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[[Category:New Reviews|Historical Fiction]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
{{newreview
|author= Emma HendersonMinette Walters|title= The Valentine HouseLast Hours|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Historical Fiction|summary= In June 1914, Sir Anthony Valentine, a keen mountaineer, arrives with his family to spend 1348 the Black Death came into the country through the summer port of Melcombe in their chaletDorset. Ignorant of many rules of hygiene which we'd find basic nearly seven hundred years later, high in the French Alpsdisease rages through the country. ThereOn the estate of Develish, for Lady Anne Develish took control of the first time, fourteen-year-old foundling Mathilde starts work as one future of the 'uglies' - village girls employed as servants people who lived in the demesne after her husband had ridden off to try and picked, it is believed, to ensure they don't catch Sir Anthony's roving eyesecure a marriage for his daughter. For Mathilde it is Two hundred bonded serfs lived on the estate and when Lady Anne realised the start virulence of a life-long entanglement with les anglais - strangethe plague she ordered that the estate refuse entry to anyone, exciting peopleincluding her husband and his entourage, far removed from for fear that they would bring the hard grind disease to her people.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1760632139</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Lars Mytting and Paul Russell Grant (Translator)|title=The Sixteen Trees of farmingthe Somme|rating=4. Except she soon finds 5|genre=General Fiction|summary=While his grandfather lived the Valentines are less carefree than they appear, past was an area of certainty for Edvard. At aged 4 he'd been taken to live with a curiously absent daughter no one talks about. It will be decades - disrupted by warhis grandparents, accidents and a cruel betrayal - before Mathilde discovers having survived the key accident that killed his parents. Now his grandfather has died revelations are coming to the mystery. And in 1976light showing Edvard his family history is different from what he'd believed… his mother's birthplace, his mother's name, the year Sir Anthonywhereabouts of late Great-Uncle Einar… and that's great-great grandson comes without looking more deeply into the fatal accident itself. Edvard is determined to visitsolve the puzzle, she must decide whether a determination that will take him away from his native Norway to use itan area of France synonymous with devastation and a remote Scottish island loaded with secrets.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>14447040280857056069</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= Polly ClarkToby Clements|title= LarchfieldKingmaker: Kingdom Come: (Book 4)|rating= 5|genre= Literary Historical Fiction |summary=I It's early summer when a young poet, Dora Fielding, moves to Helensburgh on 1470 dawns and the west coast next chapters of Scotland and her hopes are first challenged. Newly married, pregnant, she's excited by the prospect War of a life that combines family and creativitythe Roses are ready to play out. She King Edward thinks she knows what being a person, a wife, a mother, means. She is soon shown that she the future has been settled but treachery is wrongstill lurking. As the battle begins for her very sense of self, Dora comes to find the realities of small town life suffocating, Meanwhile Katherine and, eventually, terrifying; until she finds a way to escape reality altogether. Another poet, she discovers, lived in Helensburgh once. Wystan H. Auden, brilliant Thomas also have their world turned upside down when that ledger and awkward at 24, with his first book of poetry published, should be embarking on success and society in London. Instead, in 1930, fleeing a broken engagement, he takes a teaching post at Larchfield School for boys where he is mocked for his Englishness and suspected - rightly - of homosexuality. Yet in this repressed limbo Wystan will fall in love for the first timechance comment threaten all they have, even as he fights his deepest fearsincluding their lives.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786481928178089466X</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Dinah JefferiesP F Chisholm|title=Before Guns in the RainsNorth (The Sir Robert Carey Mysteries Omnibus)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Eliza has tragically punctuated childhood memories 1592: Sir Robert Carey flees the strictures of Elizabethan court – and his creditors – in order to become Deputy Warden of India that the West March in Carlisle. The Scottish/English borders and those who inhabit them are different from the world he's left behind but it will have feed her desire to returnbecome his world. Therefore in 1930, following the death of her husband, when the British government commission her It's now his job to bring law to photograph scenes of Indian life, she jumps at the chancelawless. What she doesnThis isn't realise is that not everyone she easy when every local he comes across is delighted with the ideahas an affinity and a heritage of crime to some degree. Living within For Robert the best thing about the Sultana's opulent palace complex job is definitely an attraction for her, as is Jay, an Indian price who shows Eliza its proximity to the real Indiawoman he loves but he doesn't know what he'll do about that yet either. However, attractions Meanwhile he soon realises that those who are supposed to be on his side are sometimes dangerous and even deadlyplotting against him but they don't realise what they're up against. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>02412870811786694719</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Otto de Kat Zanna Sloniowska and Laura Watkinson Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator)|title=The Longest NightHouse with the Stained-Glass Window|rating=3.54|genre=Literary Historical Fiction|summary=Emma has a philosophy – ''let the dead restMarianna, and love an opera singer in the living''. The problem with that, as a 96soon-yearto-oldbe Ukrainian city of Lviv, is that there are too few living left, and so while the love remains she will go through her memories, taking mistakenly shot dead at a woozy, diaphanous path through all political rally in the major events dying days of her lifethe Soviet Union. Starting in wartime Berlin This novel begins with one husbandboth anger and hope, who gets snatched from her at work, fleeing to another place to wait for peace, and wait for him as Marianna's coffin is covered in vain, moving to Holland the illegal blue and finding new loveyellow flag, and so on – this wispy journey will show all her death seems to herald the impacts birth of war, from rationing right up to exile, death and survivala new nation. The memories are coming strongly here and now, as Emma But the day of her funeral is waiting for at least one also the day of her two sons daughter's first period – a girl who must learn how to visitbe a woman in this time of drastic change, and then she will die…with no mother to guide her along the way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>08570560850857057138</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= Adrian GoldsworthyK J Whittaker|title= VindolandaFalse Lights|rating= 34.5
|genre= Historical Fiction
|summary= AD 98: in Cornwall, 1817. What if your worst mistake changed the northern fields course of Britannia lies Vindolanda, a Roman auxiliary base situated on history? Napoleon has crushed the edge Duke of Wellington at the Roman worldBattle of Waterloo, and his ex-wife Josephine presides over French-occupied England. Far from the prosperity Cornwall erupts into open rebellion, and decadence of Romeyoung heiress Hester escapes with Crow, Wellington's former intelligence officer, a half-French aristocrat haunted by his part in the wild catastrophic defeat. Together, they become embroiled in a web of treachery and untamed lands around Vindolanda espionage as plans are ripe with rebel tribes laid to free Wellington from secret captivity in the Scilly Isles and druids set lead an uprising against the destruction of Rome and its armiesFrench occupation. In the midst of this destruction is Flavius Ferox; a Briton and Roman Centurion who has been given the task of keeping the peace in this desolate edge of the world. But life in Roman Britain is full of danger and betrayal at every turncountry rife with traitors, Hester and Ferox knows Crow know it will take more than courage is impossible to overcome what lies aheadplay such a game as this for long...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17849746841786695340</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Jeroen Blokhuis and Asja Novak (translator)J Jefferson Farjeon|title=The Yellow HouseSeven Dead|rating=34|genre=Literary Historical Fiction|summary=If you were Ted Lyte was petty criminal, but not usually the needy kindhousebreaking type. He lacked the courage. However, would you really join in the drumming-out of town of two people accused of murder purely because of their nationality? Would you get a needs must, and whilst feeling of belonging just because you were there when someone carried down on his luck he decided to try his chances at an isolated house with a dead dog down off shuttered window. ''...he might find a mountainbit of alright behind those shutters! Wot abart it? The main character in this novel '' Ted doesindeed find something interesting behind the shutters, but it definitely isn't what he'd hoped. But In a locked room he has something that will really get him noted, well-thought-of, includedfinds seven dead bodies; six men and a woman. He has come to Fleeing the south of France to set up an artists' collectivehouse in horror, where he can live is pursued and work alongside his counterpartscaught by a passing yachtsman, Thomas Hazeldean, who can inspire each other and best each other also happens to create wonderful artbe a journalist. In fact a much-respected guest is on his way now, so surely he can find kinship? The guestFascinated by Ted's name isstory (and a possible scoop), after allHazeldean decides to investigate this curious case and its assortment of odd clues, Gauguin. The main character isincluding a portrait shot through the heart, an old cricket ball and a mysterious note written by one of course, Vincent van Gogh…the victims.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>19073205630712356886</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|authortitle=Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)Salt Creek|titleauthor=Retribution RoadLucy Treloar
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction |summary=The first chapter of ''Sergeant Bowman wasn't just a hard man, he was something else: a dangerous man.Salt Creek'' If, indeed, there was someone who was ideal for a suicide mission, it was him. Working as a soldier for the East India Company opens in the ruralChichester, remoteEngland, outlaw hotbeds of Asia in the 1850s, he's tasked with taking 1874. Hester Finch is a boat respected and reasonably wealthy member of unknown prospects up the Irrawaddy to try and combat local warlord Pagan Minher community. It doesnBut she can't go well – stop her thoughts wandering back to start withher adolescence, hespent on Salt Creek Station in the remote South Australian Coorong region. Hester feels ''s supposed to run the rule over ruffians saved from the gallowshas never felt so alive as then, but canwhen we had so little't command them until he's forced his way to having the knowledge of the mission he needs first, only for all hell to break loose. But get back he does, only to find that while his nightmares about what really happened are met with equally dark goings-on, the official record suggests the mission never actually existed…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>08570537441910709417</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Theodore BrunJamie Ford|title=A Mighty Dawn (The Wanderer Chronicles)Love and Other Consolation Prizes|rating=3.5
|genre= Historical Fiction
|summary= A story like this needs a strong central character; At the World's Fair in 1962, it needs a warrior who has convictionseems that all eyes are focused on the future. The Space Needle dominates the landscape, heart and honourfilling people with anticipation about things to come. Hakan has all these in abundanceOne visitor, but he didn't get them easily. In this coming of age talehowever, he goes has his mind firmly focused on the past. Ernest Young is helping his daughter Ju-ju with a story she is writing for her newspaper; a story about a quest to find himself after experiencing young immigrant boy who was given away as a prize in a raffle at the most tremendous of betrayalsWorld's Fair in 1909. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>17823999410749022752</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=S J Hardman LeaNicola Pryce|title=The Sins of SoldiersCaptain's Girl|rating=54|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Anson Scott wants to join the British army Last year, Bookbag reviewed, and World War I for a different reason than most of his fellow Americans. Hethoroughly enjoyed, [[Pengelly's Daughter by Nicola Pryce|Pengelly's Daughter]], a journalist wanting swashbuckling historical romance set in picturesque Cornwall. Now we have the uncensored inside story to send back home; a deadly enterprise as, if pleasure of reading the Germans don't get himmuch-anticipated sequel. This time, the Brits may deem him story focuses on a spy. Unperturbed he carries his plan through and finds himself on neighbour of the French front in 1916. He Polcarrow family, Miss Celia Cavendish, who has an ally in British officer David Alexander, which is just as well since been engaged to a cruel man that she does not all his enemies are across no man's landlove. The two men have a lot in commonOne fateful night, she runs away to the Polcarrow house to beg them for help, more than they know and perhaps more than is good the pivotal events of that night have far-reaching consequences for them as the Somme approachesall involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17858901821782398856</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=David GilmanHawa L Crickmore|title=Viper's Blood (Master of War)Across the Ocean|rating=54|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=Bowman and commander Thomas Blackstone is one of Edward III's greatest weaponsA young cage fighter, bringing him potentially head to head against the Dauphin once again. HoweverMartin Grandson, faced was diagnosed with an elongated stale matea rare genetic disorder which required a bone-marrow transplant, Thomas' role becomes that of scavenger leader as the chances of victory make way for preferably from a greater chance of starvation amongst the armiessibling. There is Only recently he'd been a light at fit young man, in the end prime of the tunnel though. Blackstone is to go on life, but now he was suffering from a triprare type of bone cancer: an escort mission to Italy, delivering without the French King's daughter Isabelle to Milan transplant he would be paralysed for life and her wedding. Having said that, might be dead within the light at next twelve weeks if he didn't receive the end of transplant within the tunnel may be an oncoming lancenext fourteen days. IsabelleUnfortunately Martin's prospective groom is one of the brothers who killed Thomas' wife parents had died in a car crash and daughterthere were no siblings or other close relatives. Death is definitely on the cards… but whose?His girlfriend, Celia, was not a match.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17849744631524666971</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Rory ClementsM J Tjia|title=CorpusShe Be Damned|rating=54|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=A suicidal overdose and London, 1863: prostitutes in the murder of upper class Cecil Langley Waterloo area are turning up dead, their sexual organs mutilated and his wife are two events removed. When another girl goes missing, fears grow that the killer may be unconnectedhave claimed their latest victim. However this is England in 1936, The police are at a magnet for opposing forces loss and so it falls to courtesan and their first moves in preparation for the coming conflictprofessional detective, Heloise Chancey, assisted or prevented by a royal crisis (depending on which side you're on)to investigate. Cambridge history professor Tom Wilde may fall into With the middle assistance of this accidentally her trusty Chinese maid, Amah Li Leen, Heloise inches closer to begin with but his curiosity has been piqued enough to ensure he's not walking awaythe truth. But when Amah is implicated in the brutal plot, Heloise must reconsider whom she can trust, before the killer strikes again.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785762613178507931X</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= Beatrice ColinSarah Franklin|title= To Capture What We Cannot KeepShelter|rating= 45
|genre= Historical Fiction
|summary=ParisConnie Granger has escaped her bombed-out city home, February 1887, and work on finding refuge in the foundations of EiffelWomen's daring tower Timber Corps. For her, this remote community must now serve a secret purpose.<br>Seppe, an Italian prisoner of war, is about to beginhaunted by his memories. Engineer Emile NouguierIn the forest camp, taking photographs he finds a strange kind of freedom.Their meeting signals new beginnings. But as they are drawn together, the site from world outside their forest haven is being torn apart. Old certainties are crumbling, and both must now make a tethered hot air balloon life-defining choice.<br>What price will they pay for tourists nearby, chances freedom? What will they fight to meet protect?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785762990</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Jane Johnson|title= Court of Lions|rating= 5|genre= Historical Fiction |summary= Kate Fordham arrived in the sunlit city of Granada a young widow from Glasgow named Caitriona Wallace, and his own foundations start to shiftyear ago. Over In the next two years as shadow of the tower slowly rises in Alhambra, one of the Champ de Marsmost beautiful places on earth, what began she works as an impossible dream becomes solid reality a waitress serving tourists in a busy bar. She pretends she's happy with her new life Cait and Emilebut how could she be? Kate's love for each otheralone, afraid and hiding under a false name. And fate is about to bring her face-to-face with her greatest fear. In Five centuries ago, a message, in a hand few could read, was inscribed in blood on a world where more than bustles stolen scrap of paper. The paper was folded and corsets hem her inpressed into one of the Alhambra's walls. There it has lain, undisturbed by the tides of history – the Fall of Granada, will Cait be able to break free the expulsion of its last Sultan – until Kate discovers it. Born of her oppressive futurelove, in a time of danger and given their different social stratadesperation, can Emile re-shape his?the fragment will be the catalyst that changes Kate's life forever. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>17602917221786694336</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= Deanna RaybournAngus Watson|title= A Perilous Undertaking (Veronica Speedwell Mystery)You Die When You Die
|rating= 4
|genre= Historical Fiction
|summary=Veronica Speedwell did not choose to be an investigator by profession. She was, first Finnbogi the Boggy and foremost, his tribe of mushroom men (Vikings) must take a scientist; a lepidopterist and adventuress who travelled road trip through hostile territory whilst being hunted by the world looking for exciting butterfly specimensgreatest fighting force ever seen (Amazonian Native Americans). However, when her latest expedition was cancelled due to an unfortunate incident with Vikings meet Native Americans in a giant tortoise, Veronica clash of cultures and her taxidermist friend Stoker took up potentially the challenge of a murder investigation as an interesting diversion. The case seemed to an open-and-shut one; Miles Ramsforth, an art patron, had been accused end of murdering his pregnant mistress, Artemisia. He was discovered at the scene, covered in her blood and had both the motive and circumstances to commit the crimeworld. He would hang by When the end Queen of the week if Veronica and Stoker could known world says your tribe has to be exterminated then your immediate future may not find the 'real' killerbe so rosy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>04514761580356507564</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Jemima BriggesAlison Weir|title=Counting the CostSix Tudor Queens: Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession: Six Tudor Queens 2
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=The year is 1794 and we meet our young protagonist, Maria, in desperate circumstances. Alone and terrified, she has concluded that her only option is Thomas Boleyn sends his daughters abroad to take her own life by throwing herself into be trained at the surging river waterscourts of European royalty. Months previously, she was cruelly violated by Not only does this give them an education in the master ways of the house where she worked and nowelite, in it could also ensure a good marriage. Unfortunately he hasn't reckoned on the advanced stages ideas that one of her pregnancythem, the future seems bleak. LuckilyAnne, a pair of gypsy women find Maria picks up and take her in. Following a traumatic labour, Maria becomes desperately ill and when she recovers, her baby as for marriage… Anne is gonedetermined to marry for love not through some paternal arrangement. Alone again, Maria is free Yet the reality turns out to start a new life. With a clever disguisebe different, she becomes the dowdy 'Miss Dinchope' and takes driving a position as wedge through her family on a housekeeper for the village rectorroad leading to dark tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785899139147222762X</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Steven BurgauerMartha Conway|title=The Night of The Eleventh SunFloating Theatre|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The word 'Neanderthal' has become equated with people deemed to have a backward attitude When young seamstress May Bedloe is left alone and outlook. But what do we know penniless on the shore of the original Neanderthals from over 200Ohio,000 years ago? Here American author [[:Category:Steven Burgauer|Steven Burgauer]] melds she finds work on the famous floating theatre that plies its trade along the river. Her creativity and needlework skills quickly become invaluable and she settles into life among the knowledge colourful troupe of anthropologistsactors. She finds friends, archaeologists and historians possibly the promise of more. But cruising the border between the Confederate South and the 'free' North is fraught with danger. For the story sake of a debt that must be repaid, May is compelled to transport secret passengers, under cover of Strong Armsdarkness, his family across the river and their struggle on, along the underground railroad. But as May's secrets become harder to keep, she learns she must endanger those now dear to her.  And to survive in a very effectivesave the lives of others, and informative wayshe must risk her own...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>14196715451785762907</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Meelis Friedenthal and Matthew Hyde (translator)Jenny Ashcroft|title=The Willow KingBeneath a Burning Sky|rating=34|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Meet LaurentiusYoung bride Olivia Sheldon finds returning to her childhood home in Egypt a bitter-sweet experience. He's On the one hand, she has been reunited with her estranged sister Clara, and the pair have formed a scholar newly arrived in Estonia in deep and loving bond. On the seventeenth centuryother, aiming she has an unhappy marriage to study more. But things aren't going well for him – a long-standing illness seems her domineering husband Alistair, who only married her to be returningspite Clara, who had refused him previously. Life with the weather and roads are awfulsadistic Alistair is unbearable, he's late – and with Olivia subjected to horrific abuse at his only friend, a parakeethands, won't even survive the first two days ashoredaily. He's entering As a weird worldlady with no means of supporting herself, what's more – one imbued with evil smellsOlivia seems trapped without any means of escape, peopled by strange characters with stranger ideasonly finding solace in the company of her sister and friends. Can his modern ideasBut when her dear sister goes mysteriously missing in the bustling streets of Alexandria, it is up to Olivia to try and thinking about solve the soul, bear him through his course?mystery of her disappearance before it is too late.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17822717400751565032</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Ian RossConn Iggulden|title=The Mask Dunstan: One Man Will Change the Fate of Command (Twilight of Empire)England|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary= Warning: spoilers ahead for previous books in The young Dunstan shows no sign of the seriessainthood he'll later attain. 305AD: Castus Aurelius Son of a Wessex thane and sent to a monastery for education, following the death of his predecessorthis isn't a lad who responds to discipline. However an enquiring, has been promoted intelligent mind begins to commander (or vir perfecctissiums) of the Roman forces at emerge and then comes the Rhinebig break. He's also been ordered Lady Elflaed calls to put a proposal to him after hearing about what she considers to take Crispus, Constantine's son be a miracle and heir, for the character-building experiencemonks consider another in a long line of excuses. That complicates matters Yet Dunstan will outshine all his teachers as well as when Castus isn't trying to keep Crispus aliveknowing seven kings and holding responsible positions in their courts, heas the book's finding it difficult to increase his own chance of survivaltitle suggests. Whether we believe in the miracles or not, especially considering how the last Rhine commander met his end.Dunstan certainly had quite a life!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17849752570718181441</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= Sophia TobinSimon Edge|title= The VanishingHopkins Conundrum|rating=35|genre= Historical General Fiction|summary=1814Tim Cleverley inherits a failing pub in Wales, which he plans to rescue by enlisting an American pulp novelist to concoct an entirely fabricated mystery about Gerard Manley Hopkins, who composed ''The Wreck of the Deutschland'' nearby.  In the middle of the Yorkshire Moors in an isolated spot lies White WindowsVictorian England, Gerard Manley Hopkins lives a house shadowed in mystery life full of confusion and intrigue. Living in this desolate household is Marcus Twentymancontradiction, but discovers a hard drinking and complicated man and calling for poetry that threatens to overrule his sistercalling to God. And, the hardened widow Hester. Brought to White Windows is Annaleighspeaking of God, a young runaway from London who has come Five nuns leave persecution to Yorkshire travel to be the a new housekeeper world – only to the Twentyman's with the hope of leaving her painful past behind her. At first, Annaleigh believes she may have found sanctuary but soon realises she has become entangled find themselves in a web of conspiracy and danger, leaving her trapped and more alone than trouble that they could ever.have imagined… |amazonuk=<amazonuk>14711516031785630334</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= Mary GibsonAnne O'Brien|title=Bourbon Creams and Tattered Dreams (The Factory Girls)Shadow Queen|rating= 4.5|genre= Historical Fiction|summary=Where did it all go wrong? Only Born in 1328, Joan of Kent may be of royal blood but she's from a short time agofamily tainted by treachery. Her father Edmund Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent, Matty Gilbie was a star of executed for his part in the silver screen with a glittering future predicted for herinfamous Montague plot. As However Joan has grown up under the 'Cockney Canary'protection of her cousin, her melodic singing voice King Edward III with all the advantages and stunning good looks had ensured that her first foray into movies was attributes of a runaway successprincess. Unfortunately that success came with a price: Matty Yet, much to her mother's business partner Frank Rossi frittered away their money and turned violent and controllingchagrin, obedience isn't one of these attributes. Bruised and battered from Joan's head strong feist takes her on a particularly vicious beating from Frank, Matty secretly makes her escape back to her home varied journey in Bermondsey, and the comfort of family and friendslife. Frank is not one to be crossed Having said that, howeverthree husbands, five marriages (technically) and vows to do whatever a son destined for the English throne means that it takes to win Matty back. Can she ever be truly free?'s also been one heck of a life!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17849733351848455070</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Shirley McKayPatricia Falvey|title=1588The Girls of Ennismore: A Calendar of Crime (A Hew Cullan Mystery)Heart-Rending Irish Saga
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)Fiction|summary=A lot of crime happens in St Andrews during 1588 Ireland 1900: Ennismore House's young heiress Victoria had hoped that she and therefore Rosie Killeen would be friends forever. Rosie soon comes to know better as there's a social chasm between those who live in the life of law lecturer House and local investigator Hew Cullen toothose, like Rosie's family, who have been brought up merely to serve them. As we travel through the year with him, his recently wedded English wife Frances, doctor brother The days of innocence are coming to an end in law Giles and his sister Megmany ways. Soon, as the wise womancry for Irish Home Rule becomes louder, we also encounter some of his most interesting cases. In fact there'll be more than steps on society's one to match ladder between them as each of must discover their own way in a nation that will never be the year's big festivals: Candlemas, Whitsun, Lammas, Martinmas and Yulesame again.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>18469736351786490625</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Lesley LokkoElaine Everest|title=The Last DebutanteButlins Girls|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=In 1936 Fresh-faced Molly Missons has just arrived in Chalfont Hall in Dorset young Kit Algernon-Waters can't really understand what's going on: at thirteen years old she's been banished Skegness to have supper in the nursery whilst everyone else is dining downstairs with the guests. Even start her elder sister, Lily, who's sixteen is dining with these unnamed 'guests'new job as a Butlins auntie. Kit has tapped all her usual sources to find out who Behind the visitors aresmiles and confident appearance, but to no avail. All she's managed hides a secret; she has taken the job to work out (well, let's be honest 'find out by eavesdropping' is closer to the truth) is that the visitors are Germanescape escalating problems at home. Kit's parents, Lord She soon finds good friends in her chalet-mates Bunty and Lady WhartonPlum, are short of money and it's important turns out that at least one of they each have their daughters makes own reasons for wanting a good marriagefresh start. Six months later Lily Meanwhile, Molly is married shocked to one of discover that her movie-star crush Johnny Johnson is working as an entertainment adviser at the German, living in some style in Germanycamp. Within a couple of years she's mixing with some dubious companyIs he really as suave as his on-screen persona? And why is he working at the camp anyway? As hidden secrets become discovered, including Unity Mitford. It was even rumoured Molly and her new friends face new threats and dangers that she'd met Hitlermay threaten their new-found freedom.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140914254X1447295536</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Stef PenneyGeraint Jones|title=Under a Pole StarBlood Forest|rating=45|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=1948: Elderly Flora Mackie is invited on a press trip to the North Pole; a trip that takes her back through her lifeFelix. The lucky one. Flora remembers her childhood with her father on whaling ships in He doesn't feel especially lucky when he staggers out into the seas around Greenland, her marriage born grove and finds twelve of ambition and misaligned lust his comrades butchered and the result: the Arctic exploration team she led mutilated in the late 19th centuryworst possible ways. This was a trip that had many knock-on effects including death and loveHe felt even less lucky when the soldiers arrived, Roman cavalry. He might have run, but he knew he'd never make it. He stepped out to face whatever came next.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17864811620718184815</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= Morgan McCarthyDominic Smith|title= The House Last Painting of BirdsSara de Vos|rating= 4.5
|genre= Historical Fiction
|summary=Oliver has spent years trying to convince himself that heIf you find the techniques used by Rembrandt and Vermeer fascinating, ''The Last Painting of Sara de Vos''s suited provides a masterclass in how to work up a life of money making canvas in stages. Framing the city, and that he doesn't miss novel as the story of a childhood spent in pursuit of mysteryseventeenth century Dutch painting, when he cycled around Dominic Smith vividly sketches out the cobbled lanes main contours of Oxford, exploring its most intriguing corners. When his girlfriend Kate inherits a derelict house - characters and a fierce family feud - she's determined to strip it, sell it and move onthe three time periods they inhabit before we are even one fifth of the way through. For Oliver though, Sara is one of the few women artists of the house has an allure, period and amongst the shelves her painting is of children skating on a discardedfrozen canal, leather bound her now dead daughter its central figure. The painting has been in Marty de Groot's family since before Isaac Newton was born and gilded volumes, he discovers one that conceals a hidden diary is the patent lawyer from the 1920swhom it is stolen in 1950s Manhattan. So begins Ellie Shipley forged a quest to discover copy of the painting in her postgraduate student years and in 2000 finds herself at the identity centre of the author, Sophia Louis. It is a portrait gathering storm which threatens to destroy her reputation as one of war and marriageSydney's foremost fine art academics. Satisfying though those first descriptions are, isolation and longing and a story that will shape we then understand these are merely the future author's equivalent of the abandoned house - and delicate chalk lines used by painters of Oliver - foreverthe Dutch Golden Age to mark out the composition which will follow.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472205847192526680X</amazonuk>
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|author= Jacquelyn BensonCaro Fraser|title= The Smoke HunterSummer House Party|rating= 4.5|genre= Historical General Fiction|summary= Eleanora Mallory In the gloriously hot summer of 1936, a group of people meet at a country house party. Within three years, England will be at war, but for now, time stands still. Dan Ranscombe is an educated young woman living in Victorian London clever and good-looking, but she is restricted by he resents the strict social codes wealth and easy savoir-faire of the late nineteenth-centuryfellow guest, Paul Latimer. SheSurely a shrewd girl like Meg Slater would see through that, wouldn't she? And what about Diana, Paul's a historianbeautiful sister, a suffragetteCharles Asher, and is years ahead of her time much to the chagrin of her male work colleagues at the Public Records Office. After losing her job Jewish outsider, Madeleine, restless and finding a mysterious map abandoned on dissatisfied with her former employerrole as children's desknanny? And artist Henry Haddon, their host, no longer young, Ellie decides to take but secure in his power as a chance at an adventurepractised seducer. She packs her bags and sets off on a journey to Central AmericaAs these guests gather, where none has any inkling the map shows choices they make will have fateful consequences, lasting through the way to a legendary historical citywar and beyond. It's Or that the expedition of first unforeseen event will be a life time, but little does Ellie know that a team of fortune hunters are hot on her trail.shocking death… |amazonuk=<amazonuk>14722383461786691485</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= Angus MacDonaldMatthew Harffy|title= Ardnish Was Home: A NovelThe Serpent Sword|rating= 4.5
|genre= Historical Fiction
|summary=A tiny peninsular lying on the west coast of Scotland, Ardnish provides a beautiful setting for a book that entices the reader to devour it all in one sitting. Duncan Peter Gillies (DP to friends It's AD 633 and family) leaves Ardnish as Albion is a young man divided island made up of petty warlords who want to sign up for the Lovat Scouts in 1915be treated like honourable royalty but act like gangsters. What Romans are a tragically sweet story is to follow! Posted to Gallipoli, brutal scenes of memory that have entered into myth and the realities souls of Albion are torn between the First World War face old Gods and the reader from page onenew Christ. Tragically, the young DP It is desperately wounded and the medical support is woefully poor. The Gallipoli Campaign seems doomed to fail. DP learns in this world that we follow the order has been given for the allied troops to withdraw to the safety adventures of Malta. Distressingly, Beobrand as he undertakes the rescue boats are unreliable and DP with other casualties and nurses, find themselves in an impossible position stranded in enemy territoryclassic hero’s journey. This fast paced story charts DP's progress in escaping Beobrand moves from wide-eyed teenager to hardened and honourable warrior through a brutal rite of passage as he hunts the war zone, in recovering from killer of his injuries, brother and, in the most desperate of circumstances, finding loveseeks to become a true warrior.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17802742621786692406</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= Lynn GuestAntonia Senior|title= The Sword of HachimanTyrant's Shadow|rating= 4|genre= Historical Fiction|summary= Set at the dawn of the Shogun era, Warning: spoilers ahead for ''Treason'The Sword of Hachimans Daughter'' follows two warrior clans.Patience lives with her widowed brother, the Minamoto and the TairaWilliam, as they struggle helping to care for power under the Emperorhis son Richard (nicknamed Blackberry). At first Despite the Taira are in uneasy controlCivil war ending, but the three Minamoto sons, separated at birth, plan times are still uncertain. Cromwell is increasingly annoyed with a parliament of rebels refusing to secretly reunite in order go to defeat the Taira and avenge their Fatherelectorate for ratification. William sees this problem at close quarters once he's effectively forced to become Cromwell's deathlegal advisor in an atmosphere poisoned by espionage and religious factions. The youngest However when Patience comes across Shadrick Simpson, Yoshitsunea charismatic preacher, is deemed most worthy and is granted the family heirloom, the Sword of Hachiman, the War Godall becomes clearer for her at least. Initiated into love and espionage by a young Taira noblewoman Meanwhile Sam Challoner, and tested William's brother in the ferocious hand to hand combat that is his birthright, we follow Yoshitsune as he meets his faithful retainer, Benkeilaw, comes home after privateering with Prince Rupert and as he goes behind realises that the scenes of the Cloister court, where two extraordinary women enter his life…fight at sea is better than peace at home. At least when you're privateering you know who your enemy is.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>18615156341782396616</amazonuk>
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