Difference between revisions of "Newest Historical Fiction Reviews"

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[[Category:Historical Fiction|*]]
 
[[Category:Historical Fiction|*]]
 
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{{newreview
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  <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
|author= Angus Watson
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{{Frontpage
|title= You Die When You Die
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|author=Tananarive Due
|rating= 4
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|title=The Reformatory
|genre= Historical Fiction
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|rating=5
|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.
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|genre=Historical Fiction
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0356507564</amazonuk>
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|summary= Gracetown, Florida. June 1950. After a scuffle with a white boy, twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, otherwise known as the Reformatory. It's a place with a brutal and dark reputation. But the segregated reformatory is a chamber of horrors, haunted by the boys that have died there. In order to survive the school governor and his Funhouse, Robert must enlist the help of the school's ghosts – only they have their own motivations...
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|isbn=1803366532
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Katherine Howe
 +
|title=A True Account
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|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=General Fiction
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|summary=Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age.  When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates.  She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.
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|isbn=0861547438
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Alison Weir
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|author=Sarah Marsh
|title=Six Tudor Queens: Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession: Six Tudor Queens 2
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|title=A Sign of Her Own
|rating=4
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|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
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|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Thomas Boleyn sends his daughters abroad to be trained at the courts of European royaltyNot only does this give them an education in the ways of the elite, it could also ensure a good marriageUnfortunately 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 arrangementYet the reality turns out to be different, driving a wedge through her family on a road leading to dark tragedy.
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|summary=After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing.  Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changesLiving in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signingFrom here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible SpeechAt the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147222762X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1035401614
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Martha Conway
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|author=Claire North
|title= The Floating Theatre
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|title=House of Odysseus
|rating= 5
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|rating=5
|genre= Historical Fiction
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|genre= Literary 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.
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|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
  
And to save the lives of others, she must risk her own...  
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The follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785762907</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0356516075
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Jenny Ashcroft
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|isbn=B0C7J9D21B
|title= Beneath a Burning Sky
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|title=A Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)
|rating= 4
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|author=A J Lewis
|genre= Historical Fiction
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|rating=4.5
|summary=Young bride Olivia Sheldon finds returning to her childhood home in Egypt a bitter-sweet experience. On the one hand, she has been reunited with her estranged sister Clara, and the pair have formed a deep and loving bond. On the other, she has an unhappy marriage to her domineering husband Alistair, who only married her to spite Clara, who had refused him previously. Life with the sadistic Alistair is unbearable, with Olivia subjected to horrific abuse at his hands, daily. As a lady with no means of supporting herself, Olivia seems trapped without any means of escape, only finding solace in the company of her sister and friends. But when her dear sister goes mysteriously missing in the bustling streets of Alexandria, it is up to Olivia to try and solve the mystery of her disappearance before it is too late.
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|genre=Historical Fiction
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751565032</amazonuk>
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|summary=When we first meet our hero, his name is Ettore and he lives at The House of Beautiful Swallows. Idyllic as this might sound, it's a bordello and Ettore's mother died when he was born. He's not been short of mothers, though - but for someone of his background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, it's difficult to obtain decent employment. The stint working with the preparation of anchovies didn't work out and bastards are considered bad luck on fishing boats. Ettore was nothing if not resourceful - and determined - and it was not long before he had a successful business as a guide for visitors.  He was even saving some money.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Conn Iggulden
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|author=Essie Fox
|title=Dunstan: One Man Will Change the Fate of England
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|title=The Fascination
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Historical Fiction
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|summary= The Victorian era is incredibly over-romanticised as a setting for historical fiction (matched only, perhaps, by the Second World War) which has often led to more than a few writers mishandling it. There's such a glut of media set in the era that the hallmarks we've come to associate with it are familiar to the point of being cliched, hackneyed even. All this is simply to illustrate that it would be an easy thing to do poorly. But despite that, something about it still grabs me – and something about this book's description did as well.
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|isbn=1914585526
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Nicole Jarvis
 +
|title=A Portrait in Shadow
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=The young Dunstan shows no sign of the sainthood he'll later attain.  Son of a Wessex thane and sent to a monastery for education, this isn't a lad who responds to discipline. However an enquiring, intelligent mind begins to emerge and then comes the big break. Lady Elflaed calls to put a proposal to him after hearing about what she considers to be a miracle 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 courts, as the book's title suggests. Whether we believe in the miracles or not, Dunstan certainly had quite a life!
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|summary=''I want all of Florence to know my name''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718181441</amazonuk>
+
 
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Cast out from Rome, Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking an oasis in which her art can find a home and where her future can thrive rather than stagnate. But as some as she enters Florentine society she faces great opposition from the powerful Accademia, the self-proclaimed guardians of the healing magics that through paintings have the power to protect the city and its citizens from plagues and curses. The all-male Accademia has hoarded power over art and architecture for centuries and guard it above all else. To them, Artemisia – an ambitious young woman who promises trouble and change – has no place amongst them and their society.
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|isbn=1803362340
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Simon Edge
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|author=Thomas D Lee
|title= The Hopkins Conundrum
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|title=Perilous Times
|rating= 5
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|rating=3
|genre= General Fiction
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|genre= Fantasy
|summary= Tim Cleverley inherits a failing pub in Wales, which he plans to rescue by enlisting an American pulp novelist to concoct an entirely fabricated mystery about Gerard Manley Hopkins, who composed ''The Wreck of the Deutschland'' nearby.
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|summary= ''Hate is the path of least resistance''
  
In Victorian England, Gerard Manley Hopkins lives a life full of confusion and contradiction, but discovers a calling for poetry that threatens to overrule his calling to God. And, speaking of God, Five nuns leave persecution to travel to a new world – only to find themselves in more trouble that they could ever have imagined…
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Set in the near-distant future, in a world on the verge of climate collapse, Britain is in great peril. The British Isles desperately needs a hero (or several) to save the day and rescue what little remains. What no-one expected was that one of the Knights of the Round Table would answer the call.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785630334</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0356518523
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Anne O'Brien
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|author=G K Holloway
|title=The Shadow Queen
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|title=In the Shadows of Castles
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Born in 1328, Joan of Kent may be of royal blood but she's from a family tainted by treachery.  Her father Edmund Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent, was executed for his part in the infamous Montague plot.  However Joan has grown up under the protection of her cousin, King Edward III with all the advantages and attributes of a princess. 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 that, three husbands, five marriages (technically) and a son destined for the English throne means that it's also been one heck of a life!
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|summary= We begin after the momentous battle in 1066 and on the day of William of Normandy's coronation as King of England. William's position is not secure and the new king has many challenges. Imposing authority through a coronation is important. And William is right to worry. While the previous king, Harold, is dead and the likelihood of more pitched battles is over, the rebels are stirring and much of the country does not wish to recognise a new overlord.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848455070</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1800422466
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Patricia Falvey
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|isbn=3949666079
|title=The Girls of Ennismore: A Heart-Rending Irish Saga
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|title=Noema
 +
|author=Dael Akkerman
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=General Fiction
 +
|summary=''This is a story about some things that happened to me about twelve thousand years ago.''
 +
 +
Maya is a young girl living in a hunter gatherer village during the Mesolithic era. Climate change is occurring, the Sea of Grass encroaches further and further into Maya's forest home, and food is becoming more and more scarce. What to do? Can the law givers in the federation of villages muster peaceful ways to cope? Can the Traveller, a spiritual figure who interprets the wisdom of All Life, provide solutions?
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529125898
 +
|title=Godmersham Park
 +
|author=Gill Hornby
 +
|rating=5
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Ireland 1900: Ennismore House's young heiress Victoria had hoped that she and Rosie Killeen would be friends foreverRosie soon comes to know better as there's a social chasm between those who live in the House and those, like Rosie's family, who have been brought up merely to serve themThe days of innocence are coming to an end in many waysSoon, as the cry for Irish Home Rule becomes louder, there'll be more than steps on society's ladder between them as each must discover their own way in a nation that will never be the same again.
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|summary=''If it were not for the casual dereliction of the odd gentleman's duty, there would no women to teach well-bred daughters at all.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786490625</amazonuk>
+
 
 +
Anne Sharpe was thirty-one years old when she arrived at Godmersham Park to take up the position of governess to twelve-year-old Fanny AustenShe had no experience of teaching but this was a case of necessity.  Until the death of her mother, Anne had a comfortable life and was loved by both parents although her father was frequently absent from the household.  When her mother died, her father cast her off and would have nothing more to do with herNo explanation was offered but she would receive an annuity of £35 a yearHer maid, Agnes, would receive nothing but was fortunately taken in by some neighbours.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Elaine Everest
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|author=Melissa Fu
|title= The Butlins Girls
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|title=Peach Blossom Spring
|rating= 4
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|rating=3.5
|genre= Historical Fiction
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|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 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 new-found freedom.
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|summary= I loved the prelude to Peach Blossom Spring, a short chapter entitled ''Origins''. Unfortunately it is the only truly poetic part of a book that I expected more from. Covering Chinese history from 1938 to 2005 as viewed through one family's perspective. When their home city is set ablaze during the war with Japan, a young mother (Meilin) and her four-year-old son (Renshu) are among those who flee. The story follows them on their journey across China, and in Renshu's case eventually to America.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447295536</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1472277538
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Geraint Jones
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|isbn=1916072038
|title= Blood Forest
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|title=The House in the Hollow (The Talbot Saga)
|rating= 5
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|author=Allie Cresswell
|genre= Historical Fiction
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|rating=4.5
|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 wide-eyed teenager to hardened and honourable warrior through a brutal rite of passage as he hunts the killer of his brother and seeks to become a true warrior.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786692406</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Antonia Senior
 
|title=The Tyrant's Shadow
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Warning: spoilers ahead for ''Treason's Daughter''.
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|summary=We meet part of the Talbot family in Yorkshire in November 1811Twenty-seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot and her mother have travelled in some discomfort from their home at Ecklington, to the house in the hollow. The two women are angry with each other and Jocelyn is well aware of her mother's strengths and weaknesses:
Patience lives with her widowed brother, William, helping to care for his son Richard (nicknamed Blackberry).  Despite the Civil war ending, the times are still uncertain.  Cromwell is increasingly annoyed with a parliament of rebels refusing to go to the electorate for ratificationWilliam sees this problem at close quarters once he's effectively forced to become Cromwell's legal advisor in an atmosphere poisoned by espionage and religious factions.  However when Patience comes across Shadrick Simpson, a charismatic preacher, all becomes clearer for her at least.  Meanwhile Sam Challoner, William's brother in law, comes home after privateering with Prince Rupert and realises that the fight at sea is better than peace at home.  At least when you're privateering you know who your enemy is.
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782396616</amazonuk>
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''She is practiced at subterfuge, at concealing, beneath a facade of respectability, the deplorable truth''.
}}
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{{newreview
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Hester is furious about Jocelyn's refusal to do as she was asked, which has precipitated ''this violent and unexpected removal''.
|author= David Barbaree
+
 
|title= Deposed
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Then we are told of the birth of a child and, soon after, Hester Talbot departs, leaving Jocelyn in shame and isolation in Yorkshire.
|rating= 4.5
 
|genre= Historical Fiction
 
|summary= A.D 68. A deposed emperor lies in a prison cell, betrayed and newly blinded by those who were sworn to protect him. He is now crippled and deprived of power, left completely on the edge of despair with a frightened young slave named Marcus as his only companion. Ten years later and it is Emperor Vespasian who wears the purple. Things may have settled since the civil war but Vespasian's son Titus is plagued by worry about plots to murder his father. Gruesome atrocities and mysterious disappearances are rife throughout Rome; it is a city full of falsehoods and intrigues with the fear of rebellion lurking beneath the surface. Furthermore, a man who used to be emperor still lives – a blind man who everyone believes to be dead. His name is Nero and he seeks revenge against those who wronged him. 
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785762672</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Diney Costeloe
 
|title= The Married Girls
 
|rating= 4.5
 
|genre= Historical Fiction
 
|summary=Wynsdown, 1949. In the small Somerset village of Wynsdown, Charlotte Shepherd is happily married to farmer Billy. She arrived from Germany on the Kindertransport as a child during the war and now feels settled in her adopted home. Meanwhile, the squire's fighter pilot son, Felix, has returned to the village with a fiancée in tow. Daphne is beautiful, charming... and harbouring secrets. After meeting during the war, Felix knows some of Daphne'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 the shape of fellow refugee, bad boy Harry Black. Forever bound by their childhoods, Charlotte will always care for him, but Harry's return disrupts the village quiet and it's not long before gossip spreads. The war may have ended, but for these girls, trouble is only just beginning...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784976121</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Philip Kerr
 
|title= Prussian Blue: Bernie Gunther Thriller 12
 
|rating= 3.5
 
|genre= Crime (Historical) 
 
|summary= Bernie Gunther is not your typical hero. In 1939, he was stationed in Berlin as a police officer handling murder cases and occasionally doing work for some high-ranking Nazis. Although never a Nazi party member himself (he was a known member of the Social Democratic Party), he understood that the best thing he could do for himself at that time was to make himself indispensable to men like Reinhard Heydrich and Martin Bormann. So when he is assigned to solve a murder that has occurred at Hitler's Berghof in the Bavarian mountains, he knows that he needs to do it quickly and discreetly – not just for justice's sake, but for his own. He is given exactly one week to apprehend the suspect, and he hopes that with the help of his friend Friedrich Korsch, an investigator with the Krimialpolizei (or Kripo, for short) he just might get lucky. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784296481</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Stephan Collishaw
 
|title= The Song 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 either.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079190</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Alan Kennedy
 
|title=A Time to Tell Lies
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|summary= Psychologist Alan Kennedy's fifth novel continues the story he began with [[Lucy by Alan Kennedy]]. In the autumn of 1942, Captain Alex Vere and Justine Perry are among the men and women picked up and taken to a stately home in Scotland, where they are trained in spy skills. After this first encounter, Alex is smitten yet uncertain if he will ever see Justine again. The spy's life is dangerous and unpredictable, after all. Six weeks later, though, they meet up again in southwest France, where they have been sent to collect Simone, a Special Operations Executive agent. It's Alex's first mission (Justine's fourth) and all goes horribly awry. Alex ends up in custody at the Gendarmerie, facing a German who knows he has a false passport.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0993202322</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Alex Nye
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|author=Annabel Abbs
|title=For My Sins
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|title=The Language of Food
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|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…
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|summary=Eliza Acton is a poet who has never had the slightest inclination to boil an egg. When tasked with writing a cookery book, she recruits Ann Kirby, a local woman with a troubled home life. Together, they test, craft, refine and reshape the world of domestic cookery, reinventing the recipe book and changing the face of cookery writing forever.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905916787</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1398502227
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Grace Macallister
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|author=Freya Marske
|title= The Magician's Lie
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|title=A Marvellous Light
 
|rating=4
 
|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
 
|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.
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|summary=Robin Blyth is nudged into a job in the Civil Service, much to his chagrin. There he meets Edwin Courcey and learns that the streets of London are threaded with magic. Desperate to remove a curse that threatens to swallow him, Robin follows Edwin to the countryside, where the hedgegrows bristle with incantations and the people shimmer with power. There they uncover a sinister plot that threatens the lives of all magicians in the British Isles. |isbn=1529080886
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091959403</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Beth Underdown
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|isbn= B09F4CTKJR
|title=The Witchfinder's Sister
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|title= Flights for Freedom
 +
|author= Steven Burgauer
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=England 1645: Matthew Hopkins is good at his chosen career: seeking, testing and convicting those with the Devil in them.  His sister, Alice, doesn't realise the full connotations of his actions until, widowed and pregnant, she returns home.  Alice is grateful to be allowed to live under Matthew's roof but then watches his sinister finger of suspicion point in unexpected places. This is a man changed from the boy that Alice used to know.  She never then realised that he'd be capable of killing hundreds of people and making her the Witchfinder's Sister.
+
|summary=It's the later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, the first to be attached to the RAF and the first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in active combat. But before that can happen, Petrol has to master flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241978033</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Emma Henderson
+
|author= Christophe Medler
|title= The Valentine House
+
|title=Madrigal: A Closely Guarded Secret
|rating= 4
+
|rating=4
|genre= Literary Fiction
+
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary= In June 1914, Sir Anthony Valentine, a keen mountaineer, arrives with his family to spend the summer in their chalet, high in the French Alps. There, for the first time, fourteen-year-old foundling Mathilde starts work as one of the 'uglies' - village girls employed as servants and picked, it is believed, to ensure they don't catch Sir Anthony's roving eye. For Mathilde it is the start of a life-long entanglement with les anglais - strange, exciting people, far removed from the hard grind of farming. Except she soon finds the Valentines are less carefree than they appear, with a curiously absent daughter no one talks about. It will be decades - disrupted by war, accidents and a cruel betrayal - before Mathilde discovers the key to the mystery. And in 1976, the year Sir Anthony's great-great grandson comes to visit, she must decide whether to use it.
+
|summary= Set against the backdrop of the English Civil War, a secret plan (code-named Madrigal) is discovered by Sir Robert Douse in the summer of 1642. As a loyal servant of the King, and Head of the Secret Service, it is Robert's duty to uncover the details of the plan and follow the clues to uncover one of the most guarded secrets in history—especially since the plot could affect the King.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444704028</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=B095HY8SXQ
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Polly Clark
+
|isbn=1471187179
|title= Larchfield
+
|title=A Beautiful Spy
|rating= 5
+
|author=Rachel Hore
|genre= Literary Fiction
+
|rating=4
|summary=I It's early summer when a young poet, Dora Fielding, moves to Helensburgh on the west coast of Scotland and her hopes are first challenged. Newly married, pregnant, she's excited by the prospect of a life that combines family and creativity. She thinks she knows what being a person, a wife, a mother, means. She is soon shown that she is wrong. As the battle begins for her very sense of self, Dora comes to find the realities of small town life suffocating, and, eventually, terrifying; until she finds a way to escape reality altogether. Another poet, she discovers, lived in Helensburgh once. Wystan H. Auden, brilliant and awkward at 24, with his first book of poetry published, should be embarking on success and society in London. Instead, in 1930, fleeing a broken engagement, he takes a teaching post at Larchfield School for boys where he is mocked for his Englishness and suspected - rightly - of homosexuality. Yet in this repressed limbo Wystan will fall in love for the first time, even as he fights his deepest fears.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786481928</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Dinah Jefferies
 
|title=Before the Rains
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Eliza has tragically punctuated childhood memories of India that have feed her desire to returnTherefore in 1930, following the death of her husband, when the British government commission her to photograph scenes of Indian life, she jumps at the chanceWhat she doesn't realise is that not everyone she comes across is delighted with the ideaLiving within the Sultana's opulent palace complex is definitely an attraction for her, as is Jay, an Indian price who shows Eliza the real IndiaHowever, attractions are sometimes dangerous and even deadly.
+
|summary=Minnie is an 'ordinary' girl living an unexciting life in a leafy provincial suburbThe book is set in the 1930s and Minnie is expected to live up to her mother's expectations and find a nice young man to marry, produce children and spend the rest of her days looking after her husband and their homeUnfortunately, this isn't what she wants to do at all and neither does she want to continue working as a secretaryAs a result of a chance meeting, she finds herself drawn into espionage, working for the secret service and effectively living a double life - attempting to infiltrate the Communist Party of Great BritainMinnie finds herself torn between what she perceives as her duty and the friends she has made - and likes - whilst working for the Communist Party.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241287081</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Otto de Kat and Laura Watkinson (translator)
+
|author=Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)
|title=The Longest Night
+
|title=Kokoschka's Doll
|rating=3.5
+
|rating=2.5
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Emma has a philosophy – ''let the dead rest, and love the living''The problem with that, as a 96-year-old, is that there are too few living left, and so while the love remains she will go through her memories, taking a woozy, diaphanous path through all the major events of her lifeStarting in wartime Berlin with one husband, who gets snatched from her at work, fleeing to another place to wait for peace, and wait for him in vain, moving to Holland and finding new love, and so on – this wispy journey will show all the impacts of war, from rationing right up to exile, death and survivalThe memories are coming strongly here and now, as Emma is waiting for at least one of her two sons to visit, and then she will die…
+
|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 itI 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, tooBut 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 themSo what happened?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857056085</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1529402697
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Adrian Goldsworthy
+
|author=Christina Hammonds Reed
|title= Vindolanda
+
|title=The Black Kids
|rating= 3.5
+
|rating=4.5
|genre= Historical Fiction
+
|genre=Teens
|summary= AD 98: in the northern fields of Britannia lies Vindolanda, a Roman auxiliary base situated on the edge of the Roman world. Far from the prosperity and decadence of Rome, the wild and untamed lands around Vindolanda are ripe with rebel tribes and druids set against the destruction of Rome and its armies. In the midst of this destruction is Flavius Ferox; a Briton and Roman Centurion who has been given the task of keeping the peace in this desolate edge of the world. But life in Roman Britain is full of danger and betrayal at every turn, and Ferox knows it will take more than courage to overcome what lies ahead.
+
|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784974684</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1471188191
 
}}
 
}}
 +
 +
Move on to [[Newest History Reviews]]

Latest revision as of 10:53, 20 November 2023

1803366532.jpg

Review of

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

5star.jpg Historical Fiction

Gracetown, Florida. June 1950. After a scuffle with a white boy, twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, otherwise known as the Reformatory. It's a place with a brutal and dark reputation. But the segregated reformatory is a chamber of horrors, haunted by the boys that have died there. In order to survive the school governor and his Funhouse, Robert must enlist the help of the school's ghosts – only they have their own motivations... Full Review

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Review of

A True Account by Katherine Howe

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves. Full Review

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Review of

A Sign of Her Own by Sarah Marsh

3.5star.jpg General Fiction

After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage. Full Review

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Review of

House of Odysseus by Claire North

5star.jpg Literary Fiction

What could matter more than love?

The follow-up to the excellent Ithaca picks up a few months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge. Full Review

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Review of

A Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries) by A J Lewis

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

When we first meet our hero, his name is Ettore and he lives at The House of Beautiful Swallows. Idyllic as this might sound, it's a bordello and Ettore's mother died when he was born. He's not been short of mothers, though - but for someone of his background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, it's difficult to obtain decent employment. The stint working with the preparation of anchovies didn't work out and bastards are considered bad luck on fishing boats. Ettore was nothing if not resourceful - and determined - and it was not long before he had a successful business as a guide for visitors. He was even saving some money. Full Review

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Review of

The Fascination by Essie Fox

4star.jpg Historical Fiction

The Victorian era is incredibly over-romanticised as a setting for historical fiction (matched only, perhaps, by the Second World War) which has often led to more than a few writers mishandling it. There's such a glut of media set in the era that the hallmarks we've come to associate with it are familiar to the point of being cliched, hackneyed even. All this is simply to illustrate that it would be an easy thing to do poorly. But despite that, something about it still grabs me – and something about this book's description did as well. Full Review

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Review of

A Portrait in Shadow by Nicole Jarvis

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

I want all of Florence to know my name

Cast out from Rome, Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking an oasis in which her art can find a home and where her future can thrive rather than stagnate. But as some as she enters Florentine society she faces great opposition from the powerful Accademia, the self-proclaimed guardians of the healing magics that through paintings have the power to protect the city and its citizens from plagues and curses. The all-male Accademia has hoarded power over art and architecture for centuries and guard it above all else. To them, Artemisia – an ambitious young woman who promises trouble and change – has no place amongst them and their society. Full Review

0356518523.jpg

Review of

Perilous Times by Thomas D Lee

3star.jpg Fantasy

Hate is the path of least resistance

Set in the near-distant future, in a world on the verge of climate collapse, Britain is in great peril. The British Isles desperately needs a hero (or several) to save the day and rescue what little remains. What no-one expected was that one of the Knights of the Round Table would answer the call. Full Review

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Review of

In the Shadows of Castles by G K Holloway

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

We begin after the momentous battle in 1066 and on the day of William of Normandy's coronation as King of England. William's position is not secure and the new king has many challenges. Imposing authority through a coronation is important. And William is right to worry. While the previous king, Harold, is dead and the likelihood of more pitched battles is over, the rebels are stirring and much of the country does not wish to recognise a new overlord. Full Review

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Review of

Noema by Dael Akkerman

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

This is a story about some things that happened to me about twelve thousand years ago.

Maya is a young girl living in a hunter gatherer village during the Mesolithic era. Climate change is occurring, the Sea of Grass encroaches further and further into Maya's forest home, and food is becoming more and more scarce. What to do? Can the law givers in the federation of villages muster peaceful ways to cope? Can the Traveller, a spiritual figure who interprets the wisdom of All Life, provide solutions? Full Review

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Review of

Godmersham Park by Gill Hornby

5star.jpg Historical Fiction

If it were not for the casual dereliction of the odd gentleman's duty, there would no women to teach well-bred daughters at all.

Anne Sharpe was thirty-one years old when she arrived at Godmersham Park to take up the position of governess to twelve-year-old Fanny Austen. She had no experience of teaching but this was a case of necessity. Until the death of her mother, Anne had a comfortable life and was loved by both parents although her father was frequently absent from the household. When her mother died, her father cast her off and would have nothing more to do with her. No explanation was offered but she would receive an annuity of £35 a year. Her maid, Agnes, would receive nothing but was fortunately taken in by some neighbours. Full Review

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Review of

Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu

3.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

I loved the prelude to Peach Blossom Spring, a short chapter entitled Origins. Unfortunately it is the only truly poetic part of a book that I expected more from. Covering Chinese history from 1938 to 2005 as viewed through one family's perspective. When their home city is set ablaze during the war with Japan, a young mother (Meilin) and her four-year-old son (Renshu) are among those who flee. The story follows them on their journey across China, and in Renshu's case eventually to America. Full Review

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Review of

The House in the Hollow (The Talbot Saga) by Allie Cresswell

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

We meet part of the Talbot family in Yorkshire in November 1811. Twenty-seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot and her mother have travelled in some discomfort from their home at Ecklington, to the house in the hollow. The two women are angry with each other and Jocelyn is well aware of her mother's strengths and weaknesses:

She is practiced at subterfuge, at concealing, beneath a facade of respectability, the deplorable truth.

Hester is furious about Jocelyn's refusal to do as she was asked, which has precipitated this violent and unexpected removal.

Then we are told of the birth of a child and, soon after, Hester Talbot departs, leaving Jocelyn in shame and isolation in Yorkshire. Full Review

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Review of

The Language of Food by Annabel Abbs

5star.jpg Historical Fiction

Eliza Acton is a poet who has never had the slightest inclination to boil an egg. When tasked with writing a cookery book, she recruits Ann Kirby, a local woman with a troubled home life. Together, they test, craft, refine and reshape the world of domestic cookery, reinventing the recipe book and changing the face of cookery writing forever. Full Review

1529080886.jpg

Review of

A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske

4star.jpg Historical Fiction

Robin Blyth is nudged into a job in the Civil Service, much to his chagrin. There he meets Edwin Courcey and learns that the streets of London are threaded with magic. Desperate to remove a curse that threatens to swallow him, Robin follows Edwin to the countryside, where the hedgegrows bristle with incantations and the people shimmer with power. There they uncover a sinister plot that threatens the lives of all magicians in the British Isles. Full Review

B09F4CTKJR.jpg

Review of

Flights for Freedom by Steven Burgauer

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

It's the later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, the first to be attached to the RAF and the first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in active combat. But before that can happen, Petrol has to master flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel. Full Review

B095HY8SXQ.jpg

Review of

Madrigal: A Closely Guarded Secret by Christophe Medler

4star.jpg Historical Fiction

Set against the backdrop of the English Civil War, a secret plan (code-named Madrigal) is discovered by Sir Robert Douse in the summer of 1642. As a loyal servant of the King, and Head of the Secret Service, it is Robert's duty to uncover the details of the plan and follow the clues to uncover one of the most guarded secrets in history—especially since the plot could affect the King. Full Review

1471187179.jpg

Review of

A Beautiful Spy by Rachel Hore

4star.jpg Historical Fiction

Minnie is an 'ordinary' girl living an unexciting life in a leafy provincial suburb. The book is set in the 1930s and Minnie is expected to live up to her mother's expectations and find a nice young man to marry, produce children and spend the rest of her days looking after her husband and their home. Unfortunately, this isn't what she wants to do at all and neither does she want to continue working as a secretary. As a result of a chance meeting, she finds herself drawn into espionage, working for the secret service and effectively living a double life - attempting to infiltrate the Communist Party of Great Britain. Minnie finds herself torn between what she perceives as her duty and the friends she has made - and likes - whilst working for the Communist Party. Full Review

1529402697.jpg

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

1471188191.jpg

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

Move on to Newest History Reviews