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Historical Fiction July 2018
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| The Summer I Met Jack by Michelle GableWhat it is: an inspired-by-real-life tale of love, politics, and glamour, starring a young Jack Kennedy -- an up-and-coming congressman from Hyannis Port, MA -- and Alicia Darr, the Polish immigrant with whom he fell in love.
For fans of: multi-generational family sagas -- or, of course, the Kennedy family.
Reviewers say: “An alternate Kennedy family history that will leave readers wondering whether America knew the real JFK at all” (Kirkus Reviews). |
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Chasing The Wind
by C.C. Humphreys
What it's about: Roxy Loewen falls for fellow pilot Jocco Zomack. Jocco's father is an art dealer who's found the original of Bruegel's famous painting, The Fall of Icarus. When the Nazis steal the painting, Roxy and Jocco decide they are going to steal it back.
For fans of: Riveting and gorgeous historical fiction and readers of Paula McLain, Roberta Rich, Kate Morton and Jacqueline Winspear.
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This I Know
by Eldonna Edwards
What it's about: While trying to deal with her depressed mother and her pious father in a small Midwest town in the 1960s, 11-year-old Grace struggles with inherited psychic powers that her aunt calls "The Knowing."
For fans of: Coming of age story set in a small Midwest town in the late 1960s and helmed by an unforgettable and compassionate young protagonist.
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| The Removes by Tatjana SoliFeaturing: fifteen-year-old Anne Cummins, who is the sole survivor after her family is brutally attacked on their homestead by the Cheyenne; and Libbie Custer, who faces a difficult life on the plains with her husband, Civil War hero General George Armstrong Custer.
Why you might like it: This thrilling historical novel is an epic tale of the clashing cultures on the American frontier.
For further reading: Savage Country by Robert Olmstead, which also focuses on women settlers in the American West. |
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| The Madonna of the Mountains by Elise ValmorbidaWhat it’s about: In 1923 Italy, 25-year-old Maria Vittoria is almost too old to marry, but her life’s path changes when she weds Achille, a veteran of the Great War. Together they open a small grocery, and over the next few decades, Maria experiences all the good and the bad that life offers.
Is it for you? Yes, if you like multi-generational sagas about women’s lives, Italian history, and are interested in the period between the World Wars. |
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| The Kid by Ron HansenWhat it's about: In 1880s New Mexico Territory, young gunslinger Billy the Kid falls in with a gang of thieves and becomes enmeshed in the Lincoln County War, giving birth to the myth we all know today.
Reviewers say: Author Ron Hansen presents this "very good and tangled story in a spry and inventive way” (The New York Times).
Further reading: If you also enjoy nonfiction, you might want to seek out Michael Wallis’ biography Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride. |
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| World, Chase Me Down-[EBook] by Andrew HillemanWhat it’s about: In the first great crime of the 20th century, an out-of-work butcher, Pat Crowe, makes a name for himself when he kidnaps the teenage son of a meatpacking tycoon and ransoms him for $25,000 -- and that’s just the start of Crowe’s incredible story, which takes him around the globe as he evades capture.
Why you might like it: If you like raucous, bawdy antiheroes whom you can’t help but cheer for, World, Chase Me Down will hit the spot. |
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The Ballad of Black Bart
by Loren D Estleman
What it is: Between July 1875 and November 1883, a single outlaw robbed the stagecoaches of Wells Fargo in California's Mother Lode country a record of twenty-eight times. Armed with an unloaded shotgun, walking to and from the scenes of the robberies, often for hundreds of miles, and leaving poems behind, the infamous Black Bart was fiercely hunted.
Is it for you: The Ballad of Black Bart is a duel of wits involving two adversaries of surpassing cleverness, set against the vivid backdrop of the Old West.
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No Justice in Hell
by Charles G. West
What it is about: Three desperate women. One deranged killer. John Hawk has to stay two steps ahead, keeping the ladies safe and sound until they get to the saloon. There's just one problem: the outlaw got there first and waiting for Hawk and his girls.
Reviewers Say: "Rarely has an author painted the great American West in strokes so bold, vivid, and true" (Ralph Compton).
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The Winter Family-[EBook]
by Clifford Jackman
What it is: Traces decades in the lives of a post-Civil War Oklahoma family that includes a psychopathic killer, a group of cruel brothers, an impassive ex-slave, a dangerous child prodigy, and a pathologically deviant patriarch.
Why you might like it: With its haunting, hard-edged style, The Winter Family is a feverishly paced meditation on human nature, violence and the deep contradictions of progress.
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