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[[Category:New Reviews|Historical Fiction]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->==Historical fiction== <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lynn ShepherdTananarive Due|title=Murder at Mansfield ParkThe Reformatory|rating=45

|summary=Straight away the reader Gracetown, Florida. June 1950. After a scuffle with a white boy, twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is plunged into sentenced to six months at the language of Austen's eraGracetown School for Boys, so dotted all over are such rather flowery phrases otherwise known as ' ... conjugal felicity ..the Reformatory.It' s a place with a brutal and ' dark reputation... her family were not consumptive...' We are also introduced to But the segregated reformatory is a host chamber of characters and although Shepherd has thoughtfully provided right at the beginning ''Names of the Principal Persons''horrors, it does bombard and perhaps confuse haunted by the reader a littleboys that have died there. I must admit In order to referring to this dratted list time survive the school governor and time again. It does break the flow at his Funhouse, Robert must enlist the beginning help of the novelschool's ghosts – only they have their own motivations.. But, several chapters in and you're right into the story thereafter.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905636792</amazonuk>1803366532}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sara StockbridgeKatherine Howe|title=The Fortunes of Grace HammerA True Account|rating=4.5|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=The short prologue shares Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with the reader a childhood incident in the life of Grace Hammerfamily who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. It had When she hears there is to be a dramatic effect on her hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and her life thereafterwatch. She is Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a changed person. Sheyoung boy's also drivendeath at the hands of two vicious pirates. She grows into hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a desirable woman boy and turns menjoining the notorious Ned Low's heads wherever she goespirate ship as a cabin boy. But she's also smart. Some would perhaps think at this pointShe soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, why not go 'and from there we are caught up west', bag a sugar-daddy and live in luxury for the rest her rip roaring tale of her days? But life is not as simple as thaton the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099520958</amazonuk>0861547438

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emily PurdySarah Marsh|title=The Tudor WifeA Sign of Her Own

|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=From After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the moment use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she sets eyes on handsome George Boleynis taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, plain Lady Jane Parker falls madly she ends up in love another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and prays that George will be hersusing a system called Visible Speech. As Jane and George's families negotiate At the marriage Jane meets Anne Boleyn same time, Bell is working on other inventions and quickly realises that George only has eyes for Anneideas, but remains determined that she can make George love herand Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847561942</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreview|author=Anne Perry|title=The Sheen on follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off. In the Silk|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Anna Zarides arrives in Constantinoplepalace of Odysseus, determined with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to find out why rule without her twin brother Justinian has been convicted husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of murderthe Western Isles. But it is 1273, Having survived – politically and a woman cannot move about freely physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to ask questions. Anna Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the brink of a skilled doctorfragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, who uses Arab and Jewish medicine in secret as well as more accepted Christian remedies: in her quest for information she disguises herself as a eunuch and successfully treats a wide range of people from the very poorest right up to the emperor himselfhis sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755339061</amazonuk>0356516075

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Penny InghamB0C7J9D21B|title=The King's Daughter|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The central female character - 'The King's Daughter' is Elflaede. She's young, feisty and very pretty. She also has this unforgettable reddish hair. At this point A Captive in the story I was reminded a little of Queen Elizabeth I, I have to say. In Elflaede's own words she 'had never known a time without war .' The hordes of Pagan Norsemen are to blame. They've come to England with their own set of superstitions. And they've come with one aim. To conquer great swathes of England.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095559975X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewAlgiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=Trevor Bloom|title=The Half-Slave|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=At Samarobriva in Roman Gaul, a raiding Saxon tribe meets its match in the form of a division of the Franks, who have suborned the Roman authorities and are establishing their control throughout the region. A mysterious meeting with the Frankish Overlord persuades the leader of the Saxons to sign a treaty that will forever alter the fate of his people. In return for Frankish silver, he hands over to them his youngest son, Ascha the half-slave, as a perpetual hostage to guarantee the peace. But in the frozen north new powers are rising, and Ascha will soon be drawn into a web of lies and ambition as two very different worlds come into conflict.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955563062</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Seth Hunter|title=The Tide of WarJ Lewis

|summary=When we first meet our hero, his name is Ettore and he lives at The Tide House of War is the second book in Beautiful Swallows. Idyllic as this might sound, it's a trilogy bordello and Ettore's mother died when he was born. He's not been short of historical fictionnovels by Seth Huntermothers, set though - but for someone of his background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, it's difficult to obtain decent employment. The stint working with the 1790s preparation of anchovies didn't work out and recounts the adventures ofBritish naval captain Nathan Peakebastards are considered bad luck on fishing boats. In this book newly Ettore was nothing if not resourceful - and determined -promoted Peakeis sent to the Caribbean to command and it was not long before he had a successful business as a British frigate, the Unicorn,to hunt guide for the French warship, the Virginievisitors. He was even saving some money.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755357612</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|author=Michelle Lovric|title=The Book of Human Skin|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=''Ye can't take the slither out ovva snake.'' So says Gianni, valet in a wealthy eighteenth century Venetian household. The master, a merchant, divides his time between Italy and Peru, where he deals in silver. But the merchant isn't the serpent - his son Minguillo is. On the night an earthquake ripped through Peru and deposited fanatical nun Sor Loreta at the convent in Arequipa, Minguillo was born - a serpent in his family's midst. His own mother couldn't bear to nurse him and his father went into denial, making more and more frequent trips to a South American home free of sociopathic progeny. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>140880588X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Elif Shafak|title=The Forty Rules of Love|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=This is a sixth novel from best-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>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lawrence HillEssie Fox|title=The Book of NegroesFascination

|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

|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 of King Arthur. Glastonbury, however, has never recovered from the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the execution I want all 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 he'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>}} {{newreview|author=Susan Fletcher|title=Corrag|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=A small and dirty woman sits in a prison cell. With her bare feet and her matted hair and her damp, filthy clothes, she doesn't wonder at the word ''witch''. She has been called it all her life. Her mother called her ''witch'' before she named her. Her given know my name Corrag – was a corruption: for Cora (her mother) and Hag (which she'd get as used to as Cora had).  She sits through the snow of the winter, knowing that the sound she hears outside is the dragging of the logs for her pyre.  She was told, though, that a man would come. So she waits for him.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007321597</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Richard Denning|title=The Amber Treasure|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Cerdic is the younger son 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 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 can'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 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 of exciting possibilities, including romance and perhaps original sources for her studies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141047550</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Debbie Elliott|title=Tesla & Twain|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=History remembers nineteenth century inventor Nikola Tesla as Cast out from Rome, Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking an oasis in which her art can find a mad scientist, home and he did indulge in where her future can thrive rather than stagnate. But as some very peculiar experimentsas she enters Florentine society she faces great opposition from the powerful Accademia, most notably the directedself-energy weapon, or death-ray, as the press proclaimed guardians of the time gleefully dubbed it. But healing magics that through paintings have the truth is that his work was of groundbreaking importance: he developed power to protect the electrical alternating current city and the AC motor, its citizens from plagues and much morecurses. The average person probably all-male Accademia has a better awareness of Samuel Clemens - who wrote Tom Sawyer hoarded power over art and Huckleberry Finn under his pen name Mark Twain, architecture for centuries and who was known as one of the foremost satirists of his dayguard it above all else. But perhaps they don't know that Twain was fascinated by scientific inquiryTo them, or that these two seemingly disparate men were great friendsArtemisia – an ambitious young woman who promises trouble and change – has no place amongst them and their society. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906146756</amazonuk>1803362340

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=E V ThompsonThomas D Lee|title=The Dream TradersPerilous Times

|genre=Historical FictionFantasy|summary=In ''Hate is the nineteenth century, when European nations are scrabbling to colonise as many territories as possible, a young Englishman sails into Chinese waters seeking fame and fortune. Unlike the rest path of his countrymen however, Luke Trewarne refuses to get rich selling opium to the Chinese. All very noble but the fact is that Luke is a passenger on board a ship laden with the stuff and there are Chinese gunships on the horizon.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>070908885X</amazonuk>}}least resistance''

{{newreview|author=Janet Mullany|title=Improper Relations|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Unlucky Set in love Charlotte Hayden has just lost her best friend and confidante Ann the near-distant future, in marriage to a world on the Earl verge of Beresford. At the wedding she encounters Lord Shadderlyclimate collapse, Beresford's best friend, a broodingly handsome man whom she takes an immediate dislike to. Before she knows it Charlotte Britain is caught in great peril. The British Isles desperately needs a compromising situation with Shadderly hero (or several) to save the day and he is forced to propose to her or risk both their reputationsrescue what little remains. What no-one expected was that one of the Knights of the Round Table would answer the call.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755347803</amazonuk>0356518523

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Clare ClarkG K Holloway|title=Savage LandsIn the Shadows of Castles|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=35

|summary=It is 1672 We begin after the momentous battle in 1066 and Hannah Devlin, a young widow with a skill for (illegally) practicing medicine finds herself being all but kidnapped by on the day of William of Normandy's coronation as King Charles IIof England. William's advisors position is not secure and forced the new king has many challenges. Imposing authority through a coronation is important. And William is right to use her skills worry. While the previous king, Harold, is dead and the likelihood of more pitched battles is over, the rebels are stirring and much of the country does not wish to treat his mistress, Louise de Kerouallerecognise a new overlord.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847393489</amazonuk>1800422466

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cathy Marie Buchanan 3949666079|title=The Day The Falls Stood StillNoema|author=Dael 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 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

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith 1471187179|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>}} {{newreviewA Beautiful Spy|author=Chandra Prasad|title=Breathe the Sky: A Novel Inspired by the Life of Amelia EarhartRachel Hore|rating=3.54

|summary=PrasadMinnie 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 first novel [[On Borrowed Wings by Chandra Prasad|On Borrowed Wings]] followed expectations and find a nice young girl entering man to marry, produce children and spend the male-dominated arena rest of Yale in the 1930sher days looking after her husband and their home. Unfortunately, this isn't what she wants to do at all and neither does she want to continue working as a secretary. Her heroine took inspiration from the likes As a result of Amelia Earhart (who has a walk-on part in the book)chance meeting, she finds herself drawn into espionage, women who were finding their way in working for the world on their own terms secret service and refusing effectively living a double life - attempting to let their womanhood get in infiltrate the way Communist Party of itGreat Britain. Minnie finds herself torn between what she perceives as her duty and the friends she has made - and likes - whilst working for the Communist Party.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1932279393</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hilary MantelAfonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=Wolf HallKokoschka's Doll|rating=2.5

|summary=A revisionist look at Henry VIII's ministerWell, this looked very much like a book I could love from the get-go, Thomas Cromwellwhich is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. Rich I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the 20,000s, letters used as narrative form, absorbing and intelligentso on. It intrigued with the subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, ittoo. But you's a beautifulve seen the star rating that comes with this review, and can tell that if love was on these pages, beautiful bookit was not actually caused by them. So what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007230184</amazonuk>1529402697

 {{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 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>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kate FurnivallChristina Hammonds Reed|title=The Concubine's SecretBlack Kids|rating=34.5|genre=Historical FictionTeens |summary=As a sequel to Kate FurnivallChristina Hammonds Reed'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 debut novel is set against the first book, we watched Chang An Lo and Lydia Ivanova fall in love against all backdrop of the odds. Here1992 Los Angeles riots, they must remain in love despite being separated by most of a continent. As you might expect, reaction to the reader spends most absolution of the book hoping four police officers for them to find beating a way black man, Rodney King, nearly to finally be togetherdeath.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751540455</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Philippa Gregory|title=The White Queen|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It's 1464 and a young widow stands at Told from the side perspective of the roadAshley Bennett, clutching the hands of novel follows her two young sons, waiting for the new King to ride past. She is Elizabeth Woodville and the King is Edward IV. What happens is evolution from a matter silent bystander when confronted with matters of history: a secret marriagerace, to a shocking reveal, woman finding her voice and a vicious contest for the young King's ear (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 differentembracing her heritage. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847374557</amazonuk>1471188191

{{newreview|author=Kate Pullinger |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 Move on 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 it's Sally Naldrett who is the focus of the book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687098</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Irène Némirovsky |title=All Our Worldly Goods|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Pierre Hardelot and Agnes Florent were in love and had been since they were children, 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 a mill owner and member of the bourgeoisie, but Agnes was descended from brewers and lower middle class. In northern France, just before the outbreak of the First World War, such distinctions mattered. 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>}}[[Newest History Reviews]]