B Reviews / Book Reviews18th-century / American historical / French and Indian War / Historical / inspirational / lighthouse keeper / Royal-Navy / second chance at love / smallpox / Virginia4 Comments
It is 1755, and the threat of war with France looms over colonial York, Virginia. Chocolatier Esmée Shaw is fighting her own battle of the heart. Having reached her twenty-eighth birthday, she is reconciled to life alone after a decade-old failed love affair from which she’s never quite recovered. But ... more >
B+ Reviews / Book Reviews / Recommended Reads17th-century / 18th-century / dual-timeline / First-Person / Historical / historical-Scotland / investigation / Jacobites / Scotland / second chance at love / Slains11 Comments
In the autumn of 1707, old enemies from the Highlands to the Borders are finding common ground as they join to protest the new Union with England. At the same time, the French are preparing to launch an invasion to bring the young exiled Jacobite king back to Scotland to ... more >
Book Reviews / C+ Reviews18th-century / Contemporary / dual-timeline / Eighteenth century / Historical / Jacobite / Jacobite rebellion / Paranormal lite / Scotland / scottish historical / Writer15 Comments
1707. The walls of Slains castle shelter Jacobite rebels, who are conspiring to sail the young, exiled James Stewart from France into Scotland to reclaim his crown—and a young woman caught up in their plot. Present day. Writer Carrie McClelland is enchanted by an impromptu trip to Cruden Bay, Scotland, ... more >
B Reviews / Book Reviews18th-century / 19th century / class differences / classic literature / Deception / fathers and daughters / First-Person / gambling / Historical / Russia / Russian literature / War / Military3 Comments
A dazzling new collection of Pushkin’s fiction, in definitive translations by the acclaimed Anthony Briggs As complex as they are gripping, Pushkin’s stories are some of the greatest and most influential ever written. Foundational to the development of Russian prose, they retain stunning freshness and clarity, more than ever in ... more >
Book Reviews / D Reviews / F Reviews18th-century / accountant / Dark / Japan / Literary fiction / midwife / Netherlands / POC / shipping / unrequited-love8 Comments
Trigger warning: Dear David Mitchell, Your literary novel, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, caught my attention because of its setting, the environs of Nagasaki in 1799-1800. I heard of the book through great word-of-mouth from people whose opinions I generally trust so I was excited to read it. ... more >
B Reviews / Book Reviews / D Reviews18th-century / Agent/Spies/Undercover / antihero / discrimination / fortune hunter / Georgian / Historical / Historical fiction / Ireland / marriage-of-convenience / prejudice4 Comments
Ireland, 1749. Dennis McDermott, a witty, charming and daring young man with shades of the Scarlet Pimpernel, lives two lives in eighteenth-century Dublin. Fashionable society idolises him as a handsome, rakish man of their world, never suspecting that he is the mysterious leader of the Irish underground whose nightly missions ... more >