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Reading the Past
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Reading the Past - History

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Reading the Past

19.02.2025

Reading the Past: A tangled web of mysteries in Candace Robb's medieval-set A Snake in the Barley

Tom Merchet, brewer of some of the finest ale in York in 1377, has failed to return home for days, and his beloved wife, Bess, can’t hide he...

Reading the Past

19.02.2025

Reading the Past: The Great Depression on the Farm, a guest post by Charlotte Whitney, author of A Tiny Piece of Blue

Today I'm welcoming author Charlotte Whitney, who has a guest essay about the historical background to her new novel, A Tiny Piece of Blue ....

Reading the Past

08.02.2025

Reading the Past: Sisterhood, ghosts, and the meaning of freedom in Erin Crosby Eckstine's Junie, set in 1860s Alabama

The narrative voice in Junie sounds so assured that you wouldn’t realize it was a debut. The title character, just sixteen in 1860, has liv...

Reading the Past

08.02.2025

Reading the Past: Takeaways from Day 1 of The History Quill's 2025 convention, covering the state of historical fiction today

I spent yesterday at The History Quill’s 2025 virtual convention , which I first heard about on Instagram. It’s a writers’ conference for hi...

Reading the Past

01.02.2025

Reading the Past: Historical fiction winners from the 2025 American Library Association Book and Media Awards

The American Library Association and its RUSA division recently announced the winners in their annual Book and Media Awards. I always like ...

Reading the Past

27.01.2025

Reading the Past: The Diamond and the Duke, a Napoleonic-era romance with a Beauty-and-the-Beast subplot

Lady Eleanor “Ellie” Balfour has loved Wesley Audley, illegitimate son of the Duke of Bentley, ever since he saw her practicing swordplay on...

Reading the Past

19.01.2025

Reading the Past: The past echoes through the present in Charmaine Wilkerson's multi-period Good Dirt

Ranging across time and distance, Charmaine Wilkerson’s second novel (after the highly acclaimed Black Cake ) stitches together a meaningful...

Reading the Past

15.01.2025

Reading the Past: Review of Darry Fraser's The Night on the Darling River, set in late 19th-century Australia

On an evening in late August 1894, a mob of union sheepshearers boarded the paddle-steamer Rodney at its mooring along the Darling River in...

Reading the Past

07.01.2025

Reading the Past: Haunting family secrets across three generations in Ireland and America in Catherine Airey's Confessions

Airey’s intoxicating debut is much more than a saga following young women of Irish heritage across three generations. Sixteen-year-old Cora ...

Reading the Past

02.01.2025

Reading the Past: Short reviews of four historical novels about uncommon women

Happy New Year! This is my 1900th blog post, with brief reviews of four recommended historical novels I've read over the past month or so. ...

Reading the Past

27.12.2024

Reading the Past: The Instrumentalist reinterprets the life of an orphaned girl turned master violinist in 18th-century Venice

In 1696, a Venetian sex worker deposits her newborn in a small hole in the wall of the Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage where nuns shelter...

Reading the Past

21.12.2024

Reading the Past: Michelle Cameron's Babylon illuminates life during the Jewish exile in ancient Babylon

Babylon is engrossing from start to finish. Michelle Cameron’s novels illustrate the lives of the Jewish people (especially women) at times...

Reading the Past

14.12.2024

Reading the Past: Ten more recent indie-published historical novels to check out

Here are ten more indie-published historical novels worth investigating. It was great to see so much interest in my initial list of ten titl...

Reading the Past

10.12.2024

Reading the Past: Jennifer S. Brown's The Whisper Sister is a fabulous tale of Prohibition-era NYC

In flapper-speak, a “whisper sister” was a female barkeep during Prohibition, a daring woman who kept booze flowing for eager customers in u...

Reading the Past

05.12.2024

Reading the Past: Signe Pike's The Shadowed Land delves into the possible Scottish roots of Arthurian legend

Personal transformations echo throughout Pike’s intensely felt third novel (following The Forgotten Kingdom , 2020) in an ongoing series abo...

Reading the Past

01.12.2024

Reading the Past: Critics pick their favorite historical novels of 2024

It's not even December, and media outlets have been proclaiming their Best Books recommendations for 2024. I feel a bit sorry for those nove...

Reading the Past

25.11.2024

Reading the Past: Ten recent indie-published historical novels to check out

If you aren't paying attention to indie-published historical fiction, you don't have a full picture of what the genre has to offer to reader...

Reading the Past

18.11.2024

Reading the Past: The opening round is up for the 2024 Goodreads Choice Award for Historical Fiction

Voting for the opening round in the 2024 Goodreads Choice Awards is open for the next week, through November 24th. On the ballot for histori...

Reading the Past

13.11.2024

Reading the Past: Rachel Blackmore's Costanza reveals the real woman behind a groundbreaking 17th-century sculpture

She has gazed out at viewers for nearly four centuries: eyes wide, lips parted, hair unkempt, expression determined and sensual. The marble ...

Reading the Past

03.11.2024

Reading the Past: Eleanore of Avignon depicts a young woman's courageous path in medieval France

The Provençal city of Avignon in 1347-48 is rife with tension and drama, with the Catholic popes in residence, Queen Joanna of Naples seekin...

Reading the Past

24.10.2024

Reading the Past: For their next books, three prominent historical novelists are sticking with their genre roots

Several well-known historical novelists have announced their next books in recent weeks, and I found it especially interesting to see they'r...

Reading the Past

18.10.2024

Reading the Past: Julia Park Tracey's Silence examines women's agency in Puritan-era Massachusetts

Steeped in the language and mores of an earlier time, Julia Park Tracey’s meditative and defiantly life-affirming novel Silence follows a y...

Reading the Past

17.10.2024

Reading the Past: Kimberly Brock's The Fabled Earth unfolds a multilayered mystery surrounding Georgia's Cumberland Island

In her third novel, Brock ( The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare , 2022) proves marvelously adept at intertwining mythic stories with contemporary...

Reading the Past

05.10.2024

Reading the Past: Victoria Thompson's Murder in Rose Hill delves into Gilded Age medical cures and family dynamics

Anyone conducting research in Gilded Age news archives will note the proliferation of ads for patent medicines: concoctions promoted as cure...

Reading the Past

28.09.2024

Reading the Past: Historical novels are acclaimed via a number of recent literary awards

Over the past few weeks, many literary prize announcements have come to my attention via industry news sources or social media. And histori...

Reading the Past

24.09.2024

Reading the Past: The View from Behind the Camera: My Family and Old Hollywood, an essay by Ginny Kubitz Moyer

Longtime readers of this blog will know I'm drawn to historical novels inspired by family history, and along these lines, Ginny Kubitz Moyer...

Reading the Past

20.09.2024

Reading the Past: Marianne K. Miller's cinematic novel evokes a young Hemingway's pivotal time in Toronto

In her leanly written debut, Miller dramatizes the pivotal months Ernest Hemingway spent in Canada as a reporter for the Toronto Star , imag...

Reading the Past

15.09.2024

Reading the Past: A cornucopia of historical fiction reads for fall 2024, all set before the 19th century

For those seeking to spend the next few months immersed in earlier corners of the past, here are fourteen new and upcoming reads, from publi...

Reading the Past

06.09.2024

Reading the Past: Galina Vromen's Hill of Secrets shows the human story within Los Alamos, New Mexico, during WWII

What happens when varied people, all with their own personal troubles, converge in an unfamiliar location for a hidden purpose, especially w...

Reading the Past

02.09.2024

Reading the Past: Daphne du Maurier's The Glass-Blowers showcases new facets of the French Revolution

Daphne du Maurier’s The Glass-Blowers is one of her lesser-known historical novels. Having greatly enjoyed Rebecca , Mary Anne , The House ...

Reading the Past

27.08.2024

Reading the Past: Circumnavigating Svalbard: My Love Affair with the Arctic, an essay by Cynthia Reeves

Thanks to Cynthia Reeves, author of The Last Whaler (Regal House, Sept. 3), for contributing the following essay about her research. I hope...

Reading the Past

25.08.2024

Reading the Past: All the World Beside explores queer history in 1700s Massachusetts

Conley’s debut novel brings us to a small Massachusetts town—the symbolically-named Cana—while dramatizing an affair between two married Pur...

Reading the Past

19.08.2024

Reading the Past: Short takes on three female-centered historical novels I haven't reviewed here before

I managed to get in some good reading this summer! Here are short takes on three novels I definitely recommend. Kate Grenville’s Restless D...

Reading the Past

12.08.2024

Reading the Past: A royal visit to 1922 Bangalore brings danger in Harini Nagendra's A Nest of Vipers

Offering an even twistier and broader-scope plot than the first two books in Nagendra’s series, A Nest of Vipers is dominated by the Prince...

Reading the Past

05.08.2024

Reading the Past: Scandinavian gothic has a feminine focus in Anna Noyes' The Blue Maiden

For the residents of Sweden’s Berggrund Island in 1825, the Blue Maiden is a fearful place. An uninhabited neighboring isle, its appearance ...

Reading the Past

27.07.2024

Reading the Past: A visual preview of the winter 2025 season in historical fiction

For this post, I'm looking way ahead to see what's on the horizon for historical fiction this coming winter. These dozen books have publica...

Reading the Past

23.07.2024

Reading the Past: Michelle Moran's Maria looks for the real story behind The Sound of Music's complicated heroine

Michelle Moran’s gripping new novel Maria (whose subject, Maria von Trapp, will be recognizable from the beautiful cover) left me pondering...

Reading the Past

15.07.2024

Reading the Past: Libbie Hawker's Mercer Girls brings three determined women to frontier Seattle

Libbie Hawker’s Mercer Girls takes its name from a group of enterprising young women from around Lowell, Massachusetts, who were recruited ...

Reading the Past

11.07.2024

Reading the Past: Tropical glamour and gothic suspense in Chanel Cleeton's The House on Biscayne Bay

Cleeton’s dual-period mystery intermixes tropical heat and gothic chills in a satisfying way as two women, decades apart, face up to shockin...

Reading the Past

04.07.2024

Reading the Past: New reader survey emphasizing historical fiction: invitation to participate

Please excuse the recent delay with new posts, as I've been out of town. M.K. (Mary) Tod, a friend from the historical fiction community wh...

home›Reading the Past›History

Reading the Past - History

Reading the Past: A tangled web of mysteries in Candace Robb's medieval-set A Snake in the Barley

Reading the Past: The Great Depression on the Farm, a guest post by Charlotte Whitney, author of A Tiny Piece of Blue

Reading the Past: Sisterhood, ghosts, and the meaning of freedom in Erin Crosby Eckstine's Junie, set in 1860s Alabama

Reading the Past: Takeaways from Day 1 of The History Quill's 2025 convention, covering the state of historical fiction today

Reading the Past: Historical fiction winners from the 2025 American Library Association Book and Media Awards

Reading the Past: The Diamond and the Duke, a Napoleonic-era romance with a Beauty-and-the-Beast subplot

Reading the Past: The past echoes through the present in Charmaine Wilkerson's multi-period Good Dirt

Reading the Past: Review of Darry Fraser's The Night on the Darling River, set in late 19th-century Australia

Reading the Past: Haunting family secrets across three generations in Ireland and America in Catherine Airey's Confessions

Reading the Past: Short reviews of four historical novels about uncommon women

Reading the Past: The Instrumentalist reinterprets the life of an orphaned girl turned master violinist in 18th-century Venice

Reading the Past: Michelle Cameron's Babylon illuminates life during the Jewish exile in ancient Babylon

Reading the Past: Ten more recent indie-published historical novels to check out

Reading the Past: Jennifer S. Brown's The Whisper Sister is a fabulous tale of Prohibition-era NYC

Reading the Past: Signe Pike's The Shadowed Land delves into the possible Scottish roots of Arthurian legend

Reading the Past: Critics pick their favorite historical novels of 2024

Reading the Past: Ten recent indie-published historical novels to check out

Reading the Past: The opening round is up for the 2024 Goodreads Choice Award for Historical Fiction

Reading the Past: Rachel Blackmore's Costanza reveals the real woman behind a groundbreaking 17th-century sculpture

Reading the Past: Eleanore of Avignon depicts a young woman's courageous path in medieval France

Reading the Past: For their next books, three prominent historical novelists are sticking with their genre roots

Reading the Past: Julia Park Tracey's Silence examines women's agency in Puritan-era Massachusetts

Reading the Past: Kimberly Brock's The Fabled Earth unfolds a multilayered mystery surrounding Georgia's Cumberland Island

Reading the Past: Victoria Thompson's Murder in Rose Hill delves into Gilded Age medical cures and family dynamics

Reading the Past: Historical novels are acclaimed via a number of recent literary awards

Reading the Past: The View from Behind the Camera: My Family and Old Hollywood, an essay by Ginny Kubitz Moyer

Reading the Past: Marianne K. Miller's cinematic novel evokes a young Hemingway's pivotal time in Toronto

Reading the Past: A cornucopia of historical fiction reads for fall 2024, all set before the 19th century

Reading the Past: Galina Vromen's Hill of Secrets shows the human story within Los Alamos, New Mexico, during WWII

Reading the Past: Daphne du Maurier's The Glass-Blowers showcases new facets of the French Revolution

Reading the Past: Circumnavigating Svalbard: My Love Affair with the Arctic, an essay by Cynthia Reeves

Reading the Past: All the World Beside explores queer history in 1700s Massachusetts

Reading the Past: Short takes on three female-centered historical novels I haven't reviewed here before

Reading the Past: A royal visit to 1922 Bangalore brings danger in Harini Nagendra's A Nest of Vipers

Reading the Past: Scandinavian gothic has a feminine focus in Anna Noyes' The Blue Maiden

Reading the Past: A visual preview of the winter 2025 season in historical fiction

Reading the Past: Michelle Moran's Maria looks for the real story behind The Sound of Music's complicated heroine

Reading the Past: Libbie Hawker's Mercer Girls brings three determined women to frontier Seattle

Reading the Past: Tropical glamour and gothic suspense in Chanel Cleeton's The House on Biscayne Bay

Reading the Past: New reader survey emphasizing historical fiction: invitation to participate

home
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Reading the Past
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History