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Historical Fiction October 2017
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That's my baby
by Frances Itani
At the end of Frances Itani's Tell, a baby is adopted by a young Deseronto couple who are coming to terms with the end of the Great War. Eighteen years on, the baby, Hanora, now a young woman, is told about her adoption, but given no details. As a second world war looms, Hanora is determined to uncover the mysteries of her identity. This quest will take her across the ocean with her cousin, Billie, and headlong into the tumult of Europe. Amid the tensions of World War II, the music and the great dance halls of the era beckon, and a career as a journalist becomes possible, even as her great love, Tobe, enlists in the Infantry. But Hanora will not let the past lie, even though, decades later, the truth remains beyond her grasp. Billie, whose memory is fading as she slips into dementia, provides elusive clues, but it isn't until Hanora discovers a set of diaries written by a late local artist and that she begins to piece together the central issue of her own identity, hidden from her since birth.
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First snow, last light
by Wayne Johnston
Ned Vatcher, only 14, ambles home from school in the chill hush that precedes the first storm of the winter of 1936 to find the house locked, the family car missing, and his parents gone without a trace. From that point on, his life is driven by the need to find out what happened to the Vanished Vatchers. His father, Edgar, born to a poor family of fishermen, had risen to become the right-hand man to the colony's prime minister, then suffered an unexpected fall from grace. Were he and his wife murdered? Was it suicide? Had they run away? If so, why had they left their only child behind? Ned soon finds himself enmeshed in another family, that of his missing father and the poverty from which the man somehow escaped. His grandparents, Nan and Reg, his Uncle Cyril and others, are themselves haunted by the inexplicable disappearance of a third Vatcher, a young man who was lost at sea on a calm and sunny day years earlier. Two other people loom large as Ned becomes Newfoundland's first media mogul, building an empire to insulate him from loss: a Jesuit priest named Father Duggan, and Sheilagh Fielding, a boozy giantess who, while wandering the city streets at night, composes satiric columns that scandalize the rich and powerful. In Ned, Fielding sees a surrogate for her two lost children, the secret that dogs her life, while Ned believes the enigmatic Fielding to be his soulmate.
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Lilac girls : a novel
by Martha Hall Kelly
The lives of three women converge at the Ravensbrück concentration camp as one resolves to help from her post at the French consulate, one becomes a courier in the Polish resistance, and one takes a German government medical position
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Caroline : Little house, revisited
by Sarah Elizabeth Miller
Authorized by the Little House estate, a retelling of the early pioneering journeys of the Ingalls family is told from the perspective of a pregnant Caroline, who in the frigid winter of 1870 leaves the safety of Wisconsin for a life of hazards and promise in unsettled Kansas Indian Territory. 200,000 first printing.
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A reckoning: a novel
by Linda Spalding
A Reckoning opens in the spring of 1885, when John Dickinson is involved in a shameful secret that will require a tragic decision. The family's resources have been wasted by a reckless brother who holds all of them hostage and, adding fuel to John's desperation, the enslaved workers have been visited by a Canadian abolitionist who pushes them to escape. Bry does, and his pursuit of freedom will involve a dangerous quest to find his mother and child in Canada. Meanwhile, the Dickinsons become fugitives of another kind, escaping their losses in a wagon en route to the West that will eventually be loaded onto a Missouri river boat for a dark adventure. Forests and rivers prevail in this story, and each person will be tested, especially thirteen-year-old Martin, whose lonely journey with a pet bear is almost mythic.
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Focus on: Queens of England
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| The Winter Crown: A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine by Elizabeth ChadwickAt the heart of this novel is the tumultuous marriage of Alienor (Eleanor) of Aquitaine and King Henry II of England, whose once-passionate union has devolved into acrimony. After 14 years of marriage and eight children, Henry casts aside Alienor in favor of his long-time mistress, prompting a rebellion on Alienor's part that will have devastating consequences for the entire family. The Winter Crown is the 2nd book in a trilogy that follows the life of this formidable queen, after The Summer Queen, which focuses on her first marriage to Louis VII of France. |
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| The Lady of Misrule: A Novel by Suzannah DunnWhen 16-year-old Lady Jane Grey is dethroned (following her nine-day reign) and sent to the Tower of London in 1553, she's accompanied by Elizabeth Tilney, a "good Catholic girl" who has her own private reasons for serving as chaperone. Both women view their time in the Tower as a temporary interruption of their lives; neither expects that one of them won't survive it. Other novels about England's shortest reigning monarch include Philippa Gregory's The Last Tudor, Alison Weir's Innocent Traitor, and Ella March Chase's Three Maids for a Crown. |
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| Elizabeth I by Margaret GeorgeWell-known for her biographical novels about powerful, much-mythologized female rulers (including Cleopatra and Mary, Queen of Scots), author Margaret George attempts to unknot the tangled relationship between Queen Elizabeth I of England and Lettice Knollys, her cousin and rival, whose marriage to Elizabeth's favorite courtier, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, incurs the monarch's wrath. This "meticulously envisioned" (Booklist) dual portrait compares and contrasts the self-sacrificing Virgin Queen, wedded to her beloved England, and the thrice-married, self-serving Lettice, who, as it turns out, may not be that different from her royal relative. |
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| Three Sisters, Three Queens by Philippa GregoryAs girls, Katherine of Aragon and her sisters-in-law, Margaret and Mary Tudor, form a strong, if complicated, bond. As adults, they are destined to become bitter rivals as the demands of marriage and politics lead to betrayal. Unfolding primarily from Margaret's (acerbic) point of view, this dramatic novel is a must for Tudor aficionados who enjoy gossip, scandal, and intrigue. |
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| Katherine of Aragon, The True Queen: A Novel by Alison WeirThis opening installment of novelist and historian Alison Weir's Six Tudor Queens series begins as the 16-year-old Catalina de Aragon arrives in England to marry Arthur, Prince of Wales, who dies shortly after their wedding. She then weds his brother, Henry VIII, and theirs is a happy union -- at least initially, until their inability to produce an heir causes Henry's eye to wander. Can't get enough Tudor drama? Next up is Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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