Tag Archives: historical fiction

#BookReview ‘Divided Souls’ by Toby Clements #historicalfiction #WarsoftheRoses

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England 1469. For five years, Thomas and Katherine Everingham have lived in peace until the divisions of the Wars of the Roses envelop them again. Divided Souls by Toby Clements is third in the Kingmaker series set during this deadly and complex time of on-off war between the houses of York and Lancaster. Toby ClementsAt the heart of Divided Souls is the rebellion by the Duke of Warwick against King Edward IV. Thomas and Katherine, now with a five-year-old son Rufus, never look for trouble. But when Thomas is asked by his former commander Lord William Hastings to travel to Yorkshire to monitor enemy troop movements, the Everinghams cannot refuse. And then Hastings admits his real reason for sending them north from their Lincolnshire home. He wants them to find a ledger, find it before Warwick’s supporters do. The value of the ledger is unexplained but Thomas and Katherine already know because it is buried beneath their hearth, hidden because of the deadly information it contains. And they are the only people who know where it is.
So the three Everinghams, with faithful retainers one-armed John Stump, Jack and his pregnant wife Nettie, set out for York. Old friends and familiar foes are encountered once again in Yorkshire and on a new battlefield. Old fears and nightmares that return are deepened as Thomas and Katherine, with Rufus to protect, feel vulnerable in a way they never have before. Their five years of domestic peace at Marton Hall seem a fleeting moment as the couple are separated again, Thomas must fight and Katherine faces battlefield surgery. And all the time they know that the enemy and other agents working for Hastings are searching for the ledger. Terrified of being caught, they discuss the consequences of burning it, burying it or simply giving it to Hastings.
Clements negotiates his way through a complex and confusing time in history, placing his fictional characters into an imagined setting within the facts known of the times. The result is quick-reading tale that races from one difficult decision to another as Thomas and Katherine journey into the unknown, no sooner escaping from one danger before facing another. Loved ones must be left behind, home must be abandoned and once safe familiar places are now dangerous. As King Edward’s loyal lords rebel, it isn’t only Thomas and Katherine who don’t know who to trust.
Excellent.
This is the third in the series. Please start reading with Winter Pilgrims in order to enjoy Kingmaker at its best and to fully appreciate the long-standing loyalties, fear and hatred that runs throughout Clements’ telling of two innocent people caught up in the Wars of the Roses.

Read my reviews of the other books in this series:-
WINTER PILGRIMS #1KINGMAKER
BROKEN FAITH #2KINGMAKER

And also by Toby Clements:-
A GOOD DELIVERANCE

If you like this, try:-
‘Cecily’ by Annie Garthwaite
‘The Other Gwyn Girl’ by Nicola Cornick
‘The Lady of the Rivers’ by Philippa Gregory

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COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Stephen Spotswood

#BookReview ‘The House of Seymour’ by Joanna Hickson @joannahickson #historicalfiction  

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A preface featuring the best known Seymour of them all, Jane, sets the background to The House of Seymour by Joanna Hickson. It is 1537 and a new coat of arms has been created for Queen Jane as she awaits the birth of her first child. It features six crests: King Henry VIII’s personal symbols, the badge of the Seymour family plus four that are unfamiliar to the queen. They belong to her four grandmothers. Joanna HicksonThe House of Seymour starts in 1424 and concentrates on the life of sixteen-year-old Isabel Williams who is promised to a boy she loves. It is a love match, her betrothed Thomas Stamford is of a good family and a friend to Isabel’s younger brother and Williams heir Robert. But when Rob dies of a fever, Isabel’s parents seek a more advantageous match for their remaining child. And so she marries into the Seymour family. John Seymour is a good customer of Isabel’s father, a vintner, and Mark Williams has discovered John is also heir to a rich grandfather. He is set to inherit a Wiltshire manor, Wolf Hall, and the wardenship of Savernake, a royal hunting forest. And so Isabel’s life changes forever.
Running parallel to Isabel’s story is that of Jess Henge, unusually a shepherdess, whose family live at Henge Farm beside the standing stones at Avebury. This is an area of superstition and the family are regarded as different, especially when one of the ewes cared for by Jess gives birth to two lambs. When her cousin Addy disappears in odd circumstances from the Long Barrow at Silbury Down, villagers say Addy was stolen by the devil. Whisperers and gossips blame Jess. In search of a church where she may give confession to a priest who does not know her, she flees to Easton Priory.
This is a story of godliness and superstition, of cruelty and kindness, of naked ambition fuelled by the gains to be made by moving in royal circles. It is a story of loyalty and support among women and friends, sometimes from unexpected places, and the arrogance and sense of superiority of a male-dominated society that sees women as objects. Foreshadowing of King Henry VIII, perhaps, though not all the male characters in the book are thoughtless or rough in their treatment of women.
I read The House of Seymour easily over a weekend and enjoyed this glimpse into society on the edge of royal circles when King Henry VI is a young child. Isabel Seymour and Jessica Henge are two very different women, both compelling characters who face pain and abuse by holding their heads up high. The pace drops at times but my curiosity about the women kept me reading.
An intriguing insight into a family I know little about. The two major settings, Wolf Hall and Avebury, are wonderfully depicted. I anticipate further Seymour novels telling the life stories of Jane’s other female relatives.

Here are my reviews of Hickson’s two Queens of the Tower books:-
THE LADY OF THE RAVENS #1QUEENSOFTHETOWER
THE QUEEN’S LADY #2QUEENSOFTHETOWER

If you like this, try:-
‘The Royal Rebel’ by Elizabeth Chadwick #1JEANETTEOFKENT
‘Days Without End’ by Sebastian Barry #1DAYSWITHOUTEND
‘Orphans of the Carnival’ by Carol Birch

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COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Kate Quinn

#BookReview ‘The Royal Rebel’ by Elizabeth Chadwick @Chadwickauthor #historicalfiction #medieval

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1338 England is at war with France. The court of King Edward III travels to Calais and with them goes Jeanette of Kent, a rebellious, outspoken, daring, determined young girl, all the things a lady of the court is supposed not to be. War runs throughout The Royal Rebel by Elizabeth Chadwick and so does love. I loved Jeanette’s character arc through the course of this book, from impressionable young teenager to twenty-something. As a cousin of the king, twelve-year-old Jeanette spends much of her time at court, chaperoned, managed, supervised, hardly ever alone. In Calais, she meets a young soldier, commoner Thomas Holland, and the two fall head over heels in love. Married secretly their plans immediately go wrong. Jeanette returns to England with the court while Thomas must go to war again. Both are desperately in love.
As happens with any young woman of the court, Jeanette is expected to make a pragmatic politically-acceptable marriage. When told she must marry a childhood acquaintance William Montagu who she dislikes, she explains she is already married. Her mother and William’s reject Jeanette’s inconvenient story as a child’s fancy and deem her evidence insubstantial. Jeanette has no choice but to marry as she is told, ‘she could not refuse; she was a sparrow tossed in a storm wind, wings over tail. She curtseyed, and took her leave, carrying herself with pride and grace until she was out of the door, but then grabbed her skirts in her fists and started to run… on and on… [until] the enormity of what she had tried to outrun caught up with her like a gazehound on a hare.’
This is essentially a love story set within the unemotional, unromantic world of the court. Marriage matches are made for convenience, diplomacy, for political gain, wealth and property; never for love. Jeanette and Thomas’ love for each other means nothing. Decisions are taken about their lives without their input. There are many twists and turns in this story and I really rooted for the couple to find a way to be together. They are manipulated, lied to, separated, bullied and abused. Thomas must continue to earn his living as a soldier and a piece of luck means he gains the funds to mount a legal challenge. But this court case moves so slowly, delayed by process, by the spreading plague, by machinations of the witnesses giving evidence against Jeanette and Thomas. But the couple, still so young, continue their fight, continue to hope despite all the setbacks, opposition and accusations of dishonesty. Jeanette learns patience, ‘All her hopes were like beautiful eggshells, and she dared not tread too heavily for fear that they would shatter.’
Elizabeth Chadwick has created strong, nuanced characters to care for. She is a new author for me and now I look forward to reading the sequel, The Crownless Queen.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Last Hours’ by Minette Walters #1BLACKDEATH
‘The Turn of Midnight’ by Minette Walters #2BLACKDEATH
‘The Story Spinner’ by Barbara Erskine

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#BookReview THE ROYAL REBEL by Elizabeth Chadwick @Chadwickauthor https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8Sj via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Catherine Airey

#BookReview ‘The Secret Keeper’ by Renita D’Silva @RenitaDSilva #romance #India #WW2

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From 1930s India to England in World War Two and the 1990s, The Secret Keeper by Renita D’Silva is the story of Rani Raj, the secrets she kept, the secrets she didn’t keep and the fallout across two generations. Renita D’SilvaRani grows up in pre-war Europe with her Indian father, a crown prince, and German mother. Their life is thrown into turmoil when her grandfather dies and her baba becomes king. This doesn’t simply mean that the family must relocate to India, but that they must abandon their Marxist beliefs and adopt the wealthy segregated existence that goes with the royal role. Rani and her mother must live in the women’s zenana, separately from Rani’s father and brother Arjun. Rani’s entire world turns upside down, she struggles to understand her father’s about-face of everything he believed in, and encouraged her to believe. Planning to study at university, Rani’s world becomes limited to an enclosed space, albeit a beautiful, privileged one.
Strong-willed Rani rebels. Adopting her maid’s sari and strong accent, she ventures beyond the palace walls where she meets the milkman’s son Prasad and falls in love. After a misguided plan to convince her father the king that Prasad is a suitable husband for her, she is banished to England where she studies at university. In Cambridge she struggles with an ethical dilmena; her delight at being able to study again, against the silence from her family and the uncertainty about Prasad’s fate. She writes home weekly but receives no reply. It is a severe punishment for an idealistic, hopelessly naive mistake.
When war begins, Rani is recruited as a codebreaker at Bletchley Park while her best friend Gertie joins the Special Operations Executive. I so wanted to know more about Gertie, and it’s at this point that I felt the book could have gone in a different direction.
In England 1990, a young woman called Esme is bereaved twice in a matter of weeks. First her beloved, quiet, academic father dies, and then the family’s motherly housekeeper Mrs Lewes who has raised Esme in the absence of a mother. Struggling with her grief, Esme visits a counsellor who encourages her to explore her past family history. A visit to her older brother Andrew unveils a childhood different from the one she remembers.
The Secret Keeper is a moralistic story about teenage mistakes having a tragic consequence in the adult world. This is an emotional story about the traps of idealistic first love coming back to haunt you in later life. Young Rani makes promises without understanding or stopping to think what it may mean to keep them.
I always enjoy Renita D’Silva’s stories set in India. Whether describing extremes of wealth or poverty her description puts me in the place, in all its intensity and power.

Read my reviews of these other novels by Renita D’Silva:-
A DAUGHTER’S COURAGE
A MOTHER’S SECRET
BENEATH AN INDIAN SKY
THE GIRL IN THE PAINTING
THE ORPHAN’S GIFT
THE SPICE MAKER’S SECRET
THE WAR CHILD

If you like this, try:-
‘Daughters of War’ by Dinah Jefferies #1DAUGHTERSOFWAR
‘The Secret History of Audrey James’ by Heather Marshall
‘Dear Mrs Bird’ by AJ Pearce

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COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:-

#BookReview ‘The Silk Code’ by Deborah Swift @swiftstory #WW2

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World War Two is one of my favourite periods to read about and so I expected much from The Silk Code by Deborah Swift, especially as it is based on the Special Operations Executive in London. Coding, female agents, secrets, spies. Deborah SwiftOn the rebound from a broken engagement, Nancy Callaghan leaves her beautiful but claustrophobic home in Scotland for London. Her brother Neil, who works in an unnamed adminstrative department in Baker Street, offers to put her forward for a secretarial job. Except Baker Street is the home of SOE and Nancy turns out to be a dab hand at decoding, especially the ‘indecipherables,’ the messages sent by agents that are muddled and meaningless. Nancy finds Neil much changed; he seems to sleep little, is out much of the night, is grumpy and uncommunicative. Then when Nancy takes a shine to Tom Lockwood, the expert who trains the coders, Neil instantly disapproves. Of course there is more going on here than office politics. Is it simply a matter of professional jealousy or is there a traitor in the building? Why is the death rate of SOE agents parachuted into Holland so high? And why won’t the bosses listen to Tom’s suspicions? When Nancy is given an ultimatum – spy on your colleagues for the good of your country, or be demoted and moved from Baker Street – she feels she has no choice.
This is a thrilling story packed with moral choices of the ‘do the easy thing or the right thing’ type. Based on true history but populated with mostly fictional characters, Swift has written a novel that kept me reading just another chapter. The pace is fast following the introduction to Nancy in rural Scotland and Swift convincingly shows Nancy’s difficulties arriving in a strange city, living in a box room in her taciturn brother’s flat, training to do a job that isn’t explained alongside colleagues who have all signed the Official Secrets Act. As Nancy is trying to work out what is going on, so is the reader. Everyone knows only so much and everyone, it seems, has secrets.
When Tom and Nancy invent a method of printing one-time codes on silk cloth that can be hidden in the agents’ clothing, little do they realise that Nancy will soon be in Holland. Half-Dutch and fluent in the language, Nancy is a natural for SOE espionage training. But she truly has little idea of what she is flying into. N-Section in Holland is a vipers’ nest of double agents with Nazis masquerading as Allied coders. From the moment her feet touch the ground, she doesn’t know who to trust.
The Silk Code is a very good introduction to Swift’s WW2 Secret Agent series. Next is The Shadow Network. Deborah Swift is a new author to me and I’d also like to read some of her historical fiction.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society’ by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
‘Dominion’ by CJ Sansom
‘The Rose Code’ by Kate Quinn

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COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Renita D’Silva

#BookReview ‘Leeward’ by Katie Daysh #historicalfiction #adventure #navalwarfare

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I’m new to historical naval fiction and wasn’t sure what to expect from Leeward by Katie Daysh, first in the Nightingale & Courtney mystery series. Life at sea is brutal, and beautiful. It is lonely, and companionable. It is exhilarating, it is terrifying. Katie Daysh1800 Antigua. For Hiram Nightingale, naval captain and veteran of the Battle of the Nile, the sea is everything. ‘The sea. The sea… Nearly everything of importance in his life had happened on the ocean.’ Horribly injured, physically and emotionally, after the famous battle of the Napoleonic Wars and grieving for his lost crew, Hiram is encouraged back to sea by his father and father-in-law who arrange a captaincy in the West Indies. Expecting a quiet commission, instead he finds himself captain of the ‘Scylla’ charged with hunting down and apprehending a mutinied ship, the ‘Ulysses.’ His mission is to chase the ‘Ulysses’ wherever she goes, even around Cape Horn into the Pacific. It soon becomes clear that Hiram hasn’t been told the real reason for his mission or why the ‘Ulysses’ crew mutinied. He is uncertain who to trust either onboard or on shore and uncertain about his own capability to do the job.
I took a while to settle into the story but after that I didn’t want to put it down. For me there is just enough nautical detail to be interesting but not so much that I started to skip sections. Naval warfare tactics are fascinating as are the politics of the region and the character clashes on board, but professionalism, talent and justice mean nothing in the face of ostentatious wealth and overwhelming greed. Nightingale becomes a detective, hunting his prey, trying to decipher the truth of the crime. He is on a nautical journey, making his peace with the sea and grieving those he lost in battle; he’s also on an emotional journey, being honest with himself about his deepest nature. The gay sub-plot complements the main storyline but doesn’t dominate. As Hiram struggles with the lonely responsibility of command, his dreams are full of flashbacks to his loss of the ‘Lion’ at the Nile, moments with his wife Louisa, and an unforgettable, unforgiveable incident in his childhood. The journey parallels throughout to Homer’s Odyssey are handled with a light touch: Hiram’s ship the ‘Scylla’ is named after Homer’s multi-headed monster, while ‘Ulysses’ is the Roman name for Odysseus.
What a surprising delight this novel is, an insight into the professionalism of the Royal Navy, a fight to catch the criminals, the ocean, the unpredictable elements and a naval trial. I’m looking forward to the next in the series, The Devil to Pay.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Silver Wolf’ by JC Harvey #1FISKARDO’SWAR
‘Nero’ by Conn Iggulden #1NERO
‘The Surfacing’ by Cormac James

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COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- SW Perry

#BookReview ‘The Players’ by Minette Walters #historicalfiction

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Minette Walters is such a skilled storyteller, I savour any new historical novel. The Players doesn’t disappoint. England in 1685 is in the aftermath of the Duke of Monmouth’s failed rebellion. King James II is still on the throne and in search of vengeance. Minette Walters It was unexpected and delightful to find myself in the company again of Dorset physician Lady Jayne Harrier, last seen in The Swift and the Harrier. As always, Walters takes the clinical historical facts and adds likeable, and detestable, characters that make you care and challenge your assumptions. Lord Granville, Jayne’s son Elias, is a fabulous character. A spy who operates in the shadows, a political agitator, an inventor, a man of the people. He is his mother’s son. With his mother and neighbour Althea Ettrick, a young woman with a phenomenal legal brain, they hatch a plan to thwart the king’s cruel and unjust punishment regime for the Monmouth traitors.
Thousands in the south-west are destined to be judged guilty without trial and sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered. The king dispatches his judge with an impossible timetable of trials and hangings. Elias, Jayne and Althea set out to rescue as many as they can, recognising that not all can be saved. Their plotting, bravery, imagination and willingness to challenge the status quo is uplifting to read, though I admit at times Althea’s legal arguments left me spinning. Walters populates the Harrier and Ettrick households with a community of people who each bring something to the fight, loyal to the cause, all with a solid sense of what should be done. And when Lady Harrier dismisses everyone’s hatred of Judge Jeffreys, the ‘Hanging Judge’, and treats him when he is in extreme pain, we learn to look at the person behind the words, to look for explanations for behaviour and cruelty.
Meticulously researched. Hard to put down. This is a powerful story asking questions about justice, tolerance and forgiveness in the aftermath of war that resonate across the centuries. A sequel to The Swift and the Harrier, The Players can be read as a standalone novel.
Excellent.

Read my reviews of other historical novels by Minette Walters:-
THE LAST HOURS #1BLACKDEATH
THE TURN OF MIDNIGHT #2BLACKDEATH
THE SWIFT AND THE HARRIER

If you like this, try:-
‘The Witchfinder’s Sister’ by Beth Underdown
‘The Ashes of London’ by Andrew Taylor #1FIREOFLONDON
‘Plague Land’ by SD Sykes #1OSWALDDELACY

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COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Verity Bright

#BookReview ‘The Shadows of Men’ by Abir Mukherjee @radiomukhers #crime #historical #India #Raj

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Calcutta 1923. The Shadows of Men by Abir Mukherjee, fifth in the excellent Raj-era crime series, begins four years after the first book. A lot has happened in Calcutta since 1919, India is evolving as the power balance changes and the country edges towards the end of British rule. And the relationship between the two policemen is shifting too. Abir MukherjeeIt is significant that The Shadows of Men switches narrator back and forth between Captain Sam Wyndham and Sergeant Surendranath Banerjee, and that the first chapter begins with Suren. With Gandhi in prison, the independence movement is fighting internally, local elections have enforced divisions between Hindus and Moslims, high caste and low caste, landowners and peasants, neighbour against neighbour, gangster against gangster. Unknown to Sam, police commissioner Lord Taggart orders Suren to follow a visiting muslim politician. And then Suren is arrested for murder.
Unsure who to trust, Sam must identify the real murderer to clear Suren’s name. What follows is a search for the truth, a chase west across India from Calcutta to Bombay. At risk is not only a temporary calming in Calcutta, which is a powder keg waiting to explode, but also the fate of Indian politics. Will Suren hang for murder. Can Sam unravel the tangled clues to find who is killing who. And is there a traitor at police headquarters.
In this book, Suren is given his voice and we see for the first time the depth of his passion for his country, his pride in being a policeman, and the red lines he will not cross.
What an excellent series this is. A rollercoaster of a novel with a cliffhanger ending that was most unexpected. Next is The Burning Grounds.

Here are my reviews of the first four books in the Wyndham & Banerjee series:-
A RISING MAN #1WYNDHAM&BANERJEE
A NECESSARY EVIL #2WYNDHAM&BANERJEE
SMOKE AND ASHES #3WYNDHAM&BANERJEE
DEATH IN THE EAST #4WYNDHAM&BANERJEE 

If you like this, try:-
‘Darktown’ by Thomas Mullen
‘I Refuse’ by Per Petterson
‘The Killing Lessons’ by Saul Black

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COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Helena Dixon

#BookReview ‘Peace and Love’ by JC Harvey @JCollissHarvey #historical

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Peace and Love by JC Harvey is third in the Jack Fiskardo historical adventure series but is a step aside from Jack’s story. It takes place in another century, telling the tale of the grandson of one of Jack’s rogues. I didn’t know what to expect, it is charming and short; only 125 pages. JC HarveyIn Uppsala province, Sweden in 1720, Magnus, the grandson of Jack Fiskardo’s youthful ensign, Karl-Christian von Lindeborg, is high-born, rich and alone. His bones ache. He is an old soldier with no place in the world. He drifts around his empty castle as day merges into day, emotionally shuttered to those around him. And then into his life with a bang arrives a ward, a young girl, the grand-daughter of his childhood teacher, Dr Excelsior, recently deceased. Magnus, who has never interracted with children, takes Elise into his castle, tells her she is safe and then forgets about her. Elise finds a place with the staff but feels adrift. Both know the situation is unsatisfactory, neither knows how to change it. Until one night, Elise sleepwalks and the two shy, introverted people begin to talk.
When the count’s sister arrives at the remote castle for a visit, she tells him Elise needs proper parenting as she is approaching marriageable age. And so Elise returns to Uppsala with Margrit and everything changes. The count’s life is empty again, without purpose. ‘And he missed her. No sooner was he accustomed to her than she was gone. He missed her more than if he had known her all her life; precisely because she had been plucked away when he had hardly come to know her at all.’
Peace and Love is a charming, unexpected step aside from the tales of Jack Fiskardo. There is a fleeting mention of Jack, a louring portrait in a long gallery, surrounded by his fellow fighters.
Next in the series is The Wanton Road.

Here are my reviews of the Jack Fiskardo series:-
THE SILVER WOLF #1FISKARDO’SWAR
THE DEAD MEN #2FISKARDO’SWAR

If you like this, try:-
‘Rush Oh!’ by Shirley Barrett
‘Orphans of the Carnival’ by Carol Birch
‘At the Edge of the Orchard’ by Tracy Chevalier

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#BookReview PEACE AND LOVE by JC Harvey @JCollissHarvey https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8IH via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Abir Mukherjee

#BookReview ‘The Indigo Ghosts’ by Alys Clare #historical #mystery

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This series keeps getting better and better, The Indigo Ghosts by Alys Clare is so captivating I read it in twenty-four hours, picking it up at every opportunity. Third in the Gabriel Tavernier historical mystery series, former ship’s surgeon and now Devon doctor Gabriel faces an inexplicable case that challenges all he believes in, and all he knows to be scientifically true. Alys ClareOctober 1604. Called urgently by his old captain, Zeke Colt, to visit his former ship the Falco, now docked in Plymouth, Gabe walks into an atmosphere of fear, panic and superstition. The ship, everyone on board says, is haunted by a bad spirit, malevolent, making everyone ill. There have been deaths, visions, blue-skinned ghosts, a disgusting miasma that has overwhelmed the air.
Firmly disbelieving the ghost theory, Gabe is confident there will be a factual, scientific answer. But exploring the darkest, tiniest space in the hold – three paces by two – he discovers the source of the stink, finds a dead body, and sees a crocodile. Gabe returns to the Falco the next day with local coroner, his friend Theophilus Davey, and the body is removed for examination. Meanwhile the ship’s crew empty the barrel of waste and clean the area. More discoveries are made, nothing makes sense.
A trail of discoveries unveils an explanation both rational and wild. There is talk of spirits, possession, dark magic and cruelty impossible to imagine. In search of facts, Gabe traces the Falco’s final journey around the Caribbean and back home to Devon, and then re-reads the journals he kept when he was a young seafaring doctor sailing the Caribbean Sea. A solution suggests itself but seems too far-fetched to be possible. Assisted by the silent detection of Theo’s assistant, spiritual support and guidance from the local minister, and suggestions from his sister Celia, Gabe edges towards an answer.
A smashing book. The Indigo Ghosts is a tale of slavery, torture, fear and the worst that man can do to man. It’s about faith and what it can make a man do. And its about the goodness of Gaberiel Taverner, searching for the truth while defending his family and loved ones. This is a very readable series, a bit different from anything else out there that I’ve found.

Here are my reviews of the first two novels in this series:-
A RUSTLE OF SILK BY ALYS CLARE #1GABRIELTAVERNER
THE ANGEL IN THE GLASS #2GABRIELTAVERNER

If you like this, try:-
‘A Good Deliverance’ by Toby Clements
‘The Last Runaway’ by Tracy Chevalier
‘The Armour of Light’ by Ken Follett #4KINGSBRIDGE

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COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Eva Glyn