Review: The Spirit of the Times by Justin Newland
In fourteenth-century Central Asia, Karia is a young woman living under the yoke of Mongol occupation. But she’s different. She’s a fighter with supernatural powers. She could use them to keep the Black Plague at bay and solve the mystery of the purple skies at dawn – if only she could overcome her self-doubt.
Merissa
22 minutes ago
Review: The Making of Marigold McGrath by Carrie Hayes
New York City, 1937. Seventeen-year-old Marigold McGrath is coming undone.
Her mother is dead. Her father is drawn to dangerous politics. The only place she feels joy is behind a camera — where she can frame the world on her own terms.
Merissa
5 days ago
Snippet: The Valet's Witness by Rohn Hein
In the summer of 1776, as the Declaration of Independence takes shape within the charged chambers of the Second Continental Congress, two lives unfold in quiet, irrevocable collision-one etched into the official record, the other deliberately erased from it.
Archaeolibrarian
Jul 20
Guest Post: Soldiers of Christ (The Northern Crusader Chronicles #2) by Jon Byrne
1205. Richard Fitz Simon has fled England after his title was usurped, joining the Livonian Order of Swordbrothers – a German brotherhood of warrior-monks fighting to bring the word of God to the pagan frontier. After slaying the Lithuanian champion at the Battle of Rodenpois, Richard is celebrated by the Order and their Semigallian allies.
Archaeolibrarian
Jul 10
The Cleansing by Victoria Alvear
When 50,000 Romans fall in a single day at the Battle of Cannae, priests claim there can be only one reason the gods abandoned Rome: a Vestal Virgin has broken her vow of chastity. And they accuse Opimia (Mia), the strongest, most defiant of the six sacred Vestal priestesses.
Merissa
Jul 9
Review & Goodreads #Giveaway: Fables & Lies by Elisabeth Storrs
WWII Berlin. Freyja Bremer, a patriotic museum assistant, marries Kaspar Voigt, an ambitious SS scholar, to protect her father. Yet she is unaware her husband is instrumental in Himmler’s twisted quest for Aryan supremacy.
Merissa
Jul 3
Guest Post & #Giveaway: The Midas Touch by Gary Grossman, Oren Aviv, & Charles Segars
National Treasure meets Jack Ryan in this heart-pounding thriller. A maverick puzzle-solving CIA officer. An ancient secret that could obliterate the world order and redraw the balance of power. A worldwide treasure hunt with no rules.
Archaeolibrarian
Jun 29
Excerpt: Queen of Shadows by Anna Belfrage
Castile in the 1330s is a place of constant turmoil. King Alfonso must contend with the incursions from the Muslim Marinids eager to reclaim Al-Andalus while struggling with repeated rebellions against his firm rule.
Archaeolibrarian
Jun 24
Excerpt: The Lost Voices by Paul Rushworth-Brown
The Lost Voices is a work of historical fiction centered on those whose stories were never formally recorded—not because they lacked meaning, but because their lives unfolded beyond the reach of power, authorship, and recognition. In a world governed by rigid social structures and unyielding expectations, the novel follows a cast of individuals navigating the quiet, often invisible tensions of obligation, fear, and endurance.
Archaeolibrarian
Jun 22
Guest Post: Enheduanna's Song from the Sands by Ellen Rachlin
When Enheduanna is named High Priestess of Ur, her connection to the gods makes her a target. Lugalanne’s coup strips her of robes, power, and home, casting her into the perilous underworld. There, amid forests of shadows and treacherous trials, she discovers that divine favor alone won’t save her—only cunning, courage, and a willingness to embrace the ruthlessness of her enemies can restore her.
Archaeolibrarian
Jun 15
Excerpt: The Queen's Sister by Carol McGrath
At nineteen, Elizabeth Seymour is already a mother, has been recently widowed, and seen her Queen, Anne Boleyn, lose her life. Against the wishes of her father, she heads North, away from Wulf Hall and the court in London to Yorkshire, determined to establish a new beginning as a landowner and business woman. As her family in Wiltshire curry favour with King Henry, aided by Thomas Cromwell, Elizabeth makes Kexby Manor her home, finding loyalty among her people there.
Archaeolibrarian
Jun 11
Excerpt: Escape of the Grand Duchess by Susan Appleyard
Escape of the Grand Duchess by Susan Appleyard is a gripping historical novel that shatters the notion that royalty is synonymous with privilege and ease. At its heart is the youngest sister of Tsar Nicholas II, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna—a Romanov who defied a doomed destiny and survived.
Archaeolibrarian
May 21
Review & Excerpt: Beyond the Dark Oceans by Alison Huntingford
In 1906, the Huntingford family leaves England behind, crossing dark oceans in search of hope and opportunity in a new land. Canada promises a fresh start but for the eldest son, Georgy, it also brings hardship, responsibility, and a future shaped by forces far beyond his control.
Archaeolibrarian
May 21
Guest Post & #Giveaway: The Last Fatal Hour by Jan Matthews
For Leona Gladney, former woman soldier of the Union Army, life goes on despite the echoes of the battlefield in her heart. Now a suffragist and budding socialite in Brooklyn Heights, she yearns for a literary life and family. But her husband's business partner embezzles their money and disappears.
Archaeolibrarian
May 18
Interview & #Giveaway: First Daughter by Marlie Parker Wasserman
In the summer of 1895, President Grover Cleveland and his pregnant wife, Frances, retreat to their secluded Cape Cod home, eager to avoid Washington’s heat and hassles. The very day that Frances gives birth, their three-year-old daughter vanishes. A ransom note surfaces, demanding a mysterious and peculiar sum.
Archaeolibrarian
May 5
Spotlight: Infidel: The Daughters of Aragon (Six Tudor Queens) by Nicola Harris
Born in the glittering courts of Castile and Aragon and forged in the shadow of war, Catalina de Aragón grows up surrounded by queens, rebels, and ghosts. She is her mother’s last daughter, the final jewel of a dynasty built on conquest and faith, and the one child Isabella of Castile cannot bear to lose.
Archaeolibrarian
Apr 28
Excerpt: The Enemy's Wife (Survivors of War) by Deborah Swift
1941. When Zofia’s beloved husband Haru is conscripted into the Imperial Japanese Army, she is left to navigate Japanese-occupied Shanghai alone.
Far from home and surrounded by a country at war, Zofia finds unexpected comfort in a bond with Hilly, a spirited young refugee escaping Nazi-occupied Austria.
Archaeolibrarian
Apr 24
Excerpt: Lucie Dumas by Katherine Mezzacappa
London, 1871: Lucie Dumas of Lyon has accepted a stipend from her former lover and his wife, on condition that she never returns to France; she will never see her young son again. As the money proves inadequate, Lucie turns to prostitution to live, joining the ranks of countless girls from continental Europe who'd come to London in the hope of work in domestic service.
Archaeolibrarian
Apr 23
Spotlight: Another Soul Saved: A Story of the Holocaust by John Anthony Miller
Monika Graf, the wife of a wealthy Austrian military commander, steals two Jewish girls from the Nazis—a crime often punishable by death. With soldiers in rapid pursuit, a homeless Jew named Janik, a mysterious man who lurks in the shadows, helps her escape.
Archaeolibrarian
Apr 21