Difference between revisions of "Newest Historical Fiction Reviews"

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{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Freya Marske
+
|author=Tananarive Due
|title=A Marvellous Light
+
|title=The Reformatory
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
|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
+
|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
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn= B09F4CTKJR
+
|author=Katherine Howe
|title= Flights for Freedom
+
|title=A True Account
|author= Steven Burgauer
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
+
|genre=General Fiction
|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.
+
|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.
 +
|isbn=0861547438
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author= Christophe Medler
+
|author=Sarah Marsh
|title=Madrigal: A Closely Guarded Secret
+
|title=A Sign of Her Own
|rating=4
+
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
+
|genre=General Fiction
|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.
+
|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 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.
|isbn=B095HY8SXQ
+
|isbn=1035401614
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1471187179
+
|author=Claire North
|title=A Beautiful Spy
+
|title=House of Odysseus
|author=Rachel Hore
+
|rating=5
|rating=4
+
|genre= Literary Fiction  
|genre=Historical Fiction
+
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
|summary=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.
+
 
 +
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.
 +
|isbn=0356516075
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)
+
|isbn=B0C7J9D21B
|title=Kokoschka's Doll
+
|title=A Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)
|rating=2.5
+
|author=A J Lewis
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|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?
 
|isbn=1529402697
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
|author=Christina Hammonds Reed
 
|title=The Black Kids
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Historical Fiction
|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.
+
|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.
|isbn=1471188191
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Caroline Scott
+
|author=Essie Fox
|title=When I Come Home Again
+
|title=The Fascination
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
|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.
+
|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.
|isbn=1471192172
+
|isbn=1914585526
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1405946172
+
|author=Nicole Jarvis
|title=The Glass House
+
|title=A Portrait in Shadow
|author=Eve Chase
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|genre=Historical 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 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.
+
|summary=''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.
 +
|isbn=1803362340
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Sally Magnusson
+
|author=Thomas D Lee
|title=The Sealwoman's Gift
+
|title=Perilous Times
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=3
|genre=Historical Fiction
+
|genre= Fantasy
|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.
+
|summary= ''Hate is the path of least resistance''
|isbn=1473638984
+
 
 +
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.
 +
|isbn=0356518523
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Wendy Cheyne 
+
|author=G K Holloway
|title=From the Auld Rock to a Hard Place
+
|title=In the Shadows of Castles
|rating=4
+
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
|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.  
+
|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.
|isbn= 1838591753
+
|isbn=1800422466
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author= Alison Weir
+
|isbn=3949666079
|title= Six Tudor Queens: Katheryn Howard The Tainted Queen
+
|title=Noema
|rating= 4
+
|author=Dael Akkerman
|genre= Historical Fiction
+
|rating=4.5
|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?
+
|genre=General Fiction
|isbn=1472227778
+
|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?  
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529123763
+
|isbn=1529125898
|title=Miss Austen
+
|title=Godmersham Park
 
|author=Gill Hornby
 
|author=Gill Hornby
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
|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 JaneWhat 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.
+
|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.''
 +
 
 +
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.
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Melissa Fu
 +
|title=Peach Blossom Spring
 +
|rating=3.5
 +
|genre=Historical Fiction
 +
|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.
 +
|isbn=1472277538
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1471186393
+
|isbn=1916072038
|title=Photographer of the Lost
+
|title=The House in the Hollow (The Talbot Saga)
|author=Caroline Scott
+
|author=Allie Cresswell
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=May 1921.  Edie receives a photograph through the post. There is no letter or note with itThere is nothing written on the back of the photographIt 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.
+
|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 hollowThe 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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=099944235X
+
|author=Annabel Abbs
|title=The Man Who Killed Hitler
+
|title=The Language of Food
|author=Andre Pronovost
+
|rating=5
|rating=3
 
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
|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?
+
|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.
 +
|isbn=1398502227
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1789018625
+
|author=Freya Marske
|title=Just Another Girl on the Road
+
|title=A Marvellous Light
|author=S Kensington
+
|rating=4
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
|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
+
|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
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1542007232
+
|isbn= B09F4CTKJR
|title=The Rabbit Girls
+
|title= Flights for Freedom
|author=Anna Ellory
+
|author= Steven Burgauer
|rating=3
+
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
|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…
+
|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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529311446
+
|author= Christophe Medler
|title=The Long Flight Home
+
|title=Madrigal: A Closely Guarded Secret
|author=A L Hlad
+
|rating=4
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
|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…
+
|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.
 +
|isbn=B095HY8SXQ
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=178747920X
+
|isbn=1471187179
|title=Brightfall
+
|title=A Beautiful Spy
|author=Jaime Lee Moyer
+
|author=Rachel Hore
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
|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…
+
|summary=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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1784631647
+
|author=Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)
|title=A Perfect Explanation
+
|title=Kokoschka's Doll
|author=Eleanor Anstruther
+
|rating=2.5
|rating=5
+
|genre=Literary Fiction
|genre=Historical Fiction
+
|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?
|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]]
+
|isbn=1529402697
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0857058738
+
|author=Christina Hammonds Reed
|title=Equator
+
|title=The Black Kids
|author=Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
+
|genre=Teens
|genre=Historical Fiction
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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.
|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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|isbn=1471188191
 
}}
 
}}
  
 
Move on to [[Newest History Reviews]]
 
Move on to [[Newest History Reviews]]

Latest revision as of 10:53, 20 November 2023

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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