Tag: historical fiction

Rosie | Little Bird Book Blog1 Comment

Babel by R.F. Kuang

Publisher: Harper Voyager
Publication Date: 23/08/2022
Length: 544 pages
Genre: Fantasy | Historical Fiction | Dark Academia

CW: racism

Blackwells.co.uk

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation — also known as Babel.

Babel is the world’s center of translation and, more importantly, of silver-working: the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation through enchanted silver bars, to magical effect. Silver-working has made the British Empire unparalleled in power, and Babel’s research in foreign languages serves the Empire’s quest to colonize everything it encounters.

Oxford, the city of dreaming spires, is a fairytale for Robin; a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge serves power, and for Robin, a Chinese boy raised in Britain, serving Babel inevitably means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to sabotaging the silver-working that supports imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide: Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence? What is he willing to sacrifice to bring Babel down?

GoodReads
Continue reading “Babel by R.F. Kuang” →

Rosie | Little Bird Book BlogLeave a comment

The Path of Thorns by A.G. Slatter

Firstly, a huge thank you to Titan Books for sending me a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Publisher: Titan Books
Publication Date: 28/06/2022
Length: 352 pages
Genre: Fantasy | Gothic | Horror

CW: animal abuse, domestic abuse, mentions of child abuse, graphic depictions of death

Blackwells.co.uk

Asher Todd comes to live with the mysterious Morwood family as a governess to their children. Asher knows little about being a governess but she is skilled in botany and herbcraft, and perhaps more than that. And she has secrets of her own, dark and terrible – and Morwood is a house that eats secrets. With a monstrous revenge in mind, Asher plans to make it choke. However, she becomes fond of her charges, of the people of the Tarn, and she begins to wonder if she will be able to execute her plan – and who will suffer most if she does. But as the ghosts of her past become harder to control, Asher realises she has no choice.

Dark magic, retribution and twisted family secrets combine to weave a bewitching and beautifully written gothic fairy tale.

GoodReads
Continue reading “The Path of Thorns by A.G. Slatter” →

Rosie | Little Bird Book Blog3 Comments

Blog Tour – The Carnival of Ash by Tom Beckerlegge

Welcome to my stop on The Carnival of Ash blog tour! Huge thanks to TheWriteReads and Rebellion Publishing for giving me the opportunity to take part in this! I was provided a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review. 

Publisher: Solaris / Rebellion Publishing
Publication Date: 17/03/2022
Length: 528 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction | Historical Fantasy

CW: depictions of death, suicide

Blackwells.co.uk

Cadenza is the City of Words, a city run by poets, its skyline dominated by the steepled towers of its libraries, its heart beating to the stamp and thrum of the printing presses in the Printing Quarter.

Carlo Mazzoni, a young wordsmith arrives at the city gates intent on making his name as the bells ring out with the news of the death of the city’s poet-leader. Instead, he finds himself embroiled with the intrigues of a city in turmoil, the looming prospect of war with their rival Venice ever-present. A war that threatens not only to destroy Cadenza but remove it from history altogether… 

GoodReads
Continue reading “Blog Tour – The Carnival of Ash by Tom Beckerlegge” →

Rosie | Little Bird Book Blog3 Comments

All the White Spaces by Ally Wilkes

Firstly, a huge thank you to Titan Books for sending me a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Publisher: Titan Books
Publication Date: 25/01/2022
Length: 592 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction | Horror | LGBTQIA+

CW: Graphic depictions of war and death, abuse, psychosis

Blackwells.co.uk

In the wake of the First World War, Jonathan Morgan stows away on an Antarctic expedition, determined to find his rightful place in the world of men. Aboard the expeditionary ship of his hero, the world-famous explorer James “Australis” Randall, Jonathan may live as his true self―and true gender―and have the adventures he has always been denied. But not all is smooth sailing: the war casts its long shadow over them all, and grief, guilt, and mistrust skulk among the explorers.


When disaster strikes in Antarctica’s frozen Weddell Sea, the men must take to the land and overwinter somewhere which immediately seems both eerie and wrong; a place not marked on any of their part-drawn maps of the vast white continent. Now completely isolated, Randall’s expedition has no ability to contact the outside world. And no one is coming to rescue them.

In the freezing darkness of the Polar night, where the aurora creeps across the sky, something terrible has been waiting to lure them out into its deadly landscape…

As the harsh Antarctic winter descends, this supernatural force will prey on their deepest desires and deepest fears to pick them off one by one. It is up to Jonathan to overcome his own ghosts before he and the expedition are utterly destroyed.

GoodReads
Continue reading “All the White Spaces by Ally Wilkes” →

Rosie | Little Bird Book Blog1 Comment

Blog Tour – The Tale of the Tailor and the Three Dead Kings by Dan Jones

Welcome to my stop on the The Tale of the Tailor and the Three Dead Kings blog tour! Huge thanks to Head of Zeus for giving me the opportunity to take part in this! I was provided a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.

Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication Date: 14/10/2021
Length: 96 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction | Gothic Horror

CW: N/A

Blackwells.co.uk

One winter, in the dark days of King Richard II, a tailor was riding home on the road from Gilling to Ampleforth. It was dank, wet and gloomy; he couldn’t wait to get home and sit in front of a blazing fire.

Then, out of nowhere, the tailor is knocked off his horse by a raven, who then transforms into a hideous dog, his mouth writhing with its own innards. The dog issues the tailor with a warning: he must go to a priest and ask for absolution and return to the road, or else there will be consequences…

First recorded in the early fifteenth century by an unknown monk, The Tale of the Tailor and the Three Dead Kings was transcribed from the Latin by the great medievalist M.R. James in 1922. Building on that tradition, now bestselling historian Dan Jones retells this medieval ghost story in crisp and creepy prose.

GoodReads
Continue reading “Blog Tour – The Tale of the Tailor and the Three Dead Kings by Dan Jones” →

Rosie | Little Bird Book BlogLeave a comment

Blog Tour – The Winter Garden by Alexandra Bell

Welcome to my stop on the The Winter Garden blog tour! Huge thanks to Del Rey UK for giving me the opportunity to take part in this! I was provided a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.

Publisher: Del Rey UK
Publication Date: 02/09/2021
Length: 400 pages
Genre: Fantasy | Historical

CW: domestic abuse, child death

Blackwells.co.uk

Welcome to the Winter Garden. Open only at 13 o’clock.

You are invited to enter an unusual competition.

I am looking for the most magical, spectacular, remarkable pleasure garden this world has to offer.

On the night her mother dies, 8-year-old Beatrice receives an invitation to the mysterious Winter Garden. A place of wonder and magic, filled with all manner of strange and spectacular flora and fauna, the garden is her solace every night for seven days. But when the garden disappears, and no one believes her story, Beatrice is left to wonder if it were truly real.

Eighteen years later, on the eve of her wedding to a man her late father approved of but she does not love, Beatrice makes the decision to throw off the expectations of Victorian English society and search for the garden. But when both she and her closest friend, Rosa, receive invitations to compete to create spectacular pleasure gardens – with the prize being one wish from the last of the Winter Garden’s magic – she realises she may be closer to finding it than she ever imagined.

Now all she has to do is win.

GoodReads
Continue reading “Blog Tour – The Winter Garden by Alexandra Bell” →