Pages & Paws

Writing, Reading, and Rural Life With a Border Collie

Category Archives: Historical Fiction


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Gold Standard in Historical Fiction?

Calling all fans of historical fiction and anyone else who can fog a mirror!

Today we’re reviewing three outstanding novels. They’re all historical fiction. All are set during World War II. Anchoring these narratives are strong women who survive and flourish against the odds.

Mom says The Nightingale and Cilka’s Journey are two disturbing but outstanding reads. And that The Things We Cannot Say is one of the year’s best. (And she reads alot. When she’s not out walking with me.)

Taken together, these three novels may represent the “gold standard” for historical fiction. 

So sit tight and get ready to dive in.  Let’s go!

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‘The Sky Worshipers’ & Echoes of Scheherazade

The Sky Worshipers: A Novel of Mongol Conquest (History Through Fiction, 2021)

By F.M. Deemyad

Historical Fiction

Setting:

Thirteenth century Asia, Middle East, and Eastern Europe

Main characters:

Chaka, youngest daughter of a Chinese emperor and a Tangut Princess of China. Kidnapped by Mongols. Becomes wife of Genghis Khan, founder of the Mongol Empire.

Reyhan, Granddaughter of the last Seljuk King of Persia, kidnapped by Mongols.

Krisztina, Princess of Poland and Mongol prisoner of war.

Lady Goharshad of Persia. In 1398 she discovers a hidden manuscript buried in a hidden compartment under a floor of some ancient ruins in Karakorum, the Mongol capitol.

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‘Giver of Stars’ – Better Than Bacon?

See the source imageThe Giver of Stars (Viking, 2019)

By Jojo Moyes

Historical Fiction

To seek knowledge is to expand your own universe.

Kimber here. Mom says she’s sometimes “biased” about certain books. I’m not sure what that means. But she says it applies to most any book that combines two of the best things in the world (besides bacon and more bacon): historical fiction and reading/literacy/libraries. (Okay. That’s four. But you get the picture, right?)

Well. Mom tends to love that stuff even before she opens the cover. So when someone suggested an historical fiction book about lady “Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky” serving destitute, isolated families in rural Kentucky during the Depression, Mom was like, “Oh yeah. Love this thing already.”

But Mom’s expectations are high. Here’s more from the Book Bias Queen:

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