How do you research your family history when you’re adopted? Do you follow the lines of your biological parents, assuming you know who they are, or do you investigate your adopted parents’ families? K

CARMEN felt that the time had finally come to find out if her dear brother still lived. It had been a long and terrible second half decade in a 10-year war. Mexico had been traumatised, the factions o

Alice Loxton EleanorA 200-mile walk in search of England’slost queen352pp. Pan Macmillan. £22. Many are commemorated in stone, but few so grandly as Eleanor of Castile (d. 1290). Following her unexpec

Julián Casanova Franco 528pp. Crítica. €22.90. Giles Tremlett El Generalísimo Franco: Power, violence and the quest for greatness 528pp. Bloomsbury. £30. Juan Carlos I, with Laurence Debray Reconcilia

GH ’s books director, Joanne Finney, shares her pick of this month’s new hardback releases

Anne Weber Sanderling Translated by Neil Blackadder 240pp. Indigo Press. £14.99. The past is not closed; it reaches into us. “For Germans”, Anne Weber recently said, “it’s like discovering your father