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Historical Fiction May 2025 |
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| 33 Place Brugmann by Alice AustenSet just prior to and during the Nazi occupation of Brussels, Belgium, this thought-provoking debut examines the challenges and choices of an apartment building's residents, who take turns narrating. They include an architect, his art student daughter, an art dealer, his 18-year-old son, a seamstress, a maid, a widowed colonel, and others. Try this next: The Keeper of Lost Art by Laura Morelli. |
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| Broken Country by Clare Leslie HallIn 1955 Dorset, England, teenage Beth falls for wealthy Gabriel, who leaves town. In 1968, Beth, now married to sheep farmer Frank, is still mourning the death of her young son two years before when Gabriel reappears with his own son, setting in motion events that lead to a courtroom trial. This emotionally intense Reese's Book Club pick will please fans of Chris Whitaker's All the Colors of the Dark and Miranda Cowley Heller's The Paper Palace. Also available on Libby and cloudLibrary |
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| The Pretender by Jo HarkinLambert Simnel, a ten-year-old peasant in 1480s England, is tutored and trained, and then declared the hidden heir to the throne. Amid court politics, Lambert becomes part of the Yorkist cause in this witty, "wildly entertaining" (Booklist) novel based on a little-known true story. For fans of: Maggie O'Farrell, Alison Weir, and Hilary Mantel. Also available on Libby and cloudLibrary |
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| The Boxcar Librarian by Brianna LabuskesInspired by real events, this slow-burn novel combines romance, murder, and mystery as it follows three women whose lives eventually connect: a Works Progress Administration editor sent from Washington, D.C. to Montana in 1936, a librarian who delivers books to areas around Missoula in 1924, and an avid reader in rural 1914 Montana. Read-alike: Janet Skeslien Charles' Miss Morgan's Book Brigade. Available on Libby |
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| A Map to Paradise by Susan MeissnerIn 1956 California, actress Melanie Cole is blacklisted by association, reducing her circle to her European maid Eva, her agoraphobic screenwriter neighbor Elwood, and his sister-in-law caregiver, June. When Elwood disappears, Melanie enlists Eva get to close to June and find Elwood as wildfires draw close. Read-alike: Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne's The Starlets. |
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| The Lost Passenger by Frances QuinnTeenage Elinor marries an earl, finding out afterwards he only wants her money. Belittled and given little access to her young son by his family, she looks forward to the Titanic voyage with no governess. When disaster strikes, her father, husband, and servants die, so Elinor takes her maid's identity to keep her son from her in-laws. "Impressively well-executed and fast-paced," raves Kirkus Reviews. Available on Libby and cloudLibrary |
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| The Antidote by Karen RussellA severe dust storm devastates a 1930s Nebraska town already suffering due to the burdens of its dark past and the Great Depression. Narrated by a teen basketball star, a Polish farmer, a scarecrow, a prairie witch who keeps memories, and a New Deal photographer with a time-bending camera, this buzzy latest by a Pulitzer finalist weds the supernatural to the historical. Read-alikes: Kali Fajardo-Anstine's Woman of Light; William Kent Krueger's This Tender Land. |
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The Jackal's Mistress
by Chris Bohjalian
With her Confederate husband in a Union prison, Libby Steadman runs their gristmill in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, helped only by her 12-year-old niece, a 60-year-old freedman, and his freed wife. Libby faces many dangers as war surrounds her, especially when she hides an injured Union officer. If you enjoy this fast-paced book, which is based on a true story, try Paulette Jiles' Chenneville or Robert Hicks' Widow of the South.
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Harlem Rhapsody
by Victoria Christopher Murray
In 1919, Jessie Redmon Fauset becomes the first Black woman literary editor of The Crisis magazine, putting her at the forefront of Harlem's cultural renaissance, where she discovers talents such as Langston Hughes and Nella Larsen. But her ambitions and a secret affair with W.E.B. Du Bois threaten it all. Try these next: Piper Huguley's By Her Own Design; Tia Williams' A Love Song for Ricki Wilde.
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The ghosts of Rome by Joseph O'ConnorIn Nazi-occupied Rome, Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty's covert network, The Choir, struggles to aid escapees, while SS Commander Paul Hauptmann is blackmailed into dismantling the operation; tensions heighten when the fearless Contessa Giovanna Landini from the Italian Resistance confronts Hauptmann, escalating the fight for survival within the city. Also available on Hoopla |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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