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Historical Fiction February 2019
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| That Churchill Woman by Stephanie BarronPresenting: Lady Randolph Churchill -- née Jennie Jerome, the American heiress who snags a titled husband and scandalizes Victorian England's high society with her political ambition and affaires de coeur.
Why you might like it: This biographical novel offers a sympathetic portrait of an intelligent woman who rebels against the restrictive social mores of the late 19th century.
You might also like: Karen Harper's American Duchess or Therese Anne Fowler's A Well-Behaved Woman, about Gilded Age heiresses who seek personal fulfillment within socially advantageous yet emotionally impoverished marriages. |
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The vanishing man : a prequel to the Charles Lenox series
by Charles Finch
A second entry in a prequel trilogy to the best-selling series finds the theft of an antique painting sending a young Charles Lenox on a hunt for a criminal mastermind. By the award-winning author of The Last Enchantments
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| The Only Woman in the Room by Marie BenedictStarring: Hedwig Kiesler, the Austrian Jewish trophy wife who flees 1930s Vienna and reinvents herself as Hollywood star Hedy Lamarr -- while secretly pursuing her dream of becoming an inventor.
About the author: Marie Benedict wrote The Other Einstein, which similarly illuminates the overlooked scientific contributions of women.
Further reading: Margaret Porter's forthcoming novel Beautiful Invention, or the biography Hedy's Folly by Richard Rhodes. |
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Daughter of Moloka'i
by Alan Brennert
A sequel to the best-selling Moloka'i follows the story of quarantined leprosy patient Rachel Kalama's daughter, who is raised by adoptive Japanese parents on a California grape farm before her unjust internment during World War II
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| Prague Spring by Simon MawerWhat happens: A coin flip sends two Oxford students on an impulsive trip to Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1968, a period of political optimism known as the "Prague Spring." Meanwhile, a British diplomat gathers intelligence in the lead up to the Warsaw Pact invasion.
Why you might like it: Full of well-researched historical detail, this character-driven novel by the author of the Walter Scott Prize-winning Tightrope "limns the Cold War to affecting and ultimately chilling effect" (Kirkus Reviews).
You might also like: Paul Vidich's atmospheric George Mueller novels, which offer a similar blend of historical fiction and spy novel. |
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Dear George, Dear Mary
by Mary Calvi
A debut novel based on hundreds of historical accounts, letters and personal journals reimagines the unrequited love affair between a young George Washington and controversial New York heiress Mary Philipse as a catalyst for the American Revolution.
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Cherokee America
by Margaret Verble
In the Spring of 1875 in the Cherokee Nation, Check, a wealthy farmer and mother of five boys, must protect her mixed-race family and tight-knit community at all costs when violence erupts. 25,000 first printing.
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| The House at the Edge of Night by Catherine BannerWhat it's about: the Esposito family and their experiences on the Mediterranean island of Castellamare from World War I to the Great Recession.
Read it for: an atmospheric and leisurely paced tale of island life, full of colorful characters and spiced with magical realism.
For fans of: Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières. |
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| Barkskins by Annie ProulxWhat it's about: In the deep, dark forests of 17th-century New France (now Canada), indentured censitaires work as "barkskins," or woodcutters bound to their seigneur as they toil in the "evil wilderness."
Meet: René Sel and Charles Duquet, censitaires whose paths diverge dramatically: one marries a Mi’kmaw woman and becomes the patriarch of a large, mixed-race family, while the other escapes servitude to become a wealthy trader.
You might also like: Joseph Boyden's The Orenda, which shares Barkskins' setting but focuses on the region's indigenous inhabitants. |
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| Some Sing, Some Cry by Ntozake Shange and Ifa BayezaIntroducing: the formerly enslaved Betty Mayfield and her musically gifted descendants, whose lives intersect with pivotal moments in African American history from Reconstruction to the present day.
About the authors: sister playwrights Ifa Bayeza and the late Ntozake Shange are best known for The Ballad of Emmet Till (Bayeza) and for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf (Shange).
For fans of: Lalita Tademy's Cane River; Ayana Mathis' The Twelve Tribes of Hattie. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Culpeper County Library 271 Southgate Shopping Center Culpeper, Virginia 22701 540-825-8691
www.cclva.org
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