celebrating books & the literary lifestyle

Category: Historical Fiction (Page 1 of 4)

INDULGING IN THE STORIES OF HENRY VIII & THE SIX WIVES

Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.

This is the mnemonic I use to remember the basic history of Henry VIII’s marriages more than 500 years ago.

For this year’s January hibernation, I found The King’s Pleasure A Novel of Henry VIII by Alison Weir. Apparently Wier has already written a book on each of the wives/queens perspectives, and this new book (published in 2023) is from the perspective of Henry.

Henry’s perspective, not surprisingly, does not make him more likeable.

I did thoroughly enjoy Weir’s story even though it contained too many political and religious details for my preference – I’m just here for the romance and marriages! It has me thinking back to the other interpretations of this story I have indulged in over the years.

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HISTORICAL FICTION ABOUT JACKIE KENNEDY

I just finished a third enjoyable book about Jackie Kennedy, so I want to get all of these recommendations in the same place for any other readers who, like me, find her to be a timeless, fascinating topic.

Her composure and class were what I was always drawn to (in addition to my obsession with her husband). These three books focus on who she was without JFK because they take place before she met him, during courtship, and after his death.

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TWO RECOMMENDATIONS

I’m bringing two book recommendations to you today – both of these are new releases off of my fall reading list.

One is a climate fiction (what happens when Florida is no longer sustainable) and the other is one of my favorite genres, WWII historical fiction, but a specific horror I had not read about before.

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TWO STATES & TWO BOOKS

I just returned from a summer road trip where – thanks to the S.S. Badger – my family visited Michigan and Wisconsin without driving through Chicago, and enjoyed long, sandy beaches and massive water parks during the same vacation. For me, vacation = reading so I can also recommend two books today while reminiscing about my fun travels.

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‘THE PARIS BOOKSELLER’

As if this title wasn’t compelling enough – Paris + Books – this new historical fiction chronicles the history of the famous bookstore Shakespeare and Company, a literary home to American expatriates and famous writers in the 1920s, focusing on the life of its founder Sylvia Beach.

The book was additionally fascinating to me because it tells how Beach published Ulysses when it was banned in America. (I wrote my master’s thesis on Ulysses.) Very rarely – maybe once before – can I recommend a modern work of historical fiction that is related to the excruciating, yet brilliant book that I studied in detail.

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TWO HISTORICAL FICTION RECOMMENDATIONS

I need to get caught up on my posts/recommendations so I’m sharing two books I enjoyed recently. Both books fall into my favorite historical fiction genre (mostly WWII), and both have an often-used plot of granddaughters chasing grandmother’s secrets across Europe. It has become obvious and funny to me how many variations of this plot keep coming up, and I keep reading (and enjoying) them! Oh well! Happy reading!

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