Historical Fiction Book Reviews

A thrilling and dramatic epic from one of the cradles of civilization, Starlight in the Dawn: The Poetic Priestess Who Chose to Fight by Naveen Sridhar is both majestic and accessible, an ambitious and symbolic novel that will transport readers in a deeply powerful way to the ancient past.

Enheduanna (Hedu) may be the daughter of a Mesopotamian emperor, but she is also an outspoken and bold protagonist, a fiery individual, and one who respects liberty and justice more than tradition. This belief draws her into righteous conflicts and divisive arguments, with everyone from laymen to kings. Whether training for […]

Author George Sanchez crafts an epic tale of romance, history, and New Orleans in Looking for Tennessee Williams. In this richly envisioned and expansive novel, a cast of collegiate actors make their way to the Big Easy for a theatre festival in the early 1960s, navigating the politically charged landscape of the South, as well as their own internal dramas, betrayals, and desires.

Told in exceptional detail, this novel roughly spans a month in the autumn of 1963, though the majority takes place over only a week – the same infamous week when an assassin in Dallas changed the […]

Rich in historical detail and thick with visceral emotion, Pushing Bobby’s Cadillac by Allan Dare Pearce is a bold and tangled novel about racial injustice, finding one’s purpose, and the lengths that power will go to remain unchallenged.

Aiken Day is far from perfect, haunted by his own violent past, but the death of Paris, his civil rights activist wife, sends him careening into the dangerous world of political subterfuge, racial violence, and country-spanning conspiracy. Bouncing smoothly between Detroit, Florida, New Hampshire, Ontario, and other oft-overlooked pockets of the continent, this one-day-per-chapter novel sets itself a tall task with a […]

Danger, adventure, romance, and sweeping social commentary are all part of the dramatic meld in the novel 1871: Rivers on Fire by progressive author and thinker Paul Buchheit.

Liz and Robert meet in London where both will study neurobiology, overseen by Dr. Alexander Bain, a pioneer in the exploration of thought patterns. Liz is American, drawn to education overseas because of better prospects for females in academia. Robert is involved in the science of conservation, especially forest depletion.

They soon find common ground in intellectual pursuits, especially the realm of word cognition. They also hold similar views regarding social justice, […]