Category: Historical Fiction

Evil in High Places: Friday Book Snippets

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

Friday Book Snippets combining Book Beginnings on Friday and the Friday 56, is co-hosted by Anne@HeadFullofBooks and Olivia at Bemused and Bookish.

Directions: Share two snippets (a sentence or short paragraph) from a) the book’s opening and b) page 56 (or another page) from the book you are currently reading. No spoilers, please. 

Today I’ve just started to read Evil in High Places by Rory Clements, the second book in his Detective Sebastian Wolff series. This is historical fiction, a murder mystery set in 1936 as Germany is hosting the Olympic Games.

First snippet: Chapter One:

When Elena Lang went missing, Sebastian Wolff couldn’t work out what all the fuss was about.

‘She’s a film star,’ he told his boss, ‘She’s probably overslept – in someone else’s hotel room, That’s how this business works.

Second snippet: Page 103

It suddenly occurred to Seb that he had his police pistol in a shoulder holster under his jacket. He was not more than thirty metres away from Hitler. With one well-aimed shot he could change the course of history.

The moment passed and the Walther remained unfired.

Description from Amazon UK:

HOW DO YOU CATCH A KILLER WHO BELIEVES THEY’RE ABOVE JUSITCE?

Munich, 1936. All eyes are on the Bavarian capital for the upcoming Olympic Games. As athletes fight for gold and the Nazis fight for power, Detective Sebastian Wolff faces a battle of his own.

A famous actress has disappeared and Wolff has been ordered to find her, fast. But Elena Lang is no ordinary film-star: she is the mistress of Joseph Goebbels – Hitler’s right-hand-man in the party that Wolff despises.

But this is a country on the brink of war, and corruption runs deep. In a search that will take him from high society to the city’s darkest corners, Wolff will soon learn just how fine the line is between justice and jeopardy…

I enjoyed the first book in this series, Munich Wolff, set in 1935 and so I’m keen to read what happens next as Hitler moves Germany towards the Second World War.

What do you think? Would you read on?

Love Lane by Patrick Gale

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

Tinder Press| 26 March 2026| 294 pages e-book| Review copy| 5*

Synopsis

A journey. A reunion. A longing for a place called home…
When veteran Canadian wheat farmer, Harry Cane sails home to an England transformed by two world wars, his arrival triggers unwelcome self-examination for the family he abandoned.

His daughter feels duty bound to take him in but is ambushed by a long buried anger she has never before expressed. Harry’s effect on the next generation is less predictable, and enables his granddaughter to deal with an unspeakable trauma, while her gentle husband feels seen for who he truly is.

Can Harry stay and make a new life before it’s too late, or will he find himself cast out again, punished for having witnessed and understood too much?

LOVE LANE is a searing portrayal of escape and entrapment, and a powerful exploration of what home and family can really be.

I’ve read two of Patrick Gale’s books – Notes from an Exhibition and A Perfectly Good Man and enjoyed both of them. So when I saw Love Lane was available on NetGalley I requested it hoping it would be just as good – it is! Actually it’s a follow up to Gale’s earlier book, A Place Called Winter, which I haven’t read, but it reads perfectly well as a standalone. I love it. It’s so beautifully written and I quickly became engrossed in the story.

Set in the 1950s this is above all a character-driven plot about Harry Cane and his family. Harry was born in England, but the story begins in Canada, where had lived, near the town of Winter, Saskatchewan, for many years. In his earlier novel, A Place Called Winter, Gale tells the story of Harry’s life when he had emigrated to Canada and his relationship with Paul, a neighbouring farmer, secret lovers although each lived alone. Now, nearing retirement, Harry is forced to sell his farm, and leaves Canada to return to Liverpool in England to reunite with his daughter Betty and the family he had abandoned. All their lives change as they get to know each other again. It’s not just Harry’s story as we see events through Betty’s eyes and those of her husband Terry, a prison governor and of Pip, his granddaughter and her husband Mike, also a prisoner officer.

I really enjoyed this book for the characterisation, each person comes across as real, portrayed with compassion and understanding. It examines several issues, family relationships above all, and the attitudes to homosexuality. This really is a book that takes you back in time and place to a world long gone.

Patrick Gale has based his novel on the life of his maternal grandfather, using memories, stories and letters passed down to him by his family. In particular he used his grandmother’s unfinished memoir and the many letters between her and his parents. But he states that Love Lane is a novel, not a memoir.

And now I must read A Place Called Winter!

Many thanks to the author and Tinder Press for a review copy via NetGalley.

The Essex Serpent: Friday Book Snippets

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

Friday Book Snippets combining Book Beginnings on Friday and the Friday 56, is co-hosted by Anne@HeadFullofBooks and Olivia at Bemused and Bookish.

Directions: Share two snippets (a sentence or short paragraph) from a) the book’s opening and b) page 56 (or another page) from the book you are currently reading. No spoilers, please. 

This week I’m featuring The Essex Serpent by Sarah Parry, one of the recent additions to my TBRS. I first heard about this book when it was first published four years ago and read rave reviews singing its praise. So when I saw it was one of the 99p books on Kindle in September I snapped it up.

Book beginning, New Year’s Eve:

A young man walks down by the banks of the Blackwater under the full cold moon. He’s been drinking the old year down to the dregs, until his eyes grew sore and his stomach turned, and he was tired of the bright lights and bustle.

Second snippet: Page 56

She has recently come to Essex together with her son and companion in order to study the coastline there (something about fossil bird remains at Walton -on-Naze, I believe) and has been staying in Colchester. Of course I told her about the legend of the Essex Serpent and the rumours of its return, and about the curious carving in All Saints church, and she was most intrigued, and plans to visit.

Description from Goodreads:

Sarah Perry’s award-winning novel, set at the end of the nineteenth century and inspired by true events.

Moving between Essex and London, myth and modernity, Cora Seaborne’s spirited search for the Essex Serpent encourages all around her to test their allegiance to faith or reason in an age of rapid scientific advancement. At the same time, the novel explores the boundaries of love and friendship and the allegiances that we have to one another. The depth of feeling that the inhabitants of Aldwinter share are matched by their city counterparts as they strive to find the courage to express and understand their deepest desires, and strongest fears.

Six Degrees of Separation from The Vanishing Act to Miss Pym Disposes

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

This is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. This month we are starting with either with your book group’s current selection or if you’re not in a book group, start with the book that you’re currently reading.

I’m not in a book group so I’m starting with the book I’m currently reading, which is The Vanishing Act by Sarah Ward. It’s the third book in the Mallory Dawson Crime Thriller series. I enjoyed the first two books and so far (I’ve read over half the book) I’m really enjoying this one too.

This is about a missing family. They disappeared from the holiday cottage, they were renting in a remote part of Wales. Apparently they had left in a hurry whilst making sandwiches for a picnic and leaving a kettle still steaming on the Aga.

Just Another Missing Person by Gillian McAllister, a book that totally gripped and baffled me. Olivia just disappeared from a dead-end alley without being seen coming back out. The investigating police officer is DCI Julia Day, a detective with a passion for solving things, piecing things together and helping people to get to the truth. But she has come up against what seems to be an impossible crime.

The House of Lost Whispers by Jenni Keer, a review copy, which also contains a character called Olivia. I don’t often read romance or fantasy novels but this book has both elements and it’s also historical fiction set before, during and after the First World War. It explores loss and grief, family life, friendship and romantic relationships, as well as the devastating and horrific events of the First World War.

Next is another review copy, The Spy in the Archive by Gordon Corera. It’s nonfiction about Vasili Mitrokhin, a KGB archivist who defected to Britain in 1992. Mitrokhin, a quiet, introverted and determined man, was a reluctant defector, because whilst he loved Russia he came to hate the KGB and the Soviet system. It is a remarkable book about a remarkable man; an in-depth account, that took me weeks to read as it’s not a book to read quickly. It’s both fascinating and informative.

An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris, historical fiction about the Dreyfus Affair. In his Author’s Note Harris writes that his aim in writing this novel was to ‘retell the true story of the Dreyfus affair‘, describing it as ‘perhaps the greatest political scandal and miscarriage of justice in history, which in the 1890s came to obsess France an ultimately the entire world‘. What follows is a chillingly dark, and realistic novel of conspiracy and espionage.

Miss Austen by Gillian Hornby – the untold story of the most important person in Jane’s life – her sister Cassandra. After Jane’s death, Cassandra lived alone and unwed, spending her days visiting friends and relations and quietly, purposefully working to preserve her sister’s reputation. It’s very well researched, a novel that held my attention from the beginning right to the end. A definite 4.5 star book.

Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey. Miss Pym was pleased and flattered to be invited to Leys Physical Training College to give a lecture on psychology. But then there was a ’nasty accident‘. This is not a conventional crime fiction novel. It’s a psychological study focussing on the characters, their motivation and analysis of facial characteristics. It looks at the consequences of what people do and say and, as Miss Pym discovers who she thinks is responsible, it also looks at how much a person should intervene, or as one of the characters tells her, ‘Do the obvious right thing, and let God dispose.’ Miss Pym agonises over her decision, was she really going to condemn someone to death?

Making this chain into a very loosely linked circle I went from crime fiction to crime fiction, with historical fiction, non fiction and spy stories in between.

Next month (October 3, 2026), we’ll start with Rachel Cusk’s latest novel, Life of M.

The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

Penguin| 5 May 2026| 638 pages e-Book| Review copy| 4*

Fourteen years ago I read Kathryn Stockett’s first novel, The Help and loved it. I also watched the film and loved that too. So when I saw on NetGalley she’d written a second novel. The Calamity Club, I requested it and was pleased to find that I loved it, too, although maybe not quite as much as The Help.

Description on Goodreads:

In 1933 Oxford, Mississippi, Prohibition is on the wane, and the Great Depression is tightening its grip. Poor and rich folks alike have fallen on hard times, even as the old social order remains. For women on the margins, the options are few and the price of dignity and self-determination is unbearably high.

Eleven-year-old Meg, one of the unadoptable “big girls” at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum, fights each day to keep her spirit unbowed. Birdie, unmarried and outspoken, has come to Oxford on a mission to ask her social-climbing sister to help the struggling family she’s left behind. And Charlie is a woman with a past, running low on luck but driven by fire, fury, and grit. When their fates converge, they come up with an audacious plan to take back control of their lives. Together, they form an unlikely sisterhood—but in a place and time where hypocrisy is rife, women’s freedom is fragile, and making an enemy can have dire consequences, will the price they pay for their outrageous risk-taking be too high?

My thoughts:

It took me a long time to read this book as it’s so long and detailed, with lots of characters and covering such emotive and serious issues. Maybe it could have been shorter, without losing any impact and it’s unevenly paced with slow sections that made the story drag at times. And I was surprised that the ending was so abrupt. Having said that the characters are wonderfully depicted, with depth making them really believable, especially Birdie, Charlie and Meg (although I wonder if she comes across as too adult for an eleven year old). The locations are well described, which really helped me as I don’t know the area at all.

The title tells you what you need to know. Set in 1933 during the Great Depression calamity follows calamity for all the characters; the miseries, pain and suffering are unrelenting right from the start as Meg enters The Lafayette County Orphan Asylum for Girls in Oxford, Mississippi. Her mother Charlie had gone shopping on Christmas Eve and never returned, leaving eleven year old Meg to fend for herself, until she was rescued by an unknown man – who he is is only revealed much later in the book. But this is not the end of Meg’s misfortunes as she is cruelly treated by Garnet Pitman, the head of the orphanage.

Birdie, meanwhile is living in Footely (a fictional small town) in the Delta, with her mother and sick grandmother. They fear they’ll lose their home as they are unable to pay the forty-three dollars they owe in property taxes. Her sister Frances has married Rory Tartt, a member of a wealthy family living in Oxford and Birdie travels there to ask for help. However, all is not right in the Tartt family and Birdie finds they’re unable to pay off a mortgage of  $2,754. Birdie then helps Frances and her mother-in-law as they try to raise the money to save the Tartt’s grand house as well as Birdie’s home.

What follows is truly remarkable, when Charlie comes up with a plan to raise the money through the Calamity Club she and Birdie set up in the Tartt’s house, employing a group of prostitutes. This could have developed into a farce, but it’s actually a story highlighting the hardships suffered by women at the hands of men and the Anti-Vice Leagues. So-called feeble minded women and those considered to be sexually promiscuous, were imprisoned and sterilized. Above all it’s a story of the women’s resilience, courage and determination to survive against all the odds. I loved it despite its length.

My thanks to the author and NetGalley for a review copy.

A Small Part of History: Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

A Small Part of History by Peggy Elliott, is one of the books I’ll be reading soon. It’s one of my TBRs, historical fiction I bought in 2008. I’m featuring it today as the book caught my eye this morning as I browsed my bookshelves. I took it off the shelf and it made me think of all those cowboy series on TV that I used to watch about pioneers venturing out West. More recently I’ve enjoyed watching Taylor Sheridan’s television series Yellowstone and the prequels 1883 and 1923. 

It’s described on the back cover as:

an epic, heartfelt story of courage in the face of appalling adversity, and a haunting portrayal of how America was forged. Above all, it is a story of people and how the ties that bind us most strongly are those of friendship, of family and of love.

But what makes this book look a bit different is that it’s told from a woman’s perspective. In her Author’s Note Peggy Elliott explains that she’d read ‘a wonderfully thought- provoking book, Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey which pointed out how different women’s experience on the Oregon Trail had been compared to men’s.’

The book begins :

My papa always told me it was best to start a story at the beginning when I confused him by jumping into the things somewhere in the middle. so I am not going to talk about where I am today or even last month, because it all really begun back in June of 1845.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, but she is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. You grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Page 56:

Poor Lizzie! There were dark shadows beneath her eyes and Rebecca could see pale blue veins throbbing in her forehead. What words of comfort could she possibly bring her, not being a mother herself? To have a young child on the trail brought one set of worries, but to bring yet another into the world while still travelling must present even more of a burden.

The map at the front of the book shows the length of the Oregon Trail from Independence, Missouri to Oregon City.

Description from the back cover:

In the summer of 1845 Rebecca Springer and her family join the Oregon wagon train in search of land thousands of miles away. It’s a hard and dangerous journey through blizzards and searing heat, over prairies, desert plains and mountains and, at times, it seems as if it will never end. But an unbreakable bond develops amongst the travelling women as they are tested, physically and emotionally, and their shared experiences of new life and tragic death will bring them closer than blood ever could.

And now I’m really looking forward to reading this book.

If you have read A Small Part of History, what did you think?