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Historical Fiction July 2017
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The lost letter : a novel
by Jillian Cantor
A young apprentice works secretly for the Austrian resistance in World War II and resolves to save the fiery daughter of his Jewish stamp engraver master, a story that is found decades later by a divorced descendant who investigates an unusual stamp on an old love letter. By the award-winning author of Margot.
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Quiet until the thaw : a novel
by Alexandra Fuller
Lakota Oglala Sioux Nation, South Dakota. Two Native American cousins, Rick Overlooking Horse and You Choose Watson, though bound by blood and by land, find themselves at odds as they grapple with the implications of their shared heritage. When escalating anger towards the injustices, historical and current, inflicted upon the Lakota people by the federal government leads to tribal divisions and infighting, the cousins go in separate directions: Rick chooses the path of peace; You Choose, violence. Years pass, and as You Choose serves time in prison, Rick finds himself raising twin baby boys, orphaned at birth. As the twins mature from infants to young men, Rick immerses the boys within their ancestry, telling wonderful and terrible tales of how the whole world came to be, and affirming their place in the universe. But when You Choose returns to the reservation after three decades behind bars, his anger manifests, forever disrupting the lives of Rick and the boys. Quiet Until the Thaw conjures with the implications of an oppressed history, how we are bound not just to immediate family but to all who have come before and will come after us, and, most of all, to the notion that everything was always, and is always, connected.
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| There Your Heart Lies by Mary GordonRebelling against her privileged upbringing, 19-year-old Marian Taylor (of the Newport and Park Avenue Taylors) marries her dead brother's lover, a Jewish doctor, and accompanies him to Spain, where she witnesses firsthand the brutality of the Spanish Civil War. Shifting between 1936 and the present day, when Marian's granddaughter begins researching her family history, this moving novel may appeal to fans of Victoria Hislop's The Return, in which a British woman discovers her Spanish roots, or María Dueñas' The Time In Between, which depicts Franco's Spain through the eyes of a seamstress. |
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| Isadora: A Novel by Amelia GrayIn 1913, dancer and choreographer Isadora Duncan is at the height of her fame when a freak accident claims the lives of her two young children. In the aftermath of the tragedy, a grief-stricken Isadora flees Paris and spends a year traveling Europe, where she slowly comes to terms with her loss. Isadora's viewpoint alternates with those of her sister and her wealthy lover in this emotionally intense and introspective novel, which uses rich sensory detail and lyrical prose to place readers inside the minds of its complex characters. |
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The weight of ink
by Rachel Kadish
An ailing historian with a fondness for Jewish history reviews 17th century documents discovered during a renovation in Amsterdam, and learns the story of an emigrant who worked as a scribe for a blind rabbi just before the onslaught of the plague.
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A fugitive in Walden Woods
by Norman Lock
After escaping slavery in Virginia, Samuel Long travels the Underground Railroad to Walden Pond where he meets Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and a host of other transcendentalists and abolitionists and experiences his coming-of-age while his hosts receive a lesson in human dignity.
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Hum if you don't know the words
by Bianca Marais
Growing up parallel but very different lives built on apartheid in 1970s Johannesburg, a white girl from a secure family and a Xhosa widow in a rural village meet by chance in the wake of The Soweto Uprising, during which the girl's parents are killed and the widow's daughter goes missing.
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The Essex Serpent
by Sarah Perry
An American debut of an award-winning book from England is set in the late-19th century and follows the experiences of an intellectually minded young widow and a pious vicar who investigate rumors about a mythical sea creature that has been blamed for a death in coastal Essex.
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The Alice Network
by Kate Quinn
In 1947, pregnant Charlie St. Clair, an American college girl banished from her family, arrives in London to find out what happened to her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, and meets a former spy who, torn apart by betrayal, agrees to help her on her mission.
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Golden Hill : A Novel of Old New York
by Francis Spufford
When a mysterious man shows up at the countinghouse in 1746 New York with an order for a huge sum of money, the local colonial merchants can’t decide if they should trust him, befriend him, arrest him or seduce him.
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| Before We Were Yours: A Novel by Lisa WingateBorn on a shantyboat in the Mississippi River, 12-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings are taken from their impoverished parents by the Tennessee Children's Home Society and placed in a Memphis orphanage. As Rill recounts her struggle to keep her sisters and brother together, present-day scenes hint at the family's fate. Inspired by a real-life scandal in which children stolen from their families were sold to wealthy childless couples, Before We Were Yours is a good bet for fans of Christina Baker Kline's Orphan Train. |
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| The Greatest Knight: The Unsung Story of the Queen's Champion by Elizabeth ChadwickA knight who served five English kings, beginning with Henry II, William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, makes frequent cameo appearances in historical novels about the Plantagenet period. Here he takes a starring role as the younger son of a minor nobleman who saves the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine and afterwards becomes indispensable to the royal family. If you enjoy The Greatest Knight, try author Elizabeth Chadwick's novels about other members of the Marshal family: William's father is introduced in A Place Beyond Courage; To Defy a King covers his children's generation. |
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| World Without End by Ken FollettTwo centuries after the events of The Pillars of the Earth, which saw the construction of an elaborate Gothic cathedral in the English town of Kingsbridge, the world is a different place. Although the Church still plays a central role in European life, war and plague have shaken the foundations of society. Beginning on All Hallow's Day in the year 1327, four children witness an event that will influence their lives, as well as the future of their country. Like its predecessor, World Without End combines a large ensemble cast, multilayered plot, and well-researched historical details to tell a sweeping family saga. Fans of this series will be pleased to know that book 3, A Column of Fire, will be released in September. |
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| Company of Liars: A Novel by Karen MaitlandIn 1348, nine strangers band together for survival as the plague ravages England. Disfigured relic-peddler Camelot leads the group as each member reveals his or her story. Con man Zophiel exhibits (among other dubious marvels) an embalmed mermaid, although Cygnus, who possesses a swan's wing instead of an arm, is no mere sideshow act. Musician Rodrigo and his apprentice Joffre have been dismissed from their posts, while expectant couple Adela and Osmond flee a community that disapproves of their union. Midwife Pleasance and her albino ward Narigorm round out the cast. Yet as the travelers begin dying, it becomes clear that at least one member of the company harbors a deadly secret in this creepy homage to the Canterbury Tales. |
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| Lionheart by Sharon Kay PenmanThe ranks of Eleanor of Aquitaine's sons, introduced in Devil's Brood, have thinned considerably since three of them attempted to overthrow their father, Henry II. Lionheart, the 1st book in a new series, focuses on one of the surviving sons, King Richard I, "Coeur de Lion," as he launches the Third Crusade. But before he can fight the Saracens in the Holy Land, he must first travel to Sicily to rescue his imprisoned sister and then to Cyprus to wed his bride, Berengaria. Meanwhile, back in England, his brother John has his eye on Richard's throne. Love Lionheart? Check out its sequel, A King's Ransom. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Prince George's County Memorial Library System 9601 Capital Lane Largo, Maryland 20774 301-699-3500www.pgcmls.info/ |
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