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Newest Historical Fiction Reviews (view source)

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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]]===
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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{{newreview<!-- Halliburton -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Halliburton_Optickal.jpg|left|authorlink=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0715651978?ie=UTF8&tag=Rachel Halliburtonthebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0715651978]]  |titlestyle="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Optickal Illusion: A very eighteenth-century scandalby Rachel Halliburton]]=== |rating=[[image:3.55star.jpg|genrelink=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] |summary=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 -->|amazonuk-| style=<amazonuk>0715651978<"width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Banks_W.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/amazonuk>0983333416?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0983333416]]}}{{newreview|authorstyle="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|=== [[W by John Banks]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|titlelink= WCategory:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|rating= 4Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|genre= General Fiction ]] |summary=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]] |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0983333416</amazonuk>}}}
{{newreview
|author=Elaine Everest
|summary=At the World's Fair in 1962, it seems that all eyes are focused on the future. The Space Needle dominates the landscape, filling people with anticipation about things to come. One visitor, however, has his mind firmly focused on the past. Ernest Young is helping his daughter Ju-ju with a story she is writing for her newspaper; a story about a young immigrant boy who was given away as a prize in a raffle at the World's Fair in 1909.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749022752</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Nicola Pryce
|title= The Captain's Girl
|rating= 4
|genre= Historical Fiction
|summary=Last year, Bookbag reviewed, and thoroughly enjoyed, [[Pengelly's Daughter by Nicola Pryce|Pengelly's Daughter]], a swashbuckling historical romance set in picturesque Cornwall. Now we have the pleasure of reading the much-anticipated sequel. This time, the story focuses on a neighbour of the Polcarrow family, Miss Celia Cavendish, who has been engaged to a cruel man that she does not love. One fateful night, she runs away to the Polcarrow house to beg them for help, and the pivotal events of that night have far-reaching consequences for all involved.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782398856</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Hawa L Crickmore
|title=Across the Ocean
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=A young cage fighter, Martin Grandson, was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder which required a bone-marrow transplant, preferably from a sibling. Only recently he'd been a fit young man, in the prime of life, but 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 receive the transplant within the next fourteen days. Unfortunately Martin's parents had died in a car crash and there were no siblings or other close relatives. His girlfriend, Celia, was not a match.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524666971</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>
}}
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