Tag: historical fiction

Blog Tour/Review: Twilight Empress by Faith L Justice

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I love my historical fiction and one of my favourite periods is Ancient Rome, so I’m delighted to be hosting today’s stop on the blog tour for Twilight Empress by Faith L Justice, a book that ticks both those boxes. It’s subject is Placidia, sister to one of the last Roman Emperors, who became a powerful force in her own right.

TwilightEmpressAbout the Book

Twilight Empress tells the little-known story of a remarkable woman – Galla Placidia, sister to one of the last Roman Emperors.

Roman princess, Gothic captive and queen – Placidia does the unthinkable – she rules the failing Western Roman Empire – a life of ambition, power and intrigue she doesn’t seek, but can’t refuse. Her actions shape the face of Western Europe for centuries. A woman as well as an Empress, Placidia suffers love, loss, and betrayal. Can her strength, tenacity and ambition help her survive and triumph over scheming generals, rebellious children, and Attila the Hun? Or will the Dark Ages creep closer and bring down the Empire?

Format: ebook (392 pp.), Paperback (392 pp.) Publisher: Raggedy Moon Books
Published: 12th May 2017                                     Genre: Historical Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Amazon.com ǀ Barnes & Noble ǀ iBooks ǀ Kobo
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

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My Review

Twilight Empress is the first book in Faith L Justice’s Theodosian Women series. Future books will focus on Pulcheria, sister of Emperor Theodosius, and Athenais, his wife. On the strength of Twilight Empress, I shall certainly look out for the subsequent books.

Full disclosure – I was about a fifth of the way through Twilight Empress when I started to get the feeling the story was familiar. I finally remembered that I read another book about Placidia (Nobilissima by Carrie Bedford) a few years ago. All credit to this author’s skill that I didn’t feel the story I was reading was rehashing old ground. In fact, what I really liked was the way the author breathed life and personality into the characters around the bare bones of the known historical facts.

The story opens with the sacking of Rome and capture of Placidia, sister of the Western Roman Emperor Honorius, by King Alaric of the Goths. Alaric hopes to use Placidia as a bargaining chip to persuade Honorius to grant the Goths land and food in return for peace. This method of negotiation will become very familiar as the book progresses since this is a story characterised by intrigue, betrayal, political manoeuvring, treachery and murder. But it is also a convincingly told human story of love and loss set against larger political events.

The message that emerges is a universal and seemingly eternal one: that the source of most conflict is a desire for security, for enough food and a place to call home and in which to raise a family. As if we needed reminding, it also recalls that when the powerful plot and scheme, it is the ordinary people that suffer.

In Placidia, the author gives us a convincing picture of a strong, capable woman with as much courage, guile and intellect as any of her male contemporaries but with the misfortune to be born a woman in an age when – even as a member of the Imperial family – that consigned her to the role of wife and mother.  Although not conventionally beautiful (for the times), it seems these characteristics, and her innate contradictions, made Placidia particularly attractive to men because she inspired lifelong devotion in many of them.

This remarkable woman outlived two husbands, survived capture and imprisonment, navigated her way through political intrigue and frequent plots against her, dying eventually of old age but not before she had seen off plenty of enemies, either by outwitting them or by more violent means:  ‘You forgot I am a princess, raised in the Imperial court. Treachery and betrayal were my tutors and playfellows. Revenge is not only a Gothic custom.’

I really enjoyed reading her story in Twilight Empress.

I received a review copy courtesy of the author and HF Virtual Book Tours in return for an honest and unbiased review.

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Try something similar…I Am Livia by Phyllis T Smith

Faith L JusticeAbout the Author

Faith L. Justice is a science geek and history junkie, which is reflected in her writing. Her short stories and poems have appeared in such publications as “The Copperfield Review”, “Beyond Science Fiction and Fantasy”, and the “Circles in the Hair” anthology. Faith has published in such venues as “Salon.com”, “Writer’s Digest”, “The Writer”, and “Bygone Days”. She’s an Associate Editor for “Space & Time Magazine”, a frequent contributor to “Strange Horizons”, and co-founded a writer’s workshop more years ago than she cares to admit.

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Book Review: When It’s Over by Barbara Ridley

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WhenIt'sOverAbout the Book

Coming of age in Prague in the 1930s, Lena Kulkova is inspired by the left-wing activists who resist the rise of fascism. She meets Otto, a refugee from Hitler’s Germany, and follows him to Paris to work for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. As the war in Spain ends and a far greater war engulfs the continent, Lena gets stuck in Paris with no news from her Jewish family, including her beloved baby sister, left behind in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. When Lena and Otto are finally reunited, the safe haven Lena has hoped for doesn’t last long. As the war continues, she yearns to be reunited with her sister. Based on a true story, When It’s Over is a moving, resonant, and timely read about the lives of war refugees, dramatic political changes, and the importance of family, love, and hope.

Format: ebook (356 pp.), Paperback (350 pp.) Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 26th Sep 2017                                      Genre: Historical Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Amazon.com ǀ Barnes & Noble
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find When It’s Over on Goodreads

My Review

I’ve read a lot of historical fiction set in WW2, and, to be frank, I’ll probably never tire of it. However, it’s always refreshing to get a new angle and this novel delivers it.  It opens in Prague and focuses on the experiences of a family of Czech Jews. As the author explains in her afterword, the book is a work of fiction but based on the experiences of her parents.  The narrative switches back and forth in time covering the period 1938 to 1944. The reader is transported from pre-war Prague, to occupied Paris and to England  during the period of the Blitz.

The story focuses on Lena Kulkova, intelligent and independent-minded, who joins the left-wing movements active in pre-war Prague, much to the anger of her father. She forms a close friendship with a group of like-minded individuals, including the idealistic and charismatic Otto. Through Otto, Lena becomes involved in intelligence work and as the threat of war grows, she follows Otto to Paris to continue this work, leaving her father, mother, brother and young sister in Prague. This is a decision that will come to haunt Lena once the Nazis occupy Czechoslovakia and she finds herself alone in Paris, unable either to follow Otto to safety in England or return to help her family. Eventually, Lena does escape to England where she joins a community of Czech exiles given refuge by a socialist sympathiser.

It is difficult now to imagine the scale of displacement that took place during this period, as people sought refuge in one country after another, dependent on charity from others and never knowing if or when they might return to their homeland. Through Lena’s experiences, the author conveys this sense of displacement, the challenge of having to survive on your own in a strange country, the agony of separation from your family, potentially the object of suspicion or worse and starved of news of what is happening to those left behind.

The book charts the complex relationship between Otto and Lena which is never conventional and experiences many stresses and strains over the years. Although Lena yearns for news of her mother and sister and worries that her actions may have unwittingly exposed them to danger, her feelings about returning to Czechoslovakia become more complicated. She grows to like England, to admire the spirit of its people, their resilience during the Blitz and determination to, if you like, ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’.

‘Lena…felt the promise of something else: a home away from home in this newly adopted country; a new family to stand in for hers, which was scattered and fragmented; a sanctuary in these scary times.’

The author creates a really authentic period feel, particularly in the sections set in London. There are all the things you associated with wartime England: rationing, Lyon’s Tea Rooms, dried egg, spam, the national loaf, fish paste sandwiches and tea – lots and lots of tea.

‘We carry on as if this is all normal, she thought. We do everyday things, like make the tea and find clean cups. The mundane normalcy: we have to cling to this.’

In the end, Lena chooses a different future for herself but emotional scars from her wartime experiences persist, as the very moving conclusion to the novel demonstrates. I really enjoyed When It’s Over. It’s well-written, well-structured and I found myself drawn into the story of Lena and the other characters. Even if I hadn’t known it was based on true events, it would have felt authentic and real.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers, She Writes Press, in return for an honest review.

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Try something similar…Fiction: A Country Road, A Tree by Jo Baker (click here for my review), Non-Fiction: A Countess in Limbo by Olga Hendrikoff & Sue Carscallen (click here for my review)

BarbaraRidleyAbout the Author

Barbara writes: I was born in England but have lived in Northern California for over 30 years. I am now focused on creative writing after a successful career in nursing, which included publication of several academic articles. When It’s Over is my debut novel. My writing has appeared in Clockhouse Review, The Writers Workshop Review, Still Crazy, Ars Medica, BLYNKT and The Copperfield Review.

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