Book roundup: Historical fiction

By Carol Memmott, Deirdre Donahue, Jocelyn McClurg and Robert Bianco, USA TODAY

Here are four novels that transport you back in time:

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  The Raven's Bride by Lenore Hart imagines Edgar Allan Poe's early career.

The Raven's Bride by Lenore Hart imagines Edgar Allan Poe's early career.

The Raven's Bride
By Lenore Hart
St. Martin's Griffin, 358 pp., $15.99 paperback original

One might be reluctant to link Edgar Allan Poe with romance, but the fact is he was madly in love with his wife, Virginia "Sissy" Clemm, who died of tuberculosis at the tender age of 24. At the time of her death, she had been married to "Eddy" for more than a decade. Not only did they wed when she was 13 and he 27, they were also first cousins. Their marriage is the basis for Lenore Hart's novel, but it's also a fascinating imagining of Poe's early career and alcoholism. And who doesn't enjoy a peek into a couple's marriage? Hart permeates her story with a supernatural plot device, making it all the more eerie and provocative.

? Carol Memmott

To Defy a King
By Elizabeth Chadwick
Soucebooks, 523 pp., $14.99 paperback original

Characters you care about. Or loathe. Atmosphere so pungent you can almost smell it. And juicy chunks of violent medieval history you can enjoy in the climate-controlled safety of your own home. A star back in Britain, Elizabeth Chadwick is finally getting the attention she deserves here. To Defy a King centers on a true-life young noblewoman. We meet Mahelt Marshal at age 10 in 1204 and follow her through her marriage to the Earl of Norfolk. We watch her struggle to navigate the rivalries created by evil King John. Chadwick shows us how her characters are motivated by passions about family and honor that seem very foreign to modern sensibilities.

? Deirdre Donahue

Madame Tussaud
By Michelle Moran
Crown, 446 pp., $25

These days, the waxy likes of Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga hang out at Madame Tussauds. It's remarkable to think the museum has its roots in the 18th century, when Marie Grosholtz became a celebrated maker of wax figures ? during the French Revolution. Marie (later Madame Tussaud) is at the center of this bloodbath, a royalist who tries to play both sides. Michelle Moran goes the predictable heroine-as-conflicted-woman route, and Madame Tussaud gets bogged down living up to its subtitle: "A Novel of the French Revolution." The book plods along until the guillotine shows up, at which point it springs to ironic life as Marie becomes very busy, indeed.

? Jocelyn McClurg

The Road to Rome
By Ben Kane
St. Martin's Press, 528 pp., $27

The Road to Rome works best if you try to imagine Bob Hope and Bing Crosby taking it. Read as a comedy, a sort of ancient world mash-up of Candide and The Perils of Pauline, this absurdly melodramatic last installment in a fall-of-the-Roman-republic trilogy might pass muster. But taken seriously, the cumulative effect of all those hairbreadth rescues, outlandish coincidences and wince-inducing clunkers ("Brennus had chosen a hero's death, fighting a berserk elephant so that his friends could escape") is too much for any book to overcome. There are far better authors exploring the same territory. If you want to go to Rome, let one of them put you on the road instead.

? Robert Bianco

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