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[[Category:Historical Fiction|*]]
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===[[The Parentations by Kate Mayfield]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
In eighteenth century London, sisters Fitzgerald, Constance and Verity are changed forever when they become entwined with the Fowler family - and charged with protecting a mysterious child. Fast forward to the London of 2015, and the sisters are still waiting - with no way of knowing if the boy is alive or dead. Far away, a hidden pool grants those who sup from it eternal life, but also forces them to keep a secret for two hundred years. As those years pass by, those who were granted immortality find that it's far from a blessing - with true darkness emerging in the absence of death. [[The Parentations by Kate Mayfield|Full Review]]
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===[[Munich: The Man Who Said No! by David Laws]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]]
I've played Neville Chamberlain in public, you know – a full one-line in a ''Beyond the Fringe'' sketch, where he says he has a piece of paper from Hitler. I then proceeded to prove it was a paper bag, in fact, by blowing it up and immediately bursting it. That is what that paper was to many – the indicator of a lot of hot air, and only leading to an unwelcome noise, when WW2 actually struck anyway. Certainly, not everyone was keen on his appeasement with the Nazis, and this book opens with the first-person reportage of one such man, keen on showing proof to Chamberlain that he should not sign the Sudetenland away. But he only got so far before his story was cut off entirely – leaving a grand-daughter, Emma, at Cambridge but under a cloud of ignominy, to pick the last, barest threads of the story up and see just what did happen to him. Oh, and her help has just come out of prison… [[Munich: The Man Who Said No! by David Laws|Full Review]]
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===[[Kin by Snorri Kristjansson]]===
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
Unnthor Reginsson is the uncrowned king of the valley; retired Viking farmer and rumoured owner of a large hoard of gold. He is gathering his clan, a grand reunion after ten years of absence. It is time for strengthening family bonds, feasting, telling tall tales and remembering shared history. [[Kin by Snorri Kristjansson|Full Review]]
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===[[Templar Silks by Elizabeth Chadwick]]===
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
''Templar Silks'' is a great example of historical fiction done well. It's a fictitious account of William Marshal's time in Jerusalem during the late 1100s during a brief spell of calm before the death of King Baldwin to leprosy in 1185. Elizabeth Chadwick has written a previous book about William Marshal but glossed over this period in his life for lack of research. In this book she goes back to fill in the gaps having spent time studying this particular period of his life. Her main problem, as she acknowledges at the end of the book, is that virtually nothing is known of Marshal's time in Jerusalem. We know when and why he went, we know who the major power players were, we know when he came back and that is about it. So understandably, this book is probably more fiction than history but it is brilliantly written none the less. [[Templar Silks by Elizabeth Chadwick|Full Review]]
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===[[Revenge by Mitchell & Mitchell]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
''Revenge'' opens with the news that Charles Stuart is to return to the throne as Charles II of England. A young woman, Ruth Courtney, is returning home to her family's farmhouse, excited at the prospect of a new King. She arrives home, however, to find her home ablaze and surrounded by renegade soldiers, supporters of Cromwell, her family nowhere to be found. [[Revenge by Mitchell & Mitchell|Full Review]]
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===[[The Baghdad Clock by Shahad Al Rawi]]===
[[image:2.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
''The Baghdad Clock'' is a tale of two friends growing up during the first and second Iraqi war. Shahad Al Rawi uses magic realism to illustrate the displacement felt by a young girl and her neighbourhood. The novel introduces us to the various characters surrounding the protagonist. They are full of life and yet never seem to add anything to the central narrative. Rawi, it would seem, has a problem with telling a story. [[The Baghdad Clock by Shahad Al Rawi|Full Review]]
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===[[The Coffin Path by Katherine Clements]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Horror|Horror]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
Maybe you've heard about Scarcross Hall? Hidden on the old coffin path that winds from the village to the moor top, the villagers only speak of it in hushed tones - of how it's a foreboding place filled with evil. Mercy Booth has lived there since birth, and she's always loved the grand house and its isolation, but a recurrence of strange events begins to unsettle her. From objects disappearing through to a shadowy presence sensed in the house, mysteries come to light that can only be solved by Mercy unearthing long-buried secrets. And will a dark stranger help Mercy protect everything she has come to love or tear it from her grasp? [[The Coffin Path by Katherine Clements|Full Review]]
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===[[Walking Wounded by Sheila Llewellyn]]===
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
David Reece was called up in 1941 and sent to fight in Burma. On his return in 1946, he finds a return to civilian life quite beyond him and, after a brawl, is sent to a military psychiatric hospital. There, he is treated by Daniel Carter, a psychiatrist whose instincts tell him that talking therapies can work with men like David, but who is working in a profession enthusiastically adopting invasive procedures such as ECT and lobotomy. ''Walking Wounded'' follows both men as they both try to come to terms with traumatic experiences and find a place in a world moving on from WWII. [[Walking Wounded by Sheila Llewellyn|Full Review]]
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===[[The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
So, you arrive in all ignorance at Auschwitz, and see the horror there, and immediately 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 ''collaborator'' muttered behind your back? Do you dare to stick your neck out and get a job that means you're actually a Jew working in the political wing of the SS, answerable to Berlin? Do you dare get contacts with civilian workers building the place, and trade the loot purloined from the incoming victims' belongings with food they smuggle in for you, under the eyes of all the camp guards? The man whose real life story inspired this novel did all that, and survived to tell the tale, but he also managed to do something even more daring, and unexpected – he dared to invest hope in a burgeoning love that he found in the camp. [[The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris|Full Review]]
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===[[The Optickal Illusion: A very eighteenth-century scandal by Rachel Halliburton]]===
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
Rachel Halliburton's debut novel opens in London in January 1797. Benjamin West, President of the Royal Academy, is reflecting on the past year's scandal involving the Provises, father and daughter, and worries that he handled everything poorly. From the start the book's 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 more he prodded and stirred the memory, the murkier it became.' [[The Optickal Illusion: A very eighteenth-century scandal by Rachel Halliburton|Full Review]]
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===[[W by John Banks]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
On the slopes of Mt Hood in Oregon, an 1000-year old Viking is discovered frozen - three thousand miles further west than any previously known Viking exploration. Josh Kinninger is inspired by the Viking discovery - three personal catastrophes having left him angry, unmoored and with his world in turmoil. Beginning a journey westward, he's filled with a desire to wreak vengeance on the individuals he finds morally corrupt. [[W by John Banks|Full Review]]
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{{newreview
|author= Elaine Everest|title= The Butlins GirlsChristmas at Woolworths|rating= 43.5
|genre= Historical Fiction
|summary=Fresh''Christmas at Woolworths'' is the sequel to wartime saga ''The Woolworths Girls,'' and continues the story where the first book left off. Members of the close-faced Molly Missons has just arrived knit community in Skegness Erith are doing their best to start her new job as a Butlins auntiepull together and keep morale high, even though the future is uncertain. Behind At the heart of the neighbourhood, the smiles home of kindly matriarch Ruby is a beacon where family and confident appearance, she hides friends can gather for good food and conversation: a secretway to forget the troubles outside. Spirits remain high; she has taken even when the job bombs are falling so close to escape escalating problems at home. She soon finds good We catch up with the three friends in her chalet-mates Bunty from the first book: Sarah yearns for peace and Pluman end to the war, and it turns out that they each have their own reasons Maisie is desperate for wanting a fresh start. Meanwhile, Molly is shocked child and Freda would love to discover that her movie-star crush Johnny Johnson is working as an entertainment adviser at the campfind romance. Is he really as suave as his on-screen persona? And why is he working at the camp anywayWill they all get their wishes this Christmas? As hidden secrets become discovered, Molly and her new friends face new threats and dangers that may threaten their new-found freedom.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>14472955361509843655</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= Geraint Jones|title= Blood Forest|rating= 5|genre= Historical Fiction|summary= 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 mutilated in the worst possible ways. He felt even less lucky when the soldiers arrived, Roman cavalry. He might have run, but he knew he'd never make it. He stepped out to face whatever came next.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718184815</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Dominic SmithMinette Walters|title= The Last Painting of Sara de Vos|rating= 5|genre= Historical Fiction|summary= If you find the techniques used by Rembrandt and Vermeer fascinating, ''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 the three time periods they inhabit before we are even one fifth of the way through. Sara is one of the few women artists of the 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 family since before Isaac Newton was born and he is the patent lawyer from whom it is 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 destroy her reputation as one of Sydney's foremost fine art academics. Satisfying though those first descriptions are, 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 PartyHours|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction |summary= In the gloriously hot summer of 1936, a group of people meet at a country house party. Within three years, England will be at war, but for now, time stands still. Dan Ranscombe is clever 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 that, wouldn't she? And what about Diana, Paul's beautiful sister, Charles Asher, the Jewish 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. As these guests gather, none has any inkling the choices they make will have fateful consequences, lasting through the war and beyond. Or that the first unforeseen event will be a shocking death… |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786691485</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Matthew Harffy|title= The Serpent Sword|rating= 4.5|genre= Historical Fiction|summary= It's AD 633 and Albion is a divided island made up of petty warlords who want to be treated like honourable royalty but act like gangsters. Romans are a memory that have entered into myth and the souls of Albion are torn between the old Gods and the new Christ. It is in this world that we follow the adventures of Beobrand as he undertakes the classic hero’s journey. Beobrand moves from wide-eyed teenager to hardened and honourable warrior through a brutal rite of passage as he hunts the killer of his brother and seeks to become a true warrior.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786692406</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Antonia Senior|title=The Tyrant's Shadow|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|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 Civil war ending, estate and when Lady Anne realised the times are still uncertain. Cromwell is increasingly annoyed with a parliament virulence of rebels refusing to go to the electorate for ratification. William sees this problem at close quarters once he's effectively forced plague she ordered that the estate refuse entry to become Cromwell's legal advisor in an atmosphere poisoned by espionage anyone, including her husband and religious factions. However when Patience comes across Shadrick Simpsonhis entourage, a charismatic preacher, all becomes clearer for her at least. Meanwhile Sam Challoner, William's brother in law, comes home after privateering with Prince Rupert and realises fear that they would bring the fight at sea is better than peace at home. At least when you're privateering you know who your enemy isdisease to her people.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17823966161760632139</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= David BarbareeLars Mytting and Paul Russell Grant (Translator)|title= DeposedThe Sixteen Trees of the Somme|rating= 4.5|genre= Historical General Fiction|summary= AWhile his grandfather lived the past was an area of certainty for Edvard.D 68. A deposed emperor lies in a prison cell, betrayed and newly blinded by those who were sworn At aged 4 he'd been taken to protect him. He is now crippled and deprived of powerlive with his grandparents, left completely on having survived the edge of despair with a frightened young slave named Marcus as accident that killed his only companionparents. Ten years later and it is Emperor Vespasian who wears the purple. Things may have settled since the civil war but Vespasian's son Titus is plagued by worry about plots to murder Now his father. Gruesome atrocities and mysterious disappearances grandfather has died revelations are rife throughout Rome; it is a city full of falsehoods and intrigues with the fear of rebellion lurking beneath the surface. Furthermore, a man who used coming to be emperor still lives – a blind man who everyone believes to be dead. His name light showing Edvard his family history is Nero and different from what he seeks revenge against those who wronged him. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785762672</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Diney Costeloe|title= The Married Girls|rating= 4.5|genre= Historical Fiction|summary=Wynsdown, 1949. In the small Somerset village of Wynsdown, Charlotte Shepherd is happily married to farmer Billy. She arrived from Germany on the Kindertransport as a child during the war and now feels settled in her adopted home. Meanwhile, the squire'd believed… his mother's fighter pilot sonbirthplace, Felix, has returned to the village with a fiancée in tow. Daphne is beautiful, charming... and harbouring secrets. After meeting during the war, Felix knows some of Daphnehis mother's pastname, but she has worked hard to conceal that which could unravel her carefully built life. For Charlotte, too, a dangerous past is coming back in the shape whereabouts of fellow refugee, bad boy Harry Black. Forever bound by their childhoods, Charlotte will always care for him, but Harrylate Great-Uncle Einar… and that's return disrupts without looking more deeply into the village quiet and it's not long before gossip spreads. The war may have ended, but for these girls, trouble is only just beginning...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784976121</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Philip Kerr|title= Prussian Blue: Bernie Gunther Thriller 12|rating= 3fatal accident itself.5|genre= Crime (Historical) |summary= Bernie Gunther is not your typical hero. In 1939, he was stationed in Berlin as a police officer handling murder cases and occasionally doing work for some high-ranking Nazis. Although never a Nazi party member himself (he was a known member of the Social Democratic Party), he understood that the best thing he could do for himself at that time was to make himself indispensable to men like Reinhard Heydrich and Martin Bormann. So when he Edvard is assigned determined to solve a murder that has occurred at Hitler's Berghof in the Bavarian mountainspuzzle, he knows a determination that he needs to do it quickly and discreetly – not just for justice's sake, but for will take him away from his own. He is given exactly one week native Norway to apprehend the suspect, an area of France synonymous with devastation and he hopes that a remote Scottish island loaded with the help of his friend Friedrich Korsch, an investigator with the Krimialpolizei (or Kripo, for short) he just might get luckysecrets. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>17842964810857056069</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= Stephan CollishawToby Clements|title= The Song of the Stork|rating= Kingmaker: Kingdom Come: (Book 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Stephan Collishaw has achieved a rare feat – a novel set amidst the horrors of Nazi tyranny that does not shy away from human suffering, but does not drown in it either. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079190</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Alan Kennedy|title=A Time to Tell Lies|rating=4|genre=Crime (Historical) |summary= Psychologist Alan Kennedy's fifth novel continues the story he began with [[Lucy by Alan Kennedy]]. In the autumn of 1942, Captain Alex Vere and Justine Perry are among the men and women picked up and taken to a stately home in Scotland, where they are trained in spy skills. After this first encounter, Alex is smitten yet uncertain if he will ever see Justine again. The spy's life is dangerous and unpredictable, after all. Six weeks later, though, they meet up again in southwest France, where they have been sent to collect Simone, a Special Operations Executive agent. It's Alex's first mission (Justine's fourth) and all goes horribly awry. Alex ends up in custody at the Gendarmerie, facing a German who knows he has a false passport.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0993202322</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Alex Nye|title=For My Sins
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=1586: Mary Stuart, Queen 1470 dawns and the next chapters of the War of Scots, has time the Roses are ready to look back over her past life as she sits, incarcerated by her second cousin Queen Elizabeth Iplay out. Mary's life hasn't King Edward thinks that the future has been one of totally pampered royaltysettled but treachery is still lurking. Growing up in France, away from her mother, widowed Meanwhile Katherine and then returning to Scotland to claim the throne before she was even 19, her struggle with fate started early. The tensions between Mary the woman, Mary the Catholic Thomas also have their world turned upside down when that ledger and Mary the political force continue through three marriagesa chance comment threaten all they have, an unsolved murder and the thwarted desire to serve her peopleincluding their lives. Now it's come to this prison cell but while there's life, there's still hope…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905916787178089466X</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= Grace MacallisterP F Chisholm|title= The Magician's Lie|rating=4|genre= Thrillers|summary= The Amazing Arden is the most famous female illusionist of her day, renowned for her notorious trick of sawing a man Guns in half on stage. But one night she swaps her trademark saw for an axe. When Arden's husband is found dead later that night, the answer seems clear, most of all to young policeman Virgil Holt. Captured and taken into custody, all seems set for Arden's swift confession. But she has a different story to tell. Even handcuffed and alone, Arden is far from powerless, and what she reveals is as unbelievable as it is spellbinding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1787199967</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Helen Dunmore|title=Birdcage Walk|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Bristol 1792: Lizzie married well. John Diner Tredevant is a property developer who has reached the zenith of his life's work: building a terrace of prestigious houses overlooking the Avon Gorge. In a time of turbulence as France reaches the dawn of revolution, Britain, including Diner, fears it may spread. This puts Lizzie in a difficult position since her mother and step-father both believe in propagating pamphlets and ideas of egalitarianism for and to all, including women. In other words, they think nothing of spreading ideas of the sort that fanned the French flames. However, that's not Lizzie's only problem… there is a darkness in her husband's past of which she's unaware.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091959403</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Beth Underdown|title=North (The Witchfinder's SisterSir Robert Carey Mysteries Omnibus)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=England 16451592: Matthew Hopkins is good at Sir Robert Carey flees the strictures of Elizabethan court – and his chosen career: seeking, testing and convicting those with creditors – in order to become Deputy Warden of the Devil West March in themCarlisle. His sister, Alice, doesnThe Scottish/English borders and those who inhabit them are different from the world he't realise the full connotations of s left behind but it will have to become his actions until, widowed and pregnant, she returns homeworld. Alice is grateful to be allowed to live under MatthewIt's roof but then watches now his sinister finger of suspicion point in unexpected placesjob to bring law to the lawless. This is isn't easy when every local he comes across has an affinity and a man changed from heritage of crime to some degree. For Robert the best thing about the boy that Alice used job is its proximity to the woman he loves but he doesn't knowwhat he'll do about that yet either. She never then realised Meanwhile he soon realises that hethose who are supposed to be on his side are plotting against him but they don'd be capable of killing hundreds of people and making her the Witchfindert realise what they's Sisterre up against. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>02419780331786694719</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= Emma HendersonZanna Sloniowska and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator)|title= The Valentine House|rating= 4|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= In June 1914, Sir Anthony Valentine, a keen mountaineer, arrives with his family to spend 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 and picked, it is believed, to ensure they don't catch Sir Anthony's roving eye. For Mathilde it is the start of a life-long entanglement with les anglais - strange, exciting people, far removed from the hard grind of farming. Except she soon finds the Valentines are less carefree than they appear, with a curiously absent daughter no one talks about. It will be decades - disrupted by war, 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 it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444704028</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Polly Clark|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, she'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 Stained- 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 RainsGlass Window|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Eliza has tragically punctuated childhood memories of India that have feed her desire to return. Therefore Marianna, an opera singer in 1930, following the death soon-to-be Ukrainian city of her husbandLviv, when is mistakenly shot dead at a political rally in the British government commission her to photograph scenes dying days of Indian life, she jumps at the chanceSoviet Union. What she doesnThis novel begins with both anger and hope, as Marianna't realise s coffin is that not everyone she comes across is delighted with covered in the illegal blue and yellow flag, and her death seems to herald the ideabirth of a new nation. Living within But the day of her funeral is also the Sultanaday of her daughter's opulent palace complex is definitely an attraction for first period – a girl who must learn how to be a woman in this time of drastic change, with no mother to guide her, as is Jay, an Indian price who shows Eliza along the real India. However, attractions are sometimes dangerous and even deadlyway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>02412870810857057138</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Otto de Kat and Laura Watkinson (translator)K J Whittaker|title=The Longest NightFalse Lights|rating=34.5|genre=Literary Historical Fiction|summary=Emma Cornwall, 1817. What if your worst mistake changed the course of history? Napoleon has a philosophy – ''let crushed the Duke of Wellington at the dead restBattle of Waterloo, and love the living''his ex-wife Josephine presides over French-occupied England. The problem Cornwall erupts into open rebellion, and young heiress Hester escapes with thatCrow, Wellington's former intelligence officer, as a 96half-year-old, is that there are too few living left, and so while French aristocrat haunted by his part in the love remains she will go through her memoriescatastrophic defeat. Together, taking they become embroiled in a woozy, diaphanous path through all the major events web of her life. Starting in wartime Berlin with one husband, who gets snatched treachery and espionage as plans are laid to free Wellington from her at work, fleeing to another place to wait for peace, and wait for him secret captivity in vain, moving to Holland the Scilly Isles and finding new lovelead an uprising against the French occupation. In a country rife with traitors, Hester and so on – this wispy journey will show all the impacts of war, from rationing right up Crow know it is impossible to exile, death and survival. The memories are coming strongly here and now, play such a game as Emma is waiting this for at least one of her two sons to visit, and then she will die…long...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>08570560851786695340</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= Adrian GoldsworthyJ Jefferson Farjeon|title= VindolandaSeven Dead|rating= 3.54
|genre= Historical Fiction
|summary= AD 98: in the northern fields of Britannia lies VindolandaTed Lyte was petty criminal, a Roman auxiliary base situated on but not usually the edge of housebreaking type. He lacked the Roman worldcourage. Far from the prosperity and decadence of RomeHowever, needs must, the wild and untamed lands around Vindolanda are ripe whilst feeling down on his luck he decided to try his chances at an isolated house with rebel tribes and druids set against a shuttered window. ''...he might find a bit of alright behind those shutters! Wot abart it?'' Ted does indeed find something interesting behind the destruction of Rome shutters, but it definitely isn't what he'd hoped. In a locked room he finds seven dead bodies; six men and its armiesa woman. In Fleeing the midst of this destruction house in horror, he is Flavius Ferox; pursued and caught by a passing yachtsman, Thomas Hazeldean, who also happens to be a Briton journalist. Fascinated by Ted's story (and Roman Centurion who has been given the task of keeping the peace in a possible scoop), Hazeldean decides to investigate this desolate edge curious case and its assortment of odd clues, including a portrait shot through the world. But life in Roman Britain is full of danger and betrayal at every turnheart, an old cricket ball and Ferox knows it will take more than courage to overcome what lies aheada mysterious note written by one of the victims.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17849746840712356886</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Anson Scott wants to join the British army The first chapter of ''Salt Creek'' opens in Chichester, England, in 1874. Hester Finch is a respected and World War I for a different reason than most reasonably wealthy member of his fellow Americansher community. HeBut she can's a journalist wanting the uncensored inside story t stop her thoughts wandering back to send back home; a deadly enterprise asher adolescence, if the Germans don't get him, the Brits may deem him a spy. Unperturbed he carries his plan through and finds himself spent on Salt Creek Station in the French front in 1916remote South Australian Coorong region. He Hester feels ''has an ally in British officer David Alexandernever felt so alive as then, which is just as well since not all his enemies are across no manwhen we had so little''s land. The two men have a lot in common, more than they know and perhaps more than is good for them as the Somme approaches.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17858901821910709417</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=David GilmanJamie Ford|title=Viper's Blood (Master of War)|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Bowman Love and commander Thomas Blackstone is one of Edward III's greatest weapons, bringing him potentially head to head against the Dauphin once again. However, faced with an elongated stale mate, Thomas' role becomes that of scavenger leader as the chances of victory make way for a greater chance of starvation amongst the armies. There is a light at the end of the tunnel though. Blackstone is to go on a trip: an escort mission to Italy, delivering the French King's daughter Isabelle to Milan and her wedding. Having said that, the light at the end of the tunnel may be an oncoming lance. 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>1784974463</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Rory Clements|title=CorpusOther Consolation Prizes|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 Keep|rating= 4
|genre= Historical Fiction
|summary=ParisAt the World's Fair in 1962, February 1887, and work it seems that all eyes are focused on the foundations of Eiffel's daring tower is future. The Space Needle dominates the landscape, filling people with anticipation about things to begincome. Engineer Emile NouguierOne visitor, taking photographs of however, has his mind firmly focused on the site from past. Ernest Young is helping his daughter Ju-ju with a tethered hot air balloon story she is writing for tourists nearby, chances to meet her newspaper; a story about a young widow from Glasgow named Caitriona Wallace, and his own foundations start to shift. Over the next two years immigrant boy who was given away as the tower slowly rises a prize in a raffle at the Champ de Mars, what began as an impossible dream becomes solid reality – Cait and EmileWorld's love for each otherFair in 1909. In a world where more than bustles and corsets hem her in, will Cait be able to break free of her oppressive future, and given their different social strata, can Emile re-shape his?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17602917220749022752</amazonuk>
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