certain status in her world.

And, so, on to The Witch. This story, set in the seventeenth century, takes the reader through the early years of Elizabeth Powell to her adult life. Told mainly from the protagonist’s point of view with the occasional insight to one or two of the other characters from a third person narrator, the emphasis is on the restrictions of the religion at that time. and the class struggles; land versus money. I liked Elizabeth, which is something I cannot say about Anthony, her brother. Always there is hope that all will be well but there is an all encompassing darkness to her story…

The Dragon Slayer is the story of Angharad ferch Owain, living during the fourteenth century. Also told from the protagonist’s point of view we read of her fear of her father, of her future. This protagonist I liked the most. The ending is satisfying. I don’t know why I was surprised, but I was. As with the first two novellas, this tale is dark with themes of the women being mere chattels to be bargained with, used for the progression in society of their families.

I enjoyed the way the women were portrayed as having a strength and internal rebellion. But yet there was always the conflicts of status and money, of land and possessions, of greed and thwarted love. Of patriarchy.

In all three novellas, both the internal and spoken dialogue the author has the tone and subtle dialect that I imagine Rhyd y Groes in North Pembrokeshire to have been in those eras.

And, in all, the descriptions of the buildings, of Llys y Garn and of the ever-changing Welsh countryside are evocative and easily imagined.

Just a comment about the style of the book:

The intriguing Prelude, giving the history of the “rambling Victorian-Gothic mansion” that is Llys y Garn, is fascinating. And I loved the short explanations of the after-years of novella. And then we have the Interludes; told in a conversational tone these are filled both with historical details and those pertinent to the story,. Finally, the Epilogue, giving the continuing, ever-evolving history of Llys y Garn through the following centuries.

It is apparent that the author has researched thoroughly for each of these stories; the themes of Welsh legends, myths, superstitions and tales are woven throughout the history of the decades.

Watch out for the ravens

This is a collection of novellas I can thoroughly recommend to any reader, especially those who enjoys historical literature.

[Bandit · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is an old mansion in the isolated parish of Rhyd y Groes in Wales and it has stories to tell. There was initial reluctance in picking up this book, Endeavor Press usually doesn’t inspire too much confidence, but an armchair trip to Wales, through time in Wales no less, seemed to intriguing to pass up and I’m glad I didn’t. In fact, this turned out to be a very pleasant surprise and one of the best Endeavor books I’ve read. The book centers on an estate in Wales and is told in three sections over the course of centuries in reverse chronological order. Or technically the book centers on the lives of those who have lived on the estate. All the protagonists are female and, as times and powers that be would have it, essentially powerless, but they try to pave the way for themselves in the world anyway. The first story is of a maid and a young nephew of the master who comes to live with them, awakening her heretofore nonexistent maternal instincts. The boy turns out to be a child molesting, thieving, murderous bastard, but a (surrogate) mother’s love won’t listen to reason. A very dark version of Downton Abbey, that one. Next up the timeline jumps to 1600s and the daughter of the estate, bound to be used by her father for an advantageous marriage (after the fashion of the times), is determined to own Llys y Garn even at the cost of her very soul. And then even further back in time to early 14th century and a young woman dreaming of the world of adventure well beyond her limited (again by men) circumstances. So the stories are not actually interconnected by narrative, just thematically and geographically, presumably you can read them in any order. I read them as they were presented in one sitting and very much enjoyed them. Been a while since some good historical fiction been on the menu. The author seems to specialize in psychological thrillers, so this must have been a departure, and she’s done very well giving dimensionality to her chosen locale with well observed details and imagery. And her characters are just as dimensional and very engaging. Old mansions have had many masters and lived many lives and heard many secrets, the author is merely letting the proverbial walls talk. And oh, what tales they tell…Lovely read, quick one too, very pleasant way to spend the afternoon. Recommended for all fans of historical fiction. Or just good stories.

[N.A. Granger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I do love books about old houses, having grown up in one myself. This book details the history of the different form of a house and its main occupants from the Victorian times of the 1880s, to the time of witches in the 1660s, to medieval times of the 1300s, in that order. Llys y Garn is an estate in Wales with a history that goes back centuries, and the author has woven tales of the estate at these three different time periods.

The first story, The Good Servant, is set in the Victorian era, when the house is a rambling Victorian/ neogothic amalgam of many rooms. There is a distinct upstairs/downstairs, where the survival of a servant, with endless days and nights of back-breaking labor and a bleak, loveless future, hinges on the good will of their employer – who can dismiss them for any perceived transgression, even a minor one. The tale follows the career of Nelly Skeel, an ugly woman who works her way up through the hierarchy of life below the stairs. She is not loved or even liked, but when she encounters the orphaned and unwanted nephew of the manor’s owner, she eagerly takes on the task of being his mother, giving him the love no one else will and only hoping for his love in return, while scheming to avoid dismissal.

The Witch is the second tale and takes place in the 17th century; it tells of another strong-willed woman, whom her father plans to use as a pawn in marriage to advance himself. Llys y Gar is a Tudor residence with a crumbling great hall. Devereux Powell’s daughter Elizabeth is isolated there with her two brothers to be raised by her grandmother, who is devolving into madness fixed on the dark doings of the Devil. Clever and strong-willed Elizabeth loves Llys y Garn and wants to remain there but is unsure of whether her life is at God’s will or the devil’s. She manipulates her father into accepting her betrothal to a childhood friend, Huw, who is of poor nobility and lives on a nearby farm. She assumes her dowry will be Llys y Garn. But it seems the devil has other plans for her, and tragedies ensue.

The third and final story is set in medieval times, which despite the chattel status of women in the previous two tales, is yet more harsh in their treatment. Little is known of what stood on the land of Llys y Garn in the 1300’s, but it was occupied by the family of the loud and brutal Owain ap Elidyr. Angharad’s story opens with a birthing gone horribly wrong, leaving her and her older sister Marged and younger brother Ieuan motherless and subject the whims of the despotic father, an impoverished descendant of a royal line. Angharad’s one joy in life is attending Curig’s fair, where she meets a girl of her own age, Johan, daughter of a cloth trader. Their meeting becomes an annual thing and Angharad longs to live Johan’s life, traveling to distant lands, eating exotic food and wearing nice clothes. Like Marged, however, she will be used as an asset in marriage as her father plots to expand his land and recover old rights. In overcoming horrible odds, Angharad has the happiest outcome of the three women.

The author has written a book with a sweep of time similar to books by James Michener, but much more limited in scope and place. I had expected the three women would be bound by an explained lineage, but instead found the link was their resistance to the roles demanded by society. This, even more than Llys y Garn, binds the narrative.

The female characters are well-limned and compelling. Their strength in the face of implacable norms and demeaning roles sticks with the reader. It is unfortunate the men, with one exception, are depicted as priggish, selfish, self-serving, brutal and bullying – this certainly elicits fear and loathing, but I longed for a few sympathetic or kind men.

This author is known for her historical research, and it shows. The detail is impeccable and sets three distinctive scenes. The dialogue is crisp and reasonable for each of the time periods. While the brutality and gore of some scenes might drive away a few readers, it is appropriate to the stories and the times.
I would definitely pick up another book by Ms. Moore.

[Wendy Steele · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is written as three novellas, each containing tales of Llys y Garn, a house in Pembroke-shire. Each story is told by the female protagonist.
The first is The Good Servant 1884, the second The Witch 1662 and the final story is The Dragon Slayer 1308. The house changes over the centuries, but the women who strive to be heard within it do not.
The first story is about Eluned Skeel, servant to the wealthy owners of the house, while the second is from the perspective of Elizabeth and her siblings. The third is about Angharad, daughter to Owain ap Elidyr.
The reader is given a fascinating insight into the lives of these three women during these points in history. They are all required to be obedient and subservient to men and yet, they’re strong women, willing to fight for justice, family and their honour. Eluned will do anything for her precious ‘son’, while Elizabeth battles for the right to live in the house she adores and Angharad fights in memory of her mother and sister.
The characters are beautifully drawn, giving the reader enough information to paint in their own colours and bring the story to life as they see it. Visually crafted books, written in the third person are my favourite. Each story is compelling, memorable in its own right and written with nothing held back. The stories are set in violent, cruel times and nothing is omitted when describing fights, abuse and childbirth, yet there is joy in Angharad’s friendship with Johan and delight when Mrs Skeel’s boy comes home.
If you’re looking for a compelling read, look no further.

[Frank Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Llys y Garn is an estate in Wales with a history that goes back centuries. Thorne Moore in LONG SHADOWS: TALES OF LLYS Y GARN tells stories from three different time periods in the history of the estate. Each story stands alone. What they seem to share is the theme that men in each age and culture use and abuse women through indifference, cruelty, and/or because it is their societal-given right.

“The Good Servant,” the first story, is set in the Victorian era and tells the tale of Skeel, a servant who works her way up the hierarchy of servants, and an unwanted boy who is loved only by her. As a servant, she is little more than a prisoner on the estate. Skeel looks for love and meaning in the life of the boy, who grows up selfish and self-centered. He ultimately gives her only death from a broken heart.

The second story is “The Witch” and takes place in the late 17th century. The plot here involves dysfunctional families and marriage politics. Elizabeth’s marriage is to be arranged, as is customary, even though it is not to the man she wishes to wed. She plots to have the man she chooses, though the plan grows awry. Only tragedies result.

The setting for the third and final story – “The Dragon” – is Medieval times. It is perhaps the most brutal of the tales but also the only one that has a relatively happy ending. It opens with a painful birth in which the child is ripped out of the mother’s body in a primitive Caesarian procedure. The mother dies. The baby is a girl.

The father responds to the news by saying, "A girl…Isn’t it enough that I must impoverish myself to buy husbands for two of them, without a third to drain my purse?... I think she’ll die…She’ll die."

And so the girl dies.

The main character, Angharad, was present at the birth and death of her sister. As she grows, her world does not get any easier because that is the way of life. As she is reminded years later, ‘Submission in a woman is a holy virtue… Women must endure and suffer.”

Her life nearly ends when she is raped. Her brothers see this not as the violation of a woman nor a crime against a sister. Rather, they see it as a theft of their property. They curse at the rapist: “You filthy midden rat! You’d lay a hand on a woman that is ours?” And then, as they kill him: “No filthy cur will soil what is ours and go unpunished. Our father will approve.”

Angahard, however, has a strong will to live. She makes her escape when her family and community think her dead and she joins Johan, a woman friend, and Johan's father as they travel the world as merchants. Angahard is also successful in that business. When she finally returns home, it is not to a husband or brothers, but to a peaceful world consisting only of women.

She has decided to become a nun.

“She foresaw a life in a house of women,” the author explains, “with prayer and song. Just women. No roaring. No beating. No birth and blood and screaming death."

“How do you think you’ll like a house full of women?” Johan asks.

‘I’ll like it well enough,” Angharad answers. “Very well indeed.”

‘You know we are just as fallible as men – as petty and malicious and silly in our thoughts,” Johan reminds her.

Angahard replies that the women "don’t roar. Or beat, or rape or murder. If my holy sisters are inclined to sullenness or spite, I shall charm them with songs and bewitch them with tales of Avignon and Santiago."

The author explains that Angahard “became Abbess. Of course. She lived content among her sisters, cajoling them into good humour and comfortable piety, and no one roared.”

This is a wonderful book, albeit with a theme that might make some of us uncomfortable (especially the men), which does not make it any less true.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

It wasn’t just the mention of Cloud Atlas in the description (not my kind of book at all, and one I’ve never managed to finish) that made me worry a little about this one – while I’m fairly comfortable in the late 19th century, I’m considerably less so with the 17th and 14th. But I definitely was attracted by the way the stories were linked by location – and I found in many other ways too, must notably the whole area of strong women endeavouring to make their way in a world dominated by men.

The first of the stories – The Good Servant – might have been my favourite (but then again…!), as I felt for Nelly, progressing from housemaid to housekeeper, her position and future so very precarious, and so lonely and desperate for affection that she nurtures and protects a monster. This story is gothic writing at its very best – and, I must say, a quite enthralling story, read with mounting horror. And my “then again” is because of the power of the second story, The Witch – Elizabeth really would do anything to keep her tenure at Llys y Garn, and I was fascinated by the intimations of witchcraft and the darkness of the story, the way classes were defined by land and money, the notion that daughters were a commodity to be traded by their neglectful parents. And then there’s the last story, The Dragon Slayer, long before Llys y Garn became a mansion, but at a time when roaring men fiercely fought for and defended their property. There’s a callous disregard in this story for the preciousness of life, particularly if that life is female, and I found it both deeply disturbing and quite enthralling – and the story’s ending is an absolute masterstroke.

I’m not sure how the author does it, but each story feels entirely of its time – the writing subtly different in each, but difficult to explain how that distinction is achieved. The presence of the ravens, timeless and omniscient, is an inspired link – the conversational, contextual links well judged, as well as providing an opportunity to take a much-needed natural break. I know this book is a companion piece to Shadows, but it’s sadly too long since I read that one to detect the individual links – but it’s hardly surprising that such events would linger in the house’s fabric for Kate to experience through her unfortunate gift.

Did I enjoy Long Shadows? “Enjoy” is perhaps the wrong word – but I remain an immense fan of Thorne Moore’s writing, whatever its complexion. This book really was an unforgettable experience.

[Maretha Botha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Llys y Garn - A Place To Love Or Hate
24 May 2018
Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
I bought the eBook earlier in the week, and when I read the first prelude, I was hooked and bumped it up in my TBRLIST. This is the story of the history of Llys y Garn - a rambling house somewhere in Pembrokeshire, near the Preseli Mountains, Wales - expertly told by the author, Thorne Moore, in three novellas of varying length and set in different settings and historical periods. Each of the novellas has a female protagonist who faces many situations, albeit being a servant or a daughter. While reading about their lives, I often felt disturbed at the plight of women in centuries past - being viewed as objects to bargain for land, or to bring forth strings of babies. In such circumstances, could they succumb to the pressures of being beaten, berated, traded and often, raped?

The first novella, tells the story of Nelly Skeel and her life as a servant in the house of wealthy owners, and how her ‘motherly’ affection for the owners’ orphaned nephew, often goes beyond reason. This is a tale which will linger with the reader, long after the book has been read.

The second novella relates the life of Elizabeth and her brother, Anthony. The author weaves an amazing story around these siblings, their fate at the hands of a wicked grandmother who cares nothing for them, an absent mother and father, who can’t be bothered by their struggles, and the ultimate outcome of being forced to do so much against their will, being helpless pawns in the hands of their elders. How they deal with these situations, is told in a frightening, but realistic way.

[Terry Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I reviewed this for Rosie Amber's Review team, via a copy from the author. The fact that it was free has not influenced my assessment.

Three novellas, set in different historical eras, about the same place, Llys y Garn, a rambling Pembrokeshire mansion in which aspects of its former lives still remain ~ and not just within the building itself.

I loved every word of this book; I kept trying to read it slowly, so it wouldn't end. The stories are haunting and sad, and say much about the sad lot of women in eras in which they are set.

The Good Servant takes place around the turn of the 20th century, and is about an old spinster maid, Eluned Skeel, who has no one and nothing to love but the unwanted nephew of the family she serves, taken in by them when he has no one else. As Cyril Lawson grows up he causes everyone around him pain - but he is Skeel's reason for being, whatever he does.

The Witch is the story of 17th century Elizabeth, daughter of a father who cares nothing for her aside from the fortune or social standing she can bring him through marriage. Elizabeth, though, cares only for Llys y Garn, and wonders if she might be a servant of the devil, as ill falls all who would seek to take it from her.

The Dragon Slayer tells of Angharad, in the 14th century, who longs to escape from the brutality, pain and death of her father's house, and see the world.

I didn't have a favourite; they're all as good as each other. Beautifully written, marvellous stories. This book reminded me, in subject matter and writing style, of Norah Lofts' books The House at Old Vine and A Wayside Tavern. Can't recommend too highly.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horrifying & eminently readable!
Having read & thoroughly enjoyed Shadows, the first book set in Llys y Garn, it was interesting to read the house's backstory. The house is central - the human stories dark & disturbing - to the point where I occasionally had a 'moment' but still - as ever, so very well written.