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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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| 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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Washington Black : A Novel
by Esi Edugyan
What it's about: Unexpectedly chosen to be a family manservant, an 11-year-old Barbados sugar-plantation slave is initiated into a world of technology and dignity before a devastating betrayal propels him throughout the world in search of his true self.
You may also like: Glory Over Everything by Kathleen Grissom or The Second Mrs. Hockaday by Susan Rivers. Both fugitive slave stories in the pre-emancipation south.
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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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| Days Without End : a novel by Sebastian BarryWhat it's about: Entering the U.S. army after fleeing the Great Famine in Ireland, seventeen-year-old Thomas McNulty and his brother-in-arms, John Cole, experience the harrowing realities of the Indian wars and the American Civil War between the Wyoming plains and Tennessee |
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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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Bridge of Scarlet Leaves
by Kristina McMorris
What it's about: In 1941 Los Angeles, violinist Maddie Kern elopes with Lane Moritomo, the ambitious son of Japanese immigrants, but after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Lane is seen as the enemy and she must sacrifice her Juilliard ambitions when he is interned at a war relocation camp.
You may also like: Stars Over Clear Lake by Loretta Ellsworth, another historical tale of music and love during World War II.
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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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Promised To Me
by Robin Lee Hatcher
What it's about: After eleven years, Karola Breit was sure Jakob Hirsch had forgotten her. Then came his marriage proposal. With more impulse than wisdom, she crossed the ocean to begin a new life with him in Shadow Creek, Idaho. Little did Karola dream of the changes the years had brought to the man she once loved - which included three small children waiting with him at the station. Unwilling to marry this stranger, Karola agrees to look after the children until the harvest is in.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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