Bella Poldark: A Novel of Cornwall 1818-1820 [Paperback]

In this novel, the lives of the Poldark Family come full circle. As the title suggests, the novel is centered on the youngest daughter, Bella, who has her heart set on becoming an operatic singer.

As in all the preceding 11 novels of the series, Graham brings to life here the feelings and sensibilities of early 19th century Cornwall, and by extension, England and Europe in the immediate post-Napoleonic era. The characters are well-drawn and you find yourself, as you read this novel, wanting to know how they'll fare at journey's end.

While I enjoyed this novel, and the other 3 novels of the series I have read (I'm now reading "ROSS POLDARK", the first of the series), I felt sad to know that this is the last of the series. (As some of you may already know, Winston Graham passed away at the age of 93 this past July.)

Next to James Clavell, Graham has been able to create characters in the Poldark Series - Ross & Demelza & their children, George Warleggan, Valentine Warleggan, Verity, Geoffrey-Charles, Cuby - who could take on the lives of REAL PEOPLE. Love or hate them, you could never be indifferent about these people while reading any of the Poldark novels.

I really enjoyed the conclusion to the Poldark Saga as I felt that it tied up some loose ends - though there are a few left! The description was great, it really felt as if I was stood by the characters, experiencing the new places and scenes at the same times as them. They were some very unexpected happenings that really added exciting twists to the story. It was nice to pick up familiar characters where we left them, although I would have liked to have heard a bit more about Cuby Poldark, Sophie Enys and Meliora Enys. It was good to hear how Henry's character is developing, thought it is a shame that Winston Graham isn't writing any more, as I would have liked to see how he becomes as he gets older. I was also pleased that the story moves to London and Paris as it kept variation in the book, and made every return to Cornwall and Nampara even more refreshing. It was surprising how like Demelze Bella has become! Bella Poldark is an excellent read, although I wish Winston Graham would pick it up again soon!

Beginning with The Stranger from the Sea, Mr. Graham took the children of Ross and Demelza and Elizabeth and George Warleggan into the Regency era - and I admit I was as excited & thrilled as any fan of the Poldark novels to know that the story was being continued. Unfortunately I thought The Stranger from the Sea was a weak beginning in terms of its plot; I also formed a negative impression of several new characters, such as Stephen Carrington, and the Kellow family, for example, which affected my total enjoyment of the continued series, but I did think each succeeding book became stronger. I thought The Twisted Sword concluded the series, and the younger generations' stories, very well, if sadly.

BELLA POLDARK for me was a turn-back to the disappointment of The Stranger from the Sea: a clunky and cluttered plot peopled with somewhat familiar-but-remote older characters who didn't seem to bear any relation to the Ross, Demelza, George, Dwight and Caroline, et al. that I had known. Of course they WERE older so one expects change, but what these older characters lacked was the spark of life that Mr. Graham had so successfully given them, the spark that made them so real.

Then there are the odd-ball characters that populate this final story: Philip Prideaux; Christopher Harvegal, the Kellow family, most especially Paul Kellow who certainly made a 90 degree turn from the minor character he was in the previous novels... If The Twisted Sword was a sad book in some respects BELLA POLDARK is a somewhat gruesome one in terms of the Jack-the-Ripper-ish subplot, which to me sticks out like a sore thumb.

Each Poldark daughter has two suitors to choose from. I admit to some pleasure in the fact that Clowance finally chooses well, but Bella's romances were tedious. It was another disappointment to me that Bella was allowed to have a physical affair with her second suitor; a suitor who seemed to be created just to give her relationship with Christopher the edge and conflict it was lacking. (Mr. Graham never went much beyond the bedroom door before in the Poldark series so it was also jarring to read the brief description of Bella's seduction.) And Ross - behaving so gently when his daughter elopes, and after finding out about her affair?

The character of Valentine Warleggan was, for me, re-developed from previous books in a most unsatisfactory way - half almost-criminal; half lost soul. The quiet scene with Ross in The Twisted Sword when Valentine finally questions Ross about his parentage was vintage Winston Graham: sparingly emotional and resolute. In BELLA POLDARK, I didn't hate the fact that Valentine wanted to draw closer to his natural father, and that he'd been damaged by Warleggan's attitude to him in his childhood. But we are told this several times (another disappointment - it was both show AND tell). Finally, I just didn't like the highly emotional, melodramatic final twist that occurs in "resolving" the character and story of Valentine.

For the first time in reading a Poldark novel, I felt that briefly-encountered older supporting characters such as Sam Carne, Ben Carter, and Jud Paynter, and new subcharacters such as Esther the niece of Demelza, were now "quaint", or, little bits of undeveloped (or recycled) characters.

Is this a readable book? Well yes it is, I don't think a good novelist of 70+ years experience is going to produce something totally un-readable - it's mostly as a Poldark book that I find it so lost, and weakly plotted in most respects.

I still highly recommend the first eight novels of the series, "Ross Poldark" through "The Angry Tide". But after encountering the remaining books, and *especially* now BELLA POLDARK I am left feeling that what happened next was best left with The Twisted Sword, if not to readers' imaginations.