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History Girl Summer: My Summer Reading Challenge

I enjoyed both of my recent reading challenges, but I bit off more than I could chew. December is famously a rather busy month, and for Fantasy February I tried to read one of the traditionally longer genres in the shortest possible month. So I wanted less pressure this time around. 

History Girl Summer will take place from June through August, and will cover ten different prompts. These will be historical fiction and cannot be contemporary to their setting (i.e a Victorian book wouldn't count if it was written in the Victorian era.) 

You can check out the original challenge here and follow my progress below...


The Prompts:

1. A Book Set During Your Favourite Historical Period

Sherlock Holmes and the Highgate Horrors by James Lovegrove
Not, perhaps, the most historically accurate book but nevertheless full of comforting Victoriana! 

2. A Book Set in a Historical Period from Your Own Country

Hen Fever by Olivia Waite
This Sapphic romance focuses heavily on the effects of the Crimean war. A spinster (who lost a brother in Crimea) and a war widow fall in love during a seemingly fluffy poultry competition. For all it seems ridiculous, this dealt with deeper themes than chickens. 

3. A Book Set in a Historical Period from a Country You've Always Wanted to Visit

The Dance Tree by Kiran Milwood Hargrave 
Set in Strasbourg, 1518, this is a fictional, feminist retelling of the famous dancing plague that struck the city. With the city in the midst of a heatwave, famine, and an oppressive religious mania, the women begin to break under their individual pressures. 

4. A Book Set in a Historical Period You Know Very Little About

The Mercies by Kiran Milwood Hargrave 
An Icelandic tale of a witchhunt following the death of all of the village's men. 

5. A Book Set in a Historical Period that You Had to Learn About at School

Vesuvius by Night by Lindsey Davis
It's Pompeii and it's volcano day. Two roommates try to survive the eruption - one a conman and thief, the other an upstanding but unhappy family man. This is more of a dramatic re-enactment than novella - showing human perspectives of most of the major events in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Unflinching. 

6. A Book With a Modern History Setting (1940-2000)

A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe
Set during the Aberfan disaster, a newly graduated funeral director goes to assist and it changes his life going forward. 

7. A Book Set During a War

Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood
The stories that inspired the Cabaret musical. Whilst this technically Germany on the cusp of war, rather than at war, I gave it a pass since the two are so closely linked. A fictional version of Isherwood writes of the people he meets in pre-war Berlin, including occasional cabaret-singer Sally Bowles. This is an inherently queer novel, never quite stating it, never quite showing it, but that lack of description makes the meaning very clear. 

8. A Book Set in A Period You Would Love to Time Travel To

Dust and Shadow by Lyndsay Faye
Another Sherlock Holmes book, this time one set during the Jack the Ripper investigation. Surprisingly accurate. 

9. A Book Set More Than 1000 Years Ago

The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis
First in the Falco Detective stories, this series takes a stereotypical detective-noir story and places it in Ancient Rome. Falco is a direct inversion of the hardboiled PI trope - relatively young, relentlessly determined to do the right thing, surrounded by a big, loving family, and his womanizer status seriously hampered by the fact he actually likes women. The book lays out the complex political life of even an ordinary citizen well, as well as the tiny details of ordinary living. 

10. A Historical Fantasy

A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske
Set in a faintly magical version of Edwardian London, this is a romance between a non-magical but cursed civil servant, and a low-ranking member of a powerful magical family. I, uh, didn't like it very much.

Bonus: A Non-Fiction History Book

Pompeii: Life in a Roman Town by Mary Beard
A definitive book on everyday life in Pompeii, focusing on the hundreds of years of history the town had before it's fateful end. 

 Check out my entire reading list for 2023 (with links to reviews) here.

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