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|author= Dominic SmithMinette Walters|title= The Last Painting of Sara de VosHours|rating= 4.5|genre= Historical Fiction|summary= If you find In June 1348 the Black Death came into the country through the techniques used by Rembrandt and Vermeer fascinating, ''The Last Painting port of Sara de Vos'' provides a masterclass Melcombe in how to work up a canvas in stagesDorset. Framing the novel as the story Ignorant of a seventeenth century Dutch painting, Dominic Smith vividly sketches out the main contours many rules of his characters and the three time periods they inhabit before hygiene which we are even one fifth of 'd find basic nearly seven hundred years later, the way disease rages throughthe country. Sara is one On the estate of Develish, Lady Anne Develish took control of the few women artists future of the period people who lived in the demesne after her husband had ridden off to try and her painting is of children skating on secure a frozen canal, her now dead marriage for his daughter its central figure. The painting has been in Marty de Groot's family since before Isaac Newton was born Two hundred bonded serfs lived on the estate and he is when Lady Anne realised the patent lawyer from whom it is stolen in 1950s Manhattan. Ellie Shipley forged a copy virulence of the painting in plague she ordered that the estate refuse entry to anyone, including her postgraduate student years husband and in 2000 finds herself at his entourage, for fear that they would bring the centre of a gathering storm which threatens disease to destroy her reputation as one people.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1760632139</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Lars Mytting and Paul Russell Grant (Translator)|title=The Sixteen Trees of the Somme|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=While his grandfather lived the past was an area of Sydneycertainty for Edvard. At aged 4 he's foremost fine art academicsd been taken to live with his grandparents, having survived the accident that killed his parents. Satisfying though those first descriptions Now his grandfather has died revelations arecoming to light showing Edvard his family history is different from what he'd believed… his mother's birthplace, we then understand these are merely the authorhis mother's equivalent of name, the delicate chalk lines used by painters whereabouts of late Great-Uncle Einar… and that's without looking more deeply into the Dutch Golden Age fatal accident itself. Edvard is determined to mark out solve the composition which puzzle, a determination that will followtake him away from his native Norway to an area of France synonymous with devastation and a remote Scottish island loaded with secrets. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>192526680X0857056069</amazonuk>

|author= Caro FraserToby Clements|title= The Summer House PartyKingmaker: Kingdom Come: (Book 4)|rating= 4.5|genre= General Historical Fiction |summary= In 1470 dawns and the gloriously hot summer next chapters of 1936, a group the War of people meet at a country house partythe Roses are ready to play out. Within three years, England will be at war, King Edward thinks that the future has been settled but for now, time stands treachery is stilllurking. Dan Ranscombe is clever Meanwhile Katherine and good-looking, but he resents the wealth and easy savoir-faire of fellow guest, Paul Latimer. Surely a shrewd girl like Meg Slater would see through Thomas also have their world turned upside down when that, wouldn't she? And what about Diana, Paul's beautiful sister, Charles Asher, the Jewish outsider, Madeleine, restless ledger 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. As these guests gather, none has any inkling the choices chance comment threaten all they make will have fateful consequences, lasting through the war and beyondincluding their lives. Or that the first unforeseen event will be a shocking death… |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786691485178089466X</amazonuk>

|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>

|author=Zanna Sloniowska and Antonia SeniorLloyd-Jones (translator)|title=The Tyrant's ShadowHouse with the Stained-Glass Window

|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>

|author= David BarbareeK J Whittaker|title= DeposedFalse Lights

|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>

|author= Diney CosteloeJ Jefferson Farjeon|title= The Married GirlsSeven Dead|rating= 4.5

|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>

|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>

|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>

|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>

|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>

|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>

|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>

|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>

|author= Emma HendersonAngus Watson|title= The Valentine HouseYou Die When You Die

|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>

|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

|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>

|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>

|author= Adrian GoldsworthyJenny Ashcroft|title= VindolandaBeneath a Burning Sky|rating= 3.54

|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 other, she has an unhappy marriage to her domineering husband Alistair, who only married her to spite Clara, who had refused him previously. Life with the sadistic Alistair is Flavius Ferox; unbearable, with Olivia subjected to horrific abuse at his hands, daily. As a Briton and Roman Centurion who has been given the task lady with no means of supporting herself, Olivia seems trapped without any means of keeping escape, only finding solace in the peace in this desolate edge company of the worldher sister and friends. But life when her dear sister goes mysteriously missing in Roman Britain is full the bustling streets of danger and betrayal at every turnAlexandria, it is up to Olivia to try and Ferox knows solve the mystery of her disappearance before it will take more than courage to overcome what lies aheadis too late.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17849746840751565032</amazonuk>

|author=Jeroen Blokhuis and Asja Novak (translator)Conn Iggulden|title=The Yellow HouseDunstan: One Man Will Change the Fate of England|rating=34.5|genre=Literary Historical Fiction|summary=If you were The young Dunstan shows no sign of the needy kind, would you really join in the drumming-out of town of two people accused of murder purely because of their nationality? sainthood he'll later attain. Would you get a feeling Son of belonging just because you were there when someone carried a dead dog down off Wessex thane and sent to a mountain? The main character in monastery for education, this novel doesisn't a lad who responds to discipline. But he has something that will really get him notedHowever an enquiring, well-thought-of, includedintelligent mind begins to emerge and then comes the big break. He has come Lady Elflaed calls to put a proposal to him after hearing about what she considers to be a miracle and the south monks consider another in a long line 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 artexcuses. In fact a much-respected guest is on Yet Dunstan will outshine all his way nowteachers as well as knowing seven kings and holding responsible positions in their courts, so surely he can find kinship? The guestas the book's name is, after all, Gauguintitle suggests. The main character isWhether we believe in the miracles or not, of course, Vincent van Gogh…Dunstan certainly had quite a life!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>19073205630718181441</amazonuk>

|author=Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)Simon Edge|title=Retribution RoadThe Hopkins Conundrum|rating=4.5|genre=Historical General Fiction |summary=''Sergeant Bowman wasn't just Tim Cleverley inherits a hard manfailing pub in Wales, which he was something else: a dangerous man.plans to rescue by enlisting an American pulp novelist to concoct an entirely fabricated mystery about Gerard Manley Hopkins, who composed '' If, indeed, there was someone who was ideal for a suicide mission, it was him. Working as a soldier for the East India Company in the rural, remote, outlaw hotbeds The Wreck of Asia in the 1850sDeutschland'' nearby. In Victorian England, he's tasked with taking Gerard Manley Hopkins lives a boat life full of unknown prospects up the Irrawaddy to try confusion and combat local warlord Pagan Min. It doesn't go well – to start withcontradiction, he's supposed but discovers a calling for poetry that threatens to run the rule over ruffians saved from the gallows, but can't command them until he's forced overrule his way calling to having the knowledge God. And, speaking of the mission he needs firstGod, only for all hell Five nuns leave persecution to travel to break loose. But get back he does, a new world – only to find themselves in more trouble that while his nightmares about what really happened are met with equally dark goings-on, the official record suggests the mission never actually existed…they could ever have imagined… |amazonuk=<amazonuk>08570537441785630334</amazonuk>

|author=Theodore BrunAnne O'Brien|title=A Mighty Dawn (The Wanderer Chronicles)Shadow Queen|rating=34.5|genre= Historical Fiction|summary= A story like this needs Born in 1328, Joan of Kent may be of royal blood but she's from a strong central character; it needs a warrior who family tainted by treachery. Her father Edmund Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent, was executed for his part in the infamous Montague plot. However Joan has convictiongrown up under the protection of her cousin, heart King Edward III with all the advantages and honourattributes of a princess. Hakan has all these in abundance Yet, much to her mother's chagrin, but he didnobedience isn't get them easilyone of these attributes. Joan's head strong feist takes her on a varied journey in life. In this coming of age tale Having said that, three husbands, he goes on five marriages (technically) and a quest to find himself after experiencing son destined for the most tremendous English throne means that it's also been one heck of betrayals. a life!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17823999411848455070</amazonuk>

|author=S J Hardman LeaPatricia Falvey|title=The Sins Girls of SoldiersEnnismore: A Heart-Rending Irish Saga|rating=4.5

|summary=Anson Scott wants to join the British army Ireland 1900: Ennismore House's young heiress Victoria had hoped that she and World War I for a different reason than most of his fellow AmericansRosie Killeen would be friends forever. HeRosie soon comes to know better as there's a journalist wanting social chasm between those who live in the uncensored inside story to send back home; a deadly enterprise asHouse and those, if the Germans donlike Rosie't get hims family, the Brits may deem him a spywho have been brought up merely to serve them. Unperturbed he carries his plan through and finds himself on the French front The days of innocence are coming to an end in 1916many ways. He has an ally in British officer David AlexanderSoon, which is just as well since not all his enemies are across no manthe cry for Irish Home Rule becomes louder, there's land. The two men have a lot in common, ll be more than they know and perhaps more than is good for steps on society's ladder between them as each must discover their own way in a nation that will never be the Somme approachessame again.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17858901821786490625</amazonuk>

|author=David GilmanElaine Everest|title=Viper's Blood (Master of War)The Butlins Girls|rating=54|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Bowman Fresh-faced Molly Missons has just arrived in Skegness to start her new job as a Butlins auntie. Behind the smiles and commander Thomas Blackstone is one of Edward III's greatest weaponsconfident appearance, bringing him potentially head she hides a secret; she has taken the job to head against the Dauphin once againescape escalating problems at home. HoweverShe soon finds good friends in her chalet-mates Bunty and Plum, faced with an elongated stale mate, Thomas' role becomes and it turns out that of scavenger leader as the chances of victory make way they each have their own reasons for wanting a greater chance of starvation amongst the armiesfresh start. There Meanwhile, Molly is a light shocked to discover that her movie-star crush Johnny Johnson is working as an entertainment adviser at the end of the tunnel thoughcamp. Blackstone Is he really as suave as his on-screen persona? And why is to go on a trip: an escort mission to Italyhe working at the camp anyway? As hidden secrets become discovered, delivering the French King's daughter Isabelle to Milan Molly and her wedding. Having said new friends face new threats and dangers that, the light at the end of the tunnel may be an oncoming lancethreaten their new-found freedom. Isabelle's prospective groom is one of the brothers who killed Thomas' wife and daughter. Death is definitely on the cards… but whose?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17849744631447295536</amazonuk>

|author=Rory ClementsGeraint Jones|title=CorpusBlood Forest|rating=5|genre=Crime (Historical)Fiction|summary=A suicidal overdose Felix. The lucky one. He doesn't feel especially lucky when he staggers out into the grove and the murder finds twelve of upper class Cecil Langley and his wife are two events that may be unconnected. However this is England in 1936, a magnet for opposing forces comrades butchered and their first moves mutilated in preparation for the coming conflict, assisted or prevented by a royal crisis (depending on which side you're on)worst possible ways. Cambridge history professor Tom Wilde may fall into He felt even less lucky when the middle of this accidentally to begin with soldiers arrived, Roman cavalry. He might have run, but his curiosity has been piqued enough to ensure he knew he's not walking awayd never make it. He stepped out to face whatever came next.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17857626130718184815</amazonuk>

|author= Beatrice ColinDominic Smith|title= To Capture What We Cannot KeepThe Last Painting of Sara de Vos|rating= 45

|summary=ParisIf you find the techniques used by Rembrandt and Vermeer fascinating, February 1887''The Last Painting of Sara de Vos'' provides a masterclass in how to work up a canvas in stages. Framing the novel as the story of a seventeenth century Dutch painting, Dominic Smith vividly sketches out the main contours of his characters and work on the foundations three time periods they inhabit before we are even one fifth of the way through. Sara is one of the few women artists of Eiffelthe period and her painting is of children skating on a frozen canal, her now dead daughter its central figure. The painting has been in Marty de Groot's daring tower family since before Isaac Newton was born and he is the patent lawyer from whom it is about stolen in 1950s Manhattan. Ellie Shipley forged a copy of the painting in her postgraduate student years and in 2000 finds herself at the centre of a gathering storm which threatens to begindestroy her reputation as one of Sydney's foremost fine art academics. Engineer Emile Nouguier Satisfying though those first descriptions are, taking photographs we then understand these are merely the author's equivalent of the delicate chalk lines used by painters of the site from a tethered 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 air balloon for tourists nearbysummer of 1936, chances to a group of people meet at a young widow from Glasgow named Caitriona Wallacecountry house party. Within three years, England will be at war, but for now, time stands still. Dan Ranscombe is clever and good-looking, but he resents the wealth and his own foundations start to shifteasy savoir-faire of fellow guest, Paul Latimer. Over the next two years as the tower slowly rises in the Champ de MarsSurely a shrewd girl like Meg Slater would see through that, wouldn't she? And what began as an impossible dream becomes solid reality – Cait and Emileabout Diana, Paul's love for each other. In a world where more than bustles beautiful sister, Charles Asher, the Jewish outsider, Madeleine, restless and corsets hem dissatisfied with her role as children's nanny? And artist Henry Haddon, their host, no longer young, but secure inhis power as a practised seducer. As these guests gather, none has any inkling the choices they make will Cait be able to break free of her oppressive futurehave fateful consequences, lasting through the war and given their different social strata, can Emile re-shape his?beyond. Or that the first unforeseen event will be a shocking death… |amazonuk=<amazonuk>17602917221786691485</amazonuk>

|author= Deanna RaybournMatthew Harffy|title= A Perilous Undertaking (Veronica Speedwell Mystery)The Serpent Sword|rating= 4.5

|summary=Veronica Speedwell did not choose to be an investigator by profession. She was, first It's AD 633 and foremost, Albion is a scientist; a lepidopterist and adventuress divided island made up of petty warlords who travelled the world looking for exciting butterfly specimenswant to be treated like honourable royalty but act like gangsters. However, when her latest expedition was cancelled due to an unfortunate incident with Romans are a giant tortoise, Veronica memory that have entered into myth and her taxidermist friend Stoker took up 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 souls of murdering his pregnant mistress, Artemisia. He was discovered at the scene, covered in her blood and had both Albion are torn between the motive old Gods and circumstances to commit the crimenew Christ. He would hang by It is in this world that we follow the end adventures of Beobrand as he undertakes the week if Veronica classic hero’s journey. Beobrand moves from wide-eyed teenager to hardened and Stoker could not find honourable warrior through a brutal rite of passage as he hunts the 'real' killerof his brother and seeks to become a true warrior.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>04514761581786692406</amazonuk>

|author=Jemima BriggesAntonia Senior|title=Counting the CostThe Tyrant's Shadow

|summary=The year is 1794 and we meet our young protagonistWarning: spoilers ahead for ''Treason's Daughter''.Patience lives with her widowed brother, MariaWilliam, in desperate circumstanceshelping to care for his son Richard (nicknamed Blackberry). Alone and terrified Despite the Civil war ending, she has concluded that her only option the times are still uncertain. Cromwell is increasingly annoyed with a parliament of rebels refusing to go to take her own life by throwing herself into the surging river waterselectorate for ratification. Months previously, she was cruelly violated William sees this problem at close quarters once he's effectively forced to become Cromwell's legal advisor in an atmosphere poisoned by the master of the house where she worked espionage and now, in the advanced stages of her pregnancy, the future seems bleakreligious factions. Luckily However when Patience comes across Shadrick Simpson, a pair of gypsy women find Maria and take her in. Following a traumatic labourcharismatic preacher, Maria all becomes desperately ill and when she recovers, clearer for her baby is goneat least. Alone again Meanwhile Sam Challoner, William's brother in law, Maria comes home after privateering with Prince Rupert and realises that the fight at sea is free to start a new lifebetter than peace at home. With a clever disguise, she becomes the dowdy At least when you'Miss Dinchope' and takes a position as a housekeeper for the village rectorre privateering you know who your enemy is.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17858991391782396616</amazonuk>