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Historical Fiction July 2025 |
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Home and Away
by Rochelle Alers
Frustrated with her stagnant career, journalist Harper Fleming moves to Nashville to interview her grandfather about his father's Negro League baseball career, but as she uncovers family history, she finds inspiration to transform her own future.
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The Unbecoming of Margaret Wolf
by Isa Arsâen
Margaret Shoard, a rising Shakespearean actress battling a public breakdown and unconventional marriage to her best friend Wesley, follows him to a New Mexico desert production led by eccentric director Vaughn Kline, where deceit and an affair threaten to tear their lives and love apart.
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Tough Luck : a Novel
by Sandra Dallas
After escaping an orphanage, Haidie Richards and her brother Boots journey to Colorado Territory, encountering treacherous challenges, unlikely allies, and the truth about their father, while Haidie devises a daring plan to claim their future.
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The Resurrectionist
by A. Rae Dunlap
In 1828 Edinburgh, determined to study surgery, naïve James Willoughby abandons his privileged life for the bustling medical scene, only to become embroiled with the charming but dangerous body snatcher Aneurin MacKinnon, leading him into a dark world of rival gangs and deadly competition for cadavers.
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Fagin the Thief : a Novel
by Allison Epstein
Long before Oliver Twist, Jacob Fagin carves out a life in 19th-century London's underworld, forming a found family of thieves, including Bill Sikes and the Artful Dodger, until a botched heist forces him to confront his morals.
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Red Clay
by Charles B. Fancher
Chronicles the interwoven lives of an enslaved Black family and their white owners as the Civil War ends and Reconstruction begins.
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| Zeal by Morgan JerkinsOpening at Ardelia and Oliver's engagement party in 2019 New York, this sweeping story flows back to 1865, where star-crossed enslaved lovers Harrison and Tirzah are separated by the American Civil War. They end up marrying others, and Zeal movingly depicts their paths and those of their descendants over the following decades. For fans of: Robert Jones, Jr.'s The Prophets; Honorée Fanonne Jeffers' The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois. |
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| The Director by Daniel KehlmannAustrian film director G.W. Pabst, who helped Greta Garbo and Louise Brooks become stars, goes to Hollywood but ends up back in 1930s Europe when his mother becomes ill. As the Nazis grow in power, he's forced to stay there and create films for them. This thought-provoking biographical novel melds art and history. |
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Angel Down
by Daniel Kraus
The critically acclaimed author of Whalefall returns with an immersive, cinematic novel about five World War I soldiers who stumble upon a fallen angel that could hold the key to ending the war.
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| The Girls of Good Fortune by Kristina McMorrisFacing anti-Chinese sentiment in 1880s Oregon, biracial Celia hides her heritage and works as a maid for Portland's mayor. His son, who knows Celia’s secret, loves her and proposes. But with him away at school, her father murdered, and her unexpectedly pregnant, Celia ends up housekeeping at a brothel, before other dangers surface. Recipes and an author's note add to this compelling tale. Read-alike: Jenny Tinghui Zhang's Four Treasures of the Sky. |
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| Where the Rivers Merge by Mary Alice MonroeIndependent Eliza Rivers, who was born in South Carolina's Lowcountry in 1900, lives through wars, family turmoil, sexism, business growth, and more. At 88, she draws two young women close, sharing her past and hoping they can keep her beloved land safe from her selfish son in this multigenerational novel, the 1st in the Mayfield duology. Read-alikes: Michael Christie's Greenwood; Dolen Perkins-Valdez's Happy Land. |
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The Librarians of Lisbon
by Suzanne Nelson
In 1943 Lisbon, American librarians Selene Delmont and Beatrice Sullivan, recruited by the U.S. Intelligence Office, navigate espionage and romance amid the chaos of World War II, torn between their secret missions and love for two dangerous men, while their enduring friendship faces the ultimate test of loyalty and sacrifice.
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Atmosphere : a Love Story
by Taylor Jenkins Reid
In 1980, professor Joan begins training for the Space Shuttle in Houston with Top Gun pilot Hank, scientist John, mission specialist Lydia, warm-hearted Donna, and aeronautical engineer Vanessa, who become unlikely friends—until December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, when everything changes in an instant.
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| Blonde Dust by Tatiana de RosnayAt Reno, Nevada's legendary Mapes Hotel, young maid Pauline is assigned to Suite 614 and it changes her life. A single mom with little free time, it takes her a bit to realize the sweet, fragile woman in 614 is Marilyn Monroe, in town filming The Misfits as her marriage to Arthur Miller is dying. Serving up a moving look at the Hollywood icon, Blonde Dust is also an ode to female friendship. Read-alike: Can't We Be Friends by Denny S. Bryce & Eliza Knight. |
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| The Listeners by Maggie StiefvaterIn January 1942, war comes to West Virginia when the United States government orders the luxury Avallon Hotel to house Axis Power diplomats. Balancing work, worry, and ethical questions, hotel manager June Porter Hudson also gets to know a handsome FBI agent.
Read-alike: Melanie Benjamin's Mistress of the Ritz. |
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| The Cardinal by Alison WeirTracing Thomas Wolsey's rise from the young son of a village butcher to a wealthy cardinal and Henry VIII's closest advisor, this well-researched tale also depicts his falling in love and becoming a father to several children, despite church rules. But everything, including his life, is at risk when the king decides to divorce Catherine of Aragon in order to marry Anne Boleyn. Read this next: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. |
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The New Internationals : a Novel
by David Wright Faladâe
A stunning novel of post-war Paris that interweaves a coming-of-age story, a cross-cultural romance, and a portrait of the international youth at a definitive moment in contemporary history.
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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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