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Historical Fiction February 2021
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The Paris Dressmaker
by Kristy Cambron
Paris, 1939: Lila de Laurent, a haute couture dressmaker, joins the Resistance during the occupation and uses her skills to infiltrate the Nazi elite, sewing for them and collecting secrets at their glamorous headquarters in the Hôtel Ritz.
Paris, 1943: Sandrine Paquet's job is to catalog the priceless works of art stolen from prominent Jewish families. But behind closed doors, she secretly forages for information from the underground resistance.
The connection: Sandrine uncrates an exquisite blush Chanel gown concealing a cryptic message that may reveal the fate of a dressmaker who vanished from within the fashion elite.
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The Yellow Wife
by Sadeqa Johnson
Meet Pheby: Born on a plantation, but set apart from the others by her mother’s position as a medicine woman, Pheby Brown was promised her freedom on her eighteenth birthday.
What happens: Instead she finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous Devil's Half-Acre, a jail where slaves are broken, tortured, and sold every day.
What to read next: The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd or Property by Valerie Martin.
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Those Who Are Saved
by Alexis Landau
What it is: A heartbreaking story of one mother's impossible choice, and her search for her daughter against the odds.
What happens: Given hours to report to an internment camp when Nazis occupy France, a Jewish-Russian émigré places her young daughter in the care of a trusted governess before an unexpected opportunity to escape to America leads to a heartbreaking separation.
Who will like it: Fans of We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter or All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
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| The Arctic Fury by Greer MacallisterThe premise: Inspired by the true story of the doomed Arctic voyage of British ships H.M.S. Terror and H.M.S Erebus, this candid and suspenseful story follows Bostonian Virginia Reeve, hired by a captain's widow to discover what she can about what went wrong.
The problem: Virginia's own voyage returns from the ice with an incomplete crew and its own mystery to solve -- what really happened in the frozen north, and was one of the team really capable of murder?
About the author: Greer Macallister writes a regular column for the Chicago Review of Books and has published other historical novels including Woman 99 and The Magician's Lie. |
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| Outlawed by Anna NorthWhat it is: The fast-paced and compelling story of apprentice midwife and erstwhile doctor Ada, whose inability to bear children leads her to develop a unique kinship with a group of female and nonbinary outlaws, whose defiance of social expectations offers Ada a chance for life on her own terms in the Dakota territory.
You might also like: Other westerns about gutsy social outsiders like All God's Children by Aaron Gwyn and How Much of These Hills is Gold by Pam C. Zhang. |
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| The Whale: A Love Story by Mark BeauregardWhat it's about: Novelists Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose brief yet intense friendship coincided with some of their most iconic work.
Read it for: Extracts from real letters the authors exchanged; the flesh-and-blood portrayal of Melville, whose self-deprecating humor and emotional honesty make him a compelling and relatable narrator.
Want a taste? “I feel that this Hawthorne has dropped germinous seeds into my soul. He expands and deepens down, the more I contemplate him; and further, and further, shoots his strong New-England roots into the hot soil of my Southern soul.” |
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| A Single Thread by Tracy ChevalierWhat it is: An engaging and bittersweet story of life after loss, and making a place for yourself in a society that seems determined to leave you behind.
Featuring: Thirty-eight year-old Violet Speedwell, who, 14 years after she lost her fiancé during the Great War, discovers purpose and healing when she joins a group of women who embroider the seats and kneelers at Winchester Cathedral.
For fans of: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, which also features likeable female characters who find solace and meaning in an unlikely circle of friends. |
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| The After Party by Anton DiSclafaniStarring: Rebellious glamour girl Joan Fortier and Cece Buchnan, her "best friend since infancy, her modern-day lady-in-waiting." Inseparable since childhood, the women's complicated bond is unraveled by Joan's increasingly alarming behavior.
Why you might like it: Set amid the debutante balls, cocktail parties, and garden-club luncheons of 1950s Houston, Texas, The After Party boasts in-depth characterizations and strong period atmosphere. |
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| The Pull of the Stars by Emma DonoghueWhat it is: The richly detailed and moving story of three days in a Dublin maternity ward during the worst days of the 1918 Flu Epidemic.
Why you should read it: The moving and well-researched portrait of dedicated but overworked health care workers trying to get through a major disease epidemic is especially poignant and timely.
About the author: Irish novelist and Man Booker finalist Emma Donoghue has written both contemporary and historical fiction including Slammerkin, The Sealed Letter, Room, and Frog Music. |
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| Lost Roses by Martha Hall KellyWhat it's about: The upturned lives of three young women in the wake of the Russian Revolution -- aristocratic Sofya Streshnayva, a Romanov cousin; Eliza Ferriday, a New Yorker visiting her school friend Sofya's homeland; peasant and young mother Varinka, who feels caught between her family's safety and her revolutionary ideals.
Series alert: Lost Roses is the 2nd entry in a series of historical novels about life during wartime starring the Ferriday family, which began with Lilac Girls. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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