Arden makes a spellbinding Scheherezade, an impressive work of historical fiction
593465
The Magicians Lie is a spellbinding mystery with a heroine, an illusionist by trade, giving the performance of her life - one where her life lies and her freedom lies in balance. Did she murder her husband? The answer seems clear to Virgil Holt, a young policeman who by chance captures the fugitive Arden. What he wants is a confession - what he gets is a mesmerizing tale of a woman surviving against the odds. If he turns her in, her innocence or guilt doesn't matter, but if she can convince him and work her magic.

Arden is Scherezade reborn. The tale she tells is powerful and captivating. But is it true? Or does the truth matter? I was swept away, first by the premise of The Magicians Lie, then by Ardens storytelling. I couldn't bear to put the book down. Like Holt, I had to know what happened next and how she arrived at this crossroads.

The Magicians Lie is a magnificent novel that will easily appeal to a wide range of readers. Greer Macallister is a skilled and imaginative storyteller who deserves to be recognized.

5 / 5

I received a copy of The Magicians Lie from the publisher and Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.

--Crittermom
1702322
Carolann Camillos historical novel, Moonlit Desire" novel, is an amazing weave of history, womens struggles, peace and war, colony and empire in 19th Century America. This talented author writes more than simply romance, she portrays epic conflicts of nations and nationalities, moral courage and unredeemed evil. Whats more, author Camillo does this by taking you there to become a part of this story as it unfolds about you, a page-turner that grabs you beginning to end.

The basic setting is the war between Britain and France for the territory in the New World primarily the land that is now America and Quebec that becomes Canada. But, the story opens when protagonists Rive St. Claire and his band attack the evil Commander Flint and free his new bride from her servitude as his new bride by which she has provided for her destitute parents.

As the story unfolds, we see the French, long engaged in the territory, befriending even adopting, native American customs and costumes of the day. The plot then engages Catherine, an intelligent, even courageous (if often foolhardy) woman and the push-me/pull-you of her romantic desire for Rive, a rival of villainous Flint, and her concerns for her parents in London. Rive, of course, immediately falls for Catherine despite his female cousins effort to entrap him and to destroy Catherine. Add to that, the major battles between France and England, carried over to the new world and Rives disguise as a French spy and you have just about all the excitement and nail-biting you can take.

In addition to a complex, engaging and totally believable plot, author Camillo handles the story deftly. Characters are complete and fully developed, never cardboard mannequins fulfilling roles of good vs. evil (they sometimes do dumb and foolish things) thus are seen as real, e.g. Catherine struggles against falling in love with Rive and her concerns for her parents often outweigh her own happiness. Rive in the role of spy often takes chances that are foolhardy, dressed as a British Officer behind the lines, etc.

Finally, too, author Camilla spices the prose with hundreds of figurative phrases that liven the text, allowing the reader to see things in creative new ways, e.g.,
 Clouds gave way to a pallid sun; --  white clad soldiers dotted a torn and scarred earth as they lay like the last remnants of snow on a barren field; -- a ribbon of light spilled from the moon; etc.

Moonlit Desireis not just historical fiction,not just romance, its a story of mature people and terrifying events that are bigger than those things, a five course meal made for gourmet readers. Add it to your list of mustreads.
3550314
This is a lesser known Dumas novel than, say, the Count of Monte Christo. But it is just as good as the others he did: vivid personalities, attention to detail, and fabulously intricate plots. It tells the story of Margot and her marriage to the King of Navarre, an ambitious Hugenot in constant danger of assassination. With the backdrop of the religious wars, she finds love in a knight that she attempts to cloister from the dangers of court intrigue. It ends in tragedy, hope, and the promise of further adventure.
Based on available historical sources at the time and embellished with Dumas' unique sense of drama, it is a spectacular read, full of danger, sudden developments, and psychological depth. While it may not be as deep as Stendhal's best works, it is absolutely first rate as a historical novel, a genre that Dumas helped to develop. It stimulates the reader's desire to plung more deeply into French history as well.
High recommendation.
3303529
I loved this book. Sandrick reminds me in many ways of Karen  Kingsolver. Her story is resolutely fact-based and rich in context. Her language is sparse yet engaging; totally satisfying. This book couples historical accuracy  with a compelling narrative. Sandrick offers deep character development and abundant detail about geography and culture. The characters are so real; some who proved in the end to be unselfish and heroic were not at all likeable for most of the book! This is historical fiction at its best, the  kind of story that can make us think twice about how we see world events. It should be on every book club list, and  required reading in every high school and college literature class.
2816916
I was drawn immediately into this compelling story. The characters experience quite a few lurches through better and worse times over the course of about 6 years that the story covers.  I wondered how the narrator might have made better choices in several situations, which brought mistery to both her and her mother. Although flawed, the narrator does grow significantly during the course of events. My one crticism is that I wish the other characters hadn't been so one dimensional.

The backdrop of 15th century Persia was very interesting, since I knew nothing about it before.  An ecellent work of historical fiction, this book shows it has been extensively researched.
4739487
This richly layered historical narrative provided a fascinating glimpse into an often-overlooked facet of Renaissance life. Serafina is willful, passionate and adamantly unwilling to accept her fate and a life in the convent. While she plots her escape and creates a web of deception that only her advisor Zuana can penetrate, the rest of the convent struggles to reconcile her presence and her rebellion with the potential for glory that her renowned singing voice might bring them. At the same time the abbess seeks desperately to remain a convent apart while the greater church invokes new restrictions on the tiny luxuries the nuns still enjoy.

I was engaged and invested while reading this book - at first I was thoroughly on Serafina's side; as the story wore on, I felt more and more for Zuana and her own struggles. By the end of this complex retelling of a star-crossed lovers tale, I was both happy with the outcome and extraordinarily sad for all of the women involved. I give Dunant and Sacred Hearts five stars and highly recommend it as an intense and thought-provoking read.
3187008
A fantastically written look into a less-developed side of the Henry VIII saga.  Virtually everyone is familiar with Anne Boleyn, the first wife of Henry VIII to be decapitated.  However, few people are familiar with her sister, Mary Boleyn.  The novel is based on historical events, but is historical fiction.  It is a brilliantly imagined work that delves into the darker side of the Boleyn family and their quest for power at all costs.

Philippa Gregory is a gifted story-teller with a flourishing imagination.  I devoured this 600-odd page novel in a matter of hours.  I would highly recommend this book to anyone curious about this time period.
Her writing is fulfilling, keeping you guessing at every turn.  It is amazing that she is able to keep the reader so intrigued when one can be fairly certain how events will unfold.  (But you may be surprised!)
Pick this novel up and you will not be disappointed.  Enjoy!
1669416
Massacre at Montsegur presents the tragic history of the Catholic Church's persecution of the Christian Catharist religion, focusing on the period 1209 to 1244. With masterful interpretation of what are very few original sources (mostly anti-Cathar), Oldenbourg reveals Catharism to be far more rational,human and truly spiritual than the corrupt, highly politicized and institutionalized Catholicism of the times. Catharism flourished in the 12th and early 13th centuries in Languedoc (southern France) where it was widely accepted and indeed practiced by people of all classes. What is so exciting about this story, even though we know what happens in the end, is the intricate weaving of political and religious motives as the nobles of Languedoc fight to the death to preserve their freedom and way of life. Oldenbourg writes beautifully, with gratifying digressions for greater context and more detail every step of the way. The book was, for me, utterly riveting. Finishing left me desolate, longing for more.
1834092
Suzanne Adair has done something almost unknown in the annals of women's historical fiction--she has made it real.  This is so not a bodice ripper.  It is physical sensation on many levels bound up in a mesmerizing tale of one woman's experience as a journalist with the British Army.  Baggage?  She has more baggage than Paris Hilton on a world tour, and every bit of it is  crucial to the story.

Dunstan Fairfax is possibly the most hypnotic and attractive villain since the Marquis de Sade. If you are female, you really want to bed him before you kill him.  And, yes, you really want to kill him.

Suzanne Adair brings to life every smell in an 18th century British camp--along with every other sensation.  You are there freezing at 5:00 when the camp wakes.  You know how the cavalry trained with your heart in your throat as it happens.  You understand the exact walls a woman ran up against and how she could climb them.

More to the point, this is not the tale of a pampered debutante.  Helen could be you or I.  She is facing foreclosure and takes the job with the newspaper to avoid financial ruin.  The twists of her financial problems make for the mystery of the novel.

Sent by her editor to report on the campaign of British military darling, Lt., Banastre Tarleton, she is a sometimes reluctant participant in almost every documented skirmish and battle in the Southern Campaign in 1780.  This is the period in which the British actually lost the Revolutionary War, although they didn't admit then.

She is involved with two men--both fascinating--and her struggle to reconcile her feelings creates the depth of the novel.  A heroine who is empathetic, sympathetic and independent while appearing socially conventional is something new in historical fiction, but absolutely accurate for the period.

Should you doubt the accuracy of anything in the book, Suzanne Adair has published her bibliography, which is comprehensive in a manner almost unheard of in fiction.  This is fiction with a twist. Based on the where and when of the story everything could have documentarily happened.

It really makes one want to run out and immediately book a room in Historic Williamsburg or a Charleston Bed and Breakfast.  The reader can actually see herself in these pages, and that is my definition of an extraordinary read.
4550542
I adored this book and could hardly put it down. It was a very unique twist on historical fiction, focusing on the emigration of two fantastical beings--a golem and a jinni--from their respective homelands of Poland and Syria to New York City in the late nineteenth century. The two beings struggle not only with living in a new place and a new culture, but also with their fantastical natures and trying to appear as 'normal' humans even as they wonder what's ultimately going to happen to them.

The golem--a creature built from clay and brought to life by arcane Kabbalistic magic to be a slave--struggles with easily reading other people's desires and feelings, as well as with her latent destructive nature. I didn't really know what a golem was before reading this book, but I thought Chava's--the golem's--character was interesting and provided a nice counterpoint against the fiery, stubborn, independent jinni. The jinni in this book is no jolly, wisecracking Aladdin genie--he's been trapped in a copper flask for several centuries, and is vengeful, moody, and seductive.

I loved how the author drew heavily on mythology to create these two characters, showing how they fit into the backdrop of wider cultural beliefs and traditions. The characters were also quite relatable, for a pair of fantastical beings. Their deeper struggles really came through in the writing and in the story, and while I didn't particularly like Ahmad (the jinni) at times--he acted with little thought to the consequences--I still felt sympathy for him.

The supporting cast of characters surrounding the golem and the jinni was also varied and richly drawn. I love how the different backstories wove together and how everything came together so well at the climax of the novel. Overall, this unconventional story was evocatively written, entertaining, and touching, Highly recommended to historical fiction and fantasy fans alike.
2696849
Exquisite in detail, painstaking in craftsmanship, and blinding bright in color, the immense and glittering woolen with gold and silver thread tapestries collected by King Henry VIII were the most treasured and luxurious art form of the Tudor Era. While Hans Holbein the Younger was paid a mere 40 a year for his genius in portraiture, King Henry, eighth of his name, gladly paid thousands of pounds for each of his exhaustive inventory of tapestries, one and all telling the story of Henrys identification with historic, religious and mythical figures, one and all taking the breath away from his wives, mistresses, ministers, courtiers and subjects of his realm. Among those in awe of King Henry VIIIs tapestry collection was Joanna Stafford, lead protagonist of Nancy Bilyeaus third in a trilogy of brilliant novels The Tapestry.

As established in Nancy Bilyeaus previous novels The Crown and The Chalice, Joanna Stafford, niece of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, was a prelate nun at Dartford Priory. Displaced like many clerical men and women in the era by the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Nancys third novel, The Tapestry, brilliantly continues to draw the reader into Joannas incredible life journey, and in doing so, crafts a downright bone-chilling thriller of a woman stalked, hunted by mysterious forces out to kill her  not only for what she had done, but also most pointedly for what she left undone. A clear shift from The Crown and The Chalice, both novels depicting Joanna Stafford chasing her destiny, The Tapestry instead takes the reader on a fast paced thrill ride of Joanna being chased, her very survival reliant on her courage, intuition and wits, as well as those of her cherished friends, some fictional, others familiar.

As the novel opens, Joanna Stafford immediately encounters a major dilemma. She receives a letter from Thomas Cromwell, Lord Privy Seal. Called to court to craft a tapestry for King Henry VIII himself, Joannas quiet and peaceful life is disrupted. Once she leaves her beloved town of Dartford, Joanne quickly becomes the quarry of her unknown enemies. Boom! Just like that, in less words mind you, the action filled plot unfolds. As also true in The Crown and The Chalice, the plot is nothing short of master class story telling, blending the lives of expertly developed fictional characters and well known historical figures. Descriptive detail is spot on historically accurate, demonstrating exhaustive research and an outstanding aptitude for the era. Far more so than the previous two novels, historical figures of the era, such as Hans Holbein, Thomas Culpepper, Henry Howard and others I will leave unsaid, step up to take center stage. Unforced and plot driven, Nancys characterizations of people so well known to many Tudorphiles do not disappoint.

Beyond the clear merits of all three novels, each read on its own a delightful journey, I personally enjoyed witnessing Nancy Bilyeaus craftsmanship as a novelist develop with each new work she completes. The Tapestry shows her enhanced attention to capturing the emotion and humanity of not only Joanna Stafford and her friends, but also the historical figures they encounter. Through this enhanced focus, Joanna now sees not only the evils of those she opposes, but also their personal challenges, weaknesses and basic human decency. This shows most pronounced in her characterizations of Thomas Cromwell and King Henry VIII, both written with the complexities they possessed  power and cruelty, brilliance and manipulation, empathy and compassion.

The Tapestry is truly an outstanding novel that deserves to break out as a blockbuster historical fiction New York Times best-seller read. Step aside and bend a knee, Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex. Lay down for a moment your novels, plays and mini-series success. Joanna Stafford is in the house.
3159710
This is the kind of sprawling, historical fiction book that you just don't want to end! The details are rich and authentic, the mood is consistantly engaging, and the many characters are believable. Thirty-two relatively short chapters divide the book's 860 well-crafted pages, and they make for a relaxed reading each evening, as the plot's timeline moves forward a few decades at a time from 1664 to the present. Edward Rutherfurd gives us a masterful and memorable experience, as we learn about the people(both real and fictious)and the events which make New York one of the most historic and fascinating cities in America, indeed in the whole world... Incidentally, either before or after you read this book, you might enjoy viewing the 2004 DVD 8-disk set by Ric Burns(Ken's brother)entitled "New York: A Documentary", a magnificent 16-hour series first shown on PBS.
393152
Brenda Rickman Vantrese's debut novel is an unsentimental, vivid immersion into the tumult and struggle of 14th century England, featuring an indomitable but flawed widow fighting to safeguard her sons' inheritance, a conflicted translator and illuminator of religious manuscripts who hides a secret, as well as an assortment of other characters who reflect both the differences in class and wealth of the era, including an anchorite, dwarf, stalwart housekeeper, and rapacious bishop.

Vantrese's strengths lie in her superb grasp of the era as seen through her various characters and her understanding of the depth and complexity of spirituality to people striving to overcome their every-day suffering. This is not your average romanticized or sanitized historical recreation; Vantrese has crafted an astonishing tale whose utter lack of anachronism will transport the reader to a time both fascinating and repellent in its contradictions. Superb and uncompromising, THE ILLUMINATOR is destined to become a classic in the genre.
526060
Review first posted at Girl Who Reads. A review copy was provided in exchange for an honest review.

Vasilisa is the odd girl within her family, the one that listens too closely to her nursemaid's stories and believing in the household spirits even after her devout stepmother arrives and forbids her family from performing their usual rituals. She knows that they are just as important as the politics in Moscow, or keeping the people of her father's land safe. The priest from Moscow turns the people away from the old ways, but this actually endangers them all, and Vasilisa must fight with the country spirits to keep the people and land safe.

Set in pre-Christian Russia, the history of the time period is woven into the story as seamlessly as the magic and folklore. Relationships are explained in a very fluid way, and we get a chance to see some of the political machinations that lead to Anna and then Konstantin arriving in Vasilisa's homeland.  Arden draws us into the land with very vivid descriptions that show us the love that Vasilisa has for it, even as the villagers call her a witch because of her ability to see spirits. These same spirits are given as much importance as the human characters, even if we don't always learn their histories. Even the antagonists are given the same thorough treatment; each one is the hero of their own story, after all, no matter how misguided, and they all have their place in the fairy tale. Vasilisa is headstrong and willing to do whatever it takes to save the ones she loves, even if it isn't asked for, and is unable to forget the "real world" as she gets more entangled in that of the spirits at the end of the book.

Very engaging read and well done, it's hard to believe that this is Arden's first novel.
1196348
Powerful and engrossing, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici takes the reader on an unforgettable journey with one of the most powerful women of history.  Beginning with her youth, C.W. Gortner intertwines fact with fiction as he tells the story of Catherine de Medici, her strength, resolution and determination.  From the very start, I felt entranced by Catherine - the pain and misery she suffered as a youth - the intelligence and power that she developed with age.  An incredibly loving and devoted mother, Catherine is determined that her children know happiness.  For me, this was part of her appeal, as well as so many aspects of her personality.

Nostradamus also plays a role within The Confessions of Catherine de Medici, which I was delighted  and thrilled with.  Perhaps this is a common knowledge for this time period, however I am not as familiar with the turmoil of royalty and this time period as I would like to be.  I was also quite fascinated to learn that Catherine de Medici was a "seer" as well.

C.W. Gortner has an incredible talent of bringing stories to life for his readers, as well as an obvious and meticulous research process, to enable such details of fact to be brought to light.  What a time period for woman, especially those of royalty.  To be seen as pawns to bring alliance between countries and the idea of procreation taking place by the age of fourteen is absolutely astonishing.  After reading such an intriguing and engrossing story, I find myself fascinated with this woman who experienced so much within her life.  I anxiously look forward to learning more about her, as well as looking forward to reading more from C.W. Gortner.  Fans of historical fiction will fall, quickly, under the spell of The Confessions of Catherine de Medici and become part of this rich and detailed tale.
3786340
Robert L. Gold's "Dead To Rights" is a historical novel comparable to Robert K Massie's "Nicholas and Alexandra" and "Catherine The Great."  It is among those rare few books that manages to engage the reader through an impressive fusion of historic fact, complex characters and a story line that never fails to surprise and involve the reader.  The first in a series of historical novels, it is bound to guarantee the reader will eagerly anticipate part two, "Cut of the Cross."  It is not often that one finds a novel of 475 pages that one feels compelled to read in just two days, but that was this reader's experience.  It is a page-turner that leaves the reader breathless as the unexpected and unpredictable continue to astonish.  A brilliant book.
4847761
Good historical narratives are a rarity these days. Bernard Cornwell is still capabale of turning out compelling fiction, but the last couple of novels by Wilber Smith certainly point to a decline in his powers. Other historical novelists such as B. J. Taylor and M. J. Rose have settled into the mystery genre. Now along comes Roy Stedall-Humphryes with Bellme, a long, complicated and totally captivating medieval adventure.
We first meet Robert de  Bellme when he is still in his mother's womb as she leads her soldiers in a raid. Merging fact and fiction, the author turns Robert into a complex and conflicted individual who helps to shape the 12th Century. Although the story is epic in scope, Stedall-Humphryes  never loses sight of individual characters whose stories are the real forward thrust of the book.

I hesitate to say much of the plot and spoil the excitement of the read, but let me say this: the action seldom flags, even in scenes with little physical action. In addition, the conclusion is poignant and entirely satisfying. For a first novel, Mr. Stedall-Humphryes has pulled off an remarkable feat, a historical novel that is both believable as well as engrossing.