“The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place (Book I: The Mysterious Howling)”, by Maryose Wood, and “Post Captain,” by Patrick O’Brian, the second volume in the Aubrey/Maturin novels, have little in common, except for being part of  multi-volume series. One is about an intrepid young Victorian-era governess and her feral  charges; the other about an intrepid youngish Napoleonic War-era British sea captain and his physician friend. One is aimed at children; the other at grown-ups. But by chance I came to be reading (or rereading, in the case of “Post Captain”) them in the same week, and it set me thinking about the problem of the narrator and the choices all novelists must make before they even start telling a story, and other choices, again and again and again, they face as they proceed. Continue reading →