May 1, 2013 ... This book unfolds a tale of intrigue and ambition interwoven with passion. Birth of
Venus / Sarah Dunant. The Birth of Venus is a tour de force.
May 2013 Book Chats Jane Austen and Friends: Historical Fiction Take a step back in time… Wolf Hall / Hilary Mantel Set in 1520s England, Wolf Hall is a novel which explores the intersection of individual psychology and wider politics. With a vast array of characters, and richly overflowing with incident, it peels back history to show us Tudor England as a half-made society, moulding itself with great passion, suffering and courage. The Dovekeepers / Alice Hoffman In the year 70AD, in the desperate days of the siege of Masada, the lives of four remarkable women intersect. There is Yael, the assassin's daughter whose heartbreak leads to her true path in the ruins of the desert; Revka, the baker's wife who loses her dearest treasure on earth and yet finds the strength to protect her family; Aziza, the warrior's beloved who leads a secret life not even those closest to her could imagine; and Marit, beautiful witch of Moab, a woman as loyal as she is dangerous. The Dogs and the Wolves / Irene Nemirovsky A wonderful, panoramic novel and an achingly poignant love story that goes back to Irene Nemirovsky's roots, sweeping the reader from the Jewish quarter of a Ukrainian city in the early years of the twentieth century to Paris in the twenties and thirties and again in eastern Europe in a snowy winter on the eve of war. Fingersmith / Sarah Waters Waters slowly and inexorably builds the tension in this hard-to-put-down novel, which is full of atmospheric details about grand houses, petty slums, and Victorian madhouses. Each clearly drawn character is ensnared by secrets and lies that force his or her actions, and everyone is both a predator and a victim. The Tea Rose / Jennifer Donnelly Spirited and ambitious Fiona Finnegan longs to break free from the poverty and squalid lanes and alleys of 1888 Whitechapel, dreaming of one day opening her own tea shop. The success in her life is marred by violence and tragedy, however, and it is only by returning to the streets of her impoverished childhood that Fiona can find a way to atone for her past.
Year of Wonders / Geraldine Brooks In 1666, a remote English village infected with the plague is persuaded by a fiery young preacher to seal itself off in a brutal quarantine. The story is a portrait of the best and worst in people faced with sorrow, terror and death. It is an excellently depicted study of the wonder of human courage. Fall of Giants / Ken Follett The first novel in the Century Trilogy, Fall of Giants follows the fates of five interrelated families – American, German, Russian, English and Welsh – as they move through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women’s suffrage. The First Man in Rome / Colleen McCullough In Rome, 110BC, the upstart military genius Gaius Marius marries the daughter of aristocrat Gaius Julius. Three years later her wayward sister marries the attractive, ambitious but unsuitable Lucius Cornelius Sulla. This book unfolds a tale of intrigue and ambition interwoven with passion. Birth of Venus / Sarah Dunant The Birth of Venus is a tour de force. It brings alive the history of medieval Florence at its most dramatic period, telling a compulsively absorbing story of love, art, religion, and power through the passionate voice of Alessandra, a heroine with the same vibrancy of spirit as her beloved city. The Devil’s Company / David Liss Set in the splendor and squalor of eighteenth-century London, this historical thriller is filled with hidden agendas, daring enemies and treacherous plans and scrupulous period research.
A Few Right Thinking Men / Sulari Gentill Historical crime fiction at its best: gripping, beautifully-written and deeplyresearched. The first in the 'Rowland Sinclair' series starts in Australia's 1930's Great Depression and is a story about art, money, crime and treason based on extraordinary yet real events, many of which seem incredible today. Girl with a Pearl Earring / Tracy Chevalier When Griet becomes a maid in the household of Johannes Vermeer in the town of Delft, she thinks she knows her role: housework, laundry and the care of his six children. But as she becomes part of his world and his work, their growing intimacy spreads tension and deception in the ordered household and, as the scandal seeps out, into the town beyond.
