| The fallen angel by Tracy BormanSeries alert: The Fallen Angel wraps up the trilogy of novels starring Frances Gorges, a secret Catholic whose knowledge of herbalism puts her at risk at the court of witchcraft-obsessed King James I.
The setup: The stakes at court are even higher for Frances and her husband, Sir Thomas Tyringham, after they find themselves in the path of the king's newest (and most ruthless) favourite George Villers, who will do whatever it takes to maintain his position.
Reviewers say: "Entertaining and delicious Stuart-era scandalmongering" (Kirkus Reviews). |
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| The Arctic fury by Greer MacallisterThe premise: Inspired by the true story of the doomed Arctic voyage of British ships H.M.S. Terror and H.M.S Erebus, this candid and suspenseful story follows Bostonian Virginia Reeve, hired by a captain's widow to discover what she can about what went wrong.
The problem: Virginia's own voyage returns from the ice with an incomplete crew and its own mystery to solve -- what really happened in the frozen north, and was one of the team really capable of murder?
About the author: Greer Macallister writes a regular column for the Chicago Review of Books and has published other historical novels including Woman 99 and The Magician's Lie. |
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The lady brewer of London
by Karen Brook
When Anneke Sheldrake is forced to find a way to support her family after her father is lost at sea, she turns to the business by which her mother's family once prospered: brewing ale. Armed with her Dutch mother's recipes and a belief that anything would be better than the life her vindictive cousin has offered her, she makes a deal with her father's aristocratic employer: Anneke has six months to succeed or not only will she lose the house but her family as well. Through her enterprise and determination, she inadvertently earns herself a deadly enemy. Threatened and held in contempt by those she once called friends, Anneke nonetheless thrives. But on the tail of success, tragedy follows and those closest to her pay the greatest price for her daring. Ashamed, grieving, and bearing a terrible secret, Anneke flees to London, determined to forge her own destiny. Will she be able to escape her past, and those whose only desire is to see her fail?
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The forgotten kingdom: A novel
by Signe Pike
AD 573. Imprisoned in her chamber, Languoreth awaits news in torment. Her husband and son have ridden off to wage war against her brother, Lailoken. She doesn't yet know that her young daughter, Angharad, who was training with Lailoken to become a Wisdom Keeper, has been lost in the chaos. As one of the bloodiest battles of early medieval Scottish history scatters its survivors to the wind, Lailoken and his men must flee to exile in the mountains of the Lowlands, while nine-year-old Angharad must summon all Lailoken has taught her and follow her own destiny through the mysterious, mystical land of the Picts. In the aftermath of the battle, old political alliances unravel, opening the way for the ambitious adherents of the new religion: Christianity. .
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| Outlawed by Anna NorthWhat it is: The fast-paced and compelling story of apprentice midwife and erstwhile doctor Ada, whose inability to bear children leads her to develop a unique kinship with a group of female and nonbinary outlaws, whose defiance of social expectations offers Ada a chance for life on her own terms in the Dakota territory.
You might also like: another western about a gutsy social outsider like How Much of These Hills is Gold by Pam C. Zhang. |
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The emperor's exile
by Simon Scarrow
A.D. 57. Battle-scarred veterans of the Roman army Tribune Cato and Centurion Macro return to Rome. Thanks to the failure of their recent campaign on the eastern frontier they face a hostile reception at the imperial court. Their reputations and future are at stake. When Emperor Nero's infatuation with his mistress is exploited by political enemies, he reluctantly banishes her into exile. Cato, isolated and unwelcome in Rome, is forced to escort her to Sardinia. Arriving on the restless, simmering island with a small cadre of officers, Cato faces peril on three fronts: a fractured command, a deadly plague spreading across the province, and a violent insurgency threatening to tip the province into blood-stained chaos.
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Fifty words for rain: A novel
by Asha Lemmie
Kyoto, Japan, 1948. Noriko "Nori" Kamiza will not question why her mother abandoned her, or her confinement to the attic of her grandparents' imperial estate. And she will not resist the scalding chemical baths she receives daily to lighten her shameful skin. The illegitimate child of a Japanese aristocrat and her African American GI lover, Nori is an outsider from birth. Her grandparents take her in only to conceal her, fearful of a stain on the royal pedigree that they are desperate to uphold in a changing Japan. When chance brings her legitimate older half-brother, Akira, to the estate that is his inheritance and destiny, the siblings form an unlikely but powerful bond one their formidable grandparents cannot allow and that will irrevocably change the lives they were always meant to lead.
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The two Mrs. Carlyles
by Suzanne Rindell
"San Francisco, 1906. Violet is one of three people grateful for the destruction of the big earthquake. It leaves her and her two best friends unexpectedly wealthy--if the secret that binds them together stays buried beneath the rubble. Fearing discovery, the women strike out on their own, and orphaned, wallflower Violet reinvents herself. When a whirlwind romance with the city's most eligible widower, Harry Carlyle, lands her in a luxurious mansion as the second Mrs. Carlyle, it seems like her dreams of happiness and love have come true. But all is not right in the Carlyle home, and Violet soon finds herself trapped by the lingering spectre of the first Mrs. Carlyle, and by the inescapable secrets of her own violent history."
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| The whale: A love story by Mark BeauregardWhat it's about: novelists Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose brief yet intense friendship coincided with some of their most iconic work.
Read it for: extracts from real letters the authors exchanged; the flesh-and-blood portrayal of Melville, whose self-deprecating humor and emotional honesty make him a compelling and relatable narrator.
Want a taste? “I feel that this Hawthorne has dropped germinous seeds into my soul. He expands and deepens down, the more I contemplate him; and further, and further, shoots his strong New-England roots into the hot soil of my Southern soul.” |
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| A single thread by Tracy ChevalierWhat it is: an engaging and bittersweet story of life after loss, and making a place for yourself in a society that seems determined to leave you behind.
Featuring: thirty-eight year-old Violet Speedwell, who, 14 years after she lost her fiancé during the Great War, discovers purpose and healing when she joins a group of women who embroider the seats and kneelers at Winchester Cathedral.
For fans of: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, which also features likeable female characters who find solace and meaning in an unlikely circle of friends. |
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| The pull of the stars by Emma DonoghueWhat it is: the richly detailed and moving story of three days in a Dublin maternity ward during the worst days of the 1918 Flu Epidemic.
Why you should read it: The moving and well-researched portrait of dedicated but overworked health care workers trying to get through a major disease epidemic is especially poignant and timely.
About the author: Irish novelist and Man Booker finalist Emma Donoghue has written both contemporary and historical fiction including Slammerkin, The Sealed Letter, Room, and Frog Music. |
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| Lost roses by Martha Hall KellyWhat it's about: the upturned lives of three young women in the wake of the Russian Revolution -- aristocratic Sofya Streshnayva, a Romanov cousin; Eliza Ferriday, a New Yorker visiting her school friend Sofya's homeland; peasant and young mother Varinka, who feels caught between her family's safety and her revolutionary ideals.
Series alert: Lost Roses is the 2nd entry in a series of historical novels about life during wartime starring the Ferriday family, which began with Lilac Girls. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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