Difference between revisions of "Newest Historical Fiction Reviews"

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===[[Walking Wounded by Sheila Llewellyn]]===
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===[[The Phoenix of Florence by Philip Kazan]]===
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[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
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Deep in the Tuscan countryside of fifteenth century Italy, Onoria survives a massacre that destroys her family and home. Alone in the forest, she meets a band of soldiers who, believing her to be a boy train and develop her – and the determined Onoria becomes a mercenary – desperate to avoid any situation in which she may feel vulnerable again. Along the way, she meets ex-soldier Celavini, whose journey to Florence sees him investigating two brutal murders. As he digs further and uncovers links to his own family history, Celavini must revisit the past he shares with Onoria, in the hope that they can lay the ghosts of their shared history to rest, before it's too late... [[The Phoenix of Florence by Philip Kazan|Full Review]]
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===[[Deviation by Luce d'Eramo and Anne Milano Appel (translator)]]===
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[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
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For those of you who have read books of life in the Nazi camps – and of course, for those of you who have not – this can be considered a next step. It begins, after all, with someone escaping Dachau and fleeing her work assignment during a bombing raid, and you'd not blame her one minute, as her career was deemed to be cess-tank cleaner and sewage unblocker by the Germans. In Munich, she stumbles on help to get her to what seems to be a camp for non-native civilians to look for work, or company, or transport elsewhere, either official or otherwise. But then the next chapter sees her going back into the camp next to Dachau once more, and by then eyebrows are being raised. [[Deviation by Luce d'Eramo and Anne Milano Appel (translator)|Full Review]]
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===[[The Count of 9 by Erle Stanley Gardner]]===
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[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
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''The Count of 9'' is a hardboiled detective story written in the 1950s. It revolves around the detective duo of Donald Lam and Bertha Cool as they attempt to solve the theft of priceless Bornean artefacts. However, their case quickly turns into something darker - an impossible murder.  [[The Count of 9 by Erle Stanley Gardner|Full Review]]
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===[[The Hidden by Mary Chamberlain]]===
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[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
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When Barbara Hummel arrives, determined to identify the mysterious woman whose photograph she has found among her mother's possessions, Dora and Joe find their worlds upended – and are swiftly forced to confront their pasts. Revisiting their time on the Channel Islands during World War II, Dora remembers a time when she concealed her Jewish identity, and Joe, a Catholic Priest, remembers a time when he hid something very different. In this story of love, loss and betrayal, it remains to be seen whether a speck of light can diffuse the darkest shadows of war… [[The Hidden by Mary Chamberlain|Full Review]]
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===[[The Turn of Midnight by Minette Walters]]===
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[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
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At the beginning of 1349 there is a glimmer of a hope that the ravages of the Black Death might be passing.  In Devilish in Dorset the population is well, because of Lady Anne's strict rules about quarantine, which are regarded as heresy as they go against the strict rules of the church, but their stores of food are dwindling and they know that when they are exhausted they will have no choice but to leave.  What will they find on the outside?  Are they the only survivors? [[The Turn of Midnight by Minette Walters|Full Review]]
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===[[Frieda by Annabel Abbs]]===
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[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]
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Married to English Professor Ernest Weekley, aristocrat Frieda Von Richtofen finds herself stifled by the confines of married life. Visiting family in Munich, she becomes captivated by the ideas of revolution and free love. Meeting the penniless writer D.H. Lawrence, she finds herself drawn into a passionate affair and a tempestuous relationship, changing the course of both their lives, and unleashing a creative outpouring that will change the course of literature forever. [[Frieda by Annabel Abbs|Full Review]]
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===[[House of Glass by Susan Fletcher]]===
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[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
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Clara suffered from ''Osteogenesis imperfecta'': these days it would probably be called brittle bone disease and whilst there is still no cure, treatments have advanced.  At the beginning of the twentieth century it meant that Clara was confined to her home, living life through a window and the tales her mother, Charlotte, brought home.  Both became far too knowledgeable about bones and the sounds they made on breaking.  Charlotte would ''list bones like continents''.  Clara would only escape the house after her mother's death - of a tumour at the age of thirty nine - and in her wanderings discovered Kew Gardens.  Her growing knowledge of tropical plants led to the offer of a job stocking a newly-built glass house at Shadowbrook in Gloucestershire. [[House of Glass by Susan Fletcher|Full Review]]
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===[[Bellewether by Susanna Kearsley]]===
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[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Paranormal|Paranormal]]
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Flitting between the present day and mid 16thcentury, ''Bellewether'' tells the fascinating tale of the Wilde House and all its inhabitants. In the present tense aspects, the Wilde House is being turned into a museum due to the legacy left by Captain Benjamin Wilde. It is told from the perspective of Charley, the museum curator, who is intrigued by the ghost who haunts the house and their story; a tale that ends in tragedy involving Benjamin Wilde's sister, Lydia, and a French-Canadian lieutenant, Jean-Philippe who was sent to live there. The perspective of the book is continuously shifted between Charley, then Lydia and Jean-Philippe. The latter two tell the truth about what was happening during this chaotic time in history, just as Charley is beginning to unravel it herself. [[Bellewether by Susanna Kearsley|Full Review]]
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===[[A Treachery of Spies by Manda Scott]]===
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[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
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When Inspector Inès Picaut is called to investigate the horrific murder of a strikingly beautiful elderly lady, she's puzzled – whilst the identity of the woman has been erased, it's clear that she has been killed in the same way that traitors to the resistance were executed in World War Two. Solving the mystery will lead Inès deep into the history of this woman – and back to a time when the men and women of 1940s France were engaged in a desperate, brutal fight for survival against their Nazi oppressors. As more and more secrets come to light, Inès discovers that there are many in the present who would rather their past stay buried – and many who would kill to keep secrets safe… [[A Treachery of Spies by Manda Scott|Full Review]]
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===[[Murmuration by Robert Lock]]===
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[[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
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''Murmuration'' follows the lives of a host of characters from 1863 to the present day. From a risqué comic to a fortune teller, we see the birth of Blackpool and its steadily fading glamour. There is a hint of mysticism to the tale, with the mesmerising dance of starlings over the pier acting as an anchor throughout the distinct narratives here, drawing together disparate stories of lives captivated by the sea. [[Murmuration by Robert Lock|Full Review]]
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===[[The Mercy Seat by Elizabeth H Winthrop]]===
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[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
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In an isolated Louisiana town, a young black prisoner sits in his dingy cell, staring at the shadow of the window bars cast onto the concrete wall by the evening's dying sun rays. At midnight, he will be dead; strapped to a chair and electrocuted for the rape of a white girl, who later committed suicide. He is resigned to his fate; it is futile to protest his innocence or to expect anyone to believe what really happened; after all, love between a black man and a white woman was never going to have a happy ending in a small town filled with small-minded people. [[The Mercy Seat by Elizabeth H Winthrop|Full Review]]
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===[[A Gathering of Ghosts by Karen Maitland]]===
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[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Paranormal|Paranormal]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
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Witchcraft, the supernatural and the will to survive at all costs collide in a story that never shies away from the darker side of human nature. The land is unhappy, the old spirits want revenge and famine is kindling a resurgence of the old faith.  As fear rises, it is increasingly difficult for Prioress Johanne to ignore that something rotten has taken root. The sacred well is tainted, its healing waters run red with blood and strangers are blowing in on a wind of change. [[A Gathering of Ghosts by Karen Maitland|Full Review]]
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===[[Mr Peacock's Possessions by Lydia Syson]]===
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[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category: Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
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On a remote volcanic island off the coast of New Zealand, a family of settlers struggle to make such an unforgiving place a home. When a ship appears, they feel that their wishes have been granted and their community reinvigorated – but high hopes are swiftly dashed when a vulnerable boy disappears. As both settlers and newcomers come together in the search for the child, they uncover far, far more than they were looking for – discovering dark secrets about both the island and those who inhabit it. [[Mr Peacock's Possessions by Lydia Syson|Full Review]]
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===[[The Story Keeper by Anna Mazzola]]===
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[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
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Audrey, a complex mix of flights of fancy and seriousness, wanting, needing, to be more than what everyone expects of her, escapes from the straightjacket of her home. Where every action, every thought, every yearning is controlled by her father, who only once in his life threw caution to the wind and married way beneath him for love. Now a widower and remarried, he has rigorously returned to upholding what is right, what is proper, the bastion of doing what is expected. [[The Story Keeper by Anna Mazzola|Full Review]]
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===[[The Butcher's Daughter by Victoria Glendinning]]===
  
 
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
 
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
  
David Reece was called up in 1941 and sent to fight in Burma. On his return in 1946, he finds a return to civilian life quite beyond him and, after a brawl, is sent to a military psychiatric hospital. There, he is treated by Daniel Carter, a psychiatrist whose instincts tell him that talking therapies can work with men like David, but who is working in a profession enthusiastically adopting invasive procedures such as ECT and lobotomy. ''Walking Wounded'' follows both men as they both try to come to terms with traumatic experiences and find a place in a world moving on from WWII. [[Walking Wounded by Sheila Llewellyn|Full Review]]
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The Tudor era is often chosen for historical fiction because it has such a wealth of intrigue, plots and machinations. The regular cast of courtly characters are usually rich and powerful, with so many to choose from that the well never seems to run dry and the characters are often those high up in the circles of power, or those prepared to do anything to get there. This book, however, is totally different. Set in the mid–to–late 1500s we see the world through the eyes of Agnes Peppin, a young, poor woman. As a woman she can either marry, or join a convent. Since Agnes has disgraced herself then she has no choice at all, and she is sent to join the nuns of Shaftesbury Abbey. [[The Butcher's Daughter by Victoria Glendinning|Full Review]]
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===[[Silence in the Desert by David Longridge]]===
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[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]]
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As the shadow of the Second World War descends upon the planet, four people are explored in a tale of love and friendship. Henri, fulfilling a family tradition in joining the Foreign Legion, Bill, arriving at Cambridge on an RAF scholarship, Leo, struggling to align his beliefs with those of his upbringing, and Elisabeth, crossing continents and changing names are all brought together by strife and turmoil. As the war rages, these men are tested like never before, with trust, loyalty and love leading to decisions that affect both their lives and those all around them. [[Silence in the Desert by David Longridge|Full Review]]
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===[[Six Tudor Queens: Jane Seymour, The Haunted Queen by Alison Weir]]===
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[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
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When it comes to Jane Seymour, the third wife of Henry VIII, popular opinion is divided. Some see her as a scheming marriage-wrecker from an ambitious family who would stop at nothing to gain favour in the king's eyes. Others view her as a pious and God-fearing woman who brought calm and stability into Henry's life following his turbulent marriage to Anne Boleyn. Perhaps both sides are true, to an extent. In ''The Haunted Queen,'' the third book in the ''Six Tudor Queens'' series, author and historian Alison Weir puts flesh on the bones of a Queen haunted by the shadow of a formidable predecessor. [[Six Tudor Queens: Jane Seymour, The Haunted Queen by Alison Weir|Full Review]]
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===[[The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris]]===
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===[[In Gold's Name by Marcus Dalrymple]]===
  
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
  
So, you arrive in all ignorance at Auschwitz, and see the horror there, and immediately swear to survive the ordeal to see retribution dealt on those behind it, but what do you do to see that oath out? Do you get to work diligently as the Nazis demand, to the extent you get the word ''collaborator'' muttered behind your back?  Do you dare to stick your neck out and get a job that means you're actually a Jew working in the political wing of the SS, answerable to Berlin? Do you dare get contacts with civilian workers building the place, and trade the loot purloined from the incoming victims' belongings with food they smuggle in for you, under the eyes of all the camp guards?  The man whose real life story inspired this novel did all that, and survived to tell the tale, but he also managed to do something even more daring, and unexpected – he dared to invest hope in a burgeoning love that  he found in the camp. [[The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris|Full Review]]
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It was about 1509 when a series of mystical events foreshadowed the end of the Aztec Empire and the inhabitants were to some extent conditioned to accept the pale faces who arrived many years later with their deer-without-antlers. Some thought the Spaniards were gods.  Antonio Vega was no god, but he was essentially a decent man, particularly by the standards of the time. He was the finest marksman with his harquebus on the force, but at the age of twenty three he believed that the expedition in October 1520 was to establish trade links and to convert the local inhabitants to Christianity from the local religions which required human sacrifices.  He'd joined the army from a seminary and whilst you wouldn't call him naive, he'd failed to appreciate that 'establishing trade links' meant finding and removing the Aztec gold and that any conversion would not be by winning hearts and minds but by threats and torture. [[In Gold's Name by Marcus Dalrymple|Full Review]]
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===[[The Optickal Illusion: A very eighteenth-century scandal by Rachel Halliburton]]===
 
  
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
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===[[The Industry of Human Happiness by James Hall]]===
  
Rachel Halliburton's debut novel opens in London in January 1797. Benjamin West, President of the Royal Academy, is reflecting on the past year's scandal involving the Provises, father and daughter, and worries that he handled everything poorly. From the start the book's figurative language is appropriately full of colour and painterly techniques: 'He had intended to deal with them honourably, but now everyone in London was saying he had not. It was as if somebody had dropped a small amount of ivory black paint into yellow orpiment on a palette – the more he prodded and stirred the memory, the murkier it became.' [[The Optickal Illusion: A very eighteenth-century scandal by Rachel Halliburton|Full Review]]
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[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]]
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''The Industry of Human Happiness'' first and foremost is a novel about music. It is about human beings being able to find music and magic in the simplest of places. Max and his younger cousin have realised their dream of opening a gramophone company. However, their ambition and hubris soon puts them on a course towards London's underworld. They will ascend broken and their lives changed forever. [[The Industry of Human Happiness by James Hall|Full Review]]
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===[[W by John Banks]]===
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On the slopes of Mt Hood in Oregon, an 1000-year old Viking is discovered frozen - three thousand miles further west than any previously known Viking exploration. Josh Kinninger is inspired by the Viking discovery - three personal catastrophes having left him angry, unmoored and with his world in turmoil. Beginning a journey westward, he's filled with a desire to wreak vengeance on the individuals he finds morally corrupt. [[W by John Banks|Full Review]]
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===[[The Spirit Photographer by Jon Michael Varese]]===
  
{{newreview
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[[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
|author=Elaine Everest
 
|title= Christmas at Woolworths
 
|rating= 3.5
 
|genre= Historical Fiction
 
|summary=''Christmas at Woolworths'' is the sequel to wartime saga ''The Woolworths Girls,'' and continues the story where the first book left off. Members of the close-knit community in Erith are doing their best to pull together and keep morale high, even though the future is uncertain. At the heart of the neighbourhood, the home of kindly matriarch Ruby is a beacon where family and friends can gather for good food and conversation: a way to forget the troubles outside. Spirits remain high; even when the bombs are falling so close to home. We catch up with the three friends from the first book: Sarah yearns for peace and an end to the war, Maisie is desperate for a child and Freda would love to find romance. Will they all get their wishes this Christmas?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1509843655</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{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...
+
Jon Michael Varese's debut novel was inspired by the life story of the real-life father of spirit photography, William H. Mumler. His fictional stand-in here is Edward Moody, who was a battlefield photographer under Matthew Brady and now owns his own photography studio in Boston. Moody is dismissive of spiritualism, yet considers himself to be doing a service to the bereaved by fabricating family photographs in which the ghost of a departed loved one appears. This involves getting hold of an image of the loved one and superimposing it on the negative being developed, so that it seems to appear hazily in the background. Looking back from today's high-tech perspective, it's hard to see how anyone could have been fooled, but suffering people in desperate situations often want to believe; the same goes for séances. [[The Spirit Photographer by Jon Michael Varese|Full Review]]
|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
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|author=Hawa L Crickmore
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|}
|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>
 
}}
 

Revision as of 10:05, 8 December 2018

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The Phoenix of Florence by Philip Kazan

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction

Deep in the Tuscan countryside of fifteenth century Italy, Onoria survives a massacre that destroys her family and home. Alone in the forest, she meets a band of soldiers who, believing her to be a boy train and develop her – and the determined Onoria becomes a mercenary – desperate to avoid any situation in which she may feel vulnerable again. Along the way, she meets ex-soldier Celavini, whose journey to Florence sees him investigating two brutal murders. As he digs further and uncovers links to his own family history, Celavini must revisit the past he shares with Onoria, in the hope that they can lay the ghosts of their shared history to rest, before it's too late... Full Review

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Deviation by Luce d'Eramo and Anne Milano Appel (translator)

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Literary Fiction, Autobiography, Historical Fiction

For those of you who have read books of life in the Nazi camps – and of course, for those of you who have not – this can be considered a next step. It begins, after all, with someone escaping Dachau and fleeing her work assignment during a bombing raid, and you'd not blame her one minute, as her career was deemed to be cess-tank cleaner and sewage unblocker by the Germans. In Munich, she stumbles on help to get her to what seems to be a camp for non-native civilians to look for work, or company, or transport elsewhere, either official or otherwise. But then the next chapter sees her going back into the camp next to Dachau once more, and by then eyebrows are being raised. Full Review

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The Count of 9 by Erle Stanley Gardner

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Crime, Historical Fiction

The Count of 9 is a hardboiled detective story written in the 1950s. It revolves around the detective duo of Donald Lam and Bertha Cool as they attempt to solve the theft of priceless Bornean artefacts. However, their case quickly turns into something darker - an impossible murder. Full Review

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The Hidden by Mary Chamberlain

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction

When Barbara Hummel arrives, determined to identify the mysterious woman whose photograph she has found among her mother's possessions, Dora and Joe find their worlds upended – and are swiftly forced to confront their pasts. Revisiting their time on the Channel Islands during World War II, Dora remembers a time when she concealed her Jewish identity, and Joe, a Catholic Priest, remembers a time when he hid something very different. In this story of love, loss and betrayal, it remains to be seen whether a speck of light can diffuse the darkest shadows of war… Full Review

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The Turn of Midnight by Minette Walters

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Historical Fiction

At the beginning of 1349 there is a glimmer of a hope that the ravages of the Black Death might be passing. In Devilish in Dorset the population is well, because of Lady Anne's strict rules about quarantine, which are regarded as heresy as they go against the strict rules of the church, but their stores of food are dwindling and they know that when they are exhausted they will have no choice but to leave. What will they find on the outside? Are they the only survivors? Full Review

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Frieda by Annabel Abbs

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction

Married to English Professor Ernest Weekley, aristocrat Frieda Von Richtofen finds herself stifled by the confines of married life. Visiting family in Munich, she becomes captivated by the ideas of revolution and free love. Meeting the penniless writer D.H. Lawrence, she finds herself drawn into a passionate affair and a tempestuous relationship, changing the course of both their lives, and unleashing a creative outpouring that will change the course of literature forever. Full Review

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House of Glass by Susan Fletcher

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction

Clara suffered from Osteogenesis imperfecta: these days it would probably be called brittle bone disease and whilst there is still no cure, treatments have advanced. At the beginning of the twentieth century it meant that Clara was confined to her home, living life through a window and the tales her mother, Charlotte, brought home. Both became far too knowledgeable about bones and the sounds they made on breaking. Charlotte would list bones like continents. Clara would only escape the house after her mother's death - of a tumour at the age of thirty nine - and in her wanderings discovered Kew Gardens. Her growing knowledge of tropical plants led to the offer of a job stocking a newly-built glass house at Shadowbrook in Gloucestershire. Full Review

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Bellewether by Susanna Kearsley

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Thrillers, Historical Fiction, Paranormal

Flitting between the present day and mid 16thcentury, Bellewether tells the fascinating tale of the Wilde House and all its inhabitants. In the present tense aspects, the Wilde House is being turned into a museum due to the legacy left by Captain Benjamin Wilde. It is told from the perspective of Charley, the museum curator, who is intrigued by the ghost who haunts the house and their story; a tale that ends in tragedy involving Benjamin Wilde's sister, Lydia, and a French-Canadian lieutenant, Jean-Philippe who was sent to live there. The perspective of the book is continuously shifted between Charley, then Lydia and Jean-Philippe. The latter two tell the truth about what was happening during this chaotic time in history, just as Charley is beginning to unravel it herself. Full Review

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A Treachery of Spies by Manda Scott

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Thrillers, Historical Fiction

When Inspector Inès Picaut is called to investigate the horrific murder of a strikingly beautiful elderly lady, she's puzzled – whilst the identity of the woman has been erased, it's clear that she has been killed in the same way that traitors to the resistance were executed in World War Two. Solving the mystery will lead Inès deep into the history of this woman – and back to a time when the men and women of 1940s France were engaged in a desperate, brutal fight for survival against their Nazi oppressors. As more and more secrets come to light, Inès discovers that there are many in the present who would rather their past stay buried – and many who would kill to keep secrets safe… Full Review

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Murmuration by Robert Lock

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews General Fiction, Historical Fiction

Murmuration follows the lives of a host of characters from 1863 to the present day. From a risqué comic to a fortune teller, we see the birth of Blackpool and its steadily fading glamour. There is a hint of mysticism to the tale, with the mesmerising dance of starlings over the pier acting as an anchor throughout the distinct narratives here, drawing together disparate stories of lives captivated by the sea. Full Review

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The Mercy Seat by Elizabeth H Winthrop

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Historical Fiction

In an isolated Louisiana town, a young black prisoner sits in his dingy cell, staring at the shadow of the window bars cast onto the concrete wall by the evening's dying sun rays. At midnight, he will be dead; strapped to a chair and electrocuted for the rape of a white girl, who later committed suicide. He is resigned to his fate; it is futile to protest his innocence or to expect anyone to believe what really happened; after all, love between a black man and a white woman was never going to have a happy ending in a small town filled with small-minded people. Full Review

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A Gathering of Ghosts by Karen Maitland

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Paranormal, Thrillers, Historical Fiction

Witchcraft, the supernatural and the will to survive at all costs collide in a story that never shies away from the darker side of human nature. The land is unhappy, the old spirits want revenge and famine is kindling a resurgence of the old faith. As fear rises, it is increasingly difficult for Prioress Johanne to ignore that something rotten has taken root. The sacred well is tainted, its healing waters run red with blood and strangers are blowing in on a wind of change. Full Review

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Mr Peacock's Possessions by Lydia Syson

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Historical Fiction, General Fiction

On a remote volcanic island off the coast of New Zealand, a family of settlers struggle to make such an unforgiving place a home. When a ship appears, they feel that their wishes have been granted and their community reinvigorated – but high hopes are swiftly dashed when a vulnerable boy disappears. As both settlers and newcomers come together in the search for the child, they uncover far, far more than they were looking for – discovering dark secrets about both the island and those who inhabit it. Full Review

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The Story Keeper by Anna Mazzola

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Crime, Thrillers, Historical Fiction

Audrey, a complex mix of flights of fancy and seriousness, wanting, needing, to be more than what everyone expects of her, escapes from the straightjacket of her home. Where every action, every thought, every yearning is controlled by her father, who only once in his life threw caution to the wind and married way beneath him for love. Now a widower and remarried, he has rigorously returned to upholding what is right, what is proper, the bastion of doing what is expected. Full Review

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The Butcher's Daughter by Victoria Glendinning

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Historical Fiction

The Tudor era is often chosen for historical fiction because it has such a wealth of intrigue, plots and machinations. The regular cast of courtly characters are usually rich and powerful, with so many to choose from that the well never seems to run dry and the characters are often those high up in the circles of power, or those prepared to do anything to get there. This book, however, is totally different. Set in the mid–to–late 1500s we see the world through the eyes of Agnes Peppin, a young, poor woman. As a woman she can either marry, or join a convent. Since Agnes has disgraced herself then she has no choice at all, and she is sent to join the nuns of Shaftesbury Abbey. Full Review

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Silence in the Desert by David Longridge

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Historical Fiction, Thrillers

As the shadow of the Second World War descends upon the planet, four people are explored in a tale of love and friendship. Henri, fulfilling a family tradition in joining the Foreign Legion, Bill, arriving at Cambridge on an RAF scholarship, Leo, struggling to align his beliefs with those of his upbringing, and Elisabeth, crossing continents and changing names are all brought together by strife and turmoil. As the war rages, these men are tested like never before, with trust, loyalty and love leading to decisions that affect both their lives and those all around them. Full Review

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Six Tudor Queens: Jane Seymour, The Haunted Queen by Alison Weir

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Historical Fiction

When it comes to Jane Seymour, the third wife of Henry VIII, popular opinion is divided. Some see her as a scheming marriage-wrecker from an ambitious family who would stop at nothing to gain favour in the king's eyes. Others view her as a pious and God-fearing woman who brought calm and stability into Henry's life following his turbulent marriage to Anne Boleyn. Perhaps both sides are true, to an extent. In The Haunted Queen, the third book in the Six Tudor Queens series, author and historian Alison Weir puts flesh on the bones of a Queen haunted by the shadow of a formidable predecessor. Full Review

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In Gold's Name by Marcus Dalrymple

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Historical Fiction

It was about 1509 when a series of mystical events foreshadowed the end of the Aztec Empire and the inhabitants were to some extent conditioned to accept the pale faces who arrived many years later with their deer-without-antlers. Some thought the Spaniards were gods. Antonio Vega was no god, but he was essentially a decent man, particularly by the standards of the time. He was the finest marksman with his harquebus on the force, but at the age of twenty three he believed that the expedition in October 1520 was to establish trade links and to convert the local inhabitants to Christianity from the local religions which required human sacrifices. He'd joined the army from a seminary and whilst you wouldn't call him naive, he'd failed to appreciate that 'establishing trade links' meant finding and removing the Aztec gold and that any conversion would not be by winning hearts and minds but by threats and torture. Full Review

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The Industry of Human Happiness by James Hall

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Historical Fiction, Thrillers

The Industry of Human Happiness first and foremost is a novel about music. It is about human beings being able to find music and magic in the simplest of places. Max and his younger cousin have realised their dream of opening a gramophone company. However, their ambition and hubris soon puts them on a course towards London's underworld. They will ascend broken and their lives changed forever. Full Review

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The Spirit Photographer by Jon Michael Varese

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Historical Fiction

Jon Michael Varese's debut novel was inspired by the life story of the real-life father of spirit photography, William H. Mumler. His fictional stand-in here is Edward Moody, who was a battlefield photographer under Matthew Brady and now owns his own photography studio in Boston. Moody is dismissive of spiritualism, yet considers himself to be doing a service to the bereaved by fabricating family photographs in which the ghost of a departed loved one appears. This involves getting hold of an image of the loved one and superimposing it on the negative being developed, so that it seems to appear hazily in the background. Looking back from today's high-tech perspective, it's hard to see how anyone could have been fooled, but suffering people in desperate situations often want to believe; the same goes for séances. Full Review