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<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Catherine HallTananarive Due|title=The RepercussionsReformatory
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Once home from her role Gracetown, Florida. June 1950. After a scuffle with a white boy, twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, otherwise known as the Reformatory. It's a place with a brutal and dark reputation. But the segregated reformatory is a photo-journalist in Afghanistanchamber of horrors, Jo decides to move into haunted by the Brighton flat boys that her great aunt Elizabeth has bequeathed herhave died there. While searching through In order to survive the school governor and his Funhouse, Robert must enlist the help of the belongings that go school's ghosts – only they have their own motivations...|isbn=1803366532}} {{Frontpage|author=Katherine Howe|title=A True Account|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the hometown, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds Elizabethherself embroiled in a young boy's WWI diaries from the time that she nursed wounded servicemen from the Indian Corps death at the Brighton Pavilionhands of two vicious pirates. These entries cause She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her to reflect on her time recording the more current war too, and enables her then to open up escape them completely she runs away to her ex-lover Susie sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in a series of letters, telling her how it was, the lives thick of those she met out things when thereis a mutiny on board, what it did to them and, indeed, to from there we are caught up in herrip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846883342</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=LucySarah Marsh|authortitle=Alan KennedyA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Lucy is After a painter. Hiding away in Dundee on VE Day, she returns from a disaster bout of an exhibition to scarlet fever as a letter from a figure from child, Ellen Lark loses her pasthearing. Uncle Albert, still in France, wants to sort out his affairs - who will get what after he's dead. The letter sends Lucy on Suddenly plunged into a voyage world of discovery - silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a past full time when the use of artsign language was seen as something only savages do, lost loveEllen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, found lovebut physically restrained from signing. From here, grief, war she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and about what could possibly come nextusing a system called Visible Speech. Set in pre-war London At the same time, pre-war Bell is working on other inventions and wartime France ideas, and windy, rainy Dundee, Lucy is a love story, but it's also Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a kind complicated tangle of coming-homeespionage. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956469663</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire North
|title=House of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0C7J9D21B|title=The Lives of Stella BainA Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=Anita ShreveA J Lewis|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=When we first meet our hero, his name is Ettore and he lives at The opening House of Beautiful Swallows. Idyllic as this book is a brilliant onemight sound, being thrust into the midst of Stella’s confusion as she wakes with no memory in it's a first aid station near the front line. She knows nothing other than the fact that she can drive an ambulance, bordello and the reader knows nothing more than herEttore's mother died when he was born. She soon discovers that she can drawHe's not been short of mothers, toothough - but for someone of his background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, and this is a really nice angle to help learn about her and her past without having it's difficult to unveil everything all at onceobtain decent employment. I think The stint working with the use preparation of present tense within this novel works incredibly well in order to keep the reader at the same speed as the character, anchovies didn't work out and bastards are considered bad luck on fishing boats. Ettore was nothing if not resourceful - and determined - and it’s also it was not long before he had a writing style I enjoy successful business as a whole because it’s a little bit unusual and brings a different pace to the textguide for visitors. He was even saving some money.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349123578</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The English GirlEssie Fox|authortitle=Margaret LeroyThe Fascination|rating=54
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Stella Whittaker moves from The Victorian era is incredibly over-romanticised as a quiet English town to Vienna in 1937 to improve her music skills. Staying with old family friendssetting for historical fiction (matched only, perhaps, by the Krauses, she feels less comfortable Second World War) which has often led to more than she expects as a sense few writers mishandling it. There's such a glut of mysterious menace hangs over media set in the era that the household. Nevertheless, Stella enjoys her new life and hallmarks we've come to associate with it are familiar to the sophistication point of the citybeing cliched, hackneyed even. More than anything, she enjoys falling in love with Harri, a young Jewish doctorAll this is simply to illustrate that it would be an easy thing to do poorly. And But despite many warning signsthat, Stella’s love for him blinds her to the possibility of trouble when something about it seems inevitable to othersstill grabs me – and something about this book's description did as well.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0751551775</amazonuk>1914585526
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Christopher BlandNicole Jarvis|title=Ashes In The WindA Portrait in Shadow|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=John Burke and Tomas Sullivan may go to the same primary school in Kerry but even in 1908 they're on two sides of a great divide. John is Anglo Irish protestant and comfortably off, being the heir to Derriquin Castle whereas Tomas is Irish Catholic, living in poverty and raised to feel the resentment of the oppressed. The fact that John has been brought up to believe in Home Rule tragically makes no difference as John, Tomas and their future generations live with the consequences of a centuries old struggle. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781859337</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Laura Andersen|title=The Boleyn King (Anne Boleyn Trilogy 1)|rating=45
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=In this alternative history, Anne Boleyn's son William has become the king known as Henry IX. As he nears the age 'I want all of majority (18), he also approaches the age at which he will rule solo rather than through his regent and uncle, George Boleyn. However, heFlorence to know my name's inherited a troubled kingdom. Not only are England's enemies knocking at the door, there are enemies within Will's own household. It begins with the sudden death of one of the court's young ladies in waiting. Where will it end?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009195648X</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ken FollettThomas D Lee|title=Edge of Eternity (The Century Trilogy)Perilous Times
|rating=3
|genre=Historical FictionFantasy|summary=The story baton is passed to the next generation as the swinging 60s arrive for people like Dave Williams. For others such as Rebecca Hoffmann and Walli Franck, living in East Germany means other priorities and, indeed, worries. What the Hoffmann-Francks don't realise is that things are about to get a lot worse, partially due to the treacherous influence of someone they all once trusted. Meanwhile in America George Jakes has ideals and strong convictions that will take him past the metaphorical draw bridge into the echelons of a modern day Camelot. What of the Dvorkin twins in Russia? Tania and Dimka may have differing ideas on how to effect change but storm clouds are hanging over them - and the rest of the world - as an island off the coast of America gathers prominence.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230710166</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Conn Iggulden|title=Wars of the Roses: Trinity (Wars of the Roses 2)|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=A bewildered Henry VI has awoken from the catatonic state that took him away from the business of ruling – and living – for over a year. His job 'Hate is now to regain the reins of his kingdom that was a little too ably ruled by Richard Neville, Duke path of York in his absence. Henryleast resistance's wife, Margaret of Anjou, thinks Richard enjoyed the regency so much he's plotting a permanent takeover. The bigger problem is communicating it to Henry as she's increasingly side-lined. The approaching storm is gathering momentum threatening the House of Lancaster and a convalescing king whose recovery may only be temporary, even if he lives that long.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718159853</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diane PearsonG K Holloway|title=CsardasIn the Shadows of Castles
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Hungarian Jewish banker Zsigmond Ferenc rules his family with an iron fist. As a proud Hungarian he feels that he needs to maintain standards. His wife, Marta secretly gambles behind his back, his sparkling younger daughter Eva takes We begin after the momentous battle in 1066 and on the heart day of William of Normandy's coronation as King of every man she meets (including his own) and his two sons need leadership and guidanceEngland. Then thereWilliam's his eldest child, Amale who fears she will never fall in love which may be position is not secure and the new king has many challenges. Imposing authority through a disadvantage as he looks around for a fitting matchcoronation is important. And William is right to worry. Although whatever their preoccupations may be at While the moment everything in Hungary (and indeed Europe) previous king, Harold, is about to change; history's timings can be cruel dead and the advent likelihood of World War I more pitched battles is perhaps one over, the rebels are stirring and much of its cruellest. To say the Austro-Hungarian Empire won't be the same again is an understatementcountry does not wish to recognise a new overlord.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781857512</amazonuk>1800422466
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=3949666079
|title=Noema
|author=Dael Akkerman
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''This is a story about some things that happened to me about twelve thousand years ago.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Merle and T Jefferson Kline (translator)1529125898|title=The Brethren (Fortunes of France)Godmersham Park|author=Gill Hornby
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=After fighting for France for most of their adulthoods, the two Jeans, de Siorac and de Saveterre (nicknamed 'The Brethren') take over the chateau and settlement at Mespech in If it were not for the Perigore region casual dereliction of France. There the newly founded community flourishes as people like Jonas the stone-cutter move in, signalling growth. De Siorac does his bit by producing a family. However this is the 16th century and conflict is never far away. Nationally France is threatened by Spain and England but itodd gentleman's also a threat duty, there would no women to itself as brother fights brother – Catholic versus Huguenotteach well-bred daughters at all. Indeed, the Brethren live in fear of the consequences of their own Huguenot faith although de Siorac doesn't make life easy for himself – his wife Isabelle is Catholic. His personal battles reflect those of the country and have effects that, for him, are just as critical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782270442</amazonuk>}}'
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Soldier's DaughterMelissa Fu |authortitle=Rosie GoodwinPeach Blossom Spring
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary= I loved the prelude to Peach Blossom Spring, a short chapter entitled ''Origins''. Unfortunately it is the only truly poetic part of a book that I expected more from. Covering Chinese history from 1938 to 2005 as viewed through one family's perspective. When their home city is set ablaze during the war with Japan, a young mother (Meilin) and her four-year-old son (Renshu) are among those who flee. The story follows them on their journey across China, and in Renshu's case eventually to America.
|isbn=1472277538
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1916072038
|title=The House in the Hollow (The Talbot Saga)
|author=Allie Cresswell
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Briony Valentine lives a contented life with her mum, dad and younger siblings We meet part of the Talbot family in a close-knit community Yorkshire in NuneatonNovember 1811. She doesn't Twenty-seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot and her mother have much travelled in some discomfort from their home at Ecklington, to worry about, other than the fact that she and her best friend both have a crush on house in the same boy, Erniehollow. However, the clouds of war The two women are gathering angry with each other and threaten to turn BrionyJocelyn is well aware of her mother's peaceful world upside down. Dad and Ernie enlist in the army strengths and Briony has her own war to fight when she and her siblings are evacuated to Cornwall to stay with their stern Grandmother. The black sheep of the family, the unsavoury uncle Seb, clearly wants Briony out of his way, but how far will he go to make sure that she does not interfere with his sinister plans?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472101723</amazonuk>}}weaknesses:
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Fair FightAnnabel Abbs|authortitle=Anna FreemanThe Language of Food
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Set in the grimy streets of Bristol, we follow Eliza Acton is a poet who has never had the journey of Ruth – born slightest inclination to boil an egg. When tasked with writing a Madame in a brothelcookery book, and constantly outshone by her prettier sister Dora, Ruth learns to stand on two feet and to defend herself – something which is picked up on by a regular client of Dora’s, Mr Dryer. Plunged headfirst into the world of fighting, Ruth soon meets Grenville Dryer’s wife, Charlotteshe recruits Ann Kirby, a local woman scarred by smallpox and trapped in a loveless relationship with her husband, and a toxic one with her brothertroubled home life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297871951</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Wake|author=Paul Kingsnorth|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Paul Kingsnorth refers to his Booker-longlisted fiction debut, ''The Wake''Together, as 'a post-apocalyptic novel set 1000 years in the past'. This ambitious story traces the three-year Ely resistance movement that followed the Norman Conquest. The guerrilla fighters were led by a figure named Hereward the Wake – thus the title. The first thing any review must note is the language: set in 1066-8they test, this historical novel is written in what Kingsnorth calls a 'shadow tongue' or 'pseudo-language'craft, not quite refine and reshape the Old English you encountered reading Chaucer or ''Beowulf'' at schoolworld of domestic cookery, but similar. I would strongly recommend that any diligent reader start by perusing reinventing the partial glossary recipe book and 'A Note on Language', both appended at changing the end face of the textcookery writing forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908717866</amazonuk>1398502227
}}
{{newreview <!-- 26/8 -->Frontpage|titleauthor=The Leopard of DramoorFreya Marske|authortitle=P De V HencherA Marvellous Light
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=StephenRobin Blyth is nudged into a job in the Civil Service, Earl much to his chagrin. There he meets Edwin Courcey and learns that the streets of NorthumbriaLondon are threaded with magic. Desperate to remove a curse that threatens to swallow him, known Robin follows Edwin to popular legend as the Leopard of Dramoorcountryside, is past his best fighting days. But warfare is never far away in medieval England, particularly in where the border country. And it's not far away now. A combined force of Scottish hedgegrows bristle with incantations and French troops are massing and intend to attack one of Stephen's castlesthe people shimmer with power. Stephen's son David is captain There they uncover a sinister plot that threatens the lives of all magicians in the castle but he's spoiled and lazy and his father knows he won't defend it successfully without helpBritish Isles. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1493588192</amazonuk>1529080886
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Karen MaitlandB09F4CTKJR|title=The Vanishing WitchFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=More It's the later stages of World War I and higher taxes are being levied on the English by teenage King Richard II United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and his uncle/advisor John of Gaunt to pay for joined the wars against France17 Aero Squadron. They may cause annoyance This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, the rich but they're breaking first to be attached to the poor, people like Lincolnshire river boat man Gunter RAF and his family. Meanwhile some of the better off are facing problems from other quarters. Cloth merchant Robert of Bassingham is losing his stock before it arrives due first to be sent into the skies to theft and unrest among fight the weavers Germans in Flandersactive combat. It's not a good time But before that can happen, Petrol has to be English and eventually something will snap; we're heading towards 1831 and master flying the peasants will be revoltingnotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147221501X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steven GallowayChristophe Medler|title=The ConfabulistMadrigal: A Closely Guarded Secret
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Martin Strauss has an unusual affliction that causes him to reinvent his life from false memoriesSet against the backdrop of the English Civil War, convincing even himselfa secret plan (code-named Madrigal) is discovered by Sir Robert Douse in the summer of 1642. As a confabulist heloyal servant of the King, and Head of the Secret Service, it is Robert's unsure duty to uncover the details of his past the plan and whether he actually had a happy relationship with follow the woman he loved. But there is clues to uncover one thing of which he's convinced: he killed the famous Ehrich Weiss twice. You've not heard of Ehrich Weiss? Oh but you have for Ehrich was Harry Houdini, most guarded secrets in history—especially since the best escapologist (among other things) that plot could affect the world has ever knownKing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782393994</amazonuk>B095HY8SXQ
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1471187179|title=The Shadow of WarA Beautiful Spy|author=Stewart BinnsRachel Hore
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Minnie is an 'The Shadow of Warordinary' is the first book in a sprawling series with a new book being released once a year for each year of the First World War. Binns writes about five British communities, all very different – girl living an aristocratic Scottish family, a family of working class Welshfolk, a group of friends unexciting life in a Lancashire factory town, a pair of Cockney soldiers, and Winston Churchill, alongside his wife Clemmie and various government figuresleafy provincial suburb. The groups interact at various points book is set in the book, which leads 1930s and Minnie is expected to live up to some very genuine her mother's expectations and touching relationships forming, in particular the one between Margaret, find a nursenice young man to marry, produce children and Bronwyn, youngest daughter of the Welsh community.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718179978</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=CC Humphreys|title=Plague|rating=5|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=Highwayman Captain William Coke stops a carriage in spend the line rest of his chosen career her days looking after her husband and soon discovers hetheir home. Unfortunately, this isn's not the first t what she wants to have assailed it. The driver is dead do at all and all those within have been brutally skeweredneither does she want to continue working as a secretary. He flees As a result of a chance meeting, she finds herself drawn into espionage, working for the scene but unfortunately leaves secret service and effectively living a pistol behind. This is all thiefdouble life -taker Pitman needs to arouse his interest and attempt attempting to track infiltrate the Captain down with a noose in mindCommunist Party of Great Britain. Meanwhile nature Minnie finds herself torn between what she perceives as her duty and the friends she has an equally random mode of death that's soon to be let loose on London. This is 1665 made - and likes - whilst working for the Great Plague is about to beginCommunist Party.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780891423</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Windsor FactionAfonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|authortitle=D J TaylorKokoschka's Doll
|rating=2.5
|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=Well, this looked very much like a book I jumped at could love from the chance to get-go, which is why I picked my review this novelcopy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. I enjoy reading books based within this period found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the 20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and was fascinated by so on. It intrigued with the premise subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, too. But you''what if?'' proposed on ve seen the back cover. The prologue was beautifully written star rating that comes with this review, and I hoped can tell that if love was on these pages, it was an indicator for the rest of the booknot actually caused by them. So what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099578891</amazonuk>1529402697
}}
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical FictionTeens |summary=15 year old Margaret Christina Hammonds Reed's debut novel is set against the backdrop of Anjou is brought the 1992 Los Angeles riots, a reaction to England to marry the absolution of four police officers for beating a black man, Rodney King Henry VI, little realising she'll rule in his stead in all but namenearly to death. Then little 3-year-old Margaret Beaufort marries John de la Pole, son of Told from the Duke perspective of Suffolk. This is Ashley Bennett, the first novel follows her evolution from a silent bystander when confronted with matters of three marriages she'll embark on by the time she's 14race, one of which will produce to a king woman finding her voice and all will produce suffering. The War of the Roses and the Tudor dynasty are both waiting in the wings; these are the women who will raise the curtainembracing her heritage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241146240</amazonuk>1471188191
}}
