Man Booker Prize - Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Hilary Mantel won the 2009 Man Booker Prize with Wolf Hall, set in the 1520s in the court of Henry VIII. (Find this book in our catalog)
The judges described Wolf Hall as "a thoroughly modern novel set in the 16th century" with "a vast narrative sweep that gleams on every page with luminous and mesmerising detail." They also said the novel, "probes the mysteries of power by examining and describing the meticulous dealings in Henry VIII's court, revealing in thrilling prose how politics and history is made by men and women. In the words of Mantel's Thomas Cromwell, whose story this is, 'the fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes'."

The Secret of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig

The Secret of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig (Find this book in our catalog)

I was intrigued with an author interview I was reading the other day - I think it was with Tasha Alexander. Asked if she had ever bought a book just for the cover, she said The Secret of the Pink Carnation. She ended up loving the book so much that she tried to emulate it in her own historical fiction. Anyway, I went right out to my local HCPL branch, scanned the shelves, and, finding the book with the lucious pink dress on the cover, I checked it out right away! I couldn't resist! (Incidentally, since I did my blog on historical novels a couple of days ago, I now know why the publisher cut off half the Pink Carnation's head in the cover picture.)

Once I had opened the covers of The Secret of the Pink Carnation I too could not put the book down. In the book are two stories. First is the story of American scholar Eloise who is in London to do research on the identity of an English Napoleonic wars spy called The Purple Gentian. Eloise outwits the irascible Colin Selwick to obtain access to a diary and letters among his aristocratic family's papers. As she reads them, the parallel story of Amy Balcourt and Lord Richard Selwick (aka The Purple Gentian) is revealed, along with the never-before suspected identity of another spy, The Pink Carnation. Colin resents Eloise delving into his family's secrets. Just as Amy Balcourt did in her quest to find and join forces with the Purple Gentian, Eloise falls prey to many misunderstandings in her relationship with Colin. But in this merry romp all is sorted out in both endings to the satisfaction of all parties. Just what those endings are you will have to read the book to find out!

Be warned that if you are an historical purist you will not find a lot to sink your teeth into in this romantic mystery in historical costume. If you are a fan of chick lit, however, you will find a lot to love in the feisty yet misguided, self-doubting yet determined heroines. If you were ever a fan of Georgette Heyer you will love the comedy of misunderstandings between the two pairs of lovers.

You Can't Judge a Book By Its Cover - Or Can You?

Historical fiction is undergoing a renaissance. For historical fiction fans, today I am sharing part of an e-newsletter article from Libraries Unlimited about current trends in historical fiction. Perhaps it will spark a discussion about what you like and dislike about the new titles, and particularly their beautiful covers.

This is part of what Sarah Johnson, librarian and author, wrote in her article for readers' advisory practitioners. I'm sure all readers will be interested in this glimpse into publishing trends:

"To the delight of longtime fans of the genre, historical fiction is undergoing a renaissance. Especially popular on both library and bookstore shelves are novels featuring strong female protagonists. Readers — especially female readers — can't seem to get enough of novels about powerful, intelligent women from past eras and how they navigated the male-dominated world in which they lived. The catalyst for this trend was Philippa Gregory's groundbreaking 2001 novel The Other Boleyn Girl (Find this book in our catalog), the bestselling Tudor drama about Anne and Mary Boleyn and their rivalry for King Henry VIII's attention. Jeanne Kalogridis's The Devil's Queen (Find this book in our catalog), written from the viewpoint of the much-maligned Catherine de'Medici, and Michelle Moran's Cleopatra's Daughter (Find this book in our catalog), which tells the little-known story of the title character after her famous mother's death, are two recent examples among many.
Thanks to corresponding trends in historical fiction cover art, we can make educated guesses about which books will provide similar reading experiences. While black-and-white photos of shadowy Victorian street scenes announce themselves as historical mysteries or thrillers; and bold images of gleaming swords, helmets and other warlike accoutrements scream "military adventure"; historical novels whose dust jackets feature women in period costume are assumed to follow the "strong women in history" trend. The groupings are unmistakable, and because novels of this type are currently so prevalent, the associations are hard to miss.
When the story is based on an actual woman's life, the jacket design may be a variant of her real-life portrait. This is the case for Susan Holloway Scott's The French Mistress, featuring Sir Peter Lely's painting of Louise de Keroualle. Alternatively, covers show contemporary models garbed in gorgeous historically-based outfits. For example, on the cover of Jeane Westin's The Virgin's Daughters, a young woman wears a green gown with a beaded, richly embroidered bodice and farthingale, representing the late Tudor era — wholly appropriate for a work about two of Queen Elizabeth I's ladies in waiting. Historical accuracy in covers isn't a given, but that's a subject for another article!
Many of these examples share another thing in common: the woman's face is either completely or partially obscured, achieved either through cropping the image at nose-line, or by showing the figure with her back turned. The Other Boleyn Girl was a trendsetter in this convention as well, In terms of her covers and her choice of subjects, Philippa Gregory's success as an author is well worth emulating. The "headless woman" look is frequently seen in contemporary fiction, too; and it has met with mixed reactions. Critics charge that it's the artistic equivalent of taking away women's identities, ironically something the novels are trying to counteract. On the other hand, it adds an aura of mystery, since readers are required to visualize what the main character might look like. Also, some readers say it lets them more easily imagine themselves in the protagonist's shoes, allowing them to vicariously experience the novel's actions and emotions along with the heroine.
Either way, these covers have proven to sell books, and publishers' marketing departments know it. Elizabeth Chadwick, a prizewinning British novelist who writes biographical fiction about the medieval English nobility, found that her sales more than quadrupled after her publisher commissioned a redesign with what she personally termed the "headless bodice" look. Headless they may be, but many of these designs are truly beautiful; and like many readers, I'm not at all immune to their effect. My bookshelves at home are full of them, many of them displayed face-out.
However, because these covers appeal so strongly to female audiences — who reportedly make up over 70% of the fiction reading public (Gabriel) — their appearance hasn't been limited to novels of the Philippa Gregory variety. Laura Joh Rowland's The Fire Kimono and The Snow Empress, historical mysteries set in 11th-century Japan, have striking, evocative covers that echo the trend, as does Lindsey Davis's Saturnalia, part of her Falco series set in ancient Rome. Even a recent translation of Tolstoy's original War and Peace has a cover that fits this category. Of course, all of these novels have important female characters, but none is told exclusively from a female perspective.
So what does a "headless woman" cover really mean about a book's content? Even with historical novels where women are the viewpoint characters, the designs cut across subgenre lines, with similar approaches taken by the covers of Terri Lynn Wilhelm's Deception (Regency romance), Joyce Lebra's The Scent of Sake (biographical fiction about a 19th-century Japanese businesswoman), DeVa Gantt's Forever Waiting (family saga set in the 1830s West Indies), and Kamila Shamsie's Burnt Shadows (literary novel about the long-term impact of Hiroshima and Nagasaki). The art for Ann Turnbull's No Shame, No Fear, an award-winning young adult novel set in Restoration England, follows the same format. All include era-appropriate backdrops and depict dark-haired women with upswept hairstyles who face away from the reader. In a sense, the covers distill the novels down to a single unifying theme—"strong, historical women". But apart from that aspect, these four books have little in common with one another. They're very different in terms of genre, writing style, and approach.
Cover art is a form of advertising, after all. It's meant to grab our attention, but in many cases it simultaneously presents us with something recognizable, offering clues about what we might be getting. The commonalities in cover design can broaden the possible audience for these books, hooking new readers who might not have picked them up otherwise and encouraging them to try a subgenre, title, or author new to them. On the other hand, they can be misleading. Historical novel fans or readers' advisors who base their "readalike" decisions on the jacket art — and many do — may end up with something quite different from what they expected."

The old adage of "don't judge a book by its cover" isn't entirely true; nor is it entirely false. What do you think? Have you ever picked up a book for the cover alone?

Notes:

Sarah Johnson. "Judging Historical Novels by Their Covers — Or Not." Readers' Advisor News, September, 2009.

SARAH L. JOHNSON is Reference Librarian at Booth Library, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois. She is the author of Historical Fiction II: a Guide to the Genre (Libraries Unlimited, 2009) and its predecessor, Historical Fiction (Libraries Unlimited, 2005). She also serves as book review editor for the Historical Novels Review and blogs at Reading the Past.

Author of The Other Boleyn Girl starts new series about the Plantagenets

The White Queen by Philippa Gregory (Find this book in our catalog)

Shelf Awareness, a book trade e-newsletter had this to say Thursday, August 27: "Philippa Gregory was an established historian and writer when she delved into the Tudor period and wrote the novel The Other Boleyn Girl, which was made into a TV drama and a major film. Six novels later, she has turned her attention to the family that preceded the Tudors on the English throne: the Plantagenets, a family of complex loves, rivalries and hatreds. The first in the new Cousin's War series, The White Queen was just published by Touchstone." Ms. Gregory lives with her family on a small farm in Yorkshire, where she keeps horses, hens and ducks. Click here for her website. In the "Study" you will find a family tree to help keep track of the relations in the Cousin's War series.

This is what it says about The White Queen in our catalog: "Philippa Gregory, "the queen of royal fiction" (USA Today) presents the first of a new series set amid the deadly feuds of England known as the Wars of the Roses. Brother turns on brother to win the ultimate prize, the throne of England, in this dazzling account of the wars of the Plantagenets. They are the claimants and kings who ruled England before the Tudors, and now Philippa Gregory brings them to life through the dramatic and intimate stories of the secret players: the indomitable women, starting with Elizabeth Woodville, the White Queen. The White Queen tells the story of a woman of extraordinary beauty and ambition who, catching the eye of the newly crowned boy king, marries him in secret and ascends to royalty. While Elizabeth rises to the demands of her exalted position and fights for the success of her family, her two sons become central figures in a mystery that has confounded historians for centuries: the missing princes in the Tower of London whose fate is still unknown. From her uniquely qualified perspective, Philippa Gregory explores this most famous unsolved mystery of English history, informed by impeccable research and framed by her inimitable storytelling skills. With The White Queen, Philippa Gregory brings the artistry and intellect of a master writer and storyteller to a new era in history and begins what is sure to be another bestselling classic series from this beloved author."

The Anatomy of Deception: a novel of suspense by Lawrence Goldstone

The Anatomy of Deception (Find this book in our catalog)

Publishers Weekly called this book a, "top-notch historical page-turner." Set in Philadelphia in the late 1880s, this book should appeal to a wide audience. I picked it up because it deals with the early days of modern medicine, and though it's main location is the seedier side of underworld Philadelphia, it also deals in part with characters who had a very real role in the foundation of the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Goldstone combines his fictional characters in a masterly way with real life surgical luminaries such as William Osler and William Stewart Halsted, while scrupulously in his author's note denying that these real-life people were in any way involved with any wrong-doing. The fact is, that surgical students and surgeons like them easily could have been so involved because society criminalized or at least condemned the dissection of cadavers for research and teaching.

Anatomy of Deception is called, "an ingenous blend of history, suspense, and early forensic science." Goldstone evokes the dark horror of the time when gentlemen surgeons were little more than butchers, making it a point of honor to conduct operations in record time with no regard to loss of blood or elementary hygiene, which they thought a waste of time. The survival rate from these operations was almost non-existent, but the surgeons had no care for the fate of their patients, especially if the were poor. The author paints a picture of a medical establishment that thought the "lower orders" deserved no better.

William Osler, however, is painted as one who does care. He conducts a surgical class for promising young men and one woman who have an interest in making a difference. One such student is Dr. Ephraim Carroll. He is destined for a stellar career under the wing of Osler, who has been invited to Baltimore to set up a revolutionary new surgical department. Then Ephraim gets involved with another student with a mysterious lifestyle and his career looks as though it may be ruined. What has Ephraim's student friend to do with the corpse of a beautiful young woman in the morgue and also what does Dr. Osler know about the case? Then the other student dies and Ephraim confirms that he was poisoned. He feels compelled to solve a mystery that involves the society drawing rooms of Philadelphia as well as its back alleys. Ephraim is drawn into a maze of secrets, murder and unimaginable crimes and it looks as though his very future is threatened.

I enjoyed the sense of darkness and of a pervasive moral turpitude that the author evokes. The atmosphere of the book and the time period should appeal to to fans of The Alienist by Caleb Carr and of The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl. Fans of these two books will also like the forensic details. This is an excellent period piece in the tradition of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or Poe but also a suspenseful and very ingeniously crafted mystery.

City of Shadows by Ariana Franklin

City of Shadows by Ariana Franklin (Find this book in our catalog)

City of Shadows is an entralling novel of historical suspense set in Berlin of the 1920s and 1930s. Fraught with rampant inflation, poverty, unemployment and malnutrition, and by the political turmoil of a failed Weimar Republic, it is a decadent time when the more fortunate or more desperate classes of society frequent clubs which cater to every imagineable debauchery. Fear and class hatred abound as does racism and anti-Semitism, all helping and fostered by the rising National Socialist Party of Adolph Hitler.

Esther Solomonova is a Jewish Russian emigre. Fluent in many languages and desperate for employment, she has accepted a job running the international affairs of a scheming adventurer and cabaret owner, "Prince" Nick. Scenting an opportunity to make a great deal of money, Nick takes under his wing "Anna," who is claiming to be the heir to the Romanov fortune, the grand duchess Anastasia. She supposedly had escaped the assassination of the rest of her family at Ekaterinburg and now has turned up in a Berlin asylum. Esther knows a great deal about how to behave in good society, so Nick installs her in an apartment with Anna to help groom Anna for her unveiling to the world.

Anna is clearly terrified and claims she is being hunted by a huge mysterious killer. Soon people who come into contact with Anna begin to die, so the killer must really exist. Eshter enlists the help of a Berlin police officer, Schmidt to try to find out who in Anna's past could want her dead. The trail leads into the Nazi party machinery and on a train trip across Poland, into the past, and into the mind of a mass murderer. As they find out more, Esther and Schmidt find out they are in increasing danger from more than one quarter.

This book is not only a cracking mystery, filled with suspense, and with crimes and tragedies from the horrifying past, but also a chilling depiction of how a society can be manipulated by fear and hatred into the willing acceptance of tyranny and genocide.

Water for Elephants on NY Times List for One Year

According to Judith Rosen in Publishers Weekly, 4/17/2008, the paperback edition of Sara Gruen's novel Water for Elephants has been on the New York Times bestsellers list for 52 consecutive weeks and has 1.8 million copies in print. The hardcover edition was on the Times list for 13 weeks and has 285,000 copies in print.

Water for Elephants, a title extremely popular with book clubs, is available at our library in hardback, paperback, audio book, and in large print. Find the hardback.

This is the summary available in our catalog: "Though he may not speak of them, the memories still dwell inside Jacob Jankowski's ninety-something-year-old mind. Memories of himself as a young man, tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Memories of a world filled with freaks and clowns, with wonder and pain and anger and passion; a world with its own narrow, irrational rules, its own way of life, and its own way of death. The world of the circus: to Jacob it was both salvation and a living hell." "Jacob was there because his luck had run out - orphaned and penniless, he had no direction until he landed on this locomotive "ship of fools." It was the early part of the Great Depression, and everyone in this third-rate circus was lucky to have any job at all. Marlena, the star of the equestrian act, was there because she fell in love with the wrong man, a handsome circus boss with a wide mean streak. And Rosie the elephant was there because she was the great gray hope, the new act that was going to be the salvation of the circus; the only problem was, Rosie didn't have an act - in fact, she couldn't even follow instructions. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and ultimately, it was their only hope for survival."

Click here for Sara Gruen's website

Click here for sample discussion questions at ReadingGroupGuides.com

Awards round-up 4/10/08

Kurt Andersen has won the 2007 David J. Langum Sr. Prize in American Historical Fiction for his best-selling novel Heyday. Find this book in our catalog

Andersen is a columnist for New York magazine and host of Studio 360 on public radio.

Book Description:

In the middle of the nineteenth century, modern life is being born: the mind-boggling marvels of photography, the telegraph, and railroads; a flood of show business spectacles and newspapers; rampant sex and drugs and drink (and moral crusades against all three); Wall Street awash with money; and giddy utopian visions everywhere. Then, during a single amazing month at the beginning of 1848, history lurches: America wins its war of manifest destiny against Mexico, gold is discovered in northern California, and revolutions sweep across Europe–sending one eager English gentleman off on an epic transatlantic adventure. . . .Amid the tumult, aristocratic Benjamin Knowles impulsively abandons the Old World to reinvent himself in New York, where he finds himself embraced by three restless young Americans. Beckoned by the frontier, new beginnings, and the prospects of the California Gold Rush, all four set out on a transcontinental race west–relentlessly tracked, unbeknownst to them, by a cold-blooded killer bent on revenge.

Click here for more of the publisher's description in our catalog.

The Czech novelist Arnost Lustig has been named the eighth winner of the Franz Kafka award for literature.
Previous winners include Harold Pinter, Philip Roth and Haruki Murakami.

Ian McEwan, J.K. Rowling, Khaled Hosseini and Francesca Simon took top honors at the Galaxy British Book awards.

McEwan's On Chesil Beach Find this book in our catalog won the Reader's Digest Author of the Year award. Rowling earned this year's Outstanding Achievement honor, adding it to her collection of four previous Galaxy awards. Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns Find this book in our catalog earned the Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year, given by the hosts of a hugely popular TV show book group.

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory

The Other Boleyn Girl, starring Eric Bana, Natalie Portman and Scarlett
Johansson, opens this coming Friday, February 29. It is based on the
novel by Philippa Gregory, in which two sisters--Anne and Mary
Boleyn--compete for the affection of King Henry VIII.

Find this book in our catalog.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 05/27/2002
Sisterly rivalry is the basis of this fresh, wonderfully vivid retelling of the story of Anne Boleyn. Anne, her sister Mary and their brother George are all brought to the king's court at a young age, as players in their uncle's plans to advance the family's fortunes. Mary, the sweet, blond sister, wins King Henry VIII's favor when she is barely 14 and already married to one of his courtiers. Their affair lasts several years, and she gives Henry a daughter and a son. But her dark, clever, scheming sister, Anne, insinuates herself into Henry's graces, styling herself as his adviser and confidant. Soon she displaces Mary as his lover and begins her machinations to rid him of his wife, Katherine of Aragon. This is only the beginning of the intrigue that Gregory so handily chronicles, capturing beautifully the mingled hate and nearly incestuous love Anne, Mary and George ("kin and enemies all at once") feel for each other and the toll their family's ambition takes on them. Mary, the story's narrator, is the most sympathetic of the siblings, but even she is twisted by the demands of power and status; charming George, an able plotter, finally brings disaster on his own head by falling in love with a male courtier. Anne, most tormented of all, is ruthless in her drive to become queen, and then to give Henry a male heir. Rather than settling for a picturesque rendering of court life, Gregory conveys its claustrophobic, all-consuming nature with consummate skill. In the end, Anne's famous, tragic end is offset by Mary's happier fate, but the self-defeating folly of the quest for power lingers longest in the reader's mind.

Other Books Like The Other Boleyn Girl:

A Lady Raised High: A Novel of Anne Boleynby Laurien Gardner Find this book in our catalog.
REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 01/02/2006
After 2005's heavy-handedThe Spanish Bride: A Novel of Catherine of Aragon , Gardner's second entry in her wives of Henry VIII eyewitness series takes a more lighthearted look at the tragic Anne Boleyn. Queen Anne's rise and fall is recounted by her maid Frances Pierce, a country girl brought to court after her impulsive leap to protect the king's paramour from a flung handful of mud. As Frances stumbles her way through the life of a royal servant, encountering court intrigue and political upheaval, she becomes Anne's closest confidante, thanks largely to her sincere devotion and naïve lack of ambition. Seeing the world through Frances's rose-colored spectacles, Gardner remains sympathetic to this controversial queen and tells her tale lovingly all the way to its sad end. Readers looking for a lower-calorie Philippa Gregory will be pleased. With nothing particularly revelatory in the historical backdrop, the novel is free to concentrate on characterization and romance, with agreeable result

A Rose for the Crownby Anne Easter Smith Find this book in our catalog.
REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 11/14/2005
Inspired by the historical record of Richard III's bastard children, Smith invents a spirited, "tawny-eyed" mistress for the 15th-century king in her sweeping debut. Kate Bywood is plucked from her peasant life at the age of 11 to join the household of her mother's noble cousins, the Hautes, as companion to her timid cousin, Anne. A brief, unwilling marriage to an older, wealthy merchant leaves Kate a young widow with a considerable fortune. A second marriage to George, an opportunistic Haute cousin who prefers the stable boy to Kate, leaves her yearning for love. In a chance encounter, she meets Richard of Gloucester, and the ensuing secret romance is filled with the passion and intimacy her marriage lacks. George is killed during an attack in the forest, and Kate bears Richard three children. The narrative flies when the lovers are together, but once Richard marries Anne Neville, and he and Kate are separated for long stretches, the story loses its spark. Readers hungry primarily for romance may also tire of Smith's details about the complicated internecine rebellions and rivalries among pretenders to the throne. Nevertheless, this story fills in some historical gaps and conjures a winning heroine.

The Secret Diary of Anne Boleynby Robin Maxwell Find this book in our catalog.
Jacket Notes:
Anne Boleyn was the second of Henry's six wives, doomed to be beloved, betrayed, and beheaded. When Henry fell madly in love with her upon her return from the French court, where she was educated, he was already married to Catherine of Aragon. But his passion for Anne was great enough to rock the foundations of England and of all Christendom. When the pope refused to dissolve his marriage to Catherine, Henry broke with Rome, founded the Church of England with himself at its head, and married Anne. But all too soon his passion faded; when Anne bore him not the promised son but a daughter, Elizabeth, Henry forsook her for another love, schemed against her, and ultimately had her sentenced to death. In Robin Maxwell's captivating new novel, Anne has kept, unbeknownst to the king, a secret diary that she presses into the hands of a confidante before she is put to death. She says it is a gift for the daughter she will never know. Years later, soon after Elizabeth ascends to the throne, Anne's confidante brings the precious diary to the young queen. In it, Elizabeth learns the truth about her much-maligned mother: her fierce determination, her hard-won knowledge about being a woman in a world ruled by despotic men, and her deep-seated love for the infant daughter taken from her shortly after her birth. These revelations shake Elizabeth to the core. As her mother's conquests and defeats unfold before her eyes, Elizabeth finds in them an echo of her own drama as a passionate young woman at the center of power. She too is besieged by the counsels and betrayals of the men around her - including those of her own lover, the ambitious Robin Dudley. Determined to heed the lessons her mother learned at so high a price, Elizabeth, the "Virgin Queen", the most revered of all English monarchs and perhaps the most powerful woman of all time, makes a resolution that will change the course of history.

Good Place to Find Reading Suggestions in Historical Fiction

I saw this announcement on a listserve I belong to and could not pass up an opportunity to give a plug to the Maryland State Library Resource which is at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Central Library. The Fiction Department at Pratt do a stellar job of preparing book-finding tools and readers' lists which are good for book club reading ideas too. This one is for Historical Fiction:

"Do you have customers who are passionate about historical fiction? Or are you interested in learning about the 13 categories of historical fiction? The Fiction Department of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Central Library/State Library Resource Center have put together a new How-to Guide called "If I Could Save Time in a Bottle: A Guide for Historical Fiction Lovers ," located here . The guide can also be found on the main How-to Guide page under the heading "What Do I Read Next?"
The guide includes an extensive list of Web sites with suggestions for various genres of historical fiction and information on how to find award-winning historical fiction. We hope you find it useful!
Rebecca Sullivan
--
Rebecca Immich Sullivan
Manager, Job and Career Information Center Enoch Pratt Free Library Baltimore, MD
410-396-5316
rimmich@prattlibrary.org"

Annette Vallon: a novel of the French Revolution by James Tipton

It seems I have been reading quite a lot of historical fiction lately. Unlike the books I recommended a few days ago, Annette Vallon is not an historical mystery but a straightforward historical novel – a work of fiction that evokes or recreates the past. Quite often these fictional works take for their characters real people who actually lived at the time. Sometimes a novelist takes for the main character a notable historical figure and puts words into their mouths and motives into their heads. Since these kinds of historical novels are usually based on meticulous historical research, it could be argued that this kind of reanimation of people who have lived and died and can no longer defend themselves is as legitimate as the work of a biographer. Another approach to historical fiction is to create the main character from imagination and to set him or her among minor characters who actually lived. A compromise is to make your main character a minor figure from the past about whom little is known, as is the case with Annette Vallon.

History records that Annette Vallon (1766-1841) met English poet William Wordsworth when he spent a year in France on the eve of the French Revolution. Annette became his lover and muse and bore him a daughter, Caroline (1792). Wordworth left France as the Revolution became more repressive and violent, returning to see his daughter years later, even after having proposed marriage to an Englishwoman.

In this fictional account, Annette is a headstrong, spoiled, and convention-breaking daughter of a rich doctor who has the temerity to enter into an unconventional “marriage” with William. When William’s foreign status and outspoken politics place him in danger, Annette risks her life to assist him in escaping the Loire region where she lives. In this region there is much popular resistance to the Jacobins, who are Paris-based and are stripping the country of food and conscripts for the army. Annette becomes a legendary resistance leader and helps many refugees from the civil war. The bulk of the second part of the book is about this resistance. I found it exciting reading. There was a lot to think about in the way the ideals of the Revolution degenerated into tyranny, bigotry, fear, and violence.

Conversation Starters
“Tipton's descriptions, à la Tracy Chevalier, of how masterpieces are created alternate with the spirited heroine's adventures, making for an uneasy balance…”
“Annette—and those who help her along the way—are believable in their struggles through the best and the worst of times.”
One reviewer called the book “vibrant and alluring.” Would you agree?
Annette refuses to be married unless it is for passion. She says she has been spoiled by the novels of Rousseau. Find out about Rousseau.
The novel is narrated in hind-sight by the 50-year-old Annette. Did you like this device?
What did you think of Annette’s mother?
Do you think it is fair to take a real person’s life and fictionalize it?

This is a very good review from the Philadelphia Inquirer http://www.popmatters.com/pm/books/reviews/53082/annette-vallon-a-novel-of-the-french-revolution-by-james-tipton/

Further Reading
Wordsworth: the Poetic Life by John L. Mahoney
Other novels on the artist life by Tracy Chevalier and Sarah Dunant

What Angels Fear by C. S. Harris

What Angels Fear combines the elements of historical fiction, mystery, and romance all in one fast-paced, suspenseful package. Set in England in 1811, the book is rich in the details of daily life and the political intrigue of the time. The story is summed up by Publishers Weekly like this: “When Sebastian Alistair St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, is accused of the rape and murder of actress Rachel York, mistress to various members of Spencer Perceval's wobbly Tory cabinet, Sebastian goes "on the lam," in the words of young Tom, his adopted companion and faithful servant, and must spend frantic days in clever disguises chasing "across London and back." Uncanny powers of sight and hearing help him to identify several suspects, including Hugh Gordon, Rachel's fellow actor and ex-lover; shadowy French émigré Leo Pierrepoint; and even his own wayward nephew, Bayard Wilcox, who had been stalking the victim for weeks. Also implicated is portrait painter Giorgio Donatelli, for whom Rachel often posed nude, whose current patron, Lord Fairchild, is expected to be the next prime minister. Waiting in the wings to rule over this gathering chaos is dissolute Prince George (aka Prinny), soon to become regent for his incompetent father, George III.”

Conversation Starters and Things you might like about the book
Many readers will like the quick start and the fast pace. In the Prologue, atmosphere is established right away with the terror of a fog-shrouded evening in a deserted church. The first chapter begins with a duel. Character is established through action. Much is left to be inferred.
The book is rich in historical detail, especially graphic depictions of poverty in the slums of London. Some readers have been jarred by the characters’ motives and sensibilities – they found them to be anachronistic and they detected also some errors in judicial procedures.
The main character is very likeable – he is an outsider, independent, iconoclastic, physically powerful and adept, well-liked by his friends, moral, heroic, and conflicted.
Humor is provided by St. Cyr’s self-deprecation and by the cheeky character of his side-kick, Tom.
Suspense is provided by the dangers St Cyr faces in the pursuit of the murderer and in his flight from Bow Street. There is suspense in the mystery as it unfolds and the plot is pleasingly complex. The gothic and convoluted turns of the plot are set believably in the political unrest of the times.
Romance is a very powerful element of the book and is provided by the lovely and mysterious actress Kat Boleyn. While Romance is very important, the book never becomes sentimental nor loses its pace.

Other books like this
Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn
Petty Treason: a Sarah Tolerance Novel by Madeleine E. Robins
Covent Garden Mystery by Ashley Gardner
The Egyptian Coffin by Jane Jakeman

The Religion by Tim Willcocks

Some time back, I wrote bemoaning somewhat the the demise of the traditional historical novel in favor of the lush historical romances made popular by Kathleen Woodiwiss. I hoped when I picked up The Religion by Tim Willcocks that I had found an historical novel in the good old tradition of swash and buckle. In a way, I was not disappointed: this tale of the 1565 Turkish siege of the island of Malta, stronghold of the Knights of Saint John the Baptist, is full of action and adventure, and the historical detail, the details of the strategy and tactics of battle very full. In the end, for me however, the book had too much blood and gore, and sometimes the attitudes and emotions of the hero seemed to me too modern and perhaps even cliched.

The story starts when Matthias Tannhauser, son of a Saxon blacksmith witnesses the massacre of his family. He is kidnapped by the Muslim raiders, trained as a Janissary, and then wins his release and becomes a prosperous arms dealer. The starred review in Publishers Weekly sums up the plot very well and gives Tanhauser a rousing endorsement: “(Tannhauser’s) comfortable life is interrupted by the arrival of Contessa Carla La Penautier, a young widow who uses her considerable charms (and title) to recruit Tannhauser to help her find Orlandu, the bastard son she was forced to abandon at birth 12 years earlier. Arriving on Malta, where Carla believes her son is, Tannhauser and Carla get caught in the Turkish attack on the Christian enclave. Meanwhile, Orlandu's father, Ludovico Ludovici, a monk and feared inquisitor, has returned to Malta with hopes of bringing Malta under papal control. Tannhauser has to find Orlandu, unmask the scheming and unscrupulous Ludovici, survive vicious combat against the Turks, win Carla's heart and find a way to escape the "island of fanatics and fools." In Tannhauser, Willocks has created a dazzling hero whose debut will leave readers eager for the next installment.”

This book would make a wonderful book group book because there is lots to discuss. It is long because it is about a quest. The plot is complex and has many characters, though some reviewers found the characters to be shallow. There is much to discuss and think about in the wars of religion which are the background of this story. The book will appeal to readers who revel in deep historical detail and also to people fascinated by the orders of religious knights such as the Knights of Saint John and the Templars. The book features religious politics and conspiracies as well as sex, romance and spiritual salvation.

If you persevere to the end of this long book, which many reviewers described as “gripping,” you will certainly find yourself waiting with impatience for the next book of the planned trilogy.
If you liked The Religion, you might like the Arthurian series of books by Bernard Cornwell (1st one, The Winter King). To me they had the same kind of fascinating historical military detail, and almost the same amount of gore.