Changes

{{newreview|author=Mary Gibson|title=Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=''Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys'' is the latest book in Mary Gibson's Bermondsey series. This time, the Lloyd family take centre stage: Mum, Dad, son Jack and daughters May and Peggy. War is raging in Europe and Bermondsey is not immune from daily onslaught of bombs. A tragic event one night changes everything and home <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-bird May decides to fly the nest in order to participate in the war effort. The war will leave no-one unscathed; the strongest hearts can be paralysed by fear and the unlikeliest of people can emerge as heroes.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178185596X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Frances Brody|title=Sisters on Bread Street|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Julia and Margaret are the Wood sisters, struggling to hoist themselves out of a life of poverty in Leeds just before the outbreak of the first world war. Well, Julia is struggling. Margaret sees her way out as being through marriage to a rich suffragette's son, Thomas. She's an apprentice milliner and beautiful, but both sisters have a disadvantage and it's one which grows bigger as war approaches: their father is German.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349410704</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Antonia SeniorTananarive Due|title=The Winter IslesReformatory

|summary=Scotland 1122: A son Gracetown, Florida. June 1950. After a scuffle with a white boy, twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is born sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, otherwise known as the Reformatory. It's a warlord on place with a brutal and dark reputation. But the segregated reformatory is a chamber of horrors, haunted by the Scottish Islandsboys that have died there. The warlord GilleBrideIn 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 man family who doesn't realise his glory is recedingrun an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. One day When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the realisation does hit himtown, along with a Viking raidshe decides to go and watch. In Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the heat hands of invasion his sontwo vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, although only 15and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, must take over. Can dressing as a lad actually lead boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a people? cabin boy. History will tell and legend will embellish for that boy She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is Somerled a mutiny on board, and this is his storyfrom there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782396586</amazonuk>0861547438

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon MarshallSarah Marsh|title=The Long Drawn AisleA Sign of Her Own

|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=Edward and Richard Wilson are born After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a comfortable andworld of silence, indeed, powerful familyeverything about her life changes. Their father is Living in a time when the MP Jack Wilson who use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is everything sent to a Victorian father should be: severeschool where she is taught to lip read, distant and occupied with his careerbut physically restrained from signing. As the 20th century arrives and advances all three will feel the labour pains of conflictFrom here, the sons while living she ends up in Austria and another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the Balkans deaf and their father through the lens of Britain's Parliamentusing a system called Visible Speech. It will be a bloody birth At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and its effects far reaching as two great empires prepare to fightideas, drawing and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in the rest a complicated tangle of Europeespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1899804218</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Conn IgguldenClaire North|title=Wars House of the Roses: Bloodline: Book 3 (The Wars of the Roses)Odysseus

|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=''What could matter more than love?'' The Wars of follow-up to the Roses continueexcellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off. Margaret In the palace of Anjou becomes a catalyst for what lays ahead and then rescues Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the debilitated Henry VI, from throne of the forces of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the recently executed Richard of York. However Yorkchaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's last words weren't empty rhetoric: by killing shores, Queen Penelope is on the father Margaret has indeed unleashed the sons. Edward brink of March for one is out for revenge; a fact fragile peace. One that throws shatters however with the English throne return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and the safety of Queen's spymaster Derry Brewer into grave doubthis sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>071815987X</amazonuk>0356516075

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Jennifer WallaceB0C7J9D21B|title= Digging Up Milton|rating= 3.5|genre= Historical Fiction|summary=Digging Up Milton appealed to me because from the description it sounded like something a little bit different. I like that it is dark but yet not entirely serious, and I always appreciate it when an author tries to write A Captive in a different way, or give a book an individual voice.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909776106</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewAlgiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=Lesley A J Nickell|title=Sons of York: Volume 2 (The Sprigs of Broom)Lewis

|summary=15th Century London: When we first meet our hero, his name is Ettore and he lives at The House of Beautiful Swallows. Through Idyllic as this might sound, it's a quirk of fate young widow Janet Evershed finds herself running her late husbandbordello and Ettore's cloth business, far from her York homemother died when he was born. ItHe's in this very shop that she meets Richard Nevillenot been short of mothers, Duke though - but for someone of Warwick and his ward Edwardbackground in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, Earl it's difficult to obtain decent employment. The stint working with the preparation of Marchanchovies didn't work out and bastards are considered bad luck on fishing boats. They may be much higher than commoner Janet but she has caught Edward's eye Ettore was nothing if not resourceful - and determined - and what Edward wants, it was not long before he gets, be it had a successful business as a woman or, indeed, the crown of Englandguide for visitors. He was even saving some money.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861514603</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jolien JanzingEssie Fox|title=Charlotte Bronte's Secret LoveThe Fascination|rating=3.54

|summary=This The Victorian era is the second novel by Jolien Janzing, a Dutch author who lives in Belgium. Originally published in Dutch incredibly over-romanticised as ''The Master'' in 2013, it is already being made into a film. The flawlessly translated story zeroes in on two momentous years in Charlotte Brontë's lifesetting for historical fiction (matched only, 1842–3perhaps, when she was by the Second World War) which has often led to more than a pupil and then a teacher at the Pensionnat Heger in Brusselsfew writers mishandling it. I read this in tandem with Claire HarmanThere's new biography such a glut of Charlotte Brontë; it was particularly fascinating to see media set in the era that the two books open hallmarks we've come to associate with it are familiar to the same climactic episode: lovesick Charlotte making a confession at a Catholic churchpoint of being cliched, hackneyed even though she was . All this is simply to illustrate that it would be an Anglican parsoneasy thing to do poorly. But despite that, something about it still grabs me – and something about this book's daughterdescription did as well.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>9462380597</amazonuk>1914585526

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julia Franck and Anthea Bell (translator)Nicole Jarvis|title=West|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Put yourself in the shoes of a young mother to two children, who declares her intention to leave the Communist East Germany for West Berlin, and thus loses her scientist job. What would you expect on the other side – shops full of attainable products, pleasant neighbourhoods, nice neighbours, an active and busy new life, where things might feel alien but at least you speak the same language? Well, for Nelly Senff, this is hardly the case. Once past the depressing Eastern exit procedures she is confronted with more desultory interrogations from those 'welcoming' her to the West, beyond which she and her children (their father, whom she never married, is long assumed dead by the authorities, if nobody else) are practically left A Portrait in a shared accommodation in a transit camp. The shops are full of what is still unobtainable, the children hate their new school – and people still look down on them as being foreign, even if they have only moved across a city.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554321</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Gregory Dowling|title=AscensionShadow

|summary=Alvise Marangon is an artist 'resting' between commissions I 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 home and so using his guile and enterprise where her future can thrive rather than stagnate. But as some as a tour guide 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 those taking protect the European Grand Tour in 18th century Venicecity and its citizens from plagues and curses. Everything The all-male Accademia has a business as usual feel to hoarded power over art and architecture for centuries and guard it for Alvise until he notices a fellow gondolier paying his friend not to take a couple of English touristsabove all else. ThenTo them, as the new Doge is inaugurated a man's head is thrown into the crowdArtemisia – an ambitious young woman who promises trouble and change – has no place amongst them and their society. Showing people around a typical Venice is becoming increasingly hard for Alvise – Venice is not behaving typically!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846973139</amazonuk>1803362340

{{newreview|author=Lisa Hilton|title=The Stolen Queen|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=NineSet in the near-year-old Isabelle distant future, in a world on the verge of Angouleme climate collapse, Britain is betrothed to Hal, son of Hugh de Lusignanin great peril. She doesn't like him much but she's learning The British Isles desperately needs a hero (or several) to gently manipulate those around her so she feels life will be interesting save the day and rewardingrescue what little remains. Howeverwith England's King Richard the Lionheart all changes. Isabelle will marry King John instead – a totally different prospect for all concerned. This is a match What no-one expected was that will not only be a challenge for the young girl but will show her the true heart of her mother and the true art one of political manoeuvring. Isabelle may be the pawn in all this but it's not a role she takes to willingly, despite the nightmares Knights of the horned man and Round Table would answer the occurrences of a certain May night that will haunt the rest of her lifecall.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848874693</amazonuk>0356518523

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anthony QuinnG K Holloway|title=Blind ArrowsIn the Shadows of Castles

|summary=1919: A cohort of British spies meet We begin after the momentous battle in 1066 and on the depths day of William of Normandy's coronation as King of Dublin Castle, the prison and British intelligence hubEngland. Their main focus William's position is not secure and the infiltration of the IRA in new king has many challenges. Imposing authority through a bid to neutralise their leader, Michael Collinscoronation is important. However there And William is a distraction from their usual agenda: an increasing number of IRA women are escaping, only right to be found murdered shortly afterwardsworry. Martin KantWhile the previous king, Harold, an English journalist in Ireland is charged with investigation dead and reporting back to the government powers as well as his newspaper editor. Meanwhile Lilly Merrinlikelihood of more pitched battles is over, a Dublin Castle employee has also gone missing. Her loyalty to the Crown seems beyond question in rebels are stirring and much of the eyes of her boss, but others would argue with that..country does not wish to recognise a new overlord.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1843445352</amazonuk>1800422466

{{newreview|author=Sven Hassel and Jordy Diago|title=Wheels of Terror: The Graphic Novel|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=War books and anti-war books, in my mind, have Maya is a lot young girl living in common and only a couple of easy things need be changed to turn one to hunter gatherer village during the otherMesolithic era. This Climate change is dressed as an anti-war bookoccurring, but here is the lead character surviving against all odds – the platoon whittled down several times while he and his few friends go strong; here he is overcoming all kinds Sea of difficulty Grass encroaches further and adversity further into Maya's forest home, and still coming out the other end; here he food is doing proper heroic deeds – or his colleagues saving the day at the last minute – becoming more and more scarce. What to do? Can the war carries onwards towards its inevitable end. The difference perhaps is law givers in the minutiae federation of what those difficulties and deeds need bevillages muster peaceful ways to cope? Can the Traveller, with the anti-war book having a simple honesty about them and their overall worth that spiritual figure who interprets the gung-ho, militaristic piece would patently lack. And when you face the guts and gore of the kind wisdom of warfare on these pagesAll Life, you don't really expect jingoism and 'hoo-rah!' attitudes. No, even if the DNA is pretty much the same, the result here is definitely, grimly and firmly anti-war.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297609769</amazonuk>provide solutions?

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirley McKay1529125898|title=Queen & Country: A Hew Cullan Mystery (Hew Cullan Mystery 5)Godmersham Park|author=Gill Hornby

|summary=It has been three years since Hew was banished from Scotland and manoeuvred into working ''If it were not for Elizabeth Ithe casual dereliction of the odd gentleman's spymasterduty, Walsinghamthere would no women to teach well-bred daughters at all.'' Anne Sharpe was thirty-one years old when she arrived at Godmersham Park to take up the position of governess to twelve-year-old Fanny Austen. His loyalties remain with the Scottish Queen Mary She had no experience of teaching but he must hide them as well as he can lest he becomes this was a victim case of necessity. Until the conspiracy fever cutting through England death of her mother, Anne had a comfortable life and keeping was loved by both parents although her father was frequently absent from the hangman busyhousehold. There's also another fever cutting through Scotland – the plagueWhen her mother died, providing even her father cast her off and would have nothing more reason for Hew to worry about the wellbeing of his sister, brother in law and nephewdo with her. If he could No explanation was offered but go home he'd have she would receive an annuity of £35 a surprise for themyear. When he gets thereHer maid, Agnes, there's a surprise for him would receive nothing but was fortunately taken in the form of a death prophesy picture, followed by a murdersome neighbours.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846973120</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John RightenMelissa Fu |title=Churchill's Rogue: Volume 1 (Rogues Trilogy)|rating=5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Sean Ryan grew up in Ireland during the 20th century's first quarter and so understands death and loss. He learnt to defend what he felt right during his time as a bodyguard for Michael Collins. Therefore when Winston Churchill called upon his services in 1937 to bring a mother and child out of Germany, Ryan doesn't say no. However Ryan soon discovers this is no easy escort duty. The mother and child in question are for some reason being hunted by an elite German force led by Cerberus, a code name for a sadist incarnate. On the plus side, Ryan soon discovers he's not alone. There are more like him across Europe; those with pasts that forged them into violent defenders of the vulnerable in an increasingly dangerous world. These are the Rogues and, this time, Ryan needs their help.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1492320242</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Erin Knightley|title=The Duke Can Go to the Devil|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=As Regency ladies go, Mei-li Bradford is anything but conventional. For most of her life, she has travelled the world with her sea-captain father and seen exotic sights and locations that others could only dream of. Her upbringing amongst sailors has clearly rubbed off on her, however. Mei-li, or May to her friends, can drink and curse like a man and has no respect for propriety and convention. She may look like a well-bred lady, but certainly does not act like one. Therefore, disaster surely beckons when an uptight Duke shows an interest in her. His stuffy ways and conventional habits are anathema to May's free-spirited nature.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349410674</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Benjamin Johncock|title=The Last Pilot|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=You'd be forgiven for assuming that debut novelist Benjamin Johncock is American: ''The Last Pilot'' has the literary weight of a Great American Novel, with a limitless desert setting plus the prospect of soon dominating space, and the spare yet profound writing style of Ernest Hemingway or Cormac McCarthy. Johncock is British, but you can tell he's taken inspiration from stories about the dawn of the astronaut age, including Tom Wolfe's ''The Right Stuff'' and films like ''Apollo 13''. His protagonist, Jim Harrison, is a fictional Air Force test pilot who rubs shoulders with historical figures like Chuck Yeager and John Glenn in the quest to break the sound barrier and conquer space.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908434848</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Robert Merle and T Jefferson Kline (translator)|title=Fortunes of France: City of Wisdom and BloodPeach Blossom Spring

|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=1566: Brothers Pierre and Samson de Siorac have been sent from their Perigore home I loved the prelude to further their education at MontpellierPeach Blossom Spring, a short chapter entitled ''Origins''. During their time there they learn Unfortunately it is the only truly poetic part of a book that I expected more than their ascribed logic, philosophy and medicinefrom. Indeed PierreCovering Chinese history from 1938 to 2005 as viewed through one family's focus perspective. When their home city is on his stomach and the affairs of set ablaze during the heartwar with Japan, as befitting a lusty 15 young mother (Meilin) and her four-year -oldson (Renshu) are among those who flee. Not all of the adventures are learnedThe story follows them on their journey across China, culinary or romantic though; some lessons are a lot more dangerousand in Renshu's case eventually to America. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782271244</amazonuk>1472277538

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jemima Brigges1916072038|title=Brothers at ArmsThe House in the Hollow (The Talbot Saga)|author=Allie Cresswell|rating=4.5

|summary=Certain decisions are pivotal points We meet part of the Talbot family in Yorkshire in time; key moments that define everything that follows November 1811. Twenty-seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot and create waves that ripple with repercussions for years her mother have travelled in some discomfort from their home at Ecklington, to come. Kindly squire Tom Norberry could never have foreseen the impact that taking house in the hollow. The two orphaned relatives would have on his future happinesswomen are angry with each other and Jocelyn is well aware of her mother's strengths and weaknesses: ''She is practiced at subterfuge, at concealing, beneath a facade of respectability, the deplorable truth''. This single Hester is furious about Jocelyn's refusal to do as she was asked, altruistic act which has precipitated ''this violent and unexpected removal''. Then we are told of kindness would set in motion a chain the birth of events that would eventually cause a deep household rift child and threaten to sully the good family name that he had worked to hard to uphold, soon after, Hester Talbot departs, leaving Jocelyn in shame and isolation in Yorkshire.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784624454</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Kevin SandsAnnabel Abbs|title= The Blackthorn Key|rating= 5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= Seventeenth century England isn't always a comfortable place to live. Apart from the obvious differences from the modern day – no National Health Service, no laws to protect orphans like Christopher from cruelty and exploitation, and a constant foul smell from poor sanitation - fear and suspicion are a daily fact of life. In 1665 Charles II has been back on the throne for several years, but not everyone is happy about his extravagant and luxurious life-style, even among those who found the Puritan rules of Cromwell's time excessively strict. There are spies everywhere, and rumours of conspiracies fill the streets. It's a time to keep your head down and avoid attention from the authorities.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>014136064X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Alexander Cordell|title=Rape Language of the Fair CountryFood

|summary=Eliza Acton is a poet who has never had the slightest inclination to boil an egg. When we meet Iestyn Motymer it's 1826 and he's just eight years oldtasked with writing a cookery book, she recruits Ann Kirby, but starting work at the Garndyrus furnaces near Blaenavona local woman with a troubled home life. His father sees it as the right thing to do and his mother knows that the money will be needed as there's another child on the wayTogether, but Iestyn's older sisterthey test, Morfyddcraft, is adamant that it's wrong for women refine and children to work in either the mines or reshape the ironworks. She believes in the aims world of the Chartist movement whilst her father, Hywel Mortymerdomestic cookery, is loyal to reinventing the ironmasters, but events involving his own family will later force him to question this loyalty. The Mortymers are better off than many in Blaenavon, but they're still at recipe book and changing the mercy face of the ironmaster and the agent: suspension or blacklisting (which can extend to relations) can leave any family penniless and starvingcookery writing forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00OTY1SVI</amazonuk>1398502227

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian RossFreya Marske|title=Swords Around The Throne (Twilight of Empire)A Marvellous Light|rating=54

|summary=Centurion Aurelius Castus' time Robin Blyth is nudged into a job in Britain is over but not the Civil Service, much to his propensity for being on chagrin. There he meets Edwin Courcey and learns that the wrong side streets of dangerLondon are threaded with magic. Due Desperate to remove a curse that threatens to an adventure on the journey he comes swallow him, Robin follows Edwin to the notice of Emperor Constantinecountryside, where the hedgegrows bristle with incantations and is promoted to his elite bodyguard – the swords around the thronepeople shimmer with power. The multiple emperor model There they uncover a sinister plot that has evolved to govern threatens the Empire is shaky to say lives of all magicians in the least, riven by plots, conspiracies and worseBritish Isles. Therefore Castus' new job is neither safe nor easy but it's not something he can refuse… unfortunately!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784081167</amazonuk>1529080886

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert EdricB09F4CTKJR|title=Field ServiceFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer

|summary=Morlancourt, France 1920: It's the later stages of World War I may be over but and the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a grisly job remainsyoung American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. The soldiers killed and buried This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in battle are Canada, the first to be exhumed, identified and brought attached to War Commission designed cemeteries for reburial. Captain James Reid and his corps are responsible for receiving the RAF and burying in the embryonic burial grounds while Alexander Lucas' detachment go out first to collect be sent into the corpses or check skies to fight the veracity of claims that British and Commonwealth troops have been uncovered Germans in various settings including farmers' fieldsactive combat. It's a job But before that may take its toll on any man and it doescan happen, Petrol has to master flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857522892</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan Crown and Jamie Searle Romanelli (translator)Christophe Medler|title=SiriusMadrigal: A Closely Guarded Secret|rating=34|genre=General Historical Fiction|summary=Meet Levi. He's a humble little dog living with a loving family. They've spent so much time with him he has learnt some tricks – not only Set against the usual ones, backdrop of beggingthe English Civil War, or playing dead, but walking on two legs, somersaulting on to his two other paws, and giving a secret plan (code-named Madrigal) is discovered by Sir Robert Douse in the Hitler salutesummer of 1642. If this was 2015 in As a loyal servant of the UK he would be shoe-in for Britain's Got Talent (although King, and Head of the Hitler salute might lose him a few votesSecret Service, to be honest) but this it is 1930s Berlin, and things are starting Robert's duty to get horrendously tough uncover the details of the plan and nasty for Jewish families like his. Querying follow the statute laws that demand a formalisation clues to uncover one of Jewish names his owners rename Levi after Sirius, the Great Dog most guarded secrets in history—especially since the plot could affect the night skiesKing. But nobody can foresee what happens when Jews are pushed harder and harder from their neighbourhoods, and nobody can see what a Great Dog star Sirius can become, in the most unlikely of milieux – Hollywood…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784081981</amazonuk>B095HY8SXQ

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ursula Dubosarsky1471187179|title=The Red Shoe|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=They may be quite far apart, but three houses in a row in the rural suburbs of 1950s Sydney contain some incredibly unusual people. In one, a solitary old man of very few words, shuffling to the end of his days, but brandishing a Japanese sword he's purloined after WWII, and with a gun in the corner of his lounge. In the middle, a family of five, with a father figure suffering from PTSD due to the same war, a mother feeling friendless and alone in the isolated time and location, and their three daughters – one of whom has given up on school after an alleged nervous breakdown, the middle one who barely speaks more than the neighbour, and Matilda, our key interest, who likes the idea of spies, and has an imaginary friend who came out of the radio. The third house however might be where the most interesting people live – after all, it had been empty, but now the luxurious building is home to several shady men in suits, who turned up out of the blue in luxury cars, and with at least one gun of their own…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406358746</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewA Beautiful Spy|author=Sally Wragg|title=The Gypsy's TaleRachel Hore|rating=3.54

|summary=ThereMinnie is an 'ordinary's girl living an unexciting life in a new resident at Loxleyleafy provincial suburb. Bronwyn's niece, Lottie Colfax The book is set in the 1930s and Minnie is tired of school, desperate expected to join live up and 'do to her bitmother's expectations and find a nice young man to marry, to produce children and spend the frustration rest of her family who hope that some time away from days looking after her husband and their home will encourage her . Unfortunately, this isn't what she wants to do at all and neither does she want to see sensecontinue working as a secretary. But from her family's point As a result of view there's a bad example at Loxley: Hettiechance meeting, she finds herself drawn into espionage, Duchess of Loxley has joined working for the WAAFS secret service and is serving in London effectively living a double life - usually driving people from place attempting to placeinfiltrate the Communist Party of Great Britain. Her grandmother's not at all pleased about this: Katherine sees Hettie's Minnie finds herself torn between what she perceives as her duty as being at Loxley. ''Nothing'' comes before Loxley in Katherine's view - even King and country must take second place. Fortunately Katherine doesn't know that Hettie is going to be doing something far more dangerous. In the meantime Lottie friends she has discovered a secret in Loxley's cellars made - and met a young man who is also determined to join up, no matter what his mother sayslikes - whilst working for the Communist Party.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B0123Q8KL4</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David ChadwickAfonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=Liberty BazaarKokoschka's Doll|rating=2.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary= Confederate General Jubal de Brooke Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from the get-go, which is sent why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. I found things to Britain as an envoy to raise awareness and funds from potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the English aristocracy for his southern brothers in arms middle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the American Civil War20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and so on. Meanwhile slave Trinity escapes to England and immediately becomes an icon for It intrigued with the liberal elitesubterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, too. However soon Trinity realises thereBut you's more to ve seen the English support than just talk. She uncovers a secret – star rating that comes with this review, and highly illegal – plot with far reaching effects for her homelandcan tell that if love was on these pages, it was not to mention dangerous consequences for heractually caused by them. So what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906582920</amazonuk>1529402697

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lloyd ShepherdChristina Hammonds Reed|title=Savage MagicThe Black Kids

|genre=Crime (Historical)Teens |summary=London, 1842: Magistrate Aaron Graham is missing his wife. SheChristina Hammonds Reed's left himdebut novel is set against the backdrop of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, taking their daughter a reaction to live with her cousin in the absolution of four police officers for beating a very uncousinly way. Yet her distance doesn't prevent her discussing the goings on at her new home with Graham; as these goings on resemble witchcraft and seem black man, Rodney King, nearly to be taking a toll on his daughter's health Aaron is rightly worrieddeath. He calls upon Constable Horton to investigate… this is Told from the Horton whose wife Graham encouraged to enter one perspective of the more exclusive madhouses. Under the circumstances it seemed the right thing to do but Horton still hasn't forgiven his superior for it. HoweverAshley Bennett, as the investigation goes on and Graham is distracted by novel follows her evolution from a murder case silent bystander when confronted with matters of race, to a rising body count, these bubbling undercurrents of enmity reduce in importance. The important thing for each of them has become survivalwoman finding her voice and embracing her heritage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471136086</amazonuk>1471188191