I'm A Voracious Reader : historical fiction

Showing posts with label historical fiction. Show all posts

Thursday, November 12, 2026

BBNYA2026 Semi-Finalist Spotlight: Not Lucille by Mike Steele

It’s 1931, and children should be seen and not heard.

Ten-year-old Lucy Contento can’t help but be seen and heard. And she’s always in trouble for it. She talks too much. She’s impulsive. She writes with the wrong hand. Her parents would be mad enough knowing she routinely earns afterschool detentions. They’d be furious if they found out she’s been sneaking onto the campus of the nearby Trenton Academy for the Deaf. But there, Lucy has met Florence, a lonely and profoundly deaf girl her own age. Florence doesn’t mind Lucy’s flaws. Though Florence can’t speak, she has a unique way of communicating. If Lucy can figure out how to learn Florence’s special language, the two could be friends.

Lucy devises a plan, but it’s going to cost a whopping $7.98—more money than she’s got. She can’t tell her parents why she wants the funds without revealing she’s been visiting Florence. Besides, her parents don’t have a penny to spare. Her father has been out of work for months. And nobody else in the Contento family has an income. Or do they …? Lucy soon discovers she’s not the only member of her family hiding something. Can she get the money she needs while keeping everyone’s secrets? Or will her scheming land her in the biggest trouble of her life?

In this story of friendship and belonging, a young girl navigates prejudice, punishment, and identity while establishing her voice in a world that often tries to keep her silent.

BBNYA2026 Semi-Finalist Spotlight: Faith of Their Fathers by Samuel M. Sargeant

False God.

At the dawn of the 11th Century in a small Icelandic settlement, these words, daubed in blood, herald the arrival of a killer. Soon, a spate of murders threatens the fragile peace between pagans and a growing Christian minority. Arinbjorn, a young pagan farmer resolves to track down the killer before the community is permanently torn apart. His investigations draw in Freya, an isolated housewife whose secrets could either condemn or free her.

Meanwhile in Norway, King Olaf Tryggvason has his own designs upon Iceland and its people. War is rife in Scandinavia, and a Christian Iceland would bolster his control over the region.

Only one thing is certain: these murders will change Icelandic society forever.

Friday Featured Spotlight ~ The Write Reads Blog Tour: One More Hour of Daylight by C.M. Gray

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The Write Reads Blog Tour Spotlight: One More Hour of Daylight by C.M. Gray

On the first day of World War II, a young man makes a promise—one that will shape every choice he makes for the next four years.

Essex. September 1939.

A wounded German pilot drops from a clear autumn sky into a quiet English field. Seventeen-year-old Derrick finds him—broken and feverish. Not an enemy. Just a young man asking for one small mercy before everything ends.

One more hour of daylight. That is all I ask. A chance to breathe free air before whatever comes next.

Derrick gives him until morning.

When the stretcher comes, the pilot’s last words strike Derrick like a blow he will never stop feeling.

Scotland. France. Germany. 1941–1943.

In the mountains of Scotland, they teach him how to kill, how to lie, and how to endure things that break most men. Then they give him a new name, put him on a plane, and drop him into the dark.

As an SOE operative deep inside occupied Europe, Derrick Sedgley lives on false papers, borrowed names, and nerves worn to nothing by years in the shadows. He moves agents to safety, builds escape routes, and stays one breath ahead of the Gestapo.

Then a mission collapses—and everything changes.

Forced to run, Derrick finds himself moving through the most dangerous corners of occupied Europe alongside someone whose connection to his past he cannot yet see. As safe houses fall, loyalties fracture, and the frozen passes of the Pyrenees rise ahead like the edge of the world, Derrick begins to understand something.

The choice he made in an Essex field on the first day of the war has been leading him here all along.

Some debts cannot be paid.
Some can only be carried.
And some—if you are brave enough, and fortunate enough—can finally be laid to rest.

From the quiet fields of Essex to the mountains of Scotland, from the dangerous streets of Lyon to the shadows of wartime Hamburg and the high passes of the Pyrenees, One More Hour of Daylight is an unforgettable story of courage, guilt and redemption—of ordinary people forced to make impossible choices in extraordinary times.

Some promises can survive a war.
Some people can too.

For readers who believe that even in war, what matters most is who we choose to be.

Friday Featured Spotlight ~ BBNYA 2026 Round One

Spotlighting the Round One books I enjoyed that did not advance to Round Two.

The Write Reads Blog Tour Review: Star by Star by Sheena Wilkinson

A new edition of an invigorating tale of suffragettes and heroes, courage and survival, as World War One ends, a pandemic sweeps the land – and women get to vote!

Stella has always looked forward to changing the world. It’s what she was brought up to do, by a suffragette mother who knew all about fighting and rebellion. But it’s November 1918. The great flu pandemic sweeping the world has robbed Stella of her mother and her home, and she’s alone in a strange country, with an aunt she’s never met.

But change is coming – the war is over, and women are about to vote for the first time. History is being made, but how can she help make it? As election day approaches, a day that will transform Ireland forever, Stella realises that she can indeed change the world. Not alone, and not all at once. But just as stars come one by one to brighten the night sky, so history is made person by person, girl by girl.

BBNYA2025 Blog Tour Spotlight ~ 10th Place Finalist: Miss Bennet's Dragon by M. Verant

War threatens England, but Elizabeth Bennet’s battles are closer to home. She’s managing the family estate for her ailing father. Insufferable gentlemen keep bursting in to propose marriage. And most dangerous of all, she’s hiding a forbidden skill. Elizabeth can speak to draca, the small, fire-breathing dragons kept by gentry as frivolous status symbols.

When Napoleon’s spies attempt to steal draca, the distant war threatens even cozy Hertfordshire. Elizabeth seeks the aid of Mr. Darcy, the proud man whose proposal she once scorned. Amid the breathtaking halls of Pemberley, she discovers the truth: she is not the first woman to speak with draca. But with her secret revealed, the dark history of Pemberley tears her and Mr. Darcy apart.

One hope remains: her dangerous affinity to draca. But does she dare to trust legends and lost songs? And when a terrible betrayal threatens the man she loves, does she have a choice?

Miss Bennet’s Dragon is the first book in the award-winning Jane Austen Fantasy trilogy. For fans of Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and of course Jane Austen.

Manners and Monsters by Tilly Wallace ~ Audiobook Review

A lady never reveals the true extent of her decay...

Hannah Miles lives a quiet existence, helping her parents conduct research into a most terrible affliction - until a gruesome murder during her best friend's engagement party pulls her from the shadows. With her specialist's knowledge and demure disposition, Hannah is requested to aid the investigation.

Except Hannah discovers her role is to apologise in the wake of the rude and disgraced man tasked with finding the murderer. The obnoxious Viscount Wycliff thinks to employ Hannah purely as a front to satisfy Whitehall, but she'll have none of that.

The two must work together to find the murderer before the season is ruined. But the viscount is about to meet his greatest challenge, and it's not a member of the ton with a hankering for brains.

The Write Reads Blog Tour Book Review ~ Aliza in Nazi-Land by Elyse Hoffman

The Holocaust may be over, but for sixteen-year-old Aliza Aumen, the death of Adolf Hitler brings no peace. Adopted by a fellow survivor and given a new life in America, Aliza cannot escape the ghosts of her past: the parents she lost, the memories stolen from her, and the future that was taken from her in Europe. A life of comfort is no solace—she wants revenge.
When an angel offers her a chance for vengeance, Aliza is thrust into a terrifying role as a warden in Hell. Given dominion over the souls of Hitler, Himmler, and other architects of the Holocaust, she now possesses the power to torment them for eternity.
In Hell, Aliza is a god. But as she unleashes her wrath upon the Nazis, she begins to feel the seductive pull of power. The line between her rage-fueled retribution in Hell and her actions in the real world starts to blur.
Is Aliza, a young girl consumed by vengeance, ready to wield such godlike power? And what will it cost her to wield it?

The Return of the Soldier ~ Audiobook Review

When Captain Chris Baldry, a World War I soldier, is sent home with a severe case of shellshock amnesia, he is a stranger to his wife, Kitty, and his adoring cousin, Jenny. Recoiling from the horrors of war and disillusioned with years of superficial married life, his mind has regressed fifteen years, where his heart may take refuge once again in the magic circle of his youth and of his first love, Margaret Allington. In this lyrical and poignant story of a wounded man and the three concerned women who seek to heal him, Rebecca West explores the complexity of the mind and its subtle strategies for coping with life's painful realities. Only when Chris has the courage to face one pivotal moment of truth in his married life will he be able to awaken from his boyish fantasy and become, indeed, "every inch a soldier."

2025 The Write Reads Book Tour Round Up

9 tour reviews this year though I haven't finished 5 of them yet.

It's been a hard year.

I also did 16 spotlights which I included after the review list. There are several spotlight tours that I wanted to read the books, but just didn't have the time and/or energy.

The Sea-Wolf ~ Audiobook Review

The Sea-Wolf is a 1904 psychological adventure novel by Jack London about a literary critic Humphrey van Weyden. The story starts with him aboard a San Francisco ferry, called Martinez, which collides with another ship in the fog and sinks. He is set adrift in the Bay, eventually being picked up by Wolf Larsen. Larsen is the captain of a seal-hunting schooner, the Ghost. Brutal and cynical, yet also highly intelligent and intellectual, he rules over his ship and terrorizes the crew with the aid of his exceptionally great physical strength.

The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie ~ Book Review

In London after the Great War, Tommy Beresford and Tuppence Cowley are out of work and low on funds. The old friends quickly form the Young Adventurers, Ltd. Seeking to hire themselves out to “do anything, go anywhere,” the duo agree to a lucrative locate a survivor of the Lusitania sinking who’s disappeared with a compromising secret. Their assignment sucks them into a conspiracy of murder, kidnapping, and double identities. Behind it is an elusive, omnipresent puppet master who will stop at nothing to eliminate the amateur sleuths before they find what they’re looking for.

In Agatha Christie’s first Tommy and Tuppence mystery, the plucky pair hit the ground running in their search for excitement and adventure―“no unreasonable offer refused.”

Friday Featured Spotlight ~ TWR Blog Tour: The Hangman's Master by Elyse Hoffman

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TWR Blog Tour Book Review ~ The Hangman's Master by Elyse Hoffman

Stefan Harkel is a reckless man, and this recklessness has often gotten him into trouble. It led to him being kicked out his parents' home at sixteen, and then it led him right into the arms of the Nazi Party’s Brownshirt Unit. In this army of hatred, Stefan finds love and friendship, but when Hitler chooses to purge the Brownshirts, Stefan turns against the Führer he once served loyally, vowing vengeance for his butchered loved ones.

Driven by a desire for revenge, Stefan joins an anti-Nazi resistance group, but killing a few Nazis isn’t enough for him. He yearns for the power to truly make the Nazis pay for what they’ve done. One day, a supernatural occurrence gives him that chance by granting him the power of a god… and a chance for revenge.

Stefan is approached by the Angel of Justice, who reigns over Hell itself. The angel reveals that Hell is divided into thousands of Zones, condemned souls sent to each to suffer whatever punishment their respective Master sees fit. The angels in charge of Hell have chosen Stefan as a warden, and he is given a Contract for his own Zone.

Stefan gains a Contract for Zone N-1, which holds the soul of Reinhard Heydrich, one of the main architects of the Holocaust and the one who instigated the purge of the SA. However, Stefan is not the only one who has been offered a Contract, and with the chance for revenge comes terrible danger.

A ruthless Nazi, another Master, has been killing people for their Contracts, and has his sights set on Stefan. If he gains Heydrich’s contract, he could turn the tide of the war back in Hitler’s favour.

Faced with torture and the murder of innocents, Stefan is the only person standing between his enemies and the precious Contract for Zone N-1. How will he ensure the power of God does not fall into the ruthless Nazis’ hands?

A thrilling tale of redemption and the brutality of the Second World War is flawlessly told in Elyse Hoffman’s latest page-turner.

BBNYA2024 Semi-Finalist Spotlight ~ The Half Killed by Quenby Olson

Dorothea Hawes has no wish to renew contact with what lies beyond the veil. After an attempt to take her own life, she has retired into seclusion, but as the wounds on her body heal, she is drawn back into a world she wants nothing more than to avoid.

She is sought out by Julian Chissick, a former man of God who wants her help in discovering who is behind the gruesome murder of a young woman. But the manner of death is all too familiar to Dorothea, and she begins to fear that something even more terrible is about to unleash itself on London.

And so Dorothea risks her life and her sanity in order to save people who are oblivious to the threat that hovers over them. It is a task that forces her into a confrontation with her own lurid past, and tests her ability to shape events frighteningly beyond her control.

BBNYA2024 Semi-Finalist Spotlight ~ The Exile of Zanzibar by Daniel Maidman

Claire built a device to fold space and time. It had a flaw...

When the smoke clears, she finds herself halfway across the world, thousands of years in the past, and no device in sight.

In bronze-age Florence, war has lasted for generations. All Claire wants to do is get home, but she’ll need help from the locals. She wins an ally in Marcus Diophantus, a pickpocket turned soldier turned general, who hopes to turn into something more than just her champion. Together, they broker peace between Florence and its enemy.

If Marcus is going to help Claire, he’ll have to survive. Peace has upset the balance of power in the capital city. The king stands increasingly alone against: the Constantines, a commercial enterprise as much as a clan, who aim to profit from peace as they have from war – the warrior nobles, descended from the founders of Florence and quick to turn against a weak throne – and Reburrus, the high priest of Florence, convinced Claire answers to hostile foreign gods. As the city comes to a boil, Claire and Marcus – and Marcus’s formidable army – will have to decide where their allegiance lies.

Claire becomes a reluctant participant in a savage campaign. While Marcus leads the battles, she tries to gain control of the unimaginably powerful Ctesiphôn – a ghost tower in the heart of Florence, shrouded in magic and myth.