Changes

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
no edit summary
[[Category:New Reviews|Historical Fiction]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
{{newreview
|author= Caro FraserMinette Walters|title= The Summer House PartyLast Hours|rating= 4.5|genre= General Historical Fiction |summary= In June 1348 the Black Death came into the country through the port of Melcombe in Dorset. Ignorant of many rules of hygiene which we'd find basic nearly seven hundred years later, the disease rages through the gloriously hot summer country. On the estate of 1936Develish, a group Lady Anne Develish took control of the future of the people meet at who lived in the demesne after her husband had ridden off to try and secure a country house partymarriage for his daughter. Within three yearsTwo hundred bonded serfs lived on the estate and when Lady Anne realised the virulence of the plague she ordered that the estate refuse entry to anyone, England will be at warincluding her husband and his entourage, but for now, time stands stillfear that they would bring the disease to her people. Dan Ranscombe is clever |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1760632139</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Lars Mytting and good-looking, but he resents Paul Russell Grant (Translator)|title=The Sixteen Trees of the Somme|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=While his grandfather lived the wealth and easy savoir-faire past was an area of fellow guestcertainty for Edvard. At aged 4 he'd been taken to live with his grandparents, Paul Latimerhaving survived the accident that killed his parents. Surely a shrewd girl like Meg Slater would see through that, wouldn Now his grandfather has died revelations are coming to light showing Edvard his family history is different from what he'd believed… his mother't she? And what about Dianas birthplace, Paulhis mother's beautiful sister, Charles Ashername, the Jewish outsider, Madeleine, restless whereabouts of late Great-Uncle Einar… and dissatisfied with her role as childrenthat's nanny? And artist Henry Haddonwithout looking more deeply into the fatal accident itself. Edvard is determined to solve the puzzle, their host, no longer young, but secure in a determination that will take him away from his power as native Norway to an area of France synonymous with devastation and a practised seducerremote Scottish island loaded with secrets. As these guests gather, none has any inkling |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857056069</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Toby Clements|title=Kingmaker: Kingdom Come: (Book 4)|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=1470 dawns and the next chapters of the choices they make will have fateful consequences, lasting through War of the war and beyondRoses are ready to play out. Or King Edward thinks that the first unforeseen event will be future has been settled but treachery is still lurking. Meanwhile Katherine and Thomas also have their world turned upside down when that ledger and a shocking death… chance comment threaten all they have, including their lives.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786691485178089466X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Matthew HarffyP F Chisholm|title= Guns in the North (The Serpent SwordSir Robert Carey Mysteries Omnibus)|rating= 4.5|genre= Historical Fiction|summary= 1592: Sir Robert Carey flees the strictures of Elizabethan court – and his creditors – in order to become Deputy Warden of the West March in Carlisle. The Scottish/English borders and those who inhabit them are different from the world he's left behind but it will have to become his world. It's AD 633 now his job to bring law to the lawless. This isn't easy when every local he comes across has an affinity and Albion is a divided island made up heritage of petty warlords who want crime to be treated like honourable royalty but act like gangsterssome degree. Romans are a memory that have entered into myth and For Robert the souls of Albion are torn between best thing about the old Gods and the new Christ. It job is in this world that we follow its proximity to the adventures of Beobrand as woman he loves but he doesn't know what he undertakes the classic hero’s journey'll do about that yet either. Beobrand moves from wide-eyed teenager Meanwhile he soon realises that those who are supposed to hardened and honourable warrior through a brutal rite of passage as he hunts the killer of be on his brother and seeks to become a true warriorside are plotting against him but they don't realise what they're up against. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>17866924061786694719</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Zanna Sloniowska and Antonia SeniorLloyd-Jones (translator)|title=The Tyrant's ShadowHouse with the Stained-Glass Window
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Warning: spoilers ahead for ''Treason's Daughter''.Patience lives with her widowed brotherMarianna, William, helping an opera singer in the soon-to care for his son Richard (nicknamed Blackberry). Despite the Civil war ending-be Ukrainian city of Lviv, the times are still uncertain. Cromwell is increasingly annoyed with mistakenly shot dead at a parliament political rally in the dying days of rebels refusing to go to the electorate for ratificationSoviet Union. William sees this problem at close quarters once heThis novel begins with both anger and hope, as Marianna's effectively forced to become Cromwell's legal advisor coffin is covered in an atmosphere poisoned by espionage the illegal blue and religious factions. However when Patience comes across Shadrick Simpsonyellow flag, and her death seems to herald the birth of a charismatic preacher, all becomes clearer for new nation. But the day of her funeral is also the day of her at least. Meanwhile Sam Challoner, Williamdaughter's brother first period – a girl who must learn how to be a woman in lawthis time of drastic change, comes home after privateering with Prince Rupert and realises that no mother to guide her along the fight at sea is better than peace at home. At least when you're privateering you know who your enemy isway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17823966160857057138</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= David BarbareeK J Whittaker|title= DeposedFalse Lights
|rating= 4.5
|genre= Historical Fiction
|summary= A.D 68. A deposed emperor lies in a prison cellCornwall, betrayed and newly blinded by those who were sworn to protect him1817. He is now crippled and deprived  What if your worst mistake changed the course of history? Napoleon has crushed the Duke of power, left completely on Wellington at the edge Battle of despair with a frightened young slave named Marcus as Waterloo, and his only companionex-wife Josephine presides over French-occupied England. Ten years later Cornwall erupts into open rebellion, and it is Emperor Vespasian who wears the purple. Things may have settled since the civil war but Vespasianyoung heiress Hester escapes with Crow, Wellington's son Titus is plagued former intelligence officer, a half-French aristocrat haunted by worry about plots to murder his fatherpart in the catastrophic defeat. Gruesome atrocities and mysterious disappearances are rife throughout Rome; it is Together, they become embroiled in a city full web of falsehoods treachery and intrigues with espionage as plans are laid to free Wellington from secret captivity in the fear of rebellion lurking beneath Scilly Isles and lead an uprising against the surfaceFrench occupation. FurthermoreIn a country rife with traitors, a man who used Hester and Crow know it is impossible to be emperor still lives – play such a blind man who everyone believes to be deadgame as this for long.. His name is Nero and he seeks revenge against those who wronged him. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>17857626721786695340</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Diney CosteloeJ Jefferson Farjeon|title= The Married GirlsSeven Dead|rating= 4.5
|genre= Historical Fiction
|summary=WynsdownTed Lyte was petty criminal, 1949. In but not usually the small Somerset village of Wynsdown, Charlotte Shepherd is happily married to farmer Billyhousebreaking type. She arrived from Germany on the Kindertransport as a child during He lacked the war and now feels settled in her adopted homecourage. Meanwhile, the squire's fighter pilot sonHowever, Felixneeds must, has returned and whilst feeling down on his luck he decided to the village try his chances at an isolated house with a fiancée in towshuttered window. Daphne is beautiful, charming''... and harbouring secrets. After meeting during the war, Felix knows some he might find a bit of Daphnealright behind those shutters! Wot abart it?'s past' Ted does indeed find something interesting behind the shutters, but she has worked hard to conceal that which could unravel her carefully built lifeit definitely isn't what he'd hoped. For Charlotte, too, In a locked room he finds seven dead bodies; six men and a dangerous past is coming back woman. Fleeing the house in the shape of fellow refugeehorror, bad boy Harry Black. Forever bound he is pursued and caught by their childhoodsa passing yachtsman, Charlotte will always care for himThomas Hazeldean, but Harrywho also happens to be a journalist. Fascinated by Ted's return disrupts the village quiet story (and a possible scoop), Hazeldean decides to investigate this curious case and it's not long before gossip spreads. The war may have endedits assortment of odd clues, but for these girlsincluding a portrait shot through the heart, trouble is only just beginning..an old cricket ball and a mysterious note written by one of the victims.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17849761210712356886</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|authortitle= Philip KerrSalt Creek|titleauthor= Prussian Blue: Bernie Gunther Thriller 12Lucy Treloar|rating= 34.5|genre= Crime (Historical) Fiction|summary= Bernie Gunther is not your typical hero. In 1939The first chapter of ''Salt Creek'' opens in Chichester, England, he was stationed in Berlin as 1874. Hester Finch is a police officer handling murder cases respected and occasionally doing work for some high-ranking Nazis. Although never a Nazi party member himself (he was a known reasonably wealthy member of the Social Democratic Party)her community. But she can't stop her thoughts wandering back to her adolescence, he understood that spent on Salt Creek Station in the best thing he could do for himself at that time was to make himself indispensable to men like Reinhard Heydrich and Martin Bormannremote South Australian Coorong region. So Hester feels ''has never felt so alive as then, when he is assigned to solve a murder that has occurred at Hitlerwe had so little's Berghof in the Bavarian mountains, he knows that he needs to do it quickly and discreetly – not just for justice's sake, but for his own. He is given exactly one week to apprehend the suspect, and he hopes that with the help of his friend Friedrich Korsch, an investigator with the Krimialpolizei (or Kripo, for short) he just might get lucky. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>17842964811910709417</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Stephan CollishawJamie Ford|title= The Song of the StorkLove and Other Consolation Prizes|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Historical Fiction|summary= Stephan Collishaw At the World's Fair in 1962, it seems that all eyes are focused on the future. The Space Needle dominates the landscape, filling people with anticipation about things to come. One visitor, however, has achieved his mind firmly focused on the past. Ernest Young is helping his daughter Ju-ju with a rare feat – story she is writing for her newspaper; a novel set amidst story about a young immigrant boy who was given away as a prize in a raffle at the horrors of Nazi tyranny that does not shy away from human suffering, but does not drown World's Fair in it either1909. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>17850791900749022752</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alan KennedyNicola Pryce|title=A Time to Tell LiesThe Captain's Girl|rating=4|genre=Crime (Historical) Fiction|summary= Psychologist Alan KennedyLast year, Bookbag reviewed, and thoroughly enjoyed, [[Pengelly's fifth novel continues the story he began with [[Lucy Daughter by Alan KennedyNicola Pryce|Pengelly's Daughter]], a swashbuckling historical romance set in picturesque Cornwall. In Now we have the autumn pleasure of 1942reading the much-anticipated sequel. This time, Captain Alex Vere and Justine Perry are among the men and women picked up and taken to story focuses on a stately home in Scotlandneighbour of the Polcarrow family, where they are trained in spy skills. After this first encounterMiss Celia Cavendish, Alex is smitten yet uncertain if he will ever see Justine againwho has been engaged to a cruel man that she does not love. The spy's life is dangerous and unpredictableOne fateful night, after all. Six weeks later, though, they meet up again in southwest France, where they have been sent she runs away to the Polcarrow house to collect Simonebeg them for help, a Special Operations Executive agent. It's Alex's first mission (Justine's fourth) and the pivotal events of that night have far-reaching consequences for all goes horribly awry. Alex ends up in custody at the Gendarmerie, facing a German who knows he has a false passportinvolved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>09932023221782398856</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Alex NyeHawa L Crickmore|title=For My SinsAcross the Ocean|rating=54|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=1586: Mary StuartA young cage fighter, Queen of ScotsMartin Grandson, has time to look back over her past life as she sitswas diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder which required a bone-marrow transplant, incarcerated by her second cousin Queen Elizabeth Ipreferably from a sibling. MaryOnly recently he's life hasn't d been one a fit young man, in the prime of totally pampered royalty. Growing up in Francelife, away but now he was suffering from her mother, widowed a rare type of bone cancer: without the transplant he would be paralysed for life and then returning to Scotland to claim might be dead within the throne before she was even 19, her struggle with fate started early. The tensions between Mary next twelve weeks if he didn't receive the woman, Mary transplant within the Catholic and Mary the political force continue through three marriages, an unsolved murder and the thwarted desire to serve her peoplenext fourteen days. Now itUnfortunately Martin's come to this prison cell but while parents had died in a car crash and there's lifewere no siblings or other close relatives. His girlfriend, Celia, there's still hope…was not a match.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>19059167871524666971</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Grace MacallisterM J Tjia|title= The Magician's LieShe Be Damned|rating=4|genre= ThrillersCrime (Historical) |summary= The Amazing Arden is London, 1863: prostitutes in the most famous female illusionist of her dayWaterloo area are turning up dead, renowned for her notorious trick of sawing a man in half on stage. But one night she swaps her trademark saw for an axetheir sexual organs mutilated and removed. When Arden's husband is found dead later another girl goes missing, fears grow that nightthe killer may have claimed their latest victim. The police are at a loss and so it falls to courtesan and professional detective, the answer seems clearHeloise Chancey, most of all to young policeman Virgil Holtinvestigate. Captured and taken into custodyWith the assistance of her trusty Chinese maid, Amah Li Leen, all seems set for Arden's swift confessionHeloise inches closer to the truth. But she has a different story to tell. Even handcuffed and alone, Arden when Amah is far from powerlessimplicated in the brutal plot, and what Heloise must reconsider whom she reveals is as unbelievable as it is spellbindingcan trust, before the killer strikes again.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1787199967178507931X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Helen DunmoreSarah Franklin|title=Birdcage WalkShelter|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Bristol 1792: Lizzie married well. John Diner Tredevant is a property developer who Connie Granger has reached escaped her bombed-out city home, finding refuge in the zenith of his lifeWomen's work: building Timber Corps. For her, this remote community must now serve a terrace secret purpose.<br>Seppe, an Italian prisoner of prestigious houses overlooking the Avon Gorgewar, is haunted by his memories. In a time of turbulence as France reaches the dawn of revolution, Britain, including Dinerforest camp, fears it may spread. This puts Lizzie in he finds a difficult position since her mother and step-father both believe in propagating pamphlets and ideas strange kind of egalitarianism for and to all, including womenfreedom.Their meeting signals new beginnings. In other wordsBut as they are drawn together, they think nothing of spreading ideas of the sort that fanned the French flamesworld outside their forest haven is being torn apart. HoweverOld certainties are crumbling, that's not Lizzie's only problem… there is and both must now make a darkness in her husband's past of which she's unawarelife-defining choice.<br>What price will they pay for freedom? What will they fight to protect?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>00919594031785762990</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Beth UnderdownJane Johnson|title=The Witchfinder's SisterCourt of Lions|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=England 1645: Matthew Hopkins is good at his chosen career: seekingKate Fordham arrived in the sunlit city of Granada a year ago. In the shadow of the Alhambra, testing and convicting those with one of the Devil most beautiful places on earth, she works as a waitress serving tourists in thema busy bar. His sister, Alice, doesnShe pretends she's happy with her new life – but how could she be? Kate't realise the full connotations of his actions untils alone, widowed afraid and pregnant, she returns homehiding under a false name. Alice And fate is grateful about to be allowed bring her face-to live under Matthew-face with her greatest fear. Five centuries ago, a message, in a hand few could read, was inscribed in blood on a stolen scrap of paper. The paper was folded and pressed into one of the Alhambra's roof but then watches his sinister finger walls. There it has lain, undisturbed by the tides of history – the Fall of suspicion point in unexpected places. This is a man changed from Granada, the boy that Alice used to knowexpulsion of its last Sultan – until Kate discovers it. She never then realised that he'd be capable Born of killing hundreds love, in a time of people danger and making her desperation, the fragment will be the Witchfindercatalyst that changes Kate's Sisterlife forever.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>02419780331786694336</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Emma HendersonAngus Watson|title= The Valentine HouseYou Die When You Die
|rating= 4
|genre= Literary Historical Fiction|summary= In June 1914, Sir Anthony Valentine, a keen mountaineer, arrives with his family to spend Finnbogi the summer in their chalet, high in the French Alps. There, for the first time, fourteen-year-old foundling Mathilde starts work as one of the 'uglies' - village girls employed as servants Boggy and picked, it is believed, to ensure they don't catch Sir Anthony's roving eye. For Mathilde it is the start his tribe of mushroom men (Vikings) must take a life-long entanglement with les anglais - strange, exciting people, far removed from road trip through hostile territory whilst being hunted by the hard grind of farminggreatest fighting force ever seen (Amazonian Native Americans). Except she soon finds the Valentines are less carefree than they appear, with Vikings meet Native Americans in a curiously absent daughter no one talks about. It will be decades - disrupted by war, accidents clash of cultures and a cruel betrayal - before Mathilde discovers potentially the key to end of the mysteryworld. And in 1976, When the Queen of the year Sir Anthony's great-great grandson comes known world says your tribe has to visit, she must decide whether to use itbe exterminated then your immediate future may not be so rosy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>14447040280356507564</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Polly ClarkAlison Weir|title= Larchfield|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction |summary=I It's early summer when a young poet, Dora Fielding, moves to Helensburgh on the west coast of Scotland and her hopes are first challenged. Newly married, pregnant, sheSix Tudor Queens: Anne Boleyn: A King's excited by the prospect of a life that combines family and creativity. She thinks she knows what being a person, a wife, a mother, means. She is soon shown that she is wrong. As the battle begins for her very sense of self, Dora comes to find the realities of small town life suffocating, and, eventually, terrifying; until she finds a way to escape reality altogether. Another poet, she discovers, lived in Helensburgh once. Wystan H. Auden, brilliant 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 time, even as he fights his deepest fears.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786481928</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Dinah Jefferies|title=Before the RainsObsession: Six Tudor Queens 2|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Eliza has tragically punctuated childhood memories Thomas Boleyn sends his daughters abroad to be trained at the courts of India that have feed her desire to returnEuropean royalty. Therefore Not only does this give them an education in 1930, following the death ways of her husband, when the British government commission her to photograph scenes of Indian lifeelite, she jumps at the chanceit could also ensure a good marriage. What she doesnUnfortunately he hasn't realise is reckoned on the ideas that not everyone she comes across is delighted with the idea. Living within the Sultana's opulent palace complex is definitely an attraction for herone of them, Anne, picks up and as for marriage… Anne is Jay, an Indian price who shows Eliza the real Indiadetermined to marry for love not through some paternal arrangement. HoweverYet the reality turns out to be different, attractions are sometimes dangerous and even deadlydriving a wedge through her family on a road leading to dark tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241287081147222762X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Otto de Kat and Laura Watkinson (translator)Martha Conway|title=The Longest NightFloating Theatre|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Historical Fiction|summary=Emma has a philosophy – ''let When young seamstress May Bedloe is left alone and penniless on the shore of the dead restOhio, she finds work on the famous floating theatre that plies its trade along the river. Her creativity and love needlework skills quickly become invaluable and she settles into life among the living''colourful troupe of actors. The problem with that, as a 96-year-old, is that there are too few living leftShe finds friends, and so while possibly the love remains she will go through her memories, taking a woozy, diaphanous path through all the major events promise of her lifemore. Starting in wartime Berlin But cruising the border between the Confederate South and the 'free' North is fraught with one husbanddanger. For the sake of a debt that must be repaid, who gets snatched from her at work, fleeing May is compelled to another place to wait for peacetransport secret passengers, and wait for him in vainunder cover of darkness, moving to Holland across the river and finding new loveon, and so on – this wispy journey will show all along the impacts of war, from rationing right up underground railroad. But as May's secrets become harder to exilekeep, death and survival. The memories are coming strongly here and she learns she must endanger those now, as Emma is waiting for at least one of dear to her two sons .  And to visitsave the lives of others, and then she will die…must risk her own... |amazonuk=<amazonuk>08570560851785762907</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Adrian GoldsworthyJenny Ashcroft|title= VindolandaBeneath a Burning Sky|rating= 3.54
|genre= Historical Fiction
|summary= AD 98: Young bride Olivia Sheldon finds returning to her childhood home in the northern fields of Britannia lies Vindolanda, Egypt a Roman auxiliary base situated on the edge of the Roman worldbitter-sweet experience. Far from On the prosperity and decadence of Romeone hand, the wild and untamed lands around Vindolanda are ripe she has been reunited with rebel tribes her estranged sister Clara, and druids set against the destruction of Rome pair have formed a deep and its armiesloving bond. In On the midst of this destruction is Flavius Ferox; a Briton and Roman Centurion other, she has an unhappy marriage to her domineering husband Alistair, who only married her to spite Clara, who has been given had refused him previously. Life with the task of keeping the peace in this desolate edge of the world. But life in Roman Britain sadistic Alistair is full of danger and betrayal unbearable, with Olivia subjected to horrific abuse at every turnhis hands, and Ferox knows it will take more than courage to overcome what lies aheaddaily.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784974684</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Jeroen Blokhuis and Asja Novak (translator)|title=The Yellow House|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=If you were the needy kindAs a lady with no means of supporting herself, Olivia seems trapped without any means of escape, would you really join only finding solace in the drumming-out company of town of two people accused of murder purely because of their nationality? Would you get a feeling of belonging just because you were there her sister and friends. But when someone carried a dead dog down off a mountain? The main character her dear sister goes mysteriously missing in this novel does. But he has something that will really get him noted, well-thought-the bustling streets ofAlexandria, included. He has come it is up to Olivia to try and solve the south mystery of France to set up an artists' collective, where he can live and work alongside his counterparts, who can inspire each other and best each other to create wonderful art. In fact a much-respected guest her disappearance before it is on his way now, so surely he can find kinship? The guest's name is, after all, Gauguintoo late. The main character is, of course, Vincent van Gogh…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>19073205630751565032</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)Conn Iggulden|title=Retribution RoadDunstan: One Man Will Change the Fate of England
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction |summary=The young Dunstan shows no sign of the sainthood he''Sergeant Bowman wasn't just a hard man, he was something else: a dangerous manll later attain.'' If, indeed, there was someone who was ideal for Son of a suicide mission, it was him. Working as Wessex thane and sent to a soldier monastery for the East India Company in the rural, remote, outlaw hotbeds of Asia in the 1850seducation, hethis isn's tasked with taking t a boat of unknown prospects up the Irrawaddy lad who responds to discipline. However an enquiring, intelligent mind begins to try emerge and combat local warlord Pagan Minthen comes the big break. It doesn't go well – Lady Elflaed calls to start with, he's supposed put a proposal to run the rule over ruffians saved from the gallows, but can't command them until he's forced his way him after hearing about what she considers to having be a miracle and the knowledge monks consider another in a long line of the mission he needs first, only for all hell to break looseexcuses. But get back he does, only to find that while Yet Dunstan will outshine all his nightmares about what really happened are met with equally dark goings-onteachers as well as knowing seven kings and holding responsible positions in their courts, as the official record book's title suggests . Whether we believe in the mission never actually existed…miracles or not, Dunstan certainly had quite a life!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>08570537440718181441</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Theodore BrunSimon Edge|title=A Mighty Dawn (The Wanderer Chronicles)Hopkins Conundrum|rating=3.5|genre= Historical General Fiction|summary= A story like this needs Tim Cleverley inherits a strong central character; it needs a warrior 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 has convictioncomposed ''The Wreck of the Deutschland'' nearby. In Victorian England, heart Gerard Manley Hopkins lives a life full of confusion and honour. Hakan has all these in abundancecontradiction, but he didn't get them easilydiscovers a calling for poetry that threatens to overrule his calling to God. In this coming And, speaking of age taleGod, he goes on Five nuns leave persecution to travel to a quest new world – only to find himself after experiencing the most tremendous of betrayals. themselves in more trouble that they could ever have imagined… |amazonuk=<amazonuk>17823999411785630334</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=S J Hardman LeaAnne O'Brien|title=The Sins of SoldiersShadow Queen|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Anson Scott wants to join the British army and World War I for a different reason than most Born in 1328, Joan of Kent may be of his fellow Americans. Heroyal blood but she's from a journalist wanting the uncensored inside story to send back home; a deadly enterprise asfamily tainted by treachery. Her father Edmund Woodstock, if the Germans don't get him1st Earl of Kent, was executed for his part in the Brits may deem him a spyinfamous Montague plot. Unperturbed he carries his plan through However Joan has grown up under the protection of her cousin, King Edward III with all the advantages and finds himself on the French front in 1916attributes of a princess. He has an ally in British officer David AlexanderYet, which is just as well since not all his enemies are across no manmuch to her mother's landchagrin, obedience isn't one of these attributes. The two men have Joan's head strong feist takes her on a lot varied journey in commonlife. Having said that, three husbands, more than they know five marriages (technically) and perhaps more than is good a son destined for them as the Somme approaches.English throne means that it's also been one heck of a life!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17858901821848455070</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=David GilmanPatricia Falvey|title=Viper's Blood (Master The Girls of War)Ennismore: A Heart-Rending Irish Saga|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Bowman and commander Thomas Blackstone is one of Edward IIIIreland 1900: Ennismore House's greatest weapons, bringing him potentially head to head against the Dauphin once againyoung heiress Victoria had hoped that she and Rosie Killeen would be friends forever. However, faced with an elongated stale mate, ThomasRosie soon comes to know better as there' role becomes that of scavenger leader as the chances of victory make way for s a greater chance of starvation amongst social chasm between those who live in the armiesHouse and those, like Rosie's family, who have been brought up merely to serve them. There is a light at the end The days of the tunnel though. Blackstone is innocence are coming to go on a trip: an escort mission to Italy, delivering the French King's daughter Isabelle to Milan and her weddingend in many ways. Having said thatSoon, as the light at the end of the tunnel may cry for Irish Home Rule becomes louder, there'll be an oncoming lance. Isabellemore than steps on society's prospective groom is one of ladder between them as each must discover their own way in a nation that will never be the brothers who killed Thomas' wife and daughtersame again. Death is definitely on the cards… but whose?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17849744631786490625</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Rory ClementsElaine Everest|title=CorpusThe Butlins Girls|rating=54|genre=Crime (Historical)Fiction|summary=A suicidal overdose Fresh-faced Molly Missons has just arrived in Skegness to start her new job as a Butlins auntie. Behind the smiles and confident appearance, she hides a secret; she has taken the murder of upper class Cecil Langley and his wife are two events that may be unconnectedjob to escape escalating problems at home. However this is England She soon finds good friends in 1936her chalet-mates Bunty and Plum, a magnet for opposing forces and it turns out that they each have their first moves in preparation own reasons for the coming conflict, assisted or prevented by wanting a royal crisis (depending on which side you're on)fresh start. Cambridge history professor Tom Wilde may fall into Meanwhile, Molly is shocked to discover that her movie-star crush Johnny Johnson is working as an entertainment adviser at the middle of this accidentally to begin with but camp. Is he really as suave as his curiosity has been piqued enough to ensure on-screen persona? And why is he's not walking awayworking at the camp anyway? As hidden secrets become discovered, Molly and her new friends face new threats and dangers that may threaten their new-found freedom.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17857626131447295536</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Beatrice ColinGeraint Jones|title= To Capture What We Cannot KeepBlood Forest|rating= 45
|genre= Historical Fiction
|summary=Paris, February 1887, Felix. The lucky one. He doesn't feel especially lucky when he staggers out into the grove and finds twelve of his comrades butchered and work on mutilated in the foundations of Eiffel's daring tower is about to beginworst possible ways. Engineer Emile Nouguier, taking photographs of He felt even less lucky when the site from a tethered hot air balloon for tourists nearby, chances to meet a young widow from Glasgow named Caitriona Wallacesoldiers arrived, and his own foundations start to shiftRoman cavalry. Over the next two years as the tower slowly rises in the Champ de MarsHe might have run, what began as an impossible dream becomes solid reality – Cait and Emilebut he knew he's love for each otherd never make it. In a world where more than bustles and corsets hem her in, will Cait be able He stepped out to break free of her oppressive future, and given their different social strata, can Emile re-shape his?face whatever came next.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17602917220718184815</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Deanna RaybournDominic Smith|title= A Perilous Undertaking (Veronica Speedwell Mystery)The Last Painting of Sara de Vos|rating= 45
|genre= Historical Fiction
|summary=Veronica Speedwell did not choose to be an investigator If you find the techniques used by profession. She was, first Rembrandt and foremostVermeer fascinating, ''The Last Painting of Sara de Vos'' provides a scientist; masterclass in how to work up a canvas in stages. Framing the novel as the story of a lepidopterist seventeenth century Dutch painting, Dominic Smith vividly sketches out the main contours of his characters and adventuress who travelled the world looking for exciting butterfly specimensthree time periods they inhabit before we are even one fifth of the way through. However Sara is one of the few women artists of the period and her painting is of children skating on a frozen canal, when her latest expedition now dead daughter its central figure. The painting has been in Marty de Groot's family since before Isaac Newton was cancelled due to an unfortunate incident with born and he is the patent lawyer from whom it is stolen in 1950s Manhattan. Ellie Shipley forged a giant tortoise, Veronica copy of the painting in her postgraduate student years and her taxidermist friend Stoker took up in 2000 finds herself at the challenge centre of a murder investigation gathering storm which threatens to destroy her reputation as an interesting diversion. The case seemed to an open-and-shut one; Miles Ramsforth, an of Sydney's foremost fine art patronacademics. Satisfying though those first descriptions are, had been accused we then understand these are merely the author's equivalent of the delicate chalk lines used by painters of the Dutch Golden Age to mark out the composition which will follow. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>192526680X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Caro Fraser|title= The Summer House Party|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction |summary= In the gloriously hot summer of murdering his pregnant mistress1936, Artemisiaa group of people meet at a country house party. He was discovered Within three years, England will be at the scenewar, but for now, covered in her blood time stands still. Dan Ranscombe is clever and had both good-looking, but he resents the motive wealth and circumstances to commit easy savoir-faire of fellow guest, Paul Latimer. Surely a shrewd girl like Meg Slater would see through that, wouldn't she? And what about Diana, Paul's beautiful sister, Charles Asher, the crimeJewish outsider, Madeleine, restless and dissatisfied with her role as children's nanny? And artist Henry Haddon, their host, no longer young, but secure in his power as a practised seducer. He would hang by As these guests gather, none has any inkling the end of choices they make will have fateful consequences, lasting through the week if Veronica war and Stoker could not find beyond. Or that the 'real' killer.first unforeseen event will be a shocking death… |amazonuk=<amazonuk>04514761581786691485</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jemima BriggesMatthew Harffy|title=Counting the CostThe Serpent Sword|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The year It's AD 633 and Albion is 1794 and we meet our young protagonist, Maria, in desperate circumstancesa divided island made up of petty warlords who want to be treated like honourable royalty but act like gangsters. Alone and terrified, she has concluded Romans are a memory that her only option is to take her own life by throwing herself have entered into myth and the surging river waters. Months previously, she was cruelly violated by the master souls of Albion are torn between the house where she worked old Gods and now, the new Christ. It is in this world that we follow the advanced stages adventures of her pregnancy, Beobrand as he undertakes the future seems bleakclassic hero’s journey. Luckily, Beobrand moves from wide-eyed teenager to hardened and honourable warrior through a pair brutal rite of passage as he hunts the killer of gypsy women find Maria and take her in. Following a traumatic labour, Maria becomes desperately ill his brother and when she recovers, her baby is gone. Alone again, Maria is free seeks to start a new life. With a clever disguise, she becomes the dowdy 'Miss Dinchope' and takes a position as become a housekeeper for the village rectortrue warrior.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17858991391786692406</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Steven BurgauerAntonia Senior|title=The Night of The Eleventh SunTyrant's Shadow|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=The word Warning: spoilers ahead for ''Treason'Neanderthals Daughter' has become equated '.Patience lives with people deemed her widowed brother, William, helping to have a backward attitude and outlookcare for his son Richard (nicknamed Blackberry). But what do we know of Despite the original Neanderthals from over 200Civil war ending,000 years ago? the times are still uncertain. Here American author [[:Category:Steven Burgauer|Steven Burgauer]] melds the knowledge Cromwell is increasingly annoyed with a parliament of anthropologists, archaeologists and historians with rebels refusing to go to the story of Strong Arms, his family and their struggle electorate for ratification. William sees this problem at close quarters once he's effectively forced to survive become Cromwell's legal advisor in an atmosphere poisoned by espionage and religious factions. However when Patience comes across Shadrick Simpson, a very effectivecharismatic preacher, all becomes clearer for her at least. Meanwhile Sam Challoner, William's brother in law, comes home after privateering with Prince Rupert and informative wayrealises that the fight at sea is better than peace at home. At least when you're privateering you know who your enemy is.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>14196715451782396616</amazonuk>
}}

Navigation menu