A Net for Small Fishes: ‘The Thelma and Louise of the seventeenth century’ Lawrence Norfolk

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We can see the change from one to the next of his portraits – from William Larkin to Peter Paul Rubens. The mysterious beauty of his creations draw others to him, but can they lay hold of that which possesses him? From another source, I learn that the title is inspired by the quote in a document “make a net to catch little birds and let the great ones go”. Based on the true scandal that rocked the court of James I, A Net for Small Fishes is the most gripping novel you'll read this year: an exhilarating dive into the pitch-dark waters of the Jacobean court. Regardless, the whole got much better in the last 1/3rd but also, for me, barely connected outside of the Frankie and Anne's friendship.

While his teachers try to understand and categorize him, it is only his fellow student, Daria, who seems able to provide a rational insight into the causes of his behaviour and offer him true affection. It seems that the poet and courtier Thomas Overbury was poisoned while a prisoner in the Tower of London. Poet and courtier Thomas Overbury was already in the Tower of London when he died, apparently of natural causes.How did the girl who once dreamed of being a Charlie’s Angel become such a cowed and submissive woman? Overall, a well written and entertaining novel revealing a fascinating world of court, scandal and plot through the eyes of a commoner. Two women with independent ideas, playing their own political game and refusing to conform to the “nets of custom and propriety” who must therefore be destroyed.

Like all the best historical fiction, A Net for Small Fishes is a gloriously immersive escape from present times, but it’s not escapism: the outrage with which Anne is told at her trial that “you have acted of and for yourself, which is itself against the proper bounds of womanhood” is a sentiment that echoes down the centuries. There are many detailed incidents of violence and sexual sadism (including rape) which are far closer to Game of Thrones than Bring Up the Bodies. Flisar’s ability to describe Janek’s inner states through juxtaposition with the outer world create a mesmerizing claustrophobia, as the reader is pulled inexorably into the nightmarish world of a man in anguish. This is a story of how Anne’s moral compass is compromised again and again as she tries to serve Frances. This is Jago’s first foray into adult fiction – having made her name with an award-winning biography of Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland ( The Northern Lights) and a YA novel, Montacute House – and she presents a different, more sympathetic Turner.We think we act with all nobility when in truth we run in circles too low to the ground to see which path leads us to Heaven and which to Hell.