Historical Fiction Book Reviews | Self-Publishing Review

Review: Home Again by Michael Kenneth Smith

Michael K Smith’s Civil War novel, Home Again, is a fantastic debut.

Zach and Luke come of age right when the nation breaks into two and both young men enlist. Zach fights for the North, while Luke joins up with the South. Even though they are on opposing sides, both young men learn valuable lessons about life, death, and war.

War is hell. The best war novels remember this and don’t idealize war. It’s hard to glorify the killing of other human beings, especially young men who haven’t had the opportunity to experience life yet, and the stories that […]

T B Markinson2022-09-21T11:31:13+02:00November 17th, 2014|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Historical Fiction Book Reviews|

Home Again by Michael Kenneth Smith

The hellish vista of war for two young Americans is the backdrop for Smith’s debut, “Home Again.”

A fascinating and well-researched historical account tracks the endless death and fear endured in the Civil War as two men, previously fishing buddies Zach and Luke, enlist to fight for their cause, on opposite sides of the line. The meticulous attention to detail brings the book – and the Civil War – alive in all its bloody terror.

Not only will the book tug at heartstrings, but it is a book that will teach the reader a lot about the War and its […]

Cate Baum2014-11-07T08:26:15+02:00November 7th, 2014|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Historical Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: How the Water Falls by K. P. Kollenborn

History is dominated by people including everyday people. One of the benefits for authors of historical is the ability to bring to life fictional characters set into real life events. This adds a layer of accessibility right from the start and eases the reader into the wonderful world of history. K. P. Kollenborn’s novel How the Water Falls is a fabulous addition to the vibrant and turbulent history of South Africa.

Set in the final years of the apartheid era in South Africa, Kollenborn’s novel centers on two females. Joanne is a white reporter and Lena is a banned black […]

T B Markinson2014-08-22T06:49:37+02:00August 22nd, 2014|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Historical Fiction Book Reviews, International Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Finding Billy Battles by Ronald E. Yates

Finding Billy Battles is the story of a rather remarkable character who lived during the last part of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth. The book is fiction, but according to the author, draws heavily on the author’s family history. Nonetheless, the book reads like a novel and never seems like those, usually unsuccessful, attempts to interest other people in one’s own family stories. The book gets off to a somewhat slow start, using the frame device of Battles’ great-grandson finding his great-grandfather’s journals, but soon enough becomes a page-turner about a fascinating, multidimensional character and […]

Avery Hurt2019-01-24T19:46:44+02:00May 6th, 2014|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Historical Fiction Book Reviews, Western Book Reviews|

Review: Jesse James and the Secret Legend of Captain Coytus by Alex J. Mueck

Jesse James and the Secret Legend of Captain Coytus is the latest offering by Alex J. Mueck, an author who has shifted from more serious crime work to achieving more interesting edges in previous book Myth Man and to a much further extent in this new and bizarre title, which explores the story of Jesse James and the “truth” of his story, as ascribed by a delinquent student’s graduate thesis determined to expose this “secret legend” for fame, fortune and girls.

The story is set up in an interesting way that takes a little getting into, jumping from the present […]

James Grimsby2019-01-22T10:53:03+02:00December 11th, 2013|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Historical Fiction Book Reviews, Western Book Reviews|

Review: No Man’s Land: The Beginning (Book One of the Hyde’s Corner Trilogy) by J. B. Bergstad

J. B. Bergstad’s first novel, No Man’s Land, begins in 1947 with Tom Burks, grandson of Selmer Burks, leaving his hometown of Hyde’s Corner, Oklahoma to join the army. Then the story goes back to 1877 and takes up the tale of the settling of a wilderness known as “No Man’s Land,” the founding of the town of Hyde’s Corner, and the trials and tribulations of Selmer Burks—trials and tribulations that lead, inexorably and quite horribly, to the situation in Hyde’s corner in 1947.

Selmer Burks is born to a ranching family recently settled in what was then the […]

Avery Hurt2019-01-22T17:47:06+02:00September 13th, 2013|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Historical Fiction Book Reviews, Men's Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: The Book of Revelations: From Bombingham to Obama by Katy Ridnouer

The Book of Revelations: From Bombingham to Obama is a book of fiction. It is, however, based on real events, and the main character, Addie Mae Collins, was a real person. She was one of the four teenage girls who were killed in 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama when the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was bombed. Ridnouer’s novel works from the premise that Addie Mae survived the bombing, and explores the life Addie Mae might have lived had she survived.

The narrative follows Addie from her near-death at age 14 until November of 2012. The reader spends most of the book

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Avery Hurt2014-05-09T21:32:17+02:00November 2nd, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Historical Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Maji by L.M. Meier

Maji, The Untold Adventure of the Men of the East is a fictionalized tale which will remind many readers of the Christian story of the three wise men seeking out Jesus in Bethlehem. However, the story is much more than a quaint retelling of this treasured event. Instead, it is a look behind the scenes at not only the journey of the three wise men, but also a coming of age tale about Zebedeo, a young Maji in training who accompanies the men on their journey. It is Zebedeo who drives the plot of the story as he must make […]