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[[Category:New Reviews|Historical Fiction]]==Historical fiction==__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Beverley EikliLivi Michael|title=Lady Farquhar's ButterflyElizabeth and Ruth|rating=3.5|genre=Women's Historical Fiction|summary=Olivia - Lady Farquhar - has recently been widowed. This does not upset her in ''Elizabeth and Ruth'' is a work of historical fiction wrought from the life of the least; indeedVictorian author Elizabeth Gaskell, as becomes clear through the best known for her first novelMary Barton (1848), her husband was an unpleasant bully who subjected her to all kinds a radical critique of abuse. Unfortunately, however, the terms treatment of his will have ensured that the working class published under a pseudonym. The ''Ruth'' from Livi Michael's title appears in her beloved toddler Julian has been taken away to live with his uncle Max until such time novel as Olivia marries someone considered to be above reproach. For that reason, she is seriously considering marrying NathanielPasley, a clergyman young Irish prostitute who has helped her for many years. The only problem with that is that she was abandoned as a child and finds him increasingly repulsive.herself in Manchester's New Bailey Prison after a difficult and unjust hand at life.Set in Manchester between 1839 and 1842, the novel examines the harsh conditions endured by the Victorian working poor and interrogates the extent to which the wealthy (including Gaskell herself) were responsible for addressing these injustices.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0709090579</amazonuk>1784633682

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anita DiamantTananarive Due|title=Day After NightThe Reformatory

|summary=First of allGracetown, Florida. June 1950. After a scuffle with a white boy, I really liked twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is sentenced to six months at the unusual pitch Gracetown School for a Second World War novelBoys, set in a detention camp in Palestine in October 1945, soon after otherwise known as the liberation of EuropeReformatory. The war machine has ground to It's a place with a halt, leaving millions of bewildered refugees to find their way out of chaos. With huge effort, hundreds of Jewish men brutal and women reach their promised land, albeit as illegal immigrantsdark reputation. Though imprisoned again, Atlit camp But the segregated reformatory is emotionally a halfway house between chamber of horrors, haunted by the past and boys that have died there. In order to survive the future for them. They are at least well-fed and humanely treated by their British captors. With no particular duties school governor and in limbo for an indeterminate periodhis Funhouse, Robert must enlist the women start to come to terms with how life will be for them in help of the future, safe at last from Nazi persecution, but having lost all school's ghosts – only they have their loved onesown motivations.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847398618</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jennie Rooney|title=The Opposite of Falling|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It is 1862 and when wealthy Liverpool girl Ursula Bridgewater finds herself single and restless after her fiancée Henry Springton leaves her for another woman, she soon turns to travel as a means of escape and sets off on her first expedition. But she has agreed to stay friends with Henry and cannot quite escape him completely as they continue to write to each other. Ten years later and Ursula has travelled all over the world and is about to embark on a trip around America, but this time she decides to take a companion.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701182687</amazonuk>1803366532}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Iain PearsKatherine Howe|title=Stone's FallA True Account

|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=I read Iain Pears' ''The Portrait'' Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a year or so ago family who run an inn, and loved it so I was really looking forward being made to reading this novelwork there from a young age. The front cover When she hears there is strikingly handsome and hints to be a hanging of good things some pirates in the town, she decides to come between its coversgo and watch. The novel is divided up into sizeable chunks Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of threetwo vicious pirates. Three different decades She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and three different locationsthen to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. Pears then dips She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and out from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the main characters' lives, telling the reader basically what makes them tickocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099516179</amazonuk>0861547438

 {{newreview|author=Nicola Cornick|title=Confessions of a Duchess|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Dowager Duchess Laura Cole has come to the village of Fortune’s Folly to live a quiet life as a widow with her young daughter. But when the village squire decides to invoke the Dames’ Tax, a law requiring every unmarried woman to give up half her wealth to him, the town becomes a hotbed of men searching for heiresses now desperate to marry. Joining the men is Dexter Anstruther, sent to secure a rich wife and carry out a murder inquiry on behalf of Lord Liverpool. The last thing Laura and Dexter expect is to see each other again after their steamy encounter four years ago. But their passion for each other is reawakened and looks set to ruin them both.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303802</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gill SchierhoutSarah Marsh|title=The Shape A Sign of Him|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The story is told in the first person by Sara Highbury. She's running a small business in an efficient but rather detached fashion. She's all washed up. She starts to recount her earlier, happier life when it meant something to her. And the reader soon discovers that a diamond digger called Herbert was - and still is - the love of her life. And here Schierhout gives us a taster of the hard and dirty work digging for stones (they're never called diamonds by the workers apparently). The danger and precarious nature of the work is laid bare. But Herbert seemed to be a natural. Why?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535777</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Anne-Marie Vukelic|title=Far Above RubiesHer Own

|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=Shy Catherine Hogarth first meets Charles Dickens at After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her parents' house hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when he hilariously comes in through the window use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to dance a jig before the assembled guestsschool where she is taught to lip read, before leaving and then entering again via the front doorbut physically restrained from signing. Employed by her father GeorgeFrom here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the editor of deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the Evening Chroniclesame time, as a reporter Bell is working on other inventions and sketch writerideas, Charles is at the start of his writing career and soon becomes Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a regular visitor to the Hogarth householdcomplicated tangle of espionage. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0709090536</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreview|author=Elizabeth Chadwick|title=To Defy A King|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=#Set in the traumatic and violent period leading The follow-up to the Magna Carta, Chadwick concentrates on excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off. In the fortunes palace of two extended families. The MarshalsOdysseus, close with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to the throne for their expertise, political and military mightrule 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 Bigods, who are directly related to King John, through their half brother Longespee, son throne of the family matriarch, and John’s fatherWestern Isles. Banished from Court, Having survived – politically and forced physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to leave her son thereIthaca's shores, Ida marries Roger and founds Queen Penelope is on the brink of a strong patriarchal dynastyfragile peace. However, tension is never far from boiling point, One that shatters however with the two half brothers tolerating each other at bestreturn of Orestes, King of Mycenae, loathing each other more often than notand his sister Elektra, due to their opposing naturesseeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847442366</amazonuk>0356516075

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne O'BrienB0C7J9D21B|title=Virgin WidowA Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=A J Lewis

|summary=The mighty Richard Neville, Earl of WarwickWhen we first meet our hero, his name is famous throughout England as one Ettore and he lives at The House of King Edward IV’s most trusted advisorsBeautiful Swallows. But Idyllic as Edward is lured towards another influential family this might sound, it's a bordello and Ettore's mother died when he falls in love with Elizabeth Woodvillewas born. He's not been short of mothers, Warwick responds by backing the alliance between Margaret though - but for someone of Anjou and King Louis XI of Francehis background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, aiming it's difficult to put Margaret’s husband Henry VI back on the English throneobtain decent employment. A helpless pawn, Anne is torn away from the man she loves, who will grow up to become Richard III, to be used as political capital by her father and his allies as they try to regain The stint working with the kingdom preparation of England.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303756</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lynn Shepherd|title=Murder at Mansfield Park|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Straight away the reader is plunged into the language of Austenanchovies didn's era, so dotted all over t work out and bastards are such rather flowery phrases as ' considered bad luck on fishing boats... conjugal felicity ...' Ettore was nothing if not resourceful - and determined - and ' ... her family were it was not consumptive...' We are also introduced to long before he had a host of characters and although Shepherd has thoughtfully provided right at the beginning ''Names of the Principal Persons'', it does bombard and perhaps confuse the reader successful business as a littleguide for visitors. I must admit to referring to this dratted list time and time again. It does break the flow at the beginning of the novel. But, several chapters in and you're right into the story thereafterHe was even saving some money.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905636792</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sara StockbridgeEssie Fox|title=The Fortunes of Grace HammerFascination

|summary=The short prologue shares with the reader Victorian era is incredibly over-romanticised as a childhood incident in setting for historical fiction (matched only, perhaps, by the life of Grace Hammer. It had Second World War) which has often led to more than a dramatic effect on her and her life thereafterfew writers mishandling it. She is a changed person. SheThere's also driven. She grows into such a desirable woman and turns menglut of media set in the era that the hallmarks we's heads wherever she goesve come to associate with it are familiar to the point of being cliched, hackneyed even. All this is simply to illustrate that it would be an easy thing to do poorly. But shedespite that, something about it still grabs me – and something about this book's also smart. Some would perhaps think at this point, why not go 'up west', bag a sugar-daddy and live in luxury for the rest of her days? But life is not description did as simple as thatwell.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099520958</amazonuk>1914585526

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emily PurdyNicole Jarvis|title=The Tudor WifeA Portrait in Shadow|rating=34.5

|summary=From the moment she sets eyes on handsome George Boleyn, plain Lady Jane Parker falls madly in love and prays that George will be hers. As Jane and George's families negotiate the marriage Jane meets Anne Boleyn and quickly realises that George only has eyes for Anne, but remains determined that she can make George love her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847561942</amazonuk>}}'I want all of Florence to know my name''

{{newreview|author=Anne Perry|title=The Sheen on the Silk|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Anna Zarides Cast out from Rome, Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Constantinople, determined to Florence seeking an oasis in which her art can find out why a home and where her twin brother Justinian has been convicted of murderfuture can thrive rather than stagnate. But it is 1273as 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 a woman cannot move about freely to ask questionsarchitecture for centuries and guard it above all else. Anna is a skilled doctorTo them, Artemisia – an ambitious young woman who uses Arab promises trouble and Jewish medicine in secret as well as more accepted Christian remedies: in her quest for information she disguises herself as a eunuch change – has no place amongst them and successfully treats a wide range of people from the very poorest right up to the emperor himselftheir society.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755339061</amazonuk>1803362340

{{newreview|author=Penny Ingham|title=The King's Daughter|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The central female character Set in the near- 'The King's Daughter' is Elflaede. She's youngdistant future, feisty and very pretty. She also has this unforgettable reddish hair. At this point in a world on the story I was reminded a little verge of Queen Elizabeth Iclimate collapse, I have to sayBritain is in great peril. In Elflaede's own words she 'had never known The British Isles desperately needs a time without war .' The hordes of Pagan Norsemen are hero (or several) to blamesave the day and rescue what little remains. They've come to England with their own set What no-one expected was that one of superstitions. And they've come with one aim. To conquer great swathes the Knights of Englandthe Round Table would answer the call.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>095559975X</amazonuk>0356518523

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Trevor BloomG K Holloway|title=The Half-Slave|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=At Samarobriva in Roman Gaul, a raiding Saxon tribe meets its match in the form of a division of the Franks, who have suborned the Roman authorities and are establishing their control throughout the region. A mysterious meeting with the Frankish Overlord persuades the leader of the Saxons to sign a treaty that will forever alter the fate of his people. In return for Frankish silver, he hands over to them his youngest son, Ascha the half-slave, as a perpetual hostage to guarantee the peace. But in the frozen north new powers are rising, and Ascha will soon be drawn into a web of lies and ambition as two very different worlds come into conflict.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955563062</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Seth Hunter|title=The Tide Shadows of WarCastles

|summary=The Tide of War is We begin after the second book in a trilogy of historical fictionnovels by Seth Hunter, set momentous battle in the 1790s 1066 and recounts on the adventures day of William of Normandy's coronation as King ofBritish naval captain Nathan PeakeEngland. In this book newly-promoted PeakeWilliam's position is sent to not secure and the Caribbean to command new king has many challenges. Imposing authority through a British frigate, the Unicorn,coronation is important. And William is right to hunt for the French warship, the Virginieworry.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755357612</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michelle Lovric|title=The Book of Human Skin|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=''Ye can't take While the slither out ovva snake.'' So says Gianniprevious king, valet in a wealthy eighteenth century Venetian household. The masterHarold, a merchant, divides his time between Italy is dead and Peru, where he deals in silver. But the merchant isn't the serpent - his son Minguillo likelihood of more pitched battles is. On over, the night an earthquake ripped through Peru rebels are stirring and deposited fanatical nun Sor Loreta at much of 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 country does not wish to recognise a South American home free of sociopathic progenynew overlord. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140880588X</amazonuk>1800422466

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elif Shafak3949666079|title=The Forty Rules of LoveNoema|author=Dael Akkerman

|genre=Literary General 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>}} {{newreview|author=Lawrence Hill|title=The Book of Negroes|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Although this is a work of fiction, 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 called) as a relatively old woman (what we would call middle-aged). She's in London, far from home, but she's there for an extremely important reason. The powers-about some things that-be need her happened to tell her story, as a slave over many me about twelve thousand yearsago. The hope is that other Meenas will not have to suffer the same fate. On a lighter note (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 naivety.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552775487</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Phil Rickman|title=The Bones of Avalon|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=When Elizabeth I's most trusted men fear for her safety and think there's Maya is a young girl living in a possibly supernatural plot against her, hunter gatherer village during the obvious man to investigate it Mesolithic era. Climate change is Dr John Deeoccurring, her astrologer and consultant in the hidden arts. Aided by his former pupil – Sea of Grass encroaches further and Elizabethfurther into Maya's reputed lover – Robert Dudleyforest home, he travels to Glastonbury to try and find the bones of King Arthurfood is becoming more and more scarce. Glastonbury, however, has never recovered from What to do? Can the Dissolution of law givers in the Monasteries and the execution federation of its beloved Abbot Richard Whiting, and many residents view villages muster peaceful ways to cope? Can the pair with suspicion. The exception to this is Nel BorrowTraveller, a spiritual figure who treats Dudley when he's ill and becomes interprets the first woman Dee has ever been interested in romantically. Can the three stop the villainous plotwisdom of All Life, provide solutions? I'll leave you to find out…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848872704</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Susan Fletcher1529125898|title=CorragGodmersham Park|author=Gill Hornby

|summary=A small and dirty woman sits in a prison cell. With her bare feet and her matted hair and her damp, filthy clothes, she doesn't wonder at the word ''witch''. She has been called If it all her life. Her mother called her ''witch'' before she named her. Her given name Corrag – was a corruption: were not for Cora (her mother) and Hag (which she'd get as used to as Cora had).  She sits through the snow casual dereliction of the winterodd gentleman's duty, knowing that the sound she hears outside is the dragging of the logs for her pyrethere 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. She had no experience of teaching but this was tolda case of necessity. Until the death of her mother, thoughAnne had a comfortable life and was loved by both parents although her father was frequently absent from the household. When her mother died, that a man her father cast her off and would comehave nothing more to do with her. So No explanation was offered but she waits for himwould receive an annuity of £35 a year. Her maid, Agnes, would receive nothing but was fortunately taken in by some neighbours.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007321597</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Richard DenningMelissa Fu |title=The Amber TreasurePeach Blossom Spring

|summary=Cerdic is We meet part of the younger son of a minor lord living Talbot family in a quiet Anglo Saxon village Yorkshire in sixth century NorthumbriaNovember 1811. His people are settled Twenty-seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot and her mother have travelled in some discomfort from their home at Ecklington, to the Welsh (Romano-Britons) seem contained behind house in the Pennineshollow. Cedric fully expects to live out his live as a gentleman farmer, hopefully The two women are angry with the beautiful Aidith by his side. But as he listens to the tales told by Lilla the bard, he caneach other and Jocelyn is well aware of her mother't help but dream of following after his uncle, the great warrior Cynric, s strengths and finding glory in battle. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849140235</amazonuk>}}weaknesses:

{{newreview|author=Katherine Howe|title=The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Connie ''She is doing postgraduate research on witchcraft. Although she is initially rather wary practiced at subterfuge, at concealing, beneath a facade of being asked to clear out her grandmother’s old houserespectability, the project turns out to lead to lots of exciting possibilities, including romance and perhaps original sources for her studiesdeplorable truth''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141047550</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Debbie Elliott|title=Tesla & Twain|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|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, Hester is furious about Jocelyn's refusal to do as the press of the time gleefully dubbed it. But the truth is that his work she was of groundbreaking importance: he developed the electrical alternating current and the AC motorasked, and much more. The average person probably which has a better awareness of Samuel Clemens - who wrote Tom Sawyer precipitated ''this violent 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 donunexpected removal''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 Then we are told of the nineteenth centurybirth of a child and, when European nations are scrabbling to colonise as many territories as possiblesoon after, a young Englishman sails into Chinese waters seeking fame and fortune. Unlike the rest of his countrymen howeverHester Talbot departs, Luke Trewarne refuses to get rich selling opium to the Chinese. All very noble but the fact is that Luke is a passenger on board a ship laden with the stuff leaving Jocelyn in shame and there are Chinese gunships on the horizonisolation in Yorkshire.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>070908885X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Janet MullanyAnnabel Abbs|title=Improper RelationsThe Language of Food|rating=45

|summary=Unlucky in love Charlotte Hayden Eliza Acton is a poet who has just lost her best friend and confidante Ann in marriage never had the slightest inclination to the Earl of Beresfordboil an egg. At the wedding When tasked with writing a cookery book, she encounters Lord Shadderly, Beresford's best friendrecruits Ann Kirby, a broodingly handsome man whom she takes an immediate dislike tolocal woman with a troubled home life. Before she knows it Charlotte is caught in a compromising situation with Shadderly Together, they test, craft, refine and reshape the world of domestic cookery, reinventing the recipe book and he is forced to propose to her or risk both their reputationschanging the face of cookery writing forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755347803</amazonuk>1398502227

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Clare ClarkFreya Marske|title=Savage LandsA Marvellous Light

|summary=The novel begins with one of Robin Blyth is nudged into a job in the central characters - Elisabeth - preparing Civil Service, much to leave her home in France, his chagrin. There he meets Edwin Courcey and embark upon learns that the streets of London are threaded with magic. Desperate to remove a ship curse that threatens to take her swallow him, Robin follows Edwin to America - to meet and marry a complete stranger. At this time there were literally only a few hundred settlersthe countryside, so potential wives were shipped in along where the hedgegrows bristle with other necessities! She is very much in two minds about incantations and the entire venture - apprehensive, yet more than people shimmer with power. There they uncover a little excited at sinister plot that threatens the prospect lives 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 all magicians in the more conventional linens and this immediately sets her apartBritish Isles.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846553512</amazonuk>1529080886

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christi Phillips B09F4CTKJR|title=The Devlin Diary|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It is 1672 and Hannah Devlin, a young widow with a skill Flights 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>}} {{newreviewFreedom|author=Cathy Marie Buchanan |title=The Day The Falls Stood StillSteven Burgauer

|summary=I imagined this title as a It'Gone With s the Wind' sort later stages of novel, a saga-esque historical romance, with a characterful heroine World War I and page-turning story line that necessitates reading late into the nightUnited States has just entered the conflict. Well, I wasn't disappointed in this paperback edition of the hardback, already Petrol Petronus is a best-seller in young American who has signed up and joined the U.S17 Aero Squadron.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091925967</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Wilcox|title=The Shangani Patrol|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=This is company was the latest first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, the first to be attached to the adventures of Simon Fonthill, a cross between a Victorian James Bond RAF 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 first to be sent into the late 19th century when Queen Victoria 'ruled skies to fight the worldGermans in active combat.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755345614</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Terence Morgan|title=The Master of Bruges|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=BelgiumBut before that can happen, the fifteenth century. Hans is apprenticed Petrol has 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 flying 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 notoriously difficult but one month - we see his startling life journey, covering beguiling models, ghostly war scenes, and even the biggest intrigues of English royal courtmajestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230744125</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eloisa JamesChristophe Medler|title=When the Duke ReturnsMadrigal: A Closely Guarded Secret

|summary=''When Set against the backdrop of the Duke Returns''English Civil War, the newest volume a secret plan (code-named Madrigal) is discovered by Sir Robert Douse in the 'Desperate Duchesses' series, continues the regency celebrity romp saga where [[Duchess by Night by Eloisa James|Duchess by Night]] left offsummer of 1642. The focus, this time, is on Isidore, As a loyal servant of the Duchess of Conway: hot-headedKing, hot-blooded and Italian to bootHead of the Secret Service, she was married by proxy at the age of sixteen and it is still a virgin seven years later. IsidoreRobert's cunning plot duty to entice back uncover the husband she has never seen from his travels in Asia details of the plan and Africa works perfectly and Simeon, His Grace Duke follow the clues to uncover one of Conway is now back the most guarded secrets in England, ready to claim his estate and, as Isidore presumes, ready to claim his beautiful wifehistory—especially since the plot could affect the King.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340961104</amazonuk>B095HY8SXQ

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adam Williams1471187179|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>}} {{newreviewBeautiful Spy|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 ConspiracyRachel Hore

|summary=Trevowan Manor has been the home of the Loveday family for generationsMinnie is an 'ordinary' girl living an unexciting life in a leafy provincial suburb. It will still be owned by The book is set in the 1930s and Minnie is expected to live up to her mother's expectations and find a Loveday but St John Loveday lost the house on nice young man to marry, produce children and spend the throw rest of a dice before killing himself – her days looking after her husband and now his cousin Tristan has the housetheir home. St JohnUnfortunately, this isn's twint what she wants to do at all and neither does she want to continue working as a secretary. As a result of a chance meeting, Adamshe finds herself drawn into espionage, vows that he will punish working for the man responsible. Amelia has been forced from Trevowan secret service and is now effectively living in a cottage with double life - attempting to infiltrate the other dispossessed womenCommunist Party of Great Britain. As if this wasn't enough of a problem, Minnie finds herself torn between what she perceives as her son from her first marriage, Richard, duty and the friends she has become even more than wayward made - and Amelia is forced to make a difficult choicelikes - whilst working for the Communist Party.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755347676</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John E SmelcerAfonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=The Great DeathKokoschka's Doll|rating=42.5|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary='As Western Europeans settled AlaskaWell, this looked very much like a book I could love from the get-go, they brought with them diseases against which the indigenous people had no natural immunityis why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. At I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the beginning of middle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the twentieth century20, fully two thirds of all Alaska natives perished from a pandemic of measles000s, smallpoxletters used as narrative form, 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 survivorsso on. It was intrigued with the end subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of an ancient way of lifeit mentioned, too. Natives still refer to But you've seen the dreadful period as the Great Deathstar rating that comes with this review, and can tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them.' So what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1842709194</amazonuk>1529402697

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robyn Young Christina Hammonds Reed|title=Requiem (Brethren Trilogy)The Black Kids|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionTeens |summary=ItChristina Hammonds Reed's December 1295, and debut novel is set against the bedraggled remnants backdrop of the Third Crusade are returning home. Not all have given up 1992 Los Angeles riots, a reaction to the dream absolution of four police officers for beating a Christian Jerusalemblack man, and Jacques de MolayRodney King, the Grand Master of the Templars, is eager to find patrons nearly to fund a fresh invasiondeath. But Told from the West has turned inward, andperspective of Ashley Bennett, with the Order's reason for existence vanished novel follows her evolution from a silent bystander when confronted with the Crusader states, factions within both the English and French courts covet the wealth and military might matters of the Temple. With his homeland of Scotland under assault by his old rival Edwardrace, to a woman finding her voice and his position usurped by former comrades who wish to turn the Order to sinister ends, peace for series protagonist Will Campbell seems far awayembracing her heritage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340921420</amazonuk>1471188191

{{newreview|author=Anthony Riches|title=Wounds of Honour (Empire)|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Riding Move on 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>}}[[Newest History Reviews]]