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Historical Fiction August 2025 |
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| Typewriter Beach by Meg Waite ClaytonAmid McCarthyism in 1957, Isabella Giori dreams of being Alfred Hitchcock's favorite blonde actress. But while temporarily staying at a Carmel-by-the-Sea cottage, she becomes friends with blacklisted writer Leo, changing both of their lives. In 2018, Leo's granddaughter clears out his cottage after his death, meeting his neighbor Isabella and finding secrets in his safe. Read-alikes: Susan Meissner's A Map to Paradise; Sarah Jane Stratford's Red Letter Days. |
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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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| The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau by Kristin HarmelIn Nazi-occupied France, Colette Marceau's mother is executed while her four-year-old sister disappears and is later found dead. Trained by her mother, Colette becomes a jewel thief, targeting the bad to give to the good, and in 2018 Boston, she's still working when a special bracelet linked to her sister appears in a museum. Elderly Colette seeks answers, hoping to finally learn what happened decades ago in this sweeping dual-timeline tale. Read-alike: Pam Jenoff's Last Twilight in Paris. |
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Husbands & lovers : a novel
by Beatriz Williams
Two women, separated by decades and continents, but sharing an exotic family heirloom, search for their lost loves and reclaim secrets, in the new novel from the New York Times best-selling author of The Summer Wives. (romance). Simultaneous.
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Strangers in time
by David Baldacci
"Fourteen-year-old Charlie Matters is up to no good, but for a very good reason. Without parents, peerage, or merit, ducking school but barred from actual work, he steals what he needs, living day-to-day until he's old enough to enlist to fight the Germans. After barely surviving the Blitz, Charlie knows there's no telling when a falling bomb might end his life. Fifteen-year-old Molly Wakefield has just returned to a nearly unrecognizable London. One of millions of people to have been evacuated to the countryside via "Operation Pied Piper," Molly has been away from her parents--from her home--for nearly five years. Her return, however, is not the homecoming she'd hoped for as she's confronted by a devastating reality: neither of her parents are there, only her old nanny, Mrs. Pride. Without guardians and stability, Charlie and Molly find an unexpected ally and protector in Ignatius Oliver, and solace at his book shop, The Book Keep, where A book a day keeps the bombs away. Mourning the recent loss of hiswife, Ignatius forms a kinship with both children, and in each other--over the course of the greatest armed conflict the world had ever seen--they rediscover the spirit of family each has lost. But Charlie's escapades in the city have not gone unnoticed,and someone's been following Molly since she returned to London. And Ignatius is reeling from a secret Imogen long kept from him while she was alive--something so shocking it resulted in her death, and his life being turned upside down. As bombs continueto bear down on the city, Charlie, Molly, and Ignatius learn that while the perils of war rage on, their coming together and trusting one another may be the only way for them to survive"
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The warm hands of ghosts : a novel
by Katherine Arden
In 1918, field nurse Laura Iven returns to Belgium to uncover the truth about her brother Freddie's supposed death in combat, while Freddie, unable to return to the killing fields, takes refuge with a mysterious man who has the power to make the hellscape of the trenches disappear.
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The House of Eve
by Sadeqa Johnson
What it's about: two young, aspirational Black women navigating unplanned pregnancies in 1950s America.
Starring: Eleanor Quarles, a Howard University sophomore who falls in love with a student from an upper-class background; Ruby Pearsall, a high school junior who wants to be the first in her family to go to college.
About the author: Sadeqa Johnson is a bestselling author and winner of the Phillis Wheatley Award whose previous books include And Then There Was Me and The Yellow Wife.
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| The Lost Masterpiece by B.A. ShapiroIn late 1800s France, painters Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot meet and become lovers, resulting in Party on the Seine, a work featuring Berthe. In modern-day Boston, Morisot's lone descendent, executive Tamara Rubin, learns the Nazi-stolen work has been found, leading to legal challenges and romance in this suspenseful multi-timeline novel with hints of the supernatural. For fans of: Maureen Gibbon's The Lost Notebook of Édouard Manet; Robin Oliveira's I Always Loved You. |
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| Wayward Girls by Susan WiggsThis moving novel of survival, friendship, and redemption follows six teenage girls at an abusive Catholic reform school in 1968 Buffalo, New York, who have been sent there due to pregnancy, lesbianism, or to protect them from family members. Based on a real place, this character-driven novel also revisits the girls in later years. For fans of: Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These; Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys; V.S. Alexander's The Magdalen Girls. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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