When Your Husband Reads Your Books

I have been scarce around bloggerdom, and part of the reason is that I got married (for those of you who didn't know). This was over a year ago, and the husband in question is Michael Eisenhour. He's an excellent physical therapist and he brings...

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The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar, an entertaining portrait of Georgian society

When one of the sea-captains in his employ returns home, Jonah Hancock, a widowed, middle-aged merchant, is aghast. Captain Jones has sold the Calliope and purchased, instead, a small, shriveled “mermaid.”In 1785 London, the dead creature is...

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The Air You Breathe by Frances de Pontes Peebles, an epic of friendship, ambition, and music set in 1920s-30s Brazil

A soaring fusion of emotion, intense drama, and the compelling rhythms of Brazilian music, The Air You Breathe belongs to the special category of historical novels that chronicle entire lives – and it does so in enthralling fashion. Its focus...

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Eight historical novels sitting on Mt. TBR

Hope you're all having a good weekend. I've been using the time to catch up with the TBR, and along those lines, here are eight books I'm looking forward to reading in the near future, time permitting. I took over additional duties at the...

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Cometh the Hour by Annie Whitehead, a novel of war, religion, love, and family in 7th-century Britain

With a careful hand and keen appreciation for the era’s material culture, Annie Whitehead, the inaugural winner of the HWA Dorothy Dunnett Short Story Competition, depicts five tumultuous decades in early medieval Britain. In her third novel,...

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Beneath an Indian Sky by Renita D'Silva, a multi-period saga set in England and India

Author D’Silva transports readers to her native India in a new multi-period novel exploring her frequent themes of difficult family dynamics and the limited choices open to the country’s daughters. In 1936, Mary Brigham, raised in her aunt...

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Susan Spann's Trial on Mount Koya, a Shinobi mystery of 16th-century Japan

One might expect a Shingon Buddhist temple to be a peaceful site of sanctuary, but the opposite holds true in the atmospheric sixth novel of Susan Spann’s Shinobi Mysteries. Set in 1565, this entry brings her protagonists – the shinobi assassin...

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The Sea Queen by Linnea Hartsuyker, a tale of Viking-era Norway

The “sea queen” is Svanhild Eysteinsdotter, a strong-willed woman with a difficult path ahead. In ninth-century Norway, six years after events in The Half-Drowned King (2017), Svanhild loves the seafaring life she led with her husband, the...

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The Haunts of London: Jeri Westerson's medieval mystery The Deepest Grave

In his entertaining 11th adventure, Crispin Guest, known throughout late 14th-century London as the Tracker, has his hands full with two perplexing cases.The first is rather grisly: Father Bulthius of St. Modwen’s asks him to investigate the...

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