Tag Archives: historical fiction

#BookReview ‘The Secrets of the Rose’ by Nicola Cornick @NicolaCornick #historical #timeslip #romance

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The Secrets of the Rose by Nicola Cornick is a mystery that is centuries old but that poses very real dangers today. This is a really enjoyable timeslip story cleverly intertwining storylines during the 18th century Jacobite rebellion with today. Nicola CornickIn 1715 Northumberland, Dorothy Forster is having a bad day. First, an unexpected and unwanted proposal. Second, a gloriously handsome man is doggedly planning insurrection and involving her brothers in Jacobite rebellion. ‘The ridiculousness of her life struck her and made her want to laugh bitterly at the absurdity. Men. Always causing problems.’ Life at Bamburgh Hall in difficult for Dorothy; her vulnerable father has dangerous secrets, her brothers are troublemakers and the Earl of Derwentwater supports the king over the water. There is danger everywhere. And now Derwentwater asks Dorothy to give him the Rose, a talisman said to bring victory to all who follow it. It was lost centuries ago but in the time of the Crusades its last known keeper was an ancester of Dorothy. But she knows nothing of it and doesn’t have it.
Today in Northumberland. Hannah Armstrong has returned to Bamburgh Hall, it is the house where she grew up and is now occupied by her widowed stepmother. But Diana is keeping secrets and what author Hannah planned as a flying visit to research material for a new biography turns into a longer, more complicated stay. Danger is threatening. Hannah is commissioned to write about local lighthousekeeper’s daughter Grace Darling who with her father rowed out to a sinking vessel and saved lives, but Hannah finds herself more interested in Dorothy Forster, who also lived at Bamburgh Hall. Then there is Aaron Salter, brother of Hannah’s best friend at school, who saved her life when they were teenagers. Aaron was best friend of Hannah’s brother Brandon until he wasn’t, and Hannah doesn’t know why. Her brother, always troublesome and self-seeking, is difficult to deal with so when people tell her they’ve seen him in town, she is suspicious and afraid.
There are parallels and differences between the two timelines. Both heroines are strong-willed and independent, both have a long-standing telepathic connection with an unidentified male. And both have troublesome siblings. A page-turning historical story with romance, danger, violence, chauvinism, bravery, dangerous politics and family connections, good and bad.
I really enjoyed this book. In her ‘Historical Note’ at the end, Cornick explains she has been visiting Bamburgh since she was a child. It shows on every page. It is a real place full of history, myth, politics, war and legend and Cornick has used this foundation well, adding her own inventions with a deft hand so that fact and fiction blend seamlessly.
Excellent.

Read my reviews of these other novels by Nicola Cornick:-
THE FORGOTTEN SISTER
THE FOURTH QUEEN
THE LAST DAUGHTER
THE OTHER GWYN GIRL
THE WINTER GARDEN

If you like this, try:-
‘The Wicked Cometh’ by Laura Carlin
‘The Royal Rebel’ by Elizabeth Chadwick #1JEANETTEOFKENT
‘The Cursed Wife’ by Pamela Hartshorne

And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview THE SECRETS OF THE ROSE by Nicola Cornick @NicolaCornick https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-ap8 via @SandraDanby

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

#BookReview ‘The Weight of Angels’ by John Boyne @JohnBoyneBooks #historical #OscarWilde

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The Weight of Angels by John Boyne is a ‘what if’ book considering Oscar Wilde’s life if he hadn’t died in Paris in 1900 aged 46. Boyne places Oscar into the literary world of the first half of the 20th century and imagines an alternate reality of his creative output, loves, losses and mistakes and a fight for the legalisation of homosexuality. John BoyneThe action begins as Oscar prepares to attend the trial of his lover Bosie, Lord Alfred Douglas, on a charge of gross indecency. I found the first few chapters disorientating until realising that Boyne inverts Oscar and Bosie’s life stories. Only when the fictional Oscar outlives the real Oscar did I settle into the story. There are wonderful snippets of theatrical sniping and rivalry, outrageous flirting and sexual inunendo as Oscar continues his output of successful plays. His life becomes a succession of landmark events; the passing of two world wars, the deaths and coronations of kings and queens, all giving opportunities for witty exchanges and brutal insults. After the death of his loyal wife Florence he lives alone, writing successful play after successful play, until he falls in love and gets writers’ block. He tells no one. Gus is not artistic or theatrical, he is a down-to-earth teacher who encourages Oscar to exercise more and eat muesli for breakfast. This is a new Oscar who is not tormented, but happy. Can he write successfully only when he is troubled?
As Oscar ages he crosses paths with literary luminaries including Kipling, Yeats, Shaw, Eliot, Forster and the Woolfs and in Hollywood meets Katherine Hepburn. The narrative is a mix and match of style including prose, scripts, letters, newspaper articles, which allows Boyne to jump forward in time (the novel stretches from 1895 to 1952). There are some fascinating interludes. I particularly enjoyed his meetings with Emmeline Pankhurst who says, ‘It is a sad and somewhat ironic fact that for the women’s movement to succeed, we need the support of men. Particularly men with a voice.’ Boyne has particular fun when Oscar meets Virginia and Leonard Woolf, mirroring their conversation with Virginia’s stream of consciousness writing style. The funniest scene involves Oscar, Winston and Clemmie Churchill and German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld. Oscar and Winston have agreed to cooperate with the aim of legalising homosexuality while Clemmie talks in euphemisms (those who prefer ‘the Gregorian to the Julian calendar’) much to Hirshfeld’s confusion.
The Weight of Angels is more than 600 pages long, featuring Oscar’s life as the central spine with historical markers along the way involving factual events and meetings with real people. In places it turns into a bit of a who’s who. Some are fleeting passages with characters who don’t appear again while in other sections the story flies by.
Boyne has created a new Oscar Wilde as he might have been, dying in old age and haunted by the fact that he escapes censure when other men do not. ‘There are moments when I feel suffocated beneath the weight of angels, and I wonder whether, when my own time comes, those same seraphim will carry me to my reward, or simply watch as I am punished for my sins.’
Every one of John Boyne’s book is different. He is brave, political, sensitive, adventurous and humorous. He is an author who challenges himself, and his readers.

Check my reviews of these other novels by John Boyne:-
A HISTORY OF LONELINESS
A LADDER TO THE SKY
A TRAVELLER AT THE GATES OF WISDOM
ALL THE BROKEN PLACES
STAY WHERE YOU ARE AND THEN LEAVE
THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES… try the #FirstPara of THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES
WATER #1ELEMENTS
EARTH #2ELEMENTS

If you like this, try:-
‘A Little Life’ by Hanya Yanagihara
‘Days Without End’ by Sebastian Barry #1DAYSWITHOUTEND
‘Love is Blind’ by William Boyd

And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview THE WEIGHT OF ANGELS by John Boyne @JohnBoyneBooks https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-ak9 via @SandraDanby

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

#BookReview ‘Magic in the Weave’ by Alys Clare #historical #mystery

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1604. Plymouth, Devon. A bewitching performance of Othello is performed in an old inn by a London theatre company fleeing the plague. Betrayal, jealousy and plotting are the themes. A fit beginning to Magic in the Weave, fourth in the excellent Gabriel Tavernier historical mystery series by Alys Clare. Alys ClareThe play is watched by doctor Gabe and his sister Celia, local midwife Judyth and vicar Jonathan. All feel highly-emotional. The following day local coroner Theo and his family attend A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Gabe and Judyth agree to attend Romeo and Juliet tomorrow together, meanwhile Celia is enjoying a flirtation with a handsome leading man. Then they become aware of a succession of small events. An argument overheard suggesting something is amiss amongst the actors. A feeling that something is not right, of being manipulated, of losing the thread of thoughts. Of the plays not being correctly represented. Of eerie sensations at the Saracen’s Head, the theatre venue, an ancient inn near the port, full of nooks and crannies, of narrow passages and dark corners. They wonder if they are imagining it. Then one of the actors falls ill and it falls to Gabe to nurse him. Could it be the plague, brought to Devon by the players?
Two dead bodies are found in a barn, dead of knife wounds. Meanwhile one of the theatre company has been heard raving in his sleep about the Scholars of the Numinous. When Francis Heron dies, Gabe is certain the cause is poisoning not the plague. Who are these mysterious scholars and could it be linked to a notebook Gabe found in Heron’s possessions, with pages written in a type of code. And who is the poisoner?
This is a page-turning story as Gabe and Theo make further discoveries and the plays, performed daily, begin to feel more sinister. Exhausted, both men struggle to make sense of the clues in front of them, nothing links together, and they become unsure of their judgement. Are they seeing things, hearing things, lights that appear and disappear, shadows with no-one there, corridors with dead ends.
I read this quickly, drawn on by the peril faced by Gabe and his companions, the threat to Celia’s safety, the calm reasoning of Jonathan. The answer to the mystery is kept tantalisingly out of reach until the last minute. I had my suspicions.
Next in the series is The Cargo from Neira.

Here are my reviews of other novels in this series:-
A RUSTLE OF SILK #1GABRIELTAVERNER
THE ANGEL IN THE GLASS #2GABRIELTAVERNER
THE INDIGO GHOSTS #3GABRIELTAVERNER

If you like this, try:-
‘The Penny Heart’ by Martine Bailey
‘The Confessions of Frannie Langton’ by Sara Collins
‘The Instrumentalist’ by Harriet Constable

And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview MAGIC IN THE WEAVE by Alys Clare https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-acK via @SandraDanby

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

#BookReview ‘The Housekeeper’ by Rose Tremain #historical

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1936 Cornwall. Lilianne Danowski is housekeeper at the coastal mansion Manderville Hall. The Housekeeper by Rose Tremain is the re-imagined story of Mrs Danvers in Daphne du Maurier’s classic Rebecca exploring a passionate forbidden relationship between housekeeper ‘Danni’ and local author. Rose TremainWhen Daphne meets Danni, the sexual tension is clear from the beginning. But this is socially-repressed 1930s England where anything other than traditional marriage is unforgiveable. Danni is a Jew who left Poland as a child with her father. Now she is alone in England, misses her homeland and is a lost soul who lives for her job. When the two women meet Danni is quickly seduced and falls deeply in love though they are only together briefly in the boathouse and at a friend’s house in London. The parallels with Rebecca are clear from the beginning – the location, the names, the infidelity – but the author/housekeeper relationship founders as propriety and expectations rule the day. du Maurier has committments to her husband and daughters and Danni is rejected. From the ruins of the love affair comes du Maurier’s masterful novel, but by the time it is published Danni has been sacked and is making a living as a seamstress. When the book is published, she is distraught to find she features as the fictional Mrs Danvers. This spiteful portrait written by the lover who spurned her is vicious and unforgiveable. This is a novel about class, wealth, power, social mores and forbidden love when Europe stood at the precipice of disaster.
According to the Author’s Note, The Housekeeper is based on a short story written some time ago by Tremain which is now in development as a film. This makes sense. This is a visual, sensual story of a love affair that goes wrong.
I hesitated about reading this novel as Rebecca is a long-time favourite of mine and I was wary of sullying that attachment. In the first few chapters I found myself continually referring back to Rebecca, looking for echoes. Two days after finishing it, I wondered if I would enjoy it more without having read Rebecca or watched the films. The description is luscious, some of the characters are wonderfully drawn [I’m thinking particularly of Lord Grenville-Withers] and scenes at Manderville Hall will be familiar to Rebecca lovers, particularly the Big Bash fancy dress ball. But accompanying my reading were the faces of Joan Fontaine, Laurence Olivier, Diana Rigg and Judith Anderson.
Definitely a novel that merits re-reading.

Read my reviews of these other novels by Rose Tremain:-
ABSOLUTELY & FOREVER
ISLANDS OF MERCY
LILY
THE GUSTAV SONATA

If you like this, try:-
‘The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde’ by Eve Chase
‘Little Deaths’ by Emma Flint
‘The Animals at Lockwood Manor’ by Jane Healey

And if you’d like to share this post:
#BookReview THE HOUSEKEEPER by Rose Tremain https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-aed via @SandraDanby

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

#BookReview ‘Our Noble Selves’ by Kate Atkinson #FestivalofBritain #historicalfiction

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London 1951. The war is over and the Festival of Britain is soon to open. Our Noble Selves by Kate Atkinson immerses you into this grey time of shortages when on the streets the spies are still busy.Kate AtkinsonJournalist Harry Flynn had a bad war on the Burma railway. Unable to settle on his return to London he finds himself part of the organising team for the soon-to-open Festival of Britain. Charged with locating, ordering and delivering various sundry items required by the site’s designers, he tries to make a new life. Following an impulsive proposal and a quick ceremony, Flynn has a failed marriage behind him and continues to be unsuccessful in love.
Surprisingly for a novel by Atkinson, it takes a while to get into the story proper. At the halfway point, the pace changes. When not one woman but a second and then a third, go missing – a girl Flynn took out for a drink, a work colleague and his neighbour in the upstairs flat – he is the common denominator in the three police investigations. He doesn’t tell anyone about the missing hour on the night after his date with the missing girl or about a blood-stained scarf he doesn’t remember finding. Not understanding what is going on, Flynn feels helpless, ‘was he just a pawn in a larger game? A game where it felt like there were no rules at all.’
The Festival office is populated by a hotpotch of people, recruited for various nefarious reason, because of who they know, because they’re sexy, because they’re important or know someone who is, because of what they did in the war. The Festival is intended to shine a bright light on London and dismiss this daily greyness with fairground rides, dancing and food. But it is an event of smoke and mirrors, like the wartime double and triple agents still operating in London. Nothing is as it seems. The sumptuous Festival Cake is uncookable. One roomset is home to hundreds of rats. Someone is using an assumed name. And Flynn is being blackmailed.
There is so much to like in this book. The Shakespeare and poetry references, the Boy’s tutoring in grammar and pronunciation – awnithollojist, tiepogrifi – and Carswell Orange Blossom, the Festival cow. Atkinson has especial fun with the eccentric catalogue items requested by designers; a ‘Pyrex heat-resisting pudding dish (James A. Jobling and Co. Ltd, Sunderland)’ and ‘model animal, toad (Peggy Tearle, 202 London Road, Leicester).’
I have two favourite characters. Fourteen-year-old Boy, whose name Terence is rarely used, is the general dogsbody, fetching and carrying, soothing the frayed atmosphere with wise sayings learned from his mother. Veronica, Flynn’s thirteen-year old step-daughter, is a gem. Whisky-drinking, pulp fiction-reading Veronica turns out to be unafraid, independent and curious. While Flynn hesitates, she uses her initiative and says the unsayable.
A book of two halves. Reading a Kate Atkinson novel means to read on a number of layers, her wry wit combines with historical detail and the wartime stories of those involved in the Festival. Can a festival make everyone feel better about the greyness of their lives, will celebrating historical landmarks and achievements make people feel proud and empower them to make a better life going forwards?
Imperfect, full of laughs and wit, it left me feeling this is two books woven into one. See Atkinson’s Author’s Note at the end for an explanation of how this novel evolved.

Read my reviews of these other books by Kate Atkinson:-
A GOD IN RUINS
LIFE AFTER LIFE
NORMAL RULES DON’T APPLY
SHRINES OF GAIETY
TRANSCRIPTION
BIG SKY #5JACKSONBRODIE
DEATH AT THE SIGN OF THE ROOK #6JACKSONBRODIE
… and try the #FirstPara of EMOTIONALLY WEIRD

If you like this, try:-
‘When the Germans Come’ by David Hewson
‘The Light Years’ by Elizabeth Jane Howard #1CAZALET
‘The Rescue Man’ by Anthony Quinn

And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview OUR NOBLE SELVES by Kate Atkinson https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-a8R via @SandraDanby

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

#BookReview ‘The Valley of Ravens’ by Barbara Erskine @Barbaraerskine #historical

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Two healers, one in the 21st century the other in the thirteenth, are unjustly harrassed. The Valley of Ravens by Barbara Erskine is the third book by this author that I’ve read. All are timeslip novels, all a completely different blending of contemporary and history. Erskine is quickly becoming addictive. Barbara Erskine The two women, who live in the same house centuries apart, are victims of persecution. Eve, desperate to escape from a stalker in Suffolk, a retired GP who doesn’t believe in natural healing, has moved secretly to a lonely Welsh valley. How does her stalker find out her address in the Valley of the Ravens? Little does Eve know that her rundown cottage, T ŷ’r Wrach, is known locally as the Witch’s House and carries an ancient curse. As she gets to know her neighbours and begins the renovations, strange things begin to happen. Small gifts. Noises in the night. Is it her stalker, or does the house have a ghost? And why are local men reluctant to visit the cottage?
Alys, who lived in the house in 1260, attends the wounded in the aftermath of a battle where she treats the last Prince of Wales, Llewellyn. A lasting friendship grows and, when he is near the Valley of the Ravens, Llewellyn visits Brother Afan, a holy man living in a nearby cave, and Alys at T ŷ’r Wrach where he eats her bread and honey. When he is killed, Alys is wrongly blamed by her neighbours for betraying Llewellyn, Prince of Gwynedd, Lord of Snowdon and of Aberffraw, to the English king Edward I. It is rumoured the prince paid her for witchcraft. Llewellyn’s death is grisly and Alys has a critical role to play in what happens next. As the story of each woman unfolds, trying to understand their persecutors and struggling to survive, it becomes clearer why Alys is still present at Eve’s house. She made a vow to the prince which she attempted to fulfill.
The Valley of Ravens is a masterful blending of ancient and modern, romance, superstition, witchcraft and Welsh history. Atmospheric, spooky, rooted in Welsh nature and tradition.
This is a long book but I didn’t want to put it down. Prince Llewellyn’s story is true, but Eve, Alys, T ŷ’r Wrach and the Valley of the Ravens are fictional.

Read my reviews of other novels by Barbara Erskine:-
THE DREAM WEAVERS
THE STORY SPINNER

If you like this, try:-
‘The Royal Rebel’ by Elizabeth Chadwick #1JEANETTEOFKENT
‘Days Without End’ by Sebastian Barry #1DAYSWITHOUTEND
‘Disobedient’ by Elizabeth Fremantle

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE VALLEY OF RAVENS by Barbara Erskine @Barbaraerskine https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-a4v via @SandraDanby

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

#BookReview ‘The Millionaire Waltz’ by Anthony Quinn #historicalfiction #1920s

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The Millionaire Waltz by Anthony Quinn begins with a proposal. Edie Greenlaw says yes to David Benton-Launer. The trouble is, Evie is an actress and there’s a casting coming up for The Voysey Inheritance. Anthony QuinnIt is 1924 and London is in that transitional Edwardian era when both men and women are changed by the Great War. The men came home expecting to find a woman to marry but in their absence women became empowered, seeking responsibility and careers and independence. Edie and her war hero are betrothed but while David is ready to settle down straight away, Edie prevaricates. His formidable mother frowns and her parents are bemused. David is accommodating. Edie is cast as the lead role in Antony and Cleopatra, the show is a hit, and so the wedding is delayed. And then an old teenage acquaintance re-appears to muddy the waters and confuse Edie’s ideas of what she wants and doesn’t want.
Her performance as Cleopatra is a success but without another role, Edie begins to model fashions for Dickens and Jones. She continues to manage the remodelling and decoration at the house David has bought for their married life, and to have fittings for her wedding dress and trousseau. But as the delays continue, a slight distance grows between the betrothed couple. Edie delights in her friends from the theatre and the troubles of Peter, a doctor, make her determined to help him. Peter is being abused by a gay lover and Edie takes appalling risks in a plan to have the villain arrested.
I have enjoyed every one of Anthony Quinn’s novels I’ve read, each so different from the others, all eloquently written and immersive. I hesitate though to describe this as a thriller, more a romance with a mystery sub-plot.

Read my reviews of these other novels by Anthony Quinn:-
CURTAIN CALL
FREYA
HALF OF THE HUMAN RACE
MOLLY & THE CAPTAIN
OUR FRIENDS IN BERLIN
THE MOUTHLESS DEAD
THE RESCUE MAN
THE STREETS

If you like this, try:-
‘The Doll Factory’ by Elizabeth Macneal
‘The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock’ by Imogen Hermes Gowar
‘The Ballroom’ by Anna Hope

And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview THE MILLIONAIRE WALTZ by Anthony Quinn https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-a1X via @SandraDanby

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

#BookReview ‘The Crownless Queen’ by Elizabeth Chadwick @Chadwickauthor #historicalfiction #medieval

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I really enjoyed reading The Royal Rebel, first of the two books about Joan of Kent written by Elizabeth Chadwick, so was eager to read The Crownless Queen. Joan, or Jeanette as Chadwick calls her, is a fascinating character who lived at a time of royal upheaval. Elizabeth ChadwickEngland 1360. Jeanette, happily married to her teenage love Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent, fills her days caring for their four children but missing her soldier husband who is on duty in Normandy. When news arrives of Thomas’ death, Jeanette’s stable and contented life is upended, her safety and position threatened. ‘Eventually, the pain withdrew, becoming a dull, cramping ache, and the fog thinned to mist. Tears came and, with them, harsh, choking sobs that left her throat raw and her body exhausted. Reality, however, remained solid. No matter how much she sought oblivion, she was back in the world.’ Prince Edward, the Black Prince, her childhood friend and godfather to her sons, promises to help. Unexpectedly, his help comes as a marriage proposal. Still mourning, she is married again, too soon but the security of her children is assured.
This is an epic tale of a woman at the heart of royalty, the entwining of royalty and politics, foreign diplomacy and wars, set on a foundation of Jeanette’s domestic life. She is a skilled diplomat and politician and, as wife of the heir to the throne, she needs to be. Her husband’s father, King Edward III, has taken a mistress but is quick to complain about his son’s new wife who, he says, ‘Despite her reputation, she is still a golden apple on the tree.’ Those first three words refer to Jeanette’s marriage to Thomas. The King sends his son to France to govern Aquitaine. Chadwick takes the historical fact and the gaps of record, and creates a readable novel I picked up at every opportunity. Edward’s frailty, Jeanette’s awkward relationship with her brother-in-law John Duke of Lancaster (or John of Gaunt, as we know him), the lives of Jeanette’s two sons, Tom and Johan, both squires in noble homes, and Jeanette’s grief, all add layers to this story.
The blurb states that The Crownless Queen can be read as a standalone but I think in order to enjoy all the subtleties, it is best to read The Royal Rebel first.
Jeanette, which is the familiar name by which Joan was addressed by her family and friends, is the sort of character you root for. Her bravery, her sense of justice, her steadfastness. A wonderful blend of detailed family life and motherhood, combined with state politics, court plotting, romance, grief and betrayal.
Excellent.

Here’s my review of the first in this series:-
THE ROYAL REBEL #1JEANETTEOFKENT

If you like this, try:-
‘The Miniaturist’ by Jessie Burton
‘A Good Deliverance’ by Toby Clements
‘Cecily’ by Annie Garthwaite

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE CROWNLESS QUEEN by Elizabeth Chadwick @Chadwickauthor https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-9ZZ via @SandraDanby

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

#BookReview ‘Kingdom Come’ by Toby Clements #historicalfiction #WarsoftheRoses

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The impression of peace and security is transient in 1470. Kingdom Come by Toby Clements is the fourth book in the Kingmaker historical series set during the Wars of the Roses. And such a book it is I didn’t want to put it down. I have developed a fondness for Thomas and Katherine Everingham. Toby ClementsThe story continues on immediately from the end of the third book, Divided Souls, as King Edward IV is drawn north to deal with rebellion. The Earl of Warwick has switched sides and now backs the old king Henry VI whose wife Margaret of Anjou seeks to enthrone their son Edward of Westminster. King Edward is deposed and forced to flee to Bruges with his loyal retinue including Thomas’s patron, Lord William Hastings. Thomas and Katherine go too with their two children, Rufus and new baby Alice. As they face more impossible decisions, tragedy, poverty and vicious battles, the couple long simply to go home.
Kingdom Come is a page-turning story set in 1470-1471 when the wars see the three York brothers separated and reunited, where the York and Lancaster armies march to and fro across the country to meet in battle again and again, buffeting Thomas and Katherine to and fro entangled in events over which they have no control.
At the heart of this series are three secrets shielded by Thomas and Katherine. One a ledger, hidden for ten years, contains an inconvenient truth that could bring about their own deaths and make the already violent Wars of the Roses explode as kin turns on kin. The proof is ‘bundled tightly in its waxed linen and leather bindings, heavy as any chain, shackling them, inescapably, to the great weight of their pasts.’ The second secret, shrouded in mystery throughout, is seen with a wisp of a hint here and there but is so fleeting it is forgotten in the stories of Thomas and Katherine moving north and south, east and west, in pursuit of safety and the truth. Always, they return home to Marton Hall in Lincolnshire. The third secret, re-emerges in Kingdom Come to drive them from their home into destitution, refugees overseas, then back into battle at Barnet and then Tewkesbury.
Heartily recommended. This is a fine series. I’m crossing my fingers that there will be another Kingmaker installment to take us to the fall of Yorkist rule and the dawn of the Tudors.

Read my reviews of the other books in this series:-
WINTER PILGRIMS #1KINGMAKER
BROKEN FAITH #2KINGMAKER
DIVIDED SOULS #3KINGMAKER

And also by Toby Clements:-
A GOOD DELIVERANCE

If you like this, try:-
‘The Players’ by Minette Walters
‘The Key in the Lock’ by Beth Underdown
‘Plague Land’ by SD Sykes #1OSWALDDELACY

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview KINGDOM COME by Toby Clements https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-90E via @SandraDanby 

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

#BookReview ‘The Fourth Queen’ by Nicola Cornick @NicolaCornick #historical #timeslip #Tudor

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The Fourth Queen by Nicola Cornick is my favourite book of the year. An intriguing timeslip novel split between the present day and Tudor England, the queen of the title is Anna of Cleves, the fourth wife of Henry VIII. Two women, Jenna now and Marris in in the 16th century, are bound by this one queen and one secret. To Jenna’s horror, that secret may be uncovered by a 21st century archaelogical dig. Nicola CornickEngland 1539. Three sisters. Loyalty. Betrayal. Secrets. Danger. Dissolution. After the death of Jane Seymour, King Henry VIII must marry again and a match is sought with the German princess Anna of Cleves. Marris, Bridget and Rose, the only remaining nuns at Winterhill Priory, are about to be evicted from the priory that has been their home since they were orphaned. Marris knows it is her responsibility to keep her sisters safe and so accepts an offer of marriage from the new owner of their old home. Due for demolition, the site will be rebuilt using stone from the priory by Sir William Sharington. It is to be his home, Winterhill Hall.
England, present day. Three sisters. Loyalty. Lies. Secrets. Rivalry. Jealousy. Jenna feels responsible for her two younger sisters, Bree and Molly, despite their independence. The two strands, modern and historical, are knitted together by retrocognition; the knowledge of a historical event which could not have been learned or inferred by normal means. Why does Jenna have such deep knowledge of Marris’s life? She thinks, ‘The past was such a tangled web and none of it could be allowed to come out, because once one part of it started to unravel, everything would fall apart.’ An encounter with financier Owen Power forces her to reconsider everything she thinks she knows and wants, every red line she has drawn about the past.
The Fourth Queen is by far the best timeslip novel I’ve read. Impossible to review without giving away some great twists. Bravo.

Read my reviews of these other novels by Nicola Cornick:-
THE FORGOTTEN SISTER
THE LAST DAUGHTER
THE OTHER GWYN GIRL
THE SECRETS OF THE ROSE
THE WINTER GARDEN

If you like this, try:-
‘The Queen’s Painter’ by Wendy Holden
‘Shadows in the Ashes’ by Christina Courtenay
‘The Story Spinner’ by Barbara Erskine

And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview THE FOURTH QUEEN by Nicola Cornick @NicolaCornick https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-9XY via @SandraDanby

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