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Historical Fiction February 2017
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| The Butcher's Hook: A Novel by Janet EllisAnne Jaccob, a precocious and troubled 19-year-old, despises her self-absorbed parents and their stifling London home. The only bright spot in her lonely life is Fub, the local butcher's apprentice, with whom she becomes infatuated. However, Anne's father, a prosperous merchant, wants her to marry one of his business associates. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Anne is not about to let her family's wishes keep her from her heart's desire. For another dark tale set in 18th-century England in which a young woman rebels against her circumstances, try Emma Donoghue's Slammerkin. |
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| Victoria by Daisy GoodwinIn 1837, 18-year-old Princess Alexandrina Victoria of the House of Hanover becomes Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. No one expects much from a sheltered teenager who collects dolls and still shares a room with her overbearing mother. But Victoria, determined to become the monarch her people deserve, sets out to prove herself as a ruler, aided by Prime Minister Lord Melbourne, who becomes her adviser and confidant. Fans of royalty-themed reads won't want to miss this novel by American Heiress author Daisy Goodwin, who also penned the screenplay for current Masterpiece Theatre miniseries Victoria. |
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| Who Killed Piet Barol? A Novel by Richard MasonPiet Barol, the charming libertine first introduced in History of a Pleasure Seeker, is a Dutch con artist posing as a French aristocrat. Currently living in South Africa's Cape Colony, Barol recruits two Xhosa men to help him source mahogany for the creation of high-end furniture, a task made easier by The Natives Land Act, which strips black South Africans of their property rights. Obsession and greed lead to tragedy in this novel, which places flawed and fascinating characters in a lush and richly detailed African setting. |
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| The Second Mrs. Hockaday: A Novel by Susan RiversSeventeen-year-old Placidia Fincher weds widowed Confederate Major Gryffth Hockaday just hours after meeting him and mere days before he returns to his regiment. In his absence, Placidia becomes pregnant, gives birth to a child that dies under suspicious circumstances, and ends up in jail for infanticide. What happened? Placidia won't say, but then her diary is discovered. Told through diary entries, correspondence, and court transcripts, The Second Mrs. Hockaday shifts back and forth in time to tell a compelling story of the American Civil War. |
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| The Kommandant's Girl by Pam JenoffWhen the Nazis invade Poland, Jewish librarian Emma Bau risks her life to aid the resistance, assuming a false identity as a gentile while her activist husband Jacob goes into hiding. As Anna Lipowski, she becomes the personal assistant to a high-ranking Nazi official, Kommandant Georg Richwalder, hoping to secure information that will help the cause. But Richwalder is hardly the monster Emma expects him to be, and their growing intimacy threatens to jeopardize everything -- her work for the resistance, her marriage, and even her life. If you enjoy The Kommandant's Girl, you may want to read The Diplomat's Wife, which takes place after the war and features some of the same characters. |
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Midnight in Berlin
by James MacManus
Berlin in the spring of 1939. Hitler is preparing for war. Colonel Noel Macrae, a British diplomat, plans the ultimate sacrifice to stop him. The West's appeasement policies have failed. There is only one alternative: assassination. The Gestapo, aware of Macrae's hostility, seeks to compromise him in their infamous brothel. There Macrae meets and falls in love with Sara, a Jewish woman blackmailed into becoming a Nazi courtesan. Macrae finds himself trapped between the blind policies of his government and the dark world of betrayal and deception in Berlin. As he seeks to save the woman he loves from the brutality of the Gestapo, he defies his government and plans direct action to avert what he knows will be a global war. Inspired by true events and characters, James MacManus's Midnight in Berlin is a passionate story that will leave you in awe of the human capacity for courage, sacrifice, and love set against a world on the brink of war.
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In the land of armadillos : stories
by Helen Maryles Shankman
A radiant debut collection of linked stories from a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, set in a German-occupied town in Poland, where tales of myth and folklore meet the real-life monsters of the Nazi invasion. With the Nazi Party at the height of its power in 1942, the occupying army empties Poland's towns and cities of their Jewish populations. As neighbor turns on neighbor and survival often demands unthinkable choices, Poland has become a moral quagmire--a place of shifting truths and blinding ambiguities. Blending folklore and fact, Helen Maryles Shankman shows us the people of Wlodawa, a remote Polish town: we meet a cold-blooded SS officer dedicated to rescuing the creator of his son's favorite picture book, even as he helps exterminate the artist's friends and family; a Messiah who appears in a little boy's bedroom to announce that he is quitting; a young Jewish girl who is hidden by the town's most outspoken anti-Semite--and his talking dog. And walking among these tales are two unforgettable figures: the enigmatic and silver-tongued Willy Reinhart, Commandant of the forced labor camp who has grand schemes to protect "his" Jews, and Soroka, the Jewish saddlemaker and his family, struggling to survive. Channeling the mythic magic of classic storytellers like Sholem Aleichem and Isaac Bashevis Singer and the psychological acuity of modern-day masters like Nicole Krauss and Nathan Englander, In the Land of Armadillos is a testament to the persistence of humanity in the most inhuman conditions.
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The pursuit of pearls : a novel
by Jane Thynne
In the enthralling sequel to The Scent of Secrets, British actress/spy Clara Vine returns, moving gracefully through the treacherous upper echelons of Nazi high society. Rife with political intrigue and authentic period details, this novel is perfect for fans of Jacqueline Winspear and Eva Stachniak. Clara Vine, a half-Jewish Anglo-German, uses her unique access to the wealthy elite of pre-war Nazi society to spy for her native Britain. In this second installment of her story, Clara, an ambitious young actress, insinuates herself into the lives of the Nazi wives through her association with the famous Ufa Studios. Her close friendship with Magda Goebbels makes her an attractive asset to the British intelligence service. Richly weaving the historical record with lush fictional details and a tantalizing love story, a cast of real Nazis and their British admirers--such as the Mitford sisters and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor--comes to life in this series.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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