Genre: Historical

Review: The Quick by Lauren Owen

Posted April 23, 2014 by Charlotte in Reviews / 0 Comments
Review: The Quick by Lauren Owen

I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.The Quick by Lauren Owen Published by Random House on June 17, 2014 Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Historical, Thriller Pages: 523 Format: E-Arc Source: Netgalley Buy on Amazon Goodreads An astonishing debut, a novel of epic scope and suspense that conjures up all the magic and menace of Victorian London  London, 1892: James Norbury, a shy would-be poet newly down from Oxford, finds lodging with a charming young aristocrat. Through this new friendship, he is introduced to the drawing-rooms of high society, and finds love in an unexpected quarter. Then, suddenly, he vanishes without a trace. Unnerved, his sister, Charlotte, sets out from their crumbling country estate determined to find him. In the sinister, labyrinthine city that greets her, she uncovers a secret world at the margins populated by unforgettable characters: a female rope walker turned vigilante, a street urchin with a deadly secret, and the chilling “Doctor Knife.” But the answer to […]

Review: The Debt of Tamar by Nicole Dweck

Posted March 29, 2014 by Charlotte in Reviews / 0 Comments
Review: The Debt of Tamar by Nicole Dweck

I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.The Debt of Tamar by Nicole Dweck Published by Thomas Dunne Books on September 8, 2015 Genres: Fiction, Historical, Romance Pages: 295 Format: E-Arc Source: Netgalley Buy on Amazon Goodreads Bestselling author Nicole Dweck brings to life one of history’s greatest yet overlooked stories of love and resilience.In 2002, thirty-two-year-old Selim Osman, the last descendant of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, flees Istanbul for New York. In a twist of fate he meets Hannah, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor and an artist striving to understand a father she barely knows. Unaware the connection they share goes back centuries, the two feel an immediate pull to one another. But as their story intertwines with that of their ancestors, the heroic but ultimately tragic decision that bound two families centuries ago ripples into the future, threatening to tear Hannah and Selim apart.From a 16th-century harem to a seaside village in the Holy Land, […]

Review: 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup

Posted February 13, 2014 by Charlotte in Reviews / 0 Comments
Review: 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup

12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup on January 1st 1970 Genres: Biography, Historical, Non-Fiction Format: E-Book Source: Own Copy Buy on Amazon Goodreads A film tie-in edition of this eloquent and powerful memoir, to accompany the major new film starring Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives, Twelve Years a Slave is a harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American history. It recounts how Solomon Northup, born a free man in New York, was lured to Washington, D.C., in 1841 with the promise of fast money, then drugged and beaten and sold into slavery. He spent the next twelve years of his life in captivity on a Louisiana cotton plantation. I decided to read 12 Years a Slave before I saw the film, and I managed to read the whole book in one sitting on a train ride home. How can a book like this have disappeared from bookshelves? I am thankful to the film for bringing this story back from obscurity. Twelve Years a Slave conveys […]