Tag Archives: Historical Fiction

In My Hands Today…

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Medicus (Medicus Investigation #1) – Ruth Downie

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Gaius Petrius Ruso is a divorced and down-on his luck army doctor who has made the rash decision to seek his fortune in an inclement outpost of the Roman Empire, namely Britannia. His arrival in Deva (more commonly known as Chester, England) does little to improve his mood, and after a straight thirty six hour shift at the army hospital, he succumbs to a moment of weakness and rescues an injured slave girl, Tilla, from the hands of her abusive owner.

Now he has a new problem: a slave who won’t talk and can’t cook, and drags trouble in her wake. Before he knows it, Ruso is caught in the middle of an investigation into the deaths of prostitutes working out of the local bar. A few years earlier, after he rescued Emperor Trajan from an earthquake in Antioch, Ruso seemed headed for glory: now he’s living among heathens in a vermin-infested bachelor pad and must summon all his forensic knowledge to find a killer who may be after him next.

Who are the true barbarians, the conquered or the conquerors?

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The Moon Pearl – Ruthanne Lum McCunn

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The Moon Pearl is the story of Rooster, Shadow, and Mei Ju, who become fast friends while members of a girls’ house, where young daughters are taught to become daughters-in-law.

These girls, however, want neither to marry nor become nuns (the only options open to them at this time). They choose instead to support themselves through their skills in embroidery and silk production.

Though ostracized by their families, attacked, and barely able to find sustenance and shelter, these sze saw, or self-combers as they will come to be called, manage to create lives that they alone control. An amazing true-life story, The Moon Pearl offers an empowering vision of womanhood in China.

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Murder at the Vicarage – Agatha Christie

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Murder at the Vicarage marks the debut of Agatha Christie’s unflappable and much beloved female detective, Miss Jane Marple. With her gift for sniffing out the malevolent side of human nature, Miss Marple is led on her first case to a crime scene at the local vicarage. Colonel Protheroe, the magistrate whom everyone in town hates, has been shot through the head. No one heard the shot. There are no leads. Yet, everyone surrounding the vicarage seems to have a reason to want the Colonel dead. It is a race against the clock as Miss Marple sets out on the twisted trail of the mysterious killer without so much as a bit of help from the local police.

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Their Finest Hour and a Half – Lissa Evans

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It’s 1940. In a small advertising agency in Soho, London, Catrin Cole writes snappy lines for Vida Elastic and So-Bee-Fee gravy browning. But the nation is in peril, all skills are transferable and there’s a place in the war effort for those who have a knack with words.

Catrin is conscripted into the world of propaganda films. After a short spell promoting the joy of swedes for the Ministry of Food, she finds herself writing dialogue for ‘Just an Ordinary Wednesday’, a heart-warming but largely fabricated ‘true story’ about rescue and romance on the beaches of Dunkirk. And as bombs start to fall on London, she discovers that there’s just as much drama, comedy and passion behind the scenes as there is in front of the camera …

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The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes – Ted Riccardi

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Sherlock Holmes is dead—or so most of the world thinks. His fatal plunge over the Reichenbach Falls as he struggled with his archenemy, Moriarty, has been widely reported.

But Holmes has escaped and is alive.

In his immediate circle, only Holmes’s brother, the lethargic genius Mycroft, knows of his survival. Even Dr Watson thinks that the great detective is dead. Among his enemies, Sebastian Moran, Moriarty’s chief henchman, knows of Holmes’s probable escape and waits for their inevitable meeting.

From 1891 to 1894, Holmes wanders through Asia. He is alone, without Watson, without Scotland Yard, armed only with his physical strength and endurance and his revered cold logic and rationality.

The adventures recounted in The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes range from Lhasa to Katmandu, from the East Indies to the deserts of Rajasthan.