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Historical Fiction April 2021
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Band of sisters : a novel
by Lauren Willig
Eschewed by her wealthy graduated classmates, a former scholarship student reluctantly volunteers to help World War I French civilians before finding herself surrounded by desperate families in villages decimated by German bombs.
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Becoming Leidah
by Michelle Grierson
In the hinterlands of old Norway, Leidah Pietersdatter is born blue-skinned, with webbed hands and feet. Upon every turn of season, her mother, Maeva, worries as her daughter's peculiarities blossom--inside the root of the tiny child, a strange power is taking hold. Maeva tries to hide the girl from the suspicious townsfolk of the austere village of Orken, just as she conceals her own magical ancestry from her daughter. And Maeva's adoring husband, Pieter, wants nothing more than for his new family to be accepted by all. But unlike Pieter, who is blinded by love, Maeva is aware that the villagers, who profess a rigid faith to the new God and claim to have abandoned the old ways, are watching for any sign of transgression--and are eager to pounce and punish. Following both mother and daughter from the shadows and through time, an inquisitive shapeshifter waits for the Fates to spin their web, and for Maeva to finally reclaim who she once was. And as Maeva's elusive past begins to beckon, she realizes that she must help her daughter navigate and control her own singular birthright if the child is to survive the human world. But the protective love Pieter has for his family is threatening the secure life they have slowly built and increasingly becoming a tragic obstacle. Witnessing this, Maeva comes to a drastic conclusion: she must make Leidah promise to keep a secret from Pieter--a perilous one that may eventually free them all.
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The curator's daughter : a novel
by Melanie Dobson
"A young girl, kidnapped on the eve of Word War II, changes the lives of a German archaeologist forced into the Nazi Party and-decades later-a researcher trying to overcome her own trauma. 1940. Hanna Tillich cherishes her work as an archaeologist for the Third Reich, searching for the Holy Grail and other artifacts to bolster evidence of a master Aryan race. But when she is reassigned to work as a museum curator in Nuremberg, then forced to marry an SS officer and adopt a young girl, Hanna begins to seebehind the Nazi facade. A prayer labyrinth becomes a storehouse for Hanna's secrets, but as she comes to love Lilly as her own daughter, she fears that what she's hiding-and what she begins to uncover-could put them both in mortal danger. Eighty years later, Ember Ellis is a Holocaust researcher intent on confronting hatred toward the Jewish people and other minorities. She reconnects with a former teacher on Martha's Vineyard after she learns that Mrs. Kiehl's mother once worked with the Nazi Ahnenerbe.And yet, Mrs. Kiehl describes her mother as "a friend to the Jewish people." Wondering how both could be true, Ember helps Mrs. Kiehl regain her fractured childhood memories of World War II while at the same time confronting the heartache of her own secret past-and the person who wants to silence Ember forever"
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The last days of Ellis Island
by Galle Josse
Winner of the European Union Prize for Literature. New York, November 3, 1954: In a few days, the immigration inspection station on Ellis Island will close its doors forever. Told in a series of poignant diary entries, the last immigration officer of Ellis Island looks back over 45 years as gatekeeper to America. He recalls his brief marriage to beloved wife Liz, and is haunted by memories of a transgression involving Nella, an Italian immigrant.
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The Last Green Valley
by Mark Sullivan
In late March 1944, as Stalin’s forces push into Ukraine, young Emil and Adeline Martel decide they must run in retreat from their land with murderous Nazi officers they despise to escape the Soviets and go in search of freedom.
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The last night in London
by Karen White
A journalist in 2019 London interviews a World War II-era model to learn the story of the woman’s best friendship with a Royal Air Force pilot’s wife, who was catapulted by the Blitz into a web of intrigue and secrets.
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Libertie : a novel
by Kaitlyn Greenidge
Coming of age as a free-born Black woman in Reconstruction-era Brooklyn, Libertie Sampson struggles against her mother’s medical aspirations for her when she finds herself more drawn to a musical career that could compromise her autonomy.
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The lost apothecary
by Sarah Penner
Secretly dispensing poisons to liberate women from the men who have wronged them, a London apothecary triggers unintended consequences that shape three lives across multiple centuries.
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The rose code : a novel
by Kate Quinn
Joining the elite Bletchley Park codebreaking team during World War II, three women from very different walks of life uncover a spy’s dangerous agenda against a backdrop of the royal wedding of Elizabeth and Philip.
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The stills
by Jess Montgomery
Investigating a teen’s near death from a tainted batch of moonshine, a sheriff and an expert distiller confront a nemesis bootlegger and a prohibitionist brother-in-law to protect the citizens of their 1927 Ohio community.
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Sunflower sisters : a novel
by Martha Hall Kelly
Union nurse Georgeanna Woolsey, an ancestor of Caroline Ferriday, travels with her sister to Gettysburg, where they cross paths with a slave-turned-army conscript and her cruel plantation mistress.
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A Time for Swords
by Matthew Harffy
Lindisfarne, AD793. The life of a novice monk will be changed forever when the Vikings attack.
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The widow queen
by Elçzbieta Cherezińska
Presented as a choice marriage candidate to princes in three different realms, a Polish duke’s daughter is forced to reconcile her dreams with the harsh realities of leadership in a foreign land.
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The women of Chateau Lafayette
by Stephanie Dray
A multi-generational saga based on true events is set in an extraordinary castle in the heart of France, where a schoolteacher, a socialite and a noblewoman question their roles and identities in the face of three major wars.
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