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Historical Fiction May 2025 |
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The Filling Station: A Novel
by Vanessa Miller
Oklahoma, 1900s: Sisters Margaret and Evelyn Justice have grown up in the prosperous Greenwood District of Tulsa--also known as Black Wall Street. In Greenwood, they have it all--movie theaters and entertainment venues, beauty shops and clothing stores, and high-profile businesses. While Evelyn aspires to head off to the East Coast to study fashion design, recent college grad Margaret plans to settle in Greenwood, teach at the local high school, and eventually raise a family.
1921: The Tulsa Race Massacre upends everything they know and brings them unspeakable loss. Left with nothing but each other, the sisters flee along what would eventually become iconic Route 66 and stumble upon the Threatt Filling Station, a safe haven and the only place where they can find a shred of hope in oppressive Jim Crow America.
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Grace of the Empire State: A Novel
by Emma Tizzard
New York, 1930s: After the death of their father, it's up to Grace O'Connell and her twin brother Patrick to support their family as the Great Depression takes its toll on New York City. When Grace is laid off from her dancing gig and Patrick is injured at work on the construction of the Empire State Building, desperation leaves them only one solution: Grace must disguise herself as Patrick and take his place on the half-built skyscraper.
Grace the Riveter: She soon proves herself as capable as any man on the steel, and her affection for the loyal men around her--especially Italian immigrant Joe--grows by the day. But when a terrible accident happens high above the city and Grace is the only one capable of saving her stranded colleague, she must make a split-second decision to risk everything or live with her conscience forever.
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Hold Strong: A Novel
by Robert Dugoni
Minnesota, 1944: Sam Carlson is a projectionist in a small-town, where fantasies unspool in glorious black and white—for him and for his sweetheart, college-bound math whiz Sarah Haber. When the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Sam is sent to the Philippines and captured as a POW. Brutalized but unbroken by the Bataan Death March and POW camps, Sam is one of 1,800 starved and weakened prisoners herded into the cargo hold of a barbaric hell ship called the Arisan Maru, his survival doubtful.
Sarah: Determined to use her math skills on the home front, Sarah is recruited to Washington, DC, into the covert field of code breaking. When Sarah intercepts a message about a Japanese convoy, the US Navy’s mission is sink the Arisan Maru and send it to the bottom of the South China Sea. Now, the lives of the two young lovers are about to inadvertently collide in one of the most shocking acts of World War II.
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| A Map to Paradise by Susan MeissnerCalifornia, 1956: Something is not right on Paradise Circle. With her name on the Hollywood blacklist and her life on hold, out-of-work starlet Melanie Cole has little choice in company. There is her next-door neighbor and successful screenwriter, Elwood, but his agoraphobia only allows for short conversations through the windows. He's the closest thing she has to a friend in her exile, since she and her maid, Eva, an immigrant from Eastern Europe, rarely make conversation.
The mystery: One morning just before dawn Melanie and Eva see Elwood's sister-in-law and caretaker, June, digging in his rose garden . After that, they don't see Elwood at all anymore. Where could a man who never leaves the house possibly have gone? Has something happened to Elwood? The two women can't help trying to find out. But as they sneak up on and into June's life, they discover an unexpected secret, and then a shared goal that's even more startling. |
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The Persians: A Novel
by Sanam Mahloudji
Iran 1970s: The Valiat family are somebodies. Elizabeth is the regal matriarch who stayed in Tehran during the revolution. She lives in a shabby apartment, paranoid and alone. Elizabeth's daughters left for America in 1979: Shirin, a charismatic yet outrageous event planner in Houston, and Seema, a dreamy idealist-turned-housewife languishing in the chaparral-filled hills of Los Angeles. Granddaughter Bita, the self-righteous but lost law student spends her days in New York City eating pancakes and quietly giving away her belongings.
Aspen: An annual vacation goes wildly awry, and Shirin ends up being bailed out of jail by Bita. The family's brittle status quo is cracked open. Shirin embarks upon a grand but half-baked quest to restore the family name. But what does that even mean in a country where the Valiats never mattered? Will they ever realize that life is more than just an old story?
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| The Pretender by Jo HarkinEngland, 1480: Ten-year-old peasant John Collan’s greatest anxiety is how to circumvent the village’s devil goat on his way to collect water. Then a well-dressed stranger from London Informs him that he is really Lambert Simnel, the son of the long-deceased Duke of Clarence, who has been hidden in the countryside for his protection.
A new life: Lambert is sent to Oxford to be educated in a manner befitting the throne’s rightful heir. While in Ireland, he meets Joan, the delightfully strong-willed and manipulative daughter of his Irish patrons. Joan has two paths available to her-marry or become a nun. Lambert’s choices are similarly stark-he will either become king or die in battle. Together they form an alliance that will change the fate of the English monarchy.
Based on a little-known true story. |
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The Sound of a Thousand Stars: A Novel
by Rachel Robbins
1944: Alice Katz is a young Jewish physicist, one of the only female doctoral students at her university, studying with the famed Dr. Oppenheimer. Her well-to-do family wants her to marry a man of her class and settle down. Instead, Alice answers her country’s call to come to an unnamed city in the desert to work on a government project shrouded in secrecy.
At Los Alamos: Alice meets Caleb Blum, a poor Orthodox Jew who has been assigned to the explosives division. Around them are other young scientists and engineers who have quietly left their university posts to come live in the desert. No one seems to know exactly what they are working on–what they do know is that it is a race and that they must beat the Nazis in developing an unspeakable weapon. In this atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, and despite their many differences, Alice and Caleb find themselves drawn to one another.
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Where the Rivers Merge: A Novel
by Mary Alice Monroe
South Carolina, 1908: The Lowcountry is at the cusp of change. Mayfield, the grand estate held for generations by the Rivers family, is the treasured home of young Eliza. A free spirit, she refuses to be confined by societal norms and spends her days exploring the vast property, observing wildlife, and riding horses. But the Great War, coastal storms, and family turmoil bring unexpected challenges to Eliza, putting her on a collision course with the patriarchal traditions of a bygone era.
1988: At 88, Eliza is the scion of the Rivers/DeLancey family. She’s fought a lifetime to save her beloved Mayfield and is too independent and committed to quietly retire and leave the fate of the estate to her greedy son. She must make decisions that will assure the future of the land and her family—or watch them both be split apart.
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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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