Tagged: historical fiction

Musketeer detail

Book Review / Books and Reading

Classics Club #18: Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas is one of my favorite all-time books. I might even put it up there with the likes of The Lord of the Rings, Master and Commander, and Don Quixote. And like the characters in those other books, the characters in The Three Musketeers are old friends of mine. I love hanging out not only with D’Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos, but also with their servants Planchet, Mousqueton, Grimaud, and Bazin. I’ve read the book maybe three of four times in my life, most recently in...

The Apothecary Rose by Candace Robb

Book Review / Books and Reading

The Apothecary Rose by Candace Robb

The Apothecary Rose by Candace Robb is a historical murder mystery set in England in 1363. The book opens with two suspicious deaths in the infirmary at St. Mary’s Abbey. The Lord Chancellor of England then sends his former captain of archers, Owen, to try and find out what happened. The mystery centers on an apothecary shop run by Master Nicholas Wilton and his wife/apprentice Lucie. Owen has orders to go under cover and insinuate himself into the lives of the people of York in order to discover why and...

Book Review / Books and Reading

The Man Who Was Poe by Avi

I recently took a detour from my 2017 Reading Challenges to read The Man Who Was Poe by Avi. My daughter’s seventh grade class is reading it together and my wife and I wanted to share the experience with her. Plus, I find Poe a fascinating writer and I was looking forward to seeing him as a character in historical fiction. The story takes place in Providence, Rhode Island in 1848, when Edgar Allen Poe is reluctantly drawn into helping a young boy find his missing mother, sister, and...

The Prestige by Christopher Priest

Book Review / Books and Reading

The Prestige by Christopher Priest

The performer is of course not a sorcerer at all, but an actor who plays the part of a sorcerer and who wishes the audience to believe, if only temporarily, that he is in contact with darker powers. The audience, meantime, knows that what they are seeing is not true sorcery, but they suppress the knowledge and acquiesce to the selfsame wish as the performer’s. The greater the performer’s skill at maintaining the illusion, the better at this deceptive sorcery he is judged to be. — The Prestige,...

With Fire and Sword

Book Review / Books and Reading

Review: With Fire and Sword An Historical Novel of Poland and Russia.

With Fire and Sword An Historical Novel of Poland and Russia. by Henryk Sienkiewicz My rating: 4 of 5 stars With Fire and Sword must be one of the greatest historical epics you’ve never heard of. Set in the 17th century, and told from the Polish point of view, it recounts a Cossack uprising against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The historical backdrop serves as a grand canvas for the portraits of courage, love, and spiritual devotion that form the heart of the story. In print, With Fire and Sword...

The Samurai

Book Review / Books and Reading / Spirituality

Book Review: The Samurai by Shusaku Endo

I just finished reading Shusaku Endo’s The Samurai, and it was eye-opening in so many ways. It is the story of two men: Father Velasco, the flawed but well-meaning missionary to Japan, and Hasekura Rokuemon, the quiet Samurai who only wants to do his duty. Both men have a mission, both of them are forced to compromise their integrity for the sake of that mission, and neither of them get what they want. In the end, however, The Samurai is a gentle reminder that God “writes straight with...

Book Review / Books and Reading

The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara

“This is a different kind of army. If you look at history you’ll see men fight for pay, or women, or some other kind of loot. They fight for land, or because a king makes them, or just because they like killing. But we’re here for something new. I don’t…this hasn’t happened much in the history of the world. We’re an army going out to set other men free.” What motivates a nation to go to war with other nations? What motivates a nation to go to war...