Historical Fiction Books > Sarah Waters Historical Fiction Books

Advantages: Interesting characters and well-captured atmosphere
Disadvantages: May be disappointing in relation to the author's previous novels

...did not live up to the expectations I had, it still proved to be an absorbing read. The plot centres on Kay, Helen, Viv and Duncan, four people living in post-war London whose lives are all interlinked by multiple connections that are revealed as the novel progresses backwards in three stages - 1947, 1944 and 1941. It is an interesting approach to story-telling, to focus on how the characters arrived at their current situations rather than where ...
...the whole, enhancing the tragic element of some of the characters through dramatic irony. I felt slightly let down by the relative lack of complexity in the plot in comparison to 'Affinity' and 'Fingersmith', but Waters is as skilled at story-telling as ever, and the attention to detail in terms of historical accuracy enables the atmosphere of wartime and post-war London to really come alive. The novel does tend to jump around quite a lot, on account ... Read review

Advantages: Great Read
Disadvantages: None

...in reading books set in the past, just so I can get a bit of an insight into how my ancestors may have lived. OK so at the moment I haven't found any royalty in my tree but I have found out that my Great x 3 Grandfather worked as a Carpenter in the Tower of London for Queen Victoria and traced my tree back to around 1580 when Queen Elizabeth I would have been on the throne. Although being an East Ender now living in Derbyshire quite a few of my ancestors ...
...ancestors could well have seen the Royalty of their day, out and about riding through the streets of London to get to other places. So some of the obvious books to read would be Charles Dickens, for an insight into the Victorian era and Philippa Gregory for an insight into the Tudor period. I read both Charles Dickens' Oliver and Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl whilst on holiday earlier in the year and recently have finished Philippa Gregory's ... Read review

Advantages: Easy read
Disadvantages: none

...and i had to read Regeneration as part of my A2 english literature course. War literature is something i have never read or ever really been interested in but Pat Barker's book blew me away. The mixture of fact and fiction in the book works perfectly. Barker uses real people and created a realistic story around them and has created characters to help bring out other sides to them. Prior is my favorite character in the book as we see as one of the ...
...interview that he was 'designed to irritate Rivers' and that is exactly what he does because he is a cocky, working class officer who almost flirts with Rivers to show off his bi-sexuality. There are many important themes explored in the book, one of which is women in the war. It isnt a main plot in the book but Sarah Lumb and her munitionette friends opened my eyes to see how war was for women as it isnt something one often connects with the war ... Read review

Advantages: A fantastic read
Disadvantages: Trying to find another book that measures up to this one

...book having been intrigued by the hype surrounding it. What I expected was that it would sit on my shelf, along with the countless other unread books. What I found instead, was that after reading just the first opening pages, I was hooked! Khaled Hosseini's beautiful and evocative language draws the reader into Amir's Afghanistan, and teaches the politics and turbulent past of the country without the reader even realising it. It is a fantastic book ... Read review

Advantages: occasionally moving; well written
Disadvantages: sad; heavy-going

This is a wide ranging novel, whose overall theme would seem to be that there is no end to what men can endure. Throughout the novel, pain and fear are the dominant feelings; mud and blood are the prominent visuals. Although this is typically considered a great novel, I am not convinced that I enjoyed reading this novel, because I, personally, prefer a different style of writing. Stephen Wraysford is a young man visiting Amiens, France in 1910 at ...
...the wife of his host, a young woman trapped in a loveless, passionless marriage, and the first part of the novel is concerned with their passionate journey together. The relationship develops so swiftly as to be almost unbelievable and none of the characters comes across as particularly likeable, despite the sad back stories the lovers are given by Faulkes. Soon the action moves to the trenches in France where Jack Firebrace, a miner, is listening ... Read review