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Historical Fiction November 2025 |
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| Venetian Vespers by John BanvilleIn Booker Prize winner John Banville's atmospheric latest, newlyweds Evelyn and Laura, who don't know each other very well, visit 1899 Venice. Struggling British writer Evelyn, who narrates, has been pulled to the city by his recently disinherited American wife, and there he meets a man claiming to know him. Though Evelyn doesn't remember the man, he quickly falls for his sister, which leads to violence and a disappearance. |
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| The Wayfinder by Adam JohnsonThis well-researched, richly layered historical saga from the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Orphan Master’s Son takes place in an evocative South Pacific setting. It depicts what happens when teenage Kōrero, who wants to be her small island’s storyteller, meets two brothers, a navigator and a poet, who are part of the Tongan empire. |
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The Lawyer and the Laundress
by Christine Hill Suntz
Canada, 1837. Widower James Kinney knows his precocious daughter, Evie, needs more than his lessons on law and logic, but Toronto offers few options. Classes with the neighbor children seem ideal until James discovers Evie is secretly spending her time with Sara O'Connor, a kind and mysteriously educated servant. For propriety's sake, James forbids their friendship. But then Evie falls victim to the illness ravaging the city, and James must call upon Sara's medical knowledge and her special bond with Evie to save his daughter's life. When Sara's presence in his household threatens scandal, however, James offers an unexpected solution: become his wife, in name only, and help him raise Evie to be a proper young lady. If Sara can ignore the sparks she feels when they're together, his logical proposal could keep her secret secure forever. But soon, the forces of rebellion unravel their tidy arrangement. When James is accused of treason, Sara must find the courage to face a past that could save her husband's life.--
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Queen Esther by John IrvingAfter forty years, John Irving returns to the world of his bestselling classic novel and Academy Award-winning film, The Cider House Rules, revisiting the orphanage in St. Cloud's, Maine, where Dr. Wilbur Larch takes in Esther--a Viennese-born Jew whose life is shaped by anti-Semitism. Esther Nacht is born in Vienna in 1905. Her father dies on board the ship to Portland, Maine; her mother is murdered by anti-Semites in Portland. Dr. Larch knows it won't be easy to find a Jewish family to adopt Esther; in fact, he won't find any family who'll adopt her. When Esther is fourteen, soon to be a ward of the state, Dr. Larch meets the Winslows, a philanthropic New England family with a history of providing foster care for unadopted orphans. The Winslows aren't Jewish, but they despise anti-Semitism. Esther's gratitude for the Winslows is unending; even as she retraces her roots back to Vienna, she never stops loving and protecting the Winslows. In the final chapter, set in Jerusalem in 1981, Esther Nacht is seventy-six. John Irving's sixteenth novel is a testament to his enduring ability to weave complex characters and intricate narratives that challenge and captivate. Queen Esther is not just a story of survival but a profound exploration of identity, belonging, and the enduring impact of history on our personal lives showcasing why Irving remains one of the world's most beloved, provocative, and entertaining authors--a storyteller of our time and for all time.
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The House of Two Sisters by Rachel Louise DriscollEssex, 1887. Clementine's ability to read hieroglyphs makes her invaluable at her father's Egyptian relic parties, which have become the talk of the town. But at one such party, the words she interprets from an unusual amulet strike fear into her heart. As her childhood games about Isis and Nephthys--sister goddesses who protect the dead--take on a devastating resonance in her life, and tragedy slowly consumes her loved ones, she wonders what she and her father may have unleashed. Five years later, Clemmie arrives in Cairo desperate to save what remains of her family back home. There, she meets a motley crew of unwitting English travelers about to set sail down the Nile--including an adventurer with secrets of his own--and joins them on a mission to reach Denderah, a revered religious site, where she hopes to return the amulet and atone for her sins. With each passing day, she is further engulfed in a life she's yearned for all along. But as long-buried secrets and betrayals rise to the surface, Clemmie must reconcile the impossibility of living in the light while her past keeps her anchored to the darkness--
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A Beautiful and Terrible Murder by Claire AndrewsAt Oxford's All Souls College, Irene Adler, disguised as student Isaac Holland, navigates a cutthroat competition and a series of gruesome murders while working with Sherlock Holmes to uncover the killer.
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The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie WisemanIn rural 1930s Virginia, a young immigrant mother fights for her dignity and those she loves against America's rising eugenics movement - when widespread support for policies of prejudice drove imprisonment and forced sterilizations based on class, race, disability, education, and country of origin - in this tragic and uplifting novel of social injustice, survival, and hope.
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Etiquette for Lovers and Killers by Anna Fitzgerald HealySet in 1960s Maine, a Nancy Drew for the contemporary adult reader, in a deliciously witty and twisty murder mystery following a young woman who just wishes something interesting would happen for once--only to stumble upon a stranger-than-fiction mystery that even the local police can't handle.
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These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin ThomasFor fifteen years, pianist Hedda Schlagel has pined for her fiancâe, Fritz Meyer, who vanished during WWI. When she sees a photo of an American memorial to German POWs with Fritz's name, it sends her on a journey to the US, where she uncovers long-buried secrets and risks her life and future as another world war looms.
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The Collector of Burned Books by Roseanna M. WhiteIn this gripping World War II historical about the power of words, two people form an unlikely friendship amid the Nazi occupation in Paris and fight to preserve the truth that enemies of freedom long to destroy.Paris, 1940. Ever since the Nazi Party began burning books, German writers exiled for their opinions or heritage have been taking up residence in Paris. Stand-alone historical fiction from a bestselling, Christy Award-winning author. A thought-provoking novel perfect for book clubs.
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The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie BostwickMargaret never really meant to start a book club . . . or a feminist revolution, for that matter in this bold and plucky novel from New York Times bestselling author Marie Bostwick. The Book Club for Troublesome Women is a humorous, thought provoking, and nostalgic romp through one pivotal and tumultuous American year--as well as an ode to self-discovery, persistence, and the power of sisterhood.
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I'll Be Right Here by Amy BloomImmigrating alone from Paris to New York after the crucible of World War II, Gazala Benamar, still a teenager, becomes fast friends with two spirited sisters, Anne and Alma. When Gazala's lost, beloved brother Samir finally joins her in Manhattan, this contentious, inseparable foursome will last into the twenty-first century, becoming the beating heart of a multigenerational found family. Through it all, and the history of these decades, the four friends, and their best beloveds, stand by one another--protecting, annoying, and celebrating each other.
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That Last Carolina Summer: A Gripping Southern Tale of Sisterhood, Secrets, and the Haunting Power of the Past by Karen WhiteAs a child, Phoebe Manigault developed the gift of premonition after she was struck by lightning in the creeks near her Charleston home. Plagued throughout her life by mysterious dreams, and always living in the shadow of her beautiful sister, Addie, Phoebe eventually moves to the west coast, as far from her family as possible. Now, years later, she is summoned back to South Carolina, to help Addie care for their ailing mother. But the longer Phoebe spends in her childhood home, the more her recurring nightmares intensify--bringing her closer to the shocking truth that will irrevocably change everything--
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Asylum Hotel by Juliet BlackwellWhen a mysterious figure shows up in the photograph an architect takes of the derelict Seabrink Hotel, ghostly encounters and murder are unleashed. Aubrey Spencer loves photographing classic old buildings and abandoned places that hold old secrets. The Hotel Seabrink, perched overlooking the sea, is one such place. Currently abandoned but scheduled for a major renovation, it has a torrid history. As she digs deeper into the property's dark history (and its origins as an asylum) as well as Dimitri's professional rivalries, she becomes mired in an unsolved murder case from several decades earlier, one with eerie parallels to the contemporary case. But someone is determined to keep her from discovering the truth--at any cost.
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