Auburn Public Library: Historical Fiction: May 2026

Recent Releases

Love & Other Monsters
by Emily Franklin

In the stormy, scandalous summer of 1816, daring eighteen-year-old Claire Clairmont changed the course of literature forever. But then--unlike her stepsister Mary Shelley--she was forgotten, until now. During the dangerous storms of The Year Without Summer, a group of famous young writers gathered at a mansion on the shores of Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Brilliant Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, her fiery fiance Percy Shelley, the famously promiscuous Lord Byron, and John Polidori, his sexually tormented personal physician. At the group's center was Claire Clairmont, Mary's impressionable, clever, and dangerously loyal stepsister. Those months of desire, betrayal, and creative passion gave the world the works of Frankenstein, the modern vampire, and the mythic image of these Romantic literary giants.

Elizabeth and Marilyn
by Julie Owen Moylan

What really happened when Queen Elizabeth II met Marilyn Monroe? This stunning historical novel imagines the summer that bonded the world's two most famous women, both thirty years old and chafing against the façade of global celebrity. On a cool early-autumn evening in 1956, a glittering array of stars turns out in London for a Royal Film Premiere, where they will be presented to Queen Elizabeth II--an elegant young mother and wife, gracious and self-sacrificing, who has embraced her patriotic duty despite never expecting to take the throne so soon. Cameras flash, and a crowd surges forward as a limousine pulls up. Out steps a vision in dazzling gold: the greatest star of the era, Marilyn Monroe.

A Bad, Bad Place
by Frances Crawford

In 1979 Glasgow, orphaned 12-year-old Janey Devine, who lives with her nana, is out walking her dog Sid Vicious when she finds the body of college-aged Samantha Watson, daughter of the local crime boss. Janey's traumatized and there's something she can't share with anyone, though the cops keep questioning her and Samantha's grieving dad also visits. This evocative, leisurely paced debut is gritty but has threads of humor throughout. Read-alikes: Marie Tierney's Deadly Animals; Jennie Godfrey's The List of Suspicious Things.

The Last Woman of Warsaw
by Judy Batalion

1938: Fanny Zelshinsky is a sophisticated, modern daughter of the city's Jewish elite who wants nothing more than to be recognized as a legitimate artist by her family, her radical professor whom she idolizes, and the world at large. And all while she wonders if she is really going to go through with her wedding. Meanwhile, Zosia Dror has left behind her small northeastern shtetl and religious family in the wake of violence. Part of a budding youth movement that believes in social equality and creating a Jewish homeland, all she wants is to not get distracted by the glitz and hubbub of the city--or by the keen eyes of a certain tall, handsome comrade. When legendary artist Wanda Petrovsky--both a member of Zosia's movement leadership and Fanny's beloved photography professor--goes missing, the two young women are thrown together in the pursuit of the elusive firebrand. Is Wanda simply hiding, or is her disappearance connected to the rise in antisemitic laws and university practices? Fanny and Zosia may be the most unlikely of allies, but they must bridge their differences to help someone they both care for--and dodge the danger mounting around them in the process.

The Foursome
by Christina Baker Kline

When Eng and Chang Bunker arrive in Wilkes County in 1839, they're not just a curiosity--they're a sensation. Everyone is eager to learn whether the salacious rumors about them are true. Within months, the twins have opened a general store, bought land, and begun building a plantation. Now, word has it, they're looking for wives--and in a place that thrives on gossip and legacy, their ambitions set the community on edge. Sarah and Adelaide Yates, daughters of a once-prominent local family brought low by scandal, are drawn into their orbit. Bold, beautiful Adelaide sees in the twins' fame a chance to reclaim her future. Sarah, quiet and observant, isn't so sure. When the twins' lives become entangled with theirs, they must navigate loyalty, longing, and identity in a world where everything--including race, class, and gender--is rigidly defined.

Last Summer at Maine Chance
by Jessica Everett

Economics undergrad Cynthia Proctor knows everything about statistical impossibilities. In 1954, women like her from middle-class families do not earn degrees from prestigious New England colleges. When Cynthia receives notice that her scholarship will now be given to a male student, she knows her chances of graduating are slim. But an invitation to spend the summer lakeside in Maine turns into a job at Elizabeth Arden's Maine Chance spa, where Cynthia will learn that the best investment of all is herself.

Evil Genius
by Claire Oshetsky

In 1970s San Francisco, 19-year-old Celia works at the telephone company, where an adulterous coworker has been murdered by her husband. Unhappily married to a controlling man 11 years her senior, Celia finds the sex and violence of the story tantalizing, and begins to dream of freedom and killing her spouse in this slightly surreal and darkly humorous novel. Try this next: Alex Kadis' Big Nobody.

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