{"id":1270,"date":"2017-10-23T10:00:48","date_gmt":"2017-10-23T09:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/?p=1270"},"modified":"2017-10-10T09:21:05","modified_gmt":"2017-10-10T08:21:05","slug":"punch-by-barbara-henderson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/?p=1270","title":{"rendered":"Review: Punch by Barbara Henderson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Punch\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Punch by Barbara Henderson is the story of Phineas, or Phin for short, who lives and works in Victorian Inverness with his “Uncle” Ewan, a cruel man with “hands the size of spades” who treats Phin like a slave. When Phin is sent to the market after hours to fetch some sausages from the ice box, an incident with a dog and a watchman leads to disaster, and he’s accused of setting the market on fire – so he runs. Runs from the fire, runs from the accusations, runs from Uncle Ewan.<\/p>\n

He falls in first with an escaped prisoner, John Robertson, and then with Merriweather Moffat, his wife Alice, and daughter Ishie, a travelling band of entertainers, whose Punch and Judy show is a hit with audiences across the country. Slowly Phin finds a new family with John and the Moffats, meeting new people, making friends with animals, and learning new skills.<\/p>\n

But the hidden misery of his history isn’t far from the surface, and he can never truly leave it behind. Eventually a figure from his previous existence comes back into his life, and gives him an opportunity to stop running and face his past once and for all.<\/p>\n

The setting is vivid, the story dramatic, and Phin’s relationships and decency are heartwarming, especially Phin’s sympathy for the mining children for whom the travellers put on a show: “My world is a rainbow. His is a shadow.” Victorian Scotland comes brilliantly to life, from the depiction of 19th century Inverness to Phin’s travels across the country, from snow-bound Edinburgh to an encounter with royalty at Balmoral.<\/p>\n

An excellent follow-up to Henderson’s brilliant debut Fir for Luck<\/a>. Highly recommended.<\/p>\n

Where to buy<\/h3>\n

Available now to order from your local bookshop, or the usual online suspects:<\/p>\n

Amazon<\/a> (also on Kindle<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Hive<\/a><\/p>\n

Waterstone’s<\/a><\/p>\n

Wordery<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Punch by Barbara Henderson is the story of Phineas, or Phin for short, who lives and works in Victorian Inverness with his “Uncle” Ewan, a cruel man with “hands the size of spades” who treats Phin like a slave. When Phin is sent to the market after hours to fetch some sausages from the ice… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Review of Punch, by Barbara Henderson @scattyscribbler @cranachanbooks","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/img_0505.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p37h7H-ku","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1270"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1274,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270\/revisions\/1274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}