Pages: 374Published: 11th April 2024Genre: Historical FictionContent warnings: Misogyny, sexual references In a quiet house in the countryside outside London, the finishing touches are being made to welcome a group of young women. The house and its location are top secret, its residents unknown to one another, but the girls have one thing in they are fallen. Offering refuge … Continue reading Book Review – The Household by Stacey Halls
Pages: 429Published: 21st July 2022Genre: Historical FictionContent warnings: Sexism Meet Endurance Proudfoot - England’s strongest woman, boldest adventurer and first female bonesetter. Endurance Proudfoot only wants one thing in life - to follow her father and grandfather into the family business of bone setting. It’s a physically demanding job, requiring strength, nerves of steel and discretion - and not … Continue reading Book Review – That Bonesetter Woman by Frances Quinn
Pages: 451Published: 13th May 2021Genre: Historical FictionContent warnings: Misogyny, sexual content, sexual harassment Sold by her mother. Enslaved in Pompeii's brothel. Determined to survive. Her name is Amara. Welcome to the Wolf Den... Amara was once a beloved daughter, until her father's death plunged her family into penury. Now she is a slave in Pompeii's infamous brothel, owned by … Continue reading Book Review – The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper
Pages: 343Published: 6th February 2020Genre: Historical FictionContent warnings: Violence, Rape, Sexual references, Misogyny Finnmark, Norway, 1617. Twenty-year-old Maren Bergensdatter stands on the craggy coast, watching the sea break into a sudden and reckless storm. Forty fishermen, including her brother and father, are drowned and left broken on the rocks below. With the menfolk wiped out, the women of the … Continue reading Book Review – The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Pages: 398Published: 21st January 2021Genre: Historical Fiction/Gothic HorrorContent warnings: Injury detail, child death As the age of the photograph dawns in Victorian Bath, silhouette artist Agnes is struggling to keep her business afloat. Still recovering from a serious illness herself, making enough money to support her elderly mother and her orphaned nephew Cedric has never been easy, but then … Continue reading Book Review – The Shape Of Darkness by Laura Purcell
Pages: 399Published: 10th January 2019Genre: Historical FictionContent warnings: Misogyny This was another book I read with Pauliina @ The Bookaholic Dreamer, and it gave us lots to discuss along the way! When Esther Thorel, the wife of a Huguenot silk-weaver, rescues Sara Kemp from a brothel she thinks she is doing God’s will. Sara is not convinced being a … Continue reading Book Review – Blackberry & Wild Rose by Sonia Velton
Pages: 377Published: 14th October 2021Genre: Historical FictionContent warnings: Child death, sexual harassment Alone in the world, Elspeth Swansome has taken the position of nanny to a family on the remote Scottish island of Skelthsea. Her charge, Mary, is a troubled child. Distracted and secretive, she hasn't uttered a word since the sudden death of her twin, William—just days after … Continue reading Book Review – The Whistling by Rebecca Netley
Pages: 382Published: 22nd April 2021Genre: Historical FictionContent warnings: Animal death/cruelty, suicide, allusions to rape, misogyny Lancashire, 1620. Young Sarah Haworth and her family live as outcasts. They are 'cunning folk', feared by the local villagers by day, but called upon under cover of darkness for healing balms and spells. Against the odds, love blossoms when Sarah meets Daniel, the … Continue reading Book Review – Cunning Women by Elizabeth Lee
Image credit: ITV/Drama Republic Hello everyone, Back in the summer of 2020 I read The Confessions Of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins. It was a remarkably powerful and moving character portrait written with immense depth, also containing a forbidden romance and an intriguing murder mystery. Frannie Langton herself has such a unique and sophisticated voice, and her … Continue reading TV Adaptation Review – The Confessions Of Frannie Langton
Pages: 416Published: 31st March 2020Genre: Historical FictionContent warnings: Misogyny, sexual content Motherless and irrepressibly curious, Esme spends her childhood at her father's feet as he and his team gather words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. One day, she sees a slip of paper containing a forgotten word flutter to the floor unclaimed. And … Continue reading Book Review – The Dictionary Of Lost Words by Pip Williams
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