Category Archives: Historical

Artemis’ mother, Nysa, was one of the ‘Greek Girls’ who arrived in Wellington in the 1960s to provide domestic staff for hotels and hospitals.  Many years later she is finally going to return to Greece, and Artemis is going to … Continue reading →

Bishop Pompallier says in this book: “We do not live in the Garden of Eden, though we may try to make our small corner resemble it” – but as well as the Tree of Life, the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge … Continue reading →

What a breath-taking book!  Coventry has seamlessly inserted a rider into the historical Australia / New Zealand Ravat-Wonder-Dunlop cycling team that took part in the 1928 Tour de France.  The first English-speaking team to take part, they rode in one … Continue reading →

A Crooked Rib is part historical, part romance and part a treatise on the subjugation of women.  It is the story of fictitious Fanny, “sister” to the historical Eliza Lucy – who became the wife of Sir George Grey – … Continue reading →

There is much about The Antipodeans that I liked – the intricacies of the politics and loyalties in occupied Italy during World War 2 – and the very human experiences of young New Zealanders who find themselves enmeshed in them.  … Continue reading →

James Cook’s Lost World is the final in Lay’s trilogy after The Secret Life of James Cook (2013) and James Cook’s New World (2014). The novels cover Cook’s three voyages of discovery, and most readers would know how the third … Continue reading →

The Petticoat Men is a good historical novel which plunges you into the febrile atmosphere surrounding a scandalous trial in 1870s London.  It tells the story of the arrest and trial of Ernest Boulton and Frederick Parks – or Stella and … Continue reading →

Despite much being written of James Cook’s achievements – both positive and negative – little is known of the man himself.  Cook certainly kept a Captain’s log for the Admiralty during his voyages – but in these two novels Graeme … Continue reading →

The Silk Thief is the latest and third of four books in Challinor’s The Convict Girls series.  I hadn’t read the previous two and that wasn’t a bad thing, as I loved being plunged into the deep end of the … Continue reading →

The Stove and the stage is the tale of Danny Mulligan who arrives in Constant Bay, Charleston in the early 1870s.  But Danny doesn’t arrive for the gold; Danny is an entertainer, and seemingly escaping a shady past in Ireland.  … Continue reading →