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Newest Historical Fiction Reviews (view source)
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[[Category:Historical Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Historical Fiction]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Reluctant BrideTananarive Due|authortitle=Beverly EikliThe Reformatory|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Scarred soldier Major Angus McCartney cuts Gracetown, Florida. June 1950. After a scuffle with a lonely figure white boy, twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, otherwise known as he rides toward Micklen House bearing tragic newsthe Reformatory. He knows that his presence will be unwelcome It's a place with a brutal and dark reputation. But the segregated reformatory is a chamber of horrors, haunted by the boys that have died there. In order to survive the report he school governor and his Funhouse, Robert must deliver will devastate the entire household, especially enlist the beautiful, unobtainable daughter help of the family whom he has secretly been in love with for many yearsschool's ghosts – only they have their own motivations. Surely she will forever associate him with the bombshell that brought her world crashing down. There seems no way that she could ever love him the way that he loves her.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781890862</amazonuk>1803366532}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Conn IgguldenKatherine Howe|title=Wars of the Roses: Stormbird (Wars of the Roses 1)A True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=England Hannah Masury is living in 1437: Henry VI Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is now old enough to take be a hanging of some pirates in the throne after 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 untimely death hands of his father 15 years earliertwo vicious pirates. However 'The Lamb' (as young Henry is known) doesnShe hides away, so that they don't take after his robustfind and kill her too, dominant father as enemies and allies alike are wont then to escape them completely she runs away to mention. Religiously devoutsea, peace-loving dressing as a boy and often ill, Henry VI relies on his right-hand men to take joining the load. While a privileged role for people like William de la Pole (Duke of Suffolk) and spymaster Derry Brewster, itnotorious Ned Low's also very dangerouspirate ship as a cabin boy. They're She soon finds herself in the final line thick of defence before the King can be toppled things when there is a mutiny on board, and not all the malevolent powers from there we are beyond the English Channel. A lot caught up in her rip roaring tale of hope is pinned life on Henry's marriage to Margaret of Anjou healing the rifts but unfortunately there are unforeseen effectsocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718159837</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elaine Neil OrrSarah Marsh|title=A Different Sun: A Novel Sign of AfricaHer Own|rating=43.5|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=Emma Davis, daughter After a bout of scarlet fever as a Georgian plantation owner has never been happy about the slave systemchild, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. People just shouldn't be owned like merchandiseSuddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Whenever possible Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she slinks away is taught to hear African stories lip read, but physically restrained from elderly slave Uncle Elisigning. From here, sparking her imagination and love for a far off continent about which she's determined to do more than dream. Emma is going to theological college ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and she ''will'' be using a missionary out theresystem called Visible Speech. Her resolve pays off when she meets At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and marries Henryideas, clergyman and missionary to Yoruba. Once there Emma discovers Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a local culture richer and more rewarding than she imagined, but, then again, so is the costcomplicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0425261301</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire North
|title=House of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bernard CornwellB0C7J9D21B|title=The Pagan Lord A Captive in Algiers (Warrior Chronicles 7Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=A J Lewis|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Lord Uhtred When we first meet our hero, his name is outlawed Ettore and evicted from his land as he continues to niggle the Saxon clergylives at The House of Beautiful Swallows. However Idyllic as this time might sound, it's in a big way: bordello and Ettore's mother died when he murders an abbot while trying to reclaim his eldest sonwas born. As a punishment heHe's evicted from not been short of mothers, though - but for someone of his land so Uhtred does background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, it's difficult to obtain decent employment. The stint working with the only thing he can: he follows his destiny preparation of anchovies didn't work out and travels north to reclaim Bebbanburg (Bamburgh) from his usurping uncle, Aelfricbastards are considered bad luck on fishing boats. There's a chasm between his dream Ettore was nothing if not resourceful - and reality, but Uhtred is determined. Perhaps - and it's just was not long before he had a successful business as well because his choice of strategy will shape a nationguide for visitors. He was even saving some money.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007331908</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Night FlowerEssie Fox|authortitle=Sarah StovellThe Fascination
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=FourteenThe Victorian era is incredibly over-year-old Miriam Booth is romanticised as a Romany gypsy from the Newcastle slums whosetting for historical fiction (matched only, perhaps, like by the titular waif in [[:Category:Charles Dickens|Charles Dickens]]Second World War) which has often led to more than a few writers mishandling it. There's such a glut of media set in the era that the hallmarks we''Oliver Twist''ve come to associate with it are familiar to the point of being cliched, hackneyed even. All this is simply to illustrate that it would be an orphan who lives by her wits but becomes drawn into a ring of house-breaking crimeeasy thing to do poorly. In 1842 she is caught But despite that, something about it still grabs me – and sentenced to seven yearssomething about this book' transportation to a convict colony in Australias description did as well.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906994218</amazonuk>1914585526
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Colum McCannNicole Jarvis|title=TransAtlanticA Portrait in Shadow
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=In 1845 ex-slave''I want all of Florence to know my name'' Cast out from Rome, black American Frederick Douglass visits Ireland for Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking an oasis in which her art can find a lecture tour about freedom home and emancipation only to discover he's not preaching where her future can thrive rather than stagnate. But as some as she enters Florentine society she faces great opposition from the powerful Accademia, the self-proclaimed guardians of the healing magics that through paintings have the power to protect the converted after city and its citizens from plagues and curses. The all. In 1919 Alcock -male Accademia has hoarded power over art and Brown climb into a rickety aircraft to fly the Atlantic architecture for centuries and land in Limerick. In 1994 Senator George Mitchell also travels to Ireland watched by a world that's about to see a miracle of negotiation. Meanwhile through guard it above all Lily else. To them, Artemisia – an ambitious young woman who promises trouble and her descendants are also there, not only watching history but living it on both sides of the Atlanticchange – has no place amongst them and their society.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408829371</amazonuk>1803362340
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Thomas D Lee
|title=Perilous Times
|rating=3
|genre= Fantasy
|summary= ''Hate is the path of least resistance''
Set in the near-distant future, in a world on the verge of climate collapse, Britain is in great peril. The British Isles desperately needs a hero (or several) to save the day and rescue what little remains. What no-one expected was that one of the Knights of the Round Table would answer the call.|isbn=0356518523}}{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Sisters of the East EndG K Holloway|authortitle=Helen BattenIn the Shadows of Castles|rating=34.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Katie Crisp had never intended to become a nunWe begin after the momentous battle in 1066 and on the day of William of Normandy's coronation as King of England. Raised by non-religious parents, her family frowned upon organised religion William's position is not secure and when Katie started secretly going to church, they strongly disapproved. When Katie ran to the aid of a stroke victim, she had a vision that changed her lifenew king has many challenges. She saw herself dressed as Imposing authority through a nun with a large silver cross hanging from her neckcoronation is important. She decided And William is right to follow her calling worry. While the previous king, Harold, is dead and join the community likelihood of St John more pitched battles is over, the Divine, a group rebels are stirring and much of Anglican nuns dedicated the country does not wish to nursing and midwifery. She thus shed her old identity and became known as Sister Catherine Maryrecognise a new overlord.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091951771</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=Alison MacLeod1529125898|title=UnexplodedGodmersham Park|author=Gill Hornby
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Historical Fiction|summary=It's 1940 and Britain lives in fear 'If it were not for the casual dereliction of a Nazi invasion that could happen any day. In case the worst happens, Evelynodd gentleman's husband Geoffrey has buried a little something for her and their young son Philip in the garden. He tells her the tin contains a bit of money and his favourite photo of them. As she digs it up from impulse rather than necessityduty, she discovers that there's would no photo but what there is instead makes Evelyn doubt that she knows the man she marriedwomen to teach well-bred daughters at all. The events that follow make Evelyn realise that indeed she doesn't. Meanwhile the war continues and a German does invade their lives, but not in the way that either of them could envisage.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241142636</amazonuk>}}'
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=A World ElsewhereMelissa Fu |authortitle=Wayne JohnstonPeach Blossom Spring
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Landish Druken I loved the prelude to Peach Blossom Spring, a short chapter entitled ''Origins''. Unfortunately it is a great hulk the only truly poetic part of a man who lumbers book that I expected more from. Covering Chinese history from 1938 to 2005 as viewed through his hometown of St Johnone family's, Newfoundlandperspective. Although he thinks of himself as a writerWhen their home city is set ablaze during the war with Japan, he has never written a word he didn't feel compelled to burn, young mother (Meilin) and everyone knows him as the wayward her four-year-old son of accomplished sealing captain Abram Druken(Renshu) are among those who flee. Landish escaped to study literature at PrincetonThe story follows them on their journey across China, where he met best friend Padgett 'Van' Vanderluyden, the 'dud' son of an industrial tycoon and a rumoured homosexual, but he broke his promise to join his fatherin Renshu's sealing empire on his return in 1893, and now lives in poverty and disgracecase eventually to America. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099572036</amazonuk>1472277538
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1916072038|title=Stay Where You Are And Then LeaveThe House in the Hollow (The Talbot Saga)|author=John BoyneAllie Cresswell
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary= Life may be tough We meet part of the Talbot family in the Missouri town where Alma grew up but at least she has a jobYorkshire in November 1811. She learns Twenty-seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot and experiences a lot as maid her mother have travelled in some discomfort from their home at Ecklington, to the wealthy Glencross family, but many of the experiences aren't the sort she'd like to relive. To top it all off, house in 1929 the Arbor, a local dance club, explodes into flames killing 42 people including Alma's younger sister Rubyhollow. The cause remains a mystery as factions two women are blamed or viewed suspiciously. However Alma knows the truth, a truth that remains secret until decades later during a visit from angry with each other and Jocelyn is well aware of her grandson.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444732838</amazonuk>}}mother's strengths and weaknesses:
}}
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary= Young Richard Blackstone Eliza Acton is accused of a poet who has never had the rape and murder of a village girl and sentenced slightest inclination to hangboil an egg. Protestations of innocence on his behalf mean nothing and the fact he's When tasked with writing a cookery book, she recruits Ann Kirby, a local woman with a deaf/mute means even lesstroubled home life. His elder brother Thomas has protected him as much as possible throughout their lives but can do nothing this time. HoweverTogether, they test, craft, help is at hand; Sir Gilbert Killbere ensures that the judge changes his mind refine and Richard is released but not completely. Richard and Thomas are excellent archers so they're rescued in order to join reshape the army that world of domestic cookery, reinventing the King is amassing. It's not an easy option: the year is 1346 recipe book and changing the conflict that history will call 'The Hundred Years War' is about to beginface of cookery writing forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781850100</amazonuk>1398502227
}}
{{newreview|title=The Sorrow of AngelsFrontpage|author=Jon Kalman Stefansson|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Our decidedly unheroic main character has been at the café for three weeks now, so we are following on very closely from [[Heaven and Hell by Jon Kalman Stefansson|Heaven and Hell]]. After the tragedy and soul-searching of that first book, he seems settled in the ridiculous family that has formed around him there, finding employment, enjoying the literature, yet being very intrigued by the female body. The man who is still young enough to be known only as ''the boy'' might have latched on to stability for once, and replaced the family and best friend he had lost. But everything is restless in this environment, and once again he might just be tempted to go on a journey, with another male companion, despite the harshness of the surrounds.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857051652</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFreya Marske|title=Heaven and Hell|author=Jon Kalman StefanssonA Marvellous Light
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Historical Fiction|summary=IcelandRobin Blyth is nudged into a job in the Civil Service, a hundred years agomuch to his chagrin. From a place There he meets Edwin Courcey and learns that is the very definition streets of rural and remoteLondon are threaded with magic. Desperate to remove a curse that threatens to swallow him, a small fishing boat leaves for four hours' hard row Robin follows Edwin to a profitable bank. It carries six men on the way outcountryside, where the hedgegrows bristle with incantations and five on the way backpeople shimmer with power. The deceased is There they uncover a sinister plot that threatens the best friend – or perhaps only friend – lives of all magicians in the main character, who is still young enough to merely be known as ''boy''British Isles. When he returns to port he enters an almost Camus-like semi-existence, wondering just how much life is an answer, and for what, after the tragedy he has witnessed.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849164061</amazonuk>1529080886
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn= B09F4CTKJR|title=She RisesFlights for Freedom|author=Kate WorsleySteven Burgauer|rating=34.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Imagine, if you can, a lifelike eighteenth-century seafaring epic (something along It's the lines later stages of Carsten Jensen's [[We, World War I and the United States has just entered the Drowned by Carsten Jensen|We, conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and joined the Drowned]] or Carol Birch's [[Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch|Jamrach's Menagerie]]) crossed with Sarah Waters's ''Fingersmith''17 Aero Squadron. If you then added This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in touches of Charles Dickens's ''Bleak House''Canada, plus shades of the rest of first to be attached to the homoerotic Waters oeuvre (especially ''Night Watch'' RAF and ''Tipping the Velvet'')first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in active combat. But before that can happen, you would just about have Kate Worsley's debut novel, ''She Rises'', in a nutshellPetrol has to master flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408835894</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Mistress of the SeaChristophe Medler|authortitle=Jenny BardenMadrigal: A Closely Guarded Secret
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=''Mistress Set against the backdrop of the Sea'' is an epic adventure involving piratesEnglish Civil War, stara secret plan (code-crossed lovers and named Madrigal) is discovered by Sir Robert Douse in the summer of 1642. As a lust for gold loyal servant of the King, and vengeance. The novel, set in Tudor timesHead of the Secret Service, it is based on the real-life events in Robert's duty to uncover the life details of Francis Drake, notably the raid at Nombre de Dios plan and follow the rout clues to uncover one of the English fleet at San Juan de Ulua. Barden weaves an exciting adventure/romance story against this backdrop, which results most guarded secrets in an immersive narrative that excites history—especially since the plot could affect the mind and sensesKing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009194922X</amazonuk>B095HY8SXQ
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graham Thomas1471187179|title=Hats Off To Brandenburg (The Roxy Compendium)A Beautiful Spy|author=Rachel Hore
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=It was London, 1815Minnie is an 'ordinary' girl living an unexciting life in a leafy provincial suburb. George III was on The book is set in the throne although it was his son who was Regent1930s and Minnie is expected to live up to her mother's expectations and find a nice young man to marry, but it would be quite a while before those facts bothered produce children and spend the Roxy Playhouse Irregulars, who lived, loved rest of her days looking after her husband and had their being in the old Roxy Playhousehome. Money had always been in short supply as it tends to be when life is lived as a celebrationUnfortunately, but they were in debt this isn't what she wants to Richard Sheridan do at all and eventually forced neither does she want to strike continue working as a bargain with him: pay their debts within one month or he would take the Roxy Playhousesecretary. The Irregulars took As a result of a chance meeting, she finds herself drawn into espionage, working for the challenge secret service and put on effectively living a performance, only this was no threedouble life -act play on a stage. Their performance was a tightly choreographed heist which would relieve members of attempting to infiltrate the ton Communist Party of some of their more valuable trinketsGreat Britain. If you're thinking of Robin Hood then forget it Minnie finds herself torn between what she perceives as her duty and the friends she has made - this was going to be far more complex and bloody and it was obvious that there was more at stake than a decrepit playhouselikes - whilst working for the Communist Party.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956742238</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Burnt NortonAfonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|authortitle=Caroline SandonKokoschka's Doll
|rating=2.5
|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=After Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from the death get-go, which is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of his youngest son it. I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, a terrible accident, Sir William Keyt starts to lose interest chapter whose number was in life. It takes meeting young Molly Johnsonthe 20, a bright and beautiful daughter of a local landlord000s, to rekindle a spark for him. He brings her into Norton House letters used as a maidservantnarrative form, where she quickly catches and so on. It intrigued with the eye subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of his bookish eldest sonit mentioned, Thomastoo. But Sir William wants Molly to be more than a maid to himyou've seen the star rating that comes with this review, and as a rich man and an MP is used to having his own waycan tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. So what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781850674</amazonuk>1529402697
}}
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical FictionTeens |summary=Clare ClarkChristina Hammonds Reed's ''Beautiful Lies'' takes in Royal jubilees, London riots, newspaper editors overstepping debut novel is set against the bounds on personal vendettas and political sex scandals - all set in backdrop of the late 1880s showing how little has changed. There are even early instances and questions over photographic manipulation. Maribel1992 Los Angeles riots, apparently a Chilean heiress and wife reaction to the absolution of radicalfour police officers for beating a black man, socialist politician Edward Campbell LoweRodney King, has a past which she has tries nearly to keep burieddeath. If it were to be revealed, both her and her husband would be ruined by Told from the scandal. Making enemies perspective of an unscrupulous and hypocritical newspaper editor might not be Ashley Bennett, the best move then.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099570467</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=All Woman and Springtime|author=B W Jones|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Gyong-Ho is a seamstress. That's not novel follows her evolution from a euphemism. She works at a machine in a garment factory, silent bystander when confronted with a bullying supervisor, invalided out matters of the glorious Chochun army, limping around and terrifying the girls only slightly more than the picture of Kim Jong-il on the walls. Girace, to a nickname she'll acquire because of woman finding her stammering attempts to get voice and embracing her own name out (Gi-Gi-Gyong) strives truly hard to be worthy of the Dear Leader. She has learned the hard way, what happens if someone somewhere for some obscure reason decides that you're notheritage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780222912</amazonuk>1471188191
}}