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Newest Historical Fiction Reviews (view source)
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[[Category:Historical Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Historical Fiction]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->==Historical fiction==__NOTOC__ <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anne PerryTananarive Due|title=The Sheen on the SilkReformatory|rating=45
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Anna Zarides arrives in ConstantinopleGracetown, Florida. June 1950. After a scuffle with a white boy, determined twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is sentenced to find out why her twin brother Justinian has been convicted of murdersix months at the Gracetown School for Boys, otherwise known as the Reformatory. It's a place with a brutal and dark reputation. But it the segregated reformatory is 1273a chamber of horrors, haunted by the boys that have died there. In order to survive the school governor and his Funhouse, Robert must enlist the help of the school's ghosts – only they have their own motivations...|isbn=1803366532}} {{Frontpage|author=Katherine Howe|title=A True Account|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a woman cannot move about freely family who run an inn, and being made to ask questionswork there from a young age. Anna When she hears there is to be a skilled doctorhanging of some pirates in the town, who uses Arab she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and Jewish medicine horrified in secret as well as more accepted Christian remedies: equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her quest for information too, and then to escape them completely she disguises herself runs away to sea, dressing as a eunuch boy and successfully treats joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a wide range cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of people things when there is a mutiny on board, and from the very poorest right there we are caught up to in her rip roaring tale of life on the emperor himselfocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755339061</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Penny InghamSarah Marsh|title=The King's DaughterA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=The central female character - 'The King's Daughter' is Elflaede. She's youngAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, feisty and very prettyEllen Lark loses her hearing. She also has this unforgettable reddish hair. At this point in the story I was reminded Suddenly plunged into a little world of Queen Elizabeth Isilence, I have to sayeverything about her life changes. In Elflaede's own words she 'had never known Living in a time without war .' The hordes when the use of Pagan Norsemen are sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to blame. They've come a school where she is taught to England with their own set of superstitionslip read, but physically restrained from signing. And they've come with one aimFrom here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. To conquer great swathes At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of Englandespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>095559975X</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire North
|title=House of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Seth HunterB0C7J9D21B|title=The Tide of WarA Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=A J Lewis
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=The Tide of War When we first meet our hero, his name is the second book in a trilogy of historical fictionnovels by Seth Hunter, set in the 1790s Ettore and recounts the adventures he lives at The House ofBritish naval captain Nathan PeakeBeautiful Swallows. In Idyllic as this book newly-promoted Peakeis sent to the Caribbean to command a British frigate, the Unicornmight sound,to hunt for the French warship, the Virginie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755357612</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michelle Lovric|title=The Book of Human Skin|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=it's a bordello and Ettore'Ye can't take the slither out ovva snakes mother died when he was born. He'' So says Giannis not been short of mothers, valet though - but for someone of his background in a wealthy late-eighteenth -century Venetian householdAmalfi, it's difficult to obtain decent employment. The master, a merchant, divides his time between Italy and Peru, where he deals in silver. But stint working with the merchant isnpreparation of anchovies didn't the serpent - his son Minguillo iswork out and bastards are considered bad luck on fishing boats. On the night an earthquake ripped through Peru and deposited fanatical nun Sor Loreta at the convent in Arequipa, Minguillo Ettore was born nothing if not resourceful - a serpent in his family's midst. His own mother couldn't bear to nurse him and his father went into denial, making more determined - and more frequent trips to it was not long before he had a successful business as a South American home free of sociopathic progenyguide for visitors. He was even saving some money. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>140880588X</amazonuk>
}}
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Although this The Victorian era is incredibly over-romanticised as a work of setting for historical fiction(matched only, perhaps, by the whole distasteful and deeply upsetting subject of slavery is a fact, therefore, at times I felt as if I were reading a true account. The narrative goes back and forth, starting with Aminata (or Meena as she is usually calledSecond World War) as which has often led to more than a relatively old woman (what we would call middle-aged)few writers mishandling it. SheThere's such a glut of media set in London, far from home, but shethe era that the hallmarks we's there for an extremely important reason. The powers-that-be need her ve come to associate with it are familiar to tell her storythe point of being cliched, as a slave over many yearshackneyed even. The hope All this is simply to illustrate that other Meenas will not have it would be an easy thing to suffer the same fatedo poorly. On a lighter note (But despite that, something about it still grabs me – 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 naivetysomething about this book's description did as well.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552775487</amazonuk>1914585526
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Phil RickmanNicole Jarvis|title=The Bones of AvalonA Portrait in Shadow
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=When Elizabeth I's most trusted men fear for her safety and think there's a possibly supernatural plot against her, 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 to Glastonbury to try and find the bones I want all of King Arthur. Glastonbury, however, has never recovered from the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the execution of its beloved Abbot Richard Whiting, and many residents view the pair with suspicion. The exception Florence to this is Nel Borrow, who treats Dudley when heknow my name's ill and becomes the first woman Dee has ever been interested in romantically. Can the three stop the villainous plot? I'll leave you to find out…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848872704</amazonuk>}}
}}
|rating=3
|genre=Historical FictionFantasy|summary=Connie ''Hate is doing postgraduate research on witchcraft. Although she is initially rather wary of being asked to clear out her grandmother’s old house, the project turns out to lead to lots path of exciting possibilities, including romance and perhaps original sources for her studies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141047550</amazonuk>}}least resistance''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=E V ThompsonG K Holloway|title=The Dream TradersIn the Shadows of Castles|rating=34.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=In We begin after the nineteenth century, when European nations are scrabbling to colonise 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 territories as possible, challenges. Imposing authority through a young Englishman sails into Chinese waters seeking fame and fortunecoronation is important. Unlike the rest of his countrymen however, Luke Trewarne refuses And William is right to get rich selling opium to the Chineseworry. All very noble but While the fact previous king, Harold, is that Luke dead and the likelihood of more pitched battles is a passenger on board a ship laden with over, the stuff rebels are stirring and there are Chinese gunships on much of the horizoncountry does not wish to recognise a new overlord.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>070908885X</amazonuk>1800422466
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Janet Mullany3949666079|title=Improper Relations|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Unlucky in love Charlotte Hayden has just lost her best friend and confidante Ann in marriage to the Earl of Beresford. At the wedding she encounters Lord Shadderly, Beresford'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>}} {{newreviewNoema|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>}} {{newreview|author=Christi Phillips |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>}} {{newreview|author=Cathy Marie Buchanan |title=The Day The Falls Stood StillDael Akkerman
|rating=4.5
|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>}}'
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Terence Morgan1529125898|title=The Master of BrugesGodmersham Park|author=Gill Hornby
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|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.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Adam WilliamsMelissa Fu |title=The Book of the AlchemistPeach Blossom Spring
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary= I loved the prelude to Peach Blossom Spring, a short chapter entitled ''Origins''. Unfortunately it is the only truly poetic part of a book that I expected more from. Covering Chinese history from 1938 to 2005 as viewed through one family's perspective. When their home city is set ablaze during the war with Japan, a young mother (Meilin) and her four-year-old son (Renshu) are among those who flee. The story follows them on their journey across China, and in Renshu's case eventually to America.
|isbn=1472277538
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1916072038
|title=The House in the Hollow (The Talbot Saga)
|author=Allie Cresswell
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|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:
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robyn Young Annabel Abbs|title=Requiem (Brethren Trilogy)The Language of Food|rating=45
|genre=Historical Fiction
|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
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|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
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|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
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|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
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|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
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Pierre Hardelot and Agnes Florent were in 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 had been since they were children, but there were problems - not the least flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of which was that Pierre was engaged to marry Simone Renaudinit. Simone was an appropriate match for I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the grandson of middle on darker stock paper, a mill owner and member of chapter whose number was in the bourgeoisie20,000s, letters used as narrative form, but Agnes was descended from brewers and lower middle classso on. In northern France, just before It intrigued with the outbreak subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of the First World Warit mentioned, such distinctions matteredtoo. But Pierre you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, and Agnes meet alone and rather than ruin her reputation Pierre proposescan tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. In doing so he alienates his grandfather and the wealthy Renaudins. Pierre and Agnes' marriage and its consequences would reverberate for decades.So what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099520443</amazonuk>1529402697
}}
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical FictionTeens |summary=Will and his brother Ned have been plucked from their home in the Fens. They're on their way to Flint, ditch diggers for Edward IChristina Hammonds Reed's new castle. Will debut novel is unwilling to goset against the backdrop of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, 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 as an idiot, 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 on this journey because he hopes reaction to be reunited with Ieuan ap y Gof, an exiled bard and the absolution of four police officers for beating a black 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 thrillerRodney King, teaching the reader a little bit about Victorian London while still making the book an immersive experience that can be hard nearly to leavedeath. The policemen really have very little idea who is behind Told from the initial murderperspective of Ashley Bennett, much less the ones that follownovel follows her evolution from a silent bystander when confronted with matters of race, to a woman finding her voice and I loved learning what happened along with themembracing her heritage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230736270</amazonuk>1471188191
}}