Bloomsbury
Return of a King
In the spring of 1839, British forces invaded Afghanistan for the first time, ostensibly to re-establish Shah Shuja ul-Malik on…
Darwin’s Ghosts
Darwin was famously troubled by his discovery of evolution by survival of the fittest, which set him at odds with…
Semper Fidelis: A Novel of the Roman Empire
Set in 2nd-century Roman Britain during Hadrian’s rule, this interesting read started out slow for a mystery but picked up…
Painter of Silence
Romania under Communist tyranny is the setting for Georgina Harding’s novel of subtle pathos, showing the transformation of society as…
Hard Twisted
Editors' choice
In 1934, 13-year-old Lucile “Lottie” Garrett has already been hoboing with her father, Dillard Garrett, in Oklahoma for two years.…
Eleven Eleven
November 11th, 1918, the last day of World War I. It is still night, and three young soldiers are on…
The Watchers
Several recent nonfiction books have delved into the thorny subject of Sir Francis Walsingham, his dedication to Queen Elizabeth I,…
Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death
The Shadow of Death, despite its ominous title, is first in a series of interconnected, gentle mysteries set in 1953,…
Beyond the Blue Horizon: How the Earliest Mariners Unlocked the Secrets of the Oceans
Brian Fagan is a marvel, not just in his encyclopedic knowledge of history, archaeology, and anthropology, but in the way…
Leonardo and the Last Supper
This time out, Ross King, novelist and bestselling author of biographical nonfiction focusing primarily on the Italian Renaissance (Brunelleschi’s Dome,…
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.
