|
Historical Fiction May 2017
|
|
|
|
|
4 3 2 1
by Paul Auster
A single child born in 1947 experiences four parallel lifetimes poignantly marked by shifting family fortunes, athletic pursuits, friendships, sex, intellectual passions and the same intriguing woman. By the best-selling author of Winter Journal.
|
|
|
Promises to keep
by Genevieve Graham
Young, beautiful Amélie Belliveau lives with her family among the Acadians of Grande Pré, Nova Scotia, content with her life on their idyllic farm. Along with their friends, the neighbouring Mi'kmaq, the community believes they can remain on neutral political ground despite the rising tides of war. But peace can be fragile, and sometimes faith is not enough. When the Acadians refuse to pledge allegiance to the British in their war against the French, the army invades Grande Pré, claims the land, and rips the people from their homes. Amélie's entire family, alongside the other Acadians, is exiled to ports unknown aboard dilapidated ships.
|
|
|
The Last Painting of Sara De Vos: A Novel
by Dominic Smith
Parallel narratives unfold and eventually converge in this multi-layered novel, which explores the legacy of fictional 17th-century Dutch painter Sara de Vos. The artist's masterpiece, At the Edge of a Wood, is stolen from Manhattan attorney Marty de Groot's Upper East Side residence in 1957 and replaced with a skillfully executed forgery that remains a secret for decades -- until museum curator Ellie Shipley, who created the fake, is confronted by the two versions of the painting. Don't miss this richly detailed and complex meditation on art and identity by the author of Bright and Distant Shores.
|
|
| The Women in the Castle: A Novel by Jessica ShattuckOnce a fashionable gathering place for Germany's smart set, the Bavarian castle of Burg Lingenfels is now, in the immediate aftermath of World War II, a crumbling ruin. This character-driven novel follows Marianne von Lingenfels, who offers shelter to Benita Fledermann and Ania Grabarek, the widows of men who fought for the resistance alongside her late husband. Their harrowing experiences forge strong bonds of friendship, but changing circumstances introduce tensions that will tear them apart. With its flawed characters and unflinching examination of the moral dilemmas faced by ordinary people living under authoritarian regimes, this novel may appeal to readers who enjoyed Maria Hummel's Motherland. |
|
|
War cry
by Wilbur A Smith
A sequel to Assegai is set in Africa between World Wars I and II and finds widower Leon Courtney navigating murky political waters while his headstrong daughter, Saffron, travels to culturally contrasting London to attend Oxford. 100,000 first printing.
|
|
|
Siege 13 : Stories
by Tamas Dobozy
"Built around the events of the Soviet Budapest Offensive at the end of World War II and its long shadow, the stories in Siege 13 are full of wit, irony, and dark humor. In a series of linked stories that alternate between the siege itself and a contemporary community of Hungarian emigrés who find refuge in the West (Canada, the U.S,. and parts of Europe), Dobozy utilizes a touch of deadpan humor and a deep sense of humanity to extoll the horrors and absurdity of ordinary people caught in the crosshairsof brutal conflict and its silent aftermath. Carefully constructing an intentionally faulty history of war and its effects on a community, Dobozy blurs the line between right and wrong, portraying a world in which one man's betrayal is another man's survival, and in which common citizens are caught between the pincers of aggressors, leading to actions at once deplorable, perplexing, and heroic. A psychological study in the affects of aggression, silence, and social upheaval, Dobozy's stories feature characters, "lost forever in the labyrinth built on the thin border between memories and reality, past and present, words and silence. Like Nabokov, Tamas Dobozy combines the best elements of European and American storytelling, creating a fictional world of his own."(David Albahari, author of Gotz and Meyer)"
|
|
| City of Thieves: A Novel by David BenioffDuring the Siege of Leningrad, 17-year-old Lev Beniov lands in jail after looting a German paratrooper's corpse for much-needed supplies. While awaiting execution, Lev meets army deserter Kolya, who has also been sentenced to death. However, the condemned men receive a last-minute reprieve when NKVD Colonel Grechko tasks them with gathering ingredients for his daughter's wedding cake. Easier said than done: it's winter in a city that's been in starvation mode since summer, which means that Lev and Kolya must venture into enemy-occupied territory outside the city. Despite its grim subject matter, City of Thieves is a lively adventure story leavened with dark humor. |
|
|
The midwife's tale
by Samuel S. Thomas
A tale set against a backdrop of the 1644 Siege of York finds midwife Bridget Hodgson joining forces with resourceful servant Martha Hawkins to prove the innocence of a woman who has been sentenced to burn at the stake for murdering her husband. A first novel.
|
|
|
A chain of thunder : a novel of the Siege of Vicksburg
by Jeff Shaara
Presents a first installment in a trilogy inspired by the Siege of Vicksburg that follows Ulysses S. Grant's successful crossing of the Mississippi in May 1863 and his reluctant decision to surround Confederate soldiers and citizens in a ring of Federal entrenchments to starve them into surrendering
|
|
| The Dovekeepers: A Novel by Alice HoffmanThis heartbreaking novel focuses on four women whose lives intersect in 70 CE during the siege of Masada, the mountain fortress to which 900 Jewish refugees fled after the Romans sacked Jerusalem. There's assassin's daughter Yael, pregnant by her married lover; widowed grandmother Revka, now the guardian of her grandsons following the deaths of her husband and daughter; and Alexandrian priestess and mystic Shirah and her equally unconventional daughter Aziza, a warrior. Readers interested in Jewish history, war stories, or women's lives in antiquity should check out The Dovekeepers, which "makes ancient history live and breathe" (Booklist). |
|
Contact your librarian for more great books!
|
|
|
|
|
|