Here are 100 books that Burning Bright fans have personally recommended if you like
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I grew up surrounded by a library of dusty vintage novels, so perhaps it wasn’t that surprising that I went on to write my own gaslamp fantasy influenced by English folklore and Victorian heroines. I love historical novels that provoke wonder, and magical novels that are rich with history, and (blame it on being an only child?) most of all I love a female protagonist I’d want to have tea with.
I love how Rowntree riffs on real history while keeping the tone thrilling and funny. The "Miss Sharp’s Monsters" series is set in the Bete Epoque (a late Victorian Europe ruled by monsters), and Liz Sharp is a lovably reckless amnesiac bodyguard to an English princess.
I would absolutely want Liz on my side if our tea party were attacked. I’d pour the tea and let her take care of the monsters.
Murder, monsters…and a disreputable Victorian lady’s maid.
A killer stalks the grimy streets of Whitechapel—but Scotland Yard seems determined to turn a blind eye. With one look at her best friend's corpse, Liz Sharp already knows the truth: the killer is a werewolf.
No one important will hold a werewolf accountable—after all, the monsters rule Europe. Certainly, no one will believe a werewolf victim like Liz: the very scars that make her determined to investigate Sal’s death also condemn her as the sort of female who’d sell her blood for easy money.
I grew up surrounded by a library of dusty vintage novels, so perhaps it wasn’t that surprising that I went on to write my own gaslamp fantasy influenced by English folklore and Victorian heroines. I love historical novels that provoke wonder, and magical novels that are rich with history, and (blame it on being an only child?) most of all I love a female protagonist I’d want to have tea with.
Isabella Farrah is one of the funniest, most exasperating leading ladies in literature. I was surprised and delighted by this loose retelling of Beauty and the Beast with murder, cake, pretty dresses, magic, intrigue, and Isabella’s hilarious brand of ladylike mayhem.
I would probably choke on my cake laughing if I ever had tea with Isabella (and maybe she’d slip something into my tea), but it would be worth it.
"...an inventive and funny mystery with a dynamic lead, which will make you want to pick up the next book in the series." Self-Publishing Review, 4½ Stars Beauty met the Beast and there was . . . Bloody murder? It’s the Annual Ambassadorial Ball in Glause, and Lady Isabella Farrah, the daughter of New Civet’s Ambassador, is feeling pleasantly scintillated. In the library is Lord Pecus, a charming gentleman whose double mask hides a beastly face, and who has decided that Isabella is the very person to break the Pecus curse. In the ball-room is young Lord Topher, who is…
I grew up surrounded by a library of dusty vintage novels, so perhaps it wasn’t that surprising that I went on to write my own gaslamp fantasy influenced by English folklore and Victorian heroines. I love historical novels that provoke wonder, and magical novels that are rich with history, and (blame it on being an only child?) most of all I love a female protagonist I’d want to have tea with.
I have fallen in love with the sweet chaos of Emma’s ongoing journals, chronicling her life in the daft parish of St Crispian’s in an off-kilter version of 1880s London. Emma lives in the tiny garret of her house because her mad Cousin Archibald has stolen the rest of the house.
This witty and scapegrace young woman’s coming-of-age story will give you all the found-family and deeply cozy platonic friendships you could ask for, along with an amazing community of fans.
“I’ve arrived in London without incident. There are few triumphs in my recent life, but I count this as one. My existence of the last three years has been nothing but incident.”
The Year is 1883 and Emma M. Lion has returned to her London neighborhood of St. Crispian’s. But Emma’s plans for a charmed and studious life are sabotaged by her eccentric Cousin Archibald, her formidable Aunt Eugenia, and the slightly odd denizens of St. Crispian’s.
Emma M. Lion offers up her Unselected Journals, however self-incriminating they may be. Armed with wit and a sideways amusement, Emma documents the…
I grew up surrounded by a library of dusty vintage novels, so perhaps it wasn’t that surprising that I went on to write my own gaslamp fantasy influenced by English folklore and Victorian heroines. I love historical novels that provoke wonder, and magical novels that are rich with history, and (blame it on being an only child?) most of all I love a female protagonist I’d want to have tea with.
I loved the soft and quiet governess Elaine and the way she uses her unique magic. The surprising 1820s post-apocalyptic setting draws you in immediately, and the allusions to The Lady of Shallot are perfect.
I’d like to share a nice cup of tea with Elaine, and with her magical abilities, we would always have fresh water for the teapot.
Elaine thought she’d be safe in Brighton. But then the sea rose up and flooded the city. Now, fish dwell in submerged ground floors, mists wreathe the ruined houses, and faery creatures roam the watery streets.
Trapped in an attic for several months, protected by small enchantments, Elaine’s supplies are running low. But she doesn't dare risk the dangers outside, until the night her hiding place is discovered by a roguish treasure hunter who brings trouble in his wake.
Forced into the open, Elaine must finally confront her past, battle an old foe, and protect the family legacy…
I was brought up in Maidenhead in Berkshire, a town on the River Thames to the west of London. After studying archaeology at University College, Cardiff, I worked for many years as a field archaeologist. I met my wife, Lesley, on an excavation at Milton Keynes, and we have worked together ever since, both in archaeology and as authors of archaeology and history books. It was only after studying the Napoleonic period, which was when Jane Austen lived and wrote, that I understood the context of her novels and came to a much deeper appreciation of them.
There are many biographies and other narratives of Jane Austen, with many published since 1997, when Professor Park Honan updated his original book. Even so, his biography is still, in my opinion, the best. It is comprehensive, detailed, and accurate, with copious endnotes. The author also had unparalleled help from descendants of Jane Austen. His writing style is straightforward, and he is excellent at depicting the overall context of her life and how it influenced her writing, from her two brothers in the Royal Navy to productions in the London theatres.
Park Honan's landmark biography of Jane Austen has been lavished with praise since its original publication. Written in an accessable atyle and meticulously researched, this book combones intanacy with Austen as a child and a woman.
For fifty years I've studied the British sailing navy, fascinated by its workings, the slow communications, the vagaries of the winds and tides. In parallel with my work in archives, I've sailed in most of the European waters described in Convoys. I worked at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, for 27 years, leaving as Deputy Director in 2000. Since then, I've taught postgraduates and written about Nelson and the British government (Britain against Napoleon), and became convinced that Britain came very close to being defeated by Napoleonic France. If Napoleon had not thrown it all away by his invasion of Russia in 1812, I might be writing this in French, with a very different script!
It is an extraordinary fact that no one had written a book on the naval war after 1803 for nearly two hundred years.
In the same time period, hundreds of books have covered Trafalgar and Nelson, and some good books have appeared on parts of the war. But until James Davey’s extensive documentary research in this book, nobody had seen it as a whole. Engagingly written, full of telling stories, this tells the story of a worldwide war.
Battles, blockades, convoys, raids: how the indefatigable British Royal Navy ensured Napoleon's ultimate defeat
Horatio Nelson's celebrated victory over the French at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 presented Britain with an unprecedented command of the seas. Yet the Royal Navy's role in the struggle against Napoleonic France was far from over. This groundbreaking book asserts that, contrary to the accepted notion that the Battle of Trafalgar essentially completed the Navy's task, the war at sea actually intensified over the next decade, ceasing only with Napoleon's final surrender.
In this dramatic account of naval contributions between 1803 and 1815, James…
You have to appreciate the intrepid nature of those who ventured out to sea in the days before satellite-enabled navigation, modern weather forecasting, and Coast Guard rescue swimmers. The books I’ve listed span a time of great global exploration occurring simultaneously with the engines of novel economic development. Most of that development was based on the exploitation of human and natural resources. A thread of curiosity through all of these picks is how those individuals most directly involved in its physical pursuit and transport were rarely the same who benefitted from it. But instead lived lives of constant hardship and danger – profiting, if at all, only in the adventure itself.
In 1789 Lieutenant Fletcher Christian and 18 mutineers turned on the “insufferable” Captain Bligh of the HMS Bounty and set him and 18 loyal crew members adrift in the South Pacific.
The story has loomed so large in popular imagination it has inspired at least 14 books and five films. But the late British journalist, historian, and diver Alexander McKee brought the disparate elements of the story together in perhaps its most accurate, entertaining, and coherent form–way back in 1962.
There’s always more than one side to a story and McKee interrogates them ruthlessly. The journalist in me applauds his efforts to comb through historical records, personal journals, and every piece of flotsam and jetsam he finds to present one of the most compelling true, sea stories ever written.
Not one of villains and heroes, but of the burdens of leadership and the fraying bonds of loyalty within one of…
I wanted to go to the sea ever since I can remember. In the hope of having the nonsense knocked out of me, my father sent me at the tender age of fourteen to the ‘Indefatigable’, a tough sea-training school. This only strengthened my resolve for a life at sea, and I joined the Royal Navy at 15. My family emigrated and I transferred to the Royal Australian Navy and saw service around the world. Although I no longer have an active involvement with the navy, I sail in my imagination through my sea-faring novels.
This book holds a special place in my bookshelves. Reprinted many times it is a classic reference to the period. Lavery’s description of life at sea is unparalleled, depicting a world far removed from the hardships and cruelty that is often attributed to conditions on the lower deck.
Patrick O'Brien provides the forward to this edition of the most successful Conway Maritime title. This book is the perfect guide to Nelson's Navy for all those with an interest in the workings of the great fleet. The book is eminently readable and is the first single-volume work to cover in such depth this vast and complex subject. Written by one of the world's leading authorities on the sailing navy the book contains considerable original research to give a clear and authentic picture of the Senior Service as a whole. With a foreword by one of the most successful maritime…
I’m the son of a wartime merchant seaman who in 1944 joined ship at age 16 after becoming an orphan. The sea remained his life’s passion even after he got kicked off ship in 1947 as a result of poor eyesight (he was long-sighted and you’d kinda think that a good thing on being a deck officer). I grew up with the stories of the war at sea and guess what: It rubbed off, and in his later life we wrote books together. And so, dear reader, here we are. Welcome to my world.
During the Battle of the Atlantic, it was the Merchant Seamen of many nations that kept the flow of supplies running across the Atlantic despite attacks from ship, submarine, and aircraft, together with all the normal hazards of storm and sea.
Civilians from diverse backgrounds, multi-ethnic, multi-national, and multi-faith they came together as crews to fight their ships through. This is a sympathetic study that takes us into their world to understand why and how, by dogged determination, they withstood the constant dangers to bring their cargo home.
I’m Steve R Dunn, a naval historian and author of twelve books of naval history, with two more commissioned for 2024 and 2025. As a child I used to invent naval fleets and have always loved the water. Now, I write about little-known aspects of the First World War at sea, and try to demonstrate that, despite the mass slaughter and ultimate victory on the Western Front, if Britain had lost command of the sea, the war would have been lost. The combination of recognisably modern weapons with Nelsonian command and control systems renders the naval side of WW1 endlessly fascinating to me.
Stumpf was an ordinary seaman in the German Imperial Navy.
He tells the story of the war at sea from a personal perspective. His autobiography shows how the gap between officers and men, poor food, a sense of inferiority to the Royal Navy and limited scope for naval action all contributed to the decline of the morale of the Imperial Fleet, leading to mutiny in 1918. It is necessary reading if you want to begin to understand the war at sea from a non-British perspective.
The Private War of Seaman Stumpf The Unique Diaries of a Young German in the Great War was written by Daniel Horn, published by Leslie Frewin and was printed in 1969 in a Hardcover binding.
