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[[Category:New Reviews|Historical Fiction]]==Historical fiction==__NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michelle LovricTananarive Due|title=The Book of Human SkinReformatory

|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''Ye can't take s a place with a brutal and dark reputation. But the segregated reformatory is a chamber of horrors, haunted by the slither out ovva snakeboys that have died there.In order to survive the school governor and his Funhouse, Robert must enlist the help of the school''s ghosts – only they have their own motivations...|isbn=1803366532}} {{Frontpage|author=Katherine Howe|title=A True Account|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionSo says Gianni, valet |summary=Hannah Masury is living in a wealthy eighteenth century Venetian household. The masterBoston, having been sent to live with a merchantfamily who run an inn, divides his time between Italy and Peru, where he deals being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in silver. But the merchant isn't the serpent - his son Minguillo istown, she decides to go and watch. On the night an earthquake ripped through Peru Enthralled and deposited fanatical nun Sor Loreta at the convent horrified in Arequipaequal measure, Minguillo was born - Hannah finds herself embroiled in a serpent in his familyyoung boy's midstdeath at the hands of two vicious pirates. His own mother couldn She hides away, so that they don't bear to nurse him find and his father went into denialkill her too, making more and more frequent trips 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 South American home free cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of sociopathic progenythings 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. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140880588X</amazonuk>0861547438

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elif ShafakSarah Marsh|title=The Forty Rules A Sign of LoveHer Own|rating=43.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=This is After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a sixth novel from best-selling Turkish authorworld of silence, Elif Shafakeverything about her life changes. Set Living in twelfth century Anatoliaa 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, two famous characters but physically restrained from Islamic history meet signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a gorgeously real worldsystem called Visible Speech. A delicate contemporary US love story At the same time, Bell is wrapped around the richworking on other inventions and ideas, meaty historical fictionand Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage. Don't be misled by the dodgy-sounding title!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670918733</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreview|author=Lawrence Hill|title=The Book of Negroes|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Although this is follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a work of fiction, few months after where we left off. In the whole distasteful and deeply upsetting subject palace of slavery is a factOdysseus, thereforewith delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at times I felt as if I were reading a true account. The narrative goes back Troy and forth, starting with Aminata (or Meena as she is usually called) as a relatively old woman (what we would call middle-aged)then by divine intervention never returned home. She's in London, far from home, but As ever she's there remains surrounded by suitors vying for an extremely important reasonthe throne of the Western Isles. The powers-Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that-be need her Clytemnestra brought to tell her storyIthaca's shores, as Queen Penelope is on the brink of a slave over many yearsfragile peace. The hope is One that other Meenas will not have to suffer shatters however with the same fate. On a lighter note (return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and they are few and far between) Meena gets to visit some London schoolchildren. They think that she eats elephant. She is able to laugh at their naivetyhis sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552775487</amazonuk>0356516075

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Phil RickmanB0C7J9D21B|title=The Bones of AvalonA Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=A J Lewis

|summary=When Elizabeth Iwe first meet our hero, his name is Ettore and he lives at The House of Beautiful Swallows. Idyllic as this might sound, it's most trusted men fear for her safety a bordello and think thereEttore's mother died when he was born. He's a possibly supernatural plot against hernot been short of mothers, though - but for someone of his background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, the obvious man to investigate it is Dr John Dee, her astrologer and consultant in the hidden arts. Aided by his former pupil – and Elizabeth's reputed lover – Robert Dudley, he travels difficult to Glastonbury to try and find obtain decent employment. The stint working with the bones preparation of King Arthuranchovies didn't work out and bastards are considered bad luck on fishing boats. Glastonbury, however, has never recovered from the Dissolution of the Monasteries Ettore was nothing if not resourceful - and the execution of its beloved Abbot Richard Whiting, determined - and many residents view the pair with suspicionit was not long before he had a successful business as a guide for visitors. The exception to this is Nel Borrow, who treats Dudley when he's ill and becomes the first woman Dee has ever been interested in romantically He was even saving some money. Can the three stop the villainous plot? I'll leave you to find out…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848872704</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Susan FletcherEssie Fox|title=CorragThe Fascination|rating=54

|summary=A small and dirty woman sits in The Victorian era is incredibly over-romanticised as a prison cell. With her bare feet and her matted hair and her dampsetting for historical fiction (matched only, filthy clothesperhaps, she doesn't wonder at by the word ''witch''. She Second World War) which has been called often led to more than a few writers mishandling it all her life. Her mother called her There''witch'' before she named her. Her given name Corrag – was s such a corruption: for Cora (her mother) and Hag (which she'd get as used to as Cora had).  She sits through the snow glut of media set in the winter, knowing era that the sound she hears outside is hallmarks we've come to associate with it are familiar to the dragging point of the logs for her pyrebeing cliched, hackneyed even.  She was told, though, All this is simply to illustrate that a man it would comebe an easy thing to do poorly. So she waits for himBut despite that, something about it still grabs me – and something about this book's description did as well.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007321597</amazonuk>1914585526

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Richard DenningNicole Jarvis|title=The Amber TreasureA Portrait in Shadow|rating=34.5

|summary=Cerdic is the younger son ''I want all of a minor lord living in a quiet Anglo Saxon village in sixth century Northumbria. His people are settled and the Welsh (Romano-Britons) seem contained behind the Pennines. Cedric fully expects Florence to live out his live as a gentleman farmer, hopefully with the beautiful Aidith by his side. But as he listens to the tales told by Lilla the bard, he canknow my name''t help but dream of following after his uncle, the great warrior Cynric, and finding glory in battle. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849140235</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Katherine Howe|title=The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Connie is doing postgraduate research on witchcraftCast 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. Although But as some as she enters Florentine society she is initially rather wary faces great opposition from the powerful Accademia, the self-proclaimed guardians of being asked the healing magics that through paintings have the power to clear out her grandmother’s old house, protect the project turns out to lead to lots of exciting possibilitiescity 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, including romance Artemisia – an ambitious young woman who promises trouble and change – has no place amongst them and perhaps original sources for her studiestheir society.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141047550</amazonuk>1803362340

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Debbie ElliottThomas D Lee|title=Tesla & TwainPerilous Times

|genre=Historical FictionFantasy|summary=History remembers nineteenth century inventor Nikola Tesla as a mad scientist, and he did indulge in some very peculiar experiments, most notably the directed-energy weapon, or death-ray, as the press of the time gleefully dubbed it. But the truth ''Hate is that his work was of groundbreaking importance: he developed the electrical alternating current and the AC motor, and much more. The average person probably has a better awareness path of Samuel Clemens - who wrote Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn under his pen name Mark Twain, and who was known as one of the foremost satirists of his day. But perhaps they donleast resistance''t know that Twain was fascinated by scientific inquiry, or that these two seemingly disparate men were great friends. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906146756</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=E V Thompson|title=The Dream Traders|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=In Set in the nineteenth century, when European nations are scrabbling to colonise as many territories as possiblenear-distant future, in a young Englishman sails into Chinese waters seeking fame and fortune. Unlike world on the rest verge of his countrymen howeverclimate collapse, Luke Trewarne refuses to get rich selling opium Britain is in great peril. The British Isles desperately needs a hero (or several) to save the Chineseday and rescue what little remains. All very noble but What no-one expected was that one of the fact is that Luke is a passenger on board a ship laden with Knights of the stuff and there are Chinese gunships on Round Table would answer the horizoncall.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>070908885X</amazonuk>0356518523

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Janet MullanyG K Holloway|title=Improper RelationsIn the Shadows of Castles|rating=4.5

|summary=Unlucky We begin after the momentous battle in love Charlotte Hayden has just lost her best friend 1066 and confidante Ann in marriage to on the Earl day of BeresfordWilliam of Normandy's coronation as King of England. At the wedding she encounters Lord Shadderly, BeresfordWilliam's best friend, position is not secure and the new king has many challenges. Imposing authority through a broodingly handsome man whom she takes an immediate dislike coronation is important. And William is right toworry. Before she knows it Charlotte While the previous king, Harold, is caught in a compromising situation with Shadderly dead and he the likelihood of more pitched battles is forced over, the rebels are stirring and much of the country does not wish to propose to her or risk both their reputationsrecognise a new overlord.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755347803</amazonuk>1800422466

 {{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 her home in France, and embark upon a ship to take her to America - to meet and marry a complete stranger. At this time there were literally only a few hundred settlers, so potential wives were shipped in along with other necessities! She is very much in two minds about the entire venture - apprehensive, yet more than a little excited at the prospect of her new life. The voyage doesn't begin particularly well for her, as she feels isolated from the other girls. A voracious reader, she has packed her trunk with books as opposed to the more conventional linens and this immediately sets her apart.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846553512</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christi Phillips 3949666079|title=The Devlin Diary|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It is 1672 and Hannah Devlin, a young widow with a skill for (illegally) practicing medicine finds herself being all but kidnapped by King Charles II's advisors and forced to use her skills to treat his mistress, Louise de Keroualle.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847393489</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNoema|author=Cathy Marie Buchanan |title=The Day The Falls Stood StillDael Akkerman

|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=I imagined this title as a 'Gone With the Wind' sort of novel, This is a saga-esque historical romance, with a characterful heroine and page-turning story line about some things that necessitates reading late into the nighthappened to me about twelve thousand years ago. Well, I wasn't disappointed in this paperback edition of the hardback, already a best-seller in the U.S.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091925967</amazonuk>}}'

{{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 in about 2 hours, speeding through itEnglish Civil War, and think I've spent about double that time figuring out how to review it! Apart from anything else, it's taken me well over an hour to settle on a genre secret plan (and I reserve the right to change that by the end of the review, although if I do I guess I could just delete this part…code-named Madrigal)|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230743412</amazonuk>}} {{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 is discovered by Jane Austen, 'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie Sir Robert Douse 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 summer of Amelia Earhart|rating=31642.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Prasad's first novel [[On Borrowed Wings by Chandra Prasad|On Borrowed Wings]] followed As a young girl entering the male-dominated arena loyal servant of Yale in the 1930s. Her heroine took inspiration from the likes of Amelia Earhart (who has a walk-on part in the book)King, women who were finding their way in the world on their own terms and refusing to let their womanhood get in Head of 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 intelligentSecret Service, itis Robert's a beautiful, beautiful book. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007230184</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Shandi Mitchell |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 duty to come.  A page and five years later we catch up with uncover the Mykolayenkos. In the Spring details of 1938 Ivan and his cousin are catching mice in the barn plan and taking bets on which of the farm cats will pounce on follow the individually released rodents first. The game is interrupted by a man with a loaded .22 rifle. It takes a while for it clues 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 uncover one of the first book, we watched Chang An Lo and Lydia Ivanova fall most guarded secrets in love against all history—especially since the odds. Here, they must remain in love despite being separated by most of a continent. As you might expect, plot could affect the reader spends most of the book hoping for them to find a way to finally be togetherKing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0751540455</amazonuk>B095HY8SXQ

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philippa Gregory1471187179|title=The White QueenA Beautiful Spy|author=Rachel 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, working for the secret service and effectively living a vicious contest for double life - attempting to infiltrate the Communist Party of Great Britain. Minnie finds herself torn between what she perceives as her duty and the young King's ear (friends she has made - and purse) that forces civil war to drag on in England likes - whilst working for much longer than perhaps it would have. Without this meeting, English history would have been critically differentthe Communist Party. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847374557</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kate Pullinger Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=The Mistress of Nothing|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Lucie, Lady Duff Gordon was a well-known figure in Victorian London when tuberculosis forced her to move to a hot climate. She travelled to Egypt, accompanied only by her Lady's Maid, Sally Naldrett and left her husband 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 itKokoschka's Sally Naldrett who is the focus of the book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687098</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Irène Némirovsky |title=All Our Worldly GoodsDoll|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 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'', 13-year-old noblewoman, Elinor de Sévignan, flees from her parents' choice of suitor by posing as I found things to potentially delight me each time – a boy singer with a group of travelling minstrels weird section in 13th century Southern France. As her transition from her pampered but restricted existence to roaming troubadour takes place the middle on the roads of Provence, so begins the Albigensian Crusade. Forces from Northern France attempt to crush the Catharsdarker stock paper, a chapter whose religious beliefs are seen as heretical, making their lands and wealth fair game for both fanatical followers of 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 number was in the Fens. They're on their way to Flint20, ditch diggers for Edward I's new castle. Will is unwilling to go000s, and he's only eleven, but he can't abandon his strange older brother to strangers. Ned can't talk and most people dismiss him letters used as an idiotnarrative form, but he has skills. He can whisper to horses and calm them, he's a skilled herbalist, and he can make music that moves men's hearts. Ned is glad to be so on this journey because he hopes to be reunited with Ieuan ap y Gof, an exiled bard and the man who taught him music. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784043</amazonuk>}} {{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 intrigued with the reader subterranean voice a little bit about Victorian London while still making the book an immersive experience man hears in wartorn Dresden that can be hard to leave. The policemen really have very what 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>}} {{newreview|author=Matthew Pearl|title=The Last Dickens|rating=4.5|genre=Crime |summary=In Bengalknew of it mentioned, India on a June day in 1870 two young mounted policemen are hot on the trail of dacoit suspected of the recent daylight robbery of a train of bullock cartstoo. The chests taken from the carts were full of Opium. Meanwhile a few thousand miles away in Boston, USA, a young office boy is chased through the docks by a dark stranger of But you''Hindoo'' appearance wielding a walking stick topped by a ferociously fanged idol.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184655084X</amazonuk>}} {{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 ve seen 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|star 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 makercomes with this review, gives her security and a sense of worth. But she is sure can tell that all she values is likely to be lost once her pregnancy and her status as a thief becomes known. The crux of her situationif love was on these pages, and that of many women like her at the time, is well summarised in her thoughts: ''the child is almost all I have, I thinkit was not actually caused by them. And its'' ''existence will ensure that anything else will be taken away from me.''So what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007305729</amazonuk>1529402697

 {{newreview|author=Adam Thorpe|title=Hodd|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction |summary=Like every other English child I was brought up 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>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ben KaneChristina Hammonds Reed|title=The Silver Eagle (Forgotten Legion)Black Kids

|genre=Historical Fiction Teens |summary=I thought Ben KaneChristina Hammonds Reed's debut novel [[The Forgotten Legion by Ben Kane|The Forgotten Legion]] was excellentis set against the backdrop of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, but that it ended a little abruptlyreaction to the absolution of four police officers for beating a black man, even with the knowledge there was more Rodney King, nearly to comedeath. Having now read that 'more to come'Told from the perspective of Ashley Bennett, I feel the novel follows her evolution from a lot better about it. The story is so relentless that there was no obvious place silent bystander when confronted with matters of race, to pause between booksa woman finding her voice and embracing her heritage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848090110</amazonuk>1471188191

{{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 Move on to defeat a foe which neither can better on their own?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497185</amazonuk>}}[[Newest History Reviews]]