Historical Fiction
September 2025
Recent Releases
Mob Queen
by Erin Bledsoe

Virginia Hill leaves her small Georgia town to move to 1930s Chicago with her abusive husband. Divorcing him, she works as a waitress at a restaurant owned by the mafia and soon embraces that life. Rising through the ranks, she moves to New York, dates Bugsy Siegel, and more. Based on a real woman, Mob Queen offers a fascinating look at mafia history. Try this next: Lou Berney's Crooks.
Fonseca
by Jessica Francis Kane

Mining a real 1952 trip to Mexico by Penelope Fitzgerald, this “masterful” (Publishers Weekly) novel follows the acclaimed English writer who's traveling with her six-year-old son while broke and pregnant. She’s come at the behest of the eccentric Delaney sisters, who’ve dangled an inheritance before her, but it turns out, she's not the only one. For fans of: Penelope Fitzgerald; witty stories starring real people.
When Sleeping Women Wake
by Emma Pei Yin

Set during the Japanese invasion and occupation of Hong Kong in 1941, this moving debut follows three women: a Chinese wife who was unable to birth the son her wealthy husband desired; her maid, who's been like a sister to her for decades; and her beloved daughter. Navigating a new world, each will resist in her own way. Read-alikes: Andrew X. Pham's Twilight Territory; Eve J. Chung's Daughters of Shandong.
The Art of a Lie
by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

After her husband's violent murder, Hannah Cole still runs her confectionary shop in 1749 London, but money is tighter than ever. She gets a bit of help from a stranger who knew her husband, but Chief Magistrate Henry Fielding thinks she may have been involved in her husband's death, leading her to look for the killer. Read-alikes: Katharine Schellman's The Body in the Garden; Kate Saunders' The Secrets of Wishtide.
Twelve Post-war Tales
by Graham Swift

Explores the personal reverberations of war and global crises through vivid characters, from a Jewish soldier searching for lost family after WWII to a retired doctor revisiting formative memories during a pandemic, blending humor, grief, and grace.
Happy Land
by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

When Nikki visits her estranged grandmother in Western North Carolina, she uncovers a hidden legacy tied to a forgotten kingdom of freed people, unraveling her family’s secrets and her own identity while fighting to protect their endangered heritage.
The Ghosts of Rome
by Joseph O'Connor

With the Nazis in control of Rome, Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty (who's based on a real person) leads the Choir, a covert network made up of an Italian countess, a British diplomat, an Irish medical student, and others. As the Gestapo desperately try to stop them, they help Allied soldiers and Jewish people escape. 
The Saint Laurent Muse 
by C. W. Gortner

In 1970s Paris, aristocrat-turned-muse Loulou de la Falaise becomes entwined in the glamorous yet ruthless fashion world, navigating her complex friendship with Yves Saint Laurent, rivalries with Karl Lagerfeld, and the intoxicating excesses of a scene where desire and betrayal collide. 
The Night Sparrow
by Shelly Sanders

In 1941, Elena Bruskina’s life is shattered when the Nazis invade the Soviet Union. Trapped in the Minsk ghetto, she loses her entire family -- her father and brother murdered, her sister hanged, her mother shot. Escaping the ghetto, Elena swears revenge. A year later, she joins Moscow’s new Central Women's Sniper Training School, eager to fight back. Among the first recruits, she becomes part of an all-female sniper unit on the Eastern Front. But the war is brutal. Haunted by loss and ashamed of her low kill count, Elena struggles as her comrades fall around her. Wounded and reassigned as a German interpreter, she soon discovers her new mission: to help capture one of the Nazis' most notorious leaders.
The Pretender
by Jo Harkin

In 1480s England, peasant boy Lambert Simnel is thrust into royal intrigue as he is declared a hidden heir to the throne and must face court politics, rebellion and an alliance with the cunning Joan that could shape the fate of the monarchy.
The Crane
by Monica Kidd

The Crane follows the difficult choices of what a person does when he cannot go on being lied to, and how stricken people find a way to carry on. It’s 1968 and James Anderson’s twin brother Dave has just been killed in the Vietnam war. Knowing his turn is next, James turns his back on his family’s military legacy, evades the draft, and travels to Newfoundland to fulfill a promise his brother made to a fellow soldier. Unwittingly swept into an intergenerational family secret while on assignment for a St. John’s newspaper, James finds something in Newfoundland that saves his life.
The Violinist's Secret
by M.j Hollows

Charlotte Weber opposes the Nazi regime, but as a student at Hamburg University, she’s unsure how to resist. Music is her refuge -- until her friend Greta is found dead, and police call it suicide. Charlotte suspects murder. When Nazi spies mistake her for Greta and recruit her, she seizes the chance to infiltrate the regime and uncover the truth. As she navigates the Gestapo’s violent world, Charlotte realizes the danger hits closer to home: her own friends are hiding secrets that could get them killed.
The Queen and the Countess
by Anne O'Brien

England, 1450s. Queen Margaret knows she must protect the crown and her son Prince Edward's claim to it, at all costs. It is up to her to fight for their inheritance, with her husband King Henry becoming increasingly frail. And as the Wars of the Roses rage on, Margaret's enemies lurk close, threatening to unravel everything she is trying to protect. Anne, Countess of Warwick, has long striven to be a loyal and accomplished wife to the Earl of Warwick. But when she develops an unlikely alliance with the Lancastrian Queen Margaret, her husband's adversary, she wonders how much power now lies in her hands to determine the course of history. Crossing enemy lines, the pair strike up a thorny friendship, yet in the midst of treachery and the turmoil of battle, can the two women trust each other? Or is it only a matter of time before war drives a sword between them.
The Rio Affair 
by Stacy Lynn Miller

Still reeling from personal loss and a near-death encounter with the Nazis, glamorous singer Hattie James is determined to rebuild her career in Brazil’s vibrant music scene. But her plans unravel when she discovers her mother’s new suitor, Swiss diplomat Frederick Ziegler, has ties to notorious SS officer Heinz Baumann. While performing at Ziegler’s estate, Hattie overhears a plot to assassinate a key official and sink a passenger ship -- possibly the one her sister is on. Thrust back into the dangerous world of espionage, Hattie must go undercover once more. With her agency contact missing and her family at risk, she navigates a web of uneasy alliances to uncover the truth -- and stop a deadly plan that could shatter the fragile Brazilian-American alliance.
I Remember Lights
by Ben Ladouceur

In summer 1967, love is all you need... but some forms of love are criminal. As the spectacular Expo '67 celebrations take shape, a young man new to Montreal learns about gay life from cruising partners, one-night stands, live-in lovers, and friends. Once Expo begins, he finds romance with a charismatic visitor, but their time is limited. When the fireworks wither into smoke, so do their options. A decade later, during the notorious 1977 police raid on a gay bar called Truxx, he comes to understand even more about the bitter choice, so often made by men like him, between happiness and safety. 
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