Review of Maddalena and the Dark by Julia Fine
Julia Fine's Maddalena and the Dark is a gothic story set in 1700s Venice in which two young women's lives and destinies become...
Jul 6, 2023
Review of Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens
Claudia Cravens's story of a young brothel worker in late nineteenth-century Dodge City, Kansas, offers up a tough young heroine who...
Jun 29, 2023
Review of Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash
Beyond That, the Sea is a lovely character-driven historical fiction story about complicated relationships, found family, growing up, and...
Jun 28, 2023
Review of The Secret Book of Flora Lea by Patti Callahan Henry
The premise and setting of The Secret Book of Flora Lea are captivating. I was distracted by what felt like overly dramatic dialogue and...
May 9, 2023
Review of The Trackers by Charles Frazier
Frazier offers an immersive story that morphs from a WPA-funded rural art commission to a leisurely country-wide search, an unlikely...
May 2, 2023
Review of Go As a River by Shelley Read
Read's debut novel is gorgeously written, with vivid details of mid-century Colorado, moments that change everything, impossible...
Apr 27, 2023
Review of Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen by Mary Sharratt
Sharratt's carefully researched, richly detailed historical fiction is based on the life of the medieval mystic who long served as an...
Apr 25, 2023
Six More Four-Star (and Up) Historical Fiction Reads I Loved in the Past Year
Six More Four-Star (and Up) Bossy Historical Fiction Reads Historical fiction is one of my very favorite genres, and I loved my...
Mar 24, 2023
Review of The Levee by William Kent Krueger
William Kent Krueger's writing is beautiful, and J.D. Jackson reads the audiobook wonderfully, but I felt impatient with the focus on...
Mar 23, 2023
Review of Weyward by Emilia Hart
Emilia Hart's debut novel links women in three timelines through blood and a powerful connection to the natural world as they resist male...
Mar 15, 2023
Review of This Other Eden by Paul Harding
Harding bases his slim historical fiction novel This Other Eden on a real-life, racially integrated island off the coast of Maine,...
Mar 14, 2023
Review of The Night Ship by Jess Kidd
Kidd's dual-timeline historical fiction, based on actual events, shines in its vivid settings, richly imagined characters, sea voyage...
Mar 8, 2023
Review of Nocturne by Alyssa Wees
The early story captured my attention with ballet, an orphan's struggles, and Depression-era Chicago, but once Nocturne shifted into dark...
Feb 28, 2023
Review of Looking for Jane by Heather Marshall
Marshall's debut historical fiction centers around women's searches for body autonomy in three timelines of interconnected characters and...
Feb 15, 2023
Six Four-Star Historical Fiction Reads I Loved Last Year
Six Four-Star (and Up) Bossy Historical Fiction Reads Historical fiction is one of my very favorite genres, and I loved my historical...
Feb 3, 2023
Review of Changeless (Parasol Protectorate #2) by Gail Carriger
Book two of the series continues to be playful, mischievous, wonderfully detailed about Victorian life, and full of supernatural...
Feb 1, 2023
Review of A Play for the End of the World by Jai Chakrabarti
Chakrabarti offers characters with complex struggles, hopes, and haunting memories who work to form deep, heartwarming connections in...
Jan 19, 2023
Review of Gilded Mountain by Kate Manning
I was hooked on the gritty details of mining camp life, particularly as contrasted with the excesses in the mine owners' mansion. The...
Dec 29, 2022
Review of The Book Woman's Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson
Richardson focuses her historical fiction on Kentucky again, picking up the story of the rural book delivery, Blue People, friendship,...
Dec 13, 2022
Review of Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson
Atkinson's newest mystery is set in vivid Roaring Twenties London as Nellie Coker struggles to hold on to her empire of clubs while...
Dec 7, 2022