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Historical Fiction May 2019
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| The Parting Glass by Gina Marie GuadagninoA tangled web: Lady's maid Mary Ballard is in love with her mistress -- who's having an affair with stablehand Johnny Prior. Unbeknownst to their employers, Mary is an Irish immigrant named Maire O'Farren, and Johnny is her twin brother Seanin.
Why you might like it: The Parting Glass offers a suspenseful Upstairs, Downstairs plot and a vivid recreation of 1830s New York City.
For fans of: the atmospheric, LGBTQIA-themed historical fiction of Sarah Waters and Emma Donoghue. |
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The Underground River
by Martha Conway
Introducing: Seamstress May Bedloe and her cousin, actress Comfort Vertue.
What it's about: After surviving a steamship explosion, the women follow separate paths: Comfort becomes a speaker on the abolitionist circuit, while May joins a riverboat theater troupe and is blackmailed into ferrying enslaved children across the Ohio River to freedom.
Publication history: The Underground River was originally published in the United Kingdom as The Floating Theater.
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Daughter of Moloka'i
by Alan Brennert
What it is: the long-awaited sequel to Moloka'i, which follows Ruth Utagawa, the daughter of Rachel Kalama.
The story: Born in the Kalaupapa Leprosy Settlement, Ruth grows up in California on her Japanese adoptive parents' farm. When World War II begins, the entire family is sent to an internment camp.
Try this next: Julie Otsuka's When the Emperor Was Divine offers a similarly moving and richly detailed fictional account of this dark chapter in American history.
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| I Always Loved You: A Story of Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas by Robin OliveiraStarring: artists Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas.
What it's about: their complicated relationship, which begins when Edgar invites Mary -- rejected by the Paris Salon -- to exhibit her paintings with the Impressionists.
Try this next: Harriet Scott Chessman's Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper, about Cassatt's relationship with her sister; Cathy Marie Buchanan's The Painted Girls or Kathryn Wagner's Dancing for Degas, which focus on Degas and his dancer-models. |
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| The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence: A Story of Botticelli by Alyssa PalomboWhat it's about: Dubbed "la bella Simonetta" by Florentine society, Simonetta Vespucci becomes the muse of artist Sandro Botticelli and the inspiration for some of his most famous paintings.
Why you might like it: this lush, romantic novel brings the Italian Renaissance to vibrant life.
For fans of: Sarah Dunant's The Birth of Venus, Jeanne Kalogridis' I, Mona Lisa, or Lynn Cullen's The Creation of Eve. |
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The Birth of Venus
by Sarah Dunant
What it's about: Turning fifteen in Renaissance Florence, Alessandra Cecchi becomes intoxicated with the works of a young painter whom her father has brought to the city to decorate the family's Florentine palazzo.
Should you read it? Yes... if you like dramatic and romantic novels that take place in the Italian Renaissance.
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| The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic SmithWhat it's about: A 17th-century Dutch masterpiece is stolen from a Manhattan residence in 1957 and replaced with a skillfully executed forgery. The switch remains a secret for decades -- until the museum curator who created the fake is confronted by both versions.
Why you might like it: Parallel narratives unfold and eventually converge in this atmospheric novel, which reveals surprising connections among individuals separated by time and geography. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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