Historical Fiction Books > M Historical Fiction Books

Mummy Knew Is A Brilliant Book

Advantages: Mummy Knew will lift your spirit and take your emotional intelligence to a new level.
Disadvantages: Mummy Knew will raise your pulse, triple your heart-rate & deprive you of any sleep you may need!

Mummy Knew is the BEST true story I've read in years and I would say it sets itself completely apart from the whole genre. Thanks to Lisa James, it has a very unique writing style which holds you mesmerized by wonderful detail and a gift for unravelling the layers which make up people, combined with a blistering narrative pace which twists and turns like a possessed rollercoaster. You constantly feel like you're headed for the edge of a cliff and ...
...in her memory. I doubt I'll ever read a book like this again, unless of course she writes another! Lisa James is certainly a gifted writer and I hope we hear more from her in the future. So buy, borrow or beg this fabulous book and enjoy a most rewarding reading experience. ...

hollywoodguru 18.11.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Mummy Knew - Lisa James

the oldest profession in the oldest of worlds

Advantages: the life of a geisha
Disadvantages: the love story

WHAT IS IT ABOUT: This fictional biography tells the story of Sayuri, from her impoverished childhood in early 20th Century Japan, to her rise as a famous Geisha. Written by Arthur Golden, the book was a critical success, and offers a great deal of depth in its 500 pages. Much of it focuses on the training and rituals of geisha life, and there is a love story intertwined through the whole thing too. IS IT ANY GOOD: At 500 pages, reading this book ...
...just come to the end of. I'd heard a lot about this book, and the subsequent film, and decided to give it a go. I have a few key observations. First off, it's most alluring strength is the insights it gives into the world of the geisha. Part hostess, part 'posh prostitute' geishas are one of the most compelling groups I've come across, and this book captures brilliantly the lives they led. So, on that level, the book is a success, serving as an educational ...

bruffyboy 08.04.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

  Morgan's running on plenty

Advantages: Easy to read
Disadvantages: No depth to the story

BACKGROUND AND STORYLINE Colleen McCullough is best known for “The Thorn Birds”, a novel novel (if I may use the two words together) about an Australian ranching family. With this epic in mind I picked up “Morgan’s Run”, another epic-length novel, recognising McCullough’s name. Promisingly, the cover claims the novel is a return to McCullough’s successful novel-writing ground of Australia. With this in ...
...Bristol) to find the novel started off in Bristol, and not Australia, as I was expecting. Morgan’s Run is set in the dying years of the 18th century and features Richard Morgan. When we meet him he is about 32, happily married with a son and working for his father in an alehouse in Bristol. He has been well educated and trained as a gunsmith, and is generally lucky in life, though he mourns the loss of a daughter. The first part of the book ...

beatlemanic 03.07.2003 · Read full review
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Review of Morgan's Run - Colleen McCullough

Not such a Goody-Goody

Advantages: Interesting story, imaginative characters
Disadvantages: None really

...man just happens to be March - the father of the March family of Louisa May Alcott's novel "Little Women". March is absent for much of the book and Brooks has taken this absence and fleshed out his experiences for us in her own novel. The fact that "March" was based around the father in "Little Women" was what first attracted me to it. I felt it was an interesting idea to take the absent father and see things from his point of view. "Little Women" ...
...the almost angelic Marmee and March himself. In the afterword at the end of the novel the author quotes her mother as saying " Nobody in real life is such a goody-goody as that Marmee". This is one of the interesting and more daring aspects of Brooks work - I enjoyed her take on Marmee. The book is narrated by March and is interspersed by his letters home to his wife and daughters. The letter is usually the beginning of a chapter and is then contrasted ...

mogdred1 06.11.2009 · Read full review
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Review of March - Geraldine Brooks

Obsession, Lust, Greed & Violence

Advantages: Strong, compelling characters and plot.
Disadvantages: Tragic plot may make reader too depressed.

...Early on in Wideacre the author shows in detail her love of the countryside and the natural treasures it contains. As I love being in unspoilt areas of British countryside, this helped reel me into the plot, but despite the idyllic scenes at the start of the book, I found this a depressing yet compulsive read. The twists and turns of plot held my attention, while wondering what evil the desperate and calculating Beatrice would perform next, with ...
...found the map of the Wideacre estate at the front of the book helpful in keeping track of where events were taking place. The text wasn't confusing, but as this book is 624 pages long, I doubt whether many could afford the luxury of time to read it in one undisturbed seating. Philippa Gregory's latest book The White Queen, which is the first in her Plantagenet series was published in hardback on 18 August 2009. Outline of Plot Wideacre Hall ...

luckyarchers 30.11.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Wideacre - Philippa Gregory