Historical Fiction
Historical fiction novels take place in the past. Written with a careful balance of research and creativity, they transport readers to another time and place—which can be real, imagined, or a combination of both. Many historical novels tell stories that involve actual historical figures or historical events within historical settings.
-
Book Review: BEELITZ-HEILSTÄTTEN: Where Ghosts Never Die
BEELITZ-HEILSTÄTTEN: Where Ghosts Never Die by Marina Osipova My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is a huge departure from my usual reading choices, so my review comes from that standpoint. I don’t…
-
Book Review: Just One Damned Thing After Another
If you've ever considered a career as a historian but worry that it might be too dusty, boring, and academic for your snarky personality, there's hope for you. The deliberately-dull name of St…
-
Book Review: Shadows in Chinatown
I quite enjoy historical fiction novels. When they are well done, it's as if I've been given my own time travel machine. Shadows in Chinatown transported me back to 1886, where Miss Karine…
-
Book Review: American Housewife
I'd classify this story as Fantasy. It gives us an idealized version of a rose-colored view of the past, effectively creating a double layer of the ideal mid-century American good life.
-
Book Review: Rewrite: Loops in the Timescape
Be honest: Who hasn't wished they could go back in time and re-do that most awkward stage of life... being a teenager?
-
Book Review: The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies
I noticed other reviewers expected a lighthearted romp, based on the book's cover. This is a fine lesson in NOT judging a book by its cover. Our Ill-Mannered ladies, while quite prim and…
- Action and Adventure, Book Reviews, Coming of Age, Dystopian, Historical Fiction, Realist Fiction, Suspense and Thriller
Book Review: Strawberry Fields
Strawberry Fields by Patrick D. Joyce My rating: 5 of 5 stars In 1968, I was a bookwormish fourteen-year-old whose biggest worry was finishing my math homework. In those insular, pre-internet times in…
-
Book Review: The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill
The ability to make bargains with the supernatural is a compelling notion. Whether the bargain is made with a jar of graveyard dirt, cat bones, a photograph, and yarrow buried at a crossroads,…
-
Book Review: Little House Life Hacks
A few months back, I started noticing the hashtag #tradwife in various social medias. I became curious about what others considered to be a "traditional" wife and where this rediscovered ideal might intersect…
-
Book Review: The Little Wartime Library
The Little Wartime Library gives readers a chance to understand the power of comfort-reading. It's a book that's difficult to set aside once you bond with the characters you'll meet within the pages.
-
Book Review: Seven Tales From King Arthur’s Court
With endless books being added daily to bookstore shelves (physical and virtual), it's easy to go 'deer in the headlights' while trying to select your next read. You hope it will provide entertainment…
-
Book Review: Inside Bridgerton
Clearly I'm going to need to buy a coffee table to display this gem. Inside Bridgerton is as lavish as the Regency Era itself.
-
Book Review: We Hope for Better Things
Having previously read three books by this author, I trusted her storytelling skills to thread together three stories set in different times - the American civil war, 1967 Detroit riots, and present day.
-
Book Review: Nunslinger Book Three: A Pilgrim and a Stranger
Episode three keeps the tension high and the situation dismal. Abe and Sister Josephine are battling their toughest enemy yet - winter in the Sierra Nevada mountains. But at least they have a…
-
Book Review: A Most Agreeable Murder
A Most Agreeable Murder by Julia Seales My rating: 5 of 5 stars A wickedly witty sendup of Regency and Victorian era novels, with a splash of Clue (the movie) thrown in for…
-
Book Review: Nunslinger Book Two: The Good, the Bad and the Penitent
Nunslinger Book 2: The Good, the Bad and the Penitent by Stark Holborn My rating: 4 of 5 stars Sister Thomas Josephine’s adventure’s continue in Book Two of the Nunslinger saga. As always,…
-
Book Review: Acorn
I've been a dedicated reader of the Magnificent Devices series ever since the beginning. It's always fun when a new volume arrives, and Acorn is no exception.
-
Book Review: Nunslinger, Book One
This rousing story is written in colorful, authentic language that easily coaxes mental imagery in the reader's mind.
- Action and Adventure, Book Reviews, Coming of Age, Detective and Mystery, Dystopian, Historical Fiction, Realist Fiction, Suspense and Thriller, Young Adult
Book Review: Back in the USSR
The back-cover synopsis had me lunging for this book, which I easily read in just a couple of evenings. It's quite the page-turner! Now, I'm not going to write a book report describing…
-
Book Review: Keeper of Enchanted Rooms
This is a book I probably shouldn't have liked... but in spite of that fact, I *loved* it.
-
Book Review: Advanced Triggernometry
Full disclosure/confession: I failed Algebra in high school. From 1st grade right on up through high school, I struggled to hang onto a barely-passing D in anything pertaining to math of any sort.…
-
Book Review: The Emperor’s Aeronaut
As a long-time reader of Shelley Adina's Victorian era steampunk adventures, I'll admit I was a bit hesitant to step into the Regency era with her. I was also unfamiliar with R.E. Scott's…
-
Book Review: Signal Moon
A couple of decades ago I was sitting in my car, parked at the side of the road next to a bus stop in the middle of nowhere, waiting for the bus to…
-
Book Review: Triggernometry
The clever title word caught my attention, and the teaser blurb had me lunging for the 'buy' button. But as a lifelong Mathophobic, I wondered if I'd be able to really get into…
-
Book Review: The Professor Wore Prussian Blue
It's hard to believe we've come to the end of this wild and twisty Victorianish-steampunky adventure, following along with Freddie and Daisy Linden and their friends as they searched for their missing father,…
-
Book Review: Hard Times
Finishing this book is a great example of "Hard Times". I started it just before Halloween, 2021, and just finished it last night.
- Black Authors, Book Reviews, Coming of Age, Historical Fiction, Realist Fiction, Womens Literature, Young Adult
Book Review: Flygirl
I expected to like this book, as it deals with topics dear to my heart. I enjoy learning more about the lives of those who experienced World War II, and as a woman,…
-
Book Review: The Official Peaky Blinders Cookbook
The Official Peaky Blinders Cookbook pays homage to the eccentricities of dining during the interwar years, honing in on British fare of the 1920's as imagined by the drama series, Peaky Blinders..
-
Book Review: Defy or Defend
By far my favorite of the Delightfully Deadly series! I gobbled this one up in no time and could easily have spent another two wacky weeks with the Supernatural and Spy Sets.
-
Book Review: Poison or Protect
Poison or Protect by Gail Carriger My rating: 4 of 5 stars “After four marriages, and four deaths, she had everything in life a woman might desire: titled position, swollen coffers, the freedom…
