Handily included in the opening pages of Harold Bell’s new novel Beyond the Yew is a name-by-name guide to its extensive cast of characters. The majority are rooted in Liverpool, England, in side-by-side row houses with a tall and shady yew tree out front.
Bell’s “you can’t tell the players without a scorecard” entry was the result of comments from readers of this work of historical fiction’s two predecessors: There are so many characters, most of them related, that it was sometimes hard to keep track.
“What I tell them is, if they’re important enough, they’re going to be in the story enough,” the author explains. “So just let it flow, and you’ll remember what you need to.”
(St. Petersburg Press) continues the adventures of the “Greenbank Gang,” introduced in Under the Yew (2022) and followed through with last year’s Seeds of the Yew. Nice folks, decent, ordinary folks. Four generation of “friends and family,” the very definition, intermingling in all sorts of ways both personally and professionally. Bell calls it a “running journal.”…