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Historical Fiction August 2021 |
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| Build Your House Around My Body by Violet KupersmithVietnam, 1986: The teenage daughter of a wealthy Vietnamese family loses her way in an abandoned rubber plantation while fleeing her angry father and is forever changed. 2011: A young, unhappy Vietnamese American woman disappears from her new home in Saigon without a trace. The fates of these two women are inescapably linked, bound together by past generations, by ghosts and ancestors, by the history of possessed bodies and possessed lands.
Other characters: a young boy who is sent to a boarding school for the métis children of French expatriates; two Frenchmen who are trying to start a business; and the employees of the Saigon Spirit Eradication Co., who find themselves investigating strange occurrences in a farmhouse on the edge of a forest. Each new character and timeline brings us one step closer to understanding what binds them all. |
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| Island Queen by Vanessa RileyCaribbean, 18th-19th Centuries: This sweeping, richly detailed epic, full of engaging characters, is the story of Dorothy Kirwan Thomas, who built a business empire in the Leeward Islands to buy freedom for herself and her family.
Born into slavery on the tiny Caribbean island of Monserrat, Doll built a legacy of wealth and power as an entrepreneur, merchant, hotelier, and planter that extended from the marketplaces and sugar plantations of Dominica and Barbados to a glittering luxury hotel in Demerara on the South American continent.
Based on the life of Dorothy Kirwan Thomas. |
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| Light Perpetual by Francis SpuffordLondon, 1944: 168 people die when the Germans bomb a crowded London Woolworths store. The author imagines an alternate timeline in which five of the bombing's youngest victims managed to survive.
What could have been: Amidst the shifting cultural, social, political, and economic changes of the late 20th and early 21st centuries in London and Britain, we see them grow up as members of their families, becoming parents, grandparents, marrying, separating and divorcing, working on newspapers, as teachers, bus conductors, con men, musicians, developers, as mental health patients, serving time in prison, and in hospices. |
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| A Woman of Intelligence by Karin TanabeManhattan, 1950s: A born and bred New Yorker, Katharina is the daughter of immigrants, Ivy-League-educated, and speaks four languages. As a single girl in 1940s Manhattan, she was a translator at the newly formed United Nations, devoting her days to her work and the promise of world peace—and her nights to cocktails and the promise of a good time.
An opportunity: Now the wife of a beloved pediatric surgeon and heir to a shipping fortune, Katharina is trapped in a gilded cage, desperate to escape the constraints of domesticity. So when she is approached by the FBI and asked to join their ranks as an informant, Katharina seizes the opportunity. |
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Call of the raven
by Wilbur A. Smith
Louisiana, 1840s: Augustus Mungo St John returns from university in England to his family's plantation, where he discovers his inheritance and childhood sweetheart, Camilla, under the control of scheming enemy, Chester Marion.
Redemption: While Augustus struggles to regain his family name and fortune, Camilla struggles to survive the harsh life of a slave on a cotton plantation ruled by a ruthless slave owner.
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Dear George, Dear Mary
by Mary Calvi
New York, 1756: The elegant heiress, Mary Eliza Philipse is the belle of New York society, and she is being courted by the dashing young colonel George Washington. Can their engagement weather separation, scandal, and Mary's stormy temperament?
Little known romance: The author used historical accounts, letters and journals to recreate the romance between George and Mary, as well as life in 18th-century colonial America.
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Golden Hill: A Novel of Old New York
by Francis Spufford
New York, 1746: Londoner Richard Smith arrives in New York bearing a promissory note for 1000 pounds, which he presents to merchant Gregory Lovell at the counting house on Golden Hill Street. But what does he need with such a large sum of money? Charming Richard won't say, but that doesn't stop people from speculating wildly.
Meanwhile: The mysterious Mr. Smith finds plenty to occupy himself in pre-Revolutionary Manhattan. The sights and smells of eighteenth century New York are captured in the adventure and chaos that ensues.
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Inland : a novel
by Téa Obreht
Arizona Territory, 1893: In a lawless and drought-ridden land, Nora is an unflinching frontierswoman. She is awaiting the return of the men in her life--her husband, and her elder sons--while biding her time with her youngest son, who is convinced that a mysterious beast is stalking the land around their home.
Meanwhile: Lurie, a former outlaw, sees lost souls who want something from him, and he finds reprieve from their longing in an unexpected relationship that inspires a momentous expedition across the West. The way in which Lurie's death-defying trek at last intersects with Nora's plight is the surprise and suspense of this novel.
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Murder at the Capitol : a Lincoln's White House mystery
by Colleen Gleason
Washington, DC, 1861: A dead body is found hanging from the crane beneath the unfinished dome of the Capitol. The day before the citizens of Washington, DC were celebrating Independence Day as if they weren't in the midst of a war.
What happens next: Lincoln's close confidant, Adam Speed Quinn, with the assistance of Dr. George Hilton and journalist Sophie Gates, investigate the murder. Meanwhile, a Southern sympathizer in the city is running a female spy network plotting to foil the Union Army's march to Manassas by employing the charms of Constance Lemagne.
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Something worth doing : a novel of an early suffragist
by Jane Kirkpatrick
Oregon Territory, 1853: Abigail Scott was a 19-year-old school teacher when she married Ben Duniway. Marriage meant giving up on teaching, but Abigail always believed she was meant to be more than a good wife and mother.
Changes: When Abigail is forced to become the family's primary breadwinner she is appalled by the plight of the working woman. She bears six children, runs a millinery and a private school, helps on the farm, writes novels, gives speeches, and eventually runs a newspaper supporting women's suffrage.
Based on a true story.
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The Sweetness of Water
by Nathan Harris
Georgia, Reconstruction Era: the lyrical, haunting story of a diverse group of people attempting to build lives for themselves as the American Civil War draws to a close.
Starring: Prentiss and Landry, two recently freed brothers planning to track down their mother in the North; George and Isabelle Walker, a couple who hire the brothers to work on their Georgia farm; Caleb Walker, George and Isabelle's presumed-dead son, who shares a forbidden romance with another soldier.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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