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Newest Historical Fiction Reviews (view source)
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<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tananarive Due|title=The Reformatory|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary= 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 Reformatory. 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, Robert must enlist the help of the school's ghosts – only they have their own motivations...|isbn=1803366532}} {{Frontpage|author=Katherine WebbHowe|title=The Night FallingA True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=In the summer of 1921Hannah Masury is living in Boston, Leandro returns having been sent to his birthplace in Italy. He has made his fortunelive with a family who run an inn, and his aim is being made to transform work there from a crumbling palazzo into an opulent mansionyoung age. But the outside world When she hears there is still reeling from to be a hanging of some pirates in the Great Wartown, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and Leandro’s nephewhorrified in equal measure, Ettore, is one of those most Hannah finds herself embroiled in need a young boy's death at the hands of helptwo vicious pirates. ReluctantlyShe hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, Ettore asks his uncle for assistancedressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. But Ettero could not have foreseen what was to come She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from that request…there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1409131491</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rory ClementsSarah Marsh|title=The Queen's ManA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5|genre=Crime (Historical)General Fiction|summary=Elizabethan England - After a bout of scarlet fever as a murkychild, dirty Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world full of religious strife and violentsilence, short liveseverything about her life changes. Queen Elizabeth sits on Living in a time when the throneuse of sign language was seen as something only savages do, but her seat Ellen is by no means safe - her first cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, sent to a school where she is locked up in Sheffield Castle. Unable taught to leavelip read, but by no means unable to plot and scheme with her supportersphysically restrained from signing. From here, Mary wishes to reclaim what she believes is rightfully hers - ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the thronedeaf and using a system called Visible Speech. But even she cannot be prepared for At the dark twists same time, Bell is working on other inventions and new plots that ariseideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848548486</amazonuk>1035401614
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{{Frontpage
|author=Claire North
|title=House of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Emily PurdyB0C7J9D21B|title=The Boleyn Bride|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Elizabeth Howard wants a noble marriage but at 16 she's married off to Thomas Boleyn, a jumped up nouveau riche who tries to hide his humble roots any way he can. It's not a love match on either side. So to compensate for her husband's shortcomings, Elizabeth throws herself into a collection of lovers and the lives of two of her three children. Yes, she dreams of rosy futures for Mary and George, but for the third child Anne, born as ugly as a monkey, Elizabeth can't envisage any future so wastes neither dreams nor love on her. However when Henry VII dies and his second son eventually takes the throne, Elizabeth realises she may not be right. Having Henry VIII as a son-A Captive in-law may do both Anne and the family a lot of good.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349405956</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewAlgiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=L C Tyler|title=A Cruel Necessity (A John Grey Historical Mystery)J Lewis
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Once home from her role When we first meet our hero, his name is Ettore and he lives at The House of Beautiful Swallows. Idyllic as this might sound, it's a photobordello and Ettore's mother died when he was born. He's not been short of mothers, though -journalist but for someone of his background in Afghanistanlate-eighteenth-century Amalfi, Jo decides it's difficult to move into the Brighton flat that her great aunt Elizabeth has bequeathed herobtain decent employment. While searching through the belongings that go The stint working with the home, she finds Elizabethpreparation of anchovies didn's WWI diaries from the time that she nursed wounded servicemen from the Indian Corps at the Brighton Paviliont work out and bastards are considered bad luck on fishing boats. These entries cause her to reflect on her time recording the more current war Ettore was nothing if not resourceful - and enables her to open up to her exdetermined -lover Susie in and it was not long before he had a successful business as a series of letters, telling her how it guide for visitors. He was, the lives of those she met out there, what it did to them and, indeed, to hereven saving some money.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846883342</amazonuk>
}}
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=The opening of this book Victorian era is incredibly over-romanticised as a brilliant onesetting for historical fiction (matched only, perhaps, being thrust into by the midst Second World War) which has often led to more than a few writers mishandling it. There's such a glut of Stella’s confusion as she wakes with no memory media set in a first aid station near the front line. She knows nothing other than era that the hallmarks we've come to associate with it are familiar to the fact that she can drive an ambulancepoint of being cliched, and the reader knows nothing more than herhackneyed even. She soon discovers that she can draw, too, and All this is a really nice angle simply to help learn about her and her past without having illustrate that it would be an easy thing to unveil everything all at oncedo poorly. I think the use of present tense within this novel works incredibly well in order to keep the reader at the same speed as the characterBut despite that, something about it still grabs me – and it’s also a writing style I enjoy something about this book's description did as a whole because it’s a little bit unusual and brings a different pace to the textwell.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0349123578</amazonuk>1914585526
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The English GirlNicole Jarvis|authortitle=Margaret LeroyA Portrait in Shadow|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Stella Whittaker moves from a quiet English town to Vienna in 1937 to improve her music skills. Staying with old family friends, the Krauses, she feels less comfortable than she expects as a sense of mysterious menace hangs over the household. Nevertheless, Stella enjoys her new life and the sophistication ''I want all of the city. More than anything, she enjoys falling in love with Harri, a young Jewish doctor. And despite many warning signs, Stella’s love for him blinds her Florence to the possibility of trouble when it seems inevitable to others.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751551775</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Christopher Bland|title=Ashes In The Wind|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=John Burke and Tomas Sullivan may go to the same primary school in Kerry but even in 1908 theyknow my name''re on two sides of a great divide. John is Anglo Irish protestant and comfortably off, being the heir to Derriquin Castle whereas Tomas is Irish Catholic, living in poverty and raised to feel the resentment of the oppressed. The fact that John has been brought up to believe in Home Rule tragically makes no difference as John, Tomas and their future generations live with the consequences of a centuries old struggle.
Cast out from Rome, Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking an oasis in which her art can find a home and where her future can thrive rather than stagnate. But as some as she enters Florentine society she faces great opposition from the powerful Accademia, the self-proclaimed guardians of the healing magics that through paintings have the power to protect the city and its citizens from plagues and curses. The all-male Accademia has hoarded power over art and architecture for centuries and guard it above all else. To them, Artemisia – an ambitious young woman who promises trouble and change – has no place amongst them and their society.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781859337</amazonuk>1803362340
}}
|rating=3
|genre=Historical FictionFantasy|summary=The story baton is passed to the next generation as the swinging 60s arrive for people like Dave Williams. For others such as Rebecca Hoffmann and Walli Franck, living in East Germany means other priorities and, indeed, worries. What the Hoffmann-Francks don't realise is that things are about to get a lot worse, partially due to the treacherous influence of someone they all once trusted. Meanwhile in America George Jakes has ideals and strong convictions that will take him past the metaphorical draw bridge into the echelons of a modern day Camelot. What of the Dvorkin twins in Russia? Tania and Dimka may have differing ideas on how to effect change but storm clouds are hanging over them - and the rest of the world - as an island off the coast of America gathers prominence.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230710166</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Conn Iggulden|title=Wars of the Roses: Trinity (Wars of the Roses 2)|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=A bewildered Henry VI has awoken from the catatonic state that took him away from the business of ruling – and living – for over a year. His job 'Hate is now to regain the reins of his kingdom that was a little too ably ruled by Richard Neville, Duke path of York in his absence. Henryleast resistance's wife, Margaret of Anjou, thinks Richard enjoyed the regency so much he's plotting a permanent takeover. The bigger problem is communicating it to Henry as she's increasingly side-lined. The approaching storm is gathering momentum threatening the House of Lancaster and a convalescing king whose recovery may only be temporary, even if he lives that long.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718159853</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diane PearsonG K Holloway|title=CsardasIn the Shadows of Castles
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Hungarian Jewish banker Zsigmond Ferenc rules his family with an iron fist. As a proud Hungarian he feels that he needs to maintain standards. His wife, Marta secretly gambles behind his back, his sparkling younger daughter Eva takes We begin after the momentous battle in 1066 and on the heart day of William of Normandy's coronation as King of every man she meets (including his own) and his two sons need leadership and guidanceEngland. Then thereWilliam's his eldest child, Amale who fears she will never fall in love which may be position is not secure and the new king has many challenges. Imposing authority through a disadvantage as he looks around for a fitting matchcoronation is important. And William is right to worry. Although whatever their preoccupations may be at While the moment everything in Hungary (and indeed Europe) previous king, Harold, is about to change; history's timings can be cruel dead and the advent likelihood of World War I more pitched battles is perhaps one over, the rebels are stirring and much of its cruellest. To say the Austro-Hungarian Empire won't be the same again is an understatementcountry does not wish to recognise a new overlord.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781857512</amazonuk>1800422466
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=3949666079
|title=Noema
|author=Dael Akkerman
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''This is a story about some things that happened to me about twelve thousand years ago.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Merle and T Jefferson Kline (translator)1529125898|title=The Brethren (Fortunes of France)Godmersham Park|author=Gill Hornby
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=After fighting for France for most of their adulthoods, the two Jeans, de Siorac and de Saveterre (nicknamed 'The Brethren') take over the chateau and settlement at Mespech in If it were not for the Perigore region casual dereliction of France. There the newly founded community flourishes as people like Jonas the stone-cutter move in, signalling growth. De Siorac does his bit by producing a family. However this is the 16th century and conflict is never far away. Nationally France is threatened by Spain and England but itodd gentleman's also a threat duty, there would no women to itself as brother fights brother – Catholic versus Huguenotteach well-bred daughters at all. Indeed, the Brethren live in fear of the consequences of their own Huguenot faith although de Siorac doesn't make life easy for himself – his wife Isabelle is Catholic. His personal battles reflect those of the country and have effects that, for him, are just as critical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782270442</amazonuk>}}'
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Soldier's DaughterMelissa Fu |authortitle=Rosie GoodwinPeach Blossom Spring
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary= I loved the prelude to Peach Blossom Spring, a short chapter entitled ''Origins''. Unfortunately it is the only truly poetic part of a book that I expected more from. Covering Chinese history from 1938 to 2005 as viewed through one family's perspective. When their home city is set ablaze during the war with Japan, a young mother (Meilin) and her four-year-old son (Renshu) are among those who flee. The story follows them on their journey across China, and in Renshu's case eventually to America.
|isbn=1472277538
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1916072038
|title=The House in the Hollow (The Talbot Saga)
|author=Allie Cresswell
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Briony Valentine lives a contented life with her mum, dad and younger siblings We meet part of the Talbot family in a close-knit community Yorkshire in NuneatonNovember 1811. She doesn't Twenty-seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot and her mother have much travelled in some discomfort from their home at Ecklington, to worry about, other than the fact that she and her best friend both have a crush on house in the same boy, Erniehollow. However, the clouds of war The two women are gathering angry with each other and threaten to turn BrionyJocelyn is well aware of her mother's peaceful world upside down. Dad and Ernie enlist in the army strengths and Briony has her own war to fight when she and her siblings are evacuated to Cornwall to stay with their stern Grandmother. The black sheep of the family, the unsavoury uncle Seb, clearly wants Briony out of his way, but how far will he go to make sure that she does not interfere with his sinister plans?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472101723</amazonuk>}}weaknesses:
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{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Fair FightAnnabel Abbs|authortitle=Anna FreemanThe Language of Food
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Set in the grimy streets of Bristol, we follow Eliza Acton is a poet who has never had the journey of Ruth – born slightest inclination to boil an egg. When tasked with writing a Madame in a brothelcookery book, and constantly outshone by her prettier sister Dora, Ruth learns to stand on two feet and to defend herself – something which is picked up on by a regular client of Dora’s, Mr Dryer. Plunged headfirst into the world of fighting, Ruth soon meets Grenville Dryer’s wife, Charlotteshe recruits Ann Kirby, a local woman scarred by smallpox and trapped in a loveless relationship with her husband, and a toxic one with her brothertroubled home life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297871951</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Wake|author=Paul Kingsnorth|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Paul Kingsnorth refers to his Booker-longlisted fiction debut, ''The Wake''Together, as 'a post-apocalyptic novel set 1000 years in the past'. This ambitious story traces the three-year Ely resistance movement that followed the Norman Conquest. The guerrilla fighters were led by a figure named Hereward the Wake – thus the title. The first thing any review must note is the language: set in 1066-8they test, this historical novel is written in what Kingsnorth calls a 'shadow tongue' or 'pseudo-language'craft, not quite refine and reshape the Old English you encountered reading Chaucer or ''Beowulf'' at schoolworld of domestic cookery, but similar. I would strongly recommend that any diligent reader start by perusing reinventing the partial glossary recipe book and 'A Note on Language', both appended at changing the end face of the textcookery writing forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908717866</amazonuk>1398502227
}}
{{newreview <!-- 26/8 -->Frontpage|titleauthor=The Leopard of DramoorFreya Marske|authortitle=P De V HencherA Marvellous Light
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=StephenRobin Blyth is nudged into a job in the Civil Service, Earl much to his chagrin. There he meets Edwin Courcey and learns that the streets of NorthumbriaLondon are threaded with magic. Desperate to remove a curse that threatens to swallow him, known Robin follows Edwin to popular legend as the Leopard of Dramoorcountryside, is past his best fighting days. But warfare is never far away in medieval England, particularly in where the border country. And it's not far away now. A combined force of Scottish hedgegrows bristle with incantations and French troops are massing and intend to attack one of Stephen's castlesthe people shimmer with power. Stephen's son David is captain There they uncover a sinister plot that threatens the lives of all magicians in the castle but he's spoiled and lazy and his father knows he won't defend it successfully without helpBritish Isles. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1493588192</amazonuk>1529080886
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Karen MaitlandB09F4CTKJR|title=The Vanishing WitchFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=More It's the later stages of World War I and higher taxes are being levied on the English by teenage King Richard II United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and his uncle/advisor John of Gaunt to pay for joined the wars against France17 Aero Squadron. They may cause annoyance This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, the rich but they're breaking first to be attached to the poor, people like Lincolnshire river boat man Gunter RAF and his family. Meanwhile some of the better off are facing problems from other quarters. Cloth merchant Robert of Bassingham is losing his stock before it arrives due first to be sent into the skies to theft and unrest among fight the weavers Germans in Flandersactive combat. It's not a good time But before that can happen, Petrol has to be English and eventually something will snap; we're heading towards 1831 and master flying the peasants will be revoltingnotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147221501X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steven GallowayChristophe Medler|title=The ConfabulistMadrigal: A Closely Guarded Secret
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Martin Strauss has an unusual affliction that causes him to reinvent his life from false memoriesSet against the backdrop of the English Civil War, convincing even himselfa secret plan (code-named Madrigal) is discovered by Sir Robert Douse in the summer of 1642. As a confabulist heloyal servant of the King, and Head of the Secret Service, it is Robert's unsure duty to uncover the details of his past the plan and whether he actually had a happy relationship with follow the woman he loved. But there is clues to uncover one thing of which he's convinced: he killed the famous Ehrich Weiss twice. You've not heard of Ehrich Weiss? Oh but you have for Ehrich was Harry Houdini, most guarded secrets in history—especially since the best escapologist (among other things) that plot could affect the world has ever knownKing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782393994</amazonuk>B095HY8SXQ
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1471187179|title=The Shadow of WarA Beautiful Spy|author=Stewart BinnsRachel Hore
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Minnie is an 'The Shadow of Warordinary' is the first book girl living an unexciting life in a sprawling series with a new leafy provincial suburb. The book being released once is set in the 1930s and Minnie is expected to live up to her mother's expectations and find a year for each year nice young man to marry, produce children and spend the rest of the First World Warher days looking after her husband and their home. Binns writes about five British communities Unfortunately, this isn't what she wants to do at all very different – an aristocratic Scottish familyand neither does she want to continue working as a secretary. As a result of a chance meeting, she finds herself drawn into espionage, working for the secret service and effectively living a family double life - attempting to infiltrate the Communist Party of Great Britain. Minnie finds herself torn between what she perceives as her duty and the friends she has made - and likes - whilst working class Welshfolkfor the Communist Party.}}{{Frontpage|author=Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=Kokoschka's Doll|rating=2.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Well, this looked very much like a group book I could love from the get-go, which is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of friends it. I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, a Lancashire factory townchapter whose number was in the 20, 000s, letters used as narrative form, and so on. It intrigued with the subterranean voice a pair man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of Cockney soldiersit mentioned, too. But you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, and Winston Churchillcan tell that if love was on these pages, alongside his wife Clemmie and various government figuresit was not actually caused by them. So what happened?|isbn=1529402697}}{{Frontpage|author=Christina Hammonds Reed|title=The groups interact at various points in Black Kids|rating=4.5|genre=Teens |summary=Christina Hammonds Reed's debut novel is set against the backdrop of the book1992 Los Angeles riots, which leads a reaction to some very genuine and touching relationships formingthe absolution of four police officers for beating a black man, Rodney King, in particular nearly to death. Told from the one between Margaretperspective of Ashley Bennett, the novel follows her evolution from a nursesilent bystander when confronted with matters of race, to a woman finding her voice and Bronwyn, youngest daughter of the Welsh communityembracing her heritage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718179978</amazonuk>1471188191
}}