Harry Nicholson's Blog

Reviewed by: L. Greg Graham for “Historical Novel Review” April 2011. http://historicalnovelreview.blogspot.com/2011/04/tom-fleck-by-harry-nicholson.html Every once in a great while the lucky reader finds a book that he wants to go on forever. Tom Fleck is such a book. A good historical novel takes the reader into a world that he knows little of and allows him to walk around in someone else’s life. A very good novel makes the reader want to live there. This novel transports the reader to the windswept pastures and fens of northeast England at the time of the Battle of Flodden. At first, 16th century England appears to be a well ploughed field until you discover that Henry VIII and his many wives assert no royal prerogatives here, and Elizabeth launches no fleets of plucky Englishmen to fend off the Spanish Armada. Instead, we live with common men trying to survive one of the bloodiest battles in English history.”