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Historical Fiction May 2025 |
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| 33 Place Brugmann by Alice AustenSet just prior to and during the Nazi occupation of Brussels, Belgium, this thought-provoking debut examines the challenges and choices of an apartment building's residents, who take turns narrating. They include an architect, his art student daughter, an art dealer, his 18-year-old son, a seamstress, a maid, a widowed colonel, and others. Try this next: The Keeper of Lost Art by Laura Morelli. |
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Malinalli
by Veronica Chapa
A kidnapped Nahua girl, enslaved and thrust into the heart of Spanish conquest, uses her wit, magic and resilience to carve her own destiny and rewrite her legacy as both traitor and goddess amidst a clash of empires.
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The Paris Express : a Novel
by Emma Donoghue
Set on a fateful 1895 train journey to Paris, a diverse group of passengers—including politicians, a medical student, an inventor, and an anarchist—navigate personal ambitions and hidden motives, culminating in a disaster that forever changes their lives.
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Maya & Natasha : a Novel
by Elyse Durham
Twins Maya and Natasha are Kirov Ballet dancers in 1958 during the Soviet regime, but when only one sister can join the company's American tour, the sisters compete until one betrays the other, and the Cold War tests their loyalties to the East, the West, and each other.
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Boy : a Novel
by Nicole Galland
A young actor famed for his female roles in Shakespeare's company, Sander Cooke, and his brilliant friend Joan Buckler are drawn into political intrigue with Francis Bacon, altering their lives and testing their dreams.
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| Broken Country by Clare Leslie HallIn 1955 Dorset, England, teenage Beth falls for wealthy Gabriel, who leaves town. In 1968, Beth, now married to sheep farmer Frank, is still mourning the death of her young son two years before when Gabriel reappears with his own son, setting in motion events that lead to a courtroom trial. This emotionally intense Reese's Book Club pick will please fans of Chris Whitaker's All the Colors of the Dark and Miranda Cowley Heller's The Paper Palace. |
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| The Pretender by Jo HarkinLambert Simnel, a ten-year-old peasant in 1480s England, is tutored and trained, and then declared the hidden heir to the throne. Amid court politics, Lambert becomes part of the Yorkist cause in this witty, "wildly entertaining" (Booklist) novel based on a little-known true story. For fans of: Maggie O'Farrell, Alison Weir, and Hilary Mantel. |
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| The Boxcar Librarian by Brianna LabuskesInspired by real events, this slow-burn novel combines romance, murder, and mystery as it follows three women whose lives eventually connect: a Works Progress Administration editor sent from Washington, D.C. to Montana in 1936, a librarian who delivers books to areas around Missoula in 1924, and an avid reader in rural 1914 Montana. Read-alike: Janet Skeslien Charles' Miss Morgan's Book Brigade. |
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| A Map to Paradise by Susan MeissnerIn 1956 California, actress Melanie Cole is blacklisted by association, reducing her circle to her European maid Eva, her agoraphobic screenwriter neighbor Elwood, and his sister-in-law caregiver, June. When Elwood disappears, Melanie enlists Eva get to close to June and find Elwood as wildfires draw close. Read-alike: Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne's The Starlets. |
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Frankie : a Novel
by Graham Norton
Always on the periphery, looking on, young Frankie Howe was never quite sure enough of herself to take center stage--after all, life had already judged her harshly. Now old, Frankie finds it easier to forget the life that came before. Then Damian, a young Irish caretaker, arrives at her London flat, there to keep an eye on her as she recovers from a fall. A memory is sparked, and the past crackles into life as Damian listens to the story Frankie has kept stored away all these years. Traveling from post-war Ireland to 1960s New York, a city full of art, larger-than-life characters and turmoil, Frankie shares a world in which friendship and chance encounters collide. A place where, for a while, life blazes with an intensity that can't last but will perhaps live on in other ways and in other people.
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Gentleman Jigger : A Novel...
by Richard Bruce Nugent
Gentleman Jigger stands as a landmark novel, celebrated for its candid exploration of Black sexuality set against the dynamic backdrop of the Harlem Renaissance. The story follows Stuartt, a defiantly queer artist, who navigates the complexities of racial and sexual identity in a period of profound cultural upheaval.
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| The Lost Passenger by Frances QuinnTeenage Elinor marries an earl, finding out afterwards he only wants her money. Belittled and given little access to her young son by his family, she looks forward to the Titanic voyage with no governess. When disaster strikes, her father, husband, and servants die, so Elinor takes her maid's identity to keep her son from her in-laws. |
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| The Antidote by Karen RussellA severe dust storm devastates a 1930s Nebraska town already suffering due to the burdens of its dark past and the Great Depression. Narrated by a teen basketball star, a Polish farmer, a scarecrow, a prairie witch who keeps memories, and a New Deal photographer with a time-bending camera, this buzzy latest by a Pulitzer finalist weds the supernatural to the historical. Read-alikes: Kali Fajardo-Anstine's Woman of Light; William Kent Krueger's This Tender Land. |
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Good Dirt : a Novel
by Charmaine Wilkerson
Ebby Freeman's life unravels when her brother is killed and a centuries-old family heirloom is shattered. But years later, while fleeing a public breakup, she uncovers how that lost, shattered jar may hold secrets to her future.
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The Girl from Greenwich Street : a Novel
by Lauren Willig
Bitter rivals Hamilton and Burr unite to defend a carpenter accused of murdering Elma Sands, a mysterious young woman found in a well, intertwining a high-profile trial with their own political ambitions and personal enmity.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Centerville Library
111 W. Spring Valley Rd
Centerville, OH 45458
(937) 433-8091
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Woodbourne Library
6060 Far Hills Ave Centerville, OH 45459
(937) 435-3700
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Creativity Commons
895 Miamisburg Centerville Rd
Centerville, OH 45459
(937) 610-4425
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