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{|class-"wikitable" cellpadding="15" <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE--><!{{Frontpage|author=Freya Marske|title=A Marvellous Light|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Robin Blyth is nudged into a job in the Civil Service, much to his chagrin. There he meets Edwin Courcey and learns that the streets of London are threaded with magic. Desperate to remove a curse that threatens to swallow him, Robin follows Edwin to the countryside, where the hedgegrows bristle with incantations and the people shimmer with power. There they uncover a sinister plot that threatens the lives of all magicians in the British Isles. |isbn=1529080886}}{{Frontpage|isbn= B09F4CTKJR|title= Flights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It's the later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, the first to be attached to the RAF and the first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in active combat. But before that can happen, Petrol has to master flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.}}{{Frontpage|author= Christophe Medler|title=Madrigal: A Closely Guarded Secret|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary= Set against the backdrop of the English Civil War, a secret plan (code-named Madrigal) is discovered by Sir Robert Douse in the summer of 1642. As a loyal servant of the King, and Head of the Secret Service, it is Robert's duty to uncover the details of the plan and follow the clues to uncover one of the most guarded secrets in history—especially since the plot could affect the King.|isbn=B095HY8SXQ}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1471187179|title=A Beautiful Spy|author=Rachel Hore|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Minnie is an 'ordinary' girl living an unexciting life in a leafy provincial suburb. The book is set in the 1930s and Minnie is expected to live up to her mother's expectations and find a nice young man to marry, produce children and spend the rest of her days looking after her husband and their home. Unfortunately, this isn't what she wants to do at all and neither does she want to continue working as a secretary. As a result of a chance meeting, she finds herself drawn into espionage, working for the secret service and effectively living a double life - d'Eramo attempting to infiltrate the 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 Communist Party.}}{{Frontpage|author=Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=Kokoschka's Doll|rating=2.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from the get-go, which is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the 20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and so on. It intrigued with the subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, too. But you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, and can tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. So what happened?| styleisbn="width1529402697}}{{Frontpage|author=Christina Hammonds Reed|title=The Black Kids|rating=4.5|genre=Teens |summary=Christina Hammonds Reed's debut novel is set against the backdrop of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, a reaction to the absolution of four police officers for beating a black man, Rodney King, nearly to death. Told from the perspective of Ashley Bennett, the novel follows her evolution from a silent bystander when confronted with matters of race, to a woman finding her voice and embracing her heritage.|isbn=1471188191}}{{Frontpage|author=Caroline Scott|title=When I Come Home Again|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=1918 and a young man is arrested in Durham Cathedral. He refuses to give a name, no matter how hard they push he will not say who he is. Eventually they determine this isn't wilful obstinance, he doesn't answer because he doesn't know. He remembers being on the road for a long time, and being frightened, and some of the faces from the road, but other than that – everything that came before has gone. They need a name for the forms and so they call him Adam and, because he was found in the Galilee Chapel, it becomes Adam Galilee. A fanciful name for a tired young man in a dishevelled uniform who doesn't know who he is, where he is or how he got there.|isbn=1471192172}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1405946172|title=The Glass House|author=Eve Chase|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Rita lost both her parents in a car crash when she was just six years old: 10%; verticalsince then she's always craved a family. She'd lived with her grandmother in Torquay until she got a job as a nanny with the Harrington family in London. Soon her engagement to Fred, a Torquay butcher, fell through and the Harringtons became her family. In 1971, after a fire at the London house, Jeannie Harrington, her children, 13-year-old Hera and 6-year-alignold Teddy, along with Rita went to the family's house in the Forest of Dean. It wasn't ''quite'' dilapidated, but it certainly wasn't the same standard as the London house had been before the fire.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sally Magnusson|title=The Sealwoman's Gift|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary= There is a legend that God came to visit Adam & Eve in the Garden. Eve had not finished bathing her children and ashamed of those still not cleansed, she attempted to hide them from the eyes of God, denying that she had more children than those, already bathed, that she willing paraded for him. God was not to be deceived, however, and decreed that what was sought to be hidden from the eyes of God would henceforth be hidden from the eyes of man, and so the Elves were born: top; textthe hidden folk. They can see man, but man can only see them if they so choose.|isbn=1473638984}}{{Frontpage|author=Wendy Cheyne |title=From the Auld Rock to a Hard Place|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary= After the Jacobite defeat at the Battle of Culloden, many Scottish estates were given to English lords. They were not kind to their crofting tenants. Many on the mainland were cleared and while this did not happen much on the islands such as Shetland, the new exploitative conditions led many Shetlanders to leave -alignto port cities on the mainland, to North America and even to Australia and New Zealand. |isbn= 1838591753}}{{Frontpage|author= Alison Weir|title= Six Tudor Queens: center;Katheryn Howard The Tainted Queen|rating= 4|genre= Historical Fiction|summary= ''Katheryn was seven when her mother died'', thus we are thrust into this tumultuous time in young Katheryn's life, trying to find a home, both figuratively and literally, where she can grow and grieve. Unfortunately, Katheryn is followed by bad luck and she learns an important lesson, she is too young, too poor and too unimportant to be of any value to anyone, but she is beautiful and surely, that will count for something in the end, won't it?|isbn=1472227778}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529123763|title=Miss Austen|author=Gill Hornby|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It's long been known that Cassandra Austen burned most of the letters which she and other members of the extensive Austen family had exchanged with or about her sister Jane. What is not known is ''why'' she did this and at this stage - more than two hundred years after Jane's death - a definitive answer is unlikely to forthcoming. Gill Hornby has provided us with some possible answers in a book that proved to be far more emotionally complex than I was expecting.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1471186393|title=Photographer of the Lost|author=Caroline Scott|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=May 1921. Edie receives a photograph through the post. There is no letter or note with it. There is nothing written on the back of the photograph. It is a picture of her husband, Francis. Francis has been missing for four years. Technically, he has been "missing, believed killed"but that is not something that a young widow can believe. She hangs on the word 'missing', disbelieving the word killed.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=099944235X|title=The Man Who Killed Hitler|author=Andre Pronovost|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction[[image:1782273883|summary=Germany is split. Some of her is in favour of Hitler and the Nazis, but much isn't. Some of her is stuck to the east fighting the Soviets, but some will soon have to be on the other front, against the Americans coming into the continent to put things right as they see it. Finding out that the war to the east isn't working, due to Hitler's tactical ineptitude and inability to heed advice, some people reckon Stalin is five seasons away from being in Berlin. The only way to shore things up, and repair the splits, is to kill Hitler, and luckily Baron Nicholas is the man to do it. He's aristocratic enough, he knows enough people in industry, society and other circles of power, so once he's succeeded he might be able to keep a German presence in Europe.jpg But will he still be able to keep the "predatory American capitalists" and the blatantly communist Soviets from meeting in the middle?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1789018625|title=Just Another Girl on the Road|author=S Kensington|rating=4 |genre=Historical Fiction|linksummary=http://wwwWhen Sergeant Farr and Corporal Valentine first encountered Katrinka Badeau she was just eighteen years old and fleeing from a farmhouse and a group of German deserters who had raped her.amazon Despite being outnumbered she was giving just about as good as she got when Farr and Valentine intervened and finished the group off.co It was 1944 and Farr and Valentine were part of the Jedburgh unit, EDMOND, lead by Major Willoughby Nye. Nye recognised Katrinka immediately - he'd worked on her father's merchant ship and Katrinka had once had a crush on Nye.uk/dp/1782273883/refWhen he offered her a job with his unit, she accepted}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1542007232|title=The Rabbit Girls|author=nosimAnna Ellory|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Berlin, 1989. Miriam is in the middle of a city freshly united, with the Wall newly broken down and people able to cross at liberty for the first time in decades. She is in the middle of such euphoria, but cannot feel it, for she has not left her father's apartment in weeks, nursing him as he lies dying. One standard bed-bath, however, is very different, when he gasps the name ''Frieda'' that she does not recognise – and she sees for the first time ever a tattoo for his camp inmate identity under his watch. One bombshell outside, then, and two inside. And inside her father, Henryk, what is going on, as he has a first-person narrative alternating with her story?tag What will we find happened, as he remembers back to the real Frieda, a young woman that shook him to the core when he was her literature professor? That's right, more bombshells… }}{{Frontpage|isbn=thebookbag1529311446|title=The Long Flight Home|author=A L Hlad|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=September 1940 - as WWII rages on, bombs rain down on Britain, destroying the homes and lives of a people on the edge. In Epping Forest, Susan Shepherd and her grandfather Bertie live together raising homing pigeons with the birds proving a comfort for Susan following the loss of her parents. These pigeons are more than just birds to Susan though – in each one, and especially in Duchess, she sees a distinct personality and forms a close bond. Meanwhile, young pilot Ollie Evans leaves Maine to head to Britain and join the Royal Air Force. Working with the National Pigeon Service, he soon meets Susan and is tasked with air-dropping hundreds of homing pigeons into German-occupied France, where many will not survive. As the mission is planned, the bond between Ollie and Susan grows stronger, but when Ollie's plane is downed behind enemy lines, it may be Duchess who provides an unexpected lifeline and ensures that hope of a reunion for Susan and Ollie remains…}}{{Frontpage|isbn=178747920X|title=Brightfall |author=Jaime Lee Moyer|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Robin Hood is gone – denouncing both his former life and his love Marian, and retreating to a monastery – although no-one knows quite what led him to abandon all that he had built. Marion's life since has been relatively quiet -21but when her friends start dying, Marion is tasked by Father Tuck to break the curse surrounding them and to save their lives. Setting off with a soldier, a Fey Lord and a sullen Robin Hood, she becomes tangled in a maze of betrayals, complicated relationships, and a vicious struggle for the throne…}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1784631647|title=A Perfect Explanation|author=Eleanor Anstruther|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Enid Campbell was a woman who, on the face of it, had everything. Leading the life of an aristocrat – full of inherited wealth and splendour, glamourous locales and high expectations. Only Enid's life has been plagued by mental illness – undiagnosed, untreated and threatening both Enid and those close to her. After losing custody of her children, Enid sells her son to her sister for £500 – but is this an act of greed, or an act of desperation? Exploring the true story of her own grandmother, Eleanor Anstruther has found the perfect subject for an explosive, moving and beautifully well-written debut. [[A Perfect Explanation by Eleanor Anstruther|Full Review]]}}

 | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Deviation by Luce d'Eramo and Anne Milano Appel (translator)]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|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. [[Deviation by Luce d'Eramo and Anne Milano Appel (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Gardner -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1785656341.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785656341/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Count of 9 by Erle Stanley Gardner]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|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. [[The Count of 9 by Erle Stanley Gardner|Full Review]] <!-- Chamberlain -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1786076446.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786076446/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Hidden by Mary Chamberlain]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical 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… [[The Hidden by Mary Chamberlain|Full Review]] <!-- Minette Walters -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1760632163.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1760632163/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Turn of Midnight by Minette Walters]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|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? [[The Turn of Midnight by Minette Walters|Full Review]] <!-- Abbs -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1473691206.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1473691206/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Frieda by Annabel Abbs]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary 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. [[Frieda by Annabel Abbs|Full Review]] <!-- Susan Fletcher -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0349007640.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0349007640/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[House of Glass by Susan Fletcher]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical 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. [[House of Glass by Susan Fletcher|Full Review]] <!-- Kearsley -->|-| style=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|[[image:1492687863.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1492687863/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''|===[[Bellewether by Susanna Kearsley]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Paranormal|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. [[Bellewether by Susanna Kearsley|Full Review]] <!-- Scott -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0593072286.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0593072286/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[A Treachery of Spies by Manda Scott]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|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… [[A Treachery of Spies by Manda Scott|Full Review]] <!-- Lock -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1787198243.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1787198243/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Murmuration by Robert Lock]]=== [[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical 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. [[Murmuration by Robert Lock|Full Review]] <!-- Winthrop -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Winthrop_Mercy.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/147367249X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=147367249X]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Mercy Seat by Elizabeth H Winthrop]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|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. [[The Mercy Seat by Elizabeth H Winthrop|Full Review]] <!-- Maitland -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1472235878.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1472235878/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[A Gathering of Ghosts by Karen Maitland]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Paranormal|Paranormal]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|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 Move on a wind of change. [[A Gathering of Ghosts by Karen Maitland|Full Review]] <!-- Syson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Syson_Peacock.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785761862/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Mr Peacock's Possessions by Lydia Syson]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category: Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:General 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. [[Mr Peacock's Possessions by Lydia Syson|Full Review]] <!-- Mazolla -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1472234782.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1472234782/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Story Keeper by Anna Mazzola]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|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. [[The Story Keeper by Anna Mazzola|Full Review]] <!-- Glendinning -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0715652915.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0715652915/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Butcher's Daughter by Victoria Glendinning]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Newest History Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|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. [[The Butcher's Daughter by Victoria Glendinning|Full Review]] <!-- Longridge -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1788034503.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1788034503/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Silence in the Desert by David Longridge]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Thrillers|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. [[Silence in the Desert by David Longridge|Full Review]] <!-- Weir -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1472227670.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1472227670/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Six Tudor Queens: Jane Seymour, The Haunted Queen by Alison Weir]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|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. [[Six Tudor Queens: Jane Seymour, The Haunted Queen by Alison Weir|Full Review]] <!-- Dalrymple -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:140886553X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/140886553X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[In Gold's Name by Marcus Dalrymple]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|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. [[In Gold's Name by Marcus Dalrymple|Full Review]] <!-- Hall -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1785630806.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785630806/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Industry of Human Happiness by James Hall]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Thrillers|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. [[The Industry of Human Happiness by James Hall|Full Review]] <!-- Varese -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0715653008.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0715653008/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Spirit Photographer by Jon Michael Varese]]=== [[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|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. [[The Spirit Photographer by Jon Michael Varese|Full Review]]  <!-- de Lacey Davidson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1506905900.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1506905900/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"| ===[[Precept: A Novel by Matthew de Lacey Davidson]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] Nathan Whyte is tremendously excited about the arrival of Frederick Douglass in Ireland. And even more excited that his Quaker father, who is publishing the British edition of ''Narrative'', Douglass's memoir of his life as a slave, will be accompanying the famous black American abolitionist on his speaking tour. Nathan is deeply impressed by Douglass, who is a charismatic figure and a gifted orator. But Ireland will have as big an impact on Frederick Douglass as Frederick Douglass will have on it. We watch him through Nathan's eyes as he sees for himself the beginnings of the horrors of the potato famine and meets and befriends the famous Irish nationalist, Daniel O'Connell. [[Precept: A Novel by Matthew de Lacey Davidson|Full Review]] <!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->|}