Category Archives: Reviews

Book reviews, as well as Reads to Reels

The Broken Realm

Posted on April 19, 2024 by smellincoffee

Two young men land in England and begin their journey home, to the Welsh marches. They are not the cheerful young boys they were nearly two years ago, when they set off for the Holy Land with their lord. They … Continue reading →

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Warbow

Posted on April 16, 2024 by smellincoffee

Three kings of Europe are leading a crusade in the Holy Land to retake Jerusalem following its fall to the master-of-war, Saladin — and young Roland Inness, a lad whose bow beat even that of Robin of Loxley, is joining … Continue reading →

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Longbow

Posted on April 13, 2024 by smellincoffee

From the treeline, young Roland Inness watches in mute horror as his father is murdered by the local lord’s son, who believe him to be in possession of a longbow that poached a deer. Roland himself wields that bow, and … Continue reading →

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A Morbid Taste for Bones

Posted on April 12, 2024 by smellincoffee

A brother at the monastery lies abed ranting and raving: the man who volunteered to watch him through the night falls asleep and wakes with a vision, one of a blessed saint who promising healing to the afflicted brother if … Continue reading →

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No King, No Country

Posted on April 8, 2024 by smellincoffee

Will Inness fought for Parliament and Cromwell, but now he’s a wanted man. His crime was speaking up for his men, who were owed back pay, and pleading that they be given some land in the country for which they … Continue reading →

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Sons of the Waves

Posted on April 5, 2024 by smellincoffee

Heave your ship to, boys, deep soundings to take! Sons of the Waves is a celebration not of the gilded brass, not of a handsome oak-forest-falling ships, but of the ordinary — and able — British seaman in the Age … Continue reading →

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The Club

Posted on April 4, 2024 by smellincoffee

I have an interest in men’s clubs dating back to reading Around the World in 80 Days and The Time Traveler as a kid, and I have no idea why. Boys like clubs and clubhouses as a rule, I think, … Continue reading →

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Elizabeth’s London

Posted on April 3, 2024 by smellincoffee

Let us travel to a city which, in great part, no longer exists: Tudor London, much of which has been erased by time, fire, and ‘progress’, which holds burying swimming pools under concrete as a capital idea. I first read … Continue reading →

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Life Below Stairs

Posted on April 1, 2024 by smellincoffee

If, like me, you became interested in the goings-on of English servants via Downton Abbey, Alison Maloney opens with a word of caution. Many servants didn’t work in small armies at places like Highclere Castle. Instead, they were thoroughly leavened … Continue reading →

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Summer of ’49

Posted on March 29, 2024 by smellincoffee

In the summer of 1949, young David Halberstam was fifteen years old, facing a father in declining health and thankful for the distraction that was baseball. The Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees would provide it in spades, … Continue reading →

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