Difference between revisions of "Newest Historical Fiction Reviews"

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
(16 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
 
[[Category:Historical Fiction|*]]
 
[[Category:Historical Fiction|*]]
 
[[Category:New Reviews|Historical Fiction]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
 
[[Category:New Reviews|Historical Fiction]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
 +
{{newreview
 +
|author=Minette Walters
 +
|title=The Last Hours
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Historical Fiction
 +
|summary=In June 1348 the Black Death came into the country through the port of Melcombe in Dorset. Ignorant of many rules of hygiene which we'd find basic nearly seven hundred years later, the disease rages through the country. On the estate of Develish, Lady Anne Develish took control of the future of the people who lived in the demesne after her husband had ridden off to try and secure a marriage for his daughter. Two hundred bonded serfs lived on the estate and when Lady Anne realised the virulence of the plague she ordered that the estate refuse entry to anyone, including her husband and his entourage, for fear that they would bring the disease to her people.
 +
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1760632139</amazonuk>
 +
}}
 +
{{newreview
 +
|author=Lars Mytting and Paul Russell Grant (Translator)
 +
|title=The Sixteen Trees of the Somme
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=General Fiction
 +
|summary=While his grandfather lived the past was an area of certainty for Edvard.  At aged 4 he'd been taken to live with his grandparents, having survived the accident that killed his parents.  Now his grandfather has died revelations are coming to light showing Edvard his family history is different from what he'd believed… his mother's birthplace, his mother's name, the whereabouts of late Great-Uncle Einar… and that's without looking more deeply into the fatal accident itself.  Edvard is determined to solve the puzzle, a determination that will take him away from his native Norway to an area of France synonymous with devastation and a remote Scottish island loaded with secrets.
 +
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857056069</amazonuk>
 +
}}
 +
{{newreview
 +
|author=Toby Clements
 +
|title=Kingmaker: Kingdom Come: (Book 4)
 +
|rating=5
 +
|genre=Historical Fiction
 +
|summary=1470 dawns and the next chapters of the War of the Roses are ready to play out.  King Edward thinks that the future has been settled but treachery is still lurking.  Meanwhile Katherine and Thomas also have their world turned upside down when that ledger and a chance comment threaten all they have, including their lives.
 +
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178089466X</amazonuk>
 +
}}
 +
{{newreview
 +
|author=P F Chisholm
 +
|title=Guns in the North (The Sir Robert Carey Mysteries Omnibus)
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Historical Fiction
 +
|summary=1592: Sir Robert Carey flees the strictures of Elizabethan court – and his creditors – in order to become Deputy Warden of the West March in Carlisle.  The Scottish/English borders and those who inhabit them are different from the world he's left behind but it will have to become his world.  It's now his job to bring law to the lawless.  This isn't easy when every local he comes across has an affinity and a heritage of crime to some degree.  For Robert the best thing about the job is its proximity to the woman he loves but he doesn't know what he'll do about that yet either. Meanwhile he soon realises that those who are supposed to be on his side are plotting against him but they don't realise what they're up against. 
 +
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786694719</amazonuk>
 +
}}
 +
{{newreview
 +
|author=Zanna Sloniowska and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator)
 +
|title=The House with the Stained-Glass Window
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Historical Fiction
 +
|summary= Marianna, an opera singer in the soon-to-be Ukrainian city of Lviv, is mistakenly shot dead at a political rally in the dying days of the Soviet Union. This novel begins with both anger and hope, as Marianna's coffin is covered in the illegal blue and yellow flag, and her death seems to herald the birth of a new nation. But the day of her funeral is also the day of her daughter's first period – a girl who must learn how to be a woman in this time of drastic change, with no mother to guide her along the way.
 +
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857057138</amazonuk>
 +
}}
 +
{{newreview
 +
|author= K J Whittaker
 +
|title= False Lights
 +
|rating= 4.5
 +
|genre= Historical Fiction
 +
|summary=Cornwall, 1817.
 +
 +
What if your worst mistake changed the course of history? Napoleon has crushed the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo, and his ex-wife Josephine presides over French-occupied England. Cornwall erupts into open rebellion, and young heiress Hester escapes with Crow, Wellington's former intelligence officer, a half-French aristocrat haunted by his part in the catastrophic defeat. Together, they become embroiled in a web of treachery and espionage as plans are laid to free Wellington from secret captivity in the Scilly Isles and lead an uprising against the French occupation. In a country rife with traitors, Hester and Crow know it is impossible to play such a game as this for long...
 +
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786695340</amazonuk>
 +
}}
 +
{{newreview
 +
|author= J Jefferson Farjeon
 +
|title= Seven Dead
 +
|rating= 4
 +
|genre= Historical Fiction
 +
|summary=Ted Lyte was petty criminal, but not usually the housebreaking type. He lacked the courage. However, needs must, and whilst feeling down on his luck he decided to try his chances at an isolated house with a shuttered window. ''...he might find a bit of alright behind those shutters! Wot abart it?'' Ted does indeed find something interesting behind the shutters, but it definitely isn't what he'd hoped. In a locked room he finds seven dead bodies; six men and a woman. Fleeing the house in horror, he is pursued and caught by a passing yachtsman, Thomas Hazeldean, who also happens to be a journalist. Fascinated by Ted's story (and a possible scoop), Hazeldean decides to investigate this curious case and its assortment of odd clues, including a portrait shot through the heart, an old cricket ball and a mysterious note written by one of the victims.
 +
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0712356886</amazonuk>
 +
}}
 +
{{newreview
 +
|title=Salt Creek
 +
|author=Lucy Treloar
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Historical Fiction
 +
|summary=The first chapter of ''Salt Creek'' opens in Chichester, England, in 1874. Hester Finch is a respected and reasonably wealthy member of her community. But she can't stop her thoughts wandering back to her adolescence, spent on Salt Creek Station in the remote South Australian Coorong region. Hester feels ''has never felt so alive as then, when we had so little''.
 +
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910709417</amazonuk>
 +
}}
 +
{{newreview
 +
|author= Jamie Ford
 +
|title= Love and Other Consolation Prizes
 +
|rating= 5
 +
|genre= Historical Fiction
 +
|summary=At the World's Fair in 1962, it seems that all eyes are focused on the future. The Space Needle dominates the landscape, filling people with anticipation about things to come. One visitor, however, has his mind firmly focused on the past. Ernest Young is helping his daughter Ju-ju with a story she is writing for her newspaper; a story about a young immigrant boy who was given away as a prize in a raffle at the World's Fair in 1909.
 +
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749022752</amazonuk>
 +
}}
 +
{{newreview
 +
|author= Nicola Pryce
 +
|title= The Captain's Girl
 +
|rating= 4
 +
|genre= Historical Fiction
 +
|summary=Last year, Bookbag reviewed, and thoroughly enjoyed, [[Pengelly's Daughter by Nicola Pryce|Pengelly's Daughter]], a swashbuckling historical romance set in picturesque Cornwall. Now we have the pleasure of reading the much-anticipated sequel. This time, the story focuses on a neighbour of the Polcarrow family, Miss Celia Cavendish, who has been engaged to a cruel man that she does not love. One fateful night, she runs away to the Polcarrow house to beg them for help, and the pivotal events of that night have far-reaching consequences for all involved.
 +
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782398856</amazonuk>
 +
}}
 +
 +
{{newreview
 +
|author=Hawa L Crickmore
 +
|title=Across the Ocean
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=General Fiction
 +
|summary=A young cage fighter, Martin Grandson, was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder which required a bone-marrow transplant, preferably from a sibling.  Only recently he'd been a fit young man, in the prime of life, but now he was suffering from a rare type of bone cancer: without the transplant he would be paralysed for life and might be dead within the next twelve weeks if he didn't receive the transplant within the next fourteen days.  Unfortunately Martin's parents had died in a car crash and there were no siblings or other close relatives.  His girlfriend, Celia, was not a match.
 +
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524666971</amazonuk>
 +
}}
 +
{{newreview
 +
|author= M J Tjia
 +
|title= She Be Damned
 +
|rating= 4
 +
|genre= Crime (Historical)
 +
|summary= London, 1863: prostitutes in the Waterloo area are turning up dead, their sexual organs mutilated and removed. When another girl goes missing, fears grow that the killer may have claimed their latest victim. The police are at a loss and so it falls to courtesan and professional detective, Heloise Chancey, to investigate. With the assistance of her trusty Chinese maid, Amah Li Leen, Heloise inches closer to the truth. But when Amah is implicated in the brutal plot, Heloise must reconsider whom she can trust, before the killer strikes again.
 +
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178507931X</amazonuk>
 +
}}
 +
{{newreview
 +
|author= Sarah Franklin
 +
|title= Shelter
 +
|rating= 5
 +
|genre= Historical Fiction
 +
|summary=Connie Granger has escaped her bombed-out city home, finding refuge in the Women's Timber Corps. For her, this remote community must now serve a secret purpose.<br>
 +
Seppe, an Italian prisoner of war, is haunted by his memories. In the forest camp, he finds a strange kind of freedom.Their meeting signals new beginnings. But as they are drawn together, the world outside their forest haven is being torn apart. Old certainties are crumbling, and both must now make a life-defining choice.<br>
 +
What price will they pay for freedom? What will they fight to protect?
 +
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785762990</amazonuk>
 +
}}
 +
{{newreview
 +
|author= Jane Johnson
 +
|title= Court of Lions
 +
|rating= 5
 +
|genre= Historical Fiction
 +
|summary= Kate Fordham arrived in the sunlit city of Granada a year ago. In the shadow of the Alhambra, one of the most beautiful places on earth, she works as a waitress serving tourists in a busy bar. She pretends she's happy with her new life – but how could she be? Kate's alone, afraid and hiding under a false name. And fate is about to bring her face-to-face with her greatest fear. Five centuries ago, a message, in a hand few could read, was inscribed in blood on a stolen scrap of paper. The paper was folded and pressed into one of the Alhambra's walls. There it has lain, undisturbed by the tides of history – the Fall of Granada, the expulsion of its last Sultan – until Kate discovers it. Born of love, in a time of danger and desperation, the fragment will be the catalyst that changes Kate's life forever.
 +
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786694336</amazonuk>
 +
}}
 +
{{newreview
 +
|author= Angus Watson
 +
|title= You Die When You Die
 +
|rating= 4
 +
|genre= Historical Fiction
 +
|summary= Finnbogi the Boggy and his tribe of mushroom men (Vikings) must take a road trip through hostile territory whilst being hunted by the greatest fighting force ever seen (Amazonian Native Americans). Vikings meet Native Americans in a clash of cultures and potentially the end of the world. When the Queen of the known world says your tribe has to be exterminated then your immediate future may not be so rosy.
 +
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0356507564</amazonuk>
 +
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Alison Weir
 
|author=Alison Weir
Line 109: Line 234:
 
Patience lives with her widowed brother, William, helping to care for his son Richard (nicknamed Blackberry).  Despite the Civil war ending, the times are still uncertain.  Cromwell is increasingly annoyed with a parliament of rebels refusing to go to the electorate for ratification.  William sees this problem at close quarters once he's effectively forced to become Cromwell's legal advisor in an atmosphere poisoned by espionage and religious factions.  However when Patience comes across Shadrick Simpson, a charismatic preacher, all becomes clearer for her at least.  Meanwhile Sam Challoner, William's brother in law, comes home after privateering with Prince Rupert and realises that the fight at sea is better than peace at home.  At least when you're privateering you know who your enemy is.
 
Patience lives with her widowed brother, William, helping to care for his son Richard (nicknamed Blackberry).  Despite the Civil war ending, the times are still uncertain.  Cromwell is increasingly annoyed with a parliament of rebels refusing to go to the electorate for ratification.  William sees this problem at close quarters once he's effectively forced to become Cromwell's legal advisor in an atmosphere poisoned by espionage and religious factions.  However when Patience comes across Shadrick Simpson, a charismatic preacher, all becomes clearer for her at least.  Meanwhile Sam Challoner, William's brother in law, comes home after privateering with Prince Rupert and realises that the fight at sea is better than peace at home.  At least when you're privateering you know who your enemy is.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782396616</amazonuk>
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782396616</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= David Barbaree
 
|title= Deposed
 
|rating= 4.5
 
|genre= Historical Fiction
 
|summary= A.D 68. A deposed emperor lies in a prison cell, betrayed and newly blinded by those who were sworn to protect him. He is now crippled and deprived of power, left completely on the edge of despair with a frightened young slave named Marcus as his only companion. Ten years later and it is Emperor Vespasian who wears the purple. Things may have settled since the civil war but Vespasian's son Titus is plagued by worry about plots to murder his father. Gruesome atrocities and mysterious disappearances are rife throughout Rome; it is a city full of falsehoods and intrigues with the fear of rebellion lurking beneath the surface. Furthermore, a man who used to be emperor still lives – a blind man who everyone believes to be dead. His name is Nero and he seeks revenge against those who wronged him. 
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785762672</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Diney Costeloe
 
|title= The Married Girls
 
|rating= 4.5
 
|genre= Historical Fiction
 
|summary=Wynsdown, 1949. In the small Somerset village of Wynsdown, Charlotte Shepherd is happily married to farmer Billy. She arrived from Germany on the Kindertransport as a child during the war and now feels settled in her adopted home. Meanwhile, the squire's fighter pilot son, Felix, has returned to the village with a fiancée in tow. Daphne is beautiful, charming... and harbouring secrets. After meeting during the war, Felix knows some of Daphne's past, but she has worked hard to conceal that which could unravel her carefully built life. For Charlotte, too, a dangerous past is coming back in the shape of fellow refugee, bad boy Harry Black. Forever bound by their childhoods, Charlotte will always care for him, but Harry's return disrupts the village quiet and it's not long before gossip spreads. The war may have ended, but for these girls, trouble is only just beginning...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784976121</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Philip Kerr
 
|title= Prussian Blue: Bernie Gunther Thriller 12
 
|rating= 3.5
 
|genre= Crime (Historical) 
 
|summary= Bernie Gunther is not your typical hero. In 1939, he was stationed in Berlin as a police officer handling murder cases and occasionally doing work for some high-ranking Nazis. Although never a Nazi party member himself (he was a known member of the Social Democratic Party), he understood that the best thing he could do for himself at that time was to make himself indispensable to men like Reinhard Heydrich and Martin Bormann. So when he is assigned to solve a murder that has occurred at Hitler's Berghof in the Bavarian mountains, he knows that he needs to do it quickly and discreetly – not just for justice's sake, but for his own. He is given exactly one week to apprehend the suspect, and he hopes that with the help of his friend Friedrich Korsch, an investigator with the Krimialpolizei (or Kripo, for short) he just might get lucky. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784296481</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Stephan Collishaw
 
|title= The Song of the Stork
 
|rating= 4.5
 
|genre= Literary Fiction
 
|summary= Stephan Collishaw has achieved a rare feat – a novel set amidst the horrors of Nazi tyranny that does not shy away from human suffering, but does not drown in it either.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079190</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Alan Kennedy
 
|title=A Time to Tell Lies
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|summary= Psychologist Alan Kennedy's fifth novel continues the story he began with [[Lucy by Alan Kennedy]]. In the autumn of 1942, Captain Alex Vere and Justine Perry are among the men and women picked up and taken to a stately home in Scotland, where they are trained in spy skills. After this first encounter, Alex is smitten yet uncertain if he will ever see Justine again. The spy's life is dangerous and unpredictable, after all. Six weeks later, though, they meet up again in southwest France, where they have been sent to collect Simone, a Special Operations Executive agent. It's Alex's first mission (Justine's fourth) and all goes horribly awry. Alex ends up in custody at the Gendarmerie, facing a German who knows he has a false passport.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0993202322</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Alex Nye
 
|title=For My Sins
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|summary=1586: Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, has time to look back over her past life as she sits, incarcerated by her second cousin Queen Elizabeth I.  Mary's life hasn't been one of totally pampered royalty.  Growing up in France, away from her mother, widowed and then returning to Scotland to claim the throne before she was even 19, her struggle with fate started early.  The tensions between Mary the woman, Mary the Catholic and Mary the political force continue through three marriages, an unsolved murder and the thwarted desire to serve her people.  Now it's come to this prison cell but while there's life, there's still hope…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905916787</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Grace Macallister
 
|title= The Magician's Lie
 
|rating=4
 
|genre= Thrillers
 
|summary= The Amazing Arden is the most famous female illusionist of her day, renowned for her notorious trick of sawing a man in half on stage. But one night she swaps her trademark saw for an axe. When Arden's husband is found dead later that night, the answer seems clear, most of all to young policeman Virgil Holt. Captured and taken into custody, all seems set for Arden's swift confession. But she has a different story to tell. Even handcuffed and alone, Arden is far from powerless, and what she reveals is as unbelievable as it is spellbinding.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1787199967</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Helen Dunmore
 
|title=Birdcage Walk
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|summary=Bristol 1792: Lizzie married well.  John Diner Tredevant is a property developer who has reached the zenith of his life's work: building a terrace of prestigious houses overlooking the Avon Gorge.  In a time of turbulence as France reaches the dawn of revolution, Britain, including Diner, fears it may spread.  This puts Lizzie in a difficult position since her mother and step-father both believe in propagating pamphlets and ideas of egalitarianism for and to all, including women.  In other words, they think nothing of spreading ideas of the sort that fanned the French flames.  However, that's not Lizzie's only problem… there is a darkness in her husband's past of which she's unaware.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091959403</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Beth Underdown
 
|title=The Witchfinder's Sister
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|summary=England 1645: Matthew Hopkins is good at his chosen career: seeking, testing and convicting those with the Devil in them.  His sister, Alice, doesn't realise the full connotations of his actions until, widowed and pregnant, she returns home.  Alice is grateful to be allowed to live under Matthew's roof but then watches his sinister finger of suspicion point in unexpected places.  This is a man changed from the boy that Alice used to know.  She never then realised that he'd be capable of killing hundreds of people and making her the Witchfinder's Sister.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241978033</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Emma Henderson
 
|title= The Valentine House
 
|rating= 4
 
|genre= Literary Fiction
 
|summary= In June 1914, Sir Anthony Valentine, a keen mountaineer, arrives with his family to spend the summer in their chalet, high in the French Alps. There, for the first time, fourteen-year-old foundling Mathilde starts work as one of the 'uglies' - village girls employed as servants and picked, it is believed, to ensure they don't catch Sir Anthony's roving eye. For Mathilde it is the start of a life-long entanglement with les anglais - strange, exciting people, far removed from the hard grind of farming. Except she soon finds the Valentines are less carefree than they appear, with a curiously absent daughter no one talks about. It will be decades - disrupted by war, accidents and a cruel betrayal - before Mathilde discovers the key to the mystery. And in 1976, the year Sir Anthony's great-great grandson comes to visit, she must decide whether to use it.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444704028</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Polly Clark
 
|title= Larchfield
 
|rating= 5
 
|genre= Literary Fiction
 
|summary=I It's early summer when a young poet, Dora Fielding, moves to Helensburgh on the west coast of Scotland and her hopes are first challenged. Newly married, pregnant, she's excited by the prospect of a life that combines family and creativity. She thinks she knows what being a person, a wife, a mother, means. She is soon shown that she is wrong. As the battle begins for her very sense of self, Dora comes to find the realities of small town life suffocating, and, eventually, terrifying; until she finds a way to escape reality altogether. Another poet, she discovers, lived in Helensburgh once. Wystan H. Auden, brilliant and awkward at 24, with his first book of poetry published, should be embarking on success and society in London. Instead, in 1930, fleeing a broken engagement, he takes a teaching post at Larchfield School for boys where he is mocked for his Englishness and suspected - rightly - of homosexuality. Yet in this repressed limbo Wystan will fall in love for the first time, even as he fights his deepest fears.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786481928</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Dinah Jefferies
 
|title=Before the Rains
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|summary=Eliza has tragically punctuated childhood memories of India that have feed her desire to return.  Therefore in 1930, following the death of her husband, when the British government commission her to photograph scenes of Indian life, she jumps at the chance.  What she doesn't realise is that not everyone she comes across is delighted with the idea.  Living within the Sultana's opulent palace complex is definitely an attraction for her, as is Jay, an Indian price who shows Eliza the real India.  However, attractions are sometimes dangerous and even deadly.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241287081</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Otto de Kat and Laura Watkinson (translator)
 
|title=The Longest Night
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=Emma has a philosophy – ''let the dead rest, and love the living''.  The problem with that, as a 96-year-old, is that there are too few living left, and so while the love remains she will go through her memories, taking a woozy, diaphanous path through all the major events of her life.  Starting in wartime Berlin with one husband, who gets snatched from her at work, fleeing to another place to wait for peace, and wait for him in vain, moving to Holland and finding new love, and so on – this wispy journey will show all the impacts of war, from rationing right up to exile, death and survival.  The memories are coming strongly here and now, as Emma is waiting for at least one of her two sons to visit, and then she will die…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857056085</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Adrian Goldsworthy
 
|title= Vindolanda
 
|rating= 3.5
 
|genre= Historical Fiction
 
|summary= AD 98: in the northern fields of Britannia lies Vindolanda, a Roman auxiliary base situated on the edge of the Roman world. Far from the prosperity and decadence of Rome, the wild and untamed lands around Vindolanda are ripe with rebel tribes and druids set against the destruction of Rome and its armies. In the midst of this destruction is Flavius Ferox; a Briton and Roman Centurion who has been given the task of keeping the peace in this desolate edge of the world. But life in Roman Britain is full of danger and betrayal at every turn, and Ferox knows it will take more than courage to overcome what lies ahead.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784974684</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}

Revision as of 07:49, 2 November 2017

The Last Hours by Minette Walters

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

In June 1348 the Black Death came into the country through the port of Melcombe in Dorset. Ignorant of many rules of hygiene which we'd find basic nearly seven hundred years later, the disease rages through the country. On the estate of Develish, Lady Anne Develish took control of the future of the people who lived in the demesne after her husband had ridden off to try and secure a marriage for his daughter. Two hundred bonded serfs lived on the estate and when Lady Anne realised the virulence of the plague she ordered that the estate refuse entry to anyone, including her husband and his entourage, for fear that they would bring the disease to her people. Full review...

The Sixteen Trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting and Paul Russell Grant (Translator)

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

While his grandfather lived the past was an area of certainty for Edvard. At aged 4 he'd been taken to live with his grandparents, having survived the accident that killed his parents. Now his grandfather has died revelations are coming to light showing Edvard his family history is different from what he'd believed… his mother's birthplace, his mother's name, the whereabouts of late Great-Uncle Einar… and that's without looking more deeply into the fatal accident itself. Edvard is determined to solve the puzzle, a determination that will take him away from his native Norway to an area of France synonymous with devastation and a remote Scottish island loaded with secrets. Full review...

Kingmaker: Kingdom Come: (Book 4) by Toby Clements

5star.jpg Historical Fiction

1470 dawns and the next chapters of the War of the Roses are ready to play out. King Edward thinks that the future has been settled but treachery is still lurking. Meanwhile Katherine and Thomas also have their world turned upside down when that ledger and a chance comment threaten all they have, including their lives. Full review...

Guns in the North (The Sir Robert Carey Mysteries Omnibus) by P F Chisholm

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

1592: Sir Robert Carey flees the strictures of Elizabethan court – and his creditors – in order to become Deputy Warden of the West March in Carlisle. The Scottish/English borders and those who inhabit them are different from the world he's left behind but it will have to become his world. It's now his job to bring law to the lawless. This isn't easy when every local he comes across has an affinity and a heritage of crime to some degree. For Robert the best thing about the job is its proximity to the woman he loves but he doesn't know what he'll do about that yet either. Meanwhile he soon realises that those who are supposed to be on his side are plotting against him but they don't realise what they're up against. Full review...

The House with the Stained-Glass Window by Zanna Sloniowska and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator)

4star.jpg Historical Fiction

Marianna, an opera singer in the soon-to-be Ukrainian city of Lviv, is mistakenly shot dead at a political rally in the dying days of the Soviet Union. This novel begins with both anger and hope, as Marianna's coffin is covered in the illegal blue and yellow flag, and her death seems to herald the birth of a new nation. But the day of her funeral is also the day of her daughter's first period – a girl who must learn how to be a woman in this time of drastic change, with no mother to guide her along the way. Full review...

False Lights by K J Whittaker

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

Cornwall, 1817.

What if your worst mistake changed the course of history? Napoleon has crushed the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo, and his ex-wife Josephine presides over French-occupied England. Cornwall erupts into open rebellion, and young heiress Hester escapes with Crow, Wellington's former intelligence officer, a half-French aristocrat haunted by his part in the catastrophic defeat. Together, they become embroiled in a web of treachery and espionage as plans are laid to free Wellington from secret captivity in the Scilly Isles and lead an uprising against the French occupation. In a country rife with traitors, Hester and Crow know it is impossible to play such a game as this for long... Full review...

Seven Dead by J Jefferson Farjeon

4star.jpg Historical Fiction

Ted Lyte was petty criminal, but not usually the housebreaking type. He lacked the courage. However, needs must, and whilst feeling down on his luck he decided to try his chances at an isolated house with a shuttered window. ...he might find a bit of alright behind those shutters! Wot abart it? Ted does indeed find something interesting behind the shutters, but it definitely isn't what he'd hoped. In a locked room he finds seven dead bodies; six men and a woman. Fleeing the house in horror, he is pursued and caught by a passing yachtsman, Thomas Hazeldean, who also happens to be a journalist. Fascinated by Ted's story (and a possible scoop), Hazeldean decides to investigate this curious case and its assortment of odd clues, including a portrait shot through the heart, an old cricket ball and a mysterious note written by one of the victims. Full review...

Salt Creek by Lucy Treloar

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

The first chapter of Salt Creek opens in Chichester, England, in 1874. Hester Finch is a respected and reasonably wealthy member of her community. But she can't stop her thoughts wandering back to her adolescence, spent on Salt Creek Station in the remote South Australian Coorong region. Hester feels has never felt so alive as then, when we had so little. Full review...

Love and Other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford

5star.jpg Historical Fiction

At the World's Fair in 1962, it seems that all eyes are focused on the future. The Space Needle dominates the landscape, filling people with anticipation about things to come. One visitor, however, has his mind firmly focused on the past. Ernest Young is helping his daughter Ju-ju with a story she is writing for her newspaper; a story about a young immigrant boy who was given away as a prize in a raffle at the World's Fair in 1909. Full review...

The Captain's Girl by Nicola Pryce

4star.jpg Historical Fiction

Last year, Bookbag reviewed, and thoroughly enjoyed, Pengelly's Daughter, a swashbuckling historical romance set in picturesque Cornwall. Now we have the pleasure of reading the much-anticipated sequel. This time, the story focuses on a neighbour of the Polcarrow family, Miss Celia Cavendish, who has been engaged to a cruel man that she does not love. One fateful night, she runs away to the Polcarrow house to beg them for help, and the pivotal events of that night have far-reaching consequences for all involved. Full review...

Across the Ocean by Hawa L Crickmore

4star.jpg General Fiction

A young cage fighter, Martin Grandson, was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder which required a bone-marrow transplant, preferably from a sibling. Only recently he'd been a fit young man, in the prime of life, but now he was suffering from a rare type of bone cancer: without the transplant he would be paralysed for life and might be dead within the next twelve weeks if he didn't receive the transplant within the next fourteen days. Unfortunately Martin's parents had died in a car crash and there were no siblings or other close relatives. His girlfriend, Celia, was not a match. Full review...

She Be Damned by M J Tjia

4star.jpg Crime (Historical)

London, 1863: prostitutes in the Waterloo area are turning up dead, their sexual organs mutilated and removed. When another girl goes missing, fears grow that the killer may have claimed their latest victim. The police are at a loss and so it falls to courtesan and professional detective, Heloise Chancey, to investigate. With the assistance of her trusty Chinese maid, Amah Li Leen, Heloise inches closer to the truth. But when Amah is implicated in the brutal plot, Heloise must reconsider whom she can trust, before the killer strikes again. Full review...

Shelter by Sarah Franklin

5star.jpg Historical Fiction

Connie Granger has escaped her bombed-out city home, finding refuge in the Women's Timber Corps. For her, this remote community must now serve a secret purpose.
Seppe, an Italian prisoner of war, is haunted by his memories. In the forest camp, he finds a strange kind of freedom.Their meeting signals new beginnings. But as they are drawn together, the world outside their forest haven is being torn apart. Old certainties are crumbling, and both must now make a life-defining choice.
What price will they pay for freedom? What will they fight to protect? Full review...

Court of Lions by Jane Johnson

5star.jpg Historical Fiction

Kate Fordham arrived in the sunlit city of Granada a year ago. In the shadow of the Alhambra, one of the most beautiful places on earth, she works as a waitress serving tourists in a busy bar. She pretends she's happy with her new life – but how could she be? Kate's alone, afraid and hiding under a false name. And fate is about to bring her face-to-face with her greatest fear. Five centuries ago, a message, in a hand few could read, was inscribed in blood on a stolen scrap of paper. The paper was folded and pressed into one of the Alhambra's walls. There it has lain, undisturbed by the tides of history – the Fall of Granada, the expulsion of its last Sultan – until Kate discovers it. Born of love, in a time of danger and desperation, the fragment will be the catalyst that changes Kate's life forever. Full review...

You Die When You Die by Angus Watson

4star.jpg Historical Fiction

Finnbogi the Boggy and his tribe of mushroom men (Vikings) must take a road trip through hostile territory whilst being hunted by the greatest fighting force ever seen (Amazonian Native Americans). Vikings meet Native Americans in a clash of cultures and potentially the end of the world. When the Queen of the known world says your tribe has to be exterminated then your immediate future may not be so rosy. Full review...

Six Tudor Queens: Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession: Six Tudor Queens 2 by Alison Weir

4star.jpg Historical Fiction

Thomas Boleyn sends his daughters abroad to be trained at the courts of European royalty. Not only does this give them an education in the ways of the elite, it could also ensure a good marriage. Unfortunately he hasn't reckoned on the ideas that one of them, Anne, picks up and as for marriage… Anne is determined to marry for love not through some paternal arrangement. Yet the reality turns out to be different, driving a wedge through her family on a road leading to dark tragedy. Full review...

The Floating Theatre by Martha Conway

5star.jpg Historical Fiction

When young seamstress May Bedloe is left alone and penniless on the shore of the Ohio, she finds work on the famous floating theatre that plies its trade along the river. Her creativity and needlework skills quickly become invaluable and she settles into life among the colourful troupe of actors. She finds friends, and possibly the promise of more. But cruising the border between the Confederate South and the 'free' North is fraught with danger. For the sake of a debt that must be repaid, May is compelled to transport secret passengers, under cover of darkness, across the river and on, along the underground railroad. But as May's secrets become harder to keep, she learns she must endanger those now dear to her.

And to save the lives of others, she must risk her own... Full review...

Beneath a Burning Sky by Jenny Ashcroft

4star.jpg Historical Fiction

Young bride Olivia Sheldon finds returning to her childhood home in Egypt a bitter-sweet experience. On the one hand, she has been reunited with her estranged sister Clara, and the pair have formed a deep and loving bond. On the other, she has an unhappy marriage to her domineering husband Alistair, who only married her to spite Clara, who had refused him previously. Life with the sadistic Alistair is unbearable, with Olivia subjected to horrific abuse at his hands, daily. As a lady with no means of supporting herself, Olivia seems trapped without any means of escape, only finding solace in the company of her sister and friends. But when her dear sister goes mysteriously missing in the bustling streets of Alexandria, it is up to Olivia to try and solve the mystery of her disappearance before it is too late. Full review...

Dunstan: One Man Will Change the Fate of England by Conn Iggulden

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

The young Dunstan shows no sign of the sainthood he'll later attain. Son of a Wessex thane and sent to a monastery for education, this isn't a lad who responds to discipline. However an enquiring, intelligent mind begins to emerge and then comes the big break. Lady Elflaed calls to put a proposal to him after hearing about what she considers to be a miracle and the monks consider another in a long line of excuses. Yet Dunstan will outshine all his teachers as well as knowing seven kings and holding responsible positions in their courts, as the book's title suggests. Whether we believe in the miracles or not, Dunstan certainly had quite a life! Full review...

The Hopkins Conundrum by Simon Edge

5star.jpg General Fiction

Tim Cleverley inherits a failing pub in Wales, which he plans to rescue by enlisting an American pulp novelist to concoct an entirely fabricated mystery about Gerard Manley Hopkins, who composed The Wreck of the Deutschland nearby.

In Victorian England, Gerard Manley Hopkins lives a life full of confusion and contradiction, but discovers a calling for poetry that threatens to overrule his calling to God. And, speaking of God, Five nuns leave persecution to travel to a new world – only to find themselves in more trouble that they could ever have imagined… Full review...

The Shadow Queen by Anne O'Brien

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

Born in 1328, Joan of Kent may be of royal blood but she's from a family tainted by treachery. Her father Edmund Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent, was executed for his part in the infamous Montague plot. However Joan has grown up under the protection of her cousin, King Edward III with all the advantages and attributes of a princess. Yet, much to her mother's chagrin, obedience isn't one of these attributes. Joan's head strong feist takes her on a varied journey in life. Having said that, three husbands, five marriages (technically) and a son destined for the English throne means that it's also been one heck of a life! Full review...

The Girls of Ennismore: A Heart-Rending Irish Saga by Patricia Falvey

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

Ireland 1900: Ennismore House's young heiress Victoria had hoped that she and Rosie Killeen would be friends forever. Rosie soon comes to know better as there's a social chasm between those who live in the House and those, like Rosie's family, who have been brought up merely to serve them. The days of innocence are coming to an end in many ways. Soon, as the cry for Irish Home Rule becomes louder, there'll be more than steps on society's ladder between them as each must discover their own way in a nation that will never be the same again. Full review...

The Butlins Girls by Elaine Everest

4star.jpg Historical Fiction

Fresh-faced Molly Missons has just arrived in Skegness to start her new job as a Butlins auntie. Behind the smiles and confident appearance, she hides a secret; she has taken the job to escape escalating problems at home. She soon finds good friends in her chalet-mates Bunty and Plum, and it turns out that they each have their own reasons for wanting a fresh start. Meanwhile, Molly is shocked to discover that her movie-star crush Johnny Johnson is working as an entertainment adviser at the camp. Is he really as suave as his on-screen persona? And why is he working at the camp anyway? As hidden secrets become discovered, Molly and her new friends face new threats and dangers that may threaten their new-found freedom. Full review...

Blood Forest by Geraint Jones

5star.jpg Historical Fiction

Felix. The lucky one. He doesn't feel especially lucky when he staggers out into the grove and finds twelve of his comrades butchered and mutilated in the worst possible ways. He felt even less lucky when the soldiers arrived, Roman cavalry. He might have run, but he knew he'd never make it. He stepped out to face whatever came next. Full review...

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith

5star.jpg Historical Fiction

If you find the techniques used by Rembrandt and Vermeer fascinating, The Last Painting of Sara de Vos provides a masterclass in how to work up a canvas in stages. Framing the novel as the story of a seventeenth century Dutch painting, Dominic Smith vividly sketches out the main contours of his characters and the three time periods they inhabit before we are even one fifth of the way through. Sara is one of the few women artists of the period and her painting is of children skating on a frozen canal, her now dead daughter its central figure. The painting has been in Marty de Groot's family since before Isaac Newton was born and he is the patent lawyer from whom it is stolen in 1950s Manhattan. Ellie Shipley forged a copy of the painting in her postgraduate student years and in 2000 finds herself at the centre of a gathering storm which threatens to destroy her reputation as one of Sydney's foremost fine art academics. Satisfying though those first descriptions are, we then understand these are merely the author's equivalent of the delicate chalk lines used by painters of the Dutch Golden Age to mark out the composition which will follow. Full review...

The Summer House Party by Caro Fraser

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

In the gloriously hot summer of 1936, a group of people meet at a country house party. Within three years, England will be at war, but for now, time stands still. Dan Ranscombe is clever and good-looking, but he resents the wealth and easy savoir-faire of fellow guest, Paul Latimer. Surely a shrewd girl like Meg Slater would see through that, wouldn't she? And what about Diana, Paul's beautiful sister, Charles Asher, the Jewish outsider, Madeleine, restless and dissatisfied with her role as children's nanny? And artist Henry Haddon, their host, no longer young, but secure in his power as a practised seducer. As these guests gather, none has any inkling the choices they make will have fateful consequences, lasting through the war and beyond. Or that the first unforeseen event will be a shocking death… Full review...

The Serpent Sword by Matthew Harffy

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

It's AD 633 and Albion is a divided island made up of petty warlords who want to be treated like honourable royalty but act like gangsters. Romans are a memory that have entered into myth and the souls of Albion are torn between the old Gods and the new Christ. It is in this world that we follow the adventures of Beobrand as he undertakes the classic hero’s journey. Beobrand moves from wide-eyed teenager to hardened and honourable warrior through a brutal rite of passage as he hunts the killer of his brother and seeks to become a true warrior. Full review...

The Tyrant's Shadow by Antonia Senior

4star.jpg Historical Fiction

Warning: spoilers ahead for Treason's Daughter. Patience lives with her widowed brother, William, helping to care for his son Richard (nicknamed Blackberry). Despite the Civil war ending, the times are still uncertain. Cromwell is increasingly annoyed with a parliament of rebels refusing to go to the electorate for ratification. William sees this problem at close quarters once he's effectively forced to become Cromwell's legal advisor in an atmosphere poisoned by espionage and religious factions. However when Patience comes across Shadrick Simpson, a charismatic preacher, all becomes clearer for her at least. Meanwhile Sam Challoner, William's brother in law, comes home after privateering with Prince Rupert and realises that the fight at sea is better than peace at home. At least when you're privateering you know who your enemy is. Full review...