Changes

|author=Christina Hammonds ReedTananarive Due|title=The Black KidsReformatory|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|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...|isbn=1803366532}} {{Frontpage|author=Katherine Howe|title=A True Account

|genre=Teens General Fiction|summary=Christina Hammonds Reed's debut novel 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 set against the backdrop to be a hanging of some pirates in the 1992 Los Angeles riotstown, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a reaction to young boy's death at the absolution hands of four police officers for beating a black mantwo vicious pirates. She hides away, Rodney Kingso that they don't find and kill her too, nearly and then to deathescape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. Told from She soon finds herself in the perspective thick of Ashley Bennett, the novel follows her evolution from things when there is a silent bystander when confronted with matters of racemutiny on board, to a woman finding her voice and embracing from there we are caught up in her heritagerip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|isbn=14711881910861547438

|author=Caroline ScottSarah Marsh|title=When I Come Home AgainA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=1918 and After a young man is arrested in Durham Cathedral. He refuses to give bout of scarlet fever as a namechild, no matter how hard they push he will not say who he isEllen Lark loses her hearing. Eventually they determine this isn't wilful obstinance Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, he doesn't answer because he doesn't knoweverything about her life changes. He remembers being on the road for Living in a long timewhen the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, and being frightenedEllen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, and some of the faces but physically restrained from the roadsigning. From here, but other than that – everything that came before she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has gonebeen teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. They need a name for At the forms same time, Bell is working on other inventions and so they call him Adam ideas, and, because he was found Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up 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 therecomplicated tangle of espionage.|isbn=14711921721035401614

|isbnauthor=1405946172Claire North|title=The Glass House|author=Eve Chaseof Odysseus|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|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 What could matter more than love?'' The follow-up to the Harrington family in London. Soon her engagement to Fred, excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a Torquay butcher, fell through and the Harringtons became her familyfew months after where we left off. In 1971, after a fire at the London house, Jeannie Harringtonpalace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her childrenhusband, 13-year-old Hera 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 6-year-old Teddy, along with Rita went physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to the familyIthaca's house in shores, Queen Penelope is on the Forest brink of Deana fragile peace. It wasn't ''quite'' dilapidatedOne that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra, but it certainly wasn't the same standard as the London house had been before the fireseeking refuge.|isbn=0356516075

|authorisbn=Sally MagnussonB0C7J9D21B|title=The Sealwoman's GiftA Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=A J Lewis

|summary= There 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 legend that God came to visit Adam & Eve in the Gardenbordello and Ettore's mother died when he was born. Eve had He's not finished bathing her children and ashamed been short of mothers, though - but for someone of those still not cleansedhis background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, she attempted it's difficult to hide them from obtain decent employment. The stint working with the eyes preparation of God, denying that she had more children than those, already bathed, that she willing paraded for himanchovies didn't work out and bastards are considered bad luck on fishing boats. God Ettore was nothing if not to be deceived, however, resourceful - and determined - and decreed that what it 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 folknot long before he had a successful business as a guide for visitors. They can see man, but man can only see them if they so chooseHe was even saving some money.|isbn=1473638984

|author=Wendy Cheyne Essie Fox|title=From the Auld Rock to a Hard PlaceThe Fascination

|summary= After The Victorian era is incredibly over-romanticised as a setting for historical fiction (matched only, perhaps, by the Jacobite defeat at the Battle of Culloden, many Scottish estates were given Second World War) which has often led to English lordsmore than a few writers mishandling it. They were not kind to their crofting tenants. Many on the mainland were cleared and while this did not happen much on There's such a glut of media set in the islands such as Shetland, era that the new exploitative conditions led many Shetlanders hallmarks we've come to leave - associate with it are familiar to port cities on the mainlandpoint of being cliched, hackneyed even. All this is simply to North America and even illustrate that it would be an easy thing to Australia do poorly. But despite that, something about it still grabs me – and New Zealandsomething about this book's description did as well. |isbn= 18385917531914585526

|author= Alison WeirNicole Jarvis|title= Six Tudor Queens: Katheryn Howard The Tainted QueenA Portrait in Shadow|rating= 4.5|genre= Historical Fiction|summary= ''Katheryn was seven when her mother diedI want all of Florence to know my name'' Cast out from Rome, thus we are thrust into this tumultuous time Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking an oasis in young Katheryn's life, trying to which her art can find a home, both figuratively and literally, where she her future can grow and grievethrive rather than stagnate. Unfortunately, Katheryn is followed by bad luck and But as some as she learns an important lesson, enters Florentine society she is too youngfaces great opposition from the powerful Accademia, too poor and too unimportant to be the self-proclaimed guardians of any value the healing magics that through paintings have the power to anyone, but she is beautiful protect the city and its citizens from plagues and curses. The all-male Accademia has hoarded power over art and surely, that will count architecture for something in the endcenturies and guard it above all else. To them, won't it?Artemisia – an ambitious young woman who promises trouble and change – has no place amongst them and their society.|isbn=14722277781803362340

|isbnauthor=1529123763Thomas D Lee|title=Miss Austen|author=Gill HornbyPerilous Times|rating=53|genre=Historical FictionFantasy|summary=It's long been known that Cassandra Austen burned most of 'Hate is the letters which she and other members path of the extensive Austen family had exchanged with or about her sister Jane. What is not known is least resistance''why'' she did this and at this stage - more than two hundred years after Jane's death  Set in the near- distant future, in a definitive answer world on the verge of climate collapse, Britain is unlikely to forthcomingin great peril. Gill Hornby has provided us with some possible answers in The British Isles desperately needs a book that proved hero (or several) to be far more emotionally complex than I save the day and rescue what little remains. What no-one expected was expectingthat one of the Knights of the Round Table would answer the call.|isbn=0356518523

|isbnauthor=1471186393G K Holloway|title=Photographer In the Shadows of the Lost|author=Caroline ScottCastles

|summary=May 1921. Edie receives a photograph through We begin after the post. There is no letter or note with it. There is nothing written momentous battle in 1066 and on the back day of William of Normandy's coronation as King of England. William's position is not secure and the photographnew king has many challenges. It Imposing authority through a coronation is a picture of her husband, Francisimportant. Francis has been missing for four yearsAnd William is right to worry. TechnicallyWhile the previous king, he has been "missingHarold, believed killed" but that is not something that a young widow can believe. She hangs on dead and the word 'missing'likelihood of more pitched battles is over, disbelieving the word killedrebels are stirring and much of the country does not wish to recognise a new overlord.|isbn=1800422466

|isbn=099944235X3949666079|title=The Man Who Killed HitlerNoema|author=Andre PronovostDael Akkerman|rating=34.5|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=Germany ''This is splita story about some things that happened to me about twelve thousand years ago. Some of her '' Maya is a young girl living in favour of Hitler and a hunter gatherer village during the Nazis, but much isn'tMesolithic era. Some of her Climate change is stuck to the east fighting the Soviets, but some will soon have to be on the other frontoccurring, against the Americans coming Sea of Grass encroaches further and further into the continent to put things right as they see it. Finding out that the war to the east isn't working, due to HitlerMaya'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 upforest home, and repair the splits, food is to kill Hitler, becoming more and luckily Baron Nicholas is the man more scarce. What to do it. He's aristocratic enough, he knows enough people ? Can the law givers in industry, society and other circles the federation of powervillages muster peaceful ways to cope? Can the Traveller, so once he's succeeded he might be able to keep a German presence in Europe. But will he still be able to keep spiritual figure who interprets the "predatory American capitalists" and the blatantly communist Soviets from meeting in the middlewisdom of All Life, provide solutions?

|isbn=17890186251529125898|title=Just Another Girl on the RoadGodmersham Park|author=S KensingtonGill Hornby|rating=4 5

|summary=When Sergeant Farr and Corporal Valentine first encountered Katrinka Badeau she ''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 just eighteen thirty-one years old and fleeing from a farmhouse and a group when she arrived at Godmersham Park to take up the position of German deserters who had raped hergoverness to twelve-year-old Fanny Austen. Despite being outnumbered she She had no experience of teaching but this was giving just about as good as she got when Farr and Valentine intervened and finished the group offa case of necessity. It was 1944 and Farr and Valentine were part Until the death of the Jedburgh unither mother, EDMOND, lead Anne had a comfortable life and was loved by Major Willoughby Nyeboth parents although her father was frequently absent from the household. Nye recognised Katrinka immediately - he'd worked on When her mother died, her father's merchant ship cast her off and Katrinka had once had a crush on Nyewould have nothing more to do with her. When he No explanation was offered her but she would receive an annuity of £35 a job with his unityear. Her maid, Agnes, she acceptedwould receive nothing but was fortunately taken in by some neighbours.

|isbnauthor=1542007232Melissa Fu |title=The Rabbit Girls|author=Anna ElloryPeach Blossom Spring |rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Berlin, 1989. Miriam is in the middle of a city freshly united, with I loved the Wall newly broken down and people able prelude to cross at liberty for the first time in decades. She is in the middle of such euphoriaPeach Blossom Spring, but cannot feel it, for she has not left her fathera short chapter entitled 's apartment in weeks, nursing him as he lies dying. One standard bed-bath, however, is very different, when he gasps the name 'Origins'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 Unfortunately it 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, only truly poetic part of a young woman book that shook him I expected more from. Covering Chinese history from 1938 to the core when he was her literature professor? That2005 as viewed through one family's right, more bombshells… }}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529311446|title=The Long Flight Home|author=A L Hlad|rating=4perspective.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=September 1940 - as WWII rages on, bombs rain down on Britain, destroying the homes and lives of a people on When their home city is set ablaze during the edge. In Epping Forest, Susan Shepherd and her grandfather Bertie live together raising homing pigeons war 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 oneJapan, 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 mother (Meilin) and join the Royal Air Force. Working with the National Pigeon Service, he soon meets Susan and is tasked with airher four-dropping hundreds of homing pigeons into Germanyear-occupied France, where many will not surviveold son (Renshu) are among those who flee. As the mission is plannedThe story follows them on their journey across China, the bond between Ollie and Susan grows stronger, but when Olliein Renshu'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…case eventually to America. |isbn=1472277538

|isbn=178747920X1916072038|title=Brightfall The House in the Hollow (The Talbot Saga)|author=Jaime Lee MoyerAllie Cresswell

|summary=Robin Hood is gone – denouncing both his former life We meet part of the Talbot family in Yorkshire in November 1811. Twenty-seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot and his love Marianher mother have travelled in some discomfort from their home at Ecklington, and retreating to a monastery – although no-one knows quite what led him to abandon all that he had builtthe house in the hollow. Marion The two women are angry with each other and Jocelyn is well aware of her mother's life since has been relatively quiet - but when her friends start dyingstrengths and weaknesses: ''She is practiced at subterfuge, at concealing, beneath a facade of respectability, Marion the deplorable truth''. Hester is tasked by Father Tuck furious about Jocelyn's refusal to break the curse surrounding them do as she was asked, which has precipitated ''this violent and to save their livesunexpected removal''. Setting off with a soldier,  Then we are told of the birth of a Fey Lord child and a sullen Robin Hood, she becomes tangled in a maze of betrayalssoon after, complicated relationshipsHester Talbot departs, leaving Jocelyn in shame and a vicious struggle for the throne…isolation in Yorkshire.

|isbnauthor=1784631647Annabel Abbs|title=A Perfect Explanation|author=Eleanor AnstrutherThe Language of Food

|summary=Enid Campbell was Eliza Acton is a woman poet who, on the face of it, has never had everything. Leading the life of slightest inclination to boil an aristocrat – full of inherited wealth and splendouregg. When tasked with writing a cookery book, she recruits Ann Kirby, glamourous locales and high expectationsa local woman with a troubled home life. Only Enid's life has been plagued by mental illness – undiagnosedTogether, untreated and threatening both Enid and those close to her. After losing custody of her childrenthey test, Enid sells her son to her sister for £500 – but is this an act of greedcraft, or an act of desperation? Exploring refine and reshape the true story world of her own grandmotherdomestic cookery, Eleanor Anstruther has found reinventing the perfect subject for an explosive, moving recipe book and beautifully well-written debutchanging the face of cookery writing forever. [[A Perfect Explanation by Eleanor Anstruther|Full Review]]isbn=1398502227

|isbnauthor=0857058738Freya Marske|title=Equator|author=Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)A Marvellous Light|rating=3.54

|summary=It strikes me that nobody can speak well of the Wild West outside the walls of Robin Blyth is nudged into 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 job in a buffalo hunt, and who hates the way man – and womanCivil Service, of course – can turn against fellow man at the bat of an eyelidmuch to his chagrin. But this book is about so much more than the 1870s USA, There he meets Edwin Courcey and learns that the attendant problems streets of London are threaded with gold rushes, pioneer spirits and racial genocidemagic. He finds himself trying Desperate to find this book's version of Utopiaremove a curse that threatens to swallow him, namely Robin follows Edwin to the Equatorcountryside, where everything is upside down, the hedgegrows bristle with incantations and the people walk on their heads shimmer with rocks power. There they uncover a sinister plot that threatens the lives of all magicians in their pockets to keep them on the ground to counter the anti-gravity, and where, who knows, things might actually be betterBritish Isles. But that equator is a long way away – and there's a whole adventure full of Mexico and Latin America between him and it… |isbn=1529080886

|isbn=1472227727B09F4CTKJR|title=Six Tudor Queens: Anna of Kleve, Queen of SecretsFlights for Freedom|author=Alison WeirSteven Burgauer

|summary=Poor, frumpy Anne It's the later stages of Cleaves always gets a raw deal by history, of all World War I and the United States has just entered the wives of Henry VIII she conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and joined the one who is known for being rejected17 Aero Squadron. Anne Boleyn and Katheryn Howard were This company was the sexy onesfirst US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, Jane the dutiful one who delivered a son, Katherine of Aragon clung on first to be attached to her crown the RAF and Katharine Parr clung on the first to be sent into the skies to her life but poor frumpy Anne of Cleaves just rolled over and moved alongfight the Germans in active combat. Not any more! Alison Weir presents us with a different view of this young woman who saw But before that can happen, Petrol has to master flying the opportunity to live an independent life and took itnotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.

|isbnauthor=0718187091Christophe Medler|title=Liberation Square|author=Gareth RubinMadrigal: A Closely Guarded Secret|rating=54

|summary=In an alternate 1952Set against the backdrop of the English Civil War, Soviet Troops control British Streets. After Da secret plan (code-Day goes horribly wrong, Britain named Madrigal) is first occupied discovered by Nazi Germany – only to be rescued by Russian soldiers from Sir Robert Douse in the summer of 1642. As a loyal servant of the EastKing, and Americans from Head of the west. Dividing the nation between them, London soon finds itself split in twoSecret Service, a wall running through it like a scar. When Jane Cawsonis Robert'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 duty to uncover the highest levels details of the state – plan and soon finds herself desperate follow the clues to stay uncover one step ahead of the murderous secret police…most guarded secrets in history—especially since the plot could affect the King.|isbn=B095HY8SXQ

|isbn=191236266X1471187179|title=The Boy in a TurbanA Beautiful Spy|author=Joseph HucknallRachel Hore

|summary=You might not think that Georgian London contained many black peopleMinnie is an 'ordinary' girl living an unexciting life in a leafy provincial suburb. But it contained more than you think. You may have heard of Francis Barber 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 black African slave who became the friend rest of lexicographer Samuel Johnson her days looking after her husband and was their home. Unfortunately, this isn't what she wants to do at all and neither does she want to continue working as a beneficiary of his willsecretary. ''The Boy in As a Turban'' tells the story result of a fictional black characterchance meeting, Jamesshe finds herself drawn into espionage, in Georgian Londonworking for the secret service and effectively living a double life - attempting to infiltrate the Communist Party of Great Britain. James, then Quaccoe, is brought to Minnie finds herself torn between what she perceives as her duty and the capital from a Jamaican plantation by a ship captain who wanted a servant friends she has made - and likes - whilst working for his two daughtersthe Communist Party.

|isbnauthor=034901082XAfonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=In The Full Light of the Sun|author=Clare ClarkKokoschka's Doll|rating=2.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=In 1930's BerlinWell, this looked very much like a book I could love from the get-go, three people obsessed with art find themselves swept which is why I picked my review copy up into a scandaland flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. Emmeline, I found things to potentially delight me each time – a wayward young student, Julius, an anxious weird section in the middle-aged art expert, and Rachmannon darker stock paper, a mysterious art dealer, live chapter whose number was in the politically turbulent Weimar Berlin20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and soon find themselves whipped up into excitement over so on. It intrigued with the surprise discovery subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of thirty-two previously unknown paintings by Vincent Van Goghit mentioned, too. Based on a true story and unfolding through But you've seen the subsequent rise of Hitler star rating that comes with this review, and the Nazis, the discovery of the art allows can tell that if love was on these characters to explore authenticitypages, vanity and self-delusionit was not actually caused by them. So what happened?|isbn=1529402697

|isbnauthor=0749024801Christina Hammonds Reed|title=The Phoenix of Florence|author=Philip KazanBlack Kids|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionTeens |summary=Deep in Christina Hammonds Reed's debut novel is set against the Tuscan countryside backdrop of fifteenth-century Italy, Onoria survives a massacre that destroys her family and home. Alone in the forest1992 Los Angeles riots, she meets a band of soldiers who, believing her reaction to be a boy train and develop her – and the determined Onoria becomes absolution of four police officers for beating a mercenary – desperate to avoid any situation in which she may feel vulnerable again. Along the wayblack man, she meets ex-soldier CelaviniRodney King, whose journey nearly to Florence sees him investigating two brutal murdersdeath. As he digs further and uncovers links to his own family historyTold from the perspective of Ashley Bennett, Celavini must revisit the past he shares novel follows her evolution from a silent bystander when confronted with Onoriamatters of race, in the hope that they can lay the ghosts of their shared history to rest before it's too late..a woman finding her voice and embracing her heritage.|isbn=1471188191