I read Geraldine Brooks’s three historical novels in reverse order–the most recent, People of the Book last–and given the way Brooks likes to scramble the […]
Ripped From the Headlines
Authors often find interesting news stories and incorporate them into their works of fiction. The following two books are based on true crimes that took place […]
“The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” and “Skeletons at the Feast”: two must-read recent novels on World War II
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows Skeletons at the Feast, Chris Bohjalian I stumbled (luckily) on both […]
More Oldies But Goodies
You’ll find these oldies but goodies on library shelves or in your bookstore. Dust them off and give one a try! The Odd Sea: A […]
Outstanding Historical Mystery: “The Tenderness of Wolves” by Stef Penney
If you like quality mysteries, try award-winning The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney. This mystery is also an outstanding historical novel, set in the […]
Past made present….
We RATS have been reading historical fiction lately and I decided that I should wrench myself out of medieval England and read something different. I came across The Women of Magdalene by Rosemary Poole-Carter set in post Civil War Lousiana. Certainly something different. It involves a young doctor, estranged from his family, who is walking to Magdalene, an asylum for women, to take a position as the house doctor. He has been given the job as a favor from one of his father’s former colleagues. On the way he finds the body of a woman in a creek. She is one of the inmates and he arrives carrying her body and thus begins his career at Magdalene.
Be a Heroine, Or a Regular Teenage Girl? Would You Risk It All To Make History?
Sylvia Patterson has a tough decision to make. The schools in Little Rock, Arkansas are integrating. Sylvia is choosen to become one of the first African-American […]
Cross Over to a New World and Discover A Great and Terrible Beauty!
16-year-old Gemma forsees her mother’s death and can do nothing to stop it! She is sent to a boarding school where a child-spirit leads her […]