132,585
edits
Changes
From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to searchNewest Historical Fiction Reviews (view source)
Revision as of 10:53, 20 November 2023
, 10:53, 20 November 2023no edit summary
[[Category:Historical Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Historical Fiction]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=I jumped Gracetown, Florida. June 1950. After a scuffle with a white boy, twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is sentenced to six months at the chance to review this novelGracetown School for Boys, otherwise known as the Reformatory. I enjoy reading books based within this period It's a place with a brutal and was fascinated dark reputation. But the segregated reformatory is a chamber of horrors, haunted by the premise boys that have died there. In order to survive the school governor and his Funhouse, Robert must enlist the help of the school's ghosts – only they have their own motivations...|isbn=1803366532}} {{Frontpage|author=Katherine Howe|title=A True Account|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Hannah Masury is living in 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 to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy'what if?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 boy and joining the notorious Ned Low' proposed s pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on the back cover. The prologue was beautifully written board, and I hoped that was an indicator for the rest from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the bookocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099578891</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jacqueline WinspearSarah Marsh|title=The Care and Management A Sign of LiesHer Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=The long hot July After a bout of 1914 is scarlet fever as a good one for friends Kezia and Theachild, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Kezia marries Thea's brotherSuddenly plunged into a world of silence, Tom, bringing them even closer as everything about her life-long friendschanges. Kezia then learns how Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to be a farmer's wifeschool where she is taught to lip read, translating her love into imaginative meals – sometimes overly sobut physically restrained from signing. Out of the two friendsFrom here, Thea is she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the passionate one, fighting for women's universal suffrage deaf and, as war approaches, pacifismusing a system called Visible Speech. HoweverAt the same time, when war startsBell is working on other inventions and ideas, Thea goes to the front as well as Tom, leaving Kezia at home to be more than the farmer's wife; necessity dictates she's now the farmerand Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0749016833</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire North
|title=House of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Livi MichaelB0C7J9D21B|title=SuccessionA Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=A J Lewis
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=15 year old Margaret of Anjou is brought to England to marry King Henry VIWhen we first meet our hero, little realising she'll rule in his stead in all but nameis Ettore and he lives at The House of Beautiful Swallows. Then little 3-year-old Margaret Beaufort marries John de la PoleIdyllic as this might sound, son of the Duke of Suffolkit's a bordello and Ettore's mother died when he was born. This is the first of three marriages she'll embark on by the time sheHe's 14not been short of mothers, one though - but for someone of which will produce a king and all will produce sufferinghis background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, it's difficult to obtain decent employment. The War stint working with the preparation of the Roses anchovies didn't work out and the Tudor dynasty bastards are both waiting in the wings; these are the women who will raise the curtainconsidered bad luck on fishing boats. Ettore was nothing if not resourceful - and determined - and it was not long before he had a successful business as a guide for visitors. He was even saving some money.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241146240</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shirley McKay|title=Friend and Foe (A Hew Cullan Mystery)|rating=4.5|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=1583 and King James VI of Scotland is paranoid and, after the events of the Ruthven raid the year before, who can blame him? Surely this won't affect humble academic lawyer Hew Cullen? Oh but it will, eventually causing more turmoil than even he is used to. Back at the beginning though, while Hew continues, unaware of what's to come, he has more pressing domestic worries that, for once, don't affect his herbalist sister Meg or his doctor brother-in-law Giles. Indeed, this time the concern is the love of Hew's own heart.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846972175</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewEssie Fox|title=I, Hogarth|author=Michael DeanThe Fascination
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=How similar in many ways was Hogarth’s London The Victorian era is incredibly over-romanticised as a setting for historical fiction (matched only, perhaps, by the 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 middle of era that the Eighteenth Century hallmarks we've come to associate with it are familiar to the London point of todaybeing cliched, hackneyed even. A city where All this is simply to illustrate that it was would be an easy enough thing to end up in debtor’s prisondo poorly. But despite that, as indeed something about it still grabs me – and something about this book's description did Hogarth’s beloved and unworldly father, having been condemned to the Fleet; a sad fate for a brilliant Latin scholar and writer of erudite texts. He opened a Latin speaking coffee house in St John’s Gate. Here the governor and authorities were open to high levels of corruption, as later in Dickens time and very reminiscent of the scandals of G4S todaywell.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0715647512</amazonuk>1914585526
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=P S DuffyNicole Jarvis|title=The Cartographer of No Man's LandA Portrait in Shadow
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Canadian sailing boat captain Angus McGrath joins the army in 1917 as a cartographer. However, the cosy London war offices are full ''I want all of map makers and artists and whatFlorence to know my name''s more the career choice is a luxury when the high mortality rates at the front means the infantry needs constant replenishment. Angus therefore finds himself in France as a 1st lieutenant in the Canada Corps. Meanwhile his family continue their life in the small fishing village back home in Nova Scotia, his wife worrying about her brother who has been declared missing in action. Angus is ideally placed to look for him but there are also other things demanding his attention, staying alive being only one of them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905802986</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Thomas D Lee
|title=Perilous Times
|rating=3
|genre= Fantasy
|summary= ''Hate is the path of least resistance''
}}
{{newreview|title=The Wedding GiftFrontpage|author=Marlen Suyapa BoddenG K Holloway|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summarytitle=Half-sisters Clarissa and Sarah couldn’t lead more different lives. Clarissa is a typical 'Southern Belle'; In the apple Shadows of her daddy's eye with every whim dutifully indulged. Sarah, the daughter of a slave, lives in a cabin on the plantation with her mother and has been born into a life of servitude. Their father is plantation owner Cornelius Allen, a man prone to violent mood swings: at one moment a benevolent patron, the next, a cruel tyrant.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099579987</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Dodger of the Dials|author=James BenmoreCastles|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Dodger is back! And oh, how I’ve missed him! Benmore’s excellent debut novel [[Dodger by James Benmore|Dodger]] left me hungry for more Dickensian escapades We begin after the momentous battle in 1066 and it was with greedy anticipation that I began on the sequel, day of William of Normandy''Dodger s coronation as King of the DialsEngland. William'', eager to see what our eponymous hero had been up to in s position is not secure and the two years since his last adventurenew king has many challenges. Quite Imposing authority through a lotcoronation is important. And William is right to worry. While the previous king, it would seemHarold, as Dodger has reclaimed is dead and the coveted spot likelihood of ‘'Top Sawyer' and has a gang of his very ownmore pitched battles is over, as well as the heart rebels are stirring and much of the fair Lily, the country does not wish to recognise a new lady in his lifeoverlord.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780874685</amazonuk>1800422466
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Vanora Bennett3949666079|title=The White RussianNoema|author=Dael Akkerman
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=It's 1937 and Evie leaves her home and controlling mother in the US to look up her estranged grandmother, Constance, in Paris. Constance 'This is a mystery no one talks story about so Evie is distraught when she dies soon after Evie's arrival. However, Evie chooses some things that happened to stay for a while to discover more me about her grandmother and carry out her last wish: to track down a mystery man from her pasttwelve thousand years ago. Not only is it a difficult mission, it'll expose Evie to danger in a city harbouring fierce enmities from the Russian ex-pat community that Constance nurtured.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780890044</amazonuk>}}'
}}
{{newreview|author=Michelle Lovric|title=The True and Splendid History of the Harristown SistersFrontpage|ratingisbn=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The seven Swiney sisters are growing up during Ireland's 19th century potato famine so know what it is to go without. Therefore when their eldest sister Darcy works out a way for them to earn money using their talent and long, long hair, the other six follow on. (They'd be daft to cross the dangerous Darcy anyway.) Gradually their hair becomes their future and the 'Swiney Godivas' are created. However, fame doesn't always bring happiness with the adventure; in fact for the sisters it brings notoriety – a different thing altogether.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408833417</amazonuk>}} {{newreview1529125898|title=The Flower BookGodmersham Park|author=Catherine LawGill Hornby
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Violet’s flower book is her secret treasure; a way to glimpse inside her soul. So much more than a mere diary, Violet uses the secret language of flowers to convey her innermost thoughts and feelings. She takes inspiration from nature and uses ''If it to tell a story across were not for the pages of her private journal. A simple pressed gorse flower brings back warm memories casual dereliction of a carefree day at the cove with her best friendodd gentleman's duty, a bold peony is a bitter reminder of an unwelcome suitor and a handful of poisonous tansy is the key there would no women to her biggest secret of teach well-bred daughters at all...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749015829</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Justin GoMelissa Fu |title=The Steady Running of the HourPeach Blossom Spring |rating=43.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Tristan Campbell, an American graduateI loved the prelude to Peach Blossom Spring, receives a phone call from an English law firm summoning him to London for a secret meetingshort chapter entitled ''Origins''. Mountaineer and adventurer Ashley Walsingham died in 1926 without any direct heirsUnfortunately it is the only truly poetic part of a book that I expected more from. Since then his Covering Chinese history from 1938 to 2005 as viewed through one family's legacy has been in limbo while an heir perspective. When their home city is traced. They believe Tristan could be that lucky person but there's set ablaze during the war with Japan, a catch. He has to prove the family connection within 7 weeks young mother (when the 80 Meilin) and her four-year limitation on the fortune runs out-old son (Renshu)are among those who flee. The clock is ticking while Tristan starts a hunt that will take him story follows them on their journey across EuropeChina, and in Renshu's case eventually to America. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434022330</amazonuk>1472277538
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tim Willocks1916072038|title=The Twelve Children of ParisHouse in the Hollow (The Talbot Saga)|author=Allie Cresswell
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Knight We meet part of the Order of St John the Baptist, Mattias Tannhauser, does as he has promisedTalbot family in Yorkshire in November 1811. After surviving the 1565 siege of Malta, Mattias goes to Paris to look for Lady Carla (his heavily pregnant wife) Twenty-seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot and Orlandu, her child by birth and his by adoption. Carla went to sing and play mother have travelled in some discomfort from their home at the royal wedding but seems to have disappeared. It's definitely not a good time Ecklington, to sample Parisian hospitality: one of the city's bloodiest chapters is about to begin as the Catholics seek to cleanse the city of members of house in the Protestant Reformist Church of France, better known as Huguenotshollow. It gets worse though: not only The two women are all Huguenots (angry with each other and anyone who gets in the way) being hunted down and killed grotesquely, guess which church CarlaJocelyn is well aware of her mother's hosts belong to?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099578921</amazonuk>}}strengths and weaknesses:
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stephen BurkeAnnabel Abbs|title=The Good ItalianLanguage of Food
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Enzo Eliza Acton is an Italian living in Eritrea, part of Mussolini's new Italian empire of 1935. In charge of a poet who has never had the quiet Massawe Harbour he leads slightest inclination to boil an equally quiet life, trying to adhere to gentlemanly standards; being the good Italianegg. His friend SalvatoreWhen tasked with writing a cookery book, a Colonel in the occupying Italian armyshe recruits Ann Kirby, thinks Enzo should live a little and have some fun local woman with the local women, just like his peers. Enzo isn't so sure but decides to engage a local cook/cleaner - see how it goestroubled home life. The streetwise Aatifa gets the jobTogether, they test, craft, both she refine and Enzo being surprised by things that weren't in reshape the job description. Meanwhile Mussolini has plans for Massawe that will change Enzoworld of domestic cookery, Aatifa (reinventing the recipe book and everyone around them) changing the face of cookery writing forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848549148</amazonuk>1398502227
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=PoppyFreya Marske|authortitle=Mary HooperA Marvellous Light
|rating=4
|genre=TeensHistorical Fiction|summary=Poppy Robin Blyth is nudged into a parlourmaid at job in the de Vere family's country house when World War I breaks outCivil Service, much to his chagrin. There he meets Edwin Courcey and learns that the streets of London are threaded with magic. Poppy is Desperate to remove a very bright girl but had curse that threatens to enter service rather than continuing on swallow him, Robin follows Edwin to college after school because her family is poor. But the war is changing everything - even for working class girls - countryside, where the hedgegrows bristle with incantations and Poppy's old teacher sees an opportunity for her intelligent ex-pupilthe people shimmer with power. She suggests There they uncover a sinister plot that Poppy become a volunteer nurse, a VADthreatens the lives of all magicians in the British Isles.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140882762X</amazonuk>1529080886
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Angela ThirkellB09F4CTKJR|title=August FollyFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Richard Tebben came down from Oxford in June with an undistinguished Third and little idea of what he wanted to do with himself. It was a pity that money dictated 's the need to remain in later stages of World War I and the Barsetshire village of Worsted (United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a little way from Winter Overcotes) with his family and others young American who were not really has signed up to scratch (his mother had taken a First..and joined the 17 Aero Squadron.) particularly as there This company was little the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, the first to be attached to the way of diversion other than Mrs Palmer's Greek play, RAF and the first to be sent into which everyone was roped willy-nilly. Then the Dean family arrived for skies to fight the summerGermans in active combat. But before that can happen, impossibly glamorous and accompanied by six of their nine children and Richard was immediately smitten by Rachel Dean, mother of Petrol has to master flying the family and more than twice his agenotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844089681</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robin LloydChristophe Medler|title=Rough Passage to LondonMadrigal: A Sea Captain's Tale, a NovelClosely Guarded Secret
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Elisha Ely Morgan leaves his native Connecticut to go to seaSet against the backdrop of the English Civil War, partially but not entirely to escape his father's cruelty. There's a second reason: the sea has been blamed for secret plan (code-named Madrigal) is discovered by Sir Robert Douse in the loss summer of two 1642. As a loyal servant of his brothersthe King, and Head of the exact circumstances of his elder brotherSecret Service, it is Robert's disappearance never having been clear. But Ely has heard a rumour; a rumour that will take him as far away as London duty to uncover the details of the plan and obsess him for decades. His brother Abraham may not be deadfollow the clues to uncover one of the most guarded secrets in history—especially since the plot could affect the King.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1574093207</amazonuk>B095HY8SXQ
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kirsty Wark1471187179|title=The Legacy of Elizabeth PringleA Beautiful Spy|author=Rachel Hore|rating=54
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Elizabeth Pringle bequeathed her house on Arran to Anna Morrison even though she didnMinnie is an 'ordinary't actually know hergirl living an unexciting life in a leafy provincial suburb. Anna just happened The book is set in the 1930s and Minnie is expected to walk past live up to her mother's expectations and ask find a nice young man to buy marry, produce children and spend the house decades earlierrest of her days looking after her husband and their home. Elizabeth hadnUnfortunately, this isn't said yes but always remembered the young lady, walking past with the baby in the pramwhat she wants to do at all and neither does she want to continue working as a secretary. The babyAs a result of a chance meeting, Marthashe finds herself drawn into espionage, is now an adult visiting Elizabeth's house – Anna's house – after Elizabeth's death. Through working for the belongings that Elizabeth left with it, Martha sees glimpses of secret service and effectively living a past double life while hoping that that this refuge will now become a haven for - attempting to infiltrate the Communist Party of Great Britain. Minnie finds herself torn between what she perceives as her mother before it's too late duty and while the friends she still has a mind to take her back to made - and likes - whilst working for the good timesCommunist Party. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444777602</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=After the BombingAfonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|authortitle=Clare MorrallKokoschka's Doll|rating=42.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=On 28th March 1942Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from the city of Lubeck was attacked by RAF bombers. The medieval buildings were reduced to rubble get-go, which is why I picked my review copy up and hundreds flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of innocent people lost their livesit. In retaliation, Hitler decided I found things to bomb potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the most beautiful and culturally rich cities of Englandmiddle on darker stock paper, using Baedeker’s tourist guide as a reference. The cities he chose were Exeterchapter whose number was in the 20, Bath000s, Norwichletters used as narrative form, York and Canterburyso on. 'After It intrigued with the Bombingsubterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, too. But you' follows ve seen the story of an Exeter schoolgirl star rating that comes with this review, and her friends in the aftermath of the attackcan tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. So what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444736426</amazonuk>1529402697
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Vanora BennettChristina Hammonds Reed|title=Midnight in St PetersburgThe Black Kids
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical FictionTeens |summary=Inna Feldman Christina Hammonds Reed's debut novel is in set against the Kiev theatre the night that Prime Minister Stolypin is assassinated in front backdrop of the Tsar. Fearing 1992 Los Angeles riots, a reaction to the retribution against the Jews in general and being picked out as absolution of four police officers for beating a suspect in particularblack man, Inna flees Rodney King, nearly to St Petersburg and death. Told from the perspective of Ashley Bennett, the novel follows her landlord's cousin Yasha. Her arrival causes complications. Not only is she unexpected but Yasha is evolution from a revolutionarysilent bystander when confronted with matters of race, to a dangerous occupation in Russia during 1911. The family that Yasha is living with takes woman finding her voice and embracing her in anyway, unaware that darker times are ahead for all of themheritage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780890036</amazonuk>1471188191
}}
