Difference between revisions of "Newest Historical Fiction Reviews"

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[[Category:Historical Fiction|*]]
 
[[Category:Historical Fiction|*]]
 
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)
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|title=Kokoschka's Doll
[[image:0593072286.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0593072286/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
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|rating=2.5
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|genre=Literary Fiction
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|summary=Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from the get-go, which is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it.  I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the 20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and so on.  It intrigued with the subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, too.  But you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, and can tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them.  So what happened?
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|isbn=1529402697
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Christina Hammonds Reed
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|title=The Black Kids
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Teens
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|summary=Christina Hammonds Reed's debut novel is set against the backdrop of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, a reaction to the absolution of four police officers for beating a black man, Rodney King, nearly to death. Told from the perspective of Ashley Bennett, the novel follows her evolution from a silent bystander when confronted with matters of race, to a woman finding her voice and embracing her heritage.
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|isbn=1471188191
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Caroline Scott
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|title=When I Come Home Again
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Historical Fiction
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|summary=1918 and a young man is arrested in Durham Cathedral. He refuses to give a name, no matter how hard they push he will not say who he is. Eventually they determine this isn't wilful obstinance, he doesn't answer because he doesn't know.  He remembers being on the road for a long time, and being frightened, and some of the faces from the road, but other than that – everything that came before has gone.  They need a name for the forms and so they call him Adam and, because he was found in the Galilee Chapel, it becomes Adam Galilee.  A fanciful name for a tired young man in a dishevelled uniform who doesn't know who he is, where he is or how he got there.
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|isbn=1471192172
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1405946172
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|title=The Glass House
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|author=Eve Chase
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Historical Fiction
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|summary=Rita lost both her parents in a car crash when she was just six years old: since then she's always craved a family.  She'd lived with her grandmother in Torquay until she got a job as a nanny with the Harrington family in London.  Soon her engagement to Fred, a Torquay butcher, fell through and the Harringtons became her family.  In 1971, after a fire at the London house, Jeannie Harrington, her children, 13-year-old Hera and 6-year-old Teddy, along with Rita went to the family's house in the Forest of Dean.  It wasn't ''quite'' dilapidated, but it certainly wasn't the same standard as the London house had been before the fire.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Sally Magnusson
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|title=The Sealwoman's Gift
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Historical Fiction
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|summary= There is a legend that God came to visit Adam & Eve in the Garden.  Eve had not finished bathing her children and ashamed of those still not cleansed, she attempted to hide them from the eyes of God, denying that she had more children than those, already bathed, that she willing paraded for him.  God was not to be deceived, however, and decreed that what was sought to be hidden from the eyes of God would henceforth be hidden from the eyes of man, and so the Elves were born: the hidden folk.  They can see man, but man can only see them if they so choose.
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|isbn=1473638984
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Wendy Cheyne 
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|title=From the Auld Rock to a Hard Place
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|rating=4
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|genre=Historical Fiction
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|summary= After the Jacobite defeat at the Battle of Culloden, many Scottish estates were given to English lords. They were not kind to their crofting tenants. Many on the mainland were cleared and while this did not happen much on the islands such as Shetland, the new exploitative conditions led many Shetlanders to leave - to port cities on the mainland, to North America and even to Australia and New Zealand.
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|isbn= 1838591753
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author= Alison Weir
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|title= Six Tudor Queens: Katheryn Howard The Tainted Queen
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|rating= 4
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|genre= Historical Fiction
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|summary= ''Katheryn was seven when her mother died'', thus we are thrust into this tumultuous time in young Katheryn's life, trying to find a home, both figuratively and literally, where she can grow and grieve. Unfortunately, Katheryn is followed by bad luck and she learns an important lesson, she is too young, too poor and too unimportant to be of any value to anyone, but she is beautiful and surely, that will count for something in the end, won't it?
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|isbn=1472227778
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529123763
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|title=Miss Austen
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|author=Gill Hornby
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|rating=5
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|genre=Historical Fiction
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|summary=It's long been known that Cassandra Austen burned most of the letters which she and other members of the extensive Austen family had exchanged with or about her sister Jane.  What is not known is ''why'' she did this and at this stage - more than two hundred years after Jane's death - a definitive answer is unlikely to forthcoming.  Gill Hornby has provided us with some possible answers in a book that proved to be far more emotionally complex than I was expecting.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1471186393
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|title=Photographer of the Lost
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|author=Caroline Scott
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Historical Fiction
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|summary=May 1921.  Edie receives a photograph through the post. There is no letter or note with it.  There is nothing written on the back of the photograph.  It is a picture of her husband, Francis.  Francis has been missing for four years.  Technically, he has been "missing, believed killed" but that is not something that a young widow can believe.  She hangs on the word 'missing', disbelieving the word killed.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=099944235X
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|title=The Man Who Killed Hitler
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|author=Andre Pronovost
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|rating=3
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|genre=Historical Fiction
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|summary=Germany is split.  Some of her is in favour of Hitler and the Nazis, but much isn't.  Some of her is stuck to the east fighting the Soviets, but some will soon have to be on the other front, against the Americans coming into the continent to put things right as they see it.  Finding out that the war to the east isn't working, due to Hitler's tactical ineptitude and inability to heed advice, some people reckon Stalin is five seasons away from being in Berlin.  The only way to shore things up, and repair the splits, is to kill Hitler, and luckily Baron Nicholas is the man to do it.  He's aristocratic enough, he knows enough people in industry, society and other circles of power, so once he's succeeded he might be able to keep a German presence in Europe.  But will he still be able to keep the "predatory American capitalists" and the blatantly communist Soviets from meeting in the middle?
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1789018625
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|title=Just Another Girl on the Road
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|author=S Kensington
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|rating=4
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|genre=Historical Fiction
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|summary=When Sergeant Farr and Corporal Valentine first encountered Katrinka Badeau she was just eighteen years old and fleeing from a farmhouse and a group of German deserters who had raped her.  Despite being outnumbered she was giving just about as good as she got when Farr and Valentine intervened and finished the group off.  It was 1944 and Farr and Valentine were part of the Jedburgh unit, EDMOND, lead by Major Willoughby Nye.  Nye recognised Katrinka immediately - he'd worked on her father's merchant ship and Katrinka had once had a crush on Nye. When he offered her a job with his unit, she accepted
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1542007232
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|title=The Rabbit Girls
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|author=Anna Ellory
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|rating=3
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|genre=Historical Fiction
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|summary=Berlin, 1989.  Miriam is in the middle of a city freshly united, with the Wall newly broken down and people able to cross at liberty for the first time in decades.  She is in the middle of such euphoria, but cannot feel it, for she has not left her father's apartment in weeks, nursing him as he lies dying.  One standard bed-bath, however, is very different, when he gasps the name ''Frieda'' that she does not recognise – and she sees for the first time ever a tattoo for his camp inmate identity under his watch.  One bombshell outside, then, and two inside.  And inside her father, Henryk, what is going on, as he has a first-person narrative alternating with her story?  What will we find happened, as he remembers back to the real Frieda, a young woman that shook him to the core when he was her literature professor?  That's right, more bombshells…
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529311446
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|title=The Long Flight Home
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|author=A L Hlad
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Historical Fiction
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|summary=September 1940 - as WWII rages on, bombs rain down on Britain, destroying the homes and lives of a people on the edge. In Epping Forest, Susan Shepherd and her grandfather Bertie live together raising homing pigeons with the birds proving a comfort for Susan following the loss of her parents. These pigeons are more than just birds to Susan though – in each one, and especially in Duchess, she sees a distinct personality and forms a close bond. Meanwhile, young pilot Ollie Evans leaves Maine to head to Britain and join the Royal Air Force. Working with the National Pigeon Service, he soon meets Susan and is tasked with air-dropping hundreds of homing pigeons into German-occupied France, where many will not survive. As the mission is planned, the bond between Ollie and Susan grows stronger, but when Ollie's plane is downed behind enemy lines, it may be Duchess who provides an unexpected lifeline and ensures that hope of a reunion for Susan and Ollie remains…
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=178747920X
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|title=Brightfall
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|author=Jaime Lee Moyer
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Historical Fiction
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|summary=Robin Hood is gone – denouncing both his former life and his love Marian, and retreating to a monastery – although no-one knows quite what led him to abandon all that he had built. Marion's life since has been relatively quiet - but when her friends start dying, Marion is tasked by Father Tuck to break the curse surrounding them and to save their lives. Setting off with a soldier, a Fey Lord and a sullen Robin Hood, she becomes tangled in a maze of betrayals, complicated relationships, and a vicious struggle for the throne…
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1784631647
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|title=A Perfect Explanation
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|author=Eleanor Anstruther
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|rating=5
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|genre=Historical Fiction
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|summary=Enid Campbell was a woman who, on the face of it, had everything. Leading the life of an aristocrat – full of inherited wealth and splendour, glamourous locales and high expectations. Only Enid's life has been plagued by mental illness – undiagnosed, untreated and threatening both Enid and those close to her. After losing custody of her children, Enid sells her son to her sister for £500 – but is this an act of greed, or an act of desperation? Exploring the true story of her own grandmother, Eleanor Anstruther has found the perfect subject for an explosive, moving and beautifully well-written debut. [[A Perfect Explanation by Eleanor Anstruther|Full Review]]
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0857058738
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|title=Equator
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|author=Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)
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|rating=3.5
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|genre=Historical Fiction
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|summary=It strikes me that nobody can speak well of the Wild West outside the walls of a theme park.  Our agent to see how bad it was here is Pete Ferguson, who bristles at the indignity of the white man against Native 'Indian', who spends days being physically sick while indulging in a buffalo hunt, and who hates the way man – and woman, of course – can turn against fellow man at the bat of an eyelid.  But this book is about so much more than the 1870s USA, and the attendant problems with gold rushes, pioneer spirits and racial genocide.  He finds himself trying to find this book's version of Utopia, namely the Equator, where everything is upside down, people walk on their heads with rocks in their pockets to keep them on the ground to counter the anti-gravity, and where, who knows, things might actually be better.  But that equator is a long way away – and there's a whole adventure full of Mexico and Latin America between him and it…
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1472227727
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|title=Six Tudor Queens: Anna of Kleve, Queen of Secrets
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|author=Alison Weir
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Historical Fiction
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|summary=Poor, frumpy Anne of Cleaves always gets a raw deal by history, of all the wives of Henry VIII she is the one who is known for being rejected. Anne Boleyn and Katheryn Howard were the sexy ones, Jane the dutiful one who delivered a son, Katherine of Aragon clung on to her crown and Katharine Parr clung on to her life but poor frumpy Anne of Cleaves just rolled over and moved along. Not any more! Alison Weir presents us with a different view of this young woman who saw the opportunity to live an independent life and took it.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0718187091
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|title=Liberation Square
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|author=Gareth Rubin
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|rating=5
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|genre=Historical Fiction
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|summary=In an alternate 1952, Soviet Troops control British Streets. After D-Day goes horribly wrong, Britain is first occupied by Nazi Germany – only to be rescued by Russian soldiers from the East, and Americans from the west. Dividing the nation between them, London soon finds itself split in two, a wall running through it like a scar. When Jane Cawson's husband is arrested for the murder of his former wife, Jane is determined to clear his name. In doing so, Jane follows a trail of corruption that leads her right to the highest levels of the state – and soon finds herself desperate to stay one step ahead of the murderous secret police…
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=191236266X
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|title=The Boy in a Turban
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|author=Joseph Hucknall
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|rating=4
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|genre=Historical Fiction
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|summary=You might not think that Georgian London contained many black people. But it contained more than you think. You may have heard of Francis Barber, the black African slave who became the friend of lexicographer Samuel Johnson and was a beneficiary of his will. ''The Boy in a Turban'' tells the story of a fictional black character, James, in Georgian London. James, then Quaccoe, is brought to the capital from a Jamaican plantation by a ship captain who wanted a servant for his two daughters.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=034901082X
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|title=In The Full Light of the Sun
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|author=Clare Clark
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|rating=5
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|genre=Historical Fiction
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|summary=In 1930's Berlin, three people obsessed with art find themselves swept up into a scandal. Emmeline, a wayward young student, Julius, an anxious middle-aged art expert, and Rachmann, a mysterious art dealer, live in the politically turbulent Weimar Berlin, and soon find themselves whipped up into excitement over the surprise discovery of thirty-two previously unknown paintings by Vincent Van Gogh. Based on a true story and unfolding through the subsequent rise of Hitler and the Nazis, the discovery of the art allows these characters to explore authenticity, vanity and self-delusion.
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}}
  
 
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Move on to [[Newest History Reviews]]
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===[[A Treachery of Spies by Manda Scott]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
 
 
 
When Inspector Inès Picaut is called to investigate the horrific murder of a strikingly beautiful elderly lady, she's puzzled – whilst the identity of the woman has been erased, it's clear that she has been killed in the same way that traitors to the resistance were executed in World War Two. Solving the mystery will lead Inès deep into the history of this woman – and back to a time when the men and women of 1940s France were engaged in a desperate, brutal fight for survival against their Nazi oppressors. As more and more secrets come to light, Inès discovers that there are many in the present who would rather their past stay buried – and many who would kill to keep secrets safe… [[A Treachery of Spies by Manda Scott|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[Murmuration by Robert Lock]]===
 
 
 
[[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
 
 
 
''Murmuration'' follows the lives of a host of characters from 1863 to the present day. From a risqué comic to a fortune teller, we see the birth of Blackpool and its steadily fading glamour. There is a hint of mysticism to the tale, with the mesmerising dance of starlings over the pier acting as an anchor throughout the distinct narratives here, drawing together disparate stories of lives captivated by the sea. [[Murmuration by Robert Lock|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[The Mercy Seat by Elizabeth H Winthrop]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
 
 
 
In an isolated Louisiana town, a young black prisoner sits in his dingy cell, staring at the shadow of the window bars cast onto the concrete wall by the evening's dying sun rays. At midnight, he will be dead; strapped to a chair and electrocuted for the rape of a white girl, who later committed suicide. He is resigned to his fate; it is futile to protest his innocence or to expect anyone to believe what really happened; after all, love between a black man and a white woman was never going to have a happy ending in a small town filled with small-minded people. [[The Mercy Seat by Elizabeth H Winthrop|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[A Gathering of Ghosts by Karen Maitland]]===
 
 
 
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Paranormal|Paranormal]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
 
 
 
Witchcraft, the supernatural and the will to survive at all costs collide in a story that never shies away from the darker side of human nature. The land is unhappy, the old spirits want revenge and famine is kindling a resurgence of the old faith.  As fear rises, it is increasingly difficult for Prioress Johanne to ignore that something rotten has taken root. The sacred well is tainted, its healing waters run red with blood and strangers are blowing in on a wind of change. [[A Gathering of Ghosts by Karen Maitland|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[Mr Peacock's Possessions by Lydia Syson]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category: Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
 
 
 
On a remote volcanic island off the coast of New Zealand, a family of settlers struggle to make such an unforgiving place a home. When a ship appears, they feel that their wishes have been granted and their community reinvigorated – but high hopes are swiftly dashed when a vulnerable boy disappears. As both settlers and newcomers come together in the search for the child, they uncover far, far more than they were looking for – discovering dark secrets about both the island and those who inhabit it. [[Mr Peacock's Possessions by Lydia Syson|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[The Story Keeper by Anna Mazzola]]===
 
 
 
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
 
 
 
Audrey, a complex mix of flights of fancy and seriousness, wanting, needing, to be more than what everyone expects of her, escapes from the straightjacket of her home. Where every action, every thought, every yearning is controlled by her father, who only once in his life threw caution to the wind and married way beneath him for love. Now a widower and remarried, he has rigorously returned to upholding what is right, what is proper, the bastion of doing what is expected. [[The Story Keeper by Anna Mazzola|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[The Butcher's Daughter by Victoria Glendinning]]===
 
 
 
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
 
 
 
The Tudor era is often chosen for historical fiction because it has such a wealth of intrigue, plots and machinations. The regular cast of courtly characters are usually rich and powerful, with so many to choose from that the well never seems to run dry and the characters are often those high up in the circles of power, or those prepared to do anything to get there. This book, however, is totally different. Set in the mid–to–late 1500s we see the world through the eyes of Agnes Peppin, a young, poor woman. As a woman she can either marry, or join a convent. Since Agnes has disgraced herself then she has no choice at all, and she is sent to join the nuns of Shaftesbury Abbey. [[The Butcher's Daughter by Victoria Glendinning|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[Silence in the Desert by David Longridge]]===
 
 
 
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]]
 
 
 
As the shadow of the Second World War descends upon the planet, four people are explored in a tale of love and friendship. Henri, fulfilling a family tradition in joining the Foreign Legion, Bill, arriving at Cambridge on an RAF scholarship, Leo, struggling to align his beliefs with those of his upbringing, and Elisabeth, crossing continents and changing names are all brought together by strife and turmoil. As the war rages, these men are tested like never before, with trust, loyalty and love leading to decisions that affect both their lives and those all around them. [[Silence in the Desert by David Longridge|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[Six Tudor Queens: Jane Seymour, The Haunted Queen by Alison Weir]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
 
 
 
When it comes to Jane Seymour, the third wife of Henry VIII, popular opinion is divided. Some see her as a scheming marriage-wrecker from an ambitious family who would stop at nothing to gain favour in the king's eyes. Others view her as a pious and God-fearing woman who brought calm and stability into Henry's life following his turbulent marriage to Anne Boleyn. Perhaps both sides are true, to an extent. In ''The Haunted Queen,'' the third book in the ''Six Tudor Queens'' series, author and historian Alison Weir puts flesh on the bones of a Queen haunted by the shadow of a formidable predecessor. [[Six Tudor Queens: Jane Seymour, The Haunted Queen by Alison Weir|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[In Gold's Name by Marcus Dalrymple]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
 
 
 
It was about 1509 when a series of mystical events foreshadowed the end of the Aztec Empire and the inhabitants were to some extent conditioned to accept the pale faces who arrived many years later with their deer-without-antlers.  Some thought the Spaniards were gods.  Antonio Vega was no god, but he was essentially a decent man, particularly by the standards of the time.  He was the finest marksman with his harquebus on the force, but at the age of twenty three he believed that the expedition in October 1520 was to establish trade links and to convert the local inhabitants to Christianity from the local religions which required human sacrifices.  He'd joined the army from a seminary and whilst you wouldn't call him naive, he'd failed to appreciate that 'establishing trade links' meant finding and removing the Aztec gold and that any conversion would not be by winning hearts and minds but by threats and torture. [[In Gold's Name by Marcus Dalrymple|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[The Industry of Human Happiness by James Hall]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]]
 
 
 
''The Industry of Human Happiness'' first and foremost is a novel about music. It is about human beings being able to find music and magic in the simplest of places. Max and his younger cousin have realised their dream of opening a gramophone company. However, their ambition and hubris soon puts them on a course towards London's underworld. They will ascend broken and their lives changed forever. [[The Industry of Human Happiness by James Hall|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[The Spirit Photographer by Jon Michael Varese]]===
 
 
 
[[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
 
 
 
Jon Michael Varese's debut novel was inspired by the life story of the real-life father of spirit photography, William H. Mumler. His fictional stand-in here is Edward Moody, who was a battlefield photographer under Matthew Brady and now owns his own photography studio in Boston. Moody is dismissive of spiritualism, yet considers himself to be doing a service to the bereaved by fabricating family photographs in which the ghost of a departed loved one appears. This involves getting hold of an image of the loved one and superimposing it on the negative being developed, so that it seems to appear hazily in the background. Looking back from today's high-tech perspective, it's hard to see how anyone could have been fooled, but suffering people in desperate situations often want to believe; the same goes for séances. [[The Spirit Photographer by Jon Michael Varese|Full Review]]
 
 
 
 
 
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===[[Precept: A Novel by Matthew de Lacey Davidson]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
 
 
 
Nathan Whyte is tremendously excited about the arrival of Frederick Douglass in Ireland. And even more excited that his Quaker father, who is publishing the British edition of ''Narrative'', Douglass's memoir of his life as a slave, will be accompanying the famous black American abolitionist on his speaking tour. Nathan is deeply impressed by Douglass, who is a charismatic figure and a gifted orator. But Ireland will have as big an impact on Frederick Douglass as Frederick Douglass will have on it. We watch him through Nathan's eyes as he sees for himself the beginnings of the horrors of the potato famine and meets and befriends the famous Irish nationalist, Daniel O'Connell. [[Precept: A Novel by Matthew de Lacey Davidson|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[The Indomitable Chiesa di Santa Maria by Daniel Peltz]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
 
 
 
When we first visit the Chiesa di Santa Maria we're in the company of Molly Cavendish who is a part-time guide at the Museo di Santa Maria, which is what the ruins of the Chiesa - a chapel - have now become.  Crowds flock to see its centrepiece, a renaissance fresco with a history which grabs the attention of young and old.  Molly uses the history to entertain the tourists, but there's more too it than she knows, particularly as the history of the building is also the history of the Vannini family, who helped in building the chapel some six hundred years ago and one of whose descendants is the director of the museum. [[The Indomitable Chiesa di Santa Maria by Daniel Peltz|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[Lady Mary by Lucy Worsley]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
 
 
 
''Lady Mary'' chronicles the famous story of Henry VIII's love affair with Anne Boleyn, his divorce from Katherine of Aragon, Anne's execution for adultery, and Henry's subsequent marriage to Jane Seymour, which finally produces the much longed for birth of a male heir. This time, the story is told through the eyes of an important but often neglected player - Henry's young daughter, Mary. Mary's hopes of her family staying together are crushed by the divorce and she is treated terribly by a father under the influence of the Boleyn faction. Lady Mary follows her through these awful years and you can't help but root for the little girl stuck in the middle of these tumultuous events. [[Lady Mary by Lucy Worsley|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[My Lady's Choosing by Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Humour|Humour]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
 
 
 
You are a lass of twenty eight. Plucky, penniless and in Regency era London the race is on to find a suitable suitor - or else doom yourself to life as an eternal spinster. Along your journey you'll be accompanied by Lady Evangeline Youngblood - a fiesty noble eager to save you from a life alone, and fired by a rogueish sense for adventure. When it comes to suitors though, you'll have to make the ultimate decision between witty, pretty and wealthy Sir Benedict Granville, wholesome, rugged and caring Captain Angus MacTaggart, or the mad, bad and terrifyingly sexy Lord Garraway Craven. With orphans, werewolves, long lost lovers and ancient Egyptian artifcats along the way, it's clear this isn't going to be an easy decision... [[My Lady's Choosing by Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris|Full Review]]
 
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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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Revision as of 12:18, 23 November 2020

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Review of

Kokoschka's Doll by Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)

2.5star.jpg Literary Fiction

Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from the get-go, which is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the 20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and so on. It intrigued with the subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, too. But you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, and can tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. So what happened? Full Review

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Review of

The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed

4.5star.jpg Teens

Christina Hammonds Reed's debut novel is set against the backdrop of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, a reaction to the absolution of four police officers for beating a black man, Rodney King, nearly to death. Told from the perspective of Ashley Bennett, the novel follows her evolution from a silent bystander when confronted with matters of race, to a woman finding her voice and embracing her heritage. Full Review

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Review of

When I Come Home Again by Caroline Scott

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

1918 and a young man is arrested in Durham Cathedral. He refuses to give a name, no matter how hard they push he will not say who he is. Eventually they determine this isn't wilful obstinance, he doesn't answer because he doesn't know. He remembers being on the road for a long time, and being frightened, and some of the faces from the road, but other than that – everything that came before has gone. They need a name for the forms and so they call him Adam and, because he was found in the Galilee Chapel, it becomes Adam Galilee. A fanciful name for a tired young man in a dishevelled uniform who doesn't know who he is, where he is or how he got there. Full Review

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Review of

The Glass House by Eve Chase

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

Rita lost both her parents in a car crash when she was just six years old: since then she's always craved a family. She'd lived with her grandmother in Torquay until she got a job as a nanny with the Harrington family in London. Soon her engagement to Fred, a Torquay butcher, fell through and the Harringtons became her family. In 1971, after a fire at the London house, Jeannie Harrington, her children, 13-year-old Hera and 6-year-old Teddy, along with Rita went to the family's house in the Forest of Dean. It wasn't quite dilapidated, but it certainly wasn't the same standard as the London house had been before the fire. Full Review

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Review of

The Sealwoman's Gift by Sally Magnusson

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

There is a legend that God came to visit Adam & Eve in the Garden. Eve had not finished bathing her children and ashamed of those still not cleansed, she attempted to hide them from the eyes of God, denying that she had more children than those, already bathed, that she willing paraded for him. God was not to be deceived, however, and decreed that what was sought to be hidden from the eyes of God would henceforth be hidden from the eyes of man, and so the Elves were born: the hidden folk. They can see man, but man can only see them if they so choose. Full Review

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Review of

From the Auld Rock to a Hard Place by Wendy Cheyne

4star.jpg Historical Fiction

After the Jacobite defeat at the Battle of Culloden, many Scottish estates were given to English lords. They were not kind to their crofting tenants. Many on the mainland were cleared and while this did not happen much on the islands such as Shetland, the new exploitative conditions led many Shetlanders to leave - to port cities on the mainland, to North America and even to Australia and New Zealand. Full Review

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Review of

Six Tudor Queens: Katheryn Howard The Tainted Queen by Alison Weir

4star.jpg Historical Fiction

Katheryn was seven when her mother died, thus we are thrust into this tumultuous time in young Katheryn's life, trying to find a home, both figuratively and literally, where she can grow and grieve. Unfortunately, Katheryn is followed by bad luck and she learns an important lesson, she is too young, too poor and too unimportant to be of any value to anyone, but she is beautiful and surely, that will count for something in the end, won't it? Full Review

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Review of

Miss Austen by Gill Hornby

5star.jpg Historical Fiction

It's long been known that Cassandra Austen burned most of the letters which she and other members of the extensive Austen family had exchanged with or about her sister Jane. What is not known is why she did this and at this stage - more than two hundred years after Jane's death - a definitive answer is unlikely to forthcoming. Gill Hornby has provided us with some possible answers in a book that proved to be far more emotionally complex than I was expecting. Full Review

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Review of

Photographer of the Lost by Caroline Scott

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

May 1921. Edie receives a photograph through the post. There is no letter or note with it. There is nothing written on the back of the photograph. It is a picture of her husband, Francis. Francis has been missing for four years. Technically, he has been "missing, believed killed" but that is not something that a young widow can believe. She hangs on the word 'missing', disbelieving the word killed. Full Review

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Review of

The Man Who Killed Hitler by Andre Pronovost

3star.jpg Historical Fiction

Germany is split. Some of her is in favour of Hitler and the Nazis, but much isn't. Some of her is stuck to the east fighting the Soviets, but some will soon have to be on the other front, against the Americans coming into the continent to put things right as they see it. Finding out that the war to the east isn't working, due to Hitler's tactical ineptitude and inability to heed advice, some people reckon Stalin is five seasons away from being in Berlin. The only way to shore things up, and repair the splits, is to kill Hitler, and luckily Baron Nicholas is the man to do it. He's aristocratic enough, he knows enough people in industry, society and other circles of power, so once he's succeeded he might be able to keep a German presence in Europe. But will he still be able to keep the "predatory American capitalists" and the blatantly communist Soviets from meeting in the middle? Full Review

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Review of

Just Another Girl on the Road by S Kensington

4star.jpg Historical Fiction

When Sergeant Farr and Corporal Valentine first encountered Katrinka Badeau she was just eighteen years old and fleeing from a farmhouse and a group of German deserters who had raped her. Despite being outnumbered she was giving just about as good as she got when Farr and Valentine intervened and finished the group off. It was 1944 and Farr and Valentine were part of the Jedburgh unit, EDMOND, lead by Major Willoughby Nye. Nye recognised Katrinka immediately - he'd worked on her father's merchant ship and Katrinka had once had a crush on Nye. When he offered her a job with his unit, she accepted Full Review

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Review of

The Rabbit Girls by Anna Ellory

3star.jpg Historical Fiction

Berlin, 1989. Miriam is in the middle of a city freshly united, with the Wall newly broken down and people able to cross at liberty for the first time in decades. She is in the middle of such euphoria, but cannot feel it, for she has not left her father's apartment in weeks, nursing him as he lies dying. One standard bed-bath, however, is very different, when he gasps the name Frieda that she does not recognise – and she sees for the first time ever a tattoo for his camp inmate identity under his watch. One bombshell outside, then, and two inside. And inside her father, Henryk, what is going on, as he has a first-person narrative alternating with her story? What will we find happened, as he remembers back to the real Frieda, a young woman that shook him to the core when he was her literature professor? That's right, more bombshells… Full Review

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Review of

The Long Flight Home by A L Hlad

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

September 1940 - as WWII rages on, bombs rain down on Britain, destroying the homes and lives of a people on the edge. In Epping Forest, Susan Shepherd and her grandfather Bertie live together raising homing pigeons with the birds proving a comfort for Susan following the loss of her parents. These pigeons are more than just birds to Susan though – in each one, and especially in Duchess, she sees a distinct personality and forms a close bond. Meanwhile, young pilot Ollie Evans leaves Maine to head to Britain and join the Royal Air Force. Working with the National Pigeon Service, he soon meets Susan and is tasked with air-dropping hundreds of homing pigeons into German-occupied France, where many will not survive. As the mission is planned, the bond between Ollie and Susan grows stronger, but when Ollie's plane is downed behind enemy lines, it may be Duchess who provides an unexpected lifeline and ensures that hope of a reunion for Susan and Ollie remains… Full Review

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Review of

Brightfall by Jaime Lee Moyer

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

Robin Hood is gone – denouncing both his former life and his love Marian, and retreating to a monastery – although no-one knows quite what led him to abandon all that he had built. Marion's life since has been relatively quiet - but when her friends start dying, Marion is tasked by Father Tuck to break the curse surrounding them and to save their lives. Setting off with a soldier, a Fey Lord and a sullen Robin Hood, she becomes tangled in a maze of betrayals, complicated relationships, and a vicious struggle for the throne… Full Review

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Review of

A Perfect Explanation by Eleanor Anstruther

5star.jpg Historical Fiction

Enid Campbell was a woman who, on the face of it, had everything. Leading the life of an aristocrat – full of inherited wealth and splendour, glamourous locales and high expectations. Only Enid's life has been plagued by mental illness – undiagnosed, untreated and threatening both Enid and those close to her. After losing custody of her children, Enid sells her son to her sister for £500 – but is this an act of greed, or an act of desperation? Exploring the true story of her own grandmother, Eleanor Anstruther has found the perfect subject for an explosive, moving and beautifully well-written debut. Full Review Full Review

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Review of

Equator by Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)

3.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

It strikes me that nobody can speak well of the Wild West outside the walls of a theme park. Our agent to see how bad it was here is Pete Ferguson, who bristles at the indignity of the white man against Native 'Indian', who spends days being physically sick while indulging in a buffalo hunt, and who hates the way man – and woman, of course – can turn against fellow man at the bat of an eyelid. But this book is about so much more than the 1870s USA, and the attendant problems with gold rushes, pioneer spirits and racial genocide. He finds himself trying to find this book's version of Utopia, namely the Equator, where everything is upside down, people walk on their heads with rocks in their pockets to keep them on the ground to counter the anti-gravity, and where, who knows, things might actually be better. But that equator is a long way away – and there's a whole adventure full of Mexico and Latin America between him and it… Full Review

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Review of

Six Tudor Queens: Anna of Kleve, Queen of Secrets by Alison Weir

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

Poor, frumpy Anne of Cleaves always gets a raw deal by history, of all the wives of Henry VIII she is the one who is known for being rejected. Anne Boleyn and Katheryn Howard were the sexy ones, Jane the dutiful one who delivered a son, Katherine of Aragon clung on to her crown and Katharine Parr clung on to her life but poor frumpy Anne of Cleaves just rolled over and moved along. Not any more! Alison Weir presents us with a different view of this young woman who saw the opportunity to live an independent life and took it. Full Review

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Review of

Liberation Square by Gareth Rubin

5star.jpg Historical Fiction

In an alternate 1952, Soviet Troops control British Streets. After D-Day goes horribly wrong, Britain is first occupied by Nazi Germany – only to be rescued by Russian soldiers from the East, and Americans from the west. Dividing the nation between them, London soon finds itself split in two, a wall running through it like a scar. When Jane Cawson's husband is arrested for the murder of his former wife, Jane is determined to clear his name. In doing so, Jane follows a trail of corruption that leads her right to the highest levels of the state – and soon finds herself desperate to stay one step ahead of the murderous secret police… Full Review

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Review of

The Boy in a Turban by Joseph Hucknall

4star.jpg Historical Fiction

You might not think that Georgian London contained many black people. But it contained more than you think. You may have heard of Francis Barber, the black African slave who became the friend of lexicographer Samuel Johnson and was a beneficiary of his will. The Boy in a Turban tells the story of a fictional black character, James, in Georgian London. James, then Quaccoe, is brought to the capital from a Jamaican plantation by a ship captain who wanted a servant for his two daughters. Full Review

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Review of

In The Full Light of the Sun by Clare Clark

5star.jpg Historical Fiction

In 1930's Berlin, three people obsessed with art find themselves swept up into a scandal. Emmeline, a wayward young student, Julius, an anxious middle-aged art expert, and Rachmann, a mysterious art dealer, live in the politically turbulent Weimar Berlin, and soon find themselves whipped up into excitement over the surprise discovery of thirty-two previously unknown paintings by Vincent Van Gogh. Based on a true story and unfolding through the subsequent rise of Hitler and the Nazis, the discovery of the art allows these characters to explore authenticity, vanity and self-delusion. Full Review

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