Georgian
Plague Pits & River Bones
Detective Stephen Lavender and Constable Ned Woods of Bow Street are struggling with the extra workload assigned to them. In…
The Optickal Illusion
Based on a real-life scandal in 1797, this novel is concerned with Ann-Jemima Provis and her father, who want to…
The Ballade of Mary Reede
John Tanner, a young Englishman trained as a ship’s carpenter and groomed for command of a merchant vessel of his…
Monster: The Story of Young Mary Shelley
This serious, thoughtful literary novel reimagines the education and incidents that inspired Mary Godwin (later Shelley) in writing her most…
The Muse of Fire
Romance meets backstage drama in a novel that is long on plot twists but a little short on emotionally believable…
A Brush with Shadows
In July 1831, Sebastian Gage has come home to Langstone Manor in Scotland. Surrounding his home are beautiful and bleak…
Jack Fortune: And the Search for the Hidden Valley
I had not read anything by Sue Purkiss before, and this novel, set in 1768, turned out to be a…
Women and the Gallows, 1797-1837: Unfortunate Wretches
1797 to 1837 were the years of the ‘Bloody Code’, with 188 capital offences on the English statute book by…
Blood on the Heather
Set in the Highlands of Scotland in 2017, with a time-slip to 1745, an era of red coats and Jacobites,…
The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock
Editors' choice
Too many times I have read a book, very often by a first-time published writer, that has been stratospherically praised…
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.
