Changes

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
no edit summary
[[Category:Historical Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Historical Fiction]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
{{newreview
|author= Kate Quinn
|title= The Alice Network
|rating= 5
|genre= Historical Fiction
|summary= It's 1947. The Second World War has ended and American socialite Charlie St. Clair is unmarried and pregnant. After she's shipped off to Europe by her family to have her 'little problem' taken care of, Charlie decides to take matters in to her own hands and head to London. She is clinging on to a small hope that her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi occupied France, may still be alive and she thinks she's found the person who will have the answers. Meanwhile, former British spy Evelyn Gardiner spends her days drunk and alone, still haunted by what she endured during her espionage in the First War. That is until a young American shows up at her door uttering a name Eve hasn't heard in years. This meeting forces two unlikely women together as they go in search of the truth, no matter what the cost.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0062654195</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= M J Tjia
|title= She Be Damned
|rating= 4
|genre= Crime (Historical)
|summary= London, 1863: prostitutes in the Waterloo area are turning up dead, their sexual organs mutilated and removed. When another girl goes missing, fears grow that the killer may have claimed their latest victim. The police are at a loss and so it falls to courtesan and professional detective, Heloise Chancey, to investigate. With the assistance of her trusty Chinese maid, Amah Li Leen, Heloise inches closer to the truth. But when Amah is implicated in the brutal plot, Heloise must reconsider whom she can trust, before the killer strikes again.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178507931X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Sarah Franklin
|title= Shelter
|rating= 5
|genre= Historical Fiction
|summary=Connie Granger has escaped her bombed-out city home, finding refuge in the Women's Timber Corps. For her, this remote community must now serve a secret purpose.<br>
Seppe, an Italian prisoner of war, is haunted by his memories. In the forest camp, he finds a strange kind of freedom.Their meeting signals new beginnings. But as they are drawn together, the world outside their forest haven is being torn apart. Old certainties are crumbling, and both must now make a life-defining choice.<br>
What price will they pay for freedom? What will they fight to protect?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785762990</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Jane Johnson
|title= Court of Lions
|rating= 5
|genre= Historical Fiction
|summary= Kate Fordham arrived in the sunlit city of Granada a year ago. In the shadow of the Alhambra, one of the most beautiful places on earth, she works as a waitress serving tourists in a busy bar. She pretends she's happy with her new life – but how could she be? Kate's alone, afraid and hiding under a false name. And fate is about to bring her face-to-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 walls. There it has lain, undisturbed by the tides of history – the Fall of Granada, the expulsion of its last Sultan – until Kate discovers it. Born of love, in a time of danger and desperation, 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 potentially 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>0356507564</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alison Weir
|title=Six Tudor Queens: Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession: Six Tudor Queens 2
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Thomas Boleyn sends his daughters abroad to be trained at the courts of European royalty. Not only does this give them an education in the ways of the elite, it could also ensure a good marriage. Unfortunately he hasn't reckoned on the ideas that one of them, Anne, picks up and as for marriage… Anne is determined to marry for love not through some paternal arrangement. Yet the reality turns out to be different, driving a wedge through her family on a road leading to dark tragedy.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147222762X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Martha Conway
|title= The Floating Theatre
|rating= 5
|genre= Historical Fiction
|summary=When young seamstress May Bedloe is left alone and penniless on the shore of the Ohio, she finds work on the famous floating theatre that plies its trade along the river. Her creativity and needlework skills quickly become invaluable and she settles into life among the colourful troupe of actors. She finds friends, and possibly the promise of more. But cruising the border between the Confederate South and the 'free' North is fraught with danger. For the sake of a debt that must be repaid, May is compelled to transport secret passengers, under cover of darkness, across the river and on, along the underground railroad. But as May's secrets become harder to keep, she learns she must endanger those now dear to her.
And {|class-"wikitable" cellpadding="15" <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE--><!-- Mayfield -->|-| style=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|[[image:1786072424.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786072424/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''|===[[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]] <!-- Laws -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Laws_Munich.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/178803788X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[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]] <!-- Kristjansson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Kristjansson_Kin.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786489937/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[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]] <!-- Chadwick -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0751564974.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0751564974/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[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]] <!-- Mitchell -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:MandM_Revenge.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1520973179/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[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]] <!-- Rawi -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Rawi_Baghdad.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786073226/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]   | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[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]] <!-- Clements -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Clements_Coffin.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1472204271/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[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 save the lives 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 othersstrange 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 must risk has come to love or tear it from her owngrasp? [[The Coffin Path by Katherine Clements|Full Review]] <!-- Llewellyn -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|*[[image:Llewellyn-Walking.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co. uk/gp/product/1473663075?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1473663075]]  |amazonukstyle="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[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]] <amazonuk!-- Morris -->1785762907|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Morris_Auschwitz.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1785763644?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1785763644]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[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]] <!-- Halliburton -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Halliburton_Optickal.jpg|left|link=https:/amazonuk/www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0715651978?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0715651978]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[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]] <!-- Banks -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Banks_W.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0983333416?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0983333416]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[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]] |} 
{{newreview
|author= Jenny AshcroftElaine Everest|title= Beneath a Burning SkyChristmas at Woolworths|rating= 43.5
|genre= Historical Fiction
|summary=Young bride Olivia Sheldon finds returning ''Christmas at Woolworths'' is the sequel to her childhood home in Egypt a bitter-sweet experience. On the one hand, she has been reunited with her estranged sister Clarawartime saga ''The Woolworths Girls, '' and continues the story where the pair have formed a deep and loving bondfirst book left off. On Members of the other, she has an unhappy marriage close-knit community in Erith are doing their best to her domineering husband Alistair, who only married her to spite Clarapull together and keep morale high, who had refused him previously. Life with even though the sadistic Alistair future is unbearable, with Olivia subjected to horrific abuse at his hands, dailyuncertain. As a lady with no means At the heart of supporting herself, Olivia seems trapped without any means of escapethe neighbourhood, only finding solace in the company home of her sister kindly matriarch Ruby is a beacon where family and friendscan gather for good food and conversation: a way to forget the troubles outside. But Spirits remain high; even when her dear sister goes mysteriously missing in the bustling streets of Alexandria, it is bombs are falling so close to home. We catch up with the three friends from the first book: Sarah yearns for peace and an end to Olivia to try and solve the mystery of her disappearance before it war, Maisie is too latedesperate for a child and Freda would love to find romance.Will they all get their wishes this Christmas?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>07515650321509843655</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Conn IgguldenMinette Walters|title=Dunstan: One Man Will Change the Fate of EnglandThe Last Hours
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=The young Dunstan shows no sign In June 1348 the Black Death came into the country through the port of the sainthood heMelcombe in Dorset. Ignorant of many rules of hygiene which we'll d find basic nearly seven hundred years later attain, the disease rages through the country. Son On the estate of Develish, Lady Anne Develish took control of a Wessex thane the future of the people who lived in the demesne after her husband had ridden off to try and sent to secure a monastery marriage for education, this isn't a lad who responds to disciplinehis daughter. However an enquiring, intelligent mind begins to emerge Two hundred bonded serfs lived on the estate and then comes when Lady Anne realised the big break. Lady Elflaed calls to put a proposal to him after hearing about what virulence of the plague she considers ordered that the estate refuse entry to be a miracle anyone, including her husband and the monks consider another in a long line of excuses. Yet Dunstan will outshine all his teachers as well as knowing seven kings and holding responsible positions in their courtsentourage, as for fear that they would bring the book's title suggestsdisease to her people. Whether we believe in the miracles or not, Dunstan certainly had quite a life!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>07181814411760632139</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Simon EdgeLars Mytting and Paul Russell Grant (Translator)|title= The Hopkins ConundrumSixteen Trees of the Somme|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction |summary= Tim Cleverley inherits a failing pub in Wales, which While his grandfather lived the past was an area of certainty for Edvard. At aged 4 he plans 'd been taken to rescue by enlisting an American pulp novelist live with his grandparents, having survived the accident that killed his parents. Now his grandfather has died revelations are coming to concoct an entirely fabricated mystery about Gerard Manley Hopkins, who composed light showing Edvard his family history is different from what he'd believed… his mother'The Wreck of the Deutschland's birthplace, his mother' nearby. In Victorian Englands name, Gerard Manley Hopkins lives a life full the whereabouts of confusion late Great-Uncle Einar… and contradictionthat's without looking more deeply into the fatal accident itself. Edvard is determined to solve the puzzle, but discovers a calling for poetry determination that threatens to overrule will take him away from his calling native Norway to God. And, speaking an area of God, Five nuns leave persecution to travel to France synonymous with devastation and a new world – only to find themselves in more trouble that they could ever have imagined… remote Scottish island loaded with secrets.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17856303340857056069</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Anne O'BrienToby Clements|title=The Shadow QueenKingmaker: Kingdom Come: (Book 4)|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Born in 1328, Joan 1470 dawns and the next chapters of Kent may be of royal blood but she's from a family tainted by treachery. Her father Edmund Woodstock, 1st Earl the War of Kent, was executed for his part in the infamous Montague plotRoses are ready to play out. However Joan has grown up under the protection of her cousin, King Edward III with all thinks that the advantages and attributes of a princessfuture has been settled but treachery is still lurking. Yet, much to her mother's chagrin, obedience isn't one of these attributes. Joan's head strong feist takes her on a varied journey in life. Having said Meanwhile Katherine and Thomas also have their world turned upside down when that, three husbands, five marriages (technically) ledger and a son destined for the English throne means that it's also been one heck of a life!chance comment threaten all they have, including their lives.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848455070178089466X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Patricia FalveyP F Chisholm|title=Guns in the North (The Girls of Ennismore: A Heart-Rending Irish SagaSir Robert Carey Mysteries Omnibus)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Ireland 19001592: Ennismore House's young heiress Victoria had hoped that she Sir Robert Carey flees the strictures of Elizabethan court – and Rosie Killeen would be friends foreverhis creditors – in order to become Deputy Warden of the West March in Carlisle. Rosie soon comes to know better as there's a social chasm between The Scottish/English borders and those who live in inhabit them are different from the House and those, like Rosieworld he's family, who left behind but it will have been brought up merely to serve thembecome his world. It's now his job to bring law to the lawless. The days This isn't easy when every local he comes across has an affinity and a heritage of innocence are coming crime to an end in many wayssome degree. Soon, as For Robert the cry for Irish Home Rule becomes louder, therebest thing about the job is its proximity to the woman he loves but he doesn't know what he'll do about that yet either. Meanwhile he soon realises that those who are supposed to be more than steps on societyhis side are plotting against him but they don't realise what they's ladder between them as each must discover their own way in a nation that will never be the same againre up against. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>17864906251786694719</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Elaine Everest|title= The Butlins Girls|rating= 4|genre= Historical Fiction|summary=Fresh-faced Molly Missons has just arrived in Skegness to start her new job as a Butlins auntie. Behind the smiles Zanna Sloniowska and confident appearance, she hides a secret; she has taken the job to escape escalating problems at home. She soon finds good friends in her chalet-mates Bunty and Plum, and it turns out that they each have their own reasons for wanting a fresh start. Meanwhile, Molly is shocked to discover that her movie-star crush Johnny Johnson is working as an entertainment adviser at the camp. Is he really as suave as his on-screen persona? And why is he working at the camp anyway? As hidden secrets become discovered, Molly and her new friends face new threats and dangers that may threaten their newAntonia Lloyd-found freedom.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447295536</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Geraint Jones(translator)|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 Smith|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 Party|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 wideStained-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 ShadowGlass Window
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Warning: spoilers ahead for ''Treason's Daughter''.Patience lives with her widowed brotherMarianna, William, helping an opera singer in the soon-to care for his son Richard (nicknamed Blackberry). Despite the Civil war ending-be Ukrainian city of Lviv, the times are still uncertain. Cromwell is increasingly annoyed with mistakenly shot dead at a parliament political rally in the dying days of rebels refusing to go to the electorate for ratificationSoviet Union. William sees this problem at close quarters once heThis novel begins with both anger and hope, as Marianna's effectively forced to become Cromwell's legal advisor coffin is covered in an atmosphere poisoned by espionage the illegal blue and religious factions. However when Patience comes across Shadrick Simpsonyellow flag, and her death seems to herald the birth of a charismatic preacher, all becomes clearer for new nation. But the day of her funeral is also the day of her at least. Meanwhile Sam Challoner, Williamdaughter's brother first period – a girl who must learn how to be a woman in lawthis time of drastic change, comes home after privateering with Prince Rupert and realises that no mother to guide her along the fight at sea is better than peace at home. At least when you're privateering you know who your enemy isway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17823966160857057138</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= David BarbareeK J Whittaker|title= DeposedFalse Lights
|rating= 4.5
|genre= Historical Fiction
|summary= A.D 68. A deposed emperor lies in a prison cellCornwall, betrayed and newly blinded by those who were sworn to protect him1817. He is now crippled and deprived  What if your worst mistake changed the course of history? Napoleon has crushed the Duke of power, left completely on Wellington at the edge Battle of despair with a frightened young slave named Marcus as Waterloo, and his only companionex-wife Josephine presides over French-occupied England. Ten years later Cornwall erupts into open rebellion, and it is Emperor Vespasian who wears the purple. Things may have settled since the civil war but Vespasianyoung heiress Hester escapes with Crow, Wellington's son Titus is plagued former intelligence officer, a half-French aristocrat haunted by worry about plots to murder his fatherpart in the catastrophic defeat. Gruesome atrocities and mysterious disappearances are rife throughout Rome; it is Together, they become embroiled in a city full web of falsehoods treachery and intrigues with espionage as plans are laid to free Wellington from secret captivity in the fear of rebellion lurking beneath Scilly Isles and lead an uprising against the surfaceFrench occupation. FurthermoreIn a country rife with traitors, a man who used Hester and Crow know it is impossible to be emperor still lives – play such a blind man who everyone believes to be deadgame as this for long.. His name is Nero and he seeks revenge against those who wronged him. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>17857626721786695340</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Diney CosteloeJ Jefferson Farjeon|title= The Married GirlsSeven Dead|rating= 4.5
|genre= Historical Fiction
|summary=WynsdownTed Lyte was petty criminal, 1949. In but not usually the small Somerset village of Wynsdown, Charlotte Shepherd is happily married to farmer Billyhousebreaking type. She arrived from Germany on He lacked the Kindertransport as a child during the war and now feels settled in her adopted homecourage. MeanwhileHowever, the squire's fighter pilot sonneeds must, Felix, 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, 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 ' Ted does indeed find something interesting behind the shape of fellow refugee, bad boy Harry Black. Forever bound by their childhoods, Charlotte will always care for himshutters, but Harryit definitely isn's return disrupts the village quiet and itt what he'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= 3.5|genre= Crime (Historical) |summary= Bernie Gunther is not your typical herod hoped. In 1939, a locked room he was stationed in Berlin as finds seven dead bodies; six men and a police officer handling murder cases and occasionally doing work for some high-ranking Naziswoman. Although never a Nazi party member himself (he was a known member of Fleeing the Social Democratic Party)house in horror, he understood that the best thing he could do for himself at that time was to make himself indispensable to men like Reinhard Heydrich is pursued and Martin Bormann. So when he is assigned caught by a passing yachtsman, Thomas Hazeldean, who also happens to solve be a murder that has occurred at Hitlerjournalist. Fascinated by Ted's Berghof in the Bavarian mountains, he knows that he needs to do it quickly story (and discreetly – not just for justice's sakea possible scoop), but for his own. He is given exactly one week Hazeldean decides to apprehend the suspect, investigate this curious case and he hopes that with the help its assortment of his friend Friedrich Korschodd clues, an investigator with including a portrait shot through the Krimialpolizei (or Kripoheart, for short) he just might get lucky. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784296481</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Stephan Collishaw|title= The Song an old cricket ball and a mysterious note written by one of the Stork|rating= 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 eithervictims. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>17850791900712356886</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alan Kennedy|title=A Time to Tell LiesSalt Creek|rating=4|genre=Crime (Historical) |summaryauthor= 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 of Scots, has time to look back over her past life as she sits, incarcerated by her second cousin Queen Elizabeth I. Mary's life hasn't been one of totally pampered royalty. Growing up in France, away from her mother, widowed 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 and Mary the political force continue through three marriages, an unsolved murder and the thwarted desire to serve her people. Now it's come to this prison cell but while there's life, there's still hope…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905916787</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Grace Macallister|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 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=The Witchfinder's SisterTreloar
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=The first chapter of ''Salt Creek'' opens in Chichester, England 1645: Matthew Hopkins , in 1874. Hester Finch is good at his chosen career: seeking, testing a respected and convicting those with the Devil in themreasonably wealthy member of her community. His sister, Alice, doesnBut she can't realise the full connotations of his actions until, widowed and pregnantstop her thoughts wandering back to her adolescence, she returns home. Alice is grateful to be allowed to live under Matthew's roof but then watches his sinister finger of suspicion point spent on Salt Creek Station in unexpected places. This is a man changed from the boy that Alice used to knowremote South Australian Coorong region. She Hester feels ''has never felt so alive as then realised that he, when we had so little'd be capable of killing hundreds of people and making her the Witchfinder's Sister.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>02419780331910709417</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Emma HendersonJamie Ford|title= The Valentine HouseLove and Other Consolation Prizes|rating= 45|genre= Literary Historical Fiction|summary= In June 1914, Sir Anthony Valentine, a keen mountaineer, arrives with his family to spend At the summer World's Fair in their chalet1962, high in it seems that all eyes are focused on the French Alpsfuture. There, for The Space Needle dominates the first timelandscape, fourteen-year-old foundling Mathilde starts work as one of the 'uglies' - village girls employed as servants and pickedfilling people with anticipation about things to come. One visitor, it is believedhowever, to ensure they don't catch Sir Anthony's roving eyehas his mind firmly focused on the past. For Mathilde it Ernest Young is the start of a lifehelping his daughter Ju-long entanglement ju with les anglais - strange, exciting people, far removed from the hard grind of farming. Except a story she soon finds the Valentines are less carefree than they appear, with is writing for her newspaper; a curiously absent daughter no one talks story about. It will be decades - disrupted by war, accidents and a cruel betrayal - before Mathilde discovers the key to the mystery. And young immigrant boy who was given away as a prize in 1976, a raffle at the year Sir AnthonyWorld's great-great grandson comes to visit, she must decide whether to use itFair in 1909.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>14447040280749022752</amazonuk>
}}

Navigation menu