Reviewer: N. Goldman .: Knowledge Base

Double Daggers
Author: James R. CliffordISBN: 0897542177 The following review was contributed by: NORM GOLDMAN: Editor of Bookpleasures. CLICK TO VIEW Norm Goldman's Reviews To read Norm's Interview With James R. Clifford CLICK HEREJames R. Clifford has been graced with a fertile imagination as evidenced with his new novel Double Daggers that focuses on one of the rarest of silver coins known as the Double Dagger Denarius or the Eids of March coin that celebrates the most legendary murder of...
(No rating) 8-6-2006 Views: 3521

Molly Lake
Author: Samuel EndicottISBN: 0741424207 The following review was contributed by: NORM GOLDMAN: Editor of Bookpleasures &CLICK TO VIEW Norm Goldman's ReviewsTo read Norm's Interview With the Author Click Here
(No rating) 7-12-2005 Views: 3639

Never Surrender: A Novel of Winston Churchill
Click Here To Purchase From Amazon Never Surrender: A Novel of Winston Churchill Author: Michael DobbsISBN: 13:978-1-4022-1044-0: 10:1-4022-1044-2With his incredible historical novel, Never Surrender: A Novel of Winston Churchill, Michael Dobbs plunges readers into the mind, thoughts, feelings, and actions of Winston Churchill when he was appointed Prime Minister of England in the early days of World War II. As Dobbs wisely remarks in his Acknowledgments, “Even those histories that are...
(No rating) 10-11-2007 Views: 2013

Shadow of the Cross
Author: Carolyn GarriottISBN: 09778831-0-8 In her first novel Shadow of the Cross, Carolyn Garriott well-understood the principle that it‘s not only the story that is of great consequence, but rather the manner in which you recount it. How often have we read a novel that contained some very fascinating information, yet the way it was presented was bland and unexciting and after reading the first fifty pages we chucked it aside? However, in the Shadow of the Cross Garriott shines with not...
(No rating) 4-4-2007 Views: 4092

The Fool’s Path: A Tale From The Lothemian Legacy
Author: Nancy J. Attwell ISBN: 193314212XThe following review was contributed by: NORM GOLDMAN: Editor of Bookpleasures. CLICK TO VIEW Norm Goldman's ReviewsTo read Norm's Interview With Nancy Attwell CLICK HEREThe Fool’s Path: A Tale From The Lothemian Legacy is an ambitious debut novel in the first of a trilogy from Canadian born Nancy J. Attwell, who shows a wonderful amount of promise as an up-and-coming novelist of historical fiction.When I interviewed Attwell she stated that some of...
(No rating) 11-18-2005 Views: 3820

A STORY OF A FORGOTTEN HERO by EMERSON WATKINS
It is remarkable that anyone could have lived to the unbelievable age of one hundred and eighteen. More so when you consider how Tippy Pendarvis, principal character of Emerson Watkins’ first novel, A Story of a Forgotten Hero-Turning Back The Pages Of Time, endured the many tragedies that beset him. Watkins’ well-crafted work of fiction focuses on an African American, who was born five years after the Civil War. At the age of eighteen, Tippy is forced to leave his family, after being...
(No rating) 11-4-2004 Views: 3515

Churchill’s Triumph: A Novel Of Betrayal
Click Here To Purchase Churchill's Triumph A Novel Of Betrayal Author: Michael DobbsISBN: 13: 978-1-4022-1045-7: 10: 1-4022-1045-0 Michael Dobbs in his most recent historical novel, Churchill’s Triumph: A Novel Of Betrayal spins another mesmerizing portrayal of one of the greatest statesman, Winston Churchill who, as we are reminded at the very beginning of the book stated: “History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to r
(No rating) 4-24-2008 Views: 2672

Diverting the Buddha
Click Here To Purchase Diverting the Buddha Author: Bob SwartzelISBN: 978-1-4392-0430-6 Diverting The Buddha is an ambitious novel that delivers through its vivid portrayal of the treachery and deceit that emerged during the catastrophic Vietnam War.
(No rating) 10-22-2008 Views: 1376

Gift Of The Bambino
Title: Gift Of The BambinoAuthor: Jerry AmernicISBN: 031231759XGenre: Fiction- Sports The following review was contributed by: NORM GOLDMAN: Editor of Bookpleasures-CLICK TO VIEW>> Norm Goldman's Reviews
(No rating) 10-21-2004 Views: 2698

Hadrian's Wall by William Dietrich
The following review was contributed by: NORM GOLDMAN EDITOR OF BOOKPLEASURES Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, historian, and author, William Dietrich, recent poignant novel is set in Northern England in 367 A.D, where Hadrian’s Wall, which incidentally is the title of the book, once stood. Today, it is a world heritage site in recognition of this magnificent Roman civil engineering project. Built of stone, it was wide enough to permit centurions to march three abreast along most of its...
(No rating) 11-4-2004 Views: 2602

Killing Rommel
Click Here To Purchase Killing Rommel Author: Steven PressfieldISBN: 978-0-385-51970-0Publishers: Doubleday If military campaigns are your cup of tea, then author Steven Pressfie
(No rating) 6-16-2008 Views: 2921

Ladies A Conjecture of Personalities by Feather Schwartz Foster
The following review was contributed by: NORM GOLDMAN EDITOR OF BOOKPLEASURES.COM Although first time author Feather Schwartz Foster’s book Ladies A Conjecture of Personalities may be classified as historical fiction, we know from the beginning that we are in for some very fascinating tidbits of information, many based on conjecture others perhaps containing a sliver of truth. Speaking across the years, Foster brings to life brief memoirs of thirty “First Ladies,” who unlike their modern...
(No rating) 11-4-2004 Views: 2379

On A Making Tide by David Donachie
Many books have been devoted to one of Britain’s most famous heroes, Horatio Nelson, particularly his defeat of the French in the battle of Trafalgar. However, not many high school or university history courses pay too much heed to his relationship with his mistress, Emma Hamilton. David Donachie’s work of fiction, On a Making Tide, which is the first tome of a trilogy, recounts a sequence of events of both Nelson and Hamilton prior to their becoming lovers. As the story unfolds, the reader...
(No rating) 10-19-2004 Views: 2414

Pirate Spirit: The Adventures of Anne Bonney
Click Here To Purchase From Amazon Pirate Spirit: The Adventures of Anne Bonney Author: Jeffery S. WilliamsISBN: 9781583484678High school English teacher Jeffery S. Williams, who has worked as a journalist and freelance writer, cuts his creative teeth with his debut novel Pirate Spirit: The Adventures of Anne Bonney. The novel focuses on Anne Bonney, one of history’s most infamous female pirates, who along with another well-known female pirate, Mary Reade, plied their illegal trade in the...
(No rating) 10-13-2007 Views: 3233

Sand Of The Arena
Author: James DuffyISBN: 1590131118The following review was contributed by: NORM GOLDMAN: Editor of Bookpleasures. CLICK TO VIEW Norm Goldman's ReviewsIt is obvious from reading Sand Of The Arena that author James Duffy has an abiding and deep interest in the history of the gladiators and of the Roman Empire.To his credit, he has no doubt devoted countless hours in researching his debut novel, as poignantly illustrated in the many detailed scenes depicting the lives of the gladiators that...
(No rating) 2-26-2006 Views: 3038

Shanghai Legacy
Author: Marion CubaISBN: 1591138094 The following review was contributed by: NORM GOLDMAN: Editor of Bookpleasures. CLICK TO VIEW Norm Goldman's Reviews“Your mother,” she repeats, dipping her nurse’s cap toward Hannah’s room again, “she is like a melon that will never ripen, Miss Silver,” is what the nurse tells the dying woman’s daughter, Maya.That unripened melon, Maya soon discovers is her mother’s diary dating back to 1938, when approximately twenty thousand European Jews escaped Nazi...
(No rating) 12-30-2005 Views: 2769

Silent Battlefields
Author: Hugh Rosen ISBN: 0595347738The following review was contributed by: NORM GOLDMAN: Editor of Bookpleasures. CLICK TO VIEW Norm Goldman's Reviews To read Norm's Interview with Hugh Rosen, CLICK HEREHugh Rosen has created an emotionally charged read with his debut novel Silent Battlefields. At the heart of the novel and the central peg on which Rosen hangs his carefully crafted novel is a narrative involving two families that are woven together in a provocative and complex...
(No rating) 3-31-2006 Views: 3064

The Da Vinci Papers by Kathy Williams
The following review was contributed by: NORM GOLDMAN EDITOR OF BOOKOKLEASURES.COM Notwithstanding its lack of good editing and proof reading, The Da Vinci Papers (not to be confused with the Da Vinci Code), authored by Kathy Willliams, is an engrossing tale intertwining the lives of a fictional character Marcus Cassius, with that of Leonardo Da Vinci and Igor Sikorsky. You may ask what do all of these have in common? If you know something about aviation, you will recognize the name of Igor...
(No rating) 11-4-2004 Views: 2982

The Hanging Of Ephraim Wheeler by Irene Quenzler Brown: Richard D. Brown
It was so horrendous a crime that one of the judges exclaimed, when pronouncing the death sentence, that “a new crime had been added to the catalogue of crimes.” These were the words that a condemned Ephraim Wheeler heard, when in 1805 in Lennox, Massachusetts, he was sentenced to be hanged for raping his thirteen year old daughter, Betsy. Historians Richard D. Brown and Irene Quenzler Brown’s book, The Hanging Of Ephraim Wheeler, recount in micro-history format not only the trial, but also...
(No rating) 11-4-2004 Views: 2546

The Last Queen
Author: Christopher W. GortnerISBN: 0972394788The following review was contributed by:
(No rating) 7-16-2006 Views: 3678

The Map Thief
Click Here To Purchase The Map Thief Author: Heather TerrellISBN: 978-0-345-69468-9Publisher: Ballantyne Books (Imprint of Random House) The hook of Heather Terrell’s second novel, The Map Thief is quite absorbing as it revolves around the query, what if the Chinese created an accurate map of the world in the early 1400s-some seventy-odd years before the Europeans? In order to widen this theme, Terrell offers up a multilaye
(No rating) 8-24-2008 Views: 2014

The Noble Free by Russell Breighner
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle is probably one of the most important explorers of the Great Lakes region. Born in Rouen, France in 1643, LaSalle in his youth entertained the idea of entering the priesthood. However, after spending a few years in a Jesuit College near his home, he decided that the priesthood was not for him, and at the age of twenty-two, in the year 1666, he left for Canada, or as it was then known, Nouvelle France (New France). Landing in Montréal, he was granted...
(No rating) 11-4-2004 Views: 2681

The Rising Shore: Roanoke
Author: Deborah HomsherISBN: 13: 978-0-9790-51560-9 10: 0-9790-5160-6 Inspired by true events concerning the first British attempt to establish a foothold in North America, Deborah Homsher’s The Rising Shore:Roanoke presents a novel with compelling fictionalized details that probably surpass the actual facts that she briefly outlines in the book’s postscript. The tale focuses on the 1587 Roanoke voyage that was commissioned by Sir Walter Raleigh in order to establish a permanent...
(No rating) 2-23-2007 Views: 3525

Wave Me Goodbye by Jura MacLean Sherwood
First time novelist Jura MacLean Sherwood has written a very moving and powerful story concerning the plight of two hundred and forty one children evacuees from Britain in 1940, who were on their way to Canada. Although the story is a work of fiction, it is based on records of a British Government program called the Children’s Overseas Reception Board (CORB): a scheme devised to save the children of Britain by sending them to the Dominions of Canada, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa....
(No rating) 11-4-2004 Views: 2569