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Historical Fiction August 2021 |
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Welcome to the August Historical Fiction Newsletter! This month our titles take us to Afghanistan, China, England, the Caribbean, Georgia, Maine, Montana, North Carolina, Bangkok, London, Brooklyn and Baltimore! Three novels are set in the gilded age, two in the American civil war and reconstruction era. Three stories begin in the 1950s or 1970s and several are set in the Victorian era. Have you signed up for the Adult Summer Reading Program? There is still time; it runs through Labor Day. Register, and turn in your reading logs to be in the drawing for fabulous prizes! You will also earn book bucks that you can spend at the Friend’s book sale. Any book you have read or listened to between Memorial Day and Labor Day can be logged. Books do not have be ones you get through the library. Any book, ebook, audio book or graphic novel counts! |
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| The Sweetness of Water by Nathan HarrisWhat it is: the lyrical, haunting story of a diverse group of people attempting to build lives for themselves as the American Civil War draws to a close.
Starring: Prentiss and Landry, two recently freed brothers planning to track down their mother in the North; George and Isabelle Walker, a couple who hire the brothers to work on their Georgia farm; Caleb Walker, George and Isabelle's presumed-dead son, who shares a forbidden romance with another soldier.
Read it for: the complexity of the characters, who often inhabit moral gray areas; the poignancy of everyone's plans for the future, which hang in limbo while they wait for the war to finally end. |
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Libertie : a novel by Kaitlyn GreenidgeComing of age as a free-born Black woman in Reconstruction-era Brooklyn, Libertie Sampson struggles against her mother’s medical aspirations for her when she finds herself more drawn to a musical career that could compromise her autonomy.
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Mary Jane : a novel by Jessica Anya BlauTaking a summer job as a nanny for the daughter of a local doctor, straight-laced Mary Jane is introduced to a world of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll, which helps her figure out what she really wants out of life, and what kind of person she’s going to be.
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The dictionary of lost words : a novel by Pip WilliamsDeciding to create her own dictionary — the Dictionary of Lost Words — Esme, who has collected “objectionable” words a team of male scholars omit from the first Oxford English Dictionary, leaves her sheltered world behind to meet the people whose words will fill those pages.
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The chosen and the beautiful by Nghi VoTreated as an exotic attraction by her peers, Jordan Baker, queer and Asian, has the world of illusion, magic and mystery at her fingertips but the most important doors remain closed to her until she can figure out a way to open them.
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| Island Queen by Vanessa RileyWhat it is: the engaging and richly detailed story of Dorothy Kirwan Thomas, an 18th and 19th-century Caribbean woman who built a business empire in the Leeward Islands to buy freedom for herself and her family.
Did you know? The real-life Dorothy's descendants include English opera singer Henrietta Simon Sala and her journalist son George Augustus Sala, who attracted the patronage of Charles Dickens and rose to prominence at The Daily Telegraph.
You might also like: Edward P. Jones' Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Known World, another atmospheric novel about a former slave who becomes wealthy and prominent in a slaveholding society. |
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The personal librarian by Marie BenedictHired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library, Belle de Costa Greene becomes one of the most powerful women in New York despite the dangerous secret she keeps.
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The savage instinct
by M. M. DeLuca
"England, 1873. Clara Blackstone has just been released after one year in a private asylum for the insane. Clara has two goals: to reunite with her husband, Henry, and to never-ever-return to the asylum. As she enters Durham, Clara finds her carriage surrounded by a mob gathered to witness the imprisonment of Mary Ann Cotton-England's first female serial killer-accused of poisoning nearly twenty people, including her husbands and children. Clara soon finds the oppressive confinement of her marriage no less terrifying than the white-tiled walls of Hoxton. And as she grows increasingly suspicious of Henry's intentions, her fascination with Cotton grows. Soon, Cotton is not just a notorious figure from the headlines, but an unlikely confidante, mentor-and perhaps accomplice-in Clara's struggle to protect her money, her freedom and her life"--Provided by publisher
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The Social Graces
by Renée Rosen
Starring: established Gilded Age society hostess Caroline Astor; and Alma Vanderbilt, the ambitious "new money" socialite who threatens to supplant Mrs. Astor.
Read it for: the richly detailed portrayal of the era's over-the-top wealth; the biting wit and clever maneuvering of each woman, which will make it hard to choose sides.
Reviewers say: "Rosen presents an engaging novel of 1870s high-society foibles that will please book clubs and fans of glittering frock flicks" (Booklist).
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What's mine and yours : a novel by Naima CosterIntegrated into a predominantly white high school, an anxious young Black student and a half-Latina whose mother would have her pass as white join a bridge-building school play that shapes the trajectory of their adult lives.
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Sparks like stars : a novel by Nadia HashimiAdopted from Afghanistan 40 years earlier by an American diplomat in the aftermath of a coup and assassination, Aryana has a chance encounter with the soldier who saved her life and killed her family.
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My old home : a novel of exile by Orville SchellA former Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism dean and Emmy Award-winning PBS producer presents the story of a rare Chinese student at 1950 San Francisco’s Conservatory of Music who upon returning home is confronted by an erratic new government.
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The northern reach by W. S. WinslowA grieving mother keeps vigil by the coast of her Maine community while her neighbors endure the hardships of dirt farming, bootlegging and tourism throughout the 20th century. A first novel.
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Great circle by Maggie Shipstead"After being rescued as infants from a sinking ocean liner in 1914, Marian and Jamie Graves are raised by their dissolute uncle in Missoula, Montana. At fifteen, she drops out of school and finds an unexpected and dangerous patron in a wealthy rancher who provides a plane and subsidizes her lessons. It allows her to fulfill her destiny: circumnavigating the globe. A century later, Hadley Baxter is cast to play Marian in a film that centers on Marian's disappearance over the South Pacific. Her immersion into the character of Marian unfolds, thrillingly, alongside Marian's own story, as the two women's fates collide"
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What could be saved : a novel by Liese O'Halloran SchwarzA reclusive artist ignores her sister’s warnings against reconnecting with a long-lost sibling before learning the story of her family’s stationing in 1972 Bangkok and her mother’s passionate affair against a backdrop of dynamic world changes.
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The devil may dance : a novel by Jake TapperIn a fast-paced sequel to The Hellfire Club, Charlie and Margaret Marder, political stars in 1960s Washington D.C., arrive in Los Angeles on their latest case, only to be pursued by sinister forces from Hollywood’s stages to the newly founded Church of Scientology. |
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Comes the war by Ed Ruggero"April 1944, the fifty-fifth month of the war in Europe. The entire island of Britain fairly buzzes with the coiled energy of a million men poised to leap the Channel to France, the first, riskiest step in the Allies' long slog to the heart of Germany and the end of the war. Lieutenant Eddie Harkins is tasked to investigate the murder of Helen Batcheller, an OSS analyst. As bombs fall, Harkins must solve the murder and reveal the spies before it is too late." |
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The stills by Jess MontgomeryInvestigating a teen’s near death from a tainted batch of moonshine, a sheriff and an expert distiller confront a nemesis bootlegger and a prohibitionist brother-in-law to protect the citizens of their 1927 Ohio community. |
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Dance with death by Will ThomasWhen an attempt on the life of a future Nicholas II occurs at a British royal wedding, private enquiry agents Barker and Llewelyn consult with an assassin from Llewelyn’s past before uncovering a killer’s dangerous political agenda. |
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