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Historical Fiction June 2025 |
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| Austen at Sea by Natalie JennerBoston, 1865: Charlotte and Henrietta Stevenson, have accomplished as much as women are allowed at the time. After a secret correspondence with Jane Austin's brother Sir Francis Austen, he invites them to come visit him in England. In Philadelphia, Nicholas & Haslett Nelson—bachelor brothers, veterans of the recent Civil War, and rare book dealers—are also in correspondence with Sir Francis Austen, who lures them, to England.
Dramatic events: The Stevenson sisters sneak away without a chaperone to sail to England. On their ship are the Nelson brothers, writer Louisa May Alcott, Sara-Beth Gleason—wealthy daughter of a Pennsylvania state senator with her eye on the Nelsons—and, a would-be last-minute chaperone to the Stevenson sisters, Justice Thomas Nash. |
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| The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie BostwickVirginia, 1963: By 1960s standards, Margaret Ryan is living the American woman's dream - with a husband, three children, a station wagon, a home in Concordia, a standing invitation to the neighborhood coffee klatch, and a new subscription to A Woman's Place--a magazine that tells housewives like Margaret exactly who to be and what to buy. So why doesn't that feel like enough?
The book club: When Margaret meets Charlotte Gustafson, Concordia's newest and most intriguing resident, she concocts a book club get-together and invites two other neighborhood women--Bitsy and Viv--to the inaugural meeting. As the women share secrets, cocktails, and their honest reactions to the controversial bestseller The Feminine Mystique, they begin to discover that the American dream they'd been sold isn't all roses and sunshine--and that their secret longing for more is something they share. |
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| The Eights by Joanna MillerOxford, 1920: For the first time in its one-thousand-year history, Oxford University officially admits female students. Burning with dreams of equality, four young women move into neighboring rooms in Corridor 8. Insecure Beatrice, socialite Otto, scholarship student Marianne, and grieving Dora are collectively known as The Eights. Coming from all walks of life, each driven by their own motives, each holding tight to their secrets, they are thrown into an unlikely, unshakable friendship.
The girls of Corridor Eight: Among the historic spires, and in the long shadow of the Great War, the four women must navigate and support one another in a turbulent world in which misogyny is rife, influenza is still a threat, and the ghosts of the Great War don’t always remain dead. |
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Good Dirt: A Novel
by Charmaine Wilkerson
Conneticut, 2000: When ten-year-old Ebby Freeman heard the gunshot, time stopped. And when she saw her brother, Baz, lying on the floor surrounded by the shattered pieces of a centuries-old jar, life as Ebby knew it shattered as well. The crime was never solved.
Years later: Ebby suffers another devastating blow when she is left at the altar on her wedding day. To heal, she retreats to the French countryside in search of solace. As she tries to process what's happened, she begins to think about the other loss her family suffered on that day eighteen years ago—the stoneware jar that had been in their family for generations, brought North by an enslaved ancestor. But little does she know that the handcrafted piece of pottery held more than just her family's history—it might also hold the key to unlocking her own future.
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Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert: A Novel
by Bob the Drag Queen
America, In an age of miracles: Our greatest heroes from history have magically, unexplainably returned to shake us out of our confusion and hate, Harriet Tubman is back, and she has a lot to say.
A way to a better future: Harriet wants to create a hip-hop album and live show about her life, and she needs a songwriter to help her. She calls upon Darnell, a once successful hip-hop producer who was topping the charts before being outed on a BET talk show. Darnell has no idea what to expect when he steps into the studio with Harriet, only that they have a short period of time to write a legendary album she can take on the road. Over the course of their time together, they not only create music that will take the country by storm, but confront the horrors of both their pasts.
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| The Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club by Martha Hall KellyMassachusetts, 2016: Thirty-four-year-old Mari Starwood is still grieving after her mother’s death, as she travels to the storied island of Martha’s Vineyard. She’s come all the way from California with nothing but a name on a piece of paper: Elizabeth Devereaux, the famous but reclusive Vineyard painter. Mrs. Devereaux begins to tell her the story of the Smith sisters, who once lived there.
1942: The Smith girls—nineteen-year-old aspiring writer Cadence and sixteen-year-old war-obsessed Briar—are faced with the impossible task of holding their failing family farm together during World War II as the U.S. Army arrives on Martha’s Vineyard. When Briar spots German U-boats lurking off the island’s shores, and Cadence falls into an unlikely romance with a sworn enemy, their quiet lives are officially upended. In an attempt at normalcy, Cadence and her best friend, Bess, start a book club. |
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| My Name Is Emilia del Valle by Isabel AllendeSan Francisco, 1866: An Irish nun, abandoned following a torrid relationship with a Chilean aristocrat, gives birth to a daughter named Emilia del Valle. Raised by her mother and loving stepfather, Emilia grows into an independent thinker and a self-sufficient young woman.
A writer: At the age of seventeen, Emilia begins to publish pulp fiction using a man’s pen name. When these fictional worlds can no longer satisfy her sense of adventure, she turns to journalism, convincing an editor at The Daily Examiner to hire her. There she is paired with another talented reporter, Eric Whelan. While in Chile, covering a brewing civil war, her Chilean roots are revealed. |
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The Resurrectionist: A Twisty Gothic Mystery of Dark Scottish History
by A. Rae Dunlap
Edinburgh, Scotland, 1828: Naïve but determined James Willoughby has abandoned his posh, sheltered life at Oxford to pursue a lifelong dream of studying surgery in Edinburgh. As the university does not offer a chance to work on human cadavers, he strikes a deal with Aneurin “Nye” MacKinnon, a dashing young dissectionist.
The Resurrectionists: These body snatchers are infamous for stealing fresh corpses from churchyards to be used as anatomical specimens. Before he knows it, James is caught up in a life-or-death scheme as rival gangs of snatchers compete in a morbid race for power and prestige.
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The Ruins: A Novel
by Steve Wick
Lindenhurst, Long Island, 1954: A woman goes alone to a bar filled with German speakers who’ve finished their shifts at different jobs—some at a groundbreaking new project run by a man named Leavitt. They are gathered to listen to the first game of the World Series between the New York Giants and the Cleveland Indians at the Polo Grounds. The game would make the history books because of “The Catch” at the outfield wall by Willie Mays.
New chief of police: Paul Beirne, can't think about baseball. Still struggling with the demons from his time as a POW in Japan during the war, he gets the call that a woman's mutilated body is found in a field north of Lindenhurst, near where a new cemetery is being constructed. On top of this horrific crime, there is a suspicious accident on the railroad tracks. In stark contrast to the whitewashed ideal Leavitt and others in Lindenhurst are trying to create, an evil has taken root in Lindenhurst.
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| The Story She Left Behind by Patti Callahan HenrySouth Carolina, 1927: Eight-year-old Clara Harrington’s magical childhood shatters when her mother, renowned author, Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham, vanishes off the coast of South Carolina. Bronwyn stunned the world with a book written in an invented language that became a national sensation when she was just twelve years old. Her disappearance leaves behind not only a devoted husband and heartbroken daughter, but also the hope of ever translating the sequel to her landmark work.
1952: Clara is an illustrator raising her own daughter, Wynnie, when a stranger named Charlie Jameson contacts her from London claiming to have discovered a handwritten dictionary of her mother’s lost language. Clara is skeptical. As London is experiencing the "Great Smog", they head to the Jameson’s family retreat nestled in the Lake District. It is there that Clara must find the courage to uncover the truth about her mother and the story she left behind. |
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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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