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Historical Fiction March 2024
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| The Fox Wife by Yangsze ChooSteeped in Japanese folklore, this lush and intricately plotted novel is set in 1908 Manchuria, where teacher-turned-P.I. Bao Gong investigates the identity of a local woman found dead in the snow, while rumors spread in the community about shape-shifting fox spirits. The story of a mysterious, vengeance-seeking young woman named Snow unfolds in parallel, until the narratives converge in unanticipated and historically significant ways. |
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Redwood Court
by DâeLana R. A. Dameron
The baby of the family, Mika Mosby spends much of her time in the care of loved ones, listening to their stories and secrets, witnessing their struggles. Growing up on Redwood Court, the cul-de-sac in the working-class suburb of Columbia, South Carolina, where her grandparents live, Mika learns important, sometimes difficult lessons from the people who raise her: Her exhausted parents, who work long hours at multiple jobs while still making sure their kids experience the adventure of family vacations; her older sister, who, in a house filled with Motown would rather listen to Alanis Morrisette, and can't wait to taste real independence; her retired grandparents, children of Jim Crow, who realized their own vision of success when they bought their house on Redwood Court in the 1960s, imagining it filled with future generations
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The Great Divide
by Cristina Henriquez
A novel about the construction of the Panama Canal, following the intersecting lives of the local families fighting to protect their homeland, the West Indian laborers recruited to dig the waterway, and the white Americans who gained profit and glory for themselves.
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| Wolves of Winter by Dan JonesIn this sequel to Essex Dogs, which first introduced readers to the titular mercenary crew, the Dogs are still licking their wounds after the battle of Crécy when the siege of Calais begins. King Edward is determined to take the city no matter the cost, plunging the Dogs and their comrades into a long, cold, bitter fight to survive the winter. |
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| The Road from Belhaven by Margot LiveseyGrowing up on her grandparents' poor but picturesque farm in 19th-century Scotland, orphan Lizzie Craig discovers she has the second sight. When, at age 16, she follows her suitor Louis to Glasglow, her life grows complex in ways that her gift, inexplicably, failed to warn her about. For fans of: the heroines in Edith Wharton novels. |
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Picasso's Lovers
by Jeanne Mackin
In the 1950s, aspiring journalist Alana Olson seeks out one of the women in Picasso's life, who paints a vibrant, yet tragic, picture of his once-vibrant social circle, forcing Alana to contend with her own reality in the male-dominated world of art journalism and the rising threat to civil rights in America. Original.
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Sisters of Belfast : A Novel
by Melanie Maure
Orphaned during the Second World War, Aelish and Isabel McGuire--known as the twins of Belfast--are given over to the austere care of the Sisters of Bethlehem. Though they are each all the other has, the girls are propelled in opposite directions as they grow up. Rebellious Isabel turns her back on the church and Ireland, traveling to Newfoundland where she pursues a perilous yet independent life. Devout Aelish chooses to remain in Northern Ireland and takes the veil, burying painful truths beneath years of silence. For decades the two are separated, each unaware of the other's life. But after years of isolation Aelish is unexpectedly summoned to Newfoundland, where she and her estranged sister begin to bridge the chasm between them.
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| Neighbors and Other Stories by Diane OliverPosthumously published after the author's untimely death at age 22, this lyrical and incisive story collection is filled with indelible African American characters navigating pivotal moments where their personal anxieties intersect with the difficulties of surviving segregation and poverty in the 1950s and 60s. |
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| Twilight Territory by Andrew X. PhamIn World War II-era Vietnam, Le Tuyet is a single mother living in a remote fishing village after her divorce, which ended the life of luxury she once had in Saigon. With the arrival of the Japanese occupation force comes conflicted officer Yamazaki Takeshi, whose immediate connection with Tuyet will change both of their lives forever, for better or worse. |
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| Medea by Eilish QuinIn this character-driven and moving mythological retelling, Medea shares her perspective on the events that made her so notorious. Born to a cruel father and a distant mother and losing her brother to prophecy, Medea's early life is mired in tragedy long before meeting Jason and bringing her doomed children into the world. |
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| The American Daughters by Maurice Carlos RuffinAfter her mother dies of a fever, Ady, a young enslaved woman in antebellum New Orleans, keeps the family dream of freedom alive despite her grief. Ady finds a mother figure in Lenore, a free woman of color, and through her is introduced to an underground network known only as "the Daughters," who work to undermine the nascent Confederacy from the inside. |
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| The Queen of Sugar Hill by ReShonda Tate BillingsleyThis heartwrenching and well-researched biographical novel tells the moving story of Hattie McDaniel, the first African American to win an Oscar (for her role as Mammy in Gone With the Wind). For fans of Victoria Christopher Murray (The Personal Librarian) and Sherry Jones (Josephine Baker's Last Dance). |
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