Posts tagged book review
NOVEMBER 2025 READING LIST

Daughters of the Winter Queen begins the legacy of the current British throne. William Stoner leads a passive life as a farmer’s son turned English professor, enduring a loveless marriage and a difficult career. Living By Fiction, a collection of meditative essays about the spiritual process of writing.

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OCTOBER 2025 READING LIST

Immersed in the life of forest animals in Bambi. The tale of Joan of Arc and the formidable Yolanda of Aragon in The Maiden and the Queen. One family in Provence produced Four Queens who ruled in Europe. The determined reign of Joanna I in The Lady Queen. A dystopian YA about The 100 teens sent to Earth a century after a nuclear war.

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JUNE 2025 READING LIST

Upstream: Selected Essays studies the natural world. On Writing (And Writings) expands on C.S. Lewis’s views on the practice. Read Like a Writer dissects the written word. A reflective letter on faith and father-son relationships is explored in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead.

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MARCH 2025 READING LIST

Relentless ambition in the life of Mary Anne Clark, a story inspired by du Maurier's great-great-grandmother. A strange, wonderful, and relatable tale of man’s experience on Mars in The Martian Chronicles. The question of legitimacy is revealed on a deathbed in The Dead Secret.

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JUNE 2024 READING LIST

Heroes or mutineers in The Wager. President and Supreme Court Justice, a history of The William Howard Taft Presidency. A future militant empire akin to the Roman must contend with a brutal regime and another, more sinister evil that wages a spiritual battle in An Ember in the Ashes.

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APRIL 2024 READING LIST

Richard I develops into the warrior king known as the Lionheart. “Can you love someone you don’t remember?” is the question in Reset. Sarah Brandt, a widow and midwife, assists detective Frank Malloy in Murder on Astor Place and Murder on St. Mark’s Place, set in late 19th-century New York City. The enduring and energetic life of Theodore Roosevelt comes to a close in Colonel Roosevelt.

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FEBRUARY 2024 READING LIST

The battle between the church and the king is recounted in Time and Chance. A midwife in the 1950s speaks honestly about the depravity of humankind while offering a beacon of hope in The Midwife, Shadows of the Workhouse, and Farewell to the East End. A blind French girl and a German soldier try to survive while maintaining a sense of humanity in All the Light We Cannot See.

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JANUARY 2024 READING LIST

Utred’s struggle between a life with the English or a life with the Danes continues in Lords of the North and Sword Song. A female scientist exposes sexism with humor in Lessons in Chemistry. An epic battle for the throne of England after the death of Henry I leads to civil war When Christ and His Saints Slept.

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DECEMBER 2023 READING LIST

Learning to take writing one step at a time, with advice from Bird By Bird. England is a breath away from non-existence in The Pale Horseman. Maisie Dobbs’ story is beginning to wind down in The Consequences of Fear. The love of children’s stories was reawakened by the brilliantly written novel, The Incredible Journey.

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OCTOBER 2023 READING LIST

A study of debutante balls in The Season. Dunkirk is the setting for To Die But Once. The 9th-century land of the Saxons comes alive in the telling of England's formative history through the eyes of Utred in The Last Kingdom. Mary Anning explores the British coastline for fossils in Remarkable Creatures. A female journalist is killed during the Blitz in The American Agent.

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SEPTEMBER 2023 READING LIST

The Signature of All Things explores themes of desire, ambition, and the pursuit of knowledge. Maisie Dobbs finds herself in danger in Gibraltar, A Dangerous Place, in Germany, The Journey to Munich, and back at home during the Blitz, In This Grave Hour. Llewelyn, Prince of Wales, cannot stop the power of Edward I in The Reckoning.

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JUNE 2023 READING LIST

Falls The Shadow focuses intently on Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, a French Norman and a member of the English peerage who led the barons against Henry III. Among The Mad delves into the complexity of the mind, the people who have harrowing experiences, and still hold hope of recovery.

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MAY 2023 READING LIST

In Messenger Of Truth, the night before the opening of his new and much-anticipated exhibition at a famed Mayfair gallery, a painter falls to his death. Lady Audley's Secret is sensational. A villager scared by Zepplin raids has An Incomplete Revenge.

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APRIL 2023 READING LIST

Thirteenth-century Wales is a divided country, ever at the mercy of England's ruthless, power-hungry King John in Here Be Dragons. A cozy mystery, Maisie Dobbs is a psychologist and investigator in Birds Of A Feather and Pardonable Lies. Unsettling Truths says you cannot discover lands already inhabited. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt.

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JANUARY 2023 READING LIST

Klara and the Sun asks whether one needs a heart to feel. Is folklore, science, magic, or myth at work in Once Upon a River? The Daughter of Doctor Moreau reimagines an HG Wells classic set in the Yucatan. Ethan Frome, a tale of despair in a bleak New England winter. Murder and Egyptology collide in The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog.

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