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Historical Fiction February 2017
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| Victoria by Daisy GoodwinIn 1837, 18-year-old Princess Alexandrina Victoria of the House of Hanover becomes Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. No one expects much from a sheltered teenager who collects dolls and still shares a room with her overbearing mother. But Victoria, determined to become the monarch her people deserve, sets out to prove herself as a ruler, aided by Prime Minister Lord Melbourne, who becomes her adviser and confidant. Fans of royalty-themed reads won't want to miss this novel by American Heiress author Daisy Goodwin, who also penned the screenplay for current Masterpiece Theatre miniseries Victoria. |
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The evening road
by Laird Hunt
In the summer of 1920 in small-town Indiana, two extraordinary women—beautiful Ottie Lee Henshaw and Calla Destry, a young black woman—cross paths and they soon move through an America plagued by fear and hatred, determined to flee the secrets they have left behind. By the author of Neverhome.
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The Dressmaker's Dowry
by Meredith Jaeger
A modern-day writer in San Francisco stumbles across the story of a local, immigrant dressmaker in 1876 who disappeared under mysterious circumstances and who may be connected to her through an heirloom engagement ring in her husband’s family.
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| The Second Mrs. Hockaday: A Novel by Susan RiversSeventeen-year-old Placidia Fincher weds widowed Confederate Major Gryffth Hockaday just hours after meeting him and mere days before he returns to his regiment. In his absence, Placidia becomes pregnant, gives birth to a child that dies under suspicious circumstances, and ends up in jail for infanticide. What happened? Placidia won't say, but then her diary is discovered. Told through diary entries, correspondence, and court transcripts, The Second Mrs. Hockaday shifts back and forth in time to tell a compelling story of the American Civil War. |
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| The Paris Architect: A Novel by Charles BelfoureIn 1942, Parisian architect Lucien Bernard accepts a lucrative commission from a wealthy businessman to design a secret room for the purpose of hiding Jewish fugitives from the Gestapo. Although Lucien has no particular love for the city's Jewish population, he loathes the occupying Germans and thrives on the challenge of deceiving them (the money doesn't hurt, either). But as Lucien's involvement in the scheme grows, he learns that no one can be trusted, not even those closest to him. Fans of suspenseful historical fiction set in Vichy France and featuring artists may also be interested in Paul Watkins' The Forger, in which a young American expatriate forges paintings to undermine the Third Reich. |
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| Mission to Paris: A Novel by Alan FurstArriving in Paris in 1938, Frederic Stahl, a Hollywood star on loan from Warner Bros. to a French studio, soon finds himself wooed by the "political warfare" branch of the Nazi progaganda machine. Born and raised in Vienna but naturalized in the U.S., Stahl has always steered clear of politics. However, his unease with the growing influence of the Third Reich in France and his distaste for being used prompts him to try his hand at espionage. Fans of noir-tinged historical spy fiction should enjoy this atmospheric stand-alone 12th installment of Alan Furst's Night Soldiers series. |
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| City of Women: A Novel by David R. GillhamSigrid Schröder is the perfect wife, or so it appears. Married to a soldier fighting on the front lines, she lives in Berlin with her mother-in-law and works as a stenographer. However, she also pines for her married lover while helping her neighbors shelter Jewish families from the Gestapo. Focusing on Sigrid's inner life and the moral dilemmas she faces, City of Women is an introspective but dramatic story of an ordinary individual's resistance to authoritarian government. |
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| The Kommandant's Girl by Pam JenoffWhen the Nazis invade Poland, Jewish librarian Emma Bau risks her life to aid the resistance, assuming a false identity as a gentile while her activist husband Jacob goes into hiding. As Anna Lipowski, she becomes the personal assistant to a high-ranking Nazi official, Kommandant Georg Richwalder, hoping to secure information that will help the cause. But Richwalder is hardly the monster Emma expects him to be, and their growing intimacy threatens to jeopardize everything -- her work for the resistance, her marriage, and even her life. If you enjoy The Kommandant's Girl, you may want to read The Diplomat's Wife, which takes place after the war and features some of the same characters. |
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| The True Story of Hansel and Gretel: A Novel of War and Survival by Louise MurphyAbandoned in the woods by their father and stepmother, two Jewish siblings in Nazi-occupied Poland are rescued by Magda, an elderly woman believed to be a witch. Now known as "Hansel" and "Gretel" to conceal their identities from the authorities, the children adjust to their new lives. Then a German officer arrives in the village, threatening this fragile equilibrium. This haunting novel may remind readers of Jane Yolen's Briar Rose, which also adapted a classic fairy tale into a sensitive exploration of the horrors of the Holocaust. |
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The chosen ones
by Steve Sem-Sandberg
A tale inspired by a devastating, forgotten incident from annexed Vienna follows the experiences of a young inmate at a reform school for chronically ill children who become subject to the Nazi regime's euthanasia program on the eve of World War II. By the award-winning author of The Emperor of Lies.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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