The Lit Bitch has entered the 2013 Historic Fiction Reading Challenge

It’s that time of year again, reading challenge time! I can hardly believe it!

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be posting my entries for various challenges here as I sign up and I will also have a special page/section devoted to my entries which will have lists of books I plan on reading.

As per usual I’ll post my reviews throughout the year and add the buttons on my sidebars.

So here is the first challenge sign up of 2013: the Historic Fiction Reading Challenge hosted by Historical Tapestry. For more details about my entry and goals please see my the Historic Fiction Reading Challenge 2013 page.

If you are interested in signing up or for more details about the challenge it self, please visit the Historic Tapestry blog.

My goal for the year in this challenge: 15 historic fiction books (Medieval level).

Review: A Wreath of Snow: A Victorian Christmas Novella by Liz Curtis Higgs

It’s Christmas Eve and snow has started falling on the small Scotland town of Stirling. Margaret Campbell has just had a row with her family and wants nothing more than to catch the first train out of Stirling back to Edinburgh.

Gordon Shaw has just completed his interview for the newspaper he works for and he too is eager to leave Stirling but for an entirely different reason. Stirling was his home long ago until the shame of a tragic accident forced him to move away.

The snow is coming down harder when the train finally departs from Stirling with Margaret and Gordon on board when it collides with a large snow drift (also known as a wreath in Scotland). It looks like Margaret and Gordon will be forced to stay the night in Stirling after all.

As they begin the long, cold walk back to town they start up a conversation and when Gordon reveals who he is, Margaret is angry but after he explains his past and the guilt he has been harboring for so many years, she can’t help but see him as a changed man.

Continue reading “Review: A Wreath of Snow: A Victorian Christmas Novella by Liz Curtis Higgs”

Review: The Lady of Secrets (The Dark Queen Saga #6) by Susan Carroll

https://i0.wp.com/d.gr-assets.com/books/1343323605l/13572810.jpgIn Edinburgh 1591, Maidred Brody is being executed. Found guilty of being a witch, she is sentenced to die by fire along side another well known witch names Tamsin Rivers.

Everyone in town has turned out to watch the execution, including the king himself, James I. Maidred’s brother, Robert Brody, plans on appealing to the king and begging his sister’s pardon.

When James refuses, Robert watches unable to do anything but watch her die. At that moment he vows his revenge on King James….someone will answer for this miscarriage of justice.

As the witches burn, Tamsin Rivers calls out a curse on the House of Stuart forever striking fear in the heart of King James.

Years later in Brittany The Lady of Faire Isle, Margaret “Meg” Wolfe, is called to attend a young girl who has been cursed by a local suspected witch. Meg is a known witch herself but not an evil witch….a white witch, a healer….a curse breaker.

Continue reading “Review: The Lady of Secrets (The Dark Queen Saga #6) by Susan Carroll”

Review: The Gilded Lily by Deborah Swift

When Ella Appleby’s employer turns up dead, she knows what will be come of her….she will be out in the cold without a second thought unless she thinks of something quick.

Ella wakes her sister, Sadie, and together the loot her employers mansion and head for the glitz and glamour of 17th century London.

But when they arrive, they are met with anything but opportunity. Work is hard to find and the sisters are forced to take any employment they can get.

Luckily they both find work at a wig shop and are able to rent a small room. Though their loggings and income are meager, Sadie is simply happy to be with her beloved sister again.

Ella had been working as a maid in a large home back in Westmoreland, and unlike her sister, Ella wants something better. To her, London is a city of opportunity and she is willing to do anything to fulfill her grand ambitions. Ella is beautiful and ruthless…a deadly combo.

Continue reading “Review: The Gilded Lily by Deborah Swift”

Review: Summerset Abbey (Summerset Abbey #1) by T.J. Brown

It is the dawning of a new era and the world is changing. The ridged confines of the Victorian and Edwardian eras are on their way out as England ushers in the modern age.

The Buxton sisters and their adopted ward have just lost their father and are struggling with their grief. The eldest daughter, Rowena, is faced with the burden of providing for her younger, sickly sister Victoria and their ward Prudence.

She is entirely overwhelmed and doesn’t know if she is suited for the task ahead of her but she is willing to try.

Before the funeral is at a end, their uncle, the Earl of Summerset and his solicitor, approach Rowena to read her father’s will and it is discovered that the Earl is to control their entire estate and plans on selling their house, she has never felt more helpless.

Rowena and Victoria are to live with their uncle and his wife at their illustrious estate, Summerset Abbey, until such a time as they both find suitable husbands.

Continue reading “Review: Summerset Abbey (Summerset Abbey #1) by T.J. Brown”