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Historical Fiction February 2020
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| The Secret Guests by Benjamin BlackWho: the young English princesses Margaret and Elizabeth.
Where: Clonmillis Hall, an estate in the Irish countryside where the princesses have been sent to protect them from the Blitz, complete with assumed names and an MI5 agent posing as their governess.
Why you might like it: While in real life the royal family stayed in England during the entirety of the war, this reimagined story puts the princesses in the neutral Republic of Ireland, where their safety from the war is replaced with the fear of what Irish nationalists might do if their true identities are revealed. |
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| The Girls With No Names by Serena BurdickWhat it is: an intricately plotted story of sisterly love, teenage rebellion, and the limited options available to young women in Gilded Age America, inspired by Ireland's notorious Magdalene Laundries.
Read it for: The moving bond between courageous sisters Effie and Luella, who will do anything they can to find each other again after a family secret drives them apart.
Reviewers say: "exquisitely wrought and meticulously researched" (Publishers Weekly). |
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Light changes everything : a novel
by Nancy E. Turner
The best-selling author of These Is My Words returns to the world of Sarah Agnes Prine through the wide-eyes of her irrepressable young niece, Mary Pearl.
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A long petal of the sea : a novel
by Isabel Allende
Sponsored by the poet Pablo Neruda to flee the violence of the Spanish Civil War, a pregnant widow and an army doctor unite in an arranged marriage only to be swept up by the early days of World War II.
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| The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi CoatesWhat it is: the haunting, lyrical story of Hiram Walker, who uses the remarkable abilities inherited from his mother (the titular water dancer) to assist with the Underground Railroad after escaping the plantation owned by his white father.
Author alert: MacArthur fellow Ta-Nehisi Coates has written for numerous publications including The Atlantic, where he also served as an editor. The Water Dancer is his first novel, but his other books include Between the World and Me and We Were Eight Years in Power.
Reviewers say: "bold, dazzling, and not to be missed" (Publishers Weekly). |
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| The World That We Knew by Alice HoffmanWhat it's about: The journeys (both literal and figurative) of Jewish girls Ettie, Lea, and Ava who flee 1940s Berlin for occupied France, where their paths diverge and reconnect in dramatic, heartwrenching ways.
Odd girl out: Posing as Lea's cousin, Ava is actually a golem Ettie built back in Berlin to protect Lea from harm -- a duty she performs with equal parts warmth and ruthlessness.
What sets it apart: author Alice Hoffman's ability to thread moments of compelling sweetness into the lives of her characters as they try to survive the horrors of Nazism. |
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| She Would Be King by Wayétu MooreWhat it is: a haunting and thought-provoking story of the founding of Liberia, driven by a group of complex, flawed characters from different parts of the African diaspora, all of whom have unusual abilities that set them on the path toward each other.
Starring: Gbessa, a young girl who is shunned from her village as a witch for her powers of resurrection; June Dey, an American former slave who has superhuman strength; and Jamaican-born Norman Aragon, a mixed-race man who inherited his mother's power of invisibility. |
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| The Old Drift by Namwali SerpellWhat it is: a sweeping family saga that interweaves the history of colonial Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) with the complex web of connections between generations of three different families -- one English, one Italian, and one African.
For fans of: Isabel Allende's classic debut novel The House of the Spirits, which similarly blends post-colonial history with magical realism as it follows the generations of interconnected families.
Reviewers say: The Old Drift is a novel with a "generous spirit, sensory richness, and visionary heft" that set it apart from other family epics (Publishers Weekly). |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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