Changes

|author=Freya MarskeTananarive Due|title=A Marvellous LightThe Reformatory|rating=45

|summary=Robin Blyth is nudged into a job in the Civil ServiceGracetown, much to his chagrinFlorida. June 1950. There he meets Edwin Courcey and learns that the streets of London are threaded After a scuffle with magic. Desperate to remove a curse that threatens to swallow himwhite boy, Robin follows Edwin twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is sentenced to six months at the countrysideGracetown School for Boys, where otherwise known as the hedgegrows bristle Reformatory. It's a place with incantations a brutal and dark reputation. But the people shimmer with power. There they uncover segregated reformatory is a sinister plot chamber of horrors, haunted by the boys that threatens have died there. In order to survive the lives school governor and his Funhouse, Robert must enlist the help of all magicians in the British Islesschool's ghosts – only they have their own motivations... |isbn=15290808861803366532}}

|isbnauthor= B09F4CTKJRKatherine Howe|title= Flights for Freedom|author= Steven BurgauerA True Account

|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=It's the later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a young American family who has signed up run an inn, and joined the 17 Aero Squadronbeing made to work there from a young age. This company was the first US Aero Squadron When she hears there is to be trained a hanging of some pirates in Canadathe town, the first to be attached she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the RAF hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and the first then to be sent into the skies escape them completely she runs away to fight sea, dressing as a boy and joining the Germans notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in active combat. But before that can happenthe thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, Petrol has to master flying and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camelocean waves.|isbn=0861547438

|author= Christophe MedlerSarah Marsh|title=Madrigal: A Closely Guarded SecretSign of Her Own|rating=43.5|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary= Set against the backdrop After a bout of the English Civil Warscarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a secret plan (code-named Madrigal) is discovered by Sir Robert Douse in the summer world of 1642silence, everything about her life changes. As Living in a loyal servant of time when the King, and Head use of the Secret Servicesign language was seen as something only savages do, it Ellen is Robert's duty sent to uncover 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 details of deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the plan same time, Bell is working on other inventions and follow the clues to uncover one ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of the most guarded secrets in history—especially since the plot could affect the Kingespionage.|isbn=B095HY8SXQ1035401614

|isbnauthor=1471187179Claire North|title=A Beautiful Spy|author=Rachel HoreHouse of Odysseus|rating=45|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=Minnie is an 'ordinary' girl living an unexciting life in a leafy provincial suburb. What could matter more than love?'' The book is set in the 1930s and Minnie is expected to live follow-up to her motherthe excellent ''Ithaca''s expectations and find picks up a nice young man to marry, produce children and spend few months after where we left off. In the rest palace of her days looking after Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband and their home. Unfortunately, this isn't what she wants who sailed to do war at all Troy and neither does she want to continue working as a secretarythen by divine intervention never returned home. As a result of a chance meeting, ever she finds herself drawn into espionage, working remains surrounded by suitors vying for the secret service throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and effectively living a double life - attempting physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to infiltrate Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the Communist Party brink of Great Britaina fragile peace. Minnie finds herself torn between what she perceives as her duty and One that shatters however with the friends she has made - return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and likes - whilst working for the Communist Partyhis sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|isbn=0356516075

|authorisbn=Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)B0C7J9D21B|title=Kokoschka's Doll|rating=2.5|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 A Captive 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}}{{FrontpageAlgiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=Christina Hammonds Reed|title=The Black KidsA J Lewis

|genre=Teens Historical Fiction|summary=Christina Hammonds Reed's debut novel When we first meet our hero, his name is set against the backdrop Ettore and he lives at The House of the 1992 Los Angeles riotsBeautiful Swallows. Idyllic as this might sound, it's a reaction to the absolution bordello and Ettore's mother died when he was born. He's not been short of four police officers mothers, though - but for beating a black mansomeone of his background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, Rodney King, nearly it's difficult to deathobtain decent employment. Told from The stint working with the perspective preparation of Ashley Bennett, the novel follows her evolution from 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 silent bystander when confronted with matters of race, to successful business as a woman finding her voice and embracing her heritageguide for visitors. He was even saving some money.|isbn=1471188191

|author=Caroline ScottEssie Fox|title=When I Come Home AgainThe Fascination|rating=4.5

|summary=1918 and The Victorian era is incredibly over-romanticised as a young man is arrested in Durham Cathedral. He refuses setting for historical fiction (matched only, perhaps, by the Second World War) which has often led to give more than a name, no matter how hard they push he will not say who he isfew writers mishandling it. Eventually they determine this isn't wilful obstinance, he doesnThere't answer because he doesn't know. He remembers being on the road for s such a long time, and being frightened, and some glut of media set in the era that the faces from hallmarks we've come to associate with it are familiar to the roadpoint of being cliched, but other than hackneyed even. All this is simply to illustrate that – everything it would be an easy thing to do poorly. But despite 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, something about it becomes Adam Galilee. A fanciful name for a tired young man in a dishevelled uniform who doesnstill grabs me – and something about this book't know who he is, where he is or how he got theres description did as well.|isbn=14711921721914585526

|isbnauthor=1405946172Nicole Jarvis|title=The Glass House|author=Eve ChaseA Portrait in Shadow

|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 I want all of Florence to know my name'' Cast out from Rome, Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Torquay until she got a job as a nanny with the Harrington family Florence seeking an oasis in London. Soon which her engagement to Fred, art can find a Torquay butcher, fell through home and the Harringtons became where her familyfuture can thrive rather than stagnate. In 1971But as some as she enters Florentine society she faces great opposition from the powerful Accademia, after a fire at the London house, Jeannie Harrington, her children, 13self-yearproclaimed guardians of the healing magics that through paintings have the power to protect the city and its citizens from plagues and curses. The all-old Hera male Accademia has hoarded power over art and 6-year-old Teddy, along with Rita went to the family's house in the Forest of Deanarchitecture for centuries and guard it above all else. It wasn't ''quite'' dilapidatedTo them, but it certainly wasn't the same standard as the London house had been before the fireArtemisia – an ambitious young woman who promises trouble and change – has no place amongst them and their society.|isbn=1803362340

|author=Sally MagnussonThomas D Lee|title=The Sealwoman's GiftPerilous Times|rating=4.53|genre=Historical FictionFantasy|summary= There ''Hate is a legend that God came to visit Adam & Eve the path of least resistance'' Set in the Garden. Eve had not finished bathing her children and ashamed of those still not cleansednear-distant future, she attempted to hide them from in a world on the eyes verge of Godclimate collapse, denying that she had more children than those, already bathed, that she willing paraded for himBritain is in great peril. God was not The British Isles desperately needs a hero (or several) to be deceived, however, save the day and decreed that rescue what little remains. What no-one expected was sought to be hidden from the eyes that one of God would henceforth be hidden from the eyes Knights of man, and so the Elves were born: Round Table would answer the hidden folk. They can see man, but man can only see them if they so choosecall.|isbn=14736389840356518523

|author=Wendy Cheyne G K Holloway|title=From In the Auld Rock to a Hard PlaceShadows of Castles|rating=4.5

|summary= After We begin after the Jacobite defeat at momentous battle in 1066 and on the Battle day of Culloden, William of Normandy's coronation as King of England. William's position is not secure and the new king has many Scottish estates were given to English lordschallenges. Imposing authority through a coronation is important. They were not kind And William is right to their crofting tenantsworry. Many on While the mainland were cleared previous king, Harold, is dead and while this did not happen much on the islands such as Shetlandlikelihood of more pitched battles is over, the new exploitative conditions led many Shetlanders to leave - to port cities on rebels are stirring and much of the mainland, country does not wish to North America and even to Australia and New Zealandrecognise a new overlord. |isbn= 18385917531800422466

|authorisbn= Alison Weir3949666079|title= Six Tudor Queens: Katheryn Howard The Tainted QueenNoema|author=Dael Akkerman|rating= 4.5|genre= Historical General Fiction|summary= ''Katheryn was seven when her mother diedThis 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, thus we are thrust the Sea of Grass encroaches further and further into this tumultuous time in young KatherynMaya's life, trying to find a forest home, both figuratively and literally, where she can grow food is becoming more and grievemore scarce. Unfortunately, Katheryn is followed by bad luck and she learns an important lesson, she is too young, too poor and too unimportant What to be do? Can the law givers in the federation of any value villages muster peaceful ways to anyonecope? Can the Traveller, but she is beautiful and surely, that will count for something in a spiritual figure who interprets the endwisdom of All Life, won't itprovide solutions?|isbn=1472227778

|isbn=15291237631529125898|title=Miss AustenGodmersham Park

|summary=It''If it were not for the casual dereliction of the odd gentleman's long been known that Cassandra 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 burned most . She had no experience of teaching but this was a case of necessity. Until the letters which she death of her mother, Anne had a comfortable life and other members of was loved by both parents although her father was frequently absent from the extensive Austen family had exchanged household. When her mother died, her father cast her off and would have nothing more to do with or about her sister Jane. What is not known is 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 ''whyOrigins'' she did this and at this stage - . Unfortunately it is the only truly poetic part of a book that I expected more than two hundred years after Janefrom. Covering Chinese history from 1938 to 2005 as viewed through one family's death perspective. When their home city is set ablaze during the war with Japan, a young mother (Meilin) and her four-year- a definitive answer is unlikely to forthcomingold son (Renshu) are among those who flee. Gill Hornby has provided us with some possible answers The story follows them on their journey across China, and in a book that proved Renshu's case eventually to be far more emotionally complex than I was expectingAmerica. |isbn=1472277538

|isbn=14711863931916072038|title=Photographer of The House in the LostHollow (The Talbot Saga)|author=Caroline ScottAllie Cresswell

|summary=May 1921. Edie receives a photograph through We meet part of the post. There is no letter or note with itTalbot family in Yorkshire in November 1811. There is nothing written on Twenty-seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot and her mother have travelled in some discomfort from their home at Ecklington, to the back of house in the photographhollow. It The two women are angry with each other and Jocelyn is a picture well aware of her husband, Francis. Francis has been missing for four years. Technicallymother's strengths and weaknesses: ''She is practiced at subterfuge, he has been "missingat concealing, believed killed" but that is not something that beneath a young widow can believe. She hangs on facade of respectability, the word deplorable truth''missing. Hester is furious about Jocelyn's refusal to do as she was asked, disbelieving which has precipitated ''this violent and unexpected removal''. Then we are told of the word killedbirth of a child and, soon after, Hester Talbot departs, leaving Jocelyn in shame and isolation in Yorkshire.

|isbnauthor=099944235XAnnabel Abbs|title=The Man Who Killed Hitler|author=Andre PronovostLanguage of Food|rating=35

|summary=Germany Eliza Acton is split. Some of her is in favour of Hitler and a poet who has never had the Nazis, but much isn't. Some of her is stuck slightest inclination 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 itboil an egg. Finding out that the war to the east isn't workingWhen tasked with writing a cookery book, due to Hitler's tactical ineptitude and inability to heed adviceshe recruits Ann Kirby, some people reckon Stalin is five seasons away from being in Berlina local woman with a troubled home life. The only way to shore things upTogether, and repair the splitsthey test, is to kill Hitlercraft, refine and luckily Baron Nicholas is reshape the man to do it. He's aristocratic enough, he knows enough people in industry, society and other circles world of powerdomestic cookery, so once he's succeeded he might be able to keep a German presence in Europe. But will he still be able to keep reinventing the "predatory American capitalists" recipe book and changing the blatantly communist Soviets from meeting in the middle?face of cookery writing forever.|isbn=1398502227

|isbnauthor=1789018625Freya Marske|title=Just Another Girl on the Road|author=S KensingtonA Marvellous Light|rating=4

|summary=When Sergeant Farr and Corporal Valentine first encountered Katrinka Badeau she was just eighteen years old and fleeing from Robin Blyth is nudged into a farmhouse job in the Civil Service, much to his chagrin. There he meets Edwin Courcey and a group learns that the streets of German deserters who had raped herLondon are threaded with magic. Despite being outnumbered she was giving just about as good as she got when Farr Desperate to remove a curse that threatens to swallow him, Robin follows Edwin to the countryside, where the hedgegrows bristle with incantations and Valentine intervened and finished the group offpeople shimmer with power. It was 1944 and Farr and Valentine were part There they uncover a sinister plot that threatens the lives of all magicians in the Jedburgh unit, EDMOND, lead by Major Willoughby NyeBritish Isles. 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|isbn=1529080886

|isbn=1542007232B09F4CTKJR|title=The Rabbit GirlsFlights for Freedom|author=Anna EllorySteven Burgauer|rating=34.5

|summary=Berlin, 1989It's the later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the conflict. Miriam Petrol Petronus is in the middle of a city freshly united, with the Wall newly broken down young American who has signed up and people able to cross at liberty for joined the first time in decades17 Aero Squadron. She is in This company was the middle of such euphoria, but cannot feel it, for she has not left her father's apartment first US Aero Squadron to be trained in weeksCanada, 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 – first to be attached to the RAF and she sees for the first time ever a tattoo for his camp inmate identity under his watchto be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in active combat. One bombshell outsideBut before that can happen, then, and two inside. And inside her father, Henryk, what is going on, as he Petrol has a first-person narrative alternating with her story? What will we find happened, as he remembers back to master flying the real Frieda, a young woman that shook him to the core when he was her literature professor? That's right, more bombshells… notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.

|isbnauthor=1529311446Christophe Medler|title=The Long Flight Home|author=Madrigal: A L HladClosely Guarded Secret|rating=4.5

|summary=September 1940 - as WWII rages on, bombs rain down on Britain, destroying Set against the homes and lives backdrop of a people on the edge. In Epping ForestEnglish Civil War, Susan Shepherd and her grandfather Bertie live together raising homing pigeons with the birds proving a comfort for Susan following secret plan (code-named Madrigal) is discovered by Sir Robert Douse in the loss summer of her parents1642. These pigeons are more than just birds to Susan though – in each one, and especially in Duchess, she sees As a distinct personality and forms a close bond. Meanwhileloyal servant of the King, young pilot Ollie Evans leaves Maine to head to Britain and join Head of the Royal Air Force. Working with the National Pigeon Secret Service, he soon meets Susan and it is tasked with air-dropping hundreds Robert's duty to uncover the details of homing pigeons into German-occupied France, where many will not survive. As the mission is planned, plan and follow 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 clues to uncover one of a reunion for Susan and Ollie remains…the most guarded secrets in history—especially since the plot could affect the King.|isbn=B095HY8SXQ

|isbn=178747920X1471187179|title=Brightfall A Beautiful Spy|author=Jaime Lee MoyerRachel Hore|rating=4.5

|summary=Robin Hood Minnie is gone – denouncing both his former an 'ordinary' girl living an unexciting life in a leafy provincial suburb. The book is set in the 1930s and his love Marian, and retreating Minnie is expected to a monastery – although no-one knows quite what led him live up to abandon all that he had built. Marionher mother's life since has been relatively quiet - but when her friends start dyingexpectations and find a nice young man to marry, Marion is tasked by Father Tuck to break produce children and spend the curse surrounding them rest of her days looking after her husband and to save their liveshome. Setting off with a soldier Unfortunately, a Fey Lord this isn't what she wants to do at all and neither does she want to continue working as a sullen Robin Hood, she becomes tangled in secretary. As a maze result of betrayalsa chance meeting, complicated relationshipsshe finds herself drawn into espionage, working for the secret service and effectively living a vicious struggle 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 throne…Communist Party.

|isbnauthor=1784631647Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=A Perfect Explanation|author=Eleanor AnstrutherKokoschka's Doll|rating=2.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=Enid Campbell was Well, this looked very much like a woman whobook I could love from the get-go, on the face 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, had everything. Leading a chapter whose number was in the life of an aristocrat – full of inherited wealth and splendour20,000s, glamourous locales and high expectations. Only Enid's life has been plagued by mental illness – undiagnosedletters used as narrative form, untreated and threatening both Enid and those close to herso on. 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 It intrigued with the true story subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of her own grandmotherit mentioned, Eleanor Anstruther has found too. But you've seen the perfect subject for an explosivestar rating that comes with this review, moving and beautifully well-written debutcan tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. [[A Perfect Explanation by Eleanor Anstruther So what happened?|Full Review]]isbn=1529402697

|isbnauthor=0857058738Christina Hammonds Reed|title=Equator|author=Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)The Black Kids|rating=34.5|genre=Historical FictionTeens |summary=It strikes me that nobody can speak well Christina Hammonds Reed's debut novel is set against the backdrop of the Wild West outside the walls of 1992 Los Angeles riots, a theme park. Our agent reaction to see how bad it was here is Pete Ferguson, who bristles at the indignity absolution of the white four police officers for beating a black man against Native 'Indian', who spends days being physically sick while indulging in a buffalo huntRodney King, and who hates nearly to death. Told from the way man – and woman, perspective of course – can turn against fellow man at the bat of an eyelid. But this book is about so much more than the 1870s USAAshley Bennett, and the attendant problems novel follows her evolution from a silent bystander when confronted with gold rushes, pioneer spirits and racial genocide. He finds himself trying to find this book's version matters of Utopiarace, 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, a woman finding her voice and where, who knows, things might actually be betterembracing her heritage. 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=1471188191