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Historical Fiction April 2021
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If you enjoy this newsletter, click here to sign up for our other NextReads book recommendation newsletters for genres including historical fiction, mysteries, new fiction, and more!
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Eternal
by Lisa Scottoline
An aspiring writer, an athlete from a professional cyclist family and a mathematics prodigy find their bond tested by a love triangle and the spread of anti-Semitism and fascism in 1937 Italy. By the Edgar Award-winning author of Someone Knows.
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| Vera by Carol EdgarianWhat it's about: chosen family, resilience, and coming-of-age, set against the backdrop San Francisco just after the massive 1906 earthquake.
Starring: Vera, the 15-year-old daughter of emotionally distant Barbary Coast madam Rose; Swedish-American Pie, Vera's pragmatic foster sister; Lifang, Vera's half-Chinese half-sister who enjoys a much closer relationship with their mother.
You might also like: A Splendid Ruin by Megan Chance, which follows another feisty young woman making a life for herself in the devastated city. |
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The Dictionary of Lost Words
by Pip Williams
Deciding to create her own dictionary — the Dictionary of Lost Words — Esme, who has collected “objectionable” words a team of male scholars omit from the first Oxford English Dictionary, leaves her sheltered world behind to meet the people whose words will fill those pages.
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The Social Graces
by Renée Rosen
A tale spanning three decades and based on true events imagines the bitter rivalry between Gilded Age hostess Caroline Astor and family newcomer Alva Vanderbilt against a backdrop of the latter’s rejection by the society that both would control.
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| Those Who Are Saved by Alexis LandauWhat it is: a compelling and thought-provoking story of survival and family separation set during the Nazi occupation of France.
Vichy France, 1940: Russian Jewish émigrés Vera and Max Volosenkova entrust their young daughter Lucie to governess Agnes after being ordered to report to an "internment" camp.
California, 1945: Although the couple were unexpectedly given a chance to escape Nazi custody, there was no way to return for their daughter along the way. The war now over, Vera is desperate to get back to France to search for Lucie in the postwar sea of refugees. |
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| The Evening and the Morning by Ken FollettWhat it is: a sweeping and descriptive prequel to The Pillars of the Earth set during England's tumultuous 10th century.
Starring: down-on-his-luck boat builder Edgar; spirited young Norman noblewoman Ragna; scholarly and reform-minded cleric Brother Aldred.
Why you might like it: This intricately plotted tale of a land torn between its Saxon and Viking identities shows how a tiny riverside hamlet began its transformation into the town that series fans know as Kingsbridge. |
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| Fifty Words for Rain by Asha LemmieWhat it's about: Noriko Kamiza is the illegitimate child of an African American GI and a Japanese aristocrat born during World War II. Abandoned by her mother, she lives a confined, deprived existence with her status-conscious grandmother in Kyoto, Japan.
Read it for: the unanticipated strong bond Noriko forms with her half-brother Akira, the family's legitimate heir; the parallels drawn between social change and Noriko's burgeoning independence after she escapes to Swinging Sixties London.
Reviewers say: "A truly ambitious and remarkable debut" (Booklist). |
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| House of Gold by Natasha SolomonsThe premise: In 1911, strong-willed Austrian heiress Greta Goldbaum moved to England to marry a man she didn't know for the sake of her family's business interests. Though they get off to a rough start, Greta and her new husband build a life together, and soon they fall in love for real.
The problem: At the outbreak of World War I, Greta finds herself torn between her family of origin and the family she has created, both of which are threatened by the increasing antisemitism that's spreading across Europe.
For fans of: Barbara Taylor Bradford's Cavendon Hall, another family saga steeped in doomed Belle Époque glamour in the run-up to World War I. |
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| The Bass Rock by Evie WyldWhat it is: the compelling, intricately plotted, and century-spanning story of three women on the Scottish island of Bass Rock and the connections between them.
Starring: Viviane, a grieving woman who arrives on Bass Rock to prepare her grandmother's house for sale; Viviane's grandmother Ruth, who moved to the island after World War II with her new husband; Sarah, an 18th-century woman fleeing witchcraft charges who finds shelter with a Bass Rock family.
Is it for you? Author Evie Wyld isn't shy about some of the grimmer aspects of life as a woman in history, which may not appeal to all readers. |
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Calling All Patrons. . . Do you have a book you would love to recommend to other patrons? We would like to hear from you! Please click on the link below and fill out the form. (Your title should be part of the Avon Lake Library collection.) The review may be posted in the library for patrons who are looking for book suggestions.
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Contact your librarian for more great books! |
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Avon Lake Public Library 32649 Electric Blvd. Avon Lake, Ohio 44012 440-933-8128alpl.org |
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