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[[Category:New Reviews|Historical Fiction]]__NOTOC__{{newreview|author=Elif Shafak|title=The Forty Rules of Love|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=This is a sixth novel from best<!-- Remove -selling Turkish author, Elif Shafak. Set in twelfth century Anatolia, two famous characters from Islamic history meet in a gorgeously real world. A delicate contemporary US love story is wrapped around the rich, meaty historical fiction. Don't be misled by the dodgy-sounding title!>|amazonuk= <amazonuk>0670918733</amazonuk!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->}} ==Historical fiction=={{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lawrence HillTananarive Due|title=The Book of NegroesReformatory|rating=45

|summary=Although this is Gracetown, Florida. June 1950. After a scuffle with a work of fictionwhite boy, the whole distasteful and deeply upsetting subject of slavery twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is a fact, therefore, sentenced to six months at times I felt as if I were reading a true account. The narrative goes back and forththe Gracetown School for Boys, starting with Aminata (or Meena otherwise known as she is usually called) as a relatively old woman (what we would call middle-aged)the Reformatory. SheIt's in London, far from home, but she's there for an extremely important reason. The powers-that-be need her to tell her story, as a slave over many yearsplace with a brutal and dark reputation. The hope But the segregated reformatory is a chamber of horrors, haunted by the boys that other Meenas will not have died there. In order to suffer survive the same fate. On a lighter note (school governor and his Funhouse, Robert must enlist the help of the school's ghosts – only they are few and far between) Meena gets to visit some London schoolchildrenhave their own motivations. They think that she eats elephant. She is able to laugh at their naivety.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552775487</amazonuk>1803366532}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Phil RickmanKatherine Howe|title=The Bones of AvalonA True Account

|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=When Elizabeth I's most trusted men fear for her safety and think there's a possibly supernatural plot against herHannah Masury is living in Boston, the obvious man having been sent to investigate it is Dr John Deelive with a family who run an inn, her astrologer and consultant in the hidden arts. Aided by his former pupil – and Elizabeth's reputed lover – Robert Dudley, he travels being made to Glastonbury to try and find the bones of King Arthur. Glastonbury, however, has never recovered work there from the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the execution of its beloved Abbot Richard Whiting, and many residents view the pair with suspiciona young age. The exception When she hears there is to this is Nel Borrow, who treats Dudley when he's ill and becomes the first woman Dee has ever been interested be a hanging of some pirates in romantically. Can the three stop the villainous plot? I'll leave you town, she decides to find out…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848872704</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Susan Fletcher|title=Corrag|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=A small go and dirty woman sits in a prison cellwatch. With her bare feet Enthralled and her matted hair and her damphorrified in equal measure, filthy clothes, she doesnHannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy't wonder s death at the word ''witch''hands of two vicious pirates. She has been called it all hides away, so that they don't find and kill her life. Her mother called her ''witch'' before too, and then to escape them completely she named her. Her given name Corrag – was runs away to sea, dressing as a corruption: for Cora (her mother) boy and Hag (which shejoining the notorious Ned Low'd get s pirate ship as used to as Cora had)a cabin boy.   She sits through soon finds herself in the snow thick of the winterthings when there is a mutiny on board, knowing that the sound she hears outside is the dragging and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the logs for her pyre.  She was told, though, that a man would come. So she waits for himocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007321597</amazonuk>0861547438

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Richard DenningSarah Marsh|title=The Amber TreasureA Sign of Her Own

|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=Cerdic is the younger son After a bout of scarlet fever as a minor lord living child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a quiet Anglo Saxon village in sixth century Northumbria. His people are settled and time when the Welsh (Romano-Britons) seem contained behind the Pennines. Cedric fully expects use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to live out his live as a gentleman farmerschool where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, hopefully with she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the beautiful Aidith by his sidedeaf and using a system called Visible Speech. But as he listens to At the tales told by Lilla the bardsame time, he can't help but dream of following after his uncle, the great warrior CynricBell is working on other inventions and ideas, and finding glory Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in battlea complicated tangle of espionage. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849140235</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreview|author=Katherine Howe|title=The Physick Book follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off. In the palace of Deliverance Dane|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Connie is doing postgraduate research on witchcraftOdysseus, 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. Although As ever she is initially rather wary remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of being asked the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to clear out her grandmother’s old houseIthaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the project turns out to lead to lots return of Orestes, King of exciting possibilitiesMycenae, including romance and perhaps original sources for her studieshis sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141047550</amazonuk>0356516075

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Debbie ElliottB0C7J9D21B|title=Tesla & TwainA Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=A J Lewis|rating=34.5

|summary=History remembers nineteenth century inventor Nikola Tesla 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 mad scientist, bordello and Ettore's mother died when he did indulge was born. He's not been short of mothers, though - but for someone of his background in some very peculiar experiments, most notably the directedlate-energy weapon, or deatheighteenth-raycentury Amalfi, as the press of the time gleefully dubbed it's difficult to obtain decent employment. But The stint working with the truth is that his preparation of anchovies didn't work was of groundbreaking importance: he developed the electrical alternating current and the AC motor, out and much morebastards are considered bad luck on fishing boats. The average person probably has a better awareness of Samuel Clemens Ettore was nothing if not resourceful - who wrote Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn under his pen name Mark Twain, determined - and who it was known not long before he had a successful business as one of the foremost satirists of his daya guide for visitors. But perhaps they don't know that Twain He was fascinated by scientific inquiry, or that these two seemingly disparate men were great friendseven saving some money. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906146756</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=E V ThompsonEssie Fox|title=The Dream TradersFascination|rating=34

|summary=In The Victorian era is incredibly over-romanticised as a setting for historical fiction (matched only, perhaps, by the nineteenth century, when European nations are scrabbling Second World War) which has often led to colonise as many territories as possible, more than a young Englishman sails into Chinese waters seeking fame and fortunefew writers mishandling it. Unlike There's such a glut of media set in the rest of his countrymen however, Luke Trewarne refuses era that the hallmarks we've come to get rich selling opium associate with it are familiar to the Chinesepoint of being cliched, hackneyed even. All very noble but the fact this is simply to illustrate that Luke is a passenger on board a ship laden with the stuff it would be an easy thing to do poorly. But despite that, something about it still grabs me – and there are Chinese gunships on the horizonsomething about this book's description did as well.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>070908885X</amazonuk>1914585526

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Janet MullanyNicole Jarvis|title=Improper RelationsA Portrait in Shadow|rating=4.5

|summary=Unlucky in love Charlotte Hayden has just lost her best friend and confidante Ann in marriage ''I want all of Florence to the Earl of Beresford. At the wedding she encounters Lord Shadderly, Beresfordknow my name''s best friend, a broodingly handsome man whom she takes an immediate dislike to. Before she knows it Charlotte is caught in a compromising situation with Shadderly and he is forced to propose to her or risk both their reputations.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755347803</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Clare Clark|title=Savage Lands|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The novel begins with one of the central characters - Elisabeth - preparing to leave Cast out from Rome, Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking an oasis in which her art can find a home in France, and embark upon a ship to take where her to America - to meet and marry a complete strangerfuture can thrive rather than stagnate. At this time there were literally only a few hundred settlersBut as some as she enters Florentine society she faces great opposition from the powerful Accademia, so potential wives were shipped in along with other necessities! She is very much in two minds about the entire venture self- apprehensive, yet more than a little excited at proclaimed guardians of the healing magics that through paintings have the power to protect the prospect of her new lifecity and its citizens from plagues and curses. The voyage doesn't begin particularly well all-male Accademia has hoarded power over art and architecture for her, as she feels isolated from the other girlscenturies and guard it above all else. A voracious readerTo them, she Artemisia – an ambitious young woman who promises trouble and change – has packed her trunk with books as opposed to the more conventional linens no place amongst them and this immediately sets her aparttheir society.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846553512</amazonuk>1803362340

{{newreview|author=Christi Phillips |title=The Devlin Diary|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It is 1672 and Hannah DevlinSet in the near-distant future, in a young widow with world on the verge of climate collapse, Britain is in great peril. The British Isles desperately needs a skill for hero (illegallyor several) practicing medicine finds herself being all but kidnapped by King Charles II's advisors to save the day and forced to use her skills to treat his mistress, Louise de Kerouallerescue what little remains. What no-one expected was that one of the Knights of the Round Table would answer the call.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847393489</amazonuk>0356518523

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Cathy Marie Buchanan G K Holloway|title=The Day The Falls Stood StillIn the Shadows of Castles

|summary=I imagined this title 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 'Gone With coronation is important. And William is right to worry. While the Wind' sort of novelprevious king, a saga-esque historical romanceHarold, with a characterful heroine is dead and page-turning story line that necessitates reading late into the night. Welllikelihood of more pitched battles is over, I wasn't disappointed in this paperback edition the rebels are stirring and much of the hardback, already country does not wish to recognise a best-seller in the U.Snew overlord.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091925967</amazonuk>1800422466

{{newreview|author=John Wilcox|title=The Shangani Patrol|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=This Maya is a young girl living in a hunter gatherer village during the latest in Mesolithic era. Climate change is occurring, the adventures Sea of Simon FonthillGrass encroaches further and further into Maya's forest home, a cross between a Victorian James Bond and Indianna Jonesfood is becoming more and more scarce. Although one What to do? Can the law givers in the federation of a seriesvillages muster peaceful ways to cope? Can the Traveller, it stands alone as a novel. It's steeped in spiritual figure who interprets the history (and there's a lot wisdom of it) of the late 19th century when Queen Victoria 'ruled the world.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755345614</amazonuk>All Life, provide solutions?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Terence Morgan1529125898|title=The Master of BrugesGodmersham Park|author=Gill Hornby

|summary=Belgium, the fifteenth century. Hans is apprenticed to a master painter in ''If it were not for the city casual dereliction of Brussels, until the old curmudgeon diesodd gentleman's duty, and his studio falls apart. Luckily for Hans, a mistakenly drawn sketch, and a bizarre rescue from the gallows gives him a major boost - patronage, for both portraits and many religious images. With what might seem there would no women to be a patchy diary teach well- some years have five pages only, concerning but one month - we see his startling life journey, covering beguiling models, ghostly war scenes, and even the biggest intrigues of English royal courtbred daughters at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230744125</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Eloisa James|title=When the Duke Returns|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=''When the Duke Returns'', the newest volume in the 'Desperate Duchesses' series, continues the regency celebrity romp saga where [[Duchess by Night by Eloisa James|Duchess by Night]] left off.

The focus, 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 time, is on Isidore, was a case of necessity. Until the Duchess death of Conway: hot-headedher mother, hot-blooded Anne had a comfortable life and Italian to boot, she was married loved by proxy at both parents although her father was frequently absent from the age of sixteen household. When her mother died, her father cast her off and is still a virgin seven years laterwould have nothing more to do with her. Isidore's cunning plot to entice back the husband No explanation was offered but she has never seen from his travels in Asia and Africa works perfectly and Simeon, His Grace Duke would receive an annuity of Conway is now back in England£35 a year. Her maid, ready to claim his estate andAgnes, as Isidore presumes, ready to claim his beautiful wifewould receive nothing but was fortunately taken in by some neighbours.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340961104</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Adam WilliamsMelissa Fu |title=The Book of the AlchemistPeach Blossom Spring

|summary= ''The Book We meet part of the Alchemist'' is a story within a story. It opens Talbot family in Yorkshire in 1938 during the Spanish Civil WarNovember 1811. Pinzon, a Spanish politician who resigns for moral reasons, is taken hostage by a group of Republican soldiers, along with his young Grandson. A group of villagers are also taken captive Twenty-seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot and locked her mother have travelled in a cathedral as part of the soldiers' desperate plan to protect themselves some discomfort from the Fascist forces that are hunting them. A cavernous mosque built inside the mountain under the cathedral's crypt is discoveredtheir home at Ecklington, and in it, a book. As Pinzon reads to the book, another story unfolds, set house in the eleventh centuryhollow. This The two women are angry with each other and Jocelyn is the story well aware of Samuel the Jew.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340899131</amazonuk>}}her mother's strengths and weaknesses:

{{newreview|author=Jack Ludlow|title=Warriors|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Arduin of Fassano ''She is paid by Michael Doukeianospracticed at subterfuge, a young Byzantine generalat concealing, to keep the peace in Apulia. Arduin is beneath a Lombard, however, and secretly plans to revolt and take Apulia for himself, hiring a group facade of Norman mercenaries to help him do the job. These Normans are William de Hauteville and his brothersrespectability, famed warriors with their own conflicts and a desire to gain titles and wealth for their sons. Even if Arduin and the Normans could take Apulia, there are no guarantees that they could hold it in a land full of treachery and bribesdeplorable truth''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007559</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Kate Tremayne|title=The Loveday Conspiracy|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Trevowan Manor has been the home of the Loveday family for generations. It will still be owned by a Loveday but St John Loveday lost the house on the throw of a dice before killing himself – and now his cousin Tristan has the house. St JohnHester is furious about Jocelyn's twinrefusal to do as she was asked, Adam, vows that he will punish the man responsible. Amelia which has been forced from Trevowan precipitated ''this violent and is now living in a cottage with the other dispossessed women. As if this wasnunexpected removal''t enough of a problem, her son from her first marriage, Richard, has become even more than wayward and Amelia is forced to make a difficult choice.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755347676</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=John E Smelcer|title=The Great Death|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary='As Western Europeans settled Alaska, they brought with them diseases against which the indigenous people had no natural immunity. At the beginning Then we are told of the twentieth century, fully two thirds birth of all Alaska natives perished from a pandemic of measleschild and, soon after, smallpoxHester Talbot departs, leaving Jocelyn in shame and influenza. No community was spared. In most cases, half of a village's population died within a week. In some cases, there were no survivors. It was the end of an ancient way of life. Natives still refer to the dreadful period as the Great Deathisolation in Yorkshire.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842709194</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robyn Young Annabel Abbs|title=Requiem (Brethren Trilogy)The Language of Food|rating=45

|summary=It's December 1295, and Eliza Acton is a poet who has never had the bedraggled remnants of the Third Crusade are returning homeslightest inclination to boil an egg. Not all have given up the dream of When tasked with writing a Christian Jerusalemcookery book, and Jacques de Molayshe recruits Ann Kirby, the Grand Master of the Templars, is eager to find patrons to fund a fresh invasionlocal woman with a troubled home life. But the West has turned inwardTogether, andthey test, with the Order's reason for existence vanished with the Crusader statescraft, factions within both the English refine and French courts covet reshape the wealth and military might world of domestic cookery, reinventing the Temple. With his homeland of Scotland under assault by his old rival Edward, recipe book and his position usurped by former comrades who wish to turn changing the Order to sinister ends, peace for series protagonist Will Campbell seems far awayface of cookery writing forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340921420</amazonuk>1398502227

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anthony RichesFreya Marske|title=Wounds of Honour (Empire)A Marvellous Light

|summary=Riding Robin Blyth is nudged into a job in the Civil Service, much to his chagrin. There he meets Edwin Courcey and learns that the Northern outpost streets of the Roman Empire London are threaded with magic. Desperate to deliver remove a messagecurse that threatens to swallow him, Marcus Valerius Aquila is seemingly attacked by a band of barbariansRobin follows Edwin to the countryside, but is rescued by a group of Tungrian irregulars, fighting as part of where the hedgegrows bristle with incantations and the Roman armypeople shimmer with power. Arriving at his destination, it soon becomes clear There they uncover a sinister plot that threatens the attack was deliberate, as his father has been condemned as a traitor back lives of all magicians in Rome by Emperor Commodus and his whole family have been put to the swordBritish Isles.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340920300</amazonuk>1529080886

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Freda Lightfoot B09F4CTKJR|title=House of AngelsFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer

|summary=The novel focuses on It's the Angel family who live in later stages of World War I and the Lake District in United States has just entered the late 1900sconflict. Josiah Angel Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and joined the head of 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the family and appears first US Aero Squadron to be a respectable business mantrained in Canada, bringing up his three daughters after the death of his wife. The family live in a beautiful house first to be attached to the RAF and – the first to outsiders – be sent into the daughters seem skies to have everything – comfort, money, beauty and an easy lifefight the Germans in active combat. But before that can happen, in great contrast Petrol has to master flying the poverty around them. Not far from Josiah's department store are the workhouse with its brutality and the blocks of slum flats infested with ratsnotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007125</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Faye L Booth Christophe Medler|title=Trades of the FleshMadrigal: A Closely Guarded Secret

|summary=I read Trades Set against the backdrop of the Flesh English Civil War, a secret plan (code-named Madrigal) is discovered by Sir Robert Douse in about 2 hours, speeding through itthe summer of 1642. As a loyal servant of the King, and think I've spent about double that time figuring out how to review it! Apart from anything elseHead of the Secret Service, itis Robert's taken me well over an hour duty to settle on a genre (uncover the details of the plan and I reserve follow the right clues to change that by uncover one of the end of most guarded secrets in history—especially since the review, although if I do I guess I plot could just delete this part…)affect the King.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230743412</amazonuk>B095HY8SXQ

 {{newreview|author=Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith |title=Pride and Prejudice and Zombies|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary=Ah, the benefits to a good book of a classic first line. 'Call me Ishmael.' 'It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.' Who can forget Iain Banks' 'It was the day my grandmother exploded'? Or those timeless words by Jane Austen, 'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594743347</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Chandra Prasad|title=Breathe the Sky: A Novel Inspired by the Life of Amelia Earhart|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Prasad's first novel [[On Borrowed Wings by Chandra Prasad|On Borrowed Wings]] followed a young girl entering the male-dominated arena of Yale in the 1930s. Her heroine took inspiration from the likes of Amelia Earhart (who has a walk-on part in the book), women who were finding their way in the world on their own terms and refusing to let their womanhood get in the way of it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1932279393</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Hilary Mantel|title=Wolf Hall|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=A revisionist look at Henry VIII's minister, Thomas Cromwell. Rich, absorbing and intelligent, it's a beautiful, beautiful book. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007230184</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shandi Mitchell 1471187179|title=Under This Unbroken Sky|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=A photograph opens the story. A black and white picture of a family, husband, wife and their three children, smiling for the camera. Thin, underfed, in their summer clothes despite the four inches of snow, they smile. Partly they smile because they do not know what is to come.  A page and five years later we catch up with the Mykolayenkos. In the Spring of 1938 Ivan and his cousin are catching mice in the barn and taking bets on which of the farm cats will pounce on the individually released rodents first. The game is interrupted by a man with a loaded .22 rifle. It takes a while for it to sink in, that this is Ivan's father, Teodor, free after a prison sentence for stealing his own grain.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297856588</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kate Furnivall|title=The Concubine's Secret|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=As a sequel to Kate Furnivall's first book, ''The Russian Concubine'', The Concubine's Secret helps to tie up some hanging storylines and in general provides an entertaining follow-up. In the first book, we watched Chang An Lo and Lydia Ivanova fall in love against all the odds. Here, they must remain in love despite being separated by most of a continent. As you might expect, the reader spends most of the book hoping for them to find a way to finally be together.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751540455</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewBeautiful Spy|author=Philippa Gregory|title=The White QueenRachel Hore

|summary=ItMinnie 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 1464 expectations and find a nice young widow stands at the side of the roadman to marry, clutching produce children and spend the hands rest of her two young sonsdays looking after her husband and their home. Unfortunately, waiting for the new King this isn't what she wants to ride past. She is Elizabeth Woodville do at all and the King is Edward IVneither does she want to continue working as a secretary. What happens is As a matter result of history: a secret marriagechance meeting, a shocking revealshe finds herself drawn into espionage, and a vicious contest working for the young King's ear (secret service and purse) that forces civil war to drag on in England for much longer than perhaps it would have. Without this meeting, English history would have been critically different. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847374557</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kate Pullinger |title=The Mistress of Nothing|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Lucie, Lady Duff Gordon was effectively living a welldouble life -known figure in Victorian London when tuberculosis forced her attempting to move to a hot climateinfiltrate the Communist Party of Great Britain. She travelled to Egypt, accompanied only by Minnie finds herself torn between what she perceives as her Lady's Maid, Sally Naldrett duty and left her husband the friends she has made - and children in London, not knowing if she would ever see them again. Lady Duff Gordon's story is told in ''The Mistress of Nothing'' but it's Sally Naldrett who is the focus of likes - whilst working for the bookCommunist Party.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687098</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Irène Némirovsky Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=All Our Worldly GoodsKokoschka's Doll|rating=2.5

|summary=Pierre Hardelot and Agnes Florent were in love and had been since they were childrenWell, but there were problems - not the least of which was that Pierre was engaged to marry Simone Renaudin. Simone was an appropriate match for the grandson of this looked very much like a mill owner and member of book I could love from the bourgeoisieget-go, but Agnes was descended from brewers which is why I picked my review copy up and lower middle class. In northern France, just flipped pages over several times before the outbreak actually reading any of the First World War, such distinctions matteredit. But Pierre and Agnes meet alone and rather than ruin her reputation Pierre proposes. In doing so he alienates his grandfather and I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the wealthy Renaudins. Pierre and Agnes' marriage and its consequences would reverberate for decades.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520443</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mary Hoffman |title=Troubadour|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary=In ''Troubadour''middle on darker stock paper, 13-year-old noblewoman, Elinor de Sévignan, flees from her parents' choice of suitor by posing as a boy singer with a group of travelling minstrels chapter whose number was in 13th century Southern France. As her transition from her pampered but restricted existence to roaming troubadour takes place on the roads of Provence20, so begins the Albigensian Crusade. Forces from Northern France attempt to crush the Cathars000s, whose religious beliefs are seen letters used as hereticalnarrative form, making their lands and wealth fair game for both fanatical followers of so on. It intrigued with the Pope, and opportunistic mercenaries.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747592519</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Margaret Redfern|title=Flint|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Will and his brother Ned have been plucked from their home subterranean voice a man hears in the Fens. They're on their way to Flint, ditch diggers for Edward wartorn Dresden that what little I's new castle. Will is unwilling to goknew of it mentioned, and he's only eleven, but he can't abandon his strange older brother to strangerstoo. Ned can But you't talk and most people dismiss him as an idiot, but he has skills. He can whisper to horses and calm them, he's a skilled herbalistve seen the star rating that comes with this review, and he can make music tell that moves men's hearts. Ned is glad to be if love was on this journey because he hopes to be reunited with Ieuan ap y Gofthese pages, an exiled bard and the man who taught him musicit was not actually caused by them. So what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906784043</amazonuk>1529402697

 {{newreview|author=James McCreet|title=The Incendiary's Trail|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=This book opens with a bang and except for brief slow-downs in the middle, is an exciting and riveting read. It's both a historical mystery and a thriller, teaching the reader a little bit about Victorian London while still making the book an immersive experience that can be hard to leave. The policemen really have very little idea who is behind the initial murder, much less the ones that follow, and I loved learning what happened along with them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230736270</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matthew PearlChristina Hammonds Reed|title=The Last DickensBlack Kids

|genre=Crime Teens |summary=In BengalChristina Hammonds Reed's debut novel is set against the backdrop of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, India on a June day in 1870 two young mounted policemen are hot on reaction to the trail of dacoit suspected of the recent daylight robbery absolution of four police officers for beating a train of bullock cartsblack man, Rodney King, nearly to death. The chests taken Told from the carts were full perspective of Opium. Meanwhile a few thousand miles away in Boston, USAAshley Bennett, a young office boy is chased through the docks by novel follows her evolution from a dark stranger silent bystander when confronted with matters of ''Hindoo'' appearance wielding a walking stick topped by race, to a ferociously fanged idolwoman finding her voice and embracing her heritage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184655084X</amazonuk>1471188191

{{newreview|author=Angus Donald |title=Outlaw|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction |summary=When Alan Dale is caught stealing from a market stall in Nottingham he narrowly escapes with his life and limbs in tact. To protect him from the justice of Sir Ralph Murdac, Alan's mother begs the mercy of the great outlaw, Robin Hood. Robin agrees to take Alan into his protection, and so begins Alan's life as an outlaw.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751542083</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jane Borodale |title=The Book of Fires|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction |summary=Agnes Trussel leaves her home to save her family from the disgrace of learning that she has been raped and is carrying an illegitimate child. With limited options and in despair at her situation she takes money from the home of a neighbour to pay her way to London. Once there, her life as assistant to the dour John Blacklock, a firework maker, gives her security and a sense of worth. But she is sure that all she values is likely to be lost once her pregnancy and her status as a thief becomes known. The crux of her situation, and that of many women like her at the time, is well summarised in her thoughts: ''the child is almost all I have, I think. And its'' ''existence will ensure that anything else will be taken away from me.''|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007305729</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Adam Thorpe|title=Hodd|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction |summary=Like every other English child I was brought up Move on tales of Robin Hood.  ''Robin Hood, Robin Hood riding through the glen, Robin Hood, Robin Hood with his band of men. Feared by the bad,'' ''loved by the good, Robin Hood, Robin Hood.''  The theme music to the 1950s TV series starring Richard Greene says it all. The legends and myths surrounding Robin of Loxley, faithfully recreated in all of the outings from Walter Scott's ''Ivanhoe'' through the Errol Flynn films, to the BBC's recently lamented Jonas Armstrong depict the Outlaw as Saint.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224079433</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Chris Hannan |title=Missy|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction |summary=This begins so well, with just the right sort of first sentence to hook you into a book: ''I expect you have the'' ''consolation of religion, or the guidance of a philosophy, but when me and the girls get frazzled, or blue, or rapturous,'' ''or just awfully so-so, we shin out and buy ourselves some hats.'' So says our heroine of the piece, 19 year old Dol McQueen, who narrates us through her exploits in America's nineteenth century Wild West. She's rough, she's determined, but ultimately she's very damaged: a young, drug addict prostitute who trails hopelessly after her alcoholic mother from country to country.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099501554</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ben Kane|title=The Silver Eagle (Forgotten Legion)|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction |summary=I thought Ben Kane's debut novel [[The Forgotten Legion by Ben Kane|The Forgotten LegionNewest History Reviews]] was excellent, but that it ended a little abruptly, even with the knowledge there was more to come. Having now read that 'more to come', I feel a lot better about it. The story is so relentless that there was no obvious place to pause between books.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090110</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Marie Brennan |title=In Ashes Lie|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction |summary=It's September 1666 and although the mortals' Civil War is over the war amongst the fae is still raging in London. There's now a greater threat to the Onyx Court and it could destroy everything when a spark starts a fire which for three days spreads through the city devouring everything in its path. Can the mortals and the fae unite to find a way to defeat a foe which neither can better on their own?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497185</amazonuk>}}