The Unquiet Bones by Mel Starr - #minibookreview

 

Uctred thought he had discovered pig bones. He did not know or care why they were in the cesspit at the base of Bampton Castle wall...

The Blurb

Hugh of Singleton, fourth son of a minor knight, has been educated as a clerk, usually a prelude to taking holy orders. However, feeling no certain calling despite a lively faith, he turns to the profession of surgeon, training in Paris and then hanging out his sign in Oxford.

 Hugh is asked by a local lord to track down the killer of a young woman. She is identified as the impetuous missing daughter of a local blacksmith, and her young man, whom she had provoked very publicly, is in due course arrested and sentenced at the Oxford assizes. With graphic medical procedures, misdirection, and droll medieval wit, this tale will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end.

My Mini Review

This is the first in a 17 book series and I enjoyed it very much. I definitely want to read the next in the series, A Corpse at St. Andrew's Chapel.

Set in medieval Oxford, Hugh de Singleton is a surgeon. However, his skills are noticed by Lord Gilbert of Bampton Castle who soon recruits him to solve a murder when human bones are discovered in the cesspit of his castle.

This is well worth reading and I highly recommend it.

Book Details

ISBN:  978 1782640660

Publisher:  Lion Fiction

Formats:  e-book, audio and paperback

No. of Pages:  256 (paperback)

Series:  Book 1 in the Hugh Singleton series

Purchase Links

Bookshop.org

Amazon UK

Amazon US

About the Author

Mel Starr was born and grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan. After graduating with a MA in history from Western Michigan University in 1970, he taught history in Michigan public schools for thirty-nine years, thirty-five of those in Portage, MI, where he retired in 2003 as chairman of the social studies department of Portage Northern High School. Mel and his wife, Susan, have two daughters and eight grandchildren.

(author media courtesy of Goodreads)

(all opinions are my own)

(Bookshop.org affiliated)

The Blackest Time by Ken Tentarelli - #bookreview #blogtour

Gino cracked the skull into pieces, dropped the fragments into a mortar, and began the arduous task of grinding them into a fine white powder...

The Blurb

Set in the 1300s during the devastating black plague, The Blackest Time is a powerful tale of compassion, love, and the human spirit’s ability to endure immense adversity.

Gino, the central character, is a young man who leaves his family’s farm to find work in a pharmacy in Florence. His experiences show us how people coped in the most horrific time in history.

Shortly after Gino arrived in the city, two years of incessant rain destroyed crops in the countryside, leading to famine and despair in the city. Gino offers hope and help to the suffering— he secures shelter for a woman forced to leave her flooded farm, rescues a young girl orphaned by the plague, and aids others who have lost everything.

The rains had barely ended when the plague hit the city, exposing the true character of its people. While some blamed others for the devastation, the story focuses on the compassionate acts of neighbors helping each other overcome fear and suffering. Doctors bravely risk infection to care for their patients. A woman healer, wrongly accused of witchcraft and driven from the city, finds a new beginning in a village where her skills were appreciated. 

Despite the hardships, love blossoms between Gino and a young woman he met at the apothecary. Together they survive, finding strength in each other and hope in a world teetering on the edge.

The Blackest Time is a testament to the strength of the human spirit in overcoming unimaginable tragedy.

My Review

Through the lens of the main character, Gino, we get a glimpse of Italian history during the 14th century. 

Set in Florence, we follow young Gino, who has left his poor family farm in Poppi to seek work as an apothecary's assistant. Through his work in the apothecary, we meet some interesting characters, and the author does a good job of depicting them.

Florence is going through one of its worst periods in history. First, a long period of rain and flooding means that none of the crops can grow, and a large-scale famine ensues. Finally, as life begins to look more hopeful for the city when the rain comes to an end, Florence is hit by the Black Plague.

I felt fully immersed in the time and setting of this novel. The author does a great job of immersing the reader in this horrendous situation, and whilst we observe that people are suffering in their homes and on the streets, it was never portrayed in a sensationalist way. 

Instead, Gino is an unassuming hero. He has a good and kind heart and will help people in any way that he can, despite his own difficult circumstances as he watches society collapse around him. He is a resilient young man who I was rooting for with every turn of the page.

I recommend this book to those who enjoy historical fiction.

Book Details

ISBN:  978 1685136536

Publisher:  Black Rose Writing 

Formats: e-book and paperback (currently available on Kindle Unlimited)

No. of Pages:  268 (paperback)

Purchase Links

Amazon UK

Amazon US

About the Author

Ken Tentarelli is a frequent visitor to Italy. In travels from the Alps to the southern coast of Sicily, he developed a love for its history and its people.

He has studied Italian culture and language in Rome and Perugia, background he used in his award-winning series of historical thrillers set in the Italian Renaissance. He has taught courses in Italian history spanning time from the Etruscans to the Renaissance, and he's a strong advocate of libraries and has served as a trustee of his local library and officer of the library foundation.

When not travelling, Ken and his wife live in beautiful New Hampshire.

You can also find Ken at:

Author Website

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(ARC and media courtesy of The Coffee Pot Book Club)

(all opinions are my own)

The Price of Loyalty: Serving Adela of Blois by Malve Von Hassell - #extract #excerpt #blogtour

I am so pleased to be sharing an extract from this gorgeous looking book today. This will appeal to lovers of Ken Follett's, The Pillars of the Earth.

The Blurb

In a time of kingdoms and crusades, one man's heart is the battlefield.

Cerdic, a Saxon knight, serves Count Stephen-Henry of Blois with unwavering loyalty-yet his soul remains divided. Haunted by memories of England, the land of his childhood, and bound by duty to King William, the conqueror who once showed him mercy, Cerdic walks a dangerous line between past and present, longing and loyalty.

At the center of his turmoil stands Adela-daughter of a king, wife of a count, and the first to offer him friendship in a foreign land. But when a political marriage binds him to the spirited and determined Giselle, Cerdic's world turns again. Giselle, fiercely in love with her stoic husband, follows him across sea and sand to the holy land, hoping to win the heart that still lingers elsewhere.

As the clash of empires looms and a crusade threatens to tear everything apart, Cerdic must confront the deepest truth of all-where does his loyalty lie, and whom does his heart truly belong to?

The Extract

Land Flowing With Milk And Honey

I have said I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, to a land flowing with milk and honey. Exodus 3:17

1097 Nicaea

“Dratted quills.” Count Stephen tossed the frayed goose feather into a corner and grabbed another one. “I should have asked Father Alexander to sharpen more for me.” He dipped it into a pot of ink and continued writing. Scritch, scratch. 

Count Stephen to Adela, his sweetest and most amiable wife, to his dear children, and to all his vassals of all ranks, his greeting and blessing.

You may be very sure, dearest, that the messenger whom I sent to give you pleasure, left me before Antioch safe and unharmed, and through God’s grace in the greatest prosperity. And already at that time, together with all the chosen army of Christ, endowed with great valor by Him, we had been continuously advancing for twenty-three weeks toward the home of our Lord Jesus. You may know for certain, my beloved, that of gold, silver and many other kind of riches I now have twice as much as your love had assigned to me when I left you. For all our princes, with the common consent of the whole army, against my own wishes, have made me up to the present time the leader, chief and director of their whole expedition. 

Cerdic sat on a stool in Count Stephen-Henry’s tent in the encampment outside of Nicaea. His head itched. He would have to check his gear for lice. All the men were infested with them. He could hear them through the tent walls—an unceasing cacophony of shouts, angry voices, muttered curses, and occasional bursts of laughter. 

Count Stephen-Henry’s tent boasted a Persian carpet, a comfortable pallet, a working area with a folding table, and several travel chests. The count had sent many gifts he had received for Emperor Alexios home to Blois, entrusting them to a small contingent of his retinue, but some he was loath to let out of his grasp. And Cerdic had heard him dictate a letter in which he had gone on and on about his delight in the many presents he had received from the emperor.

The count was once again writing to his wife. Usually, he had his chaplain, Father Alexander, take dictation, but today he had dispensed with his services. 

Cerdic liked Father Alexander. Tall and slender, with a face that seemed to be carved out of oak, full of crags and sharp corners, he never seemed to lose his calm. 

Count Stephen and his contingent had arrived in Nicaea after the siege had been going on for several weeks. Emperor Alexios Komnenos had been solicitous and anxious to show his support by providing Count Stephen and his army with food. However, he was not eager to accompany them. Constantinople had already endured the presence of Peter the Hermit and some 30,000 men earlier. While the city felt relatively opulent and Count Stephen was treated like a favorite son by the emperor, Cerdic got the distinct impression of a populace that could hardly wait for the disappearance of their unwelcome guests.

Book Details

ISBN:  978 1964700267

Publisher:  Historium Press

Formats:  e-book, hardback and paperback

No. of Pages:  376 (paperback)

Purchase Links

Amazon UK

Amazon US

About the Author

Malve von Hassell is a freelance writer, researcher, and translator. She holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from the New School for Social Research. Working as an independent scholar, she published The Struggle for Eden: Community Gardens in New York City (Bergin & Garvey 2002) and Homesteading in New York City 1978-1993: The Divided Heart of Loisaida (Bergin & Garvey 1996). She has also edited her grandfather Ulrich von Hassell's memoirs written in prison in 1944, Der Kreis schließt sich - Aufzeichnungen aus der Haft 1944 (Propylaen Verlag 1994). 

Malve has taught at Queens College, Baruch College, Pace University, and Suffolk County Community College, while continuing her work as a translator and writer. She has published two children’s picture books, Tooth Fairy (Amazon KDP 2012 / 2020), and Turtle Crossing (Amazon KDP 2023), and her translation and annotation of a German children’s classic by Tamara Ramsay, Rennefarre: Dott’s Wonderful Travels and Adventures (Two Harbors Press, 2012). 

The Falconer’s Apprentice (namelos, 2015 / KDP 2024) was her first historical fiction novel for young adults. She has published Alina: A Song for the Telling (BHC Press, 2020), set in Jerusalem in the time of the crusades, and The Amber Crane (Odyssey Books, 2021), set in Germany in 1645 and 1945, as well as a biographical work about a woman coming of age in Nazi Germany, Tapestry of My Mother’s Life: Stories, Fragments, and Silences (Next Chapter Publishing, 2021), also available in German, Bildteppich Eines Lebens: Erzählungen Meiner Mutter, Fragmente Und Schweigen (Next Chapter Publishing, 2022). 

Her latest publication is the historical fiction novel, The Price of Loyalty: Serving Adela of Blois (Historium Press, 2025).

You can also find Malve at:

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(media courtesy of The Coffee Pot Book Club)

(all opinions are my own)

The Herb Knot by Jane Loftus - #bookreview #blogtour

1346, Crecy, France

The branches folded over them, crackling like a dog biting on chicken bones. Raphael and his mother wriggled beneath low shrubs and coils of fern...

The Blurb

The Hundred Years' War comes to life in this spellbinding tale of love, betrayal and conspiracy … 

A quest born on the battlefield will change a young boy’s destiny… 

Rafi Dubois is five years old when his mother is murdered after the Battle of Crecy in 1346. Alone and lost, Rafi is given a token by the dying Englishman who tried to save his mother’s life: a half-broken family seal which he urges Rafi to return one day to Winchester. 

Years later, when Rafi saves a wealthy merchant’s wife from a brutal robbery, he is rewarded with the chance to travel to England, taking the seal with him. 

But when he reaches Winchester, Rafi finds himself in a turbulent world full of long-held allegiances, secrets and treachery. His path is fraught with danger and with powerful enemies working against him, Rafi falls in love with Edith, a market apothecary. But in doing so, Rafi unleashes a deadly chain of events which threatens to overwhelm them both… 

The Herb Knot is a sweeping and passionate novel set in one of the most tumultuous times in English history, from a powerful new voice.

My Review

A book which is largely set in 14th Century Winchester, along with a great plot - what could be better?

This was a hugely enjoyable historical fiction book, which begins with five-year-old, Rafi Dubois, witnessing the death of his mother and younger brother by an Englishman on the battlefield of Crecy. When he witnesses the same man strike down one of his fighting allies, the dying Englishman gives Rafi part of a seal, requesting he return it to his father.

This occurrence is what propels the entire plot. Rafi knows that if he can find the murderer of this Englishman, he will equally discover the man who killed his mother and obtain retribution. This is the reason why Rafi travels to Winchester.

I liked Rafi very much. He is a brave, yet naive, young man who sets off on his errand. As the novel progresses, we observe how Rafi matures and becomes a little more worldly wise. However, he never strays from the essence of his character. He is trustworthy and loyal throughout.

Ms. Loftus has done an equally good job with her portrayal of the more minor characters. Each of them were fully developed and utterly believable. In the author's note at the end of the book, she explains which of the characters existed in history and which were based on her imagination.

The author has clearly researched the time and place in which the book is set thoroughly. I felt completely immersed in 14th century Winchester. I am fortunate enough to have visited there on a few occasions, and her descriptions all felt very authentic.

I enjoyed how she concluded the book, and it left me feeling very satisfied. There was a nice little twist at the end which I hadn't expected, and which finished off Rafi's story perfectly.

Anyone who enjoys medieval historical fiction will enjoy this book, especially if you like to have a little mystery thrown in. I enjoyed this book very much and recommend it.

Book Details

ISBN:  978 0008755270

Publisher:  HQ Digital/Harper Collins

Formats:  e-book, audio and paperback

No. of Pages:  336 (paperback)

Purchase Links

Bookshop.org

Amazon UK

Amazon US

About the Author

Jane Loftus gained a degree in 16th Century European and British history from Surrey before taking a postgraduate degree in modern political history. As a lone parent, she worked in Winchester Waterstones before returning to IT once her son was older.

Hugely passionate about the Middle Ages, she drew inspiration for this novel from the medieval layout of Winchester which has been painstakingly documented.

Jane is originally from London but has lived in Winchester for over twenty years. When not writing, she is usually out walking or watching costume dramas on Netflix - the more medieval the better. She also plays far too many rpgs.

You can also find Jane at:

Author Website

Instagram

Bluesky

(ARC and media courtesy of The Coffee Pot Book Club)

(all opinions are my own)

(Bookshop.org affiliated)

The Warrior's Forbidden Maiden by Lissa Morgan - #bookreview

 

Llywelyn stood in the shadow of the church - the old church but with a new Norman tower now - and gnawed his lip. Twilight was falling over the landscape, shrouding everything in shadows of blue and black...

***

Will forbidden love become forever love in this medieval romance?

The warrior's fiercest battle?

His duty versus his desire...

Seven years ago, Llywelyn was ready to renounce everything to become a monk. But on the eve of his departure, he shared a forbidden night with his childhood sweetheart, Cristin. Then his world was turned upside down by the death of his brother...which left Llywelyn as his family's sole heir, duty bound to fight on the battlefield. Now a hardened warrior, he's reunited with Cristin. But will he return to his vocation...or remain with his love?

***

This book makes for a fabulous few hours of historical escapism.

Although it is the second book in the Warriors of Wales series, it works perfectly well as a standalone novel. The Warrior's Reluctant Wife is the first in the series, and you can read my review by clicking here.

The two main characters are Llywelyn and Cristin. Friends since children, by the time we meet them in this book, they have already been lovers. However, Cristin is the maid to Llywelyn's parents and thus they are from very distinct parts of the social spectrum, ensuring that their love for one another can never be.

Llywelyn is a complex character. Knowing that his love for Cristin can never be, and as a second son he has always intended to go into the monastery. When his older brother dies he is catapulted to the status of his father's heir and must become a warrior.

Cristin is a courageous character. She hides Llywellyn's parents when they are overthrown by the Norman's, at considerable risk to herself. When Llywellyn returns she is left wondering if he will come back to her or will renew his original intentions of becoming a monk.

The author brings these two characters to life on the page. The pent-up passion between them oozes from the pages and had me completely invested in their story. 

Whilst there is much indecision about whether they will get together, being a book of this genre it is pretty obvious to the reader that all will come good for them in the end. It was a lovely few hours I spent reading this book and accompanying them on their journey and I enjoyed it very much.

Set in twelfth century Wales, the location of the novel is almost as important as the characters. The text is littered with Welsh words, and although I did not understand them, their meaning was fairly obvious from the context and added validity to both the period and the setting.

This book is perfect for anyone who enjoys historical romance, particularly set in the medieval period and I highly recommend it.

ISBN: 978 1335596239

Publisher:  Harlequin

Formats:  e-book and paperback

No. of Pages:  272 (paperback)

About the Author:

Lissa Morgan hails from Wales but has travelled far and wide over the years, usually in pursuit of the next new job.  A history graduate and former archivist, she now works in academia and freelance website design, which she fits in around her writing time. She lives between the mountains and the sea in rugged north-west Wales surrounded by medieval castles that provide the perfect inspiration for her books. 

(book courtesy of the author)

(all opinions are my own)