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Historical Fiction August 2020
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The Forgotten Flapper : A Novel of Olive Thomas by Laini GilesA presence lurks in New York City's New Amsterdam Theatre when the lights go down and the audience goes home. They say she's the ghost of OLIVE THOMAS, one of the loveliest girls who ever lit up the Ziegfeld Follies and the silent screen. From her longtime home at the theater, Ollie's ghost tells her story from her early life in Pittsburgh to her tragic death at twenty-five. After winning a contest for "The Most Beautiful Girl in New York," shopgirl Ollie modeled for the most famous artists in New York, and then went on to become the toast of Broadway. When Hollywood beckoned, Ollie signed first with Triangle Pictures, and then with Myron Selznick's new production company, becoming most well known for her work as a "baby vamp," the precursor to the flappers of the 1920s. After a stormy courtship, she married playboy Jack Pickforrd, Mary Pickford's wastrel brother. Together they developed a reputation for drinking, club-going, wrecking cars, and fighting, along with giving each other expensive make-up gifts. Ollie's mysterious death in Paris' Ritz Hotel in 1920 was one of Hollywood's first scandals, ensuring that her legend lived on
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The Book of V. by Anna Solomon What it's about: the character-driven, century-spanning stories of three female characters attempting to navigate the complex expectations of women in their respective societies.
Starring: overwhelmed modern stay-at-home mom Lily; strong-willed Watergate-era senator's wife Vee; the biblical Queen Esther.
Read it for: the engaging narration of each woman's point-of-view chapters and the unanticipated connections between each of their stories. | | Saving Ruby King by Catherine Adel West What it's about: the bond of friendship between two teenage girls living in the South Side of Chicago, which is tested by domestic violence, murder, and decades-old secrets coming to light.
Read it for: the exploration of issues such as inter-generational family trauma and social marginalization; the strong sense of place; the shifting perspectives, including chapters narrated by inanimate objects that witness some of the story's most dramatic events. | | A Bend in the Stars by Rachel Barenbaum Russia, 1914: When her physicist brother, Vanya, goes missing en route to observe a solar eclipse, Jewish surgeon Miri Abramov embarks on a desperate rescue mission, accompanied by a charming army deserter.
What's at stake: Vanya believes that photographing the eclipse will verify or disprove Einstein's general theory of relativity, while Miri fears that if the coming war doesn't kill them both, the Czar's pogroms will.
Reviewers say: "exhilarating" (Publishers Weekly). | | Enchantress of Numbers: a Novel of Ada Lovelace by Jennifer Chiaverini What it's about: the unusual childhood and later life of mathematician and aristocrat Ada Lovelace, the only legitimate child of legendary English poet Lord Byron and creator of the first computer program.
Don't miss: the development of Ada's complex relationship with her mother, who was desperate to keep Ada from turning out like her dissolute father.
Reviewers say: "a wonderful blend of history and fiction, poetry and math" (Publishers Weekly). | |
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The Essex Serpent
by Sarah Perry
What it's about: Victorian era widow and aspiring naturalist Cora Seaborne relocates to coastal Essex to look for evidence of a local cryptid, a huge sea serpent that allegedly has the wings of a dragon.
You might also like: Other novels that deal with the intersection of natural (and unnatural) phenomena and the social expectations placed on young women, such as The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff, Tracy Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures, or The Great Unknown by Peg Kingman.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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