Category Archives: alternate history

God Save the Queen by Kate Locke

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We’re often told by parents (and librarians) not to judge a book by its cover. I’m apparently a terrible librarian because I choose what to read by its cover on a regular basis. God Save the Queen is one example of a book I chose for the cover. That smirking, red haired, steampunk-wearing woman on the cover couldn’t fail to catch my eye at the very least. When I realized it was set in an alternate 2012 in England where Queen Victoria still ruled as a near-immortal vampire, I simply couldn’t resist.

Xandra Vardan is a member of the Royal Guard, the organization charged with protecting the vampires and werewolves who make up the Aristocracy in this alternate Britain. When her younger sister, Drusilla, goes missing, Xandra uses all the resources at her disposal, including going to the goblin prince for information, in order to find her. What she finds shakes her belief in the structure of British society and the right of the Aristocracy to rule and everything she thinks she knows about the people in her world.

God Save the Queen is an exciting blend of horror, paranormal romance, urban fantasy, mystery, steampunk and alternate history. With a flawed main character and conspiracies that run deep, this is a fun read for people who like urban fantasy.

The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln: A Novel by Stephen L. Carter

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What if Abraham Lincoln, our beloved Civil War president, did not die when John Wilkes Booth attempted to kill him at Ford’s Theatre on Good Friday in 1865?  What if he recovered from his wounds and within a short time was once again facing the criticisms of how he handled the war and the reconstruction of the south?  Stephen Carter has written an intricately plotted, historically detailed story that captures the time period and weaves a fascinating alternate history.

A young black woman joins the law firm that is representing Lincoln in the impeachment suit.  Abigail Canner hopes to clerk at the firm and work toward a law degree but she faces the obstacles of race, age and sex.  Nevertheless her brilliant mind begins to impress the firms partners and she is soon embroiled in the court proceedings and sleuthing a murder. Try this alternate history thriller and you will learn much about life in the 1860′s in Washington City and how divided the country was after the Civil War.

 

The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack

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>In this wonderfully inventive debut, Mark Hodder pulls together a variety of genres (including time travel, steampunk, alternate history, mystery and more) into a rolicking story set in an alternate Victorian England.
Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, a Victorian era Renaissance Man, follows a different path in life when he is asked by the prime minister in 1861 to investigate the sightings of the (possibly mythic) figure Spring Heeled Jack. What follows is a tale of werewolves, a talking orangutan, steam-powered velocipedes and rotorchairs as Burton tries to locate Spring Heeled Jack and find out why boys from the East End are disappearing. Burton recruits his friend, the poet Algernon Swinburne, to aid him in his investigation as he faces off with such Victorian era giants as Charles Darwin, Laurence Oliphant, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Florence Nightingale.
The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack is the first in the planned Burton and Swinburne series. While Hodder pulled everything together into a satisfying ending for Spring Heeled Jack, there is more than enough there for another narrative featuring the intrepid Burton and Swinburne.