17th Century
For King or Commonwealth
In A Ship for the King, Richard Woodman left his readers wondering which side Captain Kit Faulkner would choose at…
Cave of Secrets
Ireland, 1639. Twelve-year-old Tom Flynn lives in the Big House near Roaringwater Bay in County Cork. On the surface, his…
John Saturnall’s Feast
Editors' choice
Let me not beat about the bush. Lawrence Norfolk’s The Pope’s Rhinoceros is one of the best books I have…
Crusoe: Daniel Defoe, Robert Knox, and the Creation of a Myth
The long title of Katherine Frank’s book harkens back to a 17th-century fashion. The book’s subject is rooted in that…
The Axe, The Shield, and the Triton
This novel is first in a promised series that tells of a 17th-century gleeman and his stories. The Axe, the…
The Piccadilly Plot
This Thomas Chaloner mystery takes place in London in the spring of 1664. Chaloner has been summoned from Tangier back…
The King’s Agent
No task is too difficult or dangerous for Battista della Palla, Florentine art dealer, handsome thief, and agent to François…
Thorn
Thorn is a fictional account of a friendship between the philosopher Baruch Spinoza and Rembrandt Van Rijn, the great Dutch…
Mariana
For fans of time travel and reincarnation-themed historical fiction, this 1993 Catherine Cookson Fiction Award winner will be excitedly welcomed…
The Apothecary’s Daughter
January 1665, and the ills in the City of London are mostly treatable fevers and accidents. Susannah Leyton is happy…
About our Reviews
Over the last 15 years The Historical Novels Review (the society’s print magazine for our members) has published reviews of some 12,000 historical fiction books. We plan to upload them all and make them searchable here.
