LibraryAware October 2025

Recent Releases

Beyond Shattered Dreams
by Cynthia Roemer

"After months in a Confederate prison camp, Private Will Everett boards the Sultana eager to return home and leave behind the horrors of war. One day into the voyage, the overcrowded steamboat explodes, rendering Will injured and unable to recall his identity. With only a pocket watch and the name Will E. etched inside to guide him, Will begins a relentless quest to find his forgotten past. Scarred by her father's untimely death, Lydia Gallagher struggles to trust God with unwanted changes to her family after the war. The arrival of an elusive, but handsome, stranger only adds to her angst, until the intricacies of his true nature and the mysteries of his past come to light. As they work to thwart a ruthless man's efforts to sabotage the farm, their admiration for each other deepens. But when Lydia becomes privy to information that could forever alter their lives, she must choose between losing the man she's come to love or denying him the one thing he longs for most."--

Six Weeks by the Sea
by Paula Byrne

Before moving to Bath, England, Jane Austen, her sister Cassandra, and her parents stay at coastal Sidmouth for several weeks during the summer of 1801. Jane relishes the views, sea bathing, and visiting with her brother Frank, who’s temporarily home from the Navy with a handsome friend in tow. But there are other intriguing men with whom Jane spends time in this delightful novel. Read-alikes: Natalie Jenner's Austen at Sea; Gill Hornby’s Godmersham Park.

Death and the runaways
by Heather Redmond

Mary Godwin and her stepsister Jane Clairmont race to solve a series of murders and find their missing stepbrother with help from poet Percy Shelley in 1814 London in the third novel of the series following Death and the Visitors.

The Entirely True Story of the Fantastical Mesmerist Nora Grey
by Kathleen Kaufman

Nairna and her father work as spiritualists in 1900 Scotland. While many practitioners are fake, including her dad, Nairna’s talents are real, which leads to fame and exclusive circles. But after a scandal, she flees to the United States under the name Nora Grey in this rich novel that also explores the life of a psychic widow in 1860s Wales. For fans of: Sarah Penner’s The London Séance Society.

The Secret Book Society
by Madeline Martin

In 1895 London, wealthy widow Lady Duxbury handpicks three women to join a secret book club, where they not only discuss novels, but become friends who help each other in a world where a wife can be put in an asylum at the behest of her husband. Read-alikes: Joanna Miller’s The Eights; Helen Simonson’s The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club.

This Here Is Love
by Princess Joy L. Perry

In the 1690s, three young people come of age in Virginia: enslaved Bless, who’s all her mother has left; enslaved David, whose father is a free Black man; and Scots Irish indentured servant Jack, who’s an orphan. As they grapple with survival, love, and tough decisions, their lives eventually converge. This evocative, accomplished debut uses multiple voices to tell a powerful story. For fans of: Red Clay by Charles B. Fancher; Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi.

Circle of Days
by Ken Follett

As drought and tension grip the Great Plain, a gifted flint miner and a visionary priestess unite to build a monumental stone circle, but escalating tribal conflicts and brutal violence threaten their civilization and their shared ambition. (historical fiction). Simultaneous.

Buckeye
by Patrick Ryan

On Victory in Europe Day, 1945, while her husband is away in the Pacific, beautiful Margaret shares a celebratory kiss with married hardware store clerk Cal Jenkins, whose physical disability kept him from enlisting. This leads to a connection between their small-town Ohio families for decades, where their sons grow up together but take different paths in the Vietnam era. For fans of: Read with Jenna books; vivid, heartfelt novels about families and war.

Contact your librarian for more great books!