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Historical Fiction April 2023 |
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| Stone Blind by Natalie HaynesWhat it is: a compelling and thought-provoking reimagining of the story of Medusa, a beautiful young woman cursed by a jealous Athena to turn every living thing she looked upon to stone.
Read it for: the heartbreaking portrait of Medusa’s loneliness; her sardonic reflections on other famous figures whose stories intersect with her own, such Perseus.
Reviewers say: “this tale evokes passionate fury on behalf of its heroine, a tragic victim of male violence” (Booklist). |
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| The World and All That It Holds by Aleksandar HemonWhat it is: a sweeping, character-driven story about love, war, displacement, and yearning for home in more ways than one.
How it starts: In 1914 Sarajevo, where Bosnian Jew Rafael Pinto -- who has taken over his father's apothecary shop after returning from his studies in Vienna -- witnesses the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
For fans of: candid and atmospheric historical LGBTQIA stories of love and war like Bitter Eden by Tatamkhulu Afrika. |
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| The House of Eve by Sadeqa JohnsonWhat 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 Snow Hare by Paula LichtarowiczWhat it is: the bleak yet compelling coming-of-age story of Lena, an aspiring medical student in 1930s Poland whose world is turned upside down by World War II and a Soviet invasion.
Read it for: the stirring moments of connection and meaning that Lena and the people in her life manage to experience even while enduring hunger, imprisonment, and the trauma of war. |
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| My Father's House by Joseph O'ConnorInspired by: the real-life work of Irish Catholic priest Hugh O'Flaherty and other Vatican officials to save and shelter thousands of Jews and Allied POW camp escapees during and after the 1943 German Invasion of Italy.
Why you might like it:: This richly detailed story of Father O’Flaherty and the motley crew of allies he worked with features well-developed characters and dramatic moments of suspense. |
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| The End of Drum-time by Hanna PylväinenHow it starts: in 1852, in a remote Scandinavian village where a Lutheran minister has arrived to try converting the native Sámi people to Christianity.
What changes everything: a forbidden romance between the minister's daughter and a local reindeer herder; the dramatic, public religious awakening of a former Sámi shaman. |
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| Daughters of Victory by Gabriella SaabWhat it's about: three generations of women in a Russian family, who each saw her youth and young adulthood upended by political revolution and war.
Starring: aristocratic Svetlana, who embraced the Revolution of 1905 and spent 10 years in prison; her daughter Tatiana, who resents her mother's absence during her childhood; Mila, Tatiana’s daughter, who is brought to stay in a remote village with her grandmother in 1941 in hopes she'll be safe from Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. |
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| After Sappho by Selby Wynn SchwartzWhat it is: a character-driven, stylistically complex collection of stories reimagining the lives and loves of notable women who loved women in the early 20th century.
Featuring: Romaine Brooks, Lina Poletti, Virginia Woolf, and Natalie Barney.
Reviewers say: Author Selby Wynn Schwartz “breathes an astonishing sense of life into her timeless characters” (Publishers Weekly). |
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| River Sing Me Home by Eleanor ShearerHow it starts: on a Barbados sugar plantation in 1834, where the master has refused to let anyone go despite the recent abolition of slavery in parts of the British Empire.
How it gets going: A woman named Rachel, fed up with the circumstances and missing the children who were stolen from her and sold, sets off on a harrowing journey to reunite her family.
Read it for: the varied and occasionally surprising fates of Rachel's children and the found family she gathers along her journey to find them. |
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| In the Upper Country by Kai ThomasWhat it is: a sweeping, nonlinear exploration of the interconnected history of Black and Indigenous people in Canada.
The setup: Lesinda Martin, a reporter for a Black Canadian newspaper, is asked to gather the testimony of Cash, an elderly woman and recent Underground Railroad arrival who takes the law into her own hands when an American bounty hunter turns up looking to return a family to slavery.
Why it works: Cash agrees to tell her story to Lesinda if the reporter will share her own, and together they discover shared history and themes of family and what it means to be free. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Atlantic County Library System | 40 Farragut Avenue, Mays Landing, NJ 08330
Phone: (609) 625-2776 | www.atlanticlibrary.org
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|  | Atlantic County Executive Dennis Levinson
Atlantic County Board of Commissioners, Maureen Kern, Chairwoman |
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