Historical Novels Review | Issue 115 (February 2026)

ISSUE 115

HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

FEBRUARY 2026

WINNERS & ... WINNERS

The Benefits of Writing Competitions | More on page 8

FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE

...

Weaving the Rainbow

Emma Darwin Discusses The Bruegel Boy

Page 10

ARA Historical Novel Prize

Recognising and Rewarding Historical Novelists

Page 12

Bleeding on the Page

Graeme Macrae Burnet & Historical Murder

Page 12

Bleakness & Beauty

Having Faith in the Process of Writing

Page 14

Back to the Beginning

Deepa Anappara's The Last of Earth

Page 15

Historical Fiction Market News

Page 1

New Voices

Page 4

History & Film

Page 6

HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

ISSN 1471-7492

Issue 115, February 2026 | © 2026 The Historical Novel Society

PUBLISHER

Richard Lee

Marine Cottage, The Strand, Starcross, Devon EX6 8NY UK <richard@historicalnovelsociety.org>

EDITORIAL BOARD

Managing Editor: Bethany Latham

Houston Cole Library, Jacksonville State University 700 Pelham Road North, Jacksonville, AL 36265-1602 USA

<blatham@jsu.edu>

Book Review Editor: Sarah Johnson

Booth Library, Eastern Illinois University, 600 Lincoln Avenue, Charleston, IL 61920 USA

<sljohnson2@eiu.edu>

Publisher Coverage: Bethany House; Bookouture; HarperCollins, IPG; Penguin Random House US; Severn House; Australian presses; university presses

Features Editor: Lucinda Byatt

13 Park Road, Edinburgh, EH6 4LE UK

<textline13@gmail.com>

New Voices Column Editor: Myfanwy Cook

47 Old Exeter Road, Tavistock, Devon PL19 OJE UK <myfanwyc@btinternet.com>

REVIEWS EDITORS, UK

Alan Fisk

<alan.fisk@alanfisk.com>

Publisher Coverage: Aardvark Bureau; Black and White; Bonnier Zaffre; Crooked Cat; Freight; Gallic; Honno; Karnac; Legend; Pushkin; Oldcastle; Quartet; Saraband; Seren; Serpent’s Tail

Ann Lazim

<annlazim@googlemail.com>

Publisher Coverage: All UK children’s historicals

Carolyn Morgan

<carolyn@historicalnovelsociety.org >

Publisher Coverage: Birlinn/Polygon; Bloomsbury UK; Duckworth Overlook; Faber & Faber; Granta; HarperCollins UK; Head of Zeus; Orenda; Pan Macmillan; Simon & Schuster UK; Storm; Swift Press

Aidan Morrissey

<aidankmorrissey@gmail.com>

Publisher Coverage: Allison & Busby; Canelo; Penguin Random House UK; Quercus

Adele Wills

<adele.wills@btinternet.com>

Publisher Coverage: Alma; Atlantic; Canongate; Glagoslav; Hachette UK; Joffe; Pen & Sword; The History Press

REVIEWS EDITORS, USA

Tracy Barrett

<tracy.t.barrett@gmail.com>

Publisher Coverage: All North American children's historicals

Kate Braithwaite

<kate.braithwaite@gmail.com>

Publisher Coverage: Poisoned Pen Press; Skyhorse; Sourcebooks; and Soho

Bonnie DeMoss

<bonnie@historicalnovelsociety.org>

Publisher Coverage: North American small presses

Peggy Kurkowski

<pegkurkowski@gmail.com>

Publisher Coverage: Bellevue; Blackstone; Bloomsbury; Casemate; Macmillan (all imprints); Grove/Atlantic; and Simon & Schuster (all imprints)

Janice Ottersberg

<jkottersberg@gmail.com>

Publisher Coverage: Amazon Publishing; Europa; Guernica; Hachette; Kensington; Pegasus; Penzler; and W.W. Norton

REVIEWS EDITORS, INDIE

Karen Bordonaro

<kbordonaro@historicalnovelsociety.org>

Publisher Coverage: all self- and subsidy-published novels

EDITORIAL

POLICY & COPYRIGHT

Reviews, articles, and letters may be edited for reasons of space, clarity, and grammatical correctness. We will endeavour to reflect the authors’ intent as closely as possible, and will contact the authors for approval of any major change. We welcome ideas for articles, but have specific requirements to consider. Before submitting material, please contact the editor to discuss whether the proposed article is appropriate for Historical Novels Review

In all cases, the copyright remains with the authors of the articles. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the authors concerned.

MEMBERSHIP DETAILS

THE HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY was formed in 1997 to help promote historical fiction. We are an open society — if you want to get involved, get in touch.

MEMBERSHIP in the Historical Novel Society entitles members to all the year’s publications: four issues of Historical Novels Review, as well as exclusive membership benefits through the Society website. Back issues of Society magazines are also available. For current rates, please see: https://historicalnovelsociety.org/members/join/

HISTORICAL FICTION MARKET NEWS

HNS EDITORIAL UPDATES

Welcome to new UK reviews editor Carolyn Morgan, who is taking up the role from Ben Bergonzi. Carolyn is an avid reader and reviewer of historical novels who also writes historical fiction set in Wales. Her contact details and the publishers she works with are on the masthead. Thanks again to Ben for his contributions to the magazine over the past four years.

Did you know? HNS is reviewing more books than ever. For space reasons, many more reviews, besides those featured in this print magazine, can be found online at https://historicalnovelsociety.org/ reviews/ . We welcome submissions of new historical fiction and historical nonfiction for potential review; visit the HNS website for the form and guidelines.

NEW BOOKS BY HNS MEMBERS

The following Historical Novel Society members are celebrating the release of their new books – congrats to all! If you’ve written a historical novel or nonfiction work published (or to be published) in September 2025 or after, send the following details to me at sljohnson2@eiu.edu by April 7, 2026: author, title, publisher, release date, and a blurb of one sentence or less. Please shorten your blurbs down to one sentence, as space is limited. Details will appear in the May 2026 issue of HNR. Submissions may be edited.

Dave Schechter’s A Life of the Party (Fulton Books, Feb. 2025) evokes the adventures of a Jewish woman from a privileged, religious background who devoted more than four decades of life to the cause of working men and women as a member of the Communist Party.

Love Habit by TL Clark (Steamy Kettle Publishing, Mar. 1, 2025) is a medieval romance about novice monks who must try to balance love and liturgy.

The Better Angels by Robin Holloway (Holand Press, June 5, 2025) weaves the true story of Laura Towne, a Northern abolitionist whose faith, courage, and compassion enabled her to travel to the Sea Islands of South Carolina in 1862 to teach former slaves in the vortex of the Civil War.

In Unspoken (A Dust Novel), an HNS Editors’ Choice title written by Jann Alexander (Black Rose Writing, July 2025), set in a Texas town where nobody knows how to fix air you can’t breathe, one tenacious girl makes her stand — and faces what’s unspoken.

Set in Viking-era Ireland, James Murphy’s The Sword of Malachy-High Kings Book 1 (Independently published, July 7, 2025) tells the story of Brian Boru and Malachy Mor, two men who both rose to be High King of Ireland.

The Strange Story of Maria Hallett by Richard F. Zapf (World Castle Publishing, Aug. 3, 2025) is an imaginative retelling of the wreck of the pirate galley Whydah in 1717, which alternates between the 18th century and the present, and includes romance, a magic book, and a

debt.

An Author’s Research Notes on Medieval England by TL Clark (Steamy Kettle Publishing, Sept. 8, 2025) will walk you through all the fundamental things you need to know with an overview of the entire medieval period, from key events to the weather and even their toilet habits. Also, swearing.

In The Tide Waits for No Woman by Richard K. Perkins (Köehler Books, Sept. 16, 2025), it’s 1860, and a recently widowed young woman risks everything to join the Underground Railroad, but when she’s stranded in the Maine wilderness by successive blizzards, she must fight for survival—and for a freedom larger than her own.

Scott Badler’s Becoming JFK: John F. Kennedy’s Early Path to Leadership (Bancroft Press, Sept. 23, 2025) is an intimate portrait of Jack Kennedy’s formative years from 1935-1946, and his journey to find his voice, purpose, and resilience.

In Skip Carter’s Solitary Journey, Emperor Gallienus’ Sole Reign During the Chaos of Third Century Rome (Ingram Spark, Sept. 26, 2025), Emperor Gallienus, sole ruler after his father is captured by Persians, must defend the entire empire against invading tribes and internal revolts, deal with a restive Senate, and guard against tempting women willing to use any means available to advance their own interests.

Edward Parr’s Tamanrasset: Crossroads of the Nomad (Edwardian Press, Oct. 1, 2025), set in the uncharted Sahara at the dawn of the 20th century, the fates of four strangers haunted by loss become entwined by a journey across a desert on the brink of war.

In A. E. Macdonald’s The Macdonalds of Cedar Park (Skye Lewis Books, Oct. 14, 2025), on Saturday, the family went skiing and shopping, the next day, Pearl Harbor was attacked, on Monday, the country was at war, and the Macdonald family’s lives were changed forever.

Steve Vesce’s One Ordinary Man (Verlibri Media LLC, Oct. 15, 2025) is a historically accurate novel about the inspiring, surprising, and remarkable true story of Harry L. Hopkins—who grew from obscurity to play a leading and pivotal role in helping America overcome the Great Depression, defeat Fascism, and win World War II.

Moving among generations of a German-Jewish-American family, Red Anemones by Paula Dail (Historium Press, Oct. 17, 2025) is a poignant exploration of the intricate bonds, untold secrets, and unspoken legacies our ancestors bestow upon us.

After being ensnared by the French Secret Service into suppressing the army mutinies in the trenches in the First World War, patriot and staunch Catholic Antoine Martinet finds himself travelling to colonial Indochina to track down communists in the jungle and then returning to France to go undercover to prevent an extremist right wing group, the Cagoule, from overthrowing the Popular Front government in The Hooded Man, v.1 of the Dark Years Trilogy by Charles Searle (The Book Guild, Oct 28, 2025).

In The Life and Death of Abercrombie Lyle by Stephen Small (Palatine Publishing, Oct. 30, 2025), Great War veteran Abercrombie finds friendship in the turbulent Milan of 1919 with Brio, a charismatic journalist, and Carla, his beautiful wife; but when Brio takes a job with Mussolini, he throws Carla into Abercrombie’s arms and lights a twenty-year fuse of betrayal, deceit and revenge.

In Samantha Ward-Smith’s Ravenscourt (Mabel and Stanley Publishing, Oct. 31, 2025), set in 1880s Venice, a disgraced viscount meets a tragic widow with whom he finds solace and redemption—until they return to England where Ravenscourt, her late husband’s decaying manor, draws him into a labyrinth of desire, deception, and a madness that whispers from the walls.

Sarah Good’s crime was not witchcraft; it was poverty, in The Life & Times of Sarah Good, Accused Witch by Sandra Wagner-Wright (Wagner-Wright Enterprises, Nov. 14, 2025).

Cheryl Potts’ debut, The Castles of Ann Lynch (MJA Publications, Nov. 22, 2025), inspired by a true story, tells of the author’s great-grandmother coming to America from Ireland in 1860 as a fourteen-year-old orphan.

In The Diva’s Daughter by Heather Walrath (The Book Guild, Nov. 28, 2025), a young aspiring singer in 1930s Europe fights to achieve her operatic dreams while confronting personal loss, political pressure, and the secrets of her famous mother’s past.

Michelle Elliott’s Of Heaven and Hellfire (Self-published, Dec. 5, 2025), set in 1587 in England, features Beth Dudley, who serves as a quiet maid in the grand halls of Bodsworth Manor, where loyalty to Queen Elizabeth is law--and hiding a Catholic priest is treason.

Julian Hawthorne, son of famous novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, joins Sherlock Holmes in a murder investigation involving a contemporary Count of Monte Cristo in Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the American Scalawag by Daniel D. Victor (MX Publishing, Dec. 8, 2025).

Brodie Curtis’s third historical novel Showboat Soubrette (Westy Vistas Publishing, Dec. 10, 2025) explores the romantic yet bigoted and sometimes lawless antebellum riverboat era when a river pirate viciously assaults star singer Stella Parrot, and she and her friends must run for their lives on the lower Mississippi River.

In the 1970s, singer Gunnar Erickson and guitarist Step Townsend leave small-town Nebraska for the burgeoning music scene of Los Angeles- only to struggle with the consequences of their fame when they make it big in Perfect Cadence by Tamar Anolic (Independently published, Dec. 15, 2025).

Catherine McCullagh’s latest alternate history novel, Murder and Masquerade (Big Sky Publishing, Dec. 30, 2025), takes place in London, 1946; an Irish policeman and ex-resistance leader joins forces with the man he hates obsessively, a former SS general, to thwart a fascist plot to overthrow the government and return Britain to a Nazi dictatorship.

The Double Standard Sporting House by Nancy Bernhard (She Writes Press, Jan. 20) is a timely and moving story about the women of an elite 19th-century New York City brothel fighting the corrupt Tammany Hall political machine.

The Last Gypsy Queen by Linda Paul (Black Rose Writing, Apr 16) follows a young Romani woman forced to read tarot cards at an amusement park, preventing her from becoming the doctor she longs to be while also facing prejudice and sabotage, demanding a choice between loyalty to her ancient heritage or pursuing her dreams.

In Fables & Lies by Elisabeth Storrs (The Book Guild, Apr. 28), set in 1940s Berlin, museum assistant Freyja Bremer marries SS scholar Kaspar Voigt to protect her father, unaware of his role in Himmler’s schemes; after falling for archaeologist, Darien Lessing, Freyja is drawn to aid a Jewish doctor, confronting moral corruption as she risks everything to safeguard truth, treasure and love amid chaos.

Lottie elopes with an actor when she is seventeen and a game of wits ensues, each vying for control in a world of comedy, illusions, and sleight of hand as they tour the length and breadth of Victorian Britain till tragedy strikes and the future is suddenly impossible to imagine, as told in Disappearing Acts by Helen Graham (Troubadour Publishing, May 28).

Miranda Miller’s seventh novel, The Fairy Visions of Richard Dadd,

telling the story of the celebrated Victorian painter Richard Dadd, confined to Bedlam after committing patricide, who is haunted by vicious fairies, his dead father and the Egyptian god Osiris, will be reissued by Never Give Up Books in June 2026.

In 1944, Deirdre Rowan from neutral Éire is a receptionist at the Mayfair Ladies’ Club, and is soon hot on the trail of a handful of members and staff who are suspected of spying for the British Union of Fascists; the new and enigmatic manager, Maxwell Forster, with his slight foreign accent, does not escape her attention either, but in an unexpected way, as told in Molly Green’s Wartime Secrets at the Mayfair Club (Avon/HarperCollins, June 4).

In Kim Rendfeld’s Duchess of the New Dawn (independently published, June 16), Chiltrude, the daughter of Francia’s ruling family, defies her kinsmen and risks everything to seize her heart’s desire, protect her child, and preserve her new homeland’s cherished independence.

In Daughters of Naples by Diana Giovinazzo (Alcove Press, July 21), set in the 1940s in Naples, three sisters’ lives are forever changed by war; as one runs a dress shop, another is a midwife, and the youngest joins the Italian resistance, each must navigate the boundaries of love, loyalty, and survival in a city under siege.

The King’s Ghost (Fitzroy Books/Regal House, July 21), the third volume of A. L. Sirois’ YA trilogy set in ancient Egypt’s Third Dynasty, unfolds as follows: on the day of King Djoser’s coronation, a priest is found dead in the Temple of Ptah, and the young architect Imhotep is convinced that it’s no coincidence--but the death masks a secret that poses a direct threat to him and Djoser both.

NEW PUBLISHING DEALS

Sources include authors and publishers, Publishers Weekly, Publishers Marketplace, The Bookseller, and more. Email me at sljohnson2@eiu. edu to have your publishing deal included. You may also submit news via the Contact Us form on the HNS website.

Trish MacEnulty’s The Whispering Women, The Butterfly Cage, and The Burning Bride, in the Delafield & Malloy Investigation series, in which a society writer and a former lady’s maid join forces to expose the dark side of the rich and powerful in the 1910s while also searching for love and success, sold to Aaron Piccirillo at Tantor Media in a threebook deal (world English).

Author of Man in a Cage Patrick Nevins’ Pretty Joey Ross, in which a sailor with dreams of striking gold, an unhappy New England couple, and a Maidu woman in search of her stolen child cross paths in San Francisco in the summer of 1850, sold to Alan Good at Malarkey Books for publication in summer 2027.

Inspired by Croatian folklore, Natalie Kikić’s debut The Haunting of Lavender House, a dual-time gothic novel following a young woman discovering a longstanding family curse, intertwined with the story of a healer from centuries earlier, sold to Meredith Clark at Park Row/ HarperCollins via Elizabeth Pratt at Trellis, for publication this autumn.

Agrippa by Robert Harris, returning to ancient Rome and following Caesar’s nephew Octavian and his friend Agrippa in the years following Caesar’s death, was acquired by Helen Conford at Hutchinson Heinemann (UK/Commonwealth) for publication in August 2026.

Mary-Anne Harrington, publisher at Tinder Press, acquired Maggie O’Farrell’s Land, a multi-generational Irish epic inspired by her own family history and set in the mid-19th century, via Victoria Hobbs at

AM Heath (UK/Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada). Knopf will publish it in the US and Canada.

Chief Historian at Historic Royal Palaces, Tracy Borman’s newest novel The House of Boleyn, the dramatic story of the Boleyns of Hever Castle over three decades, was acquired by Hodder & Stoughton (UK/ Commonwealth), via Julian Alexander and Ben Clark at The Soho Agency, for April 2026 publication. Grove Atlantic will publish in the US.

Winner of the Carnegie Medal in Fiction for The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu, author Tom Lin’s Babylon, South Dakota, about a Chinese American family trying to survive on their farm in the American West, when the US Army Corps of Engineers changes everything for generations by buying an acre of their land and building a missile silo there, sold to Ben George while at Little, Brown, with Vivian Lee editing, via by Lisa Queen at Queen Literary Agency. Publication will be May 2026.

Melissa Pritchard’s Tempest: The Story of Fanny Anne Kemble, biographical fiction in which the English actress and abolitionist discovers her American husband’s inherited slave plantations in coastal Georgia, sold to Jaynie Royal at Regal House for fall 2027 publication.

Michelle Lovric’s The Puffin, described as “a richly imagined tale of love, obsession, and resistance” set in Venice in 1817, featuring a plot to ransom a Habsburg princess, sold to Chris Hamilton-Emery at Salt Publishing via Catherine Pellegrino at Marjacq Scripts, for publication in October 2026.

Mrs. Benedict Arnold by literary agent Emma Parry, taking a new look at Peggy Shippen, society favorite and wife of the notorious American traitor, pitched at fans of Karen Joy Fowler’s Booth, sold to Molly Stern at Zando, with Nicole Otto and Sarah Goldstein editing, for publication in spring 2026, by Chad Luibl at Janklow & Nesbit.

CORRECTION

In the review of Robert W. Smith’s A Gamble on Liberty (HNR 114), while the main characters are based on historical people, they aren’t the author’s ancestors.

OTHER NEW & FORTHCOMING TITLES

For forthcoming novels through late 2026, please see our guides, compiled by Fiona Sheppard: https://historicalnovelsociety.org/forthcoming-hf/

COMPILED BY

SARAH JOHNSON

Sarah Johnson is Book Review Editor of HNR, a librarian, readers’ advisor, and author of reference books. She reviews for Booklist and CHOICE and blogs about historical novels at readingthepast.com. Her latest book is Historical Fiction II: A Guide to the Genre

NEW VOICES

Debut novelists Linda Hamilton, Kayla Hardy, Rebecca Lehmann, and Fiza Saeed McLynn invite readers to enter the worlds they have created from their fascination with past fact and folklore.

Four main ingredients are layered into Fiza Saaed McLynn’s The Midnight Carousel (Park Row, 2026/Michael Joseph, 2025): “Love and heartache; 1900 Paris; Jazz Age Chicago; and an enchanting carousel linked to a series of mysterious disappearances.”

When she “started counselling the bereaved almost twenty years ago,” McLynn says, “it quickly became clear that my clients dealt with grief in wildly different ways. Ten years later, I had the idea of exploring the various coping mechanisms in story form. Always slightly obsessed with amusement parks, I picked a carousel to build the story around as a symbol of life and loss: the movement, the circular motion, the ups and downs.”

For McLynn, the ride’s history was “fascinating. Carrousels––French for ‘little battle’––were royal tournaments in 17th-century Europe, developed from the combat training practices of Arabian and Moorish horsemen seven hundred years earlier, in which riders galloped in a circle, trying to spear rings. By the 18th century, wooden horses had replaced real horses, and the attraction appeared as entertainment at fairs. It makes for an interesting contrast between the fun of the ride and its violent origins, between light and dark, something I’ve weaved into my novel. Death, World War I, child disappearances, poverty, racism and sexism are balanced by romance, the thrill of carnivals, and the glamour of the 1920s.”

With the connection to France, and the fact that McLynn’s “story’s carousel is groundbreaking, it seemed fitting to begin the novel with the 1900 Paris Exposition, a world’s fair showcasing technological innovations,” she relates. “But, as someone whose father moved to the UK from south Asia in the 1950s, I was keen to feature the immigrant experience. So, the carousel and my main character, Maisie––a young, British woman––relocate to the USA, an attractive destination for many

people chasing a better future, in the early 20th century.”

It was also important to McLynn that the reader “feels immersed in each location’s atmosphere; Paris is dark and brooding; cut off from the mainland of England, Canvey Island conjures a sense of isolation; Chicago bustles as a thriving metropolis––all different, but used to show that the world is small, and, fundamentally, we are the same.”

Linda Hamilton’s The Fourth Wife (Kensington, 2026) is, she explains, “a Gothic horror about a Mormon polygamist family living in a haunted house in 1880s Utah. This story comes from a deep look into Latter-day Saint history, my own ancestors, and the generational trauma of Mormonism.”

Hamilton continues: “The Fourth Wife also contains little-known folklore and representation of anxiety based on my own experiences. It explores the themes of patriarchy, feminist awakening, religious deconstruction, mental health, and finding your own courage and voice.”

In 1872, Hamilton’s “3rd-great grandfather George Kirkham married Mary Russon in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory,” she says. “Three years later, in 1875, George also married Mary’s biological sister, Sara. Both sisters remained married to him polygamously for the rest of their lives. George left behind several memoirs but rarely mentioned his wives. Mary and Sara too wrote brief biographies but never discussed their plural marriages.

“I was taught growing up that polygamy was a commandment of God and that my ancestors obeyed, even though it was hard. The narrative surrounding it was only told through a faith-promoting lens. It wasn’t until I studied the history of polygamy as an adult––the untold stories of abuse, neglect, and poverty––that I realized the stories of my childhood were whitewashed and one-sided. As I wondered what my ancestors’ life might have been like, I knew I wanted to write a book about polygamy. I needed to help heal this generational wound within me by giving a voice to the women of the past who were censored or who censored themselves. I also wanted to tell this story as a Gothic because the horrors of ghosts and creepy houses mirror a reality of abusive patriarchy and religious manipulation.”

The Fourth Wife is seen by Hamilton as “a reckoning with religion, feminism, and the many voices history has left behind.”

Kayla Hardy, author of The Quarter Queen (Ballantine, 2026) has “always believed words are spells and that writing is, inherently, a strange sort of alchemy,” she states. “I owe this sense of magic to my Louisiana Creole heritage. My great-grandmother Willa-Mae Mercer, a Louisiana Creole wrenched from her home down South to the North, was a devout Catholic but also practiced—much to my other family members’ chagrin—rootwork,” which Hardy explains, “is not uncommon for many Black folks with roots in the South, particularly for those hailing from New Orleans, a city whose very fabric is intertwined in Black spirituality and syncretic religion.”

Having spent time as an African-American folklorist and literature scholar, studying the likes of Zora Neale Hurston and Frederick Douglass, for Hardy, “the idea for The Quarter Queen began to take shape while I was finishing my Ph.D. in literature and creative writing at Binghamton University, when I was spending a year studying Voodoo in preparation for a research trip back to New Orleans.

“The more I studied Voodoo, the more I felt I was tapping into my own familial history which raised questions of ‘how can someone be both

Catholic and a Voodooiene?’ and really, what does that say about the complexity of not just Black identity but about humanity as a whole?”

This led Hardy to the infamous “Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveau, and her daughter Marie Laveau II, two of the most powerful Black women to have ever lived in New Orleans. I became obsessed with telling her story and ultimately, found that the way to access the story of Marie Laveau was to center both—mother and daughter. I am of the belief that you cannot understand one without the other, that both Maries are so deeply enmeshed that their stories should be told together, side by side.”

She believes that “The Quarter Queen is a historical novel. But it is also a Black and Creole-centered fantasy whose world unapologetically asserts that not only is magic real, but it was also used as a horrifying tool to classify enslaved peoples into different systems. It is politically charged, full of shifting secretive alliances and star-crossed lovers. It is also a tender mother-daughter reconciliation story at its heart.”

To Hardy, “this is a book that asks us, through Marie Laveau’s journey, what does it mean to hold such fearsome power in your hands in a world that seeks to bind them? Can we rewrite our own fates for the better? Ultimately, The Quarter Queen is for the readers who want to do just that.”

The Beheading Game (Crown, 2026) by Rebecca Lehmann describes how: “Anne Boleyn is often presented as a scheming seductress, a homewrecker who gets what she deserves when she’s executed on charges of incest, adultery and treason.”

However, even a small amount of research, as Lehmann discovered, “reveals that those charges were probably false, and that she was instead the victim of a legal system designed to deliver whatever verdict was desired by Henry VIII, a Bluebeard-esque king keen to dispose of Anne so he could marry Jane Seymour, which he did eleven days after Anne’s execution, and start trying for the boy neither Anne nor Katherine of Aragon could deliver.”

It was partly because of this that Lehmann wanted to “rewrite Anne’s story,” she says, “so that readers could see the Anne I saw as I researched—not a perfect person, but not the caricature presented across 500 years often biased historical representation. The real Anne was a well-educated polymath, passionate about religious reform, and keen to co-lead England with Henry VIII and usher the Renaissance that she’d witnessed in her decade at the French court into England.”

A bigger question for Lehmann was how to retell the story. “I didn’t

want to do a re-write that circumvented her execution; that would defang the beast of the misogynistic and violent system in which she lived her life. I’d always been fascinated by cephalophore stories, in which characters pick up their heads after beheadings and carry on. One of the most famous is ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,’ from which the novel draws its title (Gawain is a ‘beheading game’ story): the Green Knight is beheaded by Gawain, then picks up his head and promises to return the blow in a year’s time.”

Lehmann also thought about “the story of the headless horseman, popular in America, and of the cephalophore saints, like Saint Denis or Saint Valerie. Why couldn’t Anne have the same fate (she is, after all, considered a martyr by some)? What would happen if she woke up after her execution, sewed her head back on, and went on a revenge quest to kill Henry VIII before he could marry Jane Seymour, thus protecting her own daughter Elizabeth’s claim to the throne?”

The upshot was that Lehmann “couldn’t stop thinking about the idea,” and so, “it became the plot of The Beheading Game, which begins with Anne waking up in her makeshift coffin in the Tower of London, beheaded but still alive, and finally getting her chance for justice.”

In Lehmann’s historical fantasy revenge thriller, all becomes possible for Anne after sewing back on her head and teaming up with a fenland-style sidekick despite the challenges she faces.

By showcasing beheaded famous queens, past Voodoo royalty, polygamous marriage and fairground fun, these debut novelists have brought to the readers of historical fiction a wide range of ingredients and perspectives to challenge and entertain.

WRITTEN BY MYFANWY COOK

Myfanwy creates HF writing and language-related workshops for universities, charities and other organisations. She is currently highlighting the importance of miners and their families who migrated from Devon and the Tamar Valley during the 19th century. myfanwyc@btinternet.com

HISTORY & FILM

Hamnet and Shakespeare as a Film Character

When my mother-in-law called to discuss the film Hamnet with her resident Shakespeare professor (me), she noted that, while she had read the novel the film was based on when it came out in 2020, my father-in-law had not. At Paul Mescal’s smoldering first appearance on the screen, he whispered to her, “Is he gonna be Shakespeare?”

To borrow a line from the Bard, that is the question: How did Shakespeare become Shakespeare? It’s telling that, in Maggie O’Farrell’s lauded novel, the poet and his wife, Agnes (the name recorded for Anne Hathaway in her baptismal record), are referred to only by their first names. In Chloé Zhao’s 2025 film adaptation of Hamnet, Shakespeare’s full name is only spoken a few times at the very end, as Agnes seeks her husband in the busy London streets, heading for the Globe Theater to see his new play, which shares a name with their young son who died in 1596.

That loss is one of the few historical details we actually have on record about Shakespeare’s life. His baptism, marriage, death, and the deaths of his family members, are all recorded in Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon. A few other documents include his will, some cheaply printed copies of individual plays, a few real estate deeds and lawsuits, and of course, the folio edition of his plays, lovingly collected and published by his colleagues seven years after his death in 1616.

On these bare fragments of fact a long fictional tradition has been built to explain just how the glover’s son from a small market town in the Midlands became the greatest writer of English plays. Much of this fiction has been presented over the years as biography, beginning shortly after his death, when a poet named William Davenant, who claimed to be Shakespeare’s illegitimate son, shared stories of the poet’s youth and romantic exploits. None of these seem to be based in anything other than Davenant’s wishful desire to become a literary celebrity, but they fed a centuries-long tradition of imagining Shakespeare as larger-than-life in both talent and intellect. Beginning in the 20th century, however, both fiction and biography have countered that romantic image of the lone, divinelyinspired figure of genius, the “Soul of the Age,” with depictions of Shakespeare as a writer-for-hire, inspired more by money than by the classical muses, and (at times) perhaps even a plagiarist of his colleagues’ work.

Chloé Zhao and Maggie O’Farrell’s 2025 adaptation of Hamnet is part of a growing collection of film interpretations not of Shakespeare’s plays (there are hundreds), but of Shakespeare the man. The last three decades have seen several big-budget, full-length film explorations of the biographical Bard, including Shakespeare in Love (1995), Anonymous (2011), and All is True (2018).

The L.A. Times calls the list of Shakespeare-bio films “surprisingly short,” but Shakespeare as a character has made hundreds of appearances in fiction, drama, and film/TV, frequently in contexts that poke fun at our own tendency to think of the Bard as a kind of patron saint of English-speaking culture if not a superhuman figure himself.1  Four “biographical” feature films, however, seem to be inspired by the trend in Shakespeare biography that dominated the first decade of the present century, with bestselling, revisionary treatments of the historical life of Shakespeare from scholars such as Stephen Greenblatt (Will in the World, 2004), Bill Bryson (Shakespeare: the World as Stage, 2007), Charles Nicholl (The Lodger, 2008), Jonathan Bate (Soul of the Age, 2008), and James Shapiro (1599: A Year in the Life of Shakespeare, 2005, and The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606).

Each screen Shakespeare offers us a different take on the psychology of a literary genius. Shakespeare in Love, arguably the most popular of the four films, was designed, according to its producer, Edward Zwick, to be a “behind-the-scenes” comedy about the making of Romeo and Juliet; Kenneth Branagh’s hugely successful Henry V and Much Ado About Nothing had renewed interest in Shakespearean film in the 1990s.2 This Shakespeare is an incurable romantic who struggles to reconnect with the youthful passion that inspired his poetry. The goal of this film’s dazzling script, written by the late playwright Tom Stoppard from a story by Marc Norman, is to create a Shakespeare not out of historical fact but out of his own words in a playful, knowing way. Joseph Fiennes’ Shakespeare is moony and boyish, an opportunistic actor/writer who only becomes serious about his work when he learns about the real price of love from a brilliant young woman, Viola de Lesseps. Gwyneth Paltrow’s heroine is a complete fabrication; her plan to disguise herself as a boy to play the role of Romeo in Shakespeare’s new play (and win the heart of the playwright at the same time) reflects our own modern desire to give women a more active part in the cultural world of Shakespeare’s theater. While the romance of Shakespeare in Love is pure fantasy, it does offer a surprisingly accurate depiction of the practical aspects of play writing, rehearsal, and production, and possibly significantly encouraged public interest in the “authentic” productions of the newly-built Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London.

The less said about the 2011 film Anonymous the better; its fantasy Shakespeare is a “drunken oaf,” an extortionist and murderer who frames the idealistic courtier Edward de Vere, who has been allowing the poet Ben Jonson to claim authorship of his brilliant plays. Director Roland Emmerich and writer John Orloff have combined almost every known conspiracy theory about the Shakespeare “authorship question” into one fever-dream of a historical thriller. Rafe Spall’s handsome but amoral Shakespeare is the equivalent of a modern day “tech bro” – an amoral, narcissistic self-promoter who succeeds in a new form of mass media by exploiting the talent of more idealistic, less ruthless artists.

A more realistic and heartfelt attempt to explain Shakespeare’s life drives Kenneth Branagh’s All is True. The 2018 film, in which he directed himself as the poet, finds 49-year-old Will in retirement

at his home in Stratford in the year 1613. Branagh, arguably the most successful Shakespearean actor of the late 20th century, was inspired by the same question that inspired O’Farrell’s Hamnet: what was the link between the death of Shakespeare’s only son and the play that shared his name? Branagh chose to answer this question in retrospect, having the playwright return home after the burning of the Globe Theatre, to reconnect with the memories of the son he has mourned for 17 years.3 Again, the women of Shakespeare’s life take center stage in this version, as the sad, bewildered poet rekindles his love for his wife, Anne (played by Judi Dench), and learns that his memories of his son as a brilliant young poet were false – his daughter Judith was the actual author of the boy’s poems. The plot is as much about his adult daughters’ efforts to forgive their father for his long absences as it is about their father’s attempts to mend his own relationships. Nostalgic visits from his affectionate patron, the Earl of Southampton (played by Ian McKellen) and his friend and rival Ben Jonson (Gerard Horan), create an elegiac mood, which is lightened by the witty dialogue by screenwriter Ben Elton, Branagh’s frequent collaborator, who also created a comic TV series about Shakespeare’s home life, Upstart Crow (2016-20).

Critics were respectful of the film but noted that it was largely a vanity project for Branagh: an opportunity to work with Dench and McKellen, two other towering Shakespeareans near the ends of their careers, and to imagine the legendary historical figures as ordinary aging family men and women, grappling with domestic rather than literary concerns. All is True and Hamnet share the impulse to “humanize” Shakespeare by presenting him in the context not of the stage but of his lovingly re-created home and neighborhood. Branagh’s Shakespeare spends most of his time renovating his garden and eating meals with his family, reveling in the peace and quiet of sleepy Stratford; Zhao’s Shakespeare, however, is a caged tiger, a young man bursting with ambition who finds the cozy confines of that hometown stifling.

Zhao and O’Farrell’s Agnes is the invention of Hamnet, while their Shakespeare adheres closely to the few facts that we know about him. That even less historical evidence outlines the life of his family didn’t discourage renowned feminist scholar Germaine Greer from convincingly imagining Anne’s life in Shakespeare’s Wife, the 2008 nonfiction bestseller that was an immediate influence on Maggie O’Farrell when she chose to focus on Anne/Agnes in Hamnet.4 The film’s star, Jessie Buckley, quietly but powerfully reveals Agnes’ inner and outer lives as a mother, herbalist, and healer whose place in her own society, while invisible to the men of her world, is in its own way as consequential as the poet’s status in the literary world.

Will, played by Paul Mescal, is a serious, kindly adolescent who loves his mother and siblings and resents his abusive, overbearing father; he grows up quickly when Agnes (eight years his elder) decides that he will be her path out of her stepmother’s grim farmhouse and encourages Will to impregnate her. While she adapts joyously to Shakespeare’s family home and to motherhood, her husband chafes at the thought of life as a glovemaker like his father. In O’Farrell’s imagining, Agnes is the one who (with the help of her devoted brother Bartholomew) engineers a plan to send Will to London to seek orders for gloves from the theaters. A flashback scene that is not in the novel depicts the happy family – Agnes, Will, and their three children – performing plays in their back garden, explaining Agnes’ insight that such a life would make her discontented husband happy.

Mescal’s gentle “beta male” version of the poet, a doting family man who offers his wife friendship as well as status, resonates with today’s tastes in male protagonists. One specific change from the book to the movie supports this characterization of Shakespeare as a modern ideal: the novel’s Agnes is angrily aware that her husband is having

affairs in London, while the film’s Will remains a faithful partner.5

Greer and other scholars of women’s lives have recently developed a historical portrait of the influential community of hardworking women that organized and even financed much of Elizabethan society, although (until recently) invisible to historians of the period. The “girl boss” version of Shakespeare’s mostly-female family is very much of the present moment, and may account for the enthusiastic embrace the film has received from audiences and critics alike. And although its Agnes is a fiction, the biography Hamnet presents may well be the most accurate of all. At the time of this writing, the film has won numerous film festival awards and is expected to dominate the Academy Award and Golden Globes this spring.

All these examples remind us that the literary works we prize are inseparable from the human imaginations that created them, and that our own desire to understand those imaginations requires us to become storytellers in our own right, inventing the details of a longpast life when they are not available to us in documented form. The sights and sounds of the past that film adds to those stories give us a unique opportunity to empathize with the men and women whose cultural contributions remain with us today.

REFERENCES

1. Shrodt, Paul, “The surprisingly short history of movies about Shakespeare,’ L.A. Times, 5 December 2025. https://www.latimes. com/entertainment-arts/awards/story/2025-12-05/hamnetmovies-about-shakespeare-guide

2. Zwick, Edward, Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2024, p. 116.

3. Kellaway, Kate, “Maggie O’Farrell: ‘Having to bury a child must be unlike anything else,’’ The Guardian, 22 March 2020. https:// observer.com/2019/05/kenneth-branagh-all-is-true-shakespearevulnerable-side-interview/

4. Riefe, Jordan, “Kenneth Branagh on Finding Shakespeare’s Vulnerable Side as Star and Director of All Is True,” The Observer, 11 May 2019. https://observer.com/2019/05/kenneth-branagh-all-istrue-shakespeare-vulnerable-side-interview/

5. Shachat, Sarah, “Hamnet Changes the Maggie O’Farrell Novel’s Approach to Time,” Indiewire, 30 November 2025. https://www. indiewire.com/features/general/hamnet-movie-book-differenceshamlet-1235162820

WRITTEN BY KRISTEN MCDERMOTT

Kristen McDermott is a Professor of English at Central Michigan University and reviews for HNR. She's authored books on Renaissance drama and entries in The Dictionary of Literary Biography. Her in-progress novel, Stratford’s Will, won an Honorable Mention in the 2024 HNS First Chapters Competition.

WINNERS & ... WINNERS

The Benefits of Writing Competitions

Stella Donovan just won The Next Big Story prize of $100,000 and extolled the competition for giving her, as an unpublished writer, financial support, endorsement, connections, and confidence. Competitions for writers deliver various benefits. We coordinate the Historical Novel Society's First Chapters competitions and surveyed entrants for their views on how competitions help them. We also cast a net for writers’ experiences with competitions beyond the HNS.

Some competition entries have to be submitted by publishers, but others accept direct entries from writers. Some are for novels published in the last year, and others are for unpublished work. Many focus on unpublished or unagented writers, and a few accept entries from previously-published writers. Some focus on historical fiction, including the ARA Historical Novel Prize run by HNS Australasia, the Historical Writers Association Crown Awards, HNS First Chapters, and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. Other general fiction competitions accept historical fiction submissions, including the Bath Novel Award, Blue Pencil Agency First Novel Award, Bridport Prize, Caledonia Novel Award, Cheshire Novel Prize, Coffee Pot Awards, Exeter Novel Prize, The Next Big Story Prize, Mslexia’s various competitions, Romantic Novelists’ Association’s Book of the Year Award, and Women’s Prize for Fiction. Historical fiction has made a

strong showing in general fiction competitions with Hilary Mantel, for example, winning the Booker Prize twice.

Other competitions mentioned by writers we surveyed included the BookLife Prize, Chanticleer Book Awards, Foreword Indies, Globe Soup, IndieReader Discovery Awards, the IPPY Book Awards, the Selfies, and Self-Publishing Review Book Awards. The software program Book Award Pro offers assistance to authors in identifying and submitting to a wide range of competitions.

For prose there are many short story competitions, fewer novel competitions, and some children’s and young adult competitions. There are debut novel awards, flash fiction competitions, translated fiction prizes, and non-fiction prizes (such as Vine Leaves Press’s International Voices in Creative Non-Fiction). An increasing number of awards are open to self-published authors, and some are exclusively aimed at them, such as the Rubery Book Awards. Guides to the plethora of competitions are available online from reputable organisations, such as Reedsy (https://reedsy.com/resources/writingcontests/).

Although there is one overall winner in a competition, there can be many other “winners,” with those shortlisted also gaining benefits. The first advantage, whether your entry is placed or not, is that it gives you a deadline to hone your submission. In the absence of a publishing contract, other ways to give yourself a deadline, such as submitting work to a group of writing buddies or entering competitions, are useful to push writing on. Several authors reported competition deadlines helping to progress or complete a manuscript.

Nobody reported entering competitions specifically for the money! But some of the prizes offer substantial financial and other rewards, such as writing retreats or editorial or marketing consultations. The ARA Prize awards AUS$150,000 [ed. note: see the feature by Elisabeth Storrs in this issue], the Booker Prize pays out £65,000 to the winner and the shortlisted authors, The Next Big Story awards $100,000, the Society of Authors pays out £120,000 in the multiple awards it administers, and the Walter Scott Prize gives out £40,000.

Competition judges are often publishers, agents, editors, and established novelists. Entering competitions can lead to publishing contracts. For Tracey Warr, “I was runner-up in the Impress Prize with my first novel and was offered a publishing contract. I stayed with that publisher for a decade, through four more novels”. Some competitions offer publication as part of the prize.

Cynthia Anderson received the bronze medal in the 20th-century category in the HNS 2024 First Chapters. She subsequently received a two-book deal from Embla (part of Bonnier Books). The Pilot’s Wife, her first novel, was published this year. She says, "Winning a category bronze medal was a game-changer for me. It helped establish my credibility and, more importantly, my confidence as a writer. After I won the bronze medal in June, I revised it all summer based on beta reader feedback and agent feedback, found an agent in September and it was sold to a publisher in October! Writing competitions are a great inspiration to writers on their journey to publication, keeping them motivated and accountable as well as a wonderful way to connect with other writers."

Catherine Hughes was on the HNS First Chapters 2024 shortlist

WHEN YOUR BOOKS are shortlisted or in a competition final, you know that reputable outside judges have found your work to be high quality and to resonate with critical readers.

for the Ancient to 16th-century category. Her novel, Therein Lies the Pearl, will soon be published by Historium Press. Catherine says, "The competition helped me get my book noticed and into the right hands!” Trish MacEnulty was an HNS biographical historical fiction finalist and her novel, The Woman with the Wicked Face, is now under contract with Histria Press.

Several entrants to HNS 2024 First Chapters gained agents on the back of being placed. The Cheshire Novel Prize showcases shortlisted authors to agents. The agency Jenny Brown Associates runs its own competition for debut writers over 50. Sidestepping the querying process, competitions with agent or publisher judges give an author the opportunity to take their shot at getting their work seen.

Not all competitions offer feedback, but it can be another advantage. Ben Bergonzi says, "In the query trenches we are working in a horrible ‘feedback vacuum’, and I think that any competition where feedback is provided has to be worth the entry fee". Receiving constructive feedback from competition judges can be useful, especially if you do not have a writing group or need a pair of fresh, unbiased eyes on your work.

Encouragement is another benefit. Fija Callaghan reports that winning or being shortlisted for a competition is "a nice lift and something I can add to my query letters". Ann Friedman reports on the tremendous boost from being in the top 100 for the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Contest. Warr recently had a similar experience when her latest work in progress reached the top 100 of the Bath Novel Award: "I knew the competition had received over 3,000 entries, so I felt pleased with that outcome". Bergonzi’s A Cruel Corpse started out as an entry in a short story competition. He received encouragement from a judge, developed it further, entered another competition and received “actionable feedback” that helped him produce a novel ready to publish. Alison Morton comments, "When your books are shortlisted or in a competition final, you know that reputable outside judges have found your work to be high quality and to resonate with critical readers. This was especially important for me as a new writer at the beginning of my career and particularly as an author choosing the independent route."

Communication, accessibility, and transparency are vital to how we aim to run HNS First Chapters. “People aren’t just reaching out to a void or something generic,” says Rebekah Simmers. We do our best to help everyone have a positive experience in entering the competition. “My favourite part,” writes Simmers, “is sending the notifications to those who have made the shortlists or been selected as category winners. It was really special to celebrate with everyone. People were so thrilled.” HNS First Chapters is open to writers (in English) from anywhere in the world and the shortlistees came from Australia, Europe, the US, and the UK for the awards ceremony at Dartington Hall, Devon, in 2024. The winner, Lenore Hart, received a trophy from judge and novelist Kate Quinn.

If your book is published, being able to mention an award in marketing materials or feature it on a book cover enhances a book’s profile and informs potential readers and buyers about the quality of a book. In the two weeks following Anna Burns’s Booker Prize win with Milkman, sales of her book shot from 963 to 18,786.

Some writers surveyed were sceptical and felt uncertain about which competitions are reputable. One author noted that not all

competitions have "a rubric of how entries are judged, who the judges are, or how many other entries I am competing against, so it’s hard to know how much weight to place on the results". Stella Donovan says, "There are so many predatory contests and programs that take advantage of unpublished writers and charge exorbitant fees while offering almost nothing in return." T. L. Clark notes that her paranormal fantasy book, Love Bites, won a bronze medal in the 2018 Readers’ Favorite International Book Awards, but she is now wary of competitions: "There are far too many vanity awards where you pay a lot of money to enter, and there are innumerable awards offered. Indie authors are excluded from the big awards, which could possibly make a difference." Brenda W. Clough says, "Scams abound. Avoid egregious fees. Look at who’s running the contest. Is it an entity of repute that’s been doing this a while, or is it two guys in their mom’s basement? Who are the judges, are they writers you respect or is it the two guys’ girlfriends?"

On balance, there seem to be more pros than cons, as long as writers do their due diligence on the competitions. And there are other positive effects. The Booker Prize funds a Creative Writing MA scholarship at the University of East Anglia. In 1983, Fay Weldon used the Booker competition to campaign for authors and to attack the publishing industry’s treatment of authors. Her speech still makes heady and resonant reading (https://thebookerprizes. com/the-booker-library/features/how-fay-weldons-anti-publisherspeech-became-one-of-the-booker-prizes). The Next Big Story Prize is run by The Novelry, founded by another Booker Prize-listed author, Louise Dean.The HNS First Chapters 2026 Category Shortlists will be posted on 1 March, and the overall winner will be announced at the conference in Maynooth, Ireland in August. See https:// hns2026.com/competition. You can see more on the outcomes of the HNS First Chapters 2024 at https://hns2024.com/hns-uk-2024first-chapters-competition.

Thank you to the authors who took the time to share their thoughts for this article.

WRITTEN BY REBEKAH SIMMERS & TRACEY WARR

Rebekah Simmers co-organises the HNS First Chapters Competitions. She is part of the HNS Website Interviews team and was part of the HNS UK 2024 conference team. She is the author of The King’s Sword https://rebekahsimmers.com.

Tracey Warr has published six historical novels https://meandabooks.com. She led the HNS UK 2024 conference and co-organises the HNS First Chapters Competitions. She is working on a biography, and her next medieval murder mystery, Salt’s Wound, is published this year.

Emma Darwin discusses her novel, The Bruegel

Boy WEAVING THE RAINBOW

“Why unweave the rainbow?” This was Emma Darwin’s response when asked whether she would have liked colour illustrations of the paintings referenced in her latest novel, The Bruegel Boy (Holland House, 2025). The story focuses on an imagined relationship between Pieter Bruegel the Elder and his model Gillis Vervloet (‘Gil’), an aspirant seminarian. “I’m very wary of drawing straight, obvious lines from the real-world materials that we appropriate to fiction.” So, this book is as much about what Darwin invents as it is about fleshing out what is known of Bruegel’s life and the turbulent history of his time. That history is fascinating, not least for the way it is reflected in Bruegel’s art. The backdrop was intellectual ferment, the struggle for independence from Habsburg control in the Low Countries, and the religious conflicts that came to a head in the great Beeldenstorm of 1566, a wave of iconoclasm only a few years before Bruegel’s death.

Darwin clearly relishes that she has been left with “plenty of room for my imagination to take charge”, and take charge she does in a way that is bold, challenging, intriguing and compelling. To get the most out of this book, the reader has to pay close attention to all the versions of Gil’s narrative that are preserved in his memory when,

as an old man in his eighties, he arrives in the imaginary province of Altstadgott in the Saarland. Only by digging deep into these subtly different approaches to the truth can Gil achieve the understanding he needs to find the missing statue of St Michael which will enable him to enter the monastery there. We follow Gil’s efforts to find the statue in the present, interwoven with his formal account of his past to the abbot, and memories of his early life, particularly of his association with Bruegel which began when he was fifteen and Bruegel a wellestablished master painter in his thirties.

“We remember differently,” explains Darwin, “depending on why and what we’re remembering. Gil is only entirely honest in his thoughts, while just occasionally in the ‘Young Gil’ strand we’re reminded that this is all ‘Old Gil’s’ memories.” Interestingly, this was a change from the original concept which was to present “a single narrative in present tense, sliding back into various parts of the past, in past tense,” an approach which was found to be “a bit distancing for showing us the Young Gil story.” Thus, in the novel as it has evolved, the reader follows Gil’s early life in Antwerp, Brussels and beyond as if reliving it, and this treatment invests all threads of the story with immediacy. The occasions when discrepancies occur in the strands of Gil’s tale are illuminating for revealing how we all arrive at an accommodation in our minds for dealing with the past, particularly troubling episodes; the interpretation of recollections can shift as maturity and understanding are gained. This is also reflected in the way Darwin presents Bruegel’s art: as a prism through which a greater appreciation and insight into human nature can be achieved. “I wanted the story to be about how, through living with Bruegel and coming to see the world through Bruegel’s eyes, Gil comes to understand and deal with the world in a way which is psychologically more sustainable.”

In the world of the novel, contradictions abound, and Gil has to navigate a tortuous course around them. There is tension between the spiritual purity of Gil’s mentor in faith, the blind Father Paulus, and the iconoclasm that the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptorum (‘by scripture alone’) eventually leads to; conflict between Gil’s love and lust for women, and his longing for a chaste life devoted to the church; between his inclination to accept the designation of sin in the Bible without reservation, and loyalty to his homosexual brother Roeland; or between telling the truth, and his promise of secrecy to the Protestant Fra Thorne when he searches for the statue. “We are all profoundly, apparently, contradictory,” says Darwin. “Bruegel sets such contradictions up very emblematically sometimes – I’m thinking of paintings such as The Battle Between Carnival and Lent – but when you look there are also always people doing perfectly normal things: finding the middle way, if you like. Gil’s story is partly about finding the middle way, but to do that he first has to understand that cleaving to an absolute way may make you feel secure, but it will probably also destroy you.”

So, this is a novel with a message, but there is a numinous quality to it as well, an exploration of the transformation that painting can achieve, from flat line and colour to a vivid depiction of reality in the mind of the viewer (even of life itself invested with emotion and feeling), and the transcendence through faith and love to spiritual enlightenment. Whenever Gil is transported away from conflict, confusion or mundanity by contemplation of the divine, or beauty, or an appreciation of significance, time ceases to have any meaning for him. Time passed. Time stood still is a recurring motif. Darwin displays

WE REMEMBER DIFFERENTLY depending on why and what we’re remembering ... We are all profoundly, apparently, contradictory.

some of her most evocative writing around these episodes, as when Gil first arrives in Altstadgott in old age to find, not a bare Protestant church, but “incense coiling and billowing up into the spire, the gleam of gold and lapis lazuli and cinnabar, the altars dressed in silk and lace and cloth of silver… He found, in other words, the sights, sounds, scents of his oldest home, when he was youngest… Here in dimness that lay soft as silk-velvet between the columns, the points of candlelight flickered until the angels almost seemed to breathe.”There is a magical quality, too, in the way the narrative weaves around the execution of Bruegel’s paintings, so as to bring the scenes and their development vividly to life, as if we were there in Bruegel’s home and studio at the time when they were made. We see the tall, thin, red-headed Gil posing as the Archangel Michael for the Fall of the Rebel Angels, and Bruegel adjusting Gil’s position as he kneels in the role of a king for Adoration of the Magi in the Snow. We hear Bruegel instructing Gil to strive for “the moment of longing – of desire overwhelming even bodily pain. You have lived to see this and now you’re seeing it… but you don’t dare touch.” Then, when the Adoration is ready, and those close to Bruegel think it is perfect, we watch Bruegel adding snowflakes: “the snow seemed to fall so close that you might almost have reached out a hand to this Bethlehem and found a snowflake landing on your palm.” In this way, Darwin beautifully describes the moment of what is thought to be the first depiction of falling snow in a western painting.

The author has a fascinating explanation for Bruegel’s compassionate mind-set as she sees it exemplified in his art: he could have been a member of the secret Anabaptist ‘Family of Love’ founded by Hendrik Niclaes. “There were many Familists in the highly educated, liberal circles in which he moved in Antwerp,” she says, “including the geographer Abraham Ortelius, and the printer Christophe Plantin… I see a broadmindedness, a tolerance, an awareness of the difference between public face and private belief, in both Bruegel’s take on humanity and aspects of early Familism.” The possibility is an intriguing one that Darwin melds into the history by suggesting Bruegel too might have been a Nicodemite, in conforming outwardly to Catholicism while being a Familist. “It’s completely unprovable either way,” she says, “but proof isn’t what historical fiction is about.” The result is that Bruegel as portrayed in the novel is particularly empathetic to readers today.

What was Darwin’s approach to researching the mass of information needed to craft this story? “In a way, it started with reading Michael Baxendall’s Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy when I was a teenager,” she answers. “It revolutionised Art History by situating the study of artistic creation in its social and economic context: the price of lapis lazuli matters as much as the presence of genius.”

The author grew up partly in Brussels, but she did go back there, to Antwerp, and to Luxembourg to find a setting for the invented Altstadgott. “You need vivid and specific materials,” she says, “but you also need to ‘leave the research behind’, as Rose Tremain puts it: to let the ‘inert data’ compost down till it’s no different, has no greater privilege in your mind, than things you imagine or have always known.”

As for influences, Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall gets pride of place, then comes Antonia Forest’s two novels about Shakespeare’s theatre, The Player’s Boy (1970) and The Players and the Rebels (1971) “The Bruegel-Gil relationship stems from that sense of an older master/ mentor who is deeply flawed but whose mentorship changes the orphaned protagonist’s life.”

This is a profound, thought-provoking and rewarding story with themes as relevant today as they were over four hundred and fifty years ago. “The novel is built on the tension between a powerful vocation or calling, and the other realities of self and society such as love, work and family,” says Darwin. “The tension is still there for us: just ask anyone in a cross-cultural marriage, or whose spouse’s dream job is on the other side of the world, or who’s trying to work out how to have children without destroying their career.”

The rainbow will continue to shimmer after the last page of The Bruegel Boy is turned.

WRITTEN

BY JENNY BARDEN

Jenny Barden is a historical novelist who has at various times been a farmer, artist and city solicitor. She is published by Ebury Press and has just finished a psychological thriller set at the time of the Spanish Armada.

ARA HISTORICAL NOVEL PRIZE

BY ELISABETH STORRS

Recognising and Rewarding Historical Novelists

What do Thomas Keneally and Geraldine Brooks have in common? Both are literary legends. Both have won multiple international awards. More significantly for the Historical Novel Society Australasia (HNSA), both authors were shortlisted in its ARA Historical Novel Prize (AHN Prize). What an embarrassment of literary riches! Keneally’s Corporal Hitler’s Pistol ultimately won over Brooks’ Horse in the 2022 contest. In true egalitarian spirit, Keneally donated half his prize money to the six longlisted authors.

The AHN Prize is the realisation of a shared vision of the HNSA with the ARA Group and its founder, Edward Federman, a true philanthropist with a long-standing involvement in fostering the arts in Australasia. The aim of the prize is to reward and recognise historical novelists in a class of their own as well as elevate the genre in the wider literary scene.

Fast forward from the prize’s inauguration in 2020 to today. A lot can happen in six years. The initial prize pool was $60,000 for one category. In 2021, two categories were established: one for Adult novels and the other for Children & Young Adult (CYA) novels. Prize monies increased to $100,000. Yet Edward’s generosity hadn’t ended. In 2024, the pool was increased to an eye-watering $150,000. The winner of the Adult category now takes home $100,000 while the CYA winner scores $30,000. The two shortlisted authors in both categories each win $5,000. Given the average income of an ANZ author is $11,000, winning either category is life changing.

HNSA is delighted to have supported so many authors in their endeavours. Since the award’s inception, 98 authors have been recognised in our lists, 33 placegetters monetarily rewarded, and the genre fostered on a grander scale. And, in 2025, after noticing opinion can often vary between judges and historical fiction fans, we introduced a Readers’ Choice Award with yet another $5,000 on offer, raising the prize pool to $155,000.

The HNSA committee comprises Elisabeth Storrs, Greg Johnston, Diane Murray, Cecilia Rice and Lucy Watson. The challenges set over the past few years have been overwhelming at times for our volunteer crew, but we are immensely proud of establishing the AHN Prize as the richest individual literary award in Australasia with the generous sponsorship of the ARA Group.

Who can enter the prize? You must be a citizen or resident of Australia or New Zealand. Books can be submitted by publishers, agents or authors. Self-published works are eligible. The majority of the narrative must be set more than 50 years in the past. All sub-genres are welcome including mainstream, historical romance, historical fantasy, historical mysteries, multi-period, parallel narratives and alternate history. Each year, our judging panels consist of five Adult judges and three CYA judges drawn from a spectrum of authors,

reviewers, booksellers and industry professionals.

The joy of running the prize is to see the wide range of historical eras and sub-genres, of which only a few are listed here. Over the past six years, readers have been transported from the prehistoric origins of the Aboriginal ‘Dreamtime’ in The Upwelling, a timeslip by Lystra Rose; early Christian times in Christos Tsiolkas’ Damascus; the Holy Roman Empire in Emily Maguire’s Rapture (our 2025 Readers’ Choice winner); Chaucer’s England in Karen Brooks’ The Good Wife of Bath; the Restoration in Lauren Chater’s The Beauties; 16thcentury Lithuania in Lauren Keegan’s All the Bees in the Hollows; the Regency era in Alison Goodman’s mystery, The Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies; 1800’s China in Jane Yang’s The Lotus Shoes; San Francisco in the Gold Rush with David Whish-Wilson’s The Sawdust House; Suffragette England in Pip Williams’ The Dictionary of Lost Words; Art Deco New York in Judith Rossell’s fantasy, The Midwatch; 1930s Norway with Robyn Mundy’s Cold Coast; Stalin’s USSR in Malcolm Knox’s satire, The First Friend; China during the Great Leap Forward in Rebecca Lim’s Two Sparrowhawks in a Lonely Sky to the 1969 moon landing in Anna Ciddor’s timeslip, Moonboy, and finally to both 1917 Paris and 1970s New York with Natasha Lester’s parallel narrative, The Disappearance of Astrid Bricard

The history of the World Wars has been the subject of many books, including CYA winners We Are Wolves (2021) and Rabbit, Soldier, Angel, Thief (2022) by Katrina Nannestad, Spies in the Skies (2024) by Beverley McWilliams and The Year We Escaped (2025) by Suzanne Leal. These brutal eras were also explored in the Adult category, including the 2023 winner, Salonika Burning, by Gail Jones; Bodies of Men by Nigel Featherstone; The Tolstoy House by Steven Conte; A Better Place by Stephen Daisley and When Sleeping Women Wake by Emma Pei Yin.

Australian history has dominated the majority of the longlisted books, highlighting the strength of the genre to examine erased histories of dispossession, massacre and intergenerational trauma. Fine examples of these include Tasma Walton’s I am Nannertgarrook (2025 joint Adult winner); Melissa Lucashenko’s Edenglassie (2024 Adult winner); Tara June Winch’s The Yield, Anita Heiss’ Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray, Jane Harrison’s The Visitors and the 2021 winner, The Burning Island, by Jock Serong.

Lost or hidden Australian histories have also been revealed, including those of a magician in 1800s Melbourne in Amelia Mellor’s The Grandest Bookshop in the World (2023 CYA winner); a female gangster in 1930s Sydney in Fiona Kelly McGregor’s Iris, Jamaican convicts in Sienna Brown’s Master of My Fate, and the Chinese diaspora during the Gold Rush in Mirandi Riwoe’s Stone Sky, Gold Mountain (2020 Adult winner). The genre’s ability to incorporate magic realism was demonstrated by our other 2025 joint winner, Dusk by Robbie Arnott, which depicts a colonial bounty hunt of a mythical puma, creating an allegory for the destruction of the Australian wilderness.

In conclusion, the AHN Prize is a celebration of a genre with a unique ability to showcase the past, illuminate the present, and hopefully provide a beacon for the future. So, let’s raise a toast to historical fiction which allows every person, regardless of age, race and gender, to be swept away in time travel.

Elisabeth Storrs is the author of the ‘A Tale of Ancient Rome’ series and the soon-to-be-released Fables & Lies: A World War II Novel. She is also the founder of the Historical Novel Society Australasia and one of ‘The History Girls’.

BLEEDING ON THE PAGE

BY GORDON O'SULLIVAN

Graeme Macrae Burnet and historical murder

Benbecula (Polygon/UK, Biblioasis/US&Can.), the new novella from Scottish writer Graeme Macrae Burnet, is part of the Darkland Tales series which describes itself as “dramatic retellings of stories from the nation’s history, myth and legend.” The author sat down recently with the Historical Novels Review to discuss his fictional retelling of a real 19th-century murder on the remote island of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides.

The genesis of Benbecula actually occurred when Burnet was researching his Booker-nominated novel about another historical murder, His Bloody Project (Saraband, 2015); he just didn’t recognise it at the time. Although he was struck by the Angus MacPhee murder case, from a similar era but grounded in the bleaker Hebridean landscape, it was “kind of tangential to what I was doing at the time.” When asked to be part of Darkland Tales, though, Burnet remembered the case and went digging in the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh. There he found an “absolute treasure trove of material.” Reading the precognition statements which “in Scots law is what a witness will say in court,” the author recognised immediately that “here I have enough material to write a short novel, a novella.” The documents themselves, their “tactile nature … they come tied up with ribbons,” added “a feeling of proper investigation” to his new writing endeavour.

His Bloody Project saw Burnet creating faux documents to simulate historical authenticity but in Benbecula, in a sort of mirror imaging, the author used real historical documents to fuel his fiction. While he was writing, however, there was sometimes a strain between fact and fiction. “When I was writing the incidents to do with Angus, which were based on the documents, I did feel a constraint, and I found it harder to bring these scenes to life, because I was constrained by the facts, or at least the facts as I knew them, whereas with the fictional parts involving Malcolm [the brother of Angus and the narrator of the novella] in his later life, I felt the normal freedom of writing fiction.”

Did the author feel that he had learnt anything from the writing of His Bloody Project that bled into Benbecula, or were they very separate?

The research that Burnet did for His Bloody Project “absolutely stood me in good stead for Benbecula … I maybe went back to refer to a few of the same sources, but I didn’t feel I had to go back and start again.”

Although sticking to the historical record provided some constraints, it also produced a determination to be true to the known history. Burnet wanted not to be tied to but inspired by the actual history. “I wanted to be very faithful to the facts as they are known, or are knowable.” That included visiting the Outer Hebridean island of Benbecula so that the author could be “completely faithful to the terrain and geography.” Burnet even took a copy of the handdrawn map of the murder scene from the archive with him to ensure complete authenticity. “I used that to go and find the location of the murders.” Feeling that it was “really important for me to have been in this precise spot,” his visit allowed him to “see the shoreline stretching in this direction and in that direction.” Crucially it allowed the Scottish writer to be “true to that landscape” that “hasn’t changed in the 150 years” since the murders.

The process of writing this dark tale was unsurprisingly not all sunshine and light. Writing in the first person with a character like Malcolm MacPhee in Benbecula, did it become unsettling? “Sometimes just kind of thoughts tumble out of Malcolm’s head, and he’s clearly suffering from delusions of some kind … And I was writing the book, and the winter here in Glasgow was really, really brutal this year … It was very dark. I just moved house. My heating wasn’t working.” Add in the psychological challenge of “going into this mental space of Malcolm, who’s in this isolated cottage and an isolated, barren landscape” and you have “quite a dark place to go to … and to stay in.” Despite these imaginative and practical difficulties, Burnet remained steadfast. “Once you’ve made your decision of how you’re going to tell the story, you know, you got to stick with it.” It might explain, though, why Benbecula is a novella!

While Benbecula is a tragic story of murder, the empathy that the author feels for his characters and the circumstances that they’re living in is beautifully expressed in the novella. “I’m not aiming for objectivity. I am aiming for empathy, because I feel empathy.” When writing His Bloody Project, the author educated himself “about the history of what had gone on in the Highlands specifically in relation to the clearances, and specifically in relation to the conditions that the crofters lived under.” Malcolm MacPhee suffers a similarly hard life on the island of Benbecula, and for the author “it’s very hard not

to sympathize … with the ordinary people of the land.”

Burnet was concerned that his sense of empathy wouldn’t be shared by the readers of Benbecula. “I felt like I was writing from inside the character, and this is a very dark character with few redeeming features; I’d sort of worried that readers might find this quite alienating.” This reader wasn’t alienated but rather felt sympathetic towards his characters, and that’s exactly what the author was striving for. He always wants “readers to engage with the characters … to have a kind of emotional relationship, or an empathetic relationship, or a relationship where they maybe don’t like the character.” That is the start of the process for the writer: “When we’re reading fiction, if you’re not engaged on that level, then you’re not likely to then engage on a sort of intellectual level either.” Burnet always seeks “that sort of human engagement.”

Consider this reader fully engaged by Benbecula

Gordon O’Sullivan is a freelance writer and researcher.

BLEAKNESS & BEAUTY

BY ADELE WILLS

Having faith in the process of writing

Andrew Miller has published ten novels gaining multiple awards and shortlistings; his work has come to occupy an important place in contemporary British fiction. The Land in Winter (Sceptre/Europa Editions, 2024), Miller’s most recent novel, is set during the Big Freeze of 1962/63 in the UK and has already won the Winston Graham Prize and the 2025 Walter Scott Prize. It was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize last November.

Writing about the past takes research and an imaginative leap into another time, yet 1962/63 is within living memory for many of Miller’s readers. I wondered if this presented particular challenges. “I suppose the more recent the setting, the more material there is to look at. This is mostly a good thing – the history hasn’t ‘set’ yet, there’s no last word on it. And yes, quite a few UK readers do remember that winter and tell me of their experiences. I thought of it – that winter, the early ´60s – as the far edge of ‘now’. There was a lot of research, but also a lot of remembering – of trying to reach back into some kind of cellular memory (I was two years old).”

Our perception of the 1960s has arguably become dominated by labels like the ‘Swinging Sixties’, but reading the novel also gives us a slightly dusty, but pervasive, reminder of a recent World War. “Well, 1962 is just 17 years after the end of the war. The people I’m writing about had grown up during the war (a long five years). So if people are looking forwards to something new and better, they are also glancing back to the time before. One of my mother’s stories was going to the local cinema as a teenager and seeing a newsreel about the camps – images nothing could have prepared her for.”

On his website, Miller cites W. G. Hoskins’ wonderful The Making of the English Landscape (1954) as a major influence. Geography

is central to many of Miller’s novels, from 18th-century Paris to the rugged landscapes of the Scottish Highlands, to the vast solitude of the Atlantic Ocean (Pure, 2011; Now We Shall Be Entirely Free, 2018; The Crossing, 2015 – all published by Sceptre). The landscape in this novel is the West Country, so I asked why Miller chose this particular setting: “The West Country was one of the worst affected areas during that winter. And these are landscapes I know. I love to write about them.” Part of the novel takes place on a farm, so we have not only a dynamic between people and landscape but also with the animals that live there. “There is something so interesting in meeting the gaze of an animal. So much is hidden, and yet we know each other. I wanted to attend to them in a way similar to my approach to the human characters. I live in the countryside and see a lot of cows and bulls and sheep. I have cousinly feelings towards them.”

Reviews of the novel have tended to focus on its bleakness, inevitable given the harshness of its setting and the darkness of past events. I wondered whether Miller considered himself an optimist or a pessimist: “I think I’d call myself an optimist, in the sense that I believe in our innate capacity for wisdom and joy, our potential for it. But I hold this alongside a fairly bleak Freudian view of us as half in love with death and destruction. All this is in the novel – and in most of the other novels I’ve written. In the past I’ve described my books as love letters to the world. That’s often how they feel to me – writing as a way of responding to the excitement of being here … And yes, the book is haunted by the camps, but I wanted it to just be a sort of shadow in the mirror. Other than Gabby Miklos, the people in the book experienced the Holocaust at a remove, but its atmosphere is inescapable. There can be no understanding of things that doesn’t take account of it.”

Many reviewers struggle to articulate meanings when discussing Miller’s fiction, while Miller says on his website that he aspires to write “fiction with no obvious message”. I asked Miller to say more about this: “I didn’t have much interest in the book having a message. I don’t think life has a ‘message’. One can live a good or a less good life. There are choices. There is the effort to understand. Of course, a novel carries a certain set of values that are just there, embedded in the writing. And those values, extracted, might be said to constitute a message … I’m very interested in simple experiences. What it’s like to fall asleep or wake up. What it’s like to walk in the cold or eat eggs.” Miller interestingly discusses Iris Murdoch on his blog and concludes, with her, that “the mystery is simply there”.

But Miller also accepts that “there’s a fairly constant obsession with the beautiful”. I love this idea of “obsession with the beautiful” and can certainly see how, amidst a world of decay, hardship and trauma, beauty can become a path of redemption. Beauty can exist within a crumbling, grotesque cemetery in 18th-century Paris (Pure) but we can only appreciate this beauty if we also experience pain (Ingenious Pain, 1997). But what imbues this beauty as a reading experience for me is Miller’s poetic and luminous language. I asked Miller where this comes from: “I read a lot of poetry. I want to have some of that care and musicality in my writing, while at the same time trying hard to be free of any kind of strained eloquence.”

This is Miller’s tenth novel, and I wondered whether the writing process gets easier. “Yes and no. Each time I write I throw myself out of the aeroplane, I’m not quite sure if I’m wearing a parachute. But of course, experience counts for something – experience of the process, a faith that there is a process and that if I stick with it, it will stick with me.”

Adele Wills is one of the UK team of review editors for the HNR.

MOST READERS, especially in India, pointed to how the novel highlighted truths that are willfully neglected, and society’s complicity in the perpetration of these events.

BACK TO THE BEGINNING

BY WAHEED RABBANI

“They were only at the beginning of their expedition, and already they were three men and twice as many sheep short.”

Deepa Anappara’s second novel, The Last of Earth (Random House/ Oneworld, 2026), begins evocatively. An acclaimed novelist, Dr. Anappara’s debut, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line (Random House, 2020), won the Edgar Award and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. She hails from Kerala, India, and is currently a lecturer at the University of London, England.

About the intriguing title of her second novel, she says, “The meaning of the title will be clear from one of the novel’s epigraphs, which is an extract from T. S. Eliot’s ‘Little Gidding’ in Four Quartets ‘The Last of Earth’ is from this poem. It is about how we might learn who we are only by going back to the beginning.” It’s an apt title that covers not only the human conditions of the protagonists but also the objective of the 1869 British expedition launched from India into forbidden Tibet to secretly determine the origin of the Yarlung Tsangpo (Bharamaputra) River.

Anappara’s first novel was categorized in the mystery and thriller genre, and The Last of Earth as historical fiction. It seems this change of genres was neither deliberate nor something she had been contemplating. Essentially, she writes about subjects that she is interested in exploring. “Just as Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line was about centring voices that had vanished from the mainstream discourse, in The Last of Earth, the main characters are those whose voices are missing from the historical records.” Anappara believes that “adventure stories, stories of exploration and cartography, are typically told from the points of view of white men.” In this novel, she wanted to “highlight the fact that there were others – that is, the indigenous people – who were undertaking great risks to make the white man’s ambitions come true.”

Anappara highlights the significant omissions in history, such that “the British wrote historical records about India as the British were ruling India at that time. So, we find that the historical record is slanted towards the imperialists, and we don’t hear the voices of Indians.” She wants to “reconstruct what the Indian experience might have been at the time because it is something missing from the archives.”

Anappara’s first novel, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, covers a delicate subject in India. In developing the story of the slum-dwelling kids, the premise of children going missing unexpectedly was not based on personal experiences. Rather, she “came across stories of children who were going missing in neighbourhoods, while working as a journalist,” which she did for eleven years, and “the novel was based on those true-life stories.”

It would seem there might have been some repercussions for handling such a delicate subject as missing children. However, “if anything,

most readers, especially in India, pointed to how the novel highlighted truths that are willfully neglected, and society’s complicity in the perpetration of these events.” As she explains, “these stories are not much discussed in the mainstream discourse, because the children are from poor families without power or influence.”

The themes of both novels are somewhat similar, where friends investigate the disappearance of a friend and go to great lengths, even putting themselves in harm’s way, to locate the lost person. However, in The Last of Earth, there are two additional subplots: a British officer disguised as a monk and an Anglo-Indian woman travelling in Tibet under the guise of a tourist, both with ulterior motives. Anappara considered it necessary to include the AngloIndian woman in the story, as her objective was to “foreground voices typically excluded from the historical archives. Even today we don’t associate adventure or pluckiness with the Indigenous people who help white Westerners climb mountains (such as Everest).” With regards to including a lady explorer, she “was interested in looking at the experience of exploration through the eyes of a woman.” There were women explorers in the 19th century, “but they were not even allowed to be fellows of the Royal Geographical Society at that time.”

Hence, these voices allowed Anappara to “portray in the novel a lesser-known aspect of British and Indian history related to exploration and cartography, as well as the British interest in Tibet, thought of as a Forbidden Kingdom in the 19th century, when Westerners were not allowed to enter the region.” Upon reading The Last of Earth, set mainly in snowy, mountainous Tibet, one is impressed by the vivid descriptions that certainly transport readers to that region. Since that area is well away from Anappara’s lush green home in the Indian coastal state of Kerala, she accomplished this remarkable feat by visiting some of the locations for this novel’s scenes in Tibet. She also “read several accounts of those who had travelled through Tibet in the 19th century to understand how those visitors saw and experienced the landscape.” Anappara mentions these references in her author’s note.

Anappara is not sure about her next offering and its genre. But she is “not very interested in genre classifications” and, in her writing, she tries to follow her interest and “focus on the questions that I want to examine through my work.” Indeed, the trait of a creative novelist. Readers will undoubtedly be looking out for her subsequent publication.

The Last of Earth is a valuable addition to the somewhat obscure history of Britain’s aims regarding Tibet, driven by fears of Russian influence. It’s a good exposé of how Tibet, dreading the fate of India and Bhutan, managed to evade colonization. Furthermore, the novel seamlessly incorporates the less widely recognized assistance provided by Indigenous Indians to British surveyors as they ventured into Tibet. By the inclusion of a lady surveyor, the restrictions placed on women’s independence in those days are tactfully illustrated. Like Anappara’s first novel, this novel is well-placed to garner numerous awards.

Waheed Rabbani is a historical fiction writer and a book reviewer for the Historical Novel Society. He resides in the historic town of Grimsby, Canada, by picturesque Lake Ontario.

REVIEWS

CLEOPATRA

Due to an ever-increasing number of books for review and space constraints within HNR, selected fiction reviews and all nonfiction reviews are now published as online exclusives. To view these reviews and much more, please visit historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews

Editors’ Choice titles, which come highly recommended by our reviewers, have the HNS logo and cover image alongside the review.

PREHISTORIC SHROUD OF ICE

Sharon Krasny, Brandylane, 2025, $18.95, pb, 220pp, 9781966369219

Envisaging human life in prehistoric Copper Age times, 5000 years ago, would seem to require a huge feat of imagination. Yet who better to take this on than a novelist? Relying on scientific evidence known to date about “Ötzi the Ice Man” whose remains were found in the Austrian Alps in 1991, this novel spins that archeological information into a compelling story that brings him to life. Readers will follow Gaspare, as the author has named him, on his perilous journey from enslavement in a copper mine back to the village he was forced to leave ten years earlier. Coming from a prominent family in the village, he finds much has changed in a decade. His parents are dead, and his brothers have sown chaos, tension, and competing visions for the future in his absence. Gaspare is connected to them by blood ties but also differs from them in his visions and his understanding of the world as shaped by the wise men of their times. His love for a woman forced to marry his most belligerent brother further complicates the choices he must make for the larger sake of the village’s future.

Written in a literary style that evokes this era of sheer survival in prose that is both direct and descriptive, this novel also weaves in enduring human themes of longing for freedom, hope, resilience, vengeance, forgiveness, and love. Details about human dependance on animals, ancient warfare and weaponry, the making of rope and clothing, and belief in supernatural beings in the physical environment wrap this tale in an aura that feels both foreign and familiar. Recommended for readers looking for intriguing historical fiction rooted in a unique ancient setting.

Karen Bordonaro

ANCIENT HISTORY

Saara El-Arifi, The Borough Press, 2026, £18.99, hb, 352pp, 9780008697211 / Ballantine, 2026, $30.00, hb, 352pp, 9780593875643

51 BCE, Egypt: two young women bicker amicably as they play a game. One chews a sun-warmed fig, the other’s linen dress ripples in the warm wind. One of the girls’ fathers is ill. He dies. The girl, Cleopatra, is now Pharaoh, Queen of Egypt. She has been schooled for this, but she’s still nervous, well-intentioned –and a little too trusting. Soon there is dissent, malcontents gathering around her ambitious sister, Arsinoe. Cleopatra needs soldiers –more than she herself can command. She turns to Rome, and forms an alliance with Julius Caesar, her wealth for his soldiers. She falls in love.

This story frames the politics through personal relationships, both family and romantic. Hence, it reads as a love story. The approach makes complicated politics simpler to understand and puts a living Cleopatra into a tactile world. She suffers loss and grief, love and joy, the same as the rest of us. But Cleopatra was not an ordinary woman. She was Pharaoh, and hence divine. Hence, also, immortal. The book is written in first person, as if Cleopatra herself is chatting to the reader. And, as she’s immortal, she is free to comment on everything that has been written about her since her death.

It works as a device to convey her godstatus – but I, not being as well-schooled as the author in the works of Shakespeare and Roman historians, found that Cleopatra’s commentary often acted as a spoiler. I think, also, that by portraying Cleopatra as a woman driven by romantic passion, this story still fails to break out of Roman historians’ portrayal of her as whore. What if, in reality, Cleopatra simply used sex as another political strategy? Nevertheless, El-Arifi’s Cleopatra is good company for a visit to ancient Egypt.

Helen Johnson

OF WIND AND WOLVES

J. M. Elliott, Warden Tree Press, 2025, $16.99, pb, 502pp, 9781966394013

This first book of The Steppe Saga takes place on the high plains north of the Black Sea sometime in the fifth century BCE and chronicles the early career of a female warrior of the nomadic Scythian culture. Anaiti is betrothed to the High King of the Scyths, but since she is half hamazan (Amazon), she is not free to marry until she has made her first kill. She is sent with the war band of Prince Aric into the steppes to raid and patrol. It’s a dangerous job, but the greatest danger is the enmity of some of the warriors themselves, resentful of

their leader’s predilection for this female archer with her bobbed breast and her mysterious swoons that seem to take her into the realm of the dead.

The author, who has both archaeological and equestrian training, has given us a book that is so much better than it sounds from that brief summary. Copious research into the little-known life of the Scyths, familiar mostly from Herodotus, is supplemented by reconstruction from Indo-European and other contemporary sources, resulting in a richly detailed and plausible glimpse into a savage horseback world—a man’s world, in which a woman must prove herself daily. The prose is often lyrical, and the pace is as relentless as a horse’s gallop across the fierce steppes. Fans of Steven Pressfield’s style will gobble this one up and howl for more. Highly recommended.

Niki Kantzios

BIBLICAL RESCUED HEART

Angela Hunt, Bethany House, 2025, $18.99, pb, 368pp, 9780764245176

This is the first book in Hunt’s The Matriarchs series. It retells the Old Testament story of Sarah (Sarai) and Abraham (Abram). The author adds depth to the characters and uses historical resources other than the Bible to enrich the story.

Sarai has been intended for Abram since childhood, and she eventually marries him in the city called Ur of the Chaldeans. Her paganism versus Abram’s belief in Adonai, the one true God, is a problem. When God dramatically saves Abram’s life, Sarai chooses to follow Him, too. Abram and Sarai leave Ur, and travel to different areas—Haran, Syria, Egypt, Canaan—with their flocks, tents, and some family members. God has promised Abram that he will have innumerable descendants, but Sarai does not conceive, and she and Abram are becoming very old. Eventually they do have progeny, but Abram faces a heartbreaking command from Adonai that tests his and his son’s faith to the limits.

Life in Biblical times could definitely do you in, and this story reads as a riveting adventure tale as well as an inspirational book about faith’s rewards. Nimrod’s fiery furnace, Egypt’s predatory pharaoh, wars, famine, people turned into pillars of salt—and God speaking to people personally! It doesn’t get any more exciting than that. I suppose the waiting for Sarai to conceive drags a bit, but that is, after all, a huge part of the plot. This is an entertaining read, whether you are religious or not. There are also Q&A pages with the author, a 30-item reference list, and a teaser for the sequel, coming out next year.

Elizabeth Knowles

CLASSICAL

THE WANDERING QUEEN

Claire Heywood, Dutton, 2026, $29.00, hb, 336pp, 9780593476123 / Hodder & Stoughton, 2026, £22.00, hb, 336pp, 9781399730259

The story of Queen Dido, legendary founder of the city of Carthage, is retold in surprising and inspiring ways in Claire Heywood’s rapturous novel, The Wandering Queen

Before she was Dido of Carthage, she was Princess Elissa of Tyre. But when the Tyre king dies, machinations at court work against his wishes for succession, and Elissa’s half-brother Pygmalion ascends the throne. Intrigues against Elissa and her temple priest husband, Zakarbaal, lead to tragedy and Elissa’s decision to leave Tyre and find a new home. Her wanderings with a dedicated group of followers take them to the north coast of Africa, where Elissa founds Carthage (meaning “new city”) and transforms into Queen Dido (Dido meaning “wanderer”).

The chapters alternate between two timelines: Elissa’s former life in Tyre with her husband and Queen Dido’s reign in Carthage at the time of Aeneas’s arrival from the fiery ruins of Troy. This past-and-present narrative approach is effective, with each chapter ending on its own mini-cliffhanger. Heywood’s stirring reimagination of Queen Dido (and the woman she was before) drives this soulful narrative of a heart seeking its final harbor. Most surprising—considering the timeless legend of Dido and Aeneas—is how small a role Aeneas plays in the novel. In Heywood’s telling, it is the touching love story of Elissa and Zakarbaal that features and informs much of what follows.

The Wandering Queen is a deliciously written tale that gets inside the heart and mind of one of antiquity’s most tragic heroines, with some alternative twists added in for good measure.

Peggy Kurkowski

FULVIA

Kaarina Parker, Manilla, 2025, £16.99, hb, 288pp, 9781786585196

In her debut novel, Kaarina Parker spotlights ancient Rome in the dying days of the Republic, through the eyes of a lesser-known figure. At 18 (though probably 14 or 15, historically), Fulvia Bambalio is encouraged to venture into high society. The relaxed atmosphere of the city bathhouses forms a vital link in the chain of gossip and information, and it is there she meets Roman aristocrat, Fausta Cornelia. Fulvia is invited to Fausta’s banquet, where she meets 26-year-old Publius Clodius Pulcher of the Claudii. She marries him in 62 BCE. This is a successful partnership driven by similar goals, as Clodius is daring, adventurous and quick to defy rules, and the marriage brings the strong-minded Fulvia into the grasping, backbiting world of politics.

Clodius’ fervent nature is reined in by his sister, Clodia Metelli. Clodia passes this responsibility to Fulvia upon the marriage, and the two remain companiable throughout the next decade. Two main events dominate

Parker’s telling: Clodius’ badly executed escapade at the Bona Dea, an all-female ceremony; and his willingness to forgo the Claudii name to legally become a plebian and run for tribune. Fulvia bears witness to these events in a strongly participatory way, despite the dangers posed by the opposing tribune. Genuine love of the people drives Clodius’ ambitions, and Fulvia is fully engaged. Her hatred of Cicero is vocal and visceral.

Parker’s insightful debut is grounded in a much-explored and documented environment, but her telling is fresh and new, the voice of Fulvia both relatable and revealing. Parker explores the social fabric of Rome, its fickle political intrigue and treachery. Taverns, markets, shops and bathhouses come to life, and the couple’s risky move to the Aventine, amongst the gangs and grift, is palpable. This riveting story tells of a woman deeply inspired by politics and by her determination to influence it for change.

Fiona Alison

DAEDALUS IS DEAD

Seamus Sullivan, Pan Macmillan, 2025, £16.99, hb, 164pp, 9781035085903 / Tordotcom, 2025, $24.99, hb, 176pp, 9781250370471

The legendary Greek architect Daedalus has fled to Sicily, where he recalls his earlier life: the building of the labyrinth that housed the dreaded Minotaur, his escape from Crete on waxen wings, and the death of his son Icarus. It is the latter that haunts him, and when he dies and enters the underworld, he sets out on a quest to find his son.

It is here that a series of new adventures begins. Daedalus enters the service of Persephone, queen of the underworld, and starts to apply his problem-solving skills in Hell. Can he make life better for himself, and for others? Can he undo the harm he has done? And can he find Icarus? But first he has to confront himself and his past…

The novel has a slightly shadowy quality. Like the Cretan labyrinth, Hell is a neverending nightmare, with twisting paths, places just out of reach, ghostly shapes glimpsed from the corner of the eye. And the nightmare continues as Daedalus remembers his life above ground, amid the tyranny of Minos and the constant demand of the Minotaur for new flesh.

I occasionally found the narrative a bit confusing, but perhaps that is consistent with the idea of a dream sequence. And, as Ariadne says to Daedalus, ‘The gods don’t have to make sense’. But really this is a story of self-discovery, of Daedalus’ final realisation that ‘Whatever I do next, it can’t be more of what I’ve done before’. An interesting read.

Karen Warren

series is focused on a teenager’s murder in AD 59 Baiae during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero. Both Valerius and Atreus, the investigators of the crime, have gone on vacation to Baiae with their families. It’s interrupted almost immediately by the arrival of Nero, followed by the seemingly senseless murder of the victim. The investigation lets us see three different aspects of Roman life: how vacations were enjoyed in the beach towns of the day, Roman family life, and the secret cults they got involved with.

The arrival of Nero, and later Agrippina, shakes things up as events lead inexorably to the murder of Agrippina by Nero (hence the book’s title). In fact, the investigation is overshadowed by Agrippina in life and death. However, the crime is solved very satisfactorily.

The writing is immersive and evocative where it needs to be—the image of the setting sun as a golden egg yolk will surely linger in memory! The characters continue to please, grow and engage the reader. I had hoped the author would address the relationship between husband and wife (Fulvia) while reviewing a previous volume in the series (given that Valerius and Atreus are in a secret gay relationship), and this book certainly does that. We also get to see more of Fulvia.

Overall, the whole series is recommended, and this may be the best book yet. Hopefully, more books are in the works!

Kishore Krishna

METTA VALLEY GOSPEL, BOOK 1

Zachary Helton, Spark & Scroll, 2025, £12.00, pb, 332pp, 9798992864908

“Any religion can be co-opted by narcissists, fearful people, and power-grabbers,” Zachary Helton says in his author’s note. ‘They [religions] can be vehicles for abuse and harm, just as they can be vessels for justice and love. I hope this novel embodies both.’ It does. Powerfully and entertainingly.

1ST CENTURY MATRICIDE

Jennifer Burke, Level Best/Historia, 2025, $17.95, pb, 232pp, 9798898200978

This third book in the Valerius mystery

Fleeing his home in Judea after a vitriolic encounter with his rabbi, Jesus becomes a homeless exile in Kashi, on the Ganges River. Weak and hungry, he is offered employment by the luminous character of Abraham, a vineyard owner and fellow Judean exile, whose history echoes Jesus’ own clash with the hierarchy of their religion. Years before, trained as a Pharisee but banished for rebellion, Abraham had been cared for by a Buddhist community in Metta Valley. There he regained his faith in the essential humanity that lies beneath scripture, and made it his mission to share that humanity. Jesus’ disenchantment with his faith is soothed by Abraham’s wisdom, but when he too travels to Metta Valley, he faces an uphill battle to reconcile himself with his damaged history, the shame of his birth, and the flaws of his volatile nature.

Arrogant and impulsive, Jesus makes an effective Everyman – which is infinitely arguably what he should be – both experiencing and exhibiting the prejudice, self-doubt and

anger that all of humanity knows. And then there is the devastating, crushing, terrifying, scene of the Temptation, where the voice in the wilderness debases Jesus and inflames his grievances, alternately urging him to submit to religious and temporal authority, or to take up a sword against it.

Metta Valley Gospel can and should be read by everyone – especially by those who shy away from religion – if only to remind us of the power that can be wielded by those who are inclined to wield it.

Nicola Belluomo

LIONESS

J. Ryan, Book Guild, 2025, £9.99, pb, 232pp, 9781835743140

In approximately 60 CE, a nine-yearold Brigantia princess named Morgan joins Boudicca’s army and survives their final battle. In the following years, she helps her father regain the throne from her pro-Roman mother. However, for her safety, both her mother and Morgan are taken to Rome by soldiers. During the journey, she befriends a young legionary named Gaius who teaches her about the wider world and Roman history. Morgan and her mother are provided with accommodations in the emperor’s garden palace, where Morgan begins to see the benefit Rome can bring to unite her people, a struggle her father continues to fight for. With Gaius by her side, Morgan aids Emperor Vespasian in restoring stability to Rome amid uprisings and assassination plots.

The book is a quick read with plot elements resolving fairly easily. Morgan isn’t afraid to risk her life for a cause, but she doesn’t meet much resistance and assimilates into the Roman lifestyle without much persuasion needed. In my view, the author could have devoted more attention to Morgan’s internal struggle, thoughtfully weighing the costs of Roman invasion and occupation against Brigantia’s free but fragmented and “lawless” way of life. The topic of slavery is mentioned, but the narrative doesn’t explore its gritty aspects. Morgan’s experience is largely one of education and luxury. It’s only after the eruption of Vesuvius that Morgan is exposed to suffering and thinks back on the acts of violence committed by Boudicca’s army with regret.

While I found no fault with the writing or character development, both done quite well, I expected to read about a woman bridging two cultures and teaching others the value of freedom. Instead, the story takes a different direction, and I found it mildly hard to believe a foreign princess would have been treated so favorably by Rome.

J.

Lynn Else

mob outside. Macro and Petronella are raising the love child he sired on Queen Boudica. Cato has secretly married Nero’s former mistress, Claudia Acte. He reports to the palace on his return from Britannia, fresh from defeating Boudica’s rebellion. Emperor Nero is impressed and appoints him Prefect of the Urban Cohorts, though Cato would really rather retire. He makes an early enemy of Albanius, a crony of Nero’s new sycophant, Tigellinus, and appoints Macro in his place. The two friends are on duty together again, and they proceed to whip the cohorts into shape. Vespasian attempts to recruit Cato into Piso’s conspiracy against Nero. Seneca has dirt on him; he knows about Claudia. A grain fleet from Sicilia wrecks in a storm off Ostia, and there’s a fire in Rome.

The characters arrive with rich personalities and backstories established in previous Scarrow books—an impressive 24 novels spanning Roman history from 42-62 CE (not to mention 18 other books!). All the characters are multi-faceted, and the fictional and historical characters intersect interestingly.

The plot is exciting. The wonderful, colourful dialogue is in modern vernacular, so these people from 2000 years ago seem familiar. And it provides some clever quips— e.g., ‘Pardon my Gallic’; it’s Poppaea ‘who wears the toga’ in the family.

Scarrow’s works are considered military fiction, and the soldiers’ lives are intimately portrayed. However, the plot is characterdriven, and even a non-fan of the genre will be enthralled. Decadent emperors, marching cohorts, grain ships, the Forum, the Circus, togas, brothels, gladiators, senators’ intrigues, persecutions, the plebian mob—everything that is ancient Rome comes to life. In the next book, Cato and Macro are posted to the eastern frontier.

Susie Helme

THE OAK AND THE EAGLES

Patrick Tooban, Atmosphere Press, 2025, $17.99, pb, 352pp, 9798891326729

TYRANT OF ROME

Simon Scarrow, Headline, 2025, £22.00/$28.99, hb, 416pp, 9781472287243

62 CE. Centurion Macro and his wife, Petronella, are caught up in some trouble at the Forum. Four hundred slaves are being executed for the crime of one, and there’s a

Calgach is an Irish prince and grandson of Scotland’s ruler, and his life and trials unfold through an aged Calgach’s reminiscing and through Padar the monk, who recounts the words of other people from Calgach’s past. As the tale begins, readers learn the Roman threat is growing. With Boudicca defeated, Rome’s influence is steadily advancing toward Calgach’s homeland.

With a sharp attention to historical details and customs of the first-century Celts, Tooban creates a vivid landscape. The book’s map traces Calgach’s journeys across land

and sea, immersing readers in the story’s geography. Calgach is gifted with foresight and has the occasional mystical brush with the supernatural, which affirms to the clans his exceptional abilities and highlights for readers his unique role in the narrative.

The story features a large cast, which at times can make it challenging to follow the unfolding events as various political factions begin to clash. The character list provided at the beginning offers basic details—mainly family ties and house affiliations—without fully clarifying each character’s influence in Calgach’s life. However, Tooban’s principal characters are skillfully developed and colored with varying shades of gray, portraying them as people with complex motivations who are occasionally at odds with our main character’s journey.

Chapters set in the past unfold in first person while the aged Calgach/Monk Padar sections are in third person. Each voice Padar speaks for effectively paints the broader picture to Calgach’s adventures. Calgach’s comingof-age tale suggests a greater destiny yet to be realized. His experiences throughout the narrative test both his abilities and intellect, setting the stage for what appears to be a forthcoming sequel where he will likely face the looming Roman threat encroaching upon his way of life. This reimagined historical story captivates with its distinct characters and its richly detailed setting.

J. Lynn Else

3RD CENTURY

DEATH STALKS GLEVUM

Rosemary Rowe, Severn House, 2026, $29.99/£21.99, hb, 240pp, 9781448314430

Rowe’s longrunning, beloved series follows Junio, a mosaicmaker in Glevum (Gloucester). He is the adopted son of the exiled Libertus, whose patron, the senior magistrate Marcus Septimus, respects Junio in honour of Libertus’ years of loyalty. That doesn’t stop Marcus from using Junio to his own ends, as he does here.

In 200 AD Glevum, people are dying in droves. In fear of the plague, Junio closes his shop and isolates his family and household for months. There are desperate shortages of food, oil, flour, and all other necessities. Rowe provides a broad-spectrum look at everyday life through the circumstances and, as she notes, precautionary behaviour regarding the plague doesn’t differ much from contemporary societies during Covid.

Magistrate Marcus Septimus arrives home, worried about his family’s safety after rumours

have reached him at his Corinium home. He orders Junio to bid on a specific job – a backdrop-mosaic for a shrine to be built by Appius Corvinus. One of the emperor’s many spies, Appius is a secretive and dangerous man who is quickly ingratiating himself with the local curia. En route to Appius’ house, Junio notices a body in the ditch and another nearby, possibly plague deaths, but no other discernable cause of death is evident. Following identification, Junio questions the families and servants, linking political intrigue and family disorder. Connecting the two men proves difficult as their social positions are vastly different, even though both are dressed as peasants. Frustrating dead ends abound.

Rowe’s knowledgeable skill simplifies the complex Roman class system. She provides such abundant information about Roman Britain that, without ever feeling overloaded, readers will finish up better informed. The conclusion contains a small mystery, and the exceptional cast will draw readers to the next episode. Rowe has once again provided an outstanding read.

Fiona Alison

4TH CENTURY

COELIA CONCORDIA

Debra May Macleod, Independently published, 2025, $24.99, hb, 504pp, 9781990640384

The seventh in a sequence of novels about the Vestal Virgins, from their founding until the end of Rome, Coelia Concordia opens in 380 CE and covers the adult life of the last of the Vestales Maximae, in a moment when history’s tide had turned against the millennial religion of Rome and toward the intolerant new cult of Christianity. The consecrated handmaids of the goddess of the hearth, who served for thirty years and then returned to civilian life, were the liberated women of their day. They could own businesses, were legally independent of male relatives, and were given privileges that hardly anyone save the emperor enjoyed—at the price of remaining virginal during their service and carrying out the rites of the hearth that symbolized the Roman state. By the late 4th century, Christian emperors had gnawed away at those privileges, although the city of Rome remained quietly pagan. And that city was a shadow of its former glorious self, no longer even one of the four capitals of the empire. In this dying world, Coelia has to face off against the emperor Theodosius, who decrees the shutdown of all pagan temples.

Intrigue and power struggles on the religious and political field reveal a woman of intelligence and courage, even though she doesn’t have a spotless conscience. The book paints a well-researched picture of the troubled years of Rome’s slow collapse, when the army is run by barbarians and the old patricians kowtow to influential bishops. Coelia Concordia succeeds well at the primary duty of a historical novel: to put a human face

on history and make us feel as the people of ancient times must have felt. Recommended. Niki Kantzios

5TH CENTURY

BEYOND THE BLACK GATE

Mark J. F. Hudson, The Conrad Press, 2025, £10.99, pb, 320pp, 9781917673211

In 409 CE, the Roman Empire is collapsing fast, a victim of imperial infighting and barbarian invasions. The Romano-Britons send a delegation to Emperor Honorius begging for troops to protect them from the Picts and Scots, and the patrician Matugenus also sends his son Fromus along with a letter begging his cousin, the rebel general Gerontius, to return to Britannia and help them mount a resistance. Meanwhile, Nehtan, the British slave of a military officer in Gallia, flees after an attack by Vandals ends in her master’s son’s death, and she finds herself in the company of the delegation. Her desire is to return home and forget her enslaved condition, but she and Fromus begin to fall in love. Chastely, because she is a devout Christian convert. Pursued by an obsessed renegade soldier, she runs away again, and Fromus abandons his mission in order to find her.

The harrowing journey through the decomposing world of late-Roman Gaul—the savage mountains, the ravaged vineyards, roving barbarian gangs, and Roman soldiers who have abandoned all discipline—is vivid and heart-pounding. Thoroughly researched and written in a terse style without sentiment, Beyond the Black Gate captures well the brutal cusp between antiquity and the Dark Ages. Accompanied by a map, glossary, and historical notes, it is recommended without reservation for the unromantic.

Niki Kantzios

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE

Maeve Maddox, Hypatia Press, 2025, £12.99/$13.99, pb, 328pp, 9781839196195

In the late Roman Empire, Shifra, widow of a Jewish doctor, is robbed of her inheritance by the bishop of Milan after her husband is beaten to death during a mercy call for refusing to convert to Christianity. When her son writes to say his wife has died and he would welcome her help raising his young daughter, Shifra resolves to return to Alexandria, her birthplace.

Traveling via Rome, she witnesses how deeply Roman life has deteriorated during her years in Milan. Yet it is only upon reaching Alexandria that she fully grasps the transformation brought about by the rise of fanatical Christianity in what was once the revered city of light.

Maddox uses Shifra’s journey from Milan to Alexandria to depict the steady descent from tolerance into bigotry in everyday life.

She shows the compromises people make to survive: nominal conversions to keep one’s livelihood, reinterpreting a god from one faith to fit another, attending services without belief, and quietly adapting to avoid drawing notice to oneself. In Alexandria, Shifra must confront difficult questions of faith, loyalty, and trust among those she now lives with. When betrayal comes from the person she trusted most, she faces her starkest choice: preserve her integrity or accept a comfortable life built on compromise.

This is a compelling story of bigotry, tragedy, and betrayal that resonates with the urgent questions of our own time. It is powerful and beautifully written, with vivid characters and a haunting narrative. The novel asks: When do we resist everyday injustices? And what do we do when those we trust betray us to save themselves?

Keira Morgan

10TH CENTURY

THE SWORD OF MALACHY

James Murphy, Independently published, 2025, £9.99, pb, 450pp, 9781068261510

In 10th-century Ireland, Brian mac Cénnetig’s clan has ambitions to rule Munster, the island’s southern province. A more immediate concern is the nearby Norse trading port of Limerick, whose Viking leaders raid the hinterland from time to time. Meanwhile, in the eastern province of Meath, Malachy mac Domnall has similar ambitions for kingship and dangerous Viking neighbours at Dublin. Conflict is endemic in Ireland during this period, not only between native Gael and incoming Scandinavians, but also between the many semi-independent Gaelic peoples into which Irish society is divided.

In this first volume of a new series, High Kings, the author attempts to dramatize more than thirty years of complex history in a single novel, and he is largely successful. The plot does tend to be rather episodic, perhaps reflecting annalistic primary sources, but Murphy manages to achieve some depth of character development and a sense of momentum that drives the main protagonists forward. Inadequate proof-reading doesn’t help, with a few errors every chapter (“threw” instead of “through”, for example). But that is a minor irritant compared to more fundamental structural issues that the objectivity of a professional editor might have addressed. Frequent switches between Brian’s story and Malachy’s interrupt the narrative flow too often for me. And the only links between the two are brief flashes forward that add little in terms of plot or character, while undermining our sense of jeopardy in the earlier events.

Despite these reservations, however, I found the book an enjoyable read. Murphy’s historical research cannot be faulted, and his world-building is convincing.

Nigel Willits

VENGEANCE OF THE DAMNED

Eric Schumacher, Independently published, 2025, $12.99, pb, 298pp, 9798265108999

The concluding book to the Olaf Saga opens in AD 995 at a time when the ruler of Norway, Hakon Jarl, has been weakened by revolt. After decades of raiding, Olaf seizes the opportunity to sail for his homeland, with an army of seasoned fighters at his back, and successfully claims the Norwegian throne for himself. A brutal campaign to convert his subjects to Christianity follows. Many reluctantly agree to be baptized, but those who cling to the old gods are killed, tortured, or driven from their homes. Not content to rule the Northern kingdom, Olaf sets his sights farther afield. His cruelty puts him on a collision course with his childhood friend, Torgil the Lucky, now the lord of a peaceful island people who follow the old Norse religion. As an inevitable clash looms large, it will take all of Torgil’s warrior skill and an armada of unexpected alliances to bring Olaf’s reign of terror to an end.

With action-packed narrative, rich detailing and finely portrayed characters, Vengeance of the Damned vividly brings to life the saga of Norway’s controversial king Olaf Tryggvason, as seen through the eyes of his former oathbrother, Torgil. By drawing upon events that occur across far-flung corners of Scandinavia, Schumacher skillfully weaves a tale that ties everything together in a final confrontation of daring, courage and unyielding determination. Although much of this period is lost to time, the author remains true to the fragments of poems and sagas that still exist, then builds upon them to deliver an immensely enjoyable novel that transports readers into the Viking world of adventure and battle. The author’s notes are particularly insightful.

Deborah

11TH CENTURY

Cay Wilding

A RIVER OF BLOOD

Adam Williams, Earnshaw, 2025, $25.99, pb, 400pp, 9789888904129

This historical murder mystery is set in 1099 CE, in Qahira (now Cairo). The story’s sleuth is Samuel, a Jewish academic and medical doctor who, along with his indentured servant, Gregory, rows up a tributary to the Nile, a river that has turned blood red, killing fish and birds.

Samuel proves that this is not a biblical plague but a problem with red algae, but he also stumbles on the body of a murdered

man, his head bashed in, his eyes, limbs, and genitalia removed. Crocodiles have taken a few bites out of the corpse, so no one wants to believe Samuel when he points out the man was murdered. Well, not until another victim is killed in the same manner. And another, and another. Samuel and Gregory risk everything to find this serial killer.

Williams draws beautiful word pictures of what Cairo must have been like, from the moon and stars shining over a mosque to the clinic where Samuel cares for the poor. There’s delightful historical texturing with a mix of races and religions, including a group of dancing Sufis.

But the mystery story is weak. The clues are well laid out and scenes start well, but then they fizzle out. The pace is slowed with long info dumps, thrills missed due to too much telling. Every time Samuel thinks he’s gone too far and is about to be killed, the person threatening him says something like “just kidding,” and lets him go. Also problematic is that almost every female in the story is a sex slave in a harem, a whore, or a retired whore now working as a madam.

The book is part I of a two-book story; Part II, A Sea of Tears, will be out later in 2026.

Alison McMahan

12TH CENTURY FEAST FOR THE RAVENS

Sarah Hawkswood, Allison & Busby, 2025 £9.99, pb, 288pp, 9780749032586 England, 1145. Two young boys discover the corpse of a Knight Templar in the woods near their Worcestershire home; the lads’ testimony reaffirms the local legend of a malign, shapeshifting, woodsy, raven-woman. The soldier’s identity is a mystery, as is his death, so the shire’s investigating team is summoned: think marshal, sheriff and deputy of the Wild West country. The relationship between these three ‘detectives’ is finely told as they follow a convoluted trail of deception, journeying around the county questioning all manner of folk from high-born to lowly, with more verbal than actual jousting, to close in on the truth.

Not an intellectual triumph, nor possibly intended as such; nevertheless, this tale well illustrates the intrigues and inner workings of 12th-century privileged landowners’ lives and hierarchies, with many a ‘de’ surname prefix reflecting the recent French/Norman influence. However, my own enjoyment was somewhat hampered by the liberal use of stylised, faux-medieval dialogue, e.g., “He died ‘cos the Hrafn Wif wanted ‘is eyes for breakin’ ‘er fast” or, “Pity it be that ‘e should be otherwhere this day”, which also seeps into the narrative. We all know it’s the 12th century and we’re not expecting authentic pre-Chaucerian talk, so why not just use plain English? – q.v. Val McDermid’s Queen Macbeth, set in the same era. That said, if you don’t mind Olde Englysshe local-yokel-type grammar, then this

competent murder-mystery caper could be right up your byway.

Simon Rickman

14TH CENTURY

A LION’S RANSOM

Candace Robb, Severn House, 2026, $29.99/£21.99, hb, 272pp, 9781448313174

Captain of York, Owen Archer, begins his next adventure under the careful guidance of author Candace Robb during a turning point in England’s history: the death of Edward III in 1377, and the ascension of his 10-year-old grandson, Richard II. The whole country is unsettled by this shift in royal dynamics, and nervous that the country’s enemies will assume the boy king to be a weakness, and attack. The potential regency of Richard’s uncle Lancaster exacerbates contentious feelings, but Archer is firmly loyal to the Queen Mother, Joan of Kent. York’s guild of goldsmiths gathers a joint purse to reproduce a lost golden lion for Richard’s coronation gift. During a celebration at the guildmaster’s house, the lion is stolen, and Archer is tasked with its return and inevitably becomes entangled with other events. In a city rife with spies, an unidentified man is found dead in the River Ouse, and other calamities ensue before Archer can untangle the multiple threads and solve the mysteries.

This complex tale, with its neatly packaged backstory, has the author working with an extensive cast. Charming at-home scenes with Archer; his wife, Lucie; their four children; a dear friend, Martin; and housekeeper, Kate, break up the tension between dangerous investigative scenes. Further, Kate’s twin siblings, Rob and Rose, are spies for Archer; Magda, the riverwoman and non-conformist healer, provides a soothing calmness with her Quaker-like use of thee and thou; Archer’s strong men, Alfred, Stephen and Ned make frequent appearances, and numerous street children give a detailed picture of orphan life. York’s 14th-century milieu is creatively portrayed, the characters true to their previous iterations and clearly beloved by their creator. This is atmospheric and dark in places, the fear of attack looming large, but is a balanced read, which sets up well for the next Archer series mystery adventure.

Fiona Alison

THE LAST PRIEST OF TINTAGEL

Pamela Taylor, Black Rose Writing, 2025, $18.95, pb, 271pp, 9781685136833

This medieval tale begins at Oxford University in 1326, where Piran Chegwin, a Cornishman, is studying for his theology degree to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a priest. All goes well until he has the misfortune of running afoul of another student, Martinus de Villiers. From then on, nothing goes right. Piran fears expulsion until he is fortunate enough to meet Archdeacon de Grandison. From this event, the rest of the plot unfolds. Piran encounters life-threatening danger,

accidents, murder, and great kindness and generosity.

Taylor weaves a fascinating, characterdriven, tale of years-long vengeance that touches the key figures of the Avignon papacy, Bishop de Grandison of Exeter, the English royal family, the Black Death, Cornwall, and the castle and village of Tintagel, among other places. She recreates convincingly the lives of churchmen in medieval Europe and the people who surround them. Her author’s note provides valuable insight into the blend of historical, fictional, and mythical elements, which will satisfy readers curious about the accuracy of the content.

This absorbing story is full of rich characters and dramatic events. The depth of the hatred and vengeance, sparked for the most senseless of reasons, is both shocking and powerful. Set against the goodness, kindness, and deep spirituality of so many others, it becomes a timeless study of good and evil. The vivid medieval setting reminds us subliminally of the enduring need to guard against man’s inhumanity to man.

Keira Morgan

15TH CENTURY

THE LAST WITCH

C. J. Cooke, Berkley, 2025, $30.00, hb, 339pp, 9798217187799 / HarperCollins UK, 2025, £16.99, hb, 384pp, 9780008656263

C. J. Cooke’s The Last Witch takes readers to late medieval Austria amid one of the era’s witch hunts, the Innsbruck trial of 1485. Helena Scheuberin, a sometimes recklessly outspoken woman, is accused of witchcraft after defending her friend who’d been unjustly executed. Unfortunately, the man she rebukes is Heinrich Kramer, the Dominican inquisitor and author of the infamous Malleus Maleficarum, whose obsession with punishing “evil” women shaped centuries of persecution. When Helena challenges him, her arrest for witchcraft is all but assured.

Cooke’s portrayal of the Innsbruck trial is immersive. She captures the claustrophobia of Helena’s imprisonment, giving descriptions of the dark dungeon, the terror of interrogation, and the solidarity among the accused. Even in their desperate circumstances, the women endure through small acts of care and defiance. Cooke’s attention to period detail makes the world tangible and immediate. She brings historical suffering to life without losing compassion.

Helena, based on the actual woman tried by Kramer, is drawn with depth and sympathy. She is fiercely intelligent and morally grounded, refusing to be silenced despite her ordeal. Through her, Cooke restores a voice history nearly erased. Heinrich Kramer, by contrast, is portrayed with unflinching disgust. He is a petty, cruel man whose fanaticism masks insecurity. Modern readers have called him a medieval incel, and the description fits remarkably well.

At its heart, this is a story about courage

and the power of words. In one moving scene, an imprisoned woman asks the others to teach her how to pronounce their names correctly. This act helps them retain their humanity in a world determined to erase it. After all, words are magic.

Also, I love the dedication: “To Gisèle Pelicot.” To which I say, “YES, witch.” An engrossing and unforgettable novel.

Kristen McQuinn

HOPE AND DESTINY

Niklas Natt och Dag, trans. Alex Fleming, Atria, 2025, $20.00, pb, 464pp, 9781668069875

The Kingdom of Sweden in 1434 is in turmoil under King Eric. A revolt of Northmen and peasants against burdensome taxes is led by the charismatic Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson. The nobility backs the uprising, helping to oust the corrupt Dane and German bailiffs. Across two years, there are power shifts, changing loyalties, and castle strongholds taken and retaken. This is the story of Natt och Dag’s ancestors, 15 generations past.

Carefully building the historical framework and meticulously constructing a host of characters, Natt och Dag has created an outstanding work of historical fiction. The family of Sir Bengt Stensson of Cuckoo’s Roost make up the heart of the novel. Sir Bengt is a lazy, slothful drunk, his brothers Bo and Nils more ambitious. Their uncle, Bishop Knut, is opportunistic, cunning, duplicitous, always eager to line his pockets, and careful to keep a foot in each camp until he sees which way the wind blows. The heir and hope of the family is Bengt’s son Magnus. As the revolt gains momentum, 17-year-old Magnus is sent north to join Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson’s gathering army. His lifelong companion, Finn, rescued as an orphan of the Black Death, accompanies him. The family, publicly supporting King Eric, is using Magnus to influence and leverage their position and power with Engelbrekt’s possible victory. Magnus proves himself valuable to Engelbrekt and a close friendship grows.

Admirable are the brothers’ wives, women of strength and principle, especially Sir Bengt’s wife Stina who bravely defends the castle while her cowardly husband flees. Amid the turmoil of war and shifting power struggles, webs of intrigue and secrecy play out. A tragic love story unfolds with devastating results. This novel is rich and complex, requiring careful, attentive reading as the narrative builds into a very rewarding payoff.

Janice Ottersberg

16TH CENTURY BIANCA’S CURE

Gigi Berardi, She Writes, 2026, £16.99/$17.99, pb, 304pp, 9798896360704

Set in late Renaissance Italy, this novel follows Bianca, the beautiful daughter of a Venetian nobleman and a healer. Forbidden by her family to pursue her passion for medicine, she marries beneath her station to escape to Florence, that great centre of learning, determined to discover a cure for the “heat disease,” or malaria, that killed her mother. Consumed by her mission, she quickly angers her new husband and formidable mother-inlaw, but she refuses to abandon her purpose. Despite every obstacle, Bianca presses on. She becomes the mistress of the Grand Duke’s only son and persuades him to support her research, yet even his influence cannot open all the doors barred to a woman meddling in forbidden science. Forced to work in secret, she endures her lover’s marriage to another, her husband’s contempt and infidelity, and the dangers of treating the poorest prostitutes under filthy conditions—all while fearing accusations of witchcraft. Still, she is driven. Berardi vividly portrays the duality of Florentine life: its brilliance in art and scholarship contrasted with its poverty, ignorance, and the vulnerability of women. Told in a close third person through Bianca’s eyes, the novel blends historical detail with compelling fiction. Her obsession feels exaggerated, but as a lover of all things Renaissance, I found the story absorbing.

Keira Morgan

SINNERS

Elizabeth Fremantle, Michael Joseph, 2025, £18.99, hb, 416pp, 9780241705162

Any internet inquiry into Beatrice Cenci will tell you she was repeatedly raped by her father. Whether true or not, Sinners edges around this, outlining cruel mental and physical degradation perpetrated on Beatrice, while the possibility of rape smoulders angrily in the background. Beatrice is a young Roman noblewoman in late 1500s Italy. She has unwittingly become her father’s ‘favourite,’ partly due to the death of brothers in family feuds. Cruelty mixed with disarming endearments has hardened Beatrice over years of Francesco Cenci’s sociopathic tyranny. The latest death of another brother, seen as inviting more feudal retribution, moves Francesco to take his family from the Palazzo Cenci in Rome to La Rocca, a menacing, ravine-built citadel in the State of Naples. Beatrice’s first-person, present-tense voice is unexpected and doesn’t quite provoke the mood in the beginning. At La Rocca, however, the story becomes darker and more horrific by the page. Francesco’s maltreatment of his family and sneaky connivances are a neverending menace. Beatrice falls in love with Olimpio, one of Francesco’s creatures, but they have to meet without alerting Francesco or his vindictive henchmen. When she and her

stepmother are locked up for months (three years historically), vengeance manifests into a physical presence, as does Beatrice’s ‘inner monster,’ which simmers, barely under control. The determination to end her father’s brutal reign, and free her family, keeps her on a single-minded road.

Understandably, legend surrounds the Cenci family, but Fremantle has found her way through the many myths to arrive at a viable narrative for the final period of Beatrice’s life, which in no way seeks to exonerate her of patricide. Starting with the horrific outcome of Olimpio’s actions, the author ramps up the pace of the final chapters, even though the outcome is unalterable. This real-life dark Gothic story needs no added tropes. Graphic, yes, but an excellent if disconcerting read.

Fiona Alison

MAID OF HONOUR

Rozsa Gaston, Sapere, 2025, $14.99/£12.99, pb, 292pp, 9780854957217

This first in The Anne Boleyn Chronicles is set in 1513/1514, when 13-year-old Anne is sent to the Burgundian-Habsburg court in Malines (Mechelen), as one of Margaret of Austria’s ladies-in-waiting. Thus far in Anne’s short life, besides an extremely ambitious father who reaches far above his station in marriage and in court affairs, she is quite green about what this entails. Many girls are in the same position, so there is a great deal of vying for attention, backbiting and cliquish behaviour. The strongminded Anne is modelled on her future self as we believe her to have been – a proud, stubborn, questioning girl with a single-minded objective to be the best of the best in everything and preferably even better than that. This concept is a little overplayed, as during long scenes of education in dancing, falconry, social ranking, etiquette, conversation, entrances and exits, plus many girlish squabbles, Anne’s response is always arrogant and supercilious. The most fulfilling and informative scenes are with her French tutor, Monsieur Semmonet, and in private sessions with Lady Margaret.

The background covers Lady Margaret’s difficult teen years while shuffled from pillar to post; her nephew, the future Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor’s proposed marriage to Henry VIII’s sister, Mary Tudor; details about her father, Maximilian; her love for her brother Philip; the many tragedies that beset her family; and her exemplary rule as Duchess of Savoy. There is interesting insight into medieval courtly love, and its necessary dissembling behaviour is broken down in detail.

There are generally mixed feelings about Henry’s second queen; I tend to think she’s been the subject of a really bad ad campaign, but I found this version of her hard to like. The book’s conclusion sends her to France, where she spends seven years as maid of honour primarily to Queen Claude.

BOLEYN TRAITOR

Philippa Gregory, HarperCollins, 2025, £25.00, hb, 496pp, 9780008744984 / William Morrow, 2025, $32.00, hb, 496pp, 9780063439689

Philippa Gregory continues her fascination with the Boleyn women which began with Anne Boleyn’s sister, Mary, in The Other Boleyn Girl (2001). In Boleyn Traitor, she retells the story of Jane Boleyn, already begun in her earlier books, and we see four wives of Henry VIII through her eyes. Jane is appointed as a high-ranking lady of the bedchamber to her husband’s sister, Anne Boleyn. After the downfall and execution of her husband, George, and Anne, she is redeployed, with Thomas Cromwell’s connivance, to attend Henry’s next three wives: the unblemished Jane Seymour; the lucky escapee, Anne of Cleves; and the last Howard family pawn, the unfortunate teenager, Kathryn.

This proximity to the queens makes Jane a key informant for Cromwell, the man who must know everything, until he too becomes a target of Henry’s judicial scrutiny. Left to strategise for herself, her mentoring of Kathryn Howard reveals Jane as a political risk taker, perhaps gambling that Kathryn will outlive her old, ailing husband. Readers of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall will be familiar with Jane Boleyn as Cromwell’s catty but willing informant.

In this telling, Gregory wants to detach Jane’s story from its historic narrative, which first emerged as Elizabethan propaganda, as the woman whose evidence condemned George and Anne Boleyn to death. This accusation, argues Gregory, has no supporting historical evidence. Boleyn Traitor is a persuasive portrayal of Jane as professional courtier, serving at court from the age of 11, who has learned to survive and prosper in an addictive and dangerous world of courtly codes, especially to do with love. Gregory paints Jane convincingly into Henry VIII’s court machine, one which could promote or judicially kill its parts. Jane’s story shows us how it was a mechanism easily deployed against whomever he wished.

Louise Tree

MISTRESS OF DARTINGTON HALL

Rosemary Griggs, Troubador, 2025, £11.99, pb, 304pp, 9781836283799

Fiona Alison

Devon, 1587: News arrives at the remote manor house of Gawen Champernowne that the Armada is on its way to Plymouth. Gawen, though, is away in Ireland and Roberda, his French Huguenot wife (whom he has already tried, and failed, to divorce), must organise the community’s response to the threat. This is the

third book of a trilogy starting with the story of Katherine Champernowne, mother of Sir Walter Raleigh and Gawen’s aunt (A Woman of Noble Wit) and The Dartington Bride, charting Roberda’s journey to England to wed Gawen.

The author is an expert on the history of Dartington, home of the 2024 HNS conference, and it shows. This is a recommended read especially for anyone who came to the manor house in 2024, for they will be able to follow Roberda’s steps through the arch and into the great hall, the core of the house having changed little since. There is a helpful historical note at the end of the book, but I’m prepared to believe that the names of stewards and of the rector could also all be found in the records; even if they are not there, they read as though they could be.

Griggs’s achievement lies in her ability to evoke vividly an intimate portrait of life in a 16th-century West Country manor house and the effect of imminent invasion on its family, tenants and servants. Furthermore, the story puts front and centre the precarious position of women in a society which granted them very few rights, even over their children, and in which Roberda risked being disinherited. Paradoxically, the only woman in the novel who has any real agency of her own is Roberda’s half-sister Béatrice, a nun, brought up as a Catholic by her mother and now the head of a convent.

Katherine Mezzacappa

THE OTHER MOCTEZUMA GIRLS

Sofia Robleda, Amazon Crossing, 2026, $16.99/£8.99, pb, 349pp, 9781662532504 Tenochtitlan, 1551. The last Aztec empress has died, and her youngest daughters are left with a mystery. They’ve discovered their late mother’s secret diary. As she was previously believed to be illiterate, the diary reveals an entirely different identity to their mother, a woman once known as Tecuichpoch. It illuminates the turmoil she and her people faced amid the Spanish conquest. However, there are more journals to find and a trail of clues to follow. Yearning for the truth, Isabel leads a quest to find these journals across the Valley of Mexico and uncovers the remnants of her ancestral world. In their search, a family legacy unfolds against dangerous obstacles—including a brother intent on claiming their mother’s inheritance. The story alternates between Tecuichpoch’s diary entries and Isabel’s journey, which constructs an intimate portrayal of female endurance and complex family dynamics.

Beyond the drama and suspense, Robleda’s narrative is anchored by a deep emotional resonance as characters confront hard truths about themselves while confronting the shadows cast by conquest and betrayal. Tecuichpoch’s last journal entry is as bittersweet as it is heartbreaking, revealing the immense trauma she kept hidden in order to survive. Folklore and supernatural touches blend with carefully researched history, resulting in an immersive, gripping tale about reclaiming identity piece by aching piece. Exquisite prose, pulse-pounding adventure, a lost empire, evocative setting details, and dynamic characters blend together to create a story that will leave an indelible mark on those who dare to follow Isabel’s path. Highly recommended.

J. Lynn Else 17TH CENTURY CRIMSON VELVET HEART

Carmel Bird, Transit Lounge, 2025, A$34.99, pb, 328pp, 9781923023512

Set in late 17thcentury France under King Louis XIV, this novel portrays the remarkable life of Princess Marie Adélaïde of the House of Savoy, born in Turin in 1685. News of her birth is relayed to the King of France as her marriage to his grandson, Louis, Duke of Bourgogne, has been arranged in the Treaty of Turin with her father, Victor Amadeus II. She marries Louis in 1697 at the age of 12, when she becomes fecund. The Sun King, now her grandfather, adores her and lavishes his attentions on her.

Marie Adélaïde’s life as the Duchess of Bourgogne is narrated from two alternating viewpoints. Her childhood friend, Clotilde, a classmate at the college of St. Cyr, becomes a nun, Sister Clare. She begins writing her intimate Memoir at the convent of SainteOdile four years after Adélaïde’s death. We learn that Clotilde’s first and only love, JeanJacques, is killed in the Battle of Cassano during the War of Spanish Succession.

In contrast to this intimate portrait, the omniscient narrator paints a brilliantly vivid and panoramic picture of royal life at the Palace of Versailles, with its numerous fairytale aspects, including menageries, the hall of mirrors, fountains, balls, music, theater, operas, and fireworks. At the same time, constant religious and succession wars, malicious court gossip, savage political pamphlets and cartoons that make fun of the King, constant public observance of

Adélaïde’s daily life, and crude medicinal treatments inflicted upon its subjects reveal the darker side of palace life. In 1710 Adélaïde gives birth to her third and sole surviving son, the future King Louis XV.

A prolific author, Carmel Bird’s first historical novel, Crimson Velvet Heart, is meticulously researched, and its themes of love, loss, adventure, mystery and intrigue are as artfully written as Dumas. It is a tour de force.

Robin Holloway

SALT PEOPLE OF THE CLOUD HOUSES

Fawn Brokaw Doyle, Independently published, 2025, $17.99, pb, 331pp, 9798998576201

Doyle’s debut is a fine introduction to the life and times of a lesser-known American foremother: Sarah Rapalje (1625-85), considered the first person of European descent to be born in the Dutch colony of New Netherland. The author counts herself among Sarah’s numerous descendants. This documentary novel dramatizes known facts about the real Sarah against an impressively researched backdrop, with imagined dialogue and scenes fleshing out the historical record.

As a child, Sarah is the pride of her parents, French-speaking Walloon refugees who run a tavern in New Amsterdam. She marries as a teenager and soon falls pregnant, beginning a cycle of childbearing that lasts for decades. In many ways, Sarah is an ordinary woman of her time, preoccupied with tasks at home and the family’s farm at the Waalebocht (in present-day Brooklyn) and dedicated to the safety and prosperity of her growing brood. But Sarah is multilingual, earns money by selling handmade lace, and continues her parents’ practice of befriending their Native neighbors. All these factors set her apart. The colony’s conflicts with local tribes play out tragically during Sarah’s early married life, and the novel explores political change within the colony until New Amsterdam is surrendered to the invading English and renamed New York.

Salt People of the Cloud Houses (the unusual title comes from the Native people’s nickname for the Dutch, traveling in ships with billowing sails) effectively has two protagonists: Sarah and her homeland. Of the two, the latter has deeper characterization. All the details on colonial society add considerable texture. The people could use more interiority, and Sarah’s many children and siblings are mainly names on a page, although we see Sarah grow into a confident, wise matriarch with her second husband’s support. Her path to letting love into her heart again is an especially fulfilling storyline.

Sarah Johnson

WHEN WE WERE DIVIDED

Liz Flanagan, Fox & Ink, 2026, £10.99, pb, 432pp, 9781916747869

In 1643 England is in the middle of a vicious civil war. But while the great men of the country squabble, in the tiny village of

Heptonstall in Yorkshire, three women are divided by more familial, personal disputes, caused by misinterpretations and misfortune.

This is the English Civil War from a female viewpoint, particularly a female civilian viewpoint. It concentrates not on big battles but the petty rivalries and misunderstandings that lead to jealousy and conflict between individuals forced (because it is a very closed society) to live side by side. The conflicts within the family are mirrored in the conflicts in the broader national family. There is also an unresolved mystery as to just what exactly caused the initial rifts.

The emphasis is very much on the internal feelings of the participants. It’s extremely densely written, and I found it hard to get through, but the historical feel is really good, illustrating the social conditions of the time very well.

Martin Bourne

ANNEKE JANS IN THE NEW WORLD

Sandra Freels, She Writes, 2026, $17.99, pb, 208pp, 9798896360322

Anneke Jans arrives in the New World from Europe in 1630 with her husband Roelof and their children. They are part of a group of settlers brought by the Dutch West India Company to New Netherland, which consisted of what is now parts of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. They live in the colony of New Amsterdam and begin adjusting to the land. They befriend Natives from the local tribe, who help them learn the ways of the land, and Roelof signs a contract to farm for the West India Company. But tragedy occurs, and Roelof’s death means Anneke must make some quick decisions.

The way of life in New Amsterdam is described realistically, including the evil acts of the West India Company. They took up the practice of slavery; a hanging of an enslaved man became a public party to which parents brought their little children, and snacks were sold. They committed murderous attacks against a nearby Native American tribe, starting a war. Girls were married off very young to much older men. And that is just the beginning of their evil deeds.

The point of view is mostly Anneke’s, but sometimes it changes to other characters very swiftly, and it is a bit jarring. There is also not a lot of depth to this book until the midpoint. Events are described very factually without a lot of feeling. There are so many characters it is hard to keep track of them all, and only Anneke is fully fleshed out. After the midpoint, Anneke starts to shine, but the book is still scattered, relating numerous events without really tying together a cohesive plot.

Overall, this is a well-researched story that could do with more editing.

Bonnie DeMoss

SAVAGE: Armed Strength for Peace

Jeff Kelly, Wire Gate Press, 2025, £9.99, pb, 365pp, 9798292052159

The hero, Robert Savage, a tall, handsome printer’s apprentice and pikeman, serves on the side of Parliament in the Gentlemen of Arms trained band, a London regiment during the English Civil War. Savage performs deeds of derring-do at the behest of his master and then his sergeant, as he rises through the ranks. An archetype of moderation, bravery, and rightthinking, he is the very model of the stalwart Englishman. In the first chapter, his nemesis, the despicable Colonel Lunsford appears. He will reappear in many guises as Savage’s antithesis throughout the conflict. There is a plot that involves spies, rich, beautiful women, typical moral dilemmas, and suchlike.

The story follows the ins-and-outs of Savage’s fictional participation in the very real early battles of the civil war, viz., the battles of Powick Bridge, Southam, Edgehill, and Brentford. For those with a consuming interest in the military detail of the early English civil war period, its training, formations, techniques, marches, and language, this book will prove interesting. There is an historical note that provides sources such an audience will find useful.

Keira Morgan

THE WAX CHILD

Olga Ravn, trans. Martin Aitkin, New Directions, 2025, $19.95, hb, 174pp, 9780811238830

The Wax Child, set in 17th-century Denmark, is the outcome of a multi-genre project about a real witch trial—it grew out of Ravn’s earlier stageplay, HEX. At the center of the novel is Christenze Kruckow, who lives an unconventionally independent life and is therefore susceptible to accusations of witchcraft. She is the “mistress” of a wax doll, which seems to have been created for the purpose of casting spells. It is the doll, mostly omniscient, who narrates the novel.

It is, of course, an interesting narrative choice to tell the story from the perspective of an object. The wax doll, who can gather information far beyond its physical proximity, lends a panoramic perspective to what otherwise might have been a more personal story. However, the really striking quality of the novel is its lush, forceful writing, for which the translator partly deserves recognition. Ravn manages to summon the everyday dust and debris from the past, in an act of witchcraft similar to the magical explorations of the wax child.

Ravn does not tie everything clearly together in the end, leaving unanswered questions, and those reading for the plot may be disappointed. Nevertheless, this is well worth reading for its unique form and linguistic artistry.

Elizabeth Crachiolo

FIRE SWORD & SEA

Vanessa Riley, William Morrow, 2026, $30.00/ C$37.00/£20.00, hb, 384pp, 9780063271043

Vanessa Riley explores the storied history beneath the Caribbean sands, bringing to brimming life the chaotic nature of the 17th-century Golden Age of Piracy. Her novel spans 20+ years of Jacquotte Delahaye’s life (1675 to 1698) and is part land-based coming-of-age, part nautical adventure.

Born and raised in Basse-Terre, Tortuga, Jacquotte knows well what a rough and violent place the town is: a temporary stop-over for slave-traders, buccaneers, privateers and filibusters. Daughter of a Guinea slave, she finds slavery abhorrent, so when her life turns sour, she ships out to Petit-Goâve, Hispaniola, where she comes to the rescue of Lizzôa Erville, her future lover.

Various sources say Jacquotte exists only in legend, most likely an amalgam of characters, but plenty has been written about Robin Hood’s escapades! Historical figures and significant events (the 1692 tidal wave) ground the story firmly in this wild and dangerous time. Naturally, there is a feminist slant, most female characters flying under the radar by reinventing themselves as men. If they labour with equal diligence and strength, no one takes much notice, and the author succeeds in making this feel like a time of greater acceptance of anomalies.

A number of gender-bending ideas are tossed into the mix, as well as racial issues still prevalent centuries later. In this cracking adventure full of thrills and chills, Riley’s diverse, multi-faceted cast fulfils the task of building the compelling narrative. By 1681, Jacquotte and friends, including Lizzôa, are aboard a stolen British ship, dug deep into the adrenaline boosts they seek, but the dayto-day dangers of life aboard ship take their toll. After years at sea, Captain Delahaye’s past returns to haunt her, but her leadership skills (primarily navigation and killing) turn events to a very credible conclusion. Kudos to the author for this first-class adventure, which could happily have been longer.

Fiona Alison

LOVE IN THE TIME OF THE MEDICI

Pnina Shinebourne, Cinnamon Press, 2025, £11.99, pb, 135pp, 9781788648639

Genoa, 1602: Twelve-year-old Livia Vernazza, daughter of an ailing mattressmaker, threatens to jump out of a window

rather than marry her father’s choice of husband. But marry him she must, her brother speaking her vows for her.

She tries running away with a homosexual adventurer who promises to protect her, but they are discovered, and she is locked away in a ‘refuge’ for fallen women. Then she meets the illegitimate Don Giovanni de’ Medici, a military architect, son of Eleonora degli Albizzi, an abandoned mistress long banished to a convent: could history repeat itself? Based on historical facts (thoroughly researched, drawing on Giovanni and Livia’s correspondence), this is a tragic story, in which Livia is punished for her attempt to exercise free emotional will in defiance of patriarchal convention.

There are a number of examples of pitiless treatment of women in the Medici circle, and all deserve to be told. For that reason, I would have preferred a less general title for this novel, one that acknowledged what was unique about Livia’s particular struggle. Shinebourne’s prose is clipped, pared down and deprived of semi-colons, and initially she has a penchant for some short, verbless sentences; a tighter edit could have eliminated infelicities such as: ‘It is completely unacceptable for her to reside with us in the Ducal Palace, are we to call her My ladyship? certainly not’ and the occasional oddity like ‘stroll along the Grand Canal’.

But perhaps Shinebourne’s sparse style allows Livia’s story to emerge as the stark tragedy it was; the real Livia, however, survived Giovanni by decades, living in imposed reclusion, but that part of her experience is not dealt with at all. That noted, does this novel achieve some recognition of the injustices Livia suffered? Absolutely.

Katherine Mezzacappa

THE TOMBSTONE MAKER’S DAUGHTER

Amanda Taylor, West End Publications, 2024, £7.99, pb, 278pp, 9781068799808

This is an ambitious, emotionally freighted novel set in Cornwall in the uneasy years following the Civil War and during the recurring plague outbreaks of the 1660s. Its story centres on Iben Hartmann, daughter of an irritable village mason, and Thomas Huck, the Royalist heir returning from exile and war with a disfiguring scar and unresolved passion for the woman he once expected to marry. Their paths cross again as plague creeps through their parish: a dead child, a dying farmer, and the placing of vinegar bowls outside cottages announce a community holding its breath.

The plot is busy but coherent, moving between Thomas’s troubled attempts to practise medicine with limited knowledge, Iben’s own bruised emotional history and herbal skill, and the wider tensions between Parliamentarian survivors and embittered Royalists. Taylor has a strong instinct for scene-making—Truro’s fair, the sheeptheft in the woods, the grinding poverty of farmsteads—and the novel’s best passages lie

in its atmospheric rendering of rural hardship and superstition.

As historical fiction, the research is mixed. Everyday detail feels comfortably grounded. The medical material (theriac, water germander, humoral diagnosis) is plausible for a semi-trained 17th-century physician. But some dialogue is far too modern (“no time for that,” “funny creature,” “not my sort of thing”), and several idioms—“playing two or three fellas at once”—sit awkwardly in mid17th-century mouths. A few sexual scenes feel tonally contemporary rather than historically situated. Sentence-level writing is generally fluent and readable, though the prose would benefit from pruning: overlong paragraphs, repeated interior monologue, and occasional clichés reduce the novel’s considerable atmospheric power.

Nonetheless, The Tombstone Maker’s Daughter remains engaging—its depiction of plague fear, class bitterness, and thwarted attachment has genuine dramatic pull. Where its style tightens, the novel achieves a persuasive blend of romance, peril and period melancholy.

Douglas Kemp

18TH CENTURY

THE HOUSE OF WIDOWS

James Buchan, Mountain Leopard, 2025, £20.00/$25.00, hb, 288pp, 9781035425587

James Buchan’s novels are not for the fainthearted. They are replete with deep historical research, arcane information about political, economic and military affairs and interesting, often eccentric, characters.

And The House of Widows is no exception. The saga here reaches its fourth instalment, and the story is taken up by William Neilson’s grandson, also William, who is at the Royal Military College in Paris. It is 1784. Grandfather William Neilson has died fighting for French territory in Canada in 1759. So, Buchan has moved on 25 years. Some of the events of those years are filled in by now-aging characters from earlier books, and Buchan makes his reader work hard to piece together what has happened in the intervening years.

The current story follows William’s military education and career, including his friendship with Napoleon Buonaparte at the Military Academy in 1784. Readers have the benefit of hindsight to anticipate events that are to come. However, the key moments are mentioned – the execution of Louis XVI, the fall of Robespierre – but only as a backdrop to William’s own story. There are some colourful episodes where humour combines with erudition: for example, the flight of the ‘aerostatic machine’ and the rescue of the Carmelite nuns from the guillotine (in spite of the Mother Superior’s resistance, her instincts favouring martyrdom).

The most powerful scenes are those set in Russia, particularly the burning of Moscow and the winter retreat. Buchan’s writing captures a grim realism that reminded me

of Brecht’s Mother Courage in its unflinching depiction of the devastation of war.

This is an unusual, erudite and witty book. It defies genre conventions and is quite unique. It is not a novel of character or psychological insight: but it is a fabulous, if demanding and eccentric, story and would warrant re-reading many times to appreciate fully its allusive, sophisticated depths.

Adele Wills

THE BOY WITH THE JADE

Charles Bush, Htf Publishing, 2025, $18.95, pb, 262pp, 9781963452211

In 18th-century China, Baoyu is a child of privilege, heir to an important family of Chinese nobles. He is said to have been born with a jade pendant in his mouth and surrounded by luxury. His grandmother swears to this legend and tells him that as long as he wears the jade around his neck, he will have good luck. He is adored and pampered by his grandmother, but his father hates him, and he has no idea why. He prefers to avoid his father and spend his time with his brilliant and beautiful cousin Daiyu, with whom he quickly falls in love. But then a cruel beating, death, betrayal, and the loss of his jade lead Baoyu to look inward.

The descriptions in this novel, which is inspired by the Chinese novel Hong Lou Meng, are absolutely vivid, and written words spring to life: the opulence in which Baoyu lives, the privilege he enjoys, and the servants who meet his every physical need, with no exceptions, paint a lush but questionable picture of his young world. The evil is apparent too. The hatred his father has for him absolutely thumps across the page. A jealous halfbrother hates him. Young Baoyu’s unchecked self-indulgence also has the potential for evil.

The reader is quickly immersed in Baoyu’s world, good and bad. The author’s extensive research and knowledge of Chinese folklore and customs, as well as Taoist, Confucian, Zhuangzian, Buddhist, and other teachings is apparent. Baoyu’s response to devastating loss and agony defines this whole book. The impact on this reader, from the vivid imagery combined with the depth of feeling portrayed by the author, was immense. Eye-opening, artful, exquisite, and painful, this is a journey of self-discovery that is not to be missed. Highly, highly recommended.

Bonnie DeMoss

A KISS FROM THE DEVIL

Georgina Clarke, Verve Books, 2025, £10.99, pb, 320pp, 9780857309310

A Kiss from the Devil tells the story of Lizzie Hardwicke, an 18th-century society harlot who occasionally helps the local magistrate to investigate crime.

In this fourth instalment of the series, Lizzie’s past catches up with her, as her estranged brother is suspected of the murder of young streetwalkers. Fortunately, her old friend and admirer, William Davenport, is on hand to help her in a desperate race against time—not only to prevent more young women from being killed, but to confront a threat that Lizzie herself only recognises when it’s almost too late.

This is a well-crafted murder mystery packed full of period detail and atmosphere. Lizzie is a strong and engaging female protagonist; perhaps not entirely realistic for the period, but this is fiction after all, and the result is an excellent and compelling read. The underlying romance between Lizzie and Davenport adds a welcome lightness to the story, and readers can’t help but root for them as they navigate a relationship that would make Victorian society shudder: a harlot and a gentleman of good repute.

Clarke has written a fast-paced, gripping tale which draws you in from the first page, and she clearly knows her history. The tension builds beautifully as Lizzie discovers that the danger is closer than she ever imagined. This can be read as a standalone, because Lizzie’s backstory is cleverly woven into the narrative without being too obviously signposted. But once you read this one you will definitely want to read the other books in the Lizzie Hardwicke series!

Samantha Ward-Smith

DEATH’S LONG SHADOW

R. M. Cullen, Sapere, 2025, £14.99, pb, 349pp, 9780854956890

Theatre manager, playwright and politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan is one of the most colourful figures of the 18th century, a mercurial character who pulled himself up from humble beginnings to the ranks of the gentry. In this enjoyable book set in 1792-93 he adds ‘detective’ to his other talents. As the story starts, Sheridan is mourning the recent death of his young wife, and has come to Staffordshire to visit an old female friend, now married to an earl. One of the house guests is found dead in mysterious circumstances. Investigations lead to the victim’s backstory and a plausible candidate for the killer.

Some months later another murder follows, one of the backstage staff at Sheridan’s own theatre in London. It turns out the victim has been hiding a homeless relative in a secluded part of the theatre building. The story rattles along with numerous blind alleys and enjoyable characters.

Sheridan solves the mysteries in a denouement which I did not predict, though I found it did rather stretch my credibility. The

plot, running over a period of several months, includes Sheridan’s care for his surviving baby daughter and his hopes for a second marriage. We see him as an idealistic, romantic man and, though clearly possessed of a sharp intellect, he is very fallible, falling prey to hypnotism at one point. He is well able to mix in all levels of society which, as shown here, range from royalty all the way down to the roughest St Giles rookery. Though he is clearly one of a kind, I would have preferred it if Cullen had provided him with some sidekick or assistant off whom he might bounce ideas as the investigation progresses.

Still, as a well-told tale, with strong characters in clearly pictured settings, this is good value.

Ben Bergonzi

DEAREST BLOOD

Jessie Haas, Independently published, 2025, $19.99, pb, 258pp, 9798218573355

In 1775, fifteen-year-old Fanny Montusan is living a comfortable life in the shire town of Westminster (then part of the colony of New York, later part of Vermont), but that is soon to change. Her stepfather, Crean Brush, is hated by the locals due to his loyalty to the English Crown; revolution is in the air; and Fanny’s family, to her dismay, is making contingency plans that include marrying Fanny to a British officer she does not know. Fanny herself is intrigued by Green Mountain Boy Ethan Allen, whom she has not met but who is an avowed enemy of her stepfather.

Based on the infamous Westminster Massacre of 1775 (said by some to be the first battle of the American Revolution), this is an impressive biographical novel, well-written and well-researched. Fanny, the narrator, is a spirited heroine, with a quick wit and a sharp tongue, yet she is rooted firmly in her time. She is surrounded by a cast of memorable real-life characters, including Margaret, her mother (or, more accurately speaking, her mother figure) and, of course, Ethan Allen himself. Those unfamiliar with Fanny and with this slice of Vermont history will likely want to learn more after reading this novel.

Susan Higginbotham

THE HOUSE OF FALLEN SISTERS

Louise Hare, HQ, 2026, £18.99, hb, 384pp, 9780008495008

Known for successful books set in the 20th century, Louise Hare has now chosen to depict, with unflinching frankness, the lives of 18th-century prostitutes. The main character, Sukey, is a mixed-race girl who has been raised in a respectable country home as the faithful companion of a contemporary named Emily, but as the story begins, Emily’s estranged mother has reclaimed her, along with Sukey, and put them to work in her business – a Covent Garden brothel. We first see Sukey having run away to escape the auction of her virginity,

days after her first period, but later she agrees to come back and submit. Emily’s own auction follows in a few weeks. I am certain, given the amorality of the 18th century, that there were in reality girls who tolerated working for their mothers in this way, but portraying such a character as both sympathetic and having agency is very difficult: Hare does not quite make us identify with the moral gymnastics through which her characters put themselves.

As a feud between two madams ensues, Sukey and Emily are drawn to one side and then the other, sometimes in control of events, often not at all. Another plot strand, perhaps more successful, concerns Sukey’s increasing consciousness of her own race, having rescued a young ex-slave who has been beaten up. She gathers together with other Black Londoners, both enslaved and free, in the fight for fairness.

Comparing this to works such as The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar or Daughters of Night by Laura ShepherdRobinson, I felt that the leading characters suffered from some passivity, perhaps because the plot is diffuse, lacking a single line of suspense or jeopardy. However I applaud the author for producing an ambitious book, and one that reads with grim fascination.

Ben Bergonzi

PASSION’S DUTY

Lizzie Jenks, Wheel Horse Press, 2025, $12.99, pb, 287pp, 9781960402035

Set in the New York Colony in 1755, amid the French and Indian War, Passion’s Duty places its romance firmly within a landscape shaped by ambition, unrest, and competing loyalties. James Carroll, an Irishman determined to secure his independence after years of indentured service, sees military advancement as his one clear path forward. That focus is tested when he encounters Faith Richmond, the sharp-minded daughter of a British colonel, whose future has already been decided for her.

Jenks excels at grounding the story in its historical moment. The Mohawk Valley frontier feels tense and unsettled, with diplomacy, territorial claims, and looming conflict pressing in on daily life. Faith’s position is especially well drawn; intelligent and capable, she is nonetheless treated as a financial and social asset, expected to accept decisions made on her behalf. Her growing connection with James unfolds slowly, shaped by proximity and circumstance rather than impulse, and their attraction is complicated by rank, obligation, and the approaching war.

The novel devotes considerable attention to the political and military realities of the period, including strained alliances with Indigenous tribes and the moral costs of colonial expansion. Despite its title, the story favors emotional restraint over overt sensuality, allowing the romance to develop within the pressures of war, duty, and survival. At times, the breadth of historical context slows the romantic momentum, but it also reinforces the stakes facing both characters. Readers who enjoy historically immersive romance—where

love must negotiate loyalty, ambition, and consequence—will find much to admire here.

Williamaye Jones

THE LOST SEIGNEUR

David Loux, Wire Gate Press, 2025, $17.99, pb, 226pp, 9781954065048

In this complex and beautifully written novel that takes place in both colonial America and southwestern France, David Loux explores the meaning of love and family.

The story begins with Magdalena, daughter of Pierre Laux, a pioneer French immigrant farmer near Watertown, Pennsylvania, and wife of a local politician who receives a letter with the startling news that her grandfather is alive and will soon arrive in Philadelphia. Her father is shocked, because his father, Seigneur Jean-Pierre du Laux, set off for the king’s court one day when he was 13, decades earlier, and disappeared, leaving the boy, his mother and all their tenants unprotected during the terrible times of the Dragonnades, which billeted troops in Protestant homes to force their conversion to Catholicism. In the intervening years, Pierre migrated to America, settled, married and raised his family.

Unknown to all, the seigneur was wrongfully imprisoned in France for decades. His story unfolds after he has escaped and is walking along a dusty Toulouse road. He meets Gabriel/Gotzone who saves him from rearrest.

This is a remarkable tale of priests, Cathars, torture, love, secret sects and all sorts of twists and turns as the novel moves back and forth among these four main characters. It develops seamlessly and with ever increasing tension and will keep you awake until you finish it. I recommend it highly.

Keira Morgan

THE NIGHTINGALE OF BATH

Thomas Messel, Independently published, 2025, £10.99, pb, 453pp, 9798317317492

The tragic life of the celebrated 18th-century singer Elizabeth Linley and playwright Richard Sheridan reads like a cautionary tale. Elizabeth, a beautiful and gifted young performer, is pushed ruthlessly by ambitious parents who plan to force her into an unwanted marriage. After she summons the courage to refuse, next she is assaulted by a scoundrel who leaves her pregnant. A handsome but penniless aspiring playwright, Richard Sheridan, comes to her rescue. They fall in love during her daring escape, and marry, a seeming salvation—until

her father forcibly separates them because both bride and groom are underage.

The story continues in this escalating fashion, filled with intense emotional turmoil and one dramatic twist after another. Richard Sheridan soon reveals himself as a drunken, womanizing spendthrift. Elizabeth’s pride prevents her from seeking help from her friends until desperation drives her into disastrous choices, including running away with another man and facing yet another pregnancy.

The novel is undeniably readable: the drama is plentiful, the virtuous are unmistakably good, and the villains thoroughly hateful. Moral lines are clear, emotions run high, and the language is richly exaggerated, even as the narrative moves steadily forward. The costumes, settings, and dialogue evoke the period, bringing this storm-tossed tale to a fittingly turbulent close.

Keira Morgan

THE THREE

Kelsey O’Brien, Hera, 2026, £16.99, hb, 240pp, 9781835982358

The Three is a dual-timeline novel set in the 18th century. One storyline focuses on London in 1770. Stay-maker, Matthew Rooke, meets a wealthy gentleman, Henry Ashby, at the theatre, and there is an instant connection between the two men. We then follow the development of their relationship at a time when it was illegal and the consequences of being discovered were potentially fatal. The other storyline follows events in 1791. At this point, Matthew is living in Henry’s house, Stonehurst Manor in Surrey, as dress-maker to Henry’s wife, Lady Elina. As friendship develops between Matthew and Lady Elina, who bond over an interest in the radical ideas of the day, Matthew faces the dilemma of divided loyalty: does he support his friend or his lover?

This is a well-researched novel, which illuminates various different sides of Georgian London: that of fashionable and genteel women (and the work which went into making their underclothing); the debating societies of the 1790s in which radical ideas were discussed and shared; and the secretive world of homosexual men and the molly houses they frequented. However, the structure of the novel means that it lacks tension and onward momentum for the reader. The prologue makes clear the dilemma Matthew will face by the end of the 1791 timeline, and by weaving the two timelines together in alternate chapters the reader knows from the beginning how the 1770 timeline will end. The novel is written from Matthew’s point of view, and I found him an engaging narrator for the story.

Overall, The Three will appeal to readers interested in the Georgian period.

Serena Heath

SHADOWS OF THE REPUBLIC

Randall R. Reese, Independently published, 2025, $20.00, pb, 305pp, 9798289707994 Pennsylvania, 1791. Whiskey is an important commodity to farmers in young America. It is more than just a drink or a medicine. It is a way to turn extra grain into a type of liquid gold, used for bartering when cash is scarce. A tax on whiskey imposed by the US government is devastating to some farmers, and enough to start a rebellion. This situation awakens a secret group, the Sentinel Order, started by the Founding Fathers. The Order has special authority to operate outside the law to keep the young Republic intact. This is Book One of the Sentinel Order series.

Shadows of the Republic is a compelling thriller based on the events surrounding the Whiskey Rebellion from 1791-1794, when America was still a young nation. All sides of this issue are well presented. We see through the eyes of the elected officials who are trying to keep the country going as well as the farmers who fought for the Revolution and feel betrayed by this tax. We meet some of the members of the Order, who stay in the shadows, but are willing and authorized to do what is necessary to keep the Republic alive. And they aren’t the only ones in the shadows. Individuals with money and power want to manipulate events for profit, and the British are still lurking around, waiting for the country to fail. Real-life and fictional characters blend well to form this compelling story. There are many points of view, including Alexander Hamilton, members of the Order, a tax collector, farmers who feel betrayed, and others. All these points of view work well together. Recommended to fans of American history and thrillers.

Bonnie DeMoss

FIREFLIES IN WINTER

Eleanor Shearer, Berkley, 2026, $30.00/$41.99, hb, 320pp, 9780593548073 / Headline Review, 2026, £20.00, hb, 320pp, 9781472291462

In the late 18th century, Jamaican Maroons (descendants from indigenous Arawakan and former Black slaves) were forced to leave the island in the 1790s after war with British colonial rulers. These Maroons were sent to Nova Scotia and difficult to distinguish from freed slaves and runaway slaves. The novel opens with a trial in January 1798, then goes to the backstory beginning in the winter of 1796-97. The details of the defendant and charges are gradually revealed as we return to the trial.

Cora is living in the Maroon community of Preston with Leah, a former slave who raised her after her mother’s death; Silas, Cora’s deceased best friend’s husband; and child Benjamin. Cora finds Nova Scotia a difficult adjustment from her tropical Jamaica. The dark woods are full of shadows and apparitions. When she meets Thursday,

an indentured Black man, while lost in the woods, she finds a friend she can trust. In her explorations of the woods, she encounters Agnes, a mysterious young woman, and her dog. Agnes is inexplicably fearful of being discovered and very private about her past. When Cora discovers the truth about her mother and her birth that Leah has kept secret, the betrayal leads to a final break from her family, and she flees into the wilderness to live with Agnes. Survival is tentative, especially during the brutal winters with long days spent trapping and gathering wood. Even though the threat of discovery hovers, the women enjoy their solitude and freedom.

Light on plot, this is an atmospheric novel with vivid descriptions of the biting cold and the silence of a snow-covered world. The beauty and hope of spring and summer and the slow dying of autumn are colorfully described. Characters are compelling as friendship and trust build gradually, and the slow-burn love story between the women is heartwarming. This is a beautifully written, emotional novel.

Janice Ottersberg

THE PLAYERS, ACT 1: All the World’s a Stage

Amy Sparkes, Sword and Fiddle, 2025, £7.99, pb, 326pp, 9781068327919

Two bands of itinerant players wander the backroads, alehouses and fairs of early Georgian England: one an acting group of four led by a morose manager staving off its imminent demise; the other a trio of aerialists managed by a narcissist, Piero, bent on avenging himself for his inability to love.

Three narrators, each with a distinct voice, carry the acts forward: lead actor Thomas, the eternal optimist criticized by the others for his obsession with success, yet haunted by his father’s condemnation of him as a failure; Caroline, the prickly, defensive protector particularly of manager Robert, who swings a cutting wit and sword; and prancing Piero, with his vanity, his entrances and exits, and his revenge schemes, who drives the plot forward with his wicked machinations.

Some elements are darkly comedic in the Shakespearian sense, as the players stumble from one disastrous performance to the next, losing necessities at each stop -- from the wooden stage to their costumes, to the horse that draws their wagon, to finally every blazing thing as it all goes up in flames.

And yet, the play’s the thing in this paean to the stage, the play and the players. The bard himself is deftly woven in throughout, in this pièce de theatre structured into ever more cataclysmic acts, with very dramatis personae, by a writer with a flair for historic detail and language. “Bravo!” shouts the audience at the end raising its eyes from the page to hurl roses and shillings onto the paper stage, rather than cabbages.

Keira Morgan

TO OUTWIT THEM ALL

Peggy Wirgau, Ironstream Media, 2025, $24.99, pb, 360pp, 9781563097904

Peggy Wirgau’s latest historical novel is set in New York, during the time of the American Revolution. Betty Floyd, a 21-year-old socialite, is at first loyal to the British. But when she witnesses the barbaric treatment of American prisoners in a New York jail and forms a romantic attachment to Major John André, the Director of Rebel Intelligence, she becomes an American spy. Another driver for Betty’s motivations to fight against tyranny is a birth defect, which caused her left hand to have only two fingers. She sees herself as a social leper, ‘Stupid, cursed and contagious.’

She assumes the code name ‘355’ in George Washington’s Culper Spy Ring, and befriends British officers, in theaters and elegant ballrooms, to gather intelligence for the rebels. There is no official historical evidence that 355 was a woman, although 355 is often associated with a pro-rebel woman called Anna Smith Strong. When Benedict Arnold defects to the British side, Betty’s role becomes exponentially more dangerous.

The writing is excellent, as in: “like an unwelcome gust of wind, André entered her mind again.” And subtly moving; “Andre caressed my left hand and softly kissed my waiting lips.” One concern is that much of the tension is diluted by multiple descriptions of carriages arriving at elegant ballrooms, where the guests dance “minuets, contradances, and Allemandes.” One lady wears an “embroidered tucker peeking out of the mint bodice on her mint green gown.”

The novel shows us the life-threatening roles of the women in the Revolutionary War, whose courage was at least equal to the bravest of men. At the end of the novel, Betty is brought “to the brink of death.” Can Betty truly “Outwit them all”? We aren’t given the answer, although history tells us that ‘yes’ is a pretty safe bet.

Alan Collenette

POINSETTIA GIRL

Jennifer Wizbowski, Historium, 2025, $18.99, pb, 336pp, 9781964700434

In 1710, 10-year-old Agata’s beloved mother dies, leaving Agata in the dubious care of her father, a talented but unstable violinist. Frightened about her granddaughter’s future, and in poor health herself, Agata’s grandmother enlists a mysterious man to take Agata to Venice’s Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage and convent renowned for the performances of its cloistered female musicians. There, Agata’s own musical talent blossoms—but Agata is haunted by the memory of the family and neighborhood she so suddenly left behind.

Based on the life of composer Agata della Pietà (whom Wizbowski acknowledges probably came to the orphanage as an infant), this is an atmospheric book full of strong, vividly drawn female characters. It was marred somewhat by a few unnecessary anachronisms—the characters frequently ask if

someone is “okay,” Agata has a favorite gray sweater about two centuries before women began wearing such garments, and the titular flower had not yet made its way to Europe— but the story is compelling, and Agata’s transformation from a scared young girl to a confident woman is a moving one.

Susan Higginbotham

19TH CENTURY

THE LAST OF EARTH

Deepa Anappara, Random House, 2026, $29.00/C$39.00, hb, 352pp, 9780593731352 / Oneworld, 2026, £18.99, hb, 384pp, 9780861548620

Tibet’s peaks and canyons are treacherous, its high elevations devoid of vegetation, but its special beauty is seen through Anappara’s rich descriptions of the ever-changing colors of earth and sky. Tibet’s borders in the 19th century are closed to white foreigners, with death to violators and anyone assisting them. In 1869 we follow two expeditions into Tibet: the captain, an Englishman and member of the Royal Geographical Society, with his survey party; and 50-year-old Katherine with her guide and translator, Mani.

The captain is determined to be the first Englishman to chart the Tsangpo River. This time he is leading an expedition with his experienced Indian surveyor, Balram, and nine bearers instead of the safer option of sending in his trained Indian surveyors on their own. Adding to the danger of discovery, this monthsto years-long journey is fraught with peril and hardship. Some will not survive. Foremost in Balram’s mind is finding his friend who disappeared on a previous expedition for the captain. Meanwhile, Katherine, restless and adventurous, wants to be the first woman to reach Lhasa. Of English and Indian heritage, her darker skin will aid in her disguise as Mani’s Indian mother. Between the two expeditions, the mysterious and enigmatic Chetak quietly appears and disappears.

In alternating chapters, we follow each party, wondering when their paths will cross. Anappara develops her characters slowly and purposely with complexity. Even the captain’s bearers, minor characters, are alive with unique personalities. The captain, oblivious of how ridiculous and transparent his disguise is, displays the typical arrogance of his privilege over Balram and the bearers who serve him, while a grieving Katherine writes unsent letters to her dead sister in Edinburgh and records her journey in her journal. Here we learn of her difficult childhood as a “half-caste” and her struggles to become autonomous in a man’s world. A splendid novel of adventure and remarkable characters.

Janice Ottersberg

A LOVE MOST DARING

Joanna Barker, Shadow Mountain, 2026, $18.99, pb, 320pp, 9781639934713

Set in Regency London, A Love Most Daring pairs a clean, slow-burn romance with a

suspenseful mystery rooted in reputation and risk. After enduring years of whispered scandal, Beatrice Lacey returns to London hoping to reclaim a life she once lost. Instead, she becomes an unwitting witness to a violent crime, one tied to a high-profile murder that has Bow Street on edge. Her safety soon rests with Alexander Rawlings, a driven officer whose focus on duty leaves little room for anything else.

Barker allows the romance to unfold at an unhurried pace, letting sharp dialogue and forced proximity do the work. Beatrice’s wit and hard-won resilience make her an engaging heroine, while Rawlings’s reserve—shaped by old disappointments—gradually gives way to something more layered and sympathetic. The Regency setting feels lived-in rather than ornamental, particularly in scenes at Vauxhall Gardens and Bow Street, where social expectations and danger collide.

The mystery keeps the story moving, even if a few turns are easy to anticipate. Still, the story maintains a steady pull between suspense and romance, and the emotional payoff feels earned rather than rushed. Readers who enjoy Proper Romance titles with a touch of intrigue will find this an appealing and confident addition to Barker’s Bow Street series.

Williamaye Jones

WHERE BIRDS LAND

Mary Ruth Barnes, White Dog Press, 2025, $27.95, hb, 240pp, 9781952397493

Although this story is fictional, it draws on the author’s family history. The main character is Ella Brown McSwain Adams, but the novel is truly a testament to the resilience and courage of all the Chickasaw women in her family. Set in Indian Territory (before Oklahoma became a state) in the late 1800s, the story begins with Esther Brown and her two daughters: Ella and Belle. Eventually, tragedy strikes all three families as each woman loses a husband to murder or accident and must raise her children as a single mother unless she remarries.

This was also a time in American history when Indigenous peoples were relocated to lands designated for their tribes, and individuals could sign up for land allotments if they qualified. The stipulation in Oklahoma, as it reached statehood, was that each person in the Indian Territory had to prove they were Chickasaw to receive a Dawes number and qualify for an allotment.

Esther Brown, now Esther Brown Wolf McLish, tries in vain to qualify for an allotment but, because she cannot prove her Chickasaw status, is denied. Ella undergoes the tedious process of establishing her Chickasaw heritage but is left with an unusable plot of land. Determined to claim her family’s rightful allotment, she battles unscrupulous land grabbers who swindled her, as she continues her fight for her inheritance. The injustices intensify as Ella’s youngest daughter is raped, and Ella raises her granddaughter as her own.

Throughout the novel, each generation faces pain and hardship, yet the women hold

onto their ancestral legacy, drawing on inner strength to build a better life for their children. Well-crafted characters, a carefully paced plot, and vivid historical research breathe life into the story, making the novel worth reading. Recommended.

Linda Harris Sittig

THE DOUBLE STANDARD SPORTING HOUSE

Nancy Bernhard, She Writes, 2026, $17.99, pb, 328pp, 9798896360520

From the opening sentence, Nancy Bernhard doesn’t shy away from the medical realities faced by women in the 19th century— especially the maladies endured by sex workers. Set in 1868 on New York City’s Lower East Side, the novel introduces Nell “Doc” Hastings as she finishes a day at her medical clinic, which also houses the elite brothel she runs, The Double Standard. This striking premise launches an engaging story of grit, corruption, survival, and redemption, told in first person through Doc’s point of view.

The cast of characters—ranging from historical figures to nurses, harlots, and fellow brothel owners—can at times feel expansive, but even minor characters are vividly drawn. Doc herself is a tough yet soft-hearted, autodidactic physician devoted to caring for “fallen women.” Her own traumatic past is revealed gradually throughout the novel, illuminating her motivation and shaping the woman she has become. Having suffered abuse at the hands of men, she understands her patients’ predicaments intimately as she treats them for brutal beatings and forced laudanum addiction.

Because The Double Standard is a successful sporting house catering to powerful men, many of them politicians, Doc becomes a target of envy and hostility from thugs connected to Tammany Hall’s corrupt political machine. As tension mounts, women begin arriving at her clinic in horrifying condition, and Doc realizes these same men are kidnapping and enslaving them.

Despite the shocking abuse these women endure, the brothel is portrayed as a place of love, loyalty, and mutual care, led by Doc’s fierce compassion. This tenderness becomes the novel’s overarching tone and balances its difficult subject matter effectively. As the story closes, the characters inch toward transformation, and Doc comes to understand that letting go is necessary if she is to live her true destiny.

Monica

Carter

BURN DOWN MASTER’S HOUSE

Clay Cane, Dafina, 2026, $27.00/ C$37.99/£24.99, hb, 288pp, 9781496759146

Well-deserving of its title, Cane’s story begins on Magnolia Row, the worst plantation in Goochland, Virginia, where Henri, Luke, and Ruby yearn to burn it all down. Henri

and Luke work in Master Ragland’s house and are sexually demeaned by Ragland Junior. Housekeeper and cook Ruby instructs little orphan Josephine in the ways of white mansions. Josephine absorbs it all, and when we meet her young adult self a decade later, she is hardened to cruelty, rape, and whipping, and vows to “make a change there before long.” Larkin is part of that delegation of change.

Larkin enters Charity’s world in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where freedom can be won under the Gradual Abolition Act of 1780. Nathaniel Williams is a Black slave owner trying to slide in with the White Supremacists as a legitimate slave owner. By this time the author has brought us to the 1860s Civil War.

If this sounds like disparate stories about disparate people, you’re right, but the stories do interconnect, coming full circle to culminate in a reckoning on Williams’ plantation. Far from a typical story of American slavery, the cast, all superbly drawn, divulge little in the way of origin, but represent, as time passes, a growing swell of rebellion and retribution, seeking revenge on the whole ghastly institution. Very graphic, tragic, cruel, and filled with despicable people including Williams, despite his Black skin, this all amounts to a difficult read; but for each circumstance there comes a raising of brave souls who refuse to tread the path any longer.

Using historical incidents of rebellion, Cane’s deployment of time is somewhat fluid. The author’s notes about a society “untethered from truth” where its people “can be easily controlled” and “divided by lies” are worth a read and reread. A well-written and poignant account speaking loudly to contemporary times.

Fiona Alison

THE CHOIR

Carol M. Cram, Htf Publishing, 2026, $19.95, pb, 278pp, 9781963452280

Childhood friends Eliza Kingwell and Ruth Henton live completely different lives. Eliza works herself to exhaustion caring for five energetic daughters and a cheating, abusive husband, while Ruth is a pampered diva in London, headlining Gilbert and Sullivan operettas and dining with the Prince of Wales. Fate intervenes and both women find themselves pinning their hopes for the future on the choral competition fad that sweeps late Victorian England.

Cram has carefully researched the art and social structure of community choir concerts, which offered the working classes in the early Industrial Age a measure of financial hope, cultural richness, and civic pride. Both Eliza and Ruth are blessed with exceptional talent, and music reunites the estranged friends when Ruth becomes a competition judge after losing her theatrical position, and Eliza summons the courage to help organize a local choir in the hopes of winning enough prize money to escape with her daughters from their grim factory-town life. Readers get a tour of the

northern region of England as the two women connect and re-connect in Leeds, Whitby, Durham, and other bustling towns that host the various competitions, and find that female friendship can be more transformational than money or talent.

The dual points of view keep the narrative moving briskly, but Cram includes a wealth of domestic details and emotional highs and lows for the two women. Both are clever, principled characters the reader will enjoy spending time with, and while the novel’s conclusion might seem a bit too tidy for realism, it’s a satisfying, cozy read.

Kristen McDermott

WHERE IN ALL THE WORLD

Vanessa Croft, Bateman Books, 2025, NZ$38.99, pb, 384pp, 9781776891573

Harriet (Hattie) Watson is living on a farm in New Zealand in 1895 when she first meets two English gentlemen, Curtis De Courcy and John Holt, both of whom have been involved in discovery and development in Africa. But it is the more dashing adventurer Curtis who sweeps her off her feet while the quieter John remains a discreet observer. Against her family’s wishes, Hattie is determined to marry Curtis. Her father eventually relents, but only on the proviso that they wait until after he completes his next expedition to the Congo in search of a lost explorer.

While Curtis is away, Hattie travels to England, where she will shake off her colonial naivety and learn to negotiate her way in sophisticated society. Curtis returns triumphant, and they marry, but Hattie discovers, to her cost, that she may have chosen the wrong man in her “journey as an ingenue from the wilds of New Zealand, to the desperate, frightened, heartbroken wife [she] became in the brick-and-mortar wilds of the world’s greatest city.”

Inspired by the life of a real woman, this is a romance wrapped up in a broad tale of Victorian ambitions and of men driven by arrogance, greed and the need to control, counterbalanced with those who are more enlightened and see beyond the glitter of empire and into its dark heart. The historical background of the varied environmental and cultural settings in New Zealand, England and East Africa is excellent, and the narrative perfectly reflects the discourse and ethics of the age. The later chapters give added insight into the challenges women had to face when it came to asserting and defending their human

rights against double standards in courts of law.

An exceptionally stylish novel that has been a sheer pleasure to read.

Marina Maxwell

SALT UPON THE WATER

Lyn Dickens, Wakefield Press, 2025, A$32.95, pb, 270pp, 9781923388208

A fictional recreation of the life of Colonel William Light, Surveyor-General of the new British Province of South Australia and responsible for planning its capital city, Adelaide, in 1836, this novel goes back and forth in time between 1804 and 1845. The dual narrative centers on the romantic relationship between Light and Clarissa FitzRoy, both of mixed heritage. We learn of their near marriage years ago and their rediscovery of one another when Clarissa travels to South Australia, and share in the possibilities of rekindled love as they re-examine their pasts in relation to the present while traveling in Europe together.

Themes of the impact and violence of British colonialism, racial identities and prejudices, interracial marriage, class distinctions, family secrets, and Eastern versus Western cultures are reflected through the personal histories of both main characters. The range of settings is wide, from Bath, Cornwall, and London’s Vauxhall Gardens, to Calcutta, Penang, Rome, Venice and South Australia. Each place is limned by Dickens with such exquisite detail that the near-constant time travel between past and present, which otherwise could be a bit taxing for readers, works effectively.

Dickens’ thorough historical research emerges in details of Colonel Light’s life, from the effects of some backward cultural changes from Regency England to early Victorianism, in contrast to his work on the wild and rugged coast of the new colony, South Australia. She cautions us that history is not necessarily a progression.

Lyn Dickens’ lyrical writing imbues her novel with a magical aura, especially in her descriptions of nature in the various locales. The story takes on a fantastical feeling from her use of language that reminded me of W.H. Hudson’s Green Mansions Salt Upon the Water is a somewhat difficult, but very impressive debut novel.

Robin Holloway

THE FALCONER’S LOST BARON

Susanne Dunlap, Comfortable Prose, 2025, $13.99, pb, 368pp, 9798992649079 Cornwall, 1814. On a cold December morning, Antonella is stunned to learn that she is not the twin sister of Lady Belinda as both always believed. A week later, still reeling, she rescues a goshawk entangled in a net and tries to heal its injured wing. Is Antonella merely a poor relation, as the Dowager Marchioness Lewiston asserts? Will Belinda’s efforts to discover the identity of her beloved sister’s parents help or hinder? Is the charming Mr.

Gainesworth, who offers to assist in the search, trustworthy or an unscrupulous rake with designs on Belinda? Might their neighbour, the reclusive Lord Atherleigh, who has sunk into depression after the loss of one hand in the Peninsular War, decide the goshawk’s injury too serious and have her put down? Or can Antonella heal them both?

Information on hawking is interesting, but although the symbolic parallels between Atherleigh and the goshawk are thoughtprovoking, there are rather a lot of questions to answer, and the constantly shifting points of view create an unwieldy plot structure. And while the attention focused upon the pervasively anxious state of mind of the characters may engage some readers’ sympathies, others may wish for more hope and encouragement in a Regency romance. Fourth in the DoubleDilemma Romance series.

Ray Thompson

CATHERINE

Essie Fox, Orenda Books, 2026, £20.00/$29.99, hb, 296 pp, 9781917764421

Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights has generated a diverse range of responses. For some it is a brutal, sordid story, for others it is a romance; it’s a Gothic novel, a historical novel; it’s well-crafted, it’s a mess… Essie Fox’s retelling is likely to elicit equally diverse reactions. Some readers may wonder why a retelling is necessary; others may feel it’s wrong to tamper with a much-loved classic; others will welcome it as a homage.

Catherine begins on the night Heathcliff opens Catherine Linton’s coffin, eighteen years after her death. His action releases Catherine’s ghost, who narrates her version of their story. It is an intriguing device, but the book mainly follows the narrative of Nelly Dean in the original.

The retelling is handled in various ways. The prose is a combination of wording lifted directly from Wuthering Heights, and passages that echo the original or have been recast in simpler or more modern language. Readers may appreciate the drastic reduction of Brontë’s use of dialect for the Bible-bashing servant, Joseph.

Some scenes have been extended by the addition of extra detail, others shortened or summarised. Certain elements have been toned down or omitted, notably the brutality of the original. Heathcliff’s treatment of his wife and Hareton Earnshaw is hardly touched on. We are presented with a much softer Heathcliff, one who plays with puppies rather than hitting them hard. Where the novel really departs from the original is in its inclusion of new scenes which fill in gaps in the original, such as a backstory for Heathcliff.

Readers will no doubt be divided on how satisfying these embellishments, alterations and additions are. They will certainly add zest to existing debate about what is or isn’t significant about Wuthering Heights. As such,

Catherine succeeds as a thought-provoking play on Brontë’s original.

Lucienne Boyce

THE WOMEN IN THE SHADOWS

Harriet Fox, HQ, 2025, £9.99, pb, 428pp, 9780008744182

This is a completely different take on the gruesome story of Jack the Ripper, the man who roamed the streets of late 19th-century Whitechapel violently murdering lone women. In this story, three women—a housewife, a police station cleaner and a freelance lady detective—come together and follow up clues to the Ripper’s identity which the police have missed. They have to keep their activities secret from the police, which leads to complicated deceptions, and they initially have some success in uncovering the work of some very unsavoury characters—unmaskings which have dramatic and unexpected consequences. But each time they think they’ve caught the Ripper, another murder takes place, so they have to go back to the drawing board.

There is a lot of repetition in the book, and, in my view, the language is too contemporary for a story set in 1888, but it is fast-moving and, at times, very funny as the three amateur sleuths lurch from one drama to the next. The main characters are well drawn, and their back stories and the relationships with one another are not one-dimensional. This makes them very relatable. The real Jack the Ripper was never identified, but in The Women in the Shadows, the three women do catch him, the police finally giving them credit for their quick thinking and unconventional methods of detection. Each of the women has had trauma in their lives of different sorts and, in very different ways, each has become stronger and grown in confidence through their experience.

I very much enjoyed this book; an example of women’s solidarity and intelligence at a time when all the cards were held by men.

R. Hayes

THE KING’S AGENT

Rosemary Hayes, Sharpe Books, 2025, £8.99, pb, 205pp, 9798280443235

This is the second book of the Soldier Spy series, following on from Traitor’s Game

The year is 1809. Napoleon is on the throne, but a network of Bourbon monarchists and English agitators is working to unseat if not assassinate him. Will Fraser, a British soldier who had been framed and disgraced in the first volume of the series in an episode that led to his brother’s death, finds himself replacing that brother in the spy ring that is fighting to break through the notorious Joseph Fouché’s security cordon around the emperor. Now their ranks have been compromised, and the French spies must be evacuated to England.

What follows is an old-style ScarletPimpernel-type adventure, in which people are rarely who they seem, one disguise follows another, and our hero and his sidekick are in

a heart-pounding race for the coast of the Channel with Fouché’s goons on their heels.

With a cast that mingles historical figures and fictional ones and a geography that reels from London to the Channel Isles and on to Paris, the scene-setting is convincing, but more importantly, the relentless pace of the action keeps the reader breathless until the end. A thoroughly entertaining, classic historical spy thriller. Recommended.

Niki Kantzios

MURDER MADE HER WICKED

Elizabeth Hobbs, Crooked Lane, 2025, $29.99, hb, 336pp, 9798892423236

This second Marigold Manners mystery opens in October 1894. Marigold has lost her parents and is penniless. Unable to pay the tuition, she dropped out of Wellesley College. Her finances change when a magazine agrees to buy her serialized stories of prior murders she investigated. The college president and faculty know how hard-working and smart she is and welcome her back, though the school year has already begun.

Campus calm and quiet studies end when Marigold spots and helps retrieve a young woman’s body stuck in the lake bordering the college. Campus police assume an accident or suicide, but Marigold and the college’s female doctor quickly diagnose a brutal murder. No student, young faculty member, or visitor is missing in this tight-knit community. No motive bubbles up. Marigold, with the concurrence of the college president, takes the lead to identify the victim and find the killer.

Author Hobbs immerses readers in the college and town. We see, hear, and smell the campus grounds, buildings, and rooms. The characters of other students, teachers, staff, and townspeople are all nicely developed. Hobbs tells the story entirely from Marigold’s point of view, revealing her keen mind, quest for justice, and worries. We also learn she is often judgmental and quick to take offense. Anti-women bias is rampant and constant, and at times consumes more of her attention than the murder mystery. Despite rare and slow phone communications and the transportation difficulties of those times, key actors too often suddenly show up at critical moments and places. Overall, though, Hobbs fans will enjoy this murder mystery solved by a strong and smart woman in a world dominated by men.

G. J. Berger

NEVER LET ME GO

Ann Howell, Holand Press, 2025, £9.99/$11.99, pb, 248pp, 9798272678300

Set in the war-torn hills of North Carolina in 1863, Never Let Me Go follows sixteen-yearold Rowan O’Clanahan, an Irish-American girl who cuts her hair, binds her chest, and enlists in the Confederate army disguised as her brother’s cousin “Doolin.” Her mission— to protect her wounded brother Malcolm—

propels her through skirmishes, marches, and the ghastly aftermath of battle. Through Rowan’s eyes the novel moves from domestic poverty and superstition to the mud, smoke, and moral exhaustion of the Civil War’s dying years.

As historical fiction, the book is ambitious and richly detailed. Its Appalachian setting is rendered with care: dialect, flora, weaponry, and soldier’s drill all sound well-researched, and the Irish and Cherokee presences lend a distinctive regional texture. The campaign around Asheville and Warm Springs is accurately placed in late 1863, though a few anachronistic turns of phrase—“no-go area” which was first used in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s—creep into dialogue. The blending of Irish folklore and frontier Christianity feels plausible for the period, if occasionally over-explained. Stylistically, the novel reads fluently and with vigour. The first-person voice—part mountain vernacular, part poetic reverie—carries energy. Yet the prose could benefit from pruning: overlong sentences and repeated exclamations (“Ochón,” “God Almighty”) blunt the emotional force. Grammar and punctuation are mostly sound, though commas and contractions sometimes vary inconsistently.

Where many Civil War novels favour generals and strategies, this one roots itself in the texture of mud, fear, and superstition. It may occasionally lapse into melodrama, but its commitment to lived experience and the female soldier’s unheard story makes the book vivid and readable historical fiction—though quite why the author needed to duplicate the title of another, very well-known novel is puzzling.

Douglas Kemp

AN AMERICAN SCANDAL

Theresa Howes, HQ, 2026, £9.99, pb, 332pp, 9780008666880

In 1895 Madeline Crosby finds herself shunned by New York society through no fault of her own. She tries to make a new start by moving with her half-brother Hugh to Newport, Rhode Island, where they get to know the wealthy ‘new money’ Booth family. Madeline becomes friendly with their son Edward, while Hugh develops an interest in their cousin Flora, who is treated as an unpaid drudge.

Meanwhile Madeline is determined to close the brothels in which her mother suffered and died, and for which she herself could once have been destined. A cause which causes problems when she learns the source of Edward’s family income.

As with the author’s previous book, A Matter of Persuasion, this novel is a homage to Jane Austen, in this case Mansfield Park. The parallels are there in the narrative, although there are some major differences, including the fact that the story is told from Madeline’s perspective rather than that of Flora (the Fanny Price equivalent). Strikingly, although the slave trade on which the wealth

of Mansfield Park rests is only hinted at in that novel, Howes brings the brothels that finance the Booth family into centre stage, so that they become the crux of the story.

A lot is packed into this book: prostitution, marriage as a business transaction, domestic violence, and forbidden love. We hear how women of all classes are treated as ‘goods and chattels’, and how they are denied any role other than marriage.

I have to admit I was not fully convinced by all aspects of the story. And some of Flora’s views seem very advanced for the era (it seems even less likely that Edward would have agreed with her so readily). However, those quibbles aside, it was an enjoyable and interesting read.

Karen Warren

VINDICTA

Roger Hunt, Troubador, 2025, £10.99, pb, 552pp, 9781836282716

Set in the declining years of the Napoleonic Wars, Vindicta is the tale of a Scottish Catholic clergyman who becomes a spy for the British government. The sprawling tale tells parallel stories of the monk, James Robertson, and the French spymaster, Marquet, whose job is to stop him. Marquet is especially desperate to prove himself, since his noble birth is proving the biggest barrier to his career and service to France. The chessboard they play on is occupied Germany and Denmark, where alliances shift and the population’s desire for peace conflicts with resentment of Napoleon’s rule.

The highlight of the book is the plot to convince the Spanish regiments in Denmark that defecting will be the best way to support the turbulent coup taking place at home. This climaxes in a sea battle in the narrow straits and small islands lining the Danish coast. This book will appeal most to those fascinated with the time period and who prefer action over character studies. The characters and dialogue are mostly in service to the plot, but will entertain those looking for a complex, detail-rich adventure story.

Wayne Turmel

TAILORED TRUTHS

Nancy Jardine, Independently published, 2025, £12.99, pb, 450pp, 9781739696443

The second in a trilogy of novels set in Victorian Scotland, Tailored Truths continues the story of Margaret Law, a resourceful and intelligent young woman trying to make her way in the world without any family assistance. Happily, Margaret has her best friend, Jessie, who she can rely on for emotional support through letters, as she undertakes a series of jobs, ranging from private tutoring, to sewing in a factory, and being a lady’s maid. Although Margaret’s life is simple and money is a struggle, she’s smart, optimistic, and knows her own worth. In her mid-twenties, however, the desire for love and family brings big changes to Margaret’s life. Where

marriage might bring safety and security for many, Margaret faces some real challenges living with her husband’s family in Peterhead. Jardine presents an honest, unromanticized vision of life for women in mid-19th century Scotland. Daily life and the limited opportunities available for advancement are well described. The novel really comes to life after Margaret’s marriage, with strong secondary characters and several dramatic scenes. Sensible Margaret is tested, and readers will want to continue her story in the next installment to find out how she rebounds from the hard hand she has been dealt. It’s not necessary to read the prior novel, Novice Threads, although fans of historical sagas may want to start there first.

Kate Braithwaite

WHISPERS AT PAINSWICK COURT

Julie Klassen, Bethany House, 2025, $18.99, pb, 368pp, 9780764244865

1821 Gloucestershire. While visiting a friend, Anne Loveday, daughter of a surgeonapothecary, is asked to care for the ailing Lady Celia of Painswick Court until a nurse can be found. Anne hesitates. Lady Celia prohibited the engagement of her nephew to Anne’s sister several years before. Convinced by the charming Dr. Finch and his mentor, Anne agrees to care for the cantankerous elderly woman. When the nephew comes to live at the manor, Anne discovers her sister got lucky; he is a rogue who has seduced and lied to many women, including Lady Celia’s new maid. This nephew needs money, and Lady Celia won’t help him. Also at the manor are Lady Celia’s middle-aged daughter, who never married because her mother rejected her suitors, and another nephew, mysteriously relieved of his military service and now without an income.

When shellfish makes it into Lady Celia’s beef broth, it seems like an accident. When many bees, which she’s also allergic to, crawl out of a vase, it seems less like an accident, and when an “accidental” over-dose of digitalis fails to kill Lady Celia, Anne worries that someone is trying to murder her patient. Suspects abound.

Klassen has written another enjoyable mystery and Christian romance. Anne is an intelligent, modest, and charming protagonist. The story moves along at a good pace, and there are fun references and parallels to Austen’s Northanger Abbey, making this a very light gothic romance. The Christian aspects are well integrated and realistic, especially given the time period. Other historical aspects, such as the mild acceptance of an unmarried mother are less realistic but reflect a refreshing Christian forgiveness. Recommended for those looking for a light romance-mystery.

Elizabeth

Caulfield Felt

at a ‘poor farm’ in Vermont. Not only is he an orphan, but he is of mixed race and has severe scarring on one side of his face. Shocked by an event at the orphanage, he runs away, realizing that his chances of employment are very slim. Seeing an advertisement for a tutor, he hopes his experience caring for younger orphans will help. He is fortunate to locate a family with two incorrigible boys who will accept him as their tutor. His new home, the massive but eerie Mansfield Hall, is the home of the widow Caroline Rockwell, along with some strange individuals who appear to be employed to do nothing. Asa, who has always dreamed of becoming a naturalist, harnesses the boys’ energy and curiosity to assist his research. Eventually he meets Caro. The attraction is mutual, but the strangeness and eeriness increase.

The characters in this novel are exquisitely drawn; an added bonus is the author’s sharing of her extensive knowledge of botany and genetics. The detail of Asa’s explorations into the natural world, looking for unusual life forms, adds another dimension of interest as the author conveys her own knowledge. Events occur surprisingly but naturally, keeping the pace moving and interest high. Details of late 19th-century Vermont show research not just professional but also personal, revealing behaviors and attitudes as well as the more obvious clothing and transportation. Vivid contrast is made between the beliefs and reactions of those at the poor farm and those in the mansion. This novel delves into beliefs and their effect on behaviors without becoming the least bit preachy. The result is a story not just fast-moving but thought-provoking against a fascinating background of the natural world.

Valerie Adolph

MISS MORTON AND THE MISSING HEIR

Catherine Lloyd, Kensington, 2025, $27.00/ C$37.00/£25.00, hb, 272pp, 9781496754967

worldly and determined, and Caroline, rapidly gaining confidence, are supported by Caroline’s two suitors – the inept Dr. Harris and the charming and so-useful Inspector Ross of the Metropolitan Police. Their interactions carry the novel forward, although the reader might struggle to understand the density of English laws of inheritance and the divisive differences in religious beliefs of the time.

As with the previous novels in this series, the author provides a vivid sensory picture of the sounds, smells, and sights of Georgian London. This contrasts interestingly with the sharply modern tone of the dialog between Miss Morton and her mentor, Mrs. Frogerton.

Valerie Adolph

THE SILVER TIDE

J. H. Mann, Dark Spider, 2025, $10.99, pb, 347pp, 9781739295349

In January 1866, the south-west of England was devastated by the Great Gale. Fishing communities lost ships and men, and in The Silver Tide, it is the fictitious community of St Branok that reels under the onslaught. Among those lost are Solomon Pascoe and his three sons, leaving Maggie Pascoe the sole survivor of her family.

With no male kin to protect her, Maggie is evicted from her home by Jed Hoskin, local moneylender and “entrepreneur.” When Jed realises Maggie is investigating just why the alarm system failed on that January night, he becomes a very dangerous presence in her life. Fortunately, Maggie is not entirely alone: other than the wonderfully depicted Parson Kellow, there is also Jack Treloare, local fisherman and coxswain of the new lifeboat.

ASA JAMES

Jodi Lew-Smith, Köehler, 2025, $28.95, hb, 306pp, 9798888249321

In August 1875, Asa James is being raised

This fourth Miss Morton mystery sees Lady Caroline Morton and her employer, Mrs. Frogerton, allowing the Scutton family to stay with them in their London Georgian house. Caroline is the daughter of an earl who squandered his wealth and died leaving her penniless. Even though she is his oldest child and heir to the estate, she finds that Mr. Thomas Scutton plans to become the new earl. The Scutton family make uncomfortable guests, with Thomas’s mother insisting on her son’s right to the earldom. Then Thomas’s sister Mary is murdered, apparently by her husband. Caroline and Mrs. Frogerton, having observed Mary and her husband being a devoted and loving couple, find this prompts further scrutiny. That, together with their investigation into the convoluted details of the Morton family inheritance and Mr. Scutton’s insistence on marrying Caroline to ensure he benefits by it, carry this novel through many intrigues to a satisfying conclusion.

The author has assembled a vivid group of characters for this series. Mrs. Frogerton,

Mr. Mann depicts a harsh life—one that smells of brine, damp wool and pilchard oil. That he is familiar with his setting is evident in his description of the rugged coastline and the ever-present sea. In Maggie, Mr. Mann has created a resilient and engaging protagonist—a woman brave enough to join the lifeboat crews when they are short of men, brave enough, even, to stand up to bullies like Jed Hoskins. Most of all, though, The Silver Tide is a novel about the sea and the people who depend on it. A fickle thing, the sea: at times it gives, at times it takes—as Mr. Mann describes so well!

Anna Belfrage

ELIZABETH AND RUTH

Livi Michael, Salt, 2026, £10.99, pb, 304pp, 9781784633684

Manchester, 1849: Elizabeth Gaskell, whose novel Mary Barton has brought her both praise and opprobrium, visits a sixteen-yearold Pasley – the only name she is known by – in prison.

A talented seamstress, Pasley was arrested for what she had become, with no recognition of what had got her to that point. It is as though she has been punished for surviving; the girl’s descent is remorselessly inevitable and told unflinchingly without ever sliding

into sensationalism. Her story is depressingly modern: she is promised work but not paid for it because of an unnamed sum that she ‘owes’, and then the work turns out to be quite other than what was apparently on offer.

Gaskell undergoes agonies of conscience as to whether she should shelter Pasley in her own home, something she really does not want to do; what she does do is try to tackle the catalyst for Pasley’s misfortunes, a doctor with a reputation for charitable service. Instead, Gaskell explores with Charles Dickens the opportunity to send Pasley to a new life in Australia.

Pasley existed, and the book is based on Gaskell’s correspondence with Dickens. The novel captures the failure of the bestintentioned Victorian philanthropists to really understand the perspective and reality of the people they intended to help, underestimating what humans will do to survive; they saw frailty and weakness where they ought to have seen heroism. The book is also a vivid portrait of Gaskell’s marriage and struggle to find time to write given the demands put on her (‘it was a massive strain, she sometimes thought, being married to a good man’). Michael’s prose has a vividness one can smell and touch, as in: ‘the prison perfume of stale, unhopeful human.’ This novel is both readable and not an ‘easy’ read, and I thoroughly recommend it.

Katherine Mezzacappa

CENTROEUROPA

Vicente Luis Mora, trans. Rahul Bery, Bellevue Literary Press, 2026, $17.99, pb, 192pp, 9781954276529

Centroeuropa is the tale of a widower, Redo Hauptshammer, who claims a plot of land in Prussia during the early years of the 19th century. He is looking for a burial place for his wife, as well as land on which to farm sugar beets. What he was not prepared for was to unearth a corpse as he broke ground.

And then another, and another…the corpses keep emerging as he digs. Moreover, they are all frozen and from various periods of history. Even when above ground in the sun they will not thaw. They are evidence of the countless wars that have ravaged the land. Most, but not all, of the uniforms are identifiable, marking the shifting identities through history.

So begins the problem—what to do with the bodies? The story is of the gradual telling of the laborious bureaucratic process Redo takes to try to resolve this: each appropriate step taken, the obfuscation (with deepest sympathy, of course) from the government, leading finally to helpless inaction by the authorities. Redo’s own solution is elegant and cements his retreat and isolation. Over time, the history surrounding Redo emerges—how he met his wife, what their lives were like before, how he ended up there, and importantly, his relationships with the townsfolk.

Written as a narrative, the story unfolds almost as a confession or an apologia.

Dialogue is not broken up into separate paragraphs, but the interlocutors are easily distinguishable by use of italics. The pacing is languid, with long paragraphs (one clocks in at over five pages). It gives the overall effect of a personal internal memory rather than a present-day interaction between two people.

Centroeuropa is a short book, but not a quick read—it resembles more of a multilayered experiment by a master storyteller.

Steve Shaw

A RAGE OF SOULS

Chris Nickson, Severn House, 2025, £21.99/$28.99, hb, 230pp, 9781448316298 Leeds, 1826. Thief-taker Simon Westow has been hired by James Barton to catch con artist Frederick Fox. Simon, having sustained a leg injury in a previous case, is now reliant on his team, which comprises his wife, Rosie, and former street urchins Jane and Sally. All the members of this intrepid team know how to handle themselves in a knife fight, a skill that is continually called into use. In addition, Jane is a chameleon, well suited to following suspects unnoticed. She is an avid reader when she gets the chance, and at home she loses herself in book after book – an escape from her work and from the recurring dream that haunts her. Sally, a more recent recruit, spends her free time protecting other homeless children, but this involves exposing herself to even more danger.

Despite an abundance of violence and vengeance on the streets of early nineteenth century Leeds, the pace of the main plot is slow; there’s a lot of hiding in shrubbery and brandishing of knives, and in spite of the team’s efforts, very little information about the case is gained; meanwhile, the body count begins to rise.

However, I found the slow pacing didn’t really matter in such a short novel. There is still plenty to enjoy in the descriptions of city life, the city itself and the surrounding countryside. The character development of the two girls is also interesting. However, I did find the culmination of the plot a little unsatisfactory in that some things weren’t sufficiently explained and others were a little implausible.

This is the eighth book in the series, and there is a sense that it might all be drawing to a close, but I think fans will want at least one more.

Sarah Dronfield

WINTERSET

Tiffany Odekirk, Shadow Mountain, 2025, $17.99, pb, 272pp, 9781649333094

Winterset Grange has been Katherine Lockwood’s refuge for two years after a series of tragic events left her orphaned and faking her own death. However, her peace is about to be broken when word reaches the household that the owner, Oliver Jennings, will be returning to take up occupancy of his inheritance.

After touring the continent for two years

to escape his broken engagement and the marriage of his brother, Oliver only wants to enjoy his home, settle down, and find a wife. Instead, he returns to find the estate in disrepair and harboring a ghost. As he begins to set Winterset to rights, he discovers that the “ghost” is Kate Lockwood, an intriguing woman in need of protection. When he unwittingly invites the man responsible for Kate’s circumstances to Winterset, Oliver sacrifices the future he has begun to want with Kate, to shield her from danger.

Odekirk weaves a delightful Regency, gothic tale with interesting and relatable characters in Kate and Oliver. The balance between mystery, romance and suspense makes for a quick, entertaining read. Readers of her previous novel, Summerhaven, will recognize some of the characters and settings in Winterset, but Winterset also stands on its own without having read the previous book.

Amy Turner

THE CASE OF THE MURDERED MUCKRAKER

Rob Osler, Kensington, 2026, $27.00/ C$37.00/£25.00, hb, 320pp, 9781496749512

Just a few weeks have passed since gendernonconforming Harriet Morrow solved The Case of the Missing Maid, first in this mystery series set in Gilded Age Chicago. Still the lone female investigator at the Prescott Detective Agency, she’s ready for her second big assignment—the stabbing death of a journalist in a dark tenement hallway. An immigrant woman in the building is quickly pegged for the crime, but because the journalist was hot on the trail of corruption among city alderman, it’s likely the cops have the wrong suspect. Harriet’s boss instructs her to pose as a settlement worker to cozy up to the immigrants in the building and gather facts.

But the case proves more complicated than they realize. Most of the immigrants don’t speak English or are afraid to talk to anyone, and then a fire kills an important witness and destroys evidence. The murdered journalist was involved with radical left politics in the city, including with some shady, violent characters. Harriet’s investigation leads her into progressively more dangerous situations, but both her preference for male attire and the loaded derringer in her pocket come in handy.

As in the first installment, Osler’s research into his Chicago setting is first-rate, and the novel is a love letter to its history. Following Harriet as she bikes from tenement to settlement house to a German “Turner Hall” to the swanky Palmer House Hotel is enormous fun. Harriet continues to grow as a detective and a woman coming to awareness of her queer sexuality at a time when such identity was criminalized. Happily, the supporting cast from the first volume is back, including budding love interest Barbara and gay sidekick Matthew. Bring on volume three!

Paula Martinac

INTRODUCING MRS. COLLINS

Rachel Parris, Little, Brown, 2025, $19.99/ C$25.99, pb, 400pp, 9780316602358 / Hodder & Stoughton, 2025, £18.99, pb, 400pp, 9781399751612

Twenty-five years ago, my then-agent rejected my proposal for a Pride and Prejudice knock-off: “Strangle that babe in its cradle,” quoth she. God rest her, she got that one wrong. Movie remakes and the on-going sagas of Longbourn, Pemberley, and Rosings roll out so regularly, the fan is never without a fix.

Introducing Mrs. Collins is the first such effort I’ve seen featuring Mrs. Collins, “plain” Charlotte Lucas as she was. We get the actual dates of several of the scenes: 1790 to 1822, including coverage of the childhoods of our protagonists—Charlotte and a sad, lonely, bullied William Collins. The Peninsular War against Napoleon’s France, too, has exact battles and events, including the return of soldiers like those who so charmed the Bennet sisters in Meryton, a return marked instead by wounds physical and mental. This is an antidote to the Never-Never Land of our usual cast of characters casually adopting Parisian fashion as if there is no politics, no enemy in a world-shattering conflict.

I was most engaged to see Elizabeth Bennet less self-aware, less sensible, one may say, than when she is the protagonist. Mr. Collins, who is “only a clergyman” and the butt of jokes, struggles manfully to fit his role. And Lady Catherine de Bourgh (whom wits in this novel call “de Borgia”) remakes herself as a sympathetic champion of women’s rights.

The first hundred pages or so carried me away with what I took to be Regency verisimilitude. As the book evolves away from “the best, happiest conclusion” of Pemberley and more to satisfy a modern audience, the expectations of romance grow likewise more modern, the same with some of the vocabulary. Whereas that occasionally threw me out, I was generally engaged to the end: the true fan getting her fix.

Ann Chamberlin

THE DELIVERANCE OF BARKER MCRAE

Stacia Pelletier, Mercer Univ. Press, 2025, $27.00, hb, 324pp, 9780881469721

Trigger warning: Barker McRae’s 1833 departure from her uncle’s harsh Georgia home can only improve her life, because of the abuse of every kind that she’s leaving behind. But seasoned novelist Stacia Pelletier sweeps those details aside, for the most part. Instead, in a back-country search for her Methodist circuit rider father, the 14-year-old rises to the challenges of the Georgia frontier: scarce food, hard riding, and avaricious men all around who lust for her as female and as potential labor— and would seize her in a heartbeat if they knew the wealth she’s carrying, a claim to land in the state’s own lottery-driven gold rush. “There’s

gold in the mountains, gold in the creeks,” say the rumors.

Violating earlier agreements, Georgia’s handing out land in Cherokee country, and land lottery messenger Matthew Higgenbotham hoped that Barker’s lottery certificate would be the last he’d have to deliver, so he could at last head north. His grudging respect for Barker, though, and his respect for “the law,” as well as his heartfelt goodness, bind him to the desperate teen as she attempts to find both her father and her new property. As they pass west of the Chattahoochee, he coaches her: Don’t speak to anyone, keep your head down, bonnet tied, hair hidden—be invisible. But of course, the teen can’t be, especially when she’s driven to preach, as her father would.

“Time makes mincemeat of us all,” admits this highly likable accomplice to Barker’s attempt at personal deliverance from both abuse and crime. In return, she confronts his effort: You’re giving away Indian land. Maybe you’ve contracted scruples, she says. What a pair, and what an engaging and suspenseful gold rush novel.

Beth Kanell

BUTTERFLY GAMES

Kelly Scarborough, She Writes, 2026, $18.99, pb, 352pp, 9798896360506

A novel of romantic and political intrigue, Butterfly Games is based on the story of the young Countess Jacquette Gyldenstolpe and the Swedish royal court between 1811, when she’s fourteen, and 1816. After her divorced mother leaves her among the queen’s gossiping maids of honor to go off with her lover, Wetterstedt, Jacquette determines to have nothing to do with the royal court. Then, on a mysterious errand, she runs into twelve-year-old Prince Oscar, recently arrived from Paris. His mother has returned to Paris, and his guards are quarreling; he too is an abandoned child. After initial hesitations, they become friends. Oscar asks just one thing of her: that she always tell him the truth. In a court of pretense, deception, shifting loyalties, and fears of betrayal, this is no small thing. Jacquette, who’s been in the midst of court maneuvers all her life, can’t trust her mother, Aurora, and actually trusting anyone can be perilous. An exception is her maid, Brita, who also has a strong, independent mind. Can Jacquette and Oscar maintain a bond of truth?

The story leaps forward four years, and all has intensified. Jacquette and Oscar’s passion plays out in a court where their duties lie in different directions. Court machinations and insecurities along with its butterfly games—fleeting sexual encounters—create a suspenseful plot.

Kelly Scarborough illuminates the complications of the Napoleonic era in Sweden with a winning protagonist. Jacquette’s youthful sophistication can be superficial, and when she sees her errors or misjudgments, she admits her mistakes, at least to herself. In her author’s note, Scarborough says her original fascination with this story arose via Prince

Oscar’s mother, Désirée. What a powerful novel evolved from that inspiration! Highly recommended for its characterizations and its window into a little-known historical epoch.

Jinny Webber

ALMOST ENGLISH

Barbara Sibbald, Bayeux Arts, 2025, $12.99/ C$14.99, ebook, 386pp, 9781778750168 1886, Quetta, India (present-day Pakistan). On a frosty, windy day, in a bungalow, newlyweds Lily and Stephen Turner huddle for warmth under a blanket on kitchen chairs in front of the coal stove. Suddenly, upon hearing the walls rumbling and shaking, Stephen, recognizing it as an earthquake, grabs Lily, and they rush out of the cottage onto the open ground as their house tumbles, crushing all their life’s possessions.

Pretty, Scottish Lily is the daughter of a British Army warrant officer. The handsome Anglo-Indian (Eurasian) Stephen, although having attended school in England, is still a sub-overseer on railway-line construction. He is constantly passed over for better-paid junior clerical positions that the Raj has opened to natives. He had met Lily at church and, fortunately, been invited to tea by her mother. Lily and Stephen fall in love and, defying the norms of that period, marry. They must overcome bigotry and hardships to survive.

Barbara Sibbald has put her journalistic and novel-writing experience to good use in penning this captivating bio-fiction novel based on the lives of her maternal greatgrandparents, Lily and Stephen. She began researching her family’s genealogy and was thrilled to find the grave of her first ancestor in India, Stephen’s British grandfather, who had a common-law Indian wife, in a Calcutta cemetery. Sibbald’s visit to her mother’s family in Scotland yielded treasured letters, photos, paintings, and artifacts of Lily and Stephen. Sibbald has used this wealth of information in the story to transport us to the settings and listen to the people’s dialogue and thoughts. She has highlighted the reality that educated Anglo-Indians fared no better than the natives under the Raj. We learn much about the benefits and harms of colonialism, and about Indians’ aspirations for self-rule, from the characters’ drawing-room discussions. Highly recommended.

Waheed Rabbani

IN DEADLY FASHION

Rosemary Simpson, Kensington, 2025, $27.00/ C$37.00/£25.00, hb, 336pp, 9781496741080

In this enjoyable continuation of a longrunning series, Gilded Age debutante and private investigator Prudence MacKenzie is finally set to marry her longtime partner, former Pinkerton detective Geoffrey Hunter. However, a pall is cast over her wedding plans when someone slashes her wedding gown to ribbons and murders the unfortunate seamstress that happened to interrupt them. Once more, Prudence must navigate the treacherous

drawing rooms of Mrs. Astor’s 400 as well as the darker backstreets of the working class in the Gilded Age to solve the mystery. However, this time, the answer may lie in Geoffrey’s past as a privileged son of a slave-owning family during the Confederacy. Simpson blends impeccably researched details about the dressmakers that created the era’s magnificent gowns with an unsparing picture of the desperate circumstances even women who were skilled artisans faced during the time. Prudence and Geoffrey are likeable characters who never lose sight of their privilege, even as they enjoy it, and the supporting cast of characters is equally engaging. The central mystery may feel a touch heavy-handed to a mystery-first reader, but overall, this is another entertaining outing from a seasoned writer.

Erica Obey

UNFAMILIAR TERRITORY

Mary Smathers, mks publishing, 2025, $17.99, pb, 382pp, 9798990674509

Reinvention is the name of the game in Smathers’ fabulous epic of Gold Rush California, which sees her heroine, Juanita Castro de la Cruz, forced to reboot her life repeatedly while her forebears’ homeland changes before her eyes. It’s 1850, and Juanita, proud daughter of a family of Californios (Hispanic settlers), flees the Monterey rancho previously owned by generations of Castros. Deciding she can no longer act as manager for her former lover, the yanqui who bought her late parents’ holdings, she heads on horseback toward her married sister’s home. Juanita’s goal: locate her teenage son, Joaquin, who she’d sent away before his resemblance to his Irish father became obvious to his father’s wife.

Her sister and brother-in-law are troubled. With the recent US invasion of California, they need to prove ownership of their land. They think she’s crazy for seeking Joaquin in the goldfields, so after translating some legal documents, Juanita steals her sister’s old dresses and silverware to sell and travels through a multicultural land whose future feels unsettled. “We were no longer Mexico, nor Spain,” she cogently explains later, “and that, in itself, was a terrifying mystery.”

Juanita’s inner strength seems designed for adventure, something this impeccably paced novel offers in plenty. From driving a mule train into the muddy chaos of mining towns to running a Sonoma boardinghouse, through mishaps and terrible danger, Juanita picks herself up again and again while accumulating a motley assortment of friends, including a would-be high-society San Francisco madam. Every time Juanita visits the city, the changes are dramatic. Will she find Joaquin? Will she ever pay her sister back? While Juanita sometimes gets derailed, she never forgets her objectives. Full of color and incident, this on-the-ground view of early

California through a brave woman’s eyes is a thoroughly entertaining trip.

Sarah Johnson

BEFORE HE WAS RED

Christina Ståhle, Pebble Press, 2025, $18.99, pb, 392pp, 9789083607108

In the late 19th century, the hitherto mighty Ottoman Empire is crumbling at the edges. Not only is the empire dealing with external threats, but there is also growing internal discontent. Some, like the softas, take to protesting openly. On one occasion, they are joined by Hamid, an Ottoman prince who has snuck out of the palace only to find himself caught up in a maelstrom of violence. In the aftermath, Hamid tries to find help for an injured protester. That is how he, potential future sultan of the Ottoman empire, meets Flora Cordier, Belgian-born shop owner.

The Hamid that Flora meets is a man of compassion and ideals. He is also effectively a prisoner within the palace: as a potential heir, he is kept in a “golden cage,” constantly supervised as he may be a threat to the sitting sultan. Ms. Ståhle does an excellent job of describing the restricted lives within the Ottoman palace. Eunuchs, wives, concubines, slaves, sons—they are all prisoners of their status, all of them flitting about in a traditionbound environment that smells of rot. Where Hamid is bored out of his mind, his adoptive mother, Rahime Perestu, has built herself a significant powerbase within the imposed constraints. Perestu is an intriguing character, a strong, intelligent woman who capably protects Hamid from deadly palace intrigues, but can she protect him from love? Love—or is it passion?—strikes hard. Ultimately, Hamid will have to make a choice between the role he’s been raised for and Flora.

Against a vividly painted background of political tension, Ms. Ståhle’s engaging characters lead us through a fascinating, violent and convulsing empire. In-depth research coupled with fluid prose and a deeply engaging storyline makes this a fabulous read. Brava!

Anna Belfrage

LIES AGREED UPON

Anatole Ternaux, Duroc’s Desk Drawer, 2025, $10.99, pb, 210pp, 9798999861207

M. Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, disgraced admiral of the French fleet defeated by Horatio Nelson off Cadiz, arrives at a modest hotel in Rennes, Brittany. The evening unfolds

in meticulous detail, following the admiral through his small routines until he finally sits to write a letter to General Bonaparte. By morning, he is dead. The official report calls it suicide—but is it?

In the next scene, Napoleon Bonaparte is preparing for his upcoming campaign with his trusted Grand Marshal Duroc when Maréchal Bessières enters with news of Villeneuve’s death. Napoleon and his two lieutenants study the report closely, weighing the facts against their own knowledge of Villeneuve and of the two men most likely to have intervened. Their analysis is sharp, layered, and unexpectedly engaging—heightened by wonderfully specific details, including Napoleon’s coffee habits.

The emperor then interrogates Savary of the Gendarmerie d’élite and Fouché of the Ministry of Police. The suggestion is clear: one of these two ruthless men may have arranged the admiral’s death to prevent him from revealing Spanish treachery on the eve of Napoleon’s next campaign. But a sudden interruption shifts the investigation in an unexpected direction. At this point, the meaning of the title becomes evident. The novel’s structure is clever and its philosophical undercurrent the most thought-provoking aspect of the book.

In his preface and afterword, the author explains the historical inconsistencies that inspired the mystery. The characters are vivid, the pacing brisk, and the resolution suitably— and delightfully—cynical. Bravo, M. Ternaux.

Keira Morgan

WHEN MIST AND BRINE TOUCH

Isabel Tutaine, Golden Bridges, 2025, $19.99, pb, 228pp, 9781968524043

1894. A savage pirate attack leaves Captain Will Littledove seriously wounded and his windjammer adrift with only one other survivor left aboard. But Eliza Strauss is a lady from the wealthy upper class, with servants to perform practical tasks. Can she rise to the challenge of saving both him and his ship?

This is a story of survival, and not only surmounting the arduous physical challenges on the ship during the first half of the novel, but also defying the emotional abuse of a controlling father in the second. Since Eliza and Will have fallen in love, she has his support and, more importantly, has learned that she herself is capable of overcoming adversity if she is determined enough and willing to step out of her comfort zone.

The account of her development keeps the reader involved in the story. If she hopes to survive, she must learn to perform unfamiliar tasks like pumping the bilge and chopping up sleeping bunks to provide firewood for heating and cooking; and to discard the rules of social convention if she hopes to find happiness. In the second part, the plot does drift towards melodrama, and Will’s friends are conveniently idealized characters, but

the couple has learned some hard lessons and certainly deserve their happy ending.

More troubling is the historical context. By the end of the 19th century, piracy in the North Atlantic was largely suppressed by the British and American navies, which mostly deployed steam-powered ships. Geography is fictitious.

Ray Thompson

LADIES IN HATING

Alexandra Vasti, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2025, $19.00/C$26.00, pb, 352pp, 9781250910981

Georgiana Cleeve and Cat Lacey are female Gothic novelists in Regency England. At first, Georgiana respects the other’s novels, but when similarities in titles, character names, and other details appear in their recent novels, Georgiana accuses Cat of stealing her ideas. A rivalry ensues with anger that is more displaced attraction than real rage. When the two arrive for an extended stay at the “haunted” Renwick House at the same time, they are now the heroines in a Gothic romance, complete with bat-infested passageways, a secret garden with a gravestone, strange screams in the night...and a corpse!

After a few stolen kisses, they are unable to control their passion for one another. Cut to hot and steamy sex scenes. Georgiana remembers that she hurts everyone who gets close to her, so she steps back. Cat is hurt and confused. Their relationship teeters one way and another as each deal with their difficult pasts. And who is pushing them toward similar research in their writing? And why? Is the house haunted? Where has Cat’s brother disappeared to? Is he in danger?

The tone of this story is light and playful. Georgiana and Cat are charming and intrepid. Although the title suggests a love-hate romance, I liked that the “hatred” is something the characters attempt, unsuccessfully, to manifest. These women are too kind and openminded to hold on to anger. The romance is fun, but Georgiana’s push and pull does become frustrating. The mysteries are engaging and suspenseful. I wish the story spent more time focused on developing these Gothic plot points. Likely, fans of Vasti and devotees of Sapphic romances will disagree. A fun story.

Elizabeth Caulfield Felt

THE SEA CHILD

Linda Wilgus, Ballantine, 2026, $30.00, hb, 304pp, 9780593976555 / Simon & Schuster UK, 2026, £18.99, hb, 400pp, 9781398538245 / Viking, 2026, C$26.95, pb, 304pp, 9780735251335

Isabel arrives at the seaside village of Helford in Cornwall. Burdened with her dead husband’s debts and evading gossip about improper behavior, she is driven from London to the place where, at the age of four, she was found wandering fresh from the sea. Her origin is a mystery – no known shipwrecks, no reports of a missing child. Now in 1808 at the age of 23, the isolated Trevernan Cottage overlooking the confluence of Helford River

and the Atlantic is exactly what she needs to start a new life. The villagers remember her, this mysterious child from the sea who they claim is the daughter of a merman, the Sea Bucca and their sea protector.

Lieutenant Sowerby, a Revenue officer, warns her of the danger of smugglers and illegal activity at night. Unconcerned, she is asleep when a group of men enter, assuming the cottage is vacant, one of them seriously wounded. Now she finds herself nursing and harboring a smuggler, the very attractive Jack. Her criminal complicity continues when she protects Jack from the overbearing Sowerby. As she finds her place in village life, Isabel is gradually pulled into the underground world of smuggling, and we learn Jack is of the nobility. She longs to go to sea by joining him on his next smuggling run, regardless of the danger. This begins a harrowing adventure.

Throughout the novel, Isabel’s special kinship with the sea is alluring and mystifying. It whispers to her, calling her home. She wonders if her father really is a “spirit of the sea, an invocation against its dangers, a creature of legend.” She does not seek her origins, but the truth of her past shadows her as it unfolds, and we learn of her connection to the sea. This adventurous novel with a touch of enchantment is also a tender love story.

Janice Ottersberg

MURDER IN MATRIMONY

Mary Winters, Severn House, 2025, £21.99/$29.99, hb, 256pp, 9781448315499

Amelia Amesbury’s sister Margaret is getting married, and Amelia is helping with the wedding preparations. She is hoping that her friend Mr Cross, the local vicar, will perform the ceremony, but he is murdered soon after their meeting. As well as investigating his murder, aided by a clue that Mr Cross left behind for her, Amelia also sets about trying to find out who is blackmailing her, threatening to expose her identity as a famous agony columnist –something that has been helping to keep her busy since her husband passed away. She is assisted by her friends Kitty and Oliver, as well as her late husband’s friend Simon, to whom she has grown increasingly close.

This is the fourth instalment in the A Lady of Letters Mystery series, but it’s the first I’ve read. The plot is good, if a little slow, and the characters are likeable. The book gets off to a strong start, but the American words and spellings become increasingly jarring for this British reader of a book set in London. There is also a little too much repetition – for example, I don’t know how many times we’re told of Lord Drake’s ill father in Cornwall. Other than that, it’s well written, and there is a lot of nice historical detail.

If you’re looking for a cosy Victorian murder mystery with a bit of blackmail and romance thrown in, this might be the book for you. And if you’ve read the previous books in the series, you won’t want to miss this one.

Sarah Dronfield

A WOMAN OF FORTUNE

Val Wood, Bantam, 2025, £20.00, hb, 352pp, 9780857507181

The heroine, Lydia, lives in a small house near Beverley in Yorkshire in 1860. Her life is very comfortable; she has a cook, a maid and a bathroom with a water closet. Her father is the head of a law firm and employs her husband of three years. Her family gives her financial security but little emotional warmth or comfort. Her husband may arouse readers’ suspicions, but their attention will quickly be diverted by a tragedy affecting Lydia’s neighbour, Matthew Wade.

Mr Wade is a carpenter with six children and newly arrived twins; his wife has not survived their birth. His employer has just sacked him. He faces these misfortunes with courage and humour. Lydia helps with the children and comes to love them; they are rather delightful. Helped by falling in love with Matthew, she develops an ambition to take hold of her own life and, with the help of her father, she takes a very daring and courageous decision.

The writing is wonderfully readable, especially the blossoming of love between the two main characters. The children speak with Yorkshire accents, and there is a reference to a local dish, ‘pobs’, but the setting is not overdone. The Matrimonial Causes Act of 1859 is mentioned, but we are spared forensic detail.

Jane Stubbs

THE QUIET WIFE

Felicity York, HarperNorth, 2025, £9.99, pb, 371pp, 9780008535797

Frances Leyland is used to having her opinions ignored or derided by her overbearing, nouveau riche husband Frederick. But even she is shocked when he announces he has bought a new London house without consulting her and engaged American artist James Whistler to paint his portrait – and possibly hers too. When he arrives at Speke Hall, their country residence near Liverpool, Frances discovers Whistler is unlike anyone she has ever met, and she finds herself blossoming under his attention. But with four teenage children to protect and Frederick’s moods increasingly darkening as a business deal reaches a critical stage, Frances must tread carefully to prevent violence from erupting.

This novel is inspired by real events and speculation based on their letters that Whistler and Frances were more than just friends. On the whole, the book zips along very readably, with only a slight tendency for repetition. For instance, there are two near-identical scenes in which Whistler explains to Frances how he wants her to pose for her portrait – and she’s equally surprised on both occasions.

The characters of Frances and Jemie (as he is known to close friends) are well developed, though minor characters are virtually interchangeable, and Frederick isn’t granted a single redeeming feature. Oddly, Whistler’s mother (yes, that one) does at one point suggest Frederick’s aggression is a self-defence

mechanism – but this isn’t pursued, and a few pages later, she has joined in the general chorus warning Frances against antagonising him because he’s dangerous.

There is a tendency to use the wrong spellings of homophones (taut/taught, complimentary/complementary and especially discreet/discrete), but otherwise the research seems sound, and generally it’s a pleasant read that has encouraged me to find out more about Whistler and his work.

Jasmina

Svenne

20TH CENTURY MURDER ON NORTH TERRACE

Lainie Anderson, Hachette Australia, 2026, £19.99, pb, 336pp, 9780733652097

Adelaide, South Australia, 1917, and a dead body is discovered in the Art Gallery. Meanwhile, Woman Police Constable Kate Cocks and WPC Ethel Bromley are on duty, focused on protecting women and children. It’s not an easy job: in addition to drunks, wife abusers, and neighbour disputes, the officers contend with the febrile atmosphere of a city swarming with soldiers involved in a war on the other side of the world.

Miss Cocks has a signature phrase, “Three feet apart,” she declaims to amorous couples – enforcing words with a five-foot stick. Her intent is to protect girls from the poverty and social exclusion unleashed upon women of the era for the ‘crime’ of unmarried pregnancy. So when a girl complains she was raped by an honoured soldier, Miss Cocks is determined to find him. Meanwhile Ethel, yearning for the excitement of detective work, is delighted to be seconded to the team investigating the Art Gallery murder.

Thus begins a ‘cosy crime’ story, in which the hard crimes are more puzzle than emotional pain, while the relationship between the two women shines. Stiff, middle-aged Miss Cocks, personification of the 19th-century Methodism in which she was raised, hides a warm heart. Meanwhile, energetic young Ethel’s enthusiasm leads her into scrapes that provide light relief from the traumas the women work with.

The author dedicates the book to the fabulously named real Miss Fanny Kate Boadicea Cocks, the first policewoman in the British Empire employed on the same salary as men, with the same powers of arrest. This is second in the A Petticoat Police Mystery series, but can be read alone. Recommended for those who enjoy easy-reading crime fiction, with an underlying heart of truth and learning.

Helen Johnson

I WANT TO DIE IN MY BOOTS

Natalie Appleton, Brindle & Glass, 2025, $22.00/C$26.00, pb, 272pp, 9781990071270

Belinda Jane Corneil comes from a fine

Montana family and even went to business college. But her heroine is an outlaw named Belle Starr, and she eventually begins to follow in Belle’s footsteps. A series of bad marriages and questionable choices take Belle Jane to unsavory places. She even ends up leading a gang of horse thieves in 1920s Saskatchewan, Canada.

This novel is very poetic. Not simply a tale of a horse thief, it is filled with Belle’s inner, and often scattered, thoughts, and can be hard to follow. There is some beautiful writing: “Belle Jane thought she would think about this woman all day, wonder where she hobbled off to, which dark corners would have her tonight, what she did to earn those lost coins. But she didn’t. Instead she wondered about herself in relation to that woman: how quickly could she be erased, uncared about? Streetwalking and nearly licking cockroaches.”

I loved that the chapter headings are ads for strayed, found, or stolen horses. There is other epistolary work in the form of personal letters, articles, and court documents. The blend of fact and fiction about this very real woman is well done.

The bluntness begins on page one. When we meet Belle, she is in the bivvy (outhouse), doing what one does there. This might be offputting for some, but the crude language and situations shown throughout the book portray Belle’s circumstances well. The contrast of the life she was born into and the one she chose is stark: She goes from her father’s office and business college to thieving in Canada, and then the Prince Albert Penitentiary. In 1960 she is in a small shop, reading tea leaves in British Columbia. Complex and sometimes shocking, this is a unique, lyrical read.

Bonnie DeMoss

A BOMB PLACED CLOSE TO THE HEART

Nishant Batsha, Ecco, 2025, $27.99, hb, 304pp, 9780063303607

In 1917, Cora Trent and Indra Mukherjee are travelling across the USA by train, bound for New York City. Earlier, they’d met at a party in Palo Alto, where Cora, originally from a mining town, is a graduate student at Stanford, and Indra, an Indian revolutionary, had arrived recently. The radical Indra and Cora, an idealist and a suffragette, are drawn to each other. They meet eccentrics in Berkeley and attend anti-colonial protests with other dissidents. Cora, desiring a new life, and Indra falling in love and hastily marrying. While Indra awaits instructions from an enigmatic German spymaster, the US declares war on Germany, ending its neutrality. The resulting nationwide xenophobia leads to prejudice against enemy aliens and their supporters. When Cora and Indra learn of the arrests of dissenters, they flee on a train to New York. There, they expect to avoid the eye of American and British agents and achieve their objectives, all the while keeping their rushed marriage intact.

Nishant Batsha has based this historical

novel on the real-life stories of the Indian revolutionary who came to California, M. N. Roy, and his American first wife, Evelyn Trent. Batsha, in interviews noted on his website, remarks that while Roy left an extensive memoir, he hardly mentions Evelyn. Batsha has done a remarkable job of reimagining Evelyn as the fictional Cora, giving her the strong personality Evelyn was known to possess. The novel is a thought-provoking retelling of the Hindu-German Conspiracy and the activities of the Ghadar Party based in California. The inclusion of an interracial marriage adds depth to the story and helps portray the era’s biases. Although the plot is steeped in historical events and the writing is most literary, it is an informative read, particularly for readers unfamiliar with that part of US history. Highly recommended.

Waheed Rabbani

THE STARS OVER ROME

Charlotte Betts, Piatkus, 2025, £10.99, pb, 336pp, 9780349432793

Rome, 1913. Part-Italian Gabriella Hazelwood has no interest in marriage because she dreams of an independent future as a journalist. She meets and, under Rome’s magical starlight, falls for Marco Santorelli, a newspaper heir. Supported by Marco, her ambition looks close to realisation. Perhaps Gabriella can have both husband and career despite Marco’s traditional mother’s determined opposition. A sweeping love story follows until the shadow of WWI falls over Europe and Marco is called to the front. The family newspaper appears to be on the brink of collapse. Yet, no matter the opposition to a female journalist, Gabriella steps in. Charlotte Betts shows Gabriella’s difficult fight to prove that a woman can have a place within the newsroom and rescue a failing company with her fresh ideas. For example, Gabriella will develop newspaper columns of interest to women who during the war have entered the work force and are fast developing self-determination.

This is a fascinating and unique novel with a well-researched, edgy background overlaid with a fairytale, beautifully written, poignant love story. Betts’ characters are fully realised and vividly portrayed, not just Gabriella herself, but others such as the difficult mother-in-law and the story’s scoundrels. The Stars Over Rome contains an intricate, page-turning narrative, filled with jeopardy throughout as Gabriella tries to expose corruption, in particular, that of wartime female exploitation that is hidden

from general view. There are many excellent strands and great characters within its pages and, importantly, a satisfying conclusion. Highly recommended. This novel would make an excellent movie.

Carol McGrath

RAILSONG

Rahul Bhattacharya, Bloomsbury, 2026, $29.99/C$39.99, hb, 416pp, 9781639736225 / Bloomsbury UK, 2026, £18.99, hb, 416pp, 9781526691729

“Everything that happened in India happened also on the Indian Railways,” writes Rahul Bhattacharya in his love song to India’s railways and the people who ride them throughout the country.

Railsong traces the history of modern India through the railways—the transition from steam to diesel locomotives, the movement of people between country and city, the rail workers strike of 1974 amid widespread political unrest. Even the crowded train compartments are used to symbolize the breakdown of India’s caste system. At the center of the story is Charu Chitol, the daughter of a rail worker who married outside of his caste. Frustrated with her family’s poverty, the discrimination they face, and her lack of opportunities as a rural woman, Charu runs away to Bombay and to the education and work that she is sure the city offers. Although the life of a working woman alone in the city has its challenges, Charu finds work with the same railways that took her from her stationary past to a mobile future.

Bhattacharya’s novel is expansive, spanning decades and miles, yet at times that breadth feels ponderous, weighed down with an oldfashioned writing style. Railsong is ultimately about finding identity in a modernizing society grappling with histories of discrimination. As Charu moves between stages of her life, her name in the third person narration shifts, too. As a girl living at home, limited by her gender, she is Charu. As a single working woman, building a reputation, she is Miss Chitol. And as a married woman, balancing the honorific of her new role and the maiden name of her career, she is Smt (Mrs.) Chitol. This choice is interesting and ably illustrates Charu’s trying on of new identities and independences.

Jessica Brockmole

THE WATER WOMEN

Bonnie Blaylock, Lake Union, 2026, $16.99/£8.99, pb, 283pp, 9781662535666

Opening in Sardegna (Sardinia) in 1910, this novel tells the story of three generations of water women, followers of an ancient tradition founded by Queen Berenice, greatgranddaughter of King Herod. Ever since, Jewish women living near Sant’Antioco have been trained as water women, harvesting byssus, the silken threads produced by the giant mollusk, Pinna nobilis, which they weave into delicate tapestries and bracelets. Mothers pass their skills to their daughters from early

childhood until they can take the water woman oath, devoting themselves to their art for life. Their exquisite works cannot be sold: they give them as blessings to women who ask, whether or not they are Jewish. During the course of the novel, two world wars involving Italy disturb this bucolic island of fishermen and miners, but despite all, the water woman tradition survives. This is the fascinating background of the Renda family: Allegra, her daughter Zaneta, and her daughter Mira.

The theme of weaving threads through the novel, established in Allegra’s idyllic chapters, depicting a tradition she expects will continue on through the generations. Then her husband Johann is drafted into World War I, threatening their serenity. However, after he returns, she births four children and, thirteen years later, Zaneta, whom she delivers herself in the ruins of the mysterious Bronze Age Nuragi. WWII brings German soldiers to Sardegna, and the Rendas’ drama intensifies. Zaneta’s unusual birthplace figures in the story, as do the men who marry her, her mother, and her daughter. Bonnie Blaylock’s depiction, with a deep spirituality, of water women and the sea they love make this novel unique, evoking a time-honored tradition in a timeline dating back to the Nuragi before Berenice arrived. Highly recommended for its rich descriptions, characterizations, and intriguing plot. Book club discussion questions included.

Jinny Webber

THE FOURTH PRINCESS

Janie Chang, William Morrow, 2025, $30.00/ C$39.00, hb, 336pp, 9780063308114

Except for vague childhood flashbacks, orphaned Lisan knows nothing of her origins. Educated and multilingual, she suffocates under the well-meaning protection of her ascetic guardian, scion of a powerful Chinese family. A position as secretary to beautiful heiress Caroline Stanton offers escape. Caroline, newly married to mining magnate Thomas, has just arrived in Shanghai. The couple is invited by Thomas’s uncle Mason to take up residence at Lennox Manor, an impressive but increasingly dilapidated mansion on the edges of Shanghai’s international settlement. Caroline leans on Lisan’s companionship when Mason’s behavior becomes troubling, Thomas falls ill, and a sinister figure from Caroline’s past emerges. Lisan is increasingly unsettled as she feels a strange connection with Lennox Manor’s former mistress, who disappeared into the night months before.

This gothic novel has the necessary dose of

formula and unlikely contrivance, but its unique setting and competent pacing ensure an engaging read. Shanghai in 1911 is an eclectic mix of East and West, just like the manor’s architecture, and Chang adeptly mines a variety of strata to make the most of the time and place. China is on the verge of becoming a republic, its imperial government in crisis. The Qing government’s lack of funds provides the impetus for the Stantons and those like them to pursue railroad and other business interests in Shanghai, creating Western enclaves in the city. This allows for the construction of Lennox Manor (modeled on the real-life Dennartt estate), a gothic pile in an Asian setting. Characterization is capably accomplished, and the plot skips along like a rickshaw on a bumpy road. The novel feels somewhat cinematic, presented in a way that would easily translate to screen. Fans of the gothic will enjoy this offering’s distinctive setting and easily root for its sympathetic protagonist.

Bethany Latham

ISLAND OF GHOSTS AND DREAMS

Christopher Cosmos, Pegasus, 2026, $28.95/ C$38.95, hb, 432pp, 9798897100569

This powerfully evocative novel personifies Greek resistance to German invaders in WWII on the island of Crete. Maria, a villager whose whole world turns upside down in 1940, embodies the past, present, and future of Crete through her experiences of the war. Working alongside her father, herding sheep and tending olive groves with members of her extended family, her existence is suddenly and inextricably changed when she finds a British soldier washed up on the beach, barely alive. In saving him, her life takes on new and unexpected changes as the war reaches their village.

Connecting the history and mythology of Crete to WWII fighting, this novel shows the fierce sense of pride and belligerence of the Cretans in facing invaders to their island. Retreating to the mountains after the Germans have taken control, the fight continues for Maria and the band of British soldiers she joins as a Greek palikari, a warrior. Questions of loyalty, revenge, and agency over her own life, force Maria to confront the person she is becoming. Strong threads of love for family, friends, and fellow countrymen combine with her own personal love stories playing out in tumultuous and ever-changing circumstances. All of these changes will have ramifications for her as what she endured becomes the past and what she dreams of points to the future.

Fans of WWII historical fiction will find much to savor in this novel. It offers a unique setting, unforgettable characters, and an action-filled plot, all written in a style that is both compelling and thought-provoking. As a window into the culture of Crete past and present, this novel is highly recommended.

Karen Bordonaro

WHEN WE WERE BRILLIANT

Lynn Cullen, Berkley, 2026, $30.00/C$39.99, hb, 400pp, 9780593815854

This novel delves deeply into the bonds between Marilyn Monroe (192662) and famous photographer Eve Arnold (19122012). Never knowing her mother or father, and abused in a series of foster homes, Marilyn learns early to flout her carnal appeal. Yet, all her adult life she craves both someone who truly loves her and respects her as a performer. Diminutive, Jewish Eve also claws her way upward. One of few female news photographers, she disdains studio sessions with staged poses and instead lets her lenses find and capture the real person. Eve immediately spots Marilyn’s “feral cat” complexity and acting talent. The two women see and feel each other’s brilliance, and Eve becomes Marilyn’s only non-judgmental friend. Many times, Marilyn calls Eve to drop everything and photo-shoot her in faraway places ranging from midwestern towns to big cities and movie sets.

The intensity and drama of Eve’s life often equal Marilyn’s. On a photoshoot in Cuba, the parents of a young girl beg Eve to take their daughter to America. They know the misery that awaits pretty, young women in Cuba. Eve encounters many other prominent people from Joan Crawford to Jackie Kennedy, from Jayne Mansfield to Malcolm X. She sees Clark Gable, in his last days, perform movie stunts despite a weak heart. Eve struggles to manage marriage, motherhood, and a career that takes her away from home too often.

The prose and dialogue superbly fit the characters. Arthur Miller’s words show the imperious jerk he was. Though spare and uncluttered, the descriptions of many settings and details work well. Joan Crawford’s Pepsi thermos with 140-proof vodka reveals much in few words. Cullen’s fascinating portrayal of two women helping each other achieve greatness in a male-controlled world is highly recommended.

G. J. Berger

SPOILED MILK

Avery Curran, Doubleday, 2026, $28.00, hb, 336pp, 9780385551595

On the night of her eighteenth birthday, celebrated by her adoring classmates in their early 20th-century English boarding school, the golden Violet Kirsch falls to her sudden death. Her bosom friend Emily is convinced Violet didn’t trip and tumble over the balustrade,

but rather that the charming French teacher known simply as Mademoiselle murdered Violet out of possessive jealousy.

As Emily and the other girls in their upper sixth form try to uncover the truth about Violet’s death, they turn to sickbed interrogations and even the intervention of a spiritual medium advertised in the village newspaper. Meanwhile, Emily both cannot tame her frustration with her classmate, Evelyn, who also competed for the privilege of brushing Violet’s hair, nor can she stop staring at the fine bones of Evelyn’s sharp wrists. As the girls resort to increasingly desperate measures to learn the truth, the school’s milk turns sour, the apples prove worm-ridden, and overall, something seems rotten at the Briarley School for Girls.

In a school founded on sugar money made from the blood of slavery, perhaps such corruption was inevitable. As the book tips from ghost story into grisly horror, the fates of our girls also start to feel inevitable. For, while author Avery Curran excels at depicting the sharp resentments and smothered lusts that emerge between these girls, she seems overly bound to the prescriptions of the horror genre, at least for this reviewer’s taste. Still, her rich characterization prevails, and as Emily and her fellows muddle then scream their way through Briarley’s foul legacy, the reader will be rooting for them every haunted step of the way.

Carrie Callaghan

CAPE FEVER

Nadia Davids, Simon & Schuster, 2025, $27.00/ C$30.00, hb, 240pp, 9781668090732 / Scribner UK, 2026, £16.99, hb, 240pp, 9781398544048 1920: Nineteen-year-old Soraya, an intelligent and sensitive Muslim girl, takes a job as maid and cook for Mrs. Hattingh in an unnamed colonial harbor city after the Great War. Mrs. Hattingh’s son still resides in England after his war service and, despite her busy life full of good works, Mrs. Hattingh lives alone in some isolation. As Soraya begins her service as a live-in maid, she also encounters a mysterious grey woman, a spirit in the house only she can sense. At length, Soraya’s employer—unaware that Soraya is literate—offers to write weekly letters to Soraya’s fiancé. The two women, alone in the old decaying mansion, develop an oddly intertwined relationship, while her employer demands more of Soraya’s time, limiting her days off and opportunities to visit her beloved family.

This novel totally engrossed me; I devoured

this book in one sitting. The writing is masterful and the complex characters hypnotically compelling. As the two women’s convoluted relationship deepens, dark secrets rise to consciousness. The story easily transcends the Gothic genre and makes for a memorable read—a tender and scathing meditation on power dynamics and human experience, on colonizer and colonized, and, more intimately, on two women thrown together by need and circumstance. Easily among the best books I’ve read this year, this book is highly recommended… a fantastic story!

Susan McDuffie

THE RUMBLING OF THE WATERS

Richard G. Dennis, Rushwood Press, 2025, $26.95, pb, 238pp, 9798989599530

Bergamo, 1923: In this second volume of Dennis’s Restoral trilogy, Renzo Guidici, loyal blackshirt, philanderer, spv, and ultimately murderer, is sent to investigate the collapse of the Gleno Dam, a disaster that cost more than 350 people their lives. His remit from the Fascist party is to find anarchist scapegoats connected to Luigi Galleani (real historical figures are seamlessly woven into the narrative), given that a quantity of gunpowder has gone missing. There he discovers that the true cause is poor materials coupled with lax inspection and that the workmen knew and had voiced their concerns.

Renzo is not without courage (he is a World War I veteran), but the epiphany moment one might expect from this disillusionment with his masters never really arrives. Instead, Renzo attempts to manoeuvre his way through power dynamics and allegiances that ultimately lead to his downfall, though all he has ever really sought to be is a ‘good’ party member. Indeed, he justifies the worst of his actions as inevitable, mere collateral: ‘it was a squadristi raid. These things happen.’

The story takes him as far as Philadelphia, where he learns firsthand how tough life is for a penniless immigrant. Gabriele D’Annunzio resurfaces in this second book, with a compelling but repugnant portrait of the poet in his stifling, cluttered villa at Vittoriale. Another deftly drawn character is the incompetent and venal Roberto Farinacci, Secretary of the Fascist party; the depth of Dennis’s research is noteworthy.

This book is an absorbing historical and psychological thriller. It’s also a warning of what happens in a democracy when the rule of law is subverted and instrumentalised. As Renzo writes, ‘Acts I undertook back then, done in good faith for the benefit of the patria, appeared harsh when I wrote them down.’

Katherine Mezzacappa

MURDER AT MIDWINTER FARM

Helena Dixon, Bookouture, 2025, $9.99/£7.99, pb, 254pp, 9781835257814

Devon, 1937, is the familiar setting for the

latest cozy mystery in the Miss Underhay series. Kitty and her husband, retired Captain Matt Bryant, run a private investigative business, and after a body is discovered at a nearby farm, their friends who recently bought it ask them to find out more about the history of the house. The body is soon identified as that of a previous occupant who disappeared shortly after the theft of valuable jewels from a nearby country estate a few years ago. Could the crimes be linked?

Like other books in the series, this is tightly plotted; the characters provide interesting insights into a class-conscious rural society in England shortly before the Second World War; and the setting is convincingly recreated by attention to details. Thus, hands are ‘reddened’ after washing dishes, and tea is a sovereign remedy for any disturbing experience. With the addition of extra sugar, home-baked pies, and ‘a slice of rich iced fruit cake’ to boost its effectiveness in particularly traumatic cases. Recommended.

Ray Thompson

WHO CARES?

Ann S. Epstein, Vine Leaves Press, 2025, $17.99, pb, 284pp, 9783988322364

Set in Ypsilanti, Michigan, in 1960, the novel centers on the struggling Woodruff Home for the Aged, a senior living community owned by the cash strapped City of Port Drake. A wealthy developer, Franklin Savoy, is intent on buying Woodruff, evicting its aging, impoverished tenants, and replacing the building with a luxury complex.

The city stands to gain substantial property tax revenue and a large infusion of cash from the sale, making Woodruff’s fate a calculated financial decision rather than a moral one. For Woodruff’s residents, losing the fight is unthinkable. They face the loss of their homes, the kinship of fellow residents, and their fragile sense of belonging, along with the stark reality of homelessness or institutionalization. For staff, the proposed sale threatens jobs, their sense of mission, and their ability to provide humane care.

The odds of preserving Woodruff are grim. Against political pressure from City Hall and the developer’s financial power, the residents have nothing to offer but their voices and powers of persuasion. Three elderly residents join forces with director Laurel Robbins and organize a grassroots movement to fight the sale, hoping to expose Savoy’s shady past, and force city manager Hugh Pepper to retreat.

Although the many scenes of daily life at Woodruff reveal the personalities and routines of the residents, they often defuse the high-stakes tension inherent in the plot. In addition, readers expecting a neat victory or defeat in this David-and-Goliath struggle will be left still guessing at the end. Drawing on her remarkable knowledge of senior living communities and city politics, the author shows how determined activists with the moral high ground can challenge the might of profitdriven interests and the politicians who back

them. She really does leave us asking ourselves: “Who Cares?”

Alan Collenette

WOMEN OF A PROMISCUOUS NATURE

Donna Everhart, Kensington, 2026, $18.95/ C$24.95/£16.99, pb, 360pp, 9781496740724

America is on the verge of war and, wary of the venereal disease that ran through the ranks in World War I, the country revives the American Plan, a wartime government program designed to arrest and detain prostitutes who might infect the troops. But by 1941, the program’s enforcement varies. Some of the women arrested do test positive for STIs and are quarantined for treatment. But others are arrested for no reason other than they are flirtatious, unruly, independent, poor, or pretty, qualities that local authorities equate with “loose morals.” These women are sent to institutions across the country where they are given treatments, taught domestic skills, and kept under control until they have proven themselves “reformed.”

In Everhart’s novel, three women narrate a tumultuous few months at North Carolina’s State Industrial Farm Colony for Women. Ruth’s “sin” is that she lives alone, teenager Stella’s is that she was assaulted, and superintendent Dorothy Baker’s sin is that she thinks she knows better than her inmates. As these three women navigate their choices and the consequences of their decisions, the colony comes under fire, both from outside activists opposed to its activities and from those within who believe in its mission.

This is difficult history and, unsurprisingly, a difficult book to read. For much of it, you will dislike many of the characters and may have trouble wanting to return to their narration. This is a credit to Everhart for writing such authentic characters, but it also slows the book down. Everhart did her research, and the details, if bleak, are vivid. The ending feels abrupt, though. Few of the plot arcs are resolved, and I was unhappy with where Everhart left Stella. A well-researched book about a little-known chapter of America’s history.

Jessica Brockmole

WINTER WISHES FOR THE EAST END GIRLS

Jean Fullerton, Bookouture, 2025, $11.99/£8.99, pb, 304pp, 9781805500834

Alice Starling lost her husband at Dunkirk two years before and, with no sympathy or support from her mother-in-law, contributes to the defense of London in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, tending a barrage balloon in Wapping. Winter Wishes for the East End Girls is a heartwarming continuation of Fullerton’s East End Girls series, which overlaps with her other East End books, all set east of the Tower of London during WWII.

Alice leads their band of sisters, despite being denied the proper rank and recognition,

as Corporal Effie Weston is sidelined when her marriage and pregnancy disqualify her from continued WAAF service (see book 1, The East End Girls). Rationing, winter weather, internal strife, and black marketeers, not to mention the Blitz, push the team to the limits. But Alice, cooperating with Florrie Granger, owner of the pub where they are billeting and a local Women’s Volunteer Service member, expands their attention and hearts to the children of the surrounding neighborhood, trying to turn the worst of times into the “most memorable Christmas ever.”

True to Fullerton’s formula, a handsome man, in this case US Army Lieutenant Brogan Rafferty, throws a romantic wrench into the already stressed gears of Alice’s life. Their first encounter is fraught with misunderstanding and rejection. Alice would be happy never to see the opinionated Yank again, except that he is Florrie’s nephew. Brogan’s job is to reduce the impact of the “overdressed, overpaid, oversexed and over here” American soldiers on London, even though those labels apply to him as well.

Each is attracted to the other, but there’s no smooth sailing for them, nor the rest of the East End Girls, as Christmas weather, holiday expectations, and descension within the WAAF ranks, Effie’s impending delivery, and the war collide on Christmas Eve. The satisfying climax has many hooks to the next story.

Ron Andrea

WILD PEOPLE QUIET

Tara Gereaux, Scribner Canada, 2026, $18.99/ C$25.99, pb, 336pp, 9781668060568

After a tragedy strikes her family in her Métis village, Florence Capeau begins to resist her Native identity. While still a girl, she finds a way to escape and begins her struggle to pass for white in segregated early 20 th -century Saskatchewan. Prohibited from attending school, she develops another kind of literacy: beading. She tucks that talent away and saves enough working as a hotel maid to attend secretarial school. Leaving her family behind and bleaching her hair, she becomes the widowed Mrs. Banks, a top secretary in the town of Regina. When her brother Clancy turns up, darker than Florence and easily identified as Métis, he is refused service in the café where she sits with her fellow employees. Their eyes meet, but she does not acknowledge him. Her livelihood, friends, and the career she has so carefully created will be in jeopardy if the truth is known. Yet can she so easily dismiss her family? Alternating chapters between her girlhood from 1908 to 1913, and 1946 when she is established in Regina, reveal

Florence’s challenges in maintaining her chosen identity in the community and in her soul.

“Wild People Quiet” were the words of the Canadian Prime Minister in 1869, referring to the difficulties controlling the Métis, and some forty years later control is still being enforced on the “wild people.” This fine novel transports readers to a time of glaring prejudice as seen through the eyes of Florence who exists on both sides of the line—an impossible balancing act. The beautifully described Métis art of beading plays a significant role throughout the story, and Michif (the language of the Métis) phrases appear occasionally, adding to the atmosphere. Highly recommended for Tara Gereaux’s moving depiction of a racist era and one family caught in its snares.

Jinny Webber

MURDER AT THE CABARET

Dana Gricken, Bella Books, 2025, $17.95, pb, 272pp, 9781642476460

Gricken, the author of A Modern Fairytale, makes a lively, fast-paced foray into the realm of historical cozy mystery.

Penny Fox has a lot on her plate for a New York gal of the Roaring ´20s: she runs her late father’s club, The Primrose, which hides an illegal speakeasy, but she’s also a private investigator who rats out cheating husbands, which makes her leap to defend Cora Bellinger from her abusive fiancé, Roy. Penny has notions of romance with the lovely Cora at her side, but then the body of one of her cabaret dancers turns up murdered in the back alley. Then another. And another. Penny has to stay ahead of the detective on the case, elude the angry exes, outwit a threatening mob boss, and protect her remaining staff, all while trying to determine how the killings are connected to her.

The busy plot keeps pages turning, as does Gricken’s slick, jazzy prose and dauntless heroine. Penny is brave, big-hearted, and not afraid to use her brains or her gun. Broad gesture sometimes stands in where a detail would be welcome, and the book could make more of its setting, but this is overall an enjoyable read.

Misty Urban

ON A SUNDOWN SEA

Jill G. Hall, She Writes, 2025, $18.99/C$24.99, pb, 366pp, 9781647429881

On a Sundown Sea is the story of one of the early figures of the Theosophical Society in America, Katherine Tingley (1847-1929), and especially of her founding of Lomaland, an idyllic haven of arts, meditation, and brotherhood in southern California around the turn of the previous century. A woman with a checkered past, married to a charming, ne’er-do-well inventor, Katherine is serving as a social worker (and fortune teller) in New York when the book begins, but a meeting with William Q. Judge, one of the pillars of Theosophy in Europe after Madame

Blavatsky, the founder herself, changes the course of the American woman’s life. Her relationship with Judge heats up, but he soon dies, leaving her anointed as his successor. Not everyone in the Society is willing to buy into this, and the rest of the story deals primarily with their opposition and backbiting, over which Katherine triumphs to found the paradisal colony of which she has dreamed since childhood. Literally.

This book would have been much more interesting had the author attempted to imagine the psychological motives of this important figure in the cultural history of the early 20th century. Instead, Katherine and all her fellow Theosophists seem to operate on the basis of veritable dreams and visions. For unbelievers, this credulous assumption on the part of the author turns the tale into fantasy. Add to that amateurish prose and a tendency to spout factoids, and it was hard to finish.

Niki Kantzios

THE SHOCK OF THE LIGHT

Lori Inglis Hall, Pamela Dorman Books, 2026, $30.00, hb, 416pp, 9780593834251 / The Borough Press, 2026, £18.99, hb, 432pp, 9780008701314

This meticulously researched novel introduces dynamic British twins yearning to do their bit in World War II. Theo is rapidly inducted into the RAF, where he becomes a star pilot, while Tessa secretly joins the Special Operations Executive. Unable to disclose what she is doing, Tessa lies to her brother for the first time in their lives, pulling herself apart from what had been an extraordinary bonding. Theo returns from the war, somewhat battered, and Tessa does not. Innuendo suggests she did something unforgiveable. Forty years later, Theo is still not convinced. When a young PhD candidate discovers information about Tessa and approaches Theo, they push to uncover tightly hidden secrets about this beloved sister.

The careful crafting of the story in The Shock of the Light, its insistently rising tension, and its portrayal of the deep effects of war on families, place it on par with top novels of World War II such as Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale and Kate Quinn’s The Huntress It is profoundly moving to feel Theo’s grief, his nagging doubts about his sister’s loyalty, and his anger with himself for having those doubts. The author adroitly leaves the full unveiling of Tessa’s war activities until the fourth and last part of the novel, so readers must share Theo’s hope (but not certainty)

that Tessa has continued to be the strong and courageous young woman introduced in the early sections.

Lorelei R. Brush

THE FORTUNES OF ASHMORE CASTLE

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, Sphere, 2025, £21.99, hb, 480pp, 9781408734278

The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle is the fourth novel in the Ashmore Castle series and a sweeping, historical family saga set at the start of the 20th century. Beginning at Christmas time in 1904, this book follows the interlocking lives of the castle’s owners, the Tallant family, their family friends and their servants. Giles and Kitty Tallant’s marriage has hit the doldrums, partly due to Giles being in love with someone else. Rachael Tallant wants to marry a man whom her domineering mother disapproves of strongly. Richard Tallant also has a secret love, and Alice Tallant wants to study art and not be tied down by matrimony.

Coming to this story without having read any of the other books in the series, I was a little bit worried when I spotted the considerably sized dramatis personae. In reality, I soon got used to the characters and their interweaving stories. The author writes engagingly and switches between storylines regularly, which adds pace and keeps the reader interested. The story is very much in the style of the BBC’s TV show, Downton Abbey. As you read it, it feels almost cinematic and you could imagine it as a television show in its own right. Fans of Downton Abbey will feel at home with the various plot points: marriages, births, adultery, murder and tragic death.

The author is very knowledgeable about this period of history and manages to showcase some real events from this time. Towards the end, the story feels a little too long and the pace slows. I would have liked to see a bit more of a dramatic ending. However, I enjoyed snuggling up on the sofa with it and losing myself in an Edwardian saga for a few days.

Lizzie Bentham

THE KING’S SHILLING

Simon Hirst, Holand Press, 2025, £9.99, pb, 230pp, 9798266052673

Michelle is sent by her father, a titled Frenchman, the Baron de Montfaucon, to stay with Lord Grenfell and his family at their country estate in England, following her divorce which, in 1912, is seen by the Baron as bringing disgrace on the family. While saying he will end her allowance, the Baron explains that Grenfell has stopped paying interest on an ancient loan and that Michelle may keep the owed money if she is able to recover it.

She is well received by most of the family, particularly with His Lordship’s nephews, Francis and Riversdale, known as ‘Rivy’. Francis is a soldier and Rivy works in finance. To pay for a lawyer she ‘borrows’ a valuable necklace which she pawns. This is discovered by His Lordship, who threatens to expose her

unless she marries one of his nephews; she has three years to decide which. Rivy’s finances collapse and the world is on the brink of war, and still she cannot decide.

The action moves at a brisk pace, and the characters are mostly well-drawn, although a few minor ones are two-dimensional. The book will appeal to anyone interested in the upper echelons of society in the early 20th century. The twins take Michelle on a polo weekend at the Duke of Westminster’s estate in Cheshire where she meets, among others, Winston Churchill and his wife, Clementine. There are detailed descriptions of cars, cigars, wines, food and decor, presumably intended to show the opulence of the lifestyle but which I found intrusive; do we really need to know the brand of cigars or the vintage of champagne?

This is the first part of a duology, The Heart of War. By the end, World War I is about to start and nothing about Michelle’s future has been decided. Clearly it is necessary to read the sequel to reach a conclusion.

David Northover

DANCE OF THE EARTH

Anna M. Holmes, Book Guild, 2025, £9.99, pb, 456pp, 9781835743102

In 1875, a newborn baby girl is found outside the Alhambra theatre in London. The seamstress Molly Banbury takes her home, names her Rose, and raises her as her own, beginning this saga of a talented, spirited family spanning five decades.

We see London at its glittering best in the early 20th century, where dance and music drive the characters’ dreams and their very sense of identity. Rose grows up backstage, loving colors, studying dance, and setting her heart on a prince. A beautiful young woman, she becomes a star performer at the Alhambra. In the next generation, Nina, who leapt and pranced through her own backstage childhood, becomes part of Sergei Diaghilev’s ballets. We see those striking innovations from the dancer’s perspective as the choreography, costumes, design, and music created by Diaghilev’s brilliant collaborators put his ballets in the vanguard of European avantgarde art.

This story alone would make a fascinating book, but Dance of the Earth is a more layered novel, reflecting the social changes in that vibrant era. Class barriers have begun to break down; women are fighting for the vote and the Labour party for workers. Then World War I shatters all this creative cultural and artistic ferment. Young men flock to enlist, sure it will be a short battle, but the realities of

trench warfare and the bombing of London go beyond anyone’s imagination, leaving physical and spiritual devastation in their wake. Somehow love and creativity must salvage the broken ones.

This is a fast-paced novel, chapters alternating between characters, intensifying the suspense and emotional impact. Highly recommended for Holmes’s lively style and engaging characters who each in their own way defy convention, especially when it comes to love.

Jinny Webber

HEAP EARTH UPON IT

Chloe Michelle Howarth, Verve, 2025, £16.99, hb, 288pp, 9780857309051 / Melville House, 2026, $20.99, pb, 288pp, 9781685892531

The Irish have a reputation for lyricism, and Howarth’s second novel, set in a small Irish village in 1965, will not disappoint. The scene of sinister beauty is established in the first pages. The O’Leary siblings, three young adults and a nine-year-old, arrive in Ballycrea on a pony trap, fleeing a mysterious, painful past.

Tom, the hyper-Catholic eldest, who longs to be accepted, strains to keep the family afloat financially and mentally. Jack, the charming ladies’ man, is traumatised and withdrawn. Moody, fixating Anna must mother the four orphans, the loss of whose parents still gnaws at them, while adorable little Peggy seems to know too much for her age. They are befriended by a popular, good-hearted couple, Bill and Betty Nevan, and seem to be healing in the warm glow of their friendship.

But the siblings are torn by jealousy and guilt, and what seem to be harmless relationships grow obsessive. Lies multiply. What is the black shadow that hangs over them, curdling every attempt to fit in? Who is the mysterious personage apostrophised by the three adults in their respective first-person chapters? The atmosphere is tense and gothic, with knowledge leaked in a grim drip-drip-drip that keeps one reading compulsively as much for the beauty of the prose as to discover what secret haunts the O’Learys. Heap Earth Upon It is highly recommended for anyone who likes dark literary fiction.

Niki Kantzios

INHARMONIOUS

Tammye Huf, Blackstone, 2026, $29.99, hb, 360pp, 9798874868376

In 1941 Florida, young adult siblings Benny and Cora North live with their widowed mother. Benny is light-skinned enough to pass for white, which he does sometimes to enjoy the defiant rush. Cora is sweet on Benny’s friend Lee, but her mother disapproves of his wild past. When news of Pearl Harbor comes over the radio, Benny, Lee, and their friend Roscoe plan to enlist. Benny persuades a reluctant Cora to marry Roscoe before he leaves, for financial security as his widow if he is killed.

Benny is mistakenly sent to a whites-only unit, but a paperwork-averse officer advises him to leave well enough alone. Roscoe and

Lee suffer the indignities Black soldiers were subject to, such as harassment from white superiors and training without weapons because the brass fear arming Black men. In the war’s aftermath, the Black veterans return to the restrictions of a Jim Crow South, blocked from the government benefits they should be entitled to, except for Benny, whose paperwork lists him as white—but “passing” now cuts him off from his family. Roscoe feels resentful, and Cora longs to be with Lee, not Roscoe.

This novel is a perfect example of my favorite kind of historical fiction: interesting history and compelling characters, wrapped seamlessly in a plot that keeps me wondering what will happen next. Huf’s book is inspired by the experiences of her grandmother’s generation; her historical note explains some of the plot points inspired by real-life incidents. I strongly recommend this immersive novel about Black people’s struggle against segregation in midcentury America.

B.J. Sedlock

KEEPER OF LOST CHILDREN

Sadeqa Johnson, 37 Ink, 2026, $30.00, hb, 464pp, 9781668069912 / Renegade, 2026, £20.00, hb, 464pp, 9781408749418

This gem of a historical novel braids together three touching stories emanating from the Second World War. The earliest features Ozzie Phillips, who proudly enlists in the U.S. Army just after the war’s end and is stationed in Germany. He fathers a child with a German woman he loves and loses track of them when he is transferred. In 1951, Ethel Gathers, who cannot have children, accompanies her officer husband to Germany for his army service and discovers an orphanage of children whose Black fathers have returned to the States without them. In the early 1960s, Sophia Clark integrates into a prestigious boarding school, catapulted from her poor farming family into a totally foreign environment. The chapters artfully build up to the meeting of these characters, as all three search to fill the voids in their lives.

The gentle yet relentless flow of the story touches upon the many microaggressions against Black women and men that were true of the time: the difficulty in being promoted or recognized for skills and experience, the uncomfortable experiences in majority-white settings, and the hurtful comments in so many settings. Yet far stronger and more poignant are the yearnings of the major characters to overcome the odds against them and succeed in their chosen arenas. The rich language and intricate plot keep the reader rooting for the characters and fully engaged with them to the final page.

Lorelei Brush

THE MATCHBOX GIRL

Alice Jolly, Bloomsbury, 2025, £18.00, hb, 416pp, 9781526681034

Jolly’s novels feature wonderful, innovative use of language (Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile is written in unstructured verse). The Matchbox

Girl is no exception. She deploys the use of erratic capitalisation to get us inside the head of her narrator, young autistic, mute Adelheid in WW2-era Vienna, an in-patient at the ‘Curative Education Department’ of the children’s hospital being treated by the morally ambiguous Dr Asperger.

The themes of this ambitious novel would deter many a writer. Jolly undertook meticulous research, and Adelheid is a captivating narrator. Her first-person perspective allows us to experience her journey from innocence into some of the darkest chapters of world history as they unfold in real time. Jolly weaves real-life characters into the plot, each of whom is multi-faceted and complex as they grapple with the ethical dilemmas they face. Jolly recreates 1930s Vienna superbly. At times the research becomes a little too visible on the page, creating dense passages that slow the pace, but given the complexity of the subject this can be forgiven.

This is also not a novel that one can say one reads to enjoy; the plot is too dark and because this a fictional retelling of horrific actual events, where disabled children who didn’t fit the Nazi ideal were euthanized, it is often an uncomfortable reading experience. But we shouldn’t always read for enjoyment or escape. We read to learn, and this novel is a masterclass in weaving fact and fiction and in the art of narrative form and structure. The Matchbox Girl rewards a slow and careful read, its characters and story will cleave to you long after reading; a novel that deserves respect, re-reading, and discussion.

Katharine Riordan

FLAMES OF THE CHERRY TREE

Leena A. Khan, Daraja Press, 2025, $22.00, pb, 224pp, 9781998309658

1940. Aafreen Khan lives in the home of her beloved Dadaji (grandfather), a doctor, in the Kashmir Valley. She is loved and sheltered and wants to be a doctor like Dadaji. But when she and her best friend Hussein wander outside their property, they are met with the reality of life in Kashmir. Kashmiri Muslims under the Maharaj at that time experienced systemic racism, and Aafreen is never the same after witnessing it. Edward, the son of their servant, suffers even more discrimination, as he is looked down upon by both sides. As Aafreen grows up and attends medical school, her dreams await her, but fear, riots, and discrimination are in the cards as well.

This novel is Aafreen’s coming of age story, but it also explores love, friendship, and the challenges faced in the 1940s by Muslim women who pursued careers. At the same time, the events of 1940 – 1948 before and after the partition of India are shown to us through Aafreen, and we see the terrible violence on both sides. While all of this is happening, a love story still dances across the page.

We also look back at the death of Aafreen’s father. Considered one of the Heroes of

Kashmir, he was murdered during a 1931 uprising against the oppression of Maharaja Hari Singh, the Hindu Dogra ruler. This well-written and impactful book successfully weaves Aafreen’s story with the food, customs, and difficult history of the Kashmir Valley. Highly recommended.

Bonnie DeMoss

THE EDGE OF DARKNESS

Vaseem Khan, Hodder & Stoughton, 2026, £22.00, hb, 336pp, 9781399747851

I have long planned to visit Kohima, and now I never will. This is where my father fought his first battle in 1944 and where fortunately he was not called upon, in the words of the Kohima memorial, to give his today for my tomorrow. But Vaseem Khan has taken me on a vivid and adventurous trip to Kohima and the Naga Hills, and now I think I know more about the region than Dad ever did.

The Edge of Darkness is the 6th in Khan’s Malabar House series, following the career of Persis Wadia, India’s first woman Detective Inspector in the early years of India’s independence. Most of the series is set in Bombay, but in this book Persis has fallen out of favour with her superiors and is posted to Kohima in the jungle-clad Naga Hills on India’s eastern frontier, giving Khan the opportunity to show us a very different corner of his country.

The story follows the formula of a classic whodunnit: murder in a closed environment, a finite number of suspects, each with a secret motive to kill, a painstaking investigation by the master sleuth and a dramatic denouement. And being Khan, there is a lot of political involvement. In this case a leading politician is the first (but not the last) murder victim. Persis, as usual, gets herself into several life-threatening situations but escapes with good luck and remarkable survival skills. I am biased, but I think this is the best book in the series.

Edward James

THE SHOPKEEPER OF ALSACE

Laura Knoy, Bedazzled Ink, 2025, $19.95, pb, 220pp, 9781960373762

Based on a true story, this Jewish family odyssey begins in the Polish town of Amshinov in 1915. Berek Elkshutz runs a profitable shop that carries everything. The town where he was born in 1870 is peaceful, inhabited by Christians and Jews. That changes when several Russian soldiers stationed in Poland steal goods from his shop, beat him, and threaten his older daughters, Celina and Sarah, with rape. Berek hides the girls, their younger sister and two brothers in the cellar of the shop. He moves the family to Vivadorv, Poland, in the winter of 1916.

After World War I, Sarah’s older brother Yakob moves his family to Metz, France. He asks Sarah to join them. Sarah is the mainstay in their shop, but her father tells her to leave.

He remains in Poland. In 1920, Sarah opens a shop in Metz and sells popular ready-towear dresses. The shop does well, and she is accepted by the local community. She falls in love with a customer, Melach Seibert. They marry and start a family. Sarah stocks store goods in the shop cellar sensing that they will need to move again. In 1924 she moves her family to Colmar in Alsace-Lorraine.

In 1939, World War II begins, and France is occupied by the Nazis. Sarah diligently works to keep her family safe from pernicious antisemitism. They are continually on the move: to Nimes, Clement-Ferrand, Ganges, and finally to Vichy. Ironically, there Sarah and Melach receive new identity papers. Sarah’s narrative reveals the courage and tenacity of a woman striving to keep her family together and safe in the throes of two world wars. Laura Knoy’s debut novel is a skillful and moving depiction of one family’s fight not only to survive but to overcome the hardships of war, antisemitism and displacement.

Robin Holloway

MULE BOY

Andrew Krivak, Bellevue Literary Press, 2026, $17.99, pb, 190pp, 9781954276468

East-central Pennsylvania, 1929: Ondro Prach is only thirteen years old when he is trapped in a pitch-black mine with four other mine workers after a collapse. He will be the only one to emerge alive. But nobody ever truly escapes such an experience. The rest of Ondro’s life will be shaped by the days spent in darkness and the burden of being the only survivor.

This book has excellent literary values. The language is atmospheric and evocative, and the reader absorbs the full horror of how Ondro manages to escape. Analogies between the mine, prison, and the belly of Jonah’s whale are nicely developed. The author keeps his readers hooked by skillfully withholding some information early in the story.

One aspect is a bit unrealistic, such as the other miners’ families finding Ondro and coming to him for solace so many years after the tragedy (it also does not feel necessary to the overall story). Also, some readers will be put off by the stream-of-consciousness writing style and lack of punctuation. This style requires a little extra patience and attention from the reader, but it is well-rewarded in this case.

Kathryn Bashaar

WHISPERS IN THE GLEN

Sue Lawrence, Saraband, 2025, $17.95/£10.99, pb, 304pp, 9781916812437

This dual-timeline novel transports readers to a small Scottish village in the first half of the 20th century. Alternating between the years prior to and during World War I and the period of World War II, this story centers on the Anderson family and their circle of neighbors. Sisters Nell and Effie Anderson grow up with a tyrannical father and a mother whose

early death from suspicious circumstances remains a mystery. The sisters are relatable, and their occasional bickering at their shared home feels authentic. Nell is fiercely independent, serving as an ambulance driver during World War I for the Scottish Women’s Hospital in France. Returning home, she works as a “Cameron,” one of the first female postal delivery workers in her rural county, riding her bicycle all over the area. Effie’s intelligence and kindheartedness shines in her work as the village teacher. A brutal attack, however, leaves Effie feeling vulnerable and hesitant to venture far from home.

The strength of this novel is its depiction of this small Scottish village with its slow pace of life. The interwoven stories of the townspeople add to the atmosphere. Themes of patriarchy, women’s quest for self-determination, and marriage and romantic entanglements predominate. Although real-life events are woven into the book, the details of these events are lightly sketched. While Nell and Effie’s stories draw readers in, the constant switching of time periods between each short chapter may disorient readers. The switches become less frequent as the story progresses, and that shift helps readers better appreciate the story’s many reveals of family secrets and the restrictions on women’s lives. If readers can stay with this narrative, their efforts will be rewarded with an atmospheric story that speaks to an earlier time.

Michelle J. Ritholz

CIRCLE OF SHADOWS

Marisa Linton, Hodderscape, 2025, £20.00, hb, 368pp, 9781399740180

Marisa Linton is a professor of history who has now turned to historical fiction. Her recent novel, Circle of Shadows, takes readers back to Edwardian England while immersing them in the world of ancient British mythology and occult practices. Think Arthur Conan Doyle meets Arthur Machen.

The novel opens in 1904 with a classic scene of robed figures chanting in Latin while a young woman looks on fearfully. It could have come straight from a Dennis Wheatley novel. It makes a clear statement that, however much we may question the occult world in this novel, the threat is very real.

The story continues in the same vein with our hero, Evie Winstanley, reading about Egyptian magic in the British Museum. As she ignores the disapproving ‘tuts’ of her fellow male readers, she establishes herself as a woman struggling to assert herself. From this point, a meticulously plotted and well-written narrative unfolds. Evie’s father was a renowned occult scholar and past involvement in something sinister may have contributed to his death. However, the key may still be hidden in the family’s comfortable Hammersmith house –and as the shady occultists draw closer, Evie must both solve the mystery and protect her family.

Evie is an engaging and likeable hero, able to think rationally but also possessing

imagination and fearlessness. The setting moves from London to the Yorkshire moors to Oxford, the latter providing much of the action, and its various locations and secret societies are described in vivid detail. I enjoyed this story and was only slightly disappointed by the fact that I identified the villain early in the narrative. However, although the final reveal, for me, was not a surprise, there were a few unexpected revelations along the way. And this did not detract from an inventive and atmospheric read.

Adele Wills

THE MOQUETTE MYSTERY

Andrew Martin, Safe Haven, 2025, £9.99, pb, 224pp, 9781068516245

‘Moquette’ is the fabric used on the seats of buses and trains. In August 1938, Detective Sergeant Price enters the Soft Furnishings Department of Quarmby & Bates, in Tottenham Court Road, and shows assistant May Mitton a sample of moquettte that has been sent to Scotland Yard with a note saying that it is a clue to a ‘forthcoming murder’

May knows that most moquette is produced in her hometown of Halifax and persuades the sergeant to let her take a sample of the cloth on her upcoming visit to try to identify its origin and use.

When railway artist Rex Brandon is shot dead, he is presumed to be the victim referred to, leading May to delve into the London art scene. She meets journalist Tom Crosby, who could be her saviour or the murderer. Her hunt takes her to Halifax, the Isle of Wight and Oxford. Twice she faces guns. But even if she identifies the source, how will it lead to the killer?

If moquette sounds like a dull subject for a murder mystery, it is not. The story is intriguing with twists and turns throughout to keep the reader alert. The characters are all plausible, even those with walk-on parts, and May is particularly attractive. The pre-war locations are carefully described. I particularly liked the evocation of old-fashioned department stores. Public transport is pivotal: buses, trains, Underground and trams. The story will appeal to a range of readers but mainly to lovers of murder mysteries.

From time-to-time we all come into contact with moquette, but few of us notice it. Martin has written a book, The Seats of London, on the subject. This novel may not be great literature, but it is great fun. Recommended.

David Northover

WELL OF DECEPTION

Cynthia Leal Massey, Stoney Creek , 2025, $22.95, pb, 255pp, 9781965766262

In March 1958, Amos Becker tells his wife, Leta, he’ll be taking a walk to town. He doesn’t stop to say hello to the man repairing his truck but makes his way down the driveway and onto the country road. At the next farm, Leta’s sister-in-law, Maggie Schneider, is feeding her turkeys. She looks but doesn’t see what her

dogs nervously complain about in the thickets edging the farmland. Her husband Sam hears a loud bang and hurries to the turkey pen. He finds Maggie, her blouse covered in blood where she’s been shot.

Author Massey was prompted to write Well of Deception, the fictional recreation of actual events about a murder and a man gone missing for four years, when she learned the rifle hanging on the back wall of a local bar was the murder weapon. At first tempted to add to her oeuvre of nonfiction books, she decided to fictionalize the Becker/Schneider story to focus less on what happened and delve into the why. Massey is an award-winning writer of regional works of history. One of her books, Death of a Texas Ranger: A True Story of Murder and Vengeance on the Texas Frontier, won the 2015 Will Rogers Silver Medallion Award for Best Western Nonfiction and a San Antonio Conservation Society Publication Award. Her skill is apparent. She weaves a crisp tale in a western style of writing—sparse wording, dialogue that leaves meanings unsaid, descriptions of rugged rural life—and tells a universal tale of the secrets that tear families apart.

K. M. Sandrick

THE STAR FROM CALCUTTA

Sujata Massey, Soho Crime, 2026, 29.95, hb, 384pp, 9781641295093

Perveen Mistry is the only woman lawyer in 1922 Bombay. She works in her father’s law office and is determined to prove that a woman is the equal of any man in the legal field. She hopes the Mistrys’ latest case will help her career blossom: Champa Films needs help to prove its brilliant new star, Rochana, is not still contractually bound to her previous film studio. It seems like a simple matter, but it swiftly becomes a tangled web of lies and deceit with roots in the Great War.

Perveen and her father begin by attending a party and screening of Champa Films’ newest movie at the luxurious home of Rochana and her new husband, the head of the studio. The guests are members of Bombay’s fledgling film industry, which will one day become known as Bollywood. At the party Perveen’s British friend Alice and Rochana immediately hit it off, while Perveen encounters an obnoxious Britisher who’s a member of the film censoring board. Alice and Perveen stay overnight after the party, expecting nothing more than a quiet night and an early return home, but the discovery of a body turns the day into a nightmare, for the dead man is the rude film censor, and the film censors are members of the Bombay police. Not only that, but Rochana is missing.

This is the fifth Perveen Mistry mystery, and the author smoothly handles the tensions and relationships between the British overlords and the Indians who yearn for independence.

Perveen’s life as a Parsi and as a trailblazer in women’s rights are well handled, as are her sometimes fraught friendships across cultural lines. The early days of the Indian film industry

make for an exotic, fascinating background. I’m looking forward to Perveen’s sixth foray into detection and hope it arrives soon.

India Edghill

TIME ENOUGH

Lise Mayne, Oprelle Publications, 2025, $28.99, pb, 507pp, 9798989901555

In 1905, as Euphemia’s husband’s health deteriorates due to his work in the mines, she must confront her past to prevent her family from falling into poverty. Aided by Thomas—her husband’s brother and former romantic interest—Euphemia and her family emigrate from the Isle of Man to America, seeking better prospects for the children. But it soon becomes apparent that Thomas’s involvement is motivated by lingering feelings for Euphemia, leaving her caught between an ailing spouse and a doggedly determined old flame. Meanwhile, her eldest son Henry, to whom Euphemia has thrown much upon his shoulders, struggles to preserve their traditions, which gradually fade under the hardships of their new life and by a tragedy that will divide the family.

The novel portrays the family’s customs and beliefs originating from their life on the Isle of Man with heartfelt detail, highlighting Henry’s transition from seeking fairy blessings with his grandmother to forging his own path in a foreign land. The author effectively conveys the emotional and psychological toll of immigration, culture shock, and adaptation. However, the narrative’s length becomes apparent midway, and the characters often react to events rather than drive them, which deflates the tension. While some internal perspectives are explored, emotional responses tend to be extreme, making characters like Thomas and Euphemia predictable. In contrast, Henry demonstrates notable growth and depth throughout the book. Overall, the story offers a stark depiction of one family’s journey through immigration, heartache, and the search for home. The extensive research is apparent within each and every page.

J. Lynn Else

DEATH AT THE CHICAGO TRUST

Frances McNamara, Rudiyat Press, 2025, $14.99, pb, 219pp, 9781956978216

Widowed grandmother, Emily Chapman, has quite a day in the winter of 1930 when she learns her savings are a casualty of the stock market crash, watches her banker commit suicide, and witnesses a Chicago mob shooting. Emily is sickened by her city’s descent into lawlessness and burns for the evil-doer gangsters to be brought to justice. But her involvement thrusts her into the underbelly of Prohibition-era Chicago and puts her family at risk. She comes face to face with Al Capone’s henchman Frank Nitti and

organized crime pursuer Eliot Ness as she digs deeper and deeper.

Emily’s first-person, easy to read account of her part in the criminal investigation unfolds in a comfortable, conversational style. Pacing is crisp from scene to scene as Emily follows leads on the suspect she has identified, while learning that old allies in the Police Department and at City Hall can’t be as helpful as they once were. Emily is an interesting and noble protagonist, an academic drawn with plentiful societal and behavioral observations, an interest in emerging criminology techniques, and a zest to serve others, both in her family and the community at large. Local landmarks like The Loop, Cicero, Hull House, Evanston, and Hyde Park provide backdrop. Depressionera Chicago politics and gangster activities are well-researched. This book is tenth in a historical mystery series. A fine pick for readers seeking a page-turning, fast read featuring a strong female heroine seeking justice in crimeridden Chicago in the ‘30s.

Brodie Curtis

THE ITALIAN SECRET

Tara Moss, Dutton, 2025, $30.00, hb, 368pp, 9780593474754

1948: Billie Walker has opted to follow in her father’s footsteps and work as a private detective in Sydney. Many of her clients are women attempting to escape abusive marriages. While cleaning out her father’s old files, she finds a mysterious cache of letters, an old photograph, and a wad of cash. The thirty-year-old photo shows her father with a mysterious woman and a child; the letters come from Naples, Italy. While mulling this over, Billie helps her client Darlene, who struggles to leave her powerful husband, until Darlene’s unexpected death. Billie’s professional life is also complicated a bit by her relationship with her assistant, Sam, and her acquaintance with the handsome police detective inspector Hank Cooper.

Billie wonders if Darlene’s death was actually murder, especially after catching a glimpse of her rival Vincenzo Moretti outside Darlene’s home. But nothing can be proved, the case appears closed, and so Billie, intrigued by the letters she found, makes plans to take her mother on a voyage to Italy, aboard a newly refurbished ocean liner, the Luxor. Despite her lingering concerns about Darlene’s death, Billie quickly becomes embroiled in new investigations into long-buried secrets.

This novel is the third in a series but easily stands along. Billie proves an intrepid heroine, glamorous and full of spunk. Her adventures abroad and the vividly described and well researched settings—the Luxor, Naples, Sydney, and points in between—add to the enjoyment of the read. Fans of post-war fiction and feisty heroines will enjoy Billie’s adventures.

Susan McDuffie

THE GHOST HOUSE

Andie Newton, One More Chapter, 2025, £9.99/$21.99, pb, 366pp, 9780008776473

I don’t usually relate to the paranormal, but a good book is a good book, and this is one of those ghost stories where the ghosts never actually appear and it is left to the reader to decide if they really existed outside the minds of the book’s tormented characters.

The setting is truly ghostly. The battle of Verdun in 1916 was the most terrible battle of the Western Front in WW1, in comparison with which the Somme was almost a sideshow. The battle was fought over quite a small area, leaving it a wilderness full of unexploded ordnance and the bodies of thousands of dead soldiers. After the war the area was sealed off and remains so today.

The Ghost House is set in 1944, in the last days of the German occupation of France in WW2, in a run-down chateau on the edge of the exclusion zone. A couple of Parisian occultists, sponsored by the Germans, rent part of the chateau as the base for a project to raise the spirits of the dead German soldiers of Verdun, to lend supernatural aid to repel the expected Allied invasion. The Nazis did indeed have a weird fascination with the occult, so the project is just about feasible. Obviously, it fails, disappointing the occultists and their sponsors.

The real focus of interest however is not the ghosts or the ghost-hunters but the household that inhabits the chateau. Vianne, a war widow, is carer for both her elderly motherin-law and her orphaned nephew. Her daily struggle is scarcely lightened by her resentful cook, whom Vianne cannot afford to pay except in jewellery. The bickering between them and with the local villagers is expertly managed, mainly in dialogue. Read the book for this, even if you don’t like ghosts.

Edward James

THE SISTERS OF BOOK ROW

Shelley Noble, William Morrow, 2026, $30.00, hb, 384pp, 9780063477964

When Celia Applebaum finds a mysterious parcel in a box outside her family’s bookstore, she’s afraid she’s about to open the manuscript of birth control advocate Margaret Sanger’s radical Family Limitations. Instead, she finds an ancient treasure, a papyrus bundle, perhaps the work of the ancient poetess, Sappho. It should be a wonderful discovery, but this is Manhattan in the 1950s. Anthony Comstock’s men are on the lookout for banned material, some pornography, but also works of art that offend Comstock’s Puritan sensibilities. Sappho’s work could send Celia and her sisters to jail if they’re found with it in their bookshop. But how to return something, when you’ve no idea where it came from?

The three Applebaum sisters who live and work in this Fourth Avenue bookstore are all different but engaging characters. There’s serious elder sister, Olivia, who has set aside her job at the Metropolitan Museum, a

decision she regrets for both professional and personal reasons. Daphne, the middle sister, is outgoing and fun-loving, afraid she’ll be trapped in a dusty bookstore for the rest of her days. And the youngest, Celia, is fired up about the issues of the day, and secretly working to promote women’s health. It’s a passion that might spell trouble for the sisters. Noble does a good job of balancing fact and fiction in this novel, with an entertaining sister story mixed in with some more serious historical information about the time period. Perfect for a reader who enjoys a heartfelt family story and likes to learn something about the past along the way.

Kate Braithwaite

THE FLORENTINE ENTANGLEMENT

Pamela Norsworthy, Black Rose Writing, 2026, $21.95, pb, 340pp, 9781685136949

For Eleanor Bentley, her fortieth birthday in 1960 marked a fundamental change in her life. The past years had been what many young women in the upper crust might desire—a good-looking husband who was a rising star in Washington government circles, a home near some of the most exclusive galleries in the art world that she loved, and a small but sincere circle of adoring friends. Who could want more?

Of course, those benefits had their drawbacks, as well. Her handsome husband, Talbot, drew his share of female admirers more than willing to give the poor man the attention he obviously wasn’t getting at home. And his career—climbing the ladder in the CIA had considerably more potential dangers than a position at the Department of Labor. Friends are friends, but some in Eleanor’s circle revealed that they weren’t quite the people everyone thought.

Eleanor Bentley proves to be a more complicated character than appears at first glance, and she holds her own with the other high-powered actors in this story. Author Pamela Norsworthy presents a tale that is essentially chronological but dips into extended flashbacks a number of times. While jumping into the past can interrupt a narrative, in this novel it is necessary for bringing the plot to full development, and the author handles the technique skillfully. The Florentine Entanglement will draw in readers through the plot and hold them through the characters.

Loyd Uglow

IT GIRL

Allison Pataki, Ballantine, 2026, $30.00/ C$41.99, hb, 416pp, 9780593873410

Pataki offers a detailed explanation about why and how she altered the names, and more importantly, the climactic outcome of the famous “Crime of the Century” – the murder of the architect Stanford White, in 1906, by Harry Thaw, the husband of actress Evelyn Nesbit, the model for the “Gibson Girl” cartoons of the American Gilded Age. The explanation is needed because the real story reads like

sensational fiction; little wonder it dominated the American imagination for so long. But Pataki wants to offer Nesbit a chance to be reimagined not as the passive idol of men’s imaginations, but as a woman entering the modern era with strong ideas about her own work and value.

Pataki (barely) renames her characters: Evelyn becomes Evelyn Talbot, Stanford White becomes Stanley Pierce, and Harry Thaw becomes Hal Thorne, while most of the other details of Nesbit’s early life are preserved closely. As she narrates her own story (which Nesbit also did in two autobiographies), Evelyn offers a plausible portrait of an intelligent woman who makes a living as an artist’s model and then a Broadway chorus girl, working hard to perfect her physical gifts while suffering first the stares and then the assaults of wealthy, powerful men.

Evelyn is frustratingly easily distracted by beautiful clothes and delicious food (described in great detail throughout the novel) and offers far too much of herself to uncaring men in exchange for them, but Pataki manages to keep the reader intrigued by Evelyn’s slow awakening to reality and the enduring value of female friendship in a male-dominated world. Fans of Downton Abbey and The Gilded Age will enjoy another dip into that world of moneyed elegance, but the fairy-tale plot that Pataki contrives for Evelyn may disappoint readers who want more developed characters.

Kristen McDermott

KISSING THE SKY

Lisa Patton, Lake Union, 2026, $16.99/£8.99, pb, 399pp, 9781662537776

Patton’s novel hits all the high notes for naïve 20-yearold Suzie and her best friend, Livvy, as they head to Woodstock together in August 1969. Patton explores the giddy insecurities of first love, the protests against the Vietnam War, the young men drafted to fight, and those who refused to participate. It spotlights blatant government hypocrisy that denies Suzie adult choices, while teaching her male counterparts to kill. It tells of the enduring power of friendship, discovering the beauty within, and finding freedom to accept who we are.

From the moment the girls leave their car on the gridlocked highway to trek the last 10 miles to Bethel, Patton’s novel whisked me back to my teenaged self. I fell down an enticing rabbithole in which the American make-love-not-war movement mirrored what was experienced elsewhere in the world. Patton convinces with both narrative and spot-on dialogue,

as readers wander a world of hip-hugger bell bottoms, peasant shirts and halters, longhaired hippie boys, flower power, and peace signs. With Livvy’s boyfriend a disappointing no-show, the girls squeeze into a tiny space on the grass beside Leon and Johnny, a couple of 20-something cousins, one a draft dodger headed to Canada directly from the festival. There’s no doubt the Woodstock festival is the novel’s mega-power backdrop, but music isn’t the star. Baez, Hendrix, Creedence, Jefferson, and Joplin all amplify the emotional euphoria and the small but meaningful moments Patton captures on the page – scarce food and water, on-off rain and storms, footstomping fields of mud, people stacked like sardines. Strangers sharing love and friendship and meagre provisions. Thematically the reminder is that humans need one another, that love for the people around us should unite, not divide. Patton’s outspoken reminiscence will be gobbled up by anyone interested in (or who participated in) the counter-culture movement.

“ ‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky”. Magical!

Fiona Alison

HOTEL MELIKOV

Jonathan Payne, CamCat, 2025, $28.99, hb, 288pp, 9780744311808

This book is a sequel to Payne’s Citizen Orlov (2024), and like that book is less pure historical fiction than a sly allegory and satire. Set in a nameless Eastern European nation sometime in the 20th century, it continues the tale of Citizen Orlov, an innocent fishmonger caught up in the insanity of a revolutionary coup.

The harder he tries to stay out of the violent chaos, the more he gets sucked in, caught between the staunch, reactionary royalists and the upstart (presumably socialist) rebels. Both sides want to use his temporary home, the Hotel Melikov, as a base. Orlov must navigate his way between increasingly chaotic, often slapstick episodes that only suck him deeper into the plot.

Besides clever political observations with clear implications for today, the book has solid set pieces including a plot involving a convent full of unsuspecting nuns, and the attempt by both sides to take over the hotel. Part political spoof, part espionage thriller and very funny— I’d have to go back to The Mouse That Roared for a comparable work. The book is well-written and enjoyable for those who prefer tone and clever satire over historical fact.

Wayne Turmel

THE BLOOD OF WHISKEY RUN

Craig Pennington, Independently published, 2025, $9.99, pb, 334pp, 9798262741168

In 1932, Tom Moorhead, a County Detective, is dispatched to investigate a body found in the dilapidated husk of a burnt-out house in the old “patch” town of Whiskey Run. His initial inquiry leads to the discovery of other heinous crimes, including multiple murders

and more going back to 1911 in the former Pennsylvania mine town. Though some of the crimes he investigates border on humorous, this latest case leads down a winding and hideous decades-long trail, ultimately leading to the Al Capone crime family in Chicago. Despite veiled and genuine death threats from former mining and law enforcement officials along with crime syndicates, Tom perseveres through all leads to arrive at the truth.

This detective novel concerns a cold case investigation that spans three decades during a very interesting time in the criminal and labor history of the United States. Beyond the investigation, the book includes curious anecdotes of everyday life in the time periods covered. As a former Yellow Cab taxi driver, I especially found the short account of the violent “gang war” between the Yellow Cab and Checker Cab companies in Chicago in the 1920s fascinating. As can be imagined, a mental institute in the 1930s was a dreary place. And a coal miner is basically on his own if he is unfortunate enough to get injured on the job. It was also a violent world with Black Hand organized crime strike breakers and suspicious accidents in the mines. The original immigrants of the times and places included many Italian, Polish, and Slovak workers, among others, and the author captures this early stage melting-pot environment exceptionally well. An illuminating and quite satisfying read.

Thomas J. Howley

THE FINAL PROBLEM

Arturo Pérez-Reverte, trans. Frances Riddle, Mulholland, 2026, $29.00/C$39.00, hb, 320pp, 9780316594349 / Atlantic, 2026, £14.99, pb, 320pp, 9781805466178

Perez-Reverte has been on my to-read list for a while, and now I regret waiting so long to get around to him. TL;DR: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. In 1960, Ormond Basil still has name recognition, but his acting career, rubbing elbows with everyone from Errol Flynn to Gloria Swanson, is mostly behind him. A storm strands him and a few other travelers at the only hotel on a small Greek island. The extensive reading, research, and method for Basil’s most famous film role – Sherlock Holmes – comes in handy when a guest ends up dead. Was it suicide… or murder? Until the water calms and police arrive, everyone agrees Basil is the man to conduct an investigation. Real-life deduction could pass the time!

Basil is obviously patterned on Basil Rathbone, and there’s much mixing of

historical Hollywood lore with Pérez-Reverte’s tweaked version of same. This is a witty offering that laughs at its own premise, the prose convincing for British Basil’s diffident tone as narrator (“She wasn’t a great beauty by any means, but not bad for an Englishwoman”). It’s also entirely meta; there’s discussion of how different mystery authors use conventions of the genre and their application to the situation at hand. Basil remarks to his “Watson”: “The true art of narrating a mystery … does not consist of telling a story, but making the reader, mistakenly or not, tell it to themselves. … The tension in a mystery novel is not between the killer and the detective, but between the author and the reader.” There are copious quotes from Holmes and others, both Golden Age cozy and hardboiled crime (this last, wryly denigrated). The end result: a literary novel that strikes a beautiful chord with anyone who loves the Golden Age of mysteries. It’s a heck of a lot of fun.

Bethany Latham

SHADOW TICKET

Thomas Pynchon, Penguin Press, 2025, $30.00/C$39.99, hb, 304pp, 9781594206108 / Jonathan Cape, 2025, £22.00, hb, 304pp, 9781787336339

The latest novel by Thomas Pynchon centers on a union-buster-turned-private eye, Hicks McTaggart, assigned to find a runaway Wisconsin Cheese heiress, daughter of the Al Capone of Cheese—both somewhere overseas—as an ostensible reason for a gumshoe plot. Grounded in a specific place and time, 1932 Milwaukee, the opening of Shadow Ticket is reminiscent of a blackand-white Depression-era Hollywood film, chock full of Midwestern shtick, American fascists and Nazis, Chicago-style mobsters, hepcat musicians, girl singers, swing dancers, a U-boat, wisecracking wildly named characters, and a narrator who loves wordplay, paragraph-long sentences sometimes written in lists (like this one). Facile, fast, and funny, the first half is mindboggling storytelling, a narrator’s voice that slips slyly in and out and in between dialogue and descriptive passages that blend seamlessly into a durée of lingo, all of which challenges readers to keep the beat “on 2 and 4” and an eye on the dance moves in this occasional tribute to swing bands.

If an offbeat and uncanny Prohibition novel is your “ticket” (also known as a detective case), Shadow Ticket may be your preferred cocktail, but be prepared for the second half of this caper, in which Hicks is shanghaied onto a ship, by way of an FBI-delivered Mickey Finn and two British agents, bound for Budapest where a bizarro world of international intrigue and a metaphysical stratosphere of apports and illusions are the norm. This conspiracy and paranoia-fueled novel by the 88-year-old, reclusive Pynchon may just be a commentary on today’s absurdist world, from the actual wrecking ball to the emblematic destruction of free will and democracy, and a

bleak reality of stranded characters who seem unable to correct the course of their lives. Or it may be a joke on the reader, whose laughter ricochets inside the absurdity.

Christina Nellas Acosta

OVER THERE

Jane Loeb Rubin, Level Best Historia, 2025, $17.95, pb, 320pp, 9781685129170

After 15 hours of surgery on the broken bodies of soldiers wounded on the Western Front despite the Armistice announcement in the early hours of November 11, 1918, Dr. Eli Drucker is grateful to learn battles have ebbed and he will not have to see any more casualties. Then, his world suddenly goes dark.

Thus begins Over There, third in the A Gilded City Series that fictionally recalls author Rubin’s family members. The novel has been nominated for a Hemingway Wartime Fiction Award, and the initial chapters were shortlisted in the Historical Novel Society’s 2024 First Chapters Competition.

Over There tells first-person stories by Drucker, his wife Miriam Levine, her aunt Hannah and her uncle Ben Kahn, all medical professionals who provide handson perspectives of the intense pressures on surgeons and nurses working on the battlefield and in the hospital wards on the home front. Narrators tell about the lifechanging medical advances that saved soldiers’ limbs and cosmetically repaired torn and scarred faces, the work of field hospital nurses whose kind and caring words on the closed minds of traumatized soldiers, and the effects of medication shortages on OB patients at home.

The narratives act as snapshots, focusing on a particular person, place, and time. Readers hear what characters tell them about what they are doing and what they think without having the chance to make their own observations or share in the experiences. Readers nevertheless get rare glimpses of WWI beyond the battlefield lines—in the surgeries of nearby field hospitals and the treatment rooms of major European recovery centers—and they learn the toll the distant war takes on those who remain at home.

K. M. Sandrick

THE NIGHT GUESTS

Marina Scott, Lake Union, 2025, $16.99/£8.99, pb, 251pp, 9781662531729

Following the sudden death of her father, Nina Wilson and her family have traded privilege for disgrace in 1903 Omaha. With debt collectors closing in and their oncemagnificent estate on the outskirts of town falling into disrepair, Nina is desperately trying to hold onto some sense of normalcy. With her mother unable to deal with her grief, it falls to Nina to try and keep things together. When they attend a séance led by the enigmatic medium Leroy Marshall, Nina’s mother seems to draw comfort from Leroy and

invites him to stay at their home. More than a little leery of Leroy, Nina reluctantly accepts and hopes that he’ll be able to help her mother. But terror soon replaces her reluctance. Nina starts seeing the ghost of a little boy, and the house itself begins to act as though some great evil has taken possession. Has Leroy brought this evil with him, or has he unleashed it from within the house itself? As the shadows darken, secrets become weapons, and the house grows ever more terrifying. Has Nina descended into madness, or is this her frightening new reality?

Marina Scott does a fantastic job of creating a spooky, gothic setting with well-written characters and a unique plot. But the pacing is slowed by unnecessary descriptions that become almost tiresome to read. The book would have benefitted from a good editor. However, the plot itself keeps one turning the pages, and the surprising twists and turns will keep you guessing. Those in the mood for a tense, atmospheric thriller will find it in The Night Guests

Melissa A. Amateis

CROSSING THE LINE

James D. Shipman, Kensington, 2025, $18.95/ C$24.95/£16.99, pb, 336pp, 9781496747785

Beginning in German-occupied Poland in February 1941 and ending in Soviet-occupied Poland in August 1945, Crossing the Line follows three young women—one Jewish, one German, one Polish—who, through decisions as different as the women themselves, find themselves in Krakow’s Jewish ghetto. Natalia arrives alone, separated from her parents and younger brother after being betrayed by her father’s Polish long-term friend. After being disowned by her parents, Elsa Baumann finds family and acceptance in the SS. Irena Droździkowska decides to continue working at the Under the Eagle Pharmacy located in the area the Germans declared the Jewish Ghetto. Each woman scrambles for survival as conditions in the ghetto turn from bad to worse.

Based on the historical events of the Krakow Ghetto, Shipman cleverly builds much of the story around the Under the Eagle Pharmacy, giving a believable space for all three characters to interact while shining a light on a lesser-known bright spot in the horror of the Holocaust. Irena and Tadeusz Pankiewicz, the man who owned the pharmacy, are historical Crossing the Line is not an easy read, it is authentically harrowing. Shipman does not shy away from painting several characters unfavorably. Characters, who might otherwise be moral, do despicable things, forcing the reader to ask themselves: What would I risk to help strangers? How far would I go to save myself or my family? As for criticism, it is picky. There are a few lengthy conversations where more dialogue tags would have helped, and towards the story’s climax there are explanations of characters’ motivations that feel unbelievably long given the immediate and dire circumstances. Overall, however, this

is a good addition to the Holocaust and WWII canon.

Meg Wiviott

THERE WAS A TIME FOR SUCH A WORD

Gianni Solla, trans. Richard Dixon, HarperVia, 2025, $28.00/C$35.00, hb, 288pp, 9780063336162

In a tiny Italian village in 1942, Davide is the son of an illiterate pig farmer and ardent Fascist. Born with one leg shorter than the other, Davide is a disappointment to his father and a target for the village boys. Teresa, the daughter of the ropemaker, begins teaching him to write. He believes writing is his path out of the village. Everything changes when a group of Jews is relocated to the village by the Fascist government. Among them are Nicolas and his father, who opens an underground school Davide secretly attends. Davide, Teresa, and Nicolas become close, exploring friendships and emotions none of them truly understand. When a German truck is attacked, Nicolas is blamed, and Davide hides him. Fearing for his own safety, Davide flees to Naples, where he becomes a renowned writer and actor. Years later, he searches for Teresa and Nicolas. Finding them brings heartbreak and a semblance of peace.

This is an exquisitely crafted coming-of-age story set in a period of history often chosen, but in a setting rarely portrayed. Filled with ugly truths and personal pain, Solla’s story, and Dixon’s translation, navigate the rocky terrain of adolescence with lyric beauty. The vivid settings place the reader firmly in the village and in Naples. The characters are authentic and fully human, complete with flaws and virtues. Davide’s story is told retrospectively in first person. As such, there are points when he jumps back in time, which left this reader occasionally confused. That, however, is a small criticism. This is a beautiful yet heartbreaking story. Strongly recommended.

Meg Wiviott

A FAR-FLUNG LIFE

M. L. Stedman, Scribner, 2026, $30.00/C$42.00, hb, 448pp, 9781668219614 / Doubleday, 2026, £20.00, hb, 448pp, 9781529965308 / Penguin Australia, 2026, A$34.99, pb, 480pp, 9781761356124

In 1950s Western Australia, the MacBride family runs Meredith Downs, a vast sheep station. They are not just farmers, they’re pastoralists, committed to the land and their animals despite a range of threats to their way

of life, ranging from weather events to mining expansion. But a deadly car crash alters the family’s future, and the consequences don’t stop there. Younger son, Matt, suffers terrible injuries and, as he struggles to recover, makes a mistake that can’t ever be put right. The family faces further loss and Matt’s once-bright future dissolves. Now he has a secret, but is it one he will be able to keep, especially when he meets a woman who wants a relationship built on honesty, and an officious new police sergeant is intent on digging up the past?

Stedman captures the vast Australian farmstead wonderfully, conveying its vastness and beauty, its isolation and its dangers. Her characters are rounded and believable, their struggles moving and absorbing. That said, the premise of the story—Matt’s actions— make for uncomfortable reading, and while Stedman’s writing is thoughtful and tender, this story won’t be for everyone. Spanning decades and with numerous secondary characters, A Far-Flung Life is a meditative and beautifully written tale, with a lot to say about secrets, courage, and living with the consequences of your actions. In moving prose, she asks us to think about how we live, for example when Matt’s disabled friend says, “When you think about it, everyone’s life’s a prison – of days, sort of. The trick is to get comfortable in it, I reckon. Find your freedom inside whatever your prison is.”

Kate Braithwaite

WITH LOVE FROM HARLEM

ReShonda Tate, William Morrow, 2026, $19.99/£10.99, pb, 416pp, 9780063421189

A jazz prodigy at twenty-three, Hazel Scott’s dazzling performances at Café Society in New York City launched her as a major Harlem Renaissance figure. Scott challenged racial barriers and advocated for women’s rights. Her unbending nature, and her lasting influence in both music and equal rights, helped redefine life in America. She shared a glamorous marriage with Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., whose political career helped usher in the civil rights movements following the Harlem Renaissance. Their story of love at first sight was complicated by celebrity, public scrutiny, and conflict during a time of both opportunity and constraint.

Set primarily between 1943 and 1960, With Love from Harlem by ReShonda Tate is a captivating historical novel that merges jazz, politics and romance through the brilliant resurrection of Scott’s extraordinary life. It beautifully shows the tension between art and

ambition, and Scott’s refusal to compromise makes her exceptional. The novel’s real power comes from how it shows Scott as both a famous performer and a woman dealing with her own struggles and those of society.

What sets Tate’s storytelling apart is her focus on character-driven narrative. Scenes depicting Scott’s advocacy for equal rights, such as her refusal of minstrel show acting roles or performances in segregated venues, highlight the intersection of the art and activism that defines her legacy. The presence of prominent figures from that era, including Billie Holiday, Langston Hughes and James Baldwin, makes it particularly fascinating.

With Love from Harlem meticulously blends historical accuracy with convincing and emotional prose to create an immersive novel. Although historical fiction, the book might have benefited from a more in-depth exploration of events that unfolded around Scott. I highly recommend this vivid portrait of Scott’s artistry and activism.

David J. Mason

A SCHOOLING IN MURDER

Andrew Taylor, Hemlock Press, 2025, £20.00/$28.99/C$36.99, hb, 384pp, 9780008494230

The fictional Monkshill estate, in its heyday, was the backdrop to The American Boy (2013). Crime writer Andrew Taylor returns there in 1945, when the crumbling, neglected grounds are now home to a mediocre boarding school for girls. In this who-whydunit, the protagonist, Annabel Warnock, is recently dead but can’t quite leave her ghostly form behind for the place where dead folks go. Annabel was a teacher who seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth, but no one seems particularly concerned. A cursory police investigation came up empty, and the strange disappearance is brushed off by teachers and students alike, with the exception of the bookish student Sylvia, who does some investigating along with the cook’s nephew, Stephen. Alan Shaw is hired on short notice to make up the staff shortfall, although a male teacher is not ideal in an all-girls’ school.

Annabel floats around the crumbling estate, watching and listening, routinely held up at thresholds she did not cross in life. Her mental acuity for people’s character is far sharper now she’s dead. As she watches Shaw at his typewriter, attempting an atrociously written mystery novel in his spare time, she discovers a tenuous way to communicate with him. This empowers her to do her own investigating, returning to the scene of her murder and mulling through the long list of suspects.

Taylor’s standalone novel is chock full of bizarre and cleverly drawn characters— headmistress, Miss Pryce-Morgan or PM; matron, Mrs Runciman, or Runty; overworked and underpaid housekeeper, Mrs Crisp; meanspirited mischief maker, Tosser, who fixes the boiler and engages in other less benign things; and schoolgirls—self-assured, aristocratic

Venetia; hygienically-challenged Rosemary; and shy, cowering Prissy. Hidden agendas, poison-pen letters and another murder make A Schooling in Murder a true winner and its very satisfactory ending will not disappoint. You can’t go wrong with a Taylor mystery.

Fiona Alison

MURDER IN MINIATURE

Katie Tietjen, Crooked Lane, 2025, $29.99, hb, 288pp, 9798892421812

Vermont, 1947. Maple Bishop is still grieving her husband, who died in WWII, but she is trying to move forward. She has her own business creating and selling customized dollhouses but has also started working as a crime scene consultant for the local sheriff. Her job is to observe details, provide analysis, and recreate the scene in miniature “nutshells” that might provide important clues. When a local firefighter is found burned in his bed, it is apparent that there is more to the story than it seems. Maple begins an investigation that will take her to her hometown of Boston and force her to face her past.

This second book in the Maple Bishop series is inspired by Frances Glessner Lee, the developer of forensic science in the United States. The mystery has some twists and turns, but even more than that, another case to solve, as Maple begins to look into the death of her brother while she’s back in Boston. What she finds is eye-opening and will change her life. The ending is not predictable, which I always appreciate in a mystery. Fans of historical mysteries and Frances Glessner Lee will enjoy this book. Recommended.

Bonnie DeMoss

THE INFAMOUS GILBERTS

Angela Tomaski, Scribner, 2026, $27.00, hb, 288pp, 9781668094648 / Fig Tree, 2026, £16.99, hb, 304pp, 9780241757574

There is a special delight in reading an author’s debut novel, but even more so when it delivers on its promise to tell a wholly captivating story. Angela Tomaski’s The Infamous Gilberts centers around the Gilbert family of England and their beloved Gothic mansion, Thornwalk, from the eve of World War II up until the early 2000s.

We come to know Thornwalk intimately thanks to our narrator, Maximus, who tells the story of the five Gilbert children—Hugo, Jeremy, Lydia, Rosalind, and Annabel—while saying his goodbyes to the house, recently sold to be renovated as a luxury hotel. As Maximus guides us through the rooms of

this labyrinthine house and around the surrounding grounds, he shares the siblings’ stories and secrets, whether it be a lone pinecone forgotten under a bed, a hayloft with young love imprinted upon its floors, or the broken vent which allowed for the perfect eavesdropping spot. The world’s changes impact each member of the Gilbert family in different and sometimes terrible ways, pushing them together at one moment, and then tearing them apart the next.

Tomaski artfully blends these tales into one seamless narrative. In telling the Gilberts’ story, she simultaneously shows the sweeping changes taking place in England during the tumultuous 20th century. Moments of tenderness and joy mix with the terrible and cruel, and Tomaski does not shy away from difficult topics, but handles them with aplomb and grace. The reader comes to intimately know these five individuals and cannot help but care deeply about each of their trajectories in life. This is a wonderful debut novel, one that was an absolute pleasure to read. Highly recommended.

Melissa A. Amateis

THE DESERTER

Wayne Turmel, Achis Press, 2026, $21.99, pb, 256pp, 9780982037782

This novel is set in the hostile deserts of North Africa during the 1920s, when the French are defending their territories against Germany and the indigenous tribal guerillas. The story follows the experiences of Gilbert ‘the Lion’ Vincente, a deserter from the British Army who finds himself in Marseilles, a disgraced fugitive, consumed by his sense of failure and self-loathing. His depression deepens, and he tries to commit suicide. Desperate for a way to revive his broken psyche, he leaves behind his lover, Celeste, and joins the French Foreign Legion. Perhaps discipline and a sense of purpose will help to repair his mental wounds.

We accompany Gilbert through Algiers and Morocco and find ourselves immersed in an unfamiliar world. Five-day marches through the desert, carrying hundred-pound packs under the merciless assault of the sun. The tensions and rivalries between men living at close quarters with little food or water. The maddeningly repetitive routines, and capricious demands from senior officers. The stakes for Gilbert are not tied to whether he lives or dies by the hand of the enemy. The cruelest enemy of all is his own mind; the demon of depression that stalks him every hour of every day. The soldiers call it ‘La Cafard’ (the cockroach).

The author skillfully introduces characters that heighten the sense of foreboding, such as Gauthier, the tender-spirited carpenter, who lovingly crafts a three-legged stool and stands on it to hang himself. Some readers may find the pace slow because of the similarity of the numerous fight scenes, and the monotony of the landscape. However, this may be the intention, on the part of the author, for the purpose of mood-setting. This is not a

conventional war story, but rather a study in the wars we fight inside our own minds.

Alan Collenette

THE TEACHER EVACUEES

Rose Warner, Canelo, 2025, £9.99, pb, 298pp, 9781835980262

The Teacher Evacuees is a warm, quietly gripping wartime novel that brings a familiar chapter of Second World War history into sharp, humane focus. Set on the eve of war, it follows Canadian-born teacher Victoria McKaye as she helps evacuate London schoolchildren to a Norfolk village, discovering that rural life brings its own trials, tensions, and hidden dangers.

Warner excels at evoking atmosphere. The unease of impending conflict, the shock of city children confronted with countryside hardship, and the subtle frictions between evacuees and villagers are all rendered with sensitivity and restraint. Hazelbury feels lived-in and authentic, shaped by gossip, petty politics, and moments of genuine kindness. The absence of comforts we take for granted—indoor plumbing, electricity—adds texture rather than sentimentality.

Victoria is an engaging and sympathetic protagonist: independent, principled, and deeply committed to her pupils. Her belief in learning beyond the classroom, and her instinctive care for the children, anchor the novel emotionally. The friendships she forms with fellow teachers Beatrice and Nell are convincing and quietly moving, offering a portrait of female solidarity under pressure.

The romantic thread with naval officer Louis Grainger adds intrigue without overwhelming the story. Warner handles the espionage subplot with a light but effective touch, capturing the era’s paranoia and fear of betrayal while keeping the focus on ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances.

Well-researched and compassionately told, The Teacher Evacuees is both a tribute to teachers and a thoughtful exploration of evacuation’s emotional cost and unexpected rewards. An absorbing start to what promises to be a rewarding series.

Aidan K. Morrissey

THE SEVEN DAUGHTERS OF DUPREE

Nikesha Elise Williams, Gallery/Scout, 2026, $29.99, hb, 336pp, 9781668051948 / Simon & Schuster UK, 2026, £18.99, hb, 336pp, 9781398534261

In 1995, fourteen-year-old Tati sets out to discover who her father is and learn about her family’s history—a secret her mother, Nadia, and grandmother, Gladys, have guarded closely. This epic follows the Dupree women across time, from 1917 to 1995, in America. The story is told through the perspectives of these Black women’s experiences, connected by family secrets and a peculiar curse that results in them only giving birth to daughters.

This coming-of-age story, focusing on Tati, is presented from the viewpoints of Black women across seven generations. Ultimately, Tati’s story explores broader themes of race, history, and the resilience required of Black womanhood.

The Seven Daughters of Dupree is a sweeping novel that explores the legacy of inherited pain and the unbreakable bonds of family. Williams crafts a multi-layered narrative, weaving poetic soliloquies and shifting perspectives to immerse readers in the pain, joy, resilience, and survival of her protagonist, Tati, and her ancestors. The story’s central inspiration lies in exploring family secrets and the ripple effects of each generation’s choices. Through vivid storytelling and emotional depth, Williams delivers a powerful meditation on legacy, resilience, and the bonds that bind families.

The novel also examines Black women’s experiences with the ritual of hair care, especially pressing hair, which is deeply rooted in Black culture. Although this is historical fiction, it might have benefited from a greater exploration of how the American antebellum doctrine of partus sequitur ventrem created a framework for generational exploitation passed down through the Dupree women. I highly recommend this novel for highlighting the societal challenges, systemic inequalities, and perceptions of Black families and women today.

David J. Mason

SEASCRAPER

Benjamin Wood, Scribner, 2025, $26.00/ C$36.00, hb, 176pp, 9781668231715 / Viking, 2025, £14.99, hb, 176pp, 9780241741344

Wood’s character-driven novel, set in 1960s northwest England, features 20-year-old Thomas Flett, living an isolated existence with his 36-year-old mother, whom he supports. He has been a seascraper since he learned at 13 from his grand-Pop. Year-in, year-out, he rises at dawn, drives horse and cart to Longferry, travels the exact same route across two miles of sand and trawls the shallow water to catch the meagre shrimp stranded in the low-tide ebb. He makes a living but barely and is acutely aware of his future.

One day, he arrives home exhausted and stinking, longing only to drag out the tin bath, to find his mother fawning over a guest. Edgar Acheson introduces himself as a film director, and offers Thomas a hard-to-refuse £100 for his expertise in tidal movement and the treacherous Longferry sands. Politely irritated, Thomas takes Edgar out at low tide, where some wry British humor peaks out.

My interest in this novel comes from my family heritage, which goes back multiple generations in England’s northeast. The first half plays out in incessant rain and fog through which restricted vision we experience a haunting, chilly discomfort. The low tide scene at night explodes with heart-pounding atmosphere.

Scenes juxtaposing Thomas and Edgar captivate as commonalities emerge, and the

connections are surprisingly empowering. But is Edgar for real, and does it matter to Thomas? The change in language and mood when the rain stops is dramatic. Wood speaks of Thomas’s yearning for love and acceptance in this poignant, luminous narrative that allows his protagonist to walk into the future of his own choosing. This is a short novel supporting ancient human themes we still grapple with today.

Fiona Alison

ALIAS O. HENRY

Ben Yagoda, Paul Dry Books, 2025, $18.95, pb, 279pp, 9781589882065

By the time William Sydney Porter decides to make New York City his home, he’s already sold many short stories under the pen name “O. Henry.” It’s the early 1900s, and the city is a vibrant mix of restaurants, silent movies, bars and brothels, with magazines that feature short stories all the rage.

Porter takes city life in stride and sparks his imagination by strolling along highfashion avenues, seedy back alleys and even the waterfront—in short order becoming one of America’s most successful fiction writers. However, there’s a secret hidden in his past—a prison term he served for embezzling, to be exact. Unfortunately, that makes him a target for a blackmailer who will only stay silent for a price. Suddenly his reputation is at stake and income at risk. All the while he has publishing deadlines to meet and a blackmailer to unmask amidst the colorful whirl of crooks and working folk that will become characters in his stories.

In Alias O. Henry, author Ben Yagoda paints a witty, thoughtful portrait of Porter that blends the imaginative conjecture of historical fiction with authenticity and factual accuracy. Yagoda is particularly well acquainted with O. Henry’s works, having edited a volume of the author’s short stories. With subtle, wry humor he makes reference to some of O. Henry’s most famous tales in scenes that could actually have been lifted out of Porter’s experiences. As to Porter’s choice of nom de plume, various wildly inventive explanations are quoted from statements he made publicly.

Readers who are interested in New York will appreciate Yagoda’s eloquent descriptions of the city where well-known celebrities of the era make cameo appearances. Author’s notes and an entire library’s worth of references conclude this well-researched novel.

Deborah Cay Wilding

MULTI-PERIOD

THE PILOT’S WIFE

Cynthia Anderson, Embla, 2025, £9.99, pb, 352pp, 9781471419058 / $5.99, ebook, 252pp, 9781471419041

In 2018, Gina’s 93-year-old grandmother, Hedy, wants to return to Switzerland from America to correct a 1940s wrong. Is Hedy deluded or driven? Can Gina help her? Should she? What about Gina’s pressing difficulties? This is engaging historical fiction with WWII events reverberating into the 21st century.

An arresting opening and storyline divided among three points of view propel the reader into a historical conundrum. During WWII, the Swiss, since famous for humanitarian efforts on behalf of refugees elsewhere in Europe, defend their neutrality by shooting down warplanes which stray into their airspace and imprisoning their crews, and they pursue ethnic refugees who cross their borders as criminals.

Anderson parallels the 1944 and 2018 stories, revealing and relating clues as they fall in or out of place. Gina’s search is based on a broken watch and her grandmother’s possibly broken memories. Gina’s life is also in pieces, partly due to the recent death of her mother. The clock is ticking for Hedy, even if her husband’s watch isn’t.

Characters decide what others want or need often without asking themselves—let alone the others—what they really want. Secrets abound. The storytelling is marred by detailed stage directions, stereotypical villains, and minor historical errors—such as that thirty missions were required by May 1944, not twenty-five, and nylon parachutes would have been used instead of silk. The pace and risks increase as Hedy and Gina make unexpected connections in Switzerland. Hedy and Gina race against the clock to make up for lost time.

Ron Andrea

DAUGHTER OF EGYPT

Marie Benedict, St. Martin’s Press, 2026, $29.00/C$41.00, hb, 352pp, 9781250280732

In Daughter of Egypt, Marie Benedict tells the story of two women who defied the expectations of their time: Lady Evelyn Herbert, daughter of Lord Carnarvon, and Hatshepsut, Egypt’s “lost pharaoh” of the 15th century BCE.

Told in alternating parts and timelines, Benedict shifts between Eve and Hatshepsut— women separated by millennia—as they move and act in male-dominated realms. Eve is a well-trained amateur archaeologist in 1919 who has learned from the best: Howard Carter and her wealthy father, whose collection of ancient artifacts at Highclere Castle attest to his expensive addiction. Eve longs to accompany them to Egypt for the next expedition, which Lord Carnarvon insists must be to locate King Tutankhamun’s tomb; but Eve has other ideas, as she and Carter make clandestine plans to also search for the tomb of one of Egypt’s most controversial rulers, Hatshepsut. Eve knows all too well the

history of Hatshepsut, a woman who became pharaoh at a chaotic time in ancient Egypt’s history, only to have her name, images, and history virtually erased by the bitter male pharaohs who followed in her wake.

Benedict, who writes wonderful and wellresearched historical fiction with real people as her subjects, manages to tie together these two distinct eras and characters with her theme of “daughters of Egypt,” while at the same time serving up a larger issue: the provenance of ancient artifacts and the question of who “owns” history. When Carter discovers King Tut’s tomb (much to Eve’s disappointment, Hatshepsut is her goal), a subplot of illegal antiquities dealing to cash in on Egypt’s past adds another intriguing layer to the action.

Blending the best of her research and storytelling skills, Benedict delivers another page-turning adventure in Daughter of Egypt

Peggy Kurkowski

THE SEA STONE SISTERS

Eleanor Buchanan, Headline, 2026, £16.99/$23.99, hb, 448pp, 9781035425952

The Sea Stone Sisters opens with a violent act taking place around 2800 BC. An unnamed man returns from fishing to find his four daughters have been abducted. In despair, the father raises four stones on the coast to guide them home, but also places a curse on anyone who dares to move them.

The story then moves to the 1930s, same place on the west coast of Scotland, where the four Blackmore sisters live a comfortable life in a house built by their wealthy father. Unfortunately, in building the house, Charles Blackmore has had to knock down the stones, and the reader knows immediately that this will not end well. Misfortune follows misfortune, and Iris, the eldest daughter, determines to travel to Ceylon to find their uncle Ralph in the hope that he can help.

A modern story takes place in Australia as Roz travels to the UK to escape her violent stepfather. A chance visit to Edinburgh reveals a possible connection to the Blackmores that she becomes determined to unravel.

The movements from past to present are deftly handled, and it is interesting to experience the immediacy of narrative events in the past compared with the same events described through letters and photographs in the present. The different settings are fascinating, evoked through beautiful descriptions: the bracing wind on the wild coast of Scotland: the oppressive heat of Ceylon; and the arid expanses of the Australian outback. The plotting is excellent, and I found Iris Blackmore an immensely likeable central hero whose growth as a woman is crucial to the story’s development.

Overall, this is an enjoyable read, bringing Iris’s story to a satisfying conclusion. However, we are left with a tantalising glimpse of the fates of the other three sisters – and a sequel promised as the curse of the stones continues to resonate.

Adele Wills

THE SECRET COURTESAN

Kerry Chaput, She Writes, 2026, $17.99/ C$24.99, pb, 344pp, 9798896360643

The Secret Courtesan is an engrossing dual timeline novel featuring two remarkable and finely crafted protagonists: Sofia Rossi and Dr. Mia Harding. Sofia, the title character, is a 17th-century courtesan in Venice and a woman imprisoned by the severe social constraints of her time. She is a brilliant artist in her own right but is forced into the role of pleasuring and uplifting a succession of flawed men who control her. She dreams of being recognized for her own talents.

Mia Harding is a 21st-century art historian who has left her home in California for an assignment in Great Britain that carries the promise of a coveted promotion. Yet despite pressure and threats from her boss to sign papers attributing a stunning, erotic statue to Lucca Armani, a 16th-century Venetian artist, Mia can’t ignore whispers of evidence that lead her to believe that the sculpture is the work of a woman.

Sofia and Mia both carry the stain of impoverished childhoods and find their dreams thwarted by pompous men. Yet Sofia’s life in Venice is a world of glittering wealth. Bold colors, rich textures, and sunkissed stone palaces are the brushstrokes of her story. Mia’s life in Britain is marked by cold, gray, drizzly days spent in colorless, dusty libraries.

Chaput weaves their stories together with increasing and compelling tension. The stakes are high as both women race to put their marks on a world controlled by entitled men, and the suspense builds as the women’s stories merge into a satisfying finale. This book is a sensual delight, deeply emotional, and full of complex challenges that highlight the complicated legacy of patriarchal repression. This is a decadent read full of passion and adventure.

Carolyn Newton

BOOK OF FORBIDDEN WORDS

Louise Fein, William Morrow, 2026, $18.99/ C$24.99/£9.99, pb, 384pp, 9780063411432

The titular forbidden words conjure censorship, book-banning, and women suppressed by the patriarchy’s stranglehold. Fein’s three courageous women challenge this inequity in an impressive, insightful novel. In 1952 New York, highly educated housewife, Milly, dreams of ancient texts, while the Red

Scare political narrative bans novelists Joyce and Steinbeck and demonises the “other”. Milly appears to prize her ordinary family life but, as a once-lauded Bletchley cryptanalyst, feels deeply unfulfilled. Twice-widowed Charlotte owns a printing empire in 1552 Paris, amidst severe punishment for heresy. She is always within the Inquisitor Fidei’s peripheral vision, but her stellar reputation keeps him at bay, for now. In 1524, Thomas More adopts a young ward, Lysbette, as Henry VIII’s Great Matter dominates the religious stage. She’s coerced into a nunnery where, safe from men’s treachery, she’s free to write her own narrative, as the Tudors continue to rock the nation. Lysbette’s many tragedies strengthen her resolve to seek out Charlotte in 1552.

Fein’s engaging commentary gives us pause to consider how the female has been reduced and shamed over generations, and how the power resides within all of us, both men and women, to create a fairer world when we are ready to embrace one. The author has created relatable, likeable fictional characters, giving a valid appreciation of the Tudor, Renaissance, and Cold War eras. She draws attention to the various problems which hold women back from century to century, whilst sharing the many similarities. One story often overshadows the other when we skip from era to era, but here every episode of the three strands fascinates, and the transition between the timeframes is barely noticeable. History’s relentless, often malfunctioning repetition through the centuries is wisely considered, but there’s no missing the poignant commentary on contemporary life. A hopeful, thoughtprovoking gem which speaks to a better future for us all.

Fiona Alison

ANNIE’S DAY

Apple Gidley, Vine Leaves Press, 2025, $17.99, pb, 300pp, 9783988321800

It’s 2003 in an English village. As elderly Annie prepares for a visit from her family, she’s dismayed by news of another war in Iraq. In a nostalgic mood, she remembers her Australian homeland and why she had to leave it.

Against her irascible father’s wishes, Annie signs up as a military nurse. Initially posted to Singapore in 1941, her time there is brief as the Japanese encroach, and she manages to escape capture. Her next posting is to New Guinea, a tropical hell where more soldiers die from scrub typhus, dysentery and dengue fever than from battle wounds. Annie forms strong relationships with her patients and nursing companions and has

a brief affair with a doctor, Bill. After the war ends, she decides that Australia no longer feels like home and takes up a position as a nanny in Berlin where she faces a different kind of war as the Soviets tighten their grip on the beleaguered city. Later, she finds a second love with David, a former military chaplain.

In spite of tragedies and challenges, Annie remains a forthright, open-hearted and optimistic woman who enjoys life. Being agnostic, her role as a vicar’s wife has its issues, but she finds balance in David’s compassion and commitment to do what is right. He explains that he decided to enter the church when, in the 1930s, he saw the world falling into “brutishness” and “fair play, civility and morality… seemed to be disappearing”. When war inevitably came, he was determined to comfort others.

The historical research into lesser-known aspects of World War II is excellent, and the well-crafted dialogue accurately conveys the aspirations, hopes and values of that wartime generation. Inspired in part by the author’s mother’s story, this beautifully emotive and positive novel is highly recommended.

Marina Maxwell

THE PŌHAKU

Jasmin ‘Iolani Hakes, HarperVia, 2026, $30.00/ C$37.00, hb, 320pp, 9780063421134

For generations, the women of a Hawaiian family have been entrusted with safekeeping the pōhaku, a sacred stone with profound mystical powers. Now, in 1992, a troubled young woman lies comatose in the hospital while her estranged grandmother visits her daily, talking to the unresponsive woman as she reveals an incredible family saga. The young woman had no knowledge of the pōhaku or the history of the long line of women whohave been its protectors. Her grandmother tries desperately to somehow break through her coma and impart that knowledge to her since the young woman is the last of her lineage and the sacred stone has disappeared.

The grandmother’s story begins with the mythological creation of the pōhaku and the 18th-century arrival of explorer James Cook in the Hawaiian Islands; Cook had heard tales of the stone and believed it was the key to unlocking the world’s mysteries. The story moves from Hawaii to California and beyond, following the travails of the women protectors of the stone.

The novel reveals fascinating history about the 19th-century Hawaiians who came to what was then Alta California with James Sutter and helped him establish a colony until the discovery of gold prompted the United States to seize the territory and rename it California. The historical journey eventually winds back to Hawaii and recounts the coup against the Hawaiian kingdom and its annexation by the US.

This is an interesting novel about some littleknown history, but it is also an important look at imperialism and cultural displacement.

John Kachuba

A VERY MUSICAL MURDER

Antje Haugg, trans. Chris Ritter, Elvea Verlag, 2024, £11.99, pb, 295pp, 9783946751304

Although much of the action in this novel takes place in 2017, it begins in 1917 and returns there periodically as the plot unravels and links are made between events in both eras.

In 1917, a young woman named Margarethe is believed to have committed suicide by throwing herself from a clock tower. In 2017 Tina, a law student, is murdered, having become embroiled in prostitution due to blackmail; she had also betrayed a friend whom she was helping with an environmental project.

Detective Chief Inspector Doris Lech has just moved from Cologne to the town of Bayreuth, portrayed as a community where everyone knows each other which goes some way to enabling suspension of disbelief at some of the unlikely elements involved in solving the mystery. However, it does not explain how the villains, the apparently irresistible Albert Zweistein and Phil Kill (the name he uses on Facebook!), get away with their dodgy dealings for so long in such an enclosed community.

The 1917 sections also include a character called Albert Zweistein, and the musical aspect referred to in the title relates to a piece of music given to him by composer Siegfried Wagner, who was his lover, who had indiscreetly written both their initials on the first page, resulting in the possibility of blackmail. The disappearance of this page and its partial reappearance a hundred years later constitute the link between the two strands of the novel.

A note from the translator explains the genuine role of Bayreuth related to classical music, while making clear that this story is entirely fictitious. He clearly has a great affection for this town and has rendered into English a pacy read that unfortunately stretches credulity in terms of the behaviour of its characters.

Ann Lazim

MARBLE HALL MURDERS

Anthony Horowitz, Harper, 2025, $31.00/ C$38.99, hb, 592pp, 9780063305700 / Penguin, 2025, £9.99, pb, 592pp, 9781804943007

This third entry in the Susan Ryeland mystery series is a joy to read. Cleverly framed as a “book within a book,” the dual storylines in this narrative converge and parallel each other in significant ways.

In the contemporary storyline, freelance editor Ryeland is assigned to work on a tenth entry in the popular historical Atticus Pünd detective series. The new book is being written by Eliot Crace, who is brought in after the murder of Alan Conway, the series creator. Through her editing of Eliot’s work, Ryeland becomes aware of Eliot’s family history. She is introduced to the entire Crace family, who are mainly living on the estate of its late matriarch, Miriam Crace, whose death twenty years earlier now appears suspicious.

In 1955, after meeting famed English detective Atticus Pünd in a doctor’s office,

Lady Margaret Chalfont sends him an urgent message imploring him to come to her estate in the south of France, where she is living with her second husband, and her children and grandchildren. On the day before Pünd’s arrival, Lady Chalfont mysteriously dies after drinking a cup of tea. While Crace illuminates the events surrounding Lady Chalfont’s death, he also places clues, in the form of anagrams and other word puzzles, in the text which shed light on the identity of Miriam Crace’s killer.

This is a beautifully drawn story with fully fleshed-out characters, arresting settings, and plenty of intrigue. Horowitz’s prose and plotting are propulsive and easy to follow. The abundance of suspects in both storylines will leave readers guessing until the book’s final pages. While this is the third entry in the Ryeland series, there is sufficient backstory supplied so that this book can easily be read as a standalone.

Michelle J. Ritholz

DAUGHTER OF MERCIA

Julia Ibbotson, Archbury Books, 2025, £8.99, pb, 392pp, 9781739887780

Do voices from the past speak to us today? Presumably, any ardent fan of historical fiction would answer in the affirmative, at least on a literary level. This novel takes that idea and magnifies it a thousand-fold.

The modern timeline involves Dr. Anna Petersen, a medieval historian/runologist, who has been brought into an archeological dig that has uncovered the remains of a 6th-century Mercian burial. The 6th-century timeline involves the Mercian ruler, Lady Mildryth, whose viewing of a possibly portentous fireball in the sky sets the tone for her upcoming interactions with an unknown stranger. In parallel ways, Anna and Mildryth experience misty visions and sensations of memories far removed from their own daily lives. Could their visions and they themselves somehow be connected to each other? And while dealing with these mysterious episodes, both women must fight to control their own lives in their own times. Further mysteries that add to the eerie ambience include an unusual runic inscription found on a seax in the grave site, and the presence of a modern skeleton in a burial place that had not been disturbed for centuries.

The robust title and subtitle (“A haunting Anglo-Saxon dual-time novel with mystery, runes and romance”) of the book say it all: the place where the events occur, the tone, the broader historical context, the novel type, and the plot devices that propel the novel forward. All of these elements come together seamlessly as the narrative builds over both time periods in a way that will keep readers deeply engaged as events unfold. Highly recommended as a thrilling way for anyone to hear voices from the past speaking to us today!

Karen Bordonaro

LUMINOUS BODIES

Devon Jersild, Paul Dry Books, 2026, $22.95, pb, 364pp, 9781589882102

Devon Jersild is a writer and practicing clinical psychologist who wanted to write a fuller picture of Marie Curie not just as the renowned scientist we know of today: the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first to win with her husband, and the first to win two Nobel Prizes (in chemistry and physics). Jersild also wanted to show her as a girl, a woman, daughter, wife, mother, lover and friend. It is told convincingly and movingly and imagines the inner life and challenges Marie Curie faced, based on known facts.

The book covers most of her life from childhood to WWI, but the focus of the story occurs from 1894-1912. Marie excelled in mathematics and physics and found getting the education she wanted challenging. She eventually moved from her home in Poland to Paris and studied at the University of Paris. This was when she met, became scientific partners with, and married Pierre Curie. They isolated radium and polonium and received the Nobel Prize for their work in radioactivity. The book describes in detail the Curies’ persistence in conducting their painstaking work in their underfunded and rudimentary laboratory. After 11 years of marriage, Pierre Curie died in a street accident at age 46. Marie’s sudden widowhood and subsequent affair with fellow scientist and friend, Paul Langevin, is a major focus of this story.

The book repeatedly demonstrates how women were not accepted as scientists in academia and had constricted societal roles. Marie’s friendship with Hertha Ayrton, a fellow scientist and suffragette, gives a glimpse of early suffragette efforts in England and the many challenges women faced as scientists. The book also reflects on the impact of her life on her two daughters, Irene and Eve. Highly recommended.

Deborah K. Mayer

SKYLARK

Paula McLain, Atria, 2026, $30.00/C$42.00, hb, 452pp, 9781668028155 / Magpie, 2026, £9.99, pb, 464pp, 9781836432296

In her newest novel, Paula McLain takes us once more to Paris, this time the troubled Paris of the 1660s and the 1940s. In the 17thcentury city, artistic innovation is stifled by the guilds, whose corrupt masters control both their industry and the lives of its artisans. For the clandestine female dyer who seeks a wider horizon, a madhouse awaits to starve

and bleed any ambitious “hysteric” into submission. In occupied Paris, Jews are being rounded up and deported to camps. When his neighbors are abducted, a Polish psychiatrist helps four teenagers escape through a network of tunnels whose limestone walls were carved out by quarrymen three centuries earlier. There, the children discover imprints that signal the endurance of the human spirit in the face of unthinkable violence and loss. These tiny carvings join one story of daring escape to another, inspiring claims on the future against all odds.

McLain does not force these two stories to align. The guild tyrants are not reborn as Nazis; the asylum is not the Holocaust. Rather, the natural and constructed contours of Paris—rivers, streets, hollows beneath and structures above—become containers for tales of both systemic cruelty and lifesustaining love and resistance.

At first, I missed the simpler structures of The Paris Wife or Love and Ruin, where Hemingway’s slow malevolence breathes tension into the smallest of actions. In Skylark, McLain’s canvas is as busy as Bruegel’s. Her palette bursts with color. But as I adjusted to the pace, I became alternately enthralled by each plot, longing to return to one even as I plunged into the other. And true to form, McLain’s characters come powerfully alive, tugging the reader into the long past of a city that has borne witness to both extraordinary suffering and profound resilience.

Anna Neill

HAGTALE

Sally O’Reilly, Scribe UK, 2025, £16.99, hb, 240pp, 9781917189088

O’Reilly’s rich literary fable, set in medieval Scotland, relates a version of the origins of Macbethad mac Findláech, king of Scotland from 1040 to 1057. In a Midlothian abbey in 1354, Rowan is the gardener, although before the plague, he was a dedicated scriptorium scribe. Thanking God for his recovery from the illness, he longs only to be outdoors with his hands in the dirt. The natural sheltered freedom speaks to his soul.

Rowan is ordered by the prior to journey to a distant monastery to preserve the records that are disappearing into Albion’s (Britain) history, by copying Alba’s (Scotland) kingline. Teetering on the shores of a loch which floods regularly, Saint Medard’s has been a deserted ruin since the plague swept the country. Brother Kenneth, a younger, belligerent, military type, is Rowan’s sole companion. He forces Rowan to observe the

canonical hours of prayer despite the rugged and hostile environment they face. Kenneth’s blinkered obedience to his vocation causes theological dissent, which presents itself at the monastery. Reclusive and gentle Rowan, however, is awestruck by the beauty of God’s creation all around him.

Three hundred years earlier, a young wolfgirl wakes alone and ventures out to satiate her hunger. In the forest she meets Cailleach, Berthe and Merrow. Despite having suckled at a wolf-teat since babyhood, the witches smell human, and the girl must therefore become human to fulfill her destiny and the witches’ prophecy. They name her Wulva, nurture and educate her, and send her to live with the MacDuffs.

O’Reilly’s reimagining of Macbethad is stunning. Language, time frame, descriptions, plot and character are brilliant. Connections between Rowan and Wulva are preternaturally curious. O’Reilly takes historical liberties, describing her story as unusual and strange. Unusual, yes, but ethereally strange and otherworldly. A gift to the expanding literary world of Macbeth

Fiona Alison

ECHOES OF SMALL THINGS

Paper Lantern Writers, Independently published, 2025, $15.00/C$21.00, pb, 230pp, 9798987122297

Echoes of Small Things is a thoughtfully curated collection of nine short stories that explore how seemingly minor decisions ripple outward through history. Spanning a wide range of periods and places, the anthology is unified less by setting than by its attention to intimate moments that quietly reshape lives. Several stories stand out for the way they blend historical context with sharply observed personal stakes. Ana Brazil’s “Snip, Snip, Snip” reimagines the birth of practical women’s clothing during World War I through the eyes of Denise Poiret, transforming a domestic confrontation into an act of cultural rebellion. In “The Reluctant Savior,” C. V. Lee places moral choice at the center of a tense encounter between an embittered islander and a mysterious castaway, grounding high political stakes in one man’s hunger for recognition and reward.

Throughout the collection, the authors favor character-driven narratives over sweeping historical spectacle. These are stories about agency, constraint, and consequences of choosing—or refusing—to act. The historical settings are convincingly drawn without overwhelming the narratives, allowing each piece to focus on emotional truth rather than exposition. As with most anthologies, the strength of individual stories varies, but the collection is cohesive and purposeful. Echoes of Small Things will appeal to readers who enjoy reflective historical fiction and short works that linger in the mind, reminding us that history often turns not on grand gestures but on quiet, decisive moments.

Williamaye

Jones

THE INFIRMARY

Carly Reagon, Sphere, 2025, £20.00, hb, 384pp, 9781408733370

The trope of the haunted house is a well-tried and tested convention going back to the days of Gothic fiction and Victorian sensationalist novels, and still very much alive and well in the 21st century.

Carly Reagon is, therefore, on safe ground with her new novel, The Infirmary. In 2023, Liam and family arrive at the mansion of St Cross in Suffolk for an escape from the stresses of London. They are charged with taking care of the house while the elderly owner is away. But the house hides a dark secret. Through letters, diary entries and notices, as well as stories from eccentric locals, we learn that the house was formerly an infirmary for poor people, opened in 1840 to honour the 21st birthday of the son of the local landowner, Lord Massingham. Charles Keller, a London surgeon, joins the staff, and it is his 1847 diary that fills in the gaps. Increasingly, the past starts to impinge on the present in a sinister and unsettling way. The 2023 narrative is written in the present tense and moves between each member of the family. Everyone adds their own secrets and personal anxieties to the story. The glimpse into the past is fascinating, particularly the information on early medical practices and the use of chloroform which remained a dangerous drug in 1847. Keller is trying to develop a machine to regulate dosage and prevent fatalities. I would have liked more on the past characters and why things started to go so wrong; there seems an imbalance between the present and the past, and not all the narrative strands are fully developed. Nonetheless, for those who seek a creepy ghost story, with the present overshadowed by the past alongside an instinctive unease within an infirmary setting, there is much here to enjoy.

Adele Wills

NEARNESS OF THE WILD

Hilary Scharper, Balsam Books, 2025, $22.99, pb, 344pp, 9781068978821

Nearness of the Wild is Book Two of The Lighthouse Chronicles set in the wilds of Canada at the end of the 19th century and in a remote nursing home 100 years later. Kay Kelly is a centenarian resident of the nursing home, looking forward only to the end of her life. When Marged Brice, who claims to be over 130 years old, is placed in the nursing home, Kay’s life takes a 180-degree turn. Is this a chance meeting, or has a ghost child named Perdita somehow brought them together? There is a connection between these two elderly ladies, but what is it, and what resolution in life will it bring to them both? Marged’s story, which she recounts to Kay in the form of a diary, is the tale of two lovers between whom Marged must choose. But this novel is more than just a romance set in Victorian Canada. It is a murder mystery that unfolds in a setting Jane Austen would appreciate. Is painter George

Stewart the man Marged was meant to marry? Or Doctor Andrew Reid?

Author Scharper has an eye for life in the wilds of Canada along the untamed shores of the Great Lakes. She captures the way in which women were treated as second class citizens by the men of the age. And she depicts the terrible way in which the First People of Canada were abused, jailed for crimes uncommitted, their children kidnapped and oftentimes sent to their deaths in boarding schools. Marged Brice, like the wilderness she loves, may bend but will not break. But what love will she choose? And what relevance is her tale to Kay?

Peter Clenott

HARDLY A LADY

Frances Strickler, Rabbit House Press, 2025, $17.95, pb, 232pp, 9798990783379

In 2010, an elderly lady reflects on her life and how she was “hardly a lady.” She opens her journals, which begin with her 14-year-old self growing up in Northern Kentucky. In 1930, Josie dreams of being a fashion designer, but right now she competes in 4-H sewing competitions and helps her family with farm chores. Her mother is very sick, and as she gets sicker, Josie’s responsibilities grow. After her mother’s death, Josie takes a job to help ends meet at a Northern Kentucky Club, the Hey Ho, as a seamstress for the showgirls. But operations at the Hey Ho are not as innocent as Josie believes.

As we go through Josie’s life and watch her grow up, we are shown important events in Northern Kentucky and Ohio, such as the 1937 Ohio River flood. The reputation of Newport, Kentucky, as a haven for prostitution and the mob at the time was well known in the area and shown skillfully here through the Hey Ho. Josie’s naivete is well portrayed, and the kind but mysterious Florene, who is in charge of the showgirls, serves as a boundary between Josie and those who would hurt her. A romance also begins to unfold, although it does not take over the storyline. The limited options for women at that time are eye-opening and shown through Josie’s circumstances. A woman couldn’t withdraw cash from a bank account or even open one without a man. She couldn’t make business arrangements for property that she had inherited. She was forced to find men who would help her, and they could possibly take advantage. The epistolary work in the use of Josie’s diary to tell her story is well done. The 2010 timeline is brief and serves only as an introduction and conclusion. This is an engaging story. Recommended.

Bonnie DeMoss

THE SECRET RANCH

Hillary Tiefer, Histria, 2025, $19.99, pb, 300pp, 9781592115594

1942 Grants Pass, Oregon. Jean lives with her parents and sister and is very worried about her two brothers, who are fighting in World War II. Tensions are high, and it doesn’t help that Jean’s mother is constantly vicious and

vindictive towards her. Wishing to do more for her country like her brothers, Jean makes the decision to join the Women’s Army Corps and leaves for training in California.

California, 2006. Carolyn is separated and pending divorce, but is reluctant to tell her mother, Jean. At the same time, she is excited for Jean, who has been contacted about a feature article surrounding her work as a radio operator during WWII. However, Jean does not want to talk about the personal aspects of her life during that time.

This is an extremely well-researched novel. We follow Jean through boot camp, and then to Kansas City, where she completes High-Speed Radio Operator School. The portrayal of military training with all its rules and regulations is absolutely spot on. When she arrives at Two Rock Ranch in Petaluma, California, she learns she will be intercepting enemy radio transmissions right alongside the men. I loved the description of this top-secret military station that looked like a working ranch, complete with barns, chickens, and even sheep.

The ups and downs of Jean’s romantic life, heartbreak, secrets, and love add a new level to the story. Her friend Opal is a great supporting character and quite the opposite of Jean in personality. The significance of the work they are doing is made clear by the author.

The 1940s timeline is compelling and engages the reader immediately. The 2006 timeline is definitely secondary and may not have been needed, but fans of WWII fiction should not pass up this fascinating story. Recommended.

Bonnie DeMoss

THE MAESTRO AND HER PROTÉGÉ

Kate Whouley, Blackwater Press, 2025, $19.99, pb, 376pp, 9781963614121

When Hannah Schaeffer meets Nadia Boulanger, a real-life composer, in Paris in 1959, she is just ten years old. But she is about to begin a demanding musical education and a lifelong career. Later in life, when she feels she is about to lose her contract as the conductor for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, she travels to Paris and visits Boulanger’s grave daily, lost in her memories.

The novel moves back and forth from Hannah as a young girl, a prodigy sent to study music, to other points in her life and career, and to an older, accomplished Hannah who feels that change is coming

for her. Her reflections on her life as a music prodigy and on the career roadblocks placed in front of her because she is a woman, paint an accurate picture of the struggles of women in the 20th and even 21st centuries. Moving between 1959 and the present day, Hannah recalls her strict tutelage from Boulanger, her “musical mother,” and we see her interactions with her actual mother, who is a self-interested woman, her loving grandparents, and real-life musical geniuses like Boulanger and Leonard Bernstein.

This novel is as musical, itself, as a book can be. The past and present appear together, flowing in and out of each other as a composition of thoughts. The sections of the novel are named Overture, Reverie, Rhapsody, and Coda, and the book is like a complete concert with a beginning and an ending. Everything to Hannah can be written in music: “It was not a peck, but a soft graze of his lips. As if he thought I were a fragile object. As if he believed a more determined kiss might break me. Before I could hear the notes of that kiss, he was stepping away….” A masterful symphony of words. Highly recommended.

Bonnie DeMoss

HISTORICAL FANTASY

THE WATER LILIES OF MISHIPESHU

Karla Cruise, HTF Publishing, 2026, $18.95, pb, 240pp, 9781963452242

Set on the edge of Lake Michigan, the novel spans 1685 to 2017. Built around the legend of a Native American river goddess, Mishipeshu, this is a series of vignettes across the centuries. The story begins with Mishipeshu longing and searching to find her sister who has fallen in love with a man and disappeared from their mythic world. The vignettes begin with a British lieutenant creating a botanical manuscript of native lore that his French/Indian woman spirits away when a Native attack burns and decimates the fort. The rescued manuscript contains drawings, notes, magical prescripts, and recipes. The key element is the water lily; life sustaining for Mishipeshu and a medicinal called nabagûck for the two-leggeds. Each vignette is connected over time, some more so than others, to the gold-embossed leather manuscript. The key connection is a human’s need for a medicinal, nabagûck, which can be curative, though it also causes hallucinations often leading to suicide or death. Mishipeshu appears briefly at intervals, commenting on the two-leggeds and wondering where her sister could be. Meanwhile, on land some seek to preserve the native knowledge while others want profit. The evolving attitude of those who control the land versus native heritage is a key theme. Cruise’s debut novel evidences her ability for detailed research, though her background is more in Russian than American history. There is less of the mythic river goddess and

more of the history of the area than one might expect from the title. Each vignette is wellcrafted. The loose nature of the compilation deprives the book of a strong narrative arc to preserve a sacred text and knowledge nearly lost. Cruise gives us an overview of the evolution of time and place, and more importantly, of attitudes towards respecting a culture. An interesting read.

Catherine Mathis

TEA & ALCHEMY

Sharon Lynn Fisher, 47North, 2026, $16.99/£8.99, pb, 299pp, 9781662528699

In 1854 Cornwall, Mina Penrose takes comfort in her job at The Magpie, the village tearoom. Her days are spent away from the loneliness of the home she shares with her miner brother, Jack, until Mina begins to see shapes in the tea leaves – shapes that appear to foretell the fate of the customer. After interpreting a bad omen in a man’s leaves, Mina finds his murdered body. The mystery that surrounds his attack lures Mina toward an occupant of Roche Rock, the recluse Harker Tregarrick.

As Mina seeks to understand the unusual circumstances of the murder, she must uncover local lore – the mystery surrounding the master of Roche Rock and the practice of tasseography – while avoiding conflict with her brother. Harker Tregarrick is drawn to Mina, but knows that any contact between them comes at great risk. Despite his efforts to keep Mina at a distance and take refuge in his alchemical studies, he is forced to intervene when she is attacked.

Tea & Alchemy has the flavor of a gothic historical mystery but contains strong fantasy elements. The forays into supernatural beings and the complex history surrounding their existence could remove readers from the historical setting altogether, if not for the detailed and descriptive writing that keeps us tied to 19th-century Cornwall. However, I wouldn’t recommend this book for the traditional historical fiction reader. While the setting is in the past, the storyline falls toward vampire romance tropes. For those that are open to genre-shifting historical fiction, Tea & Alchemy is an entertaining read.

Amy Turner

STEEL MACHINES

Dan Franklin, Cemetery Dance, 2025, $18.99, pb, 174pp, 9781964780405

Steel Machines is a novella set in Prague in 1945. Eight-year-old Otto and his parents are hiding in the attic of their own home, Anne Frank style, reliant on friends to bring them food. Eventually the Nazis arrive and kill Otto’s parents right in front of him. Otto only survives because his tinkerer father has created a Golem, a big and strong human figure that exists only to fulfill the commands of the person who writes the correct letter and says the correct words to bring it to life. Golems are traditionally made of clay, but this one is more like a robot, made out of machine parts and

pieces of furniture. Otto’s father doesn’t bring the machine to life in time to save himself or his wife; Otto survives by hiding inside of it.

Golem stories, and the Frankenstein stories they birthed, are about the hubris of humans trying to emulate God and create new life through mechanics or magic, so a fan of such stories will naturally expect a story about Otto bringing his Golem to life and getting punished for his hubris. But this expectation is not really met. Otto does bring the Golem to life finally, but his relationship to the Golem is not really what the book is about. Rather it’s about his relationship with the daughter of a German family that moves into the house. The family’s young daughter discovers him, befriends him, and feeds him. The real horror of the story comes from Franklin’s exploration of this interaction, the casual cruelty of the girl’s naivete, the children’s opposing yet similar traumas, and the consequences of Otto fighting back with the only weapon he has. The depth and subtlety of this exploration make this book worth reading more than once.

Alison McMahan

THE HAUNTING OF MODESTO O’BRIEN

Brit Griffin, Latitude 46, 2025, $22.95, pb, 312pp, 9781997529002

Set in northern Ontario in 1907 in the rough and violent silver mining town of Cobalt, as well as the forested wilderness surrounding it, The Haunting of Modesto O’Brien is a speculative blend of genres: gothic, horror, mystery, myth, folktale, and historical. Hints suggest that the miners’ abuse of the land has awakened angry forces out in the woods and lake.

Modesto is a newly arrived detective and fortune-teller—or gunman (his business sign changes according to who reads it and when). He also has a mystical ability to communicate with animals, but he doesn’t advertise that. Instead of silver, he’s come seeking revenge against two men he’s tracked to Cobalt. Through scenes of these men’s abusive, brutal interactions with both women and other men, the reader is left with no ambiguity about their villainy and is wholeheartedly rooting for whatever form of revenge Modesto aims at, although the detective moves slowly. His goal is seemingly delayed further when a woman who has both an otherworldly aura and a criminal background asks him to find her kidnapped sister Lucy. This rescue sends him straight into the shady business dealings of the two men he’s been following—and into the forests where, people claim, a monster is responsible for the uncanny deaths of several miners.

Griffin writes in a terse noir style suitable for this material. However, her periodic avoidance of standard punctuation and sentence structure may confuse the reader. This atmospheric mix of human malevolence and supernatural terrors provides a layered read that fulfills the title’s promise of a haunting, especially for gothic horror fans. Some readers may find the ending abrupt, although it

involves a suspenseful final battle with several elements falling into place simultaneously.

Judith Starkston

GRACELESS HEART

Isabel Ibañez, Hodderscape, 2026, £20.00, hb, 496pp, 9781399742689 / Saturday Books, 2026, $31.00, hb, 488pp, 9781250376695

Graceless Heart is advertised as Isabel Ibañez’s first foray into adult fiction, having previously written YA novels.

I’m not sure that the distinctions between adult and YA are always that clear, and this novel undoubtedly has clear YA vibes. That’s not, though, to detract from the impact of a beautifully written and very engaging work.

The story is set in 1478 in Italy. 23-year-old Ravenna Maffei lives and works in her family’s locanda in Volterra but has secret ambitions to be a sculptor. When Volterra is annexed to the Republic of Florence, Ravenna’s brother, Antonio, joins the fight for freedom but is captured. Shortly afterwards, the wealthy Luni family – allies of the Medici overlords – stage a sculpting competition, so Ravenna sees a way of securing influential patronage and freeing her brother. However, she then meets the mysterious Luni heir – Saturnino – and Ravenna is drawn into political intrigue and a dangerous romance.

The basis of the plot nods to Twilight but with an Italian Renaissance setting. Historical events are presented; but historical purists be warned – they are imaginatively recreated. For example, the assassination of Galeazzo Sforza is depicted although, historically, it took place two years earlier. There are also plenty of fantasy elements: magic stones, witches, ancient curses and vampyres.

The main story focuses on Ravenna but interspersed with other perspectives. There are deeply sensual descriptions of colours, fabrics and food – all captured with an artist’s eye. And the story itself is very exciting: the tensions and betrayals of the complex political situation are admirably presented. The central romance is tantalisingly developed and always interesting. The ending is satisfying and with some wry touches of (sometimes feline) humour.

In all, this is an immensely enjoyable read, and imprecisions of historical accuracy are well compensated for by an imaginatively lush recreation of medieval Italy.

Adele Wills

THE MIDNIGHT CAROUSEL

Fiza Saeed McLynn, Park Row, 2025, $18.99, pb, 368pp, 9780241715208 / Michael Joseph, 2025, £16.99, hb, 368pp, 9780241715208

McLynn tells the captivating story of Maisie Marlowe, from her childhood in 1910 in a repugnant foster home in England, to her life as an older woman in 1981 in New York City. At the age of twelve, Maisie extricates herself from the foster home, thanks in part to a wealthy protector, Malcolm Randolph. She travels with him to Chicago where, thanks to a series of plot complications, she finds herself connected to a magnificent carousel created for the 1900 Paris Exposition. After Malcolm invests badly and loses his fortune, he and Maisie create an amusement park called the Silver Kingdom. The park grows in popularity and revenue, with the carousel as its main attraction. Yet, numerous people who ride one particular horse on the carousel disappear over time, first in Paris, then in Chicago.

Maisie is the main character of the novel, but Parisian detective Laurent Bisset is an appealing secondary character. Chapters, always in the present tense, alternate between Maisie’s point of view and Laurent’s. He obsesses about the first disappearance and follows the carousel to Chicago where he partners with Maisie to investigate the mysteries. He also tries to locate Maisie’s parents, if they are alive, and discover why they abandoned her. Before long, Laurent and Maisie begin to think about other kinds of partnerships.

Readers will find the story immersive. McLynn manages shifting locations and timelines skillfully. She does not always capture the settings well—as one example, Chicagoans will know that Michigan Avenue is not Michigan Boulevard—and she skims lightly over the historical context, including wars and epidemics. For some readers, the ending will be too neat and too contrived. Those are minor issues in an impressive and memorable novel.

Marlie Parker Wasserman

THE GLOWING HOURS

Leila Siddiqui, Hell’s Hundred, 2026, $27.95/ C$36.95, hb, 336pp, 9781641297011

Seeking respite from scandal, Mary Godwin and her then-lover, Percy Bysshe Shelley, met Lord Byron and his physician, John Polidori, at Lake Geneva in the summer of 1816. Had it not been for the climatic disruption caused by a volcanic eruption in Indonesia a year earlier, the history of horror fiction might have been very different. Driven inside by incessant rain, as the-later Mrs. Shelley recalled, the party competed to see who among them could write the most compelling ghost story. The results included Polidori’s “The Vampyre”— the precursor to Bram Stoker’s Dracula—and Shelley’s fantastical tale of artificial creation, scientific hubris, and the consequences of emotional alienation: Frankenstein

Leila Siddiqui’s The Glowing Hours places this origin tale of the literary undead in another globally transformative context: the expanding British Empire. Mehrunissa Begum,

a high-born Muslim from Lucknow whose fate has been profoundly shaped by the greed and entitlement of an East India Company soldier, travels to London to deliver family news to her brother. There, an unfortunate turn of events forces her into service with the Shelley household. Dragged off on the Geneva expedition, she finds herself trapped in Byron’s spooky villa, where laudanuminduced demons from her own past, as well as from those of her notorious employers, draw the repressed sexual and racial violence that has shaped her life into a horrifying, haunted present.

No doubt Mary Shelley would be surprised to find her story rewritten to include vampiric seduction and zombie gore (although perhaps no more so than by the patchworked monsters of 20th-century cinema). But the sometimes hard-to-swallow sensationalism of Siddiqui’s prose nevertheless reminds us that Romantic literary genius was not created from inert historical matter. Rather, it was born from a world where colonial violence engendered the greatest horrors of all.

Anna Neill

NONESUCH

Francis Spufford, Faber & Faber, 2026, £20.00, hb, 496pp, 9780571397167 / Scribner, 2026, $31.00, hb, 496pp, 9781668214374 London, 1939. Iris Hawkins is a secretary for stockbrokers Cornellis & Blome, but she’s a would-be financier and the only person at the firm who knows how to work the teleprinter. By night she’s a thrill seeker, but one evening, with the country on the brink of war, she gets more than she bargained for when she meets Geoff, a BBC technician. What should have been a one-night stand takes a bizarre turn, and she finds herself in grave danger. Before long she’s running for her life, and the only person she can turn to for help is Geoff, to see if he can tell her what (not who) is after her and why.

The level of detail is magnificent, not just in the portrayal of the magical realm where angels dwell but in the colours, sights and sounds of London as it transforms from a vibrant, carefree city to a place of devastation due to the relentlessness of the air raids, night after sleepless night; also in the development of Iris’s relationship with Geoff, which changes her forever, in more ways than one.

This novel can be described in four words: cinematic, spectacular, terrifying and devastating. It fits into the ‘secret history’ subgenre of historical fantasy. Iris also has her own secret history – something happened in her past that influenced her behaviour, which

shaped the woman she became. It remains to be seen whether decisions she makes now will irrevocably alter her path, for this is not a standalone; the story is to be continued. I can’t help wondering whether the sequel will contain an alternative version of the events in this novel as a result of the drastic decision Iris makes at the end of it. Highly recommended.

Sarah Dronfield

THE POET EMPRESS

Shen Tao, Gollancz, 2026, £20.00, hb, 400pp, 9781399628969 / Bramble, 2026, $32.99, hb, 400pp, 9781250406811

It’s a bold novel that opens with the funeral of a newborn. Our heroine, Yin Wei, is born in a poor, famine-stricken village in a historical, Chinese-inspired kingdom where princes write magical poems to both bless and curse. Yet a chance comes to bring hope to the village: Prince Terren, heir to the throne, needs a harem, and a court lady would surely be able to help. So, Yin Wei inveigles her way into the harem. But with the Emperor dying, the court is locked in a deadly power struggle between Prince Terren and his elder brother Prince Maro for the succession. So long and all-consuming is this struggle that everyone at court is bent out of shape with their lusting for power.

No-one is trustworthy. No-one loves. Within the harem, all backstabbing is fair in the quest for a night with Prince Terren, who wields his martial powers and magical poems with no moral compass and lives only to torture, maim and destroy. Tao’s writing is excellent in evoking this amoral world where there is no justice: Prince Terren has complete impunity as no one is powerful enough to withstand his magic. So, in this fatal kingdom where it’s everyone for themselves; how will Yin Wei survive, let alone help her starving villagers? Might she break taboos about “correct female behaviour” and learn not only to read but to cast magical poems? How morally compromised will she be by the end of it? Twists abound towards the novel’s conclusion. Does the book end on a sliver of hope? Possibly, maybe; I’ll leave that for you to decide.

H-F Dessain

TO CONDEMN A WITCH

Lisa A. Traugott, Rose Castle Media, 2025, $18.99, pb, 394pp, 9780983344155

The historical fantasy novel To Condemn a Witch is the prequel to Lisa A. Traugott’s To Rescue a Witch. Set in the early 18th century, it tells the story of three witches linked to a prophecy found on an enchanted scroll. Matilda is a vengeful ghost who was burned at the stake for witchcraft after being betrayed by her sister Elspeth (who also features in the book as the sinister Witch of Pye). Her niece Fiona MacLeod is married to the influential Scottish lawyer William, whose actions impact the fate of the third witch, Eleanor, a servant who becomes mistress to William’s

master. To protect the prophecy and the child born of it, the three women must form a coven by whatever means they can.

I had not read To Rescue a Witch, but this book easily reads as a standalone and in fact whets the appetite for the first book. Traugott has clearly done her research on witchcraft and 18th-century history, as her bibliography at the back of the book testifies. The story is well-paced without the historical facts overwhelming it, and it transports the reader from Scottish village mentality with all its superstitions to the seemingly more sophisticated streets of London with a debauchedness that sizzles on the page. The characters are well-developed, although few are truly likeable, but this is surely the author’s intention. No person is perfect, and even the ‘good’ people in this book have their flaws. The bad guys, though, are thoroughly evil! Power is clearly the motivation for the ruthless witch hunter, Lord Blackmere.

This is a gripping read leaving the reader wanting more, and probably reaching for the first book if they haven’t read it already!

Samantha Ward-Smith

LAND OF MORROW

A. R. Zamaku, Independently published, 2024, $14.95, pb, 321pp, 9798884287198

The novel incorporates an intriguing idea: the victims of the Black Death in England in the 1340s don’t die, but turn into zombies, preying on the survivors. True to the times, they are never called “zombies” in the book, but wraiths, demons, monsters, etc.

Alister Warde is a knight who is leading a small band of survivors who have attached themselves to him as they all try to avoid being eaten. These include Shakra, a Moorish man who had been imprisoned with Alister, and Robert, who leads a group of survivors living in a forest, with hints of comparison to Robin Hood. Eadric Noble and his twin brother (actually his sister Cecelia who is a healer and wears a mask to disguise her sex) also join the group. They are hiding from a cousin, Christian, who wants to marry Cecelia and has formed a cult of personality, claiming to be a Christ-like rival to King Edward, complete with self-inflicted stigmata.

The group travels from place to place, seeking refuge from the “demons.” They steal food and supplies from abandoned villages but also encounter more zombies. When they arrive at Alister’s home village to find everyone gone or dead, they realize there is no safe place. Their best option is to journey to join Edward’s side in the fight against Christian.

I am not a horror fan but imagine those who are will relish the graphic descriptions of gore and death, including that of children and small cuddly animals. Medieval warfare fans will appreciate the abundant hand-to-hand combat scenes, although the protagonists seem to have almost superhero strength (or luck) in killing their opponents, real and zombie, with a single blow nearly every time.

Wish-fulfillment? This will appeal most to fans of horror and the Middle Ages.

B.J. Sedlock

TIMESLIP

THE FAR REACH OF YESTERDAY

Christine Echeverria Bender, Caxton Press, 2025, $17.95, pb, 277pp, 9780870046605

This time-slip novel asks the reader to accept a great deal—while making it clear that Rachel Winston must accept at least twice as much. A successful young attorney representing a client under threat from a Chicago crime family, she lands in the hospital with a head injury so severe that an induced coma follows. But for Rachel, the trauma causes a time slip to 1864 Boise, where gold mining, Civil War antipathies, and harsh frontier violence and conditions call on her for kinds of courage (and skills!) her legal career never demanded.

An independent and isolated person in her “modern” legal life, Rachel, in this Western adventure, must accept family love for the first time, form multiple deep friendships, and enter, at last, a romance with a wounded Union cavalry officer. Passionate and romantic though her new life is, could it be real? Has she fallen back in time to the days that her grandfather’s family heirloom, a nine-foot leather bullwhip, dates to?

By the time the plot reveals how the time slip took place, and why, Rachel has just about everything to lose, so that the final chapters of this imaginative novel are its most suspenseful. Despite the challenging opening premise, Bender’s frontier tale is engrossing and rich with period detail. Because the speech habits of the characters don’t change with the time slip, there’s a burden of disconnect in the conversations. But seasoned with a generous dash of extra suspension of skepticism, Rachel’s deepening and growth take root in a stirring adventure with highly enjoyable romance at its core.

Beth Kanell

SHADES OF YELLOW

Wendy J. Dunn, Other Terrain Press, 2025, $24.99/£18.99, pb, 366pp, 9781764070409

Shades of Yellow is a dual-timeline novel, though not in the usual sense. Wendy Dunn’s central character is Lucy, a woman facing divorce after her husband’s infidelity cracks their bonds. She also faces a resurgence of her cancer. Lucy is a writer compelled to finish a novel which leads her to postpone treatment for a trip to England for research. She is exploring the mysterious death of an Elizabethan woman, Amy Robsart, the wife of Lord Dudley. Yes, that Dudley, the one Queen Elizabeth loved. Lucy and Amy are women in vastly different circumstances sharing the timeless experience of betrayal. As the story unfolds, Lucy faces her family worried about her health and her erstwhile spouse begging for reconciliation. Amy is strategizing to secure Dudley from the queen.

The clever part is the way Amy enters the narrative as Lucy sees and experiences her, supplemented by site visits for the story and research. Amy’s voice is transmitted through Lucy’s recording of the thoughts, setting, and

vision of Amy and her events. Dunn, like many current writers, brings a fascinating story with lots of gaps in the record to today’s reader. Lucy is us, with life complications. The arrival of Amy in the middle of Lucy’s day and life feels right. This is a story of complicated choices. There are no easy answers for either Lucy or Amy. Each woman makes decisions that alter her life. We know, from the start, for Amy it ends in a death in questionable circumstances. Award-winning author Dunn cleverly crafts a tale worth reading. Highly recommended.

Catherine Mathis

THE KILLING TIME

Elly Griffiths, Quercus, 2026, £22.00, hb, 352pp, 9781529433388

With The Killing Time, Elly Griffiths once again demonstrates her gift for blending crime, character, and high-concept storytelling into something both gripping and deeply enjoyable. The latest instalment in the Ali Dawson series finds its time-travelling detective grounded by bureaucratic caution—until curiosity, instinct, and a missing cat conspire to pull her back into danger.

At its heart, this is a cold-case mystery with a darkly contemporary edge. The suspicious death of a young man, persuaded by a charismatic psychic that he could fly, taps into modern anxieties about manipulation and belief. Griffiths handles this strand with sensitivity, allowing Ali’s scepticism and moral urgency to drive the investigation. The decision to pursue the case outside official channels feels entirely true to character.

The inevitable return to Victorian London is where the novel truly comes alive. The past is vividly realised, rich with grime, menace, and intrigue, and the reappearance of Jones—lost, presumed gone forever—adds both emotional weight and narrative momentum. Cain Templeton remains a compellingly unsettling presence, blurring lines between ally and adversary and deepening the novel’s sense of unease.

What sets The Killing Time apart is its tone. Despite the high stakes and moments of genuine darkness, the book is laced with warmth, wit, and humanity. Ali herself is a thoroughly engaging protagonist: sharp, flawed, stubborn, and often funny, particularly in her interactions with colleagues and in the small domestic details that ground the story.

Inventive without being gimmicky, tense yet playful, The Killing Time confirms Ali Dawson as one of the most original detectives in contemporary crime fiction. Griffiths balances paradox with precision, delivering a novel that is as thoughtful as it is entertaining.

Aidan K. Morrissey

THE DEADLY LIFE OF DIANA PENN

Shawn Inmon & Kirsten McKenzie, Squabbling Sparrows, 2025, $14.99, pb, 384pp, 9798298435345

Successful MI6 agent Diana Penn retires to the Northumberland village of Cheviot Hills – the same village she’d been billeted to with the Women’s Land Army during WWII. She’s a reserved woman who experienced life as an outsider and expects the same in retirement. But that changes when she watches council

workers demolish a nearby playground and uncover unexploded bombs. Instead of dying in the explosion, Diana is transported to the Cheviot Hills of December 1944. She’s young again and the cows need milking. Diana is about to relive her life with the wisdom and experience of an older woman.

The Deadly Life of Diana Penn is a Middle Falls Universe novel, and this means that Diana is given a second chance in life. With guidance from the Watchers at the Universal Life Center, Diana needs to address what was missing in her first life, set a few things right, and prevent some disasters from occurring. Each time Diana fails, she meets with a deadly accident and her life is again reset.

Diana Penn is an easy character to like – mostly because she’s applying the thoughtfulness of age to the experiences of a young adult. I enjoyed the foreshadowing of major historical events and Diana’s constant care to not appear like someone with second sight. The book includes some well-drawn descriptions of London in the Blitz and country life in the 1940s, though I felt that some of the material about 1940s farming life fell flat, and I didn’t always trust the consistency of descriptions. Diana’s internal dialogue shows how she challenges and changes her original perceptions of herself and others. However, the book has one important mystery that is never resolved, and I felt it needed more reflection – even if the final message is that some things can’t be changed.

Judy Gregory

CHILDREN & YOUNG ADULT UNDER FIRE

Sufiya Ahmed, illus. Hazem Asef, Bloomsbury Education, 2025, £7.99, pb, 201pp, 9781801995627

There is wonderful storytelling for 9-11s in this story by Sufiya Ahmed, who has previously won CrimeFest’s Best Crime Novel for Children. The book begins in war-torn Coventry, but soon Hasan and his sister Hana (who are Anglo-Indian) are evacuated to Calcutta to live with their grandpa. Hasan has experienced extreme trauma when their home was bombed by the Germans and Hana was injured. Through his troubled eyes we see flashbacks to the fire, while in the present he encounters different kinds of oppression such as the ‘Whites Only’ divide on board ship, and other cruel segregation imposed by the British in India. When Hasan befriends the politically aware Jaya, he discovers that there is growing rebellion against the British Raj.

Ahmed has a talent for conveying huge complexities in simple ways. As Hasan is drawn into a plan to sabotage Nazi ships in Goa, Jaya helps untangle the knot of moral issues: “I can want the British to beat the Nazis and for them to leave India, can’t I?” The plot is based on actual events that contributed to the British war effort. An author’s note says that the Reservist groups really existed, working undercover in India to disrupt German intelligence.

It is an action-filled story, rich in informative background without ever seeming ‘educational’. We hear about the humaninduced Bengal famine and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Hasan and Jaya cross India to

Goa in the guise of street children, providing glimpses of street life among the poorest. Crucially, the personal story is compelling, for as Hasan gains in confidence and independence, the flashbacks recede until he recognises the truth about Hana. This is that beautiful thing: a novel that works seamlessly on many levels from the emotional to the political, whilst also being a rollicking good read.

Marion Rose

THE BELGIAN GIRLS

Kathryn J. Atwood, Catherine Rose Press, 2025, $16.99, pb, 278pp, 9798218650889

This is a beautifully written dual-timeline novel about two courageous Belgian women, one in World War I and the other in World War II. Gabrielle Petit, the real-life World War I heroine, is an orphan who works as a shopgirl and gets engaged to a soldier. She is appalled by the atrocities committed by the German army during the invasion and occupation of Belgium, and she volunteers as a nurse and helps her fiancé escape to unoccupied territory, but instead of joining him, she decides to work for British Intelligence. Gabrielle faces great danger as she relays information about the German army to the Allies. In World War II, the second heroine, Julienne Gobert, moves with her widowed father to Brussels, where they live with her aunt. Julienne is horrified when she sees how the occupying Germans treat the Jews, and she suspects her aunt of being a collaborator. When she meets a bookseller’s family who are all members of the Resistance, Julienne overcomes her fears and does her part to help Allied airmen escape to safety.

Both heroines are very admirable characters, and quite different from each other, which I find refreshing, because I have read other dual-timeline novels where the protagonists seem like they could be the same person in different times. Gabrielle is vibrant and outgoing, while Julienne is shy and awkward, but they both share a love of their country, and the courage to fight against its oppressors. There is a connection between the two heroines, which I will not reveal. We learn Gabrielle’s fate early on, but our suspense is kept up because we don’t know the details. Julienne is fictional but seems just as real as Gabrielle. The book is written for young adults, but adults will enjoy it as well. Highly recommended.

Vicki Kondelik

EUREKA

Victoria Chang, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026, $18.99/C$24.99, hb, 272pp, 9780374393533

Mei Mei, 12, is constantly being warned by her parents that it’s not safe for her in 1885 San Francisco. But she feels safe in the embrace of the Chinese community. She and the other children play in the streets and shops without fear. At home Mei Mei does much of the cooking and cleaning, since her mom’s bound feet make walking and standing difficult. Although Chinese children are barred from attending the public schools, Mei Mei is getting a patchwork education, learning Chinese at one part-time school and English at a church.

One day Mei Mei’s parents tell her they’re

sending her to live in Eureka, some 300 miles away. A judge has declared the Chinese children there cannot be excluded from the public schools. Her parents also believe Mei Mei will be safer.

But when she arrives at her aunt and uncle’s shack in Eureka, the town isn’t at all like what Mei Mei and her parents thought it would be. Mei Mei has to work at a rich white family’s house, and afterwards cook for her aunt and uncle. Her wages are paid to her aunt and uncle, and there’s no word from her parents. Despite all this, Mei Mei is making the best of things, when violence erupts within and against the Chinese community.

The reader experiences the historically accurate expulsion of Chinese people from Eureka through Mei Mei’s eyes and ears. It’s scary, but the novel’s first-person point of view subtly reassures us that Mei Mei will be all right. Unlike many free-verse novels, this one has lots of action, with plot twists that made my heart race. The publisher recommended ages are 8-12, but I feel 10-13 may be more appropriate.

Lisa Lowe Stauffer

WHERE ONLY STORMS GROW

Alyssa Colman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2025, $17.99/C$23.99, hb, 256pp, 9780374392789

As 1935 begins, dust is wrecking everything in the Oklahoma Panhandle. When the dusters blow through, they leave piles of dust like snowdrifts against the Stantons’ house and barn, and sometimes inside as well. To make matters worse, the twelve-year-old Stanton twins, Joanna and Howe, have been drifting apart for the past several months. Joanna’s scoliosis leaves her in near-constant pain, so Mama won’t let her help with much. Meanwhile, Howe hides from his despair by reading and writing poetry in secret and dreaming of escaping their gritty lifestyle.

He thinks he’s found his chance when their father announces he’s going to California to find work. But because Joanna’s condition makes her too fragile to travel so far, he’s going alone. Howe must stay behind with Joanna, their mother, and their 21-year-old brother, Lou, to keep the farm running. But when an accident leaves Lou bedridden, the twins have to work together not only to keep the farm running but to save it—and each other.

Told in Howe’s and Joanna’s alternating viewpoints, the novel introduces young readers to the struggles of Oklahomans in the Dust Bowl. Through age-appropriate depictions, Colman shows the blindness of being caught in a dust storm, the toll of “dust pneumonia,” and even the danger of static electricity during and right after a storm. The twins are simultaneously old souls and typical preteens, with all the usual insecurities that come with that age. And while the siblings often squabble, in the end, they remember that together, they are much more than the sum of their parts. This is a beautifully crafted novel full of hope. Highly recommended for ages 8-12.

Sarah Hendess

DAUGHTER OF THE UNDERWORLD

Katharine Corr and Elizabeth Corr, Candlewick, 2025, $19.99, hb, 448pp, 9781536244533

In this suspenseful page-turner, familiar characters from Greek mythology are reinvented to create a tale of friendship, betrayal, tyranny, and rebellion. Deina is one of a group of Severers, tasked with accompanying the dead to the entrance of the Underworld. Each time a Severer performs this risky and difficult service, they are given a year off the term of their indenture. Deina is a trickster and a petty thief, desperate to free herself and her best friend, Chryse (a somewhat cliché blonde), from this servitude. In exchange for the chance to be freed on completion of a seemingly impossible task, Deina volunteers to be one of a group of Severers sent to the Underworld to rescue the nymph Eurydice, who died on the day she wed the singer Orpheus.

While any fan of Greek mythology will recognize many of the principal players and action, they will soon see that the familiar story and cast of characters have undergone major changes: Orpheus, far from being a mourning songster, is a vicious tyrant seeking immortality at a tremendous cost. Eurydice is no longer the passive victim of her husband’s lack of faith. Hades, while still deity of the Underworld, is changed in ways that would perplex the ancients. Thanatos, the god of death, is surprisingly attractive and helpful. Aristaeus, whose role in the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is usually forgotten, here becomes a major figure.

The action, suspense, and betrayals are nonstop; some readers will wish for variation in the pacing to catch their breath. But most will enjoy this clever female-centered retelling, which keeps readers guessing all along the way. First in a duology. Young adult.

Tracy Barrett

THE BLITZ SISTERS

Judith Eagle, Faber, 2026, £7.99, pb, 473pp, 9780571388707

A very enjoyable story featuring three sisters during World War Two and its immediate aftermath. Each of the chronological sections focuses on one of them, at the same time giving insights into the lives of the other two and their close circle of relatives and friends. In some ways they resemble Noel Streatfeild’s Fossil sisters in Ballet Shoes, each with their own interests and talents, and there are frequent references to the children’s books with which they are familiar. Lydia develops her culinary skills which will serve her well professionally in later life. Impetuous Peggy has inherited her parents’ artistic talents. Teddy (Theodora) has a magpie mind and is a constant collector of facts.

The girls are alert to their widowed mother’s struggles, and a significant strand in the novel is her own gradual realisation of how she can balance her relationships, including being a mother, and being an artist. With the absence of the men in their lives, whether permanently or temporarily, the ways in which women and girls adapt, whether by necessity or choice, are central and interesting historical details relating to everyday life are woven in seamlessly.

The various settings in which the characters

find themselves during and beyond the war years are vividly portrayed, ranging from the country cottage to where the girls are evacuated to stay with their Aunt Phoebe to the streets of Paris and different areas of London. I found the middle section of the novel particularly evocative, as the family are situated in the area of London closest to my own heart, so it was with personal pleasure that I followed Peggy as she traverses Peckham Rye Common and many familiar streets in Peckham and Walworth as well as finding encouragement at Camberwell School of Art.

Ann Lazim

HATTIE MAE BEGINS AGAIN

Sharon G. Flake, Knopf, 2026, $17.99, hb, 368pp, 9780593650349

Hattie Mae is a North Carolina country girl who comes to Philadelphia to enroll in Miss Abigail’s School for Exceptional Girls, run by her cousin. The school is situated near Black Doctors’ Row, the heart of Black Philadelphia society in the late 1930s. Miss Abigail’s girls are expected to be more than well-mannered young ladies; they’re encouraged to put their education to good use and dream big, imagining themselves in change-making occupations—dreams society didn’t encourage young women to embrace at the time.

As Hattie Mae weighs her options for the future as a lawyer, doctor, or banker, she feels the cold weight of classism adding to the hindrances of race and gender stereotypes. She can’t tune out the fact that some of her fellow students don’t think she measures up. Before long, her own inner voice joins the chorus, whispering that she doesn’t belong at school.

But the poor girl from the South with dirt on her heels has a kind heart, a steely spine, and two hands ready to put plans in action and help others along the way. Before long, she’s teaching others what it truly means to be an exceptional girl.

Told in verse, Hattie Mae Begins Again is a sequel to Flake’s 2023 book Once in a Blue Moon, which focused on Hattie Mae’s twin brother, James Henry. Though it’s a work of fiction, the author includes a list of resources at the end and provides an interesting afterword to help the intended audience of 8–12-yearolds understand the historical setting.

Rebecca Langston-George

DANCE OF RESISTANCE

Catherine Johnson, illus. Katie Hickey, Barrington Stoke, 2025, £7.99, pb, 122pp, 9780008726218

A first-person narrative of the life of the Black dancer Josephine Baker, Dance of Resistance is a travelogue, biography and political statement all-in-one, written in a sharp, observant voice and straightforward prose. Told with humour and snappy dialogue, it explores Josephine’s life from cradle to grave and, like the famous dancer herself, never misses a beat.

Born in poverty in east St. Louis, Missouri, USA, Josephine is sent out to her first job at seven and is performing on the stage at thirteen – her mother giving her permission to go in the immortal words, ‘If they can feed you, they can have you.’ Married at thirteen

to a man eight years older, whom she swiftly left, Josephine took to a life on stage as a singer and dancer but soon identified her true gift as comedy. Her life from then on is a roller-coaster of triumph and disaster, but always she emerges victorious - combatant, proud and assured. From Harlem in its Golden Age to Paris in the 1930s she is acclaimed and feted, the first Black super-star – although in the USA she is still not allowed to stay in the same hotel as her white companions. A French citizen during World War Two, she joins the Resistance and survives. She lived to see the birth of the civil rights movement in the US, and to be honoured by her adoptive country.

Such an energetic life requires an energetic treatment, and this author does not disappoint. She storms through this extraordinary life with wit, verve and sympathy and makes clear for a young audience both the seriousness of the issues addressed – racism, fascism and misogyny – and the elation with which Josephine Baker smashed the boundaries of her time and place. A pleasure to read. Recommended for children, girls especially, of 10 – 14 years.

Jane Burke

COTTONOPOLIS

S. F. Layzell, Northodox Press, 2024, £8.99, pb, 130pp, 9781915179395

This short novel opens with Nellie Doyle describing the sights and sounds of 1840s Manchester, where she lives in one room in an area known as Little Ireland with her parents and three younger brothers. She works long and dangerous hours in a cotton mill, a job she must keep to support her family when her father is made redundant.

In rare moments of freedom, Nellie explores wealthier parts of the city and meets Chloe Valentine, a Black girl who she discovers lives in the workhouse. A man advertising a circus gives Nellie seven pieces of paper, each of which purportedly grants her a wish. While this provides a magical element in what is otherwise realistic historical fiction, most of the events Nellie believes result from her wishes could be attributed to coincidence and interpretation of circumstances.

Nellie addresses the reader directly in the present tense giving her story immediacy. She demonstrates her political awareness early on, saying that cotton comes from America and that it is grown by slaves. ‘Most of the bosses here don’t like to talk about all the people that get hurt to make them rich, but everyone knows about it. Don’t let them tell you otherwise.’

The author’s stated aim is ‘to give voice to imagined queer characters in real historical settings.’ They have certainly achieved this with a lively portrayal of two girls whose feelings for each other grow gradually during the story, combined with working class history that has been insufficiently explored in children’s literature. Minor characters include an unnamed man [Friedrich Engels] writing a report on living conditions in Manchester, and Mr Francis, based on a former slave who gave lectures about slavery to British workers.

Shortlisted for the 2025 Little Rebels Award, which promotes children’s books that explore social justice.

Ann Lazim

LINNET AND THE PERIWINKLE FLYER

Lindsay Littleson, Tiny Tree, 2025, £9.99, pb, 184pp, 9780722355404

Linnet Hill is an orphan living at St. Mary’s convent in 1872. Some of the nuns, like Martha, are compassionate and tolerant of Linnet’s enquiring mind and passion for invention. Others, like Sister Augustina, are sadistic and cruel. After several years, Linnet is released to work for Mrs. Periwinkle and her generoushearted son, Oliver. Mrs. Periwinkle is a strict but kind mother who harbours two big secrets.

Mrs. Periwinkle’s first big secret is that she is an inventor. She has been working on a flying machine unbeknownst to anyone, including Oliver. Why did Mrs. Periwinkle want Linnet to come to live and work with them and can Linnet help get the machine to fly?

Linnet and all the characters in Littleson’s work are believable and three-dimensional. The historical context is well realized, and Littleson also covers the smallpox epidemic in Leeds and Bradford in 1872. Smallpox is very little written about in middle grade literature and the discussion of it was interesting. Littleson recreated the fear the population would have felt of this disease. Smallpox victims were ostracised and this is also discussed.

Mrs. Periwinkle’s second big secret is that she too was an orphan, and this brings her closer to Linnet in a heartwarming way. Littleson has woven a very detailed, historical world which will also be enjoyed by lovers of science and maths. Her novel is well worth reading.

Rebecca Butler

BEYOND SEVEN FORESTS

Amanda McCrina, Carolrhoda Lab, 2026, $18.99/C$28.95, hb, 192pp, 9798765670811

As the novel opens, 18-year-old Renia, a Polish countess and the only surviving member of her family, is on trial and facing a death sentence amid World War I on the Eastern Front. The AustroHungarian authorities have accused her of helping two deserters from the Russian army, one of whom awaits his turn for trial and execution. Then she tells her story of coming home from her shift as a nurse to the ruins of her family’s estate in the middle of a snowstorm to find the two teenage soldiers occupying her kitchen (the only room not burned out in a previous attack) and demanding at gunpoint that she treat the wounds of the younger soldier. Under the horrific conditions, including lack of heat and sanitation, the younger soldier dies. Trapped together, Renia and the older boy get to know each other across lines of class and allegiance. She learns that Adya is also Polish, a commoner whom the Russians forced into the army against his will. And she begins to

fall in love with him as they discover that they have more in common than the things that separate them.

McCrina’s tightly written, lyrical novel for teens depicts a little-known aspect of World War I from the perspective of a Polish subject of Austria-Hungary. The author sheds light on class and ethnic divisions of a region not only devastated by war but also changed by the erosion of feudal relations between nobility and peasants in the face of industrialization, women’s rights, and socialism. Among those who have put Renia on trial are military officers seeking to make Poland into an independent and democratic state. Readers will quickly sympathize with the intrepid Renia and hope her remarkable story will lead these officers to mercy rather than a harsh retribution.

Lyn Miller-Lachmann

EXQUISITE THINGS

Abdi Nazemian, HarperCollins, 2025, $15.99, hb, 383pp, 9780063339682

An element of magical realism complicates the romance between Shahriar, a teen of Persian descent, and American musician Oliver. The two meet at a secret gay gathering at Harvard in 1920. They feel an immediate attraction, but Oliver is puzzled by the orange glow in Shahriar/Shams/Bram’s eyes (he assumes different names during the course of the story). Oliver does not know that Bram was actually born in 1878 and has become agelessly immortal, 17 forever, thanks to a magic wish granted when Bram burned a page of an Oscar Wilde manuscript during a confrontation with his father. He still possesses several additional pages and persuades Oliver to make a similar wish, but without informing Oliver that he will also remain 17 forever. Oliver then resents how immortality cuts off his relationship with his family. He and Bram are apart for decades as a result, only sometimes communicating through classified ads in the newspaper. The story jumps in time between 1895, 1920, Thatcher’s London ca. 1980, and 2025, and the point of view alternates between the two boys, which can get a little confusing.

The sections set in 1980 are the most appealing and heartwarming, as Bram and Oliver are accepted into a found family headed by trans seamstress Lily, and experience some elusive happiness. But after having to move on separately, they don’t meet again until 2025, when they are faced with the decision of whether to try to cancel the immortality charm. Well-drawn secondary characters, especially in the 1980 section, enhance the story. Readers will learn about LGBTQ history in different eras, while empathizing with Bram and Oliver’s on-again off-again romance. Keeping track of the time and point-ofview jumps require some concentration, but readers will be rewarded with a memorable love story. Young adult.

B.J. Sedlock

THE LION’S RUN

Sara Pennypacker, illus. Jon Klassen, Balzer + Bray, 2026, $18.99/C$25.99, hb, 288pp, 9781250392817

In German-occupied France in 1944, two young people from very different backgrounds bond over a common love of animals. When Lucas, an orphan from the local abbey, finds a horse stable in which to stash the kittens he’s rescued, he discovers Alice, a well-off horse trainer’s daughter, who is hiding a beloved horse to keep it from being taken by the Nazis as a battle mount.

While Lucas is disparagingly called the “petit éclair” by the other rough-and-tumble orphans for being kindhearted and soft, his bravery, along with Alice’s thoughtful and detailed planning, make this a book the reader won’t be able to put down.

That’s due in large part to Pennypacker’s unique approach to the well-trod topic of World War II in this middle-grade historical novel, combining the characters’ mutual love of animals with a plot thread involving the Lebensborn, the Nazis’ maternity homes designed to breed and care for pure-born Aryan children. It’s there, while delivering goods for the greengrocer each day, that Lucas experiences the only maternal love he’s ever known. It’s also where he’ll face the ultimate challenge of what it means to truly be kind and brave.

With a tight plot and young characters who actively resist and thwart the Nazis while remaining tenderhearted, The Lion’s Run is sure to delight readers ages 8-12 as well as their teachers.

Rebecca Langston-George

THE SIREN AND THE STAR

Colby Cedar Smith, Simon & Schuster, 2025, $21.99/C$29.99, hb, 536pp, 9781665972178

This ambitious book is a novel in verse, envisioned in the form of a three-act opera. Weighing a pound and a half and comprising 536 pages, it’s a bit daunting at first. But its cover is enticing, and the text opens with a helpful guide to its structure and symbols. Also, the lines of narrative verse are mostly so short and the language is so simple that the story unfolds quickly and clearly.

Its “Star” is Lula Gabroni, a shy 17-year-old freshman at the New England Conservatory of Music. She is also a prodigiously talented singer who immediately finds the roommate, professor, and boy of her dreams, as well as a musical hero and inspiration. Her “Siren” is Barbara Strozzi, an actual Venetian Baroque composer and performer whose seductive persona lights up the pages as the female voices alternate. Sensitive, imaginative Lula

tells her story in the college world of 2025, but when Barbara narrates in seventeenthcentury Venice, the novel really becomes operatic.

Soon, however, Lula joins a group of musicians invited to perform in modern Venice, and the two prima donnas come together in spirit and space, if not time. Of course, both heroines face serious obstacles before they meet in the satisfying finale. “Hearts brought together by music,” they sing, “will never die.”

This opera on paper also features romance, fortunetelling, mysticism, a female secret society, vivid descriptions of Venice, verbal evocations of music, and skillful use of historical research—as well as, appropriately, a playlist.

Colby Cedar Smith received many accolades for her first YA novel, Call Me Athena: Girl from Detroit, and this one is likely to add to her honors. Ages 14 and up.

Susan Lowell

LOCKETT & WILDE: The Ghosts of London

Lucy Strange, illus. Pam Smy, Walker Books, 2025, £8.99, pb, 208pp, 9781529516012

The delightful gothic duo of Matilda Lockett and her friend, the charismatic ghost, Edgar Wilde, are about to solve another mystery in the supernatural world of Victorian London. Having read the first novel in the series, I wondered how their story would evolve. This beautifully written and illustrated novel does not disappoint. It delivers action, humour, thrills, and lovely heartwarming moments between Aunt Evelyn (Signora Valentino), Uncle Barnabus and the tuneful parakeet, Colin. Her aunt and uncle now have their own theatre in which to perform their supernatural shows as Evelyn fakes being a medium –however, Matilda has the gift, and her ghostly contact adds a realistic dimension to the show.

This dark tale of murder, thievery and betrayal is presented in a fast-paced, engaging way, which is far from dark in its delivery. When a newspaper headline reveals her father’s ex-business partner, and convict, Max Grabb, has been released from prison, a mystery is revealed which the duo cannot ignore. Matilda discovers more about her parents’ death in a hot air balloon, as she follows the clues and London’s ghosts through the eerie streets.

This middle-grade book is fun yet does not lack depth. It shows the importance of family and friends and the interactions and acceptance, even across the supernatural divide. A murder is solved; the past is revealed and a bond of friendship strengthened. I will look forward to reading the next book in the series. I recommend this for 8 years up over – with no upper limit. Excellent read, highly recommended.

Valerie Loh

CONFERENCES

The Society organizes biennial conferences in the UK, North America, and Australasia. Contact Richard Lee <richard@historicalnovelsociety.org> (UK), Elizabeth R. Andersen <hnsnaboardchair@gmail.com> (North America), or Elisabeth Storrs <contact@hnsa.org.au> (Australasia).