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[[Category:New Reviews|Historical Fiction]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->==Historical fiction==__NOTOC__ <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emily PurdyTananarive Due|title=The Tudor WifeReformatory|rating=3.5

|summary=From Gracetown, Florida. June 1950. After a scuffle with a white boy, twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, otherwise known as the moment she sets eyes on handsome George BoleynReformatory. 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 school governor and his Funhouse, plain Lady Jane Parker falls madly 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 love Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and prays that George will being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be hersa hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. As Jane Enthralled and Georgehorrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's families negotiate death at the marriage Jane meets Anne Boleyn hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and quickly realises that George only has eyes for Annekill her too, but remains determined that and then to escape them completely she can make George love runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in herrip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847561942</amazonuk>0861547438

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anne PerrySarah Marsh|title=The Sheen on the SilkA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=Anna Zarides arrives in ConstantinopleAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, determined to find out why Ellen Lark loses her twin brother Justinian has been convicted hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of murder. But it is 1273silence, and a woman cannot move everything about freely to ask questionsher life changes. Anna is a skilled doctor, who uses Arab and Jewish medicine in secret as well as more accepted Christian remedies: Living in her quest for information she disguises herself as a eunuch and successfully treats a wide range time when the use of people from the very poorest right up sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to the emperor himself.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755339061</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Penny Ingham|title=The King's Daughter|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The central female character - 'The King's Daughter' a school where she is Elflaedetaught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. She's youngFrom here, feisty she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and very pretty. She also has this unforgettable reddish hairusing a system called Visible Speech. At this point in the story I was reminded a little of Queen Elizabeth Isame time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, I have to say. In Elflaede's own words she 'had never known and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a time without war .' The hordes of Pagan Norsemen are to blame. They've come to England with their own set of superstitions. And they've come with one aim. To conquer great swathes complicated tangle of Englandespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>095559975X</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreview|author=Trevor Bloom|title=The Halffollow-Slave|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=At Samarobriva in Roman Gaul, up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a raiding Saxon tribe meets its match in few months after where we left off. In the form palace of a division of the FranksOdysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who have suborned the Roman authorities sailed to war at Troy and are establishing their control throughout the regionthen by divine intervention never returned home. A mysterious meeting with As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the Frankish Overlord persuades throne of the leader of Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the Saxons to sign a treaty chaotic storm that will forever alter the fate of his people. In return for Frankish silver, he hands over Clytemnestra brought to them his youngest sonIthaca's shores, Ascha Queen Penelope is on the half-slave, as brink of a perpetual hostage to guarantee the fragile peace. But in One that shatters however with the frozen north new powers are risingreturn of Orestes, and Ascha will soon be drawn into a web King of lies Mycenae, and ambition as two very different worlds come into conflicthis sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0955563062</amazonuk>0356516075

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Seth HunterB0C7J9D21B|title=The Tide of WarA Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=A J Lewis

|summary=When we first meet our hero, his name is Ettore and he lives at The Tide House of War is the second book in Beautiful Swallows. Idyllic as this might sound, it's a trilogy bordello and Ettore's mother died when he was born. He's not been short of historical fictionnovels by Seth Huntermothers, set though - but for someone of his background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, it's difficult to obtain decent employment. The stint working with the 1790s preparation of anchovies didn't work out and recounts the adventures ofBritish naval captain Nathan Peakebastards are considered bad luck on fishing boats. In this book newly Ettore was nothing if not resourceful - and determined -promoted Peakeis sent to the Caribbean to command and it was not long before he had a successful business as a British frigate, the Unicorn,to hunt guide for the French warship, the Virginievisitors. He was even saving some money.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755357612</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|author=Michelle Lovric|title=The Book of Human Skin|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=''Ye can't take the slither out ovva snake.'' So says Gianni, valet in a wealthy eighteenth century Venetian household. The master, a merchant, divides his time between Italy and Peru, where he deals in silver. But the merchant isn't the serpent - his son Minguillo is. On the night an earthquake ripped through Peru and deposited fanatical nun Sor Loreta at the convent in Arequipa, Minguillo was born - a serpent in his family's midst. His own mother couldn't bear to nurse him and his father went into denial, making more and more frequent trips to a South American home free of sociopathic progeny. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>140880588X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Elif Shafak|title=The Forty Rules of Love|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=This is a sixth novel from best-selling Turkish author, Elif Shafak. Set in twelfth century Anatolia, two famous characters from Islamic history meet in a gorgeously real world. A delicate contemporary US love story is wrapped around the rich, meaty historical fiction. Don't be misled by the dodgy-sounding title!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918733</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lawrence HillEssie Fox|title=The Book of NegroesFascination

|summary=Although this The Victorian era is incredibly over-romanticised as a work of setting for historical fiction(matched only, perhaps, by the whole distasteful and deeply upsetting subject of slavery is a fact, therefore, at times I felt as if I were reading a true account. The narrative goes back and forth, starting with Aminata (or Meena as she is usually calledSecond World War) as which has often led to more than a relatively old woman (what we would call middle-aged)few writers mishandling it. SheThere's such a glut of media set in London, far from home, but shethe era that the hallmarks we's there for an extremely important reason. The powers-that-be need her ve come to associate with it are familiar to tell her storythe point of being cliched, as a slave over many yearshackneyed even. The hope All this is simply to illustrate that other Meenas will not have it would be an easy thing to suffer the same fatedo poorly. On a lighter note (But despite that, something about it still grabs me – and they are few and far between) Meena gets to visit some London schoolchildren. They think that she eats elephant. She is able to laugh at their naivetysomething about this book's description did as well.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552775487</amazonuk>1914585526

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Phil RickmanNicole Jarvis|title=The Bones of AvalonA Portrait in Shadow

|summary=When Elizabeth I's most trusted men fear for her safety and think there's a possibly supernatural plot against her, the obvious man to investigate it is Dr John Dee, her astrologer and consultant in the hidden arts. Aided by his former pupil – and Elizabeth's reputed lover – Robert Dudley, he travels to Glastonbury to try and find the bones I want all of King Arthur. Glastonbury, however, has never recovered from the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the execution of its beloved Abbot Richard Whiting, and many residents view the pair with suspicion. The exception Florence to this is Nel Borrow, who treats Dudley when heknow my name's ill and becomes the first woman Dee has ever been interested in romantically. Can the three stop the villainous plot? I'll leave you to find out…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848872704</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Susan Fletcher|title=Corrag|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=A small and dirty woman sits Cast out from Rome, Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking an oasis in which her art can find a prison cell. With her bare feet and her matted hair home and where her damp, filthy clothes, she doesn't wonder at the word ''witch''future can thrive rather than stagnate. She has been called it all her life. Her mother called her ''witch'' before But as some as she named her. Her given name Corrag – was a corruption: for Cora (her mother) and Hag (which enters Florentine society she'd get as used to as Cora had).  She sits through faces great opposition from the powerful Accademia, the snow self-proclaimed guardians of the winter, knowing healing magics that through paintings have the sound she hears outside is power to protect the dragging of the logs city and its citizens from plagues and curses. The all-male Accademia has hoarded power over art and architecture for her pyrecenturies and guard it above all else.  She was toldTo them, though, that a man would come. So she waits for himArtemisia – an ambitious young woman who promises trouble and change – has no place amongst them and their society.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007321597</amazonuk>1803362340

 {{newreview|author=Richard Denning|title=The Amber Treasure|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Cerdic is the younger son of a minor lord living in a quiet Anglo Saxon village in sixth century Northumbria. His people are settled and the Welsh (Romano-Britons) seem contained behind the Pennines. Cedric fully expects to live out his live as a gentleman farmer, hopefully with the beautiful Aidith by his side. But as he listens to the tales told by Lilla the bard, he can't help but dream of following after his uncle, the great warrior Cynric, and finding glory in battle. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849140235</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Katherine Howe|title=The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Connie is doing postgraduate research on witchcraft. Although she is initially rather wary of being asked to clear out her grandmother’s old house, the project turns out to lead to lots of exciting possibilities, including romance and perhaps original sources for her studies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141047550</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Debbie ElliottThomas D Lee|title=Tesla & TwainPerilous Times

|genre=Historical FictionFantasy|summary=History remembers nineteenth century inventor Nikola Tesla as a mad scientist, and he did indulge in some very peculiar experiments, most notably the directed-energy weapon, or death-ray, as the press of the time gleefully dubbed it. But the truth ''Hate is that his work was of groundbreaking importance: he developed the electrical alternating current and the AC motor, and much more. The average person probably has a better awareness path of Samuel Clemens - who wrote Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn under his pen name Mark Twain, and who was known as one of the foremost satirists of his day. But perhaps they donleast resistance''t know that Twain was fascinated by scientific inquiry, or that these two seemingly disparate men were great friends. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906146756</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=E V Thompson|title=The Dream Traders|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=In Set in the nineteenth century, when European nations are scrabbling to colonise as many territories as possiblenear-distant future, in a young Englishman sails into Chinese waters seeking fame and fortune. Unlike world on the rest verge of his countrymen howeverclimate collapse, Luke Trewarne refuses to get rich selling opium Britain is in great peril. The British Isles desperately needs a hero (or several) to save the Chineseday and rescue what little remains. All very noble but What no-one expected was that one of the fact is that Luke is a passenger on board a ship laden with Knights of the stuff and there are Chinese gunships on Round Table would answer the horizoncall.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>070908885X</amazonuk>0356518523

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Janet MullanyG K Holloway|title=Improper Relations|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Unlucky in love Charlotte Hayden has just lost her best friend and confidante Ann in marriage to In the Earl Shadows of Beresford. At the wedding she encounters Lord Shadderly, Beresford's best friend, a broodingly handsome man whom she takes an immediate dislike to. Before she knows it Charlotte is caught in a compromising situation with Shadderly and he is forced to propose to her or risk both their reputations.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755347803</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Clare Clark|title=Savage LandsCastles|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The novel begins with one of the central characters - Elisabeth - preparing to leave her home in France, and embark upon a ship to take her to America - to meet and marry a complete stranger. At this time there were literally only a few hundred settlers, so potential wives were shipped in along with other necessities! She is very much in two minds about the entire venture - apprehensive, yet more than a little excited at the prospect of her new life. The voyage doesn't begin particularly well for her, as she feels isolated from the other girls. A voracious reader, she has packed her trunk with books as opposed to the more conventional linens and this immediately sets her apart.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846553512</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Christi Phillips |title=The Devlin Diary|rating=35

|summary=It is 1672 We begin after the momentous battle in 1066 and Hannah Devlin, a young widow with a skill for (illegally) practicing medicine finds herself being all but kidnapped by on the day of William of Normandy's coronation as King Charles IIof England. William's advisors position is not secure and forced the new king has many challenges. Imposing authority through a coronation is important. And William is right to use her skills worry. While the previous king, Harold, is dead and the likelihood of more pitched battles is over, the rebels are stirring and much of the country does not wish to treat his mistress, Louise de Kerouallerecognise a new overlord.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847393489</amazonuk>1800422466

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cathy Marie Buchanan 3949666079|title=The Day The Falls Stood StillNoema|author=Dael Akkerman

|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=I imagined this title as a 'Gone With the Wind' sort of novel, This is a saga-esque historical romance, with a characterful heroine and page-turning story line about some things that necessitates reading late into the nighthappened to me about twelve thousand years ago. 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 Maya is a young girl living in a hunter gatherer village during the latest in Mesolithic era. Climate change is occurring, the adventures Sea of Simon FonthillGrass encroaches further and further into Maya's forest home, a cross between a Victorian James Bond and Indianna Jonesfood is becoming more and more scarce. Although one What to do? Can the law givers in the federation of a seriesvillages muster peaceful ways to cope? Can the Traveller, it stands alone as a novel. It's steeped in spiritual figure who interprets the history (and there's a lot wisdom of it) of the late 19th century when Queen Victoria 'ruled the world.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755345614</amazonuk>All Life, provide solutions?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Terence Morgan1529125898|title=The Master of BrugesGodmersham Park|author=Gill Hornby

|summary=Belgium, the fifteenth century. Hans is apprenticed to a master painter in ''If it were not for the city casual dereliction 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 - patronageodd gentleman's duty, for both portraits and many religious images. With what might seem there would no women to be a patchy diary teach well- 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 courtbred daughters at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230744125</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Eloisa James|title=When Anne Sharpe was thirty-one years old when she arrived at Godmersham Park to take up 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 offposition of governess to twelve-year-old Fanny Austen. The focus, She had no experience of teaching but this time, is on Isidore, was a case of necessity. Until the Duchess death of Conway: hot-headedher mother, hot-blooded Anne had a comfortable life and Italian to boot, she was married loved by proxy at both parents although her father was frequently absent from the age of sixteen household. When her mother died, her father cast her off and is still a virgin seven years laterwould have nothing more to do with her. Isidore's cunning plot to entice back the husband No explanation was offered but she has never seen from his travels in Asia and Africa works perfectly and Simeon, His Grace Duke would receive an annuity of Conway is now back in England£35 a year. Her maid, ready to claim his estate andAgnes, as Isidore presumes, ready to claim his beautiful wifewould receive nothing but was fortunately taken in by some neighbours.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340961104</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Adam WilliamsMelissa Fu |title=The Book of the AlchemistPeach Blossom Spring

|summary= ''The Book We meet part of the Alchemist'' is a story within a story. It opens Talbot family in Yorkshire in 1938 during the Spanish Civil WarNovember 1811. 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 Twenty-seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot and locked her mother have travelled in a cathedral as part of the soldiers' desperate plan to protect themselves some discomfort from the Fascist forces that are hunting them. A cavernous mosque built inside the mountain under the cathedral's crypt is discoveredtheir home at Ecklington, and in it, a book. As Pinzon reads to the book, another story unfolds, set house in the eleventh centuryhollow. This The two women are angry with each other and Jocelyn is the story well aware of Samuel the Jew.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340899131</amazonuk>}}her mother's strengths and weaknesses:

{{newreview|author=Jack Ludlow|title=Warriors|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Arduin of Fassano ''She is paid by Michael Doukeianospracticed at subterfuge, a young Byzantine generalat concealing, to keep the peace in Apulia. Arduin is beneath a Lombard, however, and secretly plans to revolt and take Apulia for himself, hiring a group facade of Norman mercenaries to help him do the job. These Normans are William de Hauteville and his brothersrespectability, 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 bribesdeplorable truth''.|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 JohnHester is furious about Jocelyn's twinrefusal to do as she was asked, Adam, vows that he will punish the man responsible. Amelia which has been forced from Trevowan precipitated ''this violent and is now living in a cottage with the other dispossessed women. As if this wasnunexpected removal''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 Then we are told of the twentieth century, fully two thirds birth of all Alaska natives perished from a pandemic of measleschild and, soon after, smallpoxHester Talbot departs, leaving Jocelyn in shame 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 Deathisolation in Yorkshire.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842709194</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robyn Young Annabel Abbs|title=Requiem (Brethren Trilogy)The Language of Food|rating=45

|summary=It's December 1295, and Eliza Acton is a poet who has never had the bedraggled remnants of the Third Crusade are returning homeslightest inclination to boil an egg. Not all have given up the dream of When tasked with writing a Christian Jerusalemcookery book, and Jacques de Molayshe recruits Ann Kirby, the Grand Master of the Templars, is eager to find patrons to fund a fresh invasionlocal woman with a troubled home life. But the West has turned inwardTogether, andthey test, with the Order's reason for existence vanished with the Crusader statescraft, factions within both the English refine and French courts covet reshape the wealth and military might world of domestic cookery, reinventing the Temple. With his homeland of Scotland under assault by his old rival Edward, recipe book and his position usurped by former comrades who wish to turn changing the Order to sinister ends, peace for series protagonist Will Campbell seems far awayface of cookery writing forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340921420</amazonuk>1398502227

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anthony RichesFreya Marske|title=Wounds of Honour (Empire)A Marvellous Light

|summary=Riding Robin Blyth is nudged into a job in the Civil Service, much to his chagrin. There he meets Edwin Courcey and learns that the Northern outpost streets of the Roman Empire London are threaded with magic. Desperate to deliver remove a messagecurse that threatens to swallow him, Marcus Valerius Aquila is seemingly attacked by a band of barbariansRobin follows Edwin to the countryside, but is rescued by a group of Tungrian irregulars, fighting as part of where the hedgegrows bristle with incantations and the Roman armypeople shimmer with power. Arriving at his destination, it soon becomes clear There they uncover a sinister plot that threatens the attack was deliberate, as his father has been condemned as a traitor back lives of all magicians in Rome by Emperor Commodus and his whole family have been put to the swordBritish Isles.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340920300</amazonuk>1529080886

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Freda Lightfoot B09F4CTKJR|title=House of AngelsFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer

|summary=The novel focuses on It's the Angel family who live in later stages of World War I and the Lake District in United States has just entered the late 1900sconflict. Josiah Angel Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and joined the head of 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the family and appears first US Aero Squadron to be a respectable business mantrained in Canada, bringing up his three daughters after the death of his wife. The family live in a beautiful house first to be attached to the RAF and – the first to outsiders – be sent into the daughters seem skies to have everything – comfort, money, beauty and an easy lifefight the Germans in active combat. But before that can happen, in great contrast Petrol has to master flying the poverty around them. Not far from Josiah's department store are the workhouse with its brutality and the blocks of slum flats infested with ratsnotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007125</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Faye L Booth Christophe Medler|title=Trades of the FleshMadrigal: A Closely Guarded Secret

|summary=I read Trades Set against the backdrop of the Flesh in about 2 hours, speeding through it, and think I've spent about double that time figuring out how to review it! Apart from anything elseEnglish Civil War, it's taken me well over an hour to settle on a genre secret plan (and I reserve the right to change that code-named Madrigal) is discovered by Sir Robert Douse in the end summer of the review, although if I do I guess I could just delete this part…)|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230743412</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith |title=Pride and Prejudice and Zombies|rating=41642.5|genre=Humour|summary=Ah, the benefits to As a good book loyal servant of a classic first line. 'Call me Ishmael.' 'It was a bright cold day in Aprilthe King, and Head of the clocks were striking thirteen.' Who can forget Iain Banks' 'It was the day my grandmother exploded'? Or those timeless words by Jane AustenSecret Service, 'It it is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594743347</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Chandra Prasad|title=Breathe the Sky: A Novel Inspired by the Life of Amelia Earhart|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=PrasadRobert's first novel [[On Borrowed Wings by Chandra Prasad|On Borrowed Wings]] followed a young girl entering duty to uncover the male-dominated arena details of Yale in the 1930s. Her heroine took inspiration from plan and follow the likes clues to uncover one of Amelia Earhart (who has a walk-on part in the book), women who were finding their way most guarded secrets in history—especially since the world on their own terms and refusing to let their womanhood get in plot could affect the way of itKing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1932279393</amazonuk>B095HY8SXQ

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hilary Mantel1471187179|title=Wolf Hall|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=A revisionist look at Henry VIII's minister, Thomas Cromwell. Rich, absorbing and intelligent, it's a beautiful, beautiful book. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007230184</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Shandi Mitchell |title=Under This Unbroken Sky|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=A photograph opens the story. A black and white picture of a family, husband, wife and their three children, smiling for the camera. Thin, underfed, in their summer clothes despite the four inches of snow, they smile. Partly they smile because they do not know what is to come.  A page and five years later we catch up with the Mykolayenkos. In the Spring of 1938 Ivan and his cousin are catching mice in the barn and taking bets on which of the farm cats will pounce on the individually released rodents first. The game is interrupted by a man with a loaded .22 rifle. It takes a while for it to sink in, that this is Ivan's father, Teodor, free after a prison sentence for stealing his own grain.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297856588</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewBeautiful Spy|author=Kate Furnivall|title=The Concubine's Secret|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=As a sequel to Kate Furnivall's first book, ''The Russian Concubine'', The Concubine's Secret helps to tie up some hanging storylines and in general provides an entertaining follow-up. In the first book, we watched Chang An Lo and Lydia Ivanova fall in love against all the odds. Here, they must remain in love despite being separated by most of a continent. As you might expect, the reader spends most of the book hoping for them to find a way to finally be together.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751540455</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Philippa Gregory|title=The White QueenRachel Hore

|summary=ItMinnie is an 'ordinary' girl living an unexciting life in a leafy provincial suburb. The book is set in the 1930s and Minnie is expected to live up to her mother's 1464 expectations and find a nice young widow stands at the side of the roadman to marry, clutching produce children and spend the hands rest of her two young sonsdays looking after her husband and their home. Unfortunately, waiting for the new King this isn't what she wants to ride past. She is Elizabeth Woodville do at all and the King is Edward IVneither does she want to continue working as a secretary. What happens is As a matter result of history: a secret marriagechance meeting, a shocking revealshe finds herself drawn into espionage, working for the secret service and effectively living a vicious contest for double life - attempting to infiltrate the Communist Party of Great Britain. Minnie finds herself torn between what she perceives as her duty and the young King's ear (friends she has made - and purse) that forces civil war to drag on in England likes - whilst working for much longer than perhaps it would have. Without this meeting, English history would have been critically differentthe Communist Party. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847374557</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kate Pullinger Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=The Mistress of Nothing|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Lucie, Lady Duff Gordon was a well-known figure in Victorian London when tuberculosis forced her to move to a hot climate. She travelled to Egypt, accompanied only by her Lady's Maid, Sally Naldrett and left her husband and children in London, not knowing if she would ever see them again. Lady Duff Gordon's story is told in ''The Mistress of Nothing'' but itKokoschka's Sally Naldrett who is the focus of the book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687098</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Irène Némirovsky |title=All Our Worldly GoodsDoll|rating=2.5

|summary=Pierre Hardelot and Agnes Florent were in Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from the get-go, which is why I picked my review copy up and had been since they were children, but there were problems - not the least flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of which was that Pierre was engaged to marry Simone Renaudinit. Simone was an appropriate match for I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the grandson of middle on darker stock paper, a mill owner and member of chapter whose number was in the bourgeoisie20,000s, letters used as narrative form, but Agnes was descended from brewers and lower middle classso on. In northern France, just before It intrigued with the outbreak subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of the First World Warit mentioned, such distinctions matteredtoo. But Pierre you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, and Agnes meet alone and rather than ruin her reputation Pierre proposescan tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. In doing so he alienates his grandfather and the wealthy Renaudins. Pierre and Agnes' marriage and its consequences would reverberate for decades.So what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099520443</amazonuk>1529402697

 {{newreview|author=Mary Hoffman |title=Troubadour|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary=In ''Troubadour'', 13-year-old noblewoman, Elinor de Sévignan, flees from her parents' choice of suitor by posing as a boy singer with a group of travelling minstrels in 13th century Southern France. As her transition from her pampered but restricted existence to roaming troubadour takes place on the roads of Provence, so begins the Albigensian Crusade. Forces from Northern France attempt to crush the Cathars, whose religious beliefs are seen as heretical, making their lands and wealth fair game for both fanatical followers of the Pope, and opportunistic mercenaries.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747592519</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Margaret Redfern|title=Flint|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Will and his brother Ned have been plucked from their home in the Fens. They're on their way to Flint, ditch diggers for Edward I's new castle. Will is unwilling to go, and he's only eleven, but he can't abandon his strange older brother to strangers. Ned can't talk and most people dismiss him as an idiot, but he has skills. He can whisper to horses and calm them, he's a skilled herbalist, and he can make music that moves men's hearts. Ned is glad to be on this journey because he hopes to be reunited with Ieuan ap y Gof, an exiled bard and the man who taught him music. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784043</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=James McCreet|title=The Incendiary's Trail|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=This book opens with a bang and except for brief slow-downs in the middle, is an exciting and riveting read. It's both a historical mystery and a thriller, teaching the reader a little bit about Victorian London while still making the book an immersive experience that can be hard to leave. The policemen really have very little idea who is behind the initial murder, much less the ones that follow, and I loved learning what happened along with them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230736270</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Matthew Pearl|title=The Last Dickens|rating=4.5|genre=Crime |summary=In Bengal, India on a June day in 1870 two young mounted policemen are hot on the trail of dacoit suspected of the recent daylight robbery of a train of bullock carts. The chests taken from the carts were full of Opium. Meanwhile a few thousand miles away in Boston, USA, a young office boy is chased through the docks by a dark stranger of ''Hindoo'' appearance wielding a walking stick topped by a ferociously fanged idol.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184655084X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Angus Donald |title=Outlaw|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction |summary=When Alan Dale is caught stealing from a market stall in Nottingham he narrowly escapes with his life and limbs in tact. To protect him from the justice of Sir Ralph Murdac, Alan's mother begs the mercy of the great outlaw, Robin Hood. Robin agrees to take Alan into his protection, and so begins Alan's life as an outlaw.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751542083</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jane Borodale Christina Hammonds Reed|title=The Book of FiresBlack Kids

|genre=Historical Fiction Teens |summary=Agnes Trussel leaves her home to save her family from Christina Hammonds Reed's debut novel is set against the disgrace backdrop of learning that she has been raped and is carrying an illegitimate child. With limited options and in despair at her situation she takes money from the home of 1992 Los Angeles riots, a neighbour to pay her way to London. Once there, her life as assistant reaction to the dour John Blacklockabsolution of four police officers for beating a black man, a firework makerRodney King, gives her security and a sense of worth. But she is sure that all she values is likely nearly to be lost once her pregnancy and her status as a thief becomes knowndeath. The crux Told from the perspective of her situationAshley Bennett, and that of many women like her at the time, is well summarised in novel follows her thoughts: ''the child is almost all I have, I think. And its'' ''existence will ensure that anything else will be taken away evolution from me.''|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007305729</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Adam Thorpe|title=Hodd|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction |summary=Like every other English child I was brought up on tales of Robin Hood.  ''Robin Hood, Robin Hood riding through the glen, Robin Hood, Robin Hood a silent bystander when confronted with his band matters of men. Feared by the badrace,'' ''loved by the good, Robin Hood, Robin Hood.''  The theme music to the 1950s TV series starring Richard Greene says it all. The legends a woman finding her voice and myths surrounding Robin of Loxley, faithfully recreated in all of the outings from Walter Scott's ''Ivanhoe'' through the Errol Flynn films, to the BBC's recently lamented Jonas Armstrong depict the Outlaw as Saintembracing her heritage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224079433</amazonuk>1471188191

{{newreview|author=Chris Hannan |title=Missy|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction |summary=This begins so well, with just the right sort of first sentence Move on to hook you into a book: ''I expect you have the'' ''consolation of religion, or the guidance of a philosophy, but when me and the girls get frazzled, or blue, or rapturous,'' ''or just awfully so-so, we shin out and buy ourselves some hats.'' So says our heroine of the piece, 19 year old Dol McQueen, who narrates us through her exploits in America's nineteenth century Wild West. She's rough, she's determined, but ultimately she's very damaged: a young, drug addict prostitute who trails hopelessly after her alcoholic mother from country to country.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099501554</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ben Kane|title=The Silver Eagle (Forgotten Legion)|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction |summary=I thought Ben Kane's debut novel [[The Forgotten Legion by Ben Kane|The Forgotten LegionNewest History Reviews]] was excellent, but that it ended a little abruptly, even with the knowledge there was more to come. Having now read that 'more to come', I feel a lot better about it. The story is so relentless that there was no obvious place to pause between books.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090110</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Marie Brennan |title=In Ashes Lie|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction |summary=It's September 1666 and although the mortals' Civil War is over the war amongst the fae is still raging in London. There's now a greater threat to the Onyx Court and it could destroy everything when a spark starts a fire which for three days spreads through the city devouring everything in its path. Can the mortals and the fae unite to find a way to defeat a foe which neither can better on their own?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497185</amazonuk>}}