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==Historical fiction==
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{{newreview
|author=Daisy Goodwin
|title=My Last Duchess
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=There's plenty to enjoy in this debut novel by Daisy Goodwin. And first up is the elegant cover. I wanted to read the book as soon as I saw the photograph: a beautiful girl with great presence about her. The thoughtful look on her face and lack of ring on her finger hinted at an intriguing story. It was also a fair bet that this historical fiction, set in the nineteenth century, was about a romance, suitable or unsuitable. So the cover complemented the story – a quite unusual feat, judging by other offerings I have seen recently.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755348060</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=James Forrester
|summary=It is 1672 and Hannah Devlin, a young widow with a skill for (illegally) practicing medicine finds herself being all but kidnapped by King Charles II's advisors and forced to use her skills to treat his mistress, Louise de Keroualle.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847393489</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Cathy Marie Buchanan
|title=The Day The Falls Stood Still
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=I imagined this title as a 'Gone With the Wind' sort of novel, a saga-esque historical romance, with a characterful heroine and page-turning story line that necessitates reading late into the night. Well, I wasn't disappointed in this paperback edition of the hardback, already a best-seller in the U.S.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091925967</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=John Wilcox
|title=The Shangani Patrol
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=This is the latest in the adventures of Simon Fonthill, a cross between a Victorian James Bond and Indianna Jones. Although one of a series, it stands alone as a novel. It's steeped in the history (and there's a lot of it) of the late 19th century when Queen Victoria 'ruled the world.'
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755345614</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Terence Morgan
|title=The Master of Bruges
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Belgium, the fifteenth century. Hans is apprenticed to a master painter in the city of Brussels, until the old curmudgeon dies, and his studio falls apart. Luckily for Hans, a mistakenly drawn sketch, and a bizarre rescue from the gallows gives him a major boost - patronage, for both portraits and many religious images. With what might seem to be a patchy diary - some years have five pages only, concerning but one month - we see his startling life journey, covering beguiling models, ghostly war scenes, and even the biggest intrigues of English royal court.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230744125</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Eloisa James
|title=When the Duke Returns
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=''When the Duke Returns'', the newest volume in the 'Desperate Duchesses' series, continues the regency celebrity romp saga where [[Duchess by Night by Eloisa James|Duchess by Night]] left off.
 
The focus, this time, is on Isidore, the Duchess of Conway: hot-headed, hot-blooded and Italian to boot, she was married by proxy at the age of sixteen and is still a virgin seven years later. Isidore's cunning plot to entice back the husband she has never seen from his travels in Asia and Africa works perfectly and Simeon, His Grace Duke of Conway is now back in England, ready to claim his estate and, as Isidore presumes, ready to claim his beautiful wife.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340961104</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Adam Williams
|title=The Book of the Alchemist
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary= ''The Book of the Alchemist'' is a story within a story. It opens in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War. Pinzon, a Spanish politician who resigns for moral reasons, is taken hostage by a group of Republican soldiers, along with his young Grandson. A group of villagers are also taken captive and locked in a cathedral as part of the soldiers' desperate plan to protect themselves from the Fascist forces that are hunting them. A cavernous mosque built inside the mountain under the cathedral's crypt is discovered, and in it, a book. As Pinzon reads the book, another story unfolds, set in the eleventh century. This is the story of Samuel the Jew.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340899131</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Jack Ludlow
|title=Warriors
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Arduin of Fassano is paid by Michael Doukeianos, a young Byzantine general, to keep the peace in Apulia. Arduin is a Lombard, however, and secretly plans to revolt and take Apulia for himself, hiring a group of Norman mercenaries to help him do the job. These Normans are William de Hauteville and his brothers, famed warriors with their own conflicts and a desire to gain titles and wealth for their sons. Even if Arduin and the Normans could take Apulia, there are no guarantees that they could hold it in a land full of treachery and bribes.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007559</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Kate Tremayne
|title=The Loveday Conspiracy
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Trevowan Manor has been the home of the Loveday family for generations. It will still be owned by a Loveday but St John Loveday lost the house on the throw of a dice before killing himself – and now his cousin Tristan has the house. St John's twin, Adam, vows that he will punish the man responsible. Amelia has been forced from Trevowan and is now living in a cottage with the other dispossessed women. As if this wasn't enough of a problem, her son from her first marriage, Richard, has become even more than wayward and Amelia is forced to make a difficult choice.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755347676</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=John E Smelcer
|title=The Great Death
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary='As Western Europeans settled Alaska, they brought with them diseases against which the indigenous people had no natural immunity. At the beginning of the twentieth century, fully two thirds of all Alaska natives perished from a pandemic of measles, smallpox, and influenza. No community was spared. In most cases, half of a village's population died within a week. In some cases, there were no survivors. It was the end of an ancient way of life. Natives still refer to the dreadful period as the Great Death.'
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842709194</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Robyn Young
|title=Requiem (Brethren Trilogy)
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=It's December 1295, and the bedraggled remnants of the Third Crusade are returning home. Not all have given up the dream of a Christian Jerusalem, and Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Templars, is eager to find patrons to fund a fresh invasion. But the West has turned inward, and, with the Order's reason for existence vanished with the Crusader states, factions within both the English and French courts covet the wealth and military might of the Temple. With his homeland of Scotland under assault by his old rival Edward, and his position usurped by former comrades who wish to turn the Order to sinister ends, peace for series protagonist Will Campbell seems far away.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340921420</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Anthony Riches
|title=Wounds of Honour (Empire)
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Riding to the Northern outpost of the Roman Empire to deliver a message, Marcus Valerius Aquila is seemingly attacked by a band of barbarians, but is rescued by a group of Tungrian irregulars, fighting as part of the Roman army. Arriving at his destination, it soon becomes clear that the attack was deliberate, as his father has been condemned as a traitor back in Rome by Emperor Commodus and his whole family have been put to the sword.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340920300</amazonuk>
}}

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