About the Book: 1496 It is the height of the Renaissance and its flowering of intellectual and artistic endeavour, but the city state of Florence is in the grip of fundamentalist preacher Friar Girolamo Savonarola. Its good people believe the Lord speaks through him, just as certainly as the Sun circles the Earth. For Leonarda … Continue reading Book Review: The Brightest Star by Emma Harcourt
Historical Fiction
Book Review: Dancing with the Enemy by Diane Armstrong
About the Book: From the bestselling author of The Collaborator comes a compelling story of betrayal, collusion, revenge, and redemption set in German-occupied Jersey during World War II. June 1940. ‘It was a perfect June evening that began with hope and ended in despair.’ So begins the journal of Hugh Jackson, a Jersey doctor, whose … Continue reading Book Review: Dancing with the Enemy by Diane Armstrong
Book Review: Bloomsbury Girls by Natalie Jenner
About the Book: Natalie Jenner, the internationally bestselling author of The Jane Austen Society, returns with a compelling and heart-warming story of post-war London, a century-old bookstore, and three women determined to find their way in a fast-changing world in Bloomsbury Girls. Bloomsbury Books is an old-fashioned new and rare bookstore that has persisted and … Continue reading Book Review: Bloomsbury Girls by Natalie Jenner
Book Review: The Dance Tree by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
About the Book: In Strasbourg, in the boiling hot summer of 1518, a plague strikes the women of the city. First it is just one - a lone figure, dancing in the town square - but she is joined by more and more and the city authorities declare an emergency. Musicians will be brought in. … Continue reading Book Review: The Dance Tree by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Book Review: The German Wife by Kelly Rimmer
About the Book: Berlin, 1934: Sofie Rhodes is the aristocratic wife of a scientist whose post-WWI fortunes change for the better when her husband, Jurgen, is recruited for Hitler's new rocket project. But too late they realise the Nazis' plans to weaponise Jurgen's technology as they begin to wage war against the rest of Europe. … Continue reading Book Review: The German Wife by Kelly Rimmer
Book Review: Trespasses by Louise Kennedy
About the Book: One by one, she undid each event, each decision, each choice. If Davy had remembered to put on a coat. If Seamie McGeown had not found himself alone on a dark street. If Michael Agnew had not walked through the door of the pub on a quiet night in February in his … Continue reading Book Review: Trespasses by Louise Kennedy
Book Review: The Rat Catcher by Kim Kelly
About the Book: In the sweltering summer of 1900, young wharf labourer Patrick O’Reilly is down on his luck in the slums of Sydney and homesick for Tralee. When a deadly outbreak of plague descends on the city, O’Reilly’s daydreaming mind is miles away – in the golden hair and kindly, confident air of a … Continue reading Book Review: The Rat Catcher by Kim Kelly
Book Review: The Winter Dress by Lauren Chater
About the Book: Two women separated by centuries but connected by one beautiful silk dress. A captivating novel based on a real-life shipwreck discovered off Texel Island by the bestselling author of Gulliver's Wife, Lauren Chater. Jo Baaker, a textiles historian and Dutch ex-pat is drawn back to the island where she was born to … Continue reading Book Review: The Winter Dress by Lauren Chater
Book Review: Violeta by Isabel Allende
About the Book: One extraordinary woman. One hundred years of history. One unforgettable story. Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first daughter in a family of five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events. The ripples of the Great War are still being felt, … Continue reading Book Review: Violeta by Isabel Allende
Book Review: Loveland by Robert Lukins
About the Book: Two women stand in the shallows, a man dead at their feet, while around them buildings burn. Amid the ruins of a fire-ravaged amusement park and destroyed waterfront dwellings, one boarded-up building still stands. May has come from Australia to Loveland, Nebraska, to claim the house on the poisoned lake as part … Continue reading Book Review: Loveland by Robert Lukins
Theresa Smith Writes 