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Historical Fiction August 2024
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A Bakery in Paris: A Novel
by Aimie K. Runyan
Paris, 1870: The Prussians are at the city gates, intent on starving Paris into submission. Lisette Vigneau—headstrong, willful, and often ignored by her wealthy parents, meets revolutionary National Guardsman, Théodore Fournier, and her destiny is forever changed. She gives up her life of luxury to open a small bakery, with the hope of being a vital boon to the impoverished neighborhood in its hour of need.
Paris, 1946: Nineteen-year-old Micheline Chartier is coping with the loss of her father and the disappearance of her mother during the war. Micheline finds herself enrolled in a prestigious baking academy with her entire life mapped out for her. Feeling trapped and unable to raise her two young sisters, she becomes obsessed with finding her mother. With the help of a classmate, Laurent Tanet, Micheline tries to move on from the past and begin creating a future for herself.
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A Girl Called Samson: A Novel
by Amy Harmon
Massachusetts, 1760: Deborah Samson is born to Puritan parents in Plympton. When her father abandons the family and her mother is unable to support them, Deborah is bound out as an indentured servant. From that moment on, she yearns for a life of liberation and adventure. Twenty years later: As the American colonies begin to buckle in their battle for independence, Deborah, impassioned by the cause, disguises herself as a soldier and enlists in the Continental Army. Her impressive height and lanky build make her transformation a convincing one, and it isn’t long before she finds herself confronting the horrors of war head-on. But as Deborah fights for her country’s freedom, she must contend with the secret of who she is—and, ultimately, a surprising love she can’t deny.
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| The Goddess of Warsaw by Lisa BarrWarsaw, 1943: Bina Blonski and her husband, Jakub, are imprisoned in the ghastly, cramped ghetto along with the rest of Warsaw’s surviving Jews. Determined to fight back against the brutal Nazis, the beautiful, blonde Aryan-looking Bina becomes a spy. Her dangerous circumstances grow complicated when she falls in love with Aleksander, an ally in resistance. While Lena accomplishes amazing feats of bravery, she sacrifices much in the process.
Los Angeles, 2005: Sienna Hayes, Hollywood’s latest It Girl, has ambitions to work behind the camera. When she meets Lena Browning, the enormously mysterious and famous Golden Age movie star, Sienna sees her big break. She wants to direct a picture about Lena’s life—but the legendary actor’s murky past turns out to be even darker than Sienna dreamed. |
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| The Heart in Winter by Kevin BarryMontana, 1891: A hard winter approaches across the Rocky Mountains. The city of Butte is rich on copper mines, and rampant with vice and debauchery among a hard-living crowd of immigrant Irish workers. Here we find Tom Rourke, a young poet and ballad-maker of the town, but also a doper, a drinker, and a fearsome degenerate. Just as he feels his life is heading nowhere fast, Polly Gillespie arrives in town as the new bride of the extremely devout mine captain Long Anthony Harrington.
A thunderbolt love affair sparks between Tom and Polly and they strike out west on a stolen horse, moving through the badlands of Montana and Idaho. The briefly idyllic wild romance perfects itself. But a posse of deranged Cornish gunmen are soon in hot pursuit and closing in fast. With everything to lose and the safety and anonymity of San Francisco still a distant speck on their horizon, the choices they make will haunt them for the rest of their lives. |
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Mockingbird Summer: A Novel
by Lynda Rutledge
Texas, 1964: This is the last summer of thirteen-year-old Corky Corcoran’s childhood, and her family hires a Haitian housekeeper who brings her daughter, America, along with her. Corky is quick to befriend America and eager to share her favorite new “grown-up” novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. America’s take on the book is different and profoundly personal. As their friendship grows, Corky finds out so much more about America’s life and her hidden skill: she can run as fast as Olympian Wilma Rudolph!
Girl's softball: In segregated High Cotton the racial divide is as clear as the railroad tracks running through town. When Corky asks America to play with her girls’ softball team for the annual church rivals game, it’s a move that crosses the color line and sets off a firestorm. As tensions escalate, it fast becomes a season of big changes in High Cotton.
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Restless Dolly Maunder
by Kate Grenville
England, 1890s: Dolly Maunder is born at the end of the nineteenth century, when society’s long-locked doors are just starting to creak ajar for determined women. Growing up in a poor farming family in rural New South Wales, Dolly spends her life doggedly pushing at those doors. A husband and two children do not deter her from searching for love and independence.
Pioneering woman: Searching for love and independence, Dolly works her way through a world of limits and obstacles to make a life she can call her own no matter what the cost.
A fictionalised account based on the life of the author's grandmother.
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| Shanghai by Joseph KanonGermany, 1938: After the violence of Kristallnacht, European Jews, now desperate to emigrate, found the consular doors of the world closed to them. Only one port required no entry visa: Shanghai. This self-governing Western trading enclave (technically Chinese territory), became an escape hatch—if you were lucky enough to afford a ticket on one of the great Lloyd liners sailing to the East and safety.
Shanghai: Daniel Lohr was one of the lucky ones—lucky enough to have escaped the Gestapo when his colleagues in the resistance were caught, lucky to have an uncle waiting in Shanghai, lucky to find a casual shipboard flirtation turn unexpectedly passionate. But even lucky refugees have to confront the reality of Shanghai, with their penniless arrival in a tumultuous, nearly lawless city notorious for vice. When you can sink fast, how far are you willing to go to survive? What lines do you cross? |
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Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt
by Lucinda Riley
Paris, 1928: A boy is found, moments from death, and taken in by a kindly family. Gentle, precocious, talented, he flourishes in his new home, and the family show him a life he hadn’t dreamed possible. But he refuses to speak a word about who is really is. Then across Europe an evil is rising, and no-one’s safety is certain. In his heart, he knows the time will come where he must flee once more.
The Aegean, 2008: The seven sisters are gathered together for the first time, on board the Titan to say a final goodbye to the enigmatic adoptive father they loved so dearly. To the surprise of everyone, it is the missing sister who Pa Salt has chosen to entrust with the clue to their pasts. But for every truth revealed, another question emerges. And even more shockingly: that these long-buried secrets may still have consequences for them today.
Book 8 and the conclusion of the Seven Sisters series.
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Auschwitz Twins
by Roberta Kagan
Poland, 1942: While waiting for a train, Herschel and Naomi are separated from their 8 year old twin daughters. Bluma and Perle raced off when they spotted their estranged older sister Shoshana. The three girls end up being transported to Auschwitz Prison Camp.
The Twins Ward: Shoshana accompanies Bluma and Perle to a special ward. There the notorious Dr. Mengele goes about conducting unspeakable experiments. Dr. Ernst Neider must face his nemesis as he battles to save Shoshana, Bluma, Perle, and ultimately, his heart.
The conclusion to the Auschwitz Twins trilogy. Book 1 The Children's Dream, Book 2 Mengele's Apprentice
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Warrior King
by Wilbur Smith
South Africa, 1820: When Ann Waite discovers a little boy, the survivor of a shipwreck, she is left raise the young child, Harry, as her own. After two years of disaster and hardship in the African interior, she takes them to Nativity Bay, a place bordering the Zulu kingdom, where they embark on a new adventure of loyalty and survival.
From bad to worse: It isn't long before the settlers of Nativity Bay learn that the village now lies on the borders of a mighty kingdom, where the warrior king Shaka rules. With no means of making their way back to Algoa Bay, they must depend on the bargains made by Ralph with the Zulu king.
Book 23 of the Courtney series.
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Contact your librarian for more great books! |
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Longwood Public Library800 Middle Country RoadMiddle Island, New York 11953 (631) 924-6400
longwoodlibrary.org |
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