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[[Category:Historical Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Historical Fiction]]__NOTOC__==Historical fiction=={{newreview|author=John Wilcox|title=The Shangani Patrol|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=This is the latest in the adventures of Simon Fonthill, a cross between a Victorian James Bond and Indianna Jones. Although one of a series, it stands alone as a novel. It's steeped in the history (and there's a lot of it) of the late 19th century when Queen Victoria 'ruled the world.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk!-- Remove -->0755345614 </amazonuk!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Terence MorganTananarive Due|title=The Master of BrugesReformatory
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=BelgiumGracetown, the fifteenth centuryFlorida. June 1950. Hans After a scuffle with a white boy, twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is apprenticed sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, otherwise known as the Reformatory. It's a place with a master painter in brutal and dark reputation. But the city segregated reformatory is a chamber of Brusselshorrors, until haunted by the boys that have died there. In order to survive the old curmudgeon dies, school governor and his studio falls apartFunhouse, Robert must enlist the help of the school's ghosts – only they have their own motivations. Luckily for Hans..|isbn=1803366532}} {{Frontpage|author=Katherine Howe|title=A True Account|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a mistakenly drawn sketchfamily who run an inn, and a bizarre rescue being made to work there from the gallows gives him a major boost - patronage, for both portraits and many religious imagesyoung age. With what might seem When she hears there is to be a patchy diary - hanging of some years have five pages onlypirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, concerning but one month - we see his startling life journeyHannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, covering beguiling modelsso that they don't find and kill her too, ghostly war scenesand then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and even joining the biggest intrigues notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of English royal courtthings when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230744125</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
 {{newreview|author=Eloisa James|title=When the Duke Returns|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=''When the Duke Returns'', the newest volume in the 'Desperate Duchesses' series, continues the regency celebrity romp saga where [[Duchess by Night by Eloisa James|Duchess by Night]] left off. The focus, this time, is on Isidore, the Duchess of Conway: hot-headed, hot-blooded and Italian to boot, she was married by proxy at the age of sixteen and is still a virgin seven years later. Isidore's cunning plot to entice back the husband she has never seen from his travels in Asia and Africa works perfectly and Simeon, His Grace Duke of Conway is now back in England, ready to claim his estate and, as Isidore presumes, ready to claim his beautiful wife.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340961104</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Adam WilliamsSarah Marsh|title=The Book A Sign of the AlchemistHer Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary= ''The Book of the Alchemist'' is a story within a story. It opens in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War. Pinzon, a Spanish politician who resigns for moral reasons, is taken hostage by a group of Republican soldiers, along with his young Grandson. A group of villagers are also taken captive and locked in a cathedral as part of the soldiers' desperate plan to protect themselves from the Fascist forces that are hunting them. A cavernous mosque built inside the mountain under the cathedral's crypt is discovered, and in it, a book. As Pinzon reads the book, another story unfolds, set in the eleventh century. This is the story of Samuel the Jew.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340899131</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Jack Ludlow
|title=Warriors
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Arduin of Fassano is paid by Michael Doukeianos, a young Byzantine general, to keep the peace in Apulia. Arduin is a Lombard, however, and secretly plans to revolt and take Apulia for himself, hiring a group of Norman mercenaries to help him do the job. These Normans are William de Hauteville and his brothers, famed warriors with their own conflicts and a desire to gain titles and wealth for their sons. Even if Arduin and the Normans could take Apulia, there are no guarantees that they could hold it in a land full of treachery and bribes.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007559</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Kate Tremayne
|title=The Loveday Conspiracy
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Trevowan Manor has been the home of the Loveday family for generations. It will still be owned by a Loveday but St John Loveday lost the house on the throw of a dice before killing himself – and now his cousin Tristan has the house. St John's twin, Adam, vows that he will punish the man responsible. Amelia has been forced from Trevowan and is now living in a cottage with the other dispossessed women. As if this wasn't enough of a problem, her son from her first marriage, Richard, has become even more than wayward and Amelia is forced to make a difficult choice.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755347676</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=John E Smelcer
|title=The Great Death
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary='As Western Europeans settled AlaskaAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, they brought with them diseases against which the indigenous people had no natural immunityEllen Lark loses her hearing. At the beginning Suddenly plunged into a world of the twentieth centurysilence, fully two thirds of all Alaska natives perished from everything about her life changes. Living in a pandemic time when the use of measlessign language was seen as something only savages do, smallpoxEllen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, and influenzabut physically restrained from signing. No community was spared. In most cases From here, half of she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a village's population died within a weeksystem called Visible Speech. In some cases At the same time, there were no survivors. It was the end Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of an ancient way of life. Natives still refer to the dreadful period as the Great Deathespionage.'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1842709194</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire North
|title=House of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
{{newreview|author=Robyn Young |title=Requiem (Brethren Trilogy)|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=ItThe follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca''s December 1295, and the bedraggled remnants of the Third Crusade are returning homepicks up a few months after where we left off. Not all have given up In the dream palace of a Christian JerusalemOdysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and Jacques de Molay, then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the Grand Master throne of the Templars, is eager to find patrons to fund a fresh invasionWestern Isles. But the West has turned inward, Having survived – politically and, with physical – the Orderchaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's reason for existence vanished with the Crusader statesshores, factions within both Queen Penelope is on the English and French courts covet brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the wealth and military might return of the Temple. With his homeland Orestes, King of Scotland under assault by his old rival EdwardMycenae, and his position usurped by former comrades who wish to turn the Order to sinister endssister Elektra, peace for series protagonist Will Campbell seems far awayseeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340921420</amazonuk>0356516075
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anthony RichesB0C7J9D21B|title=Wounds of Honour A Captive in Algiers (EmpireMuhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Riding to the Northern outpost of the Roman Empire to deliver a message, Marcus Valerius Aquila is seemingly attacked by a band of barbarians, but is rescued by a group of Tungrian irregulars, fighting as part of the Roman army. Arriving at his destination, it soon becomes clear that the attack was deliberate, as his father has been condemned as a traitor back in Rome by Emperor Commodus and his whole family have been put to the sword.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340920300</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Freda Lightfoot |title=House of AngelsA J Lewis
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=When we first meet our hero, his name is Ettore and he lives at The novel focuses on the Angel family who live in the Lake District in the late 1900sHouse of Beautiful Swallows. Idyllic as this might sound, it's a bordello and Ettore's mother died when he was born. Josiah Angel is the head He's not been short of the family and appears to be a respectable business manmothers, bringing up his three daughters after the death though - but for someone of his wife. The family live background in a beautiful house and – to outsiders – the daughters seem to have everything – comfortlate-eighteenth-century Amalfi, money, beauty and an easy life, in great contrast it's difficult to obtain decent employment. The stint working with the poverty around them. Not far from Josiahpreparation of anchovies didn's department store t work out and bastards are the workhouse with its brutality considered bad luck on fishing boats. Ettore was nothing if not resourceful - and determined - and the blocks of slum flats infested with ratsit was not long before he had a successful business as a guide for visitors. He was even saving some money.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007125</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Faye L Booth Essie Fox|title=Trades of the FleshThe Fascination
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=I read Trades of the Flesh in about 2 hoursThe Victorian era is incredibly over-romanticised as a setting for historical fiction (matched only, speeding through itperhaps, and think I've spent about double that time figuring out how by the Second World War) which has often led to review it! Apart from anything else, more than a few writers mishandling it. There's taken me well over an hour to settle on such a genre (and I reserve glut of media set in the era that the right hallmarks we've come to associate with it are familiar to change that by the end point of the reviewbeing cliched, although if I hackneyed even. All this is simply to illustrate that it would be an easy thing to do I guess I could just delete poorly. But despite that, something about it still grabs me – and something about this part…)book's description did as well.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230743412</amazonuk>1914585526
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith Nicole Jarvis|title=Pride and Prejudice and ZombiesA Portrait in Shadow
|rating=4.5
|genre=Humour
|summary=Ah, the benefits to a good book of a classic first line. 'Call me Ishmael.' 'It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.' Who can forget Iain Banks' 'It was the day my grandmother exploded'? Or those timeless words by Jane Austen, '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=Prasad's first novel [[On Borrowed Wings by Chandra Prasad|On Borrowed Wings]] followed a young girl entering the male-dominated arena 'I want all of Yale in the 1930s. Her heroine took inspiration from the likes of Amelia Earhart (who has a walk-on part in the book), women who were finding their way in the world on their own terms and refusing Florence to let their womanhood get in the way of it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1932279393</amazonuk>}}know my name''
{{newreview|author=Hilary Mantel|title=Wolf Hall|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=A revisionist look at Henry VIII's ministerCast out from Rome, Thomas CromwellArtemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking an oasis in which her art can find a home and where her future can thrive rather than stagnate. RichBut as some as she enters Florentine society she faces great opposition from the powerful Accademia, absorbing the self-proclaimed guardians of the healing magics that through paintings have the power to protect the city and intelligent, its citizens from plagues and curses. The all-male Accademia has hoarded power over art and architecture for centuries and guard it's a beautifulabove all else. To them, beautiful bookArtemisia – an ambitious young woman who promises trouble and change – has no place amongst them and their society. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007230184</amazonuk>1803362340
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Thomas D Lee
|title=Perilous Times
|rating=3
|genre= Fantasy
|summary= ''Hate is the path of least resistance''
{{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 Set in the camera. Thin, underfednear-distant future, in their summer clothes despite a world on the four inches verge of snowclimate collapse, they smileBritain is in great peril. Partly they smile because they do not know what is The British Isles desperately needs a hero (or several) to come.  A page save the day and five years later we catch up with the Mykolayenkosrescue what little remains. In the Spring What no-one expected was that one of 1938 Ivan and his cousin are catching mice in the barn and taking bets on which Knights of the farm cats will pounce on Round Table would answer 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 graincall.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0297856588</amazonuk>0356518523
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kate FurnivallG K Holloway|title=The Concubine's SecretIn the Shadows of Castles|rating=34.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=As a sequel to Kate FurnivallWe begin after the momentous battle in 1066 and on the day of William of Normandy's first book, ''The Russian Concubine'', The Concubinecoronation as King of England. William's Secret helps position is not secure and the new king has many challenges. Imposing authority through a coronation is important. And William is right to tie up some hanging storylines and in general provides an entertaining follow-upworry. In While the first bookprevious king, Harold, we watched Chang An Lo is dead and Lydia Ivanova fall in love against all the odds. Here, they must remain in love despite being separated by most likelihood of a continent. As you might expectmore pitched battles is over, the reader spends most rebels are stirring and much of the book hoping for them country does not wish to find recognise a way to finally be togethernew overlord.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0751540455</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.''
{{newreview|author=Philippa Gregory|title=The White Queen|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It's 1464 and Maya is a young widow stands at girl living in a hunter gatherer village during the side of the roadMesolithic era. Climate change is occurring, clutching the hands Sea of her two young sonsGrass encroaches further and further into Maya's forest home, waiting for the new King to ride past. She and food is Elizabeth Woodville becoming more and the King is Edward IVmore scarce. What happens is a matter to do? Can the law givers in the federation of history: a secret marriage, a shocking revealvillages muster peaceful ways to cope? Can the Traveller, and a vicious contest for spiritual figure who interprets the young King's ear (and purse) that forces civil war to drag on in England for much longer than perhaps it would have. Without this meetingwisdom of All Life, English history would have been critically different. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847374557</amazonuk>provide solutions?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kate Pullinger 1529125898|title=The Mistress of NothingGodmersham Park|author=Gill Hornby
|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''If it were not for the casual dereliction of the odd gentleman's Maid, Sally Naldrett and left her husband and children in Londonduty, not knowing if she there would ever see them againno women to teach well-bred daughters at all. Lady Duff Gordon's story is told in ''The Mistress of Nothing'' but it's Sally Naldrett who is the focus of the book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687098</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Irène Némirovsky |title=All Our Worldly Goods|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Pierre Hardelot and Agnes Florent were in love and had been since they were children, but there were problems Anne Sharpe was thirty- not one years old when she arrived at Godmersham Park to take up the least position of which was that Pierre was engaged governess to marry Simone Renaudintwelve-year-old Fanny Austen. Simone She had no experience of teaching but this was an appropriate match for a case of necessity. Until the grandson death of her mother, Anne had a mill owner comfortable life and member of the bourgeoisie, but Agnes was descended loved by both parents although her father was frequently absent from brewers and lower middle classthe household. In northern FranceWhen her mother died, just before the outbreak of the First World War, such distinctions mattered. But Pierre her father cast her off and Agnes meet alone and rather than ruin would have nothing more to do with her reputation Pierre proposes. In doing so he alienates his grandfather and the wealthy RenaudinsNo explanation was offered but she would receive an annuity of £35 a year. Pierre and Her maid, Agnes' marriage and its consequences , would reverberate for decadesreceive nothing but was fortunately taken in by some neighbours.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520443</amazonuk>
}}
 {{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>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=James McCreetMelissa Fu |title=The Incendiary's TrailPeach Blossom Spring
|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 I loved the prelude to Peach Blossom Spring, a short chapter entitled ''Origins''. Unfortunately it is caught stealing the only truly poetic part of a book that I expected more from a market stall in Nottingham he narrowly escapes with his life and limbs in tact. To protect him Covering Chinese history from the justice of Sir Ralph Murdac, Alan1938 to 2005 as viewed through one family's mother begs perspective. When their home city is set ablaze during the mercy of the great outlawwar with Japan, Robin Hooda young mother (Meilin) and her four-year-old son (Renshu) are among those who flee. Robin agrees to take Alan into his protectionThe story follows them on their journey across China, and so begins Alanin Renshu's life as an outlawcase eventually to America. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0751542083</amazonuk>1472277538
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jane Borodale 1916072038|title=The Book of FiresHouse in the Hollow (The Talbot Saga)|author=Allie Cresswell
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction |summary=Agnes Trussel leaves her home to save her We meet part of the Talbot family from the disgrace of learning that she has been raped and is carrying an illegitimate childin Yorkshire in November 1811. With limited options Twenty-seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot and her mother have travelled in despair at her situation she takes money some discomfort from the their home of a neighbour to pay her way to London. Once thereat Ecklington, her life as assistant to the dour John Blacklock, a firework maker, gives her security and a sense of worth. But she is sure that all she values is likely to be lost once her pregnancy and her status as a thief becomes knownhouse in the hollow. The crux of her situation, two women are angry with each other and that of many women like her at the time, Jocelyn is well summarised in aware of her thoughtsmother's strengths and weaknesses: ''the child is almost all I have, I think. And its'' ''existence will ensure that anything else will be taken away 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 ''She is practiced at subterfuge, at concealing, beneath a facade of Robin Hoodrespectability, the deplorable truth''.
Hester is furious about Jocelyn''Robin Hood, Robin Hood riding through the glen, Robin Hood, Robin Hood with his band of men. Feared by the bads refusal to do as she was asked,which has precipitated '' this violent and unexpected removal''loved by the good, Robin Hood, Robin Hood.''
The theme music to Then we are told of the 1950s TV series starring Richard Greene says it all. The legends birth of a child and myths surrounding Robin of Loxley, faithfully recreated soon after, Hester Talbot departs, leaving Jocelyn in shame and isolation 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 SaintYorkshire.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224079433</amazonuk>
}}
 {{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 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 Legion]] 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>}} {{newreview|author=Rita Monaldi and Francesco Sorti |title=Secretum|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction |summary=Back in 2002, Rita Monaldi and Francesco Sorti shocked Italy with [[Imprimatur by Rita Monaldi and Francesco Sorti|Imprimatur]], a historical fiction novel which cast aspersions on the behaviour of past Popes. Despite being a very well researched and well-written mystery, it was boycotted in Italy, although it proved popular in other parts of the world. However, the lack of recognition in their home country meant that the follow up that such a good story deserved has been seven years in the making.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971047</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lauren Willig Annabel Abbs|title=The Secret History Language of the Pink CarnationFood|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=I used to have months when I would gorge on chick lit before I got married. I lived in London and would wile away the tedium of Eliza Acton is a poet who has never had the tube by escaping into easy, comforting reads of twenty-somethings who worried about shoes and shopping and men. It was reassuring slightest inclination to know that the girl, albeit after a series of highs and lows, would ultimately get the guyboil an egg. I'm When tasked with writing a different kind of person now, a stay at home mum more likely to be found playing in the park than shoe-shopping in London, and so it's been a while since I've felt like picking up a chick lit cookery book. Something about this one intrigued me though. From the back cover blurb it's hard to tell if it's a historical novel, or contemporary chick litshe recruits Ann Kirby, or perhaps some kind of mystery. I have a feeling that if you come to it local woman with any particular expectations of it fulfilling one of these genres you might be disappointeda troubled home life. But if you see it as a funTogether, excitingthey test, genre-less read thencraft, hopefullyrefine and reshape the world of domestic cookery, you won't be able to put it downreinventing the recipe book and changing the face of cookery writing forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0749007613</amazonuk>1398502227
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elaine di Rollo Freya Marske|title=A Proper Education for GirlsMarvellous Light
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=''A Proper Education for Girls'' Robin Blyth is nudged into a knowing satire about Victorian attitudes towards women, focusing on job in the enduring bond between twin sistersCivil Service, Alice much to his chagrin. There he meets Edwin Courcey and Lillian Talbot. The novel opens with a description learns that the streets of their father, a man London are threaded with a very Victorian belief in Progress and a penchant for scientific experiment. He is obsessively devoted to his indiscriminate collection of 'interesting and useful artefacts' which has gradually subsumed their entire house. Mrmagic. Talbot had expected his daughters Desperate to equal his enthusiasm and devote their entire lives to The Collection with only remove a bunch of old ladies (their aunts) for company, but, it didn't quite work out curse that way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099513463</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Susan Wooldridge |title=The Hidden Dance|rating=3.5|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=It is 1933threatens to swallow him, and Robin follows Edwin to the SS Etoile has just left Southampton harbour en route for New York. On board is Lily Suttoncountryside, a timid, disturbed woman whose posh accent seems unsuited to her situation of travelling in steerage. Through a series of flashbacks to various years in Lily's life we learn why she is so frightened where the hedgegrows bristle with incantations and what has brought her to make this secretive journey to New Yorkthe people shimmer with power. As well as learning about her romantic aspirations through the story we also see her stumble into There they uncover a difficult situation on board ship sinister plot that lends a crime mystery feel to threatens the latter half lives of all magicians in the bookBritish Isles.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0749007419</amazonuk>1529080886
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Judith Lennox B09F4CTKJR|title=The Heart of the NightFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=When Kay is hired as MirandaIt's companion, she the later stages of World War I and the United States has no idea what to expect; she just knows that she would like to leave behind her quiet life in entered the English countrysideconflict. She quickly befriends Miranda and becomes her partner in crime, evading Miranda's 'aunt', really her father's ex-mistress, and seeking out adventures in a variety of European cities. Trouble begins, however, when Miranda meets Olivier, Petrol Petronus is a young aspiring filmmaker American who believes that Miranda would has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be a stunning actress. Unsurprisingly, Miranda truly falls trained in love with OlivierCanada, which inadvertently leads the first to be attached to Kay's dismissal the RAF and return the first to Englandbe sent into the skies to fight the Germans in active combat. Now separated, these best friends must find their way on their own throughout World War II. With Kay in England and Miranda in East PrussiaBut before that can happen, Petrol has to master flying the women's lives are completely different, providing us with a huge backdrop in which to fall in love with these characters and become enchanted with their livesnotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755344847</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert Ryan Christophe Medler|title=Death on the IceMadrigal: A Closely Guarded Secret|rating=54
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=In 1917Set against the backdrop of the English Civil War, Captain a secret plan (code-named Madrigal) is discovered by Sir Robert Falcon Scott's widow seeks to get Douse in the summer of 1642. As a book on the market to redress loyal servant of the balanceKing, to counter and Head of the rumour, public opinion and growing thought that not all was right with Scott and his exploits in Antarctica. Seemingly, in 2009Secret Service, it is Robert Ryan seeks 's duty to uncover the same. However his book is certainly not just concentrating on Scott - we get a lot details of Oates, Evans, the other Evans, plan and all follow the rest clues to uncover one of the fatal party - as well as Shackleton, Amundsen and moremost guarded secrets in history—especially since the plot could affect the King.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755348354</amazonuk>B095HY8SXQ
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rita Monaldi and Francesco Sorti 1471187179|title=ImprimaturA Beautiful Spy|author=Rachel Hore
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=My history teacher at school would be stunned Minnie 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 expectations and find a nice young man to see marry, produce children and spend the number rest of historical fiction books I've been reading recentlyher days looking after her husband and their home. He would be even more surprised Unfortunately, this isn't what she wants to do at all and neither does she want to discover that I've mostly enjoyed themcontinue working as a secretary. Whilst I've always loved readingAs a result of a chance meeting, she finds herself drawn into espionage, history was a subject working for which I showed great ineptitude the secret service and disinterest in my younger yearseffectively living a double life - attempting to infiltrate the Communist Party of Great Britain. How times change Minnie finds herself torn between what she perceives as her duty and the friends she has made - and likes - whilst working for the Communist Party.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971055</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marion Urch Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=Invitation to DanceKokoschka's Doll|rating=32.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction |summary=Lola Montez was an undeniably fascinating womanWell, this looked very much like a product of book I could love from the get-go, which is why I picked my review copy up and producer flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of scandalit. Born Eliza Gilbert I found things to potentially delight me each time – a young Irish girl and an English junior officerweird section in the middle on darker stock paper, she spent her early childhood a chapter whose number was in India before being shuffled off to relations in Scotland the 20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and then school in Bathso on. This novel chronicles her life and career as It intrigued with the subterranean voice a Spanish dancerman hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, all over Europe of too. But you've seen the mid-nineteenth century star rating that comes with this review, and as far away as America and Australiacan tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. So what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0863223958</amazonuk>1529402697
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eloisa James Christina Hammonds Reed|title=Duchess by NightThe Black Kids
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction Teens |summary=In this third instalment Christina Hammonds Reed's debut novel is set against the backdrop of the ''Desperate Duchesses'' series the focus is on Harriet1992 Los Angeles riots, a reaction to the Duchess absolution of Berrowfour police officers for beating a black man, Rodney King, nearly to death. A widow Told from the perspective of two yearsAshley Bennett, Harriet manages the novel follows her vast estate, makes judgements in the local court (where the judge is only evolution from a drunken figurehead) and is generally settled into her life. But she feels unattractive, old and boring; ready to find another husband but doesn't attract too many dancers, never mind suitors, silent bystander when she turns up at a costume ball dressed as a dumpy Mother Goose (complete confronted with a stuffed bird). When her friend sets off on a visit to a permanent house party at a residence matters of a certain very disreputable Lord Strange (in order race, to create a scandal woman finding her voice and entice a husband she never met back to the country), Harriet decides to go with embracing her, but worried about the debauchery, she goes as a young man, a nephew of Duke Villiers who also accompanies the ladiesheritage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340961082</amazonuk>1471188191
}}
{{newreview|author=Ben Kane |title=The Forgotten Legion|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction |summary=Since the release of ''Gladiator'', Roman life has been a growth industry in the entertainment world, with even ''Doctor Who'' visiting Pompeii at one point. The last time I visited Roman times in written form was when I was still doing Latin at school. Fortunately, Ben Kane's ''The Forgotten Legion'' is far more engrossing than school ever was.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090102</amazonuk>}}Move on to [[Newest History Reviews]]
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