Review: A Dangerous Business, by Jane Smiley Knopf, 2022. 208 pp. $28 Monterey, California, is an up-and-coming place in 1851. Though far from the goldfields, the town has nevertheless attracted ranchers and businessmen, some of the latter engaged in trade via its seaport. But a seaport means sailors, and men long aboard ship desiring female…

Novelhistorian

14.11.2023

Murder in Troubled Times: Those Who Go By Night | Novelhistorian

Review: Those Who Go By Night, by Andrew Gaddes Crooked Lane, 2018. 287 pp. $27 It’s 1321, and the bishop of Lincoln has received disturbing news from the village of Bottesford: a man has been murdered and left on a church altar in an apparent grotesque parody of the Crucifixion. Worse, the bishop has heard…

Novelhistorian

21.11.2023

Art, Desire, and a Woman’s Lot: The Lioness of Boston | Novelhistorian

Review: The Lioness of Boston, by Emily Franklin Godine, 2023. 369 pp. $29 Belle Gardner has a problem. She says what she thinks, and social anxiety often prompts her to blurt out opinions that she guesses will strike her listeners the wrong way. In the Boston of 1861, that’s just not done—by a woman, anyway—which…

Novelhistorian

28.11.2023

Unofficial Doctor: Lady Tan’s Circle of Women | Novelhistorian

Review: Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, by Lisa See Scribner, 2023. 342 pp. $28 When Tan Yunxian is eight years old in 1469, two events shake her life: her mother dies, and her Grandmother Ru, with whom she now lives near the city of Wuxi, sets out to teach the girl all she knows about…

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Making the Best of Things: A Dangerous Business | Novelhistorian

Murder in Troubled Times: Those Who Go By Night | Novelhistorian

Art, Desire, and a Woman’s Lot: The Lioness of Boston | Novelhistorian

Unofficial Doctor: Lady Tan’s Circle of Women | Novelhistorian

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