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Historical Fiction August 2025 |
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The Songbirds of Florence
by Olivia Spooner
n 1942, a group of young women arrive in Cairo, Egypt. The Tuis, named after the beautiful New Zealand songbird, are the first women from their country to serve overseas. They are to provide respite and a touch of home to weary soldiers returning from the front line. Vivacious and outgoing, Addy joins the Tuis for the adventure. Margot is quiet and withdrawn, grieving the young husband she lost to the war. Despite their differences, the girls become fast friends.
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Love, Sex, and Frankenstein
by Caroline Lea
Inspired by real events, Caroline Lea’s emotionally rich novel transports you to Lake Geneva in 1816, where 18-year-old Mary Shelley has fled London with her lover, Percy Shelley. Haunted by Percy’s infidelities and the loss of their baby, tensions run high at Lord Byron’s villa until their host suggests a ghost story contest. Mary seizes the opportunity but, as she gives life to her chilling tale of Frankenstein, her personal life becomes as unwieldy as the Creature itself.
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The Lost Baker of Vienna
by Sharon Kurtzman
Zoe Rosenzweig investigates her family's Holocaust history, uncovering the 1946 story of her ancestor Chana, a young Viennese baker torn between survival, family duty, and love in a fragile postwar world still shadowed by trauma.
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| Tyrant by Conn IgguldenIn 50 CE Rome, Agrippina has skillfully maneuvered her way to power by becoming Emperor Claudius' fourth wife and now works to ensure her position and that of her son, Nero, by manipulating Claudius into adopting him. This cinematic, action-packed 2nd in a trilogy follows last year's Nero; the final book, Inferno, is due April 2026. Read-alike: Margaret George's Nero novels; Steven Saylor's historical fiction. |
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Amity
by Nathan Harris
In 1866 New Orleans, formerly enslaved siblings Coleman and June are separated, only to embark on perilous, individual journeys through the Mexican desert to reunite and seize the freedom they were promised.
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| Angel Down by Daniel KrausAfter intense fighting in France's Argonne Forest during World War I, American Cyril Bagger is ordered along with four other misfits to "silence" the soldier stuck in No Man's Land producing unearthly screams -- but what they find is an injured angel wrapped in barbed wire, whom they agree to protect. Compelling and innovative in both structure and story, this is the buzzy latest by the author of Whalefall. |
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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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The Butterfly Women
by Madeleine Cleary
t's 1863, and Melbourne is transitioning from a fledgling colony to a thriving, gold-fuelled metropolis. But behind its shiny new facade, the real Melbourne can be found in the notorious red-light district of Little Lon, full of brothels where rich and poor alike can revel all night. The most glamorous among them is Papillon, home to the most alluring women in the city. For poor Irishwoman Johanna Callaghan, a job at Papillon could be her ticket to success, but in a time when women's lives are cheap, it also brings great danger. Meanwhile, for respectable women like journalist Harriett Gardiner, Papillon is strictly off-limits, but when a murderer begins stalking the streets of Little Lon, she becomes determined to visit it and find the truth. As both women are drawn into the hunt for the killer, a long-hidden side of old Melbourne is revealed.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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