Best Historical Fiction

    A Novel of Victorian Cookery and Friendship This story brings true figures of Eliza Acton, poet and pioneering cookery writer, and Ann Kirby, her assistant. They both worked on a cookery book which is known as “the greatest British cookbook of all time.” It was an international bestseller and her books had a profound influence on later cookery writers. England, 1837. Eliza, at thirty-six, dreams to publish her poems with an international publisher, but she is asked to write a cookery book instead, more fit for women. A bit appalled by this suggestion, she returns home humiliated, only to find out that her father has just become a bankrupt. But then, when seeing badly written recipes and sounding unappetizing, after all writing a cookery book might not be a bad idea. And for that she needs a scullery maid. Ann, at seventeen, cares for her parents and dreams about being a cook. A vicar suggests to Ann a position of underhousemaid that might be available with a new family tak...

  Brigid of Kildare is she just a legend or historical figure? Nonetheless, this novel brings a fascinating figure of Saint Brigid who was presumably Ireland’s first and only female priest and bishop. Gael, Ireland, A.D. 456. Brigid, daughter of Dubtach – king of the Fothairt people of southern Gael, at young age questions the lack of prominent women in Jesus’s earthly world. She questions women as passive vessels for the doings of men. She questions a world without women leaders. It is during a time when the infiltration of Roman Church reaches the Gaelic people. Dubtach refuses to be baptized or to force his people to do it. Nevertheless, he allows his daughter to be baptized in secret. Brigid is of age that she must choose a life path. She chooses a Christian path with singular devotion. Thus, rejecting marriage against her father’s choosing. To appease her parents, she is guided to blend Gaels customs with Christianity. She doesn’t preach. With patience and by listening, she gu...