Steve Donoghue’s posts from the original Open Letters Monthly Archives.
Best Books of 2017 – Historical Fiction! Before my list departs from genre fiction for a few days, I had to call out the gems in my beloved world of historical fiction, where I found so much fantastic reading in 2017. My one disappointment in this regard just this year is the absence of self-published […]
Read MoreAn Indian driver and his enormous war-elephant experience the treacheries and triumphs of Alexander the Great's Babylon campaign
Read MoreThe passionate, unconventional life of novelist George Sand forms the backdrop for Elizabeth Berg's new novel
Read MoreA young boy and his gorgeous white elephant become apprenticed to the greatest architect of the Ottoman Empire in this stunning new novel by the author of "The Bastard of Istanbul"
Read MoreIn Dan Simmons' latest fantastic novel, Henry James finds himself teamed up with fiction's most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, in order to solve a very real - and very heartbreaking - mystery.
Read MoreSabina, the wife of the enigmatic Roman emperor Hadrian, is beset by enemies in Rome - and safeguards a secret they'd all kill to know ...
Read MoreDriven into hiding by the victorious forces of William the Conqueror, the heroic Hereward the Wake and his band of freedom fighters must struggle to survive
Read MoreA strong-willed Bavarian princess captures the eye of the young Austro-Hungarian emperor in Allison Pataki's opulent new historical novel. Steve Donoghue reviews.
Read MoreDonald McCaig's energetic retelling of Margaret Mitchell's beloved "Gone with the Wind" gets a new paperback reprint
Read MoreLady Jane Grey was famously Queen of England for less than a fortnight before being executed by Queen Mary I; Elizabeth Fremantle's new book takes us into the world of Lady Jane's two sisters, adrift in a royal court that can't afford to trust them.
Read MoreThrough the eyes of an assistant, a new novel by an American master shows us the life and torturous loves of the great Renaissance artist Donatello
Read MoreA bookseller's daughter, a mad alchemist Medici prince, and a heroic Cornishman move the plot of Elizabeth Loupas's hugely enjoyable new historical novel
Read MoreThe larger-than-life story of captivity and struggles of King Richard the Lionheart
Read More14th century court poet John Gower is brought in by his friend Geoffrey Chaucer to solve the mystery of a book whose very existence threatens the realm
Read MoreA quick-witted and bilingual dwarf is planted in the household of England's foreign queen in order to spy on her - but he comes to esteem her, outcast to outcast
Read MoreAn exceptional beauty entices King Charles II and ascends to the heights of the Merry Monarch's court
Read MoreThe life of one remarkable woman - told against the backdrop of American colonies boiling toward revolution - forms the narrative of Nancy Turner's sumptuously old-fashioned new historical novel
Read MoreFrom the best-selling author of "Loving Frank" comes the story of Fanny Osbourne, the wife of Robert Louis Stevenson
Read MoreKing Henry VIII's first wife, Catherine of Aragon, takes center stage in a new novel by Tudor historian Carolly Erickson
Read MorePretty young Audrey has grown up in the Tudor court thinking she's the daughter of King Henry VIII's tailor - but what if her real father is the king himself?
Read MoreThis is a place for all of my writing about books.