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[[Category:Historical Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Historical Fiction]]{{adsense2}}__NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elisabeth GiffordTananarive Due|title=Secrets of the Sea HouseThe Reformatory
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary= Ruth has been raised in children's homes after losing her mother as Gracetown, Florida. June 1950. After a young child. Her mother always told her that she was scuffle with a Selkiewhite boy, one of the seal people and eventually her mother would return twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is sentenced to six months at the sea. Ruth prefers this version to Gracetown School for Boys, otherwise known as the official death certificates: suicide by drowningReformatory. As an adult, Ruth returns with husband Michael to her motherIt's native Hebrides. This is a new start for them both in an old manse they're renovatingplace with a brutal and dark reputation. However during But the works they make segregated reformatory is a gruesome discovery: chamber of horrors, haunted by the buried remains of a special childboys that have died there. This body has been there for over a century, since Rev Alexander Ferguson's time In order to survive the school governor andhis Funhouse, as Robert must enlist the help of the years roll back to reveal its origins Ruth realises this isnschool't the s ghosts – only surprise awaiting herthey have their own motivations...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782391118</amazonuk>1803366532}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rosemary GoringKatherine Howe|title=After FloddenA True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary= Scotland 1513: Louise Brenier believes her Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family to be cursed. Her father deadwho run an inn, her elder sister dying during childbirth as the result of an affair with King James IV and now her brother Benoit missing after the Battle of Flodden. It would be easy being made to believe Benoit dead too, but, whatever state he's in, Louise must know what happenedwork there from a young age. This When she hears there is what drives her on to be a journey across a land ravaged by war, providing more challenges than answers and encounters with those for whom Flodden remains a recurring nightmare.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846972728</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Gilman|title=Master of War|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary= Young Richard Blackstone is accused hanging of some pirates in the rape town, she decides to go and murder of a village girl and sentenced to hangwatch. Protestations of innocence on his behalf mean nothing Enthralled and the fact hehorrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's a deaf/mute means even less. His elder brother Thomas has protected him as much as possible throughout their lives but can do nothing this time. However, help is death at hand; Sir Gilbert Killbere ensures that the judge changes his mind and Richard is released but not completelyhands of two vicious pirates. Richard and Thomas are excellent archers She hides away, so that theydon're rescued in order t find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to join sea, dressing as a boy and joining the army that the King is amassingnotorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. It's not an easy option: She soon finds herself in the year thick of things when there is 1346 a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the conflict that history will call 'The Hundred Years War' is about to beginocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781850100</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Sorrow of AngelsSarah Marsh|authortitle=Jon Kalman StefanssonA Sign of Her Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Our decidedly unheroic main character has been at the café for three weeks nowAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, so we are following on very closely from [[Heaven and Hell by Jon Kalman Stefansson|Heaven and Hell]]Ellen Lark loses her hearing. After the tragedy and soul-searching Suddenly plunged into a world of that first booksilence, he seems settled everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the ridiculous family that has formed around him thereuse of sign language was seen as something only savages do, finding employmentEllen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, enjoying the literature, yet being very intrigued by the female bodybut physically restrained from signing. The man From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who is still young enough to be known only as ''has been teaching the boy'' might have latched on to stability for once, deaf and replaced the family and best friend he had lostusing a system called Visible Speech. But everything At the same time, Bell is restless in this environmentworking on other inventions and ideas, and once again he might just be tempted to go on Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a journey, with another male companion, despite the harshness complicated tangle of the surroundsespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857051652</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire North
|title=House of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
{{newreview|title=Heaven and Hell|author=Jon Kalman Stefansson|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Iceland, The follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a hundred years agofew months after where we left off. From a place that is In the very definition palace of rural and remoteOdysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, a small fishing boat leaves for four hours' hard row who sailed to a profitable bankwar at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. It carries six men on As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the way out, and five on throne of the way backWestern Isles. The deceased is the best friend Having survived or perhaps only friend politically and physical of the main characterchaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, who Queen Penelope is still young enough to merely be known as ''boy''on the brink of a fragile peace. When he returns to port he enters an almost Camus-like semi-existenceOne that shatters however with the return of Orestes, wondering just how much life is an answerKing of Mycenae, and for whathis sister Elektra, after the tragedy he has witnessedseeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849164061</amazonuk>0356516075
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0C7J9D21B|title=She RisesA Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=Kate WorsleyA J Lewis|rating=34.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=ImagineWhen we first meet our hero, if you can, a lifelike eighteenth-century seafaring epic (something along the lines his name is Ettore and he lives at The House of Carsten Jensen's [[WeBeautiful Swallows. Idyllic as this might sound, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen|We, the Drowned]] or Carol Birchit's [[Jamracha bordello and Ettore's Menagerie by Carol Birch|Jamrachmother died when he was born. He's Menagerie]]) crossed with Sarah Watersnot been short of mothers, though - but for someone of his background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, it's ''Fingersmith''difficult to obtain decent employment. If you then added in touches of Charles Dickens's ''Bleak House'', plus shades of The stint working with the rest preparation of the homoerotic Waters oeuvre (especially ''Night Watch'anchovies didn' t work out and bastards are considered bad luck on fishing boats. Ettore was nothing if not resourceful - and determined - and ''Tipping the Velvet''), you would just about have Kate Worsley's debut novel, ''She Rises'', in it was not long before he had a successful business as a nutshellguide for visitors. He was even saving some money.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408835894</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Mistress of the SeaEssie Fox|authortitle=Jenny BardenThe Fascination
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=''Mistress of the Sea'' The Victorian era is an epic adventure involving pirates, starincredibly over-crossed lovers and romanticised as a lust setting for gold and vengeance. The novelhistorical fiction (matched only, set in Tudor timesperhaps, is based on by the real-life events Second World War) which has often led to more than a few writers mishandling it. There's such a glut of media set in the life of Francis Drake, notably era that the raid at Nombre de Dios and hallmarks we've come to associate with it are familiar to the rout point of the English fleet at San Juan de Uluabeing cliched, hackneyed even. Barden weaves an exciting adventure/romance story against All this backdrop, which results in is simply to illustrate that it would be an immersive narrative easy thing to do poorly. But despite that excites the mind , something about it still grabs me – and sensessomething about this book's description did as well.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009194922X</amazonuk>1914585526
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Graham ThomasNicole Jarvis|title=Hats Off To Brandenburg (The Roxy Compendium)A Portrait in Shadow|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It was London, 1815. George III was on the throne although it was his son who was Regent, but it would be quite a while before those facts bothered the Roxy Playhouse Irregulars, who lived, loved and had their being in the old Roxy Playhouse. Money had always been in short supply as it tends to be when life is lived as a celebration, but they were in debt to Richard Sheridan and eventually forced to strike a bargain with him: pay their debts within one month or he would take the Roxy Playhouse. The Irregulars took the challenge and put on a performance, only this was no three-act play on a stage. Their performance was a tightly choreographed heist which would relieve members of the ton of some of their more valuable trinkets. If you're thinking of Robin Hood then forget it - this was going to be far more complex and bloody and it was obvious that there was more at stake than a decrepit playhouse.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956742238</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Burnt Norton|author=Caroline Sandon|rating=2.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=After the death ''I want all of his youngest son in a terrible accident, Sir William Keyt starts Florence to lose interest in life. It takes meeting young Molly Johnson, a bright and beautiful daughter of a local landlord, to rekindle a spark for him. He brings her into Norton House as a maidservant, where she quickly catches the eye of his bookish eldest son, Thomas. But Sir William wants Molly to be more than a maid to him, and as a rich man and an MP is used to having his own way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781850674</amazonuk>}}know my name''
{{newreview|author=Bruce Macbain|title=The Bull Slayer|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Years after we left him Cast out from Rome, Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking an oasis in [[Roman Games (Plinius Secundus) by Bruce Macbain|Roman Games]]which her art can find a home and where her future can thrive rather than stagnate. But as some as she enters Florentine society she faces great opposition from the powerful Accademia, Pliny the Younger has become Roman Governor of Bithynia. Not the most hospitable self-proclaimed guardians of regions, its Greek residents regard the Romans with hatred; an emotion healing magics that, in many cases, is reciprocated by through paintings have the power to protect the Romanscity and its citizens from plagues and curses. No matter how bad this is though, The all-male Accademia has hoarded power over art and architecture for centuries and guard it gets worse when a high ranking official dies mysteriouslyabove all else. Could it have anything to do with the religious sect of Mithras? Possibly but it's not Pliny's only dilemma; at home his beloved To them, Artemisia – an ambitious young wife Calpurnia is acting somewhat oddlywoman who promises trouble and change – has no place amongst them and their society.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781850798</amazonuk>1803362340
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Thomas D Lee
|title=Perilous Times
|rating=3
|genre= Fantasy
|summary= ''Hate is the path of least resistance''
{{newreview|author=James Heneage|title=The Walls of Byzantium (The Mistra Chronicles)|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Luke Magoris is heading for disgrace which means Set in the near-distant future, in a lot since he's world on the son verge of a Varangianclimate collapse, the Viking-originated elite guard of the Byzantine EmperorBritain is in great peril. Anna Lasaris daughter The British Isles desperately needs a hero (or several) to a Byzantine court official and, feisty but kind, is save the opposite of the Archon's daughter Zoe. As politically adept as her brother is inept, Zoe will do anything for status day and money… anythingrescue what little remains. As What no-one expected was that one of the 14th century Byzantine Empire starts to crumble due to the relentless struggle with the Islamic Turks and Mistra becomes Knights of the only province left for Round Table would answer the Turks to conquer, their paths will cross. They're all young but they'll soon discover that treachery can emanate from friendship as much as it can from warcall. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782061118</amazonuk>0356518523
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Beautiful LiesG K Holloway|authortitle=Claire ClarkIn the Shadows of Castles
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Clare ClarkWe begin after the momentous battle in 1066 and on the day of William of Normandy's coronation as King of England. William''Beautiful Lies'' takes in Royal jubilees, London riots, newspaper editors overstepping the bounds on personal vendettas s position is not secure and political sex scandals - all set in the late 1880s showing how little new king has changedmany challenges. There are even early instances and questions over photographic manipulationImposing authority through a coronation is important. Maribel, apparently a Chilean heiress and wife of radical, socialist politician Edward Campbell Lowe, has a past which she has tries And William is right to keep buriedworry. If it were to be revealedWhile the previous king, Harold, both her is dead and her husband would be ruined by the scandal. Making enemies likelihood of an unscrupulous more pitched battles is over, the rebels are stirring and hypocritical newspaper editor might much of the country does not be the best move thenwish to recognise a new overlord.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099570467</amazonuk>1800422466
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=3949666079
|title=Noema
|author=Dael Akkerman
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''This is a story about some things that happened to me about twelve thousand years ago.''
{{newreview|title=All Woman and Springtime|author=B W Jones|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Gyong-Ho Maya is a seamstress. That's not young girl living in a euphemismhunter gatherer village during the Mesolithic era. She works at a machine in a garment factoryClimate change is occurring, with a bullying supervisor, invalided out the Sea of the glorious Chochun armyGrass encroaches further and further into Maya's forest home, limping around and terrifying food is becoming more and more scarce. What to do? Can the girls only slightly more than law givers in the picture federation of Kim Jong-il on villages muster peaceful ways to cope? Can the walls. GiTraveller, a nickname she'll acquire because spiritual figure who interprets the wisdom of her stammering attempts to get her own name out (Gi-Gi-Gyong) strives truly hard to be worthy of the Dear Leader. She has learned the hard wayAll Life, what happens if someone somewhere for some obscure reason decides that you're not.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780222912</amazonuk>provide solutions?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529125898|title=The AsylumGodmersham Park|author=John HarwoodGill Hornby|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=A woman wakes up in an unfamiliar room. She doesn’t know where she is''If it were not for the casual dereliction of the odd gentleman's duty, or how she got there, but would no women to teach well-bred daughters at least she knows who she is: her name is Georgina Ferrars and she lives with her uncle in Gresham’s Yard, Londonall.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224097415</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview|author=Edward Rutherfurd|title=Paris|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Taking four families, from different social positions, Edward Rutherfurd weaves these family histories into Anne Sharpe was thirty-one years old when she arrived at Godmersham Park to take up the history position of governess to twelve-year-old Fanny Austen. She had no experience of teaching but this was a case of Paris and Francenecessity. We encounter Until the noble de Cygnesdeath of her mother, Anne had a comfortable life and was loved by both parents although her father was frequently absent from the bourgeois Blanchardshousehold. When her mother died, the lower class Gascons her father cast her off and the revolutionary Le Sourdswould have nothing more to do with her. Their lives cross paths through the years in often unexpected ways and while ''Paris'' is No explanation was offered but she would receive an historical fiction novelannuity of £35 a year. Her maid, this is as much an epic story of families as it is about the historyAgnes, would receive nothing but was fortunately taken in by some neighbours.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444736795</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emma StraubMelissa Fu |title=Laura Lamont's Life in PicturesPeach Blossom Spring
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Small town girl Ella Emerson loves acting - her father runs I loved the Cherry County Playhouseprelude to Peach Blossom Spring, and shea short chapter entitled ''Origins''s always been captivated by the stage. She loves watching Unfortunately it is the actors perform, and getting involved in shows where she canonly truly poetic part of a book that I expected more from. Following a family tragedy, though, she moves Covering Chinese history from 1938 to Hollywood to marry an actor and reinvents herself 2005 as Laura Lamontviewed through one family's perspective. Quickly, she outshines her new husband. Can her success, and When their relationship, last?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447203208</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nick Rennison|title=Carver's Quest|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The year is 1870 and Adam Carver is at home in his lodgings in London’s Doughty Street when he city is interrupted by an unexpected caller. This distraught set ablaze during the war with Japan, a young mother (Meilin) and enigmatic young woman, Miss Emily Maitland, requests Carver’s help but disappears mysteriously before he can ascertain the details of her predicamentfour-year-old son (Renshu) are among those who flee. The days story follows them on their journey across China, and weeks that follow her visit prove in Renshu's case eventually to be most eventful, pitching Carver and his assistant Quint into an investigation involving murder, a missing manuscript and a hidden treasureAmerica. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848871791</amazonuk>1472277538
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Ridpath1916072038|title=Traitor's GateThe House in the Hollow (The Talbot Saga)|author=Allie Cresswell
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary= Oxford-educated Englishman Conrad de Lancey is haunted by the brutality We meet part of the Spanish Civil War, his ideals laying Talbot family in Yorkshire in the dust along with the cause for which he foughtNovember 1811. Therefore, on a visit to his Twenty-seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot and her mother's German homelandhave travelled in some discomfort from their home at Ecklington, Conrad shies away from involvement in any resistance to the rise of house in the National Socialist Partyhollow. However, he will soon have little choice as tragic events drag him into a world The two women are angry with each other and Jocelyn is well aware of espionage, brutality her mother's strengths and fear, culminating in a conspiracy to kill Hitler himself.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781851808</amazonuk>}}weaknesses:
{{newreview|author=A L Berridge|title=Into The Valley of Death|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Master Harry-sahib saunters up the path of the family bungalow in some unnamed Indian 'British town'She is practiced at subterfuge, puzzled to see the pathway choked with weedsat concealing, surprised by the absence beneath a facade of servants and disgusted by the swarming ants. There is worse inside. His fatherrespectability, the colonel, is dead on the floor. deplorable truth''The money was gone, obviously, but it would take more than that to make a devoted soldier to blow his brains out. What had it done to him, this army he'd given his whole life to?'
What indeed? Hester is furious about Jocelyn'Into the Valley of Deaths refusal to do as she was asked, which has precipitated ''this violent and unexpected removal' isn't the novel that will tell us.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>024195410X</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Tim Willocks|title=The Religion|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=To Then we are told of the Maltese and Sicilians, Mattias Tannhauser is a successfully blooded infantry captain. To Ottoman Turks he's Ibrahim the Red, having been kidnapped from Hungary and raised as a Muslim. Dual nationality comes in handy once he's met the beautiful Contessa Carla de la Penantier and is commissioned to find and return her 12 year old bastard son. As always with these missions there's birth of a catch. The boy (whom Carla hasn't seen since the day of his birth) is rumoured to be on Malta, an island currently being threatened by 30,000 Turks child and defended by a tenth of that number, even if you count the Knights Hospitaller. The Turks call themselves the Hounds of Hellsoon after, the Knights are known as the ReligionHester Talbot departs, but it's immaterial to Mattias. He just needs to find the lad leaving Jocelyn in shame and get out aliveisolation in Yorkshire.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099581299</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elizabeth FremantleAnnabel Abbs|title=The Queen's GambitLanguage of Food
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary= The recently widowed Lady Katherine Latymer falls in love Eliza Acton is a poet who has never had the slightest inclination to boil an egg. When tasked with aristocratic Thomas Seymourwriting a cookery book, she recruits Ann Kirby, a man more local woman with a stranger to fidelity than to a lady's bedtroubled home life. It's not a good ideaTogether, they test, craft, especially when Henry VIII announces he'd like to make use of her renowned nursing skills by marrying her. As Katherine navigates refine and reshape the seas world of palace survival there's a lot that can sink her: Katherine's wish for Henry to return to the original protestant faith as he perceived itdomestic cookery, her desire to bring reinventing the King's children together under one roof recipe book and changing the plotting face of those who would like to see her head disconnected at the neck to name but three. Meanwhile the shadow of Snape Castle hangs over Katherine's step-daughter Meg, haunting her hopes, her dreams and her everyday life to a degree that only the maid Dot understandscookery writing forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718177061</amazonuk>1398502227
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Amy BrillFreya Marske|title=The Movement of StarsA Marvellous Light|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary= Hannah Gardner Price lives Robin Blyth is nudged into a job in Nantucket, a small New England island with fortunes based on the whaling trade. As it's 1845Civil Service, Hannah's life is based on what her father feels is best for hermuch to his chagrin. This is unfortunately reinforced by the fact There he meets Edwin Courcey and learns that Nantucket is not just an island geographically but also insular in outlook and expectations as the claustrophobic, small community revolves around the weekly Friends' Meeting streets of its Quaker faithLondon are threaded with magic. Why unfortunately? Hannah is highly intelligentDesperate to remove a curse that threatens to swallow him, in her mid-20s, unmarried, practically runs her family's navigational instrument business since her twin brother dashed off Robin follows Edwin to sea and has a scientific passion for astronomythe countryside, all of which are at odds where the hedgegrows bristle with societal normality. However, this is just incantations and the beginningpeople shimmer with power. When Isaac Martin, a ship's black second mate, brings Hannah There they uncover a chronometer to repair he becomes a presence sinister plot that will shake her community as it shakes her worldthreatens the lives of all magicians in the British Isles.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718159926</amazonuk>1529080886
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rhidian BrookB09F4CTKJR|title=The AftermathFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=It''The Aftermath'' is set amongst s the later stages of World War I and the devastated ruins in United States has just entered the fire-bombed city of Hamburg in 1946conflict. The British have occupied the ruined city and Colonel Lewis Morgan, an officer Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and a gentleman, is charged with overseeing joined the restoration of order17 Aero Squadron. HoweverThis company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, Colonel Morgan must the first deal with to be attached to the human cost of RAF and the bombing including remnants of fanatic Nazis, first to be sent into the ''trummerkind'' - children of skies to fight the rubble, and the starving civil populaceGermans in active combat. He also, in 1943But before that can happen, lost a child due Petrol has to a Luftwaffe bomb and he must support his deeply grieving wife, Rachel, when she arrives after months of separation with their surviving twelve year old boy, master flying the impressionable Edmundnotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670921122</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreview|author=Diana Souhami|title=Coconut Chaos|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Our anonymous narrator has a chaos-theory-theory about the mutiny on the Bounty. It can all be traced back to Fletcher Christian stealing a coconut. Armed with this thought and the intrepid spirit of many Britons before her, she sets off for Pitcairn Island, the isolated home of Christian and his band of dissenters 3,000 miles from New Zealand. She leaves behind a beloved but delusional mother, her partner and all the comforts of civilisation as she travels with hope and the inimitable Lady Myre. Meanwhile we listen to true stories about the mutiny, the aftermath and the fact that there weren't really many heroes, just a group of flawed individuals fighting for survival.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780878745</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert WiltonChristophe Medler|title=Traitor's FieldMadrigal: A Closely Guarded Secret|rating=54
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=It's 1648 and Set against the embers backdrop of Charles I's reign start to fade as Britain slowly turns the monotone colour English Civil War, a secret plan (code-named Madrigal) is discovered by Sir Robert Douse in the summer of Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth1642. HoweverAs a loyal servant of the King, Royalist passion still exists and Head of the Secret Service, itis Robert's up duty to Sir Mortimer Shay, uncover the Comptrollerate-General for Scrutiny and Survey, to gather details of the intelligence, maintain his spy network plan and fan follow the embers towards clues to uncover one of the Royalist victory for which he longs. He's a wily veteran so not easily stopped but among the confusion and brutality that tears Britain most guarded secrets in half, former lawyer Cromwell's spymaster John Thurloe is history—especially since the man charged with plot could affect the taskKing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848878192</amazonuk>B095HY8SXQ
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Lynch1471187179|title=Red Sky In MorningA Beautiful Spy|author=Rachel Hore
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=It’s 1832 Minnie is an 'ordinary' girl living an unexciting life in a leafy provincial suburb. The book is set in the 1930s and Coll Coyle Minnie is expected to live up to her mother's expectations and his humble family are find a nice young man to be turfed out marry, produce children and spend the rest of her days looking after her husband and their home in Donegal . Unfortunately, this isn't what she wants to do at all and Coll is just angry enough neither does she want to confront the landowner’s son who is responsiblecontinue working as a secretary. The repercussions As a result of Coll’s actions are huge a chance meeting, she finds herself drawn into espionage, working for the secret service and Coll is forced effectively living a double life - attempting to go on infiltrate the runCommunist Party of Great Britain. He attempts to escape across the unforgiving Minnie finds herself torn between what she perceives as her duty and desolate landscape of North West Ireland, the brutal Atlantic Ocean friends she has made - and likes - whilst working for the plains of North America, all the while stalked by the incredibly dangerous and violent John Faller. Red Sky in Morning is Paul Lynch’s debut novel and it is a real hitCommunist Party.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780879164</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Patricia WatkinsAfonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=Trick of Fate: Connell OKokoschka'Keeffe and The Pen Caer Legacys Doll|rating=42.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=Connell O'Keeffe was Well, this looked very much like a gentleman actor and on 23 February 1797 he was on his way book I could love from Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire to catch the ferry home to Irelandget-go, which is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. Unable I found things to speak Welsh he potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was unaware that in the French had invaded Pen Caer 20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and rode into a situation which would change his life foreverso on. The It intrigued with the subterranean voice a man who had set off to make his leisurely way home, taking hears in some wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of the local landmarks suffered a life-threatening injuryit mentioned, was unjustly accused of a foul murder and became a fugitivetoo. It was difficult to see But you've seen the star rating that he could survive his current situation - fitter men than he were dying - comes with this review, and can tell that if he didlove was on these pages, what it was the point? not actually caused by them. What was there that he could do when his chosen profession would no longer be open to himSo what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0957210450</amazonuk>1529402697
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael EnnisChristina Hammonds Reed|title=The Malice of FortuneBlack Kids|rating=34.5|genre=Historical FictionTeens |summary=Michael Ennis sets his Christina Hammonds Reed''The Malice of Fortune'' in Italy in s debut novel is set against the early part backdrop of the 1500s. Ennis is 1992 Los Angeles riots, a history lecturer so unsurprisingly, his book is full reaction to the absolution of evidence of detailed research and understanding of the times. And what fascinating times they were. With the Borgia family dominating both the papacy and several political regions, fighting four police officers for power and land, a number of family led mercenary armies, and several great figures who would leave beating a lasting legacyblack man, notably Leonardo Da Vinci and Niccolò MachiavelliRodney King, nearly to death. Told from the latter perspective of whom narrates a very large part of this Ashley Bennett, the novel. The real life political wrangling of the times would stretch the imagination of most novelists and Ennis bases his tale on follows her evolution from a huge number silent bystander when confronted with matters of realrace, documented happenings. What he seeks to add to the party is an insight into why and how these events occurred a woman finding her voice and certainly there are some unexplained gaps in the relationships of the key players. The core story is an attempt to discover the identity of the murderer of the pope's son, Juan Borgia, Duke of Gandia. Candidates range from his brother, Cesare Borgia, Juan's courtesan, Damiata to the heads of various powerful, mercenary families. It's historical fiction meets crime fictionembracing her heritage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780890974</amazonuk>1471188191
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{{newreview|author=Tim Leach|title=The Last King of Lydia|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Ancient mythology seems to be enjoying a surge in popularity of late, with a plethora of books, movies and games based Move on these ancient legends and fabled heroes. There is something in the collective consciousness that enables these stories to resonate with each subsequent generation, allowing ancient wisdom to put out new roots in fresh soil.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857899171</amazonuk>}}[[Newest History Reviews]]