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Newest Historical Fiction Reviews (view source)
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[[Category:Historical Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Historical Fiction]]==Historical fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreview|author=C W Gortner|title=The Queen's Vow|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Queen Isabella of Spain will always be regarded as a bit of an enigma. On the one hand, contemporary sources claim that she was wise, kind and gentle, hating any kind of cruelty, including the popular sport of bullfighting. Her rule brought about the unification of Spain and heralded a new era of peace for its people. On the other side of the coin, she and her husband Fernando sanctioned the infamous Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion of all Jews from Spain. Her most vehement critics may also point out that her sponsorship of Columbus brought untold misery to the inhabitants of the Americas, although in her defence, there is no way that she could have predicted the eventual consequences of his pioneering voyage.|amazonuk=<amazonuk!-- Remove -->1444720805 </amazonuk!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shiba RyotaroTananarive Due|title=Clouds above the Hill: A Historical Novel of the Russo-Japanese War, Volume 1The Reformatory
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=IGracetown, Florida. June 1950. After a scuffle with a white boy, twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, otherwise known as the Reformatory. It've long s a place with a brutal and dark reputation. But the segregated reformatory is a chamber of horrors, haunted by the boys that have died there. In order to survive the school governor and his Funhouse, Robert must enlist the help of the school's ghosts – only they have their own motivations...|isbn=1803366532}} {{Frontpage|author=Katherine Howe|title=A True Account|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a lover of Japanfamily who run an inn, ever since and being made to work there from a brief visit young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the country more than a decade agotown, she decides to go and watch. Whilst I've read several Japanese crime thrillers Enthralled and horrified in translationequal measure, IHannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy've never really investigated s death at the history hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the countrynotorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. Now available She soon finds herself in English for the first timethick of things when there is a mutiny on board, Shiba Ryotaro's ''Clouds Above the Hill: A historical Novel and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the Russo-Japanese War'' provides just that opportunityocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0415508762</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jack WolfSarah Marsh|title=The Tale A Sign of Raw Head and Bloody BonesHer Own|rating=43.5|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=It doesn’t take long for Jack Wolf’s extraordinary pastiche eighteenth century novel 'The Tale After a bout of Raw Head and Bloody Bones' to show its true stripesscarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Narrator Tristan Hart’s best friend Nathanial is handsome Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, charming and athleticeverything about her life changes. Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, and also prone Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to ‘snatching blue Tits lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the Hedges, deaf and consuming them direct upon the Spotusing a system called Visible Speech.’ In that phrase you see both At the heart-stopping nastiness that pulses through ''Raw Head same time, Bell is working on other inventions and Bloody Bones'' ideas, and the fascinating attitude to Gothic duality that lies at its coreEllen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701186879</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire North
|title=House of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sharon PenmanB0C7J9D21B|title=LionheartA Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=A J Lewis
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=''Lionheart'' When we first meet our hero, his name is the latest book in the Ettore and he lives at The House of Beautiful Swallows. Idyllic as this might sound, it's a bordello and Ettore'Devil’s Brood's mother died when he was born. He' series, which focuses on the dysfunctional Angevin branch s not been short of the Plantaganets. As the title suggestsmothers, the story is a richly detailed account though - but for someone of the life of Richard Ihis background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, covering the period from his coronation up it's difficult to obtain decent employment. The stint working with the end preparation of the third crusadeanchovies didn't work out and bastards are considered bad luck on fishing boats. Ettore was nothing if not resourceful - and determined - and it was not long before he had a successful business as a guide for visitors. He was even saving some money.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447205367</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Geling Yan and Nicky Harman (translator)Essie Fox|title=The Flowers of WarFascination
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=1937, Nanking. The war between the Republic of China and Japan has ended in defeat Victorian era is incredibly over-romanticised as a setting for China, and now Japanese soldiers are moving in to bloodily occupy the capital city. In a small American mission churchhistorical fiction (matched only, fifteen Chinese schoolgirls are hidingperhaps, trapped until by the priests who look after them can smuggle them Second World War) which has often led to safetymore than a few writers mishandling it. Into this already fraught atmosphere come desperate Chinese citizens looking for shelter – There's such a rowdy group glut of Nanking prostitutes, a colonel on media set in the run and two more soldiers who have survived a horrendous secret massacre. As era that the Japanese atrocities gather pace, hallmarks we've come to associate with it are familiar to the safety and survival of each point of the church’s disparate members becomes uncertainbeing cliched, and the initially hostile girls begin hackneyed even. All this is simply to realise illustrate that there may it would be common ground between them an easy thing to do poorly. But despite that, something about it still grabs me – and the prostitutes they have been taught to despisesomething about this book's description did as well.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099569620</amazonuk>1914585526
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joanna HicksonNicole Jarvis|title=The Agincourt BrideA Portrait in Shadow|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary= Baker's daughter Guillaumette Dupain, aged 15, mourns for her still-born baby but her tragedy becomes others' gain. Young Mette is sent to the Hotel de San Pol, home I want all of the French royal family Florence to become wet nurse to the latest child produced by the sickly Charles VI and his wife, Isabella of Bavaria. The infant is Catherine de Valois; destined to be the mother of an English dynasty. But first she must live long enough to marry an English king and being a 15th century royal is a dangerous existence when your greatest enemies are in your own family.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007446977</amazonuk>}}know my name''
}}
|rating=3
|genre=Historical FictionFantasy|summary=Jane Eyre ''Hate is a classic I studied to death in high school, but I didn’t mind because it’s a book I enjoyed then and still enjoy now. Jane Eyrotica is, to put it simply, a smutty version of the classic. Hot on the heels of the likes path of [[Fifty Shades Of Grey by EL James]] this is a reworking in which the once demure Jane beds anything with a pulse.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749959428</amazonuk>}}least resistance''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rosemary SutcliffG K Holloway|title=Sword At SunsetIn the Shadows of Castles
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Every country has its myths We begin after the momentous battle in 1066 and legends: those stories that are told on the day of William of Normandy's coronation as King of England. William's position is not secure and re-told. Stories that have any number of re-interpretationsthe new king has many challenges. Stories, Imposing authority through a belief in which becomes part of our national identity, even if we hold them to be true, purely because we want them to be truecoronation is important. Part of them, at any rate. Those parts of our favourite retelling that speak most And William is right to us as individualsworry. In EnglandWhile the previous king, Robin Hood and his merry menHarold, is one such. The other dead and the likelihood of more pitched battles is King Arthur over, the rebels are stirring and the Knights much of the Round Tablecountry does not wish to recognise a new overlord.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857892436</amazonuk>1800422466
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Margaret Skea3949666079|title=Turn of the TideNoema|author=Dael Akkerman
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=Family and clan count in 16th century Scotland as Munro discovers. His allegiance lies with the Clan Cunninghame and therefore he's involved in their bloody feud with the Montgomeries. It should be straightforward but sometimes feelings don't run along genealogical lines and loyalties are torn. Munro's wife Kate finds this as difficult to live with, sharing the hardships of This is a life on the edge whilst trying story about some things that happened to protect their childrenme about twelve thousand years ago. Unfortunately the Cunninghames' victory at the Annock massacre has created greater problems than it solved and no one knows which side fate will eventually favour. Meanwhile King James' presence creates a temporary respite, but revenge can't be side-lined forever.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909305065</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lisa Hilton1529125898|title=Wolves in WinterGodmersham Park|author=Gill Hornby
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=It's 1492 and Mura, an exotic-looking child of Moorish, Spanish and Viking origin enjoys an idyllic childhood living with her widowed father, a Toledo bookseller. However she soon learns that the world is a cruel place when he's snatched by the Spanish Inquisition and she's hidden in a brothel If it were not for safe keeping. Adara, the lady casual dereliction of the night entrusted with Mura, betrays that trust and the childodd gentleman's adventurous journeys beginduty, there would no women to teach well-bred daughters at all. From nurtured daughter to child prostitute to Medici slave, Mura discovers the power within, nourished by her childhood tales from the Moors and 'North Men' and her gift of 'the sight'. Mura also bears a secret but it seems that she'll be the last to discover it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848874677</amazonuk>}}
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|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The subject matter for Colm TóibínI loved the prelude to Peach Blossom Spring, a short chapter entitled ''s Origins'The Testament of Mary' . Unfortunately it is exactly what the title suggests in that it relates Mary's feelings about the death only truly poetic part of her son, Jesus, whose name it hurts her too much to even mention. It's a curiously slight offering though. Its 100 odd pages lands it somewhere between short story and novella territory. Even so, with Tóibín's excellence as a writer and the emotive subject matter, book that I expected to be more engaged with the story than I wasfrom.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670922099</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lawrence Norfolk|title=John SaturnallCovering Chinese history from 1938 to 2005 as viewed through one family's Feast|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=John Saturnall’s mother is a healer and herbalistperspective. It was all too easy in the 1620’s for women with her skills to come under suspicion of witchcraft. When John and his mother are hounded from their village by religious extremists home city is set ablaze during the Lessonerswar with Japan, they hide in Buccla’s Wood. But as winter takes a grip on the land John’s young mother dies(Meilin) and her four-year-old son (Renshu) are among those who flee. John is taken The story follows them on their journey across China, and in Renshu's case eventually to work in the kitchens at Buckland Manor. His progress from scullery boy to cook is graphically recorded alongside his prickly relationship with the daughter of the house, LucretiaAmerica. The story takes the couple through the years of the civil war, when life at Buckland comes under threat from the advancing Puritan army.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408805960</amazonuk>1472277538
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Russell James1916072038|title=The ExhibitionistsHouse in the Hollow (The Talbot Saga)|author=Allie Cresswell
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=On one particular London night We meet part of the Talbot family in Yorkshire in 1834 three children start a journey that will mould their futuresNovember 1811. Newly born Maddy is abandoned Twenty-seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot and her mother have travelled in Mrs Cuthbertson's establishment (a thinly veiled baby farm) causing Maddy some discomfort from their home at Ecklington, to spend years looking for the reasons that led her therehouse in the hollow. Baby Sam The two women are angry with each other and Jocelyn is fished out well aware of the Thames her mother's strengths and grows with a burning desire to uncover the truth, shaping his career as a journalist. Meanwhile Hannah is conceived that night by two people fated to live lives that don't coincide, until…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178095011X</amazonuk>}}weaknesses:
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Martin DaviesAnnabel Abbs|title=The Year AfterLanguage of Food
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Captain Tom Allen Eliza Acton is home from World War Ia poet who has never had the slightest inclination to boil an egg. Whilst waiting to be demobbedWhen tasked with writing a cookery book, he receives an invitation to attend the annual Christmas house-party at Hannesford Courtshe recruits Ann Kirby, the stately a local woman with a troubled home of Sir Robert and Lady Stansburylife. He used to look forward to it before joining up and so decides to attend againTogether, but everything has changed. The Stansbury's heirthey test, Harrycraft, refine and son-in-law, Oliver, were killed and second son, Reggie Stansbury, remains in a nursing home with no legs and dwindling self-respect. Whilst coming to terms with reshape the devastating realisation that he's one world of domestic cookery, reinventing the very few men in their set to return alive and entire, Tom remembers pre-war Hannesford recipe book and changing the night when his friend Professor Schmidt died at such a gathering. Everyone believes it was unsuspicious but gradually things are coming to light that hint face of hidden secrets. Along with her Ladyship's former companion, Anne (who has issues of her own), Tom decides to investigate as truths are exhumed, making him doubt whether those happier times were as idyllic as he rememberscookery writing forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340980443</amazonuk>1398502227
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Karen EngelmannFreya Marske|title=The Stockholm OctavoA Marvellous Light
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=As Robin Blyth is nudged into a Customs and Excise 'Sekretaire' job in 18th century Stockholmthe Civil Service, Emil Larsson has all he needs: professional respect, a bachelor's lifestyle and a table at Mrs Sparrow's gaming house whenever he fancies much to his luckchagrin. Contrastingly, his superiors at work feel There he's missing a certain something. In order to climb further up the career ladder (maybe even to maintain his current position) Emil needs to marry. His manager believes this so fervently meets Edwin Courcey and learns that there's a deadline for the weddingstreets of London are threaded with magic. Emil panics but Mrs Sparrow offers Desperate to lay an 'Octavo', remove a fortune-telling spread of eight cards curse that threatens to guide swallow him , Robin follows Edwin to the eight people who will ensure his success. Howevercountryside, not all goes to plan as, over where the eight nights it takes to complete hedgegrows bristle with incantations and the Octavo, it becomes apparent people shimmer with power. There they uncover a sinister plot that threatens the prediction isn't for Emil's future, but has become an Octavo to save lives of all magicians in the whole of SwedenBritish Isles.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444742698</amazonuk>1529080886
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul DowswellB09F4CTKJR|title=Eleven Eleven|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary=It's 2am in Paris on Tuesday 11th November 1918. Negotiations Flights for ending World War I are almost complete and both sides will announce the Armistice at 11am. But the people actually fighting the war don't know that yet...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408826232</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFreedom|author=Pamela Hartshorne|title=Time's EchoSteven Burgauer|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Grace Trewe has temporarily moved to York to sort out It's the affairs later stages of her godmother, Lucy, who died suddenly. After surviving World War I and the Indonesian tsunami the previous Christmas, Grace United States has decided to live life to just entered the full and plans more travelling once Lucy's house conflict. Petrol Petronus is sold. She hasn’t a care or a tie in young American who has signed up and joined the world, as long as she doesn't remember little Lucas back on that Christmas beach17 Aero Squadron. As it turns outThis company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, that's not the only thing she needs first to avoid. Strange, horrific dreams disrupt her sleep be attached to the RAF and vivid daydreams start the first to attack her waking moments as 21st century York keeps fading be sent into the skies to be replaced by its 16th century streets. Grace will be fine though; it's just stress and her oddly acquired knowledge of fight the past is just a coincidence, or so says seemingly kindly neighbour, historian and single father DrewGermans in active combat. Meanwhile, 500 years But beforethat can happen, there was a woman named Hawise who met a terrible death…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>033054425X</amazonuk>Petrol has to master flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kevin Crossley-HollandChristophe Medler|title=ScramasaxMadrigal: The Viking Sagas, Book TwoA Closely Guarded Secret
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=History lecturer Michael Martin thought that Set against the chance backdrop of love and marriage had passed him by. Then Gally, a history nut and lecture gate crasher, attended one of his lectures and dared to contradict him. Contradiction led to courtship and the marriage that had previously seemed so elusive but despite their love and accompanying emotional securityEnglish Civil War, Gally has a dark subconscious that haunts her. She's unsettled by repeating nightmares and, worse, night terrors that can't be explained by counsellors' logic. However when Mike and Gally find their secret plan (or rather, Gally'scode-named Madrigal) ideal home is discovered by Sir Robert Douse in the shape summer of 1642. As a derelict cottage in loyal servant of the Somerset village King, and Head of Penselwoodthe Secret Service, Gallyit is Robert's nightmares are augmented by a strong feeling duty to uncover the details of déjà vu. Meanwhile the Martins seem plan and follow the clues to have developed a benevolent stalker uncover one of the most guarded secrets in history—especially since the plot could affect the shape of aged local Ferney Miller. Mike considers him a bit of a pain while for Gally he represents something else entirely; something that she can't explain nor understand but will become a threat to her marital happiness and Michael's peace of mindKing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780875304</amazonuk>B095HY8SXQ
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andre Brink1471187179|title=Philida|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Philida falls in love with Frans, the son of Cornelis Brink and they have four children together creating a tragedy on two counts: only two children survive and their love is troubled. For this is South Africa in 1830 and Philida is only the Brinks' 'knit girl': a slave specialising in the family's knitting.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846557046</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Buchan|title=Huntingtower|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Dickson McCunn is on his travels through rural Scotland when he meets a man he doesn't warm to at first, by the name of John Heritage. They are quite chalk and cheese – McCunn an older man, who has only just sold up his very well-known Glasgow grocery shop and made this trip his first steps into retirement on a complete whim. Heritage is younger, English, and a soldier. McCunn seems the old Romantic, Heritage modern poetry in contrast. But when they meet up it's at the edge of the Huntingtower estate, a coastal country house, guarded by suspicious landlords turning guests away and unfriendly foreign types, and found to contain a young beauty who just happens to be the love of Heritage's life, since they met a few years previous. She is being coerced into staying against her will, but lo and behold – the cynical Heritage can come over all chivalrous and try and rescue her – with desperate consequences for both men…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184697223X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewA Beautiful Spy|author=A N Wilson|title=The Potter's HandRachel Hore
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=The man of clay that A N Wilson throws onto his storytelling wheel in Minnie is an 'ordinary'girl living an unexciting life in a leafy provincial suburb. The Potter's Hand'' book is set in the great Josiah Wedgwood, but this is much more than a historic telling of his life. Indeed, Josiah already has a thriving business at the start of the book. What Wilson does particularly impressively 1930s and Minnie is expected to live up to put Wedgwoodher mother's achievement expectations and find a nice young man to marry, produce children and works into the context of spend the politics and social philosophy rest of the times, sandwiched between the two great revolutions in America her days looking after her husband and Francetheir home. In order Unfortunately, this isn't what she wants to do this, Wilson has at all and neither does she want to play slightly loose with artistic licence by altering dates and time lines continue working as a bit, but it works wellsecretary. He also balances the real historic figures with several key figures As a result of his own invention and where a chance meeting, she finds herself drawn into espionage, working for the historic figures don't quite fit with his narrative, he alters their ages secret service and invents 'facts' effectively living a double life - attempting to infiltrate the benefit Communist Party of Great Britain. Minnie finds herself torn between what she perceives as her duty and the friends she has made - and likes - whilst working for the fictional narrativeCommunist Party.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848879512</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John BuchanAfonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=The Gap in the CurtainKokoschka's Doll|rating=32.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=A short stay with friends in society for Sir Edward Leithen Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from the get-go, which is just what he needs, being an overworked MP why I picked my review copy up and lawyerflipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. Among I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the collection of fellow guestsmiddle on darker stock paper, some of whom he knows and some he doesn'ta chapter whose number was in the 20, is the extraordinary mind of Professor Moe000s, a scientist who decides to select some of the houseguests letters used as subjects for his latest experimentnarrative form, and so on. He declares that he can make sure they can see into the future, and It intrigued with the people he chooses – for various reasons – do indeed get subterranean voice a mental snatch man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of The Times newspaper exactly a year into their futureit mentioned, and whattoo. But you's moreve seen the star rating that comes with this review, one and can tell that comes completely true – either for good or bad…if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. So what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846972248</amazonuk>1529402697
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ben KaneChristina Hammonds Reed|title=Spartacus the GladiatorThe Black Kids|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionTeens |summary=Given Ben KaneChristina Hammonds Reed's tendency to write strong characters who rebel debut novel is set against their Roman leaders, it's perhaps slightly predictable that he should take on the story backdrop of Spartacus, who led a slaves' rebellion against Rome. This is, perhaps, the only thing you can say about Kane's writing that is predictable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099561921</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Robin Binckes|title=Canvas Under The Sky|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Rauch Beukes is a 17 year old Boer lad living with his family on the Eastern Cape frontier in Africa. Sadly for them1992 Los Angeles riots, the year is 1834: not a good time as the Boers live under the dictates of the British and in fear of indigenous local tribes. This becomes all too real reaction to Rauch when, returning from a trip with his father, he discovers a smouldering heap where his home once stood and a row of graves bearing the remains absolution of his mother and sisters. Wanting four police officers for beating a better lifeblack man, a group of farmers decide to travel towards Africa's southern interior to establish a self-determining Boer homeland and so RauchRodney King, his father and brothers join them feeling they have nothing nearly to losedeath. The momentum grows and Told from the migration will become known as 'The Great Trek'perspective of Ashley Bennett, the novel follows her evolution from a tough, dangerous period silent bystander when confronted with matters of South African historyrace, challenging Rauch's strength, courage to a woman finding her voice and a fair bit of his libidoembracing her heritage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1920143637</amazonuk>1471188191
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