February, 2026 has given us the full Bronte with two retellings of Wuthering Heights. Kate Griffin, the author of several Gothic novels and lover of films set in the Victorian era, is the ideal person to review both the new film reimagining of Emily’s Bronte’s story and Essie Fox’s reframing in her novel, Catherine. There’s […]
Review: The Second Traitor by Alex Gerlis
Alan Bardos reviews the new Second World War spy thriller from Alex Gerlis, The Second Traitor. The Second Traitor is the latest novel in Alex Gerlis’s Double Agent quartet, which follows the trials of two Soviet spies in the British Secret Service from the 1930s to the late 1950s; from the rise of Nazism to […]
Review: After The Flood by Alec Marsh
Mark Ellis reviews Alec Marsh’s After The Flood and finds it “excellent and gripping”. Read on to see what he enjoyed so much. After The Flood is the fourth of Alec Marsh’s imaginative 1930s ripping yarns featuring the unlikely heroic duo of Drabble and Harris. I very much enjoyed the first three books as I […]
Review: Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World by Mary Beard
The historian Michael Arnheim reviews Mary Beard’s Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World, which has just been published as a paperback. “What was it really like to rule and be ruled in the Ancient Roman world?” That is how Professor Mary Beard describes her book. In fact, it is a not particularly subtle […]
Historia review: Munich Wolf by Rory Clements
Alan Bardos reviews Munich Wolf, the first in a new series of Second World War spy novels by Rory Clements. He finds it “engaging and well researched“. Hot on the heels of Rory Clements’s fantastic Tom Wilde espionage novels, comes his new series featuring Detective Sebastian Wolff. Staying in the pre-war era of the first […]
Review: Later Stuart Queens, 1660–1735
Linda Porter reviews a new and timely book about the later Stuart queens. This is an important and interesting collection of essays, she says — but how many will be able to afford to read it? Historia readers may be taken aback by a review of a book with the eye-watering price of more than […]
Review: Battle Song by Ian Ross
Carol McGrath finds Ian Ross’s latest book, Battle Song, “a thrilling ride plunging headlong into a fabulous recreated historical world of chivalry and adventure.” Read her review to see what impressed her so greatly. Battle Song by Ian Ross is set during the mid-13th century. Henry III has been king for many years but has […]
Review: Henrietta Maria by Leanda de Lisle
Annie Whitehead, the historian and novelist, reviews Leanda de Lisle’s new biography of Henrietta Maria and finds it a “triumph”. Henrietta Maria, known to most with even a passing interest as the French, Catholic, wife of Charles I, has been perceived as, at best, a bad influence; at worst, “the most reviled consort to have […]