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[[Category:Historical Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Historical Fiction]]==Historical fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreview|author=Daisy Goodwin|title=My Last Duchess|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=There's plenty to enjoy in this debut novel by Daisy Goodwin. And first up is the elegant cover. I wanted to read the book as soon as I saw the photograph: a beautiful girl with great presence about her. The thoughtful look on her face and lack of ring on her finger hinted at an intriguing story. It was also a fair bet that this historical fiction, set in the nineteenth century, was about a romance, suitable or unsuitable. So the cover complemented the story – a quite unusual feat, judging by other offerings I have seen recently.|amazonuk=<amazonuk!-- Remove -->0755348060 </amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=James Forrester|title=Sacred Treason|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=In London, in December 1563, the herald William Harley (known to everyone as Clarenceux) had no intention of becoming involved in one of the many Catholic plots against the young Queen Elizabeth, but he's unwittingly drawn into one when his friend and fellow Catholic, Henry Machyn, gave him a chronicle, telling him that it hid a secret which could cost Machyn his life. Clarenceux was sceptical until he was visited by Francis Walsingham's brutal enforcers and within a matter of a few hours he turns from a law!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-abiding citizen into a man on the run in search of clues which will tell him why the chronicle is so important.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755356012</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ron Rash|title=Serena|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The reader is introduced to one of the two main characters straight away. George Pemberton. But everyone (even his new wife) calls him simply Pemberton. He's faced with an awkward and at the same time delicate situation and deals with it - with violence. No one seems too bothered, not even the local sheriff.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847674887</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sir Arthur Conan DoyleTananarive Due|title=The Complete Brigadier Gerard StoriesReformatory
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Meet Brigadier Etienne GerardGracetown, Florida. June 1950. An officer in Napoleon's army, he is After a boastful womaniser scuffle with a significantly higher opinion of his own intelligence than anyone around him – notably Napoleon himselfwhite boy, twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, otherwise known as the Reformatory. HeIt's also brave, resourceful, fiercely loyal to his emperor and any woman he finds himself in love a place with, a brutal and above all, utterly, totally heroicdark reputation.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847679196</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ben Kane|title=The Road to Rome (Forgotten Legion Chronicles)|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=After years But the segregated reformatory is a chamber of wondering if their twin were still alivehorrors, Romulus and Fabiola happen to catch sight of each other on haunted by the docks at Alexandriaboys that have died there. Their meeting isn't In order to last longsurvive the school governor and his Funhouse, as Fabiola is being rushed to safety by her lover, Brutus, one Robert must enlist the help of Caesarthe school's most trusted generals and Romulus has just been press-ganged into an army about to go into battleghosts – only they have their own motivations.. However, this chance meeting gives them additional strength, which they are certainly going to need to survive the struggles ahead.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848090153</amazonuk>1803366532}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Margaret MuirKatherine Howe|title=Floating GoldA True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=The novel opens Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a description family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the rotting remains town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in 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 too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a human being battered by boy and joining the waves on notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the beaches thick of the Isle of Wight. I cannot recall any book I have ever read starting things when there is a mutiny on a more depressing noteboard, but this is far and from a depressing, or disappointing, storythere we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>070909051X</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=E V ThompsonSarah Marsh|title=No Less Than The JourneyA Sign of Her Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary= ''No Less Than The Journey'' concerns After a young Cornish miner seeking bout of scarlet fever as a new life in Americachild, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. He makes many interesting acquaintances and some rather arduous journeys in his quest to find Suddenly plunged into a family member.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709087551</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Katie Flynn|title=Heading Home|rating=4|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=Claudia is seven when this book opensworld of silence, in Liverpool in 1926everything about her life changes. She's Living in a careful girltime when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, perhaps Ellen is sent to a little spoiltschool where she is taught to lip read, although clearly not wealthybut physically restrained from signing. She enjoys From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the protection of thirteen-year-old Danny who comes from a poorer family, deaf and evidently has something of using a crush on Claudiasystem called Visible Speech. Even in this first chapterAt the same time, she comes across as somewhat self-centredBell is working on other inventions and ideas, wanting people to think well and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of her, but not naturally generous or empathicespionage. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099520265</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=G. De Beauregard and H. De GorsseClaire North|title=The Stamp King|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Set in 1896, this is the story of William Keniss and Betty Scott, two young American philatelists each intent on owning the world’s only complete stamp collection. The rarest specimen House of all is one issued by the Maharajah of Brahmapootra but never placed on general sale, although one copy did pass through the postal system, and it is one of only two in the entire universe. The Maharajah owns this one himself - and our collectors are determined to get their hands on the other.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0852597460</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Julie Orringer|title=The Invisible BridgeOdysseus
|rating=5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=In a story that takes us from the elegance of Paris, through the streets of Budapest and on into the Hungarian countryside and the Ukraine this is an epic tale, masterfully told. It is 1937 and Andras Levi, a young Hungarian Jewish student, is about to leave his brother Tibor to go and study architecture in Paris. Andras' story unfolds first amongst the beautiful buildings of Paris, the theatres and the bars, as he struggles in his studies and falls in 'What could matter more than love with a beautiful ballerina who has a terrible secret to hide. As the tragedy of World War 2 edges ever closer to Andras, the book moves back to Hungary, to the little village where Andras and his brothers grew up, to Budapest where his new family live and then on into the forced labour camps across Hungary. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670914584</amazonuk>}}?''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anita DiamantB0C7J9D21B|title=Day After NightA Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=A J Lewis|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=First of allWhen we first meet our hero, I really liked the unusual pitch for a Second World War novel, set in a detention camp in Palestine in October 1945, soon after the liberation his name is Ettore and he lives at The House of EuropeBeautiful Swallows. The war machine has ground to Idyllic as this might sound, it's a halt, leaving millions of bewildered refugees to find their way out of chaosbordello and Ettore's mother died when he was born. With huge effortHe's not been short of mothers, hundreds though - but for someone of Jewish men and women reach their promised landhis background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, albeit as illegal immigrantsit's difficult to obtain decent employment. Though imprisoned again, Atlit camp is emotionally a halfway house between The stint working with the past preparation of anchovies didn't work out and the future for thembastards are considered bad luck on fishing boats. They are at least wellEttore was nothing if not resourceful -fed and humanely treated by their British captors. With no particular duties determined - and in limbo it was not long before he had a successful business as a guide for an indeterminate period, the women start to come to terms with how life will be for them in the future, safe at last from Nazi persecution, but having lost all their loved onesvisitors. He was even saving some money.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847398618</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jennie RooneyEssie Fox|title=The Opposite of FallingFascination
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=It The Victorian era is 1862 and when wealthy Liverpool girl Ursula Bridgewater finds herself single and restless after her fiancée Henry Springton leaves her incredibly over-romanticised as a setting for another womanhistorical fiction (matched only, perhaps, she soon turns by the Second World War) which has often led to travel as more than a few writers mishandling it. There's such a means glut of escape and sets off on her first expedition. But she has agreed media set in the era that the hallmarks we've come to stay friends associate with Henry and cannot quite escape him completely as they continue it are familiar to the point of being cliched, hackneyed even. All this is simply to write illustrate that it would be an easy thing to each otherdo poorly. Ten years later and Ursula has travelled all over the world But despite that, something about it still grabs me – and is something about to embark on a trip around America, but this time she decides to take a companionbook's description did as well.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701182687</amazonuk>1914585526
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Iain PearsNicole Jarvis|title=Stone's FallA Portrait in Shadow
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=I read Iain Pears' ''The PortraitI want all of Florence to know my name'' Cast out from Rome, Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking an oasis in which her art can find a year or so ago home and loved it so I was really looking forward to reading this novelwhere her future can thrive rather than stagnate. The front cover is strikingly handsome and hints But as some as she enters Florentine society she faces great opposition from the powerful Accademia, the self-proclaimed guardians of good things the healing magics that through paintings have the power to come between protect the city and its coverscitizens from plagues and curses. The novel is divided up into sizeable chunks of three. Three different decades all-male Accademia has hoarded power over art and architecture for centuries and three different locationsguard it above all else. Pears then dips in To them, Artemisia – an ambitious young woman who promises trouble and out of the main characters' lives, telling the reader basically what makes change – has no place amongst them tickand their society.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099516179</amazonuk>1803362340
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Thomas D Lee
|title=Perilous Times
|rating=3
|genre= Fantasy
|summary= ''Hate is the path of least resistance''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gill SchierhoutG K Holloway|title=The Shape In the Shadows of HimCastles|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=The story is told We begin after the momentous battle in 1066 and on the first person by Sara Highbury. Sheday of William of Normandy's running a small business in an efficient but rather detached fashioncoronation as King of England. SheWilliam's all washed upposition is not secure and the new king has many challenges. She starts to recount her earlier, happier life when it meant something Imposing authority through a coronation is important. And William is right to herworry. And While the reader soon discovers that a diamond digger called Herbert was - previous king, Harold, is dead and still is - the love of her life. And here Schierhout gives us a taster likelihood of more pitched battles is over, the hard rebels are stirring and dirty work digging for stones (they're never called diamonds by the workers apparently). The danger and precarious nature much of the work is laid bare. But Herbert seemed country does not wish to be recognise a naturalnew overlord. Why?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099535777</amazonuk>1800422466
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=3949666079
|title=Noema
|author=Dael Akkerman
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''This is a story about some things that happened to me about twelve thousand years ago.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elizabeth Chadwick1529125898|title=To Defy A KingGodmersham Park|author=Gill Hornby
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=#Set in the traumatic and violent period leading up to the Magna Carta, Chadwick concentrates on the fortunes of two extended families. The Marshals, close to the throne ''If it were not for their expertise, political and military might, and the Bigods, who are directly related to King John, through their half brother Longespee, son casual dereliction of the family matriarchodd gentleman's duty, and John’s father. Banished from Court, and forced there would no women to leave her son there, Ida marries Roger and founds a strong patriarchal dynasty. However, tension is never far from boiling point, with the two half brothers tolerating each other teach well-bred daughters at best, loathing each other more often than not, due to their opposing naturesall.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847442366</amazonuk>}}''
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|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=From I loved the moment she sets eyes on handsome George Boleynprelude to Peach Blossom Spring, plain Lady Jane Parker falls madly in love and prays a short chapter entitled ''Origins''. Unfortunately it is the only truly poetic part of a book that George will be hersI expected more from. As Jane and GeorgeCovering Chinese history from 1938 to 2005 as viewed through one family's families negotiate perspective. When their home city is set ablaze during the marriage Jane meets Anne Boleyn war with Japan, a young mother (Meilin) and quickly realises that George only has eyes for Anneher four-year-old son (Renshu) are among those who flee. The story follows them on their journey across China, but remains determined that she can make George love herand in Renshu's case eventually to America. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847561942</amazonuk>1472277538
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne Perry1916072038|title=The Sheen on House in the SilkHollow (The Talbot Saga)|author=Allie Cresswell|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Anna Zarides arrives We meet part of the Talbot family in Yorkshire in November 1811. Twenty-seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot and her mother have travelled in Constantinoplesome discomfort from their home at Ecklington, determined to find out why her twin brother Justinian has been convicted of murderthe house in the hollow. But it is 1273, The two women are angry with each other and a woman cannot move about freely to ask questions. Anna Jocelyn is a skilled doctor, who uses Arab and Jewish medicine in secret as well as more accepted Christian remedies: in aware of her quest for information she disguises herself as a eunuch mother's strengths and successfully treats a wide range of people from the very poorest right up to the emperor himself.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755339061</amazonuk>}}weaknesses:
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michelle LovricAnnabel Abbs|title=The Book Language of Human SkinFood
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=''Ye can't take Eliza Acton is a poet who has never had the slither out ovva snakeslightest inclination to boil an egg.'' So says GianniWhen tasked with writing a cookery book, she recruits Ann Kirby, valet in a wealthy eighteenth century Venetian householdlocal woman with a troubled home life. The masterTogether, they test, a merchantcraft, divides his time between Italy refine and Perureshape the world of domestic cookery, where he deals in silver. But the merchant isn't reinventing the serpent - his son Minguillo is. On the night an earthquake ripped through Peru recipe book and deposited fanatical nun Sor Loreta at changing 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 face of sociopathic progenycookery writing forever. |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!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670918733</amazonuk>1398502227
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lawrence HillFreya Marske|title=The Book of NegroesA Marvellous Light
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Although this Robin Blyth is nudged into a work of fiction, job in the whole distasteful and deeply upsetting subject of slavery is a factCivil Service, therefore, at times I felt as if I were reading a true accountmuch to his chagrin. The narrative goes back There he meets Edwin Courcey and forth, starting learns that the streets of London are threaded with Aminata (or Meena as she is usually called) as magic. Desperate to remove a relatively old woman (what we would call middle-aged). She's in London, far from home, but she's there for an extremely important reason. The powers-curse that-be need her threatens to tell her storyswallow him, as a slave over many years. The hope is that other Meenas will not have Robin follows Edwin to suffer the same fatecountryside, where the hedgegrows bristle with incantations and the people shimmer with power. On There they uncover a lighter note (and they are few and far between) Meena gets to visit some London schoolchildren. They think sinister plot that she eats elephant. She is able to laugh at their naivetythreatens the lives of all magicians in the British Isles.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552775487</amazonuk>1529080886
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Phil RickmanB09F4CTKJR|title=The Bones of AvalonFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=When Elizabeth IIt's most trusted men fear for her safety the later stages of World War I and think there's a possibly supernatural plot against her, the obvious man to investigate it United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is Dr John Dee, her astrologer a young American who has signed up and consultant in joined the hidden arts17 Aero Squadron. Aided by his former pupil – and Elizabeth's reputed lover – Robert DudleyThis company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, he travels the first to Glastonbury be attached to try and find the bones of King Arthur. Glastonbury, however, has never recovered from the Dissolution of the Monasteries RAF and the execution of its beloved Abbot Richard Whiting, and many residents view first to be sent into the pair with suspicion. The exception skies to this is Nel Borrow, who treats Dudley when he's ill and becomes fight the first woman Dee has ever been interested Germans in romanticallyactive combat. Can But before that can happen, Petrol has to master flying the three stop the villainous plot? I'll leave you to find out…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848872704</amazonuk>notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Susan FletcherChristophe Medler|title=CorragMadrigal: A Closely Guarded Secret|rating=54
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=A small and dirty woman sits Set against the backdrop of the English Civil War, a secret plan (code-named Madrigal) is discovered by Sir Robert Douse in the summer of 1642. As a prison cell. With her bare feet loyal servant of the King, and her matted hair and her damp, filthy clothesHead of the Secret Service, she doesn't wonder at the word ''witch''. She has been called it all her life. Her mother called her ''witch'is Robert' before she named her. Her given name Corrag – was a corruption: for Cora (her mother) and Hag (which she'd get as used s duty to as Cora had). She sits through uncover the snow details of the winter, knowing that plan and follow the clues to uncover one of the sound she hears outside is most guarded secrets in history—especially since the dragging of plot could affect the logs for her pyre. She was told, though, that a man would come. So she waits for himKing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007321597</amazonuk>B095HY8SXQ
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Denning1471187179|title=The Amber TreasureA Beautiful Spy|author=Rachel Hore|rating=3.54
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Cerdic Minnie is the younger son of a minor lord an 'ordinary' girl living an unexciting life in a quiet Anglo Saxon village leafy provincial suburb. The book is set in sixth century Northumbria. His people are settled the 1930s and the Welsh (Romano-Britons) seem contained behind the Pennines. Cedric fully expects Minnie is expected to live out his live as up to her mother's expectations and find a gentleman farmernice young man to marry, hopefully with produce children and spend the beautiful Aidith by his siderest of her days looking after her husband and their home. But as he listens to the tales told by Lilla the bard Unfortunately, he canthis isn't help but dream what she wants to do at all and neither does she want to continue working as a secretary. As a result of following after his unclea chance meeting, she finds herself drawn into espionage, working for the great warrior Cynric, secret service and effectively living a double life - attempting to infiltrate the Communist Party of Great Britain. Minnie finds herself torn between what she perceives as her duty and the friends she has made - and finding glory in battlelikes - whilst working for the Communist Party. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849140235</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Katherine HoweAfonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=The Physick Book of Deliverance DaneKokoschka's Doll|rating=32.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=Connie Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from the get-go, which is doing postgraduate research why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. 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, and so on witchcraft. Although she is initially rather wary It intrigued with the subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of being asked to clear out her grandmother’s old houseit mentioned, too. But you've seen the project turns out to lead to lots of exciting possibilitiesstar rating that comes with this review, including romance and perhaps original sources for her studiescan tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. So what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141047550</amazonuk>1529402697
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Debbie ElliottChristina Hammonds Reed|title=Tesla & TwainThe Black Kids|rating=34.5|genre=Historical FictionTeens |summary=History remembers nineteenth century inventor Nikola Tesla as Christina Hammonds Reed's debut novel is set against the backdrop of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, a mad scientistreaction to the absolution of four police officers for beating a black man, and he did indulge in some very peculiar experimentsRodney King, most notably the directed-energy weapon, or nearly to death-ray, as the press of the time gleefully dubbed it. But Told from the truth is that his work was perspective of groundbreaking importance: he developed Ashley Bennett, the electrical alternating current and the AC motor, and much more. The average person probably has novel follows her evolution from a better awareness silent bystander when confronted with matters of Samuel Clemens - who wrote Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn under his pen name Mark Twainrace, to a woman finding her voice and who was known as one of the foremost satirists of his day. But perhaps they don't know that Twain was fascinated by scientific inquiry, or that these two seemingly disparate men were great friendsembracing her heritage. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906146756</amazonuk>1471188191
}}
