Category Archives: historical fiction

David C. Smith’s Bright Star

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Bright Star
David C. Smith

David C. Smith is best known around these here parts as a writer of sword and sorcery. But he’s not limited to that genre.

Bright Star is a h istorical mystery, taking place in the nineteen teens and in 2014. It’s the story of a fictional woman, Catherine Farr, a farm girl from Palatine, Illinois, who goes on to become one of the most acclaimed stars and studio owners of the silent era. While Catherine is fictional, she was based on a number of early women pioneers in the silent film era.

At the height of her fame and success, Catherine disappeared just before she was gong to California to see about moving her operations there.

Her studio had been burned down by an unknown arsonist and someone had tried to burn her mansion down. Her more recent films had addressed social issues, which caused a great deal of controversy.

Did she dec ide to give up stardom and retire to a quiet, anonymous life? Was she murdered? If so, by whom? Her bigoted uncle? Her director and lover? Continue reading →

Fall Under the Spell of The Conjurers

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the conjurersThe Conjurers
David Wade
Deadlock Publishing
Kindle $3.99

I’d like to thank David Wade for sending me the review copy of The Conjurers.  I quite enjoyed it.

There are some writers who can tell a good story but whose prose is rather flat.  Other writers can string pretty words together but aren’t really storytellers.  David Wade doesn’t fall into either category.  The man not only tells a gripping tale, he does so with an elegance of language that’s several cuts above what you find in your typical fantasy novel.

The Conjurers is a tale of sorcery in 14th century Europe.  In Ireland, Eamon and his younger sister are pursued by brigands under the control of a local sorceress, Shairshee.  In Genoa, Teresa suspects her older brother has been killed by the magician to whom he’s apprenticed and sets out to seek the truth.

All three of the young people are fated to experience hardship and the loss of family members before they discover their true heritage. Continue reading →

Historical Fiction in eBook Format

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This may come as old news to many of you, and if it does, it just means I’m more behind the curve than I thought.  I was reading a post over at the Passive Voice, and found a link in one of the comments that I thought might be of interest to those who peruse this here blog.  The site is Historical Fiction eBooks, and while most of the books in the ancient and medieval categories appear to be romances or classical mysteries set in past epochs, I did see one or two that seemed to be more action oriented.  Anyway, I’ll probably give one or two of them a try at some point.  In the meantime, I thought I would pass the link on in case anyone else wants to take a look.