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Historical Fiction January 2026 |
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| Huguette by Cara BlackHuguette, a teenager ill-treated by her father and others, survives the Nazi occupation of France during World War II. In the lawless aftermath, she assists a famous film director and deals in underground goods for him. Fans of the author's acclaimed Aimée Leduc mysteries set in contemporary Paris will appreciate meeting Aimée's grandfather, a kind cop who helps Huguette, in this compelling standalone tale. Read-alike: Pam Jenoff's Last Twilight in Paris. |
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Burn Down Master's House
by Clay Cane
Inspired by true, long-buried stories of enslaved people who dared to fight back, a searing portrayal of resistance for readers of Colson Whitehead, Jesmyn Ward, and Percival Everett, from Clay Cane, award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author of The Grift.
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Cape Fever
by Nadia Davids
From award-winning South African author Nadia Davids comes a gothic psychological thriller set in the 1920s, where a young maid finds herself entangled with the spirits of a decaying manor and the secrets of its enigmatic owner. Cape Fever is a masterful blend of gothic themes, folk-tales, and psychological suspense, reminiscent of works by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Daphne du Maurier.
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Daughter of Genoa
by Kat Devereaux
Enthralling and eloquently bittersweet--a vivid historical portrait of the pivotal yet overlooked struggle to save Italian Jews in WWII, and how one unforgettable woman risks everything for love.
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The House of Two Sisters
by Rachel Louise Driscoll
Essex, 1887. Clementine's ability to read hieroglyphs makes her invaluable at her father's Egyptian relic parties, which have become the talk of the town. But at one such party, the words she interprets from an unusual amulet strike fear into her heart. As her childhood games about Isis and Nephthys--sister goddesses who protect the dead--take on a devastating resonance in her life, and tragedy slowly consumes her loved ones, she wonders what she and her father may have unleashed.
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Women of a Promiscuous Nature
by Donna Everhart
Based on the long-buried history of the American Plan, this powerful and shockingly timely story of resistance and resilience exposes the real government program designed to regulate women's bodies and sexuality throughout the first half of the 20th century.
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Our Last Vineyard Summer
by Brooke Lea Foster
After suffering through her first year of graduate school at Columbia following her senator father's death, Betsy Whiting is hoping to spend the summer with her boyfriend...and hopefully end the summer as his fiancee. Instead, her mother--a longtime feminist and leader in the women's movement--calls Betsy and her sisters back home to Martha's Vineyard, announcing that they need to sell their beloved summer house to pay off their father's debts. When Betsy arrives on the island a week later, she must reckon with her strained familial relationships, a long-ago forbidden romance, and the complicated legacy of her parents.
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The Book of Lost Hours
by Hayley Gelfuso
A ... historical and speculative novel about a WWII-era girl who grows up trapped in the 'time space,' a cavernous library featuring books that house memories--but while government agents burn memories they wish to erase, she saves them, until an affair with an American CIA agent as a young woman changes the course of her life.
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I, Medusa
by Ayana Gray
Ayana Gray brings her fresh, dynamic storytelling to one of the most monstered, maligned, and misunderstood women of Greek myth, imagining all the girls that Medusa was and could have been.
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The Pohaku
by Jasmin Iolani Hakes
A young woman lies in a hospital bed in a coma, watched over by her estranged grandmother. Some say she jumped off the cliff; others say she was swept away by a wave. But her tutu at her bedside suspects something else is wrong, that the reason for the hardship and heartbreak in their family history is tied to a story that she's never told, one about a powerful stone, the pohaku, that her family was tasked with protecting generations ago.
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| Helm by Sarah HallThe Helm, a ferocious, mischievous wind in Northwest England, occasionally makes its way down the highest mountain in the Pennines. Narrated by a personified Helm, this intriguing, inventive novel covers the wind's beginnings when the world was new and on through time via the stories of various humans, including Neolithic tribe members, a medieval mathematician, early balloonists, a Victorian child, meteorologists, Royal Air Force pilots, and more. |
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The Women of Arlington Hall
by Jane Healey
1947: Adventurous Radcliffe graduate Catherine Cat Killeen cancels her wedding and upends a future that no longer suits her. At the behest of her professor and hungry for a challenge, Cat arrives in Virginia to work on a confidential military project. A student in cryptoanalysis, Cat is already ahead of the game--to assist in rooting out Soviet spies who have infiltrated the US. Joining the government girls of Arlington Hall, Cat gains the respect of her superiors and the friendship of her peers. Then, on a night out in DC, Cat runs into Jonathan Dardis, her arrogant and privileged Harvard rival and newly minted agent for the FBI. What Cat and Jonathan share is a competitive drive and an attraction that's becoming just as spirited. They're also united in the same critical goal for America. Together, they're diving deep into the shadows of espionage. The stakes of the codebreaking operation grow ever higher, and Cat's relationship with Jonathan opens her heart. Amid dangerous intrigue and grave secrecy, Cat is ready for every risk--no matter how personal the stakes get.
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The Teacher of Auschwitz
by Wendy Holden
Amid the brutality of the Holocaust, one bright spot shone inside the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz. In the shadows of the smokestacks was a wooden hut where children sang, staged plays, wrote poetry, and learned about the world. Within those four walls, brightly adorned with hand-painted cartoons, the youngest prisoners were kept vermin-free, received better food, and were even taught to imagine having full stomachs and a day without fear. Their guiding light was a twenty-seven-year-old gay, Jewish athlete: Fredy Hirsch. Being a teacher in a brutal concentration camp was no mean feat. Forced to beg senior SS officers for better provisions, Fredy risked his life every day to protect his beloved children from mortal danger. But time was running out for Fredy and the hundreds in his care. Could this kind, compassionate, and brave man find a way to teach them the one lesson they really needed to know: how to survive?
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| The Land in Winter by Andrew MillerAs one of the coldest winters in English history bears down in late 1962, two neighboring couples with London connections navigate rural life and the upcoming births of their firstborns. Neither marriage is what it used to be, but Irene, who's married to the local doctor, and Rita, a former dancer turned farmer's wife, connect with each other over their pregnancies in this quiet, interior novel that gathers momentum as a blizzard hits. Try this next: Jessica Anthony's The Most. |
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The Master Jeweler
by Weina Dai Randel
Harbin, China, 1925. Fifteen-year-old Anyu Zhang discovers a priceless Faberge egg in the snow and returns it to the owner, Isaac Mandelburg, a fugitive and former master jeweler for Russia's imperial palace. In gratitude, he leaves her his address in Shanghai and a promise of hospitality, forever altering her fate. A dazzling world of jewelry shrouded in secrecy and greed awaits, when later Anyu arrives at Mandelburg's jewelry shop as an orphan. Single-minded and relentless, Anyu will stop at nothing until she masters the craft of jewelry making. But she soon finds herself entangled in the treacherous underbelly of the city, where violent gangsters stalk the streets, vicious rivals seek to exploit her, and obsessive collectors conspire to destroy the people she loves.
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The Night Sparrow
by Shelly Sanders
A gripping story of a young Jewish girl who joins an elite Russian sniper unit and embarks on a mission targeting the highest prize of World War II: Adolph Hitler.
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The Lies They Told
by Ellen Marie Wiseman
When Lena Conti—a young, unwed mother—sees immigrant families being forcibly separated on Ellis Island, she vows not to let the officers take her two-year old daughter. But the inspection process is more rigorous than she imagined, and she is separated from her mother and teenage brother, who are labeled burdens to society, denied entry, and deported back to Germany. Now, alone but determined to give her daughter a better life after years of living in poverty and near starvation, she finds herself facing a future unlike anything she had envisioned.
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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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