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Historical Fiction January 2023 |
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Gilded mountain : a novel by Kate ManningA young 1900s Colorado woman starts work at a wealthy mine-owner's manor house and is fascinated by luxury around her until she discovers the family's philosophy is at odds with the unfair labor practices that built their fortune.
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Yesterday's spy by Tom BradbyWhen his estranged son Sean goes missing in Tehran after writing a damning article about the involvement of government officials in the opium trade, recently retired British intelligence officer Harry Towers must discover if Sean was taken in retribution for his reporting, or has Harrys past caught up to them all.
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The magic kingdom by Russell BanksIn 1971, a property speculator records his life story, reflecting on his time in a community of Shakers in Florida, which saved his family from complete ruin, and meditating on youth, belief, betrayal, Floridas ever-changing landscape and the search for an American utopia.
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The Polish girl by Malka AdlerDuring the winter of 1939, after Nazis invade Poland, Danusha and her family flee to Kraków where her mother, Anna, secures a position as a housekeeper in a German doctor's mansion--a place where she comes to a startling revelation about a mother's love and protection.
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Mrs Harris goes to Paris ; : &, Mrs Harris goes to New York by Paul GallicoThe irrepressible Mrs. Harris, part charlady, part fairy godmother, finds adventures that take her from her humble London roots to the heights of glamour in Paris, and to keep house for a wealthy American couple in New York.
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The Girl in His Shadow
by Audrey Blake
What it is: a richly detailed, character-driven story of frustrated ambition and compromise set in Victorian London.
Starring: Nora Beady, an orphan who dreams of becoming a doctor, a taboo profession for a woman of her time; Dr. Horace Croft, who took Nora in as a child and trained her in medicine and anatomy; Dr. Daniel Gibson, a new surgical resident and potential threat to Nora's arrangement "assisting" Dr. Croft at his clinic.
Reviewers say: The Girl in His Shadow is "the best kind of historical fiction, transporting readers to a place and time peopled with memorable characters" (Library Journal).
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Swann's war : a novel by Michael B. OrenWith her husband, Fourth Cliffs beloved police captain, off fighting overseas in World War II, Mary Beth Swann steps into his role and must prove her worth by solving a series of murders by relying only on the help of a simple-minded deputy, a disgraced doctor and a mob-connected mainlander.
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The sleeping car porter
by Suzette Mayr
"Baxter's name isn't George. But it's 1929, and Baxter is lucky enough, as a Black man, to have a job as a sleeping car porter on a train that crisscrosses the country. So when the passengers call him George, he has to just smile and nod and act invisible. What he really wants is to go to dentistry school, but he'll have to save up a lot of nickel and dime tips to get there, so he puts up with "George." On this particular trip out west, the passengers are more unruly than usual, especially when the trainis stalled for two extra days; their secrets start to leak out and blur with the sleep-deprivation hallucinations Baxter is having. When he finds a naughty postcard of two queer men, Baxter's memories and longings are reawakened; keeping it puts his job in peril, but he can't part with the postcard or his thoughts of Edwin Drew, Porter Instructor"
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Galatea : a short story by Madeline MillerIn hardcover for the first time, a short story re-imagines the Greek myth of Pygmalion and describes how the sculptor brought his gorgeous female statue to life to serve him but he did not expect her to want independence.
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Shrines of gaiety : a novel by Kate AtkinsonIn London after the Great War, Nellie Carter, the notorious and ruthless queen of a dazzling, seductive and corrupt new world in the clubs of Soho, finds her success breeding enemies as she faces threats from without and within, revealing the dark underbelly beneath Soho's gaiety.
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The Matchmaker's Gift
by Lynda Cohen Loigman
Starring: Sara Glikman, a Russian Jewish immigrant whose knack for matchmaking gets her in trouble with the male-dominated marriage brokers in her tight-knit 1920s community; Sara's granddaughter Abby, a divorce attorney in 1990s Manhattan who explores her similar gift after her grandmother's recent death.
Read it for: the heartwarming tone, intricate plotting, and seamless transitions between the alternating perspectives.
Reviewers say: "The details are painstaking but never tedious, and the relationships are exciting, sincere, and beautiful" (Booklist).
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Singer distance by Ethan Chatagnier"In December 1960, Rick Hayworth drives his genius girlfriend, Crystal, and three other MIT grad students across the country to paint a message in the desert. Mars has been silent for thirty years, since the last time Earth solved one of the mathematical proofs the Martian civilization carved onto its surface. The latest proof, which seems to assert contradictory truths about distance, has resisted human understanding for decades. Crystal thinks she's solved it, and Rick is intent on putting her answer to the test-if he can keep her from cracking under the pressure on the way. But Crystal's disappearance after the experiment will set him on a different path than he expected, forever changing the distance between them. Filled with mystery, wonder, and life-changing discoveries, Ethan Chatagnier's Singer Distance is a novel about ambition, loneliness, friendship, exploration, and love-about how far we're willing to go to communicate with a civilization on Mars, and the great lengths we'll travel to connect with each other here on Earth"
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Nights of Plague
by Orhan Pamuk
The setting: the (fictional) Mediterranean island Mingheria in the year 1900, a remote outpost of the Ottoman Empire that's home to Greeks, Turks, Christians, Muslims, and home-grown nationalists.
The situation: a plague of uncertain provenance breaks out and as the international community enforces a strict quarantine, tensions build and threaten to turn the island into a powder keg.
About the author: Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk is a Turkish novelist, memoirist, and social critic whose best known English-language works include Snow and My Name is Red.
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The bloodless boy by Robert J. LloydWhen they are asked to investigate the discovery of a young boy drained of his blood, Robert Hooke, the Curator of Experiments at the just-formed Royal Society for Improving Natural Knowledge and his assistant, walk into a political hornets nest as they try to find the truth.
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| The Poison Machine by Robert J. LloydSeries alert: The Poison Machine is the sequel to The Bloodless Boy, which first introduced readers to Harry Hunt, a 17th-century gentleman scientist and amateur sleuth.
This time: Harry heads to Norfolkshire for a seemingly straightforward investigation that will eventually take him across the English Channel in pursuit of a former royal favorite from the days of Charles I.
Reviewers say: Author Robert J. Lloyd "skillfully combines an endearingly flawed lead, jaw-dropping twists, and the fraught, conspiracy-laden politics of the Stuart Restoration" (Publishers Weekly). |
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Hannah's war : a novel by Jan EliasbergA young military investigator at Leavenworth Prison interrogates a Los Alamos National Lab scientist to uncover her involvement in Berlin’s infamous Kaiser Wilhelm Institute a decade earlier before becoming seduced by her intelligence and quiet confidence.
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A German requiem by Philip KerrIn 1947 occupied Vienna, detective Bernie Gunther accepts an assignment from a mysterious Soviet colonel and uncovers a moral void involving a coalition between anti-communist American agents and former Nazis.
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A certain age by Beatriz WilliamsFalling in love with her paramour, a married Jazz Age socialite, unable to divorce because of conventions, tries to make the best of the situation and reconsiders her values when her lover falls for her soon-to-be sister-in-law. By the best-selling author of A Hundred Summers and The Secret Life of Violet Grant.
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