For fans of early medieval history, a book about a major tenth century figure is an exciting prospect. Conn Iggulden’s Dunstan – a leading churchman and statesman of his time – is in the form of an autobiography. This is a tale of the struggle for power in insecure times and the inevitable interaction with […]
Reviews
Looking for your next read? HWA members review the best new historical writing, recommend their desert island books and revisit some old favourites.
The Beguiled
The Beguiled is Sofia Coppola’s take on the 1966 novel by Thomas P. Cullinan, and an earlier film adaptation by Don Siegal, starring Clint Eastwood. Coppola has a history of exploring female sexuality and power in works like The Virgin Suicides and Marie Antoinette. Now she adds another clever and complex study – one with […]
City of Masks by S D Sykes
City of Masks is the third outing for medieval crime-solving Lord of the Manor Oswald de Lacy and an excellent addition to a thoroughly enjoyable series. As one would expect from a writer of Sykes’ calibre, the novel works perfectly well as a stand-alone but I would recommend reading them in order if only for the […]
Prague Nights by Benjamin Black
Fans of Benjamin Black’s detective novels featuring the 1950s Dublin pathologist Quirke might find themselves a tad disorientated if they’re expecting more of the same in the author’s latest novel, Prague Nights – unless they’ve read the blurb, that is. For the anguished, lugubrious Quirke has not suddenly decided to go on holiday to Prague. […]
The Faithful by Juliet West
The Faithful is a compelling read where intimate personal narratives are influenced by historical events leading up to World War II. At the centre of the novel is the character of Hazel, to whom we are first introduced in the summer of 1935. By this time in the teenaged Hazel’s life her well-to-do parents have […]
Crimson and Bone by Marina Fiorato
Crimson is blood and white is bone. This is the defining image of the claustrophobic relationship between Pre-Raphaelite painter Francis Maybrick Gill and the prostitute Annie Stride whom Francis saves from a suicide attempt at Waterloo Bridge. Annie is in despair after the suicide of her friend, Mary-Anne. Mary-Anne’s voice is heard in flash-back at […]
Review: The Women who Flew for Hitler by Clare Mulley
Clare Mulley has written a fascinating biography about two fascinating women. You would have thought that two women who grew up in post-World War One Germany with a love for flying and an intense urge to succeed in becoming pilots, would have been allies, even friends. Instead, Hanna Reitsch and Melitta von Stauffenberg (nee Schiller) […]
Aphra Behn: A Secret Life by Janet Todd
There is nothing Janet Todd doesn’t know about the Restoration playwright, Aphra Behn; her acclaimed 1996 biography is testimony to this. Twenty years on she has returned to this work, updating it with subtle textual revisions and a new introduction: Aphra Behn: A Secret Life is the result. In the years separating these editions historical […]