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 […]
Review: The Bookseller of Inverness by SG MacLean
Having spent the best part of a decade in London with her brilliant CWA dagger-winning creation, Damian Seeker, SG MacLean is very firmly back in her Scottish wheelhouse with The Bookseller of Inverness, says Alis Hawkins. This is a book about the power of an idea. It’s about the revival of a man left hollowed […]
Review: Acts of Love and War by Maggie Brookes
Judith Allnatt reviews Acts of Love and War by Maggie Brookes, a book set during the Spanish Civil War which “cannot fail to move the reader.” Lucy Nicholson has loved the Murray brothers, Tom and Jamie, ever since they moved next door when she was only six years old. Now in their 20s, with the […]
Review: The Clockwork Girl by Anna Mazzola
Essie Fox reviews a new historical crime mystery set in 18th-century Paris which ranges from the slums of Paris to the glittering halls of Versailles and takes in true crime, ingenious inventions, Enlightenment philosophy and the journey of three young women who struggle to take power over their own lives: The Clockwork Girl by Anna […]
Review: A Night of Flames by Matthew Harffy
Jemahl Evans reviews Matthew Harffy’s A Night of Flames, set in Northumbria and Norway in the late 8th century, and finds it rich with “humour and heartbreak, and a plot which rattles along at a breathless pace”. I am always chuffed when I get one of Matthew Harffy’s books to review. A Night of Flames […]
Review: Sherlock Holmes and the Rosetta Stone Mystery by Linda Stratmann
Sherlock Holmes and the Rosetta Stone Mystery is the first of Linda Stratmann‘s novels following the consulting detective in the making. Tom Williams, author of the Napoleonic era-set James Burke adventures and the darker John Williamson books, finds it “rather wonderful”. The world is full of Sherlock Holmes pastiches. Most of them, to be honest, […]
Review: Defenders of the Norman Crown by Sharon Bennett Connolly
Who were the Warenne Earls of Surrey? As good as forgotten now, for 300 years they were at the heart of English history, as medieval historian and novelist John Paul Davis learned when reading Defenders of the Norman Crown, Sharon Bennett Connolly’s history of the once-prominent family. He reviews it for Historia. Defenders of the […]