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Historical Fiction November 2017
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| The Living Infinite: A Novel by Chantel AcevedoIn 1893, the Infanta Eulalia of Spain travels to the U.S. by way of Cuba. Although her stated plan is to attend the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Eulalia has a secret agenda: to find a publisher for her scandalous autobiography. In addition to recounting the adventurous life of an unconventional woman, this atmospheric novel by Cuban-American author Chantel Acevedo examines the turbulent events surrounding the Bourbon Restoration in Spain and Cuba's War for Independence. |
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| The Vengeance of Mothers: The Journals of Margaret Kelly & Molly McGill by Jim FergusIn this sequel to One Thousand White Women, participants in a federal "Brides for Indians" program have lost their Cheyenne husbands in a brutal attack by the U.S. Army. The Vengeance of Mothers describes the experiences of two widowed sisters and their rebellion against the U.S. government, interspersing their diary entries with accounts of the events up to the Great Sioux War of 1876. |
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Here in Berlin : A Novel
by Cristina García
An unnamed Visitor travels to Berlin with a camera looking for reckonings of her own. The city itself is a character―vibrant and postapocalyptic, flat and featureless except for its rivers, its lakes, its legions of bicyclists. Here in Berlin she encounters a people's history: the Cuban teen taken as a POW on a German submarine only to return home to a family who doesn’t believe him; the young Jewish scholar hidden in a sarcophagus until safe passage to England is found; the female lawyer haunted by a childhood of deprivation in the bombed-out suburbs of Berlin who still defends those accused of war crimes; a young nurse with a checkered past who joins the Reich at a medical facility more intent to dispense with the wounded than to heal them; and the son of a zookeeper at the Berlin Zoo, fighting to keep the animals safe from both war and an increasingly starving populace.
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The Two-family House
by Lynda Cohen Loigman
Brooklyn, 1947: In the midst of a blizzard, in a two-family brownstone, two babies are born, minutes apart. The mothers are sisters by marriage: dutiful, quiet Rose, who wants nothing more than to please her difficult husband; and warm, generous Helen, the exhausted mother of four rambunctious boys who seem to need her less and less each day. Raising their families side by side, supporting one another, Rose and Helen share an impenetrable bond forged before and during that dramatic winter night. When the storm passes, life seems to return to normal; but as the years progress, small cracks start to appear and the once deep friendship between the two women begins to unravel. No one knows why, and no one can stop it. One misguided choice; one moment of tragedy. Heartbreak wars with happiness and almost, but not quite, wins.
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| Caroline: Little House, Revisited by Sarah Elizabeth MillerReports of abundant land in Kansas Territory convince Charles Ingalls that his family's future lies west of the Mississippi. His (pregnant) wife Caroline is apprehensive, but dutifully packs up their belongings and prepares for a 700-mile covered wagon journey. Authorized by the Little House literary estate, Caroline unfolds from the perspective of Ma Ingalls; the narrative bridges the events of Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie, in case you're inspired to revisit the original series. |
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The Walworth Beauty
by Michèle Roberts
2011: When Madeleine loses her job as a lecturer, she decides to leave her London flat for the swelling city's outskirts, moving to the quiet Walworth cul-de-sac of Apricot Place. Immersing herself in local history, she reads the work of Henry Mayhew, who documented Victorian working class life, and she senses the past encroaching: a shifting in the atmosphere, a current of unseen life. 1851: Joseph Benson has been employed by Henry Mayhew to help research his articles on the London poor. A family man with mouths to feed, Joseph is tasked with coaxing testimony from prostitutes. They resent his scientific distance, and he strains to keep it, not immune to their temptations. Roaming the Southwark streets for answers that will let him keep his job, he finds Apricot Place, where the elegant and enigmatic Mrs. Dulcimer runs a boarding house. As these entwined stories unfold, alive with the sensations of London past and present, the two eras brush against each other--a breath at Madeleine's neck, a voice in her head-ghostly murmurs echoing through time.
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Mr. Dickens and His Carol : A Novel of Christmas Past
by Samantha Silva
Charles Dickens is not feeling the Christmas spirit. His newest book is an utter flop, the critics have turned against him, relatives near and far hound him for money. While his wife plans a lavish holiday party for their ever-expanding family and circle of friends, Dickens has visions of the poor house. But when his publishers try to blackmail him into writing a Christmas book to save them all from financial ruin, he refuses. And a serious bout of writer’s block sets in. Frazzled and filled with self-doubt, Dickens seeks solace in his great palace of thinking, the city of London itself. On one of his long night walks, in a once-beloved square, he meets the mysterious Eleanor Lovejoy, who might be just the muse he needs. As Dickens’ deadlines close in, Eleanor propels him on a Scrooge-like journey that tests everything he believes about generosity, friendship, ambition, and love. The story he writes will change Christmas forever.
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The Life She Was Given
by Ellen Marie Wiseman
On a summer evening in 1931, Lilly Blackwood glimpses circus lights from the grimy window of her attic bedroom. Lilly isn’t allowed to explore the meadows around Blackwood Manor. Momma insists that people would be afraid if they saw her. But on this unforgettable night, Lilly is taken outside for the first time, and sold to the circus sideshow. More than two decades later, nineteen-year-old Julia Blackwood has inherited her parents’ estate. For Julia, home was an unhappy place full of strict rules and forbidden rooms, and she hopes that returning might erase those painful memories. Instead, she becomes immersed in a mystery involving a hidden attic room and photos of circus scenes featuring a striking young girl. At first, The Barlow Brothers’ Circus is just another prison for Lilly. But in this rag-tag, sometimes brutal world, Lilly discovers strength, friendship, and a rare affinity for animals. Soon, thanks to elephants Pepper and JoJo and their handler, Cole, Lilly is no longer a sideshow spectacle but the circus’s biggest attraction, until tragedy and cruelty collide. It will fall to Julia to learn the truth about Lilly’s fate and her family’s shocking betrayal, and find a way to make Blackwood Manor into a place of healing at last.
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