Tag Archives: Historical Fiction

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The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

I’m not sure I have enough words to adequately express how much this book moved me. Usually, a book that feels slow to start and has slightly confusing chapters doesn’t affect me this much, but The Paris Wife slowly tore me to pieces with its heart and pain, and at the very end, I was reading through tears.

The Paris Wife tells the story of Ernest Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley, and the beginnings of his career. No one seems especially thrilled at the start of their relationship, but they were in love. It was easy to see, even through the very end. And I think that’s why it hurt so much at the end. It wasn’t hatred that I felt, reading those last chapters. It was Hadley’s love; so much love that she knew she had to let it go, or it would destroy them more than it had already.

It’s easy to see the Ernest Hadley fell in love with. But as he gained success, he began to lose himself to his work, and in turn, losing his wife and family. It’s absolutely heartbreaking to read, because as much as you want it to turn out, you know it doesn’t. Each little piece of love and adoration I read was like another tiny needle poking me; simply because I knew their happiness wouldn’t last forever.

The novel does start of a little slow, and some of the vacation chapters where lots of people are mentioned got a little confusing, but all of that pales in comparison to how fantastic the rest of the novel is. It will make you feel, it will hurt, and the ending breaks your heart, but it is such a fantastic, amazing, wonderful, splendid novel that you can’t help but keep reading. This has easily become a must read book, and one of the best books I’ve ever read.

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The Kingmaker’s Daughter by Philippa Gregory

Here’s the thing. I love history. A lot. I love when Philippa Gregory novels. A lot. The fact that her books are historical novels makes me nearly giddy. I might love Gregory’s novels to the point I almost hate them just a little bit, too. The Kingmaker’s Daughter was no exception.

The Kingmaker’s Daughter is the story of Anne Neville and her road to becoming queen. It starts when she is 8 years old and ends when she is 28. She starts off as her father’s pawn, a way to move higher in importance by marrying her off to the best offer. Her father uses her to try and win back his power over the king after King Edward’s (of the York side) wife and her family steal his influence away. She is married to Prince Edward of the Lancaster side as a way to buy a tie to the kingship. After her husband dies and the Lancaster line is officially ended, she loses nearly all her potential power and influence.

It is at this moment she starts to make choices for herself. She knows there are very few options to gain independence for herself, so she takes the next best road and marries someone she cares a great deal for, and eventually loves. Richard. I never doubted for a second that they came to love each other. To begin with, it almost feels as though the marriage is one of purpose. She wants to leave the house of her sister and brother-in-law, and Richard wants access to the land, wealth, and power her name brings. But by the end of the novel, there was love there.

The princes in the tower are touched upon, and yet nothing is definitively said about their fate. I like that Gregory doesn’t try to take a side. She keeps that mystery going and I appreciate that.

In the past 3 novels, I had come to form an opinion of Anne Neville and it wasn’t the greatest. Even though I saw her as a product of those around her, I wasn’t overly fond of her character in the last three books. However, when it’s finally her turn to tell the story, I fell in love with her and started to despise characters I had loved previously.

This is what I love most about The Cousins’ War series. In one novel, a character is painted as horrible, but the next makes him or her lovable. There isn’t one “villain” you can root against. They are all good and bad. Gregory has taken the stories we read in history books and made them into people. I can’t get enough of it.

The Kingmaker’s Daughter is yet another brilliant addition to The Cousins’ War series and I’m hopelessly upset I have to wait another year to hear Elizabeth of York’s story.

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Frozen by Mary Casanova

I really, really enjoyed Frozen. More than I thought I would. It tells Sadie’s coming of age story extremely well, and even though the mystery wasn’t really much of a mystery for me, I still found myself reading as quickly as I could, wanting to know the next chapter of the story.

Sadie Rose has been the unofficial daughter of the Worthingtons for 11 years, after the death of her mother and nearly freezing to death herself. She’s been mute since then, finding other ways to communicate. When she stumbles across pictures of her mother, something starts to change. She finds her voice, and learns that words can make her powerful.

She starts to fight against the confines she’s been held in for 11 years. She wants to think and be her own person, not held back by who her mother was, who the Worthingtons want her to be. She wants to find out where she comes from, and use that to decide who she wants to be. It makes for a compelling story about finding your own power and knowing who you are.

The relationship I loved most in this novel was the one between Sadie Rose, Aasta and Hans. Aasta and Hans give Sadie the loving relationship she needs and wants, and they give her the care the Worthingtons don’t. Their interactions always gave me a smile.

Frozen is a novel different than what I’ve been reading lately. It’s 1920’s setting gives it an interesting backdrop that really works with the underlying mystery. It’s a good read and definitely one I’ll be recommending to people.

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Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding

Painter of Silence had me intrigued from the first moment I read the description. I just knew it was going to be a book that slowly made my heart ache and twist, but it would be done so beautifully, I’d have no choice but to keep reading, knowing there may not be that perfect, happy ending.

The descriptions in this book are gorgeous. Harding paints the world in such a way that I could picture everything, down to the smallest detail. Usually books that are written that wonderfully fail to have a good plot to go with it, but Painter of Silence is not one of those books. It doesn’t have a life altering plot twist, or a love triangle for the ages. But it does have a story to tell, and between all the lovely words and phrases, Harding tells it.

Augustin can’t hear the world around him, and can only understand the world from how he sees it, can only communicate using pictures to show what he wants to say. He needs to find his childhood friend, Safta, and tell her something important. This is how he ends up on the stairs of the hospital, near death. The story weaves beautifully between the past and the present, showing how vastly different the worlds of Augustin and Safta are, even while being in the same location at times.

There’s the world before the war, when Augustin and Safta were friends, she being the only one who could communicate with him, at times. And then there’s the time leading up to the war, when her heart is broken by a family friend, and then her family being fractured and split apart because of the war. And there’s the after, when Augustin shows up at the hospital and he and Safta reconnect. Time passing in this novel flows effortlessly and it’s just another piece of this fantastically painted novel.

Painter of Silence is not a light read. I had to focus in on every word in order to get the full story. But it is so worth it to read these words. Harding has written an amazing work of contemporary fiction and it needs to be read.

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Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly

There wasn’t anything necessarily wrong with Revolution, but there was something that kept me from connecting with the story. I don’t usually have as much trouble finding something to tie myself to in a book, but for some reason, I just couldn’t get into this book.

Andi is basically a mess, and even though she knows it, she refuses to acknowledge just how bad she is. She’s suffering greatly, but fights against that to maintain at least a slight resemblance to okay. It’s because of this that her father takes her to Paris and she starts a search in the pages of an old diary that ends with her finding a way to live the life she’s been given. I wasn’t in love with Andi’s character, but I understood her a little bit. I’ve never had such a loss as she had, but I still understand a bit of her desperation for something else in life besides the pain it is now.

There’s a tiny bit of romance in here, and I do think it’s just the right amount. Any less and Andi wouldn’t end up where she needs to be. Any more and it would have taken away from the main point of the story. Donnelly did do a fantastic job when it came to this.

I’m usually a huge fan of anything with historical context, but it wasn’t until the last 50 or so pages I actually became interested in the story. I felt like the novel dragged a bit and could have been a little bit neater, cleaner, and tighter. It took a long while to build up to the exciting part of the novel and I wish there either could have been more of the history or less of everything else. I’m not really sure which I’d prefer.

Overall, Revolution was not a bad book. I just didn’t find the connection I needed to fully enjoy it. I’m sure this book is loved by many for a reason, but for me, it just didn’t cut it.

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The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey

I’ve never read Jane Eyre. There, I said it. I’ve never read it and I was worried that might have an effect on how much I enjoyed this book. Would I be able to love it, even if I’ve never read the novel it’s a retelling of? Would I even be able to understand the impact of the original on this book? If the story has already been told before, would it even be a good book?

The answers to those questions are yes, yes, and yes.

I loved this book and it actually has me wanting to read Jane Eyre. I fell in love with Gemma and her determination to not be a victim of her past. There were so many parts of the story when it would have been completely acceptable for Gemma to take a look at her circumstances and life and decide to just give up hoping for better things. But she fought forward instead and took ownership of her life and made things happen for herself instead of sitting idly by and hoping something came along.

I loved how Gemma was developed as a person before introducing the romantic element of the story. Yes, she’s still young, but she knows more of herself than a lot of girls her age. She’s had time to grow before falling in love and she doesn’t let that love change the major parts of who she is. When something doesn’t feel right to her, she makes the decision to maintain who she is and what she believes, even though it ends up hurting more than anything else in her life.

I was a little worried I’d be too bothered by the age difference in the love story, but I surprisingly wasn’t. It somehow felt right and made sense. In the life of Mr. Sinclair, he has had to face just as many difficulties as Gemma, and even though it took longer for him to find a companion that understood and saw him for him, it fit and was wonderful to read.

I adored this book and definitely think people should read it. I can’t make any comparisons between Jane Eyre and The Flight of Gemma Hardy, but as its own novel, The Flight of Gemma Hardy was superb and certainly one of the best books I’ve read.

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Allegiance by Cayla Kluver

I rarely like the second book in trilogies. They generally feel like a bridge to get from the end of book one to the beginning of book three without anything happening. It usually feels like a waste of a full book when simply making books one and three just a little longer would have worked just fine.

Allegiance is nothing like that.

There is not one part of this book that felt like that. I could not stop reading. The only times I was forced to put the book down were driving home from the coffee shop and when I grabbed the bag of pepperonis that classified as my dinner. The rest of the past 10 hours has been spent reading this book.

Allegiance picked up right where Legacy left off and while it would have been easy for Kluver to follow the recent novel trends and make this the book that introduces the typical love triangle, she doesn’t. Instead, she builds the characters and makes you like people you couldn’t stand in the first book. Kluver was able to take characters and make them people. They have flaws and you’re still rooting for them in some capacity or another.

Alera grows up in this book and it’s easy to see from start to finish. She becomes the person she needs to be rather than the person she wants to be. The wonderful thing is that in the process, the two becomes the same. Even Steldor grew on me and I find myself wanting even more from his character.

There’s a nice mix between the romance aspect of the story and the action. It never gets overloaded with the love story, but it’s never too action heavy. There’s enough of both to keep the hopeless romantic in me happy, and the fight scene lover engaged. It’s amazingly mixed and only adds to the story.

I can’t wait for November to get my hands on the last book. I’m incredibly impressed with how Kluver has written the story thus far and will be anxiously waiting to see how she concludes this fantastic series.

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Anastasia’s Secret by Susanne Dunlap

The entire time I was reading this book, I found myself wishing I didn’t know how it ends. Dunlap wrote a book that had me dreading each turn of the page, and yet I couldn’t stop reading.

Everyone knows the story of Anastasia and her family. It’s been done many times, and yet this book was different. It took the events and history everyone knows, and added a personal element to it. Dunlap added the thrill of first love and secrecy. It brought the story to life in a whole new way.

The characters have new life as well. It’s easy to understand each person and how their actions helped shape the perception the public had of them and the eventual uprising. I loved how Sasha brought the real world to Anastasia and made her think about her life compared to those of everyone else. She goes from being very naive and thinking her life is just like that of the people, only slightly more privileged, to realizing just how wrong she was yet wishing for that life she thought she had. Anastasia really grows through the entire book and I really liked that.

The only thing I didn’t really enjoy was the amount of summary that existed in the novel. I understand why it’s there, because it’s hard to condense 4, almost 5, years into one book, but I wish some of it had been broken up by more interaction with her family and dialogue. Even though there was a lot of summary, I was incredibly grateful Dunlap didn’t use too much artistic freedom and rearrange all the events that unfolded just to make it fit. She stuck to the real history, for the most part, and the few things she did change or add didn’t impact the novel in any way.

This was a great book about one of, what I consider to be, the most interesting times in European history. It really shows how just a few actions can set off a snowball that ends tragically. I especially enjoyed the ending, even though it is one of the saddest conclusions I’ve read, simply because you know what happens next, even without being told. For anyone that loves history, this is a fantastic book to read.

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Becoming Marie Antoinette by Juliet Grey

While there wasn’t anything necessarily wrong with this novel, I just couldn’t get into it. As someone who greatly enjoys history, I usually know quite a bit about the people typically written about. What I find most enjoyable is when those facts are told through new and interesting ways, and there wasn’t much of that in this book.

It seemed very, “and then this happened, then this and then this followed,” without really building up the story. It felt more like a biography than a novel, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it just wasn’t what I was looking for.

This book was a very well-written, factually correct book about the earlier years of Marie Antoinette, but if you’re looking for something on Marie that reads more as a novel, I’d consider something else.

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The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory

This book took me a little longer than usual to read, not because of the quality of the writing, but because this was a part of Tudor history I didn’t know much about and I found myself constantly looking up the characters and places Gregory mentioned in the book.

I think writing this book from 3 different first person perspectives gave an interesting view of the time period. Three different people have three very different views of the same event. I found myself constantly thrown for a loop by Mary. She never thought twice about lying and it was interesting to see how she would portray an event to others, and then how she actually thought of the same event.

Bess is one of the best historical fiction characters I’ve read in a long time. From Gregory’s book, as well as the researching I did on my own, I’ve come to really love her strength and determination. She was a smart business woman and used that to her advantage. She worked her way up and earned the things she had, even if it was through marriage, and worked hard to keep herself safe and secure for the future. I think more women in books should be like her.

Yet again, Gregory has me thinking about the little things in history and how one simple decision can change the fate of a country, and the world. While not my favorite book (The Queen’s Fool has that title), it was a great read and sheds more light onto the Tudor era of history.