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|author= Dominic SmithHeather Morris|title= The Last Painting Tattooist of Sara de VosAuschwitz|rating= 54|genre= Historical Fiction|summary= If So, you find arrive in all ignorance at Auschwitz, and see the techniques used by Rembrandt horror there, and Vermeer fascinatingimmediately swear to survive the ordeal to see retribution dealt on those behind it, but what do you do to see that oath out? Do you get to work diligently as the Nazis demand, to the extent you get the word ''The Last Painting of Sara de Voscollaborator'' provides muttered behind your back? Do you dare to stick your neck out and get a masterclass in how to work up job that means you're actually a canvas Jew working in stages. Framing the novel as political wing of the story of a seventeenth century Dutch paintingSS, Dominic Smith vividly sketches out answerable to Berlin? Do you dare get contacts with civilian workers building the main contours of his characters place, and trade the loot purloined from the three time periods incoming victims' belongings with food they inhabit before we are even one fifth smuggle in for you, under the eyes of all the way through. camp guards? Sara is one of The man whose real life story inspired this novel did all that, and survived to tell the few women artists of the period tale, but he also managed to do something even more daring, and her painting is of children skating on unexpected – he dared to invest hope in a frozen canal, her now dead daughter its central figureburgeoning love that he found in the camp. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785763644</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Rachel Halliburton|title=The painting has been in Marty de GrootOptickal Illusion: A very eighteenth-century scandal|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Rachel Halliburton's family since before Isaac Newton was born and he is the patent lawyer from whom it is stolen debut novel opens in London in 1950s ManhattanJanuary 1797. Ellie Shipley forged a copy Benjamin West, President of the painting in her postgraduate student years and in 2000 finds herself at Royal Academy, is reflecting on the centre of a gathering storm which threatens to destroy her reputation as one of Sydneypast year's foremost fine art academicsscandal involving the Provises, father and daughter, and worries that he handled everything poorly. Satisfying though those first descriptions are, we then understand these are merely From the start the authorbook's equivalent figurative language is appropriately full of colour and painterly techniques: 'He had intended to deal with them honourably, but now everyone in London was saying he had not. It was as if somebody had dropped a small amount of ivory black paint into yellow orpiment on a palette – the delicate chalk lines used by painters of more he prodded and stirred the Dutch Golden Age to mark out memory, the composition which will followmurkier it became. '|amazonuk=<amazonuk>192526680X0715651978</amazonuk>

|author= Caro FraserJohn Banks|title= The Summer House PartyW|rating= 4.5

|summary= In On the gloriously hot summer slopes of 1936Mt Hood in Oregon, a group of people meet at a country house party. Within an 1000-year old Viking is discovered frozen - three years, England will be at war, but for now, time stands stillthousand miles further west than any previously known Viking exploration. Dan Ranscombe Josh Kinninger is clever and goodinspired by the Viking discovery -lookingthree personal catastrophes having left him angry, but he resents the wealth unmoored and easy savoir-faire of fellow guest, Paul Latimerwith his world in turmoil. Surely Beginning a shrewd girl like Meg Slater would see through thatjourney westward, wouldn't she? And what about Diana, Paulhe's beautiful sister, Charles Asher, the Jewish outsider, Madeleine, restless and dissatisfied filled 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 desire to wreak vengeance on the choices they make will have fateful consequences, lasting through the war and beyondindividuals he finds morally corrupt. Or that the first unforeseen event will be a shocking death… |amazonuk=<amazonuk>17866914850983333416</amazonuk>

|author= Matthew HarffyElaine Everest|title= The Serpent SwordChristmas at Woolworths|rating= 43.5

|summary= It's AD 633 and Albion 'Christmas at Woolworths'' is a divided island made up of petty warlords who want the sequel to be treated like honourable royalty but act like gangsterswartime saga ''The Woolworths Girls,'' and continues the story where the first book left off. Romans Members of the close-knit community in Erith are a memory that have entered into myth doing their best to pull together and keep morale high, even though the future is uncertain. At the souls heart of Albion are torn between the old Gods neighbourhood, the home of kindly matriarch Ruby is a beacon where family and friends can gather for good food and conversation: a way to forget the new Christtroubles outside. It is in this world that we follow Spirits remain high; even when the adventures of Beobrand as he undertakes bombs are falling so close to home. We catch up with the classic hero’s journey. Beobrand moves three friends from wide-eyed teenager the first book: Sarah yearns for peace and an end to hardened and honourable warrior through the war, Maisie is desperate for a brutal rite of passage as he hunts the killer of his brother child and seeks Freda would love to become a true warriorfind romance.Will they all get their wishes this Christmas?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17866924061509843655</amazonuk>

|author=Antonia SeniorMinette Walters|title=The Tyrant's ShadowLast Hours|rating=4.5

|summary=Warning: spoilers ahead for ''Treason's Daughter'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 country.Patience lives with On the estate of Develish, Lady Anne Develish took control of the future of the people who lived in the demesne after her widowed brother, William, helping husband had ridden off to care try and secure a marriage for his son Richard (nicknamed Blackberry)daughter. Despite Two hundred bonded serfs lived on the estate and when Lady Anne realised the virulence of the plague she ordered that the Civil war endingestate refuse entry to anyone, including her husband and his entourage, for fear that they would bring the times are still uncertaindisease to her people. Cromwell is increasingly annoyed with a parliament |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1760632139</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Lars Mytting and Paul Russell Grant (Translator)|title=The Sixteen Trees of rebels refusing to go to the electorate Somme|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=While his grandfather lived the past was an area of certainty for ratificationEdvard. William sees this problem at close quarters once At aged 4 he's effectively forced d been taken to become Cromwell's legal advisor in an atmosphere poisoned by espionage and religious factions. However when Patience comes across Shadrick Simpsonlive with his grandparents, a charismatic preacher, all becomes clearer for her at leasthaving survived the accident that killed his parents. Meanwhile Sam ChallonerNow his grandfather has died revelations are coming to light showing Edvard his family history is different from what he'd believed… his mother's birthplace, Williamhis mother's brother in lawname, comes home after privateering with Prince Rupert the whereabouts of late Great-Uncle Einar… and realises that 's without looking more deeply into the fight at sea is better than peace at homefatal accident itself. At least when you're privateering you know who your enemy Edvard isdetermined to solve the puzzle, a determination that will take him away from his native Norway to an area of France synonymous with devastation and a remote Scottish island loaded with secrets.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17823966160857056069</amazonuk>

|author= David BarbareeToby Clements|title= DeposedKingmaker: Kingdom Come: (Book 4)|rating= 4.5|genre= Historical Fiction|summary= A.D 68. A deposed emperor lies in a prison cell, betrayed 1470 dawns and newly blinded by those who were sworn to protect him. He is now crippled and deprived the next chapters of power, left completely on the edge War of despair with a frightened young slave named Marcus as his only companionthe Roses are ready to play out. Ten years later and it is Emperor Vespasian who wears King Edward thinks that the purple. Things may have future has been settled since the civil war but Vespasian's son Titus treachery is plagued by worry about plots to murder his fatherstill lurking. Gruesome atrocities Meanwhile Katherine and Thomas also have their world turned upside down when that ledger and mysterious disappearances are rife throughout Rome; it is a city full of falsehoods and intrigues with the fear of rebellion lurking beneath the surface. Furthermorechance comment threaten all they have, a man who used to be emperor still including their lives – a blind man who everyone believes to be dead. His name is Nero and he seeks revenge against those who wronged him. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785762672178089466X</amazonuk>

|author= Diney CosteloeP F Chisholm|title= Guns in the North (The Married GirlsSir Robert Carey Mysteries Omnibus)|rating= 4.5|genre= Historical Fiction|summary=Wynsdown, 1949. In 1592: Sir Robert Carey flees the small Somerset village strictures of Wynsdown, Charlotte Shepherd is happily married Elizabethan court – and his creditors – in order to farmer Billybecome Deputy Warden of the West March in Carlisle. She arrived The Scottish/English borders and those who inhabit them are different from Germany on the Kindertransport as a child during the war and now feels settled in her adopted homeworld he's left behind but it will have to become his world. Meanwhile, the squire It's fighter pilot son, Felix, has returned now his job to bring law to the village with a fiancée in tow. Daphne is beautiful, charming..lawless. This isn't easy when every local he comes across has an affinity and harbouring secrets. After meeting during the war, Felix knows some a heritage of Daphne's past, but she has worked hard crime to conceal that which could unravel her carefully built lifesome degree. For Charlotte, too, a dangerous past Robert the best thing about the job is coming back in its proximity to the shape of fellow refugee, bad boy Harry Blackwoman he loves but he doesn't know what he'll do about that yet either. Forever bound by their childhoods, Charlotte will always care for Meanwhile he soon realises that those who are supposed to be on his side are plotting against him, but Harrythey don's return disrupts the village quiet and itt realise what they's not long before gossip spreads. The war may have ended, but for these girls, trouble is only just beginning..re up against. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>17849761211786694719</amazonuk>

|author= Philip KerrZanna Sloniowska and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator)|title= Prussian Blue: Bernie Gunther Thriller 12The House with the Stained-Glass Window|rating= 3.54|genre= Crime (Historical) Fiction|summary= Bernie Gunther is not your typical hero. In 1939Marianna, he was stationed an opera singer in Berlin as a police officer handling murder cases and occasionally doing work for some highthe soon-to-ranking Nazis. Although never a Nazi party member himself (he was a known member be Ukrainian city of the Social Democratic Party)Lviv, he understood that the best thing he could do for himself is mistakenly shot dead at that time was to make himself indispensable to men like Reinhard Heydrich and Martin Bormann. So when he is assigned to solve a murder that has occurred at Hitler's Berghof political rally in the Bavarian mountainsdying days of the Soviet Union. This novel begins with both anger and hope, he knows that he needs to do it quickly and discreetly – not just for justiceas Marianna's sake, but for his own. He coffin is given exactly one week to apprehend covered in the suspectillegal blue and yellow flag, and he hopes that with her death seems to herald the birth of a new nation. But the day of her funeral is also the help day of her daughter's first period – a girl who must learn how to be a woman in this time of his friend Friedrich Korschdrastic change, an investigator with no mother to guide her along the Krimialpolizei (or Kripo, for short) he just might get luckyway. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>17842964810857057138</amazonuk>

|author= Stephan CollishawK J Whittaker|title= The Song of the StorkFalse Lights

|genre= Literary Historical Fiction|summary= Stephan Collishaw Cornwall, 1817. What if your worst mistake changed the course of history? Napoleon has achieved crushed the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo, and his ex-wife Josephine presides over French-occupied England. Cornwall erupts into open rebellion, and young heiress Hester escapes with Crow, Wellington's former intelligence officer, a rare feat – half-French aristocrat haunted by his part in the catastrophic defeat. Together, they become embroiled in a novel set amidst the horrors web of Nazi tyranny that does not shy away treachery and espionage as plans are laid to free Wellington from human sufferingsecret captivity in the Scilly Isles and lead an uprising against the French occupation. In a country rife with traitors, but does not drown in Hester and Crow know it eitheris impossible to play such a game as this for long... |amazonuk=<amazonuk>17850791901786695340</amazonuk>

|author=Alan KennedyJ Jefferson Farjeon|title=A Time to Tell LiesSeven Dead|rating=4|genre=Crime (Historical) Fiction|summary= Psychologist Alan Kennedy's fifth novel continues Ted Lyte was petty criminal, but not usually the housebreaking type. He lacked the story courage. However, needs must, and whilst feeling down on his luck he began decided to try his chances at an isolated house with [[Lucy by Alan Kennedy]]a shuttered window. ''... In he might find a bit of alright behind those shutters! Wot abart it?'' Ted does indeed find something interesting behind the autumn of 1942shutters, Captain Alex Vere and Justine Perry are among the but it definitely isn't what he'd hoped. In a locked room he finds seven dead bodies; six men and women picked up and taken to a stately home in Scotland, where they are trained woman. Fleeing the house in spy skills. After this first encounterhorror, Alex is smitten yet uncertain if he will ever see Justine again. The spy's life is dangerous pursued and unpredictablecaught by a passing yachtsman, after all. Six weeks laterThomas Hazeldean, though, they meet up again in southwest France, where they have been sent who also happens to collect Simone, be a Special Operations Executive agentjournalist. ItFascinated by Ted's Alex's first mission story (Justine's fourthand a possible scoop) , Hazeldean decides to investigate this curious case and all goes horribly awry. Alex ends up in custody at its assortment of odd clues, including a portrait shot through the Gendarmerieheart, facing an old cricket ball and a German who knows he has a false passportmysterious note written by one of the victims.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>09932023220712356886</amazonuk>

|authortitle=Alex NyeSalt Creek|titleauthor=For My SinsLucy Treloar|rating=4.5

|summary=1586: Mary Stuart, Queen The first chapter of Scots''Salt Creek'' opens in Chichester, has time to look back over her past life as she sitsEngland, incarcerated by in 1874. Hester Finch is a respected and reasonably wealthy member of her second cousin Queen Elizabeth Icommunity. Mary's life hasnBut she can't been one of totally pampered royalty. Growing up in France, away from stop her mother, widowed and then returning to Scotland thoughts wandering back to claim the throne before she was even 19, her struggle with fate started early. The tensions between Mary the womanadolescence, Mary the Catholic and Mary the political force continue through three marriages, an unsolved murder and spent on Salt Creek Station in the thwarted desire to serve her peopleremote South Australian Coorong region. Now itHester feels 's come to this prison cell but while there's lifehas never felt so alive as then, therewhen we had so little's still hope…'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>19059167871910709417</amazonuk>

|author= Grace MacallisterJamie Ford|title= The Magician's LieLove and Other Consolation Prizes|rating=45|genre= ThrillersHistorical Fiction|summary= The Amazing Arden is At the most famous female illusionist of her dayWorld's Fair in 1962, renowned for her notorious trick of sawing a man in half it seems that all eyes are focused on stagethe future. But one night she swaps her trademark saw for an axe. When Arden's husband is found dead later that night, The Space Needle dominates the answer seems clearlandscape, most of all filling people with anticipation about things to young policeman Virgil Holtcome. Captured and taken into custodyOne visitor, however, all seems set for Arden's swift confessionhas his mind firmly focused on the past. But she has Ernest Young is helping his daughter Ju-ju with a different story to tell. Even handcuffed and alone, Arden is far from powerless, and what she reveals is writing for her newspaper; a story about a young immigrant boy who was given away as unbelievable as it is spellbindinga prize in a raffle at the World's Fair in 1909.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17871999670749022752</amazonuk>

|author=Helen DunmoreNicola Pryce|title=Birdcage WalkThe Captain's Girl|rating=54|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Bristol 1792: Lizzie married well. John Diner Tredevant is a property developer who has reached the zenith of his lifeLast year, Bookbag reviewed, and thoroughly enjoyed, [[Pengelly's Daughter by Nicola Pryce|Pengelly's work: building Daughter]], a terrace swashbuckling historical romance set in picturesque Cornwall. Now we have the pleasure of prestigious houses overlooking reading the Avon Gorgemuch-anticipated sequel. In This time, the story focuses on a time neighbour of turbulence as France reaches the dawn of revolutionPolcarrow family, BritainMiss Celia Cavendish, including Diner, fears it may spread. This puts Lizzie in who has been engaged to a difficult position since her mother and step-father both believe in propagating pamphlets and ideas of egalitarianism for and to all, including womencruel man that she does not love. In other wordsOne fateful night, they think nothing of spreading ideas of she runs away to the sort that fanned Polcarrow house to beg them for help, and the French flames. However, pivotal events of that's not Lizzie's only problem… there is a darkness in her husband's past of which she's unawarenight have far-reaching consequences for all involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>00919594031782398856</amazonuk>

|author=Beth UnderdownHawa L Crickmore|title=The Witchfinder's SisterAcross the Ocean|rating=4.5|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=England 1645: Matthew Hopkins is good at his chosen career: seekingA young cage fighter, Martin Grandson, testing and convicting those was diagnosed with the Devil in thema rare genetic disorder which required a bone-marrow transplant, preferably from a sibling. His sisterOnly recently he'd been a fit young man, Alicein the prime of life, doesnbut now he was suffering from a rare type of bone cancer: without the transplant he would be paralysed for life and might be dead within the next twelve weeks if he didn't realise receive the transplant within the full connotations of his actions until, widowed and pregnant, she returns homenext fourteen days. Alice is grateful to be allowed to live under MatthewUnfortunately Martin's roof but then watches his sinister finger of suspicion point parents had died in unexpected placesa car crash and there were no siblings or other close relatives. This is His girlfriend, Celia, was not a man changed from the boy that Alice used to know. She never then realised that he'd be capable of killing hundreds of people and making her the Witchfinder's Sistermatch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>02419780331524666971</amazonuk>

|author= Emma HendersonM J Tjia|title= The Valentine HouseShe Be Damned

|genre= Literary FictionCrime (Historical) |summary= In June 1914London, Sir Anthony Valentine1863: prostitutes in the Waterloo area are turning up dead, a keen mountaineertheir sexual organs mutilated and removed. When another girl goes missing, arrives with his family to spend fears grow that the summer in killer may have claimed their chalet, high in the French Alpslatest victim. There, for the first time, fourteen-year-old foundling Mathilde starts work as one of the 'uglies' - village girls employed as servants The police are at a loss and so it falls to courtesan and pickedprofessional detective, it is believedHeloise Chancey, to ensure they don't catch Sir Anthony's roving eyeinvestigate. For Mathilde it is With the start assistance of a life-long entanglement with les anglais - strangeher trusty Chinese maid, exciting peopleAmah Li Leen, far removed from Heloise inches closer to the hard grind of farmingtruth. Except she soon finds But when Amah is implicated in the Valentines are less carefree than they appearbrutal plot, with a curiously absent daughter no one talks about. It will be decades - disrupted by warHeloise must reconsider whom she can trust, accidents and a cruel betrayal - before Mathilde discovers the key to the mystery. And in 1976, the year Sir Anthony's great-great grandson comes to visit, she must decide whether to use itkiller strikes again.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444704028178507931X</amazonuk>

|author= Polly ClarkSarah Franklin|title= LarchfieldShelter

|genre= Literary Historical Fiction |summary=I It's early summer when a young poetConnie Granger has escaped her bombed-out city home, Dora Fielding, moves to Helensburgh on finding refuge in the west coast of Scotland and her hopes are first challenged. Newly married, pregnant, sheWomen's excited by the prospect of a life that combines family and creativityTimber Corps. She thinks she knows what being a personFor her, this remote community must now serve a wifesecret purpose.<br>Seppe, a motheran Italian prisoner of war, means. She is soon shown that she is wronghaunted by his memories. As the battle begins for her very sense of self, Dora comes to find In the realities of small town life suffocatingforest camp, and, eventually, terrifying; until she he finds a way to escape reality altogetherstrange kind of freedom.Their meeting signals new beginnings. Another poetBut as they are drawn together, she discovers, lived in Helensburgh oncethe world outside their forest haven is being torn apart. Wystan H. Auden, brilliant and awkward at 24, with his first book of poetry publishedOld certainties are crumbling, should be embarking on success and society in London. Instead, in 1930, fleeing both must now make a broken engagement, he takes a teaching post at Larchfield School for boys where he is mocked for his Englishness and suspected life- rightly - of homosexualitydefining choice. Yet in this repressed limbo Wystan <br>What price will fall in love they pay for the first time, even as he fights his deepest fears.freedom? What will they fight to protect?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17864819281785762990</amazonuk>

|author=Dinah JefferiesJane Johnson|title=Before the RainsCourt of Lions|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Eliza has tragically punctuated childhood memories Kate Fordham arrived in the sunlit city of India that have feed her desire to returnGranada a year ago. Therefore in 1930, following In the death shadow of her husbandthe Alhambra, when one of the British government commission her to photograph scenes of Indian lifemost beautiful places on earth, she jumps at the chanceworks as a waitress serving tourists in a busy bar. What She pretends she doesn't realise is that not everyone s happy with her new life – but how could she comes across be? Kate's alone, afraid and hiding under a false name. And fate is delighted about to bring her face-to-face with the ideaher greatest fear. Five centuries ago, a message, in a hand few could read, was inscribed in blood on a stolen scrap of paper. Living within The paper was folded and pressed into one of the SultanaAlhambra's opulent palace complex is definitely an attraction for herwalls. There it has lain, as is Jayundisturbed by the tides of history – the Fall of Granada, an Indian price who shows Eliza the real Indiaexpulsion of its last Sultan – until Kate discovers it. HoweverBorn of love, in a time of danger and desperation, attractions are sometimes dangerous the fragment will be the catalyst that changes Kate's life forever. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786694336</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Angus Watson|title= You Die When You Die|rating= 4|genre= Historical Fiction|summary= Finnbogi the Boggy and his tribe of mushroom men (Vikings) must take a road trip through hostile territory whilst being hunted by the greatest fighting force ever seen (Amazonian Native Americans). Vikings meet Native Americans in a clash of cultures and even deadlypotentially the end of the world. When the Queen of the known world says your tribe has to be exterminated then your immediate future may not be so rosy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>02412870810356507564</amazonuk>

|author=Otto de Kat and Laura Watkinson (translator)Alison Weir|title=The Longest NightSix Tudor Queens: Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession: Six Tudor Queens 2|rating=3.54|genre=Literary Historical Fiction|summary=Emma has a philosophy – ''let Thomas Boleyn sends his daughters abroad to be trained at the dead rest, and love the living''courts of European royalty. The problem with that, as a 96-year-old, is that there are too few living left, and so while Not only does this give them an education in the ways of the love remains she will go through her memorieselite, taking it could also ensure a woozy, diaphanous path through all the major events of her lifegood marriage. Starting in wartime Berlin with Unfortunately he hasn't reckoned on the ideas that one husbandof them, who gets snatched from her at work, fleeing to another place to wait for peaceAnne, picks up and wait as for him in vain, moving marriage… Anne is determined to Holland and finding new marry for love, and so on – this wispy journey will show all not through some paternal arrangement. Yet the impacts of war, from rationing right up reality turns out to exilebe different, death and survival. The memories are coming strongly here and now, as Emma is waiting for at least one of driving a wedge through her two sons family on a road leading to visit, and then she will die…dark tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857056085147222762X</amazonuk>

|author= Adrian GoldsworthyMartha Conway|title= VindolandaThe Floating Theatre|rating= 3.5

|summary= AD 98: in When young seamstress May Bedloe is left alone and penniless on the northern fields shore of Britannia lies Vindolandathe Ohio, a Roman auxiliary base situated she finds work on the edge of famous floating theatre that plies its trade along the Roman worldriver. Far from Her creativity and needlework skills quickly become invaluable and she settles into life among the prosperity and decadence colourful troupe of Romeactors. She finds friends, the wild and untamed lands around Vindolanda are ripe with rebel tribes and druids set against possibly the destruction promise of Rome more. But cruising the border between the Confederate South and its armiesthe 'free' North is fraught with danger. In For the midst sake of this destruction a debt that must be repaid, May is Flavius Ferox; a Briton and Roman Centurion who has been given the task compelled to transport secret passengers, under cover of keeping darkness, across the peace in this desolate edge of river and on, along the worldunderground railroad. But life in Roman Britain is full as May's secrets become harder to keep, she learns she must endanger those now dear to her.  And to save the lives of danger and betrayal at every turnothers, and Ferox knows it will take more than courage to overcome what lies aheadshe must risk her own...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17849746841785762907</amazonuk>

|author=Jeroen Blokhuis and Asja Novak (translator)Jenny Ashcroft|title=The Yellow HouseBeneath a Burning Sky|rating=34|genre=Literary Historical Fiction|summary=If you were Young bride Olivia Sheldon finds returning to her childhood home in Egypt a bitter-sweet experience. On the needy kindone hand, would you really join in she has been reunited with her estranged sister Clara, and the drumming-out of town of two people accused of murder purely because of their nationality? Would you get pair have formed a feeling of belonging just because you were there when someone carried a dead dog down off a mountain? The main character in this novel doesdeep and loving bond. But he On the other, she has something that will really get him notedan unhappy marriage to her domineering husband Alistair, well-thought-ofwho only married her to spite Clara, includedwho had refused him previously. He has come to Life with the south of France sadistic Alistair is unbearable, with Olivia subjected to set up an artists' collective, where he can live and work alongside horrific abuse at his counterpartshands, who can inspire each other and best each other to create wonderful artdaily. In fact As a much-respected guest is on his way nowlady with no means of supporting herself, so surely he can find kinship? The guest's name isOlivia seems trapped without any means of escape, after allonly finding solace in the company of her sister and friends. But when her dear sister goes mysteriously missing in the bustling streets of Alexandria, Gauguin. The main character it is, up to Olivia to try and solve the mystery of course, Vincent van Gogh…her disappearance before it is too late.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>19073205630751565032</amazonuk>

|author=Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)Conn Iggulden|title=Retribution RoadDunstan: One Man Will Change the Fate of England

|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>

|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>

|author=S J Hardman LeaAnne O'Brien|title=The Sins of SoldiersShadow Queen|rating=4.5

|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>

|author=David GilmanPatricia Falvey|title=Viper's Blood (Master The Girls of War)Ennismore: A Heart-Rending Irish Saga|rating=4.5

|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>

|author=Rory ClementsElaine Everest|title=Corpus|rating=5|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=A suicidal overdose and the murder 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 and their first moves in preparation for the coming conflict, assisted or prevented by a royal crisis (depending on which side you're on). Cambridge history professor Tom Wilde may fall into the middle of this accidentally to begin with but his curiosity has been piqued enough to ensure he's not walking away.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785762613</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Beatrice Colin|title= To Capture What We Cannot KeepThe Butlins Girls

|summary=Paris, February 1887, and work on the foundations of Eiffel's daring tower is about Fresh-faced Molly Missons has just arrived in Skegness to beginstart her new job as a Butlins auntie. Engineer Emile NouguierBehind the smiles and confident appearance, taking photographs of she hides a secret; she has taken the site from a tethered hot air balloon for tourists nearby, chances job to meet a young widow from Glasgow named Caitriona Wallaceescape escalating problems at home. She soon finds good friends in her chalet-mates Bunty and Plum, and his it turns out that they each have their own foundations reasons for wanting a fresh start . Meanwhile, Molly is shocked to shiftdiscover that her movie-star crush Johnny Johnson is working as an entertainment adviser at the camp. Over the next two years Is he really as suave as his on-screen persona? And why is he working at the tower slowly rises in the Champ de Marscamp anyway? As hidden secrets become discovered, what began as an impossible dream becomes solid reality – Cait and Emile's love for each other. In a world where more than bustles Molly and corsets hem her in, will Cait be able to break free of her oppressive future, new friends face new threats and given dangers that may threaten their different social strata, can Emile renew-shape his?found freedom.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17602917221447295536</amazonuk>

|author= Deanna RaybournGeraint Jones|title= A Perilous Undertaking (Veronica Speedwell Mystery)Blood Forest|rating= 45

|summary=Veronica Speedwell did not choose to be an investigator by profession. She was, first and foremost, a scientist; a lepidopterist and adventuress who travelled the world looking for exciting butterfly specimens. However, when her latest expedition was cancelled due to an unfortunate incident with a giant tortoise, Veronica and her taxidermist friend Stoker took up the challenge of a murder investigation as an interesting diversionFelix. The case seemed to an open-and-shut lucky one; Miles Ramsforth, an art patron, had been accused of murdering his pregnant mistress, Artemisia. He was discovered at the scene, covered in her blood and had both doesn't feel especially lucky when he staggers out into the motive grove and circumstances to commit the crime. He would hang by the end finds twelve of the week if Veronica his comrades butchered and Stoker could not find the 'real' killer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0451476158</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Jemima Brigges|title=Counting the Cost|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The year is 1794 and we meet our young protagonist, Maria, mutilated in desperate circumstances. Alone and terrified, she has concluded that her only option is to take her own life by throwing herself into the surging river watersworst possible ways. Months previously, she was cruelly violated by He felt even less lucky when the master of the house where she worked and nowsoldiers arrived, in the advanced stages of her pregnancy, the future seems bleakRoman cavalry. LuckilyHe might have run, a pair of gypsy women find Maria and take her inbut he knew he'd never make it. Following a traumatic labour, Maria becomes desperately ill and when she recovers, her baby is gone. Alone again, Maria is free He stepped out to start a new life. With a clever disguise, she becomes the dowdy 'Miss Dinchope' and takes a position as a housekeeper for the village rectorface whatever came next.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17858991390718184815</amazonuk>