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Historical Fiction March 2026 |
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| Fireflies in Winter by Eleanor ShearerNova Scotia, Canada, 1790s: Cora, exiled by the British, is an orphan newly arrived from Jamaica. She has never felt cold like this - in the depths of winter, everyone in her community huddles together in their homes to keep warm. So when she sees a shadow slipping through the trees, Cora thinks her eyes are deceiving her. Until she creeps out into the moonlight and finds the tracks in the snow.
Agnes: In hiding, and on the run from her former life as a slave, she has learned what it takes to survive alone in the wilderness. But she can afford no mistakes. When she first spies the young woman in the woods, she is afraid. Yet Cora is fearless, and their paths are destined to cross.
Deep amongst the cedars, Cora and Agnes find a fragile place of safety. But when Agnes’s past closes in, they are confronted with the dangerous price of freedom—and of love.... |
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| Keeper of Lost Children by Sadeqa JohnsonPhiladelphia, 1948: Ozzie Philips volunteers for the army, eager to break barriers for Black soldiers. Despite his best efforts, he finds the racism he encountered at home has followed him overseas.
Germany, 1950s: In the streets and smoldering rubble of occupation, Ethel Gathers, the proud wife of an American soldier, finds homes in the United States for the abandoned children of white German women and Black GIs.
Maryland, 1965: Biracial Sophia Clark attends a prestigious formerly all-white boarding school. In a chance meeting with a fellow classmate, she discovers a secret that upends her world.
Explore how one woman’s vision will change the course of countless lives. Inspired by real events. |
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| The Last of Earth by Deepa AnapparaTibet, 1869: The country is closed to Europeans - an infuriating obstruction for the rapidly expanding British Empire. In response, Britain begins training Indians—permitted to cross borders that white men may not—to undertake illicit, dangerous surveying expeditions into Tibet.
On a mission: Balram is one such Indian surveyor-spy, whose friend Gyan went missing on his last expedition and is rumored to be imprisoned within Tibet. As he attempts to find his friend, he agrees to guide an English captain who wants to personally chart a river that runs through southern Tibet. Their path crosses with another Westerner in disguise, fifty-year-old Katherine. Denied a fellowship in the all-male Royal Geographical Society in London, she intends to be the first European woman to reach Lhasa. Together they battle to survive. |
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| Meet the Newmans by Jennifer NivenU.S.A., 1964: For two decades, Del and Dinah Newman and their sons, Guy and Shep, have ruled television as America’s Favorite Family. Millions of viewers tune in every week to watch them play flawless, black-and-white versions of themselves. But now it’s 1964, and the Newmans’ idealized apple-pie perfection suddenly feels woefully out of touch. Ratings are in free fall, as are the Newmans themselves.
Rewriting the Newmans?: When Del—the creative motor behind the show—is in a mysterious car accident, Dinah decides to take matters into her own hands. She hires Juliet Dunne, an outspoken, impassioned young reporter, to help her write the final episode. Can the Newmans hold it together to change television history? Or will they be canceled before they ever have the chance? |
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| Skylark by Paula McLainParis, France, 1664: Alouette Voland is the daughter of a master dyer at the famed Gobelin Tapestry Works, who secretly dreams of escaping her circumstances and creating her own masterpiece. When her father is unjustly imprisoned, Alouette's efforts to save him lead to her own confinement in the notorious Salpêtrière asylum, where thousands of women are held captive and cruelly treated. But within its grim walls, she discovers a small group of brave allies, and the possibility of a life bigger than she ever imagined.
1939: Kristof Larson is a Dutch medical student beginning his psychiatric residency in Paris, whose neighbors on the Rue de Gobelins are a Jewish family who have fled Poland. When Nazi forces descend on the city, Kristof becomes their only hope for survival, even as his work as a doctor is jeopardized.
A look at a side of Paris known to very few—an underground city of tunnels. |
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What the Mountains Remember
by Joy Callaway
North Carolina, 1913: Belle Newbold hasn’t seen mountains for seven years—since her father died in a mining accident and her mother married Indiana gas magnate, Shipley Newbold. But when her stepfather’s friend, Henry Ford, invites the family on one of his famous Vagabonds camping tours, she is forced to face the hills once again—primarily in order to reunite with her future fiancé, owner of the land the Vagabonds are using for their campsite, a man she’s only met once before.
Grove Park Inn: Belle is unexpectedly thrust into a role researching and writing about the building of the inn—a construction the locals are calling The Eighth Wonder of the World. As Belle peels back the facade of Grove Park Inn, of Worth, of the society she’s come to claim as her own, and the truth of her heart, she begins to see that perhaps her part in Grove Park’s story isn’t a coincidence after all.
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Daughter of Egypt
by Marie Benedict
Egypt, 1920s: Archeologist Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon of Highclere Castle made headlines around the world with the discovery of the treasure-filled tomb of the boy Pharaoh Tutankhamun. But behind it all stood Lady Evelyn Herbert--daughter of Lord Carnarvon--whose daring spirit and relentless curiosity made the momentous find possible.
Nearly 3,000 years earlier: Another woman defied the expectations of her time: Hatshepsut, Egypt's lost pharaoh. Her reign was bold, visionary--and nearly erased from history. When Evelyn becomes obsessed with finding Hatshepsut's secret tomb, she risks everything - to uncover the truth about her reign, and keep valued artifacts in Egypt, their rightful home.
Both women were forced to hide who they were during their lifetimes, yet ultimately changed history forever.
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The Secret Book Society
by Madeline Martin
London, 1885: Three women - Eleanor Clarke, a devoted mother suffocating under the tyranny of her husband; Rose Wharton, a transplanted American dollar princess struggling to fit the mold of an aristocratic wife; Lavinia Cavendish, an artistic young woman haunted by a dangerous family secret - are drawn to the enigmatic Lady Duxbury, a thrice-widowed countess whose husbands’ untimely deaths have sparked whispers of murder.
The book club: As the women form deep, heartwarming friendships, they uncover secrets about their marriages, their pasts and the risks they face. Their courage is their only weapon in the oppressive world that has kept them silent, but when secrets are deadly, one misstep could cost them everything.
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| When We Were Brilliant by Lynn CullenCalifornia, 1952: Norma Jeane Baker follows documentary photographer Eve Arnold into a powder room on the night they first meet. She has a proposition for her. Norma Jeane created Marilyn Monroe to be photographed, and she wants Eve to do it. Eve is better than anyone she’s seen at capturing a person’s inner truth. Together they can help each other. Together, she says, they can make something brilliant.
Eve demurs: Skeptical of this cipher of a young woman, she’s looking for more serious subjects than this ambitious starlet. But she keeps getting drawn back into Marilyn’s orbit, and the women come to recognize something in each other—something fundamental. Nothing will get in the way of what they want, and when Marilyn’s star takes off to teetering heights, neither will ever be the same. |
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| Women of a Promiscuous Nature by Donna EverhartNorth Carolina, 1940s: The day Ruth Foster’s life changes begins the same way as many others—with a walk through her North Carolina hometown toward the diner where she works. But on this day, Ruth is stopped by the local sheriff, who insists that she accompany him to a health clinic. Women like Ruth—young, unmarried, living alone—must undergo testing in order to preserve decency and prevent the spread of sexual disease. Though Ruth has never shared more than a chaste kiss with a man, by day’s end she is one of dozens of women held at the State Industrial Farm Colony for Women. Another resident is 15-year-old Stella Temple whose parents take her there after she is raped and gets pregnant.
Superintendent Dorothy Baker: Convinced that she’s transforming degenerate souls into upstanding members of society, Baker oversees the women’s medical treatment and “training” until they’re deemed ready for parole. Sooner or later, everyone at the Colony learns to abide by Mrs. Baker’s rule book or face the consequences—solitary confinement, grueling work assignments, and worse.
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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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