Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|Historical Fiction]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->==Historical fiction==__NOTOC__ <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Georgina HardingTananarive Due|title=Painter of SilenceThe Reformatory

|summary=A youngGracetown, anonymous, vagrant collapses on the steps of a hospital in RomaniaFlorida. June 1950. He doesn't speak and remains After a mystery to the staff that tries to treat his obvious symptoms but can't seem to reach the silent person beneath. However, Safta, scuffle with a nursewhite boy, suggests that he may be deaf and produces drawing materials. Coincidentally, the man twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is able sentenced to draw beautifully, but this is no coincidence to Safta. There are reasons why she can't disclose it, but she knows this man. They grew up together in pre-war Romania, a whole world away when six months at the country had a kingGracetown School for Boys, beautiful cities untouched by bombing and being able to read a foreign language wasn't punishable by imprisonment in work camps... or worse.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408821125</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lindsey Davis|title=Master and God|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Imagine first century Rome otherwise known as seen through the eyes of Reformatory. It's a wry Brummie place with a fine sense of humour brutal and a real talent for introducing you to characters so real you could easily see yourself having a drink with them after a hard week at dark reputation. But the office. That is Lindsey Davis' gift, and while this book segregated reformatory is a departure from her usual Falco novelschamber of horrors, haunted by the trademark charm, piercing intelligence and ready wit are as abundant as everboys that have died there.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444707329</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Emma Donoghue|title=The Sealed Letter|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=If you are in In order to survive the mood for a deliciously scandalous Victorian page-turnerschool governor and his Funhouse, look no further than Emma Donoghue's ''The Sealed Letter''. Set in 1864, it's based on Robert must enlist the real life story help of secrets and scandal surrounding Helen Codringtonthe school's divorce from her older husband, the rather dull Vice Admiral Codringtonghosts – only they have their own motivations.. There's added spice and intrigue provided by the unwitting involvement in events of Emily 'Fido' Faithfull, an early mover in the rights of women movement and that good old standard, the Victorian spinster.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1447205987</amazonuk>1803366532}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jennifer McVeighKatherine Howe|title=The Fever TreeA True Account

|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=Frances Irvine enjoys a privileged lifestyle Hannah Masury is living in Victorian England: Boston, having been sent to live with a beautiful housefamily who run an inn, servants, rich gowns and all the trappings her position as the daughter of an industrialist demandsbeing made to work there from a young age. However, Frances' lifestyle proves When she hears there is to be a precarious house hanging of cards balanced on her father's investment some pirates in the Northern Pacific Railroad in North Americatown, she decides to go and watch. When the Canadian terrain proves too much for the railroad construction to continueEnthralled and horrified in equal measure, her fatherHannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's shares are rendered worthlessdeath at the hands of two vicious pirates. As this occurs just before his sudden deathShe hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, Frances is forced and then to escape them completely she runs away to make sea, dressing as a choice boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as her finery and home are auctioned offa cabin boy. Does she throw She soon finds herself on in the mercy thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her lower class relatives or commit herself to a loveless marriage to distant cousin Dr Edwin Matthews? rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670920894</amazonuk>0861547438

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sax RohmerSarah Marsh|title=Fu Manchu - The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=A couple Sign of years after their encounter with the villainous Dr Fu Manchu, Dr Petrie and Nayland Smith are reunited once more to take on the returning evil genius. When the Rev JD Eltham vanishes after conversing with Petrie, the two realise that Fu Manchu has returned and must risk life and limb to save their friend.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857686046</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Margaret Dickinson|title=Jenny's WarHer Own

|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=Jenny's home 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 East End use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is an uncomfortable onetaught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. Her mother Dot cares little for her From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and thinks nothing of giving her using a slap to make sure she knows her placesystem called Visible Speech. Dot's boyfriend At the same time, ArthurBell is working on other inventions and ideas, tries to show Jenny some kindness but has issues and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of his ownespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330544306</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreview|author=Tan Twan Eng|title=The Garden of Evening Mists|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Malay Chinese Teoh Yun Ling travels follow-up to the Cameron Highlands excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off. In the palace of Malaya Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to meet the legendary Japanese garden designer war at Troy and expert, Nakamura Aritomothen by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the sole survivor throne of a World War II Japanese slave labour camp, Yun Ling has many reasons to hate the Japanese but some things are stronger than hatredWestern Isles. For, whilst in the camp, she promised her sister a Japanese garden. When life became difficult during interment, the sisters discussed Having survived – politically and visualised physical – the finished result chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to keep them hanging on. LingIthaca's sister perished but shores, Queen Penelope is on the dream brink of a memorial garden drives her onfragile peace. Nothing is One that straightforwardshatters however with the return of Orestes, though. The designer refuses the commission. Instead he suggests that she staysKing of Mycenae, as and his apprenticesister Elektra, learning the art in order to become her own designer. Yun Ling agrees and discovers more than horticultural finesseseeking refuge. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905802625</amazonuk>0356516075

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Meg ClothierB0C7J9D21B|title=The Girl KingA Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=A J Lewis|rating=4.5

|summary=King Giorgi, King of GeorgiaWhen we first meet our hero, his name is without an heir so Ettore and he does the unthinkablelives at The House of Beautiful Swallows. He names his eldest daughter, TamarIdyllic as this might sound, as it'Kings a bordello and Ettore' on his deaths mother died when he was born. Tamar is strongHe's not been short of mothers, feisty and a total tomboy though - butfor someone of his background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, the fact remains, sheit's femaledifficult to obtain decent employment. Therefore when Giorgi passes away The stint working with the kingdom hepreparation of anchovies didn's held together starts to crack as the opportunists equate the fairer sex with weakness t work out and possibilitiesbastards are considered bad luck on fishing boats. If Tamar is to gain united lands, she must lose something in returnEttore was nothing if not resourceful - and determined - and it was not long before he had a successful business as a guide for visitors. Is this a sacrifice too far?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553139</amazonuk>He was even saving some money.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ella March ChaseEssie Fox|title=The Virgin Queen's DaughterFascination

|summary=Elinor de Lacey The Victorian era is incredibly over-romanticised as a setting for historical fiction (Nellmatched only, perhaps, by the Second World War) which has an eager, quick mind that's been trained by her scholarly father, against her mother's wishes. Nell would rather be discussing Copernicus' latest theories often led to more than learn how to keep a wet larder or how to be a dutiful wifefew writers mishandling it. ItThere's Nell's greatest wish, such a glut of media set in fact, to attend the court of Queen Elizabeth I so era that she can discuss and argue the hallmarks we've come to associate with it are familiar to the finest scientific and philosophical minds point of the daybeing cliched, but her mother hackneyed even. All this is ardently against simply to illustrate that itwould be an easy thing to do poorly. Nell doesn't understand why. Not, But despite that is, until her dream becomes a reality but by then something about itstill grabs me – and something about this book's too late to go backdescription did as well.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091947162</amazonuk>1914585526

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Victoria LambNicole Jarvis|title=The Queen's SecretA Portrait in Shadow|rating=34.5

|summary=It was July 1575 and the court had left the unpleasant atmosphere of London for its annual progress round the homes ''I want all of the more prominent nobles. It was Florence to stay at Kenilworth Castle, home of the Earl of Leicester (better known as Robert Dudley, the queenknow my name''s favourite) for some three weeks. The expenditure on the stay was enormous, but Leicester was determined to persuade Queen Elizabeth to marry him. The fact that he was also having an affair with Lettice Knollys, wife of the Earl of Essex, was beside the point. Lucy Morgan, a black entertainer of Moorish descent, was drawn into the midst of this intrigue and found herself on the edge of a plot to assassinate the queen.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0593067991</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Dasa Drndic and Ellen Elias-Bursac (translator)|title=Trieste|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Haya TedeschiCast out from Rome, Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking an 82 year old woman, sits alone oasis in Italy, waiting. She waits for the adult son she hasn't seen since he was which her art can find a baby. As Haya waits, she goes through her red basket of photographs home and memorabilia, hanging ''out where her life on an imaginary washing line''future can thrive rather than stagnate. She then takes But as some as she enters Florentine society she faces great opposition from the reader back in timepowerful Accademia, back the self-proclaimed guardians of the healing magics that through paintings have the power to her life as a Catholicised Jewprotect the city and its citizens from plagues and curses. The all-male Accademia has hoarded power over art and architecture for centuries and guard it above all else. To them, before, during Artemisia – an ambitious young woman who promises trouble and change – has no place amongst them and after World War II in an area called Triestetheir society.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857050222</amazonuk>1803362340

{{newreview|author=Elaine di Rollo|title=Bleakly Hall|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Nurse Montgomery (Monty to her friends) and daring ambulance driverSet in the near-distant future, Adain a world on the verge of climate collapse, met Britain is in Belgium during World War Igreat peril. They worked as The British Isles desperately needs a team collecting hero (or several) to save the injured from the front line, dodging snipers day and shells and ignoring social standards rescue what little remains. What no-one expected was that accompanied one of the class system Knights of the day. Monty may have been Ada's social 'superior' but such things were irrelevant whilst they faced death on an hourly basis. After the war Monty comes to work at Bleakly Hall, a hydropathic or country house hotel specialising in hydro therapies for Round Table would answer the rich and ailing and is reunited with Ada, working as a mechanic and all-round assistantcall.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099513471</amazonuk>0356518523

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Helen DunmoreG K Holloway|title=The Greatcoat|rating=4|genre=Horror|summary=Set in 1952 in Yorkshire, a young couple move into a rented flat. Philip is In the new, young doctor while his new wife Isabel struggles with the isolated life with no friends or family and Philip's frequent absence due to the demands Shadows of his job. Things take a turn to the spooky when, waking from under the warmth of the old greatcoat Isabel finds in the flat, she hears a tapping at the window and finds there an RAF pilot, Alec, who appears to know Isabel intimately.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099564939</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Marina Endicott|title=The Little ShadowsCastles|rating=4.5

|summary=Flora AveryWe begin after the momentous battle in 1066 and on the day of William of Normandy's schoolmaster husband dies suddenly, leaving her three daughters coronation as King of England. William's position is not secure and the new king has many challenges. Imposing authority through a dilemma: how does she find the money to raise them? Her answer coronation is important. And William is right to return to her pre-marital professionworry. While the previous king, Harold, is dead and the one likelihood of which her husband disapproved so vocally. Flora decides to put her family on more pitched battles is over, the stage as a vaudeville act. So begins a new life as they tour the backwater theatres of America rebels are stirring and their native Canada, dreaming much of a big future whilst weathering the present. Set prior country does not wish to and during World War I, it wasn't just the Averys who faced changes and uncertaintyrecognise a new overlord.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091944023</amazonuk>1800422466

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Karen Harper3949666079|title=Shakespeare's MistressNoema|rating=2|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The conceit of ''Shakespeare's Mistress'' is that Shakespeare was married to Anne Whateley the day before he was married to Anne Hathaway, and Anne W remained the love of his life, with an affair (if you can have an affair with your 'wife') continued in London where the same Anne was also the famed ''dark lady'' of his sonnets. There is some basis for this theory in that the parish records do show a mysterious entry into the register for just such a contract the day before the Hathaway marriage but although the author claims this is 'faction', it's very much at the fiction end of that scale and is really a 'what if?' piece.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091940427</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Robin Wasserman|title=The Book of Blood and ShadowDael Akkerman

|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=Nora is an unusual heroine. She is sharp, snarky and funny, and her wry tone and contemporary references will resonate with her readers. But she ''This is also uncompromisingly geeky, and she opts to complete her independent study assignment by joining her three friends at the local university in a research project on the Voynich Manuscript by Edward Kelley (This manuscript actually exists, and has taxed the abilities of story about some of the greatest code-breakers in the world in the last hundred things that happened to me about twelve thousand yearsago.). However Professor Hoffpauer does not consider Nora mature enough to work on the manuscript itself, despite the fact that her linguistic ability is far superior to that of the others, and instead he gives her the lesser task of translating the letters of Kelley's step-daughter Elizabeth Weston. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907411445</amazonuk>}}'

{{newreview|author=Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt|title=Noah's Child|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Joseph, Maya is a young Belgian Jew, is sent away by his parents when they grow nervous about girl living in a hunter gatherer village during the treatment of Jews during World War TwoMesolithic era. He Climate change is taken in by a village priestoccurring, Father Ponsthe Sea of Grass encroaches further and further into Maya's forest home, and given a new identity food is becoming more and a place more scarce. What to do? Can the law givers in Father Pons' school along with an assortment the federation of other childrenvillages muster peaceful ways to cope? Can the Traveller, some a spiritual figure who interprets the wisdom of whom are genuine pupils and others who are, like JosephAll Life, seeking sanctuary.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848874189</amazonuk>provide solutions?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Lyndon1529125898|title=Hawk QuestGodmersham Park|author=Gill Hornby|rating=4.5

|summary=''Hawk Quest'' is an epic of a historic novel set in If it were not for the 11th century. A band casual dereliction of companions led by Vallon, the mysterious Frankish warriorodd gentleman's duty, travel from England to Scandinavia and on to Anatolia in order there would no women to capture and deliver four rare pure white falcons as a ransom for Sir Walter, the son of a Norman nobleman held by the Seljuk Turksteach well-bred daughters at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847444970</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Chris Womersley|title=Bereft|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Quinn Walker, a young Australian man fresh from fighting on Anne Sharpe was thirty-one years old when she arrived at Godmersham Park to take up the European front in World War One, returns position of governess to the very town he twelve-year-old Fanny Austen. She had no experience of teaching but this was drummed out of ten years before, after being accused a case of raping and killing his own younger sisternecessity. Two things have beaten him to Until the small settlement - onedeath of her mother, the global flu pandemic; two Anne had a telegram saying he died bravely in action earlier in comfortable life and was loved by both parents although her father was frequently absent from the warhousehold. And the less you know of what he meets When her mother died, her father cast her off and does back in Flint the better, the would have nothing more to keep this fresh and brilliant book's many intrigues as secret as they were for medo with her. No explanation was offered but she would receive an annuity of £35 a year. Her maid, Agnes, would receive nothing but was fortunately taken in by some neighbours.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857386549</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|author=Kate Williams|title=The Pleasures of Men|rating=4|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=Catherine Sorgeiul is a woman with burdens. Living with her uncle in London’s East End during the reign of Queen Victoria, hers is a life that seems empty – yet in fact is full of things she is trying to push away.  Filling her days has become a problem, so when a series of grisly murders begins, Catherine is drawn to the mystery of the Man of Crows in a way that seems bound to change her life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951399</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Katy DarbyMelissa Fu |title=The Whores' AsylumPeach Blossom Spring

|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The Whores’ AsylumI loved the prelude to Peach Blossom Spring, a debut novel, short chapter entitled ''Origins''. Unfortunately it is the only truly poetic part of a tale of friendship, love, sin and criminality set in late 19th century Cambridge and Oxfordbook that I expected more from. The comparison Covering Chinese history from 1938 to 2005 as viewed through one of my favourite historical novelistsfamily's perspective. When their home city is set ablaze during the war with Japan, Sarah Waters, also caught my attentiona young mother (Meilin) and her four-year-old son (Renshu) are among those who flee. SadlyThe story follows them on their journey across China, I was a little bit disappointedand in Renshu's case eventually to America. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905490801</amazonuk>1472277538

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eric Orsenna1916072038|title=The Indies EnterpriseHouse in the Hollow (The Talbot Saga)|author=Allie Cresswell

|summary=As soon as you pick up a novel about Columbus's discovery We meet part of the Americas, certain expectations come to mindTalbot family in Yorkshire in November 1811. Orsenna however is much more than your average writer Twenty-seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot and he manages to subvert almost all of these by delivering a quiet, scholarly account of what seems her mother have travelled in some discomfort from their home at first a diversionEcklington, to the art of map makinghouse in the hollow. But this book is not about Columbus himself, but rather his brother Bartholomew, The two women are angry with each other and how he Jocelyn is swept into the excitement well aware of her mother's strengths and ambition of his older sibling.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906598932</amazonuk>}}weaknesses:

{{newreview|author=Louisa Young|title=My Dear I Wanted to Tell You|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=It takes a while for the full power of Louisa Young's remarkable ''My Dear I Wanted To Tell You'' to become apparent, but when it doesShe is practiced at subterfuge, it can hardly fail to move you. Set just before and during World War Oneat concealing, it's beneath a story facade of love and human spirit against the odds. The impact of the book is in what happens to respectability, the characters, so I don't want to give too much away, but itdeplorable truth's worth pointing out that it's not for the overly squeamish reader particularly in some of the descriptions of surgical procedures, which have clearly been meticulously researched by Young. The title itself it taken from the opening words of the standard letters that the wounded were given to send to loved ones back home. The wounded were required to fill in the blanks.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007361432</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Janette Jenkins|title=Little Bones|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=While this might sound like the afterlife of a brilliant and unlikely cabaret mimic, itHester is furious about Jocelyn's not. It's a richrefusal to do as she was asked, evocative and engaging novel set in the last years of Victoriawhich has precipitated 's reign, in the depths of her darkest London. Fate - and being abandoned by, in turn, her mother and older sister - leaves Jane Stretch living with and working for a doctor and his lumpen, housebound wife. Jane is alternatively called an 'unfortunate' this violent and a unexpected removal'cripple' for her disabilities and distorted frame, but she has enough bookish intelligence to pass herself off as an assistant to the doctor, who only ever does one operation - abortions, for music hall artistes. The plot is evidently gearing up to reveal how dangerous such a criminal business might be, for the both of them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>070118194X</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Jean Marsh|title=The House Then we are told of Eliott|rating=4.5|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=When Evangeline the birth of a child and Beatrice's father dies, the two sisters discover that he has left them with very little money and without any qualifications with which to support themselves. They struggle to find suitable employment before accidentally discovering their talents as seamstresses and fashion designers. The book follows their journey of independence soon after their father's death, Hester Talbot departs, leaving Jocelyn in shame and the new relationships they begin to build without him dominating their livesisolation in Yorkshire.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>144720008X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lesley PearseAnnabel Abbs|title=The PromiseLanguage of Food|rating=45

|summary=Belle Eliza Acton is a poet who has never had the slightest inclination to boil an egg. When tasked with writing a lovely London lifecookery book, she recruits Ann Kirby, a good career and local woman with a happy marriagetroubled home life. But she has a murky pastTogether, and although it’s shaped her kind heart and characterthey test, it isn’t something she wants to come face to face with again. But some people are not able to forget the pastcraft, for reasons good refine and badreshape the world of domestic cookery, reinventing the recipe book and against the dramatic backdrop of changing the Great War, Belle is about to come face to face with all sorts of things she thought she had forgottencookery writing forever. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718157044</amazonuk>1398502227

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tracey WarrFreya Marske|title=Almodis the PeaceweaverA Marvellous Light

|summary=At Robin Blyth is nudged into a job in the age of five Almodis de la Marche was taken as a hostage - a guarantee of her family's good behaviour - Civil Service, much to his chagrin. There he meets Edwin Courcey and she remained there until she was learns that the streets of marriageable age. It was all the harder for Almodis as it meant that she was separated from her identical twin. The situation was not hostile although she didn't get on well London are threaded with her foster mother, Agnes - and never wouldmagic. Her first marriage was Desperate to Hugh of Lusignan and Almodis felt something akin remove a curse that threatens to love for this gentle manswallow him, but Robin follows Edwin to the sexual relationship between countryside, where the two was tenuous to say hedgegrows bristle with incantations and the least and Almodis was determined that she would create her own dynastypeople shimmer with power. At There they uncover a time when marriages were put aside if they were not producing sinister plot that threatens the required heirs, Almodis decided that she had to move on. Her next marriage - to Pons lives of Toulouse - would be more productive but far from happyall magicians in the British Isles.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907605053</amazonuk>1529080886

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Conny BraamB09F4CTKJR|title=The Cocaine SalesmanFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer

|summary=Picture a world It's the later stages of hellish exclusion, nightmarish noise World War I and images, the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and horrid violencejoined the 17 Aero Squadron. Picture one person trying This company was the first US Aero Squadron to live through be trained in Canada, the sleepless nights, first to be attached to the isolation among his peers, RAF and the permanent sense of dreadful threat. Picture him needing drugs. His best friend might even first to be called Charliesent into the skies to fight the Germans in active combat. But don't picture an inner city slum, 2012before that can happen, Petrol has to master flying the notoriously difficult but a man on the front in World War Onemajestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907822054</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mark MustianChristophe Medler|title=The GendarmeMadrigal: A Closely Guarded Secret|rating=4.5

|summary=There are times when you will want to shut 'The Gendarme' and just walk away from 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 loyal servant of the despair King, and disgust that this account Head of genocide engenders. Donthe Secret Service, it is Robert't. Ultimately this tale s duty to uncover the details of an old Turk revisiting his terrible past is both touching the plan and important - an exploration follow the clues to uncover one of memory and forgiveness that shouldn't be missedthe most guarded secrets in history—especially since the plot could affect the King.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1851688390</amazonuk>B095HY8SXQ

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Scarrow1471187179|title=Praetorian (Roman Legion II)A Beautiful Spy|author=Rachel Hore|rating=3.54

|summary=Still Minnie is an 'ordinary' girl living an unexciting life in a leafy provincial suburb. The book is set in hock the 1930s and Minnie is expected to live up to her mother's expectations and find a nice young man to the imperial secretary Narcissusmarry, Praetorian opens with our heroes Cato produce children and Macro kicking their heels at spend the port rest of Ostiaher days looking after her husband and their home. They Unfortunately, this isn're about t what she wants to do at all and neither does she want to embark on one of their most challenging adventures yet - continue working as undercover spies in the Praetorian Guarda secretary. Rome in AD50 is full As a result of perils. Imperial authority is now absolute a chance meeting, she finds herself drawn into espionage, working for the secret service and effectively living a double life - attempting to infiltrate the Senate really only exists as an old boys clubCommunist Party of Great Britain. The real power comes from being an adviser to the Emperor and, Minnie finds herself torn between what she perceives as these advisors jostle for influence, plots her duty and conspiracies abound. Claudius, never in the best of health, looks precarious friends she has made - and likes - but which of his heirs will succeed him? Nero? Or Britannicus? And can he hold on whilst working for long enough that the choice is clear? |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755353773</amazonuk>Communist Party.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alice HoffmanAfonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=The DovekeepersKokoschka's Doll|rating=2.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=Set in the last desperate days before the Roman siege on Masada (70CE)Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from the lives of four women collide and merge. They are Yael, the daughter of a Sicarii assassin; Revkaget-go, the wife of a gentle baker who witnessed her daughters' rape which is why I picked my review copy up and murder; Aziza, raised as a boy with the skills flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of a great warrior and Shirah, born in Alexandria it. I found things to potentially delight me each time – a mother well versed weird section in ancient magic. All four have crossed the heartless desert middle on separate journeys to arrive at darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the last outpost against the Roman Legion20,000s, where 900 Jews held out for manyletters used as narrative form, many monthsand so on. Here they have It intrigued with the subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little power and less hopeI knew of it mentioned, but each refuses to be a victimtoo. All are harbouring deep secrets about their pasts But you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, as they become the Masada's dovekeepers. With supplies dwindling and certain death drawing near, their uneasy bonds to each other strengthen as their truths are unveiled. They find an uneasy comfort can tell that becomes true loyalty and empowerment. While few in their company survive to recount the taleif love was on these pages, their story has lived on to haunt the deepest of memoriesit was not actually caused by them. So what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857205420</amazonuk>1529402697

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pam JenoffChristina Hammonds Reed|title=The Things We CherishedBlack Kids

|genre=Historical FictionTeens |summary=The rather sentimental title and Mills & Boon-ish front cover did not endear me Christina Hammonds Reed's debut novel is set against the backdrop of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, a reaction to this book initially. The blurb on the back cover made up absolution of four police officers for thisbeating a black man, howeverRodney King, nearly to death. The story opens - at Told from the end, if you get my drift and we're in America in 2009. An elderly man called Roger is in prisonperspective of Ashley Bennett, awaiting trial for (alleged) war crimes. Charlotte has been assigned to the case. Although she's a hot-shot lawyer she also has a conscience (unlike many of novel follows her colleagues) so therefore she's evolution from a bit silent bystander when confronted with matters of race, to a rare breedwoman finding her voice and embracing her heritage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0751547298</amazonuk>1471188191

{{newreview|author=Gabrielle Kimm|title=The Courtesan's Lover|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=This is a big thumping book running Move on to almost 500 pages. We're in sixteenth century Italy, Naples to be precise and the scene is set for the entrance of the main character, courtesan Francesca. And what an exotic creature she is. But also charming, thoughtful and intelligent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751544558</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Christina Courtenay|title=Highland Storms|rating=4|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=The publisher, Choc Lit Limited, gives a fair idea of what kind of read this book is. Romance with a capital R. Courtenay decides to go back in time to a Scotland rather weary of battles but strong in image especially in terms of the countryside. Is the book's purple hue suggestive of the purple heather to be found all over this area of Scotland, I wonder. It all conjures up a deeply romantic setting for many, myself included. Add in the odd fairy-tale castle or two and it's even better.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906931712</amazonuk>}}[[Newest History Reviews]]