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Historical Fiction November 2018
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| A Well-Behaved Woman: A Novel of the Vanderbilts by Therese Anne FowlerWhat happens: Alva Smith, penniless but pedigreed, sets her sights on William K. Vanderbilt, heir to a railroad fortune. She soon learns that while money may provide security, it can't buy happiness.
Read it for: a richly detailed depiction of high society life during America's Gilded Age.
You might also like: Karen Harper's American Duchess, about William and Alva's daughter Consuelo. |
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Bellewether
by Susanna Kearsley
What it's about: The Wilde House Museum is said to be haunted by the ghost of a French Canadian soldier who fell in love with the daughter of the house during the Seven Years' War. As curator Charley Van Hoek investigates in the present day, a parallel narrative set in 1759 reveals the star-crossed love story from the perspectives of the couple.
Is it for you? if you don't mind a hint of the supernatural in otherwise realistic fiction, Bellewether offers well-drawn characters, a romantic narrative that bridges two timelines, and plenty of gothic atmosphere.
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| When the Men Were Gone by Marjorie Herrera LewisThe problem: In Brownwood, Texas, football is everything. But it's 1944 and most of the town's adult male population is serving overseas, leaving the high school team without a coach.
The solution: Assistant principal Tylene Wilson, a lifelong football fan, volunteers to coach the team -- despite the community's disapproval.
Inspired by: the real Tylene Wilson, who was the first woman to coach high school football in Texas. |
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The Clockmaker's Daughter
by Kate Morton
More than 150 years after an artist's retreat on the banks of the Upper Thames ends in murder, theft and ruin, a London archivist is drawn by a striking photograph and a sketchbook to discover a manor's secrets. By a New York Times best-selling author.
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| The Lost Queen by Signe PikeIntroducing: Chieftain's daughter Languoreth, who longs to become a Wisdom Keeper like her twin brother, Lailoken, but who must instead marry a highborn man and produce heirs.
Based on: Myrddin Wyllt, the probable inspiration for the Merlin of Arthurian legend; the history of the 6th-century Kingdom of Strathclyde (in present-day Scotland).
For fans of: Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon. |
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The Possible World
by Liese O'Halloran Schwarz
An overworked ER doctor's efforts to help the traumatized, 6-year-old sole survivor of an act of profound violence are shaped by an elderly woman's decision to share a long-buried secret. By the author of Near Canaan.
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The Collector's Apprentice
by Barbara A. Shapiro
Abandoned in 1922 Paris when she is wrongly accused of theft, 19-year-old Paulien changes her identity and is swept up in the expatriate art world of Gertrude Stein and Henri Matisse while working to recover her father's stolen collection. By the author of The Art Forger.
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| House of Gold by Natasha SolomonsInspired by: the Rothschilds, the German Jewish family that established an international banking business in Europe.
Introducing: Rebellious Greta Goldbaum, who grudgingly agrees to an arranged marriage with her distant cousin Albert, whom she's never met. Their union, meant to strengthen the ties between the Austrian and English branches of the family, is put to the test by World War I.
Want a taste? "If Vienna was the aged aunt in her crinoline chaperoning the empire, then Paris was the cousin slipping a glass of champagne into her hand." |
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The Last Hours
by Minette Walters
Assuming control of her despised late husband's people in the wake of the Black Death, a 14th-century noblewoman struggles to protect formerly oppressed people who have been rendered superstitious and fanatical by the plague. By a New York Times best-selling author.
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The Labyrinth of the Spirits
by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
A conclusion to the best-selling series finds enigmatic Alicia Gris, supported by the Sempere family, uncovering one of the most shocking conspiracies in Spanish history. By the award-winning author of The Angel's Game.
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| Days Without End by Sebastian BarryStarring: 17-year-old immigrant Thomas McNulty, a survivor of Ireland's Great Famine, and John Cole, his friend and lover.
What happens: The couple's enlistment in the U.S. Army takes them from the Great Plains to the battlefields of the Civil War. Meanwhile, they try to build a life together in a society that doesn't understand or accept romantic relationships between men.
Book buzz: Originally published in the U.K., Days Without End won the 2016 Costa Book of the Year award. |
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| The Fortunes by Peter Ho DaviesWhat it is: a collection of four interlinked stories that examine the Chinese American experience from the 19th century to the present.
Contains: "Gold," about a mixed-race immigrant from the Pearl River Delta who becomes a railroad baron's valet; "Silver," starring real-life 1930s Hollywood actress Anna May Wong; "Jade," set against the backdrop of 1980s Detroit's struggling auto industry; and "Pearl," about a biracial writer's adoption of a child from China. |
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| The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street by Susan Jane GilmanWhat it is: an engaging rags-to-riches story that takes readers from the tenements of the Lower East Side to the gilded environs of Manhattan's wealthiest (with stops along the way at Studio 54 and the White House).
Starring: Lillian Dunkle (née Malka Treynovsky), the Russian Jewish immigrant child who, adopted by the Italian ice-peddling Dinello family, grows up to build an ice cream empire.
For fans of: New Yorkers with outsize personalities who narrate their eventful lives, such as the protagonists of Jami Attenberg's Saint Mazie or Kathleen Rooney's Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk. |
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| Pachinko by Min Jin LeeWhat it is: a sweeping family saga spanning four generations and eight decades, which opens with Japan's annexation of Korea in 1910.
What happens: Pregnant 16-year-old Sunja, spurned by her married lover, reluctantly accepts a marriage proposal from the minister lodging at her family's boarding house. The newlyweds travel to Japan to begin their life together.
For fans of: Alan Brennert's Honolulu, about a Korean American family in Hawaii; Eugenia Kim's The Calligrapher's Daughter, whose protagonist, like Sunja, proves resourceful during troubled times. |
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| The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermottWhat it is: award-winning author Alice McDermott's intimate depiction of an Irish American enclave in early 20th-century Brooklyn.
It starts when: an Irish immigrant's suicide results in his pregnant widow's job as laundress for the Little Nursing Sisters of the Sick Poor.
You might also like: Matthew Thomas' We Are Not Ourselves or Kathleen Donohoe's Ashes of Fiery Weather, both multigenerational sagas about Irish American families in New York City. |
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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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