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Historical Fiction June 2017
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| Miss Burma by Charmaine CraigIn 1939, Benny, an Anglo-Indian pugilist from Rangoon's Jewish quarter, falls in love with Khin, a Karen woman. Their daughter, Louisa, grows up to be a beauty queen and an unlikely symbol of unity in a divided nation. Based on author Charmaine Craig's own family history, this sweeping saga brings to life a tumultuous half-century in the history of Burma (Myanmar) that includes British colonial rule, World War II and Japanese occupation, independence, and military dictatorship. |
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"Somerset, 1911. The forces of war are building across Europe, but this pocket of England, where the rhythms of lives are dictated by the seasons and the land, remains untouched. Leo, a talented rider and son of the under keeper to the head groundskeeper, grows up alongside the master's spirited daughter, Charlotte" Following the lives of an English farmer and his family on Lord Prideaux’s estate as at the start of World War I in 1911 in the first book of a new trilogy by the author of In the Place of Fallen Leaves.
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Windy City blues
by Renée Rosen
When her piano talents are discovered by a record company, Leeba becomes an accomplished songwriter and friend to several blues legends before her romance with a black blues guitarist is met by racism and anti-Semitism in segregated Chicago during the civil rights era. By the author of White Collar Girl and What the Lady Wants.
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| The Witchfinder's Sister: A Novel by Beth UnderdownWith the English Civil War raging and the country "falling apart at the seams," pregnant widow Alice returns to Manningtree, Essex, to live with her brother, the self-proclaimed "Witchfinder General" Matthew Hopkins. Unfortunately, in her absence Matthew has changed from a sensitive man young man set on joining the clergy to one whose mission in life is to put vulnerable women to death. Inspired by historical events, this compelling novel's leisurely pace builds to a dramatic climax as Alice gradually perceives the danger of the situation. |
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Crying for the Moon by Mary WalshCanadian actor, comedian and social activist Mary Walsh explodes onto the literary scene with this unforgettable story of a young woman coming of age in late 1960s Newfoundland. Raised on tough love in St. John's, Maureen is the second-youngest daughter of a bitter and angry mother and a beaten-down father who tells the best stories (but only when he's drunk). If life at home is difficult, then school is torture, with the nuns watching every move she makes. But Maureen wants a bigger life. She wants to go to sexy, exciting Montreal and be part of Expo 67, even if it means faking her way into the school choir. Finally achieving her goal of reaching Montreal, Maureen escapes the vigilant eye of Sister Imobilis and sneaks away, and over the course of a few hours, one humiliating encounter with a young Leonard Cohen and a series of breathtakingly bad decisions change the course of her life forever.
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| The Movement of Stars by Amy BrillAn oddity in her 19th-century Quaker community, 24-year-old amateur astronomer Hannah Price searches the skies above Nantucket with her telescope each night in the hope of discovering a new comet. Her father expects her to marry (and soon!), but Hannah only cares about astronomy -- until she meets Isaac Martin, a black sailor from the Azores who asks Hannah to teach him the science of navigation. Loosely based on the life of Maria Mitchell, the first American woman to become a professional astronomer, The Movement of Stars is a thought-provoking and dramatic story. |
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| The Lieutenant: A Novel by Kate GrenvilleEighteenth-century English lieutenant Daniel Rooke is gifted at astronomy and mathematics, but hopeless when it comes to interacting with people. The one exception is his surprising friendship with Tagaran, a young Aboriginal girl whom Daniel meets when his ship, the HMS Resolution, arrives in New South Wales, Australia. While his intent is to build an observatory to search for an elusive comet, Daniel soon becomes fascinated by the life and language of Tagaran's people -- to the dismay of both of their cultures. Kate Grenville's novel of Australian history serves as a companion book to her previous novel, the Commonwealth Writer's Prize-winning The Secret River. |
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Space
by James A. Michener
Engineer Stanley Mott, astronomy student John Pope, naval hero Norman Grant, and rocket engineer Dieter Kolff serve as principals in the forty-year history of America's space program and share the complex drama with numerous others
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The Music of the Spheres by Elizabeth RedfernIn 1795 London, Jonathan Absey of the Home Office pursues dual investigations into French espionage in Britain and the still unsolved murder of his teenage daughter, a pursuit that leads to a bizarre society of astronomers called the Company of Titius whose quest for a long-lost star leads ever closer to his own probe. A first novel.
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V-S day : a novel of alternate history
by Allen M. Steele
"With a gift for visionary fiction that "would make Robert A. Heinlein proud" (Entertainment Weekly), three-time Hugo Award-winning author Allen Steele now imagines an alternate history rooted in an actual historical possibility: What if the race to space had occurred in the early days of World War II? It's 1941, and Wernher von Braun is ordered by his fuhrer to abandon the V-2 rocket and turn German resources in a daring new direction: construction of a manned orbital spacecraft capable of attacking theUnited States. Work on the rocket--called Silvervogel--begins at Peenemunde. Though the plan is top secret, British intelligence discovers it and brings word to Franklin Roosevelt. The American president determines that there is only one logical response: The United States must build a spacecraft with the ability to intercept Silvervogel and destroy it. Robert Goddard, inventor of the liquid-fuel rocket, agrees to head the classified project. So begins a race against time between two secret military programs and two brilliant scientists whose high-stakes competition will spiral into a deadly game of political intrigue and unforeseen catastrophes played to the death in the brutal skies above America"
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Lambton County Library 787 Broadway St. Wyoming, Ontario N0N1T0 519-845-3324www.lclibrary.ca |
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