Biographical Fiction
The Boleyn Wife
Though many books have been written about Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard, relatively few have surfaced about the elusive figure…
Wolf Hall
Editors' choice
The story of the courtship and marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn is the stuff of legend. I could…
Her Mother’s Daughter
“Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary.” A children’s scary game recalls the history of the 16th-century queen, Mary Tudor. Daughter of Henry…
Sunflowers
“I’d heard about him but never seen him,” Rachel Courteau says in the opening line of Sheramy Bundrick’s debut novel,…
The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson
There can be few challenges more daunting for a writer than attempting to take on the voice of another writer,…
The Anarchist
Editors' choice
This novel is a fictitious account of Leon Czolgosz, who, on September 6, 1901, in Buffalo, New York, shot and…
The Greatest Knight
The life of William Marshal is remarkably well documented for a less-than-royal contemporary of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard Lionheart and…
Homer & Langley
For a review suited to this journal, it is well to begin by pointing out that the novel is not,…
Remarkable Creatures
The author of Girl with a Pearl Earring returns with the story of an unlikely friendship between two unlikely 19th-century…
The Ides of March
The Ides of March concentrates on the eight days leading up to and including Julius Caesar’s assassination. While Caesar is…
About our Reviews
Over the last 20 years The Historical Novels Review (the society’s print magazine for our members) has published reviews of some 15,000 historical fiction books.