The Mitford Murders by Jessica Fellowes With Mitford mania in perpetual bloom, it was only a matter of time before some enterprising author wrote a mystery series featuring the Mitford sisters. And not surprisingly that someone is Jessica Fellowes, author of five companion books to the Downton ... [Continue Reading]
Hero of the Empire by Candice Millard
Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard Do we really need another biography of Winston Churchill? Well, yes, when it is written by talented Candice Millard, author of The River of Doubt and Destiny of the Republic. In Hero of the ... [Continue Reading]
Victoria, The Queen by Julia Baird
Don’t let the frumpy photos fool you-- Queen Victoria was a piece of work. As Prime Minister William Gladstone said with feeling, “The Queen alone is enough to kill any man.” Victoria was self-pitying, stubborn, highly critical (especially of her children), partisan, humorless, selfish, prudish, ... [Continue Reading]
Midnight’s Furies, The Deadly Legacy of India’s Partition by Nisid Hajari
Midnight’s Furies, The Deadly Legacy of India’s Partition by Nisid Hajari Midnight’s Furies by Nisid Hajari is a grim account of the final year of the British Raj and the birth of an independent India and Pakistan. Until the massacres in Rwanda in 1994, the Partition conflict stands as the ... [Continue Reading]
The Strangler Vine by M. J. Carter
The Strangler Vine and The Infidel Stain by M.J. Carter In the tradition of Holmes and Watson, Jeremiah Blake, a cynical ex-employee of the British East India Company and William Avery, a young soldier, are the sleuths in M. J. Carter’s series of Victorian mysteries. The first novel, The ... [Continue Reading]
Dissolution by C.J. Sansom
Dissolution by C.J. Sansom My cousin Harriet introduced me to the Matthew Shardlake Tudor mysteries. If you liked Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy, you’ll enjoy these as well. Unlike many Tudor stories which concentrate on the dramatic Anne Boleyn years, author C.J. Sansom begins his ... [Continue Reading]
Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill by Sonia Purnell
When you are married to a legend, you get short shrift in the great one’s biography. And if that legend is Winston Churchill, you are truly an afterthought. While there are scores of Churchill biographies, there are precious few Mrs. Churchill biographies. In this excellent and long-overdue ... [Continue Reading]
Victoria: A Life by A.N. Wilson
Victoria: A Life by A.N. Wilson A.N. Wilson’s biography of Queen Victoria doesn’t break any new ground, but it is a readable and often witty account of the complicated Queen. WHAT OTHER REVIEWERS THINK: The New York Times: “To survey the political history of the world’s most powerful empire ... [Continue Reading]
The Viceroy’s Daughters: The Lives of the Curzon Sisters by Anne de Courcy
The Viceroy’s Daughters: The Lives of the Curzon Sisters by Anne de Courcy As the daughters of Lord Curzon, confidants of royalty, and friends, lovers, and wives of politicians and the powerful, the Curzon sisters, Irene, Cimmie, and Baba knew everyone who was anyone in England between the wars ... [Continue Reading]
Young Titan, The Making of Winston Churchill by Michael Shelden
Young Titan, The Making of Winston Churchill by Michael Shelden Although Winston Churchill is arguably best known for his leadership during WWII, he was a celebrity politician forty years earlier. At the turn of the century, Churchill’s image, slight, freckled, and with a full head of hair, ... [Continue Reading]