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[[Category:New Reviews|Historical Fiction]]==Historical fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreview|author=Beverley Eikli|title=Lady Farquhar's Butterfly|rating=3|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=Olivia <!-- Remove - Lady Farquhar - has recently been widowed. This does not upset her in the least; indeed, as becomes clear through the novel, her husband was an unpleasant bully who subjected her to all kinds of abuse. Unfortunately, however, the terms of his will have ensured that her beloved toddler Julian has been taken away to live with his uncle Max until such time as Olivia marries someone considered to be above reproach. For that reason, she is seriously considering marrying Nathaniel, a clergyman who has helped her for many years. The only problem with that is that she finds him increasingly repulsive...>|amazonuk= <amazonuk>0709090579</amazonuk!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anita DiamantTananarive Due|title=Day After NightThe Reformatory

|summary=First of allGracetown, Florida. June 1950. After a scuffle with a white boy, I really liked twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is sentenced to six months at the unusual pitch Gracetown School for a Second World War novelBoys, set in a detention camp in Palestine in October 1945, soon after otherwise known as the liberation of EuropeReformatory. The war machine has ground to It's a place with a halt, leaving millions of bewildered refugees to find their way out of chaos. With huge effort, hundreds of Jewish men brutal and women reach their promised land, albeit as illegal immigrantsdark reputation. Though imprisoned again, Atlit camp But the segregated reformatory is emotionally a halfway house between chamber of horrors, haunted by the past and boys that have died there. In order to survive the future for them. They are at least well-fed and humanely treated by their British captors. With no particular duties school governor and in limbo for an indeterminate periodhis Funhouse, Robert must enlist the women start to come to terms with how life will be for them in help of the future, safe at last from Nazi persecution, but having lost all school's ghosts – only they have their loved onesown motivations.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847398618</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jennie Rooney|title=The Opposite of Falling|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It is 1862 and when wealthy Liverpool girl Ursula Bridgewater finds herself single and restless after her fiancée Henry Springton leaves her for another woman, she soon turns to travel as a means of escape and sets off on her first expedition. But she has agreed to stay friends with Henry and cannot quite escape him completely as they continue to write to each other. Ten years later and Ursula has travelled all over the world and is about to embark on a trip around America, but this time she decides to take a companion.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701182687</amazonuk>1803366532}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Iain PearsKatherine Howe|title=Stone's FallA True Account

|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=I read Iain Pears' ''The Portrait'' Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a year or so ago family who run an inn, and loved it so I was really looking forward being made to reading this novelwork there from a young age. The front cover When she hears there is strikingly handsome and hints to be a hanging of good things some pirates in the town, she decides to come between its coversgo and watch. The novel is divided up into sizeable chunks Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of threetwo vicious pirates. Three different decades She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and three different locationsthen to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. Pears then dips She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and out from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the main characters' lives, telling the reader basically what makes them tickocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099516179</amazonuk>0861547438

 {{newreview|author=Nicola Cornick|title=Confessions of a Duchess|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Dowager Duchess Laura Cole has come to the village of Fortune’s Folly to live a quiet life as a widow with her young daughter. But when the village squire decides to invoke the Dames’ Tax, a law requiring every unmarried woman to give up half her wealth to him, the town becomes a hotbed of men searching for heiresses now desperate to marry. Joining the men is Dexter Anstruther, sent to secure a rich wife and carry out a murder inquiry on behalf of Lord Liverpool. The last thing Laura and Dexter expect is to see each other again after their steamy encounter four years ago. But their passion for each other is reawakened and looks set to ruin them both.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303802</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gill SchierhoutSarah Marsh|title=The Shape A Sign of Him|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The story is told in the first person by Sara Highbury. She's running a small business in an efficient but rather detached fashion. She's all washed up. She starts to recount her earlier, happier life when it meant something to her. And the reader soon discovers that a diamond digger called Herbert was - and still is - the love of her life. And here Schierhout gives us a taster of the hard and dirty work digging for stones (they're never called diamonds by the workers apparently). The danger and precarious nature of the work is laid bare. But Herbert seemed to be a natural. Why?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535777</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Anne-Marie Vukelic|title=Far Above RubiesHer Own

|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=Shy Catherine Hogarth first meets Charles Dickens at After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her parents' house hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when he hilariously comes in through the window use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to dance a jig before the assembled guestsschool where she is taught to lip read, before leaving and then entering again via the front doorbut physically restrained from signing. Employed by her father GeorgeFrom here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the editor of deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the Evening Chroniclesame time, as a reporter Bell is working on other inventions and sketch writerideas, Charles is at the start of his writing career and soon becomes Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a regular visitor to the Hogarth householdcomplicated tangle of espionage. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0709090536</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreview|author=Elizabeth Chadwick|title=To Defy A King|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=#Set in the traumatic and violent period leading The follow-up to the Magna Carta, Chadwick concentrates on excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off. In the fortunes palace of two extended families. The MarshalsOdysseus, close with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to the throne for their expertise, political and military mightrule without her 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 Bigods, who are directly related to King John, through their half brother Longespee, son throne of the family matriarch, and John’s fatherWestern Isles. Banished from Court, Having survived – politically and forced physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to leave her son thereIthaca's shores, Ida marries Roger and founds Queen Penelope is on the brink of a strong patriarchal dynastyfragile peace. However, tension is never far from boiling point, One that shatters however with the two half brothers tolerating each other at bestreturn of Orestes, King of Mycenae, loathing each other more often than notand his sister Elektra, due to their opposing naturesseeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847442366</amazonuk>0356516075

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne O'BrienB0C7J9D21B|title=Virgin WidowA Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=A J Lewis

|summary=The mighty Richard Neville, Earl of WarwickWhen we first meet our hero, his name is famous throughout England as one Ettore and he lives at The House of King Edward IV’s most trusted advisorsBeautiful Swallows. But Idyllic as Edward is lured towards another influential family this might sound, it's a bordello and Ettore's mother died when he falls was born. He's not been short of mothers, though - but for someone of his background in love late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, it's difficult to obtain decent employment. The stint working with Elizabeth Woodville, Warwick responds by backing the alliance between Margaret preparation of Anjou anchovies didn't work out and King Louis XI of France, aiming to put Margaret’s husband Henry VI back bastards are considered bad luck on the English thronefishing boats. A helpless pawn, Anne is torn away from the man she loves, who will grow up to become Richard III, to be used as political capital by her father Ettore was nothing if not resourceful - and determined - and his allies it was not long before he had a successful business as they try to regain the kingdom of Englanda guide for visitors. He was even saving some money.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303756</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lynn ShepherdEssie Fox|title=Murder at Mansfield ParkThe Fascination

|summary=Straight away the reader The Victorian era is plunged into incredibly over-romanticised as a setting for historical fiction (matched only, perhaps, by the language of AustenSecond World War) which has often led to more than a few writers mishandling it. There's era, so dotted all over are such rather flowery phrases as ' ... conjugal felicity ...' and ' ... her family were not consumptive...' We are also introduced to a host glut of characters and although Shepherd has thoughtfully provided right at media set in the beginning ''Names of era that the Principal Personshallmarks we'', ve come to associate with it does bombard and perhaps confuse are familiar to the reader a littlepoint of being cliched, hackneyed even. I must admit All this is simply to referring illustrate that it would be an easy thing to this dratted list time and time againdo poorly. It does break the flow at the beginning of the novel. Butdespite that, several chapters in something about it still grabs me – and yousomething about this book're right into the story thereafters description did as well.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905636792</amazonuk>1914585526

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sara StockbridgeNicole Jarvis|title=The Fortunes of Grace HammerA Portrait in Shadow|rating=4.5

|summary=The short prologue shares with the reader a childhood incident in the life of Grace Hammer. It had a dramatic effect on her and her life thereafter. She is a changed person. She's also driven. She grows into a desirable woman and turns men's heads wherever she goes. But she's also smart. Some would perhaps think at this point, why not go I want all of Florence to know my name'up west', bag a sugar-daddy and live in luxury for the rest of her days? But life is not as simple as that.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520958</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Emily Purdy|title=The Tudor Wife|rating=3Cast 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.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=From But as some as she enters Florentine society she faces great opposition from the moment she sets eyes on handsome George Boleynpowerful Accademia, plain Lady Jane Parker falls madly in love and prays the self-proclaimed guardians of the healing magics that George will be hers. As Jane through paintings have the power to protect the city and George's families negotiate the marriage Jane meets Anne Boleyn its citizens from plagues and quickly realises that George only curses. The all-male Accademia has eyes hoarded power over art and architecture for Annecenturies and guard it above all else. To them, but remains determined that she can make George love herArtemisia – an ambitious young woman who promises trouble and change – has no place amongst them and their society.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847561942</amazonuk>1803362340

{{newreview|author=Anne Perry|title=The Sheen Set in the near-distant future, in a world on the Silk|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Anna Zarides arrives in Constantinople, determined to find out why her twin brother Justinian has been convicted verge of murder. But it is 1273climate collapse, and a woman cannot move about freely to ask questions. Anna Britain is a skilled doctor, who uses Arab and Jewish medicine in secret as well as more accepted Christian remedies: in her quest for information she disguises herself as great peril. The British Isles desperately needs a eunuch hero (or several) to save the day and successfully treats a wide range rescue what little remains. What no-one expected was that one of the Knights of people from the very poorest right up to Round Table would answer the emperor himselfcall.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755339061</amazonuk>0356518523

 {{newreview|author=Penny Ingham|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 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>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Trevor BloomG K Holloway|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 Shadows of WarCastles

|summary=The Tide of War is We begin after the second book in a trilogy of historical fictionnovels by Seth Hunter, set momentous battle in the 1790s 1066 and recounts on the adventures day of William of Normandy's coronation as King ofBritish naval captain Nathan PeakeEngland. In this book newly-promoted PeakeWilliam's position is sent to not secure and the Caribbean to command new king has many challenges. Imposing authority through a British frigate, the Unicorn,coronation is important. And William is right to hunt for the French warship, the Virginieworry.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755357612</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michelle Lovric|title=The Book of Human Skin|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=''Ye can't take While the slither out ovva snake.'' So says Gianniprevious king, valet in a wealthy eighteenth century Venetian household. The masterHarold, a merchant, divides his time between Italy is dead and Peru, where he deals in silver. But the merchant isn't the serpent - his son Minguillo likelihood of more pitched battles is. On over, the night an earthquake ripped through Peru rebels are stirring and deposited fanatical nun Sor Loreta at much of 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 country does not wish to recognise a South American home free of sociopathic progenynew overlord. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140880588X</amazonuk>1800422466

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elif Shafak3949666079|title=The Forty Rules of LoveNoema|author=Dael Akkerman

|genre=Literary General 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 fictionabout some things that happened to me about twelve thousand years ago. Don't be misled by the dodgy-sounding title!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918733</amazonuk>}}'

{{newreview|author=Lawrence Hill|title=The Book of Negroes|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Although this Maya is a work of fictionyoung girl living in a hunter gatherer village during the Mesolithic era. Climate change is occurring, the whole distasteful and deeply upsetting subject Sea of slavery is a fact, therefore, at times I felt as if I were reading a true account. The narrative goes back Grass encroaches further and forth, starting with Aminata (or Meena as she is usually called) as a relatively old woman (what we would call middle-aged). Shefurther into Maya's in London, far from forest home, but she's there for an extremely important reasonand food is becoming more and more scarce. The powers-that-be need her What to do? Can the law givers in the federation of villages muster peaceful ways to tell her storycope? Can the Traveller, as a slave over many years. The hope is that other Meenas will not have to suffer spiritual figure who interprets the same fate. On a lighter note (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 naivety.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552775487</amazonuk>wisdom of All Life, provide solutions?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Phil Rickman1529125898|title=The Bones of Avalon|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 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 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>}} {{newreviewGodmersham Park|author=Susan Fletcher|title=CorragGill Hornby

|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 If it all her life. Her mother called her ''witch'' before she named her. Her given name Corrag – was a corruption: were not for Cora (her mother) and Hag (which she'd get as used to as Cora had).  She sits through the snow casual dereliction of the winterodd gentleman's duty, knowing that the sound she hears outside is the dragging of the logs for her pyrethere would no women to teach well-bred daughters at all. ''

Anne Sharpe was thirty-one years old when she arrived at Godmersham Park to take up the position of governess to twelve-year-old Fanny Austen. She had no experience of teaching but this was tolda case of necessity. Until the death of her mother, thoughAnne had a comfortable life and was loved by both parents although her father was frequently absent from the household. When her mother died, that a man her father cast her off and would comehave nothing more to do with her. So No explanation was offered but she waits for himwould receive an annuity of £35 a year. Her maid, Agnes, would receive nothing but was fortunately taken in by some neighbours.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007321597</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Richard DenningMelissa Fu |title=The Amber TreasurePeach Blossom Spring

|summary=Cerdic is We meet part of the younger son of a minor lord living Talbot family in a quiet Anglo Saxon village Yorkshire in sixth century NorthumbriaNovember 1811. His people are settled Twenty-seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot and her mother have travelled in some discomfort from their home at Ecklington, to the Welsh (Romano-Britons) seem contained behind house in the Pennineshollow. Cedric fully expects to live out his live as a gentleman farmer, hopefully The two women are angry with the beautiful Aidith by his side. But as he listens to the tales told by Lilla the bard, he caneach other and Jocelyn is well aware of her mother't help but dream of following after his uncle, the great warrior Cynric, s strengths and finding glory in battle. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849140235</amazonuk>}}weaknesses:

{{newreview|author=Katherine Howe|title=The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Connie ''She is doing postgraduate research on witchcraft. Although she is initially rather wary practiced at subterfuge, at concealing, beneath a facade of being asked to clear out her grandmother’s old houserespectability, the project turns out to lead to lots of exciting possibilities, including romance and perhaps original sources for her studiesdeplorable truth''.|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 a mad scientist, and he did indulge in some very peculiar experiments, most notably the directed-energy weapon, or death-ray, Hester is furious about Jocelyn's refusal to do as the press of the time gleefully dubbed it. But the truth is that his work she was of groundbreaking importance: he developed the electrical alternating current and the AC motorasked, and much more. The average person probably which has a better awareness of Samuel Clemens - who wrote Tom Sawyer precipitated ''this violent 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 donunexpected removal''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 Then we are told of the nineteenth centurybirth of a child and, when European nations are scrabbling to colonise as many territories as possiblesoon after, a young Englishman sails into Chinese waters seeking fame and fortune. Unlike the rest of his countrymen howeverHester Talbot departs, 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 leaving Jocelyn in shame and there are Chinese gunships on the horizonisolation in Yorkshire.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>070908885X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Janet MullanyAnnabel Abbs|title=Improper RelationsThe Language of Food|rating=45

|summary=Unlucky in love Charlotte Hayden Eliza Acton is a poet who has just lost her best friend and confidante Ann in marriage never had the slightest inclination to the Earl of Beresfordboil an egg. At the wedding When tasked with writing a cookery book, she encounters Lord Shadderly, Beresford's best friendrecruits Ann Kirby, a broodingly handsome man whom she takes an immediate dislike tolocal woman with a troubled home life. Before she knows it Charlotte is caught in a compromising situation with Shadderly Together, they test, craft, refine and reshape the world of domestic cookery, reinventing the recipe book and he is forced to propose to her or risk both their reputationschanging the face of cookery writing forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755347803</amazonuk>1398502227

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Clare ClarkFreya Marske|title=Savage LandsA Marvellous Light

|summary=The novel begins with one of Robin Blyth is nudged into a job in the central characters - Elisabeth - preparing to leave her home in FranceCivil Service, and embark upon a ship much to take her to America - to meet his chagrin. There he meets Edwin Courcey and marry a complete strangerlearns that the streets of London are threaded with magic. At this time there were literally only Desperate to remove a few hundred settlerscurse that threatens to swallow him, so potential wives were shipped in along with other necessities! She is very much in two minds about Robin follows Edwin to the entire venture - apprehensivecountryside, yet more than a little excited at where the prospect of her new life. The voyage doesn't begin particularly well for her, as she feels isolated from hedgegrows bristle with incantations and the other girls. A voracious reader, she has packed her trunk people shimmer with books as opposed to the more conventional linens and this immediately sets her apartpower.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846553512</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Christi Phillips |title=The Devlin Diary|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It is 1672 and Hannah Devlin, There they uncover a young widow with a skill for (illegally) practicing medicine finds herself being sinister plot that threatens the lives of all but kidnapped by King Charles II's advisors and forced to use her skills to treat his mistress, Louise de Kerouallemagicians in the British Isles.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847393489</amazonuk>1529080886

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cathy Marie Buchanan B09F4CTKJR|title=The Day The Falls Stood StillFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer

|summary=I imagined this title as a It'Gone With s the Wind' sort later stages of novel, World War I and the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a saga-esque historical romanceyoung American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, with a characterful heroine the first to be attached to the RAF and page-turning story line that necessitates reading late the first to be sent into the nightskies to fight the Germans in active combat. WellBut before that can happen, I wasn't disappointed in this paperback edition of Petrol has to master flying the hardback, already a best-seller in the U.Snotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091925967</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John WilcoxChristophe Medler|title=The Shangani PatrolMadrigal: A Closely Guarded Secret

|summary=This Set against the backdrop of the English Civil War, a secret plan (code-named Madrigal) is the latest discovered by Sir Robert Douse in the adventures summer of Simon Fonthill1642. As a loyal servant of the King, a cross between a Victorian James Bond and Indianna Jones. Although one Head of a seriesthe Secret Service, it stands alone as a novel. Itis Robert's steeped in duty to uncover the details of the history (plan and there's a lot of it) follow the clues to uncover one of the late 19th century when Queen Victoria 'ruled most guarded secrets in history—especially since the plot could affect the worldKing.'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755345614</amazonuk>B095HY8SXQ

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Terence Morgan1471187179|title=The Master of Bruges|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Belgium, the fifteenth century. Hans is apprenticed to a master painter in the city of Brussels, until the old curmudgeon dies, 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 to be a patchy diary - 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 court.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230744125</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewA Beautiful Spy|author=Eloisa James|title=When the Duke ReturnsRachel Hore

|summary=Minnie is an 'ordinary'When the Duke Returns'', the newest volume 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'Desperate Duchesses' seriess expectations and find a nice young man to marry, continues produce children and spend the regency celebrity romp saga where [[Duchess by Night by Eloisa James|Duchess by Night]] left offrest of her days looking after her husband and their home. The focus Unfortunately, this timeisn't what she wants to do at all and neither does she want to continue working as a secretary. As a result of a chance meeting, is on Isidoreshe finds herself drawn into espionage, working for the Duchess of Conway: hot-headed, hotsecret service and effectively living a double life -blooded and Italian attempting to boot, she was married by proxy at infiltrate the age Communist Party of sixteen Great Britain. Minnie finds herself torn between what she perceives as her duty and is still a virgin seven years later. Isidore's cunning plot to entice back the husband friends she has never seen from his travels in Asia made - and Africa works perfectly and Simeon, His Grace Duke of Conway is now back in England, ready to claim his estate and, as Isidore presumes, ready to claim his beautiful wifelikes - whilst working for the Communist Party.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340961104</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Adam WilliamsAfonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=The Book of the AlchemistKokoschka's Doll|rating=32.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary= ''The Book of Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from the Alchemist'' get-go, which is a story within a storywhy I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. It opens I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War. Pinzonmiddle on darker stock paper, a Spanish politician who resigns for moral reasonschapter whose number was in the 20, is taken hostage by a group of Republican soldiers000s, letters used as narrative form, along with his young Grandson. A group of villagers are also taken captive and locked in a cathedral as part of the soldiers' desperate plan to protect themselves from the Fascist forces that are hunting themso on. A cavernous mosque built inside It intrigued with the mountain under the cathedral's crypt is discovered, and subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of itmentioned, a booktoo. As Pinzon reads But you've seen the bookstar rating that comes with this review, another story unfoldsand can tell that if love was on these pages, set in the eleventh centuryit was not actually caused by them. This is the story of Samuel the Jew.So what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340899131</amazonuk>1529402697

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jack LudlowChristina Hammonds Reed|title=WarriorsThe Black Kids|rating=34.5|genre=Historical FictionTeens |summary=Arduin of Fassano Christina Hammonds Reed's debut novel is paid by Michael Doukeianos, a young Byzantine general, to keep set against the peace in Apulia. Arduin is a Lombard, however, and secretly plans to revolt and take Apulia for himself, hiring a group backdrop of Norman mercenaries to help him do the job. These Normans are William de Hauteville and his brothers1992 Los Angeles riots, famed warriors with their own conflicts and a desire reaction 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 bribes.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007559</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kate Tremayne|title=The Loveday Conspiracy|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Trevowan Manor has been the home absolution of the Loveday family four police officers for generations. It will still be owned by beating 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 John's twinblack man, AdamRodney King, vows that he will punish the man responsiblenearly to death. Amelia has been forced Told from Trevowan and is now living in a cottage with the other dispossessed women. As if this wasn't enough perspective of a problemAshley Bennett, the novel follows her son evolution 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 silent bystander when confronted with them diseases against which the indigenous people had no natural immunity. At the beginning of the twentieth century, fully two thirds of all Alaska natives perished from a pandemic matters of measles, smallpox, and influenza. No community was spared. In most cases, half of a village's population died within a week. In some casesrace, there were no survivors. It was the end of an ancient way of life. Natives still refer to the dreadful period as the Great Death.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842709194</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Robyn Young |title=Requiem (Brethren Trilogy)|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It's December 1295, and the bedraggled remnants of the Third Crusade are returning home. Not all have given up the dream of a Christian Jerusalem, woman finding her voice and Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Templars, is eager to find patrons to fund a fresh invasion. But the West has turned inward, and, with the Order's reason for existence vanished with the Crusader states, factions within both the English and French courts covet the wealth and military might of the Temple. With his homeland of Scotland under assault by his old rival Edward, and his position usurped by former comrades who wish to turn the Order to sinister ends, peace for series protagonist Will Campbell seems far awayembracing her heritage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340921420</amazonuk>1471188191

{{newreview|author=Anthony Riches|title=Wounds of Honour (Empire)|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Riding Move on to the Northern outpost of the Roman Empire to deliver a message, Marcus Valerius Aquila is seemingly attacked by a band of barbarians, but is rescued by a group of Tungrian irregulars, fighting as part of the Roman army. Arriving at his destination, it soon becomes clear that the attack was deliberate, as his father has been condemned as a traitor back in Rome by Emperor Commodus and his whole family have been put to the sword.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340920300</amazonuk>}}[[Newest History Reviews]]