Pachinko is a novel that exemplifies the word “epic.” Following the members of a close-knit family from a rural fishing village on a Korean...

The Kindertransport, the recovery of Nazi-looted art, family ties, and adjustments to great loss: taken individually, these are recurrent ...

Earlier this evening, a number of literary awards were announced at ALA Midwinter in Atlanta.  I wasn't in attendance this time, but det...

The heroic and tragic stories from Greek mythology have often been the foundations for historical novels set in long-ago times.  Novelists s...

One can rely on Stachniak ( The Winter Palace , 2012) for engaging, well-researched fictional portraits of dynamic historical women. As he...

It's easy to feel sorry for Mary Seymour. Daughter of Henry VIII’s widow, Katherine Parr, and her reckless fourth husband, who was exec...

This afternoon, the Langum Charitable Trust announced the eight novels on the 2016 shortlist for the David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American...

Janet MacLeod Trotter has been one of my favorite writers of regional sagas. She’s especially adept at delving into the lives of the work...

I debated whether to post a list of 2016 favorites.  Choosing from among those I'd read in the last year proved challenging, and I spent...

I always like examining and discussing historical novel cover art.  The following ten pairings include the hardcover jacket design and the c...

In my review of the first book in Aimie K. Runyan’s trilogy about the women of New France’s Quebec settlement in the 17th century, Promis...

'Tis that time of year when "best of" lists are appearing at different bookish sites. Many such lists exist, but most don...

They meet while aloft in a hot air balloon over Paris in 1887. Caitriona Wallace is an impoverished Glaswegian widow acting as chaperone t...

I'm wrapping up my second year of participation in the Australian Women Writers Challenge .  Now that I'm part of the associated F...

Coincidentally, this title came up for review while I was planning a trip to Raglan Castle in South Wales, and it turned out to be a perfe...

“God doesn’t use weather as a weapon,” thinks Annie Bell, wife and mother in a farming family in Mulehead, Oklahoma, in 1934. The grass i...

Daisy Goodwin’s Victoria , which the author wrote alongside the screenplay for the upcoming Masterpiece TV series, follows the young queen...

This is a dual-narrative novel with a difference. In one section, a modern-day woman becomes intrigued by centuries-old secrets about an e...

University Press Week , sponsored by the Association of  American University Presses, runs from November 14-19 this year.  It's been cel...

In the antebellum era, Cora, a teenager born into slavery on a Georgia plantation, agrees to flee with a literate new arrival, Caesar, and...