==Historical fiction==
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{{newreview
|author=Beverley Eikli
|title=Lady Farquhar's Butterfly
|rating=3
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=Olivia - Lady Farquhar - has recently been widowed. This does not upset her in the least; indeed, as becomes clear through the novel, her husband was an unpleasant bully who subjected her to all kinds of abuse. Unfortunately, however, the terms of his will have ensured that her beloved toddler Julian has been taken away to live with his uncle Max until such time as Olivia marries someone considered to be above reproach. For that reason, she is seriously considering marrying Nathaniel, a clergyman who has helped her for many years. The only problem with that is that she finds him increasingly repulsive...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709090579</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Anita Diamant
|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 Angels
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=The novel focuses on the Angel family who live in the Lake District in the late 1900s. Josiah Angel is the head of the family and appears to be a respectable business man, bringing up his three daughters after the death of his wife. The family live in a beautiful house and – to outsiders – the daughters seem to have everything – comfort, money, beauty and an easy life, in great contrast to the poverty around them. Not far from Josiah's department store are the workhouse with its brutality and the blocks of slum flats infested with rats.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007125</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Faye L Booth
|title=Trades of the Flesh
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=I read Trades of the Flesh in about 2 hours, speeding through it, and think I've spent about double that time figuring out how to review it! Apart from anything else, it's taken me well over an hour to settle on a genre (and I reserve the right to change that by the end of the review, although if I do I guess I could just delete this part…)
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230743412</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
|title=Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
|rating=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 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 to let their womanhood get in the way of it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1932279393</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Hilary Mantel
|title=Wolf Hall
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=A revisionist look at Henry VIII's minister, Thomas Cromwell. Rich, absorbing and intelligent, it's a beautiful, beautiful book.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007230184</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Shandi Mitchell
|title=Under This Unbroken Sky
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=A photograph opens the story. A black and white picture of a family, husband, wife and their three children, smiling for the camera. Thin, underfed, in their summer clothes despite the four inches of snow, they smile. Partly they smile because they do not know what is to come.
A page and five years later we catch up with the Mykolayenkos. In the Spring of 1938 Ivan and his cousin are catching mice in the barn and taking bets on which of the farm cats will pounce on the individually released rodents first. The game is interrupted by a man with a loaded .22 rifle. It takes a while for it to sink in, that this is Ivan's father, Teodor, free after a prison sentence for stealing his own grain.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297856588</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Kate Furnivall
|title=The Concubine's Secret
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=As a sequel to Kate Furnivall's first book, ''The Russian Concubine'', The Concubine's Secret helps to tie up some hanging storylines and in general provides an entertaining follow-up. In the first book, we watched Chang An Lo and Lydia Ivanova fall in love against all the odds. Here, they must remain in love despite being separated by most of a continent. As you might expect, the reader spends most of the book hoping for them to find a way to finally be together.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751540455</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Philippa Gregory
|title=The White Queen
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=It's 1464 and a young widow stands at the side of the road, clutching the hands of her two young sons, waiting for the new King to ride past. She is Elizabeth Woodville and the King is Edward IV. What happens is a matter of history: a secret marriage, a shocking reveal, and a vicious contest for 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 meeting, English history would have been critically different.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847374557</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Kate Pullinger
|title=The Mistress of Nothing
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Lucie, Lady Duff Gordon was a well-known figure in Victorian London when tuberculosis forced her to move to a hot climate. She travelled to Egypt, accompanied only by her Lady's Maid, Sally Naldrett and left her husband and children in London, not knowing if she would ever see them again. Lady Duff Gordon's story is told in ''The Mistress of Nothing'' but 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 - not the least of which was that Pierre was engaged to marry Simone Renaudin. Simone was an appropriate match for the grandson of a mill owner and member of the bourgeoisie, but Agnes was descended from brewers and lower middle class. In northern France, just before the outbreak of the First World War, such distinctions mattered. But Pierre and Agnes meet alone and rather than ruin her reputation Pierre proposes. In doing so he alienates his grandfather and the wealthy Renaudins. Pierre and Agnes' marriage and its consequences would reverberate for decades.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520443</amazonuk>
}}
