Arctic Star is a real cracker of a read. It tells the story of 3 friends serving in the Royal Navy during WW2 on the Arctic convoys between the UK and Russia. As you might expect if you have read some of Tom Palmer’s other stories, he pulls no punches with this book – it’s…
It’s a truth universally acknowledged (well, it is in my house, anyway!) that Julia Golding is fast becoming one of my favourite authors. After diving into the mystical world of the Companions series, and travelling back in time with The Tigers in the Tower, I was delighted to be invited to join the blog tour…
After reading the first in this great, junior fiction time-slip series a month or so ago, we were keen to catch up with Ruby and Alex’s adventures in this festive story. A Christmas in Time takes us back to the Victorian era, and like the first book, is rich in historical details: fashions, festive activities,…
Today’s my stop on the blog tour for The Tigers in the Tower, a brilliant, historical adventure for readers aged 8+, which is written by Julia Golding. Before I talk about this superb story, though, can I just take a minute to appreciate the amazing cover art created by Keith Robinson? It really is stunning…
This is the second in Saviour Pirotta’s historical junior fiction ‘Wolfsong’ series and just like the first, it’s both a corker of a read and illustrated superbly with Davide Ortu’s distinctive, eye-catching art, which really captures and enhances the mood of the story. In this instalment, Wolf has returned to his village after retrieving the…
Released earlier this year, this is the sequel to Karen McCombie’s superb Little Bird Flies and is aimed at readers aged 9+. It picks up the story of Bridie’s travels as she begins a new life in America (after fleeing her homeland during the Highland Clearances), living initially in New York before heading for life…
Wow, Saviour Pirotta has really knocked it out of the park with his new, historical junior fiction series. The Stolen Spear – the first of 4 stories – is set in late Neolithic times in what we now know as the Orkneys in Scotland. At the end of the Stone Age, people are meant to…
I first found out about Little Bird Flies while reading an interview with Karen McCombie in the latest edition of Carousel magazine. I’m a big fan of historical fiction and the idea of a 2-part series detailing the life of Bridie – aka Little Bird – intrigued me. Little Bird Flies – the first book…
Fleur Hitchcock is such a versatile writer: contemporary crime, a newly published traditional adventure series (Clifftoppers), and now this historical, grimy drama, which I couldn’t wait to get started on. Athan Wilde finds himself in an impossibly dangerous situation. The man who is helping him build a top secret flying machine is murdered and Athan…
With 7 historical fiction books under her belt, and another about to be published imminently, Emma Carroll has earned her title of Queen of Historical Fiction and has been on my radar for some time; indeed, for the last 6 months I have had 3 of her books in my To Be Read (TBR) pile,…