[[Category:Historical Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Historical Fiction]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
{{newreview
|author=Jolien Janzing
|title=Charlotte Bronte's Secret Love
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=This is the second novel by Jolien Janzing, a Dutch author who lives in Belgium. Originally published in Dutch as ''The Master'' in 2013, it is already being made into a film. The flawlessly translated story zeroes in on two momentous years in Charlotte Brontë's life, 1842–3, when she was a pupil and then a teacher at the Pensionnat Heger in Brussels. I read this in tandem with Claire Harman's new biography of Charlotte Brontë; it was particularly fascinating to see that the two books open with the same climactic episode: lovesick Charlotte making a confession at a Catholic church, even though she was an Anglican parson's daughter.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9462380597</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Julia Franck and Anthea Bell (translator)
|summary=London 1883: Thaniel Steepleton, a telegraphist in a government office, finds himself living and working in a city at siege during a Clan na Gael bombing campaign. It's around this time that he also realises that his pocket watch seems to have some odd, previously unnoticed functions. Grace Carrow, a 'bluestocking' physics student also owns such a watch. The two total strangers may think their watches odd, but 'odd' takes on a new meaning when they meet Mr Mori, the Japanese watchmaker. His clockwork pet octopus is only a small measure of the oddity ahead.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408854287</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Katharine McMahon
|title=The Woman in the Picture
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=In February 1926 London was tense and divided between those who supported the principle of a general strike and those who were prepared to break it at whatever cost to themselves. Evelyn Gifford is a newly qualified solicitor and whilst she's sympathetic to the miners she's preoccupied by two cases from opposite ends of the social spectrum. Trudy Wright is a maidservant accused of theft and Evelyn has undertaken this case ''pro bono'': her argument is that the 'theft' was of a letter asking for a reference for Trudy, but she was too frightened to hand it to her bullying employer, so only she was the loser. The Wright family worm their way into Evelyn's life: the father is a bullying, drunken, wife beater, the mother is scared and brow beaten, but the son, Robbie, is deeply involved with the unions.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297866036</amazonuk>
}}