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Historical Fiction July 2024
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The Briar Club : a novel
by Kate Quinn
In 1950 Washington, DC, at an all-female boardinghouse called Briarwood, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic room, drawing her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship, but when a shocking act of violence tears the house apart, the women must expose the true enemy in their midst.
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| Familiaris by David WroblewskiIn this sweeping saga, the prequel to the bestseller The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, John Sawtelle and his new wife Mary travel with their friends and dogs to rural Wisconsin in 1919 to make new lives. John and Mary raise two boys (and a lot of dogs) as the novel follows the family over the next three decades in this 2024 Oprah Book Club pick. |
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The Last Secret of Lily Adams
by Sara Blaydes
One of the brightest stars of Hollywood's golden age was Lily Adams, the beloved picture of all-American innocence. Why she suddenly vanished from the spotlight was a mystery even to those closest to her. Upon Lily's death seventy years later, her granddaughter, Carolyn Prior, struggles to understand a woman she loved but never really knew. Then, sifting through the memorabilia of a once-glamorous career, Carolyn comes across a letter from her grandmother. It's the trembling admission of a secret life.
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The bright sword : a novel of King Arthur
by Lev Grossman
Arriving at Camelot to compete for a spot on the Round Table, a gifted young knight Collum instead finds only a handful of knights left after the Battle of Camlann, and together, joined by Merlin's apprentice Nimue, set out to rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance.
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Night Watch : a novel
by Jayne Anne Phillips
In 1874, in the wake of the Civil War, 12-year-old ConaLee and her mother, Eliza, who hasn't spoken in more than a year, seek refuge in a West Virginia mental asylum where they get swept up in the life of the facility—and the mystery behind the man they call the Night Watch. Illustrations.
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The lost Book of Bonn : a novel
by Brianna Labuskes
Germany, 1946: Emmy Clarke is a librarian not a soldier. But that doesn't stop the Library of Congress from sending her overseas to Germany to help the Monuments Men retrieve and catalog precious literature that was plundered by the Nazis. The Offenbach Archival Depot and its work may get less attention than returning art to its rightful owners, but for Emmy, who sees the personalized messages on the inside of the books and the notes in margins of pages, it feels just as important. On Emmy's first day at work, she finds a poetry collection by Rainer Maria Rilke, and on the title page is a handwritten dedication: "To Annelise, my brave Edelweiss Pirate.
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Last house : or The age of oil
by Jessica Shattuck
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Women in the Castle comes a sweeping story of a nation on the rise, and one family's deeply complicated relationship to the resource that built their fortune and fueled their greatest tragedy, perfect for fans of The Dutch House and The Great Circle.
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The glassmaker
by Tracy Chevalier
From the height of Renaissance-era Italy to the present day, this spellbinding novel follows Orsola Rosso and her family of glassblowers as they live through creative triumph and heartbreaking loss, and how through every era, the Rosso women ensure their work, and their bonds, endure.
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| The Library Thief by Kuchenga ShenjéIn Victorian England, white-passing Florence Granger, who her father brought home from Jamaica as a baby, is kicked out after a scandal. Having learned bookbinding from him, she cleverly acquires a position restoring rare books in the forbidding Rose Hall. But events lead her to believe that Lord Belfield's late wife was murdered. For fans of: The Fraud by Zadie Smith (see below); The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. |
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The fraud
by Zadie Smith
It is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper of a once-famous novelist, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for thirty years. Mrs. Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her cousin, his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects her cousin of having no talent; his successful friend, Mr. Charles Dickens, of being a bully and a moralist; and England of being a land of facades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.
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| The Medicine Woman of Galveston by Amanda SkenandoreDr. Tucia Hatherley, who gave up medicine after a fatal mistake, works in a factory and raises her disabled son in 1900. Desperate for more money, she joins a traveling medicine show, taking her across Texas where she forms something of a family with the performers. But there are still dangers to face in this compelling, well-researched novel peopled with complex, believable characters. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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