The Spring of the Ram by Dorothy Dunnett

1460: The second in The House of Niccolò series begins with the youngest de Charetty: Catherine, who has been sent to Brussels to stay with family friends and acquire some polish. Big mistake, Marian! Catherine immediately falls for a handsome entrepreneurial-type, Pagano Doria, who is no better than he should be (but has very nice teeth). We know this because he persuades this child to elope with him; presumably he knows she is an heiress.

The Heart Speaks Many Ways by Madeleine A. Polland – Reading Ireland Month 2025

In this coming of age story, with an admittedly sappy title, a lovely young woman learns to have confidence in herself and her decision-making rather than reacting to stronger personalities or tragedy.

Emily McRoss has been living in Spain for two years, being “finished” with family friends, Don Rafael and Dona Serafina, and their daughter Remedios, her own age. In the background of the relaxed life of the upper classes in Andalusia there is increasing unrest that will result in civil war.

The Lost Passenger by Frances Quinn - featuring a dramatic rescue from the Titanic!

Cinderella meets All-of-a-Kind Family in a new book I really liked and recommend. Elinor Hayward, the lovely and intelligent daughter of a prosperous factory owner, is thrilled when she and her father are invited to a New Year’s Ball in early 1910. Even better, she meets an attractive young man, Frederick Coombes, son of an earl, who is not just friendly but clearly interested in her:

It was stupidly easy to fall in love with Frederick; I got halfway there that very evening. But I’d like to point out, before you decide I must have been soft in the head, that I was nineteen, he was the first man ever to pay attention to me, and he was very, very charming.

The King’s Messenger by Susanna Kearsley

I have been reading Susanna Kearsley’s books since 1994, when Mariana was published, and even drove to Rhode Island to meet her in 2015 when she was touring for A Desperate Fortune, so I was excited to read her new book, The King’s Messenger, and was not disappointed. Surprisingly, it is not a dual timeline book, for which she is best known; rather, it is set in the early 17th century during the reign of James I of England.

Small Bomb at Dimperley by Lissa Evans

For those of us who read a lot of WWII historical fiction, it is a natural progression to contemplate what happened after the war ended. Perhaps this is why I loved the television show Homefront, set in a Midwest town where everyone is excited to welcome back their menfolk but do not realize how their lives will be affected, especially women who worked outside the home doing war work but are now displaced in favor of the men. 

The Colony Club by Shelley Noble

It’s 1902 and Florence “Daisy” Harriman, married to a rich banker, could have chosen to live solely as a Gilded Age socialite. However, while she is an accepted member of the New York and Newport ruling class, enjoying her privileges, she is also a social reformer and suffragist, and later a diplomatic envoy. At the time of this book, loosely based on history, she realizes that the ladies of her acquaintance need an elite club in Manhattan, just as their menfolk enjoy spending time at male bastions such as the Union Club or the Princeton Club.* 

The Ration Book Baby by Ellie Curzon

Title: The Ration Book Baby
Author: Ellie Curzon
Publication: Paperback, 2023
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: WWII Britain

Description: It is a dark night in West Sussex, 1940, when nurse Annie Russell hears a knock on her front door and finds a newborn baby girl in a hat box on the front steps, with a ration book tucked beneath her.

Becoming Madam Secretary by Stephanie Dray

Title: Becoming Madam Secretary
Author: Stephanie Dray
Publication: Berkley, hardcover, 2024
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: United States

Description: This fascinating historical novel about Frances Perkins, Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor, begins in 1933 when FDR asks her to join his Cabinet and she presents him with a list of ground-breaking goals she would need him to support – get rid of child labor laws, limit working hours, create a minimum wage . . .  .

The Striped Ships by Eloise McGraw

Title: The Striped Ships
Author: Eloise McGraw
Publication: Macmillan, Margaret K. McElderry, hardcover, 1991
Genre: Juvenile Historical Fiction
Setting: 11th century Britain

Description: On what seems like an ordinary autumn morning in 1066, eleven-year-old Juliana, daughter of a Saxon thane, follows her usual routine of joining her future mother-in-law, Lady Editha, where she is instructed in embroidery and other household arts. When she slips away to the waterfront, she sees an onslaught of ships striped in red, gold, black and green, and realizes it is invading Normans.

Daughter of Lir by Diana Norman - Reading Ireland Month 2024

Title: Daughter of Lir
Author: Diana Norman
Publication: Headline Books, paperback, 1988
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: 12th century Ireland

Description: Taken from Ireland and abandoned at a French convent in the Loire Valley at 6, Finola is renamed Sister Boniface and brought up by the nuns, then at 18 is chosen to be Abbess of Kildare in Ireland. Her focus on her new Abbey and not the warring factions around it is disastrous and she makes a serious enemy, Dermot of Leinster.

Sing for Your Supper by Lenora Mattingly Weber - treading the boards in 19th century Colorado

Title: Sing for Your Supper
Author: Lenora Mattingly Weber
Illustrator: Ninon MacKnight
Publication: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, hardcover, 1941
Genre: Juvenile Historical

Description: The Dramatic Company of the Rockies is a traveling theatrical company that has been successful with a small, all-family cast.

Witch of the Glens by Sally Watson #1962Club

Title: Witch of the Glens
Author: Sally Watson
Publication: Viking, hardcover, 1962
Genre: Juvenile Historical Fiction
Setting: 17th century Scotland

This week Simon from Stuck in a Book and Karen from Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings are hosting the 1962 Club, and I finally found an American author to feature.

Description: At 17, Kelpie is a spirited young woman who knows only the life of a gypsy, traveling throughout Scotland with abusive Old Mina and Bogle.

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

Title: Number the Stars
Author: Lois Lowry
Publication: Houghton Mifflin paperback, originally published in 1989
Genre: Juvenile Historical Fiction
Setting: WWII Denmark

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Title: Middlemarch
Author: George Eliot
Publication: 1871
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: English Midlands, 1829-32

Description: Middlemarch is the story of a country neighborhood, two women who live there, and their marriages. Most prominent is Dorothea Brooke, an intense and idealistic young woman, brought up with her sister Celia by their uncle since they were orphaned some seven years ago.

Trust by Hernan Diaz

Title: Trust
Author: Hernan Diaz
Publication: Riverhead, hardcover, 2022
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: New York and Europe

Description: Benjamin and Helen Rask are a prominent Manhattan couple in the 1920s. He is an eccentric but successful Wall Street investor whose family made its money from tobacco. Helen is from a well-born Albany family and is interested in philanthropy. Neither is very comfortable with people, including each other.

Six Degrees of Separation – from The Snow Child to Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place, add six books, and see where we end up. This month’s starting point is The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey, which I have intended to read for ages but never got to.  

If Love Comes by Gladys Malvern

Title: If Love Comes
Author: Gladys Malvern (1897-1962)
Illustrator: John Alan Maxwell
Publication: Claude Kendall Publishers, hardcover, 1932
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: California, 1820s

Description: When Don Estevan Jose Luis de Questallo loses his wife in childbirth, the joy goes out of his life and he instinctively blames the surviving child who is named Magdalena. He lavishes attention on his son, Dario, and ignores the girl, who grows up lovely but unloved by all but her brother.

Hitty: Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field for the #1929Club

Title: Hitty: Her First Hundred Years
Author: Rachel Field (1894-1942)
Illustrator: Dorothy P. Lathrop
Publication: Macmillan, paperback, originally published in 1929
Genre: Children’s fiction/fantasy/historical fiction

Description: Hitty is a doll hand-carved from a small piece of mountain-ash wood by a peddler in early 19th century Maine, then given to Phoebe Preble, whose father is away at sea. Seven-year-old Phoebe is tasked with making clothes for her doll, which include a chemise embroidered with HITTY “so she can always be sure of her name.”

Beauvallet by Georgette Heyer for the #1929Club

Title: Beauvallet
Author: Georgette Heyer
Publication: Dutton hardcover, originally published in 1929
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: 16th-century

This week, Simon from Stuck in a Book and Karen from Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings are hosting the 1929 Club, where bloggers read and write about books published in a chosen year.

Description: Sir Nicholas Beauvallet is the most dashing of Queen Elizabeth’s sea captains. Known as the Sea Dogs, a group of English privateers was authorized to carry out raids on England's enemies, whether they were formally at with war with them or not.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Title: Lessons in Chemistry
Author: Bonnie Garmus
Publication: Doubleday, hardcover, 2022
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: 20th-century California

Description: Elizabeth Zott is a gifted but eccentric chemist and, unfortunately, a woman in a man’s world in the 1960s. She is belittled, exploited, and sexually assaulted when all she wants is to have the resources to do her job at Hastings Research Institute.