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Historical Fiction April 2021
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| Dangerous Women by Hope AdamsEngland to Tasmania, 1841: One hundred eighty Englishwomen, convicted of petty crimes, file aboard the Rajah, embarking on a three-month voyage to the other side of the world. They are daughters, sisters, mothers—and convicts.
What goes wrong: As an intricate but tenuous web of connections develops between the women onboard, the violent death of a passenger threatens to unearth a multitude of secrets beyond the identity of the murderer.
Based on a true story. |
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The lost apothecary
by Sarah Penner
London, 1791: One cold February evening, at the back of a dark alley in a hidden apothecary shop, Nella awaits her newest customer. Once a respected healer, Nella now uses her knowledge for a darker purpose—selling well-disguised poisons to desperate women who would kill to be free of the men in their lives.
London, Present-day: Aspiring historian, Caroline Parcewell, finds an old apothecary vial near the river Thames, she can’t resist investigating, only to realize she’s found a link to the unsolved “apothecary murders” that haunted London over two centuries ago.
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| The Slaughterman's Daughter by Yaniv IczkovitsRussian Empire, 1894: Fanny Keismann leaves the "Pale of Settlement" - an area of Imperialist Russian where Jews were forced to live - in search of her sister's husband. She uses the skills she learned from her father (a ritual animal slaughterer) for self-defense, setting off an unexpected and dramatic chain of events.
Read it for: the satisfying mix of fable, observational humor, and cat-and-mouse journey through Jewish communities in tsarist-era Russia and Ukraine. |
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| Those Who Are Saved by Alexis LandauVichy France, 1940: Russian Jewish émigrés Vera and Max Volosenkova entrust their young daughter Lucie to governess Agnes after being ordered to report to an "internment" camp.
California, 1945: Although the couple were unexpectedly given a chance to escape Nazi custody, there was no way to return for their daughter along the way. The war now over, Vera is desperate to get back to France to search for Lucie in the postwar sea of refugees. |
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| Vera by Carol EdgarianSan Francisco, 1906: 15-year-old Vera has grown up straddling two worlds—as the illegitimate daughter of Rose, notorious proprietor of San Francisco’s most legendary bordello and in the debt ridden domestic life of the family paid to raise her.
Vera’s worlds collide: It is the morning of the great earthquake. As the shattered city burns and looters vie with the injured, orphaned, and starving, Vera and her guileless sister, Pie, are cast adrift. Vera disregards societal norms and prejudices and begins to imagine a new kind of life. |
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| The Bass Rock by Evie WyldScottish island of Bass Rock, 1700, 1940, & present: This is a devastating indictment of violence against women and an empowering portrait of their resilience through the ages.
Starring: Viviane, a grieving woman who arrives on Bass Rock to prepare her grandmother's house for sale; Viviane's grandmother Ruth, who moved to the island after World War II with her new husband; and Sarah, an 18th-century woman fleeing witchcraft charges who finds shelter with a Bass Rock family. |
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The daughter's tale : a novel
by Armando Lucas Correa
Berlin, 1939. The dreams that Amanda Sternberg and her husband, Julius, had for their daughters are shattered when the Nazis descend on Berlin, burning down their beloved family bookshop and sending Julius to a concentration camp. Desperate to save her children, Amanda flees toward the South of France.
New York, 2015. Eighty-year-old Elise Duval receives a call from a woman bearing messages from a time and country that she forced herself to forget. A French Catholic who arrived in New York after World War II, Elise is shocked to discover that the letters were from her mother, written in German during the war.
Based on true events.
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| House of Gold by Natasha SolomonsEngland, 1911: Strong-willed Austrian heiress Greta Goldbaum moved to England to marry a man she didn't know for the sake of her family's business interests. Though they get off to a rough start, Greta and her new husband build a life together, and soon they fall in love for real.
The problem: At the outbreak of World War I, Greta finds herself torn between her family of origin and the family she has created, both of which are threatened by the increasing antisemitism that's spreading across Europe. |
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In the lion's den
by Barbara Taylor Bradford
London, 1889-1892: James Lionel Falconer has risen quickly from a mere shop worker to being the right-hand man of Henry Malvern, head of the most prestigious shipping company in London.
Setbacks: A terrible fire threatens to end his merchant career before it's had a chance to truly begin; Mrs. Ward, James' former paramour, has a secret that could change his life forever; and his distaste for Alexis Malvern is slowly growing into feelings of quite a different sort.
The second book in the House of Falconer saga.
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The Summer Country
by Lauren Willig
Barbados, 1854: Emily Dawson has always been the poor cousin in a prosperous English merchant clan. When she Inherits the ruins of Peverills, a Barbados sugar plantation, Emily is seduced by the region's dark tropical beauty.
Plot Twist: Why would her practical-minded grandfather leave her a property in ruins? Why are the neighboring plantation owners, the Davenants, so eager to acquire Peverills?
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Contact your librarian for more great books?
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