Newest Historical Fiction Reviews
Longbourn by Jo Baker
So we have had Jane Austen meet zombies, and now something perhaps even more reprehensible – social realism. This is a world where people slip up in hogshit, where rain pisses it down, and if the weekly routine washday is bad, you should try it when five Bennet daughters have their coinciding periods. Sarah is in the middle of all this, trying to do her share of the housework with one hand at times, lest pus from her blisters get on the linen, or her callouses crack open. But why can she not get her feelings about James, the new mysterious footman fresh from who-knows-where, straight in her head, and why is her heart turned by the mulatto servant of the Bingleys up at Netherfield? Full review...
Secrets of the Sea House by Elisabeth Gifford
Ruth has been raised in children's homes after losing her mother as a young child. Her mother always told her that she was a Selkie, one of the seal people and eventually her mother would return to the sea. Ruth prefers this version to the official death certificates: suicide by drowning. As an adult, Ruth returns with husband Michael to her mother's native Hebrides. This is a new start for them both in an old manse they're renovating. However during the works they make a gruesome discovery: the buried remains of a special child. This body has been there for over a century, since Rev Alexander Ferguson's time and, as the years roll back to reveal its origins Ruth realises this isn't the only surprise awaiting her. Full review...
After Flodden by Rosemary Goring
Scotland 1513: Louise Brenier believes her family to be cursed. Her father dead, her elder sister dying during childbirth as the result of an affair with King James IV and now her brother Benoit missing after the Battle of Flodden. It would be easy to believe Benoit dead too, but, whatever state he's in, Louise must know what happened. This is what drives her on a journey across a land ravaged by war, providing more challenges than answers and encounters with those for whom Flodden remains a recurring nightmare. Full review...
Master of War by David Gilman
Young Richard Blackstone is accused of the rape and murder of a village girl and sentenced to hang. Protestations of innocence on his behalf mean nothing and the fact he's a deaf/mute means even less. His elder brother Thomas has protected him as much as possible throughout their lives but can do nothing this time. However, help is at hand; Sir Gilbert Killbere ensures that the judge changes his mind and Richard is released but not completely. Richard and Thomas are excellent archers so they're rescued in order to join the army that the King is amassing. It's not an easy option: the year is 1346 and the conflict that history will call 'The Hundred Years War' is about to begin. Full review...
The Sorrow of Angels by Jon Kalman Stefansson
Our decidedly unheroic main character has been at the café for three weeks now, so we are following on very closely from Heaven and Hell. After the tragedy and soul-searching of that first book, he seems settled in the ridiculous family that has formed around him there, finding employment, enjoying the literature, yet being very intrigued by the female body. The man who is still young enough to be known only as the boy might have latched on to stability for once, and replaced the family and best friend he had lost. But everything is restless in this environment, and once again he might just be tempted to go on a journey, with another male companion, despite the harshness of the surrounds. Full review...
Heaven and Hell by Jon Kalman Stefansson
Iceland, a hundred years ago. From a place that is the very definition of rural and remote, a small fishing boat leaves for four hours' hard row to a profitable bank. It carries six men on the way out, and five on the way back. The deceased is the best friend – or perhaps only friend – of the main character, who is still young enough to merely be known as boy. When he returns to port he enters an almost Camus-like semi-existence, wondering just how much life is an answer, and for what, after the tragedy he has witnessed. Full review...
She Rises by Kate Worsley
Imagine, if you can, a lifelike eighteenth-century seafaring epic (something along the lines of Carsten Jensen's We, the Drowned or Carol Birch's Jamrach's Menagerie) crossed with Sarah Waters's Fingersmith. If you then added in touches of Charles Dickens's Bleak House, plus shades of the rest of the homoerotic Waters oeuvre (especially Night Watch and Tipping the Velvet), you would just about have Kate Worsley's debut novel, She Rises, in a nutshell. Full review...
Mistress of the Sea by Jenny Barden
Mistress of the Sea is an epic adventure involving pirates, star-crossed lovers and a lust for gold and vengeance. The novel, set in Tudor times, is based on the real-life events in the life of Francis Drake, notably the raid at Nombre de Dios and the rout of the English fleet at San Juan de Ulua. Barden weaves an exciting adventure/romance story against this backdrop, which results in an immersive narrative that excites the mind and senses. Full review...
Hats Off To Brandenburg (The Roxy Compendium) by Graham Thomas
It was London, 1815. George III was on the throne although it was his son who was Regent, but it would be quite a while before those facts bothered the Roxy Playhouse Irregulars, who lived, loved and had their being in the old Roxy Playhouse. Money had always been in short supply as it tends to be when life is lived as a celebration, but they were in debt to Richard Sheridan and eventually forced to strike a bargain with him: pay their debts within one month or he would take the Roxy Playhouse. The Irregulars took the challenge and put on a performance, only this was no three-act play on a stage. Their performance was a tightly choreographed heist which would relieve members of the ton of some of their more valuable trinkets. If you're thinking of Robin Hood then forget it - this was going to be far more complex and bloody and it was obvious that there was more at stake than a decrepit playhouse. Full review...
Burnt Norton by Caroline Sandon
After the death of his youngest son in a terrible accident, Sir William Keyt starts to lose interest in life. It takes meeting young Molly Johnson, a bright and beautiful daughter of a local landlord, to rekindle a spark for him. He brings her into Norton House as a maidservant, where she quickly catches the eye of his bookish eldest son, Thomas. But Sir William wants Molly to be more than a maid to him, and as a rich man and an MP is used to having his own way. Full review...
The Bull Slayer by Bruce Macbain
Years after we left him in Roman Games, Pliny the Younger has become Roman Governor of Bithynia. Not the most hospitable of regions, its Greek residents regard the Romans with hatred; an emotion that, in many cases, is reciprocated by the Romans. No matter how bad this is though, it gets worse when a high ranking official dies mysteriously. Could it have anything to do with the religious sect of Mithras? Possibly but it's not Pliny's only dilemma; at home his beloved young wife Calpurnia is acting somewhat oddly. Full review...
The Walls of Byzantium (The Mistra Chronicles) by James Heneage
Luke Magoris is heading for disgrace which means a lot since he's the son of a Varangian, the Viking-originated elite guard of the Byzantine Emperor. Anna Lasaris daughter to a Byzantine court official and, feisty but kind, is the opposite of the Archon's daughter Zoe. As politically adept as her brother is inept, Zoe will do anything for status and money… anything. As the 14th century Byzantine Empire starts to crumble due to the relentless struggle with the Islamic Turks and Mistra becomes the only province left for the Turks to conquer, their paths will cross. They're all young but they'll soon discover that treachery can emanate from friendship as much as it can from war. Full review...
Beautiful Lies by Claire Clark
Clare Clark's Beautiful Lies takes in Royal jubilees, London riots, newspaper editors overstepping the bounds on personal vendettas and political sex scandals - all set in the late 1880s showing how little has changed. There are even early instances and questions over photographic manipulation. Maribel, apparently a Chilean heiress and wife of radical, socialist politician Edward Campbell Lowe, has a past which she has tries to keep buried. If it were to be revealed, both her and her husband would be ruined by the scandal. Making enemies of an unscrupulous and hypocritical newspaper editor might not be the best move then. Full review...
All Woman and Springtime by B W Jones
Gyong-Ho is a seamstress. That's not a euphemism. She works at a machine in a garment factory, with a bullying supervisor, invalided out of the glorious Chochun army, limping around and terrifying the girls only slightly more than the picture of Kim Jong-il on the walls. Gi, a nickname she'll acquire because of her stammering attempts to get her own name out (Gi-Gi-Gyong) strives truly hard to be worthy of the Dear Leader. She has learned the hard way, what happens if someone somewhere for some obscure reason decides that you're not. Full review...
The Asylum by John Harwood
A woman wakes up in an unfamiliar room. She doesn’t know where she is, or how she got there, but at least she knows who she is: her name is Georgina Ferrars and she lives with her uncle in Gresham’s Yard, London. Full review...
Paris by Edward Rutherfurd
Taking four families, from different social positions, Edward Rutherfurd weaves these family histories into the history of Paris and France. We encounter the noble de Cygnes, the bourgeois Blanchards, the lower class Gascons and the revolutionary Le Sourds. Their lives cross paths through the years in often unexpected ways and while Paris is an historical fiction novel, this is as much an epic story of families as it is about the history. Full review...
Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures by Emma Straub
Small town girl Ella Emerson loves acting - her father runs the Cherry County Playhouse, and she's always been captivated by the stage. She loves watching the actors perform, and getting involved in shows where she can. Following a family tragedy, though, she moves to Hollywood to marry an actor and reinvents herself as Laura Lamont. Quickly, she outshines her new husband. Can her success, and their relationship, last? Full review...
Carver's Quest by Nick Rennison
The year is 1870 and Adam Carver is at home in his lodgings in London’s Doughty Street when he is interrupted by an unexpected caller. This distraught and enigmatic young woman, Miss Emily Maitland, requests Carver’s help but disappears mysteriously before he can ascertain the details of her predicament. The days and weeks that follow her visit prove to be most eventful, pitching Carver and his assistant Quint into an investigation involving murder, a missing manuscript and a hidden treasure. Full review...
Traitor's Gate by Michael Ridpath
Oxford-educated Englishman Conrad de Lancey is haunted by the brutality of the Spanish Civil War, his ideals laying in the dust along with the cause for which he fought. Therefore, on a visit to his mother's German homeland, Conrad shies away from involvement in any resistance to the rise of the National Socialist Party. However, he will soon have little choice as tragic events drag him into a world of espionage, brutality and fear, culminating in a conspiracy to kill Hitler himself. Full review...
Into The Valley of Death by A L Berridge
Master Harry-sahib saunters up the path of the family bungalow in some unnamed Indian 'British town', puzzled to see the pathway choked with weeds, surprised by the absence of servants and disgusted by the swarming ants. There is worse inside. His father, the colonel, is dead on the floor. 'The money was gone, obviously, but it would take more than that to make a devoted soldier to blow his brains out. What had it done to him, this army he'd given his whole life to?'
What indeed? 'Into the Valley of Death' isn't the novel that will tell us. Full review...
The Religion by Tim Willocks
To the Maltese and Sicilians, Mattias Tannhauser is a successfully blooded infantry captain. To Ottoman Turks he's Ibrahim the Red, having been kidnapped from Hungary and raised as a Muslim. Dual nationality comes in handy once he's met the beautiful Contessa Carla de la Penantier and is commissioned to find and return her 12 year old bastard son. As always with these missions there's a catch. The boy (whom Carla hasn't seen since the day of his birth) is rumoured to be on Malta, an island currently being threatened by 30,000 Turks and defended by a tenth of that number, even if you count the Knights Hospitaller. The Turks call themselves the Hounds of Hell, the Knights are known as the Religion, but it's immaterial to Mattias. He just needs to find the lad and get out alive. Full review...
The Queen's Gambit by Elizabeth Fremantle
The recently widowed Lady Katherine Latymer falls in love with aristocratic Thomas Seymour, a man more a stranger to fidelity than to a lady's bed. It's not a good idea, especially when Henry VIII announces he'd like to make use of her renowned nursing skills by marrying her. As Katherine navigates the seas of palace survival there's a lot that can sink her: Katherine's wish for Henry to return to the original protestant faith as he perceived it, her desire to bring the King's children together under one roof and the plotting of those who would like to see her head disconnected at the neck to name but three. Meanwhile the shadow of Snape Castle hangs over Katherine's step-daughter Meg, haunting her hopes, her dreams and her everyday life to a degree that only the maid Dot understands. Full review...
The Movement of Stars by Amy Brill
Hannah Gardner Price lives in Nantucket, a small New England island with fortunes based on the whaling trade. As it's 1845, Hannah's life is based on what her father feels is best for her. This is unfortunately reinforced by the fact that Nantucket is not just an island geographically but also insular in outlook and expectations as the claustrophobic, small community revolves around the weekly Friends' Meeting of its Quaker faith. Why unfortunately? Hannah is highly intelligent, in her mid-20s, unmarried, practically runs her family's navigational instrument business since her twin brother dashed off to sea and has a scientific passion for astronomy, all of which are at odds with societal normality. However, this is just the beginning. When Isaac Martin, a ship's black second mate, brings Hannah a chronometer to repair he becomes a presence that will shake her community as it shakes her world. Full review...
The Aftermath by Rhidian Brook
The Aftermath is set amongst the devastated ruins in the fire-bombed city of Hamburg in 1946. The British have occupied the ruined city and Colonel Lewis Morgan, an officer and a gentleman, is charged with overseeing the restoration of order. However, Colonel Morgan must first deal with the human cost of the bombing including remnants of fanatic Nazis, the trummerkind - children of the rubble, and the starving civil populace. He also, in 1943, lost a child due to a Luftwaffe bomb and he must support his deeply grieving wife, Rachel, when she arrives after months of separation with their surviving twelve year old boy, the impressionable Edmund. Full review...
Coconut Chaos by Diana Souhami
Our anonymous narrator has a chaos-theory-theory about the mutiny on the Bounty. It can all be traced back to Fletcher Christian stealing a coconut. Armed with this thought and the intrepid spirit of many Britons before her, she sets off for Pitcairn Island, the isolated home of Christian and his band of dissenters 3,000 miles from New Zealand. She leaves behind a beloved but delusional mother, her partner and all the comforts of civilisation as she travels with hope and the inimitable Lady Myre. Meanwhile we listen to true stories about the mutiny, the aftermath and the fact that there weren't really many heroes, just a group of flawed individuals fighting for survival. Full review...
Traitor's Field by Robert Wilton
It's 1648 and the embers of Charles I's reign start to fade as Britain slowly turns the monotone colour of Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth. However, Royalist passion still exists and it's up to Sir Mortimer Shay, the Comptrollerate-General for Scrutiny and Survey, to gather the intelligence, maintain his spy network and fan the embers towards the Royalist victory for which he longs. He's a wily veteran so not easily stopped but among the confusion and brutality that tears Britain in half, former lawyer Cromwell's spymaster John Thurloe is the man charged with the task. Full review...
Red Sky In Morning by Paul Lynch
It’s 1832 and Coll Coyle and his humble family are to be turfed out of their home in Donegal and Coll is just angry enough to confront the landowner’s son who is responsible. The repercussions of Coll’s actions are huge and Coll is forced to go on the run. He attempts to escape across the unforgiving and desolate landscape of North West Ireland, the brutal Atlantic Ocean and the plains of North America, all the while stalked by the incredibly dangerous and violent John Faller. Red Sky in Morning is Paul Lynch’s debut novel and it is a real hit. Full review...
Trick of Fate: Connell O'Keeffe and The Pen Caer Legacy by Patricia Watkins
Connell O'Keeffe was a gentleman actor and on 23 February 1797 he was on his way from Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire to catch the ferry home to Ireland. Unable to speak Welsh he was unaware that the French had invaded Pen Caer and rode into a situation which would change his life forever. The man who had set off to make his leisurely way home, taking in some of the local landmarks suffered a life-threatening injury, was unjustly accused of a foul murder and became a fugitive. It was difficult to see that he could survive his current situation - fitter men than he were dying - and if he did, what was the point? What was there that he could do when his chosen profession would no longer be open to him? Full review...
The Malice of Fortune by Michael Ennis
Michael Ennis sets his The Malice of Fortune in Italy in the early part of the 1500s. Ennis is a history lecturer so unsurprisingly, his book is full of evidence of detailed research and understanding of the times. And what fascinating times they were. With the Borgia family dominating both the papacy and several political regions, fighting for power and land, a number of family led mercenary armies, and several great figures who would leave a lasting legacy, notably Leonardo Da Vinci and Niccolò Machiavelli, the latter of whom narrates a very large part of this novel. The real life political wrangling of the times would stretch the imagination of most novelists and Ennis bases his tale on a huge number of real, documented happenings. What he seeks to add to the party is an insight into why and how these events occurred and certainly there are some unexplained gaps in the relationships of the key players. The core story is an attempt to discover the identity of the murderer of the pope's son, Juan Borgia, Duke of Gandia. Candidates range from his brother, Cesare Borgia, Juan's courtesan, Damiata to the heads of various powerful, mercenary families. It's historical fiction meets crime fiction. Full review...
