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Historical Fiction December 2018
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The Lake on Fire
by Rosellen Brown
After more than a decade, Rosellen Brown, author of ten celebrated books, is back with a gritty, absorbing, and deeply felt novel. The Lake on Fire is an epic narrative that begins among immigrants on a failing Wisconsin farm. Chaya and her strange, brilliant, little brother Asher depart for Chicago only to discover that the Gilded Age is as empty a façade as the beautiful Columbian Exposition attracting thousands to Lake Michigan's shore. They scrape together a meager living--she in a cigar factory; he, roaming the city and stealing books and jewelry to share with the poor, until they find different paths of escape. Chaya's becomes a deeply conflicted love story and Asher, haunted by his loyalty to the Fair's abandoned workers, is responsible for an astonishing terrorist act. The abandoned Fair burns to the ground as the city goes on with its usual business in this profound narrative that resonates eerily with today's news.
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| Little by Edward Carey Available only as an e-book and e-audiobook Introducing: Anne Marie Grosholtz, the Swiss orphan who grows up to become famous wax sculptor Madame Tussaud.
Why you might like it: Narrated with wit and verve by Marie, Little is a picaresque story of personal reinvention that unfolds against the backdrop of the French Revolution.
Illustration alert: Complementing the text are pen-and-ink spot drawings that are simultaneously whimsical and macabre. |
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The Dying of the Light
by Robert Goolrick
Forced into a marriage of convenience to save her family’s estate, Diana Cooke, coming of age just after World War I, sacrifices everything, including love, to become the wife of a man she cannot abide until fate intervenes.
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The Butcher's Daughter
by Victoria Glendinning
Rescued from a cloistered life by her high intelligence, Agnes grapples with the complex rules of the Tudor era as the subjugation of women and religious houses strips her of her home and forces her to survive by her wits.
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| Trinity by Louisa HallWhat it is: a mosaic novel about physicist and Manhattan Project director J. Robert Oppenheimer, told from the perspectives of seven different characters.
About the author: Louisa Hall's previous novel, Speak, also employed interconnected narratives to explore humanity's conflicted relationship with world-altering technologies.
Reviewers say: "Its genius is not to explain but to embody the science and politics that shaped Oppenheimer’s life" (The New York Times). |
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Once a Midwife
by Patricia Harman
When her husband is imprisoned for his pacifist stance when the U.S. enters World War II, midwife Patience Hester fights for her husband's release while running her practice in the face of hostile neighbors.
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Boardwalk Summer
by Meredith Jaeger
A Santa Cruz single mom navigates the joys and sorrows of following one's heart while investigating the story of a beauty queen who made a shocking choice decades earlier. By the author of The Dressmaker's Dowry.
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If You Leave Me
by Crystal Hana Kim
Introducing: Haemi and Kyunghwan, teenage sweethearts living in a refugee village in 1951 Busan, South Korea.
What happens: Haemi reluctantly agrees to marry Kyunghwan's cousin, Jisoo, a decision that will affect their families for generations.
You might also like: Jamie Ford's Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, which also follows a couple whose childhood friendship blossoms into love just before war separates them.
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| Wolves of Eden by Kevin McCarthyWhat it's about: Unable to adjust to civilian life after the American Civil War, brothers Michael and Thomas O’Driscoll reenlist in the U.S. Army and are dispatched to the Dakota territory to construct a fort. Predictably, the Lakota are not pleased about this development.
Why you might like it: Wolves of Eden offers a bleak and visceral account of frontier life during the era of American Westward Expansion.
You might also like: Robert Olmstead's Savage Country. |
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Where the Crawdads Sing
by Delia Owens
Fans of Barbara Kingsolver will love this stunning debut novel from a New York Times bestselling nature writer, about an unforgettable young woman determined to make her way in the wilds of North Carolina, and the two men that will break her isolation open. For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. She's barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark. But Kya is not what they say. Abandoned at age ten, she has survived on her own in the marsh that she calls home. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life lessons from the land, learning from the false signals of firefliesthe real way of this world. But while she could have lived in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world--until the unthinkable happens.
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| House of Thieves by Charles BelfoureWhat it's about: Architect John Cross attempts to save his family from financial and social ruin by joining the crime syndicate known as "Kent's Gents" and using his insider knowledge of Manhattan's buildings to plan and execute daring robberies.
Why you might like it: This fast-paced, suspenseful story by the author of The Paris Architect depicts both the high society and the criminal underworld of 1886 New York City.
You might also like: Carson Morton's historical caper novel Stealing Mona Lisa. Or, for a true account of a Gilded Age architect who turns to a life of crime, try J. North Conway's King of Heists. |
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| The Devil's Half Mile by Paddy HirschThe setting: New York City in 1799.
Starring: attorney Justice "Justy" Flanagan, whose investigation into his father's death draws him into a web of conspiracy and threatens to ignite a financial panic.
For fans of: the atmosphere and rich historical detail of Lyndsay Faye's Gods of Gotham; the financial and political intrigue of David Liss' The Whiskey Rebels. |
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| The Long Drop by Denise Mina Available only as an e-book Glasgow, 1958: two men embark on an all-night pub crawl: William Watt, who stands accused of murdering his entire family, and criminal Peter Manuel, who hints that he has evidence that will lead to the real killer.
Read it for: a strong sense of place, a subtle subversion of crime fiction tropes, and a penetrating look at class and gender roles.
About the author: Best known for her gritty mysteries set in modern-day Glasgow, Denise Mina takes the plunge into historical crime fiction with this novel based on real events. |
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| Sutton by J.R. MoehringerWhat happens: Released in 1969 after a 17-year stretch behind bars, charismatic bank robber Willie Sutton tours New York City with a reporter and a photographer in tow, reminiscing about the good old days.
About the author: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist J.R. Moehringer is also the author of a memoir, The Tender Bar.
Did you know? The real Willie Sutton penned two memoirs, I, Willie Sutton, and Where the Money Was, in which he recounts the highlights of his criminal career. |
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| See What I Have Done by Sarah SchmidtWhat it's about: Lizzie Borden took an axe...and, well, we all know what happened next. Or do we?
Why you might like it: This unsettling debut tells the story from the (conflicting) perspectives of Lizzie, her elder sister, a maid in the Borden household, and a stranger whose surprising connection to the crime is gradually revealed.
For fans of: Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace. |
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| The Paying Guests by Sarah WatersThe situation: To maintain their upper-middle-class lifestyle in 1920s London, 27-year-old "spinster" Frances Wray and her widowed mother must take in lodgers.
What happens next: Their first "paying guests" arrive, working-class married couple Leonard and Lillian Barber. Frances soon begins an affair with lovely Lillian, setting off a tragic chain of events.
About the author: Sarah Waters specializes in suspenseful and sensual historical novels steeped in atmosphere and rich in period detail. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Morton Grove Public Library 6140 Lincoln Ave Morton Grove, Illinois 60053 (847) 965-4220www.mgpl.org/ |
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