News of the World is a well spun tale that takes place in Texas in the 1870s. It’s the story of Captain Jefferson Kidd, who is hired to return 10-year-old Johanna to her relatives upon her liberation from the Kiowa. Johanna has lived with the Kiowa people for four years and has completely adopted their ways and their language, creating several challenges for CPT Kidd as he tries to safely escort her several hundred miles across the still very wild Texas countryside. Continue reading
Category Archives: Historical Fiction
Book Review: The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore
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The Last Days of Night is a novel based on the battle between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse to establish some of the standards for the emerging electricity infrastructure during the late 1880’s. Based on that description, you might be thinking *yawn*, but stay with me! Continue reading
Book Review: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
A Gentleman in Moscow is a novel that is packed with warmth, charm and basic human decency. It tells the story of Count Alexander Rostov, who is confined to the Metropol Hotel in Moscow by the Bolsheviks in the 1920s for the “crime” of being part of the upper class. Continue reading
“The Last Painting of Sara de Vos”, by Dominic Smith
Author Dominic Smith delivers beautiful prose and a melancholy mood in “The Last Painting of Sara de Vos”. Spanning three different time periods, the book tells the tale of a 17th century artist and the 20th century forger who copies one of her paintings. Continue reading
Book Review: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Charm. This book has loads of it. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is set right after the end of WWII and tells the story of a woman author who discovers a unique group of people on the island of Guernsey and the story of how they survived the German occupation of their homeland. Continue reading
“Girl With a Pearl Earring”, by Tracy Chevalier
I just finished reading “Girl With a Pearl Earring “. I know I’m late to this particular party (the book was published in 2000), but it came out as I was entering my very long reading drought, so I hadn’t Continue reading
Book Review: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
All the Light We Cannot See is a beautifully written, poignant story set in Europe during World War II. It tells the story of how a blind, French girl and an orphaned German boy experience the war. Continue reading